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A/N: Happy Halloween lovely fandom! This is an AU of the movie Happy Death Day, written for the Scarletvision Halloween Party over on tumblr! Hope you all enjoy!Upstairs isn't beginning the day with loud meditation music for once. And yet she's still awake, her phone blaring out a tinny, grating version of Happy Birthday, and her head is pounding and her mouth is dry and sour and she can't help when her first breath is a groan. Through her barely-open eyes, she sees an unfamiliar ceiling and can only roll her eyes at herself. How she ended up in a bed that isn't hers is just a black hole of missing memory, but she can be sure Steve will give her another raised-eyebrow look when she gets home."Um...hi." She bolts upright at a voice, blinking her way into a haze of hangover ache and squinting at the man kneeling on the floor. All she can really see to comprehend is blonde hair and a blue sweater, before she just groans and tries to burrow back into the blankets. "Hey, um, I don't mean to be rude, but...I do have to get to class soon.""Then go," she snaps into the depths of the pillow, and hears footsteps before the mattress sinks under new weight. "C'mon, just let me sleep.""I'm really sorry, miss, um...miss, but I do need to leave and I shouldn't leave you here alone," he says, and she lifts her head to glare up at him. Noticing that he has very blue eyes, and is thankfully clean shaven, and has a sort of earnestness in his face. Not a bad choice, if she had to get far too drunk and go home with any random. Still cute in the morning, which is better than some other choices. He shifts on the bed and says, "I'm not sure if you remember my name, you were...you were very drunk last night.""You're right, I don't remember," she says, and sits up, raising a hand to touch her hair and realising it's a tangled mess of hairspray. "Do you have anything useful? Like Tylenol?""Yes, yes, I do," he says, scrambling upright and starting to toss rumpled clothes aside in search. "I'm Vision, by the way. Well, Victor...but Vision.""Okay," she says, and arches an eyebrow when she rolls the blankets aside and finds her legs bare. "Where are my clothes, Victor but Vision?""Oh, they're here," he says, handing her a bundle of those stupidly tight jeans and that ridiculously low-cut gold top she had to be talked into wearing after several shots prior to even going out. Both smell strongly of the club, stale alcohol and cigarette smoke and too many different perfume scents and perhaps a twinge of regret, and she tugs a borrowed baggy shirt over her head, overwhelmed for a moment by the pleasantly clean smell of it, to wriggle back into her own clothes."You found that Tylenol yet?" she asks, grabbing the hairbrush lined up with the edge of the desk to tug her hair into something vaguely acceptable, and he nods frantically, holding out the familiar red packet. "Water would be great.""Right." He fumbles around for a moment before handing her a half-full bottle, and she swallows two pills and the rest of the water, hoping to clear her head even slightly.She squints at him, then asks, "What did you say your name was?""Vision," he says, ever so politely. "And you're Wanda. I remember.""Good for you," she says, throwing the empty bottle in the direction of the trash can. Glancing up at him, the planes of his cheekbones and the cut of his jawline and the slight flush on his cheeks. Probably far too sweet for her to have picked up at a club with sticky floors and surly staff and dark corners to encourage bad decisions. "Not a word about this to anyone.""Of course not, I would never-""Great, thanks babe," she says, and slips her feet back into last night's abandoned, slightly beer-stained heels before she ignores the way Vision is looking at her - eyes all filled with sincere concern - and crosses to whip the door open."Dude, did you hit that or-" The man outside glances down at her for a moment then falls completely silent. "Oh, good morning, ma'am. How nice to see you in the beautiful Zeta Beta Tau house!"She just turns to give a silently mouthing Vision a withering look, then walks out, barely hearing the hiss of, "Damn it, Sam!"Luckily, no one else in the frat house is stirring, and she can creep down the stairs and out of the front door without finding herself in any confrontation with anyone. She knows how the kind of men who join the frat act in front of women creeping out of their houses early in the morning, the smirking and the laughter and the pointed questions. And her head is pounding while she waits for the pills to kick in and she doesn't have the energy to deal with any of it.The weak February sunlight is still too bright for her, and she almost doesn't notice the man lowering his sunglasses to give her a lascivious look as he walks past her with far too much swagger for anyone. Not that she can do much more than roll her eyes at him before a dark-haired woman is bouncing up to her with bright, eager eyes, pushing a clipboard into her chest and exhorting her to, "Pledge your dedication to the campus movement to save energy!""I'm late," Wanda snaps by way of an excuse, side-stepping the petition and walking onwards, her heels clicking on the paving. Glancing up at the wail of a car alarm that grates against her hangover, the squealing from a couple when the sprinklers begin spinning out arcs of water and interrupt their study date, and rolling her eyes and ignoring the cheerleading team practicing on the grass, not bothering to glance back when she hears a yelp of pain.She manages to unearth her key from the very bottom of her purse, crushed under an empty capsule of chewing gum and a storm of old, useless receipts, and lets herself into the dorm with a stumble over the bunched-up rug. Only pausing to correct herself, to force herself to stand a little straighter and rearrange the neckline of her shirt, before she hears a stern, "Wanda, where did you go last night?""Off to have mediocre sex with some guy from a frat, Steve, where else?" she snaps back immediately and Steve is just shaking his head from his position at the bottom of the stairs, acting all high and mighty. "Get out of my way, I just wanna go to bed.""You have class," Steve says, and she just climbs over him, ignoring him trying to snatch at her ankles. "Wanda...you're spiralling again...""Just because you're assigned to be my mentor doesn't mean you control any of my life," she snaps, and shakes herself loose of him, pretending she doesn't know exactly what mildly martyred, concerned expression is on his face right now. Pretending that everything is fine, even though it's the tenth morning in the last three weeks she's gotten back to her building early in the morning after a night she can't remember.She shoves her room door open and tosses her purse across the room before she collapses face down across the bed, no doubt smearing mascara all over her pale duvet. But, frankly, she doesn't have the energy to care. "Bad night?" comes the question from the other side of the room, and she lifts her head to see Natasha staring at her, an eyebrow raised. "You look like a mess. Learn to take your make-up off before bed, you're going to catch something one day.""I'm sorry that getting eyeliner off is not my priority," Wanda says sharply, and Natasha just shakes her head with an exhausted sort of fondness. "What time did everyone get home?""Bruce came to pick me up and walk me home at two, he brought food so naturally Quill came with me," Natasha says, and Wanda just nods, searching her memory for the last thing she can recall. And she can remember Quill daring her to do five more shots with him, and then nothing but a few swirls of colour and noise. "Last I saw of Hope she was holding Scott's hair back while he threw up in a bush. Gamora sent an incomprehensible text at three after her phone died while we were still at Thor's so she either made it to her own place or made Quill put her up for the night. You disappeared pretty much as soon as we got there. I only heard stories.""So what is everyone saying I did?" Wanda asks, and Natasha spins her chair around and folds her legs up beneath her with a sugar-sweet smile. "On second thought, maybe I don't wanna know-""Too late, you gave the go ahead," Natasha says, a wicked gleam in her eyes. "You kept hitting on Thor, made out with Valkyrie, called Maria three times after you swore you were done with her, danced on a table, and I'm pretty sure someone said the bouncers were threatening to kick out a girl who'd barged into the men's bathroom and thrown up. Last I saw of you you bounced up to give me your cloakroom ticket then some brooding leather jacket type dragged you onto the dance floor." She takes a long sip of the green tea steaming gently on her desk, and asks, "Did you go home with him?""No, some tall blonde guy from Zeta Beta Tau," Wanda says, rolling onto her back to blink up at the bare ceiling. They still haven't put the fairy lights back up since she tore them down in a fit of drunk, grief-stricken rage."At least ZBT guys are supposed to be sweethearts, you've gone home with worse," Natasha says. "Maybe this is a sign you're coming out of this particular spiral.""I'm not spiralling," Wanda says automatically, crawling up her bed to pull a packet of make-up wipes from her nightstand drawer and trying to clean her smudged eyeliner away from under her eyes. And she doesn't even have to look up to know the familiar arched-eyebrow look Natasha is giving her. "I'm not, Nat.""Are you still taking your meds?" Natasha asks, her eyes narrowing suspiciously, and Wanda just nods, trying not to roll her eyes at just how parentally protective Natasha gets. There's only a year and seven months between them. "Did you have breakfast?""I woke up in some random guy's bed, do you really think I had breakfast?" she asks, knowing she's being too sharp and too bitchy and, somehow, not able to find it within herself to care.A knock on the door stops Natasha from being able to form a retort, be it a withering look or a lengthy lecture, and she seizes gratefully on the distraction, stumbling into toeing off her heels and jerking the door open to Gamora in the doorway, looking far more fresh-faced than Wanda feels for how much she allegedly drank. "I thought you might both be in need of breakfast burritos, Quill insisted on going before he remembered he had to race off for class," she says, giving the brown bags she's holding by their twisted tops a tempting rustle."Thanks, Gamora, I thought I'd have to brave what's left in the catering hall," Natasha says, and throws one of the bags so hard it hits Wanda's chest with a soft thump and thuds into her lap. "Eat that.""I hate breakfast burritos," Wanda grumbles, glaring at the unappealing glisten of oil on the tortilla."Maybe you'd like something a little sweeter?" Gamora teases, and produces a plastic casing wrapped around a cupcake from her backpack. "Happy birthday!"She stares at the cupcake for a second, with its perfect swirl of pale pink icing, before she turns a sharp glare on Natasha. "You told people?!" she snaps, and Natasha just shrugs, already taking a knife to her burrito. "Nat, you know I hate my birthday!""Pity, because we want to celebrate!" Natasha says, opening her nightstand drawer to produce a single candle and flicking her lighter into a bruised flicker of a flame, sparking it into life. An orange flame springing up from the striped candle, and Wanda stares into its blue centre and hears the distant strains of Happy Birthday in a voice lower than either Natasha or Gamora's, an arm around her, two gusts of breath to blow out the candle, and she turns away."I'm late for class," she mumbles, scrambling to find a clean, if slightly wrinkled, black shirt, tucking it into her jeans and wrapping a dark red cardigan around herself, changing her spiked heels for her combat boots and haphazardly piling textbooks into her bag."At least take the cupcake!" Gamora protests, and Wanda plucks it from Natasha's hand, blowing the candle out in a quick breath, hoping she won't remember the teasing whisper asking what she wished for, her affronted squeal when fingers would brush against her sides in an attempt to tickle her answer out of her. But she doesn't eat the cupcake, instead tumbling it into the trash when she gets outside, pulling her coat closer around her against the chill of the day and blinking away the tears burning behind her eyes.She can barely summon the strength to sit up straight and pull her books out of her bag when she gets to class, never mind to actually listen. Instead she doodles in the margins of her notebook, drawing hair hanging in familiar eyes, pieces of shattered glass, viciously raking her pen across the paper until it tears, her hand clenched into a fist so tight blood reddens the pale crescents carved into her palm. She doesn't hear a word of the lecture, only a faint humming, and the moment she can she haphazardly sweeps everything back into her bag and rushes out of the room, feeling like she's about to shake out of her skin.Maybe coffee and food will settle her, make her stop feeling so off-centre, and she joins the long queue outside Starbucks, pulling her coat defensively around herself against the staring. Trying not to think, to lose herself in memories of what used to be, and not to remember that she's yet another year older. That she can't fight the inevitable march of time that pulls her further and further away from who she used to be.Just as she is snapping the lid carefully onto her coffee after stirring in sugar, someone bumps into her and she swears loudly in Sokovian at boiling liquid spilling down her back, uncomfortably hot even through her coat. "I'm so sorry!" comes the frantic apology, from a familiar voice, and she whips around to find Vision holding an ineffectual handful of napkins from the dispenser."Great, you," she snaps, and he winces, ugly embarrassed red