Well gang, I'm a pushover! Enjoy an early update chapter x
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Shorttrooper: I love WandaVision too, it really captured my imagination while it was coming out and there's so much to talk about with it. Grief and how it changes people will definitely be a focus for this next leg (hah) of Maggie's journey, so WandaVision felt like the perfect place to start. So glad you're enjoying and thank you for reviewing! x
All was not well in Westview.
The Halloween episode, now set in the 1990s, was off to a kooky start, with Billy and Tommy enjoying their uncle Pietro's company.
Wanda came downstairs in her Halloween costume; a red number with tights, horns, and cape; "I'm a Sokovian fortune teller," she told her boys. Then down came Vision, face painted red, wearing a vibrant green and yellow costume with a felt yellow gem glued to his forehead.
"You never told me much about your brother," Vision mused, watching Pietro down soda pops with the boys on the couch. "I had no idea he'd be so… great with kids."
Wanda's lips pursed. "Yes, he's just… full of surprises."
And then Vision made for the door, saying he was off to join the Neighbourhood Watch, looking out for trouble.
"N-no," Wanda objected, "That's not what you're supposed to-"
"What?" Vision challenged.
"Well…" She crossed her arms. "You didn't tell me you had plans."
"Well, I am telling you now."
Soon the scene came to a close with Pietro promising to look after the boys, and Vision giving Wanda a strange, awkward kiss on the cheek. "Be good."
And then he was out the door, yellow cape swirling behind him.
Outside of Westview, things were much worse than passive-aggression.
Agents were still running everywhere, and more trucks full of weapons and agents kept arriving. The two newly-arrived Avengers strood in the middle of it, looking at Darcy as if she held the answers.
"Um, hi," Darcy said, flaring her hands a little (do not do Jazz hands right now, she told herself). Sam Wilson's eyebrows rose higher. "I'm Doctor Lewis."
"We figured," Wilson said. "Care to explain why you called us here? And… what the hell here is?" Behind him, Barnes looked out of the operations center windows at the floodlights illuminating the anomaly - it appeared as a huge wall of glitchy scarlet light now. Barnes's frown deepened.
Darcy swallowed. "Well, there's a lot to explain-"
She was cut off by the entrance of Hayward, in the middle of an order for the drone to be analysed within the hour. He stormed into the operations center, chased up by Monica, who was shouting his name.
"Hayward! You cut us off at the knees, sending in that missile!"
"Now we know who we're dealing with," he said grimly, striding into the operations room proper. Woo entered at the same time, his face heavy.
Darcy cast an apologetic hold on for a moment glance at Wilson and Barnes as she stepped past them to face Hayward. "Hey, there he is. The guy who almost got murdered by his own murder squad."
Finally, Hayward slowed on his way down to the main operations table. He stopped, turned, and stared at her. She could see words on the tip of his tongue, but then his eyes slid sideways to the two men to her right.
"Why the hell are they here?" he demanded, looking around at the room full of his soldiers.
Wilson and Barnes shared a glance. The soldiers around the room looked clueless.
"They said they had Dr Lewis's authorisation to enter, sir," said the agent who'd shown them in.
Hayward's face dropped into a scowl, and he turned to face Darcy again. "You work for me?"
Hands in her pockets, Darcy thought about it. "I actually don't know."
"She's with me," Monica said, striding forward to face him.
"I see," he replied, eyes flicking between them. "And which one of you is the sassy best friend?"
"There is no time for you to diminish your colleagues," Woo said, stepping around Darcy, "when you're about to start a war you can't win."
Behind her, Darcy heard Barnes murmur to Wilson: "What the hell is going on?"
"I dunno," Wilson shrugged. "I've never worked with S.W.O.R.D. before."
"Maximoff was never gonna negotiate with us," Hayward said, circling his operations table. "We take her out, this whole nightmare ends."
"We don't know that!" Monica challenged. "We actually have no idea what will happen in there or out here if Wanda dies."
"Who's Wanda?" Barnes asked Wilson. Darcy turned just in time to see WIlson give Barnes a clueless look.
"You really don't know?" Darcy questioned, disturbed. They looked to her, and their faces were truly blank. She wanted to ask more questions, but Hayward's voice had risen.
"So what?" he demanded, turning to point out the window at the glitchy scarlet magic field wall. "We just surrender to that? Not happening."
"We can't outgun her," Monica urged. "And clearly antagonizing her is only making things worse. If Wanda is the problem, she has to be our solution."
Darcy could see Hayward's anger in the twitching muscle in his jaw. "Captain Rambeau, you have become an impediment to this mission. Constantly advocating on behalf of super-powered individuals." Darcy didn't miss the way his eyes darted to Barnes behind her, and she was pretty sure Barnes didn't miss it either, based on how he stiffened.
