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The day started for Wanda like every other day did. The sun was shining and the birds were singing when Wanda woke up that morning into her black and white world, in the small and inconspicuous town of Westview, where nothing special ever happened.
Or at least, that’s how Wanda wished it had started.
No, the truth was that it wasn’t morning, the sun wasn’t shining, the birds weren’t singing and a lot of things happened in Westview. A whole lot of things that had the nasty tendency of happening in the middle of the night. Tonight it was an inhumanly loud shriek, apparently. And really, couldn’t loud noises pick a better time to just mysteriously happen around here? Was one night’s sleep so much to ask?
“Vision?” Wanda mumbled sleepily, closing her eyes again tightly as she allowed her only thought to be a derisive: Nope. Not tonight.
She tried to figure out if wrapping her head with her pillow like a human burrito would lessen somewhat the noise. It didn’t. But it did manage to almost stop the acute pain when in her desperation her head hit the metallic headboard that she was 78% sure hadn’t been there when she’d gone to sleep.
Almost.
Small victories, Wanda. Small victories.
“Hm?” Vision mumbled, barely audible between the screaming, the metallic clanking and the sound of a monkey playing the cymbals her concussed brain had decided to throw into the mix as punishment. She didn’t think she was allowed to curse, but oh how she wanted to right about now.
“Will you go and check what the noise is, please darling?” she said in the most pleasant 2am —4am? 5am? Oh please let it be a semi-reasonable hour this time—, post-light-head-trauma voice she could muster. Which she was sure had been in no way nearly as pleasant as she had intended.
But Vision’s answer was merely more than a whisper as he turned in bed, shuffling deeper into the covers.
“What n’se?”
And that was when Wanda’s eyes snapped open. Which did nothing in terms of what she could see —why did it have to be the middle of the night, why— and did nothing for the growing concussion. In retrospect, a stupid move. But it had felt like the right thing to do, at the moment. Because loud noises that only she could hear usually meant only one thing:
Nothing good.
And of those types of things, it was better that Vision knew nothing. So, without making a sound she got up and grabbed her robe from the armchair, draping it across her shoulders in a delicate motion, and oh— was her hair longer now? Oh it was so soft, how lovely. Something to look forward to, then, once she’d dealt with whatever was happening. And slept for 12 more hours. Yes.
She navigated her house in complete darkness, not wanting to risk waking Vision. She didn’t need the lights to go through her house, though. She knew the hallways and stairs like the back of her hand. Or maybe, the house knew her.
Oh geez she needed more sleep.
The sounds led her outside, out of her door and to the left, where the world was as lightless as inside. How was that even possible? Were there no streetlights in Westview? Not at this hour, apparently. This hour was off-schedule, and meddling forces should learn to respect schedules. Was she asking for so much? Not even the moon seemed to be working at this hour— oh, no that were just the clouds. Still, she wouldn’t have blamed the moon if she’d decided to just stop working at this hour! It was a terrible hour! Dreadful!
But the screaming did not stop despite her angry thoughts being channeled in its direction. Bogus. She was getting near though, she could feel it. The volume was increasing, and increasing, and increasing until—
She reached a door. A wooden, white door. Much like her own. She had never been to this house before, but she knew exactly who it belonged to. Who lived exactly in the house two numbers down from her.
“Agnes?” she called, knocking on the door as strongly as she could. All she could hear were the screams.
With all of her senses alert and her magic vibrating in her fingertips, she opened the door, cautiously taking a step inside.
“Agnes?”
Something shattered in the distance. Some things . Plates, most definitely plates, but there were heavier things too. Could that— could that have been the fridge?!
Was she in danger? Was someone attack—
“Wanda dear!” Agnes sing-songed from somewhere further inside the house, which was even darker than the street outside. Almost unnaturally dark.
Like walking into a wolf’s den.
If the wolves were in the habit of full-on screaming at night for apparently no life-threatening reason and held a personal grudge against china.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, and Wanda could hear her comically big smile in her voice, even if what followed those sweet words was most certainly a chair being blown to bits on impact.
Wanda was not awake enough for whatever it was that was happening here right now.
“You were screaming?” was apparently what decided to come out of her mouth, despite her every braincell just screaming whywhywhywhywhy the f —
“Well darling, as much as I pride myself on being quite the screamer, I don’t think” —smash— “that you would have been able to hear me” — smash, smash, smash — “all the way from your lovely home, neighbor!”
