Agony (Wanda Maximoff)

Chapter 67

||If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it—to love it. Some endure it by drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger.||

As Bruce cleaned up her bloodied face, Wanda stared out the back end of the jet, her eyes focusing on the trees. Her nose had finally stopped bleeding, and now all that was left was a gruesome headache and weak bones. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so exhausted.

"I think you'll be feeling brand new after a good nights rest," Bruce chirped, his own eyes sleepy and puffed. She didn't believe him, and though a good nights rest sounded like bliss, she knew she would be too busy in the upcoming days to even get 5 hours of sleep, let alone a full night.

"I need to go find Pietro," she said to him, flinching as he applied a cream on a fresh cut on her cheek. "I can't stay here."

"You're not going back out there. You've done all you can do, so now you'll stay here with me and rest." He cleaned off her blood from his hands on a rag, and sat down in front of her. "They can protect themselves," he added, and she crossed her arms, shivering as a cool breeze filled the jet.

"The world does not deserve you, Bruce. Everything you do for us is far more than we deserve," she looked down at him through her dark lashes and tried her best to smile, but her face kept still. She always hated herself for unleashing the beast within him that day, and if she had known better, she would have never done it. But even now, even after everything she put him through, he still cared for her. 

It didn't make sense. 

With a sigh, Bruce stood back beside her, his body coiling up. "I don't hold grudges, Wanda, and I've already told you countless times that you shouldn't feel guilty about it. We've all done terrible things."

"I forgot about her," she said, cutting in as the words begged to be spoken. "I shielded everyone, except her...Pietro, I knew he'd be fine, but her? I should have seen her there but..."

She felt his hand in hers a moment later, and she stared down at her lap as she pictured the girl's lavender eyes. She was so beautiful, and funny and Wanda never even told her. The guilt she felt, it wasn't new--no, it had always been there, just sleeping in her spine, waiting to wrap i'ts arms around her throat. That guilt she felt was there the day Pietro died; it was there when she looked at the Avengers and thought of the horrors she made them see; the guilt was always there, and adding Sharon's death to it somehow brought her to the edge.

"Come over here," he told her, and she watched him as he walked over to the other side of the jet and grabbed something out of a small compartment under a seat. She noticed the headphones immediately, and then she saw the music player seconds later. It's what he used after every mission that involved the Hulk, and it's what he used to silence out his thoughts. 

She only knew this because she had peeked into his thoughts one day after a mission, and the things she saw were gruesome enough to make her stop watching. "Music?"

"It helps with everything, even anxiety." 

She wanted to deny his offer, but all she kept hearing in her head was the roaring cries of Sharon, and she couldn't take it any longer. 

Wanda stood and grabbed the headphones and music player from his hands. He stepped aside and even allowed to sit in the spot where he would usually relax. And so she curled up in the seat and put the headphones on, then pressed play. 

Music filled her cold body instantly, and to her own surprise, her thoughts were silenced. It was instrumental--a string of chords lifted and fell in a beautiful melody, carrying her along, and she shut her eyes and invited the violins and piano to help her rest.