Chapter 4: A Lady and a Tiger
In an empty valley there's a beautiful woman
Suddenly enveloped by serene solitude
When the east wind brushes in
The fragrance of a distant perfume
~Sun Kehong
If Sokovia had one thing going for it, it was the beauty of its mountains. On this mid-October day, their tops were draped in the powdery blue of new snow.
This bar had an amazing view. It was on the top floor of a brand new hotel on the shore of the new lake that had formed in the crater left by Ultron. The Sokovians were still debating what to name this lake. It seemed Sokovian politicians were bitterly divided over whether to name it something picturesque to promote tourism, or something dismal to honor the tragedy of its creation and the lives lost that day.
Whatever it would end up being called, and in spite of its origin, the lake was beautiful: perfectly round and tranquil, reflecting the rugged snowcapped mountains like a mirror.
Wanda was looking at the view, too. That might be why she hadn't noticed Natasha's presence yet.
Nat wondered what Wanda would name that lake. She probably had more of a right to name it than anyone else; she'd been born and raised in the part of the city where that lake was now, and she had set into motion the chain of events that led to its existence. Come to think of it, "Lake Maximoff" had a nice ring to it. Though Wanda would probably consider it a dubious honor.
Nat went to the bar and pointed to a bottle of beer, dumping a handful of loose change on the counter to pay for it, cultivating the appearance of a clueless tourist. She took a minute to look around the room as if deciding where to sit.
How would Wanda react when she saw her? Would she even be willing to talk? Nat wasn't sure. She hadn't been able to reach her when they recovered her after the Snap. None of her friends could. It had been Peter Quill who finally managed to break her out of her stupor. He'd insisted on talking to Wanda after hearing what had happened to her, and minutes later he'd returned to his ship's bridge with Wanda in tow. She still hadn't been back to her old self, but she was responsive. When they had tracked down Thanos again, she and Quill threw themselves into the fight with no regard for their own survival, even after Thanos threw the Hulk so far he'd landed out of sight. When Thor's ax cut off Thanos's arm, it had been Wanda and Quill who kept the Gauntlet away from him. Wanda had then used her power to stop Quill's suicide attack, moving him to safety, then tossing everyone else back with a circle of red energy so she could take on Thanos alone, in an attack that at first seemed equally suicidal.
Nat shook off that troubling memory.
It was late afternoon, and there were only a few other patrons in the bar. Wanda sat alone at a small square table near a window, an untouched sandwich and a cup of tea in front of her. Nat walked behind her slowly, on a trajectory that made it seem she was walking toward another empty table.
When she was directly behind her, Wanda, without turning, began to speak.
"'Tiger tiger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? And what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?'"
Nat froze. That poem, she was somehow sure, was directed at her. There was no one else close enough to hear it over the music, so she was either talking to herself or to her.
"William Blake?" she asked for something neutral to say.
"Do you like poetry much, Nat?"
Was this a dangerous question? Wanda had spoken it mildly, conversationally. She was still staring out at her lake and Sokovia's beautiful mountains.
"I studied poetry and classics some in school. That was a very long time ago, and it focused mostly on Russian literature. I didn't know you were interested in poetry."
"I wasn't until a couple of years ago. He loved poetry. He used to read me his favorite poems, explaining the meanings of obscure words and the poetic devices they used, and then we would discuss possible interpretations."
That Vision loved poetry came as no surprise. Just like he loved art, architecture, music, and everything else that made humans human.
"I've come to realize there's a kind of magic in poems," Wanda continued. "A poem can mean something to you that the poet never intended. The poem may mean something different to everyone who reads it, and each meaning is real. The poem takes on a life of its own beyond its creator. Kind of like you. You are one of the most dangerous humans on Earth; you were made to be, molded and crafted into the perfect killer. But you used what they made you to help save the world. You moved beyond what they ever intended you to be."
Nat hadn't been sure how this encounter would go, but a discussion about poetry certainly hadn't been among the possibilities she'd imagined. But they were talking, and that was good.
"You've got a great view here. Mind if I have a seat?"
"Go ahead."
Nat sat diagonal from her. Wanda didn't move her eyes from the window.
"I'm here alone, in case you were wondering," Nat said.
Wanda smirked. "If you brought an army, do you think it would make a difference?"
"It might make a difference to them," she replied. "But I'm not here to try to stop you. You're here for Aleksander Karcsi, the Sokovian industrialist. Last month the journalist Jakob Regenbogen and his wife were kidnapped after he wrote an exposé of Karcsi's corruption. Regenbogen was strangled to death while his wife was forced to watch. Karsci was arrested for it, but he spent less than a day in jail before evidence was mysteriously misplaced and eyewitnesses developed fuzzy memories. I figured you wouldn't let that go, especially since the victim was your own countryman. This is Karsci's favorite bar; he's part owner of it, and he comes here often enough that he's done press conferences from here. It's where I'd hang out if I were planning to ambush him. That's why I figured I'd find you here."
