seen from Singapore
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Italy
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Taiwan
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Croatia
seen from United States
seen from Kazakhstan
seen from Malaysia
seen from New Zealand
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Costa Rica
seen from Malaysia
These are gonna be my first three reads of October: The Trees Grew Because I Bled There by Eric LaRocca (which I’ve already started), Hex Life (an anthology of short stories about witches), and Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones (I read My Heart is a Chainsaw a couple years ago and loved it, I’m excited to read part two of this series).
LOOK AT THIS CHUNGUS
THE BIGGEST ZOIDS MODEL KIT EVER MADE (to date)
Getting this far took 3 days and he STILL isn't done. That cutting mat is 18 inches, btw, for the sake of scale.
MODEL FINISHED!! It's the size of and weighs as much as a cat. I adore him with all my heart.
And here Gojulas is displayed on the Zoids' shelf! He doesn't fit inside but that's fine. He and Cherno Alpha can hang out on top and I might try to pose them into FIGHT positions at some point.
This monster took 5 days to build and I am so pleased to have him finished.
Hex Life - Ed. Christopher Golden & Rachel Autumn Deering
Read: Oct 2022
This is a collection of short stories about witches. "Wicked new tales of witchery" as it says on the cover. It's maybe also part of the title? I can never tell to be honest. Overall I really enjoyed this book. Not every story was a winner. Especially stories taking place in already established fictional worlds. A few of the authors have long running series that they wrote in for this, and largely I didn't like those stories. I'll just give y'all the run down real quick:
An Invitation to a Burning - Kat Howard: great start for the book
Widows' Walk - Angela Slatter: this needs to be a movie honestly
Black Magic Momma: An Otherworld Story - Kelley Armstrong: meh
The Night Nurse - Sarah Langan: superbly creepy bad witch story, a mother goes through it
The Memories of Trees - Mary SanGiovanni: this one was great! Calling powers and people finding out
Home: a Morganville Vampires Story - Rachel Caine: did not like
The Deer Wife - Jennifer McMahon: amazing!! Gay!! Also needs to be a movie
The Dancer - Kristine Dearborn: okay, didn't read as "witch"
Bless Your Heart - Hillary Monahan: great! A mother's retribution in all its witchy glory
The Debt - Ania Ahlborn: creepy have to pay the price story
Toil & Trouble: A Dark-Hunter Hellchaser Story - Sherrilyn Kenyon & Madaug Kenyon: ehh this one I didn't like that much
Last Stop on Route Nine - Tananarive Due: this one was good, nasty backwoods witch and curses
Where Relics Go to Dream and Die - Rachel Autumn Deering: this one was weird but interesting
This Skin - Amber Benson: this one was wild
Haint Me Too - Chesya Burke: this one was delicious, plantation absolutely haunted by the slaves that died there and black witches fucking up them white people
The Nekrolog - Helen Marshall: this was weird and wild, you will never guess where this one is going
Gold Among the Black - Alma Katsu: liked this one
How to Become a Witch-Queen - Theodora Goss: Snow White grows up and says fuck it!
Info: Titan Books; 2020
Hex Life
Fandom: WandaVision Pairing: Darcy Lewis/Jimmy Woo Rating: E Chapters: 10/10 Word Count: 34k
Summary: Guest starring Agent James E. Woo as himself and introducing Dr. Darcy Lewis as Mrs. Darcy Woo!
Or: Darcy and Jimmy are sent into the Hex to retrieve Captain Monica Rambeau. Finding out Westview has cast them as a married couple is only the first of the surprises that await them.
read ch. 1 one / 2 two / 3 three / 4 four / 5 five 6 six / 7 seven / 8 eight / 9 nine / 10 ten
this fic is now complete!
Jimmy’s going to be a dad. He was going to be a dad in a black-and-white sitcom world and now he’s going to be a dad in a world on the regular spectrum, so the colours really aren’t as big a deal as his impending fatherhood. Possible fatherhood. As much as he’s always secretly wanted his own little Jimmy Woo Jr., he didn’t know if it would be in the cards for him—pun obviously intended—and the last thing he wants to do is influence Darcy either way, especially since he’s only known her a couple days and doesn’t have a clue if a baby was really part of her life plan.
It can’t just be rose-coloured glasses making him see his wife warming to the idea though; when she continues down the hall ahead of Jimmy and Monica, he spots her careful cradling of the baby bump. He can barely stand not touching her. The instinct to shelter others has always been one of his strongest and now he feels it intensely. He longs to protect Darcy, to hold Darcy, to love— Well. Jimmy clears his throat at the very thought and Monica gives him a suspicious side-eyed glance.
“Dry throat,” he lies, tapping his neck in a probably highly unconvincing gesture.
“Uh huh.”
Yeah, she doesn’t sound convinced.
He’s rescued by a burst of sound from the bedroom and dashes ahead of Monica in case Darcy’s in trouble. When he bangs the bedroom door fully open, she’s fine. She’s laughing. He sighs and looks where she points. The queen-sized mattress they shared has changed back to a pair of narrower beds.
“Seriously,” Jimmy says flatly.
“Well, the big bed worked its magic,” Darcy concedes. She pats her rounded stomach. “Mission accomplished.”
“Aw jeeze.”
Ignoring his distress, she sits on the end of the closest bed.
“What I like is that they’re magically made. I didn’t end up having to change the sheets. This is really the next step in home technology.”
“Honey, don’t encourage the magical forces that control our home décor,” he pleads, beckoning until Darcy rises and takes his outstretched hand.
“Better than getting on their bad side. In the AI uprising, you wanna make sure you’re friends with the robots.”
