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All Of Your Pieces (33 - The Darkhold)

Chapter Summary: Wanda only tilts her head, a faint, hollow smile rising as she asks, almost lightly, “You love me?”

It used to be an exchange that confirms and doesn’t ask. That declares instead of questions. Now, it taunts. It mocks. Especially coming from Wanda’s lips. You don’t even know how it’s possible, but somehow, the hurt you inflict on each other keeps finding new ways to cut deeper than the last.

So instead of the words 'You love me'—once so certain on your tongue—you just nod.

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Female Reader Chapter word count: 4.4k+ | Chapter Tags/Warnings: Angst obviously

A/N: In this story, the Darkhold has a voice. It's not simply a book, but an entity. After this update, there's one more chapter that's already been written. After that, who knows when I'll be able to update. Sometimes, life happens. // More author's notes here.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Several Hours Earlier

You cannot release her back into the world, Wanda.

“Yes, I can,” Wanda mutters, breath fogging the air. “It’s what she wanted. To pay for an old man’s crimes that weren’t hers.”

She trudges through drifts that reach her knees, snow shaking off fir branches and tapping across leather warmer than skin. She does not know this stretch of forest, only that it leads away from the cabin. Away from you.

Seeing her sons again this morning, even through the warped glass of another universe, felt like punishment. But she didn’t mind. Didn’t mind them being dangled in front of her like bait. She would have them eventually. Pain sharpens purpose. She just needed space. Needed to get away from you, because lately, you’ve been—

You stray from the path again, it tells her. Resolve is a muscle. Exercise it or lose it.

—a wrench in her resolve. That’s what you are.

“I have all the resolve you require,” Wanda lies between her teeth, despite knowing full well the Darkhold can see through anything. Her boot slips on a buried root, yet she keeps moving. “But your conditions keep changing. Make them plain.”

Plain truths have already been offered. The Darkhold beats like a dull heart behind her eyes, pulsing once, and then again. Ever since she realized it could speak without being opened, it hasn’t stopped whispering.

Forgive the woman and you will learn my secrets with your hands tied behind your back. You will know them, but you will never wield them.

Wanda bites the inside of her cheek. “I never mentioned anything about forgiveness.”

Ah, but you keep thinking it, my dear.

“Then I will bury the thought,” she says.

Bury her instead.

Wanda finally comes to a stop. Bargaining for your life didn’t begin and end with saving you the other night. That was only the beginning. The Darkhold has been relentless ever since, whispering, tempting, promising that far greater doors would open if she was willing to cross one final line. If she severs the last thing anchoring her to this world. To her humanity.

The Darkhold keeps reminding her that there’s no victory without sacrifice. And she knows it’s true. Victory over Thanos came at a brutal cost—Tony, Natasha, and countless others who stood at the front lines of that first battle.

Nothing is won without blood, it seems.

Prison only binds her to you through the eyes of men who covet power, it continues to speak when it grows impatient of her silence. It’s just a physical cage until they need her again to stop you from getting what you desire. Forgiveness binds you through your own heart. She is your chain, whether you’d like to admit it or not. And she is the chain that will tighten the moment you reach for your boys.

Wanda shakes her head, vehemently rejecting the idea. Killing you is a line she will not cross, even if it could bring her boys back in an instant. No matter how tightly she tries to silence the part of her heart that still beats for you, it remains. Ending your life would kill what is left of hers, leaving nothing inside her that could love anyone, least of all the sons she hopes to save.

She steadies her breath. “If you’re truly as powerful as you claim,” she says, closing her eyes against the fear of defying it, “then show me another way. A third path.”

The quiet that follows is thick as sap. It rarely keeps her waiting this long, and Wanda starts to fear it has deemed her unworthy of its secrets. Then, at last, the voice returns, soft and persuasive.

Rewrite her thread. Guide her where your shadow does not fall. Send her to the life she once tried to build, with the woman who loved her after you were gone.

Wanda doesn’t miss the pointed edge beneath the offer. How easily it slips her into the blame. How it frames her absence as the hand that nudged you into someone else’s arms. She knows her vanishing left a hollow space you tried to fill. But the jealousy still burns, sharp and ugly. The way it makes her question if your deception was because you had replaced her? And when that other woman chose her family over you, did it break you so completely that disappearing felt like the only option?

She used to know you. She knew how you’d destroy yourself to pay for things beyond your control, for things you convinced yourself you deserved.

She knows it’s selfish to want to believe that, even though you loved someone else, you never loved them more than you loved her.

