004 Unhappy changes [OPEN]

[scepterschild]

WHO: Wanda Maximoff
WHERE: Home/Inn/Woods
WHEN: May 1st - 8th
OPEN TO: EVERYONE
WARNINGS: None yet
STATUS: OPEN

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Home - May 1st – Early Morning

It wasn’t unusual for Wanda to be woken by her nightmares. They came more readily here than they had at home, playing over every loss and uncertainty like a Scooby Doo rerun on TV. Lately her dreams have been about her brother and more often than not she’d find herself jolting awake by slinging a ball of red sparks across the room. This morning brought no damage to her surroundings. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest while sweat matted her long dark hair to her neck and shoulders.

She was quick to get dressed, pulling on her jeans and the white tank top that she’d been given on her arrival. The house was warm though she could feel the morning chill creeping like thin tendrils through the air. With a heavy sign Wanda kicked open the door to her room and headed down stairs to see how much of the night’s fire was still burning in the hearth. Her fingers laced through her hair pulling the brown silky strands back from her face. When she reached the living room Wanda extended her fingertips out towards the far side of the room, willing her powers to move a log onto the fire.

Nothing happened.

She called for her abilities again but nothing happened. "Move." She kept her hand pointed towards the far side of the room, her voice harsh as she glared at the stack of logs. "MOVE!" Wanda shouted as she quickly stepped towards the small stack of logs, kicking the one she’d been commanding halfway across the room. The log thumped loudly against the floor. She wanted to scream at the piece of wood but what little self-control she had stopped her.

Woods/Around - May 1st - All Day

Eventually Wanda left her house. Tension was set in her shoulders as she walked straight for the forests edge. She didn’t want to believe that her powers were gone, that there was now nothing she could do. She was helpless, defenseless. She couldn’t protect anyone.

She’d had her powers for so long; she didn’t know how to handle them being gone.

When she reached the trees she shouted, listening to her pained cry carry over the canopy. She kicked at the trees around her, her boots stopping with every solid object that she’d come into contact with. Rage, pain, fear, frustration and hate mingled in her chest as she lashed out at everything around her. She threw a fist into the tree, feeling the rough texture of the bark scrape and bruise her knuckles. Again and again she hit the trunk of the tree, wishing she could push all of her feelings away.

When she returned her town her knuckles were bloody and brushed, her hair matted to her neck where a thin layer of sweat covered her skin. She looked tired and worn out, having managed to release the bulk her frustration in the woods.

Inn/Around - May 2nd - 8th - Brooding

Wanda could be found in many places throughout the village. She was determined to prove that being without her powers didn’t change anything. She knew it did but it was the only way she could fight the frustration that knotted and grew uncomfortably in her chest.

Early in the morning Wanda would split wood for her home, occasionally kicking a piece of timber that wouldn’t split properly. She helped Kate preserve the meat at the inn; this never required the use of her abilities and was now one of Wanda’s favorite tasks. While every other after noon she could be found cooking at the inn, using the few spices that she knew and testing the ones she didn’t. Wanda wasn’t sure when the last time she ate was. She remembered making food but not eating it.

In the evenings Wanda dreaded to return home. It was when she was trying to sleep, alone in her room that she’d lose herself to her thoughts and her doubt. It was stupid. She knew that but so many things were changing and there was nothing she could do to stop it. A distraction, all she needed was a distraction.

She could usually be found sitting at a random table in the common area. There was a button on the table in front of her; sometimes she’d spin it on its side with her finger while other times she’d just stare at it, expecting something to happen. Towards the beginning of the month she’d search for any abandoned liquor from the feast, welcoming the dizzying sensation that it brought with it.

Comments

[womanofvalue]

"Does he not have the support of others?" Peggy has to wonder, because that had been how she and Jarvis had kept Howard in line. Endless, insufferable work just to make sure the man didn't do anything too stupid, but it worked for them. "Someone to tell him when he's making mistakes? When he should ask for help instead of try to solve everything?"

"People who don't care anymore, they don't feel guilt. They make their mistakes," she says, "but then they never reflect on why they did or whom they may have hurt."

[scepterschild]

"He does but Tony is stubborn and doesn't always take it." She didn't know all of the details of Tony's life, she only knew what he was like as a person. "I think that's what Steve is trying to tell him." Only they weren't exactly listening to each other. The image of the boy he'd shown them pushed itself to the forefront of Wanda's thoughts and she frowned.

"You're right." Wanda didn't sound sure but she'd think about it and in the end, she'd know that Peggy was right. She found it difficult to think of herself in that light or Tony but she wanted to try.

Steve made this sort of thing look easy; running in head first, without any doubt in what he's doing.

[womanofvalue]

"Starks are a stubborn creature," Peggy says with a heavy sigh, wishing that Howard had been easier to get through to. After all, she hadn't been able to stop him from creating some of his worse inventions and there's blood on her hands because of it. "Tony doesn't have any children, does he?" She wonders if there's going to be another generation for her to worry about in the abstract.

"He knew me," she says, "when I was here, he knew me, called me Aunt Peggy, like I was in his life. Yet, how could he feel he didn't have my support, even before I passed on?"

[scepterschild]

Wanda shook her head. "No, he doesn't." She hadn't wanted to ask Tony about Pepper, not since the red head had stopped coming around the Avengers compound. Wanda knew who came and went but she tried not to put herself in other peoples business.

"I didn't know he was here." She picked the button back up again but this time she slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.

