Chapter Text
There is a place in Wanda’s mind, still, and cold, and silent.
She goes there sometimes. When the men come. When they take Pietro. When she knows what comes next. They will come for her next.
Still. Something deep inside Wanda is still, even as the door of her cell unlocks, even as she answers the barked commands. She gets up, moves forward, leaves the cell. Down the corridor. Into the laboratory. She moves. But inside, she is still. Still like a mouse hidden from a cat. Still like a child that knows there is nowhere to run. Still.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Cold. Wanda feels cold, in the depths of her stomach. A sick twisting feeling that is not quite like sickness. The laboratory is warm. It always is. But the warmth is skin deep. A pretence that they care about her. It does not reach her bones. She knows the lie of it. Just as she knows the scientists words are lies. It is not necessary that she is naked. It is a lie. It is not warmth. It is not necessary. She is cold.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Silent. She is silent but the world is not. The hum of machines. The harsh commands of soldiers. The rustle of lab-coats. Gentle hands on her skin. Gentle words in her own language. “Relax. You can trust me.” They are lies. Gentle is a lie. Choice is a lie. Water drips far away. Drip. Drip. Drip. Tiny sounds in a sea of noise, but she hears it. Drip. Drip. Drip. It will be over soon. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Harsh straps over her skin.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It smells of antiseptic and mould.
A needle. She doesn’t like needles. She whimpers once, then falls silent. She must be silent. She is the mouse. She is the child. There is nowhere to run.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Fire. Fire burning through her, and her silence falls away like torn wet paper. She arches, screams ripping from her throat, movement and heat and noise, but inside, inside she is still, and cold, and silent.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Harsh commands and harsher straps. Hands that linger when they need not. Adjusting. Gentle. It is a lie.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Time passes, measured only by changing soldiers. New ones come. Old ones go.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The fire fades to heat. Agony fades to pain.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
A hand caresses her neck, then presses to take a pulse. The soldiers are still here.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Will she live?” Yes. Wanda will live. A tear slides down the side of her face. She knows what comes next.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Out. I will take care of her now.”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Soldiers move. Scientists move. She is still.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He turns the heat up. Wanda feels cold and cold and cold.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He undoes his belt. Loosens her straps.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He grunts, thrusting up and down. Moans. He is sound. She is silence.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It will be over soon.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Soon.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Time twists. Stretches and shortens. It is forever. It is a moment.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He washes her. Warm water on a soft cloth. He moves her body, but inside she is still.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The laboratory is warmer than her cell ever is. She will not feel warm water again until next time. Inside, she is cold.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He talks to her. Gentle words of his family. His home. They are lies. He is not gentle. She is silent.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It is over. The straps are undone. An order is barked, harsh once more. She dresses. She moves, but she is still inside.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
She is led back down to her cell. Pietro is not in his yet. Her heart twists with worry, but there is relief too. There is time. She steps into her cell. Retreats into the corner. Wipes the tears from her eyes. Pietro must not see when he comes. Pietro must not know. He must not see her face.
When they bring him she shakes her hair down and peers at him through it. He is pale. There is a thick line of red across his forehead. He has been strapped down too. But he walks on his own. Strong and defiant. Her Pietro. She can trust him. He is the only one she can trust. He is all she has. All she needs. They have each other. It is enough.
------------------
It is different this time. Something is different. The soldiers take them together. Her and Pietro.
They walk to a new laboratory together. Wanda has not seen it before. She looks at Pietro, and her twin shakes his head. He has not seen it before.
Wanda doesn’t like this. She doesn’t want Pietro there. She doesn’t want him to see the after. After the experiment is done. He must not see. He must not know.
She wants to be still. She wants to be cold. She wants to be silent. She wants to hear the dripping.
She wants to be far away.
She must not. Pietro is here. She must be strong for Pietro. She must be strong with Pietro. They must be strong. They must be brave.
Pietro squeezed their linked hands. His jaw is set. His eyes are angry. They are always angry. Wanda wonders if her eyes are angry too. There is a harsh command, but for once Wanda does not listen. For once she is not still, she is not cold, she is not silent. “No”
A soldier steps forward, strikes her hard and fast across her face. Pietro shouts, and Wanda gasps as he is struck too. No. Not Pietro. She forces her fingers to open. Obeys the command. Pietro’s fingers tighten around hers for a single moment, then he obeys too. For her.
