𝓦𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐀 ⬡ 𝓜𝐀𝐗𝐈𝐌𝐎𝐅𝐅 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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abraxaslogs2022-07-25 12:02 pm
carmesi) wrote in abraxaslogs2022-07-25 12:02 pm
Entry tags:
- claude von riegan; the wheel of fortune,
- goro; the chariot,
- himeka sui; the fool,
- julie lawry; the wheel of fortune,
- lucifer; the devil,
- matt murdock; the tower,
- peter parker (mcu); strength,
- prince wilhelm; the tower,
- sam wilson; justice,
- steve rogers; the hierophant,
- viktor; death,
- wanda maximoff; the hanged man,
- yennefer of vengerberg; the chariot
· OPEN ·
Who: Wanda Maximoff, featuring others
When: July 22-August 5
Where: Solvunn and Horizon
What: Catch-all for Wanda's Sadbatical; closed starters within. Her magic is doing some messing around within Horizons, but this is opt-in! It's not happening throughout, and only when she is present in the Horizon.
Warnings: Grief, guilt, shame, mild-suicidal thoughts, Multiverse of Madness themes, TBA
[it has been a week since wanda removed herself from gardsbruk farm and found a place to isolate herself in—a small woods hedging the border of solvunn. the journey there had been fraught with substantial pause, and, at times, she felt she couldn't breathe. all she remembers is sitting in the darkhold castle atop wundagore mountain and forcing it to fall, its destruction surrounding her, the fury of her mistakes heavy stone. to be back here, now, it's not mercy.
wanda wishes she were dead.
her first week away, exiled to this far-off forest, she's set up a hex in it. slowly, as the days went by, the hex became smaller and smaller, until it encompasses a small portion towards the center of it. at first glance, it seems inconsequential, nothing of note to be seen, but an individual more adept at magic would see that its placid visage is interrupted by the back-and-forth of red static. anyone attempting to enter it would be rejected, expelled immediately.
the days go past without her taking any conscious recollection of them. magic bursts forth from her, her sorrow, her shame inclement against her psyche. it isn't long before she starts confusing reality with delusion, in this state, in her own isolation—she tries eating because her body demands it, but she can't seem to keep anything down, water from the stream that goes past the only thing keeping her mildly aware of her circumstances. and as she stares at the stars, and the sun, and the moon, past the canopy of the trees, her eyes blur the images she sees.
finding herself barefoot, she walks the trail of trees, the silence deafening. the leaves under her feet crunch and break. unbeknownst to her, her magic trails along with her, a mind of its own, subsuming different domains in red. it remains so, until she blinks back awake into the real world, an ache in her throat. her scarlet magic pulses again in tired exhaustion, her screams unheard within her self-imposed jail.]
When: July 22-August 5
Where: Solvunn and Horizon
What: Catch-all for Wanda's Sadbatical; closed starters within. Her magic is doing some messing around within Horizons, but this is opt-in! It's not happening throughout, and only when she is present in the Horizon.
Warnings: Grief, guilt, shame, mild-suicidal thoughts, Multiverse of Madness themes, TBA
[it has been a week since wanda removed herself from gardsbruk farm and found a place to isolate herself in—a small woods hedging the border of solvunn. the journey there had been fraught with substantial pause, and, at times, she felt she couldn't breathe. all she remembers is sitting in the darkhold castle atop wundagore mountain and forcing it to fall, its destruction surrounding her, the fury of her mistakes heavy stone. to be back here, now, it's not mercy.
wanda wishes she were dead.
her first week away, exiled to this far-off forest, she's set up a hex in it. slowly, as the days went by, the hex became smaller and smaller, until it encompasses a small portion towards the center of it. at first glance, it seems inconsequential, nothing of note to be seen, but an individual more adept at magic would see that its placid visage is interrupted by the back-and-forth of red static. anyone attempting to enter it would be rejected, expelled immediately.
the days go past without her taking any conscious recollection of them. magic bursts forth from her, her sorrow, her shame inclement against her psyche. it isn't long before she starts confusing reality with delusion, in this state, in her own isolation—she tries eating because her body demands it, but she can't seem to keep anything down, water from the stream that goes past the only thing keeping her mildly aware of her circumstances. and as she stares at the stars, and the sun, and the moon, past the canopy of the trees, her eyes blur the images she sees.
