Marvel's The Avengers: Hydra's Little Spider

Chapter 19: All Alone

Wanda walked over to where Thor and Steve stood. They both looked to be greatly disturbed by the events and to be fair, who could blame them. Thor’s axe was dripping with fresh, purple blood, which made Wanda wonder if he managed to injure Thanos with it. However, seeing as the alien was nowhere to be seen and their allies vanished into thin air all around them, Wanda doubted that it was critical.

“Steve? What happened?” Wanda asked dryly.

“We lost,” Steve said without any emotion. “What happened with Vision? Have we been too slow?”

Wanda looked down to the ground, afraid of meeting Steve’s eyes. “No. I did what he asked me to do. I destroyed the Stone in his head and Vision with it. It’s just that Thanos had the Time Stone already and simply turned back time to before Vision died. I couldn’t stop him. I hit me in the head and I just woke up seconds before everybody vanished,” Wanda explained sadly.

Steve stepped up to Wanda, who had started to cry. “It was not your fault Wanda. Nothing could have stopped him once he had the Stones. Not even you,” he said calmly and pulled Wanda into a hug. She cried against Steve’s shoulder until all the tears dried up.

“What do we even do now?” she asked, her eyes swollen and red.

“We go back to the Compound. Maybe Peter has left a message. Maybe we can do something to undo everything,” Steve encouraged her.

Wanda pulled away from Steve. “Thanos had all the Stones! Including the one from the wizard Peter protected! There is no way that Peter would have given it to him voluntarily as long as he is alive. Which means…,” Wanda nearly shouted at Steve.

“That’s not what it means,” Natasha said as she walked up to Wanda and Steve. She looked shocked by what happened, but otherwise uninjured. “There are countless other options on how Thanos could have acquired the Stone. Don’t jump to the worst possible conclusion before we have all the information.”

Wanda had half a mind to give Natasha her personal opinion about ‘all the information’, but held back in the end. Natasha didn’t want to anger Wanda, she wanted to comfort her, and Wanda realised that.

“Well then let’s get going. I don’t want to waste any more time,” Wanda finally said firmly.

“That’s more like it. Gather everybody and get to the Quinjet. Also, somebody should probably take Visions body. I don’t want him in the hands of some government agency,” Natasha commanded.

The rest of the team gathered themselves and slowly walked back to the city. Rhodey carried Vision’s body with them, which made for an weird looking procession. All around them were warriors of Wakanda, who were looking around confused and searched for their most likely vanished friends.

When they reached the Quinjet, Okoye took Natasha aside to talk about something, but Wanda couldn’t care less about their conversation. She walked straight into the Quinjet and sat down in the pilot’s seat. She wanted to get back to the Compound quickly and she only trusted herself to do so in the fastest way possible.

One after another, the Avengers - or what was left of them - boarded the Quinjet and Wanda started as soon as everybody was inside. Natasha looked at Wanda for a second with a compassionate look on his face, but otherwise didn’t comment on Wanda’s eagerness to get away from here.

A few hours later, they were just flying over New York City. Below them, there was smoke rising from within the city and Natasha asked Wanda to drop her off in the city. She wanted to check out what was going on in it. After they dropped Natasha off in Central Park, Wanda they quickly flew the short distance back to the Compound. Natasha would come back a bit later.