Chapter 7
The safe house’s in Woodbridge Township, on a street called Hunter Avenue. A cursory glance up and down the length of the street suggests to Wanda that all of the buildings here look identical, down to even the minutest of details. It should comfort her, this revelation, but it doesn’t.
It’s not until later that she gets the chance to dwell on it though. They’re gathered in the living room, the curtains drawn over the window as the sun sets outside. Irena’s on her back on a play mat that Darcy had produced out of seemingly nowhere a few hours before, arms outstretched towards the toys dangling above her. Billy and Tommy sit on the floor, eyes glued to the TV screen as a rerun marathon of The Simpsons plays.
Agatha sits at one end of the sofa, a mug of decaffinated coffee in hand and her legs folded beneath her. It’s against her that Wanda leans, her own mug of tea nearly forgotten on the side table at the other end of the sofa. Agatha’s arm sits around her shoulders, stocky fingers playing absently with her hair as dark eyes flit between the children and the TV at fairly regular intervals.
“What’re you thinking about?” Agatha asks, voice hushed and curious.
Wanda tilts her head back, sees dark eyes looking down at her. She hesitates, sucks her bottom lip in between her teeth. Her eyes dart over to the boys, confirming to herself that they’re absorbed in the programme and uninterested in what she has to say.
“I don’t like this neighbourhood,” she admits quietly, “the houses all look the same here. What if whoever’s we’re being protected from tries to get us, but ends up in the wrong house and hurts someone else?”
Agatha smiles, sad and regretful, before pressing a kiss to Wanda’s forehead. “I’m sure they’ve thought of everything, my sweet.”
“What if they haven’t though?” Uncomfortable, she adjusts her position until her head comes to a rest against Agatha’s shoulder, her breath puffing out across barely visible collarbones; it’s been almost a year since Irena was born, and Agatha still hasn’t managed to lose all the weight she’d gained during the pregnancy. It’s not particularly obvious, but Wanda’s more than intimately aware with her partner’s body, to the point where she’s sure she knows it better than even Agatha does. “Nicholas is magical, right?”
Wanda feels rather than hears Agatha hum in absent confirmation, the vibration of the sound rippling through her own body as well as the one beneath her. Stocky fingers slide from her hair to push back stray curls from her face before settling against the back of her neck to scratch patterns against the sensitive skin that lives there with round, blunt nails. Wanda shivers involuntarily at the sensation, but doesn’t pull away.
“W-what if they hav-en’t taken magic into a-account?” she asks, stumbling over her words as Agatha starts to drag a single nail up and down the length of her neck, tracing the path of her spine through the skin. “O-or portals?”
“I’m told that Strange has runes embedded in the walls of every single house in the neighbourhood, as well as in the concrete that the road was build from. That should keep any magic users under control, for the most part, and in theory is should force any portals to be opened beyond the perimeter that SWORD has set up.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring, Ags,” Wanda grumbles.
She feels warm breaths against her scalp, moving through her hair and dislodging much of it from where it’s fallen. She imagines that Agatha is blinking down at her, but doesn’t lift her head to confirm whether she’s right. “Would you rather I lied to you and said that we were fine, that all avenues had been looked into and we’re safe from harm right where we are?”
Wanda whines, a rising and falling sound conjured from the back of her throat. “Ags . . .” she groans, turning her face into the soft flesh beneath her cheek. Agatha laughs at her pathetic attempt at a protest, a bright, amused sound that fills her lungs with sound and makes her body quake. Wanda smiles at the sensation, presses a kiss to the swell of the breast beneath her lips as it rises to meet her mouth.
“Ew, gross!”
Wanda lifts her head at the interruption and turns towards the exclamation, pushing herself upright as she does so. The boys are staring at them with identical expressions of horror and disgust as two matching sets of eyes move from her to Agatha and back again. The TV’s still on behind them, no longer holding their attention as a commercial for a chain of furniture stores plays between episodes.
“Can you, like, not?” Billy asks.
“Can we not what, Billy?” she asks in return, raising a brow that dares him to elaborate.
Billy flushes red, clearly mortified at the idea that he may have to put his thoughts into words.
“Be mushy and gross in front of us!” Tommy answers instead, a faint note of indignation in his voice as he picks up his brother’s slack. “We’re children, we don’t need to be permanently scarred by whatever it is that you decide to do in your alone time!”
