I'm not here very often

Your eyes rested on the wooden sign swaying behind the glass of the entrance. It read: "Y/L/N Workshop. 3D Sculpting / Commercial Mannequin Production. Plaster Prototypes / FRP Molding. Wood-Carved Signage. Inquiries Welcome."

You were the kind of craftsman known only to those who had sought you out. A specialist in 3D modeling and mannequin making. Your skills were solid, but you preferred to stay out of the spotlight, adhering to a philosophy of small-scale production.

Without customers, the shop was effectively closed. So, you decided to immerse yourself completely in your own hobby. You dragged a clay figure, roughly your own height, from the back of the shop onto the open floor where the light hit it.

That was how you always worked: save the eyes for last.

Until then, there is the armature─the core you build first, the skeleton everything else follows. You pack the clay around it, find the center of gravity, coax the mass into the right distribution of weight. Then, only once the form is there, you shave and scrape and refine: the height of the shoulders, the angle of the jaw, the depth of each shadow. Even though you intended to make it stand perfectly straight, a tiny bit of weight always remained on one leg. You thought about reshaping it, but decided against it.

That felt more like her.

No matter how much you try to mend things with other details, the body doesn't lie. You had learned that lesson early on. The shoulders bear weight. The hands hold on past the point of reason. And the spine curves, however slightly, toward something.

She surely wouldn't always stand perfectly. Perfection, especially in a position like hers, can sometimes become an intimidation. Besides, trying to stand perfectly all the time must be exhausting. Caught up in tremendous effort, sacrifice, and the various complications where boundaries must be drawn, she would likely wear herself down.

As you scraped the clay, you weren't looking at photos or videos. You didn't need them anymore. You remembered her every detail. The angle of her shoulders. The shadow of her collarbone. The heaviness of her eyelids when they briefly close after a battle. It wasn't something you would describe as perfect. It only hinted at a strength that was barely holding on.

Still, you liked that dignified posture where such strength seeped through. You tilted the chin up slightly. But the mouth─you didn't turn it up completely. When the light hit it, a faint shadow fell across the cheek. The version of her you were shaping was the polar opposite of the scarlet chaos she unleashed; there was a quality to her expression that was best described as serene.

That's fine, you thought. While you were making a hero, you were just giving form to your own admiration.

And yet.

Your hands hovered somewhat hesitantly, yet precisely, in front of the face you were creating. Then, slowly and carefully, you shaped the eyes you had left for last. The clay eyes didn't focus on a distant threat; they were coming into focus as if searching for a place to return to.

It wasn't a perfect form, not by any means. You didn't think of her in that way. It just felt somehow dishonest to make it symmetrical. You didn't realize that this was an expression she showed to no one.

The woman you were carving was a household name throughout the city. An icon. A red flash streaking across the sky. Something untouchable.

Fussing over the details, you redrew the lines over and over, eventually feeling satisfied enough to step away for a moment. When you returned with a steaming mug in hand, you found you didn't quite like it after all and started over again.

How much time had passed─?

The sound of the doorbell shattered your concentration. Annoyed, you wiped your hands on the front of your apron.

"Come in," you called out, followed by the sharp sound of leather shoes against the floor.

The footsteps were certain, carrying an air of arrogant composure. They approached your back. After a significant pause, you finally turned around. This was a workshop you ran steadily by yourself. You couldn't afford to be looked down upon.

The man was somewhat slim and of medium height. He wore an expensive-looking suit with a natural, casual disarray that looked stylish on him. You immediately sensed that he was wealthy.

"Can I help you with an order?"

"Yes." The man replied without hesitation─the kind of yes that required no thought, as if the conversation had already been rehearsed on his end. "A bust. Bronze. Something for the lobby─a little legacy project, you could say." He began to walk as he spoke, and something in the way his eyes moved through the shelves, the workbenches, the drying parts─unhurried, but precise─told you he wasn't seeing any of it for the first time─not in the way that mattered. He moved through the space without hesitation.

He came prepared, you thought.

When the man turned back toward you, his eyes were drawn to what was behind you. There stood the figure you had been breathing life into until just a moment ago. Something shifted in his face. "Huh," he muttered, almost to himself, and began to circle the statue. He placed a hand on his chin and narrowed his eyes to check every detail. He stared at the sculpture as if trying to burn a hole through it.

"Is this for sale?" After a moment, he asked you, his gaze still fixed on the statue.

"No," you answered immediately. "It's not for sale."

"Then, is it for a promotion? A portfolio?"

There was a beat of silence.

"I don't intend to put that on public display," you said quietly, as if drawing a careful line between the two of you.

The corners of the man's mouth, topped with a mustache, lifted slightly. He looked into the eyes of the statue. "So, this is how she looks to you."

Something in the phrasing stopped you─to you, he had said, as though the answer belonged specifically to you and no one else. The thought had no time to go anywhere. The professional worry had already moved in to replace it. Is something wrong? Was I mistaken?

"Nice, I like it." The man gave a casual shrug and looked at you. Then, he clapped his hands with a crisp, pleasant sound. "Make one of me," he grinned. "That was the plan from the start─a bust, bronze, for the lobby. But with this quality?" His gaze drifted back to the figure. "I'm thinking bigger. Some of the other guys as well." He pulled a business card from his breast pocket and handed it to you. "Let's have a meeting. Come to my place. I want to give you a formal commission. The pay will be generous." The man looked like he was about to do a little dance.

And then, it finally clicked. The man in front of you was someone you had seen countless times on the television screen.

As you stood there, stunned and expressionless, the man─Tony Stark─flashed a grin. Then, he looked at the sculpture one last time. "The results are so good, it makes me want to show it to her myself," he said, letting out a laugh. His face looked as though he had just found the ultimate entertainment.

---

You watched from the doorway until the street took him, then went back to the workshop and didn't stop moving for the rest of the afternoon.

