Closed;

[takeitslow]

Who: Wanda Maximoff (CRAU) and Peter Maximoff
When: Late March
Where: Region 1; Kauto
What: Wanda and Peter meet up to awkwardly discuss alternate universe stuff.
Warnings: None


After he wakes back up from medical, the first thing Peter does is check in with everyone at the mansion to makes sure the Wanda he knew is still there. The second is send a message to his other sister, the one he's not so sure would like him calling her that.

Sorry about disappearing. I can explain if you're still willing to meet. I'm at the train station in 1.

I really did want to hear what you had to say.


He waits out by the edge of the region, near the En-Line station, to see if she'll show. He'd been worried by the way she'd been acting before. He hopes her sudden openness from those weeks ago hasn't changed.

Comments

[witchweird]

Wanda was back on Kauto temporarily -- she'd been on an archaeological expedition that one of her friendly neighbours had set her up with because of her skills with earth and stone, but she'd come back to take delivery of some pruned material for building her house, and to take care of some other trading business that had built up in her absence. Inquiries answered, opportunities presented...

She stared at Peter's message when she received it, barely believing it; she'd filed him away under "cruel joke" when they hadn't managed to meet up the first time. She wasn't sure whether it was a cruel joke of the universe or a cruel joke of the one calling himself Maximoff, though.

And now it looked like she had a chance to find out. There was never any chance of her not going; she tried to finish up stacking the wood and other material she'd claimed first, but that took too long. She'd have to do it later, she decided.

The train trip gave her a little time to gather herself, but as the train pulled into the station in Region 1, she was tense and uncertain, all of her senses extended. Not intrusive, but she'd learned a great deal about passively absorbing the surface information about a crowd, just in case.

She'd been alone, she'd been a fugitive more than once, she'd survived alone in a galaxy full of dangers, and then in a city where everyone was at least potentially against her; not trusting situations like this was not just habit. It had saved her life.

She took in the normality of the crowd for a full minute, then finally gathered herself and stepped off, looking around for Peter. Catching sight of him, she approached slowly to give herself another moment or two.

Now that she was here, she found herself strangely reluctant. She had no idea what was going to happen, and though she stared, the sight of Peter didn't tell her much.

She forced herself forward.

[takeitslow]

He catches sight of her as she pushed through the crowd. He could almost mistake her for the other Wanda, except he thinks the other would be looking for him with a smile and not that dreaded look of apprehension. Peter wonders if this is what it had been like for her when he'd first arrived; Peter so unwilling to believe anything Wanda had to say. It's a strange to be on this end of things.

He smiles, weak and too tight when she's in closer range. He can't stop fidgeting, shift from foot to foot with restless energy. It's a dead giveaway to how nervous he is.

"Hey," he starts, lifting a hand in an aborted wave. "Thanks for coming. I mean, I'm glad you came. I thought you might not since, you know. It was all just shitty timing, I promise. I wouldn't just blow you off, I'm not an asshole. Well, I am. But not to you. Um."

He stops rambling, forcing his hands in his pockets. "For future reference, sometimes you just need to tell me to shut up."

[witchweird]

Wanda smiled a little -- most people didn't go around admitting to being an asshole to other people. At least she wasn't the only one who found this meeting nerve-wracking, and at least she thought, now that he'd spoken, that she could at least stop worrying about the worst sorts of traps and jokes. He seemed sincere.

"But I don't want you to shut up," she pointed out reasonably. "I want you to tell me everything."

She glanced around. She didn't mind crowds, but a loud and constantly moving train station crowd wasn't the most conducive atmosphere for the aforementioned tell all.

They could go somewhere in the city and get something to eat as Peter had suggested weeks ago, but Wanda thought she spotted a closer, easier option. There was a blocked off platform with a portion of a train -- no engine -- just sitting there. It wasn't a high-speed train like most of the others, it was elaborately decorated with murals and names with exclamation points and looked more like it was for leisurely sightseeing trips. And on top of one of the cars was what looked like an observation platform, open except for some railings.

"Do you want to go over there to talk?" she asked. Never mind the big signs in front of it saying not to enter that platform. "No one will notice."

[takeitslow]

"Everything?" He supposes he owes her that much. It still makes him twitchy, thinking of all that could, and would eventually, come out about him. He spent a long time worried what the other Wanda would think of him, how he compared to the person she'd built Pietro up to be. It's daunting to think of going through that again.

