Natasha left and Wanda felt a rush of aloneness. A part of her powers that she constantly had to deal with was the telepathy, though it was erratic. Sometimes she could not hear anything at all from people unless she really pushed to listen in and other times she struggled to shut out all the noise and emotions pouring off of them. It was one of those times where she could not stop feeling flood of emotions coming off the people around her, sometimes catching some words to a particularly loud thought.
Being alone meant she did not have to feel or see any thoughts besides her own, however if she chose to focus Wanda could feel the people in the tower. Clint felt kind and safe, though it seemed like she would drown under the waves of guilt that came crashing down around her from him. Captain Rogers was full of concern and shining goodness, yet also had a yearning sadness that he felt for so long he'd nearly forgotten what he was yearning for. A man named Sam had a large scar of loss, not unlike the ones Wanda had, but he also exuded a vibrant, mischievous nature. Then there was the Vision and his curiously humming mind. The android roved around the building like his mind, restless and seeking but there was also peace and order there. It was nothing like Wanda had ever seen and it piqued her interest. She did not dare reach out and try to access Tony Stark.
Then there was Agent Romanoff, Natasha. She was the easiest person to be around. Not because she lacked in giving off emotions but because they bled so effortlessly into her own. The Russian agent had her own dark upbringing to contend with, trying to overcome the ruthless killer they had turned her into, mirroring her own narrative so well. The parallels in their lives made her feel less alone in a way, though it did little to alleviate her guilt over everything that had transpired.
Tears began to leak out of her eyes once again as Wanda thought about how she manipulated Tony Stark with his fear, how she had helped Ultron nearly destroy the world, how it had all cost Pietro his life and now she was without him and it was all her fault. The guilt clawed at the back of her mind, and as much as she wanted to beg Natasha in the moment to let her starve so she could follow her family to the grave it would not solve anything. She and Pietro had joined Hydra to change the world for the better and now with the Avengers Wanda had the opportunity to do so, provided they did not kick her out. She had to try and honor him somehow even if she did not deserve it.
She whimpered quietly as she struggled to believe Natasha when she claimed it had not been her fault though not quite getting there. The agent seemed to genuinely believe it though from what she had sensed from the other woman, and it was a small comfort though even the thought of comfort would start to make her skin crawl. The clean clothes, warm bed, and full stomach all reminded her that Pietro would never get a chance to feel these things. He would never taste oranges again, the sweet flavor light and biting on her tongue, and it filled her with a crushing sadness that she could not comprehend.
Burying her face in the pillow, the tears would not stop coming and a few sobs escaped. Wanda cried until sleep began to pull her under, and one last thought drifted through her mind. She could feel every last person on the planet and there would still be this emptiness around her, this terrible hollowed out sensation in her chest because she could no longer feel the one person she was looking for.
/
A light knock on her door woke her up with a little start, immediately followed by Natasha's smoky voice, "Wanda, are you awake?"
She looked at the alarm clock by her bed and the time read 9:30 on the dot. Wanda sat up as Natasha pushed open the door with another serving tray in hand. One of the first thing Wanda noticed was her telepathy was back under control, as she was not inundated with the other woman's emotions. The Sokovian almost wished she could feel Natasha at the moment; she put the thought out of her mind when the woman gently told her, "Come have some breakfast, please."
Dutifully, Wanda slipped out of bed and gingerly lowered herself in the chair across from the Black Widow. She did not want to eat but she knew eating would be the good choice. So she barely managed to keep the grimace off of her face as Natasha set a bowl of oatmeal topped with blueberries and maple syrup. Despite her reluctance, the food was delicious, the oatmeal warm and sweet from the amber syrup and the blueberries contrastingly cool and tart. Natasha ate with her again, sitting back in her chair casually with one knee up and holding her bowl close to her chest. Her posture was relaxed but Wanda could tell she was watching her carefully and she tried not to be self-conscious under her gaze. When she finished her bowl, Natasha set it back on the tray asking, "Would you like anything else to eat?"
"No.. thank you." She added politely.
"Alright, Fury and Hill will be here in about an hour." Natasha informed her standing with the tray. "We're going to meet in the living room, we passed through it on the way in. Wash your face and brush your teeth and I'll come get you when everyone is ready, okay?"
Natasha seemed to be waiting for some kind of response so Wanda said, "Okay."
"I'll be back at 11:00." The agent restated and left her on her own again. Wanda sat at the table for a moment biting on her thumb. Worry and doubt suddenly roiled in her stomach. What if they said she could not stay? What if they said she could not be an Avenger anymore? Where would she go? Back to Sokovia? Not even considering the fact that it was barely a country anymore, there was nothing left for her there. She stood from her chair as if to walk away from her thoughts and into the bathroom. Focusing on the simple tasks Natasha asked of her, Wanda took the bar of soap from the shower and washed her face in the sink. Her face could not really be dirty; she had only just showered yesterday and slept in linens that had probably never been used before, but it felt refreshing to have the cold water splashing on her skin. Then she scrubbed her teeth with the toothbrush already stocked in the bathroom and even ran a brush through her unruly hair.
