riverviewlogs | That the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow

[Ah. And there it is. A far larger picture than she'd had at first. The missing pieces now in place, she sees so much more in Dick than she did before. More than that, the parts of his story she hadn't known before...they make her understand why in part he must have been drawn to her. Who else would understand what she'd felt about the death of her own parents or what she'd tried to do to right things but him?

The shield around them dissolves into nothing, and Wanda reaches up to stroke her fingertips past his brow, into his hair. She lets her hand rest lightly at the side of his neck as she looks up at him.]

And now you've taken a huge risk breaking confidence to tell me your secret. Because it's not just yours.

[It explains his nerves a bit better. It's not just that he's worried about her reaction but the fact that he's doing something he was taught at a young age to never do.]

So what is it you do? What does...all of this entail for you?

[ His eyes fall shut with the touch of her hand, and for once this isn't a moment he wants to think past.

And the question holds him there a moment longer. By all rights it's something he should have thought about. An answer he should have prepared. But how do you ever begin to quantify something that's been a the core of everything he is and cold have been? ]

Once you go through something like that… [ He doesn't need to tell her, so he stops there. He couldn't go back to being a child. To leading a life free of the weight of that responsibility. ]

…I wanted to help. He was a net for me, and I wanted to pass that on. I wanted to see justice served for the people the law couldn't reach.

Do you understand that, Wanda?

[She might laugh if he wasn't being so serious. So earnest. That he asks her of all people...]

Oh, yes, I understand that. I understand what it's like to see injustice and want to take it upon yourself to see it served, one way or another.

[Her smile, while present, is bleak.]

There is a reason Pietro and I did what we did...to gain our powers to try and make a difference where the government would not. Could not. I just...I admit this isn't something I expected to hear from you, though now that I have I can't say it doesn't make sense.

[It feels like she has the whole picture now.]

[ And just like that all the tension goes out of his body. He'd returned her honesty, her bravery, with reticence and lies. He hadn't been afraid of her anger. He wouldn't have blamed her if she'd wanted things to end here. But the thought of hurting her-

He closes the distance in a quick rush of movement, wanting her in his arms, wanting her arms around him. ]

God, this is not what I-

I wanted us to have dinner, and we'd laugh about it, and then I'd show you the suit and the safe house, and... [ A rough little laugh breaks him off, and he reaches out to cup her face in both hands. ]

This isn't how I wanted us to have this talk. [ All the ways he'd imagined it. All the times he'd wanted to say it. ]

[Wanda closes her eyes as he embraces her again. This isn't about her, but she can't help but feel comforted by the way he holds her so easily, how he seems as soothed by the physical connection as she is. Her hand lifts to cover his as he cups her face, expression shifting. She's trying to seem reassuring but she almost wonders if he's still to rattled even after knowing that this isn't a dealbreaker for her.]

We can still go get dinner after, and you can show me the suit and safe house. [There's a safe house??] Whatever you want to share with me, I want to see and I want to hear about because it's part of your life and who you are, Dick.

[She pauses a moment, face twisting as she remembers once more than he's not the only one who has things he wants to reveal. Wanda has her own secrets that need to come out, sooner rather than later, and just like the tension leaves his body, it enters hers.]

But there are things I need to tell you, too. [And though she doesn't say it, there's something in her tone that indicates that she feels he has the same decision to make. Whether or not he'll want to be with her still knowing what she's about to tell him.]

[ Something in her face tugs at him, and then he feels the tension there, all through her. It evaporates his sense of relief. That all-too-brief sure sense that this is alright.

He searches her eyes for clues as he lets her go, focus all outward again in the next breath. Something isn't right. Something he'd missed somehow in the rush of self-conscious fear.

She's afraid. The realization feels like ice in his veins. ]

...Anything.

You know that, right? You can tell me anything.

[ He wants her to believe the words. ]

[Of course she's afraid. Dick revealed that he's a vigilante. He protects people lost through the cracks. Sharing a secret about a secret identity and that of his family is one thing. It's huge, it's important and noble, but it's not the same.

It's not the same as telling him that she can pry into his mind and that he has no defense against it. It's not the same as telling him she's capable of controlling him. It's not the same as telling him she can plant nightmares in his mind and riffle through his memories whenever she wants. Worse, she has to tell him that it's exactly what she's done. Oh, she controlled the actions of others for their safety, trying to clear Novi Grad before the fighting began against Ultron's forces, but the rest? What she did to her own teammates?]

