I don't need you, I want you

Darkness. Nothingness.

And then pain. It feels as if I'm being shot all over again. A whimper leaves my lips and distant voices are all around me. "Wanda, let them take her." Is that… Steve? "No!" Wanda. "If you touch her I swear I'll kill you!" "Wanda, look at me." Clint. "They're going to put her on a stretcher so that they can bring her to the OR. They need to do this to save her life Wands. We did what we could, we gave her the blood transfusion and you kept her stable all the way to this base. But now you need to let the medics take over, there's nothing more we can do." A sob leaves her lips and it breaks my heart. I try to open my eyes but I can't see. "W-Wan…" Immediately a warm hand takes a hold of mine. "I'm here moya dorogoya…" Then to someone I can't see. "Why isn't she sedated? You said she would be out of pain!" "Fuck." It's Steve's voice again, and while I want to say language it simply hurts too much. "We didn't take into account the fact that she also has a kind of super soldier serum in her system, it breaks the sedation down much faster. We need to give her a higher dose!" A frustrated groan leaves Wanda's lips. "Idioty!" Purely through my willpower I succeed to move my hand to the pocket where I have put the USB, but trying to open the zipper is a step too far. Wanda must be seeing my movement because with her soft fingers she opens it for me. "USB…" I whisper and clearly they understand the message because her hand goes in my pocket and takes out the item that I had to keep safe. "Here Steve." I can hear a bit of shuffling but darkness is still all around me. A soft kiss on my forehead together with the smell of Wanda's perfume lets me know she's still here. Stay with me. The thought fills my head and a reassuring feeling radiates through me. "I'm staying with you Natalia."

Darkness fills me once more.

The first thing I notice is pain. Not the same amount as I had felt before, but it still caused me to gasp for air. Only for a second though, it was clearly less than before. I was back to myself and this also caused the things the Red Room had taught me to fall back into place. Don't show any weakness. So I took the pain and compartmentalized it. Put it somewhere in the back of my mind so that it wouldn't bother me. I had no use for it so it was better to ignore it excised as much as possible. Next I open my eyes and for a moment I'm blinded because of the light. I blink a few times and my surroundings slowly become clearer. I'm obviously in a SHIELD facility, the logo on the wall kind of gives it away. I'm lying in a hospital bed with tubes and cables linked to a IV and a nasal cannula in my nose. I've been in this situation more than once, I know that jumping up and ripping out all of the cables is not a smart option. If I want to get out of here as soon as possible, which I do, I have to let them stay for now. Hating how vulnerable this makes me feel, I try my best to relax my body into the comfortable mattress. I'm never capable of relaxing, my body is always tense, always waiting for the next fight. But I have perfected the art of making it look as if I was laid-back and chill. My eyes screen the rest of the room. It has a white color and there are no decorations on the walls, the same way all of the SHIELD hospital rooms have always been. The bed I'm in is standing in the middle of the room and on the right side there is a very large window with a view of the green forest that apparently surrounds the compound. In front of the window there are 2 comfortable looking armchairs. And in one of them… Wanda.

My heart makes a little jump but I push it back. She looks absolutely broken. She's still wearing the same clothes she wore during the fight, which are obviously covered in dirt and blood. The same goes for her hair. The brown locks that she normally takes such good care of are all tangled together, covered with grease. Her boots have been kicked off and lie somewhere in a corner, obviously thrown there without any care. Dark circles are visible under her eyes and I can see a deep cut on her forehead. She obviously hadn't allowed the medics to take care of her. She is watching something on her phone, obviously trying to distract herself from the worry she must be feeling… for me. Something I still have a hard time accepting. Her fingers, adorned with the rings she cares so much about, are tapping her tight. It's something she does when she's nervous, I have observed her more than enough to know this. "You know, worry isn't a good look on you Maximoff." My voice is horse and pretty quiet, speaking still hurts but not as much as before, but immediately her head goes up. "Nat!"

She jumps up and runs over to me, I didn't realize you could actually run such a small distance, tears filling her eyes. "You're okay…" I give her the best smile I can muster. "Thanks to you." She takes a hold of my hand and gives it a soft squeeze. "I was so worried about you, when I saw you taking that bullet…" She lets go of my hand and stands up straight, power radiating out of her. I've never been scared of Wanda but this… This came pretty close. "Don't you ever do that again, do you hear me?!" I just look at her, using all of the training I have had to keep my face an emotionless book. But inside of me guilt was present. Guilt and sadness and fear… "Don't you ever scare me like that again Romanoff! I have already lost everybody I have ever cared about in my life. My mother, my father, Pietro… I can't lose you too! You hear me? Not you too!" I want to make her feel better, somehow. It doesn't matter how. At this point I would promise her everything in the world, as long as it means I'll get to see her smile at me once more. I reach out, softly because movements still hurt, but she gets it and comes closer, allowing me to take her hand into mine. "I promise Wanda."

