and life was never worse, but never better
So, Pietro had seen her heal her gunshot wounds, and change out of her Scarlet Witch clothes–-including the wimple/crown–-but wasn’t that great that he was alive long enough to see it?
Yeah, no. There was no deluding herself out of this mess.
“Later.” She promises him, and moves him to the side, to keep protecting the core.
What even was the point of telling him to not come get her until everyone was on the boat, and not before, if he was going to go ahead, and get her before everyone was on the boat anyway? She knows it was her fault, for being too focused on him, for not protecting herself, for getting cocky because she was strong enough to take all versions of Ultron down single-handedly, but still, she’s annoyed at the way things turned out nonetheless.
The only silver lining is that Pietro is alive, and she’s not the one who had to feel the phantom pain, and their bond is still there.
Unfortunately, that also means Pietro’s here to interrogate her about the things that he saw, and she had to feel real bullets instead of phantom ones, and their bond is being overloaded with a truly unsurprising amount of bewilderment and if ‘What the fuck’ was a feeling, astonishment, maybe? No, not quite.
He opens his mouth to argue, but she fires at an Ultron, and makes it look like she’s struggling, and trying to focus and (please go away, Pietro). So he huffs, and goes right back into the fight.
‘Oh my god, that actually worked., she thinks in relief. She will still kill Ultron later on, for almost killing her brother, but right now, she feels grateful that he’s keeping him away from her, and therefore the questions can wait.
She knows Pietro should know, and she knows she will tell Pietro. They never really keep secrets from each other. But still, she doesn’t look forward to having to explain to him what happened, considering she isn’t even fully sure herself.
( ‘And’ , her mind whispers to her, ‘You’re afraid he’ll see you for the monster that you are and you’ll lose him anyway.’ )
Her mouth suddenly feels dry, and she focuses on finding Ultron to kill him, while Pietro runs around, doing what he does, safe and alive, and here with her (for now). Her mind is a mess, and despite the small five-ten minutes of peace that she gets, and how much she’s been bored with everyone’s speeches, and having to repeat the past exactly as it happened, she hasn’t had a break since she got back to this time.
She forgot how fast everything happened. Past her had been nearly overwhelmed. Now, she just wanted a moment to go to sleep, because she was far past overwhelmed. Her whole life was overwhelming, so that wasn’t new. But she had her brother, she had a reason to feel safe, and she finally had enough power to change anything or anyone she wanted to, and she wanted to curl up, cuddle her brother, and go to sleep, finally feeling safe and at peace for once. Just once, and wake up, still at peace, and not at war with general life. She wants everything with Ultron to just end already. She needs to feel safe, and none of this is giving her the time to feel safe.
She tires, again, of fighting constantly.
As she walks by a large boulder, she briefly considers just sitting there until everyone was done fighting. She shakes her head and keeps walking, knowing that Pietro makes rounds, because he knows Sokovia better than any of the Avengers walking all around, and if he saw her just sitting there, he would be concerned and unhappy with her lazing around.
Her bones feel weary, and her mind is tired from all the emotional strain, and the confusion on where she was and whether it was real, and her body is perfectly fine, she knows, but it also feels tired and heavier, at the same time.
Then she thinks of the fate she almost could have suffered for the second time, in this life, and who caused it. And her fury is renewed, and her exhaustion takes a seat in the back of her mind, hiding away, as anger takes control of her. Anger that makes her eyes flare red, and her veins feel like they’re burning with a physical heat brought on by her anger, but she knows it’s just her Chaos Magic responding to her emotions.
Ultron has to go down, not for what he almost did, but for what he did do in a future where she didn’t know what was going to happen, and couldn’t protect Pietro, like he always protected her.
She sees Bruce throw him out of a ship, and she silently thanks him. She didn’t know in the past that it was Bruce that allowed her to find him so easily, if she had known, maybe she would have called him a Drama King in conversations with her brother a lot less. She enters the train, and feels Chaos Magic sweep over her figure, changing into her Scarlet Witch clothes once more.
He says, without turning to her this time. “Wanda. If you stay here, you will die.” Then he turns his head, and his surprise shows on his face the best it could on a robot face. She tilted her head, eyes glowing red and reflecting off of his metal skin. His eyes widen as she walks closer to him.
“I just did.” She replies, words of a lifetime now prevented. “Or, I almost did… Did you know that Pietro was down there when you shot those bullets? Did you know you almost killed him?” Her accent is thicker, in her anger, she disregards all lessons Natasha taught her to conceal her accent.
“I… I didn’t–”
“He was.” She cut him off. Her wimple flickers into existence, and she smiles the same way she did when she found the weak spot in Kamar Taj’s sorcerer-supported shield dome. “But that’s okay, he’s safe. I made sure of it.”
“What are you?” he asks, getting to finally finish the question she stopped him from asking back at the Core.
