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“ Where there are bees there are flowers, and where there are flowers there is new life and hop e.”
Christie Lefteri
It was a miracle that the Maximoff twins survived.
Pulled from the ruins of Novi Grad, they were dragged kicking and screaming from the wreckage of their family home and bundled on a plane bound for England. The system was deeply flawed, but being passed from placement to placement was a far better alternative than the streets of Sokovia.
Not many people wanted twins, especially not twins who were ten years old and deeply traumatised by all that they had endured. On paper, Pietro was the difficult child; always in trouble at school and hanging around with the wrong crowd. By contrast, Wanda was quiet and studious, constantly striving to improve her English by burying her nose in books and gluing herself to the television instead of drinking cheap cider in a field with her brother and his merry band of miscreants.
But then night came and Wanda would often wake screaming, palms bleeding where she’d dug her nails in too hard and the sheets beneath her soaked with sweat.
It was always Pietro who came to her on those nights, who crawled into bed next to her and hugged her tight until she came back to the present, even when he came home late smelling like cigarettes and weed.
“Tell me a story, sestrá ,” he would say. “Tell me a story like you used to.”
It’s how they would get through those nights in Sokovia when the bombs rained fire over the city, when their apartment block shook with the force of each explosion and the streets echoed with the sound of gunfire. Wanda had the most vivid imagination of anyone Pietro knew, and she could craft and weave stories seemingly out of thin air. She had notebooks filled with them, but they were all buried under the rubble along with their parents and all her hopes and dreams for the future.
Wanda did well at school; she worked hard, went to college and got her A-Levels before choosing to study English and Creative Writing at university. She attended lectures and seminars with an open mind and a desire to learn as much as she could in order to hone her craft. The girls on her course were nice and her flatmates tolerable, but it was the weekends that Pietro would come to visit that she lived for. It had taken a near-fatal accidental overdose and the threat of prison, but he’d finally got his act together and managed to secure himself an apprenticeship as a barber; he was doing well, he was happy, and they would spend their days talking about the kind of future they would have together after Wanda graduated and his plans to open his own business.
But then everything changed one fateful night in the summer between her second and final year.
They’d been out for the day celebrating Wanda’s exam results, and were driving home down the motorway when the weather suddenly turned. Even now, she can vaguely recall Pietro complaining that he could barely see a thing in the dark whilst she sat there, staring out of the window and humming along to a David Bowie song on the radio.
The next thing she remembers is waking up in the side ward of a hospital, choking on the tube they’d put down her throat to help her breathe. Alarms blared, machines beeped, and there was a flurry of activity as the medics rushed in to poke and prod her until she fell asleep again. Eventually, she regained consciousness long enough for a kindly consultant to tell her what happened: her leg had been badly broken in the crash and they’d had to pin the pieces back together; she’d bled internally and so they’d fixed that too, but they were hopeful that she would make a full recovery in time.
Pietro had not been so fortunate.
The driver’s side of the car had taken most of the impact, and the head injury he’d sustained as a result was so severe that it was unlikely he would ever wake up.
As his next-of-kin, they needed her permission to let him die.
She hadn’t wanted to give it at first, so afraid was she of being truly alone for the first time in her life. But, as Wanda sat and listened to the neurologist, she knew that she was being selfish and so she gave her consent for them to withdraw life support.
They let her sit with him at the end, so that she could hold his hand and tell him one of her stories until he slipped away peacefully.
-xxx-
Wanda was in hospital for so long that she missed the start of the new term. Instead, she put her studies on hold and focused solely on her recovery with an old foster family coming forward to support her. In the time since she’d left them, the Bartons had moved out of London and purchased an old farmhouse in the countryside which was the perfect place for rest and recuperation. Clint had worked in security at the US Embassy (or at least that’s what he was officially allowed to say about his job) where he’d met Laura, a Communications Officer, and the rest, as they say, was history. They already had two children of their own, but Laura’s parents had fostered and so they set their sights on taking in older children in need of stability; they’d only been due to foster Pietro at first but, upon learning he had a twin, they fought for the pair to remain together. Life with the Bartons had been great, but the law demanded that the twins leave their foster home as soon as they turned eighteen and so they’d gone their separate ways.
When Wanda limped across the stage at her graduation ceremony a year later than planned, she hadn’t expected to hear a cry of “ Way to go, honey! ” from somewhere in the crowd. Sure enough, there were her foster parents: Clint clapping with gusto; Laura with baby Nathaniel attached to her hip; and Lila and Cooper waving enthusiastically at her with beaming, gap-toothed smiles.
She felt so loved in that moment that it broke her heart to tell the family that she was planning on staying in London.
For the first time in her life, Wanda thought that she had it all figured out; she was going to get a job at a publishing company, keep writing in her spare time and eventually get her first book published.
The key emphasis here is thought .
-xxx-
Five Years Later
Wanda can’t believe what she’s hearing.
She sits across from the solicitor, chewing on her thumb and chipping away the black nail varnish even further.
“I’m sorry,” she says eventually. “There must have been some sort of mistake.”
“I assure you, Miss Maximoff, the terms of Ms Harkness’ will were quite explicit,” he says. “The house and all its contents now belong to you.”
“Yeah but… why me?”
It’s a valid question; Pietro had died intestate so, as his sister and only surviving relative, Wanda had inherited all of his meagre possessions…
But this?
This is entirely unexpected.
