Archive of Our Own ^beta

A small boy in a long red cape that ran well past his ankles bustled about the room, only the tips of his dark spikes visible above his collar. The little one moved very quickly, hopping from one corner of the room to the other like a sparrow as he rushed to complete his puzzle. The finished pieces unfurled before him in a tapestry, a moving ship pitched from wave to wave in the sea. The waves undulated, as did the pieces remaining quietly in their little box, but the precocious six-year-old paid it no mind. Stephen Strange was the child of the smartest humans in the entire universe, and his photographic memory grasped everything before his hands did.

“Mama! Where is Donna?” The boy suddenly cried, his blue eyes pouting at the woman sitting in the other corner of the room. Beverly Strange smiled at her boy over her glasses, her hands having paused over the iridescent threads she was forming into finest gauze. 

“I already told you, sweetheart. Your sister is on a rescue mission,” she informed him sweetly, leaning over and dropping a kiss onto her boy’s head as he hid in her lap. 

“I-I-I just m-miss her already. She’s been leaving so often lately. She felt that pulse on her arm, and then she just...left so quickly.” Stephen suddenly leapt onto his mother’s lap, aided by the Cloak of Levitation as his luminous blue eyes shone. “Is the TVA doing mean things again?” He turned his head towards his mother’s handiwork, silently admiring the magical bandage that was capable of healing any injured being in the world from moderate wounds.

His mother’s blue eyes seemed to dim beneath her light brown hair. She sighed as her hand skimmed her youngest child’s hair. How fortunate he was to be born into a whole universe …a universe that did not place a price upon his head for merely existing. Someday, he will see.

“Yes. The Time Variance Authority continues to believe that their way is the only correct one. Your sister may be gone for awhile.” Lines tightened around her mouth before she glanced at the puzzle. “You have made such rapid progress, sweetheart. Why did you leave the mast?”

“Brown is Donna’s favorite color, and I didn’t want to finish this puzzle without her. I’ll wait as long as I need to!” Her baby replied so earnestly that the mother blinked tears away before pulling her boy into a hug. Allowing her daughter to slip into worlds and pluck the innocent from the TVA’s uncaring reach was as unnatural to her as inhaling water, but her daughter had been given an extraordinary gift and chosen to serve their refuge with her talents.

“A perfectly reasonable argument.” Beverly straightened the cape on her son. “Why don’t you go visit your father in the workshop? He is making toys for the children again.” Dimples appeared on her pale face. “I know he would like nothing more than to see her angel wearing his cape.” Stephen nodded, eagerly flying downstairs. Sunbursts and comets flickered outside the black windows in the far distance, promising hints of new life. 

“How are you doing, son?” Vincent Strange smiled fondly at his boy through his thick beard. The pale raven-haired child sadly strode to him, hugging one broad leg. “That bad, huh?” His only son’s hair was ruffled, several tears landing on the broad hand. The burly man abandoned his handiwork, resting on one knee as he embraced his son. Stephen hugged his father as fiercely as he could, arms splayed across his chest as the cloak covered them both.

“Do you ever…do you ever get scared that Donna won’t come back?” He whispered.

“Every time she goes on a mission, I think of her. I pray for my little baby second by second.” Vincent Strange straightened the cape on his six-year-old. “Even the largest man has fears, little one. But…what makes your sister so special is that she faces them head on. Even challenges that are much greater than she is. She is not the largest creature in this galaxy, or even the strongest. But her creativity is years beyond her age, and she has a good heart.”

“I want to be like her, Papa.” The tear tracks were already drying on Stephen’s cheeks. “She’s just in high school…but when she got that power…that empathy, she didn’t run. I don’t want to run either. I want to save and heal people, too. I want to heal the worlds.” He beamed at the new toy his father was silently showing him. A small orange turtle, carved from wood.

“You’re halfway there already.” The green-eyed man dropped a kiss upon his head. A sudden noise from upstairs made him turn his head. “That’ll be your sister. Let’s greet her.” Stephen flew ahead of his father, the Cloak of Levitation trailing behind his small form.

