shards - pietro maximoff

chapter twenty-seven ; gauntlets and goners

Dahlia used to love the lake.

Natasha used to take her down to it when she was a little girl , lifting her above the waves just before she would plunge underwater.

"Lia, darling, you have to hold on tight to me, okay?" Nat would say sternly, but with a smile on her face, every time Dahlia would jump under the water.

"I know, Nattie, I will!" The small child would call back, grabbing Nat by the hand and pulling her back into the lake's depths.

From the moment the sun would rise over the skyline until the moon took its' place above, the two would splash in the water, skip rocks across the lake, and tell stories of brave women who saved the world, over firelight.

Dahlia grew up to love the heroes in Nat's tales, wanting to save people like she did every single day.

And she did, training as best she could to be good enough, to even be comparable to the first person who had believed in her.

Eventually, she got there, learning to fight alongside her real mother and become one of those life-saving women in the stories of her childhood.

But then Vormir.

A goddamn planet and a goddamn stone ripped her only family from her grasp in one effortless move.

So, instead of throwing them with excitement, like she did all those years ago, Dahlia hurtled the pebbles from her hand with contempt, cursing all the stones in the fucking universe for taking someone she cared about.

Pietro Maximoff looked at the woman beside him, worry in his gaze. He never knew how to comfort anyone, for loss was an old friend of his. He had lost so much in his lifetime that his heart had simply become numb to the sensation, never learning to save himself or anyone else from the sinking feeling that accompanied the pain, because he just ignored it until he could feel it no more. So he did the only thing he knew.

He let her remain silent, intertwining his fingers with her own. He knew she didn't want to talk about it, and he wasn't going to force her to. She could be safe with him.

Dahlia rested her head on Pietro's shoulder, setting down the stone in her hand and looking out over the water.

There they sat, holding hands and staring off at the horizon of the water, clinging onto the only piece of their lives that weren't torn.

Five men were sat on the dock, a saddened silence enveloping them.

Tony spoke up quietly. "Do we know if she had a family?"

"Yeah. Her." Steve said stiffly, and the group looked over to the girl on the bay, her eyes red and puffy.

Thor raised his voice, his tone sharp. "What?"

"I just asked him a question-" Tony sighed but was cut off.

"Yeah, you're acting like she's dead. Why are we acting like she's dead? We have the stones, right? As long as we have the stones, Cap, we can bring her back, isn't that right?" Thor's tone was exasperated, unwilling to accept that Nat could be gone. "So stop this shit. We're the Avengers, get it together."

"We can't get her back." Clint hung his head between his knees.

"Wha- What?"