AN: A continue-it chapter. What I imagine Wanda's reaction to Pietro's death to be.
Genres of this chapter: Angst. Hurt and No Comfort. And does it count as Tragedy if Pietro's already dead, or is something only Tragedy if a character actively dies?
AU I: Now You're Dead (and so am I)
One of Ultron's robots had made it to the core. Wanda could feel the floating city falling apart.
She didn't care. She didn't care at all.
Let the explosion kill her. She was already dead, after all. She'd already died, and this time—this time she wouldn't feel anything.
She knelt there in the wreckage of the bus looking at Ultron's dead, mangled form.
The anger was gone and now she felt nothing.
The city was falling apart around her, and she didn't care.
And then, from the sky, dropping down from the hole in the top of the bus, was Ultron's vision, who was definitely not Ultron. She could read him, even though she wasn't trying. Her reading the minds of those around her was automatic, now. It was, after all, a kind of reading, and once you learned to read you couldn't make yourself not read the words you saw.
He swept her up in his arms and took off into the sky, and she didn't care about that, either.
She idly watched the floating city explode into smithereens, but she felt nothing.
The synthezoid's arms were surprisingly warm around her, but the warmth didn't feel real, and it only served to make her feel colder.
His thoughts were a vibrant yellow blush of color and noble intentions. The world was beautiful through his eyes, but it wasn't real, and only served to make the world seem uglier.
He felt concern for her, relief that they'd made it off the city before it exploded. He loved the feeling of flying. He thought she was beautiful. He thought they'd won, but he felt no pride, just a sense of relief and of duty. He didn't know that Pietro was dead.
She could feel what he felt, but it wasn't real. Not to her. She could really feel anything.
When the synthezoid set her down gently on the Helicarrier, she didn't even bother to thank him before turning away and walking off as if in a trance.
Vision felt hurt, but no anger. She didn't feel anything. She didn't care.
The weight of her feet pressing against the floor didn't feel real. Her clothing against her skin didn't feel real. It was like she was a ghost, an incorporeal being stuck in a corporeal plane.
She didn't have to ask where her brother was, she needed only to touch the minds around her, pry around for the information.
He was in the medical wing. There was nothing that could be done for him, but the medical wing wasn't just to keep the bodies of the injured and the dying. It was for the dead, too.
Nobody tried to stop her. Nobody tried to talk to her.
She walked as if in a trance, eyes blank and staring straight ahead, moving with an unconcerned assurance, an unhurried purpose. Her movements flowed like mist. Her limbs felt foreign on her body, like they weren't hers.
She found Hawkeye sitting next to Pietro's body, staring down at his own hands, muttering about stupid, heroic, idiotic kids and stupid, self-sacrificing, arrogant, insufferable, admirable jerks.
He didn't hear her come in. He didn't see her till she'd floated over and was standing right next to him, looking down at Pietro's body.
Hazel eyes half open, dull, flat, lifeless. His shirt and pants completely soaked with blood, with bullet holes in his body exactly where she knew they'd be. Exactly where she'd felt them.
"Wanda!" Hawkeye said in surprise, looking at her. She didn't look at him. She didn't need to.
"Look, I..." the Avenger tried.
"I know," she said. He felt guilt, pain, awe, sorrow, regret, anger, frustration, fear.
Pietro was the cause of most of those feelings. Ultron was the cause of the rest. The fear, however, was caused by her.
She felt nothing. It wasn't the Avenger's fault. It was any of the Avengers' fault.
It was Ultron's fault, and her fault.
She shouldn't have told him to go. Should've let him stay. Should've begged him to stay.
She stared at Pietro. It was obvious he was dead, because of his eyes. It was obvious he was dead, because he wasn't moving. It was obvious he was dead, because she couldn't feel his mind. She couldn't feel herself.
"Wanda..." Hawkeye choked out. He felt so much guilt and pain and sorrow.
She felt nothing.
"It wasn't your fault," she told him, no emotion in her voice. There was no emotion in any part of her.
He felt confusion. He'd expect her to be crying, yelling, shouting, sobbing, something. Had expected her to clutch her dead twin's body and cry brokenly in denial.
She wasn't in denial. Pietro was dead.
She knew he was dead, because she felt nothing.
He'd been avenged, and now there was nothing she could do for him, nothing she could do for herself.
He'd kept her living, after their parents had been killed. He'd kept her smiling, laughing, loving.
