Home.
How could she use that word to describe this ?
This was the first thought that came to Myshkin's mind after he was carelessly pushed, almost thrown, on the harsh stone floor of a cavern. The place was poorly furnished, only with a large table, two filthy wardrobes, a dusty bookshelf, and some other half-broken furniture. Through the entrance to the cave, behind Wanda, he could make out the top of a snow-covered mountain. It was so cold, so lonely, so dead… so loveless. She couldn't seriously imagine that this place was her home !
Then, he sensed them…
"Billy, Tommy, come and see what I've brought !" resonated Wanda's falsely-sweet voice.
A quiet sob responded, somewhere in the corner of the cavern.
Two little human beings were huddling there, in the shadow of a broken chair.
Myshkin himself – still laying on the floor, unable to move – was very in pain and scared, but this… this aroused a violent feeling he didn't know he could feel : fury and dread, melted together, with a bit of growing panic and the urgent need to scream.
Wanda took a few steps forward, and the children – her children ! – started to shake.
"Come on, my babies, Mummy invited a good friend of her ! Now I'm sure it's reallyhim – no one else would be foolish enough to accept my invitation – I can introduce him ! I'm sure you'd like him, soon."
With an unimaginable difficulty, Myshkin used his elbows to straighten up into a semi-upright position, all of his aching body protesting, and managed to ask, voice trembling, not far from a panic attack :
"Wha… what did you do, Wanda ? They… they are your children !
"Indeed, they are" spoke Wanda, her eyes possessively fixed on Tommy and Billy who were trying to hide their silent cries. "My little, lovely children…
"How are you treating them ?! DON'T YOU SEE THEY'RE SCARED ?!"
Milo was out of him, violently shaking in anger. This was… this was enough ! Why, why did she do that to her own children ? Was she blind, to not see their tears, or deaf to not hear their sobs ?!
Without realizing it at first, the ex-neuroscientist had stood up and placed himself between Wanda and the children, in a protective position, as if to hide her from them. The vision of the Scarlet Witch, skin as pale as a corpse's, dark red veins pulsing in her arms and tentaculous strands of hair floating around her emotionless, cold face, was certainly enough for a child to develop a serious trauma in the future.
"Why… why are you housing them here, anyway ?" Milo resumed. "A cavern in the mountains… wasn't here any more appropriate place to raise your own children ?!"
Wanda blinked and frowned, visibly disturbed by these vehement criticisms.
"I had not the choice – I had to protect them from themselves… my babies tried to flee when I took them to a lovely house near a town – but my poor babies are just disturbed by all these fake words the Avenger told them, they can't know what is good for them !"
She then approached Myshkin – very close, her lips only a few inches from his left ear – and whispered :
"They're searching my babies, I know it very well… and I know you helped them !"
Myshkin swallowed hard, shaking like a leaf.
"What did you do with Vision ? Where is he ? I… only remember you started a fight against him…
"He didn't understand. He was not my Vision, he didn't want me to be a part of my own family !"
A thin red wave emerged from Wanda's forehead : when it hit Myshkin's temple, he had a glimpse of her memories she wanted to share to make him understand.
Vision standing in front of her – between her and the children, to be more precise, angrily protecting them. Then, a golden light tried to hit Wanda, but she easily dodged. She tried to explain, she really did, but he didn't understand, he didn't agree. For him, she was dead – and she was very different from the woman he loved. He couldn't let her take the children and didn't want to come with her. According to his nonsensical speech, she represented a danger to the very frame of this universe – how absurd ! He was just a hypocrite, who didn't want her, who didn't love her. Else, why would she be dead instead of him in this universe ?
When he came back to his senses, Myshkin wobbled a bit and, to his big surprise, Wanda gently put her hands on his shoulders to steady him. He looked straight into the woman's eyes, trying to decipher her sick thoughts : impossible to understand anything in these almost insane, cold turquoise eyes. But somehow, he had the impression to see some sort of… attachment ? Sweetness ? Pity, maybe ?
