Chapter Text
All Wanda can say is that the blackouts begin shortly after the experiments. Time passes between them and she finds herself doing all sorts of things (having conversations or eating, or bathing) but she doesn’t recall any of it.
Pietro seems worried when he notices the gaps in her memory, how she doesn’t remember their conversations or some of their training sessions. Then she tells him that she’s been having blackouts, and he grows even more worried.
He suggests telling the scientists because it could be important, or something to do with her new powers, but she refuses in fear of more experiments. She thought they would stop after she and Pietro got their powers, but they didn’t. They only increased, becoming more and more painful as time went on.
“If you won’t tell them, then we have to try and hide it,” Pietro then tells her. “Otherwise they will find out.”
Wanda agrees.
Wanda doesn’t remember the Avengers storming the base. She remembers noise, gunfire, and then nothing. It’s nighttime the next thing she knows, and she and Pietro are back in Novi Grad for the first time in years.
She looks around in wonder. Relieved to be out of the castle and happy to be back in the city.
Pietro is giving her an odd look when she finally meets his eyes, and she frowns in response.
“What happened?” She asks knowingly.
Her brother shrugs, handing out items to the citizens of Novi Grad.
“You wanted to take on the Avengers,” he says.
Wanda stops and stares.
“You’re lying,” she says with a chuckle.
“No. ‘Ooh, I’m the Scarlet Witch, look at me, I’m going to fight Captain America now’,” Pietro mocks her then shakes his head.
“Scarlet Witch? What? No, I don’t know- I don’t remember that. Why would I do that?”
Wanda follows Pietro as he stalks away.
A few people watch them as they pass, but Wanda pays them no mind as she trails after her brother.
“Pietro, please stop,” she calls after him. “I don’t remember!”
“I know,” Pietro finally stops and turns back to her. “I know, sister, that’s why I’m worried. I’m scared for you, Wanda. If this keeps happening, we’re going have to do something about it. It’s dangerous. You could get hurt!”
“I can’t help it,” Wanda tells him. “I don’t know what’s happening, Pietro. I want to stop it, but I don’t know what it is and why it keeps happening.”
“There’s a doctor in the city. I spoke to him earlier. Maybe he can help you?”
Wanda’s heart skips a beat out of fear. She’s had enough doctors to last a life time.
“No. No doctors,” she tells Pietro. “We’ll figure it out, but no doctors. Please.”
With a nod, Pietro pulls her in for a hug. Wanda reciprocates it with teary eyes and shaky breaths.
She doesn’t remember most of her time spent with Ultron. She hardly recalls meeting him, in fact. All she knows is that he plans to take down Tony Stark and the Avengers, and she and Pietro are going to help him.
That’s all she’s wanted for a long time. It was the main reason she and Pietro signed up for the experiments. To take down Tony Stark. Now he has a team, and it’ll be easier to take him out.
Ultron seems to think this, too, which is apparently why he recruited Wanda and Pietro. Her brother keeps her up to date whenever she can keep hold of reality. Before everything fades out and she wakes up somewhere else.
She remembers interrogating Klaue. Recalls his fear. His ramblings about fish. Ultron showing up and smashing through the window. Being shown vibranium.
Then Ultron attacking Klaue. Cutting his arm off. And that’s the last of it. She goes away then without noticing, and comes back in a lab.
Somewhere along the way, Wanda starts to think that maybe this Scarlet Witch that Pietro had mentioned is protecting her. Taking her away when things get hectic. Whenever she feels afraid or anxious, or unsure.
It would make sense. Wanda feels that way a lot these days.
Thankfully, Wanda stays present for a while after the incident at the ship yarde. She stays the entire time while Ultron makes Doctor Cho create a body for him in her Cradle.
She can feel Pietro keeping an eye on her and she loves him more for it. Without her brother, she doesn’t know what she’d do or what might happen to her.
Things are calm, which, Wanda thinks, is why she’s still here. She’s not complaining, though.
It’s nice to just observe the creation of Ultron’s new body. To talk to him and Pietro without any drama or fighting for the time being.
She almost feels at peace.
And then she looks into the mind inside the Cradle and sees annihilation. It tears into her mind like a knife, shows her the end of the world, and she cries out.
But she doesn’t disappear. She’s still present, and when she can tell Pietro is relieved about this too when she silently squeezes his hand.
She confronts Ultron on the matter and his betrayal, and releases Dr Cho when the robot begins to rant. Dr Cho shuts down the Cradle while Ultron is talking, and the robot loses his cool.
All of a sudden, he shoots the doctor and Pietro picks Wanda up and runs away to safety.
Wanda fades away in his arms.
When she comes back, they’re on a de-railing train. It crashes through a building and Wanda falls to the ground, startled by it.
Captain America appears at her side and helps her to her feet, but Wanda only stares at him with wide eyes.
“What is happening?” She demands. “Where am- where’s Pietro?”
Captain America looks at he strangely.
“Where have you been the past ten minutes? This train is off its rails, and people are going to get seriously hurt. Can you stop it?”
Out of the window, she sees a blur of blue as her brother runs around getting people out of the way of the train. She turns her eyes back to Captain America, the one person she hadn’t expected to see in front of her, and slowly nods.
“I can stop it,” she confirms quietly, then straightens up as much as she can and plants her feet firmly on the ground. “Yes, I can stop it.”
Stopping the train is strenuous and takes a lot of her energy, but once it comes to a full stop, she doesn’t waste a second exiting the train and running to find her brother.
She spots him leant against a wall and hurries to join him, placing a hand on his arm to see if he’s okay.
“Pietro? Are you all right?” She asks once he looks up at her.
“I’m fine,” he looks relieved. “It’s good you are back. Your counterpart can be a little much sometimes.”
I wouldn’t know, Wanda thinks.
“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. Then spots Captain America talking to civilians, ensuring they’re okay. “Why are we with an Avenger?”
“We have to stop Ultron,” Pietro says quietly. “We have to join the Avengers before he destroys the world.”
“You can’t be serious?” Wanda asks. “Was it not our mission to start with, to destroy the Avengers? Ultron or not, we have to complete that mission. We have to tear them apart for what happened to our parents- out country!”
“Wanda, the world is going to end! We have no choice but to join the Avengers. Ultron is going to wipe out all life on Earth, with us on it,” Pietro stresses. “Or did you forget that when you took all of your power naps?”
Wanda’s face falls at the blow. She never expected something like that from her twin, the other half of her soul. The one person she relied on these days to be there for her and protect her, to understand.
She can see the moment his expression falls too, and the way his mouth opens as if to apologise, but Captain America strides over before he can.
“What’s going on?” The hero asks.
Wanda turns away and shakes her head. Pietro can do all of the talking, she’s not in the mood anymore.
Wanda’s not sure at what point she goes away this time. All she knows is that when she comes back, it’s been a while. The sky is dark and she’s on a jet. She’s wearing a red, leather jacket and Pietro is also suited up beside her.
She looks around at everyone on the jet. All of the Avengers are present except for the Black Widow.
Wanda looks towards the window to try and see if she can recognise whatever they’re flying over, but all she can see are clouds, darkness, and her reflection.
She stares at her reflection, criticising her every feature, until something strange happens. Her reflection tilts its head, but Wanda doesn’t move.
Her eyes widen while her reflection copies her action and falls back into place.
“Wanda? Sister, is it you again?” Pietro mutters quietly beside her.
Wanda looks over to him, her heart still pounding from whatever had just happened.
“Wanda?”
“It’s me, Pietro,” Wanda confirms just as quietly, but her voice is flat and curt.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” Pietro apologises. “It was wrong and you didn’t deserve it.”
Wanda shakes he head.
“I thought you would understand,” she tells him. “You are my brother and you have always been there for me, and protected me. I didn’t expect you to say something like that. It hurt, Pietro.”
“I know. I’m so sorry, Wanda. I was just scared. The world might be ending and we have the powers to stop it. I didn’t want our last hours to be spent getting revenge. I want to do good. Isn’t that what us trying to destroy Tony was about? Doing good? Even if it was just for Sokovia and our parents?”
Slowly, Wanda nodded.
“See? We can do good now. For the world. We can save the world if we just help the Avengers. Will you help, Wanda? Please?”
Pietro holds his hand out, palm up, and Wanda looks at it. With a sigh, she reluctantly takes it and smiles at him.
Her brother smiles back and they settle into easy conversation while they head to Sokovia.
Most of the fight against Ultron is a blur to her. She stays surprisingly present for it, her alter ego (as Pietro has taken to calling her) not showing up at any point. Maybe she’s decided Wanda needs to retain control of her own body for once.
Whatever the reason, Wanda is thankful to be able to just fight alongside her brother and the Avengers as herself and not lose any memories of it.
Until everything turns upside down and Wanda is left reeling. She’d offered to protect the core in the church, feeling partially responsible for everything, and sent Pietro off to get any stragglers on the carriers seeing as he was fast enough to do so.
That was her mistake. She should have let him stay and help her. She should have never sent him away.
She feels the bullets pierce her flesh as if they’re real. She feels her soul tear in half and Pietro’s life force flicker and dim into nothing. Until she’s left lonely and unwhole.
Until he’s gone and she remains.
Until he’s dead and she’s still alive. Without him.
The scream that tears from her throat is unholy and broken. It can be heard across the floating city, no matter how high up they are in the air. She’s sure even the Avengers can hear her across the other side of the city.
Her powers burst forth like they have a mind of their own, and Wanda disappears.
Chapter Text
Natasha is worried about Wanda.
Initially, she hadn’t exactly wanted to engage with the woman or have anything to do with her after what she’d done when they’d first met, but after some prompting from Steve, she’d tried to put it all in the past and turn over a new leaf.
She knew she had to get to know her new teammate better if they’re going to be working together from now on, so she’d decided to take some dinner up to the other woman. She can’t remember seeing her at all today, which is odd because she’s shown up for training and meals every other day so far.
So, she makes a simple sandwich and pours a glass of orange juice for Wanda, and then takes the elevator up to the floor her room is on.
Once the elevator dings, Natasha strides down the corridor to Wanda’s room and knocks on the door. For a few long seconds, there’s no response, then the door slowly swings inwards. Natasha’s brows crease with confusion as she pushes the door the rest of the way in and enters.
On the other side of the room, Wanda is sat cross-legged in the air, seemingly meditating but floating while she does it. Natasha has never seen Wanda use her powers to levitate (she didn’t know she could), so it catches her off-guard for a moment before she schools her expression.
“Hey, Wanda,” she announces her presence, trying to catch the other woman’s attention. She sees Wanda’s eyes open and flicker over to her before they close again. “You haven’t left your room today, so I brought you something to eat. Just a sandwich, but it’s better than nothing.”
No response.
It’s a little rude, but Natasha doesn’t comment on it. Wanda is grieving for her twin, and it’s normal to not want to talk to anyone while you’re in mourning.
But she has to eat. Technically, Natasha is Wanda’s mentor and she can’t really leave her alone when she hasn’t eaten all day.
“Okay,” Natasha moves over to sit on the edge of the bed. She puts the sandwich beside her, and holds the drink in her hand. “Well, I can’t leave until you’ve eaten this. Even a little bit.”
There’s an audible sigh from Wanda, but Natasha takes it as a win as she finally settles her feet on the floor and opens her eyes.
When Wanda turns towards the bed, there’s just the barest hint of red lingering in her irises before it disappears altogether, leaving behind her green eyes.
Wanda sits on the other side of the bed, settling with her left leg hooked underneath her.
“What’s on it?” She asks.
“Cheese and ham. Is that okay?”
“Not sure. I’ve never had a sandwich before,” Wanda answers.
Natasha frowns, but doesn’t comment on it. Maybe she really hasn’t.
Still, she stays beside Wanda as the woman takes the sandwich and begins picking at it. She breaks off little pieces of bread, brings them close to her face to smell them, then eats them.
When the contents of the sandwich begin to fall out onto the plate, she tears off bigger pieces but still repeats the process.
Eventually, when sandwich is eaten, Natasha offers her the drink. Again, she smells the drink before consuming it.
Once she’s done, Natasha takes the plate and the empty glass and puts them aside. She clasps her hands in her lap and considers how to start the conversation they need to have.
“You’re not just here to bring me dinner, are you?” Wanda guesses.
The woman rises from the bed and begins to walk around the room, seemingly examining all of the décor.
“No,” Natasha confirms. “I wanted to see how you were doing. If you needed anything, or if you wanted to talk to anyone?”
Wanda makes a contemplative expression, then shrugs.
“I’m fine,” she answers.
Natasha can’t honestly tell if it’s the truth or if she’s lying. If she is, she’s one of the best liars Natasha has encountered.
“Are you sure? It hasn’t been very long since…” she trails off.
She doesn’t want to voice it, herself.
The loss they faced in Sokovia was unexpected and brutal, and while she didn’t know Pietro for very long, she had taken a liking to the man.
“Pietro’s death was… tough,” Wanda admits, a small crease between her brows before it vanishes. “I liked him. He was nice and always looked out for me though I didn’t need it. But, I have to move on. It’s not my loss. I’m fine, Natasha.”
It’s not my loss.
What does that mean? Pietro was her twin. How can it not be her loss?
Slowly, she rises to her feet and meets Wanda by the one-way window looking over the expansive fields.
“Wanda, it’s okay to be upset,” she says carefully.
There’s a small flicker on Wanda’s expression that Natasha notices in the reflection of the window. She thinks it’s in response to her name, but can’t quite say for sure.
“He was your twin. If you want to scream or shout, or if you even need somewhere to let off a bit of steam, I’m sure we can find somewhere. But you can’t bottle everything up like this. It’s not healthy.”
Wanda chuckles and it sounds almost ironic.
“I think the healthy thing is to bottle this up, Natasha,” she says. “Things get messy when I don’t.”
“Grief is messy,” Natasha replies. “We can’t expect it to be anything less.”
“I’m not grieving,” Wanda shrugs.
She steps away and over to her vanity where she takes a seat and puts her elbows on the table.
“What do you think about a crown?” She asks, then turns away from the mirror to where Natasha still lingers by the window. “For my mission outfit? Not sure what to do with my hair, though.”
Natasha thinks a frown is going to be permanently etched onto her face by the end of the day.
With a sigh, she steps over to the bed and takes the plate and glass. She’s getting nowhere with the woman and every response from her feels like a riddle. Like she’s talking to an entirely different person, detached from the situation.
She should let Sam talk to her, see if he can get through.
“I expect you to be at training tomorrow,” she tells Wanda.
Wanda gives an understanding hum, but doesn’t turn away from her reflection. Now, she’s just examining it as if she’s never seen her own reflection before.
Shaking her head, Natasha leaves the room.
The next day, Wanda shows up for breakfast. It’s a start. It’s better to break any bad habits, like not showing up for meals, before they can begin. She gave her the benefit of the doubt yesterday because the woman is grieving.
After everyone has eaten their breakfast, they head to the locker rooms to get ready. Natasha watches Wanda slip into a cubicle, before she pulls her vest over her head and slips out of the room.
She helps Steve setup the training room, getting ready for their session, while the others get changed.
“Has Wanda seemed all right to you?” She asks Steve while they work.
“Sure. Why?” Steve replies.
“She seemed off when I went to take her dinner yesterday,” she admits.
“Off how?”
“I asked her how she was feeling, you know, after what happened to her brother,” Steve nods, “but she said she was fine. She told me it wasn’t her loss.”
“What does that mean?” Steve asks.
“I don’t know,” Natasha shrugs. “She seemed… unbothered by it.”
“Well, grief can come in all sort of different ways. Maybe this is her way of grieving. Disconnecting herself from it. From what I saw, she and her brother were close. Might be too painful.”
That makes sense, Natasha admits.
“We should keep an eye on her, though,” she tells Steve, who nods.
“Of course,” he agrees.
“I was thinking Sam could talk to her?”
“Sure, why not,” Steve agrees. “It could be good for her.”
With a nod, Natasha finishes preparing the training room with Steve.
A few minutes after they finish, the team filter in for training. Natasha rakes her eyes proudly across the new Avengers until they get to the end and she sees Wanda.
She pauses for a second, head tilting slightly to the left in confusion as she takes in what the woman is wearing.
Instead of the training gear she usually wears (breathable leggings and a sports bra), she’s now wearing leather pants, heeled boots, and some sort of leather corset. But the most striking part of her newly acquired outfit is what sits on her head. Some kind of crown.
What do you think about a crown?
In all honesty, Natasha had thought the woman was joking. Trying to avoid the tough subject. Apparently not.
“What’s with the new outfit?” Natasha questions as soon as Wanda is close enough.
She can tell the others want to ask about it too, but they’re too polite.
“Oh, this?” Wanda looks down at herself. “Well, I thought, if I’m going to be an Avenger, I should look the part, right? You all have your outfits, now I have mine.”
“During training, though?” Natasha frowns. She looks briefly to Steve, but the man looks just as baffled as she feels.
“Why not? It’s comfortable.”
For a moment, Natasha contemplates telling Wanda to change into some more practical clothes because they’re going to be training for a while today, but then she decides against it. It’s not worth it.
Instead, she straightens up and tells the new Avengers to split into teams of two. They have a long day of training ahead.
When Wanda joins to team for dinner later on that evening, she’s still wearing the crown she’d donned during training. Once again, Natasha doesn’t tell her to take it off or comment on it.
She merely pulls a seat back for her and hands her a slice of pizza. The woman settles in beside Natasha with her legs crossed on the chair and waves a nonchalant hand over the food. It warps and changes into something else.
Natasha frowns and shares a look with Sam.
Chapter Text
Natasha doesn’t sleep much. A good four hours is enough for her to function, so she stays awake late into the night, and sometimes into the early hours of the morning, reading or practicing yoga, or whatever she feels like doing at the time.
Sometimes it seems like the early hours of the morning are her most active. Steve had once jokingly called her nocturnal, to which she’d rolled her eyes.
She sits there now, a good book in her hands, at a few minutes past three am. She barely feels tired. She reaches to her left to pick up her drink and sips on a lukewarm coffee. Her face twitches as she considers going to make a new one, but then decides against it.
She puts it down and returns her attention to her book.
Thunder claps outside, and her eyes flicker outward, briefly reminded of Thor.
Then a desperate scream slices through the air and she startles.
As quick as she can, she throws her book aside, grabs her gun, and barges out of her room. The screaming is coming from Wanda’s room, so she barrels her way down the corridor to the other woman’s room, and throws the door open.
But there’s no one there other than Wanda herself, and it looks like… she’s having a nightmare.
Letting out a breath of mild relief, she tucks her gun into the wasteband of her pants and settles carefully on the bed beside Wanda.
