"This is so lame. I can't believe you're making them return all the candy." Pietro grumbled as you walked with him and the kids in the street as the sun had set.
"I can't believe what a bad influence you are." Wanda scolded shocked.
"Uncle P, guess what?" Tommy raced back over with Billy, excitement clear in his voice.
"They've got full-size candy bars a few blocks up. Mom, can we go?" Billy begged with his brother. Tommy suddenly raced off in a blue blur before holding up two candy bars proudly.
"Next stop, Cavity Town!" Tommy claimed as you and your siblings stared in amazement and excitement.
"Right on, little dude! Chip off the old Maximoff block, you've got super-speed!" Pietro clapped as he cheered proudly.
"I do?" Tommy asked happily.
"Yeah!" The two high five at their shared powers.
"It's okay, baby, you can- You can take it slow, you can--" Wanda started as he raced around the street. She showed an unamused look while you and Pietro looked around watching him. Wanda suddenly pulled him to a stop with her powers to make him listen to her words. "If you're gonna break the sound barrier, please just take your brother with you." She told him.
"Really?" Billy grew excitemed.
"Really?" Tommy sighed.
"Really! And please just remember to--" Wanda started.
"Don't go past Ellis Avenue." The twins finished for her, having heard the speech a thousand times before.
"We know, Mom. We know." Tommy told her before taking his brothers hand and racing off into the night.
"Hey! Be careful..." Wanda shouted at them.
~~~
"Over here." Clint called the group over towards an empty tent set up on the base.
"We shouldn't hang out here too long." Natasha warned, all of them going inside from the rain that had started.
"Uh, give me two seconds. I just need to hack into the secure network on the base." Darcy pulled up the computer and started typing away at it. "Donezo. Now, we should be able to access the data on Hayward's devices. Oh. That's interesting." She commented, looking quizzically at the screen. "Guys, Hayward figured out a way to look through the boundary." She reported to them all, catching their attention.
"And he didn't share it with the group." Natasha noted as they moved to look at her screen.
"Is this Wanda right here?" Jimmy asked pointing to a dot on the screen that was being tracked.
"No. The program is tracking the decay signature of vibranium." Darcy explained.
"Vision. Wait. Why is Hayward tracking Vision?" Clint questioned in confusion.
"I don't know. This is all I can access so far." Darcy said.
"These other dots, those are Westview residents?" Jimmy asked.
"The ones in Vision's immediate vicinity, yeah." Darcy continued typing to get more information.
"Hayward must have an accurate headcount by now." Clint thought.
"Hmm. And some sense of their well-being." Natasha continued to look.
"Huh... These people, near the edge of town... They're barely moving. Are they alive?" Clint worried for their safety and the extreme situation they had discovered. The monitor beeped and they watched as Visions tracker turned down a street.
"That's it. My way back into the Hex will be here in an hour. Just gotta meet my guy over the ridge. Let's roll." Natasha spoke after checking her phone.
"You can't do that." Darcy worried.
"Sure we can. I'm a whiz at hot-wiring cars." Clint stated with a shrug.
"You can't go back into the Hex." Darcy warned simply.
"Worst case scenario, Wanda removes my free will and puts me in ultra-low-rise jeans." Natasha made a slight joke over the whole problem.
"But you won't be able to help if you are being controlled by her"
"I know what Wanda's feeling and I won't stop until I help her." Natasha stated with determination, only wanting to help the girl who's siblings died to save her.
"Okay." Darcy sighed.
"Okay." Jimmy spoke up with a nod, agreeing to the plan.
"But I'm staying here." Darcy said as they started to walk out.
"Wait, you can't stay here. It's not safe." Clint said as they walked back to her, trying to convince the Astrophysicist to join them.
"What? Darcy, what are you talkin' about?" Natasha asked.
"I haven't made it through Hayward's last firewall. There's something big here. Something that can help us. I know it." Darcy told them with her own determination to help.
"Fine. Fine. I'll drop you the location, you meet us out there as soon as you can." Natasha agreed reluctantly. Natasha lead them out onto the base where Clint hot wired one of the trucks for them to steal.
~~~
"Holy shmacaroni." Pietro gasped at the Halloween festival set up in town.
"Wow!" You gasped as well, walking through a short maze with them.
"Isn't it great?" Wanda asked with a smile at your reactions, proud of what her town had put together.
"Dammit, if Westview, New Jersey isn't charming as hell..." Pietro trailed.
"Now, I know that you think that I've have gone full soccer mom." Wanda said.
"Yeah." Pietro nodded to you before taking a seat on a pile of hay while you waited for the twins to finish trick-or-treating.
"But it really is nice, right?" Wanda offered.
"Yeah." You agreed with your sister, resting your hand on top of hers.
"I think Mom and Dad would've loved it." Pietro spoke as a soft cloud of lost memories covered you.
"Yeah. I think they would have." Wanda agreed.
"Why aren't mom and dad here?" You proposed the question with curiosity, looking to your sister for answers, but knowing deep down they were gone.
"What?" She asked a kid raced by laughing, which caught another question.
"Where were you hiding these kids up 'till now?" Pietro asked next intently.
"What?"
"I assume they were sleeping peacefully in their beds. No need to traumatize beyond the occasional holiday episode cameo, right?" Pietro started his small ramble.
"No..." she protested.
"You and y/n were always the empathetic triplets." Pietro claimed with a shrug.
"I don't... I didn't..."
"Don't get me wrong. You've handled the ethical considerations of this scenario as best you could. Families and couples stay together, most personalities aren't far off from what's underneath, people got better jobs, better haircuts, for sure." Pietro continued as your mind was cut loose as well.
"You don't think it's... wrong?" Wanda asked you both.
"What, are you kidding? I'm impressed! Seriously. It's a big leap from giving people nightmares and shooting red wiggly-woos out of your hands. How'd you even do all this? Hey, I'm not some stranger and I'm not your husband. I'm your brother. You can talk to me." Pietro tried to get her to talk to him about what was going on.
"I don't know how I did it. I... I only remember feeling completely alone. Empty. I just... Endless nothingness." She looked into her lap before looking up to see your dead forms, bruised and bloodied.she looked away with a gasp of horror at what she had seen once again.
"Are you okay?" You asked with a hand in her shoulder.
"I'm fine." She nodded to you, seeing you safe and healthy once more.
"Uh-huh." Pietro didn't believe her and you gave a sceptical nod.
"Somethings going on here Wanda" you told her intently, only trying to help and figure out why you remembered dying at the hands of Thanos.
"What? No"
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Question of the day: what do you think of you and Pietro getting suspicious of Wanda?
Only five chapters left!