A one-shot about Wanda after Age of Ultron. Major spoilers ahead, and slightly incesty pointers. I wrote this in like two hours and it's not all that well thought out, but I hope you enjoy it.
He is there with her and it makes her feel immortal. The enemies with their metal bodies and their metal minds keep closing in, but he's there and she's not afraid, she's not afraid of any of it because he will always protect her. He has always protected her. If she stumbles, he is behind her. She stumbles a lot. But he never lets her fall. So she fights with everything she has stored up inside of her little body, and she refuses to give up. She is an Avenger. Together they are unstoppable. He is there with her, and then he is not. She doesn't see it. She doesn't have to. He disappears, which he does so often when someone else needs him, but this time she knows he will not return.
She doesn't see a thing, and she doesn't have to, because in one moment she is alive, life radiating from every pore in her body, in every stream of energy pulsing in her arms and every flash of red that shoots from her fingertips. She sees a flash, and he is gone, and the life stops and she stops because she is dead, she dies and she knows, she doesn't have to see it but she knows so very well. It swirls within her. The storm. A pulse, stronger than herself, that bursts out. She falls. He is not there to catch her.
Wanda woke with a start. Her back arched, her sweaty palms firmly placed against the mattress. She had started sleeping on her back ever since she started sleeping alone. She stared up at the roof and tried to calm her breath, but it was not easy. Two weeks since Ultron. She wasn't getting any better. She eventually slumped down on her side, her hand hanging off the edge of the bed she had been sleeping in since she came to the new Avengers facility. It was a bunk bed. She didn't know why they'd given her a room with a bunk bed, but apparently that was all they had. With Pietro, she had always slept on the top bunk, for two reasons. The first one was the fact that she saw it as a rebellious act towards the fact that her brother was twelve minutes older than her. She wanted to prove that she didn't have to sleep on the bottom bunk just because she was the youngest. The second reason was that, if danger were to arise, she could simply roll to the side, fall off the bed and let Pietro catch her on his way out of the room. That way, they could escape as quickly as possible. They were always prepared for danger.
Now, she slept on the top bunk because she wished for one morning waking up to hear Pietro snoring beneath her. It would be just like the old days. That kind of hope was futile, but she clutched it to her chest as if her entire life depended on it. She did so every morning, but the bottom bunk stayed empty. Her dreams, on the other hand, were filled with him. If she did not dream of the moment of his death, she dreamed of faint memories. From their past. His dorky voice and his stupid smile. Always so careless, unless she was in danger. If she was in danger, he cared more than any human had cared about anything. She was sure of it.
Someone knocked on the door, and Wanda's eyes shot up for a moment before she snapped back to reality. "Yes?" She groaned, seemingly tired.
"Breakfast," Steve's voice rang through the door. "Rise and shine."
"I will be there in a minute." Wanda replied, and she could literally feel Steve's chuckle through the door. Apparently, he found it amusing that Wanda's accent got more audible when she was tired and grumpy. She did not find it amusing at all. She mustered up all the power her tired body had and pushed herself up. She hoisted her legs over the edge of the bed and dropped to the floor. Her bare feet hitting the floor was barely even audible. She got dressed in some sweatpants and a loose t-shirt (in the beginning of her training she had worn her Scarlet Witch outfit, but she'd realized quite soon that the days with indoor training didn't really require a uniform, and no one seemed to care either way. Though Rhodey and Sam obviously had to wear theirs for the training to pay off), and then she walked out of her room and into the place where they always had breakfast.
The Avengers were sitting around the huge breakfast table, all of them as lazily dressed as Wanda was. She wasn't really surprised. Breakfast came before training, after all, and she didn't imagine any of them wanted to put on their iron suits or gigantic wings or latex clothes before it was absolutely necessary. Not all the Avengers were there, though. Only those who didn't have anything better to do. Tony was taking time off. Thor was in Asgard. Bruce was AWOL. Clint was with his family. But they were enough people to make things happen. They were the new generation of Avengers, who would fight alongside the old one. Wanda couldn't stop thinking they were short one member.