She reaches over gently and shakes Wanda’s shoulder, attempting to wake her up. The woman’s screaming has turned to pained whimpering now, but she’s still trapped in a nightmare.
“Wanda! Come on now, it’s just a nightmare. You’re okay,” Natasha gently coaxes the woman out of her nightmare.
It takes a few minutes, but by the time she’s done, Wanda blinks blearily up at her. Then shuffles back quickly with tears still gathering in her eyes.
Natasha’s hand slips from her shoulder and settles into her own lap.
“Natasha, I’m so sorry,” she hastily apologises. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Natasha reassures her. “I was already awake. I just heard a scream, and I was worried.”
“Sorry,” Wanda apologises again.
She looks to be on the verge of breaking down.
“Don’t apologise, Wanda,” Natasha chastises her. “What happened? Do you want to talk about it? This hasn’t happened before, has it?”
Wanda shakes her head.
“No, I don’t think so,” she says. “I just- I had a dream about Sokovia, and Pietro.”
“Wanda,” Natasha sighs gently and holds a hand out in offering for Wanda.
Wanda takes it gratefully and bows her head. Her shoulders wrack with quietened sobs, so Natasha brushes her thumb over the back of her hand in comforting motions.
“It’s my fault,” she tells Natasha. “I should not have told him to go. I should have let him stay with me.”
“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Natasha says seriously. “You couldn’t have known what would happen. Pietro made his choice. He chose to sacrifice himself so Clint and that boy would live. None of that is your fault.”
“I miss him so much,” Wanda sobs brokenly. Her hold on Natasha’s hand is bruising. “I want him back.”
With a sigh, Natasha pulls her carefully in for a hug. Wanda doesn’t resist so she places one hand on the back of her head, and the other on her back where she draws soothing patterns.
She can feel the trembling of Wanda’s body as she cries into Natasha’s shoulder, the dampness gathering on her shirt borrowed from Steve, and the tightness of her arms around her waist.
For a while, Natasha holds Wanda while she cries. It’s the first time she’s seen the woman cry, so she lets it happen, knowing it’ll be good for her.
Eventually, when she stops, she pulls away and wipes her face free of tears. Her eyes are red and puffy, but there are no tears left which Natasha takes as a small win.
“Feeling better?” She asks Wanda.
“I’m sorry,” Wanda replies. “I did not mean to break down like that.”
“You’re grieving,” Natasha brushes the apology off again. “I’d be more surprised if you didn’t break down every so often.”
Wanda nods her understanding, and sniffles. There’s the briefest smile there towards Natasha before it fades.
“Will you- will you stay with me tonight? I don’t want to be alone again,” Wanda asks.
“Sure,” Natasha agrees.
“We can watch movies? Or sitcoms? I like sitcoms, so I have a few tapes.”
Natasha nods. She can already see the quiet excitement at the mention of watching sitcoms, so she agrees.
Wanda rises from the bed and rummages around in her bedside table for the aforementioned tapes.
When she finds what she’s looking for, she moves over to the TV and inserts the VHS tape into the player. She turns the TV on with her remote then rejoins Natasha on the bed.
“What’re we watching?” Natasha questions.
“Dick Van Dyke,” Wanda smiles.
“Haven’t watched that one in some years,” Natasha admits.
Wanda shifts to move under the cover, huddling down until lying down. Then she gestures for Natasha to do the same and, after a some brief hesitation, she follows the silent order.
Strangely, it feels more comfortable to lie in bed with someone else rather than alone in her room at three am, awake and reading a book she’s already read before when everyone else is asleep.
Wanda’s bed is comfortable and warm, and, as the tape begins to play, Natasha feels her eyes quickly begin to get heavy.
Trying to avoid the inevitable for just a little while longer, she turns to Wanda.
“So, since when have you been able to change one food into another?” She asks quietly, too tired all of a sudden to speak at a normal level.
Wanda looks at her with a crease in her brow.
“What?” She asks.
“Earlier today, when you changed your pizza into… was it borscht?” Natasha reminds her.
“I can’t do that,” Wanda looks amused as she says this. “I wish I could, that would be awesome, but…”
“You did it today,” Natasha says again, confused. “We all saw you. I think you told Sam you didn’t want pizza everyday, which is, you know, a fair point.”
Wanda’s expression falls and she looks away for a second, looking over towards her vanity, before she looks back at Natasha and gives a flat smile.
“Yes. Sorry, I forgot. I’m a little tired, I guess it just slipped my mind,” she says.
As a trained spy, Natasha can tell immediately that the woman is lying. But it’s strange. She wasn’t lying about not being able to change one food into another, though Natasha had watched her do it yesterday. But she’s lying now about ‘forgetting’ she’d done it.
So what’s going on?
It’s funny, too. Because while she may not realise it, Wanda is a terrible liar. Her nose twitches slightly when she lies and her eyes flicker off to the left very briefly. She plays with the rings on her fingers.
She does that often, Natasha has noticed, when she’s anxious.
The sound of the TV in the background meets Natasha’s ears. The sound of an old laugh track. She looks at the screen, the black and white show, and nods to Wanda.
“Let’s get some sleep,” she says.
There’s something going on with Wanda.
The next morning, Natasha wakes up to hushed conversation. She doesn’t remember what time she fell asleep, but she feels a little more rested than usual.
She resists the temptation to open her eyes or move, keeping her breathing even and deep as she listens to whoever is talking.
The voice is familiar and it only takes her a few seconds for her sleep-addled mind to pinpoint it as Wanda’s voice. She wonders if there’s someone else in the room, but it almost seems as if Wanda’s talking to herself. Or rather, she’s having a conversation with herself.
Natasha almost frowns. It’s not unusual for someone to talk to themselves, but having full blown conversations with themselves, asking themselves questions, and even answering silent responses, is a little strange.
“I’m doing this for you,” Wanda says quietly.
There’s a faint clatter across the room that sounds like it’s coming from where the vanity rests.
There’s silence for a second.
“Last night is proof that that just isn’t true, Wanda.”
Natasha’s brows instinctively pinch into a frown before she relaxes.
“You can’t handle it. You’ve always been eager to hand control over to me when things become too much. This is just another one of those occasions.”
Natasha weighs her options here. She can pretend to be just waking up and end the conversation, or continue eavesdropping. It feels wrong to listen in on someone else’s conversation outside of missions. A friend’s conversation, at that (no matter how new their friendship is).
But there’s clearly something going on here, and she’s quickly becoming worried with every bit of new evidence she stumbles across.
In the end, she hears movement from across the room and decides to stay in hibernation.
“I can’t give up control again, Wanda,” she hears. The sound of the door clicking open meets her ears, but it doesn’t shut just yet. “Cruel, selfless. Same difference.”
Finally, the door shuts.
Not one to be fooled so easily, Natasha keeps her eyes closed for a couple more minutes before she very carefully opens them.
When she sees no one, she sits up in the bed and rubs her eyes. She looks around the room for a second before leaving the bed.
Just to be polite, she quickly makes the bed back up then hurries out of Wanda’s room and back to her own.
She should speak to Sam.
After getting dressed and ready for the day, Natasha heads to the elevator on her floor and takes it down to the dining area. She stops quickly for some fruit and a drink, then leaves to find Sam.
A quick chat with FRIDAY reveals that the man has just gotten back from a morning run with Steve and Rhodey. She briefly checks on Wanda’s location too, but the woman is conversing with Vision in another room, so she knows she’s safe to freely talk with Sam.
She heads down to the foyer where the three Avengers are talking, recovering from their run, and approaches them.
When they notice her, they stop their conversation to greet her.
“Hey, boys,” she returns the greeting.
“Sorry, we just got back from our run, you’re a few minutes too late,” Rhodey apologises.
“Oh, that’s fine,” she replies. “I’m actually here to speak to Sam, if that’s all right?”
“Yeah, of course, it is,” Sam nods honestly. “You okay to talk here, or would somewhere else be better?”
“Let’s talk somewhere more private,” she tells him.
With a nod, he says goodbye to the others and follows her through the foyer to find somewhere vacant to talk.
They quickly find an unoccupied room filled with monitors and office chairs, and step inside. Natasha turns the lights on and the fluorescent ceiling lights flicker to life, illuminating the room.
She leans on a desk and sighs. Sam looks concerned.
“What was it you wanted to talk about? Everything all right?” He asks, leaning on another desk opposite her.
“Yeah, I’m just worried about Wanda and I thought I should talk to you first before taking drastic action, you know? Something’s going on with her,” Natasha admits.
“What do you mean by that? What’s going on?”
“Well, first, when I checked on her a couple days ago concerning her twin, she seemed… I don’t know, flippant about it? Almost like she didn’t particularly care. And then she said, it wasn’t her loss, whatever that means,” Natasha begins to recount everything that has happened. “I mentioned it to Steve and he reminded me that everyone grieved differently, so I let it go.”
“That’s true,” Sam agrees. “Everyone has different ways of dealing with their grief, especially when the loss is someone quite close to them. This could be Wanda’s way of coping with such a heavy loss.”
“That’s exactly what Steve said. Anyway, I let it be. But then, last night, I woke up to screaming. I ran to Wanda’s room and it turned out she’d had a nightmare about Pietro and Sokovia. I comforted her and she asked me to stay the night because she didn’t want to be alone. When I agreed, she put on an old sitcom she enjoyed.”
“That’s good. It means she’s making progress, moving past the denial stage,” Sam nods along.
“That’s what I thought. Then I mentioned the thing she did with her food yesterday, changing it into something else, and she had no idea what I was talking about,” Natasha frowns. “She told me she couldn’t do that, though she wishes she could.”
Now, Sam frowns with confusion and crosses his arms.
“What, she completely forgot?”
“Yes. And then, she lied and pretended she did remember.”
“Wait, how do you know she was lying?”
Natasha subtly rolls her eyes.
“I’m a trained spy. It’s my job to notice these things,” she reminds Sam.
“Right. Sorry,” he winces. “So, why did she lie? What would that achieve? Is she trying to please you by pretending to remember? Does she think that’s what you want?”
“No, there’s something else happening here that she’s trying to hide,” Natasha says surely. “This morning, I woke up to her holding a conversation with herself. As in, a full-blown conversation. Answering herself and all. Almost as if she was talking to someone else.”
“Weird. Talking to yourself is normal, but to hold an entire conversation with yourself is a little concerning. What did she say?” Sam asks.
“She said, ‘I can’t give up control again, Wanda’,” Natasha recalls. Sam’s shoulders fall in a heavy sigh. “Most of the conversation, it kind of sounded like she was belittling herself for not being able to handle something. I think she was talking about Pietro’s death.”
“Okay, that is… definitely something to worry about,” Sam admits.
Natasha hates the way his expression shows his worry. She’d been hoping to hear that Wanda just isn’t coping with her grief very well, but apparently that’s not the answer she’s going to get.
“I just need some advice,” she tells Sam. “Should I let her deal with this herself or, do you think she needs to see someone?”
“I think… I think I’ll talk to her first. Experience this for myself firsthand before we make that decision,” Sam decides. “I mean, it almost sounds like- no. Sorry.”
“Sounds like what?” Natasha presses.
Sam sighs.
“Wanda’s been through a lot, hasn’t she? The bombs when she was a child, homelessness, HYDRA’s experiments.”
“Yeah. She’s had a tough life. Why?”
“I was just thinking, everything you’ve mentioned, it almost sounds like a case of DID,” Sam winces.
“What, because you think everything she’s gone through, she has DID? We’re dealing with an alter?” Natasha confirms.
“I mean, I’m not saying it is or it isn’t that,” Sam says. “It wouldn’t be so extreme, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on. I’ll talk to her today, and then we can make a decision, okay?”
“Thank you, Sam,” Natasha nods. “I really appreciate it.”
“Hey, I’m just looking out for my friends. Sounds like she could use one right about now. Let’s get to training before the others start to wonder where we are.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Natasha jokes with a smirk. “It may give them the wrong impression.”
“Hey!” Sam laughs.
Notes:
I was excited to get this chapter out, so I’ve posted it early! I hope everyone likes it.
Chapter 4
Notes:
I have no words for how much I loved Moon Knight. I was enraptured from start to end, and am heartbroken that it’s finally come to an end. Here’s to hoping there’s a second season!
Anyway, I hope you all like this next chapter and feel free to leave kudos or a comment on whether or not you enjoyed it :) Constructive criticism is always welcome.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sam spends half the day going over his conversation with Natasha. As he’d said to her, he really believes that everything she’d mentioned sounded like a case of DID. Of course, Sam was no psychiatrist nor was he overly familiar with DID aside from one case he’d seen firsthand.
But, just to be prepared, he does a little more research on the topic on thee internet of his phone before finally feeling prepared enough to talk to the woman as he’d promised Natasha.
He wanders the building a little, scoping out any rooms he thinks she might be in, before he finally finds her just outside the Facility, standing on the lawn and watching the trees blow in the soft winds.
She looks almost peaceful standing there, Sam thinks.
Making sure to let her know of his presence by his footsteps, he makes his way over to her. The gravel crunches loudly beneath his shoes and he takes a stance next to her.
“Nice day, huh?” He asks.
Aside from the gentle wind, his words are true. The sun is shining at two in the afternoon, there are hardly any clouds about, and it’s not too cold, despite the wind, which leaves Sam in a tee and jeans.
“Yes. It’s quite nice,” Wanda agrees.
She looks over to him and Sam can recognise calmness on her face. She seems comfortable yet confident, shoulders squared back, and hands clasped in front of her.
“Haven’t seen you all day,” Sam points out conversationally.
“No, I’ve been with the Vision for the majority of the day,” Wanda explains.
“Oh? What have you been doing? The others and I have been training most of the day. I’m thankful for a break, if I’m being honest,” Sam jokes lightly and nudges her. He doesn’t miss the way she purses her lips at the gesture.
“We were discussing something,” Wanda states almost cryptically.
Like she doesn’t want to tell him. Sam doesn’t have to be a genius or a spy to get that she doesn’t want to tell him.
But he’s here for a reason, and that’s to see if she’s okay. Get a read on her.
So he pushes the conversation though it’s obvious she doesn’t want to explain.
“Must’ve been something interesting to to take up the whole day,” he says.
“I suppose you could say that,” Wanda agrees.
She steps back, finally looking away from the trees, and turns back to the building behind them.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she says.
Shit, he’s losing her.
“Uh, I was just about to make dinner,” he calls to her.
It’s a hasty lie. Steve was going to make dinner tonight, but if he can somehow get the man out of the kitchen and take over, he should have Wanda’s attention for a couple hours at least.
As long as things go smoothly.
“Do you want to maybe lend a hand?” He finishes when Wanda stops and looks back at him.
He notices the visible way in which Wanda’s shoulders rise and fall in a sigh, and the odd way she observes him.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” She asks.
He’s not quite sure whether she means the conversation or something else anymore, but he shrugs nonchalantly anyway.
“Just thought we could do with spending some time together, is all. Get to know each other better,” he replies.
“Fine,” Wanda relents.
Then she gestures with her hand to the Facility, silently asking him to lead the way.
Sam nods at her, tries to keep up the smile, but as soon as he passes her back into the building, his expression becomes contemplative.
Getting Steve out of the kitchen so he can make dinner instead is an ordeal. The man looks at home in the kitchen, making dinner for everyone, and Sam hates to ruin that, but he has to. Steve protests and questions what Sam is doing, but when Sam quietly tells him the truth, he eventually agrees and hands over his pink Kiss The Chef apron.
Sam raises an eyebrow at it but shrugs and puts it on anyway.
Wanda enters the scene with a small quirk to her lips that makes Sam feel like she knows everything. Maybe she does, with that telepathy of hers (though he’s sure Natasha and Steve had spoken to her about not using it on anyone unless absolutely necessary).
Still, she settles beside him at the kitchen counter and asks what they’re making.
Sam looks over the ingredients and what Steve has done so far, and it’s quite easy to figure out what he was making.
“Lasagna,” he answers confidently.
“Hm. Just lasagna?” Wanda enquires.
“And salad?”
Sam glances around at the excessive amount of vegetables, and figures that he could be right.
“Okay,” Wanda nods. She takes a step back from the counter as Sam starts to pick up from where Steve left off. “You know, I could save us some time and finish this with my powers?”
Sam stops and looks at her.
“How do you mean?” He asks slowly.
“Well, it would be much quicker to fix this all up with my powers than to spend, I don’t know, around an hour preparing and cooking it,” Wanda elaborates.
“You can do that? Cook it with your powers?”
Wanda smiles, amused.
“Well, it’s a little more than that, but yes,” she answers.
With that, Sam shrugs and gestures to the countless ingredients spread out across the counter.
“Be my guest,” he says. “Let’s see what you can do.”
With a quiet chuckle, Wanda casts a red had across the ingredients and a wave of her powers wash over them.
In no time at all, the ingredients change into something else. Sitting on the counter a second later, Sam settles his eyes onto a delicious looking lasagna and a couple bowls of salad, enough to feed all of the Avengers and maybe then some.
He gawps at the sight, amazed and near-speechless.
“You’re messing with me,” he says jokingly, and the pokes one of the salad bowls.
Wanda shrugs with a smirk, reaches forward, and takes a chopped up tomato from the salad. She pops it into her mouth, chews, and swallows.
“Tastes real,” she comments.
“Wait, you said it’s a little more than just cooking it with your powers,” Sam goes back to Wanda’s last admission, wanting answers. To the powers thing as well as the whole ‘something is really wrong with Wanda’ thing Natasha had mentioned. “So, what is it? How do you do that?”
“A few months ago, I realised that my powers were more than just telepathy and telekinesis,” Wanda explains. “I can alter reality, too. It’s what the Vision and I were discussing today. I only realised when Wa- my brother was hurt by one of the HYDRA agents. The agent wouldn’t stop laughing and mocking him afterwards, and I lashed out. I- I removed his voicebox. Made it so it never existed at all.”
Sam leans back against the counter, arms crossed and an amazed look on his face. His heart pounds slightly in his chest at the revelation. The newfound knowledge that she can’t just change one thing into another, or cook food with her powers. She can really change reality to suit her, no matter what it is.
“The agent didn’t last long after that, and Strucker put him out of his misery. He couldn’t breathe anyway. But Strucker had realised what I’d done with my powers, and he wanted to train them. No, he wanted to harness them. I didn’t want him to hurt W- um, to hurt me or Pietro, though. So I made it that no one remembered what I’d done. I realise now that maybe I could have used my powers to help me and Pietro escape, get us out of there and give us everything we’d ever wanted, but I was stupid. Still learning and full of the need for revenge. I did nothing. Let us be hurt and used, manipulated.”
Sam notices her couple of slip ups. The ones where she almost says something else before correcting herself. Where she almost says somebody else’s name. Her own name, supposedly.
