Please Note: I am using Google Translate for all the languages that aren't English. If you are a native speaker, please let me know if anything needs a correction!
Chapter 2
Dawn found the three men awake, pacing restlessly in their cells. Wanda still lay in a heap on the floor, but Clint was almost sure he could see her breathing faintly. He had filled Scott and Sam in on what Wanda had said.
"What does that mean? A lobotomy?" Scott had whispered, horrified.
"We have to do something." Sam had hissed.
The helpless rage threatened to drown him, and he knew Sam and Scott felt the same. They had brainstormed for hours, but for nothing. The cells had no weakness that they could find.
"Do you think Stark knows about this?" Scott asked.
Clint snarled, but Sam answered. "He can't know."
Clint barked a disbelieving laugh, but Sam continued.
"No. Stark might be a dick, but I can't believe that he would sit by and let them lobotomize Wanda. He would be in here right now short circuiting everything with a fancy ass ballpoint pen or some shit."
"Not if it was for the greater good or whatever bullshit he's preaching these days." Clint shot back.
In the silence, Clint buried his face in his hands. Honestly, if Stark walked in right now and freed Wanda, he would forgive the billionaire for everything, free and clear. But the sun continued to rise and no snarky genius strolled off the elevator ready to save the day.
They came for Wanda an hour later.
There were four armed guards and two people in scrubs pushing a gurney. Clint screamed until his voice was raw, slamming his fists into the glass, and he could hear Scott and Sam doing the same, but the guards simply watched them silently. The people in scrubs lifted Wanda's limp body onto the gurney and secured her tightly with multiple restraints. Clint felt like he was going to be sick. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't.
Too soon, the group was moving back towards the elevator. The doors opened with a pleasant ding.
"No!" Clint shouted desperately.
At the same time, all hell broke loose.
The people in scrubs went down first, seemingly yanked into the elevator by an unseen force. The guards tried to retreat, shouting frantically into a walkie, but Steve Rogers leapt from the elevator like a goddamn avenging angel. He took out two guards quickly, ducking and rolling as the other two opened fire.
There was a click and a hiss and all the cell doors opened.
Clint darted out, catching a guard around the neck and snapping it viciously. The man's body hadn't even hit the floor before he was moving onto the next guard.
"Barton!" He vaguely heard Steve's horrified voice, but he was past caring.
He snatched an electric baton from a fallen guard's belt, spun carefully to avoid the spraying bullets, and stabbed the baton into the final guard's neck. Electricity crackled and the guard went down, seizing violently on the floor. Clint left him where he fell and ran to the gurney where Wanda lay. Sam was already there, taking her pulse.
"What…is that Wanda?" Steve gasped.
"Is she alive?" Clint snapped to Sam.
"She's alive." Sam breathed, relief washing across his face.
Scott was already unfastening the restraints. Steve joined in quickly, the horror on his face changing to something darker.
"You can brief me later." Steve said as he worked, ever the calm soldier. "We don't have much time."
As soon as the restraints were off, Clint gathered Wanda's limp body in his arms not bothering with the straight jacket. His only focus was to get her out. Her head lolled on his shoulder, and he tried not to think about how light her body was.
"We gotta go! Come on!" Steve yelled.
The group rushed back to the elevator and watched as Steve punched in a code. The doors closed and the elevator began to ascend. Clint held Wanda tightly, murmuring softly into her dull hair.
"Ничего страшного. Мы уходим отсюда, милая. [It's ok. We are getting out of here, sweetheart.]"
"It's good to see you, man." Sam was clasping hands with Steve.
"Hi Captain. Ant Man here. Well not here. It's just me Scott. They took my suit." Scott added, saluting awkwardly.
Steve gave them both a nod, but his gaze was fixed on Wanda. As the floors whirred by, the super soldier cautiously approached and gently brushed Wanda's limp hair out of her face. The bruises down her face stood out starkly from her pale skin. Steve gingerly touched the metal collar around her neck, his expression hardening into something Clint had never seen on the man's face.
"Is this a shock collar?" He asked hoarsely.
"Death was too good for them." Clint said in a low voice.
Steve met his eyes and studied him, but then just nodded, silent understanding passing between them.
"What's the sitch, Cap?" Sam asked.
Steve cleared his throat, looking relieved to have something besides Wanda to focus on. "Nat is upstairs in the control room. She faked a breach in the lower levels and then locked the doors, so most of the guards are trapped down there. But we've got probably five, ten minutes before they get the doors open. Bucky's on the plane, keeping the flight deck clear for us."
"Did Tony ever find you?" Clint asked.
Steve's expression darkened again. "Yeah. He did. But that's a story for another time." He looked at the control panel in the elevator, shifting into a defensive position. "We're almost there."
Scott and Sam flanked Steve and Clint took up the rear. He knew he should pass Wanda to Scott so he could be more help fighting, but he couldn't bear the thought of letting her go again. The elevator slowed to a stop.
"Ready?" Steve asked in a low voice.
