Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: So here is another story idea that I'm sure somebody is going to go "wtf Selene" at me for. Coincidentally, it is also another story idea that I'm posting the first chapter of now rather than later, because I only have this chapter written and I don't know when I'm going to get around to writing the rest of this. I mean, I have the basic plot outlined, but I also have three WIPs rn and if I follow the schedule that I gave myself, continuing this won't be in the cards for a while. So, yeah.

But, this will be continued, at some point. It's part of the Project™, aka my Into the Spiderverse series, so rest assured, it will be continued. I promised myself I would finish the Project™ when I started it, and I'm holding myself to that promise.

Stuff you need to know for this story: like with most stories in the Project™, it's going to be bio irondad/spiderson. There's a reason for this besides just it being my favorite trope, but it is my favorite trope so I'm also not going to apologize for it. Also, this was inspired by Midnight City and Reunion by M83. They're really good songs, so I suggest checking them out.

Anyways, if you're still here, great! Sorry for the long A/N, and the "I have no idea when this is going to be updated" thing. But again, it will be updated. At some point. Have faith.

Sincerely,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

Oh, also, CW for this chapter: implied/referenced rape/non-con, suicidal ideation, character death. We're off to a rough start, but it's necessary!

~to be forged~

~children of the damned~

~prologue~

"The Scarlet Witch is not born; she is forged. She has no coven or need for incantation. Her power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme. It is her destiny to destroy the world."

September, 2014
Novi Grad, Sokovia

When Wanda and Pietro had first been taken in by HYDRA, Baron Strucker had told them, "Here, you will learn what it truly means to make or break a person."

Wanda remembered those words. She remembered standing in a line with Pietro and the other volunteers from their village as he had spoken them towards the end of that long speech of his, his eyes sharp and calculating as he had looked down at them. She remembered how Pietro had quietly snorted, though his hand had instinctively squeezed hers nonetheless. She remembered how she, too, had silently doubted the baron, as she had gazed back at him determinedly, unflinchingly.

She didn't know why they had doubted him. Before Tony Stark had took their parents and their innocent away from them with that bomb, before their country had devolved into war and bloodshed and violence, HYDRA had taken away their people. The Nazis had deemed that the Jewish people, the Romani people, they were less than human, fit only to be exterminated and killed, and Wanda and Pietro were both. Their own great-grandparents, their father's grandparents, had been killed in the Shoah. Both sets of them had been killed.

Perhaps they had doubted him because of their desperation. The desire to see Tony Stark pay for what he had done, the desire to kill him with their own hands had been strong, so strong. It had burned thick and hot, vicious and red. Many times, when she and Pietro had been living on the streets, their bodies cold and their stomachs empty, that color had seared her eyelids. Red. It had called to her, promising her desires. It had even led her and Pietro to List, who had in turn promised they would get their revenge. Their desperation would be put to purpose, at long last.

Whatever. She didn't doubt Baron Strucker anymore, not now. Because, as Wanda had learned, he and the rest of HYDRA had truly meant to make or break her, Pietro, and the others. It had started first with not giving them food for three days straight. Then, not letting them sleep for even longer. The waterboarding had followed, and then the noise, and then the lack of anything at all. Sense deprivation. And, of course, she had been alone for all of this. They had separated her from Pietro at the very start. It was the longest they had ever been apart.

But each time, Wanda had pulled through. The others from their village, they had been picked off, one by one, or so she had heard from the guards. But she had pulled through, and so had Pietro. So she had heard. Each time she had underwent HYDRA's tortures, she had pulled through, thinking of him, of Stark, of anger, of red. It had fueled her to push forwards, to defy the expectations of the baron and his men, to survive.

Until now.

Wanda blinked as she stared up at the ceiling, from where the guards had left her on the cold, hard ground of her cell. She didn't know how long it had been since they had left. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. It could have been days. Time, she had quickly learned at the beginning of all of this, had no meaning here. It passed by seamlessly, the only indications of any great extent of it passing being the way her ribs had begun to show, the way the bruises on her skin had turned from horrid black and purple to lighter blue and green.

She didn't understand why the guards had done what they had done. She supposed it didn't matter. Baron Strucker had told her at the beginning that she would learn what it truly meant to make or break a person here, and he had been right. She no longer felt like a person now. She had a body, but it wasn't her own anymore. It was hollow. Her mind just occupied it. Her mind which couldn't even think anymore, which couldn't even feel, because all she could do was just stare up at the ceiling as the tears ran down her face. As she prayed to HaShem, the Eternal One, G-d, to end all of this. To relieve her suffering, her pain.

It was not to be, she knew.

It was never to be, now.

An eternity later, but also no time at all, Wanda heard the familiar footsteps of the guards as they came for her, and she knew they were coming for her. She was the only one remaining on this cell block; Pietro was kept elsewhere. She closed her eyes, her teeth coming down to bite her lip to prevent a sob from instinctively escaping her mouth.

Please, HaShem, she pleaded brokenly, because she was broken. A golem cracked and brittle, waiting for water to be poured on it so that it could be remade. Or, more accurately, unmade. Please, please, please...