But he doesn’t mention it because clearly the woman is harbouring some guilt regarding HYDRA, and her powers, and her brother.
“It’s not you fault,” he tells her truthfully. “You were given these amazing new powers, but you were in a bad place. You had no idea what might happen, or how you could change that outcome.”
“Didn’t I?” Wanda frowns. “There are people dead because of me. My own people. That HYDRA agent. I knew what I could do, the power that now resided within me, and I chose not to do anything with it. Instead, I sat in my little cell, content to just get revenge. Things would be a lot different if I’d taken control of my life again and just… changed something. Something real and useful. Not just food.”
She casts the lasagna and salad a glance, as if to prove her point, but Sam doesn’t accept her response.
“You’re young. Barely thirty, if I remember correctly. We all make mistakes, intentionally or not. Even me. Even now. And you were stuck in a hard place. You and your brother both were. No one blames you for what’s happened, and no one is judging you for not using your powers to change it. You shouldn’t either.”
For a couple of seconds, Wanda looks to be thinking over his words, arms crossed over her chest. Then, she smiles slightly and chuckles.
“I’m a lot older than thirty, but sure,” she mutters. Sam frowns. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe it was all supposed to happen this way. Maybe I’m not to blame.”
Older than thirty? The woman just turned twenty-six at the start of thee year, if Sam remembers correctly.
Another box in Sam’s head is mentally ticked. He has to remember the reason he’s here in the first place. While his words and sentiments to Wanda are true, he’s here for Natasha and he’d promised he’d get a read on her.
So far, with the slip ups, a different body language to the unsure, nervous girl he should know, the use of a power she apparently doesn’t even remember she has, and now seemingly not knowing her age, it’s not looking good for her.
Plus, there’s something else that Sam is just now realising. It’s hard to recognise at first, unless you really know her. Maybe one of the other Avengers would’ve caught on quicker. Maybe Natasha already has, but has brushed it aside.
But, Sam is now looking for things Natasha wouldn’t have been when she’d been observing Wanda. He’s looking for signs of something being wrong.
And the changing accent ticks another box in his head. It’s not an extreme change, he admits, but the Wanda he’d first met and trained with has a strong Sokovian accent. She doesn’t use many contractions, or expressions because, well, as far as Sam has realised, she doesn’t understand or recognise American phrases.
This woman Sam is talking to does all of those things. She uses contractions, understands American phrases, and, while she has a Sokovian accent, it’s mild. Like someone who has slowly been losing that accent.
Sam is no psychologist, but damn it if Wanda isn’t meeting every criteria right now.
He nods at her.
“You’re not,” he agrees with her statement. “Now, you just need to remember that.”
Wanda smiles and thanks him. He can see a concentrated pinch between her brows when that smile finally falls away.
“Well, I suppose dinner is ready,” he announces to distract himself, then looks to the ceiling. “FRIDAY, let the others know dinner is ready.”
“Certainly, Mr Wilson,” FRIDAY responds.
Before Sam can say anything, Wanda has waved her hand and the table is set.
He shoots her a thankful grin then begins to wash his hands at the sink.
There’s a companionable silence between himself and Wanda for a couple moments, he hears the woman walking around behind himself.
Then…
“Sam?” Wanda prompts.
Sam, drying his hands with paper towels that he then tosses in the trash, turns to meet her eyes.
“Yeah?” He asks.
“I know you’ve figured it out,” she states.
For a second, Sam is confused, before it clicks. She knows he’s aware that she might not really be Wanda. At least now, at her words, he knows it’s true.
“Did you read my mind?” He asks because he isn’t sure if it was his facial expressions that gave it away.
“Sometimes people think very loudly,” Wanda says.
Sam nods with understanding.
“I thought I was good at pretending to her, but I guess I’m just as bad at lying as she is,” Wanda continues. “Well, I suppose I could’ve tried harder to pretend.”
“How long…” Sam considers his words. “How long have you been at the front?”
Wanda chuckles.
“I’m always here,” she answers. “Sometimes she slips through, but she’s easy to control. I want you to know I’m doing this for her, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“She can’t ever be in control again. She’s lost too much. Can’t handle it.”
“Have you given her a chance? People just need time. If you give her a chance to grieve, you might be surprised,” Sam suggests carefully.
“She can’t,” Wanda shakes her head. “Ever. It’s better for us all if she- if she just stays away.
I say all of this for her. I do this to protect her. Pietro never liked it. I don’t think he liked me, actually, but… there was nothing he could do. Nothing you can do. I want you to know, Sam, that I won’t go without a fight.”
She takes a step forward, but Sam doesn’t budge. He watches her carefully.
“You may tell whoever you like. Tell the Avengers, tell the whole world, but I won’t disappear so easily, Sam. I can tell you’re already thinking of ways to fix us,” here, she sneers as if disgusted. “To bring Wanda back. But I’m just as much a person as she is. I’m just as real. And I don’t intend on going anywhere.”
Knowing the difficult position he stands in, he nods his confirmation to show he understands.
At his nod, the woman seems too relax. marginally. During her speech, she’d gotten closer to him so they were less than a foot away from each other.
Now, she leans back and puts a bit of space between them.
“Good,” she whispers, “good.”
“What’s your name, if that’s okay?” He asks.
He has to know. It will make things easier when addressing her. He has a feeling she hasn’t particularly enjoyed pretending to be Wanda.
The woman smiles, wide and almost sharp.
“The Scarlet Witch.”
Notes:
I promise the Scarlet Witch isn’t evil in this fic, she’s just like protective of Wanda and afraid to be gotten rid of. And, like Pietro said, she can be a bit much :p
Chapter 5
Notes:
*Screams* Thank you all so much for such an awesome response on my previous chapter! You’re all awesome :)
I hope you enjoy this one and the beginning of some WandaNat bonding ;)
Also, now we’re going to start exploring the when and how of Wanda’s DID origin, so the warning on this fic will change. There will be a warning for mentioned past rape/non-con, and, of course, human experimentation.
Chapter Text
Dinner is a smooth enough affair. Sam doesn’t say anything or mention their conversation, so the Scarlet Witch enjoys her meal and then heads back off to her room alone.
She wants some much needed alone time and intends to get it.
When she gets there, she closes the door behind herself and sighs. She removes the crown she’s taken a liking to and places it precariously on her vanity.
Settling down on the chair, she begins to brush out her hair. She likes the length, but thinks maybe a different colour might suit her. Blonde or… red. Red would look nice.
As she brushes through her hair, she thinks over the evening’s events. Specifically her conversation with Sam.
She knew someone would find out eventually or at least put things together and figure it out. She and Wanda are very different people, after all.
But she hadn’t liked talking to Sam like that at all. Sam is a nice man who only wants to help, but she also knows his definition of help would be to lock her away in a tiny box, trapping her in her own body with no way out, leaving Wanda at the front as per usual.
She can’t let that happen, though. Wanda can’t handle everything she’s been through and as soon as she’s given control again, she won’t be able to deal. She’ll break down, scream, cry. She’s a danger to herself, and the Scarlet Witch can’t let her do anything stupid.
So she pushes Wanda back, deep down into her own mind, and takes control of their body for her sake.
If she likes being in control, too, that’s nobody’s business but her own. Who would like to be hidden in the back of their own mind? The answer is: no one. Certainly not her.
Wanda doesn’t either, but… well, there’s not much she can do about that.
Deciding to plait her hair while she’s brushing it, she takes a hair band from the small pile on her vanity and starts to manoeuvre it into a plait.
Just as she’s tying the band at the end of her braid, there’s a crisp knock at her door.
She frowns just slightly then casts her magic out, wondering who’s on the other side of the door.
It takes a brief second to pinpoint the mind on the other side, but when she does, her shoulders sag. Not unhappily because she likes Natasha, actually (and so does Wanda- quite a lot- but that’s something to think about later), but because she merely wants to be alone.
She’s realised recently that, when she meditates, she can use her powers to view old memories as if they’re really happening. Like lucid dreaming, but she’s still awake and aware of her real life surroundings.
She’d wanted to meditate tonight before going to sleep, but, if she’s reading the woman on the other side of the door correctly, that may not be a possibility.
With another small sigh, she rises from her chair and crosses the room to the door. When she pulls it open, Natasha is standing there with bags of chips and a couple bottles of what seems to be juice.
Scarlet Witch raises a curious eyebrow, but waits for the other woman to speak first.
“Good,” Natasha says, scooting past Scarlet Witch into her room. “I was hoping you’d be here.”
She watches as Natasha dumps her goodies on the bed and then takes a seat before patting the space next to her.
Slowly, the Scarlet Witch closes the door behind herself and then crosses the short distance to the bed where she settles down beside Natasha.
“What’s happening?” She asks and eyes the chips and juice. There’s even a tub of ice cream that she hadn’t spotted before and a couple spoons. “Is something wrong? Did… did your boyfriend break up with you?”
Is Natasha even dating anyone? It must be hard for the Black Widow to find someone. Not because she’s not beautiful or in any way not dateable- because she is and anyone would be lucky to have her- but because of her profession.
Natasha looks baffled for a second and her brows pinch.
“What? No,” she chuckles. “Besides, not only am I single, I kinda have a preference for women, if you know what I mean.”
Scarlet Witch nods in understanding, but she’s still confused.
“So… what is this? Why have you brought all of this to me?”
“Well, I thought we were long overdue for a girls’ night, so here I am,” Natasha shrugs nonchalantly.
Truth be told, Scarlet Witch thought Natasha hated her. The last time she’d looked, or at least felt her emotions (unwillingly, of course), she’d felt a strong dislike towards herself because of their first impression.
She hadn’t looked again, and neither had she felt any hatred towards herself from Natasha. But, she still assumed it had lingered and any attempt made to mentor her and help her through her ‘grief’ was done out of obligation. Necessity.
But, a girls’ night isn’t really something that would help her progress as an Avenger nor help her through her supposed grief.
“Why?” She asks.
“Why what?” Natasha replies, though it’s obvious she knows what Scarlet Witch means.
“Why are you doing this? I thought you hated us- me. We haven’t really… bonded before,” Scarlet Witch answers, curses herself for her momentary slip up.
Why is it so hard to talk about herself without including Wanda in everything? Just because they share the same body, it doesn’t mean they’re the same person.
Besides, the Scarlet Witch has been present a lot more than Wanda over the past few years. She should be used to it by now.
Natasha sighs, shoulders sagging. Scarlet Witch tries not to leech onto her emotions just to figure out what she’s thinking and feeling, but the woman always thinks and feels so loudly.
Whether that’s a result of her childhood, having to bottle everything up and hide her entire life, Scarlet Witch doesn’t know. All she knows is that the woman feels stronger than anyone else in the Facility.
Sometimes, like now, it can be a distraction. Other times, it can be nice to feel something other than her own emotions. Usually (when around the guys), Natasha feels amused or fondness. Contentedness. It’s nice.
Now, Natasha feels conflicted. Very slightly unsure or nervous, Scarlet Witch can’t tell for certain. And, beneath all of those layers: concern. For Scarlet Witch. No, not her. Wanda.
“I don’t hate you,” Natasha says first and foremost once she’s gathered her thoughts. “Yes, when we first met I didn’t particularly like you because of what you did. What you sent me back to. And, even for a while after that, I wasn’t fond of you. But, I know that it wasn’t your fault. You were on the wrong path and did what you thought you had to. So, I want to put all of that behind us now. You apologised-“
That’s news to the Scarlet Witch. She doesn’t recall- oh, Wanda…
“And while I didn’t accept it at first, I did eventually. I forgive you and, if it’s okay with you, I’d like for us to be friends?”
Friends. That sounds nice. She doesn’t have any friends. She’d once considered Pietro somewhat of a friend despite the man’s mild frustration with her presence sometimes, but now he’s gone, and she doesn’t really have anyone.
Sure, the other Avengers could be called friends, but she hardly knows them. Natasha, however, has sought her out, proposed a girl’s night, and offered her friendship.
It would be nice, but… Natasha’s emotions still ooze strongly and there’s a sort of longing there beneath her nervousness and confliction.
She’s not really here for the Scarlet Witch, she’s here for Wanda. She wants Wanda’s friendship, not the Scarlet Witch’s.
“I’d like that,” she says, then smiles wanly. “But you’re not here for me, are you?”
Natasha pulls an expression like a wince, and the Scarlet Witch’s heart hurts.
“Sam told me after you left,” Natasha confirms what Scarlet Witch is thinking.
“And you wanted to see for yourself? To confirm your own suspicions?”
Natasha shrugs.
“You know, you could have just asked me,” the Scarlet Witch rises and gestures to the snacks. “You didn’t have to do all of this just to get your answers. I know you don’t want to.”
She stalks over to the window and crosses her arms, looking over the landscape because it’s easier than meeting Natasha’s eyes and having this conversation.
Why does Wanda get everything when she’s hardly ever present? The Scarlet Witch is the one who’s done all the hard work and gotten them where they are now.
Why does everyone want Wanda and not her?
“That’s not true,” Natasha states seriously. “I did want to do this, I just… I suppose I did want to know if it was true, not that I think Sam would ever lie about something like this, but… you know.”
The Scarlet Witch sighs. She can see in the reflection of the mirror that Natasha is just a foot behind her, watching her. She can feel her too.
Her reflection frowns and reaches a hand out to place on the glass, mere inches from her face, and she quickly turns away to face Natasha instead.
Somehow, that’s easier than looking into Wanda’s eyes.
“And do you want Wanda back, too?” The Scarlet Witch asks. “Sam thinks he can fix us, but, like I told him, I won’t go down so easily. You can’t get rid of me.”
“I’m not here to get rid of you,” Natasha says quietly. Scarlet Witch can barely read her expression. “You’re as much a part of Wanda as she is you. You have a right to be here.”
The Scarlet Witch’s heart skips a beat. She can’t tell if Natasha is telling the truth or genuinely believes her words. She avoids the temptation of using her powers to see because if Natasha is lying, it’ll only hurt.
“Then… what?” She asks. “Did you come here just to tell me that you know? I don’t…”
“No. I really was hoping we could have a girl’s night? I mean, I could have one with Steve or Sam, but it just wouldn’t be the same,” Natasha smirks.
Slowly, the Scarlet Witch nods. She uncrosses her arms from their defensive place across her chest.
“Okay,” she agrees quietly. “Okay… So, what happens at a girl’s night?”
A happy smile spreads across Natasha’s face and she settles back on the bed, gesturing the Scarlet Witch over to her.
Wanda comes to at night. For a few long moments, she sits and stares at the opposing wall as something loud and raucous plays in her ears.
Her head feels weird and loud- overwhelmed- and her eyes can’t seem to fully focus for a moment, but then they solidify and she blinks.
It takes her a long time to realise that the noise assaulting her hearing is a television and the raucousness comes from the laugh track that plays every few minutes.
She blinks again and looks around. In her lap sits a bag of chips that she frowns at. Her hand is buried inside as if she’d been about to take a chip, before she pulls it out and slowly licks her fingers free of any salt or crumbs.
Then she turns around to find the remote to turn the television off and jumps a mile high, sending her chips flying onto the floor, because sitting just behind her is none other than Natasha Romanoff, watching her curiously.
“Natasha?” Wanda breathes, hand over her racing heart.
Natasha nods silently then eyes her with a small frown.
“… Wanda?” She asks as if she isn’t the one in Wanda’s room, apparently watching television and eating snacks.
“Yes,” Wanda answers anyway. “What… why are you here? Can- sorry, can we turn the television down, please?”
“Of course,” Natasha says.
She takes the remote, points it at the television and presses the mute button.
Blessed silence envelopes the room and Wanda feels like she can breathe better suddenly. She’s never been bothered by noise before- after all, she grew up in it. The war, the streets, HYDRA.
But coming back and having a constant deafening stream of noise playing in her ears when she’s trying to figure out what the hell is happening this time is distracting and annoying.
“Better?” Natasha asks quietly.
Wanda nods and sighs.
“What is happening?”
“We were having a girl’s night,” Natasha answers and, judging by the mess of snacks, that does make sense. “Well, the Scarlet Witch and I were. It’s good to have you back, by the way.”
Wanda’s heart may as well have stopped in her chest with the way the blood drains from her face.
She stares wide-eyed at Natasha, waiting for the woman to take it back or say she was joking, but she doesn’t.
“You know about the Scarlet Witch?” She asks.
“I do,” Natasha confirms. “Everyone does. Sam figured it out and told us.”
Is this good or bad? Wanda can’t decide.
“I had my suspicions, of course, but I had no idea we were dealing with an alter. I thought you were just… grieving.”
“An alter?” Wanda questions, and barely pays attention to the rest of her sentence.
“An alternate personality,” Natasha answers.
That sounds… right. Pietro had called the Scarlet Witch an alter ego, but she thinks alternate personality fits a little better.
“Do you know what Dissociative Identity Disorder is?” Natasha asks.
Wanda shakes her head.
“DID is a dissociative disorder where you form two or more personalities, usually as a response to trauma,” Natasha explains patiently. “Those personalities are called alters.”
As a response to trauma? Yes, Wanda has been through a lot but she wouldn’t really say she’s traumatised by it.
If anything, it’s only made her stronger for it. More adept.
Except… she there are so many gaps in her memories, she can hardly remember most of what she’s been through since HYDRA.
Like… the Scarlet Witch has been protecting her. Taking the pain so she doesn’t have to. So she doesn’t have to deal with it.
And she only started getting those blackouts when things got to be too much. When she couldn’t handle it anymore. When… it all started when…
No. Don’t think about that.
Wanda takes in a deep, sharp breath. Her head feels oddly full all of a sudden. So loud.
Someone is talking and she knows who it is.
You, go away. I can handle this.
You can’t. Let me at the front. I can protect you.
I don’t need your protection. I’m not in danger. It’s just memories. I can handle them.
No, you can’t. Just let me take control again, Wanda. You have to.
Please, just go away. I’m fine.
“Wanda?”
Wanda blinks and looks to Natasha. Her head swims, vision shifting, but she scrunches her brows and concentrates.
“You okay?”
“Yes. Just… trying to stay,” she admits, voice cracking at the end.
Natasha nods understandingly and then suddenly they’re holding hands. When did that happen? Wanda wonders. Have they been holding hands this entire time?
“I’m sorry,” Natasha apologises.
“For what?” Wanda asks, focusing extra hard on the conversation to keep herself grounded. She can’t slip away again.
“I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories.”
“It’s okay,” Wanda whispers, and clings to her hand like it’s a lifeline. Her throat bobs. “I’m not there anymore. It’s all in the past.”
Natasha nods.
“Do you think you might want to talk to someone about it?” She ventures and Wanda frowns with confusion.
Wanda…
“What do you mean?” She asks.
