abraxaslogs | ( open — august catchall )

[matt hesitates and wanda glances up in time to see him gesture for her hand. sitting up a little, she lets him put her hand on his head, just over his brow. it's so reminiscent—this—of when vision would want her to have a read on the stone that made him who he was.

and then, when matt closes his eyes, looks at ease, she uses her telepathy to read through his thoughts—the images that spin from his memory.

wanda sees the world a lot in the same way as he does, but there are instances of clarity, like an outsider's view; perhaps a mix of imagination and truth? no matter, for he is showing her something specific, for a reason, maybe. a suit of leather, red, and his face covered in a mask with the horns she assumes give him the 'devil boy' name.

her fingers linger for a moment before she brings her hand down to press against his cheek.]

That's a suit, Matt.

Is it? I had no idea.

( matt laughs a bit, nodding against her cheek, stubble brushing against her soft skin. )

But yeah, yeah it is. I —

( he laughs a bit, closing his eyes again while he nuzzles into her hand. this revelation, it's not hugely personal or something he's kept secret but still. it's another step. )

The other thing, the scarf and all, it wasn't very protective. A lot of the scars that you've seen on me, they come from before the suit.

[what wanda doesn't say is that it's a little funny—for a man who seems to dislike the avengers and what they do, he wears a suit. dresses up to stalk into the night, to fight against crime and for justice, no matter what it is it does to him—no matter that he loses himself in this role.

she tilts her head downwards, so she can press her forehead against his chin for a moment.

—turns out, the suit is a necessity not because he wants to be like the avengers, but because it protects him. it's a measure of anonymity while keeping himself safe.]

The man in your memories... He made the suit?

He did. His name's Melvin. A good name dragged into a bad situation.

( and matt knows that he hadn't really helped but he'd needed the assistance and he'd done his best to protect melvin. he doesn't know if he'd done a good job but he'd tried.

he swallows, adding yet another name to the list of people that he'd used and otherwise put in danger. he blows out a breath and tips his head more towards her. )

The suit he made me probably saved my life a few times.

[as he tips his head towards her, wanda tilts her own to meet him halfway, glancing over at his eyes, though he doesn't really connect them in return.]

It sounds like you're trying to convince me of something.

[like the suit was a necessity? or something along those lines. his bruises and scars are there, there's no dying that, but she somehow feels that he's somewhat proud of their existence. it's not her place to tell him what to or not to do—

his path has been set a while ago, before her own presence being part of his cognizant mind.

it's dangerous, what they do—what he does.]

I'm not going to tell you to not do this.

( maybe he'd been doing that without even realizing, the instinct to explain what he does ingrained in him. when she tells him that she's not going to talk him out of it, he blinks a few times, surprise in his expression before he shakes it away. she's said that to him before, that she wanted him to be careful but she wasn't going to stop him. )

I — maybe I was without knowing.

( he laughs apologetically. )

It wouldn't be the first time I've had to do it so I guess it's just something that I expect.

[heroes will always — be heroes, no matter what labels they want to give themselves, avengers or not. wanda had often pushed, been so careful, especially with pietro, always warning him that if he did these dangerous stunts—like robbing places for items of luxury and medicine for their people in sokovia—that he would get shot one day.

she had held on so tightly, worried herself sick. what good did it do in the end? he never listened. pietro, at least, never tried to justify himself with anything other than a scowl and calling her an annoying little sister, he's the older one, remember? —as if she could ever forget.

matt laughs, apologetically, and wanda sighs quietly.]

It doesn't mean that I won't worry, but... I'm done fighting guys who feel strongly about what it is they have to do.

[vision, too, with deciding that there was no more time to waste—that it was his time, and wanda thinks perhaps he always knew it would come down to it. just—borrowed time.

she presses instead against him, resting her head against his shoulder.]

Will you consider getting something similar here?

Edited 2022-08-12 12:43 (UTC)

I don't know.

( it's a very visible thing, that suit, and if he wears it, it'll be one of those things that people can pick out and recognize. he doesn't know if he wants to that far just yet especially when he doesn't know exactly what he's dealing with here. )

Maybe in the future but I don't know about anytime soon.

( if he does, he knows who he'll be able to seek out as those he trusts to make him something like that but doing that opens him up to the fact that he is something other than he's said.

he's quiet before he looks down at where she's resting her head against him. )

I think I'll just do the scarf and my own clothes for awhile.

