When Wanda was six and a half, she dreamed of saving the world. Sprawled out on the dirty concrete pavement, with mousy brown hair and knobbly knees, she drew herself a superhero cape on one of those pastel coloured cardstock papers. She showed Pietro, after, smiling toothily as he patted her good job.

In the evening, they had chicken soup with a side of potato salad. Pietro swiped her piece of Challah bread, and in spiteful retaliation Wanda stole a bite of his mashed potato. Mama smiled, padded softly to the kitchen, and put the milk to boil.

"Wanda, Pietro," Papa began, mouth set and forehead creased, "There is a war, coming. Some soldiers will come, from far away. It will be loud, but we will be safe."

"A war?" Pietro exclaimed, "Why are they fighting?"

"They are fighting over who should be in charge." Papa said, and the kettle started to whistle.

"Will we fight?" Wanda asked, "Will you fight?"

"No, my little wonder, we won't fight." Mama returned with four cups of warm milk, "We leave it to the soldiers, okay?"

The next day, Wanda pocketed her superhero cape, waited for Pietro to be done with his toy dinosaurs, and then started the walk to school. She thought about the war, and the soldiers, and the aircrafts. She thought about courage, and peace, and saving the world. She thought about Pietro, about Papa, about Mama, and she thought about courage, again.

"Pietro," said Wanda, "I'm scared."

The bullies, broad shouldered and heavy chinned, ripped the pastel piece of paper from Wanda's desperate grasp and tore it up, guffawing at her misty eyes and trembling lips. It was four thirty in the afternoon, the sky a slate grey from the smattering of rain an hour prior, and all at once Pietro was standing in front of her with a boyish scowl fierce enough to frighten the toughest of men, his body, her shield.

"Stop it. Give that back to my sister, now."

"Oh, this?" They sniggered, tossing bits of shredded paper onto Wanda's head, "She can have it back. It's stupid, anyway."

They ran away, but Pietro ran faster.

Wanda spent the evening combing paper out of her hair, and when she was done she climbed up onto the bed, beside Pietro. She thought about the war, and the soldiers, and the aircrafts. She thought about courage, and peace, and saving the world. She thought about Pietro, about Papa, about Mama, and she thought about courage, again.

"Why were they so mean?"

"They just were, Wanda." Pietro said, facing her with his bruised eye, "But you and I, we Maximoffs, we have each other. That's all we'll ever need."

Wanda thought about courage a lot, that year. Watching the clouds chase each other, watching the stars twinkle like gems, Wanda thought about saving the world. There was blood in the crevices of the concrete pavement, and sometimes on walks to school, Wanda saw soldiers, with big, big guns.

On her eighth birthday, Papa took Pietro and her to the market, and bought them both ice cream. Wanda and Pietro took turns singing Happy Birthday to each other, until their mouths were stained white with cream and their throats hurt from shouting. Some of the soldiers stared at them. Some of the soldiers marched on.

When they went back home, Mama was waiting for them with a little box. Papa spun a coin, and decided that Wanda would be the one to open the present this year. Inside the case was a second hand disc, and when Wanda rubbed at its surface there was writing that said: The Dick Van Dyke Show.

They spent the evening watching tv, and after Episode 2 Wanda snuck to the bathroom to try to dye her hair blonde.

When Wanda was ten, her apartment was bombed. Pietro grabbed her by the arm and dragged her underneath the bed and -- another shell hit. She had never ever felt so small, curled up like a bug underneath three swaying pillars, kept company by the flashing red of STARK and the gurgling breaths of Mama two floors below.

Do you hear that? Maybe they're here to help.

Or maybe they're the ones who sent it.

She tried not to think about it. Tried to think about happy things -- Papa with the two tubs of ice cream, Pietro stealing her Challah bread, drawing up her superhero cape on that piece of paper. She thought about courage, and peace, and saving the world. She thought about Pietro, about Papa, about Mama, and she thought about courage, again.

"Pietro," said Wanda, "I'm scared."

When Wanda was ten, her apartment was bombed. When Wanda was ten, she crashed into concrete with her brother and a part of her never got up again.

When Wanda knocked on the officer's door with debris tangled in her dark hair, nobody answered. The war was taking a turn for the worse, and Wanda supposed she couldn't blame the officers for ignoring a silly girl in one striped sock.

But she was an orphan, now. Pietro, too. Because someone called Stark had dropped a bomb on their apartment building and wiped their parents from existence. Wanda thought about courage, and peace, and saving the world. But how could she save the world if she couldn't even save her Mama from a shell?

