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.

But then, hope appeared in the form of a pair of twins.

Ira still remembered the day she had been curled in the corner of her room, using her newfound abilities to float a wooden block in the air, when the Maximoff twins had walked past her cell. They had stared for a second, watching her twirl the block through the air, before moving past.

Ever since then, they had been inseparable. Ira had helped them transition after receiving their powers, and they in turn helped Ira reinvigorate her passion for their mission. They had told her how their parents had died, another victim of Tony Stark's bombs. When she heard this, she wanted nothing more than to track him down and make him feel some of the pain that he had caused.

But Strucker hadn't deemed them ready yet. So they sat in their cells, every day, waiting for when they would finally get the chance to prove that they were ready.

"Lost in thought over there, Ira?" Pietro asked, snapping Ira out of her daze. She glanced over to see him leaning against the window, a wide smirk stretched across his face.

She rolled her eyes. "I was just thinking about how irritating you are," she told him, smiling sweetly.

"Aww, you were thinking about me? I'm touched," he replied, still smirking.

"I think about a lot of things that aggravate me. You're far up on the list," she told him, fake sweetness dripping from her voice.

Pietro opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by Wanda's groan. "Would you two stop? Listening to you flirting is making me want to claw my ears off," she complained, eliciting protests from the two.

"We are not flirting," Ira argued, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

"Yes," Pietro agreed, looking over at Ira before turning to Wanda. "We were simply having a discussion."

Wanda snorted, disbelief evident across her face. "Sure," She said quietly, but still loud enough for Pietro to hear, and he shot her a glare.

"Anyways, when is the new volunteer getting out of Recovery?" Pietro asked, trying to change the subject.

Ira shrugged. "Today, I think. I heard the guards talking. I think the experiments went well."

For the past two weeks, the three had heard Strucker and Dr. List talking about a new recruit. They hadn't heard much; just that it was a girl, the same age as them, from Sokovia. Although they hadn't seen her yet, which was strange in itself, they had heard promising things through the grapevine, and it seemed like she had survived the experiments. That morning, Ira had heard two guards talking about how she had attacked three guards, injuring two of them, and barely letting the other one escape with his life.

"Do we know her powers?" Wanda asked, and Ira shook her head.

"I'm sure that her powers will be dangerous," she told Wanda. "These last few volunteers have been given extremely dangerous powers. Strucker is trying to create an army. And a powerful one."

As they were talking, Strucker appeared at the end of the cellblock, striding towards them, and stopping in front of their cells. Strucker was an intimidating man; standing ramrod straight, with his hands clasped behind his back, he towered over them, his very presence ordering submit. "Pupils," he began, the light cast by the bulbs in Pietro's room glinting off the polished monocle that rested on his face. "This is Emilia Crucil," he told them, unclasping a hand to motion to the girl at his side. It was only then that Ira truly noticed her, turning her attention to the girl who would join the Enhanced.

Emilia had long, straight, dark blonde hair that she wore in a high ponytail. She had hazel eyes that scanned over Pietro, Wanda, and Ira, as if looking for any sign of weakness. A confident smirk rested on her lips. She wore black pants, a dark purple shirt, and a black leather jacket.

"She is incredibly powerful, and she can inflict pain with a single thought." Ira's eyes widened slightly at the mention of Emilia's powers. "Emilia," Strucker said, turning to the girl. "These are our Enhanced. The twins, Wanda and Pietro," He said, pointing to them. "And that's Ira. Our first success," he said proudly. "You will move into the last cell on the row, next to her."

"And Emilia?" He asked, glancing pointedly at the girl. "Try not to hurt them. We need our pupils in top fighting shape if we are ever going to defeat the Avengers," he sneered.

"No promises," she smirked, causing Strucker to let out a low chuckle as he walked away. Ira watched as Emilia was ushered into the cell next to hers by a guard. She wrinkled her nose slightly as she looked around at the cell, before dropping on the bed with a sigh.

