Dreams do come true
*****
The first time it happens, Wanda is thirteen.
It’s the night before her Bat Mitzvah. She’s technically thirteen years, two months, and twenty-three days old, and all the other girls at Temple have their Bats on the weekend of their actual birthday, but the synagogue was booked and their family was too new to the city (and poor refugees) to have any pull with the rabbis, so they had to settle for what was available. Soooo embarrassing. Even worse: she has to share the ceremony with her stupid brother, and he’d already made tons more friends than she had. None of the other girls will probably even show up, and she’ll be stuck at the party (in their backyard because Mama and Papa can’t afford the fancy reception hall) with a ton of boys who aren’t even cute. And they’d play that awful rap or whatever instead of pop songs by Celestia Hughes that she liked.
Ugh.
They spend the whole evening practicing the Torah passages that they have to recite tomorrow. Wanda is definitely better at it than Pietro, who keeps laughing when he is supposed to be serious. Idiot. Of course her parents act like it’s funny instead of annoying. They’re always much nicer to him than her. Mama once whispered to her that it’s because they have such high expectations for their daughter, which isn’t fair. None of this is fair.
At least here in America she has her own room, instead of having to share a bed (ick) with Pietro like back in Sokovia. Everything is nicer here. She still misses it, though. The war hadn’t been that bad, had it? Mama and Papa should’ve let them stay there, rather than coming here to this tiny, ugly house on Long Island, where it is too quiet at night. No neighbors bickering on the other side of thin walls, or the lights from the corner shop shining through the window. The other three Maximoffs act like this is heaven on earth. They’re so happy. Wanda is not.
She puts on her red pajamas and crawls into bed, listening to the crickets outside. As she drifts off to sleep, her brain goes through every part of the aliyah until the world finally fades away.
Then the dream begins.
*
At first, Wanda is totally confused. Most of the time, she dreams of colors or what she wished happened at school that day, or other stuff she forgets when she wakes up. This is different. She knows she’s standing on a street in Novi Grad, but it isn’t familiar (to be fair, though, it’s been almost two years since her family fled.) Everything looks a little bit different – like, the letters on the signs are the same kind as in Russia, not her Sokovian with the same letters as English. Everything is darker too, as if all the beautiful colors she remembers have faded away. Wanda looks down at her hands, which have silver rings instead of the sparkly purple ring that was her birthday present. Whatever. Not a big deal.
Except a familiar voice calls out, “Wanda!” She turns around, and it’s Pietro… but it isn’t. He looks weird, like the lines on his face have shifted and smudged. But she knows it’s him. Same voice. Still smells like pickles. He looks back and forth quickly, then leans in. “You pretend to steal some candy, while I get the flowers.”
And it’s her voice too that says, “I’m not going to steal!”
He rolls his eyes. “You don’t actually have to take it. Just pretend.”
They go into a shop that she doesn’t recognize, just like everything else in this dream (it’s a dream, right?) Wanda walks around the nearly-bare aisles and checks that the shopkeeper is watching her. Then she grabs a handful of chocolate bars and acts like she’s going to shove them in her pocket. The old man shouts, “Stop that!” Heart racing, she drops the candy on the floor and flees, leaning against a wall to catch her breath. When Pietro-but-not-exactly-him catches up to her, he unzips his coat and pulls out a bouquet. Wanda’s still not sure what’s going on, but she follows him around corners and down streets, until they reach a cemetery.
They stop at a tombstone that says “Iryna and Olek Maximoff”.
She gasps. Freezes. Feels like her whole body is falling apart.
*
And then she wakes up.
Wanda stays frozen, there in her American bed, with the crickets chirping outside and a Celestia Hughes poster on the wall. “It was only a dream,” she mutters to herself. “It wasn’t real.”
When she finally drifts back off to sleep, she dreams of swirls of colors that sparkle and shine like a rainbow. And at breakfast the next morning, she hugs Mama and Papa extra tight. Just a dream. Not real.
*****
The second time it happens, Wanda is eighteen.
