Ch 125 like home

Wanda sat alone. They'd settled in Stark's tower, for now, though Stark said he had plans to build a new facility, a new place for the Avengers to train, a place apart from any public appearances. Wanda liked that. She didn't think she was up for any public appearances yet.

She remembered tearing the heart from Ultron, as he had torn the heart from her.

"Do you know how it felt?"

She had seen his body. Hawkeye had led her to him after the carriers had landed, and despite Vision's presence still there, still ready to support her, she had collapsed, sobbed, let out all her grief and still it came, like a tidal wave, but over and over and over. Her brother. Her lightning fast brother, who ran as smoothly as quicksilver, who had always been there, always listened, always comforted, always survived through everything…

He was dead.

The tears had not stopped for hours, and even then it was only with sleep. It had been fitful, the sleep, been painful, but, thankfully, no nightmares had come, no memories. In some ways it was almost worse, to be without Pietro's memories of the day, mingled with hers. Then she reminded herself of Pietro's death, and knew she could not endure that again, even as a dream.

In that instant, as he died, the pain had been agonising. Now, the grief was unbearable.

She didn't tell them that in some moments she wanted nothing more than to lie down beside him and die too. That she wished that she had died with him. Her brother, her twin, half her mind and life and memories ripped from her.

How could she not long for death, if it could bring her closer to him?

She had screamed when the medics came to take him down to the morgue in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s basement. The Widow had tried to hold her back, to comfort her, but Wanda only calmed at Vision's stabilising touch, and only let them take her brother after she had oaths from them all that nothing would be done to his body. No more experiments, she had said. Not for her brother.

Not now.

Now she curled, alone in a room in the tower, far from all the others. Balled small, legs tucked to chest, wet cheeks pressed to knees, wishing, wishing, her brother was there to hold her.

If wishes were fishes…

The grief came again like a tidal wave, and she felt as though she were drowning.

She remembered the experiments with her brother. She remembered as they first learned their gifts, remembered feeling the shape of her brother's mind, and latching on for comfort and stability, as they had always had with each other. His mind had welcomed it, adapted to it, incorporated her touch so fully she could feel anything he felt, see anything he saw, if she but wished it, and he could do so too.

He would send her memories when he wished it, and thoughts, send her comfort when she hated training, and advice when she was asked to do something she had only ever seen Pietro do before. He had been ever-present in her life, from birth, and she had assumed it would stay the same to death.

She remembered wishing for his aid in the instant before Hawkeye had pressed the taser arrow to her forehead, and how he had come without question. She remembered his wishing for her company in training, and how she had undone locks, and hypnotised guards to curl with him. He wished, she wished, they wished. Their wishes had brought them closer.

Now all her wishing could bring her nothing.

"Miss Maximoff?"

The android's voice was gentle, as ever, and she felt the shape of his mind in the doorway. She could not bring herself to say anything, but at the next hitch in her breath, the next sobbing jolt of her shoulders she heard him take careful steps forward.

"I cannot… I cannot say I understand what you are going through. I have never had someone so dear to me yet, nor lost them. But if you should need someone, through this time, you can come to me. I saw the bond you and your brother shared, and saw it sheared apart when he die—"

For all Wanda knew Vision could have been about to say something else, but she didn't care. She crawled to the edge of the sofa she sat on, and her arms latched around the android's waist, her face pressed to his belly as she sobbed again.

He knew.

It took time for her to work down from sobs, and gasps and tears, and Vision moved to sit beside her on the sofa. She ended up crawling into his lap, curled in a way she had only ever curled with Pietro before, her face pressed into the android's neck, her arms close between her chest and his. His arms looped around her, one hand in her hair, one hand on her back, and he rocked her gently, back and forth slightly, just as Pietro had done.

Almost instinctively, her mind leapt for his.

She had never gone this far inside an alien mind before. Never tried to dig so deeply into another consciousness. Even in training, when they had had her extract information from people, or tear their minds apart, she had done it from a distance, sent her powers in to do as she bid, and held herself back.