threading across his cheeks. "Do you want something from me, or is staining my coat enough for you?""A-A-Actually I was looking for you," he says, and holds out his hand, a gleam of gold cupped in his palm. "You left this in my room.""What, you took off my necklace too?" she snaps, snatching it out of his hand, smoothing the chain carefully before she hooks it back around her neck, running her fingers over the cool curve of the ring readjusting to lie against her collarbones. "Is that all?""I just...wanted to see if you were okay," he says, scuffing his foot along the ground like a child, and she rolls her eyes."I'm fine, buddy, and you don't have to worry about me," she says, trying to ignore the little twinge of regret at how wounded he looks. "I'm just the random drunk girl you took home last night, remember?""Wanda-" But she's already walking away, resigning herself to having to soak the stain out of her coat, and clutching her coffee to her chest for a small circle of warmth in the chill of the day.She shuts herself in her dorm room and forces herself to work for the afternoon, making copious notes in her cramped handwriting, until her hand cramps up and she has to drop her pen and flex her fingers, reaching to check her phone. Scrolling through inane notifications and student alerts in search of anything actually important, until she hears Natasha's key scrape in the lock and returns to pretending to work before she can be subjected to another lecture. She's not spiralling, she's studying and working and socialising and that means there can't possibly be anything wrong with her. Her drinking too much isn't a cry for help. She just wanted to let loose. Going home with strangers isn't a sign of needing anything except a good time - not that any of them have provided that."Did you go to class?" Natasha asks pointedly, tossing her backpack onto her bed and shrugging out of her leather jacket, balancing neatly on one foot to unlace her pointy-heeled boots.Wanda just rolls her eyes and says, "Yes.""Did you eat lunch?""Yes.""A real lunch? Not just a coffee and a grape and you're pretending that counts as a meal?""Yes, Nat, I had lunch!" she snaps, and Natasha just arches an eyebrow and purses her lips, arms folded in annoyance. "Christ, do you want me to start writing down what I eat every day? One peanut butter bar, one half of a BLT, twelve raspberries, half a piece of watermelon, one mint I found in the pocket of my backpack, and two cups of tea.""Okay, that's a start," Natasha says, and Wanda just rolls her eyes and sighs loudly, air whistling between her lips. "You know I know how you get sometimes, Wanda. I've seen you need to be literally handed food and watched like a hawk to eat something.""I am fine, Natasha," she says sharply, teeth gritted to stop anything crueler escaping. "I swear.""Great, so you're coming to the party at Zeta Psi tonight?" Natasha asks, and Wanda just groans. "It'll be fun, I swear. I'll order pizza before you get there. You can borrow my lacy black dress, you look good in it!""It's too short for me, I'd be flashing the entire party," she says sulkily, and Natasha just shakes her head fondly. "Is Bruce coming?""He's working, but he said he'd try to wait up to walk me home, and if I don't lose you you can come too," Natasha says, and Wanda just nods. "Look, I'm gonna go get ready with Hope and Val. Leave you by yourself. Are you gonna be okay?""Am I ever okay?" she asks, and Natasha's head snaps to give her a concerned look. "I'm kidding, Nat, go. Tell them I'm sorry about last night.""I don't think Val had a problem with being the target of your horniness," Natasha teases, and Wanda grabs a pillow to throw it as the door as it clicks shut, smiling slightly at the sound of Natasha's laughter moving down the corridor.Alone in their room, she takes the opportunity for a quick shower, rinsing the scent of cigarette smoke out of her hair and finally taking a loofah to her skin to scrub away her shame in a swirl of spicy scent. Rolling her eyes when the lights go out, yet another blackout even though the college promised they were looking into the power outages. She feels so much more human when she leaves, her hair dripping down her back and reminding her she's in need of a haircut. It can't possibly have been her that made so many stupid mistakes last night, she's not the girl that gets thrown out of the club for drinking too much. That wasn't her, and she'll prove that. She's not spiralling.Raking a comb through her hair, trying to get it as silkily straight as she used to be able to, she chooses her outfit. Crimson playsuit, high-necked with a lace overlay to the top, sweeping on dark wings of eyeliner, opening a packet for a pair of fishnets that aren't ripped beyond repair and scraping dried mud off the velvet covering of her platforms. She doesn't have time to paint her nails, and they're bitten so far down she wouldn't want to draw attention to them anyway, so instead she spends the time styling her hair, separating two sections out to braid and and pin over the dark spill of the rest, dabbing hairspray through the strands in an attempt to keep it that way. Steals a set of Natasha's acrylics and paints them black before gluing them on, tracking down her portable charger under a pile of clean socks and packing her clutch to go with her.As the door flicks shut behind her, she sighs out into the night, pulling the inadequate covering of her leather jacket tighter around herself, her breath spiralling upwards in frosted silver. There's a wind whipping into life, and she's glad she didn't wear a skirt, even if her legs are freezing and within a few steps she can't feel her toes. At least she knows the way to the Zeta Psi house, and none of the streetlamps are out for a change.Pulling her phone out, she finds a series of voicemails waiting, and winces as she lifts it to her ear to listen. First Clint, saying, "Hey kiddo, I'm on my way to lunch. Please come meet me. Even if all you want is to drink a glass of water and leave. I wanna see you." Then a, "Wanda, I've been waiting for thirty minutes. I'll wait fifteen more, okay? I love you. Please come see me."Then Laura. "Wanda, Clint called and said you didn't meet him for lunch. Sweetheart, you have to talk to us. I can only keep him from driving up to see you for so long. He loves you. We all do. We want you to talk about it."Clint again, and he sounds angry, and she has to fight to not hit the button and call him back. "I know you're hurting, but we all are. You can't just shut yourself off, that's not how it works. When I make arrangements to see you, I want you to come see me and have the decency to answer my calls. Are you drinking again? Call me." Hanging up, she takes a steadying breath and makes a mental note to call Laura in the morning. To play the part of the perfect daughter.She rolls her eyes when a group of rowdy partygoers push past her, most with faces hidden by mascot masks, the familiar slightly unnerving baby face in cheap plastic, and with their hoods pulled up they're all unrecognisable. One stops as she pushes past, turning to watch her, and a chill steals down her spine for a second before someone roars, "Thor! Hurry up!" and he runs, hood slipping down over close-cut blonde hair and settling her nerves.Climbing carefully over a fence, not sure what she'll do if she falls off her shoes and twists her ankle tonight, she slithers down a slope to the shortcut, the tunnel that's been marked for demolition for at least three years looming dark in front of her. She switches on the flashlight on her phone, and it catches on the shine of something waiting in the centre.She moves few paces forward, her heels clicking on the ground, and calls out, "Okay, guys, very funny!" There's a high-pitched grinding of gears that sets her teeth on edge from the box, and it flicks open. A music box, the silver ballerina inside spinning on one poised foot forever while it plays a slowed-down version of Happy Birthday.Kneeling down, she slams the box shut with a shudder. But it almost immediately springs open again, fighting against her hand, and she shouts, "Scott? Was this you?! Very funny, I get it, prank the birthday girl!"Looking up to stop herself from staring at the unnerving music box, she sees a figure standing at the end of the tunnel. Black jeans and hoodie, face hidden behind the baby mask that looks so much creepier in low light, and she stands up slowly. "C'mon, Scott, this isn't funny," she says, her voice swelling into an echo along the tunnel. "Did you get sent to escort me to this party and decide this would be funny? It isn't. Wait 'til I tell Hope."The figure takes a step towards her, and she watches in frozen horror as they pull a knife from their pocket. Advancing purposefully towards her, and she turns to run, back out of the tunnel, scrambling up the hill to reach the fence and leap back into the light, screaming for help.Her heel slides backwards in the mud, and she falls, and there's a hand grabbing her ankle, even as her frantically flailing fingers connect with the wires of the fence and she tries to drag herself upwards. That iron grip yanks her down the hill, a hand roughly turning her onto her back, and the knife gleaming in the moonlight.She screams in the split-second before the blade comes violently down into her chestIt's disorientating, waking up without music over her head. Just coming from her phone, a tinny version of Happy Birthday, as she blinks at a swirl of glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling and tries to swallow the sour taste in her mouth."Um...hi." She bolts upright at a voice, and blinks in bleary confusion at the man on the other side of the room, plucking nervously at the front of his blue sweater. "Hey, um, I don't mean to be rude, but...I do have to get to class soon.""Then go," she snaps into the depths of the pillow, and hears footsteps before the mattress sinks under new weight. "C'mon, just let me sleep.""I'm really sorry, miss, um...miss, but I do need to leave and I shouldn't leave you here alone," he says, and she lifts her head to glare up at him. He just gives her the sort of pitying look she hates - though perhaps not when it's coming from eyes as blue as his - and says, "I'm not sure if you remember my name, you were...you were very drunk last night.""You're right, I don't remember," she says, and sits up, raising a hand to touch her hair and realising it's a tangled mess of hairspray. "Do you have anything useful? Like Tylenol?""Yes, yes, I do," he says, scrambling upright and starting to toss rumpled clothes aside in search. "I'm Vision, by the way. Well, Victor...but Vision."Looking around the room, recognition ringing in her chest at the books stacked at perfect right angles on the nightstand and the pile of clothes next to a bed with a garish red and white pattern on the duvet and the TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE sticker on the back of the door, she blinks and tugs at the shirt she's wearing. Very white, crumpled by her sleeping in it, with ZETA BETA TAU emblazoned across the front. "Where are my clothes?""Oh, they're here," he says, handing her a bundle of black jeans and gold top she had to be talked into wearing after several shots prior to even going out. Both smell strongly of the club, and she tugs her borrowed shirt over her head, overwhelmed for a moment by the pleasantly clean smell of it, to wriggle back into her own clothes."You found that Tylenol yet?" she asks, and he nods frantically, holding out the familiar red packet. "Water would be great.""Right." He fumbles around for a moment before handing her a half-full bottle, and she swallows two pills and the rest of the water, hoping to clear her head even slightly. To make the haze of confusion lift, and stop feeling so strange. Waking up in a strange room is hardly an unusual occurrence.She squints at him, then asks, "What did you say your name was?""Vision," he says, ever so politely. "And you're Wanda. I remember.""Good for you," she says, throwing the empty bottle in the direction of the trash can. Running her hands through her hair and trying to swallow the questions rising in her throat, staring at Vision and the touching concern in his eyes, scrubbing her fingers over the goosebumps rising on her bare arms. Rallying to force some authority into her voice and say, "Not a word about this to anyone.""Of course not, I would never-""Great," she says shortly, unable to shake the weird feeling, and slips her feet back into last night's heels. Vision just keeps looking at her, mouth slightly open like he's about to say something, and she pushes past him."Dude, did you hit that or-" She just brushes past the man outside, head reeling, into the bright February sunlight and a wash of cold that makes her regret not taking a jacket.She sneers at the man lowering his sunglasses to give her a lascivious look, the corner of his mouth curled in a smirk, but is quickly distracted from flicking a middle finger at him by a dark-haired woman is bouncing up to her with bright, eager eyes, pushing a clipboard into her chest and exhorting her to, "Pledge your dedication to the campus movement to save energy!""I'm late," she says automatically, sidestepping the petition and the wide-eyed look of disappointment in the girl's eyes and walking onwards, her heels clicking on the paving. Glancing up at the wail of a car alarm that grates against her hangover. Squinting at the squealing from a couple when the sprinklers begin spinning out arcs of water and interrupt their study date, her skin prickling with the chill of familiarity. Trying to shake it off and pausing a moment to distract herself watching the cheerleading team practicing on the grass, wincing when one of the girls slips and crashes to the grass with a yelp of pain, bringing a flurry of people around her. Walking away unable to help the way her head is spinning and the prickling under her