Author's Note: Look—I'm 80% sure it hasn't been two months since the last time I posted. Thank you so much for your kind words. I wish I was better at responding. :)
Disclaimer: Hет.
Warnings: Injury
Chapter Eight:
It takes them about two days—at least according to Nova, who's counting the hours on the odd alien clock she can't read—before they spot Earth in the distance. Her stomach is doing flip flops of relief and panic as she sees her home approaching. The Avengers will be there. Her brother. They'll ask questions she's not sure she has the answers to. But they'll be there.
She's on Earth.
They survived.
She's home.
Wanda manages to direct them both to New York, and Nova, hazy and mostly unresponsive, flicks on a switch to let the ship land on autopilot on Avengers Tower. The Quinjet that should be there isn't, leaving them ample space. She silently prays that someone is still in the Tower, because she doesn't know if she can handle coming all this way for it to be empty.
FRIDAY should be, though, since she exists in several places at once. It will be something. She can work with something.
The lights dim in the ship once they land, and Wanda's gut churns in apprehension, not wanting to be in the dark. She hobbles to her feet and stretches stiff muscles for a second as best she can before moving to Nova. She grabs his arm without asking for permission and hauls him up to his feet. He moans a little listlessly, hand straying somewhat to his side.
He's leaking blood everywhere. She tried to patch the blaster wound with the poorly stuffed first-aid kit she found, but it only did so much. She thinks it's infected.
Wanda grits her teeth at the weight. Nova might be raggedly thin, but he's tall. Bones are heavy.
The two of them stagger through the pod, then down the ramp she kicks the button for to open. Wanda adjusts Nova's arm around her shoulders, slowly shuffling them out onto the deck. Her mouth tastes oddly dry, and the weight is making her balance tip. The gash on her leg is straining beneath it all, but she's hardly about to go and drop Nova. He can barely stand, let alone cross the short distance to the inside of the Tower.
A little closer, and then they can get medical aid.
Just a few more steps.
She squints into the glass doors, trying to see if there's anyone upstairs. She can't immediately spot any of her teammates, and feels her heart sink with disappointment. She wants someone to be here, childish as it is. She doesn't want to deal with this herself.
Wanda exhales and inhales deeply, continuing to slowly move forward. Step by aching step. They don't stop, despite her desire to sit down and give up.
It's as she's reaching for the handle to the penthouse that Nova suddenly stiffens. Her hand stills over the handle, and she looks up at him for an explanation. His eyes are still half-lidded, but not quite as listless as they were before. She blinks heavily, trying to keep herself awake.
"What—?" she starts to question, letting her powers surge to her fingertips. She can't sense any threats nearby, only—
Oh.
Oh.
Wanda's eyes brim with thick tears as the familiar presence touches against her own, and she turns towards the door, throat thick. She swallows, but tears still leak down her cheeks before the door is thrust open sharply and a figure blurs in her vision before she's wrapped in a tight hug. It's a little awkward, given her position and Nova still leaning against her, but Wanda buries her face into her brother's shoulder and lets him cling to her.
"Wanda," Pietro whispers, gripping the back of her head tightly. His arms are strong, the promise of protection they've been since they were born. His voice is thick with disbelief, as if he doesn't believe what he's seeing. Wanda doesn't know if she believes it herself. A part of her is waiting for the pain to snap her back into that cell, alone and losing her mind.
"Pietro," she says in turn, and a sob escapes her in relief. She inhales the scent of him deeply. Coffee, bed, and old books. There's a faint scent of one of the air fresheners that she normally keeps open in their room. Bruce introduced them to her, and Wanda's been addicted ever since. She forgot about it. It's raspberry scented.
Pietro smells like home.
Her brother pulls back and grips her face with one hand, resting a hand on her shoulder with the other. "Are you hurt? What happened? You're pale. Where are you hurt? Strelyat', you look terrible, sestra."
