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Wanda studies his body as he gets ready for bed, fascinated at the way they can spend an entire day battling homicidal robots and yet, there he stands, calm and collected with no signs of their earlier struggles. He looks almost identical to the first time she saw him (minus the smoke and general confusion), the intricate lines of vibranium hugging his broad shoulders, catching the light so perfectly he could easily be the subject of a Renaissance painting, the pattern and flow of the metal lines coaxing her eyes down along his chest and abdomen, branching over his hips and then disappearing under his sweatpants. The little tease. “Vizh?”
He turns his face towards her, irises rotating clockwise and a slight, affection smile curving the edges of his lips upwards, “Wanda.”
“Do you,” it's a thought that’s been present for a long time, always a quiet, pestering inquiry in the back of her mind, but she’s never been certain if she wishes to know the answer, afraid of what the information would mean for them. Yet she can’t seem to let it go. With a sigh she finishes it, “age?”
The steady turn of his irises slows until they stop, his smirk descending into a thoughtful line as his fingertips come together to tap in time with the whirling of his thoughts. “It is complicated.” Which is Vision for I don’t want to answer this question .
“Try me.”
The swiftness of his bashful smile and dip of his head has not changed, always appearing whenever she catches him in an act of avoidance or when she makes a brazen acknowledgment of his appeal. Then the smile is erased, replaced with a slight furrow of his brow and a squaring of his shoulders that means he is about to enter his professorial mode.“Mentally, yes, I mature in similar ways to everyone else.” His fingers part, right hand waving through the air as he keeps talking. “My memories increase, emotions change, I even believe I am becoming more introverted, which scientifically is correlated with the natural process of aging.”
Wanda realizes that she knew this part of it without having ever really considered the changes. If she thinks back to the way his mind felt the first time she touched it in the cradle it was so new, so innocent, but throughout their many years together, minds almost always in tandem, his thoughts have transformed, grown more complicated, more perceptive, yet still calm and tightly organized. “And physically?”
His fingertips find each other again, nervously tapping in time with the syllables of his answer. “Physically,” his voice drops off, eyes uncertain as he stares to the side and then slowly shifts his attention back to her, “no. Dr. Cho believes my body could continue to function indefinitely in this form.”
“That’s what I suspected.” The coolness of her response is not intentional but she stands by it, attempting to control the niggling guilt in her stomach from growing into an apology, even with his wide-eyed, apologetic gaze.
Sighing is an action that took him time to utilize appropriately, the careful way he analyzed the various types, always asking her the intention behind her sighs for better understanding and categorization, was both irritating and endearing to experience. But it means the precise and defeated exhale from his lungs carries just enough force and vibration to convey how much he has been dreading this conversation. The mattress dips as he sits next to her, the firmness of his bicep along her upper back a stinging reminder of his eternal youth more than a comfort. “Wanda,” her name is whispered as if in prayer, a plea to understand, “why now?”
Wanda leans her head back against his shoulder, eyes locked on the swirling pattern in the finishing of the ceiling as she contemplates the impetus for raising the inquiry. “I found three gray hairs this morning."
“I see.” The tone is not as empathetic as she needs, annoyed at the subtle amusement in his elongation of the I. “It is a simple biological process. The catalase enzyme within your hair follicles functions in such a way to break down the buildup of hydrogen peroxide, maintaining the typical color of the hair. Graying simply means that those follicles have a deficit in catalase. It is not catastrophic.”
Typically the no-nonsense scientific lens with which he analyzes the world is comforting. Typically. “It means I'm getting old and you're not.” Wanda disentangles from his embrace, crossing her arms as she stares at him. “What happens when I'm a shriveled old lady and you're still, well,” she brings her arms out, waving them to emphasize the perfection of his synthetic body, “every sculptors’ wet dream.”
The nonchalance of his shrug is infuriating. “I do not see why anything would change.”
“Really?” Despite her withering stare he persists in acting like this is not an earth-shattering revelation. “What about when I start to always look like I've been in the bath for too long?”
“Wrinkles are of no concern to me. You are already developing lines near your eyes and mouth and it is not alarming in any way.”
Her hands fly to her face, poking at the corners of her eyes and trying to smooth out the creases she can feel near her mouth. Another glance at his unmarred face serves to remind her of their disconnect, her mind instantly coming up with every single instance she can think of when an aging wife is dropped for a twenty-something model. “One day Vizh, you're going to realize I'm too old for you. That it's time to trade me in for younger mod- ”
“Wanda,” his voice is stern, cutting off the increasingly dismal vision of their future, hands coming to grip her shoulders, eyes steady and serious. “that is preposterous.”
“Is it?”