"Yes, I know your history with Carol Danvers," Hayward continued to Monica. "You know, you people who left…" his eyes scanned over all of them now, "still have the luxury of optimism. You have no idea what it was like. What it took to keep the lights on."
Monica held her ground. "Don't use the last five years as an excuse to be a coward."
Darcy's eyebrows shot up.
Hayward eyed Monica a moment longer, and then his voice lowered. "Maybe it's a good thing you weren't here when your mother died. Because clearly you don't have the stomach for this job." He glanced aside to one of his agents, dismissing her. "Get her off my base. Now. All of 'em." Hayward looked past Darcy, to Wilson and Barnes. "And they're not relevant to this situation either. Gentlemen, you're dismissed."
Darcy could feel Wilson and Barnes rankling at that, but she didn't get a chance to see or speak to them before the surrounding agents descended on them, taking elbows and planting hands on backs and pushing them out. Darcy feigned a stumble so she could swipe her folder off her desk.
Bucky wasn't sure whether to be bemused or irritated as he and Sam were escorted by armed S.W.O.R.D. soldiers off the base only minutes after they'd arrived. The soldiers also escorted the beanie-clad Dr Lewis, as well as an irritated-looking FBI agent and the tough-looking woman who'd been called Rambeau, all of them being directed toward the vehicle ranks, away from the operations center and the strange flickering red wall in the sky.
"What the hell is this place," Sam muttered, his head twisting to take in the scale of the strange phenomenon. "That's some kind of… energy field?"
"You did promise me weird," Bucky said, shaking off the hand of the soldier pushing him. Wisely, the agent did not replace the hand.
"Hayward is way overstepping his provisional authority," the FBI agent said from a few paces ahead, gritting his teeth.
"He was looking for a reason to sideline us," Rambeau said, surprisingly even-toned after the emotional lashing that guy Hayward had given her. Bucky hadn't liked the guy, but he knew approximately nothing about the situation. "He's up to something."
They were marched up to an armored truck, and the first soldier gestured toward it as he shouted: "Let's go, everybody in!"
Bucky could tell what the FBI agent was going to do a second before he did it. But the soldier next to him didn't, because he fell back stone cold unconscious when the FBI agent clocked him in the face with an elbow.
The FBI agent swung for the next S.W.O.R.D. soldier and Rambeau dove in too, seizing her soldier's rifle and slamming it into his face. The two of them whirled into action, punching and striking like they'd been working together for years. Dr Lewis took a few steps back, grimacing, and Sam and Bucky merely watched, once again exchanging a confused glance. The fight was relatively out of the way behind the armored truck, and no other soldiers were alerted.
When the last man fell to a knee to the face from Rambeau, the FBI agent and Rambeau paused for a moment, newly-stolen guns in their hands, alert.
Dr Lewis spread her hands, her eyes wide. "Why didn't anyone tell me the plan?" she asked, breath coming out in a fog of condensation.
"You okay?" the FBI agent asked Rambeau.
"Yeah," she breathed. "Let's move."
As if remembering that Bucky and Sam were still there, the three of them suddenly looked over.
"You called them in?" Rambeau asked Dr Lewis, who nodded, still wide-eyed.
"Look," Bucky said, subtly shifting his feet apart into a defensive stance. They didn't seem hostile to him or Sam, but they were armed and capable. "Clearly whatever's going on here is serious for you. So we'll just get our car, and get out of your hair to do whatever-"
"You can't leave!" Dr Lewis exclaimed, with the same tone of someone complaining that he couldn't leave a party too early.
Rambeau stepped forward, an appeasing hand held palm-outward. "Look, I know you don't understand why you're here or what's going on. But trust me that this is important to you." Her eyes were dark and serious.
Bucky looked at Sam. Sam tilted his head and made a face that seemed to say we may as well hear them out. Bucky hesitated a moment, then sighed.
"Alright," he said. "But how do you propose we stay on site if they want us off?" He could think of twenty-three different options, but he was curious to see what this strange trio could come up with.
The FBI agent took a step forward. "We'll lock these guys in that shipping container," he tipped his head to a container nearby, "and take the S.W.O.R.D. gear from inside to disguise ourselves. Then we can hide somewhere we can explain." At Bucky's impressed look, he held out a hand. "Agent Jimmy Woo, sir. Pleasure to meet you."
Bucky's eyebrows rose.
Vision slipped out of the house and looked around. It was well and truly Halloween, with dozens of adults and children in various colourful costumes on the street, carrying candy bags and trick-or-treating. The Planning Committee had gone all out apparently, decorating the trees with spiderwebs and one front lawn with a hay maze. But he had no time to enjoy the scene; Vision had finally reached his final straw. He needed to see what lay outside Westview.
