She heard clanging, down the hall, and then footsteps approaching. One of the scientists opened the door and peered out into the hallway. Can you see anything? Wanda asked, but Pietro didn’t answer. 

“Here?” She heard from outside the door, loud enough that she could understand it.

“Yes, inside,” came the impatient answer. “Move along.” 

“It’s a devil.” Another voice said roughly. “Should just take it out and shoot it. It came out of the sedative during the transfer, you know? Killed four good soldiers in a minute and a half.”

Wanda muffled her gasp, drawing back a little. Was this going to be another test for them? Or even if it wasn’t - she didn’t like the sound of being close to something that dangerous. 

“Not your call,” said the scientist crisply. “And not mine either. Bring it in.” 

She’d been expecting some kind of wild animal; what the soldiers wheeled in, though, was a gurney with a person on it. His skull had a fine covering of black stubble growing back where hair had been shaved away. Despite being thoroughly bound, he was limp as a wet rag, so much so that he hardly looked alive at all. Wanda felt a wave of pity. Another prisoner, she thought, and by the look of it another one of HYDRA’s experiments. 

He looks dead, Pietro said. She could feel him twitching, wanting to move, but there was far from enough room for him to do so without banging into the walls. The soldiers wheeled the gurney to where one of the scientists directed. One of them pulled back one of his eyelids.

“Starting log,” another said into a recorder. “Subject NM-084-11-”

Wanda smelled something chemical and flinched at the memories it dragged up in her mind. She must have made a sound, because one of the scientists turned to look at her. 

“Do you want them here?” She asked, jabbing a thumb at her and Pietro. The doctor, bent over the new arrival, waved a hand. 

“No,” he said, “remove them. They are finished for the day.”

Wanda closed her eyes and braced for the shock of electricity. She heard some machine whir to life, and thought for your sake, stranger, I hope you die quickly. 

**

He didn’t. 

When they were brought back, the other prisoner was still there, eyes open a sliver, though it was hard for her to tell how much he was conscious. Pietro put himself between Wanda and the prisoner, his expression stone as he whispered “don’t look,” out of the corner of his mouth. Of course, that just made her glance over. She looked away quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid recognition of the sheet of plastic spread over his torso. The thought occurred to Wanda, briefly, that she probably could do it - kill him. It would only take a second. 

Fear of the punishment she knew she would get made her shy away. She couldn’t. They might not even hurt her; it could be Pietro, and that would be worse. 

The brief respite of the day before was over. It was another day of grueling testing, putting her through her paces until her head throbbed and her vision blurred. She didn’t know how long they might have gone if it weren’t for the crash and blood-curdling scream from the adjoining lab - the one with the new prisoner. 

She saw the fear, briefly, in the scientist’s eyes, before he shut it away and turned to her. “With me, girl. Maybe you’ll have a chance to show your worth.” 

He made her open the door, the coward. The prisoner froze. One of his hands was free, the metal bent and warped; the lone attendant lay on the floor in a puddle of blood. Wanda froze, and the prisoner bared his teeth, a flare of panic in wild eyes. 

She hesitated. “Subdue him,” snapped the scientist, and then added, making Wanda’s blood chill, “think of your brother.” 

“I’m sorry,” Wanda said, and reached inside herself and out. 

She stumbled, focus breaking as she felt something like a shove. “No,” the prisoner said, words mixed with blood. “You’ll have to - kill me first-”

She wavered. “You can,” she started to say, but then thought Pietro and this time pushed harder, and it was like someone trying to hold her away but Wanda could see that it cost him-

Whatever he was doing, it snapped, and Wanda touched - something. Not like the other minds she’d touched, different, strange, and she floundered a little, at a loss. 

Please.

It was like when Pietro spoke to her, but not. In front of her eyes, the prisoner had gone still, breathing stuttering. There was blood dripping from under the plastic sheeting he was holding in place. 

Please. Don’t. You aren’t on their side, let me go and I will help you, I swear it.

