Synthesis

Chapter Thirteen: Perhaps We All Need More Time

It’s a swaying motion, gentle, like he imagines the ocean being. His arms never tire, his legs never grow uncomfortable. His body is a faithful metronome, the rhythmic pull of left to right and slightly downward finally, after forty-two minutes of rocking, lulling William back to sleep. Vision can’t tear his gaze away from the little one’s face, how his dark eyelashes graze the top of his pale cheeks. The rapid, quiet breathing, the small sounds he makes in his sleep. His son has barely been alive for an evening, and Vision can hear his beating heart, can feel his steady warmth, can sense the golden, quiet light of his essence. It should be everything, it should be the answer, the final puzzle piece that completes his own humanity. And it is, but it isn’t. 

Because...Vision is terrified.

After the realization of the lost memories, of the lost time, the night had meandered in a seemingly peaceful fashion, until The Brady Bunch had ended. It was then, as the final chords of the credits played out, the children seemed to understand that they were alive, beginning to ripple with unease. They both had begun fussing, which had quickly devolved into steady cries. Wanda had turned to him, blinking in confusion, and he realized she was at a complete loss as of what to do. The children themselves seemed to have broken the narrative, and what had resulted was an endless switching off, trying to get either twin to latch, Vision instructing her on various positions to try, based on the literature he had read earlier in the day. Wanda had had tears seeping down her face at the pain, and Vision had tried his best to comfort her, despite the second infant screaming Tommy arms. It was late into the night that Thomas had finally fallen asleep after successfully feeding, and after William had been fed, the second twin had still been restless. He had encouraged his wife to try to sleep, and she had finally fallen into a fitful slumber, hand still resting on the bassinet close beside the bed. When Vision was certain she was truly asleep, he had carefully carried the other fussing child out of their bedroom and downstairs, intent on not waking the others. 

This moment is the first since yesterday, since their birth, that Vision has been able to focus on anything other than tending to the needs of his sons, other than encouraging his wife, kissing her tears away, placing a gentle hand on her back, fingers slowly drawing circles into her skin with his free hand as she fed William and Thomas slept. But after she had drifted to sleep, after ...

It had been alongside the understanding that he had lost time that he fully comprehended he was also missing his memory of everything before West View. Or, rather, that missing his memory of everything before this time was profoundly, deeply wrong. Because, since coming here, since West View, everything was pristinely preserved in his mind with the sharpest of clarity, apart from the corrupted files. Every moment. Every word. And he knew it to his very core this was how it was supposed to be. 

Sixteen days. Sixteen days since they had arrived in West View. Nights shared entwined in one another. Silver morning light littering the kitchen. My wife and her flying saucers. My husband and his indestructible head. Long days spent at the office, processing computational forms. It’s like you’re a walking computer! Nights watching Wanda rustle up something for dinner, nights spent in front of the television. I do. Do you? Yes, I do. 

Sixteen days. And yet… he and Wanda had been married before that time. He and Wanda had purchased a home, surely. Had made the decision to come here. They had met, fallen in love, although there is no memory of a first kiss, a first romantic outing, no memory of even the first time he had made love to her. And, even before that...someone had created him, designed him. He had not been born, was not human. And since, his programming had evolved. He had become aware of all the intricacies of human nature. He had presumably learned what it meant to feel, to love. That could not have possibly happened overnight. But what haunts him the most, perhaps, is not that he doesn’t have the answers to a thousand gnawing questions; it is that he never thought to ask before now. 

And now, the why suffocates him. Why he now suffers from a puzzling amnesia. Why Wanda, at times, seems to as well. Why no one else is like them. Why they need to hide. Why, why, why. 

The world had been colorless three days ago. God. The world had lacked all color three days ago, and he hadn’t questioned it. There was always a watch strapped to his wrist, but he didn’t know what year it was. Ten days ago there had been no information on the Vietnam war in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Four days ago, there had been. 1955. 1964. 1970. As new records of time passing bloomed on the page, Vision now understood that time was recorded and tracked based on twelve months, made of an alternating thirty and thirty-one days each, repeating over and over again. (Their own calendar, of course, lacked a year. It had been one of the first things Vision had checked to cross-reference.)

