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There’s a language in her hands.
At first Vision thinks it’s random, the endless flexing undulation of her fingers. But the more he watches the more he starts to see the patterns emerge. (And he does watch, possibly too closely, possibly too much. He knows there are unspoken rules about this sort of thing.)
He notices the way she presses her thumb to her third finger when she’s uncertain, the way she twists the ring above the knuckle of her index finger when she’s considering something. The way her tendons jump as she winds tight circles with her thumb when she’s angry.
An endless dance she doesn’t even seem to notice anymore.
Then there are the other gestures. The ones she uses in training, in battle, when she channels her otherworldly powers through each careful tense of her fingers.
There’s life and death in her hands.
He wonders if that’s why she’s so careful with them. Why she takes the time to paint each nail. To adorn her fingers with an ever shifting array of metal bands.
He understands the general cultural context of them. Marriage bands, promise rings, ‘fashion statements.’ But as far as he knows Wanda has no significant other. (He asked Captain Rogers once and got a firm slap on the back in reply. A reaction he still hasn’t quite puzzled out. ) And, well, he can’t believe their only purpose is to be fashionable.
Not when he can’t ever remember seeing her without them.
Not once.
Not even on that one unfortunate occasion when he’d disturbed her without following the proper human protocols (doors, knocking) and found her stepping from the shower.
The memory makes his face heat with what he has learnt is ‘embarrassment,’ and perhaps something less easily quantifiable. And yet he remembers that the pale hands clutched around her towel still had at least four rings on them.
They must mean something.
“Wanda-” he asks her one day when the curiosity becomes too much. Unable to keep himself from sneaking glances at the way she’s toying with the semi-precious stone on her third finger (a sign of introspection) as she waits for the kettle to boil. “What purpose do your rings serve?”
She startles, fingers stilling as her gaze flies up to his. Her expression makes him momentarily regret his decision to ask, almost certain he’s crossed another invisible boundary of polite society. He’s on the verge of apologizing when her face softens and she smiles instead.
He has the strangest notion that his heart (well, the synthetic approximation that serves in it’s place) has started beating faster.
“I suppose they're armour.” She says, glancing down at her hands. Forehead creasing as she considers it. “No, that’s not the right word. They help me... contain it. ”
She doesn’t say what it is, she doesn’t have to. Her powers are an open secret, one that still seeds fear in their teammates eyes when they think she can’t see it. An involuntary reaction he knows, but one that still hurts her. Hurts him on her behalf.
“They’re… Okovy.” The accent she's been working on neutralizing with Agent Romanoff turns thick around the Sokovian word. Making him falter as she looks up at him again, suddenly somber. Distant.
Okovy.
Shackles.
On a logical level it all clicks into place. Why she always wears them, their importance. She is using a physical constraint to control a metaphysical ability. They act as a tangible suppressant to her powers. A conduit.
A form of control.
It makes sense.
But it also makes him feel something… sad. Well, perhaps not sad , but an emotion like it.
There’s a fear in her eyes that seems to settle in his ribs, a physical weight that drags at him from the inside. She should never have to be afraid. Not of anything.
Especially not herself.
Before he can say anything, make any awkward move to comfort her, she’s moving past it.
“Perhaps it’s silly.” She shrugs and the strange weight dissolves under her smile. His shoulders relaxing as she wiggles her fingers at him, rings glinting under the fluorescents. “But they are pretty, yes?”
“Yes.” He agrees, although he’s still not entirely sure how to quantify ‘pretty.’ It seems to be a fairly arbitrary human descriptor.
The consensus says that princesses and flowers tend to fall most often under the word’s use but he’s not sure. He rather suspects that if he were asked to define it it might be with the colour of her eyes, or the way her mouth twitches at the corner when she’s amused.
Like it’s doing now.
“Very pretty.” He doesn’t realize he’s closed his fingers around hers until he feels warm skin beneath his own. Hearing the little hitch in her breathing at his tentative touch and storing the sound away for later examination.
-
Mr Stark is late again.
An inevitability really.
