Vermilion [Wanda Maximoff Imagines]

Safe, I'm Saved

Summary : An accident leads to something more.

Words : 4135

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Growing up, Wanda rarely got sick. It was often her twin brother Pietro who had to undergo a series of doting and worrying from their parents over his health, and even those times were not often. She didn’t remember much of it – Mama would prohibit her from going into the room to comfort her brother, something about catching the illness for herself. Sometimes it would be so bad she had to sleep in her parents’ room while they tend to him. Not that she could sleep without knowing he was okay; Wanda still remembered staying up in the darkness, praying and hoping that he would survive through the night and make it to the morning. And survive he did. As he always do.

When they were alone on the streets, maintaining a good health was harder, but it was only for a short period of time before they found them – HYDRA. Wanda had to admit that it was naïve and idiotic of them to fall right into their trap, to think they were supposed to save them, to help. Pietro got sick several times over the course of the experiment. The younger twin would cry and worry every night he wasn’t in the cell on her left, wondering if he was still breathing, if they had somehow managed to kill him. Then, he came back with a trail of silver and a rush of air, his brown hair turned white, dark bags under his eyes.

He was twelve minutes older than her, yet she was the one who worried too much – he knew what Wanda was capable of as she knew of his, and Pietro thought worrying only meant you suffer twice. So when he did not recover from all the bullets and bruises that littered his body, Wanda resented the world, HYDRA and herself. If only she knew how to heal him, but she knew it was only wishful thinking, it takes more than basic medical knowledge to save him from thirteen bullets.

So when she was the one on the medical bed, Wanda knew little to nothing on how to take care of herself. Just like her brother, she had gone out of her way to step in the crossfire and took the fall for herself – in this case, it was a bomb. You started to think it must have been a family trait, but looking at your team, it’s looking more like an Avenger trait. Sacrifice yourself for others or you’re not officially one.

Thankfully, Wanda had made herself some friends, or more like those friends have found her and forced themselves into her life. There weren’t many, only the inner circle of the Avengers, which consisted of you, and she liked to think you were more than a friend. Or hoped, at least. She had been star-struck the first time she watched you fight, your expertise with knives and the way you carried yourself like you were weightless. Wanda also had to stop herself from staring too intensely at your smile, had to take a step back at the flutter in her stomach when you scolded her carelessness regarding the small scrape on her knee after training.

The team would joke that they were witnessing a courting process each time they caught you doing special things for Wanda. She might’ve been a mind reader, but she wasn’t the best at reading people.

And maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to ignore her growing affection if you hadn’t been a fucking sweetheart towards her. You would often crack jokes in the middle of a fight to loosen some tension, to make her feel better when you knew she was nervous. Unfortunately, this time it didn’t have the expected outcome. Wanda let out a low chuckle at your remarks on the bald man standing guard on the door, and at her gasp, her cover was blown. Her nerves made her fidget as she made him slip onto his butt, but his grunt was too loud to be passed on as a regular noise he would make, therefore alerting his coworkers.