Once finished Wanda stopped and appraised herself. Her cheeks had a false-pink hue from the chilly water, her mouth felt clean and minty, and her hair looked as best it could, given its wavy, wayward nature. Despite all that the teenager could see was how weak and sickly she looked. The sweater she wore too big and dwarfing her too-thin frame, she had dark circles under her eyes and her skin was already fading to a ghostly pale color. Whatever she saw in the mirror could definitely not be a part of the Avengers. She left the bathroom more worried than before, sitting on the end of the bed to wait for Natasha to return.
It was not long thought when the spy tapped on her door again, "Wanda, ready to come out? "
Wanda got to her feet with dread and went to join her in the hall. As she pushed open the door, she made a spilt second decision before stepping out. However the Black Widow took one look at her and said, "Wanda, no."
The girl crossed her arms over her stomach and glared down at Natasha. She had slipped into her glamour, so she appeared to be the older, healthier version of herself and now taller than the other woman. They had a little stand off and when Wanda would not budge, Natasha pressed, "Wanda, you can't walk around like this anymore. It's not honest and we have to be honest with each other."
"No." Wanda still refused. It was one thing to be herself in front of Clint with his diligent patience and Natasha with her quiet strength that almost felt protective, but to be in a room with strangers with all eyes on her was a different story.
"Wanda. You have to go to the meeting as yourself. I know it's hard but you're a kid and people need to know to treat you like one. It will be all right, I promise." As Natasha's voice hardened a bit, her resolve began to crumble. The teenager looked down, her arms unfolding and falling limply at her sides. She wanted to trust Natasha that it would be all right, but she felt like unbridled panic could consume her at any moment and this was her last line of defense.
"Please.. I can't" She hated that her voice shook so much.
"Hey." The woman's soft tone made Wanda look back into her eyes. She watched as Natasha raised her hand to rest softly at her elbow, the touch was warm and something else nice that Wanda could not identify. "I wouldn't take you anywhere if I thought if wasn't safe."
Finally Wanda sniffed, and a solitary tear rolled down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away and was then looking up at Natasha having let go of the illusion around her. Natasha gently squeezed her arm before pulling away, "Good. I know this is hard so thank you. You ready to go now?"
Wanda swiped at her eyes to ensure any lingering tears were gone and nodded. Natasha led them out to the main room where they had exited from the elevators yesterday, an elegantly furnished living room with white furniture and a grand fireplace. She hesitated when she saw the people already seated there. A surly looking man in an eyepatch sat facing her in an armchair and a poised woman stood to the right of him with some kind of electronic tablet in hand. Clint sat on the long couch closer to the man Natasha called Fury and Captain Rogers turned in his own armchair across from him to watch her enter. She heard a whispered 'it's okay' from Natasha and Clint pulled his lips back in a staged grin, gesturing at the seat next to him, "Hey kid. Come on over."
Wanda moved farther into the room, Steve giving her a small, kind smile as she passed him and took a seat next to Clint. Natasha sat down on her other side sort of behind her as she turned to eye the two new people also eyeing her. Fury leaned forward and started in a no-nonsense kind of way, "Wanda Maximoff, I'm Nick Fury and this is Maria Hill. We have a few questions we'd like you to answer. Then we're going to talk about the plan moving forward."
Her eyes flitted to Clint and then back at Natasha worryingly, "Are you kicking me out? Clint said I could be an Avenger."
"No, you aren't being kicked out, I promise." Natasha said in a soothing, even tone. "But when Clint said you could be an Avenger he thought you were an adult. We can't take a minor out on missions with us, so you are benched for now."
"But I can help-"
"You can help when you're old enough." The woman said firmly.
"There will be time to discuss that later." Fury interjected impatiently. "I want to know about these powers of yours. Strucker had a lot of data deep-sixed, so tell me about the nature of his experiments. How did you get them?"
Wanda was still looking at Natasha who nodded encouragingly to her. She shifted to face the man again, "Pietro and I, we touched the Mind Stone."
The already quiet room suddenly seemed even quieter. Wanda glanced around nervously at the adults until Maria Hill broke the silence, "You're sure you touched the Mind Stone? The readings we have on it are.. Well it's not survivable even for a short amount of time."
"Out of all the volunteers we were the only ones to survive." Wanda confirmed. "We- we didn't know that until after the fact."
"Do you know why you two survived?" Fury asked.
She shook her head, "If they- if Hydra knew they never told us."
