Wanda Maximoff doesn't need to be told who she is (getsinsideofyou) wrote in pathways_log, @ 2021-09-16 16:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | mcu: wanda maximoff, rwby: winter schnee |
Who: Wanda and Winter
What: Catching up and deep thoughts/worries thanks to some accidental telepathy
When: July sometime
Where: Random restaurant of the lunchtime variety
Warnings/Rating: Low
Status: Log | Complete
It seemed like every time Winter closed her eyes, her other life came front and center. While many details were still missing, she had some of the broad strokes. The academies, the name ‘Salem’, General Ironwood, her sister… and a red-headed girl with green eyes.
Each of those things made her uneasy, though not apparently for all the same reasons.
Even when her eyes were open these things haunted her. Words and phrases at the edge of her consciousness, memories of this life floating up that she’d tried to forget. Guilt, uncertainty, confusion.
And working herself half to death wasn’t actually helping for once.
Wanda was definitely familiar with the memories that came unbidden when her eyes were closed. The memories of growing up with Pietro. Of signing up for a program meant to change the world. The stone. The pain. The way things never seemed to change. Those memories or the ones here. Of being seen as a threat.
Things were scattered. And it felt that anytime she got close to remembering something that maybe she should, a block was in place. Because she was avoiding it on a subconscious level.
On top of abilities that were showing up and well….Wanda was more than okay with just...not thinking about certain things. Which definitely led to overworking herself sometimes. Oh, Wanda had her ways of breaking it up but at the end of the day?
It was one of the reasons she’d agreed to meet Winter for lunch. It was clear they both needed it.
Winter was, for most people, pretty composed. But for Winter, there were a few signs that she wasn't. A bit of hair out of place, her shirt just slightly wrinkled in two places. Scuffs on her boots.
Just getting out and some fresh air might be enough. And checking up on Wanda; in a sort of protective way because she liked her, not (entirely) in a threat assessment way, either.
She didn't really know how to do the whole friends thing.
But it definitely looked as though Wanda's rope was as short as Winter's. "Afternoon."
There was something to be said about trying to bury oneself in their work. To pretend it was all going okay. It was a means of trying to have some sort of control when everything felt completely out of control. Logically Wanda understood this. She reminded herself of this when she tried to do anything to relax.
It didn’t always work out so well.
Wanda though was getting better at the friend thing. Honestly, she did enjoy having the few she did. There was just that part of her that kept saying it was only temporary. That she’d be locked up (thank you random memories of Tony locking her in a house) or they would leave her (as it felt like death followed everyone she was close to even if those were memories she did her best to block out). Either way, it was a mess.
Even so, she gave a small smile of greeting to Winter, even as she made note of the signs that the other woman wasn’t as put together as she normally would be.
“Afternoon.”
Winter nodded a little, her smile maybe warming up a little. She knew how to relax. mostly.
Maybe this should be a regular thing. Lunch dates. Not date dates, though part of Winter wouldn't object to that. (the part that did object to that had her father's voice. Also the General's. Wait, which general?)
Sudden onset migraine and she decided she really did need to get some food in her.
Still, the awkward pleasantries as she forced herself to relax; yet somehow, easier to open up to Wanda than her own sister. Go figure, "How have you been?"
Wanda wouldn’t be opposed to regular lunches with Winter. It would be good for both of them and while there were some issues in regards to Winter being in the military given Wanda’s complicated feelings about the United States military in general, she could push them aside. In theory. Either way. It would be good to get out more.
Though Wanda had found in her work and in general, sometimes it was easier to open up to those less involved and that was why it could be harder to open up to family. She wouldn’t know. The family that took her in had been fine and done their best. They’d been a family in their own way. She just never could let go of the family she had been ripped away from.
“Oh, you know. Busy with work mostly.” Dealing with surprise explosives that same day she had ended up in Winter’s jet, memories. “The usual as they say. You?”
“Too busy with work, but that’s been par for the course since I left home,” Winter replied. She didn’t really do much outside of home or work, which wasn’t healthy but That Wasn’t Super Important.
“Been trying to … connect more with my sister, but some bridges are a little frayed.”
A diplomatic way of saying she’d burned every bridge she had; Winter felt guilty about leaving Weiss and Whitley behind like she had, but she hadn’t seen any other option at the time.
