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mcu: wanda maximoff

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Who: Wanda and Loki
When: June 5th, after Daisy's post
Where: CLF5
What: After this, Loki wants answers and Wanda tries to prevent the drama from becoming a Problem.
Warnings: Sass.

This is not the best idea Wanda's ever had. She's aware of this. But what else can she do? If Loki is from when he says he is, they don't need him for an enemy. But Daisy has both attacked him and outed his future (?) to the entire ship and from what little she knows of their world's Loki this needs to be handled with care and quickly. Anything else is just going to more justification for whatever bad thing comes later.

And if something bad happens, Wanda will have to do her job. She's acutely aware of what it would take for her to actually stop Loki, and to be exposed for that later...it's not something she expects the rest of the crew to take well. Better to try to head this off now, before she's forced into a bad situation.

Wanda changes into a dark blue dress with her usual tall black socks before she leaves her own room, something far enough from her typical style that she's not immediately recognizable. No need to draw unwanted attention and make this worse all around, and the irony of needing to sneak around her own teammates is not lost on Wanda. Loki is dangerous regardless of when but so is she. She can handle this.

She has to.

Wanda pauses outside his door for a moment to try to get a feel for any latent emotional undercurrents before she knocks.

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As promised he did order what she wanted and then some. If it takes him a second to actually get to the door it's all the do with the undercurrents of his waxing and waning from frustration, to annoyance, to bitter sulking, and back to normal. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Nothing too dangerous really. He just has a lot on his mind.

One wouldn't be able to tell with the casual smile he offers Wanda as he opens the door, stepping aside to let her in. "Don't get the wrong idea." He chuckled. "Half of the these pastries I picked up while I was on the Moira."

Some kid was sort of..baking a lot of things in the kitchens when Loki went back to the Moira to drop off a fews things, and he wasn't about to say no to free food. "You can sit anywhere you like."

Frustration, annoyance, and sulking she can handle. Of course Wanda is expecting him to be upset even if she doubts he'll show it - she has enough experience with the other Loki to expect him to mask any emotional response to this entire fiasco.

"Don't worry. I won't tell everyone you like sweet things." Her tone is light to test the waters. She is not sure exactly where the differences are but gentle teasing is definitely part of her friendship with the other Loki. And it's not like Wanda doesn't have a sweet tooth of her own; she wouldn't have asked for the little flower pies otherwise.

This room is larger than hers and the configuration a little different. Wanda eventually settles on one of the blue couches. "At least this is better than Emiri. No more fighting."

"Who doesn't like sweet things?" He almost sounds petulant at the idea of someone catching on but he has enough to worry about. Overindulging isn't a part of his worries in the slightest.

As promised he did order what she asked for and brings the tray along with him to set on the table as he seats himself opposite Wanda. Despite himself, Loki hesitates at the mention of another planet the Moira visited.

"I suppose you could say that." Emiri? He skimmed over the information there but wasn't particularly interested. "At least fighting is normal." At least for an Asgardian.

"It makes for better stories to tell."

"People who are wrong." She grins, almost a little unsettled how easy it is to fall into these patterns. But it clears from the way she sits that she isn't afraid of him despite Daisy's earlier warning, despite having made it clear they're from the same corner of the multiverse.

"Then why didn't you?" She tilts her head, curious. "You could have told them you helped me."

Wanda has assumed that it's an intentional omission and not that he actually doesn't remember, but this will go a long way towards explaining why she treats him so differently than the others. She knows what the Emirians wanted to do with her once they realized what she was. And if they'd found her then, it wouldn't have been pretty for anyone.

"To what end? They are convinced I'm capable of no such thing and I see no reason to prove myself to them." No, these Avengers do not get to be the arbiters of authority on his person. They may reign in their world, but here? They're nothing more than crewmembers trapped on the Moira the same as everyone else.

It's that egotistical attitude that they have some right to their jurisdiction that he hates.

"Besides what would I say?" He scoffs. "I fought along side you enough to help?" A completely inaccurate statement but he doesn't know any better. It's guesswork and he finally guessed wrong. He knows she has seen him somewhere, clearly doesn't distrust him as much as others from their world do, but he cannot pin down why.

Caught.

It's obvious immediately from the shift in Wanda's expression that his luck has finally run out and he's said the wrong thing. Anyone with the magical talent to help her would know very well what they'd prevented that day.

"You don't remember." It's a flat statement, not an accusation, like she's commenting on the weather. She doesn't blame him for it, not really. If someone had acted like they knew her when she'd first been dragged here, she might have done the same thing.

Loki gets a pass this time, but he's lucky he's dealing with someone who already has a tolerance for antics. Wanda has enough chill to not be particularly phased...this time. It was harmless enough, all other possibilities considered.

