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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."

Wanda gave a huff at that, but her own smile was a little slower in coming. "No kidding. Gamma radiation and poor life decisions, what's not to love?"

"Well, I can't think of anything," Bruce answers, pretending to consider that possibility.

"Look, I - I appreciate you telling me. It definitely filled in a couple blanks," he admits, grinning sheepishly.. "And the rest of it made me a hell of a lot more intimidated."

"Intimidated?" Wanda asked, grinning a little now, however incredulously. "Of what? Like I said, none of this is exactly secret, it's just my life."

"I don't know how to explain it," Bruce says, fumbling slightly.

"You're - him, her, a colleague, a friend, a - somehow all more than those, and somehow I knew there was more to you deep down and couldn't figure it out, but it makes sense now. In some strange way. I have an explanation for why you're so extraordinary."

"I'm extraordinary because I used to be a guy," Wanda said flatly, raising an eyebrow at him skeptically. "I guess that's one way of putting it."

"Well - yes, but - that didn't exactly come out the way that I intended," he admits, looking embarrassed and clearing his throat the moment he catches a glimpse of her expression.

"I've just never heard of what happened to you ever being accomplished before. It's incredible."

"I wouldn't call a series of disasters and dumb luck an accomplishment, but that's just me," Wanda scoffed. "Our team leader blew himself up, teleported to one of Jupiter's moons, and got rebuilt as a cyborg by aliens. These things just... happen to us for some reason."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject