Only You

Chapter Five

The loud, high pitched ring of a monitor comes into focus, slowly. With the sound and the slow regathering of his senses comes an unbearable return of throbbing, sharp pain in every part of his body. His nerves are on fire and his muscles scream. He begs for it to end before he can regret the choice he made to intercept the angry fire of a dozen bullets.

His body feels ready to explode, unable to store the pain it's undergoing. Pietro means to scream or holler, but he can barely even moan. It makes his chest explode into a new wave of pain, like never before. Sweat beads on his forehead and his body violently begins to shake. His systems are shutting down.

"... morphine, quick," a voice says, from somewhere near. It echoes in and out of focus and Pietro has just enough time to decipher the words before he blacks out again.

"It's gone," Wanda mumbles after a long drink of water. She runs her hands through her hair, pushing it out of her face. "I can't feel it."

"What was it?" Clint asks, voicing a question both he and Wanda can't answer. She shakes her head.

"I don't know." A shudder runs down her spine. "I've never had that happen before, except..." she says, though she holds back on continuing for a moment. Clint hangs onto her words. "When I was tested on, with Pietro. I couldn't control it. The only other time it has acted like that was when he died."

Wanda lets herself believe for just a second that Pietro was alive; that the demanding burst of power and the swelling throb in her chest in that moment had been her link to him, as if he was still alive. It's in Clint's eyes, too. The false hope that anyone could live after so many bullets tore them apart.

An unmatchable agony consumes Wanda, from the inside out. It makes her heart shrivel and shake in its cage of bones. Her chest sinks in, and in, and in, constricting so tightly with every sob that she's robbed of breath. Her face contorts as the cruel hope of Pietro, somehow living, eats her alive. Her forehead creases and her eyes squeeze shut so tight that tears can barely pass. Clint feels a pain in his own chest as he tries not to cry with her.

He wordlessly moves to sit next to Wanda, wrapping his arms around her. She curls into him with the idea of turning in on herself, of shrinking into a ball so small and tight that she'll entirely disappear.

Clint grinds his teeth together, clenching his jaw as he rests his chin atop of Wanda's ducked head. He closes his eyes, hating the hot tears that come. It feels like the scab on his heart was picked off. It felt like he was bleeding out.

Worry splinters Clint's body, digging under his skin and staying lodged there for the rest of the day. He can't get rid of the idea that Pietro is somehow still alive. It's impossible. Clint's nightmares, and the realness of them as he relives again and again how Pietro died, remind him it can't be possible. He tosses and turns in bed at night, fretful.

He wonders if Wanda is still awake, too, of if the exhaustion of feeling a fleeting connection with Pietro had worn her down to sleep. He looks over to the bright clock on the short table next to his bed. It's just barely five o'clock in the evening. The past few hours happened in a frenzy of stress and uncontrollable waves of conflicting emotion.

Clint groans and rolls over onto his back, taking a pillow and shoving it into his face so he can moan again without disrupting anyone in the hallway outside. Laying in bed and doing nothing for an hour passes slowly and Clint recognizes the shittiest feeling of laziness. He feels like he's wasting time laying down and worrying when he could be doing something. The only problem is that Clint hasn't the slightest idea what he could possibly do.

The thinks about going to Laura, who has an unbiased mind and a balanced sense of judgement. Clint angrily throws a pillow across the room, nearly knocking a lamp over. She had that.

For the first time in years, Clint feels trapped. He can do almost anything — considering he can do almost anything with his hands or a bow and arrow, he feels stupid not being able to do anything with the emotions he's known since birth. His innate traits feel useless. He feels useless and he detests the feeling.

I feel this chapter was pretty short so I'll be posting Chapter Six a little sooner than I would normally post it. Apologies!

-Grayson