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In the morning, they walked from the hospital holding hands, with Vision supporting most of her weight, his voice a gentle murmur as he reassured her that everything would be alright, everything would be alright, everything would be alright. Wanda kept her eyes closed until they slid into the back of the Uber car that Vision called for them, the struggle to keep the open insurmountable, her whole body shaking and keyed up and so far beyond the point of exhaustion that she didn’t know whether she wanted to throw up, pass out, or howl into an abyss for a thousand years
Words kept circling in her head; it’s alright, Miss Maximoff, your brother is stable for the time being. There’s nothing more anyone can do right now - I suggest you go home and get some rest.
She had nearly laughed. They wanted her to rest, when her brother was hooked up to more machines than she could count, when the other half of herself was laying purple and swollen in a hospital bed, when they couldn’t even tell her if he’d ever wake up? Yeah fucking right.
“Here we go,” Vision murmured, buckling her in and fixing her skirt when it bunched up her thighs. Wanda felt as helpless as a baby, limp, all the fight gone out of her, and she barely managed to let go of him long enough for him to buckle himself in after her. He slid their hands back together immediately, though, lacing their fingers together comfortingly, kissing her shoulder where the sleeve of her blouse had fallen off of it. He fixed that for her, too. Vision just kept on fixing her. Wanda just kept on letting him. Even though he couldn’t fix everything, couldn’t fix what was most important to her.
Pietro was in surgery for eight excruciatingly long hours. The trauma surgeon on call had come out to talk to her after, had explained the damage: how they’d had to fuse together the L1-L5 vertebrae, how his lumbar nerves had been badly damaged and his spinal cord compressed, how they’d had to remove his spleen and pick out shattered fragments of his ribs and sew up a tear in his left kidney, how he’d needed a transfusion because of the internal bleeding… how he’d gone into cardiac arrest twice and flatlined once, how they’d bruised his lungs in their effort to resuscitate him, how the swelling in his brain made it impossible for them to know whether the temporary loss of oxygen would affect him in the long run. Wanda had listened with growing nausea, and when the doctor had said the words may result in permanent damage and possible paralysis and we won’t know anything until the swelling in his brain goes down and medically induced coma she’d puked right there on the hospital floor while Vision swore and rubbed her back and shakily asked the doctor if he could maybe have someone right it all down so she could look over it later, when she wasn’t so upset. Dr. Han had promised to give Wanda a copy of the post-op notes once he’d finished writing them up - since Wanda was Pietro’s next of kin and held medical power of attorney, currently - and a nurse with a gentle smile had brought her a paper cup of water and some crackers from the vending machine to settle her stomach.
It was late afternoon when the car trundled across the city while Wanda curled into the circle of Vision’s arms in the backseat and picked at a scab on her knee; she’d torn her tights on the rough asphalt when she’d thrown herself down beside Pietro on the street, and she’d probably have to throw out everything she was wearing, the brown corduroy skirt splattered with blood and the black blouse torn and tear-stained and probably smelling like puke and industrial disinfectant. She didn’t care about her clothes right then. She didn’t care about anything.
“Do you want to stop at a pharmacy and get something for nausea?” Vision murmured very softly, keeping his voice low so that the driver wouldn’t hear.
Wanda shook her head. “No,” she croaked, turning and tucking her face into Vision’s chest, finding the sunlight unbearable as it streamed through the window and stung her eyes. “Home. Please.”
“Okay,” Vision whispered. “Okay.” He rubbed up and down her back slowly, like you’d rub down a nervous horse. “It’s going to be alright, Wanda.”
Even the pleasure of hearing Vision call her by her actual name couldn’t penetrate the sickening grief that hung around her like a shroud. She pressed tighter into him, a whine building at the back of her throat, and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick again, but instead she started sobbing, some distant part of herself looking down at her own body and expressing shock that she even had any tears left to cry. Vision put one hand on her lower back and tangled the other in her hair, turning her face so it was tucked neatly beneath his chin and so she was mostly draped over his lap as she keened and choked and stained the lapels of his coat with her goopy mascara tears. The seatbelt duck painfully into her side and her chest, but she didn’t care.