The cellblock was silent for a moment, the three of them struggling to think of something they could say to the newcomer. It was Ira who first spoke. She stood from the bed, and walked over to the window connecting hers and Emilia's cells. The blonde-haired girl looked up from the bed as Ira walked over. "When did you get here?" She asked, trying to start up a conversation.

"Two weeks ago," Emilia replied, sounding bored. "Strucker's men approached me in the market, and once they said I could get revenge on the Avengers? I was quick to agree," she said, smiling faintly at the thought.

"That's why I joined, too," Ira replied, happy to find a common ground that they could talk about. "Tony Stark's bombings destroyed my home, and... killed my family," she said, looking down. "When Strucker thinks we're ready, I'm going to go find him, and make him feel what I felt as I saw the life drain from my mother's eyes," Ira said, looking back up at Emilia, who was now sitting up, watching her curiously.

Slightly embarrassed that she had shared so much with someone she had know for only a few minutes, Ira's cheeks flushed pink, and she glanced back at the floor. "Yeah," Emilia said, causing Ira to glance up in surprise. "He and the rest of those so-called 'Avengers' hide up in their tower, and they don't even realize the pain they caused. When I get out of here, I am going to march down there and make them feel so much pain that they'll wish that they were dead," she swore, before looking at the rest of them. "And I'm not going to let anyone stand in my way."

Pietro and Wanda, who had sat silently through the entire conversation, now shared a glance that showed how intrigued by Emilia Crucil they both were. Ira simply sat back down on her bed, trying to distinguish if it had really been a threat buried beneath Emilia's promise, because it had sure sounded like one.

She was definitely dangerous; that much was obvious. A burning need for vengeance and the ability to inflict pain with mere thoughts was a dangerous combination, and Ira knew that this girl was going to change everything.

As she sat on the bed, she heard a small click. Ira turned to see a guard unlocking her door. He opened it, and another guard went in and grabbed her off the bed, hauling her roughly by the arm to stand in front of the now-empty cellblock. Pietro, Wanda, and Emilia stood next to her, the confusion on their faces mirroring her own.

Four more guards appeared, and the six guards surrounded the Enhanced. "Mutare," the guard who had first unlocked Ira's cell ordered, and the ten began moving through the cellblock. The guards tightly surrounded the Enhanced, allowing only enough room to walk rigidly straight, pressed close to the person next to them.

Ira eyed the guard next to her, noticing how his hands tightly clutched the rifle in his grip. Even with their weapons, she knew that the four Enhanced would be more than a match for the six guards. And the guards knew it too. They tightly gripped their weapons, eyes darting around the room nervously as they walked.

Ira glanced in front of her, watching Emilia carefully. Her mouth was set in a smirk, and her hazel eyes looked proudly among the guards. She reveled in their fear, loving the power she felt. It was clear to see.

They continued walking until they reached the center of the base. They entered a large stone room, abuzz with activity. Soldiers marched through, rifles clutched in their hands, hurrying somewhere urgently. The guards around them hurried off to join the other soldiers, leaving the four Enhanced standing at the back wall, with no idea of what they were supposed to be doing.

A few soldiers sat at computers, monitoring something intently. Light from a large window in the back filtered through the room, allowing Ira to clearly see one of the computers. The footage looked like a group of people causing destruction as they made their way through the forests surrounding the base. She peered closely, but one of the figures on the video appeared to fire something at the camera, and the footage cut out.

As the Enhanced stood, still unsure about why they were there, the quiet chaos of the base was split as an alarm began to sound. Report to your stations immediately. This is not a drill. We are under attack. We are under attack. The voice blared through the base, warning of incoming danger.

More soldiers rushed past, heading presumably to stop whatever threat they were facing. Ira turned to the others, confusion and worry written across her face. Wanda looked at a Pietro nervously, and his hand found hers, squeezing it gently to comfort her.