She can't get herself to answer. She's too busy staring at his face, trying to memorize every detail. His eyes are shadowed, heavily, leaving them oddly dim and red-rimmed. He's lost weight, leaving him looking a little haggard and tired. He cut his hair recently, but it's cropped and uneven. She normally cut it for him. Their natural brown is poking at the roots of the white that appeared after HYDRA.
He's dressed in a Star Wars T-shirt and sweatpants, with that stupid black jacket with white streaks up the arms over his shoulders. Given the hour, she imagines he was sleeping before they arrived. FRIDAY, she suspects, is how he knew they were here. The AI doesn't have speakers on the roof, normally the only reason they're out here is for silence or post-mission. Tony didn't see a need.
Her brother is right there.
She wants to reach a hand up and touch him, to confirm that she's not dreaming, but she can't let go of Nova. Instead, she leans into his hand on her face and forces her lips to part. Her words are soft, "We need medical. Now. Can you get ahold of Dr. Cho or Bruce?"
"'We…'" Pietro repeats, head tilting somewhat before he looks to her left and sees Nova. His face flickers through a dozen emotions all at once. Surprise, resignation, anger, frustration, and others. But he doesn't take it in stride like she half-hoped he would. He doesn't just nod and agree to get them both treatment. His eyes widen with recognition, the faintest, "you…" being whispered.
Then he releases her face and yanks a gun from somewhere on his person, and fires.
Wanda throws up a shield before she can remember moving, and the bullet smacks against her magic. Normally, when she isn't as tired and running off of empty fumes, the sensation is little more than raindrops, now it feels like a punch to the gut. She crumples with a cry, letting go of Nova. The two of them land in a heap, the bullet between them.
"Wanda," Pietro kneels down next to her, hand hovering over her arm. "I'm sorry," he stammers, "I'm sorry. I didn't...oh gosh,"
She grabs for his wrist. Her fingers feel raw and strange. His skin is cold, but she keeps eye-contact with her brother. "Pietro," she says carefully, trying to keep her words from slurring. "Don't. He helped me. He's my…" she pauses for a moment. What is he? They're allies, in a way, she guesses, but it's something more now. He got her out. He betrayed his father for her. His family, even if the rebellion was mutual. "Friend."
"'Friend,'" Pietro sounds a little doubtful.
She gives a small nod. "Please help him. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him."
"You wouldn't have left if it wasn't for him." Pietro snaps.
She squeezes his wrist pleadingly, "Brat, please, trust me. I owe him my life."
Pietro rocks a little, but relents with a sigh and nod. He sags, seeming to age a decade in front of her. "Fine. For you, not him...Let's just...get you both to medical." He gathers her into his arms, carefully cradling her as if she's something precious. She squeezes her eyes shut and wraps her arms around his neck. Pietro stands up, and hesitates for a moment before pressing a kiss against her forehead. "You're safe now, I promise,"
The wind blares past her ears, snapping harshly against her skin. She winces. It's been awhile since she traveled like this. As quickly as it started, it's over, and Pietro is setting her down on a cot, the lights to the room already on. FRIDAY. She smiles faintly, wanting to keep gripping when he lets go. But she doesn't, because he needs to get Nova.
Pietro squeezes her hand before vanishing. There's a faint whisper of noise, the shuffle of feet. Wanda forces her eyes open, and squints up towards the white ceiling. The overhead lights hurt, but not enough that she immediately pulls her gaze away.
"Welcome home, Ms. Maximoff," FRIDAY says softly.
She's in Avengers Tower.
She's not on Thanos's ship anymore. It's over. It's actually over.
"Thank you, FRIDAY," Wanda whispers. She hesitates for a moment, curiosity spiking, but dread sinking into her stomach. She flicks her gaze around the room until she spots one of the AI's cameras. She doesn't have to find it to address her, but it feels strange if she doesn't. "FRIDAY," she says quietly, "what day is it?"