A young woman whose hair fell to her chest in a thin brown braid stood before Stephen’s mother, her cheeks flushed from battle as the last of her mandalas faded from the long band on her left arm. The pale lady wore saffron robes and a hood that had been torn. Delicately tucked in the crook of her right arm was a small brown and white ball covered in soot. 

Stephen moved closer, blinking tears of dismay away as his mother wrapped her iridescent bandage around Donna’s left leg, which was exposed by long perforations. The brunette murmured words of thanks, her free hand skimming Stephen’s head in reassurance of her safety as her father wordlessly kissed the top of her head. Donna was helped into a chair to elevate her swollen leg as Stephen rushed to drape his cloak over the salvager and her curiously shaped bundle. As he scrambled back, the uneven mass moved in her lap.

Large blue eyes filled with gray gazed fearfully beyond the folds of the cloak, looking all around the room in terror. The walls of the large spaceship were light brown, and all of the furniture possessed rounded edges, but the interior design did little to assuage her fear. The girl appeared to be Stephen’s age and was drowning in her thick brown tresses, which along with the rest of her frail body were covered in pale soot. Stephen moved closer, inhaling the scent of rubble and paint as he took in the five-year-old’s hollow cheeks and erratic breaths. The little one had already been halfway on the road to starvation by the time she had been rescued.

“Papa, what happened?” Stephen hopefully turned his head to his parents. At his words, the girl shuddered, retreating within the folds of the cloak as she clung to Donna. He bit his lip guiltily, seeing that the little girl was trembling from head to foot. “I’m s-sorry I asked.”

“It’s all right, son.” Vincent scooped his boy up, taking him to the other room and sitting him on his knee. Now he could talk to his child without disturbing their new rescuee. “You have a good memory. Do you remember why your mother told you Donna does her missions?”

“The TVA wants people to live only one way. Their way. The golden line.”

“The golden timeline, son.” Vincent smiled. “I am sure you will understand this far more someday, but we live in the shadows of our actions -- and those very shadows have futures of their own. The girl Donna rescued was such a shadow. In the world the TVA calls ‘the golden timeline,’ Sokovia never had a war. It never even lasted that long. But in that timeline, it did.”

“But people living is good! Why wouldn’t the TVA want to help people?” Stephen asked.

“They have their own reasons. We do not know why every event unfolds, but based on how they have acted, I suspect it is because someone learned to use magic during that war.” He looked at his son. “Your sister communicated what occurred to me in a single gaze. Knowing the mind is one of the greatest skills of any Master of the Mystic Arts. It is my own great hope that you can use Eldritch Magic one day.” The man leaned over to kiss his son on the head.

“What did you see, Daddy? What did Donna tell you?”

“That little girl in her arms is named Wanda Maximoff. Her entire family was killed by a stray missile in her home in Sokovia. We believe that the reason she lived is that she manipulated chance. The rocket beside her head was intact, so she lived.”

“I-If the TVA is going after magic users, why do we mostly have kids in our refuge?”

“They are more difficult for the TVA to find because they are small and adept at hiding. They are also targeted less by the TVA. The adults have a much stronger magical signature and can wreak more havoc. Someday, we will have enough magic users to fight those battles, but we must pick and choose them for now. So we look for the Wandas of the world and bring them to our orphanage. When they become adults, they can stay here in the Gap Junction and avoid detection by the Time Variance Authority, or they can choose their own way.”

“I hope you get a lot of people to help you, Daddy. I know people have to stay to protect the kids, but more people are dying,” the raven-haired boy told him seriously.

“As usual, each and every one of us must do our best based on our stage in life. Speaking of which…” The father shot his son a wink. “Little Wanda is afraid. She needs another gentle presence. Can you think of anything that might calm her down, Stephen?”

“I can sing to her. But maybe that would make her faint like a bunny.” They laughed before Stephen’s eyes wandered to his bedroom. “Wait!” He ran there and back as quickly as his feet could carry him, emerging with ruddy cheeks and a smile as wide as his face. Something small was clutched in one hand. “Let’s go.” His father led the pair back to Donna and Beverly Strange, who had already changed Wanda into a fresh set of clothes after washing her.

