Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise (and I'm borrowing a couple of things you may not recognise from sources you simply may not be familiar with); be assured I'll identify anything relevant when it comes up.

Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: To clarify in advance, Wanda will just think of Peter-2 and Peter-3 as 'Peter' when she's in their universes; numbering them is only relevant if they're all in the same place. I apologise in advance that the next couple of chapters will focus on Wanda and the other two Peters basically filling each other in on their histories, but I hope you'll like the contrast between the two Peters in terms of their dynamic with Wanda, as well as my thoughts on their histories since their last films.

Scarlet Witch and the Three Spiders

This older Peter Parker may not have the resources of the Spider-Man Wanda was familiar with, but she was quietly impressed to see how he handled himself as a solo hero. Once they had established her current situation, she had accompanied him to a suitable alley where she had managed to change her attire back into more suitable civilian clothing while he retrieved his own clothes from the wall where he'd hidden them earlier. It had been easy to establish that they should find somewhere private to discuss their situation in more detail, and with Wanda unwilling to appear in public in her 'field suit' for too long, Peter had agreed that it would be best to take her home.

More familiar with the Spider-Man who had basically been Tony Stark's teenage protégé, Wanda was surprised to see this man dressed in a casual sweatshirt and jeans that reminded her more of Steve and Sam's civilian clothing, but considering that she was in a completely different universe right now Wanda wasn't going to focus on something this minor. It was easy enough for her to change her own clothes to something that wouldn't draw attention, and in a few moments she was wearing a copy of the dark grey jacket, black top and blue jeans that she had worn on her last night with Vision in Edinburgh. The older Peter had been surprised to see her change her attire so easily, but had accepted Wanda's point that they would talk about it later.

Once the two managed to catch a train, they had travelled in silence, not wanting to risk discussing anything too important while it could be heard, until Peter led them off the train. After a few more minutes of walking, they arrived at a small two-storey white-painted house, with a protruding front portion and a large window on the upper level. Wanda was immediately struck by memories of the house she'd 'owned' when she was in Westview, but pushed that thought aside; this wasn't the time for such recollections. Once she followed Peter into the house, she looked around the small but comfortable interior, which opened into a simple lounge area. A flight of stairs was just beyond the lounge, a table off to the side, and beyond that was a small kitchen, a door leading out to the back. Any potential questions were answered before Wanda could ask them when she saw a picture on a mantelpiece, depicting Peter and a red-haired woman that briefly made Wanda think of an older, happier Natasha Romanoff, a young girl with darker red hair standing between them.

"You live here?" she looked over at Peter, deciding not to ask about his family straight away.

"Family home," Peter smiled. "I grew up here with my aunt and uncle ever since my parents… well, Mom and Dad died in a plane accident when I was very young."

"I know how that feels," Wanda said; if she was going to be here for a while, she might as well be honest with him. "My own parents were killed when my village was caught in the middle of another war; my brother and I spent three days stuck in our house with their bodies and an unexploded bomb until we were rescued."

"…Whoa," Peter looked at her with a new sense of grim regret. "I… saying 'sorry' feels a bit inadequate, but I am sorry that happened to you."

"Thank you," Wanda nodded at him. "My brother and I were essentially living on the streets for the next few years, until we became caught up in protests against foreign interference in our country."

"From who?"

"America."

"Oh."

"It was… not as simple as that, but I only learned the finer details of the situation later," Wanda said, regretting the relatively impulsive mistakes of her past even as she tried to focus on the present. "In any case, my brother and I were persuaded to join a secret test program that would have allegedly helped us get revenge on the person responsible for our parents' deaths."

"Who was that?" Peter asked.

"Tony Stark," Wanda said. "He was one of the Avengers by that point, using a suit of high-tech armour he had made, but to Pietro and I, he was just the man who built the bomb that destroyed our house."

"Huh," Peter looked at her with the kind of awkward sympathy she was used to receiving when strangers heard her story. "So… sorry if I'm being blunt, but you get that even if he made the weapons, he probably didn't have anything to do with it being fired at your country, right?"

"I recognise that now, but do you think a terrified child would be thinking about that?" Wanda pointed out. "In any case, those experiments gave me my powers, and they also gave my brother enhanced speed. We fought against the Avengers at first, but then we found ourselves in an alliance with a robot that told us it also wanted to destroy them… until we found out that Ultron's real goal was to destroy the entire world."