[just the scarf and his own clothes—yeah, wanda kind of felt that one before he even said it. it would seem a little ridiculous to don a superhero look out here in abraxas, or even in cadens. it's probably a little more ridiculous considering all the heroes that are already there.

wanda tightens her arms around him a little more.]

I like the horns.

[there's no point to them, but it's the aesthetic, isn't it?]

I guess if people were already going to call me a devil, might as well lean into that.

( there was no point to them except giving people like jessica jones fodder to make fun of him but he liked them well enough.

sighing, he tips his head and kisses her hair. )

Give them a reason to call me what they do.

Really puts a spin on being raised Catholic and what it is you do.

[look, she's just looking at the irony of it all, but by now she knows that it's not quite as black or white for matt. there's complexity here—complexity he hasn't quite allowed her to roam into, nor has expressed that much of.

in time, though. he's clearly been alone through this since he was a kid.]

What's that saying, about Murdock boys?

[anyway, she remembers.]

( that she remembers that makes him laugh. it's a very appropriately timed memory and one that evokes the image of his father, clad in his ring robe on his way down the aisle to another match. even when he hadn't been able to see, he could hear and he'd always enjoyed hearing people cheer for him. )

They got the devil in them.

( that's the saying about the murdock boys. )

Guess I've always been on that path.

[he laughs, and wanda smiles—the flow of the sound thrumming on his skin, from his chest. if she could keep that feeling with her, perhaps she could properly find a way to dull many of the sharp thorns that hold her hostage to her grief.

and it's funny, too, how she takes note of his thoughts so starkly—the image of his father, clad in his ring robe to head to another match. the cheering, loud, the emotion, excitement.

wanda pulls back, her hands on his arms, and reaches to remove his hands from around her, holding to them on her lap.]

Tell me about your dad.

Edited 2022-08-12 16:54 (UTC)

( matt doesn't stop her from taking his hands and pulling them into her lap. he turns his hands a bit to get his fingers around hers. he looks away for a moment, not because he's emotional but he doesn't know exactly where to start when it comes to his father. )

He was a boxer. No one hugely famous or that you might have heard of but he did good for himself. They called him Battlin' Jack Murdock and he was exactly that: a fighter. He didn't always make the best decisions —

( but matt knows why he'd made some of the choices he did. he sighs. )

But the things he did, he did for me. So I'd have a better future than he did. He made me study all the time because he wanted me to not struggle and he did things that I didn't always like because it meant I'd have some money for the future. He was...good. He was good.

[wanda listens, expression softening as he starts—the way he sounds, the way emotion pools out of him as he talks about his dad. there's something hard about it, but there's also very loving amidst it all, mixed with something... sad.

the things he did, he did for me.

and she remembers, how she had caught glimpses of matt studying hard when he was young, by himself, reading with his hands, wanting to make his dad so proud. it was just them, the two of them, after all.

wanda untangles one of her hands and brushes the hair over his forehead, brushing it lightly over the side. quietly, she asks,]

Do you ever wonder if he would have been proud of you?

Every day.

( and he doesn't know the answer. it changes on a daily basis, honestly. would his father be pleased that he'd gone to school, become a lawyer? probably.

would his father be proud that he'd also taken up his penchant for fighting and could end up murdered like this father? probably.

so, he wonders but he doesn't really know the answer to the question. matt closes his eyes and leans into her touch, unable to help himself. )

I don't know if he would be.

[every day he says, a vulnerability that feels almost empty with wistfulness and expectations. wanda can literally see his thoughts wander away as he puts more thought into the question.

she herself doesn't have the answer for him.

with each time they talk, with every little extra piece of their lives that they share, insecurities come to the surface, these pesky little weaknesses of the heart.

wanda kisses his cheek and caresses the back of his head with her hands, not minding if he leans into her for a little bit now.]

—I miss my parents every day. Sometimes... it's easy to think they would be, they have to be proud, right? But then I remember all I've done, and... I don't think they would be.

[she presses her head against his, gentle.]

You're a good man, Matt.

( he can't agree with that. he can accept that she thinks that but he doesn't think it'll ever be something that he can agree with. he manages to get a smile to appear on his face at her words before he leans closer to her and takes a slow breath. )

I think our parents....I think most of them will do everything they can to see the best in us. Even if we've done terrible things.

( he stays pressed against her for a moment before he picks his head up and looks in her direction. )

They'd still love you, Wanda. No matter what.

