[for Bruce]

[soulthatwanders]

It's only weird if you make it weird. Don't make it weird.

With that thought firmly in mind, Wanda took a deep breath and knocked on Bruce's door, jacket slung carefully over one arm. She'd put the task of returning it off for as long as she could because she'd secretly been hoping that it might disappear with the rest of Manhattan and she'd be off the hook, but it was apparently native. No such luck there.

Not that she wanted to avoid him forever, of course, but she really had no idea how it might go, and as far as she was concerned, New Year's had proved that her judgment was apparently weirdly impaired where he was concerned. Still, as long as she didn't make a big deal out of anything that had gone down (which was pretty much nothing, anyway), she was fairly sure it would be fine. Why wouldn't it?

"Anyone home?"

Not weird.

Comments

[soulthatwanders]

"It's going good," she replied with a nod, both hands wrapped around her glass once she'd set the coat down on a chair. Mostly, Wanda just really needed to stop watching him do things, because between the work outside and the water and the lack of a proper shirt, the whole thing was taking on a vaguely Cinemax sort of feel in her eyes. God, she was repressed.

"No major catastrophes yet, anyway, so I'd say the new year's going swimmingly so far."

[bannered]

"Swimmingly, huh?" he echoes, considering another sip from his glass before he decides to just focus on cooling off instead for a while. It's easier to do that inside, the open windows providing a cross-breeze, and pretty soon all residual sweat is evaporating in no time. He glances over at her, studies her silver hair, and the flicker of a memory of what it had felt like to the touch pushes its way to the forefront of his consciousness.

"Well, how long has it been since the - you know, the New Year's party? Guess we can only take it one day at a time on our catastrophe counter."

[soulthatwanders]

"I'm sure it's only one a matter of waiting before something goes wrong," Wanda joked, but in spite of her ongoing dilemmas, her opinion on what could all come next hadn't really soured. So she hadn't gotten off to the greatest of starts (as nice as it had been at the time), things were turning around already. "No, maybe a week's not quite enough to judge properly, but I don't care, I'm staying confident about this one."

[bannered]

"You have confidence," Bruce agrees, inclining his head in her direction in the form of a slight nod, absently picking his glass back up from the counter. "No one would ever say it's something you're lacking in."

He, on the other hand, is practically kicking himself now for barely possessing a shadow of the courage he'd miraculously summoned up on New Year's. He's not even sure what necessarily gave him the final nudge to reach out and touch her, but it had happened, and he'd be lying if he said he'd been able to stop thinking about it. "Maybe I need you to give me a few continuing pointers."

[soulthatwanders]

"It's just a matter of knowing how awesome you are," Wanda grinned before she shrugged and had a sip of water. "Or at least being able to fake it. Myself, I have plenty of confidence in. It turns out to be misplaced a lot of the time, but that's not the point. It's having confidence in everything else that's the problem."

[bannered]

"Maybe you're all I need. You can have enough confidence in me for the both of us combined," Bruce answers, shrugging in turn as he glances down into the contents of his glass, finishing off his water.

"Come on. Tell me when you've ever faltered."

[soulthatwanders]

Wanda had to laugh at that, almost surprising herself with the sound. "I have... not led a charmed life, believe me. I died at 36, generally that indicates a wrong turn or two was taken somewhere."

[bannered]

"Maybe. Maybe not." Bruce shrugs again, his hands idly gripping the edge of the counter behind him, a tendon twitching in his forearm as he tenses and then relaxes.

"We play the cards we're dealt, even if it's an unfortunate hand. But - death? I don't think you can go back and try to calculate the exact moment, the turning point when that was what would happen." He straightens up. "That being said, you look pretty alive to me."

[soulthatwanders]

"Yeah, well, you weren't there," Wanda said, rolling her eyes in a move that was more self-deprecating than anything else. This particular incarnation of the man wasn't there, anyway, and that had become a pretty important distinction for her to make if she wanted to stay sane.

Assuming that was even still an option for her.

"And I got better. Happens a lot more often than you'd think."

[bannered]

"You're right," Bruce replies, slowly crossing his arms over his front. "I wasn't there." If anything, he's still occasionally reminded of the fact that he's not the Bruce Banner she knows from her world, and it makes him wonder how much he's being sized up to another version of - well, himself.

"I've learned not to be too surprised when it comes to the stories I've heard," he adds. "Just when you think you've seen it all."

[soulthatwanders]

"There's always something new coming right around corner that you never could have anticipated," Wanda agreed, shaking her head. Hell, one of the last things she remembered from right before that final fight was discussing Mac with the others, and how it only ever seemed to be the A-listers, the Captain Americas and the Thors who seemed to get those second chances. And now she'd proved herself wrong several times over, as had most of the other members of the team. There were never any certainties.

"At least that's the same all over, though."

