You're the prince of the playground, Little alphabet boy

[nothingmorehorrifying]

There's an uncharitable part of Wanda that thinks the keepers at the Raft get off on watching her struggle. With the restriction collar, the straightjacket is entirely theater, designed to make her feel like even less than human, and she hates them for it. Even Hydra had at least done her the courtesy of leaving her hands free while they made her into an experiment and kept her in a stone and plastic box. Now she's robbed of motion, of the freedom to eat or use the bathroom without assistance–another point in favor of her keepers enjoying this more than is right. It's as boring as it is maddening. 

She can't even play bongos on the furniture like Scott a few cells over. Not that she necessarily wants to but at least it would be something to do.

The sounds of punching and crashing are almost a novelty, especially when she hears the soft electric buzz of her cell suddenly cut out. Someone shouts and then abruptly stops shouting and Wanda sits up a little straighter as she sees movement at the edge of her window. It's a profile that's become very familiar to her and Wanda truly breaks out of her torpor, struggling to her feet. 

Steve is in front of her and opening her door, holding out an army knife to cut her loose and she trips forward in her need to be free of the cursed thing. 

Trips forward and almost hits her head on the edge of a bathtub that definitely wasn't there before. 

Wanda's created enough illusions to know that this isn't one. She's stepped out of her cell and fallen into a bathtub in a dark, unlit room. Panic starts at her and she notices her vision hazing red. It's useless and now she needs to think, needs to remember her training. 

What she actually does is kick the edge of the tub viciously, because she's earned at least a little anger after all this.

Comments

[ahollowman]

"What the hell?"

There's a struggle coming from his bathroom, and it's way too early for anyone who might have a key to his place. He hadn't had anyone over through the night, and these days he would remember if he had. With those possibilities ruled out, his next guess is a thief intruding, possibly looking for parts for his prototype.

He snatches an aluminum baseball bat on his way, throwing the door open.

When the figure appears, all he sees is a straightjacket and mussed dark hair. It's almost too late, by the time her features resolve into his recognition.

Tony pulls back at the last moment.

"Ho-- shit. Wanda? Shit."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

The last time they'd faced one another it had been on opposite sides and Wanda had had a lot more at her disposal than she does now. She's not proud of herself for how she flinches and then stares at him, momentarily blinded by the daylight that floods in behind him. After the Raft's dull fluorescents, her eyes aren't adjusted.

And somehow, in the middle of all of this, Wanda finds it in herself to be sarcastic. When a person is hungry, humiliated, and tired, sometimes that's the only defense that remains.

"Your hospitality is going down in quality lately, Mr. Stark."

[ahollowman]

That was true. He can't, actually, argue it. Pieces start falling into place. Tony casts the bat aside again, leaning on the wall, unneeded and non-threatening. He runs his hands through his hair.

"Please come out of my bathroom. Do you know where you are? Are you gonna let me take you out of that?"

He nodded toward her various bindings, the jacket, the brace, restraining her from using her abilities.

[nothingmorehorrifying]

"That depends on if you're planning to help me into something worse," Wanda says. Admittedly, she has a hard time conceiving of something worse but she still knows it exists, must exist.

There's real shock on his face but Wanda doesn't dare presume anything when she's so vulnerable.

Natasha, Steve, Sam. She wishes any of them were helping her out of this rather than Tony. "This is not the Raft," she says and waits for him to supply her with more information, the way Natasha had said to try.

[ahollowman]

"If you're looking for an apology, you'll get it," Tony said, dark eyes serious. "But when I can mean it, and give it appropriately, which is not while you're standing in my living room in a straightjacket."

He turned his back on her to rifle through the junk drawers of his kitchen, already filling up. He found heavy sheers in one, and beneath the sink, a pair of bolt cutters. Tony had a large number of bolt cutters hidden a large number of locations. They were useful for lots of things, like removing handcuffs and threatening people.

He can figure out about where Wanda's from; it doesn't look kindly. After her arrival to the Raft, before Steve broke them all out and fled to Wakanda.

"This is Darrow. Not sure exactly where or what it is, seems to be extradimensional, maybe, like Asgard. Could just be a very advanced simulation. People come in without their consent, knowledge or understanding, which is a dick move, and then can't leave, which is an even bigger dick move."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

"The collar will shock me if it's removed improperly," Wanda says, because she's tried. They'd made the mistake of fitting her with the collar while her hands were still free. The attempt had not been remotely successful.

She accepts the explanation because Tony would never tell her a lie so unbelievable. They'd been on opposite sides of the fight and she's still angry about his decision to imprison her but his justifications, honest or not, had at least been grounded in reality. Extradimensional theft, while certainly possible, is something new entirely.

