“Why are people so fucking selfish? If I want to die, I should be allowed to die.” Wanda spat, swaying slightly and proving rather unsteady on her feet.
Natasha and the team had returned from a mission that evening, all completely worn out and ready for a rested evening only to find a very drunk Wanda, lounging about the common area.
“It’s my life so why can’t I choose what to do with it? I’ll tell you why; because people get attached, they decide that they need you, they decide to be selfish, make you feel guilty for ever wanting to leave in the first place,” Wanda continued in a a heavier accent than normal, quite likely brought on from the slur in her speech.
In the beginning the team was only slightly shocked at the discovery of an inebriated Wanda and left Natasha to deal with it alone, deciding that the young witches increasingly aggravated state would only be spurred on by a crowd. However not soon after the team left, that the situation escalated and Wanda had begun voicing some opinions that Natasha was more than alarmed by.
“Stop it Natasha! You don’t care about me. You don’t fucking care about me. For once I want to be the fucking selfish one. I want to do one last final thing for myself and then I’ll be out of your hair forever.” Wanda reasoned, “A year on from now and you won’t ever have to worry about me again, I can promise you won’t even give me a second thought.”
Natasha twitched, to make a move for the young girl, vaguely wounded that all their efforts to adjust for Wanda had been overlooked so suddenly.
“I’m saving you the effort and the burden. Leave me alone. Don’t be fucking selfish and use your head to realise what’s a better option for both of us.”
The entirety of the Avengers had known the witch was struggling. After all you don’t lose as much as she did without some side effects. None of them had yet caught onto the fact that her state was much worse than anticipated. Unfortunately for Wanda, all it took was a bit too much of Tony’s expensive liquor on an empty stomach and the truth was being revealed.
“You don’t want to have to deal with me. You don’t like me and you don’t care about me.” the young girl elaborated in a dumbed down tone as if speaking to a young child, “I don’t want to be here. I want to be with my brother and my parents.”
She spoke as if the answer was so obvious and Natasha was a little taken aback of how Wanda was being so blunt over such a serious topic.
As of right now the older woman had been given a minuscule amount of time to come up with a plan. 10 minutes ago she was humouring Wanda’s drunken rambles, following her through the corridors of Stark Tower, blissfully unaware of the direction the witch was travelling. Once faced with the cool night air, Natasha had woken from her stupor and felt herself fill with panic. Wanda had lead them both to the roof. So Natasha messaged Clint in an emergency and now it was just a waiting game.
“This is the best solution for us both. We both get what we want. Now let me go.”
Finally the redhead caught her chance to interrupt the drunk’s monologue, “I can’t do that Wanda. I can’t just let you kill yourself.”
“WHY THE FUCK NOT WHY DAMN IT WHY!” she yelled.
“Because I care about you.” the older woman stated as calmly as possible. Not at all shaken from the girl’s outburst.
“BULLSHIT!”
Wanda was too out of it to break down her insecurities of being an outcast of the team so Natasha opted for another reason, “Because it’s not right. Because you’d leave a lot of people with a lot of horrible emotions behind.”
Wanda only scoffed at the woman’s attempt, “And there it is. The inevitable truth that once again my life isn’t even mine.”
Slowly Wanda’s anger had begun to fizzle into fatigue.
“I thought I’d left hydra’s twisted morals behind me but apparently I just traded one in for the other.”
Natasha took this opportunity to slowly approach her. Arms outstretched, waiting for Wanda to move closer.
“I won’t ever get a say about what I want to do with my body, with my mind, with myself,” the girl chocked out.
With that, Wanda moved in to accept Natasha’s warm embrace. Longing in her foggy mind state for some form of security.
“I’m sorry Wanda, I really really am.”
“Please, I want this so badly. I don’t want to live anymore. It’s torture. I’m so so tired.”
“Im sorry.” Natasha’s words filled with complete sincerity.
The older woman closed her eyes as she tightened her grip on Wanda, beyond the point of the hug just being secure. It was too late by the time Wanda noticed what was happening.
All in a flurry, the door to the roof burst open and through it spilled a large group of frantic looking men. All of whom immediately swarmed towards Natasha who was still holding onto a now thrashing Wanda.
In the process of Steve moving to take over Natasha’s hold on the girl, Wanda shot her a look filled with a torrent of emotions. Betrayal entwined with hatred and spite, a sliver of disbelief and maybe even a hint of surrender.
“You fucking bitch,” she spat but the emphasis of the words fell short and her hatred came out in a whine of frustration and humiliation. The meaning was lost when Natasha looked straight into Wanda’s eye and saw pure fear.
Now that Steve was holding onto the her there was nothing Wanda could do. Her powers would’ve been helpful right now but heat of the warm liquor still in her body was only allowing her to produce tiny wisps of red from the tips of her fingers.
So instead she gave up her choppy and uncoordinated struggles and hung limp in surrender.
The fantasy of her free choice once again being ripped away from her, by people who she thought she might’ve finally been able to trust. But here she was being restrained and carried back into the tower towards the med bay where her pleas fell on deaf ears as they cuffed her to a bed whilst white-coated strangers weaved in and out to attend to her. Readying themselves to undo all of the hard effort Wanda had put into maintaining such a fragile state of living.
Her body wasn’t hers anymore. It never was. She was merely another chess piece on the board and it was her own fault for allowing herself to get carried away in the fantasies that maybe one day she’d be allowed to choose her own moves. Why was she ever stupid enough to feel hopeful?
So naive.