skin. The strange feeling that this isn't the first time she's walked that same journey.Shivering in the cold, she unearths her key from the very bottom of her purse, and lets herself into the dorm with a stumble over the bunched-up rug. Only pausing to correct herself, to force herself to stand a little straighter and rearrange the neckline of her shirt, before she hears a stern, "Wanda, where did you go last night?""I don't have time for a lecture, I'm late for class," she snaps, pushing past Steve and up the stairs to her room, ignoring him calling after her. She doesn't want to talk, would much rather throw herself into her bed and think and sleep and not let herself dwell on how oddly familiar this all feels."Bad night?" comes the question as soon as she slides the door shut behind her, and she lifts her head to see Natasha staring at her, an eyebrow raised. "You look like a mess.""You're so sweet," Wanda says, and Natasha just shakes her head with an exhausted sort of fondness. "Hey, Nat...what day is it?""Monday," Natasha says, and squints at her. "How much did you drink last night?""What date?""The nineteenth," she says, and Wanda just tries not to think. It's impossible. It's insane. She's just overtired and hasn't slept well for days and still isn't fully sober. "Did you have a paper due today or something? I'm sure Steve will be happy to sign something so you can get an extension.""No, no, just...phone died," she says, waving it demonstratively. "And I got a bit disorientated waking up in a different place.""Yeah, where did you go last night?" Natasha asks, taking a long sip of the green tea steaming gently on her desk."Zeta Beta Tau with some tall blonde guy," Wanda says, unbuckling her heels and pulling the nearest pair of clean black socks on."Those are my socks," Natasha says, and Wanda just rolls her eyes. "Was he nice? ZBT guys are supposed to be sweethearts.""I guess he was fine," Wanda says, grabbing a packet of make-up wipes and running them under her eyes, grimacing at the smudges of black that come away from her skin."Are you heading out?" Natasha asks, and Wanda just nods, pulling a black shirt from her drawers and shaking the creases out of it before pulling it over her head, tugging her hair into a bright red scrunchie. "Did you have breakfast?""I woke up in some random guy's bed, do you really think I had breakfast?" she asks, wincing at the sound of her own voice, how sharp and bitchy she's being. "I gotta go, I need to make class.""Well at least come have lunch with me, my treat-""I have too much to do," she says sharply, and grabs for her coat before she leaves, dragging the strap of her backpack over her shoulder.She runs into Gamora halfway down the stairs, fresh-faced and wearing something clearly borrowed from Quill, smiling slightly. "I thought I'd catch you before you left, Quill insisted on going for breakfast burritos before he remembered he had to race off for class," she says, giving the brown bags she's holding by their twisted tops a tempting rustle."Thanks, Gamora, but I'm not really hungry," she says, and she isn't lying. Fear is making her stomach churn uncomfortably, and her mouth still tastes like a sour combination of everything she drank last night."Well at least take this," Gamora says, and produces a plastic casing wrapped around a cupcake from her backpack. "Happy birthday!"She stares at the cupcake for a second, with its perfect swirl of pale pink icing, then hastily says, "I'm really not hungry," before she walks away, leaving Gamora standing on the stairs staring after her.She can barely summon the strength to sit up straight and pull her books out of her bag when she gets to class, never mind to actually listen. Instead she doodles in the margins of her notebook, drawing hair hanging in familiar eyes, pieces of shattered glass, viciously raking her pen across the paper until it tears, her hand clenched into a fist so tight blood reddens the pale crescents carved into her palm. Making an obsessive list of everything she sees. Everything that's the same, the plaid beret on the girl sitting in front of her, the coffee stain on the lecturer's tie, the roll of laughter over a joke she doesn't quite hear. Unsteady on her feet when the time comes to leave, unable to stop thinking that she isn't living this day for the first time.Maybe coffee and food will settle her, make her stop feeling so off-centre, make her stop wondering whether she's already lived all these little moments, and she joins the long queue outside Starbucks, pulling her coat defensively around herself against the staring. Trying not to think, to lose herself in memories of what used to be, and not to remember that she's yet another year older than Pietro will ever be.Just as she's snapping the lid carefully onto her coffee after stirring in sugar, someone bumps into her and she swears loudly in Sokovian at boiling liquid spilling down her back, uncomfortably hot even through her coat. "I'm so sorry!" comes the frantic apology, from a familiar voice, and she whips around to find Vision holding an ineffectual handful of napkins from the dispenser."Great, you," she snaps, and he winces, ugly embarrassed red threading across his cheeks. "Do you want something from me, or is staining my coat enough for you?""A-A-Actually I was looking for you," he says, and holds out his hand, a gleam of gold cupped in his palm. "You left this in my room.""What, you took off my necklace too?" she snaps, snatching it out of his hand, smoothing the chain carefully before she hooks it back around her neck, running her fingers over the cool curve of the ring readjusting to lie against her collarbones. "Is that all?""I just...wanted to see if you were okay," he says, scuffing his foot along the ground like a child, and she rolls her eyes."I'm fine, and you don't have to worry about me," she says, and he looks so wounded guilt twinges hotly in her chest. Maybe he is genuinely just a nice guy concerned about her. "I'm just the random drunk girl you took home last night, remember?""Wanda-" But she's already turned away, resigning herself to having to soak the stain out of her coat.Then she turns back, so slowly, sighs and says, "Thank you. This is...really important to me.""You're welcome!" Vision says brightly, and she stares at him for a moment longer before she walks away, cradling her coffee to her chest and lifting a hand to curl a finger into the ring on her necklace.She shuts herself in her dorm room and forces herself to work for the afternoon, making copious notes in her cramped handwriting. But she can't shake the feeling lurking in the back of her mind, a prickling telling her that something is wrong, that this isn't what she thinks. Looking at the drawings she made in class, the sketchy lines of jagged glass, and tapping the end of her pen thoughtfully against her bottom lip. Thinking about the day, trying to remember any scrap of the night before. Finding only a black hole of lost memory.When Natasha's key scrapes in the lock, Wanda pushes her work aside and rolls her eyes when she hears, "Did you go to class?" And she looks back to find Natasha giving her a pointed look as she tosses her backpack onto her bed and shrugs out of her leather jacket, balancing neatly on one foot to unlace her pointy-heeled boots."Yes, I went to class," Wanda says, and Natasha gives her a satisfied nod. "And I had lunch, before you ask that too.""It's like you can read my mind," Natasha says, and crosses the room to ruffle Wanda's hair, even when she swats her hand away and glares. "And it looks like you got a lot of work done. So you're coming to the party at Zeta Psi tonight?" Wanda just groans, and Natasha laughs softly. "It'll be fun, I swear. I'll order pizza before you get there. You can borrow my lacy black dress, you look good in it!""It's too short for me, I'd be flashing the entire party," Wanda says sulkily, and Natasha just shakes her head fondly. "I'll wear the red playsuit.""You'll look cute, birthday girl," Natasha says, and Wanda just nods. "Look, I'm gonna go get ready with Hope and Val. Leave you by yourself. Are you gonna be okay?""Yeah, I'll text you when I'm on my way," she says, and Natasha smiles at her, folded a skirt into her bag and leaving the room. Leaving Wanda sitting alone, her hands curling into fists. Of course she's being silly. Of course she's imagining things, or had a weird dream, or her friends are all playing some sort of huge joke on her. Thinking it'll take her mind off how much she hates her birthday.She gets ready quickly, pulling the curtains closed against the night pressing in, packing her clutch and wrapping her leather jacket over her shoulders. Heels tapping on the stairs as she walks down, having to pause on the stairs when the lights go out for a moment, out into the freezing night, blowing a plume of silvery breath towards the sky and wrapping her arms around herself, setting a brisk pace.At the fence, she hops over and slithers down the frost-veiled hill to the path, the orange caution lights blinking inside the tunnel. Casting eerie shadows gleaming against the trees, and she blinks and sees a silhouette. Feels a sudden stab of pain in her chest, so clear that her hand jolts to cover an imaginary wound ripping open. But when her fingers come away they're clean, not dripping with blood, and she wonders why she thought that.Turning away from the entrance to the tunnel, she walks back up the hill and takes the long way around. Pulling her phone out, she finds a series of voicemails waiting, and winces as she lifts it to her ear to listen. First Clint, saying, "Hey kiddo, I'm on my way to lunch. Please come meet me. Even if all you want is to drink a glass of water and leave. I wanna see you." Then a, "Wanda, I've been waiting for thirty minutes. I'll wait fifteen more, okay? I love you. Please come see me."Then Laura. "Wanda, Clint called and said you didn't meet him for lunch. Sweetheart, you have to talk to us. I can only keep him from driving up to see you for so long. He loves you. We all do. We want you to talk about it."Clint again, and he sounds angry, and she has to fight to not hit the button and call him back. "I know you're hurting, but we all are. You can't just shut yourself off, that's not how it works. When I make arrangements to see you, I want you to come see me and have the decency to answer my calls. Are you drinking again? Call me." Hanging up, she takes a steadying breath and makes a mental note to call Laura in the morning. To play the part of the perfect daughter.Walking up to the Zeta Psi house, she finds it in darkness, and cautiously approaches the door. Giving it a single tap, and the creak as it opens echoes in the night. Peering inside, she calls, "Hello?" and there's only silence, the whistle of the wind behind her.Then a baby face pops up in front of her, and she screams, her fist lashing out directly into its nose. While she's shaking her hand out, overwhelmed by how much it actually hurts to punch someone in the face, the lights flicker on above her and there's a weak, "Surprise..."The mask is pulled away, and Scott is grinning dazedly up at her, scrubbing a hand over his cheek and getting to his feet. "You been working out?" he asks."I'm so sorry, I thought...you scared me," she says, even though the explanation fighting into the front of her mind is that she was murdered by someone in that mask. But that's ridiculous, because she's walking and talking and breathing. Alive. No one stabbed her in the chest. It was just a dream."Maybe Scott could stand to get punched a little more often," Hope says, and hands Wanda a luridly-coloured shot. "Happy birthday!"The music is cranked up, Scott staggers towards the kitchen for an ice pack, and Wanda is floating around the room, people handing her drinks that she downs, laughing with different groups of people, the world a kaleidoscope of confusing colours. She's drunk, and doesn't care. It's her birthday and she's having fun and everyone is calling out for her.She stumbles upstairs, looking for the bathroom, opening the first door she comes to and almost toppling over a boy sitting by himself, squawking, "Fuck," when she trips over him, kicking him in the back. Then he looks up, and says, "Hey. You're the one we're having the party for.""Yeah, uh...that's me," she says, wiping a hand across her forehead, and gives him a small smile. He's cute - although she privately thinks that she wishes his eyes were bluer. Blue like the sky over a beach. "Wanda.""I'm Bucky," he says, and gets to his feet, giving her a smile that sets a little flutter through her heart. Maybe she's found tonight's conquest. "I've been up here working rather than coming downstairs. Didn't know what I was missing.""A lot of beer," she says, and he grins, gives a soft laugh, and moves closer. The kind of close that means she'll be on her back in his bed by the end of the night, pretending she's enjoying herself. "Sorry for barging in on you, I was looking for the bathroom.""No, that's okay," he says, and grins. "Bit of a blessing in disguise." He smirks, and she tries to smile back.The music gets louder beneath them, and she's looking around the room while Bucky is sitting on the bed, feeling his eyes on her and fighting the urge to tug at her clothes, stop him looking at her. For some reason. There's nothing wrong with him, he's perfectly good-looking. She's just in a strange mood, the sort of mood that when he puts his hands at her waist and turns her around, his gaze on her mouth, has her asking, "Can I put some music on?""If that's how you like it," he says, and she fights not to grimace while she turns to his speakers and tries to find something that will vaguely set the mood. Feeling her phone go off in her pocket and pulling it out to check the screen as the room fills with the sudden jolt of a heavy bassline. Fighting not to roll her eyes too visibly when she hears the thud of Bucky starting to dance behind her.
