It hadn’t been her idea but she was the one who lost the bet so here she was in some cooking class. She had some basic skills in regards cooking but it was Pietro who was the talented one in that area. At least she was doing something useful she supposed but she still resented that she managed to lose a bet when she could control probability. It was just insulting.
The class is small, maybe only twelve people, and she looks around. On any given day she hated social interactions with strangers because, as a mutant, people generally had plenty of political opinions on how she should exist or not exist and that annoyed her. So in moments like these she was always in a game of social Russian Roulette- will they or won’t they be alright with her being a mutant? Thankfully the odds were always in her favor and she spots a mutant right away thanks to his visible mutation.
She shouldn’t have been surprised that he looked surprised when she walks right towards him and then she notes the brief wary look that crosses his face and she sympathizes. Her aunt Raven got a lot more shit than she did thanks to her being blue most of the time. Once Wanda asked why she stayed blue when she could be anything she wanted- and preferred a pretty blonde form that no one was suspicious of or rude to- and she told her that she shouldn’t have to hide. That she was proud of her skin and it took her years to accept it even if not many other people did. Wanda thought that was brave in a way she could never be. If she wanted she at least got the option to hide her abilities, but people with visible mutations weren’t so lucky.
“Relax,” she tells her companion, “I’m a mutant too.” She offers him a small smile and hopes that Social Gamble Two went well. She had a think accent- Sokovian- and people had as many opinions on immigrants as they did on mutants. It was never fun to belong to too many marginalized groups- people were usually only okay with a few of those groups.
Her companion brightens, “oh, lovely! What is your mutation?” he asks. He looks genuinely interested and Wanda wonders what his mutation is aside from the obvious skin color being vastly different than the usual array of human skin colors. He sort of looked like one of those robots on television, which was probably an offensive thought on her part but it was true.
“I can manipulate probability,” she says simply. She could do far more than that but people were scared of people that could manipulate reality. She also had some basic telekinetic abilities as well but ultimately she had no idea what extent her powers could go to and with the ability to alter the reality she lived in she didn’t have a desire to push it. Charles also insisted that she didn’t even if her father told her to have no such reservations. She figured they were both right in their own ways.
“That is a far more interesting power than my own powers. All I can do is control my density, fly, I’m quite intelligent, and I can also alter my appearance at will. But manipulating probability is way more awesome,” he says, smiling at her.
“I don’t know, if I could walk through walls I’d think that was pretty cool. I know a woman who can do that actually,” she says, thinking of Kitty Pryde. She could now alter the density of other things so they could go through things while she remained solid. Wanda has always been jealous.
“But you could fill an entire tub full of mac and cheese,” her companion says, “all I can to is walk through the tub.”
Wanda throws back her head and laughs, “my brother keeps trying to convince me to do that but my dad keeps warning me that if I do he’ll bar me from using my mutation,” she says without thinking. Technically Charles wasn’t her father but he might as well be. Her mom died when she was too young to remember anything about her and her biological father- Erik Lehnsherr- has been with Charles since she and her brother were children.
“You father can do that? What kind of mutation does he have?” her companion asks.
“He’s a telepath, a very powerful one. Trust me, it’s a pain in the butt to sneak out,” she says. She and Pietro have figured out how to work her power so they didn’t get caught though. “I’m Wanda, by the way,” she tells him.
“Vision,” her companion says, “so do you come from a family of mutants?” he asks. They chat for a bit while he attempts to follow some recipe but he isn’t doing a good job of it. She learns that his android-like appearance wasn’t completely untrue as far as his biology goes. He seemed to have a strange mix of human and computer traits. No one was entirely sure how he worked, himself included and Wanda could relate to that. Vision also didn’t need to eat much or at all, which had prompted her to ask why he was in a cooking class. As it turned out he had lost a bet too and his friends chose a cooking class for him to attend because they thought it would be funny to make the guy who barely eats cook. That was better than her situation she guessed, she was here because Pietro thought her cooking was terrible and he was tired of being the family chef.
*
The next time she goes to the cooking class she and Vision get paired together to cook some kind of chicken meal. “What are you putting on that?” she asks as she chops some onions to put in the water around the chicken. She had no idea what she was doing, she just saw Pietro do it once and figured it was the right thing to do.
“Paprika,” Vision says, looking at the spice he was putting on the chicken.
Wanda frowns because it isn’t the right color at all so she wanders over. “Is this the bottle you used?” she asks, picking up one of the five spice bottles beside Vision’s pan.
“Yes I believe so,” he says, “is something wrong?” he asks when Wanda starts laughing.
“Viz, this is cinnamon,” she says, doubling over.
“Is… that not good?” he asks.
“Cinnamon is used on deserts,” Wanda tells him and she can see the information click.
“Well it appears I have made a mistake. It looked like paprika I swear,” he says.
“Next time read the label. Now we have cinnamon chicken,” she says, eyeing the chicken suspiciously.
“Or we could just… put paprika on it,” Viz suggests. “It can’t be that bad.”