"Sure. Anything you want. Not sure how interesting it will be, but-" He trails off, shrugging.

He takes a quick look around the crowded station, eyeing exits and routes. No one's paying them any attention; they're nothing out of the ordinary among the space-faring and he can't imagine they have any interest in attacking them. It's a habit to look though, after the past few months. They'd all learned the hard way to know when population might turn on them and Peter's natural instinct was always to run at the sign of trouble, particularity when someone he cared about was at hand. He nods at Wanda, glancing toward the the platform.

"Yeah, sure." He starts walking toward it, taking care to keep his steps slow enough for her to match. "I guess I should start off with an apology. I was coming to see you but I ended up unconscious and in medical. It happens sometimes. People just sort of stop and have to be taken care of by the doctors. Sorry about it."

[witchweird]

"People just sort of stop," Wanda repeated, trying not to be horrified. He said it so casually, but it sounded like either a terrible disease or --

Wanda put that thought on hold while she dodged around the no entry signs, concentrating on making sure that no one would notice. The crowd suddenly seemed oppressive to her, too many people, too busy. She was happy to leave them behind.

She crossed the empty space at a measured pace, in a little bubble of silence. She jumped down into the track area and didn't say anything until she was on the other side of the train, out of general sight. It would be easier to get where they were going this way anyway.

She looked up, at the train, at the observation deck sticking out a few cars ahead. She didn't look anywhere else, but she knew Peter was there.

"The last place I was, before here," she said carefully. "It wasn't really...whole. Everything looked fine on the surface, and it was easy to forget, but sometimes everything was just..." She felt cold. After a moment she shook her head. "But there was no use wondering about it. Is this place like that?"

She'd wondered when she heard there were two of her, but had managed to put it out of her mind until now. No use wondering about it...

[takeitslow]

"Yeah," he said awkwardly. He knew how it sounds. He'd been terrified the first time he noticed someone disappear only to find them in the cryo unit of the ship's medbay. Peterspent hours sitting among the tubes when River had fell still, worried she would never wake up again. But he'd seen it happen so many times, and been in the same situation before, that Peter found it hard to act too concerned. It was just another part of this place he'd had to learn to accept. If he spent too long thinking of how thing could go wrong he'd never get any peace.

He kept pace with her, watching her back. He didn't think anything of her falling silent, he could imagine it was a lot to take it. By the time they were out on the other side of the train and she finally spoke, her comment made him wince. Wanda wasn't wrong. There was plenty to keep an eye on, some of which he'd specifically made a deal with himself to tell her.

He just hated the idea of adding to her stress. He imagined her first few weeks here had to be stressful enough.

"This planet in particular? I don't know. We haven't been here long, but I don't trust this place yet. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know?" He sighed, running a hand through his hair. The offer to let them all stay here after the crash may just be kindness, but Peter was waiting for the powers that be to collect a price. There was always a catch. "Whenever I arrived, it was just the ship. They acted like we had a choice, but it never really felt like one. Stay close to the thing that might take us home or be out in space on our own."

He scuffed his sneaker on the ground, frowning. "There was always so much happening, but you get used to it. To people suddenly stopping or disappearing. To someone else having control over you life. To the machines freaking out and pulling people across the galaxy or just all the bad shit happening left and right. Sometimes you can forget that none of this is supposed to be right, and then you wake up one morning and someone you saw die the week before is walking around or everyone's just agreeing not to talk about the week on hell planet or whatever."

"You're right that there's not much use wondering about it. We don't have any control over what happens here. We just deal with it, try to move on." Peter shrugged. "Was that what it was like where you were? Or, uh, I guess I'm saying if you ever wanted to talk about it, you could tell me about it."

[witchweird]

Was that what it had been like?

They'd reached the train car with the observation deck above, but Wanda no longer felt like observing. She leaned a shoulder against the train instead, finally looking at Peter.

"There are always things that one can't control," she said. She looked past Peter, her eyes unfocused. "Wars. Rifts in space and time. Space ships that break and leave you stranded in the empty dark. People who die and leave you to live without them, and people who have been dead who tell you from their own experience not to try to mess with death, even if you find a way. I don't like it, but ... that's life. I guess maybe ... people stopping ... is like that." It was a new one to her, that was all. She needed a moment to adjust.

But that wasn't exactly what filled her with dread.

