spinning out of control (didn’t they tell us “don’t rush into things”?) pt. 1
Pietro had survived a near death experience twice in his not quite long enough life, and yet, he had only ever been this scared once before; after the bombing, in which he stayed afraid for two whole days that the bomb in front of them would be set off and he and his sister would die.
Now, he was scared again that his sister might die. Not the sort of dread and terror he felt back at Sokovia when he felt bullets rip through him through their bond, because he was mostly in shock while he ran towards her, no, this wasn’t dread and terror. This was genuine fear , as he watched his sister bleed out on the floor of the Quinjet that went fast, but not quite fast enough at the same time.
She told him all of her powers. He had seen it in Sokovia, his sister wasn’t the one that would die. In fact, between the two of them, it was far likely that he would be the first to die again. But yet, as he stared in horror, as she just kept bleeding and bleeding, and her wounds didn’t close and heal like it did in Sokovia when dozens —or something like that, he didn’t remember, he was too busy freaking out to count—of bullets had ripped through her, the horror turned to genuine fear and panic, because his sister might actually die now.
And— and that blood wasn’t just coming from her stomach— there was her head too, she hit her head. Her head, and her— oh god. Oh god, why wasn’t she healing? His sister was supposed to be all powerful, she had proven it, even if she didn’t show the full extent of her powers.
Pietro stumbled to the side, and ended up falling over his own feet, and on his ass. He crawled towards his sister, and placed her head on his lap, blood dirtying his hands and his clothes, and his lap, and oh god, why was there so much blood?
“Шта се догађа? Ово не би требало да се дељава.Ох Боће, ох Боће, ох Боће. Ванда , молим те, немој да ми умрељ.Ванда , пробуди се, отвори оии. (serbian/sokovian: What is happening? This isn't supposed to be happening-- Why is she still bleeding?! Oh god, oh god, oh god. Wanda, please, don't die on me. Wanda, wake up, open your eyes.)
He began to shake her, losing his grip on reality. He couldn’t lose her. He wasn’t as strong as her. He didn’t know how he could have even survived a week without his twin sister by his side, and she’d lasted years. She was the more powerful one, in every definition of it. He wouldn’t be able to move on if he lost her, because Wanda was the one who always gave him a reason to keep going, and understood him.
She was his lifeline just as much as he was hers. But the difference was, Wanda could thrive off of pain, and turn it into anger, and fall into the dark side to find the power to live on. Pietro couldn’t last long on anger, Pietro couldn’t harness pain. The difference was that Wanda’s purpose was revenge, to even things out, to fight back against the world. Pietro’s purpose was to protect, and if he failed that, it would destroy him.
“Pietro!” Steve yelled, his voice finally breaking through his panic, and he realized he had been pulling at his hair, and staring with wide, unblinking eyes. “Calm down! We need to focus and heal her! And if you can’t, then move!”
Pietro couldn’t believe how helpless he was, as he stumbled out of the way, and was nearly shoved away, he couldn’t help but think that his sister deserved better. His sister, who travelled back in time to protect him, his sister who helped take down a mad Titan and died a hero more than once, his sister who gave everything she had for the greater good. His sister, who probably never once panicked like this, and stood uselessly.
Then, a voice inside the back of his head, not quite Wanda’s, but something like it, like a copy of her voice from his subconscious reminded him that she would hate him for speaking ill of her brother like that because she was that type of person.
So, while Steve and Natasha did what they did, Pietro sat under the seat, not quite having enough energy or will of mind to pull himself up and put on his seatbelt. Instead, he just stared, blankly, at his hands, and at the blood pooling under his sister’s body, dirtying her hair and her clothes, which still stayed miraculously.
He supposed that it was just a part of her powers, and like most things she showed him, he thought better than to question it and start to go crazy with the realization of just how strong his sister was.
Instead, as he watched and stared at Wanda’s unconscious face, so peaceful, like she was just sleeping, he thought back to their good memories. They didn’t have many actual good memories, it was always tainted with some undercurrent of suffering, even before they lost their parents, but still, he reminiscences, in hope that when he was done, they would either have arrived at the building, or Wanda would be awake.
His sister was all-powerful, he knew this, and a bullet couldn’t just take her out. No matter how much blood leaked out and how panicked Steve looked. There was just no way. She’d gone through far worse than a bullet and survived.
He shook his head, and focused back into remembering their past.
Childhood memories.
He thought back to the time that Wanda took over their classroom by accident, and in an effort to escape responsibility and be left alone to her word-searches, and reading, she crowned Pietro the king.
It was so silly, they were 8 year old, and Wanda was as usual, sitting by the side, legs tucked underneath her, and a book open in front of her, she had been slowly getting advanced, and it was the third language she was reading, after Sokovian and Russian, she began to read and learn the English language, and many teachers had spent weeks praising her for it.
He’d grown jealous and convinced that learning another language wasn’t that special, so he taunted her, because before the crash, they had a normal sibling relationship, one where he could afford to be jealous of her, where he could afford to not be her comrade and ally 24/7, because they were safe.
And he was envious alright. His sister had it all, the boys and girls liked her, the teachers liked her, she was smart and pretty, and sarcastic, and she wasn’t a bully.
But he was. And all he was good at was athletics.
A week after their school year started again, Wanda met with the bully of the class, people were scared of her, because she was aggressive, and she was very very good at peer pressure. But Wanda was better. Upon meeting, the two girls collided, and always ended up arguing. Fiona would fight with pure aggressiveness, trying to assert herself and make Wanda submit through pure anger, and peer pressure, but Wanda, strong-headed, stubborn, prideful Wanda fought back with logic and destroyed any sort of thing she said.
For weeks, without end, any time that Fiona opened her mouth, Wanda was ready to strike back, and make her seem dumb. Even if she was saying something smart, Wanda wouldn’t let it pass. It happened for so long that she lost all credibility and intimidation power she once had, and slowly, Wanda defeated the big bad bully of Grade whatever-grade-they-were with her words and knowledge that she’d learned from her books.
