POV Wanda Maximoff
My hands grip the wheel of the car a little tighter as the sign comes into view.
Welcome to Westview.
“Home: It’s Where You Make It.”
The outskirts of the rundown town blurs past me as I drive towards its center, following the same route he’d taken me months before.
“And here Wanda,” He’d pointed, “there’s a gazebo. Right in the center of the town! How quaint!”
I’d laughed, surprised at how someone with such a complex mind could be so enamored with something so mundane.
A thin green construction fencing closes the gazebo off now, and I keep driving.
A man staples a flyer for piano lessons to a board off of the main street, turning and watching as people pass by it without a second glance.
We both know that no one will be calling him.
I pass the diner with the red-checked curtains in the windows.
A woman sits alone outside, a deep frown on her lips as her eyes look sadly down the sidewalk.
“Look darling,” He’d said as we passed this, “a real diner. Not a restaurant fashioned to look like one, but a genuine diner.”
I’d squeezed his hand, imagining long nights laughing at one of the red-topped tables inside.
I drive past the woman, and her sad eyes follow me for a moment, perhaps feeling the sadness in my own eyes.
The road twists slightly, turning from the main hub of town to a residential suburb.
Wood-paneled houses with their bright green lawns line the sides of the street, and my throat gets tighter with each breath.
“Yards and trees,” He’d remarked, pointing out the window as he drove, “not crowed and dark like the city, but open and light. How freeing.”
Moments like this had often made me wonder if he’d ever left the compound, if he’d ever truly known peace and calm like this.
I make it to the end of the street, pulling into the driveway near the empty lot.
My hands tremble violently as I turn the keys in the ignition, turning off the car and grabbing the carefully folded paper from the passengers seat as I swing open the car door.
I leave the keys in the car, shutting the door behind me as I step out onto the dirt.
It crunches under my shoes as I walk towards the center of the lot, stepping through weeds and weaving around posts marking where a sidewalk would go.
I stop in front of the concrete barrier that shows me where the threshold of the front door should sit.
“Look darling, isn’t it wonderful?” He’d asked, his hands on my shoulders as he’d stood behind me, peering over my shoulder at the concrete outline of the house. “A place to grow old in, you and I.”
I unfold the paper in my hands, the property deed to the land.
A red heart sits in the center, in Vision’s handwriting.
“TO GROW OLD IN
V.”
Tears sting in my eyes as my throat tightens.
I fold the paper again as I step through the doorway, into what should have been our home.
“The kitchen could go here.” He’d said, gesturing to the front end of the house. “With a big window above the sink, and a door leading out to the yard here.”
I’d laughed, watching him envision a home within the dirt and weeds here.
“And our living room will be here.” He continued, moving to a place beside the front entryway, the dirt stirring up around his feet. “And the kids rooms will be—”
“Kids?” I’d asked, surprised by his mentioning of kids being a part of our life together.
“Or kid..?” He’d countered, thinking I meant the idea of multiple kids was the out of place remark. “I just think we should give them plenty of room to grow.”
My eyes stung with tears as I’d looked at him then too, imagining the possibilities of a life with him in the little house.
A picture-perfect life in the picture-perfect home.
My husband walking through the door after a long day at work as our children ran to greet him.
Neighbors coming over for parties and get togethers.
Tucking our children into bed before retiring to our own room, absolutely content to spend every night safe within his arms.
But then we had to leave.
We’d gotten back in the car and drove away.
Thanos came to Earth.
And Vision was destroyed.
Murdered.
The picture-perfect home in my mind crumbles to dust as I fall to my knees in the dirt, clutching the deed to the property, the last part of Vision, tightly to my chest.
Sobs rip through my chest, and the deed falls into the dirt as my trembling hands go numb.
They took everything from me.
They took everything.
My love, my life, my dreams.
They left me with dust.
The last piece inside me breaks, sending the world spiraling in red.
My mind explodes as every person in the town’s thoughts invade my own, everyone’s grief bleeds into mine.
It isn’t fair.
I’ve done nothing wrong.
They’ve done nothing wrong.
These people did nothing to deserve this pain.
The red tendrils of magic burn through my body, saturating the entirety of the town and wrapping it in a warm bubble, with me sitting in its direct center.
I think of all the times my pain was too powerful to bear.
I think of all the times I wished I could escape it.
To someplace simple.
Someplace where everything is happy and easy.
I numb the minds of the people in the town, muting their grief, filling them with happy, easy thoughts.
I think of Pietro.
Our sitcoms in the small apartment in Sokovia.
Numbing the bombs and horrors happening just outside our thin apartment walls.
I think of the Dick Van Dyke show, where everything always turns out okay at the end.
My picture-perfect house springs up before me, my magic weaving itself in between every fiber of every inch of its walls, every inch of this town, molding it to fit my picture-perfect life.
I melt away any semblance of the 21st century, replacing modernity with classic style as I tear the town apart from the inside out.
The house around me rises rapidly, it’s walls covering with wallpaper as the carpet fluffs up beneath my feet.
The kitchen falls where Vision had said it would, with a large window by the sink and a door leading to the backyard.
The living room sits beside the front door.
Three bedrooms wait upstairs, one for he and I, one for our child, and one to grow.
The sheer force of this magic threatens to tear my mind in half, to rip me into shreds, but I keep pushing.
The grey-scaled color of a 1950’s sitcom is soothing, counteracting the brilliant, overwhelming red seeping from every pour of my being.
Everything becomes a part of me.
Everything is safe under my control.
No surprises, no tragedies.
A simple, predictable life.
My mind threatens to give out, but I don’t let it just yet.
With every ounce of strength in my being, I push my magic to its limit.
Vision.
I think about the first time I felt his presence in the tank with Ultron.
I think about his love, his compassion.
I think about his intelligence and his strength.
I think about his protectiveness towards me.
I think about the first time he kissed me, the first time he told me he loved me.
I pour every bit of love I have for Vision into my magic, watching the red as it transforms into gold, pouring out into a Vision-shaped space before me.
The pain ripping through my body threatens to take me under, but the form before me materializes at last.
Vision stands in front of me in the larger-than-life 1950’s-styled living room.
He stands in grey scale, matching the soothing aesthetic of the world I’ve just created.
He cocks his head to the side as he looks at me, silently questioning me with his eyes, trying to place my bright colors in his black and white world.
I take a step closer, using the last push of my magic to mask myself into the setting, washing away my color into the greys of this reality as a Laura Petrie dress materializes on my body.
My hair fluffs into a bob as my kitten heels click against the floor, stepping closer to the man who looks exactly like the Vision who’s body I just saw dismantled in a lab.
His face relaxes at my more fitting form, and his mouth softens into a smile.
I smile back at him, finally relaxing my stretching of magic, sealing the edges of the town in a secure bubble of sitcom-style bliss.
“Wanda.” He says, his smile widening as he speaks.
My heart hammers against my ribs, his familiar voice breaking and healing me all at once.
“Welcome home.” He says, his eyes searching mine. “Should we stay in tonight?”
I give a subtle nod, moving towards the small loveseat in the center of the living room.
Vision follows, picking up the TV remote and meeting me as he sits on the light grey cushions.
His arm circles behind my shoulders as he leans in for a kiss.
His lips meet mine, and my picture-perfect world is finally complete.