The next morning Freya woke up, without having a single dream that night.
She stood up and to her surprise, she didn't feel as tired and exhausted as yesterday. And no voices today. For now.
With a quick look at the alarm clock - half-past seven - she stepped under the shower and changed into some of Natasha's clothes she found in the rubble of the wardrobe.
She looked through the rubble on the floor, the white parts of the desk mixed with the brown parts of the wardrobe. In it, she found a pad and a pencil.
She sat down on the bed and wrote everything down. Her dreams. The voices. Natasha. Everything.
A sudden knock at the door made her stop and look down on the paper, the words scrawly and unreadable.
"What?", Freya asked.
"It's Nat."
Freya relaxed and said: "Come in."
The door opened and Natasha looked around the room, taking up the wreckage.
"Do you wanna talk about it?", she asked as her eyes met Freya's.
She didn't react and Natasha's gaze fell on the paper in front of Freya. "You know, I could also get you a journal", she said, shrugging, but Freya just ripped out the papers and burned them in her hand.
Natasha's look didn't change as she watched the black flames eat the paper within seconds.
Freya threw the ashes on the floor and said: "Can we go now?"
Natasha nodded. "Follow me."
On the whole way, Natasha didn't say a word, but Freya concentrated on her thoughts.
Should I mention yesterday? No, better not, she probably doesn't want to speak about it... she lost... maybe her parents? But it seemed like she just found out...
Freya shut her thoughts out. Maybe she will tell her and the others, but not today.
About a minute later they reached a closed wooden door which looked exactly like the others they came past, except for a small sign which said: Conference room.
Natasha stopped and turned around so she looked Freya in the eyes.
"Listen, you need to convince them that they can trust you. Tell them about you. You need to show them what you are. Who you are."
Freya nodded and Natasha opened the door.
The Avengers seemed to be in an intense discussion, but when Freya entered they all fell silent.
Natasha walked towards a chair next to Bruce Banner and Steve Rogers, but Freya stayed where she was.
"So, that's the magic girl that wanted to kill us all", said Stark.
Freya held back a sarcastic answer and answered: "I didn't want to kill all of you."
Stark raised his eyebrows.
"But it sounds like you wanted to kill at least one of us."
Freya looked at Natasha and she nodded. Go on, she read her thoughts.
She wanted to tell Freya something without saying anything and because she knew she could read minds she thought it. Clever.
Freya took a deep breath.
"I was sent to kill Tony Stark." Surprise spread on the faces of the Avengers, but Freya concentrated on Stark.
Why does everyone want to kill me? But she said sent... by who?
"By a guy named Baron von Strucker", she answered his unspoken question. Now confusion spread.
"You can-", Banner started, but Freya interrupted him.
"Read minds, yes. But it's new."
"Wait, what do you mean, it's new?", Steve Rogers asked.
Freya hesitated but after an encouraging look by Natasha, she decided to tell them. She had nothing to lose.
"When I was twenty, Strucker made an experiment on me. He used the sceptre for that."
Banner looked at the others. "Loki's sceptre?", he asked.
"I don't know if it's Loki's", Freya said, "It was stolen from Strucker a week after the experiment. Well, after I survived the experiment I got powers. I got wings and control over the four elements."
Damn, that's much power, she heard Stark's thoughts echo through her head.
"I know, I also see it like that", she said.
"Could you please... stop reading my mind for a minute?", Stark asked.
"Yeah, of course, sorry." Freya cleared her throat. "Well, Strucker sent me to kill Tony Stark, but the moment I saw Loki pointing the sceptre on your chest... I don't know, something in me told me it was the right thing. Maybe I just didn't want anyone to go through what I went through, I don't know."
"But the sceptre did something to you, right?", Rogers asked.
"Loki's sceptre is powerful, how could you resist his mind control?", Thor added with a frown.
"I don't know", Freya admitted, "Maybe because the sceptre already did something to me. And yes, it affected me. Through that, I got the ability to read minds."
"And why don't you run back to this Strucker guy?", Barton asked and looked at her with a kind of angry look.
"It probably sounds crazy, but I had a dream."
"It doesn't sound crazier than you having control over the four elements", Stark said.
Freya ignored him.