I know that I can tell you anything but I don't know how you'll react to it.

[He's been too wonderful, too perfect all this time. Even the times when he's disappeared for weeks, that was an inconvenience not a flaw. The words stick in her throat, because clearly this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. there's only so accepting that a person can be, right?]

I have other powers that I haven't told you about. And before I say anything else I need you to know that I've never once used them on you.

[The fact that she didn't know he was superhero at night proves that much.]

[ The stab of fear in his heart is an entirely a reflex, and for a fleeting moment he’s thinking of Kory before the thought is entirely conscious. How it had felt when she’d left. She’d been powerful, and she hadn’t been able to control it. He’d loved her and it hadn’t been enough.

Wanda is someone different. There’s parts of herself she keeps locked away, things he hasn’t pushed for because she has a right to privacy. Because he knows well enough that sometimes talking about the things that hurt does nothing to ease the pain. The idea that it could be something more than that hadn’t really occurred to him.

He holds her gaze, trying to let her see only that in his face. His belief in her. His trust. ]

...Okay.

[She knows that putting it this way will make it worse in a sense. She's putting him on guard and she understands that, but she's also hoping that he'll keep her words in mind when she reveals all.]

You already know that my powers have always been mental in nature, but there's more I can do with my mind than move objects or destroy them. [She swallows.] They called it neural interfacing. But what it meant was that I could--I can affect the minds of others. When I'm near I can draw people into memories or visions of my own creation. Or I...

[She swallows. She can't draw this out, she has to get it all out.]

I once used these abilities right before the Battle of Sokovia. We couldn't get everyone out in time if we tried to alert everyone so I...I went into the minds of everyone in their homes and I made them leave. Made them evacuate.

[There's a look in her eyes that's already pleading with him to understand that she may have forced them to do something against their will but it was for their safety. It was to save them.]

I didn't tell you when we first met because you were just...just this person I'd met in a strange world and you were kind and charming and there wasn't any reason to divulge so much more when we had only just become friends. But now this relationship is much more than that and it didn't seem right to not tell you. Especially because my use of these powers hasn't always been so...noble. Or moral.

[ Oh. Oh.

Realization dawns and with it his heart sinks. He knows this story. He’s seen it before, watched it play out again and again through one friend if not another. Pain twisted into violence. Used to manipulate someone vulnerable, someone powerful.

Something in him clenches up, because he can guess what comes next and there’s nothing he’d like to do more than save her from having to relive it. From having had to experience it ever. ]

It’s okay. [ Because she seems to need to hear it so badly. He reaches for her hand. ]

You can tell me.

[She almost flinches away from him. Not because she doesn't want to touch him, not because she's rejected anything that he's told her himself, but because talking about this and the way she'd hurt her teammates before they were in her life makes her feel so terrible.]

Pietro and I had been recruited by Ultron when we first met the Avengers. He'd promised us what we wanted most. The Avengers dealt with and the world a safer place. No more war. No more suffering of innocent people. We didn't know at the time what he had in mind but we believed him.

And we fought for him. [She swallows.] But even before that, we happened upon Tony Stark in the castle where we'd been relocated. He'd found the scepter that had given us our powers and I was able to get into his mind. I drew up his deepest fears and used them against him. Pulled him into that nightmare to toy with him. It had been his name on the shells that had hit our family home. His weapons that had killed our parents and trapped us in that apartment for two days. We didn't know then it wasn't his fault...that he wasn't responsible. It seemed more than just to do that to him. To toy with him and try to use his flaws to send him into a self-destructive spiral.

[She looks away.]

And when we faced the Avengers later, I did it again. Drew Natasha into her darkest memories. Created a nightmare for Steve. Confusing visions for Thor. I even meant to get to Clint as well--[She breaks off. Remembering the way his arrow had shocked her. Taken her out. Dick knows enough about Clint by this point to understand her horror at what she'd almost done to a man who is so important to her now.]

But that isn't the worst of it.

Edited 2017-09-26 06:35 (UTC)

[ Not yet the worst.

He holds back from touching her this time; because maybe standing on her own to tell him this is what she needs now. However much he wants to put his arms around her. Hold her tight and never let her go.

He nods instead, eyes not leaving her face. He has no power to ease her pain. To absolve her of this crime. ]

You were angry.

Angry, and stupid. Too prideful and lost in tunnel vision to realize we were being manipulated, not allied with.

[He's watching her so closely she's not sure she can meet his gaze. Especially not for this part. The team has forgiven her for what she's done, all but one person.]

