City of Angels (1)
wanda maximoff x fem!reader
Summary: What if the Angel of Death fell in love with the woman who refused to let anyone die?
Warnings/Tags: AU, angel!reader, doctor!wanda, hurt/comfort, mutual pining, yearning, forbidden love, immortal reader, graphic medical procedures, death, grief, discussions of mortality, existential themes, religious/angel imagery, temporary victor (vision) x wanda, eventual wanda maximoff x fem!reader, angel!steve, doctor/bestfriend natasha
A/N: Inspired by City of Angels. Multichapter? We'll see. This is very slow burn with plenty of incorrect medical drama, emotional angst, and healing. First attempt at this because I can't sleep. Please be gentle with me 🥺
Chapter 1: The Woman Who Challenges Death
At 2:17 in the morning, New York belonged to the nearly dead.
The city had not gone quiet. It never did. It simply lowered its voice.
Sirens replaced conversation. Traffic lights changed for empty intersections. Steam curled from street grates in pale ribbons, dissolving into the freezing air before anyone thought to look up. Taxi cabs moved through wet avenues like yellow embers, carrying the sleepless, the grieving, and the drunk toward destinations that seemed urgent only because it was dark.
Above the East River, the clouds had swallowed the moon.
NewYork-Presbyterian glowed against the night. Every window held a different kind of waiting.
A man sat beside his wife’s bed with both hands wrapped around hers, as though grip alone might keep her anchored.
A nurse leaned against a supply cabinet and closed her eyes for exactly seventeen seconds.
A new father stood before a nursery window, crying so quietly he had not yet realized he was crying at all.
And on the seventh floor, beneath the bright, merciless lights of an operating room, Dr. Wanda Maximoff reached into a stranger’s chest and refused to let him die.
Y/N stood beyond the glass.
No one looked at her.
No one ever did.
She wore a dark coat that fell just below her knees, though the cold could not touch her. Her hands rested loosely at her sides. Around her, monitors pulsed, wheels squeaked against polished floors, and the building breathed in mechanical rhythms.
She heard everything.
The hum of fluorescent lights.
The whisper of blood through arteries.
The private prayers of people who claimed not to believe in anything.
She heard the patient’s heart struggling beneath Wanda’s hands.
Weak.
Uneven.
Fading.
“Pressure is dropping.”
The anesthesiologist’s voice remained controlled, but fear had already sharpened the edges of it.
Wanda did not look up.
Her dark auburn hair was hidden beneath a surgical cap, though several damp strands had escaped near her temples. A sheen of sweat glimmered along her forehead. Her shoulders were rigid beneath green scrubs, and her gloved hands moved with astonishing precision inside the open chest.
“How low?” she asked.
“Sixty over thirty.”
“Start another unit.”
“We’re already on the fourth.”
Wanda’s gaze flicked toward the monitor.
For less than a second, something cracked across her face.
Not panic. Calculation.
Then it disappeared.
“Then start the fifth.”
Victor stood across from her, tall and composed even beneath the shapeless surgical gown. His pale features were half-obscured by his mask, but his blue eyes remained fixed on the damaged vessel between them.
“Wanda,” he said quietly.
She ignored the warning in his tone.
“Clamp.”
A nurse placed the instrument in her waiting hand.
Victor adjusted his position. “The tissue won’t hold.”
“It has to.”
“That isn’t how tissue works.”
“Tonight it is.”
Victor’s eyes lifted to hers.
For one suspended moment, the operating room seemed to narrow around them.
Y/N watched Wanda’s jaw tighten.
Victor watched it too.
He knew her well enough to recognize the exact moment determination began curdling into desperation.
“Wanda,” he repeated, more gently this time.
“Don’t.”
Her answer came too quickly.
The monitor let out a sharp alarm.
Everyone moved at once.
“V-fib.”
“Charge to two hundred."
Wanda pulled her hands free.
The paddles were passed across the field.
“Clear.”
The patient’s body jolted.
The line on the monitor continued to dance without rhythm.
“Again.”
“Wanda—”
“Again.” She snapped.
