spinning out of control (didn’t they tell us “don’t rush into things”?) pt. 2
“She used to be so afraid of the darkness.” He said.
He still remembered it…
Wanda, 11 years old, pulled her knees close, and the fire, low as it was barely lit up the space that was just inches away from it, but she kept it so close to her nonetheless. Pietro only began to realize a few seconds later when he started to feel a phantom sting and burn on his ankle and on the palm of his left hand. He turned away from the food that he’d stolen and been counting, and planning to ration, and saw that Wanda had been holding the fire too close to her own skin for far too long, and her skin had started to burn, but still, she kept it close, gripping it tight like a lifeline and huddling her small body over it.
She was freezing, shivering, her thick but ragged and damaged oversized adult coat slipping off her body, but she didn’t seem to notice, instead only focusing on the faint light, eyes still and nearly terrifying, if not for the tears that fell down her cheeks from them. In the light of the dim fire that she protected with her hands, her eyes seem liked they were glowing.
“Wanda,” he called. “прекратите это, пожалуйста. Брось свечу. Ты обжигаешься (stop that, please. Drop the candle. You're burning yourself.).”
Wanda kept her grip tight on the candle. The searing phantom pain that doesn’t belong to him, but hurts almost like it could be his wound, worsens. Pietro lets out a cry of pain. That finally brings Wanda out of her haze-like stupor and she runs over to Pietro, still clutching the candle.
“Pietro!” she screams, panicked and scared. “What happened?”
Angry, and pained, Pietro lets out a yell, and knocks the candle off of her hand. “That!” he exclaims, pointing at the fallen candle as it begins to dim even further and extinguish. Wanda stares, brokenly at the fading light.
The light goes out.
“You-” He begins.
Wanda screams.
Pietro panics and in his shock, falls to his feet and scuffles back a bit from his sister, as she drops to her knees for the candle, then clutches her head, and screams even more.
“Wanda,” he warns. “Wanda , љта то радиљ? Престани да вриљтиљ! Довељжељ нам лоље људе. (Wanda! Stop screaming! You’re going to bring bad people over to us.)”
She doesn’t reply, instead she keeps screaming, until Pietro covers her mouth, but still, squeaks and whines leave her little mouth as she sits to curl up in on herself, and stay quietly crying and mewling when Pietro lets go.
“сестра, что с тобой? Что случилось? (sister, what is wrong with you? What happened?)”
Wanda lets out little groans, muttering too much all at once, eating her words, and not finishing them fully before starting the next one, and Pietro doesn’t understand what she’s saying.
Until he does.
“темный свет страшно плохие люди папа мама кровь Старк два дня темный темный темный темный темный темный темный свет огонь ушел страшно страшно демоны убийцы плохие люди темные тени– (dark light scary bad people daddy mommy blood stark two days dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark dark light fire gone scary scary demon killers bad people dark shadows—)” and then she screams, all over again.
Pietro looks all around him, at the darkness, his eyes have settled easily, and although the instinct to become wary in the dark to protect his sister is there, he realizes that Wanda has a completely different instinct triggered by the dark.
The dark reminds her of the two days.
He just killed the lights.
Wanda, ever so strong, and loving of the dark and the comfort of its unknown, was now terrified of something she used to love.
He knew the collapse changed them both, but even now, a year after, he’s still learning of new reasons that they are different because of what happened. What Stark did.
As he lights a new candle, and gives it to Wanda, but only after telling her to be careful of burning herself, Pietro promises; If he can, if he ever meets Stark— He will kill him.
“And it didn’t go away for a long time,” he continued.
Wanda was 13, she was sleeping under their far too used sleeping bag, but it didn’t matter if it was worn and torn, it provided comfort, warmth, and kept them off from sleeping directly on the painful ground with small pebbles poking at their back, sometimes embedding itself onto their skin when they turn. Like usual, unlike Pietro, Wanda didn’t move a lot, except for the occasional stirring to pull the sleeping bag further up.
Pietro had been awake for a while, staring at the stars, trying to feel better past the guilt in his heart for the shares of food this morning. Wanda separated them, and as usual, it was clear that Pietro’s pile was bigger, and Wanda had smiled so kindly that morning telling him it was okay, although her words were contracted by her stomach growling, and later, the way she cried silently, hugging her stomach.
He wished they could escape this fate, if not both of them, then just her. She didn’t deserve to go to sleep crying because she had to starve herself to feed Pietro. That’s not what little sisters were supposed to do, little sisters—however small their age gap is—were supposed to be protected, and held above him.
