He trudged through the thick mud, roughly pulling his foot up as he navigated through the dense jungle floor. He grabbed the machete on his right hand tight, swinging it as across thick foliage of banana leaves and dead twigs poking around in tall bushes. He sighed, turned around and assessed his location. The sun would be a great help, but the roof of tall tree tops made sure that barely enough sunlight penetrates the floor.
He stopped to collect his breath. The years have not been kind to him. Sure, he could kill it on a suburban setting, but the wilderness was something that no man could ever dream of fully conquering. He tilted his head, twisting his good ear to any small cracks of twigs, any brush of leaves, to the smallest gust of wind. His mind wandered, and not for the first time through the start of this journey wondered whether he could find what he was looking for.
Clint wiped the last of the plate free of moist. He sighed, wrapping the rag on its rack and replacing the bone-white china along with the others. For a moment, he leaned his back at the edge of the sink. Sleep was starting to come easy these days, but today, it seemed that won't be the case. He walks back to the living room, turning the lights off in the kitchen and shutting the door. The back of his neck tingled and he immediately grabs the nearest capable weapon, Nat's ping-pong paddle, and throws it hard at the direction of the television.
A glow if orange light filled the room, the sound of spark and static igniting as the paddle hangs in the air suspended, trapped in a glowing disk. Clint stared at the bright circle in the middle of the room, noticing the lines twisting and spinning inside of it. The disk of light disappears, and in it's place stands a tall man, a strand of dark hair spilling in front, white streaks of hair at the sides of his temple.
“Sorry. Should've knocked first." Clint recognizes the man immediately. How could he not, the lot of them went out those portals during the final stand against Thanos. He hums, as Dr. Strange places the paddle down on the coffee table and straightens up.
“What do you want?" Clint asks. Stephen gives him a small smile and raises his palms. “Nothing sinister. Just a proposition." Now Clint was intrigued. He stands his ground, crossing his arms and staring at him from across the room. Stephen sighs. “Tracking someone. Locating them. That sort of thing." Clint chuckles at that. “You can't use magic for that?" Stephen gives him an apologetic smile. “I could, but I should really be telling you what happened first. Why I can't use it to find her."
Clint felt more than heard that final word. Her. Visions of red filled his mind, and for a split second while he moved form his place to the couch, he might have an idea as to what the sorcerer would tell him.
Stephen waited until he sat down. Then he locates a nearby chair, Clint’s own reclining chair, and sits down. “Look, Doctor Strange, I don’t know how much you know about insider SHIELD information, but I’m kinda retired right now. Stephen smiles. “Yes, I do have an idea about that. Also, it’s Stephen.” Clint raises an eyebrow. “Your name isn’t Doctor?” Now Stephen gives him an incredulous look. “What? No. What kind of name is that?” Clint shrugs. “I’m not one to judge, even though it’s a weird name.” Stephen sighs. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve gotten that. It’s Stephen Strange. The doctor part, I just added. Although I was a doctor before. Neurosurgeon.” Clint gives a humorless chuckle. “That I wasn’t expecting.” Stephen shook is head slightly instead of giving out a witty retort. He straightens his back against the plush back of the chair and braces his elbows at the arms.
“You want anything? Tea? Beer?” Clint makes a wondering sound. “Beer is fine.” Stephen waves his hand, the sparks emitting in thin air as Clint feels a cold glass of golden beer, perfectly foaming at the top, being held by his palm. He wouldn’t say that seeing this magic up close was impressive, so he hums a silent thanks to the sorcerer and sips a bit, a thin line of foam sticking at the roof of his lips. Clint replaces the mug on the coffee table before looking back at Stephen.
Stephen rolls her hand and throws a ball of glowing orange at the fire pit, instantly igniting the long-charred wood inside. Again, Clint is impressed, but not willingly going to be vocal about it. As he starts to speak, Stephen lowers his voice, and immediately Clint knew. This might be a mission, but it is going to be a personal one.
“I’m assuming you’ve heard about Westview.” Who hasn’t, he thought grimly. For weeks after the crimson walls of Westview disappeared, every news outlet is filled with images of Westview’s traumatized individuals. It was also filled with numerous headshots of Wanda Maximoff, shown front and center as news anchors, psychological experts, scientists, and even concerned citizens express fear and admiration at the fallen Avenger. Clint nodded. He remembered sitting down and watching Wanda’s face marked with an X as they plan actions on stopping her. Laura simply rubbed his back, and Clint could only grab her hands as he sees the once scared woman from Sokovia being condemned in live television.
