“It's all right. You could never hurt me. I just feel you.” - Vision

Since we gained a glimpse of how their relationship had progressed in “Avengers: Infinity War,” people have seen fit to make light of the relationship that Wanda and Vision shared. Joking that "she fell in love with her vibrator", or that she "fell in love with a computer". Making light of the love she had found in the space that allowed her to be herself.

And really, isn’t that all any of us ever want?

We want someone to love us regardless of who we are. Regardless of who we’ve been. Regardless of what everyone sees. Someone who finds their own peace in the space we occupy - enough to love us, and love themselves in that same space.

We remember that Vision himself taught us, “A thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts.”

Vision was created as an algorithm, a machine to help others. Once given his own form, he was still unsure of what to make of his time in the human world. He never tried to be anything other than he was, and his observations were plain while avoiding naivete. He was brilliantly intelligent, without being overbearing or insufferable. And he was childlike in his belief in people, without ever letting his guard down.

“I’ve always been alone, so I don’t feel the lack. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

Wanda had once been a young girl, full of life. She lost her parents, and her innocence at a very young age. She volunteered for an experiment that changed her life in more unimaginable ways. She volunteered to join the Avengers, and lost her brother. Her life was surrounded by loss, grief, anger, hurt, abuse, and doubt. Any time she tried to take agency, something went terribly wrong. In an attempt to save Captain America, she killed many innocent Wakandans. In an effort to save Vision, she remained to see him brought BACK to life, and killed.

“You are my sadness, and you are my hope. But mostly, you are my love.”

We don’t understand the depths of grief in such a place, because many of us could not imagine dwelling there. Many of us could not imagine doing it alone. It makes sense, then, that she would find solace in a being that saw her not as a killer, not as an experiment, and not even as a twin. But as a woman who stood on her own. Understanding the reasons she made the choices she made, even when she went with Clint to fight the Civil War on Cap’s behalf, Vision never made her feel guilty for leaving. He simply reminded her that others will never see her as he does if she continues down a path of violence.

Don’t we all want to be loved without judgment? Don’t we all want someone who can approach us with their own confusion, and not heap it upon us to figure out? Someone who is as scared of the future as we are, but who is willing to work through it with us? 

Don’t we want someone who can trust us, standing in the face of our big and bad uglies, the power that scares ourselves, who can tell us “It’s alright. You could never hurt me. I just feel you”?

We want that. We deserve that. She had that, when all was said and done - and their love deserves more than reductive memes that would remind us that he was a computer.

What is it that sets us apart from computers? Is it feelings? Is it understanding? Is it a heartbeat?

What is it that makes any of us less worthy of love? Is it a past? Is it understanding? Is it...a heartbeat? Or is it, for lack of a better term, a lack of vision? One that would reduce our understanding of love to that between two people in the ways that we understand?

And when it comes to understanding love, we must remember that grief is little more than love persevering.