A Time for Home
Just another Tuesday in the Avengers tower.
Just another Tuesday.
Clint might have remembered, no he definitely would have, would have dragged her off to Laura's for cocoa and snow angles with the kids. Steve would have, would have tried to bake her something, badly of course and worse if the Vision had tried to help. For a sentient robot with access to every corner of the internet, the man was surprisingly terrible at following a recipe.
Even worse at remembering dates too.
Everyone who might have remembered what today was, they were all out on a mission. Something serious enough to draw lines around Steve's eyes and dangerous enough she had to stay in the tower, only halfway through the training they wanted her to have.
Colonel Rhodes had gone home hours ago, leaving just her, Vision, and Stark. No, Tony, he'd asked her to call him Tony. The first step, she'd guessed, in trying to make up for what Stark Industries had done to her family.
Or maybe to just try and distance himself from the violence in his name. She could never tell with that man.
She didn't… blame them for forgetting. Not really. Without… Well, it had very nearly snuck up on her too.
So she sat quietly in the common area, paging through a paperback without really taking in the words. Two levels below, St- Tony was bustling around his workshop, she could hear half formed theories and equations bouncing around in his mind, mixed in with colourful expletives that could only mean yet another backfire. And then, whenever the time flickered across his consciousness, a deep seated worry that grew stronger and stronger each time he checked the clock.
The team was supposed to be back by now. It probably wouldn't be long now before Tony took one of the suits out to look for them and leave the tower that one more person empty.
"Miss Maximoff, are you alright?" She didn't jump, didn't let the magic spring to her fingers, but it was a close call, when her heart leapt into her throat and her eyes snapped up to where Vision was standing in front of the couch she had claimed.
You'd think a robot would have to make some sound as they walked.
"I'm fine," she said, easily enough, closing her book but leaving her index finger between the pages to keep up the pretense of actually reading. Vision didn't read people well just yet and she'd gotten good at pretending. He paused, almost imperceptibly, before he smiled.
"If you're hungry, I could-"
"No," she said, too quickly, would have offended him if he'd been human. "I'm fine. I was just…" She took a deep breath and had to glance away from him. "I think I might head to bed soon. I…"
It was barely nightfall, the sun outside the window hadn't even touched the horizon yet. Sunset, it was…
She took another breath and forced herself to meet his gaze.
"I know it's early, but it's been a long day and I'll be up early again tomorrow. I should get an early night," her voice sounded strange, even to her own ears, and something of it must be have registered to him; his forehead creased around the mind stone, his eyes darkened, and he took another step towards her.
"Are you sure there isn't anything I can get for you?"
Another step, his expression more serious, and she realised that there was magic crackling around her hands, when she forced it away she heard the lamp clunk back down onto the table. The next breath in was calming, steading the race of her heart.
"I just want to be alone. Good night," she didn't snap the words, almost, but he stepped back like he'd been burned. Her powers wouldn't work on him, she couldn't force him away like she could the others, but she was betting his manners wouldn't let him push her if she walked away.
So she did.
Her room was dark when she opened the door, near pitch black when she shut it behind her. The tinted windows were programmable and at night she liked it to be dark, after years HYDRA and their labs and their blinding florescent lights beating down on them day and night. She remembered being young, just a child, and being afraid of the dark. Now, with so many other worse things in the world, she could barely remember what that felt like.
Being afraid of something so mundane.
And as if reading her mind, or maybe she was projecting it was hard to tell with telepathy, a breeze blew past her, sharp and cool, one that made her clothes flutter and pulled at her hair. She blinked and the room was bathed in a warm orange glow.
A single candle, lit and flickering on her desk.
Magic crackled around her fingers, clicked her two desk lamps on and properly lit the room. There was a boy in her sitting area, reclining in one of her chairs with his boots up on the table. A boy who pulled a pair of goggles down around his neck and pushed a shock of windswept silver hair out of his face to look at her. A boy with warm brown eyes and a cocky grin who made her heart hurt just to look at him.
"Happy Hanukkah, sis."
Her eyes slipped shut and the tears dripped down her cheeks.
"Hey, hey, no, please don't cry." He was in front of her suddenly, she could feel the heat of his hands hovering uncertainly around her, the closeness of his form next to her, the jumble mixed up too fast thoughts racing through his head and gone again before she could get a lock on them. "Please, I don't like it when girls cry."
She opened her eyes, wiped off his face with both hands, and pulled him into the tightest hug she could manage. His arms wrapped around her waist and nearly lifted her off the floor. It was like a weight had lifted off her chest, she felt herself relax against him, and she pressed a grin against his hair.
"Happy Hanukkah, Pietro."
He laughed, a loose happy sound, and pulled back a bit to give her a pouting glare he was smiling too much to really pull off.
"Do not let anyone know I let you call me that. You are the only one."
"I know." It was easier, to not call him the same name as her brother. For all their similarities they were so different. But today, today she had needed to hear it, needed to say it, almost as much as she'd needed to see him.
"I brought you some food. Are you hungry?" He took her hand and pulled her over to the table, throwing himself into one of the chairs and flipping open the lid of the box in front of him. The smell of fried potato and powdered sugar filled the air.
"Starving."
He gave her a sharp grin and pushed the box towards her. "Raven made the latkes, she's surprisingly good at it for being raised by a man who can barely boil a potato." She snorted into her first bite, he sounded so happy and just fond of them, and he laughed, leaning back in the chair and grinning at her. "And I made the sufganiyot, blackberry and apple. You said those were your favourite."