There was plenty to do. The commission had expanded considerably, and the organizational work alone─revised timelines, updated material estimates, a second sketchbook pulled from the shelf─was enough to fill the remaining hours. You filled them.

At some point in the evening, you stopped.

The results are so good, it makes me want to show it to her myself.

You had filed that away when Stark said it. At the time, it had seemed like the kind of thing he said─slightly too much, meant to land. You had let it land and moved on. He knew her. Not the way the rest of the city did─not the red light in the upper atmosphere, not the name on a news ticker. He had stood beside her. Which meant when he looked at the figure and said what he said, he wasn't speaking abstractly.

You crossed to the shelf and uncovered the figure.

The clay had been wrapped─damp cloth first, then plastic sheeting over that─since before the commission came in. Stored correctly, at this time of year, it would hold for another month or two without losing workability. You had known that. You had been telling yourself it was close enough to let rest indefinitely. That had been accurate. It had also been convenient.

You examined the surface. The shoulder. The line of the jaw. The weight in the standing foot. Everything where you had left it.

Because Stark had said what he said, you told yourself, it made sense to move forward. That was the reason you gave yourself. You didn't look for another one.

You covered the figure again, locked up, and left.

---

The mold work happened in the margins─an hour after the day's commission work, sometimes less. The Stark bust came first. That was the correct order, and you kept to it without difficulty. A section of the mold at a time. The workshop lamp on low. You kept the radio off.

The casting required a full day uninterrupted─each pour had to follow the last within a fixed window, or the joins would show in the finished surface. You took a Saturday. Your hands moved through the sequence without consulting your memory. Mix. Pour. Wait. You used the waiting to get ahead on the commission sketchbook.

By late afternoon, the form was clear of the mold. You set it under the bench lamp and looked at it for a while. The seams were where you had expected them. A few air pockets along the collarbone─minor, addressable. The surface was rough in the way plaster always was straight from the mold: unfinished, waiting.

The face you left for last.

The cloth went over it. Turned off the bench lamp and left.

---

Standing before the sleek, rounded silhouette of Stark Industries, you felt a wave of intimidation wash over you. The afternoon following Tony Stark's visit to your workshop, he had sent a text regarding a meeting. Now, following the date and time specified in that message, you stood poised in front of Stark's headquarters.

Looking up, the summit of the building seemed to dissolve into the sky, vanishing into the blue. You caught your breath and clenched your fists tightly, attempting to mask your trembling hands. You knew that if you hesitated too long, your hard-won resolve would begin to wither. Steeling yourself, you began to stride toward the main entrance.

Passing through the glass doors, you were greeted by a space that exuded the atmosphere of a sophisticated corporate office. A painting hung directly across from the entrance─oil, precisely the right scale, a subtle playfulness in it that was easy to miss. Your attention slid past it almost immediately. Suddenly, your gaze was drawn to a particular corner of the space where several stone busts were lined up. The height of the pedestals, the distribution of weight, the tilt of the necks─by professional reflex, your eyes began to dissect the details. You only snapped back to reality when you nearly collided with a person in a suit passing nearby. You adjusted your grip on your bag and made your way to the reception desk.

"Excuse me," you said, your voice raspy with nerves, addressing a female staff member whose eyes were fixed on a screen at the counter. When you stated your name and the time of your appointment, she tapped rhythmically at her keyboard before looking up. "Conference Room Five, on the seventh floor."

After thanking her, you headed straight for the elevators. One arrived almost immediately after you called it. Several people crowded in with you. The proximity of others, close enough for shoulders to brush, made you unexpectedly tense. Contrary to your internal agitation, the elevator smoothly delivered you to your destination.

The doors slid open to reveal a corridor stretching straight into the distance. Jostled by those exiting the lift, you hurriedly stepped out.

Conference Room Five. The door featured an inset glass panel, offering a clear view of the interior. A large "5" decal was positioned slightly above the center of the glass, perfectly placed at eye level. Taking a deep breath, you knocked and opened the door.

"Pardon me."

Tony Stark was already inside. He was perched at the end of a rectangular table with an air of nonchalant ease, as if he were in his own living room. Beside him stood an individual holding a tablet, presumably an assistant. Upon noticing you, Stark raised a hand. "You made it. Have a seat."

As prompted, you sat in the chair directly across the table from him. The assistant laid out several documents: an overview of the commission, estimated deadlines, and compensation terms. You looked them over; the scope of the project was significantly more extensive than you had anticipated.

"I have something I need to clarify," you said, looking up. "Regarding the bronze casting, I'll need to engage a specialized subcontractor. I can handle everything up to the design and creation of the prototype, but I need your approval on that point."

Stark didn't seem particularly surprised and gave a casual wave of his hand. "That's fine. The prototype is what matters."

You gave a small nod, and the discussion continued: the number of figures, their scale, where they would be installed. Stark leaned forward as the conversation progressed. He became especially talkative when the subject turned to his own likeness. Taking notes, you slowly began to find your rhythm.

Once the general points were settled, Stark leaned back and crossed his arms. "One more thing," he said. "I've decided to have one of the team members drop by today as an observer. They're running a bit late due to some business on our end, but they'll be here momentarily."

Before you could ask for clarification, there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," Stark called out. As the door opened, you turned around reflexively.

You knew that face─it was impossible not to. It had been everywhere: news, newspapers, public discourse. She stepped inside and walked toward Stark. Her profile matched, down to the last millimeter, the contours you had traced with your fingertips in your studio.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Stark smirk.

You looked forward, dropping your gaze to the surface of the table and staring at your scribbled notes. Nothing registered.

She's real.

The obvious truth finally sank in, delayed. A figure who belonged on a television screen was now breathing the same air as you. That specific slope of the shoulder, that exact angle of the jaw you had struggled to capture in clay, existed right here, close enough to touch, if you had dared.

Stay calm. You thought. This is just work.

Yet, inside you, something entirely unrelated to work was quietly seething. The reality of the countless hours you had spent crafting her image in your workshop rushed back with a strange, heavy sense of consequence. That had been a private creation─an extension of a hobby. And yet now, the subject was standing right in front of you.

