#Ghost of us pietro

[marvel-luvrz]

Not Peter comforting us and Stephen being a bully✋💀

Ghost of Us — Chapter 1

Masterpage <last next>

This is the sequel to my book Ghost of You. Go check it out before reading this one.

Pietro Maximoff x fem!Mutant!reader

Warnings: PTSD, vague mention of torture, blood, little violence, alcohol, alcohol as a coping mechanism, liquor store, alcoholism, suicide talk, angst, trauma, grief

Word Count: 3284

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Dying is easy.

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[lowkeyerror]

The Family Business Ch. 9

WandaNat x Reader

Word count: 2.5k

Ch.Notes: emotional turmoil, jealousy

Summary: After last night's events things only grow more complicated between Wanda, Natasha, and the reader.

An: So... I have blown through all of the pre-drafted parts I have for this and am now writing in real time the goal is to do post every monday but bare with me if I slip up.

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

The smell of coffee is the first thing to enter your sense as you stir from your place in the bed. You can't move much as your legs are tangled with someone else’s. You can feel soft breaths tickling your face. Your brow creases, but you make no other movements.

There’s a slight shift in the bed, and that's when you begin to feel a finger dragging itself along your collarbone. It’s gentle as it draws patterns lightly tracing up your neck and jaw. A thumb ghosts over your lips, but you stay still.

“Even after this life has been so cruel to you, and you've grown this hard outer shell; your skin feels so soft. So pretty under my touch.”

You are fully awake, but something stops you from opening your eyes. Instead you scoot closer to the woman and pull her body closer to yours. Your arm flexes as you hold her in place.

“Enjoying the cuddling?” Natasha’s voice enters the room.

“She’s so peaceful like this, I don’t want to wake her,” Wanda shifts in your hold.

She maneuvers so that she's sitting up right in the bed. Your head falls into her lap, and her hands start running through your hair.

“We have to, I’ve heard from Pietro that people are already being made aware of the oil spill. They’re scrambling, he’s already at the office with Kate taking orders.”

You hear Wanda sigh, “This is nice, it almost feels domestic.”

Natasha laughs lightly, “Yes, having your wife bring you and your lover coffee, screams domestic.”

“She’s not my lover, Natasha,” Wanda’s voice sounds harsh.

It takes everything to keep your body from tensing as you listen into this conversation you aren't directly involved in.

“It’s a joke baby,” you can almost hear the smirk on the woman’s face.

“Jokes are supposed to be funny Natasha,” she deadpans.

“I agree there's nothing funny about you being in love with Y/n.”

You hear shuffling and then a quick thud as Wanda throws something at Natasha. By her exasperated sigh you can tell Natasha caught it.

“Can we save this discussion for… I don’t know, when Y/n isn’t laying in my lap,” Wanda says defensively.

“Fine, but the last thing I’m going to say is your taste in women is 10 out of 10,” Natasha chuckles.

“Fuck you,” Wanda can’t help but laugh as her wife exits the room.

Wanda refocus her attention back to you, “We have a big day ahead of us little krolik and unfortunately it starts now.”

She shakes you gently and calls your name a few times. You pretend to wake up. The sight of Wanda in the morning is something entirely ethereal. You can’t help but stare at the woman. Especially after what you heard this morning.

Your intense gaze makes the woman shift and clear her throat, “Natasha made coffee for us.”

You laugh a little, your voice groggy from sleep, “Sounds like a good thing to wake up too.”

“It can’t hurt, we have a busy day ahead of us,” she says getting out of the bed.

“Your bed is like 10 times more comfortable than mine,” you sink further into the mattress.

Natasha enters the room, “Glad to hear you slept well.”

There’s something grateful about the look you give the spy, “Thank you for that. Both of you.”

“The door is always open for you lisichka,” Natasha smiles warmly back.

With much reluctance you get out of the bed. Your feet shuffle across the bedroom floor and you scratch your head, suddenly becoming more aware of the fact that you aren’t in your home.

“I guess I should go get ready at my place,” you say stretching.

“We’ll meet you over there and head to work together, ok?”

You agree to these terms and make your way home. When you get there the composure that you usually carry yourself with slips.

The brief conversation that played out between the married couple echoed in the walls of your mind. It was a joke, that’s what Natasha said in the beginning. However after claiming Wanda was in love with you, it didn't sound like a joke anymore.

Wanda is a married woman. You know this and you’d feel confident in saying that the marriage is a happy one. Natasha is good for her, better than you could ever be. Wanda being in love with you wouldn’t make sense.

As you get ready for work it’s nearly all you can think about. Every moment where you hugged each other for too long, where her hand would find it’s way in yours, where the two of refused to break eye contact was now floating in your head.

It was hard not to romanticize it, you had feelings for Wanda since you were a teenager, and now you are being told she feels the same.

It's a heavy feeling that sits in your stomach. Every part of your being wishes it could be joy, but it’s sorrow and dread. The other accompanying thought with this revelation is, Natasha.

The woman was amazing in her own right. She deserves the same love, attention, and kindness that Wanda does. You refuse to be a home wrecker. Their love it’s organic, it’s feels true. It was enough for Wanda to bring home a wife, knowing her family wouldn’t approve. There wasn’t a reality where you’d let her throw that away.

Your thoughts don’t get to consume you any longer when the doorbell rings. You put on a face of determination as you leave your home with Wanda and Natasha.

Once you’re at the office everything seems more hectic than usual. The three of you are all whisked away in different directions, answering to the influx of calls.

The sheer volume of people you have on your line, startles you a bit as initially you thought this would be enhance the unlawful business practices, but it has also benefited the business used as a front.

This might’ve been a million dollar move. However, it truly wasn’t about the money. The supply for the family was endless. It was to regain control of the city and to assure them whether Dragos was in charge or not the Maximoff’s would be running this city.

The victory is bittersweet as thoughts of Dragos invade your mind. He should be here celebrating with you all yet he lay still in a hospital bed, using machines you couldn’t name to help him breathe. With Flora likely sitting there with him, tremendous sorrow on her shoulders and the wish that he would wake up so she could scold him.

There were bigger things to worry about aside from what you had heard this morning. The health of your father figure, the health of the business, preparing for a war, there was no room for your feelings right now and you accepted it.

“Alright, it’s time for you to go on break,” Kate knocks on your office door before allowing herself in.

“Too busy,” you mumble typing away at your computer.

“I brought you lunch, meaning you have to atop working to eat it,” Kate plops down a bag on your desk.

The smell fills your nose, making your mouth water and stomach growl. You sigh moving your keyboard out of the way to open the bag of food.

“Thanks Katie,” you say before munching on a french-fry.

“No problem, how are you holding up?”

You stretch a bit, “It’s been nonstop in both businesses. I’ve got to be careful not to mix them up as I write the orders. I’m a bit stressed, but I think this is a good stress.”

“And outside of work?”

Your face drops, “I’m barely holding on to be honest. Constantly worried about Dragos, but not just him; Flora, Wanda, Pietro, all of them. I feel so helpless, I haven’t felt this way since I was a child.”

“Y/n-”

“I feel like I’m failing, Kate. We’re fighting against a war, but it’s inevitable at this point. There’s no way Kingpin is going to take this lying down. We can’t afford to lose, but I don’t think any of us are prepared to fight.”

Kate takes your hand in hers causing you to gaze into her eyes. There’s a fire there, one that you forgotten lived inside the assistant.

“Y/n, whatever happens this family will not fall. Others might have alliances, weapons, and political power, but what every single one of them lacks is loyalty. We have people on the outside switch sides, but everyone in this building is here for the long haul. We stand by each other no matter how hard it gets. Maybe you’re right, we’re not prepared for a war right now, but we will be. You aren’t alone in this Y/n, you have a family… thee family backing you.”

She’s right and you know it. It’s a hard a reality to swallow in the sense that with or with Dragos the Maximoff’s don’t have a choice but to win. They will win, but what will be lost on the way to victory. The longer you’re in the position you understand what they mean when they say heavy is the head that wears the crown.

“Something else is bothering you. I can tell,” Kate’s voice is soft when she speaks, snapping you from your thoughts.

You can feel the tip of your ears heat at her question, but you try to play it safe, “It isn’t important and I don’t think it will ever be. We have bigger things to worry about.”

Kate rolls her eyes at you, “You’re right about having bigger things to worry about. Things that you are clearly being distracted from by what’s on your mind. So as your best friend it’s my job to sit here and press you for answers until you tell me.”

It's your turn to roll your eyes, “Can we just drop this, my food is getting cold?”

“There’s a microwave somewhere in this building,” Kate took a seat at the edge of your desk, her hand still in yours.

“You aren't going to let this go are you?”

She shakes her head a little, “Nope.”

You take your free hand and place it over your face, “I heard Natasha say that Wanda is in love with me.”

“Oh my god. Y/n that’s- what’re you going to do?”

“Nothing, I’m not going to do anything.”

Kate’s eyes widen, “Why would she say that? Did she sound mad? How did you hear this? What if she is in love with you? How would you-”

“Enough!” You raise you voice at the girl and she stops.

“Sorry, but this is crazy.”

You sigh, “I know.”

“Do you love her?”

Your eye hit the floor immediately, “I’ve had a crush on Wanda for as long as I can remember. She’s seen me at my lowest, but found value in me nonetheless. Even after all these years she just makes me feel safe and I would do anything for her.”

“But…”

“But she's married to one of the most intriguing women that I've ever met. Someone I know who feels like I do. Someone who takes good care of her and can be there for her in ways that I can’t. They’re the perfect couple. They both truly deserve each other and I refuse to put myself between them.”

It is fully intended to sound strong, but by the end of it you can feel your eyes start to water. You do your best to hold it in but tears start to fall.

“Fuck,” you attempt to cover your face but Kate just pulls you to her by your office chair.

Her hands rests on your face wiping at the tears. You lean into her touch as she begins to rub your back.

“It’s alright, you’re alright,” Kate speak gently.

There’s a soft knock on your office door that gets you to straighten up. The walls are glass so you’re aware that they could see what was transpiring.

“Is everything ok in here?” Natasha let’s herself in, knowing the answer to her question.

You look to Kate, who then looks to Natasha, “Do you want to take over?”

Natasha gives a curt nod. You watch Kate walk out of the office closing the curtains on the way out so no one could see inside. She tells you to call her at the end of your day and you make a mental note to do so.

“Lisichka, talk to me,” she takes Kates previous position. She reaches to wipe the tears from your eyes, but you flinch away.

“I’m fine,” your voice dies as you speak.

“I think we both know that’s not true.”

You glare at her, but then your eyes soften, “I’m just overwhelmed Nat.”

“Maybe it's your turn to go home early n" she suggest.

“I have to stop by the hospital before I go home.”

Natasha hesitates, “I don't think you're in the right space to be there.”

“Someone has to go check on Flora and Dragos,” you stand firm.

“Wanda and I will go,” Natasha says.

You debate for a second on telling Natasha what you heard. You wonder how she would react. However you could never do that to her , not like when she’s looking at you like this. This is the second time in 24 hours that Natasha has been there for you in a time of need.

“Lisichka?”

“I- I’ll see if Kate can take me home,” you abruptly stand from your desk.

You don’t get far before Natasha is wrapping you up in her arms. You melt in her hold, she smells good, her arms are strong. She kisses the top of your head.

“Let me know when you’re home safe, ok? We’ve got everything under control here.”

You nod before heading off in the direction of Kate’s office. When you get to her door she’s on call and you debate leaving, but when she sees you she ends the call.

“Y/n-"

“Can you take me home, please. I know I could ask Clint, but I just-”

Kate cuts you off, “Of course, let’s go.”

You stay close to Kate as you leave the office. Unbeknownst to you, Wanda watches the two of you exit. She heads to your office to find her wife in your chair.

“What happened to Y/n?”

Natasha sighs, “I don't know she wouldn't tell me. I saw Kate sitting on the desk and wiping her tears away so I stepped in. She said she was overwhelmed, but there had to be more to it. I told her to go home.”

“I just saw her leaving with Kate,” Wanda adds.

“She said she’d ask Kate to take her,” Natasha explains.

“I could've taken her,” Wanda says with worry in her voice.

Natasha shakes her head, “You have a business to run and I promised Y/n we’d stop by the hospital after work.”

“I wish she would’ve seen me before she left,” Wanda’s upset, but she contains it well.

“Jealous of Kate?” Natasha tries to tease, but there’s something in her tone that Wanda detects.

“Are you jealous of Kate?” Wanda throws the question back at her wife.

Natasha gaze lingers on her hands, “What if I was?”

Wanda carefully straddles Natasha’ lap in the work chair. She buries her head into the crook of Natasha’s neck before mumbling into the soft skin.

“Then we’d both be jealous.”

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[imagine-you]

I Will Avenge My Ghost [Bucky Barnes/Reader]

Summary: Your sacrifice on Vormir was meant to be your end. You did it for love. You did it for family. And you had no regrets in your decision to be the one to jump instead of Steve. But you never expected to wake up in Wakanda and you certainly never thought that you would still lose Steve and your sister in the years since your death. While you can't get Steve back, you're determined to figure out what happened to your sister and you end up dragging Bucky along for the ride. Your questions lead you to Westview, a sleepy little town harboring a dark past, and a witch named Agatha Harkness. Will you find what you truly seek down, down, down the Witches' Road or will Death finally come to claim you?

Word Count: 3.4k

Author's Note: I was going to hold off on this, but I watched episode seven and I had so many feelings I literally wrote this last night. If you enjoy this and would like to see this continue, please let me know!

Read On AO3

When you jumped off the cliff at Vormir, the decision had been easy. It had been a long five years without your sister and you would have given anything for Wanda. You would also give anything for Steve, and if this brought you closer to winning the war against Thanos and bringing all the lost back, then you would do it.  

A sacrifice of love was needed and you had nothing but love to give for those two. You couldn't live in a world without Steve and while he wanted to do the noble thing, you knew you would never be able to go on without him. So, you used your power one last time to push Steve far away from the edge of the cliff and then threw yourself over it. 

As you fell, you could hear Steve crying out for you. You always assumed your life would flash before your eyes like everyone claimed it would. But all you saw was Vormir's sky eclipsed by Steve reaching over the cliff's edge, as if he could still reach you. And then you saw nothing at all.  

You didn't remember hitting the rocks below, but the only people on your mind as death rushed to meet you were Steve and Wanda. Steve, selfless and sacrificing, and how much he yearned for his best friend, the person who truly understood him above all else, Bucky. And your sister, who had drifted away into dust and oblivion after losing the love of her life. Wanda, who had been forced to kill Vision, only to have it all be for nothing. Her grief had sent shockwaves through you and you would never forget the raw pain that had radiated off her after losing Vis. You couldn't bring Pietro back, and while his death would always weigh on your mind, you knew that you could bring Wanda back into the land of the living. 

You would make it right. You had to. Even if this was your end, then at least it meant something. At least it was used to save countless others.  

Death flowed endlessly around you in glimpses of life and snatches of memories, remembered and forgotten. They fell right through your grasp, never yours to begin with, but a tether to the world you longed to revisit. You fought and struggled, pulling at strands and words, willing them to materialize. You followed a lead, a road, that appeared before you and at the end, you expected to find Death. 

No one will ever be tempted by the darkhold again. 

I miss you. God, I miss you so much. 

I got my dance. I owed her that. I owed myself that. 

I can't feel you.  

We can't reverse death. 

You're gonna need me. 

Immortality never meant anything to me before, but I suppose you’re not mine after all. Not yet, at least. Don’t say I never did you any favors.

You didn't expect to wake up.  

You felt breath expand your lungs and you sat up with a gasp. You didn't know where you were or what had happened to you, but all you could think was that you failed. You had traded your life for the billions of others that had been snapped away by Thanos. If you were here, alive, then it had all been for nothing.  

"Hey, hey," someone was saying, and you could feel hands on your shoulders, but you didn't want to lift your head to try to see who was attempting to talk to you. "She's freaking out here. Don't you think you should do something, Shuri?" 

"And what would you have me do, Bucky? This might not even really be her. I thought her magic was blue." 

"It was," someone said. Bucky, you realized. It was Bucky who had you by the shoulders. "Hey, doll," Bucky tried, bringing a finger up to tuck under your chin and force your head up.  

You met Bucky's eyes, trying to make sense of what was happening. He hadn’t been wrong. You were freaking out, but it wasn’t going to do you any good now. You needed to figure out what the fuck was going on.  

"Bucky?" You tried, your words coming out as a rasp. "Am I alive?" 

Bucky looked like he was torn between relief and confusion. "Yeah, you're here with us." He gestured at the other two people in the room. You recognized one as King T'Challa's sister and you had already known Sam.  

"How did I get here? I died on Vormir. Or...I thought I did. I don't remember dying," you told them, trying to remember what happened. Death hadn't felt like an end, more like a journey. You had felt, all the while, like you were being lead somewhere. Maybe, you couldn't help but think, it was bringing you here.  

"We don't know how you got here," Sam interjected. His arms were crossed and he was wearing a new suit. It wasn't his usual Falcon getup. It was more reminiscent of Steve's, showcasing red, white, and blue with a star on the chest. The shield was strapped to his back, and you started to panic again.  

"Where's Steve?" You quickly let your gaze shift from Sam to Bucky again. “Bucky, where’s Steve? Did he make it? God, I gave up everything for him and if he still died...,” you trailed off, letting the thought go unfinished. It didn’t bear thinking about.  

Bucky turned to throw a look over his shoulder at Sam. You couldn't see Bucky's expression, but you could sure as hell see Sam's.  

Grief. Remorse. Apology. Pain. 

"No," you denied with a quick shake of your head. "I jumped so he would live. I jumped so he would get to have a life." You could feel a strange new energy thrumming along your limbs, and you didn't know how to contain it. You felt restless, an urgency rising within you that you didn't know how to quell.  

"He did," Bucky assured you, finally looking at you again. You felt like his hands on you was the only thing keeping you together, so when he made to draw away, you latched onto his shirt, pulling him closer. "Okay, okay," he soothed, moving to sit on the edge of the examination you realized you were lying on.  

He was treating you like a frightened animal, and you didn’t know how to feel about that. You were torn between seeking comfort in the familiarity of him and lashing out for letting you be so vulnerable. It wasn’t his fault. He was only doing what he could for you, but you were caught between anger and fear, and nothing good ever came out of that particular combination.  

"Then what happened? Where is he?" You demanded, looking from Sam to Shuri and back to Bucky again.  

"He...," Sam paused at another look from Bucky. "Well, she's gonna find out eventually." 

"What?" You snapped, hating that everyone in the room knew something you didn't. "What happened after I jumped?" 

"We defeated Thanos and the people he snapped away came back," Bucky told you, giving you the tiniest hint of a smile when your shoulders began to slump with relief. Before he started talking, his lips twisted to the side in a grimace and you knew he was about to throw you back into the deep end. "But, you've gotta realize that winning that war nearly destroyed Steve. He told me what happened on Vormir and he told me what he wanted to do."  

You were briefly distracted by a shimmer in the air around Bucky. You hadn't realized it before, but the air around him seemed to faintly glow red. As he spoke, it shifted to a light blue, and you were so distracted by the sight that you missed his next words.  

"You alright there, Maximoff?" Sam called, breaking you out of your fascination. The air around Sam seemed to glow just the slightest hint of green while Shuri had a purple aura around her.  

"I don't know?" You answered, ducking your hand to look at your hands. You felt off, somehow. You had never really been the same, not since losing your parents at a young age and having to look out for your younger brother and sister. After being subjected to experiments by sadistic scientists and coming out the other side with superpowers, you figured you would never lead a normal life. Steve had been the closest thing you had ever gotten to a fairytale ending and now he was gone.  

You felt unmoored, adrift, in this new reality and you were waiting to crash down again. You only hoped you would be given the opportunity to brace for impact when the time came.  

A light danced across your fingers, your magic beginning to flare up with your frustration. You had never been anywhere on your sister's level, your magic blue where hers was red and chaotic. But you had also been able to tame a flame and throw objects around with just a thought. She would always be the more powerful of the two of you, but you had held your own well enough in a fight.  

The magic that pushed up beneath your skin to pool in your palm was no longer blue, but orange.  

"Huh," you breathed, no longer able to accept that you were rooted in reality. "This is the weirdest dream ever." You finally looked back up at Bucky, catching his worried expression. "You think this is what I'm seeing before I die?" 

"Doll, that's what I've been trying to tell you. You did die," he stressed, tightening his grip on your shoulders. "There was never a body. Steve wanted to bring you back, but you just weren't there." 

"The soul stone must have claimed her. It did require a sacrifice," Shuri observed with a thoughtful noise. "I could tell something was happening. There was just too much energy and while I thought it was your sister, it turned out to be you swirling around in the air like a ghost. I still have no idea how you corporealized and got here from Vormir, but you're living and breathing," she assured you, gesturing towards a monitor you realized was showing your heartbeat, oxygen levels, and other vitals.  

There were too many worries crowding your mind and you tried to sort them out. You thought if you could just focus, then maybe something would start to make sense.  

"Steve?" You tried again, not able to accept that he might be gone.  

"He passed on," Sam said, his tone somber and apologetic. “Wasn’t that long ago, but I’m sorry to tell you, he’s no longer with us.” 

Bucky shot him a glare, but you shook your head.  

"No, tell me," you demanded, trying to force yourself to breathe. “I’m not going to get anywhere with you hiding things from me.” You wanted to scream and rage, but you weren't sure what your magic would do if you gave into the instinct. It was new, something you had to relearn, and you didn't want to hurt Bucky, Sam, or Shuri because you couldn't control it.  

"He, uh, well," Bucky started with a wince. "He had to bring the stones back to their original homes. He told me before he left that he was never going to be able to save you. Your death was tied to the fate of billions and there was nothing he could do to get you back. The soul stone wouldn't return you, but the time stone could still give him a life. It could help him right some past wrongs and regrets." 

Bucky stopped talking, but you didn't need him to continue. You could almost see it playing out like a movie in your mind. Steve searching for you one last time on Vormir only to be informed that you were no longer there. Steve leaving and finding Peggy. Steve finally getting his dance. Steve getting his happy ending.  

Without you.  

You pulled away from Bucky, your hands curling into themselves as you felt your power build up. A brilliant, blinding orange light caressed your skin and you threw your hands out to the sides, releasing everything that had been building up.  

You let out a scream, throwing your head back as you attempted to claw back control from the wild impulse of your magic. It was untamed, no longer held under your will, and you felt like it would tear you apart. It was lighting you up from the inside and you were distantly aware of the smell of smoke and flame.  

Someone was shouting your name, attempting to bring you back to yourself. But all you could feel was pain and the agony of losing Steve after all was almost too much for you to take.  

Someone wrapped their arms around you, trapping your arms at your sides. It was enough to pull you out of your grief, the surprise of being so fully embraced while you were feeling like a bomb that had finally gone off shocked you into finally reeling your magic back in and storing it away.  

Bucky had you in a tight hold, but it wasn't restricting. It was comfort and reassurance and understanding.  

 “You couldn’t have done that before she burned a hole through the floor?” Shuri wondered, sounding exasperated.  

“Where do you keep your fire extinguisher?” Sam wondered, his voice drifting away as he searched for something to put out the fire that was still raging on the floor.  