[bannered]

"I can think of at least one thing in recent days," Bruce eventually confesses, bracing his hands renewed against the counter's edge. He's more of a fan of dancing around a potentially uncomfortable subject, but something tells him he'll be avoiding it forever if he goes that route.

"One thing I didn't exactly anticipate happening."

[soulthatwanders]

Here we go.

Wanda bit her lip on a cautious smile, fidgeting a bit with the glass in her hands. It would be easy enough to play it off, treat it like less than it was (which already wasn't really that much, she reminded herself), but he deserved better than that. Besides, she wasn't that good an actress.

"Yeah, that was... a hell of a thing."

[bannered]

A part of him wonders if this isn't the best time to bring up the subject, but it has been pressing on his mind since the night itself. She's here now, they're talking, and if the stories about people disappearing all the time are true, he isn't certain if this chance will come again.

"That's one way of putting it," he admits, unconsciously shifting his weight. "What I felt - I'm not really sure how to explain it."

[soulthatwanders]

She didn't say it, but Wanda was definitely thinking it. Boy, was she ever thinking it.

So don't.

She wasn't being fair and she knew it, so she held her tongue and just watched him carefully. If she should have to deal with all kinds of surprise revelations about feelings she'd apparently developed on the sly, then he should get the same crappy chance, too.

"Wh- what do you mean?" she asked, her voice softer than usual.

[bannered]

"I - I don't know," he replies, shaking his head. "I don't even think I really have a solid explanation. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it all. What happened - a few months ago, I never would've even thought - let alone attempted to - "

He pauses, breaking off to rake fingers through his hair, leaving it more mussed than before. "I'm positive I'm not making any sense right now."

[soulthatwanders]

"Not really," Wanda replied with a smirk, but it was pretty much a lie. She was fairly sure she understood exactly where he was coming from, the only difference being that she seemed perpetually stuck in that nebulous 'a few months ago' place. "But that's okay."

[bannered]

"I just had never been able to convince myself that it was anything resembling safe for me to - get that close to someone," he finally adds, uttering the words slowly and evenly. "My track record in that area was less than ideal."

He pushes away from the counter as he's speaking, his voice hushed. "I touched you and it was like - something finally clicked into place."

[soulthatwanders]

Outwardly, she didn't react beyond mouthing a silent oh at his words. It was just a stupid New Year's kiss, why did it have to be more than that?

More importantly, why couldn't she manage to convince herself that the twisting feeling in her chest when she heard him say that was just that old familiar panic instead of the sheer want that it so clearly was?

"Well... I'm fine, so... you're safe and sound," she finally said with a smile and a half-hearted shrug.

[bannered]

"Listen to me," Bruce says, a little more insistently. He doesn't make any sudden movements, doesn't go to impress his point further beyond raising his voice beyond a quiet murmur, but he doesn't want this glossed over. Whatever this is, it's more important than a surface rendering.

"I've never been able to get that close to someone without being a danger to them. Whatever this is - it means something, even if there's no logical explanation for it all." Maybe it has to do with his acceptance of his other half, his coming to terms with the monster that rages deep down. Maybe it's the fact that when he looks in her eyes, he doesn't see the hint of fear that most try to hide and think they can.

[soulthatwanders]

"It- it's just this place," Wanda said, shaking her head slowly, still smiling but unwilling to acknowledge that she'd done anything special here. It was just a kiss. A significant one for him, granted. A... really good one, okay, she could grant that, too. But that was all. "It's a... different life here, you can get close to whoever you want to."

[bannered]

"Maybe it is this place. Given what's happened these last couple of months, that knowledge wouldn't surprise me. But I wasn't the only one there in that moment, Wanda," he says, glancing at her warily.

"I wasn't the only one who felt - something. Was I." The last two words dangle in the air, not as a question but a plea for her to affirm the way he'd felt her respond that night, heard his name on her lips.

[soulthatwanders]

Her smile slipping, Wanda froze for a second. It would be so easy to just lie, to find a way to let him down easy and move on with her life. Preferably with him still in it, but sacrifices might have had to be made. She couldn't do it, though. She spent a pretty significant portion of her day-to-day life lying to herself about one thing or another, and when asked so directly, she just couldn't bring herself to lie about this. She shook her head, just the tiniest of motions.

"No."

[bannered]

He isn't looking at her too expectantly, but there's something resembling hope in his gaze. He might get things wrong from time to time but he really doesn't think there's any way he'd misinterpreted the situation, not when his senses hadn't been dulled by too much to drink.

"Alright, then," he says, releasing a breath he isn't even aware he'd been holding in. Not that he has any idea where to go about it from here, but it's something just to know.

[soulthatwanders]

"Alright, then," she quietly echoed, trying to convince herself that this was a good thing. The elephant in the room had been addressed, now they could begin the tricky task of working around it. Being honest about these things for once in her life, though, apparently came as a bigger relief than she'd thought it could be, because the next thing out of her mouth was instead a sharp huff of something like disbelief and another confession. "I haven't been able to get you out of my head."