i will stay with you, (i’ll wait for you)
Pietro’s first thing to do, after all other niceties passed and it was officially stated that Wanda was completely healthy, and there were no after-effects from the coma, nor the bullet or the concussion---a true miracle, the Doctors said, but then again, Wanda was a superhero, an enhanced, her body worked differently (which meant they only narrowly avoided letting the Doctors’ curiousity grow and try to experiment on Wanda, for her unique abilities)---and that she was fine to do whatever she wants, after a few days of observation, was to apologize.
For choosing that mission.
For overlooking the signs that something was wrong.
For putting her in danger.
For relying in her power too much.
For almost losing her and not being able to do anything.
For being so weak and helpless.
He didn’t know which fault exactly he was apologizing for, maybe for all of it, but as he started to utter the words, Wanda smiled at him lie she understood.
“It’s okay, Piet.” She said, interrupting him. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Pietro stared at her, and finally, for the first time in months, he broke into tears and wasn’t left to comfort himself. Wanda ruffled his hair as he cried into her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he still uttered. “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that this would happen. I’m so sorry I put you in danger. I’m sorry.”
And Wanda shushed him, the more he spoke. “It’s all fine, Pietro. You’re not at fault.”
Pietro couldn’t help but remember a certain dream, of Wanda’s, and then Pietro’s, when she said those words.
It wasn’t his fault.
Then whose was it?
Because from her tone, from her dreams, it was clear--- someone was at fault.
“Then---”
“Don’t say it, Piet.” Wanda said--- had she read his mind?
“Okay.” He replied, and he kept his mouth shut. There were some answers Wanda couldn’t give him, that was clear, when he asked who else faded after the Snap aside from her. Things of the future that would affect how he’d react to certain people, that’s what she kept from him. So he’d have to trust her.
In the week that she’d been awake, there’d been yet another change in her, another sort of happening that he missed that changed her from thesisterthatheknew to someone else, something else. Someone he’d never met before. Someone who went through something he hadn’t, someone who’d evolved for the better or worse, and left him behind again, playing catch up.
He hated catch-up.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Two weeks in; Wanda had been too quiet.
He understood, because she’d gone through something she couldn’t talk about, just like when she time-travelled, but it hurt that she couldn’t talk about it with him. They were twins. They were supposed to be two halves of a whole. They were supposed to be able to talk about anything.
But here she was again, burdening it all in silence.
Pietro watched as she slept, it felt familiar, in a bad way. But unlike before, Wanda was muttering, the signs of a true bad nightmare if it leaked out enough for her to speak, like Pietro did in his nightmares or dreams.
Unlike before, her face twisted with expressions, and she moved. She wasn’t the still body reminiscent of a doll.
But Pietro didn’t like what he was hearing.
“doesn’tsoundfair” “that’snotwhateveryoneelsethinks”
It all sounds too familiar.
Pietro knows something is wrong, something other than her silence.
He’s pretty sure it has something to do with that dream, it seems like everything does.
Wanda wakes up after a few hours, and they sit in silence for at least half an hour after.
There never used to be such a silence, but all Pietro wanted to talk about, wanted to know, was what had happened, where had she been, what was that dream--- the voices.
But Wanda had put up a wall; and not even Pietro was allowed in.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
“What do you want to do, then? Now that you’re--- that you’re alright, and awake?”
Wanda covered her mouth, and narrowed her eyes as she stared at a fixed point at the wall. She hummed, and pursed her lips. “I don’t know,” she said. He understood. Too much freedom after a life that lacked it, or if not lacking freedom, lacking option of what to do with freedom, and now here they were in the country of freedom, with so many options, so little restrictions.
It was overwhelming.
They could barely choose what to eat everyday, they wanted everything, and didn’t know what to want at the same time.
Hanging out in their room while Pietro discovered more modern technology, and learned what he missed out on, and Wanda did…Wanda things? Journaling? Decorating her room, a lot. She started collecting crystals now, and a lot of candles. It was all really witchy, which made sense considering she was a witch. That was safe. That was routine.