“We can’t feed people cinnamon paprika chicken, that is just rude,” she tells him. The rest of the class ate their meals too and she didn’t want to feed them something disgusting.
“Shelly and Dave fed us food that looked so bizarre no one even knew what it was,” Viz points out. “This can’t be worse than that.”
In the end they decide that their chicken is botched so they just ruin it more for the fun of it. They also agree that they’re taking home the left overs to trick their friends into eating them. Their botched cinnamon chicken still turns out better than the thing Shelly and Dave cook. It was, Wanda thinks, a chicken in the beginning but what it ended up was something unnatural and inedible. Even Viz looks disturbed and he barely even tasted food.
*
“How did feeding the chicken to your family go?” Viz asks when they meet on the third week of their cooking class.
“Wonderfully,” Wanda replies, “Pietro hates me, my father has denounced me from his will and…” she pauses because how did she explain Charles? She decides to just go for it, “and my other father has stopped speaking to me. Chicken is his favorite food and he was very upset that I ruined it.” Charles would come around but right not her entire house was united against her. She savored it because she wasn’t getting away with this joke twice and their reactions were hilarious. “How did your friends react?” she asks.
If Viz notices her two fathers he says nothing about it and he laughs when she mentions his friends. “Steve- both of Steves- are thoroughly upset with me, Tony almost cried it tasted so bad, Natasha called me a sin against god, and Clint didn’t even notice. And then he put ketchup on it. I think my friends reacted more to that than our bad cooking but I can’t say I blame them. Clint eats the same way Scooby Doo and Shaggy do,” he says, delicately wrinkling his nose.
“That is disgusting,” she agrees. They chat back and forth about Clint’s eating habits, which leads to questioning the most disgusting thing he’s ever eaten- crab with peanut butter and barbeque sauce- and that somehow leads back to the question of two Steves. One, she learns, is Steve Strange and he acted as half of Vision’s doctors and the other, Steve Rogers, was just a good friend.
“What do you mean half your doctors?” she asks as they painstakingly go over their recipe- pesto chicken alfredo.
Viz triple checks the spices before handing them off to her and she seasons the chicken. “I mean that my biology is particularly unusual and the current health care system is ill equipped to deal with it,” he says.
“Well yes I gathered that. Mutant health care in general is absolutely terrible but when you factor in things like the different skin types that come with visible mutations and things like shape shifting and density changes it just gets steadily worse. You managed to find someone who would take your case?” she asks.
Viz nods, “two people actually, experts in their respective fields and absolutely enthused with a challenge. Steven Strange is a neurosurgeon and he’s very good at what he does, Tony Stark is… well you should know of him and his work,” he says simply. So Wanda did and she found the man’s arrogance irritating.
“How exactly do they um… help?” she asks, curious.
“Well, Steve knows the human body very well and Tony knows technology very well. They’ve both been doing research on how my body in particular integrates what looks like a technological system and a biological one. Of course I’m all biological matter but I don’t work the way the usual biology does. Actually in a recent turn of events Steve has decided to look more into mutant medicine because of the unknowns,” Viz says, a note of pride in his voice when he talks about his friends.
Wanda, however, was unsure. “To be honest I’m not sure I’d trust any non mutant with treating me medically,” she says honestly. Non mutants assumed things were fixed, and that there was only one way to work. Mutants don’t work the way any ‘normal’ human does and they were typically thrown when they were presented with a case and they weren’t willing to listen to their human patients let alone their mutant patients.
“Ahh, so your one of those,” Viz says with no malice in his voice. That was a surprise if he fell more on the integrations side of things, integrationists and separatists didn’t really get alone any better than the average democrat talking with a republican. “I do see where you are coming from, humans haven’t been very good at treating each other let alone us. But I’ve long since had my suspicions that both of them are mutants with extraordinary abilities that fall onto normal scales. Tony has built technology that’s almost advanced as Wakandan technology and without the resources they have. And Steve… well his ability to do surgery is nothing short of magic. But because they’re both geniuses people assume that their talents belong to that, not a mutation,” Viz says.
Wanda considers his words and she can see where he’s coming from actually. “I wonder how many more mutants are out there and we haven’t noticed because their mutations are mundane.” That would be an absolute game changer and Charles has always said there were more mutants out there than anyone could even imagine. He could sense them, mutants, and perhaps he wasn’t just saying that as a way to frighten people who disliked mutants and as a way to calm actual mutants. Maybe he was just correct.
“Exactly,” Viz says, “not everyone can have a mutation as stunning and original as yours.” He offers her a small smile and she smiles back, ducking her head.
“It really isn’t that great. Plus there are the um… scarier side effects,” she says evasively. Like manipulating the reality they lived in. God even knew what that could do and if that came out well… people would probably target her the way Charles was targeted for his telepathy, and her father for his ability to manipulate metal.