This is an outrageous statement coming from a credible scientist, so Jimmy squints down at her for a minute before saying, “Thanks, house,” aloud, just in case appeasing the Hex now saves him from being closed into a room with no door later, if the walls rearrange to form the ’70s model of their current home.
“You did the smart thing,” Darcy assures him.
As they leave the room, she keeps hold of his hand. He shoots adoring glances at her.
“Hey, Monica,” she says, calling to their guest, who seems to have gone to investigate the walk-in closet. “Accommodations aren’t going to be a problem. I can give you some pajamas too because I think I own at least a dozen pairs, as I’m sure you’ve already discovered…”
But when they look in the closet it’s… not a closet.
“Or maybe the Hex destroyed all my pajamas and I should take back my overtures of friendship,” Darcy corrects.
“Welcome to your nursery,” Monica says. “I’m guessing from the look on Jimmy’s face that this is new.”
It’s spartan, but there’s no doubt in Jimmy’s mind that the room is now intended to be exactly what Monica said. There’s a crib in pieces on the carpet and a rocking chair in the corner. Though he can’t remember this room having even one window, there are now two. The blinds are drawn against the night and curtains patterned with stars and streaking comets hang from a rod mounted above the window. Automatically, he pulls Darcy into his side. He feels her rest her head on his shoulder.
“Man, the Hex is really giving us the hard sell,” she comments.
Just like that, he’s guiding her around by her upper arms and propelling her from the room. He glances over his shoulder to see Monica following with an amused smile. At his nod, she pulls the door shut.
“Ignore it,” Jimmy tells Darcy. “Don’t let that room influence you.”
“Oh, like that’s easy.” She rolls her eyes.
“I know it’s hard not to picture reading Jimmy Junior to sleep in his crib, or watching him learn to roll himself over on the carpet, or cuddling him in your arms in the rocking chair as the morning light—”
“Jimmy Junior?” Darcy asks, interrupting Jimmy’s rapidly solidifying daydream.
“You know what? I’m starving,” Monica announces, putting a hand on each of their shoulders to head off the awkward pause. “How about you two show me some hospitality? I’ve had a long day of being mind-controlled.”
“How ’bout some comfort food?” he asks. “I make a mean bowl of chili.”
“Sounds great.”
So, Jimmy cooks for them. His attention is unequally divided between the simmering pot, Monica leaning against the counter next to him as she recounts the scene at the meeting when Wanda went to take his call, and Darcy sifting pickily through the contents of their fridge. He glances over after putting the lid on the pot to let the chili finish cooking and sees his wife contemplatively holding an egg like it’s Yorick’s skull. Ok, well, he’s just going to leave her to her thoughts.
He sets bowls of chili for himself and Monica on the dining room table. Darcy, justifiably finnicky, takes longer to decide what she’ll be able to stomach, reflexively rubbing the baby bump as she plunders their kitchen. Finally, she comes to sit down. She’s brought a spoon. That’s it. Jimmy’s going to ask, but Darcy just scoots her chair close to his and takes intermittent mouthfuls of his serving while the conversation continues on. He sighs in unannoyed exasperation and alternates dips of his spoon with hers.
It’s just another weird routine they’ve settled into, and like everything else, it didn’t take long.
“You two didn’t know each other before this assignment, right?” Monica checks, motioning between Darcy and Jimmy with a slice of buttered toast.
“No, why?” Darcy asks, dropping a chunk of tomato from her spoon onto his. (Apparently, she doesn’t like tomatoes.)
Monica smiles and says, “No reason.”
She seems ready to accept them as they are, whatever they are. She goes back over the events of this afternoon for Darcy’s benefit—who was zoned out staring at an egg at the time—then the three of them turn to talk of tomorrow. What does Monica feel she needs to try before she’s willing to concede and leave the Hex with them? What can she try? How can Jimmy and Darcy assist her? They talk themselves in a circle of possibilities, limitations, and Monica’s unswerving negative answer to suggestions of her leaving the Hex without getting through to Wanda. Eventually, they decide that the best plan may be no plan, since they’re up against Westview’s ever-shifting magical properties.
“We’ll get up in the morning and see what the world looks like,” Monica says.
Jimmy’s going to reply when the Captain’s expression alters.
“Are you remembering?” Darcy asks her astutely. Monica stares at her. “I don’t want to pry, I’ve just seen that look on a lot of people’s faces lately. People who came back.”
“This isn’t dissimilar,” Monica admits. “When I get anywhere near Wanda or the other characters with speaking parts and start to lose control to… Geraldine—” Jimmy thinks the look on her face is both disgusted and deeply hurt. “—I do get this feeling like the world is going on without me. Only I’m there. I’m right there. I haven’t made up my mind yet if it’s worse than being gone entirely then coming back to find nothing’s the same.”
“Yeah,” Darcy says, soft, sympathetic.
“I don’t know what else the members of this community have been through, but I know I don’t want them to have to keep going through this too. I can’t imagine how tight Wanda’s grip is on the people who were here when she started this. Not sure I’m qualified to be the one to tell her how to let go of her grief and move on.”
Monica blinks quickly and gives a forced smile.
“That was good chili, Jimmy.”
He nods in thanks because he can’t find the right words to say.
They’re all carrying something and Jimmy thinks about that as the three of them clean up, then splinter off to get ready for bed, tired for different and shared reasons. (He changes into his pajamas in the nursery—they found their clothing in a new, regular-sized closet in the bedroom—while Monica and Darcy take the bathrooms.) The Captain’s carrying her recent bereavement and the unignorable sense of responsibility she feels to help Wanda and the Westviewers, possibly precisely because she isn’t ready to confront her own loss. Darcy’s doing some literal carrying with the baby bump her pajama top is buttoned over when she steps out of the en suite bathroom to let Jimmy in to brush his teeth. She’s an astrophysicist who, while studying a television diversion from reality, was brought rudely back to earth by circumstances as real as they come.
