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The first time Agatha brings her food, Wanda ignores her.
Agatha sets the plate of mostly potato wedges on a side table she’d already dragged in from one of the mall shops – she shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a furniture store, and yet she is still somehow surprised that there is a furniture store. She could get herself a better bed, if she wanted, but without magic of her own, she doesn’t really have a way to get it to her room. Not that she needs a better bed. The one Wanda’s given her doesn’t hurt her back. That’s the most important thing.
“I didn’t poison them, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Wanda doesn’t move or respond, which, if Agatha is honest with herself, she kind of expected.
Still.
Agatha sighs. “Fine. Don’t believe me. I’ll prove it to you.” She takes one of the wedges in her fingertips and bites away half of it. “See? No poison.” When Wanda still doesn’t respond, she goes through each wedge, biting off half, and then placing it back on the plate. Then she takes the burger covered with mushrooms, grimaces, and then takes a bite of that, too. She makes a face of clear disgust as she chews – it’s not the meat, and it’s not the mushrooms, because she likes both of those in their own place; it’s the two of them together. “Mushroom stew does not belong on a burger, hon. This is disgusting.” She forces herself to swallow. “But also not poisoned.”
This time when Wanda doesn’t acknowledge her, Agatha wipes her hands on her fraying jeans. “You’ve got to eat sometime, kid. Trust me, starvation is not the way to go.”
As she leaves the room, Agatha is certain she heard a snort.
At least it’s something.
When she comes back in a few hours later, after her daily walk around the mall to test the doors (and, as every time before, finding them locked), the potato wedges are gone, as is the burger covered with mushrooms.
A note is left in their place, written in easy Sokovian: Dip the wedges in the stew, idiot.
Agatha tries this exactly once, while putting another plate in Wanda’s room. When she gags, she’s absolutely certain she hears sniggering. “Give me ingredients, you little witch,” she growls, “and I’ll show you good food.”
The next morning, Agatha finds a new store and another note, this time left at the foot of her bed: No dairy. Her brows raise, and she files that away for later.
In all honesty, Wanda would rather doze while Agatha is awake. She still isn’t sure why she’d brought the other witch here. It certainly isn’t for some twisted form of companionship. In fact, she’s certain that Agnes was doing better in Westview than Agatha is doing here. At least Agnes was probably never bored. She still doesn’t know what Agatha’s doing with her days.
Sometimes, Wanda considers leaving Agatha here, in this little mall, without her; considers returning to Westview herself, making herself look like someone new, and creating a whole other life for herself. But pretending to be someone new is nothing like actually being someone new, and she can’t erase her own memories or make herself into whatever her version of Agnes would be. Someone else would have to do that.
No one she trusts would do it, if she trusts anyone at all anymore.
Agatha probably could, but she doesn’t trust the older witch to not erase more than she wants…or to not use her power against whatever that new version of her would be.
There is no winning here. Only losing.
Wanda is so used to losing that it almost doesn’t matter anymore.
Almost.
Whatever Agatha cooks smells substantially better than the food she was bringing in before. Not that any of that had been particularly bad, but this is all cinnamon and sugar and sweetness – almost the way Agatha herself smells, devoid of apples and vanilla, just this aching, tooth-rotting sweet.
Wanda remembers, when she stole Agnes away, that she smelled much like this. Sweet. None of the smooth or tart that Agatha gave off. Just sweet. She stood behind her, ran her fingers down her arms, claimed ownership, and then teleported her from Westview before Agnes could turn to fully face her. She’d only seen her once they landed in the mall, brow furrowing, head tilting with confusion, bright, innocent blue eyes meeting Wanda’s before whispering her name.
Strange, how innocent Agnes could be.
She misses that.
When she hears the light tap of a clay dish on the side table (and the scent grows even stronger, with something a little thicker, almost dusty, underneath it – but a good sort of dusty, so not really dusty at all), one of Wanda’s eyes cracks open. She curls on one side, twists her head over the shoulder, and stares at the bowl Agatha has set there. It certainly doesn’t look anywhere near as good as it smells. “What is that?” she growls.
“Oh, look. Sleeping Beauty chooses to grace me with her presence.” Agatha sits on a rocking chair – where did she even get that? – as if Wanda, herself, hasn’t walked along the tiles of the newly reconstructed mall; as if Wanda, herself, hasn’t seen the shops put back where there had only been wreckage before; as if Wanda doesn’t know what she’s done – and crosses her arms. “Why don’t you taste it and find out, dear?” She sneers at her before saying, “Oh, wait. Have to prove to you it isn’t poison. Hold on.” Then she pulls a silver spoon out from her robes, dips it into the bowl, and brings it to her lips. She sighs warmly. “It isn’t as good without milk or butter, but it’s good enough.” After she sets the spoon back into the bowl, she shoves it closer to Wanda. “Taste.”