Ira watched Strucker stride up to a soldier who was nervously clutching his rifle to his chest. "Who gave the order to attack?" He demanded.

"Herr Strucker, it's the Avengers," the soldier replied. Ira's blue eyes widened at the word "Avengers," and looking over at the others, she could tell that they were surprised, too.

"They landed in the far woods. The perimeter guard panicked," another soldier informed him before leaving to go fight.

Strucker turned to Dr. List standing behind him. "They have to be after the scepter," he said quietly, before turning back to the soldier. "Can we hold them?"

The soldier looked confused. "They're the Avengers," He said simply.

"Deploy the rest of the tanks," Strucker ordered, and the soldier nodded.

"Yes sir," he said, and ran off to go follow orders.

"Concentrate fire on the weak ones. A hit may make them close ranks," Strucker continued, now talking to all the soldiers in the room. He turned back to List. "Everything we have accomplished... We are on the verge of our greatest breakthrough."

"Then let's show them what we've accomplished. Send out the Enhanced," List said excitedly. Ira turned to the others, and she could see that they, too, had heard what List had said.

"It's too soon," Strucker argued.

"It's what they signed up for," List admonished.

"My men can hold them," Strucker said, ending the disagreement. He turned to the soldiers in the room. "We will not yield. The Americans sent their 'circus freaks' to test us. We will send them back in bags. No surrender!" He yelled, and the cry was echoed back by the soldiers.

Strucker began whispering to List, and while they were discussing, Ira turned back to the others. "What do we do?" She asked.

"We fight," Pietro told them, and Emilia nodded. "This is what we've trained for. We can show them we're ready."

Ira looked around at the others. While small amounts of fear were evident in their faces, they masked it with determination. "Pietro and I will go outside," Ira told them. "Wanda," She said, looking at the brunette who nodded. "You and Emilia stay here. Make sure they don't get in, and protect Strucker and List."

Wanda and Emilia both nodded, a smile creeping over Emilia's face at the opportunity to use her powers. Pietro looked at all of them. "Show them what you can do," he said, and they nodded. Wanda and Emilia left, slipping quickly out of the room before anyone could see them. Their plan was to follow Strucker from the shadows, protecting him.

While they stayed in the base, Pietro and Ira would go outside, defending against the Avengers. Pietro lifted Ira into his arms. "Ready?" He asked her, and she allowed herself a smile.

"Let's go."

Pietro smirked, and sped out of the main room, leaving a blue trail behind him. He ran through the base, the wind whipping at his and Ira's hair as they moved at break-neck speeds. They reached outside, running along a railroad track that curved through the forest.

Pietro stopped near a group of snow-covered trees and set Ira down. "Go," she told him, and he sped off. She watched from a distance as he ran in front of one of the Avengers; a man shooting arrows from a long, curved bow. He caught the arrows in midair before knocking the man to the ground. Ira smiled to herself, and ran off.

Ahead through the trees, she saw a man in a red and blue suit throwing a shield at a group of soldiers, knocking them to the ground. She flicked out her hands, sending a burst of energy at him, knocking him backwards into the trees. He spotted her, and hurled the shield at her. Instinctively, Ira brought up her hands to protect herself, capturing the shield in a swarm of blue energy.

She gritted her teeth against the force it took to stop the shield's momentum, and pushed it back at him with a grunt. He caught it, and turned smoothly, throwing it back at her, but she ducked. It stuck fast in a tree behind her, and she took the opportunity to hurl a bright sphere of energy at him. It stuck him in the chest, sending him flying through the air, but he landed in a crouch.

He sprung up and rushed at her, throwing a punch at her chest, then her head in rapid succession. The first struck its mark, knocking the wind out of her, but she ducked before his second punch could reach her. She used his momentum against him, using her powers to propel him into the same tree that his shield was stuck into. He wrenched it free, and dropped to the ground.

"You don't have to do this," he warned, walking slowly towards her.