They are strapped to separate tables.
But this time is different.
This time they are together. This time she can see Pietro. Can look into his eyes. They are together. It is enough.
This time there are no needles. Instead there is a long metal thing, with a strange core glowing blue. This time wires are taped to their skin. Then the scientist attach Pietro’s wires to the glowing blue thing. He screams, loud and terrible and Wanda is fighting. She is fighting and fighting and fighting and she is screaming too. She is movement and heat and sound and rage, rage, rage. Not Pietro. Not her brother. No. No. No. No.
Then her own wires are connected, and she feels fire. Fire like she has never felt before. She is screaming too. Screaming with unadulterated agony. Pietro is screaming her name. Her brother. Her twin. Her heart. The fire is reaching for her mind. It wants to take her. It wants to take her mind. It wants to take the things that make her Wanda. But Pietro is there. She cannot let it take her. Pietro will be alone. Pietro screams her name, and all is fire and heat and agony but she screams his name back. She will fight for Pietro. Pietro will fight for her. She can trust him. He can trust her. She will never let go, for him. He will never let go, for her. They are all they have. They are together. It is enough.
The fire enters her mind, but she will not bend. She will not break. Her mind is fire, but the fire is hers. Her body is fire, but the fire is hers. It is hers. It is hers. The agony fades into pain, but the fire remains. It is hers now.
She has changed.
She can feel everything. The tips of her toes. The roots of her hair. The fire in her veins. It is hers.
Pietro. She can feel Pietro. He has changed too. There is something in him too. Not fire. Sharp and crackling. Like lightning. He opens his eyes and looks at her, and she looks back. He held on for her. She held on for him. They can trust each other. They have each other. It is enough.
He has changed. She has changed. But that will never change. They have each other. It is enough. The two of them against the world.
It will not always be so. She feels it inside herself. Something tiny. Something new. Inside herself. A tiny beating heart. It will become the three of them.
The soldiers must not know. The soldiers must never know. She cannot trust them. She can trust no-one but Pietro. She will not tell them. She will not even tell Pietro, not until the soldiers leave them alone. That will not happen. That will never happen. It didn’t then. It surely won’t now. Pietro will forgive her. He can trust her. She can trust him. He will protect her. He will protect her baby. She can trust him. He is the only one she can trust.
-------------
The pain fades completely, and with it the ability to be able to feel her body. She presses her hands against her belly, but even so, she cannot feel the life inside it. Red light wraps around her hands and arms like mist, wild and uncontrolled, but it doesn’t hurt anymore. She doesn’t think it will ever hurt her again.
The scientists run tests on them. Tests and tests and tests, but it is different now. They are not allowed to take risks anymore. They are valuable now. Her and Pietro. After the experiments never comes. Perhaps it will never come again. Wanda dares to hope.
They are taken back to their cells, but it is different now. They are given blankets. A pillow each. The food they are given is hot, and more plentiful. It is good. Wanda must eat. A life inside her requires it. She does not tell Pietro. They are watched all the time. She cannot risk it. Not even to tell Pietro.
She feels him across the wall. He cannot control his power. His speed. He moves impossibly fast, bounces off the walls over and over and over. But he is ok. The pain is small in comparison to what has come before. He is safe. They will not experiment further. They are prisoners here. They are not safe. But they are safer. They have each other. It is enough.
------------
She learns to control her power. Control the red heat in her veins. Learns to do things with it. The world bends to her will now. The toy bricks they give her dance in the air, and at her command they shatter. She could make the door open if she wishes. Could twist the mechanism inside the lock and open it without a key, but she does not. She is steal learning to control this new power inside her, and she does not think know if she can stop bullets. She does not know if she can protect Pietro. She does not know if she can protect her child. She will not take the risk. Not with them.
She still has not told Pietro. There has never been an opportunity. It has been two months, and she can feel the baby inside her again, if she turns her power inwards. A tiny little heart beat-beating inside her. A so-frail life growing a tiny, tiny piece every day. She will protect them. She promises herself that. She will protect Pietro. He will protect her. They will both protect her baby. They will have each other. It is enough.
