poor wanda's just gonna keep going through it... man i wish i was sorry

Wanda's heart lurches when she sees Tommy. She didn't expect to see him so soon.

"Mom!" Tommy runs forward and into her arms, "You're back!"

"Oh, sweetheart," Wanda's voice breaks and she's suddenly too aware of the way her accent still hangs in her words, wondering if the other version of her sounded like her, "I'm not your mom."

Tommy steps back, an irritated look growing on his face, "You look like my mom."

"Tommy," Pietro puts his hands on Tommy's shoulders and turns him around, "This is your mom from another universe, she's not... she's not the Wanda we knew."

"What?" Tommy sounds mad and Wanda hates it. She doesn't want her children to be upset with her.

She wonders offhandedly how different this other version of her was. She wonders if this Wanda still had her accent or cut her hair the same or - god, is this what her life would've looked like had Pietro stayed in it?

"There are other universes?" Tommy asks next, "How did she get here?"

"We don't know," Pietro responds, "She's going to go back, though."

Tommy looks upset at that, and Wanda wants to help, but how? She isn't his mother. This Tommy could be completely different from hers.

Wanda swallows, feeling her magic twist between her fingers without her having to think about it and quickly reigning it back in.

It's too late, though, because every one of the men in the room have seen it and Tommy looks like his eyes are about to pop out of his head.

"What was that?"

Wanda's hands fly up to her chest and she ineffectively hides them against herself. She looks at Tommy and then at Steve and Pietro, eyes wide, "Did your Wanda..."

"She did," Pietro scratches the back of his neck nervously, "She retired in 2018, though, and pretty much stopped using her magic entirely."

Steve nods in agreement, "We think that if she was using it she probably wouldn't have passed when she did."

Wanda presses her lips together. This is not important. She needs to get back to America and to her universe and to her daughter and her wife. But her brother and her son and one of her wife's best friends are all in front of her and she doesn't know what to do.

"I need to get back home."

"How do you plan on doing that?" Pietro bites out, immediately turning his head and looking at the wall when he realizes what he said, "Sorry."

"Pietro, I don't want to be here just as much as you don't need me here," Wanda reminds him, silently cursing at herself for taking the mission in the first place. She really should've just stayed in Iowa.

If only she had another version of herself to talk to. Too bad she's dead.

She's suddenly reminded of when she was recruited yesterday and America asked if there were other Stephens. There must be a version of him in this universe.

"Do you know a Stephen Strange?" Wanda asks, fully cutting off something that Steve was saying.

"Who?"

Well, she tried.

She digs her nails into the skin of her arms. She should've just stayed with Natasha. She much rather would've dealt with Natasha's sulking for a couple of days than this exhausting nightmare that she's now wrapped in.

"Well, at least if she gets stuck here, it won't be two against one anymore," Pietro says after a long bout of silence.

"You have powers, you could win if you really wanted to," Tommy retorts, and Pietro rolls his eyes.

"You just saw that she has powers, too!"

"This is not productive," Steve interrupts, "She needs to get back to her universe."

"How are we going to do that?" Pietro asks, "It could take days."

"It can't, actually," Wanda responds, "I have to get back in time for Anya's birthday. I promised her that this wouldn't take that long."

Pietro's eyes go wide, "Oh shit, Anya's birthday's on Friday."

"Swear jar!" Tommy exclaims, an evil-looking look on his face, "at this rate, we're going to get a new Xbox before Christmas."

"I'm going to tell Santa to give you coal."

"Santa isn't real."

"Wanda," Steve's voice cuts through the conversation between the two boys and all of the focus is on him, "is there any way for you to communicate with your team?"

"No," Wanda shakes her head, "America explained to me that hopping through different universes is like going back in time and trying to use an iPhone. Not everything is the same in every universe. I mean... in our universe, Pietro died in the Battle of Sokovia."

Pietro nods, "And you and Nat are alive."

"Well, now we are."

"You were dead?" Tommy asks and Pietro sighs.

"To be fair, half of the world was blipped... me, Anya, Yelena, Clint's entire family but not him..." Wanda responds, now hearing how ridiculous it sounds, "And Natasha was dead for two years before I... brought her back."

"You can fix dead?" Tommy questions and it feels like someone poured ice water down Wanda's back.

It's suddenly overwhelming to feel all of the eyes on her and she can feel her heart starting to race as everything's suddenly too much.

She centers herself, trying to keep any feelings of panic at bay and reminding herself of how she'd normally calm down Natasha. Imagining her wife already does plenty to help it, and she refocuses quicker than she expected to.

"It's too long a story to tell," Wanda says, shaking her head.

"You know what?" Steve crosses his arms, "It's getting to be dinnertime. And we're clearly not going to get anywhere with so many people that don't know how to fix the problem. Let's tell Billy that you're here, he's not going to like being left out, and Pietro can start on dinner."

Steve looks at Wanda directly now, "I'm sure with your ability to use your powers, you'll find out when your friends are here."

Wanda just nods, "No problem."

"Alright," Steve glances at Tommy, "Go tell your brother without freaking him out too much."

Tommy disappears downstairs and Pietro after him and Steve sends Wanda a small smile.

"I know you're not our Wanda, but it's nice to see you again."

Wanda smiles at him, "You too, Steve."

-

Wanda's been thinking it over for the past two hours and she's pretty sure that while this universe is better than hers - no Thanos, no blip, no Scarlet Witch, etcetera - she likes her universe more.

Of course, that feels weird. Her brother is in this universe. The same brother that has been dead for ten years is alive in this one and well. He's raising her children, who are also here. She should be cherishing that.

