WHAT: A discussion about their jobs over wine, fries, and a """friendly""" massage WHERE: Out in Vallo City WHEN: Before the first portal plot (look we're BUSY) WARNINGS: Not really STATUS: Complete
“There is so much about this job that we did not abide by laws,” was Wanda’s complaint, exasperated by the concept of ethics. Ostyia was more people-oriented than she was. She had this charm to her; this way of engaging in conversation that wasn’t forced or awkward that Wanda often wished she had the patience to learn. It was all politics when it came to covens, of course – and a reminder as to why she kept to herself when it came to most of her magic associations.
They’d gone out with one of the more high-level members of Prigany, trying to glean information through casual talk. It hadn’t gone horribly. Drinks flowed between the three of them, and they chatted about some gossip but nothing that made a lightbulb blink over their heads. While they weren’t coven liaisons, it was important to make themselves known and to make themselves friendly towards covens that didn’t turn their nose up at their mere existence – forced formalities, all that nonsense.
Alas for this member, the formalities didn’t include a nightcap at her home, which she so beautifully described as her pleasure dome. They’d split ways, and she and Ostyia found their own version of a nightcap: fries, and wine. The combination wasn’t great when it came to pairing flavors, but she’d been craving something greasy.
“This would be much simpler if I could obtain some, I don’t know—” Wanda waved a fry around, trying to come up with words in a language that wasn’t even her mother tongue. “Warrant to search people’s minds. Does something like that exist here?”
Ostyia’s domestic skills were…lacking, to say the least. Raised in a noble family, she had quite honestly never been expected to learn how to take care of a home, short of knowing things like which duke to sit next to which countess for the most amount of drama at a dinner party. Her career had consisted of academic and then military work, where they didn’t give a crap about the food. Here in Vallo, she was grateful for delivery services that basically eliminated the need for cooking. So something like fries was something right up her alley, although she attempted to ‘class it up’ by requesting a variety of styles (sweet potato, curly, wedges) and sauces to match with a variety of wine.
“I will issue you one,” she said with a shrug as if it was that simple, all while attempting to eat up a long curly fry as if it was a bunch of grapes on a vine. This might have seemed difficult given that Ostyia was missing an eye and therefore some of her depth perception, but she’d long ago learned to adjust. One of the few benefits of losing her eye at a young age. That, and looking terrifying. “Who will stop me? Or you, for that matter, I find that when you say anything with enough confidence and do not accept questions, you will be surprised at what doors open.”
Not that, she supposed, it was appropriate to do. Ostyia’s morals weren’t black and white, but she did try to see the forest for the trees, every piece of the puzzle. Were things more dire she would have felt more strongly, but venting out of frustration? Eh.
Ostyia unfolded herself from her cross-legged position on the couch and nudged Wanda with her foot. “Some things cannot be resolved in a day. Sometimes you are setting yourself up to solve completely unrelated problems down the line, hm? This was not a failure, Wanda Maximoff, do not think of it as such.”
“I hate having to say things,” Wanda admitted, dropping the fry on her plate to fold her arms almost petulantly. Back when she was part of the Avengers, she wasn’t the voice responsible for diplomacy. Her goal was to listen (which she did poorly at, since she broke out of the Compound anyway when things took a turn), and to provide a power boost (which she sometimes failed at, considering the accidental casualties). She was better at the latter despite her shortcomings. A weapon of mass destruction, hadn’t someone called her that?
Tony. Probably Tony.
“I also feel like there is something obvious we are not seeing,” she added on with a sigh, rotating her neck a bit to see if she could get a satisfying crack going. “And I am afraid if we don’t catch it soon, something big might happen.”
“Listening to what others are saying, or not saying, is just as important. Sometimes more,” Ostyia pointed out, finishing up her curly fry with a snap of her teeth, like a snake striking from the grass. She knew the power of listening better than anyone. In Tranavia most people saw the Rabalska heiress as only a rakess, someone who wasn't supposed to survive, someone who slept her way through their daughters with a shrug and a laugh. What people failed to see was what happened during the wine and the pillow talk. Ostyia hoarded secrets, kept them close to the chest until the exact moment she needed them and then struck-not unlike her fry attack.
“Here, here, you are going to hurt yourself,” she tsked Wanda, before cleaning off her hands and moving to sit behind her. Ostyia tended to make spaces fit her, not the other way around. She pushed Wanda’s hair over her shoulder and then pressed her thumbs at the base of Wanda’s skull, right where the neck muscles met bone.. “Breathe,” Ostyia instructed. “It won’t be the most relaxing but you will feel better in two days–tomorrow you may feel like shit.” She increased the pressure while her thumbs moved in the tiniest of circles. “This was not what you did with the–what are they? Avengers?” The name didn’t mean much to Ostyia, although it seemed important to other people. Of course, her own country only existed to herself and Serefin, so what did she know?
Wanda made a noise. Ostyia was bold, she’d give her that - but the touch wasn’t unwelcomed, and those hands working her over were ones she trusted. She told her to breathe so breathe she did, even if the pressure caused it to come off as more of a groan. “Other people were suited better for politics when it came to the Avengers,” she explained, letting her eyes fall shut. The wine and fries could wait for a moment. “I have always been more of a weapon. And there is simplicity to that, to an extent.”
Until she had been taken advantage of. Until had been branded so dangerous that she needed to be put on a leash with every other known enhanced person.
“I don’t like it when people play games. And these covens – they are nice on the surface, but I’ve no patience trying to figure out all the things they are not saying. It’s fortunate I’m not in the liaison position.”