--------------
By the time the Avengers come, her belly is beginning to stick out. She is hiding it under her dress, careful to never, never let her dress sit flat against her skin. The sickness has long passed, but now her body is beginning to ache, and she is always hungry. Her back, her groin, her thighs, she always aches, and she knows she needs to eat more. She must eat for her baby. She thinks her baby is a girl. She is frightened that she will still be here when she comes. If she and Pietro are still here then, the soldiers might take her baby. When the Avengers come she is relieved.
They do not know what the attack is when it first comes, only that the soldiers are agitated. They are brought clothes. The clothes they wore when they first came. It feels like a long, long, long time ago. Wanda turns her back as she changes, but something still feels still, and cold, and silent inside her. And there is a new fear on top of it. The soldiers must not see. They must not see her belly.
They are released from their cells, told that the Avengers have come, that the enemy has come. Strucker himself comes to speak to them. Reiterates what they have been told many times before. The Avengers are bad people. They must be stopped. Pietro and Wanda are to stop them.
Wanda wants to stay with Pietro, she wants to fight with him. The soldiers are bad people too, Wanda knows this. The soldiers are using them, just as they always have, but Wanda will obey for now if it means safety. And if it means revenge. Stark took their parents. Stark took everything. They want him to pay. But she wants to fight with Pietro. She wants to know her brother will be safe.
But Pietro is sent outside, and she is kept inside, and she can only feel him, running faster than the wind outside, too far away for her to protect. She stalks off down the halls alone. Pretends she does not know that they are planning to run. This is it. They will get their revenge, and then she and Pietro will flee. They will be safe. They will be together. Whatever else happens, that will be enough.
So she lies in wait, and when the Avengers come, she fights. She throws Captain America down the stairs, and slams the doors behind her with a flash of her power, and then she goes looking for Stark. The fool doesn’t even see her. So arrogant. And so helpless without his missiles. It is easy to twist his mind against him. Easy to dig her powers into his mind and tease out everything he fears. It feels good. Feels good to hurt him, to make him feel fear and grief and despair. To feel everything he made her feel, everything he made Pietro feel. It feels good to destroy him slowly, from the inside out. It feels almost as good as practising on the soldiers had felt.
She is not helpless anymore. She will never again hide under the bed. She will never again lie still and cold and silent. There will be no more missiles. No more After. No more.
She lets Stark take the metal thing that changed her and Pietro, knowing he will fashion his own destruction with it. It will slow his fall, make it all the more bitter, all the more devastating. She and Pietro watch him take it and leave, and then they leave too. They flee this place of suffering and pain and they go back to the streets where they spent so long. They steal money on the way out, fill their pockets with money enough to by lodgings and food for weeks. She does not think it is wrong. Not after Strucker lied to them. Not after everything they did to them. It is not wrong to take money from them.
They buy food. Street food she has not tasted in so, so long, and they eat until they are truly, genuinely full, and then find a guest-house, pay for a nights stay. They rent only one room, and it only has one bed, but they don’t mind. They sleep as they always had, before Strucker, together. When they were young, they kicked and bickered over the blanket, and when they were older (still young, still far too young) they huddled together for warmth in whatever meagre shelter they could find, but now they curl up together just for the sake of it. They do not need warmth, the blankets are thick and soft, but still Pietro wraps his arms around her and holds her close, and she rests her head on his chest where she can hear the reassuring beat of his heart. They are safe. They are together.
This is the time. Safe and warm and full of food. This is the time when she should tell Pietro. Tell him about the little life in her belly, which he would feel if his arm was just two inches lower. Tell him about her probably-daughter. But she does not.
She loves her baby with everything in her, but she can’t help remembering being still and cold and silent, and she does not want Pietro to know. Pietro who knew they had been with Strucker far too long for it to be anything but what it was. Pietro would know it had not been just the once. Pietro would look at her and know she’d been still and cold and silent, and his heart would break for her. She must tell Pietro, she must. He trusts her and she trusts him. She needs him as he needs her. They will both need him, her baby and her. She can’t do this alone. But she doesn’t want to tell Pietro.
Not tonight. Not when they are newly free. Not when the feel of soft blankets is so fresh and perfect. Not when there is good, warm, Sokovian food inside them for the first time in over 18 months. Not tonight. Tomorrow. She will tell Pietro tomorrow.
---------------
She does not tell Pietro tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, Ultron finds them, and then they are busy helping him. She does not want to tell Pietro where anyone else can hear. It is an excuse. She lets herself believe it is a good one.