There had also been the black and white images of cars on a Ford factory line twenty years prior in the encyclopedia that had looked like the newest models fifteen days ago. Ten days ago, West View, New Jersey appeared to be experiencing the days of John F. Kennedy. And then, two days ago, with the blooming color, the news in an American history text he had been reading explained that Kennedy had been assassinated. Lyndon B. Johnson had become the president. And now, it was Nixon. 

But presidents served at least four-year terms.

Nothing about what he had encountered so far suggested that the world could change so rapidly. Nothing. Styles of clothing and dress, women in shorter and slimmer skirts had taken decades to evolve, based on his research. RCA began selling the first colored television in 1954, but television broadcasting stations and networks in most parts of the world upgraded from black-and-white TVs to color transmission in the 1960s and 1970s, which was now. But had been then. 

What he had recorded and what everything else seemed to suggest did not align. He had wondered, painfully, if they were on a different plane of existence. Perhaps an alternate universe, a reflective prism that distorted what the textbooks suggested was reality. He had wondered, too, if he was simply experiencing severe malfunctions in his processing core. Of course, though, he had run several diagnostic scans, all turning back the same basic response: all systems operational. Internet, offline. Again, that haunting phrase. The internet. Nothing he had found or read, still, described what this was, but his body and mind knew it. Knew it was important, vital for his operation, his existence. 

William suddenly gurgles in his sleep, brows slightly pinched in discomfort before settling again. He has not attempted to break the pattern of the swaying, but he remembers that the mental link that connects each mind in his family in a small constellation still pulses between them. Fearful that Vision’s own thoughts are to blame, he brings up mental images of photographs he had seen of the aurora borealis, and, like clockwork, William settles back into slumber. William, however, has has managed to free an arm, and now his impossible tiny fingers grip a portion of Vision’s sweater. 

His son in his arms. His other son, sleeping upstairs. Their impossible existence, and yet the surety of it radiating from the infant’s mind. And, down deeper, the steady strum of fear, or horror, in his wife’s words yesterday. 

Don’t worry, Darling. I have everything under control. 

Vision nearly chokes on the memory, holding his son closer to him, closing his eyes tightly. What had she meant by those words? What was she controlling? Why were they hurtling through time at an impossible rate? What was she refusing to let him see? Was any of it real? God. Because if it wasn’t...If it wasn’t real ...

He doesn’t even notice her come in until a soft hand is on the planes of his back. He nearly flinches, turns quickly, his eyes darting left and right, desperate to look anywhere except for at his wife. 

“Vision?” she barely whispers, and he finally forces his eyes to meet hers. He is horrified to see that they are glistening with tears, dark circles shadowing her otherwise luminescent skin. Wanda’s hair is mussed from sleep and a sleeve of her nightgown  gently hangs off of her left shoulder. She is all blue and gray and soft white in the darkness, the moonlight through the open window throwing shadows on her features. She is hauntingly beautiful. In this moment, he is frightened of her, entranced, bewitched. She is the problem and yet the solution. She is terror and poise. She is his breaking heart.

Gently, cautiously, she steps closer, carefully offering to take William from his arms. For the briefest of moments, he doesn’t want to give us son up, but he lets the irrational thought pass, and the sleeping boy gently slips from his shaking hands to her steady ones. She holds the swaddled infant tightly to her for a moment, whispering a soft phrase in Sokovian, before laying him down in a spare bassinet in the nursery. Her hand lingers on the side of William’s face, before she slowly turns back around to face Vision. 

He can’t seem to speak, can’t utter a word, and continues to frown deeply, guiltily. She feels all of this in him, the swirling emotions flowing between their minds, souls entwined. A quiet tear falls down her cheek, and she quietly wipes it away. It tells him everything he needs to know. She has felt the confusion within him. Every thought, every question, every sharp prick of panic and each dull ache of doubt. 

He has been caught, but, it is not this that startles him. It is that she, too, is terrified. He can feel it within her, the lingering fear, the inability to understand, and it threatens to consume him.

