#wanda reader

At dawn, gray and foggy, the bitter winter temperature would arduously exceed the limitations of common sense degrees demarcated by popular thermometers.

The vehement peak of the serene dawn, as placid and peaceful as it ever was to be, had been swallowed up by a broad blanket of white, chaste snow; blizzard which had interspersed, crossing from north to south along the entire longitudinal extent of the ten thousand hectares located near the tiny town of Westview, New Jersey. You weren't born in there and, in fact, you barely knew that place at all.

The whiteness of sprays of snow in flakes of polished ice continued to crumble through the openings of the dense clouds, and a pale veil of frost took more and more possession of the tiles above the roofs and the tops of the enormities of the hills around the town, inferring a white and crystalline color.

You retained your own private assumptions about the phenomenon, however, and attributed it to increasingly distressing global warming (come on now Tony Stark, you could very well reverse global warming if you really wanted to!). But maybe you still held such a mundane concern at your core just to keep a sober dose of normality within you, and not give in to the long chants of long lonely days, as maddening as they could be.

The days that had passed gradually slipped one over the other, consubstantiating, consolidating into a single amalgam, and you no longer knew what to do to ward off the acute boredom that was consuming your nerves little by little like an autoimmune disease – there was no book to read or movie to watch that would wriggle your soul out of the lonely corners of a world you'd been segregated into, walls slowly closing in around you one by one. You were alone. Utterly alone.

Through the dim glass of the wide window of your solitary room, you gazed, with your gaze watered by the apathy that is intrinsically sprinkled in your irises and sluggish limbs and heavy in your joints like lead, the occluded sky of dawn – the few gloomy trees raised in the neighborhood surroundings like fortresses of dark, thick foliage, swaying on their own axes as the constant wind dictated outside their painted plaster walls.

With a sliver of fresh skin on your right temple pressed against the cloudy glass, so cold to the touch, your dead eyes followed the willow tree of snow outside as if it were natural, as if it was common to snow at that time of year and as if she wasn't using the situation to her whim, wherever she was at that moment, as much as she was everywhere at the same time.

Right, screw global warming. You were living like a little snowman cloistered inside your own particular snow globe – free from your point of view, but trapped inside the dome.

The truth was that Westview was a huge board full of pieces all situated in their proper squares, the vast majority composed of pawns as maneuverable and disposable as they could be, endlessly, always ready to be used and discarded and then replaced – and you were the queen of them, the most important piece to be cherished, but like everyone else, at your core, you would be just another component part of the grand scheme that Wanda Maximoff ruled with an iron fist. One wrong step and you were out, checkmate.

In a time that then sounded remote, an echo of a dream derived from a memory already forgotten, perhaps seven or eight months ago (you only calculated the passage of time by the gradual expansion of your belly, which then encompassed a larger roundness than a basketball), you were free. You were young and you were free and the world was a little less terrible than it could be.

But Wanda had kidnapped so much of you, in fact, disfigured you into a bizarre parody, a grim reflection of who you once were – but of your own free will you gladdened to the end in an elan worthy of praise, in the greatest pose of a soldier who is willing to kill and die for the glory of your people, despite the notion that you were fighting a vain, lost battle.

At the end of the day you were still her possession to be used and abused however Wanda saw fit. She saw everything, and everything she controlled.

You were nothing but a poor college student, still so full of spirit, and your captor was an esoteric entity versed in superhuman capabilities, the wielder of celestial powers who, according to herself, was also a multidimensional traveler – whatever meaning it held, or at least what she meant by such an eccentric statement as that.

All you knew was the things she could do and undo with a simple, banal hand movement, and how it affected you.

The fact was that you were alone, isolated, confined to an unknown town where escape was infeasible and outside contact was nothing short of scarce, subject to the pleasures, daydreams, paranoia and whims of a woman deeply troubled by her own inner demons, that you supposedly hated, but couldn't get away from even if you wanted to. Not when she was growing on you like a parasite, literally and figuratively speaking.

It was clear as the snow outside – conceiving Wanda's offspring in your womb (albeit at odds with your own individual desires at first, but attempts to shed such a burden proved, at first, flatly flawed and highly unnerving to Wanda's exhausted mind, who wasn't used to being a very reasonable person), whom she held so dear, there would be no way to nurture a flame of hatred for that woman that would not be extinguished quickly; no matter how little you knew about her for as long as your pregnancy lasted, Wanda's humanity, so disparate from the morbid cruelty at the bottom of those abyssal green irises, resided in the bosom of motherhood for which she cherished so much.

In the intimate caresses exchanged between her gentle blackened fingertips and your swollen belly, there was a kind of love so subtle and genuine that it almost erased from your memory the fact that you didn't want to be there in the first place. Her contact with that embryo was covered by a lapse of vulnerability, and that's why that witch once proved to have been as human as you were.

At a certain point, goodness was already given for those intentions, when there was not a shadow in her very existence. Deep down you just knew she was good. But it was no use if kindness was eclipsed by a haze of cruelty.

The faint gleam of her smile was enchanting, and the jadish irises were drowned in waves of tears that pooled behind long, thick dark lashes, right at the waterline of the one who so affectionately gazed at your belly by her rotten right fingers. At some point, you knew, you just knew that Wanda had given as much love to the world as she had to the unwanted child in your womb. You wondered what it was that had stolen Wanda's innocence so voraciously that, in the end, she ended up stealing yours too.

“Twins,” in one night she came, and Wanda had smiled at the utterance of her own words, never breaking her gaze from the skin stretched just below your navel, “My boys.”

Her touch felt cold, plastered like a corpse's hand. Everything about Wanda was somewhat cadaverous, reminiscent of the dead – although a veil of purity always overshadowed her dying features (for that witch was indeed beautiful), the dark, sharp circles under her eyes and the deep fleshed cheeks made her a spectral creature, unreal, with the waxy pale skin that so accentuated those emerald eyes that squandered a nuance of intense feeling.

You were never quite sure how to pinpoint what was going on inside her mind, although she always expressed that there was something there to look for.

“How,” you muttered with your eyes focused on anything but her, your shirt pulled up to expose your swollen stomach, not a smile found on your lips' commission to reflect that woman's.

The situation in which everything of the last few months had culminated in your stomach was in knots – the idea that it was done, and now you had nowhere to run from her.

“How can you be so sure, Wanda? Twin boys... that's a pretty... specific guess, I think. It could just be a boy, it could be a girl,” in the room lit by the orange flames of a fireplace that turned Wanda's hair as red as blood, you blinked, “It could be anything.”

“I just know,” lisped the woman who owned the long auburn locks that fell below her breasts, sketching a ghost of a vaguely nostalgic smile on her well-shaped lips, like someone wistfully remembering something that is gone and will never come back.

“I… just know it's them. My… our boys.”

There was a brief pause interspersed by the crackling fire in the dry wood, a breath held within bristling lungs.

“Thank you, Y/n.”

Your eyes finally turned to Wanda, who was crouched in front of you. She looked at you in gleaming green like she did the first time she made you bleed, when she emptied herself inside you, condemning you to that sick moment of intimacy with her.

“I know you don't understand this right now, not this version of you at least, but,” her jaw moved slightly, speaking at length in her speech, as if she were speaking like a child, seeking to express clarity. As if she had to plan her words carefully.

“I love you, детка . Everything I've done so far is because I love you, Y/n. You and our boys, our family. Everything I did was for you. I hope one day you can understand that and forgive me for what I did.”

Your eyes stung and sickly bile rose to the surface of your tongue at that controversial statement of hers. She knew it was wrong, she was fully aware of it. You could never imagine that whatever resulted from that one-sided relationship between the two of you could fall under the nominations commonly associated with the definition of “a family” .

You already had a family to call your own and belong to, a father and mother and siblings too, and from them you were usurped by her. That couldn't be a family, not that relationship structure, not you and her. Not when you weren't even twenty and barely even aware of what, say, Wanda's last name would be.

That night you cried yourself to sleep. And, like every night before that, Wanda listened until you fell into the softness of your own sleep clouded by layers of thick, salty tears.

But the warm, abstruse sweetness behind Wanda's hideous facade made her as seductive as the apple would have been to Eve, and the fragility that rarely saw the light of day made her seem so small compared to the times you feared for your life as she chained her hands behind your back and sternly brought her hips to meet yours over and over again.

You've also heard her cry before going to sleep. It just so happens that she was the one making you suffer, while you just had to put up with her external suffering.

Wanda was a complex puzzle to understand, so fluctuating, fascinating and unpleasant at the same time, like a new flavor to try, bad at first, but then becoming dangerously charming to the palate. And you didn't know whether you wanted to put those pieces together into one uniform image, or throw them in the trash and close the lid.

In fact, if traced back to the beginnings of your gloomy model of relationship (at least in the most primitive sense of the word, summarized only to the exchange of physical touches between two controversial animals, to, moreover, the imposition of physical contact from one part to the other), it was as if Wanda saw what she solemnly did to you as an artifice, a mechanism, a forced method to an end you never chose to have. It was as if she was just performing a necessary sacrifice that justified the means she chose to use.

She apologized again and again because that inside of you stung and hurt when she ripped something inside you, and she worked hard to make you like it too, even though you barely knew her at the time, and in fact just waking up from the stillness of your sleep to the uncomfortable feeling of a foreign body on top of you, with your legs spread wide and streams of fresh crimson blood dishonoring the sheets down your thighs, ripping you in half like no one before her had ever done.

“Shh, it's okay Y/n, it's okay. It's okay, you’re okay детка.”

She lisped that night with the palm of her right hand screwed to your lips, stuffing your protests behind your teeth (scorched-tipped fingers sweeping strands of your hair behind the shell of your ear, Wanda in a red tiara looking like would cry as much as you already did). The first time you saw her, that strange woman invading your room and also you, she seemed as uncomfortable with what she was doing as you felt with her tucked inside your innocence.

“I know it hurts, baby, I know, I…” Green eyes then pulled away from your face contorted in sharp pain, as if, for half a second, she couldn't even look at you in that state. As if, in your room, she would burst into tears with you.

“I'm very sorry. I'm really, really sorry детка , but I have to do this. It’ll pass, alright? Will pass. It’ll fit, we'll make it fit, okay? Just take a deep breath. This will be quick, I promise. I,” Wanda choked on her own words, “I'm so sorry, Y/n.”

And it went on for quite a few sluggish minutes – the headboard hitting the wall rhythmically, hard and slow behind your head, your white cotton underwear crumpled and discarded at the foot of your bed, your eyes focused on how much the sharp points of that scarlet tiara that seemed to protrude from the top of her skull resembled two demonic horns as they rose and fell in the dark of your room, above you.

When your conscience woke up, the very next morning and in a room you were not at all familiar with, the wet pain between your legs was the final sentence given that you were already her property. And you tried to run away, wander the streets of Westview, cry out for help from your new assigned neighbors, but they were smiling like machines, nothing was wrong. Nothing was ever wrong.

And the visits continued, scheduled for sunset; the fall of the veil of night was the apogee of your fate – in that house with dismal walls, dark shadows lightened by the tongues of fire that burned in the hearth, Wanda came in the form of that crimson specter to do what she had to do. And time had washed the regrets from her soul, when did the pleasures of the flesh begin to burn hotter on her skin.

“Dерьмо,” Wanda anathematized one night in a sigh under her breath, moaning in a thick accent in the roof of her mouth as she stood behind you, blackened fingers digging deep into the skin of your hips as hers pierced into yours.

“Dетка, you feel so good, s-so good, Y/n...” she gasped, your white-knuckled fingers screwed to the sheets moving beneath you both, “Fuck, I missed you so bad...”

“I-it hurts,” you squealed beneath her, your right cheek rubbing against your pillowcase, your teeth clenched, your jaw set, “W-Wanda, Wanda wait– go slow, you're– you're hurting me, Wanda, please slow down–”

“I'm going to come,” she suddenly announced, indifferent to your protests, “Fuck, I'm going to come inside you, Y/n.”

The cognition of such a sentence haunted the nerves of your spine. At that point, you already had basic knowledge accumulated about her – she was called Wanda Maximoff, she was from another universe and, as a factor of greater relevance to emphasize, she was capable of performing and handling magic, something that for you, until that moment at the time, was nothing more than a fictitious topic. And, if she was qualified to run an entire city on her own, she might well be able to turn something as frivolous as coming inside you with a fake phallus into a permanent action and one fraught with the most undesirable consequences.

“No-!” you immediately chafed then, trying to crawl your body away from hers on the bed sheets, “Wanda, don't– don't do that– Wanda–!”

But with a pull and a jerk she held you steady, your hips up, ribbons of scarlet energy restraining your wrists bound to the bed, just to the side of both your temples. And the notion that you couldn't even move caused warm tears to pool in the waterline of your eyes, clouding your view of the raised wall to the left of the double bed located in the heart of that partially lit room by the dull bulb of a bedside lamp.

“Hold still, детка, I-I'm almost,” she growled, her hips hammering against yours in essentially violent movements, “Almost there–!”

“No, pull out,” you whimpered, “Wanda, pull out, don't do that, don't do that, Wanda– Wanda, please–!”

“I need to do this Y/n, I fucking need to–!”

“Wanda, please–!”

She didn't pull out. She never pulled out – the point was not to pull out, it was that she emptied herself inside you, painted your insides with that magical secretion that only a few weeks later proved to be appropriate for the purpose Wanda had in mind. And she didn't touch you anymore, not that way, when her goal was achieved – with the plan completed, all she had to do was wait for your organism to do what it had to do. And so the months passed, snow fell on that simulated dome. Her visits weren't as frequent anymore.

