Don’t wanna leave you anymore
Wanda felt so much grief, that she felt momentarily paralyzed– and blind. She felt blind. She couldn’t breathe, or see, or notice the way she was dressed, or where she was or think of anything aside from the fact that she was alive and she couldn’t help but want to be anything but.
She had fought for so long, so many years alone–fate lied to her, by making it seem like she wouldn’t be alone, but none of it would last, and she was just an idiot for thinking that it would–and yet… yet, she was still here. She was still supposed to keep fighting? Wasn’t destroying the Darkholds enough? Wasn’t taking the full weight of Mount Wundagore down on her enough? Couldn’t she have gone out with a good act, and a bang? Couldn’t she leave this world where she lost every fucking little thing that mattered to her?
Couldn’t she just… get a break?
Apparently not.
There was a pounding in her head, or a stinging, or a-- whatever it was, it was annoyingly persistently there, and irritatingly familiar. She brought a hand to rub at her forehead, and was not unpleasantly surprised, when she felt the also familiar sensation of metal against her forehead– her rings. Something she had taken off, and left years ago.
She focused back into the presence, only now starting to hear a saddeningly familiar voice, one speaking in Sokovian.
(why is she waking up in her brother’s arms???)
“Wanda, Wanda, Wanda! Јеси добро? Wanda, о Боће. Молим те, молим те, буди добро. Не моће ти наудити сада, ја сам овде, сестро. Молим вас. одговорите ми. Wanda, љта се то овде моће? (Serbian-Cyrillic/Sokovian; Wanda– Wanda– Wanda!! Are you okay? Wanda, oh god– I will kill that archer. Please, please be okay. He cannot harm you now, I am here, sister. Please. Respond to me. Wanda?).”
Wanda’s eyes flicker, red, then blue. “Pietro?” Her voice cracks, in a way she is so tired of hearing, because she thought she was done with this. The Pietro nightmares stopped years ago, and she was sure that Vision had helped her move on from her grief about her late other half. Pietro hadn’t haunted her in such a long time, and why was he back now? Why was he back in yet another worst day of her life. It was unfortunate, but she was most certain that she had had more worse days in her life than she ever had best days.
She has lost everything, and lost her chance to escape life again , because of her powers and she is so tired of it, so so tired of it, she can’t keep doing this. Can’t keep fighting and be given no reprieve–well, Vision, and her kids, and Pietro were some reprieve, but does it really count, when their loss becomes the next big fight?–over and over again.
She was so done.
Sobs began to spill out of her, like a bucket overfilled with grief, loss, disappointment–oh, she was definitely disappointed–pain, and anguish and then it turned into laughter. Because it was just so ridiculous, so hilarious, so funny that fate would do this to her. Pietro looks all around him–he must be scanning the area, in a way he used to do a lot–before he runs in his speed, for a short while, a small burst of speed, to take them into a room, (she hears a faint groan of a man), as she falls off his arms, and onto her arms and knees.
Whose great idea was it to give a life of never-ending loss and pain to the Scarlet Witch that could not only rule, or enslave, the entire multiverse, but also absolutely demolish the multiverse too?
Her lungs burn, in need of air, that she refuses to take in. If she can die by laughing, then that might just be as poetic as dying in her ‘last good act’–some fucking last act that turned out to be–so she refuses to breathe, and just keeps letting her lungs burn, until it hurts enough that new tears gather at the corners of her eyes, but she has been through worse, so she pushes on.
Keeps laughing. Laughing. Laughing, like it’s the most hilarious, because it just kind of is. Everything is a joke, but she’s not the one who gets to enjoy it, no Life or Fate or fucking whatever has decided to make her the punchline. Every. Fucking. Time. Her entire life is the joke, and she is the one taking the brunt of the joke, and she is the punchline, and she is just so done crying about it, so she will laugh at it, even if she’s not the one meant to laugh about it.
“Молим те, престани. Плаљиљ ме, Wanda. Станите! Ово виље није добро за тебе!!Станите, станите, станите! Шта радиш?! Молим вас! Станите , станите! Помолиш се- стани, молим те (serbian cyrillic/sokovian, Sister– sister, stop– please. You are scaring me, Wanda. Sister, stop. Stop. Stop! This isn’t good for you anymore!! Stop, sister! What are you doing?! Please! Stop! You’re turning blue– stop, please please, please! breathe!).”
