“Rise and shine, my dear,” Strucker murmured as he eased the plunger of the syringe down.

The drug took a handful of seconds to do its work. Wanda’s eyes fluttered slightly, then a moment later she lurched her way back into consciousness with a plaintive groan. She went to try to sit up, quickly finding that she was bound to the sides of the gurney with thick leather restraints at her wrists and ankles. “Huhhh… wazzat,” she tried to speak, working her jaw.

“There she is.” He smiled and patted her hand, placing the empty syringe on the bench beside them.

“Fuck.” Wanda tested her restraints again, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. She looked around wildly, peering around the room with bleary eyes until they focused on him. She went to say something, then licked her lips to moisten them first. “Ss… Strucker?” she asked quizzically, her voice hoarse.

“Yes, my dear. It’s me. You’re disoriented. Don’t fret—it’s to be expected, given the amount of drugs in your system.”

Rumlow had reported that Wanda had been hit by half a dozen tranquiliser rounds before she’d gone down, which made no sense; one might not have been enough, but two certainly should have been. Strucker suspected that the batch of rounds had been faulty. Still, he was nothing if not cautious, and he’d almost doubled the usual amount of sedative that Dr List would have used to keep Wanda under control—just barely below the maximum safe dosage.

Not for the first time, Strucker mourned the loss of his monocle. Back at his research base, it would have been integrated into a vast array of equipment, with direct links into medical monitors attached to Wanda and their other guest, so he could see detailed breakdowns their condition at a glance. Alas, it had been custom-made to his specifications and quite uniquely designed, so Hammer Industries had yet to facilitate a replacement.

“Are you certain it’s safe to wake her?” Zemo asked, his tone sceptical. His compatriot had pulled on his head‑covering purple mask in order to conceal his features and was currently peering through the eyeholes at their captive.

They were in one of the experimental labs beneath Hammer Industries’ headquarters, a sub-basement normally used for sensitive research and development, now taken over as a makeshift base of operations while they were in the city. It wasn’t exactly designed to hold prisoners, but they were making do with some hospital supplies that their criminal associates had procured for them. Nearly a dozen guards—a mix of Crossbones’ HYDRA extremists and Zemo’s EKO Scorpion operatives in unmarked fatigues—were close at hand, several keeping their weapons trained on Wanda and ready to hit her with further doses of tranquilisers at a moment’s notice.

“Perfectly,” Strucker said, his tone confident. “The secondary sedative actively interferes with her ability to use her powers while keeping her relatively conscious. Dr List was quite thorough when he documented its effects. She’ll be quite unable to do much of anything for another hour or so; we’ll put her back under long before that.”

Zemo inclined his head, sounding unenthused. “I’m not entirely convinced of the need. While I would have preferred her brother as well, it does not seem that that will be possible. The other Enhanced will be a fine consolation prize. We should take our leave of the city, and quickly.” He looked over at one of his men and gave him a hand signal. The soldier nodded, turning and moving toward the door with purpose.

Strucker sighed. “Patience, my friend. There are other concerns we must be apprised of.”

Wanda’s breathing was evening out a bit. Her head flopped bonelessly to the side, her eyes following his to the other man. She blinked rapidly, looking even more confused all of a sudden. “Zemo?” she asked incredulously.

His compatriot stilled. “How do you know that name?”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, slurring the words slightly. Sighing, she laboriously turned her head back to look at Strucker. “You know you two are… you’re fucked, right? Avengers’re probably already on their way.”

“You’ve been missing for less than two hours; easily explicable given your usual movements over the last few days,” Zemo responded. “We’ll be gone long before they’ve even noticed something is wrong.”

“You’ve been following me? I didn’t…” Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “The bird?”

Strucker blinked. “Bird? No, a subdermal tracking chip. With all the time and resources we invested in your development, you didn’t think we’d make sure we had some way of keeping track of you?”

Wanda was silent for a moment, then started to laugh. “Fuck. Been so focused on magic’n gamma radiation’n all that… big stuff. Didn’t even think…”

“I know it’s difficult with the sedative, but I’ll ask you to focus, please, Wanda,” Strucker said, reaching over to retrieve another syringe. He held it up, examining the contents, flicking it and gently depressing the plunger to remove a small air bubble. “I’m going to give you this, and then you’re going to answer some questions for me, okay?”

Wanda tilted her head so she could watch as he administered the psychoactive cocktail, wincing slightly as he slid the needle into her arm. She licked her lips. “That truth serum?”

“Essentially, yes.” Strucker said with a shrug—it was a concoction he’d become familiar with during his time at SHIELD that made recipients suggestive and highly responsive. Close enough to a truth serum for government work, at least.

