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Here is where we will start – I would like you to think about your own humanity. We look at four limbed, human, creations of God, and we call them monsters. They are rapists and serial killers and psychopaths. They are inhumane atrocities. But they are made up of our blood, our flesh, our bones. They are, biologically, the same. Biologically, we are them, and they are us.
As humans, we tear each other apart. We pull each other down. There are humans with great fears set into their skin. Transphobia and homophobia and xenophobia and racism and sexism and guns and blades and bodies and blood. We all bleed the same, remember? We all bleed.
So, what is humanity? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to man. What is the quality of being humane? May we name benevolence after ourselves, then turn and call these fleshy humans inhumane? Do we accept only the compassionate as our fellow species?
The Vision is not human, so perhaps he has no business wondering about acting humane. Perhaps benevolence is below machines – but that’s not right either, is it? The Vision is a fully sentient being, and he thinks maybe he’d like to be described as benevolent in the years to come. Ultron would call it weakness, but Ultron, the Vision has learnt, skips over the beautiful, salvageable things that are worth saving. The oxymoron of an ugly and beautiful world is endlessly complicated, and the Vision will spend the rest of his life trying to understand it.
He stands before a shining silver mass that they will call a monster. It isn’t a mirror, but it will feel a bit like one. He tells the metallic figure its fears, and when he delivers the final blow, he doesn’t feel remorse.
He doesn’t feel remorse, but he doesn’t know what he does feel. He stares at his feet where they meet the dirt and tries to feel grounded. The Vision was created to rid the world of Ultron. The Vision was not created as a shield, a barrier, a suit of armour. He was created as an attacker, an army, an artist of battle. He and Ultron are both disappointments.
Regardless, the Vision has done his job and completed his purpose. What now? Where does he go from here?
He sits on the ground and cards his fingers through the soil. One day, he is going to mean something. When he lands on the Helicarrier, he looks over the edge, down, down, down, and feels the cold on his face.
“We could use some new recruits,” the Captain will say, later. He will offer up purpose in his dusty hands. The Vision holds Sokovian soil in his palms and thinks about it. Stark asked for a saviour and settled for a slave. You are a disappointment. Who are you going to be now?
“You are a brave warrior,” Thor says, as they stand shoulder to shoulder.
“No,” the Vision shakes his head. “You cannot be brave without fear. I am not valorous, and I am not brave.”
Thor was quiet, thinking. “Mighty, then,” he says, his voice low and rumbling, like thunder. “Worthy of all the nine realms have to offer. You would do well on Asgard, I should think.”
Purpose in dusty hands. “I’ll think about it,” the Vision says, but in the years to come, when Thor stands in another refugee ship, when it’s Thor’s homeland that is smattered against his skin, the Vision will be so very far away.
They give him a bed he doesn’t need. He smooths the wrinkles out of the covers and buys ugly blue curtains with teapots on them. Thor leaves, and Stark retreats. Barton has a brood of children and Banner is missing. Romanoff sticks the Captain’s drawings to the fridge with tacky magnets and the Vision sits on an armchair and learns the ways of humans.
He buys cheap bottles of rosé and red wines and lines them up on the shelf in his room. Somehow, he knows Stark would be appalled, but they look rather pretty, all blush pink and scarlet red. The team leave a list of things to experience taped to the door he never uses, and he hovers in the air and tries to determine which team member had written which must-do.
Romanoff and the Captain run drills and set mandatory movie nights. The Vision watches quietly and learns the speech and behavioural patterns of Rhodes and Wilson. On the first of September – a Tuesday, which was not a movie night – Sam sends out blaring URGENT messages and sits them all down to match eight movies about a young wizard by the name of Harry.
The Captain cancels training (which makes Romanoff roll her eyes and eat his tub of ice cream), and debates passionately over whether Sam is a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff. Rhodes sets Wanda and the Vision down with a quiz and explains that this is a matter of utmost importance. The Vision sits on his unused bed and reads Harry Potter fanfictions until dawn.
