87 CHAPTER 87 - AN IMPORTANT CHOICE

When they got back to the Compound after spending over an hour flying, what welcomed them was the tense stare off between Steve and Tony with Steve having a pleading look while Tony's was mostly an impassive cold face.

"How long has this been going on?" Vision whispered to Wanda.

"For quite a while now. Did you know?" She asked.

Vision nodded but excused himself after seeing the tensioned state of the room. It was better if they just let everything air out on its own.

"Where have you been since morning?" She looked curiously at the new face, who was dressed in a gear identical to Natasha's Black Widow's, that came in with him and Natasha.

She followed him to the open clearing behind the main building complex and looked around, seemingly confused why they came outside. "I've been out acquiring a new base of operations. That and being Natasha's wingman for a change."

Not only Wanda, but everybody else who came outside after seeing the shadow that was cast over the entire Compound looked slack-jawed as the flying fortress that appeared out of thin air.

"Vision…?"

"Just what the hell were you and Natasha up to this morning?"

°°°°°°°

The appearance of the new base did take Tony and Steve's mind off the issue at hand as Tony went ahead to check out the new base while Vision left for his own thing.

Well, said thing just happened to be having a talk with Magneto… and also breaking the news to Wanda and Pietro.

"Quite a quaint little box this is, don't you think?" Erik Lensherr said after inspecting his holding cell and coming to the conclusion that his ability wasn't working. "How does it work?"

Whether he expected an answer or not, Vision did give him one. "Basically, the cell has a mutagene suppressing serum being filtered into the venting system. A few hours outside of it and your abilities should return."

"It is still under the prototype phase so you should be expecting a little upgrade to your temporary residence."

The mutant leader's mind calmed down a bit after hearing that but he looked at Vision skeptically, wondering why he purposefully let him know that.

"If you're wondering why I told you that then my simple answer would be that it makes no difference to me if you know about it or not. And not just you, it applies to everyone. After all, what is anyone going to do if they know the Avengers facility has a specific cell for mutants even as strong as you?"

Erik couldn't help the involuntary laugh of derision that escaped his mouth after hearing what he thought was overconfidence and arrogance.

Though he knew what Magneto was thinking about, Vision made no comment about it and focused on why he was here in the first place.

"Why were you trying to destabilize the economy of one of the world's most prominent cities?"

The billions of dollars that would have been spent just to revitalize New York and make it sufficiently passable to live in had he succeeded, would have affected the entire country, even the world market.

"As if you'd understand my goals." Eric snorted upon hearing the man's hypocritical drivel. "You only side with them because you found yourself on the 'good' side of the public, no, the world's, opinions."

Vision sighed, knowing fully well that this talk was not going anywhere anytime soon. "I really don't have the time to argue with you on the topic of racism, not when your actions, had they been successful, would have further shunned the mutant populace worldwide. It doesn't really need logic to understand something as simple as that." Vision said.

If things went according to his plan, most of the people wouldn't concern themselves with mutants in a year's time. It's not like it would disappear totally as that was virtually impossible, but it would be lessened to an incredible degree than what it currently was.

As Vision was about to leave, he stopped and looked over his shoulder to stare at Magneto and gave some departing words.

"While I trust them to make their own choices, I won't tolerate any sort of manipulation or lies from you. This will be your only warning, Erik Lensherr."

Magneto was confused by what Vision meant and couldn't ask him as Vision was already long gone. Luckily he found out just what he meant in the next few moments after two people, a young man and an equally young woman, came to meet him.

°°°°°°°

'It's been quite the long 48 hours.' Vision thought as he finally found himself on the cusp of success on his research on quantum translocation, aka teleportation, aka his very own boom tube.

If not for his seemingly unlimited stamina which was due to his existing nature, he was sure he would have passed out on numerous occasions given all that has happened in the timeframe of two days.

'First was spending however long that was in the Quantum Realm, then fighting Kang, then coming back and stopping Magneto's plans and rick-rolling his group while I was at it, and now laying waste to the Red Room.'

"I deserve some kind of premium timeout ticket pass."

"You sure do."

Vision raised his head from where he was tinkering with Kang's armor, trying to disassemble whatever it was made up of, and saw Wanda with one of the weakest smiles he's ever seen her with.