For a moment we just stay like this, looking into each other's eyes, trying to understand this thing we feel for one another. She sighs and pulls one of the armchairs closer, allowing herself to sit down basically next to me. "How are you feeling?" Like shit. Like an army of Chitauri have run through my stomach. Like all of my intestines have been put out of my body, were shuffled and then put back in. I can go on and on about how fucking bad it feels, but that's not what I have been trained to do. "You know, I'm kinda getting used to this. Not the first time I've been here." "In this facility?" I give her a soft smile. "No I meant in a hospital bed after a gun wound." She sits back and crosses her arms, giving me a stern look. "So you've been shot before?" Oh more than she should know. "Yes." "Tell me." For a moment I stay quiet, collecting my thoughts. There are multiple stories I can tell her, but I decide to go with the one I have also told Steve. This way the stories will match if they should ever decide to talk to each other about it. "I was on a mission for SHIELD. I was to escort a nuclear engineer out of Iran and bring him to the rendez vous point. We were in Odessa were the tires of our car were shot and we went down a cliff. Odessa is in Ukraine by the way." Wanda gives me a small nod, telling me to continue. "I managed to pull the both of us out of the wrecked car and when I saw the Winter Soldier I covered for my target. However, he shot the scientist through me, killing him. My abdomen was hit and I was lucky Fury came looking for me." Oh, apparently I had already been shot in the stomach before. After so many years and so many gun wounds apparently you just no longer remember all of them. "Nice story, but this doesn't answer my question. How are you feeling?" It's as if Wanda has gotten 10 years older during my being out time, surely not that much time can have gone by. "I'll be fine." She squeezes her eyes at me, clearly catching up on the fact that I'm not answering the question. I have been trained to never show any weakness so I can't tell her I'm in pain, but I don't want to lie to her either. "Can't you just take this for an answer?" I mumble and of course she hears me. "Fine." "Fine."

After a moment of silence Wanda clears her throat. "So…" I know where she's going but I pretend that I don't. "So?" "Are we going to talk about it?" "Talk about what?" The stern look on her face shows me that she's not falling for my games. "Seriously Nat? You take a bullet for every person you know? Although hearing you tell me that story, I think you might just do exactly that."A wave of frustration rolls over me and I scoff. "Of course not! He was my mission." "And I wasn't?" Her voice breaks as she finishes the sentence and my heart does the same. "Of course not, I didn't jump in front of that bullet because you're my mission, but because I care ab-…" My voice is suck in my throat as I realize what I was about to say. I try to turn away from her to escape the look in her eyes, but doing so causes a huge amount of pain to come over me. No matter how hard I try to stop myself from showing any form of pain, a small moan leaves my lips. "You're in pain." It's not a question, it's a statement and I do my best to wave away her concerns. "It's nothing that I can't handle."

After spending a couple of moments in silence Wanda moves closer and grabs my hand. "Then what about what you said huh? About you losing me not being an option?" She has me there. A silent tear runs over my cheek and there's nothing I can do to hide it from her. I know that for most people this would seem like nothing, but for me… For me it's the most emotion I have showed since I was a kid and Melina almost died. When I start talking my voice is but a whisper: "Don't you understand Wanda? I'm not good for you. I don't know how to love, how to be human." Wanda's voice is incredibly soft when she replies. "Don't be silly Nat… Of course you do. You've known for quite some time but you don't see it yourself. But I do… I see it." Another tear falls down my cheek. "Nobody loves a monster Wanda." She moves closer and wants to put her hand against my cheek to wipe it away, but my Red Room instincts kick in once more. I know I'm not capable of fighting right now, but it's as if my body moves on its own. I grab her arm, ready to throw her over my shoulder onto the ground… Or an 'I'm stuck in a hospital bed' version of it. But immediately her magic crashes down on me, preventing me from making any movement and pushing me back into the bed. Before I know it she's in my mind.

