( general ) ➟ open memes / psls

[turbos]

█ SILVER EYES / REACHING FOR PARADISE / I'VE SEEN IT A MILLION TIMES █
( shipping preferences )

Comments

[grimizno]

[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?

[turbos]

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?

[grimizno]

[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. ]

[turbos]

[ 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. ]

[grimizno]

[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.]