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She was so close. She was so close!
Her boys, her beautiful baby boys, so close she could touch them. Everything she'd been working for—in spite of everything everyone had thrown at her—was here. Love and pure relief threatened to overwhelm her, for she stood before her two boys.
But something was wrong.
They recoiled away from her—away from their mother, who loved them more than life itself—screaming at her.
"It's the witch!" Billy cried, tumbling over the couch.
Wanda stepped forward to see if he was alright, but Tommy leapt between them, throwing random objects at her. "You're not our mom!"
She didn't understand—even as they screamed and cried, and cowered behind the stairs. Tommy whimpered, "Don't hurt us!"
Bafflement."I—I'm not going to hurt you." Did they seriously think she would hurt them? That she even could hurt them?
Still, her sons trembled like leaves in the wind, looking up at her with an expression, an emotion Wanda could not place. It raised their brows, widened their eyes, shook their bodies. It was an expression she did not understand.
Why are they looking at me like that?
She peeked into their minds.
FEAR.
It dominated their minds, permeated every inch of their souls. It was a visceral, inhuman fear—fear of the demon which stood before them.
Her.
It rushed in upon her all at once.
Like the overflow of a river, Wanda felt equal parts horror, revulsion, and self-loathing, all threatening to spill over her. The burden of self-deception had grown too heavy, and now she understood. She had changed, and changed completely under her own nose.
She had killed—no, she had murdered. Innocent people, who'd committed the crime of doing what was right. She had wantonly delved deep into some of the darkest magics known to exist, desecrated reality itself and possessed fellow human beings, threatening the safety of entire universes.
Wanda stumbled back. There wasn't even a name for the flurry of emotions overwhelming her right now—it was fear and disgust and hatred and shame and regret and remorse and disbelief and—
Dear God, what have I done?
She'd murdered a parent—deprived a nameless child somewhere of their father. They would never see him smile again, never walk down the wedding aisle arm in arm, never again ask for advice or support. Wanda recalled vividly watching his body tear into strands of flesh, relishing the man's scream of agony.
And I can't even remember his name.
Bile flooded her mouth, and she collapsed to her knees from the sheer weight of her actions, burning. She had never felt so low, so undeserving of mercy, of life, of joy.
Her eyes were wide and unseeing, fixed on a bloodstain on the beautiful hardwood floor. Blood on her hands. So much blood. So much red in her ledger. If Pietro or Vision or her parents could see her now, they would avert their eyes in shame and deny ever having known her.
She wished she could blame the Darkhold—claim that it had possessed her, corrupted her, twisted her beyond recognition into the beast she was today—the Scarlet Witch—but she could not. Wanda knew the book hadn't coerced her, it hadn't even encouraged her.
It enabled her.
Her sins were hers alone, and the grimoire had simply amplified the destruction she wrought. It provided the means to Dreamwalk, to conjure eldritch demons and monsters to pursue America, but it had not obligated her to do so. It led her to the water, but she was the one who heedlessly drank on.
Through her tear-blurred view of the broken house—a house she had broken—she could make out the figure of the other Wanda approaching her.
Please. I beg you. She knew it was Death who approached, come to belatedly end her reign of terror. She yearned for it with all her being—few could deserve it more than she. For the lives she had ended, like the man in the wheelchair, for the lives she had ruined, like the fatherless child she had created, and for the lives she had betrayed—Vision, Pietro, her parents, everyone who had looked at her and seen a good person. How wrong they were.
The other Wanda stood before her, and outstretched her hand. She closed her eyes, preparing for the flash of red as she used her magic.
Soft. Warm. Tender. The other Wanda set two fingers on her cheek, carefully caressing her. Wanda carefully opened her eyes, and peered up at her own face.
In a hard and sympathetic voice, she said, "Know that they will be loved."
Wanda quivered, feeling soothed in a way she knew she did not deserve.
She nodded haltingly, and managed to climb to her feet. She looked around at the wrecked suburban paradise, the paradise she had ruined. A million things to say came to mind, but all she managed was, "I—I won't bother you again. Ever. I'm so sorry."
Wanda stumbled into the portal, back in the stone tomb—because that was what it needed to become. Not a throne. A tomb.
She locked eyes with the dead Strange on the ground, and the denim-clad America Chavez, who was eyeing her warily.
Her heart broke—she had laid waste to one of her last remaining friendships, and brought misery upon an innocent girl who could not deserve it. Yet more atrocious acts on her newly resurrected conscience.
Wanda gasped, "Go."
She seemed to get the message. Another star-shaped portal appeared behind her, and America jumped in, taking care to close it quickly. Strange looked at her sadly, and she nodded.
Wanda spread her hands, and a burst of red energy—one final gasp of her crimson magic—flared out of the building as it broke, encasing the stone tower. She twisted violently, and the ceiling came down as the tomb began to seal.
"No one will ever be tempted by the Darkhold again." she told him. The chaos she had unleashed had been only made possible by the book, even if it hadn't been the cause. She closed her eyes, and visualized the Darkhold—all of them, scattered across countless universes. None could be allowed to exist. If she could do one good thing before she rid the world of herself, it would be eradicating the unholy text, cleansing the Multiverse of that blight.
She felt the stones crush her body, snapping bones and breaking skin.
A chunk of rock landed atop her head, and Wanda Maximoff knew no more.