Five years ago, Wanda’s grand plans for her new life had fallen at the first hurdle. She applied for every single job at every single publishing house and made it through to interview several times, only to be told that they were looking for someone with more experience (which, for graduate level positions seemed utterly ridiculous). She’d temporarily taken a job in the Piccadilly branch of a large chain of bookshops, intending to stay a year at most whilst she figured out her next move; but one year turned into two, two became three and, in the blink of an eye, almost five years had gone by. The problem, however, is that living in London is expensive, even more so when one does not have a stable job, and so she’d been working shifts in her local library to top up her minimum-wage pay packet and scrape together enough to pay the extortionate rent on the box-room in a five-bed house share in Clapham. It was there that she’d come across an advert for a ‘ Lady’s companion ’, which she’d instinctively thought sounded incredibly seedy but soon learnt that it was just that; an elderly lady sought assistance and companionship three days a week and was willing to pay handsomely for it in return.
“ Like Jo and Aunt March ,” Wanda had thought to herself. “ That doesn’t sound so bad .”
And so Wanda found herself standing on the doorstep of a fancy Kensington townhouse, the kind she’d only ever seen the inside of on Downton Abbey, as she prepared to meet one Agatha Harkness.
Now, four years later, she apparently owns said fancy Kensington townhouse.
“Ms Harkness had no known family,” the solicitor tells her. “She was married and divorced three times, no children to any of her husbands and so you, Miss Maximoff, are her sole heir. Congratulations.”
She’d have to sell it, of course, there was no way she could possibly afford to actually live in it (not permanently, at least) and the profits would be more than enough to put down the deposit on a nice little flat and self-publish her book.
But the less said about the book at the moment, the better.
-xxx-
Putting it bluntly, Agatha Harkness was a hoarder.
Wanda had only really ever seen a handful of rooms within Agatha’s house and they had always looked pristine. The deeper she delves into the house, the worse it gets with decades of what can only be described as stuff crammed into every nook and cranny of every room. It takes weeks for her to clear it all; most of it she throws away, other bits and pieces she decides to keep in the attic with the intention of passing it on to Laura who will probably upcycle and sell it online, and the rest of it she donates to charity shops. It is the photographs and the trinkets she struggles to decide what to do with, for it seems so wrong to destroy something so personal. Instead, she puts them all in a box and keeps them safe for the time being.
-xxx-
“A house?” Clint says in disbelief as Wanda fills him in. “The crazy cat lady gave you a house ?”
“She wasn’t a crazy cat lady,” Wanda replies, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder as she makes herself a cup of tea. “She had one cat who still hates me. I think I’m going to have to rehome him soon… if I can find him, that is.”
“You lost the cat?!”
“No, not lost, just… misplaced. He wandered off. Comes back for food when he wants it. It’s fine… everything’s fine.”
Clint makes that small hum he does when he’s not entirely convinced by something. “Well you know where we are if it ever isn’t,” he says; she may be quite grown up now, but that doesn’t stop him worrying.
Wanda smiles to herself as she stares out of the window and into the garden. “I know, and I love you for it.”
“We love you too, kid. Always.”
-xxx-
The cat has been missing for three days now.
She’s put food out for him but he stays away, almost like he knows his owner is gone and he wants nothing to do with this stranger in her place. Wanda has never particularly warmed to the animal; he’s always given her a pretty wide berth and has a tendency to hiss at her whenever she’s tried to pet him.
Fuck him. She’s always been more of a dog person anyway.
Mug of tea in hand, Wanda steps outside into the garden. It’s long and narrow, overgrown and wild that makes one feel as though they aren’t in the city at all. Most of all, she loves the bees; she loves the gentle hum of them as they buzz by, nestling in the thickets of lavender and honeysuckle before flitting off to the hive she notices hangs under the gutter of her neighbour’s house.
The same neighbour who stands at the window day after day, twitching the curtains as he watches her.
He was an actor once, according to Agatha, but was caught up in a scandal in the early 2000s and his career never really recovered. He does little bits here and there, but hasn’t managed to book anything major for several years now and has become something of a recluse.
Wanda just thinks he’s odd.
-xxx-
Wanda throws every spare minute she has into cleaning and scrubbing the house which, between working two jobs, isn’t much. After weeks of hard graft, she’s finally ready to have the property valued and put on the market. She spends hours researching different estate agents, deciding on one of the more up-market ones specialising in listed buildings such as this one, and reads article after article about how to prepare a home for valuation.
When it comes to it, she isn’t entirely sure how she should act, wondering if the agent finds her irritating or odd for following him around the property. He doesn’t really ask many questions, just peers into rooms and takes dozens of photographs on his phone.
“It’s a beautiful property,” he says with a plumby, home counties accent. “I’ll have to look into it properly, but I can certainly see this fetching somewhere in the region of two-and-a-half million.”
Wanda’s jaw hits the floor. “Two-and-a-half- million ?!” she repeats back to him, just to make sure that she has heard correctly.
“Give or take. It’s a buyer’s market at the moment and things are a bit slow, otherwise I might have been tempted to push it towards three.”
“No, umm… two-and-a-half is fine. More than fine.”
They exit the house through the kitchen and into the back garden, with the agent mumbling something under his breath that makes Wanda stop in her tracks.
“You’ll have to do something about this garden,” he says. “We can’t possibly put it on the market in its current state.”
Wanda frowns. “What’s wrong with it?”
“What’s wrong with it? It’s been completely neglected,” he replies. “I’m quite a fan of the urban jungle aesthetic myself, but it’s not the sort of thing our clientele are interested in. They want manicured lawns and landscaping, perhaps even a water feature. If I’m being completely honest with you, Miss Maximoff, you’d be unlikely to find a buyer if left in its current state.”
Wanda’s heart sinks; she knows what she has to do, but all she can think about is the bees.
“I’ll sort it,” she says. “Give me one month and I’ll sort it.”
-xxx-
She gets several quotes from various different gardeners and landscapers and quickly decides that a professional isn’t financially viable. Instead, Wanda makes the most of quiet periods in the library where she picks out all the books she can about gardening and sits at the front desk, scribbling notes on scrap pieces of paper.
