Silent Connections

All characters belong to Marvel Comic and Studios

"Thank you, Captain Rogers," Wanda said with a measure of gratitude evident in her voice, accepting the sketch book and pencil set. It had been so long since she had received gifts; mostly everything she had was taken from her. It felt strange to clutch something undamaged or stolen in her hands.

Feeling a sharp clench in her chest; she dismally looked up at him, narrowing a guarded stare into his soulful azure eyes; they opened with ablaze of understanding that held the intensity and unyielding scorch of a lightning storm. Feeling secured in the embrace of his benevolent heart, Wanda stilted her eyes closed and tears fell like dew on her smudged lashes. But the ghost of her breath held avid hesitance. "This-this gift really means a lot to me."

"You're welcome, Wanda. It was my pleasure." Steve returned airily, the immense bulk of his muscular-enhanced form pressed into the leather cushions of the couch. Shadows cast over his serrate edged cheekbones, darkening his casual demeanor as a frail smile tugged over his full lips. He leveled more evenly with her, but maintained his distance; he would never breach it, unless she welcomed him.

A slew of emotions raked against his mind, but his defiance abated each brim of impulse to close the gap between them. "You know," he paused in a low breath, flattening his lips, as he took a moment to regain his words. He was certain that she needed companionship in the wake of her adaptation to the normal world—most importantly—she need a friend to trust. His intense stare of azure fell onto the newspaper's showtimes which Sam had previous highlighted for him.

Scanning over the list of films, Steve felt a small tweak of a grin play at his lips. He decided to reduce the silent tension wavering over them."There's a good movie playing tonight…I was planning on going out alone, but I was just wondering if you'd care to join me, Wanda?"

Resistance tried to drive her away. She had never been asked, always ordered. This was a little daunting for her opaque nature to accept. Whatever happened outside, didn't spike her evolving interest of embracing normalcy; she had considered herself plenty of times as an outsider, mostly someone that didn't want to feel deserving trust that would engirdled her.

Although, Wanda had latent desires to feel a sense of belonging, she was marked as a vessel of fear—limitless with freakish and mutated powers, a conjurer who controlled and twisted shadows of an exposed mind. Right now, curiosity steered her wary thoughts to chance a simple gesture. Her grayish eyes brightened. Regardless, she stared back at him; searching and feeling the urge to accept his offer.

The ache in her chest grew. She held a breath for a moment, trying to prevent her powers from emanating crimson flares over her ashen skin. They were unpredictable to control; the hazardous urges couldn't be subdued unless she found an outlet. "It has been a long time since I have seen a film. The theater in Sokovia was devastated long ago. Pietro used to steal a glance of them sometimes at neighboring cities." She mused darkly, but the pretense of remorse invaded her mind.

Every aspect of the life she had endured in the shadow of HYDRA was torturous surrender for orphans with rebellious hearts, there were no boundaries to freedom, no approach of light to make hope arise. For years, she was a willing captive in Baron Wolfgang Strucker's maze structured fortress of rebirth—evolution.

There was simply no time to remain still in the semblance of vengeance. She had learned to adapt as an orphan, using her thieving skills to maintain the wake of hunger. It was necessary to survive in damp attics and alleyways. Nothing had been certain, or assuring death had loomed and took young lives who didn't have the security of unbreakable love to carry on the fight of survival.

With her twin shielding her, she allowed rage to possess her fears and shatter memories of her deceased parents. The future was never promising, it was bleak and empty and the change of passing the seasons never offered her comfort.

Ghosts had loomed in the dark labyrinth, all of them voiceless and foreboding—vessels of observance and perfected terror that harbored concentrated power. She never wanted to feel her soul become a devoid, so she fought to the keep the pulse of hope and used vengeance and her brother's unbreakable love as fuel to resist the mind possessing grasp of HYDRA. It wasn't the freedom she deserved. Swallowing down her torment, Wanda shifted a teary glance back at Steve. "We never had a chance to enjoy them in those years of us being caged…Like monsters."

As he listened to the measure of derision in her voice, Steve furrowed his brow, deeply, and then saddled his blue eyes on his leather bomber jacket hanging off of a chair. He modestly carted his fingers through his stiff blond tresses, and flexed his jaw slightly, pondering. "Well, how about I treat you out for the night. Consider it part of your training…Don't tell, Natasha."

He gave her a fast wink, and then he straightened to his towering height of six feet, extending his large hand to her. "C'mon, I need to show you the ropes, and sometimes having a little fun can be something you need."

Wanda bit her lip, not entirely sure if she could trust the super-soldier; freedom was foreign to her, adapting to a new life with her brother was difficult to grasp onto. Her heart thudded against her chest as her breath separated from her lungs. Red flares erupted in her pulsing veins and she couldn't resist the urge to release the surges of energy.

