A/N : Note that a 'crossover' and a 'shared universe' are different things, and that I share my name with a certain villainous doctor and thus can use the below concept because I say so. So nyaaaaah.

Erik couldn't watch. He had seen horrors that he could never have given voice to, seen thousands dead and watched their families dig the graves that would one day hold them too. Seen the worst excesses of humanity's inhumanity, and yet he could not watch this simple procedure.

Hank had insisted Peter would have to stay conscious for the process to be fully effective. After finally coming round from the anaesthetic, he had actually looked a little less on the verge of death, a very slight bit of colour in his face and just a little more vitality in him – more so after Hank had insisted he eat all he wanted and rest for the remainder of the day before he began treatment. During the process, he would be hooked up to a drip that would supply him with five times the calories a human body needed, which Hank hoped would be enough despite the stress he would be undergoing. In the meantime though, he had been more than happy to sit up in bed and stuff down an incredible amount of pizza. Admitting to Hank that he was always so hungry that even when he'd eaten until his stomach hurt he still felt ravenous. The doctor had taken that as just more confirmation that he needed to have his mutation brought on quickly, if nothing else so that he wouldn't be reliant on a drip to supply his needs. He'd let Peter sleep through the afternoon and night, for once needing no help to doze off naturally, possibly still a little sedated from the hefty whack of Brevital Hank had given him the day before. Erik had stayed beside him. Prayed for the first time in who knew how long. Hoped his sister was alright, and that before too long he would be able to return Peter to her in a far better state than he had been when he left.

Erik had his objections when Hank had carried in the large biohazard-taped box he had taken delivery of, especially when the doctor had insisted that they both wear a sealed supply of air whilst he unpacked it, slipping on two pairs of nitrile gloves and a pair of thick latex before he had even cut the tape.

"So you're too concerned to even unpack that stuff without protection, and you want to inject my son with it?"

He had asked, standing at a respectable distance whilst Hank gingerly eased three vials of glowing yellow liquid out of the protective packaging. Setting them down as if they may explode, Hank turned to him and replied

"Of course not! This is an aerosol form. I'm going to get him to breathe it in. Oh… that wasn't what you were getting at, was it?"

"Not exactly." He said. Folded his arms, looked as imposing as he could whilst wearing a breathing apparatus, "What is it, where did you get it, and is it safe?"

"Do you want the absolute truth?" Hank asked, leaned against a lab bench and gave Erik a searching look, "Given that I'm going to be administering it to Peter as soon as he wakes up?"

"Are you going to kill my son, Doctor McCoy?"

"Hopefully not is the best I can say. I told you – he needs to be under extreme stress to bring his mutation on. Now, with him in such a fragile physical condition, I thought the best way to do that would be to put him under as much psychological duress as possible. This –" he indicated the three vials, which seemed to pulse with an eerie glow in the test-tube rack beside him, "is an experimental formula. I have a friend who works for Wayne Enterprises, she…. Obtained it for me"

"Stole it"

"Stole it for me." Hank admitted, "It's phobic toxin"

Erik stared at him for a long time. No need to try to look intimidating, his disgust radiated out of every pore

"I saw the results of that stuff once. Twenty-eight people killed themselves or each other, another fifteen ended up in a psychiatric unit and are never expected to recover. And you want to give it to my son?"

"A controlled dose, I promise you. Yes, there is the potential to weaponise it, but if I make sure I supply only as much as his mind can take, then it should stress him enough without doing any lasting damage"

"How much is just enough?"

"Ahhh… well…." Hank shuffled his huge, hairy feet uncomfortably, "I'm…. working on that"

Wanda didn't leave a note, misspelled or otherwise. She climbed out of her bedroom window, lowering herself down and getting scratched to pieces in a bush that her father had planted below the window. Blackberries. She remembered gathering them with him when she had been a small girl, wiped the blood from her scratched ankles and imagined that it was the rich purple juice of the berries. Remembered how her hands were stained for days afterward despite her scrubbing, thought, Ah! There's a spot!, and could not remember where the words had come from.

She had called what she could do magic. Thought of herself as a witch, a wise woman, someone who could bend the Universe to her will if she so chose. Limping down the street at four in the morning, she didn't feel wise or powerful. She felt alone, and frightened, and had the sensation of half herself being numb and distant as though she had laid on her foot and sent it to sleep. Pins and needles of the mind jabbed at her. She had no idea where she was going, only knew that if she trusted herself then she would find her missing self at the end of her journey. She thought of her mother waking and finding her missing and did not cry, thought of Lorna wailing for her big sister to swing her and play with her and did not cry. Thought of her brother and how sick and exhausted he had looked and wedged herself between two dumpsters and wept until she had vomited yellow bile onto the concrete.

She followed whatever force guided her to the bus station. Boarded a bus to Westchester with all the money she had and sat in the scratchy seat and smelled alcohol and aftershave and sweat and somehow knew, in that tingling half of herself that was cut away, that she was heading in the right direction. The sun was bright by the time she had disembarked at the Salem Centre. She stretched the cramp from her legs. Sat down for a while. An old woman in a headscarf with a hooked nose and a missing left eye sat with her, and shared her bottle of water with her, speaking no English but somehow understanding that she needed the help, then passed on.

Wanda walked to Greymalkin Lane, and paused at the gates marked 1407. She walked in without further hesitation, seeking the part of herself that had been lost.