They’ve been tied up in the lab for the last three days troubleshooting the new security system for the Tower, and now it’s done he’s disappeared.
It’s been fascinating work but Vision finds that he misses the compound. The regular training, the other members of his team. He’s more than ready to return whenever Mr Stark decides to appear.
In the meantime though he’s content to watch from the windows of the lobby. The hushed interior of Avengers Tower providing the perfect vantage for him to indulge in his curiosity for the city beyond in safety.
There’s so much life out there.
Good and bad. So many things he hasn’t encountered yet.
Things he might never encounter, not in the same way they do.
Not when he looks the way he does.
He’s well aware that his appearance makes him an object of interest in any new situation after all. Eliciting gasps of horror and curiosity in equal measures.
It's understandable if not altogether… comfortable.
Even the other Avengers can't help but stare sometimes, no matter how hard they try not to. He isn't… like them. It's a simple fact of life, and their curiosity is a natural reaction to it.
Except for Wanda of course. She doesn’t stare, at least, not like that. He never catches her looking at him like she’s wondering how his machinery works.
He wonders if it's because she’s other too. Touched by a power neither of them fully comprehends.
He brushes the thought away. From here, on the inner side of the mirrored windows, he can watch without worry. Fascinated by the unstoppable nature of human industry as he looks out over the row of stalls and blankets that sprawl along the edge of the sidewalk. The street crowded despite the bitingly cold weather.
The sellers are hawking their wares with alacrity, makeshift tables and crates piled to the point of structural compromisation with (highly unlicensed) Avengers merchandise.
It’s mostly Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, but he sees plenty of Black Widow amongst the t-shirts and mugs as well. Hulk and Hawkeye too. There’s less of the ‘2.0 generation’ as Mr Stark has affectionately taken to referring to them. Falcon, War Machine, the Scarlet Witch and himself. But that’s to be expected, they’re not as well known yet. They are not as easily… Simplified. No shield or mask or hammer to act as a symbol, no easy encapsulation of their being.
And yet still he finds his eyes scanning across the busy table top for signs of his team mates.
His... friends.
Something catches his eye, in amongst the shield necklaces and plastic hulk bracelets. A tray of rings. They're unremarkable in the riot of bright colours but something about them speaks to him in a way he can't fully explain.
He's out of the door before he realises it, determined to get a closer look at the stall. Temporarily deaf to the shrieks of surprise that his appearance draws, the surge of autograph hunters and tourists that crowd the building hoping for a glance at them.
The rings are cheaply made, base metal forged in an ‘M’ shape… No, a ‘W’ for Witch, for Wanda, set in the middle with red glass.
He’s not the only one who’s noticed her penchant for rings then.
Although perhaps he is the only one who knows the reason she wears them.
He runs curious fingers over the shaped metal, selecting one from the box and holding it up to the light.
Perhaps… perhaps this ring could be different, designed as it is in tribute to her.
Maybe if she saw it it might mean something else to her. A reminder of all of the brightness she contains, the strength that inspires so many.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a shackle, it would be a shield.
He reaches for his wallet before he can stop himself, pulling out a crisp, untouched bill to exchange for it. (A gift from Mr Stark he has little use for, part of ‘being human’. Think of it as an allowance, kiddo. ) He slides the small paper bag the seller hands back to him into his pocket as the car finally appears.
It's a normal human convention, he tells himself as he tries to part the crowd he’s drawn, to bring a friend a souvenir back from a trip away. It's a sign he's acclimatizing.
And yet... he hadn't thought to get anything for Colonel Rhodes or Sergeant Wilson. (Rhodey, Sam, they insist. ) Only Wanda. He puts the thought aside, not mentioning the cause of the commotion he’s unwittingly stirred as he phases into the car.
-
Wanda is alone in the common room when he returns.
She’s standing by the window, obviously caught up in her own thoughts as she watches the sun sink towards the horizon. Her attention fixed further than she could possibly see as she twists the band on her little finger over and over. (A sign of loneliness, or maybe longing? Loss? Something beginning with an ‘L’ almost certainly.)
He hesitates, uncertain of the proper course of action. Struck by the duality of his own feelings as he stands there, somehow both anxious and eager at the same time.