In any case, she was not an emotionless psychopath. And she probably really loved her children, despite her horrible behaviour.
Still… could she be reasoned ?
"I AM their mother, Milo !" she almost cried, as if to convince herself. "I had to… had to…"
She was clearly having a sort of crisis of lucidity. Milo briefly glared at Billy and Tommy behind him – they seemed to be a bit calmer than before, they ceased to cry and tremble – then slowly raised his hands in an appeasing motion. She looked at them, defiant : she knew that the slightest contact between their skins would be sufficient for him to take advantage over her. However, he did not touch her.
"Wanda", he murmured in a low voice. "What happened to Vision ?"
Her gaze was lost, now. He tried to meet her eyes again ; unsuccessfully. A strange, uncomfortable sensation started to harass his brain, but he did not pay attention.
Wanda stepped back :
"No more questions, Myshkin… You… you WON'T be my enemy ! I brought you because you will help ME, not them anymore !"
The strange feeling was overwhelming, now. It was as if some bird of prey's claws took a grip on his consciousness, taking him lower, and lower… until having reached the very bottom.
He understood way too late that the Witch was making him sleep with her telepathic control over him. The last thing Milo remembered was a thin red whip slowly wrapping around his waist to lift him up before he fell.
OoOoO
The first thing he registered when he woke up was the unusual lack of pain.
Myshkin stirred confusedly. Above him, there was a white ceiling ; below, a comfortable bed.
Comfortable ? How ? Carefully, he pushed a bit onto the mattress with his right foot : it sank deep onto the feathery fabric, without putting up any resistance. The mattress had some liquid-like properties, which made it so comfortable even for his standards.
Then, he suddenly remembered, and it almost made him have a heart attack : Vision's children ! She was sequestrating them in a cave, in the mountains ! He had to get them out of there and find their father !
However, when he tried to get up, he realized he couldn't – and simultaneously understood why he wasn't feeling any pain, despite the absence of morphine in his organism : there was a sort of magic shield surrounding him and his bed, transparent but extremely solid and probably very thick, preventing him from perceiving the slightest stimulus from the outside – but also preventing him from escaping.
He felt his breath quicken and his panic increase : he was prisoner… of course he was… had he enough oxygen in this magic cage ? Yes, yes he probably had, Wanda needed him alive, she wouldn't have paid attention to such details as giving him a physically-impossible mattress otherwise… but why did she need him ?
His panic level decreased a bit : yes, he was trapped, but there certainly was a good reason. He forced himself to slow his breath, tried to focus on the smooth ascending and descending motions of his waist. He wasn't in danger – not him. No need to panic.
How long would he have to wait like this ? And where was he, anyway ? This wasn't like the gloomy cavern he'd "visited" earlier… how long did he sleep ? Were William and Tom Maximoff all right ?
He could have waited for a single hour, or for an entire month. Time was elusive in this strange prison – sometimes, he found himself half-asleep or so deeply lost in thoughts and worries that he almost forgot who he was. It was so unsettling to not feel the pain… He tried to break the magic shield a few times – obviously without success.
Eventually, she came.
He immediately sensed it, despite the shield. Dark red waves hit his skin, scanning him, not hurting but quite uncomfortably intrusive. He knew she was using her telepathy on him, again. This habit of her was starting to get on his nerves…
He heard her chuckle in his head :
"So, already tired of me ? Though, you knew I'm far from the perfect woman when you fell in love…
"Please, release William and Tom…" he said aloud, trying vainly to push the magic shield with his hands. "They have to go back home, with their father…"
Silence. Then, he saw her face : Wanda was levitating above him, dominating him plainly. She seemed less monstruous than the last time he saw her, her hair wasn't floating like tentacles, the veins in her wrists regained a regular color and her beautiful green-blue eyes weren't glowing in a sickly red dim ; yet, her skin was still very pale and she seemed unusually tired, as if she was constantly focused on something that drained a lot of energy from her.
"So, you're like all of them : you think I do not deserve to raise my own children" she said calmly, unevenly.