Things weren’t supposed to be like this.
Wanda pulled her sleeping bag too far up, instead of just covering up to her chin or her cheek, the wind blew strong and covered her eyes. Pietro spared a glance but didn’t think much of it, until a few minutes when she began to turn and writhe, groaning and panting, screaming their parents’ names.
A nightmare.
He turned towards her, and found that the sleeping bag covering her eyes remained, and it was sending her into a state of half-consciousness, but total panic, even in her subconscious. It didn’t matter now, if she’d been having a pleasant dream, a mild nightmare, or no dreams at all, her mind now projected a nightmare because to her, it all went dark.
Pietro had blown the candle out right after Wanda fell asleep, to help it last longer, and even a small candle, or fire, wouldn’t have given enough light to shine through the padding covering her eyes.
“Pietro!” She began to call. “P-Piet-Pietro, Я боюсь, пожалуйста, пожалуйста! Где вы? Я не могу видеть. (I’m sc=scared, please—please! Where are y-y-you? I c-can’t se-see!)” She hiccuped.
It broke his heart, as he removed the cover from her eyes, and near instantly, in a matter of seconds, she grabbed for his hand and kept it close to her, as her breathing calmed, and she went back to a calmer state of sleep.
Pietro swore to protect her, better than he ever did before, even at the cost of his own life.
“Прости, Ванда. (I’m sorry, Wanda).” He said, stroking her hair with his free hand as he pulled his sleeping bag closer to her, and slipped in. “Но все наладится. Вы увидите. (But it’ll get better. You’ll see).”
Wanda moved closer to him, and his hand, and for the rest of the night until he fell asleep too, Pietro made sure nothing covered her eyes and pulled her into the darkness ever again.
“It’s only recently that she got over it.”
Wanda, 17, stared at the wall blankly, stoically. Almost lifeless, like a doll. Pietro shook in fear, and rage. What had they done to her? Wanda finally tilted her head to look up at him. “Lukas is dead.” Was the first thing she said after their weeks of separation. “None of them were released, or let go. They were all killed, Piet. Even the little girl, I can’t remember her name anymore. They—they were all—...”
Her breathing hastened like the panic attacks she had in the complete dark, in which her instincts shut down and all she could think to do was call for Pietro’s name, or when it got worse, the names of their parents who could never come to their rescue ever again.
But then it slowed.
“She realized she didn’t need to fear the dark.” Pietro said, “Because horrible things happened in the light just as much as it did in the dark.” Then he stopped, and paused. “No, that’s not right, she realized the dark was safer than the light.”
Wanda, 14, had started a collection. It wasn’t of her own choosing, but of Pietro’s numerous gifts to her after days out in the town whenever he was allowed. It wasn’t often, but it was enough that she had a collection. After all, this had been going on for a year. Unlit candles, some scented, some not; lanterns, flashlights, lightbulbs, neon toys. Whatever glowed, or shined, he took it, and gave it to Wanda, and it was enough.
She never had to say it, he knew from that look in her eyes; It was more than enough to her, it was everything.
Wanda always appreciated everything far deeper and thoroughly than he did, even---no, especially---the small things.
It’d happened one night, when another blackout came, and they were left in the dark, and Wanda held a small dimly lit candle. The wind blew it away, and just as Wanda’s breath began to hasten, Pietro patted his pockets hurriedly and when his finger hooked into the string of the necklace in his pocket, he pulled it up and took Wanda’s hand in his.
She turned to him, and although Pietro couldn’t see her expression then, he had the distinct feeling that she was confused, wearing that scared and unnerved expression on her face, with her lips slightly parted from her heaving, eyes wide and panicked, cheeks flushed and eyebrows furrowed. It was a pitiful expression that hurt his heart to see.
Pietro pressed the pendant necklace into her hand. “You’ll be okay, sestra.” He whispered, taking it from her hand when she didn’t react and sliding his hand up from her hand towards her arm and then her shoulder, and then her neck, and he put it on her as best he could in the dark.
He pressed the pendant and it glowed, far stronger than a candle, more like a small and portable flashlight around her neck.
“You never have to fear the dark ever again.” He said. “You’ve got this with you now. I made it myself.” He smiled.
And her breathing slowed.
“Thank you, Pietro.” She whispered. “I love you too, brother.”
“And although she was afraid, Wanda fought it, trusted me, until one day…”
Wanda, 19, hated the dark, mostly out of fear, but now there was a new edge to her hatred of it. It was because the guards found out she hated the Dark, and with Von Strucker, in these experiments, she did not have her entire lights collection.