What Jimmy’s carrying is actually carrying him: his hope. It’s a good thing to have in his line of work, but a tough thing to keep when the world’s been through what it has. A baby is the least likely and most longed-for thing he would’ve confessed to wanting if someone asked him what was missing from his life.
When it’s acknowledged through awkward glances that, yes, Monica’s taking one of the beds and Jimmy and Darcy will share the other, he climbs under the covers his wife holds open for him. She rolls away from him to lie on her side and he gets comfortable on his back. The Hex has definitely eased up on what it wants for their romantic development because this is the first time he’s been in bed with Darcy and not felt himself caving to the need to have sex with her. Oh, the desire to touch her is as powerful as ever, but the kind of touching he craves is as tender as the flesh of that peach he brought her earlier in the day.
But he doesn’t want to crowd her. Figuratively or literally. Between finding Monica and calling Wanda, making love to Darcy all afternoon and being presented with her pregnant belly in the evening, it’s been a dog’s breakfast of a day. The mission abruptly became just the second most daunting thing he needs to pull off. Now, he’s driven by the impulse to be near Darcy. She doesn’t know it, but she’s drawing him in like gravity and he can only cross his fingers for a soft landing.
Jimmy almost jumps when she reaches for him in the dark, hand feeling behind her until it finds his. She drags his arm over her and he flips onto his side to make it easier. Though Darcy lets him go when his arm’s around her, he doesn’t know where to rest his hand. Tentatively, he places it over her belly and she wriggles back into him. Heart bursting, he holds her more securely to his body, smooths his hand over the bump, and soon falls asleep.
—
The floor wakes him up. He’s just fallen out of bed.
Disoriented, Jimmy sits up in a tangle of comforter and squints at his bed companion in the morning light. They must’ve repositioned while they slept, but that alone wasn’t what forced him to and over the edge—he can see the shape of Darcy’s belly beneath the sheet. It’s noticeably larger than it was yesterday.
He’s still trying to come to terms with that when she sleepily grasps the comforter and yanks it back over her body. Jimmy chuckles and rises into a stretch. Monica’s bed is empty and neatly made, so she must be up already. Before entering the Hex, his internal clock was strict too. Since, he bends to the needs of his subconscious, which seems happiest when it’s allowed to sleep in, particularly if Darcy’s warming the sheets next to him. This is only their third day in Westview and the second time waking up here, but it feels wonderfully routine. As satisfying as completing his consistently-timed morning run or pouring exactly the right amount of milk into his cereal.
Although he’d like to let Darcy sleep, it’s weird now because he’s staring. Anyway, they need to tighten up their operations even further today if they’re going to get out of here soon. Monica requires either success or closure with Wanda, so Jimmy’s determined to help with that. And if Darcy’s pregnancy takes another leap forward, well… that’s another time crunch to consider.
She’s lying on her side, facing him, belly in the space where he fell asleep. Gently, he brushes hair out of her face and strokes lightly up and down her arm.
Darcy gives him a murmured “Hi” with her eyes still shut.
“You gonna get up?”
“Inaminute,” she promises, words running together.
“Alright.”
Jimmy hovers for a second, then darts down to kiss her forehead. She pats his shoulder clumsily in response.
He might as well have had his own eyes shut, blind to everything but Darcy, because it takes opening his wardrobe to realize Monica was correct—everything’s changed again. WandaVision has embraced the ’70s. The shirts and suits he was pretty comfortable with have been traded out. Those items still exist, but now they’re aggressively patterned. There are flared pant legs. There is so much corduroy. Out of the row of shoes tucked into the bottom on his side of the closet, half have platform heels.
“Oh god,” Jimmy groans softly, sifting through for something that won’t feel too much like a cheesy costume.
He ends up with jeans—his only pair of pants without a pattern—and a striped shirt with wide lapels. The Hex’s makeover of his closet has him so beaten down that he doesn’t even pick out a jacket. He doesn’t have the heart for business casual. At the sight of a long-sleeved jumpsuit, Jimmy closes the closet door securely. They have to get out of here. This will be the thing that breaks him.
Slouching into the bathroom, he drops his selections on the counter and takes a shower. As he washes his hair, his fingers slow their scrubbing. Is his hair… longer? He finishes quickly and steps out to find the mirror fogged with steam. He wipes it clean with his forearm, examining his reflection. This place isn’t through with him yet: the Hex has given him a mustache.
Jimmy screams.
“Fine!” Darcy shouts back to his wordless noise of dismay. “I’m up! God, you could’ve just set an alarm and OH MY GOD, HAVE YOU SEEN THE SIZE OF THIS BABY BUMP?!”
He sighs on behalf of himself and his wife, slicks his too-long wet hair back with a comb, then starts in on shaving off the mustache. It immediately grows back.
“Come on,” he complains, cursing the Hex. “Why’d you give me a razor then?!”
Luckily, his annoyance fades the minute he sees Darcy. She’s swearing up a storm about needing to pee and her head looking too small for her body because the Hex has straightened her hair, but he takes all of her restless irritation in with a dazed smile on his face. Adjusting her glasses—now almost circular, with rounded off corners—she catches sight of his new look and erupts into laughter. Whatever the Hex does to mess with their appearance, at least they’re each other’s best medicine to combat it.
“I don’t want to be insensitive,” Monica starts when they walk into the kitchen hand in hand, “but are you significantly more pregnant than you were yesterday?”
