Pietro woke up in the middle of a field, surrounded by the hum of crickets and the dank, humid night air. Looking up, the sky was a dark maroon colour, flecked with slightly blurred scars. There was a thin, almost invisible sliver of silver as a moon above him. The trees that surrounded Pietro looked beautiful in the light, black and dark against the wine-coloured backdrop. He hadn't seen such a beautiful evening sky in a while. The soft reds and crimson hues reminded him of his sister. He sighed softly, before realising.

Wanda.

Cold, dreading panic flooded his system. He hadn't seen Wanda in nearly a day. Was she alright? In his rush, Pietro leapt to his feet, realising that he was no longer in pain, and sprinted down the nearest path he found. He hoped it lead to the house - he could only hope.

Pietro found that it didn't lead him to the house, but to the river that ran past it - from what he could see, the house would be downstream. The river itself was oddly idyllic - in the dark, hazy red air, it looked fascinatingly like blood. Pietro shook his head to clear the image and started running downstream.

Soon, a bonfire appeared in between the dark trees, and Pietro picked up the pace, not caring how the wind whistled in his ears unlike normal or how the trees blurred at his sides. He found it difficult to stop running, nearly toppling over into the flame and sending noise through his friends.

"What the hell, man?" Clint piped up. "You just teleported in here!"

"Pietro, are you alright? Where have you been?" Pietro recognised the redhead's calm tone.

He barely had time to form an answer before his sister's familiar arms wrapped around him in a bone-breaking hug.

"I thought you were dead!" She hissed as he tried to wriggle away, bringing up guilt. He hadn't meant to worry her.

Pietro turned uncomfortably, trying to make eye contact with his sister. "Are you still in pain?"

"No, you?" She asked, and Pietro responded by shaking his head. Steve had gotten to his feet, offering Pietro an odd-looking plate of eggs.

"We're eating the perishables first, and that means eggs. You look hungry." Pietro nodded eagerly, stuffing his face almost as soon as he had sat down.

"What on earth was that? Where did you learn to run so fast?" Wanda whispered to him as conversation resumed. Pietro made out that he had no idea what she was talking about, but inside, he had some doubts himself. What if being in the dome had messed him up, given him abilities? He sure hoped it had, as that sounded cool - so long as he survived, of course.

But what about Wanda? She seemed okay, if a little quiet. He assumed she was just reeling from it all.

There was a guy there he didn't recognize - small, dark-haired, and sarcastic. After joining in with his conversation with Bucky, Pietro decided that the guy was pretty cool. He learned that his name was Tony.

"So Pietro, how come I've never heard of you before?" Tony asked, taking a sip from one of the red plastic cups the group had hoarded from the store. They'd chosen cutlery that wouldn't require washing up, as they didn't have much soap and water to spare.

"I was supposed to be new," Pietro said, tipping his head back and swallowing. The water was slightly coppery in taste; he wasn't used to drinking filtered river water. He supposed that life wasn't so bad now; at least he had some friends outside of his family. That was indeed a first. He couldn't shake the odd feeling of impending doom, however.

"Reed, what's going on?" Bruce stared, horrified, as Reed's gang broke into the busy "doctor's office" that he had set up in Tony's absence. Each of them carried knives, smiling cruelly. Bruce made an expression asking for an explanation.

"We're taking over here, and leaving. Stark doesn't think long-term; we never could have survived up in this wretched school and he knew it. He went into the town, turned them against us, and high-tailed it off into his own private safehouse!" Reed growled. He was practically glowing with anger.

Bruce raised both hands hesitantly, nerves kicking in. He hated high-stress situations.

"Look, you guys are gonna have to take this violence else-" He was broken from his sentence as knuckles swung into his face like a brick, sending him back against the desk and nearly onto the floor.

Reed snarled down at him. "If you're not going to take our side, you'd better run along and find Stark."

Bruce tried to open his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. A sudden, somewhat painful, but mostly weird, feeling filled his limbs, and he felt his gaze rise without standing. Reed backed up in fear, terror etched into his features like Bruce had never seen before.

He tried to speak again, to tell him to leave, but only a bone-chilling roar left his mouth. Bruce hurriedly looked down, and in the place of his nimble, calloused pale hands, were giant, muscled green paws. He gasped and stumbled backwards, his other presumably identical hand reaching for the wall to balance on - but his arm, now at least three times normal in diameter, went straight through it. Sunlight dug into his irises, drawing out another roar, before he jumped away.

"Let's get down to the robot freak," Storm hissed. "He'll be able to take anything that hulk throws at him. Besides, he'll probably die off quickly. Mutations like that can't last."

Reed snarled and raised the hand-held communicator he had been given. "Ultron? Whatever your name is, we've got bad news. Another enhanced his heading your way, and fast."