finding herself barefoot, she walks the trail of trees, the silence deafening. the leaves under her feet crunch and break. unbeknownst to her, her magic trails along with her, a mind of its own, subsuming different domains in red. it remains so, until she blinks back awake into the real world, an ache in her throat. her scarlet magic pulses again in tired exhaustion, her screams unheard within her self-imposed jail.]
post-dated to aug5th;
it didn’t start right away. it didn’t start when he first sent wanda another message and received no reply. she’s busy, he reasoned. it wasn’t always convenient, words blotting out your eyes. it wasn’t a good time.
and then it was another message missed and granted he wasn’t asking anything noteworthy. but it planted a seed of anxiety that made him, a few days following, seek out her horizon.
he had inserted himself into it carefully, and through this state — where somehow everything felt more real even though he was still leaning up against the wall of his room — silence and unease filled him, made his senses craw and craw and crawl.
he’d caught wisps of scarlet fog, he’d called out with no answers and saw the sky haze into crimson red.
and yet still, he tried to reason. he thought since the horizon was still there, then she must also be. that maybe she’s just not in it right, that maybe she’s busy or — or that somethings wrong.
peter had long decided to trust his preternatural sense. for better or worse, it has been a part of him for years, and maybe he just need to be better at listening to it. and it had told him, something isn’t right. but lots of things haven’t been right lately. the nightmares, the entities inside them. maybe, he tries to think, maybe she just didn’t want to risk something happening again.
it’s with that last attempt at convincing himself that he departs, with the a lingering sense of the scarlet fog.
a few more days pass, accompanied by another trip to a horizon that was scattered into pieces and peter thought that that was it, that there she was gone and maybe he had sent one final message after that. maybe, he’d be embarrassed to admit, he sent her something that said wanda? come back, please? and by the time he hears, by the time he knows strange has caught up and surpassed him in time, slips in wanda’s name somewhere in the recollection, something finally hits peter like a proverbial freight train.
if stephen is caught up, what if wanda is too.
what if — what if she was still here and —
— with dread creeping up, and maybe guilt, peter thinks: what if she’s forgotten him. what if she didn’t reply because he was just some stranger acting overly familiar at a difficult time and peter would be mortified if he wasn’t so desperately struck with a premature feeling of loss.
another person, endlessly important to him through the short amount of months spent around each other, another person lost and —
— and it’s okay if she is. it’s okay because it’s selfish to want her to remember him right? because it’s still the price he had to pay. but, whether she does or not, there’s something else that strikes at Peter’s mind. the way her magic wrapped around him that time, their grief and pain shared so much that he isn’t sure he’d ever be able to fully shake it off. maybe he wouldn’t want to (carried together, spread and divided, might lighten a load). but he remembers that now.
it’s okay if you hate me she’d said and something chokes at him at that and what if she’s just scared and alone right now? what if she thinks something like that again and there’s no one to remind her?
is that selfish of him? Is that overstepping??
peter parker has long decided to trust his instinct. and not for the last time, he takes a leap of faith, as he reaches out again. ] [ he lets his mind quiet, let’s that final period drop off and he lingers, in the quiet of his room, where there’s only the sound of his own, slightly faster, breathing. ]
here. we. go.
she sees vision sometimes, taking her hand and picking her off of the ground, regaling her with easygoing stories of simple, trivial things. minutes pass before she catches herself, talking alone, scarlet magic disappearing from the corner of her eyes. it's this constant back and forth, of not wanting to escape reality but wishing to do so irregardless, that makes her feel that she is teetering back and forth from the brink of something damaged.
it's amidst such a moment, in the turmoil of not wanting to confront how she feels, that her thoughts stop abruptly.
...familiar. it's a familiar name, and she connects it to the pertaining face so quickly. how long has it been? she blinks and his messages disappear before she can read them. no, come back. wanda holds on to it, to this anchor; she focuses, closing her eyes tight.]
[it comes rushed out, frazzled, like this is a message she needs to convey, conversations prior of a boy worried of being forgotten, willing to be forgotten. it feels like the only rational thing she's thought about in days; the first thoughts that follow some kind of distinct order.]
bring it ON
he thinks maybe he should check with sam. or steve? she's close with them, too. so maybe they would know something. or maybe that would also be overstepping into a territory he isn't sure he can.
or was he too impatient, in reaching out directly to her, instead of checking with them? but no, in the end, no matter what, his choices would have been the same. he would still look for her, he would still want to help. he may not understand the hand of loneliness she's been dealt, the endless depth of it with that power of hers, but he understands what its like to be alone, too. and it sucks. and its better when you're not and sometimes its just that simple.
he goes over a few more circular arguments before the word sharply crosses over his vision and he starts. his pulse quickens as he holds his breath and the exhaled relief is almost a laugh — nervous, wobbly — ] Holy shit, okay.
