Chapter 4
Vision realizes the mistake as soon as he sees Wanda Maximoff standing onstage, her long red hair shining in the lights, her face a serene oval of one extremely comfortable at being in a literal spotlight.
But where there’s Wanda Maximoff, there’s…
Vision watches with dread as Pepper Potts turns around and shrieks like she’s auditioning for a low budget horror movie, her eyes bugging out of her head and her hands flying to her cheeks dramatically.
Tony pulls himself up to his full height of five foot nine inches, disbelief and anger radiating off his body. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he bellows.
“Me?” Pepper yelps in that same high-pitched voice that Vision believes must be calling dogs from miles around. “What are you doing here?”
“My job is auditioning people; what do you think I’m doing here?” Tony yells.
“I’m a very successful actress who has wisdom to pass along,” Pepper is in his face now.
“Oh?” Tony asks. “Well, if the wisdom you’re passing along is humility, you’ll be fantastic.”
Pepper pokes him in the chest and he yelps. “Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she snaps at him.
“Excuse me, it’s not my fault you’ve got Freddy Kruger nails!”
“Woah!” Wanda appears next to Pepper, catching her boss’s arm before she does something rash like clawing Tony Stark’s eyes out of his head with her admittedly long nails. “Pepper, come on.”
“This isn’t over, Stark,” Pepper snarls at him.
“Likewise, Potts,” Tony answers, his face bright red.
Wanda manages to wrestle Pepper out of the theater, shooting Vision one long, disappointed look, that he’s sure he’s mirroring in his own eyes.
Fuck.
As soon as they’re out of earshot, Tony growls. “Good riddance.”
Vision refrains from rolling his eyes. “Should we finish the tour?”
“No,” Tony grumbles. “I’m too upset, I want to go home.”
Vision presses his lips together to avoid telling Tony that going home would include Pepper Potts, and follows him out to the car, knowing he’ll figure it out sooner or later.
Sooner. Definitely sooner.
The second Tony parks the car, another car slides up next to theirs, the engine cutting off and Pepper Potts climbs out of the driver’s seat.
“What. The. Fuck,” Tony says.
Vision shrugs helplessly and Tony lays on the horn, the sound piercing in the bright winter air.
Pepper and Wanda both jump, the latter turning her green eyes at Vision and Tony, fear and frustration mixing in their depths. Vision can see her full lips mouthing out the word “shit”.
Tony rolls down the window of the car. “ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME?” he bellows.
“Yes,” Pepper’s hands are on her hips. “Yes, I am. Clearly I have completely lost my mind and have decided to stalk you all the way to nowhere Connecticut.”
“I do not appreciate sarcasm, Potts!”
“Then don’t ask stupid questions!” Pepper growls.
Tony unbuckles his seat belt and shoves his way out of the car. “Let me rephrase then,” he hisses. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m staying in a hotel,” Pepper says, slowly and loudly, as though Tony is hard of hearing. “I am staying in a frankly beautiful hotel so I can speak at an audition before going back to New York City and hopefully never seeing you ever again.”
Wanda mutters something under her breath that sounds like: “yeah right,” but it seems as though only Vision has heard. Pepper is nose to nose with Tony as they glare at each other.
Wanda sighs. “Are you going to make out or can we go inside?”
Clearly, she’s not concerned about losing her job.
Pepper whirls around and glares at Wanda. “I do not pay you to make snide remarks.”
“No, you pay me to keep you on a schedule,” Wanda retorts. “And right now, the schedule is saying that we should go inside where its warm and there are witnesses in case you two decide to murder each other.”
Tony lets out a surprised burst of laughter. “I like you,” he tells Wanda. “Who are you?”
Pepper narrows her eyes at him. “You’ve met Wanda.”
Tony shakes his head. “Can’t say I have.”
“Several times,” Pepper says.
“I’ve never met this woman,” Tony points at Wanda. “I would remember her.”
Wanda is looking more uncomfortable by the minute, digging her hands in her pockets and shrinking into her scarf.
“She’s auditioned for you before!” Pepper sounds scandalized.
“Honey, I see hundreds of actors on a daily basis. After a while, they all start to look the same,” Tony squints at Wanda carefully. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Wanda shuffles her feet.
