CHAPTER III: To Wait

-Wanda and Pietro Maximoff-

EASTERN EUROPE. SOKOVIA.

"Wanda! WANDA!"

She could still hear him screaming her name. She could still hear the sound of chaos outside the house, and it took all of her strength to block out the repetitive screaming, not just from her brother, but all of the people outside. The dying people. The explosions, the final blast before all of the voices ceased at once as pain erupted on her forehead and darkness blossomed behind her eyelids. Once unconscious, the ghosts of the screams came back. She was helpless to escape them.

The house was totaled. It had been nothing much, just another humble two-story abode in the neighborhood. Now it had become even less in the matter of seconds. The west side had been blown into rubble. That had been where her parents had slept. Where they had woken up to the shouting outside their window, where they had looked down on the street, where they had yelled to their children to run, to run fast and run hard. The rest had collapsed in on itself, burying the two survivors of the bombing beneath splintered beams and plaster.

Wanda Maximoff knew that she was in pain, that she was trapped, and that without help she was going to die. She was young, far too young to go through what she had. Her legs were pinned at an uncomfortable angle beneath a wooden board, and she was covered in a layer of powdery plaster and filth from the wreckage.

"I'm alive," the ten-year-old girl breathed. "I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive." The fact fascinated her. She repeated the mantra in her head, as though the repetition would make her believe it. Dust caught in her lungs, and her small voice exploded into a violent fit of coughing. The haggard sound was loud enough to block out the ghosts, the cries of the dead.

She had no idea how long she had lain beneath the rubble. It hadn't been long since she had woken up from unconsciousness. Something had struck her head hard enough that it still throbbed, but not enough to deter her from fighting for life. It was something that was ingrained in young blood, the will to live, the urge to fight for life. She didn't even know if her brother had made it out or not. But she was so tired and so scared that perhaps a bit of hope wouldn't hurt.

"Pietro!" she managed between coughs. Her own voice was scratchy and weak when it gasped out his name. It hurt to speak with chapped lips. "Pietro!"

A few yards away, something shifted causing debris to displace itself in a crash.

"Wanda?"

She thought she heard his voice. The voice of her twin was so familiar to her, though, that she might have been dreaming it up, just like the voices of the rest of the dead, had it not cried out a second time. "Wanda! Wanda, I'm over here!" There was more scrambling, much more frantic, and the voice got ever closer and closer. Not even a fevered dream could sound so similar to Pietro Maximoff; brother, unfortunate twin, and extreme booger. In Wanda's opinion, of course.

"I'm stuck!" she wailed as soon as the coughing subsided.

"I'll get you out," her twin promised. He sounded strange, having to speak through a few feet of wreckage. "Can you move?"

Wanda turned her face toward the shaft of light that pierced through the first layer of debris, that she just happened to be lying right under.

"Wanda, can you move?" He was more urgent. Nervous.

"My legs are stuck," she said in a small voice. Then she added, "Where are we?"

Pietro began to drag some of the larger shattered beams out from on top of her. "The only part of the house that didn't...didn't blow up. I think we're under the kitchen, and the stairs are still kind of there, so I think we can get out by ourselves."

"When did you become so bossy?" Wanda grumbled. She struggled once again to free her legs, and something slipped loose. Her left foot was free, bearing a torn up sock.

"Because I'm the big brother."

"Only by five minutes!" Even cold, tired, and dirty, Wanda was not one to let her brother overshadow her. It was a twin thing, to constantly battle for equality. Even if death lay in wait close by.

"And Mom and Dad told me to take care of you after they told us to run."

Wanda went silent. Something shut down inside of her heart. The warmth was gone, and something cold and hard was replacing it. She stopped struggling to get her second foot free. The thing that scared her the most was that Pietro had gone quiet as well. Then Wanda voiced the only thought that filled every corner of her body.

"Pietro?" she whispered. Her brother had managed to pull enough rubble out of the way that she would be able to climb towards the light if she only managed to free her foot. His round boyish face with the messy dark hair and the pale blue eyes that so resembled her own appeared over the hole he'd managed to uncover.

"Yeah?"

"I'm scared."

Silence. Then a soft whisper in reply.

"Me too."

"I want Mom." Her voice was thick.

"I know. Can you try to get your foot out?" He was trying to be strong for her. She could tell. She wanted so badly to tell him that it would be all right. But she also didn't want to make a false promise.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"I think that once you're out, I might not be so scared," Pietro admitted

Wanda gave another tug of her foot. Seeing him pushed the cold back a little bit. Whether by sheer luck or a miracle, the wood dislodged enough that she was free. Now all she had to do was climb the staircase of broken pieces of her former life towards the sky. Towards Pietro. Towards a fragment of hope.

Major thanks and cookies to all you fabulous readers...you're all darlings.

-Fiera the Wisecracking Owl