As we stepped through the portal from the tense quietude of Kamar-taj’s library, the clamour of New York City hit us like a wall, crowding our senses. Our group filed through onto the sidewalk, drawing startled exclamations and comments from a handful of bystanders. I blinked in the sudden daylight, looking up at the forest of skyscrapers. Avengers Tower stood tall and proud directly across the road from where we were.
A couple of pedestrians had stopped to snap pictures or film us with their phones, and I smiled a little self-consciously as I gestured and dismissed the gateway. It was weird. I’d spent a few weeks in New York once in my old life and had loved it… hadn’t I? I faltered slightly as I thought about it, going internal again.
“Wanda? Are you okay?”
I jerked my head up with a start as Steve touched my shoulder. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
“We need to talk,” Pietro said abruptly, stepping in front of me. His tone was firm—he wasn’t going to let me put this off. “Not here.”
I nodded, avoiding his eyes, and glanced back at our two super soldier companions. “Sorry about this. Can you give us a few minutes? We’ll… I’ll be right back.”
“Of course,” Steve said, nodding.
I wove another portal, wisps of red chaos magic boiling off its edges, which elicited yet another round of gasps and murmured comments from onlookers, and Pietro and I stepped back into our hotel room in Albany. The vibranium spear that had been following me floated over to join its fellows in a bundle against the wall as I took a deep breath and let the portal close, bracing myself for the conversation to come.
“The Ancient One said… she said you don’t believe you’re Wanda.” He was trying to keep his tone flat and even, but I could hear the tension in it.
“It’s complicated,” I hedged, my voice laced with guilt. How was I even going to begin to unpack this? Did I open with the fact that I had an entire lifetime of other memories floating around in my head? I wasn’t even sure what was happening anymore. I’d seen Wanda in the Ancestral Plane, hadn’t I? That meant she was dead. But the Ancient One had said…
“She said your soul…” Pietro mirrored my thought and trailed off. “You are Wanda. Aren’t you?” I wasn’t sure if he was genuinely asking or trying to convince himself.
“I don’t think so. Didn’t think so.” I reached up with a hand, touching my forehead briefly before taking another deep breath. “I don’t know. I have these other memories, of another life, but they’re not… I feel disconnected from them. I’m not really sure of anything anymore.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, an unreadable expression on his face. Was he running back through every conversation we’d ever had? Trying to recognise his sister somewhere in the interactions we’d shared? “When we got our powers,” he started slowly. “I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I couldn’t control it. I was scared. You helped me.”
“I needed you. I was alone, you were the only one I—”
“No,” he cut me off sharply, frustration and anguish leaking into his voice. “You weren’t just… you weren’t. You looked after me. You fed me. You stroked my hair like mama used to. You weren’t just… some stranger. You were my sister.”
I could feel my face growing hot, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. Pietro had been in a dark place when he’d first gotten his superspeed. He’d been unable to turn it off and on at first, and his lack of control meant he could barely move without accidentally hurling himself into a wall. He couldn’t even eat on his own. I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand, trying to will myself not to cry. “I don’t…”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“I just said—”
“Not that,” he interrupted again, anger and a touch of desperation in his tone. “From before the sceptre. You don’t remember us? You don’t remember our parents?”
“…no. You already know that I don’t.”
“What were their names?”
“I told you, I don’t know. I never knew.”
Suddenly, Pietro took a step forward, hands roughly gripping my shoulders. I froze, eyes wide, my chest tightening as he stuck his face close to mine, forcing me to look at him while he spoke. “In New Delhi, the things you said, it was like you remembered when they died. When we were trapped,” he ground out. “You said it like you were there.”
“I saw it. Like I saw everything else.”
“If you saw it, then you’d know their names!” He was almost shaking me, his voice raised in desperation, fingers digging painfully into my shoulders. “What were their names?”
“I don’t know what you want from me!” I didn’t know what to do. My chest felt tight, constricted. I wanted to push him away, to scream at him that I wasn’t his sister and he should just stay away from me, but I didn’t want to hurt him any more than I already had.