FRIDAY is silent. Then, still in that soft tone—as if trying to spare her feelings—answers, "It's October the second, Ms. Maximoff. You've been missing for a little over five weeks."
Five.
Lila's birthday is August twenty-second. She missed all of September. The rest of August. It's October. The jolt of this is somewhat startling. The weeks spent on the ship felt like both an eternity and a heartbeat. Weeks. That's more than a month. A month, spent in that cell, having her brain parsed, torn apart, and then stuffed back together looking for information that she didn't have.
Pietro shoves through the door, blue blur coming to a stop behind him. He lays Nova down on the patient bed across from her, electing a soft moan from the young man. She half expects Pietro to leave it at that and return to her, but he doesn't, lifting up some of hastily wrapped bandages that Nova's blue sister did. Wanda can't see the skin from this angle, but she imagines that it's not good from the way that Pietro's hand still.
Her brother swears softly in their native tongue. "FRIDAY, what's the status on Dr. Cho?"
FRIDAY takes a moment to answer, "She says that she's about twenty minutes out. I don't know if we have that time, Mr. Maximoff, his vitals are dropping rapidly."
"He hasn't been truly conscious for the better part of two days," Wanda admits. She shoves up, forcing her aching body to keep going for just a little longer. She needs to make sure Nova will be okay, then she can sleep. Or pass out. Whatever of the two her body decides.
Her brother swears again.
"Ms. Maximoff, I don't recommend that course of action," FRIDAY warns. Pietro glances back at her, scowling somewhat, but she doesn't back down. Her leg is throbbing, but not enough to dissuade her. Pietro sighs, resigned, and turns back to Nova.
"What can I do?" Pietro asks, "Is there anything I can do?"
"He needs blood," FRIDAY answers, clipped. "But neither of your blood will be compatible with his biological system, from what my scanners are reading. Ms. Maximoff dropping him appears to have reopened the wound. It needs to be cleaned and stitched...and the blood."
"We don't have his blood." Pietro snaps, flicking from one end of the room to the other as he gathers medical supplies. Rags, water, antiseptic, needles, thread. Wanda sits there for a moment longer, trying to get herself to stand up. They have medical field training, everyone on the Avengers does, but that doesn't mean that a crash-course surgery was what they're been trained for.
"I know," FRIDAY says patiently, "I'm running a diagnostics on the other Avengers' stored bags."
Right. She'll have much better luck with that, considering most of them are human, and Bruce's blood is toxic. The only one she could possibly find any luck with is Steve. Or Thor.
Pietro grabs a pair of medical shears, moving back towards the cot. Wanda finally gets to her feet and staggers towards him, nearly face planting if not for her brother turning around and grabbing her by the shoulders. "You need to lay down." He says.
"I can't just sit there." She argues, shaking her head. "I can help. Let me help."
"Wanda," Pietro sighs, shutting his eyes for a brief moment as if trying to gather his patience together. "You're hurt. You're bleeding. The last thing you should be doing is playing doctor with me."
"I'm going to help," she says firmly. When his expression doesn't relent, she does, sagging somewhat. She rarely wins these fights with her brother. "At least let me sit next to him."
Pietro guides her towards the end of the hospital bed, and she sits down next to Nova's boots. Pietro eyes her for a moment once she's settled, as if expecting her to simply tip over. She doesn't, and he picks up the medical shears again. He grabs the edge of Nova's shirt before slipping the blade up the material. Wanda is a little more surprised than she cares to admit. She'd just sort of assumed that the sheers might break on impact.
But it's just cloth. Not armor. Nova lost that when Thanos demanded he remain in the cell.
Pietro pushes the clothing away from Nova's wound, then cuts the sodden fabric, pulling it away from the charred skin. He grimaces, and Wanda leans forward some, feeling her expression match his a moment later. The skin is blackened, red, blistered, charred, and weeping pus. It looks infected. It probably is. Above that are four gashes across his chest that closed a few hours after the initial injury. They aren't her main concern. That, though.
