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Wanda looked down at the battle—if you could call it that—and counted a fourth time. She still came up short.
“Problem, darling?” Vision had joined her in the air, his cape flowing in the breeze.
The Assemble order had been for all hands-on deck. Large scale, multi-villain attack. Superhumans present. That always meant carnage. There would be buildings leveled, roads crushed, and a very high chance of loss of civilian life in the five minutes it took to assemble on scene. Everyone would have their hands full and need to rely on the most basic of their instincts on top of their training.
But ten minutes had passed, and things seemed to be wrapping up with very minimal damage. Wanda counted the villains again.
One: An aggressor with a jet-powered Bird scooter, stuck in a tree immediately after powering. Sam was working on cutting the guy down.
Two: Someone Vision had met before and negotiated quite civilly with before escorting him to a squad car. The man didn’t even require cuffs to cooperate.
Three: This guy was screaming at Clint. And not regular screaming. New York screaming, like someone-had-laid-across-the-whole-subway-bench-during-rush-hour, New York screaming. There were arrows and some other projectile broken on the ground between them. And though the guy was in cuffs already, he still managed to express his yelling with dramatic bodily flair. Clint stood patiently, likely rolling his eyes every so often. He would never admit it, but the west coast demeanor really did suit him.
Four: The speedy one. He had been fast. Not as fast as Pietro, Wanda smugly thought. But pretty fast. He originally had been holding something, only for it to be gone in a moment. Assuming it was a weapon, Ant-Man had gone off to find it while the Wasp tied the speedster to the same tree his buddy was stuck in.
Only one was left, number five: A purple Wasp lookalike. She was actually quite impressive. She knew she was surrounded, that much was obvious. The woman didn’t use any consumable weapons or attempt physically risky maneuvers. She mostly just dodged any strike the team threw at her.
“It’s not a problem,” Wanda explained to her husband. “Well, it might be. They said this is the Sinister Six over comms?”
Vision nodded, and Wanda watched his eyes bounce around the same body count path as she had just looked. “Ah.”
Wanda unmuted her comm. “Be advised, we count only 5 of 6 aggressors having been located and engaged.”
“Rhodes, find the sixth. I can handle Beetle. We’re just dancing at this point.” Natasha replied, ducking a punch and attempting to sweep the purple one’s legs to no avail.
“On it.” Rhodes confirmed, his boosters thrusting as he flew away.
The Maximoff couple stayed floating to possibly spot the sixth person from a bird’s eye view advantage.
After several moments of scanning the ground, Vision reached over to hold her hand. “Wanda,” His voice went high, and she knew the next thing out of his mouth was going to be a strange question she rarely had an answer to. “Did you know there are restaurants that serve sushi on little boats that float directly to the table?”
When she didn’t respond, mostly at a loss of words to reply by, he took it as permission to speak on.
“It’s a variation on the conveyer belt sushi delivery system, popularized in the 70s, and combines elements of the buffet or self-serve restaurant-style while still maintaining the intimacy of a waited-on table.” Vision smiled down at her, exceedingly pleased to have shared the information.
She felt like he had just told her that the moon really did follow the car at night. “What are you talking about?”
He let go of her hand to gesture. “It’s quite simple once you piece together the components. First, there is the boat, which carries the sushi.” He held out on hand to simulate the boat. “Then, there is a river that goes around the kitchen.” His boat hand orbited the kitchen hand.
“Wait,” Wanda stopped him. “How is there a river in a kitchen?”
The boat and kitchen turned back into hands. “Not a river. Picture, ah…” He closed his eyes, and she watched his eyelids move as he rapidly flicked through images. “Picture a Christmas tree train, but the train is a boat, and the track is water, and the tree is a kitchen.”
She nodded slowly, biting her lip in focus. “Okay. I have seen those on TV. Continue.”
He nodded, and his hands went back to boat and kitchen position. “So, the train, well not the train but the boat that is like the train, carries the food around the kitchen and the diners sit on the outside of the loop.”
“Right.” She closed her eyes, trying to picture it. “Do the boats have tiny engines? And who drives them?”
“No driver, no engine.”
“Magic boats?”
She didn’t need to look at him to know he was wincing with his head tilted to the side.
“The water moves by submerged fan and the boats float along in the current.”
