At first, there is only darkness.
Not the kind that's empty, but the quiet that follows a long cry or the final note of a lullaby—gentle, suspended. Pietro finds himself standing in a field of light and shadow, where the ground seems to hum softly beneath his bare feet. It's not grass, not stone—just a smooth, endless surface, glowing faintly like starlight caught in water.
The sky stretches high and wide above, painted in soft, dreamlike hues—lavender, dusk gold, deep cerulean fading into black. It doesn't feel like day or night. It feels like the space in between.
Scattered around him are floating fragments of memory—bits of a childhood long gone. A paper airplane drifting by. The smell of cinnamon from their old kitchen. A worn-out soccer ball rolling to a stop at his feet before vanishing like mist. Time doesn't move here; it breathes.
And then, he sees her.
Wanda stands some distance away, not approaching immediately, just watching him with a quiet intensity. There's something in her posture—soft, but still, like she's holding something inside. She looks… older somehow. Not in years, but in weight. Her eyes are tired, beautiful, and filled with an ache Pietro can't name yet.
She smiles—genuine, but faint. Like she's afraid if she gives in too much, she might fall apart.
As he walks toward her, the space begins to shift. The world bends gently around their steps. The petals that drift through the air now come from nowhere and everywhere—scarlet, like a memory of war, or love, or loss. Wanda reaches for his hand, and the warmth of it feels real. Solid. Human.
They sit together beneath a tree that wasn't there moments before. Its branches curve overhead like arms in prayer. Neither of them speaks at first. They don't need to. This place—this soft, impossible space—is a cradle for the unspoken.
Wanda eventually looks away, eyes catching the slow swirl of petals in the air.
"You're always so fast," she murmurs, barely louder than the wind. "I could never keep up."
There's a quiet peace to her voice, but something beneath it is trembling—like a goodbye wrapped in a lullaby. Pietro doesn't fully understand yet, but the world seems to. The light dims, gently, like a candle flickering low. And time, patient until now, begins to press forward.
Something is ending here. And neither of them wants to say it out loud.
............
Back in the Mirror Dimension, chaos and violence reign.
The Avengers circle Berserker, who is now faltering. Lancelot's corrupted form, separated from Mjolnir and Arondight, has begun to slow, flickering between dimensions of memory and rage. His breath heaves, armor scorched and fractured. Each step he takes echoes like the toll of a dying bell.
Thor and Hulk rush him from opposite sides. Hulk grabs Berserker's left arm, straining, muscles bulging, while Thor hurls a bolt of purified lightning at his chest. It detonates with righteous force, driving the corrupted Servant to his knees.
Clint fires an arrow tipped with Stark's disruption tech—its impact sends Berserker into convulsions, lines of corrupted magic sparking violently across his body. Natasha doesn't wait; she strikes with a pair of enchanted daggers, severing the final threads of magical cohesion holding his form together.
Berserker stumbles, then rises to his full height.
For a heartbeat, everything stills.
The blackness recedes from his armor. His eyes—red for so long—now gleam a familiar blue. The madness lifts. What remains is a man, weary and noble.
Lancelot.
He turns to face the Avengers, battered and bloodied, and gives a slow, reverent nod. A knight's final salute.
Then, his gaze turns upward—toward the heavens.
The storm above begins to quiet. He lifts a hand—not in violence, but in farewell—and the corrupted air parts around him like silk.
His body begins to glow, not with pain, but with peace. As his form dissolves into starlight and wind, the faint sound of hooves on water echoes through the Mirror Dimension—a memory of the Round Table, of oaths made under stars, of honor never truly lost.
Sir Lancelot du Lac, the Knight of the Lake, passes on with dignity, with honor, and with grace.
The storm he brought dies with him.
Where he stood, only a single white lily now rests, untouched by the ash and ruin around it.
The Avengers regroup, panting, bloodied, and bruised—but alive.
Rin steps forward first, eyes scanning the battlefield. "Where's Wanda?"
A violent pulse answers her. Energy radiates outward in a dome around Wanda's position, rippling with unstable power. Crimson threads whip through the air like lashes, disintegrating any debris that touches them.
Tony's voice cuts in through comms. "I can't get a reading. Whatever's powering her right now… it's not just Wanda. It's something else."
Rin's heart sinks. She knows exactly what that something is.
They stand at the edge of the storm, watching her.
And none of them can get close.
They all try to brainstorm ideas, each theory more desperate than the last. Stark paces while muttering calculations under his breath. Thor grips Mjolnir tighter, eyes locked on the inferno of magic. Even Hulk seems hesitant, unsettled.
Then, suddenly, Pietro arrives beside them.
Even Thor, with his battle-hardened senses, barely registers the motion. It's as if Pietro was simply... there.
But he is not the quick-talking, smirking presence they once knew. This Pietro is still. Composed. A shadow of motion wrapped in cold determination.
Everyone falls into stunned silence.
His hair's a little longer. His clothes darker. His eyes… not frantic, but fixed. Like he's already seen the outcome—and chosen to walk straight through it anyway.
He takes the dagger from Rin—not an ordinary dagger, but the jeweled sword of Zelretch—and just as the others are about to question him, time seems to slow down. The only movement in this static world is—
A wind sweeping across the battlefield—not natural, but born of transition. Born of an ending.
The magic storm surrounding Wanda writhes like a living thing. It buckles and thrashes, as though trying to keep something in—or perhaps, something out. Pulses of crimson erupt outward in jagged bursts, splitting the ground and sky with runes no one can decipher. The ground cracks at the edge of her energy dome, trembling like a heartbeat.
And Pietro steps forward.
Just once.
And the world shudders.
The dreamscape has not ended. Not really.
It clings to him, threads of that otherworld clinging like spectral silk—memories woven into muscle, grief burned into bone. Wanda's voice still echoes in his mind, quieter than breath, louder than fate.
"You have to run, Pietro. One last time."
He remembers every word. Not because he wants to—but because he has no choice. Because Wanda left no space for denial. Because she showed him what comes next if he hesitates.
Angra Mainyu. The unmaking. The distortion of humanity's soul into a single, devouring will. A god born from rot, wearing his sister like a skin.
And Wanda... Wanda chose the only path that didn't end in universal silence.
He takes another step.
Faster than sound. Slower than sorrow.
The world around him blurs at the edges, like a page halfway turned. Only the sword in his hand and the vision in his heart remain in focus.
Inside the storm, he can see her—Wanda's silhouette flickering like a candle behind a sheet of blood-red glass. Her body arched, suspended between her own consciousness and something far darker. Her hands outstretched. Her lips unmoving.
But he knows what she said.
He knows what she asked of him.
And Pietro, the boy who always ran, is now the man who will stop—only when it is done.
Rin tries to speak—tries to stop him.
"Pietro—"
But her words scatter like dust on wind.
Because he is gone.
A single footstep—and he vanishes into the storm.
The world follows.
Inside the dome, it is a different universe. Magic thick as fog, the pressure immense. Time distorted into an accordion of jagged moments. Pietro feels his own cells groan under the speed he is moving, but Wanda's last spell—the gift she left buried inside him—holds.
It holds.
She made him faster than causality. Faster than thought. He moves between the beats of time itself.
And there she is.
At the center.
Wanda Maximoff, held aloft in a crucible of unraveling creation. Her body flickering, caught in the throes of a cosmic possession, and yet—her face is serene.
She sees him.
Of course she does.
And she smiles, one final time.
"Run."
He does not hesitate.