Classmates started looking up to her, and though she wasn’t unpopular before, she became even more popular, and soon, bullies came picking fights. Pietro loved it, because he liked brawls, and he liked to be able to best someone and know that it was because of him, and it was something Wanda would never have.
Then the classmates’ demand for her time and attention started to eat away at her time to read and do crossword puzzles or word searches, and Wanda snapped. She told everyone that Pietro was the one who beat Fiona, because he was scarier than any other Grade 8, and if they wanted to learn from someone cool, to go to him.
It worked, because everyone always believed Wanda and her pretty green-blue doe eyes.
Then 2 years later, Pietro remained the coolest guy in his grade, and Wanda remained untouchable, known to be easily annoyed if one interrupted her reading. Then that shell came, and all popularity hierarchies, and sibling rivalries disappeared.
And Wanda had ditched her books, selling them all for as much money as she could, to feed them. Wanda was teaching him English, and catching him up on what he didn’t understand in school even though they had long ago dropped out, because Wanda said that he was as good as her, and even better, if he just focused on studying. Wanda stopped acting holier-than-thou and impossible to bother, but easy to annoy. She just focused on keeping them both alright, while he focused on keeping them safe.
Wanda told him, after a night sleeping on the roof of the school, because no one really checked the schools for strays anymore, that she knew he envied him. He tried to deny it, but her silence seemed to know everything so he stopped. Then she told him that she was envious of him too. Not because of how friendly and extroverted he was, she genuinely preferred to be alone, unless around people she loved. But of how athletic he was, of how he had real power to defend himself when danger came.
Wanda always thought herself powerless.
Now, she was apparently one of the strongest cosmic beings around, and yet here she was, still bleeding out from a gunshot wound.
Pietro didn’t think it was fair.
They’d spent 10 years envying each other, and now they each had the trait that they envied of each other.
Wanda had power, and Pietro had popularity. Wanda may still be the one everyone found cool now, but Pietro was the one they could approach, Pietro was the one that was liked the most. Pietro was the one that people praised, because they couldn’t approach Wanda.
And yet, still, their envy existed. Pietro could tell, Wanda envied his heart. His optimism. His smile.
He thinks that she’s forgotten a time when she was the optimistic one, but that’s fair. She lost her optimism, not even a month after the Stark bomb. And her smile has been long stolen away from her, any time she managed to find it, it came with a condition. A future loss. He’s always managed to remain as her moral compass, long before Ultron. He knows she envies that.
Wanda envies his goodness.
But Pietro envies her selfishness.
That which she tries so hard to suppress but never can.
Pietro envies the strength to do what must be done, envies the strength needed to hurt people that hurt them back, envies the strength to go on in the name of anger and revenge, envies the freedom that comes from lack of morality when she’s focused. He envies the strength she’s found in being the opposite of good.
Pietro will always be the weak link, and not because of their power, but because he’s the type with such a strong moral heart that he would rather sacrifice himself for a former enemy, and the little brother of a friend, and hurt his own sister, than be selfish, and live on at the cost of someone’s life not being saved.
“We will envy each other from 8 years old to now, at 24, and for longer. Because we admire each other so much that they see almost no real flaws, and yet in ourselves, we see only flaws.”
Wanda told him this during their fourth week in the Avengers building, when they teleported to the roof of the Avengers, and just rested there, looking at the sky like they always did to remind themselves many things would remain the same no matter how many things changed for them.
He wishes he could look at the stars right now, his mind is a mess, and he doesn’t know half of the things he’s been thinking, and trying to reminiscence. He’s never hated the day so much as he does right now. He needs the reminder that things will stay the same to ground him, and give him hope.
But the stars don’t come out during the day.
And Pietro hates that.
“Pietro.” says someone, shaking him. He remains staring at the spot where Wanda is, thinking of all that blood, and that look in her eyes, the tremble in her hands as it left her stomach, covered in her blood. The absolute confusion in her face when she realized that it hadn’t healed , and that sickening crack, and twang of metal when she fell backwards, and hit her head square on the metal.
His mind cruelly plays it in a loop in his mind. The way her eyes fluttered close, and just before that, when her eyes began to flutter close as Natasha and Steve were talking to her. He should have noticed, he saw that falter in her barrier, something had been wrong, and he didn’t catch on fast enough and now she had bled out on the Quinjet and—
A sharp stinging feeling woke him up. Someone had slapped him. Wow, that really did not feel great during a breakdown. In his mind, he apologized to past Wanda for punching her in panic.
He looks up, his gaze wavering, and teary.
“Get up.” Natasha said to him. “We’re here, and Wanda’s on the stretcher, we should follow.”
Pietro nodded, once, weakly, and then twice and thrice, stronger, and more eagerly. He pushed himself up and ran out of the Quinjet’s exit, using his speeding to slow down his time and react faster, rolling after he jumped off instead of using the stairs. He saw her body in a stretcher, being carried into the building, and the men were running fast, but he ran faster towards them.
Natasha ran faster towards them.
They weren’t running fast enough!
He stopped right beside her, and in a few minutes, two or three, Natasha had caught up, panting slightly.
“How is she? Will she live?” He asked.
They don’t answer him and keep talking amongst themselves. So he turns to Steve. “Will she live?! Will your MedBay do something for her?!” He stays silent, and opens his mouth as if to speak, but for Pietro, he takes too long, that one split second for him feels like 10 minutes to him. To his speedster quickened, enhanced mind, pumped with adrenaline and fear. Every second feels like 10 minutes, and Steve hadn’t yet answered, so in a moment of pure anger, he grabbed Steve by his collar.
“WILL SHE LIVE?! WILL YOUR TECH AND MEDBAY SAVE HER?!” He shouted, his face nearly red. Natasha rushes to remove him from Steve, but Steve shakes his head, and his grip weakens with the reminder of what sort of man he is. And he falls to his knees. “She has to live. You have to do something, you don’t get it—”
“They’ll do their best, Pietro.” Steve said.