I'm in the HYDRA facility where the twins got their magic powers, and I can feel this new found magic surge through me. Me… I realize that I'm seeing Wanda's memories trough her own eyes. I'm watching the old tv, it's the only thing I have to do in here. A few guards come into my cell. "You need to come witch, Strucker wants to see you." I don't want to go, the episode isn't finished yet. "I'll come in a couple of minutes." My accent was still thick at this point, not fluent in English at all. "Didn't you hear us? He wants to see you now."I ignore them and concentrate on the sitcom playing on the little screen. "Hey bitch!" They move forward and grab my arm, but as soon as they touch me it's as if the magic inside of me bursts out. They scream and crawl back. "She's a freak! Let's go, the baron can deal with her himself if he wants to!"

I'm on the boat in South Africa, digging into the Avengers their minds. Pulling out their worst fears. Sadly enough it wasn't as simple as making them see it and then turning around and leaving them to it. To get their biggest fears to the front of their minds, I had to actually see them too. Feel them, live them. Guilt for what I was doing filled every fiber of my being. But I knew I was doing the right thing, I mean I had to. I had to… Right?

Looking at the tv screen I see the damage the Hulk has done in Johannesburg. The houses he has destroyed, the many lives that are lost. And I know it's my fault. I'm the one who infiltrated his mind, I'm the one who caused him to go onto a rampage… Pietro pulls me close to him and gives me a kiss on my head. "It's for a good cause sister… Never forget that."

We're on Sokovia and its flying hundreds of meters into the air. Robot after robot I destroy until there is nothing left of them anymore. Then suddenly, it's as if my heart is torn out of my body. Pietro. I know it instantly, I don't need to be with him to understand what's going on. To understand that my brother is no more. An inhuman sound leaves my lips and I drop to the floor. He was everything I had left, and now he was dead… And it was my fault. I should never have convinced him to sign up for these experiments. I should never have allowed ourselves to join Ultron. I should never have… Too late. He's gone, I'm all alone again… and it's my fault.

More memories pass in front of me, faster and faster. When she pulls herself back I gasp for air. "I'm a monster too." Her voice is so soft, so quiet, but it feels as if she is screaming it at the top of her lungs. I'm at a loss for words, something I don't recall ever happening before. "But… I'm not good for you Wanda… You think you love me but nobody could ever love someone like me…"

There are her hands again against my temple, taking me into her mind once more.

I'm sitting on the ground, dirt covering me but there's not an inch of me that cares. In my lap lays a head, with red hair… It's me. The real me. It's me after I had been shot. "I NEED MEDICAL HELP!" The desperate scream leaves my lips, worry filling every fiber of my being. I pull the woman in my lap even closer to me. "Hey, hey, look at me moya dorogoya. I'm here. Why did you do that, huh? Out of all the stupid things you have done I think this is the new number one." I can't lose her too, not before we have had the chance of trying to make it work between us, before we have had the chance of being happy together. I have lost so much already, not her too… For a moment my attention gets drawn towards a small shining object close to us, the bullet, and I quickly put it into my pocket. I can see Natasha doing her absolute best to put up a comforting smile, but I can see the pain seeping through. Even a Red Room assassin has a limit to what they can hide from the world. She reaches out for my face and touches my cheek. I can feel her blood sticking to my skin but I ignore it, I don't care. "Losing you is not an option Wanda." Her voice is so quiet that I almost missed it. Almost. I can feel my heart shatter into a million pieces all over again when the words reach me, and immediately after she said them her hand falls to the ground. "No… No!" Clint and Steve drop to the floor next to me, the Captain checking her pulse while the other one checks the wound. "We still have a pulse, it's weak but it's still there." For a moment Steve's words reassure me but Clint breaks this illusion. "Not if we wait much longer. We need to get her to the plane immediately, she's lost too much blood so she needs a transfusion as soon as possible. Wanda can you keep the wound as stable as possible?" It takes a moment before his words sink in and when they do anger fills me, anger towards myself. I should have thought about this immediately, of course my magic could temporarily stop the bleeding. A small nod confirms it and I focus all of my power into my hands, hovering them over Natasha's stomach. A red glow covers the wound but it takes all of my energy to keep it there. It's as if I can feel Natasha's life force underneath it, ready to slip away if I give in even one inch.

