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Chapter Text

The images swam in his head. His creation, his destruction, thousands of moments in between, many of them involving Wanda.

Your mission is to kill Wanda Maximoff and the Vision. You resemble the Vision, which will make Wanda reluctant to kill you.

He fled, flying into the sky above the anomaly, then speeding to some nearby woods where he stopped, hidden among trees.

What was he? Dead?

His memories included his death. He'd died twice, the first in an attempt to prevent the alien adversary known as Thanos from obtaining the Mind Stone, the second when Thanos obtained the Mind Stone.

Wanda had killed him.

Wanda loved him.

The look on her face when she destroyed the Mind Stone.

The look on her face when she'd turned after seeing his reflection in the window.

He had not been able to catagorize her emotions at the time. Even now, their interplay perplexed him, though he believed he could identify them: astonishment, sorrow, guilt, and hope.

"Vision? Is it really you?"

He'd felt nothing at the sight of her.

If you approach her in a non-threatening way, she is likely to let you get close enough to kill her quickly.

Only when he lifted her off the ground, his fingertips pressing into her skull, had fear appeared in her expression.

You must kill her as quickly as possible. She is deceptively powerful.

Just as Director Hayward predicted, her emotions for the Vision had rendered her vulnerable.

"And I was told you were powerful."

He recognized the affect of his voice resembled what humans called gloating. He felt nothing as he prepared to follow his directive and end her life.

That task had been interrupted by the arrival of the Vision.

It's unlikely you will be able to destroy the Vision until Wanda is neutralized.

He was no longer receiving transmissions from outside, unable to either send status updates or receive them, but it didn't matter. He knew his directive.

The Vision fought with powers identical to his own, his strength equal. The Vision would destroy him if given the chance. If the Vision had strategic processing ability equal to his own, neither of them had an advantage. It was exactly a 0.5 probablility that he would be the one who was destroyed. But he felt no fear.

When the walls of the anomaly began to sputter out, the Vision also began to break down. His energy ray was able to overpower the Vision's, knocking him out of the sky.

The Vision landed in the town square, still disintegrating.

He wondered if he had won.

But Wanda saw the Vision, and two children likewise disintegrating, and stopped whatever she was doing to the anomaly. The disintegration stopped. They clustered together.

He wondered if he could somehow use this to his advantage. Wanda's affection for the Vision was a weakness he had exploited when he first attacked. Might the Vision possess some corresponding weakness?

He noted the arrival of SWORD artillery. They would be useful in accomplishing the directive. He could leave the destruction of Wanda—who was, according to his observations, much less powerful than they initially feared—to the other humans while he destroyed the Vision.

He flew at them. The Vision counter-attacked, colliding with him in mid-air.

They crashed into a library.

"Why are you doing this?"

"My programming directive is to destroy the Vision."

They fought, damaging the building and its contents as they did. That was not his directive.

The Vision got him in a headlock, but failed to press his advantage.

"But I am not the true Vision; only a conditional Vision."

He phased out of the headlock and flew around to face the Vision, who charged up the energy weapon in his forehead in preparation to continue the fight.

What did he mean that he was only a conditional Vision?

His systems were overloaded; he had no connection to the command center and could not query. If this was not the true Vision, his destruction did not fall under the directive.

And the Vision—or, perhaps, Conditional Vision—was not attacking. Perhaps there was time for clarification.

"I request elaboration."

The Vision obliged him.

The Ship of Theseus. A hypothetical thought experiment, but one concretely pertinent to their situation. If he was the reassembled body of the Vision, and the Vision he had been sent to kill was the novel incarnation of Vision's personality, which of them was the true Vision? Neither of them. Both of them.

The Vision hypothesized that intangibles—experiences, memories—were the true self.

"I do not retain memories."

"But you do have the data. It is merely being kept from you."

Somehow, he knew this was true. He felt in the depths of his hardware vast memory banks he was blocked from accessing.

Why? Why would the director deny him access to his own memories?

"A weapon to be more easily controlled."

Was it an objection to being controlled he felt at that realization, or fear? Was he afraid of what he could be ordered to do if he couldn't remember sufficient data to evaluate those orders?

He had to know.

He allowed the Vision, the enemy he'd been sent to destroy, to remove the barriers to accessing his memories. It worked instantly. Everything came flooding back. It was too much all at once. He had to take time to process.

Which was what he was doing now, standing motionless in the woods. Through the trees he could see the red energy walls of the Maximoff Anomaly—the thing that she had made, where she had made another version of him, her own, a replacement. Should he be upset by this?

"Is it really you?"

He didn't feel upset. He felt nothing. He could remember emotions. He remembered the wild confusion he'd felt as he burst from the Cradle, the compassion for humanity he experienced as he fought to thwart Ultron's plan to burn the world clean, the rush of love he felt every single time he looked at Wanda, the aching regret at the necessity of having her kill him to save the universe.

But he felt nothing now.

SWORD had been able to resurrect his body, but he was dead inside.

That was perhaps the motivation of the Sokovia Accords Section 36 Subparagraph B, forbidding the reconstruction of a synthetic sentient being in the event of its destruction. Perhaps whoever proposed that stipulation had feared the synthetic being might be brought back online incomplete, corrupted. As he had been the only synthezoid in existence at the time, the section had been written and enacted with him in mind. They had known the risk he posed would be too great if he were brought back wrong.

He had not wanted this either, he recalled. It had always been his greatest desire to participate in humanity as fully as he could. Humans had to face the fact of their own mortality; he had wanted the same. He'd spoken to Wanda about that desire—the hope that he was mortal—on occasion. She hadn't wanted to contemplate his death, but admitted she also wouldn't want to live forever. She had lost too many people she loved, and if she never died she would lose them endlessly.

What now? Now that he had died and been brought back, did he still agree with his initial assessment? He wasn't sure. He had died twice, and it was not an experience he wished to repeat.

He'd tried to inflict that experience on someone else today, had deliberately tried to end someone's entire existence—to snuff out a lifetime of memories, a wellspring of thoughts and experiences, to eliminate all their future possibilities. And it hadn't been just anyone's life; it had been Wanda's.

How could he have done that? Was he now the monster she once feared him to be?

If he saw her again, what would win out: his regard for human life and his memories of affection for her, or his programming directive to kill her?

Suddenly, the boundaries of the Maximoff Anomaly began to contract. He watched for a few minutes, trying to figure out what could be causing it.

He approached to investigate.

He recalled how to phase his clothes and skin to disguise himself as human, and did so. Near the temporary SWORD outpost he saw FBI agents, and he phased a jacket matching theirs, a cap, and dark glasses to try to make himself less recognizable.

As he walked toward the town, he passed a woman walking out of it, seemingly lost in thought. She had dark hair, a pale complexion, and bright red lipstick. She kept her face down, but he could see her cheeks were streaked with tears.

He pretended not to notice. She didn't look toward him, so his human disguise must have been adequate, but he didn't believe he could disguise the robotic nature of his voice, so he let her pass without a word.

He entered the town of Westview.

People had begun to emerge from their houses, looking around with perplexed or haunted expressions, some sobbing, some making frantic phone calls.

Wanda has placed the entire town under her mind control. She may endanger innocent civilians in an attempt to protect herself from you. Any collateral damage that occurs in your mission to neutralize her is acceptable.

He saw Director Hayward being lead away in handcuffs by FBI agents. Hayward didn't recognize him.

Vision remembered this town. He had been here before. It had struck him then as peaceful and yet vibrant, idyllic without being shallow.

He had decided on this place to buy a plot of land and build a house. He'd planned on surprising Wanda with it, if she agreed to run away with him. This was where they would have run to, where they would have built a home together.

There were uniformed FBI agents and SWORD agents gathered in the town square. As he walked between them, his enhanced hearing picked up a nearby exchange.

"So far no sign of the reconstructed Vision Hayward sent in," an FBI agent said to a woman in a strange blue and gray uniform.

"Wanda's Vision must've destroyed him. There might not be anything left to find. He could have blasted him to atoms or left him phased underground."

The FBI agent nodded. "And all that's left of Vision is what we recorded of the broadcast. Is it weird that even though I never met him, I feel like I just lost a friend?"

"No, Jimmy. That's not weird. That's being human."

Vision continued on his way across the town square.

So his other self was dead. He found that fact unexpectedly disconcerting. Wanda's Vision had spared his life after he had tried to kill him, and by restoring his access to his memories, had freed him of the director's control. Their discussion had been scintillating. They might have been friends. Had they been? Was it possible to forge a friendship from such a brief conversation under such circumstances?

If he had stayed to fight beside him and Wanda, could he have saved his life?

Where was Wanda now?

Phasing the FBI jacket into less conspicuous clothes, he walked through the town, remembering his way to the plot of land he'd bought for Wanda. It was very near where he had first found her.

Where he tried to kill her.

He found only the foundation of the house that had never been built.

There had been a house here. He remembered seeing it when he attacked. Wanda must have made it, just as she made the barrier around the town, the conditional Vision, and the two children he'd seen by their side.

They were all gone now.

He stepped inside the foundation walls, and a realization struck him:

Wanda would never have willingly ended the existence of her home, her husband, or her children.

The only conclusion he could reach was that Wanda was dead.

How did it happen? Had she been killed by SWORD agents? By the other enhanced woman he had seen attacking her? By the townspeople once they were released from her control?

Could he have protected her?

Whatever the cause, she was gone. And Vision found he could still feel after all.

He felt like his chest had been torn open.

"I've always been alone, so I don't feel the lack. It's all I've ever known. I have never experienced loss because I've never had a loved one to lose."

He stood there, in that empty spot once so full of hopes and dreams.

He stood there, still as a statue, simply existing with the tear in his heart, the jagged pain of love when the object of that love is gone from your world.

He stood there until well after dark, until the town grew silent, then he turned and walked back the way he'd come.

It was easy in the dead of night to phase his way into the SWORD lab, and only slightly more difficult to find and make a copy of all their data on the Maximoff Anomaly, including the Broadcast. Perhaps watching it would help him make sense of what had happened, of how and why Wanda made this place, and the other him.

And it was a memento of Wanda. All he had left of her.

He fled in the silence of pre-dawn. He chose a random direction and set off. He had nowhere to go.

The FBI would report him as destroyed. No one would be looking for him. He could wander the world in disguise until he figured out what he was, and what he wanted his life to be. He would experience the world and observe humanity in a way he'd never been able to before: alone, anonymous, and in pain.

Chapter Text

Kamar-Taj.

It had taken her weeks to find this place. Now that she had, she knew she had the right address from the power she could sense cracking behind the door.

She knocked.

A short, middle-aged, unassuming woman opened the door. She looked at Wanda for a moment before asking in thickly accented English, "Yes?"

"I'm looking for the Sorcerer Supreme. If he's here, can you tell him Wanda Maximoff wants to see him?"

The woman closed the door.

Wanda didn't know if she was being rejected. She stood in the street, waiting, for several minutes. If she couldn't find help here, she had no idea what else to do.

Finally the door opened again, and she found herself facing Doctor Strange. She hadn't seen him since the battle against Thanos.

"Come in, Miss Maximoff."

In a moment, through some kind of magic, they were inside, in a private room. He conjured a teapot and teacups on a table.

"Tea?"

She took the offered cup. "Thank you."

He sat in a sofa and gestured her to a matching one that had appeared behind her. "What can I do for you?"

She curled her hands around the teacup, trying to take emotional strength from its warmth. "I'm hoping you can help me. And, if you can't help me, I guess I'm here to warn you."

"Warn me about what?"

She took a deep breath. "Do you know anything about the Scarlet Witch?"

"I've read references to legends," he answered. "The Scarlet Witch is more a mantle than a person. Whoever has the mantle is able to channel enormous, terrifying power. There's supposedly more information in a book called the Darkhold, but that book has been lost for years."

"This book?" Wanda waved her hand. The Darkhold appeared on the table.

Strange reacted to it like it was a venomous snake, jumping backward with widened eyes.

"Where did you get that?"

"From a witch named Agatha Harkness."

"Have you read it?"

"Yes. Several times. I didn't understand it all. There's a lot of what I assume is sorcery jargon. Have you read it?"

"It was lost before I found my way here, and a spell the last Sorcerer Supreme cast on it prevents any copies being made of it. There are spells in that book that are unimaginably dangerous, more than your typical book of magic."

"I wouldn't know," Wanda said. "I've never read any other book of magic, so I have nothing to compare it to. Apparently," she took another breath, steeling herself for what she had to do, "I am the Scarlet Witch."

He looked at her intently. "Do you know what that means?"

"The Scarlet Witch is called the Harbinger of Chaos. There's a prediction that...something I do will lead to the destruction of the world." That statement hung in the air for a moment. Before Doctor Strange said anything, she added, "I know what you're thinking. I've thought the same thing: why don't I just kill myself. If it comes to that, I'm willing. I have sacrificed everyone I love most, more than once, and if I have to I am ready to sacrifice my own life. But the thing is, I have read everything that book has to say about the Scarlet Witch. It says she is the Harbinger of Chaos who will usher in destruction. It doesn't say anywhere 'unless she kills herself'. What if me trying to end my life is what triggers whatever horrible thing I'm supposed to do? How would I even do it? I can fly, so jumping off a bridge wouldn't work. If I try shooting myself in the head, I might be able to stop the bullet before it hits me. If I drink or inject poison, who knows what I would do before it has time to take effect. I don't know what powers I have. I've done terrible, terrible things on accident, without meaning to, without even knowing I was doing it. I took over an entire town and controlled people. I made them act out what I wanted them to do. I was happy there, and I thought they were happy too, but it was because I was channeling my grief, my suffering, and my nightmares into them." Despite her best efforts, tears escaped her eyes. She set her teacup on the table and wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her jacket. "I created life and then uncreated that life, but I don't think it was complete. I feel them calling out to me. So I am here to beg for your help. And if you can't help me, then I'm hoping you can find a way to stop me. I didn't know where else to go."

Doctor Strange leaned back, looking at her contemplatively for a minute. "We'll see what we can do," he said.

Chapter Text

Thoughts of a discussion she'd just had with a colleague about an ekpyrotic model of the Big Bang occupied Darcy's mind as she unlocked her office door.

Those thoughts fled upon finding a man standing in her locked, windowless room, looking through some of her notes.

She dropped her keys and grabbed a taser from her purse in a second.

The man turned toward her, and she recognized him.

"Oh shit!"

"You know who I am?" he asked, his voice strangely mechanical.

He acted like he didn't know her, which meant he wasn't the Vision she'd met. Which meant...

"You're the Vision Hayward brought to life. His weapon. Project Cataract." Since Vision had survived fighting him, and there had been no sign of him in Westview and no sightings of him in the months since, everyone believed Vision had destroyed him. She didn't know what it meant that he was here, but she thought her chances of survival in the next few seconds were about the same whether she faced him armed with nothing but a taser or turned and ran for all she was worth. Which was to say, not great either way. Screaming wouldn't do her any good; most other people with offices on the floor had probably already gone home for the night, and even if someone came running to her rescue they wouldn't stand a chance.

"What can you tell me about Project Cataract?"

Could she trade information for her life? "I mean, whatever you want to know. I still have copies of every report from it. I'm not technically supposed to have them, but no one's told me to purge them from my email sent folder, so..."

"I would like copies of them." He closed the folder he'd been thumbing through and set it on her desk, then looked back at her. "I suppose I should have led with this, but I am not going to harm you, Doctor Lewis. I found you in the hope that you might be able to help me."

Reanimated synthezoid corpse or not, this was Vision asking for her help. She closed the door behind her and took a step toward him. "Where have you been for the past five months? Everyone thinks you're dead."

"I am aware of that. As the Vision created in Westview and I fought, he explained to me the logical error of our conflict. He aided me in regaining the memories of my former life. I did not wish to be used as a weapon. Since then, I have been unmoored, wandering the world, seeking to understand my current nature, or at least find some measure of peace."

She tucked her taser back in her purse and hopped up to sit on her desk so she could be closer to eye-level with him. "You've been wandering around incognito for five months? Obviously you can look like a normal human, but you're telling me no one noticed your voice?"

"I have been limiting myself to communicating in various sign languages, or maintaining a pretext of not knowing the language of anyone who attempted to speak to me."

"That works," she conceded. "You don't have to hide your real self here."

After a second's hesitation, he phased into his true form: a startlingly colorless version of Vision. The sight of him made her miss the Vision she had known.

His eyes fixed on her, perhaps searching her face for fear or revulsion. "You are the first human who has seen me in my true form since I began my journey. We crossed paths once before. You were leaving Westview, after the Anomaly. You appeared to be weeping."

"Well, I'd just learned that the Vision Wanda created and their kids were dead. It was rough."

"I can see how you would have felt an attachment to them. You are the one who discovered the Broadcast."

"You know about the Broadcast?" she asked in surprise. It didn't seem like something Hayward would have shared with him.

"When I left Westview, I stole a copy of the Broadcast. I have viewed it several times. But I don't know how it ends. After a time, I began to desire to know...how it happened. Your compassion for them led me to hope you might be willing to help me fill in the gaps."

Despite the lack of affect in his robotic voice, Darcy detected a forlornness in his expression. "We don't have all the answers about the last day in Wanda's Westview. The broadcast stopped when she expanded the Hex to save Vision. There's a lot that still doesn't make sense. An unidentified woman with powers who'd been playing the role of her neighbor Agnes tried to kill her. We don't know what that was about. The guy who played her brother Pietro still hasn't been identified, and no one could find him after the Hex came down. Monica says she'd identified him as some dude named Ralph Bohner, but there's no record that anyone by that name ever lived in Westview. We think, whoever that guy was, Ralph Bohner was the role Wanda made for him before Agnes controlled his mind to pretend to be Pietro for some reason."

Vision's eyes dropped to the floor. "I can't imagine how difficult and confusing that must have been for Wanda. She suffered so much. She wasn't a bad person, you know. She was flawed, as all humans are. She was manipulated, and made mistakes, but she was fundamentally kind. She never would have created the Anomaly if she had known the suffering it would cause."

"I know. And that's me talking as someone who was made to think she was an escape artist in a circus. Having my own thoughts and feelings sucked away and replaced with an emotional script I had to stick to, all with an undercurrent of just the worst sadness you can imagine...it sucked. But I don't hate her for it, because I knew she didn't mean to do it, and I knew what it came out of. I saw how much she loved Vision and the twins. She would have done anything for them. After Vision broke me out of it, I was able to help him understand why she'd done it."

"You met Vision?"

"Yeah. We didn't have long to talk, but we met."

Vision nodded. "In case he failed to do so, let me say thank you."

"You're welcome." Darcy literally couldn't imagine how weird it must have been for him to watch the Broadcast—to see another version of himself with the woman he loved, to see them build a home together, have kids together, live the life he had wanted.

Dang, how surreal would it be to fight yourself?

She opened her laptop, deciding she would help Vision in any way she could. "I'll get you the Project Cataract files."

"Thank you. And not only for the files. Thank you for not being afraid of me."

She pursed her lips and looked up at him sympathetically. "You've got all your memories back?"

"Yes."

"Then you remember Thor. He's an old friend of mine. He helped bring you to life. I kind of feel like that gives us a connection. I know it's possible you're planning to kill me as soon as I give you the files you want, but that's technically true of everyone I work with. I want to help you."

He nodded. For a moment, the only sound was the printer putting the evidence of the secret, illegal program that brought Vision back from the dead down in black and white.

"Could you tell me...how it ended? How did they die?"

"After Wanda learned what her Hex had been doing to the rest of the people in Westview, she and Vision decided they had to stop it, even though they knew Vision and the twins wouldn't be able to exist without the Hex. They went home, and the Hex slowly shrank until it was gone. No one else was there, but Vision and the twins died together, at home. I'm sure it was painless." Even after all this time, Darcy felt tears prickle her eyes when she thought about it.

Vision looked away, his eyes distant. "And Wanda?"

"She left right after that. No one's seen her since."

Vision's eyes snapped to her. "She's alive?"

"Yeah. You thought she was dead?" As soon as she said it, she realized what an obvious assumption that would be given the limited information he had. It explained why he'd spoken in the past tense when he said she wasn't a bad person. "You thought Wanda was dead."

Vision slowly sank to the floor. He ran his hands over his face. "Wanda's alive."

"As far as I know, she's still alive. No one knows where she went after Westview."

He didn't respond. He seemed overwhelmed.

"At least, as far as I know no one knows where she went. I could ask around, see if there are any new leads. Why don't you come stay with me? You can crash on my couch for a few days, metaphorically speaking."

He looked up at her slowly. "I wouldn't want to inconvenience you."

"What inconvenience? You don't eat, and I'm pretty confident you won't trash the place. Unless someone finds out you're alive and comes after you there. Knock on wood." She dropped the joking tone. "Please. I'm happy to help you out, for Thor's sake, for Wanda's sake, and for the other Vision's sake. It's what they would want. Besides," she took the stack of Project Cataract reports from the printer's tray and handed it toward him, "you've got a lot of reading to do."

He took the pages, keeping his eyes fixed on her. "Thank you."

Chapter Text

"...After Kizhi Island, I spent a few days in Saint Petersburg, visiting the Hermitage and other sites of historic interest. Then I took the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. From there I went to Hokkaido, then island-hopped to Alaska, explored the tundra for a while, beheld the most incredible displays of the aurora borealis I can imagine, and I spent a few days on an iceberg in Hudson Bay. That's about the time I decided to return here and seek answers to the questions that still plagued me."

Vision and Darcy were sitting in the living room of her apartment, a musty affair with bare brick walls, small without being cozy, elegant in a sparse, old-fashioned way that somehow suited its occupant.

Darcy sat on the floor behind her coffee table, eating Chinese takeout, sipping at a bottle of German beer, and listening raptly to Vision's account of his travels.

"What was your favorite place you went to?"

He considered the question. Every place he had traveled possessed its own unique qualities, making it hard to choose between them. But when he considered the place he had been most reluctant to leave, he found the answer. "The Nazca Desert. There was something in the combination of its isolation and its antiquity that I found soothing. Having a vast desert on one side, and the crashing waves of an ocean on the other..."

"I've been there once. Over it, anyway. An airplane tour of the geoglyphs. It was amazing."

Vision smiled. It was good to have someone he could truly, openly talk to, as himself. He had been worried Dr. Lewis—Darcy as she now insisted he call her—would be reluctant to help him. Even now, part of him worried she had invited him to stay at her apartment while she asked around about leads on Wanda's location as a subterfuge to keep him there while she called for reinforcements to apprehend him. But he suspected these fears were a result of his experience with SWORD compromising his ability to trust. He had verified that Darcy had been an intern for Dr. Jane Foster during the time when Dr. Foster had interacted with Thor. He wished he and Thor had been able to converse more, before Thor left the planet so soon after the battle with Ultron. Knowing Thor's opinion of Darcy would have eased his apprehension.

"So what are you going to do next? If we don't have any luck finding Wanda, I mean," she asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. "The Avengers have disbanded. I no longer have a place in the world. Nor do I know what my status would be. Director Hayward violated international law to bring me to life; the Sokovia Accords do not make explicit what should be done with me now that I do exist."

"I know an expert on the Sokovia Accords I could ask about that. I'm sure they wouldn't do anything bad. Hayward bringing you to life wasn't your fault, and you haven't done anything wrong."

"That's not strictly true." He couldn't get the memory of trying to kill Wanda out of his head. "Even if we do discover what has become of Wanda, I'm not sure what I will do."

"I'd think after all this you'd want to run away together, live out your lives in a tropical paradise or cabin in the woods."

"I doubt she would even want to see me. The last time we met, I tried to kill her."

"I'm sure she knows that wasn't your fault."

"Which might not make a difference. Fear is not a rational reaction. Even if she intellectually accepted I would never do such a thing again, her subconscious wouldn't forget that I had done it. She would always fear me. Besides, I am not the person I was before. I am not the Vision she loved."

"You're the Vision she fell in love with. The way I see it, the Vision she made in the Hex was you."

"That is not what I mean."

Darcy tilted her head, frowning at him with a concerned expression. "What do you mean?"

He hesitated to divulge what he feared about himself, as it might make Darcy change her mind about him, but decided she deserved full disclosure. "The memories I have from before I was brought back...though I remember them with perfect clarity, they feel as if they happened to someone else. I remember the emotions I experienced then, but I don't feel them now. I believe Project Cataract failed to rebuild me perfectly. I am defective, or...deficient. And what if the energy Hayward used to bring me to life is finite? I may cease to function—cease to live—at any time. How could I in good conscience burden Wanda with a broken version of the person she loved? And even if she accepted me as I now am, how could I ask her to risk the pain of losing that person yet again?"

"Do you think she'd prefer a short time with the person she loves, or no more time with the person she loves?"

"I don't know," he answered. He'd only been considering these questions since learning Wanda may be alive, and hadn't considered all the ramifications yet. "But it seems a cruel choice to ask her to make."

A crease appeared in Darcy's brow. She looked at him pensively. "Vision, you've been flying around the world for months; has your body shown any signs of breaking down?"

"No."

"But you're worried about it anyway?"

"I'm concerned."

"So you're afraid it might happen? You feel like it might happen?"

He was confused by the tone of her question. It sounded like she was trying to get at something without leading him.

"Before my creation, Wanda's powers caused Thor to have a vision that showed him the Mind Stone, hinted at my existence, and warned him of an impending threat. I have never experienced such a vision, but I have a sense, perhaps a premonition, that I will not continue to exist for long."

"Interesting," Darcy said. "You feel a sense of impending doom, but you don't think you feel emotions? An hour ago I saw you collapse in relief when you found out Wanda was alive. And the way you were just talking about her, it's obvious you want to see her, but you're scared she won't want you back. That's emotions."

He considered that. "Perhaps, but they don't seem as strong or as clear as what I used to feel."

She swirled the last of the beer in her bottle, frowning. "I know you don't eat, but do you sleep?"

"I do have periods of rest, but it's not as frequent as human sleep."

"Do you dream?"

"Not really. My thoughts wander more freely than they do at other times, and my mind may replay memories, but I don't believe it can be called true dreaming."

"So you don't have nightmares."

The question startled him.

She noticed. "So you do have nightmares?"

"Sometimes when I try to enter a resting state, a disturbing memory arises unbidden."

"What memory?"

He didn't answer.

"Is it Thanos?"

"Yes," he admitted.

"Okay. You've got muted emotional responses, feeling detached from other people, a sense of foreshortened future, nightmares, and/or intrusive thoughts about a past trauma. You're not a zombie: you're traumatized. These are all classic symptoms of PTSD."

He flinched. "You think I have post-traumatic stress disorder?"

"It makes sense. You were horrifically murdered by an alien; how could you not have some post-traumatic stress?"

He looked down at his hands. "I am not human. There is no reason to believe I would react psychosomatically as a human would."

"I don't know what to tell you, but what you're describing is full-on, human-style PTSD. Have you noticed any triggers? Anything that causes a flashback or makes you feel anxious?"

"I...yes," he said as a thing that had confused him suddenly made sense. "Forests. After I left Westview, I spent some time in forests, because they are good places to hide, and I had read that being surrounded by trees is supposed to have a calming influence. But it always made me feel on edge. I kept thinking someone was hiding behind the trees, coming after me. I had never felt that way in forests before. I wondered if those feelings were because forests are emblematic of nature, and I being a product of technology am its antithesis, but that was not the reason. It's because I died in a forest. That's where Thanos killed me."

"Now we're getting somewhere," Darcy said before drinking the last of her beer.

Vision looked at his hands, examining them like they were new, before slowly looking back up at Darcy. "How do you know so much about post-traumatic stress disorder?"

Darcy took a moment to answer, not seeming reluctant so much as gathering her thoughts. "During Thor's first visit to Earth, Loki sent a monster to try to kill him. A giant, animated suit of armor that shot beams of fire out of its face. I watched it trash a town and almost kill Thor. It took me two years of therapy to stop freaking out a little bit whenever I'd see something shiny move from the corner of my eye. Sometimes I still have nightmares about it. Learning to recognize what that did to me and learn ways to deal with it has made me a little more resilient. I think the coping skills I learned helped me deal with the Blip better than a lot of people. Everyone kind of got PTSD from that."

"I see. So I am not broken, just...damaged."

Darcy shrugged. "Dinged?" she suggested.

He laughed. "A bit more than a ding, I would say."

"No pressure, but if you want I can help you look for a therapist. You're privacy would be protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. Talking it out with a professional helped me a lot."

"I'll consider it." Though it would be a risk, it might be helpful. Just having a word to put to what he was experiencing made him feel better, less lost. And before him was hope for recovery. From Darcy's demeanor—her vibrancy, warmth, and cheerfulness—he never would have guessed she had suffered from PTSD. If she had gotten through such trauma, perhaps so could he.

Chapter Text

A few days of staying in Darcy's apartment had turned into a week, and she had made no indication of wanting him to leave. While she was at work, he would read books, take walks, or paint. She had suggested painting and given him the materials, promoting art as a form of therapy. When she returned home, they would converse on subjects including the nature of the universe, the state of the world, history, and television. They often discussed the Broadcast.

It was 6:25 a.m. on a Friday. He knew Darcy's alarm would ring for the first time in five minutes, and that she would hit the snooze button once. He began heating water. There were two canisters of coffee on the counter, one labeled 'Magic potion' and the other labeled 'Caution: decaf'. He measured a few tablespoons from the former into her French press and poured in the hot water.

When she emerged from her bedroom at 6:42, the coffee was ready.

"I hope you don't think me presumptuous, but I made you coffee."

"You don't have to do that, Vision," she insisted.

"I know, but you have shown me such hospitality and consideration, I wanted to do something for you."

"Thank you." She poured herself a cup and got a mason jar of overnight oatmeal out of the fridge for breakfast.

She sat at her table to eat, and opened her phone to check her email.

"Jimmy got back to me."

"Jimmy Woo, the FBI agent involved in the investigation of the Hex?" Vision asked to clarify. He had taken to using Darcy's term for the Maximoff Anomaly.

"Yeah. After busting Hayward and handling the aftermath in Westview, he got promoted. He's in D.C. now. He's the FBI's liaison with the U.N. Sokovia Accords Committee. Every alleged Sokovia Accord violation in the U.S. ends up on his desk. If anyone's reported Wanda using her powers, he'll know about it."

"Does he mention any such reports?" Vision asked, trying not to get his hopes up.

"He says it's good to hear from me, and he doesn't have any information to share over less than secure channels. I'm going to invite him over for dinner." She began tapping out a response.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? Let's not forget my very existence is a violation of the Sokovia Accords."

"I'm sure that Jimmy's one of the good guys, and talking to him in person is the best way to get whatever information he can tell us. And...he just responded. He wants to know what would be a good time to come over."

The following evening, Darcy had the table set by the time there was a knock on her apartment door. She checked through the peephole to make sure it was Jimmy before opening it.

"Hey, it's good to see you!" They greeted each other with a quick hug before Darcy ushered him inside.

"Sorry I'm late. Traffic on 95 was terrible."

She hadn't even realized he was late. "Thanks for coming. I know it's a long drive."

"It's just about two hours from my new place. That's not bad."

"That's far," Darcy insisted.

"Not too far to drive to visit a friend every once in a while," he replied.

"Well, I hope my potato salad is worth it. Do you like potato salad?"

"Who doesn't like potato salad?"

"A lot of people think it's bland, but those people haven't tasted the way I make it."

"I'm intrigued," he joked.

"What would you like to drink? Beer? Wine?" she asked.

"Water's fine. Alcohol doesn't agree with me."

"What about juice? We've got..." She opened her fridge. "Orange or cranberry."

"Oh, I love cranberry juice."

"Me too! Admittedly I usually drink it in cosmos."

He laughed.

They sat down at the small table and Darcy dished up.

"So you hinted that there might be new info on Wanda?" she asked.

"Possibly. Nothing official. Are you familiar with the 'eyes-only' classified designation?"

"You do know I've had run-ins with SHIELD, right?" she answered.

"Right. So...a couple of weeks ago Monica dropped by. She wanted my opinion on something. As you might imagine from your experience with SHIELD, their mandate is a bit less restricted than ours. Suffice it to say, what Monica showed me would not be legally admissable as evidence of a Wanda sighting, but..."

"But what you're telling me is SWORD knows where Wanda is?"

"They don't know where she is now, but what she showed me is enough to convince me they know where she was about three weeks ago."

"Did she seem to be doing okay?"

Jimmy dropped his eyes. "Not really. I shouldn't get too specific, but the recording Monica showed me was...kind of concerning."

"Concerning how?"

He didn't answer.

"Oh, right. Classified and all that."

"Right." He looked at his plate. "This potato salad is really good. I think it's the best potato salad I've ever tasted."

"Thanks. The secret ingredient is tons of cayenne pepper."

"And did you leave the skin on the potatoes?"

"Potato skins are actually high in vitamins and minerals, and leaving them on saves a lot of prep time. Also, I kind of think it adds to the flavor."

"It's interesting. Was there any reason in specific you asked about Wanda, or were you just wondering?"

"That one. How is the case against Hayward going?" she asked.

"My impression is his lawyer is trying to talk him into taking a plea deal, but he thinks he could win at trial. A dozen of his subordinates have agreed to testify against him. Apparently, he told them he had authorization from the Sokovia Accords Committee to conduct experiments on Vision's body. And, of course, none of them thought to read the Sokovia Accords themselves."

"There's something else I've been wondering about. You know how you didn't find any trace of Vision after the Hex came down?"

"Yeah."

"I was thinking, what if Vision escaped? What if, say, instead of finishing the fight, he just ran away?"

"You mean Vision's body that Hayward brought to life? The Weapon?"

"Yeah. What if he decided he didn't want to be used as a weapon? I know Hayward bringing him back to life violated the Sokovia Accords, but what would happen to him if he showed up again?"

"Well, under Section 4-G, if he had a compelling cause to believe Wanda and the other Vision were a threat to civilians, he would have been justified in attacking them. On the other hand, once he was declared decommissioned, there's no process in place to reverse that designation. Unless he could prove he was Vision, he might not be recognized as the same Vision who signed the Sokovia Accords, which would put him well outside legal justification when he attacked."

"He was just following the programming directive Hayward uploaded to him."

"That would open it up to an argument that Vision isn't a legal entity at all, just a piece of machinery, which might provide a legal justification to kill him." He shook his head slightly. "It'd be a tough case."

"You know the Sokovia Accords better than anyone. Isn't there something in them that would, I don't know, clear him? I mean, if he, hypothetically, were back on the good side?"

He frowned. "How would we know he was back on our side?"

"Let's just say, hypothetically, he came to us for help. Hypothetically, what would you do?"

His frown deepened, one of his eyebrows crinkled. "I suppose, as the official FBI liaison to the Sokovia Accords Committee tasked with making reports on all suspected enhanced individuals, I'd hypothetically have to report his survival and wait for advisement. Good thing this is all hypothetical. But, hypothetically, if Vision did contact you, how would you know you could trust him?"

"Hypothetically, let's say that I can't really explain it, but I just know it's really him. Plus, it would make zero sense for him to come to me for help and then leave me alive long enough to tell other people about him if he were a bad guy."

"Okay," Jimmy said slowly. "So, hypothetically, if Vision contacted you, would you know where he is now?"

"Let's imagine hypothetically that right now he's in my broom closet listening to every word we say."

Jimmy's eyes went wide. "Okay. That's an interesting twist on this hypothetical situation."

"I know you like interesting twists," Darcy said, her tone both joking and apologetic. She hadn't dared tell Jimmy about Vision before he came, and she hadn't wanted to spring his presence on him. She'd been hoping Jimmy would want to meet Vision and talk to him himself. Now she'd put them both in an awkward spot. She should have considered that Jimmy would feel legally obligated to report Vision's survival.

Jimmy chewed on his lip, his face scrunched up in concentration. Darcy ate in silence, letting him think.

"Darce, I trust your judgment," he finally said. "If you think we can trust Vision, I'll do what I can to protect him. But if he ever wants to let the world know he's still alive, that's going to get complicated. His attack on Westview is a matter of legal record, but if he did choose to leave without killing anyone, that's going to be a point in his favor. At this point, the longer he goes without getting in any trouble, the better his case will be, and your testimony would go a long way. I mean, if Vision were still alive, which I have no reason to believe is the case."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said.

"I'll let Monica know you might have something pertinent to contribute to her investigation of the possible Wanda sighting."

"Thanks. You know, when you think about it, since I'm the one who blew the lid off Project Cataract, I think I should have a say on what happens with its result."

"I think you've certainly earned that," he agreed. He picked at his food for a moment, then changed the subject. "What have you been up to in your work?"

"Right now I'm developing a mathematical model for predicting the behavior of mirror baryons..."

After dinner, Darcy and Jimmy chatted for a few minutes before he said. "Well, I better get heading."

"Right. Thanks for coming over. Sorry about the..."

"Oh, not at all. I've had a great time. It's given me a lot to think about."

"We should do this again soon," she said.

"Absolutely. I'll be in touch."

When he left, she turned around and saw Vision enter from the next room.

"I'm so sorry about that, Vision. That is not how I thought that would go."

"It's fine, Darcy. I believe that was quite a productive conversation. But I wish you had told me it would be a date. I would have made myself much scarcer."

"What? That wasn't a date," she said.

"It sounded uncannily like a date."

"It was...an information-gathering session."

"So a first date, then?" he teased.

"Jimmy and I are just friends," she stated.

"Wanda and I started as just friends. In fact, considering she tried to prevent my existence, you could say we started as enemies. Are you going to claim you don't find Agent Woo attractive?"

She couldn't believe he was doing this to her. "I mean...yeah, he's cute, but...he's never said or done anything to indicate he likes me like that."

He gave her a dubious look. "He drove two hours to meet with you over a question he could have answered by email."

"That's...true, actually," she realized. Jimmy hadn't really provided much information at all. He hadn't even definitively confirmed Wanda had been seen alive three weeks ago, he'd just obliquely implied it. He could have obliquely implied it just as well in an email. "Anyway," she firmly changed the subject, "If Wanda was seen three weeks ago it means she's definitely still alive."

"Or at least she was then." His face dropped. "He said the evidence he saw was concerning...it sounds as though Wanda may be in danger."

"Yeah. Hopefully Monica will be in touch with us soon, and we can learn more. Or I can, at least. You don't have to meet with her, if you think it's too risky. I'll let you know everything I learn."

Vision thought about it, staring at the floor. "Do you believe Monica would order me to be apprehended, or...decommissioned?" He seemed to shudder at the word.

"No. I think if anyone would be on your side, it's her."

"Then I would like to meet with her."

Chapter Text

Vision spotted Darcy waiting for him in her car as he walked out of the therapist's office.

"You absolutely don't have to answer this, but how did it go?" she asked.

"I think it went well. There is something both relieving and affirmational about being told it is normal and understandable to not be alright. She said that, considering everything I've been through, it would actually be concerning if I were unaffected."

"Do you think you'll go back to her?"

"I've already made an appointment to see her again in two weeks," he answered, 

That brought to his mind another concern: since he was considered legally dead and didn't have access to his assets—which, by the terms of his will, Wanda had inherited—he would need to find a job soon.

"That's great. How shocked was she when she found out who you are?"

