Run to You|Pietro Maximoff

Chapter 01*

Thud.

Ira opened her eyes, wincing as they struggled to adjust to the bright lights that flooded her room.

Thud. She sat up, looking towards the cell door where a guard was still pounding on it. Seeing that she was awake, he stopped hitting her door, and moved on to Pietro's door next to hers. He beat at the door with a fist, striking up a din that caused Ira to groan, and the Sokovian boy in the room next to her to let out a loud string of curses.

She threw back the ratty blanket and stood up, listening to the guard move on to Wanda's door while Pietro continued swearing. She walked over to the corner of her cell, her bare feet padding softly on the cold stone floor. She grabbed the folded pile of clothes that lay neatly on a chair, and with a quick flick of her wrist, sent out a stream of dark, midnight blue energy that dropped the shades that covered the windows in her cell.

She changed quickly, throwing off the grimy nightdress that she wore every night, and slipping on a pair of black pants and a white shirt. She flicked her wrist again, lifting the shades while settling a blue shawl around her shoulders.

As the window uncovered, Ira could see Pietro in the room next to her, sitting on the edge of his bed. He ran a hand through his tousled blonde hair, and let out a yawn. Pietro was many things; abrasive, hot-headed, and sometimes annoying, but a morning person was not one of them.

Through his cell, Ira could see into Wanda's cell, which was at the other end of the cellblock. Their cells were identical; a cracked stone floor, stone walls, and a large window in the front of the cell, along with two windows on the sides. A small cot was placed in the top left corner of the rooms, and a small wooden chair was placed next to the door.

Although the "Enhanced," as they were called, were Strucker's prized pupils, one of his greatest triumphs, they had little to call their own, and their cells were poorly maintained. One burst of energy from Ira or Wanda could easily have shattered the fragile glass windows, but Strucker trusted them not to escape. For he was helping them to achieve the very reason they had each volunteered for the experiments: to help their country.

Sokovia had always been a struggling country, with poverty and starvation common. But it had been peaceful. Until Tony Stark had sent missiles to destroy them. His name was now uttered with contempt and venom among the people, for after the bombings, war and chaos reigned. The very notion of peace was all but gone, a distant thought many carried deep in their minds. That's why they had signed up.

Ira had been the first to sign up; her mother was killed in the bombings, leaving ten year-old Ira an orphan. So when Strucker's men approached her, offering her a way to get revenge on Tony Stark, she was quick to accept.

They had brought her to the base, telling her little about what was going to happen. There she had met Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, a man who promised to help her save her country. All she had to do was agree to be experimented on. And she did. What she didn't expect was the pain she would have to endure.

Every single time they had experimented on her was still ingrained in her memory. Every scream, every injection, every time she was left sobbing in her room after a session had left her in indescribable pain. It was all still in her mind, shoved to he deepest, darkest, corners where it only appeared in her nightmares.

Ira had gotten the powers of energy manipulation, healing, and telekinesis. She had been the first successful subject, the only one who wasn't six feet under the ground or driven to insanity by the experiments. She had thought that she would be alone forever after watching volunteer after volunteer pass by her window, hearing their screams and broken sobbing echo through the base, and eventually seeing their bodies wheeled out of the labs under a white sheet, never to be seen again.