“Are you feeling a bit better, sweetheart?” Beverly gently asked the girl as she helped her sip cooled tea. Wanda nodded silently at her, wide blue eyes resting over the cup.

“Look who it is. Wanda, this is my brother, Stephen. He’s just one year older than you.” Donna gave her younger sibling a fond squeeze of the shoulder, her blue eyes lighting up as she saw the stuffed animal in his hand. “I believe he had a present for you!”

“Uh, h-hi, Wanda. M’name’s Stephen l-like my s-sister said.” He was stammering now, having never seen such a lovely pair of eyes before. Face burning, Stephen thrust the otter stuffed animal under his new friend’s buttonlike nose. “Here’s my otter. He’s nice and warm and will keep you safe.” He swallowed as her hands curled automatically around the otter, hugging it fiercely to herself as she regarded him beneath her long hair. “You deserve to be safe, Wanda. Don’t feel bad about what you did. You’re a good kid, just like me. And you’ll be okay here.”

The movement was so abrupt that he could scarcely believe that it happened. A kiss was swiftly dropped onto his cheek by the girl clutching his stuffed animal. Dimples flashed on the Sokovian’s pale face as his face reddened to a nearly puce hue. A soft laugh exited her lips, bringing a rush of warmth to him as he beamed from ear to ear at Wanda Maximoff. 

“Why don’t you show Wanda your puzzles, dear? She can eat with you while I prepare her bed.” Beverly Strange brought the children to the living room, where they sat under Vincent Strange’s supervision. Stephen showed the girl the ship puzzle, explaining how the pieces fit. One bandaged hand began to slip the pieces into place before she gave up, her telekinesis shifting the pieces where they belonged. She wrinkled her nose at the mass of brown pieces in the box, tilting her head as she gazed at the unfilled center. Nothing happened as she stared.

“It’s okay. We can continue it tomorrow.” Stephen patted her gauzed hand.

“I have something for you too, Stephen. Something for you to watch over.” She spoke to him in heavily accented but grammatically correct English. He meekly held out his hand to her, saturninely regarding the torn photograph she had placed there. A slightly tinier Wanda was the only visible subject, next to the bottom of a skirt and pair of pants. 

“I’ll watch over it just for you.” Stephen gallantly kissed the top of Wanda’s head before pushing the remainder of his snacks over to the wide-eyed little one. 

“You are in so much trouble, Stephen!” Wanda huffed, her thick red hair streaming behind her as she streaked behind the nine-year-old. His laughs traveled back to her in short bursts as she weaved her way towards him between students who were slowly leaving their magical lessons. They were on the far side of the refuge, where the furniture was white and pristine except for the scorch marks from a particularly well-aimed Eldritch spell. Most of the students knew Eldritch and Asgardian magic, with the remainder being from the other realms. None who knew Dark Magic had been accepted, and Wanda was the sole Chaos Magic user.

“I’m sorry! It was just too pretty for you to keep!” The ten-year-old giggled as the Cloak of Levitation bore him ahead. Every so often, the fingers of his right hand moved, forming flaming portals just large enough for him to leap through before he was teleported onto some other side of the ship. Stephen had tried to venture beyond the Gap Junction many times, but his magic was not potent enough yet and there were wards against errant children leaving the world.

“WHEE! I’m going to get you-ouuuu ,” the little girl suddenly sang, having decided that she greatly disliked being in a foul mood. Stephen had helped her break free of her melancholia over these four years, and she had quickly become his best friend. The black and red-haired pair had become inseparable, living next door to one another and rushing to complete each other’s puzzles. The duo had also attended normal school in addition to their magical lessons, with Stephen tutoring Wanda in science and Wanda helping him with his mathematics.

