Chapter Text
Sokovia was the last place the Avengers thought they would end up. Some lowly and poor Eastern European country did seem to be a good spot for a Hydra base, though. Leads on Von Strucker had been pouring in, with sightings from undercover agents in the area. The team figured the building couldn't be too high tech or locked down or it would draw attention, so they didn't expect many complications. Nonetheless, Tony, Steve, Clint, Bruce, and Natasha suited up.
When they arrived, they took a moment to just stare out the window, dumbstruck. The streets were made of dirt and there were small fires that seemed to be everywhere. Abandoned rifles and small piles of blood covered the dirt, along with trash and debris. There wasn't a person in sight. Spray painted on the side of a building was Cap and Tony, both heavily vandalized. The Avengers knew there were some places they were neither welcome nor loved. Sokovia was clearly one of those places.
Despite the city's obvious hatred for the two Avengers, and no doubt the Hulk as well, the four followed Bruce's direction to the suspected Hydra base. It wasn't well hidden in the slightest, just a crappy old building standing in plain sight. Natasha and Clint exchanged a look. They had seen many Russian cities in the same level of disarray. The last building Clint had seen that had looked this bad on the outside was when he found Natasha. They could tell the other had a bad feeling in the pit of their stomach.
The base was not heavily guarded in the slightest. The guards were easy enough to take out and did not seem to carry any high tech weapons with them, to blend in with the area. Within a minute, Steve and the others had managed to disable what seemed to be all the protection in the base.
Hesitantly, they explored in pairs. Steve and Tony went up, while Natasha and Clint went down. On the top floors, the pair found labs and vials of blood and serum, along with a room housing Loki's scepter. There was clear plexiglass boxing it in. Tony touched base with Bruce for a plan to get it out.
Downstairs, Natasha and Clint were met with horrors beyond what they had imagined. Lined up in cells were mere kids who didn't seem to be alive. Their bodies looked haphazardly thrown in on the floor, cause of death not immediately recognizable. They passed ten, then twenty cells, before they finally radioed back.
"Guys, I don't know what the hell was going on in here, but it wasn't good," Clint said. He looked at Natasha, who took over for him.
"You guys find anything that they could have used to kill all these kids?"
The line stayed silent for a minute. Tony swore under his breath while the heard the loud bang of Cap hitting a wall. "Loki's scepter is up here," he finally settled on. "We don't know what that can do, I guess." A beat, then, "how many?"
"Too many," Clint muttered darkly. Natasha knew he was thinking about his own kids.
"Twenty two so far," Natasha answered. The line stayed silent after that. "We're gonna finish sweeping the floor. It looks like they might have just cleared out."
Another corner found more cell blocks with more bodies slumped on the hard concrete floors. Even Natasha's stomach was growing weaker. Her and Clint were near giving up when they heard a high pitched scream. They looked at each other wildly before shooting off to find the source.
They turned another two corners before they saw Von Strucker, who they recognized from so many pictures. He had a young girl pinned against the wall, hand around her neck, speaking to her in a very low voice. The girl's hands had some sort of red mist surrounding them, which seemed to be erratically spreading as the man pressed himself closer to her. A boy, locked in a cell a few feet away, screamed at the man in a language that sounded close to Russian.
Von Strucker barely had time to turn around before Clint had an arrow laced with sedatives buried in the man's back. He fell backwards off of the girl, sending the arrow through his abdomen. The girl did not move. She stayed right where she was, eyes closed, that curious red mist twisting around her fingers, seemingly unconsciously. The mist unlocked the boy's cell. Natasha and Clint didn't even blink before he was at her side, holding her close. He then spun on them, shielding the girl with his body. "Who are you?"
They looked at the boy sadly. He was short and scrawny, just like the girl, both clearly malnourished and dehydrated. He had some bad bruises and cuts on him, dried blood sticking in his platinum blonde hair. The girl looked about the same.
