Synthesis

Chapter 11: One Plus One Is Family! 

Vision is aware that the world behaves according to a set of rules and principals. Three days prior he had read Einstein’s theory of both general and special relativity. Like everything he has read so far, the information seemed to awaken within him, as if it had always been there, and he now understands that time is beholden to the relativity of gravitational time dilation and length contraction, and that, at its very essence, the very fabric of time has the capacity to behave in ways that humans had not originally anticipated. He knows the laws of physics are the same for all observers, entirely in reference relative to one another. He knows the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of their relative motion or the motion of a light source. 

He is certain, however, that time is not behaving the same way now. That time, since coming to West View, is somehow outside of the laws of relativity.  It has bowed and bent, circled back around, repeated itself, despite the fact that no one’s speed has changed. It has been fifteen days since they arrived in West View, he is sure of it, but he has more memories and time logged than can fit the span of 349 hours and fifteen minutes that have supposedly passed.

As he nervously watches the doctor in the pin-striped suit move the drum of the stethoscope around Wanda’s stomach, he is certain the time anomaly is happening again. The doctor had not taken blood work. The doctor had barely asked Wanda or Vision more than a question or two. All of this sits wrong with Vision, and his anxiety must be filtering along the muted mental link with Wanda, because his wife suddenly threads her fingers through Vision’s own, grasping his hand tightly. He gets the feeling from her that she, too, is nervous, and for some reason Vision feels a little easier knowing this. Perhaps it is simply the feeling that he feels less alone in his worry, although the last thing he wishes is for Wanda to feel as he does.

Vision had spent the time during Wanda’s nap reading as much as possible, having worked his way through ten books instructing him on the intricacies of pregnancy and of caring for newborns, and the more he reads, the more anxious he seems to grow. Being close to the mother regulates a baby's heart rate. Swaddling, shushing, and swinging, as well as allowing babies to suck and holding them on their sides, may trigger a calming reflex. Support the baby's head and neck. Cradle the head when carrying the baby and support the head when carrying the baby upright or when you lay the baby down.  

He is not sure how aware Wanda is of all of this. There was so much they had yet to discuss—potential names, if Wanda intended to breastfeed the infant, what their wishes and hopes were as parents, let alone all of the lingering questions left over from this morning—and it seemed time was slipping away from them at an alarming rate, yet again behaving entirely on its own, with no regard to the observer. Vision had detected that the circumference of Wanda’s abdomen had grown at least two centimeters since they had returned home from Wentworth’s. As he had glanced at his wife, sleeping peacefully beside him, he felt a sort of heartache having to nudge her awake as the appointment drew near, but it could not be helped. 

There had been the moment, too, after she had begun to wake, that reality itself seemed to have shifted. Their living room was the same as it had been this morning, but something in the moment Wanda had fallen asleep until the moment she awoke had changed, as if the blanket of molecules shrouding them and everything in their home had been pulled apart and then put back together again. Wanda had gone upstairs to change, urging him to do the same, and she had come down in a red and orange dress, looking beautiful as ever, with long brown boots that stretched to her calves. He had easily phased into a sweater and sport jacket, but even as the doorbell rang and he moved to answer it, the feeling of the molecular restructuring persisted, as if time, or reality itself, had shuddered just slightly in its foundation. 

With the doctor’s arrival, Vision shook off the feeling, the pressing needs for answers concerning Wanda’s rapidly progressing pregnancy warring with the push of the ongoing narrative and a reminder from Wanda that the appointment should be uneventful, routine, normal .  After a few long, excruciating moments, where Vision sorts through hundreds of negative scenarios to the outcome of Wanda’s predicament, the doctor finally looks up to them both with a knowing grin.  

“Yep! Definitely pregnant!” he exclaims as Wanda breathes a sigh of relief and Vision blinks at the doctor, expecting something, well, more.  

“Well that much we figured,” Wanda says, sliding a glance at the doctor and then to Vision, who is now frowning, his mind quickly processing how he might proceed to procure the answers he desperately seeks. 

“It’s just kind of taken us by surprise. It’s just kind of suddenly. Quite suddenly, wasn’t it?” Vision glances at Wanda, whose eyes are wide with alarm.

“I mean, practically overnight,” Vision falters, feeling the tight squeeze on his left thigh through the phased appearance of jeans, so tight it practically hurts, and he glances at Wanda, who is looking at him with an intense glare, and he stammers to finish his sentence with an unsophisticated mumbling of “I mean- we, umm, how did this happen?” 

Wanda is still staring at him in a desperate way, and finally shoots a message to him through their instantly-strengthened mental link. 

