A/N: Thank you all so much for your kind words. This is for all of you.

Again, please keep giving me feedback by clicking that 'review' button and typing into the box!

I don't have a beta, so there may be mistakes and for that I do apologise.

Steve steps through the glass, his boots crunching against shreds of glass as he does so.

Wanda scoots back further away, and he frowns in confusion. Before he can ask her, she is shaking her head so hard that Steve throws up his hands.

"Whoa, stop. Calm down. Let me get the...that thing off." He stumbles over the words harshly; he cannot call it what it is, because then he will have to acknowledge it and think on it, and if he does that then they will never get out of here.

"Don't." She rasps out, and Steve stops all movements at the sound of her tone, and at her request. He grits his teeth and puts a hand over his mouth, before lowering it and taking a breath.

"Don't?" He asks her calmly, and takes a single step forward.

"Steve, get the others and go."

Another step.

"The plan is to get all of you. I'm not leaving a single member behind. Please stop moving so I can free you." Steve's tone is both soothing and grim; Wanda has always marvelled at the way he speaks. Captain America may be a living symbol and legend, but Steve Rogers, the man behind is the true spokesperson, and without him, the other would not exist.

"You don't get it Steve. I need to stay here. Where they can keep me in line. Even when I do good - I always hurt someone. I cannot control this, and it is a waste of time to try. Maybe they can experiment on me some more, work out how-"

Steve lets her talk just for the sake of distraction, or maybe because she needs to. He's definitely not letting her because he has any interest in what she has to say. There is no argument or point that she could make, that would ever make him even think about leaving her. When she brings up experiments, he knows he has to speak up and shut that idea down.

"I think people have been experimented on quite enough, and that includes you too. I understand that the time you've spent here has been quite damaging, on top of the other issues that we all have to work through. And I promise you Wanda, where I'm taking you is a place where we will be safe to do that. This wasn't just some mission. This was family fighting against family, and those wounds will take longer to heal. But I will be there. Sam and Clint will be there. Scott, too if he is able to. That's up to him. But you won't be alone, alright?"

It is a pretty speech. Almost convincing - but it is just words to her. Like what Clint was saying to get her to see beyond the present. They do not hold any meaning but are just means to keep going.

"I've been alone since Pietro left me." Wanda says flatly. Steve is now right in front of her, and he considers for a moment how to best broach this subject, in the limited time they have.

"I know you feel that way," He begins quietly, and Wanda looks as if she is going to open her mouth to tel him that's how it was, not how she feels. Steve holds up a hand to stop her before she can.

"But it's not the truth. It may always feel like an adjustment, being without Pietro. But you are not alone. I know you lost your brother, but you still have a family." Steve drops his outstretched hand onto her knee, and Wanda cannot help but to flinch. She knows it is Steve, knows that above all he is gentle and kind, protective and caring - but she has not felt a painless touch in so long that her body doesn't recognise it. Steve notices, and a look of anger flashes across his face.

"Right. Lots to work on. Alright, Wanda. I'm going to cut this off. Can you please hold very, very still for me?" Wanda tenses, both in obedience and fear as Steve comes closer, his face looming towards her and his hands going for her neck. She can feel the veins under her jaw throbbing, and her breath still in her throat as Steve clamps down on the leather.

"Alright. You ready? Almost done." His voice is soft against her ear, and a second passes, and then the collar is being pulled off her and flung across the room.

"Good riddance -oh, Wanda." Steve sounds so distressed that Wanda is concerned, until she realises his fingers are hovering around the flesh at her neck. She hears him swallow, feels the a slight brush and trembling of his fingers as he grazes over what she is sure is bruises. He is doing a good job at restraining himself for her, but she can feel the need in his body, knows that the urge to charge is strong.

"Steve. The others. We must go, no?" He huffs out a breath, shakes his head and then reaches down for the jacket.

"Right. Okay, just gotta cut this and then we're done. Please, don't move." He cuts through, and then helps her unravel it. He tosses it into the corner, over the collar, and sits there for a moment, head bowed low.

