I have always shipped the Vision and Scarlet Witch, however, I realized that a romance between Steve and Wanda would be amazing to watch unfold. Both Steve and Wanda have suffered from losses and complete culture shock, and most of all, they are rather kind people who did not deserve the pain that they have endured. Here, I attempt to capture what could be in between the aftermath of Age of Ultron and Civil War. I do not own Marvel.

The first time she sees him post battle; she is still mourning her brother. He was standing under the weeping willow adjacent to her brother's soon-to-be-grave, sporting his dark uniform while chatting with Agent Romanoff to his immediate right, whose curls circled her face. She didn't pay the pair close mind, electing to memorize the ridges found along his neck.

It's raining, and she curses God for ruining the rain for her; she had always loved the rain, until this monumental moment. The droplets are ruining the short-sleeved black dress she's wearing, but she can't seem to care.

Her slender snow-colored fingers trace the wrinkles around his cheekbones, the skin feeling softer to the touch than the skin expanding over his chiseled biceps, where she was so used to grabbing when she was afraid. Who would comfort her now, she muses to herself, glancing toward the sky in a final attempt to stop her tears. A lone tear streaked past her nose, several more threatening to follow. The Avengers left her alone.

The burial is a melancholy affair, and when she kneels beside the freshly unsettled dirt, knees staining the light brown color of the mud, she doesn't recognize the footsteps behind her until they are nearly upon her, too absorbed on the indentations of the name Pietro to return to the calling of the rest of the world. Suddenly, a gentle but firm hand lies to rest on her shoulder, and she barely has the strength to face the man touching her.

No one has laid a hand on her since he died.

She expects for her body to flinch away from the contact, but instead a jolt of warmth rushes from the tips of her fingers to her cells, and though she was complete rubbish at biology (she took a course before she and her brother were orphaned) she thinks that some sort of chemical reaction was taking place between the pair. If the captain noticed it, he did not show.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he says, and though everyone else has said the same thing for the past week and a half, she believes him.

She remembers what it is like to be inside his head, and that woman, Margaret, is truly a burden of his that she can comprehend; the same with James.

He removes his hand from her shoulder, beginning to walk away; the only sounds he creates are the light steppes on cobblestone and the small splashing of water.

Convulsing toward him, she yells, "Why does it hurt so much?"

He stops in his tracks, turning to look her in the eye.

"It's tragic when people die," he says. "When my grandfather died I cried because I would miss fishing with him and games of chess in the apple orchard behind his house on Long Island. But when young people die, people full of potential with so many days left to live, that's heartbreaking."

He left and she stared after him, staying until the rain clouded her vision.

"Can you pass me a plate?"

She gulped, her body becoming considerably more ridged as she glanced from the taco resting upon her knees to the source of the voice. The valiant captain had begun to enter her play-space. Imagination, her mind chided. (Pietro had called it her play-space.) In the whirlwinds of scarlet and black, the color of his vivid blonde hair brought her a sliver of peace as she began to fade into the colors she knew so well.

Black: the torture from Hydra. Red: blood.

She nods stiffly to his words, and passes him a white paper plate from the messy stack that stands proudly next to the tray of tacos. He smiles at her as she hands him the plate, and when their hands briefly touch during the exchange, the sparks return. She breathes in deeply as the therapist (her name may have been McKew?) on base told her to do, as she feels the panic rise in her throat.

"Wanda?" the captain asks, and she wonders when she stopped being Ms. Maximoff to him.

"I'm fine," she lies smoothly, grabbing another taco from the tray. "I'm just hungry."

(She hasn't been since he died.)

She's not convinced that she lied as well as she thought she did, and had she been in total control over her psyche, she may have sensed the worry radiating under Steve's soft look.

He chuckles, attempting to lighten the atmosphere, and the rest of the team watches on as the pair begins to look more comfortable with each other.

"You know," he begins, and she tilts her chin upward to signal him that she is listening. "After I submerged from the ice, I feel like I can never have enough food."

She doesn't see the gapes from Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner. Nor does she realize how big of a step this is for the captain.

"I think it's the food, Americans overrate many things but something about salty, fattening food is somewhat appealing to the taste buds."

He grins at her, and she realizes how much she wants him to do it again.

"I think you're right."

