Chapter 142
The black stone statue of Lord Vishnu stared impassively over the landscaping work currently being done to repair Kamar-taj’s gardens. I had no idea how it was intact—there weren’t even any cracks in it. The last time I’d seen the thing, I’d ripped it from its shrine and smashed it against one of Phastos’ barriers. It had to be a replica, right? Surely it couldn’t be the same statue. But then, I couldn’t imagine that they happened to have a spare two-ton statue lying around they could just wheel into place, either.
Turning from the mysterious statue, I watched with avid curiosity as two red-robed acolytes stepped through a portal, a heavy pallet stacked high with clay bricks floating in midair between them. At the direction of a more senior sorcerer—an older Asian man in blue, who shot me a guarded look as he worked—the two acolytes moved their load into position near the mostly-repaired outer wall of the grounds. As they headed back the way they’d come, the portal vanishing behind them, the blue-robed man drew a diagram in the air with a few practiced movements, then flicked his hands toward the pallet.
Hundreds of bricks launched themselves into the air, each weaving a complex orbit through the others as they shot over to the partially-assembled outer wall and added a new segment—maybe two metres tall and four across—stacking themselves roughly atop one another. The sorcerer twisted his hand again and the bricks shifted as one, like he was calling a formation of soldiers to attention, and flattened into a perfectly smooth arrangement. Another series of gestures pasted a wave of mortar over the top, which proceeded to intrude itself into the gaps between bricks like it was a living thing, the wall undulating slightly as it shifted to accommodate.
Well, shit. He'd just done what I was pretty sure was an entire days’ worth of work for an ordinary bricklayer in about twenty seconds flat. No wonder the monastery was so surprisingly intact. Apart from a few small incomplete sections, you’d hardly have guessed that two-thirds of Kamar-taj had been rubble a few days ago. I wondered how they kept the rest of Kathmandu from noticing the speed of their repairs—maybe some sort of magical Somebody Else’s Problem Field, at a guess.
“Ms Maximoff,” a familiar voice came from behind me, interrupting my thoughts. Turning, I saw Master Mordo walking briskly toward me.
“Hey,” I returned the greeting. The layering of his green robes was a little different to how I’d seen it before—just a fashion choice, or was there more than simple colour-coding to the sorcerers’ outfits? One day I would actually bother to ask.
He gave me a measured look, glancing around as if to check that I was alone. “What brings you to Kamar-taj?”
“I want to see the Ancient One.”
The sorcerer gave a shallow nod. “I’d ask if she was expecting you, but…”
I snorted. “Yeah.”
He gave a curt gesture with his hand, indicating I should follow him, then turned and headed back toward the entrance to the monastery proper. I felt eyes on us as we moved purposefully through the central courtyard, sorcerers pausing in the middle of their tasks to shoot us surreptitious glances. A small cluster of red-robed acolytes in the far corner stared, speaking in low tones as they watched us pass—quietly enough that a normal person wouldn’t have overheard, but my enhanced hearing still picked up their words. “What is the witch doing here?” “Is something happening?” “I heard she was the reason the Eternals attacked.” “I don’t understand why the Ancient One doesn’t do something about her…”
“Well, I’m glad that Kamar-taj still feels about as welcoming as ever,” I said as we made our way up the flight of stairs that led toward the Ancient One’s sanctuary.
“They aren’t sure what to make of you,” Mordo responded. “Your presence puts them on edge.”
I could see why. First visit: beat the crap out of a bunch of masters and break the Ancient One’s arm. Second visit: arrive at the same time that Kaecilius betrayed them and murdered Master Khan. Third visit: bring the Eternals down on them.
“I suppose my track record when it comes to visiting this place isn’t great,” I admitted.
The sorcerer stopped in the middle of the hallway, turning to face me. There were a couple of sorcerers in adjacent rooms, partially visible through the carved wooden lattices of the walls, but they didn’t seem to be paying us any mind—I guess if you got distracted anytime someone walked through, you’d never get anything done.