"I know," he was whispering, ignoring all the alarms you had accidentally set off. You could hear Shuri cursing and Sam rifling through a cabinet. "I know, alright? It hurts. It hurts me too," Bucky confided in you, keeping his voice low enough so only you could hear him. “But you’ve gotta keep it in right now. Just for now. And then I’ll get you someplace where you can let it all go. Once we know you’re okay,” he added after a moment.  

 You let your arms wrap around Bucky's waist, resting your head on his shoulder. He brought a hand up, letting it curl around the back of your neck, holding you in place. You could feel tears tracking down your cheeks, but you no longer wanted to cry. You had gotten your answer, and while it wasn't what you wanted, you couldn't begrudge Steve a happy ending. Not after everything he had given up to save the world time and again.  

 You absentmindedly reached a hand out, drawing on the flames and letting the fire fall into your hand. You closed your hand into a fist, letting it die.  

“Neat trick you’ve got there. You couldn’t have done that sooner?” Sam asked, finally brandishing a fire extinguisher that was no longer needed.  

“Perhaps we should give them a moment,” Shuri suggested to Sam. “Why don’t you come look at these readouts with me?” 

“I’m not a toddler. You don’t have to distract me,” Sam grumbled, but he dutifully followed Shuri to the other side of the room, leaving you and Bucky with a small measure of privacy.  

"I'm sorry," you muttered into Bucky's shoulder, letting yourself only focus on him. "I'm sorry he left you. He really loved you, you know." 

"Yeah," Bucky huffed out on a humorless laugh. "He really loved you too." 

You stayed like that for a while, soaking up Bucky's presence while everything fell apart around you.  

"Sam's Cap now?" You checked, knowing that if Sam wielded the shield, then he had taken on the mantle. “He’s good for it.” You knew that if Steve had passed on the shield to Sam, then it was with very good reason. You had always assumed that if Steve retired, then Bucky would take on the role of Captain America, but looking at him now, Bucky just seemed tired. Maybe he didn’t so much want to play hero as he wanted to simply stop looking over his shoulder at every turn waiting for his past to resurface.  

"Yeah," Bucky answered, finally pulling away enough to look at you. "You missed a lot while you were gone, you know." 

"How long has it been since I died, Bucky?" Steve was gone and Sam was Captain America and Bucky seemed less constrained, but still wary. It was a monumental change, but you had a sinking feeling it was only the tip of the iceberg. 

"Years." Bucky watched you in silence for a long, drawn-out moment. You heard the door open, but didn't bother to see if it was admitting someone new or if Shuri and Sam had finally had enough of pretending they weren’t eavesdropping on your conversation with Bucky. "Look, there's something I should tell you, but after how you reacted to Steve, I don't know how you're gonna take this." 

"What are you--" 

"I almost didn't believe it," someone interrupted, and you finally looked over to see Stephen Strange standing in the doorway. "It's miraculous is what it is," he continued, not aware of the way you tensed at his presence.  

There was something dark in the air around him. It looked as if something had latched on to him and was content to be a passenger. You didn't know why you were literally seeing people in a new light, but you knew that whatever had happened with Stephen wasn't good. It was like it had left a stain on his soul. 

"Stephen," you greeted with a nod of your head. "What the hell happened to you? You’re...different," you decided, watching how the inky wisps attached to his aura pulsed at your words. You couldn’t tell if it was something separate or if it was simply a part of Strange now.  

Stephen's brow furrowed in confusion. He shot Bucky a look and then Sam and Shuri. "Did you--?" He let the question hang, waiting for them to answer. 

"No," Shuri told him, watching you in interest. "She's changed. Her power has evolved with her death." 

You swung your legs over the side of the table and let yourself stand. Bucky reached out to help you or hold you back, you weren't sure, but you waved him off. Another question had come to mind, and you instinctively knew that Stephen would have something to do with the answer you were seeking. Shuri had mentioned your sister earlier and now she was all you could think about. Why did Shuri it was your sister trying to materialize? Wasn’t Wanda alive? You would never get Steve back, and you would never want to rip away whatever peace he had stolen for himself. But Wanda would need you. Wanda always needed you. If something had happened to her in your absence, then it was your job to find her and help her.  

So, you met Stephen's gaze and held your head high, not wanting to show even a hint of weakness.  

"Where's my sister?" You asked, daring him to lie to you. You could see a flicker of uncertainty in his expression as you advanced on him. You could feel the tempting crackle of your power tingling along your fingers. You longed to see Wanda, knowing that she would be the only thing keeping you from truly falling apart. Your sacrifice had cost you more than your life. It had cost you Steve. And you would be damned if it also cost you your sister.  

You felt like your soul was reaching out to her, your entire being aching to pull her back into your orbit, but there was a strange emptiness inside you. It was like she was drifting further away from you by the second.  

Stephen met your gaze, never letting it stray. "What do you know about the darkhold?" Stephen finally responded after what felt like an eternity waiting for any news about what had happened to your sister. 

It wasn't what you wanted to hear and you couldn't help but lash out with your magic. It had been coiled, ready to strike, and who were you to deny it when you finally had a worthy target?  

You had expected to simply push him with your power. It had been a familiar defensive response before your death, but now your magic seemed to take hold of the reigns. It curled out away from you and wrapped around his throat. You could hear his breath cut off and Bucky was calling your name, but you didn't care.  

There was only one thing you cared about at the moment and Stephen Strange seemed to hold all the answers.  

So, you decided to give him one more chance and posed the question that had overtaken your mind.  

"Where's Wanda?"  Additional Author's Note: If you'd like to be tagged, just let me know!!

[maximotts]

♱ 𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖘 𝖎𝖓 𝖍𝖊𝖉𝖔𝖓𝖎𝖘𝖒 ♱

♱ 𝖐𝖎𝖓𝖐𝖙𝖔𝖇𝖊𝖗 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑: priest's daughter!Wanda Maximoff

I missed writing her and since it's been a year since @furys-eyepatch dropped this wonderful idea in my ask box, it felt right to start October off with one of my favorite squishies!

confessions of wanda maximoff AU. kinktober masterlist. 18+ only, minors dni. you don't need to add community labels, I've put adequate warnings below. wc: 3.9k. cw: innocent!Wanda/constantly horny!r. sex in a church. fingering. fucking from behind. strap-on use. begging. semi-public sex (no one is around). everything you shouldn't be doing in a place of worship. r thinks saying vulgar things to wanda and seeing her blush is peak entertainment.

“This is kinda the last place I want to be on Halloween, Wands..”

Wanda looked over her shoulder for the sole purpose of giving you an eye roll before continuing to tug you along through the back of the church. “I’m only picking up something for my dad, it’ll just take a second. I did say you could wait outside!”

“And hang around out there by myself? No way, it’s almost dark and there’s a cemetery!” You’d been sidetracked on the way to Natasha’s party, a texted errand from Wanda’s dad bringing you to his office in search of the large bags of candy he forgot to bring home with him. You didn’t mind honestly, the older man was always so kind it was hard to resist any of his requests— much like his daughter, the girl currently standing in front of you grinning.

She cooed at you in the confines of her father’s office, rubbing your cheeks while you swat at her hands. “Aww, are you afraid of ghosts? How cute..”

“Stop it, Wanda!” You scoffed, brushing her off and crossing your arms. So what if you were a little superstitious, who wasn’t? And you certainly didn’t need to let Wanda know; she’d hold it over you like she’d won the lottery. “Just hurry up so we can get out of here…”

Wanda kissed you quickly, soft and placating; an apology for teasing. She always saw you as someone fearless, it was nice to see a concept as harmless as ghosts rattle you. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything get us. If it makes you feel better, I’ve never seen anything creepy and Pietro and I used to spend tons of time here when we were kids.” 

Trailing off as she went about searching, you leant back against the wall with a pout, opting to watch Wanda while you waited. She had yet to change into her costume, insisting it be strictly for the party, but part of you theorized it was just to keep her outfit from her dad. Instead, her bunny costume lay folded up in the backseat of your car and her dress remained on, teasing you a little more each time she bent over. 

With the cooler weather, Wanda added tights to her wardrobe rotation, sheer black nylon hugging every curve from her ankles to her hips. You didn’t know what it was, but something about them left you drooling whenever you thought about the extra layer on your girlfriend for too long. In the past few weeks, you found yourself running your hands over her legs whenever she was close enough, often ending up playfully chided when you eventually grew too grabby during your shared lectures. But now, alone together with Wanda bent so far over the large wooden desk that you could catch just the barest hint of her underwear, you found it terribly hard to control your urge to grab her.

Hesitation gave Wanda enough time to shoot upright, victorious with heavy plastic bags in her tight grasp, “Candy acquired!” 

She made her way back over to you by the door, pressing her lips to the corner of your mouth as she passed, “Now let's get out of here before some big bad ghostie bothers you.” 

“I don’t think any ghosts want to be anywhere near us right now…” Try as you might, you couldn’t help yourself, eyes glued to Wanda’s backside as she led you back through the dark corridors behind the sanctuary. These weren’t proper thoughts right now, especially here, but it was Halloween… what better day to do something a little sacreligious.

“And why is that-” The end of her sentence was punctuated with a surprised oof, the shock of being shoved sideways into the wall cutting her short. Strong hands gripped her hips, balling the bottom half of her dress in your fists as you buried your nose into her long, dark hair. Instinct begged her to let the moan caught in her throat loose, but someone had to be level-headed here… or at least try to be. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I could ask you the same question, wearing this dress with no shorts and showing off.” You palmed her ass while she wiggled, sandwiched helplessly between you and the carved wood. Maybe you’d hoped that a simple bit of groping would satisfy whatever just took over, but it’d been wishful thinking; the more you touched, the more you wanted. “Did you know every time you bend over I can see your underwear? It’s not very nice to tease like that.”

“I-I didn’t know…” Wanda’s head was spinning, your sudden turn of mood rendering her flustered. Having never thought of herself in much of a sexual way, today’s lack of shorts was more of convenience rather than to tease. No matter how far she got from being a virgin, the intricacies of attraction and desire remained partially lost to her, always forgetting not only were you insatiable at times, but you wanted her. “I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry!” 

“No need to apologize, Wands, I’m not mad.” The last thing you wanted was to embed shame to how your girlfriend decided to dress; if anything, the uncharacteristic choice made the surprise more enticing. 

She shivered as you nibbled the shell of her ear, trembling more every second your hands continued roaming, exploring, groping her so shamelessly. “But you can make it up to me by letting me touch you.”

“We’re in a church…” Even so, it was just the two of you in the building, a fact confirmed by one quick glance out into the main room through one of the wall’s cutouts. All alone in the quiet, sacred space. Wanda knew she should protest harder, the mere idea should’ve been off putting, but it wasn’t. Nor was it the first time this scenario crossed her mind.

You’d be lying if you said the setting didn’t turn you on that much more and if Wanda’s shudder as you palmed over her covered sex was any indication, she wasn’t completely put off. Curious fingers poked and prodded, pressing against her in earnest until Wanda was gasping. “Why not? No one would know and it’d be fun.” 

You could practically hear the cogs in Wanda’s brain turning, working overdrive to come up with some answer where she could do the ‘right’ thing and keep those all too good sensations flowing from between her legs. “Maybe in the car?”

She’d expected the proposition to sound more convincing than it was, your contemplative hum against the nape of her neck showing Wanda she probably hadn’t swayed you either. Enticing as the car might’ve been in the past, it wasn’t what she yearned for right now. If you led her out, she’d follow and most definitely enjoy herself, but she’d think about this and what it could’ve been until this very rare opportunity presented itself again, if ever.

“Oh, but I want you right here, sweetheart. What if someone drives by and sees you outside? You know I like to keep you all to myself.” Wanda didn’t stop the hand sliding past the top of her stockings, fingers stretching the thin fabric in search of her panties— the second your fingertips grazed the embroidered cotton you groaned. 

Occasionally you caught her wearing the days of the week underwear she’d splurged on from some online boutique shop, something she bought with the mindset that no one would ever see them, but oh how wrong she was. Initially embarrassed for you to catch her wearing them, she was so relieved when you’d written it off as just another precious thing to love about her. 

“How are you always so pretty, babygirl? Makes it so hard to keep my hands off you,” Two inches further down, you discovered the beginnings of a wet spot, Wanda’s body giving her away despite her meekly suggested location change. “Especially when you get wet so easily. It’s my job to take care of that, being a good girlfriend and all.”

“I can’t help it,” she breathed out, trying to keep her breathing even for as long as possible. It was true, Wanda often found her thighs pressed together after a few touches or too long of a kiss; a fact she only recently discovered upon dating you. 

“I know, poor thing, let me fix it.” With your free hand holding the front of her dress, fingers splayed over her stomach, you held your girlfriend still as you moved the last barrier aside, sliding through her already slick folds as shamelessly as you would if you were in the privacy of your apartment back at home, laser focused on watching the girl in your arms go limp. 

The physical embodiment of a devil on her shoulder as you nudged her sweater out of the way, Wanda couldn’t possibly deny either of you further; the longer you waited, the higher the chance that someone else would wander in. Her cheeks burned red hot, unable to tell how much was from being manhandled mere feet behind the altar or the humiliation of how badly she wanted you to continue. “Please…”

“Please what, Wanda? Take you to the car?” Circling her clit almost did her in, knees buckling, hall echoing with the sound of the bags falling from Wanda’s hand to the floor. You let up and she whined pitifully, hips bucking in search for more of the fleeting pleasure. But if you were doing this, you needed your favorite part: her confirmation. “Use your words and I’ll give you whatever you want, baby.”

“Take me, right here…” She was nearly dizzy with need as she spoke, but the struggle was so worth it once your fingers began working her purposely now, promptly rewarding her acceptance. It was all too easy to forget any lingering worries and focus on her rapidly building orgasm, head and hands falling forward to brace herself as you slid two fingers into her. “Oh god, yes-”

You tutted mockingly, grinning into the crook of her sweet-smelling neck. “Now you know that’s not proper language for where we are. Mind your manners.” 

It was terribly hypocritical considering how lewdly you were stretching her open on your digits, letting her drip down your palm. You could pretty much count on her making a mess, but no matter how familiar of a sensation, it was all you could do not to fall to your knees and see for yourself; Wanda was the only person you’d ever felt so inclined to worship. “You feel so good on my fingers, sweet thing. I wish you could feel how tight you’re squeezing them.”

The poor thing did her best to keep up, but you were so fast, so determined to watch her walls come down in the place she should be doing the exact opposite… The most she could do was moan out her pleasure, heavenly music to your ears. “Can I cum? I’m so close-!”

“Go on, I want to feel you.” Wanda finished with a cry, muffled into her arm, still too afraid to be loud no matter how alone you might be. She shivered and shook, thighs trapping your hand in place as she rode out her orgasm. Even from behind Wanda was a sight, long hair falling over her shoulders as she tossed, hands clamoring for purchase anywhere on the wall she’d never look at the same way again. 

Satisfied with your work, thought she’d be done and more than ready to get out of here, but to your surprise, her hand grabbed your wrist before you could pull out. “What’s wrong, Wanda?”

“Nothing, it’s just..” Wanda couldn’t believe what she was about to say, but it’d be a terrible missed opportunity if she didn’t ask. Rubbing her backside against your front confirmed what she’d felt for a few seconds before, the telltale bulge in your pants providing Wanda the perfect setup to make one of her deepest fantasies a reality. She’d gone this far; what was a little more for the whole way. That’s what she kept repeating to validate this next want. “Do you think we could maybe, um..”

“Maybe what?” Her actions only gave you an inkling into what Wanda was hinting at, but surely she couldn’t be thinking what you thought she was. 

When it came to risky scenarios, you were constantly on the propositioning end, finding creative ways to present your new ideas for Wanda’s approval. What you’d just gotten away with was a giant push of luck, never in your wildest dreams did you ever imagine she’d ask for it. “The rules are you use your words. You have to say it.”

Of course you wouldn’t let her off easy, not when both of you were on the precipice of doing something so scandalous. She appreciated how dedicated you were to her enthusiastic consent, but if she thought about what she was asking too hard, she feared she might fizzle into nothingness. “I was thinking if you were up for it, we might go again?”

“Yeah? With my fingers?” You goaded her with a slow curl of your long digits, guiding her back until you could easily grind your clothed strap on against her, the sharpest squeak bubbling from Wanda’s chest. As you moved this time, you were slow, too slow, knowing as nice as it was, it wasn’t what she needed. Not when she remembered how mouthwateringly full she was a few days ago when you’d last had her in your lap.

“N-No,” Wanda shook her head, mousy and bashful. Her one advantage was facing away from you, fully aware she’d never have the courage to speak up that way unless you forced it out of her. “I meant with your strap…”

The words felt heavy on her tongue, as if someone else said them; anyone but the person she knew herself to be. But you heard them in her sweet, sheepish voice and something feral inside you snapped. You tore away from her unceremoniously, only for a second, just long enough to bend her a little farther, slapping Wanda’s ass once. 

“Fuck, I wish I could keep you here all night, just to see what else I can get a naughty girl like you to tell me what they’ve been dreaming up.” Ignoring her shout, you ripped a hole in her stockings, tearing wide enough that you could play with her from behind, shallowly dipping your fingertips into the hole you’d so cruelly left empty. 

“You’re all I want,” Neck straining over her shoulder to catch glimpses of you undoing your pants, Wanda’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the thick dildo set on your hips, only fluttering closed as you nestled the toy between her thighs, sliding it back and forth in an effort to wet it for Wanda’s comfort. Eager as you were, this one was bigger than she’d taken before and you’d never forgive yourself if you caused her any pain. “Hurry up before someone comes in..”

“Look at you, so impatient,” The tip teased Wanda awfully, drawing low moaned out pleas that were much too pretty to deprive yourself of so quickly. It wasn’t long until her wetness coated your strap, slick and ready for her as soon as you were ready to deliver. “Does my sweet girl want me to fill her up with my cock? Would that make you happy?”

“Mhm..so happy..” Something about being fucked left Wanda’s brain so.. empty, always coaxing her into a blissful relaxation. She supposed it had something to do with not only touch, but your words, sneakily dumbing her down until her only thoughts rested on you and when you’d give her what she waited for. 

Being taken in church was an idea she only allowed to appear in her deepest dreams, shaming herself afterwards for even daring to create such a thought. If anyone was going to give it to her now, it had to be you and to her credit, you’d started this. But logistics were way too much for Wanda to think about presently and, in a mission to make this impromptu sex as good for her as it already was for you, clearing her of any fears was your highest priority. “All I want to do is make you happy, Wanda.”

She knew that was true from the very first time you’d told her, those words only ever given with the most sincere honesty. Combined with the gentle patterns you drew over the sensitive skin of her lower tummy, Wanda let herself be lulled, trusting you to take care of her in the vulnerable state she so loved to fall into. 

“Spread your legs for me a little, just like that…” Everyone would be wondering where you were soon, Wanda’s father waiting on his Halloween candy delivery and Natasha for the drinks she asked you to get, but for this, for her? You’d say screw it all without hesitation to take your time and make this happen however she pictured. “Now beg. Confess to me, little church mouse.”

As you pushed the tip in and stopped, Wanda erupted into a fit of pitiful noises, fighting against your hold to feel that ever lusted after stretch, but you were stronger than her and wouldn’t budge. Being made to beg was equal parts hot and degrading; unfortunately you’d come to love to hear it, discovered it turned her on to do it, and now demanded it whenever the chance presented itself. “I need your cock, need you to fuck me.. please please!”

“There’s my good girl,” With one long push, you filled her completely, overwhelming the needy girl in all the best ways. You gave her just enough time to adjust, rutting into her tight pussy hard and fast as soon as possible. If she was wet before, Wanda was absolutely drenched now, making it all too easy to fuck into her as deep as you dared. “You look so pretty all fucked out, Wanda, begging to be fucked just outside of your dad’s office.. in a church, no less..”

“I.. I didn’t…” She truly hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, but she certainly hadn’t objected too heavily either, especially not to this. Each time your hips met Wanda thought she was done for, that coil in the pit of her stomach tighter than she could ever remember it being. Her entire body felt like a livewire, every touch you provided almost stinging. As soon as you found her neglected clit, Wanda was panting, chest heaving in the small, restricted space between her and the wall. 

She devolved into an incoherent mess, pathetic and helpless noises echoing throughout the otherwise silent halls. In a selfish act, you covered Wanda’s mouth, cementing the impossible to ignore wet sounds coming from your girlfriend to memory. “Do you hear how wet you are for me, baby? I would’ve fucked you earlier if I knew you needed me this much.”

Your teasing was too much for Wanda to bear; your crude words, being forced to listen to how aroused she was. Part of her still chalked this up to some insanely vivid dream. The moment your fingertips slid past her lips Wanda was sucking on them, albeit sloppy and lazily, reflecting how little focus she had as your strap hit her at the perfect angle. She was losing it fast, muscles threatening to give out the closer her second orgasm came. “P-Please, can I-”

“Of course you can. Poor thing, you just need to cum so badly,” Wanda’s pulse raced under your lips, but you kissed her there so sweetly it nearly felt like a joke. Below, your hips moved at a torturous pace, quick and brutal in time with the circles you rubbed into her almost too sensitive bud. If you could just see her come apart one more time- “Cum for me, I’ve got you.”

Wanda’s jaw fell open, spit covered fingers giving her slight reprieve while she bucked and twisted wildly, only managing to stay upright with the help of your strong arms. Fucking her through it all quickly became more for your pleasure, bottoming out to let you grind your own clit against the back of the toy at the join of your hips, clinging to Wanda’s trembling form as you came with a groan into the back of her hair. “I would’ve helped…”

“Trust me, you did more than enough,” you mumbled, nibbling the shell of her ear as you caught your breath. You’d never given much thought to the joys of a joint orgasm until Wanda, finding something special in sharing your highs. Always one to prove how useful she could be, Wanda loved being allowed to touch you, to see how good she could make you feel before you reached your end, but this time she was in no state to do so nor did you need it; watching her was more than you would’ve ever asked for. “You did such a good job, I’m so proud of you.”

Wanda wanted to say something back, couldn’t remember if she’d actually spoken out loud or not, but also couldn’t focus hard enough to think that deeply at the moment. She felt like she spent an eternity there, swimming in some cloud high above the church while your touches turned gentle, stroking over her hips and stomach until Wanda finally started to settle down. 

Thankfully the church remained empty so you let her take her time, holding Wanda steady while you pulled out. Careful as you were, she still whimpered, body worn out and tired, “Shh, you’re okay, pretty girl.”

Turning around let Wanda slump against your front as you leaned into the wall, green eyes hazy and heavy. She drew you into an almost sleepy set of kisses, thanking you with sticky, lip gloss smudge marks along your jaw… until she remembered exactly where she was. “Oh my god, I can’t believe we just did that.. We have to get out of here now!” 

Fumbling terribly, your girlfriend snatched the fallen candy bags from the floor in one hand and your arm in the other, dragging you as fast as her strength would let her. “Be careful, Wanda, or you’ll trip!” 

“I’m fine, just open the car!” She didn’t know if she should be mortified or terrified, praying to every power in the universe no one ever found out about this. Wanda’d never sped out of church in such a flurry, as if the quicker she moved, the longer she could escape the anxiety gaining on her. 