Stark spoke. "Allow me to introduce you. Serving as an observer for this commission─" he paused just long enough to enjoy the moment, "─Wanda Maximoff."

Stark's voice sounded distant. You managed to look up, intending to offer at least a polite nod. In that instant─you felt her attention before your eyes had fully risen. By the time you looked up, her gaze had already moved on. Your eyes never actually met.

You exhaled, realizing only then that you had been holding your breath.

---

By the time you looked up from the work, several weeks had passed since the meeting at Stark Industries.

After that initial meeting, you had visited Stark Industries one last time to finalize the specifications. Since then, you had hardly emerged from your workshop. Progress was steady. Capturing Tony Stark in a bust─balancing his trademark casualness with the underlying intellect─had proven slightly troublesome, but a compromise was finally taking shape in the clay.

Stark visited the workshop on a fixed schedule every few weeks. Aside from those appointments, he also dropped by whenever the mood struck him. Having retired from the Avengers and left the company to his employees, he seemed to have an abundance of time on his hands. Each time he arrived, he would wander around the studio, reaching out toward anything that piqued his interest until your intervention prompted a nonchalant shrug. He would pose questions, then shift his gaze to something else while listening to the answer. You had come to understand that this was simply how he operated.

You had noticed his gaze lingering on a sculpture that wasn't part of his commission. He never remarked on it, and you offered no explanation.

Today was a scheduled visit.

You were not, by nature, someone who welcomed the presence of others in your workspace. Clients disrupted the rhythm; their questions pulled your attention from your hands. You had always preferred the shop closed and quiet. Sitting before your workbench, smoothing the surface with a flat tool, you waited for the doorbell. Somewhere along the line, the scheduled visits had stopped feeling like interruptions.

Stark had a habit of letting things drop in passing─a preference she had for something, a reaction she'd had to something else. Nothing substantial. He never lingered on it. But by now you had accumulated, without meaning to, a small and useless collection of details that had nothing to do with the commission. You hadn't thought about why any of that had stayed with you.

A little past the appointed time, the bell chimed. He was always late. The sound of the door closing followed. Footsteps.

─Multiple people?

Puzzled, you turned around, instinctively setting your tool down on the desk, almost tossing it. All the while, your eyes were locked on the two figures entering, particularly the one following behind. Wiping your hands on your apron, you stepped away from your chair, took a breath, and exhaled. "Welcome," was all that managed to escape your lips.

"Hey, how's it going?" No apology for the tardiness. There never was. He always brushed it off with a casual greeting. Behind him, you saw Wanda Maximoff give you a slight nod of acknowledgment. Just like before, she seemed to be communicating without words.

"The work is progressing smoothly," you replied to Tony.

And then there was Wanda. She said nothing. Led by Tony, she stepped into your workshop. You watched blankly as she─and he─moved through the space.

Wanda had stepped into your studio.

"Don't mind us, keep working," Tony said breezily. With no reason to refuse, you nodded. He had visited this workshop numerous times; he knew his way around. The only thing that felt off was Wanda's presence beside him today.

Stark began to survey the studio. Wanda followed. His voice filled the room as he introduced the workshop to her, every syllable crisp and clear.

You picked up your modeling tool and turned back to the workbench, but your fingertips wouldn't move. With your back turned, your entire being was tracking their footsteps.

Tony's stride was confident. Having been here so often, he knew exactly where everything was. The moment you sensed those footsteps heading in a specific direction, you held your breath.

This is bad.

Clutching the modeling tool in one hand, you didn't─couldn't─turn around to stop him. The words failed to come. You couldn't find a single justification to intervene.

"Take a look at this," Tony said. His tone sounded as though he were showcasing one of his own creations. "Not bad, right?"

You didn't turn around. Couldn't. Clutching the modeling tool in one hand, you snapped your mouth shut, looking foolish. It was all you could do. You felt a cold sweat prickle down your spine.

Silence followed. In that stillness, you slowly risked a glance over your shoulder. Just as you feared, Wanda was standing before the sculpture. She was motionless. She said nothing. She simply stood there. You couldn't read her expression. You started to try, then stopped. You were afraid to know what her face might reveal.

Tony stood there with his arms crossed, looking satisfied. The silence lasted longer than expected. Eventually, it was Tony who broke it. "Good work, wouldn't you say?" he remarked, in a way that could have been directed at either Wanda or you. It felt less like a question and more like a simple confirmation that his perception was shared.

You didn't answer. Wanda remained silent as well. She hadn't moved an inch. From your angle, it was impossible to tell where her gaze was fixed─the face, the hands, or the piece as a whole. However, you thought her breathing had grown slightly shallow. It might have just been your imagination.

Satisfied, Tony walked over to you without another word. Leaving Wanda where she was, he began discussing the project's progress. While you responded, you continued to track Wanda out of the corner of your eye. She slowly looked away from the statue and glanced your way for a fleeting moment. Before your gazes could truly lock, you dropped your eyes back to your work.

The conversation with Tony ended quickly─a few confirmations and the date for the next session. While taking notes, you noticed Wanda's footsteps moving away from the statue.

She began to wander slowly through the workshop. The tools lined up on the shelves, small figures in the process of drying, material samples pinned to the wall. She did exactly what Tony used to do, though she didn't reach out to touch anything. She just looked.

Even as you answered Tony, you remained acutely aware of exactly where she was.

Before long, Tony glanced at his watch. "Time to head out," he called to Wanda. She nodded. Just as when they arrived, there were no words. The two of them left the workshop. The door closed.

Something had changed in the room─not in anything you could point to. You didn't move for a while. Did she take offense? You had created a likeness of her without her permission. And today, you had allowed her to see it. The question sat there.

At some point, you crossed to the far wall and laid a cloth over the figure. You picked up your tool and returned to work.

---

The night before his scheduled visit, a message came in from Tony.

