( life in america is very different from the sitcoms wanda once used as a means of escape from the cold and grey in sokovia. one could say that it is not exactly what she expected, but at least she has her brother—her one constant, her one tug back to reality when things get tough.
—except that where wanda is trying to minimize how much she stands out, pietro is trying to maximize the most out of his coming to america. he hardly ever shows up for training at the compound (what, it's not like anyone can catch up with him), he's managed to get himself sponsors, and has subsequently moved out into his own space in manhattan. he makes sure that wanda gets to also favor from this, but she hasn't taken to the glitz and glam the same way he has. they let him, though, which wanda doesn't quite agree with, because for once the avengers are getting some really good press after a few years of pretty shoddy work.
it's still her brother, though, and wanda adores him.
which is probably why she shows up on a tuesday morning to his apartment (of course she has a key) and stands in front of the chaos left in the wake of what pietro claimed to be a party of epic marathon proportions. the apartments a right mess—bottles and cans misplaced, furniture pushed about, and the kitchen is indescribable. wanda closes the fridge door and hopes the food that is in there hasn't gone bad. )
Pietro?
( she steps over most of the mess and raises a blanket over the couch, but no brother in sight. which is why she goes up to his bedroom, door ajar, and finds that the curtains have been pulled close. a foot that certainly belongs to her brother sticks from the haphazardly placed blankets, and she figures out the configuration of how he must be lying down to pull back the blanket covering his head. )
How slammed are you? You left me over ten voice notes.
( wanda pulls the party-glasses set askew on his forehead, then lightly pats his face with the same hand she's holding said glasses with. )
so was the previous night's. and the one before. and the one before. every party has been wild, crazy, intense, vibrant, rousing, fast —
all blurring together into an endless sea of noise and sensations. he's racing, going faster and faster with each pop, shot, hit, and keg-stand. his footsteps are tire marks. commercial shoots in the morning, contract signings in the afternoon, red carpet in the evening, and after parties at night. his cell phone rings non-stop. a call from his manager, gail. "red bull racing wants an appearance." a call from his personal assistant, elsa. "shkreli is asking for double the price now." a call from his landlord about several noise complaints. "i'm grateful that you helped save the world but honestly!" three missed calls from the avengers compound. "this is your sixth absence this month. how about you stop playing superhero and actually be one." delete. a call from a journalist regarding rumors that he was seen cozying up with jennifer lawrence.
pietro laughs, slow and deliberate, and hangs up. he doesn't kiss and tell. his thumbs tap out a text to his publicist for the paparazzi to catch him leaving a restaurant with lyndsy fonseca that night. he drinks an entire bottle of vodka and smashes it on the hood of a taxi. security camera footage circulates on youtube but is quickly buried by pietro racing the circuit de monaco in under fifteen seconds. red bull branded sunglasses conceal his bloodshot eyes.
the next day, after a tense training session, rogers throws a hard right hook at his face but pietro's too fast. too high. these air force 1s are on cloud nine. that night, at a party on a rooftop in miami, he reenacts the incident to a roar of laughter and cheers. captain america ain't shit to quicksilver!
his cell phone buzzes in the pocket of his sweatpants. a call from the avengers compound — a hostage situation in taipei city. thirteen terrorists. sixty-eight hostages. seven casualties. alien tech. highly dangerous. pitbull performs wild wild love and the crowd carries pietro to and fro in jerky movements, his ears ringing from the bass and screams. the morning news covers the avengers' success as he searches for his underwear and slips out before his date wakes up. he arrives at avengers tower quickly enough to catch looks of sour disapproval from his teammates as they disembark from the quinjet. thirteen terrorists captured. sixty-six hostages freed. nine casualties. hill almost punches him.
another night, another party. this time at his penthouse in manhattan. a celebration of the successful mission in taipei city. none of the people who participated in the mission are there but that doesn't stop pietro from basking in the accolades. his cheeks glow red in the flashing lights. he leads a toast to his dear leader, captain america, and chugs a bottle of jägermeister to cheers and applause.
someone says he's bumped his head. a couple of people pick him up and carry him into his bedroom. nobody threads their fingers through his white hair to feel for any sticky blood that may be clotting. nobody checks his pupils or listens to his breathing. nobody removes his sneakers before they pull the bright orange blanket over his head and return to the party. fortunately, he didn't get concussed or bleed on the floor. his hair is still a pristine white, marred only by flecks of green iridescent confetti.
a bite of chill stirs him from a deep sleep. first against his face and then concentrated against his cheeks, bristly with a two-day stubble. tugging at the blanket and still half-asleep, pietro moans, ) Don't touch my shoooooooes.