Then suddenly she sees something like skin–a fist–and then feels a sharp pain meet her nose, and just for a second, it goes a very faint white. Pain blooms, in a way that doesn’t really hurt but is still very surprising.
Someone fucking punched her.
Her .
Someone punched the Scarlet Witch. America barely survived doing that to her. She will fucking slaughter whoever did that to her and stopped her from laughing–
“Ти јебаиу! (serbian cyrillic/sokovian, you fucker!).” She brings her gaze up, to glare at whoever had the audacity and–
Why is Pietro still here? ( Who is that man groaning in the background??? She would look, if she cared enough to lift her head)
In nightmares, or dreams, whatever or wherever this is, no one stays this long. That’s the whole point of– she’s– is she dreamwalking? Did she dreamwalk? No– no, she hasn’t… So then why hasn’t she woken up? Most of her dreams never last this long. That was the cruelty of her dreams, a short paradise, just enough to keep her hoping, keep her trying to make herself happy, keep her tethered to life, and then long living hell of a nightmare life, where she’s brought down to her knees again and again, but she stays because of the short moments in paradise that she gets.
Is she… lucid dreaming? Could one as aware of the Multiverse… do that? She would be very pissed if she was lucid dreaming, because the Multiverse puts her through enough of these little moments of paradise that is really just torture in the form of showing her what she can’t have, and her mind doesn’t need to start participating . No participating, please, mind. She– she read somewhere, or Vision told her that pinching yourself actually didn’t work very well, because it was all too easy to dream yourself into doing the act, and it wouldn’t do anything but–
She raises her hand, wrapped in Chaos Magic, and aims it at her brain, and sends a wisp inside her own head to hopefully wake herself, but all it does is concern Pietro, because he cries out in confusion and stress and pulls her hand back down, telling her to stop again–hold up, did Pietro punch her?!–she gives up on waking up (if a blast of Chaos Magic doesn’t wake up her brain in the real world, either what’s happening is real, or she’s stuck here and honestly, yeah, okay, works for her, coma in a world or dream with a concerned Pietro there is great).
She lets her arm fall down to her side, lifts her brow, and holds off on tilting her head as she asks– “Did you punch me?”
Pietro starts to stammer. "W-well, yu werrn't– I was cuncerned– yu wuldn't– yu werr going to make yurself faint, and yu wuldn't stop. I didint know what to do."
"So you punched me?" Wanda asked, in disbelief. Whatever stupid dream or universe this was, her brother was an idiot . She touched her nose, relieved that her fast healing still took effect in this universe.
“Did you have a psychotic break or something?” Says yet another familiar voice.
She turns her head, “Clint?”
This was… a really weird dream or universe.
(Weirder than the one she had stumbled into during her sleep where she had been some sort of Scarlet Witch alien looking for some impostor– she might have been the impostor, she doesn't remember.)
She looks around, as Clint stares at her with wide and suspicious eyes, and Pietro hovers by her side, concerned as he always is. Overly concerned, but it's comforting to know he doesn't change.
Clint raises his hand to his comms–Wanda feels on edge, alert, by instinct–and he says "the enhanced are incapacitated. I think twin one–Wanda Maximoff–needs some help."
Wanda blinked.
She finally took the time to look around. She recognized this place, it didn't appear in her nightmares for long, but it did before. Once or twice, during Ultron. After Clint had…
"Did you zap me, Clint?"
"Mind reading ain't my thing," he replies. "Tried it, hated it."
Where's her accent?' , Clint thinks.
She raises her mental walls back up. She's not up for hearing everyone's thoughts again. She used to, in her time of grief and mourning for Pietro, but never told anyone she couldn't really control it, and just learned to keep a straight face and tune it down to focus on Vision only if/when she could. It's invasive to everyone, including her, and her mental psyche was far far from being stable enough for invasive of any kind.