“What were their names?!”
“I don’t… Я не могу, треба ми помаг…” My brain caught up to my mouth and I froze. Did I just speak Sokovian? I couldn’t speak Sokovian. Something rose to the surface, more words tumbling from my mouth before I had a chance to fully process them. “Mama? Mama was… Iryna. Papa… Олег.” That couldn’t be right. I didn’t know their names. Did I? They sounded right. Maybe they’d been said on WandaVision or something, but it really did not feel like I was remembering them from that. Where was this coming from?
One of Pietro’s hands released my shoulder and shot up to cover his mouth as he let out a small gasp, his eyes shining and wet.
Seeing him like that, my vision blurred, and I found myself unable to hold back the tears any longer. “Pietro… I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I said, my voice shaking and small. “I thought I did but I don’t anymore.”
Pietro’s arms were suddenly around me in a crushing embrace—I went rigid for a split-second, then relaxed into it, burying my face in his shoulder as I started to sob, the tears coming freely now. “Shh, I’m here, ја сам ту за тебе, не плачи, shh…” he murmured, stroking the back of my head. After a moment, he pressed his lips to my temple then gently pried me off of him.
“I’m sorry,” I sniffed, wiping at my eyes.
“…You’ve had a big day,” he said softly. “We can just stay here. Talk more later.”
I shook my head, taking another deep breath to steady myself. “No, I need to go to the Avengers. It’s important.” My mind was whirling, but this was something I couldn’t afford to put off. I’d risked so much with Bucky, I needed to see it through. “You don’t… you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
“Don’t be stupid, I’m not just going to sit here and let you go by yourself.”
“Thank you,” I said, my voice hitching slightly. “I don’t know where I’d be right now without you.”
He sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “Dead in a ditch somewhere, probably.”
The corners of my mouth pulled up in a weak smile and I pushed his shoulder gently. “Okay,” I said, stepping back. Dabbing at my face again, I straightened my jacket and ran my fingers through my hair. “Okay. How do I look? Is it bad?”
“You look like a housewife who just found out her husband is cheating on her.”
“Pietro!” I said, scandalised, and pushed him again, harder this time.
“Oof! Sorry, sorry. You’re fine, you look fine.”
I sighed, then squared my shoulders and wove another portal back to New York, in the same spot it had opened earlier. As the gateway spun open, I paused—through it, I could see Bucky and Steve, but they’d been joined by Iron Man, standing in the middle of the street in his full suit of red and gold armour. They were in the middle of talking, turning to glance in my direction as the gateway opened. A second later, Thor fell from the sky, small sparks of electricity earthing themselves in the pavement as the thunder god landed in a perfect three-point superhero pose next to Iron Man.
Steeling myself, I stepped through.
--
We were in what I thought of as the main gathering space inside Avengers Tower, a wide-open room enclosed by glass and steel near the very top of the building, directly above the Quinjet hangar. Couches and other comfortable furniture lay scattered around and a grand piano even sat tucked away in the corner of the space—did one of the Avengers play? I couldn’t remember. One side of the room had gentle sloping staircases to a long balcony and I could see a couple of telescopes and other bits and pieces arrayed along it overlooking the Manhattan skyline.
“They’re just kids, Tony. They’re trying to do good things, it just got away from them. Wanda… you weren’t there, you didn’t see her. Trust me.”
I bristled internally a little at Steve calling us kids, but my attention was mostly preoccupied with the fact that standing on the balcony, back far enough that she could observe but not be expected to participate, was Jessica actual fucking Jones. The PI was watching the proceedings with her arms folded in front of her, an inscrutable expression on her face. I’d done an almost comical double-take when I’d first spotted and recognised her. I was pretty sure she’d clocked my reaction, but I still couldn’t stop sneaking glances her way.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
What the actual fuck was she doing here? Had I been operating on completely false assumptions about this being the mainline MCU? Was this a variant universe or alternate timeline where Jessica Jones was an Avenger? Or had I somehow caused this? I honestly had no idea how that would have happened. The Ancient One had warned me that the consequences of my actions were far-reaching… maybe I needed to spend a bit more of my time trying to map out possible unintended changes, but I had no idea how I could have predicted something like this.