“She’s gotten worse after that.” Stephen sighs, weary and tired. “What do you mean?” Stephen chuckles humorlessly. “Where to begin? She sent demons to kidnap a child, used forbidden magic, killed and gravely injured several sorcerers, including me, and she planned to cross other universes so she can be with her sons.” With his time spent on a covert military agency like SHIELD and oftentimes surrounded by gods and other superpowered beings, Clint prides himself from his inability to be surprised sometimes. Those string of words, however, well.
“Okay, sorry. Tell that to me again really slow. I fight with gods and magicians with a bow and arrow, you need to dumb that down for me.
“There are other universes besides ours, Clint. The multiverse is real.” Clint has heard that word before. He nods and gestures him to continue. “The child Wanda was kidnapping, she can travel to these other universes. Wanda wants her powers so she can go to a universe where her sons are alive and real. With me so far?” Clint pauses as he deliberately thinks whether he should lie or not. Instead, he avoids the entire question.
“What do you want me for?” Stephen reclines back on the softness of the chair, sighing wearily and looking vacantly at the glass on the table.
“About a week ago, I read some news online. Isolated forest, nearest community is three miles on a car. It’s been a site of illegal poaching for years.” Clint breathes, waiting for the one snippet of information that would clarify things for him. Stephen inhales. “One poacher came out of the woods bloodied and scarred. He practically threw himself at the police stationed near there. He was delusional, the police said. Kept screaming about tentacles grabbing the other poachers.”
He pauses. “And a red mist when they disappeared.”
Clint let out an exhale he wasn’t aware of holding. “She’s gone into hiding, then.” Stephen gives a small shake of his head. “No. She dropped a thousand tonnes of rock on top of her. She is supposed to be dead.” Clint finished the thought. “And now she isn’t.” Stephen nodded for once, and Clint sighed heavily, gripping the cushions of the sofa with both hands. His back straightened as he puts the now barely cold glass of beer on the coffee table.
“Why me?”
Stephen retaliated. “Why not you?”
“You know what I mean. If she’s as dangerous as you say, then why me?”
The sorcerer sighed. “One reason? I don’t think she would want to see me after battling her across the multiverse. Second-” he paused, sighing with a weariness Clint could somehow relate to. Heroes aren’t meant to be get tired, but the unfortunate thing is, they still do.
“Second, she’s not wrong. In some twisted way I can see why she would want to move to where her sons are real and alive. She would be happy there. That’s not… it’s not something I can just take away from her. That’s what I tried to do. It didn’t exactly went well.” Clint blows an even breath. He knows her struggles, sometimes a little bit too close compared to his teammates’ dilemmas even if they had just met under crumbling buildings and flying robots tearing the city apart.
“Clint, you know her. In some way, you understand her pain. In Sokovia.” Burning buildings, screaming, lots of mechanical whirring. He thought that particular memory had been gone, but like a lot of things in his memory, it’s just buried under more and more memories he’d prefer to be on the forefront of his mind.
“At Stark’s funeral.” Now that one. He remembers that clearly, almost down to the last second when they left the funeral, the car ride home too quiet, too stifling.
Now Clint found himself feeling the weight of all of it back again, so much so he had to lean back and close his eyes just to re-calibrate himself to the present. “On Stark’s funeral, she said they both knew. That we’d won.” Stephen hums, putting her temple between his braced hand on the armchair. “Wanda, or the Scarlet Witch, is capable of many things. Communicating with the dead is just one of it.”
That statement was enough of a surprise to Clint to make him look up. “She can?” Stephen nodded, a bit unsure. “According to some of the texts I’ve read. As for how she does it, I have no idea.” The rush of information this time of night is messing up with Clint’s already terrible sleeping schedule. He figured he might as well cut to the chase.
“Where do I start?”
