Chapter 30: Persistence
Is that the same moon?
Is this the same old springtime,
the same ancient spring?
And is this not my body,
the same body you once knew?
~Ariwara no Narihira, Kokinshu 747, from Only Companion: Japanese Poems of Love and Longing, trans. Sam Hamill
Wanda didn't know what to think. All she'd been able to think for hours was that she didn't know what to think.
After the memory transfer, Shuri and Doctor Strange had examined Vision to see if he'd sustained any brain damage from the procedure, which evidently he hadn't. Then Strange questioned him closely about what he remembered about the mind lice sighting in Antarctica years ago. Then King T'Challa had hosted a banquet.
It had struck her as bizarre, incongruous—surreal—that she, a street urchin from Sokovia, was sitting at a table with a king, a mad-scientist princess, two wizards, and a synthetic man from another dimension who had the memories of her dead boyfriend. The child she had been would never have imagined any of this was possible. And if all that was possible, had happened, was it crazy to accept that her Vision was alive again, inhabiting the mind of his transdimensional doppelgänger?
It seemed crazy. All of this seemed crazy.
Which was why ever since leaving the banquet she'd been sitting on the bed in her guest room lost in a daze. As tired as she was, she hadn't even tried to sleep.
She was waiting for him, she finally realized. But he hadn't come.
With little conscious direction, she rose from her bed and left her room, moving like a sleepwalker through the empty corridor.
She knew Vision's door when she came to it, recognized the glow of his mind behind it. She knocked softly before she could lose her nerve.
"Come in. It's unlocked."
She opened the door.
His eyes widened and he rose quickly from the chair he'd been sitting in. He hadn't expected it to be her.
"Wanda, I thought you would be resting. You have had a very long day."
"I couldn't sleep if I tried," she admitted.
"That's...understandable." His eyes wouldn't meet hers. The expression on his crimson face seemed carefully neutral. It took him a long moment of hesitation before he said, "Honestly, when you left the banquet without a word, I thought you wouldn't want my company."
"Why? Why do you think I wouldn't want to see you?"
"This situation is confusing. I would understand if you need some time to sort out what you want. Or...distance."
"I don't want distance from you," she said.
He glided closer to her. He took her hands. "Wanda, I am so sorry."
"For what?" At the moment, she legitimately couldn't think of anything he had to apologize for. Her thoughts were entirely focused on the touch of his hands around hers.
"For Thanos. For what I...what Vision...what I made you do."
"We had no idea Thanos had the Time Stone, or what it was capable of. It was my fault. If I had been more confident in my powers, I could have killed Thanos. I should have killed him before he got anywhere near..." She couldn't decide between saying 'you' or 'Vision', so didn't finish her thought.
"It's not your fault. Thanos defeated Hulk; we knew we couldn't stake the fate of the universe on a direct confrontation."
"Yes, I could have. I should have. I should have gone all in that I could destroy him. I could have saved the universe and...and you."
"You could have died, and then nothing could have destroyed the Mind Stone before Thanos could get it. I wouldn't have let you."
"You couldn't have stopped me. I screwed up. I screw everything up." She pulled away from him, turning away.
He moved in front of her, desperate to comfort her but with no clue what to say. "Wanda, don't...you can't blame yourself. You..."
"Can you ever forgive me?"
"You had no choice."
"I don't mean for killing you. Can you ever forgive me for trying to stop the memory transfer? I fought Strange to try to stop it. I didn't think it could possibly work..."
"You have lost so many people in your life, you were afraid of losing someone else. I understand." He paused a moment. "I understand that. But...why didn't you tell me? Why didn't...why didn't you tell Red Ultron the true nature of your relationship with Vision? You said you were friends, which was technically true, but such an incomplete truth it might as well have been a lie. And yes, I should have figured it out. There were so many indications I should have picked up on—the way you acted around me, the passport, what the Black Panther said about your lover—but I couldn't imagine... You should have just told me."
"I didn't want you to think... I didn't want Red Ultron to think my feelings for him were just because I'd been in love with Vision."