The faceplate of Tony Stark’s armour was retracted, so we could see the incredulous look on his face as he rounded on Steve. “Can we trust you, Cap? Because last I checked you got shanghaied by a mind controller and came back singing her praises. Don’t you think that’s a mite suspicious?”
“Look, I get it. It’s suspicious, yes, but I’m fine. She hasn’t done anything to me. I’m not being controlled. We’ll do whatever tests you think are necessary to confirm it.”
“Steve’s right. She’s not the sort of person who’d do that,” Bucky said quietly.
“Hey, this goes double for you, Manchurian Candidate,” Tony snapped back, irritated at the interjection. “She’s been poking around in your head—we don’t know for sure what she did in there.”
“That was my choice.”
“Oh yeah? What about Wakanda?” Stark asked, spreading his arms in a wide gesture as he looked at me questioningly. “They ask you to mess with their minds as well?”
“Wakanda?” Steve’s expression turned puzzled.
I blinked, my distraction temporarily forgotten, and hesitated for a moment. They knew about Wakanda?
“We tracked them from South Africa,” Natasha said quietly to Steve. “They hit an arms dealer, stole his supply of vibranium, and used it as a bargaining chip to infiltrate the Wakandan border.”
“We didn’t infiltrate anything,” Pietro protested. “They let us in.”
Ah, of course, that made sense. “Klaue was a wanted criminal in Wakanda, public enemy number one. He stole their vibranium and evaded capture for years. We brought him in and what was left of what he’d stolen. We were doing a good thing.”
“Were you doing a good thing? Or were you just trying to take advantage of the situation to get what you wanted?”
“That isn’t…” I trailed off and sighed. That wasn’t wholly inaccurate. “What happened in Wakanda was a mistake. Another misunderstanding, like at Kamar-taj.”
“Seems like you’ve had a lot of ‘misunderstandings’,” Bruce said from where he was lounging on one of the couches. He was the only one of us who actually looked relaxed.
“I don’t know if I’d call mind-controlling a high ranking official to get close to their king a ‘misunderstanding’,” Hawkeye chimed in, shrugging his shoulders.
Steve turned to look at me and I flinched away from his questioning look. “It was stupid and I shouldn’t have done it, but General Okoye threatened to lock us up. I couldn’t… I have some personal issues with feeling trapped,” I admitted, my cheeks burning. “I had to do something, so I changed her mind, then it was either follow my original plan and try to talk to King T’Chaka or just walk away empty‑handed, and after Kamar-taj…”
“You didn’t want to fail again,” Steve said. “I understand, but that doesn’t excuse it.”
It felt a little like he was reprimanding a small child, rather than talking to me as a person. “It didn’t work out, but it wasn’t that bad. No one got hurt,” I said defensively.
“No one got hurt? According to Prince T’Challa, Speedy Gonzales and the Wicked Witch of the West over here put five of their royal guards in the hospital and broke three of his ribs,” Tony said, unhelpfully. “Not to mention the conversation piece you carved into the floor of their throne room. That kinda pissed them off.”
“We were defending ourselves,” Pietro spat. He took a threatening step forward, hands balled into fists at his sides, and I quickly interposed myself and put a hand on his chest. I shot him a warning look and he hesitated for only a moment before backing down.
“Well, Wakanda considers you fugitives. Offered their support to help us bring you in and everything.”
I set my jaw, trying to control my breathing. That familiar tight feeling was rising in my chest and I was beginning to wonder if coming here had been a mistake. “Steve promised that we would be free to leave if we wanted. No strings.”