And did this Wanda still use her… wait… no–
This wasn't an alternate universe–which also means this isn't a dream, because she sure as hell didn't dreamwalk, and if dying–did she die??? That was still a very big question mark for her–didn't count as sleeping then…
Is she back in Ultron's time?
She knew Alternate universes, and at least, at any time, there were always a few differences, and aside from the fact that she woke up earlier–with an older consciousness–and Pietro took her into the room he had shoved Clint into, instead of running with her in her arms, there was nothing different she could tell from her memory and… If there was nothing different from her memories, and the same people that had been in the fight before were in the fight now, and they were at the same place, with…
Either this was a really really identical universe and the only difference was that someone somewhere got a different coffee, or this was her universe and it wasn't that her alternate universe Pietro or dream brother was an idiot, it was that her brother was an idiot.
She forgot about that a little bit in their years away from each other. Idolized him so much and forgot that he was this impulsive, even when they were young and Wanda was formulating plans to get what she wanted from the playground bullies that would hog things, Pietro was the type to just run up to them and pick a fight– which meant that Wanda had to join, for twin solidarity, because who else would have his back if not her (and vice versa)?
Multiverses were often formed when new small decisions were made that spiral into bigger things, sometimes just for one person, sometimes for the whole world. Most times, if she dreamed herself into another universe, she always noticed some difference, before she woke up, because of course, The Scarlet Witch–and her variants–would always be in a position to feel a change in her world. There was just a general shift, difference in the air. She could always feel it in her bones, especially near the time she would start waking. A sense that told her this wasn't her life. Now that she was sobering up, and laying attention, not only to her familiar surroundings, but also to herself, she realized she couldn't feel that sense.
So then where the fuck was she because this was apparently her world.
Pietro was alive. Clint had just zapped her, and referred to her as enhanced, and a twin, and she knew this place-- could feel Tony, Steve, and Natasha’s mind and…
Did she really time travel?
She knew it existed, since the Avengers got them all back--she didn’t really ask for that, but whatever works for them--through means of time travel, but they had achieved such a phenomena through science and logic, and technology and something called a Quantum Realm. She was a being of magic. Did her magic really just displace herself in time instead of letting her die?
Wanda took a breath, and turns towards Clint.
“Are we enemies?”
Clint stares at her with confused, narrowed eyes. “We told you to walk away, you’re-”
“So I’ll take that as a yes…” Wanda said, cutting him off, and turning towards her brother. “Did we join Ultron?”
Pietro stares at her with ‘what the fuck’’ eyes, and she doesn’t blame him, if this really is her reality, and she just time travelled, and woke up after being zapped with an arrow, and started trying to laugh herself to death (which caused her to get punched), then stayed silent for several minutes before asking a bunch of questions she should already know-- she would feel just as Pietro’s expression looks right now.
Pietro nods, slowly, like he’s dealing with a child. “Yes… yes, we wurk with Ultron… Are you okay, Wanda?”
She tries not to laugh at that question.
Wanda nods--which then again makes her want to laugh, because she is so done with frowning, and crying, because she has just lied to her brother and she never liked lying to her brother, but now it came to her so naturally--and feels their bond again. Feels his sense of deceit, and his begrudging acceptance because he’s rushed.
She missed this bond.
Wanda decides to say fuck it to logic, fuck it to figuring out where she is and if things are really real, or if this isn’t her world--she’s got most of those questions answered anyway, there’s just the trouble of her being sure about it, because Fate is a really tricky bitch, and takes her away from her happy moments in the Multiverse once she has her guard down--and instead rushes forward to wrap her arms around Pietro.
She may have wished for death, but if this is a second chance at life, then okay, that works too.
Pietro’s strong and comforting hands wrap around her smaller body in return, his muscles flex and stretch that blue top of his, and ohmygodshemissedhimsomuch–
“Wanda?” Pietro starts, “This is really sweet--and confusing--of you, and I love hugs and all but… we’re in battle right now. What are you doing?”
Clint snorts from the side, and Wanda, in her irritation--because Clint, shut up, they were having a moment, you weren’t even supposed to be there--flicks her wrist towards him and scarlet tendrils wrap around his head, covering his mouth and keeping him quiet.
