Hi everyone!

Sorry for the delay. The story is definitely not gonna be what everyone might be expecting. Hope you still stick with it.

Any how thanks so much for the support. Hope you're enjoying it. Felt kind of strange while writing this chapter. Not sure why. Anyhow just let me know if it shows I guess... please :) Once again apologies for any editing issues. Let's go!

Chapter Four – Elastic Heart

"... I'm like a rubber band until you pull too hard,

Yeah, I may snap and I move fast

But you won't see me fall apart

'Cause I've got an elastic heart..."

– Sia

Pietro was not happy.

They were all moving so infuriatingly slow. He'd already run over every surface of his bunk more times than he could count.

It had quickly become tedious.

Now he was sitting still on his bed. As still as he could anyway. His charged blue stare had been centred on the shuddering of the floor of the helicarrier traveling to their as yet unknown destination.

Since beginning this strange journey with his powers the practice of focusing had turned into a type of mediation for him. Zeroing in on the mirco-vibrations that he could see and sense in everything. The earth, the air, people, water. Everything buzzed at it's own frequency and if he held his concentration long enough he could he could feel the vibrations within his own body. Though in his case 'long enough' spanned the length of a millisecond for a normal person.

Shoving his weary hand through his scraggly silver hair, the blue-eyed man glanced at the door for perhaps the billionth time in the last hour.

He really did not appreciate being confined. They honestly didn't have to worry as much as they obviously were worrying.

True he still had some pain in the spots where the bullets had struck him, but that was basically nothing anymore, soon he would be completely healed. He could practically feel his skin stitching back together at that very moment.

Rolling up his right shirt sleeve, Pietro traced his fingers over the reddish circle that remained following the fight against Ultron.

That one he had managed to heal himself, but... his raised his hand to touch the spot on his chest. Through the fabric of his navy cotton shirt he could barely feel the bullet hole that had very nearly stopped his heart.

'You are my sunshine...' A warm tingling spread over the area beneath his hand.

And he recognized it.

It had felt like being carefully pieced back together.

It had felt as though someone had cared.

He had expected to see Wanda above him, but he had been wrong in his assumption.

Ordinarily he was so fast that practically nothing would slip by his notice. He hated that he had missed out on what had happened and how.

He hated even more that he had blacked out before he could really understand what she had been doing.

'She...' he dropped his hands.

How long had it been since they had seen each other?

Time had always been a difficult thing for him to grasp. He supposed that when a person spent most of their life being consumed by one thought that their conception of time was distorted. He could say in no uncertain terms that he had waited years and an age to confront Tony Stark. But he couldn't say, off the top of his head, how long that had been exactly.

Which really was saying something, considering the accelerated level at which his mind and cognitive abilities functioned.

'I had to have been 23...' it took him a moment to figure out his current age, based on the time that had passed '... so two years ago...' his thoughts were suddenly overwhelmed by the weight of how he had treated her, and what he had done.

"Pietro..." all at once, as though as she could sense his distress, his twin sister appeared at his side. His mind had been elsewhere he barely registered the sound of the door slamming shut and locking behind her.

Squeezing his eyes closed, Pietro shook his head. He breathed out harshly in Sokovian, "I can't be in here any longer Wanda." The silver haired man stood up in front of her with an unnatural speed that she had grown used to. Her concerned brown eyes studied his face carefully. "This..." he moved in a blur to pound on the room's metallic door "...is killing me."

"It's killing you?" she replied in their language, raising a quizzical brow and crossing her arms in front of her chest. The red wrap draped around her shoulders slipped a little at the movement. He resisted the urge to set it right so that she wouldn't be cold, instead he directed his thoughts to his annoyance at being trapped.

"I need space. I need something other than this cage."

"It's not a cage Pietro."

"Then why can't I leave?"

"Because you haven't healed fully and you'll probably push yourself and get hurt."

"I won't," was his short reply.

Rolling her eyes Wanda moved to sit on the mattress he had only just be occupying.

"This isn't fair."

"This isn't fair?" She scoffed softly without any humour. "I think we're meant to be past that point by now."

"Are we?" Pietro asked, uncertain of the answer himself.

Wanda sighed and looked down at her palms for a pregnant stretch of time that seemed to go on forever for him. "What wasn't fair was feeling like I'd lost the only person I had left in the world." She spoke after a time, hardly moving her lips.

"Wanda I..."

"I understand why you did it Pietro," she smiled meekly at him, before gritting her teeth, "but it makes me angry. And it scared me... very badly."

"But I'm ok now." He ran around the room in less than half a second to prove his point seeking to comfort her as he came to a stop, kneeling at her side.

She snorted, "You didn't know you would be, Pietro. That's my point."

His blue eyes roamed over his sister's darkened expression, his heart broke for the pain he caused her.

"... But I knew that you would be," he gently answered her argument, causing her to lift her head in wonder. "That's my point." He clasped her hands in his. Her eyes drifted from his grip to his right arm.

