WANDA MAXIMOFF + NPC VISION + ALICIA SPINNET
MEDIUM | IN PROGRESS
MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR
She felt long arms pull her close as she curled up next to him. Her small frame fit perfectly against his tall one, and she felt perfectly content as his fingers threaded through her hair. If only they could stay like this forever, she thought to herself. They’d been tasked to stay out of sight, and most of the time that was easy to do. Ever since he’d left the others to find them, find her, Wanda had welcomed his presence even if she hadn’t understood what “this” was at first. She felt like she belonged with him, and she felt safe at his side. There was no where else in the world she could say that was true except here with him.
Shifting in his arms, Wanda pulled away enough to look into his light eyes. A hand went to the side of his face, and her fingers traced the lines of his lips, nose, and forehead including the stone that she knew laid underneath his human visage. He’d become home to her in a time when she never thought that were possible again. No words were exchanged, just a small smile and brief kiss before resting against him again and both drifting off to sleep.
“No,” she said with a defiant shake of her head. “Do not ask this of me.” They were being chased by beings from another world who wanted the Mind Stone, but Wanda wasn’t going to do what Vision asked of her. She couldn’t. It would destroy him and in turn, destroy her.
“We will find a way,” she insisted. “Steve thinks he may know someone who will be able to remove the stone without destroying you.” She leaned forward in her seat on the plane and squeezed his hand. “I cannot lose you.”
“Wanda,” Vision said with such calmness. She knew he wasn’t entirely calm, she could feel his unease inside her, but his voice sounded so steady to her ears. He raised her face to look into his eyes. “We may not have any other choice. I need you to be prepared to do what must be done.”
She shook her head. “Viz, please. I can’t.” Tears threatened to fall, but she fought hard to keep them at bay.
“Yes,” he said. “You can.” This time he was the one to squeeze her hand. “You are the strongest person I have known in this world. We will try to find another way, but you must be prepared. We cannot allow Thanos to gain all of the Infinity Stones.”
No words again, but after a long pause, she simply nodded. She knew he was right no matter how much she never would have wanted to admit so out loud. She knew it would destroy her, but she would do what was necessary if he asked it of her.
The fight had waged on, and Wanda left Vision’s side to join the battlefield. He eventually joined her with the Mind Stone still in tact. After others from above joined the fray, Wanda believed for a fleeting moment that it was over.
Thanos.
He’d arrived on Earth, and Vision was standing in front of her asking her to destroy the stone. She shook her head in refusal but knew before he asked it of her again that there was no other choice. She mustered all of her strength and willpower and descended every last ounce of her magic that she could muster onto the stone. Onto Vision. She forced herself to continue even as the tears fell and her heart was ripped open. When it was done, she felt numb as she watched him be destroyed by her own hand. But even then it wasn’t over.
Thanos.
With the Time Stone in hand, Vision’s destruction was reversed only for Thanos to forcibly rip the Mind Stone away himself. Wanda screamed both inwardly and outwardly when Vision’s lifeless form fell to the ground. Vision was gone.
Then, with a snap of his fingers, so was she.
With a gasp, Wanda sat up in bed and looked around frantically. She was back in Atlantis, in her room, and she was alone. She could feel her roommates close by, and while the energy around her felt calm and normal, she felt the opposite. Her heart and head were pounding, and she felt like she couldn’t catch her breath. What had happened, and was this some sort of a dream?
No, this was no dream. As the new memories sunk in and the realization of what happened not only to her but to everyone began to sank in, she could feel herself start to feel like she was going to lose control. She held her head in her hands and cried out in grief as the image of Vision’s body hitting the ground came back to her. She’d destroyed him, but it hadn’t been enough. It had been for nothing when Thanos could turn back time and take it for himself.
As she held her head in her hands, Wanda screamed. A large blast of energy burst forth from her, shattering her bedroom mirror and knocking objects off of shelves and the walls. Her hands were shaking and tears began to fall again when she laid back down on the bed. All she could see when she closed her eyes was the hole in Vision’s forehead where his lifeforce should have been. She’d failed him. They all had.