“Uh,” the driver said. “Everything alright back there?”
Vision ignored him. “Shh,” he said, rocking her gently, back and forth. “Shhh, darling, it’s alright. I’ve got you, now. I’ve got you.”
He hummed wordless, soothing noises interspersed with soft it’s okays and darlings while Wanda clung to him blindly, certain that the whole world was ending - but that at least it was ending in Vision’s arms.
Vision tipped the driver cash and helped her out of the car and into his house, and it wasn’t until she was already inside and he was pulling the door shut that Wanda realized that she hadn’t even questioned whether he would take her back to his place or not - she’d said home, and he’d taken her there, because Vision was home. He hadn’t even asked her for clarification, either, she thought. Then, on the heels of that thought: because he’s never even been to my apartment, he doesn’t even know where I live, the realization that, of course, they weren’t a normal fucking couple at all, were they, he’d only known her actual name for what - twelve hours? That was funny, Wanda decided, and she leaned against the wall of his house and started to laugh and laugh, and Vision turned from where he’d been locking the door and shot her an alarmed look that, for some reason, only made her laugh harder, so hard she ended up on the floor, gasping for breath, and oh, she was crying again wasn’t she?
“Christ,” she gasped out between sobs. “Christ, shit, fuck, shit.” She pressed a hand to her chest as if that would help.
“Wanda…” Vision said, pain in every syllable, and knelt down to put his arms around her, puke-smell and all. “I’m so sorry,” he said eventually, stroking her hair helplessly. “So, so sorry.”
Wanda squeezed him so hard she felt her nails press into his skin. “I’ve - I’ve ruined your life, haven’t I? Christ,” she manages. “I’ve ruined everything.”
“What?” Vision pulls back to look at her. “Ruined my life? How could you ruin my life? You are my life, Wanda.”
Wanda hiccuped, wiping the tears away from her mouth. God, she wanted a toothbrush. “This isn’t… you proposed to me yesterday, you wanted us to get fucking married, and here I am, making a fucking mess of your life because all I’ve ever done to you is lie and hurt you -”
“No,” Vision said urgently, and cupped her face, leaning in to kiss away a tear clinging to her eyelashes. “No. No. I meant what I said in the hospital, Wanda, truly: I’m not angry, and I could never hate you, and I love you. So much. I only wish that I could do something, help you, help your brother… something, anything. I hate seeing you so upset and not being able to do anything about it.”
Wanda touched his chin lightly. “You are,” she whispered.
Vision’s face softened. “Thank you,” he said nonsensically, then kissed her forehead. “I think you should try and get some rest like the doctor said. Do you think you can walk?”
It was entirely tempting to say no, because she knew he’d carry her, but she could see the dark circles under his eyes, too, and knew he had to be as tired as she was. And even though she wasn’t sure she’d actually be able to sleep right now (even just the thought of sleeping made her feel a little sick), she nodded, and Vision pulled her gently to her feet and helped her out of her heels so she could pad softly across his house to the quiet dark of his bedroom; Wanda took a moment to be blindingly grateful for the blackout curtains he had strung along the huge windows behind his bed as she peeled off all her clothes and climbed under the cool sheets in nothing but her underwear. She closed her eyes, sighing, pressing her face into the equally cool pillow, inhaling the scent of Vision’s shampoo, sandalwood and vanilla, a little surprised at how much of a relief it was to be laying down. She was so tired she was trembling with it, and her face still felt hot and damp from crying.
A few minutes later, the bed dipped, and she felt the heat of Vision’s body as he curled around her tightly.
“Vision?” she whispered.
A kiss to the back of her neck. “Yes?”
Her voice wobbled. “I love you. I love you.” There was still enough room in her heart to feel a stab of wonder that she could say that now, that she could mean it, fully. It almost felt wrong to be happy, but she couldn’t help it, not when Vision was pressed against her like that, not when he was the only thing holding her together.
Vision simply nuzzled her hair with his nose. “I know, love. Me too.”
Wanda let out a deep breath. “Okay,” she managed through a tight throat. “That’s okay, then.”