"You… you perfectly know what I mean, what I think of it !" Milo protested, still pushing against the magic shield as if he could free himself if he persevered. "You heard it from Vision's mouth, he noticed it immediately : you're deteriorating the very fabric of this universe ! And you kidnapped these children against their will, you won't deny it !
"I could have twisted their will to my own desires if I really was a monster !" she argued back. "But I never read their thoughts, nor tried to change them. They'll end understanding what sacrifices their mother made, only for their wellbeing…
"Sacrifices ?! What did you sacrificed, Wanda ? Vision ?!" Milo shouted, now horrified.
She did not answer back. Instead, she silently left and disappeared from his sight.
Suddenly, Myshkin felt a violent pain and a shiver ran through his bedridden body. The magic shield had disappeared, and he could sense everything again… the slightest atmospheric variation, the slightest air flow, the slightest touch on his skin – especially on his hands – became almost unbearable.
However, she freed him. He internally thanked her for this, it was still better than uselessly laying and slowly drowning in madness…
In a few unsteady steps, he exited the room – his bedroom, apparently, yet the only furniture here was the very comfortable bed. After a short corridor, he ended in a vast, well-lit room. A living room, obviously : many furniture, a nice wooden table and chairs, two green sofas, wardrobes filled with clothes, books, toys, and even a computer, a game console and a television. There were two entries – if he didn't count the one he just crossed –, both closed by a red door.
Milo barely had the time to register all of this, when he noticed two small, almost unmoving silhouettes sitting on a sofa, in front of one of the four windows in the room.
"W… William ? Tom ?" he asked, his voice so low it almost was a whisper.
It was sufficient for the children to jump violently, eyes filled with fear and apprehension stuck on him. The one on the left – Tommy – was dressed in a pale grey t-shirt and blue jean, and his brown hair was long for a boy, reaching his shoulders. The other, Billy, had shorter but somehow disheveled hair, with a fabric headband on the forehead which kept the brown strands away from his eyes, and was dressed in red t-shirt and black trousers. Both were around eight or nine years old – a bit younger than the ones Wanda created in Westview, but very close in appearance.
As they were too afraid to say or do anything, Milo stayed where he was and simply asked, trying to not make any quick gesture that would scare them more :
"How are you ? I will not hurt you, I swear…
"She said so" spoke Tom with a slightly trembling, yet angry tone.
"What… what did she do to you ?" asked Myshkin, eyes suddenly large in worry and dread. "Was she… was she physically violent with you ?"
The boys looked at each other, before Billy finally answered :
"You are not one of her creations. You're real."
It was said as a fact, an observation. Myshkin frowned, quite surprised, not clearly understanding what the child was meaning by that.
"She can make anything" Billy dared to explain with a wave of his hand showing the whole room. "All of this… is not real, I can sense it. They are only… illusions, I don't know how to say it.
"You mean… she made this whole place ? The house and the furniture in it ?" Myshkin asked.
After all, it was not that surprising, she already had displayed this kind of power back in their former universe.
Yet Billy shook his head and bit his lower lip.
"Not only the house. But also the surroundings, the mountains… it is so huge, I can't even tell !
"It's because of me, I think" Tommy intervened. "I'm very quick when I run, she made this whole region so I can't escape even when I run, the distance is too big…
"The whole REGION ?!" Milo repeated, baffled.
"Yes" Billy said.
"In fact, you're the first real person we are allowed to see since…" Tommy started, but interrupted himself.
Since she kidnapped them, Milo understood immediately, and nodded sympathetically.
It was almost six months…
Myshkin's anger was suddenly aroused when he realized the desperate loneliness these children must have felt all these days, cut from any kind of other human contact than a crazy "mother" and themselves : was she really that blind, didn't she understand that this could completely mess with their young minds ?! Children need friends, this is one of the most basic obviousness in the world !