A look of disappointment flittered across her face. “Aww.”

Something about her tone made him pause. He looked at her curiously. “What?”

“You didn’t do the bit.”

“The… bit?”

Wanda rolled her eyes then paused, briefly going cross-eyed. “Woah. Headspin. The bit. I say ‘is that truth serum’ and then you’re like ‘there’s no such thing, that’s nonsense from TV’ and then…” Squinting, she tilted her head as if trying to recall something. “The rest. The bit.”

“It is basically a truth serum.”

She let her head flop backwards and let out a long, dissatisfied sigh. “Ugh. Never mind.”

“Now, infiltrating the Avengers… I’m not sure how you gained their trust, but what was your plan?”

“Get railed by all the hot ones,” she sniggered, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Still a work in progress.”

“You know what I mean, Wanda. You and your brother wanted to avenge your parents; kill Tony Stark. You had a plan, yes? What was it?”

She shook her head. “Don’t wanna kill Tony. He’s an asshat, but he’s still a good guy. I wanted to get in good with them—they’re the Avengers. Gonna need their help with all sorts of things, lots of threats that need to be dealt with. Like in the movies,” she rambled, the words slurring together a little. “In the movies, stuff sucked sometimes. Even in the good ones, lots of people died.”

“Wanda, forget about the movies and focus, please.”

“No, you don’t get it. In the movies, there was—”

“Wanda,” Strucker interrupted, his patience running thin. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about movies. Loki’s sceptre—it’s being held in the Tower, correct?”

Wanda shook her head, chuckling to herself. “You would care, if you knew… asking the wrong questions. No. The sceptre’s gone. Destroyed. I broke it: pssshhhhh!” She made a weak imitation of a shattering sound with her lips. “The Stone’s there, though. Tony’s got it locked up in his lab.”

“The Stone?”

“The Mind Stone. It’s what made the sceptre work. The power of infinity…” Wanda harrumphed. “Mine. Mind Stone. Mine stone. Mine-d Stone? Tony and Bruce keep making excuses to hold onto it.”

“Tell me about the Stone. What do you mean, ‘the power of infinity’?”

“One of six. They’re the greatest power in the universe. Whole civilisations destroyed. Planets destroyed.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “Tesseract was one too, but that’s on Asgard now. Cube is just the housing, the real prize is inside. That’s what Loki was after, what Thanos sent him to collect.”

Strucker leaned in, his attention caught. “The power the Tesseract could channel was immense. We knew that we were only scratching at the surface of the sceptre’s power, but this Mind Stone—you’re saying it’s on a similar scale?”

“More powerful than a little man like you could ever dream of…” Wanda murmured, her eyelids beginning to droop.

He straightened up, barely able to contain his excitement, and looked over at Zemo. “I’ve taken the liberty of preparing for a raid on Avengers Tower. I’ll need to make some calls, but we can be on our way within the hour.”

“Are you insane?” The other man shook his head. “We are not attacking the Avengers. We’re leaving with our prizes.”

“We won’t need to attack them. They’ll be out chasing her,” he said with a smile as he gestured to Wanda’s prone form. She seemed to have passed out—a pity, but he’d gotten what he needed.

“I don’t care what scheme you’ve concocted here, Strucker. Raiding the Tower is out of the question.”

Strucker stood up, gesturing with a hand. Suddenly, the HYDRA troops snapped into motion, training their weapons on the Sokovian special forces, who immediately responded in kind. “Very well, then it seems our partnership is at an end. Do not take me for an ungrateful man, Helmut. I have fulfilled my end of our understanding—Wanda and the other Enhanced are yours, delivered as promised. Take them and do what you will. Leave, if you must. But know that I have grander ambitions.” It was a gamble, but he felt confident that Zemo would not turn this into a firefight—the man had his prizes and wouldn’t risk them for no reason.

Zemo stared at him for a few moments, then raised both hands in a defensive gesture. “…Fine. If you are truly so eager to dig your own grave, far be it for me to stop you.”

--

Natasha drummed her fingers on the table, frowningly slightly. Wanda was late—she’d said she would be here for the pre-brief for the meeting with the Sokovian ambassador. Nat exchanged a look with Pietro. He looked concerned as well. For the umpteenth time, she reached over to where her phone lay on the table next to her and clicked the power button to illuminate the screen, checking to make sure she hadn’t missed Wanda responding to her text messages.

Tony sighed, irritation plainly written across his face. “Someone really needs to talk to Wanda about punctuality.”

