WandaNat Oneshots

Love Aches

Established relationship

Wanda hides her pain well. She takes her medications, forces a smile onto her face, and continues on living. The doctors had told her on a snowy day in February, and her parents had still been alive then. So, she's used to hiding the pain she's in. She's so good at it, in fact, that Natasha doesn't even find out until three months after they started to date. But it doesn't start with Natasha. It starts with Bruce and a cup of tea.

Wanda can't sleep, her joints are in too much pain for her to be able to rest peacefully so instead she's at the kitchen table, aching hands wrapped around a cup of green tea. She rolls her shoulders, taps her fingers, or bends her knees occasionally, wincing as she does. It's a habit to check in on her body and she mentally categorizes the pain as her joints roll stiffly.

Wanda pulls her hands away from the mug to check her wrists and she shivers involuntarily. Wrapping the cardigan she'd fumbled around for in the dark tighter around herself, Wanda longs to crawl back into bed with the beautiful redhead currently fast asleep in her room. They've only been dating for a month and a half but Wanda is sure she loves Natasha. That scares her more than anything else.

Wanda is so lost in thought that she doesn't even notice Bruce until he pulls out the chair next to her and sits down, his own cup of tea steaming. She jumps slightly and glances up at him, noticing the beginning rays of sunlight that are streaming through the window and catching on his glasses. It had been midnight when she first crawled out of bed.

"It's early," Bruce observes mildly as he takes a sip of his tea. Wanda barely reacts, just rolls her ankle under the table. It's stiffer than usual, she notices, and that worries her. It doesn't escape her that she's treating Bruce like an interrogator and she knows she should feel bad but she's also so, so tired. Wanda hums noncommittally and wraps her fingers around her mug tighter, trying in vain to absorb all of the heat into her bones. Bruce smiles like Wanda had just given an actual answer, nodding his head along to the invisible reply.

"Any reason you're up this early?" Bruce asks knowingly and Wanda wonders what he's getting at. She shrugs and hides the wince behind a drink of tea.

"Sleep is difficult," Wanda says simply. Her left elbow locks as she puts her mug down and when she can finally move it again, it's much stiffer and radiates pain. She shakes out her left arm, ignoring how Bruce eyes her.

"Wanda—"

"Why do you care?" She asks, cutting him off tiredly. He, again, eyes her warily like the question makes no sense.

"You're a member of this team, Wanda. We're a family and you're part of it. We care about you." Bruce's voice is earnest as he meets Wanda's eyes and she sighs. "I know about the arthritis, Wanda." His bluntness doesn't catch her off guard, instead, she anticipates it.

"When did you find out?" Her voice doesn't waver, she is calm and cool as the rings on her fingers clink against the ceramic in her hands. She thinks, for a moment, that Natasha would be proud.

"When you first arrived, we gave you an MRI and x-ray to make sure everything was ok and that you weren't injured. Remember?" Wanda nods. "The inflammation in your joints was pretty severe. You've had this for a while, then?"

For some unexplainable reason, Wanda's eyes well up with tears. Maybe it's because of the situation she's been presented with or maybe it's just because she's really tired. She finds herself nodding, brushing her fingers across her cheeks as tears fall down them. Bruce, to his credit, doesn't look even slightly uncomfortable.

"Since I was nine," Wanda breathes out, her voice only a quiet whisper in the early morning. The memory hits her like a ton of bricks. The doctor's sympathetic face, the dirty office they had waited in, her dad's silence, her mom's weeping, and Pietro's constant reassurance. The ride home had been quiet.