Chapter 1
Wanda’s sixteen when she goes ‘missing’. Takes a trip to upstate New York and stops answering her phone.
They’re all worried, of course they are, she and Pietro were theirs to protect, and they’ve already lost him. Tony puts in some calls, looking into Wanda’s credit card activity, cell phone tracking… but it all comes up blank, and there’s only so much data to run on since she’s legally still a minor anyway, even if she’s been independent for a long time now.
By the looks of things, she’s dropped off the face of the earth.
They don’t stop looking, but mostly everyone remains convinced that she’s just settled down into some kind of life with the ‘guy’ she mentioned before she stopped calling. Natasha and Steve, mostly, weren’t convinced, but they let it go mostly after awhile. Figured, she’ll come back when she’s ready.
Wanda’s twenty when she shows up again.
Natasha’s in the Stark tower lounge, on a ‘lunch break’ of sorts (i.e. Escaping the overt display of toxic masculinity in the lab), when the phone starts ringing. She finds it weird, because it’s the personal number, that only people who live in the tower know, and she wouldn’t think that anyone would be calling at this time of the day.
She answers it anyway, with a, “Hello?” only to be met by silence and… the sound of heavy breathing. “Hello, is someone there?”
The silence extends, and taking a massive gamble, Natasha frowns a little and asks, “Wanda?”
Yes it’s been a long time, but something just tells Nat that it’s her. Tells her to ask.
“Nat?” Wanda sounds in response, and Nat feels her eyes almost doubling in size as they widen. Wanda hasn’t called in four years, why now? Where the hell has she been?
“Wanda? Oh my god. Where are you?”
“I, uh…” Wanda’s breathing is still heavy on the other end of the line, and Natasha is shocked at the lack of accent in her voice. It’s still there, but not so much anymore.
“Wanda?”
“I don’t know.” She replies, sharply, but Natasha can still hear her practically hyperventilating. “I... New York. I’m in New York.”
“Fuck, Wanda, where have you been?” she asks, but quickly carries on because she doesn’t want to make her answer that, not over the phone, “Can you find out where you are? We can come and get you.”
“I... I don’t…” Wanda begins, and Natasha can practically hear her shaking her head. “Nevermind, I shouldn’t… I should go back. I’ll just… I’ll go back…”
“No, no, hey! Hey, it’s okay, you’re fine,” she says, already pulling her phone out of her pocket to text Tony, continuing to speak mostly to stall Wanda. “No, don’t go anywhere, yeah? Stay right there. Just tell me what you see around you, honey.”
Natasha: TRACK THE PHONE ON LINE 19, S. TOWER LOUNGE
“Uhm, uh…” Wanda’s shaky breathing increases, and Natasha thinks she hears a whimper. “I don’t… just people, and, and cars…”
Natasha: URGENT ITS Wanda
“No road names?” Natasha asks, although it’s alright if Wanda can’t get that information, Tony will take care of it. “Shops? Anything?”
Stark: done. deploy pickup??
“No, I... I don’t know, I...” Wanda sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. “I’ll go back, I... I can’t… I...”
Natasha: No. I’m going too.
“Okay, Wanda, babe, it’s alright. Don’t go anywhere, please. Are you somewhere safe? We’re coming to get you,” Natasha says, already rushing out of the room, straight for the elevator. The jet’s the quickest way, and this feels urgent. “We won’t be long, I promise. You wanna stay on the line?”
“I don’t have any more money,” Wanda’s voice sounds shaky, panicked, breathing picking up for a few more moments, before she quietens, “Okay. I’m… I’ll wait here. I’m okay. I’ll be here.”
“Yeah, you’ll be fine, okay? I promise. We’re on our—“
The line cuts off.
-
Natasha isn’t sure how to feel when she sees Wanda sitting at the bus stop by the phone booth, hugging her knees tight to her chest, staring at the ground absently. She approaches cautiously but quickly, coming to a slow halt a few feet away from the girl. She’s wearing a pair of plain, denim shorts and a white camisole t-shirt. She’s barefoot, and Natasha can’t help but be confused.
