Established relationship
Wanda hides her pain well. She takes her medications, forces a smile onto her face, and continues on living. The doctors had told her on a snowy day in February, and her parents had still been alive then. So, she's used to hiding the pain she's in. She's so good at it, in fact, that Natasha doesn't even find out until three months after they started to date. But it doesn't start with Natasha. It starts with Bruce and a cup of tea.
Wanda can't sleep, her joints are in too much pain for her to be able to rest peacefully so instead she's at the kitchen table, aching hands wrapped around a cup of green tea. She rolls her shoulders, taps her fingers, or bends her knees occasionally, wincing as she does. It's a habit to check in on her body and she mentally categorizes the pain as her joints roll stiffly.
Wanda pulls her hands away from the mug to check her wrists and she shivers involuntarily. Wrapping the cardigan she'd fumbled around for in the dark tighter around herself, Wanda longs to crawl back into bed with the beautiful redhead currently fast asleep in her room. They've only been dating for a month and a half but Wanda is sure she loves Natasha. That scares her more than anything else.
Wanda is so lost in thought that she doesn't even notice Bruce until he pulls out the chair next to her and sits down, his own cup of tea steaming. She jumps slightly and glances up at him, noticing the beginning rays of sunlight that are streaming through the window and catching on his glasses. It had been midnight when she first crawled out of bed.
"It's early," Bruce observes mildly as he takes a sip of his tea. Wanda barely reacts, just rolls her ankle under the table. It's stiffer than usual, she notices, and that worries her. It doesn't escape her that she's treating Bruce like an interrogator and she knows she should feel bad but she's also so, so tired. Wanda hums noncommittally and wraps her fingers around her mug tighter, trying in vain to absorb all of the heat into her bones. Bruce smiles like Wanda had just given an actual answer, nodding his head along to the invisible reply.
"Any reason you're up this early?" Bruce asks knowingly and Wanda wonders what he's getting at. She shrugs and hides the wince behind a drink of tea.
"Sleep is difficult," Wanda says simply. Her left elbow locks as she puts her mug down and when she can finally move it again, it's much stiffer and radiates pain. She shakes out her left arm, ignoring how Bruce eyes her.
"Wanda—"
"Why do you care?" She asks, cutting him off tiredly. He, again, eyes her warily like the question makes no sense.
"You're a member of this team, Wanda. We're a family and you're part of it. We care about you." Bruce's voice is earnest as he meets Wanda's eyes and she sighs. "I know about the arthritis, Wanda." His bluntness doesn't catch her off guard, instead, she anticipates it.
"When did you find out?" Her voice doesn't waver, she is calm and cool as the rings on her fingers clink against the ceramic in her hands. She thinks, for a moment, that Natasha would be proud.
"When you first arrived, we gave you an MRI and x-ray to make sure everything was ok and that you weren't injured. Remember?" Wanda nods. "The inflammation in your joints was pretty severe. You've had this for a while, then?"
For some unexplainable reason, Wanda's eyes well up with tears. Maybe it's because of the situation she's been presented with or maybe it's just because she's really tired. She finds herself nodding, brushing her fingers across her cheeks as tears fall down them. Bruce, to his credit, doesn't look even slightly uncomfortable.
"Since I was nine," Wanda breathes out, her voice only a quiet whisper in the early morning. The memory hits her like a ton of bricks. The doctor's sympathetic face, the dirty office they had waited in, her dad's silence, her mom's weeping, and Pietro's constant reassurance. The ride home had been quiet.
Bruce nods as if he had suspected an answer similar to that. Maybe he had, Wanda doesn't know. "Ok," he nods, gathering himself together, "you know there are ways to help the pain, right?"
Wanda smiles shyly, tapping her mug insistently. "Green tea," she admits semi-proudly, taking a sip of the warm water to punctuate her sentence. Bruce smiles back sadly.
"I can also arrange for you to meet with a specialist. They could provide you medical options," Bruce offers but Wanda is already shaking her head.
"Before... all of this," Wanda waves her hands around vaguely, "I tried many different treatments. I will never go back."
"I understand but maybe at least some pain medication—"
"I am already on some," Wanda smirks. "Benefits of living on Stark's credit card."
