unquantifiablx:
This was the closest to bliss he will ever get, skin to skin and muscle to muscle with her. Breathing her in like she’s life itself, and in some ways he now knew she was. But when his eyes focus on hers, he feels a stillness like no other. Not like the one in the forest when he’d come to her aid after years of separation, not like the one where she rushed to his side when he’d breached the barrier. Not the stillness of relief and comfort they so often shared. No, this stillness was like the death he’d never known.
He stares at her for what feels like too long a moment, the weight of realization too heavy for his bones to bear. He can’t move, frozen in his despair. She didn’t want him. She never did. That voice was back, the one who questioned him. The one who badgered him. It wasn’t his own, and it wasn’t hers. It was something dark, something unnatural. She never will, Pietro. A shuddered breath leaves him all at once, like he’s shattering from the inside out. She makes it safely to the floor, he makes sure of that even as he stumbles back like she’s hit him with one of her hex bolts.
“Doamne, nu,” his voice is thin with lack of air as he turns from her, blood soaked fingers running through his hair, staining his silver strands. “Nu, nu.” The pain in his shoulder is nothing, nothing compared to the fall from the precipice as his memories are stripped from him. Her kisses, the loving words pressed to his skin by them. Her touch, tracing his scars and gripping his arms like anchors. These memories burn like gossamer, and through the flames he sees it. He sees his body in her arms, he sees her shouting at him through tears like a flood on her beautiful face. He sees his eyes, open and glassy. He is death, and she is a heaven he’ll never reach.
He won’t look at her, he can’t. He wouldn’t make her feel guilty for his own sickness, his and his alone. “It wasn’t real,” he speaks quietly, the foreign language for once feeling more comfortable than their own. Safer. Less intimate. He swears it was a laugh he thought was leaving his throat, not a strangled, pained noise as he pushes his hair back from his face with both hands. “Not real. Right. Why would it be real? Why would you…?” He can’t have this conversation, and he hurries to the door without another word. He can’t look back at the mess he’s created, her covered in his blood and his filth leaving her in shambles. Stopping with his hand on the doorknob, he knows he can’t leave without saying it. He doesn’t look at her still, eyes tightly clenched as he leans his forehead on the door. “Te iubesc, Wanda. Always.” He casts the last word over his shoulder before he’s pulling the door open like he’s ripping off a bandaid.
All her life, whether it be long or short, she’d remember Pietro’s face as he realized she did not want him in that way; she’d remember the sound of his voice when he told her he loved her. It would forever be replayed in the film of her thoughts. She realized she’d sunk to the floor and was pulling her knees up to her chest, like a child. Though he was but a few feet away, she felt miserable and isolated. It was as if nothing of warmth and comfort would ever touch her again.
She wishes she’d indulged him, for surely pretending would be easier than this. Was there still time? No, she realizes, eyeing him as he rips open the door. It would only insult him, and she could not bear the thought of hurting him further. Her lips part to speak, but no sound comes out. Say something, you fool! Anything! But she is suddenly mute in her misery, unsure what to say and whether any of it would matter in the end.
She felt a sob rise in her, and her whole body is raked with it. Her guilt had grown harder and more nearly unbearable. She feared there was no coming back from this. Unlike the torment at the facility or even his death, this trauma felt all the more final. She had hurt him far more in her inaction than she ever did in her action.
Wanda was losing herself, and she was going to let it happen. Releasing her control over her mentality, her sanity, and let her emotions take the reigns. It felt like a fitting punishment, though exactly why she felt like punishing herself was beyond understanding. Her arms, slippery with his blood, wrap around her trembling frame. Her fingernails dig into the flesh on her back. She wants to die. She wants to sleep. She thinks on their childhood then, sudden and vivid, of how he let her hug him on cold nights. So much hope in their youth. How had it all led up to this?
She wondered briefly where he would go once he walked out that door. How long would it be until she saw him again? If she was not already feeling so hopeless, the question would terrify her. Now she’s almost willing him to leave. Willing him to walk out on her like she had done to him. It would be fitting, and certainly she deserved it. But before that, before she would fully wallow in her aloneness, she knew she had to say something. Her voice came out low and sincere between her sobs. “And I love you.”










