Time. It was a difficult thing to understand.

Too often she closed her eyes and saw moments of her life, and wondered—how could she ever have been the person she was within those moments and memories?

In the quiet of her bedroom, it was hard to fathom that she had walked away from bombs, from bullets, from bodies . . . .

Sometimes she didn't want to believe it. Sometimes, it was better perhaps to imagine that it had never happened at all or that it was all a dream or a movie she watched once and then put away in its case on a shelf somewhere to collect dust, never to be revisited again.

That was not her life anymore. Chaos and heartbreak, it was not for her. Her life was this home. Her life was a man she'd never stop loving. Her life was two little boys running around somewhere downstairs. Her life was her other half laid out before her.

He rested so peacefully on the bed, still as a statute. If not for the steady rise and fall of his chest, she would have worried that something had gone wrong when she had retrieved him.

Just like with her children, Wanda could watch him sleep forever. It took her back to that other life, so long ago in a small ramshackle home, trying to stay up past their bedtime, pretending there wasn't a war raging on outside their home. Back then, he would always fall asleep first, and she would follow shortly thereafter, lulled to sleep by the sound of his slumber.

But she would have to let him wake up eventually. She knew that, and that's when things would get complicated—as if they weren't already—because she had put him to sleep in the first place.

She had taken him.

She had watched him and then waited until the time was right.

She had set him on a new path, plucked him from his own world filled with his own painful memories, and planted him in a world anew. But he was hers and she was his, so he was hers to take. Until not so long ago, that's how it always had been, and from now on, that's how it always would be again.

There would be no more feeling alone and empty or seeing his body bloodied and riddled with bullets whether she was awake or asleep, or when she wasn't quite sure of either.

If given the chance, people would judge her for what she had done. She had no doubts about that, but she'd been judged for as long as she could remember—from childhood to Westview.

No more.

Those who would cast stones at her would find their throws blocked by the walls between universes.

The walls only she could break.

So there would be no such accusers here.

Not in her home.

Not in this world.

Here, she was judge, jury, and—if she had to be—executioner.

She was no longer the little girl that believed if she was good and kind then the world would be the same.

The Scarlet Witch was the law of the land, and she was tired of trying to pretend otherwise.

Wanda took a calming breath, quieting the fire that had risen in her chest at her spark of anger. When she was sure she had it under control, she raised her hand from where she lay on her side next to him and brushed a piece of hair back across his face that had fallen carelessly in front of his eyes. He had a little scar there, just at the corner of his eye. She imagined it formed a small crevice when he smiled. He hadn't had that before, her Pietro, and she wondered what it was from.

She wasn't delusional. Regardless of how her memories felt when she lingered on them, she knew what was real and what was not. But she also knew that she had the power to shape her reality, and if something could be molded, then it was fair game to mold.

Men had thought like that from the beginning of time, why should it be wrong for her to feel that way?

She knew that the Pietro who lay peacefully beside her was not exactly the one she had known from birth, from before birth even. He hadn't shared a womb with her. He hadn't run circles around her as a toddler, giggling as she tried to pull herself up to join him. He hadn't rolled his eyes when she chose to watch the Dick Van Dyke show one more time, and then laughed alongside her anyway once she pressed play.

And his heart hadn't stopped beating when the ruins of their home fell from the sky.

But he was her Pietro all the same, or . . . when she was done with him, he would be.

It hadn't been easy, finding him.

She had looked for her brother across dimensions and worlds, sometimes finding him so different from her own, sometimes finding him dead—so very much like her own—and sometimes, most of the time, not finding him at all.

But this one, her Pietro, from a different time and a different place was the one she had been looking for all along because he was just slightly broken inside like herself, yet somehow, he was still kind. He still smiled. He still laughed.

And when he laughed . . . it was like a thousand suns set upon her heart.

He was a bit younger than her and her lost Pietro, lither, and more open in his emotions—even if he pretended not to be—too. But so much of him was the Pietro she missed. In his humor, in his care for others, in his caution, in his powers, and even in the unique color of his hair.

And when she found him, after searching for so long, it was as though forces beyond the known universes were willing her to reach him, giving her glimpses into his life, letting her look through a literal window just to watch him lie strangely still beneath blue skies.

And the more she watched, the more she learned, and the more she knew he was hers.

He was the one she had been looking for.

She didn't fool herself into thinking she knew everything about him, but she knew enough.

He was alone, just like her. His Wanda was dead and buried long ago. And if that wasn't a sign that he was her Pietro, she didn't know what was, because she wouldn't have taken him from her other self. She wasn't so cruel, but it was not completely out of empathy with her other self—had she been alive in this Pietro's world—that would have stopped her, but more out of caution that she would have hesitated to take him. Because if that other Wanda was anything like herself, then she would've stopped at nothing to get him back, and together, they would have destroyed this world and the next.

