-Don`t even think about it! Don`t you dare lay your hands on me! – Pietro runs from his chair as if stung, pointing her with index finger and moving backwards. His movements become increasingly chaotic with each step, she can see that he is losing the remnants of the concentration and tranquility. - We agreed, Wanda. You gave a word, and what? The next moment you're trying to get into my brain! – Pietro`s back hits the wall, he has nowhere to retreat, and mad fury on his face is changed by confusion, then anger returns. - Even dare to do it again, and ... - he hesitates and doesn`t know what to say, for a moment Wanda thinks he`ll say - and I will not return, but that doesn`t happen, Pietro disappears with a clap. Dust is swirling in the air, and the front door slams somewhere in the back of the house.
Wanda falls on the floor slowly, still hugging herself as if trying to support. Every time it ends the same way.
They quarrel, he escapes.
-You know, go fuck yourself, Pietro! - She closes eyes and takes a deep breath, another one, until pain finally recedes, replaced by dull and aching one, stuck somewhere deep under the ribs.
She can`t remember times when it was easy. When they were ten? No, he always offended her, mocked because of her big mouth, calling a frog, she tried to fight back, but what could she do, skinny girl, barely brother shoulder`s length and twice thinner than him?
Or at the age of fifteen? When she was still flat as a board, where people glue their ads, and he was just snorting contemptuously looking at her and then his gaze came back to sexy waitresses with their only desire to flirt with him? He always called her tard, creeping up while she was reading on the windowsill, he pulled books from her hands and scattered them on the floor of the library. He enjoyed mocking her, constantly clenching her in his hands out of a sudden, until she felt pain in ribs, and the morning after there were bruises on them, and then he would let her go with an indifferent face as if nothing had happened.
Then things got better. But just a little. Pietro turned into a silent ghost, sitting beside her while she was reading, but at least he stopped pulling books from her hands. He was looming behind her back as if glued in the shops, cafes and school, at the bus stops, somewhere on the periphery of her eyes, causing constant irritation and desire to hit him in the ribs. As if it would work. One day, Wanda tried, he enraged her so much that day, she secretly sneaked to the library to get a little rest from his silent presence, and was chatting the librarian, quite handsome guy, though shy. But who could be more shy than her, she didn`t know how to talk with people being constantly under the supervision of cold and indifferent brother.
They chatted, leaning on the bar, laughing at one of the funniest moments in the book they both knew by heart, when Wanda heard familiar steps behind her. Hefty figure of Pietro appeared, so close that the hairs on her neck stood on end.
-We're leaving, Wanda. - Pietro took her elbow, so tight that Wanda grimaced. What did he really want from her? Why the hell was he always looming behind her, playing a role of a caring brother? It was completely unnecessary and seemed weird.
-No. - She half-turned to Pietro, biting her lip and trying to incinerate with her eyes. – YOU are leaving. And I am not. I'm busy. - She returned to the guy, smiling at her awkwardly, got caught in the center of the quarrel, which he was not supposed to see. –Bad day, huh? - She tried to joke and gave him the book she wanted to take home. At that moment their fingers touched, just a little, with only fingertips.
-Wanda .. - Pietro`s voice was cold and warning.
Wanda gritted teeth and leaned back, with all the strength poking him in the ribs with the elbow he was still gripping, trying to vent accumulated anger. She would gladly punch him in the face if there were no people watching at their fight.
-Fine. - Despite the fact that the hit was rather strong, Pietro didn't even move. He picked her up and dragged behind him, leaving long tracks of her heels on the floor and forgotten book.
After this incident the guy in the library didn`t even try to speak with her, and Wanda wasn`t talking with Pietro for about a month, but no more tried to hit him. It was useless.
Since then they had some kind of a peace pact, more like a cold war. Wanda pretended not noticing Pietro looming nearby; he pretended to be totally indifferent to her business and having absolutely no fun to be around.
Perhaps things could be better, she thought, if they weren`t alone all the time.
And then things got worse. Much worse.
They've got their powers.
They were locked in the cages next to each other for months. She could not see him or hear. The wall between them was shaking of Pietro`s thuds, and Wanda shuddered each time, feeling his pain as her own. She wanted to understand Pietro so much, why he was always doing it, offending and hurting her, but now unable to hide from his pain, most of all she wanted to smash her head on the fucking wall.
She hated him. Because every day and night he was constantly repeating her name, like a wound-up, like crazy.
-Pietro, - She pressed her body against the wall. It separated them but could not block the stream of chaotic thoughts and continuous pain. -Shhhhhh, I'm here. I`m here, - she was repeating, whispering, pleading, crying until lost her voice. - Enough, please. - She was closing eyes and ears tight, but his desire to be close didn`t want to disappear.
