I just wanted to point out that Twinless Twins is a real organization, and I know people that have benefitted hugely from this community.

Wanda II: United

Wanda didn't know what she expected a Twinless Twins convention to be like. On the way from the airport to their hotel, she kept asking herself questions. How many people would be there? Would any have a similar story of how they lost their twin? As a conjoined twin, would she be singled out? Would there even be anyone her age? She'd read through the itinerary when they registered, so she knew what events she'd get to participate in, but she couldn't answer any of those questions until the actual convention began.

The first order of business, naturally, was an opening convocation of sorts followed by a meet-and-greet. They gave Wanda a lanyard with a tag bearing her name on one side and Pietra's on the other. She nearly cried as she slipped it around her neck, and she suspected it would be only one of many times this week. The room was more crowded than she expected, and as Wanda and her mother made their way to their seats, she looked around at the faces of other twinless twins and their supporters. Most were at least a decade or two older than her, but she did spot a few younger people, one of whom waved to her as she passed. Wanda waved shyly back.

The current president of the organization, introduced herself and gave a brief introductory speech, including the story of her own twin loss and how this organization helped her transcend merely surviving and find ways to thrive. Wanda could already tell she'd found the right place. As the board members each introduced themselves and their stories, some of the loneliness that had crippled her since the loss of Pietra began to trickle away. After introductions, they watched a lecture given by a woman who lost her husband to a sudden heart attack, centered on the impossibility of moving on after the loss of a loved one. One phrase resonated with Wanda more than any other in the presentation: "We need to replace moving on with moving with." She thought anyone who'd ever lost anyone needed to hear that, so after the presentation she asked for the link and sent it to the Avengers, knowing they'd just lost Clint and might need to hear exactly this.

Natasha messaged her separately a few hours later to thank her, stating that the video offered her an entirely new and much-needed perspective on her grief for her best friend.

Wanda's name tag had a colored circle with a number in the corner designating her groups. Since this was the international conference, there were far too many of them to introduce all at once, so they broke them into small groups. Today, they divided them by color. Wanda and Mama made their way to a smaller room with about thirty chairs arranged in a circle. With a smile, she noticed that the boy around her age who'd waved at her was in this group. She sat a few seats down from him and waited for the rest of the group to filter in. Their appointed moderator was the last to arrive, and he started off the introductions.

As they went around the circle, Wanda listened to the stories of these other people who had lost a twin, eager to learn if any had stories similar to her own. She knew she was unlikely to find another conjoined twin, since only one in fifty to sixty thousand births produced conjoined twins and even then, most of them were stillborn. She and Pietra were an anomaly within an anomaly.

Many of the twins here lost their other half to accidents or illness, but Wanda heard some particularly tragic stories involving suicide or even murder that made her shudder in sympathy. Some even lost their twin before they were born, which was a situation that Wanda had never considered before. When the boy her age spoke up, she listened extra closely.

"Hullo, I'm Victor. I'm from London, I'm sixteen, and last year I lost my identical twin Simon to a ruptured brain aneurysm."

Wanda immediately noticed the lilting British accent and the recency of his loss. Most of the other people here were several years out from the loss of their twin. Two people later, and it was her turn. "I'm Wanda, I'm fifteen, and I'm from Sokovia. My sister Pietra didn't survive our separation surgery last year."

"You're a conjoined twin?" Victor asked, eyes wide. Several other people gave her similar looks.

"Yes. We were born joined at the head." Her hand drifted to the scar on the right side of her scalp. As her fingers gently brushed across it, she felt little sparks like miniature versions of her headaches, only this time they weren't painful but merely present.

"Wow."

Wanda smiled shyly and waited for the next person to go and take the attention off of her. Even as the next person started sharing, Victor still kept his gaze mostly on her. She tried not to blush and focused on the person speaking. After they all introduced themselves, they wasted no time in going deep. The moderator asked them to share some of the things that they found the most difficult about navigating life as a twinless twin. Wanda listened as people brought up exactly the same things she thought about every day.

Severance of the "we" that had been created over however many years of life they spent together. Changed relationships with mutual friends. Anniversaries of their twin's death. Family gatherings. High school reunions. Birthdays. Easily the worst psychosomatic headache Wanda had ever had was on her and Pietra's birthday. She hadn't been able to move or even speak for twenty four hours, just lay there clutching her head and occasionally biting back a scream.

