NOTE: Updates Sundays
Chapter Six
Prague, Czech Republic
WANDA
"Let's go shopping," Natasha said. She swiveled on her stool by the window and attempted a smile. It didn't suit her.
"Why would we do that?" Wanda asked.
"Isn't that what women do? Shopping? Lunch? Mani-pedis?"
Wanda closed the book she had been reading, and it coughed up a little puff of dust. It was a volume of theories on why people dream, and what those dreams meant. She had found it amongst the cobwebs on a shelf in the hovel they were currently calling their base.
"You and I wouldn't know the first thing about what normal women do," Wanda said.
"True," Natasha admitted. "But it could be fun."
Prague was a yellow-brown city, with splashes of red and oxidized-copper-blue-green in the form of rooftops and trolleys. It was mid-morning and Wenceslas Square was already full of pop-up vendors selling their kitschy wares. Natasha endeavored to look interested in a selection of crystal animals. "Shiny," she said, casting rainbows with the delicate spider in her hand.
"Natasha," Wanda said. She wanted to suggest they go back to their dark room and skulk some more. Natasha looked profoundly uncomfortable among all the trinkets and the bubbly bachelorettes kicking off their weekends of vice.
"You've been sad recently," Natasha said.
Was it that obvious?
It had been three months since Wanda had heard from Vision. They had been in a dozen cities in that time; at each new place, Wanda borrowed a phone and sent a text. She invited Vision to the Semperoper Dreseden. For a week, Wanda spent her afternoons lingering outside the opera house, but Vision did not come. In Croatia, she suggested the Zagreb Fair. She ended up exploring the pavilions alone. It was the same here, where she waited in the mock village beside Prague Castle for three afternoons, and every day got caught in the same predictably unpredictable downpour.
After deciding that Vision was not coming, Wanda chose to confine herself to their apartment and began tearing into the odd collection of books left by the previous owner. The streets all felt empty, anyway, and Natasha was critical of Wanda's meandering. But then, here was Natasha trying to cheer up Wanda all the same.
Wanda said, "There's a place up the road that has these cinnamon pastries filled with crème."
"I like pastries," Natasha said.
They sat with their backs against a brick wall and ate Trdelnik. A gaggle of bachelors that had already started drinking stumbled by, their British accents curling ungraciously over obscenities. Their words were vulgar, but their sound reminded Wanda of Vision.
"You know, I send messages to Clint," Natasha said. "I shouldn't. It's dangerous. He's out of the game. His mail might be intercepted. The whole of the UN might descend on us. But I do it anyway."
"Does Steve know?" Wanda asked.
"Probably," Natasha said. "You know, he sent Tony a phone in case he ever needs our help. And Sam checks in with his sister every time we relocate. Everyone has someone they aren't really willing to give up."
Wanda rolled crème around on her tongue. She said, "What if he decided to give up on me?"
"Then he's an idiot." Natasha said.
"Who is an idiot?" Vision asked. Wanda had been staring so intently at her pastry that she didn't believe her ears.
"You are," Natasha said.
Vision was entirely stymied. His face contorted in several expressions of confusion.
"Vis," Wanda said. "It's been a while."
"I – yes. I was following up on some things with Colonel Rhodes and couldn't get away. I didn't mean for – It wasn't supposed to be this long." Vision turned to Natasha. "Is this why I'm an idiot?"
"Oh boy," Natasha said. She had clearly exhausted her empathy for the day. "I'm going to go see if the boys have made any progress with that Czech gangster they have tied up in the basement."
"Is she joking?" Vision asked.
"I wish," Wanda said.
Vision turned left, and then right. He said, "May I sit?"
"I'll stand," Wanda said. She brushed the crumbs of her pastry off her shirt.
"You're angry," Vision said. "I could go, if you'd like."
"No, I don't want you to go," Wanda said. Both things were true: she was angry, and she absolutely didn't want Vision to leave. She thought for a moment, then she offered her hand. Vision took it with a profound smile.
WVWVWVWVWVW
VISION
They walked to Charles Bridge, where they stood at intervals in front of each of the thirty statues that lined its sides. Vision tried to be interested in each figure – he was interested, really, but he was more absorbed with Wanda's behavior. He could tell that she was not entirely pleased with his long absence, and yet, she was trying very hard to hide that fact.
Vision asked, "Would you like to go see the castle?"
"I'm pretty over the castle," Wanda said.
"Have you already gone?" Vision asked. He was disheartened, knowing that he had missed something. He had missed a lot of things. He should have come sooner, even just to tell Wanda why he had been staying away.
"Did you see the defenestration window at the castle?"
"The defene-what?"
"Defenestration," Vision said. "It literally means 'to throw out a window.' In 1618, Protestant nobles threw two Catholic regents and their secretary out a third-floor window in the castle after they were found to be supportive of an order from the Catholic king, Ferdinand. Some historians consider the instance the beginning of the Thirty Years' War."
"How do you know that?" Wanda asked.
"I read a book about the castle," Vision said. As he read, he had imagined himself there with Wanda. Imagination was a curious thing.
"Did they survive?" Wanda asked.
"Whom?"
"The Regents who were thrown out the window," Wanda said. "Did they survive?"
"They did," Vision said. "The Catholics believed it was divine intervention and the protestants said – well, they claimed the men fell into a dung heap."
Wanda let out a little laugh, and Vision clung to it. He smiled and tried to move a little closer, but she took a step back.
