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The city was rising. Again. The church—the center of the world for a people forsaken by God—was cold and wrong and Wanda felt the earth crumble.
He came in a puff of air, as he always did. In his hand was the little pocketknife their father had given him as a child.
“Hello, little sister.”
Pietro stood before her, hideous. Bullet holes riddled his clothes but blood no longer ran from the wounds. His face was gray, dead. But his corpse’s eyes burned cold with vengeance.
And still, horrible as he was, he was her brother.
“Pietro.” She heard the longing in her own voice and damned herself for it. Longing for the past never helped. It was a pain you brought on yourself.
He was a flash of speed once more, and suddenly pain erupted in her arm. She cried out as the blood trailed toward her wrist, and Pietro stood before her once more, a zombi with her brother’s smile twisted to fit upon its face.
“We were supposed to take care of each other,” he reminded her. The soft censure in his voice—that disbelieving lilt to it—caused her tears to fall. “Do you remember, Wanda? We said we would never let them tear us from each other?”
She did. When they crawled out of the rubble, finally. When Stark’s bomb was behind them and their parents and their lives and their world were all dead, two children had looked at each other, held hands, and promised that, no matter what, no one would take one of them away.
Pietro sped around her, faster than even her swift mind could follow, and a shallow cut appeared across her stomach. She did not cry out this time. It was less than she deserved and she faced him truthfully as he came to stand before her.
“We did all we could,” she whispered. It would do no good, she knew. Because she had let him die. She had broken the one promise neither of them should ever have broken. “We saved our people.”
The zombi smiled again, but it was a cold, vicious smile she would never pair with her brother’s features. “We saved no one, little sister,” he told her. “The world will continue to create evil, to spew death, to tear apart families just like ours.” He brandished the knife before her eyes and still, Wanda remained unmoving. “You promised me, oz singlisi* , we would never be separated.”
“Wanda? Wanda, please wake up.”
He did not flit, did not rush, did not strike her down in a blur. The zombi wanted her to see the justice coming for her. And as she should, Wanda met it with open eyes.
The knife descended, heading for her heart—
“Wanda!”
—and her sleeping eyes snapped open. Vision sat on her bed, one hand holding her arm. Her hand glowed with the power of her mind, but dimmed as she stared at the being before her in confusion.
“Please stop.” Vision’s plea was as confused as she was, and she relaxed her arm in his grasp, blinking to clear her eyes of tears.
As she returned to herself, she realized that the pain—in her arm, her stomach, her heart… None of it dissolved. She had dreamed of him before, of course. So many times since half of her soul was ripped away, but the pain never lingered.
“You are injured,” Vision said quietly, in that voice that was forever soothing and kind and infinite.
Wanda looked at the tear in her sleeve, the blood that ran freely where his knife had bitten. “Pietro…” she whispered, fingering the wound. He had finally made his choice, then. Justice would be served.
Vision watched her carefully for a long moment. “Pietro is dead,” he said, so matter of fact that Wanda smiled sadly instead of screaming.
“He is,” she agreed. Her hand drifted to her belly, where her shirt was similarly defiled, though the blood was less. “And yet, he is always here.” She tapped her temple. “He will always be there, Vision,” she explained fatalistically. “Waiting.”
“For what?” The being had infinite curiosity as well, and Wanda could have wished that he had let her sleep. He seemed to realize that she did not wish to explain. “I believe we should make use of the first aid kit in the common room,” he offered.
Wanda nodded and let herself be led. It would do no good in the long run, but it occupied her companion.
“I have never bandaged a wound,” Vision announced. “But the execution seems self-explanatory.” He announced every new experience, it seemed, as if part of his lifeforce required that he be a lesson, an example. You were supposed to see your own experiences through his innocence and gain some insight.
Wanda wanted no insight now.
He gestured gallantly to one of the ottomans and Wanda sat, for lack of any better response. Pietro still lurked in her mind, waiting.
“Wanda,” Vision asked, tentative as always. “May I ask you a question?”
No, she begged silently. But aloud, she said merely, “Of course.”
“Your wounds?”