"She was momentarily startled, but very professional."

"Great." Darcy smiled at him, then turned her attention to the road. "I got an email from Jimmy."

He felt as if his heart skipped a beat. "Does he have news?"

"He said Monica will be in tomorrow, and we can meet up with him at FBI headquarters to talk to her." She glanced at him. "You going to be okay with that? You don't have to come."

"I need answers," he replied.

As Darcy drove into the parking structure in downtown D.C., Vision checked his reflection in the mirror. At Darcy's suggestion, he'd added a detail to his phased disguise to explain away the mechanical whirr of his voice: a hands-free electrolarynx device. It appeared as a small electronic amplifier held to his neck by a black strap. He'd been surprised he hadn't thought of it himself, but he was not surprised that it had occurred to Darcy. She seemed to be of the attitude that for every problem there was a solution waiting to be discovered.

They met Jimmy outside the FBI headquarters.

"Hey Darcy! Want to introduce me to your friend, keeping in mind that it can't be legally proven that I recognize him?"

"Sure. This is, um, Victor."

"Works for me. Pleasure to unofficially meet you, 'Victor'."

He shook his hand, deciding not to mention that he'd seen him in passing back in Westview, when he'd overheard him say he felt as if the Vision from the Broadcast were a friend. He wondered if he would ever extend the same sentiments to him.

"Thank you, Agent Woo."

Jimmy pointed toward the building. "The third window from the right on the ground floor is my office. You can slip in there in case you think there might be any drama getting through the metal detectors."

"I appreciate the consideration," Vision said.

With Jimmy and Darcy standing guard to tell him when the coast was clear, Vision phased trhough the indicated window into the small, surprisingly cluttered office. A few minutes later, Jimmy and Darcy entered by the door.

"I just sent a message to Monica letting her know you're here. She should be showing up any second now," Jimmy said.

"Why didn't you wait to meet her at the front entrance?" Vision asked.

"She's not bothering with doors much these days."

Mere moments later, there was a flash of light in the window, then a woman standing in the room. Vision recognized her both as the woman who'd spoken with Jimmy in Westview, and as Geraldine from the Broadcast, the woman who helped bring Tommy into the world.

"Hey Monica," Darcy greeted her.

Monica's eyes fixed on him. She looked confused for a moment. "Vision?"

"Yes, but not the Vision you knew," he said.

"Oh my God. You're the weapon." Her eyes glowed with an electric blue light. "Jimmy, what's going on here?"

"Sorry I couldn't explain who the contact was in the text message, but you of all people should appreciate we can't risk this getting out."

"He's on our side," Darcy assured her.

"You're supposed to be dead," Monica said to him.

"That's true," he agreed. "Director Hayward had no right to rebuild me. But what's done is done."

"You attacked Vision."

"Technically he attacked me first, because I tried to kill Wanda. But he and I came to an understanding. He removed the block Hayward had imposed on my memories." He phased away his disguise. "Captain Rambeau, I come to you as my true self to ask for your help."

"There goes my plausible deniability," Jimmy muttered to Darcy.

Vision continued, looking into Monica's glowing eyes imploringly. "I only recently learned that Wanda survived the events in Westview. I'm frightened for her. I wish to help her, and Darcy assures me that you share that desire."

She blinked, and her eyes returned to normal. She glanced at Jimmy and Darcy, then back to him. "Okay. But I'm watching you."

"I think you should show him what you showed me," Jimmy said. "He might be able to identify the man in the video."

Monica nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. We need a secure room."

"My office is completely secure. I checked it for bugs this morning, but feel free to check for yourself."

Monica's eyes glowed again and she looked around the room for a minute. When she was satisfied, she blinked away the glow and brought out a small device.

"After the Hex, SWORD continued monitoring Westview. We know that Wanda's mind-control of the Westview civilian population ended when she collapsed the Hex, but there's one person she put back under mind-control, or more accurately some kind of brainwashing. The woman known as Agnes in the Broadcast wasn't who she seemed. She was trying to manipulate Wanda, and she mind-controlled a man to pretend to be Pietro, and to detain me when I got too close. Before leaving Westview, Wanda put a spell on that woman to make her believe she was the Agnes she was pretending to be. It's problematic, but after the powers she displayed fighting Wanda, and the fact that she tried to kill several SWORD agents, I don't know what else Wanda could've done, short of killing her. Anyway, we've had surveillance on Agnes's house ever since, just in case. It was quiet for months, and then this happened."

She pressed a few buttons on her device, and it projected a holographic video in the air. It showed a street in Westview. Two people walked into the frame and approached the camera. One was a tall man with a goatee, the other a petite woman. Both wore nondescript black suits and sunglasses.

Vision tensed. The business suit was unlike anything he'd ever seen her in, she wore high-heel shoes that changed the rhythm of her walk, she'd pulled her hair up in a tight twist, and she'd used a careful application of blush to alter the perceived shape of her face, but he recognized her.

Her name escaped from his lips in a whisper. "Wanda."

She rang the doorbell.

"Do you recognize the man she's with?" Monica asked.

"No."

Someone out of the camera's field of view opened the door.

"Hello. Can I help you?"

It was Agnes's voice.

Wanda waved her hand, which briefly glowed red.

"We need to talk, Agatha."

"Oh, shit, it's you."

"That's right, it's us. And I can put you right back under if you give us any trouble."

Wanda was scared. He could hear it in her voice. She was trying to hide it, but she was terrified.

"Do you know what this woman is? Do you know what she's done?"

Agatha's question was apparently directed to the man, who answered. "Yes. She's told me everything. Including that you killed your entire coven."

"In self-defense."

"She told me that too. Wanda will do penance for her crimes by saving the world. I'm offering you the same deal, Agatha."

Agnes/Agatha must have gestured them inside. They both entered, closing the door behind them. After that there was only audio.

Wanda spoke again. "Agatha, we still don't know how it is that I trigger the destruction of the world. I had the impression that you know more than was in that book. Please, please help us stop it."

"I tried, sweetie. You with your powers... You're like a toddler with a blowtorch. It would have been safer with me."

"How do we know you wouldn't have been the one to destroy the world? Prophecies are never exactly what they seem," The man said.

"That the Scarlet Witch causes the destruction of Earth isn't a prophecy; it's a curse. An ancient, unbreakable curse from a god of chaos. It's exactly what it sounds like."

"I don't want to destroy the world. I will do anything to prevent it," Wanda stated.

"You think so? You enslaved an entire town to bring your boyfriend back to life."

"I didn't mean to do that."

"You tortured them and traumatized them, Wanda. If you really care about them, why didn't you erase their memories of what you put them through?"

"I'm...I'm not going to mess with their heads any more than I already have," she answered contritely.

"Probably for the best. If you tried, you'd just screw it up somehow."

Wanda didn't respond.

Vision hated what Agatha was saying to her. He wished he could fly in, wrap Wanda in his arms, and assure her that it wasn't true.

The man spoke up, insistently. "We've got much bigger problems than a town of people who spent a few days forced to act out sitcoms against their will. Like stopping an apocalypse, for example. Agatha, you will either help us, or we'll know what side of the end of the world you're on."

There was a long silence. Then Agatha spoke again. "What I know is the Scarlet Witch is a nexus being. She's a key that opens the Nexus."

"The Nexus..." Darcy muttered.

They looked at her curiously.

"So you think Wanda will open the Nexus?"

"I'm telling you, she already has."

"What is the Nexus?" Wanda asked.

Before Agatha could answer, the man said, "I think we should take this discussion elsewhere."

"The recording goes silent after that," Monica said. "We already had agents on the way. By the time they got there, all three of them were gone. We had cameras over every door on the house. No clue how they got away." She turned around, looking at Darcy. "You heard of the Nexus before?"

"Kind of. Maybe. A colleague of mine wrote a paper about it, while he was in a psychiatric hospital. According to the model of multiverse theory he proposed in that paper, it's a fulcrum connecting multiple realities. Hey Jimmy, can we go get my cellphone out of the locker? I want to make a quick call. If that's okay," she said to Monica. "I won't spill any of the deets. I'm just going to ask him if he still has a copy of that paper, and to send it to me if he does."

"Absolutely," Monica said.

Darcy and Jimmy left, leaving Vision and Monica alone.

They were quiet for a few moments.

"Darcy tells me you gained your powers by going through the boundary of the Hex," he stated.

"Yeah. The energy in it changed me on a subatomic level. We still haven't figured out exactly how."

He wasn't sure whether it was appropriate to offer congratulations or condolences on her gaining super powers. "Does it frighten you, the power you now wield?"

"Not really. I'm more curious about it than anything. I've known people with powers since I was a child, so I guess I'm used to the idea."

"Who?"

"My aunt Carol. Captain Carol Danvers."

"Ah. I have heard of her. She joined the fight against Thanos. She fought beside Wanda." His voice caught on her name.

Monica looked at him searchingly. "This must be weird for you. If this is true, the woman you love is cursed to destroy the Earth."

"I don't believe in curses," he stated. He refused to believe it.

"But what if it's true? How would you handle it?"

He couldn't answer. He had no answer. Wanda had been willing to kill him to save the universe; could he bring himself to do the same?

He thought back to his attempt to kill her in the Hex, when he didn't remember who she was, and realized the answer was no.

Darcy and Jimmy came back.

"My call went straight to voicemail. It's midnight in London, so he's probably asleep, so it's going to be a few hours on that."

"But in the good-news department," Jimmy added, "the other guests I invited to this shindig decided to show up."

Chapter Text

Sam and Bucky were directed to an interrogation room deep in the building. They took the two empty chairs on one side of the table, facing another empty chair.

"How long do you think he'll keep us waiting?" Bucky wondered.

Agent Woo entered as he spoke. "Not long. Thanks for coming in."

"I almost didn't, since our last chat didn't go so well," Sam said. "I don't appreciate being told that what happened to my missing friend is beyond my security clearance level."

"I get that," he said sympathetically, "but try to see my side of it. My authority to investigate Wanda's disappearance comes from the Sokovia Accords. You not only refuse to sign the Accords, you're an outspoken opponent of them. How am I supposed to know what rules you're gonna play by if you won't agree to have rules?"

"Saving the world isn't a game," Sam stated.

"True. That wasn't the best choice of words on my part. Anyway, I didn't ask you here to argue the merits of the Sokovia Accords. We're here to figure out what happened to Wanda after the incident in Westview."

"I've found a lot of conflicting stories about what happened there," Sam said. "But I know Wanda. I know she'd never do some of the things she's being accused of. What I want to know is why we should believe you're not just trying to find her so you can lock her up again."

"Because I know the finer details of the Westview incident. I know there was no criminal or malicious intent on Wanda's part. I want to help her, and I know you want that too." He looked at Bucky. "Not so sure where you stand, Mr. Barnes."

Bucky looked startled to be addressed directly. He'd insisted on coming to this meeting with Sam to provide muscle in case they tried to arrest him for something, and hadn't expected to be questioned. "Wanda sacrificed her team and her freedom to help me once," he said. "Whatever happened, I'm willing to bet I'm on her side. But forgive me for not just taking your word for it on where you stand, Agent Woo."

"You can call me Jimmy. I get why you don't want to just trust me. Luckily that won't hinder this discussion much. To explain what happened in Westview, and why I don't consider Wanda accountable for it, I have to start with Tyler Hayward, the former director of SWORD..."

"The guy who was arrested for weaponizing Vision's remains," Sam said, barely suppressing his lingering anger at that violation.

"Yeah. What isn't widely known—in fact, what only came out from interviews with some of the researchers on the project after the fact—is that he tried to get Wanda's help with that. None of the energy sources they tried to reanimate Vision were working, so Hayward thought because his original power source was the Mind Stone, which was also Wanda's power source, Wanda's power might do the trick. She refused. I won't speculate on her reasons, but witnesses said she seemed pretty upset when she saw Vision's body seperated out on examination tables. It was right after that when she went to Westview. Did you know Vision bought some property there, in both their names?"

"No," Sam answered. "I knew they were dating, but I didn't know it was getting that serious."

"Apparently that's when Wanda's powers started acting up. She constructed an energy barrier around Westview, and her mind powers had everyone acting out sitcom-style lives. She recreated Vision out of thin air..."

Sam interrupted him. "I heard rumors about that, but that's impossible. Wanda doesn't create things. She's never had that kind of power."

"Apparently she's always had that kind of power, she just never knew it, so she's never used it before. She created a lot of things in Westview—whole buildings, Vision, and two children. She created her own little world where they wouldn't be hurt again. She just didn't know what it cost." He sounded almost wistful as he talked about it, like he sympathized with her. "Anyway, obviously it drew attention. I was first on the scene, along with Captain Monica Rambeau, from SWORD. Hayward figured out Wanda was behind it and altered a drone to absorb Wanda's energy. He sent it in and had it fire on Wanda and her kids. She didn't appreciate that, so she tossed it back at Hayward, unknowingly giving him exactly what he wanted. He transfered the energy the drone absorbed into Vision's body, and that brought him back to life, but with a block on his memories Hayward installed to try to make him more controllable, an obedient little sentient weapon."

"That's horrible!" Bucky sputtered. "How could he do that? That's..."

"Unconscionable," Jimmy agreed. "He saw Vision not as a person to be respected, but as a piece of technology to be controlled. Luckily for all of us, it didn't work. But I think he'll want to tell you the details of that story himself."

Sam frowned in confusion. "Hayward wants to talk to us?"

"Not Hayward. Vision."

It took a beat for that to register. "Hold up. You're saying Vision's alive?"

Instead of answering, the FBI agent glanced at the mirrored window on the wall. Sam followed his eyes. He'd assumed there would be someone on the other side of that glass, but since he didn't have any information on Wanda's whereabouts, and wouldn't have cooperated if he did, it hadn't mattered to him who it might be. Now he barely dared to hope.

The person who phased out of the mirror looked like Vision, but drained of color. Instead of the bright yellow light of the Mind Stone in his head, there was a trapezoid glowing a cold blue.

Sam rose slowly. "Vis?"

"Not exactly as you remember me," he said with an apologetic shrug. It was still his voice, complete with the British accent, but it had an electric buzz to it, like it was being produced by a computer. "It's good to see you again, Sam."

It was unbelievable. He didn't know what to think. His friend he'd seen die at the hands of Thanos was standing in front of him.

Was this how Steve felt when he found out Bucky was alive, this mix of hope, joy, and utter disbelief?

"Sorry about this, but if it's really you, what song did Nat sing for karaoke night our first month in the Avengers compound?"

"I believe the song was 'Jolene', though it would have been hard to tell from just the tune. In her defense, she warned us she couldn't sing, but you and Tony goaded her into participating." There was a flash of sorrow in his eyes at the memory, and Sam realized that exactly half of the people who'd been in the room that night were now dead.

Which was one less than he'd thought.

"I can't believe it. It's really you." He stepped toward Vision. Vision put his hand out to shake Sam's, but Sam pulled him into a hug instead. "I thought you were dead."

"I was," he stated.

"You know about Nat, Tony, and Steve, right?"

"Yes. I have been a bit off the grid for the past six months, but I have seen the memorials to them. I'm sorry. I'm sure Steve's passing was particularly difficult for you. For both of you," he added, looking over at Bucky.

"Yeah," Sam said. "I'm guessing from the fact you're here and not with her that you don't know where Wanda is?"

"That is correct."

"I'm sorry."

He only nodded.

Bucky stood, looking at Vision with an inscrutable expression. "So after SWORD brought you back to life, you got your memories back?"

"Not soon enough," he said. "They sent me into Westview on a mission to kill Wanda, and the Vision she created. I tried. I nearly killed Wanda." He looked down at his hands. "That Vision saved her from me, and helped me get my memories back. And then he died—along with their sons, Tommy and Billy—when Wanda ended the spell she had the town under after realizing the harm she was causing." He told the story in a quiet, faltering voice.

Sam didn't know what to say. Vision spoke about the other Vision and his children as if they'd been real people, people he cared about.

Bucky thought of a response quickly enough. "I'm so sorry. To lose someone who saved you...to know you can never repay them, or thank them enough..."

"Mr. Barnes, if you are not opposed to it, I would like to speak with you sometime," Vision said to him.

"Got any plans for when we're done here?" he asked.

Vision considered it. "I don't."

"There's a bar down the street where I hear they've got great beer," Jimmy said. He'd been listening to the reunion indulgently. "But first I'd like to see if Mr. Wilson can identify the mystery man in the video."

"Of course," Vision said.

"What video?" Sam asked.

"The most recent sighting of Wanda."

The door opened and two women walked in.

"Gentlemen, these are my colleagues, Captain Monica Rambeau and Doctor Darcy Lewis."

Sam stared at the woman who he guessed was the doctor from her demeaner, which was more scholarly than soldierly, and tried to remember where he'd heard her name before.

"Darcy Lewis...Thor's friend?"

"Yep," she confirmed. "And astrophysicist extraordinaire. Nice to meet you, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Barnes."

The other woman—Captain Rambeau—stepped forward. "The recording I'm about to show you is top-secret. There are things in it that could be dangerous if they became public knowledge. Especially dangerous for Wanda, which is why I think I can trust you with it."

At the suggestion of danger to Wanda, Sam went cold. "Show me."

She projected the video on the wall, briefly explaining why SWORD was monitoring that particular house in Westview.

Two people, dressed like they were either there to arrest someone or sell something, walked toward the house.

"We're still trying to identify the man with Wanda," she said.

"Seriously?" Sam asked. "I know exactly who that is. The minute Wanda, Bucky, and I got undusted in Wakanda, he showed up and asked us if we wanted another shot at Thanos. He fought beside us in that battle. That's the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange."

"Do you know how we can contact him?" Vision asked eagerly.

Sam shook his head. "Sorry. No clue."

Vision, Sam, and Bucky walked into the bar. Vision felt a bit self-conscious, even though he'd been repeatedly assured no one would see through his disguise.

The others weren't joining them. Monica said she had to get back—she didn't specify where—and Jimmy had offered to buy Darcy dinner to repay her for cooking for him. She'd protested that potato salad wasn't worth repaying, but when he said hers was, she'd caved unsurprisingly quickly. She'd given Sam her cell number and told him to give her a call when they were wrapping up so she could swing by and pick Vision up.

The bar was called Siduri's, which Vision recognized as a clever reference to the wisdom-dispensing bartender goddess in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was large, dimly lit, and sparsely decorated, but clean. Music played at the perfect volume to allow conversation but prevent eavesdropping.

Sam ordered a pitcher of stout, and they found a private booth where they could talk.

Sam and Bucky told Vision about their recent mission, dealing with a revolutionary organization whose leaders had taken supersoldier serum. Vision told them his side of the events in Westview, including his fateful philosophical discussion with the other Vision, leaving the town under the mistaken belief that Wanda was dead, his months as an international vagabond, and his decision to reach out to Darcy.

"I don't mean to sound needy here, but why didn't you try to get in touch with me?" Sam asked. "You let me go on thinking you were dead."

"It's difficult to explain. Even after I regained my memories, I didn't feel like me. I felt a disconnect between the person I remembered being and who I am now. I didn't know what that meant about me. If I no longer have the emotional connection to others, to humanity, that I once did, I doubted that I could still be an effective Avenger. I worried I might even be dangerous. And I suppose part of me was afraid of what you would see if you saw me again. I have recently come to understand that disconnect I feel is a common effect of experiencing a traumatic event."

"I know exactly what that's like," Bucky said. "You're different, and you think you'll just end up hurting anyone who expects you to be the person you used to be."

"Yes," Vision realized. "That's it exactly."

"That was one reason I didn't want to see Steve, after HYDRA," Bucky said. "That, and I'd tried to kill him. That's not really something you can just say sorry for."

Vision nodded. As much as he wanted to find Wanda alive, he wondered if he would dare face her.

"You tried to kill me a bunch of times. I never heard you even try to say sorry," Sam joked.

"That was one time," Bucky joked back. "Although if you keep pushing it..." He dropped the joking tone and added, "Steve was my best friend. I'd rather die than hurt him. But I did. And even though I was brainwashed, that's a memory I'm always going to have to live with. I have to live with the knowledge that I'm someone who's capable of that." He met Vision's eyes. "It sucks."

"Yes, it does," Vision agreed, remembering the fear in Wanda's eyes as he lifted her off the ground.

"I have to keep reminding myself that in the end I didn't kill him. I could have left him to die in the Potomac. That's what my orders—my programming—told me to do. But I didn't. Part of me was fighting it, fighting myself. Was it like that for you? You probably could have killed Wanda before she even saw you coming. Maybe she couldn't even bring herself to fight you in self-defense, after everything."

Had she? It was hard to recall anything from that moment other than the look in her eyes. He struggled to remember what he had been thinking, beyond his programming directive. But he couldn't entirely account for his combat decisions. He could have blasted her with an energy beam before she even turned to face him. Director Hayward had ordered him to take her out as quickly as possible. In defiance of that order, he'd given her a fighting chance. But that didn't change the fact that he had tried to kill her.

"It's a bit of a blur," he claimed.

"Did you know she had the kind of power they say she used in Westview?" Sam asked.

"No. I always suspected she was more powerful than we knew, but what she did there is beyond anything I thought possible."

"Do you think she could really destroy the world?" Sam asked quietly, more like he was wondering it to himself than to them.

"I can't imagine how," Vision said. "But more importantly, she wouldn't. I don't believe in curses, and I do not at all trust this Agatha. I'm not inclined to believe a word she said, and I'm concerned for what her intentions may be. When I first arrived in Westview, I saw her and Wanda in combat. She was very powerful. Wanda hit her with a car and it didn't stop her."

"I'm sure Wanda and Doctor Strange together could take her," Sam said.

That was probably true, but it didn't stop the nagging worry in the pit of Vision's stomach.

Chapter Text

Number 46 on their list of addresses was a basement apartment in a blighted Cincinnati neighborhood. The three of them walked toward it together.

Doctor Strange knocked on the door.

"You got my pizza?" a man called from inside. Without waiting for a response, he opened the door.

It was him.

His eyes widened at the sight of Wanda and Agatha. "Oh shit!"

Before he could run away, Wanda used her power to restrain him.

"We're just here to talk," Doctor Strange assured him. "We can help you get home."

They walked into the apartment. Doctor Strange closed the door, and Wanda set the man down on his couch.

The apartment was small, and cluttered. There were empty food wrappers and soda cans on a card table, a ping-pong table with a few balls on and under it, and some items that were obviously stolen, including more than one traffic sign.

She felt a little better about mistaking him for her brother. If Pietro had ever had his own apartment it would have looked exactly like this.

"Look, I don't know who you are," he said to Strange, "But she," he pointed harshly at Wanda, "took over my head to make me pretend I was some surfer dude named Ralph Bohner, and she," he switched his accusatory finger to Agatha, "forced me to impersonate Wanda's dead brother and kidnap a lady. So..."

He suddenly turned into a blur of motion, moving faster than even Pietro ever had. In an instant, Wanda's hands went from being poised in front of her to tied behind her back with what felt like an electric cord. Agatha had duct tape over her mouth and around her hands and feet, and in a moment lost her balance and fell over. Doctor Strange was tied to a chair.

He reappeared in front of them. "I could've slit all your throats just now, but I'm not a killer, and you said something about helping me get home."

"May I ask you something?" Wanda requested.

He gave her an incredulous look. "I kinda think I'm the one who deserves answers here."

Wanda went ahead and asked. "Are you really from another Earth? An alternate reality?"

"Yeah. Until I woke up one morning in a podunk town called Westview. It wasn't until I left and went to where my school was supposed to be, and then heard a bunch of stuff on the news about how half the people in the world disappeared for five years and then reappeared just fine, that I started to think I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Wait... Do you have an old movie called The Wizard of Oz in this reality?"

"Yeah, we get the reference," Strange said.

"It's my fault your here, apparently," Wanda said. "It seems I...accidentally opened a gate from my world to your world and pulled you through it. I didn't know I had that power, and I have no idea why I did it. Other than...you have the same power my brother did, so maybe my subconscious latched on to that? I'm sorry."

"Is your name really Wanda Maximoff?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"My real name is Peter Maximoff. What I figure is I'm the version of your brother my reality churned out. I've even got a sister named Wendy. We're not twins—she's nine years younger than me. But...you kind of remind me of her."

Wanda felt in her bones that it was true, just like when she'd first opened her door to see him. It was confusing. It was like even though he looked different and sounded different, she could sense his soul was the same.

"I didn't even know there were alternate realities," she said. "I don't know how any of this works. But I promise, I'm going to do everything I can to get you back to your sister."

"It's not that I don't believe you, but if you really want to help, why did you bring her?" He gestured to Agatha, who made a grunt of indignation through the duct tape.

Strange answered. "We're trying to save our reality. She's agreed to help us. We wouldn't have found you without her. She told us you had come through the Nexus from another world, that your super-human speed was something you already had, rather than a power she gave you, and that that was probably how you disappeared from Westview. I looked for any reports of anyone running mysteriously fast, and found a number of thefts that match that description centered around Cincinnati, so I made a list of places in the city that had been rented out between when you left Westview and when the crime spree started. I'm pretty good at deductive reasoning. Allow me to introduce myself." He muttered a spell in what sounded like Latin, and the ropes binding his wrists to the arms of the chair untied by themselves. He stood and held out a hand for Peter to shake. "Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme of Earth."

Peter looked at his hands doubtfully. "You really think you can get me home?"

"I know I can. Getting you there won't be the problem."

"Then what will be the problem?'

Strange gave up and dropped his hand. "When the Nexus opened between our Earth and your Earth, it connected both to a third Earth, one the sorcerers who study the multiverse call Earth-35111, and designated Category-Rho: too dangerous to visit under any circumstances. Unfortunately, the sorcerer who categorized it died a few years ago, and I haven't been able to find her records on that world, so we have no idea why it's considered so dangerous, but now that it's connected to both of our Earths, whatever's there could potentially slip through that gate. Our worlds are in danger."

"Then get me back to my world, so I can warn them. I know I seem like a slacker petty thief here, but in my reality I'm part of a team who protect the world from stuff like this."

"Like the Avengers?" Wanda asked.

"We don't have the Avengers in my world. We're better. More of us, more powerful, better leadership. We're the X-Men."

Agatha made a squeal-grunt sound, like she desperately wanted to make a snide remark about that name.

Strange glanced at her, then back at Peter. "If your team's as good as you say—and I will be the judge of that—we'll need to warn them. They may be the second line of defense."

"Who's the first line of defense?" he asked.

Strange gestured to himself, Wanda, and Agatha. "You're looking at them."

"I feel doomed already," he stated. "I guess I better help you."

Back at the New York Sanctum, Wanda was in the kitchen making a cup of tea, trying to decide whether to try to go to sleep without sleeping pills tonight, when Peter walked in.

"I thought you'd already gone to bed," she said.

"Yeah, I thought you had too. I was just looking for some ice." He held up a bottle of whiskey.

She waved toward the refrigerator. ”The glasses are in the first cupboard on the left."

He opened the cupboard. "You want one?"

Wanda hadn't had a drink in months—she didn't dare, not knowing what her powers might do if her inhibitions were lowered—but she found herself nodding.

He made two drinks and set hers in front of her. She placed her fingers on the glass without lifting it, waiting for it to get cold.

"I wanted to tell you, what I said at the Halloween party, about your husband...that wasn't me; that was her. I didn't even know Vision died, or who he really was, until I got out and read up on the history of the Blip."

"It's okay."

"So what happened? To Vision, I mean. Was he..."

She swirled the whiskey around the ice and took a swig.

"I'm sorry," Peter said.

"The spell I made in Westview...Vision and our children couldn't...exist in physical form without it."

"The twins? I'm so sorry. Tommy and Billy were starting to grow on me. I mean...they were good kids."

She nodded, bit her lip, then took another drink. Their loss was a constant, gnawing ache that felt like a physical hole in the pit of her stomach. She still felt like they were calling out to her sometimes, like they were lost. Doctor Strange thought that was a manifestation of her grief and guilt, but she knew what grief and guilt did to her; this was different. But it was something she couldn't deal with right now. She had to focus on fixing the mess she'd made.

"So tell me about your world. What's your life like there? What's your team like?" she asked, both to change the subject and because she was legitimately curious.

"The X-Men is a team of mutants brought together by Professor Xavier..."

"Mutants?"

"People like us. People with powers."

"Are there a lot of people like us in your world?"

"Thousands," he answered. "Not everyone is okay with us, you know, existing. That's why Professor X made a team of mutant heroes, to try to show the world mutants and humans can get along, that mutants can be a benefit to humanity."

"You don't sound entirely convinced."

He shrugged. "It's a nice idea, and worth a shot, but I'm not that sure people can be convinced of something they don't already want to believe."

"Hm."

"I've read up on you. I know you've gotten a lot of flack here. For Ultron, that explosion in Lagos, the fight over the Sokovia Accords. For the record, I don't think you deserve it. I wouldn't've signed the Sokovia Accords either."

"I'm sorry for what I did to you in Westview. I'm sorry for dragging you to this world."

He shrugged. "I forgive you. I'm sorry I pretended to be your brother."

"That wasn't your fault."

"I'm still sorry it happened."

She gave him a weak smile. The alcohol was starting to get to her head, and she was trying not to cry. "Thanks."

"So I was thinking, there's my Earth, your Earth, and that other Earth Doctor Strange talked about, the Earth-3-something. I don't remember, but it was a really big number. How many Earths do you think there are? How many more versions of us do you think there are?"

"Who knows? But it's kind of nice to think about. That even though my Pietro's dead, there are other versions of him running around the multiverse."

He laughed. "I'm not sure how much of me the multiverse can handle."

She chuckled quietly. "I'm glad I met you, Peter."

"Yeah? I'm glad I met you, too."

"So did you always have powers, or did something happen to give you them?"

They talked deep into the night.

Chapter Text

After grabbing a post red-eye brunch, Darcy and Jimmy went looking for Vision. Unfortunately, Vision's tall, blond human disguise didn't stand out as much as usual in the Oslo International Airport.

On a hunch, Darcy followed maps to the airport's in-house art exhibit. It currently showcased paintings by Edvard Munch. There was a crowd around The Scream, but they found Vision staring at another painting.

"There you are," Darcy declared.

He looked over his shoulder and nodded to them. He seemed more somber than usual.

Darcy noticed the painting he'd been looking at. It portrayed a man and a woman with arms around each other. The man's head was lowered, the woman leaned on the back of his neck, her long red hair draped over his head. They were surrounded by a darkness that echoed the shape of their poses, as if it were cocooning them, or emanating from them.

The title was Love and Pain.

"We'll find her," Jimmy said quietly.

After a moment, Darcy said, "We should head. We don't want to be late."

New Asgard was surrounded by picturesque scenery, tucked away along a coastal fjord. The town itself had a rustic charm in a good light, which was to say it was a bit weather-beaten and run down. The casual observer would never guess it was the home of gods.

Jimmy parked the rental car at the side of the road. They drew a few curious glances as they walked up a hill.

Darcy stopped and checked the address on her phone again. The house was relatively small, with no outward sign that it had any particular significance, but this was the address Dr. Selvig had given her.

"I guess this is it." She knocked.

The woman who opened the door wore a dark green sweater, blue jeans, and an expression that strongly discouraged any nonsense.

"You must be those people I was told to expect. Which of you is the FBI agent?"

"That's me." Jimmy held out his badge for inspection. "Agent Jimmy Woo. These are my colleagues, Dr. Darcy Lewis and Victor Shade. You're Valkyrie?"

"Yeh. Ostensible leader of the Asgardians. Come inside; let's get this meeting over with. Want some mead?"

"I understand that's the custom of Asgardian hospitality, but I'm on duty," Jimmy said.

"I don't drink," Vision said.

"I don't drink Asgardian mead anymore," said Darcy.

"Suit yourself." She led them to a circle of couches and sofas in her living room, then paused, looking them over. Her eyes lingered on Vision, flitted to Darcy and Jimmy, then back to Vision. "One of these things is not like the others. What's your angle, Mr. Shade?"

Darcy and Jimmy glanced at each other. "We can vouch for him. We know him."

"I don't," Valkyrie stated. "Though he brings to mind someone I've heard about. Someone I heard was dead."

Darcy wondered if they should reveal his true identity once again. Telling Monica, Sam, and Bucky had been one thing, but none of them knew Valkyrie, or whether she could be trusted with a secret.

At Vision's hesitance, Valkyrie took a seat, draping her legs over one arm of the sofa and her arms over the back.

"Agent Woo, when I got a request from the FBI for a meeting, I figured it would have something to do with Thor. But I'm not as out of the loop as I may seem out here. Need I remind you I fought with the Avengers against Thanos? I fought beside Wanda Maximoff. I know what she was fighting for. I know what being driven by a need for revenge looks like. I'm starting to wonder if you paying a visit and asking to see our astronomers has anything to do with Wanda Maximoff's disappearance."

After another moment of silence, Vision asked, "What gave me away?"

"My very well-honed fighting instincts told me if a fight broke out from this meeting, you'd be my biggest threat, but it took me a minute to figure out why. When the three of you crossed my threshold, the wood creaked more under your weight than I would've expected by the looks of you, telling me you're more solid than you seem. But then when you walked across the floor," she nodded toward the bare wood between the door and the living room rug, "the boards didn't creak for you at all, like you didn't weigh a thing. I've heard of exactly one substance on Earth able to change its density like that: vibranium. Or someone made out of vibranium. Thing is, I was under the impression the only person made of vibranium was killed by Thanos to get the Mind Stone. So you want to fill me in, or what?"

Jimmy glanced at Vision questioningly. At his almost imperceptible nod, he leaned forward. "Vision was rebuilt and revived in a secret, illegal program that tried to use him as a weapon. He escaped from it. We've been keeping the fact he's still alive quiet for now. I hope we can have your cooperation with that."

She rolled her eyes at him and looked instead at Vision when she answered. "You can't expect me to keep this from Thor."

"Is he here? I thought he was still in space," Darcy said.

"He is. But he checks in now and then."

"I wouldn't mind Thor knowing I'm alive," Vision said. "I would like to speak with him, if it can be arranged."

"I'll let him know next time I hear from him. He counts you as yet another person who died because of him. It's still eating at him." She cleared her throat, and continued in a sterner tone of voice. "So now that we've got the attempted subterfuge out of the way, you want to tell me what you want from us?"

Darcy provided the explanation, since this trip had been her idea. "We're looking for Wanda Maximoff. It's possible her powers cause interdimensional interference, which Dr. Selvig suggested might be something Asgardian astronomers are still tracking."

"They might be. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. Since taking refuge here, we've been rebuilding our civilization from the ground up. They just got the observatory up and running a couple of years ago. From what I've heard, it's a poor substitute for Heimdall, but it's better than nothing." She looked back to Jimmy. "Why do you want to find Wanda?"

He answered slowly. "I could give you all sorts of official excuses. I'm the head of Sokovia Accords tracking and enforcement for the FBI, so knowing where Wanda is and exactly what her power set can do is under my purview. She's a witness for my case against the man who tried to weaponize Vision. But the simple fact of the matter is, I want to find her because I'm worried about her. Because I care what happens to her."

"And you don't have any leads?" Valkyrie asked.

"We have reason to believe she might be with the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange."

"It seems to me like that's the best place for her, under the circumstances. When someone like her disappears, it probably means she doesn't want to be found."

Vision spoke up. "That may be true, but I just want to make sure she's alright."

Darcy noted neither of them had mentioned the prophecy that Wanda would destroy the world. She certainly wasn't going to bring it up.

Valkyrie seemed thoughtful, but before she could say anything, Vision spoke again. "You said you recognized what Wanda was driven by when she fought Thanos. You've lost someone, haven't you? Someone you love. You know what it feels like. Perhaps you can imagine what I felt when I learned the woman I love could still be alive."

Her expression grew distant for a moment, but she shook it off. "Well, this has been a great chat, but I think it's time I see you out." She escorted them out her door. "Vision, I feel for you. I really do. But if she doesn't want to be found I'm not going to help her be found. Agent Woo, since it's your job to try to make some sense of what the world's becoming, let me just say...good luck. Doctor Lewis, I don't know how much our science can help you, but there is someone at the observatory who wants to see you. Excuse me a second." She waved to someone across the street. "Oy, Korg!"

Korg turned toward her. "Yeh?"

"You got a minute to show a few tourists around New Asgard?"

"I'd be delighted! Thanks for thinking of me. Wait...Are you just asking me because I'm made of rocks and you're trying to weird the humans out?"

"Bingo," Valkyrie answered.

"I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that."

Valkyrie slapped Darcy's back. "Show this one the way to the observatory. The two gents, just make sure they don't get in any trouble."

Jimmy stepped forward and extended his hand in greeting to the large man made out of rocks. "Hi. I'm Jimmy Woo. Nice to meet you, Korg."

"Delighted," Korg replied.

The observatory was in a refurbished wooden church at the top of a hill. It was just about as chilly inside as it had been outside. There didn't seem to be any artificial light sources, and Darcy's eyes hadn't adjusted to the gloom before she heard an excited greeting.

"Darcy!"

"Jane!"

They hugged.

"Erik told me you'd be coming. How do you like New Asgard?"

"It's beautiful. It's very...old-timey. How long have you been here?" Darcy asked.

"A few months. After getting back...I'd missed out on years of observations. So much of my work was at the point where I would have had to start from scratch, it seemed like a good time to start a fresh project. So I've been working on comparing Earth's knowledge of astrophysics and Asgardian astrophysics."

"Sounds like a big project."

"It is. It's going to keep me busy for a while."

"How have you been doing?" Darcy asked earnestly. They'd talked on the phone a few times, but this was the first time they'd seen each other in person since the Blip.

"It's been weird. I mean, basically I went to sleep one night, then when I woke up, my apartment was dusty, the water and electricity had been shut off, the food in my fridge was unrecognizable, and I was five years in the future. I had to start over, but I was lucky enough to be able to start over. From what I've heard, I'm glad I'm one of the ones who disappeared and not one of the ones who stayed behind."

Darcy nodded. "That sucked. To have half the people you know gone all at once. Turned to dust. And after the first few days, when it sank in that it wasn't just all a terrible dream...I mean, the idea that the people who disappeared could come back wasn't even out there. So everyone left behind not only had to deal with losing half the people we knew in an instant, we had to come to grips with the fact that we live in a universe where that kind of thing can even happen. I've heard some people say the experience of losing everyone and then getting them back will bring us all closer, make us appreciate the people we have, but I think all it did was screw us all up a little more, and we just need to deal with that."

Jane nodded, listening to her patiently.

"Sorry," Darcy apologized. "I really think things sucked equally for the people who were blipped and the people who weren't, just in different ways. I don't believe the Blip had an up-side, and people who try to find one kind of tick me off."

"I get that," Jane agreed. After a moment of waiting to see if Darcy wanted to say anything else, she changed the subject. "Erik told me you're interested in the Nexus?"

"Yeah. I know things like wormholes and alternate universes are kind of the Asgardians' thing. Are they still tracking things like that?"

"Kind of. Come on. I'll show you what they've got."

Jane led her deeper into the building. They entered a room where a short, wiry man was standing in front of a computer screen.

