Fire and Smoke - Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Chapter 39

My mood has drastically shifted since the almost dreamlike happiness I was floating around in earlier this morning. Like dreams though, I should have known something would eventually come along and put a stop to my joy. I've not really moved from the couch, having only gotten up to find myself a book to read to try to distract my wandering thoughts, which seem bent on wandering past the closed door of the bedroom to circle around Wanda, who I know is sulking in bed.

After having tried to explain to her how bad of an idea it would be to try to meddle with the past, Wanda's mood also drastically plummeted from the high she was on earlier. And Wanda seems already to be prone to quite severe mood swings, so whatever mood she's currently in is not one I am too thrilled about. She tried to argue with me, but as I clearly was not swayed by her arguments, she resorted to huffing about the cabin for a while. She would stomp around, exhaling loudly and just being loud in general in an attempt to either annoy me or for me to feel pity for her and relent. I swear she also let her eyes literally flash red once or twice. When I didn't budge though, she decided slamming the door shut and barricading herself in her room would be the mature thing to do.

And so, here I am, on the couch, alone, trying to read some old dusty book in Romanian, being the mature one but not really feeling all that great about it. I've been staring at the same paragraph for too long, and it's not because my Romanian is dustier than the book in my hands. I wish I could just go back in time a few hours to when I was making pancakes with Wanda, my only care in the world being keeping my blush away from her attentive eyes.

You can turn back time, idiot.

Oh, right, that is also one of Wanda's methods in warfare; occasionally adding her commentary to my speeding thoughts. It's annoying as hell, but at least it's better than silence, and I know she's just skimming over the most prominent, or loud, as she would call them, of my thoughts and not looking deeper. Even when we're mad at each other, she's never done that, and I know this won't be when she starts .So far, I've refrained from answering back, fearing my answer would not be one to placate her at all, but rather the opposite. Now though, after nearly four hours of her incessant bad mood and my growing temper as well (which this stupid book is not doing anything to help, by the way), I feel like poking the bear just a little bit, if only to get her to actually interact with me a little more.

Our first fight, how sweet. I think loudly, and Wanda cannot help herself but answer, just like I knew she would.

First?

Her voice is laced with irritability and I can very easily picture her expression. Well, she's not wrong. I guess this is the first fight we've had wherein one of us hasn't been shot or had their bones broken.

Yet.

Even when she's pissed off, her thoughts in my head bring with them that warm feeling so similar to sinking into a warm bath after a long day, so I don't mind her snarky comments at all. My reaction is not the reaction she's after, I know, but I'll take any interaction I can get with her. She actually lets me hear her huff, and then she's silent, and I return to staring at the stupid book. 

With a sigh, I close the book which sends some dust flying up in the air. I was on page thirty-two, and I've been on page thirty-two for the past hour or so, and yet I could not recount what I've read so far even if it was to save my own life. What I could recount instead are the countless different scenarios I've gone through in which I take Wanda back to the past. Most of them end in disaster, and I'm not keen at all to see any of them become reality.

I place the book down on the ground next to the couch and sit up, rubbing my face in my hands. The thing that is weighing on me so heavily is not only all the different ways I could fuck up both the past and the present and potentially cause an extinction-level catastrophe, but mostly the image of Wanda's face in front of me, her eyes shining with unshed tears and heartbreaking hope as she tried to convince me. I know now why she came back here; what she was doing with that woman on the mountain. She has always only been trying to see her family again.