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Lagos. The Accords. The news. All her fault. It was all her fault. Wanda had been told otherwise, but she didn't believe it. All she could keep doing was replaying what had happened in Lagos in her head. Over and over and over.
She couldn't sleep, she couldn't eat, and the Avengers Compound was quiet this time of night. Steve, Natasha, and Sam were gone, and everyone else was asleep. There was just... No one.
So Wanda got up in the thickest part of the night and wandered into the kitchen, her robe wrapped around her, and flicked on a few lights, thinking she would help herself to the baked milk she had been saving for the morning. She could use the comfort right now. She opened the oven to check it, but she had to flick on a few more lights to get a better look.
"Could you give a little warning next time?" a voice said and Wanda spun, red energy crackling between her fingers.
Tony was sitting at the dining table, easily out of sight when she had walked in and flipped on the lights, and he was squinting against them now, and Wanda hadn't realized he was still here.
"Sorry." she said, dimming them until he stopped squinting.
He had a mug in front of him and Wanda glanced in the oven, seeing that the beverage was done, but now she just felt... Awkward. The arguments of earlier and the divide that had been clearly marked between the team still felt fresh, and she didn't know what to do. She wasn't sure if she even wanted to talk to him.
She had spent years hating and blaming Tony Stark, but after Ultron, even if Ultron had been his fault and that was the reason Pietro wasn't here with them, after becoming an Avenger, Wanda had felt the fires of animosity die. She no longer wanted to torment and kill Tony Stark, and she could tolerate him, be in the same room as him, work on the same team as him, even if they weren't what she could call friends. Part of Wanda wanted to be, because she was friends with the rest of the Avengers, but she still held Tony at a distance. Especially now.
"What are you doing up?" Tony asked as she removed the sauce pan from the oven.
"I couldn't sleep." Wanda said stiffly.
"Yeah, me neither." Tony said, his mug scraping across the table.
Wanda kept her back to him and the silence hung thick around them, charged with words neither of them knew how to say. The possibility of things being said was there, though, along with how they could be said.
"What are you doing?" Tony asked and she heard his chair scrape back.
His footsteps came toward her and Wanda focused on what she was doing.
"I'm having baked milk." Wanda replied, pouring a portion into a mug,
"You mean hot?" Tony asked, footsteps entering the kitchen.
"No, I mean baked." Wanda said, knowing an American wouldn't understand.
"I don't get it." Tony said, stopping at the sink, just mere feet from her.
He was watching her, setting his mug of what appeared to be very cold coffee in the sink, and Wanda sighed.
"Why don't you ask FRIDAY?" she asked, looking away.
"I mean, you're right here." Tony said and Wanda snorted.
He did ask FRIDAY and as the AI explained, Wanda saw that she had made too much. About two servings, not one, like she had done for herself and Pietro when given the opportunity.
"Would you like to try it?" she asked, surprising both of them.
"Uh-"
"Would you like to?" Wanda repeated impatiently.
"Sure. Sure, why not." Tony said and Wanda got him a mug, too.
She handed it to him when she finished and now they were standing across from each other, looking at one another, Tony leaning against the sink, Wanda holding her ground between the counters.
Tony sniffed his mug as Wanda took a sip of the warm, caramel-tasting milk, the flavor bringing back dozens of memories of her parents and Pietro and Sokovia, and making her think of comfort and home.
"Hey, this is pretty good." Tony said, wiping his mustache on his sleeve.
He had changed from his fancy suit into a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans and Wanda noticed how tired he looked, his eyes bruised and a little bloodshot.
"Thanks." Tony added, his gaze sweeping over her face.
"You're welcome." Wanda said, looking down into her mug.
"This is going to be such a stupid question, but... Are you all right, kid? You haven't really talked to anyone, the others told me. I know first hand keeping all the crap inside is, well, not exactly good for you. I know you and me don't have the best relationship, but... I can listen." Tony offered after a long moment, which surprised her.
Wanda hesitated, because Tony Stark was the last person she wanted comfort from, but...
"I didn't mean to." she whispered, her voice coming out broken.
