Finding Hope Within Grief Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Still haven't heard back from the Arabian prince….I'm sure everything's fine, transferring billions of dollars takes time...right? Anyway, till then Disney and Marvel still own the characters.

Wanda: I'm so sorry Peter, I was just so angry and I did something horrible. Please can you call me?

Wanda: I can't tell you how sorry I am, please let me explain!

Wanda: I know you were just trying to help and I just want to talk to you.

Wanda: Can we talk a bit before therapy starts this week?

Wanda: Please call or text me back. :(

Wanda: I miss you.

Wanda sighed angrily as she slammed her phone on the table in front of her. Peter hadn't been responding to any of her messages since their argument last week. At first she thought he was just processing the fact that she had red magical powers and was very confused, but then when she sent another text he still hadn't responded! She would send him a new message almost every couple hours hoping that he would text back to give her a chance to apologize but he didn't.

The longer Peter wouldn't text back the more her emotions would change like the wind. At first she was immediately furious after their argument, it took two full days for Tonys contractors to repair the training room after she took out her anger in the room. Then when she was exhausted from all the energy she exerted all she could feel was emptiness and shame. The fact she lied to herself that she didn't have a problem and then took out her anger on someone who was just trying to help. Sure she may have snapped at some of the Avengers when they probed a bit, but she never lashed out at them with her powers. Then finally guilt, that was the feeling that lasted the most and what motivated her to keep messaging Peter hoping he would give her a second chance. Then the cycle would repeat itself and she felt like she was back at square one.

The only hope Wanda had was that Peter would show up to therapy this week, she was so sure she'd see Peter there that she actually showed up early. However, as the minutes ticked by and he still didn't show up the more she started to worry. If he wasn't answering her texts or going to show up here then what could she do?

A ding sound alerted her to a text message being received on her phone, Wanda quickly reached over and flipped her phone eager to see Peter's message, however, it wasn't from Peter.

It was a text message from Vision, the android had seemed to be on a personal mission to cheer her up ever since he noticed her distressed state. Quite frankly it was more annoying than cheerful and often felt suffocating.

Vision: Apologizes, by my estimates I hope you have received this message on your break. I've been tasked with making a meal for the team and was hoping you would be interested in helping me cook a sokovian dish for them?

Wanda groaned again as she placed her phone back down, not bothering to respond to Vision. On a normal day she would find the gesture sweet but right now she was too stressed out now.

Part of the reason she figured was that she'd been trying to cut back on drinking, she knew being intoxicated was a big reason why she reacted as strongly to Peters's comments.

It seemed like every day she was battling a giant headache and that already made an already irritable Wanda even more irritable, if that was even possible. She wanted to prove Peter wrong, that she didn't have a drinking problem, so she made herself cut it out. Then the headaches started to come, she could feel herself twitch anytime she saw alcohol in the fridge.

The worst of it was when the nightmares came back, Wanda thought she had passed it, but it seemed just as she stopped they quickly invaded her thoughts. They used to be memories, whether her parents' death or Pietro's death. Now it seemed like a jumbled mess of memories, pictures and sometimes fictional scenarios her mind would create. It didn't matter, they all left her wide awake, terrified to even close her eyes.

The nightmares, the headaches, guilt, and Peter not talking to her left her as a giant mess. How could she fix this?

A bottle of beer slammed on the table right in front of her. She flinched at the unexpected noise, Wanda looked up and saw the bartender was the person who put it down.

"You look like you needed one." She said simply.

Wanda frowned as she stared at the bottle, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't tempted to grab it and chug it down and try to forget all the shit she's been going through, but she had to be better than that.

"Do you normally give out free beer?" Wanda asked, confused about the gesture. The only time a bartender would ever give out free beer was if they were trying to get in their pants. She should know, she exploited men's idiocy for drinks multiple times.

The woman shrugged. "Isn't easy to watch someone get stood up."

Wanda's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Stood up?"

"Yeah, ever since you got here you've been staring at your phone every few minutes, the look on your face getting angrier and angrier." The bartender explained.

"Oh.' Wanda replied simply, I guess it did look like her date didn't show up. "It's not like that."

The lady snorted at her response. "Yeah like you're special." She paused as she noticed Wanda's glare. "Sorry, it's just I've heard the same shit story. He's not that guy, we're soulmates, he'll have a good explanation as to why he didn't show, or it's not like that."

Wanda sighed as she looked down at the bottle, she didn't feel like explaining to this woman why she wasn't on a date and the man was actually a teenager. Besides, she was smart enough to know that in this crowd it would only look like she was trying to seduce a minor.