From: Nat
Where'd you go?
To: Nat
Upstairs
From: Nat
Ooh, having a little bit of birthday fun are we? ;)
To: Nat
Maybe if he gets his shit together and stops dancing to his dumb music
From: Nat
I wish you so much luck! Hope he's at least a good lay
Turning around as she slides her phone back into her pocket, she starts to say, "Hey, maybe this isn't such a good-" before her words die in her throat. Bucky is sprawled across the ground, a dark stain spreading across the front of his black shirt, and a figure in a black hoodie and a baby mask is standing over him, a knife in their hand.She moves first, rushes at them and manages to wrest the knife from their grip, holding it in front of her with a shaking hand while the music pounds around them. But they tackle her back onto the bed, and even though she's screaming the music is still drowning her out, and they cut her off smashing a bottle against the nightstand and bringing it down into her neck.She opens her eyes again, and the world is the screech of feedback, a long note drawn out in a frantic high-pitched hum, her eyes darting all over the room. Stars on the ceiling, piles of clothes on the floor, and Vision kneeling on the floor, nervously saying, "Um...hi. Hey, um, I don't mean to be rude, but...I do have to get to class soon.""Oh my God," she whispers, more to herself than him, bolting upright, the blankets falling around her waist and showing the ZETA BETA TAU logo emblazoned across a borrowed shirt."I'm really sorry, miss, um...miss, but I do need to leave and I shouldn't leave you here alone," Vision says, and she's scrambling upright, pulling his shirt over her head and returning to hers, heart pounding and breath short, struggling into her jeans. "I'm not sure if you remember my name, you were...you were very drunk last night.""Last night?" she asks, and he just nods, blinking at her in confusion. "What day is it?""Monday the nineteenth," he says cheerfully, and there are panicked tears prickling behind her eyes, her hand going to her mouth in an attempt to stabilise herself. "Oh...are you okay?"He reaches out to help, and she darts away from him with a helpless frightened noise, pushing the door open and letting out a small scream at, "Dude, did you hit that or-"The man - Sam, Sam, she knows that, she knows that because this is the third time she's lived this day - stares at her wide-eyed, and she dodges around him and runs barefoot out of the house, into the cold day. Jumping at every sound, at the boy checking her out, at the spurt of the sprinklers, at the wail of a car alarm, at the shriek of pain from one of the cheerleaders toppling to the ground, until she's back in the dorm and Steve is rising from the bottom step and saying, "Wanda, where did you go last night?"She shoves past him, up the stairs, ignoring his call of, "Wanda? Hey, Wanda, I'm talking to you! Wanda?!" Getting to her room and stumbling inside, her breath coming in jagged rasps, pressing her head against the door."Bad night?" comes the familiar question, the next note of the song, and she looks up at Natasha only to see her roommate's expression immediately morph from teasing to genuine concern. "Are you okay? You look like a mess.""Nat..." Natasha stands up, puts a gentle arm around Wanda and guides her to sit down on the bed, her eyes bright with worry, and Wanda is shaking, tucking her hands into fists to hide how violently her fingers are trembling. "Nat, I know this is gonna sound insane, but I...I...""Did something happen last night?" she asks. "Did something happen with whoever the guy is you went home with? Did he...Wanda, do I need to call campus police?""No, no, nothing like that, he was perfectly nice," she says, and Natasha visibly sighs out in relief. "Nat, this is crazy, I know it is, but I...I've already lived this day. Twice."Natasha stares at her for a second, then swallows and says, "Wanda, have you been taking your meds right?""Yes, yes, I know this is crazy but this is happening!" Wanda snaps, the sudden burn of tears behind her eyes, her words frantic, trying to make Natasha understand, to make her see how scared she is. "Look, I know about the surprise party tonight, okay? I know it's not just a random frat party, you told everyone it's my birthday and you guys all planned something so I wouldn't sit alone. And I know Gamora made me a cupcake. I know it's all happening!""Honestly, Quill cannot keep a secret to save his life," Natasha says, rolling her eyes and reaching for her phone."No!" Wanda snaps, grabbing for Natasha's wrist. "He didn't tell me, I know because I already lived it! And Nat...Nat, someone is going to kill me tonight."Natasha stares at her, and then rolls her eyes. "Oh, Wanda, who put you up to this? Was it Scott? Is he waiting downstairs to see if it worked? That's a lame gag even for him.""No, it's not a prank, it's going to happen!" she insists, and Natasha just shakes her head. "They chased me through the tunnel and stabbed me in the chest, and then they cut my throat with a broken bottle, and they'll kill me again unless someone does something!"Natasha just looks at her, her face slowly becoming a mask of warm sympathy. "You're not sleeping well," she says softly, reaching for a packet of make-up wipes and gently wiping away the smudges of eyeliner around Wanda's eyes. "I know your birthday is always a stressful time. You probably just had a nightmare.""No, it's real, you have to believe me-""Take the day off," Natasha says with a small smile. "You can use my bath oil. I'll make your excuses, tell the records office you're sick. Just relax, get some sleep, and don't think about doing any work. If you're up for coming to the party tonight, come. If not, I'll be with Hope and Val, and you can always come join us. Or just sleep. You need it.""Nat-""Sleep," Natasha orders, and walks out of the door, and leaves Wanda by herself, head spinning and terrified.Of course, she doesn't sleep at all. She spends the day frantically Googling to try and figure out what the hell is going on, only finding references to comic books and movies and video games, no solution and no real account of it happening outside fiction. Google seems to think she's trapped in a time loop, but no one can offer a single solution for what she has to do to get out of it. It seems to think she'll be trapped until something amazing happens, some incredible thing that will break the loop, but until then she'll die over and over again.Absentmindedly putting a hand to her aching chest, night fallen beyond the window and the sounds of people running around to go party echoing outside, she moves around the room, looking at the open window and the door that doesn't shut quite right. Maybe the murder isn't inevitable. Maybe she can stop them. With something shoved against the door, and a text to Natasha that she isn't coming out but everyone else should have fun, and the window firmly locked.But trying to organise her books into a neat pile, she finds an envelope in the stacks, edging it carefully out and tugging the flap up. Pulling out the birthday card with a sprinkle of glitter onto the carpet at her feet, looking at the generic photograph of a cake on the front, and opening it to look at the message.
Enjoy today. Because there's no tomorrow.