"Were they? Were your feelings for Red Ultron a consequence of your feelings for Vision?"
She took a deep breath that shook when she slowly released it. She felt irrationally as if through not telling Red Ultron the truth and then opposing the memory transference she had somehow betrayed them both. "I don't know. Would it have mattered if they were?"
"I don't know." He watched her for a moment, his hands tensing as if he was fighting the urge to reach for her again. "This is an incredibly complicated situation. A philosophical problem, really. Almost a Ship of Theseus conundrum. Were Vision and Red Ultron the same person? And who am I now? I have the body and brain of Red Ultron, but the memories of both. If the persistence of the self is a function of memories, I am both individuals merged into one. If the self is the physical body, I am merely Red Ultron with memories stolen from Vision. If I am who I choose to be...I am Vision; I would choose as my identity the one who tried to save the world, and not the one who tried to destroy it. All I know is...I have two sets of memories, each equally vivid, each feels like they happened to me. Two sets of lives that I feel I have lived. And in both of them, I fell in love with you."
His words sank into her, shook her as they echoed the last thing Vision ever said to her. It look her a long moment to respond. "You are both. I can feel the patterns of both minds, Red Ultron and Vision, integrated seamlessly. And I love you too."
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, slowly and unbelievably gently. When he took his lips from hers he pressed them to her forehead.
"This is complicated," she said.
He drew away and looked at her. "To put it mildly."
"But...it's not like we're strangers to 'complicated'. I mean, the whole time we were dating we were on opposite sides of the law."
He chuckled softly. "True."
She gave him a small, tired smile. She was too drained and too guilt-ridden to muster anything more. "Vizh, when I lost you, I didn't handle it well. I did some things...you'd be so disappointed about."
"Nothing you did could change the way I feel about you," he said. "You don't know how much it means to me just to be with you right now. When I died, I thought I would never see you again. This...is a miracle."
"How do you think I feel?"
Even knowing it was a rhetorical question, Vision answered it earnestly. "I don't know. How do you feel, Wanda?"
She considered it. Being near him, which she'd hoped would calm the chaos inside her, was only stirring it more. She loved him, with every fiber of her being, but something held her back. And when she considered his question, it started to coalesce.
"I'm terrified," she said. "Terrified that this isn't real, that I'm going to lose you again, of what it will do to me if I do."
The look he gave her then—full of sympathy, sorrow, love, and absolute devotion—made her wish she hadn't admitted that. Because he would do anything for her. The desperate way he'd held her first thing after the memory transfer showed how much he felt for her, and yet he'd stayed away from her because he thought she wanted time to figure things out. He would leave if he thought that would spare her further pain.
She kissed him, impulsively, desperately. Then she rested her forehead on his.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I love you, and I can't lose you again. You've done your part."
He knew exactly what she was getting at as if he could read her mind. "Don't ask me not to protect you. Don't ask me not to risk my life for you, to die to save you if it comes to that. I couldn't do it. Neither side of me would be capable of it."
"I did it," she reminded him. "I not only let you die, I killed you. And you're telling me you couldn't even stay out of this fight, stay safely in the Sanctum while I face something you have no power against? It's not your choice, Vision. When we go to Antarctica, you don't."
She understood the anguish in his expression, because it was exactly what she'd felt when he told her to destroy the Mind Stone. But this was different. This time, she was right. But it still hurt her heart to be causing him pain.
She put her hands on his cheeks and stared into his eyes. "I'm not asking you to sacrifice me, I'm asking you to trust me. Trust that I'm strong enough to destroy the Source. Trust Strange and Wong to be able to keep me safe when I do. Trust in me this time."
He didn't say anything, but his expression shifted to grim acceptance. That was enough for tonight.
Wanda kissed him again. After a moment, he kissed her back, just as hungrily. She could feel the longing coming off his mind, the love for her, and joy at their reunion, but also a sadness and fear at their impending separation.
But that soon faded into the background as other emotions grew stronger.
She paused their kisses to whisper, "I'm cold."
It was an absurd thing to say on such a warm Wakanda night, but he didn't point that out. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to his bed.