Characters: Emma Frost and Wanda Maximoff Where/When: Long Beach, NY / June 14 Ratings/Warnings: None. Emma’s got a plan, but it’s less evil than would be expected. Status: Complete
What a difference a week could make. Emma had gone from solitude while recovering from war to suddenly going on a shopping trip with a young Wanda Maxmioff who didn’t even recognize her. It wasn’t the strangest thing that had ever happened to Emma, but it was certainly up high on her list. The morning had been spent on Fifth Avenue, hopping from one shop to another before ending at Bergdorf for a few dresses and shoes. If Emma was going to have to suffer in space, she thought, she was at least going to look good doing it.
By lunchtime, they’d finished and Emma had insisted on getting them a large room at a fancy hotel. She’d dropped her purchases off in her room, paused to grab a bite to eat, and then they’d both changed into swimwear that Emma had purchased. The sun was high in the sky as the car dropped them off at Long Beach and Emma led to way toward the sand.
It took just a few minutes to lay out their towels and then Emma sat and started to apply lotion to her skin. She offered some to Wanda. “I haven’t been to a beach in ages, it’s a tragedy,” she said pleasantly. Emma had been exceptionally nice to Wanda today; she’d taken Wanda on this trip for a reason and she was rapidly approaching the point where Wanda was feeling relaxed enough to propose it.
Initially, Wanda had been a little wary of Emma’s reasonings behind taking her to Earth. After all, it was obvious that Emma knew others, and she didn’t know her - and it was all just a little strange. Spending the morning with her, however, had been surprisingly pleasant, and while Wanda knew she could protect herself should it come to that, she eventually relaxed and enjoyed the sights. Her last trip to Earth, she hadn’t had a lot of time to do very much, and when she’d been with the Avengers before that, she didn’t always go out into the city very often, particularly as she grew more recognizable. Instead, she had kept to the smaller farmers’ markets, and only went on other trips if it was with one or more of the others.
Here, though, no one had ever heard of the Avengers or Wanda Maximoff, and it was a freeing feeling. After lunch when they changed into their swimsuits, she stood for a moment in the bathroom to study her own in the mirror. Emma had insisted on buying too many things that day, but Wanda hadn’t fought her on most of it. She’d chosen the swimsuit herself, enjoying the ruching and vintage lines, but the color had been a suggestion of Emma’s, and Wanda had decided to go with it; now, she was happy she had.
Down on the sand, Wanda sank down beside her new friend and accepted the lotion, squeezing some onto her hands to mirror the blonde’s actions. “Neither have I,” she confessed. “In fact, I cannot remember the last time I went to one.” She was sure she had at some point, but the last several years had been so full that she simply couldn’t recall. “This is nice.”
"It is," Emma smiled, doing as best she could to come off like a sweet benefactor who just happened to think it a fun day to take in strays. She'd tried to channel Charles most of the day and had thought she'd done an admirable enough job. "I'm going to go for a swim soon," she announced, as though it was the most important thing she planned to do all day.
"But there's something I'd like to talk to you about something first," Emma said, not letting the pleasant veneer go for one second. She was all teeth and happiness. Anyone who actually knew her probably would have been deeply concerned at this point.
Wanda finished adding the lotion to her legs, then set the bottle between them and lay back on her towel. She pulled on the sunglasses that she had bought at one of the several stores they’d been to, but turned her head to Emma as she spoke.
“What is it? Is everything okay?” Her accent was heavy, and it was obvious she was a little sleepy, particularly since she was now laying out beneath the sun and they’d already had such a long day.
“Everything is fine,” Emma said breezily, in a half sitting position while propped on her elbows. The breeze from the ocean was lovely and had her hair blowing in the wind. She glanced curiously at Wanda. “What do you know about mutants, darling? What has everyone told you?”
“Mutants - I have heard a few things. They are people with abilities, yes? Born with them, in your world. We do not have these where I come from,” she replied, her head turning back towards the sky as she closed her eyes behind the sunglasses.
Emma paused for a moment for dramatic effect. Her gaze was focused on the sea and the rolling waves ahead of them, but she was keeping track of Wanda out of the corner of her eye.
