When The Sky Falls - Pietro Maximoff x Reader
Authors Note: Hello! I honestly had a lot of fun writing this, and it's been in my drafts FOREVER, so I hope you like it ! At first I intended to write this into just a single shot, but then I got carried away with actually writing it, so it'll have to be a multi-part series. I hope you enjoy!
Warnings: Non-Graphic mentions of past torture, general sad backstories that comes along with villain origins. Tony's kind of an ass in this, I'm soRRY !!!! kind of star-crossed lovers ????
Prompt: Like the twins, you were a HYDRA experiment; your powers focus mainly on healing and wound transferring. Your past is a dark secret for Tony, and what happens if he finds out when it's too late?
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That's what united the three of you. Having not only Ultron in common, but also HYDRA as well. You had arrived at Hydra first, but the memory of how you wound up there, or anything predating, was nothing but a dark abyss. The only memories that managed survival were early memories of experimentation. Injections, tests, so many that there isn't even a number anymore.
The twins arrived at the same facility years after you had, and since they were kept in the cells next to you, friendship was inevitable. You never got to see them while you were kept captive by HYDRA scientists, but you had little things. Small cracks in the walls, holes that were barely big enough to fit a finger through and sometimes even smaller than that. It may not have been much, but it was enough, and the happiness it provided was nothing like you had ever felt before.
You'd never really had a friend before, then.
Naturally, those within HYDRA weren't too fond of the yapping you three did, and you had found out the hard way the first time they overheard a conversation between you and Wanda. As a consequence for disobedience, they had punished you harshly as a result, despite the pleas and the apologies that left your mouth as they dragged you off.
They had done such a number that you couldn't see properly for a week straight after, and could barely move enough to retrieve your daily food rations. After that, you three learned to only talk when night fell. While no one kept prisoner within HYDRA's walls were ever privy to the beautiful night sky, it was easy to tell when night had fallen. The staff would thin out, and what staff remained would be more focused on their 'important work' than three measly prisoners in the corner.
Still, on their first days you managed to give them a quick run down on things before they had caught you that day. When the best time to sleep was, what to look out for in their meals in case they tamper with it, and how if they ever got hurt too badly all they had to do was sit beside one of the finger-sized holes in the wall and you'd be able to heal them by just touching them. Your first punishment though is what prompted them to ask why you couldn't just heal yourself.
Truthfully? It was the one question you could never answer, and neither could HYDRA. Whatever powers ran through your veins went completely null whenever you used it on yourself, except for the psychic shields. That was the only thing, so it sort of balances out, in a way, but after that they felt a bit more protective of you. The three of you have been inseparable ever since. Along with your healing abilities came an ability to, of course, use psychic shields (or force fields as they're more commonly known by), but also light forms of telekinesis, and an ability to transfer a persons injuries to your own body.
HYDRA was currently training you in the ability to provide a cloak of invisibility to another person within your psychic shield, something that was proving a little more challenging to learn. Transferring wounds, however, is something you often did with the twins when your healing magic wasn't working right that day or you couldn't muster the energy for it, and they only figured it out when Wanda noticed a slight difference. When you actually healed them with magic, your hands would glow white, like an angel, and when Wanda had caught notice of it she was sure to ask you.
After that, she only let you heal her if you could with magic. In part because she couldn't stand the thought of you taking on her injuries, but also because she knew her brother was worse off, and that there was no way in hell that she'd be able to talk you out of transferring his wounds, not in a million years. However, it wasn't a one-sided friendship either, the three of you were there for one another in a way that nobody else could. Not even Bucky; even with his own experience in HYDRA, it still wouldn't be the same.
Wanda, Pietro, and yourself all lived it together, and that set the foundation for an unbreakable bond. It was no surprise when they broke you out of the facility after being released themselves, and it was even less of a surprise when you had followed them and joined forces with Ultron. Their own trauma was separate from yours, and while you may not know what it's like to sit three feet from a bomb for two days straight, but you knew rage.
And you were angry for them.
When they finally broke you out of the facility, it was the first time you had actually were able to see their faces, and them your own. It was also then that Wanda had granted you with memories of the past, and the memory shards she had when she uncovered a bit about your past on her own (lots of face-punching got her those memories). Pietro was gentle with you then, giving you the biggest of hugs. While Pietro already had a special spot in your heart, your time together with him solidified it.