"You could have given me a heads up, you know." She said without any heat in her voice which made Vision breathe out in relief.

"I accept full faults for that. Though in my defense, I'd rather not be the one to break that to either of you."

Wanda nodded, part of her understanding why he had thought so. It really came as a surprise to both her and Pietro upon finding out that their real father was one of the world's most dangerous men alive.

Admittedly, and she also confirmed it, Magneto had no idea that their mother became pregnant after one of his past trysts. It was likely that her mother too was unaware of it and had met her father, the one who had raised them, shortly after, blissfully unaware of the true father of her pregnant children.

"Whatever the reason might have been, I don't want to care about it for more than it's worth." She said and rested her elbows on the headrest of the chair Vision sat on, watching him slowly going back to his work.

"And Pietro?"

Wanda chuckled at that with a fond smile on her face as she recalled how Pietro had quickly thrown it behind him, worrying instead for her as a responsible 'older brother'.

"He's fine. Probably out for a run to get the lingering thoughts out of his mouth." She said before looking at the armor he was tinkering with. "Where'd you get that? From the Red Room?"

"Oh this? Nah. I got it from this 31st century world conqueror exiled to the Quantum Realm. It's really an indigenous piece of tech."

"…"

"…"

Vision looked to his side to see Wanda looking at him with a look that made him realize where he'd fucked up.

"You went to the Quantum Realm alone?"

He'd once told her about his plans to go to the Quantum Realm and she'd expressed her interest in visiting the nexus dimension in an offhand comment that he'd easily glossed over.

He was about to answer but stopped as he started receiving a couple of notifications, informing him of his success in deciphering the key to intraplanetary space-time travel.

"Vis? Anything wrong?" She nudged him with her shoulders as she felt him mind running at speeds she couldn't pick up on before something caught her attention.

Hearing Wanda's call, Vision gave her a content smile. "I just finished figuring out the spatial matrices for building a quantum translocation station."

She rolled her eyes at his words. "And let's just pretend that I don't understand all what that meant for a second?"

"In simple words, a 'beam me up' station to almost any location on earth."

"Uh, neat." Now it was his turn to snort at her lacking reaction. "That reminds me, what's up with you? You feel different."

"Different how?" Was there something wrong with him that he wasn't aware of?

Wanda closed her eyes and brought her hands to his head and let wisps of her magic dance between them. She continued for a few seconds before retracting her hands. "Something happened to the Mind Stone? I can feel it but it feels somehow far away. It's like you are finally separated from it, I can't feel any of its apparent presence on you and it looks as if you are growing an independent presence separate from it."

She was about to voice her concerns but Vision's next words assuaged her worries a lot.

"I disconnected myself from the stone. I'm only drawing the necessary energy from it when I want to use or boost my powerful abilities." He then briefly explained what had happened in the Quantum Realm and the solution he came up with. "It's also the reason why I want to figure out how Kang powered this armor of his as the energy it emitted did hamper the stone's abilities and also harmed me quite a bit."

"As long as you're alright." She breathed out softly in relief and then leaned in a bit to rest more comfortably against the headrest.

They remained like that for a while before she spoke again.

"I guess there's nothing holding you back now with this, is there?"

"No, there isn't." He replied. "This opens up a lot of choices for me, and gives me more avenue to make a few more important ones."

"And?"

The meaning behind her question was something they both fully understood and while they've been ambiguous in respect to this particular topic for quite some while now, weighing the effects of any decision they made regarding it, with both of them putting it out like this meant only one thing.

"I'm about to make one right now."

Not fast, not slow. They both had enough time to react with a clear head if they were against it but they didn't, and so their lips mashed together in a slow, moderate paced kiss.

In this moment of time they both stole for themselves, they stopped thinking about anything else and focused on the feelings currently being transmitted as their lips danced a tango of heating passion.

They continued like that for a minute, fully salivating the electrifying sensation of their first kiss.

"… That was.."

"Something else entirely." Vision said as he stared at her eyes that suddenly gained a red tint. "Another on-"

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A/N: How was it? Too on the nose or was it out of nowhere?

Seriously you gotta let me know.