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There’s a giant brown hole in the side of Mac’s skull, it’s deep enough that she can still see the shattered edges of bone peaking out of it.
Like a flower peeping out of the cracks of a sidewalk.
The right side of his face is bruised purple. His right eye was swollen shut—not that he needed anymore. Nose cracked to the left, dried snot seeping out of his nostrils. Blood splatters across his face staining it poppy red.
His left eye is open, staring at Wanda as lifeless as a doll.
Even with Michael’s magic, there’s no fixing this.
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
Wanda glances up from the trunk.
Heather is crying.
She’s trying to hide it, but the redness of her freckled cheeks, the dryness of her green eyes, and the fogginess of her glasses make that impossible.
Not that anyone could blame her, she’s probably been holding these feelings since she left…God Heather made the drive all the way from Ottawa. She’s been choking back tears for miles.
Wanda turns away from her and looks back down at Mac.
There’s a million questions she wants to ask.
“What happened?”
“Are you okay?”
“Did anyone see you leave?”
And of course:
“Why didn’t you do this sooner?”
Wanda doesn’t ask that though, instead she places her hand on Heather’s shoulder.
“We’ll take care of it.” She promises.
She hasn’t seen Heather since she left Alpha Flight. Since she headed back home and bought a house in the Vancouver suburbs.
Since their breakup.
“Mac’s my husband.” She said. “You understand, right?”
“No.” Wanda told her. “No, I don’t.”
“I made a vow to love him forever.” Heather stated.
“Until death do you part.” Wanda said. “Death happened; you parted. You fell in love with me.”
“I will always cherish the time we had together!” Heather told her. “But you have to understand...he’s my husband…my first love…I can’t just…I can’t just abandon him.”
“But you can abandon me?” Wanda asked.
“I’m saying goodbye.” Heather said. “I’m giving you a reason. Abandoning you would be me jumping into Mac’s arms and leaving the Flight without a second thought.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing though!” Wanda cried. “Mac comes back to life, and you just drop everything to take care of him.”
“I’m his wife, I’m supposed to care for him!” Heather shouted.
“You’re not his wife, you’re my girlfriend!” Wanda tried to force the tears back into her eyes. “You’re the love of my life.”
She reaches her hand out to Heather, hoping the other woman would clasp it in her hand.
Heather turns away from it.
“Babe?” She whispers.
“I may be the love of your life.” Heather declared. “But Mac’s the love of mine.”
Wanda’s tears dried up as she let out a huff, she crossed her arms as she jerked her body away from Heather.
“Ain’t that the truth.” Wanda muttered.
So it was.
Heather left the Flight and went back to Mac.
Unable and unwilling to stay on a team without Heather, much less one run by the man she left her for, Wanda quit the Flight as well. Spending the past five years burying herself in research. Taking home a new girl each and every night, pretending that they weren’t Heather.
A sharp wail pulls Wanda out of her thoughts.
“I shouldn’t have involved you.” Heather’s voice warbles. “Department H is hot on my trail…the police are on the lookout for me…what’s left of the Flight is probably on their way to arrest me as we speak…”
Wanda pauses.
Heather…her Heather…was always calm, cool, and collected.
Even before Mac’s death she wasn’t going to take shit from no one.
The woman buried in her sweater wasn’t Wanda’s Heather.
Rather a shell of a woman she used to be.
Destroyed by the bastard rotting away in the back of her Subaru.
Heather sighs burying her face in her sweater. “I’m so sorry, Wanda.”
Wanda isn’t sure if she’s sorry about the breakup or showing up at her front porch in the middle of the night with a dead body in her trunk.
It doesn’t matter.
They have a new problem to deal with.
“Get in my truck.” Wanda says.
She darts back inside the house quickly, grabbing a jacket off the standby her door and shoving on a pair of boots.
She reaches into her jacket and tosses Heather a pair of keys and points to the truck sitting in the driveway.
“Start the car and get in the passenger’s seat.” Wanda tells her. “I’ll be right there.”
Heather nods and rushes over to Wanda’s black pickup.
Wanda heads over to the Subaru, ignoring the mud that clings to her furry ankles as she shifts into a hairy, white, ten-foot, dark eyed, monster.
She lifts Mac out of the trunk. Careful to angle him away from the prying eyes of the neighbors across the street. They had gotten used to having her for a neighbor, Wanda regularly relying on her powers to haul heavy packages from the mailbox to her doorstep. However, the sight of her cradling the corpse of one of Canada’s most beloved superheroes would give them cause to call the police.
Or worse Alpha Flight.
Wanda quickly rushes Mac to her truck; she drops his body and his slams into her trunk with a thud.
CREEK!
His neck cracks, causing his head to fall onto his chest.
Whatever, that just makes him easier to hide.
Wanda crushes Mac into a fetal position.
Breaking as many bones as she has to in order to curl him to a small enough shape to slide the cover over him.
Satisfied with her work she shifts into Wanda. Cold kisses her body as she looks down and realizes she’s just in her underwear.
Wanda bemoans not changing into something as she opens the back of the truck to see if she still had her change of clothes from her trip to the beach last weekend.
“What are you…” Heather’s cheeks heat up and she glances out the window as she see’s the state Wanda’s in.
“Relax…” Wanda says. “It’s not like you haven’t seen this before.”
‘Alright, that was a little mean.’ Wanda thinks as she grabs a pair of paint-stained jeans from the bottom of the floor and tosses a Simon Fraiser University sweater over her head.
She makes it to the front of the car, forcing her jeans over her hips and fastening the button as she slides into the front seat. The heat kissing her face as she slams the door shut.
“Thank you.” Heather says.
As Wanda begins to pull out of the driveway.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Wanda says. “We still have to get you out of this mess.”
“Still…” Heather has stopped crying, although her cheeks were still wet. “If I showed up at anyone else’s house, they wouldn’t have leant me their car. Much less driven with me to dispose of a corpse.”
“Anything for you.” Wanda mutters.
‘Babe.’