THE SWEET DYING BREATH OF BITTER VINDICATION

It seemed too coincidental that Wanda happened to glance at her silenced cellphone in passing, at the exact instant that the text icon appeared. She carried it with her towards the bathroom reluctantly, where lavender-infused tub water filled the air with scented steam.
"This better be nothing," she sighed, swiping the screen to life.

Pietro:
'Need help. Meet at Grom, Central Park. Have Luna. Bring car.'

Wanda texted back one-handed, fishing through her purse for the keys and mentally kissing her post-workout bath goodbye:
'Emergency ice cream party?'

The immediate response:
'NO. Hurry please.'

Of course Pietro had already told her when he resigned from Serval Industries as a member of X-Factor, and that he was bringing Luna back with him to Avengers' Headquarters that weekend. He said that after Crystal arrived to take Luna home to Attilan -whenever that might be- he intended to enlist for active duty with the team once again.

Grom was an ice cream parlor within easy walking distance to the lightrail they must have rode into town – but why Pietro would ask for a ride before hailing a cab, or not simply traverse the relatively short distance to the mansion on foot, begged a pointed question.

Wanda made it to 58th within 15 minutes – record time at that hour, thanks to every traffic signal turning in her favor by some not-so mysterious stretch of probability. By luck, a space opened up on the nearest corner, and after parking she walked at the pace of a jog around the block until spotting her brother and niece seated at a patio table outside. Luna wore her father's too-big sunglasses and a wide smile interrupted only by generous helpings of gelato, while she kicked her feet contentedly. Pietro lounged back a bit stiffly in his chair, looking not atypically uncomfortable, only more so, and much too still. He nodded towards her in recognition even at that distance.

Seeing her next, Luna sprang out of the seat and dashed to meet her in greeting. "Oh Wanda, Auntie Wanda! I thought ice cream was the surprise!"

"Hi, honey!" Wanda hugged the girl, kissed her temple, and thumbed some errant chocolate sauce off of her chin, making distracted small talk while leading the way hand-in-hand back to their table.

Pietro did not stand to greet her as he normally might, but mustered a strained smile that would not have fooled a blind man. "Hello, little brother," Wanda bent to kiss his cheek. Her brother's body temperature had always trended higher than average, but now even in a state of rest, his skin absolutely burned against hers. Her palm that she rested momentarily on the back of his neck came away clammy.

She sat down and concentrated to keep her expression cheerful for Luna's sake as she regarded his pallid complexion, and thought of what to say. Something was very wrong.

He nodded affirmative as though she had vocalized the fear. "Ginger lemon," he said, sliding a cup of melting heaven towards her, only a few spoonfulls missing. "It's actually quite terrific."

She tried some. "Mm. It really is. Not hungry?"

"Daddy doesn't feel well." Luna had resumed kicking one foot after the other while finishing her treat. "We stopped to rest before the zoo." Suddenly she looked up, stilling her legs as she lifted the sunglasses onto the top of her head and squinted at both grown-ups in turn. "…Daddy, we can visit the animals another day, I won't be sad."

"I think that would be best," Wanda interjected. "My car is just around the block. Shall we head home?" At only a split-second hesitation, she said, "Stay here – I will bring it around."

When she pulled up minutes later, Pietro stood waiting with Luna at the curb. She rolled down the window just as he was saying, "Because I want you to sit in front and visit with your Auntie, baby girl," and ushered Luna into the passenger seat.

Wanda helped get her all buckled up, and straightening saw in the rearview mirror Pietro bury his face in both hands and lie down sideways across the backseats. He spoke no more. She got them home in ten minutes flat.

.

.

.

"He should have gone straight to the hospital." Captain America signed and handed back the requisition form to the staff nurse, who sped away at once.

"It's not safe for Luna to spend time in a hospital. Given her mother's allergen profile, she probably hasn't been vaccinated against the common virus' here – I doubt she is even in the system in this country. What if he lost consciousness and they sent for child protective services before I had arrived? No." At Steve's lingering stare, Wanda added with a wave of her hand, "I'm just telling you what my brother would have been thinking."

Steve shifted to gaze down the infirmary hallway where he had practically carried Pietro not an hour past, empty and quiet again for the time being. "He was pretty out of sorts. I would suspect poison, but – with his metabolism, that just doesn't seem possible."

"Poison…" Wanda rubbed the sudden goosebumps on her arms. She had messaged Steve en route home:
'SOS. Need med bay prep. Pietro sick. Help out front.'

