somethingwandathiswaycomes:
Wanda unlatched the window to let her brother in, the rusty hinges creaking slightly. It made a sort of quiet, moaning sound that reflected how she felt inside, but she didn’t pause to ponder this, turning quickly around so her twin would not see her tearstained face and red eyes. It had been a few hours since midnight, late enough that the world was awake, but early enough that most of it’s teenage occupants had yet to rise, and Wanda thanked the higher powers for that. The last thing she wanted today was to be interrupted by her roommate complaing about something.
“Is too hot here, shut window,” she ordered quietly, dropping to sit on the bed with her face pointedly fixed in her hands. She still wouldn’t–couldn’t–look at him. Whatever anger, hatred, frustration, betrayal, or fear he felt for her every other day of the year must surely be hightened to phenomenal proportions on this day, the anniversary of her worst mistakes. She didn’t think she could bear to see that reflected in his eyes. “You want to sit?” She offered, the feeble attempt at normalcy sounding hollow and threadbare even to her. Maybe they had been playing normal for too long, maybe they had just been participating in some charade of believing they were okay, and only now when she could handle it least would that facade crack and fall through. Maybe if she just kept trying….
“Do you–” her voice broke, ending her pitiful masquerade with silent swiftness. She was no longer okay because she was crying again, and she didn’t want this– didn’t want pain or memory or feelings. But most of all she didn’t want Pietro to see her as fragile, or too weak to even get herself together to let him feel the sadness he was entitled to more rightfully than she. “I–I am sorry,”
Pietro slipped inside, dutifully shutting the window behind him. The air in Wanda’s bedroom was cooler than outside, but heavy with a different kind of weight. Even without the inherent connection that came from being one in a pair of twins, Pietro would have been able to read Wanda’s upset from a mile away. It would be clear to anyone who knew her, written in the lines on her face, spoken through the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes--wouldn’t even look at him. Pietro’s heart clenched. Was she angry with him already? But he hadn’t even spoken yet.
All was answered when her composure cracked. Like the most beautiful stained glass she crumbled, shoulders shaking. Pietro was torn, as he always was in situations such as this, between discomfort and envy. Discomfort, because any great displays of emotion left Pietro feeling somewhat adrift and unsure of how to respond. Envy, because it took a great deal of strength and courage to succumb to emotion in front of another; courage that Pietro wasn’t sure he possessed. All at once he was relieved that he had braved the walk across campus to be by his twin’s side, and furious that he hadn’t done so sooner. Would he ever stop letting Wanda down?
Taking Wanda up on the offer to sit down, Pietro blurred to sit beside her, the bed dipping under his weight. Immediately he gathered his twin into his arms, not shushing her, not saying a word, because what could he say? that it would be okay? Who was he to promise such a thing, to offer such a token, empty platitude? Of course it wasn’t okay, and Pietro couldn’t bring himself disrespect Wanda by baselessly suggesting that it one day would be. What he could do was be there, his fingers petting softly through her dark hair, rocking her gently until the tide receded.
