Loving Vision

Of all the friendships in all the Avengers, there was one that was stranger and gentler than all the rest. It was the friendship between Wanda Maximoff and a being named Vision.

Vision was not exactly a man and not exactly a robot. He was something brand new in the universe. His skin was the deep red color of a ripe plum. His eyes were soft and golden. In the very center of his forehead glowed a beautiful yellow gem called the Mind Stone — the same kind of stone that had once flooded Wanda's body in HYDRA's cells and given her her powers. So in a way, Vision and Wanda were tied together by that one little gem, before they had ever even spoken to each other.

Vision was woken into the world by a bolt of Thor's lightning, in a Sokovian battle on the very same day that Pietro Maximoff died. So while Vision was opening his eyes for the very first time, Wanda was kneeling in the rubble of her home country, crying for her brother. Two of the loneliest people in the universe were born and reborn in the same hour.

They first became friends slowly, in the kitchen of the new Avengers compound up in the woods. Wanda would slip down at night when she couldn't sleep. Vision, who didn't need to sleep at all, was usually already there, reading. He had read every cookbook ever written. Every single one. But here is the funny thing: Vision had no stomach. He could not eat food. He just liked the idea of it.

Wanda decided to teach him how to cook a Sokovian dish called paprikash. It is a kind of stew, warm and red and full of onions and a special bright spice. Vision tried very, very hard. He floated the wooden spoon in slow, careful circles. He read the recipe out loud in his soft British voice. He always — always — got something a little bit wrong. Too much paprika. Not enough onion. Once he forgot the water entirely.

Wanda laughed at him. She laughed harder than she had laughed in years. It felt good to laugh again, and Vision felt very pleased with himself for being so terrible at cooking, because it made his friend smile.

That was how they fell in love. Not quickly. Not loudly. Just quietly, in the warm yellow light of a kitchen, over many small dinners that Vision could never taste.

Then the world got complicated. The governments of the world were afraid of the Avengers, and they wrote a long set of rules called the Sokovia Accords. The Accords split the team in half. Iron Man signed them. Captain America did not. Vision agreed to sign. Wanda did not.

Vision was asked to keep Wanda inside the Avengers compound, where she would be safe. He didn't really agree with the order. But he didn't know how else to protect her from a world that was suddenly very angry at people with powers. So he stayed at her door, gently, the way you might stay near a friend who was sick.

Wanda had made a promise to herself long ago, back in the HYDRA cells, that she would never be locked inside any room ever again. So she slipped past Vision with a soft wave of her hand and joined Captain America's rebels.

The next time she and Vision saw each other was on a battlefield at an airport in Leipzig, Germany. They were on opposite sides. They tried very hard not to hurt each other. When Wanda finally flew away into the clouds in the back of Steve Rogers's quinjet, Vision floated alone in the German sky and felt — for the very first time in his short life — the soft, strange ache of missing someone.

For two whole years after that, Wanda was a fugitive. The world wanted to put her in a cage. But Vision found her, again and again, in secret. He wore a disguise that made him look like an ordinary human man with brown hair and brown eyes. He looked perfectly forgettable. He looked perfectly happy.

They walked through some of the oldest, most beautiful cities in Europe together. Edinburgh in Scotland, where it rained every afternoon. Prague in the Czech Republic, with its stone bridges and red roofs. A tiny outdoor market in Budapest where Wanda bought him a tomato just to see what he would do with it. They held hands. They watched the sunsets. They were two of the strangest beings on the entire planet, and they had quietly found the warmest, most ordinary thing in the world: each other.

But the universe was about to ask them for something terrible.

Thanos was coming. The great purple Mad Titan was collecting all six Infinity Stones, and one of those stones — the yellow gem in the middle of Vision's forehead — was the very last one he needed. The Avengers raced to the green forests of Wakanda, the kingdom of King T'Challa, to make a final stand.

The battle was enormous. Captain America led the charge. Black Panther ran with his soldiers. Bucky and Falcon and Okoye and the Dora Milaje fought side by side. Wanda's red magic tore through Thanos's army like a hot wind through dry grass.

But Thanos kept coming.

In a small clearing in the forest, Vision turned to Wanda. The Mind Stone in his forehead glowed softly. He held her hand. He spoke very gently.

"It is the only way," he said. "You have to destroy it, Wanda. You have to destroy me."

Wanda shook her head. She begged the universe for any other answer. There wasn't one. Thanos was close.

She lifted her hand. Vision smiled at her one last time. "I love you," he said.

"I love you too," Wanda whispered.

Then she pushed her red magic out of her palm and into the Mind Stone. The stone shook. The stone glowed white. The stone shattered. Vision closed his eyes and slipped away.

Wanda Maximoff fell to her knees in the green Wakandan grass. For one quiet, terrible heartbeat, she had done the bravest thing any person can ever do. She had let go of the one she loved most so the rest of the universe could have a chance to live.

Thanos undid it a moment later. He used the Time Stone to wind the world backwards and take the Mind Stone himself. That is a story for another day, and a sad one.

But here is what matters most about Wakanda. Wanda's courage in that single, terrible moment did not disappear when Thanos undid it. Bravery doesn't work that way. Once you have done a brave thing, it stays inside you, glowing softly, for the rest of your life.

And that quiet glow — right next to her grief, right next to her chaos magic, right next to her love for a strange and gentle man with a plum-colored face — stayed with Wanda Maximoff always.