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Wanda never understood exactly why in these semi-weekly meetings that Ross had to go through every single piece of data he could find. She understood why the American government, United Nations, and Fury wanted to know how their training at the Compound was going and what they could do, did they really have to review it all in detail? Steve explained to her that the AI was the one watching them and constantly monitoring and automatically inputting all the information of their training such as how accurate their practice gunshots were, how quickly they went through training sessions, what their answers were to quick decisions during missions and what they led to, and how much more accurate a certain set of defensive moves were.
It was daunting, to constantly have something watching you and marking up your abilities every second of your training and scale it as better or worse. She never did like eyes on her, but with what she got at the Compound she learned to just pretend it wasn’t there and move along with her training. At the same time, she also sort of liked how even in the short few weeks that she was here that she could see her own stats curving for the better, that she was improving. Natasha and Steve had been on her, gentle at times but also constantly pushing. It was only after those first few weeks that she had been able to see the results of just how hard she was trying, how their guided training was in fact helping her.
She held in a yawn, listening as Ross went on an on about the pie charts and line charts, the general summary of what they had been doing for the past few weeks since the last time they had this meeting. Tony and Rhodey were here for this rundown too, they had been visiting for the past few days to help with training and to see how everything was going too. Thankfully at least, Ross always went in the same order so she could see when things were going to start winding down. She holds in her fidgetiness of sitting so long for the last chart that comes to the screen.
She lets out a breath along with half the team as Ross finishes going over the results of the last chart. Wanda would’ve liked to say that she paid attention, but that had left her within the first hour.
Ross seems a little bit relieved himself to finally let the screen go to grey. Tony moved in his chair, stretching his legs out a bit and even Sam shifted in his seat, ready to move out.
“We done? I’m sure you’ve got things to do back in DC,” Sam commented to him.
It was the slight pause that caught her attention first. Wanda turned back to look at Ross and she could see that while there was some relief on his face, there was also a bit of tension in his shoulders. Just slightly. And he hadn’t actually turned off the screen yet.
“Not yet,” Ross explained, setting the file folder in his hands down while he moved to bring something up on his laptop. Everyone furrowed their eyebrows, but got comfortable in their seats ago. The feeling of relief was short lived.
“We’ve become aware of this surveillance footage that is starting to get global attention. It came from a corner store owner when he had a store in Sokovia before moving to Serbia,” Ross says as he presses the remote and the group watches the screen change to a black and white video view of a store. First it was of the front door where the cashier was then the aisles. A few seconds in they see a small body enter one of the aisles on the left that the camera was focused on. “The owner claims that this is video of Wanda Maximoff stealing from his store after throwing rocks at his employee.”
Although many of them tried not to turn to look directly at Wanda, trying to look at the screen instead a few eyes moved to try and look back at her. And even if they didn’t look clearly or even see Wanda in their line of Vision, they could all immediately sense her sudden tension and stiffness. She only needed to see the image of someone beginning to walk down the aisle before she looked away and slowly began to cross her arms in front of her like she was tucking herself in, remembering this exact situation clearly.
They more the person walked down the aisle the better they could see it was in fact a girl, a small and thin one. The clothing she wore seemed to almost drag behind her. She moved quietly and timidly down the aisle, stopping when she obviously spotted something. She looked a little more closely before picking up a bottle. She seemed to be reading something off of it before she looked down for a few seconds. The aisle she was in front of hid part of her body so they couldn’t see what she was looking at.
Everyone watched silently after almost a minute of fast-forwarded footage, the girl’s shoulders deflated slightly, but she was still looking at the ground. Finally after a few more seconds the girl looked up and around her, the tension and nerves in her body language much more aware. When the girl looked in the direction of the camera the footage was edited either by Ross or by the actual owner. It paused and a close up picture of the girl appeared beside the actual footage.
Upon that close of inspection everyone knew it was clearly a younger Wanda. She had pinned up her hair to try and hide how long and greasy it was from lack of care of cleanliness. Even in the grainy image you could almost see every strand on its own. Steve was estimating that she was possibly thirteen, maybe even twelve in the video. Most of them were too caught on how small her frame was, how sunken in her eyes were, how you could almost see the sharpness of her cheek bones, a face that lacked any childhood roundness. The image reminded Natasha of when she saw the image of Wanda and Pietro when they first volunteered for the experiments and Hydra documented everything about their physical attributes. The physical look and symptoms of malnutrition had gotten a little better while they were with Hydra, they couldn’t of course have their weapons in poor health, but even now while at the Avengers Compound they were still working to bring Wanda back to a healthy body weight.
