Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, blah blah, blah.
A/N: This is a Soulmates AU. Unreliable narrator just as my other story. Enjoy!
The Wrong Soul
By
Ambitious Witch
Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.
~Virginia Woolf
Maria Stark always told her son about the soulmates. How the marks appeared at a certain time in life, destining a person very important in their lives. Sometimes it was a lover, sometimes not. Sometimes, the marks never appeared, as in case of his father. His mother had a mark in her wrist, but it wasn't Howard's name; it was the name of a man that was long time dead. Tony had always wondered if Maria would have been truly happy with him.
With the years and his many relationships, Tony thought that he maybe had the relief of not having another life tied at his, of not living with the void of not having met them, so at his forties he had already forgot the possibility.
Until that day.
Two days after the Ultron disaster, he was sleeping in a hotel, if sleeping was the correct word; they were doing evacuation and trying to help with the reconstruction. He woke up suddenly, a burn on his wrist.
The letters were little, like in a type machine. Scarlet red.
Wanda Maximoff
Oh, how he wanted that to be a hallucination.
He looked at the name for hours, asking himself if it wasn't a cruel trick. She liked the cruel tricks; just remember that Bruce wasn't with them anymore confirmed that thought
Finally he showed the mark to Rhodey, who grew pale. So, it was real.
"Well, destiny has an odd sense of humor," the Colonel said looking at his friend. "You think that she has one too?"
"No." Tony answered almost instantly. "No, she hasn't."
"Maybe you must tell her," James said after a moment. Tony glared at him like he had two heads.
"What?"
"Well, she has the right to know that you're her soulmate."
"She hates me, Rhodey. She just lost her brother and I'm old enough to be her father."
"Maybe this can be a new start for both of you-"
"Her family is dead because of me, Jim" Tony whispered, his eyes dead. He was looking through Rhodey, not at him. "I'm not going to interfere in her life. My mom lived for years with her mark; my dad had no soulmate, thank God. I can go on with this perfectly alone. There's no need of creating drama for something that it's entirely superficial."
"You think that finding your soulmate is something superficial?"
Rhodey didn't know about the visions and he would never know. After seeing Pietro's corpse in her sister's arms, he had told himself that the young woman had suffered enough punishment.
Just Fury knew and he was never a tell. Tony just wanted to have control of one thing in his life. Of one tragedy that he could try to amend, really amend, and that was Wanda having a decent life after his weapons had taken that from her.
"It's superficial because I'm not hers. Now leave it alone Jim, please. Wanda's gonna be an Avenger, and I'm going to stay out of the way, until all calms down."
He didn't tell Rhodey that he and Pepper had broken up just weeks before that whole mess. She had called him after Ultron, of course, because they still cared for each other. After Killian everything had fallen apart, and they merely maintained appearances to not create a scandal. They needed time, she'd said, and yeah, maybe that was true.
He started to wear long shirts while being in the Compound or covering the mark with makeup. He didn't want to start questions with the team, he was too tired for that.
The few weeks that he spent in the Compound were awful. The stupid nightmare came back every time that he closed his eyes, reminding him of all the blood in his hands and the work he had ahead of him to rectify it. So he worked, being on the phone all the time, conversing with Helen, with Thor. He avoided her, the most he could.
Until the day that he left.
Tony was already preparing for the return to New York when he just encountered her in the kitchen. She was watching the news or something. Rhodey's words suddenly came to his mind, and he found himself touching the hidden mark in his wrist. Maybe this really could be a new beginning between the two of them. Soulmates were not always romantic relationships; maybe they could be friends.
He stepped closer at where she was, scratching the mark and hiding his hands behind his back.
"Wanda."
The young woman flinched at his voice. She turned around and glared at him with an almost disgusted expression.
"What's the matter Stark?"
The man stopped touching his wrist in the moment that she spoke; it was like being punched in the face. What the hell was he thinking? That everything would be forgotten just because a stupid mark that only he had? He cursed his own egoism and tried to not glance at Wanda's naked arms.
There was nothing there, no signal that could change the fact that the situation was squarely on his shoulders.
"Do you need something?" The neutral conversation emerged naturally. "For the training? New clothes? Your room is okay?"
"I don't need anything of you, Stark. Thank you." She spat glaring at him coolly.