But he had a feeling neither of them could stomach trying to force themselves right back into that routine, so they had to go out o the safe, out o the routine, and choose an activity---a new one---and take a chance on it.
Maybe they’d enjoy it, or maybe they’d hate it.
They wouldn’t know until they chose. But first they’d have to actually choose.
“Did-- did this happen before, in the--”
Wanda shook her head, “No. Uhm, in my first mission…” her eyes darkened. “It was a standard safe mission, but I almost had a breakdown and killed more than the enemies. I- Natasha, she… there were bullets flying, and it was--- she was going to get hit, and she hated me but she was the closest to a friend that I’d made aside from Steve and I just-- I couldn’t lose someone else. Not like how I lost you, and it just came out of me and--” she drew her feet close, curling up.
“You did the blast thing that when you land, the--- you showed it to me.”
Wanda looked up, eyes curious. “When?”
“Nightmare.”
“Ah. Right.”
“So was Natasha--”
“Yeah-- yeah, it almost reached her, but it stopped before there, and just… I think it--- they said it went around her, but it knocked Steve to the wall though.”
“What was your next mission?”
“Lagos.”
“Oh…”
Pietro felt a pang of guilt, for too many reasons he wasn’t sure he could list. Mostly, because perhaps it was his fault, for surviving, leaving her alone, that panic could have been avoided if he’d just chosen to do something safer. Catch the bullets, maybe? He’d just been so focused on saving them, he forgot to save himself.
And that she got one good mission---barely---before Lagos, before the Raft, before it all went wrong. He may not have been there, but there was one thing that would never change in his mind, alive or not; his sister deserved better.
Not just for the trauma and bad shit, bad cards that had been handed to her all her life, that she’d been told ot make do with, come out better for. Not just because she’d barely ever gotten an easy thing in life, but because she was Wanda.
Wanda, who smiled through the pain; who had every reason to start hating people yet still had such a big heart, ; who loved and protected unconditionally; who’d been in a position to choose between her happiness and the world multiple times and chose the world; who never wanted more than.
Wanda, who valued family and love above all else.
That Wanda deserved better. He’d always known that.
But he knew he shouldn’t feel guilty for that. Because he’d chosen to be a hero and that’s what heroes did; save people. And he couldn’t control fate, the cards that Wanda had been dealt with were what she’d been given, and that was it.
That was why, in this life, he’d chosen something different. He’d be less of a hero, and more of a brother. His sister had travelled back in time for a better future, and although he may not be able to control fate, he could help her. She’d given up on that mindset of getting what she deserved, had it beaten right out of her, but he hadn’t, and he wasn’t ever going to give up on it.
“---But if my life’s this easy to cut short too,” said Wanda, interrupting him out of his thoughts. “then… I don’t want to live the same life I did before. I don’t want to have only my teammates be my friends. I want…”
Pietro leaned closer, curious, eager.
“I want to go to a party.” she finished. “With you.”
Pietro smiled. “A party it is then! We can ask Tony-”
“No!” Wanda objected. “N-no-- not a Tony Stark party, where the Avengers will be present, and there’ll be rich people I don’t know, but know me. I… I want a normal party. A club. Alcohol, and dancing, and bad lighting, an-and sweat, and horrible bathrooms. I want something that non-heroes do; That non-orphans, non-beggars, non-enhanced people leading good lives do--- The type of thing that those people do, is what I want to do. And I want it to be fun.”
Pietro grinned. “Fun is my middle name.”
He got up.
“Actually, it’s Django.” She called as she entered the walk-in closet that Tony must have built in the time that she was unconscious.
Wanda had told him of Stark’s hobby to make things when things were going wrong, to find something to distract himself from reality, in the same way that she read to escape when everything was too much, or the way Pietro ran when it all felt too much.
It must have existed in her other future too, because she looked comfortable in there.
“Can’t you, just like, let me have, like, this one thing?” It feels like nothing happened, like they time travelled back to before Wanda got hurt and everything’s normal---or as normal as it can be when he’s a speedster whose twin sister is a might universal being---again.
