Chapter 10
“I have to go back to New York,” Steve told her a few days later.
“Oh?” Wanda put away her dish.
“Tony has something he wants to show us.”
She stopped what she was doing and didn’t turn to look back at him. “Avengers?” she asked lowly, though not without trying to hold back the bad taste in left in her mouth.
“Yes.”
“It must be important if you’re all getting together,” she finally returned to the couch, her focus pointedly at the morning news and not at him.
“He and Banner have been working on something that they’d like to share.”
As tempting as it was to peak into his thoughts, she wouldn’t. She liked to think she was beyond that with Steve, and that so long as he was not yelling in his thinking, she needed to at least make the effort not to hear him. She looked away to reduce any temptations, though.
“Of course, you’re a part of their team. Their, leader, as it is. I haven’t forgotten that.” Even if she kind of did, at least sometimes.
“Yes, I am. I know how you feel about this, but I have to go.”
She stared straight ahead and tried to hide her growing hatred, “people die because of you.”
Wanda missed his reaction, but the tension certainly grew in the small room. “We do our best to stop death, as much as possible. People do die though, you’re right about that.” He spoke a little more defensively than she was used to with him. When she looked back at him, his lips were pressed together and the weight he always carried with him seemed to increase with each second of their conversation. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You have your obligation, as I have mine.” She thought first of Pietro and then of the original goal. Justice, first for her parents, and then for her country. Strucker had called them miracles and she liked the sentiment. A miracle was what it would take the rid the earth of the Avengers, and she once thought that was the reason she and Pietro had survived Dr. List’s experiments when so many others died.
“I’ll be back in a few days.”
She took a look around his apartment, the place she’d been in for months now and might have considered home, even if it still looked a little bare for her taste. “I’ll be here.”
After Steve left, she didn’t do much at all for the rest of her day. She was angry both with him and herself and spent too much time pacing around the apartment, grateful that whoever lived below didn’t seem to notice. She watched TV, and she made herself some lunch and later dinner. She took a break from the news and tried to watch something lighthearted and carefree, but mostly she just tried not to let her feelings consume her.
Steve’s leaving felt like a betrayal, and that was ridiculous for a number of reasons. The main one being that he had no commitments to her. There was no reason he would put her wants ahead of his duties to his teammates, to expect anything else was asinine. Yet, the thought of him with the others made her sick. Romanoff, she could understand. But Stark made her ill with indignation and that tainted any indifference she had towards the others on the team.
When she was done with her pity party and tried to bury her anger, Wanda gave up and turned in early for the night.
Only she was feeling certain needs again. Wanda was a young woman, and she knew these feelings were only natural for her to have, especially given that she spent so much time with a male who was not her brother. She knew that she needed to avoid thinking of Steve as anything but her host, but lying on her pull out couch that night, rationality was not her friend.
It was hot outside, but the air-conditioning kept the room freezing and beneath the covers she slipped her hand into her sweatpants.
She figured if she could just finish quickly and be done with it, she’d be able to sleep and not have to think anymore.
The problem was that no matter how much she rubbed or lightly pinched, she just couldn’t quite get there. It felt nice, sure, but she just couldn’t feel that coil in her belly or stars behind her eyes. Reluctantly, she tried to imagine something that might help. There had been a cute boy where she bought her coffee that she tried to imagine in her bed. Wanda was no prude with these things, especially alone like this with the apartment to herself. Still, all scenarios she tried to make up seemed silly. At the rate she was going, she might as well have given up on getting off and just tried sleeping again.
She persisted though, changing angles and pressures, anything that would make her at least moan.
The boy from the coffee shop wasn’t blond enough, and his mind hadn’t been the comfortable one she’d grown accustomed to hearing somewhere in the background.
Stop. She thought to herself, desperate not to think of Steve during this, not while she was getting over her stupid crush on him.
