Chapter Text
Wanda was alone.
It was alright. She’d been alone before; she could do it again.
But it hurt so badly, so violently, that she couldn’t breathe. Everything had been ripped from her again, all because she couldn’t control her powers. She’d terrorized an entire town of people by accident. She supposed she deserved to be punished for that.
But still...
Could she not have this one modicum of peace without the world imploding to keep it from her? Was it so awful that she wanted a family? Children of her own? A lover who wouldn’t— couldn’t— leave? A world where there was no pain, just an eternal summer breeze even in the depths of winter and problems she could solve in a snap.
Thanos got his; why couldn’t she?
She wasn’t a villain. Whatever pain she had caused, it was never intentional. The citizens of Westview would never care, of course, and she couldn’t blame them. But if they had felt her pain, wouldn’t they understand? Wouldn’t they feel what she’d lost? They saw her nightmares. Couldn’t they see it? This was her fear: a life eternally alone. She didn’t want a life without Vision and now their children, the only pieces of that god-forsaken mistake that she wanted to keep.
Wanda didn’t want to hurt anyone. She just wanted her family back.
There weren’t many safe places for her left, but she knew of one. She’d kept the Darkhold—a gift parting from Agatha Harkness—and had begun to read it as she ran from the law. Her original plan was to go to Scotland; it was an easy hideaway to find, but the tiny hotel she and Vision had stayed in would give her enough time to find a better solution. But as she flipped through the pages of the Darkhold, she read of a hidden place where the author of the grimoire had stayed. She didn’t know where he’d gone after the book was finished, but there was a chance he was still there, and she needed to find him. She had so much to learn about her powers; she needed a teacher.
After weeks of searching, she found a tiny cabin situated at the edge of Wundagore Mountain, resting next to a lake. There were no runes—she checked—and no evidence that anyone had lived there in years, but there were a bed and working stove, and Wanda was so hungry and so tired that she didn’t care if it was another trap.
When she woke up the following day, she was still alive, and despite her growing longing for that to not be the case, she pushed herself out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen.
She put a kettle on, and her astral projection opened the Darkhold, practicing the short spells she trusted wouldn’t destroy the world.
This became her routine for the next two weeks. Wanda knew she could do more if she tried, but she was afraid of what might happen, so she confined her power to tiny, controllable bursts. She wanted to do it right this time. She didn’t know what she expected to come of it, besides the faint hope that she could fix what she’d broken and get her family back.
She lost that hope after a few days, but Wanda had always been stubborn at the best of times, so she kept going.
Her spirit paid off.
Eventually, tiny rifts in her reality began to shimmer; nothing as big or unruly as the Hex, but little breaks she could control. If she concentrated hard enough, she could peer through them. What she saw on the other side remained fuzzy, but she wouldn’t stop going until whatever it was came into focus.
Finally, finally, she could hear something on the other side. It was her children, her beautiful, tragic, powerful children, and they were screaming out for her because somewhere out there, they were in pain, and she—
She wanted them back.
She needed to get them back.
Vision was dead. Her children were dead... except they were alive somewhere, and she needed to find them. They needed her to protect them.
She was alone. Everything was gone.
But what if it wasn’t?
What if she changed it for good this time? And what if no one had to hurt for that to happen?
A being of spontaneous creation...
Agatha had taught her many things, including to look beneath the surface. Yes, she could create things on her own, but that creation came with consequences. But what if she could make a rift between her world and another? If she could form tiny breaks, she could form bigger ones. If she could see through to other universes, she would surely be able to pass through them, too. And if she could hear her children, she could find them.
Besides, she thought. A name like Scarlet Witch should be put to good use.
She opened the Darkhold and flipped to the chapter on the Multiverse. Carefully pushing her chaos magic forward, she peeled back layers of her reality until another small rift opened. After a moment of hesitation, she pushed her hand through.
A crack in the fabric of her universe opened, and Wanda climbed inside.
~
Everything was black.
Wanda tried to see through the never-ending darkness, but her eyes wouldn’t focus. Something was very wrong. When she’d climbed through the rip in time and space, she had been walking towards the blurry outlines of her children, but they were nowhere to be found.
“Billy? Tommy?” she called into the nothingness. Her voice didn’t echo as she’d expected. It was like the surrounding blackness was absorbing every sound she made. It was suffocating. “Where are you?”
“They are not here, little one,” a voice cut through the darkness. It echoed.
Wanda’s magic crackled inside her, but she couldn’t summon any despite her best efforts. “Who are you? Where are my children?”
“Your boys are safe.” Wanda tried to throw a ball of energy, but none would come. “You have much to learn, witchling. You need someone to teach you.”
“You know,” Wanda said, struggling to move through the nothingness towards the rift she’d made in the universe. “I’ve had a lot of people telling me that over the past month. I think I’d rather be self-taught from here on out.”
The voice chuckled. “Ah, yes. Agatha Harkness tried to ‘help’ you, didn’t she? You left her trapped inside her own mind. A tragic fate, to be sure.”
Wanda grimaced. “It was deserved.”
“Was it?” the voice questioned. Another, smaller rift opened next to her. On the other side was Agatha, now Agnes, laughing with her new neighbors. As she turned away, Wanda saw a tear run down her face. “Does anyone deserve this?”
“She hurt my children,” Wanda reasoned more to herself than whoever else was there with her.
“Right, your children. Those little figments of your imagination brought to life by chaos magic. You know, they should’ve died when your barrier fell. Vision did. Then again, he was prepared to rest finally. Your children had barely begun to live; they fought so hard before they left...”
Wanda had almost reached the crack leading back to her world, but she halted. “Where are they? What have you done with them?!” she screamed into the nothingness.
“I haven’t done anything with them. They are safe, as I said, but if you want to reach them, you must be willing to learn.”
“Why? Why can’t you give them back now?”
“It isn’t that simple. They aren’t real, Wanda. If you want them back, you must be prepared to work for them.”
Wanda glared at the dark. “I would do anything for those boys.”
“Good,” the voice quipped. “Then you won’t mind if I close this pesky rift, would you?”
She looked into her world. There was nothing left for her in that reality anymore. All she wanted was her family, and she didn’t care what she had to do to get them back.
“Close it, then,” she barked.
The only way back to her universe closed, and she was left in complete darkness.
“Before we begin our lessons, I must do some research.”
“Wha—?”
Wanda’s body lurched forward as the darkness around her blurred to light. Suddenly, she was surrounded by trees, sunlight filtering through their leaves up above.
“Where are we, Wanda?” the voice mused.
She shook her head, stepping into a clearing in front of her. “I thought you brought me here. I don’t—“
She stopped short. Standing in front of her was herself, and the new Wanda was standing in front of a kneeling Vision. He said something to her, and she shook her head.
“No,” Wanda whispered, but she couldn’t stop it. She stood frozen as her fellow Avengers fought off an advancing Thanos.
She stood frozen as Vision died for nothing.