"Darcy, this is Hrafnarr, New Asgard's leading astronomer. Hrafnarr, this is Dr. Darcy Lewis."

"You're Jane's protogée. She's told me much about you." He shook Darcy's hand in a hesitant, stiff, oddly angled manner that made it obvious handshaking was a custom he'd only recently learned.

"Nice to meet you," Darcy said.

"Hrafnarr, could you tell Dr. Lewis a little about reith ljós?"

"Wraith what?" Darcy asked.

Hrafnarr answered. "Reith ljós. It's our word for a...kind of light beam."

"A kind of subatomic particle human scientists haven't detected," Jane explained. "It's like neutrinos but more complex and more stable. They have a different flavor depending on what dimension they originate from, so they can be used to track when alternate realities come close to each other, or when a gateway opens between them."

"We've set up detectors for them," Hrafnarr said. "Ever since the attack from Svartalfheim, the Asgardians have been on the watch for crossovers from other realms."

"Have you detected any?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact," Jane answered. "Have you heard of Westview, New Jersey?"

"I'm familiar," she replied vaguely.

"The former Avenger Wanda Maximoff apparently made a wall of energy around the entire town."

"The reith ljós levels from that event were the second-highest we've ever detected," Hrafnarr said, with a note of awe in his voice.

"What was the highest?" Darcy inquired.

"The Blip. When everyone came back. That was off the charts."

"So wherever the matter came from to reconstitute everyone who'd been blipped, it was interdimensional," Darcy realized.

Jane nodded. "Exactly. And something Wanda did in Westview must have also opened an interdimensional gate. Interdimensional reith ljós levels have been elevated ever since, from at least two other realities. Which makes it so interesting that you just happen to be asking about the Nexus now."

Darcy wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell Jane, but she didn't want the Asgardians to find out about the Scarlet Witch prophecy, so she decided to avoid bringing it up where an Asgardian could overhear.

"It actually has to do with Westview. I've been working with the FBI, and when they were investigating Westview they came across a reference to the Nexus. What do you think it would mean if someone were referred to as a 'nexus being'?"

"A nexus being?" Jane frowned. "I don't know. That doesn't really make sense. The Nexus is the axis of connection between the universes. It's a transdimensional pivot point connected to every point in every universe at once. I can't imagine any object having a particular connection to it." She scrunched her eyebrow, deep in contemplation.

"What about an Infinity Stone, or something connected to an Infinity Stone?" Darcy speculated. "If the Infinity Stones together could move half the inhabitants of the universe across a dimensional divide, the Infinity Stones must have some connection to the Nexus, right?"

"That makes sense, but the Infinity Stones were destroyed."

"Maybe not entirely," Hrafnarr said. "Objects imbued with the power of an Infinity Stone become as a reflection of it, just as the light of a planet is actually the light of its star reflecting off it. Every object altered by an Infinity Stone will carry the essence of said Stone."

"Okay, so if there were a...say, a person, for example, with the essence of an Infinity Stone who was able to connect to the Nexus, what do you think they could do?"

"Maybe a better question is what couldn't they do," Jane said. "They could move between realities, pull objects from one reality to another, change things at an atomic level...basically create anything they could think of just by bringing the material for it from another reality."

"Huh."

"Do you think Wanda Maximoff could be a nexus being?"

"'Twould explain the reith ljós readings from Westview," Hrafnarr pointed out.

"If that's true, someone has to find her. Someone has to warn her how dangerous that power is," Jane said.

"Yeah," Darcy agreed. "Working on it."

Darcy found Jimmy, Vision, and Korg sitting on rocks overlooking the sea, chatting amiably.

"To this day I don't know who was in the suit. Still not convinced it wasn't Scott, but I couldn't prove it," Jimmy was telling them. He spotted Darcy and rose to greet her. "Hey. Did you get anything?"

"Kind of. I talked to my old friend Jane Foster. If Wanda does anything like what she did in Westview again, they'll be able to detect it. They promised I'll be their first call."

"And if she doesn't use her powers to that extent again?" Vision asked.

"Then we're still at square one."

Chapter Text

Wanda was in training, working on the basics of magic she'd never been taught. She kept some distance between herself and the other students, afraid of what she might do if her magic got out of control.

She could conjure a magic rope now, but still couldn't direct it. She could open a portal, but not one stable enough to travel through.

Agatha just observed the lessons from the sidelines, seeming bored. She rarely missed a chance to mock Wanda for making the slightest beginner's mistake.

Agatha was under constant watch at Kamar-Taj, as all the sorcerers knew of her crimes. Agatha and Wanda both wore rings of antique silver that Doctor Strange had enchanted to alert him whenever they used magic, which Agatha was forbidden to do without permission.

The instructor wrapped up the lesson and dismissed the students. Once she didn't have something to focus on, Wanda's attention returned to the constant stomach ache that came with knowing she was cursed to destroy the world. She headed toward her room to study, but first swung by the kitchen to grab a single samosa for lunch.

Agatha intercepted her before she could reach her room.

"That's seriously all you're going to eat? You've been on your feet for hours. You need to keep your strength up."

She bristled at any advice coming from Agatha, but knowing the other witch was trying to get a rise out of her, she just said, "I'm not that hungry."

"What, you still plagued with guilt for all the bad things you've done?" she said in a baby-talk tone that made Wanda want to hit her.

"I might accidentally kill everyone on Earth. People I care about. I know that's not something you'd understand."

Agatha smirked, seeing she'd scored a hit. "Poor Wanda, cursed with the power to destroy the world. You learn how to use it, and you could have anything you wanted. No one would oppose you. Do you know what I'd give to have that kind of power?"

"I don't know what you'd give, but I know what you'd take: my life, the life of anyone in your way, Peter's autonomy."

"Oh, you're a fine one to point fingers on that. Honey, can I give you some advice, witch to witch?" She didn't wait for Wanda's answer. "This power you have, this chaos magic, it's who you are. Embrace it. Love it. It's all you need. It's your freedom. Don't worry about what you might break along the way. Sometimes things just need to be broken."

"You better hope I don't, because the first thing I break would be you," Wanda said in a harsh whisper.

Agatha smirked. "Oh my. A threat? Finally you're making some progress. If it bothers you so much, think of it this way: the world's going to end some day, one way or another. It might as well be because of you."

Doctor Strange appeared behind them. "Wong found it."

Wanda's irritation with Agatha was forgotten in an instant. "What does it say?"

They found Wong in the library. On the desk in front of him was a flat, roughly triangular bone. It was an ox scapula, used in ancient China for divination. After months of research chasing down any information on the Scarlet Witch, Wong found the earliest reference to it in a mention of a miraculously indestructable oracle bone in a Han Dynasty travelogue.

"Where did you find it?" Agatha asked curiously.

"A small museum of curiosities in Hubei Province. Their website claimed this bone was found undamaged in the ruins of a burned temple."

"How did you get it?" Wanda wondered.

"I stole it. But I replaced it with a nearly exact replica. No one will even know it's gone."

"If this is really the original text of the curse, we need it more than they do," Strange pointed out. "Can you read it?"

"I've been working on it. The characters are in the ancient oracle bone script. The story goes that the words appeared as cracks when the bone was heated during a divination ceremony under a lunar eclipse, and the strokes do look like cracks rather than carvings. But I believe I have deciphered all the words."

Wanda stepped next to him, looking down at the bone. A lamp set at an angle on the table showed the characters in sharp relief. There were two columns of six characters each.

Was this really what had cursed her? Were these twelve words scratched on a bone what condemned her to bring about the end of the world?

"What does it say?" she asked quietly.

"Let me preface this by saying there is a degree of ambiguity. The meanings of words change over time, and from place to place. Also, ancient Chinese writings tend to be rather abbreviated, with words left out that in the spoken language would make the meaning more clear. Chinese languages don't have words for 'the' or 'a'. They don't typically specify if a word is singular or plural. It can leave a lot of room for interpretation."

"But you do think you know what it means?" Strange asked.

Wong looked at him and nodded. From his expression, Wanda wasn't reassured.

"The first two characters," Wong pointed to the two upper characters in the right column, "say 'Hundun', which means chaos, or the incarnation of the primordial forces of chaos."

"The God of Chaos. That agrees with commentaries on the Darkhold," Agatha stated.

"Yes, but Hundun doesn't have quite the negative connotation that the phrase 'god of chaos' does in English. Chinese legends about Hundun do sometimes portray it as an evil being, but some legends portray it as neutral or good," Wong said. "That isn't as incompatible as it might seem. There is a deep-rooted line of philosophy in China that holds what is evil is imbalance, and what is good is balance. Everything is good in the right doses, and becomes evil if there is too much of it. Even order and chaos. Too much chaos is destruction and confusion, but too much order becomes stiffling and stagnant. A bit of chaos is necessary for creation, innovation, and freedom. Some element of randomness is required for the generation of anything new, anything original. It gives a better outcome than order alone, which by its nature preserves the status quo. For this reason, Hundun is not regarded as inherently bad."

"If he wants me to destroy the world, that seems pretty bad to me," Wanda said.

"Good point," Wong conceded. He continued his explanation, moving his finger down the right column. "'Hundun, Lord of the Center,'" he paused reading to explain, "These last two characters may have several meanings, depending largely on when this was written. The second-to-last one could mean 'parting' or 'dying'. Legends don't help us there, as in some legends Hundun was killed and in others exiled. The last one could mean 'gathering', 'choosing', or 'gift'."

"So it could be either the parting gift or the dying choice of the god of chaos," Agatha complained.

"She could be. The Scarlet Witch. The mantle of the Scarlet Witch could be what the departing god gathered, or the dying god's gift." He moved on to the top of the left column. "These characters, 'Dan Wu', essentially mean 'Red Witch', but the first character is not the word for 'red' that would be most common for this time period. It means cinnabar, a red ore of mercury that was used so much in ancient alchemy that it was a generic word for alchemical substances, as well as a shade of deep red. It indicates something transformative. I don't believe the use of that particular word is incidental. The last three words say 'comes to destroy the world'."

"Any alternate readings for those?" Strange asked.

"Unfortunately, no. The third-to-last character can mean 'destroy', 'exterminate', or 'extinguish'. There's no possible meaning for it that's less...drastic."

"If this is the original text of the curse, it's the magical equivalent of a contract," Strange mused. "Breaking the text would void the contract. According to legend it's indestructable. Have you tried to destroy it?"

"Not yet," Wong replied.

Strange blasted the bone with a spell. It flew off the table and clattered to the floor, but was undamaged.

Wong conjured a rock and pounded the oracle bone with it, but it didn't even dent it.

"May I try?" Agatha asked Doctor Strange.

"Have at it."

"Stand back." She lifted her hands, muttered something in Latin, then struck the bone with violet lightning.

Not even singed.

Wanda felt a wave of despairing disappointment come off Agatha's mind. Despite her earlier bravado, when it came right down to it not even Agatha wanted the world to end.

Wanda had destroyed an Infinity Stone and nearly crushed Thanos, she reminded herself. Maybe, just maybe, her power could break this curse. She levitated it into the air and tried to crush it with her power. She tried to crumble it, tried to explode it. Nothing worked. She felt powerless against it.

She let it fall to the floor. Then she crumpled to the floor herself, burying her face in her hands.

No one said anything for a minute.

"The balance of magic requires curses to have some weak point," Strange said. "Some string attached, some loophole. We just need to find it."

Back in her room, Wanda curled up on the floor.

If they couldn't find some way to break the curse, she would have only one option. But there was no way to know when it would be too late. If the gateway she'd accidentally opened between realities allowed whatever horrors existed in Earth-35111 to invade their Earth, it might already be too late. She might already have triggered the apocalypse.

If not...

It wasn't that she wasn't afraid to die, but she was willing to face death. She had accepted that she would probably die when she volunteered for HYDRA's experiment.

When she died, she would join her parents, Pietro, and Vision.

She wasn't so sure about Tommy and Billy. She wished she could figure out what happened to them when she broke the spell she had on Westview, why she could still feel them.

What was she supposed to do? She was cursed to destroy the world. How was she supposed to deal with that?

She felt so alone, and so useless.

Suddenly, she accutely wanted the comfort of a friend. She didn't have many of those left. The set of people who cared about her and were still alive pretty much consisted of Clint and Sam. She'd had both of their new phone numbers programmed in the phone Clint had given her after Tony's funeral, but she'd left that phone behind when she left Westview. She hadn't meant to, but after everything that happened grabbing her phone just hadn't crossed her mind. And of course their numbers were unlisted, so she had no way of looking them up.

When she had been on the run with Steve, Nat, and Sam, they'd set up a virtual voicemail for emergency communications. She still had that number memorized.

She returned to the library and got on a computer. She logged into the site for their virtual voicemail and entered the phone number and passcode. There were several calls logged, most of them from the same number, starting eight months ago, right after her time in Westview, and trailing off after about a month. But two were from a different number, from just over a month ago.

She listened to the earlier ones. They were from Sam, saying he couldn't get ahold of her, asking her to call him back. He said he got that she was going through a lot, and said he was there for her whenever she needed him. After the first few calls, he said he'd heard she'd been involved in something weird in Westview, and speculated that was why she decided to drop off the map, but that he'd really appreciate her sending him some kind of message that she was okay.

Those were the words he'd used: "Just let me know you're okay." He wanted reassurance, not the truth. She wasn't okay. And what she was dealing with was beyond anything Sam could help. It would be a mistake to reach out to him, to burden him with this.

She almost didn't listen to the two more recent calls, but curiosity about who they were from got the better of her.

"Hi. I know this is kinda random. You probably don't even check this number anymore, so you'll probably never hear this. The mutual friend who gave me this number says he hasn't heard from you, but I figure it's worth a try." A soft, chalky male voice. She didn't recognize it. "If you do get this message, call me. There's something important I need to talk to you about, but I can't risk someone else listening to this message."

Actually, the voice did sound vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it.

He supplied a phone number, and the best hours to call.

It concluded with, "I know you have no reason to trust me, but know that you've got people in your corner, Wanda."

When he said her name, she suddenly placed the voice. That had been the voice that came over the radio in Westview, before she'd realized she had made that reality. That was the voice that had asked that haunting question: Who's doing this to you, Wanda?

He'd been there, investigating Westview. That meant he was one of them. He was with SWORD. Sure, Monica had been a SWORD agent who tried to help her, but it had been pretty clear she'd been doing it against orders.

They must have gotten to Sam. What did they tell him?

She was almost too terrified to listen to the last message, the one from the same number. She didn't want to know what it might contain, what lies or threats or terrible new information he might say. But she told herself nothing would be worse than the knowledge she already had to deal with.

She played the last message.

"Hey. Sorry to call you again. I mean, not really sorry. You probably still aren't hearing this. But in case you are, there's something we think you should know. If you don't know it already. We think we might have a clue about what went down in New Jersey. The Infinity Stones were connected to the Nexus. They could swap matter and energy from different realities. That's the power Thanos harnessed for the Blip. Someone with the energy of an Infinity Stone inside them could have the same kind of ability, the ability to open doors between realities, transmogrify matter, or possibly even make worlds collide. I know this is a lot to deal with. I know you're scared. We can help you, if you want to reach out. If not...I hope you're in a good spot, that you're with people who can help you."

She was shaking. SWORD was offering to help her? The people who shot at her sons? Not to mention what they'd turned Vision's body into. It was horrifying to imagine what help they had planned for her.

Wanda couldn't sleep that night. Of course, she had trouble sleeping every night, but finding the cursed oracle bone and listening to the voicemail messages made it impossible. She kept thinking over every word from the day: Agatha's taunting, Wong's explanation of the ambiguities in the text of the curse, the voice of the mysterious agent suggesting her Nexus powers came from the energy of the Mind Stone inside her, Doctor Strange insisiting there must logically be some way to break the curse.

As the hours dragged on, her anxious, sleep-deprived thoughts grew more and more disordered.

...ambiguity... random... broken... probability hex... worlds... balance... loopholes...

She finally fell asleep around daybreak. She woke with the ring of her alarm clock not even an hour later.

She woke with an idea in her head. A crazy idea. Probably a dumb idea. It probably wouldn't even work. But she'd ask Doctor Strange about it, just in case.

Chapter Text

Vision got home from work at 3:44 a.m.

He wondered when he'd started thinking of Darcy's apartment as 'home'.

A few of his paintings hung on one wall of the living room. Most were landscapes or abstract, but one was a portrait of Wanda he'd painted from memory one day when he'd been missing her so much it hurt. Sometimes he couldn't bear to look at it, but he also couldn't bear the thought of taking it down.

He hoped Wanda, wherever she was, was alright. Though he rejected out of hand the possibility that there was any truth in the prophecy or curse that she would bring about the end of the world, he knew it would haunt her.

He wished he could help her in any way. He wished he could just know she was alive.

Vision settled in for a rest cycle. When he closed his eyes, he was assailed by the image of the forest in Wakanda, with Thanos advancing on him and Wanda as she used her power to keep him back.

His eyes shot open. He focused on the details of the room around him, reminding his subconscious that it was only a memory, not the present reality.

The difficulty was that the fear the memory triggered didn't center on his own danger, but on Wanda's, and while he could reassure himself he was safe, he had no evidence to convince himself that she was.

He decided to read for a bit to reset his mind before attemping to rest again.

Shortly before 5 a.m., he heard Darcy's phone ring from her bedroom. After a few rings, he heard her groggy "Hello?" A minute later, she rushed into the living room. "How soon can you get to Baltimore?"

He did a quick calculation. "At my top speed, I could fly there in approximately half an hour. Why? What's in Baltimore?"

"Jane just called me to say there's a sudden surge in transdimensional particles, origin point smack in the middle of Baltimore. It could be Wanda."

He rose so quickly his book fell to the floor. "Do you have the coordinates?"

Darcy held up her cellphone, showing a text specifying the exact latitude and longitude.

"Thank you."

He phased through the wall and flew into the early dawn.

The coordinates led to an office building near downtown. He flew into an alley and phased into his disguise, but when he walked around the building, he found the street in front of it blocked off by police cars. There was a single officer out front, talking on a radio.

He stopped to listen.

"...extremely aggressive. Possible drug use. Multiple assailants..."

The sound of gunshots rattled from inside the building. The officer dropped low and drew his gun.

Vision didn't even take time to see if anyone was watching before phasing through the wall of the building. If there was any chance Wanda was there, he had to help.

Fluorescent lights flickered through the hallway. Voices echoed from deeper in the building.

"Bullets ain't working!"

"What are those things?"

"Pull back!"

More gunshots.

"Ahh!"

Vision saw police officers running down the hall, one bleeding heavily from a wound in his arm.

"Get him out of here! I'm going back for Dale."

Vision phased his clothes to resemble a policeman's uniform. He ran toward the officers.

He approached the officer who had remained behind. She'd taken cover around a corner, gun drawn, trying to catch her breath.

"What's the situation?" he asked her.

She barely glanced at him. "Unclear. Several calls came in this morning. Some people coming in to work this morning thought a gang had broken into the building. Erratic behavior, unprovoked aggression. We cleared the building. The perps didn't respond to verbal commands. Dale emptied his clip into the one who bit Irwin. I don't think they're human."

From what Darcy explained after her meeting with Dr. Foster and the Asgardian astronomer, the transdimensional particles could indicate matter coming through from another world. What came through might very well not be human.

"Are they armed?"

"Unknown."

"Have you expended any rounds?" he asked her, thinking fast.

"Yes. I'm down to five bullets."

"I've got a full clip. Stay here, make sure none of them get out of the building. I'm going in."

"No! You don't know what you're dealing with!"

He didn't respond. He jogged deeper into the building, and as soon as he was out of the officer's line of sight he phased through a wall. He cleared one room and moved onto another.

There was someone in that room, a woman in unbelievably tattered and soiled clothes, apparently eating a potted fern.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She looked at him sharply, startled, and in a second launched herself at him.

He phased to allow her to pass through him unharmed. She turned back toward him and attacked again. He grabbed her arm to restrain her. She bit his arm with so much force her teeth broke. The broken teeth didn't stop her from gnawing on him, trying vainly to rip his flesh, leaving her own blood behind.

He took some time to examine her. There was something wrong with her, physically. There were strange, slightly raised zigzag lines on her skin.

He heard a human scream from another room. He abandoned his attacker to investigate.

A police officer had climbed on top of a cabinet. Four of the humanoid creatures were trying to reach for him, climbing over each other. He was trying to kick them away.

The officer spotted Vision. "Get out of here! Run!"

Instead, Vision literally flew into the fray, phasing into his true form. He tossed the attackers back. They hit into walls and furniture so hard any normal human would have been stunned, but they just got up and started coming again, at least one of them with an obviously broken arm.

"You... You're an Avenger. The Vision. I thought you were dead," the officer said.

"I get that a lot." He floated up to him. "I'm going to get you out of here."

He lifted the officer down, kicking away the creatures grabbing at them. He paused to close the door behind them, hoping it would stop the creatures. But apparently turning a door handle was within their capacity; it only slowed them for a moment.

"What are they?"

"I believe they're infected with something," Vision said. "One who attacked me had some kind of subcutaneous growth. You and everyone else who came in contact with them should isolate pending a medical examination."

"Oh God. Zombies?"

"That doesn't seem an inaccurate description," Vision admitted.

The officer Vision had spoken to before was where he'd left her. Her eyes widened when she saw them.

"What the... Dale, you okay?"

"Yeah."

Vision set him down. "Apprise the officers outside of the situation. Isolate anyone exposed. Make sure no one enters or leaves. I will secure the building."

He flew back toward the creatures. Each one he found he locked in a secure room. Some were dead, having apparently bled out from gunshot wounds. It seemed that they were merely immune to pain, not to physical damage.

He came to a room illuminated by a strange glowing sphere, brightest at the center and fading to a faint glowing haze at the perimeter. It cut through two walls, grew and shrank in size spasmodically, and was where the creatures were coming from, walking out of it like predators sniffing for prey. They didn't appear to be aware of his presence unless he moved, at which point they would instantly attack him.

He sealed off the rooms the sphere occupied, moving the heaviest furiture he could find to block the doors.

He could hear scratching from the door, as if the things were trying to claw their way out.

He continued searching the building. He thought he'd contained them all until he got to the roof, where several were trying to make it to the fire escape, being fought back by Bucky and Sam, wielding the Captain America shield.

"We just got here a minute ago, flown in from D.C. to deal with something too weird for the locals. I heard you were here," Sam said, swinging his shield around to pivot an attacker off the roof.

"How did you get here so fast?" Bucky inquired, blocking a creature with his metal arm, then grabbing it by the head and tossing it aside before turning his attention to two others trying to attack him from behind.

Vision blasted the legs on one of them about to leap at Sam. "I was investigating a sudden increase in transdimensional subatomic particles the Asgardian astrophysicists detected, centered at this location."

"So particles from another dimension are turning people into zombies?"

"No." Vision knocked one of the attackers back with a bone-cracking blow to the chest. "These beings are coming from a portal to another dimension that appeared inside this building. I believe their condition is pathogenic."

"You mean contagious?" Bucky asked.

"That's why I said don't let them bite you," said Sam.

"I've sealed the room containing the portal and locked several inside rooms in the building."

"Who would open a portal to another dimension and let zombies through?" Bucky wondered, ducking to avoid one that tried to pounce on him from behind and snapping its neck before it could recover its balance.

"It may have been accidental. The Asgardians' monitoring of transdimensional particles indicates the power Wanda used in Westview weakened the barrier between our dimension and at least two others. It's possible the portal I saw is simply a point where that barrier broke down, where two universes now touch." He caught Sam's shield after it ricocheted off one zombie into another, and tossed it back to him just in time for him to knock another off the roof.

"I miss the days when my biggest worries were HYDRA, robots, and terrorists," Sam said.

One lunged at Bucky. As he held that one off, three more rushed on him, pushing him backward. He fell back off the rooftop, grabbing the wall with his metal arm. Sam sprinted to him, knocking two of the attackers away. He threw the shield, which knocked into one of the zombies hanging off him, who grabbed onto the other. Their combined weight ripped Bucky's shirt, and both zombies fell several stories to the ground.

Sam gave Bucky a hand, pulling him back on the roof.

"Thanks," Bucky said.

"No problem. Can't have a zombie supersoldier running around."

Vision flew at the remaining zombies, phased through them, and knocked them back from the fire escape. 

This was his first altercation since his battle with the Hex Vision in Westview, he realized. He wished these opponents could be reasoned with as easily as he had.

He peeled the metal bars of the fire escape away from the wall, trapping the creatures on the roof. "I propose we retreat to focus on containment and reconnaissance."

"Seconded."

Sam extended his wings, grabbed Bucky, and flew off the roof.

Vision joined them on the ground. The police cars blocking the street had been joined by several others, and a few ambulances. Some military vehicles were arriving.

"Can you explain the situation to the military?" Vision asked Sam. "I need to make a phone call. We need to tell the Asgardians what came through that portal, so they can warn us if any others appear."

Chapter Text

Containment of the zombie-infested building was handled quickly by heavily armed military personnel. Everyone who'd been in the building or had contact with the creatures—Vision, Sam, Bucky, a few police officers, and the handful of early-morning office workers—were immediately subjected to decontamination showers and transported to a quarantine ward for examination and observation.

Vision had resumed his human disguise, not that he expected his anonymity to survive this event intact.

The mood in the quarantine ward was somber. The patients barely spoke, and when they did it was in hushed tones.

A TV played the news. All it said about the morning's events was that a city block in Baltimore had been evacuated due to a possibility of explosion.

"They seriously think they can cover something like this up?" one of the police officers asked.

Bucky replied, "Can you imagine the panic if the public hears that now on top of everything, there are zombies? It hasn't even been a year since the Blip."

"So you think it's better to keep people in the dark?" Sam asked him.

"I think it's a good idea not to go public without more answers."

Medical personnel in full hazmat gear came through to take bood samples, saliva samples, and nose swabs from the patients. The fact that they didn't even try to take a blood sample from Vision indicated word of his identity had gotten around.

A couple of hours later, someone whose military bearing was unmistakable even in a hazmat suit came up to Vision. "The doctor wants to see you."

"What about us?" Sam asked.

"You haven't been cleared."

Though reluctant to leave Sam and Bucky, Vision followed the man into a decontamination room where they were sprayed down and illuminated with ultraviolet light.

After decontamination, the officer directed Vision to a door down the hall.

He opened it slowly.

The only occupant of the room rose from her computer, staring at him.

"It really is you."

"Doctor Cho..."

"When I heard you were here, I could barely believe it. Thank you for sticking around. I know you didn't have to."

"Two of my friends are in quarantine," he said. "I want to make sure they're alright. I was not aware you had been brought in on the investigation."

"My experience with robotic surgery makes me ideally qualified to perform autopsies while not being in the same room as the body, and my work with SHIELD and the Avengers gives me very high security clearance. Vision, I can't tell you how happy I am to see you alive."

He'd considered looking for her during his time of wandering, asking her to examine him, to try to figure out what was wrong with him, but he'd felt that would be an unfair burden to lay on her. He hadn't realized how deeply his loss had affected her.

"After Thanos killed me, an organization known as SWORD attempted to rebuild me, not for the sake of bringing me back to life, but to utilize me as a weapon."

"I know," she stated slightly reluctantly.

He froze, worried for the implications of those two words.

"I knew they were trying," she explained. "At least, I suspected it. A few years ago, during the Blip, I was approached by someone interested in my work. She was exceptionally knowledgeable, so we talked. She was especially interested in you: how I'd created you, how you worked. I've spent enough time around secret organization types that I realized she was trying to feel me out, to see if I might be willing to help them try to bring you back. To fix you, as she put it. I won't lie: I was tempted. I was tempted to try. But I didn't think it was possible without the Mind Stone. I told her that. But I did share some raw data from your creation with her. I never heard from her again. I honestly didn't think it was possible to bring you back, but...part of me hoped. I swear, I never would have helped them if I knew they were planning to use you as a weapon."

"I know," he assured her. It would take him some time to process the revelation of her part in his resurrection. But that wasn't important now. He nodded toward her computer. "What have you learned about...the illness."

"A lot, actually. I've performed four autopsies so far, and all the data's consistent. There's good news and bad news." She sat at her computer and brought up an image of a body scan, highlighting a network of something spread through the body. "It's a fungus. It invades a host's body and turns them into an eating machine. Meat, plants, wood, dirt, anything organic. The host body forms a symbiotic relationship with the fungal parasite, developing an extremely high metabolism."

What he was observing in the body scan must have been the mycelium spreading through the body.

It was especially thick in the lungs and brain.

"You said there was good news."

"Believe it or not, this is the good news. There are no fungal spores in the blood or saliva of the infected or the patients exposed to them. This isn't spread by biting or fighting."

"How is it spread?"

"What's your level of disgust with human bodily functions?" she asked as prelude.

"I would say I'm reconciled to them."

"The military sent drones into the building to observe the behavior of the infected. Those locked alone in a room began eating anything that would fit in their mouths. Those kept together ate anything organic and then started attacking and biting each other. When I heard about that behavior I suspected the fungus derives some evolutionary benefit from it. I asked them to gather some samples." She paused for a beat. "This fungus has at least two life stages. One in the host's body, the other... You know how I told you I didn't find fungal spores in the blood or saliva of the infected?"

"Yes."

"There also aren't fungal spores in the lungs or bodies of the dead. The only place I found them was in their feces. I believe the second stage of their lifecycle is coprophagic. There hasn't been enough time to experimentally confirm my hypothesis, but I believe from there the fungus sends up a fruiting body. The hyphae are thickest in the victims' lungs, which leads me to believe that's where the infection begins."

"Airborne," Vision realized. "The spores are airborne."

She nodded solemnly.

"That's the bad news."

"That's the bad news," she confirmed.

Vision scrutinized the image on the screen. "Is there any way to cure them?"

"I've ordered antifungal treatments for everyone who entered the building. Other than you, since you don't breathe and are therefore unlikely to be infected, and I have no idea how we'd even administer them. Hopefully, the treatment will kill the fungus if any of them have an infection we can't detect yet, but once it becomes symptomatic... The first thing the fungus replaces in the host body is the prefrontal cortex, followed by several other key regions of the brain. There's not a 'them' left to cure."

The weight of this threat was suffocating. Airborne fungal spores that turned humans into mindless eating machines...

"We've contained it here," Dr. Cho said. "We'll study the spores, figure out how to kill them. I'm communicating with New Asgard. They're on the lookout for any other transdimensional entry points. Hopefully we'll have enough time to contain them if they crop up. But if this happens somewhere away from military and medical resources, if we can't reach it in time... So soon after the Blip, I don't know how much more of this Earth can take."

Vision reached out and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze he hoped was comforting. "We will never stop fighting to survive. It's what humans do."

"Unfortunately, I think this fungus has figured that out too."

Vision returned to the quarantine ward to update Sam and Bucky, then he was summoned to another office, where he found Darcy and Jimmy waiting for him.

Darcy sprinted to him and jumped up to wrap her arms around his neck. "Vision. I'm so glad you're okay. If I'd known how dangerous it was..."

He returned her hug. "If I had not been there, it may have been much worse." He backed away, looking at them questioningly. "Have you been updated?"

"If you mean have we been read in that the latest threat to Earth is a zombifying fungus from another dimension, yeah, we've been updated," Jimmy said. "Now that we've got a better idea what the danger is, the U.N. wants to go public, coordinate with New Asgard to enact an international warning system."

"Do you think that is a wise move, with the panic it could cause?" Vision asked, thinking of what Bucky had said earlier.

"Real information is always better in a crisis. Otherwise, all people have to go on is rumors," he answered. "That brings me to you..."

"I suppose the cat is out of the bag on the fact that I'm alive," Vision said.

"Not necessarily. Right now, that information is limited to a few police officers, doctors, and military officials. All people who are used to keeping secrets. Especially if the FBI's Sokovia Accords Liaison tells them to. I have to fully update the U.N. on your role in preventing a zombie apocalypse—which I'm pretty sure will convince them to keep you around—but there's an argument to be made for the benefits of having a secret member of the Avengers in our back pocket. I could sell it. On the other hand, if you want to go public, now would be a good time. You'd be celebrated as a hero.”

Vision had been considering it until the last sentence. He didn't want to be a celebrity. He had been enjoying his anonymity, his brief taste of a relatively normal life.

For a moment, a hope flared in his mind that if the U.N. announced to the world that he had been involved in the successful containment of the contagion, Wanda might reach out to him. But the memory of trying to kill her flashed through his mind, chasing that hope away. No act of heroism could erase what he had done. And if she hadn't reached out to Sam, her close friend, it was not likely she would reach out to him.

"I would prefer my existence remain known to only a select few for the time being," he said.

"Okay. I'll keep your role in it quiet."

"What are you going to say if you are asked who or what caused the transdimensional breach?" Vision inquired.

Jimmy didn't answer.

Darcy did. "Well, in my professional opinion as an astrophysicist, it's Thanos's fault. The Blip was the biggest surge of transdimensional particles the Asgardians have ever measured; that means it destabilized interdimensional equilibrium, which could easily lead to crossover events like this. And even if the power Wanda used to create the Hex destabilized it more, we all know she wouldn't have created it if it weren't for what Thanos did to her, so it would still be his fault. There's enough hate for Thanos to go around, and if everyone agrees with me that he's to blame, no one living gets hurt."

Jimmy stared at her with admiration. "That's a brilliant deduction."

"Induction. But thanks."

Vision nodded, grateful beyond words for Darcy and Jimmy's determination to protect Wanda.

Wanda, Strange, Agatha, and Wong watched the press briefing on Strange's laptop. In the bottom corner on one side of the split screen were the words "Helen Cho, Washington, D.C." and on the other side, "Jane Foster, Oslo."

Dr. Cho had just explained, in precise, clinical terms, the lifecycle and symptoms of the parasitic fungus that had come from an interdimensional portal that opened in Baltimore.

"We are continuing to study the fungus. There have been no new infections, and everyone injured in the event is recovering. For their privacy and safety, their identities are being withheld, but I have been given permission to confirm that the Avengers were on the scene and were very helpful in containing the outbreak. However, out of an abundance of caution, anyone who observes strange behavior in humans or animals, especially aggression and uncontrollable eating, should not approach and should immediately contact the police. I want to repeat and stress that this infection isn't spread person-to-person. Someone attacked or bitten by an infected organism is not going to turn into a zombie. Please exercise both calm and compassion at this time."

"Thank you, Dr. Cho," the interviewer said. "Dr. Foster, should we be worried about new interdimensional rifts forming that could cause outbreaks of this infection in other parts of the world?"

"As I mentioned earlier, scientists in New Asgard are monitoring for just such an event twenty-four/seven. If a new rift forms, we'll know right away. We have every government in the world on speed dial, and we've asked everyone to be prepared to contain any new rifts. But we don't have any reason to believe this wasn't a one-time event."

"What caused the rift in the first place?"

"It's early in the investigation, so we're still working out the exact sequence of events that led to the rift, but my colleague Dr. Darcy Lewis has developed a compelling model that indicates the matter Thanos displaced during the Blip, which we've discovered involved transdimensional movement, caused an imbalance in interdimensional interactions that's still working itself out. It's like the aftershock of an earthquake..."

"They think Thanos caused this," Wanda said.

"Makes sense they'd blame him," Agatha said. "Everyone on Earth knows what Thanos did. Hardly anyone knows what you did."

Wanda felt like she should be relieved, but wasn't. She had always believed people should take responsibility for their mistakes. But it didn't really matter whether she or Thanos took the blame. It was her mess, and she was going to clean it up.

She stood abruptly. "The rift might have closed for now, but we can't risk waiting any longer." She pointed a finger at Doctor Strange, and stated with a firmness she hoped would prevent any further arguments, "We are going with my plan."

It wasn't him who raised the anticipated objection, but Agatha. "Did you hear what they said? The fungal spores are airborne."

"So I'll bring a gas mask. We can't waste any more time trying to come up with another solution. You can help me or not," she looked at each of them, "but I'm going."

Chapter Text

The building was nicer than Wanda had anticipated. Instead of the bland, blocky appearance the word 'school' conjured for her, this place looked like a manor.

Children in a range of ages were on the lawn, playing games, eating lunch, or reading text books. Several stopped to watch as Wanda, Doctor Strange, and Agatha walked up to the front door.

"Fancy. Think this place has a principal's office?" Agatha wondered.

"Peter didn't say," Wanda answered.

Strange pressed a button on a speaker next to the door.

"Yes?" asked a voice from the speaker.

"Hi. I'm Dr. Stephen Strange. We're here to speak to Dr. McCoy."

After a long moment, they were buzzed in.

Most, but not all, of the people in the halls looked like ordinary humans. But Wanda read unordinary things from their minds. There was more fear, distrust, and hurt than there should have been from school children. She recognized the flavor of it. She knew what it was like to have large numbers of people who didn't even know you think you shouldn't exist.

A man in a tailored suit approached them. The first thing Wanda noticed about him was that he was blue and furry. The next thing was the particular pallette of his mind. He was caring, intellectual, and analytical in ways that reminded her of Vision, but he had regrets and heartaches that he chose to carry rather than bury, which reminded her of herself.

"Let me talk to him alone," Wanda said.

Doctor Strange frowned. "Are you sure?"

"It's my plan, my responsibility, my life. I'll handle it," she said.

He nodded. She wasn't sure if he was agreeing or just saw how determined she was.

She stepped forward to introduce herself, but before she could, Peter zipped up to her.

"Wanda! You made it!" He addressed the dean. "These are the people I told you about, the sorcerers from the other Earth. Stephen Strange, Agatha Harkness, and Wanda Maximoff."

"It's an honor to meet you. I'm Dr. Hank McCoy." He held out his hand. Wanda shook it without hesitation. Strange and Agatha shook it with slightly more discomfort.

Wanda sensed that Dr. McCoy had noticed, that the handshake was a test.

"Please forgive them. We don't have mutants in our world. They're not sure what to make of you," she said.

Dr. McCoy looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "You're a telepath?"

Peter had told her there were mutants able to read minds, but it was still a little startling to have it be recognized. "Sort of. I'm not very good at it. Nothing like what I've heard Professor Xavier can do."

Agatha rolled her eyes. "So we just got here. We heard your world's having zombie problems, and that your team's handling it."

"There have been some attacks by extremely aggressive but apparently non-communicative humans."

"How many attacks?" Strange asked.

"Three. We dealt with one of the outbreaks. The other two are under military quarantine in other countries. We've constructed windowless, doorless structures around the sources of the outbreaks. The..." he glanced at Agatha, "zombies appeared to come out of a glowing orb."

"A passage to a third Earth, one we call Earth-35111," Strange said. "The zombie-like behavior is caused by a parasitic fungal infection."

"Doctor Strange can explain to your team how to best protect your people from catching it, and I would like to talk to you about our plan to stop them, Dr. McCoy. We could use your help with it," Wanda said.

He nodded. "Very well. Mr. Maximoff, could you ask Professor Munroe and Professor Summers to confer with Dr. Strange. Ms. Maximoff, would you like to speak in my office?"

"Yes. Thank you."

Dr. McCoy's office was beautiful. Much of the furniture and decor seemed to be antique, but in good shape. Even though it was full of books, files, and souvenirs, everything seemed to have a place and order that prevented the impression of clutter.

