wanda maximoff (fears) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-07-01 22:11:00 |
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Getting out into the air seemed like the best thing for Wanda. Away from people. Away from all the emotions and thoughts.
She could still see everything, and the tint to her vision told her that her eyes were still red, the power still sitting there under the surface. It worried her about texting Peter, the fact that her control hadn’t reasserted itself yet, she didn’t have it back in her grasp just yet, worried that it would lash out at him if she didn’t manage to get things back to calm before he showed up.
She’d crossed the parking lot from the bar, watching the door but sitting by the curb so she didn’t attract a lot of attention, watching the few people who had a grip on themselves leave, hoping that everyone would be okay, but knowing she couldn’t be around any of them right then.
All the fears were just too close to the surface, from the simple things like claustrophobia to the more intense things, things that stemmed from dreamers, things that stemmed from deep issues.
Wiping her face with her hands, taking a shuddering breath, Wanda tried to use the tricks from Hayley’s yoga lessons to calm herself and bring her powers down, lose the red hue, come back to herself.
Before Peter showed up.
---
Peter was worried. Wanda’s texts had woken him up from a nap that had somehow turned into sleep, and it was with bleary eyes that he read through the messages. It woke him up though as the sheer stress in them was palatable.
He hopped into his truck immediately and was thankful that he didn’t get stopped since he wasn’t paying attention much to his speed. When he got to the bar, he pulled up to the front and parked, his heart skipping a beat when he saw Wanda looking so forlorn on the curb. Coming up to her, he kneeled right down, his brow furrowed in worry. “Hey,” he said quietly, a hand reaching out to brush her hair back behind her ears. Since their sleep over, he’d started being a bit more open with touching her and since she’d never said no….
“Can I give you a hug? You look like you really need one.”
---
Had she been a little more aware of things, she’d feel a little odd about how disheveled she was - splotchy face, pale and shivering, probably a total mess from the panic. But as Peter showed up, a comforting presence even in the midst of the chaos whirling around her mind.
Peter crouching down, Wanda feeling like the red had finally slipped back down into her skin, she took a breath before nodding sharply, convinced that a hug would definitely help. “Please?”
It wasn’t just comfort, Wanda was sure something about contact would at least make her feel somewhat more herself and less that. And since Peter didn’t seem to be hesitant about touching her, even if she was a mess.
---
Without hesitation, Peter sat down next to her on the curb and pulled her close, her familiar perfume filling his nose. With one arm around her shoulder, he placed the other around her waist, and lowered his head into her hair. He didn’t quite know what to do, but he figured this wasn’t a bad way to sit with someone.
A few moments later, he started humming a song, since music was the number one way he used to calm down, and he could see that Wanda wasn’t really in a place to talk. After a while, he couldn’t help himself, and he started singing quietly. Elton John had been playing on the radio, and no one could argue the classic of “Your Song”.
This might have looked like a strange sight, but it was a bar and there were drunk people -- they probably looked fine.
Peter was going to let Wanda tell him when she was ready to leave.
---
Wrapping her own arms around Peter’s waist, burying her nose into his shirt, gradually letting her heart rate slow, feeling her head clear a little, the air and the hug helping her calm immensely. As Peter started to hum, Wanda burrowed a little closer into Peter.
She couldn’t really state how much she appreciated that Peter was able to do something a little distracting, when he started to sing, the sound covered over the push of her telepathy, bringing her back to where she was sitting, cold on the curb but still comfortable now that she wasn’t along.
“I lost control.” She knew that she’d be able to be more coherent now, now she wasn’t shaking and crying and trying to text at the same time. Even if she was talking into Peter’s chest and against his shirt. “I lost it and they all… It was terrible.”
---
“Shh…” He stroked her back a little and held her a little tighter. “It’s okay.” It probably wasn’t really, but hey, Peter was looking at the facts: no police had been called, people weren’t streaming out of the bar, and no one was dead. All in all? Not the end of the world.