Unfortunately for her, you had no such issues and her inner turmoil only made you laugh. “Don’t forget you liked it. I’m pretty sure you were the one begging loudest-”

“You made me!” To you, Wanda would deny her enjoyment for a while and she’d never think of doing it again, but as silence settled in the car and you turned your attention to the road, she struggled to keep still and not squirm too obviously as she replayed your Halloween havoc.

[the-best-duck-tamer]

invitation

Come to ******** on October 18/19 to find out the gender of @ghosts-for-friends @robin-bellamy and mines baby!

people invited:

@jade-lopez-maximoff @maya-lopez-official @moongirlwidow @official-pietro-maximoff @just-a-fucking-civilian

@midtown-braincell-holder @definitelynot-peterp4rker @official-buckybarnes @natt-romanoff-barnes-official

@all-agatha-harkness @peterparker-who @ireallyliketacosokay @clintbarton-thearrowguy @waterysister

@pietros-wife @zenya-medvdev

if anyone else want to come, just let us know!

[arlana-likes-to-write]

Rescue by Lauren Daigle

Summary: Natasha doesn’t have a lot of regrets, everything she’s done in her life has gotten her to where she is now. An Avenger, a hero to young girls, and trying to remove some red from her ledger. But the one thing she does regret is giving you up. But when a word gets out that you are in trouble, she will come to rescue you. 

Pairings: Natasha x Maria, Natasha x Maria x daughter!reader, past Natasha x Bucky

Warning: gun shot violence, implied rape, death, cannon typical violence, gambling, the reader needs a hug but so does Natasha  

Word count: 7.1 k

“Mail call,” Wanda said, walking into the common area with a few pieces of mail in her hand. 

“Who the hell gets paper mail?” Tony asked, pouring coffee into his mug. 

“Some of us like to do things without technology,” Steve said as Wanda handed him the newspaper. Tony looked at the super soldier with disbelief. It was rare that the Avengers got mail but each one had specific memberships. Vision received a copy of the newest National Geographic and Pietro got Sports Illustrated. Sometimes Sam received a letter from his service buddies and Steve always got the newspaper, he did take the comics out for Peter. As Wanda handed out the mail, Natasha waited with bated breath to see if she received a letter. It was rare but she was excited nonetheless. The Sokovian smiled at the Black Widow and handed her a letter. It was addressed the same way, her name and her current address with no return. 

“Thank you,” the Black Widow said, leaving her unfinished lunch on the table and heading for her room. She barely heard Tony question her odd behavior but she didn’t care. When she was safe behind her bedroom door, she opened the envelope. There was a single picture of a young girl with fiery red hair standing at a picnic table. A birthday cake was lit and presents stayed unwrapped around you. Natasha smiled, moving her finger across your face. Her daughter, whom she only got to hold once on the day she was born. When she defected to SHIELD, she gave up for you to live a normal and safe life. But she was promised that you would go to a good family and on birthdays Natasha would receive a photo. The most important thing was if there was any sign of trouble she would be called in. 

“It’s about that time of year,” Maria appeared at her door. “Did you get a photo?” Natasha nodded as her girlfriend sat down next to her. Not counting the agent, four other people knew of your existence. Maria was one of them but not even the Deputy Direction knew of your true location to keep you safe. The agent gently took the picture and smiled. 

“She’s spoiled rotten,” Maria teased. The Black Widow chuckled, letting her head fall onto Maria’s shoulder. It was times like this that Natasha questioned if she made the right choice. She wished she could be there for birthdays and every school accomplishment. Maria kissed her head. “I know, baby, I know.” 

*

“Miss. Romanoff,” FRIDAY said. Natasha stopped her assault on the sandbag. “Your presence is being requested in the conference room.” 

“Do I have time to shower?” 

“No, Director Fury said it’s urgent,” it was never a good sign when Fury was involved. She quickly grabbed her water off the floor and headed for the conference room. When she entered, Fury and Maria were standing by a screen and her sister and Clint were sitting at the table. Oh, she did not have a good feeling about this. 

“What’s going on?” She asked, not bothering to sit down. 

“Does the Winter Soldier mean anything to you?” Of course, it did. He was one of her trainers in the Red Room but also the father of her daughter. In hindsight it was the perfect companionship; one of the Red Room’s best assassins and HYDRA’s most feared weapon. Their child would be the ultimate fighter but they didn’t need to know that. 

“Yeah,” Natasha said, crossing her arms. “He’s credited for over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years.” 

“So, he’s a ghost story?” Clint questioned. She shook her head. 

“I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot at my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff,” she said, remembering every part of that day. “I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I covered my engineer, so he shot him straight through me,” it was heartbreaking as she stared into the eyes of a man she once knew but there was no recognition in his eyes. She lifted her shirt, revealing a bullet wound on her stomach. “A Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis.”

“Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now,” Maria sarcastically said. Natasha smirked. 

“Ew,” Yelena said. “He was also a trainer in the Red Room. Before my time but the guards would talk.”

“Why are we here, Fury?” Clint asked. Natasha was wondering the same thing. 

“We picked up chatter that was concerning,” he nodded to Maria, who pulled up a recording and played it. The audio was all static and it was hard to hear but Natasha could make out two distinct voices and they said your name and the Winter Soldier. 

“Send me there now,” she said. The audio was still playing and Maria quickly stopped it. 

“Nat..” 

“Don’t ‘Na’t me,” Natasha cut her girlfriend off. “When I gave her up I asked for two things; a picture once or twice a year and to be notified if she’s in danger. In return, I’d never reach out to her.”

“We need you here to run point and we are going to send Belova and Barton to look after her,” Fury instructed. 

“Like hell, you are,” Natasha was slowly losing her composure. “She’s my daughter.”

“You don’t have any claim to her,” Natasha’s jaw clenched. Fury sighed. “Can I please speak with Romanoff alone?” Each one of her closest acquaintances left the room and tried to reassure her in their way but she ignored everyone. Her eyes never left the man. When the door closed, Fury sighed again. 

“Natasha..”

“Don’t Nick,” she said, walking over to the man. “Don’t say another word because I’m very close to throwing you through a wall,” Fury smirked. 

“I’m trying to look after you,” he said. “Your name was mentioned. It could be a trap.” 

“I don’t care,” she said. “She’s my daughter even if you don’t think she is,” she saw the smallest clench of his jaw. “I hear her SOS. I will never stop marching toward her. So I’m going. You can’t stop me.” He thought about it.

“Fine,” he relented. “But Maria is coming with you as your backup.” 

“Clint will run point and I want Yelena on standby if we need it.” He nodded. 

“What do we tell the team?” She wasn’t sure. For the longest time, she’s kept your existence a secret to ensure your safety. But now it may have been all for tonight. No, she couldn’t think like that. You were going to be fine. 

“The truth,” she said. “It’s time they know.” 

*

“Hurry up,” your best friend called out. You giggled, running over to her. She climbed up to do the monkey bars. 

“You got this Sarah,” you cheered as her arms began to shake when she reached halfway. She fell to the ground unable to go the entire way. “Nice try,” you smiled, beginning your turn. You liked the challenge of the monkey bars, the burn of your arms and hands. Unlike Sarah, you didn’t feel your arms shake and you made it all the way across. Sarah rolled her eyes. 

“No fair,” she pouted. “How are you so strong?” You shrugged. It was a mystery to you and something you attributed to your biological parents. In PE class, you learned to hold yourself back even though you could beat all the kids in your class. No one wanted to be friends with the abnormally strong girl. 

“I don’t know,” you said. 

“Come push me on the swings,” Well besides Sarah, she didn’t care that you were stronger than her and she used it to her advantage. You smiled, running after her. She jumped onto the empty swing and you began to push her. It wasn’t long before your mind began to wander as you looked around the park. There was a small party at the pavilion and a small-sided soccer game. A few black vans were parked on the far side. You found your parents sitting at a bench speaking with a man you knew well. Agent Cruise. He was present at every birthday party and family gathering. According to your mom, he was the one that found you when your birth mother abandoned you. Why was he here? 

“I’ll be right back,” you told Sarah and walked over to the trio. Agent Cruise saw you right away, a smile on his face. 

“Hi firecracker,” he held out his fist and you pumped it three times then gave him a side hug. 

“What are you doing here?” You asked him. 

“I was in the area and I thought I’d say hi to the family.” That was a lie but you didn’t question it. If he was lying for a reason, it had to be a good one. 

“Everything is fine, sweetheart,” your mom said. “Go back and play with Sarah.”

“Okay, love you guys,” you turned around to go back to the playground but a gunshot froze you in your spot. It was a sound you heard on TV and in movies and never expected to hear it in real life. A body crashed into yours pushing you into the ground as another shot went off. 

“W-Will,” you stuttered. 

“Eyes on me, okay?” You nodded, staring into his brown eyes. “My car isn’t far. I need you to run and I’ll cover you.” 

“What about -” Your eyes found your parents, slumped against each other and blood pouring from a single shot in their head. “No,” you whispered, tears pooling at the corner of your eyes but you didn’t let them fall. 

“Firecracker, run,” he got off of you and began to fire. You scrambled to your feet as he shot at a man walking towards you. His bullets made him take cover but you locked eyes with him. They were blue, similar to the color of your own eyes. His brown hair was shoulder length and half of his face was covered with a mask. But the most striking feature about him was his metal arm that shone under the California sun. 

Finding his car wasn’t hard and it was unlocked when you opened the backseat. You slammed the doors closed and tried to calm your racing heart. You mimicked the breathing technique your dad would do. Breathe in for 5 seconds and hold it for 5. In for 5 seconds and out for 5. Soon your heart rate calmed down but your eyes burned with unshed tears. They died, killed right in front of you. You heard voices outside the car and you covered your mouth to keep quiet. His windows were tinted so they couldn’t see in but they would be able to hear you. 

More gunshots and yelling made you yelp and the silhouettes of the men outside disappeared. You removed your hand and listened outside. Soon the car door swung open. You bite back a scream that almost left your lips. “Hey, it’s okay,” you weren’t expecting a woman with red hair and green eyes wearing a black tactical suit. You knew her. Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, and Avenger. “You're safe but I need you to come with me,” you stayed frozen, staring at the woman in front of you. “Look, we are running out of time. Please come with me.” She held out her hand and you took it, hoping you could trust her. 

*

This wasn’t how Natasha wanted to meet you. She had so many other ways that didn’t involve your adoptive parents murdered and an assassin who happens to be your biological father hunting you. Nothing was easy for the Black Widow. “Put this on,” she handed you a helmet. “Get on,” she got on the motorcycle and she felt you get on behind her, hesitant arms wrapping around her waist. Natasha kicked up the kickstand and the engine came to life. “I got her,” she said over the comms. 

“Well, you got company,” Maria said. Natasha looked behind her and saw 3 vans turning down the street; they were one and the Winter Soldier handing out the window with an AK-47. “Stick to the side streets,” she continued. “I’ll get you both back safely.” Natasha trusted Maria to do just that and started to drive. 

“You have to trust me, okay? When I lean, you lean,” Natasha said over the wind. “If you don’t, they will catch us and kill you.” She wasn’t sure if you heard her until she felt your head and squeezed her waist. 

“Take your next right,” Natasha let out a shaky breath and turned right. Your body leaned with hers. Okay, the Black Widow thought, maybe they’d get through this. 

*

The motorcycle stopped and you took off the helmet. You were in an alley between 2 apartment buildings. The Black Widow got off and helped you down, your legs shook and were a little unsteady. “Come on,” she said, leading you to a door. “We can rest soon.” She opened the door and led you up 2 flights of stairs. The redhead stopped at a door, room 324, and knocked three times. It took a minute for the door to open. In front of you was a woman with black hair, pulled back into a bun. Her brown eyes were sharp but they landed on Natasha and they softened. 

“Glad you're alive,” she said, stepping out of the way. You hesitated but followed the Black Widow inside the apartment. 

“Did you have that little faith?” Natasha teased sitting on the couch. You could see the tension leave her body. 

“What the heck is going on?” You asked. “I just watched my parents die in front of me, a mystery man with a metal man was chasing me, and an Avenger shows up,” you looked at the other woman. “I have no idea who you are or what is going on.” 

“I’m Maria,” she waved, sitting down next to Natasha. It was nice to have her name but that did not answer any of your questions. 

“We can’t tell you everything right now but you're safe here,” Natasha said. You stared at the redhead, the color so similar to your own. Now that you looked at the Avenger you saw a lot of your features in her. 

“How can I feel safe when you won’t tell me the truth?” Her green eyes locked onto your blue ones and she looked away. 

“We can’t,” she said. “Not right now.” Your jaw clenched. 

“We may be here for a while,” Maria said, standing up. “I’ll show you to your room.” You continued to stare at the Black Widow, wanting her to look at you or wanting to grab her by her shoulders and yell - ‘are you my mother?’ but she wouldn’t look at you. You sighed, following Maria. 

“Here you go,” it was a simple room. A bed pushed up in the corner, no TV or posters of any kind. It was a stark contrast to your room. “I know this isn’t ideal,” you skimmed your hand over the bedsheets. “But we will keep you safe.” You looked at Maria. 

“She’s my mom, right?” Maria had an excellent poker face but it was a game you’ve been playing since you could talk. She was surprised by your statement so there were a few ways she could go about this; lie, tell the truth, or deflect. You were leaning towards deflection. 

“There are take-out menus on the fridge, figure out what you want to eat.” Deflection. It was the easiest way, to tell the truth without betraying someone’s trust. 

“Right,” you sat down on the bed. “Thanks.” She nodded. 

“Come find us if you need anything,” you didn’t respond as she closed the door. You leaned against the wall, looking out the window to the street down below. People were going about their day unaware of how your life was altered forever. 

*

“How is she?” Clint asked over the computer. They just finished a meeting with the rest of the team back in New York to come up with the next phase of the plan. She ignored Tony's thousand and one questions regarding you. Overall he seemed hurt she never told him, since ‘we’ve been through so much together.’ Natasha felt bad, they were her team, her family but sometimes the thought of you hurt too much. But a plan was made which consisted of you, Maria, and Natasha to head to Norway to lay low while the rest of the teams tracked and captured the Winter Soldier. Easier said than done. Now she was only talking with Yelena and Clint while Maria tried to get you to eat. 

“She’s quiet,” Natasha knew that was to be expected. “She hasn’t said anything since Maria showed her to her room.”

“Does she know?” Yelena asked. Natasha sighed, nodding her head. 

“Yeah, she asked Maria but she didn’t give her a yes or now,” You were smart, maybe a little too smart. “But I haven’t told her.” 

“Are you going to?”

“Do we know how they found her?” Natasha deflected. She didn’t have an answer to Yelena’s question. Clint nodded. 

“Her adoptive father got into some gambling debts,” he said. “Ripped off the wrong people.” 

“But why go after her?” Yelena questioned. “Why do they want her alive?” Now Natasha knew that answer. She pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“Her biological father is the Winter Soldier,” she told them. “That is why they are after her. If she falls into the wrong hands, she could be an unstoppable weapon.”

*

You couldn’t sleep. Every time you close your eyes, you saw the metal man with a gun and your parents dead at your feet. Natasha came into your room to tell you that all three of you would be leaving bright and early and to try to get some sleep. You didn’t respond as she left saying goodnight. So you lay awake, staring up at the ceiling. Finally, you sighed and stood up leaving your small room to venture into the rest of the apartment. The other bedroom was on the opposite side of the apartment but you tried to be quiet as you went through the bare kitchen. In the last drawer you opened, you found what you were looking for. A single deck of cards. You grabbed it and sat down at the dining room table. Game night was common practice that took place with you and your parents almost every night. At a young age, they taught you poker, blackjack, pitch, rummy, and spades. You never left home without a deck of cards as a simple game of poker square or solitaire could calm your racing mind. So, you set up a poker square game. It was a game of strategy, patience, and a little bit of luck unless you could count cards. Another skill your parents taught you. “Couldn’t sleep?” The Black Widow questioned. You didn’t answer, glancing up at the redhead as she got two bottles of water and sat across from you. “What are you playing?” 

“Poker,” you answered. 

“Poker? Aren’t you a little young to know how to play poker?” You rolled your eyes. It was the same thing said to you by every adult when they found out you could play. 

“Poker isn’t just a way to gamble all the money in your pocket,” you didn’t look away from the cards. “It can teach you emotional stability in changing situations, to think analytically, and how to read people. But also how to be deceptive, you have to make everyone believe you have something in your hand when in reality you have something else,” Finally, you looked up at the Black Widow. “You’d be good at it. Your poker face is shit though.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“You know I thought about you all the time,” you went back to your game. “It kept me up some nights questioning why my mother gave me up. Maybe I wasn’t good enough or a mistake or she didn’t love me,” a glance up and you saw everything you needed in her eyes. They softened as her other facial features stayed stoic. 

“Not your mom, kid,” she lied. 

“From an emotional standpoint, sure, you aren’t. But biologically, I know I share your DNA,” you flipped the last card, placing it in the final spot. Taking a moment to look over how you did, you gathered up the cards again. “Shit poker face remember. It’s all in your eyes, they give too much away,” you shuffled the cards and began to play again. “Not that it’s a bad thing,” you added quickly, not wanting to offend the woman sitting across from you. “Just surprising,” you took a sip of water she gave you. “Can I ask you something?” 

“Go for it,” she said. “You can ask but that doesn’t mean I’ll answer.” Her smirk mirrored your own. 

“Say we don’t share any biological relation, why would the Avengers come and save me?” You began to play again. “I'm nobody,” you said. “It would probably cost less to have them kill me,” you saw her flinch slightly at your blunt comment. 

“You're not the only one he’s after,” you looked up at her. 

“Why?” You questioned. 

“I don’t know,” she answered. You hummed, nodding your head. 

“First time you were honest with me,” you cleaned up the cards. “Goodnight, Natasha,” you took the cards and the water bottle.

“Night, kid,” her voice followed you to the room. When the door closed, you rested your back against it. Your poker face was failing. You felt the cracks. Letting out a shaky breath, you pulled back the covers and climbed in. You were surprised at how quickly you fell asleep. 

*

Norway was beautiful. It was your first time leaving the country. You sat in the backseat of the white car with Maria in the passenger seat and Natasha was driving. You stayed quiet, playing with the charm around your neck. It was a turtle dove, a  Christmas gift from Agent Cruise, who had a matching charm. You wondered if he was okay. Maria tried to make conversation asking about your likes and dislikes. You kept your answers short. Natasha drove through a dirt road through the woods and when the car emerged you saw a camper in the middle of a clearing. The driver's side window was down and you heard water. There was nothing for miles around. “It’s not much but we’ll stay safe,” Natasha said, parking the car. Maria got out and opened your door for you to get out. The wind caused goosebumps to form on your skin as you followed the couple. 

The camper was simple, a couch that faced a small TV and a kitchen. Natasha walked towards the main bedroom, passing a bathroom. When she opened the bedroom door, there was a man fast asleep on top of the bed. The Black Widow hit the man on his foot, who jerked awake. “You're in our bed.”

“I’m..I’m not even under the covers,” he sat up, looking at Maria then you. “You're new. Who are you?” His voice was laced with a British accent. 

“I’m not telling you,” you said, not missing the way Natasha smiled at you. 

“Did you get everything on my list?” Natasha asked, walking back into the main part of the camper. You sat down on the couch as the three adults stood around the kitchen countertop. 

“Got passports, entry visas, and a couple of local driver’s licenses,” he handed the couple a white envelope. “There is a generator outside. It’s petrol-powered and the septic tank will need a flush in a couple of weeks,” he spun around, leaning against the counter. He was looking at you. “You’ll have to haul your rubbish into town. It’s about a 20-minute drive,” he continued. Finally, you couldn’t help but stare at him. 

“Can I help you?” You questioned. He smiled. 

“No, just looking,” you rolled your eyes. 

“Take a picture and it’ll last longer,” you mumbled, standing up and leaving the camper. You followed the sound of running water to a small stream. You sat on the bank and got lost in the water. 

*

“She’s a spitfire,” Mason said, turning to face the couple. Maria picked up the envelope on the counter and hit his arm. “Ow, what was that for?” He rubbed the spot that was just hit. 

“Leave her alone,” Maria said. “You're lucky I hit you and she didn’t.” Mason rolled his eyes.

“Does she know?’ He questioned. “She must, right?” Natasha walked over to the window and watched you. You were kneeling by the steam’s edge. “I mean it’s like I’m seeing double.” Mason continued. 

“She does,” Natasha whispered. “Not sure how she feels about it.” 

“Have you asked?” He asked, standing behind her. The Black Widow shook her head. 

“She’s been through a lot. I don’t want to add more to it.” 

*

The three of you fell into a routine. You slept on the pullout couch while Maria and Natasha were in the main bedroom. By the time the Black Widow was up for her morning run, you were up playing with the deck of cards you brought from the apartment. Maria would cook breakfast and the two Avengers spent the majority of the day doing Avenger duties, trying to help their teammates in any way. While they were doing that, you explored the surrounding woods and walked up and down the creek. When they needed to go into town, you went with them and a movie to end the night. Repeat. Repeat. And repeat. The repetition of the days wasn’t bothering you but the lack of conversation with the Black Widow was driving you insane. Maria was making an effort and you enjoyed talking and playing cards with her. Every time Maria invited Natasha but she would turn her down, coming up with a bullshit excuse. You knew what she was doing. She was building a wall between you and her. It would be fine if you didn’t catch her longing looks at you or hear Maria and Natasha fight one night when they thought you were asleep. Maria called her girlfriend out on her stand-offish behavior and Natasha claimed it was better off this way, it was only temporary.

Temporary. You were only a mission. Once the metal-armed man was dealt with you would go back home. But where was home? The only parents you knew were dead, no one spoke about Agent Cruise, and you were beginning to feel safe with the couple. Even though Natasha’s behavior was upsetting you. You wanted her to acknowledge you so were going to push her buttons. 

*

She just got off a meeting with the other Avengers and you heard the last of it as you came back into the camper for some water. The man disappeared. There were no signs of him. Natasha sighed, closing her laptop. You stared at the Black Widow from the kitchen, finished the glass of water, and placed it on the counter. “I want to go home,” you suddenly said. Her head snapped to you, you thought she was going to give herself whiplash. “They said he’s gone so it’s safe for me to go home.”

“And where are you going to go?” She questioned. Your jaw clenched. 

“Anywhere is better than here,” you mumbled, ignoring the flash of hurt across Natasha’s face and walking back outside. You heard Natasha behind you. 

“You know if you go back to the States he’ll kill you,” you stopped. “That is what he’s waiting for you. He will find you and kill you.” 

“Then use me as bait,” you turned to face her. “Have the Avengers stand guard, he’ll come, you’ll play hero, and we’ll go our separate ways.” 

“That’s not happening,” her face was hard to read, not even you could read her eyes. She had been practicing. Shit. “Even if I thought that was a good idea, which it isn’t. You aren’t ready,” you heard a car pull up as Maria returned from a quick trip to the store. “You have no idea how to survive in this world. It will chew you up and spit you out.” 

“I hate you,” you said, tears swelling in her eyes. You couldn’t help it. Natasha shook her head. 

“No, you don’t. Shit poker face. Your eyes give away too much,” repeated the same thing you said to her. “Not that it’s bad, just surprising.”  

“Screw you,” you snapped and ran towards the woods, ignoring Maria calling your name. 