Victor stepped back.
“Clear.”
Another violent lift of the chest.
Another refusal.
Wanda stared at the monitor as though hatred might compel it into obedience.
“Three hundred.”
The anesthesiologist glanced at the clock.
“We’ve been down six minutes.”
“I know how long it’s been.” Her voice was flat now.
Too flat. A dangerous calm.
Y/N had heard that tone from soldiers in ruined fields and mothers beside fevered children. It was the sound people made when hope had already begun leaving, but pride had not yet allowed grief through the door.
The defibrillator charged.
“Clear.”
The patient’s body rose.
Fell.
Nothing.
The room became still. Only the alarm remained.
Victor lowered his hands.
“Wanda.”
She did not answer.
He moved closer.
There was blood on his gown. There was blood on hers. It had painted the front of her in dark, ugly blooms.
“We have to stop.”
“No.”
“He has no cardiac activity.”
“Then we keep going.”
“We’ve exhausted every option.”
“No, we haven’t.”
“Tell me what’s left.”
Her eyes snapped toward him.
For the first time, anger broke through. “I’ll find something.”
Victor held her gaze.
His expression did not harden. That would have been easier for her. Instead, it softened.
Y/N felt the change in Wanda before Wanda herself did.
A fracture beneath the ribs.
A collapse happening somewhere no machine could measure.
“Wanda,” Victor said, barely above a murmur. “He’s gone.”
The words settled over the room.
Wanda stared down at the still body beneath the sterile drapes.
The man’s name was Elias Bell; he was forty-six years old. He taught American history to high school students in Queens. He hated olives. He kept movie ticket stubs in an old coffee tin because his wife always threw hers away. He had been afraid of elevators since childhood and had spent the entire ambulance ride pretending he was not afraid of death.
Y/N knew these things because she had heard them in the moments before he lost consciousness.
Humans were rarely more honest than when they believed no one could hear them.
Wanda’s hands remained suspended over him.
Victor said nothing more, neither did anyone else.
The clock on the wall continued moving.
At last, Wanda stepped back.
The motion was small, but it seemed to cost her everything.
“Time of death,” she said, her voice faltered.
She cleared her throat. “Two forty-three.”
A nurse repeated the time. The monitor was silenced.
The sudden quiet felt obscene.
Wanda pulled off her gloves with sharp, jerking movements. One snapped against her wrist. She flinched, though not from pain.
Victor reached for her arm, but she moved before he could touch her.
“I’ll speak to the family.”
“You don’t have to do that alone.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Wanda.”
She turned away from him.
The doors opened.
For one brief second, she stopped at the threshold, shoulders rising as she drew in a breath that did not steady her. Then she walked out.
Y/N followed.
She did not need to.
Her duty was elsewhere.
Elias Bell was already standing beside his own body.
He looked younger without pain.
He stared down at the blood, the instruments, the team beginning the quiet work of closing what no longer needed saving.
“Is that me?” he asked. Y/N turned toward him.
He could see her now. They always could, at the end.
“Yes.”
His eyes moved to Wanda’s retreating figure.
“She tried.”
“She did.”
“I heard her.”
Y/N nodded.
Elias looked at his hands.
His wedding ring remained.
They always carried what mattered, though not always in ways they understood.
“My wife is outside.”
“I know.”
“She won’t know what to do.”
“She will.”
He laughed once, without humor. “No, she won’t.”
Y/N had no answer for that.
Humans often mistook survival for competence.
They believed continuing meant knowing how. It did not.
Elias looked toward the operating room doors.
“Can I see her?”
“For a moment.”
He followed Y/N into the corridor.
No one noticed the dead man walking among them.
A resident passed through his shoulder and shivered.
Elias barely reacted; he was staring at Wanda.
She stood near the end of the hall, removing her surgical cap. Her hair spilled loose around her shoulders in disordered waves. She pressed both palms against the counter at the nurses’ station and bowed her head.
Victor had followed, though he kept several feet between them.
He understood distance.
That was one of the things Wanda loved about him.
Or had loved.