We can’t let anyone know about us. 

Vision frowns at the knowledge that his wife seems to think keeping the secret of who and what they are is far more important than the concern over her condition, ignoring his wife’s warnings and glancing up as the doctor, who is attempting to explain the notion of conception to them both in an excruciatingly condescending and simplistic way. 

“You see when a man and a woman love each other very much-” Dr. Nielsen is saying.

Help, Vision communicates to Wanda, who frowns slightly. 

If you want help, stop asking such ridiculous questions! she mentally admonishes him, before coming to the rescue.

“Well, we’re just tickled pink! Or blue,” Wanda exclaims, cutting the doctor off from his lecture and donning a fake smile. She begins to stand, Vision immediately jumping to his feet to help her do so, and Wanda’s nonverbal action seems to cue all persons involved that the appointment is reaching its end, when, from Vision’s perspective, it had barely even begun. Vision watches helplessly as the doctor begins putting the stethoscope into the leather satchel, before turning around to them both.

“You’re at about four months now, is that right?” Dr. Nielson asks, and Vision immediately shakes his head until Wanda nods hers and gives him another threatening stare, encouraging him to nod along with her. 

Meanwhile, the doctor is explaining how large the fetus will grow month-by-month with a comparison to fruit and Wanda throws a small smirk to Vision as the doctor’s tone suggests women cannot understand the notion of a growing fetus in any other way, before Vision attempts again, despite Wanda’s wishes, to procure answers. 

“Hypothetically speaking, what size fruit would it be at say, hmm, twelve hours?” he tries to asks nonchalantly, as Wanda whips her head around to her husband once more. Vision winces as his wife’s mental wrath persists, while the doctor appears confused. 

“Pardon? Twelve hours?” The doctor inquires, as Wanda hisses a silent plea to Vision again.

Darling, please. Stick to the plan. Follow the script, she says, and Vision turns to her, brows furrowed in confusion.

What script? He asks, his steadfast patience thinning slightly.

The script where we’re a normal husband and wife who don’t have the possibility of being black bagged and subsequently experimented on by the government if we’re found out! She warns, and at that Vision bites his tongue, as Wanda deems the conversation over. 

“Well I think this line of questioning is fruitless!” She says, ushering the doctor closer to the door. Realizing this is his last chance, Vision takes the other way around the couch, nearly phasing through the piece of furniture before he remembers he is incognito, hopefully shrouding his final question in enough vagueness to appease Wanda.

“Well, hypothetically speaking, should we be concerned?” Vision says as he nears the doctor. Wanda is frowning at him again, but the doctor smiles and clasps a hand on Vision’s shoulder.

“Hypothetically speaking, every new father-to-be gets nervous,” Dr. Neilson responds, and Vision inwardly sighs, muttering something about nerves of steel, as Wanda is now cueing him to see the doctor out. It happens so quickly, and the multitude of questions in Vision’s mind loom large, but the narrative of the day sweeps him along, gently nudging him outside, trailing Dr. Nielson.

It is not until he has exited the house, learning of the doctor’s intentions to go on holiday and suggesting to the doctor that they want to keep the news of the pregnancy a secret, that he hears the grating sounds of metal gnashing on cement. The doctor walks away, oblivious to the noise, as Vision looks over to his neighbor's yard with a confused expression and spots Herb standing on the other side of a yellow, concrete fence. Herb, who Vision understands he is supposed to know well now, be good friends with, even though he only met the man yesterday, is holding a hedge trimmer, idly cutting through the cement, as if it’s nothing, while threatening sparks fly everywhere.

“Hey Herb!” Vision shouts over the noise, “I think you might’ve taken the hedge trimming a little too far there, old chum!” Vision jokes, hoping to laugh off the misunderstanding, but the way Herb looks up at Vision is deeply disturbing, a dead, lifeless stare in the man’s deep brown eyes, even as he begins to speak.

“So I have! Thanks, buddy!” Herb shouts, still staring at Vision lifelessly, still cutting into the cement further and further. Vision’s frown deepens.

“Yeah. Don’t...mention it,” Vision mutters, stealing one more glance at the man, before walking back toward the front door, bewildered and well past “hypothetically” concerned.