"Something came up. Can't make it tomorrow. Sending Wanda in my place. Thanks."

That was it. No apology. That was the kind of man he was, and you had stopped expecting otherwise. You typed back a single word─Understood─and set the phone down. For a while, you just stared at the screen. Then you closed the message, turned back to your workbench, and kept going. You had been about to call it a night. You decided not to. Your nerves were wound too tight to sleep anyway.

Inspiration struck. That was the reason. You were going with that.

The next morning, you were up an hour earlier than usual. Your eyes had simply opened. No particular reason. That was what you told yourself.

---

The doorbell chimed right on time.

"Excuse me." Her voice was brief but clear.

You rose from your chair, wiping your hands on your apron as you crossed to the entrance. Wanda Maximoff stood just inside the doorway, one step back from the threshold. Her expression was the same as before─quiet, unreadable.

"Welcome," you said. "Come in."

She gave a small nod and stepped inside. "I appreciate your time." That was all.

As you turned to lead her further in, your eyes swept the workshop─and your stomach dropped. You had always worked alone on short-term commissions. There was no designated space for guests. How had you not thought of this before?

"Would you mind waiting a moment? I'll get something set up." The words came out faster than you intended. You watched her face.

A small nod.

Moving with more urgency than grace, you crossed to the corner of the workshop, unfolded the collapsible table propped against the wall, and set two work chairs beside it. A spare cloth went over the surface. It wasn't much. But it was everything you had to offer right now.

"Please," you said, gesturing to one of the chairs. "I'll make tea."

On the way to the small kitchen, you noticed your hands were moving too quickly. Slow down, you thought. This is work. Same as when Tony comes. It wasn't the same.

You filled the kettle and set it to boil. Pulled out two mugs. Set them down, adjusted the angle of one, left it. While you waited for the water to heat, you kept your back to the room and listened. Where was she looking? What was she thinking? You had no way of knowing.

The kettle clicked off. You poured, removed the bags, and carried both mugs to the table─setting one in front of Wanda, the other at the seat beside her.

"Before you pass along Tony's questions," you said, "I'd like to walk you through the current progress first. It might make reporting back to him a little easier."

Wanda gave a slight nod.

You stood and began moving through the workshop to gather what you needed. Just doing the job thoroughly. Material samples, a few sketchbooks pulled from the shelf, pages sorted into order. Simple tasks. They took longer than they should have.

A few times, you sensed her watching you. You kept your head down.

The workshop was quiet. Time moved strangely. A faint shift of fabric─Wanda adjusting her posture. The sound of it passed through you before you could stop it. You sensed her eyes settle on you, and this time, you were certain.

Pencil still in hand, you went still. Wanda was watching your hands. The way you held the pencil, the angle of your fingers, the lines accumulating across the open page─she was following all of it, quietly and without comment. You kept working. Pretended you hadn't noticed. Kept your head down and your hand moving. The pencil was on the page. Your attention was somewhere else entirely.

Wanda Maximoff was, from a sculptural standpoint, close to an ideal subject. A slight asymmetry existed between her left and right sides. That subtle imbalance caught light in ways perfect symmetry never could. The angle of her jaw. The depth of her collarbone. The fingers that shifted even when the rest of her was still. Every detail held its answer before you had thought to ask the question.

Beautiful, you thought.

A moment later, her gaze shifted away. You caught the change at the edge of your vision. The air in the workshop felt faintly different. Or maybe it didn't. You weren't entirely sure.

"Let's go over everything," you said.

You returned to the table and drew the work-in-progress closer. Opened a sketchbook, pencil ready, and walked Wanda through the current stage and what came next─step by step, plain language, no technical terms. She was here on Tony's behalf, and she'd need something useful to bring back to him. That mattered to you. She listened carefully. Now and then her gaze moved to the sculpture itself, settling on some detail. Her questions were few, but each one was precise.

When the walkthrough was done, she passed along Tony's items: two points of clarification on the progress, one question about material specifications. You answered each and noted them in the margin of your sketchbook.

When the last item was settled, Wanda gave a small nod. "That covers everything. I'll pass this along to Tony." She rose from her chair.

"Thank you for coming." You stood and walked her to the door.

At the threshold, she turned. Your eyes met hers. You didn't look away. The moment to do so came and went before you found it. She didn't look away either. For just a second, both of you stayed there─held in place by something neither of you had chosen. It wasn't long. But it was more certain than anything else that had happened today. Something passed between you.

Wanda held your gaze for a moment longer. Then, quietly: "Thank you." She gave a small nod and stepped out. The door closed behind her.

You cleared the table─carried Wanda's mug to the kitchen, then your own. Came back. Sat down at the workbench. For a moment, you just looked at the empty chair.

---

From the next visit on, you had the table and chairs set out before she arrived. No particular thought had gone into it. You had simply decided, at the end of the last session, that she would come again─and left them where they were. You laid a cloth over the surface. Dust would collect otherwise, and dust looked careless. Presentation was a form of courtesy to a client.

Wanda came. She was alone.

Whether that was Tony's arrangement or her own call, you didn't know. The only advance notice had been a short confirmation from Tony's assistant─a single line with Wanda's name in it. You typed a reply─I'll be here─more carefully worded than anything you would have sent Tony, and put your coffee cup in the sink. She arrived on time. The same as before.

"Please," you said. Wanda stepped into the workshop, keeping her footsteps quiet. Your eyes met. Without looking away, you stood and gestured toward the table. That it was already set up─Wanda said nothing about it. She glanced at the chair once, and sat.

"I'll make tea," you said.

"Thank you." Less of a pause than last time. You noticed, while you filled the kettle, and pretended you hadn't.

You set the tea down and turned back toward the worktable. Before you got there, Wanda spoke. "Please continue. I'm here to observe."

You stopped. Observer─the word moved through your mind. That was her role here. If this was professional observation, the correct thing was to continue working and be observed. That was simply how it worked.

"Understood," you said, and rolled up your sleeves.