Vision sighed softly behind her, and splayed his hand over the bare skin of her stomach, the warmth of it an anchor. “Get some rest, darling."
There was nothing left to do but rest, as much as she hated the thought, and she was deeply asleep within five minutes.
When she lurched awake from a nightmare some time later, it was still dark in their Vision’s bedroom, and Vision was alarmingly absent from bed. She’d been sleeping so deeply that she felt disoriented and uneasy, and she realized with a lurch that she had no idea how long she’d been asleep. When she looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table it said 1:30, but she didn’t know if that meant AM or PM - the black out curtains hid any incoming light from outside to tell her if it was night or day.
Wanda rolled onto her back, shivering, pulling the covers up to her chin, and nearly screamed when the pillow next to her let out a sleepy mrrp. “Oh my god,” she whispered, then reached up blindly to fumble at the dark shape that had taken up residence on Vision’s empty pillow. “Mittens,” she said, breathless with the choked up urge to laugh when she realized it was just the damn cat. She passed her hand down the length of Mittens’ spine, and Mittens purred, nestling closer and nibbling at Wanda’s hair; Mittens had a weird obsession with Wanda’s hair, and Wanda often woke up in the middle of the night to find that she had wedged herself between her and Vision’s pillows to sleep with her nose tucked in Wanda’s curls, even on nights when Vision had closed the bedroom door with her on the outside. (“I think your new cat is a witch,” Wanda had informed him grumpily, when she’d woken to Mittens kneading her stomach in the dead of night, and Vision had laughed and untangled Mittens’ claws from her pajama top. “I think she can just tell that you’re very special and lovely,” he had teased, snickering, and Wanda had kissed him quiet, and then they’d gently chased the cat from the bed so they could have sex. Wanda didn’t mind the cat much, really. She just liked excuses to kiss Vision silly.)
When Wanda kept petting her, Mittens huddled even closer and tucked her soft cheek under Wanda’s chin. The urge to cry came soaring back to her unexpectedly, the back of her eyes burning, and over something as stupid as Vision’s cat being happy to see her. She couldn’t help it; she felt as tender and fragile as a newborn deer, her emotions overwrought and scrambled and stinging sharp inside her chest. She felt like she could probably cry for a thousand years if she let herself. Her dream came back to her, awful twisting nightmares of Pietro as she’d last seen him in his post-op room after the surgery, but in her dreams the heart monitor had kept stuttering and stuttering and stopping, and Wanda had screamed and -
She squeezed her eyes tightly and rolled onto her back, scrubbing hard at her face. She’d never felt so disgusting in her entire life, and she let that feeling draw her out of bed and stumble her into the bathroom to paw at the shower until she was standing beneath the hot water; as long as she didn’t know what time of day it was or leave this room, she couldn’t be told any bad news, she reasoned. As long as she was in here, she was safe. She slid down onto the hard tile of the shower, and only belatedly realized that she’d forgotten to take off her underwear.
“Dammit,” she mumbled, and wiggled around until she was naked, stretching out her legs and hissing when the hot water fell on her scabbed knees. “Dammit.” Cursing made her feel a little better, so she just kept sitting there under the spray muttering obscenities until Vision came to find her.
“You’re awake,” he said, poking his head into the bathroom. When he noticed her sitting on the floor he made a soft, worried noise and shuffled over to sit down outside the tub. When she reached out a hand (she couldn’t seem to stop touching him), he took it immediately, not caring that she got water all down the sleeve of his robe. “How are you feeling?” he asked, then: “Fuck, I’m sorry, darling, that’s probably a monumentally stupid thing to ask.”
Wanda shook her head. “Fine, fine, I’m - I’m fine.” She stared up at the lights over the bathroom sink, letting it overtake her vision until she was blinking away spots. “Is… did they…” Her throat closed up, and she couldn’t make herself form the words.
But Vision understood, and he squeezed her hand. “Nothing,” he said gently.
Wanda nodded, swallowing.
“No news is good news,” Vision said, this time firmly. He squeezed her hand again. “That means that nothing’s gone wrong.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Is it AM or PM right now?”