“Why me?” you asked her once, as she stroked your belly through your thick crimson wool sweater.

Crouched down in front of the couch, Wanda raised her eyes to you like she always did when she was trying to communicate with the child she had shoved inside you.

“Because I love you,” was her answer, of course. A wave of ominous disgust twisted your insides at that oblivious response, as if Wanda were genuinely alienated from the reality of where she was your captor and aggressor.

“You barely know me, Wanda,” you spat, “And I barely know you. This isn't love, you're using me like a fucking incubator. You’re sick and you fucking know it.”

She lowered her head in front of your prickly speech, a lock of reddish hair piercing an emerald iris of hers, while Wanda's left fingers, dark as pitch, kept stroking your belly through a layer of clothing. She compressed her lips into a long line, and you held your breath. From your point of view, Wanda, stripped of that crimson armor she always wore and then tucked into casual clothes, sweatpants and a sweater as thick as your own, looked small and confused like a child, a little girl.

“You used to know me,” she muttered quietly, “Where I come from, you used to know me. We were married. We had our boys. You... for as long as it took in Westview after I had you back again, you were my world after I lost everything.”

You blinked once.

“Westview?”

She looked at you again.

“Yes, Y/n. Westview. They took you from me, more than once. But the second time they took our boys too. So I,” there was a pause in her speech, “I had to look for you in another reality. In a reality where nothing could ever get out of my control again.”

And for half a second you looked back at her.

“Wanda,” the palm of your right hand slowly snuggled against her left cheek, which approached your touch in an almost pathetic neediness, when was it that you looked into her eyes, “You’ll never have control over me, no matter how hard you try.”

She closed her eyes as a tear trickled down her cheek.

“I know.”

When the twins were born, you didn't want to hold them. And, begrudgingly, Wanda understood. She understood that she could never have you, not after what she had done to you, but to her consolation at least there were those boys left for her.

And she had been benevolent in letting you go, as if she had released a bird from its caged captivity, erasing from your memory any and all discernment of what your relationship had been like for ten months or so, abstracting from the confines of your mind the idea of how much she had harmed you by excluding herself from your memory. You went back to your old life, and she started a new one.

Time has come and gone. You had no sense of the past, and no one in your social circle even seemed to notice your absence for nearly a full year – it was like a dream, a memory, a lie. A kind of collective amnesia. You moved out of your parents' home after graduation and obtained a steady job in your field of work. And, after a while, you decided that it might be good to share your life with a second person – soon enough, a relationship blossomed between you and a dark-haired woman you met during a snowy winter day in a coffee shop.

Your girlfriend was a few years older than you and a single mom, but it turns out you got along great with her kids, and she was the best partner anyone could ask for. And when, on a warm summer day in the city park, Wanda offered you a strawberry ice cream cone right after presenting Billy and Tommy with their respective favorite flavors each, you genuinely smiled at her.

“Thanks, baby,” and then, you kissed her on the cheek. Billy asked Tommy to play tag, and the older twin accepted.

Five Hargreaves never thought he would ever be in a situation like this. He left home and ended up in the apocalypse then after a few years, the day he turned 18 he was contacted by the Commission.

Catching his breath as blood drips down his clothes, sweat mixes with the blood on his face. Body’s laying all around him as the knife he used to kill them still in hand. A breath escaped his mouth in relief that it was over but also in disappointment he had to kill.

His head perks up at the sound echoing through the alleyway, but only red fog was seen covering up both entrances. The sound belonged to someone walking in high heels and he gripped the knifes handle.

“I have to say I was expecting to be disappointed” the voice spoke from close behind him. Five turned around and held the knife up pointed at the person.

But his heart stopped for a second and eyes widened at the girl in front of him. She was everything he pictured paradise to look like, or maybe just his own paradise. But the smile on her face didn’t match her mischievous voice.

“And who the hell are you?” His face went back into a glare, no matter how beautiful she was he didn’t know her so if he had to kill her. He would.

“Y/n, you’re new partner. I was sent here to make sure you got the job done.” She stuck out her hand for him to shake. Five looked down at her hand but didn’t take it but letting his hand with the knife fall.

“I don’t need a partner” She giggled at his statement.

“I don’t either. I could kill you in a spit second, before you could just puff away” She stepped closer and he stepped back, his jaw tightened and knife right back up.

“But, I figured two people who survived the apocalypse could be of use to each other” She winked at him and turned back around walking through the fog.

He stared in confusion trying to work through what she said. “Two people survived- Hey, wait” he chased after her only to get out of the fog and find nothing and just a empty street.

☂———————————☂

“Dad who the hell are these assholes” Ben speaks as his siblings walk on the balcony above him. “Shit” The other set of Hargreaves say together looking at their brother- Well, in another timeline.

Everyone started to talk and soon enough a fight broke out, Ben punching klaus and Luther sticking up for him then that caused him to also get punched. Then a whole fight broke out between everyone.

Then here five was, looking up at the sight of you. “Five” your voice just like the last time her heard it.

“Y/n” he asked getting up from the floor and walking up to you. You just smiled, batting your eyes at him. He pulled you from your waist and pulled you closer.

“Ew, are all you guys perverts” Jayme groaned watching him kiss someone who isn’t there. She took matter into her own hands once again and kicked him, sending him flying down the stairs.

One second and he looked up from the ground again at the sound of fighting, his brother, Luther being attacked by the sparrow academy.

“Bigger isn’t aways better” Marcus said punching him and Luther just took it. “Is that what you tell your girlfriend” The bigger man took a swing but he just jumped up.

But before anything else could happen everyone had the same feeling. Whisper echo through the house and soon red fog came out of the floor.

Five quickly jump up and made his way too the area they all where. He pulled Luther behind him and looked around, this could be another trick.

“What the hell is this shit” Ben screamed angrily while they all search for the source. The crash of the main doors flying open and across the room hitting the stairs.

“I’m going to fucking kill you” A angry woman screamed and fives eyes widened. Oh, fuck.

A woman came into view and everyone stiffened and ready to fight. “You’re a fucking idiot do you know that?” She glared at five and he sighed, putting his hands in his pocket.

“Good to see you too, darling” She used her magic to lifted him from the air and over to her. Her hands glowing red as she set him down in front of her.

“Darling? You left without saying a word. Then the next thing I know I’m teleported to 1961. And you know how I knew it was you, little shit? The blue fucking portal, I mean really? You drag me into shit all the time, but you keep leaving me alone every time.” Your voice made everyone flinch.

“Who the hell is she?” Luther whisper to Marcus but he shrugged and muttered something about not knowing you.

“Then I’m back in 2019, but it’s not the same timeline. So what the hell did you get into-Wait, is a cut on your face?” She raised a hand up to his cheek and wipes of the blood.

“I’m fine” he put a hand onto of hers and smiled. She looked around the room and glared each of them.

“Who the fuck hurt him” She stood back and not only did her hands start glowing again but so did her eyes. Five laughed as they all watched in fear.

“Oh shit that’s the girl you dreamed about” Jayme said from behind her. Y/n turned and took one glimpse into her head and knew she hurt him. Well, hurt him the worse.

Y/n moved her hands and Jayme was set flying into the wall, red energy glowing around her.

“Only I get to hit him” She turned back to five and smiles at him. “I’ve missed you” Five went to kiss her but a sting across his cheek stopped him.

“You’re still a fucking idiot” She pulled him into a kiss. He didn’t seem to mad about it because he knew he deserved it.

“I’m so confused” Luther watched them kiss and get a little heated like no one was watching.

“Little bro as game” Klaus stood up and almost falling, but a big stupid grin found its way to his face.

“Of course I do” Five pulled back, you giggled.

“Who’s next?” Your eyes turn red again and looked at the sparrow academy.

They all ran out the door and you followed slowly while making it hard for them to do anything. Giving them hell, torturing them while smirking.

“That’s my girl” Five watched as you run after them.

《《《《《《《ᱬ》》》》》》》

A carton of almond milk, a jar of peanut butter, a dozen eggs, a stick of butter, a can of peas, a bag of soft multigrain bread and a sizable bottle of wine are the components of the plastic basket that Wanda carries slung over her right arm.

She doesn't know that she forgot to get a can of corn too.

But the basket is kind of weighty and she might as well use her magic to levitate the items around her own silhouette, but she prefers that way, holding them down herself with her own arm strength.

Sometimes it's good to keep the sense of normality active. Even if normality just means carrying a basket full of groceries around the supermarket.

She then looks at the face of the brown watch buttoned at the base of her left wrist and checks the time, blinking her greenish eyes after squeezing a long, full yawn in the back of her throat.

A gray-haired old lady (Mrs. Sharon Davis, an elderly widow, all wrapped in her pale blue cardigan) in front of her appears to be in a conflict with herself to find some of the change interred in the lowest of her silver wallet.

And Wanda scrutinizes the establishment around herself, between the shelves stocked with groceries and the glossy linoleum floor; the weary gaze wavering absorbedly over her own white-fabric sneakers and contingently fixing on a dark, even smear on the floor between them.

 Old Mrs. Davis still hasn't spotted her desired coins, and she's been digging into her wallet for the silver pennies for a good few minutes now.

Wanda listens over her shoulder as someone pulls into a shopping cart right behind herself and lets out an audible groan, evidentially annoyed at the delay of the old lady with her change, but Wanda doesn't see the point in bothering to torment herself.

It's not yet six o'clock and she'll be peaceably walking home, for Westview is a small, undisturbed, reticent suburban town where everything is so close and easy to find. And she knows that, with her house being just a few blocks away from the locality of the modest market, she won't be long in coming to prepare dinner for her and her boys (whom she has left securely at the house, both doing their math homework).

She smiles tenderly to herself when she thinks about Billy and Tommy.

After all, she knows she's never loved anyone as passionately as she loves those two little boys (the grace of her life, the reason for her morning smile and for the blaze of keenness pulsing within the fond fortifications of her warmish heart).

For her they are everything, and that is why she would do anything for them – they are the epithet of the purest form of love that Y/N had ever gifted her with; the culmination of their love converted into two vulnerable little creatures that are made up of the best of the two of them.

She just knows, like a good mother who understands both her children so well, that at that moment, the twin boys are probably watching some silly cartoon on the television set beside the broad fireplace found in the corner of the commodious living room.

And she is placid in a supermarket line, getting a whiff of the eccentric consequence of the odd combination of the full-bodied aromas of cleaning product and some sturdy feminine perfume – an even slightly nauseating aroma, kind of overpowering and suffocating.

(In some aisle away from her, a child is heatedly asking his mother to buy him some treats)

Wanda then ponders about making something a little special for dinner, and recalls about the delicious kugel recipethat her mother used to prepare in the length of her childhood days, back in devastated Sokovia, so many years in the remote past that encompasses the beginning of the disasters that marked her life.

The memory that gushes over her is sentimental and bittersweetly recurring to her core; she deliberates about the sporadic months of starveling and a small humble family of four, when her father was lucky with his sales and there was a sufficient amount of money left to buy the soldiers' leftover ingredients.

But then, she retrieves back to the years of her late youth, all lived in the restful caresses of the compound in upper Manhattan. She was still understanding about how to breathe without having Pietro to hold her hand. She was learning to live on her own.

She was coming to terms with the truth that living didn't inevitably have to be a bad experience at all; not when Y/N showed her that there could still be delight in the little things in life.

And it was Y/N who used to marvelously praise the dish when Wanda found comfort in the act of cooking, and she always repeat a few slices every time Wanda cooked it so long ago, when they were just two teenage lovers (and eventually also young wives, both living in a small bubble of love and companionship on the edge of a comfortable wooden cottage surrounded by dozen of yards of apple orchards).

There was the sweet virtuousness of the warmth of two young girls' lives at that time. It was the first time that Wanda was really fond of being young (of breathing and having a beating heart, of having a life to live valuing every little detail of it).

She memorizes the exultant smile of her ex-wife, looking so light and beautiful even while talking with her mouth full (a half-crocken smirk drawn to her left-side, like the smirk also articulated in the innocuous characteristics of her little Tommy after he was born, which reminds her so much of the radiance that used to gleam in the sweet features of her former companion).

Her ex-wife wasn't always a lonesome and distant creature creeping in the corners of her mind, and it genuinely aches inside her chest to remember that.

Y/N always devoured lavishly every traditional Sokovian dish she has ever prepared and promptly asked for more – and then thanked her with a chaste kiss placed on the pulp of her lips, which promptly evolved into the building of an intimate, sweaty moment with two bodies rubbing greedily against each other.

But she soon lets out a crestfallen, rather disillusioned sigh, repressing herself for having gone back to those secluded memories amorously stored in the edge of her brain in the first place (of the concept of two adolescent girlfriends absorbed in love in the purest sense of the word, emulating the seriousness of a relationship with adult bearing, but never losing, at its core, the youthful sweetness worthy of teenage lovers). Two girls playing love in a world that was a little too hard on them.

She glares ruefully at the bulbous base of the red wine bottle and then lets out a sorrowful exhalation.

Her relationship with Y/N felt like it was straight out of the old sitcoms that she always appreciated so much, where no problem was a genuine obstacle and that, by the end of the day, the two lovers would be in each other's affectionately secure arms again (and that perhaps she let have an effect on her a little too much, when dealing about decisions made early on in her adult life).

But then she reminisces that she was merely turning eighteen years old when she became a wanted on an international scale, and that, prior to that, she had also grown up in a war-torn country.

She never knew how to behave like a normal person per se – whether that was before or after she became able to expel bolts of magical energy from her fingertips. She never quite knew how to fit into the role of a child or a young adult in the first place. Not by herself.