Instead of responding she just grabbed the bottle and fiddled with it. It had been a few days, what could just one beer do? She popped the cap and slowly poured a small amount down her throat. Oh, that did taste good.

"See, you're feeling better already." The lady smiled, a customer on the other side of the bar started yelling for more drinks, so she left, leaving Wanda alone again.

Once again she was left alone, she reached for her phone to check again but stopped herself. She retracted her hand and took another sip of her beer. Was this all she was going to do? Just be miserable until he answered back? She glanced down at what remained of her drink and contemplated what to do.

"Screw it." She said as she downed the rest of her beer. She put it back down with a delightful sigh escaping her lips. She noticed the bartender coming back and Wanda waved her over.

"I would like another please," Wanda told her.

The lady smiled as she reached inside the fridge and pulled out another beer. "You know only the first one was free?"

Wanda smiled as she pulled out her credit card, and handed it to the bartender. "Start a tab for me and charge everything on this card.

"Sure thing." The bartender replied. "So do you have a name or should I just put you as 'Foreign Chick' on your tab.

"Wanda, yours?"

"Elizabeth." The bartender shared, she was about to walk away before Wanda stopped her.

"Do you have anything fruity?" Wanda asked.

"What did you have in mind?" She questioned back.

"What about Pornstars?" The Sokovian asked excitedly.

"We do, I'll start making one for you then." She gave Wanda a small wink before walking off to make her drink.

Wanda smiled to herself, a genuine smile. She'd been holding off on drinking for a few days already, she could afford to treat herself and have some fun. She then poured a large amount of her beer down her throat, oh the burn felt so good.

"I missed this," Wanda said to herself when she put the drink down.

She glanced around the bar, as nice as it would be to sit around and drink. She needed to do something! If she was going to let loose and have some fun she needed to move around. Unfortunately it was still pretty early in the day so there weren't a lot of people, so that removed dancing as a possibility as there were no people to grind against.

It was then she eyed a man playing darts by himself. Wanda smirked to herself as she just saw her next form of entertainment. She got off her stool and made her way over to him, she made sure he saw her well in advance as she walked over. She instantly noticed that he stopped playing and tried to discreetly stare at her. 'Men'

Wanda stopped right in front of him, she could see him taking their time to look up to her face. It didn't take her magic powers to know what he was thinking of her.

Once his eyes finally rested on her face, he gave her an over-friendly smile. "What can I do for a pretty woman like you?"

Wanda had to resist rolling her eyes at his pathetic attempt at an opener, it was clear he had no clue what charming meant. Instead, she crossed her arms underneath her bust to make it more prominent and batted her eyes a couple of times.

"I was just by myself and I saw you playing this interesting game, I wanted to see what it was." She said sweetly motioning to the dartboard. "I'm Max."

"I'm Jackson." He said taking her hand and kissing on the knuckle. "No wonder, with a beautiful accent like that, I imagine they don't have this great game of darts where you're from." He responded, letting go of her hand.

The sokovian pretended to be shy as she bit her finger and looked at the darts in his hand in mock worry. "Looks like such a dangerous game with the sharp needles."

The man let out a loud bellow laugh, he smacked the table causing it to wobble. "Nothing dangerous about, why don't we play a game, can show you how safe it is."

He grabbed one of the darts and motioned to the dartboard a couple of feet away on the wall. "It's a little complicated but I'll make it simple for you." He said flashing her with a wide smile. "The goal of the game is to have the most points. You want to throw your dart in the small red dot in the center because that's worth the most points. The other areas as well are worth points as well, just not as much. After you throw all your darts you add up your score and whoever has the bigger number wins."

Wanda pretended to look at him like he was the most interesting thing ever, her eyes were wide and she nodded along as if she was paying attention, in truth she'd played darts before and she was about to make this man look like an idiot.

Jackson threw the first dart and Wanda almost laughed out loud as it missed the board completely, she could hear him muttering and he continued to throw, the next two hit the board but scored very little points.

"Now it's not easy, even pro's like me have a difficult time." He explained, trying to maintain his poor masculinity.

"Okay, I'll try my best." She said as she grabbed her own three darts.

Now, this is the part where she had the most fun. "What do I win?" She asked him suddenly.

Jackson frowned at her. "Win?"

Wanda nodded eagerly. "This is a game right, doesn't the winner usually get something?"

She could see Jackson's frown even further before a creepy smile appeared on his face. "Got any money on you?"

Wanda pointed to her beer. "How do you think I paid for it?"