"It's not our fault," seethed Pietro, snakeskin eyes narrowed into slits as if he'd heard her thoughts, "It's not our fault, Wanda. It's Stark. All Stark."

He looped an arm around her waist and they sat down on a park bench, feeling the rain on their ghost-white cheeks.

Her left foot stung. Bare and tender, the stones on the road had cut gashes into her skin. She let it rest on the bench, and let the black ants crawl all over it.

She thought about the war, and the soldiers, and the aircrafts. She thought about courage, and peace, and saving the world. She thought about Pietro, about Papa, about Mama, and she thought about courage, again.

"Pietro," said Wanda, "I'm scared."

He combed his hand through her curls and tucked her against his side, "Me too."

The first month on the streets, Wanda tried to beg. She painted soot onto her eyelids and clawed at her own lips until they split and bled. She faked blindness, deafness, cut up her arm to earn some sympathy. Some days, if she performed well, she earned ten euros or more; some days, if she looked too old, she earned nothing at all.

The second month, Wanda stopped hurting herself. The wounds on her arm oozed pus, pulsing infections. Feverish and dizzy, she leaned on walls and dragged herself away if the owners shrieked at her with sticks. Pietro dug the bins for bread, flirted and nicked jewellery to sell in the market, robbed pharmacies for yellow pills so that Wanda would feel better. Those nights, sockless and shivering, Wanda woke screaming for Mama, woke with sobs hiccupping out of her parched throat.

"Pietro," Wanda wept, "I'm so scared. I'm so scared, Pietro. I don't want this. I don't want this."

Pietro cried with her, held her close because she was the only thing left of family.

The third month, Wanda stopped thinking about saving the world. She saved Pietro from soldiers with guns, saved herself from men with nasty grins, but she couldn't save the world. For their eleventh birthday, they signed up to join a protest, and they screamed with that fever light in their eyes and screamed and screamed again and forgot why they were screaming. It felt right, to finally belong someplace, where their screams were heard.

Eleven and angry, Wanda wailed at the sky and felt the gale in her long whip of hair and thought, Mama, look at me. Papa, look at us.

The fourth month, they met a man who called himself List. He was a short, pimply man, but charming, with slender fingers and a serpent smile. His blazer was a charcoal black, and the buttons sewn into its frayed hem were a gilded gold. He offered them a candy bar, and spoke of dazzling futures and a warm hearth and cheese on toast and saving the world.

"Why?" asked Pietro, clutching at Wanda's nightgown, "Why do you offer this, List?"

"You are young," The man flicked his wrist effortlessly, as if that motion alone could wipe the world of its sorrows, "Only the young can rule the future."

HYDRA's chill seeped into Wanda's hollow bones slowly, insidiously, like poison. At first she tried to count, tried to climb onto Pietro's back and peer out of the barred window, tried to etch lines into the stone wall and determine the day, the month, the year, tried to clap her hands over her eyes and look forward to her birthday because maybe then Peter Pan would take her away to someplace far away and special. Then winter came, and up on that Sokovian mountain it was night all day long. Wanda stopped counting. Time was a myth that she couldn't afford to hold, so she let it slip from her fingers like running water.

They were fed, once a day, like dogs. It was just Wanda and Pietro against the world, in that joyless wonderland, fingers tangled in each other's hair, feet cold, melding into the steel floor.

When the experiments began, the soldiers took the best of them first.

Wanda wasn't the prettiest, wasn't the smartest, wasn't the tallest, wasn't the bravest. She was plain and lay there forgotten and getting old -- was she fourteen, now? fifteen? sixteen? -- and she thought soon she must be taken because perhaps then she'd be the oldest.

She thought about the war, and the soldiers, and the aircrafts. She thought about courage, and peace, and saving herself. She thought about Pietro, about Papa, about Mama, and she thought about courage, again.

"Pietro," said Wanda, paused Wanda.

Wanda swallowed.

The locks jiggled and turned.

"Wanda Maximoff, eighteen, female, report to Dr. Baron Von Strucker."

Oh god, she thought, when did I turn eighteen?

Then,

Oh god, I'm going to die.

She stood on trembling legs.

"What about me?" Pietro's voice rang out brave and clear, "You take her, you take me too."

A soldier came into the cell.

"Hey!" Pietro screamed, "You take my sister, you take me--"

It happened in a flash. The brunt of a gun, and Pietro was out cold on the floor.

Oh god, Wanda thought, Oh god, Pietro.

Her fingernails scraped against the stone wall and she said, "Please wait, Soldier. Please wait, please give me a second to say goodbye."