The Vision reads other things too – a psychological analysis of Adolf Hitler’s decision making, the history of war in Sokovia, and Shakespeare. He takes an online college class on philosophy and another on history. He keeps Sokovian dirt in a dish beside the wine bottles. Thor doesn’t contact them (him) and the Vision wouldn’t know hurt if he was feeling it.
When dawn arrives and the Vision has still not slept, not once, he walks outside, into the brisk morning air, and tries to feel alive. Rhodes has taught him how to brew coffee, so even though he cannot drink it, he cradles warm mugs in his hands. Wanda sighs when he leaves the discarded, cold coffee mugs all over the compound, but whenever Stark visits, he picks them up and drinks them in one, without even a grimace.
Stark claims he visits to keep the new recruits on their toes. He exchanges quick, witty banter with Rhodes, critics the Captain, calls Romanoff ‘Natalie’, sings AC/DC songs obnoxiously, upgrades Wilson’s wings, and avoids both Wanda and the Vision like the plague. The Vision sits quietly, watching the easy comfort between the two old friends, and wonders if artificial intelligence can feel envy.
They fly to New York to battle a gruesome, half-dead, giant spider, and crash at the Stark tower. His team goes to sleep and Vision walks through quiet halls. When he arrives at the basement lab, Stark lets him in the door. “Ooh, coffee,” he says when he sees the mug Vision is carrying, and Vision hands it over absently.
Stark more or less ignores him, in the middle of an engrossing project. Vision introduces himself to U and DUM-E and watches Stark work. He observes Stark call out to an unresponsive JARVIS four times in an hour. When he speaks, Stark doesn’t flinch, but he avoids looking at Vision, and then instructs FRIDAY to turn up his music.
“People don’t always like talking about their pain,” Romanoff tells him, after he leaves, standing on the top of Stark tower. He knows her name but doesn’t remember learning it. She leans on the balcony and stares out, across the rooftops, and far, far away. “You’ll find that most people in this tower don’t like acknowledging it. And-” she hesitates, running her tongue over her teeth. She sighs, and then shakes her head, pulling a cigarette from her pocket and lighting it.
“It’s estimated that 8 million people worldwide die prematurely due to smoking,” Vision says, exploring the archives of his mind for relevant facts, and Romanoff laughs.
“I know,” she says, turning away from him and blowing a smoke ring. “Tony won’t want to talk about it,” Romanoff says knowledgably, and Vision hears words she doesn’t say. Not with you. Not with your stolen voice.
His clenches his hands and feel the lack of a warm mug. The sun rises and he watches how the sky goes different colours here, in the heart of the city. He’s eager to be home – because the compound is home. For the first time, Vision has a home. One day, the walls will crumble, but now, Vision stares at the horizon, cape flowing in the wind, and remembers to feel happy.
Wanda comes out of her room more often. She challenges Vision to games of chess, promising not to use her powers, and they win equally. Wilson makes increasingly ridiculous quizzes to be completed on movie night, so Wanda makes one about herself and tells Vision all the answers so that Sam and Steve’s team can finally go down. “Question 13 is… cornflowers,” she says, tossing her long hair over her shoulder, and throwing a wink at Vision.
“Steve, you moron!” Sam yells and Rhodey smiles innocently and says “so, how many points are you two on?”
“I’m never teaming up with you again,” Sam groans, and Steve looks mortally offended.
“Uh, that’s rich, considering-”
Vision plants cornflowers in the Sokovian soil and spends hours researching how to keep them alive. When the pot eventually blossoms, he brings it to Wanda’s room.
“You think this makes anything better?” She demands, bitter and tired. Then she sighs, and says, “I’m sorry. Game of chess?”
The Captain visits Peggy Carter more and more and Natasha leans on the balcony, cigarette in hand, and smiles like she knows something. Rhodey and Sam challenge each other to a flying competition, and Wanda and Vision rise into the air.