“That’s right,” Emma said. “Where I'm from, mutants tend to first display their powers when they're adolescents. And we’re not especially treated well by the world at large.” It was an understatement, but Emma didn't want to focus on the unpleasant details and upset Wanda too early.
She continued, “I have to make a confession, Wanda. I'm more familiar with you than I've let on. Where I'm from, you're older and you have a rather impressive power set.”
“I was not born with mine,” she said simply, her eyes closed as she thought about Emma’s words about how they were treated there. If they were anything like her, Wanda was not very surprised. When the blond went on and gave a small revelation, she opened her eyes and looked over at her again.
“...Others have hinted at this but no one would tell me any more about it. What powers does she have?”
“How very like them,” Emma said, sighing. If she could get nothing else out of this interaction, sewing little seeds of discord between Wanda and the Avengers would be enough. “You can alter reality. It's quite impressive.” She paused, glancing over at Wanda. “You see, darling, where I'm from, I'm a teacher. I was headmistress of a school for people like us for a very long time.” She had no intention of getting into the details of why that wasn't the case anymore and certainly wouldn't mention her wanted status.
Just like with everyone else, Emma was going to pretend her way to success here. “You and I didn't meet until you were older. And you'd spent most of your life with The Avengers, who for lack of good teachers, supported you but didn’t help you hone your powers like someone should have.”
“...Alter reality?” Wanda half sat up in surprise, staring at her as she pushed her sunglasses up. That was outside of the realm of what she knew she could do - she could alter perceptions, though she tried not to these days, but anything beyond that?
“I have never had a teacher,” Wanda confessed. “My powers are the result of experiments, and I learned on my own what I can do. Though recently, Steve has been working with me a little on Knowhere, and I trained with the Avengers when we were in our world before...things happened.”
“I see,” Emma said, solemn and thoughtful. “If I may ask, what happened?” She tried to be as polite as she could as she held Wanda’s eye. Everything here depended on whether Wanda would trust her and so she did her best to come off as nurturing and caring.
Wanda hesitated, then looked away as she sat up the rest of the way and shifted so she sat cross-legged on her towel. This had already come up a few times since she’d arrived in Knowhere, but Emma wouldn’t know that it had already been discussed. She didn’t necessarily want to talk about it, but she should probably tell her so she would understand.
After a few more minutes of silence, Wanda reluctantly began to explain what had happened, from Rumlow’s death to her and the others ending up being held on the Raft and Steve breaking them out. When she finished, Wanda picked up one of the bottles of water they had brought and drank deeply, then looked over at Emma again to gauge her reaction.
Emma could have laughed. If the worst Wanda’s universe could do was have her accidentally explode a building, it was very different from where Emma had come from. Emma thought one exploded building hardly even counted as a tragedy.
Her face didn't betray these thoughts, though. Looking at Wanda, Emma looked sympathetic. “I'm sorry that that happened to you,” she said. “And it's funny. Where I'm from the government has tried to register mutants before with little success. And then it tried registering heroes. Steve and Tony had quite the spat over that.” She paused to let that sink in, then continued. “I want to propose something,” Emma said. “I'm the best teacher for powered individuals you’ll find. Would you like to study with me?”
She wanted to tell her that there was more to the story, such as all that had happened with Ultron when she’d first met the Avengers, but the conversation wasn’t steering towards that, and Wanda was a little relieved. Meeting Emma’s gaze, she nodded her thanks, and tilted her head as she continued.
“That sounds like the Accords,” she said softly, half wondering if the other universe’s Wanda’s actions had resulted in a similar situation. At Emma’s question, she studied the blonde for a long time, tempted to reach out with her own mental powers to judge for herself why the woman wanted to help, but she refrained.
After a moment, the brunette gave a slow nod. “Da, I would.”
