-Wanda .. Wanda, my little Wanda ... - her mother whispers in her ear, leaning forward, pressing the whole body against her back. - Look, Wanda, look ... - she combs her hair, it scrunches with a soft hiss, like the waves playing with coastal pebbles, long dark locks cover little shoulders and back.
-When you grow up, my little Wanda, you'll learn to fly. Once you`ll have your own wings to lift you up high to the sun, and you will be looking down on us from there and laugh at silly tiny men, unable to rise their eyes from the ground.
-But only angels can have wings, Mom. Will I die?
-Of course not, silly. Wings ... - mother winks conspiratorially, putting the comb aside, and crosses her hands in the wrists, takes them aside and move her fingers - and a shadow of something strange and grotesque at the same time rises on the wall, it looks like a butterfly or bird, waving large wings, but even more it reminds her of a spider, moving tiny legs before pouncing on its prey. - Wings - it's something ... – she moves her fingers again, and they look shaky, fragile and jellyfish-like in the light of candles. – You don't have to carry on your shoulders. But you'll understand it someday.
Wanda stares at the shadow, and she is afraid, she wants to tell that these wings will bring only grief and pain, but she cannot.
Mother starts combing the hair again, murmuring a lullaby, shadows leave the wall and it is empty and light again, as if they had never existed, but Wanda knows.
They'll be back.
She wakes up again, sighing sharply, as if emerging from the water, and opens her eyes. Tries to find brother's hand and grabs his fingers in a death grip, as if it can calm her racing heart. He doesn`t even wake up, pulls her trembling body closer, hugging, they sleep together every night, so close it`s getting hot, because Wanda is afraid. She is afraid of losing him. She stays in bed staring at the outlines of his body through the darkness, as if trying to memorize. She loves him so much that sometimes does not understand where her mind ends and his begins. People say that little children can communicate even without words, thoughts only, well, maybe the two of them couldn`t just grow up. His secrets disappear like watercolor spots, and she knows all his thoughts. It is not because of her abilities; the explanation is that they simply absorbed each other.
Pietro moves in his sleep, pinching her hair, and Wanda hisses in pain, but stays quiet not to disturb him. His leg is at hers as if he is trying to protect, cover with his body, clenching her fingers like a saving rope that can pull him out of the abyss. She knows what he sees in his sleep. He sees the same dream. They are so close that can even have the same dreams.
But there is only one dream that she doesn`t want to share with brother. She sees the wings. The wings growing from another back and lifting her into the air. Then they break, dissolving in the wind, and she falls, falls down endlessly, grasping the air and turning her head, trying to find him, to catch because it`s easier to fall together. She knows that Pietro is her wings. So she closes her eyes and listens to his heart, adjusting her breath to his. She hopes she finds him there and catches this time at least. To fall down together.
He says she has a cold heart. And if she doesn`t smile right now then definitely turns into stone. Pietro was always careless, fast and funny. As the wind. Wanda would even call him frivolous if she couldn`t be able to read his mind. But she can, CAN read his thoughts, and takes him by surprise, perhaps to annoy or distract from talking about the stone.
-Leave me alone! Just enough! – she raises hands to her head and closes her ears, trying to fence from the noise, there are too many thoughts in her head already, his and her, she doesn`t want to be accused, even if it`s a joke. She just doesn`t want to hear. But continues to listen. It`s just he loves her too much. Not like friend or lover, but like somebody who doesn`t have anybody else in the world. They are not really doomed or desperate, sometimes she thinks it`s because they`ve settled into each other heads long time ago and their thoughts merged into inseparable whole.
Wanda closes eyes tight, hides from the world and from her brother and for the first time is dreaming about someone whom she will never be able to hear. Feel. Understand. Even if she tries.
When she sees him rising from his makeshift throne, majestic figure, consisting of flexible metal lines, she opens her mouth unwittingly, exhaling. He looks like a demigod wrapped in a human-like cloak carpet, and moves as people move. Titans move like that, capable to keep the world on their shoulders.
And now she understands why could not enter his mind. Why she feels only dead silence and tranquility trying to touch his thoughts. She could see other people's fears and desires, but could not hear something non-existent. Silence.
Ultron is laughing in deep, almost human laughter at his own jokes. For the robot he has pretty good sense of humor. Black one, of course.
Stark is just another one cog in his great scheme, he knows that she made Tony take the scepter, because she doesn`t need a man, she needs something more.
And now, when she looks at him, lifting head high, staring, as if trying to read his metal face while not being able to read his mind – it`s stupid and useless - Wanda understands everything is going the right way, for the first time since the day the parents died.
-I came to save the world, but ... yeah.
Wanda wakes up in Pietro`s hands again, she can hear him breathing, but gets out of bed not touching him. She walks blindfolded to the source of silence, to the throne hall, once it was a church, and stops in the darkness with eyes closed. She sways as if charmed, until calm fills her like water fills an empty glass.
-You people are fragile things. - She hears Ultron`s voice. - Did I wake you?
-I had a dream. - Wanda opens eyes to get used to the darkness, until finally sees the dim light, playing on the metal shoulders of the robot. He looks like a rock, cold and motionless, frozen in his greatness. - The dream of flying. I was flying. Or falling. Hard to say. Do robots have dreams?
Ultron laughs, his low rumbling laugh vibrates in space, and the air trembles:
-Dreams? Oh, that would be interesting. Perhaps if I tried. But no.
Wanda comes closer, she looks at him, shining innards mixed with the joints and complex mechanisms fascinate her. She sees something beyond her reach. Man but not a human. Intellect with no feelings. Like those shadows on the wall, that similar to both bird and spider.
Do you regret? – She wonders how close she can get to feel comfortable. Closer. Even closer. No matter how close she is, blessed silence still surrounds her.
-Regret? Oh, I can fly. - Ultron plays with his fingers, as if raptured, joints run smoothly and seamlessly, with a slight hiss, and Wanda is looking at them - the movement is so human, that she wants to smile. He does not know and will never understand how she is fascinated by him.
-Will you show me?
Wanda squeezes Pietro`s hand and feels him picking her up and sliding through the air like a whirlwind, she doesn`t have time to look around or listen, all she can feel - it is the sound of his heart close to hers when he puts her down on the ground beside him. She feels his fear, running heat, arousal of her touch nervousness and fun. That's the Pietro himself. He is the wind. Wanda feels him and merges, it seems, if she touches his shoulder, her fingers will pass through the skin and tangle in the net of blood vessels, remain there, absorbed and implanted.
So she flinches and steps back.
-Can you bring me up? – She talks to Ultron. - Will you?
Pietro looks at her blankly, but she takes one more step back, until finally finds herself on the other hands, of cold and smooth metal. Fingers touch solid surface, they can`t overcome this obstacle, her living mind cannot merge with something completely alien. Silence surrounds her.
She wonders what the fire in titan`s hands feels, as they rise in the sky.
-So, does it look like your dream? That flight ... or fall? – his voice is humming and vibrating, prickling in the fingers.
-That is definitely not a fall. - She shouts to Ultron, turning head to the left, against the wind. - But it does look like a dream.
Treetops, rooftops glimpse underneath, gray factory`s roof diminishes.
She thinks about robots. Robots that might not dream.
-You would like it.