Grief's a salty river flooding precious, familiar terrains. She's the drowning woman caught in its waves, urged to gasp foreign air. Exactly why the sitcom's on-cue laughter had aged so distant and empty.

It isn't the same. Forcing a mirthy lilt won't vivify Pietro, only bind her mind to simpler times. Easier days—settled in unharmed Sokovia, snug between folks, warm even with Pietro's teasing at a timeworn josh—gone decayed to the apparitions of his closing blink. A ghost of his flagging breath, she imagines, the last call for her name. Did he even get to say it—dream it? Wanda?

Creeeak.

An imagery of footfalls—unfamiliar—backtracks her from that on-and-on horror. Only to relive its tame carbon-copy when her wrist flicks the door ajar to her novel responsibility; a palpably-awake you at the dead of night. Ah, the newbie Tony shoved under her wing out of the blue.

That man has no mercy even in her misery.

Faint gleams of the moon spotlights your muscles a deer in headlights, and your breaths, too, are held captive when Wanda reciprocates a tense, Sokovian-accented, "Why are you still up?" Out of your room, too, should she add, but her audacity halts at the aforesaid. Interrogating you is ironic when she's the bearer of sagging lids.

Deficient in energy, her weight conveniently leans against the door's jamb. Her arms lap over her bust—minor cover-up at her falter—and prep a matter-of-factly-reminder.

"We've got a mission early today. I told you to be well-rested if you want to be useful, so why aren't you?" A mission of smaller-scale and right off the bat. No one said the Avengers would be easy.

She tilts her head, truly getting an eyeful of you. You're young—a junior junior contra to her ripe age of 26—like a puppy. A stray puppy, as the hunch in her gut foretells you've had a fair share of traumas.

Yet, not an excuse for her to go easy on you, despite burdens in her heart and the sitcom's ongoing laugh blooming what's truly needed: comfort.