A/N: Finally saw Doctor Strange: Multiverse a couple days ago, and the scene of Wanda destroying the Darkhold temple/throne got me thinking, and this came out. That being said, I haven't seen anything between Avengers: Infinity War and this movie, so it doubtlessly doesn't even come close to fitting with canon, but it's not trying to. But hopefully it's a cute story anyway for the handful of us that like CaptainSpyWitch and wish there were more stories.
When the mountain finished crumbling, Wanda found that she was still alive.
Buried under an entire mountain's worth of rubble, sure, but alive. Even though she hadn't tried to do so, and had moments before used her powers to destroy her throne over the universe and the Darkhold with it, her powers had still kicked in on their own to keep her from dying. Now to just slowly work her way through tons of stone, rubble, and mountain, to get out into the rugged, snowy, freezing mountain valleys of the Transian Mountain Range that Mount Wundagore was located in, and then face the judgement of everyone who had ever known her. Well, at least her ex boyfriend and girlfriend wouldn't be waiting there at the top of all this rubble looking down at her with disappointed looks when she finally made it out — she did have that much going for her, at least.
Several hours or days or months later (she honestly couldn't say), she could finally see light through cracks all around her, and only had one large stone left to push out of the way before she would be free — relatively speaking, of course. But as her weakened powers from pushing so much rock around for so long started to slowly move this one last final piece of the mountain puzzle, the rock was suddenly flipped off of her by some outside source and Wanda blinked up into the sudden daylight, seeing two figures standing on the edge of the hole she was in. She blinked her eyes a few times as an arm reached towards her, before her vision adjusted to the light and she found herself staring that the last two people whom she wanted to have to see right then.
Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov, aka Captain America and Black Widow, aforementioned ex boyfriend and girlfriend.
Too defeated to do anything other than accept the judgement and disappointment that she had coming her way from America's Golden Boy and certainly Black Widow, she took Steve's proffered hand and let him pull her to standing, and then help her jump down to the level of rocks that the two Avengers were standing on. But almost before she had landed she found herself engulfed in the last thing that she ever would have expected at that moment, or ever again to be perfectly honest — a giant hug from Steve, wrapping her up tight in his embrace like he was never going to let her go again, and warming her up at least on the inside even if her magical powers were already keeping her externally warm.
She just melted into his hug having no fight left for anything, even to get mad at him for not being angry and judgmental and disappointed with her like he should have been after everything that she had done over the past while and especially days and weeks, reasonable as she might have been trying to be. But eventually Steve pulled back enough to hold her out by her upper arms to look down at her, with a look of love that Wanda remembered far too well from better days past and gone before she'd gone and destroyed it all, and succumbed to the witch within and then the Darkhold without.
"You do know everything I've done, don't you?!" she cried out in desperation. "How could you possibly be here if Strange didn't tell you I almost destroyed the multiverse and killed a child and took two more away from their real mother?!"
Out of the corner of her eye Wanda saw Natasha approaching for the first time, and knew that her reckoning was finally upon her — Steve might still be being nice to her even though she didn't deserve it, but the world's greatest assassin was never so forgiving. But to her furthering shock, as Steve let go of her arms Natasha brought her own arms around her, and also gave her a tight hug. It was the soothing words from the hard-ass spy that got to Wanda the most, however, and made her finally burst out in tears in the older woman's arms.
"Hey, sweetie, you're okay," the spy said gently as she held the younger woman close. "Yes, we know what you've done, for a long time now, but we also know everything you've done. Including letting the other you keep her children and destroying this original Darkhold and with it every copy in every universe, so it can never be used again by anyone. And we never stopped loving you or wanting our Wanda to return to us, even while you were only Scarlet Witch. Doctor Strange wasn't the only one who wanted the Wanda still buried deep inside you to make it back out and take control again. We're here for you, sweetie."
Steve let the two women hug and one of them cry for a while longer, before finally saying, "Wanda, the quinjet is waiting in the nearest semi-flat and smooth spot I could find to park it based on where Strange told us he thought you were buried. He seemed to think you probably would have died destroying your throne, but Nat and I knew better than to think that your powers would have just suddenly failed you after you dropped the stone above you."
"It was certainly them, not me," Wanda answered, pulling back from Natasha enough to look over at Steve. "I didn't try to save myself, and was surprised when I didn't find myself dead when everything stopped moving. I was honestly kind of out of it just waiting for my life to end as everything crashed around me once I let the mountain above me go, until everything stopped and I realized I was still here."