Wanda fixes Tony with a cool look that doesn't feel as confident as she'd like to be. She has no rings, no makeup, none of the little protections she likes to wear.

"I wouldn't know anything about being kept in one place against my will."

[ahollowman]

Tony gave Wanda a smile that was regretful, apologetic, but also very, very tight. He was willing to give on the point, but only so far. Because he still believed he'd been right. He turned, went rifling again, with another tact in mind. This time, he returned with a phone, a mini-usb to mini-usb cord, and a cup of very green kiwi-apple-banana-kale-broccoli-spirulina juice.

He set it down on the counter-top by Wanda's elbow.

"Drink? I wouldn't say I was angrier than any of you about the conditions you were being kept in, but I was angry. It was unnecessary and mean-hearted. But I didn't make you break the law, Wanda. I'm not capable of making any of you do anything."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

"Is that going to taste like a liquid salad?" Wanda asks. She focuses on the drink rather than Tony's attempt to be team leader or her parent because it puts too much of a bitter taste in her mouth. The Raft isn't the only imprisonment she means and Tony is personally responsible for one instance of captivity.

"Is this really the time for 'I told you so?'" she says, unable to help herself even though he's the only resource she has to get out of this predicament.

[ahollowman]

"Hey. Don't be rude to my green juice. It's delicious. It's juice, it tastes like juice."

He sighed, a long and tired noise, and pulled up a stool for her to sit in while he worked to get her out of her restraints.

"No, it's not. I'm just an asshole that way and I'm genuinely sorry for inflicting that on you, 'kay? Please sit. Sit in my stool. I need to touch your hair. Is that alright?"

Consent, at least, was a starting point. If he wanted her trust again, he would have to start there.

[nothingmorehorrifying]

"I won't be able to find out either way until you get my hands free," Wanda points out. Tony Stark, she's learned, is a very generous man but he's also very thoughtless in his generosity. Case in point, he's offered her a drink but it has no straw, no way for her to taste it with the straightjacket on.

Wanda gives Tony a look and her eyes go faintly red with an excess of energy, of warning, though she can't actually do anything besides snarl with these on. Even the red of her eyes is dimmed from what it should be. She's giving Tony trust because they are theoretically on the same side, but she's letting him know she hasn't forgotten either.

"You might regret it. I haven't been able to wash my hair."

[ahollowman]

Tony realized his oversight without comment and turned to pull more things out of cabinets; a set of small screw-drivers, each more miniature than the last, a rubber band, and a neon bendy straw, orange.

He put the bendy straw in the drink. He swooped around to Wanda's back.

"Putting your hair up now. Want it out of the way while I work. And I wouldn't worry about it. I once shook hands with Justin Hammer, and he was way greasier than your hair could ever be."

His hands went to work, with the careful gentleness of someone who'd made a ponytail before.

"Gonna open it up now. Tell me if it hurts. It shouldn't, because I'm not gonna screw this up, but."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

Neon orange and smoothie green do not, in fact, improve Wanda's initial impression of the drink but she keeps her opinions to herself while Tony Stark ties up her hair. The touch reminds her of Pietro, who'd given in and put her hair in a ponytail or a braid more than once for her. His hands are used to the gesture and she spares a moment to be sad that Tony and Pepper aren't together anymore.

She doesn't comment on that either.

"But if I start experiencing debilitating electric shock, I'll know why."

[ahollowman]

"Which you won't," Tony said, slipping one of the smaller screwdrivers loosely between his lips for safe holding. He moved Wanda's dark hair over her shoulder and found what he was looking for. It wasn't difficult; the Raft tech was based on SHIELD tech, which was based on Stark tech. Because Howard Stark had had a hand in SHIELD's creation.

Tony wrapped some of the rubber bands around the phone, after some hectic touchscreen swiping, and then worked open the tiny door on the back of the collar with the screwdriver, letting the screws fall to the ground, tiny and quiet.

"So Darrow is nowhere on Earth so far as I can tell, although it's made to seem like it. You'll have a package waiting for you at the--" Tony shocked himself and swore lightly. "--train station. You can borrow my bike to get down there."

She might refuse. She knew Tony too well. Benefit of the powerset, he supposed.

He finished plucking away at the collar's innards and hooked the mini USB between it and the phone.

"Say when."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

Wanda tries not to take satisfaction in Tony getting shocked while she doesn't. It's not a particularly charming trait, the way she feels a little bit of joy at any misery he experiences right now.

"I'm honestly surprised you'd let me out so easily," she says, rude and clipped. Even if Tony is helping her, she still blames him for the predicament she's in, at least so far as her restraints are concerned. Besides, it makes a good cover up for the facts that she can't drive a motorcycle and, even if she could, she still looks like an asylum escapee.

