This is a mixture of a 'fix it' fic and an AU.

I will have another warning about SPOILERS FOR AGE OF ULTRON of you haven't seen it yet, although there's only once major spoiler in this chapter/introduction.

anyway, I hope you enjoy.

With that done, on with the chapter...

I hate funerals.

They're just so...depressing. And everyone always has the same pitiful expression they likely practice in the mirror, prepared for days like these, but then again nobody was prepared for aliens to rain down from a giant wormhole above New York. No one was prepared for so many to die so suddenly. No one was prepared for the destruction. And no one was certainly prepared for superheroes.

But everyone had that pity slapped onto their face, every single one aimed at me and my sister. I had stood beside her the whole time, gripping a pudgy finger as Mum's coffin was lowered into the hole in the ground; the vicar's elderly chapped lips murmured holy words. But I heard nothing. I couldn't hear the contraption clinking as it lowered the coffin, couldn't hear the crow that had perched itself in a nearby pine tree, couldn't hear my sister's quiet sobs.

There was silence. An empty silence that made the loss of my mother all the more painful. My eardrums had been ruptured by a blast during the battle of New York, the doctors explaining to my sister it was likely I would never hear again. The first few days I had cried and screamed, but even with my throat pulsating feverishly I still heard nothing, and eventually I slipped into passive quietness. The doctors also said that Naomi and I would have to learn sign language, though I loathed it, it was the only way we could communicate with each other.

New York was cleaned up and slathered with new buildings and it was as if nothing had happened. But the people that had perished left a hole, and so a memorial was built in Central Park. No one could forget the aliens though, or the superheroes who had fought for New York, figurines and comics made for them.

I had awoken from the daydream to find my sister handing me a browning trowel, fingers shaking uncontrollably. I looked up, seeing the tears streaming down her rather slim face, golden hair tied up as it usually was when she worked as a waitress, only a little more straw-like. I wished I had smiled at her, or something comforting, but my lips had remained as straight as a stick.

I had carefully taken the trowel from her and scooped up a lump of soil and dumped it onto the lowered grave, nothing really elegant in the action. Afterwards when everyone had exaggerated their condolences and taken their pity faces with them, me and Naomi stood in front of mum's grave, the gravestone not yet placed, leaving just an unmarked mound of mud.

We stood holding hands, having nothing to say.

Naomi lead the way back to home later on, the streets dampened and still having workmen fixing the cracks in the roads and pavements. We both didn't need to speak. We had already felt our differences chained together since Mum died, realising we needed to protect each other more than ever. As we walked, I felt tears accumulate in my eyes, having to blink several times in an attempt to halt them from falling, the pain in my chest was unbearable but I had to ignore it, I had to appear strong for Naomi's sake, we couldn't both crumble.

The day ended like any other, Naomi microwaving some macaroni cheese, eating it slowly and silently before I brushed my teeth and got changed into my nightgown. The only difference was that Mum didn't slink into my room to read me a bedtime story. The sheets were pulled up to my nose as I stared at the ceiling.

I tried to memorise what Mum looked like, (Dad dying when I was too young to make out nothing but swirly blobs), but all I could picture was when she once came home with a gash along her abdomen, like she'd been sliced with a knife. That had been terrifying, especially when acidic tears slipped down her face as she sewed it up. She said it had been a mugging gone bad but she refused to call the police.

It was a horrible memory, and I wanted to swat it aside and think of a better one, but I couldn't.

If anyone is listening, angel or god I don't care, please send someone to make Naomi smile again, a superhero if you have one, she'd like that.

I waited in the dark.

With my prayer unanswered, I rolled over into a tight ball and fell sleep feeling as if my heart had been ripped out.

Three Years Later

The cell still did not look any better since the last time he had been thrown into it's rotten jaws, nor had it lost its insatiable appetite.

He had underestimated Thor, somehow worming the truth out of him that he was not Odin, the oaf seemingly learning a few things from his visit to Earth once more, among his new friends. The tables had turned, true. And once again he ignored the other prisoners that greeted his presence.

That was, until a few days later guards came for him. They cuffed his hands, and he would have retorted with some witted reply, but that was put a stop to quickly, a witch with cold charcoal eyes sent to sew his lips shut with the strongest thread they possessed. It had been torture, the fine needle levitating in front of his eyes, glinting, before it was roughly punctured through the soft flesh of his bottom lip, and it took all his will not to let a shriek to escape.

Blood dripped and seeped into his simple green shirt, creating just a black mess. Once it was all over, and his thrashing stopped as he was too exhausted to fight back anymore; the witch left with a coldness but sick thrill in her eyes. And he vowed he would never forget her face, stewing on revenge as blood still poured from his sewn lips, puffed and bruised.

He had fallen back against the wall of the cell, body tingling as he allowed tears to spill from his eyes. How long would it take before he finally admitted that he was broken and lost once more? Like the terrible day he had fallen into the abyss that felt a thousand years ago, the same day he had met the monster that would plague his mind every second of every day and would haunt him way past death itself.

He knew Thanos would do so much worse than sewing his lips shut, oh so much worse.

And it was a matter of time before he came looking for him, for failing to capture the tesseract and The Avengers destroying the Chitauri army.

It was a matter of time before he was shown what truly meant pain.

He remembered the pain most of all. How those bullets just sheered straight through his flesh, it felt like hundreds though it must have only been maybe four or five. He was fast. But not fast enough for those bullets. The old man and that kid was worth it though, and how many could say his last words weren't memorable?

He knew Wanda would have been in agony, alone, torn from the inside out and with their parents gone too...

You could understand why it was such a surprise that he woke up drowsily in a vibrant white room, not even an ounce of pain tainting his skin. That did not stop the world spinning, and although he preferred his rapid ways...taking it slow seemed the most pleasurable option.

As his eyes adjusted, he noticed a man standing beside what he assumed to be the door, though it was smeared in the same bright white as the room. The man wore a knowing smile, hands clasped in front of him, and suddenly the old man didn't seem so old compared to this one in a basic suit.

"The whole dying thing can be a bit draining, believe me, I know it first hand." The man said humorously, and all he could do was raise a silver-tinted dark eyebrow. "It really does knock you on your backside for a while, but don't worry, we will get information to your sister once we assess you."

At that Pietro sat up, blue eyes never blinking as he gazed at the smiling man.

"You can assess me all you want, after I see my sister." He replied firmly, somehow finding a hint of American in his accent since he'd died.

The man only nodded his head.

"Understood"