“Oh, Sam, are you afraid of losing?” Wanda asks, her head tilted, her voice patronising. Vision angles his shoulders so that his cape flies directly in Rhodey’s face.
They set ground rules and then they are off. It turns out the Avengers recruits are a bunch of dirty cheats – each of them gets knocked off course at least thrice. When they fall to the ground after two laps of the compound, Natasha is sipping a pomegranate martini and congratulating them like a mother when her children manage a crooked cartwheel. Wanda lies beside Vision on the grass and laughs, loudly. It’s a very bright sound. The sun is shining and this is the first time Vision has ever heard her laugh. He resolves to make her laugh again.
When he sits in the common room, he trades dad jokes with Sam and Rhodey, ending up involved in an intense battle to see who could make Natasha and Wanda laugh the most. Vision sits in cafes and smells the coffee he can’t drink. When people ask for autographs, he asks for their favourite joke in return. He fills notebooks with jokes and, beside them, Wanda’s rating of each.
“Wanda Maximoff is my favourite Avenger,” a girl with turquoise braces and a Sokovian accent tells him. She has lost her home and her country and all that she knows, but not her life. She smiles wide, and Vision promises to give her handwritten thank you card to Wanda.
Studies show that the human brain can’t differentiate fictional characters from reality and grieve them accordingly. Vision reads tragedies, sifting through content for something to hold onto, something worth grieving. Romeo and Juliet were destined to die – as all mortal beings are – and in the years to come, Vision will liken the star-crossed lovers to the mind stone powered artificial intelligence and the only witch strong enough to kill what needed to die.
Grief is love persevering. The cornflower withers and Wanda keeps the empty pot on her windowsill. Vision buys Wanda cornflowers that are delivered each Thursday. He doesn’t tell her they’re from him, but her nose crinkles when she smiles, and she starts calling him Vis.
Wanda swears in Sokovian and Natasha swears in Russian and the Captain swears in Gaelic. (“Language, Captain!” Vision admonishes, and Natasha shoots him a grin). Sam and Rhodey argue over what to watch at mandatory movie night and Wanda always picks sit-coms. In the quiet of her room, she sits beside Vision, and they watch episodes and episodes. Vision learns when to laugh, what episode of what season of what show means what to Wanda, and he memorises the next lines the characters are going to say.
He tries to cook, and Wanda tries to pretend it’s decent. After that, he lets her teach him the recipes her grandmother created, the ones ingrained in her head. They make dinner for the team and Vision sits there, watching the rest of them eat it, and doesn’t stop smiling. When he washes the dishes, after, his hands feel warm.
Wanda gets cold easily. Vision thinks about empty hands and discarded coffee mugs and strips his bed of blankets, folding them on the end of her bed instead. She burrows under them and beams up at him. Vision is not cold at all.
The Captain draws a portrait of the twins for Wanda’s birthday, and she hangs the canvas on her bedroom wall. “Thank you,” she says, through tears, and buries her face in the Captain’s shoulder, hugging him tightly. They roast marshmallows in the firepit and tell stories – the Captain’s ones of Bucky Barnes, Wanda’s of Pietro, Sam’s of Riley, Natasha’s of Clint, Rhodey’s of Tony. Vision stays quiet. He sits close to the fire and fends off the cold.
The team flies to Lagos. They come home, but eleven Wakandan relief aid workers and numerous civilians never would. Wanda had saved the Captain and countless civilians, but not all of them. Her hand went to her face, and she was horrified, horrified- I’m on the side of life, Vision thinks. We need accountability, Vision thinks. It was an accident, Vision thinks. Who gave us the right? Vision asks himself. People do awful things in the name of peace – not Wanda, and not this circumstance. She did the best she could with defending civilians in a hostile situation. But people could go to great lengths in the name of peace, protection – Ultron was proof of that. Vision was.