"No," she dismissed out a seethe, turning her head away. "I can't be seen out there…" She drew out a shaky exhale, trying to fight against the pulse of desperation. Her lips trembled, and her fingers graced over her engraved silver and black brackets. There was a hint of conviction in her protesting voice. "I'm not ready to face them, not when they see me as what HYDRA made me into, Captain Rogers."

"It's not what they see, Wanda," Steve returned with an ease of his Brooklyn drawl, Wanda lifted her eyebrow at the sudden cadence of his deep, authoritative voice. It didn't sound commanding, but more brotherly for her to seek comfort from that it pulled her away from despair. His massive, callused hand barely grazed her shoulder, but she still felt the heat of his soothing touch; a shared connection that she only felt with her twin brother. At this, Wanda shifted a little to latch onto that reverent warmth.

"You gotta believe in yourself. A reflection in some mirror, it doesn't define who you are…It's a given choice. You must accept when the time becomes right to prove to those people out there, that you are more than just a product of HYDRA…You're an Avenger."

The detachment of her twin's warm embrace became a poison that devoured through her. She was alone to survive the twists of nightmares, the pent of rage that she tried to resist from unleashing every time her vengeful gaze settled onto the man who had taken everything from her: Tony Stark. She still held resentment to his company, the weapons, his creations and his blinded arrogance. It resided in her like cold embers of smoldering hate that seared into her bones as the pulses of her enhanced power hungered for vengeance.

Wanda didn't have to read his thoughts, just by his disquiet countenance that shadowed over his prominent and boyish features. She caught a glimpse of hidden pain, and the utter acceptance for emptiness. For the first time in six months, she felt a smirk pull at her burgundy lips, as she returned in an evened whisper, holding his clear stare of blue.

She didn't blink, her gray eyes rimmed with swirls of crimson as she searched for dreams that welled beyond the shadows of his fractured past. Inference wasn't granted as she delved further into his stare, so intent and stern. "You're strong enough to pretend for them, but your secret is real enough to keep with me."

Stillness overtook him momentarily. Steve tried not to remember, but memories replayed in his mind and it was hard to escape them, he'd never wanted to accept that he spent his days alone, searching for another infinite purpose without the storm of regrets that were keeping him distant.

Waking up to a new world hadn't been easy to endure, but Steve focused on adapting and used missions as distractions. He'd tried to forget broken dreams and stripped promises: the dance with Peggy at the Stork Club and the wedding band that he wanted to see gleaming over her delicate finger. Against all of that, he soldiered on, finding new strength with the new friends he crossed paths with…It wasn't the same without Bucky.

The brotherly bond he embraced with James Barnes on the desolate streets of Brooklyn—everlasting, he kept telling himself. The ache was still present. The pain never abated; despite the pulses of the serum, it was buried deep into his bones. There was no release, though he probably would find a way to regress against the sense of peace. It was a soldier's price to carry the weight of loss, to move through the charge without looking back, but when Bucky fell, he did—many of times.

"Listen," Steve finally responded, raking down his own grief, his blue eyes unfathomable and steadied at her. "Your brother would be proud of you, Wanda. And even if you can't see him, you carry his memories…" He paused for a breath, roving his gaze at the framed charcoal portrait of Bucky, the one he had done in art school. Resuming his sincere attention back to her, he placed his firm hand tentatively on her shoulder, almost pulling her close to him, much like a big brother would."…in a way you'll always carry him with you."

Wanda suddenly became crestfallen; her heart throbbed with recurring pain that wouldn't assail. She shook her head; it hurt to process her tenuous emotions and her temples pounded as a rush of blood lanced through the valves of her heart. She didn't want to relive those dire and unforgiving moments of feeling the connection of her brother's love severed. Abashedly, her shaking hands balled into fists, and she dismissed her distorted misery with a bite in her voice. "I don't know how to call back my memories of him…"

It was then that Steve stole another glance at the sketch book resting on her lap. "Can you draw, Wanda?" he asked, with an affirming smile. Wanda shifted a little, trying to avoid his question. She didn't want to answer him. "It's the easiest way to remember someone. Well, it works for me."

"I can't draw that good, Captain Rogers." She admitted disgruntled, chewing on her lip.

"It's okay, Wanda," Steve assured lowly, and he removed a stub of graphite pencil absentmindedly from his pocket, and reached for his own tattered sketch pad. "You know it took me some time to figure out how to sketch." He flipped through the pages and searched for a blank one. He sighed deeply, prompting the book against his raised knee and lightly graced a faint line on the page. "It was all a skinny Brooklyn kid could do instead of getting a scraped knee on first base."

