The Witch's Shadow (Wanda Maximoff x Girl)

Twenty-Two

"Ok! That's it!" Natasha yells as she trips over a towel in the hallway for the second time. "It's time to move!"

"It's about time," I mutter from my spot on the couch where Wanda and I had been sleeping for the past week. Louder I say, "I've got a place we can go."

Yelena tumbles out of the bathroom and asks, "and you waited until now to tell us?"

"Nobody asked," I answer. "I actually have a lot of property and make quite a lucrative living off renting them out."

"Well now I'm demanding," Natasha says angrily. "We are moving so everyone pack your shit, we are moving into Rays house! And I swear to god if any of you forget your toothbrush I'm not making a midnight run to the store for an extra!"

"God you're such a mom," Yelena groans.

But we all indeed start moving and within two hours everything was packed and ready to go. Surprisingly the four of us didn't have that much stuff, if you didn't count Yelena's weapons collection. Seriously, who needed ten different throwing knifes?

When we were all ready, I take Wanda's hand and take her to the new house first, wanting to see her reaction before the others. And when she saw the large house with giant picture windows, the snow covered woods beyond them and the mountains in the distance, I knew I'd made the right choice in safe houses.

Her arms wrapped around my neck, "it's beautiful."

"You're beautiful," I tell her. "Beautiful house for a beautiful woman."

She looks around the large room and sighs, "too bad Yelena will have all her weapons hung up in minutes."

I grin, "I don't have to go get them right away."

Wanda gets a matching grin, "oh really? And just what would we do with all this privacy?"

I flash us to the master bedroom and directly into the middle of the bed, "I can think of a few things."

"So can I," Wanda says in a voice I love as her eyes glow red and my hands move above my head. She straddles me and asks, "safe word?"

"Stark."

                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three hours later I'm finally back the apartment and face to face with a grumpy set of sisters.

"You smell like sex," Natasha complains as she huddles close to me, gripping my arm tightly.

"Had to break in my new bed," I laugh.

"Gross," Yelena groans as she takes my other arm. "These walls better be thick."

"See for yourself," I tell her as we appear in the new house.

Immediately both girls hit me in the back of the head. "You had this place the entire time and you made me live in that cramped apartment?" Yelena yells.

"You made four of us live in that apartment?" Natasha adds.

"Sorry, I kinda thought we'd have a lead by now and wouldn't need to upgrade," I admit.

Their faces turn guilty and Yelena huffs, "fine. But I'm putting my guns on that wall."

"Why?" I ask with a smirk. "Your room has a built in armory in the back of the closet."

"No way!" She gasps as she runs up the stairs.

"Third door on the left!" I yell after her. "Yours is the second on the left," I tell Natasha.

"How did you afford this place?" Natasha asks quietly. "And the apartment? Because I know Yelena wasn't paying for it."

I give her what had to be an exhausted look, "the thing about destroying Hydra, is that they leave behind a lot of offshore bank accounts. I figured with everything they'd done to us, the least they could do was house us."

"You spent all their money on houses?" Natasha asks skeptically.

"Hell no," I laugh. "I spent one bank account on houses. Spent another upgrading the houses, one account is solely for my wardrobe, another is only for weapons and ammo, and another one gets divided equally between as many animal shelters as possible. And the rest," I say as I walk over to a picture of a pot of gold on the wall. "Well, the rest is for the Widows to start their new lives." Swinging open the picture, I reveal a safe behind it and after opening it, pull out two thick envelopes and hold them out to Natasha.

She takes them cautiously and opens one of the envelopes, pulling out a passport, "what are these?"

"New identities, safe houses, bank accounts," I tell her quietly. "For you and Yelena. And.. my daughter."

"What?"

"Just in case something happens to me," I explain. "We both know that we might not all come back safe from this, and if I don't.. then I need you and Yelena and get her somewhere safe. Raise her like she's yours and give her the life that none of us had."

"What about Wanda?" She asks just as quietly. "I don't see any new identities for her here."

"She wasn't part of the original plan."

"And now?"

"Now," I sigh. "I want to take her and put her on some isolated island out of harms way until all this is over with. But she'd never forgive me if I did that. So, I need a favor."

Natasha looks at me warily, "your favors tend to get me into a lot of trouble."

I nod, "I know. But if everything goes wrong, this will be the last one." I step towards her, so close that I can feel the nervousness radiating from her, "sister to sister, Natalia, if it comes down to it, you leave me behind."

Her eyes search mine, probably looking for any kind of hope that I wasn't planning a suicide mission, but all she found was resolution and acceptance. "You were never planning on surviving this, were you?"

"No," I admit. "My only goal was to get my daughter out and destroy every trace of the Red Room. If that means that I have to rip it apart piece by piece until it crashes down around me, then so be it. As long as she is safe, that's all that matters."

"Ray," she starts. "I can't promise this. I can't promise to leave you behind when it means that you'll die. I can't. I won't."

"You're the only one who can," tell her adamantly. "The only one I can trust to do this. Yelena would die alongside me if she thought it was a good way to go, and Wanda.. this was never her fight, Nat. It was always ours, the three of us. And out of the three of us, you understand that sometimes a sacrifice is a necessary thing." I search her face and know that she's wavering, "you know how to do the hard things, Natasha. The things that nobody else can do. I need you to do this. Not for me, but for Yelena and Wanda and my daughter and all the other Widows. Do it for everyone that the Red Room has hurt. Do it for all the people that my death can save." I put my hand on her forearm and hold her tightly, "please Nat."

I can see the moment her resolve shatters, along with her heart. Her hand grips my forearm, sealing our deal before she rips herself away from me and heads upstairs where the sounds of laughter are starting to echo down to me.

I know I had no right to ask this of her, no right to hurt her like this, but if we had any chance of succeeding, I needed her on the same page as me.

Especially with what I had planned next.