The silk of the wedding gown felt like a shroud. Standing before the full-length mirror in her chambers in Latveria, Wanda Maximoff did not see a bride. She saw a prisoner in a white cage, the intricate lace and pearl beading a mockery of the promise she had held in her heart since she was a girl.

Her reflection was a stranger, pale and composed, but her mind was a storm. It wasn’t the grand, gothic halls of Castle Doom she saw in the glass, but the sun-dappled, dusty fields of the Transian countryside. She saw you. Not the man you were now, but the boy with the easy smile who was always at Pietro’s side, her brother’s other half. You were the constant in her chaotic childhood, a steady, kind presence when her own life felt like a tempest of fear and strange power. She had loved you with the fierce, uncomplicated certainty of a child, tugging on your sleeve and making you swear, pinky-promise, that you would marry her when you were grown.

You had laughed, a warm sound she clung to, and promised. It was a game to you then, a sweet pact with your best friend’s little sister. For her, it became scripture.

A soft knock preceded the entrance of her father. Magneto’s presence filled the room, a cold, metallic weight that stifled the air. His eyes, usually so full of calculating ambition, held a flicker of something else as he looked at her—regret, perhaps, swiftly buried beneath layers of political necessity.

“You look… regal, Wanda,” he said, his voice echoing slightly in the stone room.

Regal. Not happy. Not loved. Regal. The word was a key for a lock she never wanted to turn. He saw her not as a daughter with a heart, but as a strategic asset. In his eyes, Pietro was an impulsive disappointment, and by extension, you—Pietro’s brother in all but blood—were unworthy. A mere mortal, lacking power, lacking lineage, lacking the grandeur he demanded for his bloodline.

So he had chosen Doom. Victor Von Doom. The strongest being her father could conceive of. A man of iron and sorcery, whose very name was a decree. She could have said no... but she didn't had the occasion, since she lost her memories. During that time, she leaned heavily onto him which made things ever worse. But now that she started remembering... She wants you. Only you.

This marriage was to be a weld, fusing two houses of power, a transaction to strengthen an alliance. Her heart was not a factor in the equation.

“Thank you, father,” she whispered, the words ash in her mouth.

As she took his arm to walk the long, torch-lit corridor to the chapel, her steps were measured, a queen’s procession. But inside, she was screaming. The heavy scent of incense and cold stone made her think of a tomb. With every step, she imagined a different path. She imagined you waiting at the end of this aisle instead, in a simple suit, with that familiar, grounding smile just for her. She imagined the life they could have had—not in a castle, but in a home. Quiet, normal, real.

The great doors swung open. The assembled lords and diplomats of Latveria stood. And there, at the far end, stood Doom, immovable as a mountain, his metal mask giving away nothing.

Magneto led her forward. Her eyes swept over the cold, magnificent assembly, but in her mind, she saw only you. She felt the ghost of your hand in hers, the echo of your childhood vow. This walk was the longest of her life, each step a betrayal of that promise, each step a surrender to her father’s will.

As she finally reached Doom and her father placed her hand in his armored grasp, the metal was frigid. She lifted her gaze, meeting the impassive slits of Doom’s mask. But in that final, private moment before the ceremony began, her eyes, just for a heartbeat, glazed over. She wasn’t looking at her sovereign, her husband-to-be.

She was looking at an empty space beside him, wishing with every fractured piece of her soul that it was you.