Jimmy watches Darcy nod and slips away from her to throw some more bread in the toaster from the bag Monica’s left out on the counter for them.
“You’d think it’s just this big, shapeless dress,” Darcy says, “but no.” She pulls the fabric taut over her stomach to show the size of her belly more accurately. “I don’t want to say it, but the size of this thing makes me think the Hex is leaving me room to grow.”
“And if that dress is only for today…” Monica says.
“Jeepers,” Jimmy concludes.
They eat together in their reconfigured living room. It’s not until Monica’s kicked back in one of their low chairs, ankle propped on her opposite knee, that Jimmy notices her patterned pants.
“Those aren’t from Darcy’s closet are they?”
“No. I’m assuming they’re my clothes from yesterday with the matter recycled for a new decade. Believe me, this outfit wouldn’t have been my choice if I had anything else to pick from.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure. I had a whole closet and still ended up with this,” Jimmy says, motioning to himself.
“My retro Secret Agent Man,” Darcy states admiringly, leaning her head over to bump against his shoulder. Ok, he thinks, smiling at her, I can be alright with this for her.
When Monica rises to turn on the television, Jimmy realizes this is the first time they’ve had one in the house. He remembers seeing a set in the Vision residence when he and Darcy were watching an episode on the S.W.O.R.D. base, but he didn’t notice the lack once they got here. Probably because that first night was taken up with flirting, and then yesterday was split between scouring the downtown for Monica and holing up in the bedroom with Darcy. Watching the screen buzz to life now is like witnessing something truly futuristic and spectacular.
“Well, whaddaya know,” he says as the opening sequence of WandaVision begins.
“You think the TVs in here play anything else?” Darcy wonders aloud.
“Maybe not,” Monica says distractedly as they all turn their attention to Wanda and Vision’s adorable antics—the ice cream, the tandem bicycle. “It’s a pretty big coincidence that this show started right when I turned it on.”
“I can see an even bigger coincidence.”
There’s no need to guess what Darcy means. Wanda’s baby bump is obvious in nearly every shot of the introduction, particularly emphasized when she and Vision dance together, his hand on her belly. It’s all maternity clothes and Vision reading pregnancy books and while it’s wholesome, it’s also chilling.
“We’re doing the same plot,” Jimmy says.
“It’s like we’re… their understudies,” Darcy agrees, shrinking back into the cushions.
“Maybe Wanda figured, if you two wanted to be in the show so bad, she’d put you in the show,” Monica theorizes. “Her show. Exactly the way she’s living it.”
“So she’s teaching us a lesson? On what? Abstinence?”
“Could be a misguided attempt to gain your sympathy.”
“Or it really is all about control,” Jimmy suggests, cynical after the reveal that the pregnancy that’s upended his entire life isn’t really theirs. It’s not original. They’re following a Newlywed Couple template.
“Hey,” Darcy says, grabbing his arm, “this wasn’t all Wanda. She might’ve set the scene and, yeah, maybe we were more the goatherd puppets than we were Fraulein Maria and Captain von Trapp, but we did this.” She pulls his hand to her belly. “Wanda doesn’t decide what we do next.”
“What I suggest you not do next is consult Dr. Misogyny over here,” Monica says, gesturing at the television.
The doctor is condescending to Wanda and Vision about the facts of life during a checkup (in their living room?). He lowers himself even further in Jimmy’s regard when he refers to expectant mothers as “little ladies” and implies that the changes in their own bodies are beyond their understanding.
“What a quack,” he decides. “We’re not going to see that guy.” He’s startled to recall his promise to Darcy the previous evening, about options, his intention not to make up her own mind for her. Lowering his voice, he tilts his head close to hers. “I mean, we’ll do whatever you want. Including…”
Jimmy trails off and casts his eyes down. He still means it, wants Darcy on board with this 100% or not at all, but the whole thing’s been a roller coaster and he’s not great at pretending not to feel anything. With his wife so much further into her pregnancy today, it’s obvious that this baby will be born and they’ll need to decide who’s raising it. He thinks the two of them together could rear a pretty incredible kid, but if she wants out, is he prepared to be a single parent? The other option besides her, him, or both of them raising the baby is adoption. They’d need to leave the Hex before taking those steps (it’s not like he’s going to encourage Darcy to hand the baby over to a mind-controlled Westviewer), and just thinking about it, with everything he already feels for the baby, makes him certain that he’d rather rearrange his entire life than pass on this chance at a family. However unorthodox their beginnings.
“Don’t worry,” Darcy says calmly, pulling him from his spiral. “That guy will never get the chance to compare my uterus to a vegetable garden.”
“Fruit,” Monica corrects without looking away from the television.
“Right. Fruit. He’ll have no say about any of it. And he definitely won’t get the opportunity to be patronizing as fuck while he tries to give us the sex talk.” She looks Jimmy right in the eye and says, “I won’t let the asshole doctor-man say a word about your banana.”
Chuckling, he looks back to the screen. The doctor has departed and Vision’s currently baffled over Wanda’s newly expanded stomach. Uh oh. He jerks his head around to check and, yep, Darcy’s baby bump appears to be keeping up with the sitcom star’s.
“You two stay here,” Monica instructs, on her feet when Jimmy glances over.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“To Wanda’s. If things continue at this rate, she could give birth in this episode. That’s going to make her even more protective of her family and her space and I’ll have an even harder time getting near her.”
“Are you sure you want to interrupt?”
They both glance at the television for a moment to observe Wanda and Vision debating baby names in the nursery. There’s nothing distressing about the scene—in fact, the couple looks as much at ease as Jimmy’s seen them on the show—but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t change, and quickly, if Monica inserted herself. He just isn’t sure how that would go and he doesn’t like any plan where he can’t foresee all the possible outcomes.