And she was right, of course. Any normal person wouldn’t. Vision hadn’t. But Wanda had, apparently. But why? How?
“Anyway—” Wanda jumped. Soft hands had clasped hers, warm and smooth. Hands that should have been at the other side of the house busy destroying every in-range piece of furniture. How had she gotten here so fast? And quietly?? “Since you so kindly came to check up on me, I can’t in good conscience let you leave without offering you a little something. As a thank you!”
Another plate shattered. It shouldn’t have been able to, with both of Agnes’ hands wrapped around hers. Should it? Definitely not. Probably. Maybe.
“Oh Agnes, I don’t want to impose…” Because that’s what you say to politely decline your neighbor in the middle of the night while she’s in the middle of a rampant destructive rage, wasn’t it?
It wasn’t.
“Oh nonsense! You could never impose anything on anyone !” Which was a perfectly normal thing to say, Wanda was sure. Probably. Maybe. “Come on, darling. Sit.” And before she could protest, she was being unceremoniously seated in what she supposed had to be a chair. She still couldn’t see past the end of her nose. Mercifully though, no shards of anything had found their way to the seat. Which seemed like a miracle all of its own.
Small victories, Wanda. Small victories.
“So, Wanda, what can I get for you? Coffee? Tea?”
“Uh...” Wanda pondered her options. Which one would get her out of here and back in bed faster? She could hear Agnes already shuffling away towards the kitchen. What she supposed —hoped— was the kitchen, anyway. “Uhm, te—”
“Oh Wanda, what a great idea! Yes, I also think we both deserve something stronger. Vodka it is then!”
Or that, yeah.
Great .
She wasn’t getting out of here any time soon.
Defeated, Wanda let her head fall into her hands. At least, the screaming had stopped, she realised. Which didn’t mean the headache was going to be any less massive in the morning. She could feel it already forming at the edges of her mind. And alcohol was definitely not going to help. Or maybe the alcohol would make it go away? Two wrongs made a right, didn’t they? Yes, she was sure she’d heard that somewhere, applied precisely in this context. For sure.
At least, the lack of light did not make it worse.
Whatever she did, though, she felt like she couldn’t address the elephant in the room. That could certainly lead to nothing good. They were just two friends having a drink at night while one of them absolutely wasn’t busy destroying every last bit of her h—
“So, uhm, Agnes,” Wanda said, because everyone knows she has no self-preservation instincts whatsoever. “Can I ask…” How could she phrase: ‘why are you going full Bruce Lee on your furniture?’, ‘wouldn’t you just rather I leave you to deal with whatever this is alone?’ and ‘if you are going to go insane, could you do it at a more reasonable hour?’ “ …why .”
“Well darling, today’s just one of those days,” Agnes said in her unnaturally cheery voice, completely discordant with the furious chopping of a knife. Wait, why was she chopping ?! “You know, sometimes a girl just needs to do some remodeling, if you get my drift.”
Wanda did not. She most certainly did not at whatever fraggling hour this was supposed to be. Not at this dangabbit, geez Terwilligers f—
“Oh?” she said instead, putting her cold hands in front of her eyes— and oh, that was good, actually. She applied a bit more pressure. Very good.
“Yeah, you know! One of those days in which your whole understanding of yourself comes crumbling down because the universe thinks it funny to reveal that your soulmate is a random white male walking down the street at 1am when you are quite positively a lesbian! And have been for hundreds of years, in fact! Very lesbian, not just a bit! A religious practicant. Certified professional. Nearly burned at the stake for it a couple of times, but what else is new. Ironic that that’s the crime they would choose, but okay. If that’s the hill they chose to die on. Quite literally, may I add.” And here she chuckled good-naturedly, and so did the audience.
Wanda would get it too, she was sure. She just needed a few more minutes of cold to her brain to make it work. She heard Agnes sit somewhere near her with almost too much energy, and the soft clank of glass against the table. Just one more minute then, one more.
“Don’t you just hate it when that happens, dear?”
Wanda, with no amount of well-concealed bitterness, realized her time was up. Plastering on her best smile, she pushed her head up and nodded enthusiastically. Oh yeah, she totally got that. She hated it too when your understanding of yourself came crumbling down because—
Wait, what ?!
