Stephen was late to the party - he’d been scouting with Elsa and just returned before sunset after encountering an attack by snow creatures. Once he read the invitation Loki posted to the network, he decided that replying to it would be a waste of time, and instead accompanied Elsa to the room. The way the room was decorated, with sheets magically suspended from the ceiling along warm colored fairy lights hanging, and a variety of throw pillows on the floor, gave Stephen the impression of a Sultan’s harem chamber, which seemed very Loki. Instead of an orgy, though, people were gathered around a television watching Legally Blonde. Loki was riveted to the plot, but acknowledged his arrival with a nod. Elsa went over to plop herself down beside Loki and Stephen wasn’t in the mood for a movie he’d already seen, so he got himself a mug of hot cocoa and looked around for a place to sit and relax.
That’s when he saw Wanda, apart from everybody else, engrossed in what looked like sewing. Stephen thoughtfully sipped his cocoa, glanced briefly at the movie crowd, then made his way toward Wanda.
“Mind if I join you?”
Though she was in the room and movies were playing, Wanda wasn’t paying them a lot of attention. Instead, she was focused on making the warmer clothes. She had made a great deal of the items with her powers, but some of them she was sewing by hand, including alterations and a few personal items here and there, to give herself something to do rather than be finished it all so soon. Not everyone seemed to be interested in going out into the cold right away, so there wasn’t much of a rush. Plus, doing it all with magic felt a little like cheating, and she liked having the distraction of sewing, for now.
When she heard a voice speak up from just a few feet away, Wanda paused and looked up. She’d known when he entered the room - her powers had told her and she’d been practicing more with detecting others - but hadn’t known he’d approach. After the very briefest of hesitation, Wanda nodded. “Of course.” She picked up a small pile of fleece fabric and set it out of the way to make room for him.
“How was it, out there?”
Stephen plopped himself down on a cushion close to Wanda. He’d gone out in his astral form while his body remained in his room in a dormant state, not unlike sleep. As a result, he was well rested, if not a bit hungry… some of those snacks people were sharing started to look good.
“What you see outside the window is what you get, but more of it. Nothing but icy tundra with a few mountainous areas scattered around, and a handful of snow monsters to attack just to make it interesting.” He looked down at her project but didn’t ask because it was pretty self explanatory.
“Well, let’s hope that things stay quiet this week, then,” she replied before returning to her stitching as she finished a pair of thick gloves. “What kind of snow monsters?” If he would rather sit there in silence, she’d be fine with that as well, but she was going to try to at least make the attempt at having a normal conversation while she could.
Her conversation with Mobius was still laying heavily on her heart, but she was making an effort to be surrounded by others, rather than dwell quietly in her own thoughts which may only lead to darkness.
Last week Stephen had his brush with self isolation and the darkness that resulted from not sharing his pain with anybody. It was something that he was still recovering from, the guilt that came with his alternative self’s memories, but sharing them with Mobius, Natasha and Loki went a long way to help. He wondered how long Wanda had been keeping her thoughts to herself.
“Did you ever see that old Christmas stop-action animated special, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer? If you remember Bumble, the Abominable Snowman, just like that. Complete with teeth and claws. I think as long as we stay in the dorms, we’ll be safe from them, the same way we were protected by the noise monsters.”
Wanda tilted her head for a moment as she brought the distant memory of the special to mind, and deliberately kept any other memories from entangling with it. She had to be careful about that sometimes, since television had long been one of her outlets for dealing with hard times, and she slowly gave a nod. “Didn’t he simply have a toothache? Perhaps that’s all that’s wrong with your monsters,” she said lightly, a slim attempt at humor.
Except the noise monsters had killed many, dear people that they all cared about. “We found out then that staying in the dorms wasn’t quite as easy as it sounded, particularly when it came to needing supplies and food,” she warned, looking back over at him. “But if you’re comparing this week to that, at least we know something of what to expect.”
Stephen searched his eidetic memory for a few moments then said, “I don’t think that was the case… the dentist elf just pulled out all his teeth.” He smirked and said, to add on to her joke, “If only it was that easy.”