Anger rekindled, just as fast as it went away, he shot up. “NO! No, you don’t get it! Their best better be enough, because if she dies, I will too! I can’t— I’m not as… I’m not like her…” He turns towards the door they took her past and rushes in. Natasha turns towards him.
It’s the waiting room, he guesses, and to the right, behind the window, must be the MedBay, or Avengers OR. He doesn’t know, and doesn’t care. He just leans against the wall next to the glass and bangs his fist once, twice, against it.
“You— none of you get it! None of you have lost a twin! She’s my other-half, and just being away from each other hurts, do you know what it’ll do to me if I lose her? If I lose her because you sent us on a mission?!”
“Hey, now!” Tony defends, he doesn’t know where the billionaire came from, but he’s not the face that Pietro should be seeing at all right now. He’s too angry. “You guys chose this mission.” He defends.
As soon as the last syllable leaves his mouth, Pietro has drawn his arm back and socked him in the face. Blood ends up on his knuckle, because he punched hard enough to break Tony’s nose, or just cause a nosebleed.
He still doesn’t know, and still doesn’t care.
“Because you all pressured us!” Pietro yelled. “Wanda wanted to rest! Sure, we’d been lazing around a little, but we were training! She was trying to delay, and I’m sure she had a good reason for it, but you all overruled her and you made us pick a mission! And now look at her! Just look! Look at what you’ve done to my sister!” He flails his arm around wildly, repeating the gesture of pointing towards the reinforced glass window or plastic something window, where doctors or surgeons surround her, taking out the bullet inside her.
“She’s been training me harder than any of you have! She’s been making sure I was prepared, and you all hurried us! I’m sorry we were locked up in our rooms for weeks like hermits, but—... Steve, why would you force us?” His voice breaks, and he doesn’t even have the energy to feel embarrassed by it. “Wanda… She’s the last family I have left. You don’t get it. None of you have lost a sister.”
From the side of his eyes, he notices Natasha flinch. He doesn’t comment on it right now, but his brain instinctively saves it to the back of his mind for ‘Things to tell Wanda about her girlfriend later’ folder. Then it hurts again, to think that some of the things in said folder might never be shared if Wanda doesn’t make it.
No. No. She has to make it.
“You all made a second family in the Avengers. Wanda and I were just still trying to join… We adored all of you, and we wanted to keep having time to discuss how we would talk to you all, because we would always get too nervous… We would huddle close together, watching sitcoms, talking about things we found out about you all, and how we could start conversations. You all have this family, but…” He doesn’t really know what he’s saying anymore. He just knows he’s lashing out at Steve, even if he doesn’t deserve it, but he can’t let it go. Wanda had been so insistent on not going on a mission, even if her reasons were different, and perhaps if Steve had just listened and didn’t tell them to go on a mission, let them go on her own schedule, her own time, then Wanda wouldn’t have gotten hurt. His gaze hardened. “If she doesn’t make it, Steve. I will destroy the Avengers, it doesn’t matter if I have to do it myself—and doom the Earth in the future—I will do it. I promise you. And I will go after your last family too, to see how you like it!”
Pietro poked his muscular chest, and turned, and walked to the seat farthest from them.
He’s not the empath, but even he can feel the waves of guilt coming off of Steve.
He doesn’t care, doesn’t mind them, even as they talk amongst themselves in quiet whispers. His sister is all his mind focuses on.
Why didn’t she heal?
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
After some time, although if asked, Pietro wouldn’t be able to answer, Sam’s come and sat down next to him. He arrived a few minutes or an hour ago, Pietro’s perception of time was screwed up. Every minute feels extremely short and yet also an eternity. Sam didn’t try to say anything, or console him, he just sat there, and it was enough.
Then the doctors come out, and they give him that nod when he rises up, the one that means she’s alive, the one he’s only ever seen on TV. “We got the bullet out, but there were some complications-” Pietro tensed, and he hurried to fix his mistake. “-not for her, but her healing delayed what was supposed to be a short surgery.”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked, Pietro would have realized that none of the Avengers knew about her super-healing, if only he’d been in a better state of mind.
“Well, we tried to work around the bullet, and so while we were trying to perform surgery, she would just start closing the wound. But, with a bit of insistence, we got the bullet out safely, and she’s resting. But…”
“But what?” Pietro rushed to ask.
“Well, it didn’t seem like her internal organs were healing quite as fast, so i- when she wakes up, she might face certain…disabilities, when she wakes up. Such as paralyzation on her left leg, and complete numbness on the left side of her torso. The bullet also fractured her hip-bone in its way in, because of the angle at which it—”
“I get it.” Pietro interrupted. “I get it, please stop.”
The Doctor nodded, his head down in a silent apology.
“What about her head?” Steve asks, approaching hesitantly. Pietro doesn’t bother to even acknowledge him.
“Yes, well, that’s… a concussion is the least of her problems. She fell and hit her head quite hard, and she’s got a minor skull fracture, but thankfully, her healing worked with us in helping close her skull and scalp, so she’ll be alright. Although she will need constant surveillance, we predict that with time, she will wake soon. She’s resting right now, but you can come in now.” And the Doctor leaves.
“Good.” Steve nodded. “That’s good.”
Pietro can’t handle it— “It’s not good, Steve! My sister might not be able to walk on one of her legs ever again, and she won’t feel her torso, and her skull has a fracture , and how is she supposed to have a normal life now?! Being the Sc— an enhanced was hard enough!”
Sam puts his hands on his shoulder, and pushes him back. “Calm down, buddy.” He says, placating, but calming. “I think you need a moment to chill, go for a walk.”
“I’m not leaving her side.” Pietro says, slapping his hands away. “Have Steve walk. She wouldn’t want him here.”
