Chapter 3

On the first day there is nothing new. Wherever Snowsmoke goes there is a slight chill in the air, and a muffled quiet, but they have grown used to the coolness some of the agents show the boy. They do not like it, that there is this stranger amongst them, allowed to stay by the word of one who once fought them. The Captain has spoken to them on it, even Fury had, but still the displeasure remained. They did not like the presence of the strange boy, vouched for only by the word of one once an enemy, and that he had taken the virus, and survived, meant they only liked him less.

Now that Andrej is well enough to walk on his own, to leave medical, the looks some of the techs and agents give him worry Wanda. Andrej stands to Wanda's left, slightly in front of her, and Vision follows behind. Occasionally Wanda's arm reaches out, and pulls Andrej back to her, when some of the more cruel agents pass close by, but Vision's hovering presence deters most.

It is a week before they notice how close the cold follows him, and the frosted ferns he sends dancing along the walls his fingers touch.

"Snowsmoke," Wanda says. "It really is what you are." She is smiling and cannot seem to stop. Her hand dances scarlet through Andrej's silver hair. His hair crackles slightly under her touch, like grass coated with frost. His mind is dancing, more like a snowstorm than ever, frost and snow coating everything so he shines bright and clear, like a beacon.

Vision is watching carefully, as though he does not quite know what to do with one who has a new-grown power. Wanda simply smiles, and tugs Andrej's hand gently. After a moment Vision follows on, and they ascend to Fury's office.

Later Vision talks to Wanda.

"I couldn't feel it anymore," he says. "The tugging from the stone. It just seemed to end when he started using the ice when he chose, like his awareness severed it from the stone completely."

Wanda shrugs. "Aren't you pleased? I thought it would be annoying, if it tugged always?"

Vision shakes his head, shrugs, nods. "I don't know. But it feels odd, now that it is gone."

Wanda smiles, and reaches out a hand to gently touch the skin of Vision's brow, just beside the stone. "At least," she says, "You were not there when my brother and I gained our gifts. It took us quite a while to even notice ours. You would have had the tugging much longer." She laughs, just a moment. "That, I think, might have made you hate us."

Vision's smile is genuine when he looks past Wanda's hand to her face. "I do not think I am capable of hate."

Andrej's training progresses rapidly. Wanda remembers her own, asked to do things when she didn't even know how, and remembered the visualisations which helped her. Letting her subconscious paint the image of her cathedral, of her brother's liana-strewn tree, letting her mind find the dancing skein of scarlet that floated over each candelabra. Wanda reaches, gently, into Andrej's mind, and helps him find what of the ice is his.

The first time he manages to freeze a cup of boiling water, he also freezes the room. With his gust of laughter comes swirling flakes of snow, and Wanda's scarlet dances amongst them, warming the room.

"Don't," murmurs Andrej, and Wanda frowns. "Cold feels right. Warm… It's ok but I don't like it. Leave me cold?"

Wanda nods, and presses a light kiss to his frosted hair, "Alright, Snowsmoke."

Sometimes Vision watches, as Wanda tries to teach Andrej to control his gifts. He does not understand, not as Wanda does, the instinctive nature of their gifts, but seems to gain some peace from watching. The wrinkles in his brow ease each time Wanda's recommendations aid Andrej, and, sometimes, he stretches out a cool magenta finger to catch a falling flake of snow.

The Widow watches only rarely. When the snow falls too strongly she watches the thick layer of it as though she expects it to be marred in some way, with footsteps, with blood, or made invisible by a blizzard. When Clint watches he ends up wrapped in coat after coat, his fingers tucked into his armpits so they don't freeze. Occasionally Cap or Sam or Colonel Rhodes drop in, and, once, Fury does. None have anything to say, or anything to add to Wanda's teaching when they see the snow swirling down in the small room.

Some days Andrej is too tired to make much snow. Those days the blizzard and snow and ice of his mind… doesn't fade. It recedes. Ice is caught in sunlight, snow shines bright under a rich blue sky, and, for a moment, Wanda can almost believe the colours to be her brother's.

Andrej is quiet those days, and peaceful in a way Pietro never was. Wanda remembers Pietro's mind with crystal clarity, how, even when settled and waiting, there was something moving, something waiting, just beyond the dancing dervish at the edge of his mind. Even when he was peaceful, even when he was calm, something was moving. Something was ready. Andrej's mind is not. His mind spreads out like the sun and the snow are all he needs, as though he will hear each footstep crunching over the snow of his mind, as though he can hear the dropping water from each and every icicle.