Wanda stares at the bowl. “You just used that spoon.”
Agatha rolls her eyes. “Sorry. Didn’t realize our pretty princess would need her own.” She stands and brushes her hands on her robes. “Let me just—”
“And you put it back in the bowl.”
At this, Agatha freezes and shoots Wanda a look of intrigue. “What did you do with the potato wedges, Wanda?” Her brows raise as she examines her. “And the burger? And the mushrooms?”
Wanda flushes brightly. “I—”
“You bit after me, sweetheart, so you will be just fine using the same spoon.” Agatha crosses her arms, standing over her, peering at her with judgment, and Wanda almost – almost – shrinks back. Except that the older witch has no magic here, nothing over her, and she will not be afraid of Agatha Harkness. She meets the woman’s eyes and holds her gaze until Agatha whirls around with a huff and storms from the room.
Wanda stares at the bowl. Stares at the spoon. Then picks it up, cradles it against her chest, and begins to eat.
She doesn’t want their hours to sync up.
Wanda tells herself that. She tells herself that she very much appreciated having all of Sokovia to herself, broken as it was, and that she enjoyed having this wreckage of a mall to herself without anyone else coming to see her. She tells herself all of this, and she lies to herself, and the worst of it is that she knows that she’s lying to herself because if she had actually honestly enjoyed being by herself, she wouldn’t have gone and found the actual worst person in the world to come join her.
No. No, she would have. She wants to be punished. What could be a more fitting punishment than to be locked in an old mall in Sokovia with Agatha Harkness?
So she brings her here and she refuses to be awake when she is and she pretends that she isn’t here even though she knows that she is and she continues to lie to herself about the reason that she really brought Agatha here.
It’s easier to pretend that she’s alone, just as she was.
Agatha won’t let her pretend that she’s alone.
Agatha scours the mall multiple times over multiple days (if they can even be called days – it is incredibly hard to keep track of time in a place like this) before she finds the instrument shop. She never mentions it aloud – not to Wanda and not to the empty expanse surrounding her (which Wanda could probably hear if she said it at all) – but she knows it must exist. What if one of Wanda’s guitar strings breaks? (They won’t, but she can pretend that they might and that Wanda would prepare for that inevitability.)
Finally – finally – she finds it tucked away in a niche little corner of the mall. It isn’t the first time Agatha has been down these tiles, and it certainly isn’t the first time she’s looked in this corner. It’s simply the first time that Wanda has allowed her to see it. Or maybe Wanda has stores on some sort of rotation, moving them in and out as she tries, fruitlessly, to put whatever shop it is that Agatha is looking for into place. It’s a lot of thought and notice probably running just as much on autopilot as Westview had been. Perhaps more than.
Westview required everyone to follow a very set and specific script.
Here, there is no script. Only guessing and a lot of improv.
Just like real life.
Agatha steps into the shop, lets out a breath she knew she’d been holding in, and runs one slender finger along wood and strings hanging on the wall until she finds what she’s looking for.
Then she smiles.
She hums as she tunes.
She hums before she tunes, and she hums as she tunes, and that should make it near-on impossible to tune because it’s that sharp contrast between the notes she’s humming and the notes she’s tuning, but she does it anyway, eyes closed and focused on a note that she knows to be right even if it’s not in the song she’s humming.
The entire action is long habit, tightening strings and fiddling with them until it’s just so, the very act a relaxation, a coming to of something. There’s an ease to it. She relaxes, sighs with easy contentment, and stops humming.
Then she plays.
Wanda wakes with a start.
Listens for a moment.
Grimaces.
Then covers her head with her pillow, covers that with her comforter, and turns as far away as she can, mentally forcing her bedroom door to slam in an attempt to block out the noise.
She is only moderately successful.
Three days later, Wanda stands in Agatha’s doorway, arms crossed, glaring at her as she plays.
Agatha doesn’t even look up at her, just continues picking at the strings with fairly nimble fingers, leaning back on her chair’s back legs. “You hate it, don’t you, dear?”
“I hate you.”
“And yet you brought me here. Curious.” Agatha doesn’t stop playing. Of course, she doesn’t stop playing. Keeps filling the otherwise nice silence with that infuriating—
Wanda isn’t sure why she thought it would be better than this. Even playing her guitar, Agatha wormed her way in, and she’d found herself plucking at her infuriating song when she wanted to be doing anything else. She didn’t – doesn’t – even like that song. It’s just there, under her fingertips, without her even thinking about it. Just like Agatha is here, under her skin, because—
Because…?
“I want to forget,” Wanda says, finally, voice whisper soft under Agatha’s strumming. “I want you to make me forget.”