You knew you were in this together with them, no matter what. You fell for him, and you fell hard, but you always focused on giving your friends the revenge they deserved.
What you didn't know, is that Pietro knew.
He's not exactly the smartest guy around when it comes to dating.
He thought your crush was more superficial, like you didn't REALLY like him, like you just thought he was hot and that you were just looking for fun.
Did that make any sense? Did you even show any signs that you were even interested in that kinda stuff?
Absolutely not, he's an idiot, but, ya'know, he's your idiot.
He makes up for being an idiot by being a fucking gremlin (read: he makes it a personal hobby to tease you a TON, and to see just how much he can make you blush like an idiot in a day. Shared idiocy, if you will, just a town over. Idiotcity, and idiotvile.)
Wanda has tried many (many, please just pay her for her matchmaking services at this point) to explain things to the both of you; explain to her brother that you like him for more than just his stupid biceps, and explaining to you that her brother is an idiot (but a sweet idiot. Most of the time-).
The thing is he likes you too, more than he lets you see, more than he's even told his sister, and every single day he fights the urge to just sit you down and spill everything to you even though he thinks you won't return his feelings to the same degree. And everyday you do the same.
A weird love limbo (that sounds weird, maybe not a limbo, maybe like....love purgatory??).
It got worse when you had fallen into a style you liked; practical in nature, for all the fighting you'd be taking part in, except for all the white. White leather pants so you could move without worrying about anything showing that shouldn't be, but you kept your top small and skin-tight, because running raises body temperature, and you're more of an agile, keep-dodging-swings-like-a-roach-you-can-never-kill person than someone who drenches themselves in combat.
And boots that actually were practical boots and not New York Fashion Week boots. Your sleeves were detached from your actual top; starting at your elbow in a silver cuff, translucent fabric hugging your forearm comfortably to a tie around your finger, while the other part of the sleeve billowed down to your side, sort of medieval royalty style, and boy did you look like fucking royalty to him.
Even now, he still can't help but stare at you, captured by how beautiful you look. In all white like an angel, but decorated in silvers and blues like an elf.
He doesn't know, all he knows is that you're drop dead gorgeous, and he loves the way you look so divine, and the way your top hugs your--damn it. Don't look there Pietro, are you a fucking idiot? (yes.)
That being said, he flirts with you.
Sometimes just because he can, but mostly because he really really (REALLY) likes you, and can't help it. Naturally, you actually flirt back.
That's how your damnation into the love limbo purgatory was birthed, really. It put the both of you in this odd place of no PDA has actually been exchanged, but you flirt often enough that Wanda has to make fake throwing up sounds to get you two to stop half the time.
The thought of you actually being in love with him never actually crosses his mind with any substance, not even when Wanda tries to explain it, he's always thought it was more of a superficial crush because....well, frankly, he doesn't think he's good enough for you.
It sounds crazy, he knows, The Amazing Pietro (cue muscle flash here) insecure?? Feeling something more than just thinking you're cute, more than just....liking you as a friend. It's a strange feeling, strange enough that it's not like anything he's felt in the past. It's real, this love he feels for you, and maybe....just maybe....he's scared of losing you if he says anything.
It shows prominently when The Avengers meet the four of you in the Salvage Yard. Since you didn't have that excellent of offensive powers, you had hidden in the shadows, kept a psychic field on Wanda to make sure nothing hurt her, and just when Ultron was giving a speech from a place of deep seeded hatred, Tony had showed up just in time. Cracking witty jokes, as if everything was just peachy.
"This is funny? It's what, comfortable?" Pietro had questioned as he stepped forward, and you kept a precautionary field around him, "Like old times?"
"This was never my life." Stark had defended, and you narrowed your eyes as you stepped forward in turn, but stayed behind Pietro.
"No?" You questioned, "But you supplied it, you funded it; took black-tie pictures next to the military officials that were peddling the devastating weapons you created; caring more about the girls around your arm than the families you were killing." You tilted your head, knowing you were getting into his.
It didn't take like for all hell to break loose, and in the chaos Captain America had sent his shield flying at you when you had made a move to use your psychic shield around Ultron. While Wanda was quick to use her own powers to take him down, it wasn't in time to prevent the shield from crashing into your abdomen and breaking a rib or two, and the subsequent piece of metal you crashed into as a result of the shield's velocity.
