Chapter Text
"I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." – E.M. Forster, “What I Believe”
They strip her during processing. One of the guards squeezes her breasts roughly and laughs. He gets an irritable lecture from the captain, but the rest of the guards say nothing as she's bundled into thin cotton pants and a straitjacket.
She closes her eyes, willing herself elsewhere. Her body is a shell she no longer has any control over, but maybe she can get her mind far enough away to pretend this isn't real. Then she feels the needle prick, and what's left to her of the world begins to fog over. The last thing she remembers seeing is that guard smiling at her.
She thinks: He'll leave me alone at first. Because of the captain. Maybe. But it'll happen eventually.
She didn't want her first time to be like that. She'd always wanted something gentle and romantic.
But under the circumstances, not being conscious is an acceptable alternative.
When Vision had seen the police take them away, it had hurt to see them cuffed and treated like criminals (which they were, he reminded himself), but he had assumed that the worst was over. They were fundamentally decent people, just misguided. Wanda was still disoriented after the sonic attack and they were professional with her. He was confident that she would go into custody for a bit, and then she would be released back to the compound and everything would be as it was. He needed to be ready.
He bought some new cookbooks and spent an afternoon perfecting the French omelet.
He considered dusting her room, but concluded it would be too intrusive.
He debated the merits of a welcome-home party and then decided against it, absent a team-wide rapprochement that he thought was unlikely in the short term, but nonetheless hoped would happen.
(Colonel Rhodes told him later that he was struggling with the notion of consequences. “Kids learn this the same way,” he said, shrugging. “They just think everything goes back to the way things were, and that almost never happens.”)
But then they weren't told anything. Mr. Stark had been tight-lipped on his return from Siberia, and had not wanted to discuss his trip to the Raft either. Vision hadn't pressed the issue, assuming that information would be forthcoming when Mr. Stark had gotten his injuries treated. It wasn't.
The experience taught him that he had gained the capacity to be impatient.
He penetrated the the surveillance system on the Raft with slightly more difficulty than he'd anticipated. Once in, it was the work of a moment to find his former teammates, but Wanda wasn't housed with them. He finally found her, two levels below them in maximum security.
Google informed him that the proper term for the resulting feeling was horror.
Mr. Stark was in the kitchen later that night, sitting with a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs. He'd eaten half and was pushing the rest of them around, staring off into space. He was heavily bruised, and breathing shallowly in a way that suggested more than one broken rib.
Vision thought Mr. Stark would benefit substantially from Ms. Potts' intervention, and also thought that this was not a particularly good time to raise that point.
“Mr. Stark?”
His surrogate father looked up. “Yes?”
Vision seated himself at the counter as the silence stretched between them. “How are you doing?”
“Peachy.”
He wasn't sure there was a way to ease into this conversation; if there was, he didn't know it. “I saw Wanda in the prison.”
Mr. Stark looked away, tapping a finger on the counter, very slow. “Do I want to know how you did this?”
“I imagine you can guess.”
“Did you get caught?”
“No.”
Tony exhaled. “Good. One less person who'd have to go to jail.”
“May I ask why they were keeping her in a straitjacket?”
“I don't think they wanted to take any chances. They told me they'll let her out of it with good behavior. She's allowed to take it off for meals and bathroom breaks.”
Vision had watched enough of Wanda's day to know that that was true, though he had averted his eyes during the bathroom trips. (An early experience taking a shortcut through walls and finding Natasha on the toilet had impressed upon him the need to never do that again.) “And the collar?”
“It monitors brain activity and delivers a shock if it detects her trying to activate her powers. Supposedly it doesn't cause any permanent damage, but it's enough to knock her out for a few seconds. I think that's bullshit and I honestly have no idea how they would have designed something like that so quickly, or even tested it. But that's what they told me, anyway.”
The thought of Wanda being tormented wasn't something he'd anticipated. He thought the laws meant something. “Does it do anything else?”
“Not to my knowledge. Why?”