"Right. Good," he said, no resentment or offence on his voice. It was a good confirmation. He was not wrong; she still hated him.
He said goodbye not waiting for a reply. Wanda Maximoff was his soulmate but she hated him and he was not in position of change her feelings, nor did he have the right. She was entitled to her anger. He could never bring himself to treat her poorly. Even though they could never be friends, he would try to protect her; it was the least that he could do.
But after the "Civil War," after the only thing that he have had close to a family. After being left to die. That mark was just letters on his skin.
The night that the mark appeared Wanda had woken up screaming.
The damn thing burned. The young woman turned on the lights of her room and watched how the letters appeared around her wrist, like a bracelet, like a chain. In a cursive letters, golden and a little clumsy, the name slowly showed on her pale skin.
Anthony Edward Stark.
She screamed again, the red waves of her powers taking down several things in the room. She bit her own hand, even when it was clear that no one would be able to hear in that part of the palace. She wanted to scream again; she wanted to cry. It couldn't be him. Of all the people in the planet, in the universe. Why had destiny tied her to him?
"No one choice their soulmates, remember Wanda?" Pietro's voice claimed in her head. God, she missed him so much, even when she let herself connect to his mind. She wanted so much for him to be with her in that moment. Maybe if he had lived she wouldn't be here, in exile, feared because her powers and chained to the man that only had caused her suffering.
"You should tell the others," he said.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it's a mistake," she groaned.
"I don't think that a soulmate can be a mistake. It's not like you can buy them in a shop, is it?" he chuckled.
She covered the mark with a band; she couldn't face the others. Even when it wasn't her will. Why? After the Raft, after her parents. He had locked her up, gave her to Ross, and ruined what she had with Vision. Being his soulmate was another punishment? But Stark was not into magic, so what he could do? She admitted that she had to give him that doubt.
Steve never wanted to see the TV because he was very sure that the governments were spreading lies about them, but Wanda couldn't take the anxiety. She asked for a computer, searching the name that was written on her body.
"You want to know more about him?" Pietro laughed in her mind. Wanda groaned.
"I want to know what lies he tells the public about us." How did he hide what had happened to his teammates?
According to online new sites, they were all fugitives and terrorists, and the world wanted them no matter the cost. Wanda felt the familiar anger emerging. The bastard. He had painted himself as a hero and then played the victim saying that he had to stay in a hospital. She was about tell her friends when a headline captured her attention.
Tony Stark comes back to life after three months disappeared in Afghanistan.
The date was from eight years ago.
She read everything in less than five minutes, and then read it again. Stark short answers were easy to read, yes. The difficult part were the words, the familiar words in every sentence.
The bomb exploded in front of me.
I saw the people that were at my side die.
I didn't want to my guns to hurt more innocent people. That had to stop.
I thought that I was protecting the soldiers.
I did it to protect you.
She closed the window with rage.
"You know," her brother's voice came teasing, "when you think about someone very much, you often have the perfect memory of their voice."
"Enough," Wanda hissed.
"You can shut out other people's thoughts but not your own, Wanda, isn't that a delicious irony?"
She got out the room, furious. Why should she care about Stark's well being? Why should she care about what happened to him because his weapons? He hadn't cared when her parents died!
"It's curious, isn't it?" Her brother was in front of her, smiling. "The two of you were inches from a bomb. Except that yours didn't explode. His had just seconds till he had his chest full of… What was that thing? Shrapnel?
He still made the weapons that killed my family; she fought back with her own doubts. He killed you. She looked at Pietro, and he was suddenly serious.
"You know that's not true Wanda."
She asked Clint about Stark's incident.
"Why did you never tell me?" She asked after her friend gave her a more detailed version.
"I thought that you knew. Everyone knew about Afghanistan. After that he became Iron Man."
"I didn't" she whispered. Neither had she known about the shutdown of the weapons manufactory. When he had mentioned the day that Ross had came to the house, she thought that he was just trying to make himself look good so the others would support him, and when she noticed that Natasha that always had been Steve's friend, and Vision, her dear Vision sided with him, she didn't think about that again.
"Well, you know now but who cares? It's not like Stark is suddenly gonna change his mind about locking us up."
Wanda bit her lip and took the band off her wrist.
