open arms, mcu

forty

chapter forty
╰  ( wandavision: episode one )

💫 ━━ WANDA Maximoff stares at the calendar hanging on the wall. The date reads, August 23rd. In the small box on todays days, is a little black heart. She can't remember what today is; why there would be a black heart in the box.

Wanda huffs and just as she goes to step closer to the black and white calendar, a knock on the door echos through her home.

"I'm coming!" Wanda chirps, moving through her home with ease. The knocks continue, as if they hadn't heard her calling out to them. Wanda swings the door open, her niece standing there with a bright smile on her face. "Oh, Paisley!"

"Auntie Wanda!" Paisley throws her arms around her aunt, grinning from ear to ear as she does so.

Wanda notices the suitcase once her niece pulls away. Her head tilts to the side and her eyebrows come together in questioning. "Pais, you brought a suitcase?"

Paisley nodded, grasping the black handle of her white suitcase. "Yes, yes. Dad is his honeymoon with Walker, remember? I'm supposed to be staying with you until he's home."

"Right." Wanda did not remember that. She didn't remember attending the wedding of her brother and her now brother-in-law. She didn't even remember having offered up her new home for Paisley to stay in. "Well come on in dear. I'll warm up some breakfast for you?"

"That would be great!" Paisley bounced inside the home, her suitcase behind her. Once she stood inside the door, she took notice of the colours inside the home — or more so the lack of colours inside the home. The couch was a colour of grey, same with the walls and the flooring. "Auntie Wanda, there aren't any pictures?"

Wanda peeks through the entrance to the kitchen, wiping a hand on her apron as she holds a plate of warmed breakfast in her empty hand. "Me and Vision haven't gotten to putting them up, you know, we only just got the furniture set up."

Paisley nods, only a feeling in her stomach tells her it's a lie. She goes to say something about how she could help put up pictures, or how she wanted to see a photo album of her and Vision, but a knock at the door interrupts her train of thought and the words on her tongue.

"Be a dear and grab that, would you Paisley?" Wanda calls from where she's

Paisley can't remember any other time Wanda has called her dear. Just today, the day Paisley shows up to her aunts new home in the middle of nowhere.

"Hi! I'm Agatha!" A lady with fluffed up dark curled hair, a potted plant in hand. "I'm you're neighbour go the right. My right, not yours. Forgive us for not stopping by sooner to welcome you to the block. My mother-in-law was in town, so I wasn't."

"Us?" Paisley questioned, looking around for whoever could be a second person. "I only see you."

Agatha nodded, looking over her shoulder and waving someone forward. "Yes, my daughter, Lizzy. Liz, come on."

A girl not to much taller than Paisley stepped into the home. She wore a nice, smoothed out checkered plaid dress. Similar to the one her mother wore. "Hi, I'm Lizzy."

"Paisley," she stuck her hand out letting it rest in the girls across from her. "It's nice to meet you."

Agatha bounced into the home, a bubbly smile resting on her lips. "So what's your name? Where you from? Who's the little one here, hon?"

Wanda, with a big smile, moved closer to Agatha after having closed the door. "I'm Wanda, and this is Paisley."

"Well, Wanda and Paisley. It's a delight to meet you both."

💫 ━━ LIZZY kicked her feet back and forth as she sat on the counter of her mother's kitchen. Paisley sat at the table, lounging across it lazily.

Lizzy — or more so Agatha had so graciously invited Paisley over for the evening so Wanda and Vision could have the house to themselves.

"Dinner is ready!" Agatha smiled as she bought the lovely looking meal from the kitchen to the table, making sure it all looked pleasing. "Girls, dig in! Please!"

Paisley smiled at the older woman thankfully. She put a few things on her plate, choosing not to pile more than she knew she could eat. "This smells delicious, Mrs. Harkness."

"Oh no, dear, please call me Agatha. Mrs. Harkness makes me feel so old." Agatha laughed, grinning as she ate off of her own plate. "Now, tell me about yourself! Where are you from, where's your mom and dad? Boyfriend or girlfriend? Do you work? Come on, tell us everything!"

Paisley nodded, chewing the food in her mouth before she talked — her father always saying it was rude to talk with a mouth full, even though he always did it. "Well I'm from Sokovia, but I've lived in many different places. I have two dads, Pietro and Walker. They're amazing. And I have a whole bunch of uncles and aunts and family. No boyfriend or girlfriend, but I do have a dog back home named Nat. I have a part time job, just a little thing somewhere."

Paisley was indeed from Sokovia, but when she said she's lived in a whole bunch of places, she means between the handyman of hydra and red room bases. The countless apartments that weren't in her father or aunts name, and underneath the street lamp that one day all those years ago. The avengers compounds and Tony Starks home. Natasha's home, Steve's home, even once staying in Peter and Mays home for a week. She's always been somewhere new, sleeping underneath a new roof but she never cared.

Her mom and dad, she didn't actually know who they were. She had no memories, no pictures, nothing of who she was before hydra and the red room had scrambled her brain. Pietro has always been her father, he has raised her from nothing and then into such a wonderful person.

She has the biggest family ever, consisting of the most random people brought together because of whatever reasons. She has no girlfriend or boyfriend, she hasn't had any time for those kinds of things when it comes to fighting big purple aliens. She does have a dog, only a few months old, currently running around and chasing after Morgan Stark.

She has a job, being a superhero of some sorts. Fighting bad guys and making sure that she helps keep the world safe.

But why can't she actually remember any of that. Why is her mind blank and why does she just spit out the answers like they're being fed to her. Paisley Maximoff doesn't remember anything from before she stepped foot into Westview, and every answer she says is being forced out of her lips by her aunt.

Only neither know what's going on.