The Avengers had gathered on the Biolab on the Chimera. Bruce liked this as there was no listening devices or monitoring devices of any kind. The Avengers didn't S.W.O.R.D. Listening in on them or A.I.M. Catching wind of what they were doing.
A glowing portal opened up right in front of them. It wasn't Doctor Strange who stepped out of it, but a young woman with frizzy brown hair.
"Hey," Tony greeted her nonchalantly.
"Avengers. Strange told you I'd be coming, right?"
"He told me it would be more efficient to deal directly with the sorceress he put in charge of the Westview investigation. I take it that's you?" Bruce said
"Yep. You can call me Agnes."
"Is that your name?" Khamala asked.
"It's close enough."
"You've been in Westview?" Natasha asked
"Yeah. I've been astral projecting inside since about a week after it started."
"Strange said time isn't moving the same in there. How long has it been inside?" Tony asked
"Years. Not sure how many years. Calendars don't work there. They look normal when you look at them, but as soon as you look away you can't remember the year. No one ages, and no one's died that I've heard of the whole time I've been there."
"That's...good, I guess. Weird, but good." Bruce said.
"It's something," Agnes agreed.
"No offense to you, but why isn't Strange dealing with this himself?"
"He's got a lot on his plate." Agnes stood up and walked aimlessly around the room for a minute. "What's happening in Westview is weird, but from what we've seen so far it doesn't seem to be dangerous. I'm only telling you this because you saved half the universe literally single-handedly, so I kind of feel like we can trust you. There's an interdimensional being called Dormammu. A few years ago, he tried to take over Earth. Strange managed to stop him, but there are some indications he's planning to try again. Strange is trying to find a way to stop him if he does."
"Okay. That's a good excuse." They got back on topic. "Do you have a plan of action for Westview?"
"Right now, I'm kind of hoping Wanda will eventually get bored of the world she's created and I can talk her into putting things back to normal. I've been working on befriending her. I'm pretty sure she considers me a friend, anyway. Or at least a nosy but sympathetic neighbor."
"Has she told you about her past?"
"I don't think she remembers her past. No one does. Not clearly. No one remembers the Blip, but some of them remember that their friends and relatives were away for a few years. They talk about A-Day like it was a radio show."
"Well, if you're going to try to convince her to go back to her real life, you should know what you're asking her to go back to. She grew up in Sokovia, a dirt-poor, corrupt, and unstable former Soviet republic in eastern Europe. She and her twin brother survived their apartment being bombed when she was ten. Their parents didn't. She grew up on the streets. She volunteered to be experimented on by HYDRA, which is how she got her powers. She went to work for Ultron, during which time she fought the Avengers. She got into our heads, giving us horrible, intense hallucinations. Then she found out Ultron wasn't just planning to take over the world, he was planning to destroy it, so she turned on him. Ultron killed her brother. She joined the Avengers, using her powers to help the world, but the world turned against her when some people died from a bomb she moved to save Steve Rogers. She spent two years as a fugitive after being locked up for refusing to sign the Sokovia Accords."
Agnes waited for Bruce to finish. "I get it: for her, reality is a hard sell."
"Yeah."
"It makes sense that her perfect world looks like an old sitcom. I used to think it was just easier to convince people what's happening is normal if the internet doesn't exist and no one wants to fork over the money to make a long-distance call, but I can see how a simpler time before alien attacks and robotic flight suits would appeal to her." Tony said.
She paused a moment, idly toying with a knob from a radiation detector Bruce hadn't gotten around to assembling yet. "I knew most of that already. I remember hearing about the Lagos bombing on the news. They talked about Wanda like she was some kind of monster just because she tried to stop it and failed. But you wouldn't guess she had anything like that in her past from the way she is now. She's so relentlessly cheerful. I feel sorry for her."
"You feel sorry for her for being cheerful?"
"Yeah, I do. Can you imagine never letting yourself say something angry, or sarcastic? But mostly I feel sorry for how crazy in love she is with her husband. She doesn't realize the real Vision is dead and the one she has now is basically a figment of her imagination. It's going to be hard to break it to her." Natasha
"I can't even imagine," Bruce said. "Does he disappear when she's not around?"
"No, he's still there. I've talked to him alone. He'd pass a Turing test. I've helped him plan a surprise party for her. It was weird."
He tried to imagine what it would be like, talking to someone knowing they were a philosophical zombie. He remembered the night he and Tony brought Vision to life, a patchwork of materials and intelligences like Frankenstein's monster, not knowing if it would work, or what they would unleash if it did work. And then there he was, talking in the voice of Tony's A.I., saying he didn't know whether he was a monster, but able to lift Thor's hammer.
Would he be able to tell the difference between that Vision and the one Wanda created?
"Have you found anything else about how Wanda created the pocket dimension?"
Agnes shook her head. "Nope. It's hard to get answers without Wanda getting suspicious. Have you been able to figure anything out from the outside?"
"Not really 'figure out', but Doctor Lewis and I are working on a hypothesis. Have there been any giant fluctuations in Westview by any chance?"
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Not that I've noticed."
"Yeah, I figured you would've mentioned something like that. Energy readings from Westview look like the creation of virtual particles."
"So would you happen to know where the S.H.I.E.L.D. Base in Westview is?"
"Kinda."
"'Kinda?"
"Well its hard to explain, like you can see it but if you try to ask or tell someone about, its like something stops you and you cant quite remember what the base is ment to be."
"Dang."
"That's a setback," he replied.
"I get the picture."
"Another thing: have you seen either of these people in Westview?" Natasha showed her two photographs.
"Yeah. I've met Jane Foster a few times. I don't know the other woman's name, but I've seen her around."
"Monica Rambeau. She's an agent of S.W.O.R.D. who went into the Westview event horizon a few weeks ago. You can confirm she's alive?"
"Yeah, she's alive."
"Good. That's good." Bruce frowned.
"I'll text you before I drop by again. That should be in a couple of days." Before she left, she added, "I want to thank you. I know you don't want people to know what you did, but the Avengers are a symbol of hope. I lost my whole family to A-Day. Thats when Dr. Strange found m and took me in. And now your back restoring hope. So...thank you."
Bruce dropped his eyes, uncomfortable with the praise. The way he saw it, he'd done what anyone would do in his shoes. "You don't need to thank us."
She nodded. "Okay. Thanks retracted then."
He laughed. So did she.
After Agnes left, Bruce checked the time. It was getting late.
"Natasha…"
" How did Wanda recreate Vision? Was it remotely possible she'd somehow really brought Vision back?"
Natasha had no idea, but she secretly hoped they could save their friend.