"I think I do," she replied, and allowed energy to gather in her hands. She raised her hands, now glowing blue, and behind him, two large branches raised off the floor. She swept her right hand through the air, and the branch followed the movement, sweeping through the air and hurtling towards the man. He ducked under it, and she hurled the other branch, this one hitting him in the back of the knee, causing him to crumple to the floor.

Ira was about to strike him with a burst of energy, when a bolt of lightening struck her in the side. She yelped as it propelled her through the air, before striking a tree. She fell to the ground, and laid in the snow for a second, before pushing herself to her feet.

She gasped in pain, and stared at the burnt flesh of her side where the lightening had stuck her. She turned back, and saw the man with the shield joined by another man, this one carrying a large hammer and wearing a bright red cape. The man with the hammer struck it against the other man's shield, and the shockwave decimated a line of soldiers and a tank who had come to attack them.

Turning back to her wound, Ira gently laid her fingers on the charred skin. She hissed in pain, but allowed a flow of healing energy to flow from her center, through her fingertips and into the wound below. As the energy entered the burn, the blistered skin slowly began to heal. The tissue reformed, and bleeding stopped. The wound closed, and all she was left with was a faint scar.

As she stood by the trees, Pietro sped up to her. "Are you okay?" He asked, concerned. She nodded.

"We should find the others," she told him. He scooped her up, and together they ran back into the base.

When they entered, they found it empty, save for a few soldiers lying on the ground with burns in their uniforms from a blast of some kind. The other soldiers were outside struggling to defeat the Avengers, and Strucker and List had abandoned the control room in a fruitless attempt to give them time to delete all the files on the scepter and the Enhanced.

Ira and Pietro picked their way through the soldiers and the rubble, making their way to a separate room off the control room. They stepped into the doorway, and Ira immediately pressed her back against the wall to remain out of sight.

Standing in the middle of the room, a red and gold man stood with his arm outstretched. Dr. List laid on the floor in front of it, either dead or unconscious, surrounded by computers with files flashing across the screens. But as she looked closer, she could see that the thing in the middle was not a man, but an empty suit, one that she recognized to be the suit of Iron Man. Tony Stark was there.

"It's just a suit," Ira whispered to Pietro, and he nodded. He picked her up quietly, and ran to a secret door in the wall before the suit could see them. Once they reached the secret hallway, he set her down, and they continued down the path that Tony Stark had walked probably only minutes before.

The dimly-lit hallway soon opened up into a vast room. Machines and metal parts surrounded the room, but that wasn't what drew Ira's eye. Suspended on a platform in the center of the room, a massive metal creature laid motionless. Metal plating overlapped on its body, creating a layer of nearly impenetrable armor. Huge jagged teeth jutted out from its mouth, and eyes the size of Ira's hand rested closed among a face made of gray skin.

Her eyes widened as she took in the creature, but Pietro snapped her out of her trance by lightly touching her arm. She turned to see what he wanted, and he pointed in front of them. Standing in front of them were Emilia and Wanda, but that wasn't what Pietro had seen.

Past them, a man with short brown hair stood next to the cased scepter. Stark.

Ira knew little about Loki's scepter, only from hearing snatches of conversations between List and Strucker did she know that it was what had given her and the others their powers. Meaning she definitely did not want it in the hands of Tony Stark.

She and Pietro moved until they were standing next to Emilia and Wanda. Pietro made a move forward to stop Stark from getting the scepter, but Wanda put a hand out to stop him, shaking her head slightly. "We're just going to let him take it?" Pietro asked, and Wanda did nothing but smile.

The Enhanced watched as Stark summoned an iron gauntlet from his suit, and snatched the scepter from its case.

While he was distracted, they crept away, sneaking back through the secret hallway. "Why did you let him take it?" Pietro asked Wanda as they were walking.

"I saw his fear," she told them. "He'll use the scepter to create something that's going to destroy him. So I let him take it."