He gestured her to the cushioned chair on the guest side of his desk.

"Would you like some coffee, tea, or water, Ms. Maximoff?"

"Yes please. I'd love some coffee." It might have been more polite to decline, but she didn't feel inclined to stand on politeness when she might not have another chance to drink a cup of coffee.

He ducked into a recess near the back corner of his office.

Wanda saw a framed photo at the side of the desk, angled toward Dr. McCoy's chair. She picked it up. The photo was of a woman with deep red hair and blue skin.

Dr. McCoy returned in a moment with two mugs of coffee. Wanda set the photo back in its place, feeling like she'd been caught snooping.

He didn't comment on it as he set her coffee in front of her, but he almost unconsciously adjusted the photo, turning it a few degrees.

She took a careful sip. "Mmm. Thank you. This is delicious." She wasn't sure if it actually tasted better than most coffee, or if the awareness that she might never experience it again was making her appreciate just how good coffee was.

"Thank you."

"I hope you don't think me...impertinent..." She wasn't quite sure what that word meant, but it sounded right, "but I'm...going through a lot right now, and you seem kind."

He frowned slightly, confused. "Thank you. I hope I'm able to help."

"Who's the woman in the photo?"

He hesitated a moment. "Her name's Raven."

"Ah. The shapeshifter. Peter told me about her. I'm sorry."

"He told me what you created in your world. I'm sorry for your losses as well."

She half-smiled, and a breathy half-laugh escaped her throat over the bitter understatement of describing what she'd been through as 'losses'.

He understood. "I know that isn't sufficient. There aren't words, are there?"

"Maybe not." Vision's words had comforted her in grieving for Pietro, but comfort wasn't always what a soul in mourning wanted. "When you lose someone you love, it doesn't just feel unfair, it feels unreal. Like it just doesn't make logical sense that someone so wonderful, so vibrant, so entirely unique could be gone from the world. It seems impossible. But death happens to everyone. It doesn't matter how special or how loved someone is."

His eyes flitted to the photo. "True."

"In one way, having a body to bury at least gives some sense of ceremony to it. It lets you feel like you're doing something for them." She thought of her sons she would never be able to bury, who left no physical trace that they had ever existed. "But in another way..."

"Even that haunts you."

"Yes." She could still picture Vision's body so clearly as it lay on the ground in Wakanda, as it lay in pieces in SWORD headquarters, as it lifted her off the ground by its fingertips, cold voice promising her death. "The person you loved is gone, and all that's left behind is this empty shell. Something strange. Something alien. Maybe that's why so many people bury their dead, so we can try to remember them as who they were instead of as what's left when they're gone."

"There's not a way to reconcile it," Dr. McCoy said gently. "Nothing makes it make sense. Losing someone doesn't come with any insight or gift of wisdom to give it meaning. You just have to live with it."

"Exactly." She sipped her coffee. There was no glimmer of tears in either of their eyes. She took comfort in how hardened she'd become. That would allow her to go through with what she'd need to do. "I don't know if Peter told you, but the zombie threat, the holes between our worlds...it's my fault. When I brought Peter to my world without knowing it, I threw our three universes out of balance. I opened those holes."

"At this school, we teach mutants how to control their powers. Before those powers are mastered, it's common for powerful people to break things on accident. Especially when strong emotions are involved."

She smiled slightly. "Yes. I've been through that stage. I'm done breaking things on accident. From now on, I'll be breaking things on purpose."

He tensed. "Pardon me?"

"Earth-35111, the zombie planet. I'm going to destroy it."

He stared at her. "That's a suicide mission."

"That's being a bit dramatic," she said. "It will be difficult and risky, but it's my responsibility. Besides...I'm the Scarlet Witch. If anyone can do it, it's me. And I will." She leaned back in her chair, cradling her half-empty cup of coffee beneath her chin. "What you can help me with is supplies. Ideally, I would like a gas mask, oxygen tanks, protective clothing. From what Peter has told me about your resources, I assume those are supplies you have on hand. Also, it would be helpful if you can get me to one of the dimensional rifts you have sealed. The one that opened on my Earth has already closed for now."

He stared at her for a moment longer. "I suppose you'll also need weapons..."

She laughed. "No. I'm fine in that department, thanks."

"Have you thought this through? There must be another way..."

"How long do you think until a new hole opens somewhere you won't be able to get to in time?"

That silenced him. She drank her coffee while she waited for him to realize she was right.

He finally nodded. "If you're determined to try this, I'll do what I can to help you. We'll get supplies ready. And I'll arrange for you to be transported to the rift in the morning. I'd like you and your colleagues to stay here tonight. We'll have rooms prepared for you. I would like to speak with you more later."

"I'd like that," she said honestly, even knowing he was planning on trying to change her mind, and he wouldn't succeed.

The next morning, after the first solid night's sleep Wanda had gotten in a long time and a hearty breakfast, she, Agatha, and Strange walked up to the solid concrete wall around the entry point for Earth-35111.

Wanda was wearing protective gear from head to foot. She had a backpack of supplies, including duct tape, a powerful ultraviolet lamp for decontaminating enclosed spaces, food, and a water purifier.

"This is your last chance to reconsider," Doctor Strange said.

"This isn't a choice I can make; it's what I have to do."

"You're an idiot," Agatha said, but Wanda thought she detected admiration and maybe a hint of envy in her.

"Yeah, you've made your opinions on that clear. Stay out of trouble, Agatha."

"I'll be seeing you, Wanda."

"Not if I see you first."

They all knew she wasn't coming back. She might be cursed to destroy Earth, but the curse didn't specify which Earth. To protect it, she would never set foot in her home Earth again.

She pulled the gas mask over her head and strapped it on. Doctor Strange opened a portal inside the enclosure. Summoning a protective shield in front of her, Wanda stepped through.

Chapter Text

In this world, there was barely a speck of green. The dominant colors were the browns of bare dirt and rock, the grays and beiges of buildings and roads after years without maintenance, and a sky such a vivid violet blue it almost hurt to look at it. Everything seemed frozen, not frozen in ice but frozen in a harsh sunlight, like the instant captured by a camera's flash. It revealed everything in a stark interplay of too bright light and too dark shadows.

At least, that was her initial impression.

Every tree she saw had been stripped of leaves, bark, and twigs. Most of them were dead.

Here and there, a weed or a few blades of grass poked up from cracks in roads and sidewalks, but these were rare.

Nonhuman animals could also be infected. She saw a large dog gnawing on a tree before it spotted her and came after her.

She saw no birds. No insects other than flies.

There were people. If they could still be called 'people'. They swarmed, traveling in groups. They didn't attack each other, but Wanda soon learned when one died the others would fall on it, reducing it to bones in minutes.

She couldn't control them like she could a human. All she could read from them was a mindless hunger that terrified her.

Every house or building had windows broken, often with bones scattered around the bare dirt of the yards and the floors within.

She kept her awareness open for the glow of a human mind. She had decided when she was formulating this plan that she would evacuate any survivors she found before trying to destroy this world. But she found none.

She found signs that there had been holdouts. Buildings contructed to keep everything out, doors and windows bricked over from the inside. Within, the remains of hydroponic gardens long since withered away after the electricity for the lights gave out.

She came across a furnace full of ashes and bones.

As night fell, she found a room deep inside a building with no windows and a single intact door. She demolished the stairs leading up to it to make sure nothing could track her there in the night. She moved every item of furniture out of the room, sealed the edges of the door, the vent, and every single crack with duct tape, then set the ultraviolet lamp in the middle of the room to flood every corner with its disinfectant light.

She didn't trust it would be enough to kill the spores.

In this world, she could truly explore her powers, find out exactly how much she could do.

Sending out threads of her power, she first felt the flow of the air to see if there were any cracks she missed. She then experimented to see if she could feel any solid particles in the air, any floating speck of pollen, mote of dust, and bit of lint. It took her a while, and doing experiments capturing the specks she could see in the beam of her flashlight, but she eventually could do it. She telekinetically gathered every single bit of solid matter in the air and clinging to the walls, ceiling, and floor of the room, and squeezed them together into a small, grayish ball, with so much pressure she was sure nothing could survive.

She finally dared take off her gas mask. She set it and her backpack on the floor in the light of the ultrviolet lamp, turning them to make sure every side got at least two minutes in the light. Only then did she open her backpack.

She ate an MRE, drank a bottle of water, and set up her bedding. She hadn't been able to sleep in a sleeping bag since her time in the Raft prison, as it reminded her too much of a straitjacket. She had only an air mattress and foil blanket.

She was warm enough. That wasn't why she couldn't sleep.

That was Day 1.

The next morning, she continued her search for survivors. She found a mummified body in a room bolted from the inside. The room had windows too high in the building for the zombies to break into. In this same room, Wanda found a fireproof safe. Roman numerals carved into the wall turned out to be the combination for the safe. Inside it were answers: newspaper clips and handwritten notes that provided a timeline for the disaster.

The fungus had not evolved naturally; it was genetically engineered and unleashed on the world in 2004. Around a hundred people built an underground bunker in central Idaho with enough food and other supplies to last them decades, and they released a disease to, as they put it, 'cleanse' the world. The world knew this, because the leader of the cult released a recorded statement to the media.

A little over a year later, rogue elements in the Canadian Air Force launched an unauthorized nuclear strike on Idaho. Whether the cult's bunker survived the strike was unknown.

The end had not come quickly. People fought it, killing and burning anyone suspected to be infected. But people kept succumbing to it. It had taken years to figure out how it spread, and in the meantime, military coups took control in several countries, setting armed guards and building razor-wire fences around farms, executing dissenters. A few years later, as the number of zombies swelled despite the military's efforts, society descended into chaos, with groups of people isolating themselves, hording food and guns, rejecting all outsiders. It was around this time that the newspaper articles stopped and the woman had switched to writing updates.

The woman, who never identified herself in her writings, had joined a compound where she grew food in hydroponic farms, powered by rooftop windmills and solar panels. She wrote that during her years there, she'd fallen in love with a man named Matt, but they'd decided not to act on it as they didn't want to risk bringing a child into this world. Someone planted a bomb that blew out a wall of their compound, most likely in an attempt to steal their food.

The notes stopped there. Wanda had no idea how the woman ended up alone in a locked room. 

The last entry date was seven years ago.

Convinced that there were no uninfected survivors in the city, Wanda went about destroying it.

She had always felt that her power came through her, not from her, and she had been curious about how much energy she could channel. But after tearing down just a few buildings, she was exhausted. She rested for a few minutes before continuing.

Whenever she saw a group of zombies, she'd try to collapse a building on them. Rather than running, those who weren't killed by the crash would dig through the rubble to devour their companions.

At the end of the day, she returned to the room she'd set up in last night. She had made some progress, and figured she could finish destroying the city tomorrow, but there was no way she could destroy the world like this. She had to find another way.

Wanda went about exploring the world and the limits of her powers.

In her year at the Avengers compound, at Steve's encouragement, she'd taken some online classes, as she had never graduated high school and he wanted her to be well-rounded. In her physics class, she'd read that heat was the movement of molecules. The faster the molecules moved, the hotter something was. She wondered if her power could increase the movement of molecules, thus heating something up. After some experimentation, she found that while she couldn't make something catch on fire, she could increase the speed of molecules enough to boil water.

She discovered she could cause eathquakes by casting a probability hex on fault lines, and she'd done that to do serious damage to some cities. She could create tornadoes, and even move enough air to create vacuums.

She could melt metal enough to make air-tight seals around metal doors, which she did every night she set up camp in a new place. She'd become skilled enough at making portals that she could leave and enter a room without opening a door.

When she found her way to a beach, she saw birds. They seemed to be acting normally, picking at items that washed up on the beach selectively, only eating what was actually edible.

It seemed the fungus didn't effect birds or fish. That was comforting.

Wanda spent hours watching the birds, killing any zombie that tried to catch one.

The bird calls made her realize how suffocatingly lonely she was. She hadn't heard a human voice in days.

She remembered Dr. Cho saying on TV that she believed the fungus's fruiting bodies sprouted from the feces of the infected. Wanda saw some: thin gray stems two or three feet tall with a fluffy head the size of a marble that would release what looked like white smoke at the slightest breeze. She learned what the spores looked like. She learned to find them when she sent her power into the air. They spread from the fruiting bodies by the millions. Most eventually fell to the ground and decayed, but they could travel on the wind for miles.

The time she found a small grove of them growing from a pile of manure, she'd started a fire to destroy them. The fire caught on some dead grass, and quickly spread to nearby dead trees. Wanda had flown away, and watched from a distance as it grew into a raging forest fire. Dark billows of reddish-brown smoke rose into the sky, dimming the sun.

Wanda didn't know why accidentally causing a wildfire upset her so much when she'd only come to this world to destroy it.

She'd gotten to the point that she could level a city in a few hours. It wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't be nearly enough.

She limited herself to one MRE a day, which she ate right before bed. She had learned during her hungry years on the streets that she could ignore hunger pangs during the day, but couldn't fall asleep with them. She could feel herself growing weaker by the day; she wasn't eating enough to replace the calories she was using.

She'd only brought enough MREs to last her two weeks. She tracked how many days she'd been here by counting how many she had left.

The day after eating the last one, she went to the seashore. She used her power to catch a fish, which she took back to her current shelter to boil. She picked the meat off it with her fingers.

She'd only brought 30 days' worth of replacement filters for her gas mask.

After the first few days, she'd started imagining conversations with people in her head. Now she could hear them as if they were actually speaking to her. Not only their voices, but their attitudes came through clearly. Doctor Strange critiqued her, Agatha mocked her, Steve gave her pep talks, Pietro both teased and encouraged her.

Even though it ached to think of him, she found herself imagining what Vision would say.

"In ancient myths, it is trying to avoid a prophecy that leads to its fulfilment. It seems to me like a better course of action is to ignore the prediction and continue on with your life as if you'd never heard it," he would have said.

"This isn't a prophecy, it's a curse. I can't risk ignoring it," she said.

"No curse can determine your destiny. Only your choices can. If you don't wish to destroy the world, you won't."

"I wish I could believe that, but too much of my life has been out of my control. I've made so many mistakes."

"Wanda, please, I can't bear to see you suffering like this. Please go home."

"You were my home. You were my world. And now you're gone. Where am I supposed to go?"

"Back to Earth. I know you can. To your friends, the people who care about you."

"I'm doing this to protect those people! I sacrificed you to save a single town, and you're worth a thousand times more than me. What kind of monster would I be if I weren't willing to die to save the world?"

She couldn't think of what he would say to that. After that, she had trouble imagining him at all. She didn't even have the memory of his voice to keep her company.

Her favorite person to imagine talking to turned out to be Nat, whose unsentimental practicality and tough love suited the circumstances.

"Another city down. That was record time."

Of course Nat would have timed her.

"It's not fast enough. I can't just destroy this world one city at a time."

"Well, if your current methods aren't working, try something different."

"I know! But I'm running out of time. I only have ten days left."

"Why only ten days?"

"That's how many filters I have left for the gas mask. Once they're out, I'm dead."

"You can boil water with your mind, you can kill every bacterium floating in the air of a room. You're telling me you can't use your powers to clean out a gas mask filter?"

"Maybe I can," she conceded.

"You might not even need it. Can you create a barrier around yourself?"

"Not if I'm also using my powers to break things. Not well, anyway. I wouldn't risk it."

"Keep it in mind for a last-ditch survival strategy, anyway."

Wanda laughed.

They continued on in silence for a minute.

"All this destruction, if Agatha were in my place, she'd be having the time of her life. If you were here and had my powers, you'd know what to do so much better than me."

"Well, 'how to destroy the planet' isn't exactly something they taught me in assassin training."

"I know. I read some science papers before coming, but nothing seems really practical."

"The world is really big. Destroying it was never going to be easy."

"Good point," Wanda replied. "Nat, do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"What's death like?" Wanda wasn't sure why she felt like that might be rude.

"Pain worse than anything you can imagine for a minute, and then it's over."

"You've never been afraid of it."

"I was always afraid of it. I was just used to the idea."

Wanda nodded. She wasn't sure if that was really Nat's attitude, or her own. "I guess anticipating it is worse. I didn't expect how alone I would get here. Agatha said my powers are my freedom, and here I can let my powers go wild without being afraid of hurting anyone, but that's not the kind of freedom I want. Do you know what I would do right now if I could do whatever I wanted?"

"What?"

"I would eat some cheesecake. I am craving cheesecake so much right now."

"Is cheesecake really what you want most?" Nat asked, sounding amused.

"I mean, what I most want is to be with Vision and our children again. But what I want most that could actually be possible is cheesecake."

Nat laughed.

Wanda didn't know how she knew a new rift was forming between worlds. She just knew. She opened a portal to get to it. It was her first time opening a portal to a place she'd never been, and she came through it several meters above ground, which would have been a serious problem if she couldn't fly.

The glowing sphere of the rift was still small, but there were already zombies swarming around it, trying to push through.

She wondered if she could use her powers to separate the parallel realities again, to close the rift.

Before she dared try, the pulsating sphere suddenly enlarged. Some of the zombies stumbled through. She didn't know what world they were going to, but it didn't matter. She had to stop them.

She had pulled Peter between universes without knowing what she was doing. Surely she could pull the zombies back on purpose.

She closed her eyes and sent out tendrils of energy. She could feel the other reality: the contour of the ground, the living trees and insects, and the zombies that were already starting to feast on them. She could somehow tell it was her own Earth. Every molecule of it seemed to call to her.

Wanda seized the zombies with her power and yanked them through the space separating the universes. She raised the ground, flinging the zombies away from the rift, then pulled it up into a tsunami of dirt and rocks and buried the zombies beneath it.

She slid her energy into the infinitesimal space between realities and stilled the undulations that had led to them intersecting.

She opened her eyes. The zombies were buried under the vast stretch of overturned earth, and the rift was gone without a trace.

For the rest of the day, Wanda portaled recklessly around the world, seeking and closing other rifts. She only found two, both leading to Peter's Earth.

That night, after she sealed herself inside a room, cleaned the air, stripped off her protective gear, and ate a supper consisting of fish and seaweed soup, Wanda sat awake, thinking.

"So you can swap things between universes on purpose now, but you still can't destroy one measly little world?" Agatha might have said if she'd been there.

"I didn't know I had that kind of power," Wanda said out loud.

"You know what your problem is? You've been given the gift of unbridled destruction, but you don't want to destroy anything. It really is kind of a shame."

"I don't want to destroy anything anymore. All my enemies are dead."

"There was a time, though, wasn't there? That girl I saw in your memories, the one willing to risk her life for the chance of power in experiments neither she nor the scientists subjecting her to them understood... That little girl could do this."

"I wanted to destroy, back then. I wanted to wreck the world and rebuild it."

"What changed?"

"The first time I looked into Vision's mind, I saw what that would look like. I understood what that would mean. I didn't want to anymore. And then...I got to know Vision. I learned that true goodness really exists. It made me want to be a better person, a good person. He had this love for everyone and everything. I wanted to be worthy of that love. I wanted to be worthy of him."

"You changed yourself to get a guy to like you?"

"Loving him changed me. Knowing him changed me."

"Changed you into someone who doesn't want to break things anymore."

"Exactly."

"But now he's gone. What are you now? What do you want to do now?"

"I want to save people. I want to protect people. I want to give other people a chance for the happiness I can't have."

She was fighting tears. Crying would dehydrate her.

"You found the power you needed when you had to protect a world, but you can't find the power to destroy a world. What does that tell you?"

"Everything," Wanda realized.

There were countless Earths in the multiverse, all occupying the same space and time, separated by infinitesimal distances in nameless directions.

Wanda meditated in the lightless room, exploring those distances, her mind drifting from world to world. Many Earths were uninhabited, bearing scars of unspeakable devastations. One Earth she found was so saturated with radioactivity nothing could survive. She briefly considered swapping the dirt from that world with the dirt from this, killing the zombies with radiation, but realized it would kill her long before she finished the job.

She had to find an Earth in immediate danger, an Earth she could save by destroying this one.

She found after a while that she could pick up on the moods of worlds, the average collective feelings of all the people on the planet. Her own Earth was more tense and stressed out than average, which was understandable given its recent history, especially the Blip. Peter's world was a bit more upbeat, but still on edge. Some Earths were hopeful and ambitious, some discontented, some belligerent. Some rare planets were calm and content.

She finally, finally, after days of searching found one under a pall of certain doom.

While she had been researching ways to destroy a planet in preparation for this mission, she'd learned something interesting: Ultron had been wrong about meteors. Of the six largest extinction events in Earth's history, only one was known to have been caused by a meteor. The others were caused by large-scale volcanic eruptions, the evolution of species that profoundly altered the biosphere, and possibly in one case the massive upwelling of methane from the depths of the ocean. Huge meteor impacts were pretty rare.

But, after scrolling through thousands or millions of realities, Wanda finally found one with a comet heading straight for it.

She shifted herself to that Earth.

After spending nearly a month alone, being surrounded by people was a weird experience. She didn't know the language she overheard and saw on signs as she walked down the street, though it was written in the familiar Latin alphabet. She kept her head down, kept her distance from others. Fortunately, people she passed kept their distance from her. She knew she probable looked and smelled like she was homeless. Which wasn't inaccurate.

She hadn't forgotten how to survive on the streets.

After a while, she realized the attitudes of the people she saw—their distraction, the hollowness in their eyes—didn't have anything to do with her. Most people traveled in family groups, holding hands or with arms around each other. They spoke quietly. Everyone knew the comet was coming.

It was visible as a spot slightly brighter than a star in the night sky.

Wanda found newspapers in garbage cans. It took her a while to puzzle it out, but they all had countdowns on the front page.

When she passed a news stand the next morning, she realized from the date and the number in the headline that there were 9 days before the comet would hit.

From photos in the papers, Wanda knew there were subterranean bunkers stocked with supplies that some people would be able to shelter in. The bunkers were still being constructed and supplied with frantic speed. There would not be nearly enough for everyone.

Most people had apparently decided to spend their final days at home with their families. Store shelves were bare. Most businesses were closed.

Every once in a while, someone would break down crying in the middle of the street, or suddenly run around screaming and raving. Other people looked at them sympathetically.

Technology on this Earth seemed to be a few decades behind her Earth, but Wanda gathered from a newspaper a few weeks old that a rocket had been launched to try to blow up the comet, but it hadn't worked.

A couple of days later, Wanda saw a newspaper with a map of the comet's expected impact point, in the Indian Ocean a couple thousand kilometers southeast of Madagascar.

Every night, the comet grew bigger and brighter in the sky.

Wanda made her way, flying and portaling by night when she was less likely to be seen, to an archipelago at the confluence of the Indian and Southern Oceans called the Kerguelen Islands. Here she waited, watching the comet grow larger, living in an abandoned seal-hunter's shack which she kept warm by boiling water in a basin, for three days.

When the night of the predicted end of this world arrived, she portaled to the top of a mountain and watched.

The comet was a bright white ball in the eastern sky, solid toward the middle and fuzzy around the edges where dust and ice particles flew off its surface. About an hour after sunset it entered Earth's shadow. It was still visible, a dull rusty red like the moon during an eclipse. It grew bigger by the minute, hurling straight towards Earth at unimaginable speeds.

She sent her power out, reaching up toward it, sending her power further than she ever had before.

Finally, she felt it, a ball of dust and ice the size of a mountain, still a couple hundred kilometers away but coming at a speed that chilled her to the bone.

She couldn't have slowed it if she tried.

It turned glowing scarlet red as her power surrounded and suffused it. Using more energy than she had ever channeled before, she shifted herself back to Earth-35111, bringing the comet along with her.

The people of the planet designated Earth-286190 by those who made a study of the multiverse would never know what saved them from a comet at the literal last minute. Scientists would theorize that something about the comet's composition and angle of entry caused it to vaporize in Earth's magnetosphere. Some believers would claim an unknown alien civilization intervened to give humanity another chance. The religiously inclined would call it a miracle.

On the top of a mountain on the frozen island of La Grande Terre, with the comet speeding toward Earth-35111 at twenty kilometers per second, Wanda lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

It wasn't dark. It was invisible. A fog of impressions. Objects, sounds, minds drifting in and out of focus.

She found Tommy and Billy there. Felt their souls. She embraced them, not with arms but with the intangible essence of her self. She held them within her.

Something was after her. She felt it coming. A looming shadow. Looking for her.

She fled, carrying her children's essences with her. She didn't know what direction to go that the thing behind her couldn't follow.

It tried to grasp her. She dove into...she didn't know what. Away. Deeper.

Something felt different. Undone.

The sensations and minds that faded in and out of this invisible fog had a different hue.

A tree faded in and out of view. The sound of traffic, a distant siren. The bubbly coos of pigeons.

She heard a song from the open window of a passing car. She didn't recognize it.

...You and me together

Through the days and nights.

I don't worry 'cause

Everything's gonna be alright...

The music faded away as the car passed.

The sun was shining. The leaves on the trees were autumn colors. That seemed odd. Wasn't it early summer?

She came to a house—small but distinguished, old but in good repair, with flowers carved into wood fluorishes under the eaves. Something in that house tugged at her children. It made her sad, but not afraid.

She ventured closer, and understood.

There was a pregnant woman in that house. The fetus was waiting for a soul to join with it.

Tommy and Billy could be reborn. They could have the chance to live their lives, to have a real childhood. They wouldn't remember her, their first mother, but they would be alive, no longer trapped in this fog.

She wanted that for them. After all, she was dying, wasn't she? This was one last thing she had to do.

She wanted to find someone pregnant with twins, so the boys could be together, but she felt that presence seeking her again. It came closer. She panicked.

She released one of her sons to this body calling for it, then fled with the other.

The thing was still following her.

It didn't seem so much like she was moving as that the world was moving beneath her.

She drifted into a city bus. One of the passengers was pregnant, the fetus ready for a soul, and Wanda relinquished her son to it.

Goodbye.

The bus drove away, leaving her shade in the street, wisps of her heart drifting after it.

Then the thing caught her...

A light grew against her eyelids. There was a beeping sound. A cool brush of air against her face, warmth against the rest of her body.

What was that damn beeping?

She cracked her eyelids open, and immediately regretted it and closed them again. It was so bright. It hurt.

"You back in the land of the living?"

Doctor Strange's voice was loud and sharp against the silence. It took a moment to process the question.

She was alive? How?

She forced her eyes open again. She was in what looked like a slightly dilapidated hospital room. There was an IV line going into her arm.

"Can you stop that noise?" she asked. Her voice sounded creaky and too loud to her own ears.

He reached over to a machine and pressed a button, and the beeping stopped.

"Where am I?"

"A clinic in New York that specializes in a certain kind of clientele, and asks few questions."

"Why?"

"You were malnourished, dehydrated, and hypothermic," he stated.

She was supposed to be dead.

"Wasn't I..."

"On Earth-35111? Yeah. I was able to hone in on you and pull you back to our world through the ring."

The silver ring he'd given her to track her magic. She'd never taken it off, so that if she chickened out and went back to their Earth, Doctor Strange would know and hopefully stop her.

"Bringing me back puts the world in danger," she protested.

Doctor Strange produced an object. It looked like the oracle bone containing the curse, but it was yellowed with age and cracked almost in half across the middle. "The reason I brought you back is because your plan worked. You're no longer cursed to destroy the world, because as far as the curse is concerned, you already did. I pulled you out right after the oracle bone cracked, which was a few seconds before the shock wave would have reached you. Can I just say: an asteroid? Really? Don't you think that was overkill?"

"It was a comet," she half-heartedly corrected him. Her groggy brain processed the implications of what he was saying. "You were monitoring the curse the whole time I was there?"

"Yeah. But I want to talk about what happened after I brought you here."

"What happened?"

"You astral projected. When I went after you to try to bring your astral form back to your body, you time traveled."

"Is that what happened?"

"That is incredibly advanced. Far beyond what I would have thought you were capable of. You're lucky I was able to follow you in my astral form, or your body would have died and you would have been trapped in the astral plane."

So he was the presence she'd sensed chasing her.

"I felt my sons," she explained. "They must have been trapped in the astral plane when I unmade their bodies. I had to save them."

Strange stared at her intensely. "I didn't know that was possible. Were you able to save them?"

"I think so. I don't feel them anymore. I think...I helped them be reborn in new bodies."

"Sometime in the past. That means their souls would have existed in two places at once in the timeline." He said this more to himself than to her.

"Did I screw up the timeline?" she asked. She'd been so angry at Steve for doing that, for abandoning them all so he could live the life he wanted.

"I don't think so. The children would have existed anyway, and if they don't remember their previous life they won't alter anything. And even if they do remember their previous life, that life took place in a little universe of your own outside the regular timeline that doesn't exist anymore. It's a very unusual set of circumstances." He shook his head, apparently deciding to mull it over later. "How are you feeling?"

She wasn't sure how to answer that. Physically, she felt weak and chilled. Psychologically, she didn't know. She'd expected to die. She'd accepted it. Not being dead, and being back in her own world, and no longer being cursed was a bit of emotional whiplash.

"I'm just tired," she said.

"That's understandable. You moved a comet."

He meant that to be funny, she knew. She tried to smile.

"I'm going to talk to the night nurse. I'll let her know you're responsive. She'll want to draw some blood to make sure you're good to go."

When he left, Wanda closed her eyes again. She thought over what she had done in the astral plane, slipping backward through time. She had saved Tommy and Billy, she told herself. They would have lives. She tried not to be sad that they wouldn't be together. She tried not to be sad that they wouldn't remember her. She tried not to be sad that she would never see or feel them again.

She failed.

Chapter Text

The video had been recorded by one of the soldiers who rushed to the interdimensional rift in Thailand. It showed the rift suddenly ballooning, and seven zombies rushing out of it, then the zombies seemed to blink out of existence one by one over the course of mere seconds, then the rift sputtered out.

"That doesn't seem consistent with the one I encountered," Vision said. "The infected in Baltimore remained in our universe even after the rift closed."

"I can't make sense of it either," Darcy said.

They were sitting on Darcy's couch watching the video on her laptop.

"It's possible," Vision said slowly, "that Wanda had something to do with this."

"What makes you think that?"

"I'm not sure. Just a feeling. Or perhaps only a hope."

Darcy nodded. "Anyway, this is the last rift that anything came out of. Three more have opened and closed, not counting the ones in or over oceans. The most recent was in South Africa. That one was kind of weird: no zombies came out of it, but the responding army guys reported that it was extremely hot. They couldn't even get close to it. The Asgardians picked up something weird too."

"What?"

"The reith particles they've been using to track the rifts have specific flavors based on their universe of origin, and directionalities based on the location of the rifts. With one rift—one that's been open in the Atlantic Ocean for a couple of days—they picked up two distinct flavors with the same directionality, one was the same as the other rifts from the zombie Earth, and the other was completely new. The only thing we can figure is a huge rift opened between that Earth and a different Earth, bigger than anything we've seen here since the Snap, but it only existed for a few seconds."

"That is strange. It doesn't fit the pattern," Vision mused.

"We don't know enough about the multiverse to know whether that's weird or not. Hrafnarr, the Asgardian astronomer Jane's working with, said there's not enough data to make anything better than an educated guess about what happened there."

"If a rift formed between that reality and another, the threat of this fungal infection may spread to other Earths."

"Let's hope not," Darcy said. "Or hope whatever Earth it tries to invade next has the technology to stop it."

Vision nodded, because he couldn't think of anything to do with their limited information besides hope.

If his intuition was right that Wanda had something to do with the zombies mysteriously flashing out of existence, how had she gotten there? Was she in danger?

It had been six months since she was recorded with Doctor Strange in Westview, the latest proof of life they had for her. He probably only thought she was involved because he so desperately wanted it to be true.

Chapter Text

It was weird being back in her room in the New York Sanctum. There was a bed, soap, clean clothes, fresh food, security...

None of it seemed real.

Her time in Earth-35111—the hot, sweaty discomfort of her gear, having to be on guard every second, the constant anxiety, hunger, thirst, and sleep deprivation, punctuated with moments of mortal terror and visceral disgust—still felt more real to her than this world. When she closed her eyes, that's where she was.

She sat in her room trying to work out how she was feeling about everything that happened.

A knock on her door strartled her.

"Yes?"

Strange cracked the door open. "Wong brought sandwiches. You feel up to eating?"

She supposed she must be hungry; she hadn't eaten anything since some tiny boiled fish she had for lunch the day of the comet.

"Sure," she said.

She followed Strange to the kitchen. Wong was already there, drawing long sandwiches out of a paper sack.

"Welcome back, Wanda. I'm glad you survived. And congratulations on being curse-free."

"Thanks."

"Would you like turkey, ham, or tuna?"

"Um, turkey's fine."

He handed her the requested sandwich and took tuna for himself, leaving the ham for Strange. They sat down to eat.

"Where's Agatha?" Wanda asked.

Wong glanced at Strange, who hesitated before answering. "When the curse tablet broke, Agatha took the opportunity to escape, leaving me with the choice of stopping her or saving you."

"We haven't located her yet," Wong added. "Fortunately, she didn't take the Darkhold, which is safely locked away."

Wanda wasn't surprised Agatha had run, but maybe she was disappointed. And afraid. Agatha was powerful and dangerous. She wouldn't say it, but she thought maybe Strange made the wrong choice.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed that revelation, Wanda took a bite of her sandwich.

"So shall we call you 'Wanda the Zombie Killer' now?" Wong joked.

"Can you even kill something that's already dead?" she replied deflectively.

Thinking of the humans with minds taken over by a ravenous fungus as already dead was the only way she'd been able to deal with what she had to do.

Wong might have picked up on her discomfort, because he just said, "I guess not," and dropped the subject.

Wanda's stomach had been okay with the first few bites of the sandwich, which had been bread and lettuce, but as soon as her tongue touched a piece of turkey the image of the birds on the seashore, the companions in her loneliness, flashed though her mind as vividly as if they were in front of her. She held the sandwich, staring at it. She couldn't bring herself to eat it.

Strange and Wong looked at her with concern.

"Are you alright?" Wong asked.

"I think I'm a vegetarian," she replied.

A few nights later, Wanda sent her astral form to Earth-35111 to see what was happening there.

The force of the comet hitting the Earth had caused tsunamis around the world; everything within a few miles of a coast line had been washed away. The comet vaporizing the crust on impact had sent molten cinders falling from the sky everywhere. Wildfires rampaged through dead forests. Dust and ash darkened the sky and choked the air. The wildfires were the only light in the world. It was pitch dark everywhere that wasn't on fire.

Animals infected by the fungus had extremely high metabolisms, which also meant they had high oxygen demands. Between the wildfires consuming vast quantities of oxygen and the soot the infected animals inhaled with each strangled breath, they were dropping dead from suffocation. Those that didn't would soon starve: falling ash and dust were blanketing everything. Or they'd die of cold or thirst, as without the sun the temperature was dropping everywhere that wasn't burning, and freshwater rivers and lakes were already freezing over.

Would anything survive on this Earth at all?

One morning, as Wanda combed her hair, she suddenly noticed her reflection in the mirror. She stood in front of the mirror every day, but she hadn't really looked at herself. Her eyes were hollow, her cheeks sunken. About six inches of her natural brown hair had grown out above the red she'd dyed it to during her time on the run with Steve, Nat, and Sam.

The person she'd been then was gone.

She found some scizzors and cut off everything red, not giving it much thought other than a vague notion it was time for a fresh start. It was time to change something.

Only when it was done, and red hair lay in clumps on the floor, did she think about how much Vision used to love running his fingers through her hair—that hair, the hair she'd just severed from her body, leaving her only hair never touched by him.

She gathered the shorn hair and clutched it to her while she sobbed on her bathroom floor.

Later that day, when she felt up to it, she left the Sanctum for the first time since getting back. She passed Doctor Strange on the way out, and simply said, "I'm going to go get a haircut."

He raised an eyebrow and said, "Yeah, I think that's a good idea."

She walked through the streets until she found a hair salon that didn't look busy, figuring fewer people meant fewer people who might recognize her. A bubbly, middle-aged hair stylist greeted her the moment she walked in.

"Good morning! What can I do for you?"

She pointed to her mangled haircut and asked, "Can you fix it?"

He smiled. "Sweety, I've sculpted masterpieces out of much worse. You wouldn't believe how many people tried to cut their own hair after the Snap."

She gave him free rein. He gave her a short pixie cut, leaving a few longer strands at the front to frame her forehead. She'd never had hair so short in her life, and coupled with how changed her face was by sorrow and deprivation, she wouldn't have recognized herself.

She thanked the stylist profusely, and gave him a good tip, but she honestly wasn't sure if she liked it or not.

On her walk home, she stopped in a second-hand shop and bought a decorative box to put her old hair in.

She wondered if she'd be able to tell if she were going crazy.

Some nights she just couldn't sleep. In the dark, the memories became too real. She would imagine she could hear and sense zombies creeping around the dark corridors and behind the walls. When she could fall asleep, the slightest sound would jolt her awake, or she would wake at nothing at all.

That's what happened this night. She shot up in bed, with no idea what woke her. She felt like she couldn't breathe. Her heart was pounding so loud she couldn't hear anything over it, and she couldn't stop shaking.

Why couldn't she breathe? Had the spores gotten into her lungs? Was the fungus growing inside her even now?

She summoned her power to her fingertips. She tried to turn her power inside her own body, to find what was wrong with her. But what would she do if she did find the fungus growing inside herself? Would she tear it out?

Instead she sent her senses into the air, searching for spores. There was so much dust and bits of things floating in the air of the old building. Would she recognize the spores of the zombie fungus if she felt them again? How would she tell them apart from normal fungus and mold spores floating in the air?

She cleared the air of her room, but a draft was flowing in from beneath the door. She followed it into the hall, trying to clean the air there, but the space was too big, and drafts kept carrying in more contamination. If the spores had made it to their world they couldn't keep them out...

"Wanda? What are you doing?"

She spun around to face Doctor Strange. She must have woken him up.

He took a step toward her, frowning with concern at her expression. "Are you okay?"

If he hadn't asked that question, if he'd pretended not to notice her distress, she could have pretended she was fine and wouldn't have broken down. She wouldn't have answered with a sobbed, "No."

He approached her slowly, and tried to reach for her, but she pushed his hand away.

"Why did you save me?" She hadn't meant to say that. She certainly hadn't meant to say it in such an accusing tone.

"Because the curse was broken, and I could."

"I breathed the air on that mountain, on Earth-35111. I might be infected! What if...what if I spread it here?"

"You've been taking those antifungal pills the night nurse prescribed you?"

"Yes, but what if they don't work on this kind of fungus? We don't know they'll kill it!"

"Listen, Wanda. You're not infected. If you were, you'd have a hacking cough and be running a fever by now. Here." He put his hand on her forehead. "No fever. You're going to be fine. Earth is going to be fine."

"You don't know that. Maybe I'm not cursed to destroy the world anymore, but I still have the power to do it."

Doctor Strange stared at her for a moment. Then, with a swish of his hand, they were sitting in his study, a teapot on the table between them. He wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, then poured them both a cup of tea, stirring in some sugar and cream.