However, except a brief flash of anger in his eyes, he managed to stay impassible, to avoid making the children even more traumatized than they already were. Still careful – either because of his aching body, and his efforts to not arouse the children's distrust – he slowly walked to the closest chair – under the wary glare of Tom and William – and nearly collapsed on it. For a few seconds – maybe minutes – he closed his eyes and tried to find a comfortable posture for his hands, so they did not touch anything (even with the protective gloves, the tips of his fingers were burning in pain).
When he reopened his eyes, to his astonishment, he saw that the children got closer to him : Billy was sitting on a chair only two meters from him, absentmindedly flipping through a book, and Tommy had climbed on the table and was walking on all fours, looking at the few glasses next to him as if hesitating to throw them onto the ground.
"You're tired ?" Tom asked when he noticed Milo looking at him. "You slept !"
Myshkin smiled faintly.
"Yes… yes, I probably was tired…"
The boys did not seem scared by his presence anymore. Gaining their confidence was pretty quick after all… he then remembered he was the only person other than Wanda allowed to see them, and it made him feel extremely sad towards them : impossible to say if the Witch would ever release them from her magic grip, maybe they'll live isolated for years ! Only Wanda had the power to change this, and Myshkin was probably the only person she might listen to.
He had to change her mind, and it wouldn't be easy…
OoOoO
Two weeks passed.
Wanda barely showed herself – in fact, only during mealtimes, which she wanted to "spend in family", thus excluding Myshkin who took his meals alone, in his bedroom (which actually suited him rather well, given his increasingly intense chronic pain). A priori, she never harmed "her" children – they only were afraid of her, and whenever she casted one of her spells in front of them, Billy had difficulties to conceal sobs as if the red magic reminded him a traumatic event. Tommy on his side was apparently emotionally more solid than his brother, yet fringed every time the red magic waves swirled around Wanda and, despite his usually mischievous personality, was very quiet every time she was in the same room as him. At least, they never cried in fear as the day the Witch brought Milo in the cave.
Despite Myshkin's many begs and pleas, Wanda locked him every night under her senses-depriving shield spell and never gave him the slightest milligram of morphine during the day. Tired of his attempts to complain about his unbearable physical pain, she finally threatened to put him telepathically into an artificial sleep if he continued to bother her with his "addiction problem".
Because yes, addicted, he obviously was : one couldn't spend a year and half constantly under high morphine doses without developing a severe dependency. The usual pain caused by his "superpowers" quickly overlapped with the pain caused by the forced detoxification, and during this first week Myshkin seldom had enough energy to stand up from his bed, his legs always uncontrollably shaking under him and his head constantly pierced by a hundred non-existent drills.
Twice, when the pain became so intense he almost forgot his own name, Myshkin tried to shut it down definitely – tried to use his power against himself, to disactivate all of his mutated neural cells, to suppress the sixth sense that allowed him to perceive and control the nervous system of a living being. Both times, she prevented him from doing it : she simply telepathically took the control over his body and forced him to stay still and suffer in silence. She constantly was surveilling him because she still needed his power.
Once, when despair became so overwhelming he couldn't escape from an obsessive, seducing though – end it all –, she simply forced him to smile, then knocked him out – too afraid that, in his current mood, he would try something stupid. He woke up the next day, a part of his memories chaotically ripped away from his head as if she tried to find a cause and kill his growing depression at source. Some of his childhood memories had disappeared after this tactless attempt, and he cried a lot, unable to remember how and when his mother died.
Even when she wasn't physically there, her telepathy reached the so-called "home", and its inhabitants trembled in fear. Even if she never invaded her children's minds, they could sense her overwhelming, suffocating presence. Strangely – from Myshkin's point of view at least – Tom and William quickly became attached to him, seeing in him a confidant, a friend. Even if he barely met them during the first few days – too much in pain to do anything but lay and moan – they often came and politely knocked on his door. Whenever he was lucid enough, he let them enter and chatted with them. Billy liked books – Wanda brought a few of them from the "real world" as they called it – and was quite intelligent for his age. He had a very nice personality and was clearly pained seeing an almost-stranger so sick in front of him – even though he never said nothing about it. He had some similar power to Wanda's, but they still were weak and he did not master them fully. Tommy was way more energic and naughty than his brother, always moving, often breaking things in the living room (which never really bothered his adoptive mother, as nothing of it was real). As he said the first day, he was very quick, but his stamina was still quite low : he couldn't run at supersonic speed for more than a few seconds at a time, and had always to eat a lot to recover. Being struck in this cave annoyed him a lot, and he constantly tried to make up plans to escape.