“Just please… let me have this.”
“Okay…”
Wanda takes in his scent--slightly bad idea, he was sweating, like, a lot--and the feel of his comforting and strong body against her, ensuring a feeling of safety and protection deep into her bones, and their bond strengthens after years of not being there, like it was never gone at all, and oh god she’s so happy, she feels like she’s with her kids again, because Family is really just the only thing that has ever made her feel this safe and happy, and she has missed her brother so much, even more than she missed Vision if that was possible, and she didn’t even know because she had been so focused in making sure her grief for him stayed in the past, that she ignored the fact that she would never actually be over the loss of him.
No matter how Vision made her feel, there would be no one like her other half to complete her. The Greek myths spoke of soulmates and Pietro was quite literally that for her, her forever platonic soulmate, because just the same way they had been born together, they were meant to always live together, as two halves of one whole soul.
She decides to think later, and only stay in his embrace now
…
“MMHHHHHH!!!!! MHMHMH!!! MHHH!!”
Fuck you too, Clint.
Wanda grumbles as she lets go of Pietro, but feels much better when Pietro keeps his hand on hers, and holds her hand, reminding her that he’s still there--somehow, because this is a very long dream if it is a dream--and he’s not going away (hopefully he can keep that unspoken promise this time).
Wanda flicks her hand and frees him, then speaks before he can--she knows him, even if he doesn’t know her, and she knows just how much he can speak and complain if she let him and they do not have the three hours for that--and she says;
“Shut up. We’re leaving, and we’re going to go back with Ultron, but we’re not going to be with him, we’re going to be like inside spies--Pietro, shut up too, and trust me--and you won’t say a word of this to anyone, unless you’re like, I don’t know, really sure you’re safe to say things? Or just don’t tell anyone. It all works out for me either way, as long as I get to come back with Ultron, and supervise him.”
She gets up, and holds her hand out, one leg ready to get off the ground, and Pietro notices, and takes her hand and lifts her and takes her away, even though he has a million questions running through his head at the same super-speed that he runs at, and trust that she knows what she means when she says she has a million questions, it is very disorienting, and she focuses to put her mental wall back up, because sometime during their hug, and in her feeling of safety, she must have let it go back down.
God forbid this be a dream, because she will really fulfill that dumb prophecy and ruin the entire fucking Multiverse if Fate plays another trick on her. She is past grieving, and moved right into an anger and revenge mindset.
⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰
Wanda prepares herself to go through the motions, repeating her past words and actions, and waiting for everything to just be over. Pietro takes her outside, like he did the last time, but instead, this time she is fine, because she knows how to heal herself if her healing doesn’t kick in, not that it hasn’t, it has, it killed the annoying headache that was there a few minutes ago.
She turns to the side, she remembers her lines-- ‘I want the big one’ --but considering she now knows they’re not really their enemy just because they are associated with Tony Stark. Yes, of course she still very much hates Tony Stark. Her anger against him has always been far deeper, and far darker than her brother, who has always been so much better, so much better compared to her.
(Many times before she has wondered if the right twin died that day, and she knows the answer; no, the right twin did not die that day. Pietro deserved a life far more than she did, he would have made something far better of it than she did).
She stares at Bruce and wonders ‘do they really need to take him away’? It might affect fate if she doesn’t, and cause damage so, with an internal sigh, she speaks--
“I want to feenish the plahn.” She turns, looking in Bruce’s direction. “I want tha big one.”
Pietro turns towards Bruce, and he looks so confused (poor guy).
It doesn’t take long, Wanda doesn’t even have to magically speedwalk--that genuinely sounds ridiculous to her, but she holds off on the laughter, Pietro might just pop with stress if she laughs out of nowhere again--to Bruce, no. Pietro picks her up and runs her through the distance, and as they pass by him, she sends a flick of Chaos Magic, because she has always been able to focus and keep track of Pietro even as he moves in super speed.
Twin bond, and all that.
Did she need to have him run? No. She knew that she could reach that distance with her magic, she had done far longer distances even in Ultron time, when she reached into everyone’s minds and made sure they were evacuating, and she had done far worse than let people see their worst nightmares at a wide radius in WestView.