There was no time in Wanda’s life to understand precisely how to fit these labels (she was protesting with so much loathe constricted within her heart, volunteering to save her homeland, being made of little more than a lab rat by the clutches of a bunch of mad men, being used by the being that promised her greatness, but only ended up costing her the life of her darling brother).

In the cramped confines of a bleak, sullied cell, with only a modest television in the corner to entertain her mind away from the needles and the brutality, there were not many allusions of love and passions that elapsed through her life outside a square screen.

Wanda was aware that she just mimicked other people's movements and transcribed them into her own actions, as if it was all just a show and she was its young star, trying to intomb in her core the path of catastrophe and violence that had always shadowed her closely; it was only the years of strict therapy, self-knowledge and self-care, right after being blipped and coming back, that edified her to be her own person in a truly healthy way. There would be no more extremes in her life.

Her cohabitation with Y/N at the time facilitated, of course – even though her wife had changed a lot in the time that followed since the blip, at first, things had worked out well between them. Or as well as possible under the anomalous circumstances.

The two of them took care of the (still) newborn twins and of each other, always with great tenderness and affection while they did it. At least that's how it worked for the first year after their reunion – until Y/N got into alcohol's graces for good, that is.

Their relationship had always felt rather light and jovial before Thanos snapped his fingers. And after that she might even have come back, but it was indeed her marriage that had turned to dust in that remote dreary day in Wakanda. In all honestly, she's not quite sure what's changed in that meantime that she's been away (dead, she was dead). And it's uneasy to ponder about it, but sometimes she does – she can’t help it.

Her corporeal existence had disintegrated into a sift of life, crumbling into her own ashes. There was color, and then the dreadfully wide expanse of emptiness (death); she, as a self-aware being, ceased to exist with just a thought and a snap of two fingers.

Her consciousness faded before she could even realize she was doing it – the palms of both her hands constrained firmly against the wound in YN's stomach that was leaking bundles of fresh blood. And Wanda never relatively questioned her existence before that (she only questioned why she ceased to exist in the first place). Returning to dust, as people of faith would say.

Five long years that slipped through her fingers and dripped onto the floor in the form of a veil of dust.

It still feels odd in her guts, even ten years later, to remember that there's a void somewhere in her life that would be filled with the time that was thieved from her by the Infinity Gauntlet. A void that had once been filled by the subtle presence of Y/N's love.

(Once, when the twins were about a year old after the blip, Y/N drunkenly knelt down with her face defectively reclining on Wanda’s thighs and questioned her as to why Wanda and the babies where the ones erased from existence while she stayed behind, abandoned like an old piece of furniture that no one wants to use anymore. Wanda never knew how to answer it, but they got divorced about a month later)

But she imagines that it, the crumbliness of their relationship, has something to do with the fact that they were both a little precocious in getting married before their twenties properly speaking; maybe if they were older and more experienced before doing it, she thinks, standing in line at the supermarket, maybe then they wouldn't have had the sorrowful culmination that they did (the crying faces and the broken hearts).

Maybe they could have risen together, and not just drifted further and further away as the days passed.

Maybe Y/N didn't feel guilt-ridden every time the twins cried in need to be held or fed. Maybe Wanda wouldn't have queried her for the love she no longer knew how to give – she is fully aware of the fact that she has always had a somewhat pushy nature, after all.

Maybe this, maybe that.

She doesn't know why she's been thinking about maybe so much these past few days. But it's not her fault that her ex-wife happens to be so pleasing to the eye.

The person behind her in line grumbles again, and there is a mischievous chuckle that reaches her ears with airs of grace. Wanda is sincerely considering summoning some coins with her magic for Mrs. Davis.

“Oh my God, this wine is divine!”

It is Sarah Proctor who addresses Wanda, the key to undeniably everything in this town. Wanda knows it's the other woman because a sudden pulsing urge to fade away takes over her nervous system as soon as the voice echoes behind herself.

She is the high-nose blonde woman who lives up the street, is a devoted member of the Westview Elementary School parent-teacher association (in the year before Wanda had witnessed her make a young teacher leave the room in tears after a meeting), proudly cultivates the most exquisite yellow roses in the neighborhood and wears a pair of classy yoga pants that would fit a young teenager with half of her age. A self-proclaimed wine mom.

Her daughter is a classmate of Billy and Tommy, and the children often attend both the Proctor and Maximoff residences – which occasioned in Sarah a vague idea of intimacy that only endures in the head of the blonde woman with bobbed hair.

She has already invited Wanda several times to Westview Pool Club girls' gatherings, but Wanda politely declined with an odd smile and a trivial wave of her hand, because she's never been the socially outgoing kind of type—and she's always been under the impression that every attempt Sarah made from approaching her were due to the fact that the other woman knew of her past as an Avenger (as did most of the small-town citizens), and so was trying to turn her into a kind of living-tourist-spot for the eyes of the rest of the world to witness.

(Rumors had it that Sarah would run for mayor in the upcoming election, and having a former Avenger as the face of her campaign certainly sells well with the predilections of the American public. Little does she know that Wanda won't vote for her)

“Oh yes, it's one of my favorites” Wanda retorts, talking about the dark tall bottle of red wine prudently deposited inside her plastic basket “It's been a while since I've had a drink, so I decided to buy a bottle to open this weekend”

“Some special occasion, I suppose?” Sarah articulates a suggestive grin, but Wanda just frowns uncertainly, half squinting at her neighbor.

“What- no, no. No” she flashes a half embarrassed, half awkward smile, chuckling nervously while doing so “Y/N is staying with the boys for the weekend, so it's just a special little thing for me. All by myself. A quarantine-style staycation. A whole weekend... just to myself"

“Y/N, huh?” Sarah raises a well-crafted eyebrow in a pique of curiosity “Your ex-wife, right? I remember seeing her at the twins' birthday party. I mean, she's pretty, yes, but she's quite the quiet type, huh...”

“Yeah, she was never one to talk much… but neither am I, honestly"

“A pair made in heaven, indeed” Sarah then flashes a smile, but the taste that slides across Wanda's tongue is bitter and kind of hard to swallow.

She shifts her body weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other.

“But wait, she's also an Avenger, isn’t she? Yeah, she's the one in the black and white outfit! Oh my God! Who wore a jacket over it and had that kinda mean attitude, all punk rock and stuff?”

“Herself” Wanda agrees, pressing her lips together in a long, clumsy line. She just wants to go home and cook her damn kugel.

“Oh my, how did I not notice this before? I remember seeing her in the news once, when I was in college. I also had a taste for delinquents back then, if you know what I mean”

Wanda feels a hot twinge high in her face and she bites the inside of her cheek in a rather timid act (but there's no denying that Y/N's somewhat rebellious attitude has always had a lewd effect on her legs as a young teenager with a schoolgirl’s heart).

“She and Black Widow, I think, saved the life of the mayor in that bombing on the Fourth of July in... 2015, 2016, maybe? Yeah, I remember that! She's the one who's super strong, isn't she? Who held up a scaffold once and saved those kids”

 "That's her, yes"

The brunette muss in a limp voice, which seems to draw a slightly indecent laugh from the blonde woman with her shopping cart full of knick-knacks and silver hoops clicking in her earlobes. It is from her that the aroma of sturdy perfume comes.

“Well, I imagine that super strength of hers comes in handy in some… situations”

“Situ-“ but then she blinks just one time “Oh”

Mortification hangs over Wanda like a bucket of paint spilled over her dark-haired head.

She opens and closes her mouth like a golden fish, frowning, and her cheeks don't take long to reach strong shades of scarlet, glowing red like one of the tomatoes inside Sarah's cart.

It's inappropriate, and she knows it, but she can't help but feel a certain tingle in her breasts as lapses of memory enlighten her thoughts with the ghost of touches coursing along her body. Then she thinks of Y/N's warm, measured breath against her earlobe (of strong hands pinning her wrists above her head, of a tense, impassive hip against her own hip, of the cracked headboard and the broken bedframe). A movement and a moan. An electrical discharge in her bowels.

And then, fuck...

Just Y/N tearing her insides apart.

The other woman smiles viciously, and Wanda suddenly wishes she hadn't put on a sweater before leaving the house, because she can actually feel herself starting to perspire at the expectant look her neighbor bestows on her.

She's never been one to deal with such intimacies with anyone other than her ex-wife (merely some casual, unsuccessful and sporadic blind dates that's never been more than a few kisses and a few touches here and there, by no means ending up in her or anyone else's bed).

But she permits herself only to flash a wan grin towards the other woman when she realizes that, in front of her, the old lady has lastly found her damn change.

Fucking finally.

And then, with the memory still boiling hungrily in her innards, like a hungry beast devouring her from the inside out, she takes a large step in the other direction, trying to walk away from Sarah as humanly possible, as if the other woman carries with her a toxic cloud that sickens everything that comes in contact with her.

If Wanda couldn't probably get a nice lawsuit for that (or worst), she'd turn Sarah into a disgusting slimy frog.

“Well, I, I, I need to go, Sarah, but it was really nice meeting you around here. Bye” the enchantress raises her wrist, bidding the blonde woman goodbye with a wave of her hand and a small, introverted (half-awkward) grin.

There is barely time for an answer to be formulated on the part of the housewife. Wanda's cheeks are still red hot as she (virtually) dashes through the small supermarket's automatic double doors like a fugitive on the run. Mrs. Davis drops a coin on the floor on her way out.

ᗢ

You don't know exactly how long you've been raising and lowering the joint of your bent elbow above your head. It doesn't feel right to do it, just as it doesn't do it if it feels wrong. It's just necessary – it’s like cracking some eggs if you're in the mood for an omelet for breakfast.

You just have the fullest conception that a few good minutes have passed since the beginning of all the activity, and as in the rehearsal of a play, you are repeating the gestures until you overcome them with great proficiency and your culmination comes out perfect, from your liking.

And you don't bother to intend to stop doing it anytime soon – such a guttural, animalistic and barbaric action. At this point, the movement is already instinctive after being recorded in at the core of your memory, an automatic message engraved between the ligaments of your neurons.

 You've done it innumerable times before, and you know you'll do it a few more times after this one.

You lift your right arm, lowers your implacable fist constricted like a steel ball, the resonance of smashed cartilage and wrecked bones echoing in your eardrums, all instructed by the figure of a bloodthirsty invisible conductor within the ramparts of your own cranium.

The face of the bewildered guy lying beneath you looks like a loaf of raw, misshapen meat as you repeat a cadence of sequentially delivered punches against his facial bones.

And he, who is at least twice as big as you, lets out a piercing howl of pain from the cavernous depths of his throat, as even a wild bear would do if attacked deep in a forest.

But in that alley on Long Island there is not a soul available to help him to get rid of your uncomplacent fists – not at the end of a passage that is unpopulated, far from prying eyes that could creep in your direction during the action which takes place there, a beacon of environment squeezed between two amorphous walls of scorched bricks, which gives the illusion of a single long, damp, narrow street. 

A sphere of blood is clotted on your face, like an eccentric gemstone, a dark red pearl splattered under the arch of your left eyebrow. And you pant heavily, your veins stiffening.

You've never been one to refuse punching a motherfucker in the face – your forte has always been pounding up things, whether on the countless missions conveyed alongside your teammates or at work during your teenage years, taking advantage of your inhuman gifts to have something to eat at the end of the week.

You've never had a dilemma in whacking someone’s ass. Even more so when that said someone had committed a hate crime against a racial minority and got away with the trial, because that's the way it is in New York City.

The recurring metallic scent of fresh blood squirts in a jet of reddish color, thick and gleaming across your rigid, compact knuckles. The gruesome fragrance is no stranger to your sense of smell, and you're not quite sure whether you want it to be or not.

But it is what you are; as an inherent component of your biological chemistry (like the serum gushing through Steve's veins, altering him from inside out, or the magic pulsing within Wanda's core, changing the structure of her brainwaves), you know that hostility is a primeval part of your nature longer than the placid ends of an ordinary, quiet life.

The peaceable domestic life lived alongside Wanda is long gone, and desolation and wrath are your only roommates within the walls of your morbidly valueless apartment.

You've been living like a cornered animal for fifteen years in programmed mode, always exposing your fangs and your claws at any sign of danger, just self-destructing, dying little by little, not craving to exist for one more day after laying your head on the blandishments of your pillow and staring blankly at the ceiling, whirling through your usual drunken state. Just desiring to somehow wreck your imperishable body that can't be cut or torn by human hands or tools.

People much well-intentioned than you are long gone, and you, by some implausible probabilities, were (cursed) fortunate to have endured thorough all the catastrophes that life directed at you.

The car accident as a child. The blip as a mother and as a wife, as a friend.

The damn journey by the mountain of Vormir, in which three of you went in the grip of that appallingly isolated planet, and only two came back with a chest full of oxygen and life pumping through your nervures. The avid combat for proprietorship of all the six Infinity Stones, and the provenance of the final snap that brought back peace to the equilibrium of the universe by eliminating the existence of its greatest known threat at the time.

You just seem to live confined in this unbearable cycle of misfortune, and it's not fair to others that you are the person left to tell the story of those who are gone.

If only you could, you would swap places with the true heroes who gave their lives for the greater good. You would even be honored to do so yourself.

Your chest heaves and deflates severely within the molds of your leather jacket fitted around your shoulders over a short-sleeved plain shirt, your veins bulging with rushing blood, and you rise to your feet, setting up your knees, and step back to inspect the big man who lies defeated to the floor of the alley, amidst a pool of his own blood and filth typical of places like this — your jacket sleeve shimmering with bundles of fresh blood, a coat of gleaming sweat limping glistening on the beam of skin on your forehead, near your hairline.