[ is muttered out loud, to himself before he can distinguish out a reply. ] [ hm. this isn't coming out as easily as he wants it to be. honestly, he wasn't expecting it. he was hoping, sure, but he wasn't expecting it. the next question comes after he takes another long inhale, tries to steady himself, and his nerves and the words will come through more measured, maybe. like they're important. ]
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she remembers it vaguely. it feels like so long ago when she last stepped on it, last stepped on the home she had made of it back in their world, as she travelled through magic across the multiverse, scrambled at the vestiges of her other self's lives in an attempt to get what she wanted, summoned demons and chained them to herself. wanda may have destroyed the darkhold across every known universe, but its influence, its presence, it lingers within her.
her mind strays back to the faces of her boys—afraid, pleading for her to not hurt them.]
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my boys she says and his heart sinks at that. he knows how much they'd meant to her. ] [ he realizes, he doesn't know how to help. he really — he doesn't know what happened. whatever it was, whatever stephen had mentioned implied a whole lot more than was shared; because of course, because there's never enough words or time to share the extent of events experienced, and peter knows that too; he can't fault anyone for not sharing everything.
but peter's clever enough to take all the clues and know how terribly wrong things feel right now. how — broken? is that the right word?
he hates, in many ways, that in the grand scheme of things, a few webshooters and smart tech doesn't fix anything. not even the minor spells he's learned here can help. he wracks his brain, isn't sure what else to offer than:]
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instead, she pulls at whatever she can find and closes her eyes—falls into a deep sleep, but her astral form remains awake at the side of her physical body. like this, she enters the horizon — peter's horizon — arrives in it without having to walk into it, something of a lost soul in the middle of this quiet, lonely new york city apartment. wanda ambles for a moment, trying to seek normalcy, until she stops at the window, looking outward at whatever imagining peter has set up in the outside of his domain.
wanda waits, restless, but not without patience.
she remembers him; this is important.]
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was that a yes? did he exhaust the options to talk here? was she going to visit —
oh, oh shit, he starts, unfolding limbs from his tense fold, as if remembering that in order to check, he'd actually have to go into his horizon himself and oh my god he hopes she's there or that he didn't miss her and whoops, okay, focus and meditate and —
— and it was starting to be quicker habit to switch his mind into the horizon. to take a deep breath and settle and while the latter part was definitively the hardest, it worked soon enough and the next time he opens his eyes, its standing in aunt may's apartment, with warm sunlight through the curtains, some sort of nebulous time of day catching the setting sun. it's warmer than the last time, curated into the memories and feelings he wanted to remember her by, but the loneliness lingers no matter how hard he scrubs.
when wanda looks outside the windows, however, she'll see an effect that would be reminiscent to strange's mirror dimension. peter had been testing the limits of this place, mathematically speaking. geometry is cool, and he was — well, bored wasn't the correct description. restless. it was easier to exist in a place that adjusted as fast as his mind wanted it to.
peter stands in the living room, pivots around until his eyes and senses zero in on her presence, standing by the window. his heart lurches into his throat. he isn't sure if its relief yet, but he's glad to see her. ] Wanda —
[ he takes a few steps forward, but stops a few away, not wanting to be too intrusive, maybe. ] Sorry, were you waiting for a while? I — sorry. Hi.
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and wanda draws a shaky breath.
yes, she thinks, i remember him. the way he looks, the way his thoughts would ricochet too loudly, so earnestly, the way he would apologize for absolutely nothing of consequence, and for his gentle and careful approach. this is the young man she's come to know, whom she had forgotten her relationship with when she returned to their world, not finding the significance of it until she returned (until he messaged her).]
Peter.
[it's a a mutter of plosives whistling past her lips, for once not held back by her own insecurities and careful measures of affection. she walks to him, hurried, bare feet heavy, and breaches the distance between them to hold him tightly in her arms. she's nodding against his head, a little frantically, trying to get words out.]
Stephen's spell didn't— didn't affect me. I had a hex, and— and I didn't realize before, but now I know, I didn't— [a gulp of air, embracing him tighter, tears flooding her vision, wetting his shoulder as they fall.] I remember you, Peter.