And it feels a lot like heaven, and sun on your face after a cold day, and food in your stomach after starvation. It feels a lot like second chances.
“Nope!” She stuck her tongue out at him, laughing.
Pietro missed the sound of that.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
They arrived.
And it was just as she’d said it would be, and just as Pietro expected it to be; fun and so so horrible and crowded but the energy, it was so lively, and although Pietro had almost had three drinks spilled on him in like eight minutes after entering the club, and trying to get to the bar.
In hindsight, he probably should have walked right to it and followed his sister, but he didn’t regret straying from her and walking right into the heart of the crowd. This woman, or non-binary person, in a blue cocktail dress had placed down her---their---drink on a table, uncovered, and Pietro had seen men eye it, approach. He’d not lived in a war-torn country, with awful men to not know how dangerous that was.
He’d ran right to the cup, and guarded it. He wasn’t going to lie when he said that he’d watched men walk right away after seeing him, pocketing something.
Assholes.
When the woman---person---had returned, she’d…they’d? They’d, yes, given him a strange look, wary, and Pietro had realized what it must have looked like.
He’d spent at least 5 minutes defending himself, till he realized the the person was joking. By then, he’d completely lost track of his sister. However, he knew that she’d gone to the bar.
So here he was, trying to part the crowd to get there. When he’d reached the bar, he clapped down on the table, spooking the person next to him who looked to be trying to drown his sorrows-- or their. He really should stop assuming.
Wanda, sitting a little bit farther away from them, turned her head and lifted her brow, looking at him with a raised brow. She mouthed ‘what are you doing?’
Pietro grinned, and ran towards his sister, who laughed in amusement.
“What are you drinking?” He asked in a normal volume, then realized he was too far for her to hear--- if she hadn’t been the Scarlet Witch, that is.
“Uhm--- I think it’s a cocktail?” She replied, as soon as she sat beside him. “Corpse Reviver #2,” She smiled. Pietro saw the humour in it, although it did feel like it was a little too soon, she’d almost died, she got to make as many jokes about it as needed.
He had the same privileges over his almost-death, but he hadn’t yet found many opportunities to use said privileges.
“I guess I should get Corpse Reviver #1, huh?” He replied.
Wanda laughed, leaning to press her head against his shoulder, then pulling away with a grimace.
Pietro raised his hand to the bartender, who nodded at him and made a gesture to signify he’d come in a second.
“Why do you smell like alcohol already? And why is your shoulder wet?” Wanda asked.
Pietro turned back to the crowd, pointing his thumb towards them. “Someone spilled something on me.” He said.
“Ohhh, so that’s where you were.”
Pietro brought his shirt up to his mouth, and sniffed, grimaced, and then braced himself and licked it.
“Piet, ew!! Why?”
“I don’t know, I wanted to know what the person who spilled it was drinking.”
“There wasn’t a better way?” Wanda laughed again.
“It made you laugh, didn’t it?”
“That was so unsanitary, what if it wasn’t a drink that he spilled?” She asked over the loud noise of the music still hindering their conversation because of how close to the crowd they were. They really should move. She took a sip of her drink.
“What could it have been?”
“You don’t wanna hear my answer.” She replies without missing a beat.
“I want to hear your answer.”
“You don’t want to hear my answer.”
“Yes, I do!”
“Okay, what if it was like-- spit, or like--- you don’t know what happens in that crowd, it could have been like, any bodily fluids.”
“Oh my god ew, ew, ew, no I didn’t want to hear your answer-”
“-I told you-”
“-you should have kept shut up--”
The bartender placed his drink down in front of him.
“That’s not even grammatically-”
“DRINKS UP--”
“Piet-” She laughed, and allowed it. She raised her drinks with his and together, they drank their fill, and placed the glass down.
“Refill?” He asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “And then we’re going to dance.”
One refill turned to two, then two turned to 5, and after their 5th, they realized they would need to bring out the ‘Stark Credit Card’---or was it Debit?---”It’s credit.”
That answered it.
