Will it be like this forever?
Summary: After too many times of not being around, the thin rope between you & Wanda finally snaps.
Pairing: post!CW!Wanda x gf!reader
WC/Tags: 2,084 / wlw breakup, argument, established relationship, Steve is bestie
A/N; for day one of @juneofdoom ‘stay down’ and happy pride month! Title from ‘Waco, Texas’ by Ethel Cain
Wanda hates arguing with you. She hates the tightness in her chest, the sharpness in her voice, the way even small words feel like sparks ready to ignite. She hates the silence afterward, the awkward distance, the guilt that settles heavy no matter who was ‘right.’ Even when she thinks she’s standing her ground, part of her wishes she could just turn, walk away, and let the tension fade, because nothing about arguing with you feels good, and she knows it never will.
Even though it’s clearly tense, the argument isn’t loud. That almost makes it worse.
Wanda comes home late again,third time this week. Her shoulders are tight, the skin under her eyes darker than usual. She smells faintly of sweetness and gunpowder, her nails chipped.
You wait up for her on the couch, half-asleep beneath a blanket with your eyelids heavy and your jaw slack.
“You shouldn’t have waited up,” she mutters as she drops heavily into the chair across from you.
You stare at her before stretching your arms with a yawn. “You said you’d be home hours ago.”
“It got busy.”
“It’s always busy, you’re always busy.” The words come out sharper than you intend.
She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t mean to be.”
You nod, because you know, and you get it. You always get it, always being the supportive, patient girlfriend.
You’re tired of always being the understanding one. Tired of biting back the sharp words, of swallowing your frustration so she doesn’t feel attacked. You carry the weight of patience like it’s a second skin, always explaining, always forgiving, always bending. And some nights, it burns, the way your own needs get lost beneath hers, the way being ‘understanding’ feels more like a job than love. You wonder if she even notices, or if this is just who you’re always going to be.
“I’m going to bed.” You stand up, the blanket falling to the floor.
Wanda watches you stand, the quiet thump of the blanket hitting the floor echoing in her chest.
She wants to say something, anything to make you stay. But her throat feels tight, like always when she’s tired and guilty and unsure how to fix things without making them worse.
Her fingers curl into her sleeves as she stares at your back. The house is too quiet now. Too empty for someone who just walked through a door five seconds ago.
You’re halfway down the hall when she finally whispers, “I'm sorry.”
You pause, glancing at her before looking at your sock covered toes. “Are you?”
Wanda stands, the chair creaking as she makes her way to you. Her arms slip around your waist, her face pressing between your shoulder blades.
“Of course I am,” she murmurs and for some reason this makes you angrier. “Baby, I’m sorry.”
You shrug her off, pushing out of her arms. The movement is quick, and she’s tired and unsuspecting, and Wanda loses her footing. She stumbles back, her eyes wide with shock, not from anger, but from the sudden rejection. She catches herself on the wall just in time, one hand slapping against it with a quiet thud. Her breath hitches. The air between you turns brittle.
“J-just stay down,” you whisper, blinking hard. “Just stay away.”
For a second, she doesn’t move. Just stares at you, and you see something new on her face. Not sadness or exhaustion, but hurt. Real hurt. That cuts deeper than any yelling ever could.
Her arms fall limp to her sides. No excuses come this time. No half baked apologies or kisses of reassurance. She glares at you, and you glare right back until you spin on your heel and walk away.
As you slip under the covers, you half wonder if she’ll come to bed or if she’ll sleep on the couch. You aren’t proud of what you did, how you touched her with anything less than adoration, but you’re too frustrated and tired to try and make peace with her. You shut your eyes, rolling over before begging sleep to take you.
Down the hall, Wanda stands frozen in the dim light. The house feels too big all of a sudden, too quiet, too cold.
She doesn’t go to bed.
Instead, she pads barefoot into the kitchen and fills a glass with water she won’t drink. She simply stares at as she repeats your words, the tiredness ebbing at her.
It has finally happened.
You have finally tired of her.
Her chest aches, not from work exhaustion or magic burn, but from being hated by you without understanding why.
She slips from your apartment like a ghost. Her hand shoved into her pocket, she shows up on Steve’s doorstep without notice, but he lets her in all the same.
“She’s done with me.” Wanda whispers as he hands her a mug. Her eyes drop to it, and he shrugs.
“It’s decaf,” he hums. “I just, like it when I’m thinking.”
“Ah.” Wanda takes a tentative sip.
“Did she really say that though?” He asks. “That she’s done?”
Wanda shakes her head, curling into Steve’s couch like a child, knees tucked up, mug cradled in both hands.
“No,” she admits quietly. “She didn’t say that.”
Steve waits. He always waits well.
The silence stretches, and Wanda stares at the steam rising from the decaf tea, wondering why someone would drink something so weak on purpose, and it makes her feel worse somehow.
“She pushed me,” she says finally. “I came home late again, and I smelled like smoke and sweat… and I was tired of being scolded.” Her voice cracks slightly. “So when she got mad, I just, kept trying and she snapped.”
She takes another sip, mostly to hide that her lip is trembling now.
“She shouldn’t have done that.” Steve mutters and Wanda puts down the mug.
