Before anything else is done I decide to sit at the table and start to eat the food Wanda brought for me. She never leaves my cell, but instead is kind of weirdly standing nearby enough not to scare me I guess. I assume this because I did freak out when she tried to touch my face, so this seemed like the best bet to why she wasn't closer.

After a bit of time she does eventually talk to me as I eat, seeming to try and relax me more. Her friendly voice comforts me enough to ask her to sit down in the chair across from me and we chat a bit more. Once done she tells me that she has to take me to see the man in charge and he'd explain more to what he expects of us. I of course want to see Archie, not someone I don't know but I decide not to argue as I get to my feet and she ushers me out of my small prison room when she orders the guard to open the door.

Once I'm out of the room I feel my wrists become secured with cuffs in front of me from the man who opened the door for us. When I notice this I panic and look quickly at her in alarm. Her eyes are locked onto mine with a soft smile on her face as she explains that the soldiers don't trust me enough to let me roam around without being secured, so this is a precaution. I don't like it but I also don't say anything as I nod to her slowly and now she sets a soft grip onto my upper arm and guides me down the hallway.

I stare around the space we walk to see soldiers pass us in formation, their eyes landing on me when they notice who I am. Their eyes are a little scary because they felt evil and non-trusting. If I could feel their emotions or read their minds I could figure this out more. I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into but this isn't what I had in mind when I asked my parents to go on vacation.

Finally we reach a door after some turns through the halls and I see a plaque on the door that says Commander Baron Von Strucker. She opens the door for me and helps me inside, seeing a man sitting at the desk across the room. The door closes behind us and she guides me more inside.

"Madison James." the man sitting at his desk says gently in his Sokovian accent while resting back on his chair, "I've been told how powerful you are, giving my soldiers and my kids some trouble."

I stare at the pale man as I stand in front of his desk without a word, Wanda still holding onto my arm. His blue eyes bore into mine, one of them covered with monocle glasses that loop around his ear to hold it in place. His buzz cut hair and uniform makes it noticeable that he is a soldier, while the serious look has me know he's in charge.

"Have you decided to tell the truth?"

I gulp a bit, watching him carefully. "I...I have been telling the truth. I swear we aren't part of the United States Government in any way."

He tilts his head a bit, watching me for a few more seconds. Then he shifts his eyes to land on Wanda, who speaks up and assures him that we are who we say we are. This seems to be all he needs to trust my words as he nods at her and then leans himself forward onto his arms on the desk. "So your magical background has no part in why you're in Sokovia?"

I press my lips together, shaking my head lightly. "We wanted to explore things outside of our hometown and families."

He slowly nods his head and then smiles a bit, "Well I apologize for what has accrued, little one. We are trained to be on our toes and you were a threat to our country when you followed my men the other night."

I of course want to punch this guy in the face for thinking an apology would be enough to make our experience here go away, but I know trust is the key here if it means getting out alive. "We were just trying to talk to them." I say as I point my cuffed hands to Wanda to indicate I meant her and the boy, "We heard them talking about magic and wanted to know about their powers."

"Curiosity." He says gently while shifting his eyes between Wanda and me for a few long seconds. Then he says, "Well then I'm sure Wanda has told you what they went through to get them."

I nod slowly, "She did."

"I told her we could help them expand their powers." Wanda chimes in, "They have potential to be great magical beings if trained correctly."

He watches her for a while, as if not sure why Wanda would ask this of him. But before he can speak up again I say, "I accept the offer and apology."

His eyes switch from where he had been staring at the girl next to me and now has them on me. I'm not sure what he's thinking until he finally smiles softly and claps his hands gently in anticipation, "Excellent. That's excellent." he nods slowly and stares back at Wanda. This time he doesn't look upset or concerned, "Prepare their new rooms and help them settle in."

...

"Oh God, Maddie." Archie's voice comes to my ears when he sees me walk into his room after seeing the Commander. The man in charge allowed Wanda to guide me to my best friends' room to see him and then was ordered to take us to our new rooms.

My heart sinks slightly from hearing the heartbreak behind the pissed off face he's showing and I know there's not much I can do to ease him. "I'm okay." I say gently as Wanda takes off the cuffs from my wrists and I rub them a bit from the pain.

His eyes shift angrily from me to Wanda, "What did she do?"

I shake my head, staring at her for a second before turning back to him. He's now on his feet once off the bed and I can tell that he's ready to beat someone up. "Nothing. She didn't do anything."

"Now why don't I believe that the one who gets into our heads did nothing?" He says slightly upset.