It wasn’t fair that the guards could do what they wanted, that they could put a bag on top of Wanda’s head in dimness, so that the faintest of light from the window casted shadows, but she would never be able to see what the shadows were. That they could torture her like that and call it therappy---exposure therapy, they said---and they could get away with it.
Pietro had nearly went crazy after weeks of hearing his sister, in the next cell block by his, scream her head off at nights, screaming his name, their parents’ names, trying to take it off, and begging for someone to help her, and save her.
And he couldn’t do anything, but hear those screams, and hear the guards and their snickering, and annoyance at how loud she screamed.
The flashlight necklace he’d given her, he had it with him, but it’d long ago ran out of power, so it just rested in the hidden compartment---extra pocket inside his pocket, because of ruined stitching---of his usual shirt. They always gave him the same one, washed, they never noticed.
But it’d gotten too much, so he gave it to her one day, at Lunch, when they still got the rights to go to the Cafeteria, on the day that he’d been faced with a sleepless Wanda who looked pale and sickly and barely standing, she’d wobbled just standing in line. It was enough.
He took her hand like he did that night 5 years ago and pressed it into her hand.
She’d recognized it instantly, and gave it back.
“Put it on me,” she’d said, “for old times’ sake.”
And so he did.
And that night, when the screams came, Pietro covered his ears and cried, because he was so sorry he couldn’t help her much more than that, and he fumed, and his hatred of the guards grew to be just as strong as his hatred for Stark. How dare they put his twin through this? How dare they have fun? How dare they smile, and be free of the very pain they inflicted? How dare they try to break her? How dare they tell her to shut up despite being the ones who made her go through that?
How dare they harm his last living family?
He wouldn’t dare let them live, none of them, once he was out, once he mastered his powers, when he was free, he would make sure they all died for what they did to her. To them. His mind was near madness and they caused it.
And then the screams stopped.
And he worried.
Oh, how he worried. Did the guards had finally have enough and do something to her? Did she do something to herself? Had something happened that no one had helped her with while she was screaming?
Why was she quiet?
He got up from his bed, and beat at the door. “Let me out!” he’d screamed. “Let me out! Do something! Check up on her! Is she okay?! YOU BASARDS, LET ME OUT! IF YOU’VE DONE ANYTHING TO HER, I’LL KILL YOU! LET ME OUT!” And he’d roared with all the air in his lungs, but the door never opened, and he was not let out that night.
What did come though, when the guards stopped talking, and he stopped yelling, and all was still, and his ear was pressed against the door, was a quiet mewl of a whisper.
“It’s alright. Piet…” a familiar hoarse voice said. “...Pietro is here with me, protecting me.” And then he’d heard the frantic clicking of the flashlight pendant, and though it never turned on, it stopped Wanda’s screams.
Devoid of light, in that isolated room, Wanda conquered her fear of the dark with a broken necklace that served as a reminder of her brother’s safe presence.
And Pietro sat on the floor that same night, in awe of his twin, pride blooming in his chest.
That was his sister.
That was Wanda Maximoff, his family, the one who refused to break under the guards’ torture.
That was his twin.
A survivor.
“And she conquered her fear, just like that. Wanda screamed for months, the sign of her struggle, and her fight, but when she went silent, it was because she was done fighting, because she’d won. But, now….”
A feminine hand reached to hold his. “She’ll win, Maximoff.” said Natasha. “Your sister’s a fighter, and I know a thing or two about little sisters that don’t give up. They refuse to lose, against anyone.”
“You think?” Pietro asked, he didn’t ask about her little sister, Wanda had told him about that already, and told him to keep knowledge of her a secret.
“I know.”
Pietro smiled weakly.
Natasha took Wanda’s hand with her free one. “I don’t think I’ve seen the last of this little witch.” She smiled. “And… she owes me a favour, you know? I do collect.”
Natasha gave him a firm pat on his back, and stood up. “Cheer up, lover boy. From what I hear, you’re her source of strength, if you’re all weak and pathetic like that, who knows how long it’ll take her to open her eyes.”
Pietro smiled, and nodded, lifting his head. “Yeah,” he agreed, “that is pretty shameful of me.”
Natasha left the room.
And Pietro watched her leave, remembering one last memory, although this one wasn’t his, it was one that he’d acquired, watched when he touched Wanda’s skin during one of her nightmares.
