Nat bags herself a Witch Who: Wanda and Natasha What: Wanda gets the antitoxin Where: Somewhere in New York When: Backdated Warnings/Rating: Wanda being a little cray and Nat dosing her from a distance.
From the street, the brown stone appeared normal. Door painted forest green, still curtains hanging in the windows, and at first glance, nothing inside was stirring. A closer look in the windows revealed the lie - one of the inhabitants of the row house was still alive.
On the floor between the believed bodies of her brother and son, Wanda was breathing far too fast, the skin of throat dipping into the hollow with every too fast, too short breath. Her eyes opened, rapidly went back and forth as though she was watching a superspeeded ping pong game. They'd stop every thirty seconds or so, her eyes would roll back in her skull and the faint glow of pink would disappear from her hands. A few seconds later, scarlet would flare, and something in the house would change.
When she was well, it had been the room they were in, now haphazardly put together with the angles all wrong, like the architect of the house had been moonlighting as a geometric abstraction artist. The stairs were warped and twisted like a mobius strip, the floor went from hardwood to stone, to carpet, and finally had settled on something cloudlike and wispy. The couch beside her changed fabric, color, size, exploded into jelly beans that disappeared somewhere into the cloud-flooring.
The jelly beans could not help. She needed to, needed, something. Her brother. Yes. Her son. The floor lamp appeared on the ceiling. She saw nothing, she heard nothing, and she could not smell the fragrant death surrounding the bodies not a foot from her.
She’d been watching for updates from Steve, studying each as they came, and the Avengers began to succomb to the infection. To the disease. Eventually it became a larger problem, and Natasha shifted her own focus from the city’s populace and instead focused on her almost - teammates. Carol was the first, followed by Bucky. Eventually, after learning who was left, Natasha began to search for Wanda, choosing to go out and simply look for her rather than tell Steve and the others. Why not, when she had her own ideas on how to stop the woman, one that may not be popular with the team.
One that just might save a lot of lives.
When it came down to her plan, it was rather simple. Straightforward. With what little knowledge Natasha had of Wanda thus far, and from what she’d seen, getting close to the woman would be difficult; and ultimately, unnecessary. It had been simple to requisition a long distance tranquilizer gun, and a sniper scope to use with it. And finding Wanda really wasn’t all that difficult, when she knew what to look for.
Currently, the spy was settling into position. She was in a house across the street, on the same level, shifting the curtains to give herself a better view. Putting the gun together carefully, she settled it against the windowsill and lay down on her stomach, peering through the scope to wait patiently for the perfect shot.
The instant she found it, her finger pressed the trigger and fired off a round of the antitoxin straight at the distant figure’s arm.
A bee stung her.
What a mean little bee.
Had she opened the window? Was the door closed? She could feel her pulse throbbing into her brain - whoosh, whoosh - beating like trapped moths against the cage of her skull. Except it hurt, and her eyes went up again, small tremors running rampant through her frame. Shimmy, shimmy, shake. Maybe the bee didn't like being a milkshake either. She stilled, light bloomed around her hands, and the light on the ceiling moved to the opposite corner, and the other corner of the room went missing entirely, just gone, no round wall just a void.
The needle in her arm, antitoxin discharged into her muscle, turned into a flower. A pretty daisy. Maybe she wasn't in a milkshake at all, chocolate or flower flavored. She tried to pluck the flower out of her skin, but the leaves fell off and her eyes returned to their back-and-forth zipping. Maybe she was a martini, shaken not stirred. Where was Charles? Charles would put a sign on her bar, help served at the cost of a plastic drink sword. Red ones were worth twice as much as purple. The entire room went the color of poinsettias.
There were flashes, but her prey didn’t run. Didn’t hide or try to fight. None of that. Breathing out a faint sigh of relief, Natasha’s movements were careful as she pulled out a second cartridge, this one loaded with a sedative. As Wanda was now, she would be too dangerous to confront head on, so the best thing to do would be to knock her out and get her someplace safe. Someplace familiar.
Again, the redhead awaited the perfect shot, just as patient, and took it the instant she saw her chance. The lights and colors didn’t distract her, but instead helped illuminate the witch, allowing her to hit her mark a second time (she hoped). Now she’d wait for her to sleep and hope things settled enough for her to go in and take Wanda to the Avengers Mansion.
Oh, a second bee. Maybe it wanted her flower. She didn't try to brush it off, her limbs felt too heavy to lift. Maybe she should just stay here, with Pietro and Tommy. Her breathing began to slow and her head lagged to the side, spine no longer straight as she slumped over, head on the body next to hers. Yes, maybe it was just time to sleep. Sleep sounded so good. She could sleep with the daisies and the tulips and the busy, buzzing bees. Her eyes closed and the room finally, finally went still and stayed the way it was.
When the figure went down, Natasha shifted, trying to get a better look. She gave the drug a full fifteen minutes, not a second less or more, before she finally took the gun apart and packed it away, then headed down and over to the house. A call on her phone brought a squad of SHIELD agents, and with their help Wanda was taken to the Avengers Mansion, where Natasha had her placed into her bed so she could recover. That done, she sent a message off to Steve to let him know, and left Wanda to rest and recover, for now.