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[ She's never seen a Mayhem match if this is her standard of mess. We could make it much messier--is right on the tip of his tongue, but for once in his life he manages to stop himself.

She's not a Titan. Right. That particular voice of reason in his head sounds much too like Osiris for his own comfort. ]

I thought we already decided that walls don't sleep. [ He's definitely joking. He does feel some exercise of power going on from Wanda; curiously, he turns his head to watch all the levitating objects.

He's starting to finally feel warm again, and he has a feeling Wanda's cabin is much warmer than his; she's even radiating a wonderful amount of warmth next to him, and it's very tempting to lean into her. But that wouldn't be respectful of her person or her space, and he can't bring himself to ask. She's already done a lot for him and certainly owes him nothing else. Though he does remark: ] I have built a fire in my cabin, most nights. It hasn't gotten nearly warm.

[ Maybe he managed to get the terrible, draughty one. That would explain why no one else wanted it. ]

[She risks the gentlest touch to his upper arm, over the blanket.] I'm not asking you to be a wall right now. This is my cabin.

[She does speak banter, but she is not in fact a Titan and does not like having messes to clean up. Now that she has living spaces of her own, she wants to keep them cozy and nice - even this borrowed living space.

~~and you can have plenty of fun without making a mess...~~]

Maybe a Ruby's fire is stronger than regular fire? We still feel the cold, but we also create much more heat than anyone else. I could try to make friends with your fireplace? It can't hurt.

[ But a Titan is a wall. It isn't a matter of asking or not. He's not sure how to explain that. ] Hm. A cabin with an extra wall in it would be very strange. But then you'd have more space to hang paintings, so it might work out.

[ He leans into that light touch, not really thinking about it. Intellectually it might feel unusual to even feel a touch lighter than a solid blow, but the physical hunger for it is there even if he doesn't realize. ]

Possible? There's much we don't know about these new powers. [ He hesitates. ] If you'd like to try... [ What could he even give her in return? Oh, right. ] I ought to at least be able to help you recover the energy you've used.

Edited (sorry, final edit. my word choice was bothering me.) 2021-02-18 15:23 (UTC)

Or string lights.

[She's wiling to drop it this time. This time.

Wanda sighs and slumps against his arm and shoulder, just like she does with her friends during flights home on the quinjet. Wanda's a physically affectionate person by nature, but Shaxx hasn't really had a chance to see that side of her with his armor in the way.]

I'm not used to this. My powers have always been...if there is a limit, I have never found it. If I am tired after a mission, it's from physically running around or not getting enough sleep.

What about you? How are you feeling?

Very festive. Perhaps some paper decorations, depending on the season.

[ This is... nice. It's certainly not the first time someone's leaned on him like this. The situation is simply a little different. Sitting in front of a fire in an apparent time of peace, rather than sitting on a rock overlooking a battlefield. It does feel different, though, with her resting much more directly on his skin rather than weight distributed by armor plating. Different isn't necessarily bad; in this case, he finds he likes it. ]

I, too, have noticed a much harder limit on what I can do. I get tired. [ Slight laugh. ] I get cold. I can only make a few grenades before my energy is nearly exhausted. [ Really, that's the most actually offensive part. ] I don't like it, but a limit is a challenge that will be interesting to meet and find techniques to get around.

[ Even if he doesn't like the underpinning that such limits will make it more difficult for him to do the work he must. But there's nothing he can do about that, any more than Osiris can change the loss of his Ghost. It could always be far worse. ]

I like a challenge. And I'll find new ways to fight. I've found we can recover some energy at the end of training by... hugging it out. [ And it's something he really doesn't mind. It's good to foster trust and build relationships between warriors. ] Even if it's strange to everyone to have to go about it that way.

[ After assessing that everything seems good and comfortable, he decides to do the same thing he would if he was still wearing his armor. He loosens the blanket to give himself a bit of room to move, and he carefully puts his arm around her. ]

All right? [ Always better to ask. ]

Edited 2021-02-18 18:02 (UTC)

[Odd that she is the walking space heater when she's so used to curling into others for warmth. But there's still a simple comfort in being held and Wanda lets her eyes fall shut.]

Mm-hmm. You aren't freezing on my watch. [The smile is evident in her voice; he really likes grenades, doesn't he?] No grenades needed.

[He isn't wearing a shirt, and maybe she should have thought about that first, but if Shaxx is fine with it so is she...and, well, she's definitely not complaining...