“AM. You’ve sort of been asleep for a while.”
A while meaning ten hours straight, apparently. Wanda exhaled. “Okay,” she said, for lack of anything better. “I’m - I should. Get up.”
Vision leaned into the spray and kissed her wet hair. “Need help?”
Her mouth wobbled against her will. “I’m fine,” she lied.
Vision stood up and took his clothes off without another word, and Wanda let him scoop her to her shaky feet. “Ask me,” he pleaded, as he shampooed her hair for her. “Ask me for anything, Wanda, I want to give you anything you need right now. Please.”
You give me too much already, Wanda thought. You gave me forgiveness and love and my own heart and you shouldn’t be taking care of me. You’re lovely and perfect and I can’t give you anything at all.
“Wanda,” Vision said, very seriously, and she realized with a start that she’d said all of that out loud. “I wish you could see yourself like I do. Like I always have. I don’t - darling, I don’t care about the con. It doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is you, and me, and us. And we’re good, Wanda, we’re perfect, because we make each other perfect.” He kissed her bare shoulder. “You’re the one who always kills the spiders for me, remember? I could never do that, you know I’m petrified of them. And you remember to buy soy milk so I don’t get sick, and you brought my orchid back to life after I thought I killed it, and you always buy Mittens those special treats she loves from that one shop by my office.” He kissed her cheek. “You help me pick out my ties when I’m stressed and can’t decide, and you always bookmark my books when I fall asleep reading, and you let me tell you about my paper on eighteenth century etiquette even though I know it bores you half to death.
“And none of that,” he continues, and this time the conviction in his voice has her pulling away to look up at him through blurry, wet eyes. His face is achingly tender when he cups her jaw and kisses the corner of her eye. “None of that was Marina. None of that was about the con, or the lies. That was you - that was us. So let me wash your hair, Wanda Maximoff, so I can let you kill the spiders.”
I love you, he doesn’t say, doesn’t have to say, is always saying. I love you so much, so completely.
“Besides,” he added, and grinned. “You’re not the only one who’s a mess. Remember how much I blubbered when those pumpkins I bought gave you an allergic reaction? And how sick I was with food poisoning after we tried that new sushi place and you cleaned up after me? This is really only fair trade, I should think. We’re a fine pair, aren’t we?”
And Wanda, unexpectedly, burst out laughing, her heart spreading wide in her chest as she clutched him. “Fuck,” she gasped out. “Fuck, Vision, I love you so much.” She was laughing and crying now, and it felt really weird and really confusing and really good. Everything about Vision felt good, even on a day like this. Even if everything in her life was pretty much terrible, she had this. "I just really love you." She didn't think she'd ever get tired of being able to say that; to mean that.
He kissed her properly this time, soft and sweet as caramel. “I know,” he said, just as he had in the hospital, smiling, and Wanda sniffled a weak laugh into his chest as he helped her rinse her hair.
They tipped out of the shower eventually, once they were sufficiently clean and Wanda had remembered how to stand up on her own again, and then Wanda spent about half an hour brushing her teeth. “I can’t believe you kissed me,” she winced, afterwards, and Vision patted her back kindly.
“I’ve kissed worse.”
He’d already ordered them breakfast (“God bless all night food in New York,” he’d said fondly.) Wanda, the high from their shower already wearing off as she thought about everything she needed to do today (she couldn’t believe she slept so long, what if there was an update, what if Pietro needed her?), found that she had little appetite, but reluctantly ate some of her spinach and feta omelet when Vision gave her pleading eyes.
“Visiting hours start at eight,” he told her, after he’d watched her drink an entire glass of orange juice and a glass of water as she’d rolled her eyes at him. (She did feel better afterwards, though; she was probably dehydrated from all the crying, she thought ruefully.) “We can leave at seven and get there right as soon as they’ll let us in.”
Wanda pushed her food around on her plate some more. “Let me pay for the Uber this time.” She couldn’t afford it, probably - probably her assets and aliases were currently being investigated by Stark fucking Industries - but she didn’t want to just keep depending on him. Not anymore. Not like this.