Laura had been too supportive of the fact that he is going on another mission, this particular one being in the woods. Of course there was the ever-present worry of him not coming back, which he made sure to get rid off before he even dared to pack anything for his “expedition,” as Stephen had referred to when he met his wife. Clint also made him explain all of the specifics about it to her. Not to his surprise, Laura’s stance is sympathetic towards Wanda. She had only met the woman once, at the funeral, but it was a few minute’s worth of interaction that made Laura grab his arm for a brief moment before whispering, “She’s lovely.”
Clint had to agree too. For someone who has suffered so much at such a young age, the woman in Stephen’s tale doesn’t sound like the woman comforting everybody else at the funeral of the person she loathed with all her being before. How the mighty have fallen, Clint thinks grimly.
A day of packing, that’s what Stephen allotted. The next day, he would come back early in the morning. In Clint’s mind, he was already planning the travel route. What he neglected to keep in his mind is that sorcerers don’t need to plan routes, not if they can spin their hands around and conjure up a portal to anywhere in the world that they can envision, which is what he did right in his front lawn.
Needless to say, he probably isn’t the coolest person to his kids anymore.
He stepped into the swirling sparks of orange light, the humidity coating his skin and the sounds of the forest bombarding his ears. He looked back one last time, seeing Stephen in the forefront with his fingers holding the portal. He gave a silent nod. In the back, Laura and the kids stood watching. She gave him a hint of a smile.
He smiled back until the cozy view of his farmhouse and family disappeared, replaced with the dense greenery of the forest before him.
Clint took a map Stephen had prepared. Circled on the wrinkled paper is the spot where the attack happened. He traced it as best as he could, but in a forest completely surrounded by trees and shrubs, anywhere can be anywhere without a very specific landmark.
He stops, panting with the effort, the humidity in the air serving to coat his entire body in a mixture of sweat and condensation. He had manage to pull through numerous missions before, but his age and the conditions of the unfamiliar environment he’s in isn’t helping him achieve that goal. In fact, the more he spends walking through the tall, mosquito-ridden bushes, he slowly gains an insight as to why Wanda would choose this place to hide.
Given time, she doesn’t even need to protect herself. The forest would certainly do that for her.
He sighed, head straightening to the dense foliage up above. Down here, everything is hidden in shadows. Now, in the dark of the nearing afternoon, the shadows turned heavier, almost rendering everything around him as dark as night. He looked up and cracks of light appeared on the ceiling of the forest, broken only by foliage of trees refusing to completely cover each other.
The snapping of broken twigs on his right. He cocked his head to the direction of the noise, his hand removing the strap of his gun holster strapped to his thigh. He kept his body as still as he could, the wrinkled map placed haphazardly on the moist soil. Carefully, he kneeled down to retrieve it, eyes staring at the thicket of grass and bushes where the noise came out of. He was glad the quality of the paper was poor, otherwise folding and tucking it back on his pocket would be filled with a loud, crinkling noise that would have alerted.
He walked forward, still maintaining eye contact at the darkening shades of green surrounding him.
The following day, he kept walking forward. He was a few hundred kilometers away from where the news reports cited the disappearance of those men, but somehow he felt as if the current place he was in now is the same as they had described. Maybe that was his mind imprinting the event in this entire place, but there is another, stronger gut feeling there. That those disappearances were not the first.
He kept walking. The ground on this part of the forest is not moist. In fact, it is barely covered in soil. Just dried up sand, pulverized rocks, scattered twigs and minuscule debris forming a dry forest bed. As he walks he feels the crunch of the dried up soil and rocks, feeling his boots crush the temporary clumps of earth. He stopped, catching his breath. He took his bag and twisted it around, grabbing the military-grade water canteen hanging from his bag. He took a generous sip and turned it back around. A she did so, he twisted his waist, catching in his peripherals the area he had just left.
From his viewpoint, it was as if there is a clear divide between the humid rainforest and the dry area that he is currently stood on. He would swear he was not exaggerating the line separating the two zones. In fact, straining his eyes, the foliage of the trees above of the rainforest had dried up, leaving the trees stood in the middle, including every plant and vegetation inside, is half-dried and half- alive. There was no mistake that the area he had just come out of is still a rich shade of emerald green, but the zone he is now on had an olive tinge to it, as if every vegetation inside is barely alive, despite not being fully dead either.