“You are a weapon, who is not? Anything can be a weapon if welded correctly,” Ostyia pointed out in a scoff. Maybe it was because Ostyia often compared her magic to a knife, something that she danced on the edge of and if she slipped one way or the other, it would slice her in two. She liked things a little dangerous, it kept life interesting and kept her just as sharp as her magic. “But you are not only a weapon. You are a parent, you are a friend, you have hobbies, you have interests. A weapon is one thing, and you are many.”
She continued her ministrations quietly, moving down to the large space that separated the shoulder from the neck–the very places that sometimes felt more like solid steel rather than malleable muscle. “Besides that, you should not make yourself smaller for the comfort of others. You can and should learn to control it, because that is how you become more comfortable with it, but you do this for yourself, not because someone is forcing you.” It wasn’t that simple, Ostyia knew that in spite of her wearing her confidence as easily as she wore her bejeweled eyepatch, but she wanted to say it anyway.
“I am a controlled weapon,” Wanda insisted with a soft huff, eyes doing the bare minimum opening into slits. “Most days.”
At this point in her life, she strongly believed she at least had a decent handle on herself and her feelings with all that could spring from it. She spent time apart from a collected group of heroes that, in the end, felt more like work colleagues than family and did her best to discover who she was outside of them. She had family. She had friends. She had business unrelated to saving the world that dealt with simplicities of a mundane life, like entitled customers and the espresso machine breaking during the busiest hours.
Wanda had a purpose beyond Avenger and Scarlet Witch. Her role with the DOA was a choice she made for herself, and she hoped to be able to do something good with it. “I have not always - mmf.” Ostyia was hitting a spot with her hands, and it took everything for her to not slump forward and melt face first into a basket of fries.“Made the right judgment call on things. I don’t like to be lied to, or used - and part of me misses seeing into people’s minds so I know what their intentions are.”
“I do not think there is anyone who would say they enjoy that,” Ostyia said, but her tone was light and teasing enough, because she understood. Ostyia didn’t like it any better, truth be told, she was just…used to it, she supposed. She had lost her eye in an assassination attempt when she and Serefin were children, and the reaction from court had been resentment. Serefin was forgiven for surviving because he was the prince, Ostyia was just a noble daughter and therefore expendable. Even though she liked many people, earning her trust was a slow, uphill slog through molasses with weights tied to your ankles.
The teasing continued with her next words. “So what, you are going to let me do all of the talking and all of the, what do you say, hobnobbing? Schmoozing? While you get to sit there and look pretty? This does not seem fair!” Yes, woe was Ostyia, the paragon of martyrdom!
That earned a peel of laughter from Wanda. Louder than she usually laughed, definitely - though she blamed a lot of that on the gentle buzz of wine in her veins, and Ostyia’s hands rendering her into a puddle. “That is my ideal job situation,” she smiled wryly, peeking over her shoulder to give her friend (they worked too closely together to just simply be colleagues) a look. “But I will make attempts to be useful. I’ll do my best to not disappoint you. You may have to tell me to tone down on what my face may be saying when I’m not impressed by someone.”
And since Ostyia was doing such hard work, she grabbed a french fry and stretched her arm back to offer it to her. A sip of her wine was probably more preferable, but Wanda couldn’t guarantee not spilling some by accident and it’d be tragic to waste it.
‘It is also my ideal job situation and yet you did not return the compliment!” Ostyia chided, another tease. She tended to speak in jest, flirtations, or thinly veiled (sometimes not so thinly, depending on the situation) threats and some of it was for shock value or because she thought it was funny. Her moments of actual seriousness were few and far between…except for when she was serious and then she would burn down the gates of hell and whatever else stood in her way.
Ostyia caught the fry with another snap of her teeth and then grabbed Wanda’s arm to move it in position so she could work her fingers at a knot right in the shoulder joint. “You’re very tense,” she noted, tsking her tongue. “We need to get some fun in your life, hm? Or a better mattress. You are magical, there is no need to sleep on rocks!”
“And you’re very bossy,” was Wanda’s retort, except it came out with a groan that didn’t sound like it was for public consumption and she received a very strange glance from people passing by. Sorry, she would have said, if she felt like bringing on more attention to herself. “My bed is perfectly fine, but I guess I do need more—”
Her nose did that infamous scrunch.
“Fun,” she ultimately agreed, propping her chin into the cradle of her other hand, peeking over at her. “Maybe less sweatpants and television. Really, if you’re to blame any furniture for my stiffness, it should be my couch.”
She had lost a good chunk of her social circle recently, between Bo and Freya and Thor - she might have been hitting those Friends re-runs a little extra hard to fill in the void.
“I am, in fact, bossy,” Ostyia agreed, chuckling, because very clearly she took pride in the term. What was a General, after all, if not the boss of the entire army? And if Ostyia had learned anything over the years, it was that you had to own who you were. As she had just proven, she didn’t mind reinforcing that lesson for other people.
“I am happy to boss you around into fun,” she added, tapping Wanda’s wrinkled nose with a finger. “Or, you know, other things.” That part came with a wink and an easy, casual shrug. She would never push anyone into something, and she certainly didn’t want to make anything messy or complicated–she had done messy and complicated, but that was usually intentionally, to stir up drama or shame her family when they were especially bastards. Now? She liked Wanda, they had fun, she thought she was beautiful and Ostyia knew she herself was. So, fun. Why not.
Wanda didn’t know what to entirely make of that at first. Ostyia was—many things. Fierce, blunt, playful. Flirtatious, certainly, as they’ve had a few quips exchanged between them before. She wasn’t blind, either. Ostyia was unfairly attractive. It was difficult to not stare at her face for an awkward amount of time.
“Sit back down next to me and keep bossing me into fun,” she decided to say, picking up her glass for a more courageous gulp of wine. The day had been long, and Wanda was just about done having to carry on with any sense of professionalism.