"I did learn from the best," Wanda said.
"Like I said, I'm not going to stop you. You can do whatever you want with Karsci. I'm just here to talk."
Wanda looked at her from the corner of her eye. Nat wondered, now that Wanda was using her mental powers again, how much of her thoughts she could see. Could she sense her intentions?
Even if she could, it would be fine. True, Nat did mean to try to convince Wanda to go back and join the newly reunited Avengers, but her primary reason for being here was just to check on Wanda, to make sure she was okay, because she was her friend.
At least, she was pretty sure that was the real reason, that she wasn't harboring any ulterior motives. But she wasn't always good at accessing her own emotions; she'd spent too much of her life avoiding it. What would Wanda see if she looked into her head?
"I'm glad you found me," Wanda said. "I missed you."
"I've missed you too. I've been worried about you. To be honest, we had no idea whether you were still alive."
Her eyes closed, and a pained expression crossed her face for a few seconds. Then she opened her eyes and shifted in her chair to face Nat fully. "I'm alive. It's me, in the flesh. But I get why you'd wonder."
"You've been gone a long time. How did you get back to Earth?"
"Long story. Would you like half my sandwich? It's paprika chicken, a Sokovian specialty."
"I don't want you to go hungry," Nat answered.
"I didn't plan on finishing it. I don't have much of an appetite these days."
"You know what? I am kind of hungry," she said after a moment's consideration. Sharing food with someone was a gesture of trust, an act of companionship. And the sandwich looked really good.
Wanda handed her half, then took a bite of her own half. Nat followed her lead. It was surprisingly good for bar food: tender chicken and crisp cabbage on rye bread.
"You know, this is the first time I've been back here since Ultron," Wanda said between bites. "It feels so strange. So much has happened. I don't know if the city has changed more or if I have. It's still the place where I was born and raised, but that seems like a different lifetime."
"That's how I feel whenever I go back to Russia. It's where I'm from, but it's not home anymore."
"And yet there are days when, in spite of all the problems and the bad memories, I get homesick for this place."
"Do you ever get homesick for New York?" Nat asked.
She examined the tea remaining in her cup. "You really think everyone would just accept me back, after what I've been up to? Even if the team did, the public would demand to lock me back up."
"Considering the mood of the world right now, and the fact that you're the one who stopped Thanos, I think the public will look past a little vigilante justice on the side."
"I wouldn't say I stopped Thanos. It was Thor who cut off his arm. And I wasn't there to undo the Snap. I didn't even know that was possible. I just wanted revenge. I just wanted to hurt him."
"We were all just out for revenge. None of us knew Strange's plan to use the Time Stone to stop Thanos."
"I've been wondering about that. How did you stop him?"
"Well, after you disappeared, leaving us with the Gauntlet and Thanos's dismembered arm—which really started to smell after a few hours, by the way. Be glad you weren't there for that—Dr. Strange used the Time Stone to take all of us back to before he got the first Stone, one called the Power Stone, which was under guard on a planet called Xandar. Quill explained the situation to the people guarding the Power Stone, and they, miraculously, believed him. Honestly, I wouldn't have in their place. When he told the story it sounded crazy. But they were willing to go along with the plan and loan us the Power Stone. When Thanos showed up, Quill, Thor, Hulk, Nebula, and Strange took the Power Stone, kind of teleported over to Thanos's ship, and used the Power Stone to destroy it. We don't know if the explosion killed Thanos. There were a lot of bodies in the wreckage, but not his."
"Interesting," Wanda said with a distant look.
"But whether we killed him or not, we stopped him, and that created a new timeline. The only people who remembered what happened were us and the people Thanos dusted. I can't imagine how weird it was for them. The way Sam and T'Challa described it, it was like waking up from a nightmare, except in the middle of doing something completely different from the last thing you remember doing. Clint thought it was just a nightmare, at first. He'd been asleep when it happened to him, and all he remembers is being surrounded by orange light, then he woke up and was back in his bed. It wasn't until he heard the news reports the next morning about the mass panic, the mass hallucination, and everything else they were calling it that he realized he'd been one of them."
"Why don't you remember the new timeline?" Wanda asked curiously.
"Strange said it's because we'd time traveled ourselves, which put us in a kind of time bubble, so we weren't affected by what we changed. He said that's one of the reasons screwing around with time travel is generally a bad idea."
"I see." She was quiet for a moment, then asked, "Do you think there might be a way to...take someone from one of those time bubbles and put them in the new timeline?"
