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all she can see is red.
x
she is ten when her world is reduced to rubble, one person and a word branded into her nightmares: STARK.
she is ten and he is twelve minutes older, holding her close. she is ten and she watches her parents fall into a hole in the floor, like her stomach dropping out from beneath her, and he is pulling her hand and saving her, like always.
she is ten when she understands what war is—war is loud, war is pain, war is ticking time bombs and the feeling of staring death in the face and wondering what minute movement will make it take you. war is the ground giving way beneath her, and watching her parents fall and the only thing keeping her from slipping is the feeling of her brother's arms around her, their fingers entwined as she trembles in his arms and he tries to make his breaths sound less finite.
war is fear, and the threat of stealing the one thing she has left that matters, the only thing she has left that matters. war is STARK and it is cold and brutal and stained onto her eyes, and no amount of blinking can make it go away.
x
joining the protests are his idea, but neither of them entertain the possibility of doing it without her express approval.
truthfully, she isn't sure why they do it—pietro has always been quick, both of limb and of temper, and there is something in him that burns for the feeling of doing something, and she thinks that's probably it, because she is wanda maximoff and pietro may protect her, but she looks after him, and he needs this.
part of her thinks that maybe she needs a way to scream out all the feelings locked in her chest, to wage war and grief and endless, maddening rage against STARK and everything he stands for, against destruction and recklessness and brutality and not caring about the innocent people who die for no damned reason.
she is a whirlwind of emotion, memories locked within her, burning for vengeance, and he is open with his fury and disdain, wanting to tear down their podiums and statues and STARK: BETTER LIVING THROUGH TECHNOLOGY, because STARK is poison and death and fear and grief and watching their parents fall and wondering if they are going to die, every second for two days straight, and she understands his burning desire to tear it down, to show tony stark what his technology did to their lives.
there are moments when she wonders if this is what patriotism is, if this desire for vengeance is born out of the pain of watching a scarred sokovia try rise to its feet again, only to fall down again, silenced by the world.
on the days she is most truthful with herself, she thinks it might be all of it—but it doesn't matter, not really, because at the end of the day, pietro wants to walk into this fight, wants to volunteer to save his country and rip tony stark and his ilk to sheds, and wanda maximoff knows many things, but how to let her brother walk into this alone is not one of them.
he is all she has, and she will fight for him until the ends of the earth try to rip them apart.
x
"are you scared?" she asks him in an undertone, her fingers snaking down his wrist towards his hand.
pietro looks at her, blinking and beautiful and her brother and the only thing in the entire world that matters anymore. his fingers skitter over her skin, dancing over her fingers and the back of her palm as he gives the slightest shake of his head. his eyes are glinting with something mischievous and amused and so pietro that she has it committed to memory without even thinking about it, and the slight wryness to his smirk is present in his tone as he opens his mouth to speak.
"no," he says, something just shy of arrogance staining his voice. "you are with me—what is there to be scared of?"
wanda captures his dancing fingers in her own, holding his hand and interlocking their fingers, and somehow it still feels like she's ten and they're holding onto each other because they cannot leave the other, they cannot let the other die, and if so, especially not alone, and that has not changed in the years since that horrible memory.
she shoots him the briefest of smiles, soft and brilliant, and is rewarded with one of his own, squeezing her hand as he does so, and she has never felt safer than when she is with him, holding him, not even before their world fell apart and changed the rules on them.
x
the worst part is that they are separated.
she knows he is next door. even if she couldn't hear him thudding into things—and it makes her flinch, every time, because what if he actually hurts himself and what if she's not there to help him and to hold him what if what if what if—she can feel it in her bones. she thinks she would be in genuine pain if she was separated much further from him; it's already distressing enough, not being with him, but if there was any more space than the already too-thick wall separating them, she thinks she would explode.
perhaps literally, now that she has these enhancements.
it's part of the issue, actually—she's fascinated by what she can do, about the telekinesis, about the red blasts, about the thoughts that keep screaming louder than her own, but it makes it worse, because what's happening to pietro?
the first time she sees into his mind, she shatters the glass keeping her contained.
she runs out before anyone can react and turns to face him, to look at him, to sob because all she could see was his fears, his thoughts, him forced to watch her die and she needs to let him know she's okay and she needs to know he's okay and she's shouting his name intermittently with screams of pure unadulterated desperation, pelting her fists against the glass of his cage and slamming her small frame into it—
and suddenly pietro is beside the glass in a flash and he's looking at her and his blue eyes are drinking her in, soaking her up, and she lets out a half-sob in relief, because he's okay, pietro is okay—
and then he's on the other side of his cell with a blur of blue and a smack of impact and she finally understands what the constant thuds are. there are only scientists around, scientists who would never dare hurt her, not when they've been monitoring her newfound abilities, but the guards are coming soon, she knows.
