So, how is everyone else coping with this lockdown? My country has been under lockdown for over a month now, but I'm doing okay. Let me know how you are and how you're passing the time!

I hope that everyone is safe and well, whether you're in quarantine or if you're lucky enough not to be in one. Hopefully this will be over soon and we can return to normal. Anyway, this is a lighter chapter to lighten your days.

A choking sound brought Sam and Bucky running into the room. Goose was crouched on the floor, looking rather pleased with himself - in front of him was a heap of plastic and wires covered in saliva.

"Oh, god. That's freaky. And disgusting." Bucky picked up Goose, holding him at arm's length, before dropping him onto the couch. Goose merely looked at them with a blank, innocent stare, as if this was perfectly normal. They looked closer at the mess on the floor. "Wait a minute. Isn't that my radio?"

"I don't believe that." Sam shook his head. They knew that Goose wasn't an average cat, but they didn't think it could get any stranger than him grabbing sparrows with his tentacles on the front lawn. Now he was regurgitating household objects. "We might have a bag of rice somewhere." He suggested with a grin, starting to see the funny side.

"Bag of rice? Look at it! It's half digested." Bucky nudged the heap of slimy metal with his shoe. "It's fine, I'll get a new one... Carol was joking when she said that flerkens spit acid, right?"

"Of course she was." Sam stooped, seemingly to pick up the remains of the radio, only to yell, waving his arm in agony. Bucky gasped and ran to the sink, frantically turning it on. Sam started laughing. The look of terror on Bucky's face disappeared at once as he aggressively turned off the tap, leaving indents in it with his metal hand.

"Don't scare me like that. That's not funny."

Sam staggered away, doubled over in laughter. "I'll grab the mop."

On the other side of the world, Vision sat at the little desk in Wanda's hotel room, the quietness in the room interrupted by the consistent sound of typing and more rain on the window. Wanda was packing her case, occasionally looking at the screen, to see what he was googling.

She had given Vision a basic run down of his life; how he was created, Ultron and Sokovia, his involvement with the Avengers, and that they had spent the last two years meeting across Europe after the team broke up. As friends, of course. Of course...

Vision wanted to know as much as possible, so Wanda had offered him her laptop to browse, to fill in any gaps. He had spent the last hour researching things, more recent things, such as the Decimation and it's reversal, or 'Siren' - to no recent results. Right now he had an article open, titled - 'Blipped? Here's everything you missed'.

The sound of typing ceased, as Vision was distracted by the reflection of Wanda in the mirror above the desk. He watched her open a small box, brow furrowed with indecision as she tried to decide what rings she wanted to wear that day, all while red tendrils of light moved her belongings and clothes into her case.

She must have felt his eyes on her, because she suddenly glanced up at him with a small smile. He quickly went back to typing, his google entry now riddled with grammar mistakes as he thought less about spelling and more about Wanda's smile.

Vision continued his research, ignoring the temptation to look into the mirror again. Learning about the Decimation was an uncomfortable experience, but the discomfort was distracting him from his other problems, especially his regrets. He barely noticed Wanda had slipped out of the room to make a call.

Back at the compound, the both of them were in the middle of transporting the slime-covered radio to the bin, balancing it between a mop and broom, when Sam's phone began ringing.

"Shit, where's my phone?" Sam began patting his pockets and shifting newspapers and paperwork on the kitchen counter, while Bucky was looking suspiciously at Goose, who was sauntering down the hallway. They eventually tracked down the phone under a couch pillow.

"-Wanda? Hello?"

"Hi, what's up?"

There was a long pause as the both of them looked at the puddle of flerken saliva and corroded plastic on the wooden floor by the couch.

"- Nothing of interest." Bucky said, quickly. "What's happened?"

"I'm coming back - actually, we're coming back."

They looked at each other in a mixture of relief and surprise. "That's great! That was fast..." After a moment of taking this fact in, Sam exchanged a concerned look with Bucky.