He was sure Wanda wouldn’t agree, so he kept that to himself. “I mean, it’s all new, right? New things take some time to figure out and what matters most is your intentions. You didn’t mean to do it...and losing control is kinda part of gaining control. Now you know your limitations.” How he had become a ‘glass full’ kinda guy was beyond him. It was probably Wanda’s good examples rubbing off on him.
He thought for a moment before continuing. “What do you need from me? Wanna get out of here? Do you wanna go back to your place? I’ve technically been banned from the house -- don’t ask -- but I have my tent set up in the backyard, which I kinda like better.”
---
She didn’t think it was okay, not at all, although she did understand that she wouldn’t have complete control all the time, she never wanted to use her powers for that, not since she’d seen what she was doing with them, how deep her power went, how harsh it was on the person she used it on.
Willingly or not.
But Peter was just trying to help, and Wanda appreciated that he was trying, that he was there at all, trying to make her feel better, hugging her and trying to make things better. “I don’t want to go home.” As nice as Hayley was, as understanding as she was, Wanda knew that Hayley had a lot of her own struggles and Wanda didn’t want to put anything through Hayley’s mind. Peter, although she worried about his mind too, wasn’t a hybrid werewolf/vampire.
“Can we go to your place?” If Peter was banished from the house, for whatever reason Yondu had come up with (probably another rule break, but Wanda would ask later) and Peter had something set up, Wanda just needed to get her mind to calm enough to be steady. And she trusted Peter more than most, even if she was a little tipsy. “I like camping.”
---
“Whatever you want, babe.” It was Wanda’s night, and Peter was just along for the ride. Reaching down for her hand, he gently tugged her up and lead her to the truck, his fingers intertwining with hers. “And camping makes it sound more cool than it is,” he said to her. “It’s a tent, a mattress, blankets….it’s nice to look at the stars and smell the fresh air when I’m sleeping.”
It was also another reminder of what freedom looked and smelled like. Something he never wanted to take for granted again.
Opening her door to the truck, he looked down at her and gave her a soft smile before pulling her close again for another hug. “You just order me around tonight, okay? Whatever you want. Let’s get everything you need and then we’ll just laze around.”
---
Peter’s grip was a lifeline, tugging Wanda to her feet, leading her along to the truck, basically keeping her grounded. She managed to walk somewhat steadily thanks to her grip on Peter, “If you are outside, you are camping. That is how camping works.”
She missed how it was in the summer, back during her childhood, when all of the kids in the community could just sleep outside, under the stars, all the parents amused at their fearlessness. Watching the stars, the crackle of the fire, wrapped up with Pietro and all her family.
When he got serious with her, just at the door to the truck, Wanda felt the swell of affection all over again. Taking a deep breath of Peter in as she hugged back. “You’re so great.” Honestly, she didn’t know how anyone could be mean to Peter when he was like this. “Can we find ice cream? And just lay under the stars?” She was really getting into that whole ice cream for comfort thing.
---
For a brief moment, Peter wondered what would happen if he kissed her….but there was no way he was taking advantage of her. One thing his mom had always drilled into his head was you never did anything without someone saying yes.
“Ice cream. Got it.” He smiled again and made sure she got into the truck. The beauty of living in the city was that no matter the hour, there was a store open and ready to take his money. Picking out a few options, along with various junk food and drinks (non-alcoholic, he didn’t think Wanda wanted more alcohol right now), there were no other stops until they reached Yondu’s.
Like usual, the music was playing. It was a good distraction because for the first time since he’d bought his truck, he wished it was automatic, if only so he could hold onto her hand while he was driving. She looked so small, so fragile, and he felt terrible. He racked his brain for any information he might have on her, but even though they were from the same dreamverse, he’d never encountered her at all.
Of course, if they were in that reality, he’d be with Gamora who dream!him was convinced was his soulmate. What a strange two leveled world they lived in…
When they arrived, he took the bags and motioned her through the back gate into the yard. As promised, his tent was set up. Kraglin was outside, and there were no lights in the house. Yondu must have been asleep, but since he didn’t seem to mind Wanda too much, Peter wasn’t going to worry about it ...not that Peter ever worried about it. Yondu liked to complain, it kept him young.