--

In the moments after the doctor leaves, chaos soon ensures. When Vision steps inside, Wanda is now noticeably bigger. With wide eyes and a growing sense of alarm, Vision suggests that they prepare the nursery, but they barely have time to assemble the crib, when Wanda feels kicking. The momentary milestone entrances Vision, who places a hand to Wanda’s stomach, and just there, what feels like a foot or an arm shoves against him. Vision quickly reconstructs the timeline, calculating that the infant might be here as early as Friday afternoon, but when she is in the kitchen slicing pineapple, she winces in pain. Vision quickly flips to her symptoms, discovering that she is experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions, which suggest she is in her third trimester, and just as he attempts to help her focus her breathing, Wand now moans in pain, and the whole damn kitchen retaliates. The lights flicker, the appliances squawk, and water sprays from the faucet and washing machine as Vision shouts for them to abandon the kitchen. 

Seconds later, all the lights in 2800 Sherwood Drive surge, the walls shuddering, before the electricity short circuits, leaving them alarmed and posed in a near fighting-stance in the near-dark. For a moment, no one says anything, as Vision attempts to catch his breath and let his thoughts catch up to his actions, before he mutters a quick, “I’ll go check on the neighbors.” 

Wanda only nods silently, eyes still wide, as Vision quickly strides for the door, phasing into his human form as he goes, and with each step he walks, the more distance he puts between Wanda and himself, the more his mind clears and the chaos ebbs. For a moment, he merely stands on their lawn, still feeling his synthetic heart furiously beating in his chest, as he tries to take his own advice to regulate his breathing. He runs his hand through his blonde hair, unevenly exhaling, before glancing up and down their street, and it takes everything in him to avert his eyes from the ughly gash in the cement partition, even though Herb is nowhere to be found.

He decides to skip Herb’s house, but instead jogs across the street to discover Fred and Linda’s power is out too. So is Dottie’s and Phil’s. Agnes doesn’t appear to be home, but from what he can tell the inside of the house is also dark. As he turns back to go to Wanda, he anxiously wonders if she has somehow managed to take out the entire city grid. He doesn’t understand it, can’t determine the how or why. Everything he knows about Wanda’s powers suggest she isn’t capable of something that far-reaching, but he quickly drops his suspicions, remembering the pained expression on her features as her body tightened in response to the contractions, quickening his pace back to their home.

Instantly phasing back, he walks in, seeing Wanda standing where he left her, although, yet again, he swears her abdomen has grown in circumference. 

“It appears that the whole block is out,” Vision says, glancing around the landing at the blown-out lights. 

“And that was just a fake contraction,” Wanda says breathlessly, moving to tiredly sit down on their couch once more. “Who knows what will happen when the real thing starts.” Vision’s right hand tightens its grip on the banister at the thought, as he hadn’t quite considered that yet, before Wanda is looking at him in alarm.

“Do you think they know it was my fault?” she asks, appearing suddenly overwhelmed with the idea, as Vision slowly walks into the living room.

“Our neighbors?” Vision asks quietly, as he realizes, for the first time since perhaps coming to West View, the flow of what they’re supposed to be doing subsides slightly, the constant pressing of his typical days ebbing just enough to allow him to entertain thoughts that he usually only seems capable of experiencing when he is alone at night. 

“Well, yes. With all the close calls we’ve been having it seems like the people of West View are always on the verge of discovering our secret,” Wanda says, a mild look of anxiety and fear in her eyes as she seeks his reassurance. 

Vision only partially listens though, seeing past her as his mind churns, pulling up each of the days’ memory files marked with a roman numeral of how many days have passed since arriving in West View that he has access to. Dinner-with-the-harts.ii. Bowling.x. Color-appearance.xiv. And, of course, the one he can’t seem to access, which is curiously entitled, bee-keeper.viv//corrupted file. He wonders if this is part of the anomaly, the irregularities of time. Perhaps the observer himself is damaged. His head throbs at the idea of a missing memory, as he considers all the missteps and misalignments, all the ways time has seemed to start and stop. Immediately, he remembers the subtle shift he felt before the doctor arrived, and he finally responds to Wanda, now nearing the couch.

“Yes, I know what you mean…” he trails off, staring at the fireplace before him. “But it’s...more than that, isn’t it?” he says, glancing at Wanda, before quietly sitting down on the couch next to her, a sudden wave of fear inundating him as he quietly struggles to put the pieces together. Spacetime. Metallic feathers, like a pinwheel. You press your lips to it, and blow. It spins. Time spins. But what if it didn’t? What if it refused to move, or traveled backwards?

“Mr. and Mrs. Hart,” he lists off, barely aware that he is speaking. “Dinner. Outside with Herb,” he murmurs, glancing towards the door in a confused pain— Dear God. What was that about? Why hadn’t he checked to see if the man was ok?— before looking his wife straight in the eye again. 