The day's work was surface finishing on the plaster prototype─the first commission piece, Tony Stark's bust. You moved a fine rasp in short, careful strokes, working the surface smooth. Plaster dust collected between your fingers. You brushed it off on your sleeve. It collected again.

Wanda sat and watched your hands. Last time, you had moved around the workshop and her gaze had followed you. Today she was still. She simply sat there, watching only your hands. That stillness came through more clearly than movement would have. Something shifted faintly at the back of your neck. You didn't turn. She was observing. That was what she had come to do.

After a while, she spoke. "What happens to it, eventually? This material."

You set the rasp down─not to answer, but because the angle of the question had caught you slightly off guard. "The plaster?" you asked.

"Yes."

"This is the prototype. We take a mold from this shape and pour the bronze. The final piece will be a bronze casting. Once the mold is made, the plaster original doesn't need to be kept. Sometimes it gets disposed of."

"Disposed of."

"Yes. Once the mold is done, its purpose is finished."

Wanda was quiet. You picked up the rasp and returned to work.

"It's not─" she started. No words followed.

"I don't find it a waste," you said, before you'd decided to. Whether you were anticipating her thought or simply thinking out loud, you couldn't tell. "The piece survives in the bronze. The plaster work is there in the final form. That's enough."

No answer came. You didn't look at her. The sound of the rasp across the surface was all that continued in the workshop.

---

The next visit came a few days later. By then, Wanda coming to the workshop alone had settled into the natural order of things. Tony joined her only when something required his direct input, or when he had time to spare. You didn't ask for reasons. This was how commissions progressed. Who handled the progress checks wasn't yours to decide.

The table and chairs were already set out. You made tea and brought it over. Kept working. This visit, there was more conversation. Wanda said something; you answered. She said something else; you answered again. Gradually, a kind of space had opened between the exchanges─not quite business communication, not quite small talk, something in between.

That day, you explained the way shadow worked in sculpture. The occasion arrived naturally─Wanda's attention had caught on a plaster piece resting on the worktable, and she asked what stage it was at. You wiped your hands and stood in front of it. Wanda rose from her chair and came to stand beside you─both of you facing the same direction.

"When you make it too even," you said, tracing a finger lightly along the cheekbone, "the light becomes uniform. But a human face is slightly asymmetrical─the left and right sides take light differently. That difference is what reads as expression."

"...What changes, if it's even?"

"It goes flat. The eye slides over it. You could say the sense of a person's depth becomes harder to perceive."

Wanda was looking at the figure's face. You were looking at it too. You were looking at the same thing.

"Is that what you did─with the eyes on that one, as well." For just a moment, her gaze moved to a corner of the wall.

Your hands went still. What she meant by that one was clear. The figure standing against the far wall, under the cloth.

"...It was a judgment I made," you said.

"A judgment you made."

"Yes."

Wanda said nothing more. Neither did you. She stayed where she was. You didn't move either─not because you couldn't, but because there didn't seem to be any reason to. A car passed outside. Its sound moved thinly through the walls. For some reason, the ordinariness of it felt strangely solid.

---

The following week, the consumables ran out. The rasps were clogged. The release agent had been low since last month. A brush lost a whole cluster of bristles at once. You made a list and headed out.

On the way back from the supply shop, you turned down a side street and stopped in front of a coffee shop. At the workshop you brewed your own, or forgot to drink it entirely. Getting coffee somewhere outside was something you rarely did. You ordered at the counter and stood at the window bar facing the street. People moved past outside─different speeds, different directions. That there were this many people out on a weekday afternoon always struck you as faintly surprising. Working in the workshop, the number of people visible through the glass was limited. Every time you stepped outside, the scale of the world came back to you, the way things do when you've been indoors too long.

The coffee was hotter than expected. You waited, finished it slowly, dropped the cup in a bin on the corner, and stepped back out.

There was a park nearby. You went in. A weekday afternoon─sparse. A parent with a small child, an older man on a bench with a book, a woman walking a dog. You didn't sit. You moved along the path slowly, the supply bag hanging from one hand. You were uneasy without something to do with your hands. That much you already knew. Walking with nothing in them gave you a vague sense of displacement. You stopped near the pond. The surface moved with the wind. Time to head back, you thought, and looked up─

The light came before the sound.

The edge of the sky turned red. It was over in a moment, but it was certain. A bundle of light, close to crimson, cut between two buildings. You couldn't move. It wasn't a choice─the option simply wasn't there. People around you looked up. Someone pulled out a phone. You didn't. You knew yours was in your pocket. The thought of reaching for it never arrived.

A few seconds of quiet. Then a low, muffled sound reached you─something moving, far off. You recognized the type of sound from news footage, but hearing it move through actual air was nothing like that. It entered your body differently. The light moved again from a different angle. Near the top of a building, something traced an arc. You could make out the silhouette─you thought you could.

You understood immediately who it was. That understanding was all that remained. Who it was─just that, fixed and certain.

People began to gather. You left the park quickly. Walking back the way you came, the supply bag knocked against your arm. Rasps, release agent, brushes. The weight of them was in your hand. That much was real. That was your world.

You walked faster and returned to the workshop. Unlocked the door, set the bag by the shelf. Changed into your work clothes.

Then you stood in front of Wanda's figure. The cloth was still on it. You didn't lift it. You stood there and read the outline through the fabric. The position of the head, the angle of the shoulders, the foot bearing the weight. You traced back in your mind the light you had seen between the buildings.

It didn't match.

What was here was a still form in plaster. What had been there was force, moving through the city sky. Both had to belong to the same person─and yet however you tried, the two wouldn't come together inside your head. Whatever it would take to bridge them, you didn't have it. You reached out a hand. Stopped. You weren't sure why.

You hadn't been commissioned to make it, but you had gathered what you needed, drawn from your memory, moved your hands. What had been in that sky was a hero.

The person who opened the door of this workshop and walked in was something else.

