"I'm just not sure I like this plan," Clint said again a few minutes later. "You...want to talk to that asshole?"

"Of course not. But even if I fail, it won't...hurt anything. Not even me. Ross already hates me." And I have you and Nat and Laura here. I do not have to attempt facing him alone. Wanda clearly remembered Ross believing she could track Steve and Bucky herself even after multiple torture sessions and days with no food. Convincing him she would do something to him from here now shouldn't be difficult. The problem was Wanda wasn't sure she could act convincingly if she had to speak to Ross directly.

Natasha spoke quietly, but her tone was firm. "It may very well work. But if you do it, that is not something you can take back. If Ross records the conversation, which he probably will, then he'll have a recording of you threatening him. Threatening Ross into letting Scott go home seems like a reasonable idea, but doing it over the phone isn't safe."

"But I can't...do that in person right now," Wanda said, her voice trembling slightly. I can't. I know I can't. Scott must miss Cassie. Cassie must miss her daddy. "And now is...is a good t-time to do it, because the quinjet has already been seen, the location compromised already."

"Then find out if Vision can tell if the conversation is being recorded. If he can, then he could wipe Ross's device secretly. That would be worth the risk. I'll support you whatever you decide, but I honestly think we should stick with what we already did this time, warning them to leave, and plan this later." Natasha paused and went on, "Steve did message back a quick 'understood', so if Tony's estimate of an hour is accurate, they should have time to get away easily and are probably gone already. Waiting until we have more time to plan what to say to Ross won't hurt anything at this point."

Wanda nodded and didn't say anything else, reluctant to admit she was extremely relieved that Nat didn't think she should call Ross right now. The part of her that rather wanted to hurt that man terrified her, and the rest of her was irrationally frightened of him. She had snipped at Ross, saying that he didn't scare her, but she knew that was not true. That's stupid. I could literally just kill him if I really wanted to.

Oh, what is wrong with me? I do not want to do that. I just...I don't want him near me. All the same, Wanda knew if she saw some report that Ross was gone, she certainly would not be shedding any tears over it.

Clint crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "Could just get rid of him. No great loss. Protect other enhanced people like Wanda from being hurt."

Natasha turned on him and shoved him against the wall. "Barton, shut up. We're not assassinating anyone. Don't tempt me. What the hell would you suggest that for?"

"It's what all three of us are thinking and not saying. He's just as bad, if not worse, than some of the very same people the Avengers have had to neutralize before," Clint said quietly. "I know we're not doing that, obviously. Just wanted to say it."

Wanda remained silent, just watching Nat and Clint. Knowing her friends had had the same morbid thought but didn't want to actually do it was...reassuring. Clint and Natasha were not horrible people. She trusted them. Maybe she was not horrible for thinking it either.

The next few hours, Wanda remained worried about the other half of the rogues and would not eat anything or go to sleep. After the simple 'understood' message, there was nothing. They were too far away for Wanda to reach them telepathically, and she still did not have permission from them to use her mental abilities on them anyway. Instead she lay in bed feeling jittery and wondering if there was something else she could do that did not involve locating Ross and mind-controlling him, which the dark part of her liked the idea of way too much.

"Nat...?"

"Wanda, there is no word yet, same as five minutes ago, and ten minutes before that, and every other time you've asked." Natasha understood why Wanda kept asking over and over, but she wished Wanda would go to sleep all the same. She couldn't tell if her friend was literally spreading her own anxiety to anyone near her or if she herself was just anxious anyway. Probably both. "If you can't sleep, do you want to practice disguising your accent?" Nat offered, hoping that might distract Wanda a little bit.

"Okay." Wanda looked at Natasha with great interest, thinking that yes, she would love to do that. "I don't know where to start."

"You already did that part. Listening and vaguely copying. Remember that undercover mission where we played a couple of molls to infiltrate a Russian crime syndicate?"

Wanda frowned, remembering that incident. While nothing had gone seriously wrong, that was the absolute closest that she'd edged to any of Nat's awful honeypot missions, and she had flat out told her friend she was never doing anything like that again. It probably would not have been so bad if her assigned target had not been such a disgusting old creeper hung up on thinking she was fifteen and liking the idea far too much. She'd ended up throwing him across a room through a very expensive glass window, which made him land in a thorny bush outside the mansion where this party was taking place.

