hahahaha please dont be mad this is only day 3 or smthg i try to make the titles fun to balance out

not as sad as the last one lol

* * *

A flash of white, a hint of blue, a blank canvas covered in red. A look of despair as he falls and won't get back up...

Wanda couldn't stop thinking about it. Couldn't forget, couldn't turn her head away and pretend it was all fine. She just couldn't. She had to face it head on.

But, she couldn't do that either.

These days, it felt like she couldn't do anything. Sleep, food, education. It all went out the window, in favor of sitting on her bed, haunted by ghosts that didn't exist.

It had been days since she had last slept, weeks since her last decent one. Wanda was the definition of running on empty, and she had no intention of changing.

The days blurred together, filled with concerned glances and heavy sighs at her. She didn't particularly care, and she didn't particularly notice, either. She was just going through the motions.

As the days kept going, never pausing, never ceasing, Wanda began to loose herself. She began to become cheerful again, under the guise of acceptance, but no one suspected that it was because sleep had been so scarce that she just didn't care anymore.

It got better, she supposed. 

After a few months, she left her room more often. She interacted with people more than just when they came to bring her meals. 

After a few more, she was almost Wanda again. She still didn't sleep much, though, and some days she barely was able to keep her yawns at bay.

Sure, the other Avengers were concerned, but none of them knew how severe it was.

When questioned, Wanda always brushed it off. 

"Oh, I'll get some sleep tonight, don't worry."

"Yeah, I slept like a baby."

"Of course I'm fine."

"I'll be fine."

"Don't worry about me!"

Lies.

~

Wanda got up one day after only four hours of sleep, and though it was on the longer side of her sleep sessions, she couldn't shake the feeling of fogginess.

She sat up and sighed, rubbing her eyes. They burned, not in a gritty 'just woke up' way, but in a way that made her blink quickly to shake the fires that inhabited her pupils.

The feeling didn't leave.

Draping a purple blanket over her shoulders, Wanda swung her legs over to the side of her bed and glanced at the clock.

6:00. Steve would be up. 

She padded towards her door and swung it open, before walking down the hallway. She had to stifle a yawn, and she clutched the blanket closer to her shoulders as she shivered. Wanda would have to turn the thermostat up.

It was probably Stark who turned it down-- he never cared that she always turned it back up.

As Wanda reached the main common room, Steve looked up. He looked surprised, but Wanda being up this early shouldn't have been a shock.

"You're up early."

No duh, grandpa.

"Yeah," Wanda laughed. "Just woke up and figured I'd be productive."

Steve smiled and went back to whatever he was doing. Silly boy, always fooled by a guise of productivity.

Wanda played on her phone for a while and watched some Netflix, but eventually the foggy feeling in her head got worse. 

It was near noon now, and everyone was mingling. No one was out on missions, so everyone got to witness what happened next.

Wanda figured that the foggy feeling would go away with a glass of water, or something, so she stood up. Her legs wobbled and she swayed slightly, the room swaying with her. Her head began to hurt, but she made her way over to the sink and filled up a glass.

She chugged it, and slammed down the glass just a little too hard. She flinched as all eyes turned to her.

"You alright?" Natasha questioned.

Wanda went to give a thumbs up, but the room swayed more, more violently. A ringing noise began to sound, making Wanda lean over and clutch at her head. It got louder and louder, and as she began to cry at the volume, it suddenly stopped.

It was quiet, utterly and totally so, no noises made their way into her ears. She was in a blank scape of land, until a flash of white with a hint of blue flew by. 

It stopped in front of her, and there was her brother, hair windswept and face adorned with that stupidly smug look on his face-

"Pietro?" She asked, voice breaking as she reached out to him.

His face dropped and a look of concern was etched onto it. He grew sad, and went to reach for her, too. 

"Oh, сестра. What've you done to yourself?"

Just as their fingers were to touch, Wanda felt herself move, and suddenly she was in the real world again. Not for long though, for as she came to and realized everyone was staring at her, she felt her weight fall to one side and she collapsed on the white tiles of the kitchen.

It would be a while for her to find the will to wake up again, what with her dreams being haunted, not by her brother's corpse, but by his spirit looking at her, with such sorrow and regret.

All throughout her hazy memories, Pietro would stop in the middle of his task- maybe playing dolls with her in their childhood home as toddlers, maybe chasing her around the schoolyard, maybe holding her hand tight as they walked into that godforsaken HYDRA building -and just stare at her, with that look of complete despair, and he would whisper to her as she slept,

"Oh, sister. What've you done to yourself?"

* * *

who u want in these whumptober prompts? lemme know and you, too, can see your favorite characters be tortured, beg in vain, have nightmares, and in general, be in pain!!

hahaha oof sorry