Work Text:
Grantee,
Wanda Maximoff
AND
The Vision
PROPERTY ADDRESS:
2800 Sherwood Drive
Westview, NJ 08801
Vision stares at the paper.
He is afraid that he’ll wrinkle it, balancing it delicately on his fingertips. There is barely a breath to hold but he does his very best, an uphill climb of sorts as he attempts to define what he feels.
His room is quiet, the hall vacant and he sits on his bed in the building he met the love of his life in. He stares at the page that solidifies a future with her.
Such a small thing to leave him speechless.
It isn’t the paper that knocks him off his feet, that renders him immobile, that pushed him back onto the mattress and locked him there. No, of course not. It’s no surprise - he knew it was coming, Wanda knew it was coming, they sat together in many pairs of uncomfortable office chairs as they signed for it. It bears both of their names, joint tenants, tenants in common, their time and names and lives pooled into one, unbuilt home.
They gathered the means to sign for a place to live. That’s what makes him pause, stare, memorize. The significance.
They spoke of a home.
The paper means that they have it.
Wanda knows about the home but she doesn’t know that the deed has arrived.
It was delayed. Such is to be expected, ease is out of reach for such a complex pairing. He remembers how frustrated she had been at the lack of tangible ownership. She wanted something in her hands, something she could brush her fingers down the edges of. She values touch-based realities.
“To have and to hold,” he murmurs, dragging a thumb across the tiny words.
Having and holding. Touch-based reality. He thinks about the small box hidden in this room, the paper in his hands, the pieces that will click together soon enough. It is just a matter of… assembly.
He isn’t sure when the thought occurs to him, no precise landmark to trace it back to. It seems rather irrelevant, the thought, nonconsequential. It is merely the idea that, as he stares down at this black and grey and white sheet, it looks terribly incomplete.
Empty rooms are Vision’s enemy. Once he knew how wonderful it was to sit and speak and lay with Wanda, once he filled his time with her, his mind seemed hellbent on filling silent noise when she was gone.
And, so, Vision stares at the paper.
More specifically, he stares at the space between the blocky outline of a home and the curved approximation of a street. Such a large area that a plane could land within it.
He squints. The stillness of the room nudges him on the shoulder as if to say go on, then, fill it.
But with what?
He’s written endless love letters to Wanda while she’s been away and, no matter the sincerity of his feelings and words, they’re often quite embarrassing to look back on. He turns the deed to the side as if to better investigate the canvas. Brevity is hardly his strong suit, there’s no room for a letter in these margins.
His plan had been, initially, that he would surprise Wanda with the deed in three weeks’ time. On their second anniversary. He would surprise Wanda with the deed and he’d kneel and he’d present the ring and he’d hope, oh, how he’d hope, that he hadn’t gotten things terribly out of order.
Vision stares until the little grey lines are burned into his sight.
Three weeks to fill a void.
He brings it up to his face as if the answer lies between the lines.
It doesn’t.
He rolls off the bed, sliding the page into its safe hiding spot.
A quick internet search of romantic symbols comes up almost unanimous.
Vision isn’t sure he knows how to draw a heart. Not this sort. Rounded and red, seeming deceptive in its simplicity. Vision isn’t sure that he’s really drawn anything. His own signature is one of few things he’s ever written.
Three weeks until an anniversary and the future is imminent.
He had better get started.
The first few days are somewhat embarrassing. He finds himself hunched over a desk in a dim bedroom, a small pad of paper to his left and a small laptop to his right, squinting at the screen.
He stares intently at the symbol, so small and so innocent, not at all a replica of its namesake, as he tries to map the trajectory of the curve and the angle of the point.
It should be easy. One swipe of a pen or marker or pencil. He has the equation for the graph, the functions readily accessible, he thrives within parametrics. His mind is objective, calculated, precise. His hand… is not. One is controlled by the other, they are both a part of the same whole, and yet they catastrophize all the same. They miscommunicate in a body meant to specialize in mechanical communication.
He begins with pencils.
He’s fully aware that he is drawing on a disposable paper and not the important one that he keeps protected between two thin pieces of plastic in a discreet drawer that Wanda never looks into. But permanent, inked failure is not something he is prepared to grapple with. It is a fascinating reflex that he wants so badly to explore - the way that his hand begins to shake and doubt as soon as the tip of the graphite touches the page.
Vision fills page after page with shaky, circular creatures that hardly resemble a cartoon heart. Circles with single, rounded feet. Some wide, some thin. Some sideways. Some… upside-down? Somehow?
He begrudgingly creates a graph on another page, twenty-by-twenty, a guide. Straight lines are far easier to accomplish. He turns the paper in circles, a scratching sound of the material on the table, sizing it up.
The point starts at around negative-seven. Thick, dreadful dot for him to go off of. He feels very much like a child. Wanda says that love is immature in the most wonderful way but he’s struggling to recreate the most simple symbol to represent that love. That’s hardly flattering.