He followed her focus to where his sleeve was still rolled up above the red spot on his pale skin.

"How is she?" He mumbled.

Letting out a weary breath, Wanda blinked away the water in her dark eyes. "She seems to be fine, medically speaking. Just... exhausted after..." her gaze moved to his t-shirt covered chest. Her hold on his hands tightened.

He returned the pressure as supportively as he could. In those first few hours of coming back he hadn't really been in a position to think properly let alone form sentences. He could finally ask what he had wanted to, yet something inside of him was uncharacteristically telling him to hold off.

The silver haired man was all to ready to quickly push that feeling aside, as he questioned, "So she's awake?"

"She wasn't when I last saw her."

"When was that?"

"Two hours ago... Pietro, she... I was able to see what some of what her life has been..." Wanda's voice faded, her face grew mournful for their long lost friend.

'Friend...' he almost laughed at that term that had never truly fit.

He wasn't sure which of the many emotions he was feeling to latch on to.

Anger, curiosity, pain, worry, sorrow... regret maybe?

Regret had been a new sensation for him to grapple with. Much like what had occurred with time, hate and resentment hadn't left much room for any other sentiments to grow.

"She saved your life." Wanda stated.

"Yes she did..." he paused to think on that fact. He could still see her sneering at him with distaste despite which she put herself at risk to help him. "Did you know?" He finally asked one of the questions that had been pressing in his mind since he had first woken up.

Wanda shook her head. "I only ever knew as much as you did."

A small joking smirk tugged at Pietro's cheeks. "Poor you."

This stupid little chicken was going to kill him one day. 'Or it's gonna be the other way around.' He rolled his blue eyes when he realized she had fallen behind again.

"Etro! Please wait."

Squinting against the biting Winter wind the dark-haired boy turned around, his bare left foot burned as it twisted over the ice and snow.

He could hardly feel his toes anymore.

"Idiot girl." Pietro's blue gaze watched scornfully as the girl he had just fished out of the water tripped over his shoes.

Why did she have to come along?

He's the one who had wanted to trek further.

He's the one who had wanted to explore and she just kept following him around like some useless, whimpering puppy.

He wasn't stopping. The cold was spreading up his foot.

"Etro!"

He wasn't stopping.

"Etro!"

'I'm not stopping.' He thought to himself with determination as he carried on tromping against the icy wind.

Squinting his blue eyes he pushed his messy dark hair out of his face. 'We have to be close by now.' Though he could feel the tears building up because of the burning pain settling into his feet. With a deep breath he steeled himself. He wasn't the type to cry.

His father had fought through worse.

So he would fight through this.

Pietro wouldn't let himself be weak. Not even for the simpering thing following his foot steps.

'The world isn't safe...' his father's words echoed in his head.

The older man had told Pietro this fact since the boy could remember.

'Don't scare him.' His mother would scold his father.

'He needs to know.' The war worn man would look at his children, 'They both do.' That statement would always cause Pietro to wrap his arm tight around his sister.

"Etro!" Zora's voice sounded suddenly much closer to him and shocked him out of his thoughts.

Looking down to his right he saw that silly little girl had taken off his shoes so that she could keep up with him instead of keep her feet warm.

As he felt the chill in his toes grow, Pietro couldn't take anymore. "WHAT!" He turned to scream into her face.

"I just wanted to..." she held out her arms with his shoes and socks clasped in her fingers.

His icy eyes traveled down to see her little pink toes bare in the white snow.

"UGH!" He wanted to shake some sense into her, instead he hefted her on to his back, tramped towards the direction of the fishing holes and dumped her at her fathers' feet.

"Pietro!" Her imposing, dark-haired father exclaimed. "What happened?"

The young boy looked between the two men and the girl now bundled up in her father's lap.

"Are you all right Solnyshka?" He looked her over, his hands eventually moving to her feet. "She's frozen. What happened?" Her father accusingly asked Pietro for answers.

"Tell us boy." His father joined in with a supportive nod.

Pietro's jaw tightened. "Nothing. Zora was just being Zora. I..."

"Uncle Django, Etro's feet too." The little girl interupted.

"Wha- Jesus Pietro!" His father quickly gathered the brown-haired boy into his arms.

"The little chicken fell into the ice. She needed shoes."

"So you gave her yours?" His Uncle Ante questioned in an impressed tone.

Pietro nodded slowly, feeling his father's hold on him tighten as he did.

"Thank you." The old general said with immense honesty.

Watching as his Uncle preoccupied himself with Zora once more, Pietro let himself enjoy the warmth of his father's hand on his bare feet.

A thought occurred to him once the feeling returned to his toes. Lifting his head close to his father's ear, Pietro whispered. "Papa..."

"Yes, son?"

"I think she's going to kill me one day." He finished in earnest, earning a soft chuckle from his father that he didn't understand.

That's that. Hope you guys had fun with this chapter.

Really gonna try to do better with the next update.

Wishful thinking but still...