Wanda Maximoff hates her father. Hates him in a way that only a scorned child can.
She hates him for leaving her in that god-awful asylum. She hates him for paying Pietro more attention over the course of their lives.
She hates him for not loving her like he should have.
She hates him for leaving her alone.
Underneath all this hatred lies a searing pain. Wanda loves her father the way he used to be, the way he was when her mother was alive.
After her and Pietro lived with Django Maximoff for four years, Magneto had found out he had children and came with Magda to pick them up.
He'd brought all three of them back to his castle in Germany, Burg Magda. Wanda loved living there with her father and Mother and Pietro. Pietro and her would find all sorts of fun things to do and more often than not, Wanda would get them in trouble.
Before their father had turned coldhearted, Pietro was the good child. He would try to keep Wanda out of trouble as best he could and usually succeeded in keeping her safe.
Wanda hates her father for changing Pietro. After her father's change in heart, he withheld any emotion from his children. Pietro, in turn, started acting out to try and get a reaction from him. When this failed to cause any difference in their father, Pietro turned into a hateful boy and started to ignore Wanda.
Wanda hates her father for everything that he is and everything he represents.
But Wanda remembers. She remembers the good times with her family at Burg Magda. The times before her mother died, the times when her father still smiled and still laughed. She remembers the man he was, she remembers the way he used to look at her mother. The way he used to look at her and Pietro.
Wanda sometimes sits up at night and stares at her bedroom door, wishing her father would come in and kiss her goodnight like he used to. She stares at the door and wishes her mother were alive to come in and read her a story.
Sometimes when he isn't looking, Wanda stares at Pietro and wishes that he would give her that uneasy grin. The same one that he would when they were kids and she was about to do something that would get them both in trouble, but be fun as hell while they were doing it.
Sometimes when he is looking, Wanda lets her guard down and lets her brother see the sad, haunted look that inevitably finds its way to her features when she's alone. Sometimes he gives her the same look.
I understand, he says to her. She has no doubt that he does understand. She doesn't answer him when he says this.
Wanda Maximoff loves her father with all her heart. Sometimes she writes him letters. She pours her heart out, tells him she loves him, asks him why he left her, asks him why he hates her now, or at least that it feels like he must hate her after what he did to her.
She never mails the letters. She cries every time she writes them. She sobs into her pillow and curls up into a ball on the bed in her room at the brotherhood boardinghouse, the feeling of intense loss and abandonment cutting like a knife and making her feel queasy. Then she wipes her tears off, does her makeup back up, and goes to the backyard to burn the letter with her red lighter. After the letter is burned, she lights up a stolen cigarette and ignores Pietro's worried look when she goes back inside.
Wanda Maximoff just wishes her father would love her again.