InsaneJournal

WHO: Wanda & Pietro Maximoff
WHERE: Wanda & Hayley's apartment
WHEN: {backdated} October
WHAT: Wanda drops the bombshell on Pietro and gifts him with a picture.
WARNINGS: PG - discussion of familial death
STATUS: Complete

Wanda was nervous.

She’d cleaned the apartment, twice, and when that didn’t calm her she’d baked some biscuits that she tried to remember from her mother, from their mother’s old recipes. She didn’t think she’d gotten it spot on, but the apartment had that comforting smell about it now.

A few nights ago she’d woken to another gift from the dreams, the small photograph that Pietro had salvaged from the wreckage of their home, burnt and torn, but well enough to make out the fading image of their parents’ faces. She knew when she’d seen it, after her heart had slowly unclenched, that she needed to share it with Pietro, give him that visual of what their family was.

But in order to do that, first, she needed to talk to him about what she’d already told him. It didn’t seem like it would be right to let him discover they were siblings on his own, and if he was dreaming now too, he would find out. She should tell him first, see if she could help him through what he was going to dream of.

Which was why it was so nerve wracking.

She needed to stop checking her phone to see what time it was, Pietro would arrive when he arrived. Nervous energy wasn’t good for her, and she definitely needed to keep her powers in check right then.

---

Pietro was intrigued.

Though perhaps intrigued was the wrong use of a word especially as it related to the apparent information that Wanda had held back from him including how well she knew him. Perhaps interested in the truth were better words to describe his current mental and emotional state but couple those with some very strange dreams and he was running as close to empty as he probably should.

He got… antsy, easily irritated, and all kinds of negative emotions when he was tired or hadn’t been able to deal with his racing thoughts. Sometimes it felt unnatural how quick his mind worked and others times it felt so very slow.

Short work was made of the trip to Wanda’s and it was as he stood outside her door (as somebody had been kind enough to let him in) he found that he hesitated with his hand outstretched to knock. It took a breath and then rapped his knuckles against the wood of the door.

---

The noise at the door at least cut off Wanda’s ability to panic, giving her something to focus on, even if that something was informing a relative stranger that they were siblings. She just had to pull the bandaid off and hope she could salvage something from it.

As she opened the door, Wanda stepped to the side, inviting Pietro inside, “Hi,” she never usually felt this nervous about seeing Pietro, “come on in, can I get you anything?” She already had tea on for herself, something to help her calm down, but she could easily put something on for Pietro too.

“Make yourself comfortable.” They’d get to the reason for his visit soon, but she was committed to stalling at least a little.

---

Pietro accepted Wanda’s invitation and stepped over the threshold to her home. It was warm, that was the first thing he noticed, and it smelt nice. It seemed she had a nice place which he was thankful for, he wouldn’t want her living someplace that was… horrible and most importantly unsafe.

It was strange but he found himself being protective over her.

“A soda would be nice.”

---

Wanda made the quick trip to the kitchen, grabbing two sodas and two glasses, pouring them out to carry back through to the lounge to settle on the sofa, glasses on the table on top of coasters. Wanda was nothing if not a considerate housemate.

“I take it you’re not looking to beat around the bush, as it were.” Wanda wouldn’t want to, she knew that much. She’d want to get right to the whole thing.

And as much as maybe she wanted to drag it out, not chase away Pietro just yet.

---

Pietro nodded his head. “I would prefer if we did not.” He didn’t like “beating around the bush” about anything, he’d always been direct and to the point. “I think it would be best, for both of us.”

He didn’t take a seat at first because he was restless and his pace was definitely quicker than anybody else’s but he hadn’t noticed that as to him it was normal as was his desire to always be moving.

It wasn’t abnormal, was it?

---

It wasn’t a surprise that Pietro wanted to jump right into things at all. So Wanda just had to bite the bullet, “When I told you that we were friends back home, it wasn’t the full truth. We are friends, but we are very much more than just that.” Tugging out the picture from where it was folded under the box on the table, Wanda opened it up and handed it out to Pietro.

“I am your sister.” Something that the dreams would tell him was the truth shortly, but she felt like people were right, she had to tell him this herself, not take the easy way out. There was too much risk that the easy way out would result in more hurt. “I’m your twin sister to be exact.”

Her fingers were tangled together, Wanda unable to not fidget a little, waiting to let that sink in for Pietro.

---

Pietro’s brow furrowed together as Wanda admitted that she hadn’t told him the full truth when they’d first met and he took the picture that she gave him. It was of them and two other people who he could only assume were their parents and had it not been such an old photograph clearly looked at a lot by the worn edges he might have been tempted to call foul play.

She was his… sister? His twin sister?

It felt like his head was spinning and Pietro’s brain (which if you knew him was always several steps ahead) was apparently fighting a losing battle with comprehension and understanding as the two warred with one another especially as when he’d woken they had been no-one to claim him, he’d been a John Doe.

“If you are my sister then why did I wake up alone?”

---

At least he wasn’t arguing with her and calling her a liar.