Vehemently, she's laughing. It's a strange sight for the rest of the room, it's not like he had said anything even remotely funny. But he's laughing too, and this is how two near-strangers wound up clutching their abdomens paralyzed with laughter, and how Mr. Stark slipped a twenty dollar bill to Dr. Banner.

They compliment each other.

She had initially planned to be a specialist. (How could she be partnered without the one who utterly completes her?)

She had trained with Agent Romanoff at some points, but the widow still harbored a deep resentment toward her. Agent Romanoff blames her for the distance she has created between her lifelines, but in truth, the widow blames herself. Wanda found the play she had crafted to be entertaining; from the casual onlooker it would have appeared that she was in love with Dr. Banner. If one gazed beyond the window's antics, one might have been able to gaze at her longing for a certain archer who was already too committed to love her.

(Their near love affair reminds her of the days that never came.)

(In essence it reminds her of Pietro.)

"Do you want to spar?" the captain asks one day.

Precipitately, the next time she participates in a base raid, her name is placed next to his, and she doesn't object when Mr. Stark asks her if she would be interested in becoming the captain's partner for combat missions.

They fight magnificently; he seems to always know which way to move when she casts her hexes even though she is not the most vocal on the team, and he seems to know that she never pays attention to her right side because Pietro protected that for her.

She likes to think that they are nowhere close to being as good as her brother and her.

But this is a lie, and she's beginning to see in colors again.

It's two o'clock in the morning and the television in the lounge is on.

She's not surprised when she discovers that it's Steve.

He hasn't slept well since the ice took him; this much she knows from the few moments that she was inside his head.

(She kind of wants to go back in his psyche again, but this time with his permission. She doesn't like the suffering he conveys in his eyes, and if she had any choice she would wipe it away with a swipe of her hand.)

This, and that she has been meeting him this late for a quick cup of sleepy time tea for the past week and a half. She hasn't been sleeping either.

She enters the room and takes the acrylic chair across from him, easing her way onto the edge as he passes her a mug of their tea.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," she says back.

Their silence is long and comfortable, and she begins to reminisce on the turn of events that have taken place since the dark days of Hydra.

"What are we watching?" she asks after a good pause, directing her gaze upon his face.

He shrugs, taking a sip from his tea.

"I think its Friends. The episode is called The Last One." He pauses, tilting his head. "I think."

She giggles, taking the cup with her as she rocks backwards. She doesn't even think about what Pietro would say about her skittish behavior towards Steve.

He pats the cushion next to him on the sofa, and before she can talk herself out of it, she's moving to the spot. He's a chivalrous man; the rest of the hour that she is awake he only brushes against her when he leans forward and backward to place his mug on the coaster of the glass table and to pick it up.

She wakes the next morning to a sun filled room with an arm draped over her body, and she quickly panics, her mind painting a picture of her cell in Hydra all over again. After she moves, she realizes that it's Steve, and suddenly, she melds back into his side, the sofa creaking underneath her.

She goes back to sleep and Tony takes a picture of them.

Later she'll realize that it was the best sleep she's had since her parents died, and it's probably not a coincidence that Steve slept as soundly as well.

And then she'll wonder when the captain became Steve.

Three nights later, it's midnight and her screams are flying through the tower.

She's dreaming of nights spent tortured in Hydra, of wounds on her back and abdomen that will never truly heal. She's envisioning a knife directed toward her bellybutton when the strong hand grasps her arm, causing her painful screams to wake herself up, launching for the knife on her bedside table. She doesn't see for a while, and though she hears a voice her neurons are not making the connection.

"Wanda," Steve's voice says, and she falls into his arms, sobbing in relief.

He rocks her for a while, soothingly tracing circles across her upper back as she rides out the waves of panic.

"I'm going to get Dr. McKew," he says, and she quickly splays her arms across his back.

"Please," she begs, "Stay."

He furrows his brow due to his worry, a stray hand reaching upward to stroke through her hair.

"Wanda, I'm not exactly qualified…"

"Stay."

He knows a command when he hears one, so he stays.

(They wake up the next morning curled around each other, and they start to believe that mabye they are not as broken as they believe themselves to be.)

Later, they'll kiss.

Later, he'll nearly die.

Later, they'll memorize the ridges on each other's bodies.

Later, they'll love.

And later, she'll help him win.

Yay! I enjoyed writing this, so definitely be expecting dome more scarletamerica in the near future. All of my aos stuff should be updated hopefully by June 11th. I get out of school next Friday. Remember to review! xx