There’s a reoccurring nightmare.
.
Being in the same space as a grieving witch, an android who is more human than some men she knows, a billionaire, and a fossil is jarring.
Natasha can’t do it for more than a night at a time, and she only comes back to make sure Wanda is ok.
The others have been through this rodeo before; perhaps not Vision, but he seems to know enough of the world, that grief is something that doesn’t just leaves you.
She’s not sure how much they talk, but she’s glad that someone has the courage to talk to Wanda; someone that’s not her, or Clint.
With Nathaniel’s birth, she’s taken to being the one that checks in more, between missions and debriefings.
It’s a responsibility she didn’t ask for, and at times, resents it.
She copes by not being there, or being where she needs to be, for the amount of time she needs to be there for.
Natasha doesn’t think Wanda notices; or, will remember in the long run.
Grief, she knows, has a way of stealing time, and people remember who sits with them in the moments they can’t sit with themselves.
.
Wanda’s space is on the same level as Natasha’s in the compound; they’re really small apartments, more luxurious than most, but there’s enough shared spaces and open plan living that they’re both encouraged to move outside their own spaces.
Natasha’s learning to cook. She tells Wanda as such, and asks her to help.
Wanda never says no.
It’s perhaps a testament to her loneliness, and need for connection that when Natasha is in the kitchen, she doesn’t have to wait long until Wanda pads in, with a shallow smile or with bags under her eyes or with a blank look that slowly dissipates as Natasha carefully pries out the thoughts and feelings of the day.
Steve complains that they don’t always cook for everyone, and Natasha calls him misogynistic in jest, Wanda staring at the confrontation as though she’s trying to figure out who to side with.
She thinks Natasha loses because they mostly cook enough for the others, but when they cook something from the old country, it’s always just for them.
She learns of Natasha’s Slavic roots like it’s a long drawn secret, small stories she tells, words she pronounces in private. Wanda offers some of her own in return for the offerings she’s gives, and Natasha nods carefully, her presence reassuring and safe.
It’s new feelings as she can’t remember being safe in any iterations of the word, not perhaps since watching old videos with her parents. After that; nothing, just… turmoil.
Wanda understands why, after the events in New York they all came together, stayed together.
Strucker had always said that the avengers greatest weakness was their loyalty to each other; Wanda thinks it’s perhaps also their greatest strength.
Natasha calls Clint and Laura and lets them chat to Wanda, healing her need for family as only they seem to be able.
Clint asks about Pietro, the only one brave enough to do so. He asks about his favourite colour (blue), his favourite foods (hot dogs) and when she’s sobbing on the phone drowned in memories, he quietly reassures her that Pietro won’t be forgotten. His name lives in in those that loved him.
And then, as if on cue, Nathaniel Pietro cries.
.
Red curls around Wanda, and for Natasha it feels jarring. The Red Room played with minds just as Wanda is able, and there’s no defence against it.
It’s a fear that she pushes down, tries to see Wanda for who she really is, a scared little orphan girl, and tries not to draw parallels.
It’s just… when Wanda is feeling big emotions, Natasha feels the red deep into her body, pushing to find bonding in her own hurts that she buried long ago.
She learns to clear her mind when she’s with her, knows to be more gentle with herself. She takes Wanda’s pain because she knows someone needs to.
It works, sometimes, Natasha can see life growing around Wanda’s grief as it changes and morphs into something that isn’t as visceral. The red doesn’t delve so deep inside, the unconsciousness of it frightening.
It’s those nights that Natasha stays away.
.
There are times that Wanda plays with her magic in ways she knows she shouldn’t. She practices throwing it away from her, making images, projecting it across the floor to see Pietro again.
It hurts.
It always hurts.
The physical exertion that comes with the projections help her to sleep, scenes from their childhood, images of their parents; all the things she’s lost become a living memory inside her room.
Wanda sobs at the injustice.
Initially the pain is big; drowning her thoughts making her magic cocoon her in a protective shell. She imagines it surrounding her, pushing away unwanted, hard emotions, until Vision breaks through and asks her how long she’s been staring at the wall, or sitting on the floor, stuck in a memory.
She never has an answer but he seems to understand.
His presence strangely comforting as he grounds her; drawing her into a conversation on the world, or asking her questions about living.
Wanda reminds him that she’s not the best person to ask about that.
She conjures Pietro, makes the image tell her he’s ok, the he loves her and that things are going to work themselves out. She doesn’t always believe it, but it’s comforting.