“I think something’s wrong here, Wanda,” he says fearfully, and her eyes widen as she stares at him with--

“Yes, I know what you mean…” he says, before glancing at his wife, trying to offer her an assured smile as he moves to sit down on the couch beside her. 

“The truth is, we are in uncharted waters,” he says warmly to her, trying to funnel as much love and adoration into his voice as possible, to help quell his wife’s irrational fears. 

 “And you know what? I’m anxious too,” he whispers to her, threading his fingers in her own, and the woman smiles sweetly, her green eyes wide and hopeful. 

“We just don’t know what to expert,” she says through another smile. 

“Nope,” he says through a shake of his head, eyes still locked on her own.

“Will the baby be human? Or synthezoid? A bit of both?” she asks through a shy smile and sparkling eyes. Vision offers her a knowing grin, squeezing her hand tightly.

“If he’s anything like his mother, Billy will be perfect,” Vision murmurs to the ahhhss of the invisible crowd.

“You mean Tommy,” Wanda says, a challenge in her eyes, to which Vision only offers a questioning, “mmmm” to the eerie laughter. And then, suddenly,  Wanda deeply gasps, a blast of pain tearing through their mental link, making Vision physically recoil before she spares him and shuts down their connection. 

“Oh no, darling! Are you alright?!” he stammers, quickly standing up and backing away from his wife in anxious disbelief.

“This is a real one!” she shouts, staring down at her stomach in trepidation, and she closes her eyes as the pain tightens its grip on her.

“WHAT?!” he can’t help but shout, as he feels his feet lift helplessly off the floor as a swell of panic overwhelms him. They are unprepared. They are not ready. Half of the items they bought today at Wentworths are still due to be shipped to them in three days’ time, and Vision has barely had more than a moment to consider his role in it all, how any of this could be possibly happening and what it would mean for their future— How is he going to be a father, when yesterday he was still trying to get a hold of being a husband?— and at the thought his heart once again beats rapidly in his chest, his mind a flurry of chaotic activity, thoughts tangled and disorganized and tripping over one another <i-think-something’s-wrong-here.xv//file corrupted>—pulse racing as his wife continues to stare at him angrily.

“I thought you said FRIDAY AFTERNOON!” she accuses him, face contorting in pain once more as Vision rises higher into the air.

“Well I didn’t consider that the timings between developmental benchmarks could be quite random!!!” he shouts, the wild panic threatening to overload his systems and send him into a cardiac arrest, and he bitterly thinks how he will be the first and ever synthezoid to die over a useless, synthetic organ, when he realizes his wife has started breathing rhythmically, deeply, and as he looks at her again, he can’t help but mimic her. Slowly, as pain fades from his wife’s features, Wanda stands up, walking toward him, still breathing purposefully, as he finds his own breathing evening out and, at some point, his feet touch the floor once again as his racing thoughts and anxiety-ridden paranoia subside. He grips both her hands and manages to open his eyes and look at his wife.

“Better,” she murmurs.

“Yes darling, thank you, it’s passing,” he whispers, breathing out once more, just as a wet burstinf sound is heard above them, and the house begins rapidly raining water down on them both. As defeated as he feels, Vision doesn’t even bother looking up.

“Vizh?” she says, staring at him as she is quickly soaked through with the water raining down on them from above. 

“Yes, dear?” he asks, staring at her grimly.

“I think my water just broke,” she whispers quietly as she throws him a guilty look.

“Yes, dear,” he nods at her, before finally stealing a glance upward, noticing the various cracks in the drywall, still angrily sputtering water. 

Even after it stops, even after Wanda opens up the door and somehow manages to usher the wind inside, impossibly drying out the entirety of their living room in a matter of moments, Vision’s thoughts feel barely back under control, before his wife moans in pain again

“Honey, do you think it’s time to-“ she begins, once more glancing at him with a pained expression.

“Call the doctor? Yes, I do, dear-“ he says, striding quickly over to the telephone in the kitchen only to get a busy signal. Of bloody course, he thinks to himself, gripping the phone tightly as he slams it a little too hard back down on the receiver. 

“Damn. The phones are down too. I’d better run,” he says, darting back into the living room once more. “Except that he might’ve already left for vacation.”

“What? At a time like this?” Wanda whines, and Vision looks down sympathetically to his wife.

“Well, in fairness, darling, the baby is approximately nine months early,” Vision says, voice strained, and Wanda only blankly nods, breathing through another contraction. 

“I’d better leg it. You’ll be alright here?” He asks, hoping beyond all reason that she will be, and she nods, before he quickly kisses her cheek and lowers his density so he can run as swiftly as possible out the front door. 