It’s the summer after high school, which turns out to be both amazing and fucking awful. She has friends now. Not many, but enough to keep her busy and entertained most of the time. Her family still lives in the tiny, ugly house that at least has a pretty garden in the backyard where Dad obsessively grows vegetables when he’s not working long hours at the docks. Mom teaches ESOL classes at the community center. The Maximoffs never seem to have any money, but her friends are all rich. Kaitlyn often picks her up in the SUV she got for graduation, and they spend afternoons and evenings cruising up and down Long Island, pretending to look for trouble but they’re still Good Girls at heart so they never really find any. Wanda gets a job cleaning all the rich folks’ houses, saving up to start community college in the fall. It’s exhausting, but it leaves her enough time to get a decent tan and see her handful of friends and just be lazy for – as Mom always reminds her – the last summer before she has to become a grown-up. She’s happy, more or less. Still a lot of crap swirling around her head. She still feels kind of screwed up and out of place even though they’ve lived here for eight years and her Sokovian accent is almost entirely gone and everyone has forgotten that she used to be that weird refugee kid. Overall, though, things are good.
The fucking awful part? Pietro skipped graduation and took off. Hasn’t come back since, though he does email her sometimes, and he claims he’s fine and he’ll return home eventually. The whole thing was a surprise. Wanda had thought he was happy. In high school, he was way more popular than her. The life of the party. Tons of friends and some medals from track meets and a smirk always on his face. He still hasn’t told her why he left. And that keeps her up at night, because she’s supposed to know her twin brother better than everyone, right?
One Thursday in late July, she picks up a couple of extra cleaning gigs at work and gets home a little before midnight, absolutely exhausted. Dad’s in the garden, weeding by flashlight, which is totally weird but whatever. Mom’s working on lesson plans. She looks up when Wanda walks into the living room and gives her a sad smile. Uh-oh. Probably spent most of the evening in tears, like pretty much every day since her brother split. Wanda’s still waiting to figure out the perfect thing to say to make her mother feel better. But since that hasn’t happened yet, she just gives Mom a hug and goes to her room.
Even though her whole body aches and her eyes can barely stay open, sleep is elusive. Wanda stares up at the ceiling for a long time, trying to count sheep and take deep breaths and all those things those healthy living blogs (which are stupid but she can’t resist reading them) say you’re supposed to do. But her mind keeps churning away at thoughts of starting college in the fall and what the hell is going on with Pietro and how she feels guilty about so many things that she knows full well she shouldn’t feel guilty about, and … yeah. Shit.
Still, the breathing and counting eventually work. Her mind stops churning, and the world slides into black.
*
Wanda sits on top of what looks like a gothic cathedral, overlooking a city that looks like Novi Grad, but a little singed and a little sad. Her feet dangle off the edge, but she’s totally calm, like she’s done this a million times before.
A familiar laugh rings behind her, followed by brief rustling.
“What the hell is up with you and this damned church?”
“It’s pretty,” Wanda rolls her eyes, scooting a bit to the left to let Pietro sit beside her. “And we don’t believe in hell.”
“Very funny,” he teases. “Might as well get into confession while we’re up here, or whatever.”
Wanda laughs a little and leans back on her hands, watching the lights in the houses and storefronts and schools twinkle out.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have stolen a backpack full of knives to sell to the shady knife guy who buys knives near the river,” Pietro says in a mockingly earnest voice. “How was that? Do you think I could play a Catholic boy on TV?”
“I’m a bit more concerned with the knives,” she raises an eyebrow.
“Oh, yeah,” he nods. “I’m dead serious. You know Dominik, yeah?”
Wanda sighs, because she gave up on arguing with him about theft a long time ago. Besides, this is kind of funny.
“Can I see them?”
Pietro hands her his backpack and she rummages through it until a slim switchblade catches her eye, with a black handle and a black metal blade.
“I’m keeping this one,” she hums, tucking it into her boot.
“Sure,” he shrugs. “Just be careful.”
“You’re telling me to be careful? You just climbed a church with a backpack full of stolen knives.”
“Touché,” Pietro grins.
