WHERE: Open Decks WHEN: Last Saturday WHAT: After dinner, Clint and Wanda take a walk and talk STATUS: Complete VIEW WARNINGS: Terrible flirting, discussions of past trauma/anxiety
Wanda didn’t dress up for dinner. She wore a tank top and bright red shawl. She wasn’t sure if it was a date or a friend thing. It was a friend thing, she told herself. But the way they flirted, she might have been wrong about it being a friend thing. They ate dinner across from one another and Wanda listened to Clint’s stories intently. She also had her own, of going across the world to try and “fix” magic.
After it was over, they started to walk. Neither of them really suggested going anywhere or offered to walk the other back to their room. They wandered. Wanda crossed her arms over her chest and looked over at him. They were both older now, so much older than when they first met. He still looked good.
“Is it true some people aboard came with weapons?”
It was nice. Time with Wanda. He’d thought it’d be weird, deal breaker and all that. That seeing her long term would bring back old hurts and memories or whatever. Oddly, not so much. It was far easier because she was still Wanda, and he wasn’t thinking much on the Wanda who had a break down and lost control so much as the Wanda that teased and made jokes and laughed when he had teased her brother.
Too much history to really bother hating her.
“I think so,” shoving his fists into his pockets, not minding the cooling air considering he was roaming in just a tshirt and jeans, “I have my bow, pretty sure Barnes has some kind of gun.” Even if it wasn’t the Barnes he knew, the dude was still the Winter Soldier. “Might be a hint not to let our guards down too much.” Because apparently this wasn’t the first weird thing that had happened.
“But we are on a ship with a bunch of superheroes and magic users, think we’ll be safe?”
As they walked, Wanda was sure to keep looking at Clint’s face as she spoke to him. She wanted to see if he’d keep eye contact with her. It was a little game she played with the people who actually spoke to her. Were they just pretending to be nice? Were they afraid?
After he finished his sentence, she looked out over the ocean and got lost for a moment. “Hm? Yes. There are a lot of us… we’ll be fine. As long as the ship doesn’t sink.” Way to bring people down, Maximoff. “Even if it did, I think I’d be able to fix it,” she reassured him. She fell in step with him, looking down at their feet moving in sync. It pleased her, little things falling into place. Disorder scared her.
Hey, it’d be just his luck to end up on a cruise that went the way of the Titanic. Most of the time, Clint’s eyes flitted between lips and face; his aids were helping the additional issues with his hearing, most of the time he didn’t need to watch for every single word. “Really glad I know how to swim now.” But he was pretty sure that nothing would go wrong.
Mostly. Pretty sure. Halfway between sure and a little unsure. Who was he kidding, they’d probably have pirates try to take over the ship. “You notice how we do that? We go to the worst case scenario and work out what we’ll do? Even when nothing is wrong, we figure something’s gonna go wrong.”
One of his major flaws, probably. Calculating everything that would go wrong, waiting for it to happen, self-fulfilling prophecy and all.
Another reason to keep her eyes locked with his, so he could read her lips. Wanda pulled her shawl closer to her chest with a balled up fist and shrugged. “It’s what we do, it’s what we’ve been trained to do since we were young.”
Being an Avenger was a lot like being a police officer. What did they say? When she thought it, she said it aloud, “Plan for the worst hope for the best?” All this talk about what ’we’ did had her thinking about old times. “Do you remember the first time we all went out on a mission? You got hurt.”
God, they’d all been so stupidly young when they started out; and the egos didn’t help. That first team, after he’d been with Natasha for so long and didn’t feel right in his own skin, going from a duo to a full team, butting heads with Cap, the showmanship, the mucking around. “Man, probably never living it down either.” But it was probably what he needed too. Knocked off a perch, so to speak.
He still remembered the exact mission she was talking about, some no-name villain trying to make his bones, a little carnage, a little disruption, he couldn’t remember if it’d been a lucky shot, or if he’d been snarking with Pietro and not paying enough attention. “I still have that little scar on my temple. Concussions suck for memory though.”
Wanda stopped walking and reached out for his forehead. “Where, let me see?” She thought to ask for permission instead of just going for it. Wanda was a touchy-feely kind of person. She liked to be touched and to touch, it felt natural. It forged a connection, to be comfortable enough with someone.
“My brother didn’t want me to fight that day. He was afraid of my power then.” She laughed ruefully, “He became less afraid of it over time, as we’ve learned.” He came to her during the second Civil War-- between Carol and Tony and asked her to ‘fix’ things.
It didn’t work that way. Even if it could be that easy, there’d be consequences. She learned that already.
It didn’t occur to Clint to stop her or say no; it was Wanda, she didn’t need to touch him to cause damage and he didn’t think she would anyway. Carefully taking her hand, he directed her fingers to the small mark along his temple running into his hairline. It was barely noticeable unless he had a tan and even then only if you looked for it. He had worse scars than that one by far. “At one point or another, I think we were all a little unsure about what you could do.”
