AN: This going to be a story about Wanda and Pietro. This first chapter is their POVs (but third-person) of the end of the movie, but all the chapters after this will be continuations or AUs of what could have happened.
The title of this story is inspired by J. Robert Oppenheimer's quote about the atomic bombings in Japan, where he recalled and translated the words of Vishnu in the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad-Gita: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
Genres of this chapter: Angst. Tragedy.
Further notes at the end of the chapter.
You Didn't See That Coming (now did you?)
Breathe, Pietro, breathe, he thought to himself. You can't run if you can't breathe.
He was leaning against a wall, just pausing, just needing to catch his breath, just needing a moment, just a couple seconds, it wouldn't take him long to catch his breath.
He was fast enough to catch anything, it would only take him a couple seconds to catch his breath so he could keep running.
It only took him a couple seconds to catch his breath before he took off running.
He was running, but running felt like flying, he'd always thought. In his dreams, his feet never even touched the ground.
In reality, they didn't touch the ground, either—they punished it mercilessly, every footstep a lightning strike, every footfall a thunderclap, his movement a hurricane gust of wind, and his hair was the silver of rainclouds about his face and cold hazel eyes that only warmed for Wanda.
He was quick, so quick, his sheer quickness leaving behind streaks of blue energy, like glowsticks waved in the dark, his monumental velocity enough that it took but a single well-aimed punch for the Ultron robots to break apart at his touch, crumble and fall like buildings in an earthquake.
He never waited to watch the robots hit the ground—he knew they would.
There weren't many robots left, now, just a few stragglers after the robot massacre around the core. The Avengers could fight, he'd give them that, and the battle was a thrill, energy through his veins, adrenalin. Action was the only other reason, after Wanda, that Pietro ever smiled.
Wanda. She was protecting the core from any straggling robots, and he'd left her there. He'd left her. But she could take care of herself, he knew, she was strong, stronger than him, he knew this, he didn't like leaving her, but he knew this, she was stronger, and all these years he may have kept the two of them living, but she had kept them hoping.
Help get the civilians to the ships, she'd told him, and that was what he was doing, sweeping the city streets for straggling civilians, picking them up and depositing them at the carriers, before running back for more.
All Wanda had to do was speak, and he would do anything. Often times she didn't even need to speak. They'd long ago perfect a form of speech that needed no words, even before they became enhanced and she was always touching his mind, always a calming presence to keep him grounded when the FIRE took him over.
He could feel her there, even now, her presence warm and scarlet, her mind alert and focused. At the first spark of fear he could be at her side in a second. Till then, she was okay, and he was okay, everything was okay.
His lungs stung a little, but that was okay. His legs shook a little, but that was okay.
Punch a robot here, save a few civilians there, oh look, some more civilians, drop them off safe, come back, check this street, check that street, run through this building, re-check the areas that are already checked, just in case, save the civilians of his home country, he hates the fear on their faces, he knows that fear, two days of that terrible fear forever ingrained in his memory.
The way Wanda had shivered. The way tears had tracked trails in the dust on her cheeks. The way they dared not move, petrified with terror. They wanted to live.
For each other, they would live.
There were gunshots, he heard them before he ran over and saw the ship shooting, saw that American, the Avenger, Hawkeye, and he was turning his body in preparation for the onslaught of bullets, curved around a young boy, that terrible fear on the child's face.
He saw Wanda's face, carved with that same terror. She'd been ten years old. They'd both been. He remembered the twisting in his gut. Every time they shifted, they'd tensed with that paralyzing fear, sure that they were going to die. They'd been so sure.
Hawkeye could not run, he was a snail. He was not fast enough to outrun bullets. Turning to protect the child was commendable, but it would do nothing. Pietro was well acquainted with the way bullets seared through flesh. Well acquainted.
These thoughts were flashing through his brain even as he was already running, his feet punishing the ground for trying to hold him.
Gravity could not hold him down. The laws of physics could not stop him.
A quick silver flash, that's all he was.
He could not move Hawkeye and the child out of the way, there was no time for that, for fumbling to grab them securely and run.
He could not catch all the bullets, there were too many.
But he was nothing if not quick. Quick thinking, quick acting.
There was a car only a few feet away, and Pietro ran straight at hit and used his momentum to help him kick it—he had no super-strength, but he had super-speed, which in turn gave him a degree of super-strength, as HYDRA had found in their many tests, and yes, the tests hurt, always, but all the pain was more than worth it, more than—onto its side and the several feet over, but it was going to skid too far, he could tell, and he had to run to the other side, put his back up against it and dig his heels in to stop it so the metal of the car would block the bullets from the Avenger and the child.
That's what happened, not that he was even thinking about it—no, he was just reacting, all his coherent thoughts used up with registering PAIN each time a bullet hit—his leg once, his chest multiple times, and PAIN was just another kind of FIRE, and one he knew how to work through without Wanda's help.
He was well acquainted with the searing of bullets through flesh, after all. Well acquainted.
Another thing to thank HYDRA for.
He was just barely faster than bullets.