A broken rib and a gash in your side might be enough to take a normal person down, but HYDRA has done worse to you. Still, Wanda helped you up and made a mental note to check back in on you when all this mess was said and done. Thanks to your time with HYDRA you'd grown used to tuning out the pain for small waves of time, and combined with the adrenaline rushing through your veins, you had no problems putting a psychic bubble around Pietro as he fell to the floor below, just to be sure he wouldn't get hurt.
When Wanda left to do her mind tricks on the Avengers, you jumped down to a slightly dazed Pietro, and Cap giving him blow and telling him to stay down. A strong emotion of protectiveness overcame you and the next thing you know, you're encasing him in a psychic shield and flinging him across the room.
"Pietro!" You exclaimed, rushing to his side, "Pietro, are you okay?"
"Ah," Pietro sighed, shaking his head a little to try and center himself again, "Yeah, yeah I'm good." It wasn't until he had actually moved his head to look at you that he saw the blood staining the white of your attire, and his eyes widened in both worry and fear.
"Princessa," He uttered out, moving closer to you, hands already at your side to inspect the gash "What happened? How bad are you hurt? Which of them did this?"
"I'm fine, silly boy," You shook your head, placing your hands on top his, "When the shield hit me, I fell onto something sharp, that's all. I'll be fine. A rib is definitely broken, but Hydra has done far worse to me, it's nothing I can't handle. I am a tank, very strong." You jokingly flashed your arm muscles to lighten the mood.
Pietro had looked at you skeptically, not fully believing that you were as okay as you were making it seem. There was a good amount of blood still staining your otherwise white top and he couldn't help but question whether or not you were telling him the truth, and the little jump of fear in his heart got the better of him. He held eye contact with you as his grip got just a bit more firm.
"Promise me you'll watch out more, okay?" Pietro practically begged with puppydog eyes that tugged on the strings of your heart just right, "You cannot heal yourself, but you can still use your shields. Care for yourself as I care about you, I've lost a lot, I can't lose you too, okay? Just...promise me?"
"Hey," You spoke softly when you noticed his eyes pooling a little, even as he tried to blink them away, and you moved one of your hands to cup his cheek, "I promise, okay? I'll be more careful."
In all the time you'd shared together, he'd never actually saw you injured before, not even in Hydra. Sure, he could hear it, hear your screams from down the hall, hear your groans of pain when they threw you back into your cell, but he never actually saw anything, and seeing that large cut in your side and all that blood staining your top? It struck a chord in him, and he realized he couldn't live without you.
He also realized he couldn't live without getting to punch Captain America in the face for that whenever he got a chance to.
Which he did, after you two had both gotten up to help Wanda make sure she could spin her webs of fear.
It's a good thing that HYDRA managed to successfully train you in that invisibility thing before you were broken out, because it came in handy when cloaking Wanda from Thor after she had finished putting her spell on him, and Natasha so she wouldn't hear her coming, but you weren't there in time to protect her from Clint. Pietro got there first, literally flinging him across the room after seeing him hurt Wanda (and winning a Best Brother Of The Year Award), and quickly took Wanda to safety to recover.
What Pietro didn't know was that you had lingered behind to bend down to Clint and let him know that it was very mean to electrocute unarmed foes.
"That wasn't very nice of you," You scolded with furrowed brows, "Were you just going to electrocute her to death? I believe that's illegal in what, at least 20 states."
"No offense, but I'm not taking lessons on morality from back alley Shee-Ra." Clint groaned, "Maybe next time if you got the cape on."
"Shee-Ra?!" You nearly screeched with excitement, "You really think so?! I love Shee-Ra--wait, old stuff or new stuff?"
"The old Shee-Ra or the new Shee-Ra?" You asked before sighing, "Whatever, it doesn't matter, old man. I'm the original Shee-ra and you, my not-friend, are healed."
What are you-" Clint questions as you put your hands on him, healing the rib he was recovering from. "What?"
"There. That wouldn't have healed on it's own, not properly," You explained calmly, standing back up, "I don't want people dead, I just want my friends to have justice. Please do not do that brain thing again, we are not prisoners on Death Row."
You moved to leave the office you both were in, ready to leave a very confused Clint questioning your motives and true nature, when darkness hit you. Ultron had decided to take you out himself when he saw that you had healed the enemy. From there you were taken onto the jet with the rest of the team; in part to question you, but also to do you the same courtesy you did Clint. If you'd been left there, you would've been killed by Ultron himself.