Reaching into the tent, he pulled out the blanket and lay it directly on the grass before reaching in and grabbing the mattress. Once that was on the blanket, he lightly tugged on Wanda to pull her down, still holding her close. He was starting to get addicted to touching her.
“There. Stars, ice cream, and silence….we don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”
---
Wanda’s window was down just a tiny little bit while they were driving, letting air get around her face and cool her down. Coming back from how much she was drinking didn’t seem to be taking too long, she could still feel the buzz, but the onslaught of her powers really seemed to have knocked her back from the edge of too much. The steady flow of music and how comfortable Peter’s truck was for her meant that she was a little bit more relaxed when they arrived at Peter and Yondu’s home, even as they went around to the yard instead of inside.
“Hey Kraglin,” Wanda had to assume that if Kraglin was out with Peter it was less likely that Yondu had kicked Peter out for something serious and they were just being their usual selves. Sitting onto the blanket, leaning into Peter with a soft sigh, Wanda encouraged Kraglin to come and sit with them too.
“I don’t need silence. Silence is probably not the best.” It would give her too much time to think, too much to go over and all the things she saw. “Do you know any of the stars?”
---
“Yeah,” he said, scratching the dog behind the ears. There was a dog door in the porch, which meant the dog was free to come and go as he wanted. It was nice. Peter had always wanted a dog, growing up.
Looking at the sky, his eyes flickered through until he found the one he was looking for. “See that?” He pointed up, snuggling in close to her. She was practically on his lap, which he had to admit, he didn’t mind.. “That’s the Big Dipper. It always points to the North Star, over there. Sailors used to use that to navigate…. In my dreams, I’ve got my own spaceship, basically live in it. I know constellation maps and solar systems and sectors, all sorts of things that have no meaning or value here. But I guess I spent a lot of time reading everything I could about the Milky Way, hoping to one day get here…” The specifics were still lost to him, but the information was there. “Do you know any?”
---
Her eyes followed the direction from Peter’s pointing, spotting what he called the Big Dipper and finding the North Star, appreciating that the sky was somewhat clear tonight to see it.
“It must be nice, the spaceship, being able to go wherever you want.” And being surrounded by the stars and all the wonders of the universe. Wanda spent so many years of her dream life in broken buildings and trapped in a cell, she could see that being able to drift in space would be so freeing. “It has value, you maybe just don’t know it yet.” There were dragons, dragons came to Orange County, so it was entirely possible that they’d need to know about the vastness of space.
“I never learned them. We used to name them silly things, Pietro named them after jokes, my mother made up stories about them, like fairy tales.” It was always a comfort too, staying out under the stars, somewhat similar to then, as she snuggled into Peter.
---
Peter smiled at Wanda’s story. It sounded nice, and a lot of what he and his mom used to do. “My mom liked to point to the stars and teach me things about them too. She showed me how the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper are connected. She taught me about the myths behind the names, like Orion’s Belt, and Casseiopea.”
For once, he didn’t feel that lump in his throat as he talked about his mother. It was nice reminiscing about happier times. He wondered if Wanda was feeling the same way, talking about her family.
“Which was your favourite star then? I can get behind re-naming them. Who knows Greek mythology these days anyways? I mean, we could name Ursa Major ‘big ass bear’. English is easier than latin,” he teased.
---
It was undoubtedly something they shared, something that a lot of people understood in certain ways, but she and Peter really had in common. She already knew that Peter lost his mom to cancer, and she had to think that was possibly harder to watch than Wanda to lose her parents in the blink of an eye.
“My brother would call them what they looked like. Lyra, he thought that looked like a businessman’s tie, he called that the Uptight, and Delphinus, that’s the flag, like on a golf course.” Because they rarely actually saw the proper constellations, it wasn’t like they had much to go off.
“Latin is always hard, there is a reason it is a dead language after all.” Although many languages stemmed from Latin, it was still one that was barely circulating anymore. “Big ass bear would be easier for people to remember too.” Wanda laughed a little, hiding it in Peter’s shoulder.
