Self-worth / Self-love
Wanda has another bad week, where the days and nights bleed into one another in granular, painstaking minutes and hours and days. Foggy, she says sometimes. Like her brain and body want to cling to frozen time, too heavy and tired to move. It doesn’t really matter how many times it happens—it always feels profoundly, ridiculously stupid.
It’s a Monday, and she has one conference call to go before she can be done for today. Though she understands why Sam insists on having everyone present for routine briefing meetings, she’s having a hard time justifying it to herself right now. The day is passing like molasses and she really thinks she might die.
Of course, she doesn’t die. She goes to her meeting and does her best to put on a convincing smile, and everyone is pretty used to her moods at this point so nobody comments on how quiet she’s being. (At least her “moods” now are, like, weeping in the breakroom and not demolishing the multiverse.)
As the meeting wraps up, Wanda drags herself outside. At least it’s still light out. But as she walks out the door, she trips on the door jamb and drops her bag, everything spilling out onto the concrete sidewalk and, and, and
And something just fucking snaps. Wanda feels like a tense ball. She wants to physically, literally explode. She cries instead. It’s quiet, tears slowly streaming down her cheeks as she picks her things up off the ground. She’s all leaky. She hates it. She hates it she hates it she hates it and her breathing agrees, all sharp inhales and quick exhales and blurry vision and
A soft hand rests on her back. Another hand enters her line of sight, gathering the stray receipts and chapsticks and hair ties and whatever other contents fell out of her disorganized disaster of a purse.
But the hands are familiar and so she lets her shoulders slump inward, hands on her face. She screams into her palms.
“Darling,” Vision coos, loud enough to sound firm but quiet enough to feel private.
“Fuck,” Wanda breathes out, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “People can see me, can’t they?”
“That doesn’t matter,” he replies softly. “We’re going to the park.”
Wanda’s head snaps up to meet his gaze, those golden eyes full of loving concern. Her chest twists until it hurts.
“Vis, I need to just get in bed and not move.”
“You’ve been doing that all weekend and it clearly hasn’t helped.”
He raises a pointed eyebrow and Wanda sighs. After a few slow blinks, she gets up and lets him sling her bag over his shoulder.
“Fine.”
Vision smiles so sweetly that it almost thaws her, but god, nothing really penetrates these moods of hers. She always just hunkers down and waits for it to pass, ripping winds and freezing rain included.
He reaches for her hand and she takes another deep breath. His hands are always so warm, and she hadn’t even realized her hands were cold. Autumn is teetering on the edge of winter and she’s not usually one to get chilly until it’s literally freezing outside, but the sky is overcast and the breeze has a bite to it and Vision’s hand is so, so warm. Fine. She’ll go on the stupid walk.
As they walk toward the park, Vision comments on all sorts of things they pass—the tree overhanging the halal cart, the bird perched on the street sign, the sidewalk chalk portrait of a trio of dogs. No matter how many times they take this exact walk, Vision always finds something new to point out and smile at. On her worse days, Wanda resents his ability to do that so easily. Not because she doesn’t want him to be happy, but because, like, what the hell is he doing with her, then? Wanda accidentally ruins the whites in the laundry and collapses into bed for 36 hours at minimum, even though she can magically fix it. Vision waves hello to squirrels.
They make a left around the bend where the sidewalk turns away from the street. As trees start to surround them, Wanda pauses for a minute to close her eyes and breathe deeply. She loves living in the city, but she can always feel it in her lungs when she’s surrounded by foliage. That’s nice, at least.
Vision chatters for a while longer about the species of trees and the timing of the leaves falling. Wanda listens and nods along, but the impulse to start sobbing remains hidden just behind her. She knows it. She feels it.
“Alright,” Vision says in a much more serious tone than a moment ago. “Shall we sit?”
“Sure,” Wanda shrugs, falling onto a bench. Vision sits beside her and wraps an arm around her shoulder.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“How you’re feeling, Wanda.”
“Oh,” she sighs. “I mean, there’s not much to talk about.”
“I’m always grateful to hear even your most mundane thoughts.”
“I’m just tired, Vision. Like… all of me. And there’s nothing in my life itself that feels unbearably heavy right now, so I just… feel sort of silly being sad about, what? Nothing? Going to work? Needing to figure out what food to eat? I’ve been through much worse.”
“Our brains aren’t always going to do what we want them to, but being a person is exhausting.”
“Yeah.”
“Wanda, you deserve to give yourself space to be sad.”
“I’m sad all over the place. I don’t need more space for that.”
“I meant that you don’t need to run away from it,” he replies, rubbing a gentle circle on her shoulder with his thumb. “You seem to always wait for it to pass, but you don’t have to shut everyone out to do that. You can just… be sad.”
“I don’t think it works like that.”
“I certainly won’t pretend to understand how it works firsthand, but I’ve noticed that you tend to feel better after you let yourself cry and talk and throw things for a little bit.”
Wanda hums something in reply, but doesn’t talk. She’s not sure what to say.
“So… let’s try it. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“I don’t know, Vis,” she sighs. “It’s… nothing. It feels like nothing, and like I just have to keep getting up and doing things and going to work and taking showers and eating meals and getting dressed and… it’s overwhelming to think that I’m just going to need to do that forever. It might never stop.”
Wanda feels him nod, though she can’t see his face. She rests her head on his shoulder and continues.
“I don’t want to die. That’s not it. It’s just… I wish it didn’t feel so overwhelming to do basic fucking tasks, and… and I just…”
Wanda trails off and starts crying. As if he were anticipating exactly this, Vision pulls her head against his chest, kissing her forehead and smoothing her hair while she makes a mess of his shirt.
“It’s okay, darling,” he whispers. “It’s okay.”
She’s not sure how much time passes there, but she’s groggy when she finally pulls away. Crying tends to do that to her. She rubs her eyes and her temples, trying to fend off her inevitable post-sobbing headache. (Bodies are cruel. Why the actual hell should she have to feel physically dried out after crying? All-powerful witch or not, there’s apparently no escape.)
Wanda slowly blinks her eyes back open, truly noticing the scenery for the first time. They’re looking out over the little lake in the center of the park, and the overcast clouds split just enough to let the pink and orange hues of the sunset bleed through the sky and into the water’s reflection. The trees that line the walking path are all the beautiful rusty color they turn just before they shed their leaves.
“Water?”
“Mhm,” Vision nods, rummaging through her purse for her water bottle. She takes a few sips and looks out over the park, breathing in the rustling leaves and faint sounds of laughter from the adjacent soccer field.
“Fine,” Wanda rolls her eyes, elbowing him in the side.
“Fine?”
“It helped,” she sighs. “I feel less like I want to light myself on fire.”
“Oh, I’m so glad we’re not dealing with a fire hazard tonight.”
“Shut up,” she chuckles. “Don’t tease me.”
“I mean it, though. I don’t ever want you to feel like hurting yourself or disappearing.”
“I do, though, Vision. Really often. And I get that it hurts you, but I can’t just… stop.”
“I don’t expect you to stop, and it doesn’t hurt me. Nothing about you hurts me, even when I wish you didn’t have to experience immense sadness or loneliness or emptiness. I just want you to pay attention to the things that dissipate those feelings, because I know it’s possible, even when you don’t see it.”
“Good thing I have you around, then,” she smiles.
“Good thing you have yourself around, too,” Vision replies. “You are the one who fights through these things, even if I’m the one holding your hand.”
Wanda has the urge to tell him that it is him, that he deserves the credit for this, not her. But… she remembers what her therapist says, and she decides to trust what Vision is telling her. One day, perhaps, she’ll actually believe it.