He turned left and made to hurry down the street, until he saw a couple across the road that caught his eye.
It was his across-the-road neighbours, Maggie and her brother Tony, sitting in the front lawn cutting pumpkins to turn them into Jack O'Lanterns.
"Maggie!" he called, already heading over even before he'd made the decision to.
The woman in question looked up. "Oh hi, Vision," she smiled.
"Nice costumes," he said, to be polite.
Maggie wore a red, tight-fitting onesie with a set of tiny black cardboard wings strapped to her back, and skiing goggles over her eyes. To her left sat Tony, who appeared to be wearing a collection of cardboard boxes painted red and yellow; the one on his head had a robot-like face painted on, with eye holes cut out. The larger one on his chest had lines painted on to resemble metal plates, and another hole had been cut out at the chest, from which a flashlight glowed.
"How're the kids?" Maggie asked, carving a blank, expressionless face into her pumpkin with a kitchen knife.
"They're fine, just fine," Vision said absently. "Listen, I wanted to speak to you-"
The music swelled, and he looked back to see that Wanda and Pietro were already leaving the house with the boys. He let out a frustrated sigh. The story was catching up with him. He'd wanted to try touching his fingers to Maggie's temple like he had with Norm. "Look, I'll talk with you later."
"See ya, pal!" Tony said, waving his arm in a jerky, robotic way. Maggie laughed, making the dogtags around her neck sway.
Vision hesitated. "Listen, Maggie… are you sure your husband is coming back?"
She blinked and touched her dogtags. "Of course he is," she smiled. "War's over any day now."
Vision wanted to ask what war, again, but he knew he had to go.
S.W.O.R.D. agents inside the base did not see Vision's strange conversation with Maggie. That was not how the show was meant to go, after all. Instead, they saw Wanda wandering down the street, quizzing Pietro.
"Hey, it's cool," Pietro said, flicking his fly-away hair. "I know I look different."
"Why do you look different?"
"You tell me. I mean, if I found Shangri-La, I wouldn't want to be reminded of the past either."
Some time later, as Vision explored the outskirts of Westview, Wanda continued walking through town with her perplexingly different brother.
"Details are fuzzy, man," Pietro explained when Wanda continued to push. "I got shot like a chump in the street for no reason, and next thing I know, I hear you calling me." His eyes softened. "I knew you needed me."
Wanda's heart skipped a beat.
Then, Tommy appeared to manifest super-speed like his uncle, and Wanda allowed both boys to zoom off ahead in search of candy.
With a sigh, Wanda and Pietro set off after them, although much slower. As they passed the cinema, they saw a table up ahead, covered in Jack O'Lanterns whose cackling faces glowed in the evening darkness. The sight made Wanda shiver inexplicably. And then she spotted the two costumed figures behind the table.
"See?" Pietro said, gesturing to Tony, who was doing a robot-dance to make Maggie laugh. "Brothers look different around here all the time."
Wanda frowned, watching as Tony slung his arm around Maggie's shoulders.
"Oh, stop," she laughed, "Can't you see I'm still finishing off the Jack O'Lantern?" she said, gesturing with her kitchen knife at a pumpkin with half a face.
"You wait until those boys come back, they'll be whack-o'lanterns," Tony joked, and for a moment Wanda expected a laugh track, until she remembered they didn't have that anymore. Tony looked up. "Hello, you two!"
Wanda stepped forward, tilting her head to better see Maggie's face - she'd pushed her ski goggles back on her forehead. "You are happy here, aren't you Maggie? You've got everything you need?"
Maggie cocked her head, smiling. But she did not speak.
"Maggie?" Wanda prompted.
In a flash of silver Maggie reared back the knife and plunged it into her own open palm. Blood sprayed over her costume, over her face, over Tony's painted cardboard boxes. Pietro made a disgusted noise and backed away.
"Maggie, oh my goodness!" Wanda darted forward and batted the knife away. Blood streamed down Maggie's arm from her injured hand. "Why on earth did you do that?"
Maggie looked up at her, right into her eyes, and said: "I'm trying to wake up."
Wanda stared in horror for a moment. Then she blinked, and the scene rewound.
Tony was laughing at his own whack-o'lanterns joke.
"We'll let you get back to it," Wanda said with a shaky smile, then took Pietro's arm and hurriedly walked on. Pietro shot her a knowing look, but said nothing.
As they walked away, Wanda glanced back over her shoulder. Maggie and Tony were laughing together again, working on their pumpkin. There was no blood in sight.