She can feel the untapped connection between their gems and after a long moment allows her end of it to open. The wound in her mind where Pietro was torn away from her is always present, but it is quieter now and this time she is much calmer and at peace. She feels safe right now, right here, with him. Even the swirl of her innate powers is languid, almost sleepy, as it acknowledges him.

Someone who knows how could absolutely ease her to sleep right now.]

My hero and savior. [ It's a gentle teasing. ] But I always need grenades. [ If he didn't, everyone would know there was something wrong with him.

This isn't the first time he's experienced synchrony with Wanda, but it feels different, perhaps because he isn't trying to communicate something to her. The sense of simply being in someone else's presence is one he's rarely experienced, and it offers its own sort of peace and warmth. It overrides the mental itch of how strange it feels to bare any part of his skin to the world; there's the low echo of that disorientation to be found in the depths of their link, but it would require searching through the simple warmth and pleasure at her company. The points where skin touches skin feel good, enough so that he has to carefully throttle his own urge to want more. Contentment isn't in his nature, but for this moment, he finds he has enough.

The ever-present sense of her loss feels less raw now, though no less familiar. Life is a cycle of loss and survival, hurting and healing, as familiar as an enemy known so long it has become something like a friend. But this is no moment of crisis, and rather than offering up some piece of himself, he simply accepts the whole of what she is, strong and wounded and beautiful.

Gently, he rests one cheek on the soft fall of her hair and thinks of the Last City at night, when the regular noise of life becomes a murmur that sounds like a low, slow heartbeat. ]

Edited (don't mind me just restructuring a bit to get rid of some repeated words arrrrrgh) 2021-02-19 23:09 (UTC)

I'm surprised you aren't a Ruby too. It is much easier to make things explode.

[Although he keeps bringing them up, so she's sure he's working on some kind of earth-magic-based grenade. Somehow.

This time the sync just feels good, and while it's very tempting to just let herself melt into it, there's something nagging at Wanda that it could be even better. So she shifts just a little bit, careful not to jostle his head, to loosely wrap her arms around him. Yes. That. And it'll keep them both a little warmer.]

Okay? [Because yes, asking is good.]

[ He laughs softly, his breath ruffling her hair. Normally he would never be so quiet, but something about this moment feels... not fragile, but perhaps peaceful in a way that he does not wish to shatter. ] Having seen the gems at work, I'm... also surprised by that. Osiris told me that Emerald is the scholar. I don't think anyone would accuse me of being one of those. [ Did he simply get placed in the wrong elemental box by mistake? The incorrect judgment of a being that does not know him? But it doesn't feel entirely wrong. There's always been a lot of earth in Titans, the stones that make the Wall.

He becomes very still as she puts her arms around him. He's controlled enough to suppress the shiver of sheer physical pleasure that rolls through him, though he shuts his eyes.

It's been a very long time. He didn't think this was something he missed, not the way he misses the friends he's lost through either final death in battle or relationships he's destroyed with his own actions. But the skin remembers, and wants, and maybe that's one more reason he sleeps in his armor and keeps to himself. ]

Yes.

[ Can I touch you more? The question is on his tongue, eager to be asked. He swallows it down as unsuitable to this moment and unworthy of him to speak. He certainly owes Wanda better than that for the trust she's offered him and the duty that is his toward anyone he would teach.

But it is all right, he thinks, to enjoy the light floral scent her hair carries. To enjoy the act of being so held. To desire to know more of her as a person, and not because that can make him a better teacher but because she is a bright Light worth knowing. ]

Edited (argh typo) 2021-02-20 17:40 (UTC)

Remember when I asked you to keep talking to me and you read me an entire poem from memory?

[Sounds scholar-like to her.]

Rubies are the warrior, the sword. I understand it, but...I am tired of being a weapon.

[Which is why she treasures quiet moments like these so much. It's not that she doesn't get them but rather that she doesn't get enough of them. She was so used to having a neverending well of brotherly affection in Pietro and has never recovered from losing it...and without it, and in the face of so much loss and general distrust, she's been left starving for any kind of affection she can get wherever she can get it. She has not minded being used as a human space heater if it means she can be held for a while - but with Shaxx it means almost as much as if she were clinging to one of her teammates. He saw what might be her biggest mistake and he still hasn't thought any worse of her. Even if it's probably for the best, it's been harder than she expected to have no one at all that she knows here.

But at least for once she's not alone in being "weird." The Gembonded have each other if nothing else. And there is someone who sort-of knows her...this should be enough. It's more than she deserves.]

