Be Kind To Yourself (3)
Life
When Wanda wasn't submerged in a sea of pain, she drowned under an ocean of nausea. She had to make do with bland meals, even if that meant missing out on the flavors of Wakandan cuisine, so she could keep something down in her stomach. Days and nights dragged on miserably. She couldn't fathom what she would have felt without her left-sided numbness and the amount of medication the nurses gave her. She had seen the X-rays of her mangled arms, though she felt as if her skull had cracked and caved in, as well. She could not even brave through the headaches by clenching her teeth. That would just make it worse.
"How could I get a stroke?" she asked Steve. She'd been wondering for days. "I thought that's usually a problem with old people." She shot him an apologetic look. "No offense."
"None taken." He folded his arms across his broad chest. "I was confused, too. But as Princess Shuri and the other doctors had put it, your powers are mind-based, so when you pushed your powers to their limit, you must have pushed them so much that the blood in your brain formed clots. That's how you get a stroke."
Hearing this made her feel dazed. "I've gotten headaches if I lift something too heavy, but I've never had something like this."
"You've never had to destroy an Infinity Stone before, and hold back a guy holding five more. But you did. Honestly, we're amazed that you survived at all."
She couldn't quite believe it herself. Though she underwent training with Steve and Natasha prior to her debut as an Avenger, they focused more on combat tactics and had never dwelled much on testing the limits of her power output. They didn't know what would happen if she did, and they had feared the consequences.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Steve asked. "Want something to eat? I can bring you lunch."
Wanda shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm not hungry."
The captain reluctantly made his way out. "Okay, but make sure to eat something later."
"Yes, sir." She didn't like to make him worry, but she really did not have an appetite lately. Vision would try to cook her something during times like this. He'd been working hard on perfecting Sokovian paprikash just for her. Now she would never enjoy his cooking again. She settled for yet another pill to fight back the nausea. It was a bitter pill to swallow.
The window of her room provided a generous, sweeping view of the former battleground, where she would watch the other Avengers help clean up the carnage and debris. One morning, Thor swooped up to her room with a great leap and a flash of lightning, coming in through the balcony.
"Good morning, Wanda. How are you feeling?"
"Could be better," she said with a wince. Seeing him with that new axe forced upon her an unpleasant image of him pounding her head with it, over and over. "The painkillers are wearing off," she groaned.
"I'll get them for you." Since his arrival, he had quickly mastered how to use the technology. With deft taps of his fingers he brought up the medication and helped her take them, tipping the glass of water gently between her lips.
She muttered thanks when he finished. Sometimes she forgot that Thor was more than a mystic figure from forgotten times. He was certainly not the only Avenger to assist her in simple things on account of her broken arms. Without her hands, everything seemed so much more difficult to accomplish. Even with voice-activated Wakandan amenities, eating, drinking, changing clothes, and so on provided daily challenges for her to overcome.
Wanda gestured to the window with a turn of her head. "How are things going down there?"
"The plains stink to high heaven from the blood of those creatures, but we're making good progress with disposing their bodies." The king of Asgard gave her a small smile. "I wish you can meet my new comrades. They call themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy."
"I've seen them from the window." Wanda figured that he must be talking about that walking tree, and that raccoon toting a gun almost his own size.
Thor hefted the Stormbreaker. "Thanks to their help, I forged a weapon strong enough to kill Thanos." He should be glowing with victory when he said that, but something etched on his face seemed to mirror her own fatigue and pain. Thanos's defeat came at a great price for him, too. She sensed that.
"You lost someone to this war," Wanda murmured.
He pinched his eyes shut, then his voice came out thick and hoarse. "Thanos murdered half of my people. And my brother."
"I…I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too. About Vision, I mean."
An unseen hand seized her throat and she struggled to draw in a breath. Thor approached her bedside and rested his large, calloused hand behind her neck. Wanda didn't know what else to say; neither did he. For a few moments they shared the grief, an unspoken understanding. Finally he drew his hand back and stepped away to the balcony.
"I have to go. The Wakandans need my help burning the carcasses, and lightning does the job quite well. Take care, Wanda."
Her throat still tight, she couldn't reply. Wanda was about to wave good-bye when she realized that she couldn't. Both her arms looked twice as thick and stiff with the casts around them.