"Well, we're glad your powers did kick in instinctively," Steve replied. "But once you're ready, we should start climbing back down this mountain, or rockslide, or rubble pile, or whatever this should be called, as it won't stay light forever up here, and even I don't want to try descending this in the dark. It took us at least an hour and a half to find where you were coming up at, but we did have to search around a little bit to find you, so I'm thinking it's probably a forty-ish minute climb down going straight back to the quinjet."
Wanda pulled away fully from Natasha and took a step back, saying quietly, "Or I could just fly us all down there. Probably only take a couple minutes by air."
"You sure?" Nat asked gently, reaching out and resting her hand on the younger woman's upper arm. "You've spent a lot of energy both magical and normal recently, and flying three people can't be easy even for you."
"Just give me a few minutes to recover — like you said, I did just literally push my way through a mountain without any Darkhold magic to help me — and I'll be good enough to fly us down," Wanda answered. "It's better than climbing at any rate, as Steve would have to carry me down half of this if I didn't use my powers at least some — I'm not a superspy like you, Mrs Romanov, free-style mountain climbing isn't in my list of expertise."
"Take as long as you need, Wanda," Steve replied gently, sitting down on the nearest bolder that was halfway sit-down-on-able.
He patted the spot on the rock next to where he was sitting and Wanda relented to sitting down next to him, knowing that it was better than remaining standing for recuperating her strength for the flight. As Natasha sat down on the other side of the witch, Steve wrapped his arm around Wanda's shoulder and when she didn't try to stop him he gently pulled her into his side. Nat meanwhile reached over and took Wanda's hand in her own as well, and the three of them just sat there like that in silence, resting or waiting for Wanda to rest, none of them bothered by the cold or wind or snow thanks to two superserums and one magic.
About ten minutes later Wanda finally said, "Okay, I can fly us."
"Don't overstrain yourself, even if you are one of the most powerful beings in the universe," Steve answered with his voice laced with concern for her well-being as the three of them stood up.
Wanda didn't bother replying, just wanting to get this over with as soon as possible and really not wanting his concern at the moment as she certainly didn't deserve it, and in just a few short minutes had them flown down to where Steve had been able to park the quinjet. They walked up the back ramp together, where Steve headed straight to the pilot's chair in the cockpit while Nat stopped and hit the button to close the ramp, and Wanda looked around at the benches along the walls of the back, wondering what was expected of her and what was acceptable for her to do. Just for a second later Nat to walk up from behind her and put her hand on the younger woman's back and guide her up to the front where Steve was already powering up the quinjet. Gently pushing the younger woman forward to take the co-pilot chair across from Steve, Nat leaned against the back of Wanda's chair behind the brunette. Everyone was silent until Steve had them up above the clouds and set the autopilot to home, when he turned to look at the young woman.
Wanda, who had just been staring straight ahead of her at whatever happened to be out the front windows at the moment this whole time, asked despondently before either of the other two would have to bring up the topic themselves, "So what happens now? What cell or deep dark hole do I get to call home for the next however many years?"
"Upstate New York, not far from HQ," Natasha answered quickly before Steve could say anything, hoping that he would get the message that she wanted to surprise Wanda with the fact that they were just taking her home, not to any prison.
And Steve did get it, even if he hated making their girlfriend wait any longer than she had to, to know that she would remain free.
Meanwhile, Nat was continuing on to Wanda, "And I don't think you'll find it quite so terrible, maybe even better than the desolate, barren, hellscape wasteland that Strange told us he found you pruning imaginary apple trees in while you were still under the Darkhold looking for America Chavez. Also, you might want to lose the Scarlet Witch outfit and crown sometime before we get there."
Wanda simply nodded morosely, it making sense in her mind that the Avengers/Shield/Whoever-Was-In-Charge-At-The-Moment would have a prison for powered people near Avengers Headquarters, before focusing her magic on herself for a moment and changing her Scarlet Witch catsuit and tiara for jeans and a t-shirt, though with her crown design on the front of said shirt, unable to completely keep away from her alter ego self. After that she pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to make herself as small of a ball as possible in her chair, half wishing that she could just be swallowed up by the chair and disappear forever.