Because the one thing Wandas always had in common is that they would never let their Pietro go.

The same could not be said of the man this Pietro called his father.

Mag-net-o.

The name certainly meant something in many of the universes and worlds she had observed, but embodying the meaning of a father it did not.

The man Pietro called father didn't deserve the title, and he would surely destroy him if Wanda didn't rescue her brother from the hold he had on him.

And if his father somehow did come looking for him—which she wasn't certain he would, even if he could—she'd be ready.

She'd make sure neither of them ever had to be alone again, and no one would stop her.

Twins were not meant to live without the other. It was as perverse as a parent outliving their own child. She truly believed that. Twins entered the world together, and they should leave it together, hand in hand.

And so now, they would be whole again.

Wanda scooted a bit closer to Pietro on the bed, laying her head on her arm and watching his chest rise and fall, such a beautiful demonstration of life.

She knew she had frightened him, when she'd been watching. She didn't mean to and she hadn't wanted to. In the beginning, she had done her best to remain unseen. She'd just wanted to see if he'd finally be the one. Her Pietro, or as close to as possible.

And he had been.

But as much of a connection as she had to him, for some reason, she still struggled to physically reach him and bring him home, until her latest attempt of course.

She placed her hand on his chest, checking for a number of things, but mostly—even with the obvious evidence in front of her—that he was alive. That his heart was beating in that hummingbird way it always had.

Her powers flickered for a moment, red encasing his torso before it dissipated, as if absorbed by his heart.

Satisfied, she then moved her attention to his face. His brow was pinched slightly in sleep, her doing perhaps. She may have pushed the suggestion to rest—to not resist—a little too hard, but he would come around. And it was necessary given that he normally never rested.

Wanda reached out to him, placing the tips of her fingers right between his triangle of sadness.

For a moment, her own mind was filled with flashes—a crumbling corpse, explosions, and the face of the metal bender—but she pushed it away and back deep within her brother's mind. There was a red spark of her magic at the edge of her fingertips, and then his brow relaxed and she withdrew her hand.

She reached for his wrist next, needing to address the remaining evidence of his journey—the bracelet.

The faces within would at worst give her away or at best spawn questions, which would only distress everyone, most of all Pietro. It wouldn't do to let him keep it, at least, not as it was. So she would take it, and keep it safe. Just for now. It wouldn't be forever, but he wouldn't understand yet. Once he adjusted, then he could have it back and look at it fondly rather than with pain.

She carefully unclipped the bracelet from his wrist, intending to place it within her bureau. But she paused for a moment, pulling the locket face open to look upon the faces within. They were strangers to her, the man and women gilded in grey, and yet, their eyes seemed to gaze out at her, accusingly.

"Who's that?" A male voice asked, and Wanda flinched back from her brother. But it wasn't Pietro who had spoken. The voice belonged to someone much younger who was currently ensconced in her bedroom doorway.

"Tommy! I've told you to knock before entering mommy's room." Wanda answered, intentionally avoiding answering her son's question, as she quickly snapped the locket face shut and moved the bracelet behind her back, clipping it in place on her own wrist, so that it now lay hidden beneath her sleeve.

"I did! You didn't answer." Tommy replied, as if that meant that there had then been no other choice besides barging into the room.

"So then, unless it's an emergency, you wait until I do." Wanda replied, getting off of the bed to try to usher her son out of the room.
"But you go into our room if we don't answer!" Tommy argued, dodging his mother's outstretched arms to move closer to the bed.

"That's different. I'm your mother. I make the rules." Wanda tried, voice firm.

"That's not fair!" Tommy answered, turning back to his mother briefly. "This is America. You can't run a dictatorship."

"Well, think of this house as an independent nation then because that's what it is. For better or worse, I'm in charge. When you're older you can make the rules in your home too." Wanda said, then immediately regretted it. She tensed, waiting for her son to age himself up as he had done in her universe, but he didn't and more likely than not, he couldn't, at least not yet.

As similar as he was to her Westview Tommy with his slightly too long hair, spattering of freckles, and excitable personality, this Tommy didn't have powers, or to be more specific, he did not have them yet. She felt that he would, both him and Billy, but for now, it was a relief to be the only with powers in their home, or, she supposed, one of the two with powers in their home now.

"Fine. Whatever, so who's that?" Tommy asked, coming back around to his original question, darting around Wanda—fast even if he wasn't inhumanly so yet—and deeper into the room.