Nat paused for a second. She wanted to phrase her answer carefully, because there was an undercurrent of hope in that question, and she was about to dash it. "Tony asked Dr. Strange about that, after Strange said Vision must have been in a time bubble when he died. Strange said there was absolutely nothing he could do. Tony almost punched him in the face."
"'Nothing he could do,'" Wanda repeated. She looked away. A moment later, a teardrop splashed on the tabletop.
"I'm sorry," Nat said.
"I know." She took a deep, steadying breath. "I'm dealing with it. I was in a bad place for a while—a few bad places, actually—but I'm dealing."
"And this project of yours—Karcsi and HYDRA and the others—is that helping you deal with it?"
"It is, actually. There is so much pain in the world, and so much of it doesn't have to happen; it's just people not thinking about the consequences of their actions. It's greed, pride, misguided ideals keeping people from being able to care about other people, failures of compassion. So many people never have to face the pain they caused. And they try not to face it, because thinking about yourself and the suffering you've caused is a painful process. I know that from experience. People avoid doing it. A lot of people just rationalize whatever they do to avoid wondering if they were wrong. I can make them face that. I'm the only one with both the power and the will to do it. And yes, thinking about the possibility that I might be preventing these people from causing more pain helps me get up in the morning."
"I'm not saying you're wrong," Nat said. "In fact, to be perfectly honest, I kind of agree with you. But you're making a lot of people pretty nervous, and there's been talk about stopping you."
"I'm not surprised." She drank the last of her tea and frowned at her empty cup before putting it down. "Don't worry about me. I'm not letting anyone lock me up again."
"See, when you say things like that, it doesn't really help me not worry about you."
She shrugged. "Then worry about me. It won't make a difference. I can't go back."
"Yes you can. Come home, Wanda. Make the world better, but do it with us, where we can protect you."
"So I just go back to New York and go back to how it was before, like none of it happened?"
Nat wasn't sure what to say. Of course it would never be the same. "We need you. There are going to be more threats to the safety of the world. Having you on the team could be the difference between winning and losing, between life and death."
She shook her head. "You don't need me. You've got the Hulk and Thor back now."
"Well, we do have Banner back, but Thor's been too busy dealing with the Asgard relocation to do much Avengering."
"I can't imagine Banner would want me there. I think he still hates me."
"He'll come around. I'll make sure of that."
Wanda caught the slight change in her demeanor. "How will you make sure of that?" she asked. Before Nat could answer, she leaned forward with a smile. "Oh my God, are you together?"
"Yeah. I was kind of crushing on him before the Hulk ran off after Ultron. And after the Snap, he finally decided to stop being scared and see if we might work out."
"And is it?"
"So far so good," Nat answered.
"That's great! I'm happy for you."
"Thanks." Nat finished the last few bites of her sandwich and washed it down with a swig of beer.
"So does he ever...go all green on you?"
"Nothing I can't handle. The big guy likes me."
"That's good." She looked down at the remnant of her sandwich. "Could you tell him how sorry I am, for Johannesburg?"
"Come back with me and tell him yourself."
She looked tempted. For a moment, Nat thought she might accept the offer. Then she shook her head. "The truth is, there are too many good memories back there. Everywhere I looked and everything I touched would remind me of him. I don't think I could bear it. Besides, I have things to do."
"You mean this quest, showing the bad guys of the world the pain they're causing?"
"That's really more of a hobby."
Then what did she mean? Nat wondered. If not this vigilante spree, what was it Wanda thought she had to do?
She remembered back to Wanda's battle with Thanos. He was weakened, one-armed, trapped by Wanda's power.
I can't kill him!
That was the last thing Wanda said before she and Thanos vanished in a blaze of red. They had all wondered, when hours went by and they hadn't reappeared, if they were both dead. As the weeks went by after Thanos's defeat, Nat had become increasingly sure Wanda was gone for good. And then rumors began to circulate of attacks that sounded like Wanda's powers: groups of people having nightmarish visions, caused by an attacker no one remembered seeing clearly. But if Wanda had returned, what had become of Thanos? That was the mystery Tony had argued they needed to keep Wanda alive to solve.
"Where is Thanos?" Nat asked quietly.
She could swear Wanda looked smug. "Somewhere he can't hurt anyone."
"But not dead?"
"He might as well be dead. He'll never be a threat to the universe again as long as I can help it."
Nat knew this tone from dozens of interrogations: Wanda was saying exactly as much as she was willing to say, and pressing her for more would make her shut down. Nat would have to let it go and circle around to it later, which was frustrating because she really, really wanted to know what that meant. She knew Wanda was powerful, but so was Thanos. What if whatever she was doing to protect the universe from Thanos wouldn't be enough?
