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When you first met Wanda, it had been when you were both new students in the same yoga class. She had moved forward from the back of the class and unrolled her mat next to yours, murmuring under her breath that one of the younger guys in the class had been eyeing you up for the better half of an hour and had been telling his friends that he was going to ambush you for a date after the class ended.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she whispered, her voice given life by a foreign accent you probably couldn’t have placed if you tried. “I just wanted to warn you… That young guy back there and his friends have been talking about you since you walked in this morning. I don’t know if you know him, but…”
You had gaped at her for a moment before casually casting your eyes over your shoulder to see what she was talking about. Sure enough, a guy who looked as though he were little more than a freshman in college made eye contact straight on with you. He practically leered at you as he swept his eyes down your figure and offered a sleazy wink when they crawled slowly back up. It made you shudder nervously, so you cast a disinterested sneer in his direction and slid your yoga mat a little closer to Wanda’s to freeze him out.
“Thanks for the warning,” you whispered back. “I didn’t even notice him.” You introduced yourself, and she smiled broadly and told you that her name was Wanda. The pair of you spent the first half of the class chatting back and forth, and you wondered why you hadn’t spoken to each other before now. You had both been attending this class for literal weeks, and you might have exchanged good mornings once or twice at the door in all that time.
The two of you could hear the guy’s buddies taunting him over your apparent cold shoulder, and you wondered whether he would still be trying to catch you after the class ended to ‘ambush’ you despite your unfriendly glare. You glanced at the pretty young woman beside you again and chewed your lip hesitantly before clearing your throat lightly.
“Do you want to go for coffee or something?” you asked, “After class? On me. It’s the least I could do for saving me from an awkward encounter like that would have been.”
Wanda was quite pretty to begin with, you had to admit, with her lithe figure and her luminous grey/green eyes that look decades wise beyond her years. But when her entire face lit up at your hesitant invitation, you knew already that she was someone you wanted to spend a lot of time around. The tenets of best friendship had been discovered between the two of you, and suddenly you were spending all your spare time with the mysterious Wanda over the next several weeks.
o O o O o
The more you learned about Wanda, the more she simultaneously mystified you. It seemed like she was being completely open with you, but at the same time it felt she was careful with what information she would disclose. Not with everything, but sometimes you felt like you weren’t getting the whole story. After a couple months of hanging out with her for at least an hour every other day, you wondered if you had managed to catch little more than a glimpse into her life. At the same time, all that time you spent together resulted in one of the closest friends you had had in years, ever since you had finished all of your post-secondary schooling and meeting people had become something of a nightmare. Even when your favourite yoga studio ending up closing down, you met with Wanda for coffee or lunch or drinks every other day. When she suggested the two of you take up jogging in an effort to keep fit without your class schedule routine to motivate you between your busy work schedule and relaxation time, suddenly that was a regular part of your morning as well.
Each day Wanda would meet you at the front door of your apartment building, looking way too chipper and gorgeous for someone who was out running at the butt-crack of dawn.
“This is ridiculous,” you groaned, about a week into the process. It was difficult for you to make the adjustment to those early mornings. You wrapped an elastic around a fistful of your hair to keep it out of your face, feeling crabby. You knew your knotted bun and loose-fitting sweatpants likely made you look like a complete and utter slob in opposition of Wanda’s sleek ponytail and elegant joggers, but you had absolutely no idea how she managed to get to your place looking like that every single morning. You felt like that garbage bag on the curb looked, which still hadn’t been picked up because it was just that early. “You don’t even need to exercise, you know that right? You look great. I feel like this has all be an elaborate prank on me, to trick me into going outside looking like a mess. You figured out that you look much hotter having me beside you in sweatpants, didn’t you? Just admit it!” The teasing grin on your face betrayed your attempts at sounding personally affronted.
Wanda stifled a laugh at your overdramatic tone. “A prank to get you outside and active? Sounds like a very lame prank. Besides, you look fine.” she asked.
“Don’t patronize me, Wanda,” you said staunchly, already starting to breathe a little heavier as you rounded the third corner and crossed with the lights. The pair of you headed towards the park, each with one earbud in your respective ears and chatting pleasantly over the sound of the music. As much as you hated exercise, you had to admit that morning in the city was beautiful and serene.