"What happened?" Pietro asks, picking up one of the rags and twisting off the cap of a water bottle. He dumps some of the water onto the rag before dabbing at the blaster wound. Nova flinches, but doesn't stir.
"Blaster wound," Wanda says, rubbing her fingers against her knee. "I think. It happened during our escape. Everything is blurred."
Everything up to that elevator, when Nova's siblings were supposed to kill them, but didn't. That is burned into her eyelids, something she can't stop thinking about. Especially the way that Nebula had gently picked Nova up and carried him towards that desk while Ebony swept everything off of it with a flick of his fingers.
They had seemed concerned. These people that tried to kill them. That were one of the sources of their suffering.
"'Our'?" Pietro repeats, wiping more grime away. The rag is coming away black.
"He defected," Wanda answers, eyeing the wound with disgust and horror. "They told him that he had to kill me, and he...wouldn't."
Pietro pauses for a second, then continues his work.
He finishes cleaning the wound as best he can, lips pressed together tightly. The silence is grating, but not because there's nothing to say. It's because there's too much, and not enough time. She wants to explain every gritty detail of her imprisonment, because Pietro would want it all, and she wants to know everything that's happened since she left with him, but they can't do that now.
Not until Nova is a little better. And her leg is treated.
Pietro takes the needle and threads it, turning back towards the long gash. She's not certain where he's going to stitch it given the damaged skin, but it is weeping blood sluggishly, so there's a need. Her brother wipes some sort of cream against the wound, then flickers. Even after two years, it's still weird seeing him jump into a faster speed than her normal plane of existence. The blue light follows him when he's running, but only if he jumps on that wavelength of light.
Because that what he does. He travels on different wavelengths of light like it's as normal as breathing. He couldn't do the faster speeds at first, after HYDRA finished with them, and Ultron, but it's been the better part of two years. While she's developed most of her abilities instantly, Pietro's came a little slower, but they came. And with it came the increased speed.
Nova's stitches are completed in between a single blink.
Pietro snips the thread, wiping the bloody needle. "That's going to make a mess," he mutters, "I don't think that I should have pushed so much against the burned skin."
"I don't think there was much of a choice," she sighs.
"Maybe not," Pietro submits, but still pushes his lips together, unhappy. He wipes more blood away and looks up at her, studying her face.
"What did they do to you?" His tone is soft, but his eyes are lethal.
She hesitates, her gaze flicking towards her mangled fingers without her consent. Her leg aches dully, and the small cuts on her face sting a little, but beyond that...she's just tired. A little hungry.
She shakes her head. "Nothing much."
Pietro snorts. "Wanda."
Her brow flickers and she looks at her twin. "Really, Pietro. I've come away worse from some of the missions."
He still looks doubtful. When she doesn't add, he points to Nova's bare chest. "Then why is he covered in scars? They're old, but not enough. If he defected and that's what they did to him than you—"
"What scars?" Wanda interrupts. Pietro silences, a brief flicker of surprise shadowing his face. She leans forward, towards Nova, and feels her face go white. She'd only been looking at the wound earlier. Not this.
It's a web work of scars. Some are long, others short. Stab wounds, burns, ugly patch jobs. He looks like someone sliced him open a dozen times then put him back together only because it was a necessity. Though the shirt is covering his shoulders, she thinks she spots the edge of a long laceration mark.
All of these are too red to be recent. The oldest are just barely beginning to whiten.
Wanda thinks she might be sick. "Oh." She whispers. She looks at her brother, and suddenly feels very young. "I didn't...I didn't know."
Pietro moves to her side, resting a hand against her face and letting her fall against his chest. His fingers slowly run across her hair. They sit in silence for a long minute.
These aren't the marks of war.
Wanda has scars of war.
That was torture.