“Me?” She covered her hand again with Chaos Magic, and started to pull at his core, gently at first, to make sure he knew what he was feeling, knew what she was doing while staring into his eyes with angrier red eyes than his could ever be, despite the smile on her face. “I am The Scarlet Witch. And you never should have messed with my brother.”
She pulls his core off his body, in the instant that she sees his eyes widen once more with recognition. So he knew about the Scarlet Witch, then. Too bad.
She stares at the falling city around her, outside of the train, and stays where she is. She hopes Vision doesn’t find her this time. She knows Pietro is safe, but she is still so tired, and there is no guarantee for her that she will be happy just because he’s alive. He might hate her once she knows the truth, of what sort of a monster his sister is. And there’s no guarantee this is permanent.
She doesn’t know what to believe in anymore, and she’s so confused, and tired, and she’ll leave it up to fate now, whether she survives the fall of Sokovia twice. Please, God, don’t let Vision save her twice. She can’t bear to look into his eyes right now. Too much of a reminder of how she lost him (three! fucking! times!). She changes back into her usual clothes, and closes her eyes, and then she hears it— not with her own ears, the faint buzz of a mind. Pietro’s mind. Pietro’s memory…
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Pietro and him shared a glance, they had all been so sure of their deaths. Clint, when he wrapped his arm around Costel, and got ready for the bullets, and Pietro when he moved the car over to cover them, but didn’t have enough time for himself.
He promised Wanda, but he can’t believe he’s breaking a promise like this. He knows he can’t avoid it, but still, he hates that he couldn’t move faster, because he knows his twin sister, and this will destroy her. The same way that it would destroy him, if something happened to her.
He feels one bullet hit, and then remembers the vest–the vest Wanda gave to him–and remembers that he knows her future. He staggers though, when she realizes she must have known he was going to die without it, and he briefly wonders if she knows her future past that, meaning she had to live past his death or— “if we survive this,” —they both died during this. Him first, then her.
Then he sees the rest of the bullets coming, at an angle that the Vest wouldn’t completely save him from, and he repeats sorry’s in his head to Wanda, for not being safe, and for leaving her behind, and breaking his promise, despite her clear attempts to make sure he survived. She knew Ultron’s plans, and yet stayed with him… if she joined Ultron just for him, despite knowing it all, just to make sure she got a chance to help him survive, and he still died…
‘I’m sorry, Wanda.’
'Be sorry later' he hears, his sister’s mind in his mind, like it often is when they have telepathic discussions.
Then he feels something weird and mystic—he doesn’t know how else to describe it—like magical tingling from his head, then his entire body and out, something like small little pleasant humming volts that leave him, and form a shield. A red crimson shield. Wanda’s shield.
The shield protects him from the barrage of bullets until Ultron passes, and he comes out completely fine, and so does Clint and Costel and he is surprised. He didn’t die. “I… didn’t see that coming. Did you see that coming?” Wanda actually did it! She succeeded in preventing the future! Then he feels bullets tear at his skin, but a fainter–although no less brutal–sensation of it, and he looks down at himself, fearing that he might have died anyway. Confusion clouds his mind for a few second when he sees that he is completely fine. Then he remembers—
Wanda .
He runs, before Clint can reply to him. He feels terrified, that in protecting him, and in keeping him alive, she died. Either because one Maximoff twin would always have to die at Sokovia’s fall, or because in giving him her shield, she left herself completely unprotected. She is not invincible, but she is far too likely to trade her life for his.
He runs as fast as he did, when he was preventing Clint and Costel’s death, but by the time he arrives, he realizes it’s too late. He doesn’t register the weird clothing until a few seconds later. All he can focus on is what he can see, even from behind—holes—he sees holes in his sister’s back, small enough to be a bullet wound or worse, yet, bullet wounds. Plural.
Her back is turned to him, but even he can see the blood that taints her hand, as it leaves her abdomen.
His heart sinks, in shock and in complete despair.
Wanda protected him, but he didn’t protect her. He failed his duty as an older brother.
Then she turns around, and he finally starts to notice how both the wounds start closing, stitching itself back together, and regenerating at a speed that would be near instantaneous if he was anyone but himself, and how her clothing stitches itself back after it, and that’s when he notices the clothes she wear. His sister looks older, more regal. She looks like a Queen, and he would be far more impressed and amazed if not for the fact that she was dying just a second ago, of the same thing that should have killed him.
But apparently bullets don’t do anything to her anymore.
“Me to know, and you to find out.” is what she said.
Well, he found out— and he would very much like to know now.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Wanda has shooed him away, with an overdone act of struggling to beat an Ultron bot, to send the message that he should go. So now, he is racing around, making sure no one is left, just a quick sweep.