As Wanda shifted you both onto one of the less populated paths, you noticed that most of the people around you faded into the distance.
You carried on a little further, before you noticed a solitary very tall, very handsome young man stretching in the distance. Without meaning to you kept your eyes on his form, appreciating the way he moved as he stretched. Unfortunately, our complete lack of subtlety got you caught staring in no time flat, and his striking blue eyes met yours without a hint of embarrassment. Even with the distance of at least several feet between you, he seemed to know precisely what you were looking at. His lips quirked into a playful smile. You could see his eyes shift up to examine your hair with amusement. For a moment you mutually checked each other out, before you realized with a start what you were doing. The final straw was one he raised one hand up and offered you a casual wave, to show you that he had definitely caught you, and making it that much worse by acknowledging your existence. You silently turned away, flushing bright red, and freaked out a little about your disheveled appearance just as Wanda nudged your arm for your attention again. While you were distracted, the two of you had come across one of the park’s nearby water fountains. Wanda headed towards it to refill her water bottle. You followed her, leaning over on your knees to catch your breath.
“Did you see that guy?” you wheezed, looking up at her from your slouched position. You shifted your eyes in the direction you wanted her to look before leaning over and gulping down a few mouthfuls of the cool water, too. Wanda recapped the bottle she had just filled before stepping aside and shielding her eyes from the sun with both hands.
“What guy?” she asked, looking around. She twisted around to survey the entire area but didn’t see anyone aside from a few other early-risers walking their dogs down a perpendicular path in the distance. The park was otherwise empty as far as she could tell, and you had specifically taken an under-populated path to avoid having to move out of the way for bikers every 30 seconds.
“The hot blond guy over there,” you said, wiping your lips and nodding your head more directly in the direction the attractive stranger had been only a moment ago, still trying to be subtle in case he was still watching the two of you.
“…There’s literally nobody near to us? Are you getting heat-stroke?”
You whirled around and looked in the direction the handsome stranger had been standing. Wanda was right, he definitely wasn’t there anymore. There wasn’t anyone walking away either, he had simply vanished into thin air.
After a moment, you shrugged. “I swear I saw him just a second ago, but… You know what, maybe you’re right. All this exercise is clearly just terrible for me, Wanda, maybe we should call it quits.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she laughed, bumping into you and playfully forcing you to pick up your pace to keep stride with her again. She didn’t even have the decency to sound slightly winded while she talked to you. “Less talking, more jogging!”
“Ugh, have mercy, Wanda!”
For the rest of your jog, however, you couldn’t help but be slightly distracted. No matter how hard you tried to spot that guy again, he never materialized. You were pretty sure he had been there, though, even if you couldn’t explain where he had gone. You certainly hadn’t felt that reactive heat immediately rush to your cheeks for nothing at all, and you were pretty sure it wasn’t sun-stroke. He had waved at you, for goodness sake. If that had just been a hallucination… well, at the very least you had to admit your subconscious had damn good taste.
The next morning, you were already waiting at the door when Wanda came to a stop outside the apartment building’s door. She was shocked when you opened the door as she raised her fist to knock on the wood. It was also a surprise to see that you had made an honest effort to look nice for your work out, when you were usually an advocate for just looking average or below since the goal was to work up a sweat anyway.
“Hey, can we take the same route we did yesterday?” you asked as you set off down the street in tandem. Wanda shrugged and set the pace again, the same brisk jog you had taken the day before. This time you were much more energized and talkative; you were looking forward to making it to the park, hoping to catch sight of that guy who had somehow managed to elude you the day before. Your curiosity had been peaked, and you were always the kind of girl who made something her mission when she was faced with a challenge. You had talked about him more with Wanda when you had stopped at the coffee shop after your run, and you swore there was something that she wasn’t saying when you mentioned the intensity of his electric blue eyes, but she resisted and deflected your attempts to get her to spill what she was hiding with ease.
To say you were disappointed when you jogged through the entire park route without encountering your target for even a second was a bit of an understatement. You caught no sight of any handsome blond strangers, and you couldn’t hide your frustration. Wanda teased you afterwards about your crush on someone you hadn’t even met, and after your run for the next three days while you continued to insist you take the same path day after day.
Until finally, there he was.
You knew your persistence would have to pay off eventually!