“Excuse me,” a male voice says just as she’s six pages deep into a chapter on perennials. “I’m looking for anything on Leonardo Da Vinci. Technical drawings, if you have them… please.”
Wanda looks up at him; tall and blonde and handsome in that early-noughties rom-com era Hugh Grant sort of way. “European History,” she replies. “Back wall on the first floor.”
“Marvellous. Thank you.”
“Are you a member?” she chokes out, not that it’s relevant, but she hasn’t seen him in here before and she’s somewhat curious.
The man shakes his head. “No,” he replies. “Not that I’m going to take the books with me anyway. I’d probably lose them and that’s not a hassle I think either of us needs.”
Wanda finds herself laughing and tries to ignore that tell-tale fluttering sensation in her stomach as he pushes his glasses up his nose. “Well, I’m here if you need anything else,” she tells him, already trying to think of an excuse to visit the first floor.
Which she does.
After an hour, of course, so she doesn’t look like a complete stalker.
She finds him working at one of the tables by the window, alone and with the books spread out all around him as he draws in a battered old sketchbook. Occasionally, he’ll type sums into a calculator (a proper one, not on his phone) and sigh wearily before rubbing something out and starting over. Wanda walks past just as he takes out a flask of tea and some sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil.
“Be careful the dragon doesn’t catch you,” she says, her voice just above a whisper. “Or you’ll be out on your ear.”
He looks up at her with a furrowed brow. “The dragon?”
“My boss. She’s a bit of a stickler for the rules: No eating, no drinking, and absolute silence at all times.”
‘Ahhh, well, then it appears I’ve broken all three.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
He contemplates this for a moment before leaning back in his chair. “Dragon, you say?”
Wanda shrugs her shoulders. “Just a stupid nickname,” she replies. “But I bet you wouldn’t believe me if I told you her real name was actually Karen. Karen by name, Karen by nature and all that...”
“ Just stop talking. Stop talking right now,” she chastises herself. “ He probably already thinks you’re weird. ”
“You wouldn’t happen to have any illustrated Tolkien, would you?”
“I know there’s definitely a copy of The Hobbit in the children’s section,” Wanda tells him. “Other than that, we’ve a small selection of fantasy fiction and they’re both up on the top floor.”
“Perfect,” he replies, getting to his feet and quickly surveying his workspace. “I’m sorry about the mess. I will tidy up before I leave, I promise, so can I count on you to keep the dragon at bay for the time being?”
“Fairly sure harbouring a criminal is a sackable offence, but I’ll take the risk.”
She practically swoons when he winks at her, bringing the flask of tea to his lips for a quick drink before he goes off on his quest.
Only then does she see it…
The band of gold on the third finger of his left hand.
Fucking typical.
-xxx-
The cat has been missing for a week now and Wanda supposes she should really do something about it.
After a particularly gruelling shift at the shop, she dumps her bag at the house and goes door to door in search of the missing cat. Nobody has seen him, but will be sure to check their gardens and under their cars and get back to her if they see or hear anything. The fruitless search almost makes her feel sad, but her head is pounding and her feet throbbing after a long day at work and so she decides to head back to the house. She’s walked further than she intended, and when the sky darkens and there’s a rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance, Wanda suddenly feels incredibly disorientated. She hasn’t been a fan of storms since that night, and so she finds herself running through the unfamiliar streets until she finds hers.
“Shit!” she curses, frantically scrambling around in her pockets for her keys. “Shit, shit, shit !”
The rain falls in thick, heavy blobs and it’s enough to push Wanda over the edge; she slumps down on the doorstep, buries her head in her hands and cries. Wanda hasn’t cried like this for years, and never outside in the rain.
“You can’t sit out here all night,” a voice calls out to her. “Come on in.”
She looks up and sees a man standing in the doorway of her neighbour’s house, the light in the hallway illuminating him from behind. She can’t see his face, but that voice seems familiar somehow and so finds herself wanting to trust him. Her soaking wet trainers squelch with every step and she’s absolutely soaked to the skin, so much so that the short jog to the door feels like a herculean effort.
“Wait there,” the man says as she steps into the hall and he closes the front door behind her. “I’ll fetch you a towel.”
“Thank you,” Wanda replies, wrapping her arms around herself as she starts to shiver.
“Is that our friendly neighbourhood horticultural terrorist?” a second male voice calls from somewhere down the hall; deep and distinctly American.
Tentatively, she follows the voice into what would have once been the old drawing room. Stepping inside, she looks around and notices that the walls are lined with posters from various different films and stage productions. It’s an eclectic collection, but there is one name that weaves through them like a common thread.
Tony Stark.
The Tony Stark.
When Agatha said that the next-door neighbour was a former actor, she had half-expected a washed-up soap star who had maybe tried their hand at panto and tried to cling to relevancy for as long as possible; but Tony Stark was a classically trained Shakespearean actor, and had even won an Oscar for his groundbreaking portrayal of Macbeth (Wanda lost count of how many times she’d watched that adaptation whilst writing her dissertation on witchcraft in literature).
And there he was, her next door neighbour, sitting in an armchair with her… Agatha’s… cat on his lap.
“So you’re the man who’s been keeping the cat hostage?” she asks, though gets nothing back in return. “I’m Wanda. I live next door.”
“I know,” Tony replies. “As I said, our friendly neighborhood horticultural terrorist.”
Wanda furrows her brow. “I don’t…”
“You really need to do something about the garden. You’re lowering the tone of the area.”
“Given that I inherited the place a few weeks ago, I hardly think I can be blamed for years worth of overgrowth.”
“Neglect.”
She could bite, but she doesn’t. “Regardless,” Wanda says calmly. “I’m going to sort it. Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m giving myself a month to tidy it up before the house goes on the market.”
“A month? That’s ambitious. Who are your people?”
“No people… just me.”