Wanda resists the urge to elbow him because they’re at least fifty meters from the ground, but damn, the city looks beautiful. Almost haunted, she thinks—like the bones of the Novi Grad she loved once.
She smiles wide.
*
Then she wakes up in an ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood, where the streetlights mute the stars.
*****
By the time she’s 22, the dreams have become more frequent.
Not, like, every night. Maybe every few months. Just little glimpses of that other Wanda’s life, since it’s gotta be another Wanda, right? Doesn’t make sense, but she can’t figure out how or why. Just that she’ll fall asleep and become this very different – almost exciting – version of herself for a little while. Then she wakes up and is back to her boring life.
Only dreams, anyway. Not real.
Sometimes, though, Wanda kind of wants them to be real, because actual, true reality isn’t great. Not bad or anything. It’s just … everything about her life is so ordinary, and that’s probably a good thing but doesn’t feel like it sometimes. Another life back in Sokovia, though? Living on the streets and looking incredibly cool and edgy and all that shit? Better than what she’s got going on. Or at least more interesting.
A few months ago, she finished her associate’s and transferred to the local university. Mom and Dad are so proud. First in her family to graduate from college, even though it was only a community college. They’re probably just relieved that she’s actually doing something with her life, instead of screwing around (including literally) like Pietro. He’s still a mess, but at least he’s back home now and got a job and has settled down in his Pietro-ish way. Everything’s back like it always was. Same tiny house, though a bit less ugly since she and Mom started spending snowy weekends on HGTV marathons.
So, yeah. It’s mid-December, same as all the Decembers before that, at least since they all moved here to Long Island. Finals were last week (her grades were B’s and a rare A), and Wanda has the afternoon off from her part-time job at the housing authority. As she drives into Plainview, her thoughts once again turn to social work. It’s her major, after all. Helping low-income people find a place to live – as hard as that is on Long Island – makes her feel good. There’s a refugee resettlement agency they work with. That might be a career option.
Pushing a cart around Target, she grabs toiletries and snacks and all the usual stuff, then walks over to the holiday section. Of course there’s a ton of Christmas decorations and gift ideas, though the large Jewish population in the area means the Hanukkah aisle is fairly well-stocked. Dad likes to joke that they’re bad Jews who only go to Temple on the high holy days, but Hanukkah is still nice. Festive. Something to look forward to. Though she can’t really afford it, she decides to splurge on a cheesy menorah with sparkly blue LED lights.
And that’s pretty much the highlight of her day. She goes home and spends the evening with Mom, who tries and fails yet again to teach her to make latkes. As things wind down for the night in front of the TV playing Property Brothers, Wanda’s mind goes back to how there has to be more to life than this. Right? She really, really hopes so.
When she crawls into bed and closes her eyes, the dreams return, showing her another Wanda’s life that is probably exhausting and stressful, but it’s just so much more.
*
The fire sizzles. At least, she thinks it’s fire. Her eyes are closed, trying and failing to fend off a splitting headache. Maybe touching the stupid glowy rock was a mistake, she thinks to herself, cursing under her breath while she brings her fingers to her cheek to see if they’re burning.
Finding cold skin, Wanda’s eyes open wide. Her hands are glowing, a faint red beacon in a pitch dark room. She blinks. This has to be a dream. (Or, she reluctantly admits, a hallucination, which she unfortunately can’t quite rule out.)
She waves her hand and red sparks fall, but they don’t land on the ground or her skin. It’s just… light. A soft warmth fills her body, though, and it feels almost like how it felt when that rock split open, beckoning her towards it.
Is this what the scientists were talking about? God, she hates feeling like an experiment. But she and Pietro signed up for this, hoping they’d find some way to help the kids they grew up with, and the kids those kids started having. (Wanda reminds herself regularly that she is 24 and an adult, no matter how ill-prepared she feels for the concept of children. Oof.)
Wanda remembers brushing off the possibility of radioactive powers or whatever else Pietro jokingly suggested to curb her nerves, and she regrets it now. Don’t superheroes all have origin stories? Is it supposed to be poetic that hers may very well be a saga of clawing her way out of rubble sent to her from a hero overseas? Or does that make her a villain? The idea of becoming a beast terrifies her.