Wanda frown softly, her glaring eyes scanned over the page. "Could you teach me how to draw," she requested tensely. "I would like to learn."

Steve didn't look all surprised. He saddled an equal stare with her. "Sure I can," he replied, pain went amiss under a weak attempt at a smile. He placed the sketch pad down. His eyes narrowed at her sharking hand, Wanda tried to lift up a newly sharpened pencil. "It's okay," his hand tentatively enveloped over her pulsing knuckles, and she blanched away, shaken by his reverent touch. The heat of his strong hand over her dainty one, it became alarming for her to register the slightest touch of his understanding. She wasn't ready. "If you don't feel comfortable, we can try another day."

She nodded mutely at him with tears building in her eyes. A storm was raging in her, violent and relentless. She couldn't escape the tendrils of pain, not when she allowed every memory of her past to consume her.

Hold on to me…Never let go.

In the moment of hearing her brother's words, the pain that coursed in her veins eased. Wanda refused to submit into the void of despair. She remembered how her fingers use to glide absently over his knuckles as the clasp of his hand returned a squeeze of assurance to her cold skin. The connection in a pulse was never broken; it only grew stronger with each passing day of their survival. They had chosen to be a part of a new age of miracles—remade into vessels of monstrous power, destined to rebuild HYDRA from the ashes.

There was no freedom. No light was granted as a reward against the endless darkness. They had volunteered, and yet Wanda was never permitted to see her twin brother, to feel his warmth shield over her. Baron Stucker controlled her; molded her into a reverential victim of destruction. She was trained to animate solid objects in the air, contort metal and shatter wooden blocks with red pulses of energy.

She had endured for two years of being trapped in a cell, she used rage to fuel her preparation in facing the man who took her parents, her shelter and her life in that one flash of a chaotic firestorm.

"I have learned to control my thoughts," Wanda tucked her arms securely over her black corset top, her necklaces and lockets jingled as she rocked her body in slow movements to ease the hot flares searing in her bones. Tiny quakes of fear reached the surface of her pale skin; it was damming and raw approach of confusion. She felt utterly haunted and unhinged. "What I feel is mostly a desire to search for something real again…Not this sickness of vengeance that keeps poisoning my mind."

Steve knew that she wouldn't turn away from the memories, it was pain that refused to relent from the awakening of hope, purging the darkness away. There had been many of times where he wanted to erase all of his grief, but somehow he rose above it…He found his best friend, even if it was just for a glimpse, but it still left a burning in his chest that Bucky would one day return to him.

Once he felt the approach of the storm loitering in his veins, Steve closed his eyes and shook off the despairing images of Bucky falling into the white void; the echoing screams fading into winter's breath. Those constant replays of memory had seemed inescapable—terminal—to yield against. He carried burdens of guilt, each one weighed over his heart, crushing his resilience. "We all fight somethin' that sets us back," the depth of the cadence in his deep, pragmatic voice grew calm and assuring. "But it doesn't mean you have to back down when these things hit you hard."

Wanda spared him a glance, searching in his vibrant blue eyes that held flecks of lamplight as it tinted over his chiseled features. Stillness enveloped them as they mirrored the other's gaze for a long moment as everything felt so novel and vague to receive. There was a need for comfort, and she couldn't deny it, nor allow the varies of her nightmares to control her. Sucking back a heavy breath, she recovered enough strength in her stammering voice. "Do I have to accept it…This pain…Will it go away?"

The measure of pain that he felt with Bucky's servitude with HYDRA, it couldn't unravel; Steve admitted to himself that it was his fault—everything that his friend underwent with Zola's inhuman experimentation and dehumanized methods; all the agony that Bucky roped down until he had to surrender himself in order to survive. It wasn't the endgame, Steve was certain with that; Bucky could be restored and have those bone deep wounds mended.

Without saying a word to rectify his utmost of failures, Steve leaned back against the cushions; his black shirt wrinkled as his shoulders sagged into the leather. He looked back at her, his sincere azure irises lifted to catch the glints of light, and his lips split to draw out breath. He spoke with a tentative edge in his baritone. "Boy, I wish that I could tell you that now, but all you need to know is that you're never alone in a fight…You always got someone watchin' your back." He winked a promise to her. "Always."

Wanda brushed back loose tousled strands out her ominous eyes, and cast a downward glance at the new sketchbook. Her coiled shaking fingers ghosted over the edge, feeling the crisp pages as she made a choice to take a pencil and draw something pure and good that became alive in the recesses of her mind. No more blotted imagery of despair, just a blossoming dream that she could relive with an easy stroke of graphite. It was a steady effort to begin the sketch, mostly uneven lines and curves, "I'm ready to do things like this, Captain Rogers, if you can teach me how to enjoy them."