Stark scoffs. “Good luck with that, kid.”
Wow. Never meet your heroes.
She’s about to come back with some kind of witty retort, but is interrupted as the first man returns with a towel slung over his arm and a hot cup of tea in his hand.
But he isn’t just a man.
He’s the tall and blonde and handsome in that early-noughties rom-com era Hugh Grant sort of way man from the library.
“You?” she asks in surprise.
“Ah, hello.”
“You two know each other?” Stark asks, petting the cat who purrs happily beneath his fingers and Wanda can’t help but think that he looks like a Bond villain.
“We’ve met.”
“Once. In the library,” he says. “Though, I’m so sorry, I don’t think I got your name.”
“Wanda. I live next door.”
“Well, Wanda-who-lives-next-door,” he says as he extends his hand to her with a bright smile. “Victor Shade, pleased to meet you… again… properly, that is.”
Stark rolls his eyes. “This socially awkward tall drink of water is my brother,” he says. “Call him Vision; everybody else does.”
“ Half brother,” Vision corrects. “An incredibly long and somewhat boring story.”
“Basically, our father was a bit of a philanderer,” Tony continues. “Knew he had another son, but the sly old bastard didn’t tell anyone about it until after he died and we all got a lovely little surprise during the reading of the will.”
Wanda laughs somewhat uncomfortably. “Yeah, I know all about that,” she says. “Not that our experiences are in any way comparable but… what I mean is, I understand the whole surprise thing.”
“Christ, you two are perfect for each other,” Tony mumbles under his breath, earning him a very stern look from Vision in return.
“Thanks for the tea,” Wanda says. “There’s a spare key under the plant pot by the front door. I’ll just use that until mine shows up… and I’d like my cat back now, please.”
Tony holds the creature aloft like some crude reenactment of the opening scene of The Lion King, only for it to hiss and lash out as Wanda makes a grab for it.
“Come on then, Señor Scratchy,” she says. “Let’s get you home.”
“Mephisto,” Tony says. “His name is Mephisto.”
Because of course Agatha Harkness would name her cat after a demon.
If the cap fits and all.
“See you around,” she says as she leaves, though clearly aimed at Vision which does not go unnoticed by Tony.
“Don’t,” Vision chides before his brother can say anything. “Don’t even go there.”
“Wasn’t gonna… but now that you mention it…”
-xxx-
On the rare weekends she isn’t working, Wanda loves to stay in bed. Even if she’s awake, just as she is on this particular morning, she’ll make herself a cup of tea and retreat back into the sanctuary of her duvet to read her book and salivate over whatever James Martin is cooking with an obscene amount of butter on ITV.
The knock at the front door catches her off guard; she isn’t expecting any parcels and the cat is back where he belongs, so she’s completely surprised to find Vision standing there accompanied by two small boys no older than five or six years old and wearing wellington boots, one pair red and the other green.
“We thought you could use some help sorting out the garden,” he says. “Isn’t that right, boys?”
The boys nod in perfect unison which Wanda thinks is supposed to be cute but yet somehow reminds her of the twins from The Shining.
“But first, breakfast.”
Wanda furrows her brow. “Breakfast?”
Vision nods and holds a canvas bag aloft. “You haven’t eaten already, have you?”
“No,” she replies. “It’s just… you’re here to make breakfast and then help me with my garden. What do you get out of this?”
He looks over his shoulder at the boys. “My sons,” he says. “Thomas and William. They’re five and their mother… isn’t around.”
“So you thought you’d use me as your free babysitting service, is that it?”
“What? No?” he exclaims, concerned that he’s genuinely offended her. “You know what? You’re right… you’re absolutely right. It was terribly rude of me to show up unannounced and with two children in tow. I’m sorry. We’ll leave.”
Instinctively, Wanda grabs Vision’s arm as he turns to leave, stopping him dead in his tracks. “No, don’t go,” she pleads. “That was my poor attempt at sarcasm. It’s so thoughtful of you, really… Besides, I have three brothers and it’s a well known fact that boys love nothing more than muddy puddles!”
Vision’s smile is so radiant, Wanda finds it almost impossible to meet his eyes for fear of blushing.
“ Stop it ,” she chides herself. “ He’s a married man. A married man with children .”
“Quite,” he says, ruffling the hair of the boy in the red wellies. “So… shall we get to work?”
Wanda nods in agreement. “Yes, though there is one thing you’re going to need to do first.”
“Oh?”
“Tell me which one’s which.”
-xxx-
And so begins a glorious summer.
Vision and the boys become an almost permanent fixture in Wanda’s garden, either in the evenings when they’ve both finished work or all day during her weekends off. The boys are an absolute delight, and she can’t help but be reminded of herself and Pietro at that age, when Papa used to take them camping in the lake country before the fighting got really bad and movement in and out of Novi Grad was subject to strict curfew. Tommy (green wellies) is full of boundless energy, always rushing around to show his father and his new friend Wanda every bug and insect he’s managed to find; Billy (red wellies) is quiet and inquisitive, always asking questions about different plants.
And, above all, he loves the bees.
Two weeks in and the rainstorms give way to a heatwave (which, in any other country, would indeed just be called summer but the British are notoriously hyperbolic when it comes to the weather). The twins have gone down to Cornwall with their grandparents and Wanda has to admit that the place almost seems far too quiet without them; but still Vision comes and they find themselves falling into a familiar routine. Perhaps it’s the soothing sound of his voice or the way he seems to radiate happiness, but Wanda likes how calm she feels around him and how they can talk about everything and anything until the sun has long since set.
Except, it seems, themselves.
That all changes, however, one searing hot day in early August; it’s late in the afternoon and they’ve been hard at it for hours (the garden, that is). The heat makes Wanda’s leg ache, and she limps into the kitchen to retrieve two ice cold beers from the fridge.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Vision asks, his paternal instincts kicking in and telling him that something isn’t quite right.