He is still alive, groaning in a vital position, and is severely battered. And it was never your intention to kill anyone. He probably learned his lesson. Maybe you should break his legs, just in case.

A tremor rolls under your black sneaker feet as a loud motorcycle passes by in the distance. Sirens also pass presently afterwards, coming and going with their blue and red outcome.

But there, squeezed inside the claustrophobic walls of the dim alley, you are far from any possible intervention. You then register a single shake that travels along the outline of your left leg as your cellphone pulses inside the back pocket of your old jeans, shivering against your hip bone.

 You take an elongated gulp of air before diving into your flickering pocket and hooking the device through your fuming, blooded finger length. You know your pupils are dilated and dark.

Your gaze is empty and brittle as you scrutinize between the digitally formed words before your motionless eyes.

Frequent bursts of oxygen are a method of neutralizing the pulses of adrenaline throbbing in the artery inside your neck. But the taste that slips between your teeth is acid and sour, and you lock your jawbone at the information that is cognitive to you.

Hey, Y/N. Are you really going to come get the boys tonight? I saw in the weather forecast that it will rain later, so I wanted to check with you just to make sure

(seen)

It’s Wanda

(seen)

By the way

(seen)

Yes, you know it's Wanda (your sweet Wanda, the trace of humanity lingering inside your icy chest), that she texted you. And it doesn't astonish you at all (not anymore), because not many people contact you lately during the sunny period of the day.

You two have been keeping in touch the last few days, after all, you told her that you wanted to be more present in the twins' lives. And it's not an untruth at all, but your sly creaking anxiety makes you feel like it's a kind of uncertainty inside your throbbing stomach walls.

Maybe it's not the right decision, the voice inside your head spoke. Maybe at this point in life they don't need you anymore. Maybe this is a breakthrough, or even the commencement of a calamity worthy of a Greek novel, you're not quite sure yet.

You turn on your heels and spin your back on the battered man, so you can send your reply to your ex-wife's number without looking at the ferocious outcome of your latent tantrum.

yup, your avid thumbs type along the digital keyboard provided on the screen of the small electronic device, i’ll be there in 1 hour or so. hope they like cheeseburgers.

And then you slide your upper teeth along the flesh of your lower lip, somewhat unsure of how to proceed.

try to enjoy your staycation btw. you deserve it

(seen)

:)

(seen)

You don't know why you sent her that stupid emoji.

It's not like you're a teenager reproducing a failed flirtation attempt with the girl you have a crush on anymore.

But a lapse of realism is present as your vision aims on the blood folds on your stinging fingers folded around the cellphone, and you feel a heavy ball of constricted lamentation taking shape in the back of your throat when your sorrowful eyes scrutinize thorough the lines of your hands and find there only odious signs of a cavernous viciousness (a raw, physical cruelty also reflected within the mirror of your shattered soul).

In the background, the man is still groaning in pain. And you're not sorry you broke him in a beating. No, no. You're just sorry for yourself, because you didn't bat an eye when you did it.

Vaguely the memory of Wanda placing chaste kisses along your hands invades you, and you realize you wouldn't want her to kiss your unseemly fingers right now (because you find her too pure to dwell on the filthiness of your touch).

The skin on your hands abruptly itches and feels dull, and you don't feel like having those plagued fingers around your children’s immaculate faces anymore.

ᗢ

The twilight of dusk breaks with the trepidation of an ingrained thunder, which rumbles all in a glow of white light that splits along the longitudinal path that comprised the pleasant suburb that is Westview.

So, this is an opaque afternoon resulting from the middle of the rainy day, gray and hazy in its chilly essence, with tenuous threads of a torrential drizzle protecting the foundations of the two-story house on the slopes of the street, making the dewy ivy rustle on its ground, dripping slowly from the eaves of the ceramic tiles.

Standing on the porch of Wanda's house, you ponder that you should have listened to the weather forecast when it was said that during the afternoon there would be a period of rain. Your dark hoodie is really soaked through and your hair, pulled back in a high half ponytail, is damp against the skin of your own forehead. You feel kind of stupid.

Compact, opulent, slate-colored clouds were uneven against the emerald green of the panorama of howling houses, hills and trees, like the leaning of thick smoke from a desolate fire.

A fierce storm, nevertheless, is not anomalous in the face of the oscillating spring climate of the state of New Jersey, which is not a real stranger to the rainy weather of the season. Thus, the nonstop drizzle is not the atypical episode of the day altogether.

The conquering event of such a rank happens when Wanda opens the door and finds you there, standing with your elbows dripping cold droplets water in the light wood entrance, and then pulls you into the cozy embrace of the pleasant climate established within that domestic environment of her own home.

“For God’s sake, Y/N, you're soaking wet!”

She reiterates, surveying you with an apprehensive gaze that runs the length of your head to toe, her slender ringless fingers still pressed worriedly around the outline of your right forearm tucked beneath the humid fabric of your damp blouse – but Wanda doesn't seem to realize as she's still carries with the action, and you kind of don't want her to let go of you anytime soon, so you say nothing about the warm touch tingling on your cold skin.

“Yeah, the rain started when I was halfway there and there was no way for me to avoid it, so I just went with it” you mutter, with a certain lack of interest smoldering in your quiet voice “Sometimes I wish I still had a car...”

“But you didn't bring an umbrella?” Her gaze is accusatory in your direction, the tone of voice sounding dangerously concerned inside your ears.

“Well” you kind of sigh, shrugging your shoulders within your hoodie, without looking her straight in the eye “You see, I, hah… I didn’t think it was actually going to… you know… to rain”

And then you look at her, and the exact facial expression you'd expect to find there makes its way until it slides all over her face. She’s pissed off.

“But I told you it was going to rain!” she then frowns at you, looking a little exasperated while doing it, her beautiful features drenched in an irritated tone of incredulity “Seriously Y/N, you need to listen to what I say more! What if you get sick?”

You flick an eyelid at the grumpy figure of a very upset Wanda standing right in front of you, exhaling aromas of tea and crimson color. It's funny how the pique of nostalgia slips through your bones – there is an air of familiarity when a subtle sense of déjà vu settles into your cognitive system, like the feeling of coming home after a long trip. You feel at home. You feel belonging.

This image is very cherished to your spirit, and you can't help but to articulate a small grin that feels light in your heart in front of your ex-wife, who then aims towards your gaze with a gleam that is an assortment of misunderstanding and irritability flickering in the greenish irises, the color that look like two emerald stones embedded within her eyeballs, curving a single one of her sharp dark eyebrows in an high arching cut.

You feel married to her again for half a fraction of a second – it's like your remote newlywed routine all over again. And the feeling is actually good.

She looks so pretty. It's like you could kiss her lips right there.

“What? What's so funny?”

Wanda questions you in an almost petulant way, and you let out a pleasant chuckle as she tilts her head slightly to the side of her right elbow, her chin pointing toward the tip of your nose – her typical irritating movement as the harbinger of an angry reaction to anything that troubles her spirit.

“You know I'm physically incapable of getting sick, don't you?” you declare, still with a smile carved along the outline of your own lips, and Wanda crosses her forearms close to her chest in an even vaguely embarrassed way in front of you.

She was always a stubborn bratty type anyways.

“It's that super durability mutant thing or some shit like that. At least that's what Banner told me once, and he's a smart guy, so I believe him” you casually shrug, “I haven't had a cold since I was, like, thirteen. Shit, I don't even know if I remember what it's like anymore. You don't have to worry about me, Wanda"

“W-well,” she exasperated in a timidly cute way, even a little childish in essence, pressing her open palms against the sides of her hips well-guarded by a pair of pale mom jeans – the attire so far from the miniskirts and chains and torn clothes she used to wear when she was younger, at the apex of her mean girl phase.

Today isn't the first time you've noticed that her waist got wider as a result of the prudent ripening endowments of late adulthood blossoming into her beautiful body-type. It suits her well. You want to touch her skin through the fabric of those flimsy jeans and the thin white cotton blouse; your fingers itch to do it.

“Just because you don't get sick like other people it doesn’t mean you can walk around in the rain whenever you feel like it. You look like a wet dog right now, you know”

“Alright, alright, I get it” you raise both your hands to shoulder height in a placid gesture of surrender “No more walks in the rain”

“You're impossible, Y/N” she then rolls her green eyes into their sockets, but you just smirk jokily at her reaction.

It only takes a nonchalant magical flutter of Wanda's wrist, with her right five fingers all enveloped in a fading mist of crimson steam, for the well-versed witch to make your garments still swell on your body, expelling from the bristles of fabric, as even in a chemical separation reaction, the water molecules that soaked them in the first place.

It's like a huge hair dryer blowing hot air the entire length of your body and then unexpectedly stopping as if pulled from the socket, making your skin temperature pleasant again like a sunny embrace all around your body.

You find yourself dry in a matter of seconds, from your socks to your underwear, thanks to her remarkable magical gifts.

The tingles consequential from the scarlet mist touching your skin still slither down the length of your body. It is familiar and eccentrically comforting – it's like eating again a candy that you used to eat during the preludes of your childhood; tastes like home and happiness.

“You know what, your powers come in handy sometimes, I’ll give you that” you say in a mocking tone of voice, and she raises a single eyebrow in response.

"I'm still considering throwing you out for dripping water on my carpet, just so you know"

Wanda just casts a weary glance in your direction, but there's a slight lighthearted tone that resides in the green outline of her graceful irises, as if an inside joke has taken hold between you two.

She smiles, and so do you, because you feel comfortable while doing it – a pair of complicit grins from someone whose chest is filled of joy and fullness. The atmosphere that sets in is comfortable, and you feel more relaxed being close to her.

You don't really do it, but it feels like your fingers are entwined with the fingers of her own hand – the specter of touch is written between the two of you, and it's as if your soul can really feel hers at its core, like two magnets that can't stop attracting each other instantaneously. You've always gravitated towards Wanda's overwhelming presence, and things won't be any different now.

“Come on, the boys are watching cartoons in the living room” Wanda says, then turning her back on you so that you follow her lead to the intimates of the house, “You can stay until the rain stops”

You follow after your ex-wife without further circumlocution, the two of you passing through the small and comfy entrance hall as you go after Wanda into the large rectangular living room, your hands always tucked inside the single pocket of your hoodie as you accompany her with phlegmatic steps in your essence.

Your shoulders feel even lighter as she turns to you and casually offers you the sweetest smile you've ever seen in your life.

Torrential rain is still pouring down from the sky outside the house, and the boys Billy and Tommy can be seen wearing warm, comfortable clothes, both the twins snuggled up against the back of the gray linen sofa, their little smart eyes looking smilingly at each other’s faces and not towards the television screen, where some cartoon that seems unfamiliar to you is shown.

They seem to share some secret that only two people with some primal connection as to what unites them would be able to do it, but the sounds of banter irrigated in the air of childish shenanigans reveals the mockery between their giggles.

They are brothers and they are twins, yes, two parts of a whole, born of the same womb that they shared from the beginning of their existence as two living beings, but you were always a little happier to realize the closeness established in the friendship between your children. Billy and Tommy are each other's best friends.

The pair then seem to make themselves aware of the presence of their two mothers as they enter the room, and the smiles of both children scintillate in enthusiasm as the pairs of eyes look up and acknowledge your appearance a little further behind Wanda's still figure, following her very closely, ceasing the small section of chitchats they had between the two of them.

"Mom!"

"Mommy!"

From the sofa the boys joyfully call out to you, beaming in your direction. You can't help but do the same to them.

“Hey, my demons spawn. What are you up to there, huh?”

“We were preparing something! Okay, so, mom,” Billy speaks in response, barely seeming to be able to contain the glee of excitement inside his tiny body.

"Listen to this-!" Tommy complements his brother's phrase, in a tone of enthusiastic anticipation.

"Hey, I want to start it!" but the other twin intervenes promptly, almost indignantly.

Tommy frowns, turning up his freckled little nose towards a rather annoyed Billy, who is sitting next to his left elbow. The little boy briefly tilts his head to the left side towards his brother, and you know you've seen similar action in Wanda's characteristic mannerisms.

“No, I want to start it!”

"I want to start it!"

“But I want to start it!”

“I want to start it!”

“Why don't you both” Wanda then promptly interferes with the small disagreement between the boys, increasing her mother's reproachful tone of voice a little, preventing, at the beginning, that the intrigue takes a somewhat bigger proportions “Start it together?”

“Yeah” you support her in a complacent tone of voice “You two came up with the idea together, so the right thing would be to do it together too. Whatever it is, I mean”

"Okay"

"Okay..."

The two of them mutter almost in almost defeated tune, fidgeting together on the couch. You think that they look cute while they're there, tiny and sitting like two baby rabbits.

"You ready?" Billy questions in a low voice, turning to the brother beside him.

“Yeah” Tommy mussed back, nodding in agreement.

“Okay,” says Billy then, almost proudly, “Three, two, one, go”

And then, you can barely contain a smirk when the boys, in different and discrepant voice tones, begin a silly chant in their thin children's voices. In the corner of your peripheral vision, you notice that Wanda also lets out an amorous smile, melting into a comfortable puddle of kindness, dying in love with her two singing little children sitting across from the two of you.

“We like ice cream like any child should” they hum together, vocalizing playful tones as they proceed through the song's component words, “And if we get some ice cream, we pro-mise to be… good!”

Then they look towards the two of you, displaying expectant smiles written all over their childish faces. And you and Wanda exchange glances, and the smile she offers you is very similar to the one that graces the curve of Billy's lips.