Agatha still doesn’t turn to her. In fact, it’s almost like she didn’t even hear her at all, which would be fine because Wanda isn’t sure she wants to have said it, no matter how much she still means it. So she presses on, continues, because maybe if she’s quiet enough, she’ll just get it out, and Agatha won’t actually hear it, and it’ll be out of her system. Maybe that will help.
“I want,” Wanda says, “for you to make me someone new. Like you did with that fake Pietro.” Her voice catches on the name, but she makes herself continue anyway. “I don’t even want to know that you’re doing it when it’s done. I just….” She rubs her arms. “I don’t want to be me anymore.”
“You’ll always be you, hon,” Agatha says almost dismissively.
“I don’t have to—”
“You’ll still have done it,” Agatha continues, fingers on the bridge, not stilling, not looking, “even if you don’t remember it. Forgetting doesn’t make it go away, hon. It just makes it worse. It’s not like the people you’ve hurt can forget.”
Wanda presses her lips together. “They could if we—”
“How selfish,” Agatha snorts, “to think everything would be better if everyone could just forget you fucked up.”
“If it’s better for them—”
Agatha gives her a sharp look, then, and pauses in her playing. “It’s never better. It doesn’t get better.” She starts picking at the strings again, returning to the same spot in her song as though she’d never stopped. “You either learn to live with it, or you don’t.”
Wanda lowers her gaze, stares at the floor beneath them, and sees the wreckage that it really is and not this little mall she’s created. “I don’t want to live with it.”
“Then you are the weakest witch I have ever met.” Agatha looks at her again, and Wanda is certain that her look softens.
She hates that.
“I don’t need your pity.”
But Agatha continues as though she hasn’t said anything at all. “Every witch has done something they regret, dear. I killed my coven. You did some mass mind control. Some minor mind control, too, although I don’t think you regret that one.”
“I don’t.” If anything, Wanda regrets undoing it. “I didn’t ask for a lecture—”
“Too bad.” Agatha leans a little further back in her chair. By now, it should have fallen over, but somehow it maintains its precarious position. “Maybe you murdered a few people, too,” she continues, pausing just long enough to raise a hand and waggle her fingers. “Everybody knows, and everybody hates you, and the guilt is suffocating, and even if you want a family, even if you were able to find one again, they’d just rip them apart to get to you, so you can’t even do that.”
Wanda’s eyes narrows. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.”
Wanda could ask, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t care. “Look, are you going to—”
“I can’t do anything without my magic, super star.” Agatha rocks forward and then back again. “You really willing to give me that back?”
Silence, broken only by her gentle, infuriating picking.
Then Agatha sighs. “Either you risk it, or you don’t. Either you learn to live with it, or you don’t. But pick one.” She glances up and meets Wanda’s eyes. “I’m growing tired of being here, hon.”
It doesn’t matter if Agatha is tired of being there or not. There isn’t anything she can do to get out, other to press the younger witch when she can. Sometimes that’s pressing her to make a decision – which doesn’t seem to have gone well – and sometimes that’s just…being. Wanda brought her here for a reason. It’s a shitty reason, but it’s there, and as long as she doesn’t get off her ass and—
“Here’s how this will work.”
Wanda lays it out for her. The girl doesn’t know what she’s asking, doesn’t know what she’s expecting, and doesn’t tell her everything, even though she pretends that she has. It would be foolish to believe that the witch who hates her – who chose her, but still hates her – doesn’t have contingencies planned for giving her even a small amount of access to magic again.
That’s the thing – Wanda calls it giving her magic back, but that’s not how it works, not really. Wanda didn’t take her magic away in the same way that Agatha could absorb hers. She cut her off. For all that Agatha might appear healthy right now – she’s been eating, she’s been walking, she’s found a good hobby – she still feels hollow. Devoid of the thing that actually gives her life.
Wanda does not depend on magic the same way that Agatha does. It is not her life; it is something she uses without thought, without name, without understanding, and she would give it up in a heartbeat if the world let her. Wanda wants to be normal.
What a waste.
Agatha holds out her hand and waits.
In the silence, magic fills her again, and she can finally truly breathe.
Her eyes light up with a rush she has never been able to describe, rarely even tried because she cannot put it into words, can only give gestures, make the barest sort of description, draw it out, try to use magic itself to express itself.
She meets Wanda’s eyes with something almost like hope and something almost like pity.
“This won’t help, hon.”
“It’s what I want.”
“It won’t fix anything.”
“It will fix me.”
There’s no point in arguing.
Agatha brings her fingers to the center of Wanda’s forehead and rewrites.
Something in her rips.
Tears.
Burns.
She can’t breathe, she can’t breathe, she can’t—
Westview is a far cry from anything like a home.
Agnes returns to friends who have missed her, who welcome her with open arms, and when she introduces them to her old college roommate, coming to hide with her while she gets her head on straight, they only give Max a brief glance, eyes narrowing in almost – almost – recognition, before they welcome her, too.