"Come on!" Sam, Bucky and Rhodey appear and together with Clint and Steve they pick her up as carefully as possible. "We really need to put a stretcher on the plane." Sam mumbles and for once I totally agree with him, but it's too late for that now. I need to keep focusing. When we arrive in the plane they softly put her on a blanket on the floor. My hands keep hovering over the wound, I can feel it's draining everything from me but I can't stop because if I do, I'll lose her. "I'm going to stay behind, wait for Hill to arrive to take the survivors into custody and to bring our agents back home. You get her so a hospital as soon as possible." Rhodey's voice is stern and he leaves the plane without looking back. "Sam, can you fly the plane to…" "…to Augsburg. There's a SHIELD facility there and it's much closer than flying all the way back to America." Clint interrupts and immediately Sam does as he was told. "She is going to need a blood transfusion right now guys, we can't wait until we're in the hospital because than she might not make it. Also Wanda is running out of power." Clint was obviously the one taking charge in this, and that was a good thing too. Since he was an ex SHIELD agents just like Nat was, he was probably the only one of us who had any real idea about what had to happen. Normally Bruce or Tony were with us, but today that was not the case. "I'm fine!" I snap, but I did have to admit I could feel myself getting weaker by the minute. I had already used a lot of my powers fighting the bad guys. "Sam, get me the material and some sedation, Cap get me the blood. Quickly!" All of them handled as fast as they could, getting the stuff the archer needed to save our friends life. "Sedation? Isn't she already knocked out because of the blood loss?" He nodded in agreement. "Yes, but we don't want her to wake up in this state. Sedating her is the best course of action." I wasn't really following what they were doing next, I had to put all of my focus into making sure my magic was doing its work. I know they gave her the sedation and the much needed blood transfusion. Clint told me I could stop pouring my magic into her, but I didn't. I couldn't.

I stayed with her as long as I could, but when they took her into the OR I had to let her go. It broke every fiber of my being into a thousand pieces. All 5 of us were sitting in the waiting room, anxious to get some news from the doctor. None of us were doing anything, not even saying a word. We were just looking in front of us, all lost into our own thoughts. Thoughts about how important Natasha was to us, to the world. About how much we all needed her, each for our own different reasons. When the doctor entered the room I jumped up, immediately followed by the others. "She should be okay. The bullet hit her small intestine but she was lucky enough to not have it hit any other vital organs. The fact that the bullet went through was a lucky coincidence. We had to remove the part of the intestine where she was hit and sewed it back together again. Now we just have to wait for her to wake up, this can take quite some time… It's up to her now." A combination of relief and worry at the same time filled me. What if she didn't wake up?

I'm sitting in the armchair, knees contracted so that I could fit in it. I kept looking at Natasha, at her steady but weak breathing, at the monitor next to her. I kept looking at it because I just had to see that she was alive. Beep. Beep. Every time it made this sound a jolt of relief went through me. After hearing the operation was a success the others had gone back to America. They had to arrange a lot of stuff over there, mostly about the HYDRA agents that had survived my attack. Most of the time I would feel guilty if I had lost control over my magic, but not this time. Not when it came to losing Natasha. The doctors had asked to examine me, make sure I was okay, but I refused. I didn't want to leave her side. They made the proposition of giving me a room of myself so that I could have a good night sleep, but I refused once more. I would sleep in this armchair if I had to but I was going to stay with her. Emotions take control of me. Sadness, anger, fear, guilt… I let the tears stream over my face as I think about what I might lose.

Coming back to my body makes me gasp out loud. I have experienced having her in my head before, but that was to show me things of my own horrifying past, not to show me hers. I had never realized how much she cares about me, how deep her love for me goes. It's as if I'm lost in the emotions that are her. Wanda's hand goes into her pocket and she takes something out. Showing me her palm, I can see the bullet. Or at least, what's left of it. It's a tiny piece of scrap material now, nowhere near as dangerous as it had been before. "I was never in any real danger moya dorogoya. I have my magic to protect me, my shield will always prevent any dangerous stuff from coming close to me, even if I haven't seen it coming." I'm feeling a mixture of astonishment, surprise, a little bit of outrage and… love. "I don't need you Natasha, but I want you."

It's as everything suddenly clicks in my head, as if I understand. Maybe it's because she showed me the things from her perspective, or maybe it's because I needed a bullet to go through me before I could finally feel it too… admit it. Say it. I signal her to come closer and when she is, I rest my head against hers.

"I want you too Wands."

We are the broken ones, who chose to spark a flame

Watch as our fire rages, our hearts are never tame

'Cause we were born for this