( why can't boris keep his grubby hands off his belongings? why won't the sisters let him sleep? why must it always be so cold at the orphanage? )
( it isn't lost on wanda that pietro is on tenterhooks with pretty much every significant thing in his life. even his party buddies are ephemeral, only there for the clout of getting to hang out with an actual avenger when the rest of the team is more insular. he should be aware of how his actions reflect on her, on how she suffers incredible embarrassment when he acts cocky and indifferent in front of those who are becoming her new family here in america; the way she hates feeling disappointed at him whenever they come back from a mission he could have helped minimize casualties for. it's hard for wanda, who is caught in the middle, especially when the moment a lecture from steve starts brewing pietro bails, leaving her to reckon with the anger and discontent of the rest of the team.
and, despite all of this, pietro is still her brother, and wanda still adores him. he could never lose favor in her eyes, even if it gets increasingly harder with every stunt.
especially when it feels that he only reaches out to her anymore when he needs someone to either clean up his messes or when he's falling into a lull and needs to take a breather.
with a sigh, wanda stops patting his face and sits down on the edge of the bed, glancing around his mess of a room, letting his half-awake thoughts settle. wanda knows he's going through something that he is unwilling to admit to and talk about. they had so little in sokovia, and now they basically have anything they could ever want; why not live in excess? and with the way pietro's speed works, how time means little to him and there's no real sense of expectation and responsibilities are hardly grounding.
(wanda, too, doesn't know how to go about it.)
once pietro's breathing deepens again, wanda gets up and pulls the blanket off of him; she rolls him onto his side, this bulk of dead weight, and shifts him so he's lying on his back. she speaks in their mother tongue, ditching the american english and the accent they've both improved on since coming here, her words a little harsh and clipped. )
I'm not going to touch your shoes, but you're going to have to get up and at the very least change. A shower would be better. You stink, Pietro.
( she sets the glasses on his bureau, twirls her wrist for strands of red plumes to pull the curtains open, letting in the afternoon sunlight glare. )
I'll put some water to boil. ( for tea, of course. some things don't change despite crossing the ocean. ) And I'll try to find something for you to eat.
( wanda will wait until she sees the slightest movement, before heading out towards the kitchen, picking up some of the trash on the floor on her way. )
( his mind drifts along a stream, occasionally bumping against rocks and debris before finally settling on a bank. his first thoughts drum against the surface of the water, stirring him from consciousness. it's not the orphanage. it's not sokovia. his shoes are still on his feet, laces double-knotted. and the glare that stares down at him is not sister verka's, but his sister's.
is wanda here because he called her, or because she sensed she was needed? sometimes pietro can feel her in his mind, like a fly in a small, enclosed area — silent, inconspicuous, and hidden until its wings beat and buzz near the periphery of one's earshot. then it's deafening, annoying, and overwhelming. it's the worst after he misses a training session or a mission, and her presence is on his mind like a cloud of locusts on the horizon. like it's his fault that he loses track of time or of his phone. who's to say that the vibration in his pocket is from his phone or his leg bouncing up and down and up and down and up and down as he tries to focus on what his manager gail is saying? why must she speak so slowly like he's an idiot? his american english has improved enough that he mostly understands everyone. and yet, everyone treats him as if he doesn't know what he's doing. he's got this.
speaking in his brother tongue, pietro immediately retorts, )You stink.
