...but it's her

Chapter 2

Here we are at the end of this brief, but intense, journey. I hope that you all enjoyed this story enough to leave a comment or that at least it got you excited as much as it made me emotional while I wrote it.
Thank you all for reading it.

*From the previous chapter:
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to take all the courage possible, she took another breath and finally hit the button letting the video begin. *

As soon as the first images reached Wanda's eyes, the girl's heart began to break, almost hurting her.
The image of Natasha that showed up in front of her spread through her so many conflicting emotions.
She was so different from the fierce and falsely tough woman she remembered, everything about her had changed, even if she still found her beautiful.
Her hair in that video was the first thing she noticed. She didn't have her blond bobbed and perfectly straight hair that she had loved so much five years before anymore. That hair was longer now, way over her shoulders. Those years had given her back her beautiful and iconic red hair but that now ended with blond tips. She wasn't sure, but she felt that was a sign of how much she had neglected herself during those years. She had mistreated it.

Her.

The femme fatale always perfectly in order and obsessed with her beautiful hair. She gave up on something that had always distinguished her, that had always made her feel good with herself.
Wanda had always loved Natasha's passion for her hair, the dedication and the care with which she had always handled it, but now, that discover was like a punch in the guts. She couldn't believe that the time and the pain had made her so much vulnerable.

Her eyes went on Natasha's ones and she immediately noticed how red and shiny they were, a sign that meant she was trying in every way to hide her pain, but without any success. Her eyes seemed so tired that not even the nights they spent talking together or after exhausting days doing several missions had ever made them that way.
Her face looked so tired and pained, but always of a mind-blowing beauty. Her hands were strongly torturing themselves, way more than they had done the last night they had spent together.

She cleared her voice and showed a smile.

«Hey, Wanda, hi. If you're watching this video it means the other have managed to collect all the stones and that they brought all of you back.
It has been five years since the Snap, since you guys left, since I lost you and myself too. In all these years, all I did was trying to bring you back and now that it is happening, I couldn't be happier, I guess...».
Natasha whispered her last words almost imperceptibly while she lowered her gaze. From the trembling of her voice and from her behaviour, it was clear that she was trying in every way to not cry, but, once she had raised up her gaze again, she showed her eyes which were full of tears.
«I thought of making this video because I have so many things to share, to say to you and writing you wouldn't have been the same.
The first thing is that yesterday, the guys and I, made a decision: we're going to the past to recollect the stones and bring you all back here with us. We divided the tasks so that we could get all the stones back. My mission, and Clint's too, is to get the soul stone which is on Vormir. "Soul stone" ...» the woman paused on that name, swallowing «... it is a very poetic name, isn't it?». The woman showed to the camera a bitter smile, which made the witch's heart break painfully. Seeing her like that made her feel a pain which was difficult to process.
«I asked Nebula, one of the Guardians, more information about the matter. She seemed to be so shy when she gave the information on that stone that she made me suspicious. Well, she confessed me that in order to get that stone you must give up on someone important to you. That is how Thanos got it, by killing his daughter.
"A soul for a soul" seems to be the favourite motto of that planet» a nervous smile painted itself on the spy's lips, who was beginning to feel more and more nervous. «I finally found a way to bring you back, I've finally made it, I was looking forward to it for years, but it has a very high price...» she took a breath and said «During these hours I made a decision: I will sacrifice myself, whatever it takes. To choose my life over Clint's one is something that I can't do. He has a family, I can't let that Cooper, Lila and Nathaniel live without their dad and leave Laura to take care of three kids all by herself, not to mention that I can't pay him back with death after all the good things he had done to me. If it wasn't for him, Wanda, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't be an Avenger, I wouldn't be a person with a conscience, I wouldn't be the person that with time, despite everything, I'm learning to love. But, more than anything, I wouldn't be the woman who had met you.
He is the only one, besides you, who have never judged me for my past, for my mistakes, for the monster I have been» the woman made a pause, it seemed to be very difficult for her to find the right words without letting the emotions take control over her.
Natasha's last words seemed a punch in Wanda's stomach. She could have taken everything, but not hearing Natasha still call herself that way after all those years, after everything she was planning to do. She would have wanted to caress that perfect and clear face, make her understand once again that she had never been that way, the monster that she hated so much never existed, but she couldn't, so she just put her shaking hand on the laptop's screen, right on the woman's face, while she clenched her jaw to calm the sadness that was enveloping her.