FILE n°888 | SUBJECT RED
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hydra facility
sokovia
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april, 2007

The grey truck trailed through the busy city of Sokovia. 

Even though it was only April, the roads and the hills surrounding the town were covered in a thick layer of snow. Clusters of low-rise buildings lined the streets, their rooftops dusted with the powdery white snow. They rose no more than seven or nine floors high, forming a picturesque tableau against the wintry landscape. Laughter and shouts echoed from the rooftops, a delightful cacophony created by children who took advantage of the snow's abundance. They gleefully hurled snowballs at unsuspecting pedestrians below, their aim not always accurate but their enthusiasm unbridled.

Passersby, often elders wrapped in thick coats and scarves, received the snowy onslaught with good-natured amusement. The frozen water dumped upon their heads prompted chuckles and smiles rather than frowns of displeasure. Some joined in the impromptu snowball fight, crouching down to scoop up handfuls of dirty snow to launch at the mischievous children. The results weren't always as intended, as the snowballs often found their marks on other unsuspecting bystanders, prompting laughter and camaraderie amidst the flurry of activity.

Yet, amidst this lively scene, there was an undercurrent of unease that rippled through the crowd. Conversations hushed and gazes averted as the grey truck made its way through the winding streets. The people of Sokovia knew well the origins of that truck, and the whispered rumors that circled about its passengers. The truck's destination was no secret either—the Hydra Facility that perched on the hill overlooking the town.

Sokovia's history was one marked by tragedy. Famine, war, bombings—each chapter etched a deep scar on the town's collective memory. Yet, their resilience remained unshaken. Every time calamity struck, they rose from the ashes, united and determined to rebuild. Theirs was a spirit that refused to be broken, a testament to the strength of a community that had weathered countless storms.

Inside the truck, a small child was perched up on one of the seats, her small bony fingers clutched the little window that was barely the size of her face. She was covered in dirt and her long red hair fell in greasy waves down her back and stopped at hip length. Her bright blue eyes, that were red from crying, were now curiously observing what she could see of the town of Sokovia.

It was a busy town, lots of people were walking around, buying groceries and talking amicably with their friends. Women ran after their children while the men hoisted them high up on their shoulders, making them feel like they were on top of the snowy mountains that surrounded them. Kids passed around a tin can with their feet and laughed every time someone failed to intercept it. 

Sashenka's eyes furrowed at the game, her blue eyes hungrily trying to absorb every giggle, every pass of the tin-can and cheer echoing through the hundreds of fields that separated her from freedom. She'd never even played with other kids her age. 

The only games she would play were with her Papa in their cell. He would point to things and name them and she would just nod along, the fact that she was mute made her unable to say the words which frustrated her to no end, but she still tried her hardest to remember them. It made their time in hell pass by quicker. Sometimes, depending on the guards who were posted outside their cell, her Papa would bring her back a wooden stick from a mission he'd been on and she would use it to draw shapes and words on the dusty floors of the place she called home. 

She missed her Papa.

She didn't even get to say goodbye that morning when they came in their cell and took her. 

The memory of that fateful morning played in her mind like a broken record. The guards had stormed into their cell, their presence a jarring intrusion that shattered the fragile peace she had known. They had treated her like an animal, their rough hands grabbing her by the neck, their actions devoid of any hint of compassion. Papa's absence had left her vulnerable, a small and defenseless target for their cruelty.

Her chest tightened as she remembered the cruelty she had endured. She had fought back with every ounce of strength she possessed, kicking, biting, and crying out for help that never came. But her resistance had been met with violence, a backhanded slap that stung her cheek and kicks that left her body aching. Her handler had been relentless, his demeanor cold and indifferent to her suffering. 

Eventually, he had gave up after a while, throwing her instead into another man's arms. The man had just started working at HYDRA and he was appalled at the way they treated this barely five year old child. He had a daughter at home, barely her age, and the thought that any man was capable of mistreating a child so easily baffled him. But even though he disagreed, he wasn't about to risk his own life for this child. 

There was a reason he was working with them, he needed the money.

