A/N: Some Wandavision references, episode 8, so spoilers if you haven't seen it. This chapter, and this story as a whole, wouldn't be here without the amazing human/writer/beta, crotchety_old_emu on ao3

Chapter 9: Comedy

'Can you hear me now?'

'Yeah, I hear you,' Wanda sighs, 'Like I did fifteen minutes ago.' She hasn't quite mastered the ability to tune in and out of their channel. They still hadn't come up with a better name for it yet, either.

'Sorry, you weren't meant to hear that. It's not you, Vizh.' It's that she's bored, in general. Bored of constantly feeling like she's one wrong move away from disintegrating. Disillusioned with her own misery.

'On the contrary, I'm a bit brassed myself. I've seen nothing but trees for miles.' She's lying on her bed, stuck in the apartment, as usual. Vision, though, set off earlier in the day to test the distance limitations of the channel.

'Where are you?' She closes her eyes, takes a break from the monotony of watching the ceiling fan spin.

'Russia. Currently approaching the East Siberian Sea.'

'Don't you think that's far enough?' Wanda wonders if he can hear her exasperation. 'At this rate, you'll get back faster if you keep going all the way around.'

High above the vast tundra of Siberia, The Vision chuckles lightly to himself. In the few days that he and Wanda started working with their channel, he'd been starting to feel more attuned to himself. As if, by devoting himself to the development of one cognitive skill, he unlocked the ability to identify his strengths and weaknesses more proficiently in all areas.

Of course, he still felt guilty that he was keeping information from her. However, after her nightmare earlier in the week, there were no further instances like it. It makes it easier to spend his time focusing on other things.

'Perhaps. Though, there might be a route faster than flight. It would also allow us to test the channel while I'm phasing.' They've never tried it before, and if he's honest, he would rather be back at the apartment with her and the rest of the team than stare at snow any longer. He shifts his density to near non-existence, diving into the waves and the ocean floor beneath. Further down still, somewhere in the earth's crust, he orients himself and makes an attempt. 'Wanda?'

'I'm still here.' She comes through as clearly as if Vision were in the same room. He smiles while he logs the results, enlivened with the spirit of progress.

The team falls into easy patterns, developing a routine without anyone explicitly talking about it. Sam, Wanda, and Vision rotate cooking duty. Natasha and Steve both made attempts, but it hadn't panned out for either. So they take care of the cleaning, instead.

To a stranger, they'd look to be a strange bunch of roommates. For them, it works well enough.

Currently, Natasha and Sam are out grocery shopping. Steve's out in the quinjet trying to get an update on Bucky from Wakanda. From where she's sitting on the couch in the living room, Wanda can't see what Vision's doing. But, from the sound of something crashing to the floor in the kitchen, she'd guess that he's getting ready to cook something.

Wanda turns the show she was watching off at the sound. Not that it matters, considering she wasn't paying much attention to it. She's been zoning out a lot lately.

More than once, her teammates have stumbled upon her, staring off into space. At least, when they do, it jolts her back to reality, out of the disparaging depths of her own thoughts and memories.

She's noticed it gets worse when she's alone. And that nighttime, especially that space between consciousness and dreaming, is the hardest time to come out of it. The past two nights, she's hardly slept because of it. Too afraid to fall asleep and too tired to stop herself from slipping.

There's another bang, and she takes it as an excuse to join Vision in the kitchen. She's barely through the door before she's practically doubled over, laughing wholeheartedly for the first time in months.

The kitchen looks like a scene from one of the sitcoms she grew up on. The counters, the floor, even the oven are all covered in a layer of flour. At the center of the mess is Vision. His entire front coated, head to toe.

The offending empty bag still in his hands, metal mixing bowls all around his feet, he looks up at her and asks, "This is funny?"

It makes her laugh even harder, tears springing to the corners of her eyes.

Vision doesn't understand why destroying the kitchen is comedy. He also doesn't care. He'd happily ruin a clean kitchen every day, if it means he gets to see Wanda laugh like that and smile at him the way she is now.

"Yeah, Vizh. This is hilarious." She moves around him and his mess to grab a couple of dishcloths. "Go get that stuff off of you, I'll start out here."

"I'm pleased you enjoy it, but that's unnecessary." He doesn't think about it, just phases to be less dense than flour and back.

Apparently, that's funny, too, because Wanda laughs again and throws him a cloth. "Fun trick, it's too bad you can't do it with the rest of the kitchen." She starts on the countertops while he tackles the hob. "How did you manage all this?"

"Ah, I might have got a little carried away trying to get the bag open. I was going to try my hand at baking... Obviously, I didn't make it very far."

"Obviously."

Between the two of them, it doesn't take long to get the kitchen cleaned up. Within fifteen minutes, Vision's sweeping up what's left of the flour from the floor and tossing it into the trash bin. "Thank you for your help. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be having any cake with dinner tonight."

"Not without any flour, no." She lifts herself to sit on top of the countertop behind him, making room for him to use the sink. "If you wanted, I could teach you. I can't do anything fancy, but I used to help my mother make pastries for holidays and our birthday."

It's the first time she's brought up her family since their conversation at the compound, mere days before she'd joined the others on the Lagos mission. The first time she'd ever confided in him. He thinks drawing attention to that fact out loud might be counterproductive, despite how much he'd rather celebrate it for the accomplishment it is. Ultimately, he decides the best course of action is to finish washing his hands, turn around, and reply, "Yes, I'd like that."

Internally, he beams.