"The city I was in, though, it wasn't just things happening or people appearing and disappearing. It was... nothing stayed the same, nothing was certain, not even that cause preceded effect. There was no anchor of truth in the whole city. I think someone told me that reality was being destroyed and stitched back together in new patterns out of left over scraps, but ... it was also easy to forget, and just live there like you belonged and it all made sense, and then you'd realize that the store you were in hadn't ever been there before, even though it was you favorite, or that you were not the same-- And then maybe you'd forget again."

She laughed, because that sounded so ridiculous. "It was better being there than trying to explain it. Moments have a reality that memory doesn't. And some of it must have been real. Chaotic reality."

She shook her head back and forth, as if she could deny -- her memories? Never. Not one of them. She laughed again, because she thought that she sounded crazy, but she wouldn't give that up either. Then she went very still, thinking. Was chaotic reality so different from hell planets and people stopping for no reason? But perhaps there was a reason, and it was only that no one had discovered it yet.

"I think maybe things are a little better here," she said eventually. "So long as this reality isn't being strained to destruction because there are too many Wandas. If I cannot be on my colony, I like it here."

But this wasn't what she'd come here to talk to Peter about. "And to think that I was going to talk to you about you," she said, as lightly as she could. It seemed funny now, but maybe everything seemed funny now. Funny amusing and funny strange, both at the same time. "I was going to ask you to tell me about yourself, and why you would think to be my brother, just because we share a surname..." Conscientiously, some of her amusement fading, she added, because it was on her mind now, "And about me. I was going to ask you to tell me about me, too."

[takeitslow]

"It's a little like that," he said, shuffling his hands in his pockets and then pulling them out again. 'Still' wasn't in his skill set. "But not really. It's weird. It's okay that it's weird. And it will feel weirder when it happens to someone you know. You go see them and you think they might not ever wake up, and it will be the weirdest feeling until they do. You'll only be used to it until it happens again."

Or maybe it's only him. Maybe he was just to sensitive to the thought that it would be less of a pause and more an ending.

"I'm sorry." It was an automatic reply. He was though, sorry that she had to deal with anything unpleasant. Especially alone. He hated the idea of her being alone. "It sounds terrible, terrifying. Like you couldn't even trust yourself. It's not fair you were put there."

He nodded slowly. "It's not like that here. Things happen, but it won't change you. Not anymore than anything happening would change you. Except for one place we were, but that was there and it just messed with our time perception- but you know. We left that place far behind. It wasn't nearly as bad as what you're saying. I can't imagine how you dealt with it. "

But of course she did. Of course his sister would. She was always the stronger of the two, as far as he was concerned. Wanda, any Wanda, was always the more steadfast twin.

"No more than it was being strained when me and your brother were here. Or having two Lokis or a dozen people with Steve's face. I think this universe can handle some doubling up." Peter smiled, easily pleased that she wanted to be here. Even if it was only as an alternative to something she wanted more. "I'm glad you're here, for what it's worth."

His smile wavered at the admission. It's not like he didn't realize she was wary about him. She had every right. It still sort of hurt, for how accustomed he was to the other Wanda and the year he'd had of her cautious affection. "I'll tell you anything you want to hear. You can even just get in my head if you want, find out whatever you want. I live with a bunch of psychics, I'm kind of used to it."

He shrugged, smile turning rueful. Xavier never pried, the other Wanda only did when she wanted quick answers. But Jean was always reading him like a book and River couldn't help it.

"Um. I have a sister, a twin, back home. My own Wanda. And it's not just my universe or yours that has Maximoff twins. There were people here from another one who talked about a speedster and his sister with amazing powers. It was kind of a tip off, even if all my sisters at home are human." As far as he knew, at least. "The other Wanda belived it from the getgo, more than me actually. She showed me a lot about her life; Sokovia and getting the powers and meeting the Avengers. She already knew about the other universes, heard about the multiple Wandas and Pietros out there. I guess it made it easier for her to accept when I showed up."

[witchweird]

The problem for Wanda was that she couldn't look at Peter and see her brother. She wondered if there was a trick to it, some hidden resemblance that the other Wanda saw that Wanda herself was blind to. Or maybe it was all the time she had spent hoarding the memory of Pietro, every detail...

