Chapter 7: Recovery
They all skipped school the next day, and about an hour before Mrs. Maximoff was supposed to get home from work, Bruce and Steve took Wanda and Pietro home. Wanda led the way and held doors as the other two carried Pietro into the apartment and laid him in his bed.
"What should I tell my mom when she gets home?" Wanda asked.
"Say he came down with something," Steve suggested. "The flu's going around, it wouldn't be that surprising."
"What about school? Someone should take care of him, but I can't just skip until he's better," said Wanda.
"I've already got that part figured out," said Bruce. "We discussed it while you were sleeping last night. The gang's gonna take it in turns, everybody skips a day to sneak in here and make sure he's doing alright, give him painkillers, all that."
"Are you sure?" Wanda asked. "I wouldn't want any of you to get in trouble for our sake."
"None of us are exactly strangers to cutting class," said Steve. "And besides, your brother's life is worth getting detention."
"Thank you. I could never repay you for everything you've done since last night."
"No need," Steve replied. "You don't have to be one of our own for us to help."
"After what's happened, I'm not sure we've really got a choice but to join you," said Wanda.
"Nonsense. You've always got a choice," Steve said.
"Not according to Hydra."
"Let us deal with those bastards. You just take care of your brother for now."
Pietro was beginning to get restless. It had been a week since he was shot, but he wasn't yet well enough to leave bed for very long without help. Not that he'd been expecting to heal at a miraculous pace, but he rather hated being cooped up. Recovering was proving particularly unpleasant since none of the drugs Bruce was giving him were actually strong enough to kill the pain. The one perk to being trapped in bed with a secret bullet wound was the Avengers coming to visit during school hours. He'd protested at first, insisting he didn't need babysitting, but after passing out trying to get to the bathroom without help (Natasha was standing by, watching in amused exasperation), he agreed it was probably a good idea.
The variety in their sickbed entertainment methods was vast and rather amusing. Bucky brought over season one of Game of Thrones and sang along to the theme song at the start of each episode (they got through half the season by the time Wanda came home). Sam gave him some fighting pointers, "in light of recent events" he said. Rhodey taught him how to play poker and the next day Tony taught him how to cheat at poker. Thor told a bunch of wild stories about the Avengers' adventures, half of which Pietro doubted were true ("Nope, they definitely are," Clint told him the next day. "There is no way Thor wrestled an escaped lion to save you from being eaten." "Okay, that one's a lie. The rest are true though.").
"I never thought I'd say this, but I rather wish I could go to school tomorrow," said Pietro.
It was Sunday and Wanda was sitting across from him on his bed. Pietro was trying to teach her poker and was doing a terrible job of it.
"It's probably a good thing you can't right now, actually," Wanda said. "Gives things time to blow over, with Hydra and... you know..."
Pietro felt an ache in his chest that had nothing to do with his injury.
"Have you seen him?" he asked quietly, glaring at his cards to avoid catching his sister's eye.
"A couple times," Wanda replied. "Hydra's a bit freaked, apparently. According to Tony, none of them have ever actually killed anyone, so you're the closest they've gotten. They may be mean but they're still just a bunch of kids like us."
"Yeah, a bunch of kids who kidnapped and threatened you, sent one of their friends to trick me into falling in love with him, threatened to blow Bucky's head off, and nearly got me killed..." Pietro said bitterly.
"Okay, you've got a point," Wanda paused and Pietro could tell she was watching him sadly even as he continued to glare determinedly at his cards. "Are you doing okay? And I'm not talking about you getting shot."
Pietro sighed and finally set down his cards, but he still didn't look at her.
"But it is still about me getting shot, isn't it? I mean, he's the one who shot me. As if finding out he was the enemy and wasn't ever really interested in me wasn't painful enough, he almost killed me too. And you know what the really messed up part of all this is? This entire week that I've been lying here in pain, barely alive because of him, I've almost managed to convince myself it was my fault. That he didn't mean to shoot me. That he accidentally pulled the trigger because I was angry and tried to attack him. He nearly killed me and here I am thinking it was my fault."
"But it wasn't," said Wanda, and the pain in her voice hurt nearly as much as everything else that had happened that week. "How could it possibly be?"
"Because I love him," Pietro whispered. "And I know I shouldn't, not anymore, but it's not that easy to hate him, even after everything. It's so much easier to make excuses, to blame myself."
Wanda leaned forward and very gently pulled him into a hug. He buried his face in her shoulder and hugged her back, willing himself not to cry. He'd done so well this far, he didn't want to break that streak.
"You don't have to hate him," Wanda said. "No one is asking that of you. Just don't blame yourself. You've gone through enough without causing yourself that extra pain."
So much for not crying.
