Heart Strings (Book 1)

2

Natasha turned around in her seat at the counter as Wanda stormed off, leaving Clint standing there with not a clue what to do, "She seem a little tense to you?" He asked.

"Tense?" Natasha raised her eyebrow at Clint, "Clint, she's gone completely crazy."

"We probably shouldn't let her go anywhere, God only knows what she'll-"

Clint was cut off by Tony abruptly running into the room with his tablet in his hand, "We have a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

"Wanda's scaring little children kind of problem." Tony said as Natasha and Clint watched the security footage of Wanda at Central Park, messing with the playground equipment and causing things to suddenly explode, very close to children. The red glow of her skin and eyes was probably what made it so terrifying, none of them had ever seen her like that before and none of them wanted to be the one to face her.

A deadly smirk played across Wanda's face as she walked through the park, using her magic to mess with people. She knew she was having way more fun than should, but she couldn't stop herself from giggling when a child would scream in terror and go running for their parents.

"You know, it's not nice to scare people." Wanda rolled her eyes and kept walking as Tony landed next to her in his Iron Man suit and his mask came up. "I'm just saying."

Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Steve and Thor were all scattered around, watching from different distances as the scene played out.

"What do you want, Tony?"

"You probably should stop torturing people."

"Oh, so you came to bring me back to the tower." She said, sending a red tendril of magic at a nearby tree, knocking all of the leaves off. "Sorry, but you're out of luck, Stark."

"I'm not that easy to get rid of, Maximoff and you should know that."

Wanda rolled her eyes once more before stopping and turning to face him, "Why do you care what I do anyway?"

"Because this isn't you and I know you'll regret this later when we figure out what's going on."

"What's going on?" Wanda snapped, her eyes going an even angrier red, "I won't regret anything, regret is for the weak."

"Wanda, this isn't you and you know it."

"I'm more Me than I've ever been." She snapped, "And besides, you don't even know me, all you know is that you killed my parents."

"Wanda-"

"It's your fault I'm this way. If you hadn't killed my parents then me and my brother wouldn't have been orphaned and done that experiment." Tony found himself flying through the air after Wanda sent a hex at him before disappearing. 

"I'll find her." Natasha's voice came over the comm, "I know where she might've gone." 

Natasha wasn't surprised when she found Wanda on the roof of the abandoned apartment complex, her back to her as she stared off at the starry night sky. But she was surprised by the outburst that came from the young girl. 

"You're not my family, none of you are. My family's dead because of you guys. You think you're all heroes, but you're not. All you do is get people killed and countries destroyed." Wanda's voice echoed off of the nearby buildings, "And you, you're the worst of them all." 

Natasha started to tear up and tried to blink away the tears, trying to remind herself that this wasn't Wanda. Wanda stepped closer to the redhead, an evil smirk playing on her face as she noticed the tears that were threatening to spill. "Look at that, she can cry." 

"This isn't you, you don't know what you're talking about." 

"Or maybe you just can't handle the truth." 

"Nat, I might know what's wrong with Wanda." Bruce's voice came over the comm and Wanda disappeared once again. 

"I'm on my way." 

After Bruce explained that the bullet had been laced with an element, that Hydra had try to recreate went wrong. The element was effecting Wanda's mind and basically turning her into the worst version of herself. He also explained how he could make an anecdote that would release the element from her blood stream. 

Thor had left before everyone to distract Wanda just long enough for them to shoot a blast at her with the anecdote. 

Natasha stepped to the side of a tree, the gun in her hand aimed at Wanda who was too distracted fighting Thor to notice her. She put her finger on the trigger and soon a stream of red energy made contact with Wanda's back, sending the young witch crashing to the ground, unconscious. 

***

Wanda woke up in Bruce's lab with wires attached to her head. Bruce was just a few feet away, checking her vitals. He turned around to face her and saw that she was awake. "Hey, little witch." 

Tears threatened to spill from Wanda's eyes as she remembered what she'd done, but most importantly, what she'd said. She'd never thought she was capable of being more cruel to them than when she was with Ultron, but she definitely was and it made her feel terrible. 

The door to the lab suddenly flew open and in came Tony, Clint and Natasha. They all quickly rushed over to Wanda's side as tears spilled from her eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said." 

"We know, you weren't yourself and we still love you." Clint said as he pulled the crying Sokovian girl into his arms as the other two joined in.

"You've got some anger built up, kid." Tony said, "And if it wasn't directed at us then it was directed at someone or something else and you need to figure out what that is."