And fear feels… different. It doesn’t freeze her chest—it spreads through her body, to places she didn’t realize could experience emotions. Why are her hands afraid? How are her hands afraid?
Wanda runs out of time for questions when a jumbled mess of red light flares from her palms. She can’t explain it, but it feels like fear. It feels like fear leaving her body, too, projecting itself somewhere else.
She hears Pietro’s voice in her head and sighs, burying her face in the stiff pillow beside her to quiet her thoughts enough to maybe get some sleep.
*
When she wakes up, it’s morning. Soft pillow, thick duvet, walls painted red and creamy beige by her and Mama last spring after they’d spent weeks compiling a Pinterest board. She rolls over and grabs her phone. There’s a text from Pietro, asking if they’re supposed to get their parents Hanukkah gifts now that they’re adults, or if that’s just for kids. Wanda stares at her hand. Purple nail polish. A tiny scar on her knuckles from a bike accident. It’s not radioactive or glowy. Just a hand. Nothing special. Not like in the dreams.
*****
At 26, the dreams have been around for exactly half her life. It used to feel weird, but now she kinda likes having them. As if she’s some character in a TV show who has a short fling then goes back to her regular life.
It helps that her own life is actually exciting now. Okay, maybe not exciting, but not as dreary as before, thanks to Lexapro for the depression that her doctor finally diagnosed last year. Hell, she’s just glad to have a life, with a small apartment and a handful of friends and a job – no, career – that she genuinely loves. Speaking of love… no boyfriend, aside from a handful of dates and one-night-stands over the years, but that’s alright. She can wait for that part of her life to begin whenever it’s time.
It’s a beautiful autumn day. She takes her sack lunch to the park around the corner from the refugee agency and eats her sandwich while texting with Darcy about Halloween plans. Of course Darcy drops hints about some guy who’ll be at the party this weekend, and Wanda just rolls her eyes then opens the browser on her phone and scrolls through dress-up ideas, debating whether to succumb to the Sexy Costume Industrial Complex. There’s a witch outfit that is cute and not too ridiculous. Adding it to the online cart, she smiles to herself and walks back to the office.
When she opens the main door, she nearly collides with a very tall guy.
Her Starbucks cup falls to the floor, but Wanda manages to avoid the same fate. Grabbing the door jamb for balance, she swallows the urge to mutter “Why the hell were you standing in the doorway, jackass?”, because this is work, and she’s supposed to be polite. Instead, she says, “Sorry,” even though it wasn’t her fault.
He picks up his messenger bag that also fell, and turns around. “My apologies. I shouldn’t have been blocking the entrance. Additional apologies for ruining your beverage.”
Wanda can’t help but laugh at that. “It’s almost empty. I was going to throw it away.”
“Well, then. That’s a relief.”
They stand there, staring at each other. Something weird slides into her mind, like she’s supposed to know him, but obviously she doesn’t. Just as the staring gets awkward, she says, “Are you here for an appointment?” The guy’s got a British accent. Probably not a refugee, but you never know.
He smiles. “Oh! No, I’m here for the computers.”
Oh, yeah. “The I.T. guy they just hired, right?”
“Not quite hired. I’m on contract, but yes. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Vision.”
He offers a hand to shake, but she realizes she’s still holding the coffee cup. Shoving it into the lunch bag, she accepts the handshake. And it is such a cliche, but she actually feels a bit of electricity between them. “I’m Wanda. One of the intake counselors.”
“Lovely to meet you.”
“You too.”
She has work to do, and he’s due for a meeting with the program head, so they go their separate ways. Still, she keeps thinking about the encounter – did it qualify as a meet-cute like in a romcom? – the rest of the day. And it’s still filling her mind when she goes back to her small apartment and watches TV and eats dinner and eventually crawls into bed.
*
“The goal is just to get some documents. We’re not blowing anything up.”
“Oh, come on. Not even a little fire?” Tony groans.
“No weapons at all, if you keep asking questions like that,” Steve glares.