Her left-sided numbness came with a perk, at least. She didn't need anesthesia when the surgeon performed repairs to her left arm. The advanced nature of those procedures amazed her. The measures were so minimally invasive, on such a nanoscopic level, that her casts didn't need to be removed, let alone her skin being cut open with the standard scalpel. Remote controlled nanobots inside her arm pieced together the fractures, teeming and coordinating through the labyrinth of blood, muscle, and bones like a colony of ants. But even this could not piece together her broken, aching heart. Nothing could be done for that.
The numbness persisted for several days, despite the blood-thinners. When Shuri came for routine neurological evaluations, T'Challa and Okoye often accompanied her.
"You still can't feel me touching your left cheek?" Shuri asked.
"No, not at all." Vision was that half of her torn away by the war, and when he left, so did any feeling to her left side, it seemed.
"We will continue administering the same dosage. They'll work…they just need time."
"If I may add, Your Highness, I saw how she held off Thanos with her left hand," Okoye said. "Thanos pushed against her, while the android destroyed by her right hand did not resist her power. The strain to her left seemed much greater than to her right. That could explain the damage to her left side, while sensation to her right remains intact."
That android had a name, and he loved her. He was not just destroyed. He was killed. Okoye probably meant no offense, but the detached way she talked about Vision, as if she was not aware of how much he meant to Wanda, made the young Avenger tense and furrow her brow. The general was sharp, and upon noticing the reaction, she softened the hard mask of her face and lowered her gaze.
T'Challa touched his fingers to his chin. "That's a reasonable observation, Okoye. Our doctors have never dealt with injuries from fighting against Infinity Stones, so we must proceed with caution." When he turned to Wanda, she found it hard to meet the intensity of his eyes, despite the gentle way he had always addressed her. "Miss Maximoff, will you be all right with staying here in Wakanda until you are fully recovered? My sister does not feel comfortable with releasing you to undergo care elsewhere. I would not, either. Not when we have the best tools at our disposal to help you heal."
In all honesty, Wanda wanted to leave. She had come with her comrades to Wakanda hoping for a short stay. She certainly did not expect to be the focus of their efforts and generosity. Their time would be better spent caring for their own people and restoring their land, but here she had to go winding up in a huge, broken mess. A broken white girl for them to fix.
Wanda shook her head at herself, despite the dull, throbbing ache against her skull. "I'm so sorry for the trouble-"
"You are no trouble at all," Shuri cut in. "You played a big part in saving hundreds, thousands of us from Thanos. This is the least we can do for you. I have no problems with continuing to care for you until your arms have healed and all the stroke symptoms have resolved."
"You are not a burden to us, I assure you," T'Challa said with a lift of his hand. "We would just like to know if there's anything we can do to make your stay here more comfortable."
Wanda wanted to admit what she had been holding in and suffering from all this time: the nightmares their medicine could not fix.
"If you ever get the chance to have an audience with the king, tell him how you feel, as you had done with me," Vision once said to her.
But before the Black Panther, his sister, and Wakanda's fiercest general, with the three standing over her while she laid prone in bed, Wanda could not bring herself to open up to them. Fear got the best of her, and Wanda bowed her head in deference. "Your Majesty, Your Highness, I'm very grateful for everything you've done so far. I'll go along with whatever you think is best for me."
Shuri smiled and nodded at that. "Just a few more surgeries, some rest, and we can work on getting those arms of yours moving."
Wanda wished she could share the princess's optimism. She had begun to accept the damage she had taken from the fight, to bear with it for the rest of her life.
Shame at herself overwhelmed her as the three left. "I'm sorry, Vis," she said softly. "I couldn't do it."
The nightmares would not stop. In fact, they grew worse in Wakanda than anywhere else. They assaulted her with unrelenting ferocity, the dead always finding a way and giving her no mercy as they tore her into pieces. She would wake up intact, in cold sweats, her throat hoarse from crying.
"It's the pain," she would say to Shuri or a nurse. That was the excuse she kept telling them. Insomnia hampered the road to recovery. Before drifting off into sleep every night, she tried hard to resurface memories of sharing those vulnerable moments with Vision. She tried to imagine him by her side, and that comforted her a bit.