Wanda struggled with what to say, how to explain. For as long as she'd been reaching out to her brother, she hadn't given much thought to how to explain his sudden appearance to her children.

"That's your uncle, Pietro." Wanda said at last, settling on the truth. "I've told you about him. "

"I thought you said he was in Europe or something." Said Tommy, jumping knees first onto the bed to take a closer look at his uncle.

Wanda winced at the motion, grateful she put Pietro under as deep as she had so that Tommy's jostling wouldn't disturb him.

"He was, but he's back now." Wanda answered without hesitation, gaze moving from Pietro back to Tommy.

"So he's staying with us?" Tommy asked, and Wanda was unable to tell from his tone whether he wanted the answer to be yes or no.

"Yes." Wanda replied because there was no point in lying when it came to that particular question. It wasn't like she planned on hiding him, at least not from her boys.

"For how long?" Tommy pressed, scooting closer to Pietro on the bed.

"For as long as he likes. He's family. This is his home as much as ours." Wanda replied, and she couldn't help but glancing fondly over at her brother again.

Tommy nodded, as if that at least made sense to him.

"Why's he still sleeping?" Tommy asked with a frown, peering down at him curiously. "It's almost noon."

"He's tired. He traveled along way, and he needs to rest." Said Wanda, shooing the boy off her bed. He let her, doing a backward summersault onto his feet.

"I didn't hear him arrive. When did he get here?" Tommy asked barely taking a breath between words, not at all tired from his acrobatics.

"Late last night. You and Billy were sleeping, which is what we should let him do. Are you hungry? I'll make lunch." Wanda offered, hoping to distract her son. If anything could, it would be food.

"Yeah!" Tommy exclaimed, bolting from the room, fortunately so very easily distracted by the promise of food. Billy would've been much more difficult.

Wanda pressed her fingers sharply to her temples, rubbing them in small circles for a moment, before letting out a breath. She took one last look at her brother, and then left her room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

"So what will it be boys? Mac and cheese or grilled cheese?" Wanda asked as she entered the kitchen and observed Tommy—who had raced ahead of her—and Billy somehow already fighting over some trinket or another.

"Grilled cheese!" "Mac and cheese!" the twins exclaimed at the same time, and Wanda couldn't even have said who replied with what.

Normally, Wanda would only make one meal for all of them, and on a good day, she would opt for something a bit healthier than either preference given, but this wasn't a typical day.

"Aright. A dairy heavy meal it is." Wanda replied, as she went in search for a pot for the mac and cheese and a pan for the grilled cheese.

"Where's uncle Pee-tro going to sleep." Asked Tommy, eating an Oreo he pulled out of who knows where as soon as her back was turned. She chose not to fight him on the bad habit of dessert before dinner this time, better to let him have his indulgence if it helped him ease into the fact that they suddenly had another person in the house.

"Pietro." Wanda correctly automatically.

"Who?" Billy asked, taking an Oreo from his brother when he thought she wasn't looking.

"Our uncle. He's staying here." Tommy answered for his mother, not quite finished with the cookie. "He can have Billy's bed."

"What! No he can't." Billy shot back appalled. "If he needs a bed, he can take yours!"

"No one's giving up their bed." Wanda replied, and found herself cracking a smile as she watched her sons banter back and forth. She had missed this. "He's not taking your beds or your bedroom."

"Then where's he gonna sleep? We don't have any more beds." Billy asked puzzled and then added quietly, clear melancholy in his voice. "Are we moving again?"

"No. Don't worry we're not moving." Wanda answered quickly. Even if they had the means— normal means—to do so. She wouldn't put them through that again. Not when so much had changed already so recently for them. "We'll just get another one. A bed I mean." She clarified.

"Where are we going to put another bed? We don't have any more bedrooms." Tommy asked. "Ooo! Can we get a tent!? I'll sleep in a tent. Let's get one with tunnels."

"Maybe in a few weeks we can do a little camp out for a few nights," Wanda offered tentatively. It might be fun to do something like that just in the backyard where she could keep an eye on them. Pietro would probably enjoy sleeping out under the stars too. "But everyone will have a bed in a real house. Don't worry."

Exactly how she was going to make that happen, she hadn't quite figured out yet. She probably should have given the logistics of adding another person to their home a bit more thought while she had searched for her twin, but she had a lot on her mind, okay? She wasn't super mom.

"We'll set up a bed for him in the basement." Wanda said finally. It was a good of a plan as any. The basement was mostly finished. She could do a little remodeling, and it would be fine. Even if it didn't end up being exactly like the Ritz, she knew Pietro wouldn't care.

