Synthesis

Chapter 7: Practically Overnight

The sensation of having information suddenly nestled in the grooves of the subconscious is a curious one. Just like that first day they arrived in West View, a whole new knowledge-set had made itself available to him. The splash of a sunset, the chipped teal and white paint of a mailbox, even the darkened colors of their bedroom are all suddenly felt and known for what they are. It is yet another awakening, as Vision has begun to call them, and he feels it to his very core. 

Philosophy, he has discovered, is a subject that has always fascinated him, even though he can’t remember a time reading or studying it before now. Literature, too, is a part of that same discovery. Just as the sight of dew on the grass as he leaves for work or the way the smell of rose water lingers in the air after Wanda gets ready are things he deeply cherishes. These are all details that feel old, like roots to a tree that is missing, and each rediscovery awakens more of a thirst inside of him. 

He had recently picked up an anthology of Greek mythology from the library, their house uncharacteristically barren of the novels he loves. Where was the political cry of To Kill A Mockingbird or the Irish cadence of James Joyce’s Dubliners or the quest for spirituality in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek? (So many books checked out, now. Piles of them, to the point where he mused he probably should be arrested for keeping so much of West View’s knowledge to himself. Books, however, seem to serve the same purpose as the internet did. They provide knowledge.) And, just like other realizations, the story of the ancient phoenix was re-remembered as soon as his eyes fell upon the words describing the mythical creature. A large, red-winged bird, rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Ezekiel the Tragedian declared that the phoenix had red legs and striking golden eyes, but Lactantius suggested its eyes were blue, like sapphires.

Not unlike his own. 

Of course, though, it was preposterous to think along those lines. Because, surely, for a mimicry of a living organism such as himself, reincarnation is not possible. Surely, the intricate protocols and programming in his half-organic mind prove his inability to harbor a soul, however much he wishes it were otherwise. He is uncertain of what even constitutes a soul, or if it even exists in anyone. And yet...

Sapphire. Scarlet. Gold. All of these colors, a rebirth. It was in the moment he reached out to stroke a curl of Wanda’s vibrant auburn hair after they had been showered in color, that the familiarity and knowing returned to him, almost as if it had never left. It was a peculiar moment, too, because the world seemed to offer him the moment of wonder, unlike every other time when his thoughts stray too far. Typically a distraction or compulsion will crop up in front of him, demanding he redirect his thoughts. He had started cataloguing a list of these sorts of incidents, skirmishes where his own mind seemed to brush up against something too harsh or unbearable to comprehend.

And yet, even a few hours later, even shrouded in darkness, the rich pallet of hues sing around him. Wanda is nestled into his side, like always, and he allows himself, very carefully, to draw his hand over the bump that had not been there a day before. It is a slow, methodical process, keeping in time with Wanda’s breathing. Up and down, breath going in and out. They had spoken, briefly, of all the pregnancy could mean, but Vision is aware of the fragility of the reality between them. Even now, he keeps all of his doubts buried into the furthest recesses of his subconscious, encrypted files in a snarl of code he can barely decipher, terrified of what doubting the happiness of this world might cost him. 

But...but. If colors have been previously unknown to him before now, and on their return have awakened profound knowledge of their splendor, what else is being kept from him? He frowns a little, turning into his wife, breathing in the scent of her hair, still damp from her nightly shower hours earlier. It’s still there, along with the rose water and lavender, clinging to the fringes of who she is. The tragedy. It was the first thing he noticed that seemed to suggest a missing history, and even now he is not sure why or how or from what source, but it’s etched in her every movement. He wonders, sometimes, in the middle of these dark nights, how she came to hold such sadness in her heart. He had thought the despair could be from some loss long ago she had not chosen to share with him, but perhaps it is a truth even more simplistic in its conception. 

How could creatures such as themselves truly find peace in a world that judged and discriminated, even among more trivial things, such as the melanin of one’s skin or the pigment of one’s hair or the gender of a lifelong partner one chooses? For what little respect humanity had for being an other, for being abnormal, he is certain a synthezoid would find no mercy. Maybe that’s where the sorrow originates. Maybe that wistful look in Wanda’s eyes, where the time that lapses, sometimes quickly, sometimes agonizingly slow, that’s where it permeates from. It wouldn’t be so hard to understand that, even if they had found happiness within one another, that the outside world would be desperate to tear it apart.

But their true natures, his inhumanity, seems only to be part of the puzzle. Once more, he runs his hand—his dark scarlet hand, no wonder Wanda insisted on his disguise. He looks anything but human—down Wanda’s stomach. 

Impossible, was the first word that floated into his awareness.

There have been many occasions where he has been intimate with Wanda. The rhythm and language of sex is nothing new, and yet, he is inherently aware sex is not a natural act for him. He had reprogrammed and repurposed himself to be able to give and receive such pleasure. She is just as much aware as he is that it takes a molecular shifting of his anatomy to be intimate, at least in the traditional sense. And while he can achieve orgasm due to some clever reprogramming of his neural synapses to mimic the production of oxytocin and the dump of dopamine, no seed of procreation resides in a body never designed for the task. He knows they both know this, and yet...