When the soldier glared and growled 'One Second', Wanda tore off a nail and etched into stone:

YOU AND I. MAXIMOFFS. ALL WE EVER NEED.

Her fingers bled as the soldier shackled her, locked the door again.

"Wanda Maximoff, eighteen, female."

"I know who I am. You don't." She spat, and thought if I'm going to die, I'm going to die brave.

She took a slap to the face, took a punch to the nose.

"Be quiet." They said. So she screamed.

"Wanda Maximoff," They said, and sighed at her petulance, "Touch the sceptre."

Wanda went in with fingers bleeding red. Wanda emerged with fingers burning redder.

They gave her something to drink, after, checked her pulse and stared at her like she was some circus lion. She blinked and lay there on concrete and tried to drift away to sleep.

In her dreams she saw a girl with moonshine hair. In her dreams she lived the girl with moonshine hair. Sprawled out on the grass in a dappled shade, she spoke a language she had not learned yet but understood anyway, met a brother she had not known yet but loved anyway.

She laughed when her mami made a joke and cried when her papa went off to war and said, "Papa, why are we bombing them?"

She went to her mami's funeral and waited five years for her papa's return and her kitchen became her refuge and her wealth turned to stone and she combed through the knots of her ashen hair and said, "HYDRA, I volunteer."

She waited in the cell alone with cold feet melding into the steel floor and was one of the first to be taken because Oh god, she was the prettiest and when had that been a danger until now?

She didn't save her brother from soldiers with guns and couldn't save herself from men with nasty grins so she touched the sceptre and when they took her out of that room and locked her in another she was already burning from the inside.

Wanda felt it. Wanda felt her.

Hello, the girl with the moonshine hair said, Hello? Who are you? I can feel you in my head.

I'm here. Wanda drifted through. My name is Wanda.

I am Lily.

Wanda paused, still and calm as if she’d done this a million times before. To root herself in another’s mind — to live another’s life as if she was living her own. Had the sceptre given her this power? Had the sceptre hallowed her strength and hollowed her fear until she was but an empty well to be filled with lion's courage?

I'm scared, Wanda, I'm scared, it hurts.

I know. I can feel you. It's okay. I'm with you.

God, I'm sorry for giving you my pain . . . I'm sorry I volunteered for Hydra, and I'm sorry I let Papa go to war and I'm sorry I wasn't brave enough to take my mother away and I'm sorry, god I'm so sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm sorry I touched the sceptre and I'm sorry I'm dying it HURTS.

Wanda felt Lily die, that night, long before the soldiers found her ivory body crumpled on the floor.

"You're alive." They said, poking holes into her body and fumbling with her clothes, "Wanda Maximoff, eighteen, female."

"Where is Pietro?" rasped Wanda, and the ache was an avalanche spilling over the edges of her skull, "Where am I?"

She heard phantom voices before they were spoken, felt wraith emotions and cruel intentions, and heard Pietro Maximoff, eighteen, male, touching the sceptre now before it was shrouded in the soldier's wordless words.

"My brother is not a test subject for you." Wanda smouldered, bitter and frothing at the mouth, "LEAVE HIM ALONE." 

And then all she saw was scarlet.

In the end, there was no lion's courage for her.

People died. Lily died, but long before that. Soldiers died, those who did not deserve to live and those who did, all the same. Perhaps Pietro died, and perhaps Wanda died, some broken Sokovian girl in one striped sock crying over a torn up superhero cape -- perhaps that all had been strangled and seized by the mind stone, perhaps she had bled dry and perhaps the sceptre had erased all that she was and crept into her mind as she crept into others'. Perhaps she was not Wanda Maximoff now but the name and the fear, a vessel for a great, scarlet power that she could not understand.

They took her down to a prison far below the castle, and she lay there with her cold feet melding into steel floor, letting time pass through her fingers like running water. Except this time, there was no Pietro to hold.

Sometimes, she dreamed. Sometimes, shivering and afraid, she kept her eyes open until they glazed because she did not want to live lives and live deaths. She let her scarlet press against the crisp cold of HYDRA, let it dance over gaunt fingers and loom as spectral wisps, a bloody lantern to keep her from plunging into icy darkness.

When Wanda woke one day and felt a shadow graze the edges of her mind, she drew back the curtains and the first thing she heard was You and I, we Maximoffs, we have each other. That's all we'll ever need.

She knew it was Pietro, then.

