Skies Clearing (Maximoff Twins fanfic)

Chapter Seventeen

"And then he knew, that you could become homesick for people too."

BLUE

"Chocolate," I guess.

Wanda shakes her head.

"Okay, okay, raspberry?"

"No."

"Mint chocolate chip."

"Come on," she says. "You? Never."

"I can't remember my favorite ice cream flavor!"

She grins and shrugs. "Better figure it out," she says, "Stark's in one of those moods where he buys all the ice cream in the city just because he can."

"Aha. I like this idea."

She laughs and falls back against the arm of the couch.

"Wanda," I say.

She looks up.

"Did we have ice cream often?"

Her head tilts thoughtfully. "Well, no," she says. "But when we were kids, our parents would sometimes take us to get cones."

For a moment, we are quiet.

"What were our parents like?" I ask.

"Wonderful," she says. "Always smiling... even when they didn't really have a reason."

When Wanda talks about our parents, her Sokovian accent thickens. I imagine she sounds just like our mother did. Maybe she looks like her too.

"Wait," Wanda says slowly. "I think I have something."

She stands and runs down the hall with a touch of excited red lingering behind her.

I wait.

In no time at all, she's back, one old paper clutched in her hand.

"Sometimes I wonder which of us has super speed," I say.

Grinning, she climbs back onto the couch next to me, and hands me the paper.

I unfold it carefully and I am faced with a worn photograph.

"This was yours," she says, "your most prized possession."

I smooth over the four faces in the picture. A family, all with dark wavy hair and bright, happy eyes. My fingers linger on the parents.

"Mama and Tata," Wanda supplies.

The beautiful people in the photo haunt some part of my mind that I can't reach.

"What happened to our family, Wanda?" I finally ask.

Her face falls. She bites her lip, and then opens her mouth to answer.

"No, wait." I shiver with the fear of what she might say. "Don't. Don't tell me. I'll remember it myself."

Wanda nods and a bit of tension falls from her face. Then with a smile, she gestures back to the picture. "You carried this around with you wherever we went," she says. "You'd spend hours just looking at it."

I smooth a creased corner of the photo and exhale softly, my smile reappearing. "Yeah. I- I did. I remember one night, I held it... until it was too dark to see them anymore."

Her eyes glint with delighted sorcery.

For a while we are quiet, just looking, like I know I used to when I was younger and alone.

Then she nudges my shoulder. "Hey, ah. You don't know your favorite ice cream flavor."

I look up.

"That's unacceptable. Quicksilver, we're raiding the freezer."

A laugh bursts from my chest. "I thought you would never ask." I hold out a hand like a gentleman asking for a dance, and she takes it.

But I pause. "Wanda."

"Yeah?"

"If you... if you wanted to call me Pietro. That would be... okay."

"Pietro," she echoes, and smiles.

If saltwater mixes with the blue when I run, neither of us mention it.

A/N Pietro is reunited with his Little Picture :')

sorry to take so long, darlings. Have a beautiful day!