He took a sip of cocoa and continued, “My hope is that people have learned their lessons and will rely on safer means to get to the other buildings, like magical portals, or even flight. I don’t think it’s as stressful now as it was then… at least I’m not concerned. Somebody worried that the electricity will go out, but Derleth has been to some pretty bad areas, and it hasn’t gone out yet. And if it does, there’s enough magic users to keep things going so nobody will freeze. We just have to keep calm. And get-togethers like this one? Will go a long way to building solidarity and boosting morale.”
A funny scene happened on the screen which caused a burst of laughter among those watching. Stephen waited for it to die down before breaching the subject, “So. Westview…”
“And that calmed him down, didn’t it? Hopefully an elf with a passion for orthodontia arrives soon,” she said with a faint smile before he went on. She nodded her agreement with his words, and her eyes had dropped back to the needle in her hands - until he said the word ‘Westview’ and she froze momentarily. She didn’t think Mobius would have told someone after she’d asked him not to, which meant Michael had said something to Stephen as well.
“What do you know of it?” Wanda finally asked, keeping her face and voice perfectly neutral as she resumed finishing the cuff of the glove.
“Michael let a few things slip,” he casually told Wanda, continuing after finishing the last of the cocoa and carefully setting the empty cup down on the floor beside him. “Like how an entire town was caught in a spell where they were mind-controlled and forced to play parts like in television sit-coms.” This wasn’t a casual topic, but he didn’t want Wanda freaking out and reacting in such a way that might be dangerous, so he would carefully gauge her next response before proceeding.
At least for this conversation, she was a little more prepared. In some ways, she’d expected it - particularly after Mobius’s questions, but even before that. From what Wanda had learned through the book, the Sorcerer Supreme was a powerful individual, and with memory ‘updates’ occasionally happening, she’d expected this to come eventually.
For a few minutes, she said nothing, only finished off the glove in her hands, lifting it to cut the thread with her teeth, and turning it inside out so that it would be ready for someone to wear soon. After setting it on the pile of flannel, she used her powers to ensure that no one was close enough to hear them - and that they were distracted by the film and each other. Finally, she lifted her head and met Stephen’s eyes evenly.
“I made mistakes, and people were hurt,” she said directly and quietly. “Do you intend to punish me for it now?” In her mind, nothing he could dream of would ever compare to her own self-flagellation.
Stephen sensed the subtle change of magic surrounding them, though when his eyes scanned the immediate area, he didn’t see anything. His muscles started to tense, though externally he kept still, not really knowing what to expect from her. Wanda had kept to herself in Derleth, and hadn’t hurt anybody as far as he knew, which was a good sign… although there were a couple of times, after people she was close to had disappeared, when she wrote something on the network that could be interpreted as troublesome.
“I don’t have any jurisdiction in Derleth,” Stephen plainly said. “This here is a sort of no-man’s-land. Besides, in a case like yours, I’d seek the counsel of my fellow Mystics… and I wouldn’t want to pass judgment without knowing the whole story first. But I think it’s a fair question to ask, are you alright?”
“Your fellow Mystics - sorcerers, like yourself?” She wasn’t very familiar with the whole magical bureaucracy side of things, and even Agatha had told her very little, at the time. Instead, she studied him as he asked his question.
It would have been so easy to reassure him that she was fine, or open up about how very not fine she was, emotionally, and how much she’d been pushing down for weeks, months - even years. But instead she decided to ask instead something else, to help her determine if he could actually be as trustworthy as how he might seem to others. “Are you really asking if I’m alright, or are you asking if I’m somehow responsible for Derleth? Or if I’ll do to the people here what you believe I did to the people of Westview?”
“The Masters of the Mystic Arts. They’re the ones who bestowed upon me the title and responsibility of Sorcerer Supreme. Think like the Avengers, but our focus is on handling mystic and extradimensional threats . You might’ve noticed them, coming out of portals to help fight Thanos.”
