Once, Wanda asked her, "Don't you want to know what we went through at HYDRA?"
Mavuika thought for a moment and said, "When you're ready to talk, you'll naturally say it."
Wanda asked again, "Aren't you afraid we'll suddenly lose control and cause you DMG?"
Mavuika smiled. "You won't, and besides, even if you really did lose control—"
She glanced at the Lavender she was watering.
"—I can handle it."
Wanda fell silent for a long time.
She thought of those HYDRA scientists who always wanted to "excavate" her past, treating her pain as data and her anger as a weapon.
But Mavuika was different; she didn't want to get anything from her, nor was she afraid of what she might bring.
This kind of "indifference" was actually the thing that made Wanda feel safest.
Pietro had also let down his guard quite a bit toward Thor.
At first, he thought Thor was a simple-minded brute with more brawn than brains, who only knew how to use brute force to solve problems.
But after spending time together, he found that Thor was actually very smart—not the cunning, calculating kind of smart, but a more essential wisdom that pierced through to the core of things.
Once, Pietro asked him, "Are you really not worried about me at all? I'm so fast, if I wanted to hurt you—"
Thor interrupted him. "Would you?"
Pietro froze for a moment. "...No."
Thor laughed. "Then that's all that matters."
Pietro asked again, "But how can you be sure I won't? You've only known me for a month."
Thor thought for a moment and said, "Intuition."
Pietro opened his mouth to say something but found himself unable to speak.
Thor's logic was simple, simple to the point of being blunt.
But it was precisely this simplicity that left Pietro unable to argue.
A month's time was enough for strangers to become acquaintances, and for acquaintances to become friends.
The look in their eyes had changed, from the initial alertness, scrutiny, and readiness to flee at any moment, to their current state of relaxation, curiosity, and the occasional hint of a smile.
Mavuika saw all of this; some things just needed time.
This afternoon, the sunlight was just right. Wanda and Pietro were sitting on a garden bench; Pietro was peeling an orange while Wanda was reading—that book on norse mythology, which she had already read several times.
A black sedan approached from a distance and stopped in front of the Villa's iron gate.
Wanda's ears twitched slightly. She looked up at the car.
Pietro also stopped what he was doing, his body tensing slightly. This was the first time in a month they had seen an outsider here.
The car door opened, and two people stepped out.
The first was Tony Stark.
He wore a rumpled black T-shirt and dark blue jeans, with sneakers stained with some unidentifiable color.
His hair was a mess like a bird's nest, and the dark circles under his eyes were as thick as smoky makeup; he looked like he hadn't slept in three days.
Then there was Bruce Banner.
He wasn't doing much better; his gray hoodie was as wrinkled as if it had just been fished out of a washing machine, his glasses sat crookedly on the bridge of his nose, he was unshaven, and his face was pale.
Both were sporting heavy dark circles and looked travel-worn, as if they had just crawled out of some ruins.
Tony pushed open the iron gate and walked into the garden, shouting as he went, "Mavuika! I'm here! I have good news!"
Wanda's hands suddenly clenched tight.
She recognized that face.
That name, Tony Stark.
The head of Stark Industries, the arms manufacturer, Iron Man.
Her parents had died under the weapons he manufactured.
Pietro recognized him too.
His body leaned forward slightly, muscles tensing like a cheetah ready to pounce.
The look in his eyes shifted from relaxed to cold, and from cold to murderous.
Tony felt that killing intent and stopped in his tracks, looking at Wanda and Pietro.
His brow furrowed; he didn't recognize these two young people.
"Hey, kids, who are you? Did I provoke you guys? Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked.
Wanda stood up, a dark red glow dancing at her fingertips.
Her voice was low and cold, as if squeezed from the depths of her throat.
"Tony Stark."
Tony looked at the red light in her hand, then at Pietro's tense face, and a bad feeling rose in his heart.
"You know me?"
"We know you," Wanda's voice grew even colder.
"The whole World knows you, the head of Stark Industries, the arms manufacturer, the most efficient merchant of death in the World."
Tony's eyes narrowed slightly. He heard the hatred in her tone—not just ordinary dislike, but a deep-seated hatred rooted in her very marrow.
"I did make weapons," he said.
"But that was many years ago. In fact, I shut down the weapons division long ago."
"So what if you shut it down?" Pietro stood up and walked to Wanda's side, his voice low and urgent, like a volcano about to erupt.
"Does the DMG caused in the past just disappear? Can the people who died under your weapons come back to life?"
Tony fell silent.
He knew exactly what these two were talking about; he knew it all too well. In those years, Stark Industries' weapons were all over the globe, sold to every place where there was conflict.
His missiles destroyed villages, his rifles killed civilians, and his name was carved into the hate lists of countless people.
He thought closing the weapons division could erase those sins, but now, the two young people standing before him were telling him it couldn't be erased.
"You..." Tony's voice was a bit raspy, "Your family—"
"Dead," Wanda interrupted him, her voice devoid of sadness, containing only a cold, long-suppressed anger.
"The Sokovia war, Stark Industries' missiles."
As Wanda spoke, painful memories flashed continuously through her mind.
The streets of Sokovia shrouded in the fires of war, collapsed houses everywhere, the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke filling the air, ears filled with the sounds of explosions, screams, and the crying of children.
She and Pietro had hidden in a dilapidated Underground Room, shivering, listening to the explosions outside and their parents' shouts, but they were powerless.
Finally, a missile manufactured by Stark Industries landed near their home. The massive explosion completely destroyed their house. To protect them, their parents used their own bodies to block the Impact of the explosion, leaving them forever.
In that moment, she and Pietro became helpless orphans, forced to struggle for survival amidst the fires of war, facing the threats of hunger, fear, and death every day.
Tony's hand trembled slightly.
Sokovia. He remembered that place. A small country in Eastern Europe, plagued by constant war.
Stark Industries had indeed sold weapons there. Those weapons... how many innocent people had his weapons killed?
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150 POWER STONE = BONUS CHAPTER
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