It is then that he stalks over to her, quickly closing the gap between them, a hand threading through her hair and the other snaking around her waist, his lips pressing on the pulse of her neck. She gasps as he works his way up her jawline, until he’s at the corner of her mouth, before stopping, resting his forehead against hers, breathing deeply, erratically, hands still shaking. She shushes him as he takes shuddering breaths, and then she’s kissing him, the soft warmth of her tongue swiping against his, and he swallows the kiss, lips moving against her own hungrily. When he finally pulls back to let her breathe, her hand is cradling his face, and he is holding her wrist tightly, as if he lets go she might slip away from him into the night, gone forever. 

“Wanda. God, darling. I’m-Im sorry,” he hears his desperate words, her name a prayer on his lips, even as he buries his face in her neck, eyes shut tight once more in pain. They stand there like that for a moment, a millennium, an eternity, her fingers stroking the back of his head, the quiet shush of her breath and the soft skin of her face aligning with the metal plating of his temple. He can feel more silent tears fall, and he grips the fabric of her nightgown more tightly, before pulling back, capturing her mouth once more. She sighs into the kiss, running her hands up his chest, but he’s pushing her back against the wall, vying for control. He isn’t certain what has come over him; from the records of the past sixteen days Wanda is the one that likes to initiate sex, of which he happily and with great enthusiasm responds to. But she has always played the dominant role, always seems to thrive off of it, and yet, something about his desperation floods his senses, intent on having control over something or someone, perhaps for the first time.

He wants her. He wants her so badly his chest aches and aches. The gnawing emotional hunger trips his upgraded programming to respond physically as he presses her into the wall, and she gasps again as his hand threads in her hair to pull her head to the side, while he worries her neck with lips and teeth. She moans, hands scrambling for purchase over his sweater, but he keeps her pinned to the wall, body hot with want and need for dominance. His hand runs up her torso, trailing her rib cage before grasping one breast, thumb roughly swiping over her nipple. It’s then that she winces in pain, and he stops immediately, pulling back and dropping his hands in mild horror, the lust dissipating as quickly as it was summoned.

She had given birth yesterday. Everything he has read suggested they needed to wait six weeks at minimum before being intimate. What had come over him? What in the hell was he thinking?

But what would West View even look like, in six weeks?

She frowns as she stares at the helplessness in his features, taking a step over to him.

“Hey,” she whispers, leaning her head on his chest, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. His hands still shake as they hold her once more, all the fight gone from his limbs, as he breathes in her scent, murmuring yet another apology into her hair.

“Forgive me,” he is all he manages to say, and she hugs him tighter, and they stand there like that, in the darkened nursery, for several long, pulsing moments, until they both hear the sounds of Thomas crying to be fed once more. 

—

William and Thomas wake up several more times during the night, and the process of changing, feeding, and rocking happens several times over. It’s only in the soft light of early morning that Wanda has a chance to steal a few moments of sleep again, Vision caressing her hair as she breathes deeply. He is not sure how much time passes, refuses to count the minutes, letting his mind drift, like that first night, refusing to linger too long on anything.

It is a surprise, then, when he hears his wife murmur something in the early morning light. His eyes immediately snap open, and he realizes she’s turned to her side, staring at him. He smiles, moving a hand to grasp her own, and she rubs a thumb over the top of his palm.

“Morning,” she murmurs, and he smiles at her. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks, and she only offers him a shadow of a frown.

“I’m...ok. More worried about you,” she says, moving to caress the side of his face.

“I am fine,” he murmurs, having once more tucked away from the doubts and fears that had threatened to consume him the night before. Wanda frowns at this though, and he can feel her mind pressing against his through the mental link, but she won’t find the answers she is looking for. She can’t. He’s already let her see too much as it is, careless in his ruminations while rocking William to sleep. The thoughts had triggered primal desperation within him, the effects of his carelessness haunting each waking moment after they had ended. 

“You feel...far away,” she finally says, biting her lip as he stares at her.