Outside the 'Hex', as Dr Lewis was calling it, Bucky, Sam, Dr Lewis, Rambeau and Woo crept down the rows of tents in the research base, shrouded by S.W.O.R.D-emblazoned rainjackets. They followed Rambeau into an unoccupied tent, which turned out to be a metal-reinforced server room of some type, with a computer workspace on one side.
Most strangely of all, there were three TV screens set up on one desk, all broadcasting the same thing: footage of a guy in a blue top with blown-back silver hair speaking. Bucky frowned at the screen, trying to shake off the dampness clinging to him.
"Who is that?" Rambeau asked, frowning as she passed the TVs.
"Wanda's brother came to town," Woo replied grimly.
"And brought the wrong face," Dr Lewis added.
Sam pulled down the hood of his S.W.O.R.D. rainjacket and eyed the TV. "Listen, this all seems… super weird, but I'm not sure it's got anything to do with us. That Hayward guy is a dick, granted, but he seems to have it in hand."
"Darcy, over here," Woo said, ignoring Sam and ushering Dr Lewis toward a laptop set up by the servers. Dr Lewis went slowly, though, looking back at Sam with a perturbed look.
"We shouldn't hang out here too long," Rambeau said, eyes darting around.
"See, that's Wanda!" Dr Lewis - Darcy - exclaimed, whipping around and pointing at the TV screen. Bucky followed her finger; the TV show, or whatever it was, was now showing a woman in a weird red costume and auburn hair, talking to the silver-haired man.
"What happened to your accent?" she asked.
Bucky turned back to Darcy, and her face fell at his and Sam's blank looks.
"You really don't remember." she pulled out of Woo's gentle grip as he tried to guide her toward the computer he wanted her to work on. "Look, I know the Hex is rewriting memories or something, but Monica managed to fight back," she urged, her eyes earnest behind her glasses. "You can too."
Rambeau and Woo watched, as if curious to see what Bucky and Sam would do. Bucky looked to Sam again, and saw that he was just as clueless.
Darcy let out a frustrated sigh, then pulled her cellphone out of her pocket, typed furiously for a second, then turned the screen toward them. It was a picture of the same auburn-haired woman, only this time she was in a much more well-designed red outfit made of leather. And she was standing next to Sam. In the picture, Sam was wearing his old Falcon getup.
"See?" Darcy exclaimed, gesturing the phone at them.
Sam stared at the picture. His eyes widened, and then he stared even closer. "What the…" He took the phone, still staring, then looked at the TV screen in the corner. The same woman was now speaking to a pair of young boys, smiling fondly. Maybe a few years older, but definitely the same woman.
The show played on; the boys ran off at literal lightning-speed, and the auburn-haired woman who Bucky guessed was this Wanda causing everyone so much grief, walked on with her brother through a brightly-lit town decorated for Halloween. They walked up to a glowing table of Jack-O'Lanterns manned by two more costumed people, and Woo shifted his feet.
"It's her again," he said.
Bucky frowned at Woo, then turned back to the screen. The two new people wore homemade costumes, the man as a robot and woman as a… dragon with ski goggles? She had dark hair and eyes, and was laughing as the man did a robot-dance.
Bucky crossed his arms, brow furrowing. "What is this anyway, a TV show?"
Rambeau had been watching him closely. "No, it's live," she said in a low voice. "I know, because I was in there; this is a show playing out with real people, inside the Hex. And I know it's difficult. That pressure in your mind, pressing out your real thoughts, your real memories. Your real pain."
On screen, the man in the robot costume slung an arm over the woman's shoulders, making her laugh again. Her head tipped back and her eyes closed when she laughed.
"It's easier not to look," Rambeau continued, stepping closer. "But you know her, don't you?" Bucky glanced at Rambeau, confused, but then his eyes darted back as if he didn't want to miss another second.
The dark-haired woman spoke: "Oh, stop. Can't you see I'm still finishing off the Jack O'Lantern?"
"I don't know the extent of it," Rambeau continued. "But I do know about the Winter Soldier." His face hardened. "And the Wyvern." Still staring at Darcy's phone screen, Sam's frown deepened. "You were both victims of HYDRA. Together."
"And that can't be all you were," Darcy said. She reached into her jacket and pulled out a file filled to bursting with papers. Woo shot her a glance, and she shrugged innocently. "She's saying you're her husband. She's wearing these." She rifled through the file a moment until she found whatever it was she was looking for, and handed the page over.
Bucky took the paper with numb fingers and looked down. It was a black-and-white photograph of a pair of dog tags. They read:
James B Barnes
32557038 T41 42 O
R Barnes / 3092 Stockton Rd / Shelbyville IN H
"Why does she have those, Sergeant Barnes?" Woo asked, in the low voice that one used with frightened animals.
