"How did the sit down go with Fury?" Tony entered the kitchen where Natasha was making a post workout protein shake after having sparred with Steve for longer than they had intended.
"It went fine." She said unconcernedly, not looking up from her task. There had been a moment during the meeting when Maria had laid down the guardianship paperwork in front of her that she had a spasm of doubt. There was no way the Black Widow should be left in charge of a child let alone one so fragile. She wanted to thrust the pen at Steve, clearly a better choice, or tell Clint he should just sign the documents. But she had come too far and did not want Wanda to think her misgivings had anything to do with her and everything to do with Natasha's own felt inadequacy. The most she could do now was to help her the best she could until the girl could be passed off into much safer hands.
"Fury told her about the rules? She knows what will happen if she breaks them?"
"Yes, Tony. You were listening, weren't you?" Natasha snapped out of her thoughts as she became annoyed at his questions. Doing little to keep the exasperation out of her voice, she said, "Fury very explicitly and emphatically told her the rules and what would happen."
When she had told the guys that they could not be there, that Wanda was not ready to face everyone all at once, Sam and Vision had been understanding but Tony had argued with her about attending, insisting that he should be there too. Before things could get too heated, Steve stepped in and came up with the compromise that FRIDAY would pipe the audio to him so he could at least listen in.
"Yeah, well, I just wanted to be sure." He scratched at his cheek agitatedly.
"I get the reservations Tony, but she's a kid." Natasha looked at him directly for the first time he came into room. While she did not share in his reservations she understood why he still had them. Fear bred fear. Wanda was afraid of Tony, so Tony was afraid of Wanda, and they were stuck in the vicious cycle. However that was a problem for another day.
"She isn't just a kid." Tony rebutted. "She is powerful, will probably be the most powerful out of us someday."
"Like Steve said then, all the more reason for her to stay with us and train." No matter how much Tony protested he could not argue with that fact. This was the safest place for Wanda to stay, for her and everyone else.
"Yeah.." He leaned back against the counter. "Where is the little witch anyways?"
"In her room sleeping."
"Shouldn't she be out here doing whatever teenagers do? Facetiming or doing a subtweet." Tony seemed insistent on being purposeful obtuse for this conversation.
Natasha leveled him with a look, "She is grieving, Tony. She needs the rest."
"I'm just saying all she had done since she got here is sleep it seems. Maybe it's not the healthiest thing for her to be doing."
"Wanda isn't healthy." The agent reasoned back at him. "It's more than just the grief. She's gone for years malnourished and subjected to god knows what at Hydra. I don't know if she even has the physical strength to do much else."
Before Tony could respond, Steve came in carrying a stack of assorted shipping boxes, "Nat, these came for you just now."
"Shopping spree?" The billionaire raised an eyebrow.
"Wanda needed things to wear." She glossed over quickly, not really wanting to hear Tony's opinion on that. "While we are all here, we need to talk.."
Steve set the boxes down on the kitchen counter and the men stared at her expectantly as she said one name, "Pietro."
Steve and Tony both seemed to flinch at the reminder, dropping their gaze in discomfort. Steve looked back up at her first, "Have you been down to see him?"
"No, not yet, but Clint did before he left. He said.." After going down to the medical wing, Clint had found her and with a distant, agonized look in his eyes said he is a boy, just a lost boy. "He said that he is young as young as she is."
The reality weighed heavily around them. Pietro Maximoff had only been an Avenger for less than a day but that did not alleviate the burning feeling in Natasha's chest that one of their own had fallen. The team was supposed to protect each other, and he slipped through the cracks. Finding out that he was only a young teenager was a particularly cruel twist of the knife. Tony floundered clearly struggling with similar thoughts, "We didn't know he was a kid. How could we have known?"
"Doesn't really make you feel any better though, does it?" Steve mumbled.
Iron Man sighed, "No, not really."
Natasha cleared her throat, "Putting that aside we need to focus on what we can do for him now. I'll handle talking to Wanda, but if you guys have any thoughts about how to put him to rest I'd like to hear them."
"Do you think she would want him buried in Sokovia?" Steve asked.
"Maybe.. But where in Sokovia? It's not like he can be placed with his parents. Their graves have undoubtedly been destroyed. And with her in America now, I'm not sure it would not make sense."
"Cremation?" Tony proposed.
"And have her keep them in her room?" Steve sounded vaguely scandalized.
"Yeah, scratch that." Tony rubbed at his goatee. Then he added with more thought, not looking at either of them as he talked. "The training facility upstate is going to have plenty of land around it. I can think of a nice little glen that particularly sings. Could be a nice place, I don't know."
Natasha considered his idea. Since she would be taking Wanda out there with the other new recruits when construction finished to spend time training before she went to live on the farm it would give her opportunity to visit his memorial. And even after moving in with Clint, they would be back and forth enough to bring her to visit. She might even spend her summers training with Natasha depending on how everything went. The agent nodded, "I'll take it to her tomorrow. Thanks Tony."
"Say we get a greenlight for the location then, when are you thinking of having the ah.. service?" His last word lagged uncomfortably.
