Me, Strange and America Chavez stand up and observe our surroundings from the rooftop. "Surprised you didn't puke" America scoffs.
"That's not my first weird trip, kid" Strange tells her. "So. This is New York in the Multiver-" he is interrupted by the sound of me throwing up into a chimney.
Both of them watch me puke two more times before i recover. I stand up straight wiping dirt off my suit, "okay I'm sorry to whoever's house that is and first thing I need to do is buy gum."
Doctor Strange takes his Cloak off and examines it. It has a nasty gash on it. "Yeah. You got pretty dinged up." Strange puts the Cloak back on him. "We'll get you fixed."
"Why do you speak to that rag like it's a living person?" I question with a scoff.
Strange looks at me offended but decides not to shoot me with a comeback. "All right, America. You've gotta open a portal to get us back there right now."
"I don't know how" America pleads shrugging.
Strange sighs out of exhaustion and stress, "You just did it."
"Not on purpose" America states.
"Wong is back there alone with Wanda and I'm the only hope he has" strange tells the girl.
"I can't control my powers" America admits looking embarrassed and defeated.
"You must be able to control it somehow" strange yells. "Even I could-"
"Strange!" I yell. Strange turns to me looking pissed off, more pissed of than I've ever seen him. "Shut the fuck up! Not everyone is as perfect as you! I couldn't control my powers, not everyone is like you strange. Can't you see you're scaring her by yelling at her."
Strange turns to America and sees her walking back, and he realises that he is bringing up bad memories of his multiversal self. "Sorry. Well, what about this universe's version of you? Maybe she can control her powers."
"This universe doesn't have a me" America tells us.
"What?" I question. My face scrunches in confusion. How can there not be a variant?
"None of them do" America adds sighing.
"But how do you know that?" Strange asks.
"Because I've looked" America admits with defeat laced in her tone. "And because I never dream."
"It's okay" i smile. "Even if you could get us back there, we have no way of fighting Wanda" I chuckle to try and lighten the mood but they both still look miserable.
Americas face lightens up looking at strange, that's an idea face. "What about the Book of Vishanti?"
"What about it?" Strange questions.
"Other you thought it could stop whoever was after me" America tells us.
"Yeah, well, good for other me" Strange scoffs. He clearly is annoyed that we're trapped here and can't get home. "He's not here, is he? I don't know where it is. So unless there's another other me."
I look up at strange with hope and he sighs knowing that i have an idea, and he knows most of my ideas are never smart. "We need to go find-"
"Other other me" strange guesses with a chuckle.
We walk through an alleyway into a busy street of this universes New York. We all look around, what catches me by surprise is the rainbow clouds in the sky. I quickly pull out my phone and take a photo, Morgan will love that.
I notice people walking past me and Strange and giving us confused and dirty looks. Fuck. Me and Strange are probably evil in this universe.
We reach a stop light, i go to cross the road but a car comes zooming at me, Strange grabs my arm and pulls me back. I look up at the light making sure I'm not colour blind, "They go on red?" I question yelling in confusion.
"Rule number one of Multiversal travel" America begins as we make stand with other people waiting to cross, "You don't know anything."
I nod as I try to understand that go = red so green = stop, right? The light switches from green to red. "It's red" we all begin to cross the road and no cars come at us this time and other pedestrians follow.
"So, what's rule number two?" Strange asks, he looks to turn to America but she isn't standing there. "America? America?" We reach the sidewalk and look around for the girl.
I feel a tap on my shoulder, I turn and she's stood there with what looks like pizza balls. I sigh with relief as she smiles. "Rule number two? Find food. Preferrably, pizza. Pizza balls."
"How'd you pay for that?" I ask. Not being rude but this girl has zero money, so either she stole money, the food was free or she stole the food.
"It was free" America shrugs. Grabbing a pizza ball from the bowl. "Food's free in most universes, actually" she takes a bite out of the ball she's holding. "It's weird you guys have to pay for it."
We walk past the pizza ball stand, "Hey. You didn't pay for that!"