Bucky felt a piercing pain needling at the front of his mind, just behind his eye. It was a familiar pain, reminding him of the chair, of lightning behind his eyes and explosions of memories out of place. But it was somehow different as well. He shook his head and closed his eyes.
There was a skip in the audio of the show.
"There's another glitch," Woo said. "Something must have been edited out."
The dark-haired woman's laughter rang out again, high and clear.
Bucky opened his eyes again and nearly flinched backward - Darcy had gotten closer than he realized, holding out her folder full of photographs. He took it from her, hesitantly, and looked through them. About half were black and white, half in colour. There were images of Wanda, of a man who was sometimes made of flesh, sometimes of metal, and of many other characters. There were images of the dark-haired woman. She wore an array of costumes, in several different scenes. The papers felt glossy under his fingers.
"The Wyvern," he said distractedly. He was distantly aware of Woo ushering Darcy back to her computer, and her saying she was hacking into the base's secure network.
Sam was still on Darcy's phone, but now googling Wanda Maximoff. Scrolling the websites which declared her to be an Avenger. "I… I feel weird," Sam said, rubbing his head. "It's like there's something in my mind telling me not to look."
"Keep going," Rambeau urged, her voice low. "You can fight it. It's not you she's really focused on, you can remember."
"...Donezo," Darcy said from other side of the room, to herself. "Now, should be able to access the data on Hayward's devices…"
Bucky found himself unconsciously touching the Kimoyo bead around his neck. He looked back down at the stills. At the woman in black and white with an oil spot on her cheek, laughing.
"Your name is Margaret." The words stumbled over his lips, as if he weren't really saying them.
Darcy, Woo, and Rambeau looked over.
His hands tightened on the image. "You're… you're my mission."
Lightning.
It exploded behind his eyes and he dropped to his knees, clutching his head as his vision flashed blinding white. The folder toppled and spilled papers around him on the floor like falling snow. He bowed over, gripping at his hair, at his skin, and crying out through clenched teeth. There were people around him - trying to shush him, trying to keep him upright.
Sam was still frowning, grappling with vague memories and strange new facts and hardly even conscious of Bucky's collapse.
But Bucky's mind forged paths it had forged countless times before: re-remembering, scouring away the work of those who tried to hide his memories. Lightning scorched through him, scorched through a hazy cloud of magic and blankness.
He saw color bleeding past the scarlet magic haze: the red-gold glow of flickering flames. Blood in the snow. Tan skin, speckled with sand. Sparking, burning dark eyes. Dark hair, tangled in his cybernetic fingers. And he heard… things. A voice: You're my mission, too. Laughter, like an echo to the one on the TV, but in his own head now. A memory. Pretty damn sure; a breathless promise. His own voice, nearly drowned out by his own thundering heartbeat: Fancy seeing you here. He felt the Kimoyo bead under his fingers, hundreds of times, as he sent messages across the sea. One day. Fingers on his skin. If you think for one second you aren't my family, you're a goddamned idiot. Tears leaking into his skin as a strong pair of arms wrapped around him, on a devastated battlefield. A figure standing at the end of a pier before a shining lake, leaning on a walking stick. His dogtag chain slipping through his fingers as he placed it around a warm neck. Just for now.
It all rushed over him, words and sounds and memories and touch until:
The first words she'd said to him after the Helicarriers fell, blazing life in her dark eyes.
Do you remember?
Bucky gasped and jerked back, and would have toppled onto the floor if Rambeau hadn't braced his shoulder. He looked around, wild eyed, as if seeing the world anew. He clutched at his chest, at Rambeau's shoulder, looking around at the photographs that had fallen around him.
"Meg," he blurted, and tipped forward to scrabble for one of the pictures, his metal fingers clumsy. He grabbed it, brought it right to his face so he could see:
Meg, in black and white in a dress that could've come out of his time, hair in victory rolls, oil spotted on her cheek and a bright grin on her face. His dogtags around her neck. "Meg, I-"
"I'm remembering," Sam said, still staring at Darcy's phone. "It's coming slow, but I… I know these people."
"Thank goodness," Darcy sighed, barely looking up from the laptop she was working on. "Who's Meg?"
Bucky rifled through the other clips: 60s: she was wearing a pinafore and sitting next to Rambeau at a pool party. He glanced up at Rambeau for a moment, comparing the image, then back. 70s, in red flare pants as she stood by two other people at a yellow brick fence, looking uncertain. 80s, she carried a doghouse into a kitchen, her eyes bright and her hair in wild curls.