"I'm Clint, she's Natasha," Clint said cautiously, not going any closer. They didn't know what they had just seen, but the boy had something off about him. "We're here to get you guys out of here and to safety."
"There is nowhere safe left. Who sent you?"
Natasha and Clint exchanged another look. The girl still hadn't opened her eyes behind him. "We're from SHIELD. We were hunting down Von Strucker and we came to dismantle this Hydra base."
The boy's eyes flared. "Hydra and SHIELD are one of the same. You are here to hurt us."
"No!" Clint jumped in. He took a deep breath. "No, we're not, I swear kid. SHIELD's job is to protect the world. I know we haven't exactly done a great job, but we want to help. We want to help you," he stressed. The boy still looked distrustful of them. Natasha shushed the others on the com, who were rapidly asking questions. She told them to let them be for a few minutes.
"What's your name, kiddo?" Clint asked quietly. He gave the boy a sad smile, and added as an afterthought, "you remind me of my son back home."
The boy looked back and exchanged some quiet words in Sokovian with the girl, whose eyes finally cracked open. She reached over and gripped his hand tightly. The boy redirected his attention back to Clint.
"I am Pietro. This is my sister Wanda." Well, that was more than Clint and Natasha had honestly expected.
Natasha nodded, thinking of her next move as she carefully looked over the kids. "How did you two end up here? Where are your parents?"
Pietro and Wanda exchanged another look. The girl stayed plastered against the wall, but the red seemed to have gone away. She cleared her throat. "We volunteer for experiments for food and shelter. Our parents die in explosion. We sit and wait to die too, but we not so lucky. Bomb never explodes."
Stark, timing as terrible as ever, chose that moment to walk in, seemingly unaware of the two kids. "Hey guys. Bruce is on his way to get the scepter, pick it up with some weird case or whatever. You two find anything." He trailed off as his eyes fell on the two kids. He looked at them blankly for a few seconds, before he was violently thrown back into the contrete wall behind him. Natasha and Clint's heads snapped over to the kids. Wanda's eyes were glowing a fiery red, the same red mist emanating from her hands earlier now encasing Tony and holding him against the wall.
"You kill our parents," Pietro practically growled as he sped over to Tony. Tony blinked at the kid, before looking over to Natasha and Clint for help. "Your bombs ruin our home, our country, and what do you do? Nothing. Our parents die because of you and orphanages too full to take us." Tony gulped and looked over at the girl. He couldn't move his limbs. For a tiny kid, she was strong.
"Look kid, I didn't kill your parents. Lots of companies use my products. I can't control what they do with them. I don't even know you."
"You will," Wanda said quietly, slowly advancing on Tony, with some flicks of her wrist, his suit began to come apart, until Tony finally got a free hand. He raised it to shoot, when Natasha jumped in front of the girl.
"No!" She yelled, shielding Wanda with her body. "What the hell, Tony. They're kids. Like it or not, your products killed their parents. They get to be angry at you."
"But I didn't do anything!"
"You own a multibillion dollar company and didn't give relief to the place your bombs blew up," Clint pointed out, crossing his arms. "We know you weren't the one that pulled the trigger, but still, man."
Silence sat heavily over the room for a moment, before Natasha slowly turned to Wanda, whose eyes were still glowing. Natasha carefully kneeled down in front of her.
"You said you here to help us, but you friends with him," Wanda said accusingly, voice laced with fear. The red dropped almost immediately, along with Tony, who clanged to the floor. "You are going to hurt us."
"No," Natasha said quietly. She turned to Clint and Tony. "Look, Tony, get out of here. We need a few. And actually stay out this time, you moron." She shot him a scathing glare. He nodded and was gone within a minute. Natasha returned her attention back to Wanda.
"Wanda, right?" The girl nodded. She had slowly backed herself against the wall again. Her brother was at her side in a second, holding her hand. So he definitely had super speed. That was new. Natasha gave Clint a nod, who headed out to update the team. He knew she had this for the moment.