Wanda was not particularly sorry for it, either, since they had gotten the needed information before she had reacted like that, shouting that she was not fifteen and calling the man a long string of the most colorful Russian insults she could think of. Once Natasha had made sure Wanda was okay, the Black Widow started laughing, because hearing normally quiet Wanda do that was funny.

"I do remember, but Russian is much closer to Sokovian in sounds than English," Wanda said slowly. She knew quite well that while she mentally considered herself decently fluent in both English and Russian, she would never pass as a native English speaker, though she did pass when speaking Russian.

Nat nodded in agreement. "Yes, that's true, but the idea is still the same, to copy the sounds. You don't really need more English vocabulary or grammar knowledge to pass; you know enough already. There are just certain sounds that make your accent more obvious." Natasha knew there were times when some English word or phrase would come up that Wanda didn't know, but in general she was very good at languages, especially considering she didn't have anything past a fifth grade education officially. Last year, Wanda had told her she and Pietro spent hours upon hours in the small library in Novi Grad reading books and perusing for music on the slow old computers there, and Nat knew that was where much of Wanda's language skills were from. The library had been warm and safe, and nobody bothered them in there as long as they were quiet (easy) and clean (more difficult but manageable with some creativity).

"Like I make 'th' sound 'd'."

"Yes, you do. But, you just made the 'th' sound correctly. It just doesn't come out that way naturally. You also make your 'w' sound like 'v' a lot, and your 'ch' and 'j' tend to also stand out. And your vowels tend to sound different also." Natasha watched Wanda closely, not wanting her to feel like someone was picking on her speech patterns, either.

I feel so stupid. While Wanda knew for an absolute fact that the others did not think she was dumb, she still felt out of place anyway among geniuses and trained people. "I'm not...I don't fit. You and everyone else have fancy diplomas and training and I'm just...I don't."

"Training, sure, but I just have a GED, Wanda. That's it. I never went to a normal high school or college."

"I didn't...finish...fifth grade."

"So what? You are not stupid. I don't think a couple of homeless kids trying to teach themselves languages in a small library is anything to sneeze at." Natasha went to sit next to Wanda, not even touching or hugging her, just sitting beside her.

"That is why I, um...don't read English so good in the first place. There...weren't very many English books. Lots of Sokovian and Russian ones." Wanda didn't explain that the few English books they did have access to were contraband anyway. The old lady, Mrs. Zivkovic, that usually ran the library let the twins into a secret hidden room with those books in it awhile after she'd realized the children came in alone rather than with their parents now. Except then the kind lady died and the new librarian cleared those items out like they were 'supposed' to do. At that point the two of them were thirteen and too terrified to return after the new librarian threatened to report them.

"You read perfectly fine," Natasha told her firmly, "and even if you didn't, that would not be your fault. Knowing multiple languages, even just to have basic conversations in them and be understood, is great. Somehow I doubt Hydra was concerned with teaching you and Pietro anything, so everything you two learned after age ten, you did on your own."

I know. I still feel...inadequate now anyway. Wanda knew she logically had no reason to feel that way, but she still did all the same. "My parents used to be very concerned that we weren't...behind or stupid. They loved Sokovia, but..." she blinked and swiped at her eyes roughly. "I mean. I know they knew we weren't entirely safe. We were happy, but Papa wanted us to emigrate so badly. But we didn't have enough money. No, ah..." she paused, trying to remember the word her daddy had used. "Sponsor. We were too poor to leave alone, but not poor enough to have a sponsor. I think? Because we did have a home and necessities. I think that is the right explanation. I, um...my friend's father...said he'd help, but...Papa didn't trust him." And I'm the only one of us still here now. "...Why am I the only one left?"

Now Natasha did reach for the girl, just holding her close and ignoring the tears dampening her shirt as Wanda buried her face in her friend's shoulder. "Because sometimes life is trash and unfair," Nat said quietly.

"I hope Pietro is happy a-and reunited with our parents," Wanda whispered. "At least he did not have to...go to the Raft. Better me than him." She felt Natasha tense and give her good hand a gentle squeeze. I'm safe, Pietro. Really. I hope you are happy and not sad if you can see me now.

