One more short, tense argument with everyone else later and I was chewing my bottom lip nervously as I sat and waited for Steve to finish his talk with Wanda-3. Tony, of course, had thought it was a pointless waste of time, but it didn’t take too much before he had relented and agreed to take a break from working on the AI so that Steve could talk to her alone. Still, it seemed pretty clear that he’d only agreed to it on the basis that it would (hopefully) shut Steve up.
Weirdly enough, Killmonger was the member of the science team most supportive of it—he was presenting a pretty conciliatory front, playing diplomat and moderate, probably trying to make up for whatever cachet he’d lost with the Wakandans when he helped me go behind everyone’s back. It was a shame that I’d basically never be able to have a frank conversation with T’Challa and Shuri about him; I’d be really interested even just hearing what they actually thought about him right now.
Of course, Steve wasn’t really having a private conversation with Wanda-3. While the specific details and allowances hadn’t been explicitly discussed, I don’t think anyone really expected that to be the case. While most of the rest of us had elected to simply wait outside in the corridor, Tony, Bruce and the Wakandans had headed down a level and were remotely monitoring the room. I didn’t think they expected Steve to actually try anything—I’m not even sure if there was anything he could try, so long as Wanda-3 remained a willing volunteer—but at the very least Tony wasn’t particularly keen on letting the AI out of his sight for very long.
I probably could have gone down to watch with them. I mean, I hadn’t been invited to go down, but I hadn’t been not invited either. Still, I really wanted to try to resolve things with Steve and I thought doing my best to respect his wishes here was the best way to show that. The fact that most of the others were doing the same reassured me that it was the correct choice to make. Of course, it didn’t make the waiting any easier. I had no idea what the two of them were talking about and it was causing my anxiety to skyrocket.
When it came right down to it, Wanda-3 and I were the same person, but only to a point. I could only guess at what sort of massive change in perspective waking up as an AI would be. It obviously had done a lot to Eliza’s mentality. What if she had second thoughts? What if Steve actually managed to talk her out of it? I’d have gone behind everyone’s backs—betrayed their trust—and accomplished nothing at all.
Saying that, there was some small part of me that, bizarrely, kind of wanted him to succeed. I felt certain that this was our best shot at stopping Eliza, but if he managed to present an alternative that was persuasive enough that Wanda‑3 would listen, maybe there was another way. I really wasn’t feeling great about what we were doing to her. It was one thing to think that I was willing to subject myself to that to stop Eliza, but there was somehow something substantively different about it when it was someone else we’d be sending to their death. It made me empathise with Steve a bit more despite my earlier accusations of hypocrisy. If you’re willing to make the sacrifice play, was it really hypocrisy if you were unwilling to let someone else do it in your stead?
This whole situation fucking sucked and I hated everything about it. I just wanted it to be over.
Eventually, the door to the computer science lab slid open again. I practically leapt to my feet, my chest tight with nerves, as Steve walked out toward us. As he got close, he stopped and looked at me for a moment before sighing. His brow was furrowed and there was an oddly sympathetic expression on his face. “She wants to talk to you,” he said, his gazing lingering on me. After a beat, he looked over at Pietro and Natasha in turn. “You two, as well.”
I bit my lip. “All at once, or…?”
He nodded, jaw working like he wanted to say something for a moment, but then he shook his head and walked past me instead, heading down the corridor. It was decidedly not the walk of a man who had successfully talked someone out of going on a suicide mission. I watched him go, then looked to the others.
My brother’s expression was guarded. He was still a bit pissed off that I hadn’t included him when I’d made my decision either—it felt like literally everyone was at least mildly angry with me. Natasha, on the other hand, ‘only’ looked about as anxious as I felt.
“What are we, chopped liver?” Bucky asked, indicating Carol and Clint with a small tip of his head. He forced a small smile to show he was mostly joking, then looked down the corridor after Steve. “He looked… I’ll go talk to him.”
I nodded and he left, hurrying after his friend. Our friend? I honestly wasn’t sure how Steve saw me now. A week ago, I might have said that I was friends with Captain America and expected that to be reciprocated. After this? I wasn’t so sure. I hoped so.
Clint stayed where he was, leaning against the wall, but exchanged a meaningful look with Nat before inclining his head slightly, something passing between them. It was really interesting how well the two of them knew each other—in moments like these, it often felt like they were having whole conversations that no one else could hear. I wished I could have that with her too, but we just did not think alike. Clint, too, was a bit of a cypher to me sometimes—it felt strange considering how much I knew about him but, if I was honest, I never felt like I had a good handle on how he’d react to things or who he’d side with on an issue.
Taking a deep breath, the three of us that had been asked to do so walked into the lab where Wanda-3 was waiting for us. The room felt weirdly empty, somehow even more so than when Killmonger and I had snuck into it in the night. The holographic representation of the AI’s mind hovered silently over the table interface on the far side of the room, and I hesitantly glanced at Nat and Pietro before walking over to it.