Now she did not, could not. Pietro had anchored her, in a way no one else could. When she realised what her powers could let her do she almost went mad, until Pietro had cradled her to him, and reminded her she was but human. Now Vision did the same, and now, as then, she dug her scarlet fingers into his mind, and made an anchor.

The bridge was sloppy; made quickly more than artistically, she heard Vision's brief "Oh" of surprise as she latched in. Then she felt his mind spread, and dance through the bridge woven of thought, and light it up.

It didn't feel like home. Only Pietro's mind and hers could ever be that to her. But it felt like safety, and that was what she needed.

It was a long time before either of them spoke again. She felt the movement of Vision's larynx and she leapt to speak before him.

"I'm sorry."

Vision's hand smoothed down her spine.

"It's alright. I'm glad to help you."

He was. She could feel it, golden as the stone on his brow, a bright rich warmth, purely from having been able to help. His offer to be there had been made just as he was – innocent, genuine, honest and true – and that she had been able to anchor herself to him and that that had helped ease her pain made him glad. It was similar to the joy of a bird that had fought off a hawk, or a dog who had found their human, or her brother when he had stopped a threat.

It was real.

She looped her arms around his neck, and found herself sobbing again.

His hands were gentle on her back, and his mind gentle to hers, as he waited for her to regain herself.

It was a while longer they waited. Vision waited for her sobs to subside, and she waited for him to fully adjust to the presence of another mind, constantly beyond the brink of his.

It did not take as long as either of them had thought.

It was startling for Wanda, to hear Vision call her by her name, rather than an honorific, but he was tied to her mind now, and formality was nothing to such a bridge.

"Wanda?"

She felt her lips twitch to half a smile, "Yes, Vision?"

She could feel his mind, just beyond hers. She did not dig into it, delve into it, she did not need to. She felt that he was tentative, and uncertain, and let him be.

"There are memories, in your mind, that are not… they do not fit."

Wanda's head bowed into Vision's neck again. "Pietro's," she breathed. "We've shared a mind since we got our gifts. We shared memories too."

"Are you sure? There are more than just from then, I think."

It is in an odd sensation she feels, as Vision gently reaches through their bridge to her mind, and tugs up a memory wholly Pietro's. Them as children, in a foster home, as Pietro had watched her from across a yard. It was a memory so old she wondered that either of them still had it…

Vision's mind smiled as the thought clicked.

"He is still here. He is in my mind, Vision, he is in my mind."

The sheer degree of awe in her voice is undeniable, and she finally uncurls, and looks him in the face. Vision can, at last, feel the thoughts moving in her mind, rather than just seeing their outline, and cannot help but smile as her face lights up, as the realisation starts singing through her mind like floodlights, as she prepares to search through all her mind. He reaches delicately across the bridge and offers a single helping hand.

Wanda grasps it like a lifeline.

Wanda knows her mind. Scarlet and black, gold and deep brown, they are all her colours, so rich and dark that she recognises them instinctively. Vision is a new addition, but his colours are like hers, golden and burgundy-red, with a hint of silvered green, distinct enough to stand out, but not so different as to confuse. Pietro has always been silver and blue, and that is what her floodlights illuminate, shining like the stars.

They are fractured, in the upper levels of her mind. Fragmented and torn, memories which are mere moments, or which are missing parts, as though they corrupted in the transfer. Wanda cradles these like baby birds, and sets them to one side.

Vision points out a distant cluster, glowing faintly like the Pleiades, and she nods him forward to collect them. She trusts him here, as she has only trusted Pietro before, and his touch holds them as delicate as eggshell, as he sets them with those she has found.

Together, they delve deeper.

Her mind is, Vision realises, huge. He has known it said that all humans have internal lives beyond imagining, but to see it in action…

It takes his breath away.

Her mind is like a cathedral to him. It is huge and hauntingly gorgeous, painted in gold and deep brown, and scarlet, scarlet, scarlet, over a deep dark black. Her mind stretches above him beyond imagining, and deeper than he thought he could comprehend. It glows with memories, layered like a congregation, thoughts like a host of angels, ideas like a choir, and her focus shines down on them all like the light of God.