Steve smiled brightly and she could see dimples creasing on his square jaw, his blue eyes were alight with shining trust, and his face so honest and endearing. He flipped a page of his own sketchpad, and watched her slide an inch closer to him. "I'd be honored too, Wanda."

She smiled timidly at him, accepting a new connection with him. She only caught a glimpse of his thoughts, mostly distorted images of an empty dance hall, and caresses of warm light shielding him from the shadows. There was a beautiful dark haired woman standing behind him, wearing a red dress and offering her hand to guide him through a slow dance. When she blinked, everything faded into hollow, imprisoning ice. "If you teach me how to draw, I will teach you how to dance," He looked at her furrowing his brows, seeming a tad dumbfounded with her discovery. "Isn't that what has been on your mind, Captain?"

Peggy. Steve felt tightness in his chest. He wasn't expecting her invasive question; a dream that gave him pale illusions of regrets. In the fall of silence, he stiffened inadvertently as his soften gaze of glacial blue melded with shadowy thoughts of 'what could have been' if he had a chance to bail out of the cockpit before the Valkyrie sank into the icy water. He had to accept the shuttering truth that his Peggy moved on without him, even though his heart felt unfulfilled. Steve had many battles to face—victories to seize and promises to keep.

For now, his mission was to mentor Wanda, to make her feel belonged and a part of the Avengers family. He settled a firm resolve onto the black sheet of paper, trying to recapture a dream. His jaw tensed at the moment as his heart swelled. He couldn't get a solid grip on his choices; mostly because he had lost connection with his true self. He was two halves—the soldier and the little guy from Brooklyn. He didn't want to diminish that soul pledge he made to the dying Doctor Erksine, the good man who gave him a chance to prove that the impossible could be achieved if you had the heart and will to erase all doubt when fighting against the odds.

He couldn't turn away, not from his troubles. Peggy was still waiting for him…Her dimming soul was stirring to share one final dance with him. "There's a lot of things that have been on my mind, but I guess I'm expected to block them out and keep fighting…" There came a pause in his solemn words, and Wanda listened to the slight hitch of unsettled lament. "Dancing was somethin' that I've wanted to try with my best girl when the war was over, but I was too late to ask her…"

"It's never too late to take a chance and tell someone that you've loved how much you wanted to change just a second to keep them at your reach…" Wanda spoke with avid measure of solace, and she knew that all the vivid red pulses of her memories would fade in time. She wasn't some curse to be extracted, but a miracle that was chosen to live out of the darkness, to become embraced with equal acceptance.

She would honor her twin by protecting lives just like he had done when Ultron fired a hail of bullets at Clint Barton and a small boy. Steve nodded attentively to her, displaying a wholehearted regard to her dejection. She didn't reveal the strain pulling at her heart, a smile melted that pain way. "Now, I can keep my brother alive by doing things that we had promised each other to do once we were free."

He smiled weakly, genuine, brotherly warmth radiated from him. "I think your brother would be proud of you, Wanda, I know it's not gonna be easy for you to hear this, but you'll make out of this just fine."

Wanda took in those gentle words, and then caressed her fingers over his knuckles gracefully, and made a choice. She wanted to experience life again, that's what Pietro would have wanted for her. No more emotional, meandering torture and sleepless nights. She was ready to take on a new challenge, grasp onto real moments and create a new friendship that was almost profound like the bond of siblings. Nothing would detract her from allowing scars to heal. She dipped her gaze down at his hand, her finger nearly vibrating against the wavering heat as it merged in her veins. "Instead of drawing, do you mind if we just talk?"

"Okay, that sounds good," Steve whispered, tenderly. He placed the sketch pad down, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders. He leaned in closer to her, still giving her space as his large hand eased onto hers and their fingers wove into a secured interlock of indefinable trust. Wanda lifted her other hand up, parallel to his palm, and allowed her delicate fingers to slide as they shared a powerful connection, releasing everything with simple, tentative joining of their hands. He captured the light in her eyes; no more darkness as her trembling pulse settled and heated tears sloped down her face. "It's gonna be alright, Wanda, I promise you," he said, keeping her hand steady.

Wanda closed her eyes, no longer hurting. "Can I stay here with you?" she asked timidly, feeling safe in his apartment. "This place reminds me of home."

Steve glanced over his shoulder, and pulled down a thick blanket, covering her up with it. She curled against him, resting her head on his shoulder, while her fingers traced over his knuckles as she drifted to sleep. He waited until she was far gone, before reaching for the pad and pencil set. He started drawing out the dream that would always exist in the light of his memories…A dance with Peggy.

The End.