Alicia took a bite of the croissant she'd grabbed while balancing two cups in her hand. She'd been planning on going to get Wanda anyways, what she wasn't expecting was the burst she felt from Wanda. Sure, the building basically felt it but what she felt was more intense than just that. She could feel pain off of her friend.
Dropping the coffees and the piece of croissant fell out of her mouth Alicia sped up to full speed as she got to Wanda's door she didn't bother knocking she used her own magic to burst it open before going straight to Wanda's room where she found Wanda crying on her bed.
Stepping over a few pieces of the broken mirror she put her hands softly on her friend's shoulder trying to move her just enough to get her to use Alicia's lap as a pillow.
"Wanda..." She whispered softly unsure if she should ask her what happened yet.
Normally, she would have felt Alicia’s presence in the room before seeing her, but her mind was so full of chaos that it was hard to focus on any one thing besides what she’d just seen in her dreams. Was it even a dream? Dreams often felt very real, but this had been much different. It had been like she was the one there while it was happening like they were memories. New memories from home that had occurred while they’d all been here in Atlantis.
Wanda held tightly onto Alicia’s hand while she laid on the bed. Tears still fell, but she was mostly crying silently now. She wasn’t able to say anything at first, but after several moments when the tears had started to stop, she squeezed her friend’s hand. It was a small comfort in knowing that she was here with her. And alive.
“It was new memories from home,” she finally said in nearly a whisper. “Vision. There was a battle, and he… someone wanted the Mind Stone. He’s dead.” She’d been the one to do it first, but in the end it hadn’t even mattered.
Staying where she was she let her free hand run through Wanda’s hair as she tried her best not to push her friend about what happened. She didn’t really know how to process what she was saying. Someone wanted the mind stone? A battle?
He was dead.
“Shit,” Alicia whispered, she knew Vision was a friend of Wanda’s and they were close but it felt like more to Alicia, the way the words hung in the air. “Memories from home.” She added knowing that whatever Wanda went through was horrible.
A desire to ask questions flooded her but she knew she shouldn’t do that so she just stayed trying to help her friend calm down.
Another few moments passed, and Wanda sat up in the bed. She knew she looked like a mess, and she did a poor attempt in trying to clear the remaining tears from her face. Looking down at her hands, she wasn't sure how to explain what had happened.
“There was someone, a warlord from another planet, who sought to gain all of the Infinity Stones. Stones of enormous power by themselves but would be insurmountable when combined.” She paused for a moment before looking up to meet Alicia's gaze. She could both see and sense the concern coming from her friend.
“One of the stones gave my brother and I our abilities and was later used to give Vision life.” Her hand shakingly pointed to her forehead as an indication where Vision had it kept.
“We knew Thanos was searching for us, he'd sent others after us while we staying in Scotland. We later went to Wakanda for protection but also to see if they would be able to separate the stone from him without killing him. We were nearly successful, but the battle grew out of control, and I.. “ She'd had to leave his side to help the others before Shuri could finish.
Wanda shook her head and looked downward again. “He'd made me promise to him to destroy the stone myself before Thanos could take it. My powers came from the stone itself, so I was the only one who could do it.” Her voice started to quiver a bit again, but she needed to finish. “I did it. I destroyed the stone… and him, but it didn't matter. Time was reversed, and he forcibly took the stone from Vision anyway.”
A cold wave washed over Alicia as she listened and watched how Wanda was reacting. She knew Vision was someone Wanda cared about but she started to get the impression that it was a lot more than what she’d known before.
The pain her friend was feeling was overwhelming even to Alicia, she could almost feel it herself. “Hey,” she whispered pulling her friend to her into a hug trying to give her any kind of comfort or strength she needed.
“He knows you did what you promised.” She whispered, even if it didn’t work out the way it was supposed to and she really wasn’t sure how time was reversed or much about this Thanos but she knew he was the bad guy and whatever it was, even past just the death of her friend, she knew there was bound to be more to it.
Wanda automatically leaned info Alicia. She wasn't sure if she believed what she was saying, that with the time reveal if Vision really knew that she'd tried to fulfill her promise only to have that decision and their choice taken away from them. Regardless, she wasn't sure if it mattered. He was still dead, and Thanos had the stone. He had all of the stones.