“Guess I just have a feeling,” Monica says, looking unsettled.
“Well,” Darcy pipes up, “in the world of science, having a feeling is forming a theory, and in this place… I think having a feeling you should do something might be Wanda giving you your cue.”
“You’re not beyond her control,” Jimmy tells Monica, “just farther away from it. What if Darcy’s right?”
“If Wanda wants me there, I’m not going to resist,” she replies firmly. “She’s the key and we need her cooperation.”
“Good luck,” Darcy bids her.
With a nod to them both, Monica strides across the living room and opens the front door.
“Speaking of keys,” Jimmy recalls, but the door shuts before he can offer to let her borrow their car to get to Wanda’s.
Maybe the Captain has a different plan. Maybe she’s just bending to Wanda’s influence. Whichever it is, he can’t go after her. Monica was right—he has to stay here with Darcy today, especially because her belly seems larger when he looks again. He glances at her face with a question on his and she nods.
“And I felt a kick,” she says.
“Really? Could I…? Do you think I could…?”
Darcy rolls her eyes at his reticence and guides both his hands to the bump. When he feels something nudge his palm, Jimmy tears up.
“That’s our baby,” Darcy confirms.
“Feels like they have my softball windup,” he murmurs.
“Or my pre-coffee restlessness.”
“Our baby,” Jimmy repeats, staring into her eyes—finally blue for the first time in days, give or take a decade.
They’re having a marvelous family moment until the power goes out. Lights, TV, the hum of the fridge in the kitchen, everything. Seconds later, it all comes back.
“That was strange.”
“I wondered what Wanda’s magic was doing to the power grid,” Darcy says. “I’m still curious about the finer points of what happens when electricity meets power generated by an Infinity Stone. Really, I’d expect Wanda to have this kinda thing under control, but I guess if she’s— Ugh!”
Her pained noise has Jimmy cupping her face, pushing back her hair, trying to figure out what happened.
“She’s distracted,” she says.
“By what?”
“Labour.”
“What? No.”
Sure enough, when Darcy stands (with Jimmy leaping to his feet to support her) and stretches her back, her bump looks big enough to contain a baby that’s almost ready to be born. Ready to be born?! Jimmy thinks. In our house? With no doctor? Just because the one on TV rubbed him the wrong way doesn’t mean he’s prepared to write off every doctor, nurse, and midwife in Westview. He would very much like to place responsibility for this delivery in the hands of a medical professional, not his own!
Even as the TV’s flickering back to life, he helps Darcy away from it. That just shows how serious things are. He knows how quickly she became invested in the sitcom when they reviewed the ’50s episode at the base.
After some frantic thought, he’s thinking the bathtub is going to have to do. People do that right? With home births? Although he attempts to guide Darcy in that direction, she doesn’t even want to sit down on the edge, let alone climb in. No, she wants to pace, and as she paces, she rubs at her lower back, wincing.
“We could look at the nursery,” he proposes. “Might take your mind off it.”
Jimmy knows it could be a weak suggestion, an insult to imply that anything could take Darcy’s mind off whatever discomfort she’s currently feeling, but the Hex, with its radioactive walls, smiles down on them for once. With his arm around her to take some of her weight, they hobble into the baby’s room and it’s… perfect.
The walls are dark blue near the ceiling, almost black, fading to periwinkle halfway down the wall. The lower portion transitions from blue to pale yellow, then a blazing orange right before the baseboard.
“It’s a sunrise,” he comprehends.
“Yeah,” Darcy says softly.
Though he feels like he got slightly ripped off by not being allowed a chance to do any of the decorating, he does admire the Hex’s choices. At last, his wife’s been represented in this space, in this house, and it’s beautiful. There’s a shelf full of space-themed board books, a plastic jumble of play versions of scientific tools like telescopes. A dangling mobile of the planets. After easing his wife into the rocking chair, Jimmy holds up a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars.
“Should I put these up?”
She smiles.
“I would be all over that shit if I could, but I trust you to do a good job.”
“Oh no. Do you want me to do real constellations?”
“The baby’s not gonna know the difference. Make it look however you want.”
She rocks, assuring him something about the motion is helping her manage the intensifying pain of her contractions, and Jimmy finds a small stepping stool to help him reach the ceiling. The sway of the chair in the corner of his eye, the morning light through the curtains, and the sound of Darcy breathing are things he already knows he’ll never forget.
Before he’s stuck all the stars in the pack to the ceiling’s white paint, she calls him down from the stool.
“I need to walk again.”
Darcy says it with grit and Jimmy doesn’t argue, even when walking appears to put her in even more distress; she groans and pushes her free hand against the wall as they stroll out of the nursery and down the hallway.
“Let’s check in with Wanda,” Jimmy says helplessly.
This is who he is now: a husband in over his head, desperate to gain tips about delivering a baby from a TV sitcom. An overwhelmed real estate agent. A man with a mustache.
They return to the living room and the TV playing WandaVision in time for Monica’s entrance. Based on her free use of ’70s slang and the general discord between the Captain Rambeau Jimmy’s been getting to know and the woman on the screen, he knows they’re looking at Geraldine. Wanda’s back in control of her character alright, and Jimmy wants to know who it’s helping. The scene’s centered around some joke about Wanda attempting to hide her pregnancy, which is no good for him. He needs a step-by-step guide, not a magic-resistant stork!
“There better not be a fucking bird in here,” Darcy gripes, alternately crouching and standing as every position fails to make her comfortable. “If I see a fucking, goddamn, sonofabitch, motherfucking—”
“I know, sweetie, I know,” Jimmy assures her, rubbing circles between her shoulder blades with the flat of his hand.