Wanda blinked, confused, jarred, breathing shallowly. 

You have magic, I can teach you. It sounded frantic, desperate. Time seemed to have slowed, gone sticky. Don’t let them keep doing this to me-

“What are you waiting for?” The scientist shouted, voice shaking with fear, and Wanda thought Pietro and closed her eyes, pushing his mind down into sleep, smothering consciousness. 

Whatever else he could or couldn’t do, he succumbed to that like anyone else.

**

They hurried her and Pietro out and away, once they had restrained the stranger once again. Wanda couldn’t look at him, no matter how much she reminded herself that she knew nothing about him, that they had threatened Pietro, that she had nowhere else to go but here - that no matter what kind of hell it was, it was one she knew. It did not make her feel very much better.

“Sister,” Pietro murmured, drawing close to her and putting an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into his side and said nothing. 

He said he would teach me, she said, not aloud, so their watchers could not hear.

Pietro stiffened. Teach you? Teach you what?

Magic. Pietro’s head turned to look at her. Neither of them had put a name to her new…abilities, but there she just had - but the stranger had first. You have magic, he’d said, although of course he could have been lying, tryiing to trick her…

No, she didn’t think so. 

What if he could have helped us, Wanda thought, after a long silence from Pietro. He scowled. Never very good at controlling his expressions. 

Helped us? He needed your help.

They said he was dangerous. That he killed some of them when they were bringing him here. Wanda picked at one of her hands, a new fidgety habit she’d picked up since her powers had come. If we could free him, maybe he could help us get away.

To where, Pietro asked, and Wanda looked away. That was it, wasn’t it? They had nowhere to go, nowhere safe from HYDRA, where they could not be followed and brought back. 

She still could not help but think that anything would be better than here. 

**

Wanda did not see the other prisoner again for several days. She listened closely, hoping to overhear something, but the only thing that might be relevant was mention of Asgard and Mjolnir, neither of which meant much to her. Otherwise, she got the impression they were keeping her and Pietro away on purpose. 

Or at least, she thought that was the case, until Baron Strucker himself came to her room - her cell. “Come with me,” he said. Wanda blinked at him, hesitating. Strucker seldom approached either of them directly. This must be important, and that made her wary. “Do not make me repeat myself,” he said, voice harder, and Wanda stood and followed, a soldier close behind her with his hand on his gun. She glanced over her shoulder when she realized that she was alone. 

“My brother?” She asked cautiously. 

“We do not need his skills. Only yours.” 

Wanda felt an odd uneasy squirm. She wished Pietro were here nonetheless. 

Strucker took her to an elevator and down to a level she did not remember visiting before. “One of our subjects is…resistant,” he said. “Your help is necessary in breaking through its defenses.”

Wanda’s stomach sunk further. “Subjects?”

“You’ve met before,” he said, and rapped on a door that looked like any of the others. It opened a moment later and Strucker waved her inside. Wanda felt herself break out in sweat - the white room, the smell of disinfectant and bleach and a faint, unavoidable odor of blood. It awakened vague nightmare-memories that she was afraid to examine too closely. 

On the table in the middle was the prisoner from before. He looked unconscious, though thankfully intact - and naked. Wanda averted her eyes, embarrassed. “What do you want me to do,” she asked in a small voice, hanging back. 

“I want you to make it comply,” Strucker said, his eyes boring into her. “Make it answer our questions. Break it by fear if necessary.”

Wanda felt vaguely ill. He looked so helpless. Like her and Pietro had been. If someone had been there to help them…

“I can’t do that to an unconscious person,” she said, which wasn’t quite the truth, but she guessed Strucker wouldn’t know that. He just gestured to one of the doctors, though. 

“Wake it up,” he said. They injected something into one of the tubes going into the prisoner, and a moment later his eyes started to twitch under closed lids. 

“Now,” Strucker said roughly, and Wanda didn’t dare hesitate as she had before. She raised her hands and again felt that strange resistance, though it was weaker this time. But she felt him become aware of her, and that was different, no one noticed when she worked her…magic, if that was what it was. 