He rests his cheek in the palm of his free hand. His hand shakes as he begins to chart the line. Despite the execution of his equation, it ends up lopsided.
He gives up. The papers are all crumpled in frustrated fists and tossed into the bin. Vision crawls onto his bed and calls Wanda, missing her voice, knowing that she’ll return from her trip tomorrow but so agitated by his ineptness and the quiet that he can’t stand it anymore.
“H’llo,” her voice is crackly and tired. It is likely five in the morning where she is. He is too wound up to feel guilt. “Was wondering how long it’d take you to call.”
“Hello indeed,” he sighs, an arm thrown over his face, something he’s seen Wanda do so many times. It always seemed very cathartic. It feels nice. “Am I so predictable?”
“You’re very predictable. If not today, you’d call me right before I got on the plane.”
“Mmh.”
“... Are you alright, Vis?” Blurry, sleepy concern. “You sound defeated.”
He chuckles, “Yes, I am in fact quite defeated. I was calling for comfort.”
“What’d they say this time?” The click of a lamp being turned on, the groan of a bed. “I swear, I’m gonna… I’m… I have words.”
“I’m thankful for the venom, but I’m afraid this frustration comes from myself.” Vision glances over to the desk, frowning, “I thought I’d taken on an… uncomplicated task.”
“Maybe it is uncomplicated,” she offers, “and you’re complicating it.”
“You always know what to say,” he murmurs, knowing the fondness he wears in his tone alone is indecent. “I’m a complicated machine, I find it hard to switch off. Any advice?”
“Just… stop it,” she yawns.
Vision grins, “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He misses her drowsy face, the way her hair stuck to her neck, the way she’d sputter and claw at the edges of her lips to free her mouth from invaders. “Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Vision?”
He taps his fingers on his stomach, arm falling to the side, “You could come back to me.”
“I’ll be there at an ungodly hour tomorrow night.” She seems to sense that something’s wrong but she can’t possibly understand how trivial his stressor is. “I meant, something I can do for you from where I am.”
“...” He thinks about that. “Could you tell me about your hotel room?”
“... My hotel room?”
“Yes. Please.” He closes his eyes. “As much detail as you can.”
“Hmmmm…” More rustling. He can imagine her pushing herself up to sit on her knees, one of his sweaters twisted around her torso that reaches down to her mid-thigh, often nothing underneath. She pauses as she scouts around. “Well. There’s a bed.”
“A bed,” he repeats, nodding.
“Annnnd. A window.”
“Goodness,” he laughs, “What luxury.”
“Also a mini-bar that I’ve been instructed not to touch.”
“Yes, thank you, Wanda. Very detailed.”
“It’s just a hotel room, baby, what did you expect?”
Vision rolls over onto his side, facing the other end of the bed, facing Wanda’s place that sits vacant. His hand smooths across it and he smiles to himself, “Clearly I had a motive.”
“Motive?”
“Indeed.”
“Huh.”
“Hm.”
She sighs, heavy, “I’m far too tired to pick up on your hints, Vision, just say it.”
“I’m merely trying to imagine it,” he adjusts his head on the pillow, “Try to place myself there beside you.”
“Uh-huh.” It’s a bored tone so clearly coming from a smiling face. “You know, darling, there are better ways to get what you want. More efficient ones.”
“Is that so, darling?”
He waits patiently for a reply.
His phone chirps. He brings it away to look at the screen.
Wanda had sent an… image.
He was very motivated after that.
Vision learns a shortcut the next morning when he wakes up, his first and only task of the day, wanting to at least know how to create the basic heart shape before Wanda arrives. He sits at his desk, prepared for another day of trial and tribulation, prepared to be driven to the edge of a motivational precipice. Luckily, he is spared from this.
The shortcut is thus: two circles and a triangle.
Brilliant.
A tutorial he watches, likely meant for human toddlers (he won’t dwell on the implication of that for long), describes it as the outline of a wide, double-scooped ice cream cone. Vision doesn’t eat and yet it is a very helpful comparison.
When equations fail him, approximations will do.
When he distances the symbol from the romanticism - looming probability of rejection, is two years too soon to propose, is two years too soon to purchase a property, love is a large and frightening emotion - it’s much easier to draw it. There are no stakes to an ice cream cone. Two circles and a triangle, trace around the outside, erase the inside.
Vision covers three pages in scratchy hearts. He practices until he no longer needs the geometrical training wheels. The final products are shaky and just as juvenile as would be expected from a human toddler, but it is better than nothing.
Wanda arrives.
The rest of the week yields no further practice.
Vision is not known for his brevity nor his discretion, it seems.
Wanda notices something afoot far earlier than he would hope.
He’s reading, tucked away in one of the common rooms, when a sharp chin is settled atop his head.
“What’re you reading?” comes the sugar-sweet voice, warm arms draped around his neck.