Clint turned around, immediately withdrawing his pistol as he faces a human-shaped formation that suddenly appeared in front of him. As he catches his breath, as well as his wildly beating heart, he notices, not for the first time, the odd features of it. For one, it seems to be growing naturally. The separate legs of the figure is planted firmly on the ground. Thin branches of dark wood, clearly newly grown, twisted around, mimicking the formation of a solid looking leg and thighs. A thick bundle of the branches clumps at the middle in a mass of twisted wood, forming the waist. Clint notices I continuing, seemingly unbroken as it grows, forming the body, long tendrils shooting out at the side and forming long, thin branches. It almost looks like the muscles of an arm, complete with the biceps and triceps, before shooting forwards into thinner strips to form the arms. He leaned down and looked at the hands. Extremely thin strips of wood formed the hands and fingers. There are hollow spaces where the wood twisted away from each other. As he observes it, seemingly, it looks as if the nervous system decided to form itself to a muscular system composed of wood and bark. Even more bizarre, deep red and orange flowers, healthy green leaves and vines of various sizes twisted around the figure. Despite the disturbing appearance of what appears to be an anatomically correct body plan growing on the ground, he noticed another crucial detail.
The right hand is placed on the side, motionless and inert. The left hand was pointing to a direction on his right. The head of the figure, a simple intertwining sphere of thin wooden branches, is twisted to look in front, directly staring at him if it would have had eyes.
He breathes in as he looks at the direction the figure is pointing at. Then he looks back at the figure. Gently, he touches its shoulders, rubbing it, as if in comfort. He heaved his backpack as he trudged to the direction being pointed at, walking in a hurry as the afternoon starts settling in.
If he had looked back, he would have noticed the figure’s head. It is twisted to the left, to where it points its rough, wooden fingers.
More wooden figures. As he walked deeper into the direction of the odd wooden person, he started noticing more human figures growing on the ground. Some were seemingly brand new, some have deteriorated, as if weather-worn. Some were covered in vines and leaves, some with healthy flowers of various shades of red and orange, while some were covered all over by the ghastly pale-white of mushrooms, adding to the decay of their bodies.
All of them were pointed at a specific direction, the one he was currently walking in now. As he walked faster, some of the figure’s fingers pointed in varying directions, some a little bit to the right, others twisting around because the sight is blocked by a tree, but almost always guiding him to some unknown, but somehow expected direction. He stopped on occasions, staring at a particular figure with interest. He would not deny it, he was impressed. The way the figures almost seem alive, the twisted barks of wood that he would expect to grow into a tree. This was art, and the fact that it had combined nature with it is just astounding.
He kept walking, this time with urgency as the darkness of the afternoon continues to grow.
As he rounded up a twist in the path being laid by the silent figures, he stopped momentarily. He had been focused in finding the next figure, the next pointed finger, that the sudden lack of any of them jolted him to halt. Looking ahead, it wasn’t difficult to know why he would have stopped either way.
Just a few feet ahead, as if misplaced by some freak accident, a one-storey suburban house stood. He cannot tell if it is a small house, his view being covered by overhanging leaves of the trees and overgrown bushes surrounding it. He wields his machete, cutting off the overgrowth in his way as he moves forward. As he gets closer, he sees an empty space surrounding the house. He stops again and observes the bright; luscious green surrounding the lone building. The grass is definitely alive, unlike its surrounding foliage. Flowers of various shades grow haphazardly around the perimeter. He takes a look at the edges a few feet away from him, and he can immediately tell that the area around the house is cut into a perfect circle. It was no gut feeling this time as he thinks back to the clear divide that he had passed through earlier. By this point, he is tired, weary, thirsty due to his canteen being emptied a few hundred meters back. He sighed and approached a space flanked to the side with two tall trees, the bark decaying, filled with dark, rotting wood, pale worms popping in and out the surface. In its surface, reddish-orange mushrooms and dull green moss abound. For a place that is dry, the wetness of the trees beside him was another confusing thing he would list down. Instead, he gazed at the space surrounding the house. Apple trees scattered in various points along the circle, some barely grown while some matured, fallen apple trees coating the floor of the tree with a mix of dull and dark reds.
The house was simple enough. A gray painted roof, triangular in shape, covers the majority of the house. An overhang forms at the bottom points of the triangle, giving shade to the porch up front. The door is located at the side, next to it a tall, frosted window providing a scattered view of the inside. The door was, by what he can see, a deep red color, almost borderline black as the darkness of the afternoon continues bearing down on the forest. At the top two windows at either side give him a view of the inside, painted a dull white.