Her heart still sinks at the memory of WestView, all the people she hurt (by accident) in search of happiness.
Then, she thinks, does she have all her power? Because she hasn’t dream-walked into a new universe, and assuming this is time travel, that would mean she was in her Ultron-age body, which meant… Did she lose that power? She would be devastated if it turns out she had lost most of her power, and for the second time, wouldn’t be strong enough to protect everything that matters to her until it was too late. Now that she’s thought of it, no other question or thought will leave her mind, because it is the exact sort of cruel thing that Fate would put her through.
A second chance at life. A few more moments with the people she loves. The awareness of everything to come– and none of the power needed to stop it.
She worries as Wanda places her down, with Hulk in the background, causing disaster and leaving wreckage. All they had to do was hide away for a while, until he passed by them.
Then Pietro spins her around, and sits her down, like she’s a doll. She lets this happen with a measly roll of the eyes, and a raised brow.
“Now. Explain.” Pietro demands, his hands on his hips-- it reminds her of Steve, in the mornings that he cooked breakfast, apron around his neck and covering his body, as he tells her, with a spatula pointed at her, to go to training or take something seriously or that they’ll be having a group bonding session later.
“Noh.” Wanda says simply.
Pietro stumbles over his words. He wasn’t expecting that. He settles for whining a “But why?!?!? I’m so confused, Wanda. Plees explain. Pleaaaseee!”
“Noh.” She repeats, and gets up, “We huv things to do, an’ no-time fur me to tell yu whut happened.” Her accent on her tongue feels like coming home, just as Pietro’s hugs feel like.
She wonders which twin is older, and not in age, but in mentality. It should be her, yes? Even without her older conscience, if her brother whines like this, then does he not relinquish the right to say he is the older one?
She kids, even in her own head. She loves her (older) twin brother as he is. Immature whines and all. He keeps happy, and keeps innocence, and he is the light to her dark, and he is perfect as he is.
“Soo sumting did hapen!” Pietro exclaims.
“Yes.” She answers back calmly.
“Arr we reelly going to help Tony Stark? Betray Ultron?”
“Yes.” She decides that even if she can’t explain, she’ll allow him his questions as they walk through the streets to get back to Ultron. Pietro leads from behind, his hand on her arm to make her take a turn if she’s walking into the wrong direction. She’s glad he knows where they’re going and knows that she absolutely has no clue. She doesn’t remember anymore where Ultron and they resided. That was so long ago for her.
Pietro jogs up a little to catch up with her, so that he can turn and look at her, and share his confused face.
“Why?! Tony Stark is a bad man!”
“...Okay, yes, absolutely, but Ultron is worse.”
“How is he wurs? All he has done is help us! Tony Stark killed ar pahrentts-”
“I know that, Piet. But Von Strucker ‘helped’ us too, but that dusn’t make him a good man.”
“Tony Stark is--”
“Yes, I hate him too. But please, Piet, believe me when I tell you that absolutely nuthing good will come of helping Ultron. His plans du nut align with us, and he will dump us tha moment we arr not of use to him. I am not letting that happen. So we arr dumping him, beforr he dumps us. Ulso, His plans align with world annihilation”
“What?!” Pietro squawks, appalled.
Funny.
Do not laugh, Wanda.
Wanda keeps walking, and he grips her arm harder and steers her to the right--in an alley, really?--and she follows.
“Yeah,” She replies nonchalantly as he walks the narrow path that she thought was an alley, but turns out it was just a really sketchy passageway. She absolutely does not remember this, and doesn’t even know where they’re heading to, and she really hopes that Pietro does, he seems to, but she also knows better .
“So why don’t we just stop him arselves, why don’t we just-- what arr yu planning, sister?”
She doesn’t know.
“He’s evil. A bad man--or, well… robot--and he has horrible plans, yes, but he dus one good thing and I need him to do dat good thing, beforr we can even tink of taking him down-” She thinks of that past sensation of phantom bullets tearing through her skin from the back and out the front, multiple bullets, and the immediate, abrupt and brutal severing of her bond with Pietro, then the empty feeling that comes when 12 minutes has long passed and only after removing Ultron’s heart, has she avenged him. “-with the Avengers. We are not doing this alone.”