"Better neither of you," Nat muttered, and then added, "I know the team can't replace Pietro or your parents, but you just remember you're not alone here."

I still feel lonely and...isolated sometimes anyway. I don't even know why. I am literally not alone at all. Even in the Raft, I...really wasn't, not until I was too weak to try messaging Clint anymore. Wanda knew logically that even at that point, the others were still trying to help and comfort her despite knowing she couldn't really respond. While she couldn't remember all the details from the final couple days in the Raft at all, she did recall Sam's calm steady voice repeatedly asking for either someone to provide medical help, or for one of the team to be allowed out to help instead.

"You need to do something. You've tortured her to the point she can't move to get whatever small amounts of water and soup provided."

"Let one of us out to help. People can die of dehydration in three days. She's already seriously injured on top of that."

"Why can you not see Wanda isn't a threat to you right now? The flagrant violations of human rights laws in this place have seen to that. Please help her."

At some point, the guards had gotten tired of hearing Sam, and while, again, Wanda couldn't remember everything, she was pretty sure someone had given Sam his black eye for repeatedly trying to help, along with setting off that shock collar on her yet again.

The other main thing she recalled now was Scott singing and trying to provide some kind of distraction and entertainment. Of course, the guards didn't let Scott do that after 'bedtime' was called, but otherwise they seemed to just be baffled, and let Ant-Man do as he pleased.

Wanda suddenly really, really wanted to contact them and say thank-you. "I want to message Sam and Scott," she said now.

Natasha nodded, pleased that Wanda was initiating doing so, and not merely to provide a warning. "Sure. You can use my laptop. I already showed you how to send encrypted messages months ago, so you don't need my help to do that, and I did tell you the new email addresses we're using, right?"

Wanda nodded. "I remember. Will you...stay anyway, please?" She was relieved Natasha didn't question that, and merely grabbed the laptop before returning to sit next to her. Wanda's expression lit up seeing the desktop wallpaper on the computer. Clearly Nat had made a simple collage of different photos of herself and her friends. "There's me. I see the rest of the team, too...Nat, is this Yelena?" she asked, pointing to a picture of Natasha hugging a younger girl in a dark green vest, her blonde hair twisted up on her head in braids.

"It is."

Wanda blinked, noticing that her friend had ever so conveniently arranged the collage so that the photos of Yelena and herself were right next to each other. If someone else had done it, Wanda would have chalked this up to coincidence, but this was Natasha. Putting Yelena and Wanda next to one another in those pictures was not coincidence, and it made Wanda feel all warm and fuzzy inside. "...That's you," she said now, pointing at another picture. This one was a rather sad and grumpy-looking Nat, with a younger Clint and Laura. It looked like they were at either a carnival or an amusement park of some kind.

"Yeah, that's...shortly after I defected from the Red Room." Nat stared at the screen, thinking. "I am probably about your age there, maybe. Good god, they shouldn't have dragged me to a park back then, but they did anyway."

"You took me to an amusement park last year," Wanda pointed out.

"Yeah, well, you didn't act like a bratty delinquent, either."

"You were dragging the depressed weapon of mass destruction around instead."

Natasha sighed. "I wish you wouldn't call yourself that. Send your message." She did put one arm around Wanda's shoulders, and was relieved herself when Wanda didn't tense or flinch. In fact, Wanda seemed quite relaxed now, especially after pulling up the emails and seeing there was, in fact, an update finally.

So they're safe in France. Good. Wanda quickly typed what she wanted to say, mostly just saying thank you for continuing to try to help her in that prison, and for Steve being willing to risk getting her out. Then she added that she did remember Scott singing a lot the last two days, and asked if he was doing so for Sam and Steve now.

Wanda found this quite amusing.

Natasha knew what this singing Wanda was referring to was, from watching the security footage, but she was honestly surprised Wanda could remember it at all. "You can remember things from those last two days?" she asked. "You do not have to talk if you don't want to, to be clear."

"Yes," Wanda told her, "not much, but I do remember that. That, and Sam repeatedly trying to get someone to help me. I think...I think someone punched him. But besides that...mostly Scott singing." She hesitated, her shaky fingers squeezing into a fist. I think Clint was crying. I don't know if I could just feel him even though my magic was broken or if I heard him, but...