She rolled onto her back and took her hand out of her panties, going for her nipples instead. Her breasts had always been so sensitive. She took each nipple and was rough when she tugged until they were hard. Wanda reached back into her panties, rubbing with more force and began fingering herself with a new-found desperation.
She whined, uncaring of how loud it was.
“Steve!”
Fuck it.
She got back to it, the coffee shop boy forgotten as she fantasized about getting out of her bed and making her way to Steve’s room. He’d know exactly what she was thinking about and what she wanted when she climbed on top of him, his blankets already pushed down and his cock out, hard from listening to her.
She’d ride him until she came and….
That was all she needed.
Wanda felt that wonderful tightening and waves of euphoria. She rode out the sensation, imagined she was straddling Steve until it was done.
So much for getting over it.
“There was a man looking for you here the other day.” The girl at the coffee shop told her, passing over a latte and blueberry muffin.
“There was?’ Wanda was hesitant when she grabbed her drink and snack, “did he say his name?”
“No, just that he was an old friend. He had your picture. I told him you came in once in a while. I hope that was okay?”
“I-what did he look like?”
“Older guy. He spoke with a thick accent.”
Wanda pressed against the girl’s mind, anxious to know who was looking for her. The images shifted and there was a long barrage of customers that came in every day. Then there was the old man who was indeed very familiar to the Sokovian. In the barista’s memories, he was a little pushy but overall a friendly guy. He had Wanda’s picture and held it up, “she’s an old friend I fear has gone missing. Do you ever see her in here?”
It was Dr. Link, Strucker’s right hand man. How he had tracked her here was anybody’s guess. Link did not have the same fortitude that Strucker possessed, but he was his own sort of imposing. It was him who carried out many of the experiments and his hands that had given her all of the injections that had changed her completely. He would sit across from her on many days following her survival, showing her blank flashcards with images only he was privy too.
“What do you see now?”
Her head would ache from the untrained abilities, but she would see the image on the other side, just as he saw it, “a penguin with a red cap on.”
“Good! Very good!”
But she was stronger than that now. Her abilities had grown and went far beyond flashcards. Far beyond anything Link or Strucker could have imagined.
“I’ll stick around. Maybe he’ll come back.” Wanda slid away from the counter. She found a comfortable seat outside on the patio and watched the crowds of people walking past her as she sipped on her drink.
He was out there somewhere, that much she was positive of. No way he would have a potential lead on her and then leave, not after all of the time and resources he’d put into his human experimentations. She was one of two successful trials that hadn’t died shortly after injections began, and that had to mean something to the doctor.
Her seat faced the main street that hundreds must have passed by each hour. It would only be a matter of time…
She thought for a while of Steve in New York with the Avengers. Romanoff would be there, too. If Wanda were to call either of them, she wondered what might happen. She thought of calling Nick Fury as well, but that was nearly out of the question. Link may have been a soft-spoken man, but he was deeply connected and respected by many of his peers. Once, she had been one of those who thought he was doing righteous work. He might just be her quickest path to Pietro and if not, maybe then she would alert Fury.
Not Steve, though. The last thing she wanted was to have to see any of his team.
The sun was at its peak when Wanda felt the first pulls of something familiar. She steeled her nerves and brought power to the tips of her fingers. There was enough there that she wondered if it would be deadly if she were to reach out and blast.
It had only been a few months since she last saw the doctor, but he seemed so much more ragged than she remembered. She assumed he had been on the run since she last saw him.
Wanda was immobile when the gravity of List’s appearance really hit her. He was HYDRA and here she was waiting for him like it was nothing. True, she swore no loyalty to Fury or what was left of a legitimate SHIELD organization, but this was grey territory she’d entered into. This is for Pietro.
“Doctor,” she spoke lowly and had to reign in the wave of power that begged to be released.
“Wanda! I am so glad to have found you.” He stood above her for a minute, and she thought he might have wanted a hug or a handshake. She offered neither but nodded to the empty seat across from her.
“How did you find me?”