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his heartbeat is somewhere in his throat, and his thoughts — habitually racing, leaping from one train of thought to the next — quiet if only from the sheer wonder.
his approach is careful, steel within distance, like he's afraid of overstepping some invisible boundary. like how maybe whatever it was that she remembered would fade away, like something about strange's spell would click back into place.
peter remembers well enough how disorienting it had been to come back. to know it had been years for him and months for those still here, in abrasax. he can't help but think on how disorienting it would be to leave and come back and she looks like she's been through hell. it's something about the eyes.
but he doesn't have too long to focus on that because she pads forwards and he's winding his arms around her as soon as she does. it's a full-hearted hug, chin ducking against her shoulder and throat suddenly tight. ] That's good — [ is the reply, voice raspy and muffled and when her tears soak through his shirt, he holds tighter. ] I'm — I'm really glad to hear that, Wanda. I thought you were — I though you wouldn't — [ he stops, words catching and tumbling messy through his teeth. i thought you were gone, he almost says. i thought you wouldn't remember. it's selfish, this relief, but she's come to mean so much is such a short time.
he wants to ask what happened. he knows better than to. still, he asks, and thinks he knows the answer anyway. ] You okay?
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and though it is selfish, such a sentiment sprouts from wanda a flourish of something warm and welcoming. she loves peter so much—she would hate herself for ever forgetting him, for ever hurting him.
and peter asks, amidst the tumultuous thoughts that spill and stick to her consciousness, if she is okay. she knows that he knows the answer, but he asks anyway, and she's already answering before her answer is even formed in sounds and a singular syllable; her head shaking slightly, her lips trembling.]
No.
[it's grief, grief and sorrow and pain that cut so deep that makes her knees feel weak. and she's grasping for him as she feels the debilitating force of it all crashing on her again—ponders again, obsessively, why she didn't stay under the rubble of obsidian rock, left with a fate uncertain, closer to oblivion than this existential crush of knowing that she will
never
see them again.
never
be with them again.
her knees hit the floor, her hands fists against her face before they release, flat against face, covering her eyes. she's done such horrible things, was willing to do worse—
there is no coming back from that.]
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peter had spent enough sleepless nights trying to convince himself of just that, a culmination of messy, selfish actions leading to colossal failures, to things made worse. that he can't let that happen again, and on and on the spiral had gone.
but peter parker will, for better or worse and with little choice, forever be peter parker. the boy who leaps first, with heart and belief and conviction, and plans later. who only ever wanted to help, who believes in second chances because that's what aunt may taught him.
he knows the answer, even before she says and he holds onto her until she slips to the floor. he's lowered himself to his knees in tandem, a flurry of instinct, hands on her shoulders. ] Hey, woah —
[ the expletive is quiet, under his breath as there's a spike of panic, and he could swear, he could swear his chest tightens, presses in in the same way it had when wanda's magic first pulled out his grief and unravelled it, and his fingertips tingle with the same unease. he looks at her, knows she isn't injured, doesn't look injured here, but still has to mentally check, as though to remind himself. to affirm to himself that she's — she's not going anywhere, not like that.
he settles in near to her side, so that he could — albeit timidly — run circles along her back. ] I'm sorry. [ hesitantly, the words tumble out, voice quiet and breathless, in the little apartment around them. ] What — what happened? Or — or, we don't need to talk about it. I'm here, either way, okay? I'll stay right here.
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wanda is tired of crying, the emotional toll it takes on her, and for once she wants to be sound of mind. because if there's someone here who could really define where she stands, it's peter. would he hate her?
so she tries to get it all into words.]
I had a dream. [so many dreams, but the one she means is the one where she could get everything she wanted. it would work out perfectly, without a hitch, and she would be with her boys; she would be happy and they would be, too.] I thought... [she shakes her head slightly] I could have everything I wanted.
[with a shaky breath, she leans away, looks at peter, her cheeks damp with tears, her eyes tired.]
I can show you.
[she wants to, because it's peter, and he needs to know the monster that she is so that he can choose whether she is still someone he can say he doesn't hate.]
