CHAPTER 23: A Matter of Perspective
The way the apartment smelled did not endear it to Wanda, or Natasha for that matter. Natasha was wearing a backpack with her Shield clipped on with a karabiner. There were enough Avengers themed backpacks and merchandise, cosplay among other things, over the years that Steve Rodger's shield didn't stick out at all. Especially when Romanov had gone into mild incognito mode. Wanda was made to wear a black leather jacket and a baseball hat, modest glasses with transition lenses, and her hair in a ponytail to complete the casual disguise. It was annoying, but there was enough of a chance that she'd be recognized with everyone back now. The footage released from the airport fight captured all of their faces. Her picture along with Sam, Scott, Bucky, Steve, and Clint being posted in newspapers around the world at the time wasn't great for her walking around inconspicuous either.
Romanov had her hair in a French braid and a Captain Marvel t-shirt. (One of the Wakandans who was at the final battle was also a graphic designer with a surprisingly influential merch store). How Romanov had found something so hilarious was something Wanda would probably never know. But she couldn't help but grin at how adorable it was considering the former spy's obvious flirtations with the blonde space-goddess. Something that wasn't fucking adorable at all was that Romanov also made me carry my new messenger bag with my fucking course work in it. Like she expected the me to do my fucking homework? Really? Wanda's may love the Bartons and their involvement in trying to get her an education, but she detested homework. Pietro fucking loved homework, the weirdo.
With a sigh she remembered that her brother Pietro was perhaps ironically the more academically inclined one of the pair. For all his inability to sit still, when he got hold of a book he liked, or a maths problem he wanted to solve, he chased it until it was done and dusted. At least until they were orphans. They didn't have much time to use school as anything other than a place to stay after their lives were completely destroyed courtesy of Stark Industries' dubious weapons sales.
The last month of Wanda's life (from her perspective) had been romantic bliss in Scotland until it became hell, and she was pretty sure she'd take a long while to fully recover to the point of actively advancing her own interests without being prodded along by other people. So motivation to do something so ordinary as schoolwork was well…nearly non-existent.
Natasha jarred the younger woman out of her thoughts, "You've been awfully quiet on the walk up here. Do you have anything to say about this?"
"Not really. I think I threw the kid into a metal something or other during the airport flight. But I don't remember well enough to be sure," Wanda shrugged. She adjusted the shoulder-strap so her bag sat a little higher on her hip.
"Well, Steve specifically asked me to check in on this kid." Natasha paused. "You have any advice for me?"
Wanda raised an eyebrow. "You want my advice? On what? Talking to teenagers? You've always been the best with me out of the Avengers, other than Clint…and Vis."
"Well, I'm not your lover, and I'm not a normal person the way Clint is," Natasha replied slowly. She was happy that Wanda mentioned her dead boyfriend. As messed up as that sounded, that was progress. Also, Natasha wasn't entirely sure how to address that this high-school age girl basically ran away with a sexy AI who looked in his mid-forties, and from what she understood had fucked across Europe. Am I supposed to chastise her or give her a high-five? Fucking kids and their sexy robot boyfriends these days. I wish it wasn't so complicated. Natasha thought to herself.
"You're sane. And you're smarter than the rest of us," Wanda pointed out.
"True. But I've never mourned a parental figure," Natasha said quietly. "When I was at Vormir, the guardian of the Soul Stone addressed us as the son and daughter of our opposite gendered parent. He called me Natasha, Daughter of Ivan. I didn't even know that was my father's name, much less what he looked like or what it felt like to hug him…" Natasha trailed off for a moment as Wanda looked down at her with sadness.
Natasha rallied and continued, "Grief is something that was trained out of us in the Red Room. After we killed so many of each other, the normal emotional response to stuff like that is muted, at best. Most of us gave into the bloodlust, because that was how to survive; to thrive on the unspeakably bloody routine of it all. That's not even talking about the things they did to us to prepare us to seduce our targets. It took me over two decades to get to a point where I could honestly cry, or not lash out with a knife when I felt a man's hand on my shoulder, no matter how innocuous or supportive."
"I. I'm sorry," Wanda said back as she briefly held hands with her mentor. "I didn't realise. Hydra was a little like that. At least, the violence part. So many volunteers from Novigrad alone. But Pietro and I watched each other's back."
"I had someone like Pietro," Natasha said with a sad smile.
Wanda looked horrified, but Natasha just laughed, "She's alive actually. They definitely tried to make us kill each other. But it was on a mission, and I had already joined S.H.I.E.L.D. at that point. I made my loyalty to Nick Fury conditional on her safe relocation, and faking her death to our former masters. Her name was…well, it doesn't matter. I don't know what she's called now. I couldn't take the risk it would be tortured out of me upon capture. And despite what you may belive, if my former masters caught me, they would make me talk; it would just take a while. But I'm intimately aware of how they make women like me talk." Wanda squeezed Natasha's upper arm to shake her out of the dark spiral she was going down. "Thanks Wanda."