Wanda stared at the moon blankly, it was the only source of light at this ungodly time of night. There’d been a blackout, and Wanda couldn’t find comfort in her usual escape, because Pietro wasn’t there anymore. This was the future in which he’d died. This was her old future.
Her too-thin body trembled in the cold, and her hands gripped her head as she hysterically cried. In the presence of lack of light, and lack of family, the fear she’d taken so long to conquer had returned just like that.
She screamed in Russian, English and Sokovian, variations of the word ‘stop’, ‘don’t go’, and ‘come back’.
The door opened behind her, but she didn’t notice.
Her so-said future boyfriend didn’t walk in, like Pietro expected him to, the one who came instead was Natasha, wearing white clothing, and holding a flashlight in her hand. She turned it on and pointed it towards Wanda’s direction, and almost immediately, her screaming began to slow.
“I was right,” Natasha said, approaching. “You are afraid of the dark.”
Wanda didn’t reply, had instead turned and stared at her as she walked closer, holding the only source of light in the room aside from the faint moonlight coming from a moon, too far away to save Wanda from the cruelties of her mind.
Natasha sat next to her, right under her window, and she stood on the bed, and took tape from the pockets of her hoodie and taped the flashlight on a high surface, illuminating the area around Wanda, who’d began to quiet and simply watch, like a doll.
And she just sat in silence with Wanda, laying down snacks. Wanda took a few moments before she finally reached for something, unwrapping the granola bar and taking a dainty bite off of it. “Thank you,” she said after she swallowed it down.
“Of course,” Natasha replied. “You’re an Avenger now, Wanda. You have me, and the rest of the boys down there.”
Wanda gave a small nod, taking another small dainty bite, but as she chewed, her movements became slower, and finally, she leaned on Natasha’s shoulder, and fell into sleep’s embrace.
“Thank you,” Wanda murmured. “For being here.”
“Always,” Natasha replied in the same quiet voice, almost quiter than a whisper. “You’re not alone.”
Pietro smiled at Natasha’s retreating figure.
‘Yeah’, he thought, and nodded to himself. If it was Natasha--- then yeah, he could trust her with Wanda’s heart.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Steve comes, the first time since a long time.
In the past, Steve tried to come in a lot, but Pietro’s sure his guilt hit too hard whenever he laid his eyes on Wanda’s small body, resting like nothing was wrong when everything was wrong.
He understood.
Steve couldn’t stay for too long back then, but he’s here, again, and he’s stayed for longer than a few seconds, so Pietro thinks that he’s probably going to want to talk.
The rest have been visiting, almost like in shifts, Pietro wouldn’t know, he hasn’t surfaced from the room in weeks, there’s a shower right close by down the hall, and Sam or someone, but mostly Sam, comes down with food most days, and on the days they don’t, he has enough food down here to last. He hasn’t needed to come up. He doesn’t know if they have shifts, because of it.
But if they do then, he thinks, as he watches Tony come through the door, it’s definitely Steve’s shift now.
To check up on him, or to check up on Wanda, he doesn’t really know.
“Hey,”
Pietro has the urge to say no in response, whatever he wants to say, he doesn’t want to hear it. He has no doubt Wanda would have said it. Wanda, who honed her anger, and darkness like a weapon, like a safety net, in a way Pietro doesn’t because of his ‘morals’.
He’s begun to question his morals, recently.
What have they ever really done for him except hold him and Wanda back?
Instead, because he is not his sister; Pietro looks up and stares at him in silence.
“Not up for talking. Right… I-”
Pietro sighs, and looks back down at the book he was going to start reading. Breaking Character by Lee Winter, it was one of her favourites, he remembers. Whenever she wanted a comfort, she always reached for this book, or that smaller book that he couldn’t find, it had a pink cover.
“What do you want, Steve?”
“I just… I know that I-” He stammers over his words, he nearly fidgets, it looks wrong on a man his size. A man that looks as if he should always be confident.
“Apologize?” he offers.
“Yeah,” says Steve. “I’ve… I know I’ve made mistakes, I should have respected-”
“Stop.” He said, lifting his hand, and gesturing for him to stop. “You don’t need to apologize, Steve. I’ve forgiven you a long time ago. In fact, I think that I need to apologize.”
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for, Pie-”
“No, no, I do.” He said, interrupting. “I’m sorry for what I said, you didn’t cause this, and I shouldn’t have lashed out at you, you’re not at fault for what happened. It was due time we picked up our weight and went on a mission. We could have handled it-”
‘-but you didn’t, and I should have seen that you weren’t ready-”
“We were, Steve.” Pietro said, standing up and walking around Wanda’s hospital bed to stand in front of him, and place a hand on his shoulder. “We were ready. Wanda’s a lot more powerful than you think she is.”