"Because you trust me and I wouldn't lie to you." I say simply, knowing that for the moment that Wanda hasn't done anything to make me think otherwise of her.

He watches me for a few long seconds before waking closer. I'm almost positive he's going to do something with that look on his face but instead shocks me when he walks straight to me. I take a breath and smile gently at him as he says with a hint of a mad tone, "You're absolutely not okay. Look at your face."

I wince a bit when he places his hands onto my cheeks after he looks away from her and back to me, "Arch...easy."

He shakes his head, his thumbs grazing my cuts and bruises. "They put their hands on you."

"They put their hands on you too." I add because his face looks no better than mine.

He shakes his head, "That's not the point."

I set my hands to his wrists, "Honestly, I'm fine." I give him a soft smile, "I swear."

He's not convinced. I can see it all over his face. But he just nods regardless and then stares at her before I force him to stare back at me and explain things to him. It's pretty much a piece of cake and takes almost no effort coming from me to get him to understand. I wish I could have said more or could telepathically tell him, to assure him the purpose is more to keep us alive than to actually trust anyone here. But I know that Wanda can read my mind and I have to do everything possible to not think about what I really feel. I don't know if she's always listening or if she only does when necessary.

If it wasn't for me being convinced on the path handed to us and helping him see the good side he would have probably told her to go screw herself. Which in all honesty would have been my answer too if I hadn't been so scared in the first place. But what other options do we have right now? For all we know if we say no they will kill us to keep their secret.

...

A few days have passed now with lots of rest and getting our strength back from the soldiers torture we're able to walk around. What we found was a Sokovian military base on a mountain surrounded by woods of a secluded area in a small town in Sokovia. From the windows of the base it seems like acres and miles of land and looks to be very easy to get lost if not familiar with the area. However, this allowed us to at least know what the outside looks like and our surroundings a bit.

I'm never away from Archie in those few days. They shockingly allow us to stay with each other whether it is in our new rooms or walking around. At this point I feel like he is my lifeline to staying sane after being away for so long. The only issue is that my eyes are always glued to the door, afraid that this nightmare will get worse and we'd end up being taken away from each other again. Archie is supportive and comforting when this happens but it doesn't ease my mind much.

Another day comes and goes and now the training begins. It's a week after they let us out of those cells when we walk into the training room. Once we are inside the room we are let out of the bracelets so we can use our powers during it and I'm very grateful for it as I rub my wrist gently. Then they split us up and Archie ends up with Pietro while I'm with Wanda. It honestly takes a lot of effort not to flinch or feel scared with the soldiers or even with the kids we are training with. Every time Wanda stepped close to me I'd jump back as if she was about to kill me, and the look of sadness on her face made me upset each time because I had a feeling that she wasn't a bad person, just that we're in a bad situation.

"I'm not going to hurt you on purpose, Madison." She says gently, showing her glowing ball of telekinesis form out of her hands for me to see. "We're training you to control your powers better, remember?"

I press my lips together, my eyes shifting over to Archie because I rather stay by his side. "I...I know." I say in a hushed voice, my tired eyes looking back at her. "Sorry."

She gives me a soft smile and a gentle shake of the head, "Don't apologize. I know you're scared."

I suck on my busted lip a bit, staring at her for a few long seconds. "I don't want to be."

She gives me a small smile, "If you trust us we can help with that too." She watches me for a second, "Strucker might look scary and I know what the soldiers did was uncalled for, but it's how they are trained and you spooked them by following us that night."

I watch her carefully, hating that she's justifying the whole thing but also slightly getting it because we did in fact try to see what was going on. I just wish they'd handled it better, still feeling my body ache as if they are hitting me. "I guess we should learn to say hi instead of snooping." I try to joke.

She gives me a lopsided smile, but nods regardless. "A hi wouldn't hurt."

...

As another week or so passes we start to get closer to Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, who are both 17 and turned out to be twins. Knowing this much was a good start and the more we built our friendship with them the more information we got from each other's past. This started with finding out that they grew up here in Sokovia and are familiar with having soldiers around without even batting an eye. When they were 10 they had a war in their country and until this day the soldiers never really left. It's as if they stalk around the country on their guard waiting for something else to happen. In all honesty I can't blame them now that I understand the fear from the attack on New York.

To top all that off this war has had them a little lost on how to fit in because their parents died during it and they became orphans. A missile ended up in their house with no warning and killed them on the spot just as another came in not too long after, which almost killed the twins too. To make things worse we found out that the missiles happened to be made by Stark Industries, Tony Stark's own company. It wouldn't have mattered if I told them that when this happened Tony wasn't fully in charge of things back then, because something like that will always haunt you. They were only kids and seeing their parents die like that causes a lot of trauma, anger, hate and a need for some type of justice. I can't blame them and I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be the same way if it happened to me.