Her arms were snugly around his waist now, the product of a great spurt of energy that even the boy could not outrun. The girl tackled her friend to the ground, peals of laughter exiting both as she tickled him. One hand pinched his cheek as he held his hands stubbornly behind his back, now wanting to give up his prize. Wanda scowled at him, red pinpricks entering her large navy orbs. Now something heavy had emerged in his pocket, nearly making a hole in his pants. His hand scrambled inside the pocket, withdrawing a large pebble. He gaped at it.

“Wanda, how on Earth did you--?”

“Why do you always try to take my crown, Stephen?” Wanda pouted at him. “I always share my toys with you and we take turns caring for my otter, but my crown is special to me.”

“I don’t want it to hurt you! The bottom edges look so pointy!” He protested. Tears filled her red orbs as she internalized his empathetic response. “I’m sorry, Wanda. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” He meekly held out his hands, his long cloak flapping behind him. The redhead stepped straight into his arms, giving him a long embrace that made him smile.

“I’m sorry, Stephen. I can be a bit bossy sometimes.” Wanda stuffed her hands into her pockets as she giggled. “You and your Daddy can make the edges softer.” She followed him to Vincent Strange’s workshop, happily accepting cookies from Stephen’s doting parents.

“You’re growing up so quickly, Wanda. You’ll be taller than Stephen at this rate. Have you been practicing your meditations lately?” The thickly bearded man asked as he put his craft aside. One broad hand gestured behind him, showing the pair the toys he was making for the orphans. The Strange family had had their hands full taking in an influx of refugees. They had been found after Donna and her first class of recruits had darted onto timelines that were about to be pruned, rescuing twice as many people as before. And the Gap Junction, being beyond space and time, was able to give the colony all of the space it could ever dream of.

“Of course I would be happy to show you how I meditate, sir. Stephen and I practice every week.” Wanda immediately sat back to back with her best friend, her eyes closing as her breaths followed the pathway of Stephen’s. All of those nagging fears and memories of a fallen Sokovia ebbed from her mind, replaced with a blinding white space of a more remote plane than the Gap Junction itself. No spec of thought was here, no memory or fear…or nightmare.

Wanda’s nightmares were always the same. Spinning with her mother Iryna in a dance as the television blared with sitcoms, her twin brother Pietro sprawled across the couch in her peripheral vision. And the TV swelled, the female lead about to deliver some rousing punchline…when the Stark Industries missile claimed all time and space of its own, engulfing the house, her country, the Earth…Wanda Maximoff’s soul…and the soul of every living person.

But when she meditated with Stephen, suspended in midair as easily as if she had been sitting on the staircase, her veins did not seethe with pain. Her ears did not ring, and her chin did not tremble. She was completely and utterly safe in her own mind, all desire to seed the minds of her enemies with their own worst fears utterly gone. All yearning to bend reality to her will tucked away. And her fingers did not tremble with a desire to push all space away from her.

When she was alone in her mind, her astral form projected above her alongside Stephen’s soul, she felt safe and as whole as she had been on the day she was born. 

The gentle blue eyes opened, taking in the curlicues of crimson and blue magic that smoothly mingled around her and the raven-haired boy in ribbons. The slack-faced parents of Stephen Strange watched the proceedings, their eyes endlessly wide. Stephen’s gray eyes opened, carefully observing the blended magic as his fingers wound around Wanda’s.

“I have never seen that magic hue before,” Donna whispered from the doorframe. She shook her head, running through every possibility. “At first I thought it looked like the magic from that Salem coven, but it’s not similar at all. That was a pale blue. This is a navy color.”

“There is…there is one explanation,” Beverly Strange croaked. She smoothed her pants with trembling fingers. “It is just legend, passed down from my father through his father. Yet I see the tiniest of stars glittering in Stephen’s blue magic. I think---I think he blessed our boy.”

“The Living Tribunal?” Vincent Strange sank into a seat, his face utterly white.

“Yes! The one who is tasked with protecting the universe and those he loves will be marked. Wanda must be very dear to him.” Beverly’s misty eyes traveled to her son.

“I want to be just like Donna one day so I can save more Wandas. So they can h-have their start again. So they will have a Beverly and a Vincent and a Donna…and a Stephen.” Stephen looked terrified at his own shyness but gazed earnestly at the redhead.

