Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver Imagines

A Ruse By Any Other Name

There is no way out of this cell. Pietro knows this, but it doesn't stop him from trying. He's been given this accursed gift, he should at least be able to do something to leave. He slams against the walls with enough of an impact to shake the ceiling; nothing happens. He's tried this enough times for bruises to cover him like freckles, but even those disappear faster than they should. No matter what he tries, the walls remain.

It feels unfair, somehow, like if he's been giving this raging pulse and this overwhelming need to run he should have a place to do it. You gave this to me, he wants to shout, now take it back or at least make it feel like I don't want to tear myself apart. Pietro knows that if he says anything like this they'll drag him back to the labs and it'll be even worse than before. So he keeps his mouth shut, and lets his frequent attempts to escape do the talking for him.

There's a resulting thump on the other side of the wall, and he falls quiet for a second. Sometimes, it's easy to forget that he isn't alone. All Pietro knows is the rough mess of a schedule that has become his life as a test subject of HYDRA- some days in the labs, most of the time spent in this cell unless he's deemed useful enough to be allowed out into the field. Even then, on those scarce days of reprieve, they're careful to keep him out of sight so the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. won't pick up on his presence and try to stop him. Otherwise, they'll send over a team to kill everyone in the vicinity and call it justice.

No, Pietro isn't alone. On one side of his cell is another containment block, one that holds his twin sister Wanda. She doesn't share his same speed, his same need to move and move until his feet are raw and bleeding. He's seen the way she can manipulate the objects around her, twisting minds like they're toys in a display. It should scare him, he supposes, yet he just feels numb about it. She is Wanda, she would never hurt him. Not unless they made her, and no one has ever been able to make Wanda do something she doesn't want to do. Not now.

He's making it sound like they didn't want this, like they weren't volunteers. Pietro and Wanda were the ones to show up at HYDRA's door, asking for a chance to turn their ghosts into weapons and their dirty palms into those of saints. People have failed them over and over again, it felt like time to tip the scales back the other way. HYDRA hadn't said a word, just welcomed them in and locked the door behind them. Sometimes, Pietro wonders if he would have changed his mind had he known the full extent of what they'd undergo. Would they stay away? Or would they have come anyway, knowing there was nothing left for them but broken houses and the bodies of their parents right next to that bomb?

Pietro and Wanda aren't the only HYDRA volunteers to survive, however. There is one more: a girl, one about their age. Pietro has never seen her in person, only heard the rumors in pieces and snatches from security guards whose usually stoic silence is broken by nervous chatter. Her name is Y/N L/N, although the guards all call her the Ruse. She has powers not unlike Wanda, in that she can manipulate people's minds, but the similarities end there. Y/N's powers have an entirely different edge, something that can convince the toughest of guards that they have something to fear.

The Ruse got her name because of her powers. She can convince you of anything, get you to believe any lie no matter how false. They say she whispers things into your head, can make you believe that your family is out to kill you and that your lover has poisoned your mind. With just a second's concentration, she can rewrite your entire head and convince you to do anything she wants. That could involve giving her information, selling out an organization, killing a thousand people before you knew it. Pietro sometimes wonders if her victims know what's going on while she's controlling them, if they're silently screaming even as their trigger finger tightens. Then a shiver runs over him, and he forces himself to stop thinking about it at all.

HYDRA allows the Ruse into the field more often than Pietro or Wanda, using her as a spy and a mercenary and whatever else they can think of. She has considerably more freedom, if you could call it that, because HYDRA's taken another precaution with her. They've experimented with the old Winter Soldier programs, placing basic mind control over her. HYDRA can make sure she only tells the lies they want to spread, and that she has no way to control any of them. And so it is that the spider is caught by the web, that the one with the power to spin any lie is trapped by one greater than herself.