Viz shakes his head, “baseline human’s fear of us is futile. We may have extraordinary powers and we can certainly be destructive, but baselines forget the destruction they have caused themselves. The world’s worst atrocities have all been the results of the actions of baseline humans. The Holocaust, colonization, World War One, nuclear weapons, environmental disasters, and plenty more are all the results of their actions. Mutants have had very little to do with most of those things and yet we are treated as a danger so much so that we are taught to fear our own power. Whatever the side effects of your powers, Wanda, you cannot be more frightening than the history of humanity,” he tells her.
Strangely the comment makes her feels better about her power. He was right- of all the horrible things people have done, all the wars, genocides, murders, and more her ability to manipulate reality was scary, but not worse than the things that have passed.
*
“Viz?” Wanda asks, spotting who she thought was Vision in a record store. She’s been dragged there by her father because the man had a weird love of vinyl. Charles didn’t share his love and preferred the music of the digital age.
Vision turns and smiles when he finds her standing there, “Wanda! What a nice surprise. I didn’t take you for a vinyl fan,” he says as he walks over.
Erik turns to assess the new person and raises an eyebrow but he doesn’t comment, thankfully. Wanda didn’t want to deal with whatever absurd dad joke might cross his mind but unlike Charles he’d keep it in his head. “I’m not,” she tells him, “he is.” She gestures behind her and Erik gives a grunt in response. “I didn’t take you for a music fan in general,” she says. Vision had strange tastes in pretty much everything due to the way his mind worked. It was interesting to have a conversation with him about anything considered ‘normal’ because he almost always say the ‘normal’ thing differently. Like food- he didn’t at all understand the appeal of eating the flesh of a dead thing because he didn’t really need to eat. And he was just as confused at the concern with eating dead plant matter.
“I’m not, they are,” Vision says, pointing to two guys arguing about some album. She recognized one as Tony Stark but had no idea who the Asian guy was.
“What are they arguing about?” Wanda asks, curious.
“Which is better, classic eighties rock or classical music. I’m inclined to agree with Steve because I agree that lyrics have ruined music. The notes were beautiful and interesting enough on their own and humans had to off and ruin that beauty with their whiny voices,” Viz says, shaking his head sadly and Wanda laughs, especially when this draws an offended snort out of her father.
“Classic rock all the way! Where did you find this one Wanda, he isn’t quite right in the head,” Erik says to her.
“I found him in that cooking class Pietro forced me into. And Charles prefers classical too you know,” she points out.
“Charles isn’t right in the head either,” Erik mumbles, picking up something new for his collection.
“What do you prefer?” Viz asks her.
“Better be classic rock of r I’m not approving,” Stark says, coming up behind Vision.
“Better be classical or I’m not approving,” Steve throws in, giving Tony an offended look.
“I like pop music,” she tells them, prompting Stark and Steve to wrinkle their noses.
“I suppose it has merit. Pop artists are good with a beat,” Vision says, obviously working to find something redeemable about a style of music she could see he had an obvious distaste for.
“Pop music sucks, it’s all the same shit,” Stark throws out. Wanda rolls her eyes at him.
“So is classic rock so that criticism is completely invalid,” Vision tells him, looking confused. Wanda has to laugh at that, especially when Stark looks offended that Viz took her side.
“So we all agree that classic rock sucks even if we like other genres? Cool, that means I win and you lose so suck it Stark,” Steve says, grinning at him. Tony rolls his eyes and looks annoyed with this and strangely Erik says nothing in favor of his preferred genre.
Their conversation is interrupted by a beeping noise and Steve pulls out what looks like a pager. “Well shit, I have to go because duty calls and if they’re calling me something interesting is happening,” he says. He gives Tony a brief kiss and takes off, leaving Stark sputtering and even more irritated than before. He stomps out much like an annoyed child and Vision gives her an apologetic look and goes after him.
“He didn’t insult your music even though he obviously didn’t like the genre,” Erik says, looking down at her.
“Vision would probably never insult me,” Wanda says with certainty.
“He also defended you to his friend when he insulted you. God knows why but guys have a tendency to be jerks to girls they like when their friends are around. Obviously this one isn’t an ass. Please give your good taste in potential romantic partners to your brother, his date thinks its acceptable to eat eggplant with salmon, sausage, and strawberry sauce on it. And his head kind of looks like a coconut,” Erik says, looking pained.
“Is Pietro’s date named ‘Clint’ by any chance?” she asks. She gets confirmation and laughs because she was pretty sure she knew who that was.
*
“I think my brother may be dating your friend,” she tells Vision the next time they have a cooking class together.
“Is your brother named Pietro? Runs fast?” Vision asks. She nods and Vision laughs, “I should have known, no one else I know aside from you talks about their family so much. He talks about you all the time you know.”
“That’s because I’m awesome,” Wanda says, grinning.
“Very true. Now I’ve gone ahead and picked something for us to cook today so I hope that’s okay,” he says and he hands her the paper with the instructions on it. She reads the name on it and smiles again- it’s a traditional Sokovian dish.
“Well okay, lets get to making a mockery of my homeland’s food,” she says and Vision snorts.
“I do hope we do it at least a little justice,” he says. Wanda highly doubted it but she could hope.