"Hey, look who made it out of bed!" Steve grinned after drinking down that disgusting looking green mixture. He meant that eating healthy was very important, especially before training. They all looked so happy, all smiles and good moods. Wanda didn't understand it. She had never understood morning people at all. It almost scared her.
"At least I did not sleep for 70 years," Wanda retorted as she slumped down next to Sam. She heard Sam and Rhodey hiss with their breaths, obviously trying to simulate the sizzling sound of a burn, and even Vision chuckled softly to himself.
"Oh, Christ..." Steve mumbled, regretting the fact that he shared some of his story with Wanda the week before.
"Hey!" Sam exclaimed, leaning an elbow on the table as he pointed sternly at Steve. "Language!"
"Oh, haha," Natasha scoffed. "That joke is so old. It's practically older than Steve." She said, and then everyone was laughing, even Steve. Hell, even Wanda cracked a smile. And so the breakfast went on, all smiles and laughs, and Wanda did her best to blend in. To seem happy, like them. All of them carried a burden. But on Wanda, that burden weighed tenfold.
"Alright," Steve said after a while, clapping his hands together as he stood up. "Training starts in fifteen. If I remember correctly, Nat and Wanda are on clean-up today."
"But... we did yesterday." Wanda stuttered, and Steve was about to laugh it off when he saw that Natasha was giving him the same, slightly confused look.
"Wha- No, Sam and Rhodey did it yesterday. Right?" Steve uttered, his brows furrowed unimaginably much. He still wasn't getting used to just how well the two red-haired women worked together when it came to mind-games.
"I'm sure you could convince him otherwise, right?" Nat grinned to Wanda, and Wanda grinned back as she flexed her fingertips and something red started swimming inside of her hands. They could see Steve physically freezing up, even though they thought he was over the whole freezing thing.
"I am sure I could do that." Wanda practically sang, wiggling her fingers in the direction of Steve before suddenly lowering her arms again, the red disappearing from her hands. "Just kidding. Let's do this quickly, Nat." She said as she got to work on the dishes and Steve tried his very best to compose himself and go prepare for training.
Training that day was exciting, like it used to be. It was all about how the new part of the team could use their abilities and skills to work together. They all knew how to fight already, but they needed to learn how to perfect their teamwork. But teamwork wasn't easy for Wanda anymore. She'd been on one team her entire life, and that team was no longer possible to be on. She did not truly know how to fight without her brother. They were the perfect fit. In complete harmony in battle, dancing around the edges of each other's polarities, always knowing what move to make next. They had been one perfect soldier, but also one whole person. Now Wanda was split in half, missing the part of her that made her the person she had used to be. She was whole, and now she was not.
So obviously, it took some work, but they all got better with each day that passed. And that's how every day went on, for weeks on end. After they had been there for a month, something new happened. Something that had caught Wanda by surprise at first.
"We're getting a new member today," Steve said at the breakfast table, and everyone looked up curiously. "Agent Hill saw him down in Brooklyn and figured he'd be a good addition to the team. We're meeting him in the training hall later."
"Who is it?" Wanda asked, perching an eyebrow in question.
"His name's Peter." Steve replied, and for a moment Wanda's heart shifted into top gear only at the sound of that name, but then she realized it was not the same name. It was not his name, so it did not matter. "Barton's bringing him in."
When they were half-way through their training, and Sam had just done a really ungracious topple to the floor in an attempt to dodge one of Rhodey's blanks, the door to the hall opened up and Clint stepped in with a teenage boy right behind him. He looked sort of timid and scared, and everyone were staring at him in complete silence.
"Right, way to make the kid feel welcome." Clint scoffed, motioning towards the boy. "This is Peter Parker. He'll be training with you a lot, but he'll also be helping Dr. Cho with her work. He's got a brain on him, that's for sure."
"Uh... it's, uh, nice to meet you guys." Peter said, giving off an awkward wave before stuffing his hands into his pockets.