Emma smiled, pleased. She knew that taking Wanda on as a student might get her yelled at by the other X-Men, but she thought it a decent way of dealing with the problem of an unstable mutant. By taking Wanda under her wing, Emma could ingratiate Wanda to the mutants, could make Wanda second guess her ties to the Avengers, and, hopefully, make her more prepared for any sort of nervous breakdown she might eventually have. Sometimes, Emma rationalized, doing the right thing for wrong reasons wasn't so terrible a thing.
“Good,” Emma said. “Do you have any questions for me about how this will work? I'll need you to show me your powers and where you are in your training before we begin properly.”
“Will we meet in private to do this? I do not think I want a lot of observers,” she said, pushing her hair over her shoulder as she looked out at the ocean. “I think that perhaps I should show you what I can do somewhere not so public.” The last thing she wanted was to have to deal with a lot of angry and scared people. “Though some of it I can tell you. I can go into minds and make people see things, such as their fears. I can persuade them to do things. I can also use my power in a sort of telekinetic way and move things, like when I contained Rumlow.”
“Interesting,” Emma said. Her favorite students were always telepaths and telekinetics. “Of course we can work together in private. We’ll find something. And I'm very much hoping that I can upgrade my living situation soon.”
She smirked. “You’ll never have to worry about what the humans see or don't see as long as I'm around.” And then, because she was nothing if not a bit of a showoff, she grinned. “Would you like to see a trick?” Emma wasn't normally one to play her powers for parlor tricks, but she wanted Wanda to trust her so showing her what she could do was important.
“Stay calm,” she said. The beach was mostly empty, but there were a few people sunning themselves and splashing in the water. Emma used her powers and slowly, the sand turned colder and colder until they were sitting on a blanket of snow. The people around them saw the delusion as well, alarmed, but not panicked, they each threw their arms around themselves as frost took over.
Wanda would be able to see all of this and feel it in such detail that she'd even notice her breath coming out as a fog. And then, in the blink of an eye, the illusion was gone and they were back on the beach, sun beating down on them. The humans nearby looked confused but went about what they were doing, blinking dumbly. Emma winked at Wanda.
Wanda watched with interest as Emma began to use her powers. She hadn’t actually had the chance to stop and see any other telepath or telekinetic use their abilities, and when she didn’t see any signs of Emma’s power, the way her own revealed itself, she was at once both confused and interested. As the temperature dropped and the sand shifted to snow, she stared around in wonder, then reached out to touch the ground beside her towel even as goosebumps appeared along her skin.
She scooped up a small handful of the snow in marvel, and when it shifted to sand a heartbeat later, she let the grains slide through her fingers, back to the ground, and looked at Emma, smiling.
“This is very impressive,” she said. “I have not seen anyone else do that before.”
Thank you,” Emma smiled. Really, she hadn't even scratched the surface of what she could do, but she'd been showy enough to impress Wanda, which had been the point.
“I'm going to be hard on you, it's my way. But when we’re done, you’ll have much better control than you started.” Emma turned so that she was on her stomach. She hoped that in training Wanda, things would be better for her people. And annoying the Avengers wasn't too bad, either. “We can start as soon as this weekend. Just come find me.”
Wanda watched Emma for a few minutes more, then tugging her sunglasses back down. “My powers are the result of Hydra’s experiments, experiments my brother and I volunteer for. I am not sure you could be much harder than the baron.”
Laying back down again, a thoughtful look on her face, she straightened her hair and again stretched out her legs. She closed her eyes once more. “I will do this. Thank you, Emma.”
“You’re welcome, darling,” Emma said. She reached back to unfasten her bikini top so that she wouldn't have tan lines. “And your Baron didn't know what he was doing. I’ll actually be exercising your powers, not shouting orders at you while not even understanding the true potential of your abilities.” She was confident she was going to put Wanda through the wringer.
“He is not mine,” she said quickly, and almost involuntarily, one hand clenched and a tendril of bright red energy flickered around her fist. “He is dead; I only regret that I was not the one to do it.” Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly, forcibly relaxing her hand again. “I look forward to learning from you.”
Emma glanced over at Wanda, noticing the slight show of power with her own abilities, but not bothering to comment. Wanda had control issues; Emma would work on that. “Lovely,” she said, pleasant once again before settling into the sand.