Cracked

By TheLostMaximoff

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I saw Age of Ultron for the second time and decided to write this. R/R.

It happens every time she closes her eyes. She feels herself fall asleep and that's when it starts. The smell of masonry dust invades her nostrils. It's the smell of powdered concrete as the walls of her home start to collapse. She can hear herself screaming and the dust chokes her. She sees the hole in her floor, big and wide like the gaping maw of some monster. She thinks for a split-second that this isn't how it happened. She never fell into the hole. Pietro rolled both of them underneath one of the beds. Pietro isn't there anymore.

Wanda Maximoff feels herself being devoured by the same hole that killed her parents. She tumbles down into the darkness like Alice going down the rabbit hole. She always loved that one. Even before getting her powers, she always saw the world differently than others did. This isn't a fairytale though and she knows she won't be going to Wonderland. Wanda falls for what feels like forever and then she can't even tell which way is up. Is she even falling anymore if there's no up?

She smells new scents now. Ozone, chemicals, blood, all of it burns her nostrils. She screams as Strucker's scientists poke and prod her. She sees jumbled images, the half-formed thoughts of everyone around her. She screams for Pietro but again he isn't there. She can feel the monsters in the dark rip into her. They want to tear her apart and then put her back together again. There's a big piece missing though. Where did her brother go? Why is she now so empty inside?

Wanda thrashes herself into consciousness. It's so violent that she almost falls off the couch. She tries to calm herself, to stop her heart from almost bursting through her chest. The soft glow of the television set does little to comfort her but it at least gives her something to focus on. She absently looks at the floor and sees pieces of something litter it.

"That's the third one you've gone through this week."

Wanda almost screams out of fright as her head whips in the direction of the voice. She tries telling herself that she's in a friendly place among new friends. It calms her fear but it doesn't fill the emptiness inside of her. She hasn't been the same since Pietro died. She likely never will be again.

"I'm sorry, Captain," she says, the words haphazardly spilling from her mouth with no real emotion behind them.

"You can call me 'Steve', Wanda," he tells her as he takes a seat next to her.

"I can't sleep in my bed," explains Wanda, staring at the TV to distance herself from everything. "I keep thinking the television will help. Every time I close my eyes, the nightmares start. I feel so alone now."

Steve doesn't say anything but he doesn't take his eyes off her either. He watches her reflexively start to curl up into a ball, her knees bunching up against her chest and her arms encircling those knees. Wanda stays like that for a few moments, not knowing what exactly to feel. She then decides to attempt to make up for the mess she left on the floor. That's how she lost Pietro. They were both trying to clean up her mess. It's all her fault that he's gone. She feels her chest seize up and tries not to cry. It's all her fault and now she's lost everything she ever loved.

"Things don't quite fit together anymore?" asks Steve because he knows what she's feeling.

"Everything is wrong," agrees Wanda as she tries to use her powers to put the broken TV remote control back together again. "What is that silly rhyme you have in this country? The one about the man falling off of a wall?"

"All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put him back together again," says Steve.

"I feel that way now," she confesses. "Pietro . . . he drove me crazy sometimes. He would treat me as if I was made of glass, like I was one of those porcelain dolls we saw in a shop's window once. Whenever I really needed him though, he always came running to my side. Now I need him the most and he's . . . he's not here."

Steve watches Wanda try to piece not only the remote control together again but herself as well. He knows how hard that is. He knows how it feels to be empty inside. Lately, he's tried to tell himself that he's a new man. He's not the same Steve Rogers who fell into the ocean all those decades ago. Yet sometimes, he catches little glimpses of the man he once was. Broken things don't always get put back together. Even when they do, they're never the same as they once were. He could tell her all about his experience with such things but she already knows. She's seen inside his mind and the kind of nightmares that lurk in there. It's why he doesn't try to console her with personal anecdotes about his own struggles. She knows them but he doesn't know hers. So he lets her talk and he listens.

"Older brothers can be like that," he says and he thinks of Bucky. "The woman I saw that day in Sokovia who fought for her home, she wasn't made of glass. Putting yourself back together again takes a special kind of strength, Wanda. For what it's worth, I think you have it."

"If I have learned anything it's that all things are possible," says Wanda as she slowly places the reassembled remote on the coffee table. She almost laughs as it falls apart immediately after she lets go of it with her powers.

"Get some sleep, Wanda," suggests Steve, smiling at her and making her smile in return. "You know I'm not cutting you any slack during training tomorrow."

"Thank you, Steve," says Wanda and he nods in return before departing.

Wanda gets up and turns off the TV before laying back down again. She sings to herself. The soft melody of a lullaby fills her head and she sings the words to herself in her native tongue. It's the song her mother sang to her and her brother when they were children. It's also the same song Pietro sang to her whenever she was frightened. It comforts her now and she doesn't feel quite as empty anymore. There are so many cracks in her but she's keeping herself together. She thinks that Pietro would be proud of her for that.