You Didn't See That Coming? ~Hawksilver~ #Wattys2015

7

(A/N this chapter is Wanda's POV)

My eyes opened to see a slightly darkened room. I was laying on the recliner and Pietro was on the bed across the room. With a yawn, I stretched and got up. The clock read 9:56. I suppose that makes up for how incredibly late I went to bed last night.

Strangely enough, when I went downstairs, everyone else was still asleep. In fact, nobody was in sight. I walked around, exploring the house. The kitchen, the living room full of LEGO toys, the patio outside. I took a deep breath and looked at the sky: not a cloud in sight. Clint was lucky to have this.

"You wake up early?" a voice said behind me. I turned and saw Steve at the front door.

"Not really, I only just got up," I said.

"Natasha took the kids to see the baby at around six," he said, "just so you know. So, Nathaniel's all healthy, and Natasha says he looks just like Cooper did when he was a baby." I couldn't help but smile.

"Teachers will give him hell," I said, "By calling him 'Cooper' on accident." Steve chuckled a little.

"I'm sure they will," he said.

"Me too. I had a friend, Clara, who always got called Raina, her older sister's name." Raina and Clara had been two of my best friends growing up in Sokovia. They lived a story above us in our old apartment building.

"Could I ask you something? How was life in Sokovia, before the bombings?" I sighed.

"It was quite the life," I told him. "We were poor, but surviving. Pietro and I both could go to school. And we had enough money to pay the rent. We couldn't afford any pets, but we always fed stray cats and they became very close to us. Pietro always said that I could come up to any old cat, no matter how mean, and they would purr and nudge my ankles the way strays did. In spring, the flowers would bloom in several colors across the fields. My mother picked and arranged them for a living. Every day, after school, she and I would go to the fields and arrange flowers into bouquets and corsages and even flower crowns, and Mother would sell them the next day. It didn't earn us much, but it gave us all money in our pockets. My father, however, worked at a woodworking business. He started teaching my brother a little about being a carpenter, and the two would always be fixing up things in the house like a broken wood chair. It was nice, in Sokovia. I had a lot of friends at school. Then things started to get rough, when we were ten. Father lost his job, the fields started dying. The economy dropped and scuffles on the streets turned into gang wars. Then there was word that people were planning on bombing us. A waste of space, they said, was what America thought Sokovia was. All of us were outraged. But just before the bombings, my father comes home saying he got another job somewhere else. We had a long talk about how it wasn't over, and we could build a better life. We eat dinner, and...the bombs hit." I looked down.

"I'm sorry," Steve said.

"It wasn't your fault. You weren't even conscious then."

"Then whose fault was it?" Steve asked, raising his eyebrows. "You obviously blame someone on the Avengers, enough where at one point you were set to help Ultron kill the team."

"You are seriously putting this on me now?" I asked, outraged.

"Listen, I just want to say that revenge is not worth it. That isn't what the Avengers is about. If it were, we would be called the Revengers. No, we don't hold grudges. We don't judge people by their pasts but what they are capable in the future. Wanda, I just need to know that you really are ready to be an Avenger. Please, tell me, why were you so ready to kill us?"

"Because Tony Stark ruined our potential for a better life the day our new life started," I said in barely a whisper. "He killed the flowers. Raina, Clara, all our friends and neighbors. He destroyed our little home, with the many projects our father worked so long and hard to build. The schools, the streets, the houses, the cars, everything in sight was either broken or gone. Hell, the stray cats I had played with since I was seven, their dead bodies lay in front of our destroyed apartment. Most of all, he took our parents, and our safety. He stole our trust away from us at a young age, Steve, and not only did we live on the streets the rest of our lives but we walked the streets and remembered how beautiful it used to be!" I stopped talking. My voice had risen to a scream by then, and my clenched fists were glowing with red hexes and rage.

"Wanda," he said quietly, "it's okay. Listen, nobody's going to judge you if they know your reasons-"

"Everyone judges me already because of my reasons," I said, biting my lip to try to keep calm. "What's the point if people already know you're the monster who joined HYDRA and Ultron?" He and I stared at each other in a silent war before he sighed, and turning to walk off, said:

"You aren't a monster, Wanda. But I think you're forgetting that being a real part of the team would convince yourself and others what you are capable of."

"What, my magic?"

"No. You and your brother...like your father said. It's not over. You can build a better life." He left me speechless on the patio, a gentle breeze blowing my hair softly. I brushed a lock of hair back and stood there, his words reflecting in my mind over and over.