—

He is not sure how much time passes before reaches Dr. Nielson’s house. He speeds along, near the barrier of sound, the blur of West View a shimmer of green and white and blue around him. He’s only lucky that he had spent many of the nights last week mapping West View extensively, and the address memorized in his mind has a location to go with it. He barely registers that people would most likely be able to suspect that his feet have lifted a few inches off the ground, allowing him to move faster towards his destination, and as he screeches to a halt at the correct address, he finds the man inspecting his stalled vehicle-- thank God for small favors— snatching him up quickly with barely an explanation and catapulting back across town. The doctor might be shouting at him, or screaming, Vision’s not entirely sure as he realizes he is flying at least a meter off the ground now, but he can’t bring himself to care in the slightest, finally stopping abruptly, dropping back to the ground outside of 2800 Sherwood Drive. The doctor stumbles forward in a daze, but Vision ignores the man, finally feeling the pulse of Wanda’s mind once more, gently entwining with his own, but there is something else, something new, now threaded in their connection. It feels like golden light, a rippling wave on a shoreline, the sway of pure and unyielding love. 

As he enters the house, the light beckoning him forward, he finds Wanda lying on the ground near the couch, with Geraldine close by. All around, the house is in shambles, the dining room chandelier shattered on the table, the pictures hanging sideways on the walls, the hearth dusted in soot. All of this, though, goes unnoticed by Vision as he is frozen to the spot as he realizes that Wanda holds an infant son in her arms. 

A son. 

Their son.

His son.

He is sure, in this moment, that time has stopped completely.

The golden light is his son’s consciousness, reflected in the mind of his wife. It is nascent and warm, and he realizes that somehow, some way, his son carries not only a portion of his wife’s signature, but a portion of Vision’s own. He feels the essence of all that Vision is, all of his hope and fear and love, threaded in the tapestry that comprises his son’s peaceful blur of self, and it is in this feeling that each tangible worry, each overwhelming concern, each anxious calculation falls away. He stumbles forward toward them both, and Vision thinks he hears Geraldine ushering the doctor toward the kitchen, although he cannot be sure.

“Oh, well done, Wanda,” he hears himself murmuring. She only smiles at him as he inches closer to the newborn, her eyes alive, dancing with wonder.

“Well, don’t you want to meet your son as yourself?” she finally murmurs, and his eyes widen for a moment, his heart thudding more heavily in his chest for the profound ache of love he has for her. It’s a quick glance around to make sure the others are occupied before he phases, kneeling next to his wife. And then, she is handing him the boy, his son, carefully supporting his head and speaking to him as she goes, murmuring an, “Oh, you’re strong.” 

Gently, Vision takes him from Wanda, and realizes his arms are shaking slightly, even as he moves to support the little one’s head. As the bright blue of the boy’s eyes meet Vision’s own, as a swell of contentment and love radiates from his connection with his son, Vision vows to never doubt the reality or validity of his son’s, Thomas’, existence, ever again.

“Hello there, little Tommy,” Vision murmurs, gently swaying the baby. Vision is astounded by how light he is, how warm, how complete.

“Tommy?” He hears Wanda ask, tilting her head at him in awe. He steals a glance away from Tommy to his wife, and smiles. 

“Yes, Tommy,” he murmurs, glancing down to the child once more, but, just as he leans into kiss his gorgeous, glowing, beautiful wife, their mental link is quickly severed just as Wanda lets out as a forceful, pained scream, which causes Vision to shout in surprise, his hold on Tommy tightening.

“What?!” He asks, and it’s as his wife’s face contorts in the pain of labor and the house once more erupts into chaos that Vision realizes, in one terrifying moment, that twins very much do run in Wanda’s family.

—

Vision manages to phase back into his disguise just as Dr. Nielsen quickly steps in, Vision inching to Wanda’s side, eyes wide at the scene taking place before him as he watches his wife give birth again. In any other setting, the extreme, pained cries from Wanda would be unbearable, they’re practically unbearable now, and she is gripping him so tightly he feels his pulse deaden in his left hand. Geraldine had offered to hold Tommy for Vision, and it took everything in Vision to let go of his son, for the first time torn between wife and child. But as Wanda’s cries grew and the fireplace swelled with heat, he had carefully placed Tommy in the woman’s arms, returning to Wanda’s side, trying his best to instruct Wanda to breathe, but feeling rather helpless. It only takes a few more moments, though, before the air is pierced with the cries of a second child, William, and the doctor is quickly wrapping the little one up in another blue blanket, before Wanda shakily takes the second boy from Dr. Nielson. Vision’s eyes are still wide as Wanda holds their second son closer to her, and yet again he feels Wanda open the connection, her pain still there but subsiding, everything now brighter and more than before as their family has grown by one again. Vision is overwhelmed momentarily as he sits back on the floor, head in his hand, as Wanda’s eyes find his own.