Vision continues to stare at her, eyes switching between swirling to the left and then the right, a scowl of concentration weighing down his mouth. Three times in a row he parts his lips but then clamps them shut. Eventually he begins to speak, the millisecond too long pauses between the words an indication of how carefully he is choosing them. “I have always envied you.” Vision pauses, eyes boring into her in anticipation of a response but she remains silent, staring curiously at him. “By the very nature of my synthetic compound and the influence of the Mindstone I do not scar, will never wrinkle, will never develop the pangs of aging.” Wanda immediately wants to push back, point out how incredibly awesome that sounds, but holds her tongue at the growing sense of remorse coming from his mind at his inability to experience this aspect of humanity. “My body, unlike yours, lacks the ability to narrate the story of my life.”
“Vizh, that’s,” she’s not sure how to finish the sentence. Ridiculous? Not a big deal? Not true? None of the options seem appropriate to the hint of despair in his voice, the downturn of his eyes as he picks restlessly at lint clinging to the bed sheet. So she settles for just a simple, reassuring, “Vizh” and a hand to his shoulder. Which seems to be the ideal response, his mouth quirking up just enough to form a gentle, slightly nervous smile.
"For instance," suddenly he is gone, phasing through the mattress and then the floor, re-appearing at the end of the bed, taking a seat once more as he gingerly wraps his fingers around her bare ankle. A bloom of curiosity expands quickly through her mind, rushing down to kickstart her heart into a flutter as he traces his thumb along the faded scar hugging the curve of her ankle. “Recall when you tore the tendon here.”
“Yeah, that sucked,” and it did, she was half-awake on April Fools day, walking down the stairs near the living quarters when she ran into a wall of saran wrap, freaked out, and missed the last two steps. The sound of her tendon snapping echoes clearly in her mind as if it just happened. “Sam still owes me for that, I was out for eight weeks because of the surgery.”
An amused nod joins his response, “You were quite irate, understandably so.” Then her heart seems to stop functioning when he bends down, placing a soft, reverential kiss to the surgical scar, eyes not missing the tiny smirk on his lips when he pulls away. His fingers skim up along her calf, stopping at a pucker of pink marring her skin. “This occurred on our first joint mission,” his voice drops down and she can feel the memory stirring in his brain, latches onto it with a flick of her wrist and a strand of scarlet, “a stray bullet and your scream, the first quantifiable proof I could experience fear.” Another brush of his lips sends tremors up her spine, only intensifying as his fingers trail up to her knee, other hand guiding her right leg closer, the pads of his thumbs rubbing circles on the twin scars. “These I am unsure of the origin but you have worn them for as long as I have known you.”
Wanda closes her eyes in an attempt to quell the tears forming as she finds herself back in Sokovia when she was ten years old. “There were shards of glass under the bed, after the mortar. We didn't risk moving, even with the pain.”
Finally she opens her eyes to take in the sorrow on his face, the somber turn of his irises as his thumbs continue to trace the matching scars. “For Magnus,” a slow, solemn kiss to her left knee, “and Magda,” then one to her right. Vision moves on from her knees, hands rising up her thighs until he reaches the edge of her shorts. “May I?”
A disbelieving laugh mixes with her tears, hand pulling them from her cheeks as she nods her head. “Always the gentleman,” because he always asks, always seeks her consent and approval even when she’s fairly certain being married for this long is a pretty good sign she’s okay with it. The cotton of her shorts turn incorporeal, phasing away as the trailing caress of his fingers dances around the three inch scar on her left thigh. “Let’s not talk about that one.”
“Agreed,” and he seals away the pain with another, slightly longer press of his lips to her skin, the cool touch of air once he moves on leading to the development of goosebumps all over her body. Gently he nudges her torso with his hands, an unspoken request for her to lay down, which she complies with instantly. “This one,” Vision pushes her tank top up, bunching the fabric around her waist before hooking his finger into the top of her underwear and teasingly dipping the fabric down enough to reveal a half-inch raised line above her pelvic bone, “is one of my favorites.” The sly smile on his face when he glances up at her arrests all the air from her lungs, an almost silent, amused groan escaping with the air as she flops her head back against the pillows, savoring the languid strokes of his fingers over the scar. “French Polynesia.”
Their honeymoon was idyllic, minus the incessant calls from their teammates late at night and the unexpectedly sharp corners of the nightstand in their bungalow. “That was your fault, you know.”
A breathy, reminiscent chuckle blows against her skin before he rests his forehead against her hip, his embarrassment still as fresh today as it was back then. “In my defense,” the words lack conviction from the get-go, an explanation they both know is faulty but he continues, the movement of his lips into a smile grazing against her skin, “it was the first instance where you requested I attempt phasing while engaging in intercourse.” His hands grip her thighs while he presses a loving kiss against the scar sending a tremor of pleasure twisting through her body, so forceful it causes her toes and fingers to curl in delight. “I admit to a slight miscalculation.”
