Ollie sat on her porch admiring the haze that glittered around her. She shook her head, letting long, dark brown locks fall about her shoulders as she ran her fingers through the glittering air. It felt like running her fingers through silk—familiar, yet she dared not test her control. She'd had these "powers" as long as she could remember, but she also hated using them. It felt inherently wrong to be able to hear people's innermost thoughts, let alone control them. Bending time and space around her had always been fun, but even that, after enough time, had grown dull.
But speaking through the Scarlet Witch? That had given her an unimaginable sense of calm. She hadn't expected that being inside Wanda’s mind would have felt so much like home—more so than any of the four walls she could ever remember living in.
Sipping her coffee, her eyes scanned the horizon for the Quinjet she knew would be approaching soon. Ollie smiled as it appeared. She set her coffee down and stood up to greet her guests.
The heavy jet touched down smack-dab in the middle of her twenty-five-acre farm. Startled cows and horses stampeded toward the safety of the barn as the thrusters kicked up dust.
Wanda was the first one out. Practically running down the jet's ramp, she skidded to a halt at the bottom, coming face-to-face with Ollie. The girl didn't look that remarkable; she was beautiful, sure, but nothing about her appearance gave any hint of the god-like power she seemed to possess.
"Hello at last, Wanda," Ollie spoke directly into Wanda's mind, shocked by the seamless ease with which she could slip into the Maximoff head.
Wanda couldn't seem to help it as tears—half brilliant scarlet, half shimmering blue—began to fall from her eyes. "What's happening to me?!" she cried, pure terror leeching through her voice.
Ollie just smiled, the exact same dual-colored tears now caressing her own cheeks. She stepped forward and pulled Wanda into a hug. Wanda froze in shock for a fraction of a second before the strength left both of their legs. They fell together onto the grass, completely melting into the embrace. Each woman felt completely at home in the embrace of the other. Home had never been a place to these two; instead, it was right here.
The blue, sparkling static haze seemed to shift, suddenly bleeding into a dark, almost black, purple. Tony Stark, looking around at the sudden shift, was the next off the ramp. His sunglasses were already slipping down his nose as he stared at the two figures collapsed on the grass. He stopped a few feet short of them, his hands hovering over his hips where his armor housing sat.
"Okay, I’ll bite," Tony said, his voice a mix of his signature defensive sarcasm and genuine anxiety. "Is this a localized atmospheric event, a psychic breakdown, or did we just fly halfway across the country for a very emotional farm-style welcome?"
Doctor Strange stepped down beside him, the Cloak of Levitation fluttering slightly despite the heavy Texas heat. His eyes weren't on Wanda; they were fixed entirely on Ollie. His brow was furrowed so deeply it looked painful.
"It's none of those, Tony," Stephen muttered, his hands flexing as faint, trembling gold mandalas sparked at his fingertips, trying and failing to read the energy in the air. "The mystical signatures are... overlapping. It’s like looking at a reflection in a mirror that hasn’t been made yet." He took a step forward, his voice dropping into his strict, Sorcerer Supreme tone. "Who are you? What did you just do to her?"
Ollie didn't break the embrace immediately. She let Wanda breathe, feeling the erratic, terrified pounding of the witch's heart slowly synchronize with her own. When she finally pulled back, resting her hands on Wanda’s trembling shoulders, she looked up at the two men.
"I didn't do anything to her, Doctor," Ollie said softly, wiping a stray blue tear from her cheek. She offered a small, tired smile that didn't match the immense weight in her eyes. "I just opened the door. She's the one who walked through."
"Right, great, love a cryptic answer. Very refreshing," Tony muttered, pulling out a holographic tablet that was currently flashing a chaotic array of error messages. "Except, my AI is currently having a digital stroke. Friday, give me something I can actually read."
"I'm trying, Boss," Friday’s voice chimed in from Tony’s collar, sounding uncharacteristically strained. "The local space-time metrics are completely offline. According to the sensors, we aren't standing in Texas. We aren't standing anywhere."
Stephen's face went completely pale. He looked from the tablet to Ollie, and then out toward the horizon where the royal purple sky was beginning to pulse like a heartbeat. "The Stones," he whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. "You aren't controlling the haze. You are the space it's occupying."
Friday cut in, "Actually, this haze is from somewhere else."
Tony threw his hands up in exasperation. "What the hell does that mean, Friday?"
The AI paused for a moment before answering. "It means, Tony, that the haze is now coming from another source."
Stephen snickered as Stark's AI put him in his place. Tony squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Thank you Friday... Where?" "Scotland boss."
"Wanda." Ollie's soft voice echoed in Wanda's mind, attracting her attention again.
Wanda blinked away the remnants of her tears, looking up into Ollie's eyes. The chaos of Tony arguing with Friday and the strange gold sparks fading from Doctor Strange’s fingertips seemed to muffle, fading into background noise as Ollie’s telepathic frequency locked them into a private channel.
"You feel it, don't you? " Ollie asked silently. "The shift. The purple."
Wanda looked up at the dark, bruising sky, a cold shiver racing down her spine that had nothing to do with the Texas heat. It was the exact same sensation she had felt back in the medical wing. The cold one, Wanda thought back, her mental voice tight with anxiety. She’s awake.
"She’s a long way from here," Ollie confirmed, her gaze drifting eastward toward the horizon. "Across the sea. When she breathes, the sky bleeds..."
Wanda’s breath hitched. She could feel the faint, distant resonance of it—a heavy, suffocating gravity pulling at the edges of her own magic.
Tony finally slammed his holographic tablet shut, the glass screen dissolving back into his wrist housing. "Alright, huddle up, team. Since my tech is currently insisting we are floating in a void, and Merlin over here," he motioned to Dr. Strange, "is just staring at the grass, someone needs to make an executive decision. Wanda, who is your friend, and why are you both staring at the horizon like it's going to move?"
Strange stepped forward, his eyes narrowing as he watched the two women seamlessly break their telepathic link and look up in perfect unison. "They know where the other source is," he stated flatly.
Ollie stood up, offering a hand to help Wanda to her feet. As Wanda took it, a spark of blended red and blue light snapped between their palms, grounding them both.
"My name is Ollie Rodriguez. It's a pleasure to meet you all." She turned her head back to Wanda. "We have to find the source of this purple."
Wanda stepped to the side and invited Ollie to join her up the ramp into the Quinjet with an extended hand. Ollie snapped her fingers, and a large suitcase was suddenly in her hand. "What are we waiting for then?"
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