"This dream made me realize that he is a bad guy. All these years I was just a figure in his game that he could move around like he wanted to. He-"
Freya swallowed, unsure how to tell them without telling them about all the blood on her hands.
"He made me do terrible things. Things I now know are wrong. And I regret doing it. I know I can't make it unhappened, but... he just moved me around for his purposes. I'm tired of being treated like a chess figure." She almost frowned when she didn't feel even a bit of sadness or desperation in herself. Only burning rage. She swallowed the taste of smoke in her mouth and went on: "Anyways, in that dream, I-"
Freya hesitated, not sure how to tell them without mentioning Wanda.
"A voice told me that he is in an organization called HYDRA."
"What?" There was an utter surprise on Rogers' face. "That's not possible."
Freya frowned. "You know HYDRA?"
He nodded.
"Yes. They were a terror organization during the Second World War. But I thought HYDRA was destroyed."
"Doesn't seem so", Freya said. "HYDRA is still there and Strucker is a part of it. I was just a piece in his cruel games and I am tired of it. I don't want to be a servant of a cruel man."
Everyone stayed silent, just looking at Freya. It made her uncomfortable, it reminded her of the eye in the sky, but she didn't show them that.
After a while, Rogers said: "Thank you, we will discuss this. If you could please wait-"
Suddenly, a sharp pain spread in her head and hundreds of voices talked in her head. No, not voices.
Thoughts.
It were the thoughts of hundreds of different people, all in her head, all talking to her.
She fell to the floor and held her hands over her ears, but the voices just got louder.
A flash of light and then everything turned black.
A vision. Great. One of the few things that were even worse than dreams.
In the vision, Freya saw space, full of planets and stars.
She was always fascinated by the stars but in the last years, she didn't see them very often. And seeing this now, stars and galaxies, left her speechless.
The vision showed her the sceptre, flying there in space.
Then the blue stone at the top exploded and left a yellow gem.
Freya saw a blue dice-like thing, which shattered, leaving a blue gem.
The same thing happened with a metallic eye and a green gem, red-black energy and a red gem, a metallic ball and a purple gem, and a floating man in a black hood and an orange gem.
Then all stones flew into a golden gauntlet and with shock, Freya recognized the person wearing it.
It was the purple alien that has stolen the sceptre from Strucker's warehouse. Streams of colourful energy appeared on his arm.
Then another flash of light and the dream changed.
Freya lied on her bed in the Stark-Tower, but when she looked around she saw that it was empty except for the bed.
She sat up and screamed.
Little Wanda sat there, looking at her with her small green eyes. Freya approached her but stopped a few inches in front of her face.
"I saw you die...", Freya whispered.
But if Wanda heard her she didn't show.
She just kept staring into Freya's eyes and said: "I don't have much time, you have to wake up again. But I wanted to explain what you just saw."
Freya looked at her, tears in her eyes, and her mouth open. "How did you-", she started but Wanda interrupted her.
"What you just saw were the Infinity stones, six powerful stones that were created with the universe. They are stones of immense power, only very strong beings can even use one. But Thanos, the alien you saw, is trying to steal them. I don't know what he wants with it, but if he has all the stones one snap" - She snapped with her little fingers and Freya flinched - "is enough to kill everyone on this planet."
She stood up.
"I need to go-"
"No wait!", Freya shouted and held her hand out. "Please help me", she whispered. "It's all too much, I can't control my powers, it's too overwhelming."
Wanda's face softened. "I can not take these powers from you. You have to learn, concentrate. Shut the thoughts out. You are the boss of your body, of your mind. I can not help you. But you can help yourself." She turned around and said: "I need to go now. And you should wake up, too."
With these words, Freya woke up.
She gasped for breath and felt the sweat on her whole body.
She didn't even open her eyes before she screamed again. The voices were still there. She held her hands over her ears again.
Concentrate, she heard Wanda's voice. You are the boss of your mind.
Freya tried to control her breathing, imagined a wave of herself, throwing it against the voices. But the wave crumbled and Freya was exposed to the thoughts.
Out of all this noise, she heard a voice.
A real voice.
"Concentrate on me." Natasha's voice was calming and Freya tried to do as she was told.
She searched for Natasha, in the depths of these thoughts, of these minds. Finally, she found them.
Concentrate on my thoughts.