Wanda shakes her head. “No,” she replies, sitting down on the grass beside him under the shade of the crab apple tree (a favourite spot of Billy’s when he’s trying to get some peace and quiet). “Well, not today anyway. I broke my leg seven years ago and it still hurts when it’s hot, cold, or damp. I’ve got about twelve or thirteen pins, plates and screws holding this thing together.”
Vision frowns. “I had noticed the scar,” he says. “But I didn’t want to ask.”
It’s taken an awful lot of therapy, but Wanda is no longer self-conscious in shorts or dresses worn without tights; her scars are a part of her now and testament to the battles she has fought and won. “I was in a car accident,” she replies. “My brother and I had been to Brighton for the day… We hadn't planned it; we just got in the car and drove south until we found the coast. On the way back, there was a storm and some idiot tried to overtake us at speed on the motorway but lost control of the car. I don’t remember much, except that I was so happy and David Bowie was singing on the radio… Space Oddity, it was. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in hospital almost a week later.”
“And your brother?”
She sighs sadly as she begins to peel off the label from the bottle. “He didn’t make it.”
“Oh Wanda.”
“I wasn’t a stranger to grief,” she continues. “I was born in Sokovia the year the Berlin Wall came down. Everyone thought that the end of the Cold War would be fantastic for our little country but, really, it was only the eye of the storm. People started fighting over the scraps from the Soviet table, and I don’t think I can remember a time when there wasn’t violence. My parents were killed in a bombing when I was ten, so Pietro… my brother… my twin brother, actually... and I were sent here as part of a refugee programme. He was all I had left of my life… of my family… and so, when he died, it was like a part of me did too.”
Vision’s heart breaks for her. “I… I might understand a little of how that feels,” he replies, staring at his left hand and toying with that ever present band of gold on his finger. “Do you remember how I told you that the boys’ mother wasn’t around? Well… that’s not strictly true. I mean… she isn’t but… well… she died, you see.”
Well that’s a plot twist Wanda certainly didn’t see coming.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “Even though I know it drove me crazy to hear that from everyone after Pietro died.”
“We met at university and she was the first person I ever truly loved, the second and third being the boys. We tried for years for a baby, went through IVF and were on our final cycle when it was successful. I was so happy, we both were, but, at the same time we sensed that something was wrong. I’ll spare you all the gory details but they diagnosed her with cancer a few months into the pregnancy.”
Wanda doesn’t know exactly when her hand found his thigh, but she gives it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.
“I was convinced it would be fine,” he adds as he resumes his tragic tale. “They caught it early and the treatments worked, even though she decided to wait until after the twins were born. But, when the boys were six months old, it came back worse and… well, I’ve already told you how the story ends.”
“So you’ve raised the boys all by yourself ever since?”
“Pretty much, yes,” he confirms, sounding more serious and sombre than she’s ever heard before. “My family life has always been complicated even at the best of times but, despite the fact that he’s battling his own demons, just having Tony around has been a godsend. He’s usually great with the boys but, between you and me, I’m worried he isn’t doing so well at the moment.”
“Tony Stark good with kids? That man has a heart of stone.”
Vision chuckles. “More like iron,” he replies. “You just have to heat it up enough to make it malleable.”
“That’s very poetic.”
“I try,” he replies with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I’m not sure I believe in fate and destiny,” Wanda replies, picking at a blade of grass. “But I can’t help but wonder if you and I were meant to find each other. We’ve both been through some traumatic shit and yet here we are, doing up a garden together.”
“Perhaps,” Vision replies, and Wanda is suddenly acutely aware of how close he is to her. “Though even if it was pure coincidence, I’m glad I met you.”
Her hand instinctively moves to his face, her thumb brushing the sharp contour of his cheekbone. “Me too.”
“Wanda, I…”
“I know.”
They lean into each other, their noses touching and lips a hairsbreadth apart...
“Abelia.”
They pull apart suddenly at the sound of Tony’s voice.
“Pardon?” Wanda asks, looking up to see her neighbour’s head poking up over the fence.
“You should plant abelias if you want to attract the bees in the fall.”
“Um… thanks, I guess.”
“Yes, thank you for that perfectly timed piece of advice,” Vision adds, his voice absolutely dripping with sarcasm. “How ever would we have coped without it?”
Wanda gets to her feet and brushes the loose blades of grass from her shorts. “I think we’re done for today,” she says, trying to change the subject. “Why don’t we have a shower… not together, obviously; there’s more than one bathroom. And then we can get a takeaway or something and eat out… outside. Out… here.”
She’s so flustered that it’s almost adorable.
Vision nods in agreement. “That sounds like a plan.”
“Okay, good,” she replies with a smile.”I’ll go and get you some towels.”
Vision watches as she retreats back inside the house, waiting until she’s out of sight before letting out a weary sigh.
“Was that offer of takeout open to both of us, or just you?” Tony asks.
“You really know how to pick your moments, don’t you?”
“I sense I might have been interrupting something.”
“Possibly,” Vision replies. “She knows.”
“She knows ? How did she take it?”
“Better than expected. We’re both trying to climb out of the cesspit of grief, as it happens.”
Tony raises his eyebrows in surprise; he may have a reputation for being an absolute arsehole at times, but even he knows not to pry as it isn’t Vision’s story to tell. “Look buddy,” he says softly. “We both know that I can barely keep my own shit together so I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but I think you’re onto a really good thing here.”
“She’s incredible, but I feel so guilty.”
“Moving on doesn’t mean you love her any less,” Tony replies sincerely. “Besides, spending the rest of your life alone isn’t what she wanted for you.”
Vision knows that to be true; the letter kept hidden in his desk drawer along with two more to be given to the boys on their eighteenth birthday states that very clearly in her delicate handwriting.