Now what surprised me when they told us this story is how they are actually okay with being around us. I say this because when they became orphans they didn't just have that hate for Tony, they had it against Americans too. They'd been at protests and rallies that were Anti-American since around 15 or 16 because of that war. Getting their powers was even to help their country from another attack. Luckily though in the time we've been here we've all adapted to each other and are now pretty good friends.

...

It's been a hell of a ride learning our powers. By letting them help us they managed to in fact get us to figure out how to control our magic more than when we were growing up. Almost 20 years of having these abilities and the most we'd do at home is have our noses in the books and barely ever got to use our powers unless it was during our lessons. But here we can use them pretty freely. Once they trusted us more the bracelets were taken off for longer periods of time even when we weren't training and they've shown us how to relax, how to let it swarm us enough to have bits and pieces of that magic out without overdoing it. The way the energy of my powers makes a tingling sensation rather than chaotically running through my body from being overwhelmed before shooting out fire is amazing. Even controlling my telepathic power is freeing as I'm able to shift between people's minds a lot more easily. The next step is working on focusing myself enough to block people out and keep someone from reading my thoughts.

Now despite the fact that we are no longer being locked in our rooms and aren't being watched as if we have something to hide we're still not allowed to go out. We have been warned not to leave the Sokovian army compound that is located in the mountains. It's a beautiful place and being able to go onto the balconies or stare out the windows to see it is amazing, but I definitely miss being out in the world. This has made it more clear on why the twins ran away the day we saw them in the city.

With that in mind we haven't been able to go home either. Besides the training we've been doing we were also told it was too dangerous being seen with our powers and of course explains more into why the twins were desperate to get out. So the best we've got is calling and video chatting with our families.

When we were let out of our rooms we called our parents immediately and for obvious reasons we left out the being kidnapped and tortured part before apologizing about not reaching out to them. Then we explained that we found new friends that have magic too and how they are helping us adapt to it more, adding that we also fell in love with the city and plan to extend our stay in Sokovia. We figured this would be the best way to keep them from being too concerned about us and make sure that the Sokovian army doesn't have any reasons to hurt them. I'm still uneasy considering they literally hurt us and won't let us leave.

From this conversation we could tell that they were happy, but we also knew they were upset about not coming home any time soon. Despite that however, they seemed to understand that we want to expand on our magic and they also respect that we are old enough to make our own choices.

"I'm homesick, Arch." I tell him while watching TV in Archie's room a month later, leaning up against him on the bed.

He half smiles and looks at me, "I know me too. We're making a lot of progress here though."

I press my lips together because I'm still concerned about why we aren't allowed to leave. I have this feeling like there must be more to it than just hiding our powers from the world but I know that asking won't give us answers. "I'm grateful for the twins and Strucker for helping us get our powers under control but this isn't our life or home."

He rubs my arm gently as he tries to comfort me, "One day at a time. Stay focused and we'll get through it."

I smile, leaning into his touch a bit. "We made the right choice though. Didn't we?" I ask gently, "Considering we're lying to our parents about everything. No guarantee we are coming back."

He takes a soft breath, seeming to be thinking. "We made a choice to help survive." He says in almost a whisper, as if scared someone will hear. "We just have to try to stay alive long enough to get back to them."

I nod slowly, knowing this was my idea to go along with things but it doesn't make it any easier. "I would have been lost if you weren't here."

He shifts himself a bit so he's able to look at me better, his eyes worried because he knows that if something ever happened to him I wouldn't be the same. "Well I'm right here. I got you, Mads."

I half smile at him, hugging him. His hugs are always the best and remind me of home. He's the only familiar thing I can grasp onto now. His brown eyes still make me feel safe and calms me down when I look at them because not much about him has changed other than the subtle differences like his hair being a little longer so he has to side part it instead of being a bit messy and spiked up while still rockin that scruff on his face. He seems to like it so he's been shaving and letting it grow on and off. But the sad part is that I can tell his scent is almost gone, being here for over a month is dissolving his normal smell. We have all of our things from when they went to the motel and packed it all up so no one noticed we disappeared. But the soap and travel shampoos/conditioners we had with us are gone. The only thing left is his cologne and once that finishes everything about home will be a memory.

I feel him rub my back as I hug him, both of us taking a breath. Then I sense someone coming as a wind of thoughts follow and I smile to myself when I hear who it is.

"You guys are adorable."

"Don't get any ideas, Wanda." I think as I laugh in my head.