“She appeared oddly lethargic to me. Is she injured? I was under the impression that the effects of the sonic attack are very temporary.”
Tony paused. “They should be. I don't think that's it.”
“Is she sick?”
“No.”
“Is there something you're not telling me, Mr. Stark?”
Tony stopped moving eggs around the plate and let the fork drop. It was increasingly obvious that this was a conversation he didn't want to be having. “Vision, why are you asking me all this?”
“I'm concerned about the welfare of my teammates.”
“No, you're not. You didn't ask about Clint or Sam or … whoever the hell the other guy was. You asked about Wanda. Why?”
His logic process should have returned an answer, but it fumbled. He chose an explanation that seemed plausible, both to Mr. Stark and to himself. “She was my responsibility. I failed in my efforts to keep her contained.”
“Yeah, I'd say so. I have a giant fucking hole to get patched up on twelve floors now. But I assume you didn't let her go on purpose.”
“Of course not.”
“Then don't beat yourself up over it.” Tony's eyes dropped. “Not the first time a girl got the better of a guy who was soft on her.”
“I'm afraid that's a misinterpretation, Mr. Stark.”
“Sure. What happened to all the eggs here, by the way?”
It was such an abrupt change of subject that Vision had the digital equivalent of a blink. “I'm sorry?”
“There were only three eggs left in the fridge. F.R.I.D.A.Y told me you guys got restocked with four dozen here before all this ...” He gestured irritably. “Before all this bullshit kicked off. Nobody was even here to eat them. Where'd they go?”
“I was practicing omelets this afternoon.”
“You don't eat, Vision.”
“It struck me as a skill that would be useful to acquire.”
“Uh huh.”
“Mr. Stark, you still haven't answered my question.”
“Because I don't know the answer and I really don't think you're going to like the guess.”
“Data points aren't there to be liked or disliked; they're there to be evaluated.”
“Yeah, well.” Tony got up with some difficulty, and deposited the remainder of his meal in the trash. “My guess is that she's sedated. I didn't spend a lot of time on the Raft and they weren't exactly forthcoming with the details, but that's the explanation that makes the most sense.”
Vision was quiet for a moment. “They're drugging her?”
“It's what I'd do if I absolutely had to keep Wanda controlled. And honestly, if I hadn't had you at the compound to keep an eye on her, I might have considered it.”
The knowledge that he had served the same function as a syringe of midazolam, and that Wanda could have seen him that way, was doing something to him. His thought processes were becoming decoupled from the most logical neural pathways. This feeling, Vision suspected, was rage, or the beginning of it. He had read dozens of books on human psychology, and he thought they made sense at the time, but the clinical descriptions of anger seemed so impersonal and inadequate now. It was an extraordinary motivator. He looked down at the counter, his voice clipping. “She's given her meals on a cardboard tray. No cutlery or cups. Her drinks are in a pouch and she's forced to eat with her hands. I'm given to understand that humans find this demeaning. Is that the intended effect?”
“I think they're afraid she can use anything else as a weapon.”
“Wanda is not a violent person.”
“You're gonna have a hard time convincing people that that's true.”
“But we know it's true.” Vision knew better than anyone; he was usually the only person awake in the compound when Wanda cried herself to sleep after disappointing practice sessions. Combat, particularly in close quarters, didn't come to her naturally. But her door had been closed, which meant that entrance in any form was improper. Multiple people told him this.
Tony tossed the rest of his coffee in the sink. “Vis, this girl dropped a dealership's worth of cars on me, throws five-ton pieces of equipment around like they're goddamn Tinkertoys, and sank you into the sub-basement. Couldn't help but notice that you did everything you could not to engage her in Leipzig, either. Whose side are you on?
“Yours. Ours. Obviously. The Accords are an imperfect solution, but the best available at present.”
“Then why are you so concerned about this?”
“If I'd known this would be the outcome, I might have approached it differently.”
“Yeah,” said Tony bitterly, limping away. “There's a lot of that going around.”
He returned to the surveillance feed.