He was just barely faster, and maybe he could run headfirst into a wall and come out without a concussion, be slammed into the ground without cracking a single rib, but bullets could still pierce his flesh, and he felt the beat of his heart stutter when a bullet shot through it.
But most of the bullets hit the car, and none of them hit Hawkeye or the child, so it would have been okay, except for Wanda.
Because he'd promised her he'd never leave, and he knew he was going to. Like everything else he did, Pietro bled out quickly.
The plane passed overhead, the gunfire stopped, and Hawkeye looked up with astonishment at the fact that he was still alive.
Pietro would have run away, because it would have been hilarious if the Avenger had absolutely no idea how he was still living, seriously, that would have been hilarious, but Pietro was on FIRE and his vision was swimming with black and he could feel his body failing to support him.
He waited for Hawkeye's keen eyes to spot him, and offered a smirk, made sure it was smug, because holy shit, the Avenger's face was hilarious, he wished Wanda could see that expression, wish he'd be alive to tell her about it.
"You didn't see that coming," Pietro said, and it wasn't a question this time, it was a statement, and he felt like he won.
The last thing he felt as the world went black was the PAIN in Wanda's scream, and he was sorry to have caused it.
He was so sorry it hurt more than the numerous bullet wounds.
I'm sorry, was his last thought. I won, but even when I win I lose.
Time was always the thing he had too much of in this slow world, but this time he didn't even have time to think: Forgive me, Wanda. I love you.
If You Don't Leave Then You'll Die (I just did)
She'd told Pietro to go. She would be okay.
She knew she'd be okay. Pietro knew it, too. No robot would be able to touch her or the core.
She'd never stopped to think that anything—anything at all—could touch Pietro. He was too fast. Far too fast.
They weren't even battling anymore. The battle was over, almost all the robots were gone, all he was doing was evacuating the civilians and getting them off the floating, ever-rising city.
He should have been okay.
Wanda had felt that he was okay, his mind a blue blur in her awareness, all excitement and purpose and a secret glee he always experience when running, no matter the circumstances.
There were very few robots left to come after the core, now, and most of them were already damaged, crawling towards desperately, only to be met with a blast of scarlet energy.
The energy thrummed through her like electricity, but she wasn't just a conduit. No, she was a nuclear power plant, and there were depths of her power that she didn't touch, that she was scared of and tried to forget about, only skimming the surface of the well of power within her. In a way, she wasn't even completely aware that it was there.
But it felt right, the energy, just like she knew the speed felt right to Pietro. They weren't complete until the experiments. They were made to be like this, maybe even born for it. They were trained for it and now they lived for it.
They lived for each other.
And so it had never even crossed Wanda's mind that either she or Pietro wouldn't making it out of this.
"You can still walk away from this," Captain America (what a stupid name) had said.
"Oh, we will," she'd said. She'd been so sure. So sure.
One moment, Pietro had been okay.
And then she'd felt alarm, panic, fear, contempt, determination, her name, and then PAIN.
Stabs of pain in her chest, her leg, stabbing feelings in her head of pride, triumph, smugness, regret, love, and all the while PAIN and FIRE, thoughts from him that were far too familiar.
Her heart was torn from her, like a cold, metallic hand reached right into her chest, clasped its fingers around her heart and ripped, pulling it out raw and bloody, crushing it along with half or her soul.
She didn't even register the fact that she was falling to her feet and screaming. She never had realized that Pietro never screamed because she always screamed for him, that the reason he never cried was because she cried his tears, that the only way he was comforted was by comforting her, that the only thing that made him truly happy was her being happy, that the only thing that really hurt him was her pain.
The last thing she would ever remember of Pietro was a sense of crippling regret and of love so large it ached.
She didn't even realize that his PAIN ripped out not only her heart and soul, but the safety switch on her magic, too. She didn't even register the magic exploding from her and destroying all the robots within a hundred-meter radius of her.
And then everything was gone, just like that.
No more pain. No more fire. No more love or regret.
When she opened her eyes, she was kneeling on the ground, the destroyed bodies of robots littered all around her, and she felt nothing.
It wasn't until she saw a plane crash not far off that anger seared through her, what, in Pietro's mind, had always been FIRE, and she realized there was really no other way to describe it: the anger, the fury, the hatred and loathing and a million other nuances of flaming emotions that seared and burned and scorched.
She knew who had been in that plane. She knew that plane had killed Pietro (glimpses and images had flashed through her mind, a plane, bullets, a car, Hawkeye, a child that had reminded him of her—her brother was always a protector).
Now there was nothing within her but the need for revenge. She would avenge her brother's death.
"You're an Avenger," Hawkeye had told her.
She hadn't answered. At least, not in words. And it had taken her a few moments to gather her wits enough to answer with actions.
She'd never liked fighting, never enjoyed the fierce action, the adrenalin rush, the things her brother had breathed like oxygen.
He'd always been the braver one, never hesitating before jumping into fights and possible pain. He'd always been a man of action.
