hawkguy.

“What I needed?” The misplaced venom drips from her question, followed by a huff of a bewildered laugh. Stephen Strange, the king of ego, wants to atone for the sins he believes he’s created against her. As if somehow it’s his fault they’re each other’s opposition.

“Everyone has always told me what I needed. To be silent, to control my abilities, to be better than what I already am.” Her left hand curves the hue of crimson rolling off of her fingers in pulsing waves. “To be the monster that fits their agenda until they need me to clean up their mess. And then it repeats, over and over, until I’m locked up in a cage again. Silent.”

Wanda’s chin tilts, voice wavering. “But you never did. You let me speak. You already knew I was better than the rest of the world, the rest of the multiverse, but you did nothing about it. There was nothing to be done except be there --- for me.”

The only one. Steve disappeared. Tony was gone. What is left of their precious team of Avengers, Earth’s Mightiest, lay as broken as the fantastical sitcoms looping in her head.

“You were what I needed. So be there, for me, and let me do this.”

May I tell you a secret? You’re not a golden lion. You’re just a pink little man who’s far too slow on the draw.

She’s supposed to be on her way out. Something about making peace with the choices they’ve made, how all of this has turned out, yet Echo’s lost feeling in both feet. Tony’s speaking, but she isn’t listening. Watching, yes, but she stopped listening ages ago.

Formalities always swerve their chances at being better people. That’s why he almost dropped the collar and she nearly took another last name in another state, maybe another country, where their pasts could keep up.

And muscle memory is such a bitch. One year or one hundred, they’re supposed to be different people now. He’s nearing to leave ( she should move away ) and before she can, her cheek is turning to the left and she’s catching Father Stark on the cheek with a press of her lips.

It should be innocent enough. Except when he turns to acknowledge her in passing, her lips meet his.

(An accident, but she refuses to call it a mistake.)

JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN in THE UNHOLY (2021) dir: Evan Spiliotopoulos

She hates him.

Echo wants to argue that she’s always hated him, but the wrath tossing and turning in her gut knows better. There is exhaustion and there is exactly what she’s feeling right now in the silence that surrounds them. Christ, she can’t even yell, shout, scream her frustrations ---- one false move with this impulsive wave of anger and they’ll both be too dead to figure out where Davis might have gone.

(She hates him, but she doesn’t want to lose him. Not like that.)

And he’s right. Tony’s always right, as much as the confession brings an ache to her limbs. He’s never left her: not when the invasion occurred, not during the massacres, not when it was easiest to run and never look back.

Here. Just like he is right now.

“What I need -- what I want -- is for you to come with me,” she signs with a purpose, moves jostled with immense emotion. Her breath remains steady, four breaths in and four breaths out, but her eyes shine with insurmountable regret.

“I can’t lose you, too.”  She pulls her hand and arm backward and away from him. “Refuse to.”

@marredmarvels

The force of his embrace had been jarring, despite how used she was to being embraced by him. She could feel his fingers, pressing through the layer of her coat, as if he was trying to confirm that she was solid -- like he needed to feel the shape of her ribcage and how it moved with her breath.

It was this, combined with the look on his face when he saw her. Haunted, tired, surprised. Shocked.

Like he had seen a ghost.

Or had just woken up from a bad dream. It scared her.

"What happened?" she questioned, her voice muffled against his shoulder as he seems to be unwilling to lose an inch of hold on her, craning her neck so she can get a better look at his face.

"Peter," she swallows, knowing there's no going back once she's demanded an answer. "What happened to me?"

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City