It scares Vision slightly, to know she is all this, and still human.

Wanda scans the surface of her thoughts, and several layers beneath. She knows these parts of herself well, by now, and knows she and Vision have cleared it of all her brother's memories. Where she has set them apart from her thoughts they are singing into shape, and her mind leaves silence in their space like a shrine. The memories shine like silver candles, and it is with them in mind that she dives deeper.

Vision follows her, as she goes deeper into her mind. They are beneath the congregation, the choir and the host of angels now, but her focus still shines down, as they delve into the parts of herself she tucks away. There are more silvered thoughts here, sprinting through and setting delicate scarlet thoughts spinning and dancing like mobiles. Vision catches sight of rubble, and a girl curled in her brother's arms, and decides to follow where Wanda leads.

It is darker here, he notices, and her brother's memories shine brighter than ever.

Each memory Wanda touches reverberates with her now. These are not the memories of childhood that she never felt made, these are older, and ones they shared when her mind first linked to his. These are memories she knows are his, and where the first might have taken her an age to find on her own, these she would have found in mere moments after the first was noticed.

They feel like a trail of breadcrumbs to Wanda, and she follows them into the woods.

Wanda seems more certain now, to Vision, as she goes through her mind. She is not searching diligently through every nook and cranny, every tomb and catacomb and crypt. Instead she is searching through certain ones, and dancing from door to door, as though to wake the dead.

Everywhere she looks, there comes a part of Pietro, and when Vision looks into a catacomb of memory she passed by, he finds it as dark as pitch.

Wanda knows they are almost at the foundations now. They have found the memories of her brother, and his ideas, and thoughts. They have found his commentary and his emotions, all silvered and greyed like his hair, one or two with touches of his bright living blue, and they dance in their shrine which glows like a moon above them. But they have not yet found him, and Wanda cracks through the floor to the foundation so full of hope she feels as though she might burn if it is not met.

He is there. His mind is small, and almost sleeping. There is no blue that is not buried, and his quicksilver form is buried beneath a heavy fear that shows as glowing white crackling like lightning around his form. Vision barely hears Wanda's call to her brother, but he hears it nonetheless.

Pietro? Pietro, can you hear me?

Vision can feel her crushing sorrow when the mind does not react, and he can feel as she pushes beyond it and tries again. She settles into her consciousness here, making a space for herself in her foundations, and she calls again.

Pietro? Please, brother, please come out.

Vision watches her dance around the mind. The movements are too close and intimate for him to dare intrude, and he notices when she almost steps to him, but holds back. This is between the twins, and he moves to withdraw from her mind.

Wanda settles into place more firmly, and stretches out the most delicate of touches. She can feel the solid skein of fear that circles her brother's mind, and the deeper vein of pain, but her fingers brush them aside just as they had when they had been training. They are, at this point, only mental, and Wanda knows her brother's mind better even than her own.

Pietro? Pietro, can you hear me?

She sees the least flicker of blue from the mind, and smiles. She hums half a lullaby, lets her fingers dance and scarlet twist around them in desperately delicate curlicues. She decides then, that she will tease her brother awake, or she will die trying.

Vision is pulled back, before he leaves, as he sees Wanda shining crimson and scarlet, blood red and burgundy, from the depths of her mind. He knows now why she grieved so deeply, and why she sought her brother so single-mindedly. A bond like the one they now shared was not one easily shed, and not one made without reason. He knows she will die, before she gives her brother up.

It is not quite a sigh that he gives, as he delves back down, and settles at her side.

Beyond them both, in the tower, the others wonder at the quietness. Steve, Natasha and Clint start to search, Thor sends Mjolnir a-looking, and Tony digs deeper into code, to see if he can resurrect J.A.R.V.I.S. a second time.

They have lost two members, one to death and one to God-knows-what, and they do not wish to lose two more.