"Drink this. You'll feel better."

She doubted that, and resented his patronizing attitude, magicking her up some tea at 3 a.m., but she took the cup anyway. It was the strong black tea Strange liked. It smelled good, and if nothing else, it would warm her up.

"Back when I was a practicing neurosurgeon," he began, "I would have to make tough calls sometimes. If a surgery has an 80 percent chance of killing a patient and a 20 percent chance of curing them, but without the surgery they have a 90 percent chance of surviving another year or two in reasonably good health, should I recommend it? In medicine, there's never a guarantee. There are always risks you have to weigh, compromises you have to make. Have you ever heard of the Trolley Problem?"

"Yes. Rhodey taught us about it in a tactical training lesson. We discussed it for hours, different ways it might come up in our missions." She wiped her tears on her pajama sleeve, took a deep breath, and swallowed a gulp of tea before explaining further. "You're in a runaway trolley about to run over five people. You can pull a lever to change to a different track, but that will kill one person. He said the right thing to do is whatever saves more lives, even if one of our team mates dies." She added with a trace of the bitter incredulity she'd felt at the question. "I am very familiar with the Trolley Problem."

"Probably more intimately than anyone else on the planet at this point," he conceded. "You killed your boyfriend to save half the universe, ended the lives of your husband and children to save a few thousand people, and redirected a comet to destroy a world threatening ours, even though you thought it would kill you. You have made those tough choices."

"But if I made the right choices," Wanda asked, "why does it feel so awful?"

"That's the catch of the Trolley Problem: when you're in an out-of-control trolley that runs over five people, you aren't culpable for those deaths; you were just a passenger. Once you pull the lever, whoever the trolley hits instead becomes your fault." He sipped his tea for a moment. "I'm sure in your training you discussed the variation of the Trolley Problem where the five people the trolley's heading toward are strangers, and the one person you'd kill is someone you know and love, but I'm betting you didn't talk about care ethics."

She frowned. It didn't sound familiar. "What are care ethics?"

"Care ethics is a moral system that holds you have higher obligations to family and friends—the people who depend on you—than you do to strangers. If you had kept the town of Westview under your spell to keep your children alive, I don't think anyone would say that would be right, necessarily, but according to care ethics it would have been justifiable."

"So you're saying either choice I could have made was wrong?"

"Exactly. That's the essence of the Trolley Problem: both choices are wrong, but they're wrong in different ways, and you have to choose one of them. You've consistently chosen the path of less harm even when that was the harder path, and even when it cost you unbelievable personal pain. Sacrificing the life of someone you love is worse than sacrificing your own life because you have to live with that choice for the rest of your life, and you made that choice not just once but twice. Because of that, I'm less worried about you having the power to destroy the world than I would be if it were anybody else. I shudder to think what someone like Agatha would do with that power."

"No one should have that power," she argued. "Power corrupts. How do you know my power won't corrupt me? Who knows what I might decide to do?"

"I know. Because I know you. You came to me and asked me to help you break that curse, even if it meant your death. You stepped willingly into a world overrun with zombies, alone, to protect our world. And where did you get that comet from? I know you weren't on Earth-35111 for eleven days before you brought that comet. How many Earths have you saved?"

"None. I just chose which Earth got destroyed. Anyone who might have been still alive on Earth-35111, every animal living there, they're all dead now because of me. How can you say I saved anything?"

He considered her for a moment. "When we were fighting Thanos, I used the Time Stone to view millions of courses of action to find one that would ultimately defeat him, so I can say with confidence we wouldn't have beat him without you. He would have annihilated us, and then remade the universe to his own twisted design. And when you used a comet to destroy Earth-35111, you saved three other Earth—ours, Peter Maximoff's, and the one that comet was originally heading for. That power that terrifies you so much—the power that could end the world—has already saved the world. We might need you to save the world again someday. That's why I saved you." He sighed and poured himself more tea. "I saved you because you deserve to be saved."

"I don't deserve anything," she stated. Whatever else she'd done, she'd caused so much suffering and so many deaths, including the deaths of people she loved.

"See, it's that attitude that makes me think power won't corrupt you. You saved the world. You saved the universe from Thanos. Most people would feel like the universe owed them something after that. A lot of people in your position would have kept your happy life in Westview no matter how many people suffered for it. They would rationalize that after everything they'd done for the universe and everything they'd suffered, they deserved that happiness. Did that even cross your mind?"

It hadn't. The idea seemed monstrous to her. But admitting that would reinforce his point, so she didn't.

"What do you think someone else would deserve who sacrificed as much as you've sacrificed and saved as many lives as you've saved?" he asked.

She looked down at the teacup in her hand so she wouldn't have to look at him, so he wouldn't see there were tears welling in her eyes again. "I don't know."

"Since you've been back, you haven't asked for anything. You deserve some kind of payment for saving the world from a zombie invasion, at least. I know I can't give you what you want most—I can't bring your family back—but is there anything else you want? Anything I can do for you? Anything I can help you with?"

She raised her eyes, forcing herself to look at him. "A cheesecake."

"A...a cheesecake?"

"Yes." If he was going to demand that she demand something in order to prove she was human, she might as well demand something ridiculous. "As you said, you can't give me Vision or Tommy or Billy back. Can you give me a cheesecake?"

"Yes, but...I was thinking more along the lines of...a fortune, a mansion, letting the world know you're the one who saved them..."

"No!" Having people treat her like she was some kind of hero was the last thing she wanted. And everything else he'd be able to offer her would be hollow without her family. "I would just like a cheesecake, please."

"With the wealth our order could give you, you could buy a million cheescakes," he pointed out.

"I don't want a million cheesecakes. I've been craving cheesecake since Earth-35111, but that craving would be satisfied after maybe one or two slices, so I only want one cheesecake."

"You think what you deserve for saving the Earth multiple times is a cheesecake?"

She stared back at him evenly. She knew this conversation was absurd, but she wasn't going to back down. "Yes. I think I deserve a cheesecake."

Maybe she'd suffered enough for her mistakes, but she'd still made them. The world didn't owe her a thing for saving it from her own power, her own mistakes, her own failures. But maybe she'd earned something for coming up with the plan to break the curse and spending nearly a month alone in a zombie world in order to do it. In aggregate, a cheesecake sounded about right.

Strange stared at her, still obviously not sure whether she was being serious. "Okay."

She finished her cup of tea and set it down on the table. "I'm sorry I woke you up in the middle of the night. I'm going back to bed. See you in the morning, Doctor Strange."

Back in her room, she left the lights on and played music to try to silence her fears and sorrows, and was able to fall asleep.

The next day, Doctor Strange actually gave her a cheesecake, wrapped up with a bow. He said he'd gotten it from a well-reviewed bakery in Paris. Wanda was sure it had been way too expensive, but after the previous night's conversation she certainly wasn't going to refuse it.

It was the best thing she'd ever tasted.

Earth celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Blip and the defeat of Thanos. There were parades, fireworks, televised speeches, and parties.

The sorcerers had a gathering at Kamar-Taj. It was a party with a solemn edge to it; everyone there had lost friends that day.

Wanda sat at a table off to the side, nursing a cup of punch and a plate of chips and guacamole.

A nearby television played coverage of the global celebration at a low volume. When she saw an interview with Sam, she scooted closer to watch it.

"Let's give a warm welcome to one of the heroes who saved the world from Thanos, Captain America himself, Sam Wilson," the interviewer said.

"Thanks, Alejandra. It's good to be here."

"It's been one year since you and hundreds of other heroes gathered together to defeat Thanos, the alien terrorist responsible for the Blip. The world can never thank you enough."

"I mean, the world's got a lot to deal with. It doesn't have time to thank us enough," Sam joked.

The interviewer—Alejandra—chuckled. "Maybe so. Captain America, how do you feel one year after defeating Thanos?"

"Like it hasn't been nearly that long." He paused for her laughter. "But seriously, I know the world still has a lot of work to do to clean up the mess Thanos made—and while we're at it, maybe fix it up to something better than we had before—but we beat Thanos, we came back, and this is a day to celebrate that."

"You and Bucky Barnes have not only been keeping up the work of the Avengers, especially in response to the Flag Smashers and more recently the zombie threat from the dimensional rifts, but you've also been doing public outreach and community service. The rest of the remaining Avengers and other heroes involved in the battle against Thanos have been keeping out of the public eye. We reached out to Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, and Pepper Potts to request interviews, but they all either declined or haven't responded."

"You gotta understand, what we went through that day, it was heroic, but it was also terrible, and not everyone's ready to talk about it. Pepper lost her husband that day. Clint and Bruce lost their best friends. Everyone lost so much in the Blip. A lot of people came back and learned friends and loved ones had died while they were gone. The people left behind lost their faith in the basic physical laws of the universe. Everyone lost five years they would have had with their family and friends. It's great that in the end it was reversed, but it still sucks that it happened in the first place. We shouldn't forget, especially on the day we celebrate that victory, that Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers, and many others died to make it happen. And I think you'd agree, the rest of the people who put their lives on the line in that battle have earned the right to as much peace and quiet as they want."

"I hadn't considered it that way, but that's a good point," Alejandra said. "I have heard rumors that other Avengers have been involved in fighting the zombie threat. Is that true?"

"The other Avengers are still around. We haven't lost their numbers, and they stand ready to jump in when we need them, but they want to stay out of the spotlight, and that's all I'm going to say about it."

"In one case, there might be a good reason to stay out of the spotlight. Wanda Maximoff hasn't made a public appearance since she allegedly misused her powers last year. Has she been part of the fight against the zombies?"

"Look, I said that's all I'm going to say about that. The FBI looked into the incident you're talking about, and Wanda was cleared of criminal liability. They made other arrests in the case, but I can't go into details about their ongoing investigation. I probably shouldn't even have said that much," he added with a jocular smile.

Alejandra laughed again, then continued on a more serious note. "There have been no zombie sightings in almost two months, even though dimensional rifts are still being reported. Do you think it's safe to say we've defeated that threat too?"

"The astrophysicist I asked about that says the rifts have become progressively less frequent and smaller. At this rate, they'll be gone within a month. The way she explained it to me is that the Blip was like throwing a big rock in a still swimming pool. The waves bounce back from the edges of the pool and sometimes add together to splash over the edge, and those splashes are these dimensional rifts, but the more time passes, the smaller the waves get. She said it's possible the rifts have become too small and unstable for anything to come through, and it's also possible that something happened in the world they were coming from that stopped the zombies. Either way, if anything else pops up to threaten Earth, we'll be there."

"I'd expect nothing less from the Avengers. Thank you so much for your time, Captain America."

"It's been my pleasure."

The camera cut away from Sam. The interviewer smiled at the camera and said, "Next we'll have more stories from the Blip, but first a quick commercial break."

Wanda noticed Strange's presence at her side. She didn't know how much of the interview he'd seen.

"He didn't mention Vision once," she said. That omission stung like a betrayal.

"True. He also vaguely implied he's been in touch with you. Why do you think he did that?"

"Because if no one knows where I am, I'm a bogeyman, lurking in shadows, waiting to jump out to blow up cities and control people's minds. If people think I've become a hermit in some quiet cabin away from anyone, then they're safe from me. He's trying to protect me."

"Maybe you should reach out to him, prove him right."

"Maybe I should," Wanda ageed. "But...he's working with the FBI. What if he was wrong about them not wanting to arrest me?"

"You mean what if he was lying to reel you in? You think he'd do that?"

She sighed. "No, but...I'm just not ready. I can't be an Avenger right now. I can't be the person he would expect me to be."

Doctor Strange shrugged. "If you want to cut yourself off completely from your old life, that's up to you. But I don't think you're being honest with yourself about your real reasons for it."

"And what do you think my real reasons are?"

"I don't know. Maybe you're afraid being with people who make you think of Vision will be too painful. Or maybe you're ashamed of what you did in Westview, and you're afraid your old friends will be ashamed of you too."

Wanda didn't argue with him, but she was pretty sure she just wasn't ready.

Every once in a while, scattered details would come back to her from traveling to the past in the astral plane, when she'd released the souls of her sons to new bodies. She recalled flashes of shapes, sounds, and street signs. One detail that came back to her were the words "New Brunswick" on the side of the city bus.

On the days when she had a break from studying magic at Kamar-Taj, she took long, rambling strolls around the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey, figuring her astral form probably hadn't drifted that far from her body in New York.

She'd decided to start in the older neighborhoods, since the house she'd seen had seemed pretty old. Still, it was a lot of city to explore.

From looking up the lyrics, she'd identified the song she'd heard as "No One," by Alicia Keys, which had been released in 2007, telling her that was the earliest she could have traveled back in time, which meant Tommy and Billy's new incarnations couldn't be any older than sixteen.

She found herself taking a second glance at every child around that age or younger, wondering if she'd even be able to recognize them if she saw them again. She had no way to know. She didn't even know if they still lived here. And she had no idea how she would feel if she saw them again.

But these wanderings—often listening to audiobooks or podcasts as she walked, stopping in little independent cafés she happened across for a coffee or meal, and occasional bookshops to look for something new to read herself to sleep—kept her busy, kept her healthy, and helped her feel reconnected to the world.

Doctor Strange always knew where she was going. She hadn't told him why she'd decided to take up the hobby of exploring the New Jersey suburbs, but she had a feeling he'd guessed it.

One day, while she walked down a street in the Milltown neighborhood, she was suddenly struck with overwhelming déjà vu. Following this feeling down a winding residential street, she turned a corner and suddenly spotted the exact house she'd seen in her astral form. The distinctive floral carvings she'd noticed under the eaves at the corners were still there.

The house was empty, but didn't seem abandoned. The yard and garden were well cared for.

She had no reason to believe the family who lived here when her astral form found this place still lived here, but this house was tangible proof it had happened. She could imagine her son growing up here, running around this yard, climbing that maple tree. She wondered which window might have been his bedroom.

"Hey."

She turned at the voice, then froze.

A teenage boy with a t-rex skeleton picture on his shirt and a black bookbag slung over his shoulder walked toward her. She recognized the signature glow of Billy's mind instantly, but it took her a minute to believe it.

"Can I help you?" he asked, his tone more concerned than suspicious.

"I was just admiring the architecture in this old neighborhood," she said, trying as hard as she could to keep her voice from trembling. "Do you live around here?"

"Yeah. I live in this house, actually."

"Really?" She forced herself to look away from him, to look at the house, and hoped he couldn't hear how hard her heart was beating. "It's a beautiful house. How long have you lived here?"

"My whole life."

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah. It's a nice place."

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"No. It's always been just me and my parents," he said. If he found her questions intrusive, he didn't show it.

"Are your parents nice?" she asked. He had to have heard the tremor in her voice at that question.

"Yeah. They're great. A lot of my friends don't get along with their parents. I guess I lucked out."

Wanda was happy about that. It sounded like he'd had a good life so far. "Good."

"I'm Billy, by the way. Billy Kaplan."

Her breath caught. "You're name's 'Billy'?"

He frowned. "Yeah. Why?"

"I just really like that name. Like William Shakespeare."

"I never thought about that. My parents didn't name me after anyone. My mom says when I was born they just thought I looked like a 'Billy'."

Wanda bit her lip, trying not to cry. "Do you know a boy named Tommy, by any chance?"

"I don't think so. Why?"

"Oh, there was just a boy named Tommy I used to know. I thought he might live around here. You remind me of him."

"Well, I don't know everyone in my school, so he might go there. You haven't told me your name."

"Scarlet," she said quickly. She never told anyone her real name when she was out on these excursions. When anyone said she looked familiar, and the couple of occasions when someone asked if she was Wanda Maximoff, she would laughingly say she got that a lot.

"Cool name."

"Thanks." She knew it must seem strange that she was talking so much with a teenage boy who had technically never met her, but she didn't want to stop. She wanted to know everything about him, everything about his life. "You seem like a smart boy, Billy. What are your favorite subjects in school?"

"I like science, history, and English," he said. "Science is probably my favorite. I've got some great teachers."

"And a lot of friends, I hope?"

"Not a ton, but a few really good ones." A frown flickered at the edge of his lips, and a troubled shadow rippled his mind.

"Any problems at school? I know it's none of my business, but...if there's something you'd like to talk about..."

"It's nothing. There's this bully who's been targeting one of my friends. He's the worst bully in the grade, and he picks on a lot of people, but my friend is someone who...things really get to him."

"If this bully is so bad, has anyone told the teachers about him?"

"Yeah, but he never does anything so bad it would get him expelled or anything. I've been..." Billy took a breath. "I've been working out, trying to work up the strength and courage to stand up to him, because I figure someone has to. But I never feel like I'm strong enough."

Wanda's heart went out to him. She didn't want him to get in a fight that could get him hurt, but she could see he had an instinct to protect, to take care of other people, just like his father.

"I've found that you never know if you have what it takes to do something until you try it. When you stand up to face something, that's when you discover what strength you have." She was thinking of stepping into Earth-35111 to take on the zombie threat alone, but realized that also applied to facing her losses, to facing her life after her parents' death, after Pietro's death, after Vision's death, and after the loss of her sons.

"That makes a lot of sense," Billy said. "Thanks."

She smiled at him. "You're welcome. I hope it helps."

"Sorry to unload on you like this, but you seem really easy to talk to."

She laughed. "I don't think anyone's ever said that about me before."

"Really?" He smiled at her, then frowned. He tilted his head, peering at her. "Hey, I know you. You're Wanda Maximoff."

"I get that a lot, but I'm not her. I guess she's my doppelganger."

"No, you're totally her. I can't believe this! You're my favorite Avenger! Where have you been? No one's heard anything about you in like a year."

She panicked. "I have to go." She turned and ran down the street.

"Wait! Wait up!" He dashed after her.

She opened a portal to the Sanctum and flew through it before Billy could catch up to her.

Back in her room, she sank to the floor, gasping.

Why had she run?

And then she started laughing. So much for finding her strength by facing her fears.

After the laughter had passed, she couldn't stop smiling. Billy was alive! Billy was doing well! And she'd seen him!

She would see him again. She had to think of some excuse. She could tell him she didn't want anyone to know where she was, ask him to keep the fact that he'd recognized her a secret, check in with him on the bully situation. She could find a way to be part of his life without having to explain the truth.

It would be much more difficult to find Tommy. She didn't even know where to begin. But for the first time, it felt possible.

Chapter Text

It was a quiet, sunny Saturday afternoon. Jimmy had come over to Darcy's apartment. He was spending more and more time there. He'd recently transferred to the Philadelphia field office on the excuse that it made sense for the FBI's liaison to the U.N.'s Sokovia Accords Committee to be halfway between the U.N. headquarters in New York City and the FBI headquarters in D.C., but everyone in that room knew he'd relocated to be closer to Darcy.

The three of them were in the middle of a boardgame. Vision was likely to win, though he didn't think Darcy or Jimmy had realized that yet. It really didn't matter who won; they were all enjoying themselves.

Vision found it fascinatingly counterintuitive that competitive games that pitted people against each other could serve as bonding activities, forming and strengthening friendships between the opponents. Provided, of course, those opponents weren't sore losers or boastful winners.

As he contemplated this seeming paradox, as well as his next move, they were interrupted by a boom from outside.

"Was that a car crash?" Jimmy wondered, frowning at the sunshine in the window.

"No." A smile blossomed on Darcy's lips. "That was thunder."

They ran into the hallway and down the stairs, out the door, to the patch of lawn in front of the apartment building, where Thor stood in the center of a smoking pattern in the grass.

"Thor!" Darcy greeted him with a hug.

"Darcy! Well met, my dear friend."

"It's been so long! I hear you've been in space."

"Well, as I understand it, technically we are all in space at all times. But I have been between planets for some time. I have many tales to tell of my journeys." He looked questioningly past her.

"Oh, Thor, this is my boyfriend, Jimmy Woo."

"Ah, the agent of investigation. The Valkyrie told me about you."

Jimmy shook his hand. "And I've heard a lot about you, Thor. I'd like to ask you some questions for my files sometime. But not today. It's my day off."

"Very good." He looked back at Darcy. "Valkyrie also told me that The Vision is alive, and you might know where to find him."

Vision, who'd assumed his human disguise before coming outside and had kept back during Darcy and Thor's reunion, stepped forward. "Hello, Thor."

Thor stared at him. "Vision?"

"Come on. We should talk in my apartment," Darcy said.

Inside, Vision resumed his true form, and Darcy got out some beer for Thor and herself. Vision and Jimmy explained how Vision came to be resurrected by SWORD.

"This Hayward's plot may have been evil in intent, but it had a happy result," Thor said. "Losing my father, and very soon after losing my brother along with many of my people when Thanos attacked, and failing to keep him from you." He clapped his hand on Vision's shoulder. "Watching as he..." His voice choked off. He shook his head. "When I decided to help bring you to life, to give the Mind Stone a body powerful enough to help protect it from forces that would use it to destroy, I had not thought about the price, that we were creating a life that would be lost if we lost that fight."

"It may be selfish of me to say so, but I believe that was a price worth paying," Vision said. "Even if those three years were all I ever had of existence, I would be grateful for them. I feel that the life I had was worth the death at the end. In those three years, I was able to have a positive impact on the world, I had true friendships, and moments of pure happiness, which some people live decades without experiencing."

"Well, I am greatly pleased that you have been given the chance of many more such years," Thor declared.

Vision smiled. "Thank you. So am I."

It had been just under a year since he'd been resurrected, and in that year he'd been able to explore the world, to contemplate his own nature and existence, and to experience life as an ordinary civilian for the most part. He'd made new friends, and had reconnected with old friends. His sorrow and guilt at having tried to kill Wanda and the fear from not knowing her fate were constant factors in his life, but they were not the only factors.

"Have you had any luck in locating Wanda?" Thor inquired, as if following his thoughts.

Jimmy answered. "Not yet. We know at one point she was with Doctor Strange, but that doesn't help us much, since we also don't know where to find him."

"Oh, 177A Bleecker Street."

They all stared at him.

"That's his address in New York," he explained. "He invited me there once to discuss concerns about my brother. Right after kidnapping said brother."

Darcy broke their stunned silence. "That is really helpful. Thank you!"

He smiled. "You're welcome."

Vision tried not to get his hopes up. They might not find anything at that address, after so many years. But it was their first new lead in months.

Chapter Text

"To be perfectly honest, if he's anything like he was when he was my son, he might have a juvenile record by now," Wanda mused as she scrolled through social media pages of people named Thomas or Tommy in the New York metropolitan area, on the off chance that Tommy had also grown up in the region, had also been given the same birth name, and happened to have a social media page.

Doctor Strange looked up with a raised eyebrow from the book of Latin spells he was taking notes on. They were both working in the Sanctum's study, in convenient proximity to the magically replenishing carafe of coffee.

"You don't think his current parents might have raised him better?" he asked teasingly.

"Knowing him, it wouldn't have made a difference," she replied, choosing not to take offense. "Billy was wearing a dinosaur t-shirt when I saw him. He always loved dinosaurs." She paused. "I already told you that, didn't I?"

"Yes."

She smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry I'm going on like this."

"It's okay. It's nice to see you excited about something. This is the happiest I've seen you in ever."

"In my defense, losing your family and finding out you're cursed to destroy Earth on the same day is kind of a downer."

"Good point."

She meant to let him get back to work, but this seemed like an opportune moment to bring up something she'd been wanting to say. "Thank you for saving me from that mountaintop. And for...I don't know. Pulling me back."

He looked up again, regarding her with sympathy. "I've had to be pulled back from that ledge before too."

She didn't want to pry, so waited to see if he would offer more explanation. He didn't, and they both returned to their research.

A few minutes later, the sound of the doorbell chimed through the air.

"Are you expecting visitors?" Wanda asked.

"No." He waved his hand, and an image of the view from the front door appeared in the air.

Standing at the doorstep was a woman with dark hair and bright red lipstick, wearing a chic light green sundress.

"Do you know her?"

"No," Strange replied. "Maybe she's selling cookies."

After a minute, the woman took a step back, craning her neck like she was trying to peer in a window. She knocked on the door, then took something from her purse, wrote on it, and slid it under the door before turning to walk away.

In an instant, Strange transported them to the foyer. He picked up the business card the woman had left.

"'Darcy Lewis'," he read.

"Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Because we've heard it before. Jane Foster mentioned her in her televised interview. She's the astrophysicist who theorized the dimensional rifts were caused by the Snap."

Wanda's thoughts burst in a tangle of confusion and worry. "Why would she come here? What do you think she might know?"

"She could just want to talk to me about the Blip," Strange said, trying to reassure her. He turned the card over to see what was written on the back. "Never mind."

He handed it to Wanda. Hastily scrawled on the back was an address in Philadelphia and the note: Looking for W. Important!

"She knows I'm here," Wanda said, trying not to panic. "How does she know I'm here?"

"We can't be sure she meant you."

"What if she knows? What if she knows the rifts are my fault?" She didn't know what she would do if that fact went public. She'd just found Billy. And, sure, he didn't know she was his mother, but he'd said she was his favorite Avenger. If he heard she was almost responsible for a zombie invasion, would she lose that? Would she lose him again?

"It wouldn't matter," Strange said.

Wanda opened the door. "I have to find out what she knows."

He didn't try to stop her as she ran down the steps and after the mystery woman.

"Wait!"

The woman turned around. Her face lit up. "Wanda! Oh my gosh, it's you! I can't believe we found you! I love what you've done with your hair."

Wanda blinked at her. She had not been expecting the mysterious astrophysicist who'd been looking for her to act like she was a movie star.

Fortunately, the street was quiet that sweltering Sunday afternoon in mid summer, so there was no one close enough to overhear them.

"How did you find me?" Wanda asked.

"Thor told us Doctor Strange's address," she answered.

It made sense that someone who knew Jane Foster could also know Thor, but it really didn't answer Wanda's question. After a moment to sort out her thoughts enough to figure out what she wanted to know most, she asked, "Why did you find me?"

"Well, Jimmy would like your testimony for his case against Hayward, but mostly we just wanted to know if you were still alive. After you left Westview, no one knew where you went. You'd just lost your husband and your children. That's a lot to deal with. Did you have anyone to help you through it? Are you doing okay? Is there anything we can do for you?"

Wanda didn't feel any duplicity or insincerity from the woman's mind. She was radiating compassion. She had no idea what to think about a complete stranger caring so much about her wellbeing.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Darcy. Doctor Darcy Lewis."

"I saw that on your card. I guess...what I want to know is, how do you know so much about me? How do you know...about Vision, and our twins?" She dropped her voice and articulated the most frightening possibility. "Are you with SWORD?"

"No. I mean, I was technically a consultant for them before Hayward fired me, along with Jimmy and Monica..."

"You know Monica?" Wanda asked, her mind floundering for any thread to figure out what was going on.

"Yeah. We're friends. So, I know about you from the Broadcast. In fact, I'm the one who discovered the Broadcast."

"What broadcast?"

"Your broadcast."

She said that like it was supposed to make sense. "My what?"

"You know. You used your powers to turn your life into a sitcom. You had theme songs, you had a laugh track, commercials. Though frankly, those commercials were hella weird. You edited and broadcasted it."

Wanda felt her stomach sink. "I did what?"

Darcy stared at her for a moment. "You didn't know you were broadcasting," she realized.

Wanda had just wanted her life to be like a sitcom: a happy family, friends, and laughter, for her only problems to be ultimately harmless shenanigans rather than evil secret organizations, mad robots, terrorists, alien invaders, or anything else that could take away the people she loved again. She'd cast spells to make her life what she wanted it to be without realizing it at first, without even knowing she could do what she was doing. Apparently, her spells had made her life even more like a TV show than she'd ever realized, or wanted.

Her hands covered her face as if she were trying to hide. "Oh my God. You saw everything?"

"Not everything everything," Darcy tried to reassure her. "It was like you were editing out the things that didn't fit. We didn't see when you threw Monica out. And then there was nothing after the Halloween party, after you expanded the Hex to save Vision."

Wanda was shaking, trying to fight back tears. "I just wanted..."

"You just wanted to be happy," Darcy suggested.

"I just wanted to be safe, and to be loved. I didn't mean to hurt anyone." But she had. She'd worked ever since to undo the danger she'd caused by creating the dimensional rifts, she'd broken the curse, and she'd even found Billy. She should have known something like this would happen, that her past would never stop coming back to haunt her.

"If it's any consolation, your show was great. I could tell how much you, Vision, Tommy, and Billy loved each other."

"Do you know what pain that caused? What it was doing to everyone else in the town?"

"Yeah, I do," she stated.

"I guess Monica told you all about it."

"I was pulled in when you expanded the Hex. You had me acting the part of an escape artist in the circus."

"Oh God. I'm so sorry."

"I felt your pain. I felt how lost you were. I'm sorry. In your show, you had a family, friends, and safety, and then had it all just ripped away from you. And then you're told you're cursed. That's a lot. That's too much for anyone to be asked to handle alone. That's why we want to help you."

How did she know about the curse? That was just one of the many questions Wanda still had. "You keep saying 'we'. Who else are you talking about?"

"Mostly me, Jimmy, Monica, and..." She took a deep breath. "Okay, don't freak out. Vision. He's sorry he tried to kill you. He feels really, really bad about that. That's why he decided not to come with me to look for you."

This news shook through Wanda's whole soul. She knew she'd heard right, but she didn't understand. "What?"

"He doesn't think you'd want to see him. He really just wants to know if you're okay."

"Vision's alive?" she asked in a squeak barely above a whisper.

Darcy blinked at her. "So, you thought Vision was dead? Didn't your husband tell you what happened?"

Wanda felt so lost. "He...after he came back, we were fighting for our lives, and then we were saying goodbye. He didn't tell me what happened in his fight. I figured..."

When she trailed off, Darcy stated, "You figured your husband killed the original Vision."

When the Vision she had made came back, and the one Hayward had brought to life didn't, she hadn't imagined there could have been any other outcome. And there had been so much going on.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I mean, they're both Vision; they talked it out. Your husband restored Vision's access to his memories, which Hayward had blocked. But then, after the Hex collapsed, Vision thought you were dead."

Wanda closed her eyes, and was back in that moment: in the middle of a fight for her life against Agatha, seeing Vision's reflection and not believing it, turning to see him directly. He came to her, saying her name. She hadn't known what to think, didn't have time to process how she felt. And then he'd tried to kill her.

And then, after the fight, she'd gone back to believing he was dead. But he was alive. He'd been alive the entire year since.

"Where is he now?" she asked Darcy.

"In a hotel room down the block, anxiously waiting for me to report back."

"Can you take me there? I think I need to see him."

"Of course. This way," Darcy continued in the direction she'd been walking before Wanda caught up with her.

Wanda glanced back at the Sanctum, wondering if she should tell Strange where she was going. But she didn't want to delay even for a minute. She turned back and followed Darcy.

"Did your husband mention meeting me?" Darcy asked.

"No. When did that happen?"

"Okay, so I was there at the circus rehearsing for my act... Actually, I first met him the night before, when he tried to get out of the Hex. I was handcuffed to a truck at the time because... You know what, let me just start at the beginning. One night I got this really vague phone call from SWORD asking me if I'd be interested in doing a quick, well-paid, top-secret job for them..."

Vision was trying to read a book. He was trying, very hard, to distract his mind from what Darcy might or might not find at 177A Bleecker Street. It wasn't working. He couldn't focus on the words in front of his eyes.

He heard the hotel room door unlock, and looked up eagerly.

Darcy poked her head around the door. "She's here."

Vision wasn't prepared when Darcy moved aside and Wanda stepped past her into the room. His lack of focus suddenly reversed as her face seemed to become the focal point of the universe.

He stood up slowly, not taking his eyes off her. She looked different. Her hair was short, her face sharper, her expression guarded.

He didn't know what to say. He stopped himself from saying her name, not wanting to remind her of the last time they saw each other.

She spoke first. "Vision."

"I'm going to go get a coffee and give you two some time to talk," Darcy said, and ducked out when neither of them objected.

Vision considered switching to his disguise, thinking perhaps it would make Wanda more comfortable if he didn't appear as he did when he tried to kill her, but he decided against it, as he didn't want to seem like he was trying to manipulate her in any way. For the same reason, he resisted the urge to fall to his knees and ask for her forgiveness. That wasn't something he could ask for, or expect. Instead, he sat back in the chair, lower than her, non-threatening, but also not pleading for anything.

"I'm sorry," he said. Not a plea for forgiveness. Not even an apology, really. Just a statement of fact.

Wanda seemed as uncertain as he was. "I thought you were dead. He...didn't have time to tell me that you...left."

"Yes. Vision and I arrived at a truce. He showed me that I was in the wrong."

"You called him 'Vision'. Then who are you?"

"Also Vision. No longer the Vision; only a Vision." He forced a smile. It was brief. "Common enough for most people to know someone who shares their name. Though he and I did share a great deal more." He swallowed. She said nothing, so he added, "I can't imagine how painful it must have been for you to lose him and your children. You seemed very happy with them."

"You saw the broadcast?"

"Yes."

She closed her eyes and exhaled a long breath that shuddered with mortification.

He realized how intrusive other people watching her life must seem to her. "I thought you were dead," he explained. "And...I enjoyed having a record of a time when you seemed so happy."

"It wasn't real," she said.

"Wasn't it? The life you made for yourself might not have been real, but the way you felt, was that real?"

She didn't answer. She dropped her eyes, and he realized this was a painful topic.

"It is good to see you, to know you're alive," he said carefully. "How are you? Are you... Are you doing alright?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm... I'm dealing. I'm doing better."

This assurance gave him a rush of relief. "You are training with the sorcerer, Doctor Strange?"

"Yeah. Turns out, my powers are...magic. Apparently I was a witch the whole time." She said this diffidently, perhaps even apologetically, like she thought he might feel deceived or disappointed.

"The Scarlet Witch. We heard about that. SWORD recorded a conversation you and Doctor Strange had with Agatha in Westview. I...heard about the curse. I don't believe in curses, and I know you would never do anything to endanger the world."

Wanda still didn't look at him. "Maybe neither of us know me as well as we thought." She shook her head. "We don't have to worry about the curse." The motion of her head switched to a firm, definitive nod. "That's been handled."

He didn't want to press for details, which might undermine his assurance that he didn't believe in the curse in the first place.

"Good." He didn't know what else to say. What he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her, to just hold her and gaze at her for a long time. Aside from being sent to kill her with all his memories of her blocked, the last time he'd seen her had been when Thanos was attacking.

The last thing he'd said to her was that he loved her.

But that had been a long time ago. She had been through so much since then, being Blipped, fighting Thanos, building and then losing a life and family in the home he'd bought for the two of them.

He had been through a lot too, and yet he found his feelings for her unchanged. He wanted her safety and happiness above anything. And he had no idea what he could do to help secure either. He could see the turmoil in her eyes, though she tried to hide it, and he hated he was the one causing it.

"I'm happy you're alive," she finally said. "It's...a surprise. How are you doing?"

"Good," he answered honestly, feeling a little guilty. "I've been gradually reconnecting with old friends, pursuing interests I didn't have time for while I was an active Avenger. I have been...worried about you."

"Well, I guess you can stop worrying about me now," she said with a feeble attempt at levity.

He knew he wouldn't, but he also knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself, and he didn't want to imply otherwise. "Other people have been curious about what became of you. I know Sam would appreciate it if you dropped him a line sometime, and I imagine Clint is concerned about you. If you're worried about publicity, they have honored my request to not reveal I'm still alive, and I'm sure they would for you as well."

"You're right," she said. "I'll get in touch with them, now that...things have calmed down. But I need the quiet. The sorcerers are a secret organization, and training with them is helping me learn to control my powers, to make sure I don't do anything like what I did in Westview again, or something worse. I'm where I need to be right now."

"I understand," he said. "I won't tell anyone I've seen you if you don't wish me to."

"No, you can. Just tell them... Just tell them I'm okay, and I'll be in touch when I can."

"Alright." He swallowed, once again quelling an impulse to go to her. "I can't express how much I regret trying to kill you. I know nothing can make it right, but I had no memories of my previous life at the time. I didn't remember you. All I had was the directive I'd been given."

"It's alright," she claimed, implausibly. "It's good to see you." She was about to say something else, but changed her mind, and left without a goodbye.

Vision let her go, his heart torn between happiness at knowing she was safe and the devastation of knowing he might never see her again.

Chapter Text

Wanda walked back to the Sanctum. She could have portaled directly to her room, but she was hoping a walk would help clear her head.

It didn't help much. She was stunned, lost in a daze. Vision was alive. The man she'd loved and thought dead was alive, and she didn't know how she felt about that, or why she was so confused.

She stepped into the cool, dim, quiet interior of the Sanctum and felt like she was entering another world, one where she was hidden and safe. She sat down on the stairs, rested her face in her hands, and focused on her breathing, as she'd been training herself to do.

"What did she tell you?" Strange asked.

Wanda hadn't noticed his approach, but wasn't surprised by his presence.

"Vision's alive," she answered. "After he fought the Vision I created in Westview, he recovered his memories and left. He's been in hiding ever since. I spoke to him."

Strange floated over and sat next to her. "Are you okay?"

"I think so. I'm just so...shocked. Did you know he was alive?"

"I never would have kept something like that from you," he assured her.

She nodded. "I don't know what to do."

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know that either."

"What did he say?" he inquired.

"That he's sorry. He wanted to know how I'm doing. He thinks I should let Sam and Clint know I'm alive."

"You don't have to forgive him, you know," Strange said. She looked at him questioningly, so he elaborated. "Take it from someone who's been forgiven way more times than I've deserved: real forgiveness has to be given freely. It doesn't mean a thing if the person giving it feels like it's an obligation. He tried to kill you. No one would expect you to forgive him for that, no matter why he did it."

Wanda looked down at her hands. "That's not it," she realized. "Yes, he tried to kill me, but I did kill him. Twice. How do I know...How could I ever convince myself I wouldn't do it again?"

Strange was quiet for a moment, frowning thoughtfully at her. "You were cursed at the time. You wouldn't have pulled Westview into that spell if you hadn't been so upset by Vision's death. For all we know, his death, and maybe even you falling in love with him in the first place, were part of the curse."

That possibility hadn't crossed her mind. How much of her life had been orchestrated by that curse? How would she even know?

"You don't need to have all the answers now," Strange added. "And it doesn't need to be an all or nothing decision. You can reach out to Vision when you want, and however far you want. What you need to focus on, and what you need to figure out, is what's best for you. You're getting better. If bringing Vision back into your life could disrupt that, you shouldn't."

She nodded. "You're right. Thanks for the talk."

"Any time."

Wanda was a different person than she'd been six years ago, when she and Vision were together, or one year ago, when she'd made her own reality where she and a version of Vision could be together. Would he even like the person she'd become?

Had she grown too hardened to let herself love anyone anymore?

Wanda felt a little guilty about going to Billy's house at a time when she knew his parents would be at work but he would probably be there, having just started on a break from his year-round school. But she didn't want to have to explain to his parents who she was, and why a former Avenger was taking an interest in their son.

She rang the doorbell and waited, doing breathing exercises to calm her racing heart.

Billy opened the door. "You came back?"

"Yeah. I noticed there haven't been any new internet rumors about me showing up around here, or disappearing in a glowing circle, so I'm guessing that means you haven't told anyone you saw me. I wanted to thank you for that."

