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With all his efforts exhausted, Pietro decides to hide his sister away where no one can find her. She is barely lucid for any of it. She’s sick; so very weak in both her mind, body, and spirit. Her powers suffer from it, too. The landscape is ever-changing. Sometimes, when she opens her eyes in this secret house, they are tucked away in their childhood home, with lifting floorboards and peeling wallpaper. Occasionally, Pietro will pull himself from his sister’s skin and find that they are in a dank cell, kept in captivity, the smell of hypodermic needles and the looming threat of experimentation awaiting them (though, he is at least her thankful that her subconscious mind is gracious enough to keep them together instead of split them apart between a concrete wall). Sometimes, they are deep in the wet earth of Wundagore Mountain, the sound of water rivulets dropping in soft echoes around the cave. Sometimes, yet not so frequently, as Wanda tends to shake with terror and unease whenever her mind transplants them here, they are hiding under a cover of rocks and debris, rubble and devastation, metal shrapnel and war-torn Eastern European air.
But for the most part, her mind is too exhausted to shift the location and warp the reality around her and her twin. Pietro never notices a drastic difference, too intently focused on Wanda. He finds her babbling words nonsensical to them both. She reaches out for Bova , for Natalya , for family ghosts and dead women who have since been long gone, corpses that they have buried together with their bare hands just years ago.
(There is a perpetual line of dirt underneath each of his fingernails that he has never been able to get clean. He scrubs and scrubs, and there it stays.)
“Where are we?” she asks Pietro, every so often. She is deeply confused, deeply worried. Her heart panics when it can no longer feel the heat of her twin’s flame.
Pietro is never sure. He hears her say things like Transia, or Sokovia. Every so often her eyes will roll back and her mouth will warble out Novi Pazar. The shifting environment does not frighten him, but he can only imagine what it does to her. The massive force of all these realities eclipsing her, burdening her mind—she was bound to collapse under the weight of them all. Through it all, he only ever finds his focus reserved solely for her.
“Don’t worry,” he tells her, fingers combing through the dark roots of her scalp. She’s like a cat, leaning into his touch—not realizing that the soothing act is also his thinly veiled attempt at getting a read on her temperature. Her fever was only growing worse. “You’re confused, draga . We’re home. We’re safe at home, you and me.”
Home is a vague term for them both, but it invokes a deep sense of calm within her. “Okay,” Wanda whispers. “Okay.” And then, she drifts back to sleep. The walls cave in, closing up tight, and Pietro briefly registers the smell of damp rocks and clumps of dirt at his knees.
The bed she rests in is the one constant that never seems to change, despite its peculiar surroundings, pasted into the environment like a cutout of a magazine clipping. The bed, and of course, Pietro.
For reasons Pietro cannot find himself for one moment beginning to understand, the X-Men are angry. They think that the Scarlet Witch is dangerous, volatile. There are words for what they do to people like her—but they don’t even afford her the decency of viewing her as a person. Some tragedy has been extolled against them, and for their own agenda Pietro feels inclined to believe, they find Wanda to blame. They want her head on a stick.
It wouldn’t happen. Pietro would sooner die than let it. His father preserves his own reservations, and while Pietro is initially shocked to find that their interests are not aligned— not for your own daughter?! —he is later just as angry for letting himself hold out hope for Magneto’s divine intervention. He’d never cared for his children, not in their birth, in their life. Why should he care for their death?
He’d raced faster than he ever had that day, out of Genosha. And now, here they were, back together, tucked away in a changing landscape where he hopes they will never be found. Wrapped up in thin sheets, Pietro holds her fast and tight to his chest, crunching up her feeble frame under his chin. Wanda was an easy thing to cradle, so small and frail. In her sickness, she’d thinned out insurmountably. Her bones stuck out in frightening protrusions, and her hands, her dainty little fingers he had once loved to hold, were almost unrecognizable, all spindled out like a grandmother’s.
But she would never be too unrecognizable. He would always know her. Cocooned in this bed, it was as if they’d reentered the womb together, sheathed by an impenetrable placenta and an amniotic sac.
