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Steve, Sam and Clint stared into the operating theatre were Dr. Cho, Dr. Strange and Scott Lang fought to stabilize Vision. They hadn’t believed it when Natasha told them what Wanda had done but it was hard to deny the gaping hole in Vision’s head where the Mind Stone had been ripped out.
“Why isn’t Tony in there?” Steve asked. “Not to sell Scott short but-”
“But he’s no Tony Stark,” Natasha stated. “We can’t find Tony. Rhodes, Spider-Man, Pepper and Happy are all looking for him. Bruce and Thor are guarding the Mind Stone, hopefully just until we can restore it to Vision… We were lucky you know. Wanda would have been gone to Thanos, the Mind Stone in hand and none the wiser if Dr. Strange hadn’t brought Bruce and Thor home just then.”
“Wanda asked us to let her and Vision have the compound to themselves for the night. She wanted to set up a romantic dinner for just the two of them,” Sam sounded stunned.
“She wanted their first date to be special but neither of them were comfortable going out in public,” Steve added. “We were all so happy for them, getting past everything that happened with the Accords. It has to be some sort of misunderstanding. Where is she being held?”
“Come on,” Natasha said. She led them into another wing of the compound. Sam, Steve and especially Clint winced to see Wanda restrained by a barbaric looking metal straight-jacket that forced her to kneel, her arms twisted behind her, a cruel gag covering her mouth. “Strange put it on her,” Natasha said, “Called it the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. He said was necessary to restrain her powers and Thor agreed that this wasn’t excessive when restraining a sorcerer. As long as she’s under direct observation they both agreed that it should be safe enough to remove the gag while we get some answers.”
“Do it,” Steve said. He shook his head, “There’s more going on, there has to be. Wanda’s just a kid.”
“She’s HYDRA Steve, she always was,” Natasha exclaimed.
“They confused her,” Steve protested. “She and Pietro were young and alone in the world. They just wanted to protect their homeland and HYDRA took advantage of that.”
Natasha reached out and loosened the bands sealing Wanda’s mouth. “Where’s Tony?” she demanded even as Steve knelt beside Wanda and pled, “Please just explain what happened. I know this is some sort of misunderstanding. Just tell us what really happened, we won’t be angry.”
Wanda rolled her neck, taking advantage of the microscopic freedom granted to her with the removal of the gag. Her hair fell forward, shadowing her eyes as she glanced from Steve’s open expression to Natasha’s hard eyes. “How have you stood their condescension for so long and not murdered them all in their sleep?” she asked Natasha. Then she smiled viciously at the look of shock on Steve’s face. “I am twenty-nine years old. I was twenty-three when HYDRA recruited me. I am no child! Were you a child when you first attempted to enlist at twenty-three? Stark may well have had all the maturity of a child at twenty-one when he took the reins of his war-profiteer’s empire but I do not excuse his sins for your country’s indulgent refusal to tell your youth to GROW UP. Nor am I some pathetic damsel in distress waiting for the great Captain America to come into my poor humble country and show me the errors of my ways, to ease my confusion about right and wrong and to guide me on the path to true goodness.”
Natasha’s smile, all sharp edges and cutting disdain, was a match for Wanda’s, “When I play the helpless damsel I don’t blame my marks for falling for it,” she replied. “When I want to be treated like a competent adult I act like one.”
“What can I say? I thought I’d have to work for it.” Wanda shrugged, “I was prepared to bide my time, to suffer with quiet dignity, doing my best for the team while you all regarded me with suspicion after I had my fun digging into your private hells… I was not prepared for Ultron’s madness, I allowed Stark to take the Mind Stone so it could bend his genius to pave the way for our glorious purpose.”
Clint’s head jerked up, a look of dawning horror in his eyes.
For a moment Wanda allowed her face to reflect grief, sadness and regret, “I should have listened to Pietro and killed Stark the first time we laid eyes on him at Strucker’s castle- Do you know why it was that we survived HYDRA’s experiments when every other volunteer perished?” she asked tangentially.
“I thought you were like me,” Steve murmured, unable to tear his eyes from Wanda. “Erskine’s formula worked on me because I was a good man.”
“Captain America, you are very true to your title,” Wanda snorted. “Arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant. You force your values, your culture on everyone around you and truly believing they are better for it. Because who could possibly know better than you, than ‘just a kid from Brooklyn’. No, I didn’t survive because I was like you,” she spat. “The Mind Stone has purpose. Or it had before Thor’s lightning turned it to a clean slate to be overwritten by Stark’s computerized servant.
“When List ran his procedure I felt the Infinity Stone digging through my mind. It found my hatred of Stark and we resonated. He murdered my parents. He thwarted the Mind Stone in the glorious purpose given to it by Thanos himself.” Clint lunged at Wanda, knocking Sam on his ass when the former PJ tried to grab him. “Directly when Stark resisted it’s siren call and once again when he tore at the heart of Thanos’ army with that warhead. But I was able to reach into his mind and set his horrors free.”