Wanda thinks about how she is going to stand up without help. She presses her palms into the ground and tries to propel herself up. It works at first, but her legs have forgotten how to support her, and the ground is looming up awfully fast and -

Arms take hers, steadying her and holding her upright. She takes a deep breath, and Steve's arm slide to her waist.

"Lean on me. That's it. We'll do it together, one step at a time."

They go slowly, Wanda heavily leaning into Steve. He is patient, and soft voiced as he encourages her onwards. They reach the broken shreds of glass, and Steve doesn't think as he bends down and scoops Wanda up. Her arms slide around his neck, and she buries her head into his shirt, and just for those seconds she pretends that it's someone else and that she is safe. That it is Pietro and he is holding her through a nightmare and that he is here and it's all okay.

All too soon, Steve is placing her on the ground close to Clint's cage, but out of range from the glass when he shatters the screen.

"I'm going to get him out next, alright? Wait here." He instructs her, and then he's gone. She hears a murmur of words - a warning - and then his fist collides against screen and glass goes flying. She wonders if it hurts, or if he welcomes the pain like she did.

It does not take nearly as long as it did with her - and why should it have? Clint is good, he is a father and husband and so he requires no kind of pep talk. Steve places the injured man beside Wanda, and then disappears again. Clint grunts in acknowledgement, and she wants to reach out and touch him, to look at his wounds and heal them. She wants to feel his skin against her fingers so that she knows for sure that he is out, and with her.

Perhaps he is better away from her, but in the seconds after Steve brought him out, she relishes in the realisation that Clint Barton is free, and beside her.

Wanda does not touch him, because he is already in pain and she knows that there is a risk in hurting anything she touches. She curls her hands under her armpits and just watches him with a sharp eye; it is all she can do.

"You okay kid?" Clint asks her, and Wanda wants to laugh. She thinks if she does, she will never stop.

"You are asking me that? You, who cannot even sit up to look at me?"

"I can too." He tries and gets halfway, before sliding back to the ground.

"Stubborn old man." She tells him fondly. He reaches out and touches her knee.

"Stupid little witch," His voice matches her own, and Wanda reaches for his hand and squeezes. He curls his fingers around hers and refuses to let hers go, and so she sits watching over him as Steve continues doing what he does best.

Saving people.

She does not think she deserves to be saved. Why should she - and not the others?

She could spend the rest of her life trying to make up for it, but no good deed, just like no bad punishment, will ever balance.

The slate will never be wiped clean.

It is now that she feels it the strongest, the pull to be with her brother. They had shared the same birth, it seemed right to only share death, too.

She has never entirely stopped wishing that Vision had left her to die.

Wanda tries to withdraw her hand from Clint, but he holds fast.

"It's okay, Wanda. Remember the farm, the land. Away from the city."

"You don't want me around your children, Clint." Wanda murmurs, and he must hear something in her voice because he is looking up at her now.

"I do. Tasha will come too. And we can make amends. All of us." He does not mention Tony, and neither does she.

Scott soon joins them, stretching his arms over his head and looking down at them.

"Wow. You guys look like shit."

Wanda knows it is his way of communicating that the state they are in concerns them. Clint might have said something creative back now that he was out, but he has exhausted his avenues by talking with Wanda, and is content to now lay there. Glass shatters again, for the last time, and moments later Steve and Sam are stepping out.

Steve claps a hand gently against Sam's back, and the two look at each other for longer than a moment, before Steve turns to Clint. He pulls up him gently, and passes him to Scott and Sam.

Wanda grasps onto the hand that Steve is now offering her. She is tugged to her feet, and then loses the stability as Steve swings her up into his arms.

"I can walk," She grits out.

"Mm hmm." Is all Steve says to her, and then he places her back onto the ground.

Sam and Scott take the lead, both of them carrying Clint's weight between them. Steve and Wanda walk behind them, and Steve can only watch for so long as Wanda stumbles along before he is picking her up again.

"I'm not a child." She is telling him crossly, and there is the briefest smile on Steve's face.

"No," he agrees with her. "But you are a kid."

TBC