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Clint was sitting in his cell in the Raft. He still couldn’t wrap his mind about what had happened in the last few days. It had all happened so fast that he found himself unable to process it all.
Three days earlier, he had been teaching Cooper and Lila how to use a bow, planning to go waterskiing and overall enjoying his retirement, when a phone call from Cap changed everything. Steve had told him everything that was happening in New-York.
One look from Laura told him everything he needed to know. They would be okay, their fourth child needed him more than they did. And in a few hours, just like that, he was gone, off to New-York to free the girl he considered his daughter.
But it didn’t stop there. Before they knew it, all the Avengers were fighting each other in a deserted airport in Leipzig. None of it made sense. They were supposed to fight alongside each other not against. But still, they fought with everything they had, each and every one believing in the cause they were defending.
But as the fight went on, Steve’s side knew they weren’t going to win this fight. With Steve and Bucky gone, thanks to the help of both Wanda and Natasha, they stood no chance.
Now that they were outnumbered, there was no point in keeping up the fight. Clint and Sam were the first to understand, and they stood down, dropping their weapons before one of them, no matter what side they were on, could get seriously hurt. Scott followed their lead. As soon as they stopped fighting, Ross’s soldiers circled them and forced them on their knees.
Once Wanda was sure that Steve and Bucky were gone safely, she saw her teammates on the ground. The girl was exhausted, using so much of her magic had taken a lot from her, she stopped fighting. The second she touched the ground next to Clint, she fell to her knees, head down. She herself didn’t get how they could have gotten so far. She couldn’t help thinking that once again, everything was her fault, and everything started to go downhill ever since her loss of control in Lagos.
Clint saw the fear in her eyes when she looked at him, but his heart broke a little when he also deciphered resignation in her eyes. The guards were quick to cuff her too, guns trained on her. The archer hoped she would be able to stay calm, as he knew reacting would make things much worse. As feared and expected, the cuffs and the multiple hands on her became too much and she started to panic. Her eyes glowed a disturbing shade of red and she started to lash out at the guards despite Clint’s pleas for her to calm down. She felt trapped again and she had promised herself not to let herself be caged ever again. She had promised Pietro too and that wasn’t a promise she was willing to break.
A couple of soldiers were hit by one of her red beams and thrown several feet away from the little tired witch before she was injected with something that made her go still on the ground, unconscious..
Clint, Sam and Scott all protested against that, telling them that she was just a kid, and that they had no rights to do something like that. It was no use, the soldiers didn’t even grant them one look. Clint prayed that it was only a downer kind of serum, but he knew that he wouldn’t know for sure before a while
Clint looked around him one more time. The other Avengers had disappeared as soon as the four of them had surrendered, not wanting to see what was to follow. Only Natasha was left. She stood on the far end of the tarmac; her eyes fixed on them. When the archer met her gaze, he read a promise in her green orbs. She would do everything in her power to get them out.
That’s how Clint found himself in a cell, in an underwater prison known as one of the most secure in the country. The four cells were in the same room, facing each other: Sam and Scott on one Side, and Clint and Wanda on the other, all separated by unbreakable glass walls.
It had been two hours since they had been locked up, and none of them had made a sound, nor spoken. They were all trying to process what was happening. Wanda still hadn’t woken up from the sedative she had been given at the airport and it started to worry Clint.
He was wondering if he should call her name or not, when Ross and two of his soldiers came in, heading straight for Wanda’s cell, carrying things that none of them could identify.
“What are you going to do to her? She’s not even awake.” Clint half shouted, pressing his hand on the glass separating his cell form Wanda’s.
Nobody answered him, but he got a pretty good idea when he saw the tallest guard picking the girl up and the other one slipping something on her, fastening it on her back. A straightjacket.
Clint once again started to shout for them to stop, that she was a kid and shouldn’t be treated that way. He was soon joined by Sam and Scott that backed him up when they saw the girl being restrained.
Ross turned towards them.
“She is dangerous, a weapon that we can't let free. She gets what she deserves, her powers are out of control. “
Their shouts amplified when they saw one of the guards take out a black, round device, that he put around Wanda’s neck. A light glowed red on the side of it. Clint couldn’t believe it. They had put his kid in a shock collar. His screams turned from anger to pure rage, but the three men ignored him once again.