"How old were you when this happened?" He followed up.
Wanda had to think carefully about the timeline as she mapped it out for them, "The bombed killed our parents when we were 8. They sent us to an orphanage for about a year, but it was a horrible place, so we ran away to the streets. We tried to follow around resistance groups for a couple of years, but they all said we were too young to join. When we were 11, we heard about the base outside of town accepting volunteers.. They didn't care how old we were."
"What was it like touching the stone?"
"I don't remember touching it.. I just remember a dream, or a vision, of the silhouette of a woman in a bright, shining light with a headdress on." Wanda remembered distantly.
"A headdress? What, like with feathers?" Fury sounded incredulous.
"No, like a traditional Sokovian fortune teller." She corrected him. Maria leaned down to put her tablet in front of his face, probably having pulled up an image for him for reference. He nodded and she withdrew. He went on apparently not know what to make of it.
"So you get these powers when you're 11. What did they have you do for 3 years?"
"I don't want to talk about that." The Sokovian said edgily and sealed her mouth shut into a grim line. Those first years at Hydra ran together in a vicious cycle of excruciating pain and loneliness that she did not have the strength to revisit. The scientists and soldiers had pushed them to the limits of existence to try and figure out how their powers worked and how far they could go. It was an onslaught of experiments to see how long they could go without food, water, or sleep, forcing them to use their powers to the brink of collapse or in dangerous conditions, blood draws, tissue biopsies, and bone marrow samples without anesthesia that made her shudder at the very thought. The man looked like he was about to press the issue, but Natasha definitively spoke up.
"Move on, Fury."
He looked disgruntled but begrudgingly shifted to a different topic. "When did you start appearing older?"
"Up until the last year," Wanda recalled, "they kept Pietro and I in separate cells, we could not see each other much. But our powers grew, and they could not keep us apart. I think.. they knew they would not be able to contain us soon, so they started to trust us, to let us out. Being older meant they would leave us alone more."
"And what else can your powers do?" Fury inquired.
Wanda chewed her lip and shrugged then looked back at Natasha uncertainly. The woman assured her, "Just answer the best you can."
"I can move things with my mind. I can use the red magic to shoot or like a forcefield.. Um, telepathy." She spoke haltingly, not really having a language around describing her powers.
"Telepathy like when you went into everyone's minds in Johannesburg?"
Wanda flinched but shook her head, "No, the nightmares- that is different. I can just read thoughts or sense feelings. I, I don't always have control."
"So can you tell what I am feeling right now?" Fury demanded. She stared at him, not sure if she should dip into his thoughts but he did ask her to. Peering timidly, Wanda found his mind dense and teeming with secrets but there was one loud thought as if he were trying to block out all others. She did not bother telling him it did not work like that, if she wanted to look she could delve in and see as much as she wished. What he was trying to do was like trying to dam a waterfall with a sieve.
Instead she just recited the words he was projecting, "You feel like having a slice of cherry pie from the diner on 22nd Street."
Surprisingly, he chuckled and slouched back in his seat, "Well goddamn, we could sell tickets."
If this lessened the tension in the air at his glib remark, Wanda could not tell, feeling like her muscles were painfully taut and stomach churning uncomfortably. Fury let his amusement fade as he continued, "Like Agent Romanoff said, you're going to be allowed to stay but there will be rules that you must follow. You can follow rules, can't you?"
She ticked her head down in confirmation and he proceeded to lay them out. "First and foremost, no mind tricks, no going into peoples minds and messing around. There is a zero-tolerance policy on this, one strike and you will be out."
"She gets it." Natasha interrupted him shortly and they shared an annoyed look at each other. Wanda for her part tried to shrink into herself as she felt her cheeks burning with shame at having done that to them, not only having done it but done it willingly with delight at bettering her enemies. God, she had been so, so angry and now it was all gone; snuffed out under this cold, barren sadness and intense fear at finding herself completely alone in the world. She tried to let go of her morbid thoughts and focus on what Fury said.
"As I was saying," He began again. "Second rule, you'll train and learn how to responsibly use your powers. Third rule, you will get an education. And fourth..." He trailed off momentarily as if coming up with something on the spot. "No breaking the law, no one likes a litter bug. Do you think you can handle all that?
"Yes." Wanda promised and though he studied her with a penetrative gaze for a little longer, he eventually relaxed marginally appearing to be satisfied.
"Alright, Agents the floor is yours."
Natasha sat forward and so did Clint so they could also look at each other as they talked. The woman acted as their spokesperson, "Wanda we wanted to talk to you about where you will be staying. At first you will stay with me and Steve and the rest of the Avengers while we work on helping you get healthy and training your powers. We will be staying here at the Tower for another month or so then we'll go to a training facility once construction has finished on it. And then…"
She gave Clint a look that cued him to pick up where she left off, "Then you will come to permanently with me and my family on our farm. Would you like that?"