Sometimes, Pietro wondered why he was like this—why he was so devout to her. Her weakness pained him. Their senses and urges conjoined. He tucks her hand up in his and brings it to his mouth, sighing a hot breath into it in order to warm her.
Wanda lurches in her sleep, a sob torn through her ragged throat. Her twin chases after her, hands at her back as he tames the animal she’d become. He'd never say it out loud, but he catches a glimpse of what their enemies must see when they cast their hateful gaze on her. Erratic delusion, tempestuous chaos. Increased frequency before a volcanic eruption, constantly vibrating, trying not to blow.
“You died,” her voice shakes, a tumultuous waver. “You died, they…they shot you, you had these…these holes .” The final word peels off her tongue like a bandaid, sticky and impossibly painful. It disgusted her to remark such a thing, and yet, she couldn’t find herself able to stop elaborating on the thought. “All over your chest. Your stomach. Pierced all the way through…”
Pietro takes her against his chest, forcing her hands to feel the breadth of his torso, the expanse of his skin. “ Draga , I’m here. All of me is here.”
She doesn’t seem to understand. Blinded by her own sadness, her tears blurring her vision, she continues to grab for him by the fistful, shaking him awake, lamenting and mourning with a cacophonous cry. Pietro, please, Pietro .
He watches rivulets of salt water drip down her temples and her cheeks, as though they were grains of sand falling through glass bulbs in an hourglass. She wasn’t getting any better. They were running out of time.
He runs around the world once, twice, three times over to collect his thoughts. The road is crumbling out from under him, beneath his feet, and with it—his entire world.
The air gets punched out of lungs when he crosses the Atlantic ocean. Pietro feels all high and mighty whenever he treads the ocean. He likes to think of himself as this great savior, who gets murals painted of his face and flowers tossed at his feet. But he isn’t, not really. He can perform these grandiose miracles, can walk on water and whatnot, but can’t really help anyone—at least, not when it matters.
His confidence was all for show. The only one who could ever truly see through the mask was Wanda. But in her delirious sickness, she failed to realize this. He wouldn’t save her. He couldn’t save her.
Pietro gnaws on the skin lining the inside of his cheek. He bites until it’s bloody. He thinks. He thinks and thinks.
She seems almost normal when he returns to their seclusion. The daylight catches her face as she pulls her arms above her head, stretching out of her fitful sleep. Dark brown hair tumbles down over her shoulders, and she smiles at him happily. Pietro longed to take a rock to her pretty head and crack it open once and for all, just to see what went on in that brain of hers. Unspooling the contents of her skull, unraveling the tangle of pink meat that made up her brain. What would he find? What would he see?
“Pietro,” she sighs, content and happy at the sight of him. Even now, as he continued to fail her time and time again, she aggrandized him. He thinks that it is both a blessing and a curse that Wanda cannot see this. She sees him as this impervious thing; Pietro can do no wrong, Pietro will save me . And it is a delight, to be his sister’s savior, but it is not the truth. Her weaponized mind is the most powerful thing, and in the end, it is what will save them both. The truth in their shortcomings was this: they pedestalized each other. Time slips through his fingers, and reality slips through hers. Neither can get a firm grasp on it, and so they grasp at each other.
“Wanda,” he answers her call, crawling over to her spot on the bed as she beckons him close. “Wanda, I have an idea. I know how to save you.”
“Save me,” she hums, raking a thin hand through the shag of his silver hair. “Save me from what?”
Pietro shakes his head, nudging his nose against hers before moving it all over her face, inhaling the scent of her. He presses his forehead to hers and exhales deeply, hoping that his thoughts could transcend past their skin and into her own mind. You have to do this…it can only be you…bloodless deaths, draga—they wouldn’t feel a thing. And we could—we could finally…
“Death,” she murmurs, the only word that seemed to register. Wanda tilts her chin up, pouted lips connecting to his parted mouth. Fine, then. He’d feed the words to her in this way.
