Family reunion

Well, if she was ever going to do this…

Awkwardly, Wanda paced the length of her room, trying to adjust to how the carpet felt under her bare feet. She drew the curtains with a wave of her hand and a quick bit of telekinesis, and eventually grimaced, sat back down again, and swallowed. It took longer than she was prepared to admit to psych herself up. For a long few minutes she just sat there, naked, staring at the wall and trying to process the fact that she was going to have to quite literally bear it all, particularly if she wanted to do even half the things she’d considered.

She crossed her legs, one bare thigh lifting up over the other, as she did her best to procrastinate. She covered her breasts with one arm - even alone, the permanence of her condition couldn’t help but make her feel a little shy.

Her other arm rested by her side, fingertips still glimmering red. Maybe…

She conjured a simple room divider. It wasn’t much, just a curtain, but it made her feel less out in the open. And if nothing else, it gave her a little bit more privacy from which to work.

Her thoughts, inevitably, went to her brother first. She’d lost him so long ago, it felt like; somehow it seemed right to bring him back first. If nothing else, he was never one to judge her.

Maybe it was just the new absence of the Darkhold, but part of her was beginning to question how far she’d gone. Not that it mattered, anyway - it was all done now, all in the past and all irreversible. Wanda closed her eyes, and distracted herself by tapping into the new, seething primal forces she could access.

On the other side of the divider, nameless energies whirled. Natural laws gave a momentary process, but were pushed aside - the air cracked, and glimmers of red spilled out like liquid lightning. Below it, particles not unlike those from a Hex coalesced into a more humanoid form, bathed in the crimson light.

Pietro still existed, technically. He wasn’t in this time, but on a cosmic level, time was just another direction; echoes still lingered in the world, and she could draw them all together, just from a moment before Ultron…

There was a last flash as the spell completed. Reality re-asserted itself, settling around the new norm Wanda had laid down: and on the other side of the curtain, Pietro Maximoff opened his eyes for the first time in years. He jerked up, still in the dusty clothes he’d worn in Sokovia, looking around.

“You’re safe,” Wanda said, staying on the other side of the divider. “You’re safe now. Don’t worry.”

A hint of her old accent slipped into her voice. Nervously, she adjusted the curtain with her powers, making sure it was fixed in place.

“Wanda?” he said.

It was so good to hear his voice again. His real voice, too, not that… copy of Agatha’s. Wanda faltered. He was confused - well, obviously, from his perspective he’d just been whisked from a battle - but that care in his voice, it was so familiar.

“Where are you?” he said.

She could hear him fidgeting. He’d never been good at staying still. Wanda swallowed, and looked down at herself, face burning. Okay, she’d just stay on the other side of the divider for now, and… and figure out the future as it came.

“I’m here, I’m fine,” she said as soothingly as she could. “Don’t worry. You were… hurt, in the battle, but I healed you.”

She could deal with the memories, if she needed to. For now, she was content to lean closer to the truth.

Then she frowned. Wait, how had she never thought of that? In the Hex, she’d cast all kinds of illusions, made the town look fundamentally different to how it was; she was stronger now, so it ought to be easy enough to do the same.

She focused again, though it took much less effort to create a mere illusion than it did a resurrection. She knew what she looked like, and she could at least create an illusion of clothes, even if she couldn’t wear them herself. But a mere image of herself?

She knitted together light and **** to create a suitable simulacra in a matter of seconds, dressed in more ordinary clothes - a light t-shirt, jeans, and long, straight hair like the last time Pietro had seen her. The face she left blank, always finding it unnerving to look into herself.

This would work, right? She could go anywhere with an illusion of herself, and telekinesis - particularly the fine control she had now - could simulate physical presence well enough. Along with remote viewing, and she could walk around the world, interact with people, and do it all giving the impression that she was dressed.

While lying naked on a bed in her home. Wanda bit her lip, blushing again. Well, no one had to know that.