"Nice try, smarty-pants, but you haven't even had dinner yet"

“But mama” Tommy replies in a pleading tone of voice “We really want ice cream!”

“Yes, we want ice cream!” exclaims Billy in agreement "We can't wait!"

“Well, we can have dinner first, then ice cream. What do you guys think?" you offer them, your eyes darting towards Wanda's face "But you need to have dinner first to grow to be strong and healthy, and ice cream is for dessert only. Right, mama?"

Wanda looks in your direction, and then smiles. And you smile back, because the situation is prone to do so. You, for the first time in so long, feel welcomed and hassle-free in the presence of others.

The air inside the house is blissful and warm, so unlike your empty, disdainful apartment forgotten somewhere on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan. Wanda doesn't feel like your ex-wife right now – at least, that's not how she looks at you.

“Right” her eyes flash pale green beams towards you “Let's have dinner first, mommy”

ᗢ

You wake up in the middle of the night, but maybe you just haven't fallen asleep at all.

The sheets that grace the bottom of your body are soft and comfortable, and the pajama set you wear is not your property. It's late in the course of the long night, and like so many that have passed before this one, you just know you wouldn't be able to rest your relaxation anytime soon.

How could you even do it? Perhaps you stayed longer than you realized detailing the gloomy ceiling of Wanda's guest room, counting in your mind as you scrutinized every passing second so that you still had control over something (time being something), so that you wouldn't go mad at being dismembered alive by each of your own inner demons.

If the beginning of the night was watered in jubilation and a serene comforting coziness on your part, the firstfruits of the dawn soon came to frustrate you in the form of intrusive thoughts quite harmful to your twisted mental health.

The torrential rain didn't stop anytime soon, and after having dinner with Wanda and the boys (in a very warm congregation, you were sitting at the table with your family, eating the same food as them and breathing the same oxygen, always supported by grins of pleasure as you chatted eagerly with each other), and the twins were slow to fall asleep after two generous mugs of chocolate mint ice cream each.

Your ex-wife insisted that you stay for the night after the two of you carried them upstairs and deposited them in their respective tidy beds, showering each of them with chaste kisses to the tops of their childish heads – Wanda's little staycation was long-forgotten by then.

You let out a disturbed sigh, both palms of your hands polishing the length of the dull face of yours.

What the fuck, you think, what the fuck are you doing there? This may even be your family, but this is not your house. It's not your home. Not anymore.

Reverberating through your insides you find the throttling need for a drag of a cigarette eating away at the bottom of your lungs like a harmful parasite sucking the life from its source, and then you get up to do it, because lying down feels like it consumes you from within in a profuse haze of bubbling anxiety that bursts from your stomach to your mouth, making you feel so weak inside.

It has always struck you as a somewhat ironic cynicism on the part of the universe that you, who are possessed of an impenetrable shell on the outside, suffer so much from the brittle fragility of your own interior – hard skin does nothing to protect a broken mind.

The lavender bedclothes had begun to tighten the muscle in your neck after a while, and in the room just down the hall, you assume Wanda sleeps comfortably cuddling in her bed.

When searching inside the single pocket of your hoodie, the well-folded garment on top of a plain desk in the corner of the room, soaked in the darkness of the shadowy environment, the absconse pack of cigarettes from a brand that you are quite familiar with, that keeps you company in the acrimonious moments of solitude, you take a single cylindrical unit towards the spaces open to your drooping mouth and then you find the cold lighter with your fingertips, leaving for the entrance door of the room offered to you by your ex-wife.

After descending the stairs, stepping one step at a time with your bare feet, you are surprised that the door leading to the backyard is already open before you are even there, and the cold night wind has blown inside the house like a curious, invisible animal, installing an icy feeling of dysphoria within the broad walls.

But before you could search with your watchful eye for some intruder who went beyond the icy specter of the night, in avid state of alert, you notice an apollonian silhouette hunched outside, sitting on the step outside the door, with a long waterfall of soft hair in the color of a raven's down running halfway down her spine.

The restlessness that weighed heavily on your shoulders eased as the familiar full-bodied scent of hibiscus tea mixed with the sweetness of a mild strawberry shampoo slithered into your nostrils and filled your lungs thirsty for smoke and tobacco.

As you approach, you see that Wanda, wearing a sheer silk robe over a red nightgown, is accompanied by a large cup that exhales small clouds of steam, with the tiny bundle that carries the tea herbs submerged into the hot water inside the dark container.

"You really have loud thoughts" Wanda's small, soft voice ripples through the air and then hugs your body as your ex-wife turns toward you with a lingering slowness that, to you, is as familiar as the taste of your unsmoked cigarette.

Her eyes glow an intoxicating green hue amid the darkness of the night, only supported by the silver light of the moonlight coming from outside the residence.

You feel like a frog being studied on a silver platter in some high school biology class.

Wanda's diligent gaze always seemed to be able to penetrate through the cracks of your soul – she always understood you as if she were an expert when dealing with any subject concerning you.

You let out an uneasy sigh, oddly scratching the inside of your throat as you do.

"Sorry if I woke you up, it wasn't... it wasn't my... intention"

“It’s okay” she mumbles serenely over a sip of hot tea, the pulp of her nacarine lips being moistened by the hot liquid she's ingested.

“I still haven't been able to sleep anyway”

And it's no surprise to you, because you slept and woke up next to this woman for several of the component years of your life span, and it was always well known to you that Wanda is a woman quite affected by long sleepless nights, not being able to afford to actually close her eyes and be fortunate enough to have a good night's sleep.

Countless were the nights turned to morning dawns, when you both resided under the same roof in the compound back at the Avengers Tower, so many years before you were there, standing in the middle of her kitchen, silently watching her perform the simple act of drinking tea at her backyard door.

“Still having trouble sleeping?”

“Once in a while”

Wanda answers you, and with her eyes she indicates the empty space next to her right elbow so you can sit there.

“Sometimes I need to relearn how to sleep all by myself”

Without saying a word, you cross the entire length of the kitchen, passing by the island and the marble sink, to be seated on the marble step that freezes your warm skin, next to the woman who smells of hibiscus with strawberries and deep scarlet tones.

Her eyes recognize the figure of the unsmoked cigarette between your fingers, unlit and forgotten like the insignificant little rolled-up tobacco paper that it is, and then she looks toward the profile of your silhouette, blinking once with her thick eyelashes as she does so.

“You start smoking again?”

“Yeah, it's been a while, actually. Not that I'm proud of it”

Your gaze shifts to the small cylinder, turning it between the digits of your index and middle fingers of your tender right hand.

“That shit helps me calm down, I guess. Or at least I like to think so. I don’t know"

Silence touches both of you shoulders, and there is a moment for Wanda to sip more of the tea that has spilled into her cup. When the drink is gone, then all the way into her stomach, she places the container on the floor, close to her left ankle like a tame kitten, safe from her company.

You are still hesitating in the uncertainty of whether or not to light up that damned tempting cigarette.

“Earlier today,” she begins, immediately drawing your attention to her pretty face, and you're met with her pink lip as she clamps her upper teeth over the contour of her wet mouth.

“You and me and the boys... it was good. They like having you around. And I... I like it too, Y/N”

She hums in the sigh of the night. You feel a crackling feeling swelling inside your swollen chest, but you don't say anything in sequence, because it's Wanda who continues to converse in the silver moonlight.

“I had forgotten what it was like. Me and you acting like family. It's good, It’s… really good"

You choke relatively. For Wanda, a heartbeat rumbled in her ears. And then she looks at you, and you look at her.

And suddenly, you don't want to light that cigarette anymore – because she leans her chin forward, leaning her head towards you, and you do the same when your body cries out for her, lips colliding in midair like the consolidation of a wish, a scarlet fever supernova bursting within your own chest.

And then, the full-bodied freshness of hibiscus darts into the half-open breach in the gap between your lips, pressing a velvety tongue against the slit between your teeth, discharging into your mouth a red-sour-sweet flavor, definitely good though, but rougher than usual as the two of you now share a needy, somewhat sloppy, even animalistic kiss.

Even if there is indeed a need on Wanda's part, and you just need someone to scare you away from the evil inside your head.

 Your ex-wife, in a thoughtless act, dives with her clever hands into the thin fabric of the tank top that clothes your impenetrable skin, grabbing the sides of your waist in a needy way, as if all she wanted at that moment was to feel you, as if her entire existence existed based on physically feeling you snuggled into her icy body.

She blinks, consenting to the overflow of her feelings, enraptured by the image of your cheeks burning and your chest heaving.

And she does what she thinks is right to do, which seems to be the only option possible in this small moment of affection and dedication, filled with an ember that if she could name it, she would call it love - because she knows she love you, even if she didn't say it out loud yet.

You are the love of her life, and she is the love of yours.

Wanda then hurls herself even farther forward, a nymph figure smitten with idolatry, and takes her prize, pressing the commission of her red lips against the outlined mouth with the flavor of melancholy that could belong to none other than you, so exotic, and never the same.

You feel the smart hands rest at the end of your spine with an almost practiced disregard, seeking nothing but feeling at first, far from the lascivious idea of consolidating the carnal act. Wanda just wants to feel you close, all to herself, comfortable in her grip.

Between a set of pink lips, a tongue is present, and this tongue curls up in another in a not hasty and exaggerated way. It's elegant. It's careful. It is harmonious.

But a slow kiss unravels, and Wanda holds her breath and returns in search of more of her favorite flavor to keep in her mouth, only to be promptly reciprocated by a devoted you, a soft nostalgic familiarity edging your silhouettes connected by the lips beneath a star-studded sky, with an absorbed perfection that no one else but the two of you would be able to achieve.

Up and down, side and side; surrounded by genuine attunement, lips moved carefully, following an invisible line that dictates your not so reckless actions.

A waltz of delicate, tangible lips that still fit together so perfectly, so neatly, that you might as well cry.

But the pacified kiss soon takes the form of a fervent kiss as you pant hot against your ex-wife's lips, and the fervent kiss becomes little kisses sprinkled around her neck that soon dissolve into a hollow moan, into a world where there didn't seem to be any more worries as long as you were in each other's arms.

In her own time, Wanda drags her teeth along the lower lip of your mouth, which groans deeply in response with a tingling in your throat, a tiny fraction of time passing until, like a buzz, quick, rough lips take refuge again in a tongue inside your mouth, and you feel an icy hand grasp your breast in a primitive way.

Clever fingers, soaked in crimson, traveled to your scalp, and a light mouth caresses yet another moan of yours. In a heartbeat, Wanda swings a leg over your knees and sits right on top of your lap, grabbing your wrists to put your hands around her waist.

The feeling is familiar. Toxically familiar.

It is the red invading your senses, intoxicating you with dense doses of scarlet.

You know very well that, even before the enticements of alcohol and cigarettes, your primary vice has always been the crimson sweetness of Wanda's body.

And, well… you're not known for being resistant to the temptations of your addictions.

ᗢ

A crimson marble glow glistening under the palms of both your hands. Sweat glistened in the hollow of your groin across your burning hips.

Wanda riding on your lap, naked as a Renaissance painting displayed in the dim light of a museum, her chest heavy like a marathon runner. The long, thick length of the red strap brushed against a specific spot on her inner walls that made her delirious and increasingly pivot her hips toward you, seeking more, brushing against each other like two animals in heat.

There was nothing rational in that animalistic act.

The symphony in the room was that of skin beating wet against skin; of her lascivious wetness voraciously swallowing your cock.

You could see it from the single, retracted drop of sweat that poured into the valley between her own swollen breasts, the two mounds swaying just before your lascivious eyes; a delight modulated to your stormy gaze, profuse as sea water, which clouded your young girlfriend's body with a predatory look, immersed in illicit labor.

Your insides tingled in a white-hot tingle, both clits sliding through the material of the strap, the insides of your thighs strong and wet against Wanda's pulsing center.

Her tight pussy pressing against the erect silicone phallus between your legs, the red of the material buffed with the sticky juices from inside of her. That was her bed, her sheets wet beneath your sweaty bodies, the walls of her room reverberating the pornographic grunts and moans from deep in her throat.

“F-fuck-!” she clenched her teeth, her nails lacquered with black nail polish carving red paths in the muscles of your back, “Y/N, fuck, right there, ah-!”

Her thick Sokovian accent spilled into your ears, and something primal and cavernous rumbled inside you, like a spark that explodes in a raging fire.

You wanted to own her.

You wanted to consume her.

You wanted to eat her alive; fuck her until the mold of your strap was forever etched into the walls of her greedy cunt, which was increasingly squeezing the silicone phallus, a delicious pressure forming a red knot just below her belly button.

“Ah-! Ah-!, pozhaluysta, pozhaluysta-!” she gasped in her native dialect, loud and clear against your ear as you fucked her as hard as possible “Trakhni menya... ya pochti u tseli, ya po-pochti u tseli... Ugh, dorogaya!”

“Fuck, are you close?”

“U-uhum! ” she kind of moaned, both eyes squinted two lewd lines “Please don't stop, don't stop Y/N, ah-!”

The scream was loud as you dropped her suddenly onto the sheets, her sweaty back slamming against the thick material of the mattress, her dark hair spilling across the pale material of the pillow.

You slipped your hands between the folds of both her knees and brought her lower back close, barely giving her time to miss your strap inside her dripping cunt before guiding the red material between her sticky folds, resuming the vigorous action of fucking your way against her coccyx.

Your strong hand pressed itself (as did the bone of your jaw) against the upholstered headboard, and there a rip was deferred by your own touch – as it had done to a plucked pillow, and a lampshade shattered to the ground.