“Yeah, well, Steve’s not the boss of me.” Tony paused as Steve shot him an annoyed look. “But fine. Leave if that’s what you want, but if you want to play with the big boys, you need to meet us halfway. You want to work with us? Then you need to give us something to work with. Like that pendant of yours,” he said, gesturing toward my neck.
“Fine, Stark. Let’s talk about my pendant, but first just… I know things. I can’t properly explain how or why.” I paused, trying to work out the best way of describing it. I couldn’t outright say I’d seen movies about them, it would sound ridiculous. I needed to build my credibility, not undermine it. “I’ve seen the universe from the outside. Untethered by time. I’ve seen things, major events… bits and pieces of the past and future of everyone in this room, as well as others.”
“Others? Like Kamar-taj and Wakanda?” Steve asked.
“Exactly. I’ve seen the future and I’ve been trying to act on that information without causing more problems than I’ve solved. Sometimes things haven’t worked out great, but I can tell you for a fact that I’ve saved hundreds or thousands of lives already by stopping certain things from happening.”
“No shit,” Tony snorted. “So, what? You want us to just believe everything you say and, if your Nostradamus predictions fall through, you get to mumble something about butterflies and we just move on like you weren't wrong?”
I flushed, a little bit off-balance. The worst part about his argument was that he wasn’t entirely wrong. “I’ve been doing the best I could with limited resources.”
“She helped Bucky. Put herself in harm’s way to do it. She didn’t have to,” Steve said, looking around at each of his friends. “It can’t hurt to hear her out, right? I owe her that much, at least.”
There was a lull, so I reached up with both hands and framed the pendant hanging from my neck between my fingers. Thin wisps of chaos magic clicked it open and the Mind Stone floated out until it was hovering gently over my outstretched palm, emanating a faint golden light. “This was what was powering Loki’s sceptre. It’s an Infinity Stone.”
Thor reacted instantly, straightening up in surprise. “An Infinity Stone? Are you certain?” he demanded, his brow furrowed. I nodded and the thunder god glanced around at the rest of the Avengers. “The six Infinity Stones are the greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in their destructive capabilities.”
“They’re not inherently destructive. Each of the Infinity Stones embodies an aspect of the universe. Space, Reality, Power, Soul, Mind, and Time,” I explained. “This is the Mind Stone. You’ve encountered others recently, as well. Earth has become a bit of a focal point of activity relating to the Stones.”
Thor’s frown deepened. “…yes, it has,” he acknowledged. “The Tesseract and the Aether.”
“Space. Reality. The Time Stone is also on Earth.” I held up my fingers as I counted them off, then glanced over at Steve. “The Eye of Agamotto, guarded by the Ancient One.”
“Then it is even more important you relinquish it to me. Asgard will ensure its safety.”
“The Mind Stone has chosen me as its protector,” I lied. “Your father knows that the Stones are too dangerous to keep together. The Tesseract is safe in Asgard’s vault, but he sent the Aether to be held in trust by the Collector rather than keep two in the same place. Odin should be satisfied that this one remains with its chosen guardian.”
Thor held my gaze for a few moments. When he spoke, his voice was measured, but subdued. “I sought Heimdall’s aid to find you, to secure the sceptre, but he has not responded. He is either away from his post or he's been ordered not to answer. I will have to return to Asgard to seek my father’s counsel.”
I tried not to show my relief on my face. “Then can we shelve this discussion for now? Please?” I vaguely recalled a throwaway line in Age of Ultron along the same lines, but it really wasn’t clear to me why Heimdall wouldn’t be responding to Thor right now. The whole ‘actually your brother is alive and impersonating your father’ thing was a conversation I wanted to have with the thunder god, but it would need to be approached carefully, hopefully after he’d come to trust me a little bit more, and privately—I didn’t really want to air out the thunder god’s personal family drama in front of everyone. He deserved that much at least. There were a few things like that, stuff I wanted to talk to individuals about, once I’d earned a bit more trust.
“Asgard aside, I’m not crazy about you accessorising with one of these things, if what you’re saying is true,” Tony interjected. “It’d be safer here, with us.”