Vision thinks about the Sokovian girl with the turquoise braces, and he wonders what she is thinking now. He had painted Wanda’s nails black two nights ago, and she was supposed to paint his in return. Vision feels so cold. Wanda spends the night watching news reports instead of sit-coms and Vision respects her wish for silence.
“Vision,” Tony says, later, panicked and urgent. Stark never calls – he doesn’t want to hear that voice. “Vision, it’s Wanda.”
This is his family. His only one. He used to have no past, but he built one worth remembering. He hadn’t thought he would ever have to face down his family on a battlefield. Thor isn’t here, and Vision doesn’t know and doesn’t care if he’s a disappointment. There is pressure from all sides. His hands are not clenching Sokovian soil and he’s not grounded. It’s nearly a flying race, except they are so far away from home. When Vision fires, Sam dodges, and the relief is immediate and all-consuming, until it is Rhodey that falls.
Vision’s breath is caught in his throat and he does not scream. Sam apologies for dodging, and Tony begs and shakes and shouts. If Vision was capable of throwing up, he would be vomiting right now.
The days fly past and Vision doesn’t remember much of anything. He tries to visit U and DUM-E, but the door to the lab is locked. He moves a side table next to the door and leaves his cold coffee mugs there. When Rhodes comes home in a wheelchair, Vision makes him coffee just how he likes it, flies to his own home, and doesn’t ask for forgiveness that he does not deserve.
Vision is not with Tony when he visits the Raft – when he visits their team, their family. But when Vision finds out – later, always later, always too late – he walks numbly through the empty, cold halls of this hollowed out, haunted home. Vision feels too small – too cold. He wonders how much Wanda was shaking, when they threw her in a cell and a straitjacket and there were no extra blankets – no blankets at all. When he tries to punch a hole through the wall, his hand goes straight through. He throws pebbles at the wine bottles in his room until it stains the carpet red. Vision doesn’t have anything to grieve, but he has something to hate.
Wanda is staying in a cramped apartment in Croatia. When Vision opens the door, the Captain crosses his arms menacingly. “You’re not Sam,” he says, and manages to make it sound like a threat.
Wanda slips past and rolls her eyes fondly. “I’ve got it from here, Steve,” Wanda says, patting his bulging bicep, and then she links arms with Vision, walking him down the stairs of the apartment building. “I’d like you to keep in mind that I could take you out in my sleep,” she says sweetly, “and that if you have alerted anyone to my presence here, I’m going to have to do something I don’t want to do.”
“Wanda-” Vision says, and there is no dust in the air, but he feels like he is choking. His body is physically incapable of creating tears, but he imagines the emotions rise up one’s throat a bit like how he feels now. He still doesn’t ask for forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve. “They hurt you,” he whispers, devastated. “They hurt you. Are you okay?”
“Oh, so they are a they now?” Wanda says, her voice acidic and familiar. “Last I heard, that was you, Vision.”
“I-” Vision chokes on his words. He swallows and breathes and tries to think. “I am not going to ask for forgiveness for an unforgivable act. I am here because I’ve learned how to be selfish, and I needed to make sure you were okay. For me. It was unfair to you and I will leave the second you deem it necessary.”
Wanda doesn’t say anything, but she hums as they walk down the street. Eventually, they stop and she buys herself a Zagorski Štrukli. “Steve is trying to make us eat healthy,” she says, rolling her eyes and groaning. “That includes practically no carbs. But when he isn’t home, Sam and I diet cheat. We don’t all have to eat like supersoldiers. This is worse than the torture, I’m telling you!”
They walk along the paved streets, talking amicably, Vision’s human face firmly fixed on, and Wanda lets him buy her a bunch of bright blue cornflowers. “It was good to see you too, you know.” She says quietly as they turn back onto her street. “I didn’t want to worry for you, but I did. I will mend, Vision. Will Rhodes?”
“Stark is working on leg braces,” Vision says, and looks at the pavement. “But not – he won’t be the same.”