She decided to continue as if Natasha hadn't just implied horrors that would definitely taint Wanda's nightmares, "That book, Lord of the Flies was hard to read because of the nightmares it brought back. Mrs. Barton–Laura," Wanda automatically corrected herself, "Still feels bad about lending me that book."
"Ever seen Beat Kitano's Battle Royale? It's Japanese, early 2000's era," Wanda shook her head. "Think a more honest Hunger Games. Children slaughtering each other, but without the sanitization for American sensibilities." Natasha scoffed at the last part. "My life was like that but less scenic. No pretty remote island of death; more sterilized rooms and ballet studios and sheer cliff-faces."
"That's so horrible. I. I'm sorry," Wanda said softly.
"I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to bring up unpleasant memories," Natasha replied regretfully. "Like I said, I'm not great at the talking with teenagers thing."
"I think you may want to expand your definition from teens to like, people in general," Wanda said with a grin. Natasha didn't reply to her tease, instead her frown deepened, like Wanda's words sucker-punched her. Wanda looked at her, and her eyes gleamed red for a moment. "You know how you feel, but you don't know the words. I'm often like that. English is still hard for me, even if my accent itself has changed over the years to something less foreign," Wanda said softly.
Natasha briefly considered being offended Wanda took a peek into her thoughts, but decided to reign in her reflex to put the girl through a wall. The girl really was trying to help, even if she was going about it in the wrong way. And Natasha got the feeling that Wanda never really had anyone other than Vision to talk about these things with. She considered Clint, but at the end of the day, she knew Wanda wouldn't burden a father of three with her own issues like this. But Natasha let out a sigh, because she did need to establish boundries, "Please stay out of my head unless I ask you to," she said with a slight edge.
To Wanda, Romanov may as well have yelled at her, "I'm so sorry," Wanda almost whimpered. "I didn't mean to. It's a reflex–no. It doesn't matter. I hurt you…again."
Romanov was looking up at the taller girl and saw the agony on her face, and decided she could hide some of her own fear at Wanda's powers. "Look, I'm not mad. And in the future, you can ask me if it's okay to take a peek at my emotions or thoughts or whatever. And more often than not, I'll probably be alright with it. It's just when my privacy is violated that I feel deeply uncomfortable. Besides, I know you'll never try to hurt me again like you did that first time."
Wanda flinched hard at the mention of what she did to the Avengers during her and her brother's brief alliance with Ultron. Romanov felt a little bad about reminding the girl about that fight on Ulysses Klaue's boat, but ultimately decided that she needed to be reminded of what she could seem like to 'normal' people, as cruel as that sounds.
"Can we keep talking about Spider-boy?" Wanda asked softly, desperate to get away from the current topic.
Natasha let her tone lose its edge, having delivered her chastisement with brutal effect. But she wasn't quite ready to drop the subject completely. So in a genuinely curious voice she asked, "So what did you see when you peeked just now?"
Wanda gritted her teeth at Natasha totally disregarding her attempt to leave the conversation. "You think you're broken. Because of your past. Because you died. Because others died, and you came back. Because even now you're grieving Steve, because he became your brother. But you haven't broken down, and you think you're some kind of monster for being so functional. And that's just the surface. I'm sure there's a lot of self-loathing if I went deeper." Wanda stated bluntly; the words just poured out. "But you're not. You're not a monster Natasha, you're just different. It's not wrong that you don't know what it's like to mourn the same way everyone else does. From what Clint and uh, Steve told me a few days ago before he left. Uh, since I've been alive again…" Wanda paused at Natasha's barely perceptible flinch. "You anchored the team. And a lot of people are alive today because you were able to rope–ah, shepherd everyone together, working towards a cause rather than splinter apart. Like Clint did. Like I did, even before all this. You all could have become that, I think, if you weren't there." Natasha looked at Wanda again as they entered the hallway Peter Parker and his Aunt May resided in. "Maybe your different grief is what allowed you to function when everyone else fell to pieces. I'm not really explaining this as well as I want to." Wanda finished with a lame shrug. She wasn't sure if she worded that speech quite right. She wished Natasha spoke Sokovian. Because Wanda didn't speak English neare as well as she liked, sometimes even Lila, Clint, and Laura talked circles around her in American English that just made her feel so small. Even though she knew they never once meant to make her feel bad. Wanda didn't speak Russian or Polish, or the ten-ish languages like Natasha did, so that option was unavailable too.
"I don't know if I ever thought about it quite like that," Natasha replied. "But you know what he's going through, to a certain extent. Obviously Tony wasn't Parker's real dad, but all things considered, you're probably the most empathetic of us with this specific issue."