"Sorry," Vision said. "I didn't mean to presume –"
"I'm happy to see you," Wanda said. "I'm trying to just be happy to see you. But —"
"You thought I wasn't coming back," Vision said. With every passing day and every ignored invitation he had considered the possibility. Wanda might think that he had abandoned her. He didn't want that, but he also didn't want to return unless he could do so without threatening Wanda's safety.
In Saint-Remy-de-Provence, Vision had helped the police contain the knife-throwing Frenchman. When Colonel Rhodes arrived, they interrogated him. The man spat at Vision, and repeated monstres, monstres, monstres.
All of you freaks of nature must be eliminated, the Frenchman said. You aren't even natural. You don't belong in this world. You will destroy the natural humans.
Vision said, we only want to help.
You don't help. You disturb the natural order. There is an order. You aren't even human. Machine. Monster machine.
My inhumanness bothers you?
It disgusts me.
Vision translated all of this for Rhodes.
"I'm alright, though, right? I'm just a guy in a suit," Rhodes said.
"He doesn't care for you either," Vision said.
"Why?"
"He believes you've chosen the wrong side. An unnatural side," Vision said.
Rhodes sighed. "The gunman in Paris told the police something similar. I don't think these attacks were random."
The following months were spent systematically tracking down members of an international coalition against enhanced persons and aliens. They called themselves the Human Militia, and seemed have taken their initial cue from Zemo's anti-Avenger campaign. Following Zemo's arrest, the movement had found five chief organizers who fancied themselves "Generals."
Unsurprisingly, Vision and Rhodes found the first General in Paris, not far from where Wanda and the others had been staying. Vision could only assume that was what had brought Steve Rodgers and his team to France, though it seemed the good Captain had been keeping his team – or at least Wanda – in the dark about their true purpose in being there.
Vision had since been operating on idea that Wanda knew little to nothing of the Human Militia. He hoped as much as true, because it seemed the group especially hated Wanda, though they also didn't care for Steve, and they certainly didn't like Vision either.
With one look at Vision, most of the Militia members would go mad with curses and attempts on his life. He easily stopped anyone who came at him – they were, after all, mostly militant civilians armed with baseball bats and kitchen knives. Still, when Vision or Rhodes restrained them following their acts of attempted violence, they called their arrests as further evidence that enhanced and "inhuman" persons were upsetting a natural order.
"Look" Rhodes said, "I'm arresting you because you tried to bash in Vision's head with a baseball bat, and that's attempted murder, which, yeah, is a crime you get arrested for."
Vision's head was no worse for the wear, but his sense of self was taking a beating.
Every apprehended Militia member looked at Vision with loathing and pointed out all the things he was not. Not human. Not natural. Not created by God. ("I don't know, Tony does think he's a god sometimes," Rhodes joked.)
Vision had never before dwelled too much on his own creation; he thought, therefore he was, or so said Descartes. The materials that comprised his body were inconsequential – just as humans were carbon-based, his base was elemental, if a bit rarer. He had no choice in his creation, nor does any creature, plant, or mountain range on Earth. He didn't understand the stone that gave him thought, but neither do humans fully understand parts of themselves, often described as souls.
Yet, months of being told he was "not right" made him begin to wonder if there was something perverse about his existence in a world where there was nothing else quite like him. He began to wonder if his friends had ever thought as much. He even began to wonder about Wanda.
So, he did not answer her invitations. He stayed away, telling himself it would safer to see her when the Militia that despised him and threatened her was dismantled. He and Rhodes captured a second general in California, and not long after found a third giftwrapped on a police station doorstep in Zagreb, Croatia. It was obvious who had done the giftwrapping.
"I think we're fighting the same battle on different ends. What I can't figure out his how Cap always manages to be one step ahead of us," Rhodes said.
"Perhaps in this instance, our inadvertent collaboration is in the best interest of all parties," Vision said.
"I'm not complaining about the help, but if I see them, I still have to arrest them."
"Of course."
And so Vision kept a still wider breadth from Wanda, turning left every time he knew she went right. Until, at last, it seemed Militia activity had died down to a dull rumble, and Rhodes was distracted with another assignment, and Vision became more frightened by the idea of not seeing Wanda at all than the idea that she would see something perverse in him.
On Charles Bridge, unwilling to articulate any of this, Vision stumbled over his words. "I never – I wouldn't ever leave you, unless that's what you wanted."
Wanda stared out over the water as a little red boat that exactly matched the city chugged along. She said, "Okay." Vision was grateful she didn't ask for any more explanation. "I suppose if we only have today, we should make the most of it."
"Ah, yes, about that," Vision said. "I booked an accommodation just outside the city so that I could stay a few nights. I thought it would give us more time. If that's alright."
"So I can be angry with you a little longer?" Wanda asked. Vision distinctly preferred that she would not be. That must have been evident in his face, because Wanda smiled and added, "I'm joking."
They walked more after that, and things fell back into an established rhythm. Wanda pointed to landmarks. She smiled at street artists. Vision followed one step behind, never quite able to anticipate her next move. They stopped at a café, where Wanda ate goulash, and Vision pushed lettuce around on a plate. As dusk began to settle over the city, and the wild people of the night rolled out in full force, Wanda stood beneath a famous astronomical clock.
Vision said, "Would you look at the time?"
"I am looking at it," Wanda said. Then, "Well, are you going to invite me to your house?"
"Would that be appropriate?" Vision asked. Of course he had intended that Wanda stay with him there. They had, after all, shared a wall at the Avengers compound. Still, this felt entirely different.
"I think it would be okay," Wanda said.
"Good," Vision said. He attempted to be very smooth: "Wanda, would you like to come back to my place?"
Wanda chuckled. She looked lovely when she laughed. All the light inside her came out. She said, "I would."