Request from @littlestartopaz: I has a Plunnie for thee. Little snit bits between Wanda and Vision at the compound about Vision learning to do things like when it’s okay to go into someone’s room. Or being the only one to knock on the wall like it’s a door. Or that one time he knocked on the floor under her bed because she was having nightmares and scared the shit out of her.
Pre-Civil War, so no spoilers.
“Pardon me, Miss Maximoff, Captain Rogers asked me to–”
“Hey!” Wanda yelped in alarm, casting a hand out toward him. Red light lashed out and left scorch marks on the wall, passing through him harmlessly. He looked startled, eyes widening as he hung there halfway through the solid wall, and she dropped her arm, scowling. “Do you mind?” she asked, tightening her grip on the towel wound around her chest. Her hair dripped down her shoulder, a neat twist, and she could feel each drop of water leaving a cold track over her skin. “It’s polite to knock if someone’s door is closed.”
Vision tilted his head, brow furrowed. “I apologize,” he said. “May I come in?”
“No! Tell Steve I will be out in a minute. Now get out.”
“I am sorry, Miss Maximoff,” he said, face falling as he slipped back through the wall. “I did not realize–”
Wanda sighed and shook her head. “No, Vision, wait.” He paused. “I–you just surprised me. I’m not angry with you. Just…knock next time, all right?”
“Of course, Miss Maximoff.” She gave him a small smile and his face softened as he nodded and retreated.
***
“Hey, F.R.I.D.A.Y., do we have rats here?” Wanda asked, looking up at the wall with a frown at the sound of a soft rattle. She shut her book, a finger in her place, and rolled off her bed to stand beside it.
“No, Miss Maximoff,” the building AI said politely. The rattle repeated itself, a handful of quiet knocking sounds, and Wanda’s frown deepened as she set down the . Was there even anything on the other side of that wall? A stairwell, she thought. She pulled a hand close to her chest, red coils of power twining between her fingers, and prowled toward the wall on silent feet.
“Miss Maximoff?” Vision said, leaning through the wall, and she sighed, straightening up from her combat stance. He glanced at her hand and said, “I did knock.”
“I suppose you did,” she huffed, releasing her magic and raking a hand back through her hair. “I–what are you standing on?”
“Nothing,” he said. “May I come in?”
“Sure,” she said helplessly. He smiled faintly and slid through the wall, settling solid and real on her carpet. “What can I do for you, Vision?”
He tipped his head to the side, the closest she had seen him come to a tic. “I…was wondering if you would be willing to come read outside instead of in your room.”
She blinked in surprise. “Why?”
“I find that I do not like the idea of you sitting here alone. The mission to Paris was exhausting for you, and…”
“I’m not going to break down again,” Wanda said, frowning. After Sokovia…it had been bad. She had refused to eat for almost a week, until Vision had found her collapsed in the training gym, unconscious, and taken her to medical. She had spent two more weeks there, on suicide watch, meeting with a very thoroughly vetted therapist every day.
“I know,” Vision said quickly. “But I…”
“You worry,” she filled in.
“I do not know if I am programmed to worry, Miss Maximoff,” he said, and she smiled.
“I’ll come outside, Vision,” she said, fingers twitching and calling her book to her in a tangle of red. He offered her his hand, polite as ever, and she took it. “And, um, you can call me Wanda. How about we use the door this time?”
***
The city was falling. Falling, falling, falling, and she was holding it up, in a net of red light, and pain was shooting through her shoulders and up her neck and into her head. It was so heavy, with silver soldiers falling, falling, falling–no. A building. Old and rickety and raw, and it couldn’t stand up under this abuse, and it was falling, crushing her beneath its weight, but she couldn’t catch it, she had to hold up the city. Her hands were slick with oil, wrapped in red light, and her brother was there, standing beside her, and he was falling, falling, falling, slick with blood, wrapped in red wounds.
And she was screaming.
The sound of a loud thud brought her out of the dream, scream still strangled on her tongue, face streaked with tears. There was another thud–a knock, she realized, coming from the floor. She had gotten used to hearing knocks on walls and windows, as the Vision still seemed to have a degree of confusion about the distinctions between ‘door’ versus ‘not door.’ The floor was new, though.
“What?” she said to the room at large, sitting up and sliding back until her back hit the headboard. She reached out and switched on her lamp. Her voice was wrecked, she noted, her English more thickly accented than ever, and her breathing still shook in her chest. Vision rose through the floor like a mirage from a road, looking concerned. He was dressed in his usual ‘casual’ clothes, a button-down and slacks, and his scarlet skin was oddly incongruous with the attire.
“I heard you cry out,” he said. “Are your nightmares getting worse again?”
Wanda sniffed and scrubbed at her face with the sleeve of her sleep shirt, swallowing back a fresh bout of sobs. “I guess so.”
“Do you wish to talk about it?” He stepped over to her bed, hesitant. She shook her head and stood, shaky on her feet. There was no hope of getting back to sleep after that.
“What time is it?” she checked, hoarse. She pulled the blanket off her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, using the corner to wipe at her eyes again.
“Three twenty-four, ante meridian,” he said. Wanda felt her lips twitch at the corners, but the smile died almost at once.
She nodded, tugging the blanket tighter, and started for the door. “You can come sit with me, if you want,” she offered over her shoulder, and heard the quiet sound of him following her out into the hall. There was no one else awake, for once–she couldn’t sense any conscious minds moving around the living quarters besides herself and Vision. But then, when they couldn’t sleep, it was common for Clint to go to the range, or for Steve to go beat a few punching bags to shreds, or for Natasha to sit on the roof with a bottle of vodka and a grim Russian novel in the original translation. If they saw Wanda as they passed through the living room, they would sometimes stay, but not everyone cared for company in the shadow of a nightmare.
“Would you like some tea?” Vision asked as she dropped onto a couch, a coffee table set with a chess board in front of her and a light flaring on automatically, and she looked up in surprise. “I have been informed that tea is calming.”
She giggled, a wet and halfhearted sound. “No, Vis, I’m okay.” She reached out and toyed with a black castle, cool and heavy in her hand.
“Do you play?” He settled across from her, on the couch behind the white side.
Wanda scoffed. “No. Pietro and I never had the time to play games after…after.”
“Would you like to learn?” he asked, leaning forward.
Tucking her blanket more securely in place, Wanda nodded and set the castle back in place. “That would be nice.”