He hums, closing the book so that she can see the cover. Her fingers feel the words as though they’re embossed and he watches intently. “Not entirely sure. I picked up the first thing I could find, and… well, I keep finding memoirs from young, entrepreneurial women.”
“Mm.” She flips the front cover open and snickers at the signature on the inside. “Figures that’s who it’s addressed to.”
“I try not to think about what horrors these books have seen,” he drops his head back to see her. “Where have you been?”
“Where have you been?” she asks, her touch dancing from the hardback to the inside of his wrist, tugging the sleeve down. He glances down. He freezes. “Working in the garage, then?"
“Er…” Vision stammers as she traces the dark ink stains on the flesh of his palm all the way down past the fabric. “No, that’s… um.”
“Oooooh, secrets,” she snickers, “What have you been up to?”
What he’s been up to is terribly demeaning.
He’s graduated himself from pencils to pens, albeit likely far too soon. He tried drawing ice cream cones and then lining them with ink but his strokes weren’t confident and he’d try to erase the graphite far too early, leading to a smudged mess.
The bin under his desk is overflowing with sheets full of hearts so crooked one would think they were manifested during an earthquake. The ink bleeds and smears and gets everywhere. Perhaps he might use red ink. Black shows up very well on his hands. No matter how hard he scrubbed, it wouldn’t come off. It will simply have to fade with time.
“No secret,” he says, turning his hand to interlock their fingers, “Merely assisting with some blueprint adjustments. That’s all.”
“Blueprint adjustments,” she repeats. Vision turns to look at her, uncrossing his legs, book falling into the crevice of the chair. She lights up. “Oh! Speaking of blueprints - have you heard anything about the deed?”
He blinks slowly.
“... No,” he lies, looking into the eyes of his one and only love, “I have not.”
She frowns, shaking her head. “Damn. I can’t wait to see that stupid thing. How long does it take for them to print a piece of paper?”
Vision brings her hand to his face. It’s just down the hall. It’s very difficult not to hop up, drag her to his room, open the drawer, show it to her just to make her smile. He must resist that temptation. She will have and hold soon enough.
“Only a matter of time,” he promises, kissing her knuckles.
Wanda wrinkles her nose. There’s a fleeting yet tentative glance around for bystanders before she kisses him. It’s hard, being away from each other for weeks at a time. They tend to try and make up for lost time when they return. Their kisses are chaste until they aren’t. Hands held until they are inspired to roam.
She backs away quickly, though, eyes wide.
Common space. Right.
“Sorry,” she says, laughing quietly, “You… you were, um… reading. Something.”
“I read while I wait for you to return,” he says, standing, leaving the book in the cushion. “Point the way, dear.”
Vision sneaks out of her room later that night.
He has hearts on the mind.
The chair creaks as he sits at his desk. He picks up his pen and he slides his notepad across the table.
He stares at the page. He thinks about Wanda. He thinks about the page, about their future. Thinks about that empty space in their future, a heart-shaped space. The place he wants to fill but fears ruining.
He practices. The edges are sketchy at first, little strokes that connect, the black of the pen piled high and refusing to dry with haste. It isn’t meant to be such an ordeal according to the rest of the world but it feels monumental. Even on a to-be-thrown-away piece of paper, he doesn’t want to misrepresent his own heart, their shared one.
Humanity is so complicated. They symbolize such overwhelming emotions in a connected, barren line. They call it easy because it is drawn. Vision doesn’t understand. He is driven to the point of insanity by these scribbles he creates, never looking quite right, never looking thin or wide or tall or short enough.
And, after all, he doesn’t have to do this. The deed will resemble their future either way.
He wants to make it special. More than it is. He wants to sign it. He thinks she’d like it if he did. He thinks she’d see his work and grin and flush bright pink.
He practices more. He tries, instead of brisk scribbles, to do one constant line. Sharp edge, two mountains, sharp edge.
Go fast. No, not that fast. Go slow. Not that slow. Ice cream cones, Vision. Too much detail. Too round. Too sharp. Take a break. Flip the page. The ink bled through. Ease your pressure, calm down. She won’t see these. Don’t get frustrated. But don’t be too lax. One week left. Be calm but intentional. Nonchalant but fervent.
Vision’s head does not operate well when he is alone. So much data in here, he lives within three different personality styles at once. He contains the potential for both Type A and Type B, plus whatever amalgam of the two he has adopted as himself, denoted as Type V.
He has saved lives. He is made of something indefinite, something powerful.
And this is what he is doing tonight.
He sits and draws hearts for his girlfriend. Embarrassingly wobbly hearts. It is fascinating, where his capabilities start and end. It is devastating.
The slower he goes, the more the ink bleeds. The faster, the less accurate the lines are. He isn’t certain which is worse, which is better.
He gives up once they look at all promising. He balls up the paper and throws it into the bin, wiping his hands down the front of his trousers, and leaving his room.