Because between Pietro’s metabolism and Wanda’s woo-whatchamacallit powers, there was no way they could drink a human amount and get as drunk was they wanted to be.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
They’d been in the club for at least two hours now, he’s not sure how they got here, but they were here. There were two things. First off, Wanda and Pietro were a similar type of drunk; Second off, Pietro was amazing in drinking games, and bets. He hadn’t lost a drinking match thing fight (?) in…uno, dos---
“WANDA!”
“1 hour!” She yelled back, throwing her head back to throw a shot down her throat.
Yes, he hadn’t lost in 1 full hour of--
“Four!”
---four consecutive drinking matches, and people were cheering for him, and he was on fire (literally?)
“No!”
Ah, yes. Pietro grinned. How useful it was to have a mind-reading sister. Others were throwing her weird looks for speaking out of nowhere as she was drinking the line of shots that she and the new friends they’d made---frat boys, Pietro was pretty sure---had lined up, when they pitted this guy named Dr…Dra…Dre…Dren…Drey? Drey; to see who could drink down all the shots first. Wanda was, of course, in the lead.
Was she maybe cheating? Probably--- like, really--- really probably. Like, she was most definitely absolutely cheating. But like, maybe.
Whhooph, that was good alcohol.
They’d been-- they’d--- they-- they were taking--- took to start calling--- Wanda was--- they were calling Wanda “Perty--” No. No... No, that wasn’t. “Pretty girl”, yes, and he was proud of that, because YEAH!! His sister really was pretty!! And that’s why Natasha should just like…kiss her someday. Because she was really pretty too, and they’d both be really pretty together. And--- something about love. Wait, wasn’t--- Vision?
“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”
Right! He was drinking. He focused back and realized the mug of---woah that was big---that was being offered to him. He grabbed it, and watched his opponent, with his last mug in front of him as well, looking nauseous, holding on to his stomach.
Was this something that happened in bars or was this just a really chaotic night? He couldn’t tell. Maybe it--- no, no, it didn’t seem like it was. People weren’t this screamy when they entered.
They, in fact, hadn’t made it to the dance floor yet, but it was fine, this was the last drinking game and they were-- then they were going to-- dancing!
He heard Wanda laugh.
He grabbed the mug, raised it to his sister on the farther end of the bar and she raised her shot glass to him too.
Together, they both drank down the alcohol, he of course, took longer, but they won in the end and Drey and the-- who was he up against again?--- that guy was-- he puked. Ew.
“Cleanup on Isle-- pfft.”
Wanda was by his side---when did that happen?---and he--no, no… She. She was taking his hand in hers, pulling him to the dance floor.
“Dancing!” She cheered, like he had in his mind.
“Dancing!” He laughed back, and then they were moving in frantic wild movements, a lot of jumping---he’s pretty sure Wanda did the floss at one point, which was really embarrassing but nothing compared to him doing the tuna fish flop dance and failing for like at least 3 minutes---and screaming out, belting lyrics.
He didn’t even know he knew these lyrics.
Then he saw his sister’s hand, and her eyes, both red. She had either told him the lyrics, or based on all the euphoria and absolute joyous state he was in, linked their minds a little to make this fun.
Which should be scary, but like, it was only them she was sharing joy to, an’ she wasn’t harming no one, wasn’t really touchin’ no one’s mind except for what their thoughts screamed out.
Like air vapour. Thoughts vapour… ooh, that sounded like a drug.
Aaaaahhhh--- should they do drugs?
“Piet, no!” Wanda scolded, smacking his head.
No what? Did she just read his mind? OHSDKFSDJFHSDJHF HE…. SHE JUST READ HIS MIND!
Wait, he knew that already.
Wanda laughed at him, as she threw her hands up in the air and jumped to the beat. “I think we need to go home soon!” She yelled.
“What? No!!! I’m having so much fun!”
“You’re so drunk, Pietro!”
“You DRANK MORE!”
Wanda tilted her head and then laughed, and kept dancing.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Someone was at the stage.
He was at the stage.
Or wait, no--- who was
He was.
No--
Wanda was?
No, no, his name wasn’t Wanda. He was. He’s--
“PIETRO!” the real Wanda yelled. “Get down from there!”
