WHAT: Mother-of-the-groom/mother-of-the-bride bonding WHERE: Wanda's Witch Cottage WHEN: At the end of the Parker-Khan wedding, 2030 WARNINGS: Nah STATUS: Complete
It was a beautiful wedding. Simple but well-attended, and despite the world rotting around them - it was full of love. A small but fierce flicker of light in the darkness, and Wanda was just grateful to be around to see it. To be alive to see it. Vallo used to be full of opportunities; of second chances, of hope. It brought people together, showed them a path otherwise not taken in their homeworlds.
That was rare now.
“Miss using magic to clean up everything,” she mused, tired but glowing with a smile - she pulled her hair free from the updo it had been confined in, finished the last of the champagne in her cup (it wasn’t a flute, and fancy dining ware was hard to come by these days) and began picking up some plates. Gone were the guests and the stars of the show - Kamala and Peter - leaving her and Carol behind to tidy up. “Thank you for staying behind to help. I’m a little tipsy so at least it’ll feel almost fun.”
Time to kick off her shoes. They were tight on her toes, and her feet needed to breathe and be comfortable if she was to move around.
Wanda wasn’t the only one glowing tonight. Carol was up there, too. Not in the way she once had – when it looked like the sun was seeping from her every pore – but the high was palpable. Tonight had been a good night, a blip of happiness in a world that didn’t know the meaning of the word anymore. It was impossible not to fall into that outpouring of love, something that felt lost so often these days, and feel it.
Her kid was married. Fucking married.That was a big deal.
“‘Course,” she scoffed, grinning over at her friend softly. “Hanging out with you’s all the fun I need.”
She pushed her sleeves up her forearms as she set to work, working her way around the table opposite Wanda to gather up the used dishes. It would definitely have been easier with magic, no doubt about that, but that wasn’t in the cards these days. Besides, a little cleaning had never killed anyone.
“They looked really happy, huh?”
“So happy,” Wanda laughed, genuinely giddy about it. God, it was a perfect night. She didn’t think those could exist anymore. Some might think these kinds of milestones were pointless now - that there was no future to look forward to, why do this - but she was relieved Peter and Kamala weren’t those people.
The breeze outside was nice, too. They were going to need that with all this physical labor happening.
“Takes me back to our absinthe night,” she continued, making a stack of plates on one side and mismatched cups on the other. “We spent a good bit of that night gossiping about them while convinced that Peter was a mouse with a top hat hanging out with us.”
Carol laughed, too. “God, I remember,” she agreed. She remembered most of that night vividly, just weeks before she’d gotten married herself – a bachelorette for two, complete with fondue and hallucinogens. She could still picture Wanda pressing the bottle up against her face to read the tiniest print that warned the liquor may, in fact, induce hallucinations, and the shocked wide eyes that had followed that revelation.
“Then he came home and found us,” she added, “and suddenly, the mouse was gone. I was really convinced you had turned him into one of the Cinderella mice just for me. I had a blast, but I’m glad we decided to make that our first and last absinthe experience.”
It had fucked her up then, but it would destroy her now, powered down to almost nothing. It was only her Kree blood that kept her durable these days
“That feels like a million years ago,” she sighed.
So many people had been lost since then – Pepper, Tony, Bobbi, dead; Wanda’s kids, aside from Peter and Toph, blipped out of existence. Their population had always fluctuated, but these past few years had been brutal. She kept smiling, though, even if it was a bit more tempered. Tonight was a good night, and their focus was on good memories, old and new. She wasn’t going to taint that with more sadness.
She brought her collection of gathered dishes over to Wanda and added them to her stacks. They would have to do some dishwashing as well tonight, but she figured they were up for the challenge. Emme had already taken Marley back to the Outpost, and she knew to expect Carol late. She’d taken the mother-of-the-bride role very seriously, aftermath and all.
“You know what we didn’t get to do tonight? Dance together. Mother-of-the-bride and mother-of-the-groom dance.” Her grin returned, much brighter now as she snagged Wanda by the wrist and tugged her out onto the makeshift dance floor they’d created for the evening. The old iPod on its dock was still quietly shuffling through the wedding playlist in the background. “That’s a thing, right? If it’s not, I’m making it one now.”
Could this be considered procrastinating? Maybe. The mess wasn’t all that much, in the scheme of things – surprising, with the amount of people that showed up – so Wanda allowed it. “Not a thing,” she concurred, and while they weren’t really Peter and Kamala’s mothers they had fallen into that guardianship type of role. They were family, one way or another. The closest thing to mothers. “But I’ll take the dance.”
Wanda hadn’t done much of that tonight, really, aside from dancing with Peter for this mother-son-esque little dance moment (which she cried through, please don’t point this out). Catering services weren’t much of a thing these days, and she had taken up the role of making sure everything remained filled and had been running smoothly.
The music played, and she was thankful it wasn’t some funky, hurried kind of melody that required anything besides lazy swaying. Her feet were still too sore for that. “So.” Wanda smiled wryly at her. “Think they’ll make us grandmas? You’re definitely the age of one - maybe it’s time.”