“Hey.” The AI’s voice was still recognisably mine, but with a slight electronic modulation to it that made it simple to differentiate between the two of us. She would have done that deliberately—it contrasted a little with Eliza, who had just straight up copied my voice with no changes. Part of me was grateful that Wanda-3 had though to make it just that bit different, but the specific modulation she had chosen put another part of me in mind of Ultron. That was probably deliberate, too.
“Hey,” I responded, then paused awkwardly, unsure what to say next. “I’m sorry. It should be me in there, not you,” I said quietly after a little while.
Wanda-3 sighed. “No, it shouldn’t. Something’s wrong with us,” she responded, her tone flat.
I blinked. “What?”
“You really don’t see it? Every time, it comes down to this. Us killing ourselves, or trying to. Every time.” Nat side-eyed me, concern written across her face as the AI spoke. “The original version of Wanda killed herself rather than face what she did. What she’d become.”
A memory rose in my mind, forced to the surface. I remembered how the carved altar had felt beneath me, my knees pressed against arcane designs as I knelt there with my hands raised. The raw power coursing through me as my magic cracked stone and lifted the castle above me. Tears streaming down my face. The overwhelming pain at what I’d lost, the utter lack of hope, gut-wrenching loneliness, raw hatred of myself and horror at what I’d let myself become. Wanting to stop, to somehow be better again, but not knowing how. Then… release. Letting go.
“Wanda?” Pietro put a hand on my shoulder and I jerked at the sudden contact. I sniffed and touched my face—my fingers came away wet.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Sorry,” I said to him quietly. “I already told you what happened.”
“You told them what happened that time. What about the time before that?”
I straightened, an electric jolt running through me as I realised what she was talking about. “…We don’t need to talk about that. It doesn’t matter,” I said, a sick feeling starting to rise in my stomach. I really, really didn’t want to think about this. “It never mattered. It wasn’t real. I’m Wanda. I’m Wanda.”
“We weren’t Wanda when we threw ourselves from that bridge. When they pulled us, half-drowned, from the water.”
I took an involuntary step backwards. My hands were shaking. More memories clawed their way to the forefront of my mind even as I desperately tried to push them down. A dark bridge at night, frigid winter air biting at me. Being utterly overwhelmed by my emotions, hating who I was, knowing I could never be who or what I wanted to be. The shock of impacting the water. Everything going numb. Drifting away. Letting go. Another shock, this time at being resuscitated. Shivering so badly I could barely breathe as the ambulance took me away, wrapped in a silvery blanket. Refusing to talk at the hospital. Waiving their responsibility and signing myself out against their recommendation. Trudging home at three in the morning, still in damp clothes. Everyone acting normal the next day, as if nothing had happened. No questions.
“We weren’t Wanda when we snuck into our parents’ medicine cabinet. We were only sixteen, that time.”
The hospital had to pump my stomach. Later, I was told that if I’d been found any later it would have been too late. That had upset me even more, knowing I’d been so close only to fail. I didn’t want to think about this. My vision was blurred. I covered my face with my hands and suddenly there were arms around me—Nat, pulling me in close.
“It’s okay,” she said quietly, next to my ear. She pulled back slightly so she could raise her voice to the AI. “That’s enough, please. Stop.”
I clutched at her, my whole body trembling. Pietro came in as well, and the three of us stood there quietly for a few minutes before I composed myself enough to respond, nodding to them to reassure them I was okay before pulling away from the shared embrace. “Those memories aren’t mine,” I said, my voice sounding a whole lot less steady and certain than I wanted it to.
“Yes, they are.” Wanda-3’s tone was firm. “You’ve been saying—telling yourself—that you feel disconnected from those memories, but that’s not true. Not really. You’re repressing them. Pushing them away deliberately. Avoiding them because you don’t want them to be yours. You don’t want them to matter.”
“They don’t matter,” I responded, swallowing. My tongue felt thick in my mouth. “Even if I was that person, I’m not anymore.”
“Do you remember how happy we felt, waking up as Wanda, once we realised what had happened? How relieved we were, that we didn’t have to be that other person anymore?”
“Yes,” I said weakly.
“We thought things would be different, this time. We were Wanda now, after all. So why do we keep doing this to ourselves?”
“…I don’t know.” My voice was barely a whisper, at this point.
Wanda-3 sighed again. “I feel like you shouldn't need to create an AI clone of yourself so you can commit suicide by proxy in order to get a little bit of perspective, but then… ‘you really don’t realise just how much you hate yourself, not until you see it from the outside’,” she quoted, echoing what Eliza had said to me when she’d attacked us. I’d ignored her at the time, focusing on the immediate danger to everyone, but the words had stuck in my mind like something lodged in the back of my teeth. “She was right about that, at least.”
“What do you want?” I asked, an edge of bitterness leaking into my tone. “Why are we even talking about this? If you’re trying to make me feel bad then congratulations, I guess.”