While Wanda was away, they had discussed the prospect of Vision coming to live back at the compound. They were content enough with the idea; but their near fatal encounters with Vision in the last few weeks meant that they weren't entirely comfortable with it.

"How is his memory? How is he in himself?" Bucky asked, optimistically.

Wanda lowered her voice. "We've got a long way to go. He's quiet, a little nervous..." But then, that wasn't surprising considering the events of last night, which she opted to keep from them at the moment. "Compared to yesterday, he's more like himself. I've got another problem, though. Passport related."

"Oh, shit." Sam groaned. "Didn't he have fake documents?"

"He had them with him in 2018, but I don't know what happened to them - he must have left them in the hotel..."

Wanda's brow furrowed as she had a thought. She didn't want to risk using her fake passport again. If she was caught she would be in enough trouble, but with Vision alongside her... on his own he might seem like any person, but next to her, with a comparison to be made, people might notice...

Might notice? The inner voice scoffed. She could just see it now: Wanda Maximoff, caught by airport security for using a fake passport, accompanied by a tall man with a peculiar mark on his forehead who just so happened to have identical facial features to a certain Avenger. Of course people would notice. It was just too risky.

Wanda sighed. I'll have to do it eventually. "Do you think we could take the quinjet?"

"Yeah, I don't see why not." Sam's eyes moved to the new quinjet, able to see it from the glass wall of the joint kitchen and living area. "We can send it to the old rendezvous point in the woods."

"Is there anything you want us to do before you guys arrive?" Bucky asked. "Maybe tidy up his room a bit, put on fresh sheets?"

"That would be great, thank you. Can you both do me another favour? When we arrive, just treat him as normally as possible. I think normality is the best thing for him at the moment."

"Yeah, we can do normal." Sam assured her, but he sounded nervous. "Anything else we can do to help?"

Wanda felt for Vision, affirming that he wasn't eavesdropping. Her insides knotted as she asked. "One more thing. Please don't mention Wakanda in any way. Not the stones, not Thanos, nothing."

"Alright, fair enough. See you soon." Sam hung up, brow creased. "Why not?"

"She probably doesn't want to provoke any frightening memories." Bucky said, darkly. "Can't say I blame her. Do you think he remembers that part yet?"

"Hmm..."

In what felt like no time at all, Vision was standing at the jet window, watching Edinburgh grow smaller and smaller, until finally it disappeared behind a mountain and out of view. The jet glided seamlessly through the air; Vision could barely feel it move despite how fast they were going - it seemed as though he'd blinked and now they were already zooming over the ocean, the coastline shrinking out of view.

Wanda was in the pilot's seat, muttering under her breath as she tried to set it into autopilot. Vision scanned the holographic screen, his eyes rapidly moving across it until he saw what Wanda was looking for.

"I think it's the top right corner." He said, helpfully.

"Right. Thanks, Vizh." She tapped the screen, and the controls started moving on their own accord.

For a few minutes, Wanda tried to gather the courage to turn the seat around and talk to him. This was a good opportunity to try and ease the friction between them. It wasn't necessarily a bad friction - just awkward. The brief closeness they had kindled in Waverley Station was gone, and they were back to strangers.

Wanda twisted her rings around her fingers. You've spoken to him a thousand times before. He's still Vision, he's just like he was when we first met...

Vision watched more clouds racing by. Why is this so difficult? Say something to her, anything...

"You doing okay?" Wanda finally twisted the seat around.

"Getting there." He replied.

"There's a few things I should tell you before we get to New York. To put it bluntly, the world still thinks you're dead, and people were - and still are - afraid of the Avengers. Especially you and me."

"I know. I read some articles on your laptop that expressed that quite vividly." Vision knew where her point was leading. "I won't go outside looking like this." He gestured to his natural red form.