“Why would you be given this power if it is not what you were meant to do?” Pietro asks her, although it’s clumsily said. His teeth knock against hers, and she’s slipped her tongue into his mouth. Despite the muffle, his voice persists. “Destruction is your birthright!”
Wanda whines at his split attention. He’s focused on conveying these needless words to her, rather than her herself. With a frustrated huff, she lets her hands roam further down his back, slipping past the waistband of his pants. Involuntarily, he ruts against her, delivering the friction she so desperately sought after.
“Wanda,” Pietro sighs, bracing his arms over either side of her head. When he pulls away from her wet mouth, he finds her smiling. She wasn’t taking this seriously. “This is serious.”
“I’m completely serious,” she says, sitting up a bit, if only to chase after his mouth, his tongue. “Destruction, yes? You’d like me to destroy you?”
He’s never one to deny her, and so he lets her attack his mouth again. She kisses him deeply, hotly. She presses her fever into him and finds his skin burning from the flame of her touch. There’s blood on her teeth when she flashes him a vicious smile. Pietro brings his hands to her cheeks, dragging a calloused thumb along her pearly canines and the smeared red they’d been painted with. Was this his blood that she’d licked out of his mouth, or her own?
She kisses his thumb, and then his mouth again, and the question evades him. Distracted by the onslaught, he fails to register the way her hand slips down the front of his pants, tugging his length free.
“This is what you wanted?” Wanda pants against his lips. He can taste her perspiration, and finds himself lapping after it, searching for more. “Am I doing it? I’m doing it right?”
What was she asking? What had he asked her for? He can’t remember, but he nods anyway. It was hard to imagine a world where Wanda was doing something wrong. “Yes, yes,” he says, but before he can say it again, just one more for good measure, he chokes on the final syllable. It comes out cracked in half, yeh-ess , from the way she twists her wrist on one particularly firm stroke.
“Tell me you want me,” she asks, “Please. Sometimes, it feels like you’re the only one.”
Pietro blinks, trying to focus his sights and unblur the cloud that fogged his vision. “The only what?”
“The only one that wants me,” Wanda murmurs. The rhythmic pump of her hand on his cock never wavers, although the tone of her voice sways. She was split and fractured between such high and low emotions. Sometimes, he felt that she’d only do this to keep him beside her.
“I want you,” he assures, moving his hand down to where she stroked him. He flexes his hand around her wrist, guiding the ministration. “You see this? You see what you do to me? Of course I want you, I’ll always want you.”
Wanda nods, and then smiles, and then kisses him once more. She kisses him and it’s the only thing she focuses on, abandoning the thick weight of his cock between them. Which was fine, because he was about to spill, and he hadn’t wanted to come that way. She busies herself with sucking on his bottom lip, swelling it up before biting down on it with enough force to draw blood. She liked tasting his ichor; she told him this once after a precocious battle when they were still well-liked by many of their peers, and had retreated home to lick each other’s wounds. He’d gotten this nasty gash on his arm; a graze from a bullet that turned his milky skin to jelly. She pulled it free and stitched it shut with the red vines of her magic in less than an hour. There was still some spilled blood leftover, but instead of cleaning it with a cloth, she took her tongue to his skin and washed it clean with her spit instead of soap, a little cat with kitten licks.
He marveled at her then, the same way he marvels at her now. It wasn't any different from licking one's own small cut, the dribble of blood. Their blood was shared after all, one and the same. And, besides—it was really one of the only ways she’d get to hurt him without truly hurting him. He whimpers softly, almost girlishly. He’d do whatever she wanted.
And because they were the same, he knows that she’d do whatever he wants. Pietro doesn’t have to check to see if she’s wet, but he slips his fingers into her cunt and is met with no limit. A complicit, easy slide. He pulls back slightly to take in the sight of her when he nudges the head of his cock past her folds. Fuck, he could come from the sight of her like this alone, all splayed out and sweaty, half-drooling with the anticipation. She wanted him, she really, really did. Her hands reach out for him, and her lips part to warble out a begging plea for him to continue.
