Wanda/Scott
She remembers a woman's voice, though the face that comes to mind with it is blurry. Even when she looks a the picture in their file, the man and woman are just a picture. Their faces mean nothing. It's the voice that clings to her, her mother's soft words, as she trails fingers over her skin. Kind words, that echo when all else about her mother has turned to whispers and blurred memories. "He's going to think you are a wonder, my little one. From the beginning, he will know how precious you are."
And she believed it. She clung to it, through the pain and loss. While the scientists called her similar things, they never said the words in the right order to match the messy script on her hip. There since birth, and still there after all that Hydra puts her through. Pietro says she's lucky.
No one ever told her the words could be an after thought.
He climbs out of the van, and he's tired but still bounces on his heels as he shakes Steve's hand, and she laughs a little inside to see someone else falling in love with the great Captain America. Another one who can't contain their excitement, and there's been a lot of those sort of people in the past year, even as the popularity of the Avengers goes down. Clint's friend smiles, and shakes Steve's hand, babbling all the while as Wanda begins to tune his voice out.
"Captain America."
He turns around, with that silly stupid smile on his face that's the wrong side of young looking for him to pull off, with how he does look at her, and her smile back is polite, still only half paying attention.
"I know you too! You're great."
She has so rarely felt the world shift like this. It tilts under her, and it's the same pounding heartbeat in her veins as when the red magic first came to her. While any other could think it a mistake, she has no doubts, and the world goes silent for it. The words, and they're an after thought, something added after he's already engaged so thoroughly with another man, and he still hasn't let go of Steve's hand. She's breathing, but she can't hear her own breath.
He turns away, back to Steve, and she can only let the smile she'd brought up in genuine repercussion turn stiff and hollow of emotion. Clint is there, beside her, but his looks of questioning are for not as she turns away.
A moment of peace, a moment to breath. The control of her powers that is but a thread at this moment needs to be gathered up, feed in together, back into a ball to be tightly clutched and carefully held. And there's such a thin line between her powers and her outward emotions that controlling one is controlling the other, and she knows it's a perfect mask on her face as she takes steps around the van and further into the parking garage.
Still, footsteps follow her into the shadowed lines of cars.
"Wanda, you alright? Steve doesn't want to stay here too much longer."
"I'm fine, Clint." In and out, controlling breaths, holding on to that centre, pulling the threads of power into her heart. The red becomes a tangled ball inside her chest. "I just need a minute."
"Is it something about Scott? I know he's a little excitable, but he's a good guy."
"Scott?" She can't stop herself from turning around. Or the words from coming out of her own lips. For all her control, they slip out, and it's too late to stop them. "His name is Scott?"
Clint is ever preceptive, and it doesn't take much to match up her words and the event. She watches his face twist in realization. "Yeah. Scott Lang. You want me to get him over here for some private talk?"
Her hands tremble as she smooths them down over the front of her jacket, watching the rings instead of the emotions play out on Clint's face. "No, that won't... I'm perfectly fine, Clint, I don't need to say anything to him."
"Wand-"
"I said I'm fine." And she turns sharply on on her heels, marching back towards the little group by the cars, feels his fingers brush her arm in a too-late attempt to keep her back. Bucky looks at her curiously as she comes closer, but it is the hand that Scott still has on Steve's arm that holds her attention, even when she looks away from it. She can't keep it out of her head.
"Alright." Steve claps Scott on the shoulder, and again, that flare of emotion that won't be, can't be, ignored, spilling out from his mind. How she wishes she'd stayed behind for this meet up. "Sam, Clint, you take the buggy back to the rental place. Meet up at the safe house."
And she almost misses it, but she turns to avoid the sun glaring through the open sided of the car park, and she clearly sees the jerking of Bucky's head at her, then Scott, and Clint's answering nod.
She should have known things would not hold from that point on.
Thought she does make it through the ride back to the safe house without saying anything, despite being pressed up against Scott in the too small back seat of the van. Steve insisted on driving, and since Bucky refused to ride shotgun but still needed to be close to Steve, that left the back seat between the two if them, and Steve kept taking turns too sharply, too fast, and they kept falling on each other.
Scott apologizes rapidly every time. She keeps her lips shut.
Bucky starts sending her looks through the mirror, and she ignores those like she ignores the words from Scott about how amazing this is and how honoured he is to meet Steve and how it's all crazy, crazy, crazy.
Steve leaves her to get the bags from the trunk, but Scott follows him inside the house, and Bucky comes back out to bump hips with her and help her carry the supplies in. He nudges his head at Scott in the living room when they pass, chatting animatedly with Steve, and her eyes flash red as she glares at him. The silence continues.
It lasts until that evening. She's trying to turn the fold out couch in the spare room into a comfortable bed when there's a knock on the bed. "Just put the pillows on the floor, Clint."
She hears a sharp gasp, and her heart stops. Too late, she feels the impression of him, half in the door frame, his eyes wide and hanging open. And though he does have the promised pillows in his arm, he is very much not Clint.
"You know, you can give a guy a complex, growing up with another dude's name on his skin."
He recovers fast, she doesn't. She is still white and shocked and most of all embarrassed as he drops the pillows and steps across the small room towards her, eyebrows up. She takes a small step back, her knees hitting the mattress, and he immediately stops walking, even stepping backwards, his hands out in front of him.
"Shit, sorry. Should have known you didn't want me. Guess that's why you didn't talk at all. Look, I'll just.... Go. Okay. Uh, have a good night. Yeah."
"Wait."
He's almost at the door again, and she watches his shoulders seize up, his breathing stop. He slowly, ever so slowly, turns around. A bit of hope dances in his eyes and across his thoughts, and it's the daring to, the barely there touch of believing that makes it so true. So honest.
"I didn't say anything because I thought you weren't interested."
"Not-! Have you seen you? I mean, of course you've seen you, but I mean! You're the Scarlet Witch, of course I'm interested!" He gestures over her body, and she can't help but smile, a little tease on her lips. "Not to mention my soulmate, I mean, do you know how many times my daughter keeps asking when I'm going to meet you?"
"Your.... Daughter?"
He blushes, and it's the same red as her favourite jacket, blooming right across his skin.
"Like I said. Give a guy a complex."
"Well," she pulls in his hand, and they step together, kicking the pillows away from their feet so they can stand closer together, and he curls his hand over her hips, and she tilts her head back, smiling crookedly at him. "Maybe I can help fix that."