Just something I've been thinking about for a little bit after reading some similar one shots.

Scotland

Morning

In a café, Wanda Maximoff sat at a table, wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up. She took a sip of her coffee as she kept half an eye on the other patrons, hoping she wouldn't be recognized.

Since the events at Westview a few weeks ago, she'd been on the run. By now, news of what she'd done had spread. There'd been calls for her arrest although no warrants had been issued yet. Wanda had cut off contact with anyone, ditched her cell phone and been on the run ever since. It was no less than she deserved, Wanda thought darkly.

"Is this seat taken?" an accented voice spoke to her left.

Startled, Wanda looked up. A bearded man with greying black hair and an eye patch was standing in front of her table, a charming smile on his face. He reminded her of Nick Fury in a way.

"I was just leaving actually," Wanda muttered, knowing it wouldn't take long for people to start recognizing her.

"Is that so Ms. Maximoff?" the man asked casually.

Wanda tensed her mind racing. This man knew who she was, somehow. Her first instinct was to run, and it was only Natasha's training and two years of living on the run that stopped her. If this man wished her harm, he could have simply waited until she left rather than approaching her in a café full of witnesses. Whatever his intentions were, he clearly didn't intend on killing her.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Wanda asked, gesturing for him to take a seat.

"My name is Slade Wilson, you might have heard of me," Slade said as he took a seat across from her.

Wanda certainly had. If you try to burn down an entire city, you become rather infamous. She had learned of him not long after joining the Avengers, as The Siege had happened around the same time as Ultron. But, as she stared at him, she could hardly reconcile the horrible things he'd done with the man sitting across from her. But then again, people probably thought the same thing about her.

"You don't seem like the kind of person to try and destroy a city," Wanda said after a few moments.

"You don't seem the kind to enslave an entire town," Slade shot back and Wanda nodded, conceding his point.

"What are you doing here? What do you want with me?" Wanda asked curiously.

"Clint Barton," Slade said simply and Wanda was taken back. "We ran into each other a few years after Thanos. He and I could relate to each other, as I'd lost someone I cared for not long before the Decimation."

Slade paused, a wounded look in his eye, no doubt thinking of whoever he had lost. They clearly meant a great deal to him, Wanda noted. Then he seemed to come back to himself.

"He spoke of you very fondly. Then, a few days after the news broke about Westview, he called me, wanted me to find you," Slade explained.

"He shouldn't have done that," Wanda muttered.

"Because you don't deserve to have friends who care about you, right?" Slade asked pointedly and she looked at him sharply. "I thought the same thing once. You and I are not dissimilar, both haunted by our pasts."

"You don't even know me," Wanda muttered.

"Perhaps not," Slade acknowledged. "But I know something about what you are going though. And I can only offer this advice to you: you need to forgive yourself for your sins."

"You say that like it's easy," Wanda scoffed.

"It's the hardest thing in this world," Slade said bluntly. "It will not happen overnight, it will likely not happen for many years. In the meantime…do better. Make amends for what you've done. Because you can still come back from what you've done. Not all of us are so lucky."

Slade then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a phone, which he placed on the table and slid across to Wanda.

"Call him. He's worried about you," Slade told her.

Slade then got up and walked away. For a few moments, Wanda was silent, musing on his words. Then, she picked up the phone and put in a number that, even now, she still knew by heart. She put the phone to her ear as it rang. After the third ring, the person on the end picked up.

"Wanda?"

"Hi Clint," Wanda said, his voice bringing that strange calm she always seemed to get in his presence.

I haven't seen WandaVision nor do I plan to for one reason: I knew they would ruin Wanda, and they did.

I've said for years now that Wanda is the character who gets shit on the most in the MCU, both by the writers and the fandom, and the writers keep proving me right. They could've chosen to take Wanda's character in an interesting direction by choosing to adapt the House of M storyline in WandaVision, instead they had her mind rape an entire town and then go out of their way to validate Wanda's actions, which is disgusting on multiple levels.

I'd like to believe that the writers are going to take Wanda's character a similar direction as Slade on Arrow or Faith Lehane from the Buffyverse, but the writer's history with Wanda doesn't give me much hope for Wanda not to be a villain.

Anyway, onto the actual story, I think, in a world where the Arrowverse and MCU happened on the same Earth, Slade, if he survived the Decimation, would probably relate a lot to Clint. The idea of them becoming allies is just too good to pass up. And I think Slade would be the best person to try and reach Wanda after the events at Westview.