Novi Grad, Sokovia

Spring 2015

One definite drawback to suddenly being able to move at super-speeds was that sitting still was a huge drag. There was no masking his impatience to be going even as the doctor finished up his tests, gesturing that Pietro was free to go.

Which meant he was waiting just as impatiently for Wanda to finish up with her daily exam. It was taking long enough that he was seriously considering popping off for a quick run to burn off some of his restless energy from being cooped up in the lab all morning.

But he resisted the urge. He'd promised to stay by her side just as she had promised to stay by his. They were all each other had left in the world. And she had asked him to wait for her. Wanda hated the exams. She loved her new abilities. They both did. After what felt like a lifetime of feeling powerless? Their new powers were a gift unlike anything they could have ever dreamed of. Although, Pietro could tell the telepathic aspect of Wanda's powers had driven her nearly insane at first, almost completely overwhelming her. And she still sometimes seemed, well, off because of them.

But she hated the poking and prodding that came with their gifts.

They would soon be free of it, though. The techs and doctors just wanted to make sure their abilities were stable and weren't harming them. At first the Twins had been put into isolation as their powers manifested in order to protect themselves and others. It had been a horrible time; the first time Pietro and Wanda had really been truly separated since the deaths of their parents. They hadn't been able to let go of each other for days after they'd been let out of those horrible cold cells.

So he waited, settling on one of the rolling stools that littered the lab. One of the lab techs kept shooting him an irritated look at the way he kept spinning and fidgeting, his leg bouncing in his eagerness to be gone, to be moving. He merely smirked back at her. He'd never been one to sit still before Strucker's experiments, and after? Definitely not one to sit still.

It was then that a handful of Strucker's for-hires came stomping into the lab, their irritability nearly tangible. Pietro didn't need Wanda's mind-reading to tell him that something had them defensive and tetchy.

But that wasn't what really caught his attention. No, it was the slight girl they were carrying into the lab. Pietro couldn't help but stare, curious about who she was, why she'd been brought here, and what on earth three of Strucker's mercenaries were doing bringing in a girl who was, at most, a year or two younger than him and his twin. The fact that she was rather pretty didn't hurt either.

"Another volunteer," he threw out curiously, not bothering to care how patronizing he sounded. No one on the base could touch him or Wanda, and not just because of their abilities. They were Strucker's shining successes, his only surviving test subjects. Even before the experiments had taken hold, he and Wanda had been untouchable, and ever since he'd figured that out, Pietro had been taking full advantage...much to Wanda's exasperation.

But as the men carrying the new girl in all but dumped her on the waiting exam table, Pietro was suddenly sitting straighter, his brows beginning to draw into a concerned frown. She was restrained, strong zip ties securing her wrists and ankles. This was not normal, not if this girl was going to be another test subject like him and Wanda. One of the men turned and glared at Pietro as soon as the girl was on the table, giving the younger man a good view of the fingernail scratches down the side of his face. Pietro's eyebrows rose of their own volition.

It was then that he noticed all three of the men bringing the girl in were arrayed with a collection of spectacular bruises, scrapes, split lips and one even a freshly broken nose. Frowning, Pietro straightened further before finally standing even as Wanda reappeared at his side, an uneasy frown of her own marring her face. His twin laced her fingers with his, unconsciously exchanging comfort and support as they had since as long as they could remember.

"If she's a volunteer, I'm Iron Man," one of the men grumbled angrily as he stormed back out of the lab, nearly knocking into Wanda and Pietro as he did. Had Pietro not been distracted by the worrying mystery of the girl, he might have been tempted to ring the man's ears a bit for nearly running purposefully into the two of them.

The retreating mercenary's two companions weren't far behind, lingering only long enough to ensure the zipties they'd bound the girl with were still secure and the exam table's built-in restraints were snugly fastened across her chest, hips and knees. The girl didn't even twitch as they worked. She was so limp and unresponsive that, had her chest not been rising and falling lightly, Pietro might have worried that she was dead.

As the Maximoff Twins looked on, the lab techs began to buzz around the new arrival, tutting and whispering around her like she was a new toy. Pietro could practically feel his twin's unease, knowing unconsciously that it matched his own. The atmosphere in the room had tangibly changed as soon as the blonde girl had been brought in. There was a level of anticipation that neither of the twins remembered from their turns on that table; there had only been a resigned determination when their turn had come up, but since all the previous subjects had died, that was somewhat understandable.

Deep in his gut, Pietro knew there was something wrong, and the way Wanda's eyes had gone wide and fretful only confirmed that. Her expression certainly did nothing to lessen the anxious twisting in his middle.

The feeling only got worse when Strucker appeared a few moments later, obviously impatient to take a look at the new arrival as the techs had finished whatever preliminary examinations they'd been doing. Pietro couldn't help but think the German Baron looked far too eager at the prospect of a new subject for his experiments.

The Baron was nearly gleeful as he approached the girl's side, only for his expression to shift to one of aggravation as he took in his newest subject's current state.

"How much did they give her," he barked at the techs, not even bothering to look up at them as he glanced over the charts he had been handed as he walked into the lab. He leaned forward to examine the girl more closely, peering at her eyes, gauging her response to physical stimuli, even taking her pulse despite the fact that the techs had already hooked her up to a variety of monitors. One of the techs sidled up next to Strucker, handing him the newest set of printouts. Wanda's fingers tightened on Pietro's, the two of them exchanging another apprehensive glance as they realized what their benefactor intended to do.

That the Sceptre was wheeled in moments later only confirmed that.

