CHAPTER ONE:
WOMAN IN RED
THE WARMTH OF THE SUN WAS THE FIRST THING WANDA MAXIMOFF FELT. The next was the pain pounding in her head.
Wanda groaned. She sat up, bringing her hand to her head. Was this what the afterlife was supposed to be? An empty forest and a raging headache?
But she shouldn't be feeling any pain. She died. She felt herself die. She turned to ash.
But here she was, living, breathing, with a pounding headache.
Wanda climbed to her feet, stumbling. Breathe. Just breathe.
Vis.
Where was Vision?
But she couldn't find him. She couldn't breathe. Her breath caught in her throat, a red mist dancing around her fingers. Wanda clenched her fists, closing her eyes.
All she saw was that image of Thanos ripping the mind stone out of his head, Visions gray body hitting the ground with a light thud. He was an empty shell.
Nothing but an empty shell.
Wanda opened her eyes.
And she saw... a tree?
No, a tree stump. A huge, tree stump in the middle of the forest.
That wasn't there before. This wasn't even where she died in Wakanda. She woke up somewhere else.
Wanda tapped her earpiece. "Hello? Sam?" Static. "Steve? Barnes? Can anyone hear me?"
Nothing but static. She tried for Nat. Nothing. No T'Challa or Banner either. Just empty static.
Well, shit. Wanda thought.
Wanda started walking, not knowing where she was going, hoping to find her way back to civilization. The more she walked the more she realized this looked less and less like Wakanda. Different trees. Different air.
Wanda couldn't explain it, but this was some place foreign. Wanda was ecstatic when she came to a road. So she wasn't in an endless forest after all. That gave her some relief at the least.
Wanda followed the sign, making sure the cars that passed her ignored her. She came to the final conclusion that she was definitely not in Wakanda by a simple look at the cars. Now she just needed to figure out where.
And how.
Wanda came to a sign, looking both ways to cross the street before she read it. She didn't want to die twice. How uneventful it'd be for Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, to get hit by a car, after she had turned to dust about an hour ago.
HYDRA would laugh in her face.
Wanda read the sign, narrowing her eyes
WELCOME TO BEACON HILLS, CALIFORNIA!
She could hear Strucker laughing in her head. Hear those terrible guards mocking her.
How in the absolute hell did she end up in California?
➵➶➵
AFTER A LITTLE MIND DIGGING THROUGH THE TRUCK DRIVER KIND ENOUGH TO GIVE HER A RIDE, Wanda discovered that she was not where she was supposed to be.
More so, not when she was supposed to be.
No Snap. No Thanos, no alien invasion. No fifty percent of all living things vanishing. Everything was right where they were supposed to be.
Well, except for Wanda, of course.
It was September 2017.
Not April 2018.
And that really pissed her off
She was sent back in time. She dug through the truck drivers memory more. There was no memory of the Avengers, of Loki or the attack on New York. No Ultron. Or Hydra. Or SHIELD. No Iron Man or Captain America. No her.
Maybe Wanda forgot that in 2017, she was a war criminal on the run with Steve Rogers.
But now?
Now— now Wanda was just some random girl, picked up on the side of the road.
She did a mental reign check.
Wanda was alive. Check.
Wanda was breathing. Check.
The Snap didn't happen. Check.
The Avengers don't exist. Check.
Wanda, doesn't exist. Check.
Wanda still had her powers. Check.
Oh boy, did this really suck. Wanda was trapped in some alternate dimension where she wasn't real. Where her team, wasn't real.
Here, Wanda wasn't an Avenger. Wanda wasn't a war criminal, or monster to the public. Here she wasn't a HYDRA experiment. Here, she was just some girl in a strange, red get up.
Well, she also had terrifying powers. But no one really needed to know that, did they?
She thanked the truck driver, stepping out of the vehicle. She had asked him to drop her off at the local library. Wanda entered, ignoring the strange looks she got, and sat herself down at the public computers. Wanda pulled off her gloves, feeling annoyed by the material. They were meant for fighting, not a public library. She typed into google:
AVENGERS.
Nothing.
CAPTAIN AMERICA.
All that came up was a picture of "Uncle Sam."
WANDA MAXIMOFF.
Nothing.
TONY STARK.
A Game of Thrones character came up, who only shared the surname.