A snort of laughter draws Wanda’s eyes back to Agatha. The older woman’s biting down on the knuckles of her right hand - which, until a moment ago, and been running up and down the back of Wanda’s neck - as tears stream down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice strangled and strained as she gasps for air. Liquid - it appears to have long ago gone cold - splashes up and out over the lip of the mug she’s against the arm of the sofa, splashing across her hand and landing on the upholstery. “It’s really not that funny . . .”
“This is funny to you?” she asks, putting her hands on her hips and attempting to sound serious as she glares at her girlfriend with a mock frown.
“No.” It’s an obvious lie, only made worse by the large grin on her lips and the way that grey eyes still laugh in amused delight as they hold Wanda’s gaze.
She tries to scowl at Agatha and punches lightly at her arm. “I hate you,” she declares as she sits back against the sofa cushions, the boys snickering in her peripheries as they turn back towards the TV. An arm descends around her shoulders once again, and she curls back into Agatha’s side.
“Love you too, sweetpea,” Agatha retorts sarcastically, pulling her closer and hugging her tight.
She’s vaguely aware of the way that Agatha’s hand is sliding down her neck, trailing absently along the length of her spine before settling in the space between her shoulder blades. Pliant fingers slip beneath the collar of her t-shirt to kneed gently at the tightly wound knots gathered in the muscles just beneath her skin.
She’s always loved the way that Agatha’s hands feel against her skin. In that moment, though, they feel absolutely divine as they work to carefully coax from her body all the that latent stress that has gathered almost painfully between her shoulders. She bites down on the inside of her lip and tastes blood filling her mouth as she desperately tries to hold back the moan that’s rising in the back of her throat.
She’s able to suppress it down to a muted rumble that’s all but swallowed up by the material of Agatha’s jumper. An answering hum moves through the body beneath her. It’s getting late, with the watch on Agatha’s right wrist reading 10:17. The boys - who’d stubbornly refused to go to bed until the marathon was over - are beginning to sway with exhaustion, their eyes drooping as they stare blanky at the TV.
The baby monitor that had replaced Wanda’s mug on the coffee table at the other end of the sofa crackles to life, and a pitiful wail radiates out of it. Wanda huffs, and pulls away from Agatha, pushing herself upright and towards the edge of the sofa, where she swings her feet down onto the thin, scratchy carpet that adorns the living room floor. “Put the boys to bed,” she murmurs, “I’ll get the baby.”
Reluctantly, Agatha nods, and rises, her knees cracking in response to being forced to move again after hours of inactivity. Wanda steps out of her way and walks from the room, leaving Agatha alone to detach the boys from the TV as she heads for the stairs. The wood slats that make up the steps creak beneath her feet when she puts her weight on them, and she’s reminded of the earlier concern she’d had about whether the material beneath the faded and worn runner is rotten.
She pushes the thought aside as Irena’s wails grow louder and more distressed. Even so, it doesn’t stop her knuckles from turning white against the bannister as she climbs. It’ll just have to be another one of the many things that she files away as being something that she doesn’t like about this entire situation.
The doorbell rings just as she reaches the top of the stairs. She’s about to groan and descend the stairs to answer it when Agatha steps out of the living room and glances up at her, dark grey eyes tired and beginning to droop.
“I’ll get it,” she says, “go check on Irena.”
Too tired to argue, Wanda nods, and turns away, leaving Agatha alone to approach and open the front door. The young man - tall and lanky with floppy blonde hair falling into his eyes - on the doorstep isn’t someone she recognises. She frowns at him, confused. “Can I help you?” she asks.
The man cocks his head. “Is Wanda here?”
Agatha’s skin prickles with unease. “Who are you?”
His eyes - a bright, crystal-esque shade of blue - dart left and right as he turns his head to look up and down the darkened street. He turns back to face her when he has apparently satiated his concern that he . . . what? Hasn’t been followed? Isn’t being observed? Agatha can only guess at the reasons behind his behaviour.
She meets his eye, sees the glamour flicker and -
“Oh.” The glamour settles back into place, once again hiding familiar features from view. “I - I wasn’t aware that you could do that.”
“There are many things about me that I am sure you are unaware of.” Vision inclines his head, the long fringe of his disguise - it seems like such an out-of-place feature on someone that Agatha’s always thought of as the prim-and-proper type - slipping across his face. “May I come in?”
She hesitates, worrying at her bottom lip as she considers her options. She doesn’t want to let him into the house, but she doesn’t want to just . . . turn him away. It doesn’t feel right, not when he’s - presumably - come all this way.
“Alright,” she concedes reluctantly, stepping back and opening the door wide enough for him to step inside. “Keep the diguise on for now, though, please.”