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This is the shape of Wanda Maximoff’s mind:
A nucleus of pulsing red, splashed across with sparks of life and love. That one there, shooting through her consciousness in endless movement, ever present but never slowing down--even here, Pietro cannot be made still. Those two, locked in orbit, forever tied to each other and forever in Wanda’s thoughts, look how bright her children shine. This constellation the Avengers, that one the X-Men, this star Lorna, that one Father, loved ones everywhere you look but, more days than not, when Wanda reaches, she cannot
touch them.
The red is rich and bloody and feels like home, but Wanda Maximoff of all people should know that home doesn’t always feel safe. There, on the edges, her Scarlet blurs and blends into the black, swirling, seeping,
is she seeping away
or is the darkness seeping in
...either way, she loses herself.
Orient yourself by the stars. They will light the way. They will guide you back.
“You must clear your mind, Wanda,” Doctor Strange says.
Wanda’s mouth twists. He doesn’t mean to be patronizing, she knows. It’s just who he is, and she must let it go.
He is, after all, one of her stars too.
(Although. Not the brightest, not the closest, not her first to reach for. But. Still.)
“I’m trying, Stephen,” she says, she lies, because there are things that even the Sorcerer Supreme cannot seem to understand, like:
when the stars go out and the Witch’s mind is made bare, all that the clarity reveals is
chaos
you are nothing, says the black
you are a god, says the black
you could be anything if only you’d try, says the black
and it bubbles with contradictions and convictions and in her heart, Wanda knows it’s all her.
And the world is no more ready for Wanda’s chaos than it was for Chthon’s, so she lies to Stephen Strange, and he sighs, and in her mind’s eye, his star flickers.
“Are you sure you don’t want to let me--”
“No,” Wanda says, and that is that.
*
She asked Billy, once.
“Magic is a wonderful gift,” she had said, at a corner table in a little tea shop, with her son picking apart a scone across from her, “but it can also be… tumultuous.”
“How do you mean?” Billy had asked.
“I mean that power like ours can sometimes be… overpowering,” Wanda had said, and she’d looked down at the dredges of her tea and then shut her eyes when she’d started to see things. She looked back at her son because really, why would she ever look away? “I wonder if you’ve ever felt--that is, I want you to feel that you can talk to me, if…”
“It’s okay, Wanda,” Billy had said, all patience and sweetness and understanding, and gods, she loved him, and gods, she hated herself.
Let him guide you. Find your way back. Don’t stop reaching out. “Do you ever feel as if your... magic... could overcome you?”
And Billy had laughed and said, “I wish my magic could overcome me,” and then Wanda had had something much more important to talk to him about.
She never tried bringing the rest of it up again.
*
There is a dead star in Wanda’s galaxy, right at the heart of an X-shaped constellation. It used to be gold, and so beautiful that Wanda would melt just to look upon it.
Now it’s a black hole, and Wanda dreads its gravity.
you’re in love with an idea, it whispers
you’re in love with a memory, it whispers
it whispers, you’re in love with a ghost
And Wanda concedes the point and turns away, because she had already realized long ago that that star, dead or alive, wasn’t hers to touch.
Goddess, she never even tried.
*
Wanda Maximoff dreams every night of chaos, until one night she dreams of a white hot room.
It is blank. Empty, perfect order. Is this what clarity looks like?
“I don’t think I belong here,” Wanda says, to nothing.
“Don’t be silly, Wanda,” says Jean Grey, from nothing. “You’re always welcome.”
She smiles, and for a second Wanda thinks this is what clarity looks like, and then she realizes she must have gone insane again, and panics, and the room disappears.
*
There is a black hole in Wanda’s heart, but sometimes, if she catches it from the right angle, it looks like it could be something else.
*
“Is this Jean Grey?” Tommy asks, holding up an old photo. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”
Wanda’s heart aches, but she smiles and takes the photo. It is agony and joy to see again, at once. Her mind, her heart, always in chaos.
“A long time ago,” Wanda says, and hands the photo back to Tommy. “She was very kind to me.”
“You were in love with her?” Luna asks, not even looking up from the box of mementos she was given to look through.
“Luna,” Pietro says, horrified, and gives Wanda a more intensely apologetic look than she’s generally known him to manage for his own offenses.
Wanda just shrugs. “Everyone was in love with Jean Grey.”
“I wasn’t,” Lorna yells from down the hall.
“Forgive me, I exaggerated,” Wanda says. “Only most people were in love with Jean Grey.”
Lorna leans into the room and points at Tommy. “Your mom just rolled her eyes at me, didn’t she?”
Tommy nods. “One hundred percent.”
“Look!” Luna says, clapping her hands together. “She’s doing it again!”
“Yes, please, all of you take Wanda’s eyerolls for a day. I desperately need a break.”
“Shut up, Pietro,” Wanda says, and hexes his general vicinity.
*
There’s a difference, remember, between Wanda’s mutation and her magic.
