Chapter 1
Wanda was powerful, but that didn't mean there weren't things she struggled with in regards to her powers. Some things were harder to contain or destroy than others.
Like, at that moment, she was holding back Thanos with her left hand, while destroying the Mind Stone with her right, and it was the hardest thing she had ever done. The Mind Stone itself was resisting her power, and Thanos had five other stones that he was trying to use to advance on them.
Wanda could already tell that she had surprised the Titan, she could feel it even through the strain of destroying the Mind Stone, but she couldn't really focus on it at that moment. Her emotions were everywhere and she was being forced to do something she didn't want to do.
When people saw her and Vision together, they just automatically assumed they were dating. That wasn't the case though. Wanda was in love with someone but it wasn't the android. They were close friends though, and she would rather do anything else than have to destroy the Mind Stone and, by extension, Vision himself. She had watched her brother die in front of her eyes, but she had been able to cope with that after a while, since she knew that it wasn't her fault that he had died.
In that moment, though, as she was aiming a smooth stream of red at Visions forehead, she didn't know how she was going to move past this. She hoped that she would be able to cope with it once they had won against Thanos.
Wanda continued to shoot a wave of her powers at the Mind Stone, tears streaming down her face and the rest of her team staring at her in awe from the trees. It was only moments later when she felt it. The Mind Stone started to shatter under the force of her powers and just seconds later her world exploded, throwing her and the Titan back from where the body of her friend lay.
She quickly got to her knees, looking towards Thanos who was also starting to get up. His expression was one of understanding and even sympathy, which is not the look of someone who had just lost. Wanda's eyes narrowed at the Titan. She knew he was planning something, but what?
"I understand, my child." He said to her, standing above her with eyes full of pity.
"You could never." She spat at him, her anger already growing.
"I lost more than you could ever know. But now is no time for grieving. Now, is no time at all..." And he began to close his fist.
Wanda saw what he was planning a second before he did it, and was able to send a stream of her magic at him just before his hand closed. The red wrapped around the metal clad hand of the Titan, keeping it open just enough that he wasn't able to activate the stones.
Looking at his face, Wanda could see that the Titan was surprised, and she couldn't help the slightly smug smile that she sent at him.
Wanda knew what she would have to do, but she only hoped that she would be able to. She assumed that the Time Stone would be of a different composition than they Mind Stone, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to destroy it since it wasn't the stone her powers had come from.
She had to try, though.
Wanda held his hand there, half-closed, and pushed her magic into the gauntlet. She felt it weaving around the stones before it wrapped completely around the Time Stone like a blanket.
Thanos was staring at her, unable to move and unable to snap his fingers. It seemed that the mad Titan was being overpowered, and he didn't like it. He took a single step forward, planning to stop the witch, kill her if he had to, but Wanda saw him move immediately and quickly used one of her hands to send a burst of red and stop him in his tracks.
Wanda lied. Destroying the Mind Stone wasn't the hardest thing she had ever done. It was that moment, where she was holding a Titan completely resistant to her powers while trying to destroy another Infinity stone. She continued pushing, weaving her magic through the Time Stone itself. It was glowing, trying to resist the magic currently cracking it open, but it was no match, not really. Because, after just minutes, Wanda felt the first crack in the surface of the stone.
A few more seconds later, and the crack turned into an explosion. Wanda was thrown back, her world erupted in green, and everything went dark.
Wanda woke up to a room she recognized, but she was sure she had just been in battle with the Avengers. She was sure she had destroyed the Mind and then the Time Stone. But, as she looked around, she recognized the room as none other than the cell she was placed in at Hydra.
She was still laying down but her eyes were wide awake, and it didn't feel like she had really been sleeping at all.
What...
The Hydra base had been destroyed, and yet here she was, laying in a bed that wasn't supposed to exist anymore.
Wanda slowly sat up, looking around the bare room in confusion. How did she get there? The last thing she remembered was the blast from the Time Stone.
The more she thought on it, the more confused she was, and also the more she realized that there was only one explanation as to why she was there.
The Time Stone had sent her back in time, to when she was still with Hydra, when her powers weren't strong enough to escape. It was the only thing that made sense, because she was sure that her time with the Avenger's hadn't been a dream. And even now, eighteen years old again and supposedly still out of control with her powers, she could feel it running through her veins. It wasn't chaotic, though. She had control over it and she felt it.
She was still sitting in bed when she felt someone's presence outside the door. As she felt it she let out a sigh of relief, she hadn't been that in tune with her surroundings while she'd been with Hydra, so that means her powers are as strong as they were before she was sent back.
The door opened, and a ragged man she knew she recognized walked in, armed with a gun slung over his shoulder lazily and looking at her like she was a parasite.
"Get up." The man said in a voice heavy with an accent not unlike her own. "Something is happening."
"What is it?" She asked, her own accent thick.
"Do not ask questions, you stupid girl!" He spat at her before walking out of the room, expecting her to follow.
Wanda's eyes narrowed, but she figured she would let it go at that moment. She needed to figure out exactly when she was, and what she would have to do to escape, because she didn't want to stay with these people any longer than she had to. So, she got out of bed and began walking down the hallway after the man that had been send to get her. She could very easily get in his head and find out herself what was happening, but she wanted to see Strucker, for some reason. She thought she needed it.
The walk was short, and no words were spoken. They reached a door and Wanda was quickly shoved through it, ending up in a room full of men frantically running around. Her eyes moved around the room, trying to get as much information as she could.
In the middle of her search, her gaze was cut off when Strucker himself came to stand in front of her. Wanda had to restrain herself from putting him through the window at the end of the room. Instead, she tilted her head, waiting for him to explain.
"The Avengers are here. They're looking for the scepter." He said, obviously looking for a specific reaction.
