Imperfect Crystals ║ WandaVision

Chapter 22 - Weirder And Weirder

Halloween was Keira's favorite holiday.

Not only because of the costumes, for the opportunity to slip into somebody else's skin for a night, but also because of the candy. She had always had a sweet tooth, and Halloween was the candy holiday.

Plus, she liked to play pranks on people. Or at least, she had.

In later years, she had instead started to appreciate the traditions of the holiday. Or rather, the roots of it. To dress up in scary costumes and masks to keep the spirits away, who had the ability to walk the Earth that night when the veil between the dead and the living was at its thinnest.

But of course, she never lost her love for the holiday.

All around her, kids were running around, laughing loudly with their candy buckets rattling. Keira watched them with a half-smile on her face, for it made her miss her own boys. She felt terrible for missing their first Halloween but she couldn't stay in the dark any longer. She needed to find out what was outside Westview if she wished to know what was happening within it.

A rather cool breeze to her face brought Keira out of her head and she blinked to focus back on the real world.

She hadn't paid attention to where her feet were leading her, but now she saw that she had ended up at the small cemetery. It didn't even have a church but rather just a chapel and the grounds weren't too impressive either.

As she stood there, with her hand on the black iron gate, she felt a strange need to enter the graveyard. She could not say why, but she decided to trust her gut. The gate creaked loudly as she opened it, causing her to wince slightly.

"Shh, shush! We don't wanna anger any spirits here." Keira whispered to herself as she continued to walk. It was a good thing that it was still light out, or she might've been a lot more paranoid.

Her eyes jumped over every gravestone as she passed and by some of the more ornate ones, she even stopped to admire the handiwork.

To shape the stone and carve out such delicate letters required both skill and patience.

None of the names stood out to her until one made her stop in her tracks.

Romanoff.

That name rang such a bell that it nearly knocked the air out of her lungs.

Keira grabbed the gravestone closest to her just to remain on her feet. It shouldn't have affected her that much, but she could recall the same feeling in her chest when Agnes had oh-so-casually mentioned the very same name, only to brush it off back at the garage.

But now, Keira knew she hadn't misheard back then.

With slightly tentative steps, she walked closer to the grave and kneeled down by it, careful to not accidentally disturb any of the decorations. Quite a few flowers and a small teddy bear lay before the stone. It looked relatively new, considering that the grass hadn't quite managed to grow back over the dirt.

"Natasha Romanoff." Keira read aloud, her head slightly tilted to the side. "Who were you and why can't I remember you properly?"

Her mind showed her a faceless redhead, something that would've been terrifying in any other situation but the warm feeling blooming in her chest as she read the name, told her that it was nothing to be frightened of.

It was like being embraced by a long-time lost friend.

Keira raised one of her hands and gently traced the letters of the name while she read the rest of the words on the gravestone. "Daughter. Sister. Avenger..."

Avenger...

That word also rang a bell, although much deeper down.

Her fingers fell to the hourglass symbol below the name, feeling the grooves in the stone. Blue and red blurs overwhelmed her vision, like the static of an old TV. It swallowed her whole.

Pieces of memories flashed past her retinas. Unfamiliar environments warped so quickly in front of her that it made her seasick. Her body felt odd, like it wasn't her own. She wasn't in control.

She caught glimpses of a redhead throwing daggers at training dummies, each blade hitting the center of the targets' centers. Other times, the same woman was firing bullets at a rapid pace, never missing once.

Her aim was truly incredible.

And sometimes... Keira even saw herself.

It was an odd experience to see herself from another person's view. But somehow, it made sense why the body she was in didn't feel like her own.

When another memory flashed past, she saw herself sparring with the very same redhead.

"Natasha..."

They looked like two jaguars circling each other, both as observant and ferocious as the other. It was like trying to force two magnets with the same poles together. None of them could beat the other down. Both so elegant, almost like a dance, albeit the Keira was not quite as graceful as the redhead.

"Don't let your footwork lag behind, Key."

Her world warped again, and this time, she was faced with herself.

Whatever body she was in, she had no control. It moved on its own, and she had no say in how. And as the fight against herself ensued, she spotted multiple weaknesses in her own defense, although her host did not.

It was strange.

The longer Keira watched herself in the fight, the more she realized that the slowness of her opposite self was purposeful.

Whenever her host tried to attack, the blonde opposite simply dodged to the side, never retaliating more than with a teasing poke to the side.

Clearly, someone was having a bit too much fun with training.

It took quite a while, and since Keira knew all of her own tricks, she saw that the next attack that she 'failed' to dodge, was on purpose as well. But she felt the pride roar in her host's body, and her opposite version did nothing to punctuate it either, but rather praised it to build confidence.

"You learn fast, Wanda. That's good. Use that to your advantage. Notice your enemy's patterns, learn their weaknesses and their strengths. Their tricks. And you'll be unstoppable."

"And an unstoppable woman can make the world bend its knees before her." Natasha's voice chimed in from seemingly out of nowhere.

Keira retracted her hand from the gravestone with a gasp.

Her ears rang like a symphony of alarm bells and her head began to throb. Rubbing her temples, a loud groan left her lips. "Ow. What the actual hell?"

If this was meant to clear things up, it didn't.

She felt more confused than she had ever been before. But judging from what she had seen, the gravestone must somehow contain some of Wanda's suppressed memories.

It was the only logical explanation, although Keira had no idea how it was possible.

The ringing in her ears slowly started to subside but not before dragging another groan past her lips. She could feel a headache growing in the back of her mind. "Great. Just another damn thing to discuss with my lovely wife." She sighed and shook her head. Her knees were becoming numb from kneeling on the cold ground and she pushed herself back up on her feet.

Like always, her joints cracked loudly in protest. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I hear you."

At least, Natasha had regained her face.

Always something among all the madness. Or well, that's what Keira tried to tell herself as she began to walk. If she hadn't lost her mind before the night was over, it would be a miracle.