Wonderland: fell down a rabbit hole, you held on tight to me ('cause...

Chapter 2: don't wanna leave you anymore

Wanda felt so much grief, that she felt momentarily paralyzed– and blind. She felt blind. She couldn't breathe, or see, or notice the way she was dressed, or where she was or think of anything aside from the fact that she was alive and she couldn't help but want to be anything but.

She had fought for so long, so many years alone–fate lied to her, by making it seem like she wouldn't be alone, but none of it would last, and she was just an idiot for thinking that it would–and yet... yet, she was still here. She was still supposed to keep fighting? Wasn't destroying the Darkholds enough? Wasn't taking the full weight of Mount Wundagore down on her enough? Couldn't she have gone out with a good act, and a bang? Couldn't she leave this world where she lost every fucking little thing that mattered to her?

Couldn't she just... get a break?

Apparently not.

There was a pounding in her head, or a stinging, or a-- whatever it was, it was annoyingly persistently there, and irritatingly familiar. She brought a hand to rub at her forehead, and was not unpleasantly surprised, when she felt the also familiar sensation of metal against her forehead– her rings. Something she had taken off, and left years ago.

She focused back into the presence, only now starting to hear a saddeningly familiar voice, one speaking in Sokovian.

(why is she waking up in her brother's arms???)

"Wanda, Wanda, Wanda! Јеси добро? Wanda, о Боће. Молим те, молим те, буди добро. Не моће ти наудити сада, ја сам овде, сестро. Молим вас. одговорите ми. Wanda, љта се то овде моће? (Serbian-Cyrillic/Sokovian; Wanda– Wanda– Wanda!! Are you okay? Wanda, oh god– I will kill that archer. Please, please be okay. He cannot harm you now, I am here, sister. Please. Respond to me. Wanda?)."

Wanda's eyes flicker, red, then blue. "Pietro?" Her voice cracks, in a way she is so tired of hearing, because she thought she was done with this. The Pietro nightmares stopped years ago, and she was sure that Vision had helped her move on from her grief about her late other half. Pietro hadn't haunted her in such a long time, and why was he back now? Why was he back in yet another worst day of her life. It was unfortunate, but she was most certain that she had had more worse days in her life than she ever had best days.

She has lost everything, and lost her chance to escape life again , because of her powers and she is so tired of it, so so tired of it, she can't keep doing this. Can't keep fighting and be given no reprieve–well, Vision, and her kids, and Pietro were some reprieve, but does it really count, when their loss becomes the next big fight?–over and over again.

She was so done.

Sobs began to spill out of her, like a bucket overfilled with grief, loss, disappointment–oh, she was definitely disappointed–pain, and anguish and then it turned into laughter. Because it was just so ridiculous, so hilarious, so funny that fate would do this to her. Pietro looks all around him–he must be scanning the area, in a way he used to do a lot–before he runs in his speed, for a short while, a small burst of speed, to take them into a room, (she hears a faint groan of a man), as she falls off his arms, and onto her arms and knees.

Whose great idea was it to give a life of never-ending loss and pain to the Scarlet Witch that could not only rule, or enslave, the entire multiverse, but also absolutely demolish the multiverse too?

Her lungs burn, in need of air, that she refuses to take in. If she can die by laughing, then that might just be as poetic as dying in her 'last good act'–some fucking last act that turned out to be–so she refuses to breathe, and just keeps letting her lungs burn, until it hurts enough that new tears gather at the corners of her eyes, but she has been through worse, so she pushes on.