“But look at her, I send you on one mission and-”
“Her wounds are healed, Steve. She’s alright. Whatever’s happening to her; it’s not because of her wounds.” He said, finally admitting what he couldn’t bear to say a few weeks ago. “It’s not your fault, Steve.”
Steve nodded, and went silent, staring at his hands. And then he looked up, staring at Pietro, and his all-too familiar expression.
“It’s not your fault either, kid.”
Pietro chewed on his lip. “I think it is.”
Steve’s eyes softened with guilt and understanding, so full of sympathy that Pietro felt uncomfortable, he couldn’t even tell if there was pity there, “Kid, it’s-”
“Could I just…” Pietro started, cutting his words short. “...just get some alone time? I don’t really want to talk about it right now. There’s enough emotions already.”
Steve sighed, but he knew better than to force a talk Pietro didn’t want to have, and nodded, “Alright, kid.” He turned for the exit, “I’ll see you around, alright?”
Pietro nodded silently, staring at his sister.
He knew Steve wasn’t at fault, and if Steve wasn’t at fault for sending her to that mission, and what was happening now was out of their control, then it was obviously out of his as well, and wasn’t his fault either, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that it was.
Because he was meant to protect her, it was a responsibility, a trust. He was her brother, Steve didn’t have that responsibility. He didn’t know her true power, he hadn’t gotten to know her, it was… it may not have been Steve’s fault, but he couldn’t tell himself it wasn’t his.
Right at the doorframe, Steve stopped. “What do you mean she’s more powerful than I think?” He asked.
Pietro didn’t respond.
Steve left the room.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Pietro sleeps soundly; This is a known fact.
Out of the two of them, despite what it seemed like after the fall of Novi Grad, one would always have better chances of waking Wanda “5 more minutes” Maximoff, than they ever did if they attempted to wake Pietro “experiences longer days” Maximoff.
However, one could say this was very much a mistake when you slept in a chair beside the bed of a very powerful witch that coated her body with magic, to share dreams and nightmares when they came strongly.
And those saying that would be correct.
The usual red coat of magic signalling her nightmares or dreams surrounded the younger Maximoff twin, and Pietro shifted his elbow, and his skin touched hers, bringing him into the long-lasting dreams in the mind of the Scarlet Witch.
Pietro opened his eyes with a gasp, and stared at the sight before him.
Galaxies and cosmos, at his reach, beauties of the universe. The stars shine beside him, bright and blinding, but he can see just fine, even its near-infinite light can’t affect the darkness of space. There’s a slight reddish tint in the nebulae ahead of him, in the glittering dust.
In it, he thinks he might be able to find answers he’s been desperately asking.
In it, he sees a fraction of his sister, her never-ending powerfulness, her near omnipotency, just like the sea and the universe, his sister seems endless to him.
But in front of him, lies one of those other endless things, space, galaxy, a universe, at the tips of his fingers. He yearns to reach out to touch it, it calls to him. He tries desperately to move towards it, but he’s stuck, and though it’s right there, he can’t get what he wants. He’s not strong enough.
He doesn’t quite like this dream, he thinks. And think he does, because he can’t do much more than that, that he would like to m ove forward towards the nebulae, towards the clusters, the spiral of matter that looks like dust, but really holds countless life and--- and he does; he moves forward, pushed by what seems like a gust of wind, but it’s not quite wind.
Wind, after all, doesn’t exist in Space (he thinks).
Then it hits him, like a wave, when he gets closer to the galaxies and solar systems that he’s been reaching for, the purple, and black, and blue tinted in red, formed weirdly around something.
The wave of grief, and loss, and utter pain that he clutches at his heart and wishes genuinely to learn of how to tear his heart from his chest, how to do anything to stop this. It comes all at once, and yet, at the same time, it comes in gradually. He doesn’t know how to put it to words, it’s like slowly, years of pain and anguish come to him in never-ending waves, on repeat.
He can’t cry in this dream, he realizes, because if he could, he would have have been sobbing by now. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts--- God, it hurts. It won’t stop, and just as he gets his bearings with one wave, another comes, knocking him down, and he feels like he’s drowning.
Words, no, voices, all around him, speaking all at the same time.