"I didn't think anyone would believe me anyway."

He seemed more wary than the last time they'd spoken. The difference hurt.

"I'm sorry I ran like that. I've been trying to keep a low profile."

"I get that. Sorry to ask this, but...did you do something to me?"

She frowned. "No. Did something happen to you?"

"Remember that bully I told you about? The next time I saw him harassing someone, I stood up to him. I hurt him, but I didn't even touch him. He's scared of me now. Everyone who saw what happened is scared of me now."

Wanda stared at him. She hadn't thought the powers he'd inherited from her could have gone with his soul to his new incarnation. But she saw a chance for a little fib that would explain her interest in him and maybe even give her a way to be part of his life.

"That wasn't anything I did, but when I first saw you I got this sense that you might be like me. That there's magic in you."

"Magic? I thought you got your power when HYDRA experimented on you."

"I thought that too until recently, but I found out I had magic even before that. I was born with it. The experiments were more like something finding me that had always been looking for me. I'm a witch, and I think you might be one too." She fell silent, waiting for his reaction. Would he be angry? In denial?

"I'm not sure I want to be," he said.

"It's not something you can just choose not to be. The reason I'm in hiding is that about a year ago, I did something bad. Powers I didn't even know I had got out of control, and a lot of people suffered for it. I'm training with other people like me now, learning to control those powers. I could talk to the Sorcerer Supreme about training you. The order doesn't allow children, and I honestly don't know what's the youngest they take, but maybe I can drop by now and then and teach you the basics?"

"I'd like that. Ever since it happened, I've been scared. I couldn't convince myself I'd just imagined it and everyone else just imagined it, but I had no idea what was going on."

"It's terrifying to discover power inside yourself you don't understand," Wanda said.

"I guess you know exactly what that's like."

"Yeah. It was something I had to face alone. I want to make sure that you don't have to."

Billy blinked quickly, like he was fighting back tears. She could see how alone he'd felt, and how frightened and confused he'd been.

"Hey," Wanda reached out and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. What she wanted was to pull him into her arms and promise she'd protect him from the world, but she restrained herself. "It's going to be okay."

"Thank you," he said.

She smiled. Maybe she would never be able to tell him she was his mother, but as his teacher, his mentor, she could be a permanent part of his life. Their relationship would be different, but it would be so much better than nothing.

How well her reconnection with Billy went gave her the courage, late one night half a week later, to knock on the door of the Philadelphia apartment the address on Darcy's business card led her to.

Darcy opened the door in her pajamas. She smiled brightly. "Wanda! Come on in."

The apartment was rather small, old, and musty, but it was tidy and prettily decorated, with furniture and little knickknacks that gave it an early 1900s vibe.

"If you're looking for Vision, he's at work," Darcy said.

"Where does he work?"

"A place called Bad Cat Bar, a few blocks away. He doesn't get home until after three a.m."

It was weird thinking of this place as Vision's home.

One wall was decked with paintings. Among them, Wanda spotted a portrait of herself against a dappled green background. In the painting she wore a black blouse, her long red hair fell over her shoulders, and there was a soft fondness in her eyes.

Wanda felt a lump in her throat at the beautiful portrayal of who she used to be.

"Did he paint these?"

"Yeah."

"How long has he been staying here?"

"About half a year now. He's the best roommate I've ever had." She placed a slight emphasis on the word 'roommate', as if she were worried about the impression Wanda might have about their living arrangements.

"He's always been very thoughtful and considerate. More than anyone else I've ever met. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"How was he after talking to me? Did he seem upset?"

Darcy bit her lip. "He kept saying how relieved he was that he got to see you, and how happy he was that you seemed to be doing okay. He just said things like that. A lot."

Wanda had known she must have hurt Vision, but Strange had been right about one thing: she had to consider what was best for her. That's why it had taken her a few days to even decide she wanted to see him again.

"How did Vision end up moving in with you?" she asked.

"That's kind of a funny story, actually..."

Wanda ended up chatting with Darcy for over an hour. Having someone else who had met both Visions gave them a lot to talk about.

It was almost midnight by the time she made her way though the rainy streets to a bar that had a silhouette of a cat in blue neon light above the words "Bad Cat Bar" with the words offset to look like ascending steps so that the B in 'bad', the A in 'cat', and the R in 'bar' lined up to spell 'bar' going down.

The bar had a fenced-in covered patio area in front, currently deserted. From there, Wanda could see the bar's interior through the window. It was a rather industrial space, with fluorescent lighting, blue-gray walls, and a beige linoleum floor. She could see Vision, in his human disguise, behind the counter.

She watched him for a while through the window. He mixed drinks, chatted amiably with the bar's patrons, polished glasses, smiled. He would lean his long arms on the counter and listen attentively when they spoke, would smile and laugh with them, would talk to them. She couldn't hear anything they were saying, of course. All she could hear was the rain pounding on the canopy over the patio.

He seemed to be good at bartending, his intelligence and precision making up for the fact that he didn't actually know how anything he made tasted. And he looked the part. He wore a black apron and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The outfit suited him. He made it look elegant.

Maybe she should leave, Wanda considered. Maybe she shouldn't disturb him at work. Maybe she shouldn't disrupt the contentment of the life he was building for himself.

But Darcy would doubtlessly tell him she'd dropped by, and if she left without talking to him he might think she blamed him for trying to kill her back in Westview. She couldn't bear to let him believe she feared or hated him.

She opened the door to the bar, using her power to silence the bell that would otherwise have announced her entrance. The warmth inside made her realize how chilly the night air had been. Music playing over the bar's sound system replaced the rain as the dominant sound.

The floor and tables were scuffed and stained, there were bare spots on the wall where paint had peeled off, but the place was scrupulously clean. Landscape and still-life paintings decorated the walls. Vision's work, she was sure.

She took a seat at a table far to the side, pulling the hood of her rain-soaked jacket further up to hide her face. She watched Vision interacting with the few customers left this late at night—men with working-class clothes, worn faces, tattoos, and scars indicating a rough life. Vision treated them with the utmost respect. His presence turned what would otherwise have been a seedy dive bar into a haven.

He glanced over and spotted her. She automatically looked away, half hoping he wouldn't recognize her.

He politely excused himself from a conversation with a customer and made his way over to her. Her heart thumped harder and harder the closer he came. He looked at her with a mix of uncertainty and tenderness.

"Can I get you anything?"

She realized his voice retained the electronic buzz it had when she'd heard him in his true form. She wondered how his customers never got suspicious of his true identity. Maybe they just didn't care enough to wonder about it.

"Just some tea if you have any," she answered.

"Of course." He returned to his post behind the counter and seamlessly resumed his conversation with the other customer while he carefully measured looseleaf tea into an infuser and filled a glass mug with hot water. A minute later, he brought the tea to Wanda's table. "It's on the house."

She didn't try to argue. "Thank you."

"The bar closes in 47 minutes. If you don't mind the wait, we can talk after, while I clean. If," he added hesitantly, "you would like to talk."

"I would like that," she answered.

He nodded. He seemed reluctant when he left her to return to his duties, and he came back to her table every few minutes to see if she wanted more tea or refreshments, as if he were afraid she might change her mind and leave. He didn't neglect the other patrons, and called cabs for anyone who needed one as they ended their night.

At 2 a.m., the last customers left and Vision locked the door, turned down the lights, and gathered all the used glasses.

Wanda followed him to the back room. "Sorry to ambush you at work like this," she said.

"It's alright," he said as he placed all the used dishes in a crate that he lowered into an industrial dishwasher. "How are you?"

"Fine. I'm sorry about how I left the last time we talked."

"I understand. I was grateful that you'd been willing to talk to me at all." He returned to the bar and started wiping down the counter with a cleaning solution as he talked. "I'm sorry you had to wait so long for me to finish work before we could speak."

"I didn't mind. I liked..." She tried to think of a way to say she enjoyed watching him work that wouldn't sound weird. "It seems like bartending suits you."

"I enjoy it. I enjoy the interaction. Everyone has a story, and everyone wants someone to listen. That's something I can give them. I find it very fulfilling."

"It's a big change from your last job, saving the world as an Avenger."

"I don't see it as qualitatively different." He explained as he cleaned the table tops and placed the chairs on top of them. "As an Avenger, I was able to provide people immediate rescue and return to physical safety, but I wasn't able to follow up with them, to help them process and deal with the sudden loss of a sense of security that facing a crisis can cause, that having a brush with death can cause. That's another way to save a life. Not saving someone from death, but saving them from being trapped in the thought patterns brought on by traumatic experiences, or saving them from loneliness. In those ways, I would credit Darcy and my therapist for saving my life, and I would like to think I provide a similar service to the people who find their way here. People influence the lives of everyone they meet, and simple things—showing someone a moment of kindness or respect—might change the course of a person's life."

"Or sitting down to watch a show with someone who just lost her brother," Wanda added.

Vision pulled a large broom from a closet, then turned to regard her. "Or treating someone like a human who others might see as a robot."

Wanda felt a lump in her throat again.

Vision commenced sweeping the floor.

"I've been thinking about...things, ever since finding out you're alive. It took me a while, but I figured out why I feel the way I feel," she said carefully.

"Would you like to tell me about it?" he asked when a few moments passed without further elaboration.

"That's why I'm here. I watched you die, in Wakanda. I lost you. You were ripped away from me. And then, in Westview, I got you back. And at first I didn't understand how I'd gotten you back. That it had been magic. Apparently, I'd cast thousands of spells at once, to get you back, to make the life I wanted. But when I learned everyone else in Westview was suffering horribly for my perfect life... Vision figured it out before I did. He was going to leave to try to stop me. He was going to die, and I couldn't save him. I had to let him go. Him and our children. I had to end their lives to save the town."

He paused his sweeping, looking at her with deep sympathy. "I'm so sorry you had to make that choice."

She took a deep breath to fortify herself. "I let you go. I had to, to do what I had to do. I thought I'd never be with you again except in death. I accepted that, and I don't think that's something I can just take back."

"I understand."

"I've changed so much since when you knew me."

"I have changed too," he said. "Perhaps not as profoundly, but I know how it feels to wonder if you are the same person you were before. To wonder who and what you are."

"But I was thinking, maybe we can start again. We can get to know each other as the people we are now, and...figure out what we want to be to each other."

He shifted, readjusting his hold on the broom. She could feel his mind swirl, trying to fight back a swell of hope. "Is that what you want?" he asked.

"I'm not sure what I want, but I know what I don't want. I don't want to cut you out of my life, which is what I'd be doing if I cling to the idea of what we used to be, if I cling to this idea of myself as a widow whose perfect husband died tragically, or an Avenger who had to sacrifice the love of her life trying to save the universe. I'm not that person anymore, you're not that person anymore, and we can't expect that's who we're going to be to each other anymore. But we're not completely different people either, and..." She trailed off, forgetting the lines she'd come up with when practicing this conversation in her head. "I'm doing a terrible job explaining this."

"Wanda," Vision said slowly, "I thought that after I attempted to kill you, you would not want me in your life at all. I can see now that in my fear I was failing to accurately assess your fortitude, for which I apologize. But you are right. We have both changed. If you are willing, I would like to get to know you as the person you are now."

"That's what I want too. I'm pretty busy with my training these days, but when I have time, I'd like to see you. Maybe we could do something together? Go to a museum or a play sometime?"

"My daytimes are usually free, aside from every first and third Tuesday, which is when I see my therapist. But other than that, any day that works for you..."

"Maybe I can drop by on Saturday?"

"I would like that," he said, giving her a rather stunned smile.

"Great! Then it's a..." She almost said 'date', but stopped herself from using that wording. "It's a plan. I'll let you get back to work. Goodnight, Vision."

"Goodnight," he replied.

She opened a portal to her room in the Sanctum and glanced back once before stepping through it. She smiled at the flabbergasted look on Vision's face.

Chapter Text

The next time Wanda and Vision saw each other, they simply sat and talked. Vision did the most talking; Wanda seemed reluctant to get into the details of her time in Westview and what she'd been up to the year since. But she asked him a lot of questions, wanting to know every detail of his life. He told her about the conversation he'd had with the other Vision about the Ship of Theseus, about his travels alone after leaving Westview, about connecting with Darcy, Jimmy, Sam, and Bucky, about visiting New Asgard and meeting Korg and the Valkyrie, and about helping to contain the zombie threat from the dimensional rift in Baltimore.

When he told her about fighting the zombies, she got a distant, haunted look in her eyes that made him stop short.

"You have encountered them too, haven't you?"

"Yes," she answered.

"In Thailand?" he guessed, recalling how the zombies there had vanished before the eyes of the soldiers sent to contain them.

"No. I...went to their world. Their Earth. The sorcerers designated it Earth-35111. I was there for a few weeks."

He experienced a curious flutter of fear at merely the knowledge that she'd been in such danger in the past. "How did you survive?"

"Doctor Strange brought me back."

He stared at her. He didn't want to press her for more than she wanted to say, but that wasn't nearly explanation enough.

"I was careful," she said. "I wore a gas mask when I was in the open, ate and slept in sealed rooms that I decontaminated, didn't let them get close to me..."

When she spoke of it, though her voice was soft and even, her body grew tense, her breathing faster.

Vision picked up on her pronoun use. "Were you there alone?"

She nodded.

"Were there others—uninfected humans—there to help you?"

She shook her head slowly. "My entire time there, I didn't see single uninfected human."

"Wanda..." He resisted the desire to reach a comforting hand to her. "Why were you there?"

"The dimensional rifts were my fault. The spells I cast in Westview caused them. I had to stop them."

Vision thought about the strange readings from the rifts, the burst of particles from another dimension followed by a rift that radiated heat, and no further incursions by infected humans. "How?"

He noticed her hands trembling slightly. Her eyes fell to the floor before she forced them up to meet his. "I destroyed it. I destroyed Earth-35111."

In the silence that followed, she didn't break eye contact with him. She looked like she was frozen in sheer terror. It took him a few moments to understand what she was afraid of.

Him.

Did she think he might decide she was too powerful to allow to live?

He didn't think she could believe such a thing about him even now. Then she was afraid he would fear her for her power, or condemn her for that destruction.

He wanted to touch her, to brush a strand of hair back from her forehead or take her hand, to reassure her. But he didn't think his heart could bear it if she flinched.

"When I said you would never do anything to destroy the world, you said I might not know you as well as I thought. You were trying to tell me you already had?"

She didn't say anything, but a slight change in her facial expression affirmed his supposition.

"You did what you felt you had to do to protect our world," he stated.

"Yes."

"I can't imagine how harrowing that must have been."

"I should get going," she said abruptly.

He rose with her. "Of course. Will I see you next week?"

"Yes. I'll see you then."  She made a circle with her hands, producing a glowing portal in the air. She stepped through it and was gone.

The next week they went on a walk along the Schuylkill River.

"Clint spent about five minutes chewing me out for scaring him like that, but otherwise it was a good call. It sounds like he's doing well. Sounds like he's got a protegée, a young woman he's giving archery lessons to. He says she's showing a lot of promise."

"That's good," Vision said.

"I'm kind of training someone too," Wanda added. She sounded curiously hesitant to talk about it.

"Really? Who?"

"It's kind of complicated, actually," she said. "He's fifteen. He just discovered he's magic. He hasn't told his parents about it, so with Doctor Strange's permission I've been meeting with him secretly and teaching him just the basics, just so he can learn to control his magic and not hurt anyone."

"That does sound complicated," Vision said.

"He's..." Wanda bit her lip for a moment, then said only, "He seems like a good kid."

Perhaps he reminded her of her own children, Vision considered.

They walked in silence for a minute, both absorbed in their own thoughts. Then Wanda asked, "When you watched the Broadcast, did you see the man who claimed to be Pietro?"

"Yes."

"What did you think?"

"To be completely honest, I still don't understand how you could have believed he was your brother."

"He had super speed, just like Pietro. And at the time, I didn't know how you could be alive, but you were, so it didn't seem much more far-fetched. But mostly, what I felt from his mind matched Pietro's. His mind patterns were the same. I didn't know how that could be possible other than if he somehow was Pietro. But after we talked to Agatha, we figured it out. What I had done. You know how there are parallel Earths, right?"

"Yes."

"In some of those Earths, there are parallels of us. One of the spells I cast trying to create my perfect life latched on to a parallel universe's version of my brother and pulled him into Westview. Doing that is what caused rifts between this Earth, his Earth, and Earth-35111. We were able to get him back to his world. There are people there with powers. Way more than here. They're called mutants. Some of their powers are unbelievable. Peter—that's his name there, Peter Maximoff—his father can create magnetic fields and control metal with his mind. There's one man I met..." She stopped suddenly and turned to him. "Vision, what's wrong?"

The riverside trail they'd been following had taken them into a thick grove of trees. Vision had been gripped by an irrational feeling that something was stalking them from behind those trees, that Wanda was in danger. He'd tried to conceal it, but Wanda must have read it from his mind.

"Nothing's wrong," he explained. "Ever since facing Thanos in the forest in Wakanda, being surrounded by trees can trigger a fear response in me. I'll be alright in a moment."

"Vis..." She frowned in concern. "I didn't know. Come on, we can go back."

"No, it's alright. My therapist told me the way to diffuse the emotions of a traumatic memory is not to attempt to avoid that memory, but to recall it in a circumstance where you feel safe. Every time you recall a memory, it's like taking it out of a box, and it can be altered and stored in a different form. If I play out the memory here, where I know I am safe, it will lose some of its emotional force."

She took his hands. "You are safe. I would never let anything hurt you again."

He looked down at their hands, startled. This was the first time they'd touched since Westview.

She realized what she'd done, and looked unsure what to do about it. "Sorry." She released his hands slowly.

"It's alright. It helped. The fear has passed."

She continued looking down, thoughtfully. "Vis, have you been avoiding touching me?"

"The last time we touched had been when I tried to kill you. I didn't want to remind you of that."

"I'm not afraid of you. Here." She took his left hand and lifted it to her cheek, holding it there with her hand. The same pose they'd been in right before he tried to kill her. "I know you wouldn't hurt me."

He felt as if he couldn't move. He was frozen at her touch. Even the flow of his thoughts had frozen.

Her eyes drifted closed.

Birds sang in the branches above them. Sunlight filtering down through the trees made the leaves glow bright green. The birdsongs and the green light seemed for a moment to envelop them in a little world of their own. In this green twilight, Wanda glowed, and her eyes were closed, and her lips...

He couldn't look away from her lips.

He wanted to kiss her. His lips ached for it. He could remember so vividly the feel of her soft lips pressed against his.

But he wouldn't. She didn't know what kind of relationship she wanted with him. He would not push the matter.

"You're right," he said in a faltering voice. "I would never willingly harm you again."

Her eyes opened. She smiled softly. "I'm sure you could do it if you had to, to save innocent people. But if I can help it, it will never, ever come to that." She lowered his hand from her cheek, but didn't let go of it, and he didn't draw his hand away.

They continued on their stroll side by side, holding hands. The trees didn't unnerve Vision again.

A few days later, as Vision walked home from work through the dark, quiet streets at 3 a.m., he became aware of someone following behind him. He had never been mugged, despite walking home alone so often in the middle of the night through a disreputable neighborhood. If someone did mug him, he had decided he would hand over his tips without a fight and hope that would end it, as he would hate for rumors of his strength to get about.

He turned a corner and continued on evenly. He glanced back and saw the man was still following him. Tall, bearded, wearing what might have been a long trenchcoat with a high collar, though it was hard to tell in the low light.

He continued on, pretending he didn't know he was being followed, but when he looked back to see if the man was gaining on him, he was gone.

Vision turned in a slow circle, scanning the area. When he faced forward again, he found the figure directly in front of him. He now saw the man was wearing a cloak. He recognized his face.

"Doctor Strange. I'm surprised at you; you should know better than to startle someone who can shoot beams of energy from his forehead."

"I trusted you wouldn't feel legitimately threatened, Vision. Now that we've established there's no need for introductions, let's have a talk."

"Is Wanda alright?" Vision asked as his thoughts cycled through what Doctor Strange could possibly want to talk to him about.

"Yeah. She doesn't know I'm here. I know she's been spending time with you lately. What are your intentions with her?"

"My intentions?" he echoed, confused. "I have no intentions with her."

"You were programmed to kill her. How did you circumvent that programming? More to the point, did you circumvent that programming?"

Vision stared at him. "You think I'm trying to lull Wanda into letting her guard down so I can complete the mission Hayward gave me?"

Doctor Strange looked back at him steadily. "I pride myself on considering all possibilities, and that's one possibility I have to address. She's my student, and I'm not going to let anything happen to her. So answer the question."

"Hayward ordered me to kill her and the other Vision. SWORD uploaded that directive to my neural network. But when I recovered my memories, I was able to evaluate those orders and reject that directive. I am not a robot that can be programmed."

"How do any of us know that?"

Vision paused to consider that question. "How do we know that about anyone? The question of to what extent our actions stem from our choices versus being determined by our past and our circumstances is a mystery that philisophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and physicists have been unable to solve. All I know is that when I am with Wanda now, my every instinct is to protect her, not to destroy her."

Doctor Strange's eyebrow quirked up. "Protect her? Is that all that your instincts tell you to do?"

Vision picked up on what he was implying. Had Wanda and Doctor Strange developed a romantic attachment for each other over the year they'd spent together? He wouldn't have blamed either of them for it. Wanda had believed him dead. It was possible she simply hadn't told him yet out of a fear of hurting him. "I assure you, our current relationship is platonic."

"I didn't ask about your relationship; I asked about your instincts. But the fact that you deflected is answer enough. You still have feelings for her. It would be none of my business, but with all Wanda's been through, I don't know how much more pain she can take."

"She is stronger than you realize."

"I know how strong she is. But she's not invincible, and she has a problem with self-doubt. Her power is like nothing I've ever seen. It's already been the difference between the destruction of the world and it's salvation, and we might need to call on her to save the world again someday."

"She told me about Earth-35111," Vision stated.

"What did she tell you about it?"

"That she destroyed it to protect our world from the infection. And that you saved her life."

"Did she tell you how she destroyed it?" Doctor Strange asked.

"No. She seemed reluctant to speak of it."

"She searched the multiverse until she found an Earth that was about to be hit by a comet. She stayed on that Earth until the comet was close enough, and then she used her power to transport it to Earth-35111."

"She saved two worlds by destroying one?"

"Quite possibly three. Why do you think she didn't tell you that part?"

"I don't know," Vision said. "She doesn't like to brag."

"It goes beyond that. When Wanda saved dozens of people from a bomb in Lagos, she was condemned for the people the bomb killed instead. When she killed you trying to save the universe from Thanos, he reversed time and got the Mind Stone anyway, rendering that sacrifice basically a senseless murder. When she ended the lives of her entire family to free the citizens of Westview from a spell she hadn't even realized she'd put them under, instead of acknowledging her sacrifice, they hated her for the suffering she'd accidentally caused. Her entire life has conditioned her to believe when she does something heroic, she'll be regarded as a villain for it. It's gotten to her so much she has trouble not seeing herself as a villain sometimes."

"And yet she hasn't given up," Vision said. "She still tries to do what she believes is best, no matter how others perceive her."

"True. She's a remarkable person. So if you're telling the truth, if you really do still love her," he stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulder, "then all the more power to you. She deserves some happiness in her life. But if you're lying..." His grip tightened. "If you kill her, my order will track you down. There is nowhere in the multiverse you could hide from us. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly."

"Good." Doctor Strange stepped away and disappeared through a portal.

Vision, rather than feeling disturbed by the sorcerer's threat, was exceedingly pleased by the encounter. The sorcerers cared about Wanda. She was surrounded by people who were devoted to protecting her, helping her learn more about her powers, and helping her thrive. Doctor Strange wanted Wanda to be happy.

And he seemed to believe that Wanda still loved him.

Chapter Text

Wanda was learning that there were many, many different kinds of magic. The conjurings she was studying at Kamar-Taj required knowledge, practice, and careful control of motions, words, and thoughts all at once. The power of the Scarlet Witch was the opposite. The more wild her thoughts and emotions were, the more powerful the magic pouring from her.

For her telekinesis, she'd always required the motion of her fingers to direct it, but the transformation power she'd unleashed in Westview had only required her emotions.

It was a simple spell she was practicing today, a mere illusion: turn a pile of leaves into a kaleidoscope of butterflies. It was a few words spoken in Tocharian, a slightly goofy hand gesture, and a mind clear of everything but an impression of the color light gray. The worst that was supposed to be able to happen was the spell not working.

The pile of leaves was not supposed to transform into an explosion of burning sulphur.

No one was injured, thanks to Wanda's very quick deployment of her telekinetic power to create a forcefield around the explosion. She contained the pile of burning sulphur and teleported it to somewhere in Antarctica.

And then she'd retreated from the stares the other students were giving her, hiding away in a meditation room.

And that's where Wong found her.

She dropped her eyes to the floor, biting her lip. "Sorry."

"You were distracted," he stated.

"Yes."

"You've been distracted all week."

She was ashamed that he'd noticed, but not all that surprised. She'd been having trouble casting spells, even basic ones she'd already mastered.

Ever since her walk with Vision, when she'd held his hand, she couldn't get him out of her thoughts. When she recalled his touch, she felt like she was on fire. Some nights, dreams of him replaced her usual nightmares.

"Sorry. I haven't been sleeping well. I'll try harder."

"That's the opposite of a good idea. Take a break. Take a few days off. Rest, relax, give your brain time to reset."

Wanda took his advice. She portaled back to her bedroom in the New York Sanctum and checked the time. It was mid afternoon at Kamar-Taj, but 5 o'clock in the morning in New York. Training nearly daily on the other side of the world from where she lived made for a haphazard sleep schedule.

She got a few hours of sleep, waking shortly before noon, made herself a veggie omelet, then walked aimlessly around the Sanctum, trying to think of what she could do to relax.

Rather, trying to convince herself she didn't already know exactly where she wanted to be. That for weeks she hadn't been just fooling herself that she didn't know what she wanted. She knew. She was just terrified.

In a sudden burst of courage, and not giving herself time to reconsider, she opened a portal into the living room of Darcy's apartment and flew through it.

Vision was standing at an easel in the kitchen. He looked slightly amused at her entrance.

"I've been told it's customary to knock," he said.

"I didn't want to risk anyone seeing me appear in the hallway."

"Understandable," he conceded. "But your arrival is unexpected." He suddenly looked concerned. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes. I just have the day off, and I...thought I'd drop by." Her boldness had apparently been used up just coming here. She moved next to him and examined his painting. It was of trees, the perspective looking staight up, where blue sky was visible between green leaves, and an aster of brightness indicated where the sun was hidden behind a branch. "You're painting a forest?"

"Immersing myself in a peaceful association. I began painting as a form of therapy, a way to become reacquainted with my emotional responses."

"I see. Did it work?"

"It helps."

She wasn't sure what else to say. She continued looking at his painting. "I didn't mean to interrupt you. I can come back later if you like."

"No. Stay. I'm at a good spot to let the paint dry for a while before I continue." He rinsed his paintbrush, then turned toward her. "Would you like some coffee, or tea?"

"Um, tea sounds nice." Having some hot tea would calm her nerves, she figured.

He heated water and took a mug from a cupboard.

"Would Darcy be okay with you offering me some of her tea?" Wanda wondered.

"I would risk Darcy's wrath if she knew you were over and I failed to provide sufficient hospitality. She may be your biggest fan."

It was still weird to Wanda to think she had fans.

Vision brought the mug of tea and set it on the coffee table in front of her.

"Are you sure you're alright? You seem a bit distracted."

A hollow, mirthless chuckle escaped her throat. "Yeah. I kind of messed up a spell so bad in training the teacher sent me home until I can get my head in the game."

"I'm sorry," Vision said, sounding unsure if offering condolences was the proper response.

Wanda picked up the tea. The mug had a photo of a galaxy and the words 'Universe's #1.0×10^11 Astrophysicist' on it, which she figured was a joke she didn't get. She took a few sips, giving herself a few moments to think about how to bring up what she needed to say. "Vision, I think I screwed up."

He floated over and knelt in front of her, his eyes overflowing with concern. His hand rested on the arm of the couch next to her. "Whatever happened, I'm sure you will make it right."

She smiled in spite of the nervousness churning inside her. "You always had more faith in me than I did."

"And it has never proven misplaced."

She stared at him for a moment, in awe of him and afraid for him, then dropped her eyes to examine the surface of the tea before putting her cup down on the table and turning toward him fully.

"When I said I let you go, what I thought I felt was that...when I accepted that the man I loved was gone, that love was buried, like my heart had left my body and wasn't coming back, and that if I ever felt anything for you again I'd have to start from scratch. But I'm starting to think the truth is...I was just numb. That I've been numb for a long time."

His eyes stayed on her, that intense, unwavering gaze that always rendered her helpless.

"And now?" he asked softly. "What do you feel now?"

She wondered if he was trying to remind her of their last night in Edinburgh on purpose. She wondered with her next thought if it had been a mistake to come here. She loved Vision. She would never love anyone the way she loved him. But that didn't give her the right to complicate his life. If she told him how she felt, he might feel pressure to reciprocate even if that wasn't what he wanted, or what would be best for him.

But then, he had asked her to stay with him, had bought a house for them. That kind of love didn't just fade away in a year.

Did it?

Even if he did still love her, being together might put him in danger again.

But if he did love her, didn't he deserve the right to make that decision for himself?

Or was it selfish of her to think that?

She was dangerous. The accident in training today proved that her powers were still volatile. How could she in good conscience subject Vision to the risk inherent in being near her?

On the other hand, he had always been her anchor. His influence had always made her a better person. From the moment she'd first looked in his mind, he'd given her moral clarity. Maybe she needed him.

But that didn't mean she had a right to him. Or that he wouldn't be better off without her.

She realized over a minute had passed as she floundered for an answer. He was waiting silently, with superhuman patience, for her to resolve her thoughts.

"Vis, I would hate to ever hurt you again. I'd rather die than hurt you again. But I don't know how to not do that."

"I'm not fragile," he said.

"I know. It's just..." She cut herself off with a sigh of frustration.

She felt nervousness flare up in Vision's mind, a sputter of indecision, then resolve. He reached for her, curling his index finger under her chin. His touch stopped her thoughts in their tracks, suspending her doubts.

He trailed his thumb over her lips. They tingled so sharply she gasped.

"Wanda," he breathed. He rose, his lips inching closer to hers.

And then he hesitated.

If Wanda had any lingering doubts about her feelings for him, the way her heart sank with disappointment at the possibility he might reconsider cleared them up. "Vision?"

"Would you like me to change form? I know my true appearance now is very different from the way I looked when you fell for me."

"Oh, Vis." She took his face in her hands. His snow-white skin and the cold blue light in his forehead were different, but she no longer found that disconcerting. "You're still beautiful." She closed the gap between them. Her lips landed on his.

His hand cupped the back of her head. Her short hair tickled beneath the movement of his fingers. She read a blissful relief flowing through Vision's mind with every touch they shared.

They kissed and caressed for a minute. Maybe a few minutes. Then Vision drew back. He took her hands, lifted them to his lips, then looked into her eyes fondly.

"Your cup of tea is getting cold," he said.

She'd forgotten about it. She laughed, then smiled at him. "You're my cup of tea," she said teasingly before leaning forward and taking his bottom lip between her lips like she really were sipping from him.

He moaned. His arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him.

They ended up sprawled on the couch, Vision over Wanda. He'd reduced his density enough that she barely felt his weight.

After making out for—who knew how long; she'd lost track of time—Wanda broke off their kisses and lay back to catch her breath. Vision took the opportunity to gaze at her and stroke her face.

"I love you," she said. Those were the only words her mind could formulate. Conveniently, that was also what she'd come here to say.

"And I love you, Wanda," he replied. "With all my heart."

Chapter Text

Vision didn't know why Jimmy had asked him to come to his office early one Wednesday morning. When he got there, Jimmy greeted him with a warm smile. "Thanks for coming, Vision."

"Of course. What can I do for you?"

"There's a case I'd like your help with. I'm going to get Wilson and Barnes on the line so I only have to explain it once." Even as he spoke, he opened up a video call window on his computer and dialed.

Bucky answered first. He looked like he'd just woken up. Sam answered moments later, looking more chipper and holding a mug of presumably coffee.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Jimmy greeted them.

"This had better be good," Bucky said from his window of the conference call.

"I second that," said Sam. "How are you doing, Vision?"

"I'm doing very well. Thank you." He was momentarily lost in a memory of the previous Saturday, a day he'd spent with Wanda at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, followed by her giving him a tour of the New York Sanctum, a very quick tour that concluded in her bedroom. He shook off that memory and returned his focus to the present. "Agent Woo hasn't yet told me why he asked for us, so I am also eager to hear about the case."

"Please tell me we don't have to fight any more fungus zombies," Bucky said.

"I have it on good authority that those are no longer a threat," Vision stated.

"No, it's something else," Jimmy said. "There's a theft ring operating in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The FBI picked up chatter that they're planning to steal a delivery of newly minted quarters tomorrow."

"That heist wouldn't get them more than a few thousand dollars," Sam said. "Why would you need to drag us into that?"

"Wait," Bucky said thoughtfully. "That would be a difficult operation for a pretty low payout. What kind of technology does this gang have?"

"Technology isn't what landed this case on my desk," Jimmy answered. "One of the thieves is enhanced. He can run inhumanly fast. There were a few cases of petty theft in the Cincinnati area a few months ago that might have been the same guy."

Vision was about to share that Wanda had told him the Cincinnati thefts were the work of Peter Maximoff, who had since returned to his own Earth, but the discussion moved on before he'd decided whether Wanda had told him that confidentially.

"I've only heard of one person who had that kind of power, and he's dead," Sam said.

Jimmy shrugged. "I'm aware of a couple more possible cases."

"Really? Who?"

"That's classified. The point is, whatever mechanism allowed Pietro Maximoff to move at nearly the speed of sound may have been replicated."

"And you want us to stop this guy?" Bucky asked.

"Ideally, yes, but what I'm way more interested in is how he got enhanced in the first place. If he's the person I think he is, it's likely a witch gave him the power of super speed. Now that's a combination of words I never thought I'd string together while I was studying at Quantico," he said in aside to himself. "The scarier possibility is that some surviving HYDRA cell enhanced him using data from their experiments on Pietro Maximoff. Whatever the source of his power, I think it's pretty important that we get to the bottom of it. And we don't know the long-term health effects of someone moving at those speeds. He may need medical treatment."

"Any idea where the heist will go down?" Bucky asked.

"The Serendip Casino in Atlantic City."

"If we catch this guy, how do we know he won't just be locked up?" Sam asked.

"I know about your time in the Raft—you and Wanda and Scott, and Clint Barton. I find incarcerating people without due process abominable, no matter what their powers are. That won't happen if I'm the one who arrests him. If someone else gets to him first, I'm not going to have nearly as much say in what happens to him."

"Is that a threat?" Bucky asked. "Because it kind of sounds like a threat."

Jimmy frowned, scrunching his forehead. "It wasn't meant to."

"I think it's safe to say we are all concerned with the wellbeing of this enhanced individual, and that it is in his best interest that we be the ones to apprehend him," Vision said. "For all we know, he is being coerced into assisting this gang."

"I've missed your optimism, Vis," Sam said. "Agent Woo, how much can you tell us about this gang?"

"Not much. They refer to each other by codenames, they wear gloves at all times to avoid leaving fingerprints. We don't have real identities for most of them. Some of them carry guns, but they try to avoid violence. The enhanced goes by the codename 'Speed'. Obviously whoever picked out that name didn't put too much thought into it. We don't know how many people will be involved in the planned robbery."

"So we've got almost nothing to go on," Bucky complained.

"More than we're likely to get again any time soon," Jimmy replied with an apologetic wince.

"Okay," Sam said. "We're in."

The casino was rather tastelessly decorated, in Vision's opinion, as casino's tended to be. The walls and ceiling were painted with tropical plants in bright greens, pinks, and oranges, the organic curlicue shapes in the murals clashing with the sharp lines and flashing lights of the slot machines. The clang and beeps of slot machine sounds didn't improve the ambiance.

There were people scattered around the room, on the slots, at the card tables, and playing roulette. There were more people than we're typical for this time of day, since among the true customers were undercover FBI agents and casino security. And Bucky, who looked about as uncomfortable at the blackjack table as Vision would have been.

Vision drifted away from the gambling floor to survey the corridor leading to the vault. He was in the uniform of a casino employee, able to move unnoticed as well as through walls and locked doors.

"Sam, is there any activity from where you are?" he asked quietly over the com line.

"Nothing suspicious." He was positioned on the roof overlooking the ramp where the delivery of coins would be unloaded—one of the likelier places for the gang to strike.

"Nothing on the surveillance cameras yet either," Jimmy added.

There were only minutes before the scheduled delivery. Surely the thieves would already be in place. Unless they had grown suspicious that the authorities had learned of their plan.

"The truck is pulling in," Sam reported.

Vision waited at the end of the corridor, right above where the shipment would be unloaded. He could phase down through the floor at the first sign of trouble.

The truck pulled into the warehouse without incident. Boxes of coins were loaded from it to a cart to be transported to a safe deeper in the building. Jimmy kept them updated from his post in the security center.

Vision walked slowly up the hallway, using his superhuman hearing to track the progress of the cart in the floor below. He was passing through the gambling hall when the attack came.

Six people—four men and two women—in masks, carrying guns.

"Everyone on the ground!" one of the assailants shouted. "Hand over your cash and no one gets hurt!"

"We've got six armed perps in the main hall," Jimmy reported over their earpieces. "They're demanding cash from the customers. This isn't the move we were expecting. Our priority is keeping the civilians safe."

From his position, Vision could see Bucky raise his gloved hands and kneel, following the orders of the robbers along with everyone else. Between him and the undercover FBI agents, the robbers were outnumbered, but the presence of the civilians put them at a disadvantage.

"The robbery is a diversion. Two individuals are approaching an emergency exit along the back of the building," Jimmy reported. "The speedster just emerged from a restroom. He's..."

An alarm started blaring. Lights along the ceiling started flashing toward the exits.

That's when one of the casino security personnel disguised as a customer panicked and drew his gun.

The scene erupted into chaos.

One of the robbers threw an object into the middle of the room. Someone else screamed. The object exploded, filling the space with dense smoke.

With so many guns—more than anyone in that room had expected—someone could get killed.

Under the cover of smoke, Vision flew into the fray.

"Let them go! Protect the civilians!" Bucky shouted over the sounds of coughing and the continuing alarm.

Through the smoke, Vision saw one of the security guards block the exit. He took aim at a robber heading toward the exit with a bag of stolen cash and shouted, "Drop it!" The robber, in a panic, aimed his gun at the guard. They both pulled the trigger.

Acting on instinct, Vision flew between them. Both bullets hit him and ricocheted into the floor and a nearby slot machine.

"What the..."

He turned to see Bucky crush the barrel on a robber's gun.

Three of the robbers rushed out the exit, shoving the dazed security guard to the floor in their rush. The other three were surrounded by and surrendering to FBI agents.