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I thought I could have everything I wanted and it hurts, a little (a lot) just how much peter thinks he understands the sentiment. how much he relates. he wonders what exactly it was, or what exactly she did to try and get it. that’s the implication, isn’t it? that’s what he did too, isn’t it? he’s no hypocrite, to try and question that simply, human little want.
he stays there, quiet and breathing as she leans, until she moves away and he drops his arm, to loosely settle on his folded knees and tries not to fidget.
brows pinch, as he watches her face. sees how exhausted she is. what happened repeats itself like an echo and when she offers to show him, he doesn’t need to think twice about what the answer will be. ] Okay, [ he says simply, never for a second thinking her a monster. he nods, affirming. ] Okay. Show me, please.
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does that say something about him? wanda wants to believe that he just—cares, and through his caring, he just wants to understand. wanda is scared of showing him this much, but she can't not be honest with him. because peter deserves everything, her honesty, even all the ugly truths.
okay, she whispers back.
her hands, in a practiced motion, flare with her magic—familiar to peter, at this point, but different; wilder, stronger, darker. as her fingers twitch into the composition of the spell she will use, she momentarily hesitates, and meets his eyes.]
Whatever you think of me after this... I'll be okay with it.
[—with that, her magic starts to glow, a plume of it reaching towards peter, marring his eyes in scarlet, and throwing his consciousness to relive her memories. it's scattered, at first, but there's westview and wanda's struggle with taking down the hex, the battle that ensued with agatha, the prophecy in the darkhold. her having to say goodbye to her family in a familiar house—one peter will likely recognize from when she had accidentally trapped him within her chaos magic all those months ago; of familiar faces in tommy and billy.
because family is forever.
transported, then, to a lonely cabin, where her astral form would study the darkhold. the world around her growing in corruption, from what was once a lush place with green and trees and beauty, her own mind becoming warped the longer she spends reading from the pages of the book. it consumes her every waking thought, and she tries waltzing into worlds, dreamwalk through them, and that itself opens the gates for her dreams to show her these lives of hers, where she is happier and she has e v e r y t h i n g she wants.
only to wake up to immense loneliness, a world darkening in how meaningless it all feels.
and yet she is fueled, by the darkhold, the voices of corruption, making her believe that she can and should take what is rightfully hers. wanda does not fight it, and after two long years of this, she starts connecting with demons; terrifying, untamed, but they get bound to her, her runes dictating their actions. her fingers twitch as she puppets them, sees through their eyes—always stephen, protecting america, but she does not care to remove him from her way, her sole focus on the girl.
from there, peter will see how she pushes out of the shadows, finally, takes center stage in her own ploy to take america's powers. stephen strange and kamar-taj stand in her way, but not for too long. the mirror dimension traps her, and she brute forces her way out. a path of desperation and death leads her to another universe, where she kills so easily, murders those who stand in her way, until she finally gets america.
—and even then, she still sees herself, carved in stone, like an idol of pagan religions, meant to rule the cosmos or ultimately destroy it. but that's not what i want, she tells wong, turning to him. i just want my boys.
when she finally has america in her grasp, she's haunted by the master of the mystic arts and a legion of demons, calling her a murderer. exhausting her patience, making her even more desperate. until, until—
she sees her sons, terrified of her as she tries to convince that she is not a monster, that she could never hurt anyone.
except she did. and it is that moment of understanding, that brings her down to her knees, in front of the boys' real mother, this other self of her whose body wanda puppeteered and forced to commit such horrible crimes; this other her who saw her pain, in her dreams, and only offers know that they'll be loved as her only sole comfort.
wanda seems to come to her senses thereafter, the portal closing, as she shares one final moment with stephen strange. i opened the darkhold. only i can close it. no good byes, no heartfelt words for her, as she does not deserve them—after all she's done.
the world caves in around her and for one, blissful moment, she feels absolutely nothing.
peter may awaken now from his unconscious state, wanda's magic still twirling in her hands. enough, she thinks, her breathing heavy as she stops the spell, emotion wretched within her.]