She watched Peter, nodding along, saying a few words in the right places -- "It sounds weird... I think every terrible thing has its own unique signature, you can know but you can't know" (her gaze was distant) and "No, not fair..." (it was a relief that he believed her) and "I suppose I didn't really manage to deal, just play the hand I was dealt" (still finding the subject unduly amusing) -- but part of her was holding back, assessing. She noticed how he assumed that a Peter and a Pietro are the same kind of quality as two Wandas, her eyes widened a little when he talked about a speedster, powers... She tripped mentally over the use of the word "human" in that way -- what else but human?

When he said he was glad she was here, that touched her, though. Her expression softened, and for just a moment, she could almost imagine that he was her brother. Not her brother Pietro, but maybe if she'd had a younger brother who she'd never met...

This offer of family, it was what she'd come for, even if she didn't exactly believe in it. She needed it.

She just didn't know if she could accept it. In a way, family was easier than any of the other relationships Wanda had tried to negotiate since leaving her first universe behind. Other Avengers... when she'd never really been an Avenger, not long enough to count. She'd felt like an imposter, and there had always been expectations...

Family would be different, wouldn't it? Family wasn't about goals, family just was. But Peter talked about the other Wanda "meeting" the Avengers, and Wanda wondered. The word was so innocuous, the acts taken against them -- she and Pietro hadn't held anything back in their plan against the Avengers. Did Peter know that? Was it even true for the other Wanda? It sounded like there were many many possibilities in the multiverse.

It made Wanda's head hurt, and the temptation to take up Peter's offer to go deep into his mind and find the truth was strong. Not that she needed permission -- not that anyone had ever given her permission before, except her brother...

Wanda's throat tightened. "Peter."

The rest of what she might have said stuck in her throat, because she wanted to trust him and she actually wanted him to trust her. And he did, it was in everything he said. He probably shouldn't, but she didn't want to push and push until she found the point where that trust broke.

And yet.

She closed her eyes; she couldn't look at him and say this.

"If you pretend to be my brother and then betray me, I will destroy you."

Truth.

Ever since she got here, truth had been slipping out on her, a little here, a little there, things she might once have tried to hide. She was so tired of hiding and surviving.

But this was past even that.

Truth could be a weapon. One of these days, Wanda thought hers might turn in her hand, and cut her to the heart.

"You should know what you are doing, talking to me, before we go too deep," she added tiredly. She kept her eyes closed.

[takeitslow]

He doesn't hesitate to nod, something that had been kept tight in his chest easing a little.

"I nearly hit Wanda when she tried to tell me her name," he starts, looking down at his feet. "I thought she was messing with me, being cruel. I'm used to shit being said to me. The hair, the attitude. But not my sisters. You don't let people touch that. Mess with family."

He looks back up, wishing he could meet her eyes. He wishes he could prove that this isn't a trick. Peter means it, all of it. He wants to be connected to her, to have her trust. He would want it of any Wanda that the Ingress brought him. Family was family and his sisters were all Peter had ever really had.

"I get it. Wanda, I so get it. If I were screwing with you, you'd have every right. I'd do the same."

He tried to kill for the Wanda already here, spent months doing everything in his power to ensure her safety. He'd paid the price for it and still he knew he'd do it again and again if given a second chance. Because he loved her. And because of that, he knew what he'd do if someone tried to prey on that. Tried to use that devotion.

"I'm not pretending. But if you really think I am, do whatever you have to. I'd understand."

[witchweird]

With her eyes closed, Wanda couldn't see Peter's movements or his nods, but she could still sense him. The tone of his voice and the feelings at the surface of his mind... The way he wasn't running away from her, even though she'd said the truth as clearly as she knew how to say it.

Even now, she wasn't sure he understood how big this thing was inside her, the longing for family -- not to replace Pietro, never that, but family -- and the certain knowledge of what she would do if this wasn't what it seemed. For a long time she'd tried to deny her capacity for revenge; she'd thought she'd learned her lesson, that she knew better. And maybe she had. She was a different person from the inflexible, idealistic woman who thought she had the right to change the world no matter the price -- she'd learned to see prices -- but if it came to it, Wanda knew she could still destroy.

She felt shaky with that knowledge, with the force of that side of herself she'd thought was gone or changed beyond recognition. But nothing was ever gone.

But Peter had accepted that -- and he wanted to be her brother. A younger brother she'd never known...

Even if it was a trick... (It could be a trick. Even with Wanda's abilities, she'd met people who could equal or exceed her powers, and she'd seen reality change around her. Anything could be anything, that was hard to forget.) ...no matter what it was, she'd always have this. He'd accepted this, agreed to it.

"Okay," Wanda said.