Here she is brimming with new, potential life. 

It seems only in the darkness does he allow himself these doubts. It seems only after the laughter has faded, only after Wanda drifts into sleep, is he able to hold onto them. And he is not sure he wants to. Because logic infiltrates, and logic would suggest that it would take a real human male to enable the pregnancy. At that thought, Vision mentally shudders a little, purging it from his consciousness. It goes against everything in Wanda’s character to be unfaithful. And, to his credit, if Vision were to apply the very same logic to the situation they find themselves in, Wanda should be a month pregnant at most, and not...well...however many months she seems now, seemingly overnight.

He had urged her to call the doctor that night, but she had suggested they wait until the morning. She used excuses: they needed to come up with a cover story, they needed to go shopping for the baby’s things, they needed to educate themselves, read the literature. (An unhelpful hiss of offline met him when he tried, once again, to make use of the internet.) Overall, she hadn’t seemed near as concerned, and Vision had conceded, adamant to not take the joy of this...immaculate conception away from her. But as such-

“Vizh,” he hears her murmur in her sleep, and he freezes. He’s forgotten they were still mentally linked, as they are every night to help quell her nightmares. He has never seen her witness one, wouldn’t know for what reason they would plague her, but he sets that aside, that gnawing hunger for the answers to how? and why? intent on destroying the peace he’s trying to reconstruct for both of them in his own mind.

“I’m sorry, darling,” he murmurs into her ear, before placing a gentle kiss to her temple. He then conjures images of spring, of blooming magnolias, of fresh rain, and he watches as she then relaxes back into the deeper throes of slumber.

The questions can wait. They will have to. And it isn’t hard, Vision surmises, to put aside the how. Not here, in this house, in West View. It isn’t hard simply to love and be loved, even if he suspects he will always harbor doubts about his ability to feel true emotion. And, by that line of reasoning, it will not be difficult to love his children, to tend to their every need. They can be yours, the house seems to murmur. So long as you do not question it, they can be yours. It’s unsettling, but as he breathes in the scent of Wanda’s hair again, he is reminded of the limits of his own existence. He cannot taste, cannot age. His breathing is merely clever bits of code, his blinking the same way. All intended to make him seem more human. His living cells in his synthetic tissue forever dance and bond with vibrainium, and he supposes, on some level, he is alive, but there is still so much out of his reach. But not this. This, now, is a gift, and if he must defy all logic to keep it, these warm nights tangled together with Wanda, the tiny reverberations of more than one heartbeat between them, the laughter and the love and the promise of a family, so be it. 

—

The butter melts quickly in the pan and starts to sizzle, and it requires every effort of concentration to crack each egg over the pan, lest any bit of shell try to become part of Wanda’s breakfast. He’s already cued up coffee and orange juice, sliced some pineapple, buttered toast too. She’s not awake yet, but she will be in four and a half minutes, if he calculates her normal routine with the additional factor of fatigue that would go along with the first (second?) trimester of pregnancy. 

Around him, the house is notably different, deciding, yet again, to change overnight. The couch is now a lime green, the flooring carpet and red brick, wood paneling lines the hallways and there are indoor plants everywhere. Above is a stained glass paneled wall, and the stairs are notably different, stylized and fitted to the updated, slightly altered, floor plan of the house. The clothes in his closet were different, too, not that he ever wears them, choosing instead to phase into whatever appropriate style matches Wanda. Instead of experiencing a sense of alarm when coming downstairs, however, Vision remains calm, remembering the pact he made with himself the night before, and decides to take it in stride, the very real fact his wife is pregnant the most pressing issue in his mind.

It takes Wanda three minutes and twelve seconds longer than anticipated, and when she does come downstairs, his eyes widen in surprise. She is, of course, still pregnant, in a delectable silk pajama set with a matching robe, but her hair, which was shoulder length the night before (he has every moment with her, every single glance her direction memorized and catalogued, a pro of being, well, whatever he is) is now long and straight, almost at her waist. 

She’s smiling, looking over the breakfast with curiosity, before staring up at her husband.

“You know I hate breakfast,” she says through a small smile. He smirks at her, walking around the kitchen island to kiss the top of her head.

“Every book I’ve read thus far stresses its importance. You’ll also be disappointed to find that the coffee is only partially caffeinated,” Vision says, picking up the used cooking utensils and beginning to hand wash them in the sink.

“You know we have a dishwasher now,” she says, sitting down and mildly frowning at the coffee cup in front of her, and then taking a sip anyway.

“We do?” He asks, tilting his head at her. This is the first time Wanda has acknowledged that the house has changed drastically, in any way, and he anticipated such a conversation to not be so...matter of fact...as it appears to be presently.

“Curious,” he says, looking at the contraption close to the sink, approaching it with a sudsy pan as one might approach a wild beast.