People were staring.
When did he get up here?
Ah, whatever. He was on the stage. This was--- this could be fun. This was going to be fun. He was going to make this--- he was on the---
“USA!!!” He cheered, people cheered, a lot of them probably too drunk to think of anything but cheering back to what he said.
Perfect!!!
“I’M IN U.S.A!” He yelled, already walking backwards. “TAKE THAT, VON STUPID FUCKING STRACKED-- RACk--- STAR-ER!” Something inside him told him to get the name wrong, don’t yell it out, don’t get it right, don’t reveal his name. And then he was running forward, wind against his face, but he was sure he wasn’t going to that face, and he jumped into the crowd.
He saw them start to part for only a second before a quick red mist--he only saw because of his speed, and how they translated to being able to see fast things too---came and covered them and they caught him, and then the red mist was gone.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Pietro was puking. Someone---Wanda----’s hand was gentle against his back, and under his palm was something coarse and cold. That didn’t help him figure out where he was puking.
“Come on, Piet.” She chuckled. “We went way too crazy, we need to go to--- back to the Avengers building.”
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Ohhhh, fluffiness. Ohh, sleep. Yes, that sounded amazing right now.
Pietro closed his eyes, and he was sleeping.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
“Piet, wake up!” he heard.
He opened one eye. “You need to get out of your clothes,” the feminine voice said, Wanda?, hitting his shoulder. He still felt…drunk, a foggy mind. It probably hadn’t been long since he woke up. She switched to Russ--no, Sokovian. “You need to get up and change. You puked on your clothes in that alley, brother. I’m done in the shower, you should hop in there too.”
Shower. Cold water. Warm water?
He followed, obedient of her words like a zombie, but out of his free will. He did feel icky too, so.
Water washed over him, sobering him a little, but after stumbling through what he needed to do to clean himself, he was out of the bathroom, in his boxers, short shorts, a black tank top, and a fluffy bathrobe over him.
He flopped back onto the bed, his arm loosely thrown around Wanda’s waist.
“I’m going back to zzz.” He snored out in Sokovian.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
He stirred, a massive headache, or something worse---a migraine?---pounding at his head.
Awww, he drank way too much last night. Fuck
He heard a giggle from beside him. That was mos- probably Wanda. He raised his hand, and flipped her off.
She laughed harder. “Come on, I’ll make you something for the hangover.”
“Why don’t you sound like you feel like shit?” He asked, after shushing her for speaking too loud, god she was yelling or something, must’ve been.
“Because I have magic, Piettt~” she teased.
“Can you do whatever’s-- ughhh. Shut up. Be quiet. You’re so loud.” He picked up a pillow and tossed it towards where
he guessed she was, and took another one to cover his head.
“I’ll do something about your head if you get up. We need to eat breakfast.”
“Ugh, fuck; what time is it? Uhn, what’s the point of being an enhanced if this feels as shit as it did when I was normal?”
“Shhh,” she said. “Just get up. It’s 10 AM.”
“That’s so early-- fuck off, Wands.”
She laughed. “Come on, breakfast!”
He groaned, as he got up, and walked away from her to exit the room. He fell asleep in the elevator, he’s pretty sure. But eventually, they were both at the kitchen, too many people were speaking and laughing and Sam just mocked him and stole the bacon he was reaching for, but whatever.
“Do your head thingy first--- magic.” He groaned out again, resting his cheek on the cold refreshing counter.
Briefly, he saw red. And then just as fast, his hangover was gone.
He looked up. “Oh, god I love your magic.”
Pietro smiled up at Wanda goofishly, as he reached for another strip of bacon before Sam could steal it from him.
“Man, I’m jealous of that.” Sam said. “Y’all came in at 3 AM, drunk as fuck, looking like you fought a demon for 12 hours, and now y’all’s headaches just gone? Man, fuck that!”
Pietro laughed.
He was glad no one commented on them being irresponsible for going to a party after what Wanda went through. It was needed.
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Infuriating.