But that doesn’t make it any easier.
And Wanda deserves someone who can give their heart to her completely and unconditionally.
-xxx-
When he returns to the library two days later, the almost kiss is seemingly forgotten.
“So what will it be today?” Wanda asks from her seat behind the front desk.
“Bernini, I think,” Vision replies, that battered old sketchbook tucked under his arm again.
“Presuming that you’re after sculpture, it’s the fourth aisle on your right. Top left shelf.”
“Thank you,” he says. “I love Bernini. Have you ever seen the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa?”
Wanda nods. “In pictures, yes.”
“You should really see it up close,” Vision tells her. “It’s incredible. Bernini really had this incredible talent for taking a piece of marble and making it float as if it were trying to defy every single law of physics.”
Wanda smiles softly; she loves the way he talks like this, so passionate and knowledgeable. “You know, you’ve never actually told me what it is you do here… what you’re doing with that.”
He looks down at the book she’s pointing to. “I can stay until your shift ends and then perhaps I could show you?” he asks. “What’s in here doesn’t really make much sense. It’s best to see the real thing.”
This certainly piques Wanda’s curiosity. “I look forward to it.”
-xxx-
If it weren’t for Vision’s presence, the afternoon would have dragged on unbearably but he keeps her spirits up and occasionally smuggles her contraband in the form of tea and biscuits when The Dragon isn’t looking. At six o’clock on the dot, she locks the doors to the library and follows her friend through the streets of London, eager to see just what it is he has hidden up his sleeve.
“Do you like your job? Vision asks curiously.
“At the library? It’s alright,” she replies. “I like it better than the shop at any rate. They were both only supposed to be temporary until I found something that I really wanted to do, but it’s been years now and I’ve sort of… given up.”
“And what is it that you really wanted to do?”
“Publishing,” Wanda tells him. “Well… sort of. I want to be published. I’m a writer… or at least I used to be. I’ve been struggling with writer’s block for a while now.”
Vision’s face practically lights up with excitement. “A writer? And what sort of things do you write.”
“Children’s stories, mostly. I know it sounds silly, but it’s how Pietro and I used to cope with the bombings. He’d ask me to tell him a story and I’d read him something I wrote.”
“That’s not silly at all,” Vision reassures her. “I read to the boys all the time; Tommy finds it soothing and Billy has such a vivid imagination.”
“They remind me so much of Piero and I,” Wanda replies with a smile. “Though I think there’s always one quite twin and a manic one.”
Vision chuckles at this. “They are my order and my chaos,” he tells her. “Though my life would be meaningless without them.”
“They’re so lucky to have you,” Wanda replies with a smile. “And so am I.”
He doesn’t quite know how to respond to that, so he takes hold of her hand instead.
-xxx-
They take the Tube to Bethnal Green and he leads her to a row of smart terraced houses a short distance from the station.
“It’s not much,” he says, rummaging around in his bag for a set of keys. “But it’s home.”
The two bedroom flat is tiny, but space is at a premium in London and Wanda suddenly feels a pang of guilt for rattling around her big empty house all by herself. It’s immaculately tidy (impressive for someone with two five-year-olds), with books and photographs lining almost every surface. She tries not to stare, but Wanda can’t help but let her eyes linger on two photographs of Vision and the woman she assumes to be his late wife.
“I don’t want her to be a stranger to the boys,” he tells her. “As much as it still pains me to see her face every day.”
“She’s so beautiful.”
“Yes, she was.”
“I’m sorry,” Wanda apologises. “I don’t mean to be so nosy.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he replies before extending his hand towards her. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
She follows him out through the back door and into a small, concrete yard, at the foot of which stands an old shed-like structure which he unlocks with another key. Wanda steps inside and audibly gasps as Vision switches on the light; there are dozens of intricate sketches taped to the walls, an array of tools neatly organised into boxes upon the shelves and everywhere there are the most stunningly beautiful models of birds and animals in all different shapes and sizes.
“ This is what you’ve been doing all this time?”
Vision nods. “The research part, yes,” he replies. “But this is what I spend most of my free time doing; not that there’s much of it, of course, but I come out here whenever I can’t sleep. They all move in different ways; some are clockwork and others battery-powered or remote control. That’s what I do, you see I… I invent things.”
“Vision, these are exquisite!” Wanda exclaims. “How did I not know this about you?”
He shrugs his shoulders and stuffs his hands into his pockets (something he’s always done when he’s feeling particularly nervous or apprehensive). “It’s just a hobby,” he tells her. “My real job is frightfully dull. Something to do with computers and data and other things I’m not really sure of. I despise it, but it allows me to work flexibly from home and it pays just about enough to cover rent and bills each month.”
“Is that what you studied at uni then? Inventing?”
Again, he laughs at this. “No,” he replies. “I’m actually a fully qualified architect, but I gave it up after well… everything. I have a Masters in Environmental Architecture, focusing on the co-dependence of life forms and earth systems and I suppose that’s why I jumped at the chance to help you with that garden of yours… I wanted to create something again. Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Close your eyes, just for a second,” he repeats, taking both her hands in his and leading her to another part of the shed when she complies. “Alright, now… open them.”
“Is that...”
“A beehive, yes,” Vision confirms. “I know how keen you are for them to thrive in the garden still and so I thought why not go one step further and have your own colony.”
A beehive. He’s built her a beehive.
Wanda looks up at him sadly. “Vizh, it’s absolutely beautiful but… you do know I’m not keeping the house?”
Vision’s heart sinks; of course he knew, but a part of him had still been hopeful that she might have changed her mind. “Well then,” he replies. “Let it be your legacy.”
Wanda smiles almost bashfully and tucks her hair back behind her ear. “So… can any of your birds fly?”