When she was finally allowed to see him, she already knew how to control her power. His suffering, multiplied by her powerlessness to do anything, has given the results. The air was elastic under her fingers turning into a stream of rage and she could read people`s minds like open books.
For the first time she was allowed to see the sun, real sun, and now she was led down long empty corridor back into her cage when the next one to hers was lighted up. Pietro was sitting in the far corner, hugging legs to the chest with his face buried in hands, when Wanda froze, unable to move. He was there, he squeezed himself into a corner like a hunted animal, the hair was long and messy, black strands over blonde, baggy torn clothes.
-Pietro! - She sighed, pursing lips and trying not to burst into tears. A moment later there was a clap, Wanda didn`t even have time to notice how he raises his head and rises to his feet, when he was already near, touching the glass on the other side, separated by an invisible barrier.
His feelings overwhelmed her mind - pain and love, misery and hope - they threatened to strangle her, and Wanda grimaced, trying to put some mental barrier between them at least so they could not crush her mind, and pressed palm to the glass:
-Don`t. You hear me? They will never tear us apart, we'll always be together. Just wait.
They took her to the cage next to his and left in the dark, but for the first time she was awake all night, leaning against the wall that separated them, and surrounded by silence. Blessed silence with faint echoes of her promises.
Perhaps they could survive without each other. In some other life. Now she knew it. And since then, they were no longer apart.
They got out of the damned dungeons, twisting the necks of their captors, Pietro was carrying her in his arms, stepping over dead bodies and gliding through the air like lightning, too fast for their bullets, sneering, smirking, probably for the first time enjoying his power.
She could no longer hear his thoughts again. He hid them deep inside, making her promise that she would NEVER, EVER try to read them.
And now she sits pulling legs to the chest and looking aimlessly out of the window. Has everything changed for better now? Wanda laughs bitterly, realizing that things will never become better, because nothing has changed. She still doesn`t understand it. She moves fingers slowly, and tiny pieces of paper come to life. Tiny notebook papers are swirling in the air, like a blizzard, like her thoughts.
Wanda plays with flickering pieces of paper; she's afraid to think that the problem is actually not in Pietro. It`s her. Through the childhood, after long months in the cage along with Pietro`s chaotic thoughts, pouring through the wall, and now when they finally could find some place to hide and live like normal people, Wanda realizes that in fact she still doesn`t know what SHE wants.
-And what are you doing? – She hears tired hoarse voice and turns her head, looking at Pietro leaning against the doorjamb. It`s dark outside, she was sitting like this for hours, and paper butterflies under her arms charred to black.
-I didn`t want to ... - Wanda starts in a weak voice. She knows that she wanted, but is too afraid to admit it. Paper falls down, rustling on the floor.
-No, you wanted, - Pietro comes closer and sits on the floor beside her, he looks tired, with red eyes and haggard face, faint smell of whiskey floats in the air. – Why the fuck you're so itching, Wanda? I am here and we are together, as promised. Is it not enough?
-And If I say no, then what? Scold me? Or disappear?
He smiles bitterly.
-Happy Birthday, Sis, - Pietro leans toward her, cupping face in his hands and pressing his forehead against hers, - maybe I'm just tired of running away from this shit.
His hands are warm and breath smells of alcohol. Dozens of pictures start flashing in Wanda`s head one by one shuffled like cards, appearing for a moment to be replaced with the next.
Wanda feels love, so many shades of it, care and compassion, concern, affection turns into a bright sparkling joy when they laugh together over something, and she had forgotten about this flashback, one by one, they change, Wanda gets older in these pictures, love becomes richer and stronger, it blends with envy, anxiety, confusion, but in the end acute jealousy and desire substitute everything. Big stream of physical passion overflows her.
His desire is so strong that it makes her teeth grind and toes curl. Wanda gasps, trying not to suffocate from persistent urge - to touch him, as if it will enhance the feelings even more, so she extends her fingers shyly, and then digs nails into Pietro`s temples.
Something is aching and trembling under the ribs, and Wanda knows – it`s her own desire, she so carefully hid from him, but now Wanda sinks in it, wishing it could be shared. Finally, she removes hands and leans back just a little, looking intently into his eyes. There is bitterness and sadness in Pietro`s eyes, and some confused relief that everything is finally over, and he has no longer hide it from her.
-But it`s your birthday too. - Wanda is smiling; she runs hand over his forehead, removing tangled black and white locks of hair. He didn`t have time to move away, get over it or do something else, so she leans forward smashing his mouth with her lips violently and passionately. Wanda knows he can`t read her thoughts. But she can show it all.
She kisses him, harder and harder, until he finally falls down with her on top, she embraces him and laughs, gently biting Pietro`s lip:
-Happy Birthday, Pietro.