He nodded. "Okay how about we each chip in twenty bucks, the winner keeps it all." He took a bill from his wallet and placed it on the table.

"Sure thing." She replied easily, the dummy was playing right into her hand.

She held the first dart in her hand and brought it up to eye level, she had to close her eyes as she started to see her vision shaken. Maybe drinking two beers very quickly was a bad idea. It was alright, even if she couldn't rely on her natural talent she still had her secret weapon. Right as she was about to throw it she purposely dropped the dart and watched as it landed on the floor.

"Oops," Wanda said, and she slowly bent down at the waist to pick it up, making sure her jean-clad butt was facing Jackson.

She smiled to herself as she felt his eyes staring at her ass, his thoughts screaming at her of all the nasty things he was imagining.

She stood back and raised the dart, but she knew Jackson was no longer paying attention at the game, and that was what she wanted. She enveloped the dart in a small red aura and sent it flying to her desired target. She smirked as it landed dead on and the fact he didn't say anything meant he was still staring at her rear. She quickly fired her remaining darts at the board, she'd already won hitting the center but she wanted it to look like it was pure luck so her other "throws" were low scoring targets.

Turning around she saw his eyes quickly look back up at her, trying to hide where he was previously staring at. He glanced over her shoulder at the board behind her and saw his eyes widened at her result.

"Uhhhh?" He stammered out looking at her final score, in disbelief.

"So does this mean I win?" She asked, way over the top excited.

Jackson nodded dumbly as he started to pull the darts out. Wanda squealed in excitement as she grabbed his twenty-dollar bill and stuffed it in her pocket.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Elizabeth walking towards her, a very familiar drink on her tray.

"Here you go, Pornstar just like you asked." She said handing Wanda the drink, she couldn't help herself by taking a quick sip, her lips sighing in satisfaction.

"That's a very good drink, keep them coming," Wanda said as she placed her drink besides Jacksons.

The bartender nodded, she looked at Jackson for a quick moment and then motioned for her to lean closer.

"Be careful with him, ever since you turned your back to him to play the creeps been staring at your ass." She warned.

"I know," Wanda said simply as she smiled back at her. She could see Elizabeth was confused for a moment before looking at the twenty that was half stuffed in her pocket, realization dawning on her face that she was conning the man.

"Do me a favor, pick him clean, the jackass is always hitting on me." The bartender requested.

"Count on it," Wanda smirked as she turned back to Jackson. "Want to play again?"

It turned out that after you bruise a man's ego, he'd do anything he can to repair it. Even if it meant losing every bit of money he carried on. Now that her body had gotten used to alcohol in its system she was able to better focus on and improve her aim without the use of her powers. She made sure to make each game close so that he would believe it was just luck, she'd even throw the odd game just to make it believable.

While all this was happening Wanda kept ordering more and more drinks, she didn't notice but her personality was starting to change, she was becoming giddier and giddier. Heck she was even flirting with the man! Well she mainly did it to make sure he continued to bet more money and didn't leave in frustration.

She has just finished her seventh? Eighth? She shrugged as she lost count on how much she'd drank. Though in the back of her mind she knew she was forgetting something, she couldn't remember what? It didn't matter, she'd deal with it after she was done. Just like with her phone constantly buzzing she just ignored it and let the problem solve itself.

A loud swear grabbed her attention as she saw Jackson had missed the board again and thus losing another game. She smiled to herself as she grabbed another twenty he'd placed on the table and stuffed it in her pocket along with the other bills. She giggled to herself thinking how much bills she had on her, it made her feel like a stripper.

"Oh dancing will be fun." She said to herself when she thought of dancers, also she saw more and more people coming inside and moving on the dance floor.

She finished the rest of her drink and stood up, she wobbled for a bit and had to use her chair as support.

"Where are you going?" She heard Jackson ask behind her.

"I think I've played enough darts, I want to dance now, nice playing with you." She said trying to reduce how many words she was slurring.

Once she felt the shaking start to stop she took a deep breath and started to make her way towards the dance floor, however, something grabbed her wrist stopping her. Confused Wanda turned around and saw Jackson had grabbed her.

"Mind letting go?" She asked.

"I thought we could go back to my place?" The way he spoke it told Wanda it was more of an order than a suggestion.

That instantly sobered her up a bit, she did not appreciate the way he just spoke to her. "Not interested."

If anything the grip on her arm applied more pressure, it wasn't any pain Wanda couldn't handle but this was starting to get annoying.