"Now, we gotta make some ground rules here. You don't talk about this kid to other people," Clint said, and now everyone was looking kind of confused. "I know we're all running around in public with our faces uncovered, but this kid wears a mask. No one knows who he is, so don't blow that cover."
"That's right, who are you, really?" Wanda asked, taking a few steps forward to get a good look at the boy. "I don't think I have ever heard about you."
"I'm, uh... I think it'd be better if I just, like, showed you?" Peter chuckled, and after getting a nod from Clint, he disappeared out of the room for a while. After a minute, he was back, wearing a tight-sitting red and blue suit. Wanda started chuckling uncontrollably, whereas the others were looking mightily impressed.
"What the hell? That is hilarious!" Wanda laughed, and Peter stepped back to look as offended he could without anyone seeing his face.
"Give him a break, Wanda." Steve said, taking a step towards the boy. "That's..."
"Spiderman." Sam finished for him, and Wanda turned towards him with an eyebrow perched as high as humanly possible. "You probably haven't heard about him considering you've been down in Sokovia most your life. Seriously, I thought you were a grown ass man. And then you turn out to be just a kid."
"Hey, we're all full of surprises, aren't we?" Peter said with a chuckle. He generally sounded more cocky when the mask came on, it seemed. A new addition to the team. Wanda was definitely interested in what he would bring to the table. Not to mention the fact that he apparently was some sort of genius who was going to help Cho with her work. The only thing Wanda didn't quite approve of was the fact that he had been assigned to share rooms with her. It didn't feel right to let someone else take the bottom bunk that should have belonged to her brother.
That night, Peter experienced for the first time a woman that was not afraid of getting undressed in front of a boy, and he was not very good at handling that situation.
"What?" Wanda asked as she climbed onto the top bunk in only her underwear, seeing Peter standing completely frozen on the floor. "You have never seen a naked girl before?"
"I have..." Peter stuttered. "I have, I just, I... uh, nevermind." He gulped, climbing into the bottom bunk. He fell asleep quite quickly.
The little girl was crying. She hugged her knees close to her body and rocked back and forth, the tears spilling down her cheeks like a waterfall. Suddenly, a couple of arms wrapped around her, and that voice spoke soothingly into her ear.
"It's okay, Wanda." The voice said, trying his best to comfort her. "I'm here. I'll never let anything happen to you. Big brother will keep you safe."
Wanda gasped for air as she woke up, her breathing erratic, almost violent against the still air. She heard rustling beneath her, and in a heartbeat there was a hand on her shoulder. So fast. Just like old times.
"It's okay." The voice said, trying to comfort her.
"Pietro." Wanda cried closing her eyes and falling against the boy who was there to help her.
"Well," the voice chuckled, trying to make light of the situation. "That's certainly one way of saying my name."
Wanda's eyes opened, and she realized what was going on. In less than a second, a red wave emitted from her hand and sent the boy flying across the room. "Get away from me!" She screamed just as the boy connected with the wall and fell to the floor. "Don't fucking touch me!"
"Okay!" Peter exclaimed, standing up and holding his hands in front of himself in surrender. "I'm sorry."
"You're not him." Wanda mumbled, trying to choke down her tears. "You're not." She jumped down from the bed and passed Peter on her way out of the room. It wasn't like she could go back to sleep either way.
That day, Peter didn't show up for training. Wanda wondered if it was because of her, but she didn't care if that was the case. She didn't feel guilty at all. According to Steve, Peter had said he wanted to focus on helping Dr. Cho first, and that he would return to training once they were done doing what they were doing. No one really knew what had suddenly made Peter so insistent on being a scientist instead of an Avenger, but they figured it was probably something important. Steve said they were working on a really important and really secret project.
It continued like that for weeks. Peter returned to his and Wanda's room late every night, completely exhausted. Wanda wanted to ask him what they were doing in that lab that was so damn important, but he seemed really secretive about it, so she decided to let it go. She still woke up from her dreams every night, but Peter no longer came up to see how she was doing. He had understood that she didn't want that.
One day, in the middle of August, Peter came to the breakfast room together with Dr. Cho and Clint. Wanda was tired as ever, but tried her best to pay attention to whatever it was they were going to tell them.
