i'm headed straight for the castle (open post)

[hext]

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[hext]

don't i?

[ it's not the cool, mysterious response it might look like via text. her diaphragm does interesting, acrobatic things, with him sliding admissions like that unprompted out into the universe. she's neither cool nor mysterious nor particularly fond of the way her pulse throbs in her ear. it's one thing to sense it, but when the owner of that thought names the truth —

so he does the same to her. that much is clear. but none of this is what she would apologize for.

it's everything preceding this.
the lost opportunity to learn each other one inflection at a time. ]

[freights]

you haven't done anything wrong

[ she experiences the world in a different way than most people -- in a way he can't even imagine.

for all the thought of being transparent to her pulls hair trigger associations that bring to mind more literal vivisections, her abilities are also a part of what makes her so fascinating. all that power in such a small frame. the things she did to claw for it, from a position of powerlessness. (despite what he thinks in his darker moments, bucky barnes knows that hydra didn't build wanda maximoff; she built herself.) sometimes he looks at her and remembers when he was young, the way he'd sit next to steve wheezing on a bed and think about how ironic it was there was someone so indomitable inside something so fragile.

it isn't her fault he hasn't rebuilt whatever walls help keep less piecemeal minds from spilling out, crashing into her. ]

you haven't hurt me
you've just made me uncomfortable as hell.

[ ... it's good he's not there, really. because this sort of talk would lodge like gravel in his throat. ]

i'm used to being alone. or observed.
this isn't that.


this is


company

[hext]

you haven't hurt me, either.
you frustrate me.

you haunt me.

these are not things you can apologize for.

[freights]

i'm apologizing for being an ass who's bad at taking compliments

[hext]

you could have simply said as much, instead of sending me dinner and a cookie bouquet, reservation for one.

[freights]

figured i'd butter you up a little first.
i have a few questions for you, too

[hext]

is that right.

[freights]

it's only fair

[hext]

i'm listening.

[freights]

the other night when i came back, found you sleeping on the couch
you said you had 'problems' while i was away

i should've asked.
what'd you mean by that?

[hext]

[ wanda doesn't really want to go into this, tries to think of a way to frame it that will be succinct but sufficient. ]

my mind
did not adjust well to quitting yours cold turkey

[ that likely only begs more questions. she can feel herself folding inward, tasting the bitter slivers of the withdrawal cascading through her memory like broken stained glass. ]

[freights]

ok
what does that mean?

[hext]

[ it takes her a good deal of time to decide if she wants to answer this. then to determine what level of candidness he either deserves, or should have to bear from her.

she knows he won't stop asking, even without words. ]

it took what it had left of you and clung. i don't know if it was a base code for survival or due to force of habit.

it spliced the remains into my actual experiences like two ill-fitting film rolls. you were in the room with me. or just the sound of you breathing, or your boots. a rifle being cocked. the smell of you.

blood on the floor one moment, and then gone.

eventually, how the darkest parts of you feel about me, in your most uncomfortable moments. when you can't fathom being anywhere near me. i felt that, too. i saw what that... looks like. if it had a shape, what it would be.

again, stitched together with darkness from my own mind. what i was when i did not fully trust myself.



i will have better control next time.
i can prepare.

[freights]

[ sometimes, he feels so far in over his head in this new ... world, this new life, he figures he'd have to go through depressurization procedures if he tried to surface for air.

he thinks of how it's kind of like sitting on the bad side of a two-way mirror, with wanda. she sees so much, ... but he's all but blind to her. she gets discretion. and maybe even words can't help him truly understand. mostly, though, he thinks, goddamn, she meant 'haunt' more literally than i thought. but his response comes quickly, ]

is there anything i can do to help you?
with any of it

[hext]

no.

[ it isn't precisely a lie, but it isn't true, either. nothing she can shape her thoughts toward asking of him, or even asking of herself. not today, or even tomorrow. ]

it was an overcompensation for the loss of contact. something in my consciousness has linked itself to yours — or perhaps it is the other way around.

i am working on finding a way to undo it. easier to concentrate now that you're back.

[freights]

that's funny, since it's easier for me to concentrate when i'm away.
no offense.

[ ... the other way around? it's something he hasn't really considered -- the possibility of an active link instead of a simple lack of ... something, some sort of boundary. ]

this sort of thing ever happen to you before?

[ with your brother, maybe? he wonders fleetingly, but thinks better of mentioning it. ]

[hext]

[ he's exactly right in his suspicions. and she'd dragged her way there unwillingly to that conclusion, hoping it had been her own negligence, that she just needed to be stronger with this particular wall, this fortress.

it doesn't matter that he doesn't say it. there has only ever been one similar bond. but with pietro it had been organic, bone of her bone, flesh and blood all in cohesion. it spread between and out from them like tree roots, became part of their DNA.

this, with bucky. it begins as a car crash.
they're both injured, but the wounds don't match.

when one of you has whiplash and the other has vertigo, but you're both drowning in a pit of PTSD and survivor's guilt, what do you do? every man for himself? struggle together? ]

only once.
differently.

[ wanda is fairly certain the strategy to survive a pit of quicksand is to stay very still. ]

[freights]

listen
thanks for answering my questions.

i can understand why you might be reluctant to, considering how i reacted before.

[hext]

some things you deserve to know.
like you said. it's only fair.

[ there's a pause, for about a minute in length. ]

i had one other problem while you were away, that i suppose made the others worse. or it could have been vice versa.

[freights]

what's that?

[hext]

[ there's another stretch of silence for maybe thirty seconds. things that are difficult to swallow and then put to language. ]

i missed you.

[ that monolith of vulnerability will have to be goodnight for now. the food is here. she turns her phone over so she can stare at it and decidedly not eat until it gets cold. ]