A cold wind blows across the parking lot and as if choreographed, all four of them shiver at the same time.
“I’m going inside,” Pepper and Tony announce together.
As one, they spin and practically run towards the front door of the bed and breakfast, jostling over the door knob until Pepper manages to wrench it open and they tumble inside.
Wanda eyes Vision over her scarf. “You could have helped.”
“Some of us don’t have a second career to fall back on,” Vision grumbles at her.
She wrinkles her nose at him. “This is my fallback career, dummy.”
Vision snorts, rubbing a hand across his face as the front door slams behind Tony and Pepper. “No one’s called me a dummy in years.”
“Not to your face,” Wanda answers.
There is a loud crashing noise from the bed and breakfast followed by a screech from Pepper and Wanda huffs out a laugh, her breath forming a cloud in the air. “They’re going to scare away all of Darcy’s business.”
Vision clenches his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. “I know.”
***
Wanda can’t sleep.
Her head has been pounding for the past twelve hours and even with two Advil and a large glass of eggnog, the throb against her temples hasn’t lessened.
The bed is completely comfortable, the sheets are soft, the comforter settles around her body with a light squish that should be delightful, but unfortunately just chafes against her skin unpleasantly. She can’t find the right position, she switches from her right side, to her left side to her right, and she’s rotated the pillow three times to find the cool side.
Nothing is working.
Finally, after about half an hour of whispering multiplication tables under her breath, Wanda shoves the covers back and shrugs into an old sweater, a pair of sweatpants, her ratty sneakers, and a plush, white robe, provided by Darcy.
She thinks that maybe if she takes a walk around downstairs, maybe sits by the Christmas tree and tries to locate the moon in the sky, she’ll get sleepy enough to drag herself back upstairs.
Maybe she’ll even step outside to the garden and see some stars.
Resolved, she tiptoes to her door and opens in quietly, locking it behind her and sneaking down the stairs, wincing as her feet hit some of the creakier spots on the floor.
The downstairs is completely dark except for a small lamp by the front window and the dying embers of the fire, glowing a deep red.
Wanda creeps down the hall, past the dark kitchen to the door to the gardens, pulling it open and bracing herself against the cold air that blasts her face.
Huddled in her robe, she closes the door softly behind her and makes her way to a small bench, halfway hidden by a shrub. The cold stone pieces through her sweat pants, but Wanda sits carefully, tilting her head up to the sky and letting the cold brush across her overheated cheeks gently.
The sky is a pressed grey with clouds hanging so low in the sky, Wanda imagines she could just reach a hand up and take a scoop from one of them. The air has a bite to it that wasn’t there that morning, a crisp, clean smell that almost always precedes snow.
She pulls the robe closer to her neck against the shiver that runs down her spine, just as a heavy and warm weight settles around her shoulders.
Startled, she rears up and stumbles away from the bench, swinging around to see Vision Shade with an apologetic expression on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he says hastily, his blue eyes wide in his face. A crumpled, dark coat has fallen to the ground between them and he shivers in a dark blue sweater and plaid pajama pants.
“What are you doing out here?” Wanda asks, chagrin dancing through her tone.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he shifts his feet, the frozen ground crackling. “You?”
She smiles ruefully. “Same.”
With cautious movements, Vision steps around the bench to where his coat wrinkles on the ground. He lifts it with one hand and holds it out to Wanda, his face pink from the cold. “Here,” he says.
“You’ll freeze,” she protests. “I’ve got a robe.”
“That clearly wasn’t doing all that much for you,” Vision answers. “Please, Wanda, take the coat.”
Wanda wrinkles her nose at him, ignoring the way his blue eyes glitter with amusement. “We’ll share it,” she decides, stepping into his personal space.
Vision takes a step away in surprise, his mouth dropping open. “Uh, what?”
“We’ll share the coat,” Wanda tells him. “Combining our body heat probably isn’t the worst idea either.”
“But-,” Vision’s eye get wide as Wanda gently tugs the coat from his cold fingers and plops down on the bench, shoving her left arm through the left sleeve of the coat.
She glances up at Vision, where he stands with wide eyes and frozen feet, and rolls her eyes. “Come on,” she pats the bench gently. “I don’t bite.”
“Don’t you?” Vison murmurs under his breath.
She gives him a wide smile. “Only when provoked.”