"pietro," she calls out, fixing him with the gaze she's perfected over the years—he protects her, always has, and she knows he always will, but he is quick-witted and quick-tempered and she is the only one who can calm him down, and it is this searching, calming look she fixes him with now, this one that yearns to take care of him. "are you okay?" she continues, her voice breaking slightly on the final syllable.
he cracks a grin. "now that i know you are," he says simply, and her heart swells, because he is more than her brother, her best friend—he is all she has, and she understands the need for certainty.
she lets out a sigh of relief, collapsing against his glass. behind her, she hears the thuds of footsteps, but she cannot tear her eyes from pietro. "i saw it," she whispers to him, and it would be a confession, except a confession implies hiding something originally, and she has never hidden anything from her brother, nor vice versa. "what you thought—" and here she cuts off, frowning slightly, because it isn't quite right. "no," she says slowly. "what you were scared had happened to me," she clarifies, fixing him with wide eyes.
pietro's face shuts down for a second, before opening up again, fierce and unbelievably alive. "i will not let that happen," he promises her fervently, practically spitting out the words, and she nods slowly.
"i know," she murmurs, and she's graced with his softest smile, and his palm splayed against the glass. she lifts hers and fans her fingers out, pressing her hand against the glass to meet his.
"how did you see?" he asks, and she doesn't even need to ask for clarification.
"it's one of the, ah, side effects," she manages wryly, her lips twisted into a mockery of a smirk, but it turns into a genuine smile at his laughter.
"i was wondering what you were doing in there," he replies. she opens her mouth but his expression changes, and she's suddenly aware of someone behind her.
"whatever it is, it's intense," she says softly, one final reply, before she turns her head. "baron," she says with a nod, still watching her brother from the side of her eye. she presses her hand even harder against the glass for a second before letting go and glancing at the baron, her expression relatively unrepentant at the sight of all the glass on the floor. "i wanted to see my brother. the glass was not conducive to my aim."
behind her, she hears pietro laugh, and a glimmer of a smile plays upon her lips.
x
"stark," pietro growls, and wanda nods absent-mindedly.
"do not worry," she says. "i have seen his fear. he will destroy himself—though, that should be of no surprise." she glances at pietro, her eyes hard in a way most people tend to think only pietro's are prone to being; wanda does not understand why, because she hurts minds and souls, and that seems infinitely more vicious than what pietro does to their bodies, though she does not deny that her brother can break any heart with the way he is haunted by their past. "after all, destruction is stark's legacy, no?"
"may he be the last to suffer from it," pietro murmurs, half a vow, half a prayer, and she reaches out and takes his hand, echoing his words silently.
x
she can't believe she was so stupid; how could she let this happen?
ultron wants to eradicate humankind, and while she, more than most, understands the flaws and intricate cruelties of the human race, she cannot allow it to happen. she has not only doomed the world, but she has pulled pietro into it—pietro, twelve minutes older, her eternal protector, but she was meant to take care of him, and she has failed.
when they see the broadcast, pietro only has to look at her, and she knows they have made a decision.
he picks her up, holds her close to his chest, and runs with her, depositing her on one end of the train as he shoots off, saving the american from ultron.
she sees ultron focus on pietro, and no, she will not fail again—not pietro, and not to ultron. it is instinct to take care of pietro, but this is protecting him, moving the rails to defend him, and all she has is a look of recognition, acknowledgement and affection from her brother before ultron's gaze turns to hers, and she sets her jaw, standing her ground.
she is wanda maximoff, and she will not go down without a fight.
x
she feels out of place.
it is not the accent, necessarily, nor the powers. it isn't even that she's been inside all of their heads, though that certainly hasn't helped things.