In a blue blur he'd gone sprinting across all the seven seas of his sister's tormented mind and marvelled at each stinging coral. She smiled, and pulled the very fabric of their threadbare souls together until they fused into one.

You know I won't ever leave you, Wanda. Why'd you go and waste a nail over a cheesy goodbye on our wall?

She heard him laugh, so she laughed, too, and that must have freaked the soldiers out because she could hear them calling her insane in their heads.

I thought you'd died. When they said you were touching the sceptre too -- you know I barely made it out alive.

Hey, I can't be defeated by touching a little pole, Wanda. Are you alright?

Just tired.

Then she told him about Lily, and she told him about her scarlet, how it blew up the whole room and how it made minds hers.

You should sleep, Wanda.

I don't want to dream, anymore.

I'll watch out for the monsters in your closet. Like I always do, hm?

Wanda slept that night, her brother's humming presence her lullaby, and she did not dream of lives or deaths or anything in between.

When the avengers came, all Wanda could taste on her split lips was vengeance. Flying over the city walls in Pietro's arms she was eleven and angry once more, with fresh scars that did not heal and open wounds that did not scab.

Do you hear that? Maybe they're here to help.

Or maybe they're the ones who sent it.

At six and a half she had drawn her own superhero cape on a pastel piece of cardstock paper. At seven she'd been robbed of it, and she'd trembled in Pietro's arms then, still, and thought about courage. At eight she'd fallen in love with Laura Petrie and the Dick Van Dyke show; at ten she'd hidden under the bed and listened to her parents die.

( At twenty seven and an Avenger, she would hide under the bed and search her fractured mind for some perfumed remnant of Pietro; At twenty nine and the Scarlet Witch, she would hide nowhere and die nowhere, but die the same way her parents died, die the same way Pietro died, underneath rubble and redemption and remorse, lifetimes ahead, always lifetimes ahead and yet always lifeless. )

At the root of all of this, underneath all of this buried rubble, was Stark, Stark, Stark.

When first seeing Stark's lined face, Wanda's lip had twisted up into an ugly snarl and she had hated and hated and hated. You, who killed my parents. You, who buried me and my brother with your bomb. You, who took me to the streets and left me there. You, who gave me this power that I did not want. You, who made me poison when I wanted to be gold.

And perhaps she was not Wanda Maximoff now but the name and the fear, a vessel for a great, scarlet power that she could not understand. But she would always remember that little wonder, spinning milk bottles and braiding Mama's hair, stealing mashed potato because Pietro had stolen her Challah bread -- murdered as coldly and as brutally as her parents had been murdered, because when she came through to the sunlight she was already half-dead and five years too mature.

Wanda watched as the avengers tore through the town that once belonged to her, watched as the avengers trampled on her people so that they could be the greater good -- as if the sacrifice of her town was not already evil enough. Wanda watched, as the avengers burned her home down to the very soot she'd painted onto her eyelids at the age of ten.

Wanda hated.

The avengers had faces, now, and Stark was not just a name splashed onto the weapon he had made.

Wanda preferred them faceless.

She did not dream of lives or deaths, or anything in between, now. But she still dreamed of fear. She would always be frightening, and would always be frightened; She was fear, and was also fearful. When the mind stone chose her, that had been the life it'd doomed her to -- that much, Wanda was sure of.

She sped through her town in Pietro's blur of blue, and skimmed through every blueprint of every mind. She knew nightmares like the back of her hand, and she knew exactly how to flick her hand, how to warp her scarlet, how to scatter them all with precision.

She made sure Tony Stark knew who she was.

She made sure every single one of them knew who she was.

Wanda Maximoff, they would say, and they would tremble as she had trembled underneath that bed a decade ago, The witch, the witch we had bombed.

Wanda saw it too late. Sokovia crumbling under Ultron's iron fist like a biscuit; the world a desert devoid of life and perhaps she'd be spared, perhaps Pietro would be spared, but what about her people? She was their witch, she would not let them fall.

But all at once they were flying through the air, and the ground was a crater and that crater was a million feet down there and this was not what she wanted and where was Pietro and she saw rubble and steel and suddenly that was all she saw and this was so stupid but she was gasping for air and hiding under the bed again except this time there was no bed and no Stark to blame and no Pietro and she clawed at her chest and her neck and --

"How could I let this happen?"

Someone was leading her somewhere and she was stumbling and they were still rising and she thought about the war and the soldiers and the aircrafts and courage and peace and saving the world and Pietro and Mama and Papa and courage again but she was the villain of this story, wasn't she?