That's when he pulled her closer until she was face to face with him, she looked up at Jackson and could see his eyes narrowed, what was worse was that he reeked of alcohol, how much had they both drunk? A quick glance at the empty glasses and beer bottles from both of them said a lot.

"Why not? We're having a great time." He responded. An arrogant smirk appeared on his face. "Besides, you're way into me."

She didn't know if it was the alcohol speaking, or he really was that much of an idiot. Either way she was getting sick of this. "Trust me, buddy, I'm not interested in you and wouldn't touch you if you were the last man on earth."

She nearly gagged as she could smell and hear him taking heavier breaths. "Then why have you been flaunting this for the past few hours bitch!" Right as Jackson finished speaking she felt his hand snake around her and landed on her butt, giving it a firm squeeze.

Wanda's eyes nearly widened at what he just did, she soon narrowed her gaze at him. Reacting on pure instinct she wound her free arm back and landed a hard punch to the creep's face. It did the trick as he instantly let go of her with both hands, he must not have been suspecting it as he flew back and landed on the table, causing the legs to crack and sending both him and the empty bottles and glasses to the floor in a loud crash. She could feel everyone around her go silent at the loud commotion.

She couldn't help but giggle at the state he was in, dazed, confused, embarrassed, and splashes on alcohol on his clothing.

She could see him coming to his senses as his eyes landed on her. "You bitch!" He roared as he got up and charged at her, but before he could reach her another hand grabbed at Jackson and pulled him back.

Wanda looked back and saw it was a fairly large man that had grabbed Jackson by the back of his shirt, he yanked him back before dragging him away towards the front door. "Come on man, she said no and you've had too much to drink."

Now that the scene was over it seemed like everyone was resuming their conversations and music started to play again. Now what was she going to do again? A quick glance around and she saw the dance floor again. "That looks fun, I should try it."

The rest of the evening seemed to blur as she kept finding new ways to have fun, first, it was dancing then when she got tired she tried pool as well, and then the cycle repeated itself. If anyone looked at her they would always have a drink either in her hand or not too far away from her.

She also remembered something was vibrating in her pocket? She shook her head, silly at the notion, pants don't vibrate. It was honestly the most fun she'd had and she didn't want it to end.

That's when she saw Elizabeth set up the karaoke machine on the stage. Wanda loved karaoke! Before the bartender could finish installing it Wanda wobbled her way on stage.

"Ooooh me first!" She slurred, Elizabeth chuckled at her and handed her the mic.

"Be gentle with this, you wouldn't be the first drunk to accidentally break it while singing." She commented as she walked off the stage.

Wanda flipped through the selections, she wasn't familiar with most of these songs, but one did spark some sort of resemblance to her. So with a Pornstar in one hand and the mic in the other, she walked to the center of the stage, everyone's attention now on her as the first few beats of the song came on.

"All you women who want a man on the street, but you don't know which way you wanna turn." It wasn't the ideal song, but she doubted this American bar, with a karaoke machine made in China, had any songs from Sokovia. "Just keep a coming and put your hand out to me, cause I'm the one who's gonna make you burn."

Wanda could see the crowd really getting into her performance as she saw them standing on their feet and cheering loudly at her. That just further spurred her on as she continued, she took a quick sip of her drink and continued.

Soon even she got into the spirit of it as she started dancing along to her singing, she probably looked ridiculous but she couldn't care less.

"Shoot to thrill, play to ki-" Wanda didn't watch where she was going as her foot tripped on the cord from the microphone and she fell off the stage. It seems people's first reaction to her falling was not to catch her, instead they moved out of the way. She landed harshly on her back, the breath being knocked out of her and soon followed by her head on the hard floor.

She groaned as all the alcohol in her system couldn't numb the pain she was feeling. What was worse was that she could feel the vibrations getting worse, where was it coming from!?

Her mind was jumping all over the place as she could hear some commotion and hear her name?

"Wanda!" A masculine voice said.

Strange, the only person she told her name to was Elizabeth and she was eighty percent sure she was a woman.

"Wanda!" Another voice said, definitely masculine.

She tried to get up but the pain was too much and she laid her head back on the wooden floor.

"There she is Sam!" This time a female voice shouted.

The last thing Wanda could see was two pairs of feet by her side, she saw one was a blurred face with long red hair before passing out.

Authors Note: Bit of a shorter chapter but I wanted this to focus solely on Wanda's perspective. Obviously this chapter was her hitting rock bottom and her drinking problem escalating. Next time we see her she'll have to admit a few things she's been running from.

The next chapter will show what Peters has been going through and how he feels about the past week and why he's been ignoring Wanda.

See you next time!