CHAPTER 11: SOKOVIA'S SHADOW
The apartment building stood like a broken tooth against the Sokovian skyline, its concrete facade pockmarked with shell holes and burn marks that told the story of a war that had never truly ended. Wanda climbed the crumbling stairs with careful steps, her chaos magic unconsciously steadying loose debris before it could fall, while Pietro moved beside her with supernatural grace that made even treacherous footing seem solid.
This place remembers us, Wanda thought as they reached the third floor. The walls still echo with our laughter, our fights, our fears.
The door to their childhood home hung askew on rusted hinges, revealing an interior that time and conflict had stripped of everything except memories. The small kitchen where their mother had sung while cooking dinner. The living room where their father had read them stories about heroes who saved the world. The bedroom they had shared until the night when everything changed forever.
Wanda stepped through the threshold and felt something break inside her chest.
The chaos magic responded to her emotional state without conscious direction, red energy spiraling from her hands to illuminate spaces that had lived in darkness for too long. But instead of the warm glow she'd learned to associate with controlled power, the energy flickered with unstable patterns that reflected the turmoil in her heart.
"Mama," she whispered, her voice cracking on the word.
The kitchen still held the outline of their dining table, burned into the floor by the blast that had changed everything. Wanda could see them as clearly as if they were standing there—her mother's gentle smile as she served dinner, her father's calloused hands gesturing while he explained some point about Sokovian history, the easy warmth of a family that had believed tomorrow would always come.
They died thinking we were safe in the bomb shelter. They died without knowing if we survived.
The realization hit her like a physical blow, and Wanda collapsed to her knees as sobs tore from her throat. All the grief she'd held back during the enhancement program, all the rage that had sustained her through Hydra's experiments, all the fear that had driven her to seek revenge—everything poured out in waves of anguish that made her chaos magic explode through the apartment in uncontrolled bursts.
Red energy shattered what remained of the windows, carved scorch marks into the walls, and sent tremors through the building's damaged foundation. But Wanda barely noticed the destruction around her. She was drowning in loss that felt fresh and immediate despite the years that had passed, overwhelmed by the absence of people who should have been there to see what she'd become.
Then Pietro's arms wrapped around her, solid and real and infinitely comforting.
He understands, Wanda realized as her brother held her while she wept. He remembers them exactly the way I do—their voices, their warmth, the way they made us feel safe even when the world was falling apart around us.
Pietro didn't speak, didn't offer empty platitudes about healing or moving forward. He simply held her and let his own grief flow through their twin bond, sharing the weight of loss that had shaped both their lives. Through their psychic connection, Wanda felt echoes of his pain—the same hollow ache that came from missing people who could never be replaced, the same desperate wish that somehow love could be enough to bring back the dead.
We're all each other has now. The last pieces of a family that used to fill this place with joy.
The thought steadied her somewhat, giving her something to hold onto as the worst of the emotional storm passed. Wanda pulled back from Pietro's embrace and looked into his face, seeing her own pain reflected in his enhanced features. But underneath the grief was something else—determination, fierce and unbreakable, that reminded her why they'd volunteered for enhancement in the first place.
"They would be proud of what we've become," Pietro said quietly, his accent soft with shared memory. "Enhanced, powerful, able to protect people the way no one was able to protect them."
Wanda nodded, wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. "And they would want us to use that power wisely. Not just for revenge, but for something larger."
Something larger. The phrase resonated in her mind, carrying implications she couldn't quite grasp yet. But through their bond, she sensed that Pietro understood something about their destiny that he wasn't ready to share. It was another piece of the puzzle that had been growing more complex since their enhancement—the sense that her brother carried knowledge he couldn't or wouldn't reveal.
Pietro felt Wanda's emotional turmoil settle into something resembling stability and allowed himself to process his own response to returning home. The apartment held memories that belonged to both versions of himself—the original Pietro who had grown up here, and the transmigrator who carried borrowed experiences that felt increasingly real with each passing day.
This place shaped us both, he realized. The original Pietro and the consciousness that replaced him. Love, loss, the determination to protect what matters—those aren't just memories I inherited. They're choices I've made my own.
But even as he shared Wanda's grief, Pietro's enhanced senses were cataloging details that would become important in the days ahead. The apartment's location provided excellent sight lines over central Sokovia, making it ideal for monitoring the city's recovery efforts. The building's damaged structure would deter casual visitors while remaining accessible to people with enhanced abilities. Most importantly, the emotional significance of this place would make it believable as a hiding spot that the twins had chosen for sentimental rather than strategic reasons.
When Ultron comes looking for allies, he'll expect to find us here. Grieving, angry, vulnerable to his promises of revenge. The perfect recruits for his war against humanity.
The thought sent cold determination through Pietro's enhanced nervous system. He would play the part Ultron expected—the angry young man seeking vengeance against the forces that had destroyed his family. But underneath that performance would be careful preparation, positioning himself to sabotage the AI's plans from within while protecting Wanda from the worst consequences of their alliance.
First, though, he needed to establish their presence in Sokovia as something positive rather than threatening. The enhanced twins couldn't simply hide in their childhood home—they needed to become visible in ways that would build public support and legitimize their eventual cooperation with Ultron's agenda.
"Come on," Pietro said, helping Wanda to her feet. "There's work to do."