“How else are we supposed to get the United Nations to know we mean business?”
“By doing business like normal people, Stark.”
They bicker like a married couple that’s about fifteen years overdue for a divorce, Vision’s voice rings in her head. Wanda stifles a giggle.
I’d like to see those court proceedings, she replies.
All redacted. Court records have mysteriously disappeared. Some filing cabinets have scorch marks, but others are simply unlocked.
Yeah, she’s trying really hard not to laugh, but it’s so hard to maintain her composure when Vision’s in one of his sarcastic moods. She didn’t even think he had this side to him when they first became friends, and it feels like a fantastic display of trust that he shares these thoughts with her at all. One of the unique benefits of a psychic bond.
Who do you think gets the kids?
I think they’ll split us down the middle and pretend the other half never existed, Parent Trap style, Vision replies.
Wanda wants to smile at that one, not laugh. He keeps incorporating little references to the movies they’ve watched together, and it makes her giddy. She’s never really gotten to bask in the process of making a friend like this before, mostly because there wasn’t ever really time to learn somebody so thoroughly and intentionally. But she gets to go on walks with Vision and ask him all sorts of ridiculous questions because she wants to know him, and she gets to. She gets his time and his company and his humor and his feelings and it doesn’t feel like there’s a clock. It doesn’t feel like she has to assess him for any threats. She’s just… making a friend without the pressure of war.
Are we supposed to cause a scene to get them back together?
Clearly, those two have some tension to work through, Vision says with a chuckle.
“Do you have something you want to share with the class, Vision?” Stark asks, pointed eyebrow raised.
“Oh, um, no, sir,” Vision blanches, straightening in his seat. Wanda chews her bottom lip.
“Can you and Maximoff stop with your mental note passing and just get a room already? We’re all supportive.”
“Oh, we’re not…” Vision starts, but he trails off, clearly trying to pick his next words carefully. Wanda feels like she must be bright red right now.
“Quit teasing them,” Nat cuts in. “They’re not dating, and I know you find it uncomfortable when anyone tells you and Steve to go to couples’ counseling.”
“Fair enough,” Stark huffs, crossing his arms. “Sorry, red. Uh, reds.”
“It’s fine,” Wanda mutters.
The meeting wraps up a bit awkwardly and Wanda slips out of the conference room the second the presentation is done, but Vision is on her heels.
“Hello,” he says, falling in step with her. “I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay, Vis. You didn’t do anything wrong. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m alright. Embarrassed, I think, but… alright. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Wanda sighs.
“Would you like to go on a walk?”
“Sure,” she smiles a little. “Lead the way.”
Vision takes her down a winding path behind the Compound, leading her to a little creek just beyond the curtain of trees.
“Can I tell you something silly?”
“Always,” Wanda replies.
“I’m a little excited about the moment we had back there. I feel like it’s such a common trope for best friends to get caught passing notes in class, and, well… I never had that. It’s nice to get to have that with you, even if Mr. Stark and Mr. Rogers tease us.”
“Best friend?”
“I think of you as my best friend, yes. But I understand if that’s not reciprocated.”
“Oh, no, I just… didn’t think I’d hear you say that, is all. I absolutely think of you as my best friend.”
Wanda can’t stop smiling. Vision looks at her with a wild grin and holds out a pinky finger.
“Shall we be best friends?”
Wanda tucks her pinky around his.
“The best of them.”
*****
Wanda rings in her twenty-eighth year on this earth with another dream, of course.
Before all that, there’s all the birthday stuff. It falls on a Saturday, which means Mom (who has gotten a lot more religious over the years) wheedling her over breakfast to attend Temple with her and Dad. She gives in, and the service is really nice. At first, she assumes she’d forgotten all the chants and rituals, but they come back to her. When it’s over, the smiles on her parents’ faces make her feel good.