But in her universe, she has Natasha. And Anya. And Kate and Yelena and the Bartons, who are all a part of this weird family that she's been a part of over the past two years.

It's surreal, though, seeing what life could've been. She could've had it all. And in a sense she does now, but she's still grappling with whether or not the cost of all of that was worth it.

Eventually, she finds herself on the couch in the living room with Pietro while dinner is cooking and the boys are cleaning their mess up in the backyard. Steve's also around somewhere, but he gave them space.

"It's weird to see you again," Pietro admits, "You're in my dreams sometimes, but... it's not the same. And I held your hand while you died, it's hard to... comprehend that you're in front of me again."

"Sorry about that," Wanda pulls at her fingers anxiously, "When did she die?"

"Last summer," Pietro responds, his excited mood from earlier definitely sullen now, "She went out to get groceries for the week and on the way, a drunk driver hit her car. Such horseshit, honestly, it wasn't even six pm and they were so hammered that they had to get their stomach pumped or some shit."

"That's awful," Wanda bites her lip, pulling at her finger again and not meeting his eyes.

"You still have your accent," Pietro says, cocking his head to the side slightly.

"And you lost yours."

"I did," Pietro nods, "It helped with not getting judged in public. So did growing my hair out naturally. My Wanda dyed her hair, too. At one point, both her and Nat had red hair."

Wanda smiles wistfully. The parallels, while few and far between, are nice.

"How was Natasha?" Wanda asks next, curious about her alternate universe wife.

"She was..." Pietro cocks his head, a stupid grin on his face, "She loved making fun of me. Every year for our birthday she'd get me the good alcohol and every time you made her upset in the last year, she'd threaten to dye her hair blonde just because she could, I guess. It also seemed to shut you up."

Wanda laughs, "She did dye her hair in our universe."

"Did it look good?" Pietro asks curiously.

"Well... she bleached her eyebrows, too," Wanda shakes her head, not letting go of the smile on her face, "She told me that they helped it look convincing, and I just told her that the no-eyebrows look wasn't working for me."

Pietro snorts, "Your Natasha sounds good."

"She's the best," Wanda pulls at a loose thread on her pants, "I need to get back to her."

"I know," Pietro shifts in his spot on the couch, "I'm sure your friend is coming."

Wanda nods and Pietro continues.

"So you and Nat adopted Anya?"

"This year, yeah," Wanda nods, "She's going to be starting school as a junior in fall and we just moved to this house but in our universe and we're finally going to be normal. It's refreshing."

"Our Anya is in college right now," Pietro responds, "and Kate and Yelena were living in Russia for a while, but they moved back a while after Natasha died because they didn't want to miss shit anymore."

"Do you see them often?"

"No," Pietro shrugs, "Kate's busy with Avengers-type things and Yelena spends a lot of time traveling with their other kids-"

"Other kids?"

"Yeah, there's three of them," Pietro brushes it off for the time being, "She's been doing a lot of work involving helping women around the world that are victims of abuse, she's started a foundation in Natasha's name and everything."

"Wow," Wanda says quietly.

"Yeah," Pietro nods, "Either way, I'd love to meet your Anya, I bet she's very different from ours."

Wanda nods, a terrible idea blooming in her mind.

"What if I brought you back with me?"

"What?"

Wanda knows she sounds crazy. She hears it. But oh god, she could get her brother back, she could get her kids back, this could work.

"You don't exist in my universe. Not anymore, at least. So, theoretically, no harm, no foul."

"There's no way," Pietro shakes his head, "I mean... I'd love to have my sister back, but... it's literally a whole other universe, Wanda."

"But it's not, you know us already," Wanda tries, immediately overwhelmed and wincing when her magic alerts her of America and Stephen's presence, "They're here."

Pietro's eyes widen, "Here?"

"Coming," Wanda doesn't think she's felt something like this since Yelena and Kate found her in the woods last April.

It takes only a minute for there to be a knock at the door and Pietro quickly gets up and tells her to stay where she is. She does so, even though she can fully sense Stephen on the other side of the door.

It's kind of crazy to be in touch with her magic again like this, it almost makes her feel like she's going crazy. She would compare it to first getting her powers when she was in her twenties but this time so much more powerful and overstimulating.

Stephen's first to speak, "Do you have Wanda Maximoff here?"

Pietro matches his attitude immediately, "Which one do you want, the dead one or the alive one? We have both."

Stephen walks through the door with America on his heels, who immediately lunges forward at Wanda and hugs her, "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to send you here, I just... I got so mad and sometimes my powers act out at me."

"It's okay," Wanda assures her, "I get it."

America nods but doesn't let go of Wanda, and Wanda just holds her back, knowing she probably needs it.

"Wanda, we have to get you back to our universe before you make any problems that aren't supposed to be," Stephen says bluntly.

Wanda looks up while still holding America, and glares at him, "You got me in this situation."

"She was the one with the portal!"

"She's a kid," Wanda responds, gently letting go of America and silently urging her to sit on the couch, "I've learned a lot, by the way. This universe doesn't have a Wanda or a Natasha."

"Congratulations," Stephen says dryly, "I don't understand your point."

Wanda decides to just spit it out, "I was thinking of bringing this Pietro, Billy, and Tommy back with me."

"That would cause an incursion."

"How do you know that?" Wanda counters, and Stephen rolls his eyes.

"Have you studied sorcery? I don't think so," Stephen responds harshly, "Enough happened when the Spider-Men came to our universe, we cannot have three people come through and stay."

"They're not going to go around destroying anything! They're practically civilians."

"The multiverse doesn't care about your status, Wanda. They just care that shit from one universe isn't in the other. There's no taking your brother back to your universe, because he's not your brother!"

In that moment, Wanda swears she sees red.