So maybe the Darkhold is right. You’re the last thing standing between her and the twins.

“Kia,” Wanda whispers. The name tastes foreign on her lips.

Yes, the Darkhold purrs, delighted now.

“Can I make that happen cleanly?” Wanda asks, already knowing the answer. She did the impossible in Westview. She made you and the children out of grief and out of nothing. She gave a town new lives. Made the colors literally bleed from reality.

That was a spell driven by pain. This one, the Darkhold assures her, will be driven by intent. By clarity. By sacrifice.

Wanda nods, slowly. “You’ll erase me from her memory.”

From her past, yes. But not from her soul. The resonance will fade in time.

“And what about her memories of… us?”

If you wish, she may remember pieces. It’s taunting her, testing her. It knows she couldn’t bear the thought of her being entirely erased from you. Wanda can now clearly see how weak you make her.

“That won’t be necessary.”

It’s cruel, but she sees no other way to remove you without letting the Darkhold tear you apart, or keep you close without you ruining her plans.

“And the cost?” Wanda asks tightly, already dreading the answer.

The Darkholds hums, and Wanda doesn’t understand why.

“Will I have to…” She shifts her weight, trying not to fidget, though she knows the book sees her inner conflict. Vulnerability is the price she pays for its power. “Will I have to take a life?”

Not a life, Wanda. Your heart. Surprisingly, its voice isn’t mocking. Not quite. There’s something reverent about it, like a priest admiring a lamb that walks willingly into the flame.

A cold lance slides through her chest. “Clarify.”

To rewrite her fate, to sever her from you fully, it continues, you must place her joy where your love used to live. The spell demands more than distance. It demands surrender. You cannot hold the shape of her in your soul and hope to open the gate.

“So I forget her?”

She forgets you. But you will remember everything.

Being the only one who remembers will be her undoing. One day she may reach for you again, but to her you will be a stranger.

“That’s it? That’s your price?”

Oh, don’t try to bargain with me, little one. I know you far too well. You would sooner take hundreds of lives than let her forget you. This is your curse, Wanda. You’ve tied your happiness, your worth, to one mortal. Choose the pain now, and you will finally know true freedom.

The trees go still around her, as if the forest itself is waiting for her to reject the terms.

She doesn’t.

Later, she will return to the cabin and say nothing. She will place the rewritten thread of your life in your hands like a gift, not a farewell. And when you ask her why, she’ll offer only a fraction of the truth.

Because it was this, or the Darkhold would have demanded your life as payment.

Because you would never be safe with her again.

—

“Jimmy, I need a favor.”

Thankfully, your phone and personal belongings are still intact. The moment Wanda disappeared into the room at the end of the hall, you called Clint, hoping he’d know something about an ancient magical book. He only grunted, clearly distracted. "Show’s about to start, Y/N, but I’ll send you a contact.”

“Who is this? Where did you get my number?”

You pinch the bridge of your nose, regretting how abruptly you jumped in. “It’s Y/N,” you say, then quickly add, “The real one.”

You are met with a heavy breath, followed by a long silence.

“Agent Woo?” you prod.

“The International Authority flagged your name two weeks ago,” he replies. “Do you realize what answering this call does to my clearance?”

You sigh, thinking of the other problem waiting for you behind bars. “Yeah, Jimmy, I know. But I wouldn’t have risked it if it wasn’t urgent.”

“This better be good.”

“It’s about a book,” you say, wincing at how flimsy that sounds for an urgent call. “Clint mentioned you have access to Stark’s database—the one with S.H.I.E.L.D. archives. I need you to dig up anything you can on this book.”

“Okay,” Jimmy says. “Title?”

“I don’t know the title.” You pause. “Can I just describe it?”

“Go ahead. I’ll try some keywords.”

“It’s old—really old—and gives off…a dark aura. The cover’s metal, edged with rough ridges and strange etchings. In the center, two spirals are stacked vertically, wound tight like springs, locked together by a heavy vertical bar—”

“Got it. Let me run that.”

You wait. A few seconds stretch into a minute, then two.

“Jimmy? You still there?” You can almost sense his hesitation, and for a brief moment, you wonder if he’s actually searching the database, or quietly tracing your call and setting up your capture.

“Still here,” Jimmy answers, voice lower than before. “I’m… cross-referencing.”

“Should I be worried?”

Instead of answering you directly, he says, “Okay. One hit, classified eleven ways. Only codename I can read is ‘Darkhold.’ Everything else is black bars.”