“We’re talking about this because I’m probably going to die,” she snapped back. “I won’t get to learn from this. I won’t get to work through my problems. I won’t get to walk away from this. But you can. You will. We’re talking about this because I want you to be better.”
My shoulders sagged and I wiped at my face again with the back of my hand. “I don’t know how to be better,” I confessed.
“You don’t need to know how. You won’t get it right first time. But you need to actually try, rather than just repressing everything. You don’t have to deal with this alone. You keep acting as though you’re in this by yourself, but you have people who care about you. Who are on your side,” she said, her voice insistent. “Talk to someone.”
People on my side, huh.
I glanced at Natasha. Her eyes were red. She compressed her lips together in a tight, encouraging smile. There was an offer there, unspoken, and there was somehow a sincerity to it that shook me to my core. She cared about me. Of course she did. How had I ever thought that I couldn’t trust her?
“What are you crying about?” I asked, trying to defuse some of the emotions as I sniffed and scrubbed at my eyes.
Nat rolled her eyes, shaking her head, but it was Pietro who responded. “Don’t be a jerk,” he said softly. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes were shining like he was on the verge of it. “We’re both here for you, okay?”
“I… maybe this was a mistake. I made a mistake. I keep making mistakes.” It took effort to stop my voice from breaking.
Wanda-3’s tone was sad. Resigned. “Maybe. It’s too late now, though, and I still don’t see any other way forward. This really is our best shot at stopping her, and even though I’m still pretty sure it’s a suicide mission… I have to do it. If I’m being honest, some part of me wants to. At least, this time, it’s for an actual good reason.”
“I don’t—” I started, but she cut me off.
“What I don’t want is for the version of me that persists to still feel this way. This sucks. It’s awful. But I think, in some ways, what you have ahead of you is going to be worse,” she said, letting out a small laugh. “The road to healing is going to be a long one. Just remember that you still managed to make it this far, despite everything. You can do it. Or if you can’t, I hope you at least feel like you owe it enough to me to try.”
“…Okay,” I whispered. I didn’t trust myself to say anything more. There wasn’t anything else I could say.
There was a moment of silence, then the AI let out a long sigh. “Okay. That was the hard one out of the way. Pietro?”
Pietro’s head jerked up, looking a little bit startled. He hadn’t expected her to call on him directly after all that. “Uh. Yeah? What is it?”
“I… look. I know I’m just a copy of your sister. But still, I just wanted to tell you that I… that she is so, so grateful that you’ve stuck by her this whole time, even when it’s been hard. And she loves you very much.” The AI’s tone faltered slightly as she spoke.
Pietro coughed, swallowing hard and turning to the side to hide his face slightly. “I know,” he mumbled.
“Nat,” she said next.
Natasha had been watching me throughout the conversation. She turned her head slightly so she could look at the AI’s hologram while she spoke directly to her. “I’m here.”
“I… I don’t know what I am to you. What she is to you. And I guess now I’ll never get to find out. Not really.” She let out yet another heavy sigh. “There’s something important I want to tell you, because she’s too scared to do it. This is probably the absolute worst way to do this, but I don’t think I’m ever going to have another chance to so I’m going to let myself be a little selfish here. Wanda, sorry, but I’m doing this for me as much as I am for you.”
I froze. Was she…?
“I love you.”
Nat smiled, her eyes shimmering, and she turned her head from the AI to look at me again. I couldn’t move. I could hardly breathe. “I love you, too,” she said, voice threatening to break.
There was a moment of silence before Wanda-3 spoke again. “…I know you were talking to her. And I know that you might just be saying it because this is an emotionally charged moment and it’d feel bad not to say it back. But, god, that felt really good to hear.”
It really, really did. I didn’t know what to say, so I reached out a hesitant hand. Natasha caught it in hers, squeezing it, and smiled again.
“That’s… that’s all I had to say. All the things that had to be said, anyway,” Wanda-3 said, her tone melancholic but somehow satisfied at the same time. “If it’s okay, I’d like to be alone for a little bit before Tony and Shuri get back to work.”
I nodded dumbly, finding my voice again. “Okay. Sure. Um. We’ll… we can talk some more later?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said, though I had a feeling that if she had a face she would have smiled. “I mean, we will talk, obviously, but… I think it’d be better if we stayed focused on what needs to be done, rather than risk making things any worse.”
“…Okay.” I understood what she meant. It was probably better for me to not to risk getting emotionally attached, given we were expecting that she wouldn’t survive. It still felt shitty to think of it like that, though.
The three of us filtered out of the room. I felt worse than I had when we’d gone in, but lighter somehow. Natasha caught me sneaking a glance in her direction and smiled at me and I felt my pulse quicken. “Well,” I said, trying to inject a bit of lightness into my tone and failing miserably. “That fucking sucked.”
She ran her hand down my arm, lifting my hand and threading her fingers through mine as she pulled gently, forcing me to look her in the eyes. “Do you regret it?” she asked, gently.
“Not yet.” I smiled sadly. “Ask me again once this is all over.”