"He can't sleep down there!" Billy exclaimed, his face going white. "The basement's scary. There are spiders and—and other things down there."

"He's a grown up." Tommy said with an eyeroll, but then looked at Wanda as if for confirmation that that was in fact true, even though he didn't give her time to respond. "He's not going to be scared. And the basement isn't scary anyway, you're just a baby."

"You're scared of it too!" Billy answered as he scowled at his twin.

"Am not!" Tommy shouted back.

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Boys!" Wanda chimed in quickly, knowing that if she didn't, their exchange may continue indefinitely. "He'll be fine in the basement. We'll clean it up a bit, so there will be nothing scary left down there. He'll love it."

This statement seemed to placate the boys for they fell quiet for a moment, but not for long.

"How long is he going to stay?" Billy asked.

"As long as he likes." Wanda replied, echoing her answer to Tommy.

"Doesn't he have a family?" Billy asked.

"Or a job?" Billy added. "Oh, does he work remote?"

"We're his family." Wanda said firmly. "And he's . . . in-between jobs."

"That means he's unemployed." Tommy whispered to Billy.

"So before he came here, he's just been alone?" Billy asked, his voice tilting up in question.

At the question, Wanda dropped the box of mac and cheese she had set at opening. Billy reminded her so much of his father at times, so kind, compassionate, and thoughtful. Her heart hurt thinking of him, and sometimes, even more so when she looked upon the face of her children and saw him there.

She dropped to the floor to hide her face as much as to recover the box. She had looked for Vis as she had Pietro. Of course she had, but unlike Pietro, who, although in worlds few and far between, did live—or a version of him did—in a spattering of universes. Vis, on the other hand, could not be found, or at least, she could not find him alive or . . . revivable. She hadn't given up, not fully. She never would, but a part of her had come to wonder if his death was immutable in every universe.

A fixed point in time to which she and every universe would always be anchored.

But she wouldn't think about that now. This was a good day. A happy one.

Her twin was finally home.

Realizing she was nearing too long of a silence, Wanda quickly grabbed the box, which, fortunately, she had not yet torn open, and schooled her features before she stood up again to face her boys with a smile.

"Yes. He was. But he's not anymore. He has us now, so we need to make him feel welcome." Then she turned to Tommy, a stern frown on her face, "So no stealing his things, understood?"

"I would never." Tommy replied in mock offense. "Wait, did he bring things? I didn't see any things."

"Did he bring presents?!" Billy jumped in eagerly, sitting up on his knees on the kitchen stool as he looked up at Wanda and then over at his brother before they both broke into twin grins.

"No. Not everything is a reason for gifts." Wanda replied, as she set out four slices of bread and began to assemble sandwiches. "But that's an idea, why don't you both make him some welcome cards. I think he would like that."

"Why do we have to give him a welcome card?" Tommy asked as Billy—who was much more artistic—went off to find some art supplies without having to be told twice. "He's already here. It's not like we're still waiting for him to arrive."

"He's here! Already? Where!?" Billy exclaimed, dropping the box of markers back into the box mislabeled as both 'clothes' and 'FRAGILE'.

"In mom's room." Tommy replied, and then added smugly, puffing out his chest. "I've already met him."

"WHAT! WHEN?! I want to meet him!" Billy bellowed, dashing up the stairs.

"Billy! Later! He's sleeping!" Wanda called after him, putting her hand to her face, but it was already too late. Tommy ran up the stairs after him, and she was forced to follow if only to keep Pietro's first sight upon waking up from being two pre-pubescent boys staring down at him like an ant in a magnifying glass.

Wanda hustled up the stairs, cursing herself for choosing one of the only two-story homes on the block.

She found the boys with her back to her, standing by the bed, side-by-side, looking down at Pietro like they were the two little girls from the Shining.

"Why's his hair look like that?" Billy asked in not quite a whisper but in the best a ten year old boy—whose normal volume always seemed to range somewhere from just shy of a shout to an airhorn—could do.

"He probably dyes it, stupid." Tommy answered, also whisper shouting. "Maybe he brought extra dye with him, and he can do ours too."

"Then why are his eyebrows silver too? Nobody dyes their eyebrows." Billy shot back.

"Why don't we let him sleep, and then you can ask him when he wakes up. Okay?" Wanda said, trying not to sound too desperate, but honestly, it had been a day, and she was running out of steam. And then she made it worse when she added, "You can start thinking of your questions now that way when he wakes up, you'll be prepared."

Immediately, the boys—apparently needing no time to think—started shooting questions at her.
"Does he go to school?"

"How old is he?"

"Does he have a dog?"

