Warnings: Talks of emotional abuse and trauma, talks of triggers. Think that's it.
"That was delicious. Thank you." I put my fork down on my plate leaning back in my chair with my hands resting on my belly. "I feel like we haven't eaten that in ages. You gotta cook more food from your country because I swear this is the most mouth watering good food I have ever had."
"It has been a little while since I have cooked some Sokovian food, and I am sure my mama is cooking up a storm every night for the boys. She tells us all the time that Sokovian food is the best thing she ever brought to the USA when we moved here."
"What is the first?"
"Me and Pietro apparently but I don't know I feel like the food comes first. Me and Pietro were menace's."
"Well I can't argue with you there." I chuckle as a crumpled napkin hits my face and I look at her with a raised brow.
"That's for being rude."
"You said it, not me." I say cheekily as I throw the napkin back at her, hitting her face before landing on her plate in her lap.
"You keep up with the cheekiness, maybe I'll take your Chicken Paprikash privileges away." I gasp, holding my hand to my heart.
"You wouldn't dare?" Wanda stands up, raising a brow, as she walks over to my desk.
"Try me." She throws the napkin back at me, hitting me on the forehead and my jaw drops as she saunters off to the kitchen taking my plate with her, chuckling to herself as she does.
I smile to myself at the sound of herself, leaning back in my chair, putting my feet up on my desk. I close my eyes, my hands behind my head, as I let myself relax into the chair more. The sound of Wanda humming as she does the dishes filling my ears and my smile spreads as I think about how relaxed this all is. How domestic this feels.
My girlfriend visiting me while at work, seeing what I do, learning how it all works even if I don't always understand how business always works myself. She brings in food so we can have lunch together, then she even does the dishes. I did tell her she didn't need to do the dishes as I could always do them later but she insisted. She brought up the whole fact that she shouldn't be classed as a guest so any mess made by the two of us she is happy to clean up.
I didn't want to argue with that. She can be very convincing when she does the raised brow with the head tilt. The moment she does that I will concede any battle, even if I know I am right I will concede. I am not right. If she says two plus two equals five then does the head tilt then two plus two will equal five.
I open one of my eyes when I feel my foot being gently wiggled to see a smiling Wanda looking at me, but this smile is not happy nor is it a smile I like to see. She looks sad, nervous. Her eyes look down at her hand on my shoe instead of at me, in fact she is looking anywhere but my eyes which are now both open as I take in the nervousness that seems to be coursing through her.
I gently nudge her hand up with the toe of my shoes. Her fingers gently tap the tips of my shoes as I wait for her patiently, fighting the urge to stand up and pull her teeth from nibbling her bottom lip. I watch as her chest rises and falls with the deep breath she takes before her eyes slowly but surely meet mine. She licks her lips as I feel the nervousness radiating from her.
"Uhm..." She swallows harshly and takes in a shaky breath. "We should talk. I mean I am ready if you are."
"We can talk." Wanda nods her head as she presses her lips together.
"I mean if you're not too busy with work and all. I want to talk as soon as we can, really talk. But if you're busy today, maybe tonight?"
"I cleared my whole schedule, we can talk for as long as we need." Wanda blinks a few times, looking up to the ceiling momentarily.
"You cleared your schedule?" I smile softly as Wanda's eyes meet mine again.
"I did. You said you wanted to talk today, and you came here wanting to talk as well as have lunch so of course I cleared my schedule. I wasn't going to pretend to be busy with work when it is something you were wanting, something we are wanting. Something we need to do. And there is no time like the present right?"
"No time like the present." She repeats quietly. "On one condition."
"What's that?" I tilt my head in curiosity.
"We both sit on the couch. I feel like it will be easier for us both to sit there, instead of me there and you over here at your desk." She rambles out and I smile easily.
"Then I have one condition too."
"Sure."
"Give me 5 minutes to get changed into something that isn't so formal."
"I'll make us tea while I wait." She moves her hands down to my shins gently squeezing them. "Then we talk."
"Yeah, then we talk."
~~~~~
I look down into the mug, keeping my hands warm, gently blowing on it causing the steam to dance through the air in tiny wisps that curve towards one another, trying to find their way to be one before the momentum they were carrying before forces them apart as they dissipate into their surroundings.
I give the steam a moment to settle before giving another gentle blow, this time watching the way the tea ripples, small waves crashing against the mug causing a reflection wave that then collides with a wave on its way to hit the inside of the mug causing superposition. Funny how something so simple like blowing on hot tea can show how physics works. God I do love science.