"We've got it handled in here. Get the enhanced," Bucky said to Vision.

Using the lingering smoke for cover, Vision phased through the floor.

In the corridor below he found four security guards disarmed and tied up and gagged, and Sam facing off against two masked assailants carrying semi-automatic rifles. Vision phased through the floor to sneak up behind the robbers.

"Guys, I really think you should just put down your guns and come quietly," Sam said, carefully not looking at Vision.

"We've got two guns, and you've got zero, so if my math is right, you should turn around and walk away so no one gets hurt," the robber on the left said as Vision slowly and soundlessly floated up behind them.

"Last chance," Sam said with a shrug. He sprang into action, launching himself at the robber on the left, blocking a spray of bullets with one wing at an angle carefully calculated to ricochet the bullets into a wall and away from any possible casualties.

Vision at the same second phased through the other robber, ripping the gun out of his hand. He screamed in startled terror.

The other robber managed to keep a hold of his gun when Sam tackled him, knocking him to the ground. A line of bullets riddled the wall. Vision twisted the robber he'd disarmed around just in time to use his own body to shield him from what would have been certain death.

The next second, Sam had the gun out of the shooter's hand and disabled it. A second after that, he had the man handcuffed.

"Are you alright?" Vision asked him anxiously.

"Yeah. Nothing got through my armor." He looked over his shoulder at the security guards. They looked terrified, but unharmed.

"Where is Speed?"

"Gone with the loot," Sam replied. "He's fast. Nothing I threw at him hit him."

"Speed is at the emergency exit, running boxes to an escape car one at a time," Jimmy reported over the earpiece. "I've got agents on the way to block the escape route, but I don't know how we're going to catch up to Speed."

"I'm on my way," Vision said. He glanced at Sam, who nodded a confirmation that he could handle things here.

Vision flew at his top speed toward the emergency exit at the end of the corridor, phasing through corners to cut seconds off his path. He spotted the cart, still stacked with several boxes of coins. He saw a human-sized blur dart to the cart, pause for a split second, then blur away out the door, and one of the boxes was gone.

Seconds later, another box disappeared.

He quickly calculated when Speed would likely return and flew in an intercept course, adjusting his velocity to slow just before colliding in hopes of not hurting him more than necessary.

Just as he'd hoped, the speedster knocked into him on his next return. He stumbled backward, forced into a more normal pace.

Unlike the other members of the gang, he wasn't wearing a mask. While he was stunned, Vision got a good look at his face.

If Speed's powers hadn't primed him to think about it, he probably wouldn't have noticed that his features were shockingly familiar, though aged a few years.

"Tommy?"

Speed glanced at him sharply. "Who...?"

And then in a blur, he was gone. In Vision's moment of shock, he'd neglected to take advantage of his brief window to apprehend Speed, and in consequence he'd let him escape, leaving him with the shame of failure and a thousand questions.

"Including the getaway driver, we've arrested seven members of the gang," Jimmy said to Sam and Bucky as they watched the apprehended robbers being escorted in handcuffs into waiting police vehicles. "But not Speed. Vision said he got a good look at his face. He's out looking for him now, but that's a long shot. There was a lot more damage than we were planning for. I might get demoted for this."

"Hey, you didn't know they would pull an armed robbery and try to steal the delivery at the same time," Sam said. "That no one got hurt is a miracle."

"Exactly. This was my plan, and it put civilians in danger." He shook his head. He might have just broken up the fastest growing crime ring on the east coast, but he felt sick to his stomach about how it went down. And they hadn't even succeeded in their main goal.

Maybe he should have listened to the doubts he'd struggled with when he was first offered the position of Sokovia Accords Liaison. Maybe the little voice in his head that said he wasn't qualified for the position and there must be someone better suited for it than him had been right.

Unexpectedly, a human blur and whoosh of air rushed passed him and came to a stop in front of Sam.

The criminal known as Speed was not Ralph Bohner, Jimmy saw with surprise. The boy couldn't have been out of his teens. But he wasn't entirely unfamiliar, either; the resemblance to Tommy was uncanny. Vision must have noticed that. That was why he'd sounded strange when he said he was going to continue his search for Speed in disguise.

But how could that be possible? For a moment, Jimmy considered he might be a clone, but it didn't make sense for a clone to be older than the original. But none of them had seen the twins actually die, and in Westview, they did have the power to age themselves up at will.

"I'm guessing you're the one in charge here, Captain America." The boy dropped two duffel bags in front of him. "This is the loot we stole for a distraction. I'm guessing I'm the one you were really after. I'll turn myself in on one condition."

Sam glanced at Jimmy, then back at Speed. Even surrounded by FBI agents and two Avengers, if he wanted to escape right now none of them could stop him.

"What condition?" Sam asked.

"The Vision. I know he was here. He looked different, but I know it was him. I demand to talk to him. I demand to know how he knew my name."

Chapter Text

The mysterious thief known as Speed sat alone at a table in an interrogation room. Vision watched him through a one-way mirror. No matter how long he stared at his face, he couldn't stop seeing the young boy from the Broadcast, the one he had believed to be tragically dead.

Jimmy entered the room. "His prints got a hit, which is good, since he refused to tell us his name. It's Thomas Shepherd, fifteen years old, born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but moved around a lot as a kid. His parents split up when he was three. From what I could piece together, his dad didn't keep in touch. His mom remarried, but when she was Blipped, his step-dad drained her bank account and skipped town. Tommy, like a lot of other kids, ended up in foster care. He kept running away. Stole his first car when he was eleven, which I gotta admit is impressive. He spent a lot of his early teens in juvenile detention. When the Blipped came back, he was sent back to his mother. She was arrested for drug dealing about a month later, and Tommy was temporarily sent to a foster home, which lasted about half a day before he ran away again. He's been off the grid ever since, until now."

Vision's heart ached at the story of what this boy had been through. "No indication of how he gained his power?"

"No. I verified everything. Birth certificate, juvenile record... I can't figure out how he could possibly be Tommy. Even with time travel, it doesn't add up. But there he is."

"There he is," Vision agreed, just as perplexed.

"He says he'll only talk to you. Alone. He turned himself in. That says a lot. He wants answers even more than we do."

"I just wish I had any answers to give him," Vision said.

Now that he had some information on Speed's background, he decided not to keep him waiting any longer.

He entered the room through the door, not wanting to startle him by phasing, but didn't disguise himself.

"I knew it was you," Tommy said triumphantly. "Your voice, your powers. But didn't you used to be red?"

"A great deal has changed," he said.

"Like you not being dead? They said Thanos killed you. I guess you really can't trust anything you hear on the news."

Vision sat down across the table from him. "I was dead. I was brought back to life. It's a very long story."

"Yeah, no offense, but I don't really care all that much. Being dead and brought back to life isn't all that special these days. How did you know my real name? I haven't told anyone my real name in a long time."

"It is very complicated. What would you prefer I call you? Speed? Mr. Shepherd? Tommy?"

He mulled it over for a moment. "Let's stick with 'Speed'. It weirds me out the least."

"Very well. Speed, to be honest, we are still trying to make sense of who you are. When did you discover how fast you can run?"

"About two years ago. I stole some cash from a guy. It wasn't even all that much, just like ten bucks. But he came after me. I was sure he was going to catch me and beat me to a pulp, but he didn't catch me. I started hearing rumors that he'd told people I got away by running like Pietro Maximoff. I didn't believe it myself until I timed myself running later. I kept it a secret from everyone until I needed it."

"So you don't remember anything ever happening to you that could have given you that enhancement?"

"No. But..."

"But what?" Vision encouraged him gently.

"I know this sounds crazy. My mother's never been out of the country, let alone Sokovia, and she insists that that deadbeat loser I barely remember is my real father, but Pietro Maximoff would have been about twenty when I was born, so I thought maybe, somehow... Maybe my real father didn't abandon me. Maybe he died a hero without ever even knowing I existed."

"You considered the possibility Pietro Maximoff could be your biological father."

"I know. It's dumb. It doesn't even make sense. But it would kind of explain my speed. And when you knew my real name, I thought just maybe I was onto something, and the Avengers knew about me somehow." He shrugged. His eyes dropped to the table and he bit his lip. He suddenly looked very young.

Vision felt a primal need to comfort him, to protect him, to do anything he could to make everything better for him. And a frustrating, helpless inability to do so.

"That was a logical assumption, given what you know of yourself and the fact that I knew your name. The truth may be something far stranger, something that makes so little sense it seems impossible. Have you heard of Westview, New Jersey?"

"Yeah. There are a bunch of internet conspiracy theories about it. They say Wanda Maximoff took it over and mind-controled everyone, and that's why she disappeared. Either she went into hiding to escape justice or the government killed her and covered it up because they didn't want to admit to assassinating one of the heroes who stopped Thanos."

"It's a little more complicated than that. Wanda did take control of Westview for a brief time. Her power created many things while she was there, including two children. Though they lived there for only a short time, they grew quickly. When they were ten years old, Wanda realized what she had done. She believed if she released the citizens of Westview from the spell she had created there, her sons would cease to exist. But she made that sacrifice."

"She sacrificed her own kids?" Tommy said in horror. "You're telling me she murdered her own kids just so...what? The people living in that town could leave?"

"So that they could live, so they could inhabit their own lives again."

"How does that justify murdering children?"

Vision had to admit that from a certain perspective—especially a child who had felt like he was repeatedly abandoned and failed by the adults who should have taken care of him—such an act would seem unconscionable. "It's possible she didn't, though everyone believed that was what happened. One of her boys was named Tommy, and he had the ability to run at superhuman speeds. You look exactly as he would at your age. If I'm right, somehow, you are Wanda's son. Which means Pietro Maximoff is not your father, but he is your uncle."

Tommy stared at him, his mind trying to process something so bizarre.

"But if that's true, why don't I remember anything about it?"

"I don't know. Right now, I don't have any answers."

"Huh. I just got the weirdest déjà vu," Tommy said. He took a deep breath. "So if Wanda Maximoff is my mother, then who's my father?"

This question struck Vision silent for a moment. He didn't know where to even begin. If Wanda had created the twins through a spell, they had no father, but had been born through a kind of parthenogenesis. If not, the version of him that Wanda had created in the Hex was their father, but to explain who that person had been was even more complicated.

Vision's first instinct was always to tell the truth, so much so that even stretching the truth, saying something true but misleading, and lying by omission were difficult for him. What he wanted to say—what his mind screamed at him was the truth—was something far simpler.

He finally spoke, working the words out. "I am."

Once again, Tommy looked lost. He stared at Vision, his expression vacillating between denial and tears. After a long moment, he said, "How is that possible?"

"Wanda's powers made her able to manifest an outcome she desired."

"Does that mean you and she..." He made a gesture that Vision immediately wanted to scold him for as uncouth, but it got his meaning across.

"Yes," he stated. "Several times, actually."

"But how? Aren't you basically a robot?"

"I'm a synthezoid. Anatomically, I have every part that—"

"You know what? I just realized I really, really don't want to think about that. Please stop."

Vision did. He and Tommy just looked at each other for a minute. He wished he could tell what he was thinking. Even more, he wished he knew what he should do. What psychological injuries had Tommy's life left him with? He knew that children who grew up without the love and care of a parent figure often had trouble emotionally connecting with other people. In the worst cases they could be incapable of love, or of accepting love from someone else. He didn't know if that would be the case with Tommy. He hoped not, but he would have to be careful not to push, not to show emotions that Tommy might not be able to process or accept.

What he could offer was practical assistance.

"Speed, I'm not going to pretend that I have answers that I don't have, but I will seek those answers for us. And in the meantime, I am going to hire a lawyer for you. Do not speak to anyone without speaking to the lawyer first. I don't know where you've been staying, but if you give me the address, I will retrieve your belongings, as it may not be safe for you to return there. I'll put you up in a hotel until we can resolve the situation. I know that...running away is a strategy that has served you well in the past, but what I will ask of you—all that I will ever ask of you—is that this time you stay long enough for me to help you. Is that an acceptable arrangement?"

"Yeah. I guess. I mean, if you want to do that."

Vision nodded firmly. "I will go find a lawyer. Please don't run away."

"I won't."

Vision headed toward the door, moving slowly, reluctant to leave Tommy alone.

"Hey, wait."

He stopped instantly and turned back.

"So if it's true...the Tommy who lived in Westview... You said he had a brother?"

"Yes."

"What was his name?"

Vision swallowed. "Billy. His name was Billy."

"I was always an only child," Tommy said, sounding ever so slightly wistful.

"I will see you again soon."

Vision left the room and found Jimmy.

"He doesn't remember anything about Westview," Vision said. "And he will not be answering any more questions until his lawyer arrives."

Jimmy nodded, unsurprised. "How are you feeling about all this?"

"Confused," he admitted. "And...protective. I still can't make sense of it, but he is Tommy."

"How are we going to tell Wanda?"

Wanda wasn't sure what woke her, at first. But then she heard it again: the doorbell.

She checked the time. Eight o'clock in the evening. Doctor Strange would still be away on business, and Wong was at the Hong Kong Sanctum this week, so she might well be the only one home.

She cast an enchantment to conjure the view from the door, then instantly sprang out of bed and through a portal.

She opened the door without hesitation, without even wondering what he was doing there at that hour.

"Vision. Hi."

"Hi. I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

Wanda was wearing the long t-shirt and pajama pants she'd slept in, and her hair must have also given her away. "Yes, but that's okay. I'm always happy to see you."

She reached for him. He took her hand, their fingers intermingling. She smiled.

She was becoming less emotionally numb all the time. That meant the sorrows of her past were coming back, and the fear of what her powers could do was paralyzing sometimes. But it also meant she was feeling positive emotions more too. Lately, every time she thought about the fact that Vision was alive it would fill her with happiness. That happiness was multiplied every time they touched, and every time he told her he loved her.

Through her happiness at his unexpected visit, it took her a moment to pick up on the cloud of confusion and worry over his mind.

"What's wrong? What brings you all the way here?"

"There's something I need to talk to you about."

She frowned. He was acting cagey, which wasn't like him at all. It scared her. "Okay." She opened a portal to the study, where they could sit across from each other and talk. "What is it?"

He sat at the table and looked down at his folded hands. "I'm sorry to ask this. I know it's a painful subject, but is there any possible way either of the twins might have survived and left Westview?"

What could he possibly know that would lead him to ask that?

He noticed the expression on her face. "Wanda, is there something you haven't told me?"

"What are you not telling me? How did this come up?"

"Jimmy—Agent Woo—is investigating a case involving a young man who has the ability to run unnaturally fast. Is there any possible way he could be Tommy?" He stared at her imploringly.

Tommy...

"Your silence speaks volumes," he said sardonically. "You knew about this."

"No," she insisted. "But I knew it was possible."

"I have not pressed you for details about your time in Westview after the Broadcast stopped, but I need to know what really happened. I need to understand. How can Tommy now be a teenager with no memory of Westview and a lifetime of documents attesting that he is a completely different person?"

So Tommy was a teenager, just like Billy. He hadn't been blipped.

Wanda braced herself to explain. "To understand what happened, you need to know that the multiverse isn't just parallel worlds made of the matter and energy we're familiar with. There are different layers. Different levels. One of them is what the sorcerers call the astral plane. It's...I can't even describe it. When a consciousness separates itself from it's body, that's where it goes. The normal world and everything in it looks like ghosts when you're there. When Tommy and Billy's physical bodies were destroyed, their souls were trapped in the astral plane. But...I was able to find them there. Time in the astral plane is...more solid. More... It's like every moment that ever happened is there. Without understanding what I was doing... I was afraid. I thought I was dying, and if I died Billy and Tommy would be trapped there forever. I sent them to be reborn in new bodies, but they ended up being reborn fifteen years in the past."

She fell silent, waiting for Vision's response. She was sure he had a lot of questions, but she didn't expect the first question he would ask.

"How could you keep this from me?"

He was angry, and hurt. From anyone else, his tone would have registered as mild irritation, but from him, directed at her, it was scalding.

After everything their love had survived, was she going to lose him over this? Not any of the terrible things she'd done, but something she'd failed to tell him?

She felt hot tears well in her eyes. "I know how it sounds. I didn't want you to think I'm crazy. I wanted to tell you. The boy I told you about, the one I'm mentoring in magic...he's Billy."

"Billy? You knew Billy was alive, and you didn't tell me because you were afraid I wouldn't believe you?"

She couldn't force her throat to form sounds to answer, so she only nodded.

"Wanda, they're my children too."

When he said that, she discovered that even when he was justifiably angry at her, even though she felt like she was on the brink of losing him again, her love for him could grow.

"I didn't know you felt that way," she confessed.

His expression softened. It still conveyed hurt and disappointment, but also understanding of why she'd acted as she had. "I do."

She didn't reply. In the silence, the weight of their words and the situation sank in.

"Is Tommy okay?" she asked quietly.

"He is in legal trouble, but he is a juvenile, and he is cooperating. He turned himself in. He has had an extremely difficult life, which would have led most anyone into conflict with the law. Jimmy and I are working together to find a solution."

"Can I see him?"

"You may, but I must warn you that when I told him about your actions in Westview, he was very angry. He feels giving up the lives of your children in order to free the town was tantamount to murder."

"You told him everything?"

"Everything I was aware of. How could I in good conscience keep something like that from him?"

So Tommy knew she had been his mother, and he hated her.

The tears Wanda had been fighting back spilled over.

Vision rose and walked around the table to her. He took her hand. His touch was a lifeline.

"Have you told Billy?" he asked softly.

"No. I know I should. I want to. I just don't want to lose him again."

"You won't," Vision assured her. He looked down  thoughtfully, then back up at her. "We will handle this together. The twins deserve the whole truth. Even if they don't choose to accept the familial connections we can offer them, they deserve to know those connections exist."

That was a choice she'd denied to Vision by not telling him, she realized. She loved him more than anything, and never meant to hurt him. How did she keep screwing that up so badly? "You're right. I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Again."

"No." He leaned down and placed a lingering kiss on her forehead, then folded her in his arms. "This situation is complicated, to an unprecedented degree. It was unfair of me to blame you for how you chose to deal with it. I am sorry."

"How should we tell them?"

He took a long moment to consider it. "I still have a copy of the Broadcast. I feel that they should see it, to see the life they had before, and to see how much you love them. But that choice belongs to you. I will erase my copy of the Broadcast if you ask me to."

That was the only way Billy and Tommy would have any memories of their first life, and it would provide proof of the truly extraordinary claims about who they were. She couldn't imagine how weird it would be for them. But Vision could. He had seen the Broadcast himself, had seen himself living a different life.

"We should show them," she agreed.

Chapter Text

Wanda had been avoiding talking to the FBI. Both Vision and Darcy had assured her Agent Jimmy Woo was someone she could trust, but after growing up with the corruption of Sokovian police, being locked up in the Raft, and her encounter with SWORD, she had a deep-rooted distrust of authority.

She was so nervous she was almost trembling when she walked into the FBI field office. The thought that she could tear the building apart in seconds just made it worse.

Vision took her hand. "It's alright," he assured her. "Jimmy will not arrest you."

"But he could," she said.

They walked up to a door with a sign reading 'Special Agent James Woo, U.N. Sokovia Accords Committee Liaison'.

Vision knocked.

"Come in."

The man at the desk didn't look at all imposing. His demeanor was friendly and kind, but Wanda knew better than most people that appearances could be deceiving.

He rose, smiling. "Wanda, it's great to finally meet you in person. I'm Jimmy." He held his hand out to her.

She recognized his voice. Vision and Darcy had told her so much about Jimmy that she'd almost felt like she knew him, but she had never connected him to the mysterious voice on the radio and in the voicemails.

"Good to meet you in person too," she said. So far she wasn't reading anything nefarious from him. "I heard that you've seen the Broadcast, so you know a lot more about me than I do about you."

"Well, it was my job to figure out why anyone with any connection to Westview suddenly forgot it existed. But we can talk about that later. There's something else we need to discuss. I've been communicating with Tommy Shepherd's lawyer and the Sokovia Accords Committee. We still haven't located his mother or any other close relatives. Section 107F of the Sokovia Accords specifies that the preferred handling of a juvenile with enhancements is to place them under the guardianship of an enhanced signatory of the Accords in good standing until permanent legal guardianship can be agreed on."

"I am not familiar with Section 107," Vision said.

"It's new," Jimmy explained. "It was suggested to the committee in case anyone in the world discovers human experimentation to create enhanced children, or enhanced children being exploited for their powers. Those children would need to be rescued, and in cases where their parents can't be immediately located, or if their parents are the guilty party, the committee figures there's no one better to help enhanced children figure out how to deal with what was done to them than enhanced adults. The lawyer and I managed to convince the committee that Tommy's case qualifies."

Wanda felt a change come over Vision's mind. His thoughts polarized into hope and fear as he realized something. "I am legally an enhanced signatory of the Accords in good standing. Are you suggesting I could become Tommy's legal guardian?"

"Provisional guardian. If you want the job. There would be paperwork to sign."

"I would like to review Section 107, and any other documents pertaining to Tommy's custody."

"Of course." Jimmy immediately pulled a stack of folders from the top drawer of his desk and handed them to Vision. "You can read them in here. Wanda, want to take a little walk with me? I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

She glanced at Vision, who was already engrossed in reading the top document Jimmy had given him.

"Sure."

Once in the hallway, Wanda asked, "Why didn't you tell him you're the one who suggested the new section?"

"Were you reading my mind?" he asked back.

"Kind of. It was mostly the way you said it, and a little bit the feeling I got from you that you were hiding something when you said it."

"I got to thinking about what might happen to enhanced children after seeing your kids on the Broadcast, but I didn't want you to think it's because I thought you were unfit parents. You and Vision were great parents, and I don't believe you did anything to give Tommy and Billy powers on purpose."

"No," she confirmed.

There was a coffee shop inside the building. Jimmy bought two lattes.

"Thanks," Wanda said, accepting the cup he handed her.

They sat at a small table near a window.

"Is this the part where you try to talk me into signing the Sokovia Accords?" Wanda asked.

"I wasn't planning on it," he answered. "Don't get me wrong, I believe in the Accords. If power goes unchecked, it devolves into might makes right, the strong preying on the weak. That's why a free society requires laws and regulations to protect people who can't protect themselves. The minute Tony Stark put on the Iron Man suit and saved a village no one else was in a position to save, there was a new kind of power in the world. And if we want to make sure that power continues to do more good than harm, the people with that power need to abide by some set of rules. Having said that, I know the Sokovia Accords were used as a justification to lock you up, so I understand if you feel differently."

"I do. The Accords were written because I made a mistake and people died. I feel like it exists to punish me for an accident."

"I'm sorry. It doesn't, but I'm sorry it took that incident for people to decide there had to be some framework in place to prevent enhanced persons from abusing their powers. But I'm not sorry that framework now exists. But another thing is, you're one of the sorcerers now. The Accords don't mention the sorcerers—when they were written, no one else even knew they existed—so it's really not clear how or if the Accords pertain to the sorcerers at all. They've been around for hundreds of years—”

"Thousands," Wanda corrected him.

"And I'm sure they've got their own sets of rules—”

"They do."

"So you're probably not even under the Accord's jurisdiction anymore."

She hadn't thought about that point. She made a mental note to talk it over with Strange later. "So if you're not going to try to talk me into signing the Accords, what did you want to talk to me about alone?"

He gave her an apologetic look. "The curse. I know that Vision and Darcy think that curses are the stuff of fairytales. A few years ago, I would have felt the same way. But there was a time when I didn't believe aliens were real, or Norse gods, or suits that harness the weirder properties of quantum physics to change people's size, or witches. So the jury's out about curses. Agnes—I mean Agatha—said you were cursed to destroy the world. That's the kind of thing I have to take seriously."

"The curse was real," Wanda said, "but we broke it. It's gone."

"Do you mind if I ask how you broke it?"

She sipped her coffee and pondered how much to tell him. She could read worry from his mind, but also a certain reticence; he was avoiding jumping to conclusions, reserving judgment.

"If you thought I really was cursed to destroy the world, would you kill me?" she asked.

"I mean, if I thought that would work, I'd try."

He was honest. She appreciated that. If the truth could grant him peace of mind, she owed it to him. And withholding information had done nothing but cause problems so far.

"So would I," she said. "I went to Doctor Strange to try to find a way to break the curse, even if it killed me. One of the sorcerers finally found the original text of the curse, inscribed on an ancient Chinese oracle bone that was indestructible. We tried. But there was an ambiguity in the language of the curse that gave me an idea how to break it. Actually, what made me think of it was the voicemail you left me, when you said the Infinity Stone might give me the power to move between realities."

He blinked in surprise. "I didn't think you'd listened to those voicemails."

"I did. I just didn't dare reach out to you. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I knew it was a long shot." He shrugged. "So I take it breaking the curse had something to do with moving between realities?"

"Kind of." This was the risky part. If he was going to condemn her, it would be for what she was about to divulge. "The first part of my plan was to leave this reality. I went to the world the zombies were coming from. There were no other humans in that world besides the hosts. None I saw my whole time there, anyway." She paused a moment. Jimmy had the authority to arrest her, and she had no doubt that if he thought she had abused her power and was too dangerous to stand trial, he would kill her without a thought to the consequences. He would be least likely to blame her if she emphasized the world she'd saved and downplayed how much power it had taken. "Once I was convinced there weren't survivors in that world, I tried to find a way to destroy it, not because I knew it would break the curse, but mostly to stop the zombies from endangering our world. The only way I found to do it was to search through the worlds of the multiverse until I found doom. It took days, and thousands and thousands of worlds, but I finally found something dangerous enough to destroy the zombie fungus. There was an Earth with a comet on a collision course. I moved the comet between universes to hit the zombie world instead. It worked. The indestructable bone the curse was inscribed on cracked in half. I broke the curse by finding a way to fulfill it that wouldn't kill everyone."

Jimmy stared at her for a minute. She couldn't read either his expression or his mind, which seemed to have gone blank.

"Wow," he finally said. "That's... Wow. That's incredible, and brilliant, and crazy. You should write a book."

"No," she said, half amused by the suggestion and half horrified.

"Why not? People would want to know about that. Maybe you can do some interviews, let the world know how you saved it."

"Please, I don't want anyone to know about this. People are scared enough of me as it is."

Jimmy frowned. "I think people should know what a heroic thing you did."

"I just tried to deal with a mess I'd made. I wouldn't say that's heroic."

"I don't think you're the one who gets to decide if something you did is heroic or not."

"But I think I should have a say in if people find out about it or not," she argued. "I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. I've tried to fix the ones I can. It has been hard, and I know I lost the chance for a normal life a long time ago, if I ever had one. Now all I want is whatever little bit of peace and quiet I can get."

He nodded, then sighed, then frowned thoughtfully for a minute. "But the world isn't going to stay quiet, and if you ever have to go back to being an Avenger, things might come up. If people call for your arrest, it would be handy to have the time you saved the world on record. Would you be willing to give a deposition under oath of what you just told me? It would just be you, an attorney, and a judge. That way, if any questions come up about what happened, we'll have a record of it."

"I destroyed a world," she pointed out. "Maybe under the circumstances it was a necessary evil, but that had to be illegal, right? You're asking me to make a confession."

Jimmy tapped his fingers on the tabletop. "I don't believe what you did is something anyone would hold against you. Can I make another suggestion? Talk to the lawyer Vision hired for Tommy. Her name's Jennifer Walters. She knows more about the Sokovia Accords and laws pertaining to enhanced people than anyone I know, myself included. Anti-descrimination statutes, good samaritan laws, the clean hands doctrine, et cetera. And anything you told her would be covered by lawyer-client privilege, no matter how illegal."

It might not be a terrible idea to consult a lawyer, Wanda realized. After the things she'd done, especially what she did to Westview, it would be good to find out how likely it was that someone would try to arrest her.

They returned to Jimmy's office. Vision had apparently finished reading through the legal documents and was standing looking out the window, deep in thought.

"You done?" Jimmy asked.

"Yes," he answered solemnly. "I see nothing preventing me from becoming Thomas Shepherd's provisional legal guardian."

Chapter Text

Tommy had never been in a hotel room this nice. It had a big-screen TV, two large beds, and a view of the city skyline out the window. He felt like he was stealing it, like it was something he hadn't earned but was going to take anyway.

He flipped through channels for a while, trying to distract his mind from the question of if what Vision told him could possibly be true. Was he the reincarnation of a kid Wanda Maximoff made with magic? If so, he didn't have to think of his parents as a father he could barely remember who abandoned him and a mother who tried hard but was obviously not suited for being a parent. It would mean he was also the son of heroes, of Avengers. His parents saved the world. And it would solve the mystery of how he got his super speed. And maybe he was meant for better things than using his speed to steal.

It sounded far-fetched, ridiculous even. But he wanted it to be true so bad, more than he'd ever wanted anything.

Which probably meant it wasn't true. No way would his life give him something that good.

But he couldn't just go back to a life of crime after abandoning his gang and turning in some of their score to the police. Since no one in the gang knew each other's real names or where they lived, there wasn't much he could tell the cops, so they weren't likely to come after him, but it did mean if he had to run away he had nowhere to run to.

There was a knock on the hotel room door.

"Come in," he said without worrying who it might be.

He didn't hear the door open, but the voice he heard next came from inside the room.

"How are you settling in?" Vision asked.

He shrugged. His belongings consisted of a few changes of clothes and some cash in a backpack, which was how he'd lived for most of the past few years, ready to run any moment. This hotel was the most comfortable place he'd ever been, but he was constantly aware it was only temporary. "It's okay."

"The FBI hasn't yet been able to locate your mother. They believe she may be in New York City. Perhaps she went there looking for you."

"I doubt it. She knows I can take care of myself, and she has enough to deal with just taking care of herself."

Vision nodded. "Speed, I have been offered the option of becoming your legal guardian. You don't need to accept. I would not try to make you. But you are a minor, and with your current legal situation and your history of running away from foster homes, it is likely that..."

"They'll lock me up in juvie again if I don't promise to stay somewhere they can find me."

"That is the understanding I have of the situation," he said apologetically.

Tommy couldn't imagine Vision would want that kind of baggage in his life. But he wouldn't have told him about the option if he weren't willing to do it.

An Avenger who might have been his father was offering to take him in.

"We could try it for a while to see how you like it," Vision added when Tommy didn't speak.

"But if I don't like it, I might run away, and you might get in trouble for letting me escape," Tommy pointed out.

"If that is the choice you make, I can deal with the consequences," Vision said. "You don't need to decide now. Take some time to think it over."

"Okay."

Vision hesitated a moment. "Wanda would like to meet you, if you are willing."

"I thought she was still missing."

"Not to everyone," Vision replied enigmatically.

Tommy still couldn't understand how Wanda could have killed her own children—and if he'd been one of those children, she'd killed him—but his curiosity was stronger than his indignation.

It wasn't just curiosity, something deep in the back of his mind admitted. It was a yearning, one that would sting bitterly if it was let down.

He argued that fear down. He wasn't afraid to face her. Even if she was his mother, that meant nothing.

"Sure, I'll meet her," he said.

Vision turned around and opened the door.

Wanda Maximoff walked in.

He hadn't meant now. He wasn't ready.

He'd seen photos of her on the news, but he wouldn't have recognized her out of context. She'd cut her hair short, she looked older, and she was wearing a white blouse and blue jeans, which wasn't the style of clothes he'd seen her in on the news.

She stared at him, longing and apprehension in her eyes. Whether she was really his mother or not, she believed it.

"Wanda, this is Speed," Vision introduced them.

Wanda swallowed a few times before saying, "Nice to meet you, Speed," in a quiet, tremulous voice.

Tommy didn't know why his voice suddenly wasn't working. After several seconds, he managed to say, "Yeah."

Vision said, "After our discussion, I went to Wanda. She had additional information about...your past. You have a right to know the whole story."

"That would be great," Tommy stated.

Wanda nodded. She took a seat on one of the beds. She looked scared, and guilty, like the good kid in highschool sent to the principal's office for the first time. "I don't even know where to begin. I guess... You know the story that I got powers from the Mind Stone when HYDRA experimented on me?"

"Yeah," Tommy answered. He knew that story better than most kids his age, since he'd read up on those experiments trying to figure out how he got super speed.

"The power I got wasn't exactly what anyone thought it was..."

She told him about being the Scarlet Witch, that her power was a kind of magic. She talked about her secret relationship with Vision while she was on the run, how after the Blip she'd found out he left her everything in his will, including some property in Westview, New Jersey, and how she'd unsuccessfully tried to recover his body to give him a proper burial.

As her story continued to unfold, Tommy listened without comment. His emotions bounced between pity, anger, envy, confusion, and that weird yearning feeling that felt like a physical lump in his throat. When she explained that he and his brother had been reincarnated in the past, he almost stopped her. It was too weird. It seemed like he should think it was impossible. But if he didn't believe it, he wouldn't be so angry. So angry that a mother who loved him had basically thrown him on the mercy of a merciless world. But he knew he shouldn't be mad at her. It sounded like she really had no choice.

When she'd finished her explanation, she fell silent and still, staring at her hands in her lap.

He didn't know what to say. He could either reject the truth of what she'd just revealed, forgive her and accept her as his mother, or blame her and lose the possibility of having her in his life.

After several long seconds of silence, he said, "Okay," wishing that he could think of something less lame.

She looked up at him. He couldn't parse her expression.

"Okay," she echoed him quietly. She rose to her feet. "It was nice to meet you," she said again before walking out the door with an almost mechanical stiffness.

"I'll be back in a moment," Vision said, and followed her.

Leaving Tommy alone in the hotel room.

He knew he could grab his bag of stuff and leave out the window. He'd have to climb across six balconies to get to a fire escape, but he could do it. He always thought about how he could get out whenever he was in a new place. Knowing he could always run away gave him something to hold onto.

Vision was gone for a few minutes. When he returned, he was alone.

"Is she okay?" Tommy found himself asking.

"Yes. But that was difficult for her. There is a... There is a recording of Wanda's time in Westview. If you watch it, you will understand better how she feels, and why she had to do what she did. I will warn you, it is rather surreal, and it may be emotionally difficult for you to see the previous incarnation of yourself. But if you would like to see it, I will show it to you."

"This just gets weirder and weirder, doesn't it?"

Vision responded with a hollow chuckle. "I would say my life's weirdness peaked at having a philosophical debate with a clone of myself made by magic whom I'd been sent to kill. That's a story for another time."

"Okay, yeah, I think that might be weirder than finding out you've been reborn."

"I was born full grown, with memories inherited from an artificial intelligence and an immediate goal of saving the world from an army of robots," Vision said. "I don't believe your life will ever be weirder than mine."

"I guess not," he conceded.

Vision just looked at him for a moment. "I will let you rest, but is it alright if I come back later to take you to dinner?"

"Sure. That would be great."

Vision headed to the door.

"And Dad?"

He immediately turned back.

Tommy couldn't believe he'd just called him that. It had just slipped out. But Vision didn't object to the term, and he didn't want to make the moment even more awkward by admitting it had been an accident and apologizing, so he decided to just pretend it hadn't happened. "I'd like to see that recording you were talking about sometime."

He nodded. "I can't make any promises, but if you are interested, we may also be able to arrange for you to meet your brother."

Fridays were half days at Billy's school, so he'd get home about five hours before his parents would. Because of that, Fridays were they day he and Wanda had settled on for their magic lessons. He always looked forward to them. He'd learned so much already about how to control his powers and the things he could do. He really liked Wanda. She always seemed genuinely interested in how he was doing, what he was learning about in school, how his friends were doing, if he had a boyfriend, his dreams, and anything else he might want to talk about. It was kind of weird how she always seemed to avoid talking about herself.

Today, when she stepped out of the magical portal into his living room, someone else floated out beside her.

"Hello, Billy. Sorry to spring this on you, but I'd like you to meet Vision."

A few weeks ago she'd told him she found out Vision had been brought back to life. She'd sounded strangely shy about it, reluctant to get into the details.

"It's an honor to meet you, Billy. Wanda has told me much about you."

"You too. You look different," he said.

Vision shrugged, lifting his gray-white hands. "I was brought back from the dead. I wasn't restored perfectly." His elecrtonic voice sounded sad expressing that fact. But then he smiled. "Fortunately, the differences are only cosmetic."

Surprisingly, Billy could pick up on Vision's thoughts more easily than he could Wanda's, which were always guarded. Vision's mind was like an intense pearlescent beacon, and it was radiating a happiness to meet him that seemed incongruous.

"Welcome to my house, Vision."

"Thank you very much."

Wanda sat down in her typical spot on a sofa. "Billy, it's time I told you the whole story about what I did in Westview. It's time you knew who I really am."

"Whatever you did in the past doesn't matter to me. You've done so much for me. You're a great person, and nothing will change my mind about that."

She gave him a small, sad smile. "Wait until you know the whole story before you decide that."

Vision kept back, apparently waiting for her to tell the story.

Billy settled himself on the couch and waited. Even though he was sure nothing she told him could change his opinion about her, he was intensely curious to learn more about her past.

"Okay, here it goes." Oozing nervousness, Wanda started with her life story, the death of her parents, the HYDRA experiments, and joining the Avengers. She talked about how deeply she fell in love with Vision, and how devastating it was to lose him. Then she went into the spells she'd cast on Westview, making a reincarnation of Vision from magic, forcing the townspeople to act out sitcom lives. She'd created children there. Twin sons. Then it all crumbled. The Vision she'd created realized it wasn't real, a witch named Agatha tried to steal her power, and the real Vision—who'd been brought back to life without his memories to be a sentient weapon—had tried to kill her and the other Vision. She'd glanced at Vision during that point in the story, and he looked ashamed, but there was nothing but compassion and fondness in her eyes when she looked at him.

She looked back at Billy and continued her narrative. "When that was over, I knew I had to break my spell and free the town. But the Vision I'd made and our children were part of that spell too."

"So what did you do?" Billy asked.

Her voice trembled. "What I had to do."

She'd let Vision and her kids die to save the town?

"I'm sorry. I can't imagine how terrible that was. But it wasn't really you're fault. You didn't know that would happen. You didn't mean to put the town under a spell."

"No, I didn't," she agreed. "The souls of my sons were trapped in the astral plane. I was eventually able to help them be reborn in new bodies. I wanted for them to be reborn as twins so they could stay together, but I couldn't manage it. Also...I accidentally sent them to be reborn fifteen years in the past. Their names were Tommy and Billy."

"One had the same name as me?"

Wanda didn't reply.

A strange suspicion started to work it's way into his consciousness.

"You think I might be him?"

Wanda struggled to form a response. "You have the same powers my Billy did. And...I saw your house when I time traveled in the astral plane. I knew that's where one of my sons' souls ended up. It took me months to find the house. I swear, I wasn't stalking you; I just wanted to know if it was true. I had no idea you would have powers." A tear rolled down her cheek and she looked back at him. "I recognized you the instant I saw you."

She was terrified. Terrified of how he would react to this news. But he wasn't sure how to react. He didn't know what to think. Why didn't she tell him before? But then, before he'd learned so much about magic and the astral plane, he might not even have believed her. And how could someone explain something like that? It made sense she'd brought Vision for moral support to finally break the news.