For the rest of the flight Steve had a really hard time not just bursting out and telling Wanda where they were actually taking her, and was really thankful when the mostly silent flight was finally over and he was piloting them to the ground in the back field behind the house. After landing, Steve and Nat walked down the back ramp with Wanda walking in between them, who looked around in confusion, only seeing a small but nice looking two-story house in front of them, and fields or trees all around them. Sure, it could be a concealed entrance to a top secret black site prison, but honestly — it just didn't feel like that to her. It felt far more like a — home — even one her other dimensional selves could have raised their two sons in.
Natasha brushed past Wanda and turned back to face her husband and the young witch, walking backwards as she spread her arms out wide referencing the house behind her.
"Welcome, Wanda, to your 'prison'," she said, making actual air quotes with her fingers as she said the word 'prison'. "Steve and I have mostly still been living in our old room at HQ while training the latest recruits like we always did, but we bought this place and property as a weekend getaway and safehouse, and it's not a long drive from HQ so we'll live here full time as well for the foreseeable future now that you're back."
Wanda stared at Nat in shock. "I'm not going to prison?! But I—!"
"Did some bad things, yes," Steve said, walking up beside her and resting his hand on her shoulder. "And you'll still have to answer for a lot of that eventually. But Strange, Wong, and America also told us about your change of heart in the end, not just the things you did before that under the influence of the Darkhold. So we know you're still a good person. We knew you before all of this, when you first became an Avenger and then started dating us, so we know the amazing woman you are inside, and we trust will return to the outside as well now. So no, you aren't going to prison, unless you consider us really preferring that you limit your travels to being with at least one of us for a while, to be a type of house arrest. But we're also not going to stop you from leaving or going anywhere on your own if you insist, you're not actually under house arrest like Tony and them had you before Civil War, though I can't say that Doctor Strange won't be monitoring your movements himself as soon as he realizes that you're still alive, and we don't know what exactly he'll consider you becoming too much of a threat again to be and stepping in to stop you, however he might do such. So if you want to go anywhere besides this property and Avengers HQ for a while, it's best to invite one or both of us along with you. But come on, let's go inside, since you haven't seen the place yet."
Nat led them inside, Steve and Wanda walking together a few steps behind the blonde. The kitchen, living room, and primary vault/panic room comprised the ground floor, while the house's two bedrooms were both upstairs.
"The second bedroom is made up if you insist, but Nat and I would prefer having you with us in the master bedroom," Steve said as they reached the top of the stairs, motioning with his hand towards the door on the right as he led the ladies straight ahead to the master bedroom and walked inside before stopping and turning around to look at them. "We made sure this bedroom would be big enough for three people when we bought the place, and then did the renovations to make it a proper safehouse should we ever have to use it for that purpose. Take a look around, I'm sure you'll find it nice enough."
"But — it was just the two of you when you bought this place," Wanda said in a mixture of surprise and incomprehension, looking around the spacious room and king-size bed, and door that led into an equivalently large bathroom. "I had to have been long gone by then to have never even heard of you two buying this place."
"We always wanted you to come back," Nat answered gently, resting her hand on Wanda's upper arm. "And we always planned on it eventually happening one day, so every decision like this we've made, has been based on three, not two."
Wanda was surprised to hear this answer from Natasha, instead of Steve. Steve she could see it coming from, he would always believe the best that she would return to them one day and plan based on that, he was forgiving to a fault, but she wouldn't have been surprised in the least if Natasha had completely given up on her long ago, or full-on hated her for everything that she had done over the past couple of years, especially as it would mean that the superspy would have Steve all to herself again like they had been before Ultron and recruiting her. Well, that was assuming they would ever consider letting her back into their relationship one day, which of course was obviously completely preposterous, she had left and betrayed and hurt them and countless dimensions and nearly killed a girl — minor things like them all but begging her to immediately live in their room with them again being conveniently ignored.
"Oh."
"Thought Nat left you behind to have me all to herself again?" Steve chuckled lightly, Wanda's thoughts written clear as day on her face. "Not a chance in the world. She may not have said it as often, and sixty years of being the world's best spy — well, she still is, but sixty years of being the world's most ruthless spy prior to joining Shield — didn't just disappear because she fell in love, even twice, but she loves you just as much as I do — or at the very least she missed having an actual witch in bed," he finished with a smirk at his wife.