It seemed like he had caught sight of you first; you glanced up from laughing at something Wanda had said and were met with shockwaves from his warm blue gaze regarding you with something akin to sincere enthusiasm. You stopped dead in your tracks and seized Wanda’s arm in a steel grip, pulling her close and stopping her mid-step. She stumbled, looking almost as surprised as you were. The blond was already striding towards the two of you with purpose.
“That’s him!” you exclaimed under your breath. “That’s the guy from the other day, the really cute one who disappeared!”
“You have got to be kidding me,” laughed Wanda, covering her mouth with the hand you weren’t currently squeezing all the feeling out of. You stared at her open-mouthed for a second, noticing that the blond seemed to be smiling familiarly at your companion, almost like he knew her. You felt a flare of nervousness and jealousy for a moment, before Wanda turned away to conceal peals of laughter that were slipping out. Clearly there was some joke here that you just weren’t getting. The guy seemed as though he were trying to hold back some laughter of his own as he approached, but neither of them explained what was so funny to you. You glanced between the two of them furtively, waiting for one of them to tell you what was going on before you opened your big mouth and managed to make a bigger fool of yourself.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said warmly as he approached. He had the same accent as Wanda, you recognized it immediately as Sokovian this time after spending so much time around Wanda.
“Good morning,” answered Wanda. “Surprised to see you out and about so early in the morning. Following me again?” Her voice sounded agitated, though there was no bite to her words. You furrowed your eyebrows at her briefly, not understanding her words in the slightest. You had meant to reply ‘good morning’ as well but your voice stuck in your throat when you needed it, so you just opted to smile politely instead.
The handsome blond ignored Wanda pointedly, repositioning himself to he was properly facing you and more of less blocking the shorter young woman from your line of sight. “Who is your pretty friend, Wanda?” the man asked, taking one of your hands in his unabashedly, bowing slightly, and kissing your knuckles gently. “I’m Pietro, pretty friend. Pietro Maximoff, Wanda’s brother. It is certainly a pleasure to meet you,” he added.
Wanda rolled her eyes with an amused snort, doubly so when she noticed the way your eyes practically had stars shining in them from that small greeting alone. She pushed her brother backwards creating space between the two of you, speaking tersely in Sokovian while stopping Pietro a few steps further away. He let go of your hand as the distance increased, but he winked and curled his tongue against his lips teasingly when you looked up at him again. His hands came up defensively as Wanda closed in on him, laughing at his sister’s exasperated expression, “I’m only asking for her name, Wanda! You have such little faith in me!”
You quietly offered your name when Pietro asked again. He thanked you warmly and offered to join you for the remainder of your run, but Wanda laughed sharply and the two of them began to argue again. There wasn’t any real malice in their tone, so you assumed it was little more than sibling rivalry. You wrung your hands nervously, glancing between them awkwardly. Pietro grinned in success, while Wanda turned back to you with her exasperated expression still firmly in place.
“I can’t believe your ‘handsome stranger’ is my brother,” she said, turning to you accusingly. Her voice told you she was mildly annoyed, but the curve of her mouth revealed her wry amusement underneath. You weren’t surprised to hear they were related after they had said so, honestly, even when she added that they were twins. It was certainly easy to see the family resemblance between them, and the sibling rivalry was apparent without question. Not only that, but the same unique lilting accent they both spoke with was a dead giveaway. “Of all the people who were out and about that morning, Pietro had to be the one who caught your eye?”
You shrugged, quickly averting your eyes so you wouldn’t have to see the cocky look that immediately spread on Pietro’s face at hearing your blatant interest in him.
“Well, I had best be going, I’ll see you back home, Wanda. Pretty friend, I will be joining you for your run tomorrow, so please look forward to seeing me. I will certainly be looking forward to seeing more of you,” he said to you without an ounce of shame, sending a jolt through you when you quickly looked back to him and found yourself met with his heated stare appraising you again.
In the blink of an eye he had disappeared into thin air, leaving little more than a few tendrils of silver matter that quickly evaporated in his wake. Wanda slapped a hand to her forehead when she realized he was gone, smiling weakly when you turned your dumbfounded expression towards her.
“Seriously,” she groaned, sensing that your friendship was definitely about to undergo some serious changes. Perhaps for the better, but who knew where Pietro was involved? “It just had to be Pietro, didn’t it?”