The red witch regained consciousness on the way to Stark Tower, which was a relief at first, because he feared he had let his anger throw that shield harder than he ought to. However, he tensed the next moment, checking the special handcuffs would hold against her magic. It's not like SHIELD had had any way of testing them before on her particular powers, but it didn't even look like she was trying to escape her predicament, magically or otherwise. She looked confused and very small in the passenger seat next to him. Now that he wasn't a man on a mission, Steve could see she was just a kid. An angry kid who had been given far too much power by the worst kind of people.

"What's your name?" Steve asked.

Unsurprisingly, she didn't answer. Instead, she leaned a bit forward to look up at their destination looming above them. Then she sank back in her seat, looking angrier than ever.

She reluctantly followed his lead all the way to Bucky's bedroom as he kept an iron grip on her arm. He still didn't trust her not to try something, and he wasn't going to risk Bucky when he couldn't even defend himself.

"Remember him?" Steve asked, but she gave no indication either way.

On the bright side, she wasn't being smug about the result of her curse like he'd expect from a HYDRA agent, or she might have flown right through the window. Maybe there was hope yet. Hermione always said he was good with words.

"His name is Bucky. I'm Steve," he looked at her expectantly, but she just glared back. "I keep calling you the red witch, but I don't even know if that's what you are. I know a witch, and she told me witches were born with magic, so what are you?"

She seemed to be listening to him, because she shrugged after a few seconds, which was the first response he'd gotten out of her, even if it was just a shrug.

"That's okay. I'm just a lab experiment myself. It was painful, but at least I volunteered. Poor Bucky was captured by HYDRA. Experimented on and tortured until he didn't even know his own name." He glanced at her. "Is that what they did to you? Do you not remember your name?"

She sighed and shook her head. He thought that would be it, but she finally spoke.

"Wanda."

Steve beamed. He was getting through to her, or he thought so before her next words.

"He attacked me," she said with a nod of her chin towards Bucky.

"You know that's not true. We attacked the HYDRA base, yeah, but we thought you were prisoners. Bucky was going to free you from the cells you were in because he, more than anyone, knows what it's like to be a prisoner to HYDRA, to be their puppet, experimented on, then used as nothing more than a weapon."

Her jaw clenched.

"They won't let you be your own person, you know. Is that really what you really want?" Steve insisted, not understanding why anyone would want to live like that.

"I want revenge," she growled, eyes flashing red.

Steve waited, but there was no discharge of magic like Hermione often had.

"Against who?" Steve asked.

Had the Winter Soldier harmed her in the past? If that was the case, this was a fool's errand. She would never free Bucky from her curse.

"Stark," she hissed.

A chill ran down his spine, completely blindsided by her answer and the hate she infused in his name.

"Why?" Steve asked, unable to hide the bewilderment from his voice.

Sure Tony could be an arse, but he'd never hurt someone without good cause, and he doubted the American billionaire and the young Sokovian ran in the same circles. That she would put her life in HYDRA's hands, of all people, for revenge against someone she probably had never met before today seemed exactly like the kind of thing an angry kid would do. After all, when he was about her age, Steve had put his life in the US army's hands to fight Nazis.

"You think the world is all black and white," Steve said with an understanding nod, not wanting to rub her the wrong way. "That's alright, you're young. I used to think like you."

This time, he did have her attention, so he softened his voice.

"This man here," he said, waving towards Bucky's comatose form. "He murdered Stark's parents."

She frowned at him, but she was too curious for her own good.

"This is Stark's tower. Is he… a prisoner?"

"You'd think so, but no. Stark forgave him. After… you did whatever you do with your magic, Tony Stark took him in, set up a medical room and two nurses to take care of him 24/7. It's ironic considering he wanted him dead not so long ago, but he understood that if Bucky had had the slightest choice, he would not have killed his parents. He was just a victim of circumstances, a weapon used by others to do harm in their name."

Or Steve hoped Tony had gotten that far, but he was probably only helping Bucky because of his friendship with him and Hermione. However, Wanda deflated. It had to be difficult hearing your archnemesis wasn't a complete monster and was capable of good deeds, that he might, in fact, be a better person than you, because didn't that mean you were the villain of the story? Question was, was she willing to fill that role?