Stephen glanced over at Wanda. “I know you’re not responsible for Derleth.” He then inclined his head toward where Mobius was sitting beside Loki in front of the movie, where Elsa was now watching. “My conversations with Mobius has convinced me that this Derleth project is part of a larger picture, where the usual separation between universes is dissolving and overlapping with one another, and we just happen to have found ourselves trapped.” If anything, Stephen might blame Sylvie for her part in killing Kang, but then again, he had a deep feeling that the universe, in its cyclical evolution, was bound to unravel one way or another. They just happened to be unfortunate enough to be the ones experiencing it first hand.
“As for whether or not you’ll do to Derleth the same as you did to Westview, that sorta goes hand in hand with asking if you’re alright, because from what I understand and what you’ve told me just now, it was a mistake brought on by grief and mental stress. So. Are you alright?”
“No. I think that anyone who claimed to be alright after the things I’ve gone through would be lying to themselves,” she said quietly. “I’m - living with my losses, and with my grief. I’m keeping busy so that I don’t dwell for too long, and I’m keeping in touch with friends. So I’m not anywhere near the level of making another mistake like Westview.” It also helped that she’d been reading the Darkhold for months now, and was much better at separating her emotions from her powers when necessary to avoid making any mistakes at all.
“That’s fair,” Stephen said, reclining further upon his pillow seat, stretching out his legs and laying his hands upon his chest in a restful position. “I’m glad you’ve found a way…” he took a deep breath, in… then out in a sigh… before finishing his sentence, “... to cope.”
Wanda would be able to tell there was something on Stephen’s mind by his facial expression, deliberating whether or not to share his experience. She might take it the wrong way, and still being quite sensitive himself, didn’t know if he was ready to really tell anybody else. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then decided to go for it. “Last week I got a memory update. Not mine, but another me, from another universe. It was pretty… intense. This other Stephen also made mistakes, and it messed up my mind. So much so that Loki,” he nodded toward the Loki across the room, “of all people, had to help me because he was worried I’d do something stupid. What I’m trying to say…. I'm not judging you.”
Wanda remained quiet, watching him instead as he shifted and then decided whether or not he was going to continue to speak. Her own emotions were too varied to decipher right now, so instead she focused on what he said. When he fell silent in turn, Wanda studied the Sorcerer for a few minutes, before finally replying.
“People like us - we either find a way to cope, or we go mad and hurt innocents who don’t deserve our wrath.” It wasn’t fair, but it was how life was when you had power the way that she, Strange, and Loki had. Reaching out, one of her hands touched his arm. “How are you now, Stephen?”
Stephen nodded in agreement, then muttered, “My alternative self destroyed his entire universe trying to bring the woman he loved back to life.” He looked at his hands… the biggest difference between him and his other self had been the death of Christine instead of his hands being crushed in that car accident. Funny, it never occurred to him to use the Eye of Agamotto to go back in time to try to reverse his own accident… but he assumed the consequences would’ve been the same - the car crash being a fixed point in time that led him to becoming a sorcerer. It was always meant to be… his destiny.
Not expecting Wanda’s touch, he flinched and looked surprised at her. When he settled, he just shrugged, playing it off as no big thing. ‘Better than last week. I’ve given myself time to process my emotions. But Loki knows… so does Mobius and Natasha… now you. I’m trying to urm… find people who I can talk to instead of letting it eat me up inside. It’s not something I’ve ever been good at doing. I keep reminding myself, the memories are not my own, they’re of somebody else. But that somebody is similar enough that it’s sometimes hard to dissociate. It easily could’ve been me.”
Well - at least she couldn’t say she’d destroyed an entire universe, only affected the lives and minds of four thousand - but that had been a different version of Strange, whereas she was the one who’d brought harm to Westview. Rather than say any of that out loud, she studied him, and withdrew her hand when he flinched.
“I’ve heard it’s better to talk about things like that,” she agreed quietly. “But I understand how you feel. It’s good that you aren’t the one who made those choices and decisions, but it can be hard to come to terms with the idea that you might, if under those circumstances.”
Stephen nodded, then softly said, “Loki made a good point, in private, about the delicate balance between having immense power and strong emotions.” His brow furrowed with concern. “Do you have anybody to talk to?” It didn’t have to be him, but he hoped there was somebody.