*

“Do I even want to know what happened?” Maria asked. Natasha put her hands on her hips and looked down at the grass. 

“She wants to go home and I told her that as soon as she sets foot into the States he’ll kill her,” she sighed. “She said we could use her as bait and I may have said some other hurtful things.” Natasha heard her girlfriend sigh and walk over to her. With gentle hands, she lifted Natasha’s head to force her to look up. Green eyes stared into warm brown ones. 

“Why are you pushing her away, my love?” Maria whispered, gently pushing away a tear. Natasha didn’t realize she was crying. 

“This won’t last,” Natasha whispered. “Once she’s safe she’ll go back to a new family and I’ll never see her again. I can’t,” she cleared her throat. “I can’t handle growing close to her and then having her ripped away from me,” Maria brought her into a hug, cradling her head. Natasha felt her fingers run through her hair. Maria’s steady heartbeat helped the Black Widow’s heart calm down. Maria smelt like sandalwood and rain but it reminded Natasha of home. Maria stepped back, keeping her arms wrapped around her. 

“But wouldn’t a little pain be worth it so you experience having her now as you’ve always dreamt about,” Maria pushed a piece of hair behind her ear. “Love her now because you have the chance to.” Natasha let out a shaky breath. 

“I love you,” the Russian whispered. “I don’t think I could do this without you.” Maria kissed her softly. 

“I’m not going anywhere, baby, I’m right here.” 

*

“Kid,” you spun around to see the Black Widow behind you. You weren’t surprised she found you on a small rock near the stream’s edge. “You said you want to go home fine but I’m going to train you.” 

“Train?” You questioned. 

“Yes,” she crossed her arms. “Once word gets out who you are, that man won’t be the only one after you. I was right when I said you won’t survive this world so I’m going to make sure you can. I won’t always be around to save you,” she added on quickly. Her statement made your stomach drop but there was a crack in her pocket face. She was lying. 

“Okay,” you whispered, instead of calling her out on it. 

“Okay,” Natasha repeated. “Come on, Maria is cooking enchiladas.” You stood up, wiping the dirt off your pants, and followed the Black Widow back to the camper. 

*

Training started the following morning. You were up when Natasha went for her run and you joined her. It's been a while since you had to use your full speed to catch up with someone. Natasha was a lot faster than your 5th-grade classmates. After you ran, it was a quick breakfast then strength training and hand-to-hand combat. Maria would stop the two of you for lunch then it was weapon training. That was your favorite. Instead of nightly movies, you spent your time watching fight sequences and going over old mission reports to enhance your battle strategy.

It has hard and back-breaking work but you loved it. It reminded you of when your dad would take you to his poker games and gave you the job of reading his opponents. No one expected a little girl to have a better poker face than a 40-year-old man. Even though Natasha was yelling orders at you, it was the closest you felt to the Black Widow. Was it the healthiest way to bond with the mother that abandoned you? No, but she and Maria were all you had. You liked the proud smile Natasha tried to hide when you did something well or Maria’s gentle hands to help clean the cuts and bruises you received from the day’s training. It was nice, you felt like a family no matter how grueling the training sessions were. 

*

“You're holding back,” Natasha said. You were sparing with the Black Widow with Maria off to the side, watching. You were exhausted. The couple already put you through a 5-mile run and intense strength training. Natasha promised this was the last thing for the day if you managed to pin her. Easier said than done. “Come on, kid, push.” 

“I’m trying,” you said, putting your hands over your head, trying to get more air in your lungs. 

“When you're tired this is how you grow and learn. Now come get me,” you rushed her but Natasha grabbed your arm and threw you back to the ground. You groaned, staring up at the blue sky. “Come on get up. Do you think he’ll or anyone will let you have a break?” You huffed and stood back up. “This is how you survive. You get knocked down 100 times and you keep getting up because if you don’t you will die.” You sighed, wiping the sweat off your forehead. Think and breathe. Think and breathe. It was like a game of poker. You had to make her think you were going to do something then change your attack. Who knew your parents were training you to be an Avenger? Natasha said you were holding back so you weren’t going to. You sighed, bouncing on your toes, and sprinted towards her. She expected it since it was the same move you went for prior but when she went to grab your arm, you grabbed her and twisted it behind her back. She was quick to escape and you jumped back, creating distance between you and her. There was a smile dancing on her lips but you ignored it. You had to focus. 

She made the first move and punched with her right but you blocked it with your forearm. You blocked a few of her blows and hit her a few times in the stomach. She stumbled backward and you surged forward. You grabbed one of her arms and the other went behind her neck. You turned into her, sticking your right foot into her leg, and used the momentum to fling her over your body and onto the ground. You put your knee into her chest and stared down at her. You stared at your reflection in her green eyes. You didn’t recognize the look in your blue eyes but you’ve seen it before. The man with the metal arm had the same look in his blue eyes. It scared you, seeing your eyes void of all emotions and mimicking the glare of that man. Your eyes were dark, losing the light that your parents loved so much. They were void of the color so many people envied. You were terrified of yourself. 

With shaky legs, you stepped away from Natasha and Maria was already walking over. “That man who's after me, what’s his name?” You asked, trying to keep your voice from shaking. Natasha stood up and the couple had a silent conversation with one another. 

“He’s called the Winter Soldier,” Maria said. “HYDRA’s deadliest assassin.” You recognized the name HYDRA, a name said in passing at one of your dad’s poker games. You looked at Natasha. 

“Who is he to me?” You questioned. Her jaw clenched. “Tell me!” You demanded.

“He’s your father,” she said simply. You weren’t sure if it made it worse or better. “The Red Room decided to work along with HYDRA to create the perfect weapon,” there was a deep sadness edged in every one of her words. She looked away from you and towards the woods. Your stomach turned. You were a product of a forced relationship. 

“Does he know?” Natasha shrugged. 

“I don’t know,” her voice shook. “They did this horrible thing to reset him and wipe his memory. I don’t even think he remembers me,” Maria gently took her girlfriend’s hand in hers. You felt cold all of a sudden. Every one of the weird quirks that made you different now had an explanation. 

“Uh okay,” you nodded your head. “I need a minute.” You turned around and walked into the camper, making a beeline for the bathroom and closing the door behind you. Your hands shook as you turned on the water and splashed water on your face. You tried to regulate your breathing; in for 5, out for 5, in for 5, and out for 5 but it wasn’t helping. Bile was rising in your throat. Did Natasha have a choice? Did they have a relationship together or was it forced? You closed the toilet seat and you sat down, your legs finally gave out. 

HYDRA was a name whispered once or twice at your dad’s poker game. Your parents must have known who your biological parents were. Did they care? Did they realize the mistake they made before it was too late? You sighed, biting down on a towel and letting out a scream. You hoped the towel would muffle it. 

*

Maria found you sitting on the couch with one of Natasha’s pistols and a timer. Like playing poker or another card game, you found that dismantling a gun and putting it back together calmed your racing mind. You glanced at the agent. “Where’s Nat?” You asked. 

“Ran to the store,” you nodded. Maria sat down next to you, taking the gun from your hands. “Maybe we should talk instead of playing with a gun.” 

“There is nothing to talk about,” you stared at the TV. “I mean I find out my biological mother is an Avenger and my father is a feared assassin who is trying to kill me,” you felt your throat burn as tears threatened to escape. “My adoptive parents are dead and I’m pretty sure they were the reason he found me,” you folded your hands together, squeezing them. “I finally have answers to so many questions but now I don’t want them because I feel so alone,” you sighed, angrily whipping your face. “But I’m so fucking fine.” 

“Language,” she gasped. You looked at the woman and laughed at the teasing smile on her face. “I want to show you something,” she stood up and grabbed a small box next to the TV. She handed it to you. “It was part of the arrangement,” you opened the box and saw pictures of you at all stages of your life. “Natasha agreed to give you up in return she got pictures of you and was notified if you were in trouble.” Maria sighed, picking up one of the pictures. “I know it’s very hard to see but she loves you very much even if she doesn’t say it,” you closed the box, whipping away a tear that fell. “And you aren’t alone. You have us.” 

“But when the mission is over, what happens to me then?” You asked. 

“What do you want?” You weren’t expecting the question, not thinking you had a choice in the matter. 

“I know what I want,” you answered. “But I don’t think I can have it.”

*

Natasha didn’t join you and Maria for dinner. She was outside, drinking from a bottle of vodka when you joined her. The only light was from the stars and the small camping light. You sat down next to her on the top of the picnic table. “Are you hungry?” You asked. “I can go get you something.” She smiled. 

“Not hungry, kid, but thank you.” You nodded, watching her take another sip from the bottle. 

“I’m sorry,” you told her, looking up at the stars so you couldn’t see her face. “This probably hasn’t been easy for you since I’m a constant reminder of everything. Plus I know I haven’t made it easy for you.” 

“This is not your fault. I should have been honest with you from the beginning. It just,” Natasha sighed. “Hurt too much.” You nodded, that you understood. Silence fell between you and her. 

“I asked Maria what was going to happen to me once the Winter Soldier situation was over. She asked what I wanted,” you looked at her. “Do you know what I want?” You asked. She shook her head. “I want to go live with you and Maria and meet the other Avengers.” The shock was evident on her face. 

“Why?” She whispered. 

“Because you're my mom,” you whispered back. “And I know I’ll be safe as long as I’m with you.” Natasha let out a breathless laugh, shaking her head. 

“Your innocence was stolen because of all this,” she whispered, pushing some of your red hair behind your ear. “I will send out an army to find you even in the middle of the darkest nights. I will rescue you,” she whipped away a few of your tears that fell. You didn’t realize you were crying. “There is no distance that cannot be covered. I’ll be your shelter and armor. There was never a moment you were forgotten or I wasn’t thinking about you.”

“I can’t,” your voice shook. “I can’t lose any more people in my life. I think it will break me.” She pulled you into a hug and something inside you snapped. You cried. You finally cried against her. 

“Sh, dorogoy (sweetheart),” Natasha whispered, rubbing soothing circles on your back. “I’m right here. I won’t go anywhere.” You heard the camper door open but you didn’t move from the Black Widow’s arms. You felt the table move as Maria sat down on your other side. Without looking you intertwined your fingers with Maria. She squeezed your hand. “We won’t leave you. We are right here.” You nodded your head against Natasha. You so wanted to believe them but there was a theme of people coming into your life and leaving. Maybe you were the problem. 

“Come on, sweetheart,” Maria whispered. “Let’s go to bed. We have a long day tomorrow.” You nodded, removing yourself from Natasha. ‘Along the day,’ you thought, ‘It’s been the longest few weeks of your life. What’s one more long day?’ 

Part 2                                                                                    

[merthosus]

Loved both parts of Meeting Again 💕 You write so beautifully! I saw you wanted more Diego requests, and I was thinking — a Jealous!Diego 🙈 You can pick any scenario or if you want to do a version where reader is the one who has met a connection while they’re apart in Season 2. Up to you! But just thought would be very fun and interesting to see your take on him being jealous. I appreciate you! There’s not enough Diego content out there — you’re single-handedly feeding us all!

Jealousy destroys

Summary: After being split from your family for almost 2 Years, you found someone, he was now a big part of your life. You knew, deep down in your heart, you were imagining someone different in him, but you pushed it away.

Thanks for you request love!! I am a Diego Girly myself so writing for him is making me very happy :) (Btw this picture I can't-)

“Only I get to call you that...but only when we’re alone”

“NO LISTEN TO ME!”, you say in a squeaky high voice. You point your finger at the tube TV in front of you. Although you liked the OLED TV with integrated LED, which projected the displayed color of the movie onto the wall, you adapted. No more flat-screen TVs, no more cell phones and no more ceramic hobs. It had been a big change to travel back to a time when industrialization was still in its infancy.

But Pietro helped you to find your way again, to forget. He was tall, very tall, every girl who looked at him threatened to faint. You met him in a disco. After a little number in the disco toilet, you were hooked. His smell, his eyes and his wonderfully soft hair made you kneel on the floor like a nun. But you still knew that he could never replace Diego. Every night before you fell asleep, you saw him in front of you, following your every thought like a ghost.

2 years were much, but not enough to forget him. "Babe, I need it, please", you beg him. You knew that the puppy eyes always worked at him. He glares at you, trying nit to fall for the little trick you were doing. He was aware of the little manipulation, but as soon as he saw your big eyes he couldn't stop imagining how your eyes would tear of happiness, as soon as he would yes. Apart from that he also couldn't get the picture out his head of those beautiful eyes filled with tears when his cock will enter your mouth after he plugged the new tv in.

"Alrighht", he says, watching your expression change. "I will buy it", he smiles I your direction. You stumble forward and climb onto his big torso. "I love you so much", you say as you hug him as tight as you could. Pietro’s deep chuckle rumbles in his chest as you cling to him, your arms wrapped tightly around his neck. You can feel the warmth of his body through his shirt, the steady beat of his heart against your own. His large hands settle on your waist, holding you securely as you press your cheek against his broad shoulder.

“I know you do,” he murmurs, his voice filled with affection. He leans down slightly, his lips brushing the top of your head. “But you know this is just an excuse to get what you want, right?”. You pull back just enough to look up at him, your big eyes still wide with excitement and maybe a hint of mischief. “Of course it is,” you admit with a grin. Pietro held the door open for you, like the gentleman he was. The bell on the door rang, as you both entered. "Closed", a few voices from the railing above screamed down on you.

You were steadfast, very steadfast, nothing could possibly dissuade you from buying this tv. As you went up the stairs, you excused your rude behavior. "... so please let me buy the...", your voice stopped working, the same as your legs were, as you saw your whole family standing before you. The same as your eyes were wide open, theirs was too. "I said we are closed...", said the one unknowingly man beside Diego. As he tried stepping forward, Diegos arm stopped him. "Y/n?", Diego asks bewildered, he stepped forward himself but as soon as Pietro's big shadow appeared behind me he stopped.

Pietro puts his arm around your shoulders. "Listen man, she wants that tv, so she gets that tv", he arguments with him. Diego tilts his head as he saw him touching you. "Who are you?", he asks. The tension in the room grew thick, almost palpable, as Diego’s sharp gaze focused on Pietro. You could feel Pietro’s grip on your shoulder tighten, his protective instinct kicking in. He wasn’t one to back down from a challenge, especially not when it involved you.

“I’m Pietro,” he replied, his voice calm but firm, meeting Diego’s glare with one of his own. “And I’m her boyfriend. We’re just here to buy a TV, so if you could back off, that would be great.” Diego’s eyes narrowed, his expression hardening. “Boyfriend?” The word seemed to hang in the air, heavy and suffocating. He took a step closer, his posture tense, as if he was ready to confront Pietro right then and there. “You’ve been gone for two years, Y/N, and now you show up with this parasite?” His tone was laced with disbelief and something that almost sounded like hurt.

"Watch your words, amigo", Pietro says. "I...I", you stumbled over your words. Diego's eyes burned with intensity as he glared at Pietro, the jealousy and anger swirling in his chest almost too much to contain. His fists clenched tightly at his sides, knuckles turning white, as he took another step forward, closing the distance between them. “Watch my words?” Diego repeated, his voice low and dangerous. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, especially not when it comes to her.” He pointed at you, his gaze flicking to yours briefly before returning to Pietro with renewed fury.

Pietro’s grip on your shoulder tightened, and you could feel the tension radiating from him, his muscles coiled and ready for a fight. But despite the growing hostility between the two men, you knew you had to intervene before things got out of hand. The air between the three of you was thick with tension, so much so that it felt like you could slice through it with a knife. Diego's dark eyes bore into Pietro, who stood his ground with a calm but defiant expression. You could feel Pietro’s protectiveness radiating off him, his grip on your shoulder firm as if silently promising he wouldn’t let anything happen to you.

But you knew Diego well enough to see the storm brewing beneath his tough exterior. His chest rose and fell with deep, controlled breaths, a clear sign that he was struggling to keep his emotions in check. Pietro, who had been silent, finally spoke up, his tone cool and collected. “She’s moved on, man. You need to respect that. She’s with me now.”

Diego’s eyes narrowed at Pietro’s words, his jaw clenching so hard you were sure he’d break a tooth. “Respect? You’re talking to me about respect?” He let out a bitter laugh, one devoid of any real amusement. “I don’t think you understand, amigo. Respect is earned, and you haven’t earned a damn thing.” Pietro smirked, clearly unfazed by Diego’s hostility. “I think you’re just mad because you couldn’t give her what she needed. She needed someone strong enough to help her move on, and that wasn’t you”, you could hear out his words, that he assumed that he was your ex.

Diego’s face contorted with rage at Pietro’s words, and before you could even react, he lunged forward, fist flying towards Pietro. The sound of the punch landing echoed through the room, and you gasped as Pietro stumbled back, his hand immediately going to his jaw. “Diego, stop!” you cried out, stepping between the two men before the situation could escalate further. Your hands pressed against Diego’s chest, trying to create some distance between him and Pietro. Diego’s eyes, dark with anger, met yours, and you could see the conflict warring within him wanting to hurt the man who had taken his place, but not wanting to hurt you.

Pietro straightened up, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. He let out a low chuckle, shaking his head as he looked at Diego with a mix of pity and disdain. “See, this is why she left. You’re too wrapped up in your own anger to see what she really needs.” “Pietro, don’t,” you warned, your voice firm. The last thing you wanted was for him to provoke Diego further.

But Pietro wasn’t backing down. “She needs someone who can be there for her, not someone who’s stuck in the past.” Diego’s fists clenched again, and you could feel the tension radiating off him like a live wire. “You don’t know a damn thing about what she needs,” he spat, his voice laced with venom. “Stop it, both of you!” you shouted, your voice cracking under the strain of the situation. “This isn’t helping anyone!”, you said angrily. Diego looks down on you, your hands still lingering in his chest. "I missed you so fucking much", he whispers as he lays one hand on your cheek.

"I thought I would never see you again", he mumbles as he looked you deep into your eyes. The intensity in Diego's voice caught you off guard, making your breath hitch in your throat. His touch was gentle, almost hesitant, as his thumb brushed lightly across your cheek. You could see the raw emotion in his eyes, a mixture of longing, pain, and something deeper that you couldn't quite name. It was as if the two years of distance and silence had all melted away in this moment, leaving only the unspoken feelings between you.

“I missed you too,” you whispered back, your voice trembling. The truth was, despite everything, you had missed him more than you wanted to admit. No matter how much you tried to move on, there was always a part of you that longed for the connection you once shared. "Bitch", you heard Pietro mumble almost silent behind you. But you heard it, meaning Diego did too. His loving expression faded and his head swung up in his direction again.

With a light twist in his shoulder, you heard a knife fly in Pietro's direction. You didn't needed to turn around to register what just happened. Seeing Five groan with annoyance behind Diegos shoulder, Allison slapping her hand on her forehead and Luther looking shocked, you knew exactly what he did.

“You know,” Diego said softly, his voice low and rough with emotion, “only I get to call you that.” A small, almost teasing smile tugged at his lips as he added, “But only when we’re alone.” Before you could respond, Diego’s lips met yours in a kiss that was fierce and possessive, yet filled with a deep, undeniable affection. It was a kiss that spoke of everything you both had been through, the years of longing, the pain of separation, and the fire that still burned between you.

When he finally pulled back, you were breathless, your heart pounding in your chest. Diego’s dark eyes bore into yours, his expression a mixture of love and determination. “No one disrespects you. Ever,” he murmured, his voice firm. “Not while I’m around.”

Hope you liked the little story :)

[wmarximoff]

𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐞𝐚 | 𝐰. 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐟𝐟

summary: because only you can make Wanda feel at home.

warnings (18+): smut, strap-on sex (r receiving), name-calling, spanking, daddy kink, slight breeding kink, choking, weed consumption, mental health issues. MINORS DNI.

pairing: stoner!emo!Wanda x fem!reader

word count: 5k

masterlist|

༺ᱬ༻

In the light of Wanda Maximoff's gaze the stars did not twinkle in flashes of silver that night – but neither they did during the night before that, or even the other night before that, one colder on the skin than the other, the light slowly fading into the dull, aged silver of the big city sky. There was no sparkle in those eyes that stared at the dark sky above her head.

The noise from the street below, the cars and passers-by and that sound of life, didn't reach up there on the seventh floor – everything blended into an amalgamation just down there, a distant and reserved experience. The sky vault was vast and absconding like a black hole that swallows everything that orbits it, and the apartment was closer to the sky than to the earth. The stars were there as they always were, but each twilight was duller than the previous one.

Not that Wanda wasn't used to a kind of internal calluses, but even the unlit night sky reflected the mood of those dead eyes in a somber emerald green, which didn't see the brightness of the world around her – eyes that didn't see anything else, as in a kind of trance, a willful blindness of blurred faces.

Even if the night had been serene and peaceful, a veil of moonlight draped over the metal of the rings spread across the lengths of her fingers, there would still be no glow that could pierce the shrouded bubble around Wanda's hunched silhouette, who smoked a long, white cigarette with a yellow filter, placidly seated in a chair with withered legs made of dark and solid plastic – the apartment's balcony was as modest as a boat that can only hold two or three people, and a group of four people would not fit there even squeezed against each other, with their elbows and shoulders touching as if inside a crowded elevator.

The Bronx apartment was small, the best a couple of college students with a part-time job could afford on the lowest paycheck. For a pair of twins like that, it was almost like sharing the visceral walls of the same uterus again.

Sokovian literature accompanied her open just above her pale thighs joined together, who was only wearing light denim shorts on that tragic New York summer night, warm and dry. This one, however, was a small book in a soft cream cover, scarcely more than a hundred bound pages—a crowded metric of Cyrillic letters in uniform stanzas; poems in a language reminiscent of her native tongue, her mother's favorites. Wanda hated poems and she hated her mother as well.

But sometimes, as if in a sardonic torture, it was necessary to conjure up that ghost of the past, foreboding and restless, struggling at its core, because the shroud of monotony was too much in the bosom of the newfound adult life in the big city, so far from home as Wanda was. She had gone to study, away from war and famine and her mother – but poverty has to be a constant specter in a young immigrant's life, like a hidden tumor, sucking little by little.

Sometimes homesickness visited her at night, when the world was too much to bear outside her comfort zone. And then came the urge, the chest pulsing hard, crackling under her skin, seeking refuge in the idea of that creature who primarily should offer her some kind of comfort, however Wanda did not actually taste that source of support as primigenous as Pietro Maximoff, her twin brother, had done, drinking it straight from the fountain.

Pietro was sweet, a good boy and a fine son, but their mother hated her as much as only a mother can love a daughter. And Wanda loved her as much as a daughter can hate a mother.

And so she read, traced with the tip of her peeling black-painted fingernail each line of that little set of Sokovian poems, looking for comfort where she thought she could find it in those withered lines. But it didn't do any good, not when Wanda hated poems, thought they were boring and pointless. And even the cigarettes didn't help her enjoy them with an active air of a condemned intellectual, despite the fact that she loved the sweet, harsh death that smoked down her throat, quieting her since the beginning of the immature nerves of adolescence.

But it wasn't the infuriating poems or the countless cigarette butts pressed against the hollow bottom of a metal ashtray one after the other like a handful of unlit candles stuffed into the top of a birthday cake, or the memory of a monotone childhood in the Sokovian province that would fill the void in her chest, and that Wanda had always known.