"Oh," Clint said, touching the mark as he was not sure if it was an illusion. "How, how long it has been?"
"Almost two weeks," the young woman answered, feeling a sob coming out of her throat. It was a relief, telling her horrible fate to another human being, but at the same time it was horrible to admit that it was real and not a creation of her mind.
"Well, there's nothing to worry about," Clint said after a moment patting her back. "Not all soulmates are together, Wanda."
"You and Laura are soulmates?" she hissed drily.
"Yes, but-"
"So were my parents," she said drying her tears with the hand of her shirt. "They were so happy together, Clint, and they told us stories about our grandparents who were had incredible friendships with their soulmates. I wanted that, Clint; especially after Pietro I needed that so badly, someone that could understand me. I wanted it to be you, maybe Vision, I didn't care, but fate hates me and now I'm chained to that… monster."
"Tony is not a monster."
The archer and the witch lifted their heads suddenly to the door, where Steve Rogers was resting with his arms closed.
"What?" Wanda snapped.
"Wanda, I'm sorry for listening but destiny didn't chain you to the Red Skull or someone who-"
"That's your way to comfort her?" Clint asked rolling his eyes.
"I mean that it could be worse," the captain sighed. "Wanda, a monster is a creature without feelings who just enjoys hurting others, and even with my opinions of Tony Stark, I know that he is not like that."
"He tried to lock me away," she hissed.
"And I know that better than anyone! But, soon or later we will see each other again, you can argue with him about that. You can make him listen, make peace with him. Believe me: a soulmate out there, alive and savable is better than one dead."
Wanda knew who he was talking about and raised looking at him with pity.
"Oh, Steve-"
"Just think about it, Wanda," he said and left. Clint did the same after know that he couldn't amuse her.
She stayed there, thinking about what her friends had told to her. Of course, she sympathized with Steve's loss, but he had liked that woman and vise versa; her situation was different. Wanda hated Stark.
"You do?" Pietro's voice said in her head. "Even your friends are telling you to let it go."
No, they don't, she thought. They said that he's not a monster. He still made the weapons that killed my parents, and he still is responsible for that.
Then she tried to not think about it. She didn't look again to the mark, and covered it the most that she could, like if it hadn't existed. People could live without a soulmate. She could survive. But the tensions in the Team were growing after months, especially in Scott's case. He began to want to know about what was happening outside of Wakanda, and he begun to watch the news about the original Avengers and the Accords.
She knew that the Accords were firmer than before, for her team displeasure, and that Rhodes had lost the ability to walk. Stark had reappeared and began to form a new team.
A year passed, and Romanoff, that two-faced snake, joined forces with Tony again, apparently having bartered her freedom for information or something. Wanda didn't pay attention to her, she had lost importance when she had choose Stark over her real friends. It was Stark who Wanda watched, on TV and Internet. She wanted to know what was going on in his head. In some way, it was a curiosity about the vision years ago, Stark's deepest fear, which was the reason for what he was forming a new team including the woman that had helped Steve to escape; he was desperate.
She watched the videos and noticed how changed he was. He had a little more grey hair and looked even more tired that the last time that she had saw him, thinner. He looked like a walking corpse.
You live the consequences of your actions, she thought watching the monitor with a grin. No matter how you wronged us, you'll be unhappy, Stark. That's what you deserve, and when you're enough with that, you probably will put yourself out of your misery.
She caressed the mark almost for reflection.
Or maybe as your soulmate, I have the honor of taking you out myself.
She was again in her room, looking at the gigantic hole that was in the floor, but she was not a child. She was in her body, kneeled while the building was falling, and in front of her was the bomb…
It was all over again, again she listened the firemen trying to move.
But then she saw him.
He was sitting alongside the missile, his face bruised like the last time that they had seen each other.
"Help me," Wanda said, feeling small again. "Please, help me."
But Stark didn't move, he just glared at her, and the bomb, that damn weapon was there just ready to finish her off.
The bomb that had his name written on it.
It was going to blow up.
It was going to…
"For God's sake, Stark, help me!" The young woman screamed. "Help me or blow that thing and end all of this!"
"I can't do that," he said, his voice calm.
"What?" she snapped. "You did this! It's was your missile! Your weapon! End it; end this, you coward. Stop giving us false hope! Stop making us wait for the death!"
