I could sleep, when I lived alone. Characters: Wanda, Tony, later Steve Setting: Avengers tower, late Content: Likely nothing bad? Summary: Wanda didn't know the heroes returned, and now she finds out. Tony visits Steve.
Wanda couldn't sleep, but this was no revelation. Of course she couldn't. Of course she would have dreams of bugs and death and those two men who were apparently lost to her forever. Her rest was fitful, fleeting, and full of nightmares. She lay now tossing and turning until finally, as she heard the clock on her beside table strike one, she got up and ventured out of the confines of her bedroom. Creeping down the stairs, pale as a specter, Wanda drifted from room to room until she came to a little study that was dominated by a grand piano. She didn't bother to turn on the lights, the city through the window supplied illumination enough, teeming and vibrant even so late on this Saturday evening.
Sliding onto the piano bench, she stared out at the shimmering view, absently fingering the instrument's ivory keys. Wanda thought that if she played softly she shouldn't disturb anyone and so with her left hand she pressed the opening pianissimo chords of the first movement in Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Her right hand joined in with a triplet figuration and she closed her eyes, listening to the soft notes lingering in the air like a lamentation. Isolation was not treating her well. Ever since she'd fulfilled her self-imposed obligation in giving the boys their apartment Wanda had put herself into a state of solitude in the tower. She'd seen no one in two days, had no idea where her phone was, and the other inhabitants of the tower had learned well enough after fits of rage on her part to leave Wanda alone.
It was all just too much to handle. What had begun as staunch denial about Nick and Tony was now a despondent certainty. It was unbearable and hopeless and worse than India- at least there she'd been able to do something, to search. Here on earth, there was nothing she could do. They were too far away. They were dead. And still, there was the escape of Tommy to contend with and that news, if possible, left her even more heartbroken than before. And Pietro, who she'd avoided entirely, for fear of having to admit she'd failed him on the Horizon and was the reason they'd been hurt. It was always her fault, everything, when she did something wrong when she couldn't do something right. Turning in on herself was easier than facing any of it. Detaching and escaping reality even if she couldn't escape her memories and her nightmares. It was easier to just become this phantom haunting the Avengers tower, wandering and restless in the darkest hours of the night.