"Well Wanda, when I was your age, I was in a place like this too." She spoke softly, not wanting to terrify the kids any more than they clearly already were. "I didn't have parents and I had a very controlling and very scary lady tell me everything I had to do, or she would kill me. Is that what Strucker did?" Wanda nodded slowly, her eyes staying on the floor. "That man out there, Clint," Natasha gestured to the doorway vaguely. "He found me and pulled me out of there, from Russia. He brought me back to the US and helped me build a new life. We could do the same for you."
"And if we say no?" Pietro asked, fear seeping into his voice since the first time he had spoken to her.
Natasha tilted her head a little, thinking. "Well, it's not like we would kidnap you. You two are free to do what you want. You could go back to living on the streets."
"No," Wanda said forcefully. Natasha looked at the girl, surprised. She met Natasha's eyes. "I do not like the men on the streets. They want me to do things for money that I do not want to do."
Her heart sank deep into her chest as she watched Pietro squeeze his sister's hand comfortingly. These poor kids. "You two can do whatever you want to do, but if you come with us, I promise Clint and I will help you. We'll be there for you, get you some food and shelter, new clothes, whatever you need."
Wanda gulped and looked at her brother. "And what must we do in return?"
A light smile played on Natasha's lips. "Nothing." The pair looked shocked. "You're just kids. You're not supposed to have to do anything to survive." She hesitated, before asking, "how old are you two anyway?"
Wanda took a shaky breath before answering. "And this will not stop you from helping us?" Natasha shook her head affirmatively. "Eight. Our parents die when we are six."
They were so small for eight year olds, far too small. Both were clearly short for their age, probably from the lack of food they had had over the years.
Natasha nodded slowly. "Alright. Is there anything here you two need to get before we go?" The kids shook their heads. They didn't have any belongings. "Okay. I can get Clint and we can go back to the plane together. It's gonna take about an hour for us to all clean up here, get everything taken care of." At their nods, Natasha stuck her head around the doorway and gestured for Clint to come back in. He clicked off the coms and looked at her. "They want to come with us."
The two adults headed back into the room, where the kids were talking quietly to one another. Their heads snapped up. "The plane's outside." Clint gestured for them to follow. He and Natasha walked on either side of the pair, who seemed to refuse to leave each other's sides.
Outside was flooded with SHIELD agents, bustling around with boxes, bags, cameras, and other equipment. It didn't escape the attention of the spies that the sheer number of people freaked out the kids and seemed to be making them nervous.
But they persevered and followed Natasha and Clint into the jet. Clint pulled out blankets from a cabinet and handed one to each of them. Before they could be offered seats, the kids had settled against a wall on the floor.
Thankfully, the jet was only for the Avengers and none of the other agents boarded. They did worry how the kids would react to Steve, since Sokovians seemed to hate him. But for now, the two seemed okay. Clint grabbed them waters and granola bars as Natasha settled down on the wall across from them. Clint came in and sat next to her after giving the goods to the kids, and giving Natasha a water. The kids feeling safe was a bigger priority then them wearing seatbelts on the plane at the moment.
Steve and Bruce both came in to say hi to them. Although they huddled closer to one another, they didn't seem any more suspicious of the two than they had of Clint.
"You are the Captain America," Pietro said, no real malice behind his voice. "You leave us to suffer, too."
Before Steve could respond, Wanda spoke quietly to her brother. "He is Captain of America, not Sokovia, brother. We are not his problem."
"You're nobody's problem," Natasha said. She saw Wanda's face drop a little as she nodded, eyes averted to the floor. "You're our privilege. We're excited to get to know you. Thanks for trusting us."
"No one said we trust you," Pietro quickly responded, looking around, seemingly upset again, but Natasha met Wanda's eyes. For the first time since they met, the little girl cracked a small smile.
"Thank you Tasha."
It was so freaking cute that Wanda called her Tasha that no one bothered to tell her she had gotten Natasha's name wrong.