Chapter 12

Wanda may have wrought nightmares, but she cannot evade her own. Hope misplaced, trust misplaced. The Baron is dead. The doctor, gone. Their vengeance has been cast aside for a new plan, a plan ruled by another's will. Wanda's nightmare is subtle in her mind, and strings together events that should have been warnings into a pure horror, a true nightmare.

Wanda almost snaps the bridge, trying to keep it from her brother. Her hand combs through his hair as he sleeps, as she tries to calm.

When Wanda first sees the soft red dancing of the mind in the cradle she is almost glad. A read on the inscrutable robot is useful. They can read his humour; hear his plans, but this? This is different, this is new, and, Wanda knows, this is certain.

When she sees the blinding end that Ultron has planned she knows that it is his true intention. She knows that he is certain it must come to pass. She feels it being poured into an infant brain, a mind which doesn't know yet what it is to have morals, and feels it shaped toward unknowing malice. The pain of it, of a mind warped to cruelty, of the end of the world, of Ultron's twisting blinding wrath, is all too similar to the arrow pressed to her forehead only days before.

Pietro's mind is close to hers as he strokes her hair, holds her close, helps her stay stable. What is it, what has happened, what did you see? The questions, quick and quiet. Wanda sends back only Listen, and holds onto her brother's hand.

Ultron's justifications she already knows, but hearing them, more than anything, breaks any respect her brother had for the robot, and buys her time to send dancing scarlet to peel away the blinding blue from Doctor Cho. There is no time, no time to stay, but no time to leave, and Pietro takes only moments to go from pressing a kiss to her hair, to carrying her away, to safety. Even he would not try to face those robots alone, not after Ultron burns Doctor Cho.

The streets are in another language, but they are streets. The twins know streets. Wanda's mind is turning, memories enacting mass after mass, trying and failing to absolve sin after sin. Wanda's mind is scarlet, burgundy, red as blood, and she feels as though it will never wash out.

Pietro is beside her, hand in hers, tugging her round corners, down alleys, past shops. They walk a circuit, and Wanda feels the new-made mind, all innocent empty space, and Ultron's burning anger, passing by one corner. Her hand spasms in her brother's, and even the wave of love he sends down their bridge cannot draw her from her guilt.

When it comes on the news - that draws her from it. This is immediate, is not something that leaves her time to dwell on guilt, and Pietro scoops her up, runs her down streets, through alleys, trying to find where the Avengers battle Ultron. Her mind dances through all they pass, listening for images of particular things, directing relevant ones to Pietro as fast as he runs. This is instinct, with her scarlet, barely effort, more understanding, and Pietro sprints faster than sound, and takes them to the fight.

The train is chaos, but Wanda knows chaos. Silver barrels through and knocks Ultron off his feet, and scarlet dances and prevents him from walking on. And though he leaves something newhappens.

An enemy offers them trust.

Wanda feels her scarlet stretch, regrow what it lost from the archer's weapon, and even as her brother runs ahead, budging and shoving people out of the train's careening path, she feels as strong as if he were there. Forcing the train to stop is hard, yes, but she has done harder things. Her muscles lock, her arms feel as though she is pressing through something immovable, but she makes herself move, makes the train stop. Beyond the brink of her mind she can feel her brother's, feel his frantic breathing, frantic heartbeat.

For all he says he only needs a minute, it does not slow, even as they travel to the Avengers' tower.

Wanda alights at the tower, and sees her own nightmare confirmed. Ultron will be given a new body. No matter her warnings to the Captain who trusts regardless of enmity. The dance of thought is clear, the Captain's certain colours, Stark's metal mind, Bruce Banner, the man with a monster living within his skin, has his mind warping green and purple as soon as he sees her.

Please do not, please do not, please do not .

Even as her brother kills the power, tries to kill the creature in the cradle, she knows her warnings will be disregarded. Voices rise, tempers blossom, and lightning comes crashing through the ceiling.

The creature which comes out of the cradle looks almost like a man. Its mind feels almost human. It has two legs, two arms, two eyes. Wanda is fairly certain if she made a count she would find five fingers and five toes on each hand and foot. The creature, robot, android, whatever it may be, has eyes and a nose and a mouth. Bar its bright colour it looks like a statue, made almost perfect.

But it has the stone in its brow, as bright a gold as the virus which gave the twins their powers, and Wanda does not know if trust is possible.

They all move, when the creature does, as Thor sends it hurtling toward the window, toward the city. It flies; they all reach for their weapons, and Wanda feels the moment as the creature's mind crystallises into life and kindness. He is, Wanda realises, more than the sum of his parts, more than Ultron, more than Stark's creation, more than a body from a cradle. He is .