But Vision pursed his lips. “We… don’t need one. I already have a car waiting for us.”
Her stomach dropped. “You mean Tony’s car, don’t you?”
“It’s not just his money,” Vision said quietly, and his eyes were shadowed. “Wanda…”
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Vision whispered back. “About the money, about - about everything.”
He meant the bomb, Wanda thought. All that time she spent hating him in abstract before they’d even met, and all she felt was an awful, lurching pain now that he knew about it, knew that he’d claimed some of the very blood money that had contributed to her parents’ death. “We’re not going to do this,” Wanda decided. “If you meant what you said in the hospital, then that means that so did I. It wasn’t your fault, Vision.” She wouldn’t let this become some awful thing that destroyed them before they even really, truly started.
Vision ducked his head. “You’re right,” he said.
“I know.”
Vision's mouth twitched in amusement.
There would be a lot more conversations to be had over this - over all of it - and Wanda knew that, but she also knew that they could wait. That they had time , which seemed impossible when it was only yesterday when she'd ripped out both of their hearts in the back room of a restaurant. All that time Wanda had thought they'd been barreling towards the end - that the only way out was to tear it all down - and now they were really only beginning. It was impossibly fragile and sweet , and hope widened in her heart despite the anxiety she still felt crawling all over her.
Wanda stared at Vision as he finished the last few bites of his breakfast, and for the first time since the crash she stopped (for just a moment) thinking about Pietro, stopped thinking about her fear.
Because his gaze was so deeply fond, and god but Vision looked so beautiful sitting across from her, a smile on his face and his eyes crinkled up, so much so that Wanda felt her eyes sear again, and it hit her - really, truly, fully hit her now that she’d had a few hours of space from the hospital and everything awful and slept for a while - that this was real. The first real meal they’d had together, the first real morning they’d ever shared, the first laugh and the first kiss and the first touches that weren’t covered up in lies, that weren’t a premeditated act, that weren’t drenched in sticky guilt. Her chest felt like it was going to bend in on itself at the cavernous wave of love that took her out at the knees when she looked across the table at Vision and thought: this is the first day of the rest of our lives. The con was over, and Vision fucking loved her, and it was real . She was sitting in his kitchen in her underwear and an old Louisiana State bowling t-shirt that she’d stolen from Vision who’d stolen it from Bucky who’d stolen it from Sam who’d stolen it from his dad, her wet hair dripping down her back, one of Vision’s feet curled around her ankle, and it was fucking real.
She was Wanda Maximoff again, only Wanda Maximoff, and she was in love with Victor Shade, and it was all so very, incredibly, miraculously real.
“Oh,” she said, dizzy. Mittens mewled pitifully at her feet, and Wanda pushed some bacon on to the floor for her without even looking, her hands trembling. “This is real.”
Something in her voice made Vision's face furrow with concern, and he sat forward so he could reach over and grab her hand. “Wanda?”
“I’m allowed to have this,” she said, dazed and incredulous. “This is real.”
Vision blinked. “Yes. It is.”
Wanda nodded dumbly, then stood up, crossed around the kitchen table, and dropped unceremoniously into his lap. Vision startled a little, grabbing her hips. “This is real,” she said again, and kissed him. It was a much nicer kiss this time than the one in the shower, and Vision made a soft, scratchy noise at the back of her throat and deepened it perfectly, winding his hand into her wet curls and tugging her closer until she was flush up against his body. His closeness, heightened by the fact that she was wearing nothing but thin cotton panties beneath the oversized shirt and he was in just his boxers and open robe, heightened again by the clean smell of his soap and shampoo and skin and the fact that she smelled like him since she used his shower and slept in his sheets, made Wanda tremble and gasp and lurch against him harder, suddenly overcome with the most piercing sense of need that she’d ever felt in her life. She didn't feel like she was standing outside herself anymore, not when she was kissing Vision, and the willpower she'd summoned in the shower to try to have a normal morning disappeared in the honesty of Vision's tongue inside her mouth.