Pietro draws a hand to her stomach before pressing into her. Wanda is so wet, so warm, and she takes him so well. It’s like she was made for this, made for him. Two perfectly made parts, impossible to function without the other.
Though her rest appeared to be tireless, it seemed to have still rejuvenated her plenty, all her strength restored. Or perhaps, that was just the life Pietro breathed into her, or rather, fucked into her, pouring all his energy into her cunt as he split her wide and tore her apart. Wanda binds her legs around his middle, notching her ankles around his back. She’d refuse to let him go. She’d keep him here within her forever if she could. In and out, he spears his cock into her, relentless, insistent. He clouds her mind, her senses. Her heart quickens, and she knows that he can feel the tumultuous beat of it with his chest pressed to hers. It rings loudly in his ears. Even if they weren’t conjoined like this, Pietro knows that he’d feel the vibrato of it, still. Across the world, in life, in death, he’d always have Wanda’s heartbeat entangled with his.
“Oh, fuck,” she chokes, a mix of sweat and tears dampening her face. He was so big, and so fucking thick . She could hardly stand it. No amount of preparation would ever make this easier, but she’d still take it all the same. Pietro’s girth was one thing, but matched with the way he hammered into her—it was enough to make her cry. “Oh fuck, oh ,” she mewls, screwing her eyes shut. Her cheeks burn at the sound of her cunt squelching, trying to better accommodate him. Pietro kisses her face, trying to absorb the heat. He licks her tears, her sweat, his tongue working wonders to soothe the ache and cool the warmth. He was blue, she was red. Cold and hot.
Pietro’s bound to burst—he knows it. Something molten swims within his stomach, but then it twists. He remembers. There was something he had to say.
“Baby,” he says, but the anglicized endearment unsettles him, sounding unfamiliar on his tongue. He tries again. “Wanda, draga .”
Wanda tightens her hold on him with her legs. She thinks he’s about to come, and so she tries to keep him there. She wants it inside.
“Listen,” he says, his voice wavering as he tries to withhold his urge. “Wanda, I love you. I love you. I wish we could do this forever.”
“Oh,” she sighs, pressing her lips to his. “Oh, Pietro, me too. Forever.”
“But, they want to take you away,” Pietro says. Even he cannot conceal the tears that threaten to spill at the mere thought of it. “Wanda, they’re going to take you from me.”
Wanda gasps; at the proclamation, at the realization, at the way he continues to tirelessly saw into her, despite the brevity of his words. Why hadn’t he said anything sooner? Where were they? What were they doing? Who—no, wait…how, where—
“They’re gonna take you,” he says, and finally, his voice breaks. Pietro drops his head low and sobs into her skin. “They’re gonna take you, they’re gonna…”
“Who?” Wanda asks, clasping her hands to his hips. It was as though their bodies had separate minds of their own. Carnally, they continued to devour each other, while their voices spoke freely. “Who’s taking me?”
“Ev–everyone…” Pietro sniffles, stammers. His hips stutter reflexively against her balmy skin. “You–you’ve gotta do something, draga, please .”
Wanda forces her hands down, driving Pietro further into the damp warmth of her sex. He spears her core, and with a choke, he unravels within her. He paints her insides and cries out as he comes undone, his chest rising and falling in even time with her own. His face is kept within the crook of her neck as he rides the tumultuous wave, little whines and snivels the only sound he’s capable of making.
She twists a hand through his hair, stroking the longer, wispier ends. Dandelion fluff, clouds. He was such an angel. Wanda loved her brother so dearly. So often did Pietro profess his unyielding adoration for her, how he’d live for her, die for her, kill for her. Wanda tended to be a bit more reserved, a bit quieter about this affection she harbored—but both knew that for all her hesitance, she was able to dole it out tenfold.
I’d kill for you, he once said. I would. I’d do it. I’d do anything.
It seemed fit that Wanda would do the same. The veil had lifted, and she was completely aware, then. She understood what he was asking, and she knew how to answer. No one would take her from him. No one would take him from her. They’d have to kill her if they wanted to try.