As he does, he thinks of just how much he hates that she’s still playing know-it-all about the future, and keeping secrets. They don’t keep secrets from each other. But still, she shooed him away, and he complied because he could see panic in her eyes, and he didn’t want to stress her out more. Not in the midst of battle. Not after she just got shot multiple times (although healed from it that fast, too).
He wonders what else Wanda could be keeping from him, aside from her apparently powerful new powers that she refuses to speak up about, that include super-healing, summoning endless delicious chocolate filled croissants, knowing the future, cool new clothes, and enough power to stop a train almost instantly.
A few minutes have passed, so he decides to run back to the boat.
“Where’s Wanda?” Natasha asks through Clint’s comms, and Pietro only hears because he just walked by and his hearing has always been particularly good. He and Wanda used to joke it was another power Von Strucker gave him.
For some reason, the memory of her words ( “If we survive this,” ) comes back into his mind for the second time, and he wonders what else she–... it clicks. She said ‘we’, but Pietro was supposed to die first, by bullets. But what if she wasn’t talking about just his death? Also hers– and what if it wasn’t through bullets like him? He thought she had prevented both their deaths or something, but what if she only prevented his death, and she was never meant to get shot in the first place and her death happens differently?
He races back into Sokovia, ignoring Clint’s yell of “Oi! Get back here! Where are you going?!”
He finds her inside the train. He enters, and sees that she sits by a dead Ultron, his core laying by her lap, and with tear streaks down her cheeks, she has closed her eyes, and stayed still as everything falls apart around her, and that look in her eyes—it scares him—it is the look of someone who welcomes Death like an old friend. Someone who is far too familiar and happy with something no one should ever look forward to.
His heart sinks when he realizes that this must have been how she died. She knew her future because she had lived it. She must have died after killing Ultron, and losing him, and welcomed Death with open arms, since he was gone.
But he was here now, wasn’t he? There was no reason for her to welcome Death.
He ponders this as gravity removes itself, as they fall. As Sokovia falls. As Ultron’s plan succeeds. ‘What if’ , his mind whispers to him darkly, ‘She survives here, but loses more out there? What if this is a happy option for her compared to surviving? What if you failed her more than once with your death?’
He feels nauseous at the thought, but something about that thought, however awful, makes sense, considering how Wanda talked sometimes, and how she was right now. He can’t bear to brush away the thought, and dismiss the possibility that her life after Sokovia, and after him, wasn’t good enough to try and survive for.
He will change it. She kept him alive , so he’ll give her a reason to stay alive.
First, though, he has to make sure she doesn’t die in the first place. He rushes towards her, hoping to reach new speeds, as he picks her up—ignoring her surprised scream—and jumping out the train, it might kill them sooner, but it’s less certain, and far more acceptable that they die out on Sokovian grounds or something, rather than dying in a train in Sokovia, next to a dead Ultron.
⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰
Wanda feels it. The way they both start to fall together. She holds on tighter to Pietro, but not to brace herself. She hugs him, as a way to show her gratitude for the fact that he saved her (and saw her— noticed her enough to know just why she stayed on the train), and to make sure he’s holding on to her too.
She didn’t keep him alive just for them to die together. She has a death wish, but not that sort of death wish. Chaos magic surrounds her hand, and she levels them both, Chaos magic wrapping around his waist too, to carry them both and keep them both flying the same way she carried Wong up Mount Wundagore.
Pietro starts to laugh, in amazement. His eyes shine with wonder. “You can fly?!”
Wanda places a finger against her lips. “Shh.”
She takes them to the boat, and as her feet touch the boat’s ground. With Pietro by her side, and with the knowledge that, this time, she had saved herself, instead of being saved by Vision. She feels happy and decides she’ll put off her death wish a little bit, and focus instead on making sure good things like this keep happening. Things that make her life better, like an alive Pietro. A future of being an Avenger beside him. The chance to not only better her legacy, but to make better choices for her life-- and for the sake of the innocent people she killed in her inexperience and weakness.
Her cruel mind flickers back to what she saw in her original timeline. Clint lying down on the seat, as tired as he is right now, except back then, on the floor next to him, laid her brother’s holed and dead body, his eyes still open. She remembers seeing Pietro’s body, and breaking down, she remembers a panic attack that wouldn’t stop, but she didn’t speak up about it, because she didn’t really know what panic attacks were at the time. She remembers curling up and crying with a stone expression, because the pain hit so hard repeatedly that she didn’t have the energy to wear any expression but her resting face, as tears went down her face.
She blinks, and Pietro’s dead body on the floor disappears. She breathes a little easier then. And breathes even easier when Pietro places his hand on her shoulder, reminding her that she avoided that fate. Pietro is not a dead body on the boat. He will be a hero, like he should have been.
They are going to the Avengers base, and she will get to rest. She places her head on her brother’s shoulder, and thinks she’ll get a headstart on resting now, as her eyes close. Pietro lays his head on her head, and they fall asleep on each other.
Soon, they will be Avengers.