"Y/n." Her voice pulls me from my scientific trance, my head moving until my eyes meet hers and I realise how much I have been using the tea as a distraction when I see her finger nervously tapping the edge of her mug.
"Sorry, I got distracted." She smiles softly leaning against the arm of the couch, as she pulls her feet up onto the cushion, her knees almost touching her chest.
"It's okay. But I feel like if we go any longer without speaking we aren't actually going to talk." I nod in understanding as I lean back into the corner of the couch lifting my feet to rest on the ottoman.
"Of course. So how do you want to do this? Do you want us to put everything out on the table, then discuss and ask questions, give solutions or close to solutions. Or do we want to ask questions then go from there..."
"I'd like us to talk, say what we have to say and then we can see how we feel and go from there. And I would like to go first. I have things to say." She says it with a sense that she wasn't really asking but I can understand why she wants to get into this thing rather than try and avoid it any longer.
"We can do that. And I'm listening." I say it as softly as I can and I get a small smile in return as her eyes look down at her mug of tea and I know she needs a second to organise her thoughts and I find myself easily allowing her a minute.
"I'm sorry." Her eyes dart up to look at me, her hands squeezing her mug as she takes a shaky breath. "I am getting so frustrated with myself that I have to keep apologising to you. You don't deserve to be hearing apologies all the time from anyone, especially me. But this apology, this apology is one big, huge one. For a snowball of fuck ups that led up to a huge monumental fuck up. I know it may be hard to believe and I know that an 'I'm sorry' doesn't erase the things that I did, but please know that I never did any of it on purpose. I never looked to hurt you in those ways. It was never my intention. And I need to explain what happened, I need to tell you from my perspective so that maybe, maybe a little bit of you can see, maybe believe, that I never wanted to hurt you so bad that I pushed you away. Yes what I did was bad, really terrible, but I had my reasoning and although you may not agree with it I need you to hear it."
She takes a shaky breath, a shake of her head as her eyes look up at the ceiling as her finger moves to trace the top of the mug. She mutters something about rambling to herself as her head looks back down as she brings the mug to her lips. I watch intently as she takes a few long slow sips, between each of which she takes a small smell of the aroma coming from the mug, her eyes closing at the feeling of the hot tea as she lets it calm her rattled state.
Once she is satisfied the tea has helped she presses the edge of the mug to her lips as she continues to breathe in the aroma, her eyes stay shut for a moment longer before moving her arms down so them and the mug are resting in her lap and once again her eyes look to me. Her thumb dances up and down the handle of the mug, her lips pressing together before she continues.
"I didn't mean to hit Yelena you know, well maybe a small part of me wanted to hit her, but it wasn't a conscious action. It was very much an unconscious action. My therapist says we all have them and when people say you should think before you say or do, well we can't always live by that because deeply rooted in our subconscious is a serious fight or flight instinct and apparently mine is to fight ... or defend. It was such a visceral reaction that I didn't know that I had hit her until I saw the red mark on her face. She just kept saying things about you, disgusting things. Trying to defend herself about her reasoning behind saying those things and words weren't working and my anger was getting to a boiling point."
"I am usually so good at keeping my anger to myself, walking away and keeping quiet. Let those feelings evaporate by themselves, maybe some people call them pushing it under the rug but it is what I had to do as a mother when I was with Vision. I couldn't fight back half as much as I wanted to because I couldn't let the boys see their parents arguing all the time, and I mean Vision was a nasty piece of work if you pushed the wrong buttons. I really did want to walk away from Yelena, she was so angry and I just couldn't fathom how someone could be so angry and someone for something they had gone through something that wasn't their fault. But she just kept going and going."
"I couldn't get a word in sideways and I couldn't just walk away when she was saying such disgusting things about the person I love the most. She was disregarding your feelings, your past, your trauma and I couldn't just stand there and hear it. But I also couldn't walk away. And it was like this anger, the anger I have been pushing away for years, the anger that was hiding just under the rug, the pure rage of always being the bigger person. The person that just stood there and took the wrath of others. It was blinding in a sense, and Yelena was the person standing in front of me spitting all this bullshit and it was like a switch flipped. All those years of holding it in just came out. I don't even remember lifting my hand or striking her. It was like I blacked out momentarily and when I came back to earth, Yelena was there with a red mark on her."