Clint had explained the whole....encounter to the team, and while they were all wondering why you were really with Ultron then if you'd been so willing to heal Clint, they still kept you in handcuffs. But they put the seatbelt on you too. When you woke up, it was the next day and while everyone had already emptied into the 'Safe House', you were kept in the jet. Naturally, being the enemy is reason enough, and there was no hope for release until one of them came in and started the interrogation.
Wiggling out of the restraints was pointless too, and it hurt. Now you were reminded of your wounds, and as a result their pain now that you didn't have the adrenaline to help. They even parked the jet so they could leave the door open without you actually seeing the house. Nothing but sticks, grass, and branches as far as the eye can see. In the silence, you wondered if your friends made it out okay, if they completed their plan, if they were missing you, what Ultron would tell them both.
Would they kill you if they saw you?
Was what you did truly so awful?
If you don't get out of here soon you'll never know, you'll die from an infection first. And you were hungry, starved (quite literally). Would they even feed you? Probably not, right? I mean what's the reason to? You're the enemy, allied with people actively trying to destroy them, if anything they should kill you after interrogating you. That's not the style of The Avengers, though. They'll just let you rot either in prison or in a SHIELD cell, where you'll probably be experimented on like you were at HYDRA.
Thor was gone, Natasha was pretty much out of commission, and Tony had been sent to fix a perfectly working tractor, it was left to Steve to question you. Thankfully, Steve came with lunch though, so it made it less anxiety inducing to see him walking up to jet's ramp to set the plate in the seat beside you.
"I know you must be hungry," Steve speaks, releasing you from your handcuffs so you could eat, "When we're done talking, there's a medkit inside, whether you go inside to get it or it's brought to you, depends on you."
You eyed him suspiciously, quietly, wary of his kindness when you should be held prisoner right now. What angle was he working? Was this something that was going to be held over your head later? That's what HYDRA would do. Then they would kill you. Or they would kill your family in front of you, maybe pluck out an eye, and then kill you. The polite smile he offered didn't help either, and you couldn't help but slowly put the plate into your lap, eyeing it for any suspicious activity before returning your gaze to him.
"Why?" You question, not taking a single bite of food until you know for sure it isn't poisoned, "You're being kind. Nice. Why?"
"You don't want to hurt people. I mean sure, you're with the bad guy," Steve shrugs casually, eyeing you, "but...you don't do what the bad guy does. The only time you engaged in combat was when I had hit that guy, and Clint hit Wanda, you were only on defense because you care about them. You weren't hitting to kill."
"You could've thrown me into a sharp pole, or killed Clint when he was down, but you healed him, helped him. Why?" Steve continues his questioning and you look down, pushing the broccoli around.
"You may not have hurt me, mister Rogers, but my friends are angry with you....so I am angry with you," You had begun, "We shared time together, in Hydra."
"Hydra?" Steve questions, and sympathy is written on his features.
"Yes. Wanda and Pietro joined of their own accord, but....I didn't." Your brows knitted together, setting the plate back on the seat it was previously on, "They put....things, in me ran tests on me, experiments, I was their Guinea Pig. A rat in their maze. Then Pietro and Wanda joined, and we just...bonded. We went through everything together."
"So you feel obligated to help them?" Steve questions, but you shake your head.
"No." You begin, lifting your head to gaze at the trees, "I mean yes and no; we're friends, so of course I do, but it isn't my only reason. Do you know how horrifying it must be for two kids to sit mere feet from a bomb? Children. Children never deserve to experience that kind of horror, and Stark funded the military's selling of weaponry on the black market for so long, whether he knew it or not is a different story."
"Then what's the other reason?" Steve asks, and you're silent for a moment.
"It's....complicated." You tried to reason when faced with the idea of unpacking everything.
"I was alive during the second World War, and I don't look a day over 30," He spoke, trying to lighten the mood a little before looking at you a bit more sincerely, "I promise, no matter how complicated it is, I've got you."
"Well...Truth be told, for the longest time I didn't have memories before being in Hydra," You confessed, turning your gaze back to the trees, "I couldn't remember who I was, where I came from...who I came from, nothing. All I could remember was Hydra, and all the pain they've caused. I still don't know how long I was kept there, you could tell me I was in there for a thousand years and I'd believe you." You offer a soft chuckle, looking back down at your hands.
