Wanda and Forge

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

Still disturbed by what happened, Wanda comes to Forge bearing a bribe and with some questions.



When in doubt, Forge could be found one of a few places. His rooms, the garage or his lab. Considering the nature of Wanda's questions, she headed for the labs, carefully balancing the steaming plate of food in one hand and a pack of Red Bull in the other. "Forge?" she called out, glancing around. "I come bearing gifts. Or bribes, rather."

"Wanda?" Forge's voice came from under a large boiler-looking contraption that was visibly vibrating from barely-audible ultrasonics. A clanking hiss sounded, and the vibrations stopped as Forge rose up from under the machine, goggles pushed back on his forehead and his tank top streaked with grease and sweat. "Hey, Wanda!" he repeated. "Long time no see. What brings you down to my -hey, is that frybread? You brought me frybread, this must be important."

"And more importantly, it's Dani's frybread," Wanda explained, smiling. She gave the contraption that he just came out from under a wary look as she found someplace to put the plate. "Though I suppose it would have to be since I have no idea where else I could find any." Hands now free, she turned back around and crossed her arms over her chest, taking him in with amusement. "It's nice to know that some things never change. But you're right, I have a bit of a favor to ask of you - and I just wanted to stop by. It has been too long."

"You're talking to the guy who literally vanished out of the space-time continuum for close to thirty months," Forge explained, wiping his hands on a nearby rag. "'Too long' is an entirely relative term. I mean, eight months since I've been back and I still have trouble writing the right date on checks. Two and a half years on Attilan, wonderful as they admittedly were, was too long to go without frybread."

He walked over to hop up and sit on the table where Wanda had set the food, grabbing a wedge of frybread and dipping it in the pot of honey before taking a huge bite and chewing. "So what brings one of my favorite physics-breakers into my domain today, hmm?"

She tapped a finger against her nose. "That, actually." Wanda quieted down for a moment and unconsciously rubbed at her wrists and hands. The bruises and welts from Stevens' hospitality had faded but it was sometimes hard to remember that. "You probably heard about Garrison and my run in with a friendly psychotic a few weeks back. His actions were...well, it raised a few questions."

Wanda quickly explained the man's "reasoning" behind his rash of twisted kidnappings and killings. "Apparently, my powers influence caused him to lose whatever hold he had on his powers and sanity. He put the blame of those deaths at my feet and while I am still struggling with that, I do have a question for you. Simply put...how powerful am I?"

Forge finished chewing his frybread thoughtfully, then hopped down to turn and look directly at Wanda. "Probability manipulation, chaos theory... it's very hard to quantify. You're familiar with the butterfly effect, obviously. What you do, your 'strings', my theory is that you're somehow able to perceive those potential connections between cause and effect. The greater the potential effect, the brighter the string, right?"

He opened a desk drawer, fumbling around until he produced a multicolored Rubik's Cube and tossed it to Wanda. "You also possess an ability to compel events to manipulate those strings, forcing an effect. I imagine that if you just started messing around with those lines of chaos, without being aware of the end effect? Well... it'd be total randomness. Anarchy unleashed."

She caught the Rubik's Cube in one hand and ran her fingers over it, turning it this way and that randomly with some subtle nudges here and there. "After a certain range," she mused, "the strings, the lines, become tangled and fade. I'm unable to follow them - and for the better, I think. To be frank, I reign myself in because I cannot see exactly what the end effect is. The last thing I want to do is cause something that I cannot stop."

Finished with the Cube, she tossed it back at Forge. "I may not have killed those people but as the potential butterfly in that hurricane I cannot help but feel somewhat responsible. Anarchy unleashed indeed."

Forge looked at the randomized Cube and began idly manipulating it with one hand, his eyes still fixed on Wanda. "Ever heard of William Winchester?" he asked. "The guy who invented the Winchester repeating rifle. It basically modernized military warfare, improving volume of fire, while reducing the need for skilled marksmen. 'The Gun That Won The West', it was called. Helped stabilize the nation in the expansionist days of the 19th century. Depending on who you ask - and dear god, don't ask Dani - it was the most important invention of its century for the progression of society."

He flipped the Cube over to his other hand without looking, still twisting the faces around rapidly with his fingers. "After he died, his widow went nuts, believing she was haunted by the ghosts of everyone ever killed with a Winchester rifle. Built herself a crazy house to try and trick the ghosts. Thousands of people - hell, entire tribes of indigenous natives were wiped out by the Winchester rifle. So much death, his wife driven insane - William Winchester was just a butterfly."

With a flourish, he held out the Cube, completely solved, each face displaying a solid color. "Actions have consequences, even if we can't see them. Not just for probability manipulators, Wanda. For everyone."

Gently, Wanda picked up the Cube from Forge and held in the palm of her hand. All the rows of colors in their own lines, back where it belonged despite her intervention. "It never gets any easier," she said after a moment and when she turned to look at Forge, she had an expression that she didn't let cross her face all that often. She looked vulnerable -but not resigned. "And I suppose, in the end, that is what separates me from the likes of them, is it not? That I feel the guilt and that I feel the weight of the choices that I make. That while it never gets any easier it does not mean that I will stop because of it."

She laughed softly, the look fading away slowly. "Either that or it means I have gone completely around the bend. My choices are just that, mine, and even if I could control the choices of others, I do not know if I would. Because then I would turn into Stevens." Or into her father.

"Power exists to be used," Forge replied. "Your father taught me that, and I have to admit, he's not entirely wrong. You can't refrain from playing with those strings any more than I can look at a car and not think of how to tune it up. And that's a good thing. We have to use our gifts, Wanda. Because if we don't, if we pretend to be normal just like everyone else out there... then it's a waste. The trick, then, is learning how best to use them."

He shrugged, taking another piece of frybread and smearing it with honey. "I choose to believe in the greater good. The Professor, at heart, wants peace. Erik, when you get down to it, wants survival. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive."

"My life has been shaped, for ill or good, by my powers. Twenty something years is a long time to live with something like this." She shook her head. "I doubt that even at it's worst I ever would have willingly given it up. The two weeks I spent stripped of my powers after I ripped Chthon from myself were the hardest, I think. They're as much of me as anything else that makes me unique."

She stared hard at the Rubik's Cube and sighed. "I used to hold out hope, deep in my heart, that my father could be saved. Maybe he still can be but I doubt I would be that person. Realizing that was not easy." Wanda quirked a smile Forge's way. "Which is why I, unlike my brother, do not seek him out. The last thing he needs is more power near him."

Forge smirked. "You don't need to remind me," he insisted. "But you're not your father." And I hope, he thought to himself, neither am I.

Laughing, she tossed the Cube back at him. "Thank you, that's probably the kindest thing anyone has said to me today," Wanda responded, reaching over to sneak a piece of flatbread. She'd carried the thing downstairs and it had smelled fantastic.

"I do try. Besides, if you go power-mad like your father..." Forge paused, then shuddered. "Okay, the last thing we need is you being more powerful. Which reminds me, if Doug hasn't already given you the rundown on a fellow by the name of Fabian Cortez - stay the hell away. You on a power surge would not be pretty for the fabric of reality."

Wanda winced at that. "Doug mentioned him but I did not think...right," she said firmly. "No touchy with Fabian Cortez. I think that I can manage. Come on, I think it's time you actually saw the sun today. Let's take the frybread and see if we can find any."