"I'm not going now but you are?" Wanda asked Clint, both worried about him leaving and relieved that she did not have go with him yet.
"That's right. My wife Laura is pregnant. She is due soon so once the baby is born and we're more settled and you're feeling better you can come out to stay." He explained.
"When?"
He rubbed his palm as he said thoughtfully, "It's hard to say. Could be three months, could be six. We'll just have to play it by ear. Sound good?"
She did not really know what to think of the proposal. She could barely think about getting out of bed without Natasha ordering her to let alone knowing what she would want in the next few months. However, Wanda supposed she had little choice in the matter, so she heard herself agreeing mechanically. "Yes. Good."
"I've got the papers for you to sign, Nat." Maria leaned down and pulled a folder of papers out of a briefcase resting by her feet. She laid it in front of Natasha on the coffee table, flipping it open and pointing to a line at the bottom of the page. "Sign here."
The Black Widow picked up the fountain pen clipped to the folder and with a quick swish of her hand signed the document. Maria flipped to other pages, and after a few more signatures and initials she scooped the paperwork back up and tucked it into the briefcase. Picking up it up she said with an official air, "I'll push it through the proper channels, and you'll be her guardian until further notice."
"And we'll be around to check on your progress." Fury pushed himself up out of the chair and he and Hill sauntered off to the elevators. As the elevator doors closed around them and they disappeared Wanda felt as though she could breathe a little easier, feeling like she had made it through a trial. Captain Rogers stood next and put his hands on his hips in a disarming kind of way. He had been a calm, stoic presence during the conversation, just observing and yet ready to mediate if necessary. But now seemed a bit lighter and more affable as if his job was done, "You did good, kiddo."
He praised her than shifted his attention to Natasha, "You looking to beat anyone up today?"
"Sure, I can squeeze in kicking your ass before lunch." She pretended to look at a nonexistent watch on her wrist.
"Gym in 30?"
"Make it 60." The woman countered back.
"Sure thing. I'll see you later, Wanda." He again gave her a smile and for some reason shook Clint's hand before he headed out of the room as well.
Clint started then with a little bit of hesitation in his voice, "Wanda, there is one more thing. I have to leave today."
"Now?" The girl asked, mildly alarmed at the sudden change.
"Yes, now. I'm sorry, I've got to go help my wife. But Natasha is going to be here for you. And we'll get you a cell phone so you can call and text me if you want to." He promised.
She chewed her lip, "Will you be back?"
"Yeah, I'll come visit when I can and I'm sure Natasha will bring you to visit. And.. and I'll come back when it's time to say goodbye to your brother." His last few words tore at her heart, her mouth filling with the hot, coppery feeling that indicated tears were coming.
"We can talk about the later." Natasha placed her hand on Wanda's shoulder with the same delicate warmth as before and she was able to keep the tears at bay. "It's okay. Just say goodbye to Clint for now."
"Goodbye." Her voice came out small and scared. Clint stood and she automatically stood with him. The archer pulled her into a half hug that should have been comforting but all she felt was a pulse of guilt from him that made her want to pull away. He held her back at arm's length and said with some strained emotion, "Bye, kid. You'll be alright."
And with that he too exited the room. Wanda breathed heavily out of her nose and turned to face Natasha who lingered behind her, patient and present.
"How are you feeling?" She asked in a way that felt like she genuinely cared about the answer.
Her feelings swirled constantly like the red magic from her fingers, impossible to pin down, except for one particularly looming sensation the pressed down on her. "I'm tired."
"Do you want to go lie back down for a while?"
"Yes, please." Her eyes slipped shut for a moment as if begging for relief. Natasha took her back to the bedroom and let her get in bed. Before she laid down the woman asked her to have a glass of water, which she drank without compliant. Exhaustion was already overcoming her as her head hit the pillow. She barely noticed Natasha leaving the room and she sunk into unconscious.
/
Natasha let her sleep until dinner time again. This time bringing tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich split in half for them to eat. This creamy soup was better than the watery, salty broth they had last night, and Natasha showed her she how to dunk her sandwich into the soup, which somehow made it better. Then like the night before the woman asked her to brush her teeth and she could go to bed. Wanda complied, once again ready to escape into the blackness of sleep. As she crawled back onto the mattress this time, Natasha did not falter in helping her pull the comforter up around her shoulders.
"Good night, Wanda." She said in the slightly crooning voice of hers.
"Good night." Her accent felt thick on her tongue as she closed her eyes. Wanda felt Natasha's eyes on her for a long moment, though she found she did not really mind being under her gaze now. Then suddenly the woman was gone, her bedroom door clicking shut before she realized Natasha had crossed the room.