Her magic is comforting, always with her, always a part of her. The red surrounds her, dries her tears, and helps her understand that she’s destined for more in the world.
.
Wanda admires Natasha.
The way she talks, the way she moves, the way she can say so much with so little.
She wants her stay with her, protect her, help her and in her darker moments, hold her as she falls apart.
When they cook together, it brings a peace that Wanda craves. When they’re following the steps, the motions, Wanda finds herself enjoying the sensory components, pushing her hands in dough, smelling sweet and sour and tasting the salt. Natasha calls it grounding, and encourages her to do it when she’s not around.
Wanda wonders where she goes, when she’s not in the compound. Curiosity, as they say, killed the cat. But Wanda reasons, red tendrils dancing as she dresses herself, satisfaction brought it back.
They’ve been talking about spy craft. Practicing certain things like how to spot a tail, how to follow someone, things that might keep her safe, or the things that Natasha thinks will keep Wanda safe.
Wanda knows she can tear apart the world.
.
There’s a day where Pietro isn’t the first thing on her mind. It sends her spiralling and it’s the only thing she thinks of all day.
She gets lost in her mind and conjures him to apologise.
Clint's words come back at her, that Pietro will always live on as long as he isn’t forgotten. She forgot him, only for a moment, but the implication weighs heavily on her. If she could forget him for a moment, what’s stopping her forgetting him at all?
Her magic glows deep red and it’s a warning.
Wanda doesn’t want to be buried in emotions again. She wants Natasha. She’s the only one that seems to know how to make things better.
Natasha knows what to say, her mind always seems calm, peaceful - an oasis amongst Wanda’s own chaos.
Vision is the same, but this feeling, the perpetual grief is not something she thinks he will understand.
She releases the magic that holds around her heart allowing it to surround herself in its entirety. Protective, she sniffs, and gets dressed to go looking for her friend. Natasha will know what to do. Natasha will know how to help the pain that makes her feel like she’s suffocating.
.
It’s a mistake.
.
Friday tells Wanda where to go, the tiny apartment near Hells Kitchen, easy to get to as Wanda catches a cab there. She just needs Natasha to tell her that things are going to be okay, and then she’ll leave her alone. She nears the apartment door and sends out her magic, she wants to make sure Natasha is alone.
The thought makes her pause.
What if there was someone else in there? She hesitates, and pulls her magic back and waits.
She’s makes her way to the roof, thankful that the apartment below is Natasha’s and sits cross legged. Focusing, she bleeds the magic into the roof, searching, finding only Natasha sleeping below.
The deep red latches onto Natasha’s mind, the unconscious thoughts binding to Wanda’s as her mind sees all that Natasha does.
There’s blood.
Dead girls with unseeing eyes.
And a red head child smiling looking towards a fat man, kneeling at his feet.
“Did I pass?”
The child asks, blood on her face as the knife in her hand twirls.
“Am I a good girl?”
And then quieter.
“Will you let me go now?”
Wanda feels the fear, smells the metallic taste of blood as it lingers in the air, the man stands over her, his body larger than life.
The dream morphs leaving Wanda reeling, but there’s no reprieve.
She wants to pull back from it, but the magic holds on, her grief binding with whatever this is, locking in.
There’s a naked man with his throat slit, manicured hands warm with fresh blood remove the garrotte from his jugular. The metallic smell permeates again and Wanda almost gags.
She’s a bystander watching.
The woman is young and confident as she dresses herself, picking up a briefcase as she exits.
It’s jarring, and seems disconnected from the first dream.
The dream morphs again.
Wanda can almost feel the handcuffs around her own wrists as blood drips from the woman’s nose.
She hears yelling that doesn’t make sense, as water is poured over her face.
Drowning, Wanda knows, this is exactly what she’s been feeling.
Chest heavy, encompassing, her compassion for the woman who fights for breath, when the water stops only to start again.
Wanda is terrified.
Her magic doesn’t work, the helplessness she feels makes her shrink back.
The images change again, and it’s Clint, in front of her.
“Don’t worry,” he says, holding out a hand, “everything will be—“ the bullet hole bores into his skull and Wanda screams, looking towards the where it was fired.
Natasha smiles and reholsters her gun.
“Never trust me,” she says sadly.
It’s a feeling that Wanda has never had before, fear, anger, pain, grief, shock, all roll into one as she tears herself away.
They were all Natasha, the little girl, the killer, the tortured, the betrayer.
The rooftop feels colder as her mind is shoved back into her body, and never before has she been more thankful for her own mind and feelings.