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there’s a brief moment where his senses — that uncontrollable instinct — rears up, sends goose flesh all along his arms and settles on the back of his neck as the power overtakes, as his vision turns crimson and then he’s no longer in his horizon, and it happens faster than he can open his mouth to rattle off something in response. a promise, perhaps, right on the tip of his tongue.
but he’s no longer anywhere but in wanda’s memories and it’s so incredibly disorienting at first, chasing down recollection after recollection, truths laid bare. westview — a fight — the living room he recognizes.
then there’s — the disquieting solitude. a dark book that rattles him even through this dream. it’s dangerous his mind supplies, watches wanda navigate its power, watches her be drawn further and further into it, watches her be caught in its hold. watches her see everything she could ever want — her children. billy and tommy.
everything really isn’t everything at all. it isn’t some pursuit of impossible power or having infinity in the palm of your hands, like thanos. even as he watches her fight through an army of kamar taj, lethal and dangerously efficient, he can’t say it’s at all the same. even as he watches her fight face to face with stephen and — yes, there’s worry there too, sharp and sudden, but it isn’t —
— she just wants her family back, he reminds himself, pulled under the current of loss and anger and grief and want and he isn’t sure he can breathe. isnt quite sure his conscience is his own.
her magic is immense.
her power.
her loneliness, and the darkhold’s influence echoing in sharp shocks through this connection.
there’s a statue with her face, on top of a lonely and cold mountain and demons obey her and she wants to take a girl’s power and leave her to die and —
— and no, it isn’t right and there’s something in peter that aches, impossibly so, when he watches her frightened children scamper away.
know they will be loved, she’s told. it will have to be enough, peter pleads. it will have to be enough if wanda gets to be happy in one universe, if not in this. it’s good enough, it has to be, please —
he knows, inherently perhaps, what comes next when she returns to that mountain peak. he knows, dreads, maybe in those boyish ideals, ever rooted even now, that no matter the ruin left in the wake of her anger, it isn’t because of cruelty.
so it isn’t surprising, perhaps, that the mountain crumbles around her, at her behest. because wanda is still her. she’s still the woman that destroyed the one thing that kept her love alive. and dispelled the hex, losing her children. and — and sacrificed herself, to keep the darkhold closed, guaranteeing her unhappiness in that universe. it is surprising, however, to see the stones coming full force at him as the vision sharply fades and there’s nothing, until —
— peter bolts back awake, a near shout wrenching itself as a gasp from a constricting throat, half expecting to still be met with rubble and his arm flails out, reaching to grab onto her.
he takes a second, two, to steady his breathing, heart racing as he lets go to pass his hands along his face before finally raising his eyes to look at her.
he should say something, it occurs to him, as he blinks away the marathon run of events from his vision. ] Woah — okay. Yeah, okay.
[ not exactly eloquent. ] Wanda —
[ another breath. but despite grappling the disorientation until it calms, it isn’t fear, or hate or disappointment that stares back at her.
it’s dawning understanding. maybe it’s confusion, as he tries to comprehend that book, that temple. the extents of things greater than him. one thing he does know. will always know: ] — I’m sorry. That you were all alone through all of that, that —
[ she just wanted to be happy, something in his mind supplies. it isn’t an absurd, irrational thing. it isn’t destruction of half a universe. it isn’t some unknowable conflicts with people with his name.
and it’s impossible for him to not draw parallels. it’s impossible for him to not think of how he had run to world breaking magic first, instead of making a phone call, because he was impossibly desperate to have his life return to whatever normal it could be. impossibly desperate, after, to prove he’s not what the news called him, and desperations means you make bad calls. and bad calls lead to people getting hurt and he can’t —
— he can’t fault her for what she did, can’t bring himself to, even when the things that were done were wrong. everyone deserves second chances. everyone deserves to be happy, too. slowly: ] You — just wanted your family back.
And that book? It was — were you in it?? [ no, not important, just questions tumbling out. he shakes his head, his voice breaking. ] — people have done worse for less, and they got second chances. [ there’s an undercurrent of heat in that statement too. a flash of memory, of being a second away from a killing blow, green goblin’s sickle grin forever branded in his mind.
he reaches for her hand first, this piece of family that’s carved itself out here, in this limbo of dimensions. ] I promise you’re not alone here. I know I said it already, but I mean it, okay?
What happened — it’s important. And it’s messy, and it’s a lot — [ there’s a little nervous laugh at that. ] — but our lowest moments don’t define the rest of us. They can’t. [ they can’t, and he doesn’t say it for her sake alone. ]
no subject
and it's so simple, the way peter puts it, like it makes perfect sense; that nothing about her thinking, about her desires, her actions was wrong. she inhales a shaky breath as he keeps asking, an unfiltered wordage of his thoughts for her to hear, and it's so familiar.
could she really be worth redeeming?
a sob escapes her as she pushes a hand to her face, her thoughts a blur of conviction and shame; conviction that there is no coming back from this—and shame for what she has to live with. because what happened is important and is messy and it is a lot, and she's just been...
so alone.
wanda calms her breathing long enough to bring her hand down, reaching for peter's hands, holding them tightly, desperately so.]