She projected her consciousness forwards, and looked out from a spot just behind the illusion’s eyes. She looked at her body - now cross-legged, levitating and exposing far, far too much - where it was, and watched as her own blush deepened. Then, carefully molding the face into her own, manipulated the illusion to simulate walking out to Pietro.

“It’s a long story,” Wanda said, as comfortingly as she could. “Which we can get to, but the important thing is that you’re safe.”

“And Ultron?” Pietro said. He looked at her, and blinked. “Um, sis-”

“Dealt with,” Wanda said firmly. “Things are good. Better than good. I-”

“Sis,” Pietro said.

He coughed awkwardly, carefully looking into her eyes - frowning, Wanda looked down, and squealed.

Wait, how was the illusion naked?! It wasn’t literally her body, and she’d definitely been sure to…

She focused again, conjuring red and black magic all around her. It dissipated quickly - and didn’t leave even the slightest thread behind. Eyes wide, Wanda stood for a moment, frozen on the spot. She quickly crossed an arm over her breasts, her other hand between her legs, for a moment just panicking. She’d meant to avoid this, not bring her brother back just to-

Wait, what was she doing?

Wanda dispelled the illusion quickly, ignoring Pietro’s sudden, shocked reaction, and returned her focus to her original, just as bare body on the other side of the divider.

That shouldn’t have happened. Maybe it was something about transferring her mind to the illusion? That wasn’t quite what she’d done - remote viewing just meant looking at the world from another angle, even if she could position her perspective inside her illusory double - though maybe proximity of her mind to her illusory-self sufficed.

She frowned, quickly whipping up another illusion behind the divider - it was fine, like she’d expected. Blank-faced, but dressed, and as she put the finishing touches on it…

The clothes faded in front of her, leaving her staring at a nude image of herself. Wanda yelped, louder than she meant to, hastily dismissing it.

Not her consciousness then. Then… what?

Something about her appearance? Wanda swallowed. That would kind of fit; the image of the Scarlet Witch was itself somewhat potent, going by all the imagery she’d seen, if she was bound to this ‘skyclad’ state after the Darkhold’s spell, then maybe every attempt to replicate her image would be similarly doomed to…

Her mind started to drift to very worrying places.

Instinct made her reshape the room - in the time it took her to turn around, a laptop appeared on her bed, already booted up. She quickly knelt over it, wanting to dispel her momentary panic. She had something of a sense for how magic worked, by now: if the spell had mandated all manifestations of the Scarlet Witch would be nude, then it might not stop at illusions.

Though it had to, she told herself. It had-

The denial died as soon as she typed her name into google. There were pictures of her that went back years, only now something had changed.

Eyes wide, mouth open, face red, Wanda stared at countless memories now retro-actively changed by her spell. Every image of her, every depiction, changed to match her current state. There she was after Sokovia, the first time the general public ever saw her with the Avengers, standing bare alongside other, very dressed heroes, as casually as if nothing was wrong. There she was, in a wanted posted after the whole Accords mess, with rather more than just her face on display. There she was with Vision - there she was in some grainy footage from Westview, black and white and in the middle of a scene she remembered, only she remembered being dressed for it, not…

It was probably just the pictures that had changed, not the actual past, but she couldn’t help but stare in disbelief.

No illusion of her, no picture of her, no way for her to ever be anything but naked. After a few moments, she caught a glimpse of another search result - a headline, apparently comparatively recently from someone who’d noticed the sudden shift in depictions of Wanda. Quickly, she closed the window, not wanting to read any more.

So there went any hope of hiding, or keeping her… condition quiet. Anyone with so much as a picture of her would be able to see…

“Sis, where- whoa!”

Pietro poked his head around the divider, to find the still-nude Wanda laying on her front, curly hair falling over her bare shoulders. Immediately, she yelped, rolling over - she grabbed for her pillow on instinct, clutching it to her chest, only for it to phase through her, denying her even that small modicum of modesty.

She squeaked, and clutched her arms over her naked front, indignantly gesturing with her chin for Pietro to turn around.

“So. Um,” Wanda said, voice high-pitched. “Things have… changed, a bit.”

She really should’ve read those warnings about the spell, she reflected.