"Shut it, you," Nat growled at Steve with a glare, before turning to look at Wanda with a much more soft, loving smile and saying, "I do love you, and I apologize for not telling you that more often if you thought I might not want you back. You are an equal part of our relationship, whatever you might do."
"Well, I guess that kind of answers my unasked question of if I'll ever be let back into your marriage," Wanda said quietly.
"Asking you to move into all three of our's room with us, and the whole fact we bought this house assuming you would come back to us one day were supposed to be answers to that question we knew would be hanging over your head," Nat answered with a gentle smile. "But since you need it in words to be sure — we'll take you back as soon as you're ready to be took back. We're not saying everything that happened will just be forgotten and disappear, between the three of us or the world at large, but you are our girlfriend again as soon as you yourself can accept that we want you back. We know you're going to have your own struggles to work through on considering yourself good enough again for us, but we're here waiting — we did climb through a destroyed mountain to find you this morning, after all. And even if accepting yourself and the goodness still in you takes time, we still want you living in here with us while you work through all that if you're willing to. But like everything, it is your choice."
Wanda nodded, still not believing that she deserved what they were offering her — a deep dark hole was far closer to what she deserved after everything she had done — but finally accepting that they wanted to give it to her anyway. And it admittedly did sound better than being on her own any longer, even if it was in a bedroom just down the hall from them. Of course, she knew that she would frequently find herself feeling completely unworthy of their love and try to run and hide, even if that was just in the corner of the bedroom or bathroom or the other bedroom on the floor, but the rest of the time the company would be welcome.
So the struggling and emotionally worn out twenty-five year old girl walked over to the edge of the large bed and sat down, staring at her hands in her lap, very much more like the eighteen year old lost girl whom they had rescued from Sokovia seven years before during Ultron's attempted takeover of earth, than the all-powerful Scarlet Witch she had been more recently.
"So beyond the three of us here, what happens now?" she asked quietly. "I know you said I'm free, but…."
"You can be an Avenger with us again, it'll just take some time to earn back enough people's trust," Steve answered, sitting down next to her as Natasha sat down on the other side of her. "And I won't lie and tell you that everyone's going to be happy to see you again, because there will certainly be a lot of people who will hate you and think that you should be in that deep dark cell or still buried beneath that mountain, but we believe in you, and I know enough other people who matter will to, including Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, and even America herself as well, for what her opinion is worth to you as the girl you were chasing. Just remember that she is a teenage girl, which I imagine you can probably still remember what was like yourself, even if you spent most of those years going through Strucker's Hydra experiments that gave you your powers and hating on Stark — once she finds out that you're still alive she'll have her times when she's not thrilled about the person who chased her across the dimensions and tried killing her multiple time to take her powers from her being free, but she also watched as you let your other dimensional self keep her sons instead of taking them for yourself, so she knows the good in you. You just might never be bff's or anything.
"But what I'm trying to say is, it will take some time before anything is back close to what it was like before. So if you're asking for my advice on what you should do for now, I would say relax here for a while and try to readjust to being Wanda Maximoff who's only Scarlet Witch when she needs to save the world; get back into training like you were when you were an Avenger, including training with Nat and I here when we get back from HQ in the evenings in order to reacquaint yourself with working as part of a team again; and get back into being in a relationship with us, since that will probably take some time and effort in and of itself after everything that's happened. Then eventually you can start coming to HQ with us to train there and train with people besides just the two of us, and slowly fully reintegrate into being an Avenger again, until you finally start going on missions with Nat and I again and then one day solo or missions with a team of your own and co-leading the whole team with us. You're one of the best we have, certainly the most powerful, and the world can use you — it's just not going to happen overnight. Oh, and maybe think over some possibilities of a new catsuit design that separates the new you from the Darkhold Scarlet Witch whom people will still have in their minds for a while, to help with the fresh new start image. I would say take some ideas from your earliest Scarlet Witch outfits, but you admittedly had some rough times public image-wise back then too, so maybe something completely fresh — just an idea, you don't have to if you don't want to, it's entirely up to you. That's just what I would suggest for the time being, if you want my opinion."
"But at this exact moment, I suggest we all three go make supper and then eat," Nat said when her husband finished. "And then just hang out and relax for the rest of the evening until bedtime, where if you're comfortable enough with it, you sleep in the middle between us again like you used to like to do when Steve wasn't in the middle for both of us to cuddle up to."