Stained (N.R)

Chapter 31

Writer's note

Team Stark VS Team Cap???? (Leave ur vote and reason here :)

"Tell me how you feel." The silver haired young man sat next to me as I absentmindedly twirled Diana's card between my fingers. Pietro and I, over the course of the past few months, have became great friends and close sources of comfort to each other.

"I don't know, to be honest." I sighed, the card disappearing into thin air as I raised the back of my hand to my eyes, rubbing them, hard. 

"You are not gonna sign it are you?" Pietro asked, ruffling his silver gray hair with his hand. "I mean, you can't. You said yourself that it was a slavery contract."

"There is no escape Pietro." I looked at him, hard. "Where are we going to go if we don't sign it? There is no S.H.I.E.L.D to protect us from being experiments, no Fury to take us under his wing and keep as away from the higher ups. And to add to that.....Steve has lost her."

"Have you ever..." Pietro nodded at the church building which was just in eyesight, where the funeral was going on. "Seen..."

"Peggy? Steve took me to her a few times, to see if my magic could help. But she's... reaching her time, natural causes. I can't do anything with that. She didn't want to become an automaton either. She wanted to be let go." I didn't tell Pietro that we all knew she was going to die, Her, Steve and I. Not so strangely, Steve was the only one who seemed to not be able to come over that fact.

"Peggy was wise." I squinted at the sky. "After Ultron... She told Steve that she wanted to see me again. She was there to give advice, and she said to me. 'Do what you think is right, not more, not less. Let the thoughts of others wash over you, they can never see through your eyes.' I didn't understand then, but perhaps, she foresaw this."

"Which takes us back to the subject, what are you going to do?" Pietro insisted. "Cause Wanda and I may need to depend on you for a while."

"Me?" I smiled. "You won't want to follow me around. I'm going to talk to Steve, and... Ilya.... If she agrees then perhaps I'll go find Fury, see if I could help with anything. If not, well.... I could find Banner or Thor, at least let them know what's going on. It's almost unfair to sign a contract that the rest of the team hasn't heard of."

"Hmm..." He looked deep in thought. "I've talked a bit to Wanda."

"What does she think?" We both knew the answer, but he said it anyways. 

"She's dead scared," He played around with his fingers. "She wants to run away, and as of now, it's not a bad option."

"No..." I agreed. "The service is finishing, we should go down."

I wasn't surprised that Ilya was already there, comforting Steve. She turned to me and gave a hopeful smile. "I'm off to Vienna. To sign the accords. There's plenty of room on the jet."

I lowered my gaze, and cleared my throat awkwardly. "I was thinking of changing my career. See if Fury or Helen would take me. I mean, Helen kinda works part time for Stark industries but she has other independent projects in the lab that we've been trying to sort out, structure in air particles and how they conduct magic, that kind of thing."

"We need you." She argued softly, pulling closer to me. "We need all three of you. Just because it's the path with the least resistance doesn't mean it's wrong. Staying together is more important than how we stay together."

"I disagree." Pietro shook his head. "I would rather separate with Wanda to let her be happy than the two of us being miserable together."

"What are we giving up to do it, to be like this, to stay together?" Steve rubbed his face, exhausted. "I can't sign it, Nat, I'm sorry."

"We are together." I told her, leaning into her, taking in her scent. "I'll just be technical support from now, retiring from the front lines."

"And if they come for you?" Ilya asked.

"They won't." I tried to give her a smile. "You guys will protect me, right?"

"Yeah..." She whispered. "We'll be together."

After a final hug, she and Steve set to leave, and Pietro gave me a face. "You are lying."

"Oh, she knows." I slumped into one of the church pews. "The terrible thing is, I know too."

"Go on." He motioned with his hand. 

"When they come for me, which they will." I said, word by word. "I will disappear."

"Again?" He knew I didn't like it.

"What choice do I have?" I asked. "You were born a rat, a few years in the sunshine and you think you can live in the light forever? People like me will always have to hid, Pietro, because we weren't born lucky enough to  go to school, get a GPA, or make a good difference to the world, to choose between going to Paris or Sokovia."

He listened, intently, his hands clasped so tightly together that they shook. 

"Tony want to protect people like Charles Spencer, people who lived in the sun. He wants the boy to see the sun for the rest of his life, to save them from the darkness. But what about me?" I felt an invisible sore hand clench my throat, my eyes brimming with tears. When was the last time I cried? It was too long ago. 

"Who's gonna save me from the dark, Pietro, who's gonna pick people like me off the streets and say, hey, it's alright? Who's gonna save a homeless man when the buildings are collapsing?  Who's gonna at least try, to go up to the bad guy and say, actually, maybe there's another solution? It's always suppression, always silencing and hushing, but people do bad things because they've seen bad things. They just need to see the light again, to realise that there is... hope...."

"Katya..." Pietro enveloped me in a hug. 

"I didn't choose to live like this, I know you didn't, Wanda didn't.... You find yourself tumbled into war, creations of conflict. You want a normal life, but they won't let you go, not even in a peaceful world. But.... I won't hurt anyone if they'd leave me alone Pietro. I would go to school, get a job, grow old.... But they want your blood, your bone, your brain because someone turned you into a monster before you knew right from wrong..."

"We have nowhere to go, Pietro. I am so tired, and scared, but there's nowhere to go...."