“I have a friend.”
Wanda flinched. She really hadn’t interacted with many people since meeting Fury, and she had thought the ones she had met were reliable or at least cleared by SHIELD.
“Is Pietro with you?” she did her best to sound nonchalant but felt all hope plummet when List shook his head.
“Sorry dear, but I was separated from your brother and the Baron when the base was attacked. It was a miracle I wasn’t killed or taken prisoner! Which begs the question, how did you end up here?”
“I was taken prisoner, but I played my cards right,” she spoke with a false confidence and kept things vague, “how do we reconnect with Strucker or Pietro?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know. All of my usual resources are out, and communication has been troublesome or down right gone.”
He was useless then, and still very much a liar. She clenched her teeth and fist but had to stop herself from lashing out. When Wanda spoke, it was with as much steadiness as she could fake given the sudden emotions she felt. “You told me you were affiliated with SHIELD, and SHIELD may be regrouping but they are very much functional. You would be able to contact Strucker if that were true.”
“Wanda?”
She leaned forward and hissed, “you’re HYDRA!”
The man before her paled but was quick to harden his features and meet her halfway across the small table between them.
“How dare you. After all we have done for you and your brother. You two were nothing before we found you. Street urchin in dire need of purpose.”
It was like a physical slap, but she didn’t let it knock her down, “you told me you were-”
“I told you that together, we would destroy the Avengers. You never asked what would happen after.”
“Peace! I was told there would be peace once the Avengers were gone!”
“Peace through the power of order. HYDRA is the only way to guarantee worldwide harmony.”
Wanda’s eyes were no doubt red and despite Dr. Link’s quick change in disposition, she knew he was observing her physical transformation with a scientific curiosity.
“I would never have joined HYDRA. Pietro wouldn’t either.”
“Are you so sure about that?”
“What do you mean?” she switched back to English without meaning to but went back to her native tongue for the sake of semi-privacy.
“Your brother has always been much more rational with these things. You wouldn’t want to be on opposite sides of the battlefield, would you?”
“I know my brother better than you do.”
“Of course, you do. But I’ve known both of you long before you woke up in my lab, and Pietro is much more committed to the goal of peace. He may not approve the means, but the end results justify all.”
For the slightest second, she worried List was right. She and Pietro had always wanted for a better world, but Wanda had thought that meant justice by destroying the Avengers. She was sure she was in sync on this with her brother, but what came after was something they never really spoke about.
“If you really wanted to find your brother,” List continued, “you would do well to put away all notions of right and wrong. There is only order. It’s the only way, and when you’ve seen the real world, you would understand that.”
“I’ve lived the real world. I know what it’s like.”
“You did, once. And because of it, you ended up in my lab voluntarily. The results of that time have been marvelous. I wonder, your brother is so fast why hasn’t he come for you?”
“He’s still under Strucker’s thumb.”
“And you’re what? Free? Be honest Wanda, he hasn’t come for you because he thinks you’ve betrayed the mission. He doesn’t want to find you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? He could search the world. He could very well know exactly where you are. He won’t, you traitor.”
He’d hit her where it hurt, and Wanda felt weak and small in that instance. Pietro knew she was in Washington, but he had yet to break away and come meet her. The reason for that was…
Well, not because he hated her. They would never hate each other no matter how much List might imply.
She didn’t know why he hadn’t tried to find her, though. And she hated List for making her confront that.
“There’s a man,” the doctor cut through her confliction, “and he wants to meet you. He’s the one that found you for me. He’s very anxious for a face to face encounter and I’ve told him you’ll be there.”
“No.”
List stood up from his seat and smiled down at her, dropping a folded-up card she assumed was the meeting place. “He found you without trouble. Probably wouldn’t be hard to find Pietro, either.”
She watched him leave and when she felt him cross the road a few blocks away, she finally reached out and looked at the piece of paper he’d left behind.
Lincoln Memorial, Saturday at 1:30am