Unexpected (Pietro Maximoff Fanfiction)

Chapter 5: The age of miracles

It was a beautiful evening in Midtown Manhattan, New York. There was a quiet and relaxed atmosphere at Stark Tower. Nobody would guess that the Avengers were actually discussing about a mission.

They were together at the main tower, known as the Avengers Tower. They had joined together to talk about the next step they'd take on their mission. The aim was to find Loki's scepter, which was now under the power of Hydra in a secret base.

Tony and Bruce were analyzing some data with the help of JARVIS. Maria and Steve were supervising them. Steve was anxious, as usual, looking at them and frowning. He still didn't understand anything about technology, he was still lost in time, but anyway he preferred to follow closely the small steps they went on.

Thor was sitting down in a sofa with Clint and Natasha. They were drinking and chatting in a relaxed way, waiting for the call of duty.

- Have you found anything? – Steve finally asked Tony and Bruce.

Tony rolled his eyes due to the Cap's reaction. As usual, he was nervous and monitoring everything closely, trying to keep everything under control, or as Tony used to call it, under his own control. He always felt responsible for everything as he was the captain and sometimes was a bit suspicious of Tony, something he obviously disapproved.

- We're trying to find out where is the base of Hydra so that we can find the scepter. – Bruce answered in his typical kind tone.

- And do you already have a clue or something? – Steve enquired again.

- Not exactly, but we suspect it could be somewhere in Eastern Europe. – Tony claimed.

- Anyway, we still have to find the specific location. – Bruce continued.

- We're really close to find it out. – Tony added.

- Let's go on working then. – Steve finally claimed.

Meanwhile in Sokovia, it was a stormy dark night and Pietro couldn't sleep. He was sitting down on the bed in a corner of his bedroom, or at least, what was supposed to be the room he was given to sleep in. It was a small and cold room which was in pretty bad condition. The walls were full of water stains filling the air with nostalgia and the scent of moisture.

He was alone in that wet cold place, his sister was in another room sleeping, he supposed. He didn't know if it was due to the room but a feeling of piercing loneliness was spreading from his feet to his head, invading his whole body. He was deep in thought and he had a desperately need to cry but he actually couldn't. It seemed as if the tears were trapped into his eyes and had no intentions to come out.

It was a terribly sad feeling of emptiness. Another night and there he was, sitting down suffering from insomnia and holding that old photo again. He stared at it again and he could see that happy family again: a tall brown-haired man, a short blond woman and two 9-year-old twins looked at him with a wide smile on their faces standing up in the middle of a snowy landscape. Finally, a tear fell down from his eye and travelled all the way down his cheek until it crashed into the picture.

That photo was the only tangible thing his sister and he had that reminded them about the time when they were truly happy, or in other words, the time when their parents were still alive. They had taken that picture the last holidays they had before the tragedy. Those where times when they were truly happy but they actually didn't know it.

They were so happy that they didn't need to waste time thinking about sad things. They were children, they weren't supposed to feel worried about anything. They had a house, warm and comfortable beds, and they also had toys. They could always play and time never seemed to go by. Their parents were there to worry about them and things that only adults could understand. 'What a wonderful time it was!' – Pietro told himself in a whisper and a bitter half-smile was drawn on his face.