[ That draws another laugh from him. ] Memorization is a trick for entertainment. If you had as much time as me, I have no doubt you'd do better. [ A brief memory: the old keep he watched over as a Warlord. A group of children sitting around a barely adequate fire, the best he had been able to do in those lean days. Keeping them and their parents distracted from the pinch in their bellies by acting out Twelfth Night. Laughter is no substitute for food, but it's better than nothing.

They are what they have been made to be, him by being chosen, Wanda by choosing for herself, even if she hadn't known the full weight of it at the time. There is no escaping the power or the responsibility that comes with it. Though there is one subtle point on which he disagrees.

One of his hands is occupied with the act of holding her, but with the other, he finds one of her hands, smoothing his fingers over hers. ]

A warrior and a weapon are not the same thing, and it's wrong to conflate the two. You are no one's tool to wield.

[Shaxx can't see her smile from this angle but he can probably feel the way it echoes through the sync. She's very familiar with the power of a good story from her years in the orphanage.]

It's easy for you to say. You have your own powers. You don't need mine...either mine or the Ruby's. [Syncing is different. The Gembonded need it to survive, yes, but someone else needs that Manna too.] But if you didn't...imagine what you could do with me.

[The phrasing is deliberate, like she's a tool to be picked up and used, but uh. Despite their current positions, the other implications have escaped her.]

It doesn't matter what I think. I have power, but I am not in charge. [They are two very different things, and without a clear idea of what the people who are in charge here really want...well, she's met plenty of world leaders at home. She can take an educated guess.]

[ "Imagine what you could do with me."

She doesn't mean it like that. He wishes he was wearing his helmet, but at least she's not looking at him. Because he can feel the now-familiar sensation of an absolutely searing blush coming over his face.

It does not help that Titania is laughing in the back of his head. You're enjoying this, he thinks at her accusingly. Her only answer is more laughter.

This is a serious conversation. This is not the time to be thinking about what he'd like to do with her in any other sense. He shouldn't be thinking about that at all.

Taking off his armor was such a bad idea.

He does his best to quickly strangle those thoughts, hopefully before any echo of his desire can make it across the synch. Her question and the conversation is much more important than how touch-drunk he's become. ]

You have your own powers as well. You showed me.

[ It was the most unbearably attractive thing he'd experienced since his days of punching Felwinter's head off. No, thinking about that does not help.

The basic concept of her question, when he reaches past his own childish thoughts, is something he finds almost repugnant. He knows that this isn't uncommon behavior; there were many reasons he was feared by the other Warlords, and his aggressive hatred of the way they used other people was but one of them.

He owes her an answer. He can only reach through his own context, because he does not know her world. ]

If you were under my command... [ Slight emphasis there, because a warrior is commanded, not used. His breath is a little unsteady as he continues; this is a feeling close to lust, though perhaps one that would be less shocking to her from what she knows of him. His voice goes low, a tone more suited to whispering to a lover in the dark. ] ...we would tear ships from the sky and raze fortifications to dust. Our names would be whispered in fear, like a curse, by all who would hurt our people.

[ We would. Because he does not ask of others for a fight he will not engage in, himself. Because he leads in the field. Because he is a warrior, too. He tries to shake the mental image of Wanda, the bloody hem of a proper warlock's coat streaming in the hot breeze like a flag of war, the enemy devastated at her feet. Her power like iron bonds, her teeth at his throat.

She doesn't need the burden of his want.

He curls his hand around hers, wrapping her fingers into a fist that he holds in his own. He clears his throat, finding a more normal tone with which to continue. ]

We are the playthings of powerful beings, but they cannot control our wills. What you think, what you want matters. And anyone who thinks otherwise here will answer to me.

[Wanda noticeably stiffens beneath him, unable to help a shiver when his voice drops to that tone. She did not in fact mean it like that, which is why that odd spike in his emotions is so strange. She's serious! Why have his emotions turned to this odd, dark, almost-lust?

Was it something she said? Or is he just...Like That...? She will give him credit where it's due; she knows he sees her. This must just be some fantasy she's accidentally blundered into...right? For all of her skill over the mind, there are places she does try to stay out of unless someone is actively doing the equivalent of shouting at her - and she has little experience in this area, even as an infiltration ruse.