A few eyes turned back to Wanda again only to see her looking down intently at the table, lips pursed.
The video continued to show the girl staring at the bottle before beginning to put something in her other fisted hand where the bottle was before. She might’ve succeeded, only a store employee, or at least an adult almost twice her size suddenly came into view stalking down the aisle. Even with his back to the video camera his tone of voice was clear by his body language and by the fact child Wanda literally looked like she jumped a foot. Her wide-eyed panic was clear on her face as she took steps back from the man every time he took steps forward.
It was only when he went to reach out to child Wanda that she suddenly turned and ran.
The next few seconds of footage were choppy and if you were looking away you would’ve missed everything that happened. The camera cut to another in the store that had a wider angle of the entire store where you saw the child scrambled out from the aisle and closer to the cash while the man behind her tried to move after her and the camera angle then came from one directly behind the cashier.
Realizing what was going on the man at the cash register who was taking payment from older woman stood up straighter, hands up and probably yelling as well as he tried to go around to help but Wanda was almost already past him. Looking towards the cashier, child Wanda clearly threw something that was in her fisted hand and they all saw many small objects at the man who then brought his hands up to shield himself. Still running, Wanda pushed past the other female customer before racing out the door.
The footage after was mostly the woman looking alarmed and a man going out the door after her, but only to come in a few seconds later, shoulders in stalking anger as he said something to the other worker.
This time, almost everyone was turned to look at Wanda or at least moved their gaze towards her. She still didn’t look up though, arms tighter around herself as she seemed to try and press herself into a ball, trying to move her head so that her hair might hide some of her face.
“That…that could be anyone,” Tony tried but Rhodey was already shifting in his seat.
“It’s obvious who it is, and anyone who gets a picture of Wanda can put it beside that image and know it too,” Rhodey replied.
“Unfortunately the facial markings are incredibly similar if anyone ever put it in facial recognition software,” Vision’s commented in his usual factual and distinctive tone.
“Already the president is asking about this. Our PR management team is getting many calls and monitoring comments about how the United States would assign Wanda a place on the Avengers, especially after her affiliations with Hydra,” the Secretary of State commented, his tone set like a tightly wound drum.
“Wanda grew up in a country surrounded by Hydra propaganda that was thought to be Shield not just by her but for almost every citizen in Sokovia,” Steve countered back.
“Not only does everyone know that she worked with Hydra but already video of her in protests have also found their way to the Internet,” Ross replied.
“She was protesting a government that turned and continued to establish a war zone in her country,” Natasha answered, her tone getting as tight as Ross’s.
“But that’s not what the general public sees. All they see is that the Avengers now hold a person who worked with Hydra but also with someone with a history of crime. It makes all of you and the United State’s government look bad,” the older man explained, his tone getting more and more strained.
“I think you’re going a little too far,” Rhodey said while at the same time Sam commented as well.
“She’s maybe thirteen in this video what his—”
“It was medicine.”
Wanda’s voice broke everyone out of their argument as they turned to stare at her.
It was the first time Wanda actually took a breath since they started showing the footage. She was still closed off in the chair, looking down now at the floor to avoid their gaze as she seemed to sink in her chair as she felt her eyes on her.
“Pietro was really sick with a fever and cough. I had to leave him in an alleyway five minutes away because I couldn’t move him and he couldn’t stay awake long enough to walk. He was barely able to wake up and talk any more,” Wanda’s voice was softly shaking with defence. Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears. She paused for a moment before continuing, “And they weren’t rocks, they were coins. It was all the money we had…but it wasn’t enough. I was planning on just walking out and leaving the coins on the shelf. We didn’t have any money for food for weeks after.”
The silence in the room was so strong that all of them the actual blades of the fan from across the vent. They could only stare at Wanda as she sunk slightly more in her chair, shame and complete humiliation bare.