Poems were boring, cigarettes were rotting her insides, and from the bosom of youth she'd yearned to pack up her things and leave Sokovia behind for good, without a kiss or a goodbye. But the dream died still in the womb – there was, far from home, a certain depressing monotony, so different from the monotony of living a life in a place where you don't want to be, imbued in the action that was occasionally crossed by long sleepless nights, in the company of stress and intrusive thoughts.

She didn't feel at home in New York, but Sokovia had never been her home either. But finding a certain degree of depressed boredom within her dream seemed worse to Wanda than the monotony of living in a house where everything looked the same. There was something wistful for her to discover that everything she'd ever wanted could be just as depressing.

There was just something wrong, something wrong with her spirits, like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that didn't quite fit together. Maybe the world didn't spin for her the way it did for others. Maybe she just expected too much from a world that always offered so little.

“Are you smoking on the balcony again, Wanda?”

The voice came rumbling from within the walls of the small apartment, from the back of her head – a high, masculine tone and charged with that hard-talking rhythm of south-eastern European accent still limiting the pronunciation of the English words, sanding them harshly, as in a solid chant.

“I am,” was her reply, the dull tone of a corpse still harboring a soul that struggles to shed its shell, her accent sounding just as strong as his, “I kind of needed this right now.”

“Dude, you know you need to stop doing it.”

Towards Wanda then, from the profuse darkness of a living room with lights out and gushing dimness that swallowed the hand-me-down furniture placed there, the figure of a young boy halfway to finish performing the thrusting motion his elbow into the right hole of a dark blue denim jacket, new and clean, freshly pressed and still smelling of lavender fabric softener.

Wanda looked at him with emerald irises tired by poetry, from under her long lepidopterous lashes laden with smoke – Pietro, tall and strong, had tresses of his poorly bleached hair cut short, a mane of unruly hair soft to the touch, and a beard with wisps of unmade dark threads carpeting his square jaw and around his thin lips. There was something herculean about the boy; he had always been something of an athletic, if even dour, type, a hit with the young ladies their age, the twins. The Fast Jock and the Weird Girl.

“You smoke all the time too, don't be a hypocrite now, Piet. Isn’t fair.”

“It's not because of that,” snapped her twin brother in bad manner, creasing a patch of fur between his bushy brows, then adjusting the cut of the jacket to his broad shoulders as he grabbed her by the lapels in his big hands, pulling the garment forward.

Although not so close to her brother, separated by the distance of an outstretched arm, Wanda was quite capable of distinguishing the aroma of woody cologne and fresh and striking deodorant, like a walk through the men's cosmetics section in a corner pharmacy.

“The neighbors will complain about the smell again and you know we don't have the money to pay another fine. Miss Harkness will be the first to complain, you know she always does. I'm not going to pay anything now, I don't have a penny left in my pocket. You'll have to manage to pay that fine if she complains again. And you’re the one doing the talking this time, not me.”

“Miss Harkness hates me,” Jadish eyes rolled in their sockets, a twirl of scorn, “She will complain about me every chance she gets.”

“Just put this shit off, c’mon.”

“No.”

“Wanda.”

But Wanda yielded to the stern blue gaze of her older twin brother, and with a single flick of her right wrist, she pressed the burning end of her cigarette against the bottom of a red tin ashtray placed just above the small table next to her, imagining that that piece of metal blurred by ember ash and toasted smoke was the pointed face of the middle-aged landlady, owner of profuse brown locks and a big pearly smile, who was always carrying in her arm a white rabbit, old and fat, almost similar to a puffy domestic cat.

“Okay, are you happy now?”

“My pocket certainly is, yeah,” the boy with the unnaturally pale hair muttered under his breath, before turning on heels shoved in white sneakers and turning his back on his sister, sitting in the high chair on the balcony.

“And why is this house so dark, eh? Turn on some lights every now and then, Wanda. We’re not animals living in a cave. This looks like one of those vampire movies... you're in your vampire phase again, is that it?”

The single lamp on the ceiling of the room had been turned on by Pietro's indicator pushing the plastic switch up, a beam of pearly white light coming from inside the house, passing through the tall sliding glass doors and bothering Wanda's irises, acclimated to the darkness of a dull night, in a corrosive ardor that incited her to squint her eyelids and crease her brow like a nocturnal animal exposed to the artificial light of a car lantern on the road, hiding her face behind a curtain of thick long, dark hair in a back-necked motion.

Then Wanda, her pale face exposed to the plastic light of the ceiling lamp, suddenly became aware of her brother's state – the newly acquired jacket still smelling of the clothing store, the sneakers clean with soapy water, the collar of the shirt all perfumed and his hair well combed, the ends of his beard well trimmed, he all spotless and smelling good. And a crease of curiosity crept between her dark brows, because Pietro's usual state consisted of basketball shorts and an alternation or two between a pair of baggy shirts that he didn't wash all that often.

“Why are you so dressed up like that? That jacket is new,” she got to her feet then, the soles of her bare dusty feet hitting the cold balcony floor before stepping onto the warm floorboards inside the house, “Are you going to some job interview or something?”

“Job interview on a Saturday night, сестричко? Pff, yeah, I'm going out with a girl. You know, like actual normal people do on their free weekends.”

Pietro looked at her with a mischievous little smile broken at the corner of his thin lips, calling her “little sister” in his native language as he always did when he was purposely teasing her, treating her like a little girl, a silly girl and so ignorant of the lives of adults they should have at the end of that time in life, in a youth encapsulated in the advent of adulthood, which in all its layer of social shyness could never have considered the fact that the brother was going on a date.

And Wanda's brows furrowed for a bit, a thin squeegee of embarrassing embarrassment tugging at the pit of her stomach, her ego vaguely insulted by that childishness insinuated by Pietro – because indeed it was Saturday night, a hot and sultry night of summer in the Big Apple, and the young twin had organized no program for herself but reading pages of Sokovian poetry until her brain became an overworked illiterate while she smoked the ashes of her meager existence, interspersing the two actions between sips here and there of red tea that would eventually cool down and spill all over into her cup. College life hadn't been as kind to Wanda as it had been to Pietro, after all.

“But,” she muttered in a tight voice, brows still pinched together, “But I thought today we were going to—”

“Man, to tell you the truth I'm already well short of time,” the guy then pressed the pad of his right thumb against the side of the cell phone he fished out of the back pocket of his dark jeans, unlocking the device's screen in a flash of white glow next to his apollonian nose, which kind of hinted at the structure of her own.

“Damn it, it's almost half past eight – Monica will kill me if I'm late again. Just... you don't have to wait up for me, right Wanda? If anything, just give me a call,” and Wanda followed him with her eyes, her mouth still half open in a dead sentence, when Pietro's right fingers closed around the tin handle of the front door.

“Побачимось.”

And so Pietro was gone, the door closing with a metallic click behind him without the real expectation of a not really necessary answer from his sister, the parting word already echoing from the corridor outside. He never expected a comeback, it's true. And once again Wanda found herself alone, prostrate like a dead plant in a red clay pot in the heart of that apartment with its withered bare walls and warm floor, sulky and damp during the sticky seasons of heat and cold and bitter in the seasonal blows of winter.

Before the height of her stomach, her right fingers fit into the crooks of her left fingers, her fingertips fidgeting with the handful of silver rings dotted there, twirling them, pressing and pulling them around the spans of her fingers. The dark nail polish on her thumbnail was scratched, but she didn't care about it that much.

Pietro didn't come back for something he hadn't forgotten, but Wanda continued to stand at the door like the most faithful of dogs, as if he were going to open the door and say he'd changed his mind, opting for an evening washed down with salty buckets of popcorn and classic American sitcom along with his little sister's company. But there wasn't that. Nothing happened minutes later. From the kitchen faucet, dripping water trickled into the aluminum sink at a broken, faintly vertiginous rhythm. A fly tinkled its little fluttering wings around the lamp above her head of dark hair.

And then isolation took hold in Wanda who caged the oxygen inside her lungs, as if that house and its walls were nothing more than a bulwark that segregated her from the outside world to that door through which her brother had left her, as if the small apartment in the Bronx was her own cocoon of the social, an abode that harbored a being unworthy of sunlight, a being similar to her.

Wanda found herself trapped in a dilemma as much as she was trapped inside her own home, her body and her mind. She was tired of being hemmed in by the ceiling and floor of the apartment, and she could no longer bear the thought that with Pietro far away, as far away as he was now, being the social animal he always was, Wanda would have to be haunted by the company itself.

Without him there was just her, alone and aimless, like a shipwrecked man floating on an old, swollen piece of wood in a vast ocean where sky and sea met on the horizon, no sign of life nearby, the water so deep and dismal that you couldn't see the sand at the bottom. Just her, floating alone in the dark.

And, together from the pillars of their maternal womb, that primary cradle shared between the two twin children, Wanda did not feel that in fact she had been born to be just her, to live a life as reclusive as the experiences of today's hermit that were available before her, and despite her assertion to her brother that solitude was good for her reclusive spirit, the caliber of her involuntary anthropophobia gave an anxious squeeze to the core of young Wanda Maximoff's chest.

Solitude pleased her, but she only evoked a profuse disgust at the idea of loneliness, of isolation. Wanda feared being alone with her own thoughts.

“Fuck it.” Her peach lips curled into a long thin, taut line.

With the fingers of her right hand, Wanda searched for something in the pocket of her thin burgundy knit jacket, her black nails cut short, then slipping lightly over the half-dented pack of cigarettes also placed inside to, finally, hook against the material of her phone with which cigarettes shared space inside the cut in her pocket. She picked up the device with a certainty born of the anxious restlessness that gushed in the walls of her pharynx.

Wanda then reached for it with a movement of her elbow, bringing her phone close to the round tip of her button nose, unlocking the device's screen with the help of her right thumb. And, without hesitating to dive into that cluster of digital apps, she did what she had to do – what everything in that pitifully withdrawn situation in which she found herself in her own social exile compelled her to do, the digits of her fingers pressing the glass screen, typing on the digital keyboard.

hey can you come over?

piet is out

And then, after a second or two, a new message typed by her quick fingers flashed.

i don't wanna be alone tonight

The emerald eyes, profuse and dull in their clear irises, screwed up in anticipation of the answer like a faithful waiting for a sign from their god, staring at that little speech bubble as long as she could.

The folds of Wanda's fingers pressed against the edges of the poor phone, the loops of her rings scraping against the dark plastic. Just waiting, anticipating, fingers curled, anxiety bubbling in scarlet bubbles inside her stomach. And then, a prompt response popped up in the chat shared with that other number.

Of course I can go.

I'll be there soon, Wands .

She took a long, deep gulp of oxygen that rushed in and inflated her lungs in a refreshing release, excarcerating it right away. The muscles in both her shoulders softened into the red hooded jacket she wore – there would be no more loneliness to swallow or tears to shed. Soon you would be there for her. And it only took an interval of fifteen minutes for Wanda to open inwards the door that Pietro had closed behind him twenty-five minutes before, with a hard movement of her right elbow taut against her ribs.

That was how her gaze moved in midair so that, in such a way, it clung to your expectant eyes, which intuitively sought her greenish irises as soon as the door was opened to the inside of the apartment – and there you were, you, standing in front of her door, standing in the long, deserted hallway, staring in mutual care at Wanda's grim-faced face; the chiseled arch of her brows, the delicate lines of her button nose, the well-defined arch of her mouth and high cheekbones.

Opening the door at that moment was like opening the way for all loneliness to go away, because then you were there, there for her.

“Hey,” your lips curled into a chaste smile, “Hey, Wands.”

“Thank you.”

And then, desperate, tormented by a ghostly worry, Wanda, speechless from any verbal response to her affable greeting, walked towards you with a long-winded expression on her pretty, lightly made-up, cigarette-scented face, wanting nothing more than her girl in her own arms.

And she cupped both sides of your face between the warm palms of her hands, bringing her lips to you which she padded with her own mouth in a necessary clash, feeling you uplifted against her body, overwhelmed with her own miseries, just trying to feel nothing but you.

Your lips collided then, her hands holding you close, her rings feeling like little cool spots on the skin of your cheeks, such a disparate awareness of Wanda's warm, caring touch. There would be no better touch in the world for you than the one that displayed all the affection you knew Wanda had for you – a symbolic pair of hands on your cheeks, not only to feel you, but also to hold you and worship her. To prove she knew you were there for her like no one else would be.

“Thank you.”

Wanda muttered in a breath of hot air brushing against the pulps of your lips, still feeling the ghost of your warm lips against hers, a delicious tingle running across her tongue, tasting of ecstasy – lids closed, your foreheads touching almost shyly.

“Thank you, Y/n.”

“I'm here now, Wanda. I am here for you.”

Her warm fingers caressed the skin of your cheeks, instilling a placid serenity in her body. Short nails, coated in black nail polish, traced invisible lines across your cheekbones. Wanda reeked of melancholy and fear like the back of Marlboro cigarettes. And she kissed you once more, and then again and again, interspersing the kisses between little whispers of thanks, declarations for the void to hear. She continued until the automatic lights in the hallway went out.

ᗢ

Puddles of fabric were the pieces of clothing abandoned on the bare wooden floor like helpless stray animals. When Wanda looked up, the movement was conducive to her becoming aware of the erratic pattern where one fold of wallpaper stuck to another on the wall in front of her. It was a rather threadbare wallpaper, derived in the most accurate sense of the word from a faded red wine red that had been there before she moved into that apartment. Her orientation perspective was choked and restrained at that point – her fingertips seemed to enjoy the feel of warm flesh pressed against them, soft and firm at the same time.

Even though her vision was clouded, splattered on her lepidopterous eyelashes by drowsy droplets of a soft intoxication, she saw herself, as if able to smile to herself, lightheaded, her eyes dark green like moss – she was high because you had smoked a joint together some time ago, on the balcony (your elbows brushing and she looking at your glow under the starry sky, because no star would shine brighter than the twinkle inside your irises when Wanda looked at you, hiding the world around you two behind a foggy layer of smoke).

A thick bead of sweat formed above her temple, in her dark hairline, pouring down the length of her pale face until it dripped from her chin, just past the sharp bulge of her left cheekbone. A drop that landed on the arched back below her.

“F–fuck, daddy! Daddy!”

A high-pitched sound vibrated through the room's four red walls—the crack of a slap delivered against your skin, a smack that Wanda made sure to mark on your bottom in euphoric readiness, her fingers in pink welts on your skin, because something in her always delighted to press the bruises with which she bestowed you, ever making your flesh her possession. She loved to mark you, to make your body her perfect picture, the masterpiece of those hands that yearned for her warm skin.

“You're a fucking bitch,” she snorted in a hint of a harsh accent, “My bitch. My favorite bitch.”

“Daddy's favorite,” you repeated in a voice choked with weed and pleasure, and an electric shiver runs down Wanda's spine.

The shudder cost her a break in her rhythm and roughness and rhythm, that long scarlet silicone strap sliding to reach inside the wet folds of your pussy, but you didn't realize it, not how she did it – after all, your face plunged into the pillowcase that emanated the sweet aroma of Wanda's shampoo, the folds of your fingers hooking on the sheets that reeked of her woody perfume, as if submerging in a red mist that she referred to so much, you wouldn't have noticed that her hips wobbled once.

It was like being swallowed by her everywhere, and so you screamed, howled like a bitch in heat – and Wanda appreciated how loud you could be. Claiming her name, how good she, only she, was able to make you feel, and that you were close. Definitely close. In muffled pleas begging daddy to go faster and stronger, deeper and harder towards your womb – and behind the strap she felt her own clit every time the tip of the toy thrust into your cervix.

An indecency was arranged in your closed eyelashes when Wanda looked at you from behind, both of you being without any clothing to cover the length of your bodies as you were, as naked as the day you were born as she fucked you from behind. And at that moment, a welcoming warmth radiated from your broad-shouldered body, and for Wanda, it was like seeing herself integrated into a puddle of torrid sunlight, fulfilling her need to have you close; her arms wrapped around you from behind, her bare breasts pressed against the pale skin of your back, her feeling you there, belonging to her, moving with her.

“Daddy– please! Please wanna cum– I wanna–”

Entranced in a flash of wild desire, feeling Wanda's deft hand move across the skin of your abdomen, being smoothed by the eager digits of her left hand's clever fingers wandering southward down your body, into your tasteless hips, your mouth throbbed lewdly.

“Daddy!”

Her face was hidden in the contour of your neck, in the shoulder joint sprinkled with sloppy bruises, so that Wanda would be able to nibble, from there, a fresh patch of warm skin, easing the burning and tingling that came from the act with the tip of her tongue; her greedy nose tangled in a few profuse locks of your sweaty hair.

Your throat flexed, spilling out a breathy needy moan that pulsed against the line of your teeth. In sync your bodies moved on top of the mattress of her bed, back and forth.

“I wanna come on you,” she gasped, “I wanna mark you as mine. I'll paint your fucking womb white with my load, baby. I’ll break you until no one can use you but me. You're my fuck hole – mine, mine, and nobody else's.”

“Y– yours! I’m yours, daddy, yours!” But there was a hitch in your speech, words squeezing into your throat when Wanda's five right fingers closed against the outline of your neck, screwing into your skin like a thick rope. Saliva seeped from the corner of your lips, down into your chin.

 The roar that bloomed through a crack in her lips had been a husky murmur. As her right hand was busy squeezing your neck, her left was busy plucking the pulsing nerve between your legs—so needy, an urgency growing in your bones and flesh, yearning for the ardor of her figure. Wanda, who unfolded to you with such care and mastery, her inhuman touch burning over your skin.

Her fingertips brushed your fine wet, rough pubic hair, and Wanda took a deep breath, her chest rising heavily and falling lightly, snorting a breath of warm air against the hollow of your ear—the scorching skin of her torso girding itself against your spine, who saw yourself as being able to feel the two swollen nipples pressed against your stinging shoulder blades, her thick her cock still straining your insides in a continuous, harsh back-and-forth.

“Fuck,” her tongue flicked against the roof of her mouth, followed by a curse in her native language, “You are mine, Y/n, you’ll always be mine. Mine. No one else is going to have you but me, fuck, I– I'll make sure of it, I, I'll come on you. I'm going to stuff you so everyone knows you're my bitch walking around with my cum leaking out of you.”

Your ecstasy compelled you to choke on a groan coiled in your throat, and at Wanda's speech you rolled your hips back, fucking yourself in her cock, begging for more, as debilitating when against something as simple as a touch, a simple touch of ethereal fingers, despite the strap that widened you from the inside. Wanda was the only one capable of tearing your brittle body to pieces if she wanted to, and even the vaguest idea made her blood boil in her veins.

“W-Wanna cum,” was a moan from you, your brows meeting furrowed across your peach flushed face; you sounded a little dizzy in your rambling speech, pressing your fingers against the sheet.

“Wanna cum around daddy's cock, wanna–”

“Fuck, I'm gonna come inside your greedy little cunt, gonna– fuck, Y/n!”

Before her you came in a rush of nasal groaning – harsh and confused. Screaming for Wanda, pressing your ass against her hips, shaking. But she buried herself back in you one or two more times before she did it on her own – your walls quivering and tight, familiar and pleasant enough before Wanda plunged her orgasm inside you. And in such a way that she did it, as if just being inside you was what was needed to untie the knot at her primordial apex, then a hand below her navel.

“I'm fucking coming inside you!”

She couldn't actually do it, not the way she really wanted to, but it was enough to feel that familiar tightening in the pit of her stomach when she was there, in that position, that characteristic sting of orgasm digging in her belly. Wanda withdrew from you, your glittering liquid glistening around the strap that the dark harness fastened to her waist, and, with her head seeming to weigh more than the rest of her body, Wanda toppled forward, landing on the slats bed next to you panting, in which the chest rose and fell with an impressive weight.

“Fuck… fuck.”

Her lids squint over the heavy gaze, the world dimming for a second, awareness slipping away. Eyes closed, the room immersed in a puddle of accentuated silence. Then a minute passed. And two and three. There was a click of the spark wheel of a lighter rolling against the stone, gas coming out and paper burning. Wanda's nostrils were filled with a hissing odor of burning grass, smoke reaching her. Her eyelids fluttered open.

With your spine leaning against the wallpaper behind the bed, you, sitting there, were lost in the red – the remnants of the summit ascended in a moment of pleasure smeared the inner sides of your thighs, like a ghost of what was once the climax of the carnal act in which they were so vividly engaged. Swallowing a lit joint between your fingers, Wanda never found you as beautiful as she did at that moment, high and fucked, light for the orgasm and the weed.

“You… are really mine, aren't you?” she asked in a grim voice thread, that accent rolling between the words she alluded to.

You looked at her, “Of course I'm yours. Just as you are mine, silly.”

She just looked at you, silent as she could be.

“Give me a hit,” one hand reached out, reaching for what you held. To disconnect from the world and just feel you.

But, holding the rolled cigarette between the extension of your fingers, Wanda realized that an idea took place behind your empty eyes. You then pressed the commission of your lips around the joint, inhaling that dense smoke to the core of your lungs before, then, reclining your face in front of Wanda, who was still lying down.

The ends of your hair grazed her left nipple as your wet lips met, and you let the smoke trapped in your lungs slip into her open mouth before finally kissing her, her tongue slipping between your teeth, her left fingers tangling in the hair above the nape of your neck, holding you close. When you broke apart, Wanda blinked in ecstasy – your noses were almost touching again.

“You're not going to leave me, are you?” was a sigh against your lips, “You won't abandon me, Y/n.”

“I won't,” you smiled, “Because I love you, Wands. I love you. You know I'll always come when you call.”

And then Wanda looked at you. She looked at you as if it were the first time she had seen you in her life – as if she were discovering you again, understanding you once more, realizing that with you there was no loneliness. In the same way she did every time you surprised her. Wanda understood that as long as she had you, you to indulge her, you to love her, there would be no homesickness left to feel.

“I love you too,” she whispered, “I love you too, Y/n.”

She knew she loved you, in that moment, because she didn't belong in New York or Sokovia - in that moment, she just belonged in your arms.