( a slice of the afternoon sun stabs his eyes, and he turns his face away into the pillow, grimacing. figures wanda would play dirty and not even give him the relief of nursing his hangover in silent darkness. maybe if he plays opossum long enough, she'll leave him be. it works on his friends. none of them want to be responsible for him any further than dragging him from place to place to get them into bars and clubs. his face is a currency, an all-access pass that opens doors. pietro knows what he is to them, and what they are to him. is it parasitism or mutualism? if both parties are aware and no one gets hurt, what's the problem?
but his sister is not like his friends, and she won't leave until he moves. her impatience is another fly buzzing around his head. loudly groaning, he rubs a hand across his face and starts toeing off his sneakers. )
( his brother tongue is one she is far too familiar with, so she pays her no heed; it at the very least tells her that her brother is alive under all those layers of whatever drugs and drinks he had the past couple of days.
soon enough, she's got water on the kettle and some tea bags from the uppermost shelf on the cupboard (did pietro buy these for himself, or does he keep them for her? it doesn't matter, really; after all, it's black tea, and the smell reminds her of home, and would be great with some fig-stuffed phyllo pastry—) and waits a beat or two while she glances at the situation about her, fingers tapping on the edge of the counter, as if counting the seconds.
for someone so bothered by how slow everything around him is, pietro sure takes his time pulling off his bed. it's perfect, though, for it gives wanda the perfect amount of time to go about the penthouse and cleaning up the bigger messes, using her telekinesis to move heavy furniture around to where it's meant to be, clearing up a path towards the one expenditure wanda considers to be pietro's best: the record player. a vinyl that resds respighi is picked from the shelf, and a favorite of wanda's fills the space with some amount of serenity.
she doubts pietro's "friends" would ever find value in the music that he spends a lot of his money on.
wanda half-waltzes in tune back towards the kitchen, as the kettle clicks its fulfillment, and she drags two tall, ceramic cups onto the kitchen counter. )
You'll want yours with sugar, I imagine?
( she calls out, half expecting her brother to step out of his room any time now. )
( the water is cold on his back. biting, burrowing under his skin and into his bones.
the orphanage had only cold water. very nice in sokovian summers when the sun baked the concrete and the grass crinkled beneath their feet but not so nice in sokovian winters when the temperature hovered around -20 and they had to wear their coats, gloves, and hats to bed. that was if water was available. a lot of times it would shut off. pipes older than lenin would burst, militias would breach the city, or the oligarchs would think swimming pools or fountains were a more adequate usage for the dwindling water supply. each time, it would leave thousands of people without water for weeks.
he thinks about the showers at the orphanage: the sallow walls, the sharp smell of ammonia, the weak sunlight through the frosted windows, and the chill on his knees and hands. scrubbing the showers with a toothbrush or scouring pots and pans in the kitchen — that was where he could usually be found. "talk back to the sisters again, pietro?" yeah, he's performing his daily act of repentance.
there were so many rules at the orphanage that he never knew he broke until a ruler struck the back of his knees or a pair of bony fingers hooked his ear and pulled. during confessional, he never admitted to breaking any of the orphanage's rules, instead confessing the same list of sins committed before they lost their parents: stealing a few pieces of hard candy from the market, locking wanda in the cupboard, copying wanda's homework, cutting the hair off wanda's doll; grabbing a dog by its hind legs, and pushing him around like a vacuum cleaner. why feign guilt and seek forgiveness for actions he never considered sins? out of fear of hell? what were those two days under the bed with a missile three feet away from them? what was the orphanage?
he showers quickly before the water goes out or turns into sludge. within seconds, pietro gets into a powder blue tracksuit — custom from nike with his name emblazoned across the chest — and is sitting at the counter, sipping tea from a tall, ceramic mug. no sugar. but a shot of rum. he almost changed the record to something else: stravinsky, penderecki, schnittke — anything not by a fascist, but decides against riling up wanda further. for the same reason, he admitted guilt to locking her in the cupboard, copying her homework, and cutting the hair off her doll. his presence is trouble enough for her. no reason to pile it on. )
( unsurprisingly, it takes little to wake pietro up from his hangover. he speeds his way through the shower and getting changed, and the cup of tea that she had been preparing for him is gone from her hands and is, instead, in front of him as he sits at the counter. wanda pouts momentarily, minding now her own cup of tea, before moving to sit next to her brother. )
I think you think I'm upset at you.