You went to the worktable. Reached for the new rasps and swapped them for the old ones. Set them against the plaster. Moved them. The sensation of the surface smoothing came back through your palm. You focused on that. That was enough.

---

On the next scheduled visit, she arrived on time. Table and chairs already out. Tea waiting on the table. Wanda sat down.

"I'd like to go over the progress," she said.

"Of course." You turned toward the worktable and opened the sketchbook, walking her through the current stage and what came next. Clearly. Precisely. No room left for ambiguity. You kept your eyes on the table as you explained. Not toward Wanda. There was no need. Pointing to drawings and the prototype was sufficient. Sustained eye contact wasn't always required.

Her questions were fewer than before. Fewer even than the visit before that.

"When should we schedule the next check-in?" Wanda asked.

You consulted your notebook and gave her the dates. "Tony's bust should be nearly complete by then. Some of the others are taking shape."

"Understood," Wanda said.

"Any questions?"

"No."

"I'll have what's ready for you."

"...Yes."

The sound of Wanda standing. You glanced at her tea. She'd only finished half. The time before, she'd finished all of it. Maybe she wasn't feeling well. Or maybe today's visit had simply been shorter, and she hadn't gotten around to it.

You walked her to the door and opened it. Wanda stepped outside. You watched her back for a moment─just a moment. The way she held her left arm, close to her side, the movement slightly restrained. Not stiff, exactly. Careful. The door closed. Footsteps moved down the hall. Faded. Gone.

You started to clear the table and chairs, then stopped. Lately you had put them away immediately after she left. This time, you left them out a while longer. It was more efficient to have them ready for the next visit. That was your reasoning, and you returned to the worktable.

Passing Wanda's figure, the edge of the cloth caught your eye. You didn't stop. Kept going. That was all.

You sat at the worktable and picked up where you'd left off on Tony's bust. Rasp in hand, set against the surface. You moved it. Moved it again. Something was off. You couldn't locate what, not right away.

After a while, the rasp had gone still. It was in your hand, but it wasn't moving.

On an impulse, you lifted the cloth from Wanda's figure and looked at the eyes. You took a moment to place when you'd last touched them─then it came back. The day after the shadow explanation, you'd noticed something and made a small correction. You'd shaved too far along the rim of the iris. You took a fine chisel and worked it carefully. A little. Checked. A little more. By the time you stopped, the shape had settled back to nearly where it had started.

It had returned. Almost the same form as before the correction.

This was right. This was correct.

Outside the window, the wind moved. Inside the workshop, there was no sound.

---

That day, too, Wanda arrived on time. She unhooked her coat and hung it up, sat down. Both hands wrapped around the cup. The same sequence of movements she had repeated every visit, carried out in the same order today.

You kept working, tracking her from the edge of your vision. Her left arm moved more freely than last time. Taking off her coat, the faint hesitation that had been there before─today, it was nearly gone. Recovering. The thought reached that point and you stopped it.

The quiet returned to the workshop. You adjusted your grip on the rasp and kept going. Today's silence had a different quality from before. The first time Wanda had come here alone, the silence had density─a taut stillness, the kind that comes from being watched intently. You had registered it as the sensation of being observed. Today's silence had no such tension.

She's gotten used to it, you thought. But your hands kept moving, and the thought didn't quite land the way it should have. Before, Wanda had watched your hands─the way you held a pencil, the angle of a tool, the accumulation of lines on the page. You had filed it under professional interest in the craft. Today, her gaze was on the work itself. Not your hands. The work.

That was good, you thought.

That day, you found it difficult to concentrate. You couldn't account for why. The light was coming in at a slightly poor angle today, you decided. These things happened.

At the end of the visit, Wanda confirmed the next date. You answered without consulting your notebook─you already had it in your head. "That day, then," you said. Wanda nodded and moved toward the door. At the threshold, a faint shift in the way she was standing. The suggestion of turning back. A pause, and then the door was open and she was gone.

You stayed where you were.

---

A few days later, you went to Stark Industries on business─a materials change request and a specifications meeting with the bronze casting subcontractor. The date had been arranged in advance. You entered the building. The same lobby as before. Last time, your professional eye had started to pick apart the stone busts in the corner before you caught yourself. This time there was nothing to catch. Your gaze didn't go there. You walked toward your destination. The business was brief─two points of clarification, no discrepancies in either party's understanding. You said your goodbyes to the person handling the account and headed for the exit.

You turned the corner of the hallway.

Wanda was standing there. She was talking to someone else.

Your feet stopped. Not because you told them to. They simply stopped.

Fifteen feet, maybe more. You couldn't hear the conversation. All that was visible was the angle of two bodies, the space between them, and the air that filled it. The person facing Wanda had their back to you─still, barely moving, leaning slightly in her direction. When they shifted, just slightly, you caught the edge of his face. Not a face you could forget, if you had seen it once. You had. Wanda was speaking, looking at him. Something in the angle of her shoulders had loosened. Her left hand moved─something between an explanation and a confirmation. Her left hand moved freely.

You noticed that, and the other thing, and looked away.

They were standing close. The kind of closeness that has a history behind it. You had no way to read that pull. All you could see was the distance and the air. There is air here that you cannot enter. It was the place this certainty had been building toward, from the day in the park. There is a daily life here. The daily life of people who have spent time together in the same place. The air of where Wanda belongs.

You are outside that air. It was simply a fact.

The business was done. The hallway led to the exit and you followed it. Outside, the air was cold and flat. You walked back with your eyes on the pavement, and you kept them there.

---

Back at the workshop. Key in the lock. Change of clothes. Rasp in hand. Tony's plaster original was at its final stage─a few more sessions and it would be done. The other figures were at varying points of progress: some had been transferred to plaster, others were still in clay. Still, the end of the series as a whole was visible.

On the way to the workbench, you passed Wanda's figure. The cloth was on it. You didn't stop. You walked past.