“I did tell you,...about the twins,” she whispers, and he lets out a breathless laugh, as she holds Billy firmly against her body for another moment, before extending her arms so that Vision can hold him. He does so as gently as he did with Thomas, and he finds that his eyes momentarily flit over to where his other son is now sleeping in Geraldine’s arms, before he looks at William again. Just like Thomas, Vision feels his essence in this new twin’s presence, and Vision’s fingers shake slightly as he runs his hand along the light brown wisps of the infant’s hair, as a calming, soothing sleep befalls William, too. 

In the hour that follows, Wanda miraculously recovers, and it isn’t long until Thomas is asleep in her arms and William is asleep in his own, Dr. Nielsen having given both boys a short checkup a half-hour prior. Geraldine sits on the couch, looking a little worn out, as the doctor remarks about how the woman would make an excellent nurse.

Why don’t you show the doctor out, darling? Wanda asks Vision quietly, and he has to steel himself a little to part with William, laying him gently down in the bassinet. 

“Allow me to walk you out, doctor,” Vision murmurs, and the man looks a little perturbed at the notion, as they both head to the door. 

“Alright. As long as we actually walk this time,” he says nervously, and Vision shoots a guilty look to Wanda, who shrugs her shoulders at him through a small smile. 

In a few moments they are outside, the late afternoon sun sinking into the earth as they pause on the porch.

“Well, Dr. Nielson. I hope you’re still able to make your trip,” Vision says politely, pausing as the doctor stammers and rubs his hands together nervously.

“Ahh. Yes, my trip. I don’t think we’ll get away after all,” he says, looking at Vision directly in the eyes, and there is something fearful, pleading even found there. “Small towns, you know. So hard to...escape...” he trails off, nodding his head slightly at Vision, whose eyes narrow in confusion.

Escape?

“Yeah,” Vision mutters, still baffled by the man’s words as he watches him leave. He is intending to go back inside, right as his auditory receptors pick up the sound of hushed whispering off to his right. He turns his head, and notices that Agnes has stopped on her bike and is hurriedly and quietly conversing with Herb over the concrete partition that suffered Herb’s hypnotized negligence earlier that day.

“What is she doing in there?” Agnes hisses. 

“I don’t know,” Herb mutters, and at this Vision frowns, finally choosing to interrupt them. 

“Howdy neighbors!” he says through a theatrical smile, and they both turn toward him in surprise, two sets of shifting eyes and two bodies under strained postures. 

“Howdy!” Agnes says breezily enough. 

“Hey,” Herb mutters. Vision frowns, wondering why Agnes is in their driveway at all and what caused her to stop to talk to Herb, but, realizing there are more pressing matters, he begins to turn back to the house, when he picks up on the whispering beginning again.

“Did you see her go inside?” Vision can hear Agnes murmur.

“She went right in,” Herb responds.

“—And you saw her tummy, Wanda was pregnant.”

“Yes. She was,” Herb murmurs.

“Did Geraldine-”

“Remarkable day we’re having, no?” Vision asks, choosing to walk towards them this time, in the hope of understanding what is happening, in the hope he may be able to quell any suspicion about Wanda. “Did you lose power too?”

“Oh, sure did, but Ralph looks better in the dark so I’m not complaining,” Agnes says, as if on cue, through a brilliant, albeit nervous smile, perfectly posed with one hand on her hip along her brightly colored houndstooth pencil skirt. Vision ignores her, glancing once more at the man with the hedge trimmer, who is far less composed. Earlier, Vision had sworn Herb had gone inside. Herb certainly wasn’t there when Vision went to check on the other neighbors’ loss of power. And yet now, the man is back out here, hedge trimmer in hand, as he had never left. Why? 

“Hi Herb,” Vision finds himself murmuring, staring the man directly in the eye, and he can feel the man squirm under his gaze.  

“Hey buddy,” he says back, his voice wavering. He doesn’t say anything else though as they both stare at him, obviously waiting for him to leave. Vision pauses for another moment, expecting something, but doesn’t receive it. 

“Well, I’ll get back to Wanda,” Vision finally responds, turning around cautiously and taking several steps towards the house before he hears Agnes’ voice once more, louder this time. 

“Vision!” she calls after him, and he quietly turns around once more.