“Pietro,” she said simply. At his blank look, she sighed, admitting the explanation she did not wish to speak. “When a person dies through your fault, they are allowed to seek justice.”
Vision nodded, unbuttoning the end of her pajama sleeve and carefully pulling it up past the wound on her bicep. “And you believe Pietro’s death is your fault.”
“He believes it.” Wanda hissed as Vision cleaned the long cut.
Silence reigned between them as Vision continued his ministrations. “Many people believe that the soul lives on past death, don’t they?” he asked eventually.
Wanda smiled sadly. “It is not always the soul itself that seeks justice.” Without shame, she lifted the hem of her shirt when he prompted, revealing the slice across her belly.
“I am afraid I do not understand.” Vision hunted through the first aid box for gauze to cover the wound.
“In my country, we believe that the soul has two parts, the Earth and the Heaven. If your death is unjust, your Earth may return as a zombi, in the body as it was at the time of your death, to deliver justice to the person who killed you.”
“I see,” Vision said quietly. More quietly still, he pointed out, “You did not kill your brother.”
“I convinced him to undergo the tests,” she pointed out ruthlessly. “It was my idea to become what we have become. I allowed my vengeance to blind me to Ultron’s true nature…” She wiped at her tears in anger. Tears did her no good now.
Vision taped the last of the gauze in place and took her shirt hem from her, smoothing it down carefully before he met her eyes. “But you did not kill your brother,” he repeated.
Wanda closed her eyes, unable to face his candor, and cried. She cried as she hadn’t before. Not in anger at her brother’s death, nor in hopelessness at what her life would be like without him, but in simple, selfish need. “I miss him,” she sobbed softly. “I promised him we would never let anything separate us!”
“And so you plan to follow him into death.”
She glared at him, ripping away from him to stand where she could not see him. “I do not know what you are talking about,” she growled.
“Do you know why I was in your room?” he asked. When she did not answer, he continued. “You cried out in your sleep—as I have heard you do many times before. It seemed different this time, however. I… wished to see if I could help.”
Wanda breathed out a hopeless sigh. “No one can help me.”
“Not if you do not wish it,” he pointed out. “I entered, hoping I might wake you. Your powers are as precise and powerful when used on yourself as they are on others, Wanda.”
It took her a moment to process his words, and she spun to face him when she did. “I did not do this to—”
“I witnessed it myself,” he cut through. He tilted his head, infinitely compassionate. “You take more guilt on yourself than is given to you.”
Wanda shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she grated. “I could have kept him with me—he wanted to stay.” She sank to the floor. “I sent him away.”
“And if he had stayed, how many who were saved would have died?” Vision was relentless in his gentle questions.
Wanda felt the tears fall on the hands in her lap, but saw nothing. “It doesn’t matter.”
Vision was suddenly crouching in front of her. “Of course it matters, Wanda,” he said staunchly. “You said these zombi come back to exact justice. Would your brother have thanked you for the ‘justice’ of his life in exchange for so many others?”
Unbidden, Clint came to her mind. And the small child whose face had blasted through her when Pietro died—the ones he’d died to save.
Even those two were worth it, weren’t they? He would never have made his choice if they weren’t.
“I believe your brother would agree that what you are doing to yourself now is… imprudent.”
Wanda chuckled, closing her eyes. “He would say I was being a stupid little girl,” she corrected. She strove to wall away the pain, as she had done too many times in her life. Not forget him—no, never—but remember that he lived. Not how he died.
“Perhaps he is right,” she said softly. She looked up as Vision rose, holding out his hand to her with a welcoming look on his face. So wise and so very, very childlike. She allowed him to help her to her feet and gave him a thankful smile. “Perhaps you are, too.”
Vision inclined his head in thanks. “James Rhoades has been discussing movies with me,” he told her, the abrupt change of topic throwing her for a moment. “I had thought to try one, but honestly, I don’t think I would know where to start.”
It was a clear invitation—to spend her night living instead of dying. Wanda felt her heart shift, making room for a future she hadn’t been sure she could live before now.
“I think maybe I can help you,” she told him.
Vision led her to the viewing area as she tried to think of a film that Pietro might like.
*******
the end