Chapter 19 – The Scarlet Witch

'Francis! Where are you? Come on out and play you fucking piece of-'

'Ah, ah, ah,' Francis steps out in front of me, swiping at my neck. 'Language, Wade, we wouldn't want to upset any young ears now, would we?'

'You know, Francis, not only would the entire team of Avengers love it if I killed you. So would all these readers!'

'You're still as fucking mental as you always were,' he grunts as my bullet grazes his shoulder. Really should work on my aim.

'And you're still a psychopath, good thing neither of us change right? Otherwise, the readers wouldn't know what was happening!'

His bullet narrowly misses my face and by the time I turn back to him he's disappeared again.

'Oh, come on, Francis!' I call out. 'I don't have time for hide and seek! I'll tell you what: you come out now and I promise I'll kill you quickly. If you keep hiding so the others have to come and find you, I'll get Loki to freeze you in place and kill you slowly.'

'Oh, but Wade,' Francis reappears further ahead, 'I think you'll have so much more fun fighting someone you love rather than hate.'

'What the fuck you talking about, Francis?'

Someone lands between us, crouching down as they land, one arm extended behind them. Superhero landing!

'Someone you know, Wade,' Francis crows again as the figure looks up at me.

My heart stops. Pretty sure I actually fucking die for a minute there. It can't be.

'Baby Boy?'

The Spider-Man mask is on again and he leaps towards me.


Wanda's energy is failing, but they've nearly finished their trap.

'Wanda, darling, are we really going to keep on with this or are you going to come back to good ol' Agatha?'

'I'll never help you again,' she pants; the skin on her hands is grey and spotted, and papery thin. Her next ball of energy hits the wall behind Agatha and that's the last she has to give. She hangs, exhausted, in front of the crowing older woman.

'Not even dear Doctor Strange was enough to help you,' she taunts and Wanda forces herself to look up, Strange is looking exactly how she feels and she can see his hands shaking from here.

Let's hope we did it right, she thinks, desperation giving her strength.

'You know, Wanda,' Agatha's voice is more conversational again rather than taunting as she comes to hover in front of her, 'this is some proper power you have here, sweetie. And now that I've had a taste of it? I think I know where it all came from. I mean you showed me how you were made, Wanda darling, you let me into your head.'

Wanda can't respond, she's too tired, Strange gives her an alarmed look and she has a sinking feeling they've screwed up royally. That she's screwed up royally.

'You had the potential for magic right from birth, a witch just waiting to wake up,' Agatha continues speaking, circling her like a vulture in her long black dress, 'and then you were exposed to an infinity stone. You know, I wonder what would have happened to me if I'd had the same opportunity.'

'Everyone else was killed,' Wanda reminds her, voice breaking.

'True,' and now Agatha's in front of her again, tone more curious now, 'but you didn't. Instead it amplified what, otherwise, should have died. And your magic, Wanda? It's chaos magic.'

Wanda glances at Strange, hoping for some idea as to what she's talking about; but she's too tired that she can't read his mind. The look on his face doesn't fill her with confidence. If she had to guess, she'd say he was scared. What am I?

'You're looking a little confused, dearie,' Agatha's smiling again, 'so I'll enlighten you. I've been in your head and I've seen what you're capable of, what you've held back from doing simply because you're scared. You're scared of your powers but you have no idea just how dangerous you really are, buttercup. You're supposed to be a myth. You have the ability of spontaneous creation. Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme! It's your destiny to destroy the world. The funniest thing, toots? You had the ability to bring back your dead boyfriend all by yourself, and instead you hide away. You're the Scarlet Witch, Wanda, and you just gave me everything. Which means I'm now the Scarlet Witch.'

Wanda fights back the despair. She has no idea what the Scarlet Witch is, but she can see the panic in Strange's eyes and just prays they've done enough.

Agatha raises her hands, ready to cast her spell and Wanda can see her own power reflected in Agatha's eyes.

