*Disclaimer*
This is a work of fan-fiction based on particular characters from the Marvel Universe. I do not own these characters; Marvel does. I make no money by using these characters; Marvel does. Fan-Fiction is purely for entertainment purposes only, so pleases don't sue us, the humble writers. Thank You.~ Here ~
Through the physical body, the human mind can perceive an amazing array of sensations. For instance, your brain recognizes through the body's olfactory sensors that there is a certain scent present in the air, and whether the scent is pleasant, foul, strong or faint. The mind, from wherever it may be, observes this phenomena and decides from there what to do with the information. Perhaps the mind decides that what it smells stinks, and so commands the brain to send a particular order to the rest of the body that promotes 'walk out of the barn'. Or, perhaps the mind decides that what it smells is pleasant, and might catalogue the odor of baking apple pie in memory as something good to eat.
The sense of smell is just one of several senses at the disposal of the human body. A few others would be sight, sound, motion, tactile, taste; and the list could go on and on. It is generally assumed that the senses don't just stop working. That is, one doesn't suddenly not feel the cold of the winter's wind, one doesn't stop seeing the brightness of the afternoon sun.
Unless, of course, you're dead. But he isn't.
And so, as the young woman named Wanda Maximoff sat by the bedside of an equally young, yet ever so much more asleep man, she couldn't help but wonder why he didn't sense that she was there.
Her thoughts, she knew, were born more than a little out of stubbornness, although she would never admit it: she wasn't stubborn.
It really was very simple, and not just in her own opinion. It really would be very simple to even the simplest of men. She wanted her brother to know that she was there. And in order for him to 'know' it, he needed to sense it. And so he should. Simple.
But he doesn't, or he couldn't, or he won't, because he's right there, and she's right here, but he doesn't 'know' it, because he isn't sensing it!
"Why?" Wanda said aloud, startling herself. She suddenly noticed, bewildered, that her heart was beating what seemed like at least twice as fast as is necessary for basic survival purposes. *Was I so...utterly lost in my own thoughts that I began randomly shouting out miscellaneous monosyllable ponderings?* Wanda mused, shaking herself out of her nearly asleep-induced train of thought.
Scolding herself, and hoping madly that her brother had not been disturbed by her outburst, Wanda leaned over from her seat to get a closer view of him. Gently resting some of her weight on her brother's bed, she studied his face thoroughly for any change in his features. No change at all. Carefully recovering her weight from the bed, Wanda felt her already heavy heart sink a foot deeper into her chest, and collapsed with a sigh back into her chair. Realizing that she had halfway hoped her accidental outburst had disturbed her brother to the point of actually waking him, she scolded herself some more.
*Selfish of me.* She thought. *At least he's getting rest. God knows he needs to rest, after...* Wanda's thoughts trailed off, into highly unpleasant territory, and she was again lost in a nearly asleep-induced train of thought. Eventually, she found herself back where it seems she had started. *If only he knew I was here. I just hope he knows I'm here.*
Vision blurred at this last thought, and several tears escaped from the young woman's eyes. She let them fall without wiping them away. Or maybe she really didn't feel them at all, like she kept telling herself.
A memory played faintly on the back of her mind; a long time ago, a place she couldn't always remember with clarity anymore-- "Tears can't hurt you, Pietro."
She had said that to him, once. What the context of the comment was, she wasn't certain. Was he hurt? Yes, that seemed to fit. He had hurt himself often enough when they were children; horsing around in the trees, or simply running amuck like a little lunatic. This particular occurrence was coming back to Wanda know. He had hurt himself running; stepped in a hole and twisted his ankle a bit, but he wouldn't cry. In fact, Wanda recalled, he really never cried, even as a child, and this was no exception.
"Tears won't hurt you, Pietro." She had said, not really to tease. But he didn't cry. Never cried anything more than a couple of tears, not for pain, not for sorrow. Strange, that.
Wanda shook her head, as if the action itself would make room for more pleasant thoughts. A smirk threatened to play at the corner of her mouth as she was again remembering her twin as a boy. A clumsy youth, her brother could be, Wanda recalled fondly; always underestimating his own strength, then overcorrecting his miscalculations. Had the term been around at the time, there would have been no hesitation at all to classify him as a Hyperactive child.
Wanda was broken out of her reverie when a hand laid down gently on her shoulder. "Never cried." Wanda announced, making less than no sense at all to her visitor.
"Excuse me?"
The voice was calm, but carried an unmistakable tone of authority and confidence. Wanda didn't have to look to know that the voice belonged to none other than Captain America himself. She looked anyway, of course, and the facial expression alone on the man standing beside her was more than enough to make Wanda wonder, seriously, if she had been talking to herself aloud about her dream-thoughts again.
"I think," Cap's tone was almost...careful, Wanda noted. "that you may have been dreaming."
*That's our Cap.* Wanda thought, too numb with worry and fear to be amused. *Politically correct to the last.* She shook her head. "No, I'm just...tired." She corrected, driving Cap's point home for him.
Steve nodded, and took his hand from Wanda's shoulder, freeing himself to move closer to Pietro's bedside. For some reason, she didn't expect that.