“A professional who can help you accept everything that’s happened. They may be able to help you overcome your trauma,” Natasha explains.
Wanda doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to accept what happened to her. Besides, she doesn’t remember most of it. That’s something the Scarlet With bears the burden of.
But… Natasha wouldn’t suggest this if she didn’t think it would work.
Don’t you dare, Wanda.
Ignoring the Witch, she gives Natasha a hesitant nod.
“They will be able to help me?”
Wanda!
“They will, lyublyu,” Natasha confirms. “They helped me a little, too.”
Lyublyu. Wanda could get used to being called that.
“Okay. I think I will give it try,” she nods and flashes a small smile.
What are you doing? Wanda, listen to me, please!
No. You don’t need to protect me now, Witch. We are both safe as long as we are with the Avengers.
They’re going to try and get rid of me, Wanda! Please.
You’re just as much a part of me as I am you. They can’t get rid of you. Besides, I won’t let them. Just… please let me have this? I don’t want to live like this anymore. Plagued by nightmares and scared of being at the front because of what I might remember. I want to be in control again, and I don’t mean of our body. I want my mind back. I want it to be a safe space. Please?
The Scarlet Witch doesn’t reply to that, but Wanda can still feel here there. Hovering near the surface but not close enough to front again.
Wanda intends to stay at the front for a while now if she can.
“Then we’ll get it arranged,” Natasha says. “I’ll speak to someone about it for you and keep you up to date.”
“Thank you, Nat,” Wanda thanks her sincerely.
She looks back to the television. Hers and Natasha’s hands are still linked and it hovers in the back of her mind that she’d been having a girl’s night before Wanda ruined it.
She takes the remote from Natasha and presses the mute button, unmuting the show.
“Can we lie down?” She asks. “I’m a little tired now.”
“Of course, lyublyu,” Natasha says, and there it is again. Lyublyu. Love.
Wanda’s heart skips a beat as she and Natasha lie down on the bed. Their hands are still clasped, so, taking a chance, Wanda moves to rest her head on Natasha’s chest and put her arm around the other woman’s waist.
Natasha doesn’t say anything or move her away, so Wanda begins to relax. She can’t see the television with her back to it now, but that doesn’t matter. She has something better to look at now.
She closes her eyes then, feeling Natasha’s chest rise and fall beneath her head, listening to her calm heart beating. And then Natasha puts her other arm around Wanda’s own waist, she can hear the way Natasha’s heart briefly stutters then calms itself again.
A smile tugs at the corner of Wanda’s lips as she begins to doze off.
You’re not smooth.
Shut up.
Chapter 6
Summary:
Small time jump in the chapter, by only a few months.
Chapter Text
Time passes. The Avengers now know of the Scarlet Witch, and, to begin with, most of them tread unsurely around her as if she might explode at any moment. It doesn’t make Wanda feel any better.
It’s only Natasha and Sam’s intervention that reassures them she’s not some ticking time bomb, and the others finally relax. With a bit of explanation from Wanda herself and Sam, who knows quite a bit about the disorder, they also understand.
Natasha keeps her word and finds a good therapist, but in the meantime, Wanda talks to Sam. She opens up about her grief for her brother which she has been struggling, especially every time the Scarlet Witch takes over, and then, of course, she talks about her alter.
Sam is nice and understanding, and he encourages her to just let go and talk- to not bottle everything up because it can be harmful to keep things like that under the surface.
When the therapist Natasha has hired finally has an availability, a week later, Wanda is feeling marginally better. She doesn’t want to deal with her grief alone, or hide from the world, she wants to move on.
She will alway miss Pietro, like a missing limb. He was the other half of her soul, her rock, her twin. But she has to move on otherwise she may lose her life too.
It will eat at her until she can’t live without him anymore and she doesn’t want to leave any of this behind anymore. She wants to live, for him and for herself.
She’s grown fond of the Avengers and she knows the Scarlet Witch has too, and she can’t leave them behind.
She has to live.
Therapy isn’t as bad as she thought it would be, and, slowly, she makes progress. She talks a bit about her childhood, her life on the streets, her mama and papa, and Pietro.
Everything goes well, with only a few hiccups where she breaks down. In those moments, the Scarlet Witch wants to take over, but she won’t let her because she has to do this. So, with strenuous effort, she pushes the other woman back each time.
It isn’t until her fourth session that she actually mentions the Scarlet Witch to her therapist, who frowns and hastily scribbles something down on his notepad.
She’d thought Natasha might’ve mentioned the Scarlet Witch, but maybe she thought Wanda should do it.
Either way, things change from there. Within a week, she’s talking to a psychiatrist and her therapist doesn’t return.
That’s when she lets the Scarlet Witch take over because she’s unsure what to do.
A few months ago, she would have jumped at the opportunity to get rid of the Witch, but not now. Now she knows the Scarlet Witch just wants to protect her and she’s never really done any harm.
So she goes away and lets the Scarlet Witch fix this.
For a couple months, Wanda stays almost constantly present. Natasha likes the Scarlet Witch, but she’s happy when Wanda is around. The woman is sweet, funny in her own way, and secretly a good cook Natasha soon finds out.
While the Scarlet Witch is confident, down to earth, and very talented, it’s a refreshing change to have someone who’s not occasionally full of themselves (i.e. Wanda).
But then the Scarlet Witch comes to the front again a month later after a psychiatrist is brought in. It wasn’t strictly Natasha’s decision (she knows Wanda doesn’t want to get rid of the Witch), but it was the therapist’s strong recommendation and intervention by Steve and Tony that had allowed it to happen.
Natasha stays back and out of it, and wishes the psychiatrist good luck because even she knows that the Scarlet Witch can be difficult to talk to.
“And do you remember when all of this started, Wanda? Sorry, it is Wanda I’m talking to, isn’t it? I never did ask. Forgive me.”
The Scarlet Witch raises a brow. In her opinion, the man is incompetent. Docile and easily dealt with.
But she would still rather be anywhere but here. It’s only because she and Wanda want to remain on the Avengers that she continues to speak to him.
“Yes, it’s Wanda,” the Scarlet Witch agrees. Then lies again. “But, no, I don’t remember when any of this happened.”
The man scribbles something down, and the scratching of pen on paper irritates her.
“And you said it’s been, what, years? How many would you say?”
The Scarlet Witch’s fingers twitch where they sit passively in her lap.
“Six,” she answers.
“Quite a long time to have been dealing with something like this,” the man comments. “And you never thought to seek help when you realised you were missing memories?”
“That wasn’t an option at the time,” the Scarlet Witch grits. Play nice, she tells herself. You’re supposed to be Wanda.
“Right, of course. Because you were with, what are they called, HYDRA?”
A wave of anxiety and fear washes over the Scarlet Witch that she knows doesn’t belong to her.
Instead, she herself feels a self-righteous anger but works hard on pushing it down and answering the question.
“That’s right,” she say.
“And how do you feel about that? Do you think may have effected you?”
The Scarlet Witch hears his question exactly how he means it. Do you think that may be the reason you’re so messed up?
An upset frown crosses her face and her hand clenches into a fist. It takes everything in her to keep her powers at bay.
“I suppose,” she starts evenly, “I thought it was best at the time. I had nothing and no one other than my brother. We were lost and… angry at the world. At Stark, really.”
The man across from her nods his head as if he understands the pain she and Pietro had gone through. Their struggle to survive.
“And, yes… I guess it has affected me. I know I’m not the same person I used to be.”
“In what way? Can you explain that to me?”
“Well, to begin with, I can do this now.”
With the smallest smirk, she lifts a hand and brings forth her powers. A glowing red orb darts between her fingers, and she can see the eyebrow raise from her psychiatrist.
Of course, he already knew about her powers. She’s an Avenger after all (though that’s not to say all Avengers are enhanced), but she hasn’t shown him yet.
“And are there any other changes? Emotional or other?”
The Scarlet Witch sighs and lowers her hand.
That’s how it goes for almost another four weeks. The Scarlet Witch stays at the front this time, afraid that anything she says during her sessions with the psychiatrist may cause the Avengers to turn on her and Wanda.
It never happens, of course, but the fear is still there.
They start giving her psychological evaluations too, once a week, which only serves to further frustrate the Scarlet Witch. It’s only Wanda’s reassurances that stop her from snapping.
She’s still allowed to train and be an Avenger, as long as she continues with her evaluations and sessions with the psychiatrist, so she plays along.
Though they propose the idea of medication to her, hoping to get rid of the Scarlet Witch and still under the illusion that they’re talking to Wanda, the Witch refuses and denies the offer until she’s red in the face and they leave her alone.
Another week passes, making it two months and a week since she first started seeing a professional. She’s made a lot of progress, but sometimes intentionally makes it hard for her psychiatrist to talk to her just to spite him for wanting to get rid of her.
She’s not long left her most recent session, making her way back to her room to meditate and think things over, when someone calls her name.
She pauses and turns around, locking eyes with Natasha on the other side of the corridor. The woman crosses the corridor to meet her while the Scarlet Witch waits.
When Natasha finally reaches her, she puts a hand on the Scarlet Witch’s shoulder and begins to guide her the rest of the way down the corridor.
“What’s happening?” The Witch asks.
“Meeting,” Natasha explains.
The Scarlet Witch’s heart skips a beat at that, but she can’t feel any malicious intent from Natasha so she forces herself to relax and just follow the woman into the boardroom.
“How was your session?” Natasha asks as they walk.
“Good,” the Scarlet Witch answers.
She attempts to put on a thicker accent, identical to Wanda’s, but it probably doesn’t convince Natasha who is not only a spy, but, at this point, now very familiar with the difference between her and Wanda.
“I think I am making progress,” she continues.
Natasha chuckles lightly.
“I don’t know how Dr Smith ever falls for that,” she comments.
The Scarlet Witch smirks slightly and looks away.
“He’s not very observant.”
They get to the boardroom a couple of minutes later and the Scarlet Witch takes one of the only two remaining seats left, putting herself in between Rhodey and Natasha.
Steve stands up at the front of the room and, once Natasha and the Scarlet Witch settle in, he begins the meeting.
It doesn’t take long for the the Scarlet Witch to realise the meeting isn’t about her or Wanda, but rather, as Natasha had stated, a mission.
Steve is looking for something (or someone), though he doesn’t specifically say that, and apparently, that search has lead them to somewhere in Belgium.
A HYDRA base.
The words send a cold shiver down the Scarlet Witch’s spine, but she’s careful not to show it as she sits with her arms crossed and eyes on the screen.
This is the first mission she’s ever been involved in- she can’t mess it up or show any hesitation.
This is what she wants. To be an Avenger. And if that means fighting her worst enemy, then so be it.
As the meeting is drawing to a close, Steve stops her exit and calls her over. She can feel Natasha hovering near the door, either waiting for her or for Steve.
“We could really use your help on this mission, Wanda,” Steve says.
The Scarlet Witch mentally pauses and frowns. So he hasn’t noticed it’s her. He still thinks he’s talking to Wanda.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” He asks.
Suppressing a sigh, the Scarlet With flashes an awkward smile and nods.
“This is what I want,” she says with a heavier accent. “I want to be an Avenger. I’m ready.”
“Good. Having you on our team will drastically increase our odds of a win,” Steve pats her on the shoulder briefly and the Scarlet Witch holds back a grimace. “And, uh, if you need to. You should keep the Scarlet Witch up to date on all of this.”
“Of course,” the Scarlet Witch says.
“Great. We leave in three days.”
And with that, Steve exits the room, leaving her and Natasha as the last ones in there.
She can feel the other woman watching her, still lingering by the door and it becomes apparent that it’s her that she’d been waiting for.
The Scarlet Witch purses her lips and holds back her anger. She swallows the lump growing in her throat and hastily bats back tears.
Once again, she’s clearly unwanted. The team don’t even notice when it’s her fronting, walking around right in front of them. Yes, she’s pretended to be Wanda for weeks now to deal with their sessions, but how could they not notice?
And why is it that they always want Wanda, not her? Why is she not good enough despite being more skilled, talented, and confident in the field?
Wanda is a mess, no matter how much therapy she’s been through, and how much training she’s attended.
She’s getting better, that’s true, but it’s been a while since she’s attended any of their sessions as herself instead of asking the Scarlet Witch to bear it all.
And this is the woman the Avengers want to join them on this mission. Not the Scarlet Witch.
Well, she thinks, fine. I’m done pretending to be Wanda anyway.
When Wanda falls into awareness, she’s surprised to find Natasha standing in front of her, one hand gently cupping her face and brows furrowed with obvious concern.
For a second, she and Natasha stare at each other. Natasha’s words don’t meet her ears as noise lingers there, loud and intrusive.
Then it all fades and she can hear Natasha again. She’s voicing her name in that soft voice of hers that calls for attention but never rises in volume.
“Natasha?” Wanda asks.
She looks around her and frowns at the sight of the boardroom. She’s been in here a total of one times, but she remembers it from when she’d first joined the Avengers.
Why is she in here?
Why am I here? She asks, but there’s no response from the Scarlet Witch.
That’s odd. Usually when she tries to get her attention, she gets an answer. But not now.
Hello? Witch? Can you hear me?
“Wanda? You with me?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m with you. What happened? Why are we in here?”
Suddenly, she’s sat down. Natasha is just to her left and their hands sit clasped atop of the table. It reminds her of the first time Wanda had come back and found Natasha sitting with her.
The memory almost brings a happy smile to her face because there have been may more moments like that night where they’d simply lain there in each other’s arms, but her confusion of the situation overpowers her secretly growing feelings for Natasha, so she continues to frown.
“We were just in a meeting,” Natasha tells her. “We’ll be going on a mission in three days. A HYDRA base in Belgium.”
Wanda’s heart misses a beat and she freezes, eyes trailing too stare just past Natasha’s shoulder at the wall. HYDRA? She thought she was done with them. Hasn’t she suffered enough at their hands? Why are the going straight to their doorstep now?
“Hey, it’s okay,” Natasha coaxes. Wanda scrunches her nose, trying to push back the tears she can see are blurring her vision. “It’s okay. We do this a lot. It’s nothing too hard. Occasionally a HYDRA base will pop up on our radar and we have to, you know, sort them out.”
That’s not true. Wanda can tell. There’s something else. Some other reason they’re raiding this HYDRA base. She can feel it.
But she won’t press. She doesn’t want to know right now.
“I promise no harm will come to you,” Natasha says. “We’ll all be there; we’ll have each other’s back. That is… if you want to come on the mission. You don’t have to if you’re not ready.”
For a second, Wanda contemplates it. Does she want to go on this mission? Is she ready to face HYDRA again after two and a half months? After everything they did to her? To Pietro?
But these are the Avengers she’s fighting for now and if she goes on the mission, she’s doing it for the world. She can put an end to anymore experiments, stop anyone else like herself and Pietro from suffering the way they did.
This time, she’ll be doing good. Just like she and Pietro wanted.
She nods her head to Natasha in confirmation.
“I want to go on the mission. I will help,” she verbalises.
“Thank you, lyublyu,” Natasha replies with a small smile and brings a hand up to cup her cheek again, brushing a thumb softly beneath her eye. Wanda’s heart flutters briefly. “Really. I promise it’ll be fine. You’ll be okay.”
“I know,” Wanda mutters then sighs. “I suppose… I am not yet over my past with HYDRA. I still worry.”
Natasha nods in an understanding way. Wanda knows she does understand because she grew up in the Red Room, and, from her insight into the woman’s mind months ago, she still struggles sometimes too.
“I get it,” she tells Wanda. “I do. But I promise nothing bad will happen to you. I’ll be by your side the entire time.”
“Thank you, Tasha,” Wanda whispers.
But she’s hardly focusing on the conversation now. She doesn’t want to talk about that anymore.
Natasha’s hand is still on her cheek, caressing her with her thumb, and their eyes are only on each other. Wanda’s heart is stuttering in her chest, pulsing a mile a minute. She almost finds it hard to breathe.
She doesn’t want the moment to end all of a sudden.
So, in a spur of the moment, she leans forward and puts her lips to Natasha’s.
And it’s everything she’s imagined for the past three to four months. They’re soft and full, plump against her own slightly smaller lips. Natasha presses her own lips back lightly, but there’s no further move to deepen it anymore than that so Wanda opens her eyes and pulls away.
She and Natasha lock eyes again.
“I-I’m so sorry,” Wanda apologises, fiddling with the rings that adorn her fingers. “I did not mean to, I just-“
“Hey,” Natasha interrupts her. “If I didn’t want it, I would have pulled away, lyublyu. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Slowly, Wanda’s heart begins to calm down. It still flutters, but this time in a good way. She feels good. Happy.
“Besides,” Natasha smirks, “I thought I was going to have to make the first move.”
The first move?
“You…” Wanda trails off.
“Yeah,” Natasha nods, amused.
Wanda’s shoulders sag with relief and a smile spreads across her face. She chuckles softly and then leans back in.
This time, she brings a hand up and cups Natasha’s face in return, and then their lips are moulded together with love.
The next three days pass way too quickly. The Scarlet Witch doesn’t speak again or try to front, but Wanda is barely thinking about that.
She and Natasha spend almost every minute together, wanting to further their new relationship with each other but still wanting to take it slow as it’s so new.
The first night, Natasha spends with her in her room. She unknowingly chases away the demons that still plague Wanda’s dreams, and Wanda loves her even more for it.
Wanda never thought she would have this and yet, for the first time in her life, she’s hopeful. She thinks she’s found love.
And she’s dejected when the third day comes around. It’s four in the morning and Wanda is awake. She’s decidedly not happy about it because that means the mission is today, and she won’t get to spend time with Natasha that doesn’t include kicking HYDRA’s ass.
Also, it’s too early to be awake. It’s not like she hasn’t spent days awake in the past or been awake at these early hours before, but she’s been enjoying getting eight or more hours since joining the Avengers (when she isn’t awoken by nightmares, that is).
But as she’s on a mission today (her first mission), she has to be awake early to get ready and head out. It’ll take around eight hours to get to Belgium (including only one break in between), so they have to go now.
Wanda hurries to get ready, taking a quick shower and then heading to gear up. As an afterthought, she stops to take the Scarlet Witch’s beloved crown on her way. Just in case.
It doesn’t take long for her to slip into her mission outfit, a red leather coat that falls to her mid-thigh, a crimson corset, and black leather pants. Natasha had helped her choose her outfit about a month ago, and Wanda had spent at least an hour training in it just to get used to the feeling.
Once she’s ready, she hops into the Quinjet alongside Sam and Captain America. She settles down in one of the seats and sighs, her nerves suddenly getting the best of her as she realises that she’s really about to do this.