"Is there something else?" Nat asked gently.

Wanda nodded and poked 'send' on her message. Natasha had watched the footage, so she was not revealing some secret that wasn't hers to share. C-L-I-N-T C-R-I-E-D. C-O-U-L-D-N-T H-E-L-P.

Natasha did not remember seeing such a thing on the footage, but she did remember seeing Hawkeye glare directly into the cell camera and subsequently keep his back to it for awhile. With the poor audio quality and Scott's singing, there was no way to tell if he had been crying. Clint knew they were recording him, obviously, and didn't want 'weakness' like that recorded at all. Certainly he probably thought no one else knew except maybe Sam, since Sam's cell was right next to his, and hadn't been making noise like Scott. "You could actually hear him, or did you sense him?"

Wanda tensed, pushed the laptop away, and stood up, her good hand touching the wall for balance. "I shouldn't have said anything. I thought...you would have seen it already a-and so...it wouldn't matter." Now she felt like she had spilled a secret that wasn't hers to share. If she was in Clint's place, she wouldn't want that shared.

"I suspect I did, technically. The timing you described matches up with him purposely avoiding his face being on the camera. Wanda, you didn't do anything wrong, do you understand? Neither did he." Nat looked Wanda right in the eyes. "What happened there is not his fault. It is not your fault. It is not Sam's or Scott's fault either."

"But, he never cries. Ever."

"He does once in awhile, if he thinks no one knows. Rarely. He'll be okay, same as any of us would. You feel much better, but not back to normal either, right?"

Wanda nodded and sat back down again. That was true, and it did make sense. Besides, if Natasha had already seen Clint cry before, she didn't feel so bad about saying anything. "If he feels like me, he doesn't have a...normal."

"Normal meaning you are your normal self. For you, that means you can function, any symptoms are manageable. You've seen in my head. Do you think I don't have a normal too, because of those past events?" Nat smiled ruefully and shook her head.

Wanda looked down and fiddled with the splint on her arm. Nat isn't going to wreck things with her head if she messes up. "I think you are the strongest person I know. Um...like I told you...before...I didn't...choose old memories on purpose, I swear, but...your worst nightmare was the only...real one. The others just imagined horrible things. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry I did that to you."

Natasha reached for Wanda's hand and just gave her a reassuring squeeze. "You've apologized for that more than enough, Wanda. Do you remember us talking before we left Norway right after the escape?"

"It's a bit...hazy. Not unpleasantly, really, but it feels odd to think about now," Wanda said honestly. "I remember you braiding my hair. And feeling safe, finally." She paused, trying to remember more details. "You told me if I thought I was broken, then all of us were."

Nat nodded. "Exactly. A stressful, traumatizing job doesn't exactly equate to healthy minds. But we're using what we have to do our best to help others now, despite what we might have done, or what happened to us, in the past." She was quiet for a minute, hoping that information sunk into Wanda's head. "And frankly, I think for the two of us, the bad things we have done are so twisted with an organization manipulating and abusing us as minors that it's difficult to tell where the abuse ends and our own crimes begin. I don't think that absolves us, of course, especially not me-big difference between my assassinating people and your sticking some horrible nightmares in people's heads-but still."

"I killed those innocent people in Lagos."

"Wanda, no. That is not on you, that was not a crime. That is not even remotely the same thing, and shouldn't be on your ledger at all." Natasha stared at Wanda, remembering poor Antonia Dreykov, who was probably near Wanda's age herself now. The fact that treating that little girl as collateral damage whilst attempting to eliminate Dreykov so long ago hadn't even paid off in the end weighed on her heavily, and she wondered what Antonia was doing now. Surely that girl had no interest in having contact with her, but maybe Yelena knew and could tell her.

Wanda studied Nat closely, sensing that something was bothering her. "You feel...sad. I don't think it has anything to do with me. I...I'm not reading your mind, I promise, I just...feel it."

Natasha shook her head. Of course Wanda had noticed, being a very empathetic telepath. "I don't want to discuss it right now, but maybe another time. It has nothing to do you specifically-I'd trust you with it. I just don't want to talk about it at the moment." She wanted to be explicitly clear that it wasn't Wanda in particular she didn't want to talk to, because then Wanda would be upset and probably think Nat didn't trust her.

