OUR LIFETIME « Pietro Maximoff

33 /| the plans we made

•.* [chapter thirty-three]

*•*.*•.

SHE WOULD NEVER ADMIT IT, but the truth was that Savannah almost hadn't recognized him. For a split second, she could not reconcile the man before her with the one she'd spent years cementing to her memory. Blonde hair—hair that she'd clumsily helped dye herself—blue eyes and lean limbs were what she'd attached to him, and she'd treated those images like a life raft. He was the one who kept her from sinking in murky depths of despair.

But this man, in all his glory, was no life raft. He was a stranger. A blue-eyed, brown-haired stranger with a fuller beard and thicker arms and legs, and she just didn't know him. She didn't know him, and she couldn't even sense his energy anymore.

So Savannah panicked. She sank and sank and sank, and the odds that she would spontaneously drown right where she stood heightened tremendously.

And then he spoke.

He said only one word—used only one syllable—took only one breath, and for the first time in four years, Savannah could see the shore.

Getting there, however, would be another task entirely.

°°°

For a while, they allowed her to settle in. Pietro took care of her. He didn't complain when she moved into his room. He didn't force her to be present, and he didn't ask about her time away. He didn't object to her tears, and he held her when they inevitably fell.

She didn't see much of anyone but him. He made sure of that. However, even he couldn't stop her from overhearing conversations that would've never occurred had she been in the room.

"She can help us fix this," Bruce had told Pietro several weeks after her return. She'd stood silently in the hallway outside of the common area, out of sight. "She knows the stones better than any of us."

"The stones are gone. They don't matter," Pietro shot back. His voice was like granite, and his Sokovian accent was nonexistent. Her heart dipped painfully in her chest. "She cannot handle this so soon."

Tony spoke quietly. "She's strong."

"She's tired," Pietro stressed.

"You do not have to play guard for her, and you cannot speak for her," another voice came. Nebula. "Saveria deserves a choice at least."

The room fell into a deafening silence at the use of her name. She could only imagine the looks of discomfort and anger.

"Don't call her that," Pietro practically growled when the silence became too much.

"This conversation is getting us nowhere," said a voice she didn't recognize. This voice left no room for questions. "You must set aside your love for her, and simply ask her if she can be of any assistance. If the answer is no, then we move on. Meeting adjourned?"

Savannah wanted to go in there. She wanted to tell them that she would help in anyway she could, but her feet remained rooted to the ground. Pietro was right. She couldn't do this. She couldn't be the hero they needed, and she wasn't ready to speak about the past four years or the next six.

She stood there for another moment, then the room was suddenly filled with noises of assent, and everyone began to disperse. Savannah slipped silently down the hall and back into Pietro's room, and waited for him at the edge of the bed.

She didn't look up when she heard the door slide open and closed, and she didn't react when the mattress dipped beside her.

"How much of that did you listen to?" Was the first thing he asked her.