I could not take it from him, he did not tell me! Do you know how it felt, to think I was trusted, and then to find out again that I was not? I wanted to try to be normal for him!
[It comes out before she can stop it, and now she unlaces her fingers only to wrap her hands around her arms, as if Stark's computer cannot keep the inside of the building at the perfect temperature at every moment.
What does she feel for Vision? She hasn't found a way to put it into words yet, but in the time it's taken her to try and figure it out, they've grown comfortable. There is a closeness there that she hadn't expected. Or there had been, before she had turned on him. But maybe he forgives more easily than most, even if she isn't certain he knows how to forget.]
[His head cocks to the side, processing, he can't help it. That confirmed a few things. Raised more questions than it answered, but it answered the important ones. None of those answers were comforting.
For a moment he wants to reach out, because he recognizes that panic. Recognizes knowing you've let someone so much closer than you meant to and how absolutely lethal it is to realize you've misplaced your trust and affection. How debilitating it is to be reminded you're human. How some people seem so much more than.
His expression is infinitely more kind than he knows she'll appreciate, but it hurts. He hurts. It's a selfish pain, he's claiming pain that doesn't belong to him, but when has that ever stopped him? People in his proximity get hurt. Whether he personally deals it or not is irrelevant, it might as well be his fault. Probably is. Usually is.
He has no idea what to say.]
You are trusted. [His lips quirk up at the corner and he blazes through, quiet and low in contrast to her outburst. Like all the fight he might have had left is just gone.
There's another huff of laughter, void of any humor.]
Just wanted to keep you from being locked up for your own good.
[And he rolls his eyes up and can't seem to pick anywhere to level his gaze, settles for out the windows, into the open nothingness of the sky.]
You're not exactly in the best company to pretend to be normal.
[It's soft, when the answer comes, quiet because any louder and her voice would shake.] I wanted to try. He is so kind.
[Now she moves, slow and stiff as if all her joints ache, each swing of her booted feet taking her closer to the window until she can put a hand on it and stare out, the other still wrapped around her stomach to hold herself in. She can put her back to him. It doesn't hurt to do that, it doesn't make her skin crawl to be exposed like that.
What she wants to say next...there are a few things. She could be angry, tell him that locking her up for her own good had been what he'd done when he'd appointed Vision as her glorified babysitter, or that it hadn't mattered what he'd wanted, that he hadn't known it would go bad the way it had. None of that will help now, and saying it might not matter.]
What happened in Lagos. What I did. Trying to help, doing what I thought needed to be done and watching it go...so wrong... [She tucks her hair behind her ear, not looking at him, not even at the faint reflection in the window, and her voice is even lower now.]
I didn't understand before. How much it. Sits. Inside you. Like a stone.
[He feels the earth sway beneath him and for a moment he actually believes the floor is going to give out. But it doesn't. And somehow, he stays standing, wondering if maybe reality itself shifted around him.
Because Wanda continued to rip his balance from him, again and again, his tenuous, hard-won balance. His reality had never been so flexible til she'd gone and tap danced through his deepest fears.
And now... that... that sounded like an apology. Understanding. Common ground.
He'd never wished it on her.
His gaze remains on nothing but sky, though he claws at something tickling his cheek.]
[The way her shoulders curve in when he answers is less like defeat and more like she's drawing up her remaining strength, curling around the hot bubbling regret inside her. No, it won't get easier. She's watched him for long enough. If it got easier, she would have seen it in him.
It's a stupid impulse. It's weak. He's going to reject it, push it away like he pushes away every gesture, even from his friends. And she is not a friend, is she. Not trusted, whatever he says. He's afraid.
She still lets her hand drop back, swing back toward him, held low with fingers spread wide, not a trace of red dancing between them, her other arm motionless, tight across her stomach where the stone lives now. He won't take it. But maybe it will be enough to have offered it.]
[He knows what it cost her to reach out. How much more it costs her to reach out to him.
To give when he's already taken too much from her.
He's not afraid of her, not really. He used to be. Before he finally accepted he was really just afraid of himself. Always had been. Always will be. Just couldn't stand knowing someone else knew it now, too.
So he reaches out, takes the steps, closes the distance, and laces his fingers through hers as he joins her at the window. Still staring out at nothing. Feeling everything.
He wants to laugh. Or cry. Or crack his forehead against the glass. So he just stands still, hyper-aware of how small her hand feels in his. How deceptive that is. How good it feels to accept comfort he doesn't deserve. Or maybe give it.]
[It had always been easy to hate Tony Stark when Pietro had stood there. Their pain had run through them, back and forth, a closed circuit. Her anger runs out of her now, homeless and bleeding away, never enough to fill her, no matter how much bubbles out of her heart and her memories.
It's one thing to know how many long hours he's put into his machines, but as he does the unthinkable and accepts, silently, her gesture, it's another to feel it. The roughness of his palm, the pattern of callouses from tools, little imperfections that could be natural or could be the remnants of scrapes or burns.
The work is branded into him. It's...startling, to find how deep it runs. It makes her fingers close on his hand, her thumb trace once over the back of his before it stills again.]
