Chapter Text
Peaches
“Um…hello. Wanda.”
She turned around, her hair in a low ponytail hanging down over her checked shirt. She was carrying a straw basket full of ripe yellow peaches, which were laced-through with mesmerizing red streaks.
“Doctor Strange.”
“Stephen’s fine.” He stood with his hands behind his back, his cloak billowing around him.
“It’s a pleasure to officially meet you. Stephen. I saw you crafting some decent portals during the Battle of Earth. Fairly impressive.”
Stephen’s mouth flicked up in a half-smile. “You’re fairly impressive yourself.”
“Well. You know what I’ve done. ‘Impressive’ is…one word for it.” Wanda turned back to her peach tree and continued picking.
“Wanda, I came to…”
“The Battle of Earth was weird, wasn’t it? For us, especially. Blipping back into existence with everything…different.”
Stephen took a breath and blew air out forcefully. If she didn’t want to talk about Westview, he damn well wasn’t going to force her to. Why he of all people had been elected to go “check up on” Wanda, he had no clue. He wasn’t exactly a nurturing presence.
He suspected, though, that everyone else was either too afraid of her or too repelled by what she had done.
And whatever else Stephen might be, he was neither afraid nor repelled.
He got it. Recreating her lost love, at any cost to others… Well. If his meditative visions were accurate, he was apt to doing the exact same thing. Sometimes he dreamed of it: himself, creating and recreating a doomed Christine. It felt…far too real.
He took up her own line of conversation. “Well, I was more prepared for the Blip than literally anyone else in the universe. I’d witnessed millions of scenarios. I knew that either I'd be gone forever, or Tony and the Starkettes would be able to bring us back and I’d have to get my portal fingers ready ASAP.” He wiggled his fingers, jazz hands-style. “The only tricky part, when I returned, was getting the Parker kid to stop asking so many damn questions.”
Wanda looked lost in thought. “Well, he’s a good boy. Inquisitive. My boys…my boys would have been the same.” Her smile was wistful, but there was an edge of…transgression. Intention. He could see it almost tangibly, floating in her aura: the beginnings of a plan.
Hm.
He looked again, and it was gone.
“Right. Well, anyway. You were in Wakanda, right?”
Wanda nodded. “Clutching my dead love’s body. I blinked, and he was gone. Everyone was gone. And then they started…coming back.” Her face became blank and hard. “Bucky and Sam…and the tree-guy… I kept waiting, you know? I thought the dead were being returned to us. And then…” She huffed out a bitter laugh. “There was a flower next to me. I watched it re-form from dust.” She turned away from the tree. “The flower returned, Stephen. But not Vision.”
She plopped the basket on the ground with a sizzle of red magic emanating from her hands. She brushed off her hands and put them on her hips. “I know why you’re here, you know. To check on me. How did you bypass the Department of Damage Control?”
He blinked. “We convinced them we could take care of it on our own.”
“Take care of it.”
“Take care of…you.”
Wanda’s eyes flashed, red-black-red. “Thanks.” It was the least sincere thank-you he’d ever heard. (And he’d heard his own thank-yous.)
She turned her back and started walking away from him, the peaches abandoned. He took two rapid steps after her, and then stopped.
“Look, Wanda: I’m not good at this. I’m not warm, and I don’t know how to make people feel good about themselves. I tell people facts, and I ask them about facts. But if there are any…facts…that you can share with me that will make you feel better, somehow…I’m here to listen.” He felt stiff and unnatural, and didn’t know how to position his body to offer comfort.
She stopped. Didn’t turn around, but…spoke.
“I have nothing to say.”
Stephen nodded. “If there’s another incident, Wanda…I’d rather us be the ones to protect you, rather than other authorities coming in to deal with you as they see fit. I’ve never exactly been a joiner, but being an Avenger… It seems like we should probably…look after each other.” These were words Stephen had never expected to say, thoughts he’d never expected to think. Were they true?
They had to be. Stephen was, first and foremost, not a liar. His mouth wouldn’t form the words of a lie. It was repellent to him.
So it must be true.
I guess I’m part of a club now.
Wanda was quiet for a very, very long time. Then, her voice unnervingly calm, she said, “I don’t want to be looked after.”
Stephen couldn’t quite remember how he was removed from her peach orchard, but a few minutes later he was on the 1 train in New York City, passengers pointing excitedly at his cloak.
It would have sparked too many viral Instagram videos if he portalled himself out of the situation, so he simply rode the train to Houston Street and walked back to the Sanctum.
Apples
“Last time I was here, weren’t these peach trees?”