"She came to Westview looking for Wanda," Bucky managed to get out, still staring at all the images. "We were meant to meet up afterward but-" his stomach lurched and he ran a hand through his hair, wild eyed. "I left." He shook his head. "I forgot. But…"
"You're saying Ms Stark was there when Wanda created the Hex?" Woo asked, leaning in.
"Ooh, that's interesting," Darcy said from the table in the center of the room. "Guys, Hayward figured out a way to look through the boundary."
Rambeau and Woo hesitated, looking at the two astounded Avengers, then hurried over to Darcy.
"And he didn't share it with the group," Rambeau bit out, peering at the laptop screen.
Bucky felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see Sam. Sam's eyes were blown wide and his breaths were coming as fast as Bucky's. He held out a hand, wordlessly. Bucky gripped his arm and allowed Sam to help him up.
"Meg-" he started.
"Yeah. Wanda. And Vision," Sam breathed, looking down at the stills of the android they both knew.
"Is this Wanda right here?" Woo asked, pointing to a pulsing red dot on the computer screen.
"No, the program is tracking the decay signature of Vibranium," Darcy murmured.
"Vision," Rambeau said. "Wait, why is Hayward tracking Vision?"
Sam and Bucky shared a glance, then strode over to meet them at the table.
"I don't know, this is all I can access so far," Darcy said apologetically, moving to another computer connected to the servers.
"Wait, so Vision is alive?" Sam questioned.
"That's what we're trying to figure out," Rambeau said grimly.
"These other dots," Woo said, pointing at the screen. It showed a grid map of Westview, with the pulsing red dot of Vision, surrounded by dozens of other blue dots. "These are Westview residents?"
"The ones in Vision's immediate vicinity, yeah," Darcy said over her shoulder.
"So Hayward must have an accurate headcount by now."
"Hmm," agreed Rambeau.
"And some sense of their wellbeing," Woo said, zooming in on the screen.
"Wanda's somehow put an entire town inside this energy field?" Sam questioned.
"Now he gets with the program," Darcy said wryly as she worked. "They're in a sitcom where Wanda is writer, producer, and director. Monica here got a guest role when she went into the Hex, she had pretty much no control over herself."
Rambeau's face darkened. "Wanda's hurting," she said. It's… I can't say I fully understand it yet, but this is a way for Wanda to deal with her grief."
Bucky's hands landed on the desk in an attempt to keep himself upright. "So Meg's in there… and she's trapped?"
"They all are, in mind and body," Woo said grimly, still peering at the screen. "Huh, these people near the edge of town, they're barely moving. Are they alive?"
Inside Westview, Vision went from the horror-show of the frozen people in Halloween costumes, lifeless save for the slight movements of their chests rising and falling, and further to the boundary of town. There he found Agnes, sitting in her car facing the edge of Westview, and was able to break Wanda's hold over her for a few moments. The terrified woman said:
"Am I dead?"
"No, no. Why would you think that?"
"Because you are."
Moments later, when she was unable to calm down, he restored her to Wanda's enchantment. She drove away, leaving him alone on Ellis Avenue.
Resolved, he walked forward.
Back in the reinforced server room, Bucky was collecting the photographs from Wandavision off the floor as Sam asked a series of questions that he barely got the answers to.
Monica's phone dinged, and she beamed. "That's it. My way back into the Hex will be here in an hour." Bucky retrieved the last still and looked up, eyes widening. "Just gotta meet my guy over the ridge. Let's roll."
"You can't do that," Darcy said.
"Sure we can," Woo says, smiling. "I'm a whiz at hot-wiring cars."
"You can't go back into the Hex," Darcy said with gravity, eyes on Monica.
"Worst case scenario," Monica shrugged, "Wanda removes my free will and puts me in ultra-low rise jeans." She smirked at Woo.
"Hayward has your bloodwork." Darcy turned her computer around, revealing the results. "You've gone through the boundary twice already, Monica. The energy inside has re-written your cells on a molecular level twice. It's changing you."
Bucky looked at Sam, and he shook his head once. Bucky wasn't quite sure if he knew what Sam meant by it.
Monica stared at the results a moment, then looked up. "Seen enough lab results to last me a lifetime. Cells metastasizing, cells in remission." A somber moment passed. "I know what Wanda's feeling, and I won't stop until I help her."
Darcy looked down, then sighed. "Okay."
Woo nodded: "Okay." He and Rambeau turned to leave.
"But I'm staying here." Darcy said, twisting the laptop back to face her.
Woo and Rambeau turned, questions and disagreements quick off their tongues.
"I haven't made it through Hayward's last firewall," Darcy explained. "There's something big here, something that can help us, I know it."
Rambeau paused a long moment, looking down. "Fine. Fine. I'll drop you the location, you meet us out there as soon as you can." She turned and headed for the door once more.