The good Captain was there waiting beside Jarvis as she pulled to a hard stop before the porch. Without hearing, she saw that Steve mouthed 'He's down', and stood taller at full attention. At once he bee-lined to the backdoor, saying in his stern but calm way, "Wanda, take Luna inside, it's okay – Jarvis, go ahead of us and code blue the med team – I've got him. Pietro. Pietro, hey. Answer me, Avenger."

In the short time it took Wanda to escort her niece inside, she did not hear her brother respond. Upstairs, she spent a while settling Luna into the guest room that Jarvis had prepared – but by then, the mood was subdued by the undeniable sense of foreboding, and it seemed useless to try making light. Finally Luna told her, "I know they won't let me see him right now. Please go check on my daddy? I promise not to wander."

Now Wanda stood beside their leader, their friend, alternating her stare between the closed doors of the lab and examination room. "Was he talking at all before they sent you out?"

"A little, actually."

She looked at him, recognizing his expression as one of frustration. "What did he say?"

"I don't know. It wasn't English or anything I recognized. Like I said, he was out of it, could barely walk." She saw his jaw clench and he sighed without taking a breath. Self-admonishment. He said softer, "Don't worry, Wanda. You know how strong he is. You're both so strong. He'll fight, he'll come through. He always does."

Unconsciously, their hands found each other in the empty space that separated them, clasping tight; comrades worried for their brother in arms. This is what Wanda told herself.

After a small eternity, the nurse's aide emerged, clipboard in hand. She shrank just a little as she approached the pair. "Hi, folks. Sorry. I don't have much of an update. Nurse Quip just called in a couple of specialists, they're on the way now."

"Specialists in what field?"

"Toxicology, virology. I'm sorry I don't know all the details yet. We're working as fast as we can. She sent me out to ask if you would please sign this biopsy release."

Wanda scribbled her name, not really looking. "Why do I have to sign?"

The aide flushed red. "I thought I read the- excuse me..." she flipped through some sheets on the clipboard. "No, I was right, it says defer to next of kin. Aren't you Wanda Maximoff?"

"I am, but-"

"Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry, ma'am, I thought someone had already told you." Suddenly she reached out to touch Wanda lightly on the arm, and donned the practiced expression of soothing empathy that they must teach in medical school. "Your brother can't give consent. He's slipped into a coma."

.

.

.

Wanda:
'Please come to Avengers HQ right away.'

Crystal:
'Oh no. What has he done now? I swear Wanda I don't know how much more of this I can take! Is Luna OK?'

Wanda switched the phone to her other hand. The case had left marks in her palm, she squeezed it that hard.
'Luna is fine, she's watching a movie. Can you come for her please?'

Crystal:
'Yes of course. Be there soon. What happened?'

Wanda erased the first three replies, focusing hard to redirect her anger where it truly belonged: with the cruel and senseless fates that had seemed to curse her entire bloodline.
'My brother fell sick and now he's in a coma. Very sudden. Luna doesn't know how bad it's become.'
She deleted this text twice but finally sent:
'I'm scared.'

However miniscule it may be, Wanda still expected something. The hopeless romantic within her insisted that two people who had shared their hearts and brought a life into this world could never be completely without love for each other. Her phone went dark and remained so. She set the lifeless device aside to hold her brother's heavy hand between hers, and prayed for him in the silence while it lasted.

.

.

.

"Family only, please ma'am. No visitors at this time."

Wanda half listened to the ensuring argument in the doorway behind her, permitting herself to feel darkly amused and only mildly ashamed for it. The nurse seeing the door opening had rushed to intercept – knowing that according to her patient's stat chart, Wanda was his only living relative over four feet tall. Divorced. She envisioned the word in bold red font. What color would they type Unknown in the field reserved for 'cause of death'? What color would they type Deceased in the field reserved for 'siblings' on Wanda's own chart after her brother left this world?

"It's all right." She twisted in her chair. "Nurse, let her in - and please give us some privacy. I asked her to come." Hours ago. Hours! Wanda forced her hands to unclench and kept her voice light, the only way Pietro should hear her right now. "Hello, Crystal."

Passing the nurse, Crystal straightened her clothes completely unnecessarily, visually miffed that anyone would dare to refuse her majesty's desire. But as she approached the bedside where Wanda's chair sat, her expression softened, then fell stricken as she took in the sight of the man who had once been her husband. "Sweet Agon..."

Pietro lay sunken and inert, his flesh a sickly off-color save for the equally unhealthy flush under both shut eyes, silent testimony to the raging fever that alone would kill him eventually. An IV hung from one arm giving fluids, a second in the other delivering a series of medicines that one by one were failing to help save his life. A machine that he would despise being connected to monitored his vitals, and an oxygen mask helped alleviate the symptoms of years-old scarring on his lungs that inexplicably flared.