“Let’s see if it works. Maybe we can even wake her up with that thing. “
Before any of the Avengers could say anything, he pressed a button on a little remote he had fished in his pocket. The red light flickered, and another press made it go off.
Wanda’s eyes jerked open and a blood-curdling scream left her mouth, as electricity pulsed through her body. They did it one more time, paying no attention to Clint’s, Sam’s and Scott’s cries, shouts and screams.
Wanda curled up on herself, pressed again the far corner of her cell, shaking from pain and fear when the men finally left the room, after warning them that they were all closely monitored, and every wrong move would have repercussions.
As soon as they were alone, Clint sank to his knees and started to talk gently to Wanda, trying to coax her out of the little ball she was currently curled in.
“It’s okay sweetheart, it’s over now, you can look up, they’re gone. “
It took several tries before she lifted her head, and even more before she was able to move to the wall that was separating her from the archer. They sat like this for a long time, on either side of the same glass wall for a long time. It was Clint that broke the silence.
“Hey sweetie, can you talk to me? You can say anything you want.”
The girl opened wide green eyes and looked directly at him.
“Clint, I…”
But she couldn’t finish as a pulse of electricity run through her body, leaving her a shaking, breathless mess. Tears slid down her cheeks, spilling from her closed eyes.
They had to learn what triggered the collar to go off, and they learned it the hard way. They discovered that every sudden movement from the girl would set it off, but also when the boys were too loud, when she fell asleep for more than two or three hours, sometimes less, as if she was punished for even existing.
They weren’t given much food, Wanda even less, sometimes not at all. They figured they were trying to make her weak to keep her in check, as they were so afraid of her.
After what seemed like a few days, maybe a week, they started to be taken out of their cell one by one and would return with bruises all over their bodies. The questions they were asked were always the same: where were Steve Rodgers and James Barnes? And the answers were always the same as well: none at all, which led them to be beaten up, until they were brought back to their cell.
At first, only the boys were interrogated. But it didn’t last. One day, two guards came in, and instead of heading to Sam’s cell, as it should have been his turn, they went to Wanda’s. the girl was too weak to properly fight it, but she still tried. At the first attempt she made to struggle, the collar went off, sending her tumbling backwards and fall to her knees. One of the guards went to her, carelessly picked her off the ground and carried her out of the room, accompanied by the screams of the three male Avengers that begged them not to touch her, to take them instead. It had no effect.
Several hours later, she was brought back in her cell, weaker than ever. They boys weren’t sure if she was even conscious. She didn’t move at all, didn’t open her eyes, nothing. They only motion coming from her was her chest rising and falling as she breathed. Clint was worried sick about her but couldn’t do anything as every wrong move would be punished through Wanda, and that was the last thing he wanted to happen.
They definitely needed help, and soon. Wanda wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer in such a state.
It had been three weeks since Steve and Bucky had fled from Leipzig airport after the battle. They had been hiding ever since, trying to gather as much intel as they could on where their friends were kept. Natasha had joined them a week after the fight, and the three of them had managed to rally the king of Wakanda T’Challa that had first sided with Tony.
They all realized that the law wouldn’t do anything for them, so they had to hide, and Wakanda was the perfect place. Natasha had left for a few days to go check on Clint’s family at the farm and keep them updated mostly on Clint and Wanda. Laura had been devastated to learn that two of her family members were kept prisoners. She had made Natasha promise to bring both of them back to her as soon as they were free. Natasha gave her her word; it was enough for Laura. The mother of three, almost four, knew how much Clint and Wanda also meant to the redheaded spy, and apart from that, she wasn’t the type to let anybody on her team down.
The main challenge was to find where they had been taken. They had already checked the known most secure prisons of the country, but there was no sign of them anywhere.
It was only thanks to Natasha’s hacking skills that they managed to find a convincing lead. It was a prison that they had only heard about, that was still a project a few years ago, but that was meant to become one of the most guarded places of the world, a place where only the most wanted and dangerous criminals were supposed to be kept. Apparently, it had been built, and was standing and working.
They managed to get a location: it was an underwater prison, in the middle of the ocean, meaning that they would need backup to go there if they wanted to break their friends free. They needed at least a quinjet to go there, and T’Challa offered his help.
The rescue mission was on.
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