wind fluttered the hem of her nightgown, fluttered her hair around her face. warm, for New York in the fall. but everything feels warm since she's been gone.
but let's track this from the beginning.
Wanda Maximoff grew up in a mountain town in Sokovia. Little food, little warmth. She and Pietro grew up stick thin, eating just enough to get by.
she was ten when the world started turning grey. maybe it was ashes from the latest fire, maybe it was the constant, sagging layer of clouds and snow, maybe it was just her fucked up brain.
queue bomb, dead parents, Hydra.
queue red lines across her wrists, because it was the only way she feels alive.
her brother was taken from her, and it was her fault. he was eight minutes older, but she had always felt responsible for him. he was fast, she was weird. but soon it became apparent that the Maximoff twins functioned as a team.
"I didn't see that coming."
even in his final moments, her brother was making jokes. worlds shattered even more.
Clint was like a father, and Vision was so good to her. too good. Pietro would have said she may as well have fallen in love with a microwave oven, but Wanda knows Vision loves her. knows he feels, just like her, just like Pietro.
her accent faded, slowly but surely. and with it went her brother's memory, because she and her friends were busy saving the world, and she had a lot to think about. like the dark crawling back in. blood splattering in porcelain sinks. ribs rising from skin like mountains.
snap and it was over.
she was stuck it a purgatory of orange and grey. she had no body and no voice, but she was trapped.
when she came back, nothing was the same. she killed the love of her life. killed him, andstill failed. she gave up everything to save the world, and it still. wasn't. enough. they couldn't bring back Vision. Wanda woke up alone, dropped in the forest in Wakanda. Except now the forest was burned to its roots, and there was no one else in sight.
she walked for days. weeks. until she collapsed under the blazing hot sun and thought she was really dead this time.
again, she woke, Natasha in the chair next to her bed.
she explained.
and Wanda sobbed while the spy held her tight and promised she was safe.
but since she'd been gone, nothing had been the same.
she was blazing hot, fever running at one hundred and six, with no virus to cause it. She woke up sweating, AC full blast. The only way she could cool off was by running an ice bath, and even that hardly helped.
so she found herself on the roof of the tower. she was only eighteen. she has died and come back to life, suffered more than anyone just barely out of childhood should.
and she jumped because no afterlife she would face could possibly be as terrible as the hell on earth.