Y/N could not yet tell the difference.
“You should take a minute,” he said.
Wanda laughed softly, though the sound held no amusement. “To do what?”
“Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Barely.”
She looked up. Her green eyes were bright with unshed tears and fury.
“At least I’m doing that.”
Victor’s mouth tightened.
The remark hit him. Wanda saw it happen. Regret flickered across her face, but she was too tired to reach for an apology.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I know.”
He stepped closer this time and Wanda let him.
His hand settled at the back of her neck, thumb resting beneath her hairline. It was an intimate gesture. Familiar. Practiced.
Y/N looked away. The impulse confused her.
She had watched lovers kiss beside hospital beds. She had seen spouses sleep folded together in plastic chairs. She had observed every version of human closeness without ever feeling excluded from it.
Until now.
Elias stood beside her.
“She knows him,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Her husband?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
Y/N turned back.
Victor leaned his forehead briefly against Wanda’s temple.
“Yes,” she said.
The word felt strange in her mouth.
Elias studied her.
The newly dead were often perceptive. Perhaps death removed the need for politeness.
“You don’t like him.”
“I do not know him.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
Y/N gave him a look. Elias just smiled.
Then his expression faded.
At the far end of the corridor, a woman rose from a vinyl chair.
Rebecca Bell, Elias’s wife.
She was small, with silver threaded through dark hair and one sleeve of her sweater pulled over her hand. She had been staring at the operating room doors for three hours, seventeen minutes, and twelve seconds.
When she saw Wanda approaching, hope transformed her face. It was immediate.
Brutal.
Wanda stopped.
Rebecca knew.
Hope did not disappear all at once. It broke apart piece by piece.
Her hand rose to her mouth.
Wanda crossed the remaining distance slowly. “Mrs. Bell?”
Rebecca shook her head before Wanda could continue.
“No.”
Wanda’s expression changed. The surgeon vanished. What remained was simply a tired woman carrying unbearable news.
“I’m so sorry.”
“No.”
“We did everything we could.”
“No, you have to go back.”
Rebecca gripped Wanda’s forearms.
“You have to go back in there.”
Wanda did not pull away.
“Mrs. Bell—”
“He was talking when they put him in the ambulance. He was talking.”
“I know.”
“He said he’d call me.”
Wanda’s eyes filled. “I know.”
“You don’t understand.” Rebecca’s fingers tightened around her. “He always calls.”
Elias stood behind his wife. He reached for her shoulder, but his hand passed through.
Rebecca shuddered but did not turn.
Elias tried again. Nothing.
The dead learned quickly, but they did not always learn gently.
“Tell her I’m here,” he said.
Y/N’s gaze remained on Wanda. “I cannot.”
“Why?”
“She would not hear me.”
“Then make her.”
“I cannot.”
His grief sharpened. “What good are you?”
The question was not cruel. That made it worse. Y/N had no answer.
Rebecca’s knees buckled.
Wanda caught her.
Natasha appeared from another corridor, still wearing navy scrubs beneath an open white coat. Her red hair had been pulled into a low, careless knot. She took in the scene with one swift glance and moved without hesitation.
She placed a steadying hand beneath Rebecca’s elbow. “Come sit down,” Natasha said.
“No.”
“You don’t have to go far.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“Then we’ll stand.” Natasha’s voice carried the calm authority of someone accustomed to meeting disaster at eye level.
Rebecca stared at her, then she turned back to Wanda.
“Was he alone?”
Wanda swallowed. “No.”
Rebecca’s face crumpled.
Wanda tightened her hold on her arms. “I was with him.”
So was I, Y/N thought.
She had stood less than ten feet away while Elias’s heart stopped.
She had heard every plea.
She had felt none of the panic.
That had always been the difference between angels and humans.
Angels witnessed suffering. Humans entered it.
Wanda did not merely observe Rebecca’s grief. She allowed it to move through her. She let a stranger’s pain settle into her own body as though compassion were a kind of injury.
Rebecca began to cry. Not elegantly, not quietly. Her grief tore through the corridor in raw, broken sounds.