That was about the longest sentence Natasha had heard him say all day, which was something. Tony was coping with the revelations about his parents’ deaths about as well as could be expected. They’d given him the chance to step out and let them cover today’s talks, give him some time to himself, but he’d refused. Bucky had made himself scarce—Nat wasn’t sure where he was, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed away from the Tower for a few days at the very least, just to give Tony the space he needed.

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“Should we get started without her?” Maria asked.

“Give her five more minutes,” Steve said mildly, but his jaw was set. To be fair, the meeting was supposed to have started ten minutes ago and the twins were central to the whole issue with Sokovia, so everyone was feeling a little annoyed by Wanda’s unexplained absence.

“I don’t think—”

Whatever Pietro was about to say was cut off as Natasha’s phone started vibrating, rattling on the table in the familiar three-pulse pattern that indicated that someone’s duress alarm had been activated. She inhaled sharply, snatching it up and looking at the screen. Around the table, the rest of the team were also pulling out their own devices.

Pietro also perked up, his own phone vibrating just like everyone else’s, and he fumbled it as he pulled it out of his pocket. He glanced around at them in confusion before looking at his own screen.

“Wanda’s activated her alarm?” Bruce said, rather unnecessarily—they were all looking at the same thing. Nat had already dialled Wanda’s number. As it rang, a tight feeling rose in her chest. Silently, she willed Wanda to answer the phone. It could have just been a mistake; an accidental activation. Pick up. Pick up.

“GPS says she’s in San Franscisco. What’s she doing over there?” Tony asked with a frown. “She tell anyone she was taking a quick trip to the other side of the country?”

Pietro blinked, confused. “What? No. That can’t be right. She wasn’t leaving New York. She was meeting up with a kid who’s just gotten powers. It was just supposed to be a small thing.”

Wanda’s phone finally rang out and sent Nat to voicemail. She hung up, her heartrate picking up as she looked at Pietro. “She’s not picking up,” she said.

“If she was in trouble, couldn’t she just portal back here?” Bruce asked.

“If she can’t…”

“We have to go,” Pietro said urgently, rising to his feet and gesturing toward the door. “Something must have happened. She wouldn’t raise the alarm unless she absolutely had to.”

The Avengers exchanged glances around the table. “What’s the response, Cap?” Tony asked.

Steve looked at Natasha, an unspoken query passing between them. She took a deep breath, reining in the anxiety that had risen in her chest, and shook her head. “I don’t think Wanda would set off the alarm unless it was serious.”

He nodded, setting his jaw. “All hands on deck. We don’t know what’s happened, but Wanda’s no pushover. If she’s in trouble, we might need everybody. Maria, please give our apologies to the Sokovian ambassador and ask to reschedule.”

With that, they were up and off, hurrying out of the briefing room and down the corridor, Steve stepping into the lab briefly to retrieve something before they all headed toward the Quinjet hangar. Tony broke off from the group as they arrived, the red and gold pieces of the Mark 43 Iron Man suit deploying from the service bay and assembling themselves on his body as he strode toward the open hangar door.

The rest of them filed into the Quinjet. Steve moved to the pilot seat, Clint at the secondary console, and they immediately started running through the pre-flight procedure. The ramp lifted behind them and Natasha moved to the lockers on one side of the cargo space, quickly shrugging off her blouse and skirt to change them for a more practical combat suit. Bruce simply averted his eyes politely; it was nothing he hadn’t seen dozens of times before.

Pietro, though, she watched carefully out of the corner of her eye, worrying about how stressed he looked—she could have ducked under a bulkhead and behind something, to change more privately, but it was a calculated choice. Nat couldn’t do much about her own anxiety about whatever had caused Wanda to raise the alarm, but she could try to disarm Pietro’s a little at least. Some people were incredibly easy to fluster with some incidental partial-nudity, and it tended to short-circuit whatever else their brain was currently fixated on. Inadvertently getting an eyeful of Natasha might distract him a little bit from how worried he was.

Pietro, however, had started to pace the length of the cargo space like a caged tiger, shoulders hunched and tense and his face twisted in a deep frown—it didn’t seem like he’d even noticed her get undressed. Natasha finished zipping herself up, strapped a Widow’s Bite to her wrist, then stepped over toward him. Reaching out, she laid a hand on his arm to stop him. “Hey, take a breath. It’s okay. We’ll find her,” she said encouragingly. He bit his lip, brow furrowed as he looked at her, but nodded and did as she said, taking a deep breath.

Nat carefully controlled her expression, projecting confidence and trying her best to conceal the fact that she felt exactly as apprehensive as he looked. The Quinjet was fast, but even at top speed it’d still take an hour or so to get to San Francisco. Tony would speed ahead and get there twice as fast to scout out the situation before the rest of them arrived, but it was much, much too long.