She drops the card as if it burned her with a muffled shriek. The lights flicker out above her head, just as they have every time she's lived this day. And then the banging starts. Someone outside the door, trying to get in, and a thin thread of a scream escapes her before she clamps her hand to her mouth. There has to be someone else in the building, someone to hear the almighty crash of the door bursting open and her scream.But there isn't. Because the figure in their hoodie and mask bursts into the room, shoves her back and she falls into the desk, smacking her head against the blunt edge so hard she only sees black in the split second before agonising pain explodes through her as the knife twists in her gut.She wakes up with a scream, and hears the dull thud and muffled pained noises from Vision. Tries to scramble out of bed, to shut her phone off before it starts to blare Happy Birthday, and Vision is saying his script, his, "Um...hi. Hey, um, I don't mean to be rude, but...I do have to get to class soon."Scrambling out of bed, she runs out of the room, straight past Sam on his way up the stairs, out into the cold, the slabs of concrete freezing under her bare feet, nearly buckling at the stabs of pain in her chest and her stomach, her vision blurry and flickering between colour and black. Her breath coming in sharp rasps, hurting her throat, and when she hears, "Wanda?" behind her she jumps, spinning on her heel to find Vision behind her, a bundle of her belongings in his arms. "You, um...you forgot your clothes."He blinks at her with his familiar blue eyes, sincerity in every inch of his face, and she stumbles forward and puts her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest, the soft, worn material of his sweater that smells like lavender, sweet and soothing. "Help me," she whispers, digging her fingers into his back. "Help me.""Um...okay," he says, very softly, and gently pulls her hands away from him. "I don't know if you remember-""You're Vision," she says, and a slight smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. "Please help me.""Okay, okay, I'll...um, here, put your shoes on," he says, and stands still while she steps back into her heels, being something for her to hold on to. "Are you hungry? There's a nice little café just off campus-""Anything," she says, and he looks around and swallows. "Please."He guides her away from everything just as the yelp of an injured cheerleader echoes across the quad, past the spinning sprinkler that leaves a few dark, damp spots on his sweater, and she clings to him, to this man she barely knows, just because he's there. Pulling her across the road when the cars stop, making sure she doesn't walk into anything trapped in her own head, and opening the door for her when they get to the café. It welcomes her in with a wash of warm air and the sweet scent of home-baking, and she nearly breaks down.Vision finds them a booth, orders both of them hot chocolates, and sits quietly watching her while she picks obsessively at her nails and the skin around them, until she rips too hard and draws blood, and he reaches across to still her hands. "Why do you need help?" he asks softly, and she clamps her lips together tightly, trying not to cry. "Wanda?""You'll think I'm crazy," she says, and he shakes his head, and she sighs. "I swear, I'm not making it up. This is the fourth time I've woken up in your dorm room on Monday the nineteenth. I keep living this day over and over again.""Like Groundhog Day," he says. "But that doesn't happen in real life. It's a story.""It's happening to me," she insists, tears springing hot to her eyes. "But not all cute and fluffy like the movies. Every day someone murders me, and I wake up back in your bed, I've died three times and it hurts and I don't know who's doing it, I...why is this happening?!"The waitress leaves their food at the edge of the table, and she hides her face in her hands, trying to keep breathing steadily and not descend into the black panic trying to claw her down. "I believe you," Vision says, and she huffs out a derisive laugh."What does it say about me that my best friend didn't believe me but the random guy I hooked up with last night does?" she says, more to herself than him, and he just blinks at her."We didn't hook up," he says, and she tilts her head at him. "There was a scuffle outside the club, I was walking home from work and saw some guy barge into you and knock you over. I thought you'd hit your head, so I came to sit with you, and you were so drunk I didn't want to leave you alone. Sam was out late so I told him to sleep in his car and slept in his bed so you could have mine. Nothing happened between us.""It didn't?" she asks, and he shakes his head."You were very drunk, I didn't want to seem like I was taking advantage," he says, and she gazes at him, seeing him for the first time. "You undressed yourself, I didn't even look. I just wanted to keep you safe.""Oh...well...thank you," she says, and he smiles slightly, stirring cream into his hot chocolate and nudging the plate of scones towards her. "So do you have any solutions to help with this time loop I'm stuck in?""Well...we should figure out why today is the day you keep repeating," he says, and she watches him, his long fingers curling around a knife to spread butter onto his scone, the furrow of his brow as he concentrates, and feels a quiver of lust shiver down her spine. "Is there something significant about today?"Right on cue, her phone starts to blare out Happy Birthday as the screen flashes with Clint's photograph, and Vision gapes at her. "It's your birthday?" he asks, and she just shrugs and nods. "Well, that could be why it's happening today! Someone is targeting you, someone who doesn't want you to live past today. Who knows it's your birthday?""Thanks to my interfering friends who want me to party, pretty much the whole school," she says, and he opens his backpack and pulls out a thick pad of paper and a pen, setting both in front of her. "What are you doing?""This is a murder mystery," he says. "And the first thing you should do to solve the mystery is make a list of the suspects. Narrow it down from the whole school to people who might have a reason to kill you. It's most likely to be someone close to you, not a stranger.""How do you know that?" she asks, and a slight flush stains his cheeks."I like watching documentaries," he says quietly, and she smiles softly. "Um...do you mind if I have the apricot jam?""Knock yourself out," she says, taking up the pen and starting to make her list. Idly sipping on her hot chocolate while she thinks about which of her friends might secretly hate and want to kill her. "So what happens after I make this list?"Putting a polite hand to his mouth while he finishes chewing, Vision says, "Well, then you have to narrow it down. Figure out people's alibis. I guess, if you're in a time loop, you'll be able to follow each of them. Find out who's doing this.""So...I just keep dying until I figure out who's killing me?" she asks, and he just shrugs. "This seems like a dumb plan.""It might work," he points out, and she stares at him. Then down at her list, chewing idly on the end of her pen, and sighs as she underlines the first name."I guess it's time to get down to business," she says, and Vision smiles slightly. "Solving my own murder."Steve is a dead end. Though she follows him, privately noting that he obviously had no intention of going to her birthday party, she finds him going to a house outside of campus. Soaring windows, a fountain outside, and she creeps to the window and watches him with some old lady inside. Plumping her pillows and smiling at her and laughing at her jokes. Clearly not intending to go out and kill the girl he's been assigned to mentor, just taking all his stupid golden goodness out into the community.Turning away from the window, she doesn't even have time to scream before the figure in the baby mask pushes her into the fountain, holding her under until her vision blurs and goes black. She wakes up in Vision's bed spitting water into her hands, and he grimaces momentarily before he nudges his trash can towards her and she gives him a thumbs up before vomiting into it.Tracking down Maria lets her know that her ex-girlfriend is seeing someone new, something she'd rather not have known. Lurking outside Maria's dorm with a beanie pulled down over her head, Wanda watches her laughing with a pretty blonde girl, a dull ache in her chest. She knows Maria never looked that carefree with her, because Maria was the first person she dated after her life fell apart. And she stays there, watching the blonde cooking and the couple drinking wine and the besotted smiles on both their faces, until she ducks down beneath the window to avoid being seen and decides enough is enough.And the second she turns around, the baby mask looms in her face and she's being stabbed through the stomach. Collapsing away from the blade and waking up in Vision's bed with a groan, listening to his script while she changes and walks out into the cold, crossing another name off her list as she walks.She's walking next to Natasha when someone barges past and knocks the pile of books in her arms to the floor. Getting on her knees to help pick everything up, Wanda freezes when she finds a familiar envelope amongst the textbooks, and finds Natasha staring at her when she looks up. "Nat...what is this?""It's your birthday card," she says, and Wanda sees red. Tackles Natasha into the road, seconds before she hears the rumble of a car engine and sees blackness. Jerks awake in Vision's bed with a scream of frustration, burying her head in his pillows.That night, she lurks around the tunnel, hoping to see someone in a hoodie and a mask peel away from the groups of people circulating through campus. Tightening her grip on the piece of wood she kicked off the rotting fence, and when she hears a footstep behind her she turns and swings.Scott collapses to the ground immediately, eyes rolling back in his head, and she's whispering frantic apologies, kneeling down to check his pulse. Not noticing the person creeping up behind her until a baseball bat whistles in the air and slams into the side of her head, and she collapses.She wakes up in Vision's bed with a dull pounding ache in her head, and squints at him. "Your plan sucks," she says, interrupting his usual stream of words, and cracks her knuckles. "You got anything stronger than Tylenol?""Just that, I'm afraid," he says, and she rolls her eyes, wincing as she straightens up. "Are you alright?""Last night got rough," she says, and he just nods. "Hey, thank you for letting me stay.""You remember?" he asks brightly, and she nods. Then she groans out loud trying to get up, clasping a hand to her aching chest, and he scrambles up to dart across the room. "Are you sure you're alright? Maybe I can call your roommate?""I'm fine," she insists, and stands up. The world spins, everything goes black, and she pitches forward into Vision's arms, hearing him frantically call her name in the split-second before she falls unconscious.When she opens her eyes again, Vision is standing over her, and reaches out to still her when she tries to sit up. "Hey, it's alright," he says, voice soft and soothing. "You're in the campus hospital. You collapsed on me this morning, I made Sam drive us here. I called your roommate, she told all your professors you were sick.""What day is it?" she asks frantically."Still Monday," he says, and she collapses back against her pillows, trying not to cry at the thought that she's still trapped. "The doctor said something weird. They took some scans and they said that you have a lot of internal scarring. Like you've been repeatedly stabbed.""Perfect," she says, running her hands over her stomach. The skin is smooth beneath her rough hospital gown, but she can only imagine what havoc has been wreaked beneath it. The helpful knowledge that she isn't recovering from the injuries when she wakes up not dead. "You don't have to stay, you know. Shouldn't you be in class?""I wanted to stay," he says, and smiles. "I'm gonna go get myself a hot chocolate from the machine downstairs. Do you want anything?""A tea would be great," she says, giving him a smile. He smiles back, and gets up to leave.The moment the door swings shut behind him, she springs into action. Yanks open a drawer in the stack next to her and finds a bottle of Tylenol, dry swallows two pills and carefully climbs out of the bed. She can't stay in the hospital waiting for the killer to find and murder her, she has to get out and get away. Creeping around the shadows of the hospital in her gown, shivering in the cold, and starting violently when she hears a door swinging open."Hey, you can't be here!" the nurse says, approaching her slowly. "Come on, let's get you back to bed. What floor were you on?""No, no, you don't understand, I have to get out of here!" Wanda insists, even as the older woman takes her arm gently, steering her back towards the stairs. "Please, he's coming for me, you have to let me go! I'll die!"The nurse rolls her eyes, opens the door to the stairwell, and screams when the baby mask looms in front of them. Wanda runs, ignoring the nurse's dying gasps behind her, bare feet sliding over the floor as she topples a cart of medication boxes behind her and keeps running. Finding herself tumbling out into the garage, seeing one of the men she recognises from the college's Medicine department about to get into his car, and pushing him aside with a brief, "Sorry."Turning the key in the ignition, she screams when she hears the crack of a gunshot and sees the killer sprinting into the garage, the professor behind her falling, blood streaming over the hand he clasps to his chest. She slams her foot onto the gas pedal, reversing out so fast she hits another car and sets its alarm wailing, and faces the killer