Wanda held her. She held her despite the blood on her clothes and the tremor beginning in her hands. She held her while Elias stood helplessly behind them.
Y/N watched Wanda close her eyes. One tear escaped.
Then another.
She did not wipe them away.
Something shifted inside Y/N. Not pain.
She did not experience pain, not truly anyway.
There was no body to contain it.
No heart to constrict.
No lungs to fail.
Still, something moved through her, deep and unfamiliar.
A pressure without location. A wound without flesh.
She looked at Elias. He was watching his wife. “Will she be all right?” he asked.
Eventually, perhaps.
Not tonight. Not for a long time.
Y/N had learned that humans rarely wanted the truth when they asked questions like that.
“Yes,” she said.
Elias nodded.
He knew she was lying.
He was kind enough not to say so.
A presence appeared beside her.
Steve.
He stood tall and quiet in the crowded hallway, broad shoulders hidden beneath a dark coat. His blond hair caught the sterile light. His blue eyes moved from Elias to Rebecca, then finally to Y/N.
“You’re late,” he said.
Y/N looked at him. “I know.”
Elias glanced between them.
“Another one?”
“Yes,” Steve answered.
“Do all of you dress like undertakers?”
Steve considered this. “Only in Manhattan.”
Elias laughed unexpectedly.
The sound surprised all three of them.
Y/N looked at Steve. He almost smiled.
Almost.
“Come,” he said to Elias. “It’s time.”
Elias looked back at Rebecca.
She was seated now, though she had insisted she would not sit. Natasha remained beside her. Wanda knelt in front of her, hands wrapped around hers.
Victor stood several feet away. Close enough if Wanda needed him but far enough to let her decide.
Elias’s face folded with longing. “I’m not ready.”
“No one is,” Steve said.
“Can I stay until she leaves?”
“You may stay a little longer.”
Elias nodded.
Steve’s attention returned to Y/N. “You were meant to meet me upstairs.”
“I became occupied.”
“With the soul?”
Y/N looked toward Wanda.
Steve followed her gaze.
His expression did not change, but she knew him too well.
He understood.
“I see,” he said.
“You see nothing.”
“I’ve known you for six thousand years.”
“That does not mean you know everything.”
“No,” he agreed. “Only your habits.”
Y/N turned fully toward him.
Steve folded his hands behind his back.
“You have been returning to this hospital for years.”
“There are many deaths here.”
“There are many hospitals in New York.”
“This one is efficient.”
“So is Mount Sinai.”
Y/N said nothing.
Steve waited.
He had always been good at that. Waiting was easy for immortals.
Eventually, humans confessed simply to end the silence.
Y/N had no intention of becoming human enough to fall for such a trick.
Across the corridor, Wanda stood.
Rebecca clung to Natasha now. Wanda stepped away. Victor moved toward her.
She shook her head before he reached her.
“I need air.”
“You’ve been awake for twenty-one hours.”
“I know.”
“You shouldn’t drive.”
“I’m not driving.”
“Then let me come with you.”
“No.”
The refusal was soft.
That somehow made it more final.
Victor stopped.
Wanda saw the hurt she had caused and closed her eyes briefly.
“I just need ten minutes,” she said.
Victor gave a single nod. “Ten.”
She walked away.
Y/N followed.
Steve sighed behind her. “You have duties.”
“So do you.”
“I am doing mine.”
Y/N glanced back. Steve stood beside Elias.
His meaning was obvious. She ignored it.
Wanda entered an empty stairwell and pushed the door shut behind her.
The harsh hospital noise disappeared. Concrete walls rose around her. Pipes ran overhead. A red EXIT sign buzzed faintly above the landing.
Wanda took three steps down then stopped.
Her hand found the railing. She bent forward as though struck.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then the first sob escaped. It was small. Humiliated, Wanda pressed her fist against her mouth.
Her shoulders began to shake.
Y/N stood one step above her.
She had seen Wanda cry before.
In supply closets.
In parked cars.
Once in the hospital chapel, though Wanda had not prayed.