Not only is she going on her first mission, but she’s about to face her worst enemy again. HYDRA. After all they put her through, the experimentation, the torture and constant training, and…
God, she knows it’s not the same agents as the ones who’d trained her back then because they’re dead. It’s not Strucker and his men anymore, but it’s still HYDRA and they’re capable of the same sick, twisted methods of subjugation, and, shit, what if they capture her?
What if they want to harness her powers the way Strucker had wanted to control hers and Pietro’s back then? What if the Avengers can’t save her?
She looks up, heart pounding and hands trembling in her lap as they hold the Scarlet Witch’s crown. She casts her eyes around the gathering team. Captain America, the Falcon, War Machine, and the Vision.
No. The won’t let that happen. She knows they won’t. It’s been a tough couple of months, relationships-wise, but she likes to think they won’t let anything bad happen to her. They won’t let HYDRA hurt her and she’ll be damned if she lets anything happen to them either.
They’re a team. They’re in it for each other, and for the world.
They need to stop any and all remaining HYDRA agents, and Wanda needs to have her head in it if she wants to succeed.
She takes a deep breath in and looks around the jet again, trying to focus on anything to distract herself.
A couple minutes go by as she watches the world outside of the window, listening to the guys talking, until, finally, the remaining two Avengers enter the jet.
Wanda sighs with relief when she spots Natasha’s fiery red hair.
When she and the woman lock eyes, Natasha smiles at her and crosses over to sit on the seat next to her.
Then she spots the crown in Wanda’s hands and nods.
“Hey there, it’s been a few days,” she starts.
Wanda looks down at the crown and her mouth falls open slightly with realisation.
“Oh, no, it’s, uh, it’s me, Wanda,” she tells Natasha. “I just wanted to bring this with me in case she, you know, decided to reappear.”
Natasha settles back in her seat.
“She must be pretty upset,” she points out. “I’m sorry. You know the Cap can put his foot in his mouth sometimes.”
“I know,” Wanda nods. “She will be fine. She is a lot stronger than me, but she still has feelings.”
“Of course she does,” Natasha agrees. “And when she decides to come back, I’ll have Steve apologise. She needs to know she’s wanted. Just as much as you are.”
With a small smile, Wanda rests her head on Natasha’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” she mumbles.
She wants to say something else at the end of that, but she doesn’t think she or Natasha are ready for those words yet.
Still, she’s grateful. She’s happy to have Natasha here by her side, encouraging her and comforting her no matter what.
The jets roar to life in Wanda’s ears as she rests against Natasha’s side, and within minutes, they take off for Belgium.
Chapter Text
Almost eight hours pass on the flight from New York to Belgium. They stop only once to allow everyone to use the rest room and stretch (they’re technically in no rush as HYDRA has no idea they’re coming), but then it’s straight back to business and back in the air again.
When they arrive, the jet in stealth mode, it’s almost 12 o’clock. The sun is high enough in the sky to cast a light even through the clearing of the forest they’ve landed in. And, being summer and all, it’s pretty warm.
Wanda almost wants to take her jacket off, but she can’t. She’ll just have to deal with it. Maybe she can find some better pants for her next mission, though, and go a little easier on the leather.
They’re about ten minutes out from the base (by foot), so they begin the walk to the base, trying to be as quiet as they can.
Wanda stays just behind Natasha, sticking close to the woman who’d promised she would stay by her during the mission. In her pocket, the crown sits half wedged inside, and she hopes it won’t fall out because the Scarlet Witch won’t be very happy if that happens.
It takes them eleven minutes to get to the base, but by the time they get there, the HYDRA agents are well aware of their presence and swiftly open fire from the safety of their base.
Chaos erupts.
Wanda hastily throws up a shield in front of herself and Natasha while the other Avengers quickly move out and return the attack.
Stark and Rhodey aim their repulsors at the windows, taking out the majority of the agents who’d been firing from them. Sam picks up Steve and then they take to the skies, heading to the other side of the base to take the attack there.
Once Wanda and Natasha are free of raining bullets (for now), Wanda lowers her shield.
“Are you okay?” She asks Natasha, moving to stand beside her.
“I’m uninjured,” Natasha shrugs. “And you? How are you doing?”
“So far, so good,” Wanda admits.
Which is true. She can still hear gunfire and fighting erupting from the base, she knows the Avengers are all in there fighting now, and she’s about to join them, but she’s okay.
She’d just reacted quick enough to protect herself and Natasha, so she’s feeling pretty good about the rest of the mission now.
“Good,” Natasha smiles. “Now, are you ready to take the fight to them?”
With a smile, Wanda nods her head.
“Throw me through that window,” Natasha orders and points up to the base.
Wanda follows her gesture and squints at a window on the second storey.
“But what about the glass?” She asks.
“Nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” Natasha shrugs then squeezes Wanda’s hand. “I’ll be fine, lyublyu.”
Deciding to trust Natasha’s words, Wanda nods and takes hold of the woman with her powers. Within the next second, she’s carefully manoeuvred her through the air up to the second storey, and sent her through the window.
The sound of smashing glass reaches Wanda’s ears a second later and she winces, hoping Natasha is okay.
But, she realises a second later, she’s not the final Avenger remaining outside of the base so she has to move quickly and join them.
She looks up to the window she’d just sent Natasha through and ignites her powers to follow the woman.
And then, just as she’s about to go through it, something explodes on the second storey.
Wanda is thrown backwards, having been hovering near the open window, but now hit by flames and dust. She hits the ground hard and wheezes at the force of which she’d hit the ground.
Her breath is gone from her lungs in an instant and all she can do is lay there and gaze up at the sky overhead as she tries to regain it.
A pained cough escapes her as the corset makes it harder for her to get her breath back.
Natasha…
Her eyes finally settle back on the window she’d just been going for, and she forces herself up, frowning when her back aches and her lungs constrict.
Moving back to her feet is anything but graceful, but she hadn’t expected it to be. Her head is still swimming, wondering what the hell has just happened and if Natasha is okay.
She puts a hand to her ear and taps the communication device.
“Natasha? Are you okay?” She asks, but there’s no reply and that only serves to worry her more. “Natasha?”
Gritting her teeth, Wanda uses her powers to push herself from the ground and straight to the window in one quick burst.
She grapples for the ledge, remembering belatedly about the glass, but that doesn’t bother her right now. She has to find Natasha.
She pulls herself into the building, looking around at the fire and burning furniture. It looks too familiar to her, but she only swallows and forces the memory away. She has to stay the present, Natasha may be relying on her.
With her powers, she parts the flames to allow herself passage through the building. As an afterthought, she also manoeuvres the smoke out through the window as fast as it arrives, to allow herself breathable air.
It’s hard to see throughout the building with the fire, but she continues through it, heading further into the HYDRA base.
“Natasha!” Wanda shouts, hoping to be heard over the creaking and rumbling, and the roaring of the flames.
Are the other Avengers still fighting? She can just about hear shooting.
Is she the only one standing? Why is no one else on the comms?
Something thuds behind her and Wanda whirls around, searching for the source of the noise but she only finds fire and rubble.
“Guys? Can you hear me?” Wanda speaks into the comms.
“Little busy here, Wanda,” someone replies. She can’t quite pinpoint the voice with all the noise from both their ends.
“Is anyone else on the second floor?” She asks anyway despite their response.
“You’re on the second floor? What the hell are you doing up there? Did you not see the explosion?”
“No, I did, but-“
There’s the thud again. This time when she turns around, she squints to find the source. Is the second floor finally caving in?
What is the noise?
“Wanda? Hello?”
There. Something on the other end of the hallway. Something dark and looming. Like another person.
“Natasha?” Wanda asks hopefully.
It doesn’t look like Natasha she realises belatedly. It’s way too big, and it’s walking towards her way too menacingly.
Natasha doesn’t do that.
“Hello?” She calls. “Who is that?”
Wanda, get out of there.
It’s the first time the Scarlet Witch has made her presence known in days, but Wanda tries to bury her surprise in light of the situation.
But what about Natasha?
She’s a trained assassin. I’m sure she’s fine.
Scrunching up her face unhappily, Wanda uses her powers to guide the fire and smog in front of her, blocking herself from view of whoever it is walking down the hallway.
Then she runs, waving her hands about to hastily get the fire out of her way.
It’s only when she’s nearing the end of the hallway that she hears a gun go off. She flinches, hand reaching for a door handle that’s probably too hot to grasp.
It takes exactly five seconds for her to realise that she’s been shot. For those five seconds, she feels nothing and only focuses on the sound of the gun ringing through the air.
Then a very intense, hot pain washes over her side, starting at her back and spreading inside her body. She gasps, breaths suddenly ragged.
Instinctively, she puts a hand to the left side of her back where she can feel the pain and pulls away trembling hands wet with blood.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
I’ve been shot.
It hits her like a tonne of bricks suddenly and she barely notices she’s no longer using her powers until she takes another deep breath and chokes on smoke.
Her bloody hand flies to her face, covering her nose and mouth while her other reaches for the door handle that sits mockingly in front of her.
But she doesn’t even touch it before pulling back at the scorching heat.
Bang!
Wanda cries out this time, fully aware of the second bullet piercing her. She stumbles forward just from the force of it, reaching up with her free hand for her right shoulder.
Her vision is blurry with tears and all she can see is orange light dancing around.
When she brings her hand away from her shoulder, she defiantly turns around to face her attacker, still with tears in her eyes.
Her right hand flies out in front of her, flickering with the colour scarlet. It doesn’t stay solid and Wanda knows in that second that she’s screwed. Whether her powers are failing her because of her injuries or because of her terrified mental state, or the increasingly lack of oxygen, she doesn’t know.
What she does know is that there’s too much fire and her opponent is walking through it like he doesn’t care, and she’s stuck with no windows nearby, only a door that’s too hot to touch.
In a desperate, last ditch effort, she calls out for help.
Scarlet Witch. Witch, please, I need your help. Please.
There’s no reply. Her head is swimming, body desperate for fresh air, and her eyes are burning.
She has to fight, no matter what. That’s what the rest of the Avengers would do if they were in her situation.
Steeling herself, Wanda shuffles into a defensive position just like Natasha and Steve taught her, and blinks away her tears. They fall down onto her cheeks, but she doesn’t brush them away.
She has to keep her eyes on her opponent, no matter how much her vision swims and how her body begs for fresh air.
Finally, she and her significantly bigger opponent stand toe to toe. The flames behind the man only serve to make him more intimidating as they silhouette him.
She can’t make out any features on him. He wears all black with a hood over his head. The only things Wanda can make out are his pale hands and dark eyes.
While he doesn’t have a mask to ward off the smoke, he still has fabric covering his nose and mouth which is better than nothing.
Apparently he doesn’t alway fight unfairly by shooting people in the back, though, because when he meets Wanda in the middle, he tosses his gun to the side.
Wanda feels marginally relieved by that but there’s still the fact that she’s slowly suffocating and bleeding out, her powers aren’t cooperating, and now she has to fight this man.
Now would be a really good time to help, Witch. I’m sorry you felt unwanted, though it’s not true. But, I really need your help. Please.
“Who are you?” She asks, throat sore and scratchy all of a sudden.
The man doesn’t reply. That only unnerves Wanda even more.
Then he swings for her and there’s only a split second for Wanda to register his attack and block it. She barely manages it, but once she has his wrist in her hands, she tries to pull it behind his back like Natasha has done to her a hundred times before during training.
But her opponent is physically bigger and stronger than her, and she’s quickly losing strength in the burning hallway, so he doesn’t move more than an inch.
Instead, she’s thrown carelessly to the floor where she skids a little before hitting the wall. She can feel the overwhelming heat of the flames all around them, some of them centimetres away from her feet and others at her head.
It doesn’t serve to encourage her about her chances of winning the fight. She’s losing a lot of blood from both gunshot wounds, especially the one at her back, and her vision is swimming.
But she’s not one to back down so easily. Not anymore, anyway.
Gritting her teeth, she slowly clambers to her feet, stumbling a little when she gets there. Her opponent watches her with seemingly curious eyes, but she doesn’t look away from him.
She shifts into a defensive stance and then swings as powerful a kick towards his head as she can. Pain bursts throughout her body, originating from her wounds and burning chest, but she stubbornly puts it aside.
The man only dodges out of the way of her kick and then throws his own boot at her before she can recover.
It hits her square in the chest and Wanda gasps with pain and surprise as she’s subsequently thrown backwards to hit the same wall she’d just moments ago already made contact with.
A pathetic wheeze escapes her.
She can hardly breathe. She’s winded and the only air going into her lungs happens to blackened smoke that clings to her lungs and burns.
She tries to take in a deep breath, holding her chest for the pain, but only breaks out into a coughing fit.
Her opponent towers above her now, watching her like she’s an insect in a jar, and Wanda feels hopeless.
“Who are you?” She asks again with a wheeze.
But the man doesn’t reply.
He only raises his boot again, right above her head. Wanda’s eyes widen with alarm.
She tries to call forth her powers, but they still refuse to cooperate aside from a faint flicker and a redness in her peripheral, so, at the last second, she moves to desperately cover her head.
“Hey, I’ve been looking for you all over the base.”
Wanda startles and looks to her right where Natasha is pulling her behind a wall, away from countless piercing bullets.
Her back hits the cold, stone wall with a small thud and she tries not to cry out. Natasha is giving her a concerned look, but Wanda is just as confused as she looks.
What happened? How did she get here? Wasn’t she just fighting someone on the second floor?
Did the Scarlet Witch finally show herself and help?
“Where were you? I thought you were right behind me, but then there was an explosion and I lost you,” Natasha explains. “Shit, are you bleeding?”
Natasha’s eyes are on the wall behind her shoulder and Wanda can only assume it’s now painted red with her blood. She’s lightheaded and disoriented, and feels as if she could fall over in the next gentle breeze if not for the wall behind her holding her up.
“Yes,” Wanda breathes, touching behind her right shoulder. Her hand comes away coated with fresh red blood. “Yes, I was shot.”
“Shit, how long ago was that? How long have you been bleeding?”
“I don’t know. I think the Scarlet Witch…” Wanda shakes her head.
Small bits of debris explode near Wanda’s head and she flinches away from it.
A frustrated look crosses Natasha’s face, and then she’s leaning across Wanda to fire five shots back at their pursuers.
All of the gunfire ceases then, and Natasha pulls back to settle beside Wanda again.
“Come on, sit down,” she coaxes.
With no energy to argue, Wanda slowly lowers herself to the floor.
Natasha taps the comm in her ear.
“I need assistance,” she announces. “Wanda’s hit, looks like she’s gonna pass out. Can anybody cover me while I get her back to the Quinjet?”
Wanda doesn’t hear the response Natasha gets but assumes someone has sent confirmation her way when Natasha nods her head and sends back a ‘thanks’.
Then Natasha snaps her fingers in front of Wanda’s face and the woman blinks in surprise.
“Stay with me, okay?” Natasha orders. Wanda nods though her head feels funny at the action. “Good. Can you tell me what you remember before the Scarlet With appeared? What happened?”
Wanda thinks back.
“I followed you to the second storey, but something exploded before I could even get through the window,” she recalls, then breaks off into a coughing fit that only serves to further her pain.
Natasha holds her hand and, when she’s finished, adds her own tidbit of information.
“A couple of the agents set off a chain reaction on the second floor as soon as they realised I was there,” she comments. “I barely made it out in time, myself.”
Wanda nods.
“I thought you might still be up there so I went in anyway,” she admits. “You were not there, but I still looked. I used my powers to move the fire and smoke, but then I was shot in the back.”
“There was still an agent up there?” Natasha questions with audible confusion.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” Wanda admits. “He was not dressed like the other agents and… he seemed unbothered by the fire. He walked right through it. I couldn’t see his face, but he was bigger and stronger than me. He shot me again, and I could not use my powers. I think I was too hurt, and the smoke was suffocating me. He defeated me easily.”
“Did he have a metal arm?” Natasha asks next, tone void of emotion yet still urgent.
“What?” Wanda frowns.
“His left arm, was it metal? You know, like a prosthetic arm?”
“No. No, he had both arms.”
The question and Natasha’s urgent tone leave Wanda beyond confused, but she’s too exhausted to press the topic.
Instead, she leans her head back against the wall and closes her eyes, intending to get even a little bit of rest before Natasha takes her to the Quinjet but then there’s a tapping against her cheek that forces her to open her eyes again.
“Sorry, lyublyu, but you need to stay awake for me, okay?” Natasha tells her. “See, look, Rhodey’s here now to help me get you to the jet. Come on, up you get. There you go.”
And the they’re walking. Wanda forces herself to stay conscious as they navigate through the HYDRA base where the rest of the Avengers are still fighting.
Rhodey and Natasha keep guard, taking out anyone who gets in their way and helping Wanda walk (shuffle) out into the crisp forest air.
“I think I’ve got it from here, Rhodes,” Natasha says. Wanda’s ears are fuzzy but she manages to hear. “Thank you for the help.”
“You got it.”
And then he’s gone back to into the building to fight by Stark’s side.
“Come on, lyublyu,” Natasha presses a kiss to the top of her head and mutters. “Not long now and you can lie down. Okay? Just a few more minutes.”
“I like it when you call me that,” Wanda breathes lightly.
“Yeah? Well, stay awake and you can hear it a few more times, lyublyu.”
A tempting offer… Wanda thinks with exhaustion.
Are you okay?
Huh? Oh. Yes, I’m fine. Just bleeding out.
Wanda can hardly find it in her to be surprise at the Scarlet Witch’s return.
I’m sorry. I tried to stay in control for a little longer, just to heal our injuries, but you fought for control.
I don’t remember that. And since when can we heal our own injuries?
Since always. Why do you think our injuries always disappeared so fast at HYDRA?
I don’t know. You were always at the front too often for me to notice.
I suppose. Hey, stay awake. Don’t fall asleep, Wanda. We’re almost there.
I’m so tired. In so much pain. Please. I just want to sleep…
I know. I know you’re in pain, and you’re doing brilliantly, but it’s just a little further and then you can sleep. Just stay awake.
Wanda can see the Quinjet through the trees now, sitting hidden in a clearing. She can sort of hear Natasha’s and the Witch’s encouraging words, but her head is swimming, her eyes are heavy, her breathing coming fruitfully along with desperate coughs, and she’s never felt so tired before.
Wanda- okay, fine.
Natasha looks sharply at Wanda when she feels the woman straighten up. Mere seconds ago, she’d practically been dragging the woman back to the Quinjet, and now she seems to have come back to reality.
“Wanda?”
She watches the woman’s throat bob and her arm circle her own waist in an attempt to hold it where previously, it had been hanging limp by her side.
“Not quite,” the woman grits out with a strained breath at the end.
