"Wanda, no."
"Sam, yes." Wanda looked through her wardrobe, trying to find something to wear. "I know it sounds risky, but it really isn't." It is risky, though. What if something happens?
Shut up.
She looked to her doorway where Sam was, and he was staring at her as if she had just grown wings. "Come on, it's perfectly safe. Nobody knew about his disguise apart from Stark and Rhodey."
"On his own no. But just imagine this. Someone spots you and takes a photo of you shopping with a random man... if that gets to the papers, they'll start speculating, then someone realizes he looks familiar, and with that mark on his forehead -"
"You're starting to sound like Nat. You don't think I've considered that? Of course I have. That is why I'm going to wear shades." She swiped Carol's aviators off her desk. "With me in these and Vizh in disguise, no one's going to know." She turned serious. "He needs freedom, and keeping him here, practically under house arrest... I don't want to go down that path again."
"You can't tell me you're totally fine with this?"
"No, I'm not, but this is about what's best for Vision. He needs to remember how to be normal again."
"Couldn't being normal wait until after the world knows he's alive?"
"And how long will that be?" Wanda stood firm despite her misgivings. "We're going at eleven - do you need anything?"
"Well, we're out of peanut butter, but still -"
"Great. Will do. Now, get out, I need to change." Wanda said, gently pushing Sam out of her room with her powers, and closing the door.
In the living room, Vision was reading by the glass wall, tucked into the right corner; Wanda's perch was on the left corner, and he didn't feel right sitting there on his own. He tried to focus on the book, but his eyes kept wandering to the glass wall and his reflection.
At first he had been excited to go outside, even if it was for the mundane task of grocery shopping - he hadn't left the compound since he arrived, and he was starting to feel a bit trapped. That was until his anxiety returned with a vengeance. He imagined strangers who would stare at his forehead, trying to decide whether it was a scar, bruise, or birthmark...
He prodded the stone and the rivers of foreign tissue, continuously shifting between his normal and human form as he attempted to hide it, wondering if he could extend his projection somehow to hide the damaged skin. He concentrated hard, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't.
"Hey, Vision." He jumped, not even hearing Bucky until he was standing a few feet away. "Sorry if I scared you. According to Sam I walk 'freakishly feline' without intending to. Programming is hard to shake."
"It's alright..." Vision shook himself, and Bucky sat down a few feet away.
"What are you reading?" Bucky asked, in curiosity.
"Of Mice and Men."
"Oh my god, I remember when that first came out -" He began, excitedly, before his voice faltered with sadness.
"I'm sorry..."
"No, it's just me... I miss the old days, when everything was simple. Even if the Great Depression sucked." Bucky smiled, fondly remembering standing in a bookshop in 1937, with a much smaller and more sickly Steve, as they looked at John Steinbeck's new book. "It's weird, isn't it? Waking up in a new world." He attempted to stir Vision's memory. "Do you remember when you were born?"
Vision found it curious that Bucky said 'born' instead of 'made', but he didn't correct him - it was nice. Wanda wasn't the only one who saw him as normal.
"You're referring to my initial creation in 2015?" Bucky nodded. Vision thought hard. "Wanda described it to me, but I don't see it in here." He tapped his temple. "Not yet. But do I remember when I came back."
"When the scientists brought you back?"
"Yes, there's a green light -" Vision frowned and there was a spark of panic in Bucky's blue eyes. "No. Wrong memory. I don't know how I confused that..." Bucky averted his gaze to hide his immense relief. "There's a table, and a scraping noise. And after that... chaos, before it darkens again."
"Sounds like my experience. Hydra, Siren, they're both the same. But at least they're gone now. You can move on."
He noticed Vision's gaze in the reflective window, how Vision's elbow was propped on his knee, his hand covering the mark on his forehead. "Moving on is hard though, when you live with a constant reminder." Vision gave a tiny nod, eyes flickering to Bucky's metal arm. "I heard you two are going out later. Grocery shopping?"
"Just to grab a few things. Is there something you require?"
"No, but I was wondering if you might want this." Bucky lifted a plain black baseball cap. "It might help with distracting people's attention from the mark. You might feel more comfortable."
Vision shifted into his human form and placed the cap on his head. It casted a shadow across his forehead, and while the mark was still visible, it wasn't as immediately obvious.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt." Sam peered round the doorway. "Buck, can I have a word?"
"Thank you, Bucky." Vision said, as the former Winter Soldier got up. "I really appreciate it."
"No problem, buddy."
Bucky went over to Sam, who pulled him into his room.
"They're going to the grocery store."
"I know, I just let Vision borrow my hat for it." Silence. A look of shock transformed Sam's face.
"You're okay with this?"
"He's not a prisoner. We can't keep him here, it's unfair."
"Buck, I'm pretty sure that there are cameramen camping at the grocery store. Every time one of us goes in there a picture ends up in the newspaper. Every time."
"I know..." Bucky then had a lightbulb moment. "Maybe there isn't anyone there, but we can run up there to be sure. And if there does turn out to be a camera, we can give it something else to look at..." Sam looked confused, while Bucky grinned. "Still got that shirt I got you a few weeks ago?"