She was, by far, the most amazing and the most terrifying person he knew. She made people, out of nothing, and sure Billy and Tommy weren’t her actual kids, but the souls of those kids she made, they were there. And even with their history, maybe because of their history, he really wasn’t worried about her losing that grasp again. “You’re pretty exceptional.”
His hand dropped from directing hers to where his little scar was, just standing still for the inspection.
His touch was warm and her lips curled into a small smile. “I can feel it, yes. I remember that. You should stop getting hit in the head, it’s not good for you.” Wanda didn’t want him to let go of her hand. She was lonely, and Clint was familiar. “I’m still not completely sure what all I can do. But Billy is surpassing me…” He was getting better with his powers. She hadn’t seen him or Tommy recently. It was difficult for her to see them-- a reminder of the souls she took from innocent children. Just to make her own.
Wanda touched his scar once more, then traced her fingers down to the side of his face, cupping his jaw. “And you’re cute.” She was grinning now, being a little cheeky. She soon dropped her hand and went to stand beside him, leaning on the railing. “What I meant to say, was thank you. I’ll take exceptional over terrifying any day.”
Wasn’t that the goal for kids? Watching them get better, do more, be the best they could be? It was probably hard to watch, but he’d bet it was one of those moments of pride too. “He’s a good kid, they both are. They’ll be great in their own right.” They were already showing signs of the next force of superheroes.
Leaning back, trying to ignore the fact that he knew there was a slight blush on his cheeks again at being called cute. “Exceptionally terrifying?” He was poking fun, mostly, she could be exactly that. And Clint was very glad she’d been on their side longer than playing the villain too. “People are scared of what they can’t get a grasp on, don’t let them make you feel bad for how powerful you are, right.” He gave a little lean in, nudging her.
“You’re brilliant.”
“They’ll be wonderful, they’ll carry on after we’re gone.” It was inevitable for them to die one day, but Wanda said it as if she meant it would happen sooner than later. “They’re very brave.”
She looked at him from the corner of his eye and noticed his flush face. It made her feel a little smug. It was nice to make someone feel good. It was nice to make Clint feel good.
Wanda was nudged and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Now you’re just being a kissass. What do you want with me, Barton?” She couldn’t help but smile, her lips twitching, trying to stop it from happening. She tilted herself so that she was facing him.
If he were being honest, Clint wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he died (again) in the not too distant future. He didn’t think that was on the cards for Wanda, but there wasn’t too much point in saying that ‘you’ll outlive all our friends’. That wasn’t really a comfort, was it?
“Me? For starters, maybe you not letting other people make you feel like trash? You don’t deserve that.” Out of all of them, there would be maybe one or two who hadn’t, at some point, fucked up majorly in their lives. He could get some of the mutants being pissed at Wanda, but she hadn’t meant to decimate the population, and frankly, she hadn’t left it decimated, because he was there when the Phoenix was destroyed (maybe) and all those tiny little mutants started to come back. So… Screw them.
“Then, I don’t know, maybe just… see you smile more often. I miss that sometimes, when we were too damn dumb to know this was all going to suck the fun out of us.”
Wanda looked terribly impatient suddenly. Talking about her and her problems was a sure way to get her anxiety ramped up. She wanted to say that she did, she did deserve to be treated like that. But she knew Clint would fight her on it.
Asking her to smile soften her scowl. Wanda poked him in the chest and then pointed at her mouth-- she was smiling (a little forced, like for a picture). “That better?” The thought of when they were younger and softer made the smile genuine. “I had a crush on you back then.”
“Yeah?” That got a little bit of surprise out of him. His hand raising to scratch at the back of his neck, “I um… I figured everyone knew I was sweet on you.” But Clint was literally a car crash in motion when it came to his relationships, and he’d probably been exceptionally hung up on Natasha in the beginning, for years really. “Pietro definitely knew.” Since they constantly battered heads over Wanda.
It was cliche, but they were most certainly different people back then. Full of themselves, at least in his case, and just riding the high of being heroes. Time battered that out of most of them.
Wanda delighted in making him squirm. It had been awhile since she had felt wanted. Hearing he liked her-- well, it wasn’t as if she didn’t know. “I wonder what would have happened if our paths intertwined?”
She didn’t know why she was being nostalgic, or even a little too forward. She felt a little silly around Clint. They had been away from each other for so long, she needed to make him less of a stranger again.
“Disaster?” He wasn’t stupid enough to think that he could’ve at all been what Wanda needed back then, or that he’d have the sense to know what he had at all. “I mean, it would’ve probably have been one hell of a disaster, but disaster all the same.”
He’d gotten married a few years into his tenure with the Avengers, and his and Bobbi’s life had not been stable. Hell, Clint wasn’t sure if he was stable now. Leaning over the railing, Clint kept one side close to Wanda, encouraged in that she wasn’t laughing at him. “Everyone had a lot of growing up to do. I think we got there.” He half wondered how his counterpart from the other reality got his life so together so early.