( the dainty spoon ricochets inside the ceramic cup, until wanda pulls it out and sets it aside.
wanda is many things regarding pietro, but she could never truly be upset at him. there are circumstances that are out of their control here. is she a bit embarrassed that he likes wearing ridiculously vain clothes with his name on it? yes. is she disappointed that he's put a shot of rum in his cup of tea? of course.
but they're not children anymore, and pietro doesn't have to confess to anyone about the times he locked her up in cupboards, copied her homework, and cut the hair off her doll. he is his own man, and wanda leads her own life, separately but parallel from his. )
I have all day to spend it with you. ( she says, turning her head to him, and raising her hand to fix the curls of damp hair that fall heavily over his eyes. ) I promise I won't be a nag about what you've been up to.
( because, truth be told, it's been a while since wanda has gotten to be around her brother. she misses him; yearns to normalize the closeness they had before coming to america.
she hopes he never leaves her behind.
bringing her cup of tea close to her lips, she adds, before taking a sip to hide her vulnerabilities. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
✴︎ backseat freestyle
—except that where wanda is trying to minimize how much she stands out, pietro is trying to maximize the most out of his coming to america. he hardly ever shows up for training at the compound (what, it's not like anyone can catch up with him), he's managed to get himself sponsors, and has subsequently moved out into his own space in manhattan. he makes sure that wanda gets to also favor from this, but she hasn't taken to the glitz and glam the same way he has. they let him, though, which wanda doesn't quite agree with, because for once the avengers are getting some really good press after a few years of pretty shoddy work.
it's still her brother, though, and wanda adores him.
which is probably why she shows up on a tuesday morning to his apartment (of course she has a key) and stands in front of the chaos left in the wake of what pietro claimed to be a party of epic marathon proportions. the apartments a right mess—bottles and cans misplaced, furniture pushed about, and the kitchen is indescribable. wanda closes the fridge door and hopes the food that is in there hasn't gone bad. )
Pietro?
( she steps over most of the mess and raises a blanket over the couch, but no brother in sight. which is why she goes up to his bedroom, door ajar, and finds that the curtains have been pulled close. a foot that certainly belongs to her brother sticks from the haphazardly placed blankets, and she figures out the configuration of how he must be lying down to pull back the blanket covering his head. )
How slammed are you? You left me over ten voice notes.
( wanda pulls the party-glasses set askew on his forehead, then lightly pats his face with the same hand she's holding said glasses with. )
Hello?
no subject
so was the previous night's. and the one before. and the one before. every party has been wild, crazy, intense, vibrant, rousing, fast —
all blurring together into an endless sea of noise and sensations. he's racing, going faster and faster with each pop, shot, hit, and keg-stand. his footsteps are tire marks. commercial shoots in the morning, contract signings in the afternoon, red carpet in the evening, and after parties at night. his cell phone rings non-stop. a call from his manager, gail. "red bull racing wants an appearance." a call from his personal assistant, elsa. "shkreli is asking for double the price now." a call from his landlord about several noise complaints. "i'm grateful that you helped save the world but honestly!" three missed calls from the avengers compound. "this is your sixth absence this month. how about you stop playing superhero and actually be one." delete. a call from a journalist regarding rumors that he was seen cozying up with jennifer lawrence.
pietro laughs, slow and deliberate, and hangs up. he doesn't kiss and tell. his thumbs tap out a text to his publicist for the paparazzi to catch him leaving a restaurant with lyndsy fonseca that night. he drinks an entire bottle of vodka and smashes it on the hood of a taxi. security camera footage circulates on youtube but is quickly buried by pietro racing the circuit de monaco in under fifteen seconds. red bull branded sunglasses conceal his bloodshot eyes.
the next day, after a tense training session, rogers throws a hard right hook at his face but pietro's too fast. too high. these air force 1s are on cloud nine. that night, at a party on a rooftop in miami, he reenacts the incident to a roar of laughter and cheers. captain america ain't shit to quicksilver!
his cell phone buzzes in the pocket of his sweatpants. a call from the avengers compound — a hostage situation in taipei city. thirteen terrorists. sixty-eight hostages. seven casualties. alien tech. highly dangerous. pitbull performs wild wild love and the crowd carries pietro to and fro in jerky movements, his ears ringing from the bass and screams. the morning news covers the avengers' success as he searches for his underwear and slips out before his date wakes up. he arrives at avengers tower quickly enough to catch looks of sour disapproval from his teammates as they disembark from the quinjet. thirteen terrorists captured. sixty-six hostages freed. nine casualties. hill almost punches him.
