turbos | ( general ) ➟ open memes / psls

[If time could rewind, it would be back to this moment, perhaps. She doesn't remember doing it, just that one moment she is ... somewhere? Was it important? How important can it be to wallowing in self-pity, or indulging in self-aware insanity. She wakes up again in bed, hair in dissary and her red leotard still clinging to her uncomfortably. The twins do not come this time, though and she thinks that strange at first, before she is relieved for the extra minutes of composure.

Vision is still gone; had she wanted to change that? Her fingers reach for his side of the bed, cold linen in her grasp as her fingers curl. Their house is quiet when she's alone; it feels still, this time, like the objects have decided to behave. It feels an awful lot like a dream in its quiet; it feels inviting, warm, and for a moment she allows her eyes to close again and thinks: will five more minutes make this day any better? Of course not.

Do you think maybe you deserve this?

Her eyes open to the hexagons on her duvet and with a sigh, she furrows her brows. She tries to concentrate; reaches for the extensions of her magic as they flux outside, expanded and stretched thin at the edges of Westview. Control, she thinks. You can fix it this time --

Then the door knocks, and she sighs wearily. She opens it from her bed, resting up on her elbows to call out, her voice croaking: ] Just come in Agnes. I'm up here.

[She can't feel him the way she used to. Wanda is older, now, and tired. Her grief is immeasurably heavy and so is her exhaustion. Her concentration is split six different ways, her magic's hold tenuous now at best. ] Please bring coffee with you, [she adds after a moment, and brings the duvet back over face.]

[ the door opens on its own and he half-expects to find her there until he sees the wave of red magic dissipate from the handle back into the air, a call of her voice echoing from up the stairs. his lips purse with a silent chuckle — agnes? he is no agnes, which will certaintly leave her for a surprise. how rare that he ever gets to surprise her at all which how well aware she typically is of his presence. at least she used to be.

for all that he's usually rushed, he does take a moment to peer his gaze around the house before shutting the door behind him, feeling an eeriness in the air as if nothing seems ... quite right with it. perhaps it's from being aware from sokovia but something about it feels ... false somehow.

the quiet is all too disturbing too. should something be here that isn't?

when she calls for coffee, he rolls his eyes, but moves his body swiftly to set it up in the kitchen, fidgeting with the buttons as best as he can on a machine he doesn't really have much of an understanding on how to work (why are they're so many buttons?), but with him unable to speak the actual coffee making process itself, he leaves that be to make his way up the stairs.

slipping into the room, he squints to find that she's no in sight, brows soon relaxing when he sees the steady movement of the duvet atop the bed, indicating her body slumped hidden underneath. with an amused smile, he leans himself against the door frame, peering down at her with crossed arms, a playful tease in his voice. ]

I am gone for five minutes and look at how lazy you have become. Are you this useless without me?

[Below the duvet, before he arrives at her bedroom door, she stretches her legs and toes through the fabric of her tights and sighs. She stares at the hexagons absently, trying for a moment to concentrate on the barrier and finds it impossible, still. She sighs, closes her eyes for a moment and listens to the stairs creak. One step, two step -- truth be told, she isn't sure she's up for Agnes' upbeat chatter, but --

But -

But.

Her eyes snap open, every inch of her freezing in place. Not again, she thinks, even with the accent being so right. I can't do it again, she thinks more miserably, and very slowly begins to peel back the duvet, ready to be angry. Furious. All of the emotions that she should feel for an impostor daring to pretend to be her brother. She sits up, eyes already red and bright and she freezes again. ] How? [It's all she can think to say. His face, the way she remembers it. Young; eyes so filled with mischief. His voice just the right tenor, the accent just the way it was the last time she saw him. ] How have you done this?

[She doesn't mean to sound so broken. She's angry. She wants to sound it; she wants all her wrath to be on display, to make him scared. It's been such a long night, though, and Wanda is so tired.]

[ he doesn't know what to anticipate seeing when she draws back the covers, but — well, it isn't exactly that, his sister in bright red fabric, pink tights on her legs. and he's more than ready to comment on that too, always ready to sprout a tease, just as they've always done, him surfacing with a joke as she slaps at his arm to scold him.

but the tone in her voice differs than he expects, strained in the way that comes when she aches. it a sound he knows, even in this voice that's older than the little girl who'd curl up against him and share her fears between sobs in the crook of her brother's neck.

just as he's capable of playfulness, he knows when to stop the teases short, when it matters more to close the door on prodding and steer his attention to supporting the girl he'd promised to always protect — the other half of his soul. ]

Done what? What has happened? [ there's concern in his question, straightening up from his lean before he rushes over, squatting down beside the bed so he can better look at her, palm cupping her cheek. ] Sestra, what is wrong?

[The light from her hands flares for a moment, tinting the walls red for a moment before it dims to a low thrum of energy. Her eyes stay red, frantically looking at every inch of his face close up. Every instinct begs her to lean into his hand. Old comforts die hard, and his hand is so very warm and he looks so very much like her Pietro. Picture perfect in his odd clothes and his concern. ]

Why do you look him? Why do you sound like him?

[The Jersey accent had almost been a comfort too, because it hadn't hurt. This hurts. Pietro is an old wound that opens up, bleeding fresh from her hands as the light fades and she pushes him, scrambling from the bed to pace near the end of it, hands clutching at the mess of her hair. ] I don't know who sent you, I don't know why I can't get rid of you -- [If this is a reset, why is it going wrong? Her teeth worries her bottom lip as she paces, and not very long after rid of you, she comes to a stop, and looks at him dead on, wetting her lip and then nodding to the door. ] You have to take his face off and leave. I won't ask twice.

