Come Mourning Light, an avengers fanfic

A/N: This is inspired by 'Safe & Sound' by Taylor Swift ft The Civil Wars. The title pun is intentional. I love Wanda so much, I had to write a grieving story for her. I also think she should sing. This is what happens when it's late and I want the two things to go together.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, you'd know it.

~Come Mourning Light~

Sometimes, Wanda Maximoff still wakes up in the middle of the night, using her powers to send her sheets flying off her bed, suddenly sweaty and stifled by their confines. She is shaking. It takes a lot of self-counseling to calm her racing heart beat and convince herself she is not in danger. It takes her even longer to remind herself she is not alone. Around her, in the Avengers Headquarters, she can feel her teammates deep in their own dreams. She can feel the disturbed energy around them. They are plagued by their own nightmares. But she knows not of what their darknesses are, only her own. The images still flash behind her eyes when she blinks. It was terrifying, knowing the nightmares would never stop rearing their heads completely. On nights like this, she always needed to get out for a bit.

Silently, body still trembling slightly, she slips out of bed, changing into leggings and a baggy sweater. The shoelaces on her boots sting her fingers as she ties them. She doesn't know why, but welcomes the physical pain as an alternative to the emotional cataclysm inside her chest. The Headquarters is empty of activity this early in the morning as she pads down the stairs, tapping in the key codes necessary to step out into the crisp night air.

The moon is covered, the sky is grey, the air is still. Despite the abysmal appearance of the night, she picks herself across the grass, creating a rolling ball of red light in her palm to light the way. It's a short trek to the end of the lawn, across a small bridge into a wide clearing bordered with wildflowers. In the middle sits a modest sized headstone. She moves over to it, kneeling before it. Even though each word is burned into her brain, she still uses her red light to illuminate the engraving reading,

Pietro Maximoff

May 6, 2015

Hold onto this lullaby

Even when the music's gone

At first, she avoided the task of giving Pietro's grave a headstone. There were not enough words in the universes combined to sum up how much she loved -still loves- her brother. How grateful she was to have him by her side, loving her, protecting her, believing in her. How much his death haunts her to this day, leaving her feeling incomplete and lost. She did not tell anyone this, but for a month after the Battle of Sokovia and his heroic death, she had not been able to use her powers. It was like she was no longer in her body or her mind. The avengers (though now, ten months later, she supposes she really is one of them) had to help her pick up her pieces. That included helping her mourn. Helping her heal.

It has been ten months now, and each day she grows more confident in her control over her powers. At night, however, she never knows when she will be cursed with seeing how bloody Pietro's body was before the funeral. It breaks her heart that her brother will never get to hear the song she had engraved in the marble. She heard the song once on the radio and she never forgot it, Pietro haunting her as the melody played out.

She sang to him when they were being experimented on, songs that their mother would sing to them as children. He would knock on her cell wall and she would knock back, pressing her palms to the concrete, knowing he was there on the other side, doing the same.

'Sing to me, sister,' he would ask. It was such a simple request in such a dark place; she wanted to give him what light she could. She wanted the same for herself.

Now, she sits in the dark, pressing one palm to the cold marble, the other to her lips as a sob catches in her throat. Silent tears stream down her cheeks. But being here helps her banish the nightmares that rip her awake at night. After the initial tears subside and the numbness that accompanies her overwhelming missing him comes, she turns, presses her back against the headstone and looks up. The clouds have moved, revealing a full moon. There is no sound except for her uneven breathing. Closing her eyes, she cracks a tiny smile. It's almost peaceful.

Then, as she always does, she sings for her brother's ghost,

"I remember tears streaming down your face

When I said, "I'll never let you go"

When all those shadows almost killed your light

I remember you said, "Don't leave me here alone"

But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight

Just close your eyes

The sun is going down

You'll be all right

No one can hurt you now

Come morning light

You and I'll be safe and sound..."

When she finishes her song, she opens her eyes, finding the faintest tendrils of a new day creeping across the sky, a slight pink hue among the gray, a flicker of light in the dark. It feels as if her brother is truly watching over her, protecting her even in death.

'Thank you, brother,' she thinks to him, 'for everything. I love you.'

Feeling slightly better, she rises to her feet. A breeze whips unexpectedly through the trees, and she can almost swear she hears an, 'I love you, too', on the wind. Tears rise again, and she lets them bead in the corner of her eyes before blinking them away. She creeps silently back into the Headquarters, up the stairs, back into her own room, where her cast aside sheets lie strewn on the floor. She changes back into her pajamas and picks her sheets back up, snuggling down into them as she returns to her mattress.

This time, when her eyes flutter shut, she dreams. A dream, not a nightmare, simply and beautifully, of Pietro. They are sitting in the forest. He appears as he was in his last moments, except his wounds are clean and he appears to be at peace, smiling at her as if he had been waiting to see her for such a long time. She appears as she does each time she visits his grave, except this time, she is able to sing her song and he is able to hear it,

"... Don't you dare look out your window, darling,

Everything's on fire

The war outside our door keeps raging on