InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I may not be human"

şçąŗɭęţ (witchiest) wrote in avengers_logs,
@ 2019-01-08 19:07:00

Entry tags:

-complete, stephen strange, wanda maximoff

Who: Dr. Strange & Wanda
What: Planning how to help Hawkeye
When: Today?
Where: The Sanctum
Rating: Green
Status: Complete

Stephen was having what looked to be having a long week. He consulted some books. He meditated in a meadow outside one of the doors of the Rotunda of Gateways inside the Sanctum. Once he was finished, he entered the dark and ominous house with the intention of speaking to Wanda.

That last network exchange with Clint Barton was weighing heavily on him, although - by all outward appearances - he looked like his usual highly contained self. He held up a hand to fend the cape off from hugging his shoulders. It was taken with trying to give him a very odd and off putting shoulder massage that he hoped was friendly and out of concern. He didn't need a massage. He needed the universe to settle down and no other threats to emerge.

He closed his eyes, focusing on Wanda's whereabouts.

She heard him right away, from her vantage point in the kitchen - there she sat, near the demonic fridge that had mellowed out to a low hum and what sounded like a purr; by now, the contraption let her open and close the door as she pleased, which was good because Wanda loved to cook. In fact, she was researching different culinary programs in the city, classes to take - ever since she mentioned that ‘maybe-goal’ to Clint, she wanted to read up on it some more.

Of course, there was a cranberry pie baking too. She’d found some nice cranberries at the winter farmer’s market, so, why not use them.

I’m here, she mentally told Stephen, projecting an image of her surroundings - kitchen table, catalogues, dishes from her baking exploits already sparkling clean and stacked neatly to be put away. Thoughts and words of others often fluctuated in and out with her, thanks to her powers, like water against the hull of a boat - but when he made a conscious effort to reach out, she always picked up on it quickly.

Stephen made his way to the kitchen, hand held out with a glowing sigil shield he'd summoned as soon as he was crossing the threshold of the room. The demon fridge's purr turned into a growl and the door tried to open, but bounced harmlessly off the circle of sparks as he held his arm out.

Put out by the attack being thwarted, the fridge remained shut, almost as though sulking. For Wanda, it would do anything, including rampaging the netherworld at her bidding. For Strange, he would never get back that lo mein from the Chow House down the street. Much less anything else. Unless Wanda was fetching it. Purr.

Strange stopped out of the range of the demon fridge's door (or where it could hurl anything at him) and blinked a few times, inhaling deeply.

"Whatever you're baking now, it smells good," he said with a nod. She didn't look busy at the moment, but it was better to be certain, in case she was expecting Bucky to stop by. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

“Cranberry pie,” Wanda glanced up, smiling at him. “It’s for all of us.” Her, Stephen, Wong, Bucky - at least, that was who she considered ‘us’ these days. And trust her, if she could feed her mentor’s red cloak as well, she would have. She actually sort of loved that thing. “And no, you’re not interrupting.”

She marked her place in the catalogue she was looking at - one for the Institute of Culinary Education, which thankfully offered part-time schedules for learning - and closed it, setting her things aside. “Do you need me for something?”

Already she was paying rapt attention, her focus serious as she adjusted the clip in her hair; she’d pulled it up into a hasty bun to keep it out of her face while baking, to tame the wild auburn beast.

Stephen nodded and raised his eyebrows. Cranberries were a favorite. He'd never tried them in a pie, but there was a first time for everything.

He silently noted the catalogue on the counter, and thought to himself that it fit her as well as her magic did. Wanda clearly possessed a talent for cooking. She was incredibly responsible, so whatever lessons she set out to learn - be it cooking or magic - she wouldn't slack off. She would take it seriously and devote herself to mastering it.

"Keep it away from Wong. We'll be lucky if we get our three slices, and he never chips in. He's a cheapskate," he warned her, and he turned to business. "I wanted to talk to you about Clint. You saw him recently, in person. How is he holding up?"

The quip about Wong made her lips quirk up in a small grin, a twinkle of amusement in blue velvet eyes. But then her expression turned into one of concern. “Yes, we went for pizza,” Wanda nodded. Clint had looked rough - well, rougher than usual. Prickly-faced, all cactus-like, and she picked up on traces of shadows beneath his eyes.

Plus the drinking. She could read - she’d seen his posts on the forum.

“He’s trying to hide it, but he misses his family and it hurts him being without them,” she said quietly. “Is there any way we can find them for him?”

He spent a fair amount of time picking on Wong, but it was always friendly. He thought. Wong stared a lot. If he got a laugh out of his fellow mystic, it was well worth the effort. Wong was still a cheapskate, though.

Stephen did not want the universe to pick on Clint anymore than it already had. It seemed that he and Wanda were on the same page.

"We should try. It will take time to locate someone in an entire dimension without physically entering it again and risking becoming stuck there, ourselves. It's dangerous as it for Hope and Scott, but still worth a shot. We should proceed with caution. Try to search using astral forms. I don't want to give him false hope, and have something go wrong."