Wanda glared at the computer. Wanda clenched her fists, feeling them start to shake. She could feel her eyes start to glow red. She could not have a meltdown here. Not down. She could not put all these people in danger. She closed her eyes and started to count down from ten.
Ten. Wanda didn't exist.
Nine. Wanda was a ghost to the world.
Eight. Her team is gone.
Seven. Wanda was sent back a year in the past.
Six. HYDRA is gone. They can't hurt her.
Five. SHIELD and the Avengers are gone. They can't protect her.
Four. Wanda was alone.
Three. She could start over, in this small, creepy, unsettling town in California.
Two. Vision was gone. He couldn't help her.
One. Wanda opened her eyes, seeing the mist around her fist die down. She examined her surroundings, no one noticed her. Either head first into a book or looking at a screen. Wanda didn't lose control.
Okay. She needed a plan. She couldn't just sleep on the street. She didn't like using her powers to get free stuff, but until she could find a permanent place to stay, it seemed to be the only option.
Wanda erased the search history from the computer, turning it off. Wanda stood up, pushing her chair back in. She got her confirmation. This was a different world from her own. And the Snap brought her here.
But, was it really just her? Around three and a half billion people died, just on earth. But three and a half billion people appearing out of nowhere would cause a mass panic, and she for sure would've heard of it.
She knew Barnes disappeared. She saw him. She didn't see Sam, but she could feel him die. She could feel half the universe die and she absolutely hated it. Maybe it was a mercy of Thanos for the snap to take her to.
But she wasn't dead.
Wanda was alive.
Wanda was breathing.
Wanda's heart was beating.
And she was going to figure things out.
Wanda took one last look at the computer, and turned to leave. A plan started to formulate in her head. Maybe she could—
Wanda's senses went haywire. Someone was watching her. Someone was thinking about her. Someone had noticed her, and she wanted to curse them for interrupting her train of thought.
Wanda's eyes fell on a boy, which was one way to put it. She examined him, his aura was powerful but... off. His jaw was crooked and Wanda couldn't tell if that was natural or a defect from being punched in the face to many times. He was about her age— eighteen, maybe a little younger. His dark eyes stared at her, and her green eyes stared right back.
He had strong walls, built around his head. But Wanda easily knocked them down.
She saw flashing eyes, different colors. Some blue, some yellow, a few red. Claws and fangs. A black creature holding a sword, going through an archer girl—
Wanda exited his mind, not wishing to see more. Maybe it was from some stupid teen drama show he watched. But she saw him in those memories. Glowing red eyes.
Wanda shook her head, her eyes turning away from him and proceeding to leave the library. She'll add that as one more thing to look into. Despite the horrifying glowing eyes, it gave Wanda some hope that she was not the only monster that roamed this world.
➵➶➵
THE WOMAN— THE GIRL IN RED CAUGHT SCOTTS ATTENTION THE MOMENT SHE ENTERED THE LIBRARY. Scott saw her calculating eyes scan the library, looking for any sign of a threat. Scott put his eyes down, not wishing for her to see him.
Scott had been at the library to do some background research on the Ghost Riders. They had pass, yes. Stiles was okay. Peter Hale was annoying as ever, but he was okay as well.
And Scott was terrified of them coming back when his guard was down, not even realizing that someone important might be gone.
They were defeated, but Scott was paranoid.
Scott watched the redhead— strawberry blonde? Stiles taught him how to see the difference. He watched her sit down at the computer. Immediately going to google, typing and retyping and getting disappointed each time.
Scott saw her close her eyes, closing her fists. Scott thought he saw a weird, red mist form around them. But as soon as it started it went away.
Well, she was clearly frustrated.
Before she left, she made eye contact with Scott. Scott couldn't look away. It lasted for five seconds. Scott counted. He didn't notice that his head was hurting until after she broke eye contact. She rushed out of the library, Scott had every instinct to follow her, track her down.
But instead he went to her computer, curiously. He wanted to see what she was looking up.
To his, of course luck; she wiped the history. Scott noticed the pair of gloves she had left, picking them up. She must've forgotten them.
They were laced with her scent of course. It was strange, powerful. Smelt like firewood and lighting mixed with blood and iron.
And it wasn't human.
➵➶➵
So sorry that this took so long. I'm so excited for this. This is a bit unedited besides a little sweep through with Grammarly because I wanted to get it up. Please leave opinions and questions in the comments!
Till next time, loves.