Her eyes snapped open for the second time that night. This time, at least, apart from the dramatic effect of it it served her to see too. The moon had come out since they’d last been open, and bathed in its white light Wanda could see Agnes sitting across from her, with that large smile of hers that always seemed to have too many teeth. Always so bright. Her hair was long now, she noticed, falling in a silky cascade across her left shoulder. It looked, somehow colder? Not the hair, mind, but, the light? Something in the light was not right. Not in the hair, she was quick to repeat —to herself, because apparently she needed herself to know—. The hair was lovely. She liked it. It looked good on her, as did the satin black robe she wore over her… was that lace?
Which was not what she should be focusing on right at this instant. Come on, Wanda.
“But… you’re married?” Which she felt should not have been her first thought either, but… baby steps.
Agnes’ smile didn’t falter. If possible, it seemed to brighten even more. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything, dear.”
Wanda felt like she was missing something here. Something big. “…To a man?”
“And?”
Well, she couldn’t argue with that logic. “Alright then.”
Agnes’ eyes focused on her then and Wanda thought she saw something, a swirling motion of… something she couldn’t quite place. She thinks Agnes might have been talking —Agnes was always talking—, but Wanda didn’t hear a thing.
She’d never really considered it, what it would be like if your soulmate wasn’t a person that you’d want to be with. Or if it was a person you’d never see again. She’d always thought soulmates were supposed to have an impact. That was how it worked! It was there, in the word itself. A person who you would share your soul with, who you’d be bound to by something that no force could tear apart. Something stronger than the universe itself.
Or that’s what the old ladies back in Sokovia had said. Truth was… well, she didn’t know what the truth was, did she? But it was a nice story. Something to believe in, at least.
But she had seen people find their soulmate, and it always left a mark. Even if they didn’t want to be romantically involved with them in the end. Which had been known to happen. Platonic soulmates were definitely a thing. But this…
She was lucky, she supposed, to have no soulmate than to have… whatever the hell Agnes was having. Including the mental breakdown. Definitely. Probably.
You know what? She’ll take that drink now.
Or she would if she were able to see where it was.
Agnes might have caught her failing attempt to grab the glass, because she gasped dramatically, getting up from her seat.
“Oh dear! I am terribly sorry! Where are my manners? Having you here sitting in the dark like some kind of prisoner . Ugh, forgive me, I sometimes forget that not all people have as good an eyesight as me. It’s almost magically good, if you know what I’m saying.” And here she winks, exaggeratedly. Wanda doesn’t see it because she still can’t see a thing, but the audience laughs, so it must have been really something. “I think it might be because of all the carrots. I have three cupboards full of them, and only one’s for the rabbit!”
And with an over-the-top flick of her wrist, she turned on the lights. Which were bright —too bright— after all that darkness. Wanda closed her eyes as a reflex. Agnes was still talking.
“The problem with heterosexuals…”
And Wanda did not know how the conversation had gotten there. She opened her eyes slowly, really determined to get that drink before she too went mad.
She never did, in the end. She didn’t think it would have helped though; she’d already gone mad. That had to be what was happening here.
Because the world was alight with color.
The walls and the floor and the table and her skin and her hair and everything, had become suddenly alive. Even the vodka and the glass had color that they stole from those objects whose light they reflected. Even the air… it seemed to vibrate.
Wanda had dreamed of this day since she was a small child watching sitcoms in a black and white room with her family, wishing to one day live in her own big colourful house with her husband who would love her very much. And oh, the shenanigans they would get up to. How happy they would be.
But that had never happened. Even when she had met Vision, her one, her world had remained in black and white. She’d tried, of course, to make it bend to her power, to make it shine with colors she oh so wished to be able to see and to feel. But the world had not budged, had not bent. Not for her. From her, it only took, and took, and took.
But she’d been able to live with her world devoid of color. It didn’t mean anything. She was fine. They were fine.
But now… now…
It shined. It shined… together with another’s world.
It shined because of Agnes.
Her glass shattered in her hand, the transparent liquor spreading in her hands and blending with the color of her skin. It was almost magical. And in the middle of her hand, there was a wound, dripping blood. It was… not how she’d expected blood to look like. Not so… vibrant. So alive. So—
“Oh, Wanda darling! Are you alright?” And Agnes was at her side, dramatically gasping at the wound in her hand. Agnes, alight with colors that she couldn’t even begin to describe. “Oh dear. That doesn’t look good. What happened? Looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”
And oh how she wished she had. How she wished she had seen —was seeing— anything but what she actually was.
This had to be a joke. A very, very bad joke.
And again, for the second time that night, she had only one clear, distinctive thought:
Nope .