The look that he gave her was like a punch, and his voice, his damn voice; it was so calm and collected that made her want to scream.
"I can't do anything, Wanda. I'm not really here."
"No." She shook her head. "No…
You know that I wasn't there.
"No!" She woke up panting.
The dreams were frequent; sometimes Wanda was in her home again, sometimes in the Compound, sending Vision through all those floors. She didn't want to do it, but it was him or her freedom.
"Liar," Pietro smirked in her mirror. The young woman was washing her face covered by tears. "You had a choice, Wanda. You could have stayed with the robot; you ended up in a prison anyway."
"Quiet", she hissed.
"You know that I'm not here, little sister," He whispered, and she drowned a sob.
The days passed in her new prison. Because that was Wakanda - a new house arrest, full of luxury and beauty, but she couldn't get out. The King gave them a little house in the palace's territory because their servants were starting to talk, but the condition was that they would not move from that place.
Wanda missed her guitar. At least when she was bored she could lose herself in the music. She missed Vision, his conversations, his innocent curiosity mixed with his awkward and logical personality.
Clint and Steve spent time talking about how the world continued moving out there without them. She watched every news channel that followed the Accords and Stark's movements. He apparently didn't show up too much. Many missions, they said. She knew that they were lying.
One day she saw him again. They were having dinner and on the TV a woman named Christine was doing an kind of discourse about some photographs that had been taken close to Stark Tower. Apparently Tony Stark had a particular interest in his co-worker Natasha Romanoff. Clint glared at her with worry, but Wanda maintained her deadpan expression as the blonde woman spoke about the two Avengers supposed relationship.
The photographs were… simple. It was not like they had caught them doing something incriminating. The little that was visible seemed to show Stark just hugging the redhead spy; that didn't seem something more. They were friends, as that traitor had demonstrated.
Just friends.
"Wanda, something wrong?" Steve said and she looked at him. She was standing, why was she suddenly on her feet?
"Oh, I think that I have an answer for that." Pietro's voice was full of a dry humor.
"No," the witch answered her friend. "I think that I'm going to retire early. Goodnight, guys." Wanda almost fell getting away from the table. She didn't turn around when she heard Clint protest.
"Yeah, Wanda, that was very subtle." She heard that beloved voice, but in that moment she wanted to him to stop. "It seems that Stark has been busy-
"Shut up," she hissed, covering her face with her hands.
"Don't tell me that you-
"I'm not in love with Tony Stark, Pietro." It took all her strength to not scream that.
"Oh, but you want him." The insolent tune of his voice was so real. "Well, you're not a kid anymore, and he's a handsome fellow."
"I don't…" She groaned trying to control her powers to not blow up the entire room. "I don't want that monster. Don't you dare to suggest something like that."
"I'm in your head, Wanda, you're just contradicting yourself." The young woman took a deep breath. "Why would you be so affected for him being with Romanoff if you don't care for him?"
Wanda screamed on his hands. Red waves of power broke the mirror in her room. The mark on her wrist was burning again.
She was again in the building. Looking at the hole where her parents had fell. This time she felt someone next to her, but it wasn't Pietro.
Tony Stark was next to her, sitting with his knees touching his chest just like her. Again he had his leather jacket and a bruised face. He wasn't looking at her; she knew what he was looking at.
"Why is it always the same thing, Wanda?" He whispered, his eyes still on the bomb that he had made.
"Why you don't stop it, Stark?" the witch hissed.
"I can't do it," the man answered softly.
"Don't fucking lie to me," Wanda said, but she tried to not move, the missile was still there. "You… You stopped Sokovia from hitting the ground and you are telling me that you can't stop your own fucking missile?"
"I wasn't there, Wanda. I wasn't there when the missile fell," he said, furious, looking at her with those big brown eyes. "This is your dream, honey, and your memories feeding it. You are the one who has the power, you always were."
"What do you mean?" the young woman asked, but a suddenly - click - just forgot everything that the man had said. The missile begun to shake and Wanda panicked. "Stark, stop it."
"I can't," He repeated and the witch started to breathe heavily.
"I don't want to die here, not this way. Stop it, Stark. Stop it! Make it stop. I want to go home. I want to go home!" She cried and instinctively pressed her face in his chest when the fire covered her eyes.
