Progress

Agatha closes the door behind Vision as he steps across the threshold. She turns the key - one of many attached to metal key ring - in the lock, sliding the bolt into its receiving curl of metal as she drops the chain into its place. Next, she presses a quick code into an electronic keypad to the right of the door, a small beeping sound made as each button is pressed.

Vision watches, silently observing the way that Agatha goes about securing the entrance to the house against any possible intruders. She carries out her task with the kind of dedicated focus that can only come from being more than just a little bit aware of all the potential consequences that could arise if so much as one of the steps to this ritual is forgotten, or left out. He doubts that she really believes it’ll do much - if anything - to stop someone wishing to get in if they’ve already gotten this far into the neighbourhood, but, either way, it’s reassuring to know that there’s at least one more obstacle between his children and anyone wishing to do them harm.

Agatha pulls the key from the door and drops the key ring into a porcelain dish that sits on a side table pushed up against the wall below the electronic keypad. She beckons for him to follow her, leading him into the living room, where he’s startled to find his sons. They’re so close, closer than they’ve been for very long time, and he finds himself desiring - he’s never wished to do anything with as much conviction as he has now - to remove the disguise and call them to him.

He doesn’t though, choosing instead to respect Agatha’s request to keep the glamour in place - until when, he doesn’t know. Instead, he watches as Agatha crosses the room to retrieve the remote from where it sits discarded on a side table, next to a baby monitor that glows under its own green light and crackles with the staticky sounds of incoherent, inaudible speech.

With the press of a button, the TV goes dark with little more than a flicker of static. The twins turn towards them, disappointed faces directed towards Agatha as they half-heartedly protest about their fun being ruined.

In return, Agatha merely cocks an eyebrow at them. “Am I really ruining your fun, or do you just not want to go see where Monica works tomorrow?” she asks, a knowing smirk on her face.

Tommy rolls his eyes as Billy huffs in response. A shove at Billy’s shoulder has them both stumbling to their feet and heading for the stairs with grumbling, half heard complaints. They pass Wanda - she holds a half-asleep Irena on her hip - by as they climb the steps, disappearing into shadows of the landing with heavy, dragging steps that do to bely their tiredness.

Wanda steps into the room, a hand running through her hair. She stops when she sees Vision, frowning in unimpressed displeasure at the sight of someone she doesn’t recognize in what is supposed to be a safe house. “Who’s this?” she asks as she turns towards and approaches Agatha, who can only frown in answer as she takes the now wide awake and squirming infant from Wanda’s grasp. “I think she’s hungry,” she offers by way of explanation.

Agatha purses her lips, nodding curtly in understanding as she steps around Wanda to close the door, directing their visitor to the sofa. “Show her,” she says to him as she sinks down into the armchair behind the door, leaving Wanda as the only one standing.

Vision offers her a small smile of gratitude - he doesn’t know why she’s doing this, but he’s suddenly glad that it’s Wanda and not his boys that get to be the first see his face again - before looking up at Wanda and letting the glamour disperse. Her shoulders sag slightly as the air leaves her lungs. “V-Vision?” she stutters, her displeasure all but disappearing, to be replaced by something akin to a muted sense of shock. He nods. “But, how?” she asks. “I - you’re dead.”

“I was dead,” Vision corrects. “SWORD rebuilt my body, and the Vision you created in Westview restored my memories to me.”

Wanda’s brows draw together again over the wrinkling bridge of her nose, and she takes a step back, retreating away from him as unease settles across her features. “You - you’re the one that was sent to kill me?”

His eyes slide closed and he bows his head in quiet acknowledgement. “Yes,” he says softly, his voice reserved in a way that it’s never quite been before. It’s not immediately obvious that he is the ‘White Vision’ - as he’s heard a few people call that version of him - that had appeared in Westview to eradicate both Wanda and the illusion of Vision that she had created, as he has since regained the original colouring that his body had been ‘born’ with. “It was the mandate that was given to me by SWORD upon the completion of my body and the restoration of my more . . . primitive mental faculties.”

Wanda turns to Agatha, agitation growing in her features. “Did you know about this?!” she demands, her voice an octave or two higher than usual.

Agatha looks up, lifting her eyes from Irena’s face to Wanda’s. There’s a sadness there, a tired resignation that Wanda doesn’t understand the source of. “That he specifically is the one that tried to kill you? No.”

“’Specifically’?” Vision asks, his eyes now fixed curiously upon Agatha. He does his best to ignore the way that her breast is bared for the infant in her arms to suckle upon, but that doesn’t stop him from being all too aware of it. “Your choice of words suggests that you believe there to be more than one of me.”

Agatha tilts her head, dark hair sliding out of her face and over her shoulder as she moves. “Are there not?” she counters, “surely an organisation like SWORD wouldn’t let you just walk around willy nilly if they didn’t know how to recreate you from the resources that they already have in the event that they would require it?”

Vision contemplates her answer. “Please elaborate.”

“SWORD is a military organisation that’s in the business of building and developing weapons of the sentient variety, which is, arguably, how one might view you.” She waves off the beginnings of Wanda’s protests about him not being a weapon with a placating gesture and a gentle, “hush now, Wanda. I’m not saying that that is how I view him, I’m just pointing out that that is how he could be viewed by an outsider, or someone who wishes to exploit him for their own gain.”

Wanda scowls at her, and flops down onto the sofa with a petulant pout, folding her arms stubbornly across her chest as she presses herself up against the arm of it. It’s a gesture that suggests she’s doing her best to get as far away from Vision as physically possible, while still being seated upon the sofa.

“Now,” Agatha continues, directing her attention back to Vision, “given that they’re also in the business of claiming that they’re doing all this R&D for the purpose of protecting Earth, do you really think that they would let you exist as their sole example of what is potentially one of their most successful operations? After all, isn’t scientific experimentation predicated upon the idea of repeatability?”

“I was not created by SWORD.”

“No, but you were rebuilt by them, and in the time it took them to do that, they were able to learn every little thing there is to know about you. So what’s to say that, with all their power and money and influence, that they couldn’t get the necessary materials to not only build another you, but build a better you? One that they could control and manipulate into doing their bidding, one who has no qualms about killing, maiming or destroying.”

“You propose that they seek to create an army of weapons based upon me?”

“Yes.” She squints at him, trying to read the expressions that he’s aware must be playing out across his face. “Is it not plausible that an organisation based upon military principles might do such a thing?”

“You present a stance and an argument that requires further consideration,” he answers stiffly, conceding to the point she’d laid out before him. “However, that does not change the fact that, as of this moment in time, I am only aware of there being one version of me, and that is the version that sits before you.”

Agatha huffs out a sound that’s half snort and half hum of absent, apathetic acknowledgement. She’s already looking away, her attention turning back to the babe at her breast. “If you say so,” she answers, her tone noncommittal and uninterested.

Wanda watches it all, somewhat bemused by the whole situation.