"What's his favorite color?"

"Are you older than him?"

"Actually." Wanda interjected. "We're twins."

"No way!" The boys exclaimed excitedly, giving her their full attention—for perhaps the first time that day—with that factoid as she managed to coax them out of the bedroom.

"I wouldn't have guessed you're twins! You look way older than him mom." Said Tommy without a hint of remorse.

"Thanks, honey." Wanda replied sarcastically. Though she wouldn't say she looked way older, she had to admit that this Pietro did look younger than her, but she had observed him long enough to know that in reality, he was only a few years younger than her. But that was alright. In the grand scheme of things, what did it matter? Though, perhaps she shouldn't have said they were twins. Not everyone would just immediately believe it the way her boys did.

"Is he the younger twin like me?" Billy asked hopefully.

The answer should be no. Pietro was older than her. He had always been. Those twelve minutes meant so much to him. It meant that he had to protect her. That he would watch out for her first, before himself, before anyone else. He would lead the way, and she would follow.

But things were different now.

So, though the answer stuck in her throat for a moment, she spoke the truth all the same.
"Yes. So I've got to look out for him like Tommy does you."

"Tommy doesn't look out for me!" Billy denied aghast.

"Sure I do. . . . Look out!" Tommy shouted, jumping on Billy's back, mercifully only after they had reached the ground floor.

"Hey! Get off!" Billy protested before managing to wiggle his way out of Tommy's grip. Both tumbled to floor in the process, breaking into an impromptu wrestling match. It was lucky that they hadn't fully unpacked or one or two things would've probably been broken by the end of their tussle.

"Boys!" Wanda shouted clapping her hands together and then placing them on her hips. "If I have to repeat myself, I'm going to tell Pietro he'll have to come back another time. And I guess then he'll just remain a mystery, won't he?"

Of course she wouldn't really. The mere thought was absurd. Her twin had no home but this one. But the boys didn't know that.

And, sure enough, that caught the boys attention. They sprung apart, both panting in exertion.

"Thank you." Wanda said, letting her hands fall at her side again.

"Mom." Billy said seriously and without a hint of sarcasm. "Can I get leather pants too?"

Wanda let out a let little laugh, internally shaking her head. Pietro in his bizarre style choices. Some things never changed.
"We'll see. Maybe for Halloween. I think even Pietro will agree that leather pants are not super practical for August." Wanda replied gently, ruffling Billy's hair as he stood up.

"But I don't want to wear them as a costume. I just want them." Billy pleaded.

"Well, if you still want them in a month, we'll see, but for now, let's stick with weather appropriate attire, alright?" Wanda replied.

"But—" Billy started only to be interrupted by Tommy.

"Mom." Tommy said, scrunching up his nose. "I think something's burning."

"The grilled cheese!"

A few minutes and new pieces of bread later, the twins were happily munching on their respective meals while Wanda picked at a burnt piece of toast.

She'd caved and let the boys eat on the couch and watch tv at the same time. One night wouldn't hurt them. She thought she'd read somewhere that it took at least three weeks for a habit to form, so they were still safely in the clear.

She took another bite of her toast, wincing at the bitter taste, but she continued to eat it all the same, too exhausted to make herself something else, so she almost didn't hear them—the footsteps on the stairs—over the crunch of the toast between her teeth.

If not for the one squeaky step, which she had yet to fix, she may not have heard him at all.

But thanks to her procrastination, when his worn silver Nikes hit that step, she looked up and saw him standing there, frozen on the landing.
Wanda felt the color drain from her face, so much so, that—for once—she imagined their skin was almost the same shade.

He looked surprisingly put together for being asleep for so long, as if he had slept in one position and one position only. His t-shirt was hardly rumpled, his hair reasonably tamed, and his shoes neatly tied.

Stupidly, the first thing she thought when she saw him was that it was silly of her to have let him sleep in his shoes. She should've taken them off.

She pulled her eyes from his feet to his face. He stared back at her blankly as if still waking up from a dream.

"P-Pietro?" Wanda spoke tentatively and so quietly that the boys didn't even look up from their mindless cartoon.

The speedster didn't answer her, instead, he looked around at the boys, at the walls of their home, at everything but her, but when his eyes found hers again, something clicked.

And then . . .

He smiled.

And with her next breath, she was grinning back at him, and the red glow that had begun to travel up her fingertips receded until it was no more.

Gone, as if it had never been there to begin with.

{Author's Note: I saw Deadpool & Wolverine recently and now Like a Prayer is probably going to end up on my top five Spotify songs list at the end of the year.

Updates will continue to be slow because unfortunately, that's just how I roll.}