explosion | OPEN POST.

All Wanda has ever wanted is him.

She knows she should've learned her lesson. Magic isn't a toy. It's not something she should use to fill in the holes in her own heart. It's something that needs to be used properly, accurately, and with proper intent that's stripped of its emotion.

But when she sees him step inside of the suburban home she's built, replenished with furniture they only ever dreamed of from her sitcoms and movies, and sat it beside a house that's filled with a kind family who love nothing but to let him be a bad influence on their young children… It's worth making the same mistake and correcting it to be something fruitful, in her control, and here.

He's always been worth it.

This time, when Wanda creates a hex, it's not out of an emotional outburst. She'd been particular, specific in the way she'd built it. It isn't broken. It's as flawless as she can make it, a safe haven for the two of them to exist as they were always meant to be. She can't and won't hurt anyone this time. She has the person she wants—and she knows, in time, her family will come back to her. He's stayed beside her since she reached for him and felt him reach back; he hasn't disappeared as she had been so fearful he would.

Allowing Pietro to be fallible is a flaw in the universe's design that she's corrected. Tying him to her is the only way to fix what she hadn't been able to correct so long ago.

Wanda smiles. "Did you enjoy your run?"

Even while Stephen is wrangling the mindflayer (one of the many unsavoury duties Wong had pawned off on him), he's half-distracted wondering what might be awaiting him back at the Sanctum Sanctorum. And so his attention lapses enough that he sustains a cut along his temple, but the monster doesn't latch onto him and drain his sanity dry, so at least there's that— he eventually manages to magically wrestle it into a pocket dimension, seal the edges, and pinch off the wards. He tests the containment until he can't feel the tremors of it trying to escape any longer, its greedy tentacles grasping.

Job done, he dusts off his cloak and decides to portal back to the grand foyer with a twirl of his hand.

Back home on the metaphorical ranch, a golden window appears like it's carved out of thin air. It hisses and spits glowing light before opening, and then Doctor Strange, former Sorcerer Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts, steps through.

Unfortunately, the Sanctum truly is flooded.

He takes one step out and, before he can catch himself, plummets downward. With a strangled yelp of surprise and flailing arms, he falls into the water. When he eventually manages to float himself back out, he's sodden and drenched: black hair plastered to his skull, red Cloak of Levitation hanging heavy from his shoulders and miserable, the cloak somehow managing to look like it's sulking.

He peers around. It's like when the blizzard blew through and the place was filled with snow, but now it's just water, an impossible ocean lapping at the grand curved staircase. The guest chairs are bobbing gently next to a floating credenza.

"Well, this is worse than I thought," he says.

( from here )

[ his cheek kiss means everything to her.

as much as she wishes to smile (and join in the teasing of her boy being a royal consort, a prince in his own right no matter what he says), wanda figures she'll one-up all of his friends. ]

Does that mean I get to be the Mother of His Royal Highness the Royal Consort? [ she gasps, pressing a hand to her chest. ] I can't wait to tell all the other moms this is how I want to be addressed!

[ what other moms? we don't talk about that. ]

( from here )

[ it falls into line with what wanda wants. she wishes for her family to find their way back to her... or for her to find her way back to them. perhaps he understands it better than most humans do.

she smiles softly. ]

Hopeful.

He remembered.

When Natasha had asked her where she wanted to be dropped off for her secret little rendezvous with you-know-who, Wanda had difficulty containing her excitement. Vision had suggested Italy at their last meeting, and Wanda had happily agreed to it. It was one of the few countries she had told Vision she wished to visit someday. Even when it felt like a pipe dream after being trapped inside of the four walls of the Avengers Compound, she still dreamed, and Vision only enabled those dreams into a reality.

Natasha could spare her a handful of days before she needed to pick her up and take her to the opposite side of the world. But Wanda knew the handful of days that awaited her were going to feel like weeks and months.

After reassuring Natasha that she and Vision agreed to meet each other in the city rather than where the Quintet would drop her off, she walks along the side of the road, keeping her mind peeled for a little inkling of him. She tries to keep her mind clear and the tension away from her shoulders, but Wanda can never help but take Natasha's lessons keeping her eyes peeled and her senses alert to heart, especially when she was sneaking within the shadows and the bright light of day.

When she reaches the end of the street, she turns the corner and stops. She can't help but smile. Wanda could recognise him in the dark. Standing tall with his back to her, she eyes him curiously to confirm that the lines of his shoulder are, in fact, Vision's before she lets herself feel the excitement that she always feels when she sees him now.

On the softest of feet, she quickly approaches him before tapping him on the shoulder.

"Vis," she says quietly as though the city itself will alert Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. of their whereabouts. Wanda wishes she could stop smiling, but she peers up at him eagerly, dressed much like the people bustling around them.

[ When Wanda wakes up, she makes sure to tiptoe around the small apartment as she prepares a little surprise for Pietro. While she suspects that he'll grow justifiably annoying today, incessantly reminding her of how he's twelve minutes older and therefore wiser (amongst many other positive descriptors), all Wanda wants to do is surprise him.

For the last couple of years, he's always been quicker and beaten her to the gift-giving and first-to-say-it punch. She supposes it has something to do with him being so unnaturally impatient and quick. HYDRA separating them during this time hadn't helped, either; Wanda's become insufferably clingy and Pietro has, too, in his own way.

She tiptoes around the kitchen and gently opens and closes cupboard doors. She's bought Pietro a little cupcake from the bakery that remains standing. Maria had been more than happy to bake a special cupcake for Pietro free of charge for his birthday. Sometimes Pietro's outrageous flirting and unnecessary charisma pay off.

She slots a candle in its very centre and smiles at her handiwork. She doesn't light it yet. It's not much, but she suspects that Pietro would be happy even if she gifted him a rock from outside for his birthday. But he deserves more than a rock. She would've gotten him a whole three-tiered expensive cake like she's seen in her television shows if she could've decided on the flavours and had the money.

Wanda tiptoes back to the bed and slowly climbs on top of him. Brushing her fingers in his hair and along the shell of his ear, she whispers, ] Pietro, wake up.

[ When they had still been teenagers, Wanda had enjoyed jumping on Pietro and screaming 'Happy Birthday!' on the birthdays when she managed to get up first. She likes that she's matured to a more Wanda-like approach—it's soft and slow, the two things she knows Pietro finds the most frustrating. ]

( from here. )

So you confirm you are becoming Rusty Man a year earlier than intended?
Interesting.

[ If only she were a scientist, she'd do something scientific with this. ]

Did you want to hear another one?
Or are you precious about losing another life?

( THE ONLY THING I EVER WANTED. )

must be the season of the witch.

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no subject

( I'D GIVE YOU MY WORLD. )

( I WANT TO BE NEXT TO YOU. 🧁 )