The window on the left is covered in a yellow curtain. To its right, the figure of Wanda Maximoff appeared to fill the glass. He inhales quietly, staring intently at her, signifying that he means no harm. Somehow, he knows that she knows that his intentions are clear. Without even speaking, he knows very clearly that she already knows what this entire visit is about.
Wanda gives him a whisper of a smile, the fingers wrapped around her mug caressing the ceramic faintly. He smiles back, looking down at the grass before taking the first step on the pristine lawn leading to Wanda’s house.
Clint should feel some sort of alarm. At least, from what Stephen had told him about what happened to Wanda, and not just the parts that he can clearly sympathize with. Stephen recounted his experience leading up to him and Wanda’s fight. Wanda, according to the sorcerer, had been corrupted by some evil spell book that she came into possession just after the events of Westview, when the world had not seen the scarlet-themed heroine for quite a while.
Everyone had their theories. Some say she died, some argued the latter. No magic user, at least from what the public has seen, can get killed that easily. Even if they were, the aftermath leading to their death would surely not go unnoticed.
He stepped on the rickety steps leading up to the porch, a white painted wooden rail serving to border the entrance of the house. To his left, the rail extends further, serving as the porch, the wooden slats on the floor painted the same muted navy blue that spans the entire body of the house. A rounded rocking chair, weaved from flat rattan wood and the seat covered with a red cushion stood at the far end.
The door creaks open. The moment he had stepped in, he was not prepared to see another—but he suspects not the last— oddity. Immediately in front of him is a wooden staircase disappearing on the second floor of the house. Neutral colors surrounded the interior, with the living room opening up to his left, the spot he’s standing on a small space separated by a slight border separating the entire open plan of the room from the door. The entryways is lit by wall-mounted lamps, giving off a slight orange hue that further accents the dark beige and neutral brown floral wallpapers covering the walls. He walks forward a bit and to his left he sees a dark wooden upright rectangle, stained glass window in the middle and a thin stripe of square windows at the top. He would have easily mistaken it for another door, but the lack of a door handle would suggest otherwise. A small set of stairs led to the living room. The floor panels are dark wood, polished to a shine. He stares at his right where the couch and plush leather chairs are, the floor beneath the space covered by a dark red intricately-patterned carpet.
He stays at the entryway, taking into account more of the interior. He looks to the left, seeing caramel-colored antique chairs, the backs carved in a simple arch. The table has the same color as the chairs, but the surface of the table has been covered by a white lace tablecloth. In the middle, a bowl of fruit sits untouched.
He had always fancied himself as a capable handyman, but the interior design of this room alone is enough to give him the urge to try and re-decorate the inside of his house. It seems as if the room was out of time, with the patterned carpets, curvy chairs, the neutral tones and primary colors popping around the room, and the abundance of wooden fixtures. Suffice to say, this room doesn’t look like any suburban home’s interior. Not even a suburban house in the middle of a rainforest as it looks more like it just came out of-
“The 90s,” A voice replied to his left. He turns and sees Wanda within the tall, chocolate-colored curved pillars serving as a barrier between the entryway and the stairs. He swallows a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding as Wanda stays at the other side, looking back at him. She gives him a smile, and he tries to return one, albeit a little more reserved. She walks the small flight of stairs leading to the polished panelings of the floor, mug in hand as she looks at the living room for a couple of seconds before turning around to face him.
“I’m assuming you’re not here to ask me about the weather.” He nodded, still not making a move to go down, to get closer to the redhead. For what reason he does that, he doesn’t know. He shook his head. “If I’m being honest, I think you already know why I’m here,” Clint said, his voice level but assuring. She knows the reason, he thought, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t take it for reasons of his own. Wanda hums, her gaze boring through him for a second before she pads through the dining table and taking a seat on the head chair. He still doesn’t move, causing Wanda to turn her chair around to look at him.
“What do you think I’ll do to you?” He sighs softly and clears his throat. “Beats me. You’re capable of doing anything now.” His tone hadn’t changed, making it conversational for the sake of not upsetting her. Wanda chuckles, before waving her hand. A red glow surrounds her fingers, tendrils shooting around her hand. He notices the same scarlet glow on the chair next to her. The chair moves, inviting him to the table.