“When I had a moment after the battle, I did some research. Spoke to some more knowledgeable about witchcraft than I,” Mordo said, watching me as if closely gauging my reaction, a slight crease marring his forehead. “During the fight, you manifested an eminence.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Something that shouldn’t be possible.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, unable to help a little bit of annoyance leaking into my tone. “I guess I do a lot of things that shouldn’t be possible.”
“I am concerned that the Ancient One has begun to see you simply as another tool.”
“…From your tone, I’m guessing that you’re not worried on my behalf.”
“I do still believe your intentions are good,” he clarified, holding up a hand. “But it is hard to overlook how powerful you are. How dangerous you could be, in the wrong circumstances.”
“Well, it’s not like the Ancient One’s unfamiliar with handling dangerous tools.”
Mordo let out a small huff of air, halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. He paused for a moment, as though weighing whether he should actually say what was on his mind. “I don’t believe the Ancient One should be using the Eye as she has been, either,” he said after a moment. “Witchcraft is not the only thing I have been reading up on, as of late. Agamotto’s personal writings have specific warnings against overusing the Eye in that manner. That it can lead to—” he cut himself off, shaking his head. “I should speak no more of this. Come.” Abruptly, he turned and resumed walking.
The red and blue floor tiles of the Ancient One’s sanctuary were vivid and new, obviously freshly re-laid at some point since they’d started rebuilding. With no other sorcerers present and only a few of the furnishings replaced so far, the room felt much larger and emptier than it had the last time I’d been here.
The Sorcerer Supreme was standing at the side of the room, already filling a pair of small dark cups with tea, as the two of us passed between the incense burners flanking the entrance. The aromas mingled pleasantly in the air. She acknowledged our entrance with a small smile and nod of her head. “Wanda.”
“Ancient One,” I said back.
Mordo took a step back, hovering somewhat awkwardly, as though he were unsure whether he should leave or stay.
“Thank you, Master Mordo. We will speak later.”
He took the dismissal for what it was, giving me a sidelong glance before removing himself from the room.
The Ancient One gestured for me to follow her, picking up the two cups of tea and moving to the opposite end of the room, stepping out onto the wide balcony that overlooked the monastery grounds. I joined her, taking the cup she offered me with a murmur of thanks. I took a small sip, letting the taste of the warm, spiced tea linger in my mouth for a moment before swallowing.
“There was a time, not all that long ago,” the Ancient One said after a moment, “when I would not have expected you to feel comfortable visiting Kamar-taj by yourself.”
“You’ve been getting a better handle on managing the possibilities—I think what happened with the Eternals proves that. If you wanted to ambush me, I’m sure there’d be plenty of opportunities for you to do so no matter what I do, so this is…” I shrugged. “Let’s call it ‘extending a little bit of trust’.”
The sorcerer’s eyes sparkled as though I’d said something amusing. “Trust is often a more complicated beast than people credit. Do you trust me, Wanda?”
I hesitated for a few moments, thinking through how I wanted to answer that. I trusted that the Ancient One had an informed view of the future and was trying her best to use that knowledge to tilt the scales toward better outcomes. More, I knew exactly what that was like—I’d been in a very similar situation this whole time, after all.
But… there was a part of me that was starting to feel like there might not be a place for me in those outcomes. That everyone would just be better off if I wasn’t around, even if they would never say that themselves.
They were thoughts I’d had before. In multiple lifetimes. It was easy enough to remind myself where they would start to lead, if I gave them the mental space. To forcefully bring to mind the promise I’d made to Wanda-3 to avoid that way of thinking. To be better. But even if I did… the Sorcerer Supreme had made no such promise.
“I want to,” I settled on.
“I appreciate your honesty,” the sorcerer said. She was still smiling, which felt like an odd reaction to essentially being told that someone didn’t trust you.
