Hello. Back for chapter number 9. Sorry for the wait. I don't think this is the best chapter, but it sets up the foundation for Wanda's relationship with her teammates later on.
Enjoy the story.
It was safe to say that Wanda's arrival started with a bang, quite literally. During her time away, the remaining Avengers kept up with their daily routines, whether it be training, monitoring for any potential dangers, (like Rumlow who Steve had been tracking ever since the fall of the SHIELD Helicarriers, or Bucky whom Steve and Sam had been searching for tirelessly so they can help him regain his memories) or just relaxing the day away after a long day at work while trying to avoid the obvious pitfalls of being well known celebrities living in one of the most well known populated states in the entire country (it really was a wonder they were not hounded more often, but then again no one wanted to be near some of the most powerful beings on the planet with ill intent for them without having some serious backup) but other than that it was safe to say that things were rather normal during the week that Wanda was away at the Bartons. And while Steve Natasha and Vision were happy to see her again they certainly weren't expecting the sudden shock of hearing an enraged and startling scream coming from Wanda's room not several hours after she returned followed by a rather loud rumbling crash that sounded suspiciously like something had been thrown into a wall.
Steve had just been minding his own business within his office looking for leads on his missing friend and thinking about his loft life when a rumble shook the facility not to far from his location. "woah!" he cried, startled by the unexpected shockwave, so much so that he tipped over and the chair he was sitting on tipped over causing gravity to take affect and the poor man tipped over falling to the ground with a loud crash that was dampened by the carpet. Of course despite being an enhanced super solider that did not mean that the unexpected didn't hurt. Quickly getting to his knees, the poor captain rubbed his temple to dull away the ache in his head when he remembered that Wanda had screamed and all but sprinted in the direction of the young Sokovian's room in order to check what could have caused her to scream like a banshee and cause an earth quake in the process.
Thankfully Steve wasn't that far from the private quarter section of the facility and he managed to make it directly to Wanda's room in a relatively short amount of time. What he did not expect upon turning the hallway that led to the youngest Avengers room was a pile of drywall in the middle of the floor with Vision lying in it with a rather dumbfounded and naïve look on his face. "Vision?" Steve asked as he approached the Synthetic android, who looked in the direction of the Avengers leader and with all the poise of his predecessors British mannerism, managed to pick himself up and began to speak to the confused New Yorker "Captain Rogers I—" unfortunately for Vision a wave of red mist cut him off, slamming him into and through the wall next to him, much to Steve's shock causing him to look at where Vision went and the hole that obviously led to Wanda's room. It was lucky Stark funded them so they could fix the walls because something told Steve that this was not going to be the last time this happened. Sad part was he needed to figure out what could have possibly happened to cause Wanda to take her rage out on Vision (and by extension, her wall) after the training exercise the two had went through not even an hour ago.
Natasha hadn't mentioned any annoyance at least on Wanda's part nor Vision, so right now it was practically anyones guess, but being the soft kid from Brooklyn he always was Steve had a responsibility to his team regardless of the consequences that befell him, so he did what any born leader would do in his situation. Walked right into the line of fire so to douse the flames. Steve walked over to the whole that led to Wanda's room and stuck his head in hoping to talk to the telepathic hero without any problems
Biggest mistake he could ever make in his life. As soon as he poked his head within the confines of the private room Steve was greeted with the sight of a livid looking redfaced vengefully furious young woman clutching a towel over her body like a lifeline her eyes blazing with rage and contempt her palm out with her powers swirling around her hand like a tempest ready to strike.
It was not one moment later that Steve realized what had happened, but by the time he came to that realization Wanda had already noticed him (not that it was going to be hard considering that he was in her direct line of vision anyway) and boy was Wanda mad. "Get out of here!" she shrieked before blasting Steve with her powers. The poor man was knocked off his feet and into the air throwing him through the hole that Vision had gone through.