Words, though. Words were usually her forte. His mind would race so fast that he couldn't always phrase his thoughts and feelings, but always knew what was going on inside his head, always, and she'd always spoken for the both of them. He was so fast, but he always waited for her. Waited for her to catch up. Waited for her to give the word.
He'd never left her behind, till now.
No, that wasn't right—he hadn't left her. He'd never left her.
He'd been taken from her.
And for that, Ultron would die.
She walked with a burning calmness towards the bus that she'd seen the robot crash into.
The world was too bright, too sharp. Her hands tingled like she was holding them too close to a fire.
She made her way through the ripped hole in the side of the bus. She was not rushed. Ultron would not escape.
She found him lying there, looking broken (but not broken enough).
"Wanda," he said, in an electronic voice that sent surges of hate through her blood. "If you don't leave then you'll die."
She felt nothing but hatred and contempt.
"I just did," she said. "Do you know what it felt like?"
She held out a hand, latching her magic around his robotic heart.
She needed him to feel this. To feel even just a semblance of her pain.
She needed him to feel PAIN before he died.
The metal of his body shifted, and she watched his face the entire time (oh how she wished robots could SCREAM) as she yanked his heart out of his body and into her hand.
The piece of metal was hot and dripping in her hand, and she looked at it in disgust, before looking back at Ultron's face as he died.
She thought maybe she'd seen PAIN there, and it made her lips curl upwards.
When her eyes faded from scarlet to hazel, her gaze was dark, cold and empty.
AN#1: I've only seen AAoU twice. the first time I watched it, I thought Pietro picked Clint and the child up and moved them. But the second time I watched it, they didn't seem to move, and it looked to me like a car appeared where there hadn't been a car before. Who really knows what actually happened in that scene, but this second interpretation is what I'm going with cuz it made the most sense to me.
AN#2: In the comics, Pietro's eyes are blue and Wanda's are green. When I looked up pictures of Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, they both seemed to have eyes that sometimes looked blue, sometimes look green, sometimes looked kinda brown. So I went with them both having hazel eyes here, which I figure also makes sense with them being twins and having both had dark hair, before Pietro's was turned white by his superspeed transformation (at least, I'm assuming that his powers turned his hair white, rather than him dying it).
AN#3: Let me make one thing clear: I'm not angry about Pietro being killed off in the MCU.
Yes, it was sad. But yet, not surprising. At all. Because deep down I'd really known that he was going to die, from the very first teaser trailer where there was that clip of Wanda falling to her knees and screaming in absolutely pain.
And it... makes sense to kill him off, it really of all because it will give the Scarlet Witch motivation. Also because Wanda and Pietro are SO close that they'd stick together and it would be them against the world, even against the rest of the Avengers, kinda, so then the movie verse doesn't have to deal with Wanda and Pietro being crazy protective over each other, and it will force Wanda to have to connect with the rest of the team.
Additionally, it's obvious that Wanda and Vision are going to get together, and Pietro is a protective jerk, let's face it, so removing him from the situation makes it so there won't be a whole bunch of drama when Wanda and Vision get together, because Pietro would be jealous, and the movies are so much shorter and farther between than the comics, so they simply can't cover as much material or give enough depth and attention to so many characters.
And then of course there's the thing with Pietro's superspeed - superspeed is either incredibly boring and not used to its full potential, or it's way too powerful and simply HAS too much potential, and Pietro's character would cause so much frustration for everyone that there simply wouldn't be time to cover the problems he would cause. And then of course there's the fact that just Pietro's personality, he pretty much doesn't connect to anyone except for his sister, so he's not a strategic character to keep around if he can't make interesting connections.
Wanda, though - Wanda's powers are incredibly awesome, the energy manipulation for battle, and the whole mind-whammy thing that connects her to /everyone/ around her - she's grounded, she's thoughtful, and she connects to people. She's a perfect character to keep around and develop further.
And Wanda and Vision as a romantic pairing? You know most people are going to be attracted to a romantic relationship like that. I'm actually really happy about Vision, though. I never liked him at all in the comics, but he's frikkin AWESOME in the movie!verse.
I'm just sad that we got so little Maximoff twinmance, because it's my fave. But there don't seem to be many people out there who find that kind of relationship interesting. And a lot of people seem to ship Wanda and Pietro together as a twincest thing, which I just don't get. People can have a close relationship that's completely platonic, y'know. Personally, I love sibling relationships.
So... I'm disappointed that we got so little of the Maximoff twins and that he had to die, but... I can't be mad about it, because it makes sense.
Don't get me wrong - my eyes were totally stinging something awful in that scene. But there's really no point in being angry about it, because it was a strategic story device for future Marvel movies to come. As a writer, I have great respect for character development and plot devices.
And hey: Pietro dying is FANTASTIC fanfiction material ;) I mean, what would there be to write about the Maximoff twins about if he hadn't died? I'm actually really happy about this opportunity.
AN#4: This story isn't done yet! I currently have plans for like 12 more chapters at the moment ;3 All separate from each other, either continuations or AUs. I'm going to be playing around a lot with different things :)