Wanda began to smile, although for a completely different reason to what Strucker probably thought. She was sent back to the exact day she had met the Avengers. Her smile grew until there was a grin on her face. It seemed that she would be able to get out of there much sooner than she thought. "Where are they?" She asked, an evil smile on her face making the man think that she was planning to hurt the Avengers.
"In the forest, but I want you to stay away." He told her and she feigned being upset about it.
"What? Why? This is what I've been training for." She said, not really caring what his answer would be. She could easily get out if she wanted, but it would be easier if he just let her go out there.
Strucker began shaking his head, getting a little frustrated with the girl in front of him. Wanda smiled internally, he was always easy to rile up.
"No. Go back to your cell."
She sighed a believably upset sigh before turning around and walking out of the room. No matter, she was getting out of there no matter what. After all, she had trained for this.
Wanda was being escorted back to her cell by the same man who had brought her to Strucker when, immediately after seeing that it was just them two in the hall, she threw her hand out, quickly wrapping the man in her powers and slamming him against the wall to their right, knocking him out before he even had the chance to yell in surprise.
He wasn't dead, Wanda knew, but he was definitely going to be feeling that in the morning.
She didn't take much more time to look at him, and quickly ran towards where she knew the exit would be, leaving the man on the floor of the hallway. It would be a while before anyone found him. They rarely checked up on her unless they were taking her away for more experiments.
They had placed Wanda near the center of the compound so, even if she wanted to escape, she couldn't have, especially since her powers had been on the weaker side when she was that age. But now, it took almost nothing for her to blast through the doors placed in front of her. It was almost fun. She didn't take her time, though. She had places to be and people to meet.
Wanda saw only a few people in each room and was surprised that there was such little security for someone like her, although she guesses they had seen her as weak at that point. Hell, she had too. But, now she knew she wasn't weak, and she remembered that as she took out the half-dozen men she had passed before any of them could even notice that she was in the room with them.
She quickly reached the last door and blew it open, quickly met with the outside air and the surrounding snow covered forest. Although she was their prisoner, they still let her wear what she wanted, and at that moment, it was the shawl and pants she remembered she had been wearing when the Avengers came to the base the first time.
Wanda stopped for a moment. It was weird to think of the same event as two separate moments. She'd already lived this, she remembered living it, and yet here she was, once again about to meet the Avengers for the first time. Their first time, anyway.
Shaking her head, she quickly walked out, trying to look for any of her teammates. Old teammates, she thought sadly. Although, now she would have a chance to be friends with them without their memories of her getting into their heads. She really could start fresh with them.
She hoped Natasha would still like her.
Laughing at herself for thinking such a juvenile thing, Wanda quickly pushed her magic out from herself, feeling around for the location of the team. She found them almost immediately and started running to her left as soon as she felt it.
She pushed her magic out once more and felt her feet leave the ground, and lifted herself high into the air above the treeline. As she floated above, she saw the team a few meters in front of and below her. The first person she saw was Steve. Steve, who was flinging his shield around as always and dodging kicks and gunshots. She assumed Tony was looking for the staff again, and she wasn't going to stop him this time. Maybe they'll get Vision back as well.
Fighting alongside Steve was Thor, who was swinging his hammer and sending it careening towards the enemy's faces. Wanda looked around a bit more and saw Wanda and Clint fighting side by side as she always remembered them doing. Natasha was expertly dodging punches and bullets while Clint sent his own arrows back at them. Off in the distance Wanda could even see Bruce lumbering around, destroying bunkers and crushing Hydra like bugs.
The team had gathered around a clearing in the trees, having finished fighting the first wave of soldiers being sent at them, but Wanda knew there would be more. A thought that came true as she looked back towards the base and saw a large group of soldiers and tanks making their way towards them. The Avengers saw it too, as they began to lift their weapons once more and prepare for a fight that looked like it would end in many casualties.
Wanda wasn't going to let that happen though, and when the brigade got close enough, she dropped down from overhead, right between the Avengers and the army sent there to destroy them. She felt the surprise from both groups, the Avengers didn't know her yet and they didn't know that she was planning to help them, so she understood the slight spike of caution that came from them.
The army in front of Wanda was probably expecting her to help them fight, and she knew the surprise was from how she had just dropped in from the sky, when they probably thought her powers hadn't been strong enough for it.
Wanda looked towards the Avengers, turning her back to the army, and made eye contact with each one, even Bruce. As she did that, she nodded at each one of them, trying to convey that she was there to help them. They just looked back at her in confusion, so Wanda did what she did best.
Protect those she cares about.
She turned back around to face the army, and without any warning, swiped her right hand across her body in one smooth motion. From just that one movement, around half of the men gathered there were shoved to the ground, the rest of them looking around in surprise before raising their weapons, obviously realizing that she wasn't on their team.
Before anybody could shoot, however, Wanda send a ball of energy towards them, and it floated in the air above them. The men were distracted by it and a little confused, which gave Wanda the time she needed to snap the fingers on her right hand.
The ball exploded, sending men flying in all directions and destroying any machinery or weapons that the army had brought with them. It was chaos for just a few seconds, but after that, they were just left with the sight of men unconscious all around them and the tanks engulfed in fire.
Wanda turned slowly to look at the team behind her. They all flinched back and she grimaced, her eyes still must have been glowing red.
Before she could say anything, she felt a shift in the air around her and looked up, already knowing who it was. Tony landed in a crouch in front of them, with Loki's scepter, Wanda was relieved to see, before standing. He obviously felt the tension in the air and, for the first time, saw Wanda standing there across from the Avengers, a multitude of bodies and fire behind her like a war zone. The man's gaze shifted between her and his team multiple times before he spoke, a little fearfully.
"...What happened?"