You told me not to bottle up my feelings, Wanda thought, but she easily understood not wanting to talk about things. So she didn't say anything and offered her friend a hug instead.

In the morning after breakfast, the three rogue Avengers sat in the living room and checked for new messages from the other half of their team. "Only doing this because you wanted me to," Clint informed Wanda grumpily, who had been staring at him with those big green puppy dog eyes of hers constantly until he gave in. "I think you've been hanging around Lila too much."

Wanda did not look very sorry. She smiled innocently at him, quite aware of what she had done and just pleased it had worked. "Look, Scott sent us a video," she commented now. When she clicked on it, a very amused Steve could be seen clumsily setting up and waving into the camera, and then he disappeared from view, clearly the one doing the recording. Sam's head popped in instead.

"Hey, fellow fugitive friends, hope this makes you laugh. Wanda, Lang decided he wanted to make this for you when he found out when your birthday was back in June." The rest of the short video was mostly just Scott singing the happy birthday song in the absolute worst Sokovian Wanda had ever heard in her life, but she was beaming all the same. Then at the end, all three of their teammates appeared back in the shaky frame waving.

"Video call whenever you're ready, we'd love to talk to the rest of our rogue team," Steve said hopefully. "We'll be waiting around 11AM your time, but if not, that's fine too." Then the recording ended.

Wanda was quiet for a minute and then just said, "Let's try now. It's only a little bit after eleven now. I want to say hello."

Clint sighed, not particularly thrilled about the idea, but he knew quite well Wanda wanted him there. Natasha pulled up the coded video call app they had planned to use for this sort of thing and tried putting the call through. "All right, looks promising, at least..." Nat commented.

There was a short wait, but soon their teammates popped up. "We were just about to assume you guys weren't going to show up. Which would have been fine," Sam assured them. "Thanks for getting us that warning. Got out easy."

"You look a hundred times better than before," Scott said happily.

"Oh? Thanks a lot," Sam teased, which immediately made Scott frown and backtrack.

"I mean Wanda, obviously-not that your eye doesn't look way better now, but-"

"Lang, chill. I know what you meant. He's right, it's nice to see you, Wanda. Glad you're feeling well enough to send messages yourself and be on a video call now. The hair's new, too. Looks good." Sam sounded incredibly relieved too, just like Scott, and Wanda realized they had probably been worried about her since their group split up after the rescue in the first place.

"I'm much better." Wanda more felt than saw Clint give her a suspicious look, but she ignored this for now. I do feel better, and I don't want them worrying about me. "Thank you for the video. It was sweet and funny. I, um..." She blinked and instinctively put her good hand over her heart, the same spot that still felt like part of her was missing. I hate our birthday now, but... "Pietro would have liked it too," Wanda added finally, deciding she should just say it.

Scott's generally happy demeanor drooped a bit. "Sorry...wanted to make you happier, not sadder."

Wanda shook her head. "No, it's fine. I don't like our birthday now, but..." I don't know how to explain myself at all. I liked seeing the video. Pietro not being here to see it too just makes me sad, also. "You cared enough to try...learning a song in my language. It made me happy. I just...wish Pietro was here too."

"Ha, told you your accent sucked," Sam informed Scott. "She says you tried learning it." Then he looked back into the camera and said, "We understand, no need to explain. You can be happy and sad at the same time."

"Why are you all in the quinjet?" Nat asked now, studying the background behind their friends. "I thought you were in France."

Steve sighed. "We are, but frankly after what happened in Norway, I don't want us to leave it unattended. So one of us is going to stay with it at all times. We're just all with it now because we were hoping you three would call. I think your idea to give up the quinjet as a way to get Scott home might actually help the rest of us in a way. One less thing to worry about. Over half the safe houses on our list can't even be realistically used if we have the jet." He frowned, noticing Clint seemingly pissed, his arm around Wanda protectively. "Clint, are you okay?"

"You left our kid in that place for three weeks."

Wanda immediately tensed. "He doesn't mean that, I know it takes a long time to set up any res-"

"I mean every word," Clint interrupted, "and it's the truth. You and Bucky should have taken her with you."