Whatever that was…
She needs to get out of here, she doesn’t know how to be friends with someone so… broken. Natasha’s mind was always blissfully clear, devoid of complexities like Tony and Steve. She now knows why.
Fleeing, she heads for the compound, her emotions bouncing between fear, horror and shame.
.
Natasha wakes up, her body cold in sweat.
Getting up on shaking legs, she thinks she sees glimmers of red fading into nothing.
She can’t deal with processing anything after the nightmares that the night has given.
Turning on the shower, she makes it as hot as it can go, and steps inside.
She feels violated.
There’ll be no more sleep tonight.
.
“Are you okay, Wanda?” Vision asks, phasing through the door, “I could feel your distress from my room.”
If she had the words, maybe she’d tell him. But now that daylight streams into her room, she knows those memories weren’t for her. She keeps replaying it in her mind, the little girl, the warm sticky blood, Clint dying.
Is this what Natasha sees everyday?
Vision sits next to her and she offers him a watery smile. Fatigue pulls at her as she rests her head on his shoulders.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks, kindly.
Shaking her head, Wanda tries to stop herself from crying. Between her fear of Natasha and thoughts of losing Pietro for good, she feels emotionally wrung out.
“I’m not sure what the night has shown you, but don’t forget I am here, we are all here, you do not need to travel the darkness alone,” he places a hand on hers.
“Will you come for a walk with me?”
The proposition doesn’t feel like a bad idea, and just sitting here and mulling on what she’s seen isn’t doing her any good.
She nods.
“Are you ready to go?”
He morphs so he’s wearing clothes and puts on a human face, smiling at her as he brings her shoes over to her.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be back in time for you to cook with Natasha.”
The simple statement makes her blood run from her extremities. She has to face Natasha tonight, she’d forgotten. Something she was once looking forward too is now tainted with fear and shame.
“Ok,” she says, as they head out walking towards the open plains.
.
Wanda doesn’t appear. It’s the first time it’s happened and worry for her friend makes Natasha seek her out.
Knocking on the door, she calls out.
“Wanda?”
There’s no answer.
There’s also no one inside when she tentatively opens the door.
“Friday? Where’s Wanda?”
There’s a pause.
“She’s requested that her location not be disclosed,” the AI responds.
Frowning, Natasha leaves and sits on her own bed.
“Friday?”
“Yes?”
“Is Wanda ok?”
It’s a stupid question to ask a robot.
“She appeared distressed this morning, and has been in her room until she went for a walk with Vision. Her mood seemed lighter when she returned.”
Natasha nods.
The overwhelming feeling that something has happened during the night.
“Was she doing well last night?” Natasha probes.
“She woke up distressed,” Friday answers, “she asked for your address and then I gave her the coordinates. She did not appear well when she returned.”
Natasha stops breathing.
Her nightmares.
The red glimmer was not just her imagination.
Anger is Natasha’s first emotion.
Shame is her second.
Wanda made her see the graduation ceremony.
Pulled visions that she’d rested long ago, to the forefront of her mind. She’d made her afraid.
Whist last nights memories weren’t the worst nightmare she’s had, the thought that someone else had been privy to them makes her want to vomit. Her past was her own; Wanda had no right to intrude, to breach her mind without permission.
No wonder she felt violated.
She caught between confronting her and leaving.
The trust is gone.
The anger is pervasive.
.
She knows she’s a coward, hiding in the library.
She closes her eyes and sees a little girl kneeling.
“Will you let me go now?”
She realises she knows nothing about Natasha, that they haven’t known each other that long, but she thought maybe, just maybe she wasn’t like Hydra, wasn’t like Stark, wasn’t as dangerous or brutal. She’d never given much thought to the title of Black Widow, but the garrotting of the man had shown her it wasn’t just a title. It was earned.
Wanda wonders if she needs to tell Clint to be careful. Isn’t that what she’d said?
“Don’t trust me?”
Except, she did trust Natasha. She was judging her on her dreams and it wasn’t fair.
If someone judged her on her nightmares…
She thinks of Hydra, of the experiments and trials they put her Pietro through. It’s not things she likes to think of. If someone watched those memories she’d be so ashamed, fearful that they’d use it against her.
She knows they’d judge her.
But isn’t that what she was doing to Natasha?
It’s just.
She’s scared.
Natasha is a killer.
She doesn’t know how she’s ever going to face her again.
.
“Hey,” Clint is tired.
