#wanda figuero

[montygreen]

Ladies of The Get Down

[dizzrkipling]

[miobambiino]

‘Vertigo’ Chapter I

I’m starting a small series of fanfics based around angst, pining, and domestic avengers with the occasional life-threatening situation, pls reblog and share this if you like it! Let me know your thoughts as I love to get helpful critiques -  enjoy!

“Hey,”

Steve blinked the sweat out of his eyes, panting heavily from the sparring session he was undergoing with Bucky. The blonde looked down from the ring to see Tony, clad in a too-small t-shirt and loose fitted sweatpants, slug low on his hips. Normally, Steve would silently relish the sight before him, but not tonight.

Natasha looked up from where she as perched by the weights, her gaze alternating between the novel she was reading in one hand - mug of steaming brew in the other, and absently noting the technique and form of Cap’s fighting performance, making note on what to help him touch up on later.

The tower gym, normally thrumming with blaring pop-songs and various remixes Sam pulled up from his phone, was eerily quiet - the silence only broken why the sound of fists hitting muscle and flesh. Bucky was barely making a sound from his mouth, though the tension drawn in his shoulders and the way he huffed the air out his nose in a heavy rush gave anyone who knew him the inclination that he was particularly wound up after this morning’s mission.

They’d been in the south Bronx after picking up a call that some particularly nasty mercenaries on S.H.I.E.L.D’s watchlist had popped up near a school. They’d been called in because these particular individuals had been hired by known underground chemical-producers who specialised in replicating super-human powers. Hydra was one of their most loyal customers.

The Avengers had arrived promptly, apprehended the men without much effort other than a few blows from Barnes and Rogers, and were ready to wrap things up when a large blast sounded from the roof of the school, sending fire and smoke billowing into the air. A deathly pause had followed, before a horrified shriek rang from the same place. Tony and Wanda had been first on the scene, assessing the situation.

They hadn’t expected to see a girl, probably no more than sixteen years old, kneeling in the middle of charred patch of gravel, which layered the roof of the building. Under her skin, glowing red-hot lines ebbed and flowed through her veins, casting her in a disturbing light. Her eyes mirrored the colour seeping through her veins, and heat simmered off the surface of her skin.

The tears rolling down her cheeks vaporised after a few moments of contacting with the globe of her cheeks, which were gaunt and shallow.

Around her were the scorched remains of one of the mercenaries, they’d later assessed, as well as two other teenagers.

Samuel Figuero, sixteen years old, and Daphnie Anicah, seventeen, were the two later identified by S.H.I.E.L.D’s forensic team. Pepper had made sure to quietly let Tony know their funerals were to be held in a week from Friday.

He already knew, and had paid for both ceremonies.

The girl on the rooftop, Estelle Narder, had been swept up in what appeared to be a gang of deviants by local authorities’ standards. They’d seen it all before, they said. Just that, those types of kids get mixed into trouble all the time, was all they said. Estelle had been forced by the gang to cooperate with them, her arm both literally and metaphorically twisted when they’d told her they’d burn down her mother’s salon if she didn’t. Her mother had built the place up from the ground twenty-years ago from nothing, it was how they paid the bills and how she put food on the table.

So of course she went with them, and they took her to some street-lackeys of Hydra’s who only wanted someone low-key to test the latest serum on. Hydra didn’t get their hands dirty with this kind of thing, they sent it to street level so any accusations of wrongdoing could be chalked up to gang related violence. The serum was an shoddy adaption of Killian’s extremis, Tony later found out - though he knew the moment he saw the girl, saw the same burning fear Pepper had in her eyes. The same fire.

They’d sent the mercenaries in to clean up after their mess - they observed her for a few days, saw no signs that she was going to burn up or malfunction (the bastards said, as if she was an experiment, a project - a fucking machine), so marked the serum as a success. Ready for human trials, they’d said, as if she wasn’t. Just cutting their loose ends.

The mercenary they hadn’t picked up - because the others sent were just a distraction, but close enough to lend a hand - cornered Estelle on the roof, who’d been with Figuero and Anicah at the time. There the mercenary threatened to kill her friends if she made too much of a fuss. I’m just here to do my job, he’d said, as casually as if he’d placed a parking ticket on someone’s car.

Estelle had panicked - she was so angry and scared and so, so young. She lost control, and everything and everyone within a ten meter radius of her.

No one even knew. Only half the Avengers were even called out because no one fucking knew how dangerous the situation was. Why the mercenaries were actually there.

Back at the tower, the ones who had been on the scene - just Cap, Barnes, Tony, and Wanda, were ghosts of their usual selves. Wanda had curled up into the corner of the living room, tendrils of red rippling around her as she put her defensive walls up (literally), blocking out everything else. They couldn’t hear her, but they knew she was screaming.