Even just that first day brought Wanda more peace and sense of purpose than she ever thought possible. Though they hadn't been conjoined, these other twins just got it in ways that other people simply never would. She slept better than night than she had in a long time, and awoke the next morning eager for another day of the convention.

Today, she and Mama parted ways, Wanda attending a few more lectures on grief and Mama going to a support group for relatives of twinless twins. She sat down in a seat surrounded by other empty chairs, and a few minutes later Victor slid onto the one next to her. "Hi," she greeted.

"Hi," he said back. "Seeing as we're probably the only teenagers here, I thought we might ought to stick together."

Wanda didn't quite know what to make of him, but she smiled reflexively. "Okay."

They sat beside each other in silence for a few moments, until Victor decided to strike up a conversation. "You know, all these people here talk about grief all day long, yet I've yet to hear any of them explain what it actually is."

"What do you mean?"

"We're being lectured on ways to cope with grief and how to channel grief, but nobody's offered a definition of what is is we're coping with or channeling."

Wanda thought the definition was rather ubiquitous, especially among twinless twins. "Why don't you pick up a dictionary?" she offered. She was only partially kidding, but Victor let out this adorable little laugh.

"I actually have," he said. "Do you know what it said?"

"What?"

"Deep and poignant distress caused by bereavement."

"That's...wordy."

"Exactly. And it's far too specific for my taste. In my experience, grief isn't always distress. And I know of others for which it's not caused by bereavement."

"Then how would you define it?" Wanda asked, far more interested in what this boy had to say than the speaker they'd come here to listen to.

"I asked myself this question a lot after Simon died. And I believe I came to a satisfactory conclusion."

He paused. Wanda stared into his eyes, desperate for his answer. When he continued to remain silent, she prompted him, "Go on."

"What is grief, if not love...persevering."

The words descended over her like a weighted blanket. They continued to resonate even as the speaker attempted to chase them away with words of his own. But Wanda liked Victor's better. Those words alleviated more distress than any anyone had spoken to her since Pietra died. Wanda couldn't wait to hear what else Victor had to say. She decided then and there that she could listen to him talk about anything forever.

Victor sought her out at every presentation that day, and the following day when they were sorted into groups by number instead of color he was in her group again. She couldn't help but wonder if the people who set this up put them together because they were so close in age compared to everyone else. It definitely made a difference, to lose a twin at fifteen versus fifty. Most of their peers here had spouses or even children by the time they lost their twin, but Wanda and Victor had had no relatives that close except their parents, who were on their own grief journeys having lost a child. Victor told her the story of his brother's funeral: his parents held each other the whole time, and he had nothing to comfort him except his brother's pillow pet. Wanda had experienced a similar situation at Pietra's funeral, watching her parents prevent each other from collapsing while feeling like her skull was caving in on itself along with the rest of her.

On the third and final day, they wrote letters to their twins. Wanda feared she wouldn't know what to say, but as soon as her pen touched the paper the words just came. She told Pietra how much she missed her, even giving in to the stupid joke she always made and calling her the twin who was always right. She also admitted that Pietra was probably the faster one. In the last paragraph, she thanked her sister for guiding her back to Tony, Parker, and the rest of them. Of course, she had no proof that Pietra had any involvement, but she didn't need it.

She and Victor exchanged numbers so they could keep in touch. Wanda looked forward to being able to talk to him when times got rough, which they inevitably would. Here at the convention, surrounded by other twinless twins, she had not a reprieve, but a momentary ascent above her grief. Going home meant leaving that sense of sanctuary and returning to a place that reminded her of Pietra at every corner.

But before that, she had one more stop to make. Their flight wasn't until evening, and that's exactly what she told Tony when he asked how long she'd be in town. He invited her and all the other Avengers to his place to hang out before Wanda returned to Sokovia. Mama said yes to letting her go, and the morning after the convention's conclusion she made her way to the very conspicuous Stark Tower, where she was greeted by Tony, Parker, Bucky, Steve, Bruce, and Nick.

"Welcome back," Bucky said with a smile. "I'm so glad you showed up, because it was exactly the incentive Tony needed to finally throw a party in one of the many empty apartments in his house."

Wanda sensed there was some backstory to that comment, but she didn't bother to pry.

"Bucky, it's ten thirty in the morning. You call this a party?" Nick questioned. Only now that Wanda looked at him more closely did she notice the white cane beside him and the dark sunglasses. He must have lost his other eye after she left Gravesen.

"As a matter of fact, I do," Bucky insisted.

"Even I know that's not a party," Steve said.

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Whatever. We're together. We're having fun. It's a party."