One day Wanda crunches across the snowy field of his mind, to sit beside him in the snow. His mind is not cold, despite the ice everywhere, the snow is as soft as down when she settles to sit. When she leans back to watch the sky the hand of Andrej's thoughtform takes hers gently. They rest like that, Wanda tethered back to her own mind by a single scarlet thread, and watch the bright blue sky of Andrej's.

"Do you ever go into our minds?" Natasha's question is sharp, but not entirely rude. Wanda shakes her head.

"Not without warning. Even the fear-dreams, on the ship, I sent my scarlet to do that, I did not plan it precisely myself." Natasha looks almost doubtful and Wanda continues. "I have been inside Andrej's, because he trusts me, and I had a bond to my brother that only ended when he- when he d-." Natasha's hand touches Wanda's lightly.

"I believe you."

Wanda's laugh is choked out. "Why did you ask?"

Natasha shrugs. "Vision said your mind seems better when it's in other people's. I wanted to know if you've been playing with anyone's."

"I haven't. I promise." Natasha, Wanda knows, is someone who even in the midst of fear is deadly, and she dares not anger her. "Andrej's mind, and sometimes I have a link to Vision's. No one else. I don't…," Wanda pauses, finds her words. "I don't go into people's minds much. It feels wrong. My brother's mind was safe. Andrej trusts me. But other minds I do not know, and I do not wish to explore them. My scarlet is smart enough to work without sight besides."

Natasha's expression is oddly pensive as she nods, and Wanda leaves.

Andrej sleeps deeply after training, and chills the room with snowy breaths. He's asked for a new room, Wanda knows, but it's taking time for S.H.I.E.L.D. to get things together for it despite their new growth. Wanda is quiet in the evenings, when she sits there, but sometimes even her blankets and shawls are not quite enough against the accidental cold of Andrej and she goes a-wandering.

The base is large, Wanda knows, and she has spent many nights in the garages filled with cars and vans and huge hummers. She knows the labs, when she has tripped through them carefully, after making sure Stark wasn't there. She knows the grounds, she knows the gyms, she knows the cafeteria and kitchens, and it has reached a point that she just wanders rather than exploring.

One night Vision joins her.

"Can you not sleep, Miss Maximoff?"

Wanda is standing at the edge of the roof, her toes about an inch from the edge, her scarlet dancing around her to keep her from being buffeted off by the wind. Her shawl is wrapped tight around her, her hair dances in the breeze, but she looks untouched by the cold. Vision supposes, after a moment, that, given her training of Andrej, the wind outside is probably warm in comparison. Wanda doesn't respond.

Vision tries Sokovian. "Miss Maximoff?"

Wanda shudders as though surprised, and turns to look at him. "No. The room was too cold. Andrej breathes out snow after training and blankets and shawls only do so much."

Vision steps forward, steps to stand with her at the edge of the roof. "You could use my room, if you like? I do not need it particularly. I don't exactly sleep like humans do." Wanda blinks, and smiles slightly.

"Sometimes I forget you are not human. Thor stood out in his difference, but you… I think you are more human than many humans." She snorts, and smiles wider, "Certainly more human than me."

Vision frowns, but his tone is frank, "I think you are perfectly human, Wanda."

Wanda laughs, voice dry and mocking. "I gave up my humanity and very nearly my life for a vengeance I've since given up on. I lost my brother, my twin, half of me, and tore out Ultron's heart in recompense. I am half a human, at best, and even there I am riddled through with holes from the virus, and the bullets that took my brother from me." She shakes her head, and her scarlet dances close around her hands. "No, Vision, I am not human anymore, I think."

There is a pensive silence before Vision speaks. "There is more to being human than what you have given up or taken, I think." He pauses, lets the wind whistle past them, and continues. "And even then is that not the nature of humanity? To give things up for what you believe in, to take things because you chose to, to fight to live, to live to learn? Are they not all human things?"

Wanda looks at her feet, and Vision cannot see her face quite clearly enough, but he thinks she smiles.

Finis

This went up early because I am leaving for a trip this afternoon. I should be back tomorrow afternoon, which is when the next fic in this series, Dis Manibus, should be going up. Reviews are much appreciated!