There's nothing left. The words feel heavier now. She'd never thought...this wouldn't have been her first guess as to why he said that. Who did that to him? Who could do that? A quiet part of her says that she already knows.A quieter part wants to keep hiding from the truth. Wanda touched his head, when his blue sister was healing him. It was only for a moment, in an effort to calm, but she'd glimpsed his fears. And Nova was afraid of no one more than Thanos. Thanos, who cut him apart and put him back together until there was nothing left.
000o000
Dr. Cho arrives a few minutes later, when Pietro has settled her back into the other cot and is sitting with her. The woman moves in a flurry of nearly frantic action as she sets up IV's and double checks Pietro's work. She wraps the blaster wound unhappily, then double checks that the gashes aren't in need of anything, before leaving the room for a moment, only to return with blood bags.
"FRIDAY explained what was going on," Dr. Cho explains to their confused looks. She gestures vaguely to the bag. "It's Thor's. We think it will be the most compatible. Under normal circumstances, I'd want more time to run a few tests, but we don't have that leisure."
She sets up the drip, and Wanda keeps her lips pressed together, even though a part of her wants to ask why she doesn't have Bruce or Tony look at it. And for that matter, where are her teammates? It's been the better part of fifteen minutes, shouldn't one of them besides her brother have at least poked their head in?
When Dr. Cho is finished with Nova, she moves to Wanda's leg. Rolling up her pant leg reveals more dirt and grime than she's seen in a while. Wanda grimaces. "I need a shower." She announces, looking up and trying to gain a smile from either her brother or the doctor. She doesn't get one.
Dr. Cho ignores her, looking at the long gash from the creature's claw through pursed lips. Pietro, though, snorts softly. "I don't know if that would do enough." He remarks and runs a hand through her knotted hair pointedly. His fingers get caught more than they slide through.
She sighs, resigned. "You'll have to cut off."
"I don't think we need to mourn it just yet," Dr. Cho interjects, "a comb and a shower would do you some good. Speaking of, Pietro, go get some milk from upstairs and bring it down here."
"Milk?" Pietro repeats.
"When was the last time you ate, Miss Maximoff?" Dr. Cho answers instead.
She bites on her lower lip. "I…"
"Exactly. Warm it. Room temperature, not boiling." Dr. Cho adds. Pietro nods and gives her hand a quick squeeze before vanishing. Dr. Cho watches where he went off to, then turns back to her. "Do you have any other injuries you'd rather your brother not know about?"
It's cute that she thinks Wanda could hide something like that from Pietro, even if she wanted to.
"No." Wanda says, rubbing her rings across the top of her knee. It hurts dully, like a bruise that's a few days old.
Dr. Cho takes her mangled hand gently, studying the fingers with a doctor's critical eye, then says in a soft voice, "Vision isn't here."
Wanda turns her head away, her heart aching as her eyes burn. "He didn't make it."
"I see." Dr. Cho's voice is measured. "I'm sorry, Wanda."
She is, too.
000o000
Dr. Cho has to re-break the bones of her fingers to set them, and the sensation is as uncomfortable as it is painful. She's not hopeful that there won't be complications without some form of surgery, but Wanda isn't too keen in getting that scheduled and dealt with right now. Not until this mess is cleaned up somewhat.
Once the doctor is somewhat satisfied with her work, she hands Wanda a waterbottle, tells Pietro to keep an eye on her, and says she'll be back in a few hours. Dr. Cho looks hesitant about the whole thing, though, like she wants to stay and monitor, but a part of her must understand that given everything that Wanda has been pushed through the last couple weeks, some breathing room would be nice.
The door laps shut behind the doctor, and the only noise for a long minute is the machines in the room and the faint dripping of Thor's blood slowly leaking into Nova's. FRIDAY is watching for any ill effects, but thus far the transition has run smoothly. Well, as much as can be expected.
Pietro takes a seat on the edge of her bed and lifts up a hairbrush in silent question. The relief at seeing the simple object nearly drives her to tears; she leans forward without another word, intending to take it from him with her right hand, but he moves before she can. He shifts so he's behind her and slowly splits her hair into two even sections.