Just as Ross began to open his mouth, Tony already beat him to it.
“I think that’s the end of that discussion,” he says gruffly.
Ross just shook his head.
“If we go with this story people will ask why they didn’t go to the hospital,” he countered.
“If they couldn’t afford medicine they couldn’t afford a hospital bed,” Natasha replies just as curtly before shifting slightly. “And hospitals aren’t always safe places when they know the kids that come in don’t have anyone who will notice if they are gone.”
Another heavy blanket fell over the group, but Wanda still didn’t look up from her seat. Her shallow breaths barely made her chest rise and fall.
“Wanda should not have her history laid out like that either,” Vision’s voice came from the back, this time there was something…almost soft in his tone.
“Tell the public it was edited,” Sam suggested.
“And if the public doesn’t buy it?” Ross asked.
Sam shrugged.
“It’ll be another conspiracy on the Internet people will chose to or not to believe,” he explained.
“And as the King of bad PR stories, they’ll move on soon enough,” Tony commented.
Steve shifted in his seat, already sliding it back from the table.
“As Tony said before, unless you wish to discuss our training and numbers any longer, this discussion is over,” Steve told him.
Everyone but Wanda turned to Ross, waiting for his reply. The other man only stared back at them for a few minutes longer as though trying to decide something before he finally sighed in slight annoyance.
“I’ll come back for the next quarter to see how our stats have improved,” he finalized.
The others were nodding in agreement, ready to push their chairs out. But Wanda had already hurried out the room in large quick steps before he could barely finish his sentence.
The others paused, staring at the open doorway, barely seeing the flash of her leaving before they all left just as silently, only giving Ross a glance to give him a pointed glare or look then looking away again.
~.~
Wanda had been huddled in her bed, leaning against the pillows with her blanket wrapped around her when she heard the soft knock at the door. Already expecting it, she moved her gaze slowly from the television in her room to the door. She had holed herself up in here since the meeting hours ago and thankfully even Vision knew to give her a bit of space. Her cheeks were still slightly hot in humiliation with the creeping tingles of shame prancing around her skin. A small part of her never wanted to leave her room again, never wanted to face them after what they had seen. But she knew it wouldn’t last forever. She knew they wouldn’t let her get away with avoiding dinner.
There was a knock again.
“Wanda? Can I come in?” Steve’s voice was soft on the other side.
Interesting. She thought it would be Vision who came first. He usually liked to hang around with her and except for tonight, she usually enjoyed his company.
“Yeah,” Wanda’s voice was soft, throat dry from lack of use.
A second later, her door slowly opened and Steve popped his head in first, taking a look at her before he looked down to step in, shutting the door behind him. He held a plate of what looked like lasagna with a large side of salad with a bottle of water tucked under his arm.
She watches him for a few seconds before Wanda pauses the show she was watching as he comes over to sit on her bed, placing the plate beside him. To a bit of her relief, it was vegetarian. She wouldn’t have to decide about whether to strip off the cheese or the ground beef.
“Thought you’d be hungry,” he comments to her.
She shrugs, but now that he mentions it, she does feel the cramps of hunger in her stomach. She leans forward, letting the blanket fall from her shoulders as she takes the plate and sets it on her lap. The warmth underneath it instantly brings a sense of comfort. She looks down at the food, not quite ready to meet his eyes as she senses them focus on her face.
There were a few seconds of silence before Steve let out a soft sigh and shifted to get more comfortable on the side of her bed.
“Do you know about the Great Depression, the Stock Market Crash in the 20’s and 30’s?” Steve asked.
Wanda thought for a second before she nodded. She couldn’t remember much of what was taught when she was in school, but her studies of basic world history she had been taking at the Compound covered it.
“I was eleven when it happened, and you know all about my health problems before I had the serum. Heart problems, scoliosis, asthma, and probably every illness under the sun at some point. And thankfully my mom was a nurse so her job was essential and she didn’t get cut at the hospital, but that didn’t mean we had a lot of money to spare. Everyone was struggling, but with my mom being sole provider of me, and my medication and doctors were not always cheap, we didn’t have a lot of money to spare beforehand either,” Steve summarizes, keeping a casual yet soft tone.
