The four of them followed the path Redwing provided. They flew over some pine trees, deep into the wilderness. Carol looked over her shoulder at Wanda, concerned by the dark red glow in her eyes, the wisps of energy crackling around her like electricity. A dark cloud had descended over Wanda's face, and she had been silent for a while now. For good reason.
"We need to plan this carefully." Sam said.
"How many times have we said that in the last few days?" Bucky asked, from where he flew in a cloud of Wanda's magic, as had become the norm when they didn't have a jet available.
"Well, this plan should work." Sam insisted. "Redwing did some scans and it's true what you said, Wanda - the bunker they're in is really falling apart. It's ancient, situated by a large river with an underground one crossing over. The water is going to eventually break through if they don't leave soon. I'm saying let's keep magic and photon blasts to a minimum, unless we want to swim our way out."
"Good idea." Carol nodded in agreement. "We'll be careful."
"Or perhaps once we free Vision... we could flood the place. Make sure no rats escape the sinking ship... " Wanda had never suggested anything so dark, and it took all three of the others by surprise. After what had happened, Wanda had been simmering in anger throughout the whole flight, her fears and distress turning to rage.
"You're saying we deliberately destroy this bunker? With everyone in it?" Bucky asked, taken aback.
"Why not?" Wanda challenged. "They're dangerous people. Josephine is demented, do you really think she'll just let us walk in and walk out with Vision? That she'll just leave Clint alone?"
"But when they don't have Vision anymore, they'll have no one left to do their dirty work." Carol pointed out. "We could bring them to justice instead. Tell the authorities what she's been up to."
"I thought that too, at first. But what's to stop Josephine and her team from blabbing about Vision to the government, or the CIA? I'm not going to free him, only to lose him again." Wanda wasn't just angry. She was thinking logically as well. Perhaps leaving Josephine and the rest of Siren alive was too risky...
"I see your point." Sam said, considering it himself. "But we don't know the situation with her team. Maybe they're just following orders. They might have families."
This dampened the flame of anger in Wanda's chest. "Okay. But I'm still going to give Josephine a piece of my mind."
Wanda flew ahead of them, wanting to be alone with her thoughts. Don't be like this. Said the softer voice inside her head. Revenge wouldn't help anything. Killing those people wouldn't make her feel better, if anything it would make her feel worse. She had enough guilt to deal with.
Should she be angry at Vision for almost killing Clint? It was difficult not to. She needed to discuss things with him, but what if he took a long time to remember everything, if he could at all? Clint, and Wakanda. Their pain, what she did to him, all for nothing. How could she sit on that issue for weeks, months - years - or forever? How could she know all that, and Vision know nothing?
Ten minutes later, they landed in the undergrowth, quietly making their way forwards. Peering out from behind the bushes, they saw a hatch in the earth, with two men guarding it. The moonlight reflected off the river a little distance though the trees, as well as the large firearms they both carried. Redwing lay in the leaves, covered in bullet holes with pieces of metal littering the ground beside it.
"Great." Sam muttered, before they retreated some way so they wouldn't be heard. He extended his wrist, and after a few moments, a hologram appeared, showing an interior scan of the bunker. "The blue lines represent water. This side of the bunker is very close to the river channel, and there's a lot of pressure building on that thin wall on the lower floor. That's the weak spot, so we need to watch that."
"There's a bigger problem. It's crawling with people." Bucky pointed at the red glow of the upper floors, which indicated a lot of moving thermal energy. The rest of the floors were dark except for a distant room isolated from the swarm of people, which had a small spot of thermal radiation. It also happened to have the highest energy field, as the yellow indicated. "And I bet that's where Vision is. How do we get past those people on the first floor?"
"You know... going back to what Wanda suggested earlier." Carol began. "Flooding it wouldn't be a bad idea. If I go into the river, a photon blast to the riverbed could destabilise the bunker enough so it begins to flood slowly. As they evacuate we can sneak in, destroy the mask, grab Vision, and -"
"Uh, Captains?" Bucky said, suddenly. "I don't want to alarm you, but I think Wanda has her own plan." Sam and Carol turned to see that Wanda had vanished. Then they heard the distant scream of men, followed by gunfire.
The three of them went racing toward the bunker, and the sound of gunfire ceased as they drew near. They entered the scene to see two men laying unconscious, the door to the bunker torn off it's hinges.
It was a scene of chaos. They arrived at the foot of the stairs to find a sea of weapons on the ground, either crushed or torn to pieces. Several people lay at the foot of the walls, unconscious from where they had been thrown headfirst into the stone. They ran down the corridor and into the next, where the dark hall was filled with glowing tendrils of red light. Wanda stood there, her hand extended toward three people who were pointing guns at her.
Bullets struck the wall of magic and fell to the ground, crushed, and the three gunmen went flying with a flick of her wrist. Their eyes began to glow as red as Wanda's, and then the screaming began. Her dormant power had come back with a vengeance.
They began blindly staggering about, frantically looking around at things Wanda could not see, wailing and screaming. One was crawling frantically across the floor, hands smacking at the ground and their clothes, as if covered in a swarm of insects. Another, begging someone not to leave them. The third was running away, screams echoing off the walls.
Finally, the coast was clear. Wanda turned, finally noticing Carol, Sam and Bucky, staring at her, looking a little scared. "Well it worked, didn't it?" She said, nonchalantly. "Come on. Let's go get him." She headed down the hall. Carol looked at Sam with wide eyes.
"Was she always this scary?"
"Sometimes."
They made their way through the bunker, not encountering any living soul. Oddly enough the entrance was the only part that was guarded. Fewer people are here than there were in Hudson Bay. No more scientists, just guards.
Finally, they reached the place where Vision was being kept.
There were two rooms up ahead, the first they had to walk through had more of what they had seen before - sketches, plans for gadgets and evil looking inventions. The handwriting on each one varied, as if written by many different people. Some of it was even in other languages. "I bet they stole some of these designs. Some of them are dated the same year we vanished." Bucky remarked, when he paused to read some of them.
"Let's hurry up." Sam said, uneasily, and they headed into the next room, where the cradle was, lit up and closed. He and the others began moving around the cradle, trying to see how to open it.
Wanda went to follow, but the papers scattered about caught her eye.
That was a picture of her. She made her way over to it. There she was, levitating in the air just above a flaming truck in Scotland, as she flew towards the church roof where Vision was screaming. More grainy cctv images of her. Vision wasn't the main focus at all. Most of them - all of them - were of Wanda.
In every single one she was using her powers. It wasn't just Scotland either - archive footage of previous missions, screenshots of videos on the internet, where she had been filmed using her powers by people with their phones. There was cctv images from Sokovia, Lagos, and more.
Why would Josephine have these? It didn't make sense. Wasn't she only interested in Vision?
"I don't like this." Carol frowned. "It's too quiet... too easy."
"You're right." A distorted voice said.
Before Wanda could turn, she felt a searing pain. She collapsed to the ground, and Josephine emerged from the shadows, her green and black suit glowing to life. She moved toward Wanda on the floor, as Vision phased out from the wall, having never been in the cradle in the first place.
A metal door suddenly formed in the doorway, sealing Wanda off from the others. Josephine issued a silent command to Vision, and to Wanda's horror, he phased into the locked room.