"It wasn't that simple. Maybe it would help, maybe it would not." Wanda's watching him carefully now, weighing what she's seen of him since his arrival. She's caught him in one lie but that doesn't necessarily mean he's made everything up. Surely he couldn't hide the echoes of the Mind Stone from her, and surely there would have some emotional tell she would have noticed earlier if there's magic at work to make him look younger.

"But I can decide for myself." And that's the end of it, really. Of course he could be dangerous, but if he doesn't already have a vendetta against Earth, why antagonize him?

He didn't have a desire to sour interactions with Wanda and he looked away once she stated he didn't remember. He could guess as best he could, but. . .there weren't any real motives behind lying to her. It was nice to have someone around who recognized him and didn't hate him instinctively for what takes place in the future.

"I've found explanations only go so far when even my other self comes forward to renounce his own position in light of my arrival."

Whether it was his other self's intent or not, he painted Loki as the villain others should watch out for. His other self implied the crew would find distrust in him simply because this version of Loki Wanda's currently conversing with happened to exist on board the Moira. This other Loki explained what he did but it was merely an excuse to make himself look better and start the pity party in his favor for whatever persona he was choosing to wield at the moment.

In that he realized his other self was dangerous, and not only that, completely unremorseful for at least some of his actions. In that they are quite the same.

"I didn't call you here so you could decide for yourself," He countered. "I asked for your company because I thought you might be willing to tell me what happened in New York."

It isn't really fair for her to ask for a second chance after she's done terrible things if she isn't willing to give a younger Loki space to prove himself either way. Still, she doesn't really want to tell him - what if it makes everything worse? She can give him the what but not all of the why, and she has no idea where Loki's will ended and the Mind Stone's began.

But it will definitely be worse if she refuses. She's sure of that much. So Wanda meets his gaze, unwavering. "Destroyed is not the word I would use." Badly damaged, yes, but no one dropped New York out of the sky. What he did was wrong but those are two completely different sins to carry - trust someone who lives with both.

"Do you want me to tell you? Or do you want me to show you?"

Edited 2016-06-14 01:05 (UTC)

He'll come to understand he won't entirely know either; he may never know what the Mind Stone took a hold of and manipulated just to have him act in it's favor only to feel some remorse when it pushed too far. Even if it never completely took over his mind he isn't invulnerable. He never has been.

For once he hesitates to answer. Said skepticism isn't over the use of Wanda's powers, rather, he never imagined her powers would run so deep. Can she read minds? Is she a telepath--no she can't be otherwise she would have already had an inkling he had been lying. How does she plan to show him?

"Show me." He knows he shouldn't want to see but the curiosity of it eats away at his mind.

Wanda rises and moves to stand beside his chair, face pale. "These are my memories. It won't hurt you." But it will be jarring when Wanda does raise her hands and Loki's vision shifts: these are Wanda's eyes he's seeing through as she stares up at a large screen. Apparently it's some sort of bar or restaurant from the crowd and the sheer size of the thing. There are others here but their conversations fall away into indistinct background noise.

Other things are crystal clear: the screen and where Wanda clutched at Pietro. There's a man - Loki but different - leading an army of Chitauri warriors. The damage is massive even with the Avengers' help, and even half a world away the undercurrent of fear in the bar is strong.

She can't show him the specifics of his defeat and the news is much more focused on the Avengers when they can spot them, on Tony getting tossed out the window of Stark Tower, of closing the tear in the sky.

The later footage is interspersed with pictures from Stuttgart and from this it's much easier to tell that something about Loki's eyes is very wrong. The Scepter, Wanda's mind provides, but that's far enough. The news starts talking about preliminary loss of life and damage estimates and slowly the vision starts to fade back to the hotel room. He should have the general picture by now.

And he is probably starting to regret asking her here.

The shift in his vision, even with warning, disorients him especially with the flood of fear from both Wanda and those around her. It is a little sickening to know he committed those crimes and yet some part of him recognizes he has the potential. What he comes to realize are the Infinity Stones are heavily involved, gems embedded in the history of the universe as legends and one in particular he can remember from books tucked away in Asgard's library.

Loki tried closing his eyes when he didn't want to see anymore and thankfully the vision faded to black. If he's crying it isn't a result of his own upset but the residuals from memories that aren't his at all. It's the sinking feeling of a shared tragedy felt worldwide. The same as the tragedy, he thinks, gave the All-Father his eyepatch right around the time Loki had been stolen from Jotunheim. He tries to keep those thoughts to himself but if they seep through it's a consequence of Wanda's power.

Ever so casually, and always casual when he want to compartmentalize an experience, he musters up the best smile he can while rubbing at his eyes as if he's snuffing out the vision but really he's just making sure Wanda doesn't see the tears.

"Well, that explains a lot," He murmurs. He can't apologize. What does one say when they've tried to destroy an entire planet further down their timeline? No amount of remorse will pay for the lives lost, and it's not as if he feels any. He hasn't done it yet and he'll come to learn that when he does? He won't be sorry then either.