“What is grief-” “-she knows-” “not what everyone else thi-” “-not alone” “why was she up there, all-” “you could never hurt me” “-if not love-” “-she’s not-” “i’m not-” “let her know…” “-persevering-” “I’m losing control” “locked me in my room” “-they both do-” “don’t know what I am” “-a monster-” “-don’t even know who you are…” “know that they will be-” “-you will-” “that doesn’t seem fair” “-loved-”
And then a symphony of screams, some he recognizes, some he doesn’t. Wanda, a kid’s, two boys, a girl, grown men, grown women, pain, fear, it’s so much.
“Scarlet Witch” “Agnes” “Agatha” “Magical girl-” “Parents dead,” “long lost bro get to-” “brother dead” “killed by Ultron, wasn’t- “Vision dead” “Vision, are you not letting me-” “wasn’t there to pull you out of the-” “I can’t do this anymore” “never know what you sacrificed for them” “say hello again” “I love you”
He can’t think, his head hurts, and he has the strong urge to surrender, he feels himself surrendering already. His body curls up, his hands cover his ears, and press against his head, and his eyes close.
He’s only been here a few moments, and already, he’s yielding, he knows when to give up, and this pain? He can’t fight against it. It’s too much. He begins to relinquish his will, his mentality, he gives in to the power, and to the grief, and he feels his body in reality begin to weaken, but he can’t find in him the energy to care. Caring would mean fighting back.
He’s…fine…not fighting back.
And then the red mist surrounding the galaxies that are huddled together, it seems, throbs, darkens and deepens in colour at the same time, and Pietro blinks, he’s not awake, but he does feel less weary, he can’t hear the voices, and he doesn’t feel an urge making him give up.
What he does feel is an urge to move forward, and that he does, and get closer to the red.
Between the galaxies and stars, covered, hidden, and smothered under all of the cosmos, is a small mist of scarlet, a small sphere, not quite like what Wanda makes, no, this sphere is a marble, highly condensated, and yet powerful enough to cover the cosmos in red.
He can’t remember what it is, but he recognizes this, knows that scarlet shade, knows the misty air around the marble. He knows it. But he can’t seem to remember.
The voices return.
“I can’t feel you” “he’s all I have” “thanks for choosing me to be your-” “can’t reverse death” “my sadness and my hope”
And as soon as they came, they go again, when the red brightens and darkens.
Pietro moves forward, and the universe, all of it, the stars, and dust of nebulae, and galaxies, even the milky way, it moves away from him, giving him a path, or he created it, he can’t tell; either way, a path is a path, and he moves forward towards the scarlet ball the size of a marble.
He reaches out, and finally, instead of seeming too far away, despite being right at his fingertips, it moves closer to him, as if drawn, as if calling out for help.
He wants to stay here, surrounded by this beauty, and help whoever, or whatever is calling for help, there’s nothing important to stay in the real world for, he’s sure of it. He can’t remember what he was waiting for out there, but it doesn’t matter here, does it?
The scarlet marble moves towards him, his fingers almost touch it, he’s willing to stay, he’s going to get his answer, and it’s just right there and he’s almost---
Scarlet blasts out from the ball, pushing him away, and the universe shifts again, covering the marble, and he’s pushed miles, and miles of light years away, he can’t see it. Surrounding him instead, is empty space. There are no stars, there are no nebulae, there are no galaxies, there is just nothing.
Him and the darkness.
And then he hears it;
“Leave” “run” “go” “you can’t stay here”
Another pulse of scarlet, and he’s pushed farther out, and then he hears it again, but this call is not telling him to go. What he hears last is-
“Help!”
Pietro startles awake with a gasp, his elbow leaves the bed, and breaks contact with Wanda’s skin, with her magic.
He hadn’t heard wrong, he knows; that was his sister’s voice.
That had been Wanda, telling him to leave.
That had been Wanda, calling for help.
That had been Wanda.
He stares at his sister, her pleasant and unchanged sleeping face, and looks around at the eery and silent healing room.
“Wanda?” He calls. No response comes. Still, he tries again, holding her shoulders, and---as gently as he can---shaking her body, in an attempt to wake her. “Wanda?”
Wanda doesn’t respond.
It must have just been a dream, he thinks, or the voice in his head that tells him logic says to him, and Pietro doesn’t believe it, because he knows his sister’s voice, and how she sounds when she calls for help, but he has no other explanation.
So he warily stares at Wanda, who doesn’t move, doesn’t reply, and concludes, against his very being as her brother, that---
It must have just been a dream.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
“Pizza incoming!” Sam yells, as he comes through the door, kicking it open unnecessarily since it’s not like Pietro ever locks it.