Like a bubble bursting inside of her, everything she’d felt in the past twenty-four hours came crashing back down - the adrenaline and the fear and the guilt and the grief and the worry and the love so strong it felt almost incandescent - and it was so much inside of her so suddenly that Wanda felt choked. It felt like the floor had given out beneath her; like a sudden drop on a roller coaster. It felt like too much to handle. The only clear thought she could manage, just then, was that she needed him, needed to feel him, needed her body to know that this was real as much as her head and heart, and it was so sudden and frantic that she felt frenzied with it, her sore eyes tearing up at the force of it.
Just like in the car after the engagement party, Wanda was suddenly sure that if she didn’t have him right then and there, she would die from it.
“Wanda,” Vision said into her mouth, and she realized she was shaking. “Wanda -”
“Viz,” she gasped, holding onto his shoulders for dear life, rocking together and letting her spine bow at how good it felt - but not enough, not enough, she needed him or her head would explode - “Viz,” she begged, nonsensical, and kissed him a little more desperately.
“Darling,” Vision sighed into her, and lifted them both up so he could set her on the table.
Yes this was - yes. This was exactly what she needed, Vision folding against her and kissing her like he was running a race and determined to come in first, his hands sneaking beneath her shirt to smooth along her sides; this was what she needed, to turn her brain off and her body on, to disappear from the worry and live inside the world of Vision’s touch for a while, and Vision seemed to understand that without words: he sealed their bodies together in a long line of want, his mouth on hers and his fingers dipping into her underwear so he could tug them off of her, his hot breath on her neck when he had to pull away to gasp for breath. Wanda didn’t let him get far, cursed and grabbed him, ripping his robe off of him and running greedy hands over his bare shoulders, desperate for as much of him as she could reach, desperate for all of it.
“Vision,” she pleaded. She scored her nails down his back, and he cried out, rocking against her. “Viz, please -”
“I’ve got you,” he gasped, promised, biting it into her throat as she arched her back and thrust her hips towards his. Vision cursed and shoved a hand between them to free his cock, and then he was pushing into her, and they were both crying out at the force of it; they usually used condoms to be on the safe side, but they didn’t always since she was on the pill and they were both clean, and right now she was grateful: she wanted to feel all of him, no barriers.
And there were no barriers: this was, in a way, their first time. She might have known him - how he felt inside of her, how his chest was so very sensitive, how he came hardest when she bit his ear at just the right time, how he liked it when she scratched him up and when she dug her heels into the small of his back to urge him on - but this was the first time she knew all of those things as Wanda instead of Marina. There were no pretenses, no lies, no games to play and no masks to wear: all her walls were down. All she needed to do was be herself, to let herself feel it, to heave a wild cry every time their bodies crashed together. It was painfully tender and raw and honest, the love she could feel surging between them leaving her shaking, the ache of knowing that he was here and that he wasn’t going to leave so brutal that she tasted tears in every kiss and didn’t know if they were hers or his or both. It was hard and fast, the kitchen table screeching against the hardwood floor, and Wanda bit his ear and scratched up his back and dug her heels into his ass, begging him not to stop, to never stop -
“Wanda,” he moaned, mouth swollen against her collarbone where he was sucking marks into her skin, and she tipped her head further back and squeezed her eyes shut so hard that she saw stars.
“Say it again,” she rasped, and he half picked her up off of the table, fucking her deeper, the angle of their bodies so perfect she keened. “Say - say it, please, Vision.” She needed to hear it, needed to know, needed this to be the realest thing she’d ever known, the only surety she still had, needing to hear her name on his lips -
“Wanda,” he said, pressing his hand to her back so hard it would leave bruises, kissing her name into her mouth. “I’m here, I’m here, Wanda, Wanda -”
Wanda came with a shout, and Vision fell into it right after, still gasping her name into her lips as he clutched her tight to his body and pinned her to the table. As she always did, Wanda locked her legs around him, holding him inside as long as Vision could stand it, delaying the inevitable.
Vision kissed her sweetly in apology when he pulled out. “God,” he murmured, his voice a wreck (they’d done more screaming than she’d anticipated for an early morning, on-the-table fuck). “God, darling…”
Wanda bit his shoulder. “Viz. Baby,” she mumbled. “Don’t leave.”