"I was just trying to help, I thought if I could get Rumlow above the buildings that no one would get hurt, but I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't hold it. I didn't mean for it to happen like that. I was just trying to help and I killed so many people." Wanda continued, it all coming out in a rush.
Unbidden, tears began to rush down her face, and she set her mug aside, wrapping her arms around herself for lack of anything better to do with her hands.
"You didn't kill those people, Wanda." Tony said, setting his own mug aside.
"I did. I'm the one who threw him up in the air and hit the building, I-"
"FUCK that!" Tony said, his voice growing so loud that Wanda jumped.
"That was all Rumlow. If you hadn't moved him, all those bystanders on the ground would have died, and that would be an even bigger body count. You didn't do it, Wanda. You saved lives even if some lives were still lost. You saved people and the world is giving you hell because nothing will ever be good enough for them, and the guy to blame for it is dead." he continued, a fierce look in his eyes that Wanda had never seen before.
"They're using you as the scapegoat, because they can look at you and point and say that you're different, and you didn't save everyone in a situation where not everyone was going to make it out. If Sam and Nat hadn't been messing around with his little toy drone, they would have been there to help Steve. You're the rookie, the new girl, and it wasn't your job to be there alone and handle it. Steve let Rumlow get under his skin, and the other two were dicking around because Sam thought he was being funny. It wasn't your fault." Tony said and Wanda sniffed.
"Well, shit." Tony muttered and closed the distance between them.
He reached out and cautiously put his hands on her shoulders, giving them a comforting squeeze.
"This shouldn't have happened, Wanda. I'm sorry it did. I'm... Well, I'm sorry about a lot of things. If I could go back in time and be there with you guys, I would. But wishes can't change anything. I learned that a lot time ago." Tony said and his voice was surprisingly comforting.
Wanda tried to stem the tears, but it wasn't working very well, and she wanted to cry harder, actually. For herself, for the people she hadn't been able to save, for the people she had killed... Even if Tony had said it wasn't her fault, that enormous guilt was still clawing at her.
"And the Accords?" she asked, couldn't help but ask.
"I'm not signing on because of you, kid. It's just... It's a lot to do with me and a hell of a lot not to do with you. I blew up my own house because I got into a fight with Rhodey once. A lot of people were put in danger because of things I did. Even before I was Iron Man. Even if I didn't know where my weapons were going or what Obie was doing..." Tony said and shook his head.
"The good thing is, that if everyone sanctions us, then they can't do stuff like this again. Our handlers will get blamed, not us. Or maybe they will blame us, but all those countries will know the truth. I just... It's a lose-lose situation. And I really don't want to talk about it." he sighed, and there was pain in his voice.
Wanda nodded and wished the tears would stop, but they wouldn't, and she was surprised when Tony pulled her into a full hug. He squeezed her hard and Wanda wanted to pull away, but at the same time, there was just something so comforting about another human being hugging her. No one had hugged her in a very long time. She couldn't remember the last time someone had hugged her, and she realized maybe no one, not even Hawkeye, had hugged her since Pietro had died.
That was a comfort too, of just having physical contact like this, and Tony let her cry into his shoulder, a hand gently rubbing her back.
"Yeah, let it out. Let it out. It wasn't your fault, and it never will be. No matter what people say." he murmured.
Wanda cried longer than she had thought she would and clung to him more tightly than she had thought possible, but Tony didn't mind. He let her mourn the people who had died, let her feel the pain that was bottled up inside, and didn't judge. Finally, though, she was wrung out of tears, and Tony released her the instant she tried to pull away. He handed her a handful of paper towels and she blew her nose and cleaned up her face, noticing the enormous, sticky wet spot on his shirt.
"Eh, it'll wash out." Tony said, though he did scrub at it with a paper towel.
When Wanda had calmed down and cleaned herself up, Tony picked up both their mugs, pressing hers back into her hands.
"Why don't we sit and you can talk or not talk or whatever the hell you want? Because this stuff is too good to let it go to waste." he suggested, nodding to the comfortable chairs in the sitting area.
It suddenly struck Wanda that Tony wanted her company, that he wasn't doing this just for her. He didn't want to be alone right now, for whatever reason. She found herself nodding and Tony walked toward his favorite chair, baked milk in hand, Wanda following after.