Wanda said, "It's a virus. They know that much now at least. The specialist said it is synthetic – manmade. We suspected poison from the start, I think Pietro did too. Hard to say how it happened, or by whose hand. He does have plenty of enemies these days – I'm sure you would agree." Wanda reached out, stroked his forearm apologetically, as though he had hushed her – because he still would protect this woman's feelings, despite everything. "Never mind. Never mind. I would like to say goodbye to Luna before you leave. What did you tell her about her father's condition?"

"It's late, I already put Luna to bed. But we're staying here."

"Why?"

"Why? Wanda, give me-"

"What." She swatted away the hand that tried to cling to her shoulder in a too-late gesture of sisterly comfort. "What do you want, Crystal? You took his heart and you broke it. You gave him a child and you kept her from him. You offered him a home and then shunned him from it. I asked you here to take care of Luna, so that I can take care of my brother – because you won't, because you never did. What more do you want from us, now that we are all that's left to lose?"

A different hand molded to her shoulder, strong and familiar. Immediately abashed for lashing out, she slumped forward and wept silently into her hands for one precious moment, an involuntary release of tension before she exploded. It must be very late, so tired, it must be the middle of the night, the time when most people slip away if they are this close and sliding so fast.

"Wanda," Steve's voice came in his usual manner, even and assured – and towards her, always also with a certain gentleness. She used to suppose he did it to appease her brother. But her brother lay comatose before them now, and Steve soothed her all the same, centered her, emboldened her. "Calm down, sweetheart. This isn't the time or place for that. Listen to what she has to say. I know you're hurting; we all are. It's okay. Just listen."

When Wanda looked up, she saw that Crystal dried her own face as well, her resolute expression a veneer of antiquity, like the cracking paint of a monarch's portrait. She sniffed, but holding her chin up high said, "I brought Attilan's best healers with me. They've been collaborating with your doctors since we arrived hours ago. We know what plagues him. My cousin Maximus has perished. You were right, Pietro was poisoned, probably over and over throughout the years - Maximus poisoned several of us also, his own family. Now that his psychic inhibitors have dissolved, the virus is unchecked and running rampant."

"Well. I'm sorry for your loss." Wanda had resumed stroking Pietro's arm, the motion becoming meditative for her. Could he leave if she kept holding on?

"I do not mourn that lunatic - the king's justice was long overdue." Crystal stepped closer. "It wasn't meant to be fatal, the poison that he used on his brother, on my sister - on me. But this one inside Pietro is different, it- this is what it was designed to do, in the event that Maximus finally got what he deserved."

"And my brother... what did my brother do to deserve this?"

"He fell in love with me." With one outstretched finger Crystal touched his, curling around to hang on like the last forbidden fruit before the first winter freeze. "For Maximus loved me too, in his demented way – love twisted by madness into loathing. He believed I was owed to him – and if he could not have me in the end, neither would my beloved, my chosen one."

The doctor and his assistant entered at that moment, moving fast to swap out one intravenous drip bag for another that he carried, while the aide drew some blood just as quickly. He adjusted the machine and made notes, handing the clipboard to the nurse and taking her crimson vial urgently before they both rushed away.

Wanda craned her neck to see her sister-no-longer, looking stoic and small, both hands wrapped tight around herself - because who else did she have the right to hold now?

"Crystal," Wanda turned back to watch the Inhuman medicine dropping like tears into her twin's vein, "I'm glad that you are here with us."

Steve swung a second chair into place beside hers, and with a final reassuring squeeze on Wanda's shoulder, left the two women alone.

.

.

.

A laser beam of sunlight penetrated the window shades at the exact right angle to hurt her eyes. Waking, Wanda stretched in her chair, assailed first by a pain to her neck and then a sinkhole in her gut. Pietro.

She doubled forward at once, monitors be damned, and felt for his pulse. Alive.

Beside her Crystal stirred, leaning over herself. "Three hours," she murmured, spinning her wristwatch right side up. "It's only been a few hours."

At that very instant Pietro roused, as though summoned by name. He made an immediate noise, muffed under the oxygen mask that despite her better judgement Wanda removed straightaway. His eyes took focus on her first.

"Hi," he rasped, blinking rapidly under a cinched brow. "Hey - quit that."

Between half a quivering smile and half soundless sobs, Wanda alternated palming away the tears from her cheeks and stroking his face with the dry back of either hand, until her voice would work. "Hello, little brother. What took you so long?" she managed to get that much out before a burst of anxious laughter.