When she opened them, they were again in the Compound, in the room where she had been the last time that had had peace in her life. She was panting, confused. How was that possible? But when the question came to her mind she also realized that her face was still resting on Stark's chest.
"I told you," he whispered. "You're the one who has the power."
The witch stepped away from him.
"You're not really here," she said, breathless.
"No. I wasn't in that building either."
"It's still on you,", she hissed and he smiled sadly.
"It is? How?"
"You had the power to stop it!" she screamed. "Before it happened! Those were your weapons, Stark!"
"Those were my weapons but it wasn't me, Wanda. You know that." His voice was still calm and collected. She looked at his face, and she wanted him to shut up. To create more bruises, to hurt him.
"Get out of my head" She said clenching her teeth.
"It's horrible, isn't it?" Stark's eyes were suddenly darker. "When someone that you don't want is in your head?"
No, she thought. No, you can't fall for this.
"You're not here," Wanda hissed, stubborn. "You're probably in New York, in a bed with Romanoff."
"It's that jealousy?" he said smirking.
"I'm not jealous of her," She groaned. "And don't pretend that you're that important to me Stark!"
"You're the one talking about who I'm sleeping with."
She slapped him with such strength that her hand hurt. Why did it hurt? None of this was real. But her rage was. That was always real. She didn't use her powers, she just slammed her fist again on his chest.
"Shut up! Shut up, you bastard! You monster! Do you think that I want this? That I want your fucking name in my wrist? To be tied at you? After what you did to me?"
"I did nothing to you," he whispered.
"You locked me in the Compound!"
"I did it to protect you!" He yelled and Wanda jumped. She had never heard him scream like that. "And you never thought that even if I want I could never do any harm to you?"
"What?" She asked.
"When exactly I did you any of the things that you did to me?"
He was closer, their faces almost touching. Then the memories came to her head; the base in Sokovia, his despair when she touched his mind, all those nights when her magic travelled to his bedroom and scratched in his dreams. The airport in Germany and how helpless Stark was. Weak. He suddenly wasn't the face seemed to be that of a monster anymore. He was a man, a little more tall than her, a little more muscular, but a man after all. Fragile, breakable.
And hers.
He was hers to kill, to hurt. Wanda knew how his life had gone to shit after she had given him that vision. But now, now it had more meaning since their souls were tied; no one could or would take that pleasure from her. Anthony Stark was her soulmate and she was the only one that could destroy him like that.
She smiled happily, like that morning in Sokovia when she knew that her revenge would be filled. Her hand went to his face, a long pale finger caressing Stark's cheek. Feeling that impossible euphoria running her veins, the witch kissed him.
It was a kiss full of power, of dominance, of passion. Because passion wasn't always tied to love. Wanda pressed her lips on Stark's forcing him to respond, parting his lips and kissing him harder, her arms surrounded him and she embraced him, grabbing his injured arm so tightly that he moaned in her mouth, making her smile. She buried her hands in his hair keeping him from pulling out. He didn't seem to notice that because he was kissing her back. Wanda left him kiss down her neck while her hands were opening the zipper of his jacked. She almost ripped the sling on his arm.
Tony grabbed her by the waist, placing her on the bed, and then he knelt in front of her. The witch smiled again, smashing her lips on his as she guided his hands to the bottom of her dress. Wanda left him undress her but she couldn't left him have the power; she broke his shirt and started to kiss and suck his neck and shoulders while trying to not moan when his hands caressed her breasts. Stark… Tony's hands were calloused, but his touch was soft and airy, as if she were made of porcelain. The witch groaned when he took her nipple in his mouth ,and she suddenly grabbed the man's head to face her so she could kiss him brutally.
Wanda's kisses or touch were far from soft. She was not porcelain or crystal; she was marble. She was the one to have him, to scratch him, to break him. He already had bruises, but the witch's lips would create more.
If their souls were tied forever, why not let them burn in hate and lust? Why could not they have died in Sokovia, so they could maybe have found each other in another life? A life in which he was not The Merchant of Death or she The Scarlet Witch? Would she have been alive? Would the hate being the same? Would the suffering? Would the desire? All those thoughts rushed her mind as he cracked her open with his hands and mouth. Wanda closed her eyes tightly when the climax broke through her body. She really wanted to open them, to make him see the green-red eyes which would be, like some people said, his death.