Wanda turned to him, her expression almost sly. “They were.”
He stared at her as she placed an apple in her wooden bucket. She looked at him challengingly: What are you gonna do about it?
Stephen simply smiled as winningly as possible, although he felt that the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Whatever she’s doing here, it’s not what it seems.
It unsettled him a bit: knowing that she was doing magic under his very nose, magic his brain was too foggy to detect. He never felt as incompetent as when he was around Wanda. Not since the loss of his hands had he felt so ineffectual.
“So you’re back.” She peered up at him curiously. “Didn’t I tell you I wanted to be alone?”
“No, technically you told me you didn’t want to be looked after. And maybe I’m not here to look after you.”
“Oh, really.”
“No, seriously. This isn’t a mission. You’ve been so quiet up here that the DODC, the Avengers, everyone, really…they’ve kind of…forgotten about you.”
She grinned in grim triumph. “But you’re back. Why?”
Stephen stared at her. “Most people bore me, and you don’t,” he said, finally. “And I’m interested in your magic.” This was all quite true.
She stared hard at him, and then nodded, mostly to herself. “Yes, you’re telling the truth. But you also think I’m planning something.”
He shrugged. “I really don’t know. What I do know is that heartbreak has a way of making us all go mad, and you’ve been doing some sort of very elaborate magic here that I can’t seem to decipher.”
She scoffed. “‘Heartbreak.’ Your empathy touches me. What, your ex is getting married? Yes, I do have internet access up here. My deepest condolences that you got broken up with because you were an asshole. How very tragic. That’s never happened to anyone before.”
Stephen shook his head. “No, there’s more to it than that. May I walk with you?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Be my guest. You won’t be able to break my reality, you know.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
They walked. Eventually, he spoke. “It’s not just the break-up. I’ve been meditating a lot lately, and in my meditations, I have encountered…others. Others, like myself. Some, I believe, call them ‘variants.’ The multiverse, Wanda…what do you know about it?”
Wanda’s steps faltered. “It’s hypothetical. There are universes that could potentially exist; I can feel them. Whenever one begins to… branch out, I guess you could call it, I feel the nexus energy. It flares within me, and then it…it’s cut short. There have been a few strands, a few intertwined strands, that are allowed to exist together. But it’s a very tight coil and they’re so connected, one can’t even call it a multiverse. Nothing truly astonishing can happen.” Her lips twitched. “And the strands can’t be breached.”
Strange stopped walking altogether. “It’s good, Wanda. You’re good at that. Lying. Much better than me.” She turned to him, slowly, on her heel. Her shoulders curled and if he looked very closely it almost looked as though a crown was forming on her head.
“I don’t know what you mean. That’s all true,” she said.
“It has been true, until quite recently. But something changed. You must have felt it right away. It took me longer, but I’ve seen it, now, all the branching realities.”
Her face was unreadable; he continued.
“I’ve seen myself in all sorts of scenarios. I’ve seen myself as a woman, as a climbing vine of ivy, as paint, as formless energy — an idea of an essence who was never born. But mostly, I’ve seen myself as I look now, and as I feel now. And many, many times, I’ve done things that…well, they’re not ideal. To say the least.”
“Destroyed a planet or two, have you?”
“A universe or two, more like. And all because…well, not always, but it was frequently because of my…human connections. With Christine, or with another lover, or a protegee. So now I live in a rather irksome state of fear. Because I really don’t think it’s a great idea to go destroying universes, but…” He closed his eyes and opened them again. “It seems I’m rather prone to it. Whether I approve or not.”
A flicker of genuine surprise and empathy passed over her face. She fought to hide it. “Human connections, you say? I thought you weren’t good at the people thing.”
“Well, I’m not. And this is why I should remain that way. I take a special interest in trying to avoid making that particular mistake here, in our universe.”
Wanda bit into an apple. “Well, good luck. I really don’t see what all this has to do with me.” She turned to walk again.
Stephen felt something snap within him, a great annoyance welling up. Out of pure spite, he cast a portal in front of her, only a few feet away, and passed through it in order to come face-to-face with her.
“You really can’t see how this isn’t relevant to you, Wanda? Why did you lie about the multiverse? Why, when you know I’m a sorcerer who can peer into the multiverse almost as well as you?”
She blinked a few times, startled at hearing heated words for the first time in months. “I don’t know.” She sat down, cross-legged on the ground. Stephen felt awkward standing above her, so he divested himself of his cloak (which hovered warily nearby) and knelt next to her, a foot or so away.
She took a few long moments before she continued. “I am… I was planning something. But it’s probably not possible.”