After a second, Wanda feels a brief surge under her skin and it's like the final moment when circulation returns after a limb has fallen asleep, only it's throughout her whole body. Breathing out, Wanda's eyes briefly flash red and then she nods. "It's deactivated."

[ahollowman]

"Right. Please try not to kill my kitchen."

He pulled the two sides apart, releasing the collar from around Wanda's neck. It made a series of loud, angry clicks, but didn't shock either of them. Instead, the shock was redirected to the phone on the counter, which hissed and popped loudly, letting off a strong and unmistakable smell of burning electronics.

[nothingmorehorrifying]

For a moment, Wanda feels a little like a conduit for too much power. Like a shock without a surge protector, everything wants to go everywhere. It's only the simple memory, the plain fact that she isn't just power, that she's human, that pulls her back to herself.

The smell of melting plastic is an unpleasant reality too.

"The jacket is strapped at the back of the shoulders." If she ever gets out of this, if the Avengers are ever anything like they once were, she'll need to ask Natasha about freeing herself from one.

[ahollowman]

Tony takes the jacket off with the heavy duty kitchen shears, eschewing using the bolt cutters, which are more fun, for the scissors, which will undoubtedly make Wanda more comfortable about his working behind her, given their present relationship. Tony had himself to thank for that.

He snipped. The jacket started falling away, destroyed, unuseable.

"So, what else do you want to know?" he asked.

[nothingmorehorrifying]

"I'm in another dimension and there's an envelope waiting for me." It's honestly not even that scary, compared to the accommodations and sudden changes in location that had been almost normal with the Avengers. She's just still working on believing it.

"Start again and make it sound believable."

[ahollowman]

Tony sat and leaned back in his chair with a sigh, but started to better explain despite his general dislike of details and minutia. He preferred to deal with the broad strokes of situations like this.

"The area is called Darrow, it resembles a city, about 2016, which is handy for us, a little like the Jersey Coast area, also a little convenient, though not so much for other people. If you try to travel too far out of it, you just double back into the city. You do that every time you try, no matter what. Yes, I tried it myself. No, I would not recommend it. The city knows you've arrived and has provided you with a phone, keys, money and an ID card. Those are the facts. Those are the only facts anyone knows for certain."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

Wanda takes that information in and tries to make the picture work in her head. It seems patently strange, but not impossible. The whole point of who they are is to deal with the impossible but it's a hard concept to work with.

"So we're in a tiny part of America that's set apart from everywhere else. And I've been kidnapped by it." It was just believable, but only just.

Wanda took a long drink of the smoothie and tried not to show on her face that it did, actually, taste good.

[ahollowman]

Tony pantomimed a pair of scales. More or less; really, the issue was both more and less.

"A tiny space that seems like America with no obvious way out and an ability to presciently have apartments waiting for us when we get here, if we're being exact about it."

He stared at her for a long moment, and then added, non-sequitur, "What size do you wear? Looking at you in those is making me want to throw myself out a window, which come to think of it might be appealing to you right now, but regardless, the other option is wearing one of my t-shirts after your shower, and that is probably even more repellent at the moment."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

"I am trying to decide if that's even the strangest thing I've heard this week," Wanda says, using a glibness clearly learned from Sam and Clint.

"I wear a small or an extra small. Or a medium, depending on where you shop." Wanda mimics Tony's weighing gesture. He may be a scientific genius but she knows that there is very little by way of science that goes into the arbitration of clothing design.

[ahollowman]

"You're about to hear stranger," Tony told her. "This place isn't always sanity-friendly. Or maybe I'm just a hot mess."

He sighed and took a note on Wanda's acceptable sizes in his phone's notepad. It sounded like an entirely too wide range, but he'd never been to the women's section before. Pepper had dissuaded him from buying her any clothes personally.

"Anything else you need? Toothbrush and whatever?"

[nothingmorehorrifying]

Wanda shrugs. "There is always stranger," she points out, especially in their line of work. Her only experience with this world is limited to Tony Stark's apartment, so she can't really comment except for the simple knowledge that something more seemingly impossible around the corner is a simple fact of her life.

"I have nothing but what's on my back right now," Wanda says, giving Tony carte blanche. "And I'm a thirty-two B." Because the prison bra is frankly the most uncomfortable thing she's ever worn.

[ahollowman]

If anyone asked him why he was in the women's intimates section, he was definitely saying it was for his daughter. The last thing he wanted to do was bring Wanda home some kind of lacy red number. She might actually appreciate one, but not from Tony.

"Thirty-two B. Got it. There's uh, there's food in the fridge. You can have whatever you want. Might want to shower while I'm gone?"

Because it would be better than showering while Tony was bustling around the apartment.

"I'll be back. There's a baseball bat by the window and an ax-handle by the door in case--" He paused. "You know what, never mind. You've got it handled."