Whatever situation had caused Wanda to set off her alarm, Natasha couldn’t imagine, but she doubted that she would hit the panic button for something she needed help with an hour later. Their world was dangerous. Whatever had happened, it was almost certainly already going to be over before they got there and they’d arrive just in time to pick up the pieces. She swallowed hard, hoping she was wrong and that Wanda would be able to hold out long enough for help to arrive.

--

I jerked back into consciousness. My head was still foggy… I could barely think and the whole room seemed to swim around me. I blinked repeatedly as I looked around, my eyes having trouble focusing. There was no sign of the two men who’d been talking over me earlier. I’d lost some time there—one second Strucker had been doing an evil monologue at Zemo, the next they’d vanished, and I had no idea how long had passed between the two moments. I was still in the same place, though, which I hoped meant it couldn’t have been that long.

Zemo… What in the world was going on? I’d thought Jessica Jones working with the Avengers had been the biggest break from expectations I’d caused so far, but it seemed the universe was keen to show me up. Why was Zemo working with HYDRA? He thought HYDRA were losers. Not important right now. I had to get out.

If I wasn’t so sedated, my heart would have been racing at a million miles a minute. I was trapped. I’d been so out of it when Strucker had woken me that the full gravity of my situation hadn’t quite sunk in. HYDRA had captured me. HYDRA had captured Peter. They had drugs that would stop me from using my magic. If I didn’t get out of here, quickly, they were going to put me in a little box and I might never be able to get out again.

Fucking Strucker. I hadn’t really given him a second thought after we’d left the HYDRA research base. In the original timeline he had died shortly thereafter, murdered by Ultron, so I had discounted him as an issue entirely. When we’d gone to Klaue, he’d mentioned that Strucker would probably escape, but it just didn’t even occur to me that it was something I should look into. Surely the Avengers would have been notified that he’d escaped? Why had no one told me? We could have stopped this from happening.

I looked around. I was in… a room. Helpful. God, it was hard to focus. An electronics or science lab of some kind, judging from the equipment on the workbenches. The sleeve of my blouse was rolled up and there was a needle in my arm, medical tubing leading to an IV drip fastened in place on a little pole sticking out of the top of my gurney… a hauntingly familiar sight. A pair of men in nondescript army-style fatigues, holding rifles, stood near a doorway with clear strips of PVC hanging from the frame. Across from me, I could see Peter lying unconscious on another gurney, similar to the one I was strapped to. Speaking of… I tested the straps binding my wrists and feet—they seemed like the sort of thing a mental hospital might use to restrain uncooperative patients. Thick leather padded with cloth, secured with simple buckles. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but I thought I might be able to snap them with my enhanced strength. Peter definitely could if he were awake; he was way stronger than me.

I closed my eyes to try to focus, but that somehow made the tilting, spinning sensation worse. Changing tack, I concentrated on my breathing instead, trying desperately to take hold of my magic. I could sense it still, but it seemed far away and, when I reached for it, it slipped through my grasp like I was clutching at smoke. The sedative that I’d been dosed with was familiar—Dr List had used it dozens of times before when securing me for tests. I’d never been able to overcome it before, but maybe… my metabolism was enhanced by the Heart-Shaped Herb, right? So that meant I should be able to get something like this out of my system faster. Recover from it quicker. Maybe.

I gritted my teeth, straining to clutch at any fragment of power. After a moment, a mixture of frustration and elation flooded through me as I managed to secure a tiny dribble of chaos magic. There was no way I could fight with it; a shield would shatter instantly, and I’m pretty sure I could punch harder than it would hit if I tried to blast someone. It wasn’t enough. Heart-Shaped Herb or no, I wasn’t bulletproof and I still didn’t know where I was or how many goons I’d have to fight my way through to get out of this place.

There was a slapping sound as Zemo stepped back into the room, passing through the PVC strip doorway. He spoke briefly to the guards before moving further into the room to peer at me through the eyeholes of his textured purple mask. “Ms Maximoff. будна си.” You’re awake. He didn’t sound pleased.

“Barely,” I muttered, not really registering the fact that he’d spoken in Sokovian and I’d understood him. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to let us go?”

He let out an amused snort as he cautiously approached the side of the gurney. “I’m afraid not.”

“You’re making a mistake,” I said quietly.