down, standing in her way. She grits her teeth, pushes the gas in harder, and they scramble aside to avoid getting hit as she shoots out of the door and into the night.She leaves the place behind, shrieking in triumphant exhilaration, the roads empty in front of her as she screeches around a curve. "I beat you!" she screams, glancing briefly back to revel in her accomplishment. Just as she hears police sirens start to wail behind her, and sinks back in her chair, hopelessly murmuring, "No, no, no."Pulling the car over, she turns off the engine and sits contritely waiting for the police officer to approach her, rolling her window down. "Good evening, ma'am," he says, and she keeps her eyes cast down, ashamed. "Do you know how fast you were going?""Too fast?" she suggests quietly, and he nods."License and registration," he says, and she sighs."I don't have it," she says, and his eyebrow shoots up towards his hairline. "Listen, I was at the hospital, and I had to run, and my clothes are there and my license is in the pocket! But I can tell you all my information, I-" She's silenced by the officer shining his flashlight in her eyes, blinking in the brightness."Have you been abusing substances tonight, ma'am?" he asks, and she shakes her head in frantic jerks."No, no, of course not, I-" She trails away, a sudden thread of thought entering her mind, and says, "Wait...if I was driving under the influence, you'd have to arrest me, right?""Well, yes, that is the law-""I'm drunk!" she insists immediately, and the police officer raises his eyebrows at her."You are, huh?""Wasted!" she says, with a little self-deprecating smile and a shrug. "And I'm high! I mean, I've just been abusing all the substances all night.""Okay, well...then I have to arrest you," he says, and she grins, scrambling out of the car and turning around to let him put the handcuffs on. She'll be in a cell soon enough, away from the killer, and when morning comes she can explain everything and get someone to bail her out and just deal with the points on her license.He opens the door to the back of the police car, and she climbs in, smiling up at him and brightly saying, "Thank you!" And he frowns at her, then suddenly glances up at the glare of other headlights. From a car that smashes into him and sends him flying, and she screams.The car stops a little ahead, a gloved hand emerging as the window opens. She glances down at the road beneath her to see the gleam of gasoline on the concrete, and watches the gloved hand of who she can only assume is her killer spark a birthday candle into life."Shit," she whispers, as the candle falls and the flame races along the road to the police car engine.She wakes up burning up, jerking upright in bed, and Vision is staring at her, nervously saying, "Um...hi." She sighs and sits up, reaching to the ground for her clothes, and letting Vision just continue to squint at her. "I'm really sorry, miss, um...miss, but I-""You need to leave?" she asks, and he blinks at her in confusion. "Don't worry, Vision, I'll get out of your hair. Do you have any Tylenol?""Yes, yes, I do," he says, scrambling upright and starting to toss rumpled clothes aside in search. "You remember my name?""Of course I do," she says, and catches the way the corner of his mouth curves up into a softly surprised smile. "It's under that sweater.""Thank you," he says automatically, grabbing the packet from beneath the pile and offering it to her, and she gives him a grateful little smile. Then he blinks a few times at her, and opens his mouth as if to say something before he turns away. Gaping at her when she swallows most of the little plastic bottle and washes the pills down with a gulp of water. "Um...I don't think you should do that...I feel like it could kill you.""If only it was that easy," she says sourly, and lets him just stare at her as she finishes changing and leaves his room. Straight past Sam, a blanket wedged under his arm, and just gives him a withering look when she sees his eyes light up at the sight of her.The cold outside blasts into her chest, and it takes her a moment to hear, "Hey! Wanda! Wanda!" before she turns around and sees Vision following her, holding out a cardigan. "It's too cold for you to be out here like that.""Why does it matter?" she asks, feeling tears rise suddenly in her throat, the leaden weight of hopelessness invading her chest. "Even if I get cold...so I'll get sick. So what? I'll die and I'll live again and again and again.""What are you talking about?" he asks softly, and she feels the hot stinging of tears behind her eyes, clasping a hand to her mouth too late to muffle the fragment of a sob that escapes. "Wanda? Are you alright?""No," she whispers, voice muffled with sadness, unable to help the tear that slips slowly down her cheek, the hopeless hollowness in her chest. "No I'm not." She looks up at him, confusion and concern painted in equal measure across his face, and sniffs. "I've lived this day so many times. I can prove it." She holds up a hand to keep him silent, and says, "Sprinklers," a moment before they start to spin. "Car alarm." A wailing that screeches through the quiet air. "Cheerleader falls." A squawk of pain, and Vision's eyes are wide staring at her. She sighs softly and says, "You don't believe me.""Actually...I do," he says, and she just stares at me. He may have believed her once, but there doesn't seem to be a chance of it happening the same way again. "Truth is stranger than fiction, right?"And when she sees the way he's looking at her, so sweetly sincere, she can't stop a quiet sob escaping her, and he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, offering it to her with a small smile. Choking out a laugh through a sob, she dabs her tears away and murmurs, "Thank you.""Can I get you anything?" he asks softly. "Like...a coffee? A coat? You could come back inside, there's pancake batter in the fridge and we have so many flavours of tea it's bordering on ridiculous." Giving her a worried look, he says, "I don't think you should be alone."Sniffing back the tears that want to fall, she murmurs, "That would be nice," and lets him put his cardigan carefully around her shoulders before he guides her back inside, into the warm embrace of the house and the kitchen that's comfortingly cluttered, the calendar on the wall littered with dates and, mercifully, empty of other people."Just sit down while I cook, we'll take the food upstairs so no one stares at you," Vision says, and she nods, sliding her hands into his cardigan and wrapping it tightly around herself. It smells sweetly clean, soothing, and she feels tears prickling her eyes again. "Everyone's been texting all morning. They're not used to me bringing anyone home.""Thank you," she says, and he smiles. "I...sort of remember last night. You didn't need to bring me here.""You were too drunk to tell me your address, only your roommate's name, and your phone was dead so I couldn't look for her name," he says, and she feels herself flush in embarrassment. "You were no trouble, honestly. I couldn't leave you alone.""You're sweet," she says, and watches a blush creep across his cheekbones, hiding her smile behind the mug he sets in front of her. "How did you guess I like Earl Grey?""Oh...just...it's my favourite," he says, flushing even deeper, and she tilts her head at him."We have so much in common," she says sweetly, flashing him a flirtatious smile, and he nearly drops the frying pan, clashing it hard onto the stovetop. She smirks slightly, blowing steam away from the surface of her tea. He's ridiculously good-looking, after all. And so much nicer than most men who take her home. She already knows Natasha would approve.She sits quietly watching him make pancakes, and portioning them out onto two plates, loading a tray with syrup and jam and sugar and lemon juice before he beckons her with a jerk of his head, and she follows him back up to his room, tucking his cardigan under her as she sits down, and he smiles and sets out their food like a picnic. "I thought you had class," she says, and he just shakes his head."A group meeting, but I already messaged to say I wasn't going to make it," he says, and before she can open her mouth to protest he says, "I can't let you leave when you're so clearly upset. Eat something."Shaking a spoonful of sugar onto her pancakes, she starts when her phone starts to ring, and Clint's smiling face blooms onto the screen, making guilt strike hotly in her chest. "Who's that?" Vision asks, and then adds, "Your boyfriend?" in a way that almost sounds hopeful."My dad," she says, and he glances at the screen again a second before it goes black."You call your father by his first name?" he asks, and she smiles slightly."I'm adopted," she says. "My parents...they died when I was a kid. Bombings. I'm Sokovian. Born into the civil war.""I'm adopted too," he says, and she smiles slightly. They really do have things in common. Big things. Important things. "My mother works at the campus hospital. Doctor Cho?""She's lovely," she says, and he beams, his eyes bright, and she instinctively moves closer, rolls her shoulders back and lets the halves of her cardigan part. There's a reason this top is what she wears on nights out when she's intending to not go home.Her phone lights up, Clint again, and Vision pauses his fork halfway to his mouth and asks, "Do you need to get that?""No," she says, and sighs heavily. "He wants to meet me for lunch. Birthday lunch. It used to be a tradition. We haven't done it in a few years.""Oh, happy birthday," he says, and she smiles at him. "Maybe you...should? I always like going for lunch with my mother on my birthday.""We stopped after..." She chokes up, the words like shards of glass in her throat, and manages to force out, "After my brother died."Silence holds for a long, suspended moment, and he finally clears his throat and says, "I'm sorry. How...when...what happened?" She puts a hand to her mouth, digging her teeth into her lower lip to calm herself down, and he hastily adds, "You don't have to tell me! It's okay!""I just...don't talk about it," she says, and his face is a mask of sympathetic understanding. "It...it was three years ago. Car accident. He was...he was driving home for Christmas. I wasn't with him. I had to stay here an extra day for an exam. And his...his front tyre hit ice. Skidded. The car flipped. He...someone called 911, but there was too much internal bleeding. I made it to the hospital maybe...an hour before he...he was gone.""It wasn't your fault," Vision says softly, and she shakes her head, eyes burning with tears. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry, you've probably heard that over and over again.""Therapy after," she says with a shrug, and he nods. His hand twitches, and she reaches for him, twining their fingers together. His skin is warm, soft, and their hand fit together as perfectly as puzzle pieces. "I know it wasn't my fault but...you can't imagine the guilt of being the twin that survived. And Clint...and Laura, my mom, they're wonderful...but they want to take things back to normal. And my birthday is just hard for me. Really hard.""Maybe you should talk to them," he says, just as a text buzzes through for her. "Maybe it would help. To see your family. The people who love you." He smiles, his hair falling in his eyes, and she can't help smiling back.Leaning slowly across the tray between them, she waits for him to pull away. To protest. But he doesn't, and when she gently presses her lips to his he kisses her back. Pushing the tray aside, she kneels up to get closer to him, to run a hand over his hair, and his arms wind around her, pulling her against him, and it's a kiss that feels so much better than anything else. She's sober, clear-headed, and Vision is so handsome and sweet and she cares about him, somehow all these cycles of the same day have made her care, and he kisses her back.A loud chime makes her start out of the kiss, and she sees the flush in Vision's cheek, the smile playing around the corners of his mouth, the way he raises a hand to brush his fingertips against his lips as he reaches for his phone. "Student alert," he says, staring down at the screen. "They've arrested a serial killer just outside of campus. He got involved in a shootout with the police and was wounded, so they're treating him at the campus hospital. Goes by the name Thanos...wow, arrested for the murder of seven women aged eighteen to twenty-five.""Oh my God," she breathes, and he turns to look at her."No, don't worry, it'll be safe, he'll be restrained, and it's just for today so he doesn't bleed out, they'll transfer him somewhere else tomorrow," he says, and she shakes her head."No, no, Vision, I figured it out!" she exclaims, and he squints at her in confusion. "That's who's been killing me! It's him! And all I have to do is get to the hospital and tell them he'll escape and they can stop it! I won't die!"He stares at her for a moment, and then shrugs. "I guess the theory that the murderer is usually someone close to you isn't always right," he says, and she nods, her heart pounding with sheer adrenaline, unable to help smiling. Vision blushes, his gaze dropping away from hers, and says, "So, um...about the kiss...I-""I liked it too," she says, and he grins in the split-second before she leans in to kiss it away, draping her arms around him and letting the cardigan fall from her shoulders.She inches him down onto the floor, straddling his hips, the kissing growing more intense, enchanted by how tentative he is, but how readily he opens his mouth for her when she flickers her tongue against the seam of his lips. The way he groans when she tangles her finger into the hair at the back of his head, pulling their mouths closer together, and she breaks away to whisper, "Do you have a condom?""Oh...oh, I...I think Sam has some," he says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the