“I felt you enter this forest two days ago and I didn’t do anything. Why would I try to do anything now?” she asks, eyes level, pleading to him wordlessly. Trust me. I’ve fallen and there is no saving me, but please trust me. He paused, recalling everything that Stephen had told him about Wanda. Then he remembers Sokovia. Thanos. The funeral. He was fixing a leak in the kitchen sink when he heard a news reporter wondering about the Vision’s body and how there had been no funeral for the android. He tries to feel her pain. It wasn’t that hard to see why she had done what she did.
“Should I keep my shoes on? I’d hate to ruin your carpet.” Wanda smiles. Thank you. She shakes her head. “You can keep it. It’s easy to clean, anyways.”
Clint moves to the couch, the padding of leather a dull shade of aquamarine. He looks around the place, wondering if, perhaps, this was the interior of her same house in Westview. Perhaps this entire house was the same one shown in the news of that small town. He doesn’t remember the details that clearly now.
“Just the interior,” Wanda mumbles as she approaches the seat next to the couch. Clint looks to his left, sees the coaster and mug of coffee, and takes it gingerly as her words caught up with his hearing.
“Sorry for intruding. I try to block it out sometimes. I just can’t help knowing what you’re thinking about.” Clint hums, takes a sip of the brew and sighs before replacing the cup back on the wavy lines adorning the top of the wooden table. “It’s nothing. I guess, just surprised that some people can do that now.” The side of her lips twitch up and Wanda chuckles. “I almost forgot that ordinary people can save universes, but here we are.”
A pause takes over as Wanda drinks from the same mustard-colored cup, the sleeves of her cardigan covering the knuckles of her hands as she holds it to her mouth.
“Why did Stephen send you here?” Wanda asks. Clint sighs, looking down at the mesmerizing patterns laid out on the coffee table’s surface. He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know.” Wanda puts the cup down, a dull thud on the otherwise deafening silence of the room. Clint watches the motion, watching the small act in extreme detail.
“And why did you come?”
Clint asked himself the same question after the night Stephen asked him for help. He continued doing so until he arrived at the jungle. There was no point in lying against a someone that can read thoughts, not that he planned to do it anyways. “I wanted to see if you’re okay. After everything… after Westview.”
“I’m sure I’ve surpassed Westview by a mile now,” she says with a sarcastic smile on her face. Her smile turns sour, gaze loosening and detaching as she looks at her cup. “No. There’s no coming back from what I did.”
“Stephen told me everything. It’s… admittedly a lot to grasp.” Wanda keeps staring at the cup, Clint looking at her carefully. “But you’re not the enemy here. Neither is Strange.” Wanda chuckles then, the sound detached and lifeless like her auburn eyes.
“He doesn’t think of it that way.”
“Yes he does.” Wanda looks then, eyes unbelieving, but challenging him, asking him for reasons. Clint rubs his fingers together and gives a small sigh. “He went and asked me to look out for you. Not surveillance, no tactics, no sneaking. I’m just a guy hanging out with superheroes with these abilities, and he could have asked anybody else to look out for you.” Wanda eyes focus again, her face softening as she slowly realizes.
“But he didn’t,” she finished. Clint nods in agreement before continuing. “He sent me. You could have easily gotten rid of me. I didn’t even bring my arrows.” Another pause as he swallows the dryness on his throat.
“He said that he saw why you would want to do it. That he tried to take you away from your sons, and, well, that happened instead.” Wanda looks abruptly back down to her mug, grabbing it with a tenderness Clint might mistake for carefulness if he wasn’t so well versed in reading people.
She clears her throat, pulling out the words like painful thorns embedded in skin. “This was his favorite mug. Tommy, that is.” Clint looks at it now, the dull yellow surface matte. Just behind her fingers he can make out an outline of a corgi wearing a bow-tie. He found himself smiling at it, like what Wanda was doing. “This is the only thing I took from Westview. That house I built from my pain and anguish, and all that was left is this mug. I didn’t even know how that was possible, but it was on the ground after I said goodbye to them and-” she pauses as a sob escapes, the sound breaking Clint’s heart. Wanda cleared her throat, subtly wiping her eyes with the sleeves as she tries to keep her voice steady.