He smiles back at her, so bright and eager in a way that warms her heart. “I thought you’d never ask,” he says, darting across the small space to retrieve a magnificent bird painted in varying shades of red. “This is my favourite, though she still needs a name.”
Wanda watches in childlike awe as Vision takes the bird out into the garden and makes her fly around in circles using a remote control. She has never seen anything quite like it and she finds herself almost overwhelmed by the beauty of it all.
“Callisto,” she says, catching sight of the crescent moon. “Her name is Callisto.”
Vision lands the bird with the precision of a fighter pilot and picks her up as gently as one would a newborn baby. “And tell me a story about Callisto.”
Wanda paces the yard for several moments, mulling over multiple different scenarios in her head. “Callisto wasn’t always able to fly.”
“And why not?”
“Because… long ago, before the world was round, Callisto and the rest of her species inhabited a remote forest. They had… little wings but were flightless. They foraged around on the forest floor and kept themselves to themselves. Callisto lost her parents when she was very young; just like that, no explanation but they were gone and she was left all alone. Too young to know anything about how to survive all by herself, Callisto hid away and only came out briefly when all the other animals had gone to sleep. She was so lonely, but she would never admit to it and so she just let life pass her by… Until, one day, Callisto encountered a kindly traveller, holding a thing of great beauty and... “
“Then what?”
“That’s it… for now.”
At some point during her story, Vision had briefly disappeared to put Callisto back in the shed. He had hung on to Wanda’s every word though, absolutely enchanted by the way she had spun her tale seemingly out of thin air.
“Well then,” he says, taking both of her hands in his. “I’d like to know how it ends.”
“So would I,” Wanda replies with a smile.
Vision reaches up to brush her hair out of her face. “Five years, I’ve been alone,” he says. “So afraid to move on for fear of betraying the memory of somebody I loved so dearly. Like Callisto, I’ve just let life pass me by and then you came along and somehow managed to change everything in less than a month… You have magic in you, Wanda Maximoff, and I wish nothing more for the world to see you as I do.”
It is without a doubt the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to her, and so Wanda finally gives into her desires and kisses him. Vision hesitates at first, so much so that she’s almost certain she’s made a catastrophic error of judgement.
But then he’s kissing her back and their passion burns hotter than the heat of a dying star.
“Vizh, I…”
“I know.”
-xxx-
Unsurprisingly, things had escalated rather quickly from there.
Wanda lies naked in his bed, watching as Vision sleeps soundly beside her. He is so beautiful, she thinks to herself, so strong and handsome as though he himself had been hand carved by one of the great masters he admires so much. He had shyly admitted that he hadn’t been with anyone since his wife died (“ That’s okay ,” Wanda had replied in an attempt to reassure him. “ It’s not like I’ve been shagging my way around Zone Two either .”) but, as a lover, he was phenomenal. Never before had any man worshipped her body in the way he had; never before had anyone cared so much about her pleasure, listening to exactly what she wanted and knowing just where to kiss and caress to bring her to newer and higher levels of ecstasy.
She was in danger of falling in love with him.
Not wanting to have to deal with her crippling self-doubt, Wanda gets up and retrieves some of their scattered clothing from the floor (her knickers and his t-shirt). Creeping into the living room, she manages to find some paper and a pen before sitting down at the kitchen table to write.
She isn’t sure how long she’s sitting there, but Callisto’s story begins to take shape. Like Callisto, the Traveller is lonely and afraid, but both find their courage when faced with the Iron Hearted Man (who quickly becomes the Iron Man) who seeks to take the forest for himself.
She isn’t even aware of Vision’s presence until he drops a kiss to her shoulder. “You finished it?”
“Almost,” Wanda replies, leaning into him. “It needs a few edits but the story’s there.”
“Then come back to bed.”
Wanda is only too happy to oblige.
-xxx-
For the next few days, they are inseparable; Vision takes time off work and Wanda feigns illness just because she can. By day, they work tirelessly on the garden, so close now to finishing within the deadline Wanda had set for herself, and they spend their nights tangled up in each other.
The first night the boys are home from Cornwall, Wanda chastises herself for selfishly missing Vision’s presence. Things would be more difficult now, but he’s promised that he will speak to the twins about how he hopes to spend more time with his “new friend” Wanda and to take her out on a proper date as soon as he can find somebody to babysit. In the meantime, he will continue to help with the garden and will only even be a phonecall away if ever she needs him.
And tonight is one of those nights where she needs him very much.
“Sorry, I’m just not great with storms,” she apologises as there’s another rumble of thunder outside. “Never have been since the crash.”
“It’s quite alright,” Vision replies. “I’ll stay here for as long as you need.”
“Even if it’s all night?”
“For as long as you need.”
She practically screams as a flash of lightning lights up the room. Her chest feels tight and her heart is racing as the anxiety threatens to overwhelm her.
“Wanda,” Vision says in that soothing voice of his. “Just breathe, darling. I’m here.”
Darling .
Nobody has ever called her darling before.
And that’s when she realises that she loves him.
-xxx-
With Vision’s help, Wanda makes it through the night relatively unscathed.
Her garden is not so fortunate.
Still in her pyjamas, she stands on the patio with Vision’s arm around her as she surveys the carnage before her and tries not to cry.
“All that work for nothing,” she sniffs. “The estate agent is coming back on Monday and it looks worse than it did when we started… and Clint and Laura are coming to visit today. It’s too late to tell them not to come.”
Vision pulls her close and kisses the top of her head. “I think it looks worse than it is,” he says. “Go and get dressed. Enjoy your day; I’ll… I’ll rally the troops and we’ll get this cleaned up. Then we can see what the damage is really like.”
Wanda nods and rests her head against his shoulder. “I really don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Vision hopes she never has to find out.
