Safe Place

1: Untethered

Wanda's POV: 

The one thing I have to look forward to is the moment my eyes flutter open from sleep.

It's the only part of the day where I can forget about everything that happened - about HYDRA, about Ultron, about Pietro. For a second, maybe two if I'm lucky, I can just be.

But then reality comes crashing down around me.

Pietro was my other half, the one person I knew I could always trust. He protected me when our home was bombed, stuck by me throughout our childhood on the streets, and tried to take beatings for me in HYDRA's custody. I knew everything about him, and he knew everything about me. We kept each other going through the darkest times.

Pietro has been dead for twenty days.

I roll over, pressing my face into the pillow, letting the warm tears soak the fabric. I feel so lost, so alone, so helpless. I'm floating pointlessly in the depths of space. Pietro was my anchor. He could always pull me back down to Earth, no matter how horrifying the situation.

But now he's gone. And I'm like a balloon - a deflated black balloon, that is - that's slipped off a child's wrist.

Aimless. Alone. Untethered.

Am I a balloon now? Doomed to float, lonesome and desperate, until one day I pop and break and tumble into the ground?

Another wave of tears comes. I shift onto my side, away from the sunlight pouring out the window, and curl into a tight ball.

A knock comes on the door. Some days, this knock is my wake-up call. Others I lie awake the entire night until the knock tells me that I should give up trying for sleep. But I've come to count on the knock. It's constant.

"Wanda?" a voice calls, like always. "You awake?"

Like always, I say nothing. I've barely spoken since Pietro was killed. Words feel heavy in my mouth, like the tears on my face and the guilt on my chest. Everything weighs me down like lead. 

"Wanda?" the voice tries again. My head is foggy, so I can't discern who's speaking. Clint, maybe? Tony?

"Okay, well, I'm just gonna leave this here," the voice says. "You probably don't feel up to talking, huh?"

What a keen observation, I think dryly. 

"Wanda, I know it hurts, but you've gotta get up," the voice presses. "This isn't healthy. You can't just lock yourself up and waste away."

Watch me.

A minute passes, heavy with my silence. 

"All right," the voice concedes. "I have to go. Eat something, okay?"

I hear footsteps, a whirl of whispering, and then the shutting of a door.

When I'm sure the voice is gone, I haul myself out of bed, wobbling over to the door. I need all my strength to pull it open, and when I do, my head swims with dizziness. I pick up everything the voice left - a tray of food, three bottles of water, and a teddy bear - and carry it back to my bed in three trips.

I peel a banana and nibble on it gingerly. I can't bring myself to eat. Everything tastes like sand, even fruit's sunshine sweetness, and sand tastes like Sokovia.

My breathing gets faster and faster as more memories swim to the surface. The room spins. My lungs tighten. 

Another panic attack. I get them pretty much on the daily, but usually they're so bad that I can't do anything to stop them. Pietro used to calm me down when I got them before, so naturally it's sort of a vicious circle, remembering him and falling into an even deeper abyss.

It's almost an hour before my breathing finally slows and the tears stop chasing each other down my face. I'm exhausted. Uncapping a water bottle, I gulp thirstily until my mouth is less dry and my body stops shaking.

I curl into a ball on the bed, pushing everything away. I force myself to finish the banana before pulling the blankets up around me and plunging into a pain-filled sleep.

I'm back in Sokovia, entering the battlefield.

Pietro is by my side.

And suddenly he's not.

I look up, only to see my twin brother impaled on a metal spike, writhing in agony.

He looks at me with cold, unforgiving eyes.

"You didn't save me."

I rush to his side. "Pietro, I - "

"It's your fault!" he yells. "You didn't save me. It's all your fault."

And then he's gone, fading into dust, and all I can see is the hatred and pain in his eyes.

I wake up screaming.