She looks down at her tea, in what I can only identify in shame, I can see tears in the corners of her eyes. I want to reach out and wipe them away as they fall down her cheeks but stop myself from interrupting her thoughts or interrupt the flow she has found in her words. She pulls her sleeve down to wipe her own tears away, and I swallow the lump in my throat at seeing her so vulnerable and not being able to do anything, knowing I can't right now.
Her bottom lip quivers as she lifts the mug to her lips once more, taking some more slow and long sips. I smile to myself when her eyes flutter shut at the soothing feeling of it as she drinks it, again breathing in the aromas. I follow her actions, bringing my tea up to my lips and drinking some of the herbal remedy that just for a moment makes me forget why we are both here, instead concentrating on the explosion of tastes in my mouth and the way the warmth of the drink soothes something deep instead. Though I chose not to close my eyes, instead looking over the rim of my glass keeping an eye on Wanda and looking for any changes in her mood.
She breathes a sigh of what seems to be relief, pulling the mug away from her lips and moving to place it on the coffee table next to the couch. When she sits back up, she grabs a cushion from between us wrapping her arms around it as she pulls in into her lap. Wanda continues to fidget with the cushion, her fingers find a fray on one of the corners and it seems to be enough to occupy her and bring her back to the conversation.
"I didn't hit her out of malice, in certain terms of the word. I know I just said it was the anger, which it was. But it was also in defence. She was attacking you, to me, to my friends. In my mind, in that moment when the blind rage took over it was from a place of love. Which sounds really contradicting I know but I was getting so frustrated with her that we had to continue to defend that your past is a factor to how certain things trigger you or why you go about life a certain way. And she wasn't listening, she was trying to defend her words, her actions. She saw you as a person who was weak and fragile when it's the complete opposite. You are so strong and optimistic and so much more."
"And the words she was saying. I couldn't keep letting her be so disgusting. In my head, as she was saying those words I didn't see Yelena. I saw a person who was aiming to do harm, a person whose only goal was to hurt someone they were meant to care for. I saw someone from my past as well as yours and when the image of Yelena stood in front of me disappeared and I saw those people there instead, saying those things. It was like the moment I had been waiting for, to defend myself and defend you fell into tandem and so I hit her."
"Now I know it's bad if I say it, but it felt good in the moment. It felt good to be able to retaliate, to defend, to someone who was doing so much harm with just her words. My therapist says that because I have been subject to such emotional abuse through so many years of being with Vision, having to play the perfect housewife role. Take what he gave without giving back. Give my whole self to someone who barely gave me the time of day. She said that victims of abusive relationships, whether physical or emotional or anything in between, sometimes find it hard to stay with reality when they are put in a situation when they are put back in those conditions. She says that people can fall back into their roles easily if the circumstance is right, or they can push back because they have been freed from those conditions for time enough that they have been able to make some realisations about the past abuse."
"She said since my split with Vision, and just being a mother to my boys, working and enjoying time with my friends. I have been able to face some of the realities of how my relationship with him was less than a relationship and more of an ownership. In his eyes he owned me because I am a women, I was his wife and I fell into that role so easily to keep him happy because if you love someone you do what you can to make them happy and if that was not fighting back when he said and did things then that's what I thought you did. I don't like to say I was naïve for always giving in to him because when you are put through years of that abuse and made to feel less than human it's not naivety but its condition. But I still think maybe if the first time he manipulated me, or said because I am his wife it is my duty to go to sleep with him when he was in the mood, maybe if I had pushed back and fought I wouldn't have gone through years of what I can only describe now as torture."
"And that's why I hit her. Because I had the opportunity to get out of that situation, stop it from being a repeat occurrence. Stop it before it could grow into something more. And yes the anger, and the rage was just an accelerant to the fire that has been a burning ember for years but the fact that I could finally defend myself, defend you was what finally made that little burning ember into a raging fire. And I know what I did was wrong, and I knew that it would have an effect on you finding out what I did. That's why I didn't want to tell you I didn't want to see me as some kind of monster who hits people, or someone who isn't able to keep a handle on things and turns to violence because that's not who I am. I didn't know how I could bring it up, there was never a right time because you were already feeling and going through so much and I didn't want to add to it. I once again thought I was defending you in some way. Defending you from your own feelings. And for that I am truly sorry. Your feelings are yours and yours alone, and although I will do everything to protect you, I should have told you and let you decide how you would react and handle the news."
She looks up with me with tears in her eyes, her bottom lip trembling.