What did that mean exactly? Well you see, the confused synthoid had just managed to pick himself up From the unexpected team betrayal attack when he looked up to see Steve coming right at him. Now you may think that in a normal situation Vision would get hit by his airborne leader or at the very least catch him to prevent any further injury and or damage to the compound but unfortunately Vision didn't have the time nor the wisdom to realize this so he just phased himself to be intangible.
So poor captain Rogers went through the intangible Vision and crashed into the nearest object which just happened to be the floor since (un)thankfully gravity took its affect and Steve skidded to a halt just short of crashing into the wall
Vision turned to the slightly disgruntled captain with an innocent look on his face "I do believe that we made Wanda upset. Is there anything that we could do to make it up to her." He asked
Steve rubbed the back of his head but before he could answer, Wanda cut him off "GET OUT!" she shrieked angrily, causing Steve to jump up and run, followed by a still confused Vision.
Wanda, cheeks scarlet with embarrassment clutched the towel covering her still wet body tightly to her, still stared at the hole that she ejected vision through horrified. How dare he invade her room like there was absolutely no problem in doing so? She understood that he was very naïve but surely somewhere in that cluster of bolts and nuts and J.A.R.V.I.S and the infinite knowledge of the mind stone there had to be something that screamed "DON'T ENTER A GIRLS ROOM WITHOUT KNOCKING FIRST YOU INCOMPETANT ROBOT". He was lucky that the only damage she did was knock him through the wall; if it wasn't for Steve coming by she would have broken more than that. Stark wouldn't be too happy about his property being broken but he obviously hadn't thought of a woman's modesty when he redesigned the place, or at the very least the necessity of programming boundaries into Vision wasn't taken into account at the time he was created. . she was going to have to apologize to both him and Steve later but for the time being it would be best if she actually managed to put some cloths on before anyone else showed up to give her more grief.
The young woman sighed heavily before returning to her original task of grabbing her cloths. However with the hole in the wall she would have to return to her rest room to get a bit of privacy. At the very least she didn't have to worry about any more unexpected visitors causing any more problems at this point in the day.
Taking a moment to regain her composure, Wanda returned to her restroom and ripped the towel from her body before getting dressed in the cloths she grabbed, a black blouse and a pair of black sweatpants (since she had nothing else to do today) just planning to spend the rest of her day at the compound and get back to her normal routine. Plus she wanted a small semblance of her vacation to remain, as childish as that sounded. Not to mention she should get to know her teammates a bit more outside of combat. She knew somethings about them having read their minds when she was against them and knew some of Natasha's shopping habits but little else. Back when they had smores she mostly kept quiet, the recent events on her mins contributing to her silence. But her time with the Barton's had made her look past her negativity and she wanted to know more about her teammates a bit more socially than that. She wasn't really able to do that with Vision but the others she could. The question was, which one should she start with? She was the most comfortable with Natasha, being the only other girl on the team so she might as well start there.
Getting dressed Wanda left the room, careful to avoid the mess she made and followed the path to Natasha's personal quarters in order to begin her quest. It was lucky that they weren't very far from each other.
Now she stood in front of the door that led to Natasha's room. She might be surprised to see the younger woman this late in the day after the training session, but lie Wanda said she wanted to get to know her teammates a bit more without resorting to reading their minds to do so. Wanda gently knocked on the woman door, which was followed by a "coming" from the red head that resided on the other side of the door. Not a few moments later the door opened revealing Natasha in a baggy shirt and yoga pants, clearly having a similar idea to Wanda to just be comfortable for the rest of the day. "Wanda?" she asked clearly surprised by the younger girls appearance "I heard a commotion outside is everything alright?"
Wanda's cheeks pinkened slightly in response "Yeah" she said quickly not wanting to discuss what vision did nor the damage that she had caused. Natasha was bound to find out anyway when Steve discussed this to the team anyway to prevent Vision from doing the same thing again in the future. Besides Wanda was on her own mission and she really didn't want to get distracted from it either. "I was Wondering…" she bean, biting her lip in order to steel her nerves, since every instinct in her was telling her to run away and go hide in a hole by herself "would you like to just hang out with me right now? I want to try getting to know everyone better.