After the worse days of his "detox", Myshkin could eventually explore the other rooms of the "house" – which, according to Billy, was the very same cave as the one he saw the first day, but decorated with Wanda's powerful illusions of reality. Some items, as the books, were real ; some others, however, were surprisingly not, as Milo discovered when he tried to use the computer in the living room : an animated mini-version of Wanda appeared on the screen and proposed him to surf on the "Wandanet" – a sort of alternative Internet Wanda fully created, which's main purpose was to maintain the children far from the "fake news" (in fact, far from any news they could receive from the real world). Myshkin could only admire how many old American sitcoms were available on "Maximoflix", the alternate Netflix.
For this reason, he understood, the children seemed to never play with the computer, the game console or watch the television : Wanda was controlling all of these, and the boys were not really fond of her subtle messages designed to make them consider her as their true mother (she and Milo once had an argument when she tried to put online "WandaVision", the show of her own creation, Milo arguing that it should be at least rated PG-13 because of the violent scenes – such as the outright disintegration of the alternative versions of Billy, Tommy and Vision. She finally agreed, sparing the already traumatised children a further vision of horror).
Wanda was often away. Myshkin had some hypothesis about her frequent absences, and the post plausible was that she fought tooth and nail to maintain the frail balance in this whole created region, which strongly disturbed the fabric of this universe. Moreover, she probably had to deal with the local heroes – the Avengers, but also certainly others. Given what happened in their former universe, here too were probably many alien civilizations : if some of them saw the strong red disturbance coming from the Earth, no doubt they came to try to prevent a Big Crash from happening. The Witch often seemed tired : this could certainly explain that. Even if she was extremely powerful, she had to oppose herself against many allied forces, and it drained her – but never enough for her to consider releasing her prisoners from their golden cage.
OoOoO
A month had passed, now.
The Witch was, indeed, tired : some stupid Asgardians just tried to stop her – they didn't even know from doing what ! They were not alone : of course, as always, the Avengers joined them. She did never bother to really meet them; they were not very interesting. She could easily kill these stupid humans and aliens, but they were not a serious threat.
What was a threat, however, were these thin fissures, thickening every day. The reality of this universe was slowly breaking, and Wanda had enough to do to maintain it in place. Vision seemed to be right : her presence here was an anomaly. Fortunately, she was so powerful she could twist the reality enough to make herself…less abnormal, less unwanted. But it was draining, and she regretted she couldn't spend more time with her family.
After a while, she finally allowed Myshkin to take his meals with them, in family. He was not a threat, she was confident towards him – she could plainly control him after all, his spirit was so weak in comparison of hers !
What was he exactly ? A friend ? A pawn ? Impossible to say. She often remembered this moment, about a week after his arrival, when he was so in pain his brain started to disfunction and he wished for death. She immediately heard it – she did not even know his thoughts could be so loud ! – and came to his side, as often these days, watch him as he moaned some incoherent words, half-awake, drown in an aching delirium. After all, she owed this to him, he found her and took care of her when she was half-dead on Mount Wundagore. She had a debt.
This time, instead of laying straight on his bed, barely moving, all his muscles painfully tensed and breath quick, he was on his side, curled up with clenched fists, tight teeth. His eyes were closed but his thoughts very vivid. Knife. Blood. He wanted to die, scheduled his suicide.
He noticed her when he tried to stand up, half delirious. His face, already livid, became white.
