Hey everyone, here's the second chapter I said I'd update tonight. Enjoy!
(I don't own any of the characters or places mentioned in this fic.)
X_X_X
Wanda woke up to the worst headache she could remember ever having. She sat up and found herself on a bed instead of the white table. Looking around, she saw multiple cameras around her and she rolled her eyes.
Getting up, Wanda walked around the lab as she tried to distract herself. She came across a computer and pressed the spacebar to wake it up. Twenty hundred hours and thirty two minutes flashed on the screen before asking for the password.
Wanda moved to the door and tried to open it but found it locked. With a groan, Wanda lightly banged her head on the metal frame. She closed her eyes as the coolness of the metal helped her headache calm down.
"Wanda?" came a familiar voice from right in front of her.
Raising her head, Wanda saw James on the other side of the door.
"Sup," she said before resting her head back on the frame.
"Wanda, I'm going to open the door. Can you move?" James asked.
With a ridiculously long sigh, Wanda took a step back and watched with mild frustration as the doors opened easily for him.
"Why can't I leave?" Wanda asked as the doors closed behind James.
"Shuri doesn't think you'll be safe in your room," he revealed.
Wanda nodded.
"What about Steve? Couldn't he fight for me?"
James chuckled. "He's already fighting for you. He made a detailed plan about how we could all take turns looking over you to make sure you stay safe within your room"
"So? Why am I still here?" Wanda asked.
"Shuri ordered for someone to fix your shower door first. She said once that was done, she would consider letting you move back. But that will take days. In the meantime, you're on trial," James said.
Wanda walked over to her bed and plopped down. James sat down next to her a lot more gracefully.
"My head hurts," she said.
"Oh, Shuri left some painkillers on the nightstand," he said, pointing to the stand right next to her.
How did she miss that? There was even a glass of water.
"Huh," Wanda huffed but took the pills anyway. She hadn't realized how thirsty she was until she noticed she had finished the entire thing of water.
"So… What happened?" James asked.
Wanda groaned and ran her hands over her face.
"I'm pretty sure you already heard it from Steve," she said.
"I want to hear it from you," he answered.
Wanda glanced over to James and he offered her a gentle smile. She gave him a small lift of her lips.
"It was..."
Wanda trailed off with a gasp as she felt a sharp stab in her abdomen. Panic ran through her as she thought she was reliving her nightmare, but the deafening sound of water rushing around her calmed her down. But she still felt anger for the loss of… something. And fear paralyzed her at the knowledge that she would meet death.
Then she was falling.
"No," she whispered.
"...Da. W...nda. Wanda!"
She finally registered the voice that was calling out for her as belonging to James, but she ignored it as she stood up and walked to the corned of the lab.
"Wanda, what's going on?" James asked as he grasped her shoulder. Wanda brushed him off with her powers and kept walking.
Looking up at the ceiling, Wanda let her powers slip from her hands and climb up into the room above her. She felt the taste of fear and anger on her tongue, bitter and exotic.
The nightmare floated back down to her in its usual angry mass of black and she closed her eyes as she felt it drop into her hand.
"What the hell?" James breathed out beside her.
"The hell was that?" he demanded.
"A nightmare," Wanda offered, blinking out of her daze.
"And the black veins are part of the nightmare, too?" he asked in disapproval.
"Yep. That's what happens when I absorb them," she said in a calm voice.
Wanda turned to walk back to the bed.
"What do you mean, absorb them?" he asked with a hard tone in his voice.
She sighed.
"James, if you're going to get mad at me, too, then I don't think-"
"No!" he cut her off. "I'm not going to get mad."
Wanda gave him a pointed stare.
"Okay, so I might get mad. But I just want to understand, more than anything," he said.
Wanda sat on the bed and pulled her legs up to wrap her arms around them. James stood with his arms crossed in front of her.
"I'm not sure exactly why, but when I pull a nightmare out of someone, it takes form of the black thing you saw. When I did the same thing for Clint and Tony before, I had no idea that was what happened. But maybe that explains why there were so many nightmares every night, the thing probably just floated from one person to another," Wanda mused.
James narrowed his eyes at her.
"What you're saying implies that the black thing carries nightmares into whatever it goes into," he said.
Wanda shrugged. "I'm not sure how that works, it's just a thought."
James sat down next to her.
"If you think that, then why do you still take these things from us? Why do you suffer our nightmares?"
"I'm suffering my own nightmares," Wanda explained. "And it's easier for me to take them away from you and into myself because I don't have to invade your minds, as you guys like to think. If I do it any other way, then I would have to go in."
"If you could explain this to-" James started but stopped when Wanda let out a dry laugh.
"I know my team, Sergeant Barnes. They've been mind controlled one too many times to even give me a chance at helping them if it meant I had to go inside their mind. I know I'm partially to blame for that," Wanda said softly. Regret rang loudly in her words.
James couldn't say anything to that because he knew it was true. He trusted her, but going into his mind was something that even he was unwilling to let her do.
"I'm a bit tired," Wanda said.
"Oh, right. Let me just take your temperature first. Shuri sent me down for that and I nearly forgot," he chuckled.
James reached over to grab the thermometer from the nightstand beside her and turned it on. He stretched his arm so he could put the thermometer in her mouth and without questioning it, Wanda let him.
The air became heavy around them and Wanda swore she could feel static coursing down her arms when she met James' gaze. There was something resembling curiosity and uncertainty swimming within the light blue orbs.