He knows he’s not telling the truth, but he doesn’t care , because his sister is in a hospital bed, after surgery. He doesn’t have much space left in his head to care any more about anyone but his last remaining family member.
He enters her room, and pulls up a chair. “Hello, sister.”
.
.
.
A week passes, and her head has gotten better, healing faster than a normal human’s but only slightly. Despite what the Doctor told them, she still hasn’t woken up. Pietro stayed by her side the entire week, and talked to her, though received no reply. By her side, he cries, and waits for her eyes to open.
Two weeks pass, the same thing. Pietro’s crying has only gotten worse, he knows the Avengers have started to try and stop by, but when they see him sobbing over her unconscious body, they wisely choose not to enter. They don’t understand, he’s not just scared because she hasn’t woken up, they think he’s just never had to be apart from her for so long, they think he hasn’t had to see her sick and unconscious before, they think he’s not used to seeing her hurt.
They’re all wrong.
In the streets, Wanda’s immune system was the first to get weaker between the two of them, she was the first to get sick, severely. It would last for days, maybe even two full weeks of stressing and worrying by her side. Even fevers would get bad. He would race to find and steal as much medicine he could.
In the experiments, Wanda was the most hurt, because her powers were linked to her mind, and needed much effort to lift heavy things and truly become the lethal thing they wanted her to be. He just needed to run, and get faster and stronger. Her, she had a lot of vulnerabilities. There were many nights in which Pietro would be thrown in her cell, because she begged too much that they were annoyed into giving in. And Pietro would have to see his sister hurt, and in pain, and not be able to do anything.
He’s used to seeing his sister hurt.
What he’s not used to, is feeling that same fear he did 14 years ago. The fear that his sister might die and it’s all because he wasn’t powerful enough to change anything.
Back in HYDRA, back when they lived in the streets, back in the battle against Ultron, Pietro knew his sister would live, because she was a fighter, because even the worst of illnesses and the worst of beatings wouldn’t be able to knock her down and make her stay down. Because she always fought to get back up and back by his side. Because every night that he had to hear her anguished cries and grunts, he knew that it was a sign she hadn’t yet given up no matter how weak or shitty she felt.
But now, with power beyond his imagination, she was still unconscious. She wasn’t fighting. No sounds of struggle left her lips, no sounds of pain reached his ears. There was no sound coming from her. And that was the scariest part of this. The Wanda he knew, the one that would always fight to return to him, wasn’t the Wanda in front of him. The Wanda in front of him, had had her will broken down a hundred thousand times, had been knocked down by grief and adversity a million times, until she started to wish to just remain on the ground. The Wanda in front of him had an underlying hidden---well, not that underlying or hidden---death wish.
The Wanda in front of him may not fight back to get to him.
And maybe that’s also why her powers weren’t working to heal her.
And if Wanda didn’t try to get back to him, then that might mean the certainty of her death and fate would be more sealed than it was at any other point in time.
And that’s what broke him so much, and the Avengers didn’t realize that. They didn’t know Wanda, they didn’t know that the quiet unconsciousness they thought to be rest and healing, was a sign of her resignation, a sign of possible future loss for him.
So when Steve, Sam, Vision, and Natasha stopped by, with pitiful looks, or looks of ‘understanding’ and sympathy, it just made him angry.
They didn’t understand.
He wasn’t just sad, and he wasn’t scared for her state. He was scared he would be grieving soon.
But he can’t tell them that, he doesn’t have the energy to yell, crying is all he can do.
.
.
.
Three weeks in, and Pietro has grown tired of having to force himself, and drag his feet up back to their room. And though it hasn’t even been a month yet, it’s growing too close to it. So today, three days into their third week, he goes back up the elevator for the last time. He walks into their room, and tries not to focus on anything else. Tries not to focus on how Wanda’s not there, she’s not on her side of the bed, reading, or completely sprawled out, hogging his side of the bed too while she watches sitcoms or romcoms. She’s not eating or writing that thing she ponders about every now and then on the desk by her side of the bed. She’s not on her laptop or on her phone, and she’s not talking to Liho as she pours her cat food into Liho’s bowl. She’s not trying to chase a cat all around the room, and she’s not playing with Liho, or cuddled up, as they both sleep.
He tries not to look all around the room and notice that. Instead, he just grabs his backpack, the one he always uses for the stuff they’re learning, his notes, and the one he emptied for their beach trip a few weeks ago. The one that’s his. And he empties it, grabs the bottom of the bag and flips it over with the zipper open, everything inside the bag comes crashing out into a messy pile that he doesn’t care about.
He begins to speed around the room, getting Liho’s and Mister Dibbles’ spare food and water bowls. They call it spare, but Wanda would never let them lose their main, so they’re really just bowls for when they travel with their pets, so it’s really their spare-for-trips food/water bowls. He gets their bags of food, enough for a few weeks. Then he pauses, as he stares at the cabinet filled with turtle and cat food. And he adds in more, because he doesn’t know how long she’ll remain unconscious, and he refuses to go back up in this room without her.
He doesn’t want their room to smell only of him. To speak only of his presence. It’s supposed to say ‘The Maximoff Twins’ room, not ‘Pietro Maximoff’s room, with some of Wanda Maximoff’’s things inside’.
Then he takes Liho’s leash, because Wanda figured out a day after getting the precious little thing that Liho liked to walk too, and especially liked it when Wanda walked with her, on a leash, so even though Wanda groans at the idea of unnecessary walking and exercise, she goes on walks whenever Liho wants to.
Even if, one time, it was 2 AM, and Pietro was trying to sleep.
And he takes their toys too. He takes everything he needs. And when it’s all in his backpack, he closes it, and puts Liho in her cat carrier. He carries it by the handle, and lifts Mister Dibbles’ out of his tank, and puts him in his travel tank, one with everything he needs, and water that can come rushing in with a button, because of course, since Stark made it, and although Pietro’s grateful for it, he won’t ever say it.