Wanda paused for a moment. "What should I call you? I know you as Peggy to Steve and Agent Carter." From her file and records.

[womanofvalue]

"For a brief time," Peggy says, with a touch of sadness in her voice. She would have liked to get to know him better, but unfortunately, it wasn't to be. Just as Jarvis had once accused her, it seemed as though Peggy always lost the people in her life, a curse which has followed her here.

"Peggy is fine," she promises, seeing as she has no real preference beyond the irritation that arises every time Thompson calls her 'Marge' and the distant bitterness of her mother's insistent 'Margaret'. "And you're all right if I call you Wanda, I hope? It's what I have been using," she admits.

[scepterschild]

Wanda nodded her head. "Yeah." She offered Peggy a small forced smile. "Sorry." It felt right to apologize. Wanda understood the sting of loss, it never got easier. She couldn't even assure Peggy that she won't vanish.

"Do a lot of people here come and go?" Like her brother had?

[womanofvalue]

"Enough that it makes me wonder if there is some form of escape and we're just not finding it," she says, which means that she feels like she's somehow failing. If she were better, then she would be back in Los Angeles. The trouble is that every once in a while, someone comes here that makes her rethink her will to leave.

"Perhaps there's something we don't understand," she says. "Maybe they're all still here and we haven't searched long enough." If that's the case, she thinks that her guilt will consume her, if she's left Steve out there twice.

[scepterschild]

Wanda shook her head. "I don't know." She honestly though that the second theory was more likely. She didn't think that people simply escaped from this place. It was all somehow planned.

"I think we're test subjects. If someone isn't useful anymore it'd stand to reason they'd be forced to leave." She looked over at Peggy. "I haven't found a pattern." Wanda didn't want Peggy to think that she'd failed. This world wasn't fair and it wasn't any one persons fault though she imagined that time made it easy to shift blame towards yourself.

[womanofvalue]

"I don't know that I want to keep being useful, then," is her bitter remark, seeing as the last thing she wants is to continue to linger here without any purpose, seeing as it's a frustrating thing to have one's agency stripped from you. She's had it happen twice now, as the first time had been after the war, and it's no better now. "I search all the time, but nothing is ever there, not until it suddenly appears out of nowhere."

"It feels as if we're being taunted," she notes with disgust. "This new affront is just like all the rest."

[scepterschild]

Wanda couldn't help but agree and yet it felt like there was very little they could do. She hated that feeling. Wanda was many things but helpless wasn't one of them. She'd keep fighting, no matter how long it took.

"I'll find a way." Her words dripped with bitter distaste. Wanda's hate ran deeply and it was as much a part of her as her brother was. She'd find a weakness and when she did, she'd tear them apart and make them feel the way she's felt.

[womanofvalue]

"If you need some muscle backing you up, you know I'm only a shout away," she says, utterly serious about this even though it might sound like a joke. She feels at her best when she's able to simply use brute force in order to make something happen, even though she's well used to putting her mind to work. It just doesn't have the same satisfactory feeling after.

"Is there anything that I can do, now?" Peggy offers. "Perhaps something that you know will cheer you up?"

[scepterschild]

Wanda relaxed a little bit, her lips tugging into a small smile. "Thank you." It felt good knowing that Peggy would back her up. She trusted Peggy which was a strange feeling for Wanda when they'd really only met here.

"I'm not sure." She admitted with a shrug, wishing that she hadn't put her button away. "I need time." She wished she had a journal to write it but that felt like she was asking for a lot.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy knows all about that, but in her experience, time unfortunately never gives her the solution she wants. Still, it's what Wanda wants and she must respect that. "If you find that you know what you want to do, to feel better, let me know," she says, eager to do something. "Until then, take all the time you need."

[scepterschild]

Wanda nodded her head. Her life had been very turbulent the last few years and it left a bit of a hole in Wanda's life. She didn't have hobbies like a normal person did and a lot of her identity had been built around her powers. Though now she wouldn't be seen as a weapon, perhaps she could find hobbies? Not that she knew where to start.

"Thank you." She didn't really know how to breach that topic with anyone just yet but she'd most likely seek out Peggy's advice soon.

"I should be going."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy gives a nod of her head, feeling like she hasn't done much at all, but at the same time, she hopes that Wanda is at least going to walk away feeling like she has someone. "Wanda," she calls out, just before she leaves, "if you need someone to talk to and not just someone to punch their way through the problem..."

"Well, I can be that too," she offers.

[scepterschild]

Wanda paused and turned to look at Peggy. She regarded the other woman carefully, her dark green eyes trying to read something in Peggy's features. She'd always been good at reading people, ever since she was little and Wanda always assumed that it was because of that skill that her powers had developed different than her brother. They had been a magnification of herself but that didn't have to mean they were completely gone.

She knew she could trust Peggy.

"I'd like that." Clint wasn't exactly the best at talking. Steve hadn't been either. It was difficult for Wanda to get someone to understand her position. "But I'm not very good at it." She admitted with a soft shake of her head.

[womanofvalue]

"We'll just have to get better together," she says, reaching out to give Wanda a brief squeeze at her shoulder. She's not perfect at it, but she knows she can be empathetic and careful about what she hears. "Besides, I have to do what Steve can't," she jests, giving her a soft smile. "Take care, Wanda," she says, with a last nod before heading off to continue her rounds about the village.

[scepterschild]

Wanda nodded her head, signalling to Peggy that she understood. The comment about Steve got a very small smile from her before she too left to return home.

There was a lot to think about but she felt better now that she had when she'd first been playing with the button.