"You were facing a real Skynet?" Peter looked at her in surprise.

"…I believe so," Wanda nodded, recalling the films someone had selected for movie night at the compound as part of what Wanda still considered a poor joke against Vision. "We assisted the Avengers against Ultron, but… my brother…"

"He didn't make it."

Something in Peter's words made Wanda realise that this man had a deeper understanding of her situation than she might have expected, but she chose not to question that at the moment; if she stopped talking now, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to continue the story later.

"I remained with the Avengers for the better part of a year until I… took time off with the man I loved," she continued; this wasn't the time to discuss the civil war or Thanos's schemes, but it was important that Peter understand what had led her here. "But then… circumstances led to his death, and when I thought I had a chance to have a family of my own, I lost my sons."

"Sons?" Peter asked, only to look shamefully at her as though regretting the interruption.

"Tommy and Billy; my twins," Wanda explained, forcing down the pain at the memory as she continued. "I turned to an ancient book of magic known as the Darkhold to find them, but the result… looking back, it was doing more to me than just telling me how I might find my boys."

"…Right," Peter said, looking cautiously at her for a moment before he started. "Uh, if that sounded like I didn't believe you, that's not- I mean, I met that sorcerer in your world so I know magic is real for your world, but I've just never really dealt with it myself… you seriously used something called the Darkhold and thought it was a good idea?"

"The name would have normally set off alarms, but I was… not in a good place," Wanda shrugged; she wouldn't lie to Peter, but she wasn't ready to tell him everything she'd done over the months since Westview. "I attempted to use the spells from the book to find versions of my sons from another reality, but… things went wrong, and somehow… I ended up here."

"OK," Peter nodded at her in thought for a few moments before he shrugged. "Well, obviously I'm not exactly a magic guy, but maybe you came here because… I was here?"

"You?"

"I mean, if you were searching other realities for versions of your kids, maybe something went wrong and you ended up kind of 'latching on' to me because I'd been to your reality recently and you know my local self?"

"That is… possible," Wanda conceded after a moment's thought. It still felt like a bit of a stretch for her, but when she remembered that surge of blue amid the red as she brought the temple at Mount Wundagore down on herself… maybe she had retained enough of the power she had tried to drain from America to project herself away, and had somehow latched on to this version of Spider-Man because he had some residue of his time in her world?

"Talking of powers," she looked curiously at the older man, "how did you get yours?"

"Probably the same way your Peter did," Peter said, before he took in Wanda's suddenly awkward expression. "You… don't know how he got his powers, do you?"

"I… well, we were on the same team, but we didn't spend much time together before… things happened," Wanda said at last, lost for a better way to describe everything and hoping she didn't sound self-centred. "I know that he was recruited by Tony Stark and received a new suit in the process, and I know he fought with the rest of us against Thanos, but we did not talk much ourselves."

"Huh," Peter said, looking curiously at Wanda. "I take it there were a lot of Avengers?"

"At least… over a dozen where I can definitely say that they were part of the Avengers, and a few other heroes who just helped out in the final battle against Thanos."

"Whoa…" Peter smiled at the thought of what she'd just described, before he shook his head and continued. "Well, for me, I was on a field trip for school to a genetics research lab, and I ended up getting bitten by a spider. I only realised later that it must have been one of the genetically engineered spiders the lab had been working on as part of their projects; it had been created from a blending of DNA from various other spiders, and when it bit me I spent the next few hours feeling ill, until I woke up the next morning with muscles and perfect vision."

"Vision?"

"I wore glasses before the bite, and they stopped being an issue afterwards," Peter explained. "Anyway, I started out just trying to enter a wrestling match to win some money, but the fight promoter cheated me out of my winnings, so I just… the thief ran past me after he got away, and I just didn't care about it."

"You didn't?"

"I was angry at the promoter and figured he deserved to get robbed," Peter said, shrugging with a feigned nonchalance that Wanda recognised from Tony Stark's own attempt to dismiss his grief about the deaths caused by Ultron. "Then my uncle got shot in a carjacking, and when I went after the thief… it was the same guy who robbed the fight promoter."