“The betrayal,” she mutters when Wanda elects to lie down behind a couch.
It completely blocks their view. If this were a regular show, Jimmy would understand that. Sitcom viewers would definitely appreciate a little TV magic over graphic, up-close-and-personal birth footage, but here at the Woo residence, one FBI agent and his astrophysicist wife really just want the truth! If Monica had agency, he’s sure she’d shove the couch aside to help them out, but with Geraldine at the helm, he’s confronting the fact that he and Darcy are on their own.
“Let’s go, Darcy,” he says, steering her towards the bathroom. “We don’t need her.”
“Are you sure?”
He’s never heard Darcy sound so uncertain and knows he’ll have to bluff his way through this. When the Avengers aren’t around, the regular people must step up. Reminding himself of that has gotten Jimmy through more than one tough day on the job and he tells himself it’ll get them both through this.
“Of course.”
In the bathroom, Darcy kicks out of her underwear and uses Jimmy as a crutch to climb into the tub. Her face is scrunched up severely and her hands are braced against the walls of the bathtub, so he tries to watch and understand what she needs. When all the tension in her face and body burst out in a shout, he grabs her hand. Her fingers curl around his palm in a death grip.
“How about some nice warm water? Water, Darcy?”
She nods rapidly, eyes clenched shut, and he turns on the facet, then quickly reaches behind her to plug the drain. The stream wets his sleeve and, when he withdraws his arm, hits her hair around the level of her shoulders and begins to soak the back of her dress. Between contractions, Darcy sighs in what sounds like relief.
“That feels good,” she acknowledges.
“Good,” is all Jimmy can say back. He kisses her face and squeezes her hand in his. “Good.”
He’s back to scrambling for a solution soon enough when the warm flow of water down her back stops being enough to soothe her. He helps her out of her sodden dress, tossing it behind him to splat on the tile floor.
“What do you need?” he asks wildly, leaning over the tub.
“Earplugs,” Darcy tells him before emitting a scream shrill enough to probably be heard by their neighbour’s dog, Dipper, down the street.
Jimmy doesn’t think, he just does. Snatching a towel off the rail, bracing his wife’s foot against his shoulder as her leg spasms, reaching into the water to collect their baby when the Hex (he assumes) does them the favour of letting one long push be sufficient to expel him. Him. Jimmy and Darcy’s son.
He’s beaming through the happy tears, delicately wiping at the wailing baby with the towel and passing him into Darcy’s outstretched arms as she shakes with astonished laughter, hair wet, head resting back against the jut of the faucet.
“That wasn’t so hard,” he jokes.
Darcy sits up, sending a splash of water over the side of the bathtub to slap the floor, and he knows the Hex is interfering again to make her capable of anything besides exhaustion after what she just accomplished. She twists sideways in the tub until she’s closer to Jimmy. He wraps an arm around her wet shoulders and peers down at the face of their boy, already drowsy after exercising his tiny lungs. Jimmy can feel Darcy studying his face.
“Jimmy Woo Junior?” she asks.
And he knows the rest is going to be gravy.
—
Inside the Hex, the magic of television is real. They didn’t need to fake Darcy’s pregnancy with a cushion to make her belly, round and taut as a beach ball, disappear entirely only minutes after giving birth. They didn’t need a set of twins or triplets playing Jimmy Woo Jr. to swap in a quiet baby for one that starts to cry. There’s no trick lighting or fudged angles, just Darcy sitting on the couch (in dry, non-maternity clothes) catching their amazingly calm, less than an hour-old son up on the details of his origin story—Darcy’s wording.
It’s shaping up to be a nice, if highly unusual, family day in, until the tension starts to mount on-screen. Probably something Jimmy could’ve caught sooner if he weren’t spending 50 seconds out of every minute stroking the baby’s teeny-weeny hands while he hopes Jimmy Jr. retains zero memory of his dad’s mustache. When he hears Monica mention Wanda’s brother by name, he’s fully alert to the episode and knows he has to act. That close to Wanda, Monica’s control should be fully suppressed beneath the character of Geraldine. If she’s breaking through to ask Wanda person questions, questions that are almost definitely going to provoke an emotional response, Monica must be fighting like crazy to surface. Jimmy decides that’s his signal to get over there and help bring this thing to a satisfying conclusion so they can all leave the Hex.
“You’re not going to Wanda’s without me,” Darcy informs him, planted in front of the door when Jimmy returns from grabbing his keys.
“Darcy, you can’t. The baby. I’d stay with him and let you go, but I’ve never heard you mention particular skill in hand-to-hand combat and I can’t guarantee things won’t turn violent.”
She snorts.
“Liar. I could be the world’s biggest hand-to-hand badass and you’d still be trying to protect me right now.”
He stares at her and Darcy stubbornly lifts her chin as she holds his eyes.
“Ok,” Jimmy concedes, “yes, I would.”
“Please don’t leave us here,” she says, cheek pressed to the baby’s. No, no, no, he can already feel himself wanting to surrender, to have them with him. Darcy kisses their son’s face, then holds his hand to gesture while she pitches her voice higher, pretending to speak for Jimmy Jr. “I want to meet Auntie Monica.”
He gives her a look and reaches past her to open the door. Instead of trying to exit around his family, he waves Darcy through ahead of him. (She looks down at the baby in her arms and goes “Yaaaay! Isn’t Daddy a soft touch?”)
“You didn’t persuade me,” he says, leading them to the car and holding the door for Darcy while she climbs into the back seat with the baby. “This is strategic.”