"It won't be forever." Wanda promised. "Soon, we'll tell the world you're alive, and we'll make up some kind of story as to how you came back. We need to let a little time pass first, in case they think you were responsible for -"

"More lies?" The words slipped out of Vision's mouth before he could stop them. Wanda lowered her eyes, fiddling with the hem of her cardigan. "Sorry," he said, quickly. "I didn't think." Oddly enough, Wanda looked less uncomfortable and more... guilty. He didn't think much over it.

"I know that. But the world won't understand that you were forced to. It doesn't like taking chances with people like you and me. Believe me." Wanda looked into the windscreen, thinking about the Raft prison. When Vision would visit her in Europe, her nightmares about that place weren't just about her.

Sometimes she had horrible dreams of him, stuck in an adjacent cell with electric walls and a shock collar around his neck like hers... looking back on it, her nightmares had foretold the future. That was a future she couldn't even bear thinking of.

"I won't sugarcoat it, Vizh. If someone finds out you were alive at the same time, they won't let us explain. They won't care that you were under someone else's control. They will come for you."

When she said this, Vision wasn't worried about himself. He was more worried about how scared Wanda sounded. "Alright. I'll be careful."

They ascended the stairs that lead to the main living quarters. Wanda had given up carrying her case by hand, allowing it to levitate in a cloud in magic. "Go into the grounds whenever you want by all means, but just be careful, okay? We've had some security issues."

"Security issues? Did something happen?"

"We've had a few incidents. People climbing the fences... I went out for a run, when this guy with a camera started chasing me and my friend..."

"He did what?" Vision tore his eyes off the floating suitcase, to give Wanda a look of alarm.

"Don't worry, I hit him in the face." Wanda said, without thinking. There was an awkward pause. Sometimes she had to remind herself that this wasn't the normal Vision, and she couldn't just say anything in front of him. "He asked me an inappropriate question."

"What kind of inappropriate -"

"You don't need to know." Wanda said quickly, climbing the stairs faster so he wouldn't see how red her face was.

Wanda emerged into the main room, spotting Sam and Bucky immediately - they were waiting for them. The former was pacing, and the latter was sitting on the couch, tapping his foot, apparently less apprehensive then Sam.

"Hey, Wanda." Sam greeted her, before his troubled gaze moved to Vision, who had just crested the stairs to stand next to her.

Vision knew for certain he'd encountered them recently, but also, he knew them from before, like how he felt with Wanda. Bucky came forward first, smiling, while Sam hung back a bit, studying Vision from a distance.

"I'm Bucky Barnes." He shook Vision's hand with his metal one. Vision took a moment to register that Bucky had an entire limb made of metal, but he didn't question it just yet.

"How did I know you?" Vision asked; unlike Wanda, Bucky felt less familiar.

Bucky's first thought was 'you tried to arrest me once', but he kept it to himself. "Being honest, we didn't really know each other too well. We only met a few times. Either way, welcome back."

Sam finally came forward, looking less worried, but there was still sadness behind his smile. He extended his hand and Vision shook it. "I'm Sam Wilson. It's good to see you again, Vision."

He suddenly had a very vivid memory of flying above some trees, and reaching toward a set of wings, followed by Sam tumbling through the sky... and later, forcing him under the surface of the flooding bunker. He saw all three of the people who were currently welcoming him with open arms go flying across dark rooms, dodging his attacks. He felt a new stab of guilt.

"I'm sorry." Vision said, a cloud of shame descending over his face - no matter how much Wanda told him it didn't matter, it couldn't stop how he felt. "For everything I've put you through. All of you - if I could have stopped myself I would."

"You don't need to apologise for something that wasn't your fault." Bucky said, firmly. "None of us blame you for what happened."

"But still -"

The look of unease on Sam face softened. "It's alright, buddy." He said. "Honestly, no one in this room really got off to the best start with one another. So, let's start over."

"He's not wrong there." Bucky chuckled. "We all have stories, but those can wait. We'll show you around, and your room. It was already set -" Wanda kicked his leg. "I mean, we just set it up. Come on, we'll show you."