This isn't the most uncommon thing - some people, rather than being afraid, seem to have this utterly bizarre desire for her to 'step on them' - but she's not...she can't. Or rather she knows all too well that slippery slope into the darker side of the Scarlet Witch and doesn't want to inhabit it any more than is strictly necessary. Because sometimes that side of her is necessary for the greater good, but that doesn't mean Wanda doesn't scare herself sometimes.

She will do him the courtesy of trying to pretend she hasn't noticed anything amiss. Because beneath this swell of feelings, she hears the 'we' and knows that he cannot answer from the stance she has asked him to consider because it simply is not in his nature. And so at long last she forces herself to relax. Whatever she's blundered into, she's still as safe with him as she would have been, once upon a time, with any of the other Avengers. Even Vision. Before she'd destroyed all of that.

She should just perhaps be a little more careful in the future. More intentionally considerate, now that she knows of his, ahem, inclinations. She knows what is expected of her here, but that's not yet a step she's ready to take with anyone.]

...you're a good person. I'm glad things are different where you are from.

[This is not quite an acceptance - only time will tell if she can ever feel truly safe here. But she feels safe enough right now.]

[ He's made a mistake. He knows he's made a mistake, as close as he is to her, as aware of physicality and the emotion of that link.

She's not a Titan. It's not even that he hasn't gotten it through his thick skull, it's that it's been so long since he interacted with someone who didn't have the fundamental understanding of what he is, and he doesn't know how to do it. She's not a mortal human, and she's not a Guardian, and it's confusing. Ultimately, it reflects ill on him, because she deserves more respect in answer to the vulnerability she has shown.

He holds himself carefully still even after she has relaxed and keeps his gaze fixed on the fire. He doesn't shut off the link that is the synchrony, but he pulls mentally back from it, as pleasurable as it is, and tries to hold it at the same distance he would for any student.

It would be easier to pretend that nothing had happened at all, but that would be the coward's way out. He's never been a coward, even if that means he's often a fool. ]

I'm sorry. You're not a Titan, and you deserve better than for me to have forgotten that.

[ He uncurls his fingers, holding his hand flat under hers. She hasn't done anything so dramatic as retract her permission, and he's not going to embarass them both by fleeing into the snow like a spurned boy. He's still glad for the contact between the two of them, happy to be a wall for her to lean on, honored by what she's shared even if he's reacted unsuitably. But the offer is there, silent: If she'd rather he left, it's an order he'll take without question. ]

Edited 2021-02-21 09:15 (UTC)

[There's a definite spike of fear that leaks into the sync - she isn't upset with him and it definitely didn't rise to being worth cutting off one of the few friends she's made here and the one who knows her best. She doesn't want to be alone here.

If he'll allow it, she'll lace her fingers with his. It was just an accident, and this is far from the first time she's sensed something she shouldn't have.]

I don't know what that means. I'm me.

[A point could be made that he keeps telling her she's not a tool but also keeps hiding behind this Titan/wall concept. But this is not the time or the place.]

Stay?

[ He's grateful for her generosity and hastens to offer her a wordless comfort. The feeling of that fear is something that causes him to draw her closer, rocking her gently, almost like he would a child.

He owes her an apology for this, too, if not one that needs to be spoken. He squeezes her hand briefly, drawing his thumb over hers. ]

I promise I will stay until you want me to go.

[ Lips half-pressed against her hair, he smiles wryly. ]

And yes, you're a Wanda. We don't have any of those where I'm from. [ So he doesn't already have a full understanding of where the lines need to be between them, how the dynamic of power works, what he owes to her, and what, if anything, she owes to him.

It would be much simpler if he still adhered to his Dark Age rule: I don't have friends. Just people I protect. But that ended with Felwinter and the Iron Lords, even if his close friends have always been few. Wanda is already more than simply someone he protects, and he's both too greedy and not cruel enough to take that from her. ]

[Wanda's relief is palpable, a wave of contentment through the link as they settle back down. She feels some shame and embarrassment in it too, in that immediate instinct to cling - hasn't she learned by now that she can't keep nice things? She'll break them. They're not meant for her.]

I still don't understand. You keep saying you are a Titan, or that I am not, but I don't know what that means.

You know I can read you, right? If you can't explain it...can you show me?

[And she hopes that isn't pushing it too far, but she doesn't want to accidentally make fools of them both again if it's completely avoidable. She's the telepath here - if anything, it's her responsibility to make sure this doesn't happen again.]

[ It's a smart offer on her part, because he doesn't know how to fully explain what it is to be a Titan in words. Because it's a thing made up so much of Light and physicality and honor and other concepts for which there really are not words. ]

I can try.