[capnsoyboy]

Fics So Good I Have to Share

Fear the Walking Dead

Say You Need Me - Troy Otto x Reader (AO3 series)

Marvel

Heart to Love - Bucky Barnes x Reader (AO3) My Little Love - Bucky Barnes x Reader (series)

Sharing is Caring - Bucky Barnes x Reader

Sorry, I Love You — Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader

The Day After Yesterday - Bucky Barnes x TimeTraveler!Reader (series)

Warrior/Worrier - Bucky Barnes x Reader

When We Were Young - Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers (AO3)

Home- Kate Bishop x Reader

The Ghost of You - Pietro Maximoff x Reader (series part 1)

The Ghost of Us - Pietro Maximoff x Reader (series part 2)

Built From Memories - Natasha Romanoff x Reader, Yelena Belova x Platonic!Reader

Hand(s) Off Part 2, Part 3 - Steve Rogers x Reader (series)

Rockefeller - Steve Rogers x Reader

Timeless Lovin’ - Steve Rogers x Reader

Daisies - Thor x Reader

Three Times - Thor x Reader

Outer Banks

Broken - Rafe Cameron x Reader

I'd Choose You Over Anyone - Rafe Cameron x Reader

I Need Help - Rafe Cameron x Reader

Sweet Silence - Rafe Cameron x Reader

If We Go Down - JJ Maybank x Reader

Lie to Me - JJ Maybank x Reader

Not Like I’m in Love With You - JJ Maybank x Reader

Supernatural

Ghost of You - Dean Winchester x Castiel (AO3)

I'll Be Waiting for You - Dean Winchester x Castiel (AO3)

Sugar, Bee Mine? - Dean Winchester x Castiel (AO3)

Domestic - Dean Winchester x Reader

Never Say Goodbye - Dean Winchester x Soulmate!Reader (series)

Touch Starved - Dean Winchester x Reader

The Impala - Sam Winchester x Reader

Pythia - Sam Winchester x Reader (series)

Teen Wolf

Derek Hale Imagines - Derek Hale x Reader

Drawing the Life (1),(2) - Theo Raeken x Reader

Inked Wrists - Theo Raeken x Reader (series)

Teen Wolf One Shots - Multi-character x Reader

[wayneskluv]

MASTERLIST ! — fluff ; ꩜ — nsfw ; ★ — angst ; ִ ࣪𖤐 — request ; ᡣ𐭩 — f!reader ; ➸ — m!reader ; ꔛ — gn!reader ; ᯤ

DC COMICS ୨୧

jason todd ;

headcannons ꩜ ᯤ boyfriend!jason ; bestfriend!jason ; brother!jason ; rival!jason

don’t call me baby ִ ࣪𖤐 ᯤ; you were never supposed to move on. (post death!jason)

sorry baby, just needed you to shut up ᯤ ; after listening to you ramble, he kisses you to shut you up.

peraltiago!au ➸ ; jason todd x f!reader — pt1

dick grayson ;

headcannons ᯤ boyfriend!dick ; bestfriend!dick ; brother!dick ; rival!dick

tim drake ; coming soon

bruce wayne ; coming soon

harley quinn ;

and they were roommates ➸ ; roommate!harley quinn x f!reader — they’re both in love with eachother but wayyyy too blind to see it.

barbara gordon ; coming soon

jon kent ; coming soon

roy harper ; coming soon

clark kent ; coming soon

bart allen ; coming soon

rachel roth ; coming soon

alfred pennyworth ; coming soon

poison ivy ; coming soon

MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE ᯓ

wanda maximoff ; coming soon

pietro maximoff ; coming soon

peter parker ; coming soon

tony stark ; coming soon

steve rogers ; coming soon

wade wilson ; coming soon

natasha romanoff ;

it’s possible she misses you ᯤ ; nat shows up at your door drunk & she finally tells you why she broke up with you.

agatha harkness ;

ᡣ𐭩 — agatha x wife!reader (kissing & mature themes) ➸

HARRY POTTER UNIVERSE ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

sirius black ;

cat got your tongue? ᯤ ; sirius found a cat whilst on a walk — you tease him about it.

james potter ; coming soon

remus lupin ; coming soon

regulus black ; coming soon

lily evans ; coming soon

STRANGER THINGS ⋆.˚

steve harrington ; coming soon

billy hargrove ; coming soon

robin buckley ; coming soon

OTHER ☆

simon ‘ghost’ riley ;

use your words, love (implied!smut) ᯤ

spencer reid ;

a bet (implied!smut) ᯤ ; caught leaving his hotel room — featuring: derek morgan!

apologies (kissing) ᯤ; its no secret you two hate eachother, but when you apologise, something changes.

pretty boy got laid (implied!smut) ➸ ; derek is always teasing spencer about his love life, but when you come in late, he has a whole other reason to tease spencer — featuring: derek morgan!

abby scuito ; coming soon

emily prentiss ; coming soon

alice cullen ; coming soon

edward cullen ; coming soon

bella swan ; coming soon

[imawreck]

Status: Active

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: Ghost is active, and that means bodies are dropping.

Warnings: Cursing, mental abuse, physical harm, depression, all that stuff. Again, this is the thick heavy part of the story. Won’t be like this forever, but it will be for a bit. It’s for the PLOT.

Word Count: 5,014

Mission: Deactivate security systems. Infiltrate enemy compound and select target. Eliminate target. Return to base immediately following. 

Status: Active.

"Soldat." 

Silver eyes snapped up from the manila file held in her hand. Cold, calculating, removed.

"Do you understand your orders?"

A singular nod before her hand snapped the file closed, sliding it onto the table beside her. She was smooth and precise, the perfect weapon. 

Human flaws had been eliminated. The Asset took orders like a machine. Take orders, execute mission, return, repeat. That was all she knew. That was all she had ever known, and she was damn good at it.

"You leave at dawn."

She didn't hesitate to move, turning towards the exit and moving with the grace and silence very few possessed. Other agents parted like the sea at the sight of her. They would gawk and cower, some outright fled from view. They had seen her skills, her ruthlessness. The Asset's methods were brutal and gruesome. She didn't have feelings or preferences, that much they had been told, but many had seen the way she executed her missions. Many had seen the way she would draw it out in the most painful ways. 

None wanted to be her target.

Word of the Ghost's return had taken like wildfire in a drought. Every member of Hydra knew of her return. Some of the higher-ranking agents had come to view her displays, watched and reviewed the improvements Dr. Giles had done to her. All the while she would stand there, waiting. Watching them as she took in their words. 

But none of that mattered to her. She felt nothing, only the singing in her veins and the deep dwelling urge to cause pain and destruction. It was what she was made for, so she'd been told. 

The chopper guttered to life as she clipped her last blade into place. No bullets, too loud and draw far too much attention. This kill would be up close and personal. The Asset boarded, strapping in and settling a headset over her ears to bark orders to the pilot. There was no room for mistake. 

Because her targets were the untouchable, the admired and revered.

The Avengers.

_____

Pepper-

It was no secret that the Avengers were falling apart. It was clear as day in their bruised under eyes and increasing meetings. Every SHIELD agent in the building knew it, and they were trying their hardest to help where they could.

Where there was once a team were now crumbling friendships and strained patience. I was convinced that if it carried on for a minute longer that this whole building might collapse with the tension. It was time for an intervention.

I stepped into the main living area where I had called the team in to sit. They were all strung around the room in various slumped positions. Some friends had been called in to aid them in their endeavors. Wanda, for instance, had called in her brother Pietro to assist in any way he could. He had tried to brighten the mood as much as he could with his occasional lighthearted joke, but not even Sam had the heart to laugh nowadays. 

Tony had been trying to get a message out to Thor in hopes that having the God of Thunder to help would give us an advantage, but so far, he had been unsuccessful. I had been watching the weight of it all begin to crush him, and it was devastating.

So, it was time to make them all get some good rest at least for a night. None of these all-nighters were helping anyone.

"Alright," my voice drew their attention to me, "All of you look like hell warmed over. I'm sure you are very aware of that. So, I'm calling a mandatory early curfew for eight. That means all of you go to bed right now, no arguments. Like I've told Tony repeatedly, being exhausted and worn to the bone won't help anyone. Get some rest, all of you. Please tell Mr. Barnes, this applies to him too." I looked each of them in the eyes once I was finished, making sure every one of them knew I was absolutely serious.

None of them tried to convince me I was wrong. They probably didn't have the energy to. I walked over and carded my fingers through Tony's hair, shooing all of them off from the living room and watching as they all dispersed to their respective rooms. Tony remained in the living room nodding off as I combed through his hair. 

"Tony," I whispered, "I'm going to grab you a blanket. Promise me you'll get some rest in here alright?" I knew he wouldn't make it to our level, let alone a few steps down the hall to the elevator. He nodded, and I walked over to the other side of the room to snag the throw blanket off the other couch and covered him up. 

He smiled in his bleary state, "Thanks, Pep. Love you."

I hummed, "I love you too, Tony. Get some rest." With that, I decided I would camp out on this floor to ensure he wouldn't wake up in the dead of the night and start working on lord knows what. I pressed open the spare bedroom door and began my nightly routine, shower, dress, brush teeth, organize for the next day. By the time I finally got into bed it was nearly two in the morning. I was lucky it was a weekend. 

My eyes drifted shut, finally the calm had begun to sweep over me. I was so close to drifting off, so close to getting the rest that I needed after stressing about those poor heroes just down the hall, when something clattered to the floor down the hall. From the living room or the kitchen just off of it. 

I silently cursed to myself, just knowing it was Tony trying to get away with some late-night reviews over files or analytics.

Tossing the sheets off of my legs, I crept over to my door to try and catch him in the act. Perhaps the guilt of being caught would make him finally get some shuteye. The doorhandle was cool to the touch as I gently shoved it open. I was lucky Tony kept all the hinges well-oiled or I'd be done for. All the lights were still off, so shuffling down the hall was a little more difficult. I kept to the wall in hopes that I wouldn't trip over my own feet trying to find my way to the living area. 

It was a full moon tonight, the bright blue light cascading into the room through the curtains. It was the only source of light in the room. I was ready to pounce as soon as I peeked around the corner, so sure I had caught him read handed, only to feel my heart drop to my stomach.

Tony was still sprawled out on the couch, only there was a silhouette casting a looming shadow over his face. Black, all black, like one of the shadows had sprung to life in the night to terrorize anyone up at the hour. I watched in utter horror as they removed something from their pocket. 

Metal glinted in the moonlight as a finger struck the needle, their thumb pressing on the end of the syringe and letting a drop of liquid slip down the end of it. I watched, completely frozen with fear, as they jammed it into his neck. Tony's eyes snapped open, mouth gaping for a moment, before his body went slack again against the white cushions of the couch.

I could hardly pull air into my lungs. They tucked the syringe back in their pocket before slipping their fingers into one of the circlets of the multitude of knives lacing every inch of them. It twirled once, twice around their finger. Each time it caught the light my heart lurched in my ears. I wanted to scream, to throw something at them, anything to get their attention off of Tony's collapsed frame. But I couldn't. I just couldn't.

A door creaked down the hall and I whipped my head around to see blonde hair and pinched brows as Pietro made his way quietly down the hall. I waved my arms as subtly as I could, remaining behind the corner out of view from the intruder, trying to catch his attention. He eyed me with confusion. I pointed to the living room, desperately trying to tell him that someone was here. Someone had gotten in. When I snapped my head around to look back at the room, certain that they had probably heard the door, there was not a trace of them.

I felt my eyes stinging as tears of frustration and fear threatened to spill down my cheeks as I tried to silently communicate with him. He seemed to understand that there was something awry, because he fisted his hands and began to creep down the hall a little quicker. He threw a hand towards a door across from where I stood as he neared my corner of safety. My eyes followed his gesture to a closet door. He meant for me to hide. 

I didn't want to, not when Tony was helplessly unconscious on the couch a few feet away and a killer was in the house. I thought about my chances though. I was an assistant, a simple not-superhuman woman who could definitely not stand even the most reasonable chance against someone trained. Someone who had broken into the Avengers tower.

It hit me then, like a brick tumbled onto my head. Why hadn't Friday notified us that someone had gotten in? Why hadn't she been able to keep them out?

I was afraid to whisper for the AI, afraid to call out to her in the darkness of the hallway as I watched Pietro sneak around the corner. 

I reached for the door, swinging it open as quietly as I could before I clicked it shut against the pressure of my foot to quiet the noise. I knew in my gut that if I called out to Friday she wouldn't answer. Something told me she had been dismantled. Whoever this intruder was, they were trained and serious and lethal.

The darkness from the closet enveloped me, covering my senses and forcing me to blink it away as my eyes adjusted. I scanned over Tony from the slats in the door, studying him for injury I was terrified they had caused while I had looked away. There was none, thank God, and he still remained sleeping on the couch. Pietro had snuck around to the kitchen out of sight, but I could hear his subtle footsteps against the tile as he checked around. 

My breathing was ragged in my ears and muffled by the hand I had tossed over my mouth to keep my panic at bay. Pietro came back around the corner looking much more relaxed. His arms had dropped to his sides from their defensive position as he made his way back to scope out the rest of the living room. I was starting to think that it was all in my head. Maybe I had made it all up out of stress. I read somewhere that hallucinations can happen under extreme cases of stress.

But I wanted to be certain.

I reached a shaky hand towards the doorhandle, wrapping my fingers around it. I kept my eyes on the blonde as he made his way over to Tony, looking him over once, before he started to track around the couch.

He didn't seem to find anything. Pietro turned towards the window, bending down and retrieving something from the ground. It was slim and black, likely the remote to the tv that normally sat at the end of the couch arm. Tony must've knocked it off in his sleep. I was beginning to think that I had really, truly made up the apparition. I believed it so much that I was pressing down on the handle to come out when it walked out of the kitchen.

I stopped dead.

In the dim light from the window, I could finally see their face. Her face. With her short white locks that glowed silver in the dark along with her eyes that caught the light. Max. It was Max.

 But something was wrong, very, very wrong. 

She simply walked up behind Pietro as he examined the remote, looking around the floor for something as he did so. Max stood there, watching. Just watching him. He didn't hear her, I realized, as she tilted her head to the side as if she was intrigued by his obliviousness. Taunting.

He turned his head towards the closet where I remained, and she merely sidestepped to remain out of sight. Pietro shot me a reassuring smile. I wanted to cry, I was crying, as I watched her raise her knife still clutched in her hand and slice clear through the back of his knees.

Pietro's whole face morphed in agony, but before he could even get a sound out there was a hand clamped around his mouth guiding his body down to the floor. A second knife was plunged into his stomach, and she twisted it with a blank face, simply pressing her hand harsher against his mouth as he cried out. 

His hands clawed at her arms, dragging long lines of blood but she didn't seem to notice it. She just twisted the knife more and mumbled something low into his ear. Pietro's whole face paled as his eyes snapped towards the closet again. I backed away from the door instinctively, afraid she would see me. Tony had told me she was enhanced, but he never stated how enhanced.

Max released him then and stood from the floor. Pietro didn't call out, didn't dare open his mouth even as he winced in pain. Max moved away from him and out of view for a moment only to reappear right in front of the door.

I nearly screamed.

Silver blank eyes stared directly at me through the slats in the door. She knew I was there. I couldn't breathe as she just stared at me, watching the panic wash over my face. Pietro shook his head behind her, trying and failing to push up from the floor. Max moved, drawing my attention back to her as she raised a single finger to her lips and blew out a hushed breath.

Then she was gone.

My body shook as I stared at the door, through the slats at Pietro's fallen form across the room. I didn't know if she was really gone, but I couldn't just stay in here and let him die. I clutched at the knob again, hesitant in my exit as I looked down the hall where I was sure she had disappeared through, but no one was there. The tower had gone quiet again.

I rushed over, pressing my hands over the wound. "Oh God, oh God!"

Pietro moaned in pain, "G-get someone."

I didn't waste a second rushing out of there and barreling down the hall. I slammed my fist against every door I came across. "Help! Somebody help me!"

Steve was the first to stumble out of his room half dressed in a t-shirt and shorts dangling from his waist. "What's wrong?"

"Pietro's been stabbed! He's in the living room. T-there's so much blood!" I clutched at my heart as it threatened to pound right out of me. "Tony was knocked out or something. I-I don't know what she did to him!”

Steve rushed down the hall, and more of the heroes were quick to follow. Natasha, with her hair all wild, was next followed by Clint. I teetered back into the room behind them.

Steve knelt down next to Pietro, pressing his hands down against the wound much like I did. "What happened?"

Pietro swallowed hard, "There was a woman. She-." He clenched his teeth and whimpered. "She cut my legs and then plunged this thing into me." He nodded weakly towards the hilt of the knife sticking out of him.

Steve took in the pools of blood below his knees, a grim expression overtaking his features. "Friday!"

The AI didn't respond.

He tried again, but nothing came from it. Natasha checked Tony's pulse, nodding to me when she found it. Selfishly, I was relieved he wasn't in any condition like Pietro. It was a fleeting thought, but I found myself relaxing just a fraction.

Clint was quick to wrap a kitchen towel around each of Pietro's legs, trying to staunch the bleeding as best as possible. Pietro cried out loud enough to wake the last person down the hall. The one door I hadn't beat on.

Wanda's small voice whispered from the end of the hallway. "Pietro?"

It was a broken, confused sound that had guilt pooling into my stomach. I should've knocked on her door first.

She took one step, then two, dropping to the floor and crawling over to her fallen brother. Wanda had begun to cry, spouting words in a language I didn't understand and fumbling to grab his hand. She caressed his face, mumbling something softly to him, almost begging him with them.

We could all see that he wasn't going to make it. We wouldn't be able to get him to the med bay in time, not with the building down. This was it and everyone knew it. 

"Pepper, please tell us what happened." Clint squatted to rest a hand on Wanda's shoulder as he spoke to me. 

I swallowed a lump forming in my throat and blinked away my tears, wiping them hard with the back of my hand. "Um-- I, uh, I heard a clatter in the living room and thought it was Tony. I came in to check and someone was standing over him. I didn't know who it was at first, they stayed in the dark and injected him with something. Then Pietro came out a-and then she was gone! I-I—"

Steve pulled me to the side, pulling my attention to his face as he held my eyes. "Did you see their face?"

I nodded, just about the only thing I could do at the moment as the anxiety began to pool in my stomach as I recalled the events again.

"What did she look like?" Steve's thumbs brushed over my shoulders in a calming manner. I appreciated it, but I don't think anything was going to help me calm down right now.

I took in a shaky breath, "Max. It was Max.”

_____

Steve-

It was like a bomb had gone off at her words. 

Clint stood from his squatted position beside Wanda as anger clouded over his features. "What?"

Pepper looked like she was going to faint, and her eyes looked far off. "It was her, I'm sure of it. B-but something was wrong with her. Her... her eyes were silver, all silver, like a cloud was covering them." A shiver wracked her body under my hands that remained planted on her shoulders. "She was so different."

I felt my brows furrow at her words, "They must have figured out a way to brainwash her like they did with Buck. But how?" 

Natasha spoke up from behind the couch, still checking Tony over. "They have the scepter. Who knows what they did to her. It could be anything."

I nodded, because she was right. We had no idea how it worked without Thor here to explain it to us. Wanda was the only person we knew that had gotten that close with it, and she ended up with superpowers none of us had ever seen before. The possibilities were endless and not at all good. I dropped my hands from Pepper's shoulders with a grimace, "We need to get the generators back up and try and get Pietro to the med bay."

Clint gave a subtle shake of his head as the room went quiet. "He's not going to make it Cap, not in this condition. Even if we did get him down there, the machines won't be running. She's taken out the whole building if Friday is down. Even the backup generators if she's smart."

Silence enveloped us as we turned to watch the interactions between Wanda and her brother. Both of them were crying, speaking fast and hurriedly in their native tongue. We all knew what was happening. We knew he wasn't going to make it out of this room. "We'll give you some space, Wanda." I nodded towards the hallway, motioning for the rest of them to follow.

I headed past my door and into the stairway, making my way down towards Bucky's floor. I moved floors because his nightmares had gotten so bad. Bucky would scream so loud Tony would hear him four floors up. I had tried to console him, but he had shut me out, even went so far as to force me out physically. He didn't want help or comfort, he wanted her back. At this point, I think it's just about the only thing that would bring him any sense of peace. He's been so torn up over what he had said to her that it's tearing him apart.

As worried as I was, he deserved to know what was going on. He had to know. I was concerned that if he found out about things any other way that he might just snap.

When I lifted my head from the floor, I was standing in front of his door. He hadn't even put a name plack on it and I was sure only Tony and I knew where he had moved to. I knocked, "Bucky, I need to talk to you." I could hear shuffling, but no footsteps approaching. I knocked again, "Buck, something happened in the tower. Pietro is... he's dying."

At that, heavy thumps echoed on the other side before the door was practically ripped open. His room was dark, and I wouldn't have seen him if it weren't for the light cast over him from the hallway. The angle the light hit him accentuated the bruises blooming under his eyes and the coldness of his gaze. "What do you mean he's dying? What the hell happened?"

I dropped my eyes to the floor once again, trying and failing to find a way to break the news any easier than it was. "Buck—”

"Spit it out, Steve." His metal arm whirred to life as he gripped the doorframe, stepping further into the light. 

I blew out a breath, "He was stabbed. Pepper witnessed it all, said... said it was Max."

At the mere mention of her name, he seemed to come alive. "What?" Gone was his cruel exterior. Like a whole other person had stepped into his body. His voice was so soft, so broken when he spoke to me. "What do you mean? She wouldn't do something like that."

I hesitated. Not because I didn't want to tell him what Pepper said, but because the man in front of me looked like if the wind blew too hard, he'd shatter. "Pepper said she acted wrong, like she wasn't really there. She said when Max looked at her, her eyes were cloudy and silver. I think that Hydra has found a way to brainwash her." 

Bucky's face fell at my words, a shaky hand coming up to comb through his hair. It didn't look like he had washed it in a while. "What are we going to do? What can I- What can I do, Steve?" Tears sprang in his eyes, "I don't know what to do!”

I wrapped my arms around him, trying desperately to hold him together, keep him from shattering all over again. "I don't know just yet, but we're going to fix it, alright?"

His arms weakly rested over my back. I could tell by the way his shoulders shook that he was crying, but I didn't say a word about it. I just held onto him. It was the only thing I knew I could do for him. 

_____

Max-

Why was it always so damn cold? Always cold with these assholes.

When I blinked awake, meeting my lovely metal cell, that was the first thing that came to mind. That, and the aching pain in my forearms.

It took me a few minutes to clear my head, groggy and a little slow coming out of whatever drug induced sleep I was sure I had taken. Hydra loved their injections. That annoying clicking filled my ears, instantly triggering a headache that was slinking around the back of my skull. I cursed it along with the bastards guarding my door. When I had finally managed to push myself up into a sitting position, I took a look at my arms.

To my surprise, they were scabbed over. I couldn't recall what on earth I had done to them, but they hurt like a bitch. 

Twisting them around, I examined the long stripes of bloodied skin. They ranged in length, but they were all about the same width and distance apart. It almost looked like someone had—

With a wave of nausea, flashes—memories—began to hammer into my head. I cried out, gripping the sides of my head and pinning it between my knees, anything to make them stop. 

Watching from across a roof, the Avengers spoke with a woman- Pepper- in a living room. Pressing a button and watching the few remaining lights in the tower flicker out as I killed their generators. Breaking into the stairwell and climbing up, up, up... Standing over Steve, contemplating how his death would affect the team, affect the world. Moving down the hall to Tony, thinking-no, deciding- that his death would hurt the most.

I remember jamming that syringe into his neck and hearing him gasp. I felt him go limp. Then there was a noise, a heartbeat, and steps down the hall. I hid, deftly moving to situate myself on top of the fridge in a shadowed area. A man I didn't recognize turned the corner with his fists raised, blurring into the kitchen. That was his giveaway, memories of Wanda talking about her brother swept through mind. Pietro was his name, and his death would put yet another nail into the Avenger's coffin. It would shove them farther apart, break them from within.

Jumping from the fridge once he had cleared the kitchen, I mirrored him. I heard someone gasp from the hall, but I knew there wasn't another Avenger awake. I had heard the woman leave her room. She wouldn't, couldn't, do anything against me. So, I cut him at the knees and slotted a knife in his stomach. A slow death, one that there was no way he would pull out of without the power up. I had spoken into his ear, "Scream and she dies." 