"I wish you'd never told me that," she said. "I wish I never knew I had something in common with Stark."

In common? That wasn't really the point of his story. He'd just wanted her to not be blinded by her hate, and to know it was possible to forgive even the unforgivable. After all, Wanda didn't seem like a bad kid, a misguided one for sure, and who fell into the worst hands possible, but if she wanted a second chance…

"Stark murdered my parents," she said.

Fuck. That meant Tony was Wanda's Winter Soldier, a situation which had almost ended up very badly for Bucky.

"Stark's weapons…" she corrected when Steve was still searching for a way to spin this to his advantage. "Like him," she said with a nod at Bucky. "It was a missile that killed my parents. A second one didn't explode, but it kept me and my brother hostage for three day. We waited for death to take us… we couldn't move, stuck there, staring at Stark's name on that missile."

She frowned.

"A weapon used by others, you said."

"And if not Stark's, someone else's. Hammer's, probably. Stark did stop manufacturing weapons before all this," Steve added, waving his hand between them, before dropping it.

It was easier when he hated her. He could have coerced her into freeing Bucky's mind. Maybe. He wasn't very good at the coercing part, he realized, especially not when his enemy was someone he could have been friends with.

"Listen… I know you're angry. Hell, I'm angry right now, but don't let it blind you and hurt others' loved ones like you've been hurt. It's not worth it in the long run."

Steve leaned towards Bucky and kissed his forehead, then grabbed her arm once more and led her out. He'd leave the coercing to Fury, because that was definitely his thing. Even if he felt a bit guilty leaving her to his tender care, SHIELD was still a better option than HYDRA, and he didn't really have a choice in the matter. The cards were in her hands…

"Come on. I'd better give you back to SHIELD before they send in the cavalry."

"Will my brother be there?" she asked.

"Your brother?"

"The fast man. He was shot with an arrow? Is he…"

Oh… Now her going berserk in the middle of the battle made sense: they were siblings… and she was waiting for his answer like an anxious puppy for news of him.

"He'll be fine. Sore, for sure. Those arrows pack a punch, but he'll be fine apart from some cramped muscles."

Wanda harrumphed, stuck her nose in the air, then walked just fast enough to be the one leading him to the exit. Steve sighed and followed his prisoner. Not only had he not accomplished anything, but Fury was going to have "a talk" with him again about chain of command, and custody, and blah blah blah… Chances were Tony was going to be mad at him too for leaving him on babysitting duty. It was just one of those days where nothing went well.

When Steve finally made it back from SHIELD headquarters after leaving Wanda in their hands, Jarvis greeted him as soon as he'd stepped into the building.

"Captain Rogers, your presence is required in Sergeant Barnes' room immediately."

Steve crossed the lobby at a run towards the elevator, which was already open and waiting for him apparently. Once the doors closed, he looked up at the lighted ceiling.

"Jarvis? Is it Bucky? Is he alright?"

"Sergeant Barnes regained consciousness three minutes and twenty seconds after you left the tower with your guest. He's been asking after you ever since and is quite agitated."

Steve's jaw clenched. If he had known, he wouldn't have left to… No, wait… This couldn't be a coincidence. It had to be Wanda. She had lifted her curse. She had freed Bucky.

The doors sliding open snapped him out of his spiraling thoughts, especially when he heard a commotion coming from Bucky's room.

"Don't make me do this, Barnes," Tony said.

Picturing the worst, Steve burst in. Everyone froze, one nurse on the floor with a bloody nose, and the other held up by Bucky's metal arm, the sharp edges of his fingers dangerously close to his neck, while Tony held up a syringe, aiming it at him.

"Steve! It's not what you think!"

At this point, Steve didn't know what the hell to think. He was ecstatic Bucky was awake and recognized him, but…

"Tell them! It's the arm! I can't control the fricking arm!"

Oh… now that made sense. Steve crossed the room to wrestle the arm.

"Drop the needle, Tony. He's telling the truth. Hermione cast a petrifying spell on it. I didn't think-"

He grunted, getting his severed fingers to unlock by pressing hard into his palm.

"The spell must have failed with Hermione gone."

The second nurse was free and Steve kept the metal arm in check with one hand, and helped him back on his feet with the other.