“Why didn’t you tell us about Bruce?” I asked. “Why put yourself through that?”
The other part of the question, ‘why put me through that?’, I left unspoken.
The Ancient One tilted her head a fraction and made a small, noncommittal noise. “Hm. Who knows?”
“I mean… You. You know.”
“Of course,” she said, a light, playful tone in her voice. “Would you prefer me to defer answering with something that sounds more profound? ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’?”
I snorted.
Her grin widened a fraction. “Yeah? You like that one?”
So annoying. I really wished she wasn’t so likeable, despite everything. I’d hoped that coming alone would have encouraged her to be a little more candid with her reasoning, but I guess not.
My phone buzzed as I received a message. “Sorry,” I said, taking it out to check the screen.
Where are you? Nat had texted. Everything okay?
A flicker of red energy left my teacup hovering in midair for a moment while I tapped out a quick response. I’ll be there soon. We’ve still got an hour.
The three dots indicating a response was being typed appeared almost immediately. I glanced up at the Ancient One and she gave me an unconcerned smile.
Maria is going to strangle you, Nat responded.
Promises, promises. “There’s a press conference thing in an hour,” I said aloud. “Announcing me joining the team. I should be there, getting dressed and ready. I’m not really supposed to be here.”
“Why are you?”
I hesitated, taking the opportunity to put my phone away again and retrieve my floating teacup as I considered the butterflies in my belly. “I don’t know. I’m just… nervous. Needed to get away from it, for a little bit. Have a bit of a gut check.” I took another sip, looking out over the grounds of the monastery. “Thanks for the tea. I think I needed it.”
We stood in quietly companionable silence for a minute or two, watching the rest of the monastery continuing about its day. Once we’d finished our drinks, the Ancient One took the cups and sent them to the side table with a gesture, then folded her hands behind her back. “In the spirit of extending trust and honesty, I am going to tell you something that I would like you to keep in confidence.”
“…I’m listening.”
“There is a moment, in the not-too-distant future, that I cannot see past.”
The implication was pretty clear. “Fuck.” A surge of ugly emotion rose in my chest as I hissed the word out. Ugh, did she really have to tell me that now? Right before this stupid presser? Fucking hell. I had no one to blame but myself for coming here in the first place, I supposed.
The Ancient One watched my reaction, a tinge of something approaching compassion in her eyes.
“Fuck,” I repeated. “Of course. Of course I failed at saving you, too.”
“I’m afraid I cannot tell you any details, only that it’s important for you to know that such a moment exists.” The sorcerer paused again, as if weighing something in her mind, before continuing to speak. “It is not completely certain. Not yet. I am still probing the edges of possibility, trying to find alternatives that lead past it, but I have exhausted enough of my options that I must start making preparations for what may happen if I cannot.”
“Strange?”
She let out a small sigh. “He is not ready.”
“Did I mess that up, too? Is he not going to have his accident anymore, or something?”
“I don’t know.”
If she didn’t know, then that meant… “It’s soon, then.”
“You understand why I must start making preparations.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.
“You already are.”
I let out a small huff of annoyance. “Well. This fucking sucks.”
The sorcerer’s expression wavered slightly and she looked away from me, staring out over the monastery grounds for a few moments before she spoke again. “I’ve spoken to you before of protecting the world. Of doing so while minimising harm, choosing the paths that lead to the best possible outcomes.”
“Yeah.”
“The simple truth is that, sometimes, there is no good path. All roads lead to the same, inescapable, inevitable conclusion.”
Inevitable. The word echoed in Thanos’s voice, in my head.
“And in those cases,” the Ancient One continued, “as I have chosen once before, and am choosing to do once again, I may as well pick the most ambitious road. Stack the deck as heavily as possible. Aim for the highest peak. And hope.”
There was a heavy moment of silence. “…I’m still kinda mad at you. About the Bruce thing.”
She let out a small chuckle. “Yes.”
The silence returned.
