The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 32

Upstate New York, USA

Spring 2016

To say Pietro was in a foul mood was an understatement. But really, he'd been in some form of a foul mood for months now.

How could they just ground him?! And look what had happened because they did. No matter the niggle of doubt in the back of his mind at his twin's—everyone's, actually—reminder that he had no way of knowing, he was positive things would gone much better in Lagos had he been there. He was certain.

Then Wanda wouldn't be on the verge of retreating into her own head with guilt and uncertainty and fear. She wouldn't be bearing the brunt of the condemnation for what had happened...

Pietro sighed, struggling to rein his thoughts and his temper back.

That wasn't all true. He knew it wasn't that simple. He wasn't as naive as he had been; Ultron had seen to that. The Team had made sure it was a lesson that stuck, Romanoff and Ms. Ryker forcing him to actually take the time to think before he did anything over the course of training, not letting up until the habit stuck...for the most part. Even though he knew they all worried that he hadn't internalized one thing they'd said, he had listened to what Ms. Ryker and Romanoff and Captain Rogers had said to him. He'd listened to Nina. He knew he was hot-headed. He grudgingly understood why the Captain has benched him despite the huge asset he knew he was to the Team. He knew there was no guarantee that, had he been in Lagos, things would've fallen out any differently, much less better. He knew things might very well have been worse.

But he also knew people were calling for Wanda to be locked up because she was 'too dangerous'. No matter that everyone had all but banned him from watching TV or hopping onto the internet, he wasn't oblivious.

Hard to be anyway when apparently they were under house-arrest, now. Wanda had been almost frightfully pale when he'd walked into the common room to hear Vision explaining that Stark had made it clear neither of them were supposed to leave the Compound. Pietro had nearly lost his temper at that. Even Vision's calm explanation that it was for their own safety and that it was the best of several alternatives did little to ease either Wanda indignation and pain or Pietro's outrage at the directive.

He bit back a groan, scrubbing a hand over his face before speeding around the track again. Several laps and barely a second later, genuinely panting this time from the effort of pushing himself further and faster still, he spared a glance at his time. He smirked. An extra two laps with barely an extra millisecond added to his time.

But the expression faded quickly in the face of his aggravation. He needed to cool down, he knew that. Normally Wanda's presence was enough to help him relax and get his head back, but given how his guilt and worry threatened whenever he so much as looked at his twin just now? Wanda had all but banned him from her presence. He unnerved her right now, she said. Really, he was unnerving himself...

And his other option was effectively off the table too...though, he was seriously considering just ignoring Stark's directive and slipping away to visit Nina. Right now? His girlfriend was the only one who had any true success in helping him get his head back, her sunny features and the quiet way she just listened helped more than he thought she knew.

But...tempting an option as that was? To sneak away to find some manner of comfort in Nina's soothing presence? He was just as reluctant as he was longing. And not just because it was potentially dangerous to risk revealing just how closely linked she was to the Avengers. She could be formidable when her temper was up, too. She could go just as cool and hard as her mom, when she was upset. And right now?

Nina had every right to be upset.

And she was. Quite. He'd found that out when she'd called him, expecting it to be his turn to be the listening ear once she'd heard the news Romanoff had passed on that Ms. Ryker has been arrested in Bucharest right alongside Captain Rogers and Wilson.