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[ahollowman]

Tony waited outside of Wanda's apartment door, bag tucked under one arm, Ahab's cupholder in the other. He rang the buzzer, stared at his feet for a second, and then gave up and stood with his face an inch away from the peephole.

They'd barely talked recently, not after their little showdown on the beach on the fourth. But it couldn't last forever, couldn't be allowed to, really, and Tony knew that it was on him to try to make amends, as much as he could. Smooth things over.

He only hoped she'd give him the one more chance he knew he didn't deserve.

"Your neighbors are starting to think I'm creepy, please let me in."

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[ahollowman]

His face was calm again as he looked at her with consideration, before sitting on the arm of her sofa. He folded his hands together and pinned them between his knees, like he didn't know what else to do with them.

Lucky whined softly.

"If this is the only chance I get to spend time with you, I don't want to waste that, either. It's the only way to stop being your American nightmare. The only way I can possibly make up for what happened in Sokovia, and I don't mean with Ultron. It's to give a shit. To know you're a person and that everything I do or don't do makes ... ripples."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

It's strange. Sitting where he does makes Tony taller than her, leaning down so he can speak, but there's something very small about him in this moment. As if he's suddenly seeing just how small he is in the universe and it terrifies him. It echoes around her thoughts too.

"You're not a nightmare," she says. Wanda doesn't say much after that, instead thinking about what words to use, how to say what she feels. "But sometimes I think I'm yours. And you wouldn't be the only one."

So many talking heads on the news have asked, again and again, what right she has to even exist after all.

"I believe that your intentions have always been good," she says again. "I truly do think that."

[ahollowman]

"You're not my nightmare, Wanda," Tony said, sounding grave-tired. He'd met his nightmare. Whatever anxiety he had there, whatever dread he was holding in his heart were laid to rest. Everything he feared was both bigger and smaller than he'd imagined.

He rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his wrist.

"I'm not afraid of you."

Though he had been.

"I used to think that I could do more than just bust a bunch of terrorists. That I just kept putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. But now I wonder if that's not the realest good I ever did, everything up until New York."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

Tony has always been an emotional person. For all of his business acumen and his scientific focus, he's ruled by passion and emotion. Wanda's known that since she took a turn in his head. But she doesn't think she's ever seen him close to tears, which is alarming in a new way. She has never been one to comfort and she's guiltily relieved when Lucky puts his head up on Tony's thigh, blinking his one good eye up at him.

"There's not much we can do in Darrow, is there?" They can train and invent but if what Tony says is true, too much has already come to pass if they go back. It's frustrating, not being able to do anything. It also means she has a little time to decide how things are going to be here, between them, between the others.

"I guess the first thing to do is finish the sandwiches." Or wrap them up. She's not very hungry right now.

[ahollowman]

"There's not. Not until I get the word otherwise from Strange."

He reached out to rub the tips of Lucky's soft ears between his forefinger and thumb, stroking little circles. Tony wondered, not for the first time, why dog ears were so soft.

His laugh was soft and singular when it came.

"You should probably keep the sandwiches," he said. It was a very Tony thing to say. "But you can't have my coffee."

He looked over at Wanda, features shuffling through micro-expressions before settling on concern.

"Am I gonna start another argument if I ask you not to tell the kid yet?"

[nothingmorehorrifying]

"They're good sandwiches," she admits. The changes in his face are minute but make him indecipherable and it leaves her feeling disoriented. A second ago, Wanda could read everything on his face, now it's too quick. Nothing seems to settle, either on his expression and in her own thoughts.

"I'm too busy trying to understand it all to argue with you." Peter will probably have to know and sooner than later. Keeping Wanda in the dark had only made her angry at Tony and she can't imagine that Peter will take kindly to it either but he's so new to this place. "Not yet."

[ahollowman]

Tony nodded.

"But soon. It's."

He didn't even know what made him understand that Peter needed to know eventually, but there it was. If Tony Stark had to be the bearer of bad news, the reaper's envoy, well. That was just part of his lot. They all needed to be informed.

"What is it you said? It's not my job to do it alone, something like that?"

Csirke had come back out of hiding with the drop in tension, and he rubbed his hands through the dog's fried chicken coat with a 'good boy,' smiling.

"Thank you for carrying part of the weight."

A man couldn't be a pallbearer on his own.

[nothingmorehorrifying]

"Soon," Wanda agrees. They all know the burden of secrets left to fester. Everything about this conversation has been an awkward testament to that fact.

When Csirke comes out of hiding, Wanda pats her thigh and makes a kissing noise. The dog wags his fluffy tail and happily jumps up on the couch, immediately wedging himself between the place where Wanda sits and the arm that Tony's perched on. At least someone here doesn't worry about the tension.

"I'm going to tell Pietro." She assumes it's a given but maybe she also needs to say some things out loud.

[ahollowman]

Tony rocked his head back and gave a long, soft groan. He trusted Wanda's discretion, almost implicitly. But her brother, Tony knew him far less, and what he did know of the kid was mostly that he didn't always think before speaking. Or acting.

But it wasn't Tony's decision. As much as that pained him, it really wasn't. Not only because Wanda was her own person, but because he couldn't argue against Wandatalking with her brother about what Tony had just revealed to her.

That she wouldn't live a very long life. Unless something changed. Unless Tony did something drastic.

"Alright. Alright. But if he talks to Pete before I get a chance to I'm gonna slap him. Not even a superhero fight. Just a backhand."

[nothingmorehorrifying]

"If my brother goes blabbing things I tell him in secret, I'll be slapping him first," Wanda says. Given that they're siblings, she has no problem using the necessary amount of force. Not that she's actually too worried. Her brother is an energetic loudmouth, but he and Wanda have had things they play close to the chest before. It comes with the territory of rough streets and difficult lives.

It's odd how easy it is for her brain to compartmentalize away the potential of her own death. Focusing on what Tony is saying, thinking about what she needs to do or say, they keep her calm. Maybe it's because she's faced death before, looked Ultron in his eye circuits and said that when she felt Pietro die, she had too.

"Thank you," she says. Wanda's not sure what it is she's thanking him for. Apologizing? Trusting her? They feel a little fragile to say out loud. "For coming over."

[ahollowman]

"Any time," Tony managed to say with a smile that was both genuine and relieved, shedding the bone-deep tiredness of the conversation before. There were too few people Tony could ever hope to speak to about some things, not if he wanted even an ounce of true understanding. Wanda was one, and if he alienated her one day, finally and permanently, his life would be all the poorer for it.

And it would be his own fault.

"I always like an excuse to buy sandwiches and have Lucky burp in my face. You take care of yourself. Not that ypu don't always. And take care of your brother."