"Thank you, for…" For coming, for being here, for making her feel better, like she wasn't so… Alone in the universe. She bit into one of the blackberry pastries, savouring the bitter fruit and licking powdered sugar from her fingertips. "For bringing me food."
"You're welcome." And there was something in the corner of his smile that said he knew exactly what she'd been trying to say. He snatched a latke off the top of the pile and set his feet back up on the table. "Isn't that what the holidays are for, spending time with your family and eating lots and lots of food?"
"It is." She ate in silence a while, watching his eyes dart around her room. She bit her lip and ran her knuckles across the table top. "Won't your family be wondering where you are?"
"You have a big ass cross on your wall." She almost laughed, when they were kids Pietro had that short of an attention span too.
"Peter," she said, his eyes flickered backed to her and he pointed over her shoulder. As if she needed him to point it out to notice it. "I don't think-"
"Cause it kind of clashes with your menorah and being, you know, Jewish and all." Difference one, blunt. Almost like he didn't think before he said something, the words falling out faster than his brain could process them. And at the same time she couldn't imagine him looking ashamed or apologetic over something he'd said. Pietro had always pulled his punches with her, especially after what they'd been through.
"It was my brother's actually, he got it for us after our parents died," she said, giving into his change of topic and holding up a hand to stop him from interrupting. "When HYDRA moved their base of operations to Sokovia, with their… history, shall we say, he knew it would be safer for us to volunteer if we appeared to be Christians. It's the only thing they let us keep when we lived in the labs and now it's the only thing I have left that was his. It just means something very different to me than it does to most people who see it. Doesn't stop me from being who I am."
"That is…" He was silent a long moment, longer than she thought him capable of, a thoughtful twist to his lips. "Possibly the strangest keepsake you could have from your dead Jewish brother." Definitely blunt and it hurt to think of him but it felt good to laugh; to be with someone who could talk about her brother and still make her laugh. "But I guess I get where he was coming from. I changed my name after middle school, we were in the middle of the Cold War and the kids at school decided I sounded a little too Russian."
Add his mutation and being the child of a single mother on top of that. It wasn't what she'd been through but it was hard and painful all the same.
"You didn't answer my question." He rolled his eyes, slow enough the action was definitely for her, and wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Not much to tell. They probably won't even notice I'm gone, I'm fast enough to be able to get back without anyone being able to tell."
"Won't Erik want to spend the holidays with his-"
"I haven't told him yet," the words were short and clipped and he ran a hand through his hair again, leaned back in the chair, and stared at the ceiling. "He's back for a couple of days just to be around Raven and the Professor; play chess, get away from… Whatever he does being not a secret mutant terrorist. He doesn't need me hanging around too."
"If you told him he'd stay."
"I know," he fiddled with his hands, almost faster than her eyes could track and only because she'd had practice. "But that's the thing, you know? I don't want him staying when he doesn't want to just because he thinks he needs to make up for being a deadbeat dad for twenty six years." He scoffed, blew a strand of hair out of his face, shook his head, and still didn't meet her eyes. "I don't need him."
"You don't have to need your family to want them around."
"Don't do that," his voice was sharp but it was more a plea than an order. And he was still in the chair, she wouldn't be able to stop him from leaving if she wanted to.
"Don't do what?"
"I know what you're going to say; that I'm lucky to have both my parents around, and my sister, and I shouldn't be squandering the time I have with my dad just because I want to be petty and mad at him."
"I don't think you're petty," she said it easily and was somewhat surprised when she found herself believing every word. She'd seen Erik with her own eyes, maybe Peter was smart to keep his distance. "What I mean is, I know you want him around. I read minds, remember? You have to decide if he's worth the risk."
"You're worth the risk." She laughed but there was such a genuine smile on his face she couldn't not believe him.
"I'm-" A siren blared through the still of the early evening, making her heart race, and a quick glance through Tony's mind supplied a vision of Natasha's plane touching down on the roof. Home safe and Tony didn't even have to go out looking for them.
"I think that's my cue," Peter said, though he didn't get up and a sharp pain arced across her chest at the thought of him leaving. "Unless you've told them that we've been ripping holes in the universe to see each other?"
"No. Not yet." Her secret, something that's just hers. Just theirs.
"Seriously? It's the first night of Hanukah without her brother and you left her all by herself? She's a kid, Tony! I can't believe-" She cut off from Tony's mind at the first wave of shock, guilt?, flowed over it, twisted towards the door just as heavy Captain America bootsteps thundered up the stairs.
A touch, light to her elbow, before she was being pulled into a tight hug by wiry strong arms. He kissed her cheek and by instinct she grabbed his shirt before he could step away. "I put your leftovers in the fridge downstairs, it looked like the communal one. I put your name on it."
Difference two, the one that stopped her heart and made her breath hitch, how blindingly fast he could move. Fast enough to take her food down two floors and be back between one blink and another.
Fast enough to not get shot.
"I should go." She wanted to tell him to stay, she hadn't gotten nearly enough time this time. Well… It was never enough time. Would never be enough time. "You should visit again soon. Everyone asks about it."
"I'll tell them, I'll-" If it bothered him that she wouldn't, hasn't, told the team he didn't say, didn't let on, but maybe he wouldn't. Maybe-
A series of knocks at her door.
"Hey kid, can we come in?" Clint, bone tired and worried, just beyond the door. Behind him, Steve and Tony, emotions so layered she couldn't tell who's was which. Then she blinked and she was alone in the room.
Red sparked around her fingers and pulled open the door.
You have more family than you know.