And with a flick of her wrist, everything was back to black and white. The whole house changed too, and her hair and her clothes and Agnes— oh, shuzzbutt, Agnes was seeing her do magic. But Agnes… she didn’t look scared or horrified. She looked fascinated by it, watching her with something like… Something like…
You know what, she would deal with that later.
For now, all that mattered was getting this right, this time.
Because something had gone wrong, that much was clear.
But when she flicked her wrist again, which glowed in a very distinctive bright color, which was— later, Wanda!— the world was once again back to its flashy chairs and glass doors and long hair and— color , so much color .
Oh no, no, no.
She put it back, then turned it again. Still, color. This was bad. Okay once again. Static buzz, black and white. Static buzz… Color.
Oh, son of a bucket.
Maybe if she went further ahead in the decades. Maybe there was something wrong with this one. The 70s, bad time in general. Yeah, that was it.
And with one static buzz, all the furniture turned from plaid to plain and hairs turned curly and wild and buzz again and hairs were shorter now and Wanda and the house was decorated with skeletons and what was that about? And then buzz and she had a bun and Wanda! and the table was now made of glass but everything still had so much color and how can it all have so much color oh no no no—
“Hey, Wanda!” Agnes’ hand was on hers suddenly, gripping her tight. “Stop that, darling. You’re only gonna hurt yourself.” But it wasn’t the force of her grip nor the glint in her eye that made Wanda obey, but her voice. It was different now. Deeper, darker. It made Wanda’s heart skip a beat.
But then, as soon as that voice had appeared and frozen her in place, it was gone. “Well, when I told you I was doing some redecorating, I wasn’t expecting you would take it upon yourself to help me quite so much, dear!” And Wanda, despite herself and the mounting anxiety building inside of her, laughed with her. Or perhaps it was exactly because of the anxiety that was one wrongly placed word away from overwhelming her. “Between you and me I think we’ve managed to make a mess of every last inch of the house.”
Wanda had the decency to look almost apologetic. She wasn’t, not just yet, but she almost looked like it. “I’m so sorry, Agnes.” You are my soulmate. Please disappear from my life and come back some time later, or never, actually. Preferably never. I really can’t deal with this right now. “I promise I’ll fix it.”
“Oh don’t be silly, darling. What kind of stereotypical housewife would I be if I wasn’t able to take care of hundreds of dollars worth of damage and some little magical time anomalies. I’ll be just fine. But you, Wanda. That hand! Let’s take care of it, shall we?”
And Wanda found herself nodding, letting herself be pulled towards the now-floral black sofa. Her brain had stopped assimilating new information a while ago, it seemed. It was too stuck on the soulmate part to process any of the rest. Which was why she missed how Agnes produced a first-aid kit almost from thin air. All Wanda could focus on was the color of that wound, dark but striking. A similar color to her magic. She wondered if it meant something.
But then Agnes took her hand in hers once more and slowly began bandaging it, breaking Wanda from her spell. The air smelled like lavender.
“So, buttercup. What’s eating you up? I’ve never seen you so rattled before,” Agnes said in her softest, sweetest tone.
And maybe it was just that she was tired —it was still very late, for Peter Rabbit’s sake—, or maybe it was that she couldn’t keep another secret on top of the ones she already carried, or perhaps… perhaps she just wanted someone who understood her with this, someone who would navigate this new world of vibrant color with her.
Perhaps she just selfishly wished to have someone who would always be bound to her, for better or for worse.
“It’s, uh… It’s… Did you know color TV became mainstream in the late 60s early 70s?”
Agnes laughed too brightly. “Well Wanda, I don’t know if you were paying attention during my fit of rage before, but that color thing is still a bit new to me, darling.”
“No! Yes— no, I mean… no.” Wanda took a deep breath, mentally pinching herself for being so horribly eloquent. “What I mean to say is… it’s new to me too. The colors, they…”
Wanda couldn’t bring herself to finish that sentence. She wasn’t sure she knew how it ended.
But Agnes did. Agnes was always one step ahead, it seemed. And her eyes… Her eyes searched her, looking for what Wanda did not know. But there was something behind them, something twisting in the depths. It made Wanda nervous. It made her heart beat faster. She couldn’t stop looking.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to, either.
“Oh well,” Agnes said in that deeper, sultrier voice, dramatically draping herself across the sofa. She took a long swing of a tall wine glass that appeared in her hand with a puff of smoke. “This is going to make my evil plans so much, much more fun.”
It took Wanda a beat.
“What the f—?!”