Chapter 1

It is days upon days later when she is training and an agent comes in.

"Maximoff?" It is still startling to Wanda to be the only Maximoff, but she looks up. "There's someone here, one of the kids from the carriers, he's insisting, calls himself schnee-"

"Snowsmoke," Wanda interrupts. "In English. You'd call him Snowsmoke." She swings down from where she had climbed on the wall, unbuckles her harness and heads toward the door without even looking to the Widow or the Captain. Behind her she senses a brief conversation between Vision and the Widow, and the android's mind following her.

"Miss Maximoff?"

She doesn't turn, but does flick a hand in scarlet recognition.

"You know this boy?"

She turns her head back over her shoulder, glancing to where he is hovering along behind her, to match her rapid pace.

"From the streets. Pie-," her throat still chokes to say his name, and she repeats herself. "Pietro used to give him cigarettes for information. I'd check on him otherwise, make sure the others didn't start a witch hunt."

There is curiosity in the android's voice. "Do you think it is really him?"

Wanda nods, rather than speak. "It's him. His name is Andrej. Only I called him Snowsmoke."

They enter the room where Snowsmoke is, but do not see him before he has wrapped his arms around Wanda's waist. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents draw their guns, Vision raises his hands, his gem glowing, and Wanda wraps her arms around the boy, and presses her face to pale hair.

He is mumbling something, barely audible, using Sokovian with a smattering of German. With his face pressed to Wanda's breast she cannot make it out, and dips gently into his mind. I heard, I heard, I heard, I saw his body, what happened, what happened?

Tears fill Wanda's eyes, and she holds Andrej closer, as the agents and Vision finally stand down. "He died," she murmurs, and that is all she can get out before the tears fall, and soak the boy's hair. Andrej's head is shaking back and forth, still pressed to her, his arms still wrapped around her waist, and Wanda presses her face into his clean hair and lets her tears soak it.

At Vision's request the agents withdraw, and at a nod from Wanda so too does he. Wanda sits with Andrej in the middle of the room, and watches the boy adjust to the idea that one of the anchors in his life is gone.

Conversation stops and starts, and with a flick of her fingers Wanda pulls up the cigarettes she'd stolen from an agent the day before, and tucked into her uniform. She passes one to Andrej, and lets the boy light it with skilled fingers. Silence reigns, and Wanda watches the snowstorm of his mind settle from blizzard to breeze.

She has tried to explain what the loss is before. When Natasha asked how she was she said, "I have lost half of who I am." When Vision asked, she said, "It is as if your stone was taken from you." When Thor stood in front of her and offered her his hand she cycled through every language she knew, and Thor simply said, "I know. There are not words for this loss." She imagines that, if she tries, Snowsmoke might understand. To him, she would explain it as addiction, as what it was like when he had gone three days in winter with no food, no water, no cigarettes. That shaking agony and hunger and pain that does not want to die, and will not unless you make it so. She brushes the thoughts aside, and looks to Snowsmoke, sucking on a cigarette. Without a word, Wanda stands, and stretches a hand down to him. Andrej holds the cigarette between his teeth, and lets her pull him up.

"Would you like to see his grave?"

His grave is simple. The stone has his name and dates in the Roman alphabet and the Cyrillic, and nothing more. The mound is a soft curve, and the grass is already bright again. Andrej shrinks into Wanda's side.

"How…?"

"Ultron. The robots. He was trying to help Hawkeye get a child out and-." Wanda finds herself choked into sobs, but Andrej understands.

"Did you kill him?"

Wanda's mouth drags into a wide mockery, even as tears roll down her cheeks. "I tore his heart from him."

Andrej drops his cigarette butt, stubbing it out beneath an oversized boot. "Good."

That evening Andrej sits with her at dinner. He is fascinated by Vision, finds Natasha intimidating, and listens as Wanda tells him of each of them. She tells him who they are and what they can do, and, where she knows, how they do what they do. She is not entirely surprised, when Snowsmoke asks about her powers.