I knew I really needed to head off. To get back to the compound and start getting myself ready for the presser. But it suddenly didn’t seem so important, anymore. The position the Ancient One was in… I wasn’t sure how she could stand it. I’d compared my own position to hers, before, when it came to metaknowledge, but it really wasn’t the same thing. I couldn’t imagine how she must feel—knowing that she was going to die. Not just that it was going to happen, either, but where and when. I’d be freaking out, if I was her.
…Did the Ancient One even have any friends? I had a bigger support network than I deserved—Pietro, Natasha, Bucky, Yelena, and a handful of others on top of that. But the Ancient One? No one even knew her name. It was one thing to know that she’d erased her identity deliberately at some point, but that hadn’t stopped her from being able to tell people about it afterwards, if she’d wanted to. Of course, then, if she did have friends, she’d know exactly when they would die, too. Over and over and over again, over centuries. She had deliberately cultivated this nameless, depersonalised identity as ‘the Ancient One’ that no one knew anything about and it just… seemed so lonely.
I found myself thinking back to what she’d said to Steve. About remembering every single person who’d died because of the choices she’d made. About saving as many as possible, to make up for the ones that she couldn’t. How many had she lost, before she decided it was better not to let herself get close to anyone?
“I’m curious…” I started, speaking slowly. “It was a while back, so maybe you’d be willing to drop the whole ‘mysterious Ancient One’ schtick and give me a straight answer: The Battle of New York.”
“What about it?”
“I mean, okay, yeah, it obviously turned out mostly okay in the end, but I mean… A god with two Infinity Stones ripped a hole in space to invade the planet with an army. Kind feels like the sort of thing that you would actually do something about.”
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
“I’m not talking about just swatting a few errant Chitauri away from the New York Sanctum.”
She flashed me an impish smile, eyes glittering with brief amusement. “Neither am I.”
I couldn’t help smiling back. “You know, you’re actually pretty cute when you’re feeling pleased with yourself.”
The sorcerer lowered her voice conspiratorially, leaning in for a brief moment as if sharing a secret. “I know,” she told me, looking rather self-satisfied as she returned to her previous posture.
A few more seconds crawled by in heavy, yet somehow still companionable, silence.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever had to do, to save the world?” I asked softly.
The Ancient One didn’t respond right away, simply continuing to stare out over the monastery for a time, as if lost in thought. After a while, she turned toward me, a small, melancholy smile twisting her lips. “You expect me to be able to choose just one thing?”
--
Nat swept me up into a tight hug, pecking me on the cheek. “You did good,” she told me. A handful of the others were still here as well, at the back of the media centre, while the Avengers’ staff ushered out the last few stragglers from the presser.
“I mean, it could have been better. But somebody,” I said, shooting a pout in Maria’s general direction, “wouldn’t let me go out to SexyBack.”
Maria just rolled her eyes.
“Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed,” Pietro said, clucking his tongue. “Part of me was expecting a little more drama.”
“I wasn’t the big news,” I said with a small shrug, straightening my jacket a little bit. I didn’t have a ‘proper’ Avengers outfit just yet—we’d decided on a quick announcement, to get it out of the way, and there hadn’t really been a lot of time to design something that looked the part—so I’d just worn my expensive red and black pantsuit for the press conference.
The event had essentially been a two-parter: We’d opened with the announcement of me joining the Avengers and then, once I’d answered a handful of questions, I’d stepped off to the side for Steve to take over and field ones about the upcoming signing of the Avengers Charter.
I’d been sort of expecting less people to show up for the presser than had done for Pietro’s announcement—it had been set up with only a couple of days’ notice, after all—but, if anything, it seemed like the room had been even more packed than the first press conference I’d been present for. Then again, it might have just been the difference of standing off to one side vs being a major focus of attention. Or maybe I just had no idea what a reasonable amount of notice for a press conference was. Who knows? This was all still very new to me.
