"Come Undone"
Chapter Three
By Darthelwig
*** I own nothing. I'm just having fun. ***
"Where is he?" she growled. Rhodey flinched as her scarlet whipped out, throwing chairs and other items around the room in her anger. "Tell me what you did with his body. Why doesn't he have a fucking grave?"
She had never taken Rhodes for a fool, but here they were, and he raised his hands in a placating gesture as if she wanted to hear anything he had to say except the truth.
She raised her own hand, her red responding instantly and wrapping around Rhodey's neck in a choke hold. "Tell me," she commanded.
"Wanda," he wheezed, clutching ineffectually at the red around his throat.
"Don't lie to me!" she yelled. Her eyes glowed red with her rage, and the fear on his face made something deep inside her purr with satisfaction.
"I- I don't…," he started, but she tightened her grip, choking off his words. His eyes were bulging, tech-enabled legs starting to thrash against the ground.
"If you won't tell me, I'll just take the information I need," she snarled. She raised her other hand and sent her magic deep, seeking. His eyes glowed red and he stiffened in her grip, going still as she dug through his mind in search of answers. "What is SWORD?" she whispered to herself before continuing her assault on Rhodey's mind.
When she had her answers she released him, both mind and body, and he fell to the floor unmoving. He was conscious, but lost in himself for now, and she looked down at him without pity. She knew where Vision was now, and Rhodey was one of many people who had let the government take him away. Rage gathered within her once more, whispering to her to punish and to break him. Hands seeming to rise of their own accord, she let her red surround him. It would be so easy, so easy, to snuff him out. Like Vision had been. Her magic could crush him, like Vision had been, an empty hole in his head as he lay there lifeless. Rhodey had been their teammate, their friend, and he'd let the government claim Vision's body as their own. He'd let them.
Her fingers flexed, twisting the scarlet tight around him, and she squeezed…
Wanda bolted upright as the nightmare slowly receded from her mind. Not a memory. I didn't do that. She hadn't killed Rhodey. She'd left him laying on the floor after she'd violated his mind to get the answers she needed. I didn't. I couldn't. I wouldn't. God, she could still feel his horror. That much had been all too real. She'd been merciless in getting what she wanted from him, knowing she'd crossed a line she could never come back from. He'd never forgive her. She would never expect him to.
"Fuck," she muttered, falling back on the bed, Dryden's bed. The bed he'd insisted she sleep in even though she had absolutely refused his advances so far. Well, maybe refused was a strong word. She'd basically been shying away from him for the last few days that she'd been here. In space. Fuck.
Dryden wasn't in bed, where he also insisted he be able to sleep with her, but that wasn't unusual. Her sleep schedule was well and truly fucked. She slept when she could because nightmares haunted her, sometimes making it impossible for her to rest. Nightmares of what she'd done, of what she'd lost.
She curled up on her side and wiped tears from her eyes. There was a hollow place inside her that ached for Vision, that bled constantly at his absence, that sometimes howled in grief at his loss and wanted nothing more than to follow him into oblivion. But there was also a part of her that wanted to live, that urged her to get up and see what she could make of this new world, that wondered at Dryden and wouldn't let her forget she now had a new soul mark on her body. That was the part of herself she was most afraid of, because she didn't want to move on, didn't want to live in a world where Vision wasn't.
She stared at her first soul mark. "Look again," it read. She remembered how he'd looked at her in that moment, politely challenging. So she had. She'd looked and she'd found beauty, not destruction, love not hate.
"Look again," she whispered to herself. His words, which he'd always told her meant more than a mere moment of recognition, more than a moment of souls bonding. Would he want her to get up? To look again and see what this new world could hold? In her heart, past all the pain that was eating her up inside, she knew the answer. Vision would want her to live. To not hold back and keep wishing she'd been taken by death as well. He was on the side of life, always, especially hers.
"Okay, baby. Okay," she whispered. Slowly, she forced herself up and out of bed, heading towards the shower, hoping some hot water could help her feel more alive. It was time to get up and be the woman Vision always believed she was. It was time to stop letting him down, time to make him proud. If she was even capable of it anymore.
She stumbled into the shower and fumbled a bit before managing to turn it on. As the spray hit her, too hot by far but she didn't shy from the pain, she let go and cried, letting the water wash her tears away as soon as they came.