Usually, when she saw him in pain, she would sweep the sweat from his forehead and whisper some encouraging words in his ear, try to be at his side while he suffered. She did not really know if he registered her attempts to be nice with him, every time he was awake he would complain about his pain and beg her to bring him some morphine. But she never gave it to him : his organism was feeble, and this drug would eventually kill him. He had to stop. If he was in pain, it was his own fault, not hers… or at least, she tried to convince herself so.
This time, however, it was worse, much worse than any time before : he wanted to die, and would find a way to do so if she did not stop him. Why was he so wretched, while she was so gentle with him, helped him so much, took care of him, was curing his addiction ? Why would he be so unhappy while she knew he loved her so much – and could spend so much time in her own house, with her family ? Wasn't he living his dream ?
What was she supposed to do ?
Before her eyes, Myshkin was stumbling, weak yet determined, only half conscious of what he was doing yet prepared to end it all. Why so unhappy ?
Not knowing what to do, helpless, Wanda forced him to smile. It was almost a reflex : she just wanted everyone to be happy in her house !
It only aroused his fear. He started to incoherently beg her to let him die, to kill him.
Why was he so unhappy ? It couldn't be because of her. Wanda immersed into his memories, searching what would have caused his current state. She was very clumsy in doing her "cure", she was aware of it, so she started to panic and chaotically erased some painful memories from his head. When she was done, only half-hoping it would work, she gently took the confused man under his arm and helped him to lay back on his bed, acting like a nurse. She looked at him for a few minutes with sad eyes, asking herself if she was torturing him by treating him like this. A lonely tear sank on her cheek. Then, trying to forget, telling herself lies about her good behaviour, she teleported outside, out of her created region, trying again to solve the issues with the reality fissures.
They were growing, each day. In fact, it was the first reason why she had brought Myshkin : if the reality here broke despite her efforts, they'd have to flee, her and her children. Her children… Somehow, they worried her. She sometimes had the impression they did not actually like her. But why ? She was their mother ! Sometimes, they seemed ever closer with Myshkin than with her ! What a nonsense !
Still, after all this loneliness she felt in her former universe after Vision's death, she now felt warmer, happier. She retrieved her family… sort of. Nothing could be perfect of course, and she unfortunately couldn't spend all the time she wanted with them – and Vision was missing. But the boys will end loving her as they should, it was only a matter of time. She had to be patient.
It was about 8 p.m. when she came back home. The boys were, as often, sitting on the sofa next to the window, morosely looking at the beautiful landscape behind – high snowy mountains. Myshkin was sat between them, an open book on his lap – The Hobbit –, reading to the children in a quiet, yet catching voice.
They immediately jumped when the Witch arrived. She smiled gently, ignoring the sudden silence.
"Mummy's home my babies ! What do you want for dinner ?"
She'd always loved cooking, it was a real pleasure for her to do this kind of things a normal mother did for her family without the help of her magic.
As usual, no one answered. She did not lose her patience and smiled again :
"Billy ? Tommy ? Boys ? Would you want help me baking some delicious cakes ?
"Can we go outside ?" Tommy whispered in a low tone – quiet yet clearly upset and a bit angry.
Wanda's smile vanished. She crouched to the long-haired boy and looked in his eyes.
"Tommy, darling, you know you can't. It's dangerous, outside, you could… get sick, fall and break your leg, freeze in the snow…
"…flee" the boy cut her with a defiant look.
She broke the eye-contact and stood up.
"Don't be mean, my darling, you know Mummy don't like it.
"You created these mountains, you control everything here !" the child protested. "If you wanted you could create Goblins in the caves, or a dragon on a pile of gold ! And we could have weapons to fight them and have some fun already !"
Wanda frowned, and telepathically sensed Myshkin's amused approbation towards Tommy's words. Irritated, she turned to him and put some mind pressure on him.
"What did you put in their head ?" she asked, and he gasped, uncomfortable. She leaned towards him, a menacing red light surrounding her face – and felt a strange sadistic satisfaction seeing him sink into the armchair, trying to escape her aura. "What are you trying to do exactly, Milo ? Complotting against me ?"