There’s silence on the other end as he turns his phone over to check the caller id.
“Nat, you there?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Can you FaceTime?”
There’s something in the way she answers that makes him instantly awake.
The call comes through again, and he hasn’t seen her look this angry and stone faced in a while.
“She needs to stay with you,” Natasha opens.
He glances at the time. 10pm here which makes it 8pm there; it’s not late by any means.
“What happened?”
The assumption that she’s talking about Wanda is by process of elimination.
“She did it again.”
Clint stops mulling around the kitchen and stares into the phone.
“She did, what, again?”
Natasha clenches her jaw.
“Broke into my mind, saw my nightmares.”
If Natasha was an emotional person, Clint thinks she would be crying. The magnitude of the statement isn’t lost on him.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Natasha tells it as she sees it, trying to be unemotional as she recounts waking up feeling like her mind was violated.
Clint doesn’t take it lightly, her words.
It’s not the nightmare, they both know that, Natasha has had nightmares for as long as he’s known her, but to have someone view them, judge them, know them with no context, and have the power to do it again, maybe manipulate them next time, do it without her knowledge, he knows is beyond terrifying, especially for Natasha.
She’s right, Wanda can’t stay.
“Will you sleep tonight?” He asks, watching her carefully.
“No.” She replies honestly.
“I need her gone, or I need to go,” she pauses.
“I don’t know if she knows I know.”
Clint nods. It won’t be the first time that Natasha stays awake to avoid nightmares, the stakes feel higher on this one, because it’s also to avoid a threat of a teammate.
“I’ll call her,” he promises. “She can come tomorrow if she agrees.”
“And if not?”
He shrugs.
“Which safe house do you want?”
“Okay,” she sighs, “okay.”
“Are you okay?” He asks tentatively, knowing the answer.
“Angry,” she clarifies. “Hurt, maybe.”
“Do you think she did it on purpose?”
If Clint blinked, he would have missed the micro expression that flits across Natasha’s face.
“I don’t know,” she responds, “you’ll have to ask her.”
There’s a pause as Clint hesitates to ask.
“Can you forgive her for it, if it was?”
He watches her carefully.
“Maybe.”
It’s the best she’s got.
.
He calls straight away, he’s worried about Natasha. Worried about Wanda. Wonders if she’ll agree to come.
“Hello,” the accented voice seems heavier over the phone.
“Friday tells me you’ve had a rough day,” he opens, blaming the AI.
There’s silence on the other end.
“What do you know?” She asks, and he doesn’t know how much to divulge.
“Tell me about last night,” he opts for.
Waiting, he potters in the kitchen, sending a message to Laura, who’s still in with Nate trying to settle him.
“She knows doesn’t she.”
Wanda’s voice is forlorn.
“Tell me what happened,” Clint repeats, wanting to know why she’s betrayed Natasha for seemingly no reason.
“I didn’t mean to,” she starts, almost desperately, “I forgot him, I forgot Pietro, only for a moment but I thought.. I thought.. If I could forget him for a moment what if,” she gulps, “what if I forgot him forever?”
She continues without drawing breath.
“You said, you said he’s never really gone, not if we remember him, not if he lives on in us, and I forgot to remember him, when I woke up, he wasn’t the first thought in my head.”
She takes a stuttered breath, and sniffs back tears.
“I went to find Natasha. She always knows what to say, what to do, and knows when I seem to be spiralling, but she wasn’t there. I asked Friday, where she was, the house in Hells Kitchen, and I went there.. But when I went to knock on the door, I thought, what if she’s not alone?
What if someone was there with her?”
She’s crying now, and Clint feels pity. This was not on purpose, not malicious, just a grief stricken team mate looking for comfort.
“I went.. I went to the roof, I just wanted to know that she was by herself, I swear, but my magic held on, brought me into her nightmare, and I couldn’t leave. It’s like it was tethered.”
The breath she takes to try and centre herself fails and her voice cracks.
“I saw what she did, I saw her as she knelt and twirled her knife, as she killed a man after having sex with him, as she was tortured and then…”
Clint doesn’t want to know this, Natasha’s dreams are her own.
“And then she killed you.”
Wanda sobs.
Clint waits.
“It was an accident?” He confirms.
He thinks she nods into the phone, and then realizes she can’t see him.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Would you do it again?”
“No.”
Clint hears Nathaniel cry, and he thinks there’s a lot of grief going around.