"Is that why you brought me?" Wanda asked wryly. She wasn't mad if the answer was yes. Natasha made a legitimate point.
"Not entirely," Natasha hedged. "Actually, that whole being able to relate thing is really just a convenient coincidence. I kinda wanted to spend more time with you; before everything went to shit with Ross and the Sokovia Accords, you and I used to talk more. I kinda want that again. I feel we started to get somewhere, and then it all fell apart."
"Oh. I'd like that," Wanda smiled at her friend for the first time in a little while. "I think you do have a point. About the whole empathy thing. My powers aren't a total blessing; I often feel the pain of others, if their emotions are loud enough. Clint's dreams, for one. They're terrible, and by the time I realised I wasn't dreaming normally, all those images and memories were in my head; of what he became during your Dark Years. And some stuff before the Avengers," Wanda shuddered.
Natasha levelled a sharp look at Wanda. It wasn't an aggressive look; Natasha was deeply concerned. She'd seen with her own two eyes the horrors that Clint had perpetrated. On deserving parties? Possibly. Probably. Hopefully. But it takes a certain kind of person to butcher other human beings like he did, and the thought of Wanda being exposed to that in such a way she couldn't emotionally shield herself made Natasha's gut twist uncomfortably.
Wanda either ignored Natasha's swell of concern or didn't notice it, as she continued, "Though that works in the other direction as well. It's why I enjoy being around Carol so much. She's like…" Wanda thought for a moment before saying, "Her confidence is very warm to be around. Not exactly like anybody else. Everyone else has doubts about whether they're capable, but she just doesn't. I could feel other flaws, her sadness, and decades of regret, and so much rage. But being completely unshakable in even one aspect is so reassuring to be near. Sorry I rambled a bit there."
"She is confident, isn't she," Natasha said with a grin.
"Is there something you want to tell me about what's going on between you and Captain of All The Rainbows?" Wanda smirked. Natasha shot her a look, "What? I'm not blind. Carol wants you, and she's checked many of the stereotypical lesbian boxes. According to the American media I've been watching anyway, and stuff online. Besides, when she came out to talk with me in the morning, she was blushing, and it wasn't because of the cold."
Natasha's eyes widened at Wanda's growing smirk. She missed this version of Wanda. She had gotten glimpses of it, but then it was all gone after the mission in Lagos, which kicked off their little civil war. "She's hot," Natasha tried to downplay with a shrug that was definitely supposed to seem casual. Wanda wasn't impressed.
"You got kinky with her didn't you?" Wanda was outright grinning now.
"I–WHAT?"
"You slept together."
"I mean, technically. And it was all Barton's fault. Carol and I didn't have sex. If that's what your little pervert mind was hoping for," Natasha said almost haughtily. But Wanda was having too much fun to be annoyed about Natasha's barb.
"It's alright, you can tell me allll about it later," Wanda drawled, bringing out her accent heavier rather deliberately. Before Natasha could get another word in, Wanda knocked on the door. She winked at Natasha's momentarily scandalized expression.
"I'll get you back, you cheeky little shit," Natasha grumbled. Her smile completely nullified any venom that might've been in her words.
A very pretty middle-aged lady opened the door, her smile disappeared, "You're not going to try and sell me anything are you?"
"No. You're May Parker right?" Natasha spoke up cordially.
"Yes?" May Parker responded with a raised eyebrow.
"We were…associates of Tony Stark. You saw me at the funeral," Wanda said.
"We wanted to check in on Peter to see how he's been dealing with things," Natasha added on.
"I don't remember you there. Wait. You're that chick who told the Senate Intelligence Committee to go fuck themselves when S.H.I.E.L.D. went to hell," May crowed as she placed Natasha's face. Wanda looked over at Natasha. This was something that she wasn't familiar with.
"Did you really do that?" Wanda couldn't help but ask.
"Um," Natasha didn't respond fast enough.
"They threatened her cause there was a lot of spooky shit she did that was revealed when she dropped all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s dirty secrets on the internet after the Triskelion was destroyed. She said it politely with different words, but it was still epic," May said with a manic grin.
Wanda was becoming highly amused at the reception that was obviously flustering Natasha. Wanda knew that her friend was much more used to their male comrades getting the celebrity treatment. Unless it was demonization, which was a very different feeling.
Wanda wondered if Carol might have some competition with a smirk. "Yes, this is Natasha Romanov: Leader of the Avengers. And I'm Wanda. It's nice to meet you."
The teenager held out her hand, May Parker taking it eagerly. She also shook Natasha's hand very eagerly, much to the former spy's consternation and Wanda's entertainment.
She turned around and shouted, "Hey, Peter there's a couple people here to see you!"