God it sounded so embarrassing just to speak like that but Natasha at least could understand where she was coming from, considering the times the two went shopping. Outside of Clint she was probably the Avenger that Wanda trusted the most right now Plus like Clint there really wasn't any chance that Natasha would speak out about anything Wanda told her.
Natasha blinked, clearly not expecting Wanda's proposal, but her surprise faded away into a rather mischievous look, causing Wanda's eyes to widen as a single thought crossed her mind 'Dad didn't…. did he?' somehow she wouldn't be surprised if that was indeed the case. Clint and Natasha were the best of friends and Clint did get a kick out of teasing Wanda about her crush on Xander so it shouldn't surprise her too much if he did indeed call Natasha to discuss living vicariously through her in order to get on Wanda's nerves all the more
Wanda was sorely tempted to read Natasha's minds to find out if that was indeed the case since Clint and Laura were the only people that could have even told Natasha about Xander, but even if they did Natasha wasn't that crazy was she? Oh wait she was a spy and an assassin, so of course she was. Besides Natasha hadn't said anything thus far so maybe she was safe?
"I 'd love too" Natasha stated, exiting her room and closing the door behind her. "what would you like to talk about?" she asked as she began walking through the hallway towards the common areas
Wanda cleared her throat and tucked her hair behind her ear as she walked beside Natasha only one thing coming to mind. She wanted to speak to Natasha like a regular woman would and if there was one person she could trust to speak to about boys here at the New Avengers facility it was Natasha. She was originally against it considering that Natasha had her own issues to work out with the currently wayward Dr. Banner but she had to have some experience being an older woman right? Well she could get to that eventually considering right now she just wanted to get to know everyone better, not talk about her own troubles "I just want to know more about you. I know that you used to work for SHIELD and you are an assassin who is friends with Da- I mean Clint and you had a relationship with Dr. Banner."
Natasha stopped walking and shot Wanda a small glare in warning. Clearly talking about Bruce wasn't something she wanted to do, so Wanda quickly changed tactics And I just wanted to get to know you better" she said quickly "I spent so much time with Clint that he is like family to me now and I wanted to do the same to you, since you are like a sister to him."
Natasha's glare faded away, turning into a small warm smile as she digested Wanda's words. Wanda could feel her emotions and she could tell that the red head was touched by her words, like the warmth of the sun was shining down on them. "Are you asking me if you can call me Aunty Nat like his kids do?" she asked teasingly a wicked glint of mischief in her eye that reminded Wanda all to well of Clint
'Of course they would trade some mannerisms' Wanda thought disgruntled "it will make it easier to toy with me. The two were the best of friends and had the most camaderie out of any of the Avengers. At least as far as she had seen. Steve and Sam, while friendly had a relationship similar to brothers in arms as opposed to very good friends (in which Natasha had a similar relationship with Steve) while Tony and Bruce were more akin to mad scientist buddies (or "Science bros" according to Tony._ War Machine often spoke highly of Tony, so it was more likely they had the closest relationship of their group. Of course this was all complete and utter speculation from what little heard from her teammates. The most about the relationship as with her friends she knew about was Natasha and Clint and that was from spending time with her newfound father and listening to all the exploits he shared with the redheaded assassin (in which he only shared the more grim details with the older and much more mature Wanda) during his time as a SHIELD agent. That's why she was doing this after all.