Instead of returning to the compound in America, the Avengers remained with her in Wakanda. Tony returned to Earth, bringing along a kid who called himself Spider-Man, a magician named Dr. Strange, and the rest of the Guardians. They, like Wanda, came away battered from a fight with Thanos, but didn't have to be hospitalized like her. The Guardians of the Galaxy were particularly curious with meeting the woman who held her own against the Mad Titan. They entered her room to make introductions.
"This is her?" The raccoon named Rocket exclaimed. "I thought she would look more impressive."
Peter Quill aimed a kick at his striped tail. "Hey, that's rude."
Groot drew close to Wanda's bedside and said, "I am Groot."
She nodded at him. "…I am Wanda Maximoff."
"Maximoff from Sokovia, you have my highest respect for standing against Thanos," the warrior called Drax declared. "In my homeworld, we would mark you from head to toe with tattoos in honor of your strength and bravery."
Once again, Wanda struggled for words; fortunately Peter rolled his eyes at Drax. "I don't think that's necessary. Does it look like she wants tattoos? Wanda only let us in to be nice, I bet. Come on guys, she looks tired. Let's leave her alone and let her rest."
Wanda saw in Peter's eyes the same pain in Thor's. Later, she found out from Tony how Peter had lost a loved one to the terrible making of the Soul Stone. Wanda wanted to reach out to Peter and offer some words of comfort. Even if she could, what would she say? She had no way to console herself.
As for Dr. Strange, he took a keen interest in the operations she went through. He had been a surgeon, after all. Since Wakanda recently opened its doors to the world, the possibility of the nation sharing its medical advances made the magician doctor very excited. Wanda had no doubt that he was quite intelligent without being arrogant, since he only observed the Wakandan physicians as they worked and he listened to them with respect. He was especially impressed with Shuri. With regards to Wanda, however, he couldn't get much of a conversation out of her. He pressed her to learn more about the Mind Stone, and her time with it. But she was not the same as Dr. Strange, who guarded the Time Stone. She had been more than a guardian for Vision. The doctor wouldn't understand.
Repairs to damage in the city were nearly done, and the battleground was cleared, yet the Avengers stayed. Everyone expressed hopes for Wanda's recovery so she could go back together with them. She felt like the last thing to be fixed here. The longest to get her act together. Maybe she would never truly heal.
Honestly, there were times she wished that her comrades and the Wakandans had thought of her beyond saving, and left her to die on the battleground. But, as these dark thoughts crossed her mind, she could hear Vision gently reprimanding her.
"Wanda, life is a gift. One that's easily taken for granted, but a gift nonetheless. I see so much beauty and promise in something I could never really have. Please don't throw your life away. It's worth living."
"But is life worth living without you, Vis?" she murmured. He wasn't there to answer.
The fractures sealed shut, her casts were removed, and Wanda underwent the Herculean task of regaining function in her arms. Shuri urged her to start small, starting with OK signs, thumbs up, and flexes of her fingers before she could move on to grasping objects. Wanda's fingers were sore and stiff from days of complete immobility.
"Try your hardest not to use telekinesis," the princess said in a firm voice, and tapped at her temple. "We cleared out the clots, but this part still needs to recover. We can't risk any more damage to the brain tissue."
Wanda sighed. "Don't worry, your highness, I have too many headaches to think about moving things with my mind, anyway."
She didn't know if she could even use her powers again. If the Mind Stone was destroyed, did her powers go with it? She was not keen on finding out soon.
Steve and Natasha checked on her during lunch time, and whoever cooked the meal had poured too much stew. As Natasha handled the bowl and spoon to help Wanda eat, fat drops of stew sloshed over the bowl's rim to splash on her.
"Ow!" Wanda jerked back her left hand. Wait…her left?
Steve's eyes widened. "You felt that?"
"Your hand moved," Natasha exclaimed, then she quickly added, "Sorry about the spill." She dabbed at Wanda's hand with a napkin. Wanda felt every press against her skin, and each press sent a thrill into her chest, made her heart lift a little. She hadn't been imagining it, after all. The feelings were real.
"I'm going to tell the princess." Steve headed for the hall with a big grin. "She'd love to hear about this."
Wanda made small, slow blooming flowers with her left hand, flexing her fingers in and out, and for the first time in days, a full smile spread on her face. Life seemed to seep back into her dead left side.