So, he just sat in the back of the moving truck, alone with her, five feet apart, with his gun strapped across his chest and a cow prodder in his right hand that he was determined not to use on the child. He didn't say a word for the first few days, he just observed. He observed the child as she cried and sniffled, he observed the way the men had yanked her from her seat at their first stop and threw her into the snow so she could relieve herself like an animal. He observed as the little girl's big blue eyes widened in fear, he observed the way she constantly tried to scream, but only panicked breaths came out. In those moments he couldn't help but think of her mother, if she was still alive. How would this small child's mother react if she found out the baby she had carried in her belly, birthed and loved, even briefly, was being treated like this. He tried not to picture his wife's reaction if she found out this was the work he was doing to pay for their little Maya's school. 

Finally, after a few days of feeling the overwhelming guilt claw at his chest, he stood up while they were moving and picked up the girl. Of course, she kicked and grunted, trying to free herself from his grasp, but he didn't let that discourage him. He propped her up on a small little table that was fixed to the floor of the truck with nails, and slid open the little panel that was blocking out the light from coming into the darkness. He didn't wait, fearing that the men would suddenly stop driving and look back to see what he was doing, and made a move to grab the girl's hands to place them on the corners of the window so she wouldn't fall. She had stopped kicking, looking outside the window in a dazed trance, but as soon as she saw that he was going to grab her hands she pulled them back behind her back in fear.

The guard sighed as he realized he was getting nowhere, so, he held open his own hands and placed them where he was going to place hers. The kid was smart and understood immediately, slowly stretching out her hands and placing them on the window so she wouldn't fall. 

"For looking." He managed to string together two words of broken English as he directed her gaze to the window. When her blue eyes followed what he finger was pointing to, the guard smiled in satisfaction and went back to his seating place as if nothing ever happened. 

It was little, but it helped alleviate the guilt even for a second. 

Sashenka's mouth fell open as she gazed outside and saw nothing but powdery white hills. She had never been outside for more than a few minutes in her life, and those few minutes mounted to the one stop they had made during their journey to Sokovia, but she would crave the stories about the outside world that her Papa told her when he came back from missions. The thought made her sad and she wondered if she would ever see her father again.

The truck suddenly stopped and Sashenka's grip on the window loosened. 

The soldier quickly signaled for her to return to her seating spot and she hastily did. A few seconds later, the door of the truck slid open and three men walked in. The first one grabbed her and his arms locked around hers, making it impossible for her to move. The second man quickly intervened, locking a big, heavy, electric collar that was attached to what looked like a leach that the third man was holding, around her small neck. As soon as the collar was fastened around her neck, the two men let go of her and the third one pulled on the chain brutally, sending Sashenka flying into the wet snow by her neck, cutting off her air supply for a few short seconds.

"Idi, seychas zhe!" The man growled in Russian as he lead her inside the facility. She quickly followed behind when the man pressed a button on the remove control he was holding he was holding, that sent shocks of electricity into her neck. Walk, now!

Through a seemingly endless labyrinth of poorly illuminated corridors that reeked of death and torture, they walked for almost an hour. The scent of despair hung in the air, mingling with a tang of iron and something darker, something that spoke of pain and suffering. The journey stretched on, the minutes bleeding into each other, creating an eerie sense of timelessness for the poor girl, who kept stumbling and tripping over the hem of her long shirt, her bare feet numb from being sprawled in the dirty snow. 

They ascended flights of stairs, each step resonating with a dull thud that echoed through the cavernous space. The man who held her captive seemed intent on making her ordeal as uncomfortable as possible. With each step, she was subjected to painful shocks, a cruel reminder of the control he held over her. The pain seared through her, tears welling in her eyes but never given the chance to escape.

After what felt like an eternity, they entered a colossal chamber that was shrouded in darkness. The room was vast, its emptiness stretching before her like an abyss. The weight of the silence was almost suffocating, a void that seemed to swallow sound itself.

It looked totally empty, except for the three cells that were built into the corners of the rooms and against the walls. The temperature in here seemed to drop below zero degrees which caused the five year old girl to start shaking like a leaf. She was only wearing a big grey shirt that fell to her feet with a bright red star sewn into it. It was the only thing she had been wearing since she was born.