"I think the sooner the better. I'd say a week out. You think it can be done?"
"Pepper can do it." He stated confidently. "She is flying in tomorrow, and I'll get with her. You can filter any questions she has for the girl… And then Pep and I will be flying out to Malibu for a while."
The way he announced his trip out to California made Natasha pause and prompted Steve to asked with a raised brow, "And then will you be joining us at the compound?"
"Ah. No, I'm going to try the civilian life for a while… The truth is things have not been great with Pepper. There has been some, distance. And I need to be there with her." Tony confessed in a rare moment of vulnerability from the man.
"I'm sorry to hear things haven't been going well, Tony." Steve said sympathetically. "But she's a good woman and you're a good man. You'll figure it out."
"Thanks, Cap." Tony mimed a smile before his face fell neutral once again. He started backing out of the room, "I'll have FRIDAY email you the blueprints for the buildings and the surrounding grounds with a few ideal places marked for you to show her if she agrees."
"Thanks Tony." Natasha said sincerely as he awkwardly waved himself out of the kitchen.
Natasha and Steve turned to each other after his departure. She found her tongue first, "Help a gal take these packages to her room? My hands are full."
The spy held up the single glass with her yet to be consumed shake with a coy smirk. Steve grinned at her, knowing full well that she would be more than capable to move them herself but ever the consummate gentleman he scooped the boxes back up into his arms and followed her.
As they walk back to her hall, Steve asked, "Are we taking these to your room or Wanda's?"
"Mine. I'll show them to her later. I think she's had enough for the day."
"How is she doing really? Is she going to be okay?" Steve worried over the girl.
Natasha's voice instinctively lowered as they came into her hallway though judging by the state she left Wanda in she could not imagine that she was awake, "She is just so hollowed out right now, and what is there… it's not good. She has a long road ahead of her."
"But if we can put some good in there?" Captain America proposed ever the optimist.
"She is strong. Wanda has survived this long.. I think she'll be okay." Natasha said, thinking about how she would be there to make sure that she would be.
/
The next morning Natasha sat at the little table with a Stark pad, half looking at the screen to declassify files and half keeping her eye on Wanda who was pushing scrambled eggs around her plate before reluctantly lifting her fork up for a tiny bite. The girl had at least eaten her toast, but Natasha wanted her to finish her eggs thinking about her protein intake, so they sat, and she waited. Natasha lifted her own fork for the last bite of her eggs and internally cringed, realizing that they were rather bland and cold and inedible in her opinion. She conceded and reached for Wanda's plate, letting her set her fork down on it before stacking it on top of her own. She pushed a short glass of orange juice toward the teenager, and Wanda immediately took a little sip out of it. Then a little more when it seemed she realized she liked the taste. Wanda kept her eyes on Natasha in a kind of searching way. The agent waited for her to ask whatever question she had, though she still ended up being surprised when she heard a soft, "Natasha?"
"Yes?" She lowered the tablet to give her full attention.
"Can I see Pietro today?"
The question was small and pleading and had to be handled carefully. Natasha intended to bring up Pietro during their breakfast and now would be the opportunity. Still did not make it any easier as she began delicately, "Yes, you can sit with your brother for a little today, but first we need to talk about arranging a proper burial for him."
Tears inevitably sprang to her eyes, and she shook her head in disagreement, her lower lip starting to tremble. The sight of the girl so upset had Natasha ready to allow her the denial for a bit longer but giving in would not be the best thing for Wanda. "Pietro can't stay here forever, Wanda. And I know it's hard, but this will help you say goodbye."
"I don't want to say goodbye." She fruitlessly wiped away the tears on her cheeks even though more kept spilling down to replace them.
Natasha exhaled heavily, trying to think of anything to say that could make the situation better but everything felt like a dull, ineffectual platitude. Finally she leaned forward and slowly covered Wanda's hand with her own, trying to convey something more than just her words, "Sometimes we don't get what we want in life. You've had more taken from you than most and that's unfair. And I know it's unfair for me to ask this of you, but I need you to endure a little more. We have to talk about this Wanda, okay?"
The girl cried more earnestly for a few minutes; her face crumpled with sorrow. Natasha continued to hold her hand and patiently waited until her tears started to subside. Then she stood and went to the bathroom to get tissues for Wanda to clean up her face. After blowing her nose and with a final sniff, the Sokovian softly assented, "O-okay. I can talk."
"Okay, good." Natasha felt unbearable cruel asking a child to help plan her brother's funeral, but she was his only family, and he was hers. Wanda needed this closure she reminded herself as she began on the painful subject. "We need to decide where Pietro will be laid to rest. If you know where you want that to be we can make that happen. If you don't know, we have an idea for you if you'd like."
"Yes, please." Wanda asked for her to continue.
"You remember we mentioned will be an Avengers compound that we will being staying at for a while?" Natasha waited for the girl to nod, indicating she remembered, "It's in upstate New York, that means it's not like the city here. There will be space and grass and trees. You'll be able visit him regularly if you want. I can show you some spots that could be nice, peaceful."