"Crap" America mutters. "Maybe it's not free here."
"Pizza Poppa always gets paid" the guy states walking towards us. Why is he talking in third person? Don't ask me, that might be what they do in this universe.
"Alright, Pizza Poppa" Strange sighs. "Relax, she's just a kid."
"Relax yourself there, Doctor Strange" he scoffs while chuckling calling him Doctor Strange "Where did you get this cape from anyway?" He grabs onto Stranges cape and tugs on it. "Oh, that feels authentic."
"It's not a cape, it's a cloak" strange corrects in the most sassiest tone ever. "And I suggest you let go."
"You took this whole suit from the Strange Museum, didn't ya?" Pizza guy assumes while yelling, causing people to look over and give me and strange even more looks.
I mean strange isn't dressed like these people, America just looks like a normal teenager, but I do look like these people, every single person that walks past is wearing black and I'm wearing a black suit lined with gold. I mean I could be wearing a jumpsuit? I guess it would look better if I had a leather blazer on or something like that.
"Strange Museum?" Strange questions, why would there be a museum dedicated to him?
"You're a taker" pizza chuckles. "Why don't you take some mustard, huh?!" He goes to squirt mustard over strange but strange stops him simply by raising his hand and holding it out.
He aims the mustard at pizza guy and causes him to squirt it all over his face. He drops the mustard, strange puts the man's hand into a fist and gets him to punch himself repeatedly. Me and America look at each other and chuckle while sharing the pizza balls.
Strange does a dramatic twirl and starts to walk away, "Come on. It's not permanent."
Me and America catch up to him. "Is it gonna stop in a few minutes?" America asks.
"About three weeks" strange corrects with a proud smile spread from cheek to cheek. We all chuckle as we hear the guys screams and him banging his head on metal surfaces.
•
We all work through some gardens, which have beautiful flowers all around. "Those universes we went through, were we paint in one of them?" I ask.
"Yeah" America chuckles. "You don't wanna get stuck in there" she says in a tone like she's been stuck there before. "It's really hard to eat."
"How many universes have you been through?" Strange asks the girl.
"Seventy-two?" America hesitates. "Seventy-three, counting this one."
"That's a lot" strange chuckles. He steps onto some disk which glows around his feet.
"Memory Lane. Replay your significant memories, now in a discounted price. We remember, so you don't forget."
A glowing circle scans strange before the scenery in front of us changing to a restaurant on a balcony, where him and Christine are sat having a meal. "This is pretty fancy" Christine states with a smile across her face. "Sure you didn't have to take out another student loan?"
"Nah. I just sold one of those kidneys that we operated on last week" strange lies while chuckling. I can't help but laugh at strange in this memory, he has jet black hair and looks so much younger. He looks dweebey.
"So, I got you a little something" Christine tells him, pulling out a long slim box from her handbag and placing it beside strange. "Congratulations."
"What is it?" Strange asks with a smile spread across his face.
"Open it and see" Christine laughs.
Strange opens up the box and it's a watch, "Christine, this is" strange stutters, "This is amazing. Thank you."
"We don't have time for this" strange scoffs walking away, obviously this memory is bad as Stephen didn't get the girl in the end.
America paces towards the disk and stands on it. "Memory Lane. Replay your significant memories, now in a discounted price. We remember, so you don't forget." America gets scanned and the scenery changes to a woods, a little girl and two older women watching her.
"Where's this?" I ask while smiling.
"Home" America smiles while watching the memory. Her younger self runs towards her moms with flowers in her hands. "My moms." They both hug her and take the flowers from her, placing kisses on her forehead. America turns back to the flowers and her mom puts the flowers in her other moms hair.
Young America picks up another flower smiling at her moms but a bee flies towards the flower and lands on her hand. Her younger self screams, her eyes glow dropping the flower, a star shaped portal opens from the sky and her moms are sucked in, America holds onto a tree but is later sucked in, the portal closes leaving the woods deserted.