“Is the strategy common sense? I feel like you should’ve gone with that from the beginning. Bringing a scientist to a magic fight is good thinking, for, like, balance and shit.”
Jimmy backs down the driveway as gently as he can. Their car’s been modernized (well, for the latest decade) and while it now has seatbelts, it wasn’t equipped with a car seat for their son. He’s going to have to drive with the utmost care.
“Hopefully, there won’t be a fight,” he reminds Darcy, “but if there is, you won’t be anywhere near it. You and Jimmy Junior are staying in the car. Alright?”
When he darts his gaze to the rear-view mirror, he sees his wife looking out her window, making a show of not listening to him. Jimmy sighs.
Without thinking, he navigates back to the street where they dropped Monica off yesterday. Wanda’s house is just down from Dottie’s; he remembers the number from watching WandaVision. Jimmy draws up to the curb and parks. He glances back at Darcy, but she’s still ignoring him.
“I’ll try to be right back,” he tells her anyway, eyes dropping longingly to the serene face of his sleeping son. He’s heard that about babies and car rides.
Jogging up the driveway, he does a doubletake of a ragged slash in the wall between Wanda’s property and her neighbour’s. There’s not exactly anything wrong with a damaged cinderblock or an amateur handyman job, but the crevice in the stone stands out in a world so aggressively styled and manicured.
Wishing for the reassurance of his gun at his hip in case things go south (it’s the first time he’s even thought about the gun since the night he and Darcy arrived), Jimmy enters the Vision residence without knocking.
Orienting himself to what he was just watching on TV in a house less than a mile from here, he walks across the entryway, attracting the attention of both Wanda and Monica. They’re standing across from each other in the living room. Raising his hands to show he intends no harm, Jimmy sweeps his eyes over the scene in assessment, like he has a hundred times before. Monica’s expression is alarmed under superficial friendliness—the look of someone trying to placate an attacker. With her aggressive, forward-leaning posture and the way she’s positioned herself between Monica and the cribs (he’s surprised to see more than one, but he did miss some of the episode while he was delivering his son in their bathtub), Wanda fits that role.
“Wanda,” he says, taking a step towards the seating area, “you don’t want to hurt her.”
“Are you working with her?” Wanda demands. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”
“James Woo. I’m not here to hurt you. Neither is Geraldine.”
“You don’t want to hurt me? Then why do you come asking questions? Saying things—” He can see her chin wobble from here as she teeters on the edge of tears. “—about Pietro. You didn’t know my brother.”
Her statement is directed at Monica, but Jimmy tries to bring her focus back to him. Of himself and the Captain, he’s the one with an exit at his back, whereas Monica’s hemmed in by a large bookcase.
“I didn’t know your brother,” Jimmy agrees. “I do know about him, but we don’t need to talk about that. I don’t want to upset you, Wanda, I just want you to let me leave with Geraldine.”
“Oh, I’ll let you leave,” Wanda says, cocking her head as she raises her hands. This motion conveys the opposite meaning to Jimmy’s—she does intend them harm.
He’s contemplating what’ll happen if he tries to rush her when Darcy charges through the front door he left open.
“Don’t!” Jimmy gasps, making a grab for her, but his body is tense with caution and Darcy has the momentum to dodge him, stepping down the level into the living room.
“Look,” Darcy demands of Wanda, whose expression is torn as she chooses between facing Monica and this new intruder.
Jimmy’s mentally composing and rejecting ideas of how to proceed when their unwelcoming host lowers her hands. She’s looking where Darcy directed her to, at the baby in Darcy’s arms.
“He was born less than an hour ago, and I only found out I was pregnant yesterday, but that doesn’t matter. I know it’s the same for you, the circumstances and the… yeah, whatever. You know about the Big Bang, right?” she continues, jumping to the next thought.
“Yes,” Wanda says carefully.
Jimmy’s terrified to move closer and set Wanda on the offensive again. He glances at Monica, who seems to be thinking the same thing, frozen in place.
“From nothing to so much, in an instant,” Darcy’s saying in her condensed history of the universe. “Science is supposed to be full of all these rules. Like, every scientist dude important enough to remember had some law or formula or method that we map everything on top of when we’re pretending we understand all this. Being in science isn’t a goal I’ve had for a long time—I mean, I probably wouldn’t be in it now if the world hadn’t more or less ended—and if all I ever heard about the workings of the universe was rules, I would’ve stayed away. Who likes rules, right? Who wants to be told that things are the way they are because something outside of your control says so? My point is…”
She takes a deep breath, then another one, shifting until she’s blocking Wanda’s expression from Jimmy’s view.
“Sorry, I just gave birth, you know how it is,” Darcy says when she goes on. Jimmy’s stricken with exasperation, adoration, fear, and pride. “My point is that I love science because, while science is laws and rules and equations, science is also standing outside at night and staring up at the dark. There are explanations for every light that’s up there and why, even when you’re away from big cities and the sky seems so black and close, you don’t fall up into it, although it kinda feels like you could. Science can tell me why, and it still feels like magic when I look at the stars. And we’ve all been traveling out here in space together, getting made and unmade and made again because the right ingredients needed to create something as precious as a planet, or a baby, or the clay that’ll make the bricks that’ll make the house never disappear. Suns explode, asteroids collide and get chipped away… things can separate down to their smallest part, life can…”
“End?” Wanda asks.
Jimmy’s stunned to hear the word come out choked. Cautiously, he leans to get a glimpse of Wanda’s face. It’s covered in tears. Darcy’s nodding.
