Poisoned Freedom

#13

Three Months Later

The room is dark, even with the glass walls that surround it; the girl knows they aren't just there to keep her in, but for others to watch. She is only an experiment- one of HYDRA's very few successful experiments. And she knows that the screams from the prisoners are all her, all her fault yet she can't stop. It's either this fate or their fate.

Whether she is happy about that, of course, is another question altogether. Which is the better way to die? Long, slow and painful? Or short, sharp and painful?

The girl still isn't sure she knows.

Wanda jerks back in the chair, the red light emanating from her fingertips dying out rapidly; she knows she shouldn't be in Katarina's head, yet she still can't help herself. She misses the wisecracking, self-sacrificing, caring girl that she relied on during Strucker's experiments, the one who reeled off insult after insult in Spanish and slightly imperfect English at the guards; the one who was used as an unwilling weapon but never gave up; the same one who risked everything to help the twins and the Avengers.

Wanda misses her friend. Her family.

"Hey," a soft voice interrupts her reminiscing. She glances up. "Sorry," Steve continues, not watching Wanda but Katarina. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"You didn't," Wanda replies. After a pause, she clears her throat and asks: "Is there something you wanted, Captain?"

"Oh yeah, sorry," Steve shakes his head as if remembering something. "Nat wants you, downstairs. Didn't say what for." Wanda nods, squeezing Kat's hands as she walks away from the hospital bed. Steve steps further into the room as the enhanced girl leaves, pausing momentarily in the doorway.

"It's been three months," Wanda states sadly, a frown encompassing her features. "Do you think she'll wake up?"

"Honestly?" Steve sighs, glancing at Wanda before returning his worried stare to Kat. "I don't know. But I'm not going to give up."

"Well she never gave up on us, did she?" and by the time Steve looks around, Wanda has disappeared, presumably on her way to find Natasha somewhere downstairs. Instead, the Captain watches the steady, repeated pattern of Katarina's heartbeat on the screen.

Suddenly it begins to speed up, the potentially catastrophic 40 bpm speeding up to over 120- the heart monitor's beeps sound like a trill, a constant buzzing alarm: a warning. Steve instantly leaps to his feet, unsure of what to do. He wishes Bruce was here, the Doctor who's an absolute genius. Or even Tony, the billionaire playboy philanthropist who, unfortunately, is also a genius. Steve is unprepared, unknowing and completely lost.

Thankfully, he doesn't have to wonder long because as Katarina's eyes flicker open, the Spanish girl rapidly draws herself up into a sitting position, knees drawn up to her chest and hands fluttering over her stomach. "¿Que carajo?" she stares at Steve, dumbfounded, all black eyes and pain. "I am alive?"

"Yeah..." Steve shakes his head in disbelief, smiling like an idiot.

"But Pietro is not."

"I'm sorry," Steve's hand falls on Kat's shoulder, squeezing gently in comfort. "You missed the funeral."

"How long has it been?" the girl asks, fingers on her right hand curling around the Captain's, her head following suit. "Dios, mi cabeza."