Then he goes back down to the med-wing of the Avengers building, he places his bag down by his side, and Mister Dibbles and Liho on her desk, because there’s nothing there, he put aside the lamp a few days ago, and no one comes to drop by with flowers. He won’t let them. Flowers are too sad for him right now.
He’ll stay here, and so will their pets, until Wanda wakes up. He takes Liho out of her carrier, and immediately, the cat jumps off the desk and onto Wanda’s bed, places herself square on Wanda’s chest and curls up to sleep, meowing sadly.
Pietro understands.
Mister Dibbles makes that groaning sound, that Wanda told him lifetimes ago meant that he was crying.
Their pets understand, more than the Avengers do, even if they didn’t know her as long as he did. They understand, he can feel it.
The Doctor comes in again on the fifth day, near the end of the third week. He doesn’t say anything about the pets, and just checks up on her. Pietro should have watched, should have tried to see how to check in on her, and followed them when they took her away, but he was tired, and his presence would have just been a bother.
He had a stubble now, and he hadn’t showered in the whole entirety of the fifth week. He just curls up on his chair (he doesn’t know when, but someone changed it while he was sleeping by Wanda’s side, into a cushioned rocking chair) and stares at the ground, trying so hard not to let his thoughts fall into what a life without her would be like.
He never had to think about it, that was Wanda’s reality, and his worse nightmare and now it seemed, they were close to switching roles.
Once he finishes his check up, and they return Wanda, the Doctor clears his throat, and with as much energy he can muster, Pietro forces himself to lift his head. “How is she?” He croaks. His voice would be far rougher if not for Mister Dibbles and Liho, but even with them there, he hasn’t spoken much.
“Her head’s healing well, and she doesn’t seem to show too many signs of complications.” He says, uncomfortable and awkward. “She’ll wake up soon, son, she’ll be fine.”
He wants to believe the Doctor, with kind eyes and apparently good intentions.
But then his eyes move towards Wanda, and her silence, and he knows, the Doctor isn’t 100% right.
.
.
.
By the fourth week, nearing a month, Wanda still remained asleep. He became even more of a mess than he already was, but he tried different things. Liho remained curled up under Wanda’s hand, as if asking for her to pet her fur. He knows Liho doesn’t understand him, but still, he always tries to tell her, “She can’t do anything right now, buddy. When she wakes up, she’ll pet you all you want, I promise.” and Liho would meow, but just nudge Wanda’s hand, her long-ago unmoving hand, and it breaks his heart all over.
Despite what he did a few days ago, and swore to never go back up. He did anyway, carried as much of her books down as he could. He’s started to read her books to her, she might be able to hear. He searched it up, and apparently Coma patients can hear things around them (because his sister is just in a coma, he’s sure of it). And although he’s content to just sit with his thoughts and hope she can hear that in her head, because he can’t vocalise a lot of his thoughts, he’s decided to just start reading.
“I’m not really sure if you can--- if you can hear this, but uhm, I’m reading ‘Something to Talk About’ by Meryl Wisner. You said you really liked this one, so I’m gonna start with this one. Uhm, Chapter One: Emma.” He clears his throat. “Jo Jones in the running for Silver Gig, the headline on the screen sad. Right beneath that, in italics, it read, But should she be? Emma huffed as she scrolled through the article for the fifth time. She didn’t normally spend her mornings reading gossip col-columns about her boss, but earlier that week, Jo had a meeting with the studio producing the next Agent Silver movie. As her assistent, asis--... Hey, Wanda, how do you say this wo-... right. Ahem, uhm… assistant , Emma knew which appointments were on Jo’s schedule but not what happened within them…” He continued to read, until teardrops fell on the page, because Wanda was always the one that read to him, because she liked to read out loud, and he always took in books better when it was being read to them, and they fit together that well, always.
After he finished three chapters, he stopped reading, unable to speak past his hiccups and tears. So he just turned on the TV on the wall, and put on Dick Van Dyke and turned it up, hoping that that was the only thing Wanda could hear, and not his choked back tears.
On the fourth day of the fifth week, or better yet, the first day of the next month, he wonders how Wanda ever bared this pain for years. He’s barely slept, and his nightmares have come, but they’re not about the bombing, they’re about a future where Wanda never wakes. Wanda told him this process happened to her too, and though she described it well, the reality of situations in grief can never quite compare to words. Ever.
His mind begins to tell him that maybe both Maximoff twins weren’t meant to live. Maybe fate had been trying to tell them that, and that’s why the Ultron bot managed to shoot her when her guard was down. Maybe Wanda switched her life for his.
Then his mind starts to tell him it’s his fault for surviving.
He does his best to chase the thoughts away, but they remain persistent. When they begin to drag him down, Liho meows, leaving Wanda’s side to come to him, and he’s reminded that he can’t think like that, because Wanda wouldn’t want him to, and the pets must know that.
Mister Dibbles helps a lot too, sometimes more than Liho, because sometimes Liho doesn’t want to leave Wanda’s side which he understands. Mister Dibbles knocks against his tank repeatedly when when Pietro begins to lose himself in his own dark thoughts, even if it sometimes results in knocking himself over, he does it every time anyway. And Pietro would shake his head, and get up and walk to the cage, flipping him over again, and whisper a “Thank you” to Liho and Dibbles.
On the sixth day of the week, or the third day into the new month, Pietro has officially foregone physical hygiene. He remains in the same three shirts, his hair is oily, he reeks a little bit, and he hasn’t brushed his teeth in days. But none of the Avengers who occasionally come to visit Wanda, but instead pass by, say anything. Except for two.
Natasha and Vision, they’ve began to actually venture in. Pietro had been right when he said that Natasha was intrigued by Wanda, cared for her even. And Vision’s reason for coming was obvious, even if they were in a different timeline, he probably still felt the same romantic attraction for Wanda. They both probably do, honestly.