She watched Captain America, clad in his trademark red white and blue uniform, stand in silence beside the sleeping body of her brother for several minutes, and try as she might, she couldn't come up with a single reason why the image looked so odd to her. Then she saw it. Just a slight tightness in Steve's normally relaxed mouth, and a certain crease at the corner of his eyes completed the picture. It only seemed strange, the way he was just standing there, because something was missing. But now she saw it clearly and his presence was no longer out of place.
Moving slowly, as if any fast movement would disturb Pietro, Steve pulled his mask away from his face, visibly relieved to get the thing off as he carelessly let it fall behind his head. With his face completely revealed, what Wanda didn't see before was plainly obvious now. Steve's face was wrought with concern. He wore bags under his sleep-deprived eyes and although Wanda could barely believe it, he was almost, almost, just a little bit slouched in his posture.
*Probably just the light, that.* Wanda supposed.
In her years working with Captain America as a fellow Avenger, Wanda would believe she's observed Steve in every possible mode. Be it work-mode, business-mode, or battle-mode, Wanda has seen them all. Even, once, she saw what she would call a 'semi-relaxed-mode'. At the moment, however, Steve was definitely in think-mode. And not for the first time when witnessing this particular mode, she found herself wondering what was going through that wonderfully analytical mind of his. Standing there, watching her brother, Steve's expression was changing a little bit every few seconds. It looked to Wanda as if he was playing out different scenarios in his mind, trying to come up with some other way that things could have happened in Genosha. Any other way. Anything other than what did happen.
Eventually, either Steve got tired of trying to will the past to change itself for the better, or, more likely, he realized that Wanda was staring.
Taking his eyes off of Pietro's sleeping form at last, Steve cocked his head to the side, letting Wanda know that he was talking to her, and not her brother. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. After repeating this pattern a couple of times, he almost changed his mind about saying anything at all. *What can I say? What should I say* He didn't understand why he couldn't seem to find the right words for her, or any words at all, for that matter.
"It's not your fault, Cap." Wanda's voice was only slightly more than a whisper. Maybe he was imagining things, but Steve was almost certain that he detected the barest emphasis on the word 'your', and made a guess that Wanda feels the same way he does: responsible for Pietro's condition. Turning, he knelt down beside Wanda's chair, and almost fell over when he got a closer look at her. Dark half-circles hung under normally bright green eyes that were now dim and somehow...empty. Although the lights were intentionally turned down low for Pietro's sake, it was still easy to see Wanda's fare olive complexion had been replaced by thin, pale skin, streaked with fallen and since dried tears. Steve realized, uneasily, that she was literally going to worry herself sick.
"I know, Wanda." Steve held Wanda's hollow eyes with his intense blue, and squeezed her hand to keep her complete attention. "And it isn't yours, either."
Something about her expression told him that his opinion wasn't at all welcome. Suddenly he yearned for a distraction from the brewing tension in the air, anything to avoid upsetting her any more than she already was. Then, almost on cue, someone rapped very softly on the open door, announcing their presence. Steve knew immediately what it was about: the call. Figuring Wanda wasn't likely to rise, he stood and made a quick trip to the new visitor.
From her chair, Wanda barely heard two men exchanging a few whispered words behind her. She did gather, however, that it was Jarvis, the Avergers' own butler, who had knocked on the door. "Wanda," Steve said as he walked back to her side, his voice still hushed, but more businesslike now. "Crystal called back a few moments ago. She'll be here by sometime tomorrow, she said."
"Sometime tomorrow..." Wanda repeated, and Steve was almost worried by the sound of her voice.
*What was that tone? Scorn? Annoyance?* He decided to direct the subject away from Crystal. "Wanda, you must be exhausted. I want you to get some sleep tonight." He immediately wished he could take the words back. *That didn't come out right. Don't boss her, work with her.* He went on, trying to sound persuasive. "Wanda, Hank and the others, myself included, are more than willing to make rounds here tonight. And with this medical equipment, if any of his vital signs...drop below the range of safety, Hank's beeper will sound an alert, and--"
"I know, Cap. He gave me one, too." Wanda interrupted, and every word managed to sound more like 'get lost' than what each actually was.
"I'd really prefer," Steve continued, trying to keep his voice level, "if you get some sleep tonight. You've been through--"
"If I sleep," Wanda said very matter-of-factly, "I'll do it right here." She tapped her foot lightly with that last word.
He understood that, short of drugging and dragging her out of here, nothing he did was going to change her mind. So he nodded, disappointed, and headed back towards the door, at which he stopped just short of. Without turning, he said- "Your brother, Wanda..." Now his tone was much more like the one she was so used to hearing from him; strong and commanding. "He's a strong man. He'll make it. He will." And with that, he left.
The room seemed much smaller after he did.
And so, the young woman named Wanda Maximoff sat beside her equally young, yet ever so much more asleep brother, and she wondered, not for the first time tonight, if he knew that she was there.
"I'm here, Pietro." She whispered in a language most people wouldn't know was called Romany.
"I'm here."
~ End. ~