He hadn't screamed, hadn't even whimpered. I had quieted her too before I left, taking a quick exit out of a window and down a grapple rope. Then I had returned to base.

By the time the memories had collected themselves within my head I was breathing hard. Too hard. My throat contracted and I was afraid one of my short gasps would be my last if I didn't get ahold of myself. I clutched at the bars behind my head, desperate for something to ground me. Anything. 

I counted to ten, trying and failing to breathe along with the numbers. I picked out seven different things I could see, earning a little bit of a reprieve from the invisible vice around my neck. My eyelids snapped shut, forcing myself into darkness and focusing solely on the feeling of pulling air into my lungs before I finally pulled myself out of the panic. 

Then the guilt hit. Hard, fast, and ruthlessly. Wanda would never forgive me, not ever. Pietro was all she had. Her only flesh and blood left. I had stolen him from her. I wouldn't lift a finger against her if she were to come after me. Not after what I had done. The others too, they'd be hurt. They would mourn his loss. 

Would anyone mourn me? If I died here in this god forsaken cell, would anyone care? 

I didn't think so. Not now, perhaps not ever. 

My arms pulsed in pain along with my shredded heart. I let the cold metal of the cell floor ease the itching scabs. I still felt weak and useless, my veins felt like sand was grating the insides. Withdrawal more than likely. Whatever they were shooting me up with was taking my sobriety with it. Soon enough I'll probably be begging them to inject me just so I won't be in pain any longer. At least the kind I could feel physically. 

The door wrenched open, knocking me out of my thoughts and dragging my attention up to Giles as he entered. "Hello, little bird. You did so well! I wish you had taken out an actual Avenger though, but the witch's brother will do just as good." He circled around, a long case in his hand. 

I knew that case. My body did too, slamming itself away from him. "Don't you fucking touch me with that."

Giles frowned, lifting the case, "What, this? But I need even better results! I ordered you to kill an Avenger. Obviously, you need to be more inspired."

I was too weak to do much else but snarl at him, baring my teeth. It didn't do much to dissuade him from unclipping the case and lifting that awful scepter. Just like he had before, he inched it through the bars. I tried to cover my chest, but it didn't deter him. He just pressed the end directly to my temple and I was swept into darkness.

Tags<3

@cjand10 / @calwitch / @blackbirdwitch22 / @greatenthusiasttidalwave / @hzdhrtss / @imdoingathingmom / @greatmistakes

[honey-minded-hivemind]

Heres some quick ideas for Bleeding Hearts and Missing parts au that i had!

-When Reader isn't ghost stalking the X-teens or haunting the Brotherhood, they hang with the adults. They run into the lab when Hank is overworking to cause all the screens to break and get him to eat lunch, play chess with Charles where he actually has to plan his moves since Reader only moves their pieces when he isn't looking so he doesn't actually see them, stuff like that.

-That strange 'dead' zone that Reader actually made is still there but no one knows what to do about it. Like the deadzone, Reader can cancel mutations, bringing extreme pain if someone tries to use it anyway, but it kinda turns on at random. (Resulting in Peter face planting at 70mph)

-There were other kids in the facility with Reader. They didn't last very long.

-Reader can transport through TVs like the lady from the Ring.

- Reader does have their own room in the mansion! But no one ever actually sees them in there. Even if they check in the middle of the night, they aren't there. They know they go in there because all their stuff is in there, and they sometimes hear crying or scratching coming from there, but if they go check, it's empty.

- Lance is actually 100% convinced after a bit that Kitty and Reader are actually twins, and wonders how to get Reader's blessing.

- Reader likes to mess wirh the Brotherhood a lot but actually only genuinely dislikes Fred and Mystique. Fred was the one who got a deer head in his backpack, but that was small potatoes to what they did to Duncan. Todd and Wanda are their favorites since they mind their business.

- Reader knows Sabretooth and vibes with him sometimes. They smell like Logan, so he knows they're one of his brother's brats, even if he doesn't know their name. They are both weird people who hunt for something together in complete silence before agreeing to do it again in two months.

- Reader does not have a uniform and was never officially cleared for missions. They just pop up when needed in an oversized Ultraman t-shirt and pj pants.

- Smaller x-teens like Kurt and Laura are regularly picked up by Reader. They get no say in this.

- Similar to their room, no one sees Reader eat any more. They did before the facility, and they sat down with everyone with a plate of food, but it's always empty without anyone seeing them eat.

I love those headcanons! I'm not sure I can add to them right now, but I love them!

Reader usually vibes with everyone, unless they're being a jerk. The moment someone acts like a jerk, they're doomed. They end up with a deer head stuffed in their bag, or frogs in their desk, or bright neon hair, or have their house and room haunted until they make amends or they're considered fully punished.

Reader cuddles with the other teens at night, so they aren't alone, and so they feel safer. Logan will also join them, or the Professor will, since Reader feels safer with them if no one else can spend the night with them around.

Reader's dead zone is an anomaly that scares the cr*p out if the Brotherhood and the Acolytes, and they're convinced it's cursed. Wanda loves it, everyone else hates it. Sabretooth amd Reader vibe every two months by hunting some large animal, share its guts and meat, then merrily go on their way back to whatever they do when not hunting prey. Reader gifts Todd a little frog, he names it Mini Todd. Fred works to appease the ghost, Lance sets up salt circles, vanilla candles, and little crystal spheres and silver mirrors, and Pietro simply uses a vacuum cleaner to go Ghostbuster on it. Reader is highly amused... until the candles nearly burn down the house after the vacuum cleaner also caught fire, so Reader had to stop the fire and basically crush it out of existence. So now everyone in the Brotherhood is certain there's a ghost, and Lance claims it's Reader (who he thinks is Kitty's long-lost twin, who he needs to win over so he can be with their sister and NOT be chucked in a tub full of acid or have his hair dyed violet...)

The Brotherhood try to collect Reader peacefully, and tell the X-Men for once they want to help and be respectful of a poor, fellow mutant... then Reader pops up, and they scream loud enough to scare off a murder of crows and shatter glass. So now they're convinced the X-Men are haunted, too...

So... what do they do?

Decide to save them!

(Someone call Pietro and Wanda's dad, quick! He's old, so he might know what to do-!)

(Hahaha, @sugar-soda ... you have opened another arc to the story... laugh and rejoice if you want, for it shall be funny! Mwahaha~!)

[finndoesdraw]

⋆⭒˚.⋆ moot postttt! ⋆⭒˚.⋆

Im Finn (they/them) and im in need of some moots bc im new to this ahh sooo heres my long ahh list of hyperfixations i like to yap abt:

-xmen (‘97, movies, evolution)

-mcu (agatha all along, wandavision, hawkeye, blackwidow, age of ultron, black panther)

-star wars (andor *CURRENTLY WATCHING, ahsoka, the mandalorian, clone wars, rebels, and movies too but mostly the animations, jedi fallen order/survivor)

-heartstopper (tv show, solitare, loveless)

-hunger games (movie and books)

-all the bright places

-the wilds

-arcane

-young royals

-she-ra and the pop

-the chilling adventures of sabrina

-the originals

-atla and tlok

-pjo and hoo

-got and hotd

-the last of us

~~favorite characters~~

•charles xavier (movies), magneto/erik lehnsherr, rogue, mystique (movies), bobby drake, scott summers, hank mccoy, logan howlett, laura kinney, wanda maximoff, pietro maximoff/quicksilver, natasha romanoff, agatha harkness, lilia calderu

•katniss everdeen

•katara

•tori spring, nick nelson

•ahsoka tano, sabine wren(all the ghost crew basically uh) , cal kestis

~~relationships~~

romantic: cherik, agathario, mystique/angel (first class), allerdrake, kataang, azutara, everlarke, rhaenicent, imogen/sahar, charlie/nick, wilmon, percabeth, clarisse la rue/silena beauregard, ellie/dina

platonic/family: wanda & pietro maximoff, tommy & billy maximoff, erik lehnsherr & wanda maximoff & pietro maximoff, alex & scott summers, logan howlett & laura kinney, charles xavier & jean grey (movies), charles xavier & erik lehnsherr & sean cassidy, charles xavier & mystique, natasha romanoff & yelena belova, yelena belova & kate bishop, ellie & joel

~~music~~

-chappell roan

-noah kahan

-conan gray

-ethel cain

-ariana grande

-boygenius (also them separately)

-gracie abrams

-tyler the creator

-renee rapp

-taylor swift

-olivia rodrigo

thats all didnt mean to type allat but 🫡 🫶 thanks for reading if u did!!

[superherotiger]

*pokes head through your catflap* humbly asking for a 97 drabble of pietro (+wanda? rahne? anyone else if you want) looking for erik post-ep5

This definitely became bigger than a drabble but I hope you enjoy it bestie haha!

AO3

~~~

The eeriest moment on a battlefield wasn’t the fight itself, but the silence that followed in its wake.

Genosha was a void of sound. Streets that were once filled with music and laughter had been smothered beneath layers of rubble, and statues that represented hope to so many were now torn down and scattered across the broken palace. The city was once a home to thousands of mutants- new lives just waiting to begin.

Now, it was nothing but a graveyard.

Pietro had seen his fair share of battlefields, but they all paled in comparison to Genosha. At least- what was left of it. Debris stretched for miles in every direction, creating a perilous, scorched terrain that few had dared to enter.

The last known survivor had been brought into camp nearly three weeks ago. The last body that had been recovered over two. Despite how hard X-Factor had been working since they touched down on the island, even they were beginning to lose hope.

But Pietro couldn’t stop.

Couldn’t stop moving.

Couldn’t stop searching.

Couldn’t stop until he found…

The team were beginning to worry about him, he knew. Especially Lorna. He could always feel her eyes following him whenever he left camp on another fruitless search in the desolate remains of the city.

“Pietro… it may be time to end the search and turn our energy towards the survivors,” Lorna had told him earlier that morning.

“How can you say that?” Pietro bit back coldly. “There are still hundreds missing!”

“And there are hundreds more here, right now- and they need us,” Lorna implored, her eyes betraying the grief and exhaustion they both felt. “We can’t keep chasing ghosts, Pietro.”

“And what makes you think there are no survivors left?” he asked bitterly. 

Lorna’s expression softened with pity.

There was nothing Pietro hated more than pity.

“I know what he meant to you…”

Pietro didn’t stay long enough to hear the rest of her words. He couldn’t bear it. Not the crushing sympathy in her gaze or the truth awaiting in her patient voice. He just couldn’t accept it.

Not yet- not until he knew for certain that his father had fallen in this hellish wasteland. 

The thought seemed impossible to comprehend. Magneto was not one to die easily- history had proven it time and time again. To believe that the man hadn’t clawed his way out of death like he had a dozen times before seemed like a disservice to his strength and resilience.

So no, Pietro didn’t stop his search.

For hours he traversed the decimated land, digging through endless mountains of rubble and climbing through the unstable burrows and tunnels that wove beneath the surface. While Pietro searched for any survivor or body he could recover, his heart longed to find his father above all else. The two hadn’t always been on the best of terms, but they were attempting to mend old wounds in recent years. To make something new out of a history littered with secrets and betrayals.

Pietro should have gone to see his father sooner. He regretted not seeking him out as soon as he heard the rumours of Magneto’s reform, or better yet after the trial by the UN swung in his favour. Over the past months Pietro had considered going to visit, but without fail he would talk himself out of it. Tell himself that his father didn’t need to be bothered. That he would find another time.

And as was the speedster’s cruel fate, time had run out.

It always did…

The sound of shifting rubble drew Pietro out of his fixation, peering up from the pit of cracked walls and shattered glass that had once been someone’s home to find the source of the noise. For a moment, he felt his heart spark with hope. Perhaps there was another survivor. Maybe he hadn’t been too late-

“Pietro?”

His hope swiftly extinguished at the familiar voice.

“You shouldn’t be this far out- it’s dangerous,” Pietro called back with barely concealed frustration.

Drawn to his voice, a figure covered in dusty red fur climbed over the ledge of debris and gazed down at him in relief. “I could say the same to you,” Rahne -the youngest member of X-Factor- chimed back lightly, pearly white eyes shifting to emerald green as she returned to her human form.

Pietro ignored her comment and started shoving aside broken furniture and scorched foundations again to continue his mission, asking sharply, “Did Lorna send you to retrieve me?”

Rocks skidded as Rahne came to join him in the hollow, kneeling down beside the speedster before she answered gently, “No. I came because I was worried about you.”

Pietro scoffed, though regret was quick to flood in when he noticed Rahne’s saddened stare in the corner of his eye. He took a breath so not to let any harsh words slip. Rahne deserved better than that. “Though I appreciate your concern, it’s unnecessary. You should return to the camp where it’s safe,” he suggested.

“It would do little help,” Rahne said, placing a warm hand on his shoulder as she explained, “I can’t stop worrying about you anymore than you can stop worrying about him.”

Pietro’s fingers clenched around the jagged rocks below. “Since when did everybody become an expert on how I feel.”

“Well, are we wrong?”

Sighing, Pietro turned his gaze towards the sky that was painted in shades of orange and pink. It was only now that he realised the sun was well on the way to setting, too lost in his search to notice. No wonder Rahne had been worried.

So, figuring she at least deserved an honest answer, Pietro said, “It’s not that simple. With Magneto, it never is. I hated being his son in the beginning. How could my sister and I have been born of someone so cruel? So monstrous?”

Rahne hummed in understanding -perhaps more understanding than he would ever know- and waited patiently for him to continue.

“I wanted to hate him- and I did, for a long time after we learnt of our connection,” Pietro admitted, before closing his eyes as memories flooded back in like a tidal wave. “And then the Phalanx attacked. You remember how vicious they were- how close we were to losing everything that day.”

“I do,” Rahne said solemnly.

Grimacing, Pietro confessed, “It was my fault… the speed of it, at least. The Phalanx studied and replicated my mutation to hasten their conquest. I was the accelerant to humanity’s downfall.”

“Pietro, you can’t blame yourself like that,” Rahne attempted to sooth. “We were all caught off guard by their attack. And besides, we still won in the end. That’s what really matters.”

“Yes, a victory that relied on Magneto’s cooperation,” Pietro said with a humourless scoff. “My father -the self proclaimed judge, jury and executioner of the world- saved humanity that day. Do you know why, Rahne?”

The girl shook her head.

“He did it for me,” Pietro said, nearly choking on the grief that rose in his throat as he did. “As soon as he heard of my capture, he joined Beast and the others to destroy the Phalanx. Saved the very world he despised just to protect me.”

It was a truth Pietro had never dared to tell anyone else before, afraid of the backlash he might face. He knew his father was a dangerous and hated man. Pietro of all people had not forgotten his transgressions. But no one else knew what it felt like to be the son of Magneto. To hear the words “Thank God you’re safe,” whispered against his temple like a prayer as he soaked in the security of his father’s embrace. To know that the fate of the world had relied on one man’s love for his child.

How could anyone else ever understand that burden -the confusion, the confliction- when Pietro barely understood it himself?

Wrapping his arms around his chest to still the cries that desperately wanted to burst forward, Pietro said shakily, “Do you have any idea how that feels? To know that someone loves you enough that they would sacrifice everything just to keep you? It’s an impossible debt to repay.”

A beat of silence passed, before Rahne asked softly, “Is that why you won’t stop?”

Pietro bowed his head with a sigh. “My father would do the same for me,” he answered simply. “What kind of son am I if I gave up on him now.”

Slowly, Rahne leant her head against Pietro’s shoulder, awaiting his reaction before laying a hand on his arm when he didn’t push her away. “I would never ask you to give up,” she said with such compassion it made his eyes well with tears. “All I ask is that you would take care of yourself. We’ve already lost so many… please, I don’t want to lose you too, Pietro.”

Despite their voices sounding nothing alike, Pietro could hear an echo of his sister’s concern in Rahne’s words. Wanda had asked for the very same thing when they were children. Orphaned and alone and starving, Pietro had done everything in his power to keep her safe, no matter the cost to himself. No matter how hard Wanda begged him to stop and rest.

Now, years later, Rahne had taken his sister’s place. An unfair sentence for such a kind heart. And though Pietro hadn’t been able to spare Wanda of that burden, he refused to let Rahne experience the same thing.

Pietro would not give up on his father. Regardless of where X-Factor went next or how much time passed, there would always be a part of his soul searching for the man. But with a humbling realisation, Pietro knew Magneto wasn’t the only family that needed him right now.

So lifting an arm around Rahne’s shoulders to embrace her like he had done for Wanda so many times before, Pietro assured gently, “I promise you Rahne, you will never lose me. I’m sorry if I ever made you fear that you would.”

Smiling up at him with relief etched into every feature, Rahne teased, “I’m going to hold you to that, Speedy.”

Pietro scoffed in amusement. “I’d expect nothing less.”

Looking ahead, the two watched as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, casting the battlefield into shadows and hiding its horrors from view. For the first time since landing in Genosha, the silence didn’t feel uncanny. It felt peaceful. The same peace Pietro felt when Wanda welcomed him with a warm embrace, or when his father pressed an adoring kiss against the crown of his head.

Tightening his hold around Rahne ever so slightly, Pietro was grateful that in his greatest time of uncertainty, he still had family to rely on.

“Ready to head home?” Rahne asked gently.

Releasing a heavy sigh, Pietro felt the crushing weight on his chest ease at last. “Yes, I am,” he answered, pleased that his words were entirely honest.

But pulling out of the embrace with a spark of mischief in her eyes, Rahne joked, “Bet I could beat you in a race.”

Pietro rolled his eyes and stood up, brushing the dirt and dust from his suit. “Gambling would not be a wise career for you then,” he said bluntly.

“Sounds like you’re scared, Speedy,” she said as she bounced up to her feet with a grin. “Afraid I’ll win?”

“You’d be talking to my dust before you even said ‘go’,” he mocked, though a smile was quick to follow when Rahne burst into laughter, knowing full well that the speedster would never abandon her, not even for a joke.

It was the most beautiful sound to echo across of Genosha in weeks.

~~~

Don't forget to check out the @house-of-dadneto event!! ✨

[memphisnovels]

Evermore

Chapter 38. My beloved ghost and me

Previous chapter

Masterlist

This chapter is shorter than others and a bit of a change of pace! Chapter 39 will be coming soon <3

pairing: Pietro Maximoff x OFC

warnings: a whole lotta angst, hurt no comfort, Sad Piet

9 days earlier.

Pietro

I pressed a hand to my ribs to soothe the ache there. Ross sat a few rows back on the plane, frustration practically emanating from him. He’d all but thrown things around back at the headquarters, furious as the shit show that had unfolded at the airport. Rhoades had been airlifted to the hospital; he’d lost motor control below his hips, but he would be okay, Tony had mentioned something about him meeting us back at the compound. I’d barely uttered a word since we left the airport.

The compound. Nadia’s phone had pinged halfway between here and the city an hour ago, Ross assumed she was headed here. He’d begrudgingly allowed me 10 minutes to talk to her before the others, Ross wanted this contained, he thought I might be able to talk her down. Convince her to back down, I couldn’t imagine it was likely. Even if Nadia seemed prepared to change her mind, I’m pretty sure that I’m the last person she’d want to speak to right now.

I’d never heard the compound so quiet before. There was not a sound to be heard, no television playing, no hum of conversation, no sizzling oil as someone cooked; nothing. I wandered down the entryway cautiously, glancing around for any sign of life, avoiding the cavernous hole in the floor from where Wanda had buried Vision when she ran to join the fight. I swallowed heavily as I stepped into the hallway, staring down toward the familiar door. When I took a step closer, I noticed a slither of light trickling out between the door and frame. It was open, I realized. I took another step forward but, as if my body was working independently of my intentions, I found myself speeding forward and through the doorway. My heart was in my throat as I shoved the door open, letting the natural light pour over me and into the hallway. 

The room was slightly disheveled, bed sheets messed up, hangers on the floor, closet doors left open. I wandered forward picking up the hangers and returning them to the closet. I closed the doors and then I sat down on the bed, letting my eyes fall closed for a while.

She wasn’t here, of course she wasn’t. Nadia would never be so predictable; she knew Ross would be tracking her phone she’d never be caught so easily. There was every chance she’d never been her at all, maybe this was how she left the room When she and Natasha left for Vienna in the first place. I looked around at the space before me, the armchair by the window, the hardcover book sitting unfinished on the seat.

I let myself fall back onto the plush comforter. The sudden disturbance of her sheets caused her scent to come alive all around me. The faint smell of her perfume and shampoo overwhelmed my senses, that and the smell of her first thing in the morning, before she’d spritzed anything onto her skin, when it was just her. I closed my eyes tightly again, taking a deep breath, it was almost enough to pretend she was really here. When I heard footsteps down the hall, I sat upright. Evidently, my 10 minutes was up. It was then that I saw it, from this angle it was much more obvious, the picture frame that sat on Nadia’s nightstand was now empty glass that once encased a picture of her and Natasha. For a long moment I just stared at it, unable to tear my eyes away, but then I was on my feet. I rushed from room to room throwing doors open and scanning every corner. The thought that she had been here burning into my mind, had we narrowly missed her? How close were we?

Though there was one question I didn’t dare ask, I couldn’t bring myself to voice it. Still, I searched every inch of the compound, almost convincing myself that I could feel her, the phantom of her presence, the sound of her breaths. 

Yet even after scouring every single room in the compound there was no sign of her. There was one final thing left, I knew it was futile, yet without a second thought I pulled my phone from my pocket and pressed the familiar contact. One ring… two rings… three rings… I couldn’t hang up, even though this was a pointless endeavor, I needed to hear ever monotonous ring before I could put the phone down. However, the fourth ring never came.

“Hello?” A voice echoed down the line.

My heart felt as though it stopped momentarily, but then I furrowed my eyebrows. “Who is this?”

“My names Marty, I found this phone on my bus, guessing someone forgot it?”

I hung up, not even bothering to offer a response. Ross stepped into the hallway then, glancing at me expectantly. 

“She isn’t here.” I muttered, still staring down the empty corridor, as if I could actualize her into being there.

He sighed heavily. “No of course she’s not, she knows better.” I looked over to see him shake his head before pulling his phone from his jacket pocket. “And I’d hope you know better than to help her going forward, she’s only made this worse for herself. No need to let her drag you down too.” 

I looked at the ground, swallowing hard and choosing not to respond. When Ross walked away with his phone to his ear, I took it as a sign that I was dismissed. I turned to my bedroom door, closing it behind me and leaning back against the wood. My head hit the door with a quiet thud as I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, as though I could wipe away the memories of the past couple of days. Like I could forget how it felt to watch my own sister get arrested. My head was pounding, the pain had persisted for days, never giving me a minute of peace. Maybe getting some sleep might help. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept through the night. I’d been restless since Ross first presented the accords to us, but even before that I’d struggled to soothe my mind. Even when I managed to settle, I’d want to stay alert to wake Nadia from her nightmares. I forced the thought from my mind, kicking my shoes off and meandering toward my bed. When the covers were pulled back, I dropped down onto the mattress.

I laid there for maybe five minutes before my eyes opened again. My body moved upward slowly, rolling onto my back first before I sat up, eyebrows furrowed as I stared across the room. The doors to my closet were both left wide open. I wasn’t sure what it was about it that bothered me, but something pushed me out of bed and toward it. When I stood in front of the cupboard, I finally noticed the mess within, some of my clothes had fallen from hangers but it was the boxes at the bottom that held my attention, they’d all been shifted around. I pulled them out quickly, reaching back to feel around for the files that I’d stowed there. Panic began to set in when I realized that they weren’t there.