Steve locked his arms under the archer’s and lifted him off the ground, he ignored it as Clint kicked and bucked against his hold.
“After all he’d done against us, I thought it only fair that he be used to serve our purpose,” Wanda shrugged minutely, as much as the straight-jacket would allow her. “But, as always, Stark made a mess of it.”
“Clint! You’ve gotta calm down!” Sam pleaded. “She was brainwashed, just like you. It wasn’t her fault.”
Wanda giggled, “Even now, with Vision’s life force ebbing and Stark missing, you are still so very quick to make excuses for me. I didn’t even have to cry this time.”
“What did you do with Tony?” Natasha demanded.
“HYDRA is riddled with different sects,” Wanda continued as Steve and Sam struggled to contain Clint. “They all believe that there is some ancient god that they are meant to bring back to Earth to usher in a new era, but is it the god of the Tesseract? Or the god of the Monolith? HYDRA has nearly as many opinions on the identity of their god as it has Heads. Me? I believe in no God, not in a world where my kind, loving parents were allowed to die so that a monster like Stark could prosper.”
“Why? Why did you join HYDRA?” Steve asked, sounding almost sick when Clint finally gave up fighting to get at Wanda.
“Now you ask me?” Wanda asked. She widened her eyes in simulated disbelief. “After three years of calling me an Avenger? … Well, better late than never I suppose. Do you know who sent the missile that killed my parents?”
“I always figured it was one of those SI missiles that got sold to terrorists,” Sam said.
Wanda laughed. “The United States Government! NATO! They called it “Operation Deliberate Force” and patted themselves on the back for targeting only military installations. But my family were just people, we just wanted to live and be left alone. My mother sold food to the soldiers, my father cleaned the floors. What other choice did they have? The soldiers had the money. Our home was less than a block from the base. Every other militia group that tried to recruit Pietro and I as we grew to adulthood offered to oust the ruling government of the month, small thinkers. Only HYDRA had the desire to strike at the source of our misery, at the bully of the world and the maker of the sticks they used to force the rest of us into capitulation. HYRDA promised us that Iron Man and his kept Avengers would not be enough thwart our revenge… But in the end Strucker could not deliver.”
“What did you do to Tony?” Natasha pressed.
“I had hopes for Ultron, there was poetry in Stark building the mean of his destruction.” Wanda sighed, “But Ultron was madness. Even before Thor intervened Stark had already managed to distort the Mind Stone’s true vision. Instead of following its purpose and eliminated that thin line of defense which held Thanos’ forces back in 2012, Stark’s creation decided to SAVE humanity.” Wanda rolled her eyes, “As God saved humanity by bringing the the Great Flood down on us. Like his creator, Ultron’s ego knew no bounds. He saw himself as a god when, in truth, he was nothing more than a tool, as we all are tools in Thanos’ glorious purpose.”
“All along, you’ve been working for Thanos,” Clint snarled, murder in his eyes. “Laughing at us.”
“It’s the sceptre talking,” Sam protested. “Not her.”
Wanda shrieked with laughter. “It did not brainwash me you fool! It showed me how my goals aligned with its goals! Thanos? Just another conquer. I have lived under one dictator or another all my life. Nothing ever changes, only names that I cannot be bothered to remember. But in exchange for aiding this dictator I was to be rewarded: Those who looked down on my people brought low. Tony Stark, dead at my hands.”
“Last chance,” Natasha declared stepping forward and pressing the point of a knife to the thin skin beneath Wanda’s eye. “Where is Tony. What did you do to him.”
“I never listened to Pietro when I should have,” Wanda said. “He was straightforward, had no patience with subterfuge. I always thought my plans were better because they were more complex. Sometimes simple is best. Pietro was right, I should have killed Stark before he ever laid hand on the scepter. All I gained for the trouble I went to was grief. Stark did nothing useful with the Scepter, he just killed my twin. And even now I keep making the same mistake. I waited and hoped Stark’s creation could be corrupted to serve us-”
Wanda broke off and turned her gaze on Clint, “I should have stayed and continued my seduction of Vision when you came with your explosions and your traps, attacking him in the place he called home. But the thought of attacking Stark with the blessing and aid of those he called friends and family was too tempting to resist.” She sighed heavily, “Wanting to make those who have wronged me suffer was always a weakness for me. I sabotaged my end game for the pleasure of dropping a dozen cars on Stark’s head and it wasn’t even his back that broke. I never listened to Pietro when I should. But you, you sat here and listened to me talk. Stark would have mocked it as a - a ‘villain monologue’? Ah, whatever you call it, it served its purpose.” Wanda grinned wickedly. “It’s too late for Stark now. I only regret that he won’t be alive when the Chitauri over run this planet and make his worst fear into your reality.”