"You two coming?" she said to Sam and Bucky as she passed them.
"Yes," Bucky said quickly, moving to follow her with the photograph file clutched in his metal hand. But Sam hesitated.
"Sam," Bucky murmured.
Sam looked back at Darcy. "I won't leave you here alone. I don't like the look of these S.W.O.R.D. guys."
"My hero," Darcy said without looking up from her laptop screen.
Bucky eyed Sam. "She said they might be able to go in-"
"You go, Buck," Sam nodded. "We'll catch you guys up."
Bucky nodded once, then turned to follow Rambeau.
"Look after her," Woo murmured to Sam, then followed as well.
The three of them pushed through the tent flap and into the cool, damp air of the New Jersey night. They kept the hoods of their S.W.O.R.D. rainjackets up until they found an armored truck far enough away from the operations center to be noticed.
Rambeau and Woo both hopped in the front seat, Rambeau taking the wheel. Bucky climbed into the rear of the truck - it was a troop transport, so he slid right to the front of the bench, behind the driver's seat.
"You love her," Monica said evenly as she fished for the key behind the sunshield.
Bucky ignored the question, but his fingers tightened on the file full of photographs.
Woo looked over. "Is it true you guys are married?"
"No," Bucky murmured. "I don't know why…" He opened the folder again, looking at the pictures. "I don't know why she said that."
"Her words aren't… hers," Rambeau explained as she switched on the engine and they rolled off. The agents they drove past didn't give them a second glance. "Wanda controls it all - the costumes, the lines, the scene. I guess that must be how Wanda sees you two. She even dressed Maggie like you."
"I can see that," Bucky said, even quieter, as he eyed the 1950s pictures. "And… that's why I wasn't with Meg that day. She thought that Wanda seeing us together would make her more upset. Because Meg had me, and Wanda didn't have… Vision." All the memories slipped back into place easier now. That frantic phone call, their hurried preparations. They needed to buy curtains.
"We think Wanda's trying to make it… nice in there for Maggie," Woo said hesitantly. "The nice house, a promise that you'll be there soon, and… you see the guy she's with?"
"Yeah," Bucky said, turning to the 1960s clip of them together in the garden. "Is he meant to look like…?"
"Tony Stark, yeah," Woo winced. "Wanda tried to give Maggie her brother back."
Bucky shook his head down at it, at Maggie's smiling face. At the stranger with Tony's clothes and beard. He could see the name on the letterbox: Barnes-Stark. "Why is she doing this?"
"Using your power to bring back the person you love more than anything else on this earth?" Rambeau mused. "Wouldn't you?"
Bucky looked at the still of Vision, sitting next to Wanda on a couch, each of them carrying a baby. He didn't know the guy at all, but Maggie had. They'd been friends.
Maggie had never had a chance to bring Vision back. But she had torn apart the rules of time and space to get Bucky back. Is this different? He wondered.
The car drove on silently out of the S.W.O.R.D. base.
At that very moment, Wanda was sitting on a haybale with Pietro, trying to explain how she had done what she did.
At that very moment, Darcy broke the last firewall and found the CATARACT files.
"Hayward, you sneaky bastard," she said.
"Something good?" Sam asked, trying to peer over her shoulder as she emailed it to Woo's FBI email address.
At that very moment, Vision pushed his way through the boundary of Westview.
He emerged screaming and disintegrating on the other side, to an audience of shocked S.W.O.R.D. agents, Hayward among them.
Darcy, who'd noticed the Vibranium signature approaching the boundary, ran over with Sam hot on her heels, arriving at the stretch of open grass toward the boundary just as Vision emerged. Sam's eyes widened in the red glow as he saw the scene before him.
Vision emerged fully from the glowing boundary of the Hex. He groaned, then collapsed to his knees. A section of Vibranium cracked and then flew from his shoulder, back toward the Hex.
"Vision!" Sam cried, and bolted forward. Darcy darted forward at the same time, shouting:
"Why aren't you helping him?"
Hayward turned, his brow lowering. "Stop them," he ordered. An agent grabbed Darcy, who shouted:
"He's coming apart!"
Sam dodged the two who reached for him, punched another in the jaw, but was then knocked to the ground only yards away from Vision. He groaned and looked up at Vision, his old friend, roaring in pain and disintegrating before his eyes. "Vision!" The android met his eyes for a brief excruciating moment.
"Get them away!" Hayward ordered.
Sam felt himself be hauled off his feet and dragged back to an armored truck. Darcy was being chained to another truck, wriggling and yelling.
"Help!" Vision cried, reaching out even as he struggled on his hands and knees. "The people need help!"