[She listens, for a moment, to the truth inside his head. She can't trust it, no matter how familiar it feels. Not everything can be real because she desperately wants it to be; some things are impossible. She has tried. ]

Who do I sound like?

[ if anything, she's the one who sounds changed, different, as her accent slips more american than sokovian, too distinct in its difference to feel at all natural. it has to be this place, he thinks, this peculiar town that feels so out of place, especially with her in the midst of it, living here as if she'd left sokovia behind as a forgotten memory.

had she left him behind too?

she seems stern in her attempts to kick him out, his own brows knitting tight in their frustrated confusion. though she stands, he chooses not to, showcasing his own stubbornness which could be as hard or even harder than hers. ]

I refuse. [ leaning back on his hands, almost too casually for the situation, he even lets his legs part a bit, to show more that he's letting himself get comfortable instead of even considering her desire to remove him. ] I don't know what is with you, but I am not going anywhere. I don't even know whose face you say I have because I am pretty sure I'm as handsome as I always am.

Edited 2021-02-25 03:50 (UTC)

[It should be impossible to seem to like him. Even the other one with the wrong face hadn't been a perfect copy in tone, or even his humour. But here he is, face and Maximoff stubbornness exactly as she remembers. He looks the exact same, down to the hair and the ridiculous stubble on his chin. And oh, how terribly she wants to believe again; to close her eyes and open them with a smile and say I missed you so much, but she has already fooled herself once.

So, she breathes out and straightens her shoulders. ] Did Hayward send you? Is his face some kind of mask?

[When she moves to him, it's to place her fingers against his fore head. She feels for technology, and then she reaches inside again and feels --

She only feels Pietro. She can only feel --] Why can I feel you? You -- How?

Who is Hayward? [ he squints at her as she drowns him with a string of confusing questions, scrunching his nose even further when she steps up to him to press her hand to his head like he's some kind of child and she's looking for a fever. ]

I am not sick, Wanda. What are you looking for?

[ she'd been skeptical about him touching her, but with her closing the distance, he steals that chance again, reaching up for her hand to take in both of his, thumbs stroking a massaging touch to her palm. ]

You know that it is me. I am no different than what you know.

[ he doesn't know why she's so unsure of it, what would make him seem any different than before. but if she needs familiarities, he'll grant them, bringing her hand to his mouth so he can place a gentle kiss to her fingertips, trailing those kisses slow and careful down to her palm. ]

How can I show you?

[She does not speak, too distracted by the kisses on her fingertips and then on her palms. Silently, her other hand reaches for his chest, palm flat against where his heart is beating thud, thudthud, thud and finds a strange, clawing anxiety begin to stir in her gut. In his mind she finds only sincerity. In his face, she finds only truth. His heart is the proof of life which is impossible. She did make Pietro, she thinks. Nor is he the fake one with a new face. Not even had touched her so intimately, with a knowledge so secret that it feels frightening to face it again.

He's real says her heart, to which her brain replies: I don't understand it, but he is real. When she speaks, her accent has cracked along with her voice. Hoarse and wary, eyes wet as she blinks. ]

Tell me a secret only we know. [It is said so desperately. Her fingers curl against his chest, fabric under her nails and his hands warm against her own. ]

[ he can't grasp why it's so difficult for her to believe him, especially when they've always been so connected, never having faced a moment where she didn't place trust in him. at the very least, trust this sincere, discounting the moments he's stolen food from her plate or pretended to have done chores that he'd failed to do and she'd seen easily through it all.

and when she asks him for a secret, he knows there's plenty he could share, little moments here and there where they'd said things to one another away from prying ears, even private jokes that always stay between siblings against the outer world.

but he sees the desperate intent of her in trying to decipher truth from fiction, and if there's any secret that has stayed so closely between them, unable to ever share with any other living soul, he knows exactly which it would be.

staring at her silently for a moment, he stands slowly, keeping his eyes focused on her, making sure he's careful as he leans in closer, bringing his face close to hers until he catches her lips, kissing her with a firm lingering press of his mouth, in the way no brother would ever kiss his sister, but in the way they have already done so very secretly before. ]

[To some degree, perhaps this would have been the only way to truly know. Not the childhood arguments, or silly stories; not even the conversations spoken in hushed tones that led them to HYDRA. Only this, really, could have been know by her Pietro, and yet even as his lips press to hers so gently and so full of warmth, she feels an ugly, hysterical claw of doubt.

It is not rational. It is also not rational to desperately want to believe again, or even that Pietro could be alive. What is rational is this: no one could possibly know this about them. This secret which they kept between themselves and showed no one. Her tense shoulders remain tense, and her hand grips the front of his shirt tighter. The kiss is like a thousand others they shared under bedcovers, or behind the bricked walls of their schools. He smells like mint and the lingering scent of smoke that was so hard to wash out of their clothes back in Sokovia. She wants desperately to melt into him, wants time to stop for long enough that she might fall into the illusion of safety.]

Pietro, [she murmurs against his lips, the name itself full of longing and a desperate sadness. When she kisses back, her cheeks are wet and the kiss is short so that she may look at him properly. ] How can it be you, brate? You were so far away, they buried you so deep.

[There is a flash of memory that she does not mean to share with him: Wanda standing at a grave, her fists in the dirt. Clint behind her, with Vision close by. The despair is howling; it is black and deep. The memory is gone fast, but the feeling, perhaps, remains. It is, after all, all around them. This hexagonal reality is nothing but grief and a wish for what she's lost. ] Pietro, [she says again, in the same breath. Hers. Hers.]

( general ) ➟ open memes / psls

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