You set the rasp against the surface of the plaster model and moved it. Plaster dust settled between your fingers. You brushed it off. It settled again. Your hands kept moving, and somewhere inside you, something was working its way toward language. It hadn't reached words yet. But it was there.

When this series is complete, the commission will come to a close.

You didn't stop the rasp. When exactly those thoughts would become words─that, you didn't yet know.

---

At the next scheduled visit, Wanda arrived on time. The table and chairs were already out. Tea was on the table. She sat down and wrapped both hands around the cup.

Today, her left arm─you didn't notice. Whether the careful restraint that had been there was still present. Your attention was on the workbench.

"I'd like to go over the progress," Wanda said. You opened your sketchbook and gave the update without moving from your chair. Efficient, you thought. Wanda listened and nodded. There were more questions today than last time─you took that to mean something in the previous explanation had been unclear, and filled in the gaps.

The conversation moved with functional efficiency. Question. Answer. Another question. The moments where an explanation used to open sideways into something else─those didn't happen today. It wasn't that you held back. Wanda's questions stayed within the range of progress review. You kept your eyes on the table.

At the end, Wanda said she'd schedule the next check-in. You said you'd be here. She moved toward the door.

At the threshold, she turned. Your eyes met hers. Wanda held her gaze steady. "Take care," you said.

For just a moment, something crossed her face. Her mouth opened, slightly. No words came.

"…I'll come again," she said. The door closed.

You looked at the table. The cup was empty. You carried it to the kitchen, washed it, returned it to its place on the shelf.

---

That night, the workshop was quiet. At the workbench, you set the rasp against Tony's plaster original. The surface smoothed beneath your hands. Your hands told you so.

After a while, the rasp was still in your hand. It had stopped moving.

You were standing in front of Wanda's figure before you had decided to move. You took hold of the edge of the cloth. You didn't lift it. The shape of the figure came through the fabric─the position of the head, the angle of the shoulders, the foot bearing the weight. You stood there and read it for a while. Every client relationship has an end.

You let go of the cloth. Back to the workbench. Rasp in hand. Set it against the original. Moved it. Somewhere along the way, your hand had stopped again. The rasp had gone faintly cold in your grip.

That was all.

---

 A few days later, an invitation to a party arrived from Tony Stark. Your eyes lingered on the screen for a moment, reading through a message far more densely worded than his usual periodic check-ins. According to the text, the ostensible reason for the gathering was that the team members want to meet the person sculpting their likenesses. It concluded with a definitive command: Be there. In a sense, you're the guest of honor. You reread it from the beginning. It also mentioned, Don't overthink it─treat it like a house party and come relaxed. That made the line between work and private life ambiguous, and you weren't sure where you stood. Nevertheless, once you were labeled the guest of honor, there was no way out. You typed and deleted various responses before settling on a simple Understood. I'll be there and closing your laptop.

You ran through the faces of the five others whose likenesses Tony had commissioned alongside his own: Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye. Who else would be there.

A restless sensation rose in your chest. You cast a glance at the laptop pushed to the side of the workbench, but it offered nothing back. About a week remained until the party. You thought about what to wear, what to say─treating it as an extension of professional duties, the way you always did when the work moved outside the workshop. You also prepared some reference materials: photos of the completed prototype for Tony's bust, and the other figures, which were finally taking shape. You didn't notice, until later, that the figure of Wanda had ended up in the frame.

You thought, idly, that you hoped it would be a clear day.

---

That day, you stood in the main living space of the Stark residence. The room opened wide─glass running the length of the seaward wall, and more of it throughout, in the corridors leading in, in the partitions between spaces. Light came in from multiple directions.

You felt a faint unease about the height. The thought arrived unbidden─what if it breaks─and didn't entirely leave. You held a glass of champagne and stayed near the wall by the entrance, keeping the windows out of your direct line of sight. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying the view without reservation.

Glasses clinked throughout the room. Laughter ran from one end to the other, and voices filled the space in a way that had no gaps in it. At the center was Tony Stark, working the room the way he always did─unhurried, completely at ease, already absorbed by the steady stream of people gravitating toward him.

You took a small sip from your glass. The carbonation prickled your tongue. The party was still in its early stages, new arrivals appearing one after another, each following the same sequence: the greeting, the brief exchange with Tony, the gradual absorption into the crowd. You watched from the wall.

Tony noticed you. Each time he raised a hand in your direction and began to move, someone intercepted him before he got there. You recognized faces from the news and didn't know what to do with that. You stayed where you were.

After a while, the flow of new arrivals slowed, and a specific rhythm settled over the room. The crowd had sorted itself into groups. The window for entering a circle without a reason had closed without announcing itself. You exhaled quietly.

At that moment, your gaze was drawn to a single figure across the room.

Wanda had come from the direction of the kitchen─emerging from somewhere past the far counter. Beside her walked someone you recognized without having been introduced. Vision. You stayed where you were.

She saw you. Said something to Vision─brief, turned slightly toward him, her voice lost in the noise of the room. There it is, you thought. Your chest was quiet in a way that wasn't quite comfortable.

Vision nodded at something she said, glanced once in your direction, and stayed where he was. Wanda crossed the room toward you alone.

"I didn't know you'd be here," she said.

"Tony invited me," you said. "I didn't know what to expect." A pause. Your eyes moved briefly toward the crowd where Vision had gone. "Is he all right?"

Wanda followed your glance. "He's fine," she said, and left it there.

She stood beside you rather than across from you, both of you facing the room. It was different from the workshop─no table between you, no work to keep your hands occupied. The conversation moved in small steps. The party around you. The commission. How the figures were coming along. Outside the workshop, her sentences came differently─less precise, more space between them. You found you didn't mind the spaces.

At some point the conversation had drifted, and in the pause that followed you said, without entirely meaning to: "Is that your partner─the one you came in with."

It wasn't a question, quite. It came out flat, the way things do when you've been thinking them without knowing it.