They take on the Avengers again, help Ultron bring them down. She strikes at Stark’s team-mates minds, takes his family from him like he took theirs from them. Their minds bend under her power, and she teases out their fears and dreams, the secret things of their minds. She sends Captain America and Thor to strange, not quite right parties within their own minds. She sends Black Widow back to a place that sends chills all through her body, that reminds her of being still and cold and silent, and she tells herself she does not feel guilty. But she does feel guilty, and she feels still and cold and silent, and it makes her sloppy. She is not fast enough to get Hawkeye, and his arrow hits her in the head and pain is crackling through her body. It is not the worst she has felt but it is hot and painful and terrible and she is afraid. She is afraid for the tiny, frail life in her belly, she is afraid it will not survive.
Pietro, wonderful, reliable Pietro rescues her. She can trust him. She can rely on him. He will always protect her, and he is all she needs. Her baby thrashes in her belly, and she feels it’s pain and she is angry. She will make them pay for that. She stops Pietro before he can go back in. She wants him with her. And she wants to finish the plan. The Hulk is next. It is easy to tease out the rage in him, so easy when rage beats in her own chest and lies so close to the surface in his. She releases the Hulk and they escape with Ultron in the chaos that follows, and they go to Seoul with him. It is the farthest they have ever been away from home but she doesn’t want to see the sights, not even with Pietro at her side. They go to a laboratory, where Ultron makes a doctor build him a new body. Wanda asks Pietro to watch him, and says she is going for a walk, that she’d like to be alone, but they shouldn’t both leave him.
It is the first time in years she has lied to her brother, and guilt is swift and instant. She should tell him the truth. She must tell him, but now is not the time. They must focus on Ultron first. So she goes off alone and finds a doctor, and tells her she is pregnant, and she needs to know if her baby is healthy.
The doctor is frightened, of her or of Ultron she doesn’t know and doesn’t care, but she softens when she hears Wanda is pregnant. She asks lots of questions, asks about the father, and Wanda goes still and cold and silent and doesn’t answer. The doctor stops asking when she goes silent, and directs her to drink too much water and lie down, and Wanda obeys because she is still and cold and silent and she knows she will be punished if she does not.
But when she obeys straps don’t follow, and pain doesn’t follow, and instead she is shown a picture of her baby, and told she is expecting a daughter. She is seven months pregnant. She looks at the picture of her daughter, sees her moving on the screen as she feels her moving inside her, and the still and cold and silence don’t seem so strong, so overwhelming. She is here, and she is now, and they will never touch her again. Her baby needs her now. Her daughter has her, and she has Pietro, and they will be together and it is enough. It is more than enough.
When she returns, Pietro asks her if she enjoyed herself and she does not lie when she says she had. For the first time in a long time she is happy. Truly deeply happy, and it is wonderful, but it shatters when she places her hands on the coffin that will become Ultron and she reads his mind, and she sees what he has planned.
He will destroy them. He will destroy them all. He will end this world and it would be her fault. She wanted Stark to destroy himself, but he has made something that will destroy them all. He will destroy Pietro. He will destroy her daughter.
No.
They fight. The Avengers come and they keep fighting. She stops a train, and it is the most she has ever done with her power, and she feels the strain in her body, reaches deep, and finds she has more power to pull up. The train stops, the wheels and momentum bending to her will, and her baby kicks hard at her stomach and she gasps with pain. She must be careful. She must not strain herself too much. It won’t just be her who suffers.
She must tell Pietro. Pietro must know, must know so he can act accordingly. She is strong now, but she can’t take risks with the life inside her. Her baby needs both of them. But the Avengers take them when they leave, and Wanda will not tell Pietro in front of them. She cannot trust them. Who knew what they would do with her baby? They are angry, all so angry, and she must not show them she is vulnerable.
The Avengers argue, they fight about what to do with Ultron’s new body. She is right, Stark wants to make another Ultron, as if the one he made isn’t destructive enough. Banner threatens to break her neck and she feels guilt curl around her heart again. She has not cared who she hurt in her quest to hurt Stark. Now she sees the result of her cruelty. She is afraid. She is not sure if he will really do it, and if she dies, she thinks her daughter will die with her. She cannot let that happen.
