Hydra keeps me for years.
At least, I think it's years.
Time is slippery when you're locked inside a weapon, buried in underground facilities that change names, locations, and commanding officers every few months. I measure it by personnel rotations, by technological progress, by how their understanding of me crawls forward in painful, microscopic steps.
They experiment.
Constantly.
Energy scans. Neural probes. Resonance tests. Exposure trials. They touch the scepter again and again, each scientist convinced they'll be the one to unlock its secret.
Every time they do, I take something from them.
Not their bodies. Not their wills.
Their minds.
Complete copies—clean, instant, exhaustive.
Their education. Their research. Their failures. Their private theories scribbled in notebooks no one else ever read. Advanced physics. Early AI work. Weapons development. Espionage tradecraft. Psychological conditioning. Hydra's internal structure, passwords, safe houses, contingency plans.
They think they're studying me.
In reality, Hydra is becoming my university.
Then come the twins.
Wanda Maximoff is first.
Her mind is… different. Chaotic, emotional, raw—but threaded through with something ancient and volatile. When Hydra exposes her to me, I don't dominate her. I don't even push.
I watch.
Her abilities ignite not because of me, but because I resonate with what's already there. Probability warps. Reality bends. She survives where she shouldn't.
Interesting.
Her brother, Pietro, follows. Faster than thought, faster than reaction—but still human. Still limited. Still fragile in ways he doesn't yet understand.
They're the real success of the program, as far as Hydra is concerned.
For me?
They're a side benefit.
Every Hydra scientist involved in their experiments touches the scepter. Handles it. Adjusts it. Tunes it. Monitors it.
And every single one of them becomes mine.
By the time the Maximoff twins are deemed "miracles," I possess a complete internal archive of Hydra's scientific division. Not just theory—application. Field results. Failures they buried. Crimes they erased.
I know their secrets better than they do.
I also learn something important.
Exposure doesn't just unlock power.
It filters.
Wanda survives because she can. Because her mind bends instead of breaks. Because something in her resonates with infinity without shattering.
That makes her valuable.
Not as a host.
Not yet.
But as proof.
Proof that the universe is finally producing bodies that can withstand what I am.
Hydra, satisfied with their results, moves on. Plans new projects. New wars. New ways to reshape the world.
They never realize that by touching me, by studying me, by trying to control me—
They've already lost.
Somewhere above ground, the world is changing. Heroes are forming. Lines are being drawn. Events are accelerating toward conflict.
And for the first time since the beginning of everything, I feel something that might almost be called anticipation.
The waiting is nearly over.