Pietro still doesn’t like Vision, no matter how happy he seemed to have made his sister, he wasn’t enough. Not for her. He could never really understand her, and they honestly seemed more like they should be best friends. To him, it seemed like Wanda had just forced herself to be too hetero that she projected all her feelings for Natasha onto Vision.
But then again, Pietro’s not the one who lived in the future. He doesn’t really know, he just speculates.
7 PM, on the Saturday of the fifth week, before the day ends, Natasha confronts him. “Wash up.” She says. “If you don’t want your sister to get sick, or to wake up to you looking like this. Start taking care of yourself too.”
And Pietro does.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Natasha and Pietro begin taking shifts to read Wanda her books. Vision doesn’t take shifts, because he doesn’t come in enough to do it, something about missions and working with Tony. Pietro doesn’t really care about him. He appreciates Natasha, though. She keeps him in check, and he’s pretty sure that getting to come in and take care of Wanda, even hearing stories about her and their childhood has been helping her too. Soften her edges or something like that.
Wanda would be blushing herself red to know Natasha came in bi-daily.
The doctors come in, and they check up on Wanda. Again. He thinks they may have come a few days ago too, but he doesn’t remember, there are blank spaces in his memory, but they’re not actually blank spaces, just moments in his memory where he can’t remember anything else but his tears. This time, again, they say there’s nothing wrong.
“She’ll wake up soon.”
There obviously is. She obviously won’t.
Then a few days later, they came again.
“She’s just asleep. Near coma.”
He already assumed that. They’re useless.
So they give her a few more days, and the current week passes. She doesn’t wake.
On a Monday, the start of another month, they come in and tell him they’re going to try and wake her up, and tell him of the process. “We’re going to inject adrenaline into her body, and hopefully wake her up.” Just to test it out, they say. Pietro agreed to it. He hopes he made the right choice.
They inject her with shots—not many—of adrenaline. Pietro watches by the side, tapping his foot repeatedly, he can tell it annoys the doctors, but they also have eyes and they know better than to speak and stop what they’re doing, just to address him. Steve walks towards him from behind raising a hand to place on his shoulder, but then thinks better of it and steps back again. Pietro feels slight guilt, because he knows it’s not Steve’s fault, but there’s also a part of his mind that goes ‘good.’ and ‘he knows what he did wrong.’ , but it’s whatever. Pietro will apologize later, when Wanda wakes up.
They finish with the shots.
And then, Pietro waits.
1 minute. 2 minutes. 3…
Wanda remains asleep.
Okay, maybe he was rushing, maybe she just needs a few more minutes, Wanda always loved getting to sleep in, especially that moment when you wake up too early and you’re given permission to go back to sleep and rest, it’s her favourite thing in the mornings; it’s why her first alarm is an hour and a half earlier than she likes to wake up, so she gets to turn it off and go to sleep again.
He glances at the clock: It’s been 5 minutes, and yet she hasn’t stirred.
That feeling in his gut, that dread that went away for a second when the doctors actually finally proposed a method to wake her up, comes back. Harder, if possible.
He swallows, and taps his foot even louder, and faster. He sees one of the nurses’ eye twitch, but the Doctor shakes his head, and the nurse keeps his mouth shut.
“Come on, sestra.” Pietro broke, finally begging, despite the people around them. “Come on, please. I know you like your second sleep, but it’s time to wake up. Look, Vision’s here. You like Vision, right?”
He noticed the Avengers’ eyes slightly widening in surprise.
“If you won’t wake up for your brother, please, just wake up for Vision, okay?”
There’s a different sort of love she must feel for her brother, and for the husband she’s lost three times. Maybe it would work, he doesn’t know, doesn’t care about the logistics, he just needs it to work, no matter how illogical that train of thought is, because he’s desperate and if she doesn’t wake, he’ll break. Soon. Or maybe, he already did. He can’t tell.
Wanda’s breathing remains irritatingly even. Nothing changed.
Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup--- Wanda, please. Wake up!
“Perhaps,” starts Vision. Pietro clenches his jaw, and his fist. “It may not be a physical rest? Wanda is quite a magical being.”
Pietro was already thinking that, but he doesn’t understand the mystical and magical arts, hasn’t had it explained to him enough, hasn’t yet studied it. But he does know this, if Wanda was in a magical rest, then her magic would have cleared it away long ago, because she was powerful, and no one could place her under some sort of sleeping spell without her magic fighting back.
And when her magic fights back, Pietro would know. There’s a look, you can tell when she’s fighting back, or when her ‘Chaos Magic’ is fighting back for her. It happens most in nightmares. Red wisps surround her whole body, like she’s cocooned, there are randomly timed twitches anywhere on her body, her head moves, or her finger twitches, or her whole body jerks. And with nightmares, the moment you touch her skin, interact with the red wisps surrounding her entire body, you’re dragged into her mind.
There are no red wisps around her body. If it’s a magical rest, and she’s not fighting back, or her Chaos Magic isn’t, then that might be Pietro’s worst fear confirmed:
Wanda’s done fighting back.
He can’t accept that, and if he can’t accept that, then it can’t be a magical rest. He’s not the one with reality shifting powers, but just this once, he wills his wishes to twist the fabric of reality.
“M-maybe it’s a psychological rest?” He offers, because it cannot be magical.
“If it was a psychological rest, the chances are, Mr. Maximoff, that her body would still physically respond, but even with shots of adrenaline, her heartbeats did not change.”
“FUCK THAT!” Pietro yelled. “IT CAN’T BE THAT!”
Vision took a step---floated---back, surprised.
Pietro crumpled to his knees, aware that Avengers and Doctors alike were watching him. “If it’s that, then how are we supposed to help? What if she never wakes up?! If it was that, she should be awake, because--- My sister is a fighter, if she’s under some sort of magical thing, or whatever is happening to her, actually magical or not…or just her wounds…and she’s not fighting against it then-”
And that’s when they realized; when they understood. Perhaps not to the extent that Pietro felt it, but enough that the pity in their eyes, or sympathy, he couldn’t tell the difference, didn’t seem so angering. But it did seem far more patronising now.