another night, another party. this time at his penthouse in manhattan. a celebration of the successful mission in taipei city. none of the people who participated in the mission are there but that doesn't stop pietro from basking in the accolades. his cheeks glow red in the flashing lights. he leads a toast to his dear leader, captain america, and chugs a bottle of jägermeister to cheers and applause.
someone says he's bumped his head. a couple of people pick him up and carry him into his bedroom. nobody threads their fingers through his white hair to feel for any sticky blood that may be clotting. nobody checks his pupils or listens to his breathing. nobody removes his sneakers before they pull the bright orange blanket over his head and return to the party. fortunately, he didn't get concussed or bleed on the floor. his hair is still a pristine white, marred only by flecks of green iridescent confetti.
a bite of chill stirs him from a deep sleep. first against his face and then concentrated against his cheeks, bristly with a two-day stubble. tugging at the blanket and still half-asleep, pietro moans, ) Don't touch my shoooooooes.
( why can't boris keep his grubby hands off his belongings? why won't the sisters let him sleep? why must it always be so cold at the orphanage? )
no subject
and, despite all of this, pietro is still her brother, and wanda still adores him. he could never lose favor in her eyes, even if it gets increasingly harder with every stunt.
especially when it feels that he only reaches out to her anymore when he needs someone to either clean up his messes or when he's falling into a lull and needs to take a breather.
with a sigh, wanda stops patting his face and sits down on the edge of the bed, glancing around his mess of a room, letting his half-awake thoughts settle. wanda knows he's going through something that he is unwilling to admit to and talk about. they had so little in sokovia, and now they basically have anything they could ever want; why not live in excess? and with the way pietro's speed works, how time means little to him and there's no real sense of expectation and responsibilities are hardly grounding.
(wanda, too, doesn't know how to go about it.)
once pietro's breathing deepens again, wanda gets up and pulls the blanket off of him; she rolls him onto his side, this bulk of dead weight, and shifts him so he's lying on his back. she speaks in their mother tongue, ditching the american english and the accent they've both improved on since coming here, her words a little harsh and clipped. )
I'm not going to touch your shoes, but you're going to have to get up and at the very least change. A shower would be better. You stink, Pietro.
( she sets the glasses on his bureau, twirls her wrist for strands of red plumes to pull the curtains open, letting in the afternoon sunlight glare. )
I'll put some water to boil. ( for tea, of course. some things don't change despite crossing the ocean. ) And I'll try to find something for you to eat.
( wanda will wait until she sees the slightest movement, before heading out towards the kitchen, picking up some of the trash on the floor on her way. )
no subject
is wanda here because he called her, or because she sensed she was needed? sometimes pietro can feel her in his mind, like a fly in a small, enclosed area — silent, inconspicuous, and hidden until its wings beat and buzz near the periphery of one's earshot. then it's deafening, annoying, and overwhelming. it's the worst after he misses a training session or a mission, and her presence is on his mind like a cloud of locusts on the horizon. like it's his fault that he loses track of time or of his phone. who's to say that the vibration in his pocket is from his phone or his leg bouncing up and down and up and down and up and down as he tries to focus on what his manager gail is saying? why must she speak so slowly like he's an idiot? his american english has improved enough that he mostly understands everyone. and yet, everyone treats him as if he doesn't know what he's doing. he's got this.
speaking in his brother tongue, pietro immediately retorts, ) You stink.
( a slice of the afternoon sun stabs his eyes, and he turns his face away into the pillow, grimacing. figures wanda would play dirty and not even give him the relief of nursing his hangover in silent darkness. maybe if he plays opossum long enough, she'll leave him be. it works on his friends. none of them want to be responsible for him any further than dragging him from place to place to get them into bars and clubs. his face is a currency, an all-access pass that opens doors. pietro knows what he is to them, and what they are to him. is it parasitism or mutualism? if both parties are aware and no one gets hurt, what's the problem?