Wanda makes a noise of surprise when he crawls back into her bed. She welcomes him in with limp arms, humming in her drowsy way. He lets her wrap her legs around his before settling in.
“Mmmmhi,” she murmurs, certainly half-asleep, kissing his chin. He loves her sleepy kisses, lax and purposeful. “Where’d’y’go?”
“Had to check on something,” he kisses her forehead, warmed from the pillow.
“It’s…” She rolls over, checking the clock on her bedside table, rolling back into him. “S’almost… the sun’s gonna come up soon.”
“Had to be thorough.”
She’s too tired to argue, dropping her head forward and burying her nose in the crook of his neck.
“Wanda,” he says softly.
No response. Her breaths become soft, beautiful snores within seconds.
He dreams about black ink hearts that seep through the page and fill his room. An ocean from just a little drawn heart. He thinks he traces the shapes into her hip but he can’t be sure. There’s nothing left behind when he checks.
The third week gets off to a good start.
Vision bought a red marker.
The deed is made of different paper than his practices, thicker and smoother. It seems that pen ink would roll off of it.
He likes this marker much better. More of a foundation to it. It doesn’t glide but it doesn’t stutter, it makes a delightful squeaking noise when he gets too enthusiastic.
Little heart symbols make more sense in red ink, he finds. Even the ones that aren’t perfectly shaped are, at the least, endearing. He feels much better about it. He feels much more confident. He holds Wanda, practices when she’s out of the room, holds her when she returns.
With his heart skills improving, he begins to prepare for the other piece. He has the heart, the paper, all that is left is… the question.
There is no two-circle-one-triangle method for a proposal, he realizes very quickly.
He covers a notepad page in red dots, a way of fidgeting without wringing his hands, as he scrolls through articles. How to Propose. How to Propose Marriage: Dos and Don’ts. How to Propose to a Woman. How to: Proposal Edition. Proposal 101.
This is not comforting at all. There are no answers here, nothing to trace or draw on a paper in his wonderful red marker. They say when you know, you know, which does no service. They say every couple is different, which stresses him even more. Their coupling is far more unusual than others, he knows this to be fact. Does that mean tradition is inapplicable?
Vision bites the cap of the marker, pins it between his teeth, as he types and searches further. He’s well aware that how to propose to a witch will likely yield few relevant results. Wanda isn’t Wiccan, she’s Wanda. How similar are they? Vision reads the articles anyway.
He learns about handfasting, though, which is intriguing and likely up Wanda’s street - but not the point.
The broad strokes are understood. The sentiment is there and he wants to spend his life with her. He wants to watch time pass and he wants to watch it pass with her in their house. He wants to learn what age means. He will get on a knee and he will ask her if she wants the same.
But what comes before then? And after? The quiet moments, the bookends. What is he meant to do? Why are there no tutorials for those? No approximations? What happens if the answer isn’t yes? What if it’s not a no, either, but something in between?
Vision is tapping his marker mindlessly as he reads. He screws off the cap again - creeeeak, how lovely - to continue his dots. Even a few tiny hearts. They look best when tiny. Little lopsided specks of love.
He has… he checks the date… four days before the anniversary. Four days before the rest of their lives, as a lot of the websites say. It’s a sickly sweet sort of sentiment that Vision both loathes and adores. It is most beautiful when applied to himself and Wanda, less bearable anywhere else.
Four days before the rest of their lives sounds quite nice when he pictures her.
His bedroom door opens.
Vision panics.
He slams the laptop closed, throws a hand over the notepad, spins around in his chair so fast he nearly tumbles out of it.
“Woah,” Wanda laughs, her arms raised in surrender, “Just me.”
“Just you,” he repeats, thrumming with irrational fear. He slumps in his seat as the relief settles. “Sorry for my flightiness, I was… merely, um…”
Her grin grows wider. “Being suspicious?”
“... Yes. Yes, I suppose I…” He scratches his jaw, looking over his shoulder at the paper that he’s barely eclipsing with a palm. “I’m being very suspicious, aren’t I?”
She chuckles, crossing the room, pinching the end of the notepad and pulling it out to look at it. Vision pushes himself to sway side to side, slipping down a bit as he watches her scan the Pollock-esque splatter of red ink.
“Looks like a murder scene,” she says, a false monotone, looking down at him as if unimpressed. The quirk of her lips stops him from spiralling. “Getting out your anger, are you?”
“Anger?” He sits up straighter, rolling close to look at it under the lamplight. His miscellaneous half-failure wounds are still fresh. He’s preparing for them to multiply. “Does it look angry?”
“Well, people usually find red to be a pretty aggressive color,” she says thoughtfully, scanning through the dots as though they may contain an answer. He hopes they don’t.
Vision feels that he shouldn’t have to point out the obvious. “... Is it?”
She meets his eyes. She smiles. “Clearly I don’t think so. And neither do you.”