James felt oddly drawn to the wide, green eyes of the woman before him. He could see the slight flush appear on her cheeks and he felt his heart racing inside his chest. Without realizing it, he was slowly moving his face closer to hers.
The beeping of the thermometer seemed to echo around the room as the two occupants jumped apart in embarrassment.
"Uh," James cleared his throat as he looked at the small device in his hand. "It's 99.7 right now. Down from earlier, but still kind of high."
Wanda nodded and bit her lip as she avoided his gaze.
"I should get going," he said, standing up.
"Okay. Um, night, then," Wanda managed to say.
"Goodnight, Wanda," James said as walked to the door and punched in a code for it to open.
Wanda let out a breath as she watched him walk away.
"What the hell was that?" she asked herself.
"And next thing you know he'll offer his dick."
Wanda jerked backwards as Dream Pietro's words echoed in her mind.
"It's not like that," she whispered to herself.
She laid back onto the bed as she tried to clear her mind of all thoughts.
"It's not like that," she slurred as she drifted to sleep.
X_X_X
"Was she still sleeping? Did she seem okay?" Steve asked as soon as Bucky stepped into the room.
Bucky blinked and remembered why he'd come to Steve's room in the first place.
"Oh, she was up when I went in there. She seemed a bit annoyed that Shuri was keeping her hostage in there, but otherwise, she seemed fine. Her temperature went down a bit and she took painkillers for her headache."
Steve breathed out in relief.
"Did she say anything about what happened this morning?" Steve asked.
"No," Bucky replied. "But I finally saw her take out a nightmare."
Steve waited for Bucky to continue. He knew he wouldn't like what his friend had to say based on the sour look on his face.
"She's drowning in bad dreams so we can have peace while we rest," Bucky admitted.
Steve frowned. "What do you mean?"
Bucky went to Steve's desk and sat on the chair as he thought about how to explain it to Steve.
"The dreams, the negativity of it all, it forms into this black smoke, almost. And instead of letting it go, invade something else or whatever it does, Wanda takes it in for herself," Bucky explained. "Steve, I saw that thing slip into her body. It turned her skin grey and her veins black as it slid up her arm."
Steve stood up from his bed. "Did you do anything to help her?"
"What did you want me to do, Steve? She said it was normal. I don't know how her powers work, I don't know what that black thing does to her. I figured the best thing to do was come tell you and then decide whether it's something we can deal with ourselves or if we should have the princess take a look at Wanda."
Steve took a deep breath.
"Okay. You said she was fine?" he asked.
"She seemed fine when I spoke with her. A bit tired, but then again, she does still have a bit of a fever," Bucky nodded.
"Okay. We'll go in tomorrow morning and see how she feels, how she looks. Then we'll decide," Steve said.
Both men struggled to leave Wanda by herself after what they knew, but they trusted that she would be safe in the lab.
X_X_X
Wanda moaned as she felt soft lips nip at her own.
"Mmm. Good morning, husband," she said with a lazy smile.
"Good morning, wife," came the reply.
Gentle kisses trailed up her cheek, onto each eye, down her nose, before finding their way back to her eager lips.
"Come on, it's time to get up."
Wanda groaned. A hand brushed against her nipple and she arched at the contact.
"Hmm. Interesting."
Soon a hot mouth descended on her breast and Wanda gasped out.
Her eyes fluttered open when the feeling stopped.
"Hey, I was enjoying that," she said to the mop of black hair by her chest.
Clear blue eyes peered up at her and the mouth that had previously been pleasuring her twitched up into a smirk.
"I'd gladly continue, my dear, but we have guests coming over in an hour. It really is time to get up," he said.
"James," Wanda whined.
"Would you prefer your brother walk in on us like this?" he asked, placing a kiss on her nipple.
"In bed." A hand traveled down her stomach.
"Naked." Knuckles ghosted over her throbbing core.
"Fucking each other's brains out." Two fingers slid inside her drenched sex.
Wanda gasped and her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
"To be quite honest with you, right now, I don't really give a damn," Wanda moaned.
"Is that so?" James said with a smug voice.
"James, dear, not to be crass or anything, but if you don't fuck me right now, I'll do it myself," she said with a desperate tone under her words.
"I love it when you talk dirty to me, Wanda," he said as he leaned down to give her a wet kiss.
Wanda closed her eyes and smiled when he pulled back to straddle her.
"In sickness and in health," he whispered his vows.
"Till death do us part," she finished.
She opened her eyes and screamed.
Straddling her was a rotting James with black tendrils wrapping around his neck and his chest. He opened his mouth and grey sludge spilled out of his mouth, splattering all over her.
All Wanda could do was close her eyes and scream louder.
X_X_X
Shuri punched in the numbers to open her lab doors and immediately went to make some coffee. With the new project she was working on, she knew she'd need all the caffeine.
As the machine worked its magic, Shuri went over to Wanda's bed. The Avenger twitched in her sleep and Shuri placed her hand on Wanda's forehead.
"You poor thing, you're burning up," she said to the sleeping Wanda. "No wonder you can't sleep."
Walking over to the lab bathroom, Shuri took a towel and wet it with cold water. Bringing it back to the bed, she placed it on Wanda's forehead. The brunette immediately relaxed.
"There, all better. For now at least," Shuri said.
The coffee machine beeped and Shuri went to serve herself a mug of coffee.
"Alright, let's see what we have here," she said as she sat in front of her computer.
Shuri typed in her password and immediately went into the laboratory recordings file. She clicked on the one from that day and sipped her drink while she watched Wanda on the screen.