“That is the kindest thing I have ever heard.” Wanda was bawling now, retreating under the Cloak of Levitation as she attempted to regain her composure. Only several minutes later did she reemerge, laden with hiccups. “Every day, I feel more like the old Wanda with you.” As she spoke, Vincent’s eyes wandered to the torn photograph Stephen had tucked in one corner of the workroom. Half of the face of Wanda’s mother was now visible for the first time. He hid his smile in his beard as he turned back to the pair. Wanda, too, would do great things one day.

“Excuse me, Mr. Strange. I’m so sorry to be bothering you. I pray I am not interrupting.” The teenaged redhead bowed her head contritely before the middle-aged man. As always, Stephen was just a few steps away, reading a book with one strand of hair brushing his forehead. Wanda gave him a trembling smile that he returned before looking away.

“Of course you are not. What would you like to know?” The gray-haired man smiled.

“You told me I could come to you when I was ready and l-learn about why my timeline was pruned.” Wanda’s eyes briefly closed as she thought of all the nightmares and imaginings of what could have been threatened to leap at her before dissipating. She smiled weakly.

The pale troubled eyes were fixed upon Wanda and his son for several minutes before he finally nodded. “Yes, I think you are ready. And my Stephen will always be at your side.” Vincent Strange rested on his chair, his hair nearly white in the harsh light of a passing star. “In your world, you were born Wanda Iryna Maximoff, but you would adopt another name.”

“The Scarlet Witch,” she whispered. That name had been written onto her heart for 15 years and had never been uttered to anyone, even Stephen Strange himself.

“Yes. You know that name. There was another who knew it too. A being none of us can fully understand but had malevolent intent. He wrote your name in a book called the Darkhold, which was itself a product of Chaos Magic. That magic that flows through your veins is not good. It has destroyed many worlds, many timelines. It is destruction incarnate, wrath with a face. And that was the fate that was given to you in that world as well.”

“What did…what did my power do to me?” She whispered as her eyes glittered with tears. Stephen’s arm was around one shoulder as he listened, his sharp cheekbones visible in the light amid the shadows on his face. Vincent Strange regarded the pair sadly.

“It was not your power that broke you in that world. It was all you lost.”

“What did…what else did I lose?” Hadn’t her parents and brother been enough?

“Oleh, Iryna, and Pietro were the first, but they were not the last. Your parents were meant to die when that missile landed in your house, but neither of your times had come.” Donna Strange had suddenly appeared now, her tone almost bitter. “The TVA showed up and killed your brother. They…were hunting you down too. It wasn’t the missile that killed Pietro.”

“My brother s-should have lived instead of me. He should have been saved.” Her world was falling apart in every direction as her body became rigid, threatening to thrust her into catatonia. “Pietro was a far more saintly boy than me. He never thought ill of anyone.”

“The people who were pursuing you and your brother were monsters. They thought they had human will figured out. Destiny. Conscience. But how could they ever know, with that crazed scientist leading them?” Vincent Strange’s hands quivered in anger. “Beverly and I should have never helped that young man. Not when he would decide to play at being a god.”

“There is no weakness in mercy.” Stephen’s mother had joined Donna by the doorframe, stroking her husband’s hair. “Kang will meet his destiny one day. But that fight is not for us who are far beyond our prime.” For the first time, the teenager saw how frail his mother was. “What we are responsible for--the orphans of every world--is what we are called to do here and now.” Her hand rested on Vincent’s shoulder. “I think we owe it to Wanda to finish that story.”

“You’re right. Wanda, you wanted to know what the TVA thought you and your brother would do and what you lost. You lost your brother. Your nation. The sole sense of belonging you ever had. You lost your husband and the children you made with your magic. They were phantoms, but you loved them all the same. And…you lost your innocence. You did many terrible things as your grief accumulated. And the well-being of the worlds was their price.”