Vision follows after him today.
Pietro’s starting his suspicions of a shift was more correct than he thought, because he’s starting to really notice a pattern in who comes when, at what hour or what day, and it only ever seems to change when one of them is on a mission. There are a lot of missions to go to, it seemed, it made him slightly guilty for procrastinating on going on a mission with Wanda for so long.
“Toppings?” he asks, without looking up from his book, he was reading it to Wanda---he swore---but then he started to actually like the book, and take interest in what was happening and immersed himself in the suspense of what would happen next. A migraine started forming a few moments back, but he’s pretty sure his faster healing takes care of those for him too, because it went away as fast as it came.
“All meats lover, baby!” Sam exclaimed.
“It’s a meats lover pizza, Mr. Maximoff--- Pietro.”
It seemed Vision was still struggling on whether or not to call them by their last names or their first.
“Just Pietro, Vision.” he said. “Same for my sister, I’m sure she’d like it if you called her by her first name.”
Vision nodded, “I see, Pietro. Then that’s what I’ll do.”
Sam stared at Vision and Wanda, and Pietro could almost read his mind, see what was going through his mind, despite not being the mind reader
‘So Wanda really does like Vision’, was probably what Sam was thinking.
Pietro really hoped that Wanda wouldn’t be too mad to know that Pietro let that leak when she woke up.
‘If’, the voice in the back of his mind whispered, before he could help himself.
Just the very thought of her not waking up already dimmed his mood, but he was determined on not showing it.
He closed the book, a bookmark in place, and smiled up at Sam. “Perfect.” He said. “How many slices are left?”
“Enough for us,” Sam said.
“And Vision?” Pietro asked.
“I don’t even know if he--- Vision, do you-”
“I can eat human foods, but I have no sense of taste, and do not need to eat it. All I need, in its stead, is energy, which I receive from the Mind Stone.”
Wanda’s hand twitched, but no one saw.
“Ah,” said Sam, “I see. Okay.” He turned back to the pizza, and Pietro.
Pietro grinned, “Yup. Let’s eat.”
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
They’re into the third month, but still, that peaceful and serene look in her expression, breathing evenly, as she sleeps. It doesn’t change. Nothing about her does, not even her clothes, which they could cut, but not remove. It healed itself. Pietro thinks his sister’s magic has very confusing priorities, but doesn’t say anything.
Pietro runs a hand down his hair. The door opens, and there are footsteps, light, but made louder through effort.
“Natasha.” He sighs. “Hi.”
“Hey.” Natasha smiles. “How is she?” It was a rhetorical question, one they always ask each other any time the other comes in, even if just from a trip to the bathroom, they’ll always receive the same answer, but they ask anyway, because they need the hope.
Pietro shrugged, and gestured to her.
Natasha looks around for Liho, and checks her seat before she sits down. Liho wanders a lot now, whenever she is awake, but mostly, she naps beside Wanda, as if Wanda’s condition affects her too. A thing that Liho also likes to do is sleep in Natasha’s chair, or rest there as soon as Natasha’s about to sit down.
Natasha’s learned to check since Liho scratched her thigh when Natasha almost sat on her.
When she’s awake, rather than sleeping somewhere in the room close to Wanda, Liho walks all around the building, exploring, and no one’s been able to catch her unless she wants them to; and there have only been two people she lets herself be caught by; Pietro and Natasha.
They don’t really know what it means, but they just assume Liho’s a special and very particularly picky cat.
They continue on with their routine. Natasha’s begun to take most of the reading shifts, at night, while he takes mornings, because Pietro stays in the ‘hospital room’ for Wanda, but Natasha is still an Avenger. So eventually, she takes her leave.
Pietro doesn’t know how much longer watching his sister sleep he can take.
The dream still remains in his mind, no matter how much he tries to push it out.
He can’t remember most of it now, he couldn’t remember most of it an hour after the dream, but he still remembers the grief, and the pain, and some of the words. But he doesn’t remember it enough to talk about it, just remembers enough that it refuses to leave his mind.
She’s still just sleeping, and she’s still completely fine, and it’s so infuriating, it makes an itch reappear under Pietro’s skin, as if wanting to be let out. It’s been nearly 3 months now, and Pietro has needed to exercise and run a long month ago, but he’s been pushing himself, handling the itch, and the urges. He can’t possibly be thinking of leaving Wanda.
He isn’t.