“We could-”
“We will not.” Her tone is steel, and she dares Pietro to argue with her, with glowing red eyes. Pietro does not.
Good for him.
⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰
“Wanda. Pietro.” Ultron greets, his arms wide. “You disappeared during the fight.”
“That we did.” Pietro says. “Vun of them– the archer was ready for her, and he zapped her. I took her out to heal and well, we sent the Hulk, once we were outside, and she was better.”
Ultron smiled, and Wanda felt nauseous, and he said “Ah, yes. You two never disappoint.”
She took solace in the memory of slowly pulling his core heart out.
Then she remembers.
Oh god , the nausea comes back tenfold, and she nearly doubles over and retches. She’s horrified as she remembers just what she remembered in her original timeline, as she healed from Clint’s arrow zap.
Natasha. She put Natasha through that. She knew just how bad flashbacks could get–trauma and all that–and she didn’t regret it back then, didn’t even think of it back then during Ultron’s time (at least until after Pietro died), because she had been so sure Natasha was the enemy, and in being so sure she was doing the right thing, she had done something unspeakable in bringing all her memories back up with her magic.
Back then, she had thought it was just nightmares, but to people like Natasha–people like her, too, that had lived out their worst nightmares–it wasn’t just nightmares, it was memories. And memories were far harder to shake away than nightmares.
But she is not the Wanda from back then, she is the Wanda that has stayed in a room right next to Natasha’s and heard her cries and whimpers, and the rattle of chains–cuffs–and lived through her nightmares because she remembered what she brought up in Natasha’s memories, or her mental walls were down and Natasha’s dreams were strong enough to pierce through her mind.
She is the Wanda that knows she has to do something about that, lest she destroy her second life already, and kill any possible chance of getting to befriend Natasha on better terms.
“I have to go.”
“What?” Pietro and Ultron say in sync. “Where are you going? I’ll cume with/You shouldn’t go wherever you’re going alone.”
“I need to go–...” She pauses when they both dare to ask her where she’s going, both of them ready to follow her and trail her like lost puppies. Pietro, she understands, because he’s protective like that, but Ultron, she does not like. “Do you have a bathroom? I have my period.”Wanda asked, smiling sarcastically.
Pietro falters. He regrets asking now. Good. Fucking good. Ultron seems uncomfortable, but as a bot, he is far past the human flaw of fidgeting. Ultron gives her the directions, and does not follow. She thinks she might have caught a ghost of a smile on Helen Cho’s face. She throws one last at the direction Vision was in, prepared to ask about it later, to make sure things are as they are, then goes on her way to the bathroom.
She enters–fancy–and enters a stall. Takes a deep breath–takes a second to fear regretting it in case of horrible smells, but is pleasantly surprised when her nose isn’t assaulted with vileness–and calms her mind. She hopes this works, because if she doesn’t have her Chaos Magic, and she has to go through this life all over again, knowing what’s to happen but being too powerless to change it, she will make sure Vision does not save her from the fall of Sokovia this turn. Second chances at life be damned.
She feels the familiar and near comforting feeling as the form around her changes, and she smiles when she sees that she’s changed clothes. Into her Scarlet Witch clothing, then she changes again, into what she wore when she left WestView, and hopes again in her mind that this works.
She flicks her wrist and moves through space, reappears in a secluded spot, hidden in the shadows, right behind Natasha.
She freezes. She holds her breath. She prays to God that she doesn’t get noticed, no matter how unlikely that is. Then she calls upon her Chaos Magic again, and hopes to god she can cast illusions as well as change reality, because if she can change reality, then illusions must be much easier, yes? An illusion to blend in with her surroundings. Be invisible.
She sees Natasha start to turn, and her heart rate quickens.
Let this work let this work let this work let this work let this—
Natasha turns towards her, and looks right past her, and does not acknowledge her.
It worked.