It hurts, and a part of her is tempted to tell her brother to simply hack it all off with some scissors to her chin.
"I'm sorry about Vision," he says into the empty silence. Wanda's shoulders slump somewhat. Her brother isn't stupid, even if she'd wanted him to remain ignorant. He can put two and two together. She and Vision leave, and only she comes back. It's not the most difficult equation to solve.
"They murdered him," she says tonelessly. "He hadn't done anything wrong, and they just…"
The sound of his screaming will haunt her for the rest of her life. It was wailing unlike anything she'd ever heard before, guttural and raw. And Thanos had just kept pushing until he'd simply ripped the Stone from his forehead. Like he wasn't anything but a bug to swat out of the way. She hates that man, with everything she possesses. She's going to kill him.
Pietro begins to slide the brush down her hair as slowly as he can. His fingers against her scalp feel strange after so many weeks without any contact from anyone. "I'm sorry," he repeats, then asks, "what were they after? What happened?"
Wanda bites on her lower lip. A part of her wants to ask for the rest of the Avengers, so she only has to share this once, but the story she tells her brother will be different than the one she gives the Avengers. That will be a mission report. More will come with time, but Pietro wont take a report. It reminds her vaguely of being inside HYDRA, and the small snippets they saw of each other for those long months, where their conversation would be what have they done to you this time?
"They took us for Vision. I was just collateral," she starts, and stumbles her way across the rest of the story. Pietro is silent as he works through her ratty hair, slowly smoothing out the dirty strands and listening patiently. It takes her almost until the end when she realizes that he strategically placed himself behind her. If she could see his expressions, she would have stopped or omitted things. She still does, or shortens the long hours and days that blurred together, but she explains what she knows about Thanos, then Nova, and then the mutiny that occurred before they left.
Miracle of miracles, she doesn't cry once.
"We have the Tesseract," she ends with, then tips her head, "Nova does. With his magic. I though it was on Asgard. Didn't Thor take it after the whole mess of New York? What do you think that means? Has anyone checked up on Thor recently? Or got in contact with Jane?"
Pietro's fingers stop. They were weaving a complicated fishtail braid that Natasha taught him to do—because Wanda knows Natasha privately enjoys letting people play with her hair, even though she'd die first before admitting it—and he sighs heavily. She can almost see him tip his head back for a moment.
"Well. That explains it."
"What?" Wanda asks. A knot tightens in her stomach as she slowly stops laying inside her happy bubble of ignorance. Stops ignoring the clues, and starts putting the puzzle together. She hasn't seen any of the other Avengers since coming here, and that was the better part of two, almost three, hours ago. Even if they were sleeping, they wouldn't have taken this long. And Bruce never showed up to insist that he's not a certified doctor and then run medical tests and other anyway while arguing back and forth with Dr. Cho.
She doesn't look back at her brother as she asks, with a voice that's softer than she wanted, "The team isn't here, are they?"
Pietro takes a second, "No." He admits after a moment, and his fingers begin to weave down her hair again. "No, they're not. It's just me at the Tower right now. Rhodey's dropped by twice to make sure I'm still alive, but,"
"How long have they been gone?" Wanda asks, trying not to sound as helpless as she feels.
"The better part of ten days." Pietro says, "Thor tried to leave us a message, but there was too much static and interference. We think it was an attack, but it could have just as much been a plague or a power outage. I'm guessing it was Thanos, though, knowing what was going on with you. It would make sense. They had the Tesseract, and if this man is so intent on collecting the Stones, why not try for Asgard?"
Wanda releases the inside of her cheek. A part of her wants to simply say because it's Asgard, but that's not really an explanation. "They should have been able to hold them off." She says quietly, "Thanos's army isn't that big." But she doesn't know. She never saw it. The only part of the army she knows of was Nova's siblings and Nova himself. And they were some sort of generals.