“How could I---how could I have fallen so much when I had my Stephen?” Wanda’s fingers folded in his as her cheek brushed his. Tears were falling down his cheeks now, for that nagging sense in his heart was only growing: there was no world in which they had crossed paths but one. And the result of that encounter had been devastation for all involved.

“Y-you never really had him, Wanda. You married an android who rescued you from your nation as it crumbled all around you. Had that world not been pruned, you would have just lost Pietro when you met Vision.” Donna was hugging herself now, her bright blue eyes troubled. “Stephen was on the other side of the world. He…lost his hands in a car accident months ago. Even if you had met him then, he would have been as unable to help you as he was himself.”

“But that wasn’t the end! I met my Stephen in that world they destroyed! D-Didn’t I?”

“By the time you formally met, it was too late. You had already lost your Vision, and the Darkhold had taken root in your mind. Whatever scarce encounters you had before were small.”

“P-please don’t tell me I hurt him.” Wanda was unable to look at Stephen now. The others fell silent as Stephen withdrew his hand, all feeling lost from his palms as he stared. “I need to know! I need to see him…to know that Stephen would have been safe and loved.”

All three adults were crying. Wanda swallowed hard as she stood, approaching Donna. One hand brushed her temple as the Sokovian’s kind blue eyes turned scarlet. The protector did not resist as the weary pair sank into the recesses of Donna Strange’s mind.

Wanda Maximoff was facing Stephen Strange now, the last of her tears dried from her face as the pair faced each other in an orchard replete with trees in full bloom. Her heart lifted as she watched the woman with braided red hair snip a fresh flower branch for the taller man to sniff. Yet there was a tension in their gait that underlied their smiles, even when they laughed. And now she had let him walk far ahead as an apology to Stephen fled her lips.

And now that ethereal orchard was transforming into a veritable hellscape, curlicues of flame claiming the trees as their own as the Scarlet Witch showed Stephen Strange the Darkhold. And now any vestige of sympathy he had had for that woman who had succumbed to grief faded into unyielding anger as she attempted to bridge the distance between them, tried to explain and reason, yet the gulf was too wide now. Her advances were rejected, and a threat was issued from her crimson lips. The fractured pair’s faces set, hardening misunderstanding when it was they alone who should have understood each other when they had lost everything.

And now the tragic pair was flying in midair, the wizard before his territory as the Scarlet Witch’s eyes filled with tears. The sorrow of what she had to do was running like a knife even within the present-day Wanda, making her tremble, and then her magic was striking him squarely in the chest, white hot. Yet his shield rippled until it broke, and now she was chasing him in a plume of flame, destroying nearly everyone he loved. Time and time again they met, locked in bitter battle without resolution. And then every universe was shattering, lined with the bleeding crimson edges of her crimson magic as a lonely Wanda lingered on.

Her Stephen had died in that timeline at her own hands, his world extinguished.

Wanda was returning to earth now, sobbing as she held Donna in her arms. Another broad familiar hand worked through her hair, beginning to calm the shell-shocked young lady. Stephen’s fingers had been linked through hers, and he had seen the same visions as her.

“I’m s-sorry I made you relive it, Donna. The TVA was right--they should have ended me--you shouldn’t have t-taken me here. I wasn’t worth saving. I’m a danger to everyone here.” Wanda was crying again, gazing into the red-rimmed eyes of Donna Strange.

“I saw all of those things before I held you in my arms for the first time. And yet…I knew I was making the right choice, saving you. Do you know why?” Wanda shook her head, her head resting on Donna’s shoulder as all of the Stranges hugged her. “I knew you wouldn’t be growing up in Hydra. I knew you would have a loving home where you would feel safe and no one would ever try to hurt you. No Mind Stone. No experiments. No prison. Was there a risk in taking you here? Yes. But I would take it again and again and again for every child I meet.”

“We took that risk with Kang, and he became a conqueror. He created the TVA, brick by brick. And he took most timelines for his own and tried to prune all the rest. The reason…the reason we were afraid of sending our daughter into the fray was that we didn’t want her to make the same mistake of mercy. But mercy is never a mistake.” Vincent Strange was beaming now.