This was wrong. Pietro and Wanda had volunteered for what had been done to them through Strucker's Experiments. His eyes latched onto the pale-haired girl who was still out cold on the exam table as Strucker and the techs hovered over her; she looked barely younger than Pietro and Wanda. And the fact that she was still unconscious—drugged, Wanda mouthed to him in confirmation, not even needing to read her twin's mind to know what he'd been thinking—made it worse still, causing her to look far too young and innocent to be in this place. There was no anger in this girl. No fire for vengeance. No desperation. Nothing that the rest of the volunteers had had motivating them.

Pietro was abruptly fighting to ignore the growing impulse to keep Strucker from so much as touching this girl. Volunteering was one thing. But kidnapping? Wanda shot him an odd, considering glance before edging closer to him, her blue-green eyes flashing scarlet for a moment as her temper flared. He knew precisely how she felt. They'd both known going into the Experiments that Strucker's methods were shady at best. At worst... They weren't stupid. Anyone offering them what he had—the chance for vengeance for what had been done to them, a chance to fight back for Sokovia—the way that he had? Obviously the German Baron was more bad news than good. But he was the only one to offer what Wanda and Pietro had craved, and they had snatched at the opportunity with both hands. But Pietro had genuinely believed the man when he said it was their choice to continue. They both had. He'd held nothing back, being completely honest with them about the risks of what they'd been signing up for. They'd known the chances of making it to the other side of the Experiments had been miniscule at best. And they'd chosen to go through with it anyway.

It didn't look like this girl even had the choice to begin with.

She was utterly helpless in the face of Strucker's ambition.

Yet, she hadn't made it easy for the group of Strucker's thugs to bring her in, judging by the marks the girl had left on the three men.

"They said it took two doses to get her down," the tech said quietly, "and they needed to give her a third on the way here when she started coming around in transit." Strucker glanced up in surprise before the gleeful look returned. The vivid bruises popped back into Pietro's mind, nearly causing him to smirk despite his apprehension. Whoever this girl was, she wasn't one to give up easily. It helped lessen the unease and worry and even fear churning in his stomach. She was obviously strong and strong-willed to have put up such a fight against three grown and highly trained men.

It meant her chances of survival were just that little bit higher.

Pietro almost didn't notice when the tech continued: "you were right, Sir. She inherited her parents' Enhanced metabolic rates, among other traits. It's the only way she could have remained functional for so long after being given a single dose, much less two."

"You have taken all preliminary and control samples and gathered all baseline data?" Around him the techs all nodded and gave their confirmations, though a few of them were beginning to look worried. "Then wake her up. She needs to be conscious before we can begin." Pietro was almost certain he'd misunderstood at first, but as Wanda nearly jerked beside him at Strucker's enthusiastic declaration, he knew he hadn't.

"Sir," one of the techs objected, "surely it would be better for the drugs to work their way out of her system naturally first. And we need to have her under observation for at least a few more days to get the proper range of control—" Strucker shot the man a quelling glare before gesturing another tech forward with what Pietro assumed was something to wake her from her drug-induced unconsciousness.

"There is no time like the present," Strucker intoned as he turned his full attention back to the girl.

Within moments of being dosed the girl was coming round, almost immediately fighting groggily against her restraints as she began to panic, demanding in a hoarse, slurred voice to be let free, demanding to know what was going on, what they wanted.

Next to her, Strucker gestured again, and the tech who had given her the dose that brought the girl around came forward again, this time bearing a needle that he was filling from a faintly familiar purple-glass bottle; Pietro was sure he recognized it from his own experience on that table. The girl's face paled as she watched the tech inject the specially formulated drugs intended to help the body accept the Sceptre's energy into her IV before renewing her struggle.

But Pietro could see in her eyes as she realized she wasn't going to be able to fight her way free. Next to him, Wanda began to tremble, pressing closer to him in anxious anticipation at what was coming. They both remembered all too well what the Sceptre's energy felt like as it surged through their bodies, permeating and scorching through every muscle, every bone, every cell. It was impossible to forget the feeling. It was too easy to get lost in the memory of it. It was only when a faint, distressed whimper came from his twin that Pietro realized his grip on her hand had tightened painfully. The mystery girl shuddered as the drugs flooded her system, shaking within the restraints now that she had stopped struggling against them.

"Please...don't do this." Her voice—faintly accented, but with what language Pietro couldn't quite tell—was so small, so at odds with the fire the twins had glimpsed when she first started to wake up.

But Strucker all but ignored her pleas, reciting calmly that she needed to relax and that she had a chance to become something incredible, something miraculous; the same words that he had spoken to Pietro and Wanda that they'd found so encouraging before the Baron had started. Horror began to flood through Pietro at the mix of anger and terror in her wide blue-grey eyes.

Especially when they latched beseechingly on him and his sister.

Next to her, Strucker was turning to hand off the clipboard he'd been perusing and gestured the Sceptre forward, only to catch sight of the Twins where they lingered on the far side of the room before turning back to the girl, gesturing sharply again.

And then Pietro and Wanda were getting shooed from the Lab. They had barely been herded out into the corridor as Strucker initiated the first of the procedures, filling the lab with an eerie, arcing blue light.

The last glimpse of the girl Pietro got was of her seizing, her slender body arching off the table, the restraints creaking ominously from the strain of her wrenching against them as a breathless scream tore from her lips. His own muscles cramped and ached with remembered pain even as Wanda jerked next to him.

As the door closed, throwing the corridor into darkness as the flickering light was cut off along with the hoarse shriek, it left Pietro feeling sick even as a vibrating, impotent anger settled in his chest.

A/N: Thanks for reading!

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