"If that's true," Nat said quietly, "that's even more reason for you to come back to us, so we can protect you, make sure you don't die. This hobby could get you killed, you know. It just takes a moment of inattention, one sniper who gets a beat on you before you do them. And besides..."
"Besides what?" Wanda asked when she trailed off.
She shook her head. "Nevermind. It's nothing."
"Tell me."
Nat sighed. "The thing is, Wanda, I know what you're going through. I get wanting to make people pay. And it feels good, at first. But the doubts will start to creep in, the images. Someday it's going to start to haunt you. I don't want that for you."
"Haunt me?" Wanda's lips curled into something that might have been a smile if it weren't so bitter, so wild.
"Why is that funny?" Nat asked.
"It's just...there comes a point when you've done something so terrible nothing else you ever do could touch you. No guilt I'd ever feel over things like this would be more than—what's that expression?—A drop in a bucket compared to what I already have."
What did she feel so guilty over? This was a question Nat wanted to know the answer to before she asked it. She sipped her beer to buy herself a moment to think. Ultron, Johannesburg, Lagos...Wanda still carried her guilt for all of those. But this was bigger, this global vigilante spree was worse than those, so whatever she was blaming herself for now must have eclipsed all of that, and it had to have something to do with Thanos.
It had to have something to do with Vision. Nothing else would impact her so much.
No. You have to destroy it.
That was why Vision was in a time bubble when he died. Why Thanos would have used the Time Stone.
Nat put her beer down and looked at Wanda fully. She understood the look in her eyes now, the wild grief trapped beneath a veneer of cold acceptance.
The argument that Wanda should give up her vigilantism hobby because it was dangerous wouldn't work, because risking her life was part of its appeal. She had an impulse for self-destruction that she was managing by courting danger.
Very quietly, as gently as she could, she said, "You did it, what he asked you to do. You destroyed the Mind Stone."
"For all the good it did." Fresh tears formed in her eyes. "And the big joke is, if I hadn't, if I'd refused and let Thanos kill him, he would be back now."
"There's no way to know that; we don't know what would have happened to the Mind Stone when the timeline changed. It's not your fault. There was nothing else you could have done. It's alright."
Wanda's eyes snapped toward her, suddenly full of fire. "Why would you say that?" she asked with unexpected harshness. "Don't say it's alright when it's not alright. How can anything ever be all right? Something's always wrong."
That word was a trigger for her, Nat realized. "Okay," she said very carefully. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you were forced to do that. I can't imagine how much that hurts."
The tears spilled over, dripping down Wanda's cheeks. "I'm sorry. I just miss him so much."
Nat put her hand on her arm. What could she say? What could she possibly say to convince Wanda to give up this quest that was all she could think to do to deal with her guilt and grief, to convince her that rejoining the Avengers was what Vision would want her to do? It wouldn't work. Nat had to gain her trust, and that meant not pushing her.
"Here." She handed her a napkin. Wanda dabbed her cheeks and took a deep breath.
"The thing is, I could have saved him. If I knew then what I'm capable of, if I'd allowed myself to explore the full extents of my power before, I could have stopped Thanos."
"There was no way you could have known you would need to. Don't blame yourself for what Thanos did."
"I know. And don't worry; Thanos isn't off the hook. You know, even if I could kill him, I wouldn't. He doesn't get off that easy. He gets to suffer." Her face twisted with hatred for a second, then it smoothed into an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry I frightened you, Nat. I would never hurt you. I promise. It really does mean a lot to me that you're here. I know you came to try to talk me into going back, and I know you mean it out of friendship. I hope you understand now why I can't."
Without waiting for a response, she left the table, heading toward the restroom. At the door, she turned to look over the room. There were eleven other people in it, including Aleksander Karcsi, his wife, and three cronies, who had come in a few minutes before and sat down with a bottle of wine and some glasses.
Wanda's fingers flexed, then began moving in a jittery, spidery dance. Threads of red flowed out from her fingers and touched the head of each person in the room one by one, instantly rendering them still, staring blankly straight ahead.
Nat felt her pulse quicken. Not the Red Room again. Please no.
More light snaked from Wanda's fingers to Karcsi's head, his eyes, his ears. Everyone else was seeing visions of their own, but she was shaping his, drawing his worst nightmares to the surface and adding a dash of her own.
Then she turned and entered the restroom.
Nat sat still for a minute. Everyone else in the room was incapacitated but her. Wanda had spared her.
Any security system in the room would be malfunctioning, she knew from Wanda's previous attacks. There was little risk anyone would recognize them and connect them to the attack.
When Wanda didn't come back, she walked to the restroom and slowly opened the door.
It was empty. Once again, Wanda was gone without a trace.