“As a side note, my alternative self gained access to the Lost Library of Cagliostro and familiarized himself with the books therein. As a result, I know all the spells he learned, although I don’t have the sufficient mystical strength to cast some of them. A lot of dark magic, including the Darkhold.” He casually added, “You’ve read it, too?”
She gave a faint, wry smile at the question, and followed it up with the shrug of one shoulder. Occasionally she talked to Bucky about it, but as for everything else….well, the closest she came was talking to herself, or Vision in her dreams. Though now, she might begin opening up more to a few - Stephen, Loki, and Mobius among them, perhaps.
The library he mentioned was familiar from the book, and - well, it didn’t surprise her too much when he asked about the Darkhold. The one person she’d mentioned it to had been Loki, all those months before after she’d just arrived, and before the book had come here. She’d made certain to keep it hidden, and hadn’t spoken of it to anyone since, or told them she had the book now.
Considering how not subtle his casual question was, she kept her own manner easy as she met his eyes. “It came into my possession shortly before I arrived in Derleth. Do you know much about it?”
“I had a feeling you did,” Stephen said, remaining casual. “When I first arrived, you brought it up. Let me see… it originates from the Hell dimension, and is created out of Dark Matter. The information contained therein is some of the most powerful, the most esoteric, and the most dangerous, and unless it’s handled properly, may corrupt the reader’s mind.”
He narrowed his eyes in thought. “My alternative self read it, but he was already obsessed with his goal to become more powerful. The Dark Hold might’ve just helped him further along. And though I have the memory of what he read, I don’t think it’s affected me.” He fell silent, searching his soul to tell whether or not he’d been corrupted, then a worrisome expression passed over his features. “There’s knowledge in there that would be dangerous in the wrong hands,” he said, sounding haunted.
“I forgot that I mentioned it to you,” she replied - because she had. But what he told her next, Wanda paid close attention to as she studied his face, particularly when it changed as he obviously thought over what he’d seen in the book.
“I believe that. There was a woman who had it before me…Agatha Harkness. She was a witch who’d lived for hundreds of years, if not more. She attempted to use what she learned from it to steal my powers, and said that I was mentioned in the book.” To be honest, there was still a great deal she didn't yet know about her powers, but the things she'd learned from its pages so far had already expanded her mind.
"What would you do if such a thing showed up here?"
Stephen didn’t answer straight away, preoccupied with his thoughts, but snapped out of it when he realized Wanda was speaking to him. “Agatha Harkness,” he repeated the name. “She’s infamous in mystical circles. Stealing other’s magical ability is strictly her M.O.” And as he said that, he was reminded how his alternative self had done the same thing, but where Agatha stole from other sorcerers, often killing them in the process, he summoned entities from other dimensions to absorb them whole and amalgamated them into his own body.. He fell silent again, then to try to lighten the mood, he jokingly asked, “I take it she wasn’t successful. What happened to her?”
Wanda’s question was something he seriously pondered over. He reached for his mug for a drink, but found it empty. Frowning, he waved a finger over it, and it was refilled with hot cocoa, just the right temperature so as to not burn his mouth when he sipped. “Mobius has been trying to piece together the puzzle that is Derleth, to try and make it more stable so we don’t find ourselves in random places, giving those who want to return to their homes the option to do so. The Darkhold certainly has that information.”
He looked across the way at Mobius, who was chuckling at something funny on the screen. “But I wouldn’t want him to read it.” He glanced over at Wanda. “The corrupting aspect of the book would affect him. Change his personality. I wouldn’t want to curse anybody that way.” Stephen thought for a few moments longer. “I would hide the book in a safe location, and tell only a trusted few about it, if anybody at all. It’s too dangerous.”
Dangerous, and coveted. Stephen was aware that part of the Darkhold’s corruption was to make one greedy for its knowledge, unwilling to part with it, and that his reply could be construed as an indication that he indeed had been tainted. However, he tried to dismiss this as him being concerned about the safety of others. He held the mug with both hands and took another worrisome sip.
“No, she wasn’t. And she’s currently in a safe place,” Wanda replied. Sure, Agatha was trapped inside her own chosen role, locked inside her mind and stuck in Westview, but she was safe - and Wanda knew exactly where she was in case she did ever need her for any reason. At least she wasn’t dead or in SWORD’s custody.