Wanda is silent, just listening to him. She knew all this, either from him telling her before or learning about it herself through a simple Google search or from the others.
“We were living penny by penny for years. But when I was thirteen, my mom fell down the stairs to our house and broke her ankle. Thankfully she didn’t lose her job while she was on bedrest for a few weeks, but that meant we weren’t getting her payments either. We had some family friends, but they didn’t have too much to spare to help us, just enough to barely cover rent and my next bottle of medication. We didn’t even have water for a few days, my mom thought it was more important to have heat and lights,” Steve continues, his voice a little tighter but still casual.
There was a few moments of silence before she feels him shift on the bed again.
“There were days, while she was laying in bed, I went to the neighbours begging for anything they had. Sometimes I went through dumpsters for literally scraps, anything I could get my hands on to make us something. A few times I’d find mould on bread or cheese and just cut it off and eat the rest and hope I wouldn’t get sick, and doing it in the night because I was…I didn’t want anyone to see me,” Steve tells her.
Wanda’s stomach sinks with every sentence, her gaze on her food starting to get a little blurred. God did she remember doing the exact same thing. Of neighbours who also lost everything during the raids and couldn’t help or turned their back on them, of begging in the streets or to shop owners when they left the orphanage until it became so clear no one would help two street kids, of the memories of eating food exactly how Steve described.
Steve sighs and Wanda can sense something in him tighten.
“Two weeks after she got hurt, and having nothing in the cupboards for a few days I went to the grocery store. I knew the owner, we talked with him whenever my mom and I went in. When I walked through the store and left saying that I couldn’t find what my mom was looking for, he didn’t suspect anything about the food I had hid in my jacket and pant pockets I walked out with.”
Wanda pursed her lips, feeling her own chest get heavy. Despite learning about the Great Depression and knowing Steve went through it, somehow a connection to just how badly it affected him never really went through her mind before.
“I never went back, I always made excuses when my mom needed to go shopping. I couldn’t face him again. He may not have known it was me that took those things, and even if it was only a few things, I couldn’t shake the shame of stealing from someone who was struggling like us…or the complete humiliation that I had to in the first place,” Steve explained, his words tight in sad tones. “It’s interesting about the humiliation part. That it’s not our fault for being in the situation we are in and we did what we had to but yet the feeling is so intense.”
Wanda’s lips were so thin. Somehow her chest was heavy and thick like cement but she could only take in shallow breaths. She blinks a few times, trying to hold back the feeling of large drops of tears forming in her eyes.
She almost jumps when she feels Steve place a hand on her knee. Her body tenses, but she turns her head up slowly, looking up at Steve through the tops of her eyes and through her hair that slightly obstructed her view of him. He was so open as he stared at her, nothing but gentle empathy in his own eyes.
“I’m sorry about what happened, and I’m sorry about the video itself. Natasha called Fury and he’s already beginning corrupting the video file so it can’t be viewed anymore. Ross never should’ve aired it like that, and he should’ve dealt with the situation using a lot more tact,” Steve tells her. Wanda still can’t quite relax, her head beginning to hurt from the tension in her body and the tears trying to leave her red eyes.
The blond paused for a moment before he continues again.
“People who’ve never been in that position, never been so scared for themselves and a person they love and desperate that you didn’t know what else to do, don’t know what it’s like and they don’t understand. They never will,” Steve tells her gently. Wanda stares down at his hand, her chin quivering ever so slightly as she listens to him.
There is a moment of pause when Steve’s hand squeezes her slightly.
“You’re not a bad person for doing what you had to to keep you and your brother alive.”
Steve’s voice is gentle and empathetic, but the words are what push Wanda over the threshold as her breath suddenly hitches as a shaking gasp of a cry leaves her throat. She quickly clamps her mouth shut again. Her shoulders shake slightly as she forces herself to try and breathe properly again, blinking away the tears as she still hung her head, hoping her hair was still hiding most of her face.
Steve is silent as Wanda hurries to try and collect herself. She brings a slightly shaking hand to her face, moving to wipe at her eyes and cheeks. After a few seconds, Wanda lifts her face slightly, turning to look at him. When Steve meets her eyes, he gives her a soft and comforting smile that immediately strikes to warm her.