Bruce seems pleased to at least know that Wanda is on some type of medication and his shoulders relax slightly. Wanda's roll sympathetically and one pops as she adjusts it. "Okay, well," Bruce for the first time seems flustered, "please feel free to come to me if you need anything."
He gathers up his mug and scoots out of his chair. When he's halfway to the door, Wanda calls after him. "Dr. Banner?"
"Yes?" He turns around, a small drop of tea spilling onto the floor. Bruce wipes it away with his sock guiltily.
"Can we please keep this between us?"
"Of course," he agrees and then the doctor is gone, leaving Wanda to feel like she dreamed this up in some sleepless-induced haze.
Two days later, though, Wanda finds a box of green tea and a wrist brace placed delicately on her bed. She stashes the tea for later and hides away the brace, planning on never using it. After all, showing pain is weakness. Wanda is not weak.
A few weeks later, to the utter dismay of Wanda, her symptoms start getting a lot worse. Suddenly, her grip occasionally fails her and doing magic causes constant sharp pains. Sometimes, it's impossible to walk without a limp and then Wanda has to make up a lame excuse about getting injured during training. She sleeps less and the bags under her eyes grow darker. Her hip has started making a weird clicking noise at random moments.
Natasha has started following after Wanda when she gets up in the middle of the nights and also shoots her concerned looks whenever Wanda involuntarily winces in pain. It comes to a breaking point after a week of almost no sleep.
Wanda has just finished taking a hot bath. A few of her joints feel a little looser and some of the pain radiating from her knee has eased but her wrist is still aching terribly and her spine is awfully stiff. She crawls back under the covers, hair dripping onto the satin sheets. As soon as Wanda lays down, Natasha shifts closer and throws an arm over her sore hip. Her cool wrist feels soothing against Wanda's warm skin but pain still radiates from almost all of her joints.
"What's going on?" Natasha mumbles, partially sleep-deprived from her restless bed partner.
"Nothing," Wanda soothes softly, shifting ever so slightly closer to her girlfriend, "go back to sleep. Everything is alright."
"That's not what I'm talking about," Natasha's voice, now much clearer, cuts through the quiet air of the night.
"Then what do you mean, love?" Wanda asks softly even as she knows the answer. After all, it's hard to keep secrets from a spy.
"Wanda," Natasha says, "don't play dumb. Just tell me what's going on with you."
"Nothing," Wanda insists, her voice getting slightly higher in pitch, "nothing is going on. I'm afraid you might be paranoid."
Natasha huffs out a small laugh and then gets right back to business. "You're in pain." She says simply and Wanda's breath catches. "Admit it."
"I don't—"
"Wanda."
Wanda sighs, takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes. Her fingers clench into a tight, aching fist. "I have arthritis."
Silence.
A deep breath.
She shifts uncomfortably.
And then a soft, "Wanda."
"I am sorry, I know I should have told you but—"
"Babe," Natasha cuts through Wanda's fast-paced rambling, "I'm not mad. I just wish I would have known sooner."
"I really am sorry," Wanda whispers.
"I know, kroshka, I know."
Things get a little better after that. Wanda is still in a great deal of pain but now she doesn't feel like she needs to hide it. The wrist brace comes out from the back of her closet and it ends up helping a lot with her grip strength. She also gets a knee brace that fits snuggly and offers a lot of support. Natasha gets Wanda bath salts for the first day of Hanukkah and massages the area around her joints at least once a week.
The rest of the team finds out eventually and it goes a lot better than Wanda thought it would. Steve and Wanda have drawing sessions together and he never mentions her brace or complains when they have to take a break because of how much pain Wanda is in. Tony makes a bunch of weird gadgets that help Wanda do tasks she previously had trouble with. Thor has a strange knack for finding teas with ingredients that are supposed to ease joint inflammation. Clint somehow knows when Wanda needs an extra-large hoodie to wear or a super fuzzy blanket to cuddle with and he's always there to support her with snarky comebacks and loud laughter. She does eventually end up meeting with the specialist Bruce offered and honestly, it helps. It really does.
The pain doesn't magically end. Wanda even suspects it might never fully stop. But now she has help and support on her journey through it all. Now, she has her family.