He notices that the Doctors have left already, good, he can’t handle knowing they see him at his lowest too.
They look back at Wanda, and take in their silence with theirs. They take in her even breathing, and her peaceful rest. A rest that shows no sign of struggle. And then fear sets in Steve’s eyes, horror in Natasha’s and Sam’s, and complete understanding in Vision’s eyes (it helps make him feel at ease, and validated, and he starts to understand how Wanda fell for him, or in his opinion—still—how Wanda thought she’d fallen for him. They’d fallen in love while she was at her most vulnerable, grieving for him. Any sort of comfort, and feeling of ease like this, would be so so easy to mistake for love, especially when your real crush was probably often near the same vicinity as Vision).
They realize it now: Wanda Maximoff’s quiet sleep may mean that she could be dead soon.
Steve wavers, hand covering his mouth. He stumbles, losing his footing, and leans on the wall beside him. “She… She could be— I could…”
He doesn’t seem capable of finishing his sentence, but Pietro lets him have his time to try anyway.
“I could have sent her to her death?”
Pietro nearly doubles over with guilt, because he then realizes. He’s the one that chose the mission, he believed it to be simple, especially with her power—he grew too reliant on Wanda’s omnipotence—and Steve’s not the one who might have sent her to her death.
He did.
“Please,” Pietro whined. “Just get out.”
“Pietro, I’m so-”
“NOW, Steve! Please!”
Pietro dragged his feet back towards his chair, and sat there, unresponsive, he heard retreating footsteps and felt glad they finally left. He covers his face with his hands.
He thinks back to the faltering magic. The way her voice in his head, her telepathy, faded just a little bit. All the signs that showed that something was different. He just thought he was looking into it too much, but as he added all of it into a sort of list, it was so obvious that something was off .
Faltering magic, early waking, manually getting food, less telepathic conversations, random stumbles while they were walking around in the building, less meditation, she never tried to stay up. And, the biggest one: She faltered, right before the start of the mission in the Quinjet.
He remembers the night her nightmares returned, she went out for a bit, he doesn’t know how long, because he went back to sleep, but she came back, eyes red and nearly bloodshot and that haunted look back in her eyes, but he thought it was just because of the nightmare. He didn’t think much of it, and just pulled her close, made sure she didn’t feel alone. She went back to sleep after that, but something must have happened then.
He doesn’t know what, but he’s pretty sure that it happened after the first night that her nightmares came back. All the signs began to show after that night.
He hates that he didn’t realize it until now. Too late to change anything, because he can’t time-travel or rewind time like his sister.
“I’m sorry, sestra.” He whispers.
He thinks of how she worked so hard to keep him alive.
And, he looks at her, how in return, he’s doomed her.
“I’ve been a shit twin brother, haven’t I?”
Wanda’s hand twitches, and a quiet groan passes her lips, but she does not wake.
Pietro does not notice.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Time passes, again, despite the sadness and guilt in his heart, he’s grown a lot more used to caring for Wanda. He, thankfully, doesn’t have to give her her baths. Once in a while, like, perhaps every Sunday. It started a few weeks after her coma, and gave him false hope repeatedly, but now he’s not bothered by it. It’s just ‘a thing that happens’ now.
The red wisps come on a Sunday, and they clean her, he assumes.
Wanda is, to be honest, the easiest coma patient to take care of. Even the nurses say it. You don’t have to wash her, her vitals stay the same, and so does her health even if she doesn’t eat—though the Doctors still attached a feeding tube, of course—and she just lays there, unmoving, unchanging.
Pietro starts to wonder if years will pass, he’ll be a father or a grandpa, and his sister will remain as she is.
(oh God, how he fears that).
So he just takes care of Liho and Mister Dibbles. He’s learned how to order (read: Sam took pity on him and showed him, step by step, how to order online) and use other apps on his phone (read, again: Sam Wilson taught him).
He smiles at Wanda as he enters her ‘hospital’ room, and sits at his chair, which is really more of his bed now. He crosses his legs and opens up the book he’s reading for Wanda now. “The Giver, Chapter 10…” He began to read, his voice droning on, as it always did, in sync to Wanda’s soft and repetitive inhales and exhales.
“And that’s 4 chapters done!” He closes the book. “I’ll read more tomorrow, as usual, but don’t you think I’m getting far better at reading and getting faster, sestra? You have good books too, no wonder you can spend hours doing this.” He grins, and places the book down. “I’ll go feed Liho and Mister Dibbles now, but I’ll be back!”
Once he finishes, he comes right back to his seat, and the silence fills the air, and his lungs. He’s finally run of things to say. He stares at Wanda, who always picked up the conversation, and let him be a listener when he didn’t know what to say, instead of letting silence remain. They both didn’t like silence. He, because it reminded him of the apartment collapse, and those 2 days spent in fearing-for-your-life silence. She, because silence allowed her mind to drag her into darker thoughts far too easily.
He wonders if Vision was the only one who saved her from silence in the other timeline, in her other life. Wonders how many hours she spent in silence, with her darker thoughts, and no hope.
He marvels at his sister’s strength. How she remained so long, fighting on and on, and never giving up until she lost Vision too… He would have broken during the first period of mourning, if he’d been the one to survive, in Sokovia, and Wanda had died. He wouldn’t have found it in him to love, and trust, and protect. He wouldn’t have had the strength to fight back against the Sokovia Accords, nor keep fighting after the Raft.
He takes her hand in his. “You’ve been fighting a long time, right, sestra?”
Silence.
“Well, I hope you can enjoy this time around. I’ll do my best to fight for you, okay? When you wake up, we’ll just focus on…both of us, we’ll be happy, alright? Real real happiness. No more fighting. Your super overpowered abilities will just be a really cool fact about you.”
He’s used to the silence that responds to him now, but only because he holds on to the hope that later, doesn’t know when, just later , and soon , she will be replying to him again instead of silence.