Do you hate me, Peter?
[hate her, fear her, the same way her children did, and do?]
no subject
he twists his hands under hers until he can slip his fingers around them, hold back, and he shakes his head.
there’s no hesitation there. there isn’t, same as the last time. ] No, [ brows furrow, and a frown scrunches his nose and his eyes are locked on hers. ] Never, Wanda.
[ what happened — what she did, the weight of that — yes, it’s wrong. peter isn’t so naive as to not recognize the significance of her actions.
but he meant what he said. the lowest moments can’t define them. and he kind of made a promise to her kids, did he?
besides, aunt may said: everyone deserves second chances. she’s told him that, when those people came pouring in from different universes. when he could have seen them as murderers, people who’ve done terrible things, and instead he saw people who needed help. who could, perhaps naively, perhaps hopefully, be redeemed.
how could he hate wanda for — for what? for being hurt? afraid? influenced by some magic book that, peter only assumes, had taken and pulled and twisted those desires to its own means, too? why would he hate her for wanting to be happy?
great power. great responsibility. their mistakes make greater impact. but — they aren’t their mistakes because that assumed there’s no coming back from something.
and peter doesn’t believe in that.
so the answer is simple. he could never, ever hate her. could he worry? could he disagree? yes. but she did the right thing at the end, didn’t she? her intention, at the very end, was the right one and he, more than anything, understands the sacrifice of willingly choosing something that damages you to save the rest.
he holds on tight, sniffs, and looks around the apartment. at the kitchen. despite the gravity of all they’ve just seen, the place around them isn’t the dreary, lonely apartment caught in a december in New York. it’s decidedly one of his aunt’s. warm light, steadfast and cozy and he hadn’t realized he’d shaped it as such until he pays attention again. ] How about — do you wanna sit? We could figure out what to do next together, if you want? I can make tea? And pancakes.
[ well, make is a loose term given that they’re in his horizon. he could just dream them up, if he wanted to. he knows he just keeps talking, but — but there’s something he could do to try and help, right? to try and pull her out of her thoughts. he moves to stand, hands still clasped around hers. maybe he doesn’t even realize exactly, that he keeps talking. ] Aunt May would make pancakes and sometimes we’d talk, and it felt like we could solve all the world’s problems.
^ spookiest tag lore yet, iykyk
despite all the darkness, despite all the pain and solitude.
wanda allows herself to cry quietly, until peter is rising to his feet, not letting go of her hands; and so, she rises, too. it takes her a moment to understand what he's trying to tell her.
pancakes and tea. she would ask, but knows his explanation will be coming in no time at all.
and there it is: aunt may.]
Yeah.
[it's quietly said, barely there; nodding her head at his offer. her hands remove themselves from his, to cup his face, and she's carefully pulling him into a hug.]
I'd love that, Peter.
too spooky
he gets a chance to know her; someone who had only been a familiar name, an ally against a universal threat.
and he would never, ever give that chance up for anything. they all carry heavy burdens. none of them should need to carry them alone.
it is impossible, in the way that the slow process of grief makes it, to not think of aunt may now, too. to not think of how he wishes she knew wanda. he thinks they would have gotten along.
he ducks his face into her palms, before returning the hold and in the time it takes for him to give her another reassuring squeeze, there's a smell of pancakes wafting from the kitchen, a recollection as easy as breathing.
he pulls away, hands hover a moment longer at her elbows as he gives her an affirming nod, a press of a smile. it'll be okay, it seems to say. ] We'll figure it out, Wanda. [ no matter what that nebulous it may be. ]
good place for wrap up?
she still hurts, and she doesn't think the pain in her heart could really, truly go away. but that dark tunnel, that abyss that held her hostage just mere minutes ago before coming here? it's not as dark, it's not as shrouded with impossibility and the inevitability of losing everything.
we'll figure it out is what she would consider an empty promise, any other day, but right now, with peter—coming from him? it feels possible.
tired as she may be, wanda nods.]
Okay.
[that's all she says—needs to say—as she approaches the table where the pancakes and tea wait for them. she may not eat much, or drink too much, but to bask in the company of this individual who has grown on her, like a son, it may heal some of the bruising left behind after all the mistakes she's made.]