“But everything’s valuable. All matter gets reused.” Jimmy wants to grab her and pull her to safety when she takes a step closer to Wanda. “I get it if you’re sad and you’re not ready to talk about it. I’m not gonna say it’s ok, because I’ve heard Monica’s testimonial on exactly how much it sucks to have you in her head, but I do think you should let us leave now so you have a few friends out there when you inevitably need people on your side.”
“You can go,” Wanda agrees, swiping at her nose. “I won’t hurt your baby.”
“You’re not going to hurt my friend either,” Darcy says, beckoning for Monica to cross the room behind her. “Or my husband.”
“No,” Wanda says.
Monica reaches Jimmy and they wait for Darcy in the entryway.
“I bet all that control feel really good,” Darcy theorizes. “Taking it into your own hands. But I think you know that focusing on the beautiful, magical stuff doesn’t mean the rules no longer exist. Maybe you can find a way to accept them both.”
“It’s time for you to leave,” Wanda says, firmer now.
“Not looking for a life coach, got it.”
She joins Jimmy and Monica, bouncing the baby lightly in her arms. Wanda ushers them out of the house ahead of her. Jimmy glances back to see her close the door after herself with a twist and red glow of her hands.
“What about waiting in the car?” he mutters to Darcy as they stride down the lawn.
His self-proclaimed wife stares at him.
“I’m not the kind of person who waits in the car. Would the kind of person who waits in the car give a speech like that?”
Jimmy’s at an honest-to-goodness loss for words.
She gets into the car willingly enough now, Jimmy in the passenger’s seat while Monica slides behind the wheel.
“Wanda’s told me how to stand, how to move, how to walk since I got in here,” Monica says, turning the key in the ignition. “I’m driving myself out.”
“It’ll part for you when you get there,” Wanda calls to them from the lawn. “The barrier. I suggest you do not attempt to enter again.”
“I think we’ve all had our fill,” Jimmy informs her cheerfully through his rolled-down window.
She doesn’t respond to this, so Monica executes a three-point turn and takes them back up the street the way they came. From there, they turn out of the subdivision, but Jimmy snags a last look at Wanda through the back window. There’s a light breeze blowing her dress and hair and she looks like she could be anyone. A suburban mom of twins? Why not. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever see her again in person, but he has plans to catch her show.
“Wanda’s changed the roads,” Monica says as she drives. For his son’s sake, Jimmy’s grateful that she isn’t speeding, though he wouldn’t blame her for trying to get out of here as quickly as possible. “None of them lead out of town.”
“Literal tourist trap. Brilliant,” Darcy declares from the back seat. Jimmy reaches an arm back blindly and feels her close her hand around his.
“But,” Monica adds, “I remember Ellis Avenue being the closest cross street to the edge of town. We find that, then drive over the grass. Things may get a little bumpy.”
“We’ll survive.”
Jimmy twists around to look at Darcy. He nods. They will. They’ll survive.
They cross Ellis and take the car off-road. The barrier remains invisible, but…
“I can feel it,” Darcy says.
“Like we did the day we came in,” Jimmy recalls.
“It still wants us out,” Monica interprets. He sees her staring uneasily ahead. “Was I naïve to think I could change anything by coming in here?”
“No, Captain. It was brave.”
“Didn’t work though. We aren’t leaving with Wanda.”
“It could work,” Darcy says. “We left her with a few things to think about. We’ll watch WandaVision and see.”
“That’ll be strange after being a part of it.”
“You think so?” Jimmy wonders. He takes a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine, playing with Darcy’s fingers laced through his. “I think it’s returning to regular life that’s going to feel strange. Out there, it’s easy to see all this as a TV show, but everything in here is real.”
“We’ll make Hayward understand that.”
“I’m bringing back some compelling evidence,” Darcy says, followed by kissy sounds directed at Jimmy Jr.
The air just a couple of car lengths ahead of them abruptly glows red as Wanda reveals the wall of the Hex. Jimmy and Monica exchange a look, but she doesn’t slow down. They pass through without resistance. All of a sudden, it’s night. Monica lets out a relieved sigh.
The S.W.O.R.D. base is looming, exterior lights ablaze, but Jimmy looks backwards, checking that Darcy and the baby are alright.
“Same as you left us,” she says, pulling back the blanket to show him the face of his son.
He gives her a slightly melancholic smile.
“Not quite, Dr. Lewis.”
“I’ll have a lot of work to do,” Darcy notes thoughtfully, “but time for you and me to go on dates will be on my list of demands.”
“You have a list of demands?” Monica asks, laughter in her voice.
“After being forced into the Hex, where I could’ve lost my life? Fuck yes, I have a list.”
“What else are you asking for?”
“The coffee I requested on day one and a desk in a better spot so there’s room next to it for the crib that will also be on my list.”
Monica laughs aloud now.
“Is this a benefits negotiation or a baby shower registry?”
“Let’s get back to the part where we’re going on dates,” Jimmy says. “How’s that going to work?”
“Jimmy, darlin’,” Darcy begins, “will you go out with me?”
He leans to look around his seat at her.
“Darcy, we were married. We have a baby. Don’t you think we can—”
“Answer the question, Agent Woo.”
“Of course I’ll go out with you,” he says.
“And that’s how it works. Easy-peasy.”
She gives his hand a squeeze before releasing it to hold Jimmy Jr. more securely as Monica pulls up to a building and brakes. Already, S.W.O.R.D. agents are rushing out to meet them, but Jimmy drops back against his seat and smiles to himself.
“‘Easy-peasy.’”
oh and here’s HEX Life
Norrix - @screenies-blog
Proper end of October read <3
From Amber’s instagram today!!
Very excited that Hex Life (an anthology of incredible writers curated by Christopher Golden & Rachel Deering) is out! And I have a creepy story in it, too!👻🎃💀
