New Avengers: The New Initiative

CHAPTER VII

WANDA MAXIMOFF'S POV

Every second, every minute, every hour, and every day that had come and gone, Wanda had grown angrier and angrier, determined and bloodthirsty for vengeance. Her entire country, the people who once lauded her heroic endeavors and hailed her as a hero, turned against her. They all stood on the sidelines and watched her arrive home in enhanced collar and handcuffs. They all stood there as the officers openly declared charge after charge against her. On her way to the courtroom for her public trial, the authorities paraded her around the streets like a caged animal; the civilians threw rocks, trash, and rotten food at her, shouted obscenities at her, and treated her like a villain and a monster. Not a single lawyer wanted to defend her; not a single lawyer would allow the government to make them volunteer to represent her. The main consensus was that it would be too detrimental and destructive to their reputations and businesses; the courts forced her to testify and defend herself throughout the whole trial.

It wasn't enough; no matter what she had said, it wasn't enough to change the corrupted minds of the judge and jurors. They convicted her, found her guilty of all accused violations, and sentenced her to death by lethal injection. No one mourned for her that day; rather, they all applauded her gradual and excruciatingly unbearable death. It was all black for a moment until Wanda strangely arose in a new location with an ancient building in its center, a watery floor, and a blood-red-orange sky in the form of a constant sundown. A middle-aged man and a middle-aged woman stood in the interior of that ancient structure.

It was Wanda's father and mother.

Wanda almost didn't want to believe it; she thought it was another cruel trick the people who backstabbed her desired to play on her. She assumed that her parents were a hallucination and they would instantly vanish from existence. But they were still there. Wanda excitedly sprinted toward them, tears happily streaming down her cheeks and arms stretching out to hug them. However, the moment she almost had them in their grasp, her father turned around and gazed Wanda down with a harsh stare, making Wanda halt in her tracks. Her mother then turned around and looked at her with a broken-hearted and disappointed expression.

"Wanda... How could you?" Her mother asked in a depressed and disappointed tone.

"What? Mama, what do you mean by that?"

"Wanda, don't pretend that you don't know. Do you know how much you disappointed your mother and me? Are you aware of how much destruction and devastation you caused?"

"Papa, you don't understand. It was for the good of everyone. It was what a true hero would have done."

"Then what about what happened in Johannesburg? Was that for the good of everyone? What about Lagos? Germany? Sokovia?"

"What has HYDRA done to you? What has that so-called Captain America put into my little girl's head?"

"Mama--"

"And speaking of that, why would you think it was okay to volunteer in an experiment with a terrorist organization? And willingly offer to assist a mass-murdering android? And don't give me the excuse for you seeking revenge against Tony Stark. You know he didn't have anything to do with our deaths."

"I didn't know that until recently!"

"It doesn't matter, Wanda. Regardless of whether Tony Stark made the weapon, he wasn't the one who fired it on our apartment. Besides, if anything, we should have known better than to place you and Pietro in danger by choosing to stay in that apartment."

"Papa--"

"Wanda, please don't try to make up any excuses because there isn't anything you can say that will change anything. We have already chewed your brother out for his responsibility in that Ultron incident. He didn't have an opportunity to escape that, but at least when he was offered a second chance, he didn't take it for granted and genuinely became the hero you claim you are."