“...Is Geraldine inside with Wanda?” she asks, fiddling with her hands, as if she doesn’t know what to do with them, which is peculiar, because up until this point Agnes has always seemed so sure of her actions, swooping in when Wanda needs her, often at exactly the precise moment in time. Always put together, always fluid and responsive and posturing and posing during her visits. Now, she seems harried, unsure. 

Vision pauses, lifting a brow in suspicion. 

“Yes...why?” he finally asks, taking several steps toward the woman. From what Vision understood, Geraldine had stopped by to ask for a bucket on loan from Wanda, and had discovered Wanda going into labor. She had helped deliver Thomas, which Vision had been entirely grateful for. And yet here these two are, suspicious of Geraldine and her actions. Vision starts to ask again, before he feels a heavy commotion in his own head, the still-strong mental link with Wanda now radiating, pulsing with what is happening from inside. 

I’m a twin. I had a brother. His name was...Pietro. 

Vision stands stock still, brow twisted in utter confusion, as Wanda’s words are now replaced with the gentle melody of Wanda singing in Sokovian to the children, a soft lullaby. And then, a swell of sadness erupts from the house, a profound and deep sorrow, and he blinks rapidly, trying to understand...

I’m a twin. 

Pietro.

He was killed by Ultron, wasn’t he?

What did you say?

“She’s new to town, brand new,” Herb mutters, and Vision closes his eyes in frustration, before refocusing once again on his neighbors. He is torn, heart ripped nearly in half between the swelling sadness and anger from inside his own home, and the snarling suspicion and accusatory glares of his neighbors outside on his lawn.

“There’s no family,” Agnes says, an edge of disgust in her voice. “No husband.”

I’m a twin. Pietro. Killed by Ultron.

“Well there’s nothing wrong with that,” Vision murmurs, trying to understand what Agnes is insinuating.

What did you say, just now?

I said, Wanda. You’re such a strong lady. Should I say it one more time for good measure?

No. What did you say about Pietro?

“No home,” Agnes says, looking at him determinedly. No home . How would Agnes know that? Pietro. Wanda’s brother. He hadn’t even known she had a brother, let alone a twin. And Ultron. Ultron. Such a strange sounding name. An inherent unknown. Another question without an answer. 

“What?” Vision asks, voice timid, as he takes another step closer to Agnes, even as the audible sound of Thomas’s and William’s cries comes from the house, a rippling of startled confusion flowing along his still-present connection with his family.

“What do you mean she has no home?” Vision asks, blinking again, and he notices Herb can hardly stand it. He is gripping the hedge trimmer tightly, trying to tell Vision something with his eyes. 

“She came here because…” Herb pauses, drifting off. 

Who are you?

Who...are you?

“She came here because…” Herb falters again, glancing towards Agnes, who sighs wordlessly as she stares at Vision. 

Wanda, I’m just your neighbor.

Then how did you know about Ultron?

“She came here because we’re all…” Herb stammers, as if he is physically unable to finish his sentence. 

The babies are crying loudly now. There is a sense of danger, trepidation from inside, and yet, Vision stays glued to the spot, as if someone is willing him to stay put. 

“She came here because we’re all what? What are you trying to tell me?” Vision presses, staring at Herb, trying to silently will the information from him. 

You’re not my neighbor.

“She came here because we’re all…”

And you’re certainly not my friend. 

“Stop it!” Agnes hisses to Herb, staring at him threateningly, with a desperate, slight shake of her head. Helplessly, Vision watches. The man was about to tell him something vital. Something crucial about the inaccuracies of his life so far, why the fabric of reality keeps shifting, why he can’t remember anything before West View, why he suddenly fears for his sons’ safety. Why he can’t move. Meanwhile, Agnes’ behavior has shifted, as she easily falls back into the cultivated neighborly role. 

“Well, I better get going. That macrame is not gonna hitch itself!” Agnes says through a suggestive wink and ring of her bell, before casually strolling off with her bicycle, as if the entire conversation had just not taken place. 

You are a stranger and an outsider. 

Wanda, Vision presses through the mental link, a desperate warning. 

“Herb?” Vision hears himself asking, but something in Herb’s eyes clears slightly, and he picks up the hedge trimmer through an odd laugh.

And right now you are trespassing here. 

Wanda! Vision snarls, but nothing changes, although the link persists, as if his wife is not even aware she is still connected to him. 

“Catch you on the flip side, Vision,” he says, before walking off towards his house. Vision stands, dumbstruck, before he turns back to the house, petrified, as the last of Wanda’s warning is felt through the bond between them. 

And I want you...to leave. 