His mind had been her safe place, when all the minds around her were too much. His heartbeat had been her lullaby, when they'd fallen asleep cuddling for warmth, for safety, arms wrapped around each other and faces buried in shirts or in hair so they wouldn't have to see the cold world around them.
She didn't reach out to touch his skin that used to be warm and was now cold. That wasn't Pietro, lying there, not really.
That was just the body that had housed him, hair bleached by jealous wind and skirted time, limbs that had propelled him across the ground now stiff with death.
Nothing could keep him from moving, it seemed, save Death.
She'd always thought he was unstoppable.
And he had been, hadn't he? Certainly, all those bullet wounds hadn't stopped him from saving the life of the Avenger and the child who'd reminded him of her.
"I'm sorry..." Hawkeye said, a broken breath.
The Avenger was mourning, aching with feelings, but she felt nothing.
She'd died with Pietro. There wasn't enough of her left to mourn him.
Apparently the news of Pietro's death had finally circled around, because some of the other Avengers filed in.
When Stark saw the body, riddled with bullet holes and covered in blood, he swore under his breath. Shock. Guilt. Anger. Guilt. Self-hatred.
"He died saving me and a kid," Hawkeye explained to them softly. "He was a hero."
A hand touched Wanda's shoulder, feeling phantom.
"I'm sorry, Wanda," said Captain America. Guilt. Sorrow. Empathy.
Then the synthezoid entered the room. Pain. "I'm so sorry, Wanda. I didn't know."
She felt their emotions like a faint drizzle on the calloused soles of her feet.
"Don't bury him," she told them, still looking at her twin's face. He looked like Death. She knew when Death came for her, Death would look like Pietro. "He wouldn't want to lie rotting in the ground, a victim to the sands of time."
"We can have his body cremated," Captain America said. "You can scatter his ashes."
"That would be acceptable," she said.
Pietro had always been like fire, burning quick and fast and out of control. She'd been the water, calmer and more stable, but capable of all different forms: freezing, liquid, gaseous.
Feeling awkward, Stark cleared his throat for a moment, before quickly leaving, feeling sick. Maybe the crippling guilt would be enough to punish him for creating the weapons that killed her parents and creating the robot that killed her brother. She hoped he got nightmares and had no-one to comfort him afterwards.
"Are you going to be alright, Wanda?" Captain America asked.
"You know I'm not," she said tonelessly.
She could sense him nod, before he, too, left.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" the synthezoid asked.
"You can leave," she said.
He hesitated for only a moment before he did as she'd requested.
Then it was just Hawkeye, who didn't want to leave.
"Pietro..." Hawkeye said, having trouble getting words out. "He was a hero."
"Trust me," Wanda said. There was no emotion in her voice. "I knew that long before you did."
"I..." Hawkeye tried again. "My wife... we're going to have a son."
"I know," Wanda said. It had constantly been at the forefront of his mind.
"I'd like, if you don't mind, to name our son after your brother," Hawkeye said, and now that he'd gotten over the inability to speak, he was starting to ramble. "Not the first name, of course, 'cause Natasha already called that, but since it's a boy it's gonna be Nathaniel, but, uhh, we haven't decided on a middle name yet, and I was thinking, Pietro would be a good middle name for him. Since, y'know, if it wasn't for your brother, I wouldn't be alive to be going home to my wife and kids..."
If Wanda had been capable of being touched, the sentiment would have been oddly touching.
"Pietro would be a fine middle name for your son," she said.
Relief. "Thank you," Hawkeye said, but there was so much more than just thanks in his tone.
"You're welcome," she said, because it was the automatic response to an expression of thanks, but there was still no emotion in her tone. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to be alone."
"Uh, yeah," Hawkeye said as he started to leave. "Of course." He closed the door.
And then it was just her and the dead body of half her soul resting on medical bed.
She slept there, that night, curled up in a chair she'd dragged over to the bed.
The farthest she'd ever slept away from him since she was ten years old was in their cells at H.Y.D.R.A., when they were separated by a foot of reinforced wall between them.
She wasn't sure if she actually slept or not. She felt nothing, and she didn't dream. All she experienced was an endless darkness.
Hawkeye found her there in the morning, told her to go wash up, get some breakfast, the helicarrier would be landing, the civilians were already being taken care of, where she wanted to go after this would be sorted out, things she didn't care about.
He'd felt fear, when he'd looked at her, and when she glanced at a mirror in the bathrooms she'd realized why.
She looked almost as dead as Pietro.
Funny, but she wasn't really surprised. She didn't really care. She didn't feel anything.
But unlike her brother's, her heart was still beating.