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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"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."

He was so close, and with how much Wanda suddenly didn't want to talk, it would be so easy to just push off from the table, close that gap between them and shut him up. Somehow, though, even with that image now playing through her head, she stood her ground and just glanced off over his shoulder.

"Tell you what, you go back there, you take a look, and then we'll see if you still have any questions."

He relents in the form of slumping shoulders, retreating back a few steps before turning to face the door instead. He's not entirely sure what to expect, what could be waiting for him on the other side, but he doesn't falter in his movement as he crosses the room deliberately, reaching for the knob and turning.

It takes a second for his eyes to adjust to the shape that he sees, the form that looks like it could very well be made of stone. He takes one step closer, and then another, squinting.

"Oh."

"Bruce, meet Walter," she said, a dry, unhappy smile colouring her words, not moving from where she stood against the table. "That's the thing they never tell you about coming back from the dead, rarely do you get to choose how it ends up happening."

"I did always wonder how they would've allowed us to be roommates," he exhales, more of a breathless sound before he frowns in thought.

"So this is you," he adds, gesturing to the stone figure - the man. "Well, you weren't lying about the tall part."

"Was me," Wanda amended, but uncertainly. "I don't really know anymore, honestly. It's been a long time since I've known who the hell I am. I put on a good front, but the truth is, I'm a mess and that's all there is to tell."

"Who among us isn't?" Bruce muses out loud, slowly turning back to face her until he can come back into the room, quietly closing the door behind himself.

"I thought I'd had a grip on things, and then Halloween happened, and - it shook me up pretty badly. Not as bad as some places I've been, ultimately, but - it wasn't just the loss of control that scared the hell out of me," he confesses, frowning deeply.

"It was your blood on my hands after I found you in the middle of nowhere and hoping - praying - that I hadn't been the cause. The elephant in the room is always going to be this giant green bomb on a hair trigger, and it's - I go back and forth between wanting more than anything to touch you again and wanting to keep you at arm's length so he doesn't snap you in half."

"That won't happen," Wanda assured him immediately, frowning and standing up a little straighter before wondering what the hell she was doing. She wasn't supposed to be encouraging him, here. Sure, it wasn't right that he feel that way, but for her purposes, it was probably better if he did. And yet... "Halloween wasn't your fault."

"Maybe not, given the circumstances, but I can't help but wonder how many more Halloweens are going to happen - and not just once a year, but whenever this place feels like screwing with us. Listen to me. I'm talking about it as though it's some kind of sentient being." He chuckles, an empty sound.

"What I have - it's not magic. It's not a superpower. It's a curse, a freak accident of nature and genetics and my father's self-experiments, and it's temperamental at best. You don't know what it would do to me if I'd seriously hurt you that night."

"That's life, though," Wanda countered, shaking her head in frustration. "Sometimes it's awful, and terrible things happen, but that doesn't make it your fault! You would never hurt me."

"You're right," he agrees, after another beat. "I wouldn't. He, on the other hand, is less of a guarantee - or not even a guarantee to begin with."

He sighs, glancing across the room at her, smiling in a way that almost seems helpless. "What a pair we make."

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