but his sister is not like his friends, and she won't leave until he moves. her impatience is another fly buzzing around his head. loudly groaning, he rubs a hand across his face and starts toeing off his sneakers. )
no subject
soon enough, she's got water on the kettle and some tea bags from the uppermost shelf on the cupboard (did pietro buy these for himself, or does he keep them for her? it doesn't matter, really; after all, it's black tea, and the smell reminds her of home, and would be great with some fig-stuffed phyllo pastry—) and waits a beat or two while she glances at the situation about her, fingers tapping on the edge of the counter, as if counting the seconds.
for someone so bothered by how slow everything around him is, pietro sure takes his time pulling off his bed. it's perfect, though, for it gives wanda the perfect amount of time to go about the penthouse and cleaning up the bigger messes, using her telekinesis to move heavy furniture around to where it's meant to be, clearing up a path towards the one expenditure wanda considers to be pietro's best: the record player. a vinyl that resds respighi is picked from the shelf, and a favorite of wanda's fills the space with some amount of serenity.
she doubts pietro's "friends" would ever find value in the music that he spends a lot of his money on.
wanda half-waltzes in tune back towards the kitchen, as the kettle clicks its fulfillment, and she drags two tall, ceramic cups onto the kitchen counter. )
You'll want yours with sugar, I imagine?
( she calls out, half expecting her brother to step out of his room any time now. )
no subject
the orphanage had only cold water. very nice in sokovian summers when the sun baked the concrete and the grass crinkled beneath their feet but not so nice in sokovian winters when the temperature hovered around -20 and they had to wear their coats, gloves, and hats to bed. that was if water was available. a lot of times it would shut off. pipes older than lenin would burst, militias would breach the city, or the oligarchs would think swimming pools or fountains were a more adequate usage for the dwindling water supply. each time, it would leave thousands of people without water for weeks.
he thinks about the showers at the orphanage: the sallow walls, the sharp smell of ammonia, the weak sunlight through the frosted windows, and the chill on his knees and hands. scrubbing the showers with a toothbrush or scouring pots and pans in the kitchen — that was where he could usually be found. "talk back to the sisters again, pietro?" yeah, he's performing his daily act of repentance.
there were so many rules at the orphanage that he never knew he broke until a ruler struck the back of his knees or a pair of bony fingers hooked his ear and pulled. during confessional, he never admitted to breaking any of the orphanage's rules, instead confessing the same list of sins committed before they lost their parents: stealing a few pieces of hard candy from the market, locking wanda in the cupboard, copying wanda's homework, cutting the hair off wanda's doll; grabbing a dog by its hind legs, and pushing him around like a vacuum cleaner. why feign guilt and seek forgiveness for actions he never considered sins? out of fear of hell? what were those two days under the bed with a missile three feet away from them? what was the orphanage?
he showers quickly before the water goes out or turns into sludge. within seconds, pietro gets into a powder blue tracksuit — custom from nike with his name emblazoned across the chest — and is sitting at the counter, sipping tea from a tall, ceramic mug. no sugar. but a shot of rum. he almost changed the record to something else: stravinsky, penderecki, schnittke — anything not by a fascist, but decides against riling up wanda further. for the same reason, he admitted guilt to locking her in the cupboard, copying her homework, and cutting the hair off her doll. his presence is trouble enough for her. no reason to pile it on. )
no subject
I think you think I'm upset at you.
( the dainty spoon ricochets inside the ceramic cup, until wanda pulls it out and sets it aside.
wanda is many things regarding pietro, but she could never truly be upset at him. there are circumstances that are out of their control here. is she a bit embarrassed that he likes wearing ridiculously vain clothes with his name on it? yes. is she disappointed that he's put a shot of rum in his cup of tea? of course.
but they're not children anymore, and pietro doesn't have to confess to anyone about the times he locked her up in cupboards, copied her homework, and cut the hair off her doll. he is his own man, and wanda leads her own life, separately but parallel from his. )
I have all day to spend it with you. ( she says, turning her head to him, and raising her hand to fix the curls of damp hair that fall heavily over his eyes. ) I promise I won't be a nag about what you've been up to.
( because, truth be told, it's been a while since wanda has gotten to be around her brother. she misses him; yearns to normalize the closeness they had before coming to america.
she hopes he never leaves her behind.
bringing her cup of tea close to her lips, she adds, before taking a sip to hide her vulnerabilities. )
I miss you.