So, instead, he stays inside with his food, and keeps watch over his comatose sister. The Scarlet Witch that should have long ago healed, and yet something is still wrong. He doesn’t understand it, can’t understand why it’s taking her so long. She’s already healed, she’s not dead, she’s just in a coma, and apparently adrenaline can’t wake her from her slumber.
She’s like the Sleeping Beauty. And Maleficent, all in one.
Pietro keeps watch, and gets to know Sam and Natasha. Wanda has memories of the future Sam, who was awkward around her but tried, and of the Natasha that was grief-stricken and wary of her. He gets to have a different experience, he gets to know Sam while he’s worried for her. Gets to know his protective streak, and it’s sweet, he gets to know Natasha who, under her stoic expression has sarcasm and cares.
They help him still keep his heart, his childhood and innocence, in the face of the harsh realities and challenges he’s faced, his dark thoughts, to get to know someone who cares and that he’s not alone in waiting for her to wake up.
By the start of third month, colour has begun to return to Wanda.
By the end of the third month, Pietro’s begun to lose hope. But he doesn’t show it, it’d be hard to tell, with his new attitude, of how used to it he’s gotten, walking around to his chair, holding a book to read, or a sitcom to watch, wearing a smile on his face, as his heart and his hopes fades away bit by bit every week that passes that she doesn’t wake.
It doesn’t seem like she’ll ever wake.
If she hasn’t yet woken, then perhaps her healing magic has failed her long ago, and it just used the last of it for her head wound, which although removed a lot of the complications, still left some to be healed. More than her head, there was the gun that would permanently change his sister’s life, if she wasn’t going to---couldn’t---heal from it.
He holds her hand, and lends his head down, forehead against her bed.
“I don’t really know if you’ve been listening, but Natasha, Sam, Vision and I have read through a lot of books for you, you know.” He chuckled wetly, and wiped his tears with the back of his hand. “And uhm, I’m not really a reading person, but I think I’ve gotten better now. You have a lot of books, and they’re really not bad. And please, if… If you wake up, I’ll apologize for teasing you so much, I’ll even take it all back. You can even taunt me back, or brag about your book taste, and-... You can do all of that and whatever you want, I won’t even argue back, or if you want me to argue back with you, debate over something, I’ll do it, and I won’t even try to be dumb and really argue back, and--- really, please, I mean it. But you have to wake up first to get all of it, okay?”
There’s no response.
Pietro swallows, and sits up, straightening his spine because Wanda was always on his back about that, always saying he would live a long life, but he’d live it as a crooked old man with a bent spin because of how he sat. And then Pietro would lean back and look at her, and her straight posture, maintained effortlessly, and she would gloat with that look in her eyes that said she was saying plenty of things about him in her head, in the same way she often did when someone did something dumb (except he knew that when she did it with him, it was always playful, but with others there might or might not be murder threats involved with her thoughts).
He realizes that he has been taking moments with her granted in a way that she hasn’t, because she’s the twin that has lost her other half before, and he’s now only come close to it, but it is terrifying, and he can’t even fathom taking moments with her granted if---when---she wakes up.
He now realizes what that look in her eyes is when she stared at him whenever they were laughing about something completely mundane, and they were just doing something completely normal. He couldn’t understand that look in her eyes before, but now he does, back then he had just let it pass, thinking she was appreciating having him, but he didn’t understand. It wasn’t just appreciation, it was a relief that something bad didn’t happen, that she still had him, and he may never feel the same strength of emotions that she does, but he’s close, and it hurts.
He never wanted to be close to feeling like this. Wanda would never want him to feel like this either, she had said it before, she was supposed to be the only twin that would ever know what it felt like to lose their other half, between the two of them, and yet here he was. Fearing for her life. It was supposed to be the other way around, that was supposed to be the point of her omniscience-y abilities.
It was the main reason he’d never been jealous, because he didn’t view it as her power over him, he saw it as her power to protect them both. To make sure they both wouldn’t get hurt ever again.
So what the fuck was this situation?
“We could go to any concert, and meet anyone you want when you wake up. I even wrote it in that list I told you about. Bucket list. Celebrities, and singers, and actresses—you said you wanted to go to a concert, before. Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Celine Dion… I…we can get tickets, if you’d just--- you have to wake up, please.” He cries, squeezing her hand.
And then her hand squeezes back.
“—Why are you crying, Pietro?.” asked a voice that he hadn’t heard in three months. It’s croaky, and raspy, sickly. Unused in a while, and what follows after her words is a cough.
Pietro stares in shock.
Wanda smiles, she giggles.
“So, where exactly am I, Piet?”
She was awake.