AN: Enjoy!

After a while both of the twins drifted off to sleep, and Wanda carried them off to bed. Once his increasingly beloved charges were out of earshot, Vision sighed.

As nice as it was to be bonding with Billy as well as Tommy, the closer he grew to the twins, and to Wanda, the higher the stakes seemed to grow. Hiding out with the Guardians hadn't worked out, so now, he needed to find another safe haven. A place where the boys could grow up, have the chance to just be children, and where Wanda could have the time to recover from all she had suffered.

The problem was, after spending most of his life bouncing from job to job, planet to planet, knowing no real home but his ship, Vision had absolutely no idea where he was going to find such a place.

Vision sighed again, bringing up some of his star-charts to scan for options, then stood and headed to his armory, maneuvering past the extra child-proofing measures he had implemented since Tommy and Billy had come aboard The Side Of Life, and removed the top half of his armor in order to polish it. As he was beginning this task, Wanda, done with putting the boys down to sleep, came looking for him.

"Hey Vizh, I was wondering if.." Wanda, having not been prepared to find a bare-chested Vision, froze, blushing brightly. "Oh.. I'm sorry, I didn't realise.. I'll come back later.."

"It's alright, I was just polishing my armor.." Vision, as naive in these matters as Wanda's sense of modesty was skewed, somehow failed to realise why Wanda was flustered, and simply moved over to make room for her where he was sitting. "What were you wondering?"

"Uh.. I.." She hesitated, trying not to stare, but her eyes couldn't help but be drawn to his muscular chest, and she found herself wondering briefly what it might be like to run her fingers over the Vibranium streaked through it, before her cheeks burned an even brighter shade of red.

Vision, suddenly realising what the problem was, and cursing himself for not noticing sooner, grabbed a shirt that had been left behind by someone he had once transported and tugged it on.

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking, I.. Sorry" Vision's own cheeks darkened a shade.

"You don't have to be sorry. It's your ship, you could walk around naked if you wanted.."

"Not when there is a woman and two young children aboard. Even if there weren't, it's not something I generally make a habit of.."

"Right, of course you don't" Wanda glanced at her feet, then turned away. "I'll just let you finish what you were doing.."

"Wanda, wait" Vision stood, grabbing her hand. "That wasn't meant as an insult against you.."

"I know" she sighed. "I know. It's just.."

"What?" Vision gently prompted. "You can tell me.."

"The more I remember what 'normal' is.." Wanda murmured, shyly turning to look at him, her wide eyes a little wider even than usual, "The more ashamed I feel about anything I might have done that isn't."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of. Absolutely nothing. The only people who should be ashamed are the ones that let you believe that you had so little right to privacy" He squeezed her hand. "You are a survivor."

"You think so?"

"I do" Vision nodded. "And as long as you are here, The Side Of Life is your home as much as mine. I am sorry if my being without a shirt made you feel uncomfortable at all.."

"No.." Wanda blushed again. "Not really.." Seeing Vision with his shirt off hadn't made Wanda feel 'uncomfortable', so much as it had made her feel and want things that she wasn't entirely certain she was ready to feel or want.

"Oh.." Vision blushed himself, suddenly feeling a little awkward, and quite eager to change the subject. The idea that anyone could find a creature such as himself the least bit attractive, let alone someone as beautiful as Wanda, was rather unbelievable to him. "So, uh.. What were you coming to ask me?"

"Oh, right" Wanda jumped a little, finally reminded of what she had actually come for. "I was thinking that I should dye my hair."

"Your hair?"

"To hide my identity a bit" Wanda elaborated. "The Ravagers are looking for a brunette, so I thought.. I don't know, it might put them off scent for a while at least. I understand that you don't have hair, so you probably don't have any hair dye, but next time we stop, we could pick up.."

"Actually," Vision interrupted her, "I do have hair dye."

Wanda blinked, rather surprised.

"What?"

"I'll explain," said Vision. "Follow me."

Vision led Wanda to one of The Side Of Life's storage rooms, where he dug out a bag that contained a strange mix of both men's and women's clothing, arrows, doctored identity papers, and a few bottles of hair dye in various colours.

"What is all this?" asked Wanda, confused.

"After my creator sent me out into the universe, but before I joined the Ravagers, I took a job helping two S.H.I.E.L.D agents on a mission. Their names were Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff.."

"S.H.I.E.L.D.. I've heard that name before. When I.. When the experiments were happening.." Wanda paused, shuddering a little, "They used to talk about measures they had in place to keep S.H.I.E.L.D away, or hoping S.H.I.E.L.D didn't show up.."

"That makes sense. They're quite high up the law enforcement ladder.."

"Then why did two of their agents need you, Vizh? Don't they have their own fancy police ships?"

"Usually, yes.." said Vision. "But this mission was off the books. Natasha wanted to save her sister from an uncharted planet called the Red Room.. orphaned girls are taken there and raised as assassins."

"That's terrible.." Wanda gasped.

"It is, which I think is why Clint agreed to help. They hired me as their transport there, and their getaway, but I ended up helping a little more than that.."

"And you saved Natasha's sister?"

"We did. Clint tried to get me a job with S.H.I.E.L.D afterwards, but that didn't quite work out.."

"Why not?"

"I am different. I look different. I am something new" Vision shrugged, smiling sadly. "Something they don't understand. Something they couldn't quite trust yet."

"That's not fair" Wanda frowned.

"I suppose not.. anyway, they left some things behind, and that's why I own a rather impressive collection of hair dyes" He smiled wider, as if trying to let her know that he was okay, that the way many people still saw him didn't bother him, even though it very much did. "So.. would you like to pick a colour?"

Wanda paused for a moment, looking at Vision. Somehow not seeing that anything about him was different, or other. On some level, Wanda knew that he was, a little, but since she was different too, it hardly seemed to matter.

To her, he was just Vision. Her saviour. Her friend. A man who had very recently taken blaster bolts for her children. A man she could love, build some semblance of a normal life with if only she could put the broken pieces of herself back together.

Wanda reached past Vision into the bag left by his earlier guests, and as she did so, she leaned up to press her lips to his. It was a soft, quick kiss. A promise that she saw him, even if no-one else could. When she broke the kiss, pulling back again, Wanda was clutching a bottle of red dye.

"This one might work. Could you help me?"

Vision, dazed in the best possible way, even from so small a kiss, could only nod, following Wanda out of the room with a goofy grin on his face.