Spell of Winter

She only had just gotten to the point where she could control her powers. There were still outbursts, spurts of chaos that left her drained and curled up into a weak ball wherever she happened to be at the time of the involuntary attack.

And now HYDRA thought it was a good idea to up the training of the twins, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff.

They were placed in a training room, saying their teacher would be there shortly and to not leave. They looked at each other as they were left alone. Teacher? Who were they talking about? And how could someone help teach them?

It didn’t take long before they heard footsteps coming their way, strong, confident, deadly.

The two looked at each other, Pietro reaching out and first resting his hand on Wanda’s elbow before sliding it down into her hand, which he grabbed tightly. Wanda squeezed his hand when she felt it, taking a step back, half ready to fight and half terrified of who this teacher would be.

She tried to reach out to his mind but it was cold, unwelcoming...broken. She immediately withdrew. She knew when she was in a place she shouldn’t be when it came to someone’s mind.

Their teacher walked into the room, dressed in black with brown hair and piercing, blue eyes. He had a metallic arm, a red star painted on the shoulder. The Winter Soldier, James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes.

He looked at the both of them for a moment, analyzing his opponents, before he walked to the center of the room. “One at a time.” His voice was harsh, uninviting, not one for many words. He pointed with his metal arm to Wanda. “You.” He motioned with a single finger to step forward.

Wanda gulped and went to step forward slowly but Pietro yanked her arm back before saying, “No. I’ll go first.” He knew what was going to happen. Maybe if he could wear Barnes out, Wanda wouldn’t get as hurt.

Barnes’ eyes darted to the young speedster, a challenging look in his eyes. He made no response to him as he looked back at Wanda, waiting, getting impatient.

“Pietro, I can do this.” Wanda tried to keep her voice from shaking. It was no use. She wasn’t going to deny herself: she was terrified. “Don’t try to intervene.” She forced Pietro to let go of her hand and stepped forward. She took a deep breath, lifting up her head and letting her shoulders roll back to feign confidence.

Barnes gave no warning that the training session had began as he suddenly sprang forward and came at her with a hook punch from his metal arm.

Wanda yelped and fell back to avoid it, managing to form a clumsy hex bolt to shoot at him. Hand-to-hand combat, she knew, would be pointless. She couldn’t match his strength and intensity. She’d have to keep her distance and use her powers.

The bolt struck but it did little in closing down the super soldier as he came at her with an even fiercer intensity than before if that was possible.

She was forced to give groud in order to keep from getting hit, moving back until her back was against the wall. She ducked under a punch that had been aimed at her head and summoned up from power to send a palm-heel strike into his chest.

The force of it sent him flying back. He hit the ground and used the momentum to roll to a knee and jumped back to his feet. He cracked his neck before growling softly. He ran at her and kicked her in the chest back as she tried to move herself away from the wall.

She slammed into the ground below her, her head rebounding off of the concrete floor with a sickening smacking noise. She gasped as her vision swam. She slowly pushed herself to her knees, faintly hearing Pietro call her name and footsteps approaching her again. Instincts kicked in and she covered her head with her hands before there was a suddenly blur and Barnes was tackled to the ground.

Pietro skidded around to race to Wanda’s side, kneeling down next to her and cupping her face with his hands. “Sister! Can you hear me?!” His face was laced with concern and worry.

“P-Pietro,” she breathed as she struggled to focus on him. That made her brain hurt. She groaned softly as she looked down, shutting her eyes tight. Suddenly, she felt Pietro’s hands being ripped away from and she shot her head up just in time to partially register Barnes reaching down to grab her by her throat. The coldness of the metal burned her skin as he lifted her in the air to the point where her feet were no longe touching the ground.

She gasped, grabbing his wrist to try to pry him off of her but to no avail. Her vision was growing black. She had one last-ditch effort to get him to let her go: go where she didn’t belong. She suddenly reached out and placed her temple on his temple, red tendrils sinking into his skin as his eyes glowed red for a moment.

His entire expression changed as he suddenly let her go and staggered back. Nightmares. Pain. Torture. What he felt, she could, too as she coughed and gasped in breath again, crumbled on the floor. His hands balled up into fists as his breathing quickened. “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

All she could see was a metal hand coming into her line of vision before everything went black.

XXX

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the last time that the Maximoff twins faced off against the Winter Soldier. There was four more sessions before he was sent on the fateful mission to go after Captain America Steve Rogers. Each time, the sessions got worse.

But Wanda dared not go into his mind again.