I think therefore I am, runs through the creature's mind, bright gold on rich magenta-burgundy. A brief bubble of gold-green laughter. Wanda lets out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding, and tugs on the bridge to her brother.

They are given three minutes to prepare. Three minutes to find what they need, grab what they need, understand what they need. The creature - Vision - talks with Thor, both already certain of the path they mean to make. Wanda felt the shock in all the Avenger's minds when the android had lifted the hammer, and feels unsettled. She draws closer to her brother, even as he prepares, and watches the creature, talking calmly, talking seriously, his mind a quiet, calm network of darting cells, each bright glow contained within itself. His mind is made of processors, nodule after processing nodule, each distinct, each with a job, working toward one cohesive whole. Wanda does not know what to make of it, and for once, her brother has to try to get her attention, rather than having it already.

As soon as they land Wanda sends out her scarlet. This time it does not dance. This time it processes, slowly, elegantly, certainly. This is precision, is certainty, is there to make order, and to make people safe. This cannot be an urgent order of fear, cannot be the chaos she knows. Wanda feels each mind her tendrils entrap into this dance of order, feels tens, feels hundreds, feels thousands, and drives them, with all her power, to safety.

But, for all her twisting scarlet, they fail.

The fight is hectic and terrible. Wanda does not know quite what to do, diving down streets and alleys, over the rocks of buildings. She had known what to do to make people evacuate, she had known what to do with her brother there to help, but the rock is flying, chaos abounds and she feels lost.

As she runs for shelter, feeling nothing but shock and guilt, and the tugging concern from Pietro's mind, she spots a grimy head of pale hair resting on rubble, and has to stop herself from choking on a sob.

This is my fault. The thought rings through her mind, blinding and certain, and Wanda cannot breathe.

Hawkeye's talk helps somewhat. It calms her, anchors her, reminds her that she may not have fought fiercely before, not like this, but she has killed, and that her brother has done much worse in her defence, and for her sake. She picks herself up. She dusts herself off. And she summons her scarlet to her and steps outside to bring chaos on the bodies of the one who would threaten her and hers and her city.

It is like instinct, flooding through her, and she lets the scarlet dance as it pleases. Like when she first trained, this is not something that can be decided, it simply is , like her bond to her brother. There is no taming it, no shaping it, she asks of it what she can, and she trusts need and necessity and desperation to guide it as it must. Body after robot body crumples in the face of her dancing scarlet, and her eyes shine like fireglow.

When they rejoin at the church Wanda knows Pietro does not quite understand how the scarlet now sings to her. She tries to show him, show him that the scarlet sings to her as his speed sings to him, but his concern sings stronger. She moves her hands, twists her fingers, and repeats her words. The robot that would have killed them crumples. Pietro looks in his sister's eyes and understands that she does not need his protection now, not with the scarlet anger and rich red magic singing in her blood.

Like she killed the arsonists who destroyed their home, and killed the others in their flats, she will kill all of those who would destroy their only true home, if only they are so foolish as to come in range. The regret Pietro feels as he leaves, that vengeance would have driven his sister to this, is only superseded by the loss he feels at no longer being his sister's protector.

She feels the fight around them. Ultron's development of his alternate bodies has given them something akin to a nervous system and while she cannot read his mind through them, she can at least sense where they are with mingled telepathy and telekinesis. Her scarlet dances toward them and tears pieces off them, and her mind remains tied to her brother's, watching when they come for her or for him.

The pain she feels as he is torn from her is exquisite and terrible. She feels each bullet strike him, one after another in an unending barrage of pain, and then the cessation of impact, only followed by gasp, and gasp, and stuttered words and … nothing. Nothing at all. All the times she feared for her brother run through her head, each time, his expression, each time, he was fine, and now, far from her-

She screams. She can do nothing else. He was all she had, all she knew, all she cared about, and he is gone, gone, gone. An unending vortex of terror grips her, takes her mind, her emotions, her magic, and rips apart all that is near her. She screams and screams and screams and sobs, and nothing is right in the world.

There is nothing in her mind but burning fury when she leaves the church. Stark may have created this, started this, but he fights to end this. Her quarrel with him is gone as her brother is, but Ultron …

Ultron remains. Ultron killed her brother. Wanda knows, in her heart of hearts, in her soul of souls, her mind of minds, in the core kernel of herself, that this will not bring him back. She does not care. She does not feel shrapnel hit her, bullets pass her, the air thinning. She does not hear comms, care as the city falls, but she feels a deep, abiding satisfaction as she tears the heart from Ultron.

This, she thinks at him, for all he cannot hear her, This is death. Do you like what you have wrought on this world?

She curls in the wreck, and she does not expect - does not want - to live.