The door to her cell opened as the sound of it being unlocked was heard. The guards stepped in, their boots hitting hard against the floor they had left her on. "Up," one of them said in their native Sokovian, his tone harsh and biting. He was one of the ones from before. She could tell by the smell of his cologne.

She did not move.

"I said up, whore!"

Strong hands grabbed her from underneath her arms. They pulled her roughly to her feet. Wanda did not look at the owner of them. She did not look at anything at all. She just stared blankly ahead.

The guards led her out of the room and down the hallways; she supposed she had to be thankful for that, because it meant they weren't going to do to her what they had done earlier. They spoke above her in twisted whispers, chuckling to one another and saying this and that. She did not listen to what they had to say. No, she could not listen to what they had to say. She felt deaf, dumb, mute. The only thing she had left was her sight, but even then, she refused to see.

She was not a person anymore.

Red no longer flowed through her veins.

The guards took her to a door. It opened. Behind it was a room with a pathway lit up, leading to an object which glowed blue. Her skin prickled at the sight. Something inside her began to hum.

One of the guards said something. She did not know what.

She did not move.

The other guard pressed his hand on the small of her back and pushed. She stumbled forwards. Wanda tried to step back again, tried to leave the room, but in an instant, the door had closed behind her. She was left alone with the glowing blue object.

Distantly, she was aware of someone saying something. She did not respond. Instead, she shrunk back, and pressed her back against the door.

HaShem, she prayed. HaShem, my G-d.

Inside her, the hum began to increase in its intensity. It pulsed, running through her veins like the red had. No, it was the red. She hadn't felt it in so long, she had forgotten what it felt like.

She shivered at the sensation.

In front of her, in time with the hum within herself, the glowing blue object began to shake. It shook so hard, it broke free of the scepter which had entrapped it. She flinched as it flew towards her, as if pulled forwards by a magnet, before it stopped in front of her with a pause. It seemed to be assessing her, judging her, though she did not know how she knew that.

Instinctively, because she did not truly want to do it, she did not want to do anything at all, she reached out a tentative hand towards it. The blue object shook even more, and then it was no longer blue at all. Exploding outwards from it was gold, a searing gold which burned her retinas. It reached out to her with its tendrils, and it felt warm and comforting. For so long, she had been cold. Her cell was not heated, the blanket they had provided her was threadbare, and no longer as she able to warm herself. She was too thin, too emaciated.

But then, the gold began to permeate her veins, along with the red. Wanda whimpered at the feeling of the colors merging, pressing herself even harder into the door. She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut against the vision that was starting to appear before her. The vision of a woman, with long, flowing red hair and a flowing, darker red skirt.

The gold seemed to recede then, as if surprised. It pulled back from her veins, her blood, and she felt something in it twist almost curiously. Somehow, she knew it was asking her a question. It did not speak in words, but somehow, she knew.

(Why do you resist your destiny, my libe?)

Wanda also did not reply with words. Images flashed in her mind, images of what had happened to her because of the red. The torture, the isolation, the unspeakable things. Because the red had led her here. It had tainted her desire for revenge against Stark, her desperation, to the point where it had brought her and Pietro to the very monsters who had tried to exterminate her people. And they had been fools to think the monsters ever could have changed.

The gold took this in. Its presence began to lap against her gently as a wave would a shore, as if that could somehow undo all of the atrocities she had endured.

(I cannot do that, it is not my power. But I could give you more.)

Suddenly, the images that flashed in her mind were no longer her own. They were the gold's. The vision of the woman returned. She was smiling, as she held her hand out to Wanda. Next to her was another figure. He was not a man, she did not think. He looked like one, but his skin was red, metallic, and there was a gold stone in his forehead. The same goldstone that was before her now. It was not alive, but it was sentient. It had many names, ones given to it over eons, and others it had yet to be given. The Scepter. Computer. Gem. Vision. Mind. Infinity.

But she could also see things that she could tell she wasn't supposed to see. She saw a robot leering down at her, with eyes that burned a different, vicious shade of red. She saw ruin, ashes and dust, the remains of half of the entire universe. She saw two children staring up at her with wide eyes, as their very beings came undone. She saw Pietro, laying on the ground, his eyes glassy and unseeing as his body bled out in multiple places. He was dead. He was going to die.

"...No," Wanda whispered. She shook her head. "No, I don't want this. I don't want this!"

Mind, because she knew now that was what it preferred to be called, hummed soothingly.

(But it is your destiny, Wanda. Your story has been told since the beginning of time. Chaos magic flows through your veins. You are the Scarlet Witch.)

"No, I don't want this," Wanda repeated. She sobbed.

Mind went silent. It did not stop comforting her, but nor did it speak in its strange way of speaking.

The silence seemed to stretch on for an eternity.

Finally, Mind spoke. It presented to her a wordless concept, a choice.

(What would you have me do then, libe?)

"Ch – choose someone else," she told it. "Save Pietro."

Mind pondered that for a moment.

Then:

(Who?)