Beyond giving Winter a look because well, it wasn’t healthy, Wanda didn’t say anything on that particular matter. After all, she really wasn’t one to talk given she was helping Tony with dismantling the Stark weapons program all the while still working full time to help refugees resettle and trying to process asylum claims as well.
The comment about trying to reconnect with her sister caused Wanda’s heart to clench. What she wouldn’t give for a chance to reconnect with Pietro. To know he was alive. And maybe it would be hard or she wouldn’t know how. But it would be far better than the constant not knowing. Of logically knowing she should give up yet being unable to. Of feeling like she had a memory she should know in regards to her twin but also pointedly ignoring it.
“You at least have a chance to reconnect. Frayed bridges or not. Not everyone is so lucky.”
It wasn't healthy and if Wanda was giving her a look Winter was going to pretend she hadn't seen it. If she hadn't seen it then she didn't have to acknowledge it or how unhealthy it was. And a part of her didn't want Wanda judging her. Not that she usually cared if people did.
And of course, foot in mouth. Winter's face fell just slightly, and another part of her wanted to reach out for physical comfort but she was Winter Schnee and that was unheard of, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."
The power of purposefully ignoring what was happening, of not wanting to acknowledge it. Far from healthy and Wanda was just as bad at it in other ways but that was neither here nor now. As for the apology? All Wanda could do was shrug, “It’s fine. You didn’t know.”
Most people didn’t. It rarely came up. And as her accent was softening again, even gone as skills of learning to blend in seemed to seep into her speech, her usual accent and age would make it easy to make certain connections if one put much thought into it. Still, Wanda tried not to bring up her past too often unless it arose naturally in conversation. She definitely wasn’t going to do it unprompted just to do so though.
Winter did make a note to do some research, though for what reason she couldn't say. It would be nosey, an invasion of privacy and was curiosity worth that? It wasn't like there was anything she could do to help. Her military connections were probably useless and it's not like someone who was dead often showed up alive.
"Well, I'm sorry anyway." She felt a little lacking in appetite, especially thinking about truely losing Weiss or Whitley. For really reals.
She wasn't the best sister, now was she? Anyway, moving on, "Have you had any other...incidents?” And she wasn’t even asking that for selfish reasons.
Wanda refused to believe that Pietro was dead. It simply wasn’t an option. She would know, she would feel it. Her parents, yes, they had died but Pietro...no. He hadn’t been in the reports. So somehow, he was alive. Somewhere. She just needed to have faith. She had to hold onto that. And it was why she stubbornly pushed back against any indication that he wasn’t alive. Here or in the memories she was doing a very good job at ignoring and not letting herself remember.
So she just nodded at the words on being sorry all the same. It was usually the way it went. Even as she picked up on… something. “You might not be a good sister right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work on it. And just because I lost my family doesn’t mean you will lose yours,” Lost in that they had died or just become impossible to find.
But then there was the question. About incidents. Wanda managed to keep from showing too much of a reaction to that. It made sense that someone might ask. Especially with how it could be taken.
“Not that I’m aware of.” Assuming incident referred to something happening that she hadn’t planned on. Out of the blue. The moving items with her mind had been before the teleporting and she could control that. Ish. She tried at least and did her best. Her accent was something else entirely but she didn’t pay it mind even with the flickers of memory. And well...there were the times she’d answer something that apparently wasn’t said but… No. She was just good at reading people, seeing microexpressions. She wasn’t hearing their thoughts or picking up on their fears.
Right?
Faith and hope could be cruel, Winter knew that better than most. She had faith in systems that were less shiny and pure than they appeared, a fact that she frequently felt was a rug about to be swept out from beneath her.
The things Ironwood was doing, they were for the benefit of the world... right?
Why did some of that feel like the sticking point?
Relief washed over Winter, pushing aside her growing anxiety about her memories and her place in both worlds. "Oh... good, that's good. Better to avoid anyone noticing and asking questions and..." Taking Wanda to undisclosed locations.
She didn't like that thought. She also didn't like the thought that the General would order her to do it, too. Lines in the sand, lines she ... didn't want to think about, it was unlikely and thus she'd never have to worry about it.
"And, it's good."
Faith and hope could definitely be cruel. Wanda saw it everyday at her work and yet she couldn’t let go of that belief that one day, somehow, she and Pietro would be reunited. Sometimes it felt like it was the only thing that was keeping her going. Without that belief, she honestly didn’t know what she would do and she didn’t want to find out.
“Being taken to an undisclosed location to be experimented on?”