Clint electrocuted me during that fight. Kept me from getting into his mind. And Pietro took me and ran me out of there to safety, gave me time to recover. And when I did, we saw Bruce there. [This is the hardest part.] I told Pietro that I wanted to go after him. And so we did. And I caught him unawares and I got into his mind and I...I triggered his change. He turned into the Hulk and just like that I'd set loose a monster on the unsuspecting city nearby.

[Her tone is empty and bleak. She's not proud of what she did, of what she'd done. She'd used her powers in ways that hurt people, not saved them.]

I don't think I even cared where he was aimed at the time I just wanted to get the better of one of them, use him to achieve our goals. Ultron got away with what he wanted, and...people in the city were hurt. Buildings were destroyed not just by the Hulk but by Iron Man trying to contain him.

[Wanda looks up him after that. Her shame and discomfort is obvious, and she looks at him as if it might be the last time she'll get to see him.]

So now you know. Everything I can do. What I've done. [She doesn't try to excuse her actions, doesn't try to plead with him to understand that she's not like that anymore, that she'd never do that again. This whole thing with him may as well have been a pleasant fever dream and she can almost feel herself waking up now.] I should have told you earlier, before. [Before they had sex.]

[ It’s the desolation in her face that strikes him in a sudden wave of understanding. That maybe it wasn’t him she’d wanted to interrogate at all.

That somehow she’d come up here with the same thought he had. The fear that she would tell him the truth and he would reject her. Deem her unworthy of love. ]

...Maybe that was you before. [ Softly. He can’t stand the distance anymore as long as she looks like that, but he’s careful in the way he closes it. Stepping close before he touches her. Wanting her to feel trust in the warmth of that closeness. ]

...But I don’t need to ask if it’s who you are now.

Because I know you. I know it’s not. [ His fingers reach out to cup her cheek, and he’ll lean his forehead against hers, if she lets him. ]

It’s not, Wanda.

[She doesn't back up from him as he approaches, conflicted not only by what she's told him but her own feelings about herself. Her own thoughts about who she is and how unclear that's been during the last year.

Standing still, she feels his hands come to rest on her arms as he speaks, and she can't stop the rise of tears to her eyes, only keep them from spilling down her cheeks.]

You're so sure, Dick? I feel like I don't even know who I am anymore.

[She can't say that she can't picture herself doing that again to someone. An enemy who may yet turn out to be an ally later. The twisted and tangled morals that come with this power are too complex for her to sort out still. Her eyes close as his forehead comes to rest against hers, and at last she reaches out again, tentatively holding onto his forearms as if the stability might lend itself to her emotions.]

I should have told you everything before we got too deep. What I've done. What I can do. I'm still learning how to use these abilities...I might have learned your secret myself by accident one day, before you wanted me to know.

[ But she hadn’t.

She hadn’t, and she’d cared enough about him - about his sense of safety - to want to give him a choice. To give him the chance to protect himself. It’s a thought that makes his heart ache for her. ]

...Well, that’s the catch isn’t it? You don’t get to decide once and just... leave it at that. Not when it comes to figuring out who you are. [ It’s not as if he’s really doing any better on that front, these days. He closes his eyes for a moment; leans his cheek against her hair. ]

...You choose every day. I’ve seen you.

You choose right, because you know what the wrong one looks like.

That’s not weak, Wanda, it’s strong as hell. And I know that, because- [ Because he's fought that feeling in himself. Fought it again and again. ]

I just know.

[It takes Wanda time to realize that he's not going to push her away. She knows Dick well enough by now to understand how compassionate he is, how caring, and what he days is certainly geared toward reassuring her and comforting her...

It's how he lays his cheek against her, how he holds her that gives her hope that he may not just accept that this is part of who and what she is but that he may choose to stay with her. Leaning into that touch, closing her eyes, she lets out a soft breath--still trying to get past the shakiness that's come with revealing some of her darker secrets.]

I don't feel very strong.

[When things have gotten hard she's always had to battle so much doubt, so much indecision. And when she's with him she feels good about herself but her heart, oh, her heart feels so exposed and vulnerable now.]

You have to know that what we have...if you stay with me I'm going to become more aware of you. I'll be able to sense you at distances. Your emotions, your physical well being...I'll be able to sense things I couldn't before. The closer we get, the more I get to know you, it will all be much stronger.

[He has to know that, he has to choose, he has to make the conscious choice, especially now that she knows that so much of what he keeps close to his chest can affect others in his life.]