Mind opened up its power to her, the full extent of it. Instantly, thousands – millions – billions – trillions of voices entered her mind. They spoke to her in hushed whispers, in casual tones, in shouts of joy or anger, in wails of lament. If she focused on one, she could even tell where it was located in the universe, what the owner of it was seeing and hearing. But, of course, she could not just focus on one. If she focused on one, she focused on them all, and the onslaught was the most horrible kind of pain she had ever experienced. It overwhelmed her, turning her vision gold and shutting off her mind.

Wanda opened her mouth in a silent scream, her hands clamping over her ears. As if they could block out the voices she was hearing telepathically.

Mind tittered not out of amusement, but concern. It wrapped around her, enveloping her, telling her what to do with its tendrils of gold and mental images that didn't make sense, yet somehow she understood.

(Focus, my libe. If you truly want this, you must focus.)

She did. Somehow, she did. Slowly, the voices faded out, until the trillions turned back into billions, the billions into millions, and the millions into thousands. Then, they faded away to a number even smaller than that. Hundreds, tens, one.

The owner of the last voice remaining was a boy, a child. She saw him in her mind's eye just as easily as she could see Pietro, as if he was standing right next to her. He was out of place in the universe. He did not belong where he was. Something had caused him to stray, and though his path had been corrected to bring him back to his destiny, certain things were not going to happen. Soul and Time were not pleased with this. She did not know how she knew this, but she did. Their orange and green auras around him made it obvious.

Wanda stared at the boy. He was young, too young. His dark brown curls were cherub-like, his dark brown eyes wide from where they were behind large, thick glasses. He did not deserve the fate she was to thrust upon him, the prophecy. But the fate Soul and Time had made for him was to be a harsh one anyways, perhaps even harsher than the one he would have if she gave the red to him.

"When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen? They happen because of you."

"If you're nothing without the suit, then you shouldn't have it."

"Mr. Stark, I don't – I don't want to go!"

"We won, Mr. Stark. We won."

"Spider-Man's real name is Peter Parker!"

"With great power, comes great responsibility."

"...So long, kid."

"Just wait. Tell me when you see me again."

"Richard isn't your father, baby. Tony Stark is."

And he would be even better at it than her, she could tell. Stark's son though he was, he had a better heart than hers, a sense of justice better than hers. Stark was – would be right. He was truly to be the best of them,

"What is grief, if not love persevering?"

She made her choice.

Mind looked at the boy. It did not disagree with her, not necessarily, but she felt its hesitancy, its concern brush up against her:

(Are you sure?)

Wanda tilted her head defiantly. "I am."

Mind twisted and coiled.

(And you know what doing this will mean, libe?)

Images from it appeared in her mind. She saw the gold take the red within her, taking it thousands of miles away to the boy. She saw how her hands greyed and blackened, how her skin aged and became more sunken than it already was. She saw herself die, because that was what Mind was truly asking of her. If she knew that giving up her magic meant giving up her life, meant her death. No witch could survive without her powers, not even the Scarlet Witch.

Wanda bit her lip. She did not want to leave Pietro. He was not just her brother. He was her soul, and she was his. But if she remained the Scarlet Witch, he would be the one to leave her. It was his destiny in this universe, if she was the Scarlet Witch. And she did not want that. She could not live with that. Besides, Pietro had always been the stronger one of the two of them, both physically and mentally. He would be able to continue on without her. She wouldn't without him, not after what the guards had done to her.

She'd made her choice.

Because if Wanda was now a golem, a creature made of nothing but dirt and clay, she had no life to forfeit for Pietro's. And even if she wasn't, she would always forfeit her life for his, anyways.

"I do," she murmured.

Mind sighed.

In another life, they – or rather, the being created with the help of Mind – would have been fated to be together. In another life, after the destruction of Half of the universe and the actions taken by the Avengers to reverse it, she would have used the essence of itself Mind had put into her to bring it – no, him, back. Vision. It was him who appeared to her now and only him, a sad smile resting gently on his face as he reached out to cup hers. His hands felt cool and metallic against her skin, but not in a bad way. It was a mirror image of how they would've been in that other life as the Hex came undone, until they could be reunited again.

"As you wish, Wanda," he said, speaking for the first time. His voice was filled with pain, but also acceptance. He knew better than anyone else what it felt like to be used against your will. "I will make Peter Parker the Scarlet Witch."

And then, she felt it. Inside her, she felt the gold pull at her red, taking it, transporting it thousands of miles across land and sea. She gasped at the feeling. It was a strange sensation. Not quite unlike the feeling of blood being drawn, except it was more powerful and coming from the tips of her fingers rather than her veins. Wanda suddenly laughed brokenly, though she didn't dare to open her eyes and watch it happen. No, she kept them closed instead, so she could keep looking at Vision as it became harder and harder to breathe, harder and harder to think.

And when the end finally came, she smiled. "Thank you, HaShem," she whispered, unable to say it any louder because her throat was constricted by the lack of her essence. "Thank you...Vision."

The last thing she heard was Vision saying softly, "You're welcome, Wanda. Until we say hello again."

And then she knew no more.

Word Count: 3,181