“Give me what you can,” you say.

You hear him take a deep breath before continuing. “Book of Sins, Book of Spells, Book of the Damned. Origin tag: ‘pre-Atlantean, elder-god authorship—entity named Chthon.’ Material stamp says the pages aren’t paper at all, they’re some form of dark-matter substrate.”

You press the phone tighter to your ear. “Capabilities?”

“Every kind of dark magic on record.”

Your fingers go numb, and the phone nearly slips from your hand. How did Wanda even get her hands on this book?

And then you remember the other witch in the middle of Westview’s town square, purple threads wrapped around the same rust-colored tome. Did Wanda pry it out of the witch’s dead drop after the Hex fell? Did she keep it all this time, hidden while she pretended to grieve and heal?

Meanwhile, Jimmy keeps leaking facts you barely hear. “Dream-walking, matter manipulation, necromancy. File says it corrupts user psychology in stages: obsession, moral inversion, catastrophic empathy collapse.”

You shut your eyes. Wanda carried you out of the snow, knelt for hours while you burned with fever. She stitched your flesh, wiped sauce from your cheek like the woman who once teased you for wearing half your breakfast. That softness is still there. You’ve felt it.

It’s not too late.

“Jimmy,” you say slowly, pulling yourself back into the conversation. “Is there anything in there... about how to resist its influence?”

“No,” he answers. “It’s... honestly, it’s pretty tragic. Do you want me to—”

“It’s fine,” you cut in. “I think I have what I need.”

Jimmy doesn’t hang up, nor does he sign off with his usual sarcastic flourish. Instead:

“…Y/N, why are you asking about this book?”

“It just—rang a bell,” you say, too quickly.

“Rang a bell,” Jimmy repeats. “Come on. Does this tie back to Maximoff? Because the International Authority has her on its red list right now—”

“I haven’t seen Wanda since Westview,” you lie, pitching your voice flat. “I’m still tracking her. But I think I saw this book in an underground market upstate. Figured if it’s related, I should know what I’m looking at.”

There’s a long exhale on the other end. “Y/N, if you’re covering for her—”

“I’m not.”

Jimmy still sounds unconvinced, but he softens. “Okay. Okay. I’ll keep it between us. But listen to me. If you find her you call me. Or Monica. Or even Darcy. Don’t try to handle it yourself. You might even work out a plea deal in exchange for her. They think she’s dangerous, Y/N. I’ve vouched for that.”

Your fingers tighten around the phone. If what Jimmy just told you about the Darkhold is true, they won’t be met with mercy if they go after Wanda. For their sake, you lie.

“I will. Thanks, Jimmy.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” you say, already ending the call.

—

You can’t sleep that night, tossing and turning in the small single bed that still carries the faint scent of dried blood, your mind tangled around Wanda’s offer.

You’re not tempted. Not even a little. You’ve loved Kia enough to know she won’t ever be whole without her family. And you’ve loved Wanda enough to know she isn’t offering this choice for her own happiness.

You sit up slowly, hands raking through your hair. The cabin is silent, save for the creak of beams settling and the wind scratching across the windows. Wanda’s door is shut. You have no idea if she’s sleeping, if she ever does.

You stare at the wooden floor until your eyes burn. Seven days. Decide or be decided for. Seven days.

You try to break the problem into pieces. How did she even craft that offer—if it was her at all? Your thoughts spiral back to what Jimmy shared about the Darkhold. The whole thing reeks of it. Wanda says she’s being reasonable, but you saw how her hands shook after she set the terms.

You shiver, but not from the cold, but from the thought that it’s been whispering to her every night. What lies has it told her? What costly promises?

You get out of bed.

The cabin groans as you move. You grab your coat from where it hangs by the door, quietly assembling what little gear you have left: flashlight, water bottle, emergency flare, a beat-up satellite phone with one bar of signal on a good day. You pack them quickly, hands trembling as you shove them into your bag.

You don’t want to fight her. You just want her back. And if there’s even a chance that she’s still in there, you’ll find a way to free her. Even if you have to crawl through every inch of hell to do it.

There’s only one person you can think of who might understand how.

Stephen Strange.

The Sorcerer Supreme. Or at least, he was. Witches, sorcerers—they were practically the same thing, right? You regret not listening more during Banner’s monthly post-mission lore lectures. You wish you had taken notes.

Maybe Strange has dealt with this kind of magic before. You can’t think of anyone better to handle the Darkhold.