Sam and Bucky had gone out jogging about half an hour before Wanda and Vision headed to the store. Wanda kept an eye out for them as they drove, but she didn't see them. She turned on the radio with her powers.
"Up next, three years after it's release, it's the number one hit half of you missed - it's 'Lost Ashes' by The Missing. Before that though, it has just been announced that a new statue is to be revealed next Friday in honour of the four dead -"
Wanda quickly changed the channel. "Do you want to browse, Vizh? Please, anything but a news channel."
Vision reached for the car radio, hesitating, waiting for the remaining wisps of red to fade before touching it. Eventually - not surprisingly - he settled on a channel playing fifties hits. Wanda smiled, reminded of the music he used to love, times where they would playfully fight over the radio because of their vastly different tastes in music.
As they drove, Vision noticed that Wanda kept looking at him. "Is everything okay?"
"It's just weird, seeing you in a baseball cap. I don't think you've ever worn one. Your style was always a bit more refined." Vision chuckled, and Wanda was momentarily thrown; she had made him laugh. That was a first.
Vision watched the streets race by, trying to think of a conversation starter. He looked around the car, the outside, for inspiration. Driving didn't really feel familiar to him in the same way making a cup of tea did. "Could you drive before? When we were friends?"
"Not when we were friends. You did the driving, because it was safer for me." People always focused on the driver, not the passenger. "But I could drive. In an illegal self-taught way. Pietro and I would sometimes steal a car..." Well, Wanda had done it to get around, while Pietro did it for fun. Even when he drove he was speeding.
"Pietro?"
Wanda stiffened. Her grip had tightened on the steering wheel, her teeth clenched. Vision went back into safer territory, knowing that she didn't want to talk about it. "You stole a car?" He prompted, and Wanda relaxed, not quite ready to tell him about Pietro yet.
"Not a car. Several." She saw the shocked expression on Vision's face, and she laughed. "Don't look at me like that. You weren't exactly innocent." Wanda thought she was about to ruin the drive with her choice in words, but Vision didn't even wince. Instead, his eyes brightened, almost challenging her to come up evidence.
"How so?"
"You don't believe me? I may have borrowed cars, but you committed fraud. If we rented a car in Europe, you did the driving. With your fake ID. You'd fly out to me with a fake passport. At airports, driving, on your credit card - you pretended to be a guy called Victor Shade. Not only that, but you assisted a fugitive, too."
Vision shook his head. "I knew the whereabouts of a fugitive for two years and didn't tell anybody. To clarify - it was you?" Wanda shot him a look, but it wasn't a question. He averted his gaze with a chuckle. God, he was joking with her now? This was weird. Sometimes his old self would emerge for a moment before retreating again.
"You were pretty reckless in those two years, Vizh."
"Would you say increasingly reckless?"
"Yeah." Wanda laughed, feeling a stab of sadness for once during the drive. Love made you reckless. "Increasingly."
Wanda hesitated with the door open, Sam's warning ringing in her ears. "Vizh - you can stay in the car if you want. I'll only be a couple of minutes."
"I would rather be with you." Vision pulled the cap further over his forehead. "If it helps, statistically speaking, those who wear dark colours tend not to be noticed. And we're both wearing dark colours..." Vision casually glanced toward the road, blinking. "Wanda..."
"I know... I'm probably just being paranoid..."
"Look." He touched her arm, and Wanda dropped her keys. She turned to see what he was looking at.
"Oh my god."
Sam and Bucky were jogging. They couldn't be any more obvious. Bucky had his hair down and he was wearing a vest, metal arm on full display. Sam was wearing a Captain America t-shirt. A man suddenly emerged from the parked cars, and began frantically following, a camera over his shoulder. Sam and Bucky disappeared round the corner, and the cameraman followed.
Wanda and Vision looked at one another, blinking.
"You know? I think we'll be fine." Wanda put on Carol's aviators.
"I agree." Vision checked one final time to make sure he looked human, before stepping out of the car.
"That was fun! We should try to outrun the paparazzi more often."
Sam and Bucky were laughing as they jogged around the corner and headed to the gate, which opened automatically when it recognised their faces. They had lost the man after about ten minutes, keeping in view and luring the cameraman away from the store. They'd scaled a wall and hid behind it, listening to the man wheeze and gasp for air as he finally stopped.
They slowed as they went down the tree-lined path.
"Let's hope that guy was the only one. But Wanda was right, you know - nobody's going to recognise Vision, mark or not." Bucky looked thoughtful. "I know taking Vision to Wakanda is out of the question at the moment. But d'you reckon that Banner could do something about that? Vision is always looking at his forehead in the mirror..."
"Hm... we could ask him, I guess, since he already knows... Helen Cho would probably be the best person, but then -" Sam then spotted something in the driveway, parked in front of the building. "Wait a minute. Who is that?"
They came closer, hoping that it might be Bruce or Rhodey, but both of them knew that neither of those people owned an ominous black vehicle. Someone was standing next to it, looking very impatient. "Oh, shit." Bucky said, under his breath.
Thaddeus Ross offered a displeased smile. "Mr Wilson, Mr Barnes. At last."