Each time, Y/N had watched.
Each time, she had understood grief as an event.
Now she understood it as a place.
Wanda was inside it. Alone.
Y/N moved closer. The instinct came before thought.
She reached toward Wanda’s shoulder.
Her fingers passed through.
Wanda froze, and then her head lifted.
For one impossible second, she looked directly at Y/N.
Not through her.
At her.
Y/N stopped breathing, though she had never needed breath.
Wanda turned slowly, eyes red, face pale beneath exhaustion. “Who’s there?”
The stairwell remained silent.
Y/N did not move.
Wanda stared at the place where she stood.
A line appeared between her brows.
“Victor?”
No answer.
Wanda wiped at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “This is absurd,” she muttered.
Her voice echoed against concrete.
She looked again.
Y/N felt something pass between them. Recognition without memory.
A door opening onto a room neither woman had entered. Wanda’s lips parted.
Y/N wondered what it might feel like to hear her own name spoken by that mouth.
The thought disturbed her.
She stepped back.
The moment broke.
Wanda exhaled shakily and pressed her fingers to her temple. “Sleep,” she whispered. “I need sleep.”
She straightened.
By the time she opened the stairwell door, Y/N was gone.
Dawn arrived reluctantly. The storm had moved east, leaving the city washed clean and temporarily tender.
Angels gathered above Manhattan. They stood along rooftops, bridges, church spires, and the stone ledges of buildings older than most living memory.
Some watched from the crown of the Chrysler Building. Others lined the arches of Grand Central.
A hundred stood unseen along the terrace of the New York Public Library, their faces turned toward the pale horizon.
Y/N stood atop NewYork-Presbyterian. Steve joined her.
Below, taxis crowded the avenue. Delivery trucks blocked intersections. A man shouted at a cyclist. Somewhere, a bakery opened its doors, sending the scent of bread into the cold morning.
The angels began to listen.
The sunrise carried music.
Not music as humans understood it.
No instruments.
No melody.
It was the sound of light entering the world.
The vibration of the atmosphere.
The turning of the earth.
A chorus older than language.
Y/N had heard it every morning since the first dawn.
Today, she barely noticed.
The hospital doors opened below. Wanda stepped onto the sidewalk.
She had changed into a dark coat, though her scrubs remained beneath it. Her hair was loose around her face. A paper cup warmed one hand, untouched.
Victor followed. He said something Y/N could not hear over the song of morning.
Wanda shook her head.
Victor touched her arm.
She looked at him.
He leaned down and kissed her forehead.
Y/N looked away.
Steve noticed. “You missed the first note,” he said.
“I have heard it before.”
“That has never mattered.”
Y/N said nothing.
Below, Victor entered a waiting car.
Wanda remained on the sidewalk, she watched it leave then she lifted her face toward the hospital roof.
Toward Y/N.
The distance between them was impossible.
Wanda should not have seen anything. Still, her gaze found the exact place where Y/N stood.
Her expression changed.
Not fear.
Not recognition.
Something softer. Something worse.
Steve turned toward Y/N. “She felt you.”
“No.”
“She did.”
“That is not possible.”
“Many things are impossible until they happen.”
Y/N watched Wanda raise one hand to shield her eyes from the growing light.
For one suspended heartbeat, immortal and human stared across the distance between them.
Then a bus passed.
The moment vanished.
Wanda lowered her hand.
She looked around the sidewalk as though embarrassed by herself. Then she took her first sip of coffee and walked toward the avenue.
Y/N followed her with her eyes until she disappeared into the morning crowd.
The sunrise song swelled around them. Steve stood beside her in silence.
At last, he spoke. “You should be careful.”
Y/N continued staring at the place Wanda had been.
“Of what?”
Steve’s expression held no judgment. Only sorrow.
“Wanting to be seen.”
For the first time in centuries, Y/N did not have an answer.
Far below, hidden among eight million beating hearts, Wanda Maximoff carried the memory of a woman she had never truly seen.
And Y/N, who had witnessed the first light of creation, found herself waiting for tomorrow.