It wasn’t that hard to follow the train of thought Winter had been going on in regards to what would happen should more unexplained and unexpected abilities came up. Wanda had memories of undisclosed locations. But also that she had….signed up for it. Believed it would make the world better. Change it. Help those the big mighty heroes forgot and ignored.
“.....if you were ordered to, would you? Take me in to be experimented on, I mean.”
It was something that Wanda couldn’t quite ignore. And Winter had just said (as far as she was aware) that she didn’t like the idea of being ordered to. It was something that put her on edge. She had her issues with the military, the fact she was befriending someone still on active duty...well. She had to know. She knew how people who were different were treated. She had lived it. Here. In her other memories.
It was not in the slightest something that Winter wanted to think about, a choice she never wanted to have to make. Between duty, honor and obedience and basic human decency.
They'd take care of you.
You wouldn't be harmed.
It's for the best for everyone.
There are threats out there you couldn't possibly understand.
You'd be safe.
Words she might say in another life. Words she would only half believe, herself. Questioning, questioning, wondering, a niggling little voice in the back of her mind telling her that this was all wrong.
That voice sounded remarkably like her sister.
"No," Winter said, this Winter, with the benefit of experience. "No, I wouldn't."
Still, she sounded a little surprised at herself.
Duty, after all, was paramount, and to do otherwise would be Treason.
Wanda easily picked up at the surprise in Winter’s voice even as she searched the other woman’s expression for any sign of deceit or that she was just pacifying her, reassuring her all the while prepared to do just that if she were ordered to.
Instead, she could see that somehow, despite her training, Winter meant what she was saying. That if she were ordered to do so, she would disobey. And Wanda didn’t know what to make of that. It would be easy for anyone to fall back to orders are orders, that she would be seen as dangerous (she was dangerous. Wanda knew it deep in her bones and could hear Tony’s very annoying voice along with another voice about how she was being protected from others when she knew it was the reverse when Tony was locking her in the tower).
So she just nodded.
“Well. That’s a relief.”
And it was, even if it was a confusing one.
"Lets... try to avoid that," Winter said, glancing subtlety around. "A court-martial isn't fun for anyone."
This was all a hypothetical anyway, she didn't have any orders she needed to worry about disobeying any time soon.
Still.
God but she needed a drink she refused to ever have again.
"But I.. care about you and wouldn't want anything to happen to you."
“I am more than fine with avoiding that.” Because really, things that Wanda wanted to do? That was at the bottom of the list. So avoiding it was perfectly acceptable. True, it seemed whenever she got an ability, it just happened and some things were harder to hide than others but still.
“Well, I obviously wouldn’t want something to happen to me either. But I wouldn’t want you getting in trouble either on my account.”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” Winter replied, still a little confused at herself.
She reached over and extremely awkwardly patted Wanda’s hand, “I just...have the strangest feeling of … as though I have all this weight and expectation on me. Like I’m still under my father’s thumb.”
General Ironwood had become her whole world, in a way. Winter felt suddenly sick to her stomach; it was as though she’d escaped her father only to land in the exact same place. And had been eager for it.
And worse, had the same happened here too?
Wanda wasn’t familiar with what it was like to be under a father’s thumb. But she did understand the feeling of weight and expectation. Or for her, fear and no understanding. Of pressure and guilt. Some things were solid memories. Others remained vague feelings.
In the end though, they were all real even when she couldn’t put an actual word to it. So all she could do was nod. She didn’t know the specifics. But even as she could hear Winter’s concerns, she didn’t see her lips moving and that was a sign that maybe the things she could have sworn she heard hadn’t been said at all.
“I think… I think that somehow, for some reason, the memories we have are mirroring the lives we know. Maybe in small ways, maybe not but…”
But the similarities for her were glaring. Still, all Wanda could do was shrug because memories mirroring her past was one thing, abilities were another.
“We just have to find a way to navigate them. As signs. Or warnings. Whatever it may be. And if it’s something you do not want, even if it is hard, find a way to move away from one path and make a new one.”
These memories could lead places Winter wasn't sure she wanted to go. Little nagging feelings about the Winter Maiden, her own role and expectations. If she could do what needed to be done.
At the rest of Wanda's words, Winter felt a strange, unwelcome warmth in her chest and a slight burning in her cheeks, "Yes. Uhm. Thank you."
Smiling some, Wanda nodded as she took a sip of her drink, “Of course.”