Fifteen
WANDA
Wanda threw her hands up again, expecting a shield of energy to form. Of course, it didn't. Right, she thought. She shrunk back behind Vision, who had begun blasting anything in purple.
Mobius descended from the desk and ushered people through the portals with heightened calls of "Go! Go! Go!" The soldiers in black turned and ran into the fray. They jabbed at the oncoming army with their light-tipped spears and the purple soldiers vanished in a splay of sparks. But the purples had blasters, so they could mow down the others from a distance.
Wanda hated all of it, and most of all, she hated that she could do nothing about it.
"You should go with the others," Vision said. "I'll find you when this is over."
"I'm staying with you," Wanda insisted.
A purple solider managed to get within arms' length of Vision. Vision swung and brought the solider down with one solid punch.
"I don't know if I can protect you," Vision said.
"I'll protect myself then."
"Wanda, please!" Vision shouted.
"Sorry to interrupt," Mobius said. "But you're going to need this." He handed Wanda a little screen that seemed both very old and very high-tech. She flipped it open and tried to make sense of the jumbled string of words and letters.
"I already programmed it. It might not quite get you home – time is being a bit temperamental these days – but it should get you close."
A solider that had been struck by Vision tumbled to the ground at Wanda's feet. Aside from a scorch mark on his chest, Wanda realized he was not hurt.
"You're stunning them?" she asked.
"I don't know who they are," Vision said. "I don't know if they must die. I wouldn't want them to if they were misunderstood."
"I can answer that one," Mobius said. "They're a problem. And they're a problem that's probably coming to you next. But do whatever you've got to do to cover us now, and then get the H-E-double hockey sticks out of here."
"Thank you," Wanda said. "And – Loki says hello."
"Son-of-a-bitch is still alive," Mobius laughed. "I should have figured nothing could kill him."
"Mobius," Vision said very seriously, "I believe your exit window is closing."
One of the gateways had already gone down. The other was moments away from being swarmed by the army of purple.
"That's my cue then," Mobius said. He sprinted to the gate, and it promptly closed behind him.
Only Wanda, Vision, and the purple soldiers remained. Vision turned to Wanda and said, "Hold onto me, dear." She threw her arms around his neck and they rose a few feet into the air, where Vision spun quickly, stunning the whole room in one go.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, Wanda flipped open the little device Mobius had given her and a door opened next to them. Hand-in-hand, they walked through.
Mobius had said that they might not end up exactly where they'd started, but they did arrive back in front of Wanda's mountain cabin – except it was wrong. Wanda didn't know exactly what was wrong, but she knew she felt dizzy. To dizzy even for the thin air. She reached for Vision, but the gesture felt like it took forever.
"What's wrong?" Vision asked.
"You don't feel it?"
Remembering herself, she pressed the Mind Stone into Vision's palm. She didn't have the strength or the knowhow to do more. How were they going to get that into Vision's head? Maybe Shuri could help – or…
Wanda didn't know she had started to feint until she felt Vision's arms around her. He said her name, but she was busy watching a flower melt into a swirl of paint.
"Did you see that?" she asked.
"Yes," Vision said, "That seems incorrect."
Wanda steadied herself and took a step back. Vision let her, though only reluctantly. She tried her powers – and they worked, a little too well. The little blast she meant to send out flew thousands of feet into the sky.
She shook her head and tried to focus. "The Mind Stone – is it working?"
"I'm not sure," Vision said. "I don't feel any different holding it. That might not be enough. But I think we have other problems. Maybe we aren't in our own world."
"This is home," Wanda said. She was sure of that. This was her mountain. This was her life. All of it – all the disconnected pieces that read more like a poem that a narrative. She was the orphan twin experiment brokenhearted scarlet Avenger who disappeared but always was and who loved, and loved and lost and lost and lost. But.
Another gateway opened on her lawn – this one, a circle rimmed in firecrackers. And through it stepped Stephen Strange.