"Oh," Wanda said out of a lack of anything better to say, struck by the notion of how this man had suffered a similar loss to her own even if the original disaster had been on a smaller scale. "I… am sorry."

"Thanks," Peter smiled tentatively at her before he continued. "Anyway, after I graduated and moved into the city, I realised something Uncle Ben had been trying to tell me on that last day; if you've got the power to do something, you also have the responsibility to do the right thing. I was able to put together my first costume, and from there… well, I was Spider-Man."

"I see," Wanda smiled at him, wondering if something similar had inspired the young wall-crawler back in her world before she turned her thoughts back to the one in front of her. "So… if you do not know the Avengers, what threats have you faced without them?"

"If you'd been watching the news, you'd know of a few of them," Peter smiled at her. "Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and the Sandman showed up in your world with me."

"…Really?" Wanda looked at him in surprise. "Your enemies called themselves that?"

"Mostly the news called them that first, but they seemed to be content with the titles," Peter said. "The Goblin was originally Norman Osborn, CEO of Oscorp; he drove himself insane and gave himself enhanced strength when he tested his company's performance enhancers on himself, and stole equipment from his own company to make himself even worse. Doctor Otto Octavius was using enhanced cybernetic arms to help himself in his scientific research, but an accident fused the arms to him and drove him insane. Sandman was originally Flint Marko, but from what I learnt later, he fell into some kind of particle accelerator and it turned him into a form of living sand."

"…Interesting," Wanda nodded, privately wondering at Peter's description of Norman Osborn, which made her think of a combination of Steve and Tony.

"Of course," Peter continued with a particularly grim expression, "the worst foe I've ever faced was the black suit."

"The black suit?"

"That's what I thought it was at first," Peter explained. "Long story short, this strange alien goo basically disguised itself as a black version of my own suit, but when I realised that it was… well…"

"What was it?"

"Some kind of symbiotic life-form," the older man continued, lowering his head in shame. "It was boosting my strength and abilities while I was wearing it, but it also… it amplified my aggression and made me do things I would never have done on my own. I tried to kill Flint when he hadn't done anything wrong, attacked my friend when everything he did was because he had made a mistake… and then I actually hit the woman I loved when she tried to talk me down during a bar fight."

Seeing the shame in his eyes as he spoke, Wanda was struck by her own sense of shame. As much as she wanted to blame everything she'd done since leaving Westview on the Darkhold, she had to acknowledge that it had never made her do anything she couldn't imagine herself wanting to do on some level. She was ashamed of the extent of what she'd done to Strange's fellow sorcerers and that other team of heroes, but if she had been truly determined to get something from them…

She wanted to believe that she wouldn't have gone that far on her own, but she could see how she might have mounted a less lethal attack to get what she was after if she'd just wanted America's help like Wong had suggested.

"But… you got rid of it?" she looked at Peter, choosing to focus on the immediate topic than ponder what she might have done herself.

"Turns out the suit had a weakness to certain loud sounds," Peter explained with a grim expression. "This guy named Eddie Brock managed to get the suit for himself, and he ended up with a version of my powers. He'd already had issues with me at work even before he got the suit, and he tried to kill me after forcing Flint to help. I had to get help from my old friend Harry Osborn to stop them-"

"Osborn?" Wanda cut in. "As in Norman?"

"Harry was his son," Peter confirmed. "Anyway, Harry helped hold off Flint while I managed to force the suit off Eddie, but when I managed to destroy it with a bomb Eddie jumped in to try and save the suit…"

He shook his head. "I didn't want to kill him, but he'd already said that he liked what it was doing to him; there's not much you can do when someone makes that kind of declaration."

"Quite," Wanda nodded. "It is like when someone reveals they intend to turn your city into the equivalent of a meteor; all you can do is stop it rather than try and talk them out of it."

"What… someone actually tried that?" Peter looked at Wanda in shock. "Suddenly I'm kind of glad I don't live in your world; things were bad enough when we just had that mess with the Surfer…"

"The who?" Wanda looked at him inquiringly.

"That's part of another long story that's not entirely mine to tell," Peter shrugged. "Let's just say for now that I'm not the only hero on this Earth, even if it sounds like your world has a lot more than mine does."

"I see," Wanda nodded, turning her attention to look around the house, her gaze returning to the mantelpiece photo she'd seen earlier. "Is that your family?"