Never again is she going to try new powers in time of immediate need, she needs to practice these sorts of things to make sure she knows how things work. Her heart takes a minute to start slowing down, and she uses that minute to look around and make sure no one is turned around and facing Natasha, she bites back a groan when she notes Clint looking at Natasha with worried eyes.
He could be a bad father figure but he couldn’t be a bad friend for just 10 seconds? Really? She rolls her eyes. She stands for a moment, staring back at Clint, wondering if she should telepathically turn him to look away or just make him turn his head.
He looks away on his own, eventually.
With a quiet sigh–and another moment of tense silence, because Natasha heard her sigh–she lifts her hand up and mutters a quiet apology, that has Natasha whipping around, but it’s too late by then, her magic has made contact with Natasha’s mind, and she’s in there.
Instead of causing mayhem inside her mind, or bringing out yet another one of her worst memories, she takes the memories of her worst nightmares that she pulled out, and stuffs them back into the compartments that Natasha has, behind the mental walls–woah, those are tall–she has put up to protect herself from her memories (and from others). And she also adds in their location, into their memories. She can’t afford to leave this to chance anymore, she knows it happens and they find Ultron eventually, but she needs them to do it sooner this time. She will hurry everything up for them.
Then she gets out of there, and moves out of the way of her sweep, as she pulls out her gun, Wanda has crouched down and this is a new kind of low, because she’s on her knees in front of Natasha, and her face is at level with… and she did not think this through, because she absolutely forgot to put into the factor that she has such a crush on Natasha that has never went away, since the moment she first saw the woman in their raid into Von Strucker’s base.
Some Scarlet Witch she is, down on her knees in front of her crush. Is it possible for one’s mentality to regress with her body? Because she’s supposed to be older and therefore better than this, and definitely above this behaviour. Then again, it’s hard to be above anything when she’s trying not to stare at the Black Widow’s crotch.
‘Pietro!!’ , she calls, even though she knows he can’t help, because even after all these years, and all this power, one of her first instincts is always to call for Pietro and wait for him to make things better, especially the awkward situations she couldn’t use her powers to get out of.
Powers. Get out of. Yes! She doesn’t need Pietro, she can just use her powers and get out.
She flicks her hand again–hope to god there wasn’t a trace of Chaos Magic that she left behind in her disappearing act–and finds herself back in her stall, back in her old clothes (she would be lying if she said she didn’t miss her old style, with stolen eyeliner, smoky eye shadow, rings adorning her long fingers, dresses, thigh-high socks, and so on) and she is so glad , that it takes her a few moments to realize she’s facing a door, crouched in a bathroom stall.
New lows, indeed.
She gets up, brushes her dress off and opens the door, exiting with grace that she summons, because she is The Scarlet Witch , and she is even better than a Queen, and she will not let her new lows take her regality away.
Black latex appears in her mind.
A red flush on her blush accompanies the memory.
Her blush stays far past its welcome.
She approaches the sink, and wash her hands, and spray her face with water.
She looks into the mirror.
‘Second chance, Wanda.’ She tells herself as she stares into her own red eyes. ‘You have all your abilities (+ invisibility), memories of the future, and you have Pietro by your side. You’ve got this.’
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“I cun read him,” she says, and doesn’t even have to pretend to be amazed, because even if she has felt this before, has felt this a million times in that short glimpse into what a life with Vision would be like, before Thanos, it still amazes her. More so now, after what feels like eternities of not being able to feel his mind. “He is… dreaming.” She can feel her lips tug up into a smile.
“I wouldn’t call it dreams.” counters Helen— right, Wanda remembers, she needs to free her. “It’s Ultron’s base consciousness, informational noise. Soon, I’ll-”
“--How soon?” Ultron interrupts. “I’m not being pushy,” he says like an afterthought.
Wanda doesn’t pay him, or them any attention, she knows what Vision feels like, and it is… it is like comfort and warm days in sunlight and it is not informational noise. She approaches him, and gets ready for the sight of world annihilation that she doesn’t even need. But she reaches out anyway, as Helen talks to Ultron in the background.
As soon as her fingertips land square on it, the image comes rushing right into her head, sudden, brash and the complete opposite of gentle, and comforting like Vision’s mind.