[ He tries to unearth for her the things that have most shaped him. Because once, there were no Titans or Warlocks or Hunters; there were only Risen, and they made themselves into what they are now. Titans exist because of Saint, and Saladin, and Zavala, and him, and many others now lost shaping their understanding of the duty that came with their power and passing the lessons on.

He remembers facing down a Fallen Walker with only his fists and his Light, dying and dying and dying in fire until he finds its blind spot and charges it, tearing through armor plating with bare hands crackling with Arc. At close quarters, a fist beats a gun.

He remembers finding the abandoned keep, slowly rebuilding it into a place that could shelter the terrified, starving people he found. Holding its shattered gates against the assault of another Warlord while his people hid inside. Holding a Ward of Dawn all night to keep out a howling blizzard that had come before he could make repairs, his people huddling at his feet. Holding against bullets, against fire, against waves of Fallen. Holding. Holding. Holding.

My body is my greatest weapon, unbreakable, stronger than a gun that can jam or a knife that can dull. I know no fear. I am the lightning, the crash of thunder, and I cannot be stopped.

He remembers taking the assault to another Warlord, coming to earth like a falling star and shaking her keep to ashes and dust. Capturing the woman's ghost as it tries to flee and crushing it in his hand. A devastating offense is the best defense.

He remembers Six Fronts, a five mile-long dive into the fray past the edge of the City, Arc singing joy through his veins. The crash that made the ground ripple like water around him. The one survivor of his assault, a badly wounded Captain, surprising him and plunging a knife through his back. Moments later, him flinging the grenade that ends her. Celebrating later with Saint-14 and the other Titans, drunk on the joy of battle and victory and the Light still echoing through them.

He remembers Twilight Gap, Saladin shouting for retreat as the Fallen close on the City. The helpless rage in knowing that the City behind him will fall, and so will humanity. Seeing the gap in the surging Fallen, piled high with the dead. Calling to his fireteam. Cutting off the feed as Saladin rages at him, accuses him of chasing glory. Surrendering himself wholly to his Light, uncaring if it burns him to a husk, and in so doing trascending battle and into divinity. The Light pools on the ground and burns around him and his fireteam, and he burns with it as they take the wall.

They are the wall that the wave of Fallen breaks on, and they hold. ]

Edited (verb tense ugh) 2021-02-21 22:13 (UTC)

[And this, finally, is what gets her to understand. Well, most of it, anyway. She still doesn't have any better understanding of where the lines are, cannot for the life of her understand why someone who has suffered so much war and violence would want to dance with the darker side of the Scarlet Witch.]

You--

[She sits up, breaking free just enough to be able to look at him and raise a hand to his cheek in concern. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears - she has not truly understood the horror of his world until now. Shaxx has a similar heart to both Thor and Steve but even a god can die...and Shaxx has just. Gotten up. Over and over and over and over...]

I'm sorry. [For everything he's endured, everything he's been forced to become by necessity because if he didn't, no one else would.] I'm so sorry.

[ The look he gives her is one of confusion. This was... definitely not the reaction he'd expected. Her hand on his cheek feels strange, in the sense that it reminds him that he has a face; he covers her hand with his. ]

There's no need to be sorry.

[ He is aware of the existence of trauma as a handmaiden to war; he's seen good Guardians flame out under the weight of despair and emotional exhaustion. He had his own dark days, long ago. Maybe he's too old for that, now. Maybe there's something fundamental to his personality that has made him more suited to this than others, which is no judgment on them. He can take on the weight they can no longer bear.

Or perhaps what she means is those gone to their final deaths, though what he showed her isn't even the smallest fraction of brothers and sisters he has lost. Those are sacrifices worth mourning.

There is ugliness in surviving so many battles, deep wounds that heal only slowly. But there is nothing else he could be, or would be, given any kind of choice. This has been his life from the moment of waking, before he even named himself Shaxx.

He still hasn't explained it properly, perhaps.

He offers her another memory, in the hopes that it is the missing piece: Standing on the Tower in the cool winter night, so late that the lights have mostly been turned off and only a few Guardians go about their business, watching as the paper lanterns of the Dawning spiral into the sky and the city below blazes with life. This place he helped build, standing in defiance of all darkness and death.

He fumbles for the words the she must need to hear: ] It is our nature to survive. And with us, humanity survives. Together, we built a new home. Together, we are the wall that keeps it safe. We are the hands that fight for a City free from all fear.

I didn't choose to bear the Light. But it's my duty and honor... and joy to do so.