“You think?”
Vision breaks from his position, lifting himself just enough to crawl up along her body until their faces are even, allowing her to count the rotations of the gears in his eyes. “To be fair, I did have to explain to the rental agent the surprising amount of blood from your injury.”
The image of him from that day is crystal clear in her mind, words fumbling unconvincingly from his mouth as he told the black haired agent (whose face was wholly unamused) the lie Wanda had concocted about slipping on the freshly finished wood floor. Wanda can’t stop the elation engulfing her chest from developing into a dopey grin, “You were so nervous.” She reaches her arms out to pull him into an embrace, hungry to feel his cool lips against her own mouth, but her arms go straight through him with a “Hey!”
A surprisingly coquettish wink occurs in his left eye accompanying an equally flirtatious grin. “I am not done yet.” With that he phases away, the weight of his body re-emerging along her legs as he resumes his prior position at her hip. “My other favorites,” is blown away by the gust of air to her body as he phases her tank top off, a tantalizing chill that makes her long for the heat of his body against hers. Affectionately he runs his hands along the fading stretch marks branching on either side of her navel. “The miracle of life.”
Wanda scrunches her eyes closed, smirking at the tickle of his fingers up and down her stomach. “You’re so melodramatic.”
The only response to her claim is a burst of joy in his mind and two lingering, passionate kisses to her stomach before shifting his weight to study the horizontal scar on her side. “Samhain the Druid”
“What an ass.” She shrugs at the incredulous raise of his brow, “What? We had just finished decorating the house and he ruined it.”
“And turned innocent children into his henchmen.”
Wanda rolls her eyes, shoving his face playfully away from her body, “Yes that was far worse, but still, I could never get the ashes out of that rug.”
An amused shake of his head and a quick peck to the scar ends the memory of that day as Vision turns his head up, meeting her gaze before transferring his weight to the side, face coming to rest against her chest. The pang of grief in his mind permeates deep within hers, tears forming anew in her eyes at the hidden scar he is examining. Tenderly he grips her sides, lowering his face to lay a worshipful, sobering kiss in the valley of her breasts, right over her heart. “Sokovia.” They lay in silence, allowing a moment of remembrance for Pietro. When he moves once more she can see the residue of tears on his own face and she lifts her hands to cup his cheeks. Wanda does not miss the fact that there is no joy in his eyes when he grips her wrist, turning his face to bring her palm firmly to his mouth. “Thanos."
"One of many.”
"Unfortunately." Any warmth left in the atmosphere is sucked from the room, his lips hovering just above her skin as he proceeds to her wrist, a whispered “Edinburgh,” ending with another deliberately gentle kiss. Vision proceeds to her shoulder, a minuscule smile breaking the solemn line of his mouth as he touches the nearly invisible cluster of pink dots mixing in with her freckles.
Wanda inhales deeply, struggling to control the waver in her voice, pushing past the unhappy memories to focus on better times. “That was also you.”
“I am aware,” finally a full smile parts his lips again, and she finds herself responding with one of her own. “It was my first and last attempt at deep frying food."
Wanda knows the next scar in his path, can feel the memories of electricity coursing through her body with each shock of the collar, but she has no desire to relive it right now, desperately wants to keep hold of the lightened mood of the latest twist in her story. So she says a plaintive, “Vizh,” fingers curling around the sides of his head, drawing his gaze away from her neck and up to her. “Come here.” And it works, the comfort of his weight spreading out as he lays over her, the intoxicating contrast of the cold patches of vibranium warring with the warmth of his skin against her own igniting a deep, insatiable desire within her soul.
Tenderly he runs a hand along her cheek, the movement latching an invisible string to her eyelids and drawing them closed as he leans down to whisper in her ear, “That was only a fraction of your life.”
Her body shivers at the wisp of hot air against her ear, knees reactively bending to cage him in, trapping him (quite willingly) against her. “I don't want you to read the whole thing in one sitting.” Wanda opens her eyes enough to peer at him, studying the adorable tilt to the right side of his mouth and the slow, steady turn of his irises as he waits for her next move. “You know," she sighs again, hands working in a lazy semi-circular pattern on his chest, "just because you’re adorable doesn't erase the fact I’m getting older.”
Instead of the annoyance she expected at reopening the issue there is a softening of the muscles in his face, his body relaxing against hers as he sweeps the stray hairs from her forehead. “It appears you have overlooked the underlying narrative of our relationship.”
“Oh?”
A brilliant and overwhelming flood of affection is passed from his mind to hers, his lips parting into a toothy grin as he leans his forehead against her own, the edges of the Mindstone pressing into her skin. “Love, you once told me, is for souls, not bodies, and my soul is eternally yours."