But she didn't, because she feared that his eyes could be hers.
Wanda woke up with sigh, a strange sensation of calm running for her body. The sheets were all around her legs and her hair was a mess. Her nightgown was all up in her waist.
"I thought that you didn't want him," that insolent voice said.
"Shut up."
Thor had reappeared.
She hadn't known the God for long, and in the short time she had spent at the Compound, the blond had been hostile around her, spending more time with Vision, Stark or Dr. Cho. She never cared about him though. Never cared about his mind as he seemed rather dull.
But he had returned with Dr. Banner and news…
News of death.
An alien. A mad alien that was coming to them all. To kill Vision, apparently, since he had that Gem in his forehead. Sweet Vision, why couldn't he just be happy?
This was also the last time that she saw Stark.
The call was simple, the answer was obvious: the world was about to end, the Avengers were needed again. No matter what. It wasn't a question of international borders anymore, it was about the survival of the human race… and maybe of other species too.
Steve was speechless as the President of the UN said that the Avengers would be pardoned because the situation needed it, but his eyes, she saw, had a strange brightness. Was that satisfaction? The captain was right after all, they needed them. Clint seemed happy with the perspective of see his family and his best friend again. Sam was serious, likely still suspicious.
And her? She was looking right the TV, looking at the man that was announcing their freedom, and almost not recombining him of the one that she had kissed and touched in her dreams, that pale and grey ghost that seemed a shadow of himself. His voice, so energetic and strong was now soft and calm.
"What's happening to him?" Sam stole the question from her, and Steve, happy as he was, answered as probably the billionaire was working too much. Nothing seemed to matter for Steve in that moment, because they needed them.
But that night after the announcement, it was a nightmare.
The mark was paining her. If before that thing burned, now it was on fire which fought to consume her whole body. She bit her lips and screamed in the pillow till finally it ended, right in the morning. The young woman woke up with her eyes hurting from the tears and lack of sleep. She looked at her soulmate mark.
The letters, before an electric golden, were black.
Black.
She got up like a robot. It was afternoon, surely the boys didn't want to wake her, but Wanda couldn't hear them. The little house was completely silent except for the obvious sound of the TV on.
They were all sitting in the dinner table, all quiet, watching the TV.
The title and the voice of the woman speaking just said it all.
Tony Stark was dead.
The changing headlines and one reporter was talking with a representer of the Avengers. A woman with bob-cut and a suit similar to Scott's.
Wanda felt that she was about to throw up.
Tony Stark. National hero and genius, died this morning. Further information is still not available…
"He wanted us to know that there was still hope for our planet even after his death… He had hope, and wished that we could defeat and survive what's coming now. He was always… trying to…
"No," Wanda stepped back and Steve turned around to look at her. His eyes were reddish, was he crying?
"…. Look at the future." The woman finished and Wanda lost it. A red wave of power took down every machine in the kitchen as the Witch disappeared in her room ignoring the pleas of her friends.
Clint unlocked the door two hours later.
He looked at her, probably surprised of her disheveled appear. He hadn't look at her like that since the Raft.
"Wanda-
"How?" She cut him.
"Wanda, you have to-"
"How did it happen, Clint? How did he-?" She couldn't bring herself to say the word. Her friend sighed and sat at her side.
"Natasha told me a little and Vision filled in the rest. She didn't seem well and-
"So, she was with him?" She spitted.
"She said that they just went to sleep and when she woke up... He was just gone. He had been ill for a long time, Wanda."
"Damn him." She, hissed standing up and scratching the black mark in her wrist.
"What?"
"Damn him! Curse him!" The witch said out loud running out of the room.
"How dare you?" She thought. "How dare you to leave me here? How dare you die in her arms? This was your last joke? Your final weapon? Damn you, Anthony Stark. Curse you for leaving me alone!"
"Wanda, for Christ's sake, calm down" The archer lifted his arms. He had been angry at Stark for more than a year, but now it was pointless. The man was dead, and he had been his friend, after all.
But Wanda was done listening to him. Suddenly a red wave pushed him out of the room as he looked at the young woman, surprised. She had never used her powers on him. But her appearance was terrifying. Her hair was floating around her and her eyes and hands were brightening scarlet. Suddenly, the words that Vision had said to the little Maximoff came to his mind.