Wanda says nothing at all - because you can't say anything to that - and instead moves to sit beside him on the couch. Being overwhelmed by someone else's emotions is a common enough occurrence that she's had to develop a set of strategies to preserve her own sanity and sense of self.

Or more accurately, she and Pietro developed those strategies together. It's always easier, in her experience, when there's someone else around to ground her here. It's why sometimes the twins will deliberately hold each other so hard it hurts, and while Wanda isn't physically capable of being that kind of presence for Loki, she can take his hand and squeeze harder than she would for another human.

"It will fade," she murmurs, tone gentle but not verging into coddling. "Try to focus on the room, on me. Those feelings aren't yours."

To some degree he realizes these aren't his emotions but his own upset is intermingled in between making it hard to separate vision from reality. Her hand reminds him he isn't sitting in a bar anymore, staring at a television screen watching himself tear Manhattan to shreds. He grips onto her hand, trying his best not to hold too hard, aware his strength is quite different from a human's.

"Is this what you have to deal with?" He breathes out, shaking his head as if that might dispel some of the after effects of her power.

"It's so raw," His voice is barely above a whisper. Loki is, by no means, weak minded or weak willed. It takes an incredible amount of anything to shake his resolve and yet here he is pathetically holding onto someone's hand, the same as he would Frigga's, when a spell was too much for his mind and body to handle.

Wanda is steadfast in her support though her rings are starting to bite into her fingers. She gently rubs her thumb back and forth in soothing circles on the back of Loki's hand, anything to draw more of his attention to the present. If she knew him better she'd pull him into her arms but for all she knows that might make it worse.

"Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's too much." Keep talking. Give him something else to latch onto. "Keep breathing, focus on what your body feels here."

Even if she had pulled him into her arms he's had enough physical touch from Clara not to see it as an affront to his pride. He loosens his grip, remembering himself and the room they're in. It feels like he's back at square one where he can't control the onslaught of his own powers flooding his own body but the pain of it ebbs off slowly. As much as her memories hurt, he has had centuries to perfect his craft to the point where such pain can only last a few minutes, maybe a bit longer.

"It's always a bit of an adjustment dealing with how other's powers work," He tries to make light conversation, finally opening his eyes to the room hoping to forget what he has seen but it's etched in his memories like a bad dream waiting to resurface.

"You said something in echoes," He sounds a little more normal now but he hasn't let go of her hand just yet.

"Something about a Mind Stone?"

She does not pull away although she can see Loki slowly coming back to himself. Good. In all honestly, she was expecting him to handle it better than the Avengers did. Loki may not have been able to fully control the Mind Stone, but it certainly didn't rip him apart either.

"It's why your eyes were different, I think. It's why I can do this." Now they're reaching the limits of her knowledge. Wanda doesn't know how Loki got his hands on the Scepter or an army, just that he did and what came of it. But she does remember how fascinated the scientists had been with their eyes, how Pietro's never changed and how hers only ever turned red under certain conditions. But Loki hadn't really been doing anything in that footage that would have warranted his eyes changing, so she can only guess the Mind Stone had something to do with it.

It makes her wonder how much of that was his will, but without being there, she'll never know.

No, it didn't. Nothing he has encountered so far could fully rip apart his own personality so thoroughly he couldn't recognize himself, but those images she saw on TV came so close he couldn't stomach watching anymore. The Mind Stone had a hold on him he didn't like at all. He lacked control and such a thing is so coveted with him he can hardly see why he might subject himself to its power.

"I'm sorry," And for once he means it. Not necessarily for what he saw but the fact that her powers stem from something that could seep into the recesses of someone's mind so thoroughly they'd forget themselves at risk of never being able to resurface from the fire. A fire of scarlet in her case, but who's to say how much was implanted by the Mind Stone and how much is her own force of will.

"To have such tragedy connected to your own strength. . . I can't imagine."

Well, he can now. He can imagine it when it took six Avengers to take him down. Six Avengers to finally subdue his efforts but he wanted to forget what he saw. Perhaps those images will only ever exist on the edges of his mind.

"It's more cruel than anything I have seen." Even Ultron, even Ploiatos's mindless need to consume. "It will tear you apart if it can." Wanda shudders at the memory, reflexively squeezing his hand. She's beyond lucky to be alive and still herself - as far as she's aware, anyway. She does not like to think about what might happen if her powers ever got the better of her.

"It changes everyone it touches. I am all right now...most of the time." He's gotten a taste of what it can be like when she's not. Wanda didn't lose her will by all appearances, but she can lose herself in another's mind and feelings if she's not careful. That telepathic shielding the captains cooked up for her room was a blessing: no more pieces of someone else's nightmares, no more lying awake wishing desperately that everyone would shut up so she could sleep.

With her free hand she calls one of the pastries to hover in front of them. "It will help. Trust me."

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