A gust of wind threatened to push her away from her spot in the sky. She grabbed Vision’s arm and used his body to anchor hers. “Okay. Water moves boat. Boat has food. People take the boat that has their food.”
“Not quite— it’s…”
The comms buzzed to life. “Is finding a criminal cutting into your vacation time, Maximoffs?”
Vision went silent, whorls of gold flushing his cheeks.
Wanda squeezed his arm. “How about we just go to the place you’re talking about once we find this sixth person? The rest of the team can clean up, give statements.”
He squeezed her arm with his free hand, grinning. “I think that would be much more illustrative.”
One more squeeze and he flew down towards the road. Wanda pursued him, assuming he had the sixth person and she wanted to have his back. But instead of landing somewhere new with a person running around, he landed at the squad car holding the orange man and gently nudged Wanda’s mind to stay back.
“Herman,” She could faintly make out her husband’s voice. “I was wondering if you would be willing to inform us of your sixth member’s whereabouts?”
“Got him!” Scott’s voice came in much too loud over the comms. Even Natasha flinched, just long enough for the Beetle to get a good kick in. “Oh, he’s so cute. Aren’t you? Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” Scott dissolved into baby talk.
Sam must have been able to see their teammate from the treetop. “Lang, you have got to be kidding me.”
That didn’t sound good. She tracked Sam’s eyesight to the ground and followed it from the air.
“—aw, my sweet little baby. Aw yes, I know,” Scott continued. “Hey, it says 6th member on the collar, I don’t get to make the rules.”
Wanda had no words as her teammate lifted the corgi to eye level and laughed, the dog licking all over his face and into his mouth.
She flew back towards the squad car. Vision was animatedly talking with the handcuffed, now unmasked, man. Wanda decided to wait until he was done talking to whisk him away for their lunch date.
Vision’s head bobbed as the other man spoke, small mouth movements likely polite “Right.” or “Exactly.” Or other such filler phrases that reassured his conversational partners he was indeed listening.
Her mind drifted to sushi. She hadn’t thought there would be much for a vegetarian to enjoy at sushi shops. That assumption had since been proven wrong several times. Garlic edamame and green tea entered her thoughts, both a great start to a meal and her at-home snack favorite. The boat place probably had inari and tamago nigiri, both within her eating abilities though just a touch too sweet for her tastes. There were possibly cucumber and mushroom rolls, a dab of wasabi and a splash of soy sauce on each bite. Her mouth began to water as she imagined the lovely sting of spice and salt contrasting the cool crunchy bite of filling. And the vegetable tempura. Oh, the vegetable tempura! Boat or not, the thoughts of hot, crunchy, and salty squash slices were incredibly enticing.
She tried to nudge Vision’s mind, pry him away from the car so they could sneak away. It didn’t even come close to working.
A second attempt was made. The same results came forth, which was to say none at all.
There was nothing more frustrating than someone making you hungry, only to then delay the promised meal. Who was this guy he was talking to, anyway?
Touching down a few paces away from the pair, she tried to look purposeful. If any of her teammates saw her, she wanted them to think she was on a mission within the mission. It was not easy to stay business-on face when his cape flowed, leaving every curve of his muscles under his bodysuit ready to be devoured by her eyes. The raw power of his body, coupled with the shy smile and soft eyes that were so evident when he was deep in explanation about something niche or obscure, her hunger for food began to have company with an entirely different craving.
Wanda cursed herself for being a big softie and decided to keep waiting rather than interrupt. He seemed to be having a really nice conversation. And it wasn’t as if he had a ton of friends he had nice conversations with on the regular.
Yes, there were their teammates on both coasts. And a handful of scientists and medical professionals around the world. But that wasn’t the same as a friend-friend, one that you don’t work with or have been roommates with or have been examined by.
If Vision had a friendship with a member of the world’s shittiest villain squad, she knew she had to let him have it. Hunger could wait.
“Maximoff,” The Wasp yelled to her. “Can you please just put Beetle to sleep? I’m tapping out.”
Wanda stole one last glance at her husband. He looked at her with anxious eyes, not unlike their two kids when they wanted a few more minutes on the playground. “Of course, Wasp.” She spoke back through the comm. “Vis, take your time. Let me know if you need backup.”
They could go for sushi another time.