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19

"If you don't mind me asking, why didn't you bring Natasha back?"

Wanda had managed to talk y/n down and out of her defensive state, both sitting side-by-side in the silent church. It was almost a complete reflection of Bucky's funeral, except this time Wanda was by her side.

Y/n didn't know how to process any of it. She'd pushed back the grief for so long, refusing to accept the fact that Bucky was dead, and she still didn't want to let go. She couldn't. It was like there was a concrete wall in her mind, desperately trying to cling to whatever was left of her shattered heart.

She didn't talk for a long time, simply staring at the front of the church as if Bucky's coffin was still there. Her elbows rested on her knees, completely hunched over and the furthest from ladylike - which was something y/n never had been, but gracefulness and the art of being 'ladylike' was something that had constantly been portrayed in sitcoms. It was just another part of Darlene, yet it was still an eerie sight to see her so dishevelled in a pretty yellow dress.

No matter how hard she tried to merge them together, y/n and Darlene would always be polar opposites.

She took a sharp breath at the mention of Natasha, shaking her head a little as she replied with a broken shrug. "I don't know." Y/n murmured, her voice hushed and heavy. Every syllable was enunciated with a sort of bitterness that one could only feel after a loss of a loved one. A sort of bitterness that made it clear that the tears brimming in her eyes weren't going to stop any time soon. "I think I tried at one point, but-"

A sad smile appeared on y/n's face, sniffling as she refused to make eye contact with the woman beside her. Her chin rested on her hands, lips desperately trying to form the words that were at the tip of her tongue. "I guess I just knew that I'd have to let go at some point, and I couldn't handle losing two people again." Y/n admitted, wiping her tears with the backs of her hands before resuming their position on her chin. "And I knew that she'd figure out that something was wrong. She was smart, really smart, and I knew she'd figure it all out and convince me to let go. But I'm not ready."

Wanda nodded along as she listened to y/n, watching her with sympathetic eyes. All she wanted to do was hold y/n in a hug, but she knew that the woman didn't want that. People grieved in different ways, and from what Wanda remembered from Bucky's death, y/n didn't want to be touched or held by anyone, anyone except Bucky. There was no point in trying to be a placeholder. Wanda knew all too well that there'd never be anyone that could replicate the feeling of being held by her parents, by Pietro, or by Vision. She just had to let y/n come to her, if that was what she wanted.

The fact that y/n didn't bring Natasha back because she knew she'd figure it out didn't surprise Wanda, it was a bittersweet thing to think about. Of course Natasha would've figured it out. Hell, if Natasha was still alive, this would've never happened. Y/n knew that. She knew it was wrong. But the desperation of keeping Bucky was far stronger than her moral compass. "If you didn't want anyone to figure it out, then why didn't you use your mind control on Bucky?"

Y/n wasn't upset that Wanda was asking so many questions, she would've been curious too if it was the other way around, but god, Wanda knew exactly what questions to ask. They all struck a nerve that y/n had been ignoring, and they all somehow had clear answers in her mind.

She shifted slightly on the church pew, biting down on her bottom lip as she could feel the need to completely crumble beginning to build. She was scared to crumble because she didn't know how her control over Westview would react, yet it was so, so tempting. "I-" Y/n paused, letting out a heavy breath as she leant back against the church pew. Just the thought of it caused the pain to begin to rise in her throat, burning her nostrils. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out except a sharp breath.

Y/n was like that for a while, struggling to get the words out without crumbling, but she knew she wanted to say it. Wanda even offered for her not to answer the question, but she refused. It was something she'd never said out loud before, and maybe getting it off of her chest would make her feel better.

Y/n moved so that she was leant against the church pew, a broken smile wavering as her hands fell down to rest on her lap. "I promised myself that I'd never do anything to Bucky's mind. I'd never read it, I'd never warp it, and I'd never control it." She admitted with a slow nod. He was the only person she'd ever sworn to never do it to. The only person. "Mind control is invasive, it's like there's another person in your brain, and you've been forced to take a backseat. Bucky had been through that before with Hydra. He was violated and stripped of any control or personal belongings for centuries. I'm-" Y/n paused, picking at her nails anxiously. She hated talking about him in the past tense. "I was never going to do that again to him. Even reading his mind felt like too much. It was an invasion of his privacy, which was something he'd only just gotten back. Using mind control on him here was never an option. Never."

Y/n was completely serious. Bucky loved her and trusted her. Controlling his mind would've been one of the strongest betrayals in y/n's mind. It wasn't fair. He deserved to have privacy after being Hydra's puppet for so long. Reaching into his mind wasn't fair.

"And if that meant risking him finding out, then that was the risk I had to take. Lying to him makes me feel sick, but when he begged me to tell him the truth about Westview, I couldn't do it. And now I have until sunrise to make amends with him-" Y/n paused, closing her eyes to try and still the emotions building inside her. "I just- I can't do it."