Then she pulls away from Natasha’s hold and begins to use the trees as leverage on her struggling journey the final few feet to the Quinjet.
“It’s nice to see you again,” Natasha says honestly. “And thank you for protecting Wanda. Again.”
“Yes, well,” the Scarlet Witch pushes away from the final tree as they finally enter the clearing and reach the jet, “I didn’t see anyone else coming to help while Wanda was about to be killed.”
“I’m sorry,” Natasha says genuinely, and when she puts her arm back around the woman’s waist to help her onto the jet, she doesn’t pull away again. “I had no idea she’d gone onto the second floor after the explosion.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the Scarlet Witch sighs and settles down on one of the seats.
“It does,” Natasha denies. “I promised her I would be by her side and I failed five minutes into the mission. I should’ve looked harder. Known she was up there.”
“You couldn’t have known Wanda would follow you into an explosion,” the Scarlet Witch says solemnly.
“I should’ve,” Natasha denies. “But still, how are you doing? A few minutes ago, I thought I would have to carry you the rest of the way to the Quinjet.”
“I have two bullets lodged inside of me and my head is swimming,” the Scarlet Witch states. “But I’ve dealt with worse. I’m okay.”
Natasha rises and crosses to the first aid kit.
“Then can I at least clean and bandage your wounds until we can get you some professional medical care? If we need to, I can take you now and send another jet for the guys.”
“I think I’ll be fine until then,” the Scarlet Witch nods and slowly begins to shuck off her jacket.
There’s a quiet noise that indicates her leather jacket had been slowly sticking to her skin from the blood, but it’s not yet fully dried and so she manages to remove it with relative ease.
Natasha shoots her a grateful smile and moves around to sit just behind the Scarlet Witch. She silently moves the Witch’s hair out of the way, moving it to rest over her left shoulder so she can see the bullet wound on her right shoulder.
She winces at the sight and then looks further down to where a hole has penetrated her corset at the bottom left of her back.
“This might sting a little,” she pre-warns.
The Scarlet Witch nods in understanding and so she pours a generous amount of antiseptic liquid onto a clean cloth and begins to clean the first gunshot wound.
Chapter 8
Summary:
“Are we too young for this? Feels like I can’t move; sharing my heart, it’s tearing me apart; but I know I’d miss you, baby, if I left right now.”
Notes:
So, there’s a lot of angst in this chapter. Buckle up.
Bit of a shorter chapter, but I guess it can be seen as a little something between parts.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
After the mission, the Scarlet Witch/ Wanda were taken to the nearest hospital to treat their injuries with the knowledge that they may not make it back to the Facility infirmary in time with the amount of blood they’d lost and the smoke they’d inhaled.
Aside from the bullet wounds, it was mostly internal damage (bruises), so they didn’t have to stay overnight.
Natasha promised the doctors that they would be fine on the way back to the Facility, so once the bullets were removed, the holes stitched up, and she had been checked over for any lasting damage from the smoke, they regrouped with the rest of the Avengers and left in the Quinjet.
On the ride back, Natasha tries to distract the Scarlet Witch from her pain by talking about sitcoms (which she knew she and Wanda both like), and other unimportant things, but she can tell the woman is finally losing her energy, so Natasha advises her to get some sleep.
It is along flight, after all.
It’s roughly four hours into the flight back home that Natasha notices the other woman stirring. If it’s the Scarlet Witch or Wanda, though, she’ll have to wait to find out.
She’s surprised that that the other woman is waking up after only four hours, though, which could suggest it’s the Scarlet Witch still because she hardly ever gets any sleep.
Natasha looks away from Steve, who she’d previously been talking to, and allows their conversation to come to a natural close.
Steve settles back into his seat a couple seats away from Natasha and Wanda, while Natasha reaches over and gently places a hand on her (possible) girlfriend’s shoulder. If it’s the Scarlet Witch, she’ll pull away. If it’s Wanda, the gesture will be welcomed.
Finally, the other woman sits up in her seat and looks ahead of her, eyes heavily lidded. A hand comes up to her head which she holds for a few seconds as if nursing a particularly bad hangover.
Then she turns to her right and meets Natasha and Steve’s eyes. The other Avengers are all talking amongst themselves at the front of the jet, Tony and Rhodey sitting in the cockpit to pilot the jet though they don’t strictly need to.
“What’s going on?” The woman beside Natasha asks.
She can’t quite tell who’s at the front, whether it’s Wanda or the Scarlet Witch because she’s talking too quiet to get a grasp on her accent (especially inside the Quinjet) and, well, there seems to be no change in posture.
So, Natasha opens her mouth to answer her either way, but then she stands up and walks to the opposing side of the jet to look out of the window.
“Where are you taking me? What have you done to me?”
Natasha frowns. She knows a few hours ago that the Scarlet Witch and Wanda both knew exactly what was going on, and they had no memory loss.
It wasn’t possible, anyway. They suffered no head injuries, there were no seizures, nothing that could cause amnesia.
And neither do either of them have a distinctly American accent.
She looks at Steve with worry, and rises to her feet. Steve slowly joins her, and now the other Avengers are watching.
“Maybe you should sit down and we can explain everything to you,” Natasha tries to reason and takes a single step closer to her.
But the woman whirls around and holds out a red hand, eyes glowing.
“Stay away from me,” she warns.
“Okay,” Natasha holds her hands up in surrender and retreats to Steve’s side again.
She notices the other woman’s hands shake, even encased in the scarlet red.
She’s scared. And confused.
Natasha would be too if she’d just woken up on a jet surrounded by strangers.
“Look, I’m over here. You’re okay,” Natasha reassures the woman.
“Who are you?” The woman asks again.
“We’re the Avengers. My name’s Natasha, this is Steve. Those are Sam, Tony, and Rhodey.”
The woman watches the team, but doesn’t put her glowing hand down. Her eyes are still red.
“What’s your name?” Natasha asks.
“Wendy,” the woman answers and looks around at everyone. “Where are you taking me?”
Natasha slowly puts her hands down. Wendy watches her, but doesn’t make a move to stop her.
“We’re taking you to the Avengers Facility. You had an accident, so we want you to be safe.”
Wrong thing to say.
“Could you- could you take me back to my boys? They’re… they’re in America. I- I don’t remember the address, but I can probably show you,” Wendy says.
Natasha shares a look with the other Avengers. They look back at her with varying degrees of sympathy for Wendy and silent pleads for her to help the woman.
Why they can’t step in and help is beyond Natasha, but she supposes, at this point, she probably knows Wanda and her alters the best (though she’s never actually met Wendy before).
“We can’t do that, I’m sorry,” Natasha winces.
“Why not?” Wendy breathes, eyes on Natasha as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “Why not? What did I do? Why won’t you take me home? I want to go home! My boys are home alone. They’re only ten. Their father… he’s not in the picture anymore. I just- I just want to see my boys again.”
“I’m sorry, Wendy,” Natasha swallows and forces the apology past her lips with a small shake of her head.
They can’t let Wendy out of their sight. It wouldn’t be just her they’d be losing, it would be Wanda and the Scarlet Witch too, and what happens when one of them comes back?
Do they even know about Wendy? They’ve never mentioned her before and she’s never fronted as far as Natasha has seen.
Wendy thinks she has children- boys- does she know she’s sharing a body with Wanda and the Scarlet Witch? That there’s no way she could have had children with the life the three of them have led so far?
Wendy falls to the floor at Natasha’s regretful apology and chokes out a breathy sob. Finally, her hands stop glowing as she buries her face into her hands and cries.
With each muffled wail, Natasha’s heart clenches again and again.
With a lump in her throat that she struggles to push away, she takes the risk and crosses over the jet to kneel in front of Wendy.
Then she carefully puts her arms around the weeping woman and pulls her in for a hug. Wendy doesn’t protest or pull away now. In fact, she buries her face into Natasha’s collarbone and clings to the belt around her waist holding up her gun holster.
“Natasha,” Wendy sobs into her chest. “Please, I just- I just want my boys.”
Natasha’s heart breaks for the woman, so she holds her until she begins to fall asleep, and only then does she pick her up and lay her across the chairs to sleep more comfortably.
When Wendy has really nodded off about an hour later, breath evened out and heavy, Natasha strokes her hair back out of her face. She’s still wearing the Scarlet Witch’s crown but she doesn’t want to risk dropping it or losing it, or one of the guys (Tony) messing around with it so she leaves it on.
Things have suddenly gotten a lot more complicated, she thinks.
Wendy (or… whoever) twitches against Natasha’s thigh and she stops her movements of stroking her hair back, but when she doesn’t begin to stir, she continues.
After a while, Tony comes over and sits across from Natasha. She looks up at him and gives him a small smile which he nods at.
“Where the hell did she come from?” He asks, eyes on Wendy.
“I don’t know,” Natasha admits. “I’ve never met her before.”
“Do you think this is the first time she’s ever appeared, or do the other two witches already know about her?”
“I don’t think so. And if they did, they never mentioned her,” Natasha shrugs. “They were very good at hiding her.”
“Maybe they had good reason to hide her,” Tony says. “I mean, I thought the Scarlet Witch was a handful, but, oh, boy.”
Natasha’s lip twitches just slightly but she can’t get Wendy’s cries out of her head.
Brokenhearted over children who likely don’t exist, but do to her.
“So, what do we do now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, come on. Two unstable alters residing in one already unstable witch,” Tony shrugs.
“What are you trying to say?” Natasha questions with a raised brow.
“I’m saying,” Tony emphasises this by standing up, “maybe she’s not Avenger-worthy. That’s all.”
“Come on, Tony,” Steve speaks up.
“What? I mean, did you see what just happened? What if this Wendy alter were to show up in the middle of a mission? Then what?” Tony gestures wildly.
“That’s why Wanda has the psyche evals and attends her psychiatric sessions,” Natasha points out defensively.
She sees Tony’s point, of course she does, but she wants Wanda on to be an Avenger. And Wanda wants that too, she’s said so enough times.
She wants to do good for the world like she and Pietro had promised each other.
It’s unfair to take that opportunity away from her before it’s really begun.
“Yeah, the sessions she doesn’t even attend,” Tony folds his arms. “She leaves that to the Scarlet Witch, right?”
“Wait, what?” Steve asks.
“Nothing. Look, she and Wanda are the same. They’ve lived the same life. As long as someone is in that room talking to their psychiatrist, it doesn’t matter. Besides, the doctor is going to want to speak to her alters at some point anyway,” Natasha states.
“Wait, so Wanda hasn’t been attending her sessions?” Steve clarifies.
“No,” Natasha sighs. “The Scarlet Witch has.”
“How did I not notice that?”
“Okay, my point is,” Tony interrupts the brewing discussion, “maybe she should be benched for a while, that’s all.”
Natasha opens her mouth to protest.
“Just for a bit,” Tony speaks over her. “I know how close you are or whatever. This- thing between you. Are you together. No, doesn’t matter. Okay, just for a little while, we bench Sabrina and all her alters. Or at least until she gets this Wendy under control.”
“That’s not fair, Tony,” Natasha tries.
“Actually, I think I agree,” Steve says in a regretful tone beside her. “Wendy did seem… I don’t know. She didn’t even know who we were or wha was happening. We can’t afford for her to front while we’re on a mission.”
“They don’t have anywhere else to go,” Natasha points out. “We’re all she has.”
“We’re not kicking them out,” Tony is quick to say. “Just benching them. Just for now. Once we have all of this under control, or at least Wendy, or until this alter decides she wants to help us rather than search every apartment in America for her kids, then they’re welcome back on the team. Does that seem fair? I think that’s fair, right?”
“Sounds good to me,” Steve agrees.
Natasha sighs and looks down at the head on her lap. The woman sleeping peacefully there, albeit with a faint crease between her brows.
It’s only her continued evened breathing that reassures her the woman is asleep and not eavesdropping.
Much as she hates to admit it, Tony is right. Wendy didn’t sign up for this and she certainly doesn’t seem the type to want to fight worldly threats. She doesn’t even know who the Avengers are.
She has the potential to become a loose canon on a mission if she ever decides to front.
Until they can either explain everything to her and get her onboard with them, or come to some sort of agreement, Wanda needs to be benched.
“Okay. Fine.”
Notes:
So, you know Peter Maximoff has a little sister in the X-Men movies but she’s only shown once and we all collectively decided her name was Wendy? I stole her name for this chapter. It’s not her because, as a fandom, we don’t really know her and she had two seconds of screen time, but I wanted to use her name.
Originally this alter was going to be a nineteen year old who believed she had a home and parents to go back to in America but then I decided to steal aspects from the variant in MoM (not including spoilers, of course) and give her Wendy’s name.
Chapter 9
Notes:
lTrigger warning for implied/referenced rape/non-con.
Chapter Text
For the rest of the journey home, Wanda remains asleep against Natasha’s leg, and the other Avengers try to move on from the difficult decision they’ve just come to.
When they finally touch down on New York soil at the Facility, Natasha has Steve carry Wanda back to her room where she then tucks her into bed and leaves a bottle of water and granola bar on her side for when she wakes up.
She’s likely to be dehydrated and hungry when she wakes up, so while the granola bar isn’t much, it’s enough to give her some energy to leave the room and find something more substantial.
She doesn’t want to leave Wanda at all, but her body’s aching all over from the recent fight against HYDRA. As a last minute thought, she leaves a quick note on the side for Wanda (or her alters) and lets her know where she’ll be.
Then she shuts off the light and pulls the door to, leaving it open just a crack so she can keep an eye on her and make sure she’s okay (she’s still a little worried about the amount of smoke she inhaled).
As she undresses to get into the shower and clean herself up, she winces at the sight of a big, purple bruise on her side. She knew she’d had some pain there, but she hadn’t known the bruise would be so big.
At least she knows her ribs aren’t cracked or broken.
With a sigh, she tosses her clothes into the hamper and steps into the shower. Some hot water and then an ointment later on should do it.
There’s not much she can do about it.
Later on, after her shower, Natasha heads down to the kitchen to find something to eat. She can’t find the energy to cook anything (especially so late at night) and most takeaway places are going to be closed by now, so something quick and simple will do for now.
When she gets to the kitchen, she moves straight for the refrigerator and pulls it open with aching arms. Even her shower couldn’t seem to soothe her overexerted body.
To say there’s a wide choice of food in the refrigerator would be an understatement. She stares at the multitude of different choices in the light of the refrigerator before taking a tub of Greek yoghurt and a box of raspberries and blueberries.
Then she rummages around in the cupboards before finding a bag of granola which she settles on the island with the rest of her ingredients.
She finds a clean bowl in the dishwasher which had clearly been forgotten about while they’d been on their mission and places it on the side.
And then she throws her ingredients together, pouring a good amount of granola into her bowl followed by a decent helping of Greek yoghurt, and then her fruits.
She puts all of the remaining ingredients away afterwards before serving herself a glass of milk to go with her snack.
With her food made, she settles down on a stool at the island and begins to eat. She’s made it quite a few times before, occasionally alternating the ingredients, and thoroughly enjoys it each and every time.
And once she’s finished, she washes it down with her drink only to regret eating it so quickly because she liked it.
Either way, once her bowl and glass are empty, she rises from her seat and heads over to the dishwasher.With nothing else to do, she begins to empty it of all the previously clean dishes and utensils then puts her used bowl and glass in there.
She won’t turn it on just yet, though, because it’s not full.
“Agent Romanoff, your presence is required in Miss Maximoff’s room,” FRIDAY’s voice takes her away from her workings. “It seems she’s in distress.”
“Shit, okay,” Natasha replies as she shuts the door to the dishwasher. “Do, uh, do we know who exactly we’re dealing with right now?”
FRIDAY had been alerted early on about Wanda and the Scarlet Witch, just in case anything ever happened (not that it ever had until now).
The AI knew which signs to look for, though, in recognising who was fronting. She would need to be updated on Wendy, though.
“It’s hard to tell,” FRIDAY says. “It seems Miss Maximoff is having a nightmare.”
Nightmares. Of course. Wanda and the Scarlet Witch (much as the latter loathed to admit) had had many nightmares after first joining the Avengers, and Natasha had helped them through a lot of them.
It made sense that they would have a nightmare after their recent mission storming a HYDRA base. That was what most of their nightmares had been about- HYDRA- with the occasional nightmare about their youth in bomb-ridden city.
As quick as she could, Natasha hurried over to the elevator and, without needing to choose her floor, the elevator began to rise to the one she shared with Wanda.
“Thank you,” she told FRIDAY.
“Of course, Agent Romanoff,” FRIDAY responded.
Less than a minute later, the elevator doors parted and Natasha stepped out into terror and despair.
She physically recoiled from the feeling, turning her head away with breathlessness before forcing herself to face forward again.
Wanda’s powers had never affected her like this before. She’s never been able to feel what Wanda is during a nightmare.
She files this new information away for a later date, swallows against her dry throat, and then creeps through hallway until she stops right outside Wanda’s door.
The door is slightly ajar still, which is good and means she had easy access to Wanda’s room with no powers or other barriers in the way.
She pushes it the rest of the way in and steadies herself against the doorframe as the overwhelming feeling of terror increases. She almost feels nauseous as it rolls over her in invisible waves.
Across the room where Wanda’s bed stands, she can see the other woman (her girlfriend? something to discuss later, she chastises herself) tangled up in her sheets.
Even in the faint moonlight, she can see a thin sheen of sweat gathered on her upper brow as well as what looks like a tear cascading down her cheek.
It doesn’t take much more for Natasha to push away from the doorway and make her way over to Wanda.
She settles down on the edge of the bed and hesitantly lifts a hand to touch Wanda’s arm, maybe rouse her from this nightmare.
Wanda is visibly writhing in her sheets, but she doesn’t move as much as she usually does. It’s almost as if she’s acting out her dream, straining against invisible restraints or attackers.
Like she’s pinned down and trying to escape.
And then Natasha’s hand falls onto her bare forearm and suddenly, she’s not in the Facility anymore.
With a faint gasp she can’t hold back, she looks up and around herself.
The room is dark still, but not like Wanda’s room with the moon doing its best to illuminate everything. This room is dim with only a faint, flickering bulb overhead to provide light.
There’s not much in the room aside from a dirty one-way mirror to her right, a rickety table below that, and a lot of paperwork covering it. Possibly forgotten about if the coffee stains and frayed edges are anything to go by.
And then, in the middle of the room is an old operating table which she belatedly realises she’s sitting on the edge of, much like how she’d previously been sitting on the edge of Wanda’s bed.
And, like real life, too, Wanda is on this operating table, struggling against the binds with teary eyes and red cheeks.
“Wanda? Shit, hold on.”
Natasha hurriedly stands up from the operating table and tries to undo the binds, but her hands only keep phasing through them as if trying to capture smoke.