Wanda felt a little thread of annoyance, and she blinked a few times before speaking up herself. "That was my choice. I lifted the tower rubble so...so Steve and Bucky could get out," she said, her voice quiet but firm. I'm not sorry for that. I'm sorry I didn't make a proper escape attempt sooner. I am not sorry I helped Cap and his friend get away at the cost of my own freedom at that moment.

"She's right," Sam said into the silence. "Come on, you know it, same as I do. It sucks, but the people to blame here are Ross and his dumbass goons. Not any of us, or Stark and his team either, honestly. That prison would've been boring but not unbearable if we'd all been treated fairly. Then none of us would care about it whatsoever. You need to go talk to Laura, dude. Go touch some grass, give the kid a hug, spar with Nat. She already looks much better than when we split up. Now go take care of yourself, too."

I'm not a kid, Wanda wanted to say, but hearing their missing teammates actually care was...nice. She stayed quiet, happy to just listen unless asked something directly.

"Yeah, yeah, I will."

"If you want to take care of her, you have to take care of yourself first," Sam went on calmly. Then he turned his attention to Wanda herself. "And you...how's your arm doing at this point? I was confident we were able to tend to everything else properly ourselves."

Wanda looked down at her arm and shrugged slightly. "It still hurts, but not so bad now," she said truthfully. "And I can do this, at least." Wanda lifted her splinted arm a bit and demonstrated she could open and close her fist easily. I don't know what else to say. I think it's okay, but none of us will really know for sure until it heals enough to take the splint off.

Sam seemed satisfied by this. "Good. You take care of yourself and enjoy relaxing at that house."

"I'm still sorry for the whole mess. I swear we came for all of you the second we had everything set up. There was no way for us to swoop back into that airport and get you out. Believe me, I wanted to." Steve hesitated before continuing, obviously uncertain whether he should say more or not. "Bucky wanted me to dump and trade him for Wanda, make a distraction. He thought the government was going to murder her right there in the airport, and I...insisted they wouldn't. Kept going on about the past and saying he wasn't worth saving, especially if it meant another Hydra victim was sacrificed for it."

I wish I knew Steve's friend more. I can understand that sort of thinking completely. "I'm glad you got him out," Wanda assured a clearly very upset Steve. "Look. Not murdered. I'm here, I'm okay. If we had to pick between...dead Bucky and injured me...obviously we pick the second one." She could feel Nat's approving but sad gaze on her, and instantly knew she had said the right thing. "...And I was not mind-wiped like your friend. He has zero responsibility f-for what he did as the Winter Soldier." Unlike me.

"You were still a victim of Hydra, regardless," Steve told her, "and if Bucky, my best friend who was brainwashed and tortured for decades, and should have the most reason of anyone to dislike you, isn't angry with you and Pietro for what you two did volunteering for those people unknowingly, you should believe him."

Wanda really wished she could talk to Steve's friend.

"And hey, Wanda, I just remembered. Scott has something else he wanted to tell you about," Steve went on. "Scott, tell her the code name you gave her."

Scott looked so pleased with himself that Wanda was intrigued now. "Well, your powers are red. And you're pretty much magic. Little red witch girl is way too long, and you hate it. Little Red and Little Witch sound like family nicknames, not hero code names...Scarlet sounds good, though. So..."

Natasha looked at Wanda and then back at the camera. "You want to code her as Scarlet Witch."

"Oh, darn. I wanted to reveal it," Scott said, disappointed. "But...yeah. Bet Cassie would think it sounded cool too."

Wanda blinked, unsure whether she had imagined her magic reacting briefly inside or not. Something she could not describe had created a small but visceral reaction to her, as if that was not just a silly name Ant-Man had made up so she would have an official hero identity too, and it did not make sense. Whatever it was wasn't something she liked. "It sounds nice, but I don't want to be the magic-identified one," she said finally. There. I hope that makes sense? I don't know how to explain myself.

Scott was nonplussed; he only shrugged. "Okay. I'll think of another one you might like better."

They mutually decided to continue the 11AM EST meetups, with the understanding that if any of them were not able to show up, it did not necessarily mean anything was wrong; they should just wait five minutes and then leave and none of them would mind. Nat made sure to inform their teammates that Tony was supposed to come by the vacation house soon to discuss things in person since it would be easier.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Sam asked.

"It's no worse than the three of us being in this house in the first place. We'll be fine."