My spine straightened and I began to pace the floor.

I catalogued the information within them, trying desperately to remember if there was anything that could be used against her in those notes; anything of importance or that could get her in trouble. I didn’t remember anything specific. Then I thought about what might happen to me if Ross had been the one to find them. That was a whole lot of incriminating evidence that I’d worked with Hydra. My heart was racing, why didn’t I just destroy those fucking files?

Nadia was already in trouble, what if there was something in there that Ross could use to bury her. I sped through the compound to Tony’s office. He sat, facing toward the window, completely silent.

“They’re gone.” I spoke, causing his head to lean to the side, an acknowledgment that he’d heard me. “The files I’d had on Nadia, they’re gone.”

Finally, he swiveled his chair to face me, expression completely blank. He blinked at me a few times; I couldn’t tell whether he was considering what I’d said or if he was just utterly unconcerned. A few minutes passed until he offered any kind of response. He didn’t speak right away, instead, his eyes drifted down to the floor beside his desk. I followed his eyeline to see a full paper shredder. Tony rested his jaw on top of his fist, glancing back up at me, face still devoid of any readable emotion. “It was switched on when I came in here.”

It was like a punch to the gut. I shook my head, not understanding the implications. My head felt like it was spinning, migraine increasing tenfold. I shook my head again before dropping it into my hands. “No.” I muttered, almost inaudible. Tony said nothing as I repeated the word again. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why… Would she... no.” I couldn’t accept it; wouldn’t. I turned toward the door, but dizziness quickly took over my body. “Why would she do that?” I barely got it out, my throat drying up at the end, words rasping out.

She had been here, she must have needed to come back for something, but it was enough of a risk just to be here. Why would she do this? Why would she take the time to find the files and shred them. She could have gotten herself caught, she didn’t know how close behind her Ross was, she had no way of knowing that the extra time spent here destroying the files wouldn’t foil her escape and yet… she took the time to protect me, even after everything that happened at the airport, after what I had said to her.

I told her I was glad she hadn’t told me she loved me back. Like it had all been a mistake. As though I regretted saying it in the first place.

She hadn’t said it back. I told her that I loved her, and she didn’t say it back, but she saved my life in Sokovia, and in Amsterdam too. She could’ve died in that car, yet she refused to leave me. She woke me from my nightmares in Moscow and then she laid with me all night, despite her dislike of being touched. She never left my side, even when she didn’t trust me. She never let me believe I was a bad person even in the beginning when she was trying so desperately to push me away, she still reassured me of my good heart. She took me to the city that means so much to her and showed me all of her safe places just so that I might find somewhere to call my own. I betrayed her before we’d even met and then I lied to her about it for the entirety of our relationship and she didn’t even hate me for it. I told her that I loved her, and Nadia didn’t say it back in those same words, but she hadn’t said nothing.

Everything that she had done for me since we met didn’t count for nothing.

It spoke volumes.

“I see now, what you really think.”

No matter how hard I tried to push the thoughts away, all I could hear was her voice.

“you didn’t send them… but you kept them. They were a reminder, weren’t they? Of the person I really am.”  

I regretted allowing myself the luxury of hope when I’d stepped back into the compound, because that is what I’d done, hoped; hoped that I would push her bedroom door open to see her standing before the window, sunlight warming her skin, making her hair appear even lighter. It was easy to imagine her smile, even when it had been quite a while since I’d seen the full breadth of it.

I didn’t know what I’d say to her if she had been there. What could I say? Nothing seemed right after what I’d already said. The look on her face haunted me.

I couldn’t wipe that from my memory, no matter how desperately I tried.

And now she was gone, like she’d never even been here to begin with.

I dropped down into the chair across from Tony’s desk. He filled two glasses with amber colored liquor, pushing one toward me before taking the other for himself as he leaned back into his chair.

“What a shit show this all turned into, huh?” I nodded, not trusting my voice enough to verbalize a response. Tony’s phone was buzzing on the table, but he declined the call after checking the name. “Ross have any idea where she is?” His expression was still mostly unreadable, but I was sure I saw a hint of something flash across his eyes.

“No.” I took a large sip of my drink before continuing. “She left her phone on some random bus, the ping was obviously meant to be a distraction.”

“Yeah, I’d say she would’ve ditched that pretty quickly.”

I nodded again, finishing the drink and pouring a little more into the glass. Tony didn’t mention it, his phone had not stopped buzzing. He was right. Nadia knew Ross would be after her, she ditched her phone because she was going to disappear. Gone, without a trace, no remnants, just gone. I finished the second drink in one gulp. Tony’s phone began buzzing yet again.

“Goddamn Fury.” He muttered, finally answering it and putting an end to the maddening vibrations. “What do you need, Nick?” He spoke into the phone. I could only hear the sound of muffled chatter from the other end nothing specific but whatever Fury said to Tony must have been significant because suddenly it was as though every emotion missing from Tony for the last few moments flashed across his face at once as he sat up stick straight. He remained silent but the color drained almost entirely from him.

I narrowed my eyes at the man before me, wondering what had caused him to react in such a way. Still, Tony was silent. He looked nothing like himself. After a few more seconds of his strange behavior he stood from his seat, not saying a word to me as he left the room, drink left barely touched.  I stared at the dark liquor for a long time, shoulders drawn together with tension.

Thoughts of my sister swarmed my mind. We’d never really been apart like this before, even under Strucker’s experimentations we were kept close to each other. I couldn’t remember a time when we’d ever been at odds like this. But she had made a choice, I tried to remind myself. It was her choice to go against the accords, she’d chosen to betray us; I ignored the memories of attending protests together, the civil unrest we’d both been apart of back in Sokovia.

That was how I got through the coming days as well, I did my best to push the unwanted memories to the back of my mind. Tony had made himself scarce since his ominous phone call with Nick Fury and I hadn’t heard Vision speak at all since we’d returned. The compound was too quiet, I felt like I was going out of my mind. There was nothing to distract myself from the echoes of Nadia’s voice.

I tried to work out, but it was as though she was right there with me in the training room. Everywhere I went I could feel her gaze following me. Yet, whenever I’d turn, she was nowhere to be seen. During the day I could redirect my thoughts, each time my mind would shift to her I’d force myself to think of something else. However, at nighttime I was not so in control. She existed freely in my dreams, occupying every crevice of my mind, conquering my every thought. It was as though there was some part of me that belonged, in its entirety, to her. No matter how much I tried to ignore it or avoid dealing with those thoughts, that piece of me would always be reserved for her. It was maddening, utterly infuriating; she had made her choice, that was what I told myself, again and again. Yet, no matter how many times I repeated it like a mantra, it was still her voice in the back of my head.

“For the record, I didn’t want it to end like this.”

In my mind that was much louder than my own voice. It was all I could hear and every time I’d remember the soft look she’d given me, the gleam of tears building in her pretty eyes.

It was already unbearable as it was, but now it was also accompanied by the knowledge that she’d shredded the files tying me to Hydra.

One final act of gentleness toward me.

I couldn’t think about it anymore. Not when I was struggling to even pinpoint what I was feeling. At the airstrip I’d been mad, furious, but mostly what I hadn’t realized then was that I was also terrified. Terrified of what it would mean if Nadia and Wanda chose to go against the accords, and completely petrified of losing them both.

I guess at least now I did not have to wonder what would happen.

In an attempt to dull the thoughts suffocating me, I sat down behind Tony’s desk and began writing them down. Hoping that if I could get them out onto the page, I’d finally get a moment of peace.

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Brotherhood (2)

Directly following the events of Double Helix, Danny enrolls in Bayville High school and joins the Brotherhood of Mutants. He's not sure if they actually believe he's a ghost and not a mutant, but at least they don't care enough to challenge him on it, and that's good enough for him. This is a direct sequel to Double Helix (linked above), and some parts may be confusing without the context of the original fic. I suggest you read that first.

Written for @crossoverdanuary Week 2024, Day 5: The Owl House X-Men Evolution | Shell

I have seen exactly two episodes of The Owl House, and that was like four years ago or something, so I was not confident in my ability to write a crossover for it. Also, from this chapter on, it's unedited and I'll come back to edit later. I just want to actually finish this fic tonight.

I tried to work in a theme of both Danny and Wanda "coming out of their shell" throughout the fic. You can also read it on AO3.

Chapter 2: Transition

Previous

[Warning for mental institutions]

"You guys got any plans for the long weekend?" Lance asked as he sprawled out on the shabby couch in the board house. "Kitty told me she and some of the X-dorks are going on an educational retreat to the California redwoods. They decided on it yesterday. Can you imagine being able to just up and fly to the other side of the country on a whim."

"And for educational purposes, yuck!" Toad agreed. "If I had my own jet like they do, I'd go to Vegas!"

"If you could afford a jet like they have, you wouldn't have to go to Vegas," Lance said. "You'd already be rich. If I had my own jet, I would use it to go to all the concerts I'd normally miss because they're too far away."

"I don't need a private jet to go wherever I want," Pietro bragged. "If I want to go to a concert, I'll run right in past security and no one will even know."

"And if that concert is in Europe?" Lance asked. "Or Asia? You know, across a massive ocean? Can you run there?"

"Okay, point taken, but why would I wanna go to a snooty European concert anyway?" the speedster scoffed. "What about you, Danny?"

"What do I need a jet for? I can already fly," he said. "Not that I use it for major travel much. Maybe I should. That's what my cousin does. She flies all over the world."

"Hey! We should do something fun this weekend!" Toad declared. "Maybe sneak into a concert, or go somewhere cool! Show those X losers we know how to have a good time while they use their fancy private jet to go learn things."

"Sure, I'm down," Lance agreed.

"Sorry guys, I'm gonna pass this time. I actually do have plans this weekend," Danny said. "I'm gonna fly upstate and visit a friend. I haven't seen her in a few weeks."

"Her?" Pietro repeated with a smirk. "This wouldn't happen to be a girlfriend would it?"

"It's not like that," Danny said. "She's a friend. She's a girl. That's it."

"Uh-huh... sure," Toad said, sounding unconvinced. "You dog."

"Lay off," Danny said, rolling his eyes. "Come on, we gotta get to school. Long weekend's not here yet."

Toad groaned.

"Buck up, we've only got one more day," Lance pointed out.

When the long weekend finally arrived, Danny filled his pockets with all the things he wanted to bring, said good-bye to the Brotherhood, who barely acknowledged him as they argued about what to do that weekend, and took off. He flew north, toward the mental institution. It had been almost three whole weeks since he'd last been there, but he remembered the way.

Honestly, he hadn't expected to go back so soon, and Wanda probably wouldn't be expecting him either, but it wasn't like he was gonna be an inpatient this time. He would turn invisible and pop into Wanda's room to hang out with her. It hadn't even been that long, really, but he missed her.

Thinking about her in that room all alone again, without anyone or anything to distract her, it almost made him regret leaving in the first place. He should have been more considerate. Even though she said she'd be okay, leaving just because he didn't like Xavier was selfish.

When, after almost a full day of flying, he finally caught sight of the building, resentment gripped his chest. He hated this place. If it weren't for Wanda, he wouldn't have even stayed as long as he had. And if it weren't for her, he definitely wouldn't have come back, ever. No matter what.

But he did. He came back. For Wanda.

Sneaking in went just as planned. No one saw him. No one heard him. He was a ghost, after all. The moment he saw Wanda, he realized that he'd missed her even more than he'd thought.

"Knock knock," he said as he appeared in her room.

She jumped in surprise, but when she saw him, she smiled. "You scared me."

"Should I have said 'Boo', instead?" he asked. "I totally should have. Missed opportunity."

She chuckled slightly and shook her head.

"You seem to be doing pretty well, all things considered," he noted.

She was still wearing a straight jacket, but it looked looser, like whoever had put it on her wasn't as worried about her getting out. Her small smile still seemed genuine. Three weeks on her own again hadn't sent her straight back to her darkest place, it seemed.

"Yeah," she agreed. "I've been taking your advice. Whenever I notice myself getting stuck thinking about the bad memory, I try to think of three good ones. It's hard sometimes, but I think the more effort it takes, the better it works, because it keeps me distracted for longer. Yesterday, I remembered reading that book with you. You know the one. I tried to imagine an ending for it where they were both arrested as war criminals instead of having a happy ending. Do you want to hear it?"

"Absolutely," Danny confirmed.

In truth, he hadn't even thought about that trashy romance novel in ages. It was largely forgettable for him, but if it helped Wanda better navigate her emotions then hell yeah he wanted to hear her ideas for an alternate ending.

In her version of the ending, there was a huge trial. The kings of both sides agreed that the Warlock and Sorceress were guilty of crimes against Arvenia, and sentenced them to live the rest of there lives in a deep, dark dungeon where the lovers could only communicate by having rats deliver notes between them.

Then, after years of planning their escape one note at a time, they broke out and took over the world together, killing the kings and terrorizing the people of Arvenia to keep them in line.

"Ooh, plot twist!" Danny said when she got to that part. "I like that you made them the villains in the end. They should have been the villains from the beginning."

"I agree," Wanda said. "It was stupid that the book just gave them another villain to blame for all the bad things they did and fight off, rather than acknowledging their crimes."

"Totally!" Danny emphatically agreed. "Oh, I just remembered! I brought you some stuff."

He reached into his pockets and pulled out all the stuff he'd brought. He pulled out a deck of cards, a book of MadLibs and a pen, a sheet of stickers. He wasn't sure what they would have the most fun with, so he'd just  brought a bunch of random junk. Lastly, he pulled out a necklace, a black choker with an ankh charm.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Your first goth accessory," he said. "I found it in a random box in the attic where I'm staying now."

"No, I mean what's that symbol?" she asked, repositioning herself so Danny could put the necklace on her.

"Oh, it's an ankh. The Egyptian symbol for life, I think."

"Life, huh? Doesn't sound very goth."

"Well, you would be wearing it ironically," he said. "Most of the other gothy stuff I found had crosses, and seeing as your Jewish and all...." He shrugged. "Felt like it would be disrespectful. So, do you like it?"

"Yeah, I like it a lot," Wanda said. "You know," her voice became suddenly softer than before, like she was nervous. "Professor Xavier is going to come tomorrow. I think tomorrow might finally be the day he takes me with him."

"You think?" Danny asked, excited for her despite his hatred of the professor.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "I've been doing a lot better lately, and I have a really good feeling about it."

"That's awesome, Wanda!" he told her. "In that case, let's call the necklace a good luck charm. I'm rooting for you. I know you can do it."

"Thanks."

"You know, I also found this totally sweet red leather coat when I was rooting around in the attic," he said. "Ankle-length, flared collar, and it's your favorite color. Once you're ready to give up the straight jacket, I'll bring it to you as a congratulations present. What do you think?"

"I think you're really trying to motivate me."

"What can I say? I miss my friend."

"Then we have a deal," she agreed. Tomorrow is gonna be the day. I just know it."

Danny grinned widely at her. 

For the rest of the day, they mostly played MadLibs. They tried a few card games, too, but with Wanda's hands restrained, the only thing they could really do was collaborative solitaire, and that got old fast. Danny stuck little ghost and bat stickers on all the latches on her straight jacket while he told her about the school he was going to, and the board house. How he'd picked the same city the Xavier Institute was in so he could see her again when she enrolled there.

"They're all mutants at the board house," Danny told her. "I don't know if they actually believe I'm not, but they don't push it. They don't even call me a mutant by mistake. I don't know, maybe it's 'cause they're afraid I'll do something, or maybe it's 'cause they just don't care enough to argue with me, but either way, that's better than I ever got from Xavier."

"I'm glad you found people who accept you," Wanda said. "I hope when I go to the professor's school, I will too."

"Me too," Danny agreed. "And hey, even if you don't find them there, you'll still have me."

She smiled at him. Her smile was always small, burdened, a little sad behind the eyes, but it was honest. Danny liked that about her. She never tried to hide anything.

That night, he crashed in her room. Despite being fully padded, it was not very comfortable, but it was better than trying to fly through the night and ending up sleeping in a tree somewhere. He said 'see ya later' and left early in the morning to make sure he wouldn't be seen when the orderlies came to get her for her meeting with the professor, and promised to meet up with her again soon.

Then, he spent another day flying back to Bayville.

"You're getting back a little late, aren't you?" Lance observed when Danny finally returned to the board house. "Did you get to spend some quality time with your girlfriend?"

"Again, not my girlfriend, but yes, I did," Danny responded. "How was your... whatever you guys decided to do this weekend?"

"Oh, we ended up not being able to decide, so we just ordered pizza and stayed here all weekend," Lance answered. "So that was... that."

"Oh, yeah, those X-Men are gonna be soo jealous of the weekend you had."

"Shut up!"

It wasn't until a couple days later that news reached the Brotherhood of the X-Men's newest member. It came by way of Lance's budding relationship with Kitty.

"Really!? The X-Men have a new member?" Danny repeated excitedly when he heard the news after school.

"That's what Kitty said," Lance confirmed. "Apparently she's not gonna start at Bayville High for another few of days so she can get settled, but yeah. I don't know anything about her, though."

"I'm pretty sure I do!" Danny said. "I gotta go!"

"What?"

Danny didn't bother to explain. He went ghost, made a quick pit-stop in the attic to grab something and then flew straight for the Xavier Institute. He'd never actually been there before, but Tabitha told him where it was a while back. Apparently, she used to be an X-Men trainee before she joined the Brotherhood, and she was still friends with some of them.

Turrets rose up out of the ground the moment he got past the gate. Probably motion-activated. Danny easily avoided getting hit by turning intangible and staying that way until he'd flown straight through the front door. It actually took a while. The grounds were huge.

By the time he got through, there was a group of mutants waiting for him, suited up and ready for a fight.

"Relax, I'm not here to fight," Danny said. He held up the paper bag he'd brought with him. "I'm just bringing a friend a gift."

"Who are you?" demanded a guy with a weird visor. Scott, probably. He seemed like Scott.

"What do you mean who am I?" Danny asked. "You know me!"

"Like, I've never seen you before," Kitty said, crossing her arms. 

How they expected to protect their identities when they didn't even wear masks, Danny had no idea.

"What are you talking about? I—" He stopped himself abruptly. "Oh yeah, my bad," he said, and let the rings of his transformation wash over him, revealing his human form. "Recognize me now?"

Judging by their gasps, the answer was yes, but they didn't stand down.

"What are you doing here?" Jean asked. "I thought you didn't want anything to do with the Xavier Institute."

"I don't wanna join, but it's not like I hate you guys or anything," Danny said. "This just isn't the place for me. And I already told you why I'm here. I'm brought a congratulations present for Wanda. She's your new member, right? Or trainee? Whatever."

"How do you know that?" asked a fuzzy blue mutant that Danny didn't recognize until he started talking. That German accent was unmistakably Kurt.

"Well, when I saw her the other day, she said she felt really confident that she was going to be able to join you guys soon, and then Lance said Kitty said you got a new member, so I figured it must be her."

The others all glared at Kitty.

"What?" she asked. "It's not like it was gonna be a secret for long anyway. We, like, all go to the same school!"

"I wasn't aware you and Wanda were so close," came a familiar voice.

Danny turned to see the professor wheeling in and had to school his face to avoid scowling at him.

"We're friends," he said. "Can I see her or not? And keep in mind if you say no, I'm just gonna find her anyway."

"As long as you haven't come with ill intentions, I see no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to see her," the professor said. "We're all mutants after all, and a sense of community is important."

"I'm not a mutant," Danny muttered, his scowl finally breaking through.

The professor responded with a tight smile. "Jean, why don't you show Danny to Wanda's room."

"Of course, professor," Jean agreed. "It's this way."

She headed up the stairs and Danny followed.

"So do you and Wanda know each other from the institution?" Jean asked. "I mean, sorry, that's probably personal. I hope you don't mind me asking."

"It's fine," Danny said. "Yeah. Security couldn't exactly hold a guy who walks through walls, so I would sneak into her room sometimes and we'd hang out. She always wanted to be able to come here. I could never really understand it, but I'm still proud of her, you know? I may not agree with you guys, but you're good people. For the most part. I'm not quite sold on Scott, yet."

Jean chuckled. "I guess we can't really ask for more than that." She stopped in the hallway and knocked on a door. "Wanda, you in there? You have a visitor."

The door opened seemingly on its own.

"Danny!" Wanda's voice called. "I didn't think you'd be here so soon."

"I came as soon as I heard, and I guess word travels fast," he replied. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, come in," she said.

"I'll leave you to it," Jean said, as she backed away into the hall and closed the door behind her.

"You look good," Danny said.

Her clothes were a bit mismatched, but it was the first time he was seeing her without a straight jacket, and that was a huge improvement. She was also wearing the choker he'd given her. Her hair looked recently washed, and was neatly combed and tucked behind her ears. 

Even the way she held herself was more confident, happier. Not being in that rotten mental institution was already having a positive affect on her, it seemed.

"I brought something that'll make you look even better." He held up the paper bag.

"The coat?" she asked, rushing forward excitedly to take the bag from him.

"I hope it fits," he told her. "It looked about the right size."

She let the bag drop to the floor as he pulled the coat out and smoothly slid it on. It looked like it might be a little wide in the shoulders, but other than that, it fit like a glove.

"It's perfect," she said.

"I also found some earrings that match the necklace," he said. "I slipped 'em in one of the pockets. I know you don't have pierced ears, but I figured if you ever did, you might like to have them."

She patted the pockets until she found what he was talking about and smiled when she pulled them out. Then, she laid them gently on her dresser.

He didn't think he'd ever seen her smile so much, and so unabashedly. It wasn't the tiny, hesitant smile she'd worn before. She was really coming out of her shell.

"Careful," he said. "Looking at you now, I'd almost think you weren't consumed by rage."

Her smile fell. 

That had been the wrong thing to say.

"I am still angry," she said. "I can't stop it. But... you were right. I didn't need to control my anger. I just had to stop letting my anger control me. Now I can be angry and happy at the same time. Angry and excited. I feel more than just anger now. It feels good."

"I'm happy to hear it," he told her. "So how's this place treating you so far?"

"I have a roommate!" she replied instantly. "Her name is Rahne. And tomorrow, when they're done with school, she and some of the other girls are gonna take me to the mall for new clothes so I don't have to wear stuff from the lost-and-found anymore."

"That makes sense," Danny said.

"Do you wanna come?" she invited.

"I... would... but I might ruin the mood," he said apologetically. "Some of them don't trust me since I'm technically part of the Brotherhood, and we're... enemies? Rivals? Something like that. Plus, you don't want a guy tagging along on your first girl's shopping trip. Trust me. You'll want the full experience."

"You have a point...."

"I'll enjoy the surprise of seeing your new wardrobe when you come to school in a few days," he said.

They hung out and chatted for a little while until Wanda's roommate came back and Danny figured that was his cue to go. As he left her new room, he had the distinct pleasure of telling her he'd see her at school.

He could feel eyes on him until he was all the way off the manor grounds. They may not have hated him, but these X-Men sure as hell didn't trust him either.

Whatever. He didn't care what they thought about him. As long as they took care of Wanda, and left him alone, they were alright in his book. So far, so good.