The lamp above your heads flashed white. Wanda's eyes glowed a profuse scarlet that swallowed the moss green of her irises, the darkening of her dilated pupils making her eyes look like two bottomless wells of lust.

You buried your face against the beam of sweaty skin that joined her neck to her collarbone, and placed a generous, savage bite there.

"Fuck- I’m cumming, I'm cumming!" she decreed, panting against your bare neck, pressing her fingers against your buttocks in an incitement to the act they so indomitably committed.

“Cum for me Wanda” you murmured against her ear “Cum on my cock, pretty girl”

The bed hit the wall again. And again. And again.

You didn't stop at the first orgasm. Nor in the second. Nor on the third.

Although Wanda had been in Farmville for the better part of a year when you came in that Saturday, the majority of her clothes, kitchenware and decorations were still in their original moving boxes. Wanda did not plan to take her stuff out of the moving boxes: after so many frustrations moves, she preferred to be prepared to quickly grab her stuff for when she grew tired of town. However, since you came into her life, she saw herself a little less anxious about moving out and the daily things did not bother her that much anymore. And without any plan whatsoever, she surprised herself asking you to help out – even though she could easily do it with her magic, while comfortable laying on her couch sipping a tea.

In your side of the story, helping out Wanda to organize wasn't your favorite Saturday morning activity. Of course, you enjoyed her company and that week you realized how much you missed an adult friendship. However, the truth is that you simply needed the money. Your earnings as a teacher could easily support your single lifestyle; you never had a problem with that. But since adding a couple of twins necessities, the weekly therapy sessions and the need to move to a 2 bedroom house rent to your monthly bills, you were going through your savings on a dangerous speed.

Your brother and sister-in-law not-so-significant heritage were stored by the government until the twins were 16 years old, and the three of you would be starving if you waited for that. Your mom couldn't help regularly, and your sister-in-law family didn't even bother to show up in your brother’s funeral. So it was up to you to make the extra money.

You sold your old car for an old-old-super-old car. You gave up your mortgage and got a rental. You quickly sold and traded any of your extra belongings and now there was nothing left. The therapist helped you with a social fee and the elementary school gathered last year’s books, uniforms and everything that 6 yo could need to study. Your tutoring gave you a few bucks an hour, and the extra grading and online queering allowed a couple more. But it wasn't enough. Going out the academic route wasn't on your agenda, but the payroll Wanda offered could get your family through a week and you weren't going to pass that.

"Good morning, Ms. Maximoff" You said embarrassed.

"Good Lord, Y/N. Wanda." She said giving you a peck on the cheek like you were friends. "Come on in; leave your stuff on the counter. I just started on the kitchen" Wanda wore a set of sweatpants and white T-shirt with her hair up in a messy ponytail. She was a beautiful women, definitely the type you used to date - not that you were even remotely available to do anything about it in the crazy pace your life was going.

The morning passed by fast. Your company was even more enjoyable than Wanda thought, you held a light mood and you were becoming increasing more comfortable around each other. As you held the stairs for Wanda to clean an open cabinet, or you carried together a large and heavy box - you found yourself enjoying the domestic environment around her. It was pass noon when Wanda ordered a pizza and a couple of beers for you to take a break.

"Not that I am complaining... But aren't you, like, super strong?" You asked while taking a bite.

"Kind of" She dismissed getting both of you another beer "Why?"

"With all due respect, oh-miss-magical-fingers... Why the hell did we tore our back with the heavy lifting if you could do it with your pinky?" You looked at her confused both of your chuckling.

"Magical fingers?" she smirked and handled your beer. "Are you going to believe me if I tell you I forgot about it?"

"No" You smiled “But it is ok, I was just wondering why you needed my help in the first place."

"I didn’t. I like your company, Y/N. And it would feel lonely to settle down alone again." She looked into your eyes and gave a small smile "And I don't feel like being alone again"

"I know what you mean" You didn't. As much as you liked Wanda's company and her proximity made you feel all mushy and somewhat stupid; you didn't see Wanda in a romantic way. She, in the other hand, felt you cozy and warm, easy to talk to, easy smile and she was interested in a very non-platonic way.

"Sure thing" She laughed and followed you into the room.

"You don't. Yet" Her eyes quickly darted to your mouth and you instinctively licked your bottom lip flustering with the attention.

"Shall we go to the bedroom?" She lifted her brows mocking you "To organize!" you added embarrassed.

The bedroom was bigger than you expected from a 3-bedroom house. She had an on-suite and a walk-in closet - almost empty apart from couple row of clothes. You started organizing her bathroom, taking mental notes on her products, scents and a special crimson lipstick that had your dreaming about it a few weeks ago. Her skincare routine was neatly displayed on the counter, her extra towels folded under the sink and all her hair products on a basket as she instructed. There was just one box left behind and you opened it without a second thought the same way you had done with so many on that day.

But oh damn. That box was different.

You groaned low at the sight of it, your mouth watering as your mind wandered to where-how-when Wanda would use all of that.

Wanda was in her closet when she heard you and smiled to herself. She planted the box in there this morning, hoping that you would find it. Your thoughts weren't exactly innocent while sneaking a peek at the toys Wanda kept neatly organized in that box. Many sizes, shapes, different uses, intensities, a whole other world from your small bag back home. You were building a special mental image of Wanda wearing the big black strap you held when she called out your name to help. You almost let it fall as you quickly shut the box and placed it back on the cabinet.

“Thank you, sweetie.” She praised you, your cheeks burning due to the pet name.  “Do you know how to drill a hole in the wall?” She asked when you were almost over.

Once you got into the closet, Wanda was up the ladder, her ass pin up right on you eye level. She was reading your thoughts constantly since she heard your gasp, and the praise to her ass was exactly why she called you using a heavy box as excuse.

You offered politely to grab it for her, once again forgetting about how silly it all was considering she could magically get it down. As you got up in the ladder, Wanda's hands found your thigh in what seemed to be an innocent act. The proximity and the heat of her hand took a small whimper out of you, to the satisfaction of a greedy Wanda.

“Uhum. Do you want me to hang something?” You asked distracted while sorting some Knick and knacks into a smaller box

“Not hang. I just need a couple of wall mounts over there” She pointed towards her headboard hiding a mischievous grin “But I am afraid of the screwdriver” That was a lie. Wanda knew her way around a toolbox, as she often were on her own since her teen years.

“Why would someone need wall mounts near the bed?” You asked innocently while preparing the drill

She smirked “I can rope a couple of reasons” Your cheeks reddened immediately as you caught up with her meaning.

“Oh” you coughed out your embarrassment and focused on the task, your mind travelling a million directions.

All throughout the rest of the day, Wanda collected small touches and teases, observing your reactions and how your thoughts frequently traveled back to the toy-box.

….

In the days that followed that weekend, you two became close. You stopped by the teachers’ lounge more often, went out together to grab coffee and Wanda got used on waiting by your classroom door to escort you back to your car. Wanda quickly became an essential part of you daily life.

- What?

You and Wanda have been talking over coffee for a few minutes already when she suddenly tensed over something you said.

"What ‘what’?"

"What did you say your kids name were?"

"They are named Anthony and Thomas, you know that already" You frowned

"Yes, yes. Sorry. I was under the impression you said Billy and Tommy" She chuckled relaxing.

"Oh, I did. Sorry." You smiled fondly "Anthony's nickname is Billy, after his father. He always has been little Billy because they look so much alike. But after his passing, Billy just doesn't accept being called Anthony anymore" you said sadly.

When you got no response from Wanda, you lifted your gaze finding a conflicted Wanda staring down at her mug.

"Wands?"

"Sorry. I-I have to go" She said storming off.

The thing is that when you told her your kids name were Anthony and Thomas, she thought nothing of it. You have never showed her even a photo of them - keeping their privacy on social media and personal relations due to the abuse they suffered last year. So she has never seen them, and honestly, it never crossed her mind. But today, after she heard you calling them Billy and Tommy, some piece snapped back into place and she finally realized the answer to what had been bothering her for so long since the Darkhold.

Wanda didn’t mean to upset you or your kids. Of course she knew about both of them, as you talked a lot about them.

You two had become closer the last few weeks and Wanda found herself specially drawn to you difficult but ordinary life. She wanted to know everything about you and she finally started to open herself to another person. Wanda knew it was stupid of her letting you get so close, she knew she could not ever be deserving of love again- she had it once and she blew it. Her self-vexing was more than enough to keep her from making any advances towards you, but the reality is that you were the first thing she thought about before sleep and the first thing in the morning. She was falling for you in the last few weeks. Not that you knew anything about it.

And no. That wouldn't do.

Chapter Six - Pictures of Sports, Runners and Happiness

You were in the middle of an explanation about light and shadow when you started to daydream in the middle of class.

This was becoming more common than you would like to admit.

Maybe it was a stubborn way your brain found to keep Wanda in your thoughts, even though it had been weeks since you last spoke to her.

Your attempt to sink into work and ignore the small promise you made to Nat to keep trying, proved to be very ineffective.

Because Wanda seemed to occupy your head twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

"Professor, you are doing it again." The voice of one of your students brought you out of your mind, and the class let out a few giggles.

"Sorry guys." You muttered quickly. "Where did I stop?"

Fortunately, you were able to finish that class without any further interruptions.

And you were packing up your materials to leave for lunch when one of your students approached you at your desk.

"Hi, professor, how are you?" She asked a little uncertainly. "I know it's none of my business, but you've been acting strange in class. You get that dreamy, silent look on your face every time."

You felt your face heat up. "I'm sorry, Miss Bishop. It's some personal problems, I'll try not to do that anymore."

"No, no I'm not angry!" She quickly clarified half-heartedly. "It's just that you are my favorite teacher and I was wondering if you were sick or something. Not that I was watching you or anything, I'm not one of those stalkers. And I don't mean to be nosy either! I just-"

You cut in with a laugh, shaking your head. "It's okay, Kate. Thank you for worrying. I promise I'm not sick."

"That's a relief." She mumbles with a short laugh. Then she lets out a little exclamation. "I, uh, wanted to ask you something actually."

You raise your eyebrow in confusion.

"It's okay if you don't want to, but um, I kind of need an academic mentor, and well, you're the only teacher who doesn't hate me."

You frowned. "None of the teachers hate you, Miss Bishop."

She shrugged. "Don't worry, I don't care about that. I even give them a reason, after all I have set fire, accidentally of course, in the teachers' lounge once." She comments quickly and you look at her in surprise. "Was that before you came in? Well, anyway, that's all in the past. What I mean is, I'm going to participate in the sports nationals next week, but I just learned that I need at least one subject to put as a reason on the forms. And a mentor."

You heard about that. The vast majority of students choose math or English subjects as their title. You didn't understand exactly how the applications worked, but you knew that the math teacher kept complaining most of the time about the amount of students she was going to have to mentor.

"I understand that this was short notice, but I didn't think I needed it. And it's okay if you have another appointment, I can find-"

"No, Kate, I accept." You interrupt with a smile. "Actually, it's really cool that you thought of me for that."

She lets out a relieved laugh. And you finish putting the books in your backpack, starting to move outside, with her at your side. "Really"

"Of course." You say. "What do I need to do?"

"Just sign my application forms." She clarifies, still flustered by the fact that you had actually accepted the invitation. "And well, accompany me to the competition."

"Sure, no problem." You say. "When is it going to be?"

"Next week, at Kensington."

"How fancy." You joke, making her laugh. "Let's keep in touch about that, Kate. See you next class."

She thanks you one more time before you go your separate ways in the halls.

--//--

You kept Natasha hanging on about Wanda.

She kept bringing it up, trying to get you to make a decision, and you always made up some excuse and changed the subject.

And when Kate's competition came around, it must have been the first time you were leaving the house for anything other than work.

Because it was such a beautiful day, you decided to take your camera.

And of course Kate made a comment about this as soon as you arrived at the hall where the event was taking place.

They set up courts and gyms, but until the event started, you had the entire golf course area to enjoy. And the food was delicious.

"The camera suits you." Kate commented with a smile.

"Same for you and the bow." You return as you notice the equipment she was holding. "How did I never know you practiced that?"

She shrugs her shoulders. "Well, I have no pictures using it."

"This is a great opportunity to change that, then." You joke, and she smiles in agreement.

As a mentor, you had to sign some things, and answer some questions. But at least you got a special badge and stayed in an air-conditioned tent.

There were many sports included in the competition, and you told Kate to feel free to go and talk to her friends and opponents, and that you would get to know the other people.

You really tried.

There were teachers from all over the world, as well as guests from far away countries. You think you saw celebrities, and there were lots of journalists.

You started to feel bored in a short time, though. The event was quite similar to those in galleries.

So you tried to distract yourself with your cell phone, and sent a picture of your bored expression to Natasha.

"Where are you, fancy girl?" she typed shortly after.

You quickly answered the place, and watched the three little dots of typing appear and disappear a few times before Nat finally answered.

"Don't panic, okay? But, I'm pretty sure Pietro is in that competition. And well, that means Wanda is too."

You widened your eyes, and were calling her the next second. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Nat sighed on the other end of the line. "Well, he's a runner, did you forget? This event is pretty big, there are people from all over NYU. Professor T'Challa mentioned he was going to London to mentor Pietro a few weeks ago."

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

"Because every time I try to talk about Wanda you change the subject!" She returns. "Y/N, breathe, okay? You two are living in the same city, and you work for the same company. It's not like you're never going to see her again."

"But I didn't want to do that today, Nat!" You return looking around. "Shit, do you think Kate will notice if I hide in the tent until the event is over?"