Steve and Bucky had gone to do what they were still doing, fifteen hours later, sparring wordlessly, occasionally ducking out the ring to take a call from Director Fury, the Police Commissioner, anyone who needed to make it their official business.

Tony had slung pieces of his armour off, leaving a trail of red and gold towards the showers behind the gym. He’d just walked in, and sat under the spray without making any move to remove the undercut of the armour. Rhodey slid in next to him, pulling an arm round his shoulder, and waited - dress shirt growing see-through under the harsh spray of water.

Tony’s fingertips were beyond pruned by the time Rhodey finally coaxed him out.

Steve was now looking down at Tony, who was holding out two mugs of tea to the two men. Steve gently plucked them from the smaller man’s fingertips, handing one to Bucky, a thank you falling from his lips before he noticed Tony was already slipping through the doors into the gym. And then he was gone.

Tony on a good day was wary around Wanda. To say the two had done each other wrong was a severe understatement, and they tended to merely coexist in the same building, never really communicating unless it was through other people.

Wanda started out of her trance, having sensed the unease in the room, and noticed Tony perched on the other end of the large couch, arms tucked around his legs which were drawn tightly to his chest. He was resolutely not looking at her, instead focusing on a vague spot on the floor. Wanda eyed him suspiciously, before noticing the steaming mug of tea and slice of caramel shortbread from the bakery on 5th she liked.

She looked between the food in-front of her and the man a good distance away. Gently picking up the saucer the shortbread was on - the comforting click of ceramic tapping a surface - she noted Tony wasn’t even in the room anymore. Physically he was, but in his mind he was somewhere far off. Somewhere she imagined she’d visited a few times today herself.

She took a small bite, as if unsure, before the sweetness of the biscuit melted on her tongue. He had cut it into small slithers, knowing she wouldn’t be able to stomach much beyond a few bites. She wasn’t hungry after all, she just wanted the familiarity to anchor her.

She ate in silence, casting the occasional glance at the other man - still lost in a corner of his mind.

“I don’t know how to cook,” was all she said. Tony seemed to be pulled out of his trance, but made no move to look at her, so she continued.

“I never got the chance to learn,” and Tony hunched his shoulders together, sensing the direction the conversation was headed. Because of your weapons, my mother never had the chance to teach me, nor my brother. He’ll never get the chance, now. Because of you.

But it never came. Tony felt like it was hanging in the air, suffocating him. Just say it, he thought, just tell me how much you hate me, how much I ruined your life, how much you wish I’d have died along with Ultron. I know I do.

Wanda felt… nothing, upon hearing Tony think that way about himself. Steven had told her many times not to eavesdrop on people’s intern conversations, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Before, she would have felt a dark satisfaction, would be angry, feel it like a bleed in her gut. But now, just nothing. She didn’t pity him, nor did she want him to suffer.

“Did you ever learn to?” She inquired, actively facing her body towards him. It was the most interaction they’d had in a year of living together.

Tony looked up then, face decisively blank. He wet his lips, and opened his mouth to speak.

“Uh,” it came as a catch i the back of his throat - he coughed once and settled it, “Uh, yeah, kind of. Only certain stuff,” he finished lamely.

Wanda regarded him quietly.

“What stuff would that be?”

“Pasta, you know, Italian things,”

“Your mother,” she felt a dull throb of pain in Tony’s chest, like a wound time makes you get acquainted with so it doesn’t provoke you as much, “She was Italian, yes?”

Tony nodded, and a ghost of a smile came over his lips.

“A very Italian mother. She was adamant that the first language I begin with was Italian, my Dad didn’t care so indulged her. He loved her, for a while.”

Wanda kept quiet, leaving an air of room for Tony to continue.

“She taught me to cook traditional recipes from her country and her village from scratch, to play the piano like her grandfather taught her, to dance - because all proper Italian gentlemen should be able to dance for a woman,” he added with a huff of amusement, like it was obvious.

“She had the spirit of an Italian woman, I’ll tell you that much,” Wanda felt the corners of her mouth turn upwards. “If she ever heard me swear or, or saw me but my feet on the couch - or whatever, she’d cuff me on the back of my head with a wooden spoon.”

Wanda let out a surprised laugh at that - Tony seemed even more surprised.

“I see it didn’t do much for your manners then,” she eyed him dubiously, a hint of a smile on her face. He frowned slightly in confusion, before realising he had his feet on the couch.

“Should I get the spoon?” Wanda asked innocently. He ducked his head to hide the smile on his face, and with a grace of apology, he settled his feet on the floor.

“Why not?” he said, getting up and stretching his spine out with a soft click. Wanda’s smile faltered, before he continued.

