soulthatwanders | [for Bruce]

[for Bruce]

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.

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He chuckles at that, a quiet sound, but it's the most at ease he's found himself around her today, and for a while, he just listens to the sounds around them, calmly observing their surroundings and trying to figure out where they are in relation to the rest of the island.

"Something told me you were good at improvisation," he replies, offering a similar glance. "Call it a hypothesis potentially worthy of testing."

"It always seems to work out better than when I plan things," Wanda admitted with a shrug. It was a little sobering, as she steered them in the right general direction, to note how familiar the route between his place and hers was to her at that point. "Case in point, I'm just kinda winging it right now."

"I don't know about that," he says, realizing that in all this time he's never attempted to seek her out. He never attempts to seek anyone out, most of the time, but he's always believed it's safer for every involved if he keeps to himself.

"I can think of at least one or two unplanned events that weren't completely disastrous."

"Only somewhat disastrous, then," Wanda countered, laughing under her breath. "It's a sliding scale."

"I just realized - I don't even know where you live," Bruce suddenly confesses, slightly sheepish with the revelation even though he's only just thought it seconds before.

There'd been a time where he thought it would be better if he didn't, but now he's finding he actually wants to know - for what purpose? Peace of mind? He's not exactly sure.

"Well then you're in luck, because we're almost there," Wanda replied with a quick wink, the sort of action that was really just second nature to her at this point.

"Oh, alright." He's finding that he has to purposefully remind himself to look elsewhere despite his unconscious tendency to glance her way and note small details, like the way her hair catches the light streaming through the trees.

Somehow this can't work. She's said as much, and soon he's going to see why, but he can't fight the gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach, the feeling that he'll be making a mistake if he chooses the wrong way.

Her own hut was a little way off of the walkway, so they never actually met up with it, but it was an easy enough trip either way. "Be it ever so humble," she said upon reaching the small clearing that had been her home for years now, slipping her hands into the pockets of her shorts. Just another little hut like all the rest, downright spartan considering the nicer accommodations that had been cropping up more and more often as of late, although the pair of gargoyles on either side of the door at least made it stand out a little. "Fair warning, I don't entertain very often."

"Nice - gargoyles," Bruce replies, smiling crookedly again. It's like the rest of the huts, mostly, but there's something about the structures that he's realized he prefers over the harshness of the Manhattan apartment he'd been stuck in last month. If anything, living out here, away from the beaten path, reminds him of most of the countries he'd lived in prior to joining the Avengers - far removed from most modern conveniences and technology. Then again, if he wants to get a taste of it here, there's always Stark.

"Does it ever look like I do?" he points out, though he's glancing around and momentarily distracted, which means he very nearly walks into her when he turns toward the front of the hut. "Sorry."

"Oh, just get in," Wanda laughed, rolling her eyes at him as she opened the door. Inside was... well, to be fair, it looked a lot like his place, although the wall-to-wall shelving she'd finally had done up helped out substantially with the clutter. "Still up for miserable story time?"

"Hmm?" He only comes off as the slightly absent-minded professor type because he is, on occasion, but it's only because the inside of the hut draws his attention away from her as he lingers at the fringes of the room.

"Oh, right. I guess there's really no avoiding it now, is there."

"You'd be surprised how good I can be at avoiding things," Wanda muttered, haphazardly clearing off part of the dining table that served as a desk more often than not so she could lean against it. For some reason, she felt odd getting too comfortable. "So I've mentioned that I died, right? Totally my fault, really sucked, etcetera," she started in bluntly. She really did want to get this over with.

"The subject might've come up before," he replies wryly, his mouth pinched into a firm line. For lack of a place to lean against that isn't directly next to her, he settles for standing, arms folding over his chest as he listens.

"I'm guessing that's not the end of the story."

