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"It'll be ok, babies," Wanda said in order to calm her sons Billy and Tommy. So much for keeping it real with them and their inherited 'tough skin'. Their scared faces looked at her, straining against the magical thread as thin as the thread Wanda was running on. Pulling them back towards Agnes... Agatha... the witch. She certainly fit the role as well as any other she had played in Westview. Each step Wanda took towards her children brought them further towards the dark witch. She almost seemed protective of them as Wanda let her powers flow through her fingers. The witch should be afraid of her: she had stupidly left her basement of endless doors, her runes, and her... fundamentals behind. She was in Wanda's town now.
It's not yours.
Her magic pulsed at the thought of the butcher's words to her. As easily fit to anything as to her husband. Anything in her life. Her twins struggled further against the evil witch's hold as the witch monologued.
They're not yours.
Wanda was their mother. They were her children, she gave birth to them from her body, on her floor, in her house, in her town, with her husband.
He isn't yours.
Never. He was nobody's but his own.
She is a mother. A wife. A normal, everyday citizen of Westview. With powers. Her powers she hides. Magic? The witch just said chaos magic. A witch who has magic that felt familiar yet sickeningly wrong in power as it washed over her just a different color. No, not magic, just powers given by some glowy rock she was experimented on by a terrorist organization. The rock's powers lent and living in her. Pulsing and breathing in her mind and veins. The powers manifesting not in either color iteration the stone that had killed so many and yet she it felt bathe her in indescribable warmth. Maybe red was just her color.
The butcher's whisper didn't have anything to say about her claiming a color, maybe the butcher found it as trivial as herself. At least it was something.
"You are the Scarlet Witch," the witch declared with righteous indignation.
I am. And I am yours.
That was not the butcher.
"And if I am? What shall you do if you stand in my way?" The mother's voice wavered, unused to threats, still raw from the recently relived reruns. Wanda could play the mother. Her magic pulsed stronger despite her apprehension. "Give them back. Give my children back to me."
"Honey, no," the witch said pedantically. As if the mother were the child.
"Mom!" Billy and Tommy yelled. Billy's voice reverberated in her mind. She was their mother and she would defend them with all of her power.
Not yours.
Ours
"Wanda." The mother looked up at the witch to escape the butcher's repeated claim. Heart beating against her chest, her neck, her ears and the flowing of supercharged energy between her subconsciously moving fingers ebbing and flowing through her veins.
"You know what I am, who I am," mother, mother, mom. "What's preventing me from destroying you now that I'm out of your basement?"
The witch looked pityingly upon her, like when she suggested just being herself with Dottie.
"I showed you what will happen if you try to kill me Wanda. I am the black hole to your supernova. You are a dying star, uncontrollably destroying everything within an ever growing emotional radius, whereas I..." the witch's eyes bled purple with a chuckle. "I am everlasting, continuously consuming everything that gets in her way."
With a twist of the witch's wrists she pulled the twins towards her and pulled a whimper from the mother.
"These little gremlins are just manifestations of your powers; nonetheless, they're good leverage."
"No," the mother replied with power bleeding into her voice as much as into her palms.
Nothing happened. Her children were still struggling against the purplish black magic of a 300+ year-old witch in the middle of the street of suburban New Jersey.
"Oh, dearie me, looks like our little blast to the past threw a wrench into the works. Now that you've finally caught up on the previous seasons we can start streaming this live ad-free without worrying about you fumbling with the remote control." The witch floated back to the ground and placed her hands on the twins' heads, the purple strings never slacking from around their necks. "Nothing to keep you from confronting that you conceived, grew, and birthed twins within a day, aged them up twice in five year increments, and let them have superpowers in a sad pastiche of yourself and your long lost brother.
The witch was gleeful as she spat shot after shot of long-held bitterness, knowing Wanda's mind was far too present to argue against the fantasy around her. She had to act fast before Wanda went full defense mechanism again.
"Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."
"What?"
"Hard way," the witch's voice turned cold as her hands in the mother's children's hair started digging into their heads. "You do something stupid, we fight, I kill these precious little tigers, you go even more crazy and blast me full force. I take it all, you die, I leave, and continue on my merry little way like nothing happened."
The magic in the mother's veins twisted further around her finger's almost possessively clutching at her. The witch chuckled as she tracked the movements.
Ours
"Easy way," the witch said without missing a beat. "You do the responsible thing give me your magic. I negate a threat to the universe, world, and most importantly New Jersey while all giving myself a power boost to last a few centuries."
"Won't that kill me too? Like your mother?"
"I've learned enough control since that little indiscretion so you, most likely no guarantees, won't die and get to move on with your life footloose and fantasy free." The witch looked the mother hard in the eyes. "Vision will fade though, and these munchkins? Well... to be honest I'm not entirely sure what'll happen. The odds aren't good though, you haven't yet fully grasped the extent of your creative abilities and only have succeeded in test runs."
A flicker of sadness on the witch's face.
"You will be able to grieve fully without fear."
The mother looked both of her... children in the eyes. Born just days ago. Already so important to her and a part of her to her core. So much more than her. They were pleading for their mother to save the day.
And Wanda didn't know what to do.