“Look, I want us to work together. If we can stay here—as allies—then that’s problem solved, right? We don’t need to fight, and you get to keep an eye on the Stone.”
Steve nodded encouragingly. “That seems like a workable solution. Everyone gets what they want.”
“Sure, we’ve got some spare bunks in the Tower. We can’t just take all of this on faith, though,” said Tony firmly. “Let us at least give the Stone a once over. We need to be sure it’s safe for you to keep.”
I hesitated, thinking it through. The sceptre was destroyed, the nascent mind that became Ultron no longer a threat. I hadn’t messed with Tony’s mind, so it was only his natural poor decision-making I had to contend with. It was probably as safe as it was ever going to get for him to look at it. It was a little bit difficult sometimes, after all the failures, but I needed to remember that this had all started with an unequivocal success—Ultron had been permanently averted. I’d saved countless Sokovian lives, delayed or completely removed the threat of the Sokovia Accords, and maybe even stopped the Avengers from breaking up. Whatever other mistakes I’d made since then, no one could take that victory away from me.
“Fine. Agreed. You can examine the Stone, but then it comes back to me.”
Tony blinked, deflating a little. It seemed like he’d thought I was going to argue with him. “Okay,” he said, a little grudgingly. “Well. That’s progress.”
I felt some of the tension leave my shoulders and tried to fight off a yawn, but it came out anyway, long and loud. I flushed and looked away, slightly embarrassed. “Sorry, it’s been a bit of a day.”
“That’s enough for now, then,” Steve said, looking at me sympathetically. “Kaecilius will keep. We can talk strategy tomorrow.”
I nodded gratefully. “Thanks. There are a few other things I need to talk to everyone about as well, but yeah, it can wait.”
“The Stone?” Tony asked, holding out an armoured hand.
Taking a deep breath, I floated it over to him and deposited it in his palm with a clink. I shot him a reluctant look. “Be careful with it. Wear gloves if you’re handling it directly, just in case.”
Tony nodded. “Will do. You get some rest. We’ll do some preliminary scans and we’ll coordinate in the morning.” He turned and headed up a short flight of stairs toward an adjacent room—I could see through the glass wall that it was packed with unidentifiable scientific equipment. Bruce stood and followed him, shooting me one last appraising look and giving an awkward half-wave goodbye as he walked away.
I watched them leave, then turned back to Steve with a tight smile. This was good. This was progress. It had taken a while, but I was finally where I needed to be and the Avengers were willing to listen. Things were finally going right for once.
--
Natasha peered over Bruce’s shoulder at the latest set of test results, feeling anxious. Bucky’s scans had shown oddly‑localised elevated levels of CMB radiation, which matched with the microwave remnants they’d detected in New Delhi after Wanda had used her powers there. She was no expert, but she knew enough that she felt reasonably confident that she wasn’t seeing anything like that on the scans of Steve’s brain.
“I think he’s clean,” Bruce said with a shrug, though his expression still held some uncertainty. “No lingering traces of radiation, CT scans are all normal. Well, normal for Cap.”
Nat let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in. “So they’re telling the truth?”
“That’d be nice,” said Tony wryly, pacing back and forth. “Wouldn’t that be nice? Just for once, to have this all actually have been a giant set of misunderstandings.”
Nat watched him pace. “You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not,” he said, firmly. Then, a little less firmly. “Not entirely. Okay, yeah, she talks a good game and Steve’s debrief was pretty definitive, but can we afford to take chances here? We could just bonk her on the head and hand her over to the Amazing One.”
"Ancient One," Bruce corrected him.
“Whatever.”
“Steve wouldn’t go for it. He’s pretty convinced she means well.” Natasha shook her head slowly. “You heard what he said about what happened with Bucky. I think we should give them a chance. Even if she hasn’t actually seen the future, she does seem to know some things she shouldn’t be able to. We need her onside.”
Tony stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Damn it… you’re right. Fine, they get a chance.”