His life, or at least whatever his existence had been before , had been logical. Made up of true or false. A binary world of y/n answers that any problem could be filtered through.
But humanity… humanity is subjectivity's domain.
Here things can be wrong and right and right and wrong all at the same time. Correct in one moment and then unacceptable in the next. A shifting code of morals and meanings he’s still learning to adjust to.
Like now, is the correct thing to interrupt her solitude? Her position in the compound’s common area indicates that she’s not averse to company but there’s something so… solitary about her expression.
He considers his options briefly before clearing his throat, Sergeant Wilson’s ( Sam’s ) advice echoing in his memory. (When in doubt, ask.)
“Wanda, I-”
She turns instantly, her expression changing in the second it takes for him to say her name. Her face lighting into a smile he’s quick to mirror, taking her enthusiasm as confirmation that his presence is welcome after all.
“Vizsh!” She beams up at him, her whole demeanor brightening. “When did you get back from New York?”
He abandons his position by the door. Pulled towards her by an invisible sort of gravity he's found only seems to affect him when she's around. Her proximity is… soothing some how.
“Just now.” He hesitates as the words assemble themselves in his head, choosing from the list of things he could say next. “I hope it’s not inappropriate but I brought you something from my trip. I believe it’s an accepted human custom to return with a small gift or souvenir, as a memento, for a friend. I have read several articles that-”
She places a hand on his arm, the touch searing right through his sweater in direct contradiction to the usual laws of thermodynamics. Warming his synthetic skin and sending his codes into fits as she squeezes lightly. Her mouth twitches, lips pressed tight together as she tries not to laugh.
“It’s fine.” She says, cutting off his rambling monologue on the societal conventions of gift giving (a good thing, he thinks, he lost sight of his point as soon as she smiled.) “A totally acceptable human custom. One of my favourites, in fact.”
She looks at him expectantly as he fumbles in his pocket for the little paper gift bag. Feeling uncharacteristically nervous as he hands it to her. Suddenly worried she’ll misread the situation, or he will, or maybe she’ll just dislike it. Be disappointed in his choice.
Maybe she would have preferred something else. Something less… personal.
“It is only a small token, Wanda.” He hears himself say as she uncovers the ring, nerves sparking as he remembers all the connotations it could have as a gift. Trying to focus on the way her eyes crease ever so slightly as she looks at it, to read the way her fingers tighten around the little metal object. (Happy? Sad? He can’t tell this time.) “I’m not proposing to you, you understand.”
There’s a three second pause where he feels an electric rush he can only comprehend as ‘panic’ and then she’s laughing. Looking at up at him with such warmth that whatever it is that’s sitting in his chest (it certainly feels like a heart, especially right now) stutters and squeezes. Stopping for a full two seconds before it beats again.
“Thank you Vizsh,” she says when the laughter fades, her voice unexpectedly soft. Meeting his gaze for a long silent moment before her eyes dart away, colour creeping across her high cheekbones as she slips it on (right hand, third finger. Introspection. Memory.) “I love it.”
She smiles down at the copper coloured band, so obviously pleased with the gift that he suddenly finds himself incapable of looking directly at her. Focusing on the way the last rays of the sun filter through the red glass stone instead. The patterns of light that shift across her skin as she flexes her fingers. (Yes, he thinks, this is definitely pretty. Beautiful, even.)
“I hope you don’t see it as the others.” The threads of his thoughts tangle, turning uncharacteristically clumsy as he considers which words might best convey the purpose of the gift. Which might convince her of the true intentions behind it as he closes his fingers over hers. “It is not meant as… Okovy.”
Her head jerks up, mouth parting at his admission. Shoulders rising and falling in a deep, shuddering breath as her expression softens into something so intimate, so understanding, it makes his heart (it’s definitely a heart, whatever it’s made of) stop again. Sparks bursting under his skin as she laces her fingers between his.
“No,” She shakes her head, stepping closer still. Her hands fitting perfectly in his, like he was built to hold them. “It is... ochrana.”
Ochrana.
Protection .