Picking up a jacket, and some flannel, Wanda lay the two together and then conjured a pair of scissors which she used to begin cutting the flannel into the shape of the jacket, using the actions to occupy herself why she tried not to worry too much as she waited for Stephen to answer her question.
When he finally did, she looked over at him in return, studying his face. There was a moment when she very nearly admitted to having the book there, in Derleth - but the fact was, with him having just admitted that his mind had the knowledge and memories of destroying an entire universe, she wasn’t entirely sure that he could be trusted with this information - particularly after he emphasized again how dangerous it could be.
“That sounds as though it might be for the best - since, as you say, it could be dangerous in the wrong hands, and corrupt the minds of some.” Wanda was fairly certain she hadn’t been corrupted, and while she wasn’t wholly immune to the temptation of hoarding the book for herself, she was also aware of what it held and that Stephen was entirely right…it was too dangerous for just anyone to have access to its power. “Since you’ve read it - in another universe or life - do you really think that what its information could be trusted to send people home from Derleth, without harming them or those who remained?”
It was one of the things that stayed her own hand when it came to using what she’d learned so far. She’d made too many mistakes in the past, harmed too many others, and felt the weight of the responsibility for her power and the Darkhold’s knowledge too keenly to use much of it - hence why she had thus far carefully tested what she could do here, first creating images and illusions, then non-sentient items, and finally something that lived in the way of plants.
Stephen wanted to know about this safe place she mentioned, but because Wanda didn’t elaborate, he assumed she didn’t want to tell. Anyway, it wasn’t all that important to know, apart from satisfying his curiosity. They were discussing their universe, which essentially was put on pause for them. When they returned, they would forget everything that happened to them in Derleth, and it would be as though they’d never left. What mattered more at this moment was trying to establish better relationships with the people here, and Stephen felt he’d made some headway in doing that with Wanda. Opening up to her, gaining her trust, learning to trust in return. Prying too much into private areas might be detrimental, closing up all communication, so he was satisfied.
Wanda’s question was a good one that made him seriously think. Suddenly he felt exhausted, his forehead throbbing with the beginning of a tension headache. Stephen ignored these symptoms, but later that evening he would wonder if his body was giving him a warning not to dwell too much on the Darkhold and its contents.
“Derleth has lashed out before for lesser reasons, there’s really no way to tell.” He then struggled to put his thoughts into words, until finally saying with defeated honesty, “I’d have to get back to you on that. Let me think about it more. I know the Darkhold’s spells bare successful results, but whether or not it'll have negative consequences to anybody besides the reader and caster?” He shrugged. “If I had the Darkhold here, I could study it more.”
“And if you studied it further, you run the risk of being corrupted by it,” she concluded softly, her words gentle. “Especially with the memories you have now - you know it would be too tempting.” And it wasn’t as though he hadn’t made a few mistakes of his own, here in Derleth, that had gotten him hurt, and Wanda herself knew that she couldn’t admit to having the book just yet - because if someone else was harmed as a result, it’d be her fault.
“Can’t having the knowledge of it and all those other books be enough to learn something more?” She asked instead.
“You’re right, it would be risky.” Stephen flashed a brief smile as a subtle thank you for reminding me. “I already feel I’ve been affected by it, but to what extent I can’t really gauge. When my alternative self read it, he was looking for very specific chapters to help him with his goal, skipping over others. The Darkhold reacts to the reader, revealing pages that may otherwise be hidden, depending on what the reader is looking for. I just can’t help but think that I might be able to assist in some way.”
Sighing, he realized he was drinking but Wanda didn’t have any. “Would you like a mug?” he asked. “It’s good.”
“Even if the book did arrive here, it may be best for you to avoid it, until you know for sure.” Particularly since he said he may have already been affected. What he said about the book reacting to the reader was interesting, though, and she nodded a bit, while mentally filing that away to check it later herself. Maybe she could find something that might help.
“Thank you, but no. I’d rather concentrate on these clothes, and not risk spilling anything on them,” she added, before returning his smile faintly. “You should rest and watch the movie. I’ve heard it’s good.”