Frustration quickly builds as she attempts once more to free Wanda.
It doesn’t work, though.
“Okay, Wanda, it’s going to be okay. You’re all right. You just need to wake up. Can you do that? Come on, lyublyu,” Natasha hovers a hand over Wanda’s cheek as she tries a different tactic.
But her words only fall on deaf ears. Wanda seems oblivious to her appearance.
A clicking sound catches her attention as she tries to think of a way out of here or a way to wake Wanda, and she turns around just in time to see a man dressed in a HYDRA uniform enter.
Natasha’s jaw clenches as she watches the man cross the room to stand at the foot of the operating table.
His hand lands on Wanda’s ankle which only makes her fury rise. Wanda only tries to catch her breath or stop breathing, but to no avail.
“Please,” she pleads with the man. “Please, don’t do this.”
No longer struggling and without the fresh tears, Wanda looks young, Natasha realises. Younger than her Wanda, to be specific.
She wants the man unashamedly smirk at Wanda, before moving himself to stand at beside the table instead, right beside Wanda’s head.
He reaches a hand down to his belt and starts to undo it.
“Hey! Don’t you dare-!” Natasha starts furiously and starts towards him.
Then a hand clasps down on her shoulder and she whirls around with shock, only to come face-to-face with Wanda.
No, the Scarlet Witch. The crown and cloak are a dead giveaway, along with the dark eye makeup.
“It’s not worth it,” she mutters darkly.
“I have to stop him,” Natasha states.
“It’s just a nightmare,” the Scarlet Witch replies wanly. “Even if we wanted to interfere, you can’t interact with anything here. Nor can I.”
“How do I get out, then? So I can wake her up.”
Crying meets her ears, but it doesn’t come from behind her. No, the scene she’s turned her back on is eerily silent. Not a sound.
But the crying… Where is it coming from?
She looks around, peers over the Scarlet Witch’s shoulder until she finds the source.
Another young woman, curled up in the corner of the room. Barley visible for the shadows cast over her, but Natasha can see her.
She looks like Wanda, as does the Scarlet Witch, except she’s wearing a light grey sweater, blue jeans, and no shoes.
And when she looks up, apparently sensing Natasha’s eyes on her, there are no tears in her eyes.
“Are you listening to me?”
Natasha jumps a little, tearing her gaze away from the woman (Wendy?) to look at the Scarlet Witch again.
“Sorry,” Natasha apologises for the fact that she obviously wasn’t listening.
“I said, I can send you back to the real world,” the Scarlet Witch repeats. “Just… try not to make skin on skin contact again. Not while she’s having a nightmare.”
“Got it,” Natasha nods.
The Scarlet Witch raises a red hand, eyes on Natasha, and the latter waits for whatever comes next.
She almost wants to close her eyes, but manages not to.
“And, Natasha,” the Scarlet Witch says.
Natasha raises a brow.
“Thank you. I’m sorry you had to see this.”
“Don’t apologise,” Natasha tells her seriously. “It wasn’t your fault. Any of you.”
She casts her gaze over the Scarlet Witch’s shoulder at that, meeting the hidden woman’s eyes again.
The Scarlet Witch looks back to the corner Natasha is looking towards, then back again. She swallows and then makes a gesture her hand.
Suddenly Natasha is jerking in place where she sits, eyes widening as she looks around herself.
Back in Wanda’s room. Okay, it’s a start.
She tears her hand away from Wanda’s arm and looks at it. Not the first time Wanda has made her see things, but it’s definitely the first time she’s seen Wanda’s nightmares.
She moves to lean a little closer to Wanda and shakes her shoulder (covered by her sweater), hoping this simple method will work to wake her up.
“Come on, lyublyu, you’re safe,” she says in a gentle, coaxing voice. “You’re okay, Wanda. Come on, wake up, detka.”
She knows Wanda likes the Russian terms of endearment, so she throws in as many as she can as she coaxes Wanda awake.
Eventually, after a few more minutes, Wanda stops struggling against the sheets and crying. And then she blinks her eyes open, her long lashes coated with tears.
Natasha sighs with relief and relaxes marginally.
Then Wanda shuffles up to sit flush against the wall, eyes slightly widened and jaw visibly clenched. She shrugs Natasha’s hand off of her shoulder, to which Natasha holds her hands up for her to see that they’re no longer near her.
At the back of her mind, she wonders if this is Wanda or Wendy. She knows it’s not the Scarlet Witch. That woman is too strong and stubborn to show fear in front of another, even Natasha.
Besides, she’d just spoken to the Witch, so that only leaves two other options.
“Sorry, I know that must’ve been a bit of a shock- waking up and seeing me here,” Natasha says.
“It’s okay,” the other woman responds, and Natasha realises it’s Wanda. She slowly put her hands down. “I just did not expect you to be here.”
“Ouch,” Natasha jokes in an attempt to ease the mood. “I’m not that bad looking am I?”
Wanda visibly relaxes slightly, her lips even twitch with a grin.
“Quite the opposite,” she replies.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Natasha asks.
Even thinking about what she’d just seen makes her anger flare on Wanda and the others’ behalf, but she can’t let her own personal emotions affect how she helps Wanda, so she pushes it aside and asks the question anyway.
Wanda predictably shakes her head as she slumps against the wall, the last of her defences falling away.
“No, I just… can you hold me? Please?”
Natasha nods understandingly. She remembers years ago after defecting from the Red Room, waking up every night from nightmares and wanting to be held (whether by Laura or Clint, it didn’t matter), but being too afraid to ask for comfort.
It softens her heart that Wanda isn’t afraid to seek that comfort from her, despite all she’s been through.
“Of course,” Natasha confirms.
She rises from where she’s sitting and watches Wanda shuffle to the other side of the bed, making room from her though she originally intended on just going to the other side and getting in with her.
But Wanda moves anyway so Natasha settles in beside her and pulls her in to her side gently. Wanda fits easily against her, almost like she were made to be there.
For a while there’s silence between them. Wanda’s eyes are closed and if it weren’t for the fact that Natasha could feel her elevated breathing, she would think the woman was asleep.
And then, around the forty minute mark, Wanda finally speaks.
“I don’t want to talk about it because…” Wanda starts then trails off.
Natasha lets her gather her thoughts, waiting patiently for her to finish (if she wants to).
“I don’t remember most of it,” Wanda settles on. “The things I do remember happened a years ago for me, before the Scarlet Witch appeared and I would get the blackouts. I have bits and pieces, disjointed memories from whenever she would front during HYDRA.
I haven’t thought about all of that since I would get the blackouts because, from my point of view, it never happened again. The Scarlet Witch protected me.”
“Do you think she ever did anything about it? More than just fronting so you didn’t have to experience it?” Natasha asks.
She almost wishes someone had been able to for that for her, at the Red Room. Shielding her so she didn’t have to go through it all. But then, how much of her life would she lose because of it? How many years?
“I think so,” Wanda answers quietly. “I hope so.”
With a quiet sigh, Natasha pulls her in a little tighter to offer her comfort before reaching with one hand to her left and picking up the granola bar there.
She hands it off to Wanda and presses a chaste kiss to the top of her head. She feels Wanda smile against her sternum.
“Come on, eat up and let’s go get you something else to eat,” Natasha tells her.
Wanda nods and when she pulls her, Natasha’s eyes widen slightly in surprise as Wanda quickly pecks her lips.
“Thank you, Tasha,” Wanda mutters.
Natasha smiles slightly and caresses Wanda’s cheek.
“Anything for you, lyublyu,” she retorts honestly.
Chapter 10
Summary:
Featuring appearances from Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, and Wendy.
Notes:
CW in this chapter for scenes of past domestic/ child abuse shown through memories.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wanda sighs as she sits in bed that evening. For the first time in the week since she pursued her relationship with Natasha, the other woman isn't with her. She'd gone to take a shower originally but had popped her head in not long after to let Wanda know she'd been called away for a meeting. Which is fine, but Wanda has to wonder why she isn't needed. She's an Avenger, too.
With a shake of her head, she slips out of bed and slowly paces the length of her room. It's almost jarring to realise how hard she suddenly finds sleeping when Natasha isn't beside her.
As she stops in front of the floor-length window, gazing out at the twinkling lights of New York City at night, she reminds herself that Natasha will be back once she's finished with her meeting. She exhales a deep breath.
Meditation, she suddenly thinks. The Scarlet Witch meditates a lot and, apparently, it helps. Why not?
Stepping away from the window, she moves to a clear area of her room and sits down, cross-legged, on the floor. The carpet is soft beneath her and brushes gently against the sides of her bare feet. She settles her hands atop her knees and closes her eyes.
So, how does this work? She wonders.
Just breathe, she hears the distinct voice of the Scarlet Witch appear in her ears. Empty your mind. Don't force it.
Empty my mind? I think that is a little ironic, don't you? Wanda joked lightly.
Don’t take it too literally, Wanda. Just breathe. It’ll come naturally.
Taking the Scarlet Witch more seriously now, Wanda breathes in a deep breath and lets it leave her lungs a second later with a calm sigh.
She continues this process for a few more minutes, breathing in and out in the quietness and solitude of her room until she begins to feel a change.
Though she doesn’t open her eyes, she can feel very plainly that she’s begun to levitate. The floor disappears from beneath her slowly as she rises.
Not very long later, she hears a noise that she knows doesn’t come from her reality. It starts off as distant, muffled chatter and laughter until eventually, she hears the voices clearly and she finds herself blinking her eyes at a new scene in front of herself.
Where seconds ago, she’d been staring at darkness, she now finds herself in what looks like a rickety old park. It’s not much- not like the American parks she sees on television- but it’s a playground nonetheless.
She looks around with bemusement until the voices meet her ears again and she turns around just in time to see two very familiar children barrelling past her, followed by a haggard-looking, middle-aged woman she recognises instantly.
“Mama,” she breathes, her heart clenching.
Without a thought, she follows the smiling woman and the children- herself and Pietro- over to a set of swings.
She watches as Pietro jumps up onto one of the swings, the metal chain creaking loudly, and her younger self doing the same next to him.
Her mama joins them and puts her small bag of groceries down on the floor to push them on the swings.
Wanda smiles widely, if a little watery, as she spectates the long-forgotten memory of mama pushing her and Pietro on the swings.
Their delighted laughter echoes through the air as Pietro shouts for their mama to push them higher and higher, and Wanda copies him.
Wanda considers moving closer to the scene she’s spectating, trying to interact with it even, but before she can take even a step, it all shifts like smoke in the wind and she finds herself watching something else.
Her papa is in the kitchen cooking food for the family while Wanda and Pietro are off in the living room area watching TV. It seems to have been Pietro’s turn to choose something because they’re watching some sort of hero show where the good guys are fighting the bad guys.
She turns back to her papa and watches as he chops up a few vegetables and tosses them into a pot on the stove. There aren’t many ingredients and she knows it’s all they could afford back then, but papa had always somehow made it work.
Just as she reaches a hand out to try to touch his shoulder, he stops what he’s doing to slam the knife down on the side with a faint cry. Wanda startles and looks at his hand which has a dribble of blood trailing over it.
Her eyes flicker back to his face and instead of pained, he looks frustrated. She purses his lips and watches him move over to the sink to wash the blood away, only, when he turns the faucet, no water comes out.
Her papa twists and turns the faucet a few times, only to get the same result before ultimately giving up and slamming his palm against the countertop.
“Магда! Магда!” Her papa shouts, voice echoey in the illusion she watches.
In the corner of her eye, as she watches him call for her mother, she sees her younger self and Pietro turn away from the TV to look over the back of the couch at their papa too.
But, as Pietro goes back to watching TV, her younger self doesn’t. She continues to watch her papa.
Mama appears in the doorway from the only bedroom a second later, a frown on her face as she peers at papa.
“Так, Джанго?” She responds to his call, her voice just as echoey as papa’s.
Papa gestures to his bleeding hand and the sink as he answers.
“Що сталося з водою, Магдо?”
“Немає води?”
“Нi!”
Wanda doesn’t remember much about her parents other than their faces and their general personalities, but she can’t remember her papa ever sounding this angry before.
She glances at his bleeding hand as the argument continues then over to her younger self who spectates from the couch.
A lump forms in her throat and from the corner of her eye she sees quick movement from the kitchen, but she can barely manage to turn back to the scene before it changes again.
As everything resettles, the imagery smokey and blurry for a moment, Wanda shakes her head. This is supposed to be meditation, she thinks, so why the hell is she still so stressed?
Taking a deep breath, she exhales slowly and observes the next memory.
She looks on as people bustle past her and she realises they’re in Novi Grad again, in the market. It isn't how she'd last seen it, lying in ruins and terrorised by Ultron bots. While it isn't the most pleasant market to look at and still holds some ruin and poverty, it's enough for people to get what they came for such as food and small trinkets.
Wanda searches the market as people walk past her or even through her as if she isn't there until she spots who she'd been looking for. Her past self stands at a stall with Pietro and Mama as the latter bargains with a vendor until she reaches into her small purse and hands over some money in exchange for some vegetables.
Wanda observes from a couple of feet away with fondness, especially when her mama's hand falls atop her younger self's head and brushes through her long hair.
And then her mama turns away from the stall and Wanda's stomach plummets because sitting almost casually on her mama's face is a large purple-blue bruise. It covers the left side of her cheekbone, almost touching her eye. Nobody around them in the market bats so much as an eye at the injury on her mama's precious face and even her mama herself smiles at the vendor and her younger self, as if she hasn't a care in the world.
But Wanda herself tears up and steps closer to reach up a hand and cup her cheek, but her mama keeps walking. She passes through Wanda like smoke and Wanda's hand falls to her side dejectedly. She turns around to watch her walk away with little Wanda and Pietro, and her heart cracks when mama leans down to say something to the children that makes them laugh.
The melodic sound rings around Wanda's head even as the world changes around her.
When it stops on the next memory, Wanda finds herself back in the little apartment her family had owned. Her eyes immediately seek out her mama and it doesn't take long before she spots her, though she wishes she hadn't. Her mama stands in the kitchen area of the apartment as she argues with her papa. The shouting reaches Wanda's ears a second too late and she has the overwhelming urge to cover her ears though she manages to resist and turns away.
She doesn't remember any of this. Her papa getting angry, her mama's bruise, the arguing. She remembers a perfect family despite their circumstances. She remembers overwhelming amounts of love and care and kindness. Not this. None of this.
As she looks away, her eyes lock onto little Wanda and Pietro, maybe around eight or nine years old, who are watching the argument with worried faces from the threshold to the kitchen. Wanda has her hands over her ears just like she herself felt like doing even now, and Pietro has his hand tightly clutching the fabric of Wanda's sweater.
Before she can even figure out what this argument is over or what had started it, she hears the distinct sound of flesh hitting flesh. She tears her eyes away from Wanda and Pietro to look back at her parents only to find her mama stumbling away from papa, her hand nursing her face. Wanda's heart races and she takes a step forward to stop her papa's advance on her mama, but her hand only passes through him like smoke.
Suddenly she's little Wanda again, watching on from the threshold with her hands over her ears, weak and small, and unable to do anything as papa hurts mama. And when mama stops fighting back and sits in a sobbing heap on the kitchen floor, papa turns to them. Wanda looks up at her papa with wide, watery eyes, hands clamped over her ears so she can barely make out what he's saying, but she knows he looks angry. At her or mama, or Pietro, she doesn't know. All she knows is she's scared of that look in his eyes.
She can see his mouth moving, forming words but her hands over her ears and her heavy breathing block them out. And when his hand flies up to land a hit on her, she can barely feel Pietro pulling her back as she goes away.
Suddenly, she's back outside of her body again and she looks around with a sluggish confusion. She's not sure what just happened, but she can remember the sight of papa's fist flying at her too fast to comprehend, and Pietro pulling her away as if to protect her from a man three times their size, but after that... For a second, she can recall it going hazy and dark, and loud, like when the Scarlet Witch takes over, but that can't be it because she didn't exist until HYDRA.
Did papa knock her out?
No, she would remember something like that. But then again, she considers, she doesn't remember a lot of what she's just seen.
Why doesn’t she remember any of it? Are they real memories?
The seemingly deafening dripping of water draws her attention and she turns around in time to see movement coming from inside the bathroom of the apartment. The door is ajar, so, seeing a familiar head of hair, Wanda easily slips into the bathroom.
The sight she’s met with makes her heart clench and her stomach turn at the same time. She runs her eyes over her younger self and Pietro, taking stock of their injuries and the blood that coats their hands and faces.
It makes her feel sick just looking at them, but strangely, instead of mimicking Pietro’s solemn expression, her younger self seems to have a soft smile on her face as she dips a washcloth into the water in the basin and wrings it out.
“You’d love them, Pietro,” her younger self tells her twin, and Wanda almost does a double-take at not only the flawless English spoken but the way she says it with a distinct American accent. “They’re the spitting image of their uncle. And they’re twins, like us!”
What is going on? Is any of this real, Wanda wonders as she brings a hand to her nurse her head.
Pietro shakes his head and wipes his own washcloth over Wanda’s split lip.
“You sound like the TV, Wanda,” he points out.
Young Wanda only grins happily in response as she clears blood away from Pietro’s eyebrow.
“You can meet them one day, if you like?” Wanda says.
Pietro pauses and frowns.
“Who?” He asks to which Wanda fondly rolls her eyes and gently slaps his shoulder.
“Your nephews, silly,” she answers.
At that, Pietro smiles and laughs.
“You are way too young for children, sister!” He says, which the Wanda of the present thoroughly agrees with.
She wonders where this fantasy that she has children had come from. If it came from watching too many sitcoms or if she and Pietro were playing a game to escape their reality.
But then a feeling of wrongness settles in the pit of her stomach and she bites her lip.
This isn’t right. Her younger self hadn’t been able to speak English that well until way into the HYDRA experiments, nor could she speak with an American accent. Not even now could she do that.
So what is this? Is it really the Scarlet Witch and the woman has been lying to her? Did she exist before HYDRA?
She watches the scene with growing confusion for a couple more minutes until a familiar voice reaches her ears and she turns away.
“Ванда! П'єтро! Приходь і прибери цей безлад! Зараз! (Wanda! Pietro! Come clean this mess! Now!)” Even Wanda startles at the abrupt voice.
She watches as her younger self hesitates to get up before finally doing so at Pietro’s prompting and leaving the bathroom to tidy up whatever mess their papa was angry about.
Wanda begins to follow them out, desperate for answers, but before she can do so, there’s a loud whooshing noise in her ears and she opens her eyes in alarm.
She falls to the floor of her bedroom, not expecting to find herself back in it so soon and without her say in it, but throws her hands out to cushion her fall anyway.
Knowing what has just happened, she quickly rises to her feet and storms her way over to the vanity where she scowls at her reflection.