He watches her trace what is, essentially, the byproduct of several hours of worry. When she touches them, they make a lot more sense. She does tend to do that. To have and to hold.
Once she’s confident that she’s seen every single one, she sinks into his lap, legs over the side, arms around his neck. Vision winds himself around her in turn. He isn’t sure how he survives when she’s gone. She inspires hyperbole in him.
She kicks her feet idly, looking over him, her intuition intimidating and absolutely beautiful.
“So,” she says, bumping her nose against his, “what’s the secret, then?”
He makes a face. “That’s not how secrets are meant to go.”
“Damn,” she snickers. She traces the seams on the nape of his neck. “When are you going to give it up?”
Four days.
“Soon enough,” Vision rubs her back gently. “Within the week, at least.”
“Within the week,” she repeats.
“Mm.” His attention darts across her face for a moment. “You…” he squints, hand stilling, “... You didn’t come to find me because you’re leaving again, did you?”
Wanda laughs, hugging tight to him, “God, no.”
“Oh, good,” his head drops back and she kisses his neck. “Good, that’s… that’s good.”
“If you think I’m going to miss our special day, you’re sorely mistaken,” she says. Then, she pauses. Vision looks at her. She looks back. Her eyes go wide. “Oh. Oh. You’re doing an anniversary thing.”
“What?” He shifts, “No, I’m not.”
“Oh, my God,” she reaches out for the paper again and he takes her wrist, “Oh, my God, Vision.”
“I’m not doing an anniversary thing,” he says miserably.
“You’re - !” Wanda beams, delighted, snatching the notepad up and holding it in front of her face. Vision is wary of letting this happen. It’s only a sheet of spots, he knows, but he’s beginning to worry that he’ll have somehow left a clue within them. “Is it an art thing?”
“No, it’s not an - “
“So, it’s an art thing!” She drops the pad between them, practically sparkling in the dim room, “You’re making me something?”
“... Not… not necessarily, no.”
“Oh, Vision, you’re adorable.”
That’s not quite the descriptor he wants in this scenario. He’s already teetering on the precipice, having the skills of a small child. He doesn’t need to feel adorable, he needs to feel capable and worthy of marriage -
“Thanks,” he mutters. Wanda kisses his cheek and hugs him tight. He pretends to be devastated. “You’re far too good a detective, you know. It’s my understanding that many people quite like to be surprised - “
“It’ll be a surprise, don’t worry.” It is an effective exercise in comfort. He closes his eyes and she kisses him again, laughing. “You’re acting like I wouldn’t be thrilled about anything you give me. Especially if you made it.”
“It was a collaborative effort,” he huffs, tilting his chin toward the ceiling, interlocking his fingers on the small of her back. “I’m nervous.”
Wanda looks so pleased that she might explode, “Are you?”
“To an almost lethal degree,” he sends a pointed glance down to the dots that Wanda is inexplicably enamored with.
“Well, it’s a good thing that I came in here to check on you, then.”
He looks up at her. “You did?”
“Of course I did,” she frames his jaw with a warm hand. “You’re piss-poor with secret-keeping. You stress yourself to death.”
What a relief. He tips into her touch, “I really do, don’t I.”
Her thumb brushes up and down his cheek. “Spill, Vis. Tell me what you can.”
He does. He tells her all that he can.
He tells her about… present-giving and its attributed stress. He tells her about the bookends. He tells her about late nights, narrowly avoiding the word practice, narrowly avoiding the fact that pens are frustrating and symbols are even more so. He mentions the million fears that he’ll give her after the fact. Wanda listens and gives him the signature you are an idiot smile.
“I think that’s it,” he finishes with an exhale as if lugging a heavy object onto a table. “That’s. Yes.”
Wanda stares at him for a while. A comfortable stare. He can almost imagine her taking his thoughts like post-it notes, laying them out in order. Tapping her chin as she makes sense of them.
“You, my Vision…” she pats his chest, “... need to get out of the house, I think.”
He chokes on a laugh, “Sorry?”
“Not good to stay cooped up in this old, vast place,” Wanda glances around the room, pressing her lips tight together. She visibly has an idea, a jolt in her body before spinning, straddling his lap, hands on his shoulders. “We should go somewhere.”
“We should what?” He’s distracted. His mind is useless in empty rooms. It is also useless when she sits on his lap.
“It’s been a while since we’ve gone on vacation. You and me. Romantic retreat. Anniversary.” She holds up her hands as if unveiling a brilliant, thought-out plan and not something she’s just spontaneously come up with. Vision interlocks their fingers on instinct. It’s a weird instinct but he won’t dream of reprogramming it. She sways their hands side to side, “We should go somewhere together. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere… far.”
“... In four days?” he asks, cautiously interested.
“Why not?” Wanda pushes herself to stand, “Really, what’s stopping us?”
Vision has a few ideas.
“Don’t answer that,” she decides, a finger held up. “Why don’t we… we can leave in the morning.”