And then, the pulsing sound gets louder, and electric buzzing blaring in Vision’s mind, Tommy’s and Billy’s sobs reverberating throughout his body, as Vision watches a violent red pulse of energy tear its way through the living room, the nursery, puncturing the yellow siding of the house and then the fence, and Vision realizes in horror it is woman shrouded in the red light, being forcibly pushed outward at an incredible speed, until he can no longer see her. Vision jerks his head back to the dilapidated side of the house, the splintered wooden planks are scattered across the yard, scarlet tendrils still pulsing around the debris—-

“Catch you on the flip side, Vision,” Herb says with a nervous smile, before walking towards his house. Vision stands, still dumbstruck by the conversation and what it could mean, and suddenly he wonders if they were trying to warn him about Geraldine, about her not having a home, or really living here, so he immediately stalks back inside the dwelling, phasing as he goes, until he he is timidly faltering on the landing. 

“ Wanda,” Vision murmurs, taking in the scene of his wife standing silently over the babies, alone. The mental connection is so quiet it is almost dead now between them.

“Where’s Geraldine?” he asks, and he can hear his voice wavering with the question as he walks quietly towards the living room, trepidation in every footstep. 

You’re not my neighbor, and you’re certainly not my friend. Where had that memory come from? . A fragmented bit from a corrupted file. A sliver of an unknowable truth. An echo from a bad dream.  

“Oh, she left honey, she had to rush home,” Wanda says in a strained sing-song voice, and a ripple of unease travels up his body. Wanda then turns around to smile, but as soon as she sees him, she gasps in fear, her hand immediately flying to her mouth, and she looks down quickly, as if in disgust, as if in revulsion, as if in regret. 

“What?” he blinks, frowning, as he still moves to carefully approach her. “What is it? What’s wrong?” 

Finally, she looks up again, although her hand still rests on her beating heart. Her eyes are cautious, the remnants of panic still evident on her face. He finally closes the gap in between them, determined to quell her wave of sorrow, that unsubstantiated sadness he has felt within her since moving to West View. 

“We don’t have to stay here,” he says through a determined shake of his head, carefully moving to clasp her by both of her arms, remembering all of the mishaps, all the curious encounters with the neighbors, all the ways the very molecules around them shift and fidget in their foundations, as if none of its natural, as if none of it was intended to exist.

“We can go wherever we want,” he murmurs, and, with eyes glossy from tears that refuse to fall, she shakes her head in a quiet defeat. 

“No, we can’t,” she says. He tilts his head at her, confused, as she moves to cradle the side of his face with a soft hand. He immediately threads his own hand over hers, staring at her. 

“This is our home,” she says quietly. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, blue, whirring eyes locked on her sea green ones. With that, Wanda tilts her head slightly, smiling assuredly as she does so, a quiet confidence and control now emanating from her.

“Oh, don’t worry darling. I have everything under control,” she says, and something in him tells him he needs to lean down and kiss her gently, so he does. With that, almost as if in reward, the mental link resumes, and he can once more feel the pulsing light of Thomas and William inside his mind. 

As he pulls away from his wife’s embrace, she smiles warmly at him. Although he is certain no natural instincts reside within his mind, something in him moves to protectively pick up Tommy, and he holds his son against his chest. He watches as Wanda smiles at him again, picking up Billy as she goes.

“Well, what should we watch tonight?” she asks softly, moving toward the living room couch.

He pauses, holding Thomas firmly to him, frowning slightly.

Seven minutes and fifty four seconds of corrupted memory files. 

<beekeeper.iv. —I-think-something’s-wrong-here.xv. —Geraldine’s-death?.xv> 

Seven minutes and fifty four seconds of time unaccounted for.

Vision had read Einstein. Special relativity. Time may dilate or contract, depending on the perception of the observer. The notion of minutes and hours depended entirely on the perspective and speed of the person currently counting them. Or in control of them. 

Time was like a pinwheel, Vision had surmised. You gently grazed your lips along its metallic feathers, and you blew. It would spin. Or it wouldn’t. Or, perhaps, it would reverse, if you meant it to. 

I have everything under control. 

Seven minutes and fifty four seconds of time. Time that had disappeared, or had been stolen from him. Seven minutes and fifty four seconds of time that had been rewritten. 

As he moves toward the couch, he is sure to smile widely. He projects only happiness, placing the new file wanda’s-pinwheel.xv locked away in the furthest recesses of his mind. He sits on the couch next to Wanda, and she moves closer to be beside him. His free arm hesitantly moves over her shoulders, and his finger shakily presses a button on the remote, summoning the colored screen of the television to life.