If you do this, they will never stop fearing you.
Wanda slammed the door and she saw Pietro in the other side.
"Wanda, please-
"Why are you here?" She hissed fighting with the despicable tears. "You're not real. You're dead. Everyone… everyone in my life just leaves me. You died to save Clint. You didn't think about me, what would happen with me staying alone. You promised me that we would stay together, Pietro. And I had to just smile and begin to train to save the word because I didn't know where to go!"
She had never spoken about it out loud, not even in her own mind, but now, that another person that was something in her life was gone, even if it was someone that she had hated, it felt like a stone in her chest. Oh God, she had been living in a bubble, away from the pain, protected by the possibility of a better life. But that dream was just that - a dream - and she was alone. All her friends, they really didn't know her, did they?
They saw a child, and at the same time a woman that was able to save lives, but what about beyond that? Did they know that she wanted to form a family? Something more besides the Avengers? She thought about Clint. He had been always cursing Stark because it was the billionaire's fault that he was away from his family. Even Steve, who had wanted and accepted her help since the beginning, had the people that he loved here. He had Bucky and Sam. He hadn't lost anyone by doing what he did. Wanda had lost her brother, then Vision, and now something more.
She was again in the building, again looking at the bomb, waiting for it to blow up. She turned her head, expecting to see Stark at her side, but he wasn't there. He never had been there.
"It's okay kids!" Wanda listened a voice screaming across the concrete and remembered the fireman that had taken her and Pietro out. "It's all right, we got you!"
She felt the lift, being taking in the worker's' arms, so young and small. Then something went fast across her memory, a conversation that her young and shocked mind didn't want to understand.
"The bombings have been rough these years, God, but this building was the worst."
"It's just these two kids?" The other fireman asked.
"Their parents fell when the missile made a hole in the structure, the hole wing collapsed. Those bloody bastards went so far to bomb a civilian place." The man's voice was full of rage.
"If is not the protesters, it's the terrorist or the Americans. No matter what, our country will end up as a cemetery." The fireman said, his voice as bitter as hers and Pietro's for their whole lives since that accident.
Sokovia was doomed.
Every day in the in the orphanage: Sokovia is doomed.
Every day during the protests, then the experiments; the pain going through her body as the SHIELD, Hydra scientists transformed them in something that they didn't recognized anymore.
The Baron had said miracle, she knew now the correct word was weapon.
She saw her brother; he was in the other side of the glass. His eyes closed for the pain, his dark hair turning slowly in white. They were doing that for Sokovia. That's what they told themselves.
But it was doomed. Lost. Dead.
"Pietro," she whispered lifting her hand, her veins shining with red. "I'm sorry."
When the witch opened her eyes again, she was in her room, in the Compound naked under the sheets.
One of her hands went to other side of the bed, it was warm.
She jumped off the bed and took one of her nightgowns, running out of the bedroom.
"Stark!" she cried out. "Stark!"
She found him in a balcony, again with sling on his arm. She remembered that one of the cars that she had thrown him into in Leipzig had hit that arm and drowned a sob.
"You're not here." It was like poison going down her throat. No matter how this was in her mind or part of the horrendous mystery that were her powers were, the truth was that Tony Stark was gone.
"No," he answered, still not looking at her.
"You weren't in the building either," she said walking at him. "It was an attack, of an American interning group or a rebel group, they really never know. Sokovia's state was corrupt, it could have happened in any place of the city. But it happened to us, and for years, we put different faces to that bomb. First were the soldiers, then the terrorists, then the Avengers, then you. A single face to put all our miseries. Our objective, something that we, that I could hold on to when the experiments were most difficult, when the pain too much. My own enemy. And I was fine that you were my soulmate, because that meant that if our destinies were tied then I still had the chance of being the one who end you… But now that you're really gone, I feel… empty."
"Because you're not the one who killed me?"
"Because you're not longer mine." Wanda pressed her head on his back, closing her eyes at the warmness that she knew that was a product of her mind, but was no less wanted.
He didn't move or hold her back.