'Any final words, dearie?'


Something is wrong.

They look like Pete. But something isn't quite right. Then it hits me.

'Wrong suit dumbass! That's his old one,' I yell at both the imposter and Francis. 'This isn't Spider-Man.'

'Took you long enough,' Francis laughs.

I manage to take advantage of the person's surprise and pin them down on the floor, ripping off the mask. Peter's face looks back at me. 'What the fuck you playing at Francis?'

'Go ahead, sweetheart,' he says to the person under me, 'show him.'

The face in front of me starts melting and shifting. Peter's wavy brown curls lengthen and straighten, turning long and black. The face shifts into a woman's, the body getting taller underneath me. When it finishes I'm not sure Francis isn't still playing some sort of sick twisted game.

'Ness?'

'Hey Wade,' Vanessa grins up at me, 'did you miss me?'


Agatha pulls her magic to her fingertips and grins at Wanda. Then the grin falls away and she looks back at her hands, snapping her fingers again. Nothing happens.

'What did you do?' Agatha demands.

Wanda finds the strength to raise her head and meet Agatha's gaze, behind the other woman she sees the first symbol starting to appear. 'Don't you remember your first lesson?' she asks the other woman. 'In a given space, only the witch that cast the runes can use her magic.'

'It seems you haven't got much experience being a teacher,' Strange says from behind the woman, his own strength returning as Wanda begins to take their power back from Agatha. 'You have given the information, and no limitations of when they should and should not use it. It was only a matter of time until your pupils turned against you.'

'You may know what I am,' Wanda tells her, voice firm, 'but you have no idea who I am. I don't care what destiny has written for me; I will make my own destiny. I will find a way to harness my powers and I'll destroy myself before I destroy those closest to me.' Wanda can feel her magic flowing around her, her hair whipping around her face. 'And I will not let you try and use me to hurt them again.' She wraps Agatha in her magic and sends her plummeting to the floor.


'You see, Wade,' Francis says as he comes closer to where I'm still pinning Vanessa to the floor. 'In your world Vanessa may have died because you couldn't look after her properly. But in this world, she lived, and she decided to come and see us. We unlocked her mutant ability as well and it proved to be very useful.'

'Shapeshifting,' Vanessa supplies.

'So, while you shacked up with Spider-Man, poor old Vanessa here had to deal with a broken heart, feeling abandoned. Unloved. Discarded.'

'You were dead,' I tell her

'Not quite, sugar pie,' she winks at me, then brings her knee up and sends me sprawling. 'Ready to go, boss?'

'Let's go get our friend, shall we? We'll leave Wilson here to think about what he's done,' Francis cackles.

Before I can get to my feet they're gone, Vanessa already morphing into someone else.

What the fuck am I supposed to do now?


A/N: Hi everyone. So who was expecting that little turn of events? I had to throw in a curve ball from somewhere other than the shows and the films after all! Just to clear up for those who may not be aware: in the comics Vanessa is a shapeshifting mutant known as Copycat who Deadpool and the X-Men occasionally face and/or work with. For those die-hard comic fans I am not going to be sticking to comic story-lines because I don't know enough about them so please be nice. I like finding out these things about the characters and finding my own way to work the principle into these stories.

As always please let me know what you think and thank you so much for all the love that has been shown to this series so far. I genuinely can't believe how far this series has gone. It was just supposed to be a quick 'fix-it' story to get all the team back together - I didn't even intend re-doing Infinity War and End Game and now look at us!

I may take a quick break after the next instalment to do one or two short stories away from the series just while I try and firm up what direction the series is going in, so if you have any requests for any different pairings or scenarios do let me know.

Love always,

L x

As always here's your sneak peek:

'How are you feeling?'

Bucky looks at the doorway where Loki is leaning against the frame. 'You really need to ask now?' he looks back down, knowing his question is unfair.

'You are the one keeping a firm barrier up, Bucky,' his voice is quiet. 'It would be good to know why.'