"He had three Infinity Stones," Pietro reminds her gently, "I'm not sure what he could have done. I got a half message from Tony about two days ago. They were still looking for Thor from what I understand. I'll let you listen to it later, see if you can come up with something better than what me and FRIDAY did. It's...a mess. The distance is making it almost impossible. I think Tony's going to need to come up with a better means of communication if we're going to be pulling more Apollo missions."
The joke is only half lipped, and neither of them laugh.
A thought strikes her then, and Wanda lifts her head and looks back at her brother, letting the finished braid fall over her shoulder as Pietro awkwardly moves his hands to compensate for the second. She lifts up her hand to gently grip his wrist to stop him, letting the hair fall. She stares at his haunted, tired face.
"Why are you still here?"
His eyes flit.
"Pietro," she says, softer.
He bites on his bottom lip, and lets his hands fall into his lap, then his eyes follow. She lifts up her left hand, brushing his bangs away, then letting her hand linger on his shoulder. The contact seems to reassure him, maybe break him, because he parts his lips and whispers, "I have a little picture." Her heart sinks, knowing this story. How it ends. "And I pull it out, and I look at it, everyday."
He doesn't. The original he gave to Pepper some time ago for safe keeping. A copy of it is sitting in their apartment, above the sink. They both look at it everyday. But Pietro doesn't keep one of their parents most prized possessions on him anymore. It took their father's entire paycheck for one month to get the photo for their mother for Christmas the year before the bomb.
Wanda lowers her hand to grip his.
"You were gone," Pietro's voice cracks. He swallows heavily. "And the last thing we did was argue over something petty. I just...I wanted to stay behind, in case you came back…" he shakes his head and still refuses to look at her. "They didn't know how long they'd be gone and needed someone behind to deal with everything. Clint was going to stay behind with me, but decided against it last minute. You had to come back." His voice breaks, and he squeezes his eyes shut.
"I did," Wanda promises softly, "we're fine now."
"No, we're not." Pietro argues, taking a deep, steadying breath. "This is only the beginning. We still have to talk to Nova's sister, and find out what she knows. Then we need to find a way to speak with the Avengers, and figure out how to pull us all together to stop Thanos from getting the Infinity Stones, but you're still sick and Nova flattened, and I don't know what to do!"
Wanda bites on her tongue.
"You were missing for a month, and everyone was convinced you were either dead or not coming back, because we had the briefest signal from Vision for those few days before it skittered out of existence, and everyone was trying to scramble to get ahold of Dr. Foster to try and get Thor to go after him, but nothing was happening, and they had to assume you were deceased. Dead, Wanda, we thought...and I couldn't...you're my sister. I'm supposed to protect you. You're my best friend, and you were gone. Just like our roditeli and I was alone. You weren't coming..."
He breathes out, and looks up at her. His eyes are wet, and red rimmed and Wanda's heart twists. She scoots forward somewhat, adjusting herself so she's not bending over the top of her ankle as much, then gathers her brother into her arms. Pietro crumples, resting his head against her shoulder and holding her close.
"You're not alone, moe brat," she promises. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere, I promise."
"Please don't leave me," he whispers, "please."
She squeezes her eyes shut, letting the stray tears fall into Pietro's jacket. With soft, muffled words, she chides softly, "You'd think with those twelve minutes of wisdom you'd have over me, you'd know that I won't."
Pietro snorts a laugh, dry and broken. Then he falls apart, and Wanda follows. One day they'll look back on this and laugh at the absurdity of it, she's certain. Them clinging to each other like children, as they did when they waited for two days for the missile to explode and kill them both. But they're not children. They're in their twenties, and adults, but it doesn't matter.
They cry anyway.
Author's Note: We are so, so close to one of the scenes I started writing this fic for. I'm very excited. *sheepish expression*
Next chapter: Late May/early June, maybe sooner.