Prompt: Speed Limits.

Summary: Speed Limits. They exist for a reason. Sometimes Wanda wishes her brother would remember what happened when he tried to go faster than his best.

Notes: An Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies AU. By a friend's calculations AOU Pietro goes at about Mach 2.81 max speed, hence Mach 3 "you finally cracked it". The rest of the numbers are my own approximates to cover the fact that just because Pietro can run fast doesn't mean he can see what the hell he's doing.

Warnings: Codependency,

i.
Wanda loved the feel of her brother's mind so close to her own. She loved his presence and his comfort, she loved him, he was her brother and after all they'd been through he was half of her.

But sometimes he was really stupid.

ii.
"I told you," Wanda says in angrily bitten out Sokovian. "Do not exhaust yourself. Do not overwork yourself. Do not strain yourself."

"But-" Pietro reaches to point toward the cupboard, and in his mind she can see a can of… some vague fizzy drink, Coca Cola or Red Bull or Lucozade or somethingsugary and caffienated or otherwise meant to help regain energy. Wanda's scarlet darts away, opens the cupboard, pulls the bottle towards them. It slaps into Pietro's hand with a rather final thwack.

He pulls a face as he cracks open the Lucozade and starts to drink.

iii.
It is not yet a minute later that he tries to get up again. No, Wanda pushes towards him. Stop.

"I just want to-"

Rest. Wanda holds his hand tight. "Please."

He tugs her hand gently, blue eyes almost burning into hers. "I'm fine," he murmurs. "I promise."

"Your heart is still racing," Wanda murmurs back, still in Sokovian. "I can feel it from you. Faster than the hummingbirds of your mind. You've not run that fast before, you aren't going to recover so soon."

iv.
They had not expected to be called to battle, and they certainly had not expected Pietro to have had to run so fast or so long. It did not help that it was downhill, and rather steeply.

The acceleration he had built up almost ploughed him into a building, and the only thing that saved him was his reflexes, as fast as he was. Wanda's mind had been calling to his, having received nothing but blurs so fast even Pietro had been having trouble interpreting them, pain pricking over her skin from maintaining the bond at the distance.

"Mach 3," Stark's voice said over comms. "You finally cracked it."

Wanda could feel Pietro's lungs burning, heart beating faster than any of the hummingbirds of his mind, his eyes shut tight as the world stopped spinning, and she felt him lifting a hand to flip off Stark. Fuck you, rose from Pietro's mind, clear as crystal, even as he could not say it. Tell him? Pietro's mind asked as his body hauled in heavy breaths.

No, Wanda said, touching down beside him from her scarlet-powered leap. Rest. You can tell him later.

v.
Wanda sat with him when they get back to base. Pietro was still exhausted, still breathing heavily, even after the Widow had hauled out a small oxygen tank from the medical cupboard on the Quinjet. She had sat beside him on the flight too, patching up her brother while he was still too exhausted to gently slap her hands away and insist he could do it himself.

Rest, she pushed towards his mind. Sokovian, English, German, Russian, Hebrew, all the languages and fragments of languages she knew, she pushed the concept towards him. Rest, sleep, recover. I'll be here when you wake.

I'm fine, Pietro insisted. I'll be fine at least.

"That as may be," Wanda had said softly, speaking Sokovian for privacy. "You will rest. You've never pushed yourself like that before, and I will not risk losing you again."

Pietro had sobered after that, long enough to let them carry him off the jet.

vi.
"I don't know why you worry so much," Pietro says, and it's a murmur. "You know I will be fine, that I recover faster than most." His hand reaches up to gently stroke her hair back. "I'm fine," he says. "Feel my heartbeat. Just usual hummingbird-fast."

Wanda sighs and leans into his touch. "Mach 3," she murmurs. "Mach 3. Do you remember how hard they pushed you before to try to make you break it?" Pietro loses his teasing expression. "You were running into your cell walls for weeks."

At the corners, Pietro's mouth quirks. "I'm not running into walls now," he says. "What was it the English Language teacher used to say? Hunky-dory. I'm allhunky-dory."

He still winces when Wanda gently pokes his ribs. "You strained yourself," she says. "What was it the doctors at the castle used to say? Oxygen debt."

Fuck you, rises in a cheerfully laughing bubble from Pietro's mind and then, "I still need to get back at Stark for that. He sounded so surprised I'd managed it."

Wanda's poke is rather more meaningful, and Pietro's wince is rather worse. Scarlet twitches forwards from Wanda's fingers, and gently rubs the tense muscle around Pietro's ribs. "We were surprised you'd managed it. Mach 2.81, remember? That was the most you managed before. The absolute most, and it would exhaust you."

Pietro's hand gently squeezes hers. "I'm sorry," he whispers, in English. "I'm sorry I worried you," he says, and it is Sokovian again.

vii.
Pietro is sleeping - finally - when Vision drops by. The team had already seen Wanda hovering by her brother while Doctor Cho had treated him earlier, and departed one-by-one, and after the first few times the twins had been hurt they had learned that neither would leave the other's side if one of them was injured.

viii.
"Flowers in the Attic," Stark would say, and be gently walloped around the head by Romanoff or Wilson or Rhodes.

"They've lost a lot," Steve would say, as they filed out. "You should have seen the Commandos when one of us was hurt. We were worse than old ladies, worrying."

The first time, Wanda remembered, there had been a pause before Stark had gone, "I really didn't need an image of the Howling Commandos all toothless and in granny stockings, Rogers."

ix.
"How is he doing?" Vision asks, voice soft as ever, sitting down on the other side of Pietro's bed. "None of the records said he could-"

"He couldn't," Wanda said, shortly. "2.81. That was it." Her hand reaches out to where her brother sleeps, and gently strokes sun-bleached curls back from his brow. In his sleep Pietro briefly frowns, before tilting his face up into her touch. "2.81 hurt him. He could barely see and react fast enough. He never carries me faster than 1.7 because he starts …," she slips into Sokovian when her English isn't good enough to fill the gap, "He can't process what he is seeing fast enough to react in time."

There is a moment's pause before Vision nods and says, in perfect Sokovian, "Would you rather speak like this?"

Wanda's hands still play gently through her brother's hair, occasionally sending out sparks of scarlet into his mind, chasing away nightmares, keeping his rest peaceful. "We should learn better English," she says, using the language to emphasise the point. "It would be better if you or they tell us the right words when we do not know them."

Vision smiles. "I thought your brother believed we should learn Sokovian if we mean to meddle in your country again?"

End Notes: Reviews are much appreciated!