He could talk to Hope and Scott, if they could find a way to pinpoint them near the opening between dimensions, into the Quantum Realm, then they might be able to extract them. If something went wrong though, that might take things from bad to worse.

Wanda was willing to do whatever it took to find Clint’s family and reunite them all. He had always been there for her - from that war-torn moment when she doubted everything, doubted herself as an Avenger, to even now; he supported her when she told him she wanted to go to school, despite being older than the average student. Now she wanted to be there for him.

“Hope and Scott make sense. We can search using our astral forms too,” she said thoughtfully, pen doodling on one of her notepads as a way to focus her thoughts. “I can reach out - do you know of any spells that might extend my range for a time being?” On the soul dimension, she felt almost overwhelmed by the way her powers reacted - it was a universe with its own rules and now, being back on Earth, she couldn’t push herself the way she did there.

Letting Wanda talk to Clint was the best option. He was too off-putting and analytical, and it courted labels like 'analytical' and 'asshole.' He could imagine that Clint didn't need that. Wanda, having a pre-existing connection to him, was the best way of gauging how he was doing, and what could be done about it. That included looking into how to reach them, and reaching out to Scott and Hope soon. And Wanda would have to tell Clint about it....

Luckily for everyoneinvolved, he believed there might be ways to do it.

"It will take time and further practice to extend your reach. Even more if it's in that dimension. You'll need to increase your meditation and focus on reading minds that are at a long distance. I can help with that, if I leave this planet and you try to hone in." He was pondering outloud, thinking of which tomes to check, and what libraries they might be contained in. "I can consult with some of the other masters, and find the pertinent tomes and grimoires."

He eyed the catalogue and asked, "When are you thinking about starting culinary school?"

“I’ll study as hard as I need to, and practice as often as I can,” Wanda vowed. The thought of extending her telepathic reach so far that she’d be able to reach Stephen on another planet was daunting, but she would do it - she had to. For Clint.

Her gaze cut toward the catalogues as she considered the question. “In the spring,” she said. “I can go on evenings, for about a year. So it will take me awhile, but he worth it.” Provided something didn’t happen before then - like another Thanos, or she disappeared into the abyss, into some cosmic disturbance, like so many others. Even if that risk was there, she still was going to do what she dreamed of doing.

“When do you want to start practicing? And should I say anything to Clint about it?”

He believed Wanda. She was an exceptional student, no matter what subject she set her mind to. No matter what happened, or what showed up to put a damper on their lives.

"You'll get there. I'd be surprised if it took you a year," he said with a lopsided smirk. "I think we should start now. It'll take a while. I'll likely be in and out this month, consulting Wong and going to the other Sanctums. You talking to Clint is probably the best bet. My effervescent personality tends to rub people the wrong way."

His effervescent personality, of course. Wanda had to laugh a little. “I will talk to him,” she agreed. “You mean...start now, as in now? Right this second?” Wait, was she even prepared for that?

She was wearing her pajamas, a t-shirt and matching shorts printed with cartoon avocados. The t-shirt said ‘avo-cardio’ but obviously she just wore them to lounge around in. Sexy lingerie was reserved for occasions not in the kitchen, baking pie.

That 'avo-cardio' t-shirt was clever. What she was wearing wasn't even registering now, having grown so used to wearing casual clothes around the house if nothing was happening. If he was left to his own devices, it was a slouchy t-shirt and the sort of khakis that were now soft due to many years of wear. It wasn't like he was standing up in front of crowds accepting awards for neurological advancements any longer. There was no reason for anything fancy, if it wasn't something of a mystical nature.

"Uh. Not now-now. Start building up your meditation sessions for longer periods of time," he suggested. "Or break it up and add another meditation session into the day if you can. We'll ramp up slowly. You'll have time to adjust and build, rather than a sudden burst. See how far you can reach out picking up thoughts in different states and countries. Then we'll work on other planets and reaching into other dimensions, without posing any danger to yourself or anyone else."

Wanda wrote all of this down, just in case - she liked taking notes, ideas becoming more concrete when the pen was put to paper, creating loopy scroll. “I’ll work on it, but I won’t push myself too far,” she promised. “Then check in with you.”

She didn’t plan to take big steps without consulting him - that was a surefire way to cause brain damage, for herself or someone else, considering how big this task would be. “I’m glad we’re doing this,” she added. “I really want to help Clint.”

"I do, too," Stephen replied. He believed that there must be some way to make it work, that the benefit to Clint would outweigh any risks. Risks that he was viewing as surmountable.

He smiled at Wanda and his clothes morphed to his mystic's garb in the blink of an eye. He nodded at her as he began to walk out if the kitchen, feeling (and looking) optimistic.

"Hide half of that pie somewhere, Wanda," he told her. "I'm bringing Wong back with me in a couple hours."