She escapes his grasp, but it is too late to stop Thor from bringing Ultron’s body to life. But it is not Ultron, it is something new, and Wanda thinks this time it is something good. The robot is called Vision, and he is not like Ultron. He truly wants to protect the world. He says they must fight Ultron, and the Avengers listen, and Wanda and Pietro are going with them. They must. Pietro wants to go, and Wanda would never let him go alone. And she must go too. She must help fix what she has helped create.
She ought to tell Pietro about her daughter. He will be angry at her for this. Deeply angry. He will not easily forgive her for going into battle with a baby, small and vulnerable, in her belly. But she does not tell him. Pietro needs her, as she needs him. They rely on each other. They do everything together. She will not let him go alone, and she will not stand by without trying to fix what she broke. She will just have to be careful.
But the fighting is desperate and chaotic. She uses her power to send as many civilians as she can to safety, and learns that she can block bullets, but it is hard and the fighting has taken Pietro far from her side, and she is frightened. She is so frightened. She hides inside a building with Hawkeye, and she shakes with fear and she shakes with guilt, but Hawkeye brushes it aside. He tells her she can stay here, that he will send Pietro to get her, but he also tells her she can go out there, she can fight, and she can be an Avenger.
She makes her choice.
She is done lying still. She will never again lie still and cold and silent. The power in her veins makes her powerful. Makes her strong. Strong enough to protect herself. Strong enough to protect her baby. Strong enough to make it right. So she goes out, and she fights, and she fights to kill, and she becomes an Avenger.
Everything is chaotic after that. One fight runs into another, and there are few moments of stillness. She sees Black Widow again, feels guilt twist in her heart but the Avenger only makes a comment about the jacket she is wearing. She had not realised it was Black Widow’s jacket she had borrowed. It does not really matter. The battle continues, and they end up back in the church, protecting a piece of metal that could bring Sokovia crashing to the ground, destroying half the world in the process.
The other Avengers leave, and she says she can protect the core. She fights, digging deep inside her power like never before, digging deeper and deeper and finding her power is so much deeper than she knew. She holds her ground and she protects the core and then she feels pain and she knows it is not hers.
Pietro .
No.
She screams like she has never screamed before, and her power explodes from her, washing out in a devastating wave destroying every piece of Ultron she can reach, and still it goes further. Pietro is far away, but he is not too far away. Her brother will never be too far away. Not for her. She cannot see him, she cannot hear him, but she can feel him, and her power finds him. She works on nothing but instinct, pulling bullets from his body, holding his blood inside it, knitting his body together and slowing her brothers impossibly fast heart. She feels someone else touch her brothers body, someone else begin to apply pressure to remaining wounds, and she knows he is safe. He will live. He is safe.
Ultron will pay for this.
She leaves the church, finds Ultron and rips out his heart. She makes him suffer like he made Pietro suffer. Makes him feel what she did for that single, endless, eternal second when she thought her brother, her heart, had died.
But she has made a mistake. She left her post, and there is a single Ultron suit left, and the city is falling.
The city is falling, and Iron Man is going to destroy it, and for the second time in her life Stark is going to kill her and someone she loves, and this time she has only herself to blame.
She led Stark to make Ultron.
She helped Ultron get the Vibranium.
She brought her baby to a battlefield.
She left shelter to become an Avenger.
She left her post to get revenge.
She has killed her daughter.
And then Vision saves her, and somehow, she has been given another chance. Vision brings her to Pietro, brings her to her brother, her twin, her heart. Pietro is pale, his clothes soaked in blood, but his chest rises and falls irregularly, and he is breathing, and he will live, and it is enough. She can feel his mind, knows it has closed itself off, but he is alive and he will heal and it is enough. It is enough.
They are alive. They are all three of them alive. They have lost much, Pietro and her, and many have died because of their search for revenge, but Pietro and her daughter are alive, and they will all heal, and Wanda will try to make it right. She is an Avenger now. She cannot bring back the dead, but she can work to stop more from dying. She will do what she can. And when he wakes, however long that takes, she knows Pietro will be want the same. She knows Pietro like he knows himself, as he knows her. He will be angry, when he wakes and she finally tells him the truth, she knows that. But he will forgive her. He always has, and he always will. He will love her daughter, as Wanda does. He will help protect her, and they will have each other. They will be together, and it would be more than enough.