Its just that she wasn't looking forward to the idea of having yet another family member teasing her about her life particularly one so close to her father, if that's what Natasha ended up becoming to her. And if she knew Clint it was more than likely that he told Natasha about Xander; more accurately that Wanda had a crush on someone and the redhead was just waiting for the perfect moment to strike. She could already imagine the torment Natasha could put her through and the very idea made the sokovian want to hex Natasha in the place of Clint. Despite not wanting too, Wanda couldn't help but scan Natasha's mind briefly hoping to find some trace of Clint in there. It was better to be safer than sorry and Wanda wanted security in case Natasha did start trying to tease her. That way if the other female tried to playfully blackmail her then Wanda wouldn't be as affected by it as she was when Clint did it earlier. Unfortunately this proved fruitless because the only thing on Natasha's mind was a large amount of red and traces of green. She was still thinking about banner. Poor woman
But in any case Wanda was getting a little ahead of herself so she responded to Natasha with a small glare and a glower more befitting an immature teenager than an Avenger in training. Oh wait... "This is about me getting to know you." She grumbled sourly, causing Natasha to laugh and much to Wanda's shock pat the girl on the head like one would a small child, causing Wanda's frown to deepen as she lighly pushed Natasha's hand away in annoyance. Natasha however didn't seem to be phased by this as she chuckled even more, before she began to speak " you read my profile when you joined with Avenges Wanda, everything you need to know about me was in there; we don't keep secrets from each other unless we absolutely have to". Wanda couldn't help but groan at the answer but Natasha did have a point. Wanda did learn about Natasha's history through the files that the Avengers had on each other. There wasn't much, given that Ultron had erased most of the files the Avengers had before Wanda joined, but there was the essentials and Wanda had spent enough time with Natasha at least to make this a more social compared to her compatriots.
"Besides I heard that there a small incident with the Vision? Care to explain that?" Natasha asked her younger friend. Wanda stopped in place involuntarily letting out a small squeak as pink began to tinge her face. She looked away from Natasha not wanting her to see her enflamed cheeks; not that it mattered when she probably knew that anyway being the assassin that she was. "I…I…" she stuttered.
If there was one thing that Wanda didn't want to admit to anyone, even herself, it was that she had a tiny crush on the synthoid. She didn't understand why, since she barely knew the Vision (let alone at all when he was created), but she couldn't deny that there was something alluring about the Vision as well, but she just couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was about Vision that attracted her to him the same way she was to Xander. The thing was the two couldn't have been any different if they tried to be, from what little that she knew about either of them anyway. The only positive thing she could think of regarding a relationship with either of them was, in Vision's case at least they could bond over being different from other people while Xander represented a everything Wanda wished wasn't stolen from her after her parents died. Normalcy and happiness. Either way she would be happy with either of them. But that wasn't something she wanted to discuss with anyone, let alone Natasha. That being said she definitely didn't want to have to answer that question. It was embarrassing just thinking about it.
She knew that Steve wasn't likely to explain anything to anyone, given how polite the guy was and hopefully knowing that he would speak to Vision about what not to say to anyone about the situation. That being said Wanda was going to have to speak to the British accented robot herself just to be on the safe side not to mention apologize to him and their leader for her actions. Not that she wasn't expecting the same from them in return, if she could manage to look them both in the eye after that horrible affair. Vision already caused issue with the fact he had shown her underwear around after she purchased them and she really didnt want to explain why it was wrong to see a girl naked from her point of view if he asked her in the event Steves explanation was insufficient.
Unfortunately for her, Wanda's silence caused Natasha to quirk a brow at the girls reluctance to answer leading her to draw the one conclusion that seemed logical in a situation like this "He saw you naked didn't he." She asked with a very very heavy teasing tone in her voice.
Wanda stopped in her tracks frozen on the spot her face exploding with heat and she looked at Natasha mouth agape in shock, who had the biggest smirk on her face.
"How…." Wanda whispered unable to complete that sentence. It had only been a few minutes between her incident and now, so there was no way Steve or Vision would have told her that and Natasha wouldn't have asked them. Wait a minute…. Her eyes widened "You tricked me!" she realized too late her eyes glowing red with her power as Natasha smiled with mirth in her eyes "You make it too easy!" she responded before laughing a bit more.
Wanda raised her hand, which was enveloped in its red mist as warning. She wouldn't hesitate to make Natasha hallucinate if she kept up her teasing. That is if she was actually serious about doing so. Unfortunately Natasha called her bluff and said "Come on Wanda do you really think I'd expect you to use your powers on me like that?"
"If you keep teasing me I might" Wanda mutter darkly "I had enough of that from Clint."