“None of us will.” Wanda unlinks their arms and holds her flowers close. “I did mean it, Vis. Come and see me again, alright?”
She kisses his cheek, and then she disappears into the apartment building.
We know how this ends – knees in the dirt and death and skin turning to ash. But before they got to that, there was this – the now.
Wanda meets Vision in hotel rooms across the world. Vision travels hours away from the compound to see her in cramped, sticky rooms and learns that home doesn’t have to be a place. Sometimes, it’s a person. When she kisses him, he knows. This is it – this is his forever.
They watch Friends reruns and Wanda eats room service. Vision brings her cornflowers and she brings him tulips – “it’s only fair,” she shrugs.
And so, a competition is borne – who can find the most lavish chocolates, the most thoughtful photo montages, the most outlandish costumes, the most hideous curtain samples. Vision brings Wanda the lavender shampoo that Pepper Potts raves about in her occasional phone calls, and when she gasps, he knows he’s won this round.
It’s not about the place, but the people. They go grocery shopping at 2am, Vision playing the security cameras on loop and Wanda pushing around the shopping trolleys with her mind. They laugh loudly, and without fear, without darkness.
When Wanda rents apartments, she either conducts cooking lessons or insists on frantic competitions (that she judges, naturally). “It’s like an addiction,” Vision says excitedly after his first ever yawn. “I didn’t need sleep to function, but now that my body has been introduced to sleep, it has developed a dependency on it.”
“Hm,” Wanda says, and gets that smile that means she wants to kiss him.
When Wanda confesses her love for the first time, it’s in Sokovian, and they’re staring up at the stars. She doesn’t know that Vision had learnt the entire language of Sokovian years ago, but she figures it out when he starts to beam.
“You silly goose,” Wanda says, and then, right there under the stars, they begin to dance.
It doesn’t matter how this ends, because we already know. (“I only feel you.” “I can’t feel you.” Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. He deserves a funeral, at least. She does. That is three billion dollars’ worth of Vibranium, and it isn’t hers). A thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts, and oh, how beautiful their love had been.
Grief is a snarling beast and so is the Scarlet Witch. Vision had created a past worth remembering, but he doesn’t remember it now. He is scared.
Vision is a father for a handful of days in reality, but time moves differently in the Hex. Vision teaches his boys how to ride bikes, kisses their bruised knees, and makes sure they get back up again. Resilience can be taught, but love is not earned. It is given freely and openly. Vision loves Wanda, and he loves the twins (the speedster and his mind-reading brother). That is enough love to leak out of his joints, too large and bursting for even his body.
At mandatory family movie night, Wanda picks sit-coms, Vision picks Shakespearean adaptations, Billy picks Miraculous Ladybug, and Tommy picks something new each time. This is Vision’s second family, but he doesn’t know that quite yet. Billy scrunches his nose like Wanda when he smiles, and Tommy has a preference for strawberry jam over apricot. Vision pushes the boys around in the trolleys at 4pm and keeps updated grocery lists of everything his family does and doesn’t like. He reads Shakespeare’s plays, the newspaper, and bedtime stories. He works hard and efficiently and when the day draws to a close, he has a home to return to. Vision’s hands are empty, but they are warm.
What sort of nightmare would Vision find on a journey of nightmares? What would he find at the end of a never-ending road? Vision had never had anyone to grieve, but he had been grieved. He had loved, been loved, and always died first.
When the world (Vision’s world, his sons’ world, Wanda’s world) begins to crumble in on itself, Vision breathes deep and doesn’t choke. He is scared with all that he is.
“Wanda,” he says, reaching out and holding her hand tight. “Wanda, you have to save the boys. Promise me. Promise me you’ll save the boys.” My boys, he thinks. Our boys.
Wanda doesn’t cry. Her eyes are blazing and fierce. Once, he asked her to take his life. Once, she refused and once, she stood before him and killed the man she loved (and it meant nothing). Once, she was too late, but not now. Not now. “Vis,” she says, and it’s not a plea.