"If only," Wanda said humourlessly, sighing. She still wasn't entirely sure how to proceed. Even after so long, it wasn't an easy topic. "Well, after the fact, so the story goes -- I obviously wasn't present for any of this -- Shaman, that was my teammate, Mike, did one of his little magic tricks and preserved the body, since he thought they could get me back. Long story short, they did, but my body -- really more of a statue at that point -- got destroyed in the meantime, leaving me... homeless, for lack of a better word. With me so far?"

"So what you're saying is that they were able to bring your - your soul, or your being back, but - they didn't have a body to put you in," Bruce slowly replies, trying to make sure he's hearing all of it correctly. He's almost positive he was nearly pronounced dead himself after the gamma experiment, after weaker levels had killed many other subjects.

"But obviously you're standing here right now, so - how did they figure it out?"

"Alternatives were found," Wanda replied vaguely. "Some better than others. What you see before you is somehow the best of them. And what you will see if you go through that door right there would be... the way we were, I suppose. Under the sheet." She beckoned with a nod towards the spare room she used for storage. And yes, even as far as the island's tragic little reminders of home went, one's own corpse (however inorganic) was probably a strange thing to hang on to, but what the hell else was she supposed to do with it?

The realization of what she means dawns only seconds later as he glances to the door she indicates and then slowly back at her, his eyes widening.

"Was it - did it come here with you, or was this one of the island's sick jokes?" he asked, voice hushed while he crosses the room to her to speak at a closer proximity, as if there's someone else listening in the other room and not what he understands to be a body.

"If you have a body here, now - why do you hold onto it?"

"I don't know, I..." Wanda started, trailing off. When she started again, her words came quicker, almost frantic. "It's, it's magic, you know? I never understood how any of that stuff works, probably never will, but... The only reason they couldn't bring me back properly was because that thing in there broke down before they had a chance, because of where it was, because magic. And here, it's just stone, at least as far as I can tell, and anyone who might know how to do something with it is cut off from whatever powers they had but what if? What if something were to change one of these days and somehow make it a viable option again? I can't just discard it, can I?"

"So what you're saying is if the option became available again, if there was - some way to get you back to your original body, you would take it," Bruce says, looking at her. "And that stone in there - that's really you. Or it was."

He glances back toward the door, considering. "I get the feeling there's probably no real resemblance."

Wanda glanced away, shrugging evasively. "Tall, blond, reasonably good looking... I could be farther off."

"Think of it this way," Bruce replies, shrugging. "You could have wound up looking like - well, this."

He gestures to himself, a hand running the length of his body from shoulder to waistline. "Nowhere near tall or blonde."

Wanda looked up for just a second before her gaze flitted awkardly away again, her next words muttered just under her breath. "I almost did."

"Look, I'd understand if you felt like you couldn't be - like you weren't comfortable in your own skin - because you're not in your own skin. Not anymore. But - I don't have anything or anyone else to compare you to. You're the only version of you I know. I'm afraid you have me at a small disadvantage in that area," he admits.

"Maybe that's why you feel like you can't - I don't know. What I do know is that what I felt that night, with you - I never thought that would happen. Or could happen. Not for me."

In the moment, she had been fine with it. In the moment, everything had been kind of perfect, actually. It was away from the moment that Wanda reeled from it, shied violently away from the utter strangeness of it all, and she didn't see how that could ever change.

But then, of course, he'd say something like that which just made her want to say to hell with the aftermath, pull him over to her, and start a new moment to get lost in.

Instead, she just cleared her throat, shook her head. "It goes beyond comfort."

He wants to understand. In some sense, he thinks he does - or he wants to. It's one thing to wake up feeling different, but it's another thing entirely to wake up and be different, especially if it's something so radically different from what you were before.

"Tell me," he murmurs, wanting to know more. The wall between them feels like it's rebuilding itself with every second that passes, and he can't stand to see it go back up. Not after everything they've been through. He stops when he's standing just in front of her as he tilts his head slightly, trying to resist the urge to let his hands move up to stroke along her arms. "Talk to me, Wanda."

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