Steve Rodgers tapped his foot nervously against the floor of the speeding Quinjet. His vibranium shield was slung over his back, and he was in his Captain America uniform. Fury had sent him, Natasha and Tony to go investigate a large energy emission. Bruce would have been with them too, but he was already busy working on something for SHIELD.

As the Quinjet came to a clean halt, Natasha started to speak.

"Last stop. I'm staying here to take care of the jet. Call me if you need evac or backup."

"Will do. Thanks for the ride scary lady," Tony replied quickly, hopping off the Quinjet. Natasha just sighed and turned to Steve.

"Don't get yourself killed, grandpa," And Steve smiled, accepting that that was probably the closest he was going to get to sentiment from Natasha.

"What the hell," Tony muttered under his breath. Steve had no idea what to make of the scene in front of him. The remnants of the building that were above ground were twisted and shattered. Fallen trees were everywhere, and the earth looked overturned in a wide radius. At the center of it, Steve could make out some sort of white shape.

"Look, up there," Steve said, pointing to the white form. Parting around debris, they slowly made their way over to whatever the thing was. When they got close enough to view what the object was, Steve's jaw dropped and Tony swore loudly. A girl around 14 was floating in midair surrounded by white mist. Her eyes were glowing eerily, and her golden hair was fanned out around her head. But the thing that shocked Steve the most was that one half of her face seemed to be made of metal.

"We need to take her back, Tony. She must be what did..." Steve waved his hand around idly, gesturing towards the rubble. "...This." He finished, turning away from the floating girl.

"Are you sure that's a good idea Capsicle? Assuming she did all this..." Tony trailed off, glancing around the destruction. Steve just shrugged and started talking about how to get the girl down.

With a sigh, Natasha turned back to the control board after seeing the girl's metal arm and half of her face.

"Do I even want to know?"

"We just found her floating in this white stuff," Tony replied, but it came out as a whine.

"Something even the great Tony Stark can't explain? Should be interesting," Natasha commented slyly, before starting the engines.

An hour of Tony poking the girl's metal arm and muttering to himself, the trio landed in a SHIELD hanger.

The top of the water was so far away...and she wasn't drowning...it was so comfortable...what if IDS found her? That was ok, Altan would help her...

"She's in a coma," Maven deciphered from someone talking near her. A coma...her brain was too sluggish to comprehend what that meant.

Much time had passed since Tony and Steve had found Maven. Sokovia had been blown to pieces. Bruce was MIA. But Maven was still deaf to the world around her.

"...and we figured out that her brain actually has a kind of hard drive. There's some kind of function installed that suppresses the memories. It's been used twice now. We thought you might want to take a look."

Maven was paying attention to this conversation. It was the first time she had really listened. They were talking about her. It was like she had pulled her head out of the water. How long had she been here? She tried to move her fingers experimentally, but it came out more as a twitch. Whoever was talking next to her conversation stopped with a gasp.

"She's waking up!"

That's when the panic set in. Where was she? Forcing her eyelid's open, she glanced around, panting. She was in some kind of hospital room. There were tubes coming out of her arms. Something was beeping behind her. They were going to wipe her again. Or replay all her memories until she broke. Breathing increasing, she ripped out the cords attached to her arms and scrambled out of bed. Metal legs pounding across a grated floor, visions started to assault her sight. She was back at IDS. A more recent captor with the black uniforms was dragging her back to her cell. It was too much. Maven fell to the floor and curled into a ball, a sobbing mess. She was back with Altan and the other Intrisic, training. In her anxiety, she barely noticed the familiar feeling of falling back into nothing, and when she opened her eyes again she was back in her hospital room. A man with brown hair and sunglasses jumped back and looked at her like she had grown 3 extra heads.

"Where did you come from, she-robot? You weren't there a second ago!"

"Who are you?" Her voice was gravelly from.

When he didn't answer, she slammed her metal arm into the floor, and shrieked "Who are you!"

Backing away quickly, the man touched his ear and started to speak aloud.

"Can someone get Wanda down here? She can restrain her, and she'll probably trust her more."

By the time the man had finished speaking, Maven had backed into the corner and was shaking uncontrollably.

When Wanda saw the golden-haired girl huddled in a corner of the white room, her heart broke. Tear tracks stained the flesh part of her face, and she was rocking back and forth in a ball. Approaching the girl slowly, she wrapped her arms around her loosely. Wanda felt the girl stiffen under her, but she didn't pull away, which was good.

"You're safe now. It's all going to be ok. We're here to help you."

The girl glanced at her fearfully.

"You're not here to wipe me again? Or show me all my bad memories again?"

Wanda looked at the girl with pity and sadness, but then gave her a small smile.

"You have special powers, right? Wanda asked carefully. The girl nodded. "I am like you then, see?" Wanda coaxed, lifting up a nearby clipboard with her red mist. Glancing back at the cyborg girl, she saw that the fear in her eyes had lessened. Setting her gaze on a table next to them, the girl seemed to concentrate slightly before a white mist lifted to table clean off the ground. For the first time since Pietro's death, Wanda felt her loneliness ease next to this girl. She felt a connection with someone with abilities so similar to her own. The cyborg had turned to her with a smile on her face. And Wanda smiled a genuine smile right back.

"My name is Wanda. What is your name?"

"Maven. My name is Maven."