“I don't completely understand what happened next, but I.. I don't think I'm there anymore.” She sat up to look at Alicia again. “So many of us turned to ash at the snap of his fingers. I was one of them, but I don't know what happened after that.” She needed to try to talk to Steve or one of the others to find out what happened. She didn't remember anything after she felt herself start to disappear into nothing but ashes on the ground.
“What if that happens here? His power affected every realm. What if it comes here too?”
Alicia wasn’t completely sure what Wanda was saying, sure she understood the words but it sounded so unreal, but she knew better than to think something wasn’t possible.
“What do you mean turned to dust? Snap and people were ashes?” She asked not really believing it if that was true, was Wanda okay right now? She looked okay, physically that was, and she was solid and wasn’t vanishing or anything.
“Hey, even if he finds a way to threaten us here, we will fight back, and we will find a way to fix it, and I know the people in your world who are…” she wasn’t sure how to say not dusted without it sounding horrible. “Are doing everything they can to fix it. There is always another day to fight.”
“Yes,” she answered. Wanda knew it sounded impossible. It felt impossible to her and she had been there. Or some version of her had been there. She’d heard about memory updates from people, but she didn’t fully understand their impact until just now. She wished the memories had never come.
She wasn’t sure if there was any way to fix what happened. She had literally turned to ash and disappeared. No body to resurrect or revive. There wasn’t another day left for her to fight. There was coming back from that.
“He told me he loved me,” she said after a quiet moment. I just feel you. “When I was… before Thanos turned back time.” Blinking as she let what Wanda had just told her sink in it took Alicia few moments to put together all the pieces, she'd already gotten the fact that Wanda had grown closer to Vision from the little she'd gotten but this piece of information made her really wonder.
"Do you," she paused. "Do you love him?" She didn't want to be pushy about it, but she was curious and if that was the case she really wanted to find this fucking Thanos and beat the shit out of him for messing people like he apparently had.
“I think I did, yes. Do.” Wanda shook her head, not wanting to think about the implications of past and present tense. “There was just the hint of something before I came here, but there were about two years worth of memories in total, not only what happened in Wakanda. I was already in hiding, but Vision would go offline and come and find me when he could. We had wanted to see if what we had worked, and it did. We were in Scotland together when they Thanos’ soldiers first came for him.”
She looked up at Alicia with tears brimming in her eyes again, but she gave her a sad smile. “I loved him.” And now he was dead. Just like Pietro. Even if she wanted to go home to him, she couldn’t. Letting out a long sigh, Wanda wiped her eyes and tried to compose herself. It was hard to imagine she had any tears left.
Shit. Was all Alicia could think as her heart broke for Wanda. It wasn’t fair for her to lose her brother and now someone she fell in love with in such violent ways, in such horrible ways. She wanted to say they might show up but she knew how hard it was when Pietro came and went.
“Hey,” she whispered pulling Wanda into a tight hug. “You love each other, and that’s not something anyone can take away from either of you.” She wasn’t really sure what happened to people like Vision when they died, hell she didn’t know what happened to anyone. “I’m so sorry.” She whispered.
Wanda returned the hug and held onto her friend tightly for a few moments before letting go. She listened to Alicia’s words and tried to hold them close and take them to heart. She knew she was right, but it was a lot harder to believe it right then when everything was still so fresh.
She nodded but didn’t say anything when Alicia said she was sorry. She wasn’t sure if she could. Instead, she sat there quietly for a moment or so. Even though she probably could use the distraction, Wanda didn’t think she was ready to see very many people for a while. She knew the burst of magic caused an alarm, Alicia wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t, but she couldn’t take explaining all of this over and over again.
“I don’t think I’m up for training today,” she said with a sad smile even though Alicia likely knew that already. “I’ll probably stay in for a couple of days.”
Alicia gave her soft smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered, and I’m not going anywhere.” It was a statement, Alicia didn’t care, she wasn’t leaving Wanda alone and she also knew other people would want to check in on her and she got the impression that Wanda wasn’t up for it. Reaching for her phone she pulled it out to call Oliver.