[He's not worthy of the acceptance he feels in the small, simple gesture of her hand squeezing his, the smoothing of her thumb over the back of his hand. It's too comforting.
He's made up entirely of scars like armor. When he'd said it all those years ago, he hadn't meant it metaphorically, but it rang true all the same. He was his work. He is Iron Man. Armor with a very squishy, breakable, broken core.
A quiet, breathy laugh escapes him before he can even consider holding it back, and he catches sight of his reflection before he slides his gaze to look at hers. He's smiling. It almost hurts to.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[It comes out before she can stop it, and now she unlaces her fingers only to wrap her hands around her arms, as if Stark's computer cannot keep the inside of the building at the perfect temperature at every moment.
What does she feel for Vision? She hasn't found a way to put it into words yet, but in the time it's taken her to try and figure it out, they've grown comfortable. There is a closeness there that she hadn't expected. Or there had been, before she had turned on him. But maybe he forgives more easily than most, even if she isn't certain he knows how to forget.]
no subject
For a moment he wants to reach out, because he recognizes that panic. Recognizes knowing you've let someone so much closer than you meant to and how absolutely lethal it is to realize you've misplaced your trust and affection. How debilitating it is to be reminded you're human. How some people seem so much more than.
His expression is infinitely more kind than he knows she'll appreciate, but it hurts. He hurts. It's a selfish pain, he's claiming pain that doesn't belong to him, but when has that ever stopped him? People in his proximity get hurt. Whether he personally deals it or not is irrelevant, it might as well be his fault. Probably is. Usually is.
He has no idea what to say.]
You are trusted. [His lips quirk up at the corner and he blazes through, quiet and low in contrast to her outburst. Like all the fight he might have had left is just gone.
There's another huff of laughter, void of any humor.]
Just wanted to keep you from being locked up for your own good.
[And he rolls his eyes up and can't seem to pick anywhere to level his gaze, settles for out the windows, into the open nothingness of the sky.]
You're not exactly in the best company to pretend to be normal.
no subject
[Now she moves, slow and stiff as if all her joints ache, each swing of her booted feet taking her closer to the window until she can put a hand on it and stare out, the other still wrapped around her stomach to hold herself in. She can put her back to him. It doesn't hurt to do that, it doesn't make her skin crawl to be exposed like that.
What she wants to say next...there are a few things. She could be angry, tell him that locking her up for her own good had been what he'd done when he'd appointed Vision as her glorified babysitter, or that it hadn't mattered what he'd wanted, that he hadn't known it would go bad the way it had. None of that will help now, and saying it might not matter.]
What happened in Lagos. What I did. Trying to help, doing what I thought needed to be done and watching it go...so wrong... [She tucks her hair behind her ear, not looking at him, not even at the faint reflection in the window, and her voice is even lower now.]
I didn't understand before. How much it. Sits. Inside you. Like a stone.
no subject
Because Wanda continued to rip his balance from him, again and again, his tenuous, hard-won balance. His reality had never been so flexible til she'd gone and tap danced through his deepest fears.
And now... that... that sounded like an apology. Understanding. Common ground.
He'd never wished it on her.
His gaze remains on nothing but sky, though he claws at something tickling his cheek.]
It never really gets easier. It shouldn't.
no subject
It's a stupid impulse. It's weak. He's going to reject it, push it away like he pushes away every gesture, even from his friends. And she is not a friend, is she. Not trusted, whatever he says. He's afraid.
She still lets her hand drop back, swing back toward him, held low with fingers spread wide, not a trace of red dancing between them, her other arm motionless, tight across her stomach where the stone lives now. He won't take it. But maybe it will be enough to have offered it.]
no subject
To give when he's already taken too much from her.
He's not afraid of her, not really. He used to be. Before he finally accepted he was really just afraid of himself. Always had been. Always will be. Just couldn't stand knowing someone else knew it now, too.
So he reaches out, takes the steps, closes the distance, and laces his fingers through hers as he joins her at the window. Still staring out at nothing. Feeling everything.
He wants to laugh. Or cry. Or crack his forehead against the glass. So he just stands still, hyper-aware of how small her hand feels in his. How deceptive that is. How good it feels to accept comfort he doesn't deserve. Or maybe give it.]
no subject
It's one thing to know how many long hours he's put into his machines, but as he does the unthinkable and accepts, silently, her gesture, it's another to feel it. The roughness of his palm, the pattern of callouses from tools, little imperfections that could be natural or could be the remnants of scrapes or burns.
The work is branded into him. It's...startling, to find how deep it runs. It makes her fingers close on his hand, her thumb trace once over the back of his before it stills again.]
I think I am over my time now. We are even.
no subject
He's made up entirely of scars like armor. When he'd said it all those years ago, he hadn't meant it metaphorically, but it rang true all the same. He was his work. He is Iron Man. Armor with a very squishy, breakable, broken core.
A quiet, breathy laugh escapes him before he can even consider holding it back, and he catches sight of his reflection before he slides his gaze to look at hers. He's smiling. It almost hurts to.]
I'll put it on your tab.
[Yeah. They're even.]