She was joking, of course – well, half-joking : tired as she was, she was becoming a bit paranoid sometimes. And Myshkin had already betrayed her several times before – by hiding her information or wishing to stay with Stark after he arrived in this universe. This could be an innocent game – but it also could be a twisted way to make her boys flee.
His breath quickened and sweat poked on his forehead.
"P…p…please Wanda, stop…
"Stop what ?" she asked, cruel and a bit amused.
He overreacted a lot, sometimes, it was almost funny ! She wasn't doing anything to him, yet he was already struggling to speak.
"The children…" he managed to whisper, giving them a worried glance.
She looked at them, suddenly serious : Billy was on the verge of crying while Tommy stared at her with cold, angry eyes. She realized her hair had started to float and red waves were surrounding her whole body.
She immediately calmed herself and concealed her magic to look normal again. But despite the huge smile she displayed on her exhausted face, Billy wasn't reassured and flinched violently when she tried to hug him.
She had a deep sigh, then snapped her fingers and the dining table was immediately set, with a delicious meal teleported from one of the best French restaurants in the world.
"No cooking today, Mummy's tired" she eventually said.
They dined in silence.
About a hour after the boys fell asleep in their bedroom, while Wanda would usually come back to the Real World to fight against some stupid superheroes or try to fix the fissures, she decided instead to have a word with Myshkin. As often when he was alone, she found him sitting still on the floor, gaze lost, moping in dark thoughts. He knew she would immediately stop him if he tried anything stupid.
"Milo, my dear…" she spoke in a soft yet somehow menacing tone. "I believe you must be a bit… shaken by what happened earlier ?"
It was a rhetorical question : of course, he was shaken – he always was, whenever she raised her voice, even slightly. It was both annoying and convenient for her : he was way too terrified to even think of betraying her. Still, she was not a psycho and always felt guilty a bit whenever she realized she's gone too far and stressed out the poor man – well, sometimes it was amusing, she could not deny it, it was the kind of fun a cat could have while playing with an already caught prey. However, Wanda tried hard to appear in her best light : the children deserved the best mom she could give them !
In the meanwhile, Milo got to his feet with difficulty and tried to face her. His warm – yet sad – brown eyes met her blue-green cold ones.
"Wanda… you know this is not about me. You should… you should give the children what they want, sometimes. A bit of freedom… friends…
"Friends ?" she repeated, surprised. "They have you, already ! In fact, I'm quite satisfied with your attitude towards them, you're such a good babysitter !" She gave a brief laugh, which made the blond man flinch. "And for the… freedom part… it is only for their own good. The world is dangerous, and they're so young, so weak…
"They aren't weak, and you know it !" Milo protested. "In fact, Tommy was right : you control everything here, you could at least allow them a little trip sometimes…
"And risk everything I built ?" she barked back. "You have no idea of how much effort it takes to keep a whole reality on its feet – and I'm not only talking of what I've created here, but of the whole Universe we're in ! If it wasn't for me, it would shatter and fall apart in a few hours."
Myshkin could only open his mouth wide in astonishment ; he suspected already that Wanda was dealing with unimaginable amounts of power, at least to deal with all the local superheroes who tried to fight her, but… but he could never have imagined she actually was maintaining a whole Universe from collapsing down ! However, he knew she was not lying – she never did so.
She seemed almost amused by his astonishment.
"I'm a busy woman, I know.
"Wanda… what you do with the reality and the physics is absolutely incredible, yet… yet I still believe you should let your children go outside sometimes" he almost begged her, eyes filled with apprehension. "This… this kind of life is not healthy for them…
" 'Cause a sick man such as you may know what's healthy and what's not ? What's good for my own children ?" she replied aggressively, eyes narrowed.
Milo started to have difficulties to breath : she was slowly strangling him with her uncontrolled powers, again… he thought wryly he should be accustomed by now.
"Wanda…" he murmured with a pained rictus to attract her attention.
"Oh, sorry !" she said, and the unsufferable pressure on his throat vanished instantly.
"Never mind."