“It won’t bite you, dear,” she says, before lifting a forkful of egg off her plate. Vision still remains cautious as he wrestles the dishes into the contraption, before shutting it once more.

“How are the eggs?” He asks, and she smiles before taking a sip of orange juice.

“Delicious. Who knew my husband who can’t eat can cook,” she says, to the invisible laughter of the tell-tale crowd around them. 

“I’ve taken to reading cookbooks in my spare time. Along with-” he drops off, fetching a stack of books off the newly-minted coffee table in the next room.

“These,” he finishes, setting them down in front of her.

“Vision. I found out I was pregnant yesterday. How did you have time to-“ she says, picking up one of the hard bound copies, but he’s already flipping through a different book, The Better Homes Baby Book, thumbing through the numerous marked pages.

“I rang Charlotte and convinced her to open the library early for me this morning,” he says, finally finding the page. “No more than 200 miligrams of caffeine a day, my dear,” he says, with a firm nod of his head.

“And I’m assuming you’ve already contacted the doctor?” She asks, and Vision nods.

“He’ll be over at 1 o’clock, sharp. I’ve read we need to confirm the pregnancy with bloodwork. I’ve also been calculating your trajectory, as you seem to be rapidly going through the stages of your first trimester-“ he begins, only to realize his wife has left her seat on the kitchen barstool and has migrated over to him, pressing a single finger to his lips.

“Vision,” she says, and he stares into her sea-blue eyes, his thoughts screeching to a halt for a single moment, as, once again, the panic in his mind refocuses on the plot of the narrative in front of him. Meanwhile, she moves her hand to cradle his cheek.

“Yes, my love?” He says, placing a hand over her own.

“Everything’s going to be ok,” she says, and he feels himself swallowing, hard, despite the fact he has no physical need to do so.

“Darling, you cannot be certain-” he begins, but she shushes him again, stepping closer.

“Everything. Will be. Ok,” she says again. “Now, would you like to go into town with me?” Then she is straightening her hair with her fingers, and smoothing the silk over her pregnant stomach as she gestures outside.

“Whatever for, love?” He asks through a frown, taking the lukewarm coffee from the island and getting ready to hand wash the mug.

“We have some shopping to do,” she says, the joy returning to her voice. “Onesies! Bassinets! Cribs!”

“Hopefully just the one crib, dear,” Vision murmurs, picking up her half-eaten plate of eggs, frowning to himself as he goes. 

“Well, we’ll see about that. Twins run in my family, you know?” She says playfully, and his eyes widen again at the knowledge, and he tilts his head in curiosity.

“No. No I….wasn’t aware,” he murmurs, glancing down at the red brick flooring and the dirty plate in his hand. He can hear his wife sigh a few feet away from him, coming over to where he stands once more.

“I know some of this…” she stops, taking the plate from him, opening the dishwasher and settling it on the rack, “Is new for you.”

“I’m a synthezoid who has somehow magically managed to impregnate his wife, dear. Everything is new for me,” he mutters. With that, she frowns, stepping closer to him.

“Is that what all this moping is about?” She asks, taking his hand in her own again.

He says nothing for a moment, glancing down at the open dishwasher beside them both, before attempting an excusable answer. 

“Darling, I do not wish you to think that I’m not thrilled with the possibility of all this. I want this, more than you could possibly know. But...well..I’m not, what I mean to say is that, considering who I am, or, rather what I am- ” he murmurs, and then Wanda is squeezing his hand in her own, cutting him off.

“Vision. How could you think that….? Vizh, look at me,” she says, and slowly his gaze lifts to his wife again, and he can see that her eyes are glossed over with the nascent beginnings of tears.

“I know, in my soul, that this child is yours as much as it is mine. I...I don’t know how. We may never know how, but...I need you now. Do you understand? I need my husband. This little one will need its father,” she says, and something in her gaze, or perhaps at her utterance of the word father, breaks him, breaks apart the doubt and questions and regrets, and he finds himself firmly nodding and then pulling her close, running a hand through her hair, her arms clutching the planes of his back. They stay like that for a long while, as he murmurs apologies into her hair, and when they finally pull back from one another, he moves to kiss her, slowly, deeply, affirming the certainty in both of their minds once more. After the kiss ends, Wanda wipes away a tear and smiles once more.

“It will work out. And stop looking so worried. So things are moving a little fast. This is me, we’re talking about. I’m sure the doctor will tell us what we need to hear, but, for now, let’s go enjoy the sunshine. I’m sure one of those books says walking is-”

“-a healthy form of exercise for pregnant women. Yes,” Vision offers, and she smiles up at him again.

“There’s the man I know and love. See? Better already. I’ll go get changed, and we’ll be on our way,” she says, before sauntering out of the kitchen. 

“On our way indeed,” Vision murmurs, massaging the spot she just kissed on his cheek, still staring down at the half-washed mug in the kitchen sink