Freya concentrated on her thoughts, on this mind, on this person.
Concentrate. You can do it. You are strong.
These thoughts were what held Freya there. What held her sane. She didn't realize that the other voices were gone until she opened her eyes and looked in Natasha's face.
"They are gone", Freya whispered. And then again. And again. And again. Until she was convinced, that they were actually gone.
"I know", Natasha answered. "Well done."
Freya looked around at the other Avengers, all staring down at her and Natasha.
Bruce Banner was the first one to talk. "Okay, what just happened?"
Freya closed her eyes and rubbed her head, trying to ignore the dizziness.
"Do you mean that I was unconscious or that I just screamed because I heard the thoughts of hundreds of people at once in my head?" That made them fall silent.
"Both, I guess", Banner finally said. "But I guess you kinda already explained the second one, so: Why were you even unconscious in the first place?"
"I... I had a vision."
"What did you see?", Natasha asked.
Freya stood up and walked towards the table where she sat down. She took herself a glass from the middle and fill it with her black water-power. She has never tried that before, but when she drank it, it tasted like normal water.
"I don't really know. I saw six gems and things they were hidden in."
Freya hesitated. She didn't want to tell them about Wanda, so she said: "A voice said that these were the Infinity Stones."
"The Infinity Stones?", Thor asked with a confused face.
"Yes. Have you heard of them before?", Freya asked back.
"Of course. The Infinity Stones are very powerful, if not the most powerful objects in the universe, as old as the universe itself. They represent different aspects of the universe: Space, Power, Time, Soul, Reality and Mind."
Thor looked at her. "You said your vision also showed where they were hidden?"
"Well, I think so", Freya said. "For example, it showed the yellow stone in Loki's sceptre."
"The yellow one is the mind stone", Thor explained. "I didn't know that an object of that immense power is in the sceptre. But it makes sense that it's the mind stone, because of the mind control thing Loki did. I am sorry, go on."
He signed Freya to continue and she said: "The blue gem was in a dice-like blue thing, I think I saw Loki with it."
Thor looked at the others. "The tesseract."
"Yeah, I don't know if it's called like that."
Freya told them what she saw for the other Infinity Stones and Thor sometimes interrupted to explain which one it is. After that, the Avengers were silent for a minute.
Suddenly Freya remembered something.
"I also saw an alien called Thanos. This voice told me that he wants to steal the stones and if he gets all, he just has to snap and he can do whatever he wants. He was the one who stole the sceptre from Strucker five years ago. He probably gave it to Loki."
Steve Rogers was the first one to say something. "Thank you for telling us. We will discuss this; if you could please wait outside."
Freya nodded and left the room.
Outside she leaned against the door and thought about her vision.
The second vision.
Wanda.
She saw the building explode, there was no way she was still alive. But the vision showed Wanda as a six-year-old, so like on the day Freya saw her for the last time.
She already saw her in other dreams before, maybe she just comes and gives Freya some advice when she needed it.
But that made no sense... maybe that was possible because of the sceptre. Maybe she now had the ability to... receive visions? Communicate with dead people?
Probably the first one, otherwise Freya would have seen the older Wanda.
Natasha opened the door and ripped Freya out of her thoughts. Without saying a word Natasha nodded and was about to walk back into the room, but Freya held her back.
"Natasha."
She turned around and asked: "Yes?"
"I just- I just wanted to thank you."
Natasha smiled. "I didn't really know what I was doing", she admitted.
"Whatever it was, it was great", Freya answered. "I clung to your thoughts and they helped me out of this... this sea of voices. They were about to drown me, but you were like an anchor. So thank you."
"Your welcome", Natasha said and smiled again. "Now stop with the metaphors and come back in."
Freya smiled and followed her inside.
Steve Rogers started. "We came to an almost unanimous decision" - he looked over at Stark who ignored him and stared at Freya- "that you can stay here. You said that Strucker is a part of HYDRA. Means, we will have to destroy HYDRA. And you said you are tired of being a piece in Strucker's game. Does that mean, you will help us?"
"Yes, I will", Freya said, trying to sound determined.
"Great. You will get another room and..."
She wasn't listening anymore. Finally, she could stop being linked to Strucker.
Finally, she could avenger herself.