“When the building came down, we were separated. You were in another room and I was caught in a slide of debris. It caused a fracture in my spine and several breaks in my leg.” Her injuries hadn’t been life threatening. But they were things that could be dealt with in a small clinic in the middle of a battle zone. “I was air lifted to Greece for treatment before they sent me here. I had filled out the missing person files for you, although they told me you had likely died with mother and father.”

Wanda hadn’t believed it though. There had never been a body or tangible evidence that her brother had died in the blast. “It is likely, because you didn’t know you were Pietro Maximoff, no one knew to contact me when you reached the hospital.” Even with a damaged spine and leg, Wanda would’ve gone back for him. She knew he would’ve done the same.

---

Call it gut instinct or intuition but there was something about Wanda that made Pietro trust her, to believe what she was saying, and to let it sink in without argument. It did not make it any easier to hear or wrap his head around but he did not think she would lie about something as serious as this.

‘He had suspected that if he’d had parents that they had been killed in the attack and whilst it had been difficult to grieve for people he didn’t even know to hear that this was in fact the case made it so much harder.

His brows knitted together as he tried to process this new information and honestly the room suddenly felt much too small and far too… stagnant, not enough movement, not enough space and he was suddenly in need of some air.

And as if by magic his panic and accompanying emotions could be quite easily felt by his newly discovered twin, a previous empty void that now felt filled.

---

Wanda was aware enough of things to be sensitive enough to the feelings swirling around about this, she was cautiously optimistic about the outcome, yes. But she didn’t want to expect too much of Pietro all at once.

But she started to sense the second hand panic, the confusion and old wounds opening again, she couldn’t help pressing on. “I wish more than anything I had stayed, that I’d still been there or come back, I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you when I should’ve been.” Pietro had always been there for Wanda when she needed him growing up, and she’d been in another country when he really needed her.

“I want to help, in any way I can,” there was a lot going on, and Wanda kept herself focused on Pietro to keep her powers at bay, to keep them contained and all her attention on repairing whatever she could right then with Pietro. “I would like to regain your trust.”

---

Pietro’s eyes darted from the fixation on the nearby window to rest on Wanda’s face, his own a contortion of confusion, pain, and to a certain extent: longing. He wanted nothing more than to know who he was and where he’d come from, but this, this was not at all like he imagined it might happen.

“I need time,.” was what he managed to come out with, faster than normal speech, and had somebody not been accustomed to keeping up with at that speed they might have struggled to understand. “To process and understand all of this.”

It was a lot, especially for somebody who still had so many gaps in their memory.

---

It was painful, yes, but she had to be understanding, had to consider things from his perspective. He’d been on his own, dealing with all of this, for so long. Of course it would take some time to get through, to be open to help from a relative stranger.

“Of course, yes, if you---” Wanda shook her head lightly, like she was dislodging something stuck to her temples. It was an odd swirling mix of emotions that was building up, and while she knew that in this life she and Pietro had never honestly been psychically linked, she did know that their dream counterparts were bonded from their experiments.

“I will be there, however you need me, even if it also includes not being right there for a while.” She had to let Pietro get to grips with things, obviously, come around to it. “But you can always ask me absolutely anything, and I will tell you whatever I know.”

She wished she had more from their home, more of their stuff that might help him, might help make a connection. “If you like… you can keep the photograph?”

---

Pietro felt a pang of something in the depths of his chest when it was clear that Wanda was in pain and he knew that he on some level was responsible for that. Still, he was definitely not in any sort of state to offer comfort let alone reassurances.

At the mention of the picture he glanced at where it was still wrapped up in his fingers and nodded. “Yes, I would like that.” Perhaps if he looked at it some more it might jog some sort of memory and give him some sense of who he was but more importantly who the people in the picture were to him.

“I should go,” he said as he slipped the picture into the pocket of his jeans. “I have a lot to think about.”

He wanted to tell her that he’d be in touch soon but he honestly didn’t know when it might be and he didn’t want to get her hopes up only for them to be dashed.

---

All in all, despite the pain in her chest, Wanda had to admit that things had gone somewhat better than her worst case scenario. She understood that Pietro would need time to adjust to things, to get his head around new information, especially given he didn’t have the same emotional connection that she did. She just had to take a breath, steady herself, and hope for the best.

“Yes, of course,” if Pietro needed to process, she’d have to allow for that.

“Please though, if you have any questions, or would like to meet for tea, I will be available.” Even if it meant blowing off class or something else, Wanda would make herself available for her brother.

---

Pietro nodded and without much further ado he collected up his jacket, slipping it on over his shoulders, and he turned to move towards the door. Running had never felt more natural than it did in this moment and yet something compelled him to linger, to look back, and to impulsively drop a kiss on Wanda’s temple.

“We’ll talk soon,” he murmured there before he was turning on his heel, heading out, trying to process what he’d just found out.

---

In a moment where her world could feel like it was shattering all over again, Wanda managed to find a little glimmer of hope, given the gesture -something Pietro probably wasn’t even aware was something he’d done a billion times before.

It made the soft, lost look on her face a little less deep. She could wait, it wasn’t like he was gone completely and that small kiss to her temple left a bloom of optimism in her chest.