He knows he should laugh, challenge this, say you’re a mad woman, say let’s lay down. But there is something appealing about spontaneity. Something thrilling about it. When Wanda acts on a whim, she is serious about it - and she always has things under control. He recognizes the look in her eye well. Her decision-making often resembles a boulder pushed down a steep hill. No intervention will truly be effective.
If the strongest person on the planet wants to leave in the morning, they’ll be leaving in the morning.
“Where…” he watches as she begins walking to the door. The conversation has barely even begun and she seems to be putting her plan into action. “Wanda, where are we… Where will we be going?”
She whirls around, shining, bringing her shoulders to ears, “I dunno. We’ll figure it out.”
And, with that, she leaves to pack.
And Vision hesitantly opens the drawer.
He stares at the paper, there, and the small ring box that rests atop it. We’ll figure it out, she says. A helpful sentiment.
His laptop screen stutters on when he opens it again, seeming to accept his whispered apology for closing it so roughly. He clears his previous searches and types: how to hide an engagement ring in a suitcase.
Many helpful results.
It’s as easy as ice cream.
It was a toss-up between a few available flights for a moment.
Of course, Wanda found an article titled 11 Love Shacks in Ireland and she was immediately making calls.
And now they stand in Ireland.
And Vision is nervous.
And Wanda is jetlagged.
“You can see the lake from the bed,” she gushes tiredly, rolling her suitcase with one hand and dragging him toward the door with the other. She fumbles with the key. Vision has a hand on her back to keep her upright. “Huge window. Raw majestic beauty, they said. You can see the sunrise and everything. From the bed.”
Vision nods placatingly, glancing around, anxious to step inside and get out of this stuffy human disguise, “Sounds wonderful, darling.”
He missed traveling with her. It’s been a moment since they’ve gone anywhere for themselves, no danger or threat. It’s been a moment since he’s gotten to hold her upright lest she collapse into a drowsy heap.
“Forecast says rain and clouds but they said it’d be pretty rain and clouds,” Wanda falls back into his chest as she works the door open. The hinges creak. She makes an awed sound. Vision is in love with her. He is hiding a ring box in a sock. “Vis, look.”
The walls and floors that he can see are bright white, smoothed by the sunlight, light-brown wood and blue-grey rugs with golden accents. Quite nice. Pristine. He’d worry about ruining them if he anticipated spending much time beyond a single room.
He helps lift their suitcases, watching her wander inside. He nudges the door closed with his shoe before glowing himself to normality, exhaling thankfully. Freedom.
It does feel nice to be so far away from responsibility. Just himself and Wanda and their concealed pieces awaiting assembly. There is not much time to fret about the before and after because his almost-betrothed has some priorities.
“Bed’s this way!” she announces, whirling around and marching down a hallway. Then, distant, “Oh, God, Vision, this really is a love shack!”
Vision can’t help but stumble himself after her to see what that could possibly mean. He finds his Wanda, his love, his soon-to-be-hopefully wife, ripping all her clothes off in the light of the Irish sun that filters in through the, as described, huge window. An entire wall of glass. Vision gets the immediate urge to shatter it. He’s been spending a lot of time with Wanda.
“C’mere and love me,” Wanda says, jumping on the mattress. “Love me to sleep.”
He wrinkles his nose at that but follows accordingly.
Three days left.
Vision has hearts on the mind.
They get wobblier the longer he spends thinking about them. Thinking and not practicing. He hopes that such an idle skill would not fade so fast. He didn’t bring the notepad with him. Just his special marker.
They lay on the bed, facing the window, hands folded on their stomachs, watching the water ripple outside, watching the sky grow dark. Wanda speaks sleep-slurred nonsense about love and being free. Vision nods in agreement, only half paying attention.
“The website said that goats walk by all the time,” Wanda murmurs, eyes slipping closed.
She grabs for his hand. He holds her like a special marker. She falls asleep immediately.
It is easy to watch time pass with her. He practices that in lieu of a notepad. He’s very good at it. He lies there and loves and watches the window. The sun and the lake and, the next day, goats. Wanda shakes him so hard that he sees stars.
Two days left.
Wanda takes him on a tour of the cottage as if she’s lived here since birth. She wears his sweater and nothing else. He is only half paying attention.
She is the only thing to inspire impatience in him. He’s never thought so much about time. She’d been in the sun more on her last trip, she has more freckles across her cheeks than before, her legs slightly tanner. The little things mean everything, indicators of change and days spent out of view. He is impatient - he wants to be her husband now.
He makes breakfast for her instead. She hugs him the entire time, making plans to go outside that they’re both well aware won’t happen. Wanda mutters details from the website into his back as he cooks. Vision thinks about hearts.
They crawl into bed and time is lost again.
One day left.
Vision takes the deed from his bag while Wanda is off in the shower - of course, yelling from the washroom about how spectacular it is, how she never wants to leave. He sets it on the nightstand, stares at it, hands on his hips. It’s well memorized by this point and yet it looks new each time he sees it.