Vision says nothing, scared that if he is to speak, everything might leak through the seams of the firewalls that separate his worst fears from the pleading eyes of his wife. Wanda sighs as her eyes drift off to his right, seeing past him for several long moments before she refocuses on him.

“My brother…” she whispers. Vision tries not to show his surprise on his face but lets the fact sit between them for a long moment. Pietro. Killed by Ultron. The words cut through him sharply, their edges jagged and torn, and he realizes the corrosive words are leaking out of the corrupt memory files. Vision closes his eyes tightly for a moment, before looking at his wife once more. 

“He was your twin,” Vision says quietly, and Wanda nods, seemingly unperturbed by the fact he knows this.

“The violence you mentioned...in Sokovia,” Vision murmurs, and Wanda’s face contorts in pain, and she squeezes his hand more tightly.

“He’s gone, now,” she barely murmurs, and Vision moves to gently brush her hair, tucking a strand behind her ear with his fingers.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Vision asks silently, and Wanda closes her eyes for a moment in pain, shaking her head as she does so.

“I think...I think I forgot,” she murmurs through a shuddering breath, fresh tears in her eyes, and it’s then that Vision pulls her closer to him, moving to kiss her forehead, and then the corner of her eyes, before pulling her even closer to gently kiss her lips. 

“Whatever is happening, we will get through it together,” he finally says as they part slightly. although he is not certain what compels him to utter the words, knowing full-well it’s a partial lie, with all that he is keeping from her. He feels her nod, but before he can say anything else, the sound of whimpering from the bassinet permeates the air. 

“Let me,” he murmurs, and Wanda offers him a small smile, as Vision phases through the bed to stand, walking toward the crib to realize Tommy has stirred. He gently moves to pick up the child, and Thomas’s cries fizzle into a contented coo, Vision all the while murmuring sweet-nothings to his son. When he looks up from Tommy, he sees his wife is now sitting up, staring at him fondly. 

“You’re an amazing father,” she whispers, hugging her arms tightly, and Vision smiles slightly at her, walking closer to sit on the edge of the bed beside his wife. 

“His mind...William’s mind too…” Vision drifts off, staring at his wife’s wide ocean-green eyes.

“I know. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” She says through a quiet smile, gently caressing the top of Tommy’s head, the brown wisps of hair, and Vision knows she wants him, so he carefully hands the child to his mother. 

“You’ve given me more than I could ever hope to want,” Vision murmurs, quietly reaching up to wipe a lingering tear away from her cheek with this thumb, and she leans into his palm. “More than I deserve.”

“Don’t say that,” she murmurs, although she doesn’t take her eyes off her son.

“Wanda...what’s happening here…in West View,” Vision drops off, but he realizes Wanda is now singing a Sokovian lullaby to Thomas.

ˈdom naʃ ˈʃiɪdeŋ ˈgnieʒdo

bez veˈdeɪ̆ doˈkude ˈjit͡ʃiʃ

ˈʃiʒa ˈsunt͡so nad tiˈe

Vision frowns, mentally sighing, squeezing his wife’s hand once more. 

“I’ll...go make you some coffee, darling,” he says, and he feels her nodding as he stands. It’s seven steps to the door, Vision quietly phasing through it so as to not wake William, and it is then that he freezes in the middle of the upstairs landing.

The beige walls and shag carpet are gone. A dark maroon, ornate pattern lines dark wood in the hallway. Ahead of him, the stairs have completely changed in structure, now forming an L-shape. Carefully, he treads each step, and as he finds himself downstairs, he doesn’t recognize the living room anymore. The lime couch is now dark yellow, the mantle is a dark mahogany, the potted plants are gone, replaced with more furniture in deep reds and oranges. As he hesitantly makes his way into the kitchen, it’s larger, less colorful, adorned with impersonal knick-knacks and blue-and-white floral ceramics, a gas range, crafts and notices for West View tacked to the refrigerator with magnets, a sign that says “Kiss the cook” affixed to the kitchen island.

And, on the far side of the wall, where, only sixteen days ago, they had been arguing over a date on the calendar, a new calendar hangs, now proudly displaying a month and a year, for the first time in his recorded memory. 

September, 1986.