“Hey, stranger,” she says, feeling oddly surprised at how Wanda seems to look older now (odd because, that’s what kids do, they grow) - but not too much. She still looks young; she still is .
Wanda looks up, eyes scanning over Natasha for a few seconds, before she offers a slightly lopsided smile and stands up. “Hi Nat,” she says, hesitating, before moving forward to give Natasha a hug.
Nat’s surprised, because Wanda wasn’t ever really like that before. She’s always been closed off and quite herself-to-herself (and Pietro, of course) but she doesn’t plan on rejecting the hug. She’s wanted to hug her for four years.
Natasha wraps her arms around Wanda, cupping the back of her head protectively as she draws her in. “We missed you,” she says, but makes sure it’s just friendly; no accusation.
“Missed you too,” Wanda says, although it doesn’t sound quite as heartfelt, nodding, and pulling away after a few seconds longer. She pushes her hands into the pockets of her denim shorts and rocks lightly on her heels. “Can we… can we get out of here?” she asks, and throws a look over her shoulder, thumb flicking a button on her shorts repetitively, a very obvious tell to Nat that she’s anxious about something.
She’s about to push it, she really is, until she catches a flicker of something in Wanda’s eyes. Just a moment of uncertainty, of desperation, and it’s enough to silence every question that’s pushing at the tip of Natasha’s tongue.
“Yeah — Tony’s waiting. Let’s get you home, yeah?” she says, throwing a careful arm around Wanda’s shoulder just for caution’s sake, leading her towards the secluded green where they landed.
-
Wanda boards the jet with Nat, and gives Tony a smile and a hug, just the same as she did to Natasha. Then she’s got her hands back in her pockets, looking over her shoulder and out the window, despite the fact that they’re now in flight. Natasha can’t figure out what she’s looking for.
Maybe she thinks she’s being followed? Maybe she is ?
“Wanda, where have you been?” she asks, after awhile, deciding that the longer they leave it, the harder it will be to ask.
Wanda doesn’t answer, Tony throws her a look, and the rest of the journey is silent.
-
Back at the tower, Wanda seems almost upset. She won’t meet either of their eyes, and she’s made herself small, putting her hands in her pockets and folding her shoulders in. Neither of them say anything, but it’s impossible to ignore.
“Would you like your old room back?” Tony asks, and only them does it occur to Natasha that she might not. The last time that Wanda had occupied that room, she’d been doing her best to cope with the sudden, painful loss of her twin brother. It might hold… unsavoury memories.
“No.” The reply sounds too firm to have come from Wanda’s mouth, because she looks meek again barely a second later, but Tony seems to accept it without question. Natasha isn’t quite as willing to do the same, squinting at her with a slightly furrowed brow.
“You don’t have any bags?” she asks, and Wanda looks up at her, silent and still for a long moment before she shakes her head.
Nat can almost feel Tony glaring.
“Where’s your stuff?” she isn’t asking to be mean. She’s not trying to push Wanda’s boundaries and make her uncomfortable, even though she knows it might appear that way. She’s asking because she wants to know, so that she can help her. Natasha doesn’t feel good about how Wanda is acting, doesn’t want to think about what it could mean.
“Natasha,” Tony mutters, but Nat just waves him off with a small wave of her hand.
“Uhm,” Wanda starts, glancing at the elevator screen, obviously desperate to reach their floor. “It’s back at the place I was staying.”
The elevator dings and the doors open. Wanda all but tumbles out, face red, doing everything to keep from making eye contact.
Tony turns his shoulder to Natasha and guides Wanda down the corridor on the left, away from her old room, not checking to see if Natasha’s following. She knows he thinks he’s protecting Wanda, but Natasha knows what bottling things up can do to you.
It can turn you into a monster.