Something else that had caught me a little off-guard was just how easy it had been. I’d gotten some light coaching beforehand and had been told that it was likely just to be a pretty warm, fluffy event with softball questions, but even so, the part of me that always seemed to be expecting the worst had still been cringing the whole time, waiting to be hit by something out of left field. For the other shoe to drop. But, once I’d gotten past the nervousness of public speaking, it really had just been a positive, easy round of stuff like ‘How do you feel, joining the ranks of the world’s mightiest heroes?’ ‘What do you bring to the team?’. Even the simple ‘Your brother joined months ago! What took you so long?’ question I’d been expecting was asked in good humour, and I managed to talk around it pretty well without needing to get defensive.
“I’m still a little bit surprised you went with the Scarlet Witch, as a name,” Bucky said. “Thought you might’ve had something else in mind.”
“It’s a part of me. Who I am,” I said, giving him a small smile. “Denying it, ignoring it, trying to bury it… I tried that before. It didn’t really work out. I’d rather reclaim it—own it—instead of having it be something I’m afraid of.”
A notification pinged my phone and I fished it out to see that I’d received an invitation to an hour-long meeting with ‘Uniform and branding discussion’ in the subject line, set for tomorrow morning. There was an agenda attached.
“I have a work calendar!” I said with no small amount of dismay in my tone, looking back up from the unwelcome intrusion to shoot Natasha a vaguely accusatory look. “Did you trick me into having a job? Do I have a job, now?”
“It’s not that bad,” Natasha told me, the corner of her mouth twitching as she tried not to laugh. “You haven’t really been assigned any responsibilities yet. It’s mostly just going to be showing up for briefings and updates that you probably wanted to be across anyway.”
“What do you mean ‘yet’? …Oh, god.” I let out a groan as the realisation hit me. “I’m going to have to join in on training sessions regularly, too, aren’t I? Is it too late to politely decline the offer to join the Avengers?”
“‘fraid so. You already signed all the paperwork.”
Maria walked up to us while we were talking. Her phone was in her hand, too, and she gestured vaguely toward me with it. “We’re already getting flooded with interview requests and invitations for you. CNN, BBC, WHIH Newsfront, Vanity Fair, People, Good Morning America, The Advocate, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Today Show and The Tonight Show, Fox News—not to mention all the tabloid and gossip media requests I’ve already binned… This is a lot more hitting all at once than we had for Pietro.”
That was certainly a list. It was just starting to dawn on me exactly how famous I was going to be, going forward.
“A bunch of them are refreshing requests we originally shut down while Wanda wasn’t part of the team, right?” Nat said with a small shrug. “She’s had a lot more time to build up public interest than Pietro did. San Francisco made it pretty clear that she’s a powerful Enhanced, but she didn’t join the Avengers at the same time her brother did and she’s basically been in hiding from the press for months.” She gave my arm a quick squeeze. “There was already a lot of gossip, and then our relationship became public knowledge, which only made things worse. I know you didn’t really mean to, but you’ve built up a heap of mystique—it makes sense that everyone wants to be the first to talk to you properly.”
“I guess I can’t keep hiding in the background forever,” I said with a sigh.
“You only need to engage as much as you want to,” she reassured me. “The rest can be managed. This sort of stuff can be really mentally exhausting.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess…” I trailed off, looking back at Maria.
“I’ll organise another meeting for sometime after the branding discussion, once I’ve had a moment to review everything. We’ll go over the options, let you decide how you want to approach things,” she said. “And I’ll book in some proper media training for you, too.”
That was it. My mind rebelled. “I don’t need media training,” I said, a stubborn edge to my tone.
Maria shot me the flattest look I’d ever seen. “Wanda, you might need media training more than literally anyone else I’ve ever met in my entire life,” she told me. “And I’ve had a pretty colourful life.”
“Okay…” I acknowledged grudgingly. “But have you considered that I don’t want to do media training?”