The Witch's Shadow (Wanda Maximoff x Girl)

Nineteen

Green eyes are watching me when I wake up the next morning.

At first I think it's a dream and I don't immediately panic, "Wanda?"

She nods slightly, "hey."

"What's going on?" I ask sleepily.

"You showed up in the middle of the night, dead asleep and mumbling my name," she tells me.

I sit up quickly and look around. Sure enough, I was in her bedroom in the tower. "Shit!" I panic as I look to the door, expecting someone to barge in and attack me.

Wanda's hand on my arm pulls my attention to her, "it's ok. They don't know you're here."

"I'm sure Tony has a sensor specifically to detect my powers," I tell her.

"He does," she agrees. "But I told JARVIS not to alert him that you were here."

"You.. you did?" I ask in surprise. "Why?"

"Because I missed you," she says simply. "And I knew, hoped, that if you came back it wouldn't be to fight the others. It would be for me."

"You.. wanted me to come back?" I whisper.

She nods, "of course, why wouldn't I?"

I chuckle mirthlessly, "I don't know, maybe because I lied to everyone, hurt you and kidnapped Natasha."

"I'm sure you had your reasons," she tells me gently. "And nobody kidnaps Natasha. If she's still with you then it's because she wants to be. And as for you hurting me, well, I forgive you."

Her words nearly stop my heart, "what?" I ask, needing to hear them again but not daring to believe that she'd actually said them in the first place.

"I said, I forgive you, Ray," she repeats.

"Why?"

"Because," she sighs. "I believe that you're a good person and that you didn't mean to hurt me. That you didn't want to, I was just.. collateral damage in whatever it is you're doing."

"I'm sorry," I tell her with all my being. "I'm so sorry."

"I know you are," she says with a small smile as she gets up. She takes my hand and pulls me from the bed, "come shower. You've got blood on you."

"It's not mine," I tell her, repeating Yelena's words from last night.

"That's even grosser," Wanda chuckles. "Come on, see if you can use all of Tony's hot water."

"I don't think that's possible," I joke, trying to figure out the sudden change of direction in this conversation.

But As much as I don't want to be at the tower, I do want to be with Wanda, so I follow her to the bathroom and let her start the shower. As steam fills the room, she gives me a smile and leaves, letting me undress and climb into the ridiculously large shower.

Not even a minute later, the door opens again and so does the shower curtain. "What are you doing?" I ask in surprise as she climbs into the shower with me. I try and look everywhere but at her until her hands on my face force me to.

"look at me, Ray," she orders softly. "I want you to look at me."

"Why?" I gasp as my eyes finally focus on her. Her hands move from my face and she steps back, leaning against the shower wall. "Now that I've seen you, I don't ever want to look away," I tell her as my eyes take in her entirety. To say she is perfect would be an understatement.

She is what they write lovesick sonnets about. She is the statue of Aphrodite brought to life. She is the epitome of beauty.

A smile grows on her lips, "your thoughts just got very loud."

"Sorry," I tell her as my eyes return to hers.

"Don't be, that's the reaction I was hoping for," she admits. Her eyes move down over my body and I'm suddenly very aware that I'm very naked. My hands move, covering up not my boobs or anything you'd expect, but a few of my uglier scars. Scars from a past that I was ashamed of.

Wanda's hands cover mine, pulling them from the scars, "you're beautiful," she whispers. "Scars and all."

"They're ugly," I whisper back. "Earned from an even uglier past."

"Your past might be ugly, but you are not," she reiterates. "Mines not exactly sunshine either. We've both done things, been made to do things we might not normally do. But that doesn't mean it's who we are."

"So who are we?" I ask her, hoping she'd have some words of wisdom because at this point in my life I had no idea who I was.

"We are the things we love," she tells me. "We are the people we love and the people who love us. We are the people we protect. We are-."

I cut her off with a kiss. I didn't need to hear anything else in that moment, she'd already said what I needed to hear. "I love you," I tell her. "I may not know a lot, but I do know that."

"I love you too, Ray," she whispers against my lips as she kisses me again.

Her arms wrap around my neck and mine around her waist, holding her as close as I can in that slick shower, but after we almost fall, I flash us to the bed, not caring that we are soaking wet.

All I care about is Wanda.

Holding her, kissing her, pleasing her. And for several hours, that's exactly what I do.