"Yes, okay." Wanda said and Natasha pulled up the blueprints on the tablet and explained the layout to her, taking her time to show her where the training rooms were and where the residences would be then the points on the map where Tony had denoted possible locations. Wanda watched blankly as she tapped the areas showing her a field in the north, a garden close to the residence, a place to the west with a view of a lake, then when she showed her the images of the forest right along the tree line that formed a natural cove Wanda reached out to touch the screen.
"Here." Her thin finger traced along the branches of the tree. "When they started to let us out, we would go to the forest. Pietro loved to run through the trees. I could feel his happiness from running freely, even when I wasn't feeling happy."
Her voice quivered at the end though she did not start crying again. Natasha swallowed back her own emotion, "It's a beautiful place. Maybe you can tell him about it today when you see him."
The teenager looked at her forlornly, "Pietro is not there. I can't feel him anymore."
"I don't know how it feels to be connected to someone like that, beyond a physical touch." Natasha said after a moment of silence as she tried to gather her thoughts for Wanda. "But I know about losing people. You might not be able to feel him and see him the way you used to. And I know it seems impossible but there will a time when you feel something other than this pain and it will remind you of Pietro's happiness, or sadness, or anger and in those moments you can feel him. In that way he will always be with you."
Wanda gazed at her with slightly widened eyes, an expression Natasha had come to associate with her absorbing and processing information. Then the focus in her eyes withdrew and tiredness seemed to seep back into her posture. She drank more orange juice and asked, "Are we done? Can I see Pietro?"
"We can be done for now. The team and I can arrange most everything. I am going to have to ask you more questions later on."
"When?" Wanda could not ask anything beyond that one word, nevertheless Natasha understood she was not asking about the questions.
"We don't have an exact day yet, but it will be in about a week. I'll let you know as soon as it's set." The agent promised. The girl let out a shuddering breath and nodded. Once she calmed a little more, Natasha led her back down to the medical level. She knew the guys were training in the gym so they would not have to worry about being startled by any of them. Wanda rushed into the hospital room and took up her spot next to Pietro while Natasha crept in behind her.
This was the first time Natasha had been back down to medical and it was time for her to see Pietro with her own eyes. She moved in closer, still trying to give Wanda space as well and still trying to look through the glass. Underneath she could see the face of Pietro, the face of a boy forever on the cusp of 15 years old. He looked tall though not quite as tall as he had been and the fullness and strength in his muscles had faded to all lank and limb. His silver blonde hair fell away from his face showing the same cheekbones he shared with his sister but the squareness to his jaw had softened and rough five o'clock shadow had disappeared. Her heart ached at the image of the young twins in front of her, opposites of each other in too many ways now.
"I'll be back when it's time to come back up." Natasha said though her words were barely acknowledged as Wanda spent every moment she could staring at her brother. Turning to leave, the agent heard the girl start speaking in Sokovian. Her Sokovian was not the greatest, but she thought she caught something about a forest and happy.
/
When the elevator doors opened, Natasha was met with the sight of Tony and Pepper talking in the living room. Talking being a euphemism for arguing. Pepper had her arms crossed over her chest and Tony gesturing a little more wildly than usual, but they were very close to each other which Natasha took as a good sign. When they noticed her appearance, the couple immediately stopped their discussion and turned to look at Natasha. The agent expertly diverted any awkwardness as she stepped out of the elevator as if nothing were amiss, "Hey Pepper. How was your flight in?"
"Good, thank you Natasha." She said back pleasantly then continued in a more serious tone, "I've heard about the poor girl. How is she?"
"She is sitting with her brother for a bit. Honestly, she isn't very well but I think she'll be okay." Natasha gave her a tight-lipped smile.
"Good." Pepper nodded with an empathetic shine in her eyes.
"Were you able to speak with her about the locations?" Tony asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"Yes," Natasha tried not to think back too much onto the conversation they had and how horrible it had made her feel. "She chose the spot on the east side of the property, the clove along the tree line."
"That will be very lovely." Pepper then took out her phone and began typing something into it, probably already setting several things into motion at once.
"Do you need me to do anything to help for the preparations?" Natasha asked.
The other woman barely glanced up at her, "No, I'll be sending you questions for you to make some decisions or for you to ask Wanda if you think she should decide. Tony mentioned you've been the point person for her. You can just focus on taking care of her and we'll take care of the rest."
"Thank you for doing this, Pepper." She said, incredibly grateful for her competence and compassion at the moment.
"Of course, I will do whatever I can to help." Pepper then added, "Besides, after all these years I'm used to cleaning up Tony's messes."
The air got sucked out of the room as she said the last part. Realizing what she had said, Pepper finally stopped what she was doing and turned to Tony with genuine remorse, "Tony, I'm sorry. That was-"
"A shot well-deserved." He gave her a sad smile, then slipping an arm around her and kissing her temple. "Come on, let's continue this up in the penthouse. Romanoff."
The billionaire gave her a mock salute to bid her goodbye. Natasha set off toward her room to get changed into some workout gear to go catch up with the boys in the gym, already putting Tony and Pepper out of her head. They could take care of their own problems.