Fire and Smoke - Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Chapter 64

"Hey, remember me?" I whisper, turning to lie on my side on the soft bed, facing my very quiet red-haired companion.

Wanda's head turns slightly towards me, her forest-green eyes sparkling slightly in the dim light as they meet mine. I give her a small smile, an open-ended question to a question I haven't even asked. But with her, I don't need to. Any question I want to pose, it seems like I already have.

Just as I suspected, she turns back to stare at the ceiling with a soft sigh. I continue studying her profile for a while, the silence stretching out between us. But, just as I don't need to voice my questions to her, I equally have no need in repeating them. She knows, and she'll get there, eventually. On her own accord. If there's one thing I've learned about Wanda Maximoff during these past months; it's that she cannot be forced to do anything.

"Persuaded, perhaps." Wanda murmurs, a natural continuum to my silent musings. Silent, but never silent enough for her.

"I'm sorry." I say, hoping she'll catch the underlying thought through the words.

"I'm happy I did it." She says, catching on.

I smile, but she doesn't see it. She keeps studying the white ceiling while I keep studying her like I'm afraid I'll never get to again.

"It wasn't too much?" I dare to ask her, tiptoeing around her landmines, afraid to set one off.

"Nothing is too much when you ask." She says, blushing slightly at her own brashness.

"Oh." I stupidly answer her, my brain instantly tripping over itself in search of something witty to retort with.

The silence returns anew, but it has been changed since it last visited. It feels more relaxed, happy, even; almost like it could start skipping. Maybe that's just me. I shuffle slightly, trying to get more comfortable on the bed before I join Wanda in staring at the ceiling, waiting for it to give up its secrets. I feel Wanda's body shift next to mine, and the burning on the side of my face lets me know she's watching me just as I was watching her before.

"Like what you see?" I shoot at her, raising an eyebrow, keeping my eyes stubbornly fixed on the ceiling.

"It beats the ceiling." She answers and I hear the smile on her lips.

I turn and meet her eyes, that now all too familiar feeling of my vision narrowing when fixed in her emerald gaze. I'm frozen in time, the only thing escaping the feeling is my heart which beats away like it knows its true owner is oh so close.

Wanda's lips slowly turn upwards in a soft smile, as though she's privy to some funny joke I can't hear. All I wish to do is to close the gap between us but I'm too conscious of how exhausted she was just a few hours previous, after having unknotted the Winter Soldier's mind. We've been lying in bed ever since, Wanda having dozed off into an apparently not-so restful sleep as I kept guard, not trusting myself enough to relax completely in her presence, my own landmines ready to be set off at any moment.

Wanda's eyes draw me back into the present as they flutter softly down and then back up again to meet my eyes again as something deep down in me constricts with anticipation quite like a snake. She scoots closer and with a quiet hum, she does what I didn't dare to, and lets her lips touch mine, softly, carefully, as though I might be the one to break. I close my eyes, sinking into the feeling of her which is the only thing that is able to stop my mind from racing.

Before I'm ready she breaks the light kiss and I'm left spinning, my orbit broken. She stays close enough for me to count every one of her freckles as her eyes sparkle like they've got their own source of light.