“Never,” Vision assured her, and dragged her over to the couch to cuddle her with intent. She felt scraped raw, but in a tentatively healing sort of way. There would be a million things to deal with today - most of them unpleasant, and most of them, she felt, would involve heaving her guts out beside a hospital bed - but right now she allowed herself a moment to feel okay again, for maybe the first time since the con started. Or even longer, probably. Because she wouldn’t be facing those things alone. It had been such a long fucking time since she’d had anyone except for Pietro, and it was a staggering feeling to curl into Vision’s arms and know he’d keep on holding her until it was time to leave - that he would keep on holding her for as long as she let him.
“Thank you,” Wanda whispered, and kissed his chest just below the dip of his clavicle. He was sweaty, and they’d probably rendered their shower moot, but she didn’t care at all. She only pressed closer to him, as close as she could get without climbing inside of him. “Thank you.“
Vision laughed and dragged his fingers through her tangled, wet hair. “I’m not sure it was quite that good of a fuck, darling, but you’re welcome," he teased lightly.
Wanda snorted. “You know it was. But I meant for… everything. Everything. I don’t think I could have survived today without you.”
“You could have," he argued. "You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
“I don’t feel like it,” Wanda admitted, and rubbed their legs together tiredly. “I’ve been trying to be strong all my life, ever since my parents died, tried to be strong for Pietro and for myself and because I thought it would help with the anger, but it didn’t work. Nothing did. We were just… running in angry little circles, making a life from lying, being mad at the world and trying to get even with it. If I hadn’t met you…”
“If I hadn’t met you, I’d be the loneliest person alive,” Vision returned softly. “I think I was, for a while. I made a lovely little life with my job and my plants and my cats and my friends, but I was still so lonely I can barely even think about it now. You have no idea how grateful I am for you, Wanda.”
Wanda swallowed heavily. Honesty felt foreign to her, but she thought of all the times over the last year that she’d spent wishing that she could just tell Vision the truth, and forced herself to keep going. “I’m scared. About Pietro.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know how I - if he - the last things we said to each other were awful -”
Vision stroked her back. “Love perseveres, Wanda,” he told her. “Over the anger, over the worry, over the fear and the grief. In my experience, there’s nothing stronger, not in the books I’ve read and not in the people I’ve met. When I met Tony, when I found out the truth… I never thought I could find any semblance of a normal relationship with him after everything, especially with the anger I held towards Howard and the resentment I felt towards Tony himself - which was ridiculous because he hadn’t even known about me, and I never would have known if he hadn’t decided to find me. But I do love him, and I’m grateful to have him in my life despite the grief it sometimes causes when I think about the past and all that lost time.”
Wanda shut her eyes, breathing in his words and the sound of his heartbeat and the stillness of the room around them, silent except for the sound of Mittens chasing her shadow. “I want to build a life,” she said. “That’s what I want. What I’ve been thinking about for the past year. I want to stop running, and to stop lying, and to stop being so angry. I want that for Pietro, too. I want to not be mad at him, and to not be scared, and to -” She choked up when she thought of Pietro’s limp hand in hers. The first hand she’d ever held. “I want everything to be okay again.”
“It will be,” Vision said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I can believe it. For the both of us, if you’d like. I’ll believe it for the both of us.”
She pressed her face into his neck. “Okay,” she whispered, for once okay with letting control of the situation slip out of her hands. “Go ahead. Believe away.”
They slipped into a doze. Despite ten hours of uninterrupted sleep, she was still so emotionally drained that she found herself drifting into anxious, worried dreams that felt intangible but heavy - but Vision was there every time she flinched back awake, and that helped some. At some point, an hour or two before it was time to get up to leave for the hospital, Mittens jumped into the window and knocked open the curtains, and Wanda was startled awake from another dream when the room brightened. She sagged back against Vision’s chest, heart slowing down again. “Oh.”
“What is it?” Vision murmured sleepily.
“Nothing. The sun’s coming up,” Wanda said, and turned her face towards the light.