“That remains to be seen. I anticipated that Strucker would continue his foolish crusade against the Avengers—my only surprise was that he was willing to relinquish you without a fight and my contingencies were unnecessary. His doomed raid will serve nicely as cover while we return home. Now, not that it hasn’t been a pleasure, Ms Maximoff, but you’ll be sleeping through this next part.” Zemo said, reaching over to the drip to adjust my sedative’s dosage.

It was now or never. I struck, summoning every ounce of strength I had into throwing myself forward at him. The restraint holding my left hand snapped and I lunged toward his temple, sputtering, weak threads of chaos magic lancing into his mind. Simultaneously, the gurney spilled over. Ripping my left ankle from its restraint, I landed in a hopping stumble. I grabbed at the side railing with my still-bound hand and wrenched the bed up at a ninety-degree angle just in time for several tranquilizer rounds to thud into the thin mattress.

I couldn’t do much—I was too weak, too fuzzy—but Zemo wasn’t entirely driven by greed and lust for power like Strucker was. It was a risk, but I didn’t have much else in the way of options. Instead of trying to manipulate Zemo’s mind or thrust myself into his mental landscape, I grabbed hold and pulled, opening my own mind to him. It was… unpleasant. Having someone else in my head felt intrusive beyond words. Regardless, I pushed my discomfort aside and concentrated on remembering. Zemo’s awareness was pulled along for the ride, a disorienting presence impinging on my thoughts. I had no idea what it looked like from his end, but what I hoped for—what I intended—was for him to see my memories. To understand them.

Loki’s sceptre, first held in the Hydra research base, then taken by Tony Stark. Tony and Bruce talking, observing the bright blue image of the mind inside the sceptre; a true, thinking AI. The birth of Ultron and death of JARVIS. The AI seizing control of the Iron Legion and attacking the Avengers in their Tower. Ultron’s drones swarming over the streets of Novi Grad, the Sokovian capital city. The city itself rising high into the sky, lifted on a vast engine by the genocidal AI. The Avengers fighting to stop him, to evacuate as many civilians as possible. The city exploding, devastation raining down.

Next, images of Zemo himself, sitting on a rock in the snow. His face stony, impassive—the face of a man who has done what he set out to do, but it has brought him no joy. He listens to a recorded message from his wife for the last time: “He asked me again if you were going to be there. I said I wasn’t sure. You should’ve seen his little face. Just try, okay? I'm going to bed. I love you.” A gun is held loosely in his hand. He’s speaking to someone, then suddenly he raises the weapon to his own chin—to kill himself, to join his family in death—only to be stopped.

Back to the beginning. Loki’s sceptre in the Hydra research base once more, but this time, instead of Tony Stark, it was me taking the sceptre, deliberately breaking the chain of events. Finally, Thanos. An alien warlord, wearing the Infinity Gauntlet, snapping his fingers. Impossible destruction and chaos in his wake as half of all life in the universe was wiped out.

Outside of my mind there was shouting. The two soldiers had moved and I pulled back, fumbling and falling flat on my ass with the gurney still acting as a makeshift shield against their shots. Zemo stared at me for a second before holding up a hand, barking a few quick orders in Sokovian, “Повући се!” Stand down! he said, “Довољно.” Enough.

The men stilled, their weapons still trained on me, and no one moved for a moment. I licked my lips. “Zemo… please.”

Slowly, he reached up and removed his purple mask, apprehension written across his face as he revealed his features. “I don’t understand,” he said quietly. He looked genuinely shaken by whatever he’d just experienced. “That felt… real. But it couldn’t be.”

“It was. I saw it. I stopped it. Please. You have to let us go.”

“I don’t…”

“There’s more on the way. You saw it. Everyone’s in danger. I have to stop it from happening. I’m the only one who can. You have to let us go. Please.”

His jaw worked furiously for a few moments, trying to reconcile what he’d just seen and experienced with reality. Careful not to make any sudden movements, I slowly removed the needle from my arm as I watched him grapple with what I’d shown him.

After a few more seconds, Zemo tilted his head back and exhaled long and loud, his eyes closed. When he opened them again, he turned to his men. “Иди припреми остале. Идемо.” Go prepare the others. We’re leaving.

The two soldiers hesitated for a split-second, but thought better of second-guessing their leader. They lowered their weapons and hurried out of the room.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

Zemo didn’t say anything. He just looked at me, an unreadable mess of emotions playing out across his face. I hesitated. I honestly hadn’t been expecting it to shake him this much. At the very least, I’d been expecting to need to explain myself and persuade him I’d really seen the future but, strangely, he didn’t seem like he needed convincing. I wish I knew what exactly he’d experienced when I’d tried to show him my memories.

After a moment, he turned and walked out after his men, leaving Peter and I alone.