"Hey, hey, you okay?" The man was faceless, and Wanda thought she didn't like them faceless, anymore --

"This is all our fault." She wheezed, "Our fault, our fault, our fault --"

"Hey, look at me," The man said, and Wanda was looking but she couldn't see -- "It's your fault, it's everyone's fault, who cares? Are you up for this? Are you?"

At six and a half she had drawn her own superhero cape on a pastel piece of cardstock paper. At seven she'd been robbed of it, and she'd trembled in Pietro's arms then, still, and thought about courage. At eight she'd fallen in love with Laura Petrie and the Dick Van Dyke show; at ten she'd hidden under the bed and listened to her parents die.

But, she could save them now. She could save them -- because of her parents, despite of her parents, because of Stark, despite of Stark -- who cared?

"It doesn't matter what you did, or what you were. If you go out there, you fight, and you fight to kill." The man said, and she could see him now, with a bow and some arrows and a black vest and he was just like her, "You stay in here, you're good. I'll send your brother to come find you. But if you step out that door . . . You are an avenger."

When had she ever wanted to be an avenger? But she could save them -- because of her parents, despite of her parents, because of avengers, despite of avengers -- who cared?

Her redemption did not rest in this man's hands. It didn't rest in Tony Stark's, didn't rest in Pietro's, didn't rest in Mama's. It rested out there.

When Wanda stepped out of that door, she didn't step out of it because of avengers, despite of avengers, she stepped out of it because she was a hero, because perhaps somewhere buried underneath the rubble, she was still that six and a half year old who spun milk bottles and wanted to save the world.

You know, I'm twelve minutes older than you.

The end was so near. She could see it in Pietro's eyes, could taste it in the air, could feel it with her scarlet alone. She stood in the middle of that core, laughed, and told Pietro, "Go."

When he rocked back on his heels and ran down those streets like a schoolboy she could feel the wind on her skin. When he hurtled down the concrete roads she'd cut her feet on at ten years old she could hear him say, here we are, finally living, we'll toast it when we're avengers.

( At twenty seven and an Avenger, she would hide under the bed and search her fractured mind for some perfumed remnant of Pietro; At twenty nine and the Scarlet Witch, she would hide nowhere and die nowhere, but die the same way her parents died, die the same way Pietro died, underneath rubble and redemption and remorse, lifetimes ahead, always lifetimes ahead and yet always lifeless. )

When Pietro went, he went slow. She felt the wind in his bullet holes and the sores on his bruising feet, felt his cheeky smile and heard what they must've thought were his final words --

You didn't see that coming.

But those were not Pietro Maximoff's final words. She felt the cool asphalt on his cooler cheek, felt the dew on his cupid's bow, and she heard him calling her name.

Wanda, he said, clawing at the scarlet threads that fused their minds into one, Wanda, I know you can feel me. I know it hurts.

But Wanda, she heard him call again, Wanda, you've got to live even when I can't.

Pietro, she thought, and she thought and she thought harder and she wrested his blurring blue to her, Pietro, Pietro, god, I can't, I can't.

You can, Wanda, you can.

You can't go. You can't. Not yet. You can't.

No, Wanda. You can't go. Sometimes it'll hurt, but you can't go even when I'm gone, you can't. You've got so much to live for still.

Doesn't that sound like a curse to you --

And besides, you think death can really steal your big brother away from you? You've got monsters in your closet, Wanda.

Please, please, Pietro you can't can't can't --

I'll watch out for them, even when I'm not here anymore, okay, little sister? Like I always do, hm?

Wanda crashed to her knees, and the stitches she'd sewn for Pietro when she was nineteen in a HYDRA cell came flying undone.

( At twenty seven and an Avenger, she would bury herself underneath bedsheets and wonder if Pietro was turning to frost under the ground. At twenty nine and the Scarlet Witch, she would bury herself underneath summits and wonder if she would join Pietro underneath all of this black stone, continents away, running on empty promises and smoking gasoline and think, I broke your promise, but you broke mine first; did the monsters in my closet become too big for you to handle? )

Here was a girl un-girl, a god un-god, living lives and deaths both, feared and fearful, tearing metal from vibranium in a train wreck.

You and I, we Maximoffs, we have each other, that's all we'll ever need, he had said, and she had believed.

That night, staring at the ceiling of a makeshift room in a country she did not belong to, Wanda thought about courage, and peace, and saving the world. She thought about Pietro, about Papa, about Mama, and she thought about courage, again.

"Pietro," she said, to the wind, "I'm scared."

Then she listened to the hissing silence in her head, and let her mind turn to static.