The doors opened. Ahead of them, lights flashed and alarms sounded. The floor was littered with bodies of guards and prison employees and in the middle of the room stood Nat, smirking.
"Took you long enough." She said playfully.
Clint's heart lightened at the sight of his oldest friend, but he couldn't bring himself to smile back. Nat scanned their faces, quickly losing her lighthearted playfulness. She strode towards Clint, her face hardening as she took in Wanda. Gently the ex-assassin brushed her fingers across the bruises on Wanda's jaw. Clint followed her movement, bile rising in his throat when he realized the bruises looked like fingerprints.
"Ross?" Clint bit out in a low voice.
Nat met his gaze, and he knew she understood exactly what he wanted to do to the Secretary. "Not here."
"Come on, let's go!" Steve shouted.
The group jogged through several hallways, all littered with fallen guards, and finally through the heavily secured doors that led to the flight deck.
Barnes stood heavily armed before a small, sleek plane that Clint had never seen before. The Soldier lowered his weapons at the sight of them, motioning them forward. They had just reached the open cargo door when Barnes shouted a warning and gunfire erupted.
Clint dove into the plane, falling and rolling with Wanda still clasped tightly in his arms. He got a glimpse of an armed force of guards advancing towards them. Nat and Barnes were returning fire. Steve was helping Scott who was limping and bleeding from the leg. Sam darted in, grabbed a gun off the wall of artillery, and darted back out. Clint checked to make sure Wanda was still breathing, and then reluctantly stood to follow suit.
"There is a bow for you, archer." A calm, accented voice called from the cockpit.
Clint glanced at the King of Wakanda in surprise. Last time he'd seen T'Challa, the man had been trying to kill Barnes. Apparently Steve had a lot of briefing to do later. His gaze sharpened on the bow and couldn't help the smile that crept across his face as he held the familiar weapon in his hands. Steve was boarding with Scott. Nat and Barnes and Sam were retreating, still firing at the guards who had halted to form a defensive position. Clint's fingers skimmed the pack of arrows, quicking finding the one he wanted. Meeting the others on the gangway, he fired the single arrow into the floor near the guards. They barely had time to look panicked before they vanished in the explosion.
The entire plane skidded slightly across the floor from the force of the explosion. The four of them darted into the plane and the gangway closed behind them. T'Challa had them in the air not a second later. Clint glanced out the window to see the smoking remains of The Raft's flight deck disappearing from view.
Clint turned to see Sam and Nat both unbuckling Wanda's straight jacket as quickly as they could. Clint knelt beside her to help. Finally the straight jacket fell away and all of them froze at what they saw.
Wanda's prison uniform was torn open all the way from her neckline to the waist. Dried blood ran from underneath the collar on her neck down her naked chest. Bruises and scratches littered her pale skin, some clearly in the shape of fingerprints.
Steve was shrugging out of his jacket immediately, draping it across Wanda's exposed body.
"We gotta get that collar off!" Clint snapped.
Nat began to move, but Barnes beat them to it. Crouching over Wanda's body, he reached out with his metal hand, carefully grasping the collar with his thumb and pointer finger and squeezed. The metal crumpled and then cracked into pieces. Nat and Sam began to gingerly peel the pieces off, revealing ugly burns beneath the metal.
Clint stood up abruptly, feeling sick. Steve tried to hand him the portable IV he was holding, but Clint backed away.
"I need a minute." He gasped, turning away.
The Winter Soldier knelt beside the unconscious girl as The Black Widow stood and followed after Hawkeye. His mind was carefully cataloging the numerous injuries the girl appeared to have. Multiple contusions to the face and body. Possible dislocated shoulder. Electrical burns around the broken fingers. Malnutrition. Dehydrated-
A body crouched down beside him, and he managed not to flinch away from Steve's friend Sam.
"I've never been so glad to see you, Barnes." Sam said in a low voice.
The Winter Soldier lifted his gaze to study the man across from him, trying to gauge if Sam was sincere, but Sam was carefully inserting the IV line into the girl's arm. Feeling uncertain, the Winter Soldier glanced to where Steve was bandaging the other prisoner's leg.
Scott, he reminded himself.
"Can you make sure that collar isn't able to track us?" Sam asked, gesturing to the metal remains on the floor.
The Winter Soldier eyed the pieces of the collar, a cold rage creeping over him. Metal bands on his arms. Metal paddles pressing against his face. Electricity crackling. Agony and the echo of his screams. His metal hand whirred softly as he grasped the pieces of the collar and squeezed, crumpling the collar into a ball of mangled metal in his fist.
"That'll probably do it." Sam said dryly.
The Winter Soldier studied the girl's face. He remembered her from the airport in Germany. She had been so vibrantly colorful with her red hair and scarlet coat. Now her face was pale and gaunt and her long red hair was limp and dirty, like all the color had been slowly leached out of her. Something in his chest twisted painfully at the sight of her so broken.
"We'll be there soon." The Winter Soldier said roughly.
"Where's that?" Sam asked as he worked.
"Wakanda."