"I am truly sorry Y/n, I really deeply am. I should have told you about this and about Tony telling me that you can't have children, maybe we wouldn't be here right now. Maybe you wouldn't be here listening to me apologise again and again and again about my actions and about my decisions. I just, I am so ashamed of everything. The pain I have caused you and no apology is ever going to take that away. I don't think I will ever be able to apologise enough to make any of this in the tiniest bit okay because it will never be okay. We both know that."
She sucks in a deep breath, squeezing the pillow tightly as she lets more tears fall but is quick to wipe them away.
"God, look at me. I'm a mess and I haven't even explained why I did what I did, with what Tony told me. I am here to lay it out all on the table. I am here to lay all the cards on the table and let you make a decision on what you do with them. And here I am crying over something I did to you, and here you are just letting me talk. You just listening and take it all in, letting me blubber and look a fucking mess about it all. That is why you are so fucking good, your heart is so fucking good. Give me a minute and I'll lay everything down about the Tony thing."
"You don't need to." It is the first thing I know I can say that won't disturb what she has been saying.
"No, I do. So just give me a minute to gather my thoughts." She waves her hand in front of her face trying to dry her eyes.
"No Wanda, you don't need to explain anything about it because I know what you did came from a good place." She nods quickly, swallowing the lump in her throat as she lets a few more tears slip.
"I really came here fully prepared to explain everything, even things I have done or said before this. My therapist said it would be best if I lay it all on the table, let it all out and show you why I did certain things, and that I needed to be okay with any outcome that occurs. And now here you are saying I don't need to go on, which means you have probably already made a decision or whatever and I think that scares me more than having you make it once I have said my piece."
"Well before you go into a spiral, my sister may have given me a few words of advice, and a few sisterly stern ones thrown in in-between yesterday." She presses her lips together, wiping her face slightly harshly to clean it of tears. "And let's just say I can see why you did what you did."
"Yeah?" She asks in such a vulnerable way that it breaks my heart a little that I have made her feel so scared of being able to speak to me about things.
"Yeah, I really do. " I take one last sip of my drink, pop it on the coffee table before finally taking a chance and reach forward to take one of Wanda's hands in mine. "It comes from the same place that the whole Yelena thing did. You were defending me. Not from a person but from myself. I mean how can someone bring up that they have been told such a private matter by a parental figure to that person. You were doing your best with a situation you should have never been in. I know, deep down, that you would have told me when you had figured out how to tell me. But I was so worked up at thanksgiving already that I was blinded by what I thought was betrayal that I couldn't see what was right in front of me, the thing that made most sense."
"You felt betrayed?" Wanda bites her lip at the thought and I am quick to shake my head with a soft smile.
"No, I know now that it wasn't what I was feeling at all. You know I find it hard sometimes to define what it is I am feeling or to distinguish between my emotions and when I am already emotional that task becomes a mere impossibility. It wasn't betrayal that I was feeling. Me and Dr Raynor have discussed this and deep dived into at length this past week or so and with her help and a little forced facing reality from her, I can now say for certain that I was scared."
"Uhm. You were scared?" She looks down at her fingers as they continue to pick at the loose fibres on the cushion.
"Yeah I was scared of what would happen next. I had so many thoughts going around my head that day but the moment I learnt you knew I couldn't have children the biggest and scariest thought was that you were going to leave. I thought that you would question why I hadn't told you that information before we got serious. I thought that you would be angry that I had kept if from you for those few months we had been getting to know one another. I thought you would leave accusing me of not trusting you with such information. I was just scared that you would look at me differently and that it would be enough to know that you were too good for me."
"I would ne.." She stops for a second reaching her other hand out to mine, grabbing it, giving both of them a squeeze. "Sorry to interrupt but I would never leave you because of something like that."
"I know that deep down, but the feelings are so real and so scary. Not having kids is a deal breaker for some people, and a lot of the time people talk about it and minds are changed or compromises are made but in my situation. In our situation I can't give you that."
"Honey, who said I wanted kids? I already have two. And I mean yes I would love to have children with you, but only if it's something you want. And there are so many ways in which we can have that. It's not something I am worried about because it wasn't ever an important factor for me. Not saying that it isn't important to you, but we would have eventually had this conversation and the fact that you can't carry them would have come up. However, this is not what we are here to discuss but I hope you know now that it was never, and never will be a deal breaker for me. We have the twins. We don't have to have more, or we can, but that is something ... if you want ... when the time is right ... we can talk."