"I'm sorry," Steve says sincerely, voice stern, brows knitted together, "You didn't deserve that, I'm sure your family will be happy to know you're okay."
"That's the thing, mister Rogers," You paused for a moment, tears stinging your eyes as a sudden wave of emotions flooded you at the memories you'd been trying hard to forget again this whole time.
It's a bit ironic; you'd been wishing for years for even just a small fragment of a memory from your past, anything before your time in HYDRA. Anything, even just something as simple as a playground in summer, a sandwich made from your mom, anything. You would've killed for it. And now? Now you'd do anything forget them. When you wished for your memories back, you didn't think they'd come with so much pain, so much sorrow.
You were thinking you'd get happy memories; ones of getting an ice cream with your mother on a hot day, or a high school graduation, your mom taking you dress shopping for prom, attending a holiday dinner with family...Instead, what you got were memories of why you were taken in the first place; your mother spending most of your childhood trying to keep you in hiding, and the memory of hearing her screams as you were dragged off into a van before a gunshot was heard.
"Wanda--the witch, when her and Pietro had managed to secure my escape, she..." You took in a deep, shaky breath, "She has many powers, and she's not evil, she's not bad, she's so sweet," You nodded, mostly to yourself, as you looked back up at him, "She helped me remember, gave me my memories back with a single touch, and then shared with me the memories she had when trying to dig up information on my past for me."
"That was...awful nice of her, I'm glad you could get them back." Steve said quietly, hanging onto your every word.
"It was, it is," You nodded again, blinking back tears, "Can you imagine how much it hurts, to wait so long to remember your family, wait with the hope that if you ever escape you can see them again, just to find out they're dead?"
Steve was silent, but his gaze flickered down to his lap for a moment, taking in a breath, before looking back up at you, "I'm sorry, really, I wish it were different for you."
"Me too," Your tears fell freely now, "My mother spend my entire childhood trying to hide me from the men of Hydra, worked herself to death to move us so often, to keep me fed and clothed, and you know who my father was? The person who could've stopped it all?"
Steve was silent for a moment, trying to do the math himself, "Who?"
"None other than billionaire, playboy, philanthropist himself, Tony Stark." You finally confessed.
"Yes. I mean." You took in another breath, "She tried to talk to him in person, and you know what he did? He had his security throw her out. She tried calling, sending letters, even emails, and guess what the genius of our time tells her?"
Silence fills the air as Steve simmers in shock, trying to take in everything, trying to reason his way through things like he always did to come to his own conclusion. He didn't think you were lying, he's too kind-hearted for that, and your tears of pure agony told him you were truthful. What he was trying to do was figure out if Tony really would do all that, or if maybe it was just a series of misunderstandings.
Steve has a habit of trying to see the best in people who aren't actively trying to destroy the world, and Tony was no different, even despite their differences. He knew HYDRA was serious business, and by extension he knew how difficult it must've been for your mother to keep you hidden from them for so long, and how incredibly strong and intelligent she must've been for doing so.
His brows furrow together as he thinks. No matter what the case is, misunderstandings or not, that's a horrible thing for a kid to live through and an equally horrible thing to be told. He couldn't imagine how it must've felt to be a single mother, trying desperately to keep her child safe from those maniacs, just to be thrown out by the same man who helped bring that child into the world in the first place.
"What does he tell her?" Steve asks, and he almost doesn't want to hear the answer.
"He comes to the apartment we were staying in and tells her that she's crazy and needs serious help. He tells her to stop contacting him, hits her with a restraining order, and then he takes one look at me and then look my mother dead in the eyes and tells her that there's no way a kid like me could've come from him. Says 'that thing isn't my problem', and that if she calls contacts him again he'll have her thrown in prison."
"My mother died trying to protect me, to save me from the horrors of that place. She never contacted him again. Stark never bothered to take a DNA test either. So my family is dead, and yes, I have my own motivations for wanting to see the his fall."
"That...That wasn't right, I'm sorry, for everything." Steve says, and steals a glance outside before returning his gaze to you, "Look, you're free to leave the jet, okay? Med-Kit is on the dining table, and Tony's out working on a tractor or something right now so you should be able to dodge him for now. I'll make sure the team knows you're good, okay?"
"Thank you." You speak quietly, returning the smile he gives you before leaving the jet himself.
Leaving you questioning many things, but most of all, what will you do now?
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