Wanda went still. Not for long. But you caught it─the half-second before her expression settled into something else. She turned to look at you, and something in her face was harder to read than usual. "Why do you ask," she said.

The noise of the party continued around you.

"I'm sorry," you said. "It came out wrong."

Wanda looked at you for a moment longer. Then she glanced toward the room. "It's loud in here," she said. "There's a terrace."

Outside, the air came off the ocean cold and steady. The sky had cleared enough that you could make out stars─not many, but a few. The terrace was almost empty.

You stood at the railing. Wanda stood a step back from it. Neither of you spoke for a moment.

"What made you ask that," she said. "Inside."

You kept your eyes on the water. "It came out wrong. I didn't mean anything by it."

"That's not what I asked."

A pause. The wind moved through the space between you.

"I'm not sure," you said. It was as honest as you were willing to be.

"You're not sure, or you'd rather not say."

You didn't answer. The water below caught the light in long, shifting lines.

"We'll see," she said. Not quite accepting it. Something closer to filing it away.

Another silence. This one had a different quality from the ones in the workshop─less settled. Something in it hadn't decided where to land.

"He and I─" Wanda started. She stopped. Started again differently. "It's not simple."

"You don't have to explain anything to me."

"I know I don't." She looked at you. "I'm choosing to."

You turned to look at her then. She was already looking at you─directly, the way she rarely did. Something in her expression had moved past the careful stillness she usually kept.

"It's not what you thought," she said.

You turned back to the water. "All right."

"It's coming to an end," Wanda said.

"Yes."

She looked at you for a moment. "And after that."

The words settled. You kept your eyes on the water and let them. The light below was still moving, the same as it had been all evening, and somewhere between one breath and the next something shifted in your chest and didn't shift back. You had lost count of your drinks somewhere along the way.

You closed the distance between you.

Wanda went still. Not pulling back. Not moving forward. The warmth of it moved through you─and something cold followed it down your spine, and that was your mind catching up. You started to pull away─

Her hand closed around your arm.

She pulled you back. And this time it was her─certain, without hesitation─and whatever stillness she had always kept between you was gone. Her hand was at your jaw. You stopped thinking entirely.

---

The party ended at some point. You were not entirely sure when.

Later, at home, you sat for a while without turning on the lights. Your coat was still on. After a while, you took it off and laid it across the arm of the chair.

Outside, the city was still lit─the occasional car moving below, a few windows bright across the way.

You were aware of your own heartbeat in an unfamiliar way─not racing, just present. The room was the same room it always was, and yet you sat in it differently, or it held you differently, and you weren't sure which. You went to bed, and you didn't sleep for a long time.

---

The visits continued─Tony, then Wanda, then both, then Wanda alone. The cadence looked no different from the outside.

But it had changed. The distance at the workbench─a few centimeters closer than the work required, and neither of you adjusted. The way her fingers would briefly overlap with yours before pulling back when she returned a sketchbook.

Between sessions, you worked on Wanda's figure. You lost track of time more easily than before.

Wanda began coming alone more often. The meetings ran the same as always, but something in the air had shifted.

That day, when it was time for her to leave, she stopped at the door. She looked at you for a moment. "I need your number," she said. "To confirm the next visit."

You couldn't help a slight smile. You gave it to her.

She typed it in without a word and left with a quiet "Goodnight."

Later that night, a message arrived. It wasn't about the next visit. There's a place I've wanted to go. Are you free this week?

You read it twice. Then you typed back: Yeah, I'm free.

---

Wanda was already there when you arrived. She raised a hand when she saw you. The market ran along a stretch of flat ground near the water, vendor stalls extending in both directions. The morning was bright and cold at the edges.

You moved through the stalls without a plan. That was her pace, and you fell into it. She stopped when something caught her eye and kept moving when it didn't. Now and then she said something about what she was looking at─not quite commentary, not quite directed at you, something in between. You found yourself listening for it. Your hands stayed in your pockets.

At one stall, she stopped. A low table of carved wooden pieces, old stock mixed with newer work. She picked up a small bear, turned it over once, and held it out to you. There was something in her expression that wasn't quite a smile.

You took it from her. Her fingers and yours occupied the same space longer than a moment, and then it was gone.

The bear was palm-sized. The grain ran clean through the body. The weight was right, the stance considered. You turned it over. Wanda leaned in, her shoulder almost at yours.

"The feet," you said.

She looked. A pause. "They're not even."

"No." You turned it once more. "That's what makes it stand."

"You would notice the feet."

You set the bear back on the table. She looked at it for a moment, then moved on, her step lighter than it had been. You followed. The water was visible between buildings at intervals.

The walk back was longer than it needed to be.

---

After that, there were other days. A bookshop she had wanted to find. A film, one you'd wanted to see, and dinner afterward that neither of you had planned on. A place that turned out to be closed, and somewhere else you ended up instead.

By the third time, you had started to think about it before it arrived. By the fifth, you had stopped arguing with yourself about what to call it.

The meetings outside accumulated in small details─her order at a counter, the direction she walked without being asked, the way silence between you had started to feel like something shared. Enough had passed that you no longer reached for explanations.

It happened on a day when the completion of the commission was finally within reach. Wanda was in her usual spot, her posture easy. You were at the workbench with your back to her, working.

She said something quietly.

Your hands stopped.

The workshop held the sound for a moment. Then Wanda said your name.

You turned to face her. You looked her in the eye. You began to speak─

Before the sentence was done, she had already crossed the distance.

---

A short while later, you ran into Tony in the hallway outside Wanda's room. He looked at the two of you and didn't say anything for a moment. You held his gaze without flinching.

"Hello, Mr. Stark," you said.

Wanda, beside you, tightened her hand around your arm.

Tony's mouth moved into something unreadable. He glanced between you once, gave a single nod, and turned to go. Then, almost as an afterthought: "Good work." A beat. "Cap liked the figures, by the way. Nat had some thoughts about the photograph─the one where Wanda's figure caught the frame." He kept walking. "Just thought you'd want to know."