You take one last look at the door to Wanda’s room. Then you open the front door and step outside.

It’s freezing. The air immediately bites at your lungs the moment you breathe it in. You tighten your coat and keep your head down. You don’t know what danger waits beyond Wanda’s cabin, only that it can’t possibly compare to what’s festering inside if you don’t stop the Darkhold from hollowing her out.

There’s no light but a new moon, partially obscured behind a crush of midnight clouds. Still, the path ahead looks clear enough to get you out of the woods. You don’t expect this escape to be easy, but you’ve always been light on your feet, trained to slip through anything like a shadow. This part should be a cakewalk.

Except, it isn’t, when two hundred meters from the cabin’s porch, you walk straight into a wall of invisible energy.

It hits you like a freight train.

You crash to the ground, elbows scraping bark and dirt. Static shoots up your arms. Your jaw is clenched so hard it’s grinding bone. What the fuck. You roll over, push yourself up, dizzy, breath ragged. You reach out again, slow, careful this time. The air sizzles as your fingertips approach, giving you its warning. You snatch a branch, swing it forward. The tip snaps clean off the second it touches the edge.

You grab another branch and head east, swinging it through the air and getting the same result. To confirm your suspicion, you turn and do the same in the opposite direction, and once again the wood slices cleanly at the barrier’s edge.

The enclosure is a perfect dome wrapped around the cabin, seamless and absolute.

“Fuck,” you hiss under your breath.

A thin veil of steam curls from your lips as you exhale slowly and study the invisible wall. It’s not a simple fence. It’s enchanted, but with clear instructions. Anything without the right signature meets a guillotine edge, yet Wanda has keyed the rune to treat you differently. You are shoved back inside the line, contained but not harmed in any critical way.

The spell recognizes you, labels you, and spares you. Yet the implication is that Wanda expects your flight and has already decided how far you will go—exactly ten meters short of freedom. Rising slowly, you circle the clearing once more, tracing the dome’s curve with narrowed eyes.

The thing is, you’re not easily spooked by supernatural impediments, and you’re more than ready to find out just how far Wanda’s spell is willing to go if you force your way through it. You hike back a few steps, plant your feet, and before you can second-guess yourself, ram both palms against the unseen surface.

The impact sends a blinding bolt of pain lancing up your arms, as if your nerves have been lit on fire from the inside. A scream tears out of you—hoarse, involuntary. Your knees nearly give out. But your determination drowns out the excruciating pain coursing through your body right now.

You shut your eyes and push forward with everything you have. No, the spell won’t slice you in half, but Wanda clearly didn’t account for your stubbornness—or the surge of strength you’ve somehow held onto. The spell, confused by your refusal to yield, lashes out with a jolt that courses through you like electricity.

You let out another scream.

Almost instantly you hear bare feet pounding on the wooden porch, and the cabin door swings open with a heavy thud. Wanda rushes out barefoot, her hair loose around her shoulders, wearing nothing but a worn cotton shirt and a pair of faded pajamas. The fabric clings to her in the cold, but she doesn’t seem to feel it.

Her look is a far cry from the imposing figure you’ve grown used to since you woke up. Instead, she resembles the Wanda Maximoff you went to bed with every night for over a year. The Wanda Maximoff you lost in the snap.

Before you can make your move, she lifts a single hand in a gesture so swift it barely registers, and a violent force seizes you at the ribs. Your world tilts as you are yanked backward with the strength of a snapped cable, hurtling through the air until your back hits the ground. The only tradeoff is that the electric shock finally stops coursing through you.

When your vision clears, Wanda is standing over you, her shirt rippling in the wind, fists clenched at her sides. You blink away the stars behind your eyelids and drag in a shaky breath.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she hisses. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

Her fury is meant to scald, yet a deep, involuntary laugh rolls out of you, catching her completely off guard.

She crosses her arms, obviously annoyed, which only makes it worse and you can’t help but laugh harder.

“Stop it,” she says. “You could have been killed.”

So far, it’s only Wanda’s voice you hear. If the Darkhold is quiet—sleeping, maybe—you’re going to take full advantage of it while you still can.

You wipe your eyes, getting up and dusting yourself as if the whole thing were overblown.

“Killed by a fence you built to keep me here? That’s rich, Wanda.”

Wanda seethes, and you watch with no small amount of satisfaction.

“I built it because I knew you’d run the first chance you got,” she says. “And evidently, you did not disappoint this time.”

