@all | before the event

[industries]

> ts@abraxas-proxy:~$ wall "People's memories of this place"

[ Anyone unfamiliar with computer terminals might be taken aback at the mechanical font that scrolls across their vision, though the jumps and starts in typing speed leave no doubt that a very human brain is behind the text. ]

> Broadcast message from ts@abraxas-proxy (tty/1) :
> People's memories of this place
>
> Don't normally crowdsource, but
> has anyone out there ever heard of someone who got home and actually
> remembered their days here at the renfaire?
>
> Not looking for peer-reviewed analysis.
> I'll take crumbs
> or
> whatever else we've got here on Mind-Reddit.

Comments

[carmesi]

[suppose no one expected to have everyone who got struck out by the snap to return, and whether by design or pure luck, hayward must have seen it as an opportunity to do just as wanted back in westview.

piece of work is right. it feels strange to feel validated by something tony's said—something she can agree with. on the other hand, having no one back home in her world means that she's never looked into the possibility of multiversal messages being delivered.

perhaps— no, she's not one to call tony out on the morality of selfishly wanting the comfort of family when goodbyes have already been said.]

No secrets between you and Peter? Makes sense.

[she's fond of the kid, and as much as she knows there's this strong familial connection between him and tony, wanda would like to believe peter wouldn't just say everything to him.]

If you have a question, you should ask it.

[industries]

> Unless he's cutting curfew, don't think so.

[ It's a joke. Sort of. Try as he might to protect him – armor him – the kid's always had a heart of his own, always thrown himself into the midst of danger whether or not Tony shoved him away from it.

But that's exactly why he's good at it, right? The hero gig. ]

> How about
> how to put this delicately
>
> how did you have kids with a dead man?
> A dead
> synthezoid, even?

[ It's blunt. But fair. ]

[carmesi]

[expect the science man to ask the science question. somehow, wanda thinks that just saying 'magic' would not quite suffice, and raise more questions instead.]

I created a world of my own with my magic. Anchored his soul in it. With it came the soul of two boys who chose to be born as my sons.

[a dream and a wish, with all the vagueness of magic dripping from wanda's words into this explanation that severely lacks context. the grief, the pain, the unconscious mind control, the compartmentalizing, the realization of a prophecy with her smack dab in the middle of it.]

But I couldn't keep them. It was a broken spell to begin with.

[and she dreams of them still, every single night. she dreams of a life with her family, with her white-picket fence ending, but it all feels as torturous as a nightmare—dangling in front of her something she could never have. it never takes long for them to scream at her, to turn scared eyes towards her, begging her to not hurt them.]

Do you dream of your daughter?

[industries]

> Oh. Well
> why didn't you say so.

[ Magic. There it is, once again, clouding the edges of his assumptions, providing a set of cosmic variables that he finds unsettling but whose influence he can no longer exclude from his understanding of the universe. He knows there still must be natural laws at play, even with the crazy assertions coming from Wanda's shimmering text – was able to analyze and understand enough of it to create nanotech scaffolding to harness the stones that controlled the cosmos, but – there's still a part of him that has a hard time believing the impossible, even after holding the proof in the palm of his hand.

The next topic she poses is easier, and harder. ]

> Every night.

[carmesi]

[every night.

wanda knows the torment of that, still dreaming of her children in another universe, as they pick up the pieces of what she's done and how she almost destroyed everything that was precious to them.]

Are you ever in those dreams?

Dreams are a window to other versions of ourselves within the multiverse, living lives parallel to our own.

[know that they will be loved—

there may very well be a tony in the multiverse who lives to see his daughter grow old.]

[industries]

> Right.

[ He can't bring himself to say much else, in the face of something so whimsically cruel. Because that's what it comes down to, isn't it? Versions of reality. Objective differences in dimensions that manifest in subjective experiences – sorrow and loss, relief and joy.

Infinite hims, infinite thems. Cold comfort to someone whose connection has been severed, who wakes every day in a lonely room.

He hears a knock at the door. Turns his head. ]

> Hey, I gotta go, just

[ He pauses as he rises from his chair. It was a broken spell. He thinks of the monster. ]

>
> I'm here to talk, if
>
>
> listen, I know you hate me, it's fine, just
> if you need it.
> I'm here.

[carmesi]

I don't hate you, Tony Stark.

[perhaps it'll mean something for him to see that. the grievances he caused her and her family are in the past, and the greatest of them all was something he had no idea happened. people change, the past doesn't define them, especially when someone is so willing to give it all up for the greater good.

one man in exchange of the universe. one family in a perfect suburban home in exchange for the freedom of a neighborhood.

different, but not all too dissimilar.

wanda isn't saying she forgives him, but she's putting aside her anger. she's letting go of that—has let go of that for a while now. maybe, if she can do this much, there might yet be hope that the children she terrorized would be able to put aside their anger, too, and perhaps forgive her some day.

she doesn't send tony anything else. not anything to say she appreciates the offer, or that she'd like to extend it to him in return, too. perhaps the words she leaves him with will be enough for the both of them for now.]