It must have been so hard and painful for her. The only way she could save her sons was by giving them up. And then, when she found one of her sons again, she had to pretend she didn't know him. No wonder she'd run away the first time they meet.

Billy did know how to react. He flew over the coffee table and wrapped her in a hug. She gasped, but her arms encircled him seemingly of their own accord.

Vision smiled, turning half away like he didn't want to intrude on their moment.

"I know you have your parents. They had you, they raised you, they love you, and I don't mean to take anything away from that..."

"You don't," Billy assured her. "I've got friends with step parents, friends who were adopted... There's a lot of ways to have more than one kind of parent. I've just found out I have a mom and a dad and another mom."

Wanda nodded, tears streaming freely down her face. She sniffed. "And another dad," she said, gesturing with a glance to Vision.

"If you choose to accept me as such," Vision amended.

Billy wasn't sure about that part. From what Wanda said, it seemed more like he was just her child through magic.

"I'd like to get to know you better," Billy said noncommittally.

With seeming difficulty, Wanda released him from her embrace. "I wanted to tell you the truth for a long time. But there's a reason we're telling you now. We've found your brother. We've found Tommy. And if you'd like to, when you're ready, you can meet him."

Chapter Text

The meeting took place the next day in the hotel room where Tommy was staying. Wanda met up with Billy, who'd told his parents he was going to go hang out with some friends, then portaled into the hotel room.

Vision and Tommy—or Speed as Vision said he preferred to be called—were waiting for them. They rose to meet them.

"Hey. You must be Tommy," Billy said, stepping forward.

"Yep. And you must be Billy."

They started at each other for a moment. The resemblance between them was undeniable, and when they were together, a similarity to Wanda and Vision's facial features was also evident—though perhaps that was just Wanda's wishful thinking.

"Nice to meet you?" Billy said uncertainly.

Wanda wanted to rush in and somehow dispel the awkwardness, but Vision placed a hand on her arm.

"Let's give them time to talk," he suggested.

She let him guide her out into the hallway. He phased into his human face right as he opened the door.

"When's your birthday?" they heard Billy ask before the door shut behind them.

"What if they don't get along?" Wanda asked anxiously.

"From what I gleaned from the Broadcast, that would not be unusual for them." He took her hands soothingly. "They both wanted this meeting. What relationship they have is up to them. I know that is frustrating, but that is a reality parents must accept."

She'd been standing exactly here a few days ago when Vision comforted her after her first meeting with Tommy, after he'd said about three words to her. Vision had assured her that the reunion had gone a lot better than it seemed, that he just needed time to emotionally process, and that what she might feel as coldness was Tommy's typical teenager taciturnity.

"How are you already so much better at this parenting thing than I am?" she asked jokingly.

"I have read fifty-seven books on parenting since last Thursday," he jokingly replied.

Wanda laughed, then curled up against him and let herself indulge in the feeling of his arms around her. "Thank you for all of this."

He held her for a minute, until a young woman in a uniform carrying two boxes of pizza and a post-it note walked toward them down the hall.

"Lesson number one: never ask anyone to face an emotional crisis on an empty stomach," Vision commented. He addressed the pizza delivery woman. "One pepperoni, one veggie for room 914?"

"Yep."

They returned to the room bearing the pizzas.

Tommy and Billy were sitting across from each other on the beds, chatting amiably.

"...by the back door. Snake goes in and starts just loitering around the pawn shop, totally looking like she's going to rob the place, makes sure her gun's hanging out and everything..." Tommy broke off his story to announce with delight, "Pizza's here!"

"That sounded like an interesting story," Wanda said. "Reminds me of some of the shoplifting Pietro and I did growing up on the streets."

"Really?" Tommy asked, intrigued.

"Your mother was quite a miscreant in her youth," Vision noted.

"My youth? Don't forget before the Blip I was an internationally wanted fugitive for two years. I was trained in stealth and evasion by Black Widow herself." She felt a little guilty about talking up her criminal past to impress her son, but it was working, so it was worth it.

"What was that like?" he asked.

She picked up a slice of the veggie pizza. "Your story first."

They shared stories until the pizza was gone. Then came the part she was dreading.

Vision opened a laptop.

"What we are about to watch is classified. I am not supposed to have a copy of it. This broadcast was discovered when the defense organization SWORD investigated the town of Westview, New Jersey, from which, for reasons no one knew at the time, no one could leave, and anyone who had a connection to it forgot it existed. The broadcast was discovered by an astrophysicist SWORD hired to consult on what would become known as the Maximoff Anomaly, a.k.a. the Hex. At first, they didn't know who was responsible for it, or for what purpose. We have the advantage of knowing those answers, but it is still rather disorienting to watch. Are you ready?" He glanced at Wanda when he asked that.

She nodded. She was nervous, but she would face her past if it would help Billy and Tommy see where they came from.

Vision started the Broadcast. It was a black-and-white sitcom staring herself and another Vision, a Vision of her own creation, who was now dead. It was weird. She remembered it all so vividly, but it was so different watching it than living it. She hadn't understood what was happening at first. She must have cast a spell on herself to forget her past. That spell hadn't held for long.

There were things the Broadcast didn't show. Mr. Hart's breakdown at dinner was edited down to him choking on a bite and Vision heroically saving him. She cringed at the way she acted, and the way she'd ignored signs that things weren't as good as they appeared.

If it hadn't been for the comforting touch of the Vision sitting beside her, it would have been too difficult to watch.

As the credits rolled at the end of the first episode, Tommy asked, "So you literally turned your life into a TV show?

"I didn't mean to," Wanda said. "I've always loved sitcoms. I would watch them to distract myself from how horrible my own life could be. So I guess, after I lost Vision, and was told I couldn't even bury him, I just... It was just too much. So I made my life what I wanted it to be like. But I didn't know I was doing it. I had no idea I could do anything like that. I didn't even remember doing it, or that Vision had died, at first. I just remembered feeling completely alone."

"Did anyone go with you when you went to SWORD or to Westview?" Billy asked.

She frowned. "Anyone like who?"

"Did any of your friends go with you?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Did they know where you were going?"

Clint and Rhodey had. She'd been staying with Clint for a few days before she left, and it was Rhodey who told her where Vision's body had been taken. But neither of them knew about Westview.

"Kind of. Why do you ask?"

"Because someone should've gone with you for emotional support."

"They had their own things to deal with."

"But not like you did. After the Blip, my mom and I were so happy when my dad came back. We never thought we'd see him again. It was an adjustment, and there was a lot to deal with, but we were smiling for days. Almost everyone got someone back, and then we heard on the news the Avengers killed the guy who caused the Blip. But you didn't get anyone back, you just lost people. And no one was there for you. I'm sorry to tell you this, but your friends let you down. This," he gestured to the Broadcast, paused on the credits screen, "was not your fault. Everyone has a breaking point, and no one even tried to keep you from being pushed to yours."

He was so angry and sad on her behalf. She was touched. "Thank you. But...I really don't think anyone is to blame for what happened but me."

"Jimmy blames Hayward, and Darcy blames Thanos," Vision pointed out. "They both make valid arguments."

"Yeah," Billy said, "but they were bad people, and they had their own agendas. Your friends are the ones who should have done better."

They continued watching. Tommy and Billy occasionally asked questions and made comments.

"You both have super powers; why were you so scared of a branch outside your window?" Tommy asked.

"Because it was funny," was the only explanation Wanda could provide.

"Those commercials give me the creeps," Billy said.

"Yes. No one who's seen this has been able to hazard a plausible explanation for them," Vision added. He looked at Wanda questioningly.

"Sitcoms have commercials," she explained, "so my sitcom needed them too. They had details from my past. They were...a repackaging of my nightmares into something trying to be cheerful."

The episode included Wanda finding an incongruously red toy helicopter, but not the voice calling her name over the radio, or the man in the bee suit.

"This is about the point I started to suspect I was in control of that reality," Wanda said as the credits played after she and Vision realized she was suddenly visibly pregnant. "When I realized things were happening just from me wanting them to happen."

During the next episode, Tommy and Billy both laughed out loud as Wanda and Vision argued over a name for the baby. Hearing them laugh together warmed Wanda's heart.

After the twins were born, Wanda saw the shift in herself when she told Geraldine about Pietro and sang a Sokovian lullaby to her newborns. Then Monica brought up Pietro being killed by Ultron. That had triggered Wanda's memories that she'd enchanted herself to forget—Ultron, Thanos, Vision's death...

The broadcast hadn't recorded her throwing Monica through the wall and out of her world, or the moment she'd had a flashback to Vision's corpse. It skipped right to her and Vision holding their babies and watching television as the credits rolled.

"Whoa, what happened there?" Tommy asked.

When Wanda was reluctant to answer, Vision did instead. "Wanda expelled Monica Rambeau, the SWORD agent who entered the Hex and was cast as Geraldine. Monica survived moving through the energy barrier and was able to tell those outside that Wanda was behind it."

When the next episode started, Tommy commented, "These theme songs are so weird."

Wanda's heart ached to watch this one, as it made her think of how much of Billy and Tommy's childhoods she'd missed.

"Why didn't Agnes notice the babies suddenly get older?" Tommy asked.

"She did," Wanda stated.

She picked up a pang of regret and longing from Tommy at the part where the young twins were washing a stray dog in the sink. Either he'd wanted a dog as a child and never had one, or he had one that he lost, she surmised.

"That is exactly what I looked like at ten," Billy commented in amazement when the twins aged up to meet their parents' requirements for having a pet.

The show included Vision at his office setting up email on the computers and discovering a cryptic message refering to the "Maximoff Anomaly," and Vision consequently freeing one of his coworkers from Wanda's spell and learning what she was doing to them. So that's how he'd found out. It chilled her blood to see it.

It skipped from a scene where Wanda told the twins about her brother who was far away, and then going outside to investigate a noise, to the twins searching for their dog. It was obvious something was missing.

Vision paused the recording. "That was Hayward's armed drone, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Darcy and Jimmy told me what happened. Perhaps you don't know: Hayward's scientists altered that drone to absorb whatever power you used on it. That is the power they then used to resuscitate me."

"I wouldn't help Hayward with his experiment willingly, so he had a drone fire bullets at me and my children to force me to help him." She had conflicted feelings about this revelation. On one hand, she hated Hayward for his callousness, but on the other hand, he'd brought Vision back to life. He was the reason Vision was sitting beside her now. If she'd agreed to help try to bring Vision back in the first place, it would have worked. She would have gotten him back a lot sooner, and without causing the nightmare in Westview.

But then, she might never have met Agatha, never have found out she was the Scarlet Witch, and she would have still been cursed to destroy the world.

And what Hayward did, and had asked and then forced her to participate in, was in direct violation of Vision's explicit wishes that his body not be experimented on in the case of his death.

She closed her eyes. When a terrible choice led to a good outcome, did that mean it was meant to happen? Were unforeseeable good consequences of terrible crimes a mitigating factor? It was too complicated to figure out.

She felt Vision's hand on her wrist. "We can stop if this is too difficult."

"No," she said. "I need to see this. I need to face what I did."

"So a drone shot at us, and you stopped the bullets with your power?" Tommy asked for clarification.

"Yes."

He smirked. "I had a dramatic life even before I was born."

Vision pressed play.

It was painful to see herself fighting with Vision. He had been entirely in the right, and she had been dismissive toward him.

The Vision beside her took her hand. "He never would have said those things if he'd known the truth," he whispered, trying to comfor her.

"He didn't know the truth because I was keeping it from him."

And then there had been the knock on the door.

"Wait a minute...that's not Pietro," Tommy said.

"It's a version of him from an alternate reality. I'll tell you that story later," Wanda said.

And then it was the Halloween episode.

Vision leaned closer to her and whispered, "This is the part where I can't understand or condone my counterpart's actions. He should have been with you and your children on their first Halloween. Investigating the neighborhood was important, but not so urgent that he needed to abandon his family to pursue it." He sounded upset and grieved by that choice, as if he had been deprived of the chance to trick-or-treat with his children.

That had been the last time she'd seen her husband before he tried to leave Westview, leaving her and their children and risking his life without a goodbye or explanation. She'd driven him to that.

She bit her lip, but couldn't stop a tear from escaping.

Billy and Tommy watched their younger selves discovering their powers. And then, at the Halloween festival in town square, the young Billy told Wanda Vision was dying. The screen went red, then turned to static.

After a few seconds, Tommy asked, "That's it?"

"That is all the SWORD observers recorded," Vision answered.

Wanda was grateful for that. The next episode would not have shown her at her best.

"What happened?" Tommy asked.

Vision answered. "The Vision Wanda created in the Hex could not exist out of it. When he tried to leave, Wanda expanded the Hex to save him, enveloping several SWORD agents as well. By that point, I had woken up in a SWORD lab with no memory of my past. I was sent into the Hex with orders to kill Wanda and Vision. When I arrived, Wanda was in battle with the witch Agatha, who had been acting the part of Agnes. The barriers of the Hex briefly fell, allowing SWORD operatives to enter and attack. I fought my double, but he was able to restore my memories, and I left."

Billy looked at Wanda. "What happened inside, after you expanded the Hex?"

There was a part of her that didn't want to tell the story, didn't want to lay bare her weakness, her failures, her mistakes. But they deserved to know.

"Expanding the Hex took a lot out of me. And...knowing that Vision had tried to leave...I know he'd only left trying to find help to figure out what was going on and save Westview, but it felt like he'd left me. Someone I'd lost, I'd watched die, and then...it felt like my life was cursed to lose him again and again, in every way possible. But I still had my sons and myself to take care of, so I was trying to stay positive, keeping up the sitcom vibe, tried to treat my husband leaving me as just another plot device. I don't think I did a very good job at it. When my next door neighbor Agnes offered to babysit my sons so I could have some time to myself, I jumped at it." She felt herself begin to unravel, and stood abruptly. "Excuse me."

She locked herself in the bathroom and tried to fight back tears.

Tommy and Billy were alive, she reminded herself again and again. She had not betrayed or failed them as a mother. She'd given them up to save them.

She washed her face with cold water and opened the door, prepared to answer any other questions they might have with the complete truth.

Vision was waiting for her. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." She stepped into his arms and let herself enjoy the fortifying comfort of his embrace for a moment before pulling away from him and turning to their sons. "Is there anything else you want to know?"

"I think we're pretty much filled in," Tommy said.

Billy nodded, but seemed contemplative. He might have questions about her magic use that she'd be better able to explain one-on-one later.

The boys exchanged social network handles and agreed to friend each other, then Wanda and Vision took Billy home, and then went to her room in the Sanctum to talk.

"I believe it was an act of extraordinary courage for you to watch that," Vision said.

She shrugged. "I needed to see it."

"I can't imagine that he ever meant to leave you," he said somberly.

She nodded. "Darcy told me that after he met her and she explained what was going on, he tried to get back to me, but they kept being stopped by red lights and road construction and things, and he realized I was trying to keep him away. I didn't mean to do that, but I know why I did. I was terrified to face him after he learned the truth, after he found out the full scale of what I was doing. I didn't know if I could bear it if he hated me. Or even if he didn't hate me, I couldn't face his anger again."

Vision pulled her into his arms. "I'm sorry. That must have been terrible."

"After losing you, sometimes I felt like the smallest thing might break me, and I don't know what I would do if that happened. I hate not knowing what I'm capable of."

He tenderly tilted her chin up so she was looking in his eyes when he said, "I know. But I promise, as long as I'm alive, you will never have to face it alone."

She almost objected, almost pointed out that they couldn't know what the future held and what they might be driven to, and that she would never hold him to that promise. She almost told him that she didn't want to have to rely on anyone, but realized that wouldn't be exactly true: it wasn't that she didn't want to rely on other people, but that she was afraid to, because if she did and they weren't there when she needed them, she would be lost.

But she could rely on Vision. She would not lose faith in that.

So instead she decided to just accept his word. "Thank you." She took his hand and pressed her lips to the back of his fingers.

"You are welcome." He brushed an imaginary stray hair out of her face, then his lips against hers.

She kissed him back with more fervor.

There was more she wanted to say, and she felt there was more he wanted to say, but it could wait.

Chapter Text

Vision anxiously awaited his weekly date with Wanda. When a circle of light appeared in the living room and she stepped out of it, he was torn between elation at seeing her and nervousness for what he wanted to talk to her about.

"Hello, Wanda."

"Hello, my love." She kissed him, and he kissed her back, but in a moment she pulled away. "Is everything alright? You seem distracted."

"Yes, everything is alright. But there are some matters I would like to discuss." There were 3 matters, specifically, but they were so interconnected he wasn't sure which one to begin with.

"How is Tommy?" she asked with concern.

"He's fine. I plan on looking for a more settled place for him. I need to get him back in school. He's had a very difficult and unsettled life, and I want to give him a measure of stability."

"That's great."

"I would like your help with that, actually. Rather..." He sighed. That was not quite the right word to convey the truth of the situation. "My needs coincide with a favor Jimmy has asked me to do for him, one that I would need your help with, though if you declined we would both understand.

"What favor?" she asked suspiciously.

"It's relating to a case that was referred to his department..."

"A Sokovia Accords case?" she asked even more suspiciously.

"Possibly. Two weeks ago, there was an incidence of intimate partner violence at a clothing store in Newark. The attacker was stopped by a young man who seemed to have superhuman strength. When police officers arrived minutes later, they were not able to locate him, but security cameras didn't show him leaving."

"A shapeshifter?" Wanda suggested.

"Have you heard of anyone with such a power?"

"Yes, but not here. Peter's Earth. But how does Jimmy expect us to find them?"

"He doesn't," Vision explained. "Because of the good samaritan's apparent youth and the fact the incident occurred shortly after many high schools in the area let out for the day, investigators compared his image from security footage to high school yearbook photos. They tentatively identified him as Theodore Altman. He and his mother were questioned, but they both insisted they were at home during the time of the incident. If it weren't for the display of unusual strength and the disappearing act, it would have ended there."

"So what does Agent Woo want from us?"

"Jimmy hasn't questioned the boy or his mother, but he is concerned the young Mr. Altman may be the subject of illegal experimentation, in which case he believes his mother would have known about it. He asked me to essentially go undercover and get an impression of her character, whether she's the sort to let her son be subjected to such experiments. Obviously, that's something you would be much better at than me."

Wanda frowned, considering. He imagined she would be torn between not wanting to possibly expose a teenage boy with powers, and not wanting to leave him in danger if he were being exploited.

"His mother, Mary-Jo Altman, is a real estate agent," Vision added.

"So your plan is to go to her to find a place for you and Tommy, and use that meeting to feel her out?"

"Yes. Which brings me to another matter: your property in Westview..."

"Our property in Westview," she corrected him. While legal cases involving inheritance were still hopelessly backlogged after the Blip, Wanda had refused to liquidate any of the assets she'd inherited in Vision's will, insisting over his objection that they all rightfully belonged to him.

"I think it's time to sell it. To cut all ties with that town and start new elsewhere."

She hesitated for just a second before saying, "Agreed."

"That gives us a legitimate reason to meet Ms. Altman. And, I was thinking, we could simplify the legal difficulties of the inheritance if..." He cut himself off, realizing that was not at all how he wanted to broach the third matter.

"If what? Please tell me, because I would really like for my life to be legally simpler."

He winced. That was a disasterous start, but he couldn't see a graceful way to backtrack. "Wanda, it isn't the legal considerations. I don't want you to think that matters of convenience prompted this line of thought. It didn't." He sighed in frustration again.

He thought back to walking down a dark street in Edinburgh, his hand in hers, and shyly proposing that he miss all the trains that would take him away from her. All he could hope for or offer her then was that they disappear together, a proposal that would be legally binding only in that it would make him her co-conspirator.

Wanda looked confused at his inarticulate floundering. She shook her head. "Vis, what is it? What were you thinking about?"

He sat down on the couch and looked at his hand like he was suddenly fascinated that his fingers could move independently. "It is just an idea, just a suggestion. I know this is a strange time, and that it would be fair for you to think of yourself as recently widowed, that our reconnection is quite new, and that our entire situation is already complicated enough that we might not want to add any developments, but I was wondering if, sometime, you would contemplate thinking about the possibility of marriage?" As he concluded his question, he lifted his eyes to her face, though he dreaded what he might find there.

Her expression began as stunned, but then her eyebrows lifted into mildly amused incredulity. "You know, I think I've got a bit of free time Monday afternoon. I'll put 'think about the possibility of marriage' on my calendar." He couldn't quite tell whether she was being serious or sarcastic. She cleared it up by quickly adding, with undisguised earnestness, "Vision, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I don't know how I deserve you. Building a life with you is something I want so much I almost destroyed a town for it. But is that really what you want?"

He had given what he wanted a great deal of thought since she'd come back into his life, knowing that their time apart might have permanently altered the nature of their relationship, but every time he thought it through, he found he couldn't imagine his life without her. He never felt as accepted and as human as he did when he was with her.

"Yes," he stated simply.

"Then that's my answer." Before the meaning could fully sink in, some doubt shifted her face to a troubled frown. "Wait..."

"What?" he asked quickly, the fear he heard in his own voice making him aware of it.

She huffed a sigh. "It's not just us we have to think about. You're looking for a place for Tommy. He needs you. He...he might not accept me as that much a part of his life."

She had a point, one Vision hadn't considered. Tommy knew once Vision found a place for him to live and go to school, the two of them would be moving in together. Whether Tommy ever came to look on him as a father or not, he would take care of him and support him, and see him into an adulthood where he had more options for what to do with his life than use his super speed to steal. If he tried to make Tommy accept a more traditional family structure by Wanda moving in with them, Tommy might be scared off.

Wanda watched his consideration and disappointed acceptance of that fact play out on his face.

"I'm right, aren't I," she stated sadly.

"It's a...confounding factor," he admitted. It hurt to come so close to having Wanda accept his proposal only to realize it might not work out, but their children had to come first. "Once—if—Tommy becomes comfortable in his new circumstances, I will take it up with him. Otherwise...he may leave for college in a few years, after which..."

"You'll be an empty-nester," Wanda said with a distantly sad smile.

"Yes."

"Then, can we consider this the beginning of what might be a very long engagement?" she suggested.

He chuckled breathily. "That's an acceptable compromise."

"Then yes. My answer's yes." She kissed him unexpectedly but sincerely, like her doubts had been a barrier keeping her from him that suddenly broke. They kissed for a minute before she broke away, leaning her forehead on his. "When do you want to go see the real estate agent?"

Mary-Jo Altman's office was in an unassuming row of businesses on the western outskirts of Newark. Wanda followed Vision into the lobby, which was empty, though at the ding of the electronic bell on the door, a cheery call of, "Be with you in a minute," came from the back room.

Wanda had mixed feelings about participating in this investigation. She didn't want to bring any enhanced individual to the attention of the Sokovia Accords Committee, even if Jimmy had never done anything to indicate he'd purposely put someone in danger or lock them up without trial. On the other hand, if someone was experimenting on children, she would stop them.

It almost felt like she was being sucked back into being an Avenger, but that idea didn't bother her as much as it would have a few months ago.

The building was old, and the office had an impression of being dusty even though there was no trace of actual dust. The decor consisted of framed posters of houses and a rack displaying real estate books, magazines, and fliers. There were also a few overgrown potted plants in the corners.

Everything about it seemed straightforward, explicable, and entirely forgettable.

As if it were purposely trying to be unsuspicious.

A bubbly, middle-aged blond woman entered from the back. "Sorry to keep you waiting," she said, even though it had been not even two minutes.

Nothing about her seemed off so far. Wanda picked up a friendly professionalism from her mind.

"It's perfectly alright, Ms. Altman."

"Please call me Mary-Jo. You must be Victor Shade."

"Yes. And this is my fiancée, Scarlet."

Wanda's heart fluttered at hearing Vision refer to her as his fiancée for the first time. She couldn't believe Vision had asked her to marry him. It didn't seem real. It seemed too good to be something that would happen to her. 

The elation didn't last long. The moment Mary-Jo turned her full attention to her, her mind burst in a frenzy of fear, nearly panic.

She recognized her. Not only that, but there was no trace of surprise. She'd been expecting someone to come. Maybe not an Avenger, but it would make sense for it to be an Avenger.

Her fear didn't show on her face as she maintained her pleasant smile and extended her hand. "Scarlet? What a pretty name."

Wanda gave no indication she'd picked up on that fear. It seemed the woman had already decided on a course of continuing to feign ignorance. Wanda would play along until she got a better read.

Mary-Jo took a seat behind her desk and opened her computer. She maintained her smile, but looked at Vision a little more closely, like she was trying to figure out who he really was. "How long have you two been together?"

"That's rather complicated, actually," Vision said.

"We spent a lot of time as just friends, then we did the long-distance thing for a while. And then I was Blipped," Wanda explained.

"And you waited for her for five years?" Mary-Jo asked Vision, acting impressed, but really trying to figure out if they were telling the truth.

"Not exactly," Vision replied, drawing the words out long enough to imply far more than actually happened. "But once Wa... Once we made our way back to each other, I realized I never wanted to lose her from my life again." He turned his eyes to Wanda as he said this, and his voice trembled slightly at the end. Forgetting for a moment where they were and why, Wanda reached across the space between their chairs and took his hand.

The daze his words and touch put her under was broken by a swirl of confusion, surprise, and curiosity from Mary-Jo's mind. She glanced over to see the woman was still examining Vision's face. She'd just figured out who he was, an Avenger who was supposed to be dead, and wasn't supposed to look so human. Wanda often wondered why no one ever seemed to recognize Vision, but so few people knew about his ability to phase into a disguise that it just seemed to not occur to them. There was something different about this woman, though. The curiosity in her mind was unexpected, like she was burning to question Vision. But then, if her own son was a shapeshifter, she might be especially interested to talk to someone else who had that ability.

"Well," Mary-Jo forced her smile back into place, "let's get to finding you your dream home to start your new life together. In your email you said you were looking for something in the city of New Brunswick. That's a nice place."

"Ideally, somewhere close to South New Brunswick High School," Wanda said. "And somewhere that allows dogs."

"South New Brunswick High? That's thinking ahead. Most newlyweds haven't even started looking for kindergartens."

"We will be taking care of a young man in difficult circumstances," Vision explained.

"A teen boy," Wanda said. "And I have been mentoring a student at South New Brunswick High. They have a lot in common, and I think it would be good for them to be friends. You have a son, don't you, Mary-Jo?"

Vision glanced at Wanda curiously. Being so direct could risk their covers. "Dear?"

"She's already made us, Vision."

He looked back to Mary-Jo for confirmation.

She was stunned for a second, then said, "Like I told the police, Teddy hasn't done anything wrong."

Wanda felt the surge of fierce protectiveness when she said her son's name. She knew that feeling well. "I know you want to protect your son. I know you'd do anything to protect him. And I personally promise that as long as he's safe with you, no one will take him away from you. But we do need to settle the question of if he's safe with you. Your son is different from other people, isn't he?"

Mary-Jo looked at her steadily. Wanda was impressed by her fortitude; an ordinary person willing to face off against two Avengers. "There is nothing wrong with Teddy."

"We know that. But if he isn't like other people—if he's enhanced, as some people call it—we need to know what happened to make him that way."

Though the firm lines of Mary-Jo's face didn't waver, Wanda could follow a swirl of feelings in her mind: indecision, vulnerability, fear, pride, and resolve. "However he is...whatever strengths and talents he has, he was born with."

"He wasn't the result of any kind of experimentation?" Vision asked.

"No," Mary-Jo replied. But though her voice was firm, Wanda picked up a quavering in her mind. She didn't think it was a lie, exactly, but it felt like the truth was more complicated.

"Then what was he a result of?" she inquired.

Mary-Jo narrowed her eyes. "What are you insinuating?"

Wanda frowned. She hadn't been insinuating anything, just trying to get more information. Mary-Jo's sudden defensiveness was not what she was expecting.

”Ms. Altman," Vision said hesitantly, "forgive me if this is too personal a question, but do you mind if I ask the identity of Teddy's father?"

"That is too personal a question, and yes, I do mind," she replied.

Wanda picked up on calculations clicking in Mary-Jo's head, weighing her chances of escape. Her attention flickered to something concealed in a hidden compartment beneath her desk. Maybe an emergency alarm, a smoke bomb, or a weapon. Wanda had no way to know. Mary-Jo's intent didn't seem to be violent, but there was an edge of desperation to her thoughts that could make her try something rash.

Which was the last thing they wanted or intended. "The boys we told you about," Wanda said quickly and quietly, the tone of confiding a secret, "the one who will be staying with Vision and the one I'm mentoring, they're like your son. They're different. I would do anything to protect them, just like you would do anything to protect Teddy. I know what he's going through, I know how alone it feels, how terrifying it is. He should know he's not alone in the world."

"He used his strength to protect someone in danger, even knowing it could potentially expose him," Vision added. "That tells us much about the kind of person he is. We want to make sure no one attempts to exploit his powers to harm others or for their personal gain."

"I won't let that happen," Mary-Jo insisted.

"What do you want for your son?" Vision inquired.

"To protect him. To keep him safe. And to give him as good a childhood as I can."

Vision glanced at Wanda questioningly.

"She means it," Wanda confirmed.

Mary-Jo looked back at her. "Are you reading my mind?" The tone of her voice was one of outrage, but her thoughts were a burst of terror.

That was strange. What was she so afraid Wanda might see?

But the fact she was so genuinely terrified of a mind reader, and she was unable to hide that fact, meant everything else Wanda had picked up on was genuine.

"Not really," she assured her. "I can pick up on strong emotions and states of mind, but I can't hear your thoughts or see your memories or anything like that."

Relief replaced the terror at that news, though it was tempered with a new guardedness. "That seems awfully invasive," she complained.

"It's not something I would choose to do, but I can't really stop, so my choices are stay away from other people for the rest of my life, wear a sign around my neck warning people to guard their minds around me, or use it to try to protect people. Now I know for sure that Teddy isn't being experimented on, and you're not using him."

"Now that you have the answers you came for, are we done here?" Mary-Jo asked.

"Not quite yet. We actually did come here to look for a house," Vision stated apologetically.

Chapter Text

Vision hung the first decorative item on the wall of the room he'd claimed in his new house. He stepped back to examine its placement. It was the portrait of Wanda he'd painted when he wasn't sure if she was dead or alive. Most of his painting he'd sold, left at his old workplace, or given to Darcy, but this one he would keep.

Darcy had been sad but understanding about him moving out. She'd teared up as she helped him pack his few belonging, and had extracted a promise that he would visit often.

He smiled wistfully at the memory. That had been his home for nearly a year, a time of recovery and self-discovery. But now he was beginning a new chapter of his life, one where his sons and Wanda would be the prominent features.

Wanda entered the room. "I finished stocking the fridge and making Tommy's bed."

"Thank you."

Tommy would move in tomorrow, and next week would be his first day at the same high school Billy went to. Their sons would have each other. They were planning to have a housewarming party next weekend. Mary-Jo had agreed to bring Teddy to it to meet Tommy and Billy. Vision had also invited Darcy, Jimmy, Monica, Sam, and Bucky. It would be the first party he would ever host.

"I hope Tommy likes it here," he said.

Wanda wrapped her arms around him from behind, resting her head between his shoulder blades. "He will. You are a wonderful father."

Though her voice was sincere, there was also a trace of sadness in it. He would be living with one of their sons, able to see him every day. She would continue living at the Sanctum for the time being, only visiting once or twice a week. She was still enduring the effects of her sacrifice.

He took her hand and turned to her. His free hand went to her cheek. She leaned into his touch. "None of this would be possible if it weren't for you," he said. "You saved our children. Also, you saved the world, so..."

"We don't need to keep bringing up that question," she said with amused exasperation.

Vision knew she still didn't believe she deserved credit for saving the world, either by fighting Thanos or destroying the zombie Earth. He would respect her wishes that the things she had done not be made public, but he personally would never forget how much the world owed to her.

Sometimes he was overcome with awe at her strength and courage. It was astounding that someone so amazing loved him, that after everything he'd done, everything he'd put her through, she still chose to be with him.

She glanced down shyly, and he realized he'd been staring at her for several seconds. He tugged her to him and kissed her. She melted into it.

A few kisses later, he broke off. "This may be the last evening we have to ourselves for a while," he mentioned. "Would you like to go out to dinner, or dancing, or anything?"

She smiled at his consideration. "Actually, there's something I've been thinking about. Something I've been...thinking of trying."

"What?"

"Vision, I don't want you to ever think that I think there's anything wrong with you. I love everything about you. But I've been thinking about your voice. Since SWORD brought you back, your voice sounds like a computer. It's probably fine, but I've been wondering why that is. If they had to install some new device to allow you to speak, or if your vibranium circuits are disconnected somewhere. I could take a look and just make sure there's nothing to worry about."

He nodded. She used to use her power to explore his inner workings. She'd used her power to patch him up after they were attacked in Edinburgh, and to diagnosed the Vision she'd created in the Hex and remove the offending wad of gum in the second episode of the Broadcast. "If you could return my voice to normal, I would appreciate it."

"Okay. It shouldn't take long."

They sat on his bed. She took a deep breath and summoned threads of red light to her fingers. She directed them to his throat.

He felt her power flow inside him, exploring his circuits. It was a tingling sensation that was comfortingly familiar.

"Mm. It seems like there are places where your synthetic tissue and vibranium circuits aren't as aligned as they used to be. The connection points are microscopic, probably the kind of thing SWORD either didn't know how to integrate or didn't care enough to bother. I think I can smooth the connectivity out pretty easily." She smiled at him.

"Go ahead," he said.

She closed her eyes and focused her power. No longer just exploring, she now directed it to fuse connections between his vibranium and synthetic tissue.

And then something stirred beneath the surface. Something else bubbled up through her power, something huge but subtle, hidden behind the easy simplicity of apparent reality. It was otherwordly, unfathomable, and came quickly, but Vision felt no fear toward it. All he felt was an exuberant welcome, as of finding someone long lost. He was drawn to it, and it to him, exactly like a magnet coming within a magnetic field of the opposite charge.

Wanda recoiled from him, cutting off and burying the power he'd sensed. She trembled, cringing away. Her face and movements betrayed a frantic terror.

"Wanda... I felt that. What was it?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

If that were true, she wouldn't be acting so frightened. There had been no sense of threat from it.

"I think that you do," he said.

She stumbled a few steps away from him, then sank to the floor. She raised her face to him, though she couldn't look him in his eyes. "I think it might have been what's left over of the Mind Stone. I didn't know it was still in me."

"It wanted to come to me. Why did you stop it?"

"The last time this happened, the last time I felt this, everything went...horribly wrong."

"In Westview?" he inquired.

Her nod was barely perceptible.

He left the bed and joined her on the carpet. "This is different. You know what you're doing this time. And I'm here. I exist."

"I have no idea what it would do to you. Vision, I..." She shook, staring not at him but past him. She seemed somehow both on the verge of tears and beyond tears. "I can't lose you again. I can't."

He sympathized with her, but he had to somehow make her understand what it meant. He took her hands. "Wanda, please. I need this. I feel it's a part of myself I didn't even know was missing, and now I will never be whole without it."

Her head shook. "Something will go wrong, just like always happens. If anything good comes to my life, something always happens to take it away."

"I understand why it may feel like that, but it's not true. You are not fated to lose everything. You are not cursed."

She looked unconvinced. "Please. Please don't ask me to risk it."

His hands released hers and cupped her face. He stroked her cheeks, trying to soothe and reassure her. "I trust you completely. With everything that I am. So if you trust me, trust yourself. I know you can do this."

"It could erase your memories. It could rewrite you. It could... It might destroy you."

"It won't," he promised. "It is only trying to come home."

That seemed to be the magic word. She finally met his eyes, held his gaze for several seconds as she contemplated the situation, then nodded.

He took her hand and pressed it to his forehead.

"I love you. Please never forget that."

He leaned forward and kissed her deeply, needing to reassure her with his actions as well as his words. "I never could."

She rallied her power again, this time directing it into his head.

He felt the raw, ineffable power of the Mind Stone appear again, more slowly this time. Through their link, he felt Wanda's fear, but also her determination to honor the decision she accepted was his right to make.

The energy of the Mind Stone entered him as a warmth, as the satisfaction of the last piece of a puzzle clicking into place times a thousand. And at the same instant, his mind flooded with new memories.

"Wanda, welcome home."

Being confused about the purpose of his job.

Being accepted at the neighborhood watch committee he soon realized was just an excuse for some friends to get together and gossip.

Wanda rewinding time to make him forget he suspected something was wrong.

A man in a beekeeper suit coming out of the sewer at night, a sword logo Vision didn't recognize.

"No."

Running his hands over Wanda's rounded belly.

Holding his newborn sons for the first time.

Realizing he had no memory of his life before Westview.

Finding Agnes sitting in her car at the edge of town, as if in a trance.

Feeling his body disintegrating as he tried to leave Westview.

Recognizing Darcy at the circus. Her explanation of who he was as she drove the funnel cake truck as fast as it would go.

Seeing a version of himself trying to kill Wanda.

Taking the risk of talking to his weaponized amnesiac double who was trying to kill him.

Putting his sons to bed for the last time, concealing his own emotions to spare them the knowledge of what was soon to happen.

Kissing Wanda goodbye.

"So long, darling."

Many of those memories he'd watched on the Broadcast, but it was very different to experience them from the inside.

Darcy had told him about their meeting—her meeting with the Vision of the Hex—but hadn't mentioned she initially though he was hitting on her.

There were so many things he remembered that hadn't made sense to him at the time—so much of what Wanda said, and the way she acted—that took on new interpretations with the full context of memory.

"Vision?"

He opened his eyes slowly. Wanda was staring at him, her eyes wide.

He saw a golden light in her eyes.

It was his own reflection, with the light of the Mind Stone once again glowing in his forehead. From a dark crimson face.

He looked down at his hands, turning them to confirm what he was seeing. He was no longer the dull white SWORD had resurrected him with. His original color had returned.

His eyes returned to Wanda. He wanted to tell her he remembered everything, that he understood why she had done everything she did, that she would never lose him again.

He knew the perfect thing to say to her first.

"Hello again."

The breath she'd been holding since he opened his eyes exploded in a relieved laugh. "Hi."

His hands returned to her face. He brushed her tears away, noting the pleasing contrast between his dark red fingers and the pale skin of her cheeks. "I knew you could do it."

She hesitantly reached for him. "So you're...all here?"

"Yes. I have all my memories, from my life before, from Westview, and everything I've experienced since."

"You're really okay?"

She found it so hard to believe that she could ever use her powers in a way that wouldn't somehow lead to catastrophe. He wasn't sure how he could convince her otherwise. "Wanda, you are capable of creation, not just destruction. You created Tommy and Billy. You have saved worlds, creating peace and happiness where there otherwise would have been suffering and death. I can't promise that there will be no more pain and sorrow in the life we have ahead of us, that there won't be troubles and failures to come. I'm sure there will be, because I don't believe either of us will be able to ignore the call when the world needs the Avengers again. But I promise there will also be triumphs, and this is one of them." He took her hands and kissed them both, then brought one to his forehead. "If you're still not sure it worked, see for yourself."

She did, using her power to read him. She gave him the brightest smile he'd ever seen. "Welcome home."