Naturally, every retort from her would be this sharp, this merciless. You’ve never expected anything less from Wanda.

“Did you also know you’d come running after me?” you ask, unable to stop the slight tug at your lips. “That you’d stop me from getting hurt?”

“You could’ve let me pass out at the edge of your little dome,” you go on, “could’ve let me tear my own tendons trying to push through it. But you didn’t.”

“Don’t mistake that for forgiveness,” she says quietly. “Or trust. I didn’t do it for you.”

“No,” you reply. “You did it for yourself. Because if I died out there, you’d have no one left to offer your twisted little fantasy to.”

It might be a little cruel, using what you know about her like this—provoking her, pressing all the right buttons, knowing it gets through in ways kindness sometimes can’t. But Wanda left you no choice. At this point, you’d rather be the one to hurt her, to make her hate you if it means keeping the Darkhold from sinking its claws in any deeper.

You see her eyes glow red for a second. It’s not enough.

“Why even give me seven days, Wanda? Huh? What’s the point of pretending I have a say in this, when we both know you’re going to force it anyway?”

She turns away slightly, like your honesty makes her uncomfortable. Good.

You shake your head. “It’s not for me, is it?”

This time, Wanda snorts. “You’re wr—”

“It’s about giving yourself time. Time to convince yourself this isn’t what it is. That rewriting my life and erasing someone else’s isn’t… monstrous.”

Monstrous. There, you’ve said it. You’re the one to tell her because you’ve been the monster yourself. And you’re not going to let her down that road.

“You know whatever the Darkhold’s giving you,” you add, “whatever it promises… the price is always higher than the offer.”

A shadow passes over Wanda’s eyes, the only hint you need to know the Darkhold is listening now. She lifts her chin in a proud display of defiance.

“I gave you a week because you always do this,” she says. “You say one thing, then chase after another. And now you stand there preaching morality like you haven’t spent months pretending you didn’t want me.”

You look at her quizzically, trying to pinpoint what memory she’s referring to. You don’t have to think long because Wanda reveals it to you anyway.

“You think I didn’t see this pattern before? You didn’t want me, Y/N. Not until I was with Vision. Not until someone else looked at me like I was worth loving without the caveats. And even then, you waited. Watched. Like you didn’t know how to want me unless it hurt.”

Your eyes dart up to the sky, ready to deny it but she doesn’t let you.

“You don’t get to do it over, and over, and over again,” Wanda growls, her voice dropping dangerously low. Her eyes shimmer, but not from tears. Those dried up hours ago.

“The Darkhold showed me everything,” she continues, walking closer to you. “I didn’t ask it to. But it did. I saw the way you looked at Kia. I saw the mornings. Your promises to each other. The week I gave you is for you to realize that it’s what you really want before you can reject it on instinct.”

“Kia matters to me,” you confirm without hesitation. “I won’t lie about that. But you were never replaced. Wanting her never erased loving you. It just proved I’m still capable of it.”

The admission settles between you without the effect you hoped for. Wanda only tilts her head, a faint, hollow smile rising as she asks, almost lightly, “You love me?”

So instead of saying back the words You love me—once so certain on your tongue—you just nod.

You nod, because yes, you still love her. Even if it means nothing to her now.

You love her. And that’s exactly why you’re doing this. Why you’re trying to get out.

“You can’t even say it,” Wanda whispers, taking your lack of words for granted.

A slow, exhausted smile finds its way onto your lips. Wanda gives you a look, but you offer no explanation. Instead you turn on your heel and face the invisible wall once more.

Before running towards it at full speed.

“Y/N!” Wanda yells behind you.

You know exactly what’s waiting for you, and the moment your skin hits the perimeter, it feels like an inferno rushing beneath your flesh. You yelp at the pain, but you don’t care. You can think of nothing except the wall and the world beyond it. You drag one foot forward, then another, tears blurring your vision, the taste of metal filling your mouth.

You will not stay here. You will not sit quietly for seven days, waiting for Wanda to make your choices for you.

“Enough!”

But you don’t stop.

You can’t stop.

You scream through it, louder, forcing yourself forward by sheer will, even as your knees buckle.

“I said enough!” she screams again.

You can’t tell which strikes first: the enclosure’s parting impact or Wanda’s magic. Red light floods your vision, pressure blooming in your skull, throbbing behind your eyes. She is still shouting, but your hearing has already dissolved into static.

Just before everything goes black, you watch the moon slip behind a wall of thick clouds, swallowed whole by the night.

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