they are in america, in the avengers tower, within metres of stark, in his own tower, nonetheless, and he has not acted in any way she expects, except surveying her and pietro with distrust—it is not pleasant, and she is rankled on instinct, but she cannot blame him. she brought to the front of his mind an image that haunts him, that belongs deep in his subconscious with all the other darkness he buries, and that is not something easy to handle.
the one who electrocuted her is especially untrusting, but she understands—he is the only one whose head she has not entered, but she does not think she needs to. the widow is missing, and she would have to be blind not to see that the lack of romanoff's presence is provoking panic in the archer.
it is the vision who makes her feel more comfortable. she did not quite expect it—she had actively campaigned for not allowing him to exist, after all—but he, at least, provides some strange sense of comfort. perhaps it is his motivations, the fact that he is on the side of life: theoretically, she knows, the avengers fight for this too, and the vision is apparently created from something of stark's design, but there is something in him that is unassuming and noble, and she finds herself accepting his presence without meaning to.
it is an odd sensation, and not one that pietro misses, if his raised eyebrow is any indication. he says nothing, though, simply pulling on a blue shirt—the tower is surprisingly accommodating for the twins—and throwing a red leather jacket at her with a grin.
she catches it and stares at it, her lips widening into a smile as he pulls her along. "put it on," he says, amused affection in his voice, and she rolls her eyes, but complies.
x
hawkeye may have electrocuted her, but he also just gave her the best pep talk she's ever heard. it wasn't quite as encouraging as pietro's presence is, but given that the archer is not pietro—and, on top of that, is american—she's impressed. he raises valid points, and while she knows that she would be perfectly within her rights to stay inside, she doesn't want to. this is her mess—all of their mess, yes, but she is just as at fault as anyone else, and she owes it to the world to fight for them.
it is her job.
so she strides out the doors, pushing them open with aplomb, before blasting away the robots—the different forms of ultron. it was never a pleasant concept to wrap her head around, that they were all ultron, when she was so used to dealing with what she thought of as the main ultron, but she does not have time to think of it now. she has a battle to fight and a world to save.
perhaps this time, she would learn what it felt like to win the war.
x
"it is my job," she says, and when hawkeye nods at her, she feels something like pride swell within her.
she is distinctly aware of the look pietro is giving her, and she turns to face him, meeting his eyes, and she knows he understands.
wanda maximoff can take care of herself, and she has no regrets about making pietro promise to save everyone else first. he always wanted to fight back, after all, to be able to do something to change the world, and now he can. the world needs her brother almost as much as she does, she is certain, but she thinks she can lend him to them for a little while.
she has her own fortress to hold and point to prove.
x
the rage and grief coursing through her veins is explosive, literally, and she unleashes blasts and waves of scarlet that roll out from her body with her guttural scream, annihilating all of ultron's bodies they come into contact with.
she cannot breathe and it feels as if someone has shoved their hand into her chest and ripped her heart out and pietro's face is swimming before her eyes, his smirk dancing across her memories, the feeling of his fingers ghosting hers, the sound of his laugh and his voice ringing in her ears—and when he said, "you know, i'm twelve minutes older than you," with that amused, exasperated affection and half-laugh, she had never dreamed it could be the final thing he said to her.
you are everything you are not allowed to be gone i was meant to take care of you you are all i have left you are my brother i don't know how to live without you you are PIETRO YOU ARE MINE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO BE WITHOUT YOU
—and her thoughts are racing, faster and faster, and sheer emotion is gripping her and she abandons her post, seeking out ultron.
there is unadulterated pain shaking her frame, and the rage makes her voice tight and cold, and she feels like screaming and when he says she'll die, she wants to laugh, because doesn't he get it? she already has.
it feels like ripping her heart out, and she does it to him, ripping that ball of metal—that pitiful excuse for a heart—out of his chest, and it doesn't help, not really, because all she can think of is an endless stream of grief and pietro because he is her brother and he is not beside her—she sent him away and now he's gone and it's all her fault and all she wants to do is scream and raze ultron and his dreams to the ground, and all she can see is red—scarlet like blood staining clothes, bright red like ultron's eyes, the rich colour of stark's suit. she is wanda maximoff, but she doesn't know what that means anymore.
winning the war, she thinks, feels an awful lot like losing one.