A/N: Hi my friends, how are you all doing? I hope your weeks are going well. Mine certainly is! I have explored much of Moscow and have fallen in love with it yet again. Being here has inspired me to write, so I am responding to a request. Read until the end for a surprise! ;)

PIETRO LIVES

Wanda opened her eyes blearily, groaning and cursing under her breath. As the pale light streamed in through the tall windows at the far end of the room and illuminated the dust that contentedly lingered in the air, she felt a new wave of nausea overcome her.

After so many years in Pietro's company, she'd thought that she would have been adjusted to the sight of him moving so quickly back and forth. He moved so rapidly that no eyes could focus on any defined shape of him, merely a blur of silver and whatever colours he wore-which tended to be dark, in contrast to his playful eyes, pale skin, and whitened hair.

"Ach, brother, stop, I am barely awake-"

She heard a familiar chortle as he stopped at the foot of her bed, holding three separate books. While his smirk was carefree and juvenile, his eyes appeared to be hiding a defined sadness.

"Is something wrong?" Wanda murmured tentatively-more due to her exhaustion than anything else.

Pietro shrugged nonchalantly, sighing slightly. "Do you not keep everything in order after what happened in Sokovia, Wanda? I understand our home nation nearly got destroyed, but that is no excuse to mess everything of mine up now that we are here. Americans would frown on you for it."

"I do not care what they think," Wanda proclaimed proudly, an impish grin tugging at the very corners of her lips. It was her turn to shrug, but realisation had dawned on her features, giving her a sullen, haunted expression rather than one of explicit joy. "I have had little time," she said. "It has all been so rushed, and after nearly losing you, after seeing so many get caught in the aftermath, the devastation, after seeing what it was that you and I helped develop… I have let things go."

"That is very unlike you."

He pondered over one of the titles and tossed it over to her with a snicker, boyish laughter erupting from him as he leaned over his stomach.

"You read TRASH, sister, please! I had faith in you at one time!"

Unable to hide her grin and the new joyful flush that glowed from her cheeks, she laughed with him, shaking her head as she sat up in bed, her hair tumbling in unruly waves to just below her shoulder.

"You have no idea how relieved I am I didn't lose you, Pietro," she said quietly, the smile not dying from her lips as she spoke. He tilted his head and arched a brow perfectly, the image of tender nonchalance. One of the greatest aspects of their relationship was that their unbreakable bond meant that discussing feelings, deep, sometimes twisted emotions that swirled in the darkest reaches of their souls, was not so difficult. Even when such things were hard to ever put into words, the pair of them did not need words-they understood each other like no other could. If they each settled here in the United States and found themselves lovers, those lovers could never understand them as faultlessly as these twins understood each other.

"I am being serious!" she stated, rubbing at her tired eyes briefly. He moved to sit down on the edge of her bed, beside her, and took her hand with a warm smile. A seemingly minuscule and innocent gesture, but provided Wanda with a new warmth entirely.

"I know you are! I think we can be free of the demons we had in Sokovia," he murmured gently, never dropping his smile, despite the current of misery that still seemed to waver in his blue eyes… Was it unsettling her?

"I thought I would lose you. I wanted to fight, to defend our people, but how could I? We came so close to dying, you and I. I felt it in the air, I could sense it all around us at every single turning in the fighting, the battles; you bled so much, and they told me you would take too long to recover if you survived. There was so much blood, and when I saw you lying there… When I... I… I honestly believed in my heart you were dead, and my entire body nearly exploded with this monster inside of me-"

Wanda was becoming greatly distressed, with tears tremulously hiding the details of Pietro's vision from her blurred eyesight. The warm dash of tears spilling onto rosy cheeks was not shameful, and instead a release; Pietro wrapped his arms around her slender shoulders and pulled her close to his body, where she could feel his heat, hear his strong, determined heartbeat-albeit that it was a little quicker than most people's.

He kissed her tousled hair gently, stroking her shoulder.

"Do not relive it, Wanda. There is nothing either of us could have done except for fighting alongside our… our friends, now. We owe them our lives, so why haunt yourself with what happened in Sokovia? I am feeling better than ever, sister, I promise you. I have never felt so free, especially of all of the burdens I carried in Sokovia!"

Wanda's arms curled around Pietro's waist, allowing the tears to silently stream along her oval face as she listened to his soothing tones. He hummed the tune of a lullaby they had heard in Sokovia as small children which felt like a heavenly caress to the senses. Moments passed by. Wanda was lulled, but it took many more moments for her tears to stop. She was bleary-eyed, and her nose was blocked.

As she pulled away, she laughed lightly, wiping at her cheeks with the sleeve if her nightshirt.

"I should learn to be stronger. Everything is safe and fine now, I know that, and I ought to be grateful. I hated how close I came to losing you, is all. I couldn't bear what it was that I saw that day, but… It is all in the past!" She offered a triumphant, radiant smile.

"Exactly, Wanda!" He gripped her shoulders, and the room went cold. He wiped away her tears, and she was frozen where she sat, the hope dying, withering away and crumbling inside of her chest.

"You can always come here when you need me. Because remember, my sister… I am dead. I am dead, and this is a dream. You ought not to lie to yourself; how weak would that be?"

His voice appeared to drift away and she reached ought for his shirt, but couldn't quite seem to grab it and pull him closer.

"I died. I am gone, but I am happier here."

His expression altered entirely, a serious, cold, and detached one dominating his angular features.

"Why are you so selfish, that you simply cannot be happy for me? I am not yours to keep, you goddamn fool. You could have protected me. You could have saved me, instead of leaving me to be struck by those bullets and left there in the dust- but did you?! No, Wanda, and yet you mourn me. Is it guilt? Leave me go, it is disgusting, how da-"

With a cry dying in her throat, Wanda woke up.

She sat bolt upright in bed, in the vulnerable, dark and perpetual loneliness of the room she'd been allocated. As the sobs began and the tears heatedly flowed, she clenched onto the bedsheets and felt the hopelessness clench her heart in a vice-like grip.

Pietro Maximoff was not alive after all.