@hello-shellhead said “Kinda really interested where this would go actually :)”
Okay, I have honestly no clue what would happen plot-wise, but I love the idea of the kind of rapport that Tony and Wanda would build up (which isn’t a relationship I’ve seen explored a lot, but I think it could be very interesting). So I’m picturing something along these lines:
“We’re going to win this fight. Together.”
Those are Steve’s last words to Wanda. They’re his last lie to Wanda. And no matter how many funerals she attends, no matter how often her gaze lingers on endless lists of the names of the dead and the disappeared, Wanda can never quite convince herself to forgive him this one.
(It feels too much like letting go, one last time.)
In the end, there is no together.
There is only Wanda and the burned-out husk of a man she could have loved, maybe, in another life, surrounded by ashes and carnage and cursed silence. There is Stark, bloodied and broken, half-dead by the time his wrecked ship finally reaches Earth.
(There is also Clint-- but. The less said about him, the better.)
Somehow when everyone else leaves -- returns home to grieve in peace and privacy -- Stark doesn’t. Or rather Wanda follows him home because there’s nowhere else she has to be and then she simply doesn’t leave.
Stark doesn’t ask her to.
(He used to be afraid of her once. Wanda can’t remember when she stopped seeing fear in his eyes. She can’t remember when she stopped hating him.)
There’s no forgiveness. No apologies. Too many scars, too many still smarting wounds lie beneath the oddly peaceful equilibrium they’ve found for themselves. But. Time heals all wounds or so they say. And for all that Wanda doubts the truth of the saying, she can’t deny that many things do indeed lose the flesh-cutting edge eventually.
It’s not about forgiving in the end. At least Wanda doesn’t think so. At some point she’s simply stopped needing to forgive Stark. At some point, she’s stopped demanding reparations.
These days, they are familiar. Are the closest thing to family either of them have left at this point. And whatever else they are to each other (whatever they used to be) matters less with every passing week.
And so, when the time comes for their final act, the secret solution they’ve been working so frantically, desperately towards, Wanda doesn’t think to call Clint, call anyone.
She shoots a simple, “See you on the other side,” at the man by her side and steps through the portal.
(She doesn’t doubt for even a second that Stark will be right behind her.)
