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New York City, the cemetery. In the cool and breezy weather of the transition between spring and summer, stands a man in his denim, eyes locked onto a tombstone. “Here lies Wanda Maximoff”, it writes.
After the whole madness of travelling through the multiverse, running from the woman he once called an ally, Stephen Strange did what he believed was right. He was there when she made the decision to sacrifice herself, maybe punishing herself, righting the mistakes she had caused. And when things had settled, he came looking for her body in the mount of Wundagore. It was not a challenge for the sorcerer, physically, not emotionally.
It would not have been right to bury her in the sacred land among other deceased sorcerers who were lost during the battle. So he has brought her here, purchased her a spot in the graveyard, performing a convenient funeral for her, mourning her. Because after all, she was still a friend.
Stephen has been looking at his reflection on shiny marble tombstone for who-knows-how -long, speechless. And he’s comfortable standing in this silence. Before he did all of this, taking care of a deceased ally turned enemy, he had spent a great amount of time beating himself up, only to find it was useless.
A figure slowly descending on red-glowing trails of magic from behind his back. Stephen can sense her feet touching the grass. He turns around and see a familiar face, dressed in a sweater. “Wanda?”, he asks.
“Stephen”, she greets back.
But his first reaction is to get into a defensive pose. “Are you Wanda from another universe?”, he asks in a cautious tone.
“No”, she replies.
He side-eyes her, “I buried the very Wanda Maximoff of this universe right under that tombstone”, he states with firmness in his voice, unwilling to ease up.
“So that’s where she is now”, Wanda comments, earning a more curious look from him. “You might not believe this, but there were actually two Wandas.”
“How come?”, he asks.
“When I was reading the Darkhold, which I got from another witch”, she tells, “I couldn’t believe the things it wrote about me. I just wished… that I were free… from the Scarlet Witch.” He narrows his brows, listening closely to her story, observing the uneasiness in her. She’s selling something she knows impossible to buy, but she’s still trying. “And then it happened. I woke up from the floor to see another version of myself, the Scarlet Witch, to be precise. I could feel her pain, my pain… But she told me she needed to find Billy and Tommy, from another universe, and there could not be any obstacles on her way…”
Stephen seemingly realizes something, “So, she…”
“She locked me in the same kind of prison I created around Westview”, she continues before he has the chance to finish his sentence, “but with no role to play. I tried to break free and find her without any successes for a really long time. But the Scarlet Witch was the one with magic, not me. I was only Wanda Maximoff, I was a mere prisoner to her.”
“So when I came looking for you, I met her?”, Stephen asks.
“We’ve never seen each other again ever since Tony Stark’s funeral, Stephen. So maybe, yeah, she must have created a hex somewhere else to lure you in”, Wanda answers. “But you could not have found me anyway. I placed protective symbols and sigils and runes… around my house, which she covered with a hex. After Westview, I intended to keep myself off the radar, and the rest of the world, so that I could not hurt anyone anymore.”
And the last sentence, it’s a telltale that rings in Stephen’s ears. He immediately rushes toward and gives her a hug, squeezing her in his arms, tears of joy leak at the corners of his eyes. Only the real, uncorrupted-by-the-Darkhold Wanda can say this. “I’ve been missing you, Wanda”, he confesses.
She’s stunned, but she does not protest. Wanda secretly smiles from his back, enjoying the embrace. “I’ve been missing you, too, Stephen”, she says.
“Sorry, uhh, that wasn’t very like me, was it?”, he parts.
“We did not have many chances to interact, but I don’t mind”, she replies.
“After the whole thing with the uhh… Scarlet Witch”, Stephen coughs. “I have realized how… faulty and arrogant I can be. It took me standing against a friend and then burying her to learn my lesson. I have dealt with many losses before, my little sister, my parents, my mentor, Tony Stark… but there was always someone else to share the grief. Only this time, I find myself grieving alone, I couldn’t think of anyone else who would like to mourn with me after… her”, he throws his look to the grave for a short moment, consciously not using the word ‘you’, “after everything she had done.” Wanda remains silent, processing the words he said, but Stephen soon changes the subject to avoid the awkwardness. “But hey, how did you break free? How did you get your power back?”
“Oh… Suddenly all of my power came back to me one day, and I was able to take down the hex”, she answers. “I’ve been searching for her for weeks, trying to stop her own my own. But then I realized, I needed help. And who else could help me better than a former friend who I know also wields magic.”
He chuckles after her, “I guess when she died, all that power came back to you.” And then both of them find themselves looking at the tombstone again. Stephen leans in closer, but not steering his sight away from the grave, “Good thing it was the Scarlet Witch who died, and Wanda Maximoff still lives.”
She grins after his comment, and then with a wave of her hand, she causes the tombstone to flicker red, changing the words into “Here lies the Scarlet Witch.”
“There is no Scarlet Witch to destroy the world anymore”, she comments.
He smiles, then turning to her, the friend who he thought had died, whom he had mourned, who was now resurrected in a way he never thought of, “Would you like to come to my place for a cup of tea? I could tell you about everything that has happened.”
“I would love to, Stephen”, she smiles back.
THE END.