Wanda was the only prisoner housed on her block. She hadn't eaten much following the Lagos incident and had visibly lost weight. Her small frame was pressed against the wall, and her eyes were blank and unfocused. Occasionally she shuddered. The cell had no bed or blankets or pillows, nothing that was intended to provide the slightest bit of comfort or warmth. Near as he could tell, all of the guards were male, in blatant violation of UN laws governing the treatment of female prisoners. One stopped on his rounds to stare at her in a way that prompted the discovery that synthetic skin could crawl.
Google informed him that the feeling in the pit of the stomach he did not possess could realistically be either shame or fear, but he thought it was probably both.
His queries to Secretary Ross were polite. The replies, which he suspected were written by an underling, were terse and unhelpful, and then stopped coming entirely.
Wanda did not have any right to legal representation. Wanda was not an American citizen and did not have any Constitutional rights. Wanda was functionally stateless and could not expect legal assistance from a country that, for all intents and purposes, didn't exist anymore. Outside of U.S. borders, Wanda had whatever statutory rights were granted to her by the territory in which she found herself. How unfortunate that the Raft granted none.
He began to think that Captain Rogers had a point.
Colonel Rhodes caught him in the armory the next day. Vision heard him coming, but didn't have time to hide the equipment he'd been collecting, or invent a reason for his presence.
Rhodes cast a sardonic eye on the pile of stun grenades, ropes, smoke bombs, digital lock overrides, and thermal charges he'd assembled. “Planning something?”
“Yes.” It was technically an answer.
Rhodes waited in vain for Vision to elaborate, and then rolled his eyes. “All right. I take it you're not interested in telling me what you're doing?”
“Not particularly, Colonel.”
“Rhodey is fine, Vis.”
“I'm uncomfortable with that kind of familiarity with people who outrank me both socially and professionally, Colonel. And ...”
“And?”
Vision would not – could not – meet his eyes. “As I'm responsible for your current state, it seems insulting for me to presume closeness.”
Rhodes laughed, though there was little humor in it, and settled himself on a box of grenades. “Vis, friendly fire is a thing. And I was the person who gave you the order to shoot. I didn't think to check where you were in relation to us. I thought you were still in the air and south of us."
“I should have been. I was concerned for Ms. Maximoff's safety.”
Something in Rhodes' eyes flickered, one of those maddening subtleties of human expression that Vision had yet to grasp and that no one could fully explain to him. “It was still my fault, not yours.”
“I'm afraid I must disagree.”
“Well, if if you're going to insist on calling me Colonel all the time because I 'outrank you socially and professionally,' then there's a reason that superior officers are held responsible for the mistakes of the men they supervise. By the standards of any half-decent military on the planet, Vis, yes, it was my fault.”
Vision was still considering this as Rhodes tapped a pile of ropes with his walker. “So you're going after Wanda, huh?”
It seemed pointless to lie. “Not just Wanda, but yes. I'm sorry, Colonel. I signed the Accords, as you did, but I have begun to doubt their legality, and there is no moral argument to be made for the conditions in which they're being kept. I understand if you feel the need to inform your superiors.”
Rhodes raised an eyebrow. “Well, before you run off, it might interest you to know that there's a rumor running around the Air Force that the Raft's been breached.”
“Do you think Mr. Stark would be able to confirm that?”
“He just got a package and went to his office to open it. You might want to pop upstairs and ask.” Rhodes winced as he slid off his perch, and began to hobble back to the therapy room that Tony had hastily thrown together.
Vision stood. “May I offer you assistance, Colonel?”
“All good. The physical therapists are on my ass to keep moving anyway, but my session's over for the day. I've got a date with the couch.”
Vision watched his progress. “Colonel, may I ask why you didn't feel the need to stop me?”
“My ability to stop you is nonexistent right now, and I understand why you're upset.”
“I am incapable of being upset, Colonel.”