That’s what Pietro was thinking as he stared at his sister while she got ready for training, only a mere few weeks after waking. She wasn’t fit for it, only a few weeks ago, she’d been in a coma, and her wounds had been deemed unhealable, and she’d stay like that--- and now, here she stood, completely fine, gearing up to spar against Avengers.
No, no. Where was the common sense in that?
“Wanda,” he started, trying to ease into it.
“Pietro,” she replied, trying to choose between two fingerless gloves.
“What happened?” He asked, for the first time. He’d wanted to ask it a million times before in the past few weeks since she’d been awake, but he could tell it wasn’t the right time, and so he’d been holding his tongue. But now--- there was no better time.
“What do you mean?” She asked, trying to play it off. However, Pietro saw her flinch. She knew very well what he meant.
“You now what I mean, sestra.”
“Hm, I don’t know.” She said, her voice even. The voice of a liar. “You should get ready for training too.”
“You shouldn’t be.” He said. “And don’t ignore me, sestra-- you--- you were unconscious. You were in a coma for three months, and then you wake up, and you don’t--- you’re--- nothing about this is-”
“Pietro.” Wanda said, eyes intimidating. She wasn’t glaring, her eyes weren’t glowing, but the order to shut up was clear in her eyes.
Normally Pietro would have taken the the hint, but no. Not now.
“Wanda.” He replied, standing up and towering over her. She stared at him, unaffected, and stoic. It was infuriating, how he knew that she was right to, because he was no threat to her.
On anything.
Wanda had led a whole life without him, and grown without him. She wasn’t his younger sister anymore, she was more than Wanda Maximoff, despite the fact that they both wished she was.
“You were in a coma for three months. I watched over you. You didn’t heal. You didn’t fight. I--- and there was that dream that you were having that-”
“Pietro,” she said, but this time, her voice wasn’t strong, and commanding; wasn’t the voice of the Scarlet Witch, but instead the voice of his younger sister, as she stared at her trembling hands. “Please…don’t make me talk about it. I can’t relive that again.”
Pietro went quiet.
Wanda walked past him, towards the door, to the training room.
What had happened? What wasn’t she telling him?
────━▒ ۞ ▒━────
Wanda was having a nightmare.
Pietro could tell. It was---1:54 AM---early morning, or late late night, and she was squirming, whining, almost crying beside him. He’d tried to go back to sleep at midnight, but she’d kicked him at least 3 times now, and her cries were starting to become heartbreaking. Hard to hear.
As he reached out to touch her arm, console her or join in on her nightmare, he didn’t know, she shot up like a bolt, a scream dying before it left her lips, making it sound like she’d let out a broken screech. Then she was panting, hand tugging at her hair.
Pietro retraced his hand and then reached out again, and tapped her shoulder. “W-Wanda.” he said. “Are you alright?” He asked in Sokovian, their native language was always more comforting than the English language they’d had to start speaking and getting used to.
“Piet,” she said, like she’d been surprised he was there. Then she turned to her and latched on to him, arms around his body in such a tight grip he was sure if it’d been anyone else she would have broken a rib at the very least.
He hugged her back just as tightly.
“Wanda, we need to talk about it.” He said. “Something happened that mission, something--- that was happening before it.”
Wanda remained silent.
Pietro didn’t want to push, but he felt like he had to. She couldn’t--- this--- if it was something that could do something like that, whatever it did, to the Scarlet Witch, it was a dangerous secret; it was a weakness.
Pietro didn’t like that he didn’t know it. How was he supposed to protect her from anything if he didn’t know how she could get hurt in the first place?
“I…” she finally started, after 20 minutes of silence and a quiet embrace. She didn’t let go, but she loosened up. He could tell by the look in her eyes, trusting, and vulnerable, that she was finally going to open up.
And then that steel wall came back.
She let go of him.
“Nothing. I nothing, Piet. It was nothing.” She turned back to her side, facing away from him.
“Wanda, you can’t just keep brushing me off like this-”
“It was nothing, Pietro!”
“It was something! You were unconscious for three fucking months!”
“Lalalalalala”
“Listen to me!” He grabbed her shoulders. She brushed him off with a wave of her hand, and settled back to her pillow.