Natasha coughed at that one, causing Wanda to look at her suspiciously "he better not have told her" she thought, knowing that cough seemed a little out of place for just a simple explanation, but Wanda let the matter drop not wanting to be teased any further. The two just walked in silence after that before Wanda felt her stomach rumble. In all the excitement, Wanda had forgotten that it was almost dinner time and she was quite hungry after all the training she did. Looking down at herself Wanda bit her lip before turning back to Natasha. Are you hungry" she asked "I could use some company for dinner."
Natasha nodded and the two made their way to the kitchen to grab something to eat.
To Wanda's surprise when she entered the kitchen she found Steve, Sam, and Rhodey all sitting at the table in their usual spots looking like they were about to serve themselves some dinner. She didn't have to worry about Vision since the android didn't eat anything, so hopefully the embarrassment would be kept to a minimum during dinner. Now that she was in the kitchen she could smell a very pleasant scent in the kitchen, making her all the more famished. Steve was the first one to notice Wanda but thankfully he said nothing, only giving her a nod, which Wanda returned albeit hesitantly, before she made her way to the kitchen table where she found what had been made for the team that evening. "Kolhrabi Cheese soup?" she asked almost mystified by the smell. While it was a German dish, it was very common in Sokovia and was one of Wanda's favorite dishes growing up, so it was quite a treat especially when made by her team. They must have looked through different recipe books that Tony had on hand to find it. Her eyes lit up as she grabbed a bowl and she bean serving herself a helping before making her way to the kitchen table sitting down in her regular spot and without hesitation, began slurping the meal down albeit as politely as possible. The hot liquid seared her taste buds with the flavor of her favorite meal reminding her, for the first time since she was a child, warmly of home. The only thing that she was missing now was chicken paprikash but that could come again at another time and much like the pancakes she couldn't wait to try any other well known American treats.
As she ate she couldn't help but notice the looks that everyone at the table were giving her, looks of fondness and warmth, with smiles the size of Europe. Taken by surprise, Wanda gulped another mouthful of her soup, causing her to cough heavily from the soup going down the wrong pipe. She coughed into her arm for a few seconds before Natasha, who sat next to her, gently hit her on the back to help ease the girls minimal suffering. Thankfully that seemed to work and Wanda's coughing ceased after a few moments and she sat up straight taking a look around the table. "what?" she asked hoping that there wasn't anything on her face and quickly grabbed her napkin and dabbed her face with it but this only received snickers from everyone at the table, causing Wanda to look at them with faint annoyance in her eyes "What?!" she repeated and everyone burst out into laughter.
Ok that was just serving to make the young sokovian even angrier. Why wasn't anyone explaining anything to her? She had been back for all of a few hours and everyone was treating her like a big joke. Her face morphed into a glower as she looked around the table once more watching as everyone tried to recollect their composure.
Steve being the gentleman that he was, was the first to break the silence. "Its nothing Wanda," he said with a genuine smile. "Its just great to have you back after you've been gone for the past few days, it just isn't the same without you here."
Wanda's frown faded upon hearing those words the emotion in the air shifting to one of warmth and happiness everyone in the room having similar feelings to Steve, indicating the truth in his words. Wanda was quickly reminded of ow she felt at Clints; Steve was doing his best to make sure that Wanda felt at home with everyone. Her mind wandered to the conversation she had with Natasha prior to her extended vacation; she didn't want everyone to be on eggshells around her, much less fear her and realized that this was the perfect opportunity to change that. She had spent only around a month here and she avoided her teammates due to her grief at the loss of her brother as well as having a hard time adjusting to being in a new environment
A small smile touched Wanda's lips upon hearing Steve's words. She was lucky to such good people looking out for her wellbeing.
"Its good to be back." She responded kindly.
The Next chapter will feature a timeskip, given that there is a year been AOU and CA:CW (not that we will get THAT far in the next chapter). the reason for the timeskip? well no spoilers but there is a reason for it :) as always leave your thoughts