"Are we having fun, though?" Nick asked.

"I am," Bucky spat. "Don't be a sourpuss."

Wanda couldn't help but laugh at their ridiculous back-and-forth. She missed this from her brief stay at Gravesen. But she really missed this from her time with Pietra. They used to argue with each other for hours on end over the most frivolous of topics. At some point Pietra invented the idea that she was the original embryo, and Wanda was the one that started to split off, so that meant Pietra was twelve minutes older.

"Why twelve minutes?" Wanda had asked.

"I don't know. It seems right. And I feel like I generally have twelve minutes' worth more wisdom than you."

"So Wanda, what were you in town for again?" Bruce asked.

Wanda drew herself out of the memory and into the present to respond, "The Twinless Twins convention. It's this international support group."

"That sounds amazing. I didn't even know something like that existed."

"Most people who don't need it don't know."

"Did it help?" Parker asked.

"Yes. A lot."

"That's good to hear," Tony said.

"How was your trip?" she asked him and Parker.

"Oh, it was amazing!" Parker said. "We built this epic sandcastle. And we played games almost every night. And I tried avocado toast."

"Sounds like fun."

"How was the toast?" Bucky asked.

"The avocado actually made it kinda soggy," he confessed. "But it was okay."

"What do you normally put on toast?"

"I normally eat it dry," Parker said. "But that's just because butter was an unsafe food for me for so long that I got used to it dry."

"Bruce?" Bucky asked.

"Butter or cream cheese."

"Nick?"

"Doesn't matter as long as it's not cut diagonally," he said. "Did I tell you guys about the time my brother tried to cut my toast diagonally?"

"No. But do tell," Tony said eagerly.

"This was only a few days after I went blind, and my mom asked him to make breakfast for me, so he made toast and he cut it diagonally. As soon as I picked up the piece I knew so I refused to eat it, but he was like, 'How did you know? You can't see it!' He didn't think that I could feel the shape when I picked it up."

"That sounds like a total dick move," Tony said.

"Why would your brother do that to you?" Wanda asked. Although that sounded exactly like something Pietra would do to her if they found themselves in a similar situation.

"I don't know. I think he was just trying to see if he could get away with it. Then I made him close his eyes and pick up the piece and feel that it was cut diagonally. And then my mom made him eat it so it wouldn't go to waste."

"Circling back to the reason I asked this question, does anyone else find it ridiculous that Steve's favorite toast spread is jam?" Bucky asked incredulously.

As he said this, Steve threw his head back in exasperation. "Why are you so caught up with this?"

"Steve, you could put fucking frosting on your toast and your parents would literally encourage it, so what the hell led you to believe jam is superior?"

"I don't know, why did you crave plums during chemo?" Steve countered.

"That's an entirely different situation."

"Do I need to get a ruler?" Tony interjected.

"No," both boys said firmly.

"What flavor jam?" Wanda asked. She and Pietra used to make kolacky, and Wanda's favorite flavor of preserves to put in it had always been apricot. Pietra's was blueberry.

"Strawberry," Steve said.

"Well, this has been a fascinating conversation," Tony drawled. "Does anyone else have any grievances against condiments that they wish to air at this moment?"

Parker raised his hand. "Tony, you didn't answer the toast question."

"I don't eat toast."

"Everybody eats toast," Wanda countered.

"Not me."

"Not even when you're sick?" Steve asked.

"No."

"What did you have for breakfast today?" Parker asked.

"Gluten-free waffles."

"Since when are you gluten-free?" Bruce asked.

"I'm not. We bought them by accident. They're not bad, though."

"How do you accidentally buy waffles?" Bucky asked.

"I don't know; I'm not the one who bought them," Tony said exasperatedly.

That conversation set the tone for the rest of the not-party. They spent hours just talking and arguing light-heartedly, and sharing stories of their late friends. Wanda learned about the time Clint hid in the vents during hide and seek, the time Scott went on a burglary streak, and the time Carol nearly hit the president of Gravesen in the face with a football. She told the Avengers about the time she and Pietra robbed a local market by taking advantage of the seller's bamboozlement over their conjoined-ness.

She didn't want to leave, but she and Mama had a flight to catch, so she bid goodbye to her friends and promised to keep in touch in the group chat. Knowing she had them and Victor there made her future loom less dark and dismal. While grief remained heavy in her heart as it always would, after that weekend, her headaches ceased completely.

I was definitely back on my banter bullshit for the second half of this chapter. But it was fun. I have no regrets.