“But how? How can you know?” Wanda was looking up at him desperately now.

“By faith. But in your case, it was more than that. The fact that Stephen Strange can harness the power of the stars and you can control your own chaos for good are not coincidences. You met each other here, in a world beyond space and time. It was never in the plans of the TVA. Their eyes cannot travel here. But the Living Tribunal saw the simple hand of friendship save another child from a life of aimlessness and pain. And he blessed you for it.”

“It wasn’t even a question for me, even then.” Stephen breathed. “I didn’t want her to be hurt anymore. Not when she lost her family and her home when she was just a kid.”

“You both have good hearts.” Donna squeezed Wanda and Stephen’s hands. “Do you see it now, Wanda? You are no monster. You found a new home and a new life and turned away from what could have been. And even when I had those terrible visions…I had doubts. Even when a course is fixed, we can still make choices. And judging from the Wanda Maximoff sitting before me right now, you weren’t fated to be evil. The TVA got that wrong about you.”

“Thank you. For everything…thank you.” Wanda gave the family a tremulous smile. “Thank you for coming into my life and giving me Stephen.” She smiled as he pressed a kiss upon her cheek before turning to the aging Beverly and Vincent Strange. “We will continue your legacy. Me, Stephen, and Donna. Kang the Conqueror will answer for his acts someday.”

In one corner of the room, the photograph of Wanda and her parents fluttered to the ground, the entire picture restored and showing the trio’s brilliant smiles.

“Stephen…I really thought you would have been a bit more mature by now! Would you like me to turn you into an otter again?” Wanda Maximoff was zooming over the tiles now, her brown hair fluttering behind her as she lunged for her boyfriend. The 21-year-old’s ice-hued eyes crinkled mischievously behind him as he blew her a kiss, nearly causing the blushing woman to tumble from the air. No matter how many years she would date Stephen Strange, a part of her would never be able to believe all of the blessings he had lovingly bestowed.

“Everything has a purpose!” A bark of laughter traveled to her as he opened a flaming portal. She leapt through it, the edges of her cape perforated as she nearly missed the unusual means of transportation. Now she was lightly sending balloons all around him, which lightly buffeted the wizard. He laughed as he marveled at her reality-warping powers, which held some sway even here in the land beyond space and time. The young man raised his hands in mock surrender as she cornered him, standing upon her tiptoes as she searched his pockets.

“How can you--be so good--at hiding things?” She snapped, her cheeks pink.

“Every wizard knows a trick or two. This one’s my favorite.” Stephen Strange leaned forward, giving his girlfriend a warm kiss on the lips. As her blue eyes closed, the weight of her crown on her head was restored, the dulled edges resting against her cheeks. Her kind orbs opened once more, fixed intently upon him as he parted, a smile grazing his rugged face.

“Any more tricks up your sleeve?” Wanda asked, composure hers again once more.

“Just the one.” Stephen moved his hands in an unusual gesture, rather like her own dance-like movements. The floating balloons became flower petals, each lovingly brushing the svelte form of Wanda Maximoff and Stephen Strange. She inhaled, marveling at the scent.

“Stephen…that was so k--” One hand brushed the flowers away, raised before her face. The young lady’s lips parted wordlessly as she saw the delicate golden ring resting on her finger. The trembling hand rested against Stephen Strange’s chest, feeling the gentle weight of his heartbeat as tears leapt to her kind blue eyes. “How can…how could…how…?”

“...Can I marry you?” He finished for her, a slight teasing in his tone even as genuine fear flashed in those pale gray eyes for the shortest of seconds. The long sloping forehead rested against the Sokovian as his sonorous voice lowered to a whisper. “Will you stay with me?”

“Forever and ever and ever!” Wanda leapt into his arms, holding her fiance tightly as the fingers of one hand wandered through his slicked-back black hair. Now his tears were mingling with hers now as he gave her a full kiss for the first time in his life, his heart lifting as he felt the beginnings of a wedding band formed around his finger. The metal cooled, now a part of him.

I will always love you, Wanda Maximoff. For today and tomorrow and all time.