"Sorry about that," Steve told him while Bucky clung to him like an octopus.

The metal arm was a problem though. Bucky had obviously lost all control of it and it was grasping and swiping despite the hold Steve kept on it.

"Tony, can you get a screwdriver? Bucky is going to cash in on your gift whether he likes it or not."

Steve was all for Bucky being his own man and making his own decisions, but his stubbornness had injured two innocent civilians for no good reason. Enough was enough.

"Aye aye, Captain," Tony mock-saluted, ushering out the two bleeding nurses as he left.

Bucky relaxed in his arms, except for the matal appendage still fighting him, and he sighed.

"I'm sorry, Buck," Steve said, kissing the top of his head.

"It's fine. It was probably going to kill me next. Wouldn't put it past HYDRA to have programmed it to terminate me if I went rogue."

"That does sound like HYDRA alright."

"Hermione didn't return then?" Bucky asked.

"She did, in a way. She left a message, and is trying to make her way back to us. Bet she'd be happy if you had two arms to welcome her back with a hug."

"Quit selling me on the Stark-arm, Stevie. We both known I don't have a choice."

"Well that make me feel like the bottom of the barrel, Barnes, but you're gonna thank me when I'm done. You'll love it even more than your first fleshy arm."

To his suprise, Bucky snorted at Tony's ludicrous promise.

"You're not that good, Stark."

"Oh, challenge accepted," Tony shot back.

He directed Steve on how to hold Bucky's arm so he had access to the shoulder, then shoved what looked like a screwdriver, but which shot out a laser, at the joint in the metal plates right in the middle of the star painted there.

Bucky grunted, so Steve held him tighter. It took a few minutes of Tony muttering insults at HYDRA being butchers and amateurs, but finally, the arm fell off, landing on the ground with a loud metallic clang. Bucky leaned all his weight against him, his skin clammy, so Steve helped him lie back on his bed. When he turned around to ask Tony if he had any more nurses available, he found the other man poking at the metal arm. To his horror, the thing was trying to crawl back towards Bucky.

"Fascinating," Tony said, sounding like he actually meant it.

"Kill it!" Steve exclaimed.

"Technically, it's not alive, so I can't kill it."

Steve rolled his eyes, praying for infinite patience.

"Fine, I'll destroy it," he agreed, dropping his heavy toolbox over it so it would stop crawling away, before joining him at Bucky's bed.

After all that, he seemed to have passed out. Hopefully just from exhaustion, but Steve had half a mind to shake him awake, just to be sure.

"Don't worry, it's just the drugs," Tony told him.

"Drugs? I thought I told you to drop it?"

"Well, see here… that was the second shot I was holding, and it's a really strong cocktail since it was made for Green Brucie, so I didn't really want to dose him again, but… hey… looks like it worked anyway, just a little late."

Tony then poked at his stump where he'd managed to ply off HYDRA's arm.

"He's going to need a doctor before I'll even consider fixing a new arm there. Wasn't he in constant pain from all the nerve damage and scarring?" Tony asked, rubbing his own chest as if he had sympathy pain.

"Not that he told us, but he didn't even tell us about his arm acting out before he cut himself with it. I think he got used to it."

"To the pain?"

"To not complaining about the pain. I doubt HYDRA gave a shit."

Tony nodded, slipping his screwdriver-laser into his pocket.

"I know a guy, well, a gal actually. Best doctor around for this fixer-upper. Happens to owe me a favour."

Steve hesitated. Tony had already done so much, and yet, he couldn't turn it down for Bucky's sake.

"Stop worrying your pretty little brain, Steve. Now, you'll owe me one. That's even better."

Steve suddenly remembered what he'd figured out after learning Bucky was awake.

"Shit," he muttered.

"More good news?" Tony asked with his shit eating grin, as if he was enjoying all the chaos he brought in his wake.

Steve hung his head.

"I have to warn SHIELD headquarters. Their special magic suppressing handcuffs don't work at all."

It was a tough decision. He could not say anything, give Wanda enough time to escape SHIELD, because he owed her for Bucky, but had she lifted her curse from the others? And was she still on the warpath against Tony? No, in doubt, it was best to keep her under hand.