Nat laughed on the other end of the line. "I swear to god, you're worse than my students. Bring it on, girlfriend! What's this? You need to handle this like an adult."

"I'd rather go home."

"I bet you would." She jokes. "Look, I need to go. The time zone is horrible and I'm exhausted. Call me tomorrow and tell me how your gay panic ended."

You mumble a curse before Nat hangs up.

Okay, your mission now was to avoid meeting Wanda at this event.

Your chances were high, after all, there must have been over a thousand people in this place.

//-//

You found Wanda in thirteen minutes.

Luckily, she didn't see you.

You, on the other hand, seemed to have seen only her and nothing else.

Stumbling over your own feet, you bumped into a waiter, who knocked over the drinks he was carrying and attracted the attention of half the surrounding guests.

You narrowly escaped the curious stares after muttering many apologies, and hid in the back of the main building.

Taking a deep breath, you tried to put it all together.

The announcement that the competitions were about to begin made you let out a disgruntled grumble.

The Archery Competitions were after the Swimming Competitions, but took place at the same time as the Weightlifting Competitions.

You had a little free time to avoid Wanda before you slipped into the mentoring tent and didn't leave until Kate started.

Then naturally, you bumped into Pietro on the way back.

"Y/N? Wow, how incredible to see you here!" He greeted with wide eyes.

You giggled awkwardly. "Yeah, incredible."

"We haven't spoken in so long, how are you?"

"Good, I think. And you?"

"Nervous as hell." He returned with a laugh. "I'm going to compete in a few minutes, I was just going to the locker room. I didn't know you were into sports."

"Not really." You say. "I'm here for work."

He looks at the camera in your neck, and you shake your head quickly. "Not photography. I'm mentoring one of the archery participants."

"Oh, I get it." He says. "Well, Professor T'Challa is around if you want to revisit your old co-workers." He jokes and then makes almost a grimace. "And there's someone else around too, outside, I think."

You swallow dryly, and look down at your feet. "Yeah, I... I don't think it's a good idea for me to talk to your sister right now."

He frowns, but the speaker announces the first call for participants, and he sighs. "Look I have to go. But, I think you should give it a try. Wanda is less tough than she looks, Y/N. And I'm sure she misses you."

"Thanks, Pietro." You mumble.

He smiles. "Anytime."

As he leaves, you turn toward the golf course.

But you hesitate at the second step, and make your way to the mentors' tent.

//-//

The Mentors tent was one of the biggest, and it had a good view of the other competition areas because it was on top of a small hill.

You could see where the Archery event was going to take place, and if you walked around a bit, you also had a good view of the makeshift tracks that were set up for the racers.

When Kate's trial started, you took amazing pictures.

It was strange shooting outdoors and in the sun, because it was nothing like your style of photography, but the result satisfied you anyway.

The most remarkable thing was Kate winning.

You took pictures of the gold medal, the trophies, and the smiling figure. And gave her an encouraging look when one of the Olympics judges came to talk to her.

The running competition started shortly afterwards, and you stepped away from the tent area to watch.

Using your camera to get a clear view, you smiled as you spotted Pietro running.

You also managed to photograph the moment he crossed the finish line, and hoped that you would be able to give the picture to him as he left the event.

And then you remembered Wanda.

Moving the lens, it didn't take long to find her in the crowd of people watching. Your breath caught. She looked so beautiful in her flowered dress.

You were so distracted that you almost dropped the camera when Kate came up beside you.

"Are you a race fan, Miss L/N?" She asked curiously. You laughed awkwardly.

"No, I'm not into any sports." You muttered. "But the pictures of the kids running look nice."

Kate murmured in agreement, and you quickly moved to show her the pictures you had taken of her competition.

"They look beautiful." She commented while holding the camera in her hands. You stood with your hands in your pockets, looking at the landscape, waiting for her to finish. "Is this your girlfriend?"

You gasped in surprise and turned your head to Kate. "What?"

She handed over the camera, it had gone back to the beginning of the gallery, a picture of Wanda, from last year. You felt your face heat up, and quickly took the camera back, hugging it against your chest. "I-I..."

"I didn't mean to be nosy, Professor." Kate spoke immediately. "You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to."

You shook your head, looking at the running test again, and Kate put it all together.

"She's here, isn't she?" she asked and you sighed, nodding. "Is this why you get so distracted in class?"

You massage your forehead. "Kate, don't worry about it okay?"

"I think you should talk to her." She insisted with a smile. "She looked happy in the photo. If you're not together anymore, at least say hi in respect to how you both used to feel when that picture was taken."

You bit the inside of your cheek, and then smiled at your student. "Since when did you become so wise, Miss Bishop?"

She laughed, shrugging her shoulders. "I've always been brilliant, thank you."

You laughed too, shaking your head.

A group of young men called out to Kate and she nodded. "I have to join the others now. And we'll celebrate after here. If you'd like to come, that would be incredible."

"Thanks, Kate, but I think I'll decline. I still have some things to do. But congratulations again."

She smiled and left after that.

You took a deep breath divided between what to do next. Taking one last look at the picture in your camera, you could only remember Wanda's words on the roof.

You couldn't push away the guilt that you took the smile from that girl in the photograph and replaced it with the tears she shed.

So you turned your feet and walked towards the exit.

//-//

Valky heard that you were at that event through a magazine.

It was Sunday, and you were making lemonade when she called you.

"And I thought we were friends. Please tell me you have some new pictures for me."

You laughed at her falsely hurt tone when she mentioned that she hoped that if you went to a public event, you would at least briefly mention it to your boss.

"I have a few things, but it was nothing planned, so I don't know if you'll be able to use it." You tell her.

"Your exhibition is coming up, it's your last chance to add something besides that one picture."

You bite your lips. What is this insistent last chance thing the universe seems to be bringing it up to you.

"Take a look at the pictures, Valky. If you like them, you have my permission to display it. But it was you who said that one photograph is enough."

"And I keep my word because that picture is flawless." She returns with a laugh. "But as I told you before, dear, so is all your work. Send me the photos, and I'll make a decision."

You sent the event photos as soon as you got back to your room, but Valky refused to give you an answer.

"Surprise will do you good." It was the only thing she said.

Agatha came back from the grocery store with purchases and you forgot about it for the time being.

--//--

Your exposure was indeed in short order.

Two weeks after that, you were checking your party suit in front of a mirror.

Agatha appeared at your bedroom door to let you know that the chauffeur of the limousine that Valky insisted you take, had already arrived.

"Should I have chosen a dress?" You ask unsurely, making Agatha smile.

"You look amazing, dear." She says approaching you to straighten your tie. As she does so she has an almost nostalgic expression. "Your mother would be so proud."

It is your turn to smile. "Her first exhibition was in Asgard too, wasn't it?"

Agatha nods in agreement. "That's where she met your father."

You murmured in understanding, and Agatha finished her tie, but held your shoulders. "I know you and him didn't get along, but he loved you in the way he could. And he would be proud, too."

"Sometimes love isn't enough, Agatha." You return. "Actions count more than what we say we feel, don't you think?"

She smiles, and strokes your cheek. "You are so grown up, Y/N. I hope you believe your words, and do something about your relationship with the woman you love."

You let out a short laugh. "Good move, Miss Harkness."

She walks you to the car, and you comment on how the choice of purple dress was perfect for her.

Agatha laughs embarrassedly when you say that she might end up meeting someone interesting at the party.

On the way to the gallery, Natasha sent several messages of encouragement, and said she missed you.

You sent her a picture of you and Agatha in party clothes and she typed that you looked like movie stars.

The gallery was very crowded.

Valky really made it big.

Journalists, special guests, and the biggest names in photography were there.

She liked to call it your return to the world of photography, even though technically you had never left.

But you think she believed that just because you were teaching now, that it was a kind of retirement.

"I'm going to start drinking before people start asking how old I am." Agatha warned as soon as you guys got out of the car, making you laugh. "See you around, honey."

She waved goodbye, and you noticed a few guests looking at her on the way to the bar. Agatha was in for a long night.

You made your way inside, politely greeting a few people and journalists, until you finally found Loki and Thor in the crowd.

"You look stunning, Y/N." Loki commented charmingly, moving closer to kiss your cheek. You just giggled awkwardly, complimenting the brothers.

Noticing that they were alone, you quickly asked about the dates you saw last time. Thor looked upset.

"Jane and I took a break." He recounted. "I think I rushed things too much."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Thor." You spoke, but he forced a laugh.

"Don't worry, I can fix it." He assures. "When I get back to the States, I'll ask her out again."

You nodded in understanding. "And Mobius?"

Loki took a long sip of champagne. "He's in Alaska."

You frowned in surprise, but Loki quickly clarified with a laugh. "We're not in a fight or anything. But he loves to ski, and there's some kind of competition going on right now. I said I wanted to be here to support a friend with her photography, and he went without me."

"And Loki is pretending he's not hurt." Thor sneered, and his brother grimaced.

"I'm not hurt!" He denied stubbornly. "We can stay apart."

The blond just laughed, sipping from his cup. You watched the interaction with amusement.

The exhibition started only when the gallery was considerably full, and most of the guests had a glass of champagne in hand.

Valky found you in the crowd, and led you to the center of the room where the first picture was displayed.

There was a curtain covering all the photos she chose to display, and you would pull the first one for the rest of the team to pull the others, starting the exhibit.

Everything was fine until you met Wanda's eyes across the room.

"Would you kill me if I changed my mind?" You whispered in Valky's ear, making her laugh.

"In front of three hundred reporters? Without any hesitation." She returns, but seeing your paleness, she squeezes your forearm gently. "Breathe, okay? The work is incredible. You just need to pull the curtain off and smile. And when they compliment you, say thank you."

You just nod, and Valky moves to announce the exhibition.

Y/N L/N's return to the world of photography is part of her speech.

You want to run away. Wanda is right there, a few rows away, wearing a gold dress and looking so beautiful you almost forget to breathe.

"Y/N?" Valky calls out, and for what seems like the second or third time. You blink out of your daydream, but the audience seems to think it's funny.

Swallowing dryly, you touch the handle of the curtain before announcing to the hall. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My first photograph was taken last fall."

You take a deep breath, and pull back the curtain.

Barely absorbing the loud round of applause and impressed sighs, you look down from the camera flashes.

The other curtains fall, and you see a photo of Pietro running, an honorable mention photo of your father, and one of your mother before you excuse Valky and leave the room.

As you walk out onto the terrace, Wanda freezes.

A couple greets her. "What was it like working with the incredible, Y/N L/N?

And there are journalists appearing next, and the flashes make her jump in fright.

Valky is stepping into the crowd and pulling her to the center in the next moment: "I wanted it to be a surprise, but you and Y/N are terrible with journalists I see." She whispers quickly into the girl's ear. "Just smile and wave."

But Wanda could barely react.

People continued to comment on the pictures, praising both the photographer and the model, and Valky tried to guide the whole thing.

"Please feel free to look at the next works, the buffet will be served in ten minutes." She announced at last, and Wanda could relax with the flashes dismissed.

Valky turned to her with concern, "I'm sorry, Wanda, I didn't know this would be your reaction to the photo. I thought you would be happy-"

"When did she give it to you?"

"A few months ago, I think. Why?"

"She didn't..." Wanda started and took a deep breath, trying to clear her head. "I never saw that picture before. She didn't tell me she was going to be exhibiting a picture of me, I didn't-"

"Hey, she asked me to keep it a secret." Valky spoke up, her hands on Wanda's shoulders trying to calm her down. "She almost didn't want to display it, she said it was the most special photo she had. It was when she showed it to me that I asked for your phone number, and said I'd love to work with you."

Wanda frowned in confusion. "So she didn't recommend me?"

Valky gave a chuckle. "Well, yes and no? I was interested in you when I saw the photo, all Y/N did was give the number I asked for and the link to your portfolio. The rest was all your talent."

Wanda sighed. "Do you know when she took that picture?"

Valky shook her head, and Wanda ran her hand over her face. "Look, I don't know what happened between you two, so I won't pry. But I think, something so beautiful, should be shown to the world. But I understand if you want to take it down..."

"No, Valky, that's not it!" Cuts the other girl off. "I was just surprised. It's her work, she can exhibit it if she wants to."

"Well, it's still your face." Valky returns. "And what a beautiful face you have dear."

Wanda shakes her head in embarrassment, and Valky comments something about her getting modeling jobs if she wanted, but Wanda is barely listening.

"I should try to quiet the gossip about Y/N running off in the middle of the event, so excuse me." That was the last thing the older woman said before leaving the other one alone.

There were a few people around, trying to get a better look at the main photo, and Wanda stepped back a little to allow that.

She stood there, trying to understand exactly what had happened.

The couple in front of her moved away, and she got a clear view of the photo again, and swallowed dryly.

She has no idea when it was taken, but she recognizes the university. It's just her, caught in the middle of a laugh. She thinks you probably took it from your apartment window because it looked like the front garden where she insisted on studying because she liked being close to you.

It's the perfect shot of the moment she giggles. The exact second her eyes light up with joy.

It is perfect not because it is her face, but because she looks happy.

Looking at the title, she chokes softly. In Sokovian, the name was described "Moya dorogaya: Prichina moyego schast'ya (My darling: The reason for my happiness).

Wanda felt her eyes fill with tears. She looked one last time at the picture before walking away, intent on finding you.

--//--

"Of course you exhibited a picture of me without warning me and just ran away."

That was the first thing Wanda said upon finding you on the terrace, and you jumped out of your seat in fright, mentally rehearsing your apology.

