What Wicked Lurks Within (Avengers x Reader)

Chapter 9

The house had awakened in all its glory - it was the thirteenth hour. Not that it had been asleep before, but as of that very moment nonexistent in time, it had meticulous plans.

Clint's brows were furrowed and his knuckles were white, owing to the strain of grasping the bedsheet. His sleep was plagued by pained sobs. He sat up at once, drenched in sweat. The sobbing had not been a nightmare, unfortunately, it was still audible from behind him in chillingly close vicinity. He slowly turned his head and the sight made push himself to the foot of the bed.

Near the headboard sat Wanda, pale and sickly, weeping in blood. Her throat had unleashed a red waterfall as well - overall, a vomit-inducing visual. Clint's mouth hung open - partly in shock - partly to compensate for the inadequate breath his nose was bringing in. All in vain, for neither of the complications were alleviated.

"How can you sleep?" Her voice was the only thing about her that had not been mangled in one way or the other and hearing a voice Clint was certain he never would again caused tears to well in his eyes, "How can you sleep while I rot!?" Wanda's accusations were like a dagger to his heart. He failed to protect her and she had returned from death's realm, demanding justification. "I'm so sorry, I should have been there for you." His tears flowed freely, the dam was broken. "Why did you do it, Wanda? Why did you kill yourself?"

An anguished look lingered over Wanda's features. She retreated on the bed, then stood up and retreated some more until the dimensions of the room allowed her to. "It is all immaterial now." She regarded him with vague disinterest, the reason she had died was the least of her problems. 'I am one of them now.' "Bury me, Clint. Please. My body deserves to be treated with respect, even if it no longer holds life."

"We will. We will arrange for a beautiful service and bury you with Pietro." Clint readily explained as if a beautiful service was somehow supposed to make up for her gruesome death. Wanda shifted her unseeing gaze to the floor. "They don't have time. You are not getting out of here. Bury me in this house, you know where."

An indistinct thought of asking for specifics rose in Clint's head and died at once. He knew where. Unfeeling and unperceiving, he walked down the stairs and out the door. He walked along the perimeter, until he reached his destination - behind the house.

The cold was unreal, unlike anything he had ever felt. A shovel was waiting for him along with Wanda's lifeless form. People say that in death, one looks like they are at peace. The last Maximoff appeared to be in a bottomless pit of suffering. Clint wept. He wept as he dug her grave, he wept as he lowered her into it and he wept still as it packed back in the dirt.

Then with the same deprivation of feeling and perception, he returned to his room, which was empty this time much to his relief and went back into a dreamless sleep.

-

"Wanda is missing! I can't find her!" The rattled voice of Tony Stark substituted alarms for most people that morning, including you. Hanging over the banister that continued past the stairway and ran along the corridor, to the point of doubling over and falling off with added roughness of very recently being roused, you yelled back. "She's WHAT!?"

You jolted forward, to the effect of all but flying of the ledge. A frown adorning your face, you turned around to discover Steve had crashed into you. Eyes met and what Tony had said truly settled into your heads. The two of you glided down the stairs.

"Are you sure? Did you look everywhere?" Steve was well aware of the asininity of his question and yet he had asked. The whole thing was asinine, it had to be because if not, the other option was unmitigated sinistrous. All of Tony's life choices flashed before him at once. "Cap, how do you reckon dead bodies move around in the first place? And yes, I did look everywhere. No sign of her."