The energy of her ability welled up within her, it burst from her fingertips, it burned, oh it burned. Her entire body aglow, aflame, with energy. It burned within her and through her and around her, it burned out, it burned up, it sought and found and met and touched the nose of the warhead. It disintegrated. The missile's trajectory shoved her backwards but Wanda's energy poured forward to eat at it, decaying and destroying it. So much power. And all of the energy the bomb was capable of, and she could feel that too. It had to go somewhere and it soaked into her and Wanda's power absorbed it, hungry, bright, burning.
She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe, oh god, my god, was this death? Wanda heard a noise, a strangled sound. A scream. She was screaming and the wind carried it away for no one to hear. No one. She was alone. Her heart was racing, her heart would burst, she needed- she needed- to fall, to die, to breathe, to live. Live.
She fell. Did anyone really love her? She fell. Was she alone? She fell. Would she die, now? She fell. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. She loved them and she loved him and she would, she would live. She breathed. Wanda shuddered and she breathed and she stopped. She righted herself and she hovered. The power within her hadn't dissipated, hadn't burned out, it raged on, but she quelled it- slowly.
Wanda breathed in and out and stayed suspended above the city. Above Washington D.C. and all of those people alive and Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, she was alive too. And tired. So tired, so exhausted. She wanted to sleep. She needed- to land, to sleep. Wanda willed herself to descend, eyelids heavy, limbs still quaking, the flames of fire in her chest less fierce, the glow of her fingers softer. Somehow, she found the lawn below, the brilliant emerald lawn before the Capitol, and landed on it with a thump. Wanda rolled onto her back and stared up at the clear sky through half-closed eyes, tears cold on her face, and she smiled.