The Earth, a wide range blast. It hurts. It hurts more than Clint’s zap, even if she has been through worse, it still hurts, because the image forces its way into her mind–Vision must have been desperate to make sure she sees it–and it is never pleasant, even if she got a third life.
She can fake the cry out–god knows she has actually cried out enough to know how to make the noise on purpose–but she’s dreading it, so she makes her fingers stay, linger there just a second more. She wonders if she really needs to, if she can just free Helen on her own. She could… could even protect Helen and Pietro by herself, and destroy Ultron all on her own…
But then what about the events that lead to Vision’s birth?
She wouldn’t be able to handle it if in her impatience to get things over with, she ends up killing the man she loves (again… she has done it too many times).
So she cries out. She repeats the conversation, as if it is new to her. She has become a good actress since WandaVision, even better by the time Strange had… she doesn’t know why she screwed up then and said America’s name, she knew Strange never said it.
As they argue, and as Ultron monologues, she frees Helen, and gets ready for the next turn of events.
Pietro is a good actor too, she notices, especially for someone who has been told not even two hours ago that the world annihilation thing was his plan. Or maybe he just forgot that she told him. His brain works too fast, thinks too much, to hold on to everything it goes through, everything that is told to him.
Pietro presses a kiss to the side of her head, one hand on her jaw, tilting her head up just a little because of their height difference. It’s just like she remembers him doing, and she closes her eyes for a few seconds, savouring it. Just in case. There are still many things that can go wrong from here, or it could still not be real or lasting.
He looks up. “There’s incoming.” She knows. “The Quinjet.” She knows. “We have to move.”
She suppresses a smile, and can feel Pietro’s eyes on her, see a ghost of a smirk on his face, one of pride. He’s proud of her. She tries to pretend she doesn’t feel happy and validated because of that, after years of people not being proud, or even generally happy at all with her, and she knows she doesn’t succeed based on the way Pietro’s eyes soften at her.
She still cares what he thinks. He still cherishes that. Cherishes her, and thinks of her as something other than the monster she is. It makes her heart warm.
“That’s not a problem.” Says Helen, and Pietro turns with surprised eyes. This, she knows, is not acting. His eyes dart towards Ultron almost immediately.
Helen pauses the uploading. Ultron groans (she feels a sadistic sort of pleasure from that noise. Feels far too happy to ruin the villain’s plans, instead of being the villain whose plans you have to ruin).
Ultron shoots, but Wanda has gotten to know Helen, from whenever the busy woman could take the time to stop at the Avengers base, Wanda bumped into her one day, and the woman is sweet and nice, and made her feel welcoming, and Helen and Vision has sometimes talked science for hours around her and she liked listening to them, the way they explained things to her so patiently. She will not let him harm her. So before Pietro takes her away, she puts up a barrier with a flick of her fingers and it holds, barricading Helen in a red bubble, that his blasts can’t get through, but late enough that he doesn’t see it, and doesn’t try to harm her again.
‘I hope that’s enough for her to get away,’ she thinks, as Pietro runs with her in his arms. She knows Helen survives this, but if a hero had a second chance at life, she wouldn’t just better only her life, she would help others too. And she has been the villain too many times.
Once Ulron has left the premises, and so has Wanda and Pietro, Steve makes it. He finds Dr. Cho, on the ground, sweating, and covered by a red bubble that flickers in and out of existence.
“Dr. Cho.” He calls, as he runs over to her side, and tentatively touches the red bubble. “Wanda’s doing?”
“I think.” Dr. Cho pants, then tells him of the more important things, because she is completely fine, she saw the blast coming for her and braced for the pain and maybe even death, but a red bubble had come just a second earlier, and she fell from the force of the blast rather than the blast itself and she’s alright, she just fell over. She has to thank Wanda for that someday. “He’s uploading himself into the body.”
“Where?” Steve tries to get up and look around, but Dr. Cho places a hand on his arm, and keeps him where he is.
“The real power is inside the Cradle… The Gem. Its power is uncontainable… You can’t just blow it up… You have to get the Cradle to Stark.”
“First, I have to find it.” states Steve.
“Go.”
Steve stands up.