"I hated you so much when you came back to the Compound," the young woman whispered. "After that damned mission in Lagos, that month with every fucking channel calling me murderer, freak; and you, you were there just going around like a ghost. Reminding me of the kind of shit that I had been a part of, the hole that I had pushed you into. You were there reminding me that you were not alone with Ultron, and that he was not the only one responsible in my brother's death."
Tears fell from her eyes.
"Remember what Vision said about Ultron? He said that his pain will wash the world. But it was not his, it was mine. I used my pain and took yours to make it your destruction, and it ended with me losing the most precious thing in my life. But at least…" She almost choked with the sobs. "At least yours was destroyed too. Seeing you trying so hard to save people, just proved how mistaken I was. You just proved why you were you. Taking the fall, rising from the ashes… And me? I just brought death to innocent people and suffering to the ones who were close to me. Just like the damn instrument that made me what I am."
"Foolish of me," the witch laughed in tears. "I should have known since the beginning that all that I could have brought was death."
Wanda knew that it didn't matter anymore. But even thinking about it was a form of liberation. For years her goat had been trying to kill a man whose name was Death, but she had become her own enemy. She was now the face that other people imagined when they went to funerals of her loved ones. She was no better than Stark.
Maybe that was why they had been meant for each other.
"We were not tied to wrong soul after all." Wanda whispered, Tony turned around and she caressed his face. Oh, how she wanted that to be real, to be the one who had listened to his last breath. They were life and death, fantasy and reality.
She kissed him with desperation, longing for the fantasy more than anything.
But dreams always have an end; hours in one can be minutes in the other . Wanda wanted more than anything to escape reality She wanted the real world to be a bad nightmare, and just having woken here, in the Compound, in Tony's arms. Her enemy, her victim, her soulmate.
"The world is ending," she whispered, closing her eyes and feeling his breath on her neck. "An alien will kill us all for a stone. I don't want to go."
"You have to," he said softly.
"I don't want to leave and see the world so cruel and empty. I don't want to remember what I am, what I did. I can't change anything that I did; I can't bring back the lives that I took away. How can I come back knowing that nothing will change?"
"You have to keep trying," he said, pressing his lips on her back. "You have to try to make up for that. It won't change the past, but you can create a better future, Wanda. That's how you'll make a difference."
She sobbed against the pillow and turned around.
"Tony-"
He cut her off with a kiss.
"Goodbye, Scarlet Witch."
Two months later they were back in the States. Romanoff and Colonel Rhodes received them with a cool indifference. It was clear that the only one who wanted them there was the very scared President. When they entered in the Compound again, the Black Widow guided them to a room where a lawyer redacted Tony Stark last will. Natasha gave her a large box not without looking at her with a clear disdain. Wanda didn't return the gesture. She just looked at the box in her lap. It was big, like the ones that were for clothes and had a note tied with a red string.
That bastard.
When she found a moment alone, she opened them. The box had a battle suit, very similar that the one that she had, just more modest and with a cape. It also had a diadem, with stones red as blood. She caressed the suit and with a lump in her throat opened the letter.
Dear Wanda:
If you're reading this. I'm probably dead. But even now dying I know that the world is in danger and that I am leaving a world that is not safe. I tried to keep it safe and all the people that I love there I tried to protect.
I'm sorry for not telling about the house arrest. I swear that it was only to protect you, and even though I can't ask for an apology from you, there was a reason for what I did.
You are my soulmate, Wanda. That's something more that I should have told you, but I thought that our circumstances were not the best for that.
I know that I can't repay the things that we did to each other, but this is my last gift, and I hope that it will be a peace offering, at least in my death.
Your brother is alive. He's with Helen Cho in saved him with the Cradle but we didn't know if he was going to survive. She said that he woke up from a coma two months ago. You'll see him soon.
I hope you like your new suit.
The President wants the old Avengers to return for a last mission. The Avengers haven't existed for two years, but I'm sure that they will with you guys here. This is the last fight, Wanda. I didn't want any of you in it but you will be, so it's better that you do your job, Scarlet Witch.
Yours,
Tony.
Wanda pressed her lips in the paper as the tears were falling of her eyes. Her brother was alive.
You gave me a life one last time, she thought. I'll give you the death of our enemies, Tony Stark. And at the end… I hope our paths will cross again in another life.
A/N: You liked it? You hated it? Tell me your opinion!