“Oh, bullshit. Tony told me about your conversation last night.” The older man looked back coolly. “And I signed the Accords assuming that the UN was actually serious about the provisions for due process and the right to a trial. If their words on a piece of paper don't mean anything, then as far as I'm concerned, my signature doesn't either. And either way, there's no legal mechanism in it that obligates me to let them know if another enhanced-human – or, you know, whatever it is you want to call yourself – is planning on starting shit.”
“You didn't seem particularly upset by the rumor about the Raft, either.”
Rhodes' laughter came floating back to him. “Because fuck Ross, that's why.”
He checked immediately. The surveillance feed had been cut.
Someone had picked her up. A little piece of reality filters in with the feel of hard muscle beneath her.
Was this it? She thought he'd do it in her cell, but then that struck her as silly. He'd take her somewhere there weren't cameras, if such a place even existed in this floating hell.
It might be naive to assume it would just be the one guard. Pietro had always managed to keep her away from things like this when they were on the streets, and she'd learned to be properly afraid then. In hindsight, she'd gotten too used to men who didn't see her as a potential conquest. She thinks suddenly of Vision, who brought her five quilts her first night in upstate New York. He had read in a medical journal that women did not regulate limb temperature as well as men, particularly at night.
Resignation set in. She hadn't wanted to be conscious for this, but there was nothing she could do.
Rain on her face.
Why was it raining?
Was the prison leaking? Would she drown? She was afraid of dying, but not so much of death. She'd see her family again, maybe.
Voices.
Steve's face looms over her.
She wants to cry. They've gotten him too. It was all for nothing.
But he looks down at her, and no, they're not in the cell. There's gray sky above. He's looking away now, shouting something, and she can feel the air vibrating from the presence of a massive engine nearby, angry and waiting. She tries to tell him that Clint and Sam and Scott are here too, but she's not sure where, they weren't kept on the same level, but she just can't form the words. Her tongue is clumsy in her mouth and it keeps stumbling over the sounds, and she realizes she's lapsed into Sokovian anyway. She struggles weakly, but her arms are still bound. Steve hefts her up, and he's saying something to her, but she's not sure what.
The dark interior of an unfamiliar black aircraft swallows her.
Mr. Stark emerged from his office some time later and, though distracted, confirmed the rumor. Like Colonel Rhodes, he seemed oddly indifferent to it.
His efforts weren't too obvious. He didn't ask for a work station in the compound or make any queries likely to raise suspicion, but he thought Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes guessed what he was doing regardless. However, Mr. Stark started tinkering with the new Mark 47 that evening, and Rhodes went to bed early. Their distraction suited his purposes.
His former teammates had disappeared so completely that T'Challa's involvement was all but certain. Someone with the resources of a nation-state could easily have transported all of them without the need for passports or paperwork. That made the job both easier – their initial point of refuge was obvious – and harder, because Wakanda was notoriously resistant to intelligence efforts. Even Stark, for all his resources, had little insight into the reclusive state's business.
He familiarized himself with the air traffic patterns in and out of Wakanda, and then set aside the irregularities for study. Nearly all were easily explained as royal transport, including the late King T'Chaka's ill-fated trip to Vienna. All of the others turned out to be either diplomatic or foreign aid trips, confirmed through subsequent press coverage. The current day's flights didn't turn up anything that broke the established pattern.
Then he thought: I am looking in the wrong place. They would not have turned on a transponder for a trip they wished to conceal.
The Raft was located in the north Atlantic. If Colonel Rhodes' information had been timely, Vision still had a brief window to catch them in flight. He deputized a series of satellites to monitor the likely route, and then wormed his way into the military radar systems of the surrounding countries. Wakandan stealth technology was very good, but they needed a transport large enough for at least seven people, and probably more if T'Challa had any pilots or guards in tow.
He almost dismissed the radar signature at first; it was so faint that it looked like a flock of birds. But it was a flock of perfectly-organized birds flying in a straight line toward Birnin Zana, disappearing completely as it approached the border.
There she was.
She wakes on a makeshift pallet in the aircraft. There are quiet voices around her.
Her arms are free. It's wonderful.
She sees Clint, and pushes herself up to say hello, and the world goes dark again.