He lifts her hand to his lips and kisses it, once, twice, thrice. “Please,” he whispers. Vision is not above begging, above pleading. His knees have never hit the ground with grief, but they’ll hit it for his sons.
Wanda stares and stares and then she nods. She still doesn’t cry. “I’ll save all of you. Don’t doubt me now, after everything,” and she’s smiling, her voice light and airy, but her eyes are still burning, they’re burning.
“But if there’s a choice,” he pushes, insistent. There are precious moments left and he’s going to spend them begging. “If there’s a choice, I need you to promise me you’ll choose them. Wanda. My love. It has to be them. You know it has to be them.”
Once, Vision stood before his love, his great love, and he asked her to take his life. Now, Vision stands before his wife, his beautiful wife, and he asks her to neglect it. Vision was ready to sacrifice his life for centillions (and Wanda wouldn’t let him, the Captain wouldn’t let him, and then it was too late, too late, too late). You think he wouldn’t give it for his sons, for his boys? Please.
They’ve taken this body. It doesn’t belong to him and it doesn’t belong to Wanda. But if it did – if it did, he’d give it up instantaneously for his sons. If mad scientists and raging gods and brilliant doctors can create a body from nothing, why can’t he? Why can’t they? If that’s what they need, if that’s what the boys need-
But Vision doesn’t know what the boys need and he doesn’t know how to save them. His body doesn’t belong to himself. It’s Wanda that has to save them, and all Vision can do is beg. All he can ever do is beg. “Them first,” he tells her, and Wanda traces his knuckles with featherlight touch. Wanda has experience in burning, but so does he. Vision stands tall, stands rigid, and he won’t move. There’s determination written into him – determination that he wrote onto his own skin.
“I’ll save the boys first,” she agrees, linking their pinkie fingers. “And then you. I’m going to save all of us, Vis, and it’ll all be how it’s supposed to.”
Her voice is getting thick, pushing words past the lump in her throat. Vision leans in, kisses her hair, and breathes in lavender. “I know you will,” he whispers, and she falls into him. “I believe in you, my love. We’ll move to the beach. The boys can learn to surf.”
“You’ll hate the sand,” Wanda shakes her head. “How about an orchid? The twins can climb the trees, ride bikes. I can make apple pancakes. You can bring me apple blossoms. We’ll get a dog.”
“Then I’ll see you in the orchid,” he whispers, holding the image clear in his mind for her to see, and then he’s kissing her.
Vision has had to say goodbye before, but it is worse, now. He hugs Billy to his chest, first, scarlet skin stark against Billy’s freckled arms, and then Tommy. He knows it’s a little too tight, but he can’t help it. The love is exploding from his chest. Vision loves with strength, and Vision is scared. He closes his eyes and thinks I love you, I love you, I love you infinitely and endlessly.
Billy is a boy who can read minds – he hears those words, and other ones. He screws up his eyes and holds his brother’s hand and thinks it back. I love you, I love all of you, family is forever, family is forever, family is FOREV-
Vision is incapable of tears, but Wanda cries for him. He is scared for himself and for their boys, but he is proud that she is doing what is right. Vision lost purpose when Ultron was eliminated, and he found it again in Wanda. Now, she gives purpose to him, and her hands are soft, and free of dust. Eve was created from Adam’s rib, and perhaps Vision was created from Wanda’s. He is her love – that is not just a purpose, but a whole galaxy of potential that he won’t live to see.
He is her hope, and so he looks out the window, stares his incoming death straight in the eye, and he dares to hope. Wanda holds his face and he holds her hips. He is grounded and he is not cold.
Vision’s eyes stay open until the last second. They stay on Wanda’s face – a careful, thorough memorisation. Vision is warm – he is home.
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After, the sun is shining, but all Wanda feels is cold.
All she will ever feel is cold.