It was less a thought than an impression: no. And then a spill of thoughts, rapid and overwhelming: I am Loki son of - no, wrong, I am Loki, I am of - wrong, no, I will not give you anything I will force you out-

“Where is it from?” Strucker asked.

The answer should have just surfaced, but it didn’t. Still that string of denials, of useless information - and Wanda realized what was happening. He was trained for this, somehow. For the possibility that someone might be able to tap into his mind.

She shook her head. “I can’t…he’s shutting me out.”

“Try harder,” Strucker said coldly, and added, “go ahead.”

Go ahead what, Wanda wondered, but knew a moment later when she heard the prisoner make a sharp, pained sound, the wall cracking momentarily. Wanda hesitated for a split second. 

Can you hear me?

Nothing, for a moment, and then a thought loaded with rage and hatred that made her flinch. You.

I’m sorry. I want to help. They can’t hear me but I need to give them answers or they’ll just keep hurting you. Wanda realized she was holding her breath and made herself breathe. 

“Wanda?” Strucker said.

Just tell me where you’re from, she pleaded. It’ll buy time so we can keep talking. 

A long silence. Wanda held herself tense. Asgard, she heard finally. Tell them that.

“Asgard,” she repeated. Someone swore in Sokovian. Wanda kept her eyes down. Tell me what I can do.

They are drugging me with something. It makes me weak. Sick. If you could stop it I could break free.

“Does it have a name?” Strucker asked. 

They have my brother. I need to make sure he is safe. 

No answer, either to that or to Strucker’s question. “Give me a second,” Wanda said, feeling Strucker shift behind her with an exasperated sigh. “I’m trying.” Your name.

No. Even the thought sounded flat. I will not let them use it against me. They have no right to-

The thought shattered in a burst of pain that made Wanda wince. “He doesn’t remember,” she said in a rush. “It’s  - it’s not clear…”

“Could be brain damage from the fall,” someone said, and she felt an odd shudder from the prisoner’s mind, a murmur of the fall, what a simple way of putting it.

“Are there others of its kind?” 

No. I will not do this. To her horror, Wanda could feel him - pushing her out. Somehow. She dug in her heels and held on. 

Stop it, she thought frantically. If I can be useful, if I give them what they want from you, they’ll bring me back again and they’ll hurt you less-

Witchling, he interrupted her, I do not think they are interested in hurting me less. 

We can help each other, she thought. We can get away from here.

More silence. She heard Strucker sigh. “Useless,” he muttered, and then, “try another 50 cc’s and bring Whitehall back in.”

No, she heard suddenly. There are no others.

“Wait,” Wanda said urgently. “No - there aren’t any others, he’s the only one.”

“Hm,” Strucker said, after a silence. “That is disappointing. If it is true.” 

“It is,” Wanda said, trying to sound convincing. “I would know if it weren’t.” She tried to sound obedient, submissive, her heart racing. From the prisoner - whose name she still did not know - there was nothing. 

“Very well,” Strucker said finally, and Wanda slumped slightly with relief. "Take her away. That’s enough for now.” 

Wanda jerked. She needed to ask more questions, learn more for herself, plan. “Wait,” she said. “I can do more-”

“Your diligence is creditable, girl,” Strucker said, and Wanda felt a flash of anger that she smothered. “But your help will not be needed further for the moment.” 

Wanda caught just a flash of bitter, wry humor. So much for that. 

I’ll come back, she thought. Just hang on and I’ll come back and-

Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her away. It was all she could do to keep herself from lashing out, blinking as she was jarred back into her own body. Her eyes went to the prisoner and she could see narrow slits where his eyes were just barely open.

Wanda, she thought, trying to reach out once more. My name is Wanda.

“Let’s go,” the man holding her arm said, giving her a tug. 

Loki, she heard faintly, just before the door closed. That was my name. 

And even quieter: I can wait. 

Wanda followed her guard without a word. She needed to think.