“Do you wanna learn how to cook?” he asked with more confidence than he usually directed her way. At her dubious expression, he seemed momentarily bashful before she stood up too.

“Yes,” she stepped closer to him though still some distance away, “I would like that”.

Steve, Bucky and Natasha emerged from the gym an hour later. Despite their inner turmoil, super soldiers can’t ignore their super metabolism for too long. They’d really tested it to its limits today.

The lift opened up onto the communal floor. The living room was dim save for the lamp Bruce used for reading, however Bruce’s book was there, he himself was not. Noting the soft murmur of voices coming from around the corner and the welcoming glow of warm light streaming through the archway of the kitchen, the three made their way to the sound.

Natasha blinked twice at the sight before her. Sam and Bruce were sat around the island in the middle of the kitchen, talking quietly to one another over a book Sam had under his hand. What caught her attention most, however, was not the fact that Sam was interested in Flora Lapponica by some obscure Botanist, but Wanda listening intently to Tony, who was sizzling something in a saucepan which he chatted away at her enthusiastically - while Wanda smiled and took it in. Not only that, but whatever Tony was frying smelt divine.

“What the hell happened?” Bucky blurted out, not seeming very apologetic. Everyone was well aware of the tension between Wanda and Tony - you could cut it with a knife sometimes. It was a house-rule that no one brought it up, and you never let them sit opposite or next to each other if you could help it, so help you God.

But the scene before the three of them was alien. Dumbfounded, and momentarily starstruck out of their darker thoughts, they sat down in the chairs around the island, save for Steve, who was looking between Tony and Wanda’s shoulders.

“Whats this-?”

“Carbonell-family recipe,” Tony supplied, staring what appeared to be olive oil, a bit of butter, salt, and pancetta, while Wanda peeled the papery skin off a clove of garlic.

“I you roll the clove between your hands, the skin’ll just roll off - yeah like that, see? A natural - and you don’t get it stuck under your nails,” Tony smiled encouragingly at Wanda, who seemed perfectly content.

“What is it?” Steve tried, one to receive an identical look from Tony and Wanda that said who’s this guy?

“Thats on a need to know basis, Cap,” he nudged the pancetta round the pan, “Carbonell secret,”

At the confusion, Bruce piped up from his conversation with Sam and now Natasha. “Carbonell is his mother’s side of the family. Italians. Don’t seem too hurt he’s not telling you, he’s just being Tony,” Bruce smiled amusedly at his friend, who was pretending not to hear him, “he’s very secretive about his family recipe, won’t tell you anything else other than that its a ‘Carbonell secret’.”

“Yeah - uh, I just googled the name with Tony’s and it came right up that it was his mom - not that hard really,” Sam voiced casually.

“Great - if you actually use the blade to crush the garlic instead of cut it, it tastes much sweeter,” Tony murmured to Wanda, who heeded his advice, then slid the garlic into the simmering pan.

At that moment, Clint and Thor waltzed in having followed their noses. Thor sat down on the counter, picking at a bowl of red grapes, while Clint lingered over the frying pan. He reached around Tony for the salt, before sprinkling it dramatically over the pan from a considerable hight.

“Salt Bae,” was all he said, and Tony groaned and shoved his elbow into the archer’s sternum, winding him playfully.

The others just laughed softly, and Tony and Wanda drained the mountain of tagliatelle from a steaming pot, before setting it back onto the stove. Tony guided Wanda as they turned the heat on low again, tossing in the garlic-pancetta mixture, followed by a mix of egg-yolks, parmesan, pepper, and cream, and stirring softly.

Rhodes had drifted in by then, automatically grabbing dishes from the cupboards and taking them over to the pot of carbonara.

Natasha got up and collected cutlery, and took it out to the coffee table in the sitting area, turning another lamp on to illuminate the area subtly. They others filed in, followed by Tony, Bruce, Wanda, and Rhodey balancing dishes on their arms, handing out the food to various people. Thor beamed at Wanda, executing the dish gratefully.

“Momma Carbonara sure knew how to cook,” Clint said around a mouthful of pasta. Tony groaned loudly as the others laughed at a genuinely confused-looking Clint.

“Carbonell you fucking moron, carbonara is the type of pasta you have been inhaling for that last ten minutes.”

It took another ten minutes for Sam and Natasha to stop laughing at Clint, who just kept shoving them with his socked feet.

End of chapter I, this is going somewhere I promise!

[montygreen]

Ladies of The Get Down: Wanda Figuero

→ “Ezekiel Figuero, I love you. And lord knows I am proud and fond of you. I think of you as my own son. But listen to me. You leave this house tonight... don’t come back. Ever. Do I make myself clear?”