The humming began as the machine powered up, resonating with the energy in the pit of Wanda's stomach and worming its way into her bones. I was familiar, but this wasn't the same voice she'd heard the last time the machine came to life; it was like two dissonant notes of the same song. Another gem, she guessed, demanding to be acknowledged and found. This one was insistent; now that she understood what it meant and what it wanted, it wasted no time in hammering at her resolve. Wanda could hardly process what Tony asked over the thrum in her blood and the steady ache rising in her head.
The unexpected surge in the center of the portal drew her attention and, momentarily, was enough to drown out even the petulant gem energy clamoring for her obedience. Something was coming through. Somehow (foolishly, in retrospect) it had never occurred to her that anything from the other side could get here of it own accord. Yet here a person, someone, coming through. The reality of the danger she and the rest of the world had been in all this time was only just dawning on her, with this horrible thing sitting deceivingly dormant in a Brooklyn loft. After her first encounter with the machine it seemed impossible that she could feel any wonder at it, but this new development had her questioning what the hell Nick got her into.
Hands glowing red, Wanda rose from her seat, keeping her gaze fixed on the portal and the even as she backed away from the emergent foot, leg, body- Tony. Tony? Her hands fell to her sides as she stared at the portal Tony and then slowly turned to look at noodle Tony to confirm that he saw this, too. That she wasn't just, for some ridiculous reason, hallucinating another Tony. Wanda knew magic and she knew guile and she remembered with biting clarity all the horrors of that pyramid and all the ways the power within tried to break them.
This grinning stranger (stranger, absolute stranger, she reminded herself) was probably a trick, something meant to catch them off guard. They couldn't trust it, they had to be careful and- it was asking her something. What? Tonys needed to stop asking her things. Wanda pursed her lips and when she realized what it asked she shook her head and stumbled over the words, "But you...don't drink?"