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As soon as he neared his apartment complex, his senses started tingling: a buzz morphing into a keening whine, dread cooling his spine, anxiety scratching his stomach, clawing up his throat. Every step he took was graver than the last, and Peter knew whatever was behind his door—because of course it would be his door, Parker Luck could be so predictable—was evil incarnate.
Nevertheless, Peter was Spider-Man and Spider-Man never backed down from a fight, no matter the odds, no matter how strong, how dangerous, an opponent.
No matter the price.
He put his keys in the lock, turning it as casually as he could manage. Whoever was lurking behind the door could probably sense the act for its falseness, feigning normalcy.
The door opened: anticlimactic; mundane. Nothing out of the ordinary, here, no siree, thank you and goodbye.
But Peter's tingle knew better.
Gingerly, he entered his apartment, shoebox as it was.
“Hello?” he called, to his detriment.
His room went red, red, red: as bold as stop, as foreboding as the Sith, as thick as arterial blood.
Scarlet: beautiful disaster comprised of passion and fire and blood.
Witch.
“Hello, Peter,” she sang in his mind, and Peter freaked out.
Manly, of course. Obviously, very manly.
Peter's body went cold all over. His tingle screamed, said, this isn't a fight you can win.
The Scarlet Witch—the harbinger of Tony's darkest dreams; the nightmare just a second away from willing into being—materialised in Peter's lacklustre living space.
It was nothing compared to WandaVision, and yes, Peter watched the sitcom. He had a vested interest in the narrative. Vision was a programme of the highest order: an amalgamation of Vision and Ultron and the Mind Stone; willed into being by the Scarlet Witch.
True love's kiss personified.
Besides all that, Vision was his friend at the Compound. Peter wanted to know of his survival. When Tony was busy amending the world as he perceived it, Vision was always a welcome face there: a trainer, a teacher, a friend. He meant a lot to Peter.
Ergo: he would protect Wanda as best he could. In Vision's stead.
Wanda— not the Scarlet Witch. There was a difference. His tingle just needed more input in order to differentiate between the two.
The Scarlet Witch surveyed his shoebox apartment with mirthful disdain.
Peter resisted a huff. Rude.
“Spider-Man,” she said in greeting.
Peter responded in kind: “Scarlet Witch.”
Snarling, she bent the speed of light to her will, and snapped her jaws. She did not harm him. He felt that was important; a good sign.
“Can I help with you anything?” he asked, and yes, he was exceptionally proud of his steady voice, thank you for asking.
Instead of responding directly, the Scarlet Witch took up residence along his sofa—a sofa that cost way more than Peter had ever dreamed of spending, but no matter; he could find a way to stomach it. He always did.
“Isn't it funny?” she mused, something dark and gnarled pulling at her lips. “I was the kid on Team Cap, and you were the kid on Team Iron Man.”
“Now look at us,” Peter echoed, hollow, the word stripped of organs--one a legitimate mass-murderer, and the other illegitimate.
“Yes,” she replied after a beat, and he wondered whether she reached the same conclusion, grim irony lacing the realisation. “Look at us now.”
And this was exactly why Peter didn't like to dwell on past mistakes.
“I know what you did,” she whispered, apropos of nothing; a non-sequitur of the most magical order.
His mouth was dry: ash and dust coating his tongue.
“I know that you stopped Stephen Strange from sending back your multiversal villains because you wanted to help them.” Wanda paused at Peter's reticence, and he got the distinct feeling he was being analysed under her microscope; a hybrid specimen of a man and a spider. “Just as I know he loved you enough to let you get away with it.”
Peter's breath stuttered to a stop; overcome.
The Scarlet Witch smiled, then: tragic and wretched and melancholic all in one—a far cry from the girl Wanda Maximoff used to be, and said, “Help me.”
“Uh,” came Peter's expert opinion.
“Help you with what?” was the question he was aiming for. See; knew he'd get there in the end.
Wanda—because she was Wanda now, he could surmise—stood up, surveyed his apartment with open, wide, heart-breaking eyes, and begged him to, “Fix me so I don't hurt anyone else.”
Now, he knew parts of what she did. The assault in New York, the assault on a young girl who was Peter's age back when he first took up the spider moniker, the deadly assault on the magic training grounds, and the damage she wrecked on the multiverse. Yeah, he was very well informed.
“How?”
Wanda's irritation bled through her reply, “I don't know. You're the genius. You're Stark's protégé.”
“Right,” Peter said after a beat. Because: right. He helped save multiversal bad guys; yes, he had help, but they were other variants of himself. That had to count for something, right?
Genetics. There! That was something he was good at, yeah? If he could isolate the gene that gifted her the telepathy and telekinesis, then maybe he stood a chance at eliminating the Scarlet Witch in her complete entirety. Granted, last time he attempted to alter the fabric of a person he had his other variants to whisper the very fine answers of DNA to him via the Green Goblin and the Lizard, the Sandman and Electro.
...okay, yeah, maybe Peter wasn't cut out for this on his own, after all.
“Are you sure you want me to do this?” he asked, hesitant.
Wanda paused, briefly.
“You love him,” she said after a pregnant pause. “Stephen. Just as I know he loved you.”
Peter opened his mouth to object.
She beat him to it.
“He loved you so much,” she murmured, soft and sweet and gentle, and for a moment he could believe it. “He would do anything you asked of him. That's why he performed the Runes of Kof-Kol for you. That's why he allowed you to save the others to the best of your abilities.”
He didn't know what to say.
Wanda spoke again: haunting and angelic, wretched and demonic. “I loved Vision the same.”
Westview cropped up into Peter's mind—the reality Wanda created, manipulated, stole from the minds of others. All to grant her and Vision their happily ever after.
“I destroyed the Darkhold,” she continued, and he pretended he hadn't heard the sniff buried there. “I don't want to be corrupted. I don't want to be—dark. I want to be a mother," her breath caught, and Peter's heart ached, “but that is no longer in the cards for me.”
She smiled at him, and for the first time Peter knew: this is Wanda.
“I want to be a person Vis can be proud of,” she said. “A person not beholden to a darkness. Not anymore.”
Peter thought of Stephen: floating above the Statue of Liberty, a hairsbreadth away from refusing to perform the final spell; a hairsbreadth away from damning them all for Peter's folly.
“So, please,” Wanda said: happy and sad, tears filling her eyes in a reality she refused to control any longer. “Peter. Fix me.”
She held out her hand.
“What if everyone forgot who I was?”
Peter took it.
“Let's get to it.”