Scarlet Widow One-Shots

Casting the Shadows

All rights go to hpprofessor1 on AO3

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Westview was not a mistake. That, Wanda was sure of. She needed that time to process her grief. Of course, creating her own children and watching them disappear before her eyes was another grief altogether, but she felt a kind of absolution about it, knowing all of it was a bit unnatural given the two had aged 10 years in less than 48 hours. Was it intentional that she also enslaved the whole town along with her? No. She didn’t even know the whole thing was her own doing until hours before she left. She still felt incredible guilt over it anyway.

The mistake was trying to explain to the town that she did not share her pain with them on purpose. They didn’t understand and they never would. All they knew was pain. She couldn’t blame them for that, all things considered.

That was why she had to leave. No one would hear her out if she tried to explain herself, Hayward made that crystal clear, so she removed herself from the situation. Before leaving the town though, Wanda wandered into Agatha’s basement, retrieving the grimmerie she had glimpsed when captured by the woman. She needed to figure out what exactly Agatha meant when she called her the Scarlet Witch and she figured this would be the best place to start.

Wanda was now secluding herself in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. She wasn’t even sure what country she had fled to, only seeking out an off-the-grid reprieve from society to sort out the revelations she had discovered while in Westview. The cabin was small, only consisting of three rooms, a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, but she didn’t mind. If anything, it reminded her of her meager beginnings in Sokovia, and was comforted by that thought.

Wanda had been in the cabin for about a month, if her measurement of time was correct. She was not keeping track of the days that passed, having no obligation to be anywhere or see anyone, so it was only a rough guess. In that time, she managed to learn a bit more about herself and was able to practice more with her “chaos magic”, as Agatha had called it.

She had mastered the ability to astral project within a certain range. This made it easier for her to complete her daily tasks around the cabin while reading the grimmerie in her astral form. She knew from her brief interactions with Dr. Strange that her astral form could go basically anywhere she would like it to go, but after trying and failing to move it further than a mile, she decided she needed a bit more practice and research.

She couldn’t help but to think that her practice would progress much quicker if she had Natasha around. During her time in the compound before everything turned to chaos, Natasha had turned into her go-to person for help. It initially began with Wanda’s desire to learn more about hand-to-hand combat, Natasha more than happy to help her out, acknowledging the importance of not relying solely on her powers which had been a bit unpredictable at the time.

The two had formed a friendly relationship after practicing with each other often, Wanda finding that she sought out the older woman more and more for things she was unsure of or just for companionship after feeling so lost and downtrodden from the collapse of Sokovia and the disaster that had been Lagos. The two had some sort of connection Wanda couldn’t put a name to. They just understood each other without needing to speak, simply showing up when the other needed comfort and giving the other person space when they needed it.