Piece By Piece

Part 6

When I was little, my mama would make me and my siblings sweet pancakes every Sunday morning. She would serve them up with our favourite toppings- Wanda would get chocolate and pistachios, Pietro would have his smothered in peanut butter, and I always had custard on mine. We would sit at the big wooden table by the window and much down on our breakfasts, it was the only time the house was quiet. Every so often we would make comments about how our respective toppings were better than another one's, and then our mother would pat us lightly on the head. Pietro would steal the last bites off my plate, and I would slap his hands away playfully.

"Y/n" I see my mothers smile at our play, and my father grin behind his newspaper.

"Y/n!"

I open my eyes. A gray window, streaked with rain comes into view. My room. I look next to me and see Natasha. She just looks at me without saying anything. I try to sit up, and immediately lay back down from the pain. "Shit," I grit out. My ribs. My bloody ribs feel like they've been hit by a bull.

"Don't move too much, you have some bruised ribs. Bruce gave you some meds to speed up the healing process so you'll be in good enough shape for the mission." I laughed at the last part.

"You mean my sacrificial vacation?" I ask with a smile. If she is annoyed by my jokes, she doesn't show it.

"Why didn't you use your abilities to stop him? You were taking hits for at least 30 minutes before we showed up. You know how to fight, and you have control of your abilities. Why didn't you use it?" I looked at my hands. Like right one was wrapped with a bandage around the palm and the left has some bandaids over the palm. I shrugged, keeping my eyes on my hands.

"I don't know. I just kind of froze I guess. It's over now, no point in revisiting it." She looked me in the eyes. "Why are you even here? It's not like my beating hurt any of you. Why don't you go spend time doing something you want to do instead of sitting here with someone you don't like and don't trust?" She kept her green eyes trained on my y/e/c ones.

"Just wanted to make sure you weren't dead. We still need you for cover for the mission. I'm going to go find everyone else." I nodded, shifting myself to face away from her, towards my window. I felt the mattress shift as she got up and left, and waited for the door to close before I let myself break composure. I felt the corners of my lips dip into a frown, and felt the heat behind my eyes grow. It became hard to swallow, and my nose began to sting. I rolled so I was lying on my side, with my face in the pillow. I let the hot tears pour out for thirty seconds, and then forced myself to get out of bed. I slowly moved my legs over the edge of the mattress. It hurt. I slowly put weight on each of my feet, and stood shakily. I walked tentatively to the bathroom to examine my damage in the mirror. I looked down, to focus on my feet for each step, and realized that last night all I had put on was a sweatshirt. My thighs had been exposed. I didn't care about Anthony seeing- I planned on never seeing him again. But I didn't really like the idea of the team knowing- and some of them seeing- the red pattern resting on top of layers of silver lines from the last eight months. I don't thing any of them would care, I'm just sort of embarrassed by it. I looked in the mirror, and assessed myself. I had a large white bandage around the edge of my eye, and a smaller bandage by my mouth.

I lifted up the sweatshirt to reveal a mosaic of blue, purple, and yellow patches painted over my abdomen. I let out a large breath. "Anthony sure can pack a punch." I smiled at my own sarcasm. I let the sweatshirt fall and slowly walked out of the room. At this point I didn't care what the team thought of me, or how uncomfortable they were around me, so I figured I would go eat breakfast in the kitchen. I wouldn't sit with them, but I refuse to avoid them any longer for the sake of their own petty bullshit. I focus on one step at a time as I walked down the hallway, and the chattering voices grew less faint with each step. Eventually I reached the kitchen, and the chatter came to a halt. "I'm just getting some cereal, don't mind me." I went on with my business, pouring myself some sugary corn flakes and milk.

I leaned on the counter as I spooned it into my mouth, slowly chewing. My jaw hurt too. I stared at the same speck of black I stare at every time I eat, and just let my thoughts wander. After a while, I realized still no one had said anything, and I looked up and stopped chewing, mid-mouthful. I scanned my eyes around the room, observing each of their faces. They all had similar expressions. Confusion, mixed with unnerve. I rolled my eyes and went back to my cereal.

"You shouldn't be up walking around." I looked up to see Bruce looking at me.

"I had to eat something. And you all sure as hell aren't going to make me cereal." Bruce looked back down at his plate of jam and toast with eggs on the side. I went back to my cereal.

"That's what you get for whoring yourself out to complete strangers," Wanda said under her breath at the table. I glared at her.

"Just because you're too unapproachable for anyone to want to have sex with you doesn't mean that my sex life has to be a dry as yours." She didn't like that very much.

"Just because I don't dress like a slut doesn't make me unapproachable."

"It's not how you dress sestra, it's your personality that's off-putting." I quickly threw back one more bite of my cereal before putting the bowl and spoon in the sink, and turning around to face her again. "It's hard to be friendly and open when you know why we are the way we are, and specifically, why I am the way I am, and you know who's fault it is, but don't let your sex habits take the shit end of the stick for your own fucked up conscience." Now heads turned to face Wanda.

"You are better for it. We did the right thing."

"If you hadn't done what you did, Pietro would still be alive Wanda!" The team finally reacted. They looked at Wanda in confusion.

"Shut up, you were the one who watched him die for no reason!" I looked at my food. I wasn't hungry anymore. I look up, with angry tears in my eyes.

"Go to hell Wanda," I say flatly. I have nothing left for her. I've given her space, I've taken her shit, I've isolated myself from my life. I have nothing left to offer her. I lean off the counter, spin on my heels, and walk slowly back to my room.