Her hex bolts are probability-altering.
Her spells are probability-abolishing.
Change the rules. Destroy the rules. This is the difference.
Her hexes come from evolution, from growth, from the realization of inborn potential and the natural power of becoming what you were always meant to be. Mutant, nexus, witch--Wanda is Wanda, and hexes come from her and only her.
Chaos magic comes from somewhere (someone, something) else.
No mentor or grimoire could teach her to control it, you see, because none of the rules can touch her.
*
“Wanda,” Jean says. “It’s lovely to see you again.”
“You look like Hope,” Wanda says, because she never met this Jean, no, but she does recognize this Phoenix.
Jean covers her mouth with an exaggerated gasp. “Oh, Wanda, I never knew you felt that way!”
“That’s not what I meant,” Wanda says, and she tries to look away from Jean, but she is the only thing in the room. Jean at the center of the universe, and nothing else exists but them.
It always used to feel like this. Now it feels like a mockery.
“I’m sorry,” Jean says. “Is this better?”
Wanda looks back to Jean, and the gold and white outfit is replaced by a more familiar one of yellow and black.
It’s not better, but Wanda lets it go without comment.
“I’ve missed you,” Jean says.
Wanda asks, “Have you?”
Jean smiles ruefully. “No. To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I felt anything.”
“I can’t stop feeling,” Wanda says.
“You shouldn’t want to.”
Wanda gives her a sharp look. “You weren’t there, Jean.”
“No, I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
Jean sighs. “You should just let me lie to you, Wanda. It will be better.”
“I can take it. I have a lot of experience with hard truths.”
“You’ve changed so much,” Jean said, head tilted. “The way you talk now, I barely recognize you.”
Wanda snorts. “I speak American very good now, no?”
Jean smiles. “I loved that accent, though.”
“Your countrymen did not.”
“They’ll never stop wanting to change you, Wanda,” Jean says. “If you’re going to change, do it for yourself.”
She touches Wanda’s arm, and it feels no different than it would if they were on Earth, and Jean were alive, and nothing had ever changed.
“I’m a nexus being, Jean,” Wanda says, and draws her cape around herself. “I live to change.”
Wanda turns and walks away. There’s nowhere to go, but that’s never stopped her before.
*
“Have you experienced any… side effects,” Wanda says, testing each word carefully, “after our dispersal of the Phoenix Force?”
Hope laughs at Wanda through her mouthful of of coffee cake. “Side effects? Like what, reality-warping powers or the urge to go on an evil rampage across the universe?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of any strange dreams or notable emotional imbalance, but if you’re experiencing those other things, I would certainly like to know.”
“Nope,” Hope says. “Same old, same old.”
“‘Same old’ meaning, of course, running around the time stream and making trouble with X-Force.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Hope says, shoving another huge bite of pastry into her mouth. “Why d’you ask?”
“Hope, please, swallow and then speak.”
“Don’t dodge the question!” Hope says, pointing accusingly at Wanda and spewing crumbs onto the table.
Wanda winces.
Hope swallows. “Seriously, Wanda, is something going on with you? Because no offense, but I’d like some warning if you’re about to go all world-breaky on us again.”
“World-breaky,” Wanda says, kneading her temples. “No, nothing like that.”
“Alright,” Hope says. “Then just talk to me ‘cause we’re friends, and now I’m all worried about you.”
Wanda shakes her head. “You needn’t worry. I’m sure they’re just dreams.”
“Hm,” Hope says. “Fine. But tell me if something changes.”
“I will.”
“Good. New topic: Is that accent real? When did you start talking like that?”
*
Change. Chaos. Black and white and bloody red.
Wanda is losing control.
“You do not seem well, my dear,” her father says, quietly, when no one else could overhear them. “Can I help?”
Wanda shakes her head, and Erik frowns but lets her go.
When she closes her eyes, it will all fade away.
*
Jean sits with her in silence.
“You really don’t feel anything?” Wanda asks, eventually.
“I may have mischaracterized it slightly,” Jean says. “I feel things. I feel all of creation, actually.”
“You just don’t feel human,” Wanda says. She remembers the Life Force. She understands.
Jean doesn’t say anything.
“Could you ever have loved me?” Wanda asks.
Jean looks down, and her hair falls around her face, a curtain of fire between the two of them.
“I think you should leave,” Jean says, and Wanda almost laughs before letting the chaos take her.
*
This is the thing about Wanda Maximoff:
Sometimes, she gets angry.
And she doesn’t want to hurt anyone, she’s never wanted to hurt anyone
but sometimes she closes her eyes and the stars go out and all she can see is red
and if she wanted to she could run the whole world red
and she doesn’t want to hurt anyone but sometimes she does it anyway
and she can feel the darkness closing in around her with no one left to light the way, and she’s scared and upset and bleeding red, red, red,
and she’s alone
*
until she’s not.
*
“Nothing works the way it should with you,” Jean says.
Wanda laughs and wipes the blood from her mouth. “So I'm told.”