He heard her mumble something---“I never should have started--” he didn’t hear that one word, “---again.”
He knew it was reason enough to push, to prod, because she was keeping something from her. Something she’d done again. Something---
“Wanda,” he pleaded. “Tell me, please. What shouldn’t you have-”
He heard her sharp intake of breath, he clearly wasn’t meant to hear that. Well, fuck that. He heard it. Now it was time for her to talk. He’d given her plenty of time, and there were no secrets kept between them, secrets as big as this, secrets that could determine life or death, not for this long.
He knew she caught his thoughts when her gaze softened to something not like vulnerability, but something like resignation and fear. That fear in her eyes that would often show up when she was about to say something she feared that he’d react badly to. Not violent, but they never had to be violent with each other to hurt one another.
Disappointment hurt more than anger.
“I…” she swallowed. “I didn’t sleep.”
“What?” He furrowed his brows. “What do you mean you didn’t sleep? Last night? What’s that got to-”
“No, Piet.” she interrupted. “I didn’t sleep for…since that nightmare that--”
“--I know what you’re talking about.”
She nodded. “Since that nightmare. I just… I didn’t sleep.”
Pietro blinked, confused. “No, I watched you. I saw you, you slept. I woke up sometimes, and you were--”
“There’s this…thing… It’s called Astral Projection. It basically means my soul leaves my body.”
Magic stuff.
He knew to be quiet.
“If my soul’s not in my body, that means my body can rest. It’s still alive, but I’m not in there. As in, my consciousness isn’t. So if my soul’s away from my body--”
“Your body gets sleep, and you don’t get nightmares.”
“Exactly.” She smiled weakly. “I just--- I’d had so many nightmares in my life, before I lost you, after I lost you, before I lost Vision, after. Before my ids, after my kids. It was all so so much, and I was just so so goddamn tired of nightmares, and they were all going to come back, all of it. You, Vision, Billy, Tommy, our parents. All that I thought I moved past--- I’m back in the past, I haven’t-- I just repressed and I didn’t want those nightmares, again-hic.” She began to cry, tears streaming down her face as she covered it, her shoulders shaking.
He understood, just a little bit, never as much as her. But he understood.
“And in that month---”
Excuse me?! Month?!
“You-”
“Pietro. Please…”
He shut his mouth, clenching his jaw. His eyes were hard, and he knew that she knew that it was a cue for her to keep talking, tell the whole story while he was still controlling himself and his comments. His scolding.
“--I noticed that my magic was faltering.” She looked away. (That should have been his first clue, but as they say; Everything makes sense in hindsight). Then looked back at him, eyes unflinching, convincing. “--I think it’s because. I’m a powerful entity. In my non-sleep, I… I hadn’t been resting my soul, or something. And so my magic must have been helping me, being my energy. But it could only do that when I was using small doses of it. Not in a mission.”
It clicked, in his mind.
“So when the bullets hit, your magic abilities weren’t there to save you because--”
“--because I’d overused them.” She finished. “Because it’d been in use for too long, and, well, powerful as I am, I’m not in my old body, am I?” She chuckled.
Pietro felt white hot anger blind him.
“That was stupid of you!” He yelled, his anger exploding like a thousand million fireworks inside his head, all red, all white, all mad. “You had me! You had the Avengers! Why would you stay up for a fucking month--- like that, too? You couldn’t have just done what people do and pull all-nighters?! You-”
Her eyes shone with tears.
The anger faded away.
Wanda was an empath, after all, her nightmares were worse than Pietro’s, worse than just her own’s, and now, she had two lifetimes of nightmares of traumas, and she must have known how Pietro felt.
He climbed back under the covers. “Let’s go to sleep, okay? Test run. You’re not going to do that shit ever again, even if it means I have to slip sleeping pills galore into your meals.”
She laughed. “Okay.” She curled up in his arms, pressed against him, and her eyes closed.
Pietro decided he would trust her, trust her enough to trust that she was sleeping, that she wouldn’t do that again, because she’d agreed; she’d given him his word.
What happened before wouldn’t happen again.