“Your children, Wanda. Were you trying to get your children back? From another universe?”
She glanced up at him, and then back down. “It’s stupid.”
“It’s less stupid than cruel. You know that you’d be taking them from another Wanda, right? Their rightful mother?”
Wanda’s eyes flashed red and she hurled herself at him, grabbing his arms. “I’m their mother!” And before he realized what was happening, she was clutching his shirt and sobbing into his chest.
Stephen wasn’t parental, he wasn’t friendly, and he wasn’t romantic. So he simply sat there, letting her weep. Neither condoning nor judging. Just existing with her. He didn’t hold her; his hands were at his sides.
After a long time, she slid off of him and stared into the middle distance.
“You can go now,” she said, hollowly, but with a twinge of gratitude. “But you can…come back sometime. If you like.”
He nodded. His cloak returned to him as he stood up. His hand hovered above her head, considering patting it clumsily, but the cloak batted his hand away reprovingly.
“All right. See you then, Wanda.”
Blueberries
He gave her advance notice next time, which was nice of him. It wasn’t as though her location was mappable, but she located his message in the dense ether of the magical realm she was traversing, and smiled. Of course he’d figured out how to contact her.
(Of course, he could have emailed her. But magic was more fun than technology.)
She supposed she should feel awkward about the fact that she’d sobbed into a near-stranger’s chest, but she didn’t. Anyone else would have made it awkward, but he didn’t. If anything, he seemed more at ease with her on this visit, cracking stupid jokes and making her laugh.
She picked blueberries for him and he ate them, with a raised eyebrow at first; he was half-convinced she was about to poison him. Wanda was impressed and gratified that he consumed them anyway.
She had no desire to poison him. Nor to push him away. He was…sweet. Not like the rumors she usually heard about him: reserved and analytical and robotic.
Robotic, Wanda?
Well. Maybe…maybe he was all those things, but she had a type.
(Not that she was attracted to him.)
But she found his presence soothing, somehow. The way he bluntly called her on her bullshit, without heaping on the guilt. The way he was clearly impressed with her magic, and wanted to learn from her. The way he knew he was funny, without being a total ass about it.
The way he seemed utterly comfortable with who she was. Ever-thicker layers of artifice stripped away as she talked to him.
“Stephen?”
“Hm?” They had stopped by a reflecting pool that she had created on the spur of the moment. Frogs hopped between lily pads and dragonflies skimmed the surface of the water. The magicians sat on boulders near the water.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”
“I know.”
“But it just seems…unfair. So many of you ‘heroes’ break the rules and receive the thanks of a grateful world. If anyone else wanted to get their lost children back, I feel like they would be celebrated. But for me…”
“Wanda...”
“Shhh… I know. I know it’s different. But no one else has the multiverse at their disposal. Hundreds or thousands or trillions of versions of my children… I can’t get a handle on the number, you know, but there are so many… ”
“Wanda, have you searched for a universe where they’ve lost their mother? Could you adopt them as orphans?”
She looked down. “Of course I’ve searched. I can’t…I can’t find one. And I stopped looking, because I felt sick that I was hoping to find versions of Billy and Tommy who were in so much pain. I had to stop praying for their grief.”
Miraculously, Wanda felt a strong hand close over hers. “You’re right. You’ve gotten more censure for your actions than many have. More than I have. It’s not fair. Nothing about your life has been fair, Wanda.”
She became aware of a steady, subtle tremor in his hand as it closed over hers. She focused in on it, tilting her head and watching it shake. Stiffening up, he drew his hand back, holding his hands behind his back, under his cloak.
“Your life hasn’t been entirely fair, either, Stephen.”
He scoffed. “That? That was my fault. Reckless driving due to overconfidence borne of a charmed, overindulgent life. We reap what we sow. Or…” He looked back at her. “Or at least I do. I’m not a very sympathetic figure, Wanda, and you don’t need to try to make me into one.”
Without understanding why, she reached up and touched his face. He looked confused, and then turned into her palm, bringing one of his hands up to close over hers. The tremors were still there, and he didn’t try to hide them.
“I’m not trying to make you into anything,” she whispered.
He laced his fingers through hers and brought her hand down to his lap, tracing a wavy line across her palm. “Nor am I.”
They stayed like that for a long while. Simply because she could, she created a wood sprite who lived in the nearby reeds. The little creature played them a mournful, hopeful tune on a pan flute until the limits of daylight stretched credibility and Wanda allowed the sun to set.
When she went to sleep that night, she vowed she wouldn’t dream of her children. But she did.