[it's that kind of very small comfort they can offer each other, isn't it? but wanda knows what self-delusion looks like, and now she tries to tread through her thoughts on wistful thinking a little more carefully than before.

an appreciated gesture nonetheless, fully conscious that certain things are just easy to accept with a smile.

wanda cranes her neck, leans towards him, and kisses him slow. as a mother—whether her children were real or not—she can understand that sentiment of always seeing the best in her boys, even if their time together had been so short and fractured. it's impossible to ask the dead how they feel, so there would always be a question in the back of their minds, forever unanswered. as she pulls away from the kiss, wanda smooths her thumb over his lips, letting her knuckles rest against the line of his jaw, touching her forehead with his.]

Can I show you what they were like?

( when she kisses him, matt's sure he makes some kind of quiet sound of pleasure, one that she might not even hear but he knows it's there as she leans in and finds his lips with hers.

he can't read her thoughts like she can read his but all he can think about right now is just her and how this feels and how it makes sense to him.

the kiss draws out, slow and assured, and when she pulls away to soothe him with her thumbs, he feels like he's panting. he doesn't think he is but it feels like it.

it takes him a second to answer her question but he nods. )

I'd like to see that.

[close your eyes, she asks of him, as it does not matter that he can't actually see. one of her hands press against his forehead, pulling back just so that she uses her magic to share these memories that have become so unfocused to her.

—but she adds bits and pieces with her imagination, the missing edges, lines that she thinks make sense. her magic has always been unable to accurately bring out her own memories, as it were. matt will get to see, though, like an eye-fish lens, through the eyes of wanda, the crude lines of the cold war aesthetic of her childhood home: her mother at the kitchen setting things up for dinner, while on the same table pietro sits, kicking his legs and getting wanda on the shins every other time—oh, sorry, whispered without much sense of apology—and trying to do his math homework—or was it reading? wanda's eyes pull downward to her own homework—ah, geometry, actually—only diverting her gaze elsewhere when her dad comes in from the front door, with his bags and jackets and lots of love to give—a kiss to the top of her head, then pietro's, before embracing his wife who tries to maneuver around his arms, playfully, a casserole in her hands.

the memory ebbs out, her hand returning towards her lap.]

I've forgotten so many things about them. [their faces were a little vague, uncertain at times.] But I will never forget how much they loved each other. How much my parents showed me and Pietro that they loved us.

Edited 2022-08-13 01:12 (UTC)

( they're a nice family is the first thing that matt thinks when everything unfurls in front of him. small, close, loving. it's what he'd almost imagined families to be like. his own was fractured, not quite with all its pieces but he loved his father with everything he had.

he can't help but smile at the image of a younger wanda, sitting with her brother, tolerating him as younger siblings do. even if her family weren't here, he thinks he would be able to feel their love for each other in way that everything looks homey and lived in.

but he can tell that the memories are shaky, that she's clinging to them tightly to make sure she doesn't lose more. he knows how that it. he has no memories of his own mother but he tries to conjure his father's face everyday to make sure doesn't forget.

still, the image gets blurrier and blurrier and he hates it.

when she brings him out of the memory, he reaches for her hand, fumbling a bit to try and find it before he grips it tightly. )

That's the most important part. Even when everything else is gone, that's still going to be there.

[matt doesn't het her hand fall back to her lap before he's fumbling about to find it. he holds tightly, enough to make wanda inhale sharply, almost surprised, like she is not deserving somehow of whatever he wants to give her right now.

—fortitude, company—

but he's already told her, that he will do what he wants, and she can't stop him from wanting to give her whatever he wants. even if it's something as ludicrous and impossible-sounding as a day in new york, together.

wanda holds tightly onto his hand in return.

abruptly,]

I got really lucky meeting you.

Edited 2022-08-13 03:25 (UTC)

( he thinks she gives him entirely too much credit but he doesn't argue, letting her have that. he turns their hands around in his grip, thumb rubbing against her skin before he kisses her knuckles. )

I think we both got lucky.

( she might talk about how he helps her but she's been helping him too though he knows that he's not as talkative with that, it's still there. he doesn't feel so alone when she's around. that chasm of darkness and emptiness inside of him eases, closes and he feels a little more like himself than he has in years. )

Goes both ways.

[to hear him say that certainly makes her happy. her hands tighten in his as he brings them up for a kiss, and she sighs—not unhappily or in discontent, but rather with how much those words make her feel. it's unfiltered, almost, how much he says with so little.

and wanda is all too content in her knowledge that matt feels similarly to her.]

I wish I could see you in person. [but she won't give up her goats and sheep!] I hate having to leave.

[—not right now (should she be leaving though?), but in general—]

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