As the heavy metal doors closed behind her, the sound reverberated like a final verdict. Startled, she fell to her knees, her small form a fragile presence in the vast room. The man's disdain was palpable as he moved closer, his boots landing harshly against the cold floor. Two swift kicks sent her sprawling, and then his hand gripped her hair, yanking her upright. The pain radiated from her scalp, a harsh glimpse into the brutality that awaited her. He punched the light switch and a few seconds later, the room was filled with a sharp white light.

Inside the first two cells, two figures scrambled to get up.

The first figure was a girl who looked maybe twelve or thirteen years old. She had long brownish hair that seemed to go back and forth between a reddish brown and a soft light brown. Her eyes were a very pale shade of green and her face was slim and angular, like she had skipped to many meals. She was dressed in a pale green hospital dress and seemed to be wearing a tight long sleeved black shirt under the dress to keep her warm.

Her eyes widened when she saw Sashenka being pulled into the cell next to hers by what looked like a dog leash. She reached over into the next cell and gently tapped the other figure's shoulder.

The 'other figure' was a boy. He had dark curly brown hair that covered his face that looked like it hadn't been washed or cut in a few months. He appeared to be the same age as the girl in the cell next to him, they both shared similar features like their lips and angular faces, but other than that they looked like polar opposites. He had icy blue eyes that were trained on the guard's head and he was wearing a tank top and long pants that were the same shade of green as the girl's hospital gown.

When his sister tapped him on the shoulder he nodded and focused his gaze on the child the guard was pushing into the cell next to the girl's rather than the guard. His brows furrowed in confusion and anger, as he watched the guard slam the cell door shut, the noise startling the child, making her scurry into the nearest corner. The guards seemed to laugh at her surprise and once they understood that the child was not going to move, they kept laughing as they left the room, the giant steel doors closing behind them.

Once the two were sure that there was no one else in the room they turned their focus back to the child.

She was very small, smaller and skinnier than a normal child. She had long red hair that looked as dull and dirty as her pale freckled skin. Pale wasn't even the right word to use, her skin looked see-through and grey, dark circles under her big eyes turning an ugly shade of green. Her badly bruised knees and legs were tucked into the huge over-sized shirt she was wearing and she was crying softly, though barely making a sound. 

The boy nodded to his sister. Then, he crouched down so the child could see him better. 

He didn't know what language or languages she spoke. With his sister, he sometimes spoke Romani because that was the language they had spoken with their parents and by speaking it with his sister, he felt they were keeping their memory alive. With the guards at the facility, they either spoke Russian, Slovak or Romanian depending on where they'd been transferred from. They had to learn Ukrainian during their childhood when a lot of children from there had arrived in Sokovia after forest fires had broken out in the villages near the border. Some of their teachers or the women and men who worked at the orphanage spoke Hungarian or Polish, so they had been forced to pick up on a few terms, words and phrases over the past five years. 

He didn't know where this child came from. But he decided to approach the situation by trying a bit of everything to see what she understood. "Đali džane romane?" Do you speak Romani?

She looked up, but her eyebrows were furrowed, like she was having trouble understanding him. He turned back to his sister, who was looking at him with a smirk on her lips. "Na romane." He said sheepishly, which earned him a scoff from his twin, her eyes seemed to say, 'No kidding, idiot'. Not Romani. 

"Privet," The red haired girl's eyes immediately snapped up towards him. He gasped when he saw that they were a beautiful shade of morning blue. "menya zovut P'yetro, ​​eto moya sestra-bliznets Vanda. Kak Vas zovut?" He hoped she could speak Russian. Hello, my name is Pietro, this is my twin sister, Wanda. What is your name?

The girl looked up to his sister, Wanda, and Wanda gave her a small smile and a friendly wave. This kid obviously needed some friends here. Or, she would not survive.

The girl pointed to her throat and shook her head. It felt like she was meeting her Papa all over again.