In the articles he read, many people fear the commitment of a marriage. They fear absolute certainties, unwavering connection. They are rational in their terror. This paper, their names and their home, means that they’ve already committed. And he is excited.
Vision’s fright lies within the empty place where a marker heart will be placed.
“On the website,” Wanda begins again over the steady patter of water on the bottom of a basin, “it said that the showerhead mimics the feeling of traditional Irish rain!”
“That’s lovely, dear!” he calls back, tilting his head, burning the lines into his eyes again as he stares, unblinking.
That’s their street. They’ll live on that street. That’s the shape of their home. They have a home.
“We should go out there next time it rains, see how accurate the claim is!”
“Fantastic idea,” he smiles.
Vision slides the page, the marker, and the box into the drawer of a dresser that Wanda wouldn’t think to investigate.
The sun sets and Wanda has no intention of sleeping before midnight. The dresser calls, the future is imminent, and Wanda has no intention of sleeping before midnight. A wrench in a barely-formed plan.
She sits in the center of the bed, legs folded into a basket, champagne balanced on her knee. Vision lays perpendicular, knees bent over the edge of the mattress. Wanda taught him how to do this, take up space. Lay oddly. Think outside of the box. There was no previous equation in his head for anything other than uniform.
They talk about the past. Vision likes talking about their past. He likes it because it often makes little sense. They are fortunate in such odd ways to have found each other. To have started in shambles, to have ended up sharing a bed.
They talk about an anniversary. The anniversary. The tomorrow. They talk about tradition. They talk about how the past two years have felt like a lifetime, they theorize about time passing differently for people like them. Dog years and all that.
Vision keeps an eye on the clock.
He’s lost patience entirely, he thinks. When the day changes, when it becomes their day, two years since Wanda stopped him and demanded an answer and Vision gave one so coolly that it may as well have been a handshake. Wanda eradicated that coolness within him. He’s all the better for it. He enjoys the self that he has found inside. He enjoys impatience.
However, there is a heart-shaped hole in the night. And Wanda is wide awake. And Vision is finding it increasingly difficult to sit still.
“Getting close now,” she says, face flushed, unfurling her legs to drape them over his chest like a safety bar. He looks at her expectantly. “Kinda like New Years.”
“I think you kissed me around three in the afternoon,” Vision offers, lifting his head, eyeing her empty glass.
“Doesn’t matter,” she decides, “The entire day is ours.”
That makes him feel slightly better.
It does not remedy the restlessness, though.
Before he can create a clumsy excuse, Wanda looks down into her glass and makes a noise. She blinks. Another sound.
“What’s the matter?” Vision asks, knowing full well what the matter is.
“I’m out of champagne,” she informs him, bringing the flute up to her eye. They save lives - Vision can’t draw hearts and she does things like this. A perfect pairing, if he may say so.
“Yes, it seems you are.”
“Mmmm.” A wary glance to the door, “I’m… I’m… I should…”
He watches her with great interest as she goes through an entire mental debate of value and distance, a calculation in a non-mechanical mind, before seeming to make her decision.
“I’ll be back,” she huffs, bending over to kiss him (an awkward maneuver that is no less appreciated), before scooting off the bed. “Don’t move. I gotta kiss you when the ball drops.”
Vision is well aware that a laugh was warranted there, maybe even a quip about having to fashion a large metal contraption in the next ten minutes, but he’s too busy getting into position. Elbow braced on the bed, legs prepared to push.
He watches her disappear, listens to her footsteps recede, and rolls himself onto the floor.
Quickly, before he can overthink or work himself to a panic, he crosses to the dresser in the low light, cursing his trembling hands. The drawer scrapes as he opens it. He takes the pieces, lays them out, holds his red marker like a lifeline.
He feels foolish. Wanda says that’s what love is meant to make you feel but it can’t be this foolish. A line, that’s all, and he’s brought to the verge of breakdown.
The practice offers security, no matter how weak.
The cap squeaks as he opens it.
Wanda is humming down the hall.
He loves her, they’ve traded hearts already, it should come naturally. It’s simply a line. A shape to fill an empty space. The final touch.
The point is placed just above the curved street. He holds his breath between his teeth.
His hand shakes.
The line is uneven.
He continues anyway.
Slow. Intentional. He has practiced the shape and he knows it well. The first go around is far too wobbly and he steps in to correct, going back over, scribbling, filling in the shape, hoping he’s doing it right.
The marker squeaks as he finishes.
He steps back.
The point is uneven, overlapped like loosely coiled wire. The line is thick and dark in some parts where he’d pressed too hard, thin and light in others where he’d receded. It is far from perfect but.
It’s the best one he’s done yet.
But it still feels quite empty.
Vision thinks about time. Age. He thinks about freckles and sunsets. He writes the only thing he can possibly think of.