Sam was shoved inside another truck, and the door slammed and locked before he could spring back. His fists pounded on the window, and when he looked back, Vision was lying on the ground. He glowed like a dying ember, energy streaming from his fallen body and back to the wall of the Hex.
Inside the Hex, magic bloomed in Wanda's hands and Westview fell to a standstill. The children and their parents laughing in the town square, Maggie and Tony smiling over their Jack O'Lanterns, cars driving on the street.
And Wanda's magic flared outward.
On the highway leading away from Westview, Rambeau looked in her rearview mirror to see the glowing wall of the Hex shifting, glowing brighter. It undulated like a cocoon.
"Jimmy, Jimmy, you see that? Something's happening!"
Woo and Bucky both looked back; the glow was spilling along the dark road now, and the line where the Hex met the ground was… growing closer. A few dark pine trees disappeared into the shifting red light.
"It's moving!" Woo cried. "Go, go!"
Rambeau stepped on the gas.
Sam's furious punches against the inside of the truck's windows paused as the edge of the Hex rippled. It seemed to bulge in the middle, like a sail catching the wind, and then the whole massive expanse of it pushed forward.
Hayward and the agents on the ground backed up at first, staring, then turned and outright ran. One soldier dove into the driver's seat of the truck that had become Sam's prison, closely followed by Hayward into the passenger seat, and his second in command into the back, next to Sam.
"Help him!" Sam insisted, but they ignored him - the soldier threw the car into reverse and they squealed away. Sam leaned forward to see Darcy alone, handcuffed to the front of a stationary truck, yelling after the fleeing agents. "Darcy!"
Hayward's soldier flung the car into a handbrake spin, knocking Sam away from the front seat and into the female agent with a crack of skulls. He grunted, cursing, then scrambled back to his knees on the back seat and stared through the back window.
The towering Hex wall surged forward like a glowing scarlet tidal wave. It rolled over the lifeless body of Vision, then over the small figure chained to the front of the stationary truck. Sam lost sight of anything else on the ground as the truck raced through the base, though he could see the ever-present expansion of the Hex, consuming flood light towers, the operations base, and a helicopter.
Unseen to him, the grim, dark lines of the base were being transformed into a circus.
"Push it!" Hayward yelled at the driver as the Hex closed in on them, "Faster!"
They raced over a dry grass field and onto the highway, fishtailing as the expanding bulge of the Hex licked at the rear of the truck in a rush of scarlet sparks. The Hex consumed the Welcome to Westview sign to their left. Sam could only stare at the oncoming tidal wave of flickering magic, horrified, as the car sped away.
Finally it seemed they were outpacing the Hex, and Hayward yanked the radio from his belt. "Come in, anyone read me?" He glanced back, and made grim eye contact with his number two. "Anyone hear my voice? Does anyone read me? Anyone read me, over?"
Behind them the Hex grew ever outward.
After he continued to try his radio to no avail, Hayward finally looked at Sam.
"You bastard," was all Sam could say, his fists aching from pounding the window and his lungs ragged from shouting and his heart pounding.
"You'd best thank me, Master Sergeant Wilson," Hayward breathed, fury glinting in his eyes as they looked back to the Hex. "We just saved your life."
Moments earlier, on a different highway, Rambeau had looked back in her rear view mirror as she sped away from the Hex to see Bucky at the back of the armored truck, his hand on the door handle.
"Don't!" she snapped, her hands clenching reflexively on the steering wheel but her foot not leaving the accelerator.
"Meg's in there," Bucky said hopelessly. He yanked on the handle and the back doors flew open, sending a rush of wind into the truck and revealing the full scale of the ominous flickering magic wall expanding toward them. Without another second of hesitation Bucky dove out the back of the truck, hitting the ground hard and tumbling a few times until he slammed his metal hand into the surface of the road as he had years ago, on a causeway. Sparks flew as he slowed his momentum, boots skidding on the ground.
"Shit!" Woo exclaimed, twisting in his seat to look back at the lone figure on the highway behind them.
"There's nothing we can do!" Rambeau cried, urging the truck to go faster.
Alone on the road now, Bucky straightened and lifted his head to see the full scale of the incoming wall of scarlet light, crackling and ominous. It had a strange sound to it, like wild electricity.
He strode forward down the double lines of the highway, righting his leather jacket and dusting off his hands. He could hear the crackling zaps of trees being consumed in the light ahead of him - a hundred yards, fifty, ten.
It looked like lines of TV static, now he was close enough to make out the details. His whole body was bathed in crackling scarlet, his heart pounding, and soon he could see nothing but the Hex, surging toward him like an incoming wave at least a mile high.
"I'll always remember," he promised himself. Promised Meg.
Then he closed his eyes and the magic rolled over him.