“You’re funny,” Carol snarked back playfully, pulling Wanda’s arms around her neck while she looped her own around the witch’s waist. She couldn’t argue with her point, unfortunately – she hadn’t aged biologically in decades, but chronologically, this year would put her at 70. If she’d lived out that normal Earth life, maybe she would be a grandma by now, sneaking candy to Monica’s kids or teaching them to drive.
Instead, her life had gone a very different route. She was a mom again, trying to raise her kid with Emmeline in a world that had already scarred her. Marley had seen too much violence, too much pain, at barely six. This wasn’t the world they’d expected to have her in, but she loved her family deeply and kept moving forward. They were all doing their best.
“If they do, I’m still insisting on Auntie Carol. None of this Grandma shit,” she joked. They both knew that wasn’t true. She was soft for her little mini-hero (not so little or mini these days), and she really had taken her under her wing like another daughter. If kids came along and Kamala wanted her to be Grandma, then she’d be Grandma – with only a small amount of overdramatic complaining.
“Nana is such a becoming nickname for you though,” she shot back, her nose taking on that familiar little crinkle. Wanda didn’t know what the future would realistically hold. If kids were even part of it. It was nice to think of the what-if scenarios, to fantasize about what life should be - but she knew friends had made the conscious decision to keep their family growing.
A lot of children had lost one parent. More had lost both. There were a few of them that she helped look after; she had the time, the love to give, the patience. It didn’t require magic.
Then, on a more bittersweet note, with her arms tightening a little around Carol’s neck, “I want to make sure it lasts for them.”
It wasn’t wise for her to fight with what magic she had left - it would make her a target, a prized target - but for them? God, she would.
Carol made a face. Nana, ugh. She wasn’t sure which of those was less appealing; both made her feel her age very keenly, but it was fine. If the time came, she would take what she was given, and she would protect that kid (or kids, if multiple came to be) with her life. Just like she did now, for Marley, and for the kids around the Outpost who needed as much love in their lives as they could get.
“I know.” Her grip on Wanda instinctively tightened just a moment after Wanda’s arms squeezed around her neck. “We will. We’re doing everything we can, and we’ll keep doing it as long as we have to.”
It was sad what they’d become. It hurt, and it was hard. There was no miracle fix waiting around the corner this time. Years had passed, and they had dwindled – in number and in power – but they were holding on tight to each other. These moments especially lit up the darkness their world had become and inspired a little bit of hope.
“Don’t you leave me next,” she said quietly. “You’re my best friend, we’re in this together. Hypothetical grandkids and all.”
“I’ve no plans,” Wanda solemnly vowed with a tight smile. “This place – it’s all I have. You people are all I have. I don’t have anything else back home.” There had been no new memories from home; she was running with the assumption that maybe she had succeeded in killing herself, which she wasn’t mourning.
There was no Vision. No Billy and Tommy. Stephen was around, she hoped, but their connection had been different. He was off with that sorceress, probably. Hopefully happy.
It’s all she wanted for the people she loved.
“But.” Wanda reeled an arm back to pat Carol on the cheek. “Same goes for you. You have too much to lose if something happens to you - don’t let it.”
“No plans,” Carol echoed both the words and the tight smile. It was a rough reality to deal with after a wedding and a mood killer to top it off, but her filter had long ago turned off in Wanda’s presence. She was one of the people who knew Carol best these days, one of the few she trusted absolutely completely.
She closed that topic quickly, though, leaning in to press a lingering kiss to Wanda’s forehead before drawing back and urging her to spin under her arm. The grin returned as she gave her friend a playful squeeze. “If I’m Nana, what’s that make you? Is there a Sokovian word for it?”
She knew the Russian word for it, but Wanda was far too young to be called something as unattractive as babushka.
That spin was lovely. It gave her a view of everything again; the string lights in the yard, the centerpieces, the way everything looked untouched by destruction. Like a glimpse of their home several years prior.
Then she returned to Carol, and as her arms went around her neck again, she made a face at her friend.
“Guess you’ll find out if they make a little Spider Marvel,” she hummed, an eyebrow quirked. “Marvel Spider?”
“I vote for Marvel Spider,” Carol chuckled, “but Spider Marvel has a nice ring to it, too. They’ll be an interesting little hybrid, whatever comes from that union.” She hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe I should see if I can scavenge up some butterscotch candies. Really play up the Nana thing.”
The long, slow song they’d been swaying to switched to something more upbeat, and with reluctance, Carol slowed them to a stop. Wanda had been up on her feet all evening, making sure the crowd invited had plenty of food and drink at their disposal. No way her feet were going to carry her through much more.
“Alright, sit down for a bit and let me get all these dishes into the kitchen,” she ordered, all faux sternness with a gentle finger poking at Wanda’s shoulder. “I might even come back and rub your feet if you behave.”
“Ouch, Carol,” she retorted, all faux pout at the poking. “I will let you be the boss of me in my own home just this once - and that is because I’m dreading the dishes part.” The trash was the easy part. The scrubbing, the drying?