I notice tears running down her face before she gets off the disc and starts to walk away, "Yeah, you're right. This is just a waste of time."
"Hey, kid" strange sighs grabbing her arm, "That was the first time that you opened a portal, right?"
"It doesn't matter" America sighs trying to get away from Strange.
"It does matter" strange tells her. "You lost your parents."
"I didn't lose them" America corrects. "I killed them."
"No. No, you did not" I tell her. "Don't even think that. You did not kill your moms."
"Okay, I opened a portal with the powers I can't control, and sent them to a random, probably deadly universe with no way to escape" America scoffs.
"Listen, if your moms are anything like their daughter" I smile, "They survived. I'm sure you'll meet them again someday. Everyone always crosses paths again. Wait."
I walk towards the disc on the floor and take a deep breath, "liv you don't have to" America tells me with a smile, "you don't know what it will show."
"It'll be okay" I say. I close my eyes stepping onto the disc and the blue scanner rises.
"Memory Lane. Replay your significant memories, now in a discounted price. We remember, so you don't forget."
The scenery in front of me changed to a familiar training room in the now destroyed avengers compound. My thirteen year old self is punching a punching bag repeatedly with tears streaming down her face.
I remember this day, this was the day I lost my temper at school and blasted two girls that were picking on my friends into the school fountain. This was the day I started to see myself as a monster again and i refused to go to school after that, which caused me to loose contact with my friends of then and train repeatedly.
My younger self continued the hit the punching bag, pink slowly starting to form around my hands as I hit harder every time, a knock came from behind me, I see my dads head poking into the room holding a plate of nachos with cheese sauce over them, "I got nachos."
"I'm not hungry" I told him going back to punching.
"Liv" my dad sung, "you need to eat, besides I didn't make these nat did and Steve helped her with the sauce and he pissed her off so she sent him away."
I chuckled turning to face my dad again, "turns out I am actually hungry now" I walked towards the door and put into the living area where, Wanda, Steve, Nat, Vision, Sam, Rhodey and now my dad are all sat. Each of them holding a plate of nachos and eating.
My younger self sat down beside Nat, "soooo" My dad began, "liv wanna talk about what happened at school today."
"I'm good thanks" I smiled not looking up at everyone.
I mean who would want to talk about throwing two thirteen year olds into a fountain and exposing herself as weird and abnormal. If i ever went back to that place, everyone would've whispered and talked about me, you might be thinking 'that's just what teenagers do.' Yes that's right. But it would be so much worse because I'd be labelled as a monster, and if the news found out, oh I would've never lived that down.
"Just a bad day and I'm not going back there. I'm homeschooled now."
I felt my head ache, and I see Wanda searching my younger mind in the corner of my eye, I raised my hands letting all the energy out and breaking everything around me, "don't."
I step off the disc as I feel my head start to feel dizzy and i hear whispers, "Olivia, oh Olivia." Wanda.
America holds onto my arm, helping me stand, "Wanda is able to get inside my head."
"What?" Strange questions crouching down to look me in my eyes.
"She is calling me" I tell him, I look at him with worry, "she knows where we are, because of me. This is my fault. I lead her directly to America."
"This isn't your fault liv" strange tells me, hoping that I'll listen to him but he knows I won't.
"Ever since that moment" I point to where my memory was just a few moments ago. "Ever since I was vulnerable that day she's had a way inside me, I don't have defence because she got inside when I was young. Wanda is using me to get to you" I look at America. "I can't go on with you guys, I'll just start a new life in this universe. How hard can it be?"
"No no no" America shrugs, "I am not leaving you here and if Wanda comes after us in this universe we will just have to put up a good fight. And besides she can't travel to another universe, all she knows is where we are."
"She can dreamwalk" Strange tells us.
"Dreamwalk?" I question looking at the older man with confusion. "That sounds like a more fancier way of saying sleepwalking."
"Dream walking is taking control of your body in a different universe" strange explains, "it's dark magic, and Wanda will do it because she's corrupted by the darkhold."
•