“Vis?”
He stiffens. “Yes?”
Steadily, as if confronted by a wild animal, he turns around, concealing everything behind his back. The paper is held in one hand and the box in the other. The marker rolls capless on the table, discarded.
“What…” she makes a face, studying him, “What in the world are you doing?”
“...” He sweeps his attention to the clock on the wall. Certainly it is close enough. “Well. I’m.”
Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are sparkling. She says nothing. He takes careful steps forward. Her amused grin is just short of predatory, so pleased at the thought of catching him off guard. It’s only fair - he’ll parry the blow soon enough.
He has no planned speech. The articles said that speeches were often customary but they seemed rather stiff. They’ve spent all night recounting their relationship, it would do no good to summarize again.
“I’m afraid I’ve been a bit untruthful,” he decides to say.
Wanda raises her eyebrows, “Concerning.”
He smiles softly. The paper rustles behind him and she immediately glances down, anticipatory, excited, unwieldy. She’ll not be listening to anything else he has to say, eyes locked on his arms, awaiting her gift.
No further ado.
He brings the deed around with one hand, the other locked against his back, tracing stuttered heart shapes into the velvet box. She stills once she sees it, setting her glass aside. She takes it into her hands - balances it on her fingertips, so very cautious.
“Oh, Vis,” she whispers.
“Happy anniversary,” he replies, somehow even quieter.
She holds it up to her eyes. Concealing her entire face as she, no doubt, feels the same things he had. The urge to memorize the lines, their names stacked on top of each other like that, their home, their deed. “It’s wonderful.”
While she hides her face, he wobbles himself down onto a knee. He fidgets with the box in his palm, growing warmer and warmer by the second.
“I can’t believe it’s ours,” she whispers, brushing her thumb over the words to have and to hold. Vision wishes deep breaths were helpful to his systems. She traces the heart next. “Oh. I love it. It’s perfect. It looks a lot more complete this way.”
“I thought so too,” he offers.
“This is what you were working on.” Late reaction. Developing understanding. “It looks amazing. I don’t know what you were so worried about, this is the most perfect heart I’ve ever - “
She drops her arms to meet his eyes.
Then, she drops her gaze to find him.
Then, she takes a step back.
“Oh, my God,” she croaks.
“Wanda,” he begins cautiously.
“Oh, my God.” Wanda blindly reaches back to find the nightstand, slips the deed onto it, not breaking her eyes from his hands, from the thing he holds. “Oh. My God. Vision.”
“In all honesty,” he says, and his voice shakes like his hearts do, “I’m not quite certain what to say here.”
“Baby, you’ve said all you needed to,” she whispers, gaze flickering between the hands and his eyes and then back again.
“There’s one more thing I can say.”
“Right,” she whimpers, shifting on her feet, “I feel like such a princess right now.”
“Wanda,” he smiles.
She squeaks, hand over her mouth. “Oh, God.”
“Wanda,” he presses the small box open with his thumb and she grasps for his other hand to keep her upright. “Will you marry me?” Then, holding tight to her hand. “Please.”
Wanda nods. She grips his hand so hard that, if he had bones, they would break. He can take it and she knows.
“Yes,” she chokes out, a laugh and a cry and something so spectacularly Wanda. She holds out her hand, fingers splayed. She barely moves a muscle while Vision can barely manage to keep himself still enough to slide the ring on her finger. “Vision. To grow… to grow old… Oh.” She wiggles her fingers once it's officially on, staring at the ring, “We’re. We’re going to grow old and we’re going to do it together and we’re going to do it in that house, Vis - “
Vision pushes himself up to his feet, box discarded, gathering her into his chest. She takes fistfuls of his sweater and he buries his nose into her neck.
“It’s alright,” he tries to comfort, somewhat inept, a bit blurry, chuckling as she makes a miserable noise against him, “I’ve got you.”
“Vision,” she hits his back gently, stepping impossibly closer, “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe you did this.”
“Happy anniversary, darling,” he murmurs.
“I’m almost drunk,” Wanda cries, worming her arm between them so that she can look at the ring again. “I’m so close to being drunk.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, completely unsorry. “I know.”
“There’s so much champagne in me.”
“I know.”
“Vision, we’re gonna grow old together.”
“Yes, we are.”
“In New Jersey.”
They stand until she is tired, until the weight of the night is far too heavy for either of them to shoulder. Wanda scolds him for being so wonderful as he sweeps her up to tuck her in. Her anger melts as soon as he takes his place beside her. Anger and love are red emotions. Every emotion they share is red, he supposes. By design.
Vision has hearts on the mind.
They’re tangled in Ireland, light years away from the rest of the world, homeowners and lifesharers, and all he can think about… is the shape of a heart.
He is childish, juvenile, immature, foolish - and all that applies.
The most perfect heart she’s ever seen, she said.
Such a small thing to leave him speechless.
He is skilled at complicating the uncomplicated.