"Oh the idea is there. Stop making it obvious." She laughs back before I hear her footsteps.

I pull away from Archie when she walks in and I turn to her, giving a sly look. "He's my best friend. Never gonna happen."

She slightly smirks at me, but then notices Archie staring so she doesn't continue. He can always tell when we are telepathically talking to each other. "Strucker wants us in the training room in 10 minutes."

Archie rolls his eyes, sitting back against his wall. "We literally had 2 hours of training this morning. Doesn't he give it a rest?"

"Not until you are able to freeze time for longer than 10 seconds and stop Pietro."

When it comes to his powers he's gotten better with his telekinesis, but his freezing still needs work. As for his premonitions there's really no way to practice that as far as we all know. He just gets winds of random flashes when he least expects it. Sometimes it's from touching things with his hands and other times it just pops into his head. This power is just as tricky as my telepathy since it takes more mental strength to figure them out.

"I've never been able to freeze for longer than that. It drains me out too quickly. Plus your brother is too fast."

"Which is why he wants you training more. He knows you can do it."

"I think I'll lose my mind before then." He says this sarcastically but I know he's serious. He's getting fed up.

"Come on, Arch. You have to admit that this is a lot more fun than having our noses in books all day. We barely got to use our powers at home." As much as I hate that we aren't able to leave, we do have more freedom with our powers.

"Ughhh." He groans playfully before pushing me over gently and smiles, "Fine."

I smile back and laugh, pushing him back. "Jerk."

"Oh you know you love me." He hits my chin with his knuckles slightly.

I roll my eyes but smile, "Always will."

So we both get to our feet and my eyes land on Wanda. I see that she still has a soft smirk on her face, "What did I say?" I think to her as I walk behind Archie and beside her.

"He's your best friend." She thinks back to me in a sarcastic voice.

"Always has been and always will be." I smile at her as I try to hide my laugh from her sarcasm so the soldiers don't notice that we are secretly talking to each other as they pass. Most of the soldiers here are paranoid when we do that, thinking we're trying to find ways to get outside. They've learned their lessons from the twins.

Once we get to the training room Pietro is already here lifting some weights. There's sweat all over his face and it makes his silver skater-hair stick to his forehead. Majority of the time he's in his tracksuit, so you don't even notice that he has muscles unless he takes off the jacket or is training. His usual training outfit is a gray tank top, black basketball shorts and gray running sneakers. Wanda is in black leggings, a black t-shirt with her brownish-red hair in a high ponytail and red converse. Archie is wearing a green long-sleeve workout shirt and black workout pants with black high tops, and I'm in blue knee length basketball shorts with a simple blue and white tie dye t-shirt with the New York Yankees symbol on it and white Nikes, my hair is in a side ponytail as I sweep my side bangs behind my right ear.

"Ah, there you are." The accent of Baron Von Strucker comes from the upstairs area as he looks down at all four of us, "Archie my boy, we are close to getting you to the capacity it takes to stop time in longer aspects."

I look up at the light-skinned man in an all black Sokovian uniform, buzzcut and his monocle glasses that never seems to budge even when he moves around. Despite how scary he seems to look he treats us like equals, even like we are his own kids. "Low energy for us?" I ask him. Whenever we train we are usually using our powers against each other with low range magic so no one gets hurt. But every once in a while he'll have us raise it up by a few notches to give a challenge.

"We'll start at 10% power." He tells us.

We all nod and go to our spots in the open area of the training room surrounding Archie. I smirk at him as he looks at me with a smile on his face, "Don't hold back." He thinks to me and I can't help but laugh because he knows I would never hold back.

"On my mark." Strucker says in his booming commander-like voice and we all get ourselves ready.

My hands turn blue and flames seep out, Wanda's palms swarm in her red orbs, and Pietro gets himself in a running position. He's so fast that freezing him in his spot isn't easy at all. Archie hasn't been able to do it yet because he has to concentrate all of his energy to will himself to freeze the object he wants and the only time we ever see Pietro is when he decides to stop. All we normally see is a silver streak in bits and pieces when he runs so we're not even sure if it's possible to freeze him.

"Now, Wanda!" Strucker yells at her and she doesn't hesitate to throw balls of red at my best friend.

With no effort Archie is able to freeze each one as they stop in mid-air each time and then swats them aside with his telekinesis. I can't help but smile at my best friend as he does this, seeing how much he's grown with his powers. Then I smirk when Strucker calls my name, my hands pointing downward to the floor. I see him stare at me and he smirks back just as I shoot out blue lines of fire that go right towards him. This is going to be fun.