He'd passed through much worse, anyway.
"What did you want to tell me ?" he asked to change the subject.
"Right" she began. "What I have to ask you… it is exactly why I've brought you here, in this Universe, in the beginning."
He nodded : indeed, he was never intended to come here. She took him with her against his will.
She resumed :
"As you know now, this shitty world is falling apart. Whether it is because of my presence or not, I don't care. I'm just tired. I can't even stay with my children – and you're maybe right, it would be better if they could go outside sometimes, but I just cannot keep them perfectly safe while I'm dealing with the fissures… Consequently, I've decided to leave this Universe."
Milo closed his eyes for a moment. He had expected something like that, in fact. Still, he had stupidly hoped for a "miracle solution", where Wanda would have regained her senses and realized her abusive behaviour towards the boys, and where he could come back to Anthony Stark's mansion, with all the people he started to consider as his closest friends during the past six months spent in this Universe.
But, as usual, he had been naïve.
"Wanda… I… I'm not sure if I'm completely out of touch but… you just said you used all your power to prevent this Universe from collapsing… so, if you left it… what would happen ?"
She shrugged.
"Don't know, don't care. We won't be there anymore.
"But… and all the people who are living here…?!
"Milo, you're an idiot, there's an infinity of identical Universes and this one isn't even mine ! In any case, it's already doomed : my presence is both its savior and its destruction.
"What do you mean ?
"It's my presence that caused the fissures in the frame of this reality. I don't know why. I only can slow down their progression, sometimes fill one with pure energy to heal it, but that's all."
Milo frowned. Of course, he knew something went wrong in this Universe – while he still was with the remaining Avengers, they found some worrying signs : distant stars were approaching at breakneck speed – a sign of a premature and progressing Big Crunch –, some physics laws seemed to be strongly altered, some spots in the Galaxy had already disappeared as if drawn by the Void, and on top of all, these fearful red waves spreading everywhere… But now she confirmed the worse predictions Stark made about these phenomenon, some questions came to his mind :
"If the Universe is breaking because of your power… it will be the case anywhere else we would go. How… how had this happened ? I mean… you only travelled from one universe to another, some other people did the same before. Are you destroying this one on purpose ?"
It was the only logical explanation : why would specifically this Universe shatter because of Wanda's godlike powers, and not their former one ?
The Witch gave a sigh and thoughtfully put back a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes. In this moment, she did not look like the most powerful creature of the world, but only like a tired woman burdened by too many responsibilities.
"Of course I'm not destroying it on purpose" she replied back. Then, she frowned a bit.
"What ?" Myshkin asked, hopeful. "Do you have an idea ?"
Her eyes were now unfocused, she was visibly thinking.
"Maybe…" she murmured. "Maybe, he could've been right ?
"Who ? Who are you talking about ?"
Her eyes were back on him, but she did not answer. He blinked, confused, and tried to understand what she was feeling now : under a thin mask of impassibility, there was anger, guilt and love melted together.
Milo's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Vision ? Is the "he" the local Vision ?"
During one second, he thought she would kill him ; then, however, her eyes softened and her gaze was lost in the nowhere. Her red hair briefly floated around her pale face, then the magic vanished.
She really seemed like a very, very lost woman. Milo understood that this was her true her, not the dreadful mad Scarlet Witch. He gently took her wrists in his hands, careful to never touch her skin but only the fabric of her sleeves – even if he wore gloves, he preferred to take precautions to not arouse her suspicions concerning his intentions – and searched for her eyes.
He finally caught her lost, almost desperate gaze. Too many emotions in her… He squeezed her wrists slightly to bring her back to reality.
"Wanda…" he whispered softly. "What happened to Vision ?"
Was the hero dead ? Or imprisoned ? What did she do to him ?
But it was as if she herself did not know the answer.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out of it. Then, slowly, she looked with disbelief at his hands holding her wrists and slightly recoiled. He immediately released her.
"I… have to go" Wanda said with visible difficulty.
"Wait…!"
But she was gone already.