promise me this; that you'll stand by me forever

2024 (pt. 2)

oh my god i'm so sorry i have no brain and i forgot about this anyway here we go!

"What do you mean, she died? I was texting her six hours ago - we're going to Vermont for her birthday!" Wanda can feel her entire chest shaking as she tries to hold back from a full-blown meltdown, "She can't be dead."

Maria doesn't meet her eyes, "Wanda, I'm so sorry-"

"No!" Wanda runs her hand through her hair, pulling a bit too hard and biting her lip to hold back a sob, "You pushed her into taking that job and now you have the audacity to come into my home and tell me she's gone? And you don't even know what happened to her?"

"We're working on figuring out what happened," Nick says next, "it'll take some time."

She barely hears what happens next, she thinks that Laura asks about Clint but she can't tell because her own head has grown so loud. Natasha can't be dead. Natasha cannot be dead.

Oh god, she has to tell Yelena.

Oh god, Natasha can't be dead.

-

The week following is a chaotic blur that Wanda's sure came straight out of a nightmare.

She meets with her and Natasha's lawyer, who lays out all of the results of Natasha's death. It feels surreal as they go through what will happen with her body, what to do with Natasha's belongings, changing everything that was in their name to everything in Wanda's name, and all sorts of other legal crap that makes her head spin.

She had to tell the boys, which didn't go exactly great. Tommy was in far more disbelief, but Billy clammed up completely and hasn't said a word since it happened. Wanda's at least been closer with them, letting them sleep in bed with her and Liho.

Liho seems the most off-put out of all of them, sleeping in the closet where Natasha's clothing is and hiding in the pantry with the baking ingredients. Wanda doesn't know what to do to help her.

Yelena's back in town on Sunday with Kate, and when Wanda first saw her, Yelena fully insisted that this must be some prank and that "it's not funny anymore." Eventually something happened and it fully seemed to sink in, but it was completely and utterly emotionally exhausting and Wanda had a hard time dealing with it.

The worst part, though, was having to release a public statement. It's been easy to forget over the past years that Natasha was a public figure (Wanda too, but far less), and when the rumors started circulating, Kate was the most helpful in organizing a statement to give to press. She said it was the one good thing about growing up under her crazy mother - she learned very quickly how daunting it was to be in the public eye and how to deal with a crisis.

The funeral ends up getting scheduled for two weeks after the initial announcement and Wanda's pretty sure the grief is going to eat her alive by then.

This grief is wholly different than the grief she experienced with her parents. The hard part about her parent's death is that she was only ten - she remembers them fondly and misses them, but she's grown with Natasha. Natasha's been her rock (aside from Pietro, of course) for the past nine years. They're raising kids together.

They aren't raising kids together. They were raising kids together. Natasha is gone.

Their house is overrun with condolence-type gifts in the form of food and flowers and other crap that Wanda doesn't know what to do with. She doesn't remember people caring this much when her parents were blown to nothing and it's so overwhelming that she doesn't want to leave her room.

Her biggest issue is with the fact that she has to deal with the kids. She has to hold their grief as well as her own and she's pretty sure at some point it's going to crush her.