"Mary Jane and May," Peter said, his smile becoming warmer and more affectionate as he walked over to pick up the picture. "The girl I loved before I even liked girls, and our daughter."

"Daughter?" Wanda looked at Peter with new curiosity. "Does she…?"

"Have powers?" Peter smiled in understanding. "It's too early to say for certain, but there are moments when she's just that bit faster or stronger than you'd expect someone of her age to be… I take it your sons were the same?"

"Billy had a version of my powers and Tommy took after my brother."

"Huh," Peter's smile shifted to a more curious expression. "But if you gained your powers from exposure to something…"

"I'm not even sure how it happened that way, so don't ask me," Wanda said, taking the photo from Peter and looking at it for a moment before she looked back at Peter. "They know?"

"Pretty much everything," Peter nodded. "After Mary Jane was threatened by the Goblin and Octavius in the past to get to me… well, trying to keep the secret would have meant treating her like an idiot. We're going to tell May once she's a bit older and understands that she has to keep it secret, but even after… well, it's safer to keep it secret for now."

"That… must be difficult," Wanda noted. She knew that Spider-Man kept up a secret identity back in her reality, but it was one thing for a teenager to do so; when so many of the Avengers were relatively public about their identities at the age of this Peter, it was strange to think of him still keeping the secret.

"I make it work," Peter shrugged. "Supervillain activity has been relatively quiet for a while, and MJ made enough money with her last few films to take time off and be the stay-at-home mom for a bit while I teach."

"You teach?" Wanda smiled.

"Science at my old high school," Peter nodded. "It's a bit low-key, but I like giving the kids someone they can feel like they can talk with, things are quiet enough that I can keep up a regular schedule, and I've helped the place bring its marks up since I started."

"That is commendable," Wanda nodded at him. "Where are your family now?"

"MJ took May out for a mother/daughter day this morning while I was on patrol," Peter responded. "She always had trouble getting along with her parents, so it's important to her that-"

"What?"

Wanda didn't even realise that she'd let out the call until she walked past Peter to stare in the mirror she'd just registered on the opposite wall. It wasn't a large mirror, but it was enough for Wanda to see that the reflection standing in her position and wearing her clothes didn't look like her.

"No," she said, staring desperately in the mirror as she held up her hands, her gaze moving between the reflection and her hands as the unfamiliar woman in the glass mimicked her every move. "No, no, no, no, no…"

"What?" Peter looked at her, clearly confused by her sudden panic. "What's wrong?"

"That… that isn't me."

"What?"

"That isn't me!" Wanda turned to look desperately at him, waving her hand at the mirror at the dark-eyed woman who was suddenly staring back. "That's not my face! This isn't my body! This- this isn't me!"

"It… it's not?" Peter stared uncertainly at her. "But how-?"

"Oh no…" Wanda stepped back, staring at her hands in horror, suddenly spotting the subtle differences in her hands that she just hadn't noticed earlier (was she a little shorter than she'd been before?). "Did I… have I dreamwalked?"

"Dreamwalked?"

"A dangerous spell where the caster essentially possesses another version of themselves," Wanda explained, stepping back from the mirror to stare at her body in more depth, trying to take everything in. "I was using it before I came here to try and find my children… I never intended to hurt anyone, and I… I thought I'd destroyed the Darkhold… but if I- you don't look like the Spider-Man I know, why should I look like myself-?"

"Hold on," Peter cut in. "You appeared in mid-air before I caught you; if you were just possessing yourself-"

"Maybe destroying the Darkhold gave me an extra boost and sent her here; I don't know the rules if you destroy a powerful source of dark magic!" Wanda yelled desperately. "I have to- I can't do this- I didn't want do this…!"

Wanda was only vaguely aware of Peter offering comforting words as she slumped back against the wall, sobbing into her arms at the thought of what she had apparently done to another innocent woman.

Just as she was trying to do better, she had to go and steal another person's life… and this time she had no way to be sure how she could undo what she had done…

AN 2: I'll explain exactly how Wanda's appearance has changed later; for the moment, just accept that it's part of the dimensional jump. In terms of appearance, picture Wanda currently looking like Rose McGowan, basically as she looks in the present but with the hairstyle she had in Charmed; I felt that it was a good match-up.