“Disaster sounds about right. We probably wouldn’t be friends anymore.” Wanda leaned on him a little bit, just pressing her shoulder against his. “One hell of a disaster, that sounds somewhat positive…”
Wanda had something with Simon before he disappeared. He trusted her, loved her, and was basically Vision, as he was the source for him. Maybe that’s what attracted her to him. What a sad thought.
She frowned. “I feel grown up, how about you?”
They most likely wouldn’t have been friends, it would’ve been such a terrible, horrible, explosive thing that maintaining a friendship would be near impossible -he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to salvage any semblance of a friendship with Jessica after all, and they’d just ended. “Oh, we’d have had so much fun while we were imploding, I can tell that.” Because what else would it have been?
But he did feel more grown up. He didn’t think he had his whole life together, but he wasn’t just as lost in the sea of ‘what am I doing’ anymore. After coming back, after his divorce and the constant stream of world ending near misses, after the X-Men and Emma Frost turning him into a kebab, Clint needed to straighten his head out and figure out what the hell he was doing to himself. “I … I thought I’d feel old by now, y’know.” He’d just passed another birthday and… it just felt like any other day. “But yeah, I definitely feel like maybe I’m finally grown up.” Still reckless, that wasn’t going to change, but maybe he could make better decisions about his life.
Wanda had a wild grin on her face when he said it would have been fun to implode. “You’re going to make me blush now.” She laced her fingers together and twisted, fidgeting because she was feeling awkward.
She felt like she had grown quite a bit. She still loved her father, but she was no longer on his team. She was no longer an Evil Mutant with the Brotherhood. No longer a terrorist. She was on her own now, and doing just fine. Apparently, she didn’t need Pietro or her father anymore. “Good for you, Clint. Welcome to adulthood. Pick up your debt and crippling anxiety at the front door.”
“Fair is fair,” Clint smirked, because it seemed strange that they could still manage this, “at least this time I get to see it.” He wasn’t sure if he should still be able to think ‘cute’ in connection to anyone he worked with at any time, but he did.
“Hey, I have an apartment building back home, I have tenants, crippling anxiety came before the adulthood.” Although he supposed it helped him get things in perspective. The superhero thing, it was hard, and it took a lot out of them. But normal everyday people? They had their own stuff to deal with, and half the time, it was just as hard to work around. “Although yeah, I could do without the debt. You’d think saving the world a few times would loosen up the banks a bit.” But no, that was not how life worked.
“Enjoy it while you can,” she retorted with warm cheeks. It was strange they could still do this. Some things don’t change, do they? She was okay with that. Having someone to flirt with was fun and distracting. She could use distracting.
Wanda gave him an inquisitive look, “How did you get an apartment building? Why did you get an apartment building?” She looked up at the sky, “Yeah, the anxiety has been with me for awhile now, I just thought it was natural after a certain age.”
“I plan to.” It shouldn’t have been that easy, sweeping things aside and moving past it, but they rarely seemed to do things the normal way, and in this place normal seemed like it was just an excuse for weird. But not having some stupid, weird tension with someone was kind of nice too.
“Honestly? Accidentally. Everything was an accident, but tracksuit thugs, some deranged man in a clown mask, it just kinda ended up happening, and then I felt responsible for all the tenants.” He couldn’t exactly leave and let them all deal with the consequences of him being too stubborn to let something go. So, he stayed around and played landlord. “It’s annoyingly constant, right?” They all seemed to end up with some kind of problem eventually; Clint was glad he’d managed to get a grip on the mild panic attacks post-death, it’d be a mood killer otherwise. “I think it’s the business. Stay too long, get some fun crippling mental health issues.” God knew they all needed counselling.
Wanda’s smile was a little sad, knowing he was having trouble with mental health as well. Everyone knew she was a little off when it came down to it. After all, it caused mass deaths. She was a weapon.
“That’s good of you. I hope time is standing still for us back home.” Wanda felt close to Clint at that moment. He was just trying to do the right thing, and it was causing him to go a little crazy. She could relate, for the most part. Time to change the subject, she thought.
“Want to walk me back to my room?” Her lips twitched as she tried to hold back a smile.
He had to assume things were just standing still; the fact that people were from all over the timestream, that Kate had been here while she’d also been back with him defending the building, it gave him at least that understanding that nothing terrible was likely to befall his home while he was being thrown through different worlds.
“Of course,” with a flourish, Clint offered out his arm, grinning broadly, “I will happily escort you.” Because he couldn’t not be a bit of a dork.
All Wanda knew was that people were from different timelines-- which meant that time wasn’t exactly standing still. But they were plucked from their universe either. She didn’t understand it, but was at peace with it.
She sidled up against his side and hooked her arm through his. “Keep me from hitting on the robots, okay?”
“Oh, man, once is a fluke, twice is a pattern, babe. And I’m not sure I can compete with that.” Joking was easy, it was comfortable and simple. And he sort of liked having that with someone around here.