Vision’s throat bobs nervously and Wanda feels a rush of dread that she might have made him too uncomfortable. She opens her mouth to apologize, to hand the coat back to him and go back inside, but before she can, Vision’s jaw hardens and he plunks down next to her, flipping the back of the coat over his shoulders and shoving his right arm through the sleeve.
There is barely enough room for both of them in the coat, Wanda realizes belatedly that Vision is far broader than she’d thought initially, but it’s too late now, so she does her best to squish herself into a corner, hoping the fabric doesn’t rip.
“Stop wiggling,” Vision says after a moment of her trying to adjust. His voice sounds strange, but when she looks up into his face, she realizes that he’s fighting back laughter.
“I can’t help it,” she huffs out crossly. “It’s not my fault you’re built like a linebacker.”
“You’re going to rip my coat,” Vision grabs her hand with his and she stills, his hand large in hers and despite the cold temperature of his fingers, Wanda feels the warmth of his touch slither down her spine pleasantly.
She fights the shiver.
“Just-,” Vision presses his lips together. “May I?”
Wanda nods, though she’s not sure what he’s planning to do. With one movement, he snakes his left arm around her waist, pulling her right side flush with his left. He tucks her right arm around her torso so that it meets his left hand where it rests comfortably on her left hip.
Wanda swallows at the sheer heat pouring off his body, the feel of his hard chest and steady heart under her right cheek, leaning just below his shoulder. She breathes in a spicy, masculine scent that seems to be concentrated near his throat. She swallows against the urge to go looking for the smell, and instead shifts so that her legs are tucked beneath the bench, her sneakers pressed firmly against the ground.
“This okay?” Vision’s voice is close to her ear and she feels his breath rustle a couple of strands.
“Fine,” she manages to sound nonchalant. “Much warmer.”
He hums in agreement and for a moment, they both sit in silence.
“So, how’d you get pulled into this trip?”
Wanda blinks up at him, his profile sharp against the grey clouds. “I work for Pepper.”
“No, I mean,” Vision tilts his head. “It’s Christmas time. Don’t you get time off?”
“Don’t you?”
“Touché,” he answers.
She shifts a little on the cold bench, her backside completely numb. “Pepper asked me to come and I didn’t have a good enough excuse not to.”
“The holidays weren’t enough? Doesn’t your family miss you?”
She feels a deep stab in her gut and purposefully lightens her voice as she says. “No family to miss.”
She feels Vision shift and his arm tighten around her waist as he bends his body towards her. She looks up, expecting to see pity in his eyes, expecting him to be apologetic, but there’s only compassion covering his face.
“I’m a foster kid,” he admits to her. “I didn’t really ever celebrate the holidays until I was old enough to be out of the system.”
Wanda smiles at him, a tentative smile that is fueled by relief that he understands the loneliness that accompanies a holiday by yourself.
“Why-,” her voice crackles as she changes the subject and she clears her throat. “Why can’t you sleep?”
“Headache,” the word slides between his teeth.
“Me too,” she confesses.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” she sighs. “It’s too loud in there.”
“Do you think they’ll ever like each other?” Vision asks.
Wanda snorts. “Doubtful.”
“Yeah,” he seems to deflate, his chin hunching closer to his chest. “That’s my fear too.”
“Sometimes I just want to shove them in a closet and let them have it out,” Wanda confesses.
“They’d both leave that closet feet first,” Vision tells her.
“But then we wouldn’t have to listen to the screaming.”
“And we’d be unemployed.”
“That option is looking more and more pleasant,” Wanda snorts.
Vision tips his head back to examine the sky. “We’ve done all we can,” he says reluctantly. “We can’t make them like each other.”
Wanda slumps forward wrapping her arms around her torso, her left hand brushing his side as she pulls it up to her chest. “We can’t keep them apart, we can’t keep them together, what are we going to do?”
Vision shakes his head lightly. “Nothing,” he answers.
“There’s got to be a better way.”
“The audition will be over on Christmas Eve,” Vision says. “That’s only two days away. Forty-eight hours.”
Wanda swallows. “Forty-eight hours,” she repeats. “Only forty-eight hours.”
Vision nods, his blue eyes gleaming in the low, grey light. “Just forty-eight hours.”