-xxx-
With Clint and the kids more than happy to stay behind and lend Vision a hand (especially if it means avoiding the hustle and bustle of Central London on one of the last Saturdays of the summer holidays), Wanda and Laura find themselves drinking Aperol in the heart of Covent Garden; it’s an absolute tourist trap, but they’re both avid people watchers and so it suits them perfectly.
“There’s something different about you,” Laura says as she observes her foster-daughter from across the table. “Though I can’t quite put my finger on what.”
Wanda shrugs her shoulders. “I’m just happy, I guess.”
“Oh please,” Laura scoffs. “I know you well enough to know that it’s more than that.”
Wanda bites her lip though is unable to fight the smile that erupts on her face. “I met someone.”
“Who is he? She? They?”
“ He is Vision, the guy that was at the house this morning.”
Laura nods with approval. “Well he seems nice,” she replies. “And very easy on the eye.”
“May I remind you, Mrs Barton, that you are a married woman.”
“Hey, there’s nothing in your vows that says you can’t look,” she teases. “Though I love my husband very much.”
Wanda twirls the ice in her drink with a straw. “Did you love him straight away?”
“God, no,” Laura half laughs. “I thought he was an arrogant son of a bitch; but then I put aside everything I’d heard about him, everything I thought I knew, and soon realised that he was the most amazing man I’d ever met.”
“I feel that way about Vision,” Wanda replies. “Though it’s complicated. He’s a widower with two sons.”
“So he comes with baggage,” Laura tells her. “Don’t we all? I mean, no offence honey, but your probably paying excess on yours.”
At this, Wanda laughs out loud; she has always adored the Bartons’ brutal honesty and knows she can always count on them to give her good, honest advice.
“Then I love him,” she confesses. “I love him so much that I think I’m going to burst.”
“Then I think you need to tell him.”
Wanda agrees.
She’s going to tell him. Tonight.
-xxx-
It’s dusk by the time they get back to the house; Wanda had wanted to leave hours ago but (a now sightly tipsy) Laura had been constantly checking her phone and telling her that it wasn’t time to yet. At first, Wanda is slightly disappointed to find that Vision has already gone home…
Or so she thinks.
The house is deathly silent and plunged into total darkness but there’s music coming from somewhere near the kitchen. Tiptoeing through, she finds a trail of arrows pinned to the wall and beckoning her to follow like Alice down the rabbit hole. Sure enough, she exits through the kitchen door and out into her very own Wonderland. The garden looks magnificent, illuminated by fairy lights and citronella candles flickering in the summer breeze. As if that weren’t wonderful enough, all of those dearest to her are gathered around a brand new table on the patio and it makes her heart swell with love.
“I told you,” Vision says, offering her a glass of champagne. “It looked far worse than it was.”
“You did all of this?”
Vision nods. “With a little help from my friends.”
She smiles at him and chinks her glass against his own, just as Billy and Tommy come rushing towards her.
“We read your story, Wanda!” Tommy says excitably. “Daddy did the voices and everything.”
“Did he now?” she asks, crouching down so that she’s on their level. “And what did you think?”
“We loved it!”
“We made you this,” Billy adds, holding out a scrapbook to her. “Daddy drew the pictures and we coloured them in.”
Wanda takes the book from him and, sure enough, there are the pages she’d wrig tten at Vision’s kitchen table, glued in neatly and illustrated with hand drawn images that bring her words to life. She catches his eye and he nods once as if to confirm Billy’s words.
If she didn’t love him already, then she certainly does now.
The evening passes perfectly in the company of good friends; food is shared and wine flows, the children play together on the lawn and it’s the most content both Wanda and Vision have felt in years. Their joined hands move from under the table and they physically move closer to each other, sharing the occasional kiss as they grow more confident putting their relationship on display. Wanda will later learn that Vision had spoken to Clint and made his intentions clear, for her foster-father gives them the nod of approval and that’s really all she needs. At one point they each have a twin on their knee, the boys snuggled in and fast asleep until Vision asks if he can put them to bed in one of the spare rooms.
When he returns, Wanda is dancing with Tony and Vision politely requests that he cut in.
“I’ve decided not to sell the house,” she tells him quietly as he holds her close, the pair of them swaying in time with the music.
“Oh?”
“You see… I want you to have it; you and the boys, that is,” Wanda continues. “This is meant to be a family home, and the boys… the boys need somewhere to run around, to grow up with a garden and fresh air. Not every kid in the city gets that chance, I didn’t get that chance.”
“Wanda,” Vision sighs. “It’s too much. Besides, you said you needed that money to buy your own place, to get out and see the world.”
“I’ll be fine,” she replies. “I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”
Vision is silent for a moment, completely overwhelmed by her generosity. “I’ll accept on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“That you stay here, with me… with us.”
Wanda feels her eyes burning with unshed tears. “But what if it doesn’t work? What if we don’t work? That much upheaval wouldn’t be fair to the boys and…”
“Oh my darling,” he sighs. “What if it does work? You and I have known so much sadness that surely we must allow ourselves to hope? I know it’s only been just over a month since I first met you, but I adore you, Wanda… no, I love you.”
“I love you too,” she replies with a smile, and a single tear runs down her cheek. “So, so much.”
“Then stay.”
Her kiss is the only answer he needs.
-xxx-
Three Years Later
The New York Times → Books → Bestsellers → Childerens’
#1: The Courage of Callisto by Wanda Maximoff (Illustrations by Victor Shade)
A re-entry at the top of this week’s chart, The Courage of Callisto is a fantastical, heartfelt tale of magic, mayhem and finding your voice. Now a major motion picture starring Tony Stark as The Iron Man.
About the Author
Wanda Maximoff started writing as a child growing up in Sokovia before going on to study English and Creative Writing at Royal Holloway University.
She currently lives in London with her husband and their three children; Thomas, William, and Flora.