"The Chitauri. The aliens that tried to invade New York. Their blood, their tech, the staff that the Asgardian Loki had. They made a virus. Some of the scientists said it would unlock abilities, some thought it would outright give them. Pie-," her throat chokes, but she forces herself to say the name, "Pietro and I were the only ones to survive. We're not sure why, even now."

Andrej huffs a breath, "Isn't it obvious? You had your vengeance, you had each other, and you're a witch. That's how you did it. You've just gone from the Church Witch to the Scarlet Witch."

One eyebrow rises. "I may be a witch, but my brother? Why did he survive do you think?"

Andrej shrugs, and spoons up another load of peas. "Because he was your brother. He got the magic too, just never did anything with it until the virus. Or maybe because he was your brother and you loved him and you used the start of your own magic to make sure he lived too." He shrugged one small shoulder. "I don't know."

Wanda manages to smile, just a touch. "So you think all witches could survive it then, the virus."

"Sure, probably. The rest of us aren't as good as you though, some of us might not manage it entirely. But sure. Those of us already more than we should be. Why wouldn't we?"

It does not entirely surprise Wanda, that Fury heard what Andrej said.

"We ran gene tests on the boy." His voice is abrupt as always, and Wanda turns. "He has a few significant markers similar to you, and your brother."

Wanda feels anger and concern and pain all simmer in her stomach. "Are you going to do as they did then? Make people anew without telling them how many might die?"

Fury shakes his head. "No. S.H.I.E.L.D. is not HYDRA. We won't find the needy and promise them nebulous maybes in exchange for their service." He shrugs one coated shoulder, and spins about on his heel. "But he has some similar markers. Maybe there is something in the witch thing after all."

Wanda watches, and says nothing. Fury sits at his desk.

"I'm not asking you to let us do this." Fury plants his boots on his desk, and his voice and mind are as honest as Wanda has ever known them. "I'm not asking you to mention this to your Snowsmoke, or let us tell him. You've lost enough already - your vengeance, your home, your brother. I'm not going to ask you to lose someone else. But I want you to know that we think he could become like you, possibly, and that we have the virus they used."

Wanda turns on her heel, and leaves the office. She is halfway down the corridor before she realises she is crying.

She does not mention it to Snowsmoke. What Fury said was true; she had lost too much to be able to lose any more. In the evening she lets Andrej take the spare bed she'd had moved into her room, and ignores the smell of cigarette smoke for the comfort of someone who understands her.

Andrej watches. Andrej learns. The others - teammates and tutors both - don't question his presence, even after the other Sokovians who came all the way cross the ocean return home. Wanda thinks Vision may have told them, but does not bother wondering.

For all Andrej is intimidated by Natasha he likes her, and lets her teach him how to fight. He picks it up quickly, and asks, some days, to join the training Vision and Wanda and Sam go through, not as an Avenger or as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but as a child, curious.

The day Wanda's scarlet leaps to catch him when he falls makes Wanda decide.

"Fury said they have the virus."

Andrej looks up at her, cigarette dangling from between his fingers.

"From what he said I think he wants to know if there is something in what you said about witches, but he won't do it without permission, or without telling you all the risks. They are not HYDRA."

Andrej gently stubs out the cigarette, and tucks the remaining half behind his ear. "Do you want me to?"

Wanda shakes her head, "I don't think there's anything I could want less. It was awful, the virus. Pie-," she forces herself to finish the word, "Pietro and I both thought we'd die. The others all did die. But I don't want you unable to defend yourself any more. Not with the witch hunts that will come."

Andrej is quiet, knots his fingers together and unknots them. "I won't do it if you don't want me to. Promise."

The laugh Wanda gives is half forced and half true. "Do not hold back for my sake, Snowsmoke. Do as you will. I will stay at your side."

Andrej glances up at her. "Promise?"

Wanda tugs the boy closer, presses a kiss to his hair. "I promise."

(Thanks to my AO3 friends, IndigoUmbrella who beta'd this, and to Jojo and Niamh who listened to me regarding the twins. Reviews are much appreciated!)