“She’s harmless.”
“Still.”
“Do you know how easily I could hurt her?” Wanda snaps, and a muscle in Steve’s jaw ticks. “I could crack her spine with a twist of my wrist. I could make her lungs no longer expand. I could end her life without a blink.” her fingers are trembling as she speaks. “So if she wants to get a little mad at me not putting her first, she has every right.”
Steve doesn’t flinch, but his posture shifts, subtle, like a soldier bracing for impact.
He looks at Wanda, not with fear but something worse: disappointment. The kind that cuts deep because it comes from someone who genuinely cares.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “She has every right.”
A beat passes. The clock ticks on the wall.
Steve leans forward, elbows on his knees. “But you’re sitting here telling me how much damage you *could* do… and I don’t think that’s what this is about.” Wanda stiffens. Her breath hitches again, not in rage now, but shame creeping in like cold water under a door. “I think you both owe each other an apology.”
“She doesn’t want to see me right now.”
“Well when she does,” Steve probs. “It better be with an apology.”
Wanda gives a half hearted shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe. It just, it feels like it’s always like this. Like she’s…she’s so far from me and I can’t reach her anymore.”
Steve sighs, that deep, weary sound of a man who’s seen too many good people ruin things with silence and pride. He reaches over and gently takes the mug from her hands, still half-full, and sets it on the coffee table. Shifting, he wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into a one-armed hug.
“I get it,” he says softly after a moment. “You’re tired of failing each other.” Wanda leans into him without meaning to, eyes stinging again, not crying yet, but close. “But if she’s pulling away… maybe you need to try harder when she is there.”
“I don’t want to lose her.” Wanda whispers, her cheek pressed to his shoulder.
“Then don’t.”
Wanda closes her eyes before inhaling. “It feels like I already am.”
Steve doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Just holds her until her heart beats not so hard. The house is quiet, no TV or no music, just the soft hum of the fridge and the occasional creak of old wood settling.
He knows that tone, that whisper before breaking down. He’s heard it from soldiers returning from war zones, kids who lost parents too young, people on the edge of something they can’t fix alone.
And Wanda sounds like someone already grieving.
“You’re not losing her,” Steve says finally. “Not unless you stop trying. So go to her.”
A tear slips out then, one quiet traitor that rolls down her cheek into his shirt sleeve. Sniffing, Wanda nods. “Yeah. okay, you’re…you’re right.”
The walk home feels longer than the one leaving it. By the time she unlocks the front door, it’s nearly six in the morning, and she’s blearily tired. Dropping her keys on the counter, she makes her way to the bedroom, an apology already on her lips. She loves you, she needs you, but more importantly, you need to know that.
The door creaks as she walks in, and she says your name softly when she finds the sheets empty. Peering into the bathroom, she walks back out, wondering if she had missed you in the livingroom, but empty couches greet her. She checks the kitchen, and it’s then that she sees it.
The little folded note, a W written on the front.
Wanda freezes in the kitchen doorway, heart thudding.
The note is small, folded neatly into a square, placed right on the counter where she could see it. The W is written in your handwriting, slightly smudged like you wrote it quickly.
She picks it up carefully, fingers brushing the paper. It feels fragile somehow, like something that holds too much for its size. For a second, she just stares at it, the first sign of you since last night’s fight, and her breath catches. Then slowly, she unfolds it with quiet hands and begins to read what’s inside.
W,
We tried our best. I know we did, but this is too much. I’m too much. I should never have put my hands on you, and I am so sorry. It made me realize that I don’t know if I’m made for this life. The waiting, the worrying, it gets to me. But you are. The job is your life, and I understand. Know that I will always be proud of you. I just can’t be by your side. I left my key to your apartment in the sidetable drawer. I packed most of my things but whatever else is there, you can keep. Be safe always. I’m sorry.
Wanda reads the note once.
Then again.
And then a third time, slower this time, as if each word might disappear if she blinks too hard.
Her hands don’t shake, not yet. They’re numb. Cold. Her blood has turned to ice in her veins despite the warm kitchen around her.
I left my key.
You can keep whatever’s left.
The last line- Be safe always. Not I love you. Not See you soon.
It was a goodbye written by someone who thought they weren't allowed to stay anymore.
The note slips from her fingers and flutters quietly onto the counter like ash falling after fire burns. Her heart hammering, Wanda presses a palm to her sternum, trying to remember to breathe.
Sliding into a kitchen chair, she snatches up the letter and reads it again.
This time, the words hurt.
Not just sadness, pain, sharp and jagged, like someone had reached inside her chest and twisted.
She reads it a fourth time. And a fifth. Each reread feels worse than the last because she starts to understand: you didn’t leave in anger. You left quietly. Gently, even.
Like you were trying not to make it harder for her.
And that’s what destroys her, the kindness in your note despite how badly things ended between you two last night.
“I'm too much.”
Wanda swallows hard against the lump rising in her throat. Her eyes burn now, not with tears yet, but with something close to panic: you're gone.
You packed your things, you left your key. You wrote an apology letter like this was some polite breakup after years of marriage, but no, it wasn't even that far along yet.
And now it never would be.
x
Ao3 link
Wanda blurbs
June of Doom/Swoon June ML
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