“You won’t be judged here,” Steve promises. “This is a safe place for all of us, including you.”
Wanda let in another shaky breath before she nods lightly, understanding.
Steve stares at her for a few more moments before he looks over his shoulder at the door then back at her.
“If you’re not ready yet, then you don’t have to, but the rest of us are going to be hanging out in the common area. I think they are still arguing what to put on,” Steve chuckled ever so slightly. She believed it considering how hard it was for the group to all agree on the same thing to watch, especially since Tony and Rhodey would be staying so their opinions would be included.
Wanda nods her reply and Steve gives her a last squeeze before he lets her go, getting off her bed to give. He gives her one last smile before he leaves her room, shutting the door behind him so Wanda could make her own decision.
The young girl looked over at the plate of food, stomach grumbling again but she didn’t easily grab it.
Staring at the plate for a few more minutes, Wanda carefully unfolds her legs and takes the plate in her hands, carefully scooting off her bed. Her hamstrings ached slightly in the immediate stretch. She is about to go but then places her plate on her bed again, opting to replace the sweat pants she was wearing with jeans while being around the others. Keeping her oversized sweater on, she grabs the plate and goes back to her original intent.
She takes the elevator down to the common floor of the Compound. The doors open and she is immediately immersed in the friendly banter and comments of the Avengers. She was getting used to it by now, the silence of her room but then the loudness of the group. It was a little stark at first, but she liked how their voices would fill and warm the room.
Natasha is putting a piece of lasagna on a plate herself with Steve when she looks over to the elevator doors. A smile instantly comes to her face.
“Hey, you came down,” she commented.
Wanda shrugged, trying to look more confident. While she was used to their voices, the crowd part of it was still something she was working on, especially since there were a few more bodies than there would be normally.
Wanda walks more into the open area, walking past the kitchen with her plate and trying to enter herself in the space. The others also became aware to her presence and would offer her smiles before going back to their bantering. She wasn’t exactly sure what Rhodey and Tony were talking about, but she heard the sarcastic joking in their tone. Steve made a few comments to them too before going to walk over.
“Hey Red, just in time,” Sam told her from his seat on the edge of the couch.
“We are about to start once everyone is seated,” Vision agreed from his own spot on a bar chair he brought over from the island in the kitchen.
She liked that…it was normal. They weren’t staring at her, she couldn’t sense their pity or see it blazing with judgement in their eyes. They were all having a regular get together night for supper that they would usually have. It was as though nothing had happened in that meeting.
Wanda let out a small sigh of relief, her shoulders falling out of tension as she followed Natasha past the kitchen and the pool and other games tables to the large sectional around the also very large television. They found their spot on the sectionals, a few going to the chairs. As soon as Wanda saw the television screen more clearly, she froze for a few seconds in surprise.
“I…I didn’t realize any of you would like watching this,” Wanda admitted as she saw the familiar main menu of Malcolm in the Middle.
“Well Vision was talking it up,” Tony answered from his spot on the second couch a little off to the side with Rhodey, “though I’m wondering exactly where he would watch it. I didn’t take you for the surfing the channels, Vision.”
“It’s humour still fascinates me,” Vision commented in a way that seemed like it was to himself, ignoring Tony’s second comment, but Wanda knew different and she the slight smile that was on her lips begin to tug upwards a little more. He side glances her, giving her the slightest smile.
“I’ve watched a few episodes before and it’s not that bad,” Sam agreed as Steve sat down beside him.
Wanda takes the hint of Natasha waiting back slightly to sit beside the blonde, placing the plate on her lap before Natasha sat beside her at the end, bringing up her legs so she could stretch them out along the cushions, setting the plate on her own lap.
“Everyone ready then?” Natasha asked, leaning over to grab the remote on the side table.
“Think so,” Rhodey replies.
Everyone gets comfortable as Natasha lifts her arm at a better angle to make the control. Soon the screen changes and brings up the rundown white house opening that Wanda was quite familiar with. Starting at the beginning. Wanda gets more comfortable in the sectional cushions, eating the delicious vegetarian lasagna and giggles with the others as they laugh along with the jokes. She let herself become immerse in this moment, forcing the meeting completely out of her mind as she became more and more comfortable with her new team.