“What was that?” She demands, searching her own eyes for any sign of the Scarlet Witch.
When there’s nothing for a moment, she throws everything from the vanity to the floor before meeting her own reflection again.
“Answer me!” She shouts desperately, vision blurring. “What did I just see?”
“Your memories,” the Scarlet Witch answers.
There’s a small movement of her head in the reflection that she knows comes from the Scarlet Witch, not herself.
“Those were not my memories. I had a good childhood- a good family,” she corrects herself because Sokovia was no place for a child to grow up in. “My papa was a good man. He was kind and charming.”
“Yes, he was,” the Scarlet Witch replies in her slight Sokovian accent. Wanda frowns back at her. “Sometimes he was. He could be the best father in the world sometimes. But he was also angry and he took that out on his family. On Magda and you, and Pietro.”
Wanda turns away and shakily wipes away the tears that have been gathering in her eyes and dripping onto her cheeks. Her lower lip trembles as she replies surely.
“You are lying. Papa was not like that. He was not angry and he would never hurt us.”
“Why would I lie, Wanda? What would I get out of that?” The Scarlet Witch responds easily, and Wanda falters a little.
There is nothing she could get out of this other than to hurt Wanda and mar the only image she has left of her late papa. And, loathe as she is to admit it, she knows the Scarlet Witch wouldn’t do that. She’s spent her whole life protecting Wanda and being there for her whenever she can, whether Wanda had realised it or not.
She wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt Wanda.
But if that’s the truth, then that means everything Wanda had believed about her childhood is a lie. Or, at least most of it is.
And her papa was not the good man she’d believed him to be.
“Why don’t I remember?” She breathes out shakily.
Her back is still to the mirror, but she can just about see her reflection in the window to her left. Though her arms hung limply at her sides, the Scarlet Witch has her own crossed and she’s looking away from Wanda.
“Do you remember what you saw in the bathroom?” The Scarlet Witch asks.
“We were playing pretend,” Wanda says though it’s an obvious lie that even she doesn’t believe.
But it’s better than the truth that is staring her in the face.
“No,” the Scarlet Witch denies, “it was Wendy.”
Notes:
I’m not sure how I feel about leaving it on a cliffhanger, but let me know whether you like it or not so I know whether to do it again or not!
Chapter 11
Notes:
It’s been a while, haha. Sorry about that.. But I hope you all enjoy this chapter,, Sorry for any mistakes
There are going to be some shorter chapters for a while until I regain inspiration for this fic, I hope that’s okay with everyone…
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s been a couple of days since Wanda meditated and glimpsed the things she didn't want to believe were true. She's still trying to come to terms with them, but it's hard. She doesn't want to believe that the man she called her father, the one who was supposed to protect her, wasn't the man she remembered him as.
For as long as she's been alive, she's only ever remembered him as a kindhearted, protective, compassionate man. But now, those memories have been tainted by what she saw when she was meditating.
She wants to blame the Scarlet Witch. To call her a liar, and a fake, but deep down she knows it’s true. What she saw was real and it made her who she is today.
“Come on, Wanda, you and I both know I can’t help you if you don’t open up to me.”
Wanda’s jaw tightens. She merely casts a glance at the person across from her before going back to burning a hole in the floor.
It’s only been two days since she found out the truth about her father, but it’s still been playing on her mind on repeat. She can’t get it out of her head. Every time she closes her eyes, she can feel the phantom touch of Pietro’s hand in hers and see her papa’s hand flying towards her.
She sees her mama cowering from the man who was never supposed to hurt her, the man who was supposed to protect them, while she and Pietro watch on from the sidelines with terror.
“This is a place of trust and confidentiality. This is a safe place for you, Wanda. If there’s something on your mind, you can tell me. I’m not here to judge you,” Dr Smith continues.
Stubbornly, Wanda ignores him and keeps her eyes downcast. Her mind is a whirlwind of thoughts all revolving her family- her mama, papa, Pietro. Mostly her papa. She tries to fix the tainted image of him she’s been left with, but she can’t forget his fist flying at her. His angry voice from outside the bathroom.
Everything she’d seen during her meditation has left her with the knowledge that her family wasn’t as perfect as she remembered it as.
And none of it she wants to discuss with Dr Smith.
She hears a sigh from her psychiatrist and the sound of him closing his note book.
“I think that will be it for today’s session,” he decides much to Wanda’s relief. “I can see you’re not very focused today so we’ll give it another go next week.”
Wanda doesn’t wait for him to say anything else. She gets up from her seat and stalks out of the room.
She feels immediate relief the second she steps into the hallway. She feels like she can think without someone talking to her at the same time.
A hefty sigh leaves her as she hurries her way through the Compound to her room. The Scarlet Witch has been unusually quiet since it was revealed her papa wasn’t the man she thought he was, and her silence is only even more apparent now as Wanda makes her way through the giant building. Her head feels quiet and… empty.
When she finally makes it to her room, she heads straight inside and shuts the door behind her with some finality. She closes her eyes as she leans against it.
For a couple of minutes, she stands against the door with her eyes shut, just basking in the silence. But when she pushes away from it to lie on her bed, a quiet sob leaves her.
She covers her face with her hands and sobs into them, feeling hopeless and tired.
Wanda? She hears the Scarlet Witch speak quietly.
“What do you want?” Wanda whispers, lower lip wobbling as she fights back her sobs.
I’m sorry, the Scarlet Witch says. I know it’s probably not what you want to hear, but I just want you to know I’m sorry.
“Sorry for what?” Wanda slowly sits up. Her heart races as she wipes her tears away and seethes. “For never telling me the truth about my father? For never telling me he was not the man I thought he was? Or for hiding Wendy from me? For letting me believe that it was just us?”
I didn’t hide Wendy from you, the Scarlet Witch states quietly. Wendy existed long before I did. She was there to help you when you were a child and you didn’t want to face the fact that your father would ever hurt you and your family. But she stopped coming to the front shortly before you volunteered for the experiments, before I ever existed. Maybe you didn’t know of her existence to begin with, or you never thought much of the missing memories she left behind. But I never hid her from you.
“You never told me about her either,” Wanda sighs and lies back down, too tired to argue properly. She wants to sleep and forget about all of this.
Her eyes slip closed.
You’re right. I’m sorry.
Wanda shrugs and then turns over to lie on her side. She doesn’t reply to the Scarlet Witch because she’s exhausted, mentally and emotionally. She knows the Witch can probably sense that because she doesn’t press the conversation either.
For a while, Wanda lies there, quiet tears slipping past her closed eyes and trailing down to the pillow beneath her head.
It takes a while, but eventually, she finds herself almost drifting off to sleep.
And then there’s a knock on the door. She blinks her eyes open tiredly and looks behind her at the bedroom door. A small wave of her hand and the door opens.
She doesn’t look at who it is as she lays her head back down, there aren’t many people it could be.
The answer is given to her a second later when the bed dips behind her and she feels a familiar body shuffle close behind her. Then an arm that she recognises encircles her waist and she feels her heart flutter.
Her eyes close again as she embraces the warmth and familiarity of having Natasha holding her.
“What’s wrong, lyublu?” Natasha murmurs.
Wanda shakes her head, keeping her eyes closed, but she puts a hand over Natasha’s and links their fingers, holding her close.
“I’m fine,” she says, “just tired.”
Notes:
This chapter has been dedicated for ma petite fleur because she encouraged me to come back and write it again❤️🌺
Chapter 12
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
”The only thing that would bring me comfort is seeing him again.”
They sit in silence for a minute. Wanda lets her tears fall as she stares at the coffee table between them, the bowl of fruit sitting untouched atop of it. She never eats the fruit and neither does Dr Smith.
Her vision swims with every fresh tear before she blinks and they follow in the wake of the ones before them.
”I’m so tired. It’s… it’s just like this wave washing over me, again and again. It knocks me down and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I can’t…”
She swallows the heavy lump in her throat and lifts her eyes to meet Dr Smith’s.
”It’s just gonna drown me…”
“Again,” Natasha demands to which Wanda huffs and returns to a defensive position.
She’s technically still benched, but Natasha insists on letting her train should she ever need to fight anyway.
Besides, both Steve and Natasha agree that it’s good for her to keep active. Both for her mental and physical health.
So Wanda spars with Natasha almost every day, even when she wants to curl up in bed and stare into nothingness. Into her dreams.
The Scarlet Witch makes appearances here and there. She’s not as talkative as she used to be- not since Wendy’s appearance and especially because she hasn’t felt the need to protect and defend Wanda from anything- but she still gives her input occasionally.
Wanda, however, barely replies. She’s still upset about everything even if she knows now that the Witch barely plaid a part in it. She’s angry and upset, and she wishes she had control over her life.
Sometimes she wishes the Scarlet Witch and Wendy didn’t exist at all (even if they’d protected her all these years).
She just wanted some normalcy for once.
That, unfortunately, was never going to happen.
“Avengers, suit up!” Steve’s voice rang throughout the communal space.
Wanda startled a little, having been so caught up in watching TV that she hadn’t even heard him come in.
As Natasha hopped up from her seat next to Wanda and the rest of the team abandoned what they were doing, Wanda turned around to look at her team leader and awkwardly stayed where she was.
“What’s the problem?” Tony asked, quickly finishing the food he’d been eating.
“There’s an enhanced causing havoc in the city, we need to put an end to their reign,” Steve answered.
An enhanced, Wanda thought. They could definitely use my help here.
Then she remembered.
Oh, right. I’m still benched.
Despondently, she watched her team exiting the room to go and save the city of New York once again whilst she was left behind.
And, not for the first time, she couldn’t help but feel left out.
As she was turning around to go back to watching TV, swallowing the growing lump in her throat, Steve’s voice caught her ears.
“Maximoff, I know you wanna join us in the fight and help, but, I still don’t think the time is right,” he told her as Wanda turned back around.
With a sigh, she nodded.
“Though, depending on his this goes, there’s still time for us to call you out as a last resort.”
“Got it,” Wanda mumbled, unhappy with being a ‘last resort’.
“See you on the other side, kid,” Steve saluted and then he was gone along with the rest of the team.
Wanda huffed quietly to herself and turned back to the TV. She and Natasha had been watching a drama that Wanda couldn’t remember the name of for the life of her, and, up until now, she’d been enraptured.
But, with very recent developments, she could no longer focus.
Rolling her eyes, she floated the remote over to herself from the coffee table and turned the TV off, knowing she would no longer be able to remember anything that happened from here on out.
She stood up from the couch and headed over to the kitchen instead, deciding to just grab a quick snack and relocate to her room instead until the Avengers got back.
For a minute she milled about, unsure what she wanted before she ultimately grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl. She brought out a knife, choosing to cut it into slices so she didn’t have to peel it and set about doing so.
It was just as she was making the last cut that she accidentally nicked her finger and hissed.
“Shit,” she mumbled aloud, looking down at the small red line on her finger with displeasure.
Sighing, she moved to the cupboard where the medicine was kept and removed a bandaid. Then she went to the sink and ran the water to wash the the cut before using the bandaid.
She held it under for a while, wondering how the Avengers were going to cope against an enhanced individual. Especially Natasha. She was only human after all. She could hold her own against Wanda for a little while in training but that was only because she was so familiar with the witch’s abilities, she’d figured out the pattern in Wanda’s attacks.
But against an unknown familiar? Did she stand a chance?
Wanda couldn’t help but think back to the ship yard when she and Pietro had fought against the Avengers. The team of superheroes had been completely outmatched and yet they still fought.
She wondered if this was what was happening now. Would they be okay? Would they come back in a few hours with barely a scrape? Or would they return in a worse condition?
Again, her mind flashed to Natasha.
It took every ounce of energy not to just say screw it and make her way into the city anyway to help her team.
Hello?
Wanda startled, pulling her hand away from the cold water as if it’d scalded her, and looked around as if she could locate the voice even though she knew it had come from inside her head.
“Hello…” Wanda muttered.
That wasn’t the Scarlet Witch, she realised belatedly. This must be…
Where am I?
”You’re in the Avenger’s Compound,” Wanda answered.
Slowly she dried her hand with a paper towel and wrapped her cut up with the small bandaid.
Where is that? Who are you?
”I’m Wanda,” Wanda frowned.
How could Wendy not know who she was when they were sharing the same body? Did she not know?
Wanda… Why does that sound so familiar?
”What’s your name?” Wanda asked even though she knew.
Wendy.
Wanda nodded and looked at the apple she’d been cutting up.
She reached for it again, meaning to pick up where she left off and unsure of what Wendy would do now. But just as she touched it, her hand pulled back and lifted to her head to nurse it instead, and Wanda gasped lightly.
Wendy was talking control of her body without meaning to.
I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know where I am. I don’t remember… there was this woman, I think. Red hair. And… I was looking for my boys.
“Your boys?” Wanda prompted confusedly.
Billy and Tommy. Twins. I don’t know where they are, and I need to find them. They could get hurt. They’re still young.
“You have children?”
Now Wanda frowned, her heart beginning to race. Children. Wendy couldn’t have children. Surely Wanda would know something like that.
Instinctively, her hand moved to nurse her stomach as if she could feel for a bump that didn’t exist.
Yes, and I need to find them and bring them home. I need to know that they’re safe, but I don’t know where I am or how I got here!
You need to calm down, Wendy, the Scarlet Witch interrupted, and Wanda almost sighed with relief at her appearance. You’re in America and you’re safe. Your children are too, you know that.
No, I don’t! I don’t know anything! I don’t know where my boys are, if they’re hurt or in danger! They’ve been without me for God knows how long, and I need to find them now!
Wanda was beginning to gain a headache. This time she really nursed her head, letting her eyes clench shut as she shook her head.
“Please, just be quiet,” she pleaded with Wendy, but the woman didn’t. She continued on in a panicked frenzy about her twins who were lost out there without her. “I can’t think.”
Did Wendy truly have children? If so, what had happened to them? Why weren’t they here? How old were they?
These were questions that Wanda desperately wanted the answers to but knew she wouldn’t get, so she didn’t bother asking right now.
She planted her palms on the counter and breathed heavily in and out, trying to block out Wendy and the Scarlet Witch’s conversation, and hear her own thoughts but it was practically impossible.
And just when she opened her eyes to snap at them, wanting to talk to them but in a civil manner, she caught sight of her reflection in the marble counters.
Slowly, from there she began to drift away. She could see herself- her face and her eyes, and her hands still planted on the counter- but she began to lose sight of it all, piece by piece.
Her breathing felt and sounded laboured, getting heavier by the second, and blackness ebbed away at the corners of her vision as Wanda slowly felt herself fading away.
She tried to claw on and stay, but she couldn’t. Someone- whether it was Wendy or the Scarlet Witch- was moving to the front.
And with their arrival, Wanda disappeared once more.
Natasha frustratedly grunted as a large chunk of debris was launched once more in her direction. This time she only barely dodged out of the way before jumping to her feet and sprinting away to a safer place.
The enhanced she and the Avengers had come to stop turned out to have telekinetic powers not unlike Wanda’s except, unlike the woman, the young boy was clearly inexperienced and he seemed to have almost no control over them. It was more like they were controlling him.
And so, after attempting to calm him down for nearly the past hour to no avail, the Avengers had reluctantly decided to get close and subdue him instead. Luckily, Tony had sedatives stored away in his suit that he rarely used, preferring mostly to go with other more… lethal weapons.
So they came in handy when, eventually, Natasha ended up managing to distract the boy and Tony was able to get close enough to shoot a small projectile into the back of the boy’s neck.
Suddenly, all of the chaos that had reigned since the boy lost control ended. Debris and rubble crashed to the floor around them, cars were dropped without care, and the noise seemed to stop altogether.
Natasha let out a breath of relieved air and pushed her hair back out of her eyes. She returned her batons to their holsters and slowly approached the now sluggish boy along with Steve.
When he suddenly began to slump, Steve was quick to dart forwards and catch him.
Looking down at the boy, Natasha felt a strange pang in her heart. He was too young for something like this.
Somehow, she was reminded of Wanda. Her mind conjured up the image of what she’d seen in the other woman’s mind- of her time with HYDRA.
She couldn’t imagine the fear this boy must be feeling now.
“I’m sorry,” he slurred quietly.
Natasha almost didn’t hear him, so she crouched down next to him and Steve so that, if he spoke again, she would hear him better.
“It’s not your fault,” Steve reassured him.
“Didn’t mean…” the boy blinked heavily. “Couldn’t st…”
“What’s your name, kid?” Natasha asked.
The boy’s eyes drifted over to her slowly. It took him a moment before he managed to reply.
“Harv…” and then he passed out, unable to fight the sedative’s effects anymore.
Natasha sighed.
After handing the kid off to SHIELD for them to deal with him, the Avengers returned home to the Compound in the Quinjet.
When it landed on the roof, Natasha was the first to hop off, desperately for a hot bath and some quality time with Wanda. She wondered if the woman would want to hear about their mission or if it might only bring up painful memories for her of her time with HYDRA.
Natasha pushed it to the back of her mind and headed straight for the communal area first to see if Wanda was still there. When she only found it empty, she frowned but decided to check Wanda’s bedroom instead.
As she turned around, she noticed the orange slices on the side and the knife that had clearly been used to cut it up. Frowning, she approached the counter and found bandaid wrappings left on the side as well as a speck of blood.
“FRIDAY, is Wanda in her room?” She spoke aloud, an uneasy feeling now beginning to settle in her stomach.
“Negative, Agent Romanoff,” FRIDAY answered.
“Is she in the building?” Natasha asked with more urgency.
“Ms Maximoff left the Compound roughly one hour ago,” FRIDAY replied, “she seemed in distress before she left. I believe she was talking to the Scarlet Witch.”
Natasha’s eyes widened marginally before she recovered.
“Shit,” she said. “Why didn’t you call this into us?”
“Boss’ orders.”
“I’m gonna kill Tony,” Natasha growled.
Quickly, she left the communal area, continuing to speak to FRIDAY as she went.
“Do we have any idea of where she might’ve gone?” She asked. “Did she say anything in particular?”
“She didn’t mention any location, though she kept mentioning her children. Records indicate that Ms Maximoff doesn’t have any children,” FRIDAY said.
“Wendy,” Natasha realised, and suddenly the bad feeling she’d had before grew tenfold.
She put her best foot forward.
“FRIDAY, tell me where Tony is.”
After barging in on Tony just leaving his shower and demanding he get dressed, Natasha damn near kicked his ass for his order to FRIDAY.
He at least had the decency to look guilty when he learned what’d happened.
Natasha then ordered him to help her find Wanda. And though he looked reluctant, he soon agreed and they headed down to gather the rest of the team.
Notes:
It’s been a while haha
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