She has to.
It’s a twin thing. You don’t leave your twin hanging.
He fidgets with his hands. He's grown used to doing this routine, whatever it is, by Wanda’s side, but it doesn’t make the silence-as-a-reply thing any more awkward. Then he remembers the paper in his pocket, when he feels it as he shifts. “Right!” He takes it out of his pocket, and begins to unfold the crumpled up piece of paper, with a list written on it, in small tiny handwriting, to fit as much as he could.
“You know, I didn’t tell you because you were supposed to be awake by now, but I made this list.” Pietro started, because his anger was growing, at Steve, at himself, at this situation, at Wanda for not waking up. And he didn’t want to be mad. “Since I learned of how much we missed out, and how you spent your life, I made this bucket list of things we could do. Things I find really fun, and things I think you would find fun, even if I wouldn’t. We’d do it together, and you’d facepalm a lot, because that’s just us, you know? Wanda Maximoff, the one who makes 8 bad decisions out of 10, and Pietro Maximoff, the guy who makes 12 bad decisions out of 10. But, I guess it’ll just have to be a bucket list for things we could do after you wake up now, because you’ll wake up, right? You won’t leave me. You promised, and you always keep your promises. And I’m the one who left you before, and we’re not supposed to ever separate again, because we’re two halves of a whole. And you won’t… You wouldn’t leave me broken like this, right? You’ll wake up, and you’ll scold me, and argue with me, and do really dumb shit with me.”
Wanda didn’t respond still.
Pietro squeezed her hand. “It’s fine, you don’t have to reply or wake up right now, but you’ll do it soon, I know.” He looked at the paper. “I wanted to go and see the Statue of Liberty, and maybe the tower thing in Paris. I wanted to go on a boat with you, and enter a competition of something together, competitions are fun. I wanted to see if there are people who are fans of us, like there are fans of Steve. I wanted to create a social media account with you. And meet a celebrity, I’m sure we could do that, we know Avengers, and Stark. We could guilt him into letting us meet some of our idols, don’t you think?” He laughed, wiping his tears.
“And you’ve already fallen in love and gotten married…kind of…but I want to still do it, you just, you kind of have a head-start, but that’s alright. I’ll find my person too, and I’ll fall in love with them too, but for now, I’ll just have to first be the Best Man, or…a Bridesmaid? Yeah, I’m sure I could pull off a pretty dress. Then, uhm, kids, and a house, but again, you’re already way ahead there.” Of course she was, she got to—she had to—live out a whole life without him.
“I want to try out American camping…or, if that’s not a thing, then, I just… I want to go camping without having to worry about thieves or actively thinking of our camp as our only home right now. Camping in the streets isn’t the same as camping in America, right? I bet it’s even more fun, if people here like to do it. I want to go hiking— no, I want to climb a mountain with you! But we’ll restrict the use of our powers so it’s a fun experience. I want to stay in a bunch of hotels, I searched it up, did you know there are underwater hotels and ice hotels? I want to test it all out, and experience room service, and travel in a train, and go scuba diving. And we could both learn how to surf.”
He kept on reading his bucket list, which he knew was out of control, and far too long, and near impossible, but he didn’t care . It was just… It was like dreams, hopes for their future.
And Wanda was already an impossible entity, so a nearly impossible bucket list wouldn’t be too hard, with her powers.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
One thing that came with him getting used to the strange, yet daily unchanging routine of staying by Wanda’s side, was that Pietro had begun to calm down. So, when Sam took the first risk and walked into Wanda’s healing room (after two days of deliberation, to help pass time, in spite of his best efforts to keep trying to consider it for longer, he eventually decided that room of healing/healing room was the best name, because it was Wanda, and she liked wiccan-like sort of names like that… if that was even a wiccan-like name for a room, he didn’t know), Pietro didn’t raise his head and glare them away.
Instead, he raised his head and waved weakly. “Hey.”
Sam waved back nervously. “H-hey.” He looked at the candle in Pietro’s hands. “Uhm, what are you doing, man?”
“Wanda likes candles.” He answered. “Scented ones, especially if there’s a lot of them, gives a room a cool look, total fire hazard, but she thinks it looks cool. And I’m hoping that if I use enough of her favourite scents…”
Sam nodded, understandingly. “Right. Yeah, any chance or possibility is a lot.”
“Yup.” Pietro nodded. “So uh how has it been up there?”
“Not much has changed, y’know? Same old shit. Steve’s just been a lot more withdrawn, he’s still really down on himself for… Well, you know.”
Pietro nodded, and turned the page in a book that he decided he wanted to read for himself, and not out to Wanda, just for his own amusement, so he wouldn’t go crazy with the fact that no matter how much he read to her, she still wouldn’t wake. “Yeah, uhm, when you go up— Can you just uh…tell Steve I’m sorry? I-I didn’t mean it. He’s not at fault, HYDRA is.”
Sam shrugged, “Sure, man, but–” he fidgeted. “Well, it might not be my place but, you should tell him yourself. If you’re alright with us visiting here more, then he’ll probably go down one day, and you can say it to him.”
“Uhm…” Pietro thought about it, chewing on his bottom lip. “Yeah, okay. I’ll think about it.”
Sam nodded, and then— “Ah, right, uhm, didn’t wanna forget.” He turned behind him, and handed him two paper bags. “Here’s some takeout. Pizza. We ordered yesterday. Hope it’s enough, Wanda said before to Natasha that you eat a lot, so… Yeah.”
“Thanks.” Pietro took it. “I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah, of course, man.” Sam patted his shoulder and walked off.
Pietro turned back to his sister once Sam was gone, and took her hand in his. “When you wake up,” he starts, “I’ll make sure we get to do all the things you want to. Starting with being friends with all the Avengers, I know you wanted that even if you never said it, I know you regret missing your chances because you were too hurt over losing me. Well, not this time. This time, we’ll be everyone’s best friends. I promise.”