"You wanna do it, Peter?" Cho asked, smiling almost slyly at the boy.
"Uh... yeah, sure." He said. "Clint, pull your shirt up." He said, and after a little hesitation, Clint actually did. No one knew where they were going with this. "After what I heard, Clint here got a chunk of his stomach blown off when you were down in Sokovia. This is how it looks now." He said, motioning towards the patch of new tissue that Clint had gotten. It was barely even visible. "We've been working on a way to do the same to more extreme cases. We saw that in most subjects, the tissue would continue to-"
"Can you get to the point already? It's not like we understand this scientific-" Wanda was cut off by some kind of chaos erupting throughout the room. The breakfast table was tipped over, and everyone were knocked on their asses. Everyone except Wanda. She stood up in a hurry when the plates that had recently been on the breakfast table crashed into the floor, and the red streams started appearing in her hands. But something lingered in the air. Strings of blue and silver. Everyone, who had scuttled towards one end of the room, was staring at something behind Wanda. Dr. Cho buried her face in her hands, as if part of her had actually expected this to happen but she was just as disappointed either way. Clint actually looked kinda shocked.
"What?" A voice spoke behind Wanda, and she froze completely. "You did not see that coming?"
Something happened inside of Wanda. Questions appeared in every edge of her mind but she did not bother asking any of them. Because her heart was beating, life was emitting from every pore in her body and blood was pumping through her veins like a powerful machinery. She turned on her heel and started running towards her other half, but she slipped on a broken plate and started falling. But she never hit the ground. A pair of strong arms were suddenly wrapped around her tiny frame, and her eyes were wide open as the tears spilled out.
"We will be right back." Pietro's voice spoke to the others, and suddenly the twins were gone. They reappeared in a hallway somewhere away from the other Avengers, somewhere they could be alone. Wanda refused to let go. She held onto her brother so tightly that her nails dug into his back and she wasn't even trying to control her breathing anymore. She didn't know how this was possible. She didn't understand any of it, but there was no doubt about it. This was real. "Hey, look at me." Pietro said, grabbing Wanda's shoulders and pushing her back a little. He did not let go.
"How is this... you were..." She gasped, her expression more shocked than it had ever been.
"They tell me I have been in some sort of coma for months. They have been working to... put me back together so that I could wake up again. So that I could come back to you." Pietro said, a faint smile on his lips, but tears in his eyes. "I have not been conscious, but I know that I have felt so alone."
"Fucking tell me about it." Wanda chuckled, and then she was sobbing again and Pietro had to embrace her once more. "I was so lost." She said into his shoulder, her body shaking uncontrollably.
"It's okay," Pietro whispered, stroking her hair calmly. "I found you."
After that, the room arrangements became a little different. That night, Wanda lay on her stomach. She no longer had to be on guard, so she slept on her stomach, because she wanted to face Pietro. Always.
"You can't sleep?" Pietro asked from the bottom bunk, as if he could hear it on her breathing. Which was exactly the case.
"No." Wanda whispered.
"Come." Pietro said, and Wanda scuffled down from the bed and gingerly climbed into the bottom bunk next to Pietro. Her brother did not hesitate to wrap his arms around her and pull her close. They lay like that for a while, in complete silence, before Wanda spoke.
"I kept wondering... why I could not feel at home here." She mumbled. "We never had trouble adapting to our new homes before. We never really stayed in one place for long, did we?"
"That is correct." Pietro said with a chuckle, and Wanda wrapped her arms tighter around her brother.
"But now I understand." She whispered. She pulled her head back from Pietro's chest so that she could look him in his eyes, and of course she understood. "I looked at this place... these walls, these ceilings, and I was not home. It was hard, because..."
"I know." Pietro said. "But we're home now."
In that moment, Wanda did something for the first time in her life. She realized then that her lips fit so perfectly together with her brother's, and he seemed to think the same. She didn't know where it came from. She just knew that she felt urged to do it. She was home now, and she would never be alone again.