One younger brother...one American younger brother. What a strange idea. She felt strangely empty, holding that thought in stillness inside her, as the twisted and knotted "No"s, the certainties of rejection unfurled into blank acceptance.

She opened her eyes, looked at Peter quizzically.

"Umm." There were still things that she needed to know. Her mind felt mired in a hollow uncertainty of something new, but she had to say something. "So you have powers too?"

[takeitslow]

He smiled from the sudden relief. 'Okay' wasn't glowing, it wasn't enthusiastic but it's more than he would have hoped for after their first conversation. He can work with 'okay'. At least she was willing to try.

"Powers, right. Yeah." He took a step back, glancing again around the station. "It might be easier just to show you. If you're okay with that. I've got speed. Fastest guy in my world."

It was a bit of a boast wrapped into his question. Peter loved showing off his powers, has since the people here proved they wouldn't feed him to the metaphorical dogs for it. But he didn't want to startle her, didn't want his similarity to what Pietro could do to make her feel worse.

"I didn't get them like you did. Well, uh, the way the other Wanda showed me she got her powers. I was born with mine. It's a genetic thing, apparently? Some people in my world are just born different. Powers, looks." Peter tugged at his hair for emphasis. "They call us mutants. There's a lot of us here, actually. If you'd call a handful a lot. Which is, I think, since I'd only ever known like three before."

"If you really want you hear something weird, my Wanda at home didn't have powers. She and my baby sister were totally human. Normal." Something he had been grateful for so many times. "I was the only one in the family with the screwed up genes."

[witchweird]

"I'd like to see a demonstration of your powers," Wanda said. She probably would compare them with Pietro's, but she had this all sorted out now, Peter not Pietro, no matter what anyone else might think, and the most important things about Pietro to Wanda were not his powers, so she was even able to venture a tiny smile as she said it. Something new.

"I suppose that you know what I do," she added. She held up her hand, let a tiny bit of red gather at her fingertip. Then with a flick of her fingers the red spot shot up to eye level and burst like a firework, with a tiny pop instead of a bang, and an expanding ball of miniscule flames that sizzled and then dispersed.

"Parlor tricks," she said, watching him closely. "Among other things..."

She frowned, thinking about what else Peter had said. "Your sisters are human...and you are a mutant. Do you think you're not human?" A beat. "Do you think I'm not human?" She didn't like that thought very much.

She flicked little bits of red, very deliberately, at some pebbles on the ground in front of her, just knocking them around, to prove that... What was she trying to prove? But it was one thing to say, yes, let us be brother and sister, and it was another thing to actually feel comfortable talking about these things that had been hidden for so long with someone she barely knew. Even though everything she could sense told her this was okay. Even though she knew that she had no secrets anyway, because the other Wanda had told them all.

Assuming the other Wanda was really so much like her, that all the secrets were the same. And that Wanda had actually told the truth. It wasn't easy, telling the truth.

"Can you tell me ... about Wanda?" There were many things she wanted to know, but her questions about the Avengers and things that had happened away from this world could wait. Maybe forever, because if the other Wanda's secrets weren't the same as her secrets, then she had no right to them. But there were other things she did need to know, if she was going to live here--

"I need to know..." how much she's really like me ... "What other people from your ship are going to see when they look at me. How much they know...about powers...and anything else that could affect me...

"I haven't come across many Moirans, so far, but that might not always be the case. And perhaps your Wanda is not so very similar to me after all--" She wondered, briefly, if it would be better or worse to be closer or farther-- "But perhaps not everyone will know that..."

[takeitslow]

He smiled at that, a brief but entirely pleased tilt of the lips. He loves showing off and there was never anything quite like an appreciation of his abilities than from family. It wasn't like showing off for his baby sister, he couldn't expect much enthusiasm from someone who had already reached the double digits, but it still.

He took a moment to think before disappearing in a rush of wind. He reappears seconds later, holding out a piece of fruit that looked mostly like a green apple.

"It's from a market a couple of blocks away. If you have something specific you want me to go after to prove how fast I'm going, well. You know." He shrugged. Normally he'd follow up a display of speed by boasting about all the things he could outrun. He wasn't callous to mention to Wanda about surpassing bullets.

Peter had seen enough from the other Wanda to find her powers far more than just parlor tricks. He shook his head, ready to argue on her behalf before her pointed questions registered. "Of course you are. Your powers don't make you not human, just human plus a little more. You were born normal. You, Pietro, my sisters at home. All normal."