They continued walking through the hallway until they reached the room filled with computers, where List lay motionless on the floor. The suit was no longer standing sentry, probably having returned to Stark. This allowed them an easy escape, and they slipped through the room and back into the main one, now completely empty of soldiers.

As they entered the room, Ira realized something, and turned to the others. "Where do we go now?" They looked at each other, none of them knowing the answer. "Strucker's captured-"

"And if we stay here, we will be too," Emilia interrupted. "I say we go into town." Ira looked at Wanda and Pietro.

"It's the safest option," Wanda supplied. "And we can figure out where to go from there."

Together they walked through the base, taking the same path Pietro and Ira had used only half an hour before. They emerged along the railroad tracks in the snowy forest. The air was eerily still, and the sky was painted in shades of dusk.

They walked in silence through the forest, finally reaching the road to town as night fell. Pietro, excited to finally be back among civilization, sped ahead into the marketplace. Ira, Emilia, and Wanda stayed behind, choosing to walk a more moderate pace. "What do you think will happen now?" Ira asked, her hands clasped over her arms to combat the chill in the air.

"I don't know," Emilia said. "But we have to continue Strucker's mission. We must destroy the Avengers."

"But how?" Wanda asked. "There are only four of us. How will we ever get to them?"

"We'll find a way," Ira assured her as they entered the market. Here, people milled about in a flurry of color and smells. Vendors sold everything from food, to jewelry, to clothes along the pathways, calling out their wares to the girls as they passed. Up ahead, Ira could spot Pietro giving a young woman about her age with black hair a long-sleeved blue dress.

"What is Pietro doing?" Ira asked Wanda, who sighed when she saw her brother.

"Pietro's a flirt. You know this by now," she said to Ira, who grimaced at the memories brought back by Wanda's statement. "And he's also a good thief who doesn't know when to stop."

Pietro had since sped away, and up ahead they could see him giving out stolen items to some of the Sokovians in the market. As they reached him, he was giving a sparkly golden dress to a blonde woman. "Is every girl in Sokovia getting a dress from Paris?" Wanda asked Pietro as they passed, eliciting a chuckle from Emilia, and a poorly-hidden smile from Ira. "At least Gertie's looked warm," Wanda told him, referring to the girl with black hair.

"She's kidding," Ira could hear Pietro tell the woman as they walked away, before running to catch them. "You're jealous you're not getting a dress," Pietro told Wanda, smirking.

"You keep stealing, you're going to get shot," Wanda replied, looking at her twin with ire in her eyes.

Pietro scoffed. "I mean it," Wanda told him, hitting him lightly on the back. "At speed, nothing can touch you, but standing still..." she let the warning hang in the air.

"Do you think I want to be?" Pietro asked, turning in front of Wanda so that she was forced to stop. Ira and Emilia stopped as well, but they both stayed silent, not wanting to get caught in the middle of the sibling squabble. "You said 'wait'. I'm waiting. I don't know for what," Pietro said, shrugging. "We had Stark helpless. All these years and you-"

He was cut off by the woman he had given the dress to. "Costel!" She called, running up to a little boy with brown hair. "Costel, where did you go?"

"The church," the boy replied, then turned to the four Enhanced. "The man said you need to come to the church."

"What man?" Wanda asked him.

"The iron man," the boy replied.

"Stark?" Ira asked as the woman and the boy walked away.

"Let's find out," Emilia said. "Where's the church?"

*****

The first edited chapter of Run to You! I know this was a long one, but I really wanted to be descriptive. I also included a deleted scene from Age of Ultron (the one in the market) because I wanted to say how they got to the church. I felt that that was kind of lacking in the movie. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed, and please tell me what you think! Don't be afraid to message me for any reason; I'd love to hear from you all.

Mutare: Move.

(I used google translate for the translations, so it may not be perfect. The language used is Romanian, so if anyone speaks that language and finds a mistake in the translations, don't hesitate to tell me, and I'll change it.)