She might be the dutiful daughter, but Pietro is officially the Bad Twin. Heh. No Temple for him, which is perfectly in character. The three of them return home to a new house that is still tiny but much warmer and nicer than the old one, and her brother is there waiting. Mom serves everyone slices of apple cake from her old family recipe, and they chat for an hour or so. When she and her brother leave, Wanda looks back at her parents in the entryway and thinks that yeah, maybe they’ve finally achieved the American Dream that led them here from a war-torn country so many years ago.
It’s barely two in the afternoon, but Pietro takes her out drinking. Typical. (She loves him so much.) He chooses a good old-fashioned Long Island dive bar with a deck overlooking the sea. The weather’s warmer than usual for mid-February, so they sit on the deck with their coats still zipped up, and Pietro tells her about all the local shipping industry gossip that he’s picked up from his job as a boat crew manager. Some of his friends join them, and even though she reminds him that I have a boyfriend, you idiot, he still tries to set her up with Bryce, his best friend from way back in high school.
A couple of hours later, Wanda’s on the wrong side of tipsy, and she decides to walk back to her apartment – only a mile away – instead of calling an Uber. She’s supposed to go out for dinner tonight with Vision, and she definitely needs a nap to sober up first.
*
Wanda hears the rain outside, but the room is dark enough that she can’t see out the window. Or the curtains are drawn closed. Either way, the only thing she sees is the soft and familiar light beside her.
Something about the night feels blurry, like an oversaturated watercolor painting. After a long time apart, the vibranium on his body glows when he touches her. She always laughs about it at first, but she thinks it’s the most beautiful truth in the whole world: Vision lights up when he’s with her. Even at her most self-conscious, Wanda can’t deny that.
It’s the flash of light on his forearms and the flare of red that her hands produce to match him. They both giggle, the depth of his voice vibrating deep in his chest. She can feel it. Feel him, she means. It’s silly and it’s beautiful. The yellow gem in between his brow brightens when he sighs and she can’t stop staring at him.
“I love you,” Wanda whispers, quiet enough that the noise only exists for him.
“I love you, too,” Vision replies. His breath is warm on her cheek, his body glowing against a blue room and a blue sky and—
Lightning flashes outside, startling them both out of their mushy gazing. Wanda pulls him closer as she laughs. Nothing’s funny, necessarily, but she’s just so amazed that Vision makes things as mundane as thunder feel like the kind of thing she’d write in her diary, even two years into loving one another.
“You should stay another night,” Wanda says. “I’m so happy when you’re here.”
“I’d like to stay every night,” Vision replies. “Forever, perhaps.”
“Yeah,” she says, curling into his chest. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
*
Wanda Maximoff wakes up alone in her apartment, and everything really does seem to glow. Sure, it’s just the sunset coming through her window, but she wants to think it’s something more. Maybe the dream. After all these years of watching the other Wanda’s life alongside her own, it’s such a relief to see her happy and in love. God knows she deserves it. Of course life goes on, but in some weird way she hopes that the dreams never return. That they’ll end on forever.
And her own life goes on. Today is the twenty-eighth year of it, and things are good. Really good. Tonight is going to be even better. No special plans aside from dinner with her own Vision – and it’s kind of delightful that he exists both here and in her dreams – but she has a feeling it’s going to change everything.
She puts on a red sweater dress and leggings because the afternoon was warm but the evening promises to be chilly. One last glance around her apartment, then she walks out and gets in her car, off to pick up Vision because he’s a silly man who rides a bicycle even in the winter so that he can avoid contributing to carbon emissions. She loves that about him.
As she drives, she thinks about all the other things she loves about him: the way he hunches over his desk at work as if those tech reports are fascinating, then will forget all about them when she walks into his office. How, during the summer, he joins Papa in the garden, and how he started watching HGTV even though it bores him, but he enjoys discussing the shows with Mama. How he finds her dreams about the other Wanda absolutely amazing, as if he’s dreaming about her too. She loves the way he cares and respects and loves her, and he makes her believe she’s worth all that and more.
When she parks in front of his building, he’s standing there on the front steps, shivering a little, his neck wrapped in the scarf Mama knit him. A new kind of glow fills her as she looks at him, and she thinks, “Forever, perhaps.”
Yeah, they could do that.
*****
END (31/31)