other bed, and she climbs off him, dropping the cardigan entirely and pulling her shirt over her head, eliciting a slightly strangled sound from him that has her grinning as she paws through the drawers until she finds a box of condoms and takes one, spinning it idly over her fingers. "Wanda...are you sure you want to do this?""Vision, I've lived this day so many times," she says, leaning down over him to slowly unbutton his shirt, enjoying every new inch of skin unveiled. "And every morning I've woken up here. I don't why this is important...why this is my reset point...but maybe it's you. Maybe you're important. Maybe you're...you're someone I could grow to...really appreciate."Not love. Not yet. Not when she hasn't said it, to anyone, since she whispered her last, "I love you," through tears at Pietro's bedside. And he was unconscious, unable to hear her or say it back. But as Vision kisses her, and she pulls him upright to move them to the bed, and he looks at her like she's the most precious thing in the world as his hands anchor to her hips, she feels her heart pattering frantically against her bones and wants to imagine a future with him.And he's beautiful. His hair falling back from his forehead, soft as she runs her hands gently through it, his eyes fluttering closed as she runs her hands down his chest to unzip his slacks, the soft gasp that escapes him when she lifts his hands to the clasp of her bra. He somehow knows exactly where to kiss her neck to make her shift her hips against his, eager. Like they've done this before. Like they could do a hundred times more.He tells her she's beautiful. Running his hands gently over her breasts, pride sparking in his eyes when she groan and arches into his touch. Trailing caresses down her back when she leans down to kiss him, and joining her soft laughter when they have to separate so she can squirm out of her jeans. The way his lips part in wonder when she climbs on top of him, gently tearing the condom packet open, his fingertips biting bruises into her hips with the way he grips her as she sinks onto him.The way every movement he makes sends sparks down her spine is something she hasn't felt in a long time. Can't remember ever feeling, not with any of the men and women she's let take her home. He's more than them, more than anyone. Tossing her head back and crying out his name, all worry about someone overhearing gone, she comes digging her nails into his chest, and her mind focuses in on the fact that she could love him. One day. Soon. It could be real.She comes down in time to see his eyes fall closed and his mouth fall open around a groan of her name, and smiles as she leans down to kiss him, his arms tightening around her. He swallows thickly, and grit out, "That was...that was-""Amazing," she says softly, and he beams. And she kisses him again, his lips soft and swollen. She never wants to stop.When she has to leave, after a wonderfully lazy day in his bedroom, using his shower and kissing him and letting him make lunch for her too, he walks her downstairs. There are people in the room, peering at them, and she give Sam a little wave before she leans in and kisses Vision, and hear someone choke on their food. "Why don't I walk you home?" Vision asks, softly starry-eyed and smiling, and she shakes her head."I'm going to the hospital," she says, and he suddenly turns solemn, nodding. "I'll call you as soon as I'm done. Maybe I can spend another night here?""Dude!" Sam exclaims behind them. "I don't wanna sleep in my car again! It smells like kebabs in there!""Oh, don't worry," Wanda says, giving Sam a smirk. "I'm happy to share a bed." Vision blushes, and she laughs, leaning up to kiss him one more time before she leaves. Her heart light, happiness making her head spin, and able to see a tomorrow.She pulls a borrowed hoodie over her head as she approaches the hospital, enveloping herself in the clean scent of Vision - of her boyfriend, she tries to think. Hoping he would never think of saying no. Not after the day they shared. But she has to stop herself thinking of him, smiling quietly, as she approaches the third floor, and sees the armed guard getting to his feet, opening the door. "No," she murmur to herself, and breaks into a run.When she flings the door open, she sees a middle-aged man lying very still on the bed, seemingly asleep. But her skin is crawling with suspicion, and she leans over and has to clasp a hand to her mouth to muffle a horrified scream when she sees the security guard sprawled face-down on the ground, a knife in his back.The lights go out, and when they come back on Thanos is looking at her, and she sees the grey in his hair, the way the lines around his eyes twist when he grins cruelly. "Hello, little one," he says, and launches at her. Grabbing for her legs, to stop her running, and she screams and kicks out, her foot connecting with his shoulder and eliciting a grunt of pain, and she bolts out of the room, seeing a doctor moving onto the floor. Doctor Cho. Vision's mother."Run!" she screams, but Doctor Cho only looks up in time for a bolt of red to slash across the front of her uniform, the gunshot echoing along the corridor, and Wanda shrieks, running from the next bullet and seeing it bury itself in the wall. Glancing wildly around her, she sees the emergency axe behind its glass screen, and clenches her teeth before she punches through it. Glass slides along her skin, drawing blood, but she winces through it and hefts the axe into her hand, just as Thanos rounds the corner and smile sadistically at her."You really think you can stop me?" he asks, and she nods firmly, trying to believe in herself. "You're so sweet, little one.""Wanda!" Thanos doesn't turn in time to see Vision barrelling into him, knocking him to the ground, and Wanda shrieks, whether in fear or exhilaration she doesn't know. And she starts to move, but Thanos is up, on his feet, and forcing Vision to his knees, his hands either side of Vision's head."No," she hears herself whisper, horror swelling in her chest. "Please. Don't hurt him.""Your little lover-boy shouldn't get in my way," Thanos says, and twists his hands. There's sickening crunch, and Vision slumps forward, utterly still, and it takes Wanda moment to hear herself screaming his name past the terrible ringing in her ears.She runs, barely able to see through her tears, and finds herself in the bell tower attached to the hospital, looking up at the endless stairs. Thanos is just behind her, she can hear him, and she turns and blindly swings the axe. Feels it make target and hears the grunt of pain. Pulling it back, she raises it over her head to deliver the killing blow, but stills.If she kills Thanos, she won't die. The loop will stop. But if she lives, and the loop stops, then everyone dead will stay dead. And Vision...Vision will be gone. She'll never see him again.She drops the axe, letting it clatter to the ground, and turns away from Thanos. Running for the stairs, letting the growl of, "You should've gone for the head," echo below her, and forcing herself not to hear his footsteps behind her. Climbing upwards until she reaches the bell, finds a spare rope, and forms it into a hasty knot."Hey!" she calls, and Thanos looks up. She lets him watch her lower the noose around her neck, and pull it taut, and sees him snarl and start running. As he climbs the last flight, she raises her middle finger almost lazily to him and says, "See you soon, asshole," before she lets herself fall.As she closes her eyes, shutting out the image of his hands reaching out for nothing more than the wind she left behind, she sees Vision's smile.Her neck hurts. It's the first thing she realises when she wakes up, straightening up and trying to crack the tension out of it. ""Um...hi..."She smiles just to hear that voice, and when she turns and sees Vision kneeling by the desk, eyes warm and comforting, she bolts out of bed and flings her arms around him. "I can't believe you did that for me!" she exclaims, hugging him tightly, burying her head in his clean scent. "Thank you so much!""Oh...oh, you're welcome," he says, and she pulls back beaming at him, biting her lip in a consciously flirtatious gesture. "Um...um, I wasn't sure if you want...maybe breakfast?""I need to go," she says, and his face falls. But she smiles, leans up to kiss his cheek, and murmurs, "But you can treat me to lunch. Starbucks? At one?""Yes...yes, that would be...very good," he says, and she grins before she waltzes out of the room, still in his borrowed shirt, dropping Sam a wink as she passes him.Outside, she sees the boy before he sees her, and wolf-whistles loudly at him, making him start and giggling to herself as she passes him, gaping incredulously at her. Hearing the bright, "Pledge your dedication to the campus movement to save energy," she turns and smiles at the dark-haired girl."You're doing great," she reassures her, and the smile is worth everything, watching her run towards the amazed boy to ask him too. Walking onwards, the ground cold beneath her bare feet, she calls out, "Sprinklers!" to the couple on the grass, and acknowledges their bellowed thanks with a sweet smile. As she passes the cheerleaders, she pauses to admire them, and shouts, "Great form, ladies!" and watches them grin and straighten up. Stopping anyone from falling. She can change things. Make them better. She'll make everything right.Getting back to her apartment building, she proudly straightens her ZETA BETA TAU shirt and steps over the threshold, only to see Steve look up and tiredly ask, "Wanda, where did you go last night?""His name is Vision," she says, and Steve looks momentarily taken aback. "No, we did not have sex, but if I somehow make it to tomorrow, I'm gonna have his babies." And, while he's still staring wide-eyed at her, she makes his jaw drop completely by saying, "I need to talk about everything. Not today, I wanna celebrate my birthday. But maybe this weekend. Post-gym brunch on me?""Um...sure," he says, and squints at her. "Are you feeling alright?""Peachy," she says sweetly, and darts past him and up the stairs, practically bouncing up them she feels so light.She bursts into her room and makes Natasha jump, sitting down on her bed and pulling a packet of make-up wipe towards herself. "Bad night?" comes the question, and she cheerfully shakes her head. "Good night?""Night that I think is the beginning of something amazing," she says, and Natasha just looks completely perplexed. "Nat, do you believe in love at first sight?""Are you still drunk?" Natasha asks, arching an eyebrow, and Wanda just shakes her head. "What's gotten into you?""No one," she says. "Not yet. I've decided to maybe stop fucking people I want to matter to before the first date." Natasha is staring at her, and as she finishes wiping away the smeared eyeliner she sighs and says, "Nat...I need help. I need to get better. Will...will you help me?""Are you high?" Natasha asks, and Wanda just shakes her head, giving her roommate a pleading look. "You're serious? You wanna fix this?""I'm spiralling," she says, and Natasha blinks at her. And Wanda wonders if that's the first time she's ever acknowledged her problems to anyone except her therapist. "And I don't wanna go all the way back to rock bottom. But I can't pull myself out on my own. I...I need you, Nat." Tears prickle behind her eyes, and she has to take a steadying breath before she says, "You're my best friend.""Oh my God...oh my God, Wanda, you're my best friend too!" Natasha says, and she's darting across the room and throwing her arms around Wanda. They don't hug very often, but Natasha smells of familiar perfume, her hair soft, and Wanda clings to her. "Of course I'll help you. I'm so...I'm happy you wanna fix yourself. I hate watching you spiral. I'll do everything I can to help.""I love you," Wanda whispers, and clings tighter to Natasha for a moment."I love you too," Natasha says, squeezing her and brushing a kiss to her temple. "You're a good person, Wanda. Never forget that."Eyes prickling with tears, Wanda sniffs hard when there's a knock at the door, swiping her hands quickly under her eyes. Natasha smiles at her and gets up to answer it, and Gamora peers inside. "I thought you might both be in need of breakfast burritos, Quill insisted on going before he remembered he had to race off for class," she says, giving the brown bags she's holding by their twisted tops a tempting rustle."Thanks, Gamora, I thought I'd have to brave what's left in the catering hall," Natasha says, and takes both bags. "You want one, Wanda? I know you don't really like them.""I'm okay," she says, and Natasha gives her a pointed look. "Don't freak out, I've got oatmeal and raisin bars in my bag. I'll have one on the way to class.""Maybe you'd like something a little sweeter?" Gamora teases, and produces a plastic casing wrapped around a cupcake from her backpack. "Happy birthday!""Did you make this?" Wanda asks, gazing at the swirl of pale pink icing, the eager smile on Gamora's face."We made a whole batch yesterday, Quill ate most of them," Natasha says, rolling her eyes. "But we hid this one to save it for you.""I iced it," Gamora says, and Wanda smiles between them. Then notices the time, and scrambles to her feet, throwing an old hoodie of Pietro's over her T-shirt and swapping her heel for combat boots. "Aren't you gonna eat it?""I promise I'll have it later!" she says, taking it and setting it carefully in her bag, on top of the books. "You're both so sweet, thank you!""Well, we love you," Natasha says with a sweet smile. "Even though you drive us crazy."Blowing her friends a kiss, Wanda sprints out of the door and makes it to class in time. Sits up straight and makes notes, and when her professor dismisses them she goes straight to Starbucks. Finds a table by herself, and sits and waits. Just as she sees Scott and Hope arrive, waving to