But if you can't--if because of your work you can't then tell me. [Now, before it will be so much harder to let him go.]

[ His thoughts whirl with that. Because it means Wanda’s thought about this. That she must have been thinking about it for months. Maybe longer. Imagining the implications. Playing this conversation out in her head again and again.

And she’d thought it wouldn’t be enough. That she wasn’t enough. That the things she can’t help would stop him from loving her.

He presses a kiss to the top of her head, lets out a soft breath. Words aren’t enough.

Gently, he reaches for her hand, squeezing her fingers once before he places it on his chest. Letting them rest on the vulnerable flesh underneath. His heart beats there; a steady, rapid pulse. ] You can try me.

[ Control isn’t something he’s ever relinquished easily. He holds her gaze, unwavering. Wanting her to understand. ]

It’s okay.

[Wanda stares at Dick in something akin to shock, and perhaps something edging on both horror and a lack of comprehension.

After everything she's told him, after everything she's said she can do and has done in the past, not to mention everything that he has to protect, he wants her to go into his mind then and there?

Her fingers twitch against his chest, feeling the warmth of his body beneath even in the chill on the roof. He doesn't look like he's having any second doubts, however, and she can feel his heart against her palm, beating steadily. Without fear, without anxiety. Wanda isn't so inexperienced that she's worried she'll hurt him, she knows how to use her powers...

It's just that she hasn't been in anyone's mind, not really, since Pietro died a year ago. It was one thing to dip into the minds of people she was protecting or people she was hating. But the kind of intimacy that may come with sharing thoughts or memories with Dick, or feelings, is something she can't help but hesitate with. Wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, she looks away from him a moment...]

Tell me to stop at any time and I will.

[And when she looks up again, her eyes are glowing faintly red, and she's lifted her hand up. The same swirling red magic he's seen at her fingertips before drifts around her hand, and the magic reaches out to the side of his head as she carefully connects with him.

She doesn't go deep, not the first time. Not just because she knows he hasn't set any limits to what she can sift through, but because of her own fear that she'll go too far, or worse, that she'll see something or feel something she's not ready for yet. But what she does find helps to calm her heart as well. It begins to beat in time with his as she finds at the forefront of his mind, his absolute trust in her. A deep affection for her, and compassion for what she's shared with him. She notices the absence of fear, or any sense of betrayal, and the truth that rings still with what he's told her.

And no where in there does she catch any thought that he doesn't care for her or doesn't want to be with her. If anything, it seems as if he's more steadfast than she'd expected, and that certainty is grounding.

The temptation to delve deeply into his mind is what prompts her to pull out once more. She knows if she wanted she could find memories of his home, of everyone he knows and his time as a vigilante. She could see the full extent of his feelings for her, his thoughts, his memories, and pull him into them too. There's a part of her that wants to share with him as well...but it's just too much too soon. She pulls her hand away and her magic fades, and slowly, carefully she draws nearer to him and rests against his chest. Her hands draw down his body until she's holding his waist, leaving her forehead to press gently below his collarbone.]

I didn't know if you'd believe me, that I hadn't betrayed your trust and privacy. I didn't know how you'd react and I thought...I thought it would all be over once I told you.

[ A little tremor goes through him that's not quite fear, and his arms come around her, folding her back into his embrace.

Because in his heart he'd believed that too. He’d believed that, and he hadn't known until this moment just how much he wants anything but that.

How much he wants this. Just this. ]

You’re gonna have to work a little harder than that. [ Breathed out in a rough little laugh. He squeezes a little tighter, kisses her temple, then cheek. ]

I don’t want this to be over. [ Softly, like a confession. ]

Edited 2017-10-01 22:46 (UTC)

[In the aftermath of his tremor, she trembles as well, leaning into the kisses to her temple and her cheek as if they were sustenance. As if they could give her the strength she needs now to stay standing with him. Clinging to him tightly, she shakes her head.]

I don't want this to be over either. What you told me...it's part of you, and I accept all that you are.

[If this falls apart between them, it won't be now because of her. What she feels for him is too strong, too important to let him go just because he had secrets.

What she feels for him...

What she feels for him...

Wanda's mind reaches the edges of a realization and she closes her eyes with a sigh.]

So...we're okay then?

Yeah. [ He hides a smile in her hair, then leans in at last to steal the kiss he wants. The tension eases out of him, leaving almost dizzying relief in its wake. ]

We’re okay.

That the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow

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