PURE AND TAINTED ( wanda maximoff )

six → they don't deserve to know

PURE AND TAINTED
CHAPTER SIX
( they don't deserve to know )

WHEN STEVE HAD LEFT THEM, Tony and Bruce had just went straight back into the nerd talk. She was sure that at any minute, she was going to strangle the duo, who she had somewhat lovingly dubbed the Science Bros. They just kept going on and on against something that still made no sense to Aline, all the while she continued to skim the pages of her book. At this point, she wasn't even searching for anything important, for she had been rereading this for a very long while.

Aline nearly froze in her actions, suddenly realizing what she was doing. Peering down, she saw that she had been twisting the ring on her finger over and over until the skin beneath turned red. Biting her lip, Aline slowly started to ease the ring off her finger. She held it pinched between her thumb and pointer finger, admiring the tiny diamond shining in the fluorescent light. Although it needed just a bit of cleaning and polishing, the ring was still just as perfect as when Madelaine had given it to her.

Madelaine 一 a name she had not uttered in nearly fifty years, but not a day passed by that she didn't think of her. Everyday she remembered the way her fingers would get tangled in her lover's unruly hair, how Madelaine would bit her lip to hold back her laughs, and of the many times she would manage to kiss her lips. But then everyday she would have to remember the great ugly truth: she's dead. She's dead because of your decisions, stupid, Aline always thought. It always hurt a million times more when she remembered that Madelaine wasn't just her girlfriend but her soulmate. To have someone that the gods or fate or whoever designed perfectly for you, to remind you that you can be better and that you are good just ripped away from you and bleed out in your arms had ruined Aline.

Maybe if she had made different choices Madelaine would still be alive, and Rome wouldn't have left her all those years ago. Maybe Maggie would've stayed as well... Who is she kidding? Maggie was always destined to leave her, and if she stayed, she would have just blamed Aline for everything. Her older sister's hated her since they first turned; hell, Maggie's had a strong disliking towards her since she was a kid. The two sisters had never gotten along, for reasons still unknown to her. Perhaps it's because she embraced her magic side more than Maggie ever did, but she'll never know.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" Fury's demanding voice suddenly snapped Aline out of her thoughts, making her slide the ring into her pocket. Him appearing in the lab had surprised her.

"Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you," Tony quipped.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are," Bruce said. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile." He looked over at Aline; he knew that she was supposed to be helping out but for one, she didn't quite understand all the "science mumbo jumbo" him and Tony were talking about, and two, she didn't seem like she wanted to help.

"And you'll get your Cube back, no muss, no fuss." Tony poked at something on the monitor, quickly scanning the contents in front of him. "What is Phase Two?"

A sudden thud surprised the four, turning to see Steve dropping a large gun on the table. "Phase Two is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the Cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract," Fury explained. "This does not mean that we're 一"

Sliding off the desk, Aline walked over to the monitor Tony was standing in front of. Her dark eyes widened when she saw the detailed schematics and blueprints. "Wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry, Nicky," she interrupted, turning her full body towards him. "What were you lying about?" She easily flicked her wrist, the computer monitor telekinetically spinning to reveal its contents to everyone.