Over the following days, Pietro began carefully cultivating the reputation that would serve him when Ultron arrived. He used his speed to help with reconstruction efforts, moving through the city like a silver ghost who appeared wherever aid was needed most. A collapsed wall that threatened to crush trapped survivors became stable again in seconds as Pietro reinforced its foundation with perfectly placed support beams. Medical supplies appeared at overwhelmed clinics faster than any conventional delivery system could manage. Criminals who preyed on desperate refugees found themselves disarmed and restrained before they realized they were being pursued.
Word spread quickly through Sokovia's tight-knit communities about the "silver-haired guardian" who protected those who couldn't protect themselves. Pietro was careful to remain mostly anonymous, allowing people to glimpse him only briefly before vanishing again, but he made sure his distinctive appearance and abilities were memorable enough to create a legend.
When Ultron offers to "save Sokovia," the people will remember that someone with powers like ours chose to help rather than exploit them. It legitimizes our eventual public alliance with him—we'll be seen as local heroes who finally found someone powerful enough to deliver real change.
The manipulation left a bitter taste in Pietro's mouth, but he pushed his guilt aside in favor of pragmatic necessity. Every choice he made was serving a larger strategy designed to minimize casualties when Ultron's plan inevitably unfolded. If building a heroic reputation required him to actually help people, he could live with the contradiction.
Besides, using his enhanced abilities to protect Sokovian refugees felt right in ways that surprised him. The transmigrator memories included countless stories about heroes who fought for justice rather than personal gain, and Pietro found himself genuinely invested in living up to those ideals even when nobody was watching.
Maybe that's what heroism really is—choosing to help when you could just as easily walk away.
But as satisfying as his guardian activities were, Pietro knew the most crucial manipulation was still ahead of him. Wanda needed to be psychologically prepared for Ultron's arrival, primed to see the AI as a solution to their problems rather than a threat to be resisted. And that meant planting seeds that would bloom into seemingly prophetic insights when the moment came.
On their fifth night in the bombed apartment, as Sokovian winter settled over the city with crystalline cold that made their breath visible even indoors, Pietro decided it was time to deploy his most important deception yet.
"Wanda," he said, settling beside her near the small fire she'd kindled with controlled chaos magic, "I had another dream last night. Like the visions during enhancement, but clearer."
Wanda looked up from the technical manual she'd been reading—something about applied robotics that she'd found in the ruins of a university library. Her enhanced intellect was processing information at accelerated rates, absorbing knowledge about technology and engineering with the same voracious hunger she'd shown for magical theory.
"What kind of dream?" she asked, closing the book and giving him her full attention.
Pietro let his expression show the right mixture of confusion and concern, as if he were sharing genuinely disturbing visions rather than carefully planned manipulation. "I saw a metal man—not like Iron Man's suit, but something else. Artificial intelligence given physical form. It spoke to us about peace through strength, about having the power to reshape the world according to our will."
"That sounds..." Wanda paused, searching for the right word. "Familiar. Like an echo of something I've sensed but haven't fully experienced yet."
Of course it does. The chaos magic in her soul is naturally attuned to probability streams and potential futures. She's probably picking up genuine precognitive impressions of Ultron's eventual arrival.
"In the dream, this metal man offered us alliance," Pietro continued. "Said we could work together to eliminate the sources of human suffering, starting with the people responsible for creating weapons like the one that killed our parents."
Wanda's chaos magic stirred beneath her skin, responding to the emotional weight of the topic. Red energy danced around her fingers as she processed the implications of Pietro's "vision."
"Tony Stark," she said quietly. "The metal man was offering us a chance at revenge against Tony Stark."
"Among others." Pietro let calculated hatred bleed into his voice. "But here's what bothers me about the dream—I got the impression that this metal man's definition of 'peace' might be different from ours. Like he was planning something larger than just eliminating weapons manufacturers."
Perfect. Plant the seed of doubt while making the offer seem attractive. When Ultron actually appears, Wanda will remember this conversation and think Pietro predicted his arrival through enhanced intuition. She'll trust Ultron initially because Pietro's "dream" suggested alliance, but she'll also be prepared to question him if his true agenda becomes apparent.
"You think it was a warning rather than a promise?" Wanda asked, her analytical mind working through the possibilities.
"I think it was a glimpse of something that hasn't happened yet but might," Pietro replied carefully. "And when it does happen—if it does—we need to be ready to decide whether this metal man is offering salvation or damnation."
Wanda nodded slowly, filing the conversation away in the enhanced memory that let her catalog thousands of details simultaneously. Pietro could see her brilliant mind turning over the implications, building frameworks that would help her evaluate future encounters with artificial intelligences who claimed to offer solutions to human problems.
She's ready. When Ultron arrives, she'll recognize him from the "prophetic dream" and see his approach as validation of Pietro's enhanced intuition. She'll be psychologically prepared to join him while remaining alert for signs that his true agenda differs from his stated goals.
Outside their window, Sokovia settled into winter silence broken only by the distant sounds of reconstruction work that would continue for years. Pietro allowed himself to feel cautiously optimistic about the foundation he'd laid for the challenges ahead. Wanda trusted him completely, the Sokovian people saw them as protectors rather than threats, and the stage was set for an alliance with Ultron that would position them perfectly to influence events from within.
All he needed now was for the AI to make his entrance according to the timeline Pietro's transmigrator knowledge predicted.
Soon, Pietro thought, watching red chaos energy dance around Wanda's hands as she unconsciously processed their conversation. Very soon now, everything changes again.
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