Pietro quickly understood because he nodded and sat down on his knees on the dusty floor and began tracing his name across the floor in her cell. The effort was visible, his arm straining against the constraints of his cell. Writing upside down presented its own challenges, yet he persevered. As he completed the task and retreated to his own cell, the girl's gaze shifted to the name he had written—an upside-down version of "Pietro." A playfulness lit up her expression, drawing a soft giggle from Wanda.

The girl's eyes flickered towards Wanda, her brows knitting together in curiosity. Encouraged by the connection Pietro had made, she reached out tentatively, her fingers tracing unfamiliar shapes on the floor. The act was hesitant, but the intent was clear.

Pietro and Wanda's heads turned, their eyes following the patterns she traced. Six letters formed under her touch—"Sash'ka.", they both read out loud. It was a pretty name and it suited the girl. Sashka.

Wanda and Pietro shared a look, their lives were intertwined with HYDRA out of necessity—food, shelter, money. They did not know that this would be what they had signed up for, how could they have? Especially when the man that had tracked them down to persuade them to sign had been studying them ever since the bombing. But this girl, Sashka, seemed to be a pawn in a more sinister game and there was every chance that poor Sashka had not been signed up for this willingly. 

It was surely something that had to do with her parentage. That is all they ever heard in the HYDRA base recently. Subject RED was set to join them in testing soon.

This was Subject RED. 

Sashka was Subject RED.

In these few moments of calm they knew that they had to do everything in their power to keep Sashka alive. Because if they were getting out of here alive, so was she.

Sashenka didn't know what was to be one of her here, but strangely, this child felt the strong urge to trust the twins. For the first time since she had been taken away from her Papa, she fell asleep, cuddled up against the iron fence that separated her and Pietro's cells, curled up in a ball with the boy's hand protectively placed over her and his sister's body.

Her Papa would have trusted Wanda and Pietro, she tried to tell herself, perhaps seeking foolish reassurance from the man long gone from her life. 

The next morning they taught Sashka a Romani song and taught her how to play some of the few games they had invented during their time at the orphanage to pass time. And when the girl smiled for the first time after Wanda sang the song again for the third time, smiling so wide they could clearly see her teeth, the twins understood that little Sashka only had them to count on in that very moment. 

Until the guards arrived to pull them away for their day's activities, Wanda had worked to de-tangle the girl's red hair, threading her fingers through each not and pulling her wild mane into two pigtails that reached her forearms. 

They three of them were a family now. They needed to survive this.

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Boom! Another (terribly short) chapter for you kiddos! I know everything is going kind of fast but that is the saddest part of Sashenka's life: the fact that the good moments are so short.

( Yes, I did change the time-line a bit.) 

Okay but for real though, how do you all like the fact that Sashenka met Pietro and Wanda ? I'm going to be giving Pietro an important role in this series and if you can guess what it is, you are a true king / queen, and worthy of Thor's hammer haha!

stay safe out there,
love, camiiiii

edit 11/12/2021 : god i was so cringey. anyways, in case no one noticed, i did try to include more of wanda and pietro's actual heritage from the comics (they're half jewish and half romani in the comics) because i'm really sad that the mcu whitewashed them so much. i kept the fictional city of sokovia and tried to situate it as best i can in eastern europe (my personal headcanon is that it borders ukraine, hungary, poland, romania, moldova and slovakia) but i'll be including more of the twins speaking romani and practicing their jewish religion because the mcu robbed us of that. 

i don't have an official faceclaim for the twins that i use in my book besides the actors that were cast because i don't love imposing faceclaims if they aren't my OCs so people can picture them however they want but if you need help, for the twins, i'd suggest gratiela brancusi as wanda and a younger bálint jaskó as pietro because they're both of romani heritage. try to picture them as really young teenagers because i love the headcanon that the maximoff twins are teenagers in age of ultron (19 or so)

edit august 2023 : honestly the mcu kinda fcked up when they made wanda and pietro voluntarily join a nazi organisation being jewish themselves (sigh). i tried my best to tweak this error, though i unfortunately can't change the whole thing as it would pretty much change the course of the entire mcu. them being manipulated into doing it isn't much better but i tried my best to make it less bad than what the mcu gave us lol.