“And this is- this is all I have now,” she says, voice breaking as she tries to smile at him. “Every memory of those days spent with my family. When they were alive, when we were experiencing what it was to be just… normal. Happy. Every waking moment I get to see Vision, a-and my boys…” Clint looks at her again, and the stream of tears was flowing mercilessly as she grips the mug tighter.
“This is all I have.” A strangled chuckle rings in his ears. ‘T-this is all that’s left.” He stands up and goes to her side, winding his arms around her shoulders and pressing him close against his chest. Wanda buries her face on his shirt, sobbing louder as he feels his shirt dampening. He props his chin on her hair, rubbing his back as the most powerful magic user in the entire universe breaks down before him. He doesn’t murmur comforting thoughts, as he doesn’t need to know that they never really work, not if they are too busy crying their heart out, the ringing in their ears growing louder as they let it all the pain and anger out.
No, he continues rubbing her back, squeezing her shoulders, letting her feel that despite all the pain that threatens to pull the rug under her feet that there is always some refuge just out of sight. A shoulder to cry on, for this instance. He plants a soft kiss on her hair as he feels her starting to calm down, shoulders racking up with silent sobs, but otherwise calmer than she was a moment ago. Briefly he was transported back to Stark’s funeral, remembering their half embrace as she says that they know that we have won. He didn’t realize that, maybe, she was right. That they do know. She made sure that they would know.
It took a while until Wanda calmed down, at least enough to speak. Her face is flushed and her eyes watering as she pulls away from his soaked shirt. He pulls away from her, slowly, as her hands fall from his waist and back to her face, wiping away the remaining tears and moist that stuck to her face.
“I needed that,” Wanda says, voice scratchy as she tries to clear her throat. Clint nods, humming as he gives her a small smile. “I didn’t need magic to know that,” he replies. Wanda laughs, a tiny chortle that she freely let out. “Could have fooled me, she quipped back.” Clint walks away back the living room, Wanda reclining on her own as she sighs. For the first time in a long while, she feels calmness wash over her. She knew, realistically, that it never lasts. Not for someone like her. But now, she can live in the moment, right here, and try to remember that everything can happen else later.
For now, she looks at the mug, a hint of smile on her face. The memory of Tommy sipping on it, Billy trying to do the same, and then both of them inevitably figuring out that they can just use two straws to drink from the same cup flashes in her head.
She hears footsteps approaching, the clang of utensils on a tray unmistakable. She looks to her side and sees Clint with two tubs of ice cream, and she was surprised to see her face lighting up at the absurdness of it.
Clint hands her the vanilla one, taking the chocolate for himself. He sits down back down on the couch, groaning as his spine starts complaining. “Please tell me that TV works,” Clint says as he immediately opens his tub. Wanda chuckles as she raises her hand, palms filling with red and flicking her wrist as the TV comes alive.
The screen shows a very popular reality dating show. Clint grunts and Wanda looks at him. “What? You don’t like it?” Clint nods, scooping the dark brown ice cream to his mouth, Wanda close to doing the same. “Well yeah, it’s stupid. They don’t even date, it’s just endless drama.”
Wanda feels her cheeks aching with the smile on her face. “That’s the best part though. The drama of it all. Alison and Dave are perfect for each other too,” Wanda defends, scooping a mouthful and leaving the spoon on her mouth as the screen shows Alison and Dave, under a moonlit night eating a three course meal and talking about their worst dating experiences.
“Hm. My bet’s on Amy and Steven,” he says simply as he pulls the spoon out of his mouth. He doesn’t really bet on it, but Laura cheers for the pair whenever she drags him to the couch for some late night binging. He fails to notice Wanda’s offended look, but does so in his peripherals as he looks back at the TV.”
“What?”
“Those two don’t have chemistry together,” Wanda says simply. Clint chuckles and digs his spoon on the still frozen center of the tub.
“I have my beliefs, Maximoff. Those two are going to be together.” Wanda scoffs, also doing the same thing on her cup and fixing her gaze on the TV.
“Poor choice, Barton. Poor choice.” Clint replies with a taunting laugh. Wanda chuckles confidently. She looks at the mug on the coffee table, and she gives it a soft smile, just between the two of them.
We'll meet again, boys. Someday.