After Westview, Wanda needed a way out. To escape the world that surrounded her with memories of the people she lost. And what's better than leaving the world altogether?
Set after Wandavision
Crossover with The Dark Knight Trilogy
The Party at Bruce's newly rebuilt Manor was exhausting for Wanda. So many superficial people, all there trying to leech off the status and wealth of those surrounding them. And it looked like Bruce hated it himself.
Wanda couldn't help but compare him to the billionaire she used to know, Tony Stark. Whilst Tony loved his parties, Bruce only hosted them to uphold his image as a distraction, because who would ever think a playboy and party animal was secretly fighting crime in a batsuit?
Wanda had to admit it was a smart technique. If she hadn't already known, she also wouldn't think it was him, probably just some other rich guy, since who else could have all the gadgets Batman had?
It was quite strange talking to the human Bruce after everything that happened with his dark side. I guess you could say some sort of bond was established. A shared trauma and life since Rachel was their best and quite frankly, only friend. And maybe it was the fact that they knew each other's secrets that led to that bond growing.
After the party, Bruce and Wanda had spoken much more than they used to, with the Bat even asking for her help sometimes. But only when he was going up against a huge group of criminals or needed help moving something, like a rusting train left behind in the abandoned tunnels under the city.
There was still buzz around the city of people wanting to know the mysterious woman who held up Gotham General's identity, so when there were reported sightings of a woman clad in scarlet with the same colour coming out of her hands, that buzz increased. Now, the media was calling her a witch, devil and funnily enough, the scarlet witch, something that got a chuckle out of Wanda when she first read it considering back on her earth, it was the name for her very existence, not some alias.
Yet, she embraced it. It no longer carried the weight it did before. She would not destroy but preserve. Whilst Batman was pursuing criminals and trying to stomp put crime rings, the Scarlet Witch was putting out fires, keeping people's homes intact, even visiting patients in hospitals to heal superficial wounds, removing some strain from the institutions. The Scarlet Witch was slowing easing its way into Gotham's good book, not beating people up helped with that.
Of course there were still those who were scared of her and tried to warn others of the possibility she could turn on them and they would be defenseless, but there would always be people like that, so she paid them no mind. If she did, they would get what they wanted, to make her the villain. She had let people's words get to her before and she didn't need it happening again, not when everything in her real life was going so well.
Her friendship with Rachel was stronger than ever. They practically did everything together. And Wanda was asked to be the future Mrs Dent's maid of honour! Yes, Rachel was going to get married and Bruce was fine with it because he had finally moved on from his childhood crush, so he was invited, because no one wants a jealous ex souring the mood.
Now in the professional world, Wanda was doing well for herself. She was good enough to not have to rely on her powers anymore, learning a lot on the job, in books and from doing online courses. She could now say semi-confidently that she was a psychiatrist. She was still lacking the degree.
Wanda had made some friends at Arkham Asylum, becoming more comfortable at the otherwise uncomfortable building. Her boss though, Dr Strange, still weirded her out. Every so often he would be obsessive about Batman and recently about her alter ego. This paired with patients going missing and Bruce telling her that he finds them on the streets with genetic mutations made her even more suspicious of the psychiatry chief. But without any evidence of criminal activity, she couldn't exactly do anything. This wasn't the Avengers, where S.H.I.E.L.D did the digging and sent the heroes to put a stop to it. Wanda was on her own now and she didn't want to risk being fired by accusing her boss of something she couldn't back up.
If it wasn't for her one rule, Wanda would've read his mind and put this all to rest, but she couldn't break it. Not using magic in anything that was connected to her normal life, was vital if she wanted to become less reliant on her abilities and of her supposed destiny. She didn't have to nor want to be defined by her chaos magic, by the moniker, Scarlet Witch.
Whilst she wished Wanda Maximoff could die, so she could truly start anew, she knew she couldn't. She had simply gone through too much to ever forget it, but she learnt to use it as a learning experience. To help her live a better life now as Natalie Stark and it was working. And Wanda had made some stupid decisions in her life, so Natalie was going to make good ones this time, like investigating Hugo Strange before confronting him. Like making more friends so she wasn't alone. Like having a life outside of the heroic one. Like moving on instead of living in grief. Like not creating kids out of nothing and tethering them to a forcefield around an entire town, enslaving the people within. Yeah...that one Wanda knew she wouldn't be able to live down.
And maybe, just maybe, getting to know Bruce Wayne a little better. She would never admit it to him, but he was starting to grow on her.
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Sorry for the lacklustre chapter, just wanted to set up Wanda's life at this point before delving into the second act's story. I'm making Wanda use her powers less and less to actually make this book interesting since everyone else in the dark knight trilogy have like no powers 💀 need to nerf Miss Maximoff a little bit otherwise this would be very short. But don't worry, have something exciting planned for later down the line ;)