[It's beautiful.

She understands that protectiveness and pride. She just hates what has happened to his Earth and the sacrifices that have been demanded of him and others to secure this much, the fact that there is such a heavy burden for these Guardians to bear at all. She's seen minds that have shattered from less.

Perhaps it is in their nature to survive, but she also knows from experience that it is a terribly lonely existence, to be so set apart from the people you protect. It might be different when there are more people like you. But even so...it isn't as if the regular Avengers are the poster children for Healthy Coping Mechanisms and Generally Being Well-Adjusted. And none of them have been through the trauma of so many violent deaths.

That shared pain is enough to bring her to tears, yes, but that's not the only reason. Her heart hurts for him, and she hates to see the people she cares about in pain. Even if that pain is well in the past.]

...I think I understand. [Understanding doesn't require liking it, after all.] You have a good heart, even after everything you have seen.

[Wanda doesn't know how to make this better. But she certainly doesn't think any less of him and he needs to know that. If he didn't want her darker side and she wasn't still feeling so emotionally raw from the events at home, this could very well be a different conversation.]

And...I trust you. You can feel that, yes?

[ People have said a lot of things about him, good and bad, from gratitude that they do not owe him to cursing his name for being a bastard. He can't think of a time when anyone's accused him of having a good heart, however. The state of his heart is immaterial; he does the work that is his. So he doesn't know how to respond to that, other than arguing with it would sound very ridiculous, so he doesn't bother.

He can only hope she does understand now, at least a little. And maybe she'll finally realize that she can't hurt him.

His only regret is that he's hurt her in some way, because she's crying. That was never his intention, to burden her with more grief that isn't even hers to bear. He reaches up to wipe her tears away with his thumb, the touch feather-light. ]

It's all right.

[ The words are meaningless assurance because he doesn't know what else to say.

But the trust, he can feel. Not such an unnatural thing, for people who have survived death together. And it's to his immense relief that he hasn't damaged that trust with his fumbling, though it serves as a reminder that he must take every care not to abuse this gift. ]

Yes.

[It's really not all right, but there's nothing she can do about the terrible things that have happened a thousand years in another Earth's future. The tears are subsiding anyway - they were a reflexive response to sharing his pain and being upset by what she'd seen.]

So stay, if you want to.

[There is a simple, primal comfort in holding someone and being held in return and, well...they both probably need it, honestly.]

We're all right.

[ He gives what she says its due consideration, because if the decision is placed in his hands, it's not quite as simple as that promise. On the one hand, her company is certainly pleasant (maybe too pleasant) and her cabin is certainly more comfortable than his has been. On the other hand, he's not used to being around someone else like this, and everything feels strange and uncomfortable, though at least the bits involving Wanda leaning on him are strange and uncomfortable in a way that mostly feels good. And on the third hand--

Turning into a Fallen now, are we? Titania asks.

Hush.

--the small but undeniable imbalance of power is of concern to him, since she is in a much more vulnerable position than he is, and he's very aware of that. And on the fourth and final hand--

Hm, so are you going to be an Archon or a Kell, then? Titania muses.

I am not dignifying that with a response.

Except you just did.

--he very much wants to both support and protect Wanda. Part of that is the duty that he owes he because she is someone who needs support. But far more important is that everything he's said to her before--and thought about her--is true. She is a Light worth knowing. He likes her.

And maybe he's just running in a big mental circle because he needs to find a way to give himself permission to do something he already wants to do.

You are making this way too complicated.

You are not helping.

There are far more reasons to stay than to go, ultimately, he decides. He can go to his brothers for advice on the ethical concerns and they'll keep him honest. His helmet is there, ready to be put back on if he starts feeling too naked without it. And he remembers Wanda saying that she had power, but no control. Perhaps it will be good for her to have control over this, even if it's a small thing on the scale of the world.

It seems silly, that this decision takes far more consideration than ones that involve far more explosions. But he's used to making those kind of decisions. He's extremely comfortable in a space where the worst outcome is death that might or might not be final. Here, he is very much outside his experience, and it shows in his indecisiveness, however brief. ]

I want to stay. [ Now that he's thought it out, he can speak as firmly and definitively as he normally does. His lips curve into a crooked smile. ] As I promised.

[ I will stay until you want me to go.

He leans in to rest his forehead against hers and closes his eyes. It's the most intimate gesture he knows as someone who normally wears a helmet, something done without thinking. He repeats: ]

We're all right.

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