He frowned, scuffed his shoes along the ground. "I wasn't born normal. People like me, it's part of our, like, DNA. Something in our blood that makes us an entirely different species or whatever. I don't really understand it. Xavier could explain it better. The point is that humans don't think we're human."

The humans here had proved to not care so much. His own family had never tried to mark him different for what he was. But he knew what society thought of his kind back home. He knew what the others at the mansion felt and didn't want to do them a disservice by explaining things any differently.

"Yeah," he said quickly, then repeated again in a more dazed tone. What was there to say about her? About the mirror image of her? He's glad for the follow up to give him more direction, more to say than to just gush at how amazed he was with the other Wanda. How proud he was of her power, at the kindness she'd shown his friends. How dependent he'd been in her for so long. "I think a lot of people have seen her power. There have been a lot of reasons to fight in the past year. We've been attacked, we've had to stop others from being attacked. She hasn't advertised her abilities, but she's never run away from the front lines when we needed her."

"They've seen her do good with her power. Those people who have been here a long time, they've seen her save people. They don't-" Peter sighed and licked his lips. He wasn't sure if it was appropriate to say. But he was worried what she may be getting at. "Look, I'm not sure if this is the problem but I know the other Wanda is always worried that people are going to be afraid of what she can do. That they'll come after her for it, come after the people she's close to for it. But that's never happened. There are way too many people here who wouldn't let that happen. People like her. So, you know, they'll like you too. She's a good person."

'And so are you,' he didn't say. It didn't feel appropriate when this was only the second time they'd really spoken, even if it felt true.

"I can't tell you if you're exactly alike. From first impressions you're a lot like her, I think." More guarded, more fierce, a little harder. But he can't say if that's not how the Wanda he knew wouldn't have been if she hadn't spent months with Billy first. If she hadn't gotten the time to adjust before having Peter thrust into her life.

[witchweird]

Wanda blinked a couple of times. A few seconds, a couple of blocks... She knew that kind of speed, she knew how it worked and what it felt like, but it had been a long time. She picked the fruit out of Peter's hand, smiling but feeling strangely melancholy. It took her a moment to figure out why; her thoughts went to Pietro, of course, but it was nothing to do with Pietro, at least, not exactly.

But when Peter sped away, and back again, she hadn't sensed any disturbances in the area, no cries of startlement, no one could have seen much if anything of him. It was like the wind had passed and brought her a piece of fruit. It was amazing.

Her smile turned a little brighter, thinking about it.

"You're so good at it," she said.

Her smile slipped a little as the memory at the back of her mind came a little clearer. Her first experience with powers had been chaotic, and she and Pietro had only survived because they'd found ways to use their developing powers to support each other. No one else in their cohort had been so lucky. Wanda wondered if Peter's expertise was learned or innate. Either way, seeing that skill in someone who wasn't Pietro, seeing it work, not some terrible uncontrollable power... "I have wondered what would have happened if there were more of us, if everyone else hadn't died," she said softly. "Maybe your way, from birth..."

She imagined a gentle learning process, in step with the rest of the developments of childhood. Her American brother. So different. So many dangers avoided.

Though she still didn't like this "mutant" label he kept talking about. Not normal. Not human.

"I do not understand it. If your Wanda is your twin--" Wanda shook her head. "You can't be a different species from your twin. It cannot be." Twins had a special meaning to Wanda, but even if it wasn't a matter of twins... "How can you be a separate species from your family?"

But she knew the answer, when she stopped to think about it. "They are misusing words, in order to make an argument." A moment later, and she said, not quite as certain, but it seemed to make sense of the situation as described. "It is an argument of fear."

She shook her head again. Maybe not so much better after all, in mutant America.

In that frame of mind, listening to Peter talk about the things that the other Wanda had done here, she held herself very still. She'd already known this, really. She'd known it since the moment that Peter had casually said she could get into his mind... so this was only confirmation.

The only thing that surprised her was that Peter said that many people would defend the other Wanda, because they liked her. She believed what he said -- about the other Wanda. The other Wanda must truly be a good person, to have so many defenders...

A sideways swipe of her gaze was the only sign she gave that she had her doubts about some of the rest -- she knew that she herself was not so easily likeable. Not so unambiguously good. She knew that just a few minutes ago, she had been threatening to destroy Peter, even if he seemed to have forgotten.

She decided that Peter was an optimist.