Angry was the last thing she was, but from the way she approached you, you figured she was furious.

"I know, I'm sorry, I should have asked." You started off clumsily.

"When did you take it?" Wanda interrupted your apology, looking at you intently.

You scratched the back of your neck absently. "Promise not to think I'm weird?"

"No."

You wanted to laugh, but just replied, "The day after we went out for the first time. I know I shouldn't, but I went out to get some air on the porch, and you were outside with your friends, and I thought it wouldn't do any harm." You tell and think it best to finish before you lose your nerve. "I just thought you looked as beautiful as the day I first saw you, and I promise that was the only one I took. I didn't mean to be a stalker or anything! I took it and ended up forgetting about it, and then we happened and that was the only picture I had, except it turned out to mean something completely different and-"

"What did it mean?"

You let out an incredulous sigh. "What do you think?"

But Wanda doesn't hesitate. "I want to hear you say it."

You took a deep breath. “It's about what you make me feel, Wanda. From the moment I laid eyes on you, it was like having light in my life again. That's why photography is so sunny, unlike anything I took before. It's about the happiness that I feel by your side."

Wanda swallows dryly, looking hesitantly at the floor. You think she is trying not to cry.

"You can't say what you want to say to me, can you?" She tries unsurely, and you let out an emotional laugh.

"I can, actually." You speak, taking a step toward her. "I love you, Wanda."

She raises her eyes with reddened cheeks, and you smile, shrugging.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to say it, even though I've felt it for so long." You say, and she shakes her head softly.

"Perfect timing." She murmurs, and then smiles at you, before moving closer and entwining her arms around your neck.

You hug her around the waist, and relax as you feel her sink her face into your neck, inhaling deeply.

"Please don't hurt me again." She whispers. You hug her tighter. "I won't survive."

"I promise I won't." You speak and find it best to look into her eyes, so you break the embrace to place your hands on her cheeks. "I promise I will make you as happy as you make me."

Her eyes sparkle from tears, and you smile at her. Wanda raises her hands to yours on her cheek.

"I'd like to go on a date with you." She says, and you let out a relieved laugh.

"Yeah, I'd like that too sweetheart."

Wanda smiles and moves closer to kiss your cheek.

As she pulls away, she removes your hands from her face, but keeps one of them entwined in hers.

She gives you a complacent look, and you really don't mind running away from the party to go out with her.

//--//

You end up in a small bakery.

It's much better than the last date, especially since you don't let go of Wanda's hand, and she smiles at you in a way that makes your heart beat fast.

You talk about everything and nothing.

And when you are sharing a sweet muffin, she comments:

"Why didn't you talk to me at the sporting event?"

You let out a clumsy laugh, stroking her hand on the table with your thumb. "Because I was in a panic."

"To speak to me?" She asked, confused and amused.

You shrugged clumsily. "I was embarrassed, I guess. I didn't think you wanted to talk to me anymore."

She shakes her head and places her free hand over yours.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you that day." She begins. "I wanted to hurt you.It was childish, I should have said I didn't want you to go anywhere."

You sigh. "No, Wanda, I deserved it. You had to get that off your chest. And now, we can move on."

"About that, I think we should take it slow." She comments and you nod in understanding. "It's just, we started so fast and burned out too. I don't want to go through that again."

"I agree, darling." You say and smile as you intertwine your hand in hers. "This time, we will make it work. I'll love you the right way."

She bites back a smile with flushed cheeks. She leans on the table with a mischievous look. "But it doesn't have to be so slow."

"Oh, really?" You return in the same tone, your eyes falling to her lips. "How slow are we going to move?"

"Kissing is allowed." She says looking between your mouth and your eyes. " Holding hands, cuddling."

You smiled mischievously, and moved closer. Wanda thought you were going to kiss her and closed her eyes, holding her breath in anticipation. But you diverted your mouth to her cheek. You kissed her skin and she sighed. You didn't pull away, whispering in her ear, "Is making you cum on my fingers off limits, then?"

She choked softly. "Behave." She warned breathlessly, and you pulled away with a low chuckle.

"I missed you, Wanda." You declare after a moment, as she normalizes her breathing and you rest your chin on your hand, watching her adoringly. "I missed us."

"Me too, you have no idea." She returned shyly. "Damn, I can't believe this is actually happening."

You smiled at the unexpected confession. "Are you happy?"

She nods quickly, and you think that's enough.

You spend the afternoon at the bakery, and it's the best you've felt in a long time.

Valky texts about the two of you disappearing and her having to deal with all the press by herself, but your cell phone is on silent.

It's late, and most establishments have closed by the time you two call it a night.

"Can I take you home?" You asked as you circled her waist while you both spun smoothly on the sidewalk, and Wanda threw her arms around your neck, making a thoughtful expression.

"It depends." She says, and you make a noise with your mouth. "Will you behave?"

"I always behave."

She laughs softly, and you kiss her cheek, once, twice, until she sighs and agrees.

You take a cab, and you are doing your best to behave as Wanda has asked, but it is very difficult when she keeps looking so beautiful just existing.

She is in the middle of a sentence when you kiss her on the mouth, unable to control your own impulse. She gasps, and kisses you back.

But you pull away the next moment, with a hoarse laugh. "I'm sorry, it's not polite to interrupt."

Wanda just stares at you with her eyes darkened, and her breathing out of rhythm. "Stop apologizing and kiss me again."

You smiled and obeyed. There are no words to describe how much you missed the feeling.

Her lips were soft and hungry against yours. And things were definitely getting too heated for the back seat of a cab, so you slowed the pace of the kiss, and let out a chuckle at Wanda's disgruntled grumble as you pulled away.

"Darling, we're not alone." You reminded her quietly.

"That never stopped you before." She returned in a husky voice, and you raised an eyebrow.

"What happened to behaving? Or taking it slow?" You teased, your hand against her thigh and your breath against her lips.

She sighed loudly, and sank her face into your neck, trying to calm herself. "Fuck, you're right."

She kissed your skin softly, and you squeezed her thigh, making her gasp. "Wanda?"

"Okay, okay, we can do this." She spoke as she pulled her face away from your neck. "But you need to stop kissing me like that."

You bit back a smile. "And how am I supposed to kiss you?"

"I have no idea." She confesses breathlessly.

The cab arrives at your destination the next moment, and you pay the embarrassed driver because Wanda can't even look at him from awkwardness.

"One glass of wine, and you're off." Wanda warns as she works with the keys.

"Yes, ma'am."

You don't even get to open the wine.

When you enter the apartment, you make a comment about her getting a really nice place. And she closes the door, leaves her purse on the floor, and takes off her shoes.

She walks to the kitchen, to get the glasses and wine, and you're unable to look away, watching the curve of the dress on her perfect ass and the way the hem rises a little when she leans over to get the glasses.

She was explaining about how she got this place with Valky's help, and that she was doing fine without her father's help because of the Asgard contract, when you can't stop looking at her mouth.

And Wanda realizes that, because she is losing track of the conversation quickly, until all that comes out of her mouth is a small sigh.

You bite back a smile."We're totally going to have sex now, aren't we?"

She just nods and you are already stepping closer, kissing her with passion as your hands hold her face.

Wanda melts against you, responding with the same intensity.

It's messy and passionate, and you gasp against each other's mouths, until your hands are reaching down and squeezing her ass, making her sigh. You grab her to place her on the kitchen counter, and the kisses don't get any more innocent.

Wanda entwines her legs around your waist, not parting your mouths, her tongue slowly and sensually moving against yours. Your hands go up the inside of her dress, scratching her thighs, and she does the same with the hair at the nape of your neck, pulling gently to gain more control of the kiss.

As you move up along her inner thigh, she pulls on your hair softly, breaking the kiss as she bites your lip and tugs, making you moan lowly.

"Bedroom." She asks in a husky voice, and you pull your hands away to grasp her waist and lead her through the apartment.

Wanda struggles to guide the way with you kissing her neck, and you end up in breathless kisses many times in the hallway until you finally reach the bedroom.

You lay her down on the bed, falling on top of her, and Wanda squirms under you, sighing with her eyes closed at the feel of your lips on her neck.

You tease the skin, kissing and sucking and applying pressure that will mark her, and Wanda does nothing but sigh deeply, pushing her hips against you.

Your hands come down, working on her dress. You can barely contain yourself, pulling the fabric hard and revealing her breasts.

Wanda chokes as you envelop her nipple in your mouth, the other in your hand, teasing the hardened tips with your fingers and tongue.

"You're wearing too many clothes." She complains, and she is right. You haven't even taken your suit jacket off.

And pulling away with a soft grumble to take it off, she takes the opportunity to look at you.

"Enjoying the show, darling?" You tease working on the buttons. Wanda doesn't answer, lifting her body to kiss you again, and you laugh softly at her impatience.

With your shirt half open, you kiss again with the intensity as your thigh fits between her legs.

Wanda flinches, choking in mid-kiss as she tries to increase the friction by pressing her hips against your thigh. You smile into her mouth, using one hand to lift her thigh and increase your reach, while your other hand wraps around her breast again.

"Baby, you're dripping against my jeans." You tease as you feel the wetness on your thigh. Wanda whimpers, forcing her hips in an unclenched rhythm.

"Just touch me at once please." She asks between kisses, and you move the hand that held her leg open against you up the inside of her thigh.

The material of her panties is ruined, but you tease her clit over the cloth, and she squirms with pleasure, her nails sinking into your lower back.

"Stop teasing me." She begs breathlessly, and you thrust superficially into her, smiling the way she chokes on a moan. "Please."

You kiss her softly, and Wanda sighs. Before she can even prepare, you move the fabric of her panties aside and you sink two fingers against her hot center.

You both moan at the contact. Wanda is so tight, warm, and wet against your fingers. You slip inside without difficulty. She digs her nails into your back, and you wait for her to get used to the sensation before moving.

It doesn't take long before she does, kissing you again as she moves her hips, urging you to continue.

You smile against her lips, removing your fingers only to sink them again, beginning to thrust them in a torturously slow and deep rhythm inside her.

Wanda becomes a mess of moans and whimpers within seconds. "God, I need..." She starts between one gasping moan and another. "Faster darling."

You shake your head gently, watching her with adoration. "No, baby. Didn't you want us to take it slow? I'm taking it slow."

"Fuck." She whimpered, trying to force her hips against your fingers. But you let out a hoarse laugh, holding her waist in place.

"Behave." You warned, pressing her clit with your thumb. Wanda threw her head back, moaning loudly. "You're doing so good, baby. Making a mess on my fingers."

You could feel the way she was tightening against you, her pussy clenching into nothingness every time you took your fingers out. The slow rhythm made Wanda squirm, whimpering for her release. You kissed her mouth again, sliding your tongue against her at the same speed as you thrust inside her.

It was enough for her to start to spasm. You bit her lower lip, and decided to speed up your thrusts, and Wanda moaned loudly against your mouth, unable to match any kiss.

She climaxed the next moment, arching her back with your name coming out in a muffled scream.

You almost cum just with only the image.

As she calmed down, you removed your fingers, and brought them to your mouth. Groaning softly as you tasted her on your tongue, Wanda watched you with darkened eyes.

When you made mention of going down her body, however, she grabbed your forearm.

You were about to ask what's wrong, but she kissed you with intensity, and spun you on the bed gently until she was on top.

"Let me make you feel good." She asked as she moved her lips away from yours to kiss your cheek, and then your neck.

Her quick fingers worked with the last buttons of your shirt as she kissed her way down your exposed chest.

You bit your lips, watching her curiously, but Wanda just kissed your breasts over your bra before continuing all the way where you needed her the most.

She kissed your stomach before pulling away to unbuckle your belt.

You wriggled impatiently beneath her, watching her smile.

"Don't tease." You warn, and she bites back a grin as she pulls your pants and underwear out.

With you finally exposed to her, Wanda gasps, kissing your thighs slowly.

You let out a groan, and bring your hands to her hair, gripping it a little tightly.

"Wanda." You warn, and she gasps with her eyes ajar, glowing with mischief. Her smile is sinful.

"Is not fun when it's with you, baby?" she teases and you clench your jaw, tugging at her hair slightly causing her to choke and clench her thighs together as she rests her hands on your thighs.

"Stop teasing. Last warning."

She nods and without breaking eye contact finally leans her face against you, and licks your pussy gently.

You gasp, the grip on her hair losing its strength for a second. Wanda repeats the motion, and you have to fight not to roll your eyes in pleasure.

"Go on." You guide with a husky voice, watching her. Her cheeks are red, but she licks you shamelessly. Tasting you, and sucking you like it's her last meal. "Damn, baby, what a talented mouth."

Wanda murmurs against your pussy, sliding her tongue into your folds, and you close your eyes, squirming against her.

"Fuck, that feels so good." You gasp with your eyes closed, feeling her work her tongue against your clit. "Don't stop baby."

She doesn't stop. Not even after you start trembling under her, and cum on her tongue with a throaty moan.

You have to pull the hair gently to Wanda to pull away from your pussy with an affected sigh.

"Come here." You ask and she climbs up quickly, landing her legs on each side of your hips as she brings your face closer to hers.

You moan softly as you taste yourself on her tongue, and Wanda is ready for another, rubbing her hips against yours.

"Naughty." You remark as you realize her intentions, holding her waist to control her movements, and drawing a soft gasp from her.

"Tired yet?" She tasted, making you chuckle. Your hands began to move her hips against you, controlling the speed, and Wanda squirms with a deep sigh, dripping against your belly.

"Baby I haven't even started." You tell her. It's your only warning for the long night you're going to have.