Archive of Our Own ^beta

She wasn't sure the first moment she noticed him, but she knew the first moment he made a strong impression.

He was American, but he was kind. "It's your fault. It's everybody's fault. It doesn't matter."

He cared without coddling. "You'll be okay. I'll send your brother to come get you," and "I'm going back out there because it's my job."

She leaned on his strength and pulled herself together. He was the one who had successfully neutralized her before. She had hurt his team, his...family in a manner of speaking, and here he was forgiving her and moving past it, making her stronger.

She volunteered to guard the core and told him, "It's my job."

Wanda woke shivering and reached reflexively to find her brother's warmth. It was absent in the cool covers.

They weren't... They weren't like that, but Americans didn't understand their touching each other always, holding each other with voices and hands and warm gazes full of understanding. They didn't understand why siblings would be so close without being inappropriate. But they also didn't understand what it was like to have no one but a power blazing bright and painful within you and bombs raining down over the rubble. There was no one to cling to but Pietro, no other way to sleep safe amidst their nightmares, real and only in dreams.

She slid out of bed and stood. The mattress was too soft, the night air too empty. Pietro, her heart cried.

She left the room, seeking comfort.

He was leaning on the counter in the communal kitchen area, looking as though the weight of the world were heavy on his shoulders. A glass filled with amber liquid sat in front of him.

She studied him, hands itching to take more understanding than his body language would give up to her willingly, but she remembered the hardness in his eyes when he stopped her the first time from entering his mind.

"Hawkeye," she said softly, a greeting.

His head jerked up. He smiled, something hidden behind the look. "Wanda." He straightened, downed the rest of his drink. "You can call me Clint."

"Very well." She approached him with the confidence she always used to have in the face of anything intimidating, as if Pietro was still by her side, and the two of them together were invulnerable.

Clint watched her pass him to get a slice of bread out of the refrigerator. She was becoming fond of midnight toast when she couldn't sleep.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly, rough and heavy in the low light and silence between them. "About your brother."

She caught her breath at the pang it brought to hear it said like that. The ache of always knowing emptiness was dull and painful but familiar. This grief of another for Pietro, for her, was new and sharp. She shook her head and said fiercely, "It's your fault. It's everybody's fault." Her voice broke. "It's his fault."

He left her. Pietro left her alone and now she truly had no one.

She felt tears sting behind her eyes and her hand trembled on the bread.

Clint touched her arm gently. She leaned against him, then let him draw her into his arms, holding her as the dam inside her broke.

It wasn't... It wasn't like that, but it was warm and safe, and her brother had given his life to save Clint.

She looked up at him when the pain ebbed and nodded. "It was his job."

Clint blinked, then exhaled brokenly. "Yeah."

It still hurt, but even so, she felt better.