“You’ll never forget Pietro,” he starts, “and just because he wasn’t the first thing on your mind in the morning, doesn’t mean you’re losing him. He’s everywhere, okay? He’s in the colour blue, he’s there when you eat hot dogs and when you run really fast. He’ll never leave you, Wanda, okay?”
He doesn’t wait for a response.
“Grief isn’t something we’re healed from, it’s something we learn to live with, a part of us that we grow around. Natasha taught me that. I understand that you needed comfort, but do you understand what you’ve done?”
He wonders if she’s nodding.
“You’ve made her afraid in her own space. Her thoughts, her dreams, they’re hers alone. You don’t get to dictate or judge them. They’re things she’s lived through, things she’s survived and you don’t get to provide commentary on that, no matter how scary it is, no matter how fucked it seemed. Okay?”
There’s a pause.
“Okay.”
“Wanda?”
She hums in acknowledgment, still crying.
“I think it might be good if you came here for a bit,” he offers it, but she feels it’s not up for discussion. She knows, Natasha needs to stay at the compound to do her job, to protect people. What’s she doing here? Hurting them? Hurting her friends? Or… are they friends? She doesn’t know. She’s happened into this mess and she feels that it’s only obligation that allies them with her.
She has nowhere else to go.
“Okay,” she concedes.
.
Laura greets her with the baby.
She’s sure it’s a strategic move that she appreciates never the less. Clint can’t yell at her if she’s holding the baby, and his chubby cheeks break into a smile when he sees her.
“How disappointed is he?” She asks Laura, nuzzling Nate as he grabs at her hair.
“He’s fine, just worried I think, about you and Nat.”
Laura reminds her of her own mother, the way she settles arguments, is kind and patient and just confident in herself.
“Come in?” She asks, grabbing Wanda’s bag, and bringing her inside.
Wanda follows her, the other two children watching her before introducing themselves.
“Is it true you can do magic?” Cooper asks.
Wanda nods, letting red tendrils loose from her fingers.
“Woah,” comes the predictable response.
It’s nicer than fear.
“Go wash up,” Laura prompts, “dinner is ready.”
She turns and takes Nate off of her.
“It’s spaghetti, is that ok?”
Wanda nods and follows her, as promoted, to a room just up the stairs.
“This will be your room,” she tells her opening the door.
“Thank you,” Wanda whispers.
.
The Barton’s have a ritual, Wanda learns.
They eat dinner and then drink hot chocolate on the porch.
Clint puts extra marshmallows in Laura’s and Wanda’s drinks and when the kids complain he tells them they have more living to do before they get more.
Wanda passes her marshmallows over to the two siblings earning a smile from both of them as they all sit together on the steps.
She sips it slowly, watching the sky and letting the past 48 hours pass through her. She’s fucked up.
She’s terrified of Natasha and what she’s going to say.
She first met Natasha, with mind controlling, it’s not how she wants it to end.
Laura leaves to put Nathaniel to bed, then Cooper and Lila go to watch some television; leaving Clint and Wanda alone.
“Have you spoken to her?” Clint asks.
Wanda shakes her head. She’d said good bye to Vision, citing she’d be with Clint. He’d told her to be safe, perhaps sensing the lie.
“Have you?” She asks, looking at the ground.
Clint nods.
“She knows you’re here,” he admits.
Wanda wants to know whether she’s angry, if they have a chance to still be.. Friends? Team mates?
“Did you tell her I was sorry?”
Wanda knows the answer before he even answers.
“No.”
They watch the sky and Wanda is left with a lot of thoughts. She hates the feeling of tension that’s been in her gut. The fear and trepidation that comes before a confrontation.
“Can you ask her to come?” She asks bravely, forcing down the fear of seeing her.
“I can,” Clint smiles kindly.
He stands and takes her empty cup, “don’t stay up too late okay?”
.
Wanda dreams.
She’s the little girl kneeling before the man, asking for her life to be spared.
She’s naked on a man, ready to slit his throat.
She’s tortured, downed, kicked, punched.
She’s the one that tells the world, don’t trust me.
She wakes up gasping for breath.
Whatever fears she had before, they feel like nothing compared to Natasha’s. She is the killer of men, the black widow, the most dangerous person in the room, of any room, and she knows it.
Wanda used to think it was her.
.
Natasha comes as requested, delighted to see Clint’s children that can’t stop hugging her and telling her about the happenings around the house.
She shares a bone crushing hug with Laura and smacks Clint across the head as he throws a balled up wad of paper at her head.
Wanda watches and she wonders if this is what coming home looks like.