“There is only one story that I remember entirely, but my mother didn’t make it up. The tale of Corona Borealis? My mother was most fond of that tale,” she wasn’t sure what it was that made her mother fond of it, but she knew it was something to do with her mother and father’s courtship. Small things like that, the little details, those were what Wanda really missed.
---
Peter scanned the sky but it was too bright -- the Corona Borealis was somewhat faint, and it was hard to see with Los Angeles flickering in the background. “If we had a telescope we could see it,” he said, giving up and leaning into her more. There was barely a space between them at this point.
It was getting more and more difficult to keep the boundaries between them the way they were. She seemed to have relaxed, which was good. He was glad for that. “Or if we went to one of those dark sky reserves. Growing up in Missouri, on a corn farm of all places, there was hardly any light at night. I remember our backyard being so lit up from the stars...sometimes, when I was sneaking out of the house, I wouldn’t even bother with a flashlight. The moon and stars guided my way to shenanigans.”
---
“It sounds nice.” As much as Wanda was enjoying Orange County, it was a very big place compared to the small village she came from, the simple life she’d lived before that. Things like bustling cities never really got in the way of stargazing when you were in the middle of nowhere.
“Do you miss it? Home, I mean?” It never felt like prying with Peter, most of the time it felt like she had more in common with him than not. And he tended to be honest with her, something that Wanda valued greatly.
For all his talk of not being a good person he was there, in the moment she really needed him, making her feel better when she maybe didn’t deserve it, given what she’d done to people, the steady comforting support he’d been since the start of their friendship. In her more sober state, she’d maybe be less inclined to press herself so close, to keep the distance between them to almost non-existent, and it wasn’t like she was rationalising how she’d need to deal with this later anyway.
---
That was a loaded question. Did he miss the actual cornfields, his grandfather’s house? No, because he was constantly trying to escape it. Did he miss the concept of home? Yes, absolutely. But the problem he was finding was that he had two lives now in his mind, and in both of them, he was deprived of his mother very young, too young to really appreciate everything she did for him.
“I like my life now,” he answered simply. And he did. It had everything he wanted for all intents and purposes. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it was his, damnit. “When my grandfather died, his place got sold but I don’t know who took care of it all...it kind of pushed me to doing that stupid robbery, and then I was in prison. I assume Yondu did something with it. Yondu does everything like that, even if he bitches the entire time after. So yeah, there’s nothing for me back there, and everything here.”
He paused. The redness was cooling from her eyes, letting them go back to their natural colour. He hoped that meant she was feeling better.
“You?”
---
“Yes,” it wasn’t really a question of missing home, Wanda hardly hesitated to answer.
“I like here, I like my friends and the things I can do here, but I do miss home.” She missed how simple her life had been, her family and the friends she’d had there, she missed her village, her little brick house and the open fields of vegetables that they grew with the animals that wandered freely. “I suppose I miss what I had at home more than the place itself.”
Every now and then, Wanda was still hit with how much she missed her family. Her parents were gone, that much she knew, but Pietro was still such a big question mark in her life. “But sometimes you can take home with you.” The memories at least.
“I now know of many people who have those kinds of issues too.” Given all the things she’d seen. “Do you have spoons, for the ice cream?” She felt so much calmer now, settled and somewhat less drunk, but the ice cream was calling, even if it meant a little space between her and Peter.
---
Did he grab spoons? For a moment, he looked down by his feet, but all he saw was the bags of snacks. “Uh, no. I’ll go in and get them okay?”
Reluctantly, he moved away from her, his hand lingering slightly on her shoulder before heading into the house. Kraglin followed happily, and disappeared down a hallway, which was fine by Peter. Digging around the cupboards, he grabbed some spoons and napkins before stopping and staring out the window. He could see Wanda perfectly, still looking up to the sky.
Whatever this unspoken thing was, he didn’t want to jinx it. He really liked what they had, and if it never went any further well...at least he had her in his life. With a smile, he headed back outside. Now they could eat and pass out and hopefully there’d be no dreams tonight.