"After Evie I am not sure where I stand but I was terrified that we would get so far down the road, get so far into our relationship that you finding out I couldn't give you something that you might want would destroy everything we have. I wanted to tell you I did, I truly did but I didn't know how to say 'hey Wanda by the way I can't have kids'."
"Well not like that, that's for sure." We both giggle at her comment, smiling softly as we take a moment to stare at each other. "Y/n I love you, so fucking much. So much so that when you hurt I hurt. I feel awful for not bringing up the fact that Tony told me but I didn't want you to feel that pain of not being able to tell me yourself, I didn't want you to feel that pain of betrayal that Tony has caused. I didn't want you to feel these nasty and down right harmful feelings that you have been having. And I failed in that. But I thought it was all coming from a good place."
"And it was, and today has confirmed everything I think I already knew but needed some time for the fog to clear and to see it all clearly."
"And what's that?"
"That everything that led up to this, everything you did was to protect me. If not from someone but from myself. Everything you did for me was because you love me."
"Yeah I really do love you."
"And I love you Wanda." She looks down at our joined hands before looking back up at me.
"And how are you? Really?"
"I am doing good. Really good actually. I have been having sessions with Dr Raynor every other day, if not daily, because I was all over the place and she thought it was necessary we do some intense sessions and get things talked about, out in the open, all cards on the table as soon as possible rather than leaving them to fester for a week between sessions. She says I have made great progress through the years of going to her but I never truly confronted certain things and I allowed what we know to be my triggers to control me. So for instance when you hit Yelena it wasn't a direct threat towards me but I still let my mind warp into that and that's why it got at me so much when it shouldn't have. She said that I need to learn better coping mechanisms and we need to distinctively lay out each of my triggers with an exact reason of why they occur so that when something is to happen that isn't a direct threat to me, it doesn't cause me to become triggered."
"It's about being more in control of my own feelings, emotions and reactions. Everything that comes with triggers. I have to be in control and not them and although it has been hard work, and will continue to do so I can already see a lot of positive progress. And what about you Wanda, how are you?"
"Yeah I am really good. My therapist is showing me that my choices and behaviours have been learnt from my relationship with Vision and we are looking at how many of them I can change, overtime, and how many I have to learn to be in control of. Like you with your triggers, some of my behaviours are so ingrained it can take a long time to break them and it will be more about how I can stop them from occurring before they happen or what to do if they do end up occurring."
"So we are both making progress in our own selves."
"So it seems." She looks down at her finger as it traces over the back of my hand and I smile at the familiar feeling. "So where does this leave us?"
"I think I know where I stand but where do you stand?" She looks back up to me, a scared but sincere smile on her face before she takes a deep breath.
"I want, no wrong words. I would like, and I feel like, we are both doing amazing in our self growth and in making sure we work on ourselves for ourselves but also for each other. And I think, I hope, that we can continue to be an us. Maybe not as we were before, we can take it slow. Go on dates, spend the weekends at each other's places instead of every day making it feel like we had already moved in together before having those big important conversations. I feel, and I know, there is enough love for one another that we can continue to work on ourselves, and work on us and be there for one another. I want to spend the rest of my time showing you the love I speak of. I just want you."
"You took the words right out of my mouth." She smiles at that and I am quick to continue. "But I want us to promise each other something. I want us to promise that we will continue to work on ourselves. I want us to continue to go to therapy as long as we need even if it's years from now. I want us to be working on ourselves to be the people we want ourselves to be. Not what we think the other person wants us to be, but truly the person we want to be. If we just push that to one side then we are just going to end up back in this vicious cycle. We can't do that to each other."
"I promise Y/n. Sorry you were starting to ramble and I know you enough to know that you would have just continued to repeat yourself in as many ways as possible." I chuckle as she moves to sit directly in front of me, our knees tough as she slowly lifts her hand to cup my cheek. "I promise to continue to work on myself, and go to therapy, do the work. For myself, mostly, for the boys and for us. You're right we both need to keep doing this for us to work. And I am willing to put in the work. Are you?"
"I promise to continue to put in the work. Be the best of us we can be to make this work. Make us work. Make this family, Me you and the twins, work." I lift my hand to cup her cheek and she easily leans into my touch and I can't help but lean forward to gently press a kiss to her lips. "Just us right?"
"Yeah. Just us."
================================
Word Count: 5567
Any mistakes blame house chores and having to go into the loft, that either has bats or birds living up there, to grab my suitcase which is now covered in some form of animal poop :\