Despair Most Fits

Author: Frost on Maples

Author's Notes: a short scene set after Age of Ultron, done in response to a challenge on the Beta Branch

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most fits"

- All's Well that Ends Well, Act 2, scene 1


The familiar nightmare's hue shifts: the usual green of Culver University's burning campus changes to the mind-stifling red ruins of Sokovia. The charred, smouldering corpse with long dark hair multiplies, mingles with debris and strutting robots. Ross' stocky frame, his steely grieving eyes, fades and morphs. A smaller, slender form faces him: weeping green Sokovian eyes above chiselled cheekbones, framed by dark hair.

Maximoff's found him. He had wondered if he'd felt her mind's touch again...

"Forgive me," she begs.

The curve of her skull fits precisely into the Other Guy's green palm as his voice rumbles -

"Never."