He had enough strength to smile at the jest. Then his lazy gaze shifted to Crystal perched on the edge of her seat at his sister's side. Bottom lip trapped crooked between her teeth, she tried to smile as well.

"Princess…" he swallowed with some effort, finishing wryly, "we cannot keep meeting this way."

Wanda sprang to her feet. "I will bring water. I will call the doctor." Splaying upon the chair once more and cradling his hand, "I will get whatever you need. Do you feel any pain? Is the sun too bright? Tell me what to do."

"Relax." Pietro squeezed her fingers for reassurance. "And... water would also be nice."

Standing and bending, Wanda kissed his forehead one, two, three times and then sped out of the room.

"Radiant."

"What?" Crystal shifted into the closer chair for better hearing, his voice was so low.

"You are."

"Did you say 'radiant'? Pietro…" she turned her flushed cheeks away with the motion of tucking errant hair behind one ear. "I- I'm glad you're awake. So very glad. We were frightened."

His hand stretched towards her and instinctively she bridged the gap between them to weave her fingers through his. The connection felt foreign yet comfortable and exotic but familiar. Irresistible, exhilarating – like a static charge, like always. Crystal pretended that their divorce made none of these things true anymore.

"Is it-" he seemed to test his muscles that seemed mostly unresponsive, "I have no memory. What... am I contagious?"

"No, no."

"No?" With a playful tug of her wrist and a coy smirk she had not seen in years, he said, "Then kiss me already."

"I…."

"Have mercy," another tug while his smile grew positively mischievous, "I am literally dying for you to kiss me."

"Hush. That isn't funny." Obviously, he was not himself – his Slavic accent thick and musical, his demeanor far too blithe, and being so flirtatious... the American doctors must have been administering feel-good drugs aside from the medication that her Inhuman healers helped to devise. Expecting a chaste peck once his bluff had been called, Crystal arched over to humor his strange mood – he would probably forget this entire exchange anyway.

The kiss began delicate, genuine – and with every passing second, every heated quickening breath, became harder to stop. At some point his fingers gently traced her face, snaking around the back of her neck and into her hair. Unconsciously she angled against the tickle there, and their connection deepened in turn. They both made a sound into the other's mouth, plaintive, ravenous, an echo of love-filled days long gone.

Finally Crystal pulled herself away, trying to get her breath back, to swallow away the taste of him, as unexpected tears clouded her eyes at the memories so stirred.

"Shh, darling - no tears, do not worry," he said, massaging her hand with his. "Look at me, Crystalia, come here. It's all right. I'm all right."

Crystal regarded him closely. The way he looked at her, the way he kissed her, his tone, his touch. Everything how it used to be, tender and passionate and heartfelt. "Pietro..." she shook her head without thinking. "You had a terrible fever. A deadly fever."

"It will be all right. I'm just tired now. I promise."

"Do you know- what's the last thing you can remember?"

He stilled, seemed to relax heavier into his pillow, and then reactivated the smile intended solely to comfort her. "I cannot remember." Eyes falling half-lidded and then shut, he said, "I love you," before drifting off.

Crystal watched him sleep until Wanda arrived, chilled water bottle in hand and an entourage of medical personnel in company.

"He doesn't remember."

"What doesn't he remember?"

Crystal stood and faced the crowd. "Any of it. He fought for his life and persevered at last. The virus is dead, but along with it, his memories of all those years spent under its thrall."

What comes next, after the sweet dying breath of bitter vindication?

~FIN~

Notes:
Inspired by these three canonical incidents: In Son of M #4, Luna develops powers after exposure to the Terrigen Mists and sees a wretched black 'Thing' in her father's chest (the rest of him, by the way, is colored with beautiful light). Later in Silent War, Luna also sees one of those "black spider-things" in her cousin Ahura's head – she recognizes it from her father, recalls seeing the same in Medusa and Black Bolt (though not her mother, apparently). Maximus acknowledges this as his doing, of course – because he's diabolical and plans way ahead. Then finally in Inhumans #8, Black Bolt executes his damned brother once and for all.

So my hypothesis: what if once Maximus died, everyone he exposed to this virus-poison was utterly free of his influence and came back to themselves? But as for Pietro (who arguably went crazier for longer than any of the other victims), Maximus actually wanted him dead – only Pietro's formidable resilience and ability to heal thanks to his mutant (I said mutant) powers kept him alive but suffering all those years, and mentally unstable as a result most of the time.

Until now?

It's an AU, it's unabashedly apologetic, and I'm not sorry for not being sorry. Sue me. (Please don't.)