Jean frowns at her.
“So.” Wanda says. “Not dreams, then.”
“They were dreams, of a sort,” Jean says, and shrugs. “You know as well as any of us that dreams can be true.”
Wanda nods. “And now?”
“You needed to get out of the world.”
“I needed to get out of my mind.”
“Either. Both.” Jean waves a hand. “It's the same thing, isn't it?”
“Maybe for the Phoenix,” Wanda says. “Maybe for you.”
“For the Scarlet Witch too, I think,” Jean says, and smiles.
Wanda looks at the ghost of Jean Grey and thinks she has never felt so alone.
“I'm grateful to you for intervening, Jean,” Wanda says, and looks away, out into the endless, empty white, “but I need to leave now.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Wanda almost thinks that she sees Jean’s smile waver. Almost.
“Of course,” Jean says. When Wanda looks at her, she's still smiling.
*
Pietro cradles her head against his shoulder and whispers that everything will be alright, and Wanda remembers that she wasn't alone, has never been alone, but that doesn't mean there's nothing missing.
She lets herself cry in the safety of her brother’s arms and doesn't think about a thing.
*
Count back and start again. You loved her, you left her, she was gone.
She was gone, and you never even tried.
Wanda knows better than to waste her second chances, even if she’s slow to recognize them.
This time, she won't let go.
*
Black and yellow, white and gold.
Wanda skims her fingers over the surface of a dead star, and all at once it realights.
*
“Wanda,” Jean says, aghast. “What did you do?”
“I'm not entirely sure,” Wanda says mildly. “Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea?”
Jean stares at her. Wanda opts just to pour her a glass of water.
“I didn't mean to bring you here,” Wanda explains, once she's gotten Jean to drink some water and take a seat beside Wanda on the couch. “I suppose it makes some level of sense, though. If I could go to you, why shouldn't you be able to come to me?”
“Because I'm dead,” Jean says, voice flat.
“You are fire and life incarnate,” Wanda says, flicking her fingers in dismissal. “You can't really die.”
“Either way, I shouldn't be here.”
“Well,” Wanda says, “nothing works the way it should with me.”
Jean rolls her eyes but her mouth quirks up at the side, and Wanda’s heart flutters.
“You seem more yourself today,” Wanda says, leaning back against the arm of the couch.
Jean looks at her, amused. “So do you.”
“Yes, well.” Wanda tucks a stray curl of hair behind her ear, looking away. Blushing, probably. “It's all thanks to you.”
“You too,” Jean says. She bites her lip. “Ever since you first came to see me, I've been feeling less and less like the White Phoenix and more and more like Jean Grey. Everything was so clear, and then it wasn't.”
“Well, making a mess of things is my specialty.”
Jean frowns.
“I'm sorry,” Wanda says.
“No, don't be.”
They sit in silence, awkward, until Jean says, “We made a good team, didn't we?”
Wanda smiles. “Yes, Marvel Witch struck fear into the hearts of petty criminals far and wide.”
“Well, we were young.”
Wanda nods. “I tremble to think what manner of chaos we would sow now.”
“Not just chaos, though,” Jean says. “Right? Your chaos, my order. Isn't that the point?”
“You assume there is a point. Child of chaos that I am, I remain unconvinced of that.”
Jean shakes her head. “We are women of extremes, Wanda. If we can't succeed in balancing ourselves, maybe we can still hope to provide balance for each other.”
“Nice idea, Jean,” Wanda says with a sigh, “but you're forgetting something.”
“Am I?”
Wanda taps two fingers against the side of her head. “You don't know?”
“I won't read your mind without permission.”
“As far as I'm concerned, you have a standing invitation.” Wanda shrugs. “But no, I'd think you would know either way. I've never been terribly subtle.”
Jean’s eyes widen. “Oh, Wanda. Still?”
Wanda smiles humorlessly. “Always.”
“You mentioned it in the Room, I know, but I didn't think.” Jean frowns, eyes cast down to her hands. “I mean, Wanda, you never…”
“I'm aware.” Wanda pauses. “In my defense, I do think you had enough people vying for your affections as it was.”
“I could have stood one more. If it were the right person.”
Wanda closes her eyes. “Please don't toy with me, Jean.”
“I'm not,” Jean says, “I'm not toying with you.”
Wanda looks at Jean, who seems almost to be shrinking into herself. Uncharacteristically self-conscious.
“I want you to know how I feel,” Jean says. “But I don't know how to tell you.”
Swirling red and black and a scattering of stars. “I understand.”
“Wanda,” Jean says. “Truly.”
“You're here,” Wanda says, and kicks her feet up onto the couch, hooking them just the slightest bit possessively across Jean’s knees. “I'm trying. The rest will follow.”
“I don't think that's how it works,” Jean says, but she settles her hand onto Wanda’s calf.
Wanda pillows her head against the side of the couch and lets her soft red love flow out into the golden feeling between them. “All the better then.”