them, her phone starts to ring, Clint's face flashing onto the screen. She hesitates for a moment, but steels herself and reaches for it. "Hello?""Hi kiddo," he says, and tears prickle behind her eyes just hearing his voice. "I'm at the Italian place just off the campus. Are you coming?""I..." She sees Scott and Hope moving towards her, her heart swooping when she glimpses Vision just outside the window, and bites her lip before she finally says, "Yes, I'm coming. But I...I've been rushed today, so I look a mess.""I don't care about that, kiddo, I just wanna see you!" Clint says, and he sounds so happy that guilt twangs hotly in her chest for not coming to see him more often. "How long will you be?""Um...fifteen minutes," she says, and hangs up. Walk past Scott and Hope with a brief, "Change of plan!" and almost collides with Vision as she leaves."Hi!" he says, his eyes lighting up, and she smiles at him. Then he unfurls his hand and she sees her necklace, and he says, "You left this this morning. It looks important.""Put it on for me," she says, turning around to let him clasp it. Shivering at his fingertips brushing against the back of her neck, and turning around to smile at him. "I actually have to go," she says, and his face drops. "Previous lunch plans. But," she touches a hand to his face, and his eyes go wide, "do you want to make me pancakes for my birthday tonight?""Oh...hap-happy birthday," he says, and she grins. "That would be...nice." She grins, and leans up to kiss him, and when she pulls away he blushes and says, "Very nice.""I'll come to yours then," she says, and kisses his cheek before she leaves. Steeling herself to fix the last thing, the hardest one to fix.The waitress in the restaurant ushers her to a booth, and Clint is already comfortably ensconced, beaming at her when she sits down, nervously smoothing her shirt. "What do you want to eat?" he asks. "The carbonara is really incredible, or you could have the pizza, I'm sure it'll be great-""Clint," she says, and he stops. Staring at her. She swallows, wrapping her napkin around her fingers until it rips, and finally manages to say, "I'm sorry.""Wanda-""I'm sorry I've been so terrible," she says, and there are tears in her eyes, her lip quivering with barely-suppressed emotion. "I'm sorry that I haven't been the person I should be ever since...since Pietro died.""Wanda, you lost your brother, no one blames you-""It's no excuse for treating you like I have," she says, silencing him. "And I'm sorry for all the pain I've caused. I want to be better. I'm starting to be. It's just...hard to be at home since I lost him. There's too many memories. But I..." She fidgets with her fork, and finally forces herself to meet Clint's eyes. "I love you. I hope I've never given you a reason to doubt that."He stares at her for a moment, and then there's the telltale gleam of tears in his eyes, and he reaches across the table to take her hand, squeezing it tight. "I love you too, kiddo," he says, and she gives him a tremulous smile. "We're all here for you. No matter what."She manages not to cry in public, with a colossal effort. To listen to Clint's stories about Cooper's college applications, Lila's performance in the school orchestra and Nathaniel's reputation as the terror of middle school. To agree that when she's next home for a weekend she'll go to Pietro's grave and help choose the flowers to lay on it, and when they say goodbye Clint pulls her close enough to smell his aftershave and kisses the top of her head, and she clings gratefully to her adoptive father. Remembering as she walks through campus that she has people who love her. That she's not alone.As night falls around her, she walks into the hospital with her hood up, and straight to the floor Thanos is being held on. One of the armed guards is standing outside smoking, and it only takes a very quick swipe of a hockey stick swiped from Natasha into the side of his head to knock him down so she can take his gun. She feels like an action hero, creeping around the shadows of a quiet hospital, putting the gun to the head of the second guard and telling him, "Call the police. He's going to escape."She gets to sit, silent, holding the gun. Murmuring, "I know you're not asleep," and watching Thanos wake only to see the barrel of a gun right between his eyes. And she stands there, holding him hostage, until the wail of police sirens and what seems to be twenty men barge into the room."We can't thank you enough, ma'am," one of the officers says, giving her a smile, and she just shrugs. "How did you know he would attempt to escape?""Just a hunch," she says, and watches Thanos stuffed into the back of a van, screaming that it wasn't him, someone else freed him, someone planned for him to be the one caught. "Hey, officer - could you escort me to the Zeta Beta Tau house?"The end of her birthday finds her in the same place she began. Vision's bedroom, watching him scramble around in Sam's nightstand for a lighter, holding the bruised flicker of the flame to the wick of the candle she's placed neatly in her cupcake. And she smiles and leans over to press a soft kiss to his lips, and he's blushing when she sits back on her haunches. "What are you going to wish for?" he asks, and she lifts the cupcake, thoughtfully watching the flame sway in the slight breeze."Tomorrow," she says softly. And blows the candle out.Upstairs isn't beginning the day with loud meditation music for once.And yet she's still awake, her phone blaring out a tinny, grating version of Happy Birthday, and her head is pounding and her mouth is dry and sour.She can't help when her first breath is a groan."Um...hi. Hey, um, I don't mean to be rude, but...I do have to get to class soon.""No..." Everything comes back to her, she remembers seeing Thanos taken away in a van, to be locked up much tighter, and she screams, and Vision looks completely taken aback. "No, no, no! I got rid of him! I stopped it!""Are you alright?" She screams again, a frustrated scream of someone trapped, and shoves past Vision out into the corridor. Out into the day, storming along in the cold, terrified, her head spinning. She's still trapped, stopping Thanos didn't stop anything, she's stuck in an endless loop, reliving the same day regardless of whether she dies or not, she's trapped, and her breath is coming is terrible trembling rasps.She ignores Steve on the stairs completely, her vision flashing with black spots, stumbling upstairs and into her room, panic sinking its cold claws so deep into her she can't hear Natasha's concern, only see a blur of red hair when she runs out of the room. Then someone else is in the room, the door closing, and she hears, "Wanda? Wanda, breathe. In and out.""I have to go," she says slowly, and Gamora's confused face comes into focus. "Far away. Maybe...maybe I can outrun it. Maybe it only works if I'm here, or maybe it only works if I sleep...maybe if I stay awake, I'll make it!""What are you talking about?" Gamora asks, and Wanda just shakes her head, pulling her backpack up from the floor and starting to haphazardly pile everything within arm's reach into it. "Wanda, calm down, you're not making any sense. Look, why don't you just eat something then tell me what's wrong? I made you a birthday cupcake.""Thanks, but I already ate it last night," Wanda spits, and then suddenly stalls in packing her bag. Turns to stare at Gamora, the cupcake in her hand and a welcoming smile on her face, and slowly says, "I'm not doomed to repeat today. I...I did die. I died in my sleep...because you killed me." Her breath is coming in jagged gasps, and Gamora is staring at her wide-eyed. "You poisoned it.""Wanda, what are you-""But I never ate it before. You had to find another way...and Thanos was the perfect alibi," she says, the solution coming together as she speaks, all the pieces assembling themselves. "You could get into the hospital because Peter works there. You stole his key...and you knew that if Thanos escaped everyone would think he killed me. But it was you...always you.""Wanda, are you kidding me?" Gamora asks. "You think I'd try to kill you with a cupcake? All I did was ice it, I-""I'm sure there's plenty of things you could mix into icing to make it poisonous," Wanda says, and snatches the cupcake from Gamora. "If there's nothing wrong with it, eat it. Prove I'm crazy."There's a long, lingering silence. They both stare at the cupcake, until Gamora rolls her eyes and says, "Wanda, this is ridiculous.""Fine, I'll take it to the police," Wanda says sweetly. "I'm sure they can tell me exactly what's in here."The next thing she knows, her head is slamming back against the wall, and she's seeing stars, slumping to the floor. Gamora is standing over her, shaking her head, throwing the cupcake into the trash can and snarling, "You stupid bitch.""What the fuck, Gamora?!" Wanda snaps. "I know I'm not the greatest friend, but don't you think this is a bit much?""Oh what would you know, Ms. Perfect Family?" Gamora snarls, her eyes dark and glittering and dangerous."Perfect? My brother died! I was a kid when my parents died and I had to leave my home country? What the fuck about that is perfect?!""You have no idea what it's like to grow up and never be good enough!" she screams, and she looks on the edge of something not quite human. Dangerous. Making Wanda truly fear for her life. "And he said...if I could be more like him...just one kill, then he'd...he'd finally respect me...""Oh my God," Wanda breathes. "Oh my God...Thanos is your father? The serial killer?""Yes, he's my father, and you found out!" Gamora shouts. "I slipped up and told you, and you said you would tell everyone!""For fuck's sake, I don't remember that, I was probably drunk!" Wanda snaps, and Gamora just rolls her eyes. "Gamora...you don't have to do this.""What I wanna know is," Gamora says, almost conversational, far too casual, "how the hell did you figure all this out?""Because you've killed me before!" Wanda screams, and shoots her leg up to catch Gamora in the hip, knocking her backwards and scrambling to her feet, bolting out of the room screaming. Enough to make Steve come running, and she falls on him, frantically insisting, "Call the police, call them, Gamora's trying to kill me.""Wanda, what- holy shit!" Glancing back, she sees Gamora with a knife in her hand, a short blade gleaming in the light, and screams when Steve leaps in front of her, yelling as the knife carves a shallow wound across his arm."Um...excuse me?" She glances down the stairs and sees Vision waiting, wide-eyed watching Steve wrestle Gamora under his arm, snatching the knife out of her hand. "Wanda you...you left your necklace. What is going on?""Oh, nothing," Wanda says breezily. "My friend just tried to kill me because her father's a serial killer. No big deal." And she collapses, the ground rushing up to meet her.She jerks awake in a hospital bed, and hears a, "Whoa whoa whoa." Looking up into Vision's eyes, and he's talking, and for a moment she only sees the movement of his lips before his voice catches us. "It's Tuesday. You're in the hospital. They say you can leave any time you want. The police want to speak to you, but I told them you'd see them tomorrow. I'll call again and change it if you want.""You stayed with me?" she asks, and he nods. And she reaches a hand up and pulls him down to plant a soft kiss on his lips. Their third first kiss. "Thank you."He blushes, the tips of his ears violently red, and stutters out, "Um...you're, uh...um, you're welcome."She smiles up at him, and then suddenly says, "Wait...wait, it's Tuesday?""Yes, Tuesday the twentieth" he says, and she can feel the grin spreading across her face. "You collapsed yesterday and you've been here ever since. They wanted to keep you under supervision...strange internal injuries. Your dad called. He sounded nice on the phone. Wanted to know if I was your boyfriend.""I made it," she murmurs to herself, and he tilts his head questioningly at her. "Long story. You wouldn't believe me if I told you.""Try me," he teases, and she smiles."Well, I guess my boyfriend should know my stories," she says, and he blushes. "It all started when I woke up in your bed..."And by the time she finishes telling her story, grinning when he gasps and comments in all the right places, he's staring at her with something unreadable in his eyes. "You went through all that on your own?" he asks breathlessly."You helped," she says, and he just shakes his head, gazing at her in wonder."You're amazing," he says, and leans over to kiss her, and she smiles against his mouth, running her hands through his hair. When he pulls away, he stares at her for a second, flushing, before he says, "Um...I'm gonna get my mother to discharge you."For the second morning in a row, she finds herself in Vision's room, on his bed. But this time she's kissing him, leaning down over him and enjoying his breathy whisper of her name when she moves down to kiss his neck. Looking back when the door jerks open and smiling when Vision just snaps, "Get out, Sam!""Aw man, is she a permanent thing now?" Sam asks, and Wanda sits up on Vision's hips and gives Sam a sunny smile."Yes, I am," she says, and the door closes behind Sam. She can hear him grumbling walking down the corridor, but there's nothing to distract her from slowly unbuttoning Vision's shirt."I can't believe this," he says softly, and she just smiles and leans down to kiss a trail down his chest. "I can't believe you want me. And now...we'll have something we can both remember. For the first time.""Um..."He glances down at her, blinking the sheen of lust out his eyes, and frowns. "Wait...you mean?" She nods, and he looks so disappointed she has to swallow back a laugh. "We had sex and I don't remember?""But I do," she says, and slowly reaches down for the hem of her shirt, watching his gaze follow her hands. "And I know just what you like.""Oh."