She’s been dreading this and looking forward to it simultaneously.
It’d been all she’s been able to think about, running it over in her head again and again, imagine what she’ll say, what Natasha will say.
She still admires her, wants to be near her, cook with her, learn from her. She doesn’t know what this feeling is, what’s it called when you’re terrified of the person you love and admire? She knows the word in Sokovian but it just doesn’t translate.
“Hello,” she opens.
Natasha shoos Lila, promising she’ll come look at her new book later, and looks to Wanda.
“Hi,” she responds.
Wanda picks at her fingers, a habit she knows she needs to stop.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” Natasha asks, pointing towards the barn and the chickens that Wanda loves.
Nodding, they set off, neither talking or knowing how to broach the awkwardness.
“It was a mistake,” Wanda confesses as they reach the animals.
“I came to find you.. I needed you.. I just needed a friend,” she sighs. “You’re very good you know, at being comforting, supportive.”
Natasha is silent.
“I worried that you weren’t alone, so I sat on the roof and checked; I don’t know what happened, I got pulled into your nightmare and got stuck in it…”
“It was terrifying,” she finishes, her voice quiet.
She doesn’t know what else to say.
“I’m sorry, I am, I didn’t mean to, I swear, I don’t want to know what’s going on in your head, I’m sorry if it brought up more memories, worse memories, I’m sorry for the last time I did it,” Wanda mumbles staring at the floor, trying to stop the tears that threaten.
She feels Natasha’s hand on hers as he looks up to find her steady gaze.
“I forgive you,” she says, clearly.
“You can’t do it again, ever.”
The boundary is clear, and Wanda nods.
“My memories, my mind, my dreams, they’re my own, they’re not for anyone to know or judge.”
The reprimand feels warranted.
Natasha squeezes her hand and let’s go.
“Anything you saw, is there anything you want to talk about?”
Wanda is almost floored at Natasha’s generosity. She has so many questions.
“You’re not going to kill Clint?” She asks.
The laugh that breaks out of Natasha is a release.
“No. No, I don’t think so; but he’s an idiot so no promises.”
The tension breaks and they wander together back to the house.
“Your dreams, they’re of real things?”
Natasha nods.
“Most of the time.”
Wanda makes herself take a breath, the fear that all she’d seen was real, now truth. There’s an awe that comes over her as she looks to the woman on her right, the consummate survivor of men.
“Does that scare you?” Natasha asks, sensing her trepidation.
“No,” Wanda says quickly.
“Yes.”
They reach the house and Natasha turns to face Wanda.
“The past is the past. You can’t outrun it, you can’t rewrite it, the decisions we made were the ones available to us the time, right?”
Wanda thinks about Pietro.
Wishes that she’d been there for him, protecting him. Wishes that the past had given them a lot of things.
She nods slowly.
“We can’t change the past, and even though our brains have a way of bringing up past hurts, fears, memories, and telling us all the things we should have done, would have done now with all the help and resources available to us, or with all this further knowledge. It’s just not the truth.”
She grabs at Wanda’s arm, before the reach the porch.
“I know you’re doing your best. Forgive yourself, processing what’s been done to you takes time, grieving takes time and both take effort. You’ll get there. You have Vision and Clint and me, Steve and even Tony; we’ll all help in anyway we can.”
Wanda swipes at her face, unable to stop the tears at the words she so desperately needed to hear.
“I really am sorry,” she says again.
Pulling her into a hug that ends before she knows what’s happening, she hears quiet words in Russian, then in English, spoken like a prayer.
“I forgive you. Forgive yourself.”
Natasha nods, opening the door for Wanda allowing her to pass through.
.
Vision greets her with akin joy when she returns to the tower, with Natasha on a quinjet. She’s taught the basics of flying though knowing she’ll never have the courage to do so.
Natasha tells her not to worry, that Stark has programmed them so they can fly themselves.
Wanda knows that Natasha doesn’t quite trust her, not after everything but things are better; much better.
.
She reaches a new equilibrium.
Sometimes Pietro isn’t the first thing on her mind when she wakes, he’s in the blue of the sky, the gust of wind when it blows, the inside jokes she laughs at that no one else understands and most of all he’s in the magic of her world.
She misses him, but it doesn’t take away from all she’s built around herself.
Fear doesn’t rule everything she does, Natasha’s forgiveness and encouragement to forgive herself has set her free.
Life surrounds her grief and pain; and new patterns of living emerge.
Determination fuels her.
She will not be the villain of her story.
.