FIC: Five Doves (MCU, Tony/Wanda, PG)
Tony is retired, and Wanda hates him. Except that Tony is making them tech, and the other... well, life is complicated.
Set between Age of Ultron and Civil War.
Wanda stands on a beach in Malibu, her toes in the surf. She is in Malibu because Tony is in Malibu, and because life has become very complicated.
She's never seen the ocean before.
Tony is supposed to be retired, and she is supposed to hate him, but he invited them all to his place to outfit them with new tech, and the other--well. Well.
She is twenty and a virgin and this is not an affair. It's just that Pepper’s fingers linger on Wanda's cheek as she brushes Wanda's hair out of her face--“You're so beautiful. I was never that beautiful.”--and every night Wanda lays awake in her bed in one of the guest rooms and listens to Tony working in his lab. And she wonders why he doesn't sleep, although she doesn't sleep much these days, either. At first the thought that they're alike guts her, but the more she spends time with it, the more it makes sense. Their paths are parallel, lives both torn by the shrapnel of a Stark Industries shell. It's not that she doesn't blame him still. It's just that the field has opened up for her, her vision turning from the target, and she is overwhelmed by how much there is outside her tunnel vision.
It's a lot to get used to.
She is alone on Tony's private beach. Far in the distance, hugging the horizon, there are boats. They are too far for her to discern their size; they could be freighters or sailboats.
Perspective is funny like that.
A sand dollar washes up on the beach beside Wanda's bare feet, round and white and perfect. Wanda picks it up and finds it fits perfectly in her palm.
Last night, late, Wanda left her bed and came into the lab. Tony was alone, bent over the innards of some machine, his hands steady and attention rapt. For a while, Wanda watched, the slight furrow in his brow and the way his fingers move, as elegant and precise as a concert pianist’s. Eventually, he caught her in his periphery, and he put down his tools and turned to her.
For a moment, he was uncharacteristically silent, simply regarding her. Then: “Am I keeping you awake?”
The noise, he meant, and Wanda shook her head even though it was a lie. She thought to ask him about what he was doing with the robot, because that was a safe topic, but maybe she was done being safe.
“I don't know how much time we have here,” she said.
“Avenging does tie up one's social calendar.”
Wanda came to him. She took his face in both her hands, and kissed him. He tasted like the soldering iron smelled, like metal and smoke and phase change. He put his hands on her, held her, and Wanda felt some lost thing inside her melt.
The sand dollar sits in her palm. They have religious significance; they have symbolism attached. They are symbols of peace; if you break a sand dollar open, five doves emerge from inside.
Wanda wonders what would come out of her if she was broken open, then realizes she already knows.
Wanda holds the sand dollar in her palm and walks up the beach to the house, the waves kissing the beach behind her.