She could feel anxiety rising in her chest, as Steve settled down. The idea of having to talk about her trauma was suddenly terrifying, even though she had asked for it and KNEW it would ultimately help her with the issue at hand. Bottling up emotions and fears was the safest way for her to lose control over her powers. That was something she had learned as a teenager, while being with Hydra. In the beginning, she had struggled severely to contain her abilities, but the constant fear of her captors and worry about Pietro had made it near impossible. Only when she learned to control her anxiety, things had become better. So she had a vague idea now, that a big portion of her mental state came from the fact that she hadn’t been able to use that practice when Hydra had captured her recently. The things they had done to break her, had ruined all the good things she had learned over the years.
Falling back against the wall again, she stretched her legs out and mustered Steve for a long moment, before scratching her cheek. She was scared. All she wanted was to get better, but the idea of revisiting the horrible experiences that had brought her here, was going to be incredibly difficult. Especially, when she had to force herself to stay focused and in control. Steve was someone she didn’t want to hurt at any cost, so she’d have to find a way to open up and yet remain collected. With a sigh, her gaze dropped down to her hands. Where to start? The beginning was the least traumatizing part of the story, so maybe that would be safe.
“Okay…well….we went to Russia on that one mission and everything went sideways.” He knew that, for he had been present, when the presumably abandoned Hydra complex turned out to be a trap to catch her. They had shot her with a strange pod that dug itself into her neck and made it impossible to use her powers. At least at first. “They took me and I don’t remember much in the beginning. They sedated me for a while, I assume. Every time I woke up, I remember that everything hurt. Wounds and needle marks kept appearing, but they never kept be awake long enough for me to fully grasp it. Then one day, they let me wake up and put a bag over my head and shackled me. I was shoved into a van and we drove for a very long time.” It had been freezing cold and Wanda remembered how her naked feed had hurt from the temperatures in the back of the van, how her body had been thrown against the sides of the moving vehicle, whenever the road had been bumpy. The ride could have been ten minutes or hours long, she couldn’t tell. Her mind had still been fuzzy from the sedation. “When they let me out of the car, we were at a different location. I was led into a room with a strange machine. I remembered it from the nightmares Bucky had – sometimes when people around me have vivid nightmares, I accidentally see them, too. The machine was more modern, but I knew what they wanted to do. Wipe my mind so they could control their weapon of mass destruction.”
Steve waited silently and patiently for Wanda to begin her story. Patience was never one of Steve’s best virtues yet here he knew it was integral. The absolute last thing he wanted to do was to rush her, or make her feel like it didn’t matter to him.
He nodded along as she started her story. He’d been on that mission alright, cursing himself and all of their wrong intel as he’d watched his teammate go right into a perfectly set trap on his orders. Steve grimaced, still unable to get over his own role in this whole mess. HYDRA had managed to hide her so well it had taken them weeks, well into months, to successfully track her down and figure out a way to break her out.
The mention of the Chair sent icy bolts of both anger and fear down his spine. He knew of what she spoke, of course. He’d heard about it from Bucky, seen it in pictures and videos of the Soldier’s records. The thought of anyone having to go through that, least of all Wanda.... it made his throat tight and his fists clench, aching to physically take it out on those responsible. Yet they had already done so, taking out many of the henchman between them and Wanda, hunting down the rest of them at the base afterwards. There was nothing else for him to do but to try and help heal the aftermath.
“God, Wanda, I’m so sorry,” was all he could think to say.
Yet he knew there was still more to the story, more horror to hear. Steve wished he could go closer to her, wrap her in a hug as he once might have done. But he kept his distance, surely making his ‘puppy dog eyes’ as Natasha had called them, hoping she knew what he meant, how he felt.
