"In Her Eyes"

by darthelwig

*** I own nothing. I'm just having fun.***

To Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff's gaze was discomfiting, like an itch between his shoulder blades that he couldn't shake off. He could feel it long after it was gone. Sure, she no longer looked at him with blind hatred, which was nice, but there was still that element of distrust and a sense of judgment. Or maybe that part was in his head. He still felt guilty for what had happened to the Maximoff twins, whether that was logical or deserved didn't matter. It's how he felt. Wanda was the only one left of her family, and he felt the weight of that knowledge on his shoulders every time she looked at him. ToTony, her eyes would forever reflect back his own guilt.

To Steve, Wanda's eyes spoke of childhood lost too soon, of growing up amidst rubble and ruins and the sounds of war. He saw loss. She had lost her family, her entire home, her world, as he had when he'd crashed into the ice. He'd found himself in a new world when he awoke, a place he didn't understand, and he saw that in her. She was lost and alone, and her gaze made him think of the look that had existed on his own face when he realized what had been stolen from him by time. It was like looking into a mirror, but he had finally started to cope with his new reality, and so seeing her wounded eyes made him uncomfortable. It hit too close to home, and made him think of things better left alone.

Sam thought of Riley when he looked into Wanda's eyes. He thought of Riley and the crushing despair he'd experienced after his friend's death. He saw his own loss reflected back at him, and there was only so much of that he could take. He tried to avoid looking into her eyes for too long, as guilty as that left him feeling. He thought she might understand, anyway. Wanda seemed pretty forgiving, in her own way. She understood pain.

Natasha looked into Wanda's eyes and saw loneliness. Emptiness. They had both been hollowed out and warped by people meaning to use them, and both had emerged victorious but scarred. Wanda's pain, though, was too fresh. When Natasha met her gaze, she felt that familiar shame threaten her stability, that disgust at what she'd become. The Red Room made her, and she could almost feel Natalia inside again when Wanda looked at her.

Wanda's eyes carried guilt for Clint, for obvious reasons. Her eyes were deep pools of pain you could drown in, and he felt the responsibility for his part in that. Others might tell him differently, that it wasn't his fault, and maybe they were right, but he felt the way he felt anyway. Wanda's gaze had held pain and loss long before Pietro's death. Everyone knew that. Now, though, now... Sometimes he could barely bring himself to look at her. Her grief was a weight that threatened to drag him under.

Rhodey kept an eye on Wanda, waiting for her to move against Tony. He found himself unable to read her enigmatic gaze, as if she knew what he was looking for and refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how she felt, and maybe that was true. He wasn't quite sure what the limits to her powers actually were, but when he saw the scarlet in her eyes he couldn't help but shudder. The girl unnerved him with her inhuman gaze, and he found himself praying for Tony's wellbeing.

To Vision, Wanda's eyes truly were the windows to her soul, and perhaps they were the key to his as well. He could see himself reflected in the way she smiled at him when he said something, or the way she looked at him with such desperation when her grief threatened to overwhelm her. He never felt more human than in those moments, when she looked at him as an equal, a being of worth. She made him feel, and he felt for her. He could look into her eyes and see her kindness, her anger, her light and her darkness. To him, she was the embodiment of everything mankind could be, good and bad, and she was beautiful for it. Not pretty, or cute, or any of those fluffy words, but truly beautiful, a force of nature that could destroy or create in equal measure. In her eyes, he saw her struggle to reach for the best in herself, and she inspired him to be the best of himself as well. He could look into her eyes forever, and never be disappointed.

Wanda hated looking into her own eyes, as guilty and tortured as she looked. Her own gaze made her sick, and she would claw her own eyes out if not for Pietro's voice in her head and heart telling her to keep trying, to keep living. All she could see in herself was the emptiness where Pietro had been, and she hated it. She hated herself for letting things come to this. She hated the person she had become. She forced herself to look in the mirror, though, to put her eye liner on like nothing had changed, and look into her own eyes. She refused to spare herself that pain. She would let it lash at her, as she deserved. If no one would punish her, she would punish herself.

"The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages." - Virginia Woolf