Chapter 5: Awakening

A/N: As always, thanks for reading, and I hope ya'll enjoy the chapter! Next one will be up Friday or Saturday. There's some quick infinity war & black panther dialogue references in this chapter. If Hawkeye gets to play around with time, then so do I. And, if you haven't guessed, this work is beta'd by the great and powerful crotchety_old_emu over on AO3.

Wanda bites down on her lip hard. A vain attempt to stop her teeth chattering from the constant chill. The collar and chains are freezing against her skin, clinging hunks of sharp ice that refuse to melt.

The edges of her vision are hazy, the hard lines of her cell blurred and steeped in darkness. She's on a bed, she thinks, but it won't stop moving. The harsh screeching of metal against metal thunders through the cell, reverberating off the walls and stinging her ears.

She should try to focus, try to wake up, try to do anything at all. But the pull of sleep without pain, without awareness, is too enticing an enchantress to evade.

"Woah! The structure is polymorphic!"

"Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark attached each neuron non-sequentially."

"Why didn't they just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?"

Wanda keeps her eyes closed, listening as muffled voices filter through the haze of awakening. Whoever spoke sounds young, far too young to be a guard. Still, she waits, just in case.

"I'm unsure, it does seem the more obvious route… Shuri, do you think, hypothetically, could you remove it?"

That voice she does know. Speaking softly, nevertheless, unmistakable. Vision.

"There are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures. It would take time, but, yes, it can be done."

Their kind-of conversation earlier hadn't been a figment of her imagination, she realizes. Vision did it. He got them out. And, somehow, he found a way to tell her as much when she'd needed to hear it most.

The room has fallen silent. Whatever they'd been discussing seemingly concluded. Wanda tries taking a deep breath to ground herself before opening her eyes- before she has to face reality. Instead, she's thrown into a violent coughing fit.

Vision is adrift in his thoughts. It's a state of mind he'd grown accustomed to after a month and a half alone in the compound. When Shuri asked him about scanning the mind stone, he was happy to oblige, if only to pass the time. It was late into their second night in Wakanda, and the others were resting. He hadn't imagined it would lead to her telling him she could remove the stone.

The implications, potential outcomes, and probabilities have only begun to unravel when there's the sound of harsh coughing from the center of the room. His entire being hums with the instinct to run to her side, profess his remorse, and share his recent realizations. He gives in to the first, stopping himself just short of the follow-through.

"Wanda."

At the call of her name, her eyes snap open, darting around the room wildly to land on the Vision. She focuses on the spinning blue of his irises, compels herself to breathe slowly. It takes a minute, maybe two, until she eventually stops coughing.

"Hey." Wanda sounds wrecked; scratchy, and hoarse, even to her.

"Hello." He smiles, the tenderness dripping into his, "How are you feeling?"

"Confused. Where are we?" Huge windows line the wall, allowing the night sky outside to illuminate the room. Everything is gold, black, silver, purple, or some combination of the four. It's beautiful, unlike anything she's ever seen.

"Wakanda. Shuri," he nods in the direction of the young girl, her back turned to them. "Has been providing your care. It's rather late, so the rest of the team is sleeping. Actually, I should go get them-"

"No! No, don't wake them up. It's okay, just… just let them sleep." She doesn't want him to leave, not when his presence is the closest thing to safe she's felt in almost two months. "Thank you, Shuri."

"You're welcome." Shuri comes over to stand by Vision, handing Wanda a glass of water. "Are you feeling any pain? You were pretty beat up when you arrived."

"No, I'm okay, I think. A little groggy and sore. How is this possible? What did you do?"

"Here, much is possible, our technology is far more advanced than yours. You had no less than ten bone fractures, a case of severe pneumonia. And there were a ton of intoxicants in your system. They got you here just in time, any longer and you would have sustained permanent injury, or worse."

Shuri pauses before leaning in closer to Wanda and whispering something low. It's quiet enough that Vision assumes it isn't meant for him and tunes it out. It's not much, but it's some degree of privacy, and it's all he can offer on such short notice. Soon, Wanda nods but says nothing, a wet shine in her eyes appearing as Shuri pulls away.

"Okay, I'm exhausted. I'm going to go get some sleep before my brother shows up with someone else for me to fix. If you'll excuse me." With that, Shuri heads towards the labyrinth of hallways and leaves Wanda and Vision alone in the massive starlit room.

Neither of them speaks immediately, Wanda's quiet breaths filling the silence. Ultimately, it's Vision who breaks first, unable to stem the flow of words from rushing forth any longer.

"Wanda, I- I can't express enough how deeply sorry I am. When I signed the Accords I truly believed it was the best path, the right path, for everyone. This… You getting hurt, I didn't realize…" Vision trails off. There's so much he didn't realize. So many ways he could finish his sentence.

He remembers Shuri's words to him, though, and goes on, keeping his head down, "Anyway, that's besides the point. I said that we would protect you and we didn't. I didn't. Instead, I held you against your will. I won't ask your forgiveness. I just. You have to know, I'm so damn sorry."

Wanda wipes at her face, angry at its betrayal. The tears she'd been successfully holding back until this point, now falling down her cheeks in streams. She doesn't know what to say, how to cope with everything that's happened. She's lost two full days, apparently spent them unconscious and on the brink of death. Only to wake up in an entirely different part of the world, fully healed, as if nothing had ever happened.

And then there's Vision. Standing by her bedside, apologizing for something she's barely given any thought to in over a month. The Avengers Compound, the Accords, Germany, it all feels like it's happened in a different life, to someone else. Wanda has the memories, knows them to be her own. But who she was then wouldn't recognize who she is now, and she can't help but resent herself for it.

It takes her a few minutes to reign it all in. To stop herself from spiraling further and focus on the moment at hand. To present herself as some variation of anything other than the mess she currently is.

"Vizh, I don't care about the Accords. I never did." She gets a modicum of solace, at least, when he looks up and meets her eyes. "I loved living at the compound. It was the nicest home I've ever had. Clint and Steve needed my help. I couldn't say no. Not after all they've done for me. Besides," She flashes him a hint of a smile, "Shouldn't I be the one apologizing for hurting you?"

It's barely louder than a whisper, but in the empty, silent room, she hears him as clear as the night outside when he tilts his head and says, "You could never hurt me, Wanda."