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Scarlet Witch and the Three Spiders

"You know who I am?"

"…No," Wanda shook her head, looking at the figure in confusion. Now that she could take a proper look at the costume, it was far more basic than the suits she had seen Spider-Man wearing during their previous encounters, apparently consisting of cloth and nothing more. "I thought… were you at the battle?"

"Battle?" the man repeated curiously. Where the Spider-Man she had glimpsed in the battle against Thanos had been a boy, barely a teenager from what she could remember, this man seemed older, closer to Clint's age. "What battle?"

"Against Thanos?" Wanda clarified.

"Thanos?"

"…You don't know Thanos?" Wanda was starting to become concerned about this situation. She could just about speculate that someone might have adopted a costume similar to Spider-Man without knowing too much about the original, and it might just be possible that she had misheard the real hero's name and used this man's by sheer coincidence, but there was no good reason that she could think of why this man would act like he didn't know who Thanos was. "The big purple alien who-?"

"Purple alien?" the older man cut in, looking at her with a cautious smile of understanding. "This 'Thanos' guy was a purple alien who fought Spider-Man?"

"…Yes?"

"Then… are you with the… I think he called them the Avengers?"

"You think?" Wanda was feeling even more confused the more this man seemed to look happier as they spoke. "Who are you talking about?"

"Well… when I was working with him, we called him Peter-One," the man explained with an awkward smile. "His world, his problem; it made sense."

"Peter-One…" Wanda repeated, confusion replaced by a growing sense of unease as she looked at the man in the different costume. "You… do not know Tony Stark?"

"…Should I?"

"Oh no…" Wanda shook her head as she walked over to lean against the edge of the building with a frustrated sigh. "I don't believe this… I jump universes by accident?"

"So… you're from Peter-One's world?" the other Spider-Man said cautiously from behind her. "Which means… are you one of those 'Avengers' he mentioned?"

"…Yes," Wanda said, turning back to look at the older Spider-Man, hoping that she wasn't about to make a mistake. "Wanda Maximoff; I am… also known as the Scarlet Witch."

"Witch?" the older Spider-Man repeated with a smile. "So there are witches and wizards over there?"

"You met Doctor Strange?"

"Briefly," the other Spider-Man shrugged. "Apparently he was stuck over the Grand Canyon for twelve hours for some reason; he just showed up at the end in time to cast the final spell…"

"Final spell?" Wanda repeated, wishing she could just jump to the metaphorical end and figure out what was going on in this situation. She briefly wondered if maybe this Spider-Man was the one who had been displaced, but she quickly dismissed that idea. Considering what she'd been doing before he caught her, the idea that she had accidentally jumped universes was a strange one, but the amount of strange powers being thrown around in the mountain temple before she collapsed it meant she couldn't rule anything out.

"From what… your Peter… told us, there was this whole thing where the wizard was trying to cast a spell to make people forget Peter Parker was Spider-Man and it ended up pulling in a bunch of people from other realities who knew that already," the older Spider-Man explained. "We had me, another version of me, two of the other me's villains and three of my old villains all get transported to your universe… and then there was this big fight at the Statue of Liberty before we managed to cure all our enemies and then the wizard finished the spell…"

"And sent you all home?" Wanda finished.

"Yeah," the older man nodded, looking curiously at her. "How's Peter-One doing?"

"I… cannot say," Wanda said, suddenly grateful that at least she could be honest about this detail. "I… have not been in contact with the other Avengers recently."

"You haven't?" the older man looked curiously at her. "Why not?"

"Peter- the Peter I know- mentioned… the fight with Thanos?"

"Yeah…"

"He… Thanos killed the man I loved," Wanda explained, crossing her fingers behind her back; she didn't want to go into too much detail about this, but she felt that this other Spider-Man deserved some information about what had happened to lead her here. "And then there was… I had a confrontation with another witch shortly after Thanos was defeated, and that fight cost me my children."

"Your children?" the older man looked at her with new sympathy. "Oh… I'm sorry."

"Thank you," Wanda nodded at him, appreciating how he didn't press her further. She knew that she had kept information back from him, but if it earned her some sympathy… was it so wrong to at least omit some details right now?

"So… how did you end up here?"

"I… do not know," Wanda shrugged uncertainly, even as she was grateful she had an answer that wouldn't reveal the extent of what she'd been trying to do recently. "I was… trying to destroy an ancient source of dark magic, and when I brought the temple down on me… I ended up here."

"You brought a temple down on you?"

"I was…" Wanda began, but trailed off as she realised she wasn't sure how to answer that question. "I have… been having a bad time recently."

"…Right," the other Spider-Man said, looking uncertainly at her for a few moments before he gave her a cautious smile. "Well… however you got here, if you don't have anywhere else to go right now… maybe you could stay with me?"

"With you?"

"Well, my family, but it's not like they don't know about this, and we've got space if you don't mind a couch…"

"Thank you," Wanda looked gratefully at the older man, not giving herself time to consider the potential awkwardness of this situation. She didn't know how she had ended up in this reality or how she was going to get home, but if this other Spider-Man was prepared to help her out, she was hardly going to turn down a safe place to rest while she tried to work out what she should do next.

Particularly when I still need an answer regarding how I ended up in his universe in the first place…