Wanda and Amanda, backdated to the 12th

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

Wanda and Amanda use a lunch outdoors during work to catch up.




“I swear to God, that bus just jumped the damnable curb in an attempt to kill me!” Wanda raged as she dropped down next to Amanda on the grass in Central Park. The brown bag containing her lunch was tossed onto the ground where the grease seeping through the bottom of it could, potentially, attempt to kill any plant life it came into contact with. While it was proving to be a fairly cold fall, it was still a nice day out and in a fit of pique, Wanda had decided to drive both Amanda and herself out and into a cloudless day for lunch.

Amanda snorted from her seat on the grass – she’d spread her leather jacket out first to avoid getting a damp arse, but had been smart and grabbed an extra sweater on the way out. “You’re never gunna be a fan of public transport, are you?” she asked, cracking open her can of Coke. “Trains trying to kill you, buses trying to kill you… how about rickshaws? Had any issues with them?”

Wanda paused in thought, one hand reaching into the bag to try and find her burger amongst the pile of fries the deli had given her. “I set one on fire once,” she admitted, completely unrepentant. “Does that count for or against me?”

“Against, I think. Who knows, maybe that’s how it all started. It was a cursed rickshaw and now you have all its public transport brethren after you for revenge.” It had been one of those mornings in the office, obviously.

“I think you managed to just sum up my entire life – I set something on fire and, thusly, am cursed to run afoul of similar items throughout the rest of my earthly time.” It really had been, with needing to put out fires and flinging books back and forth at each other as they’d had to hunt down answers to archaic questions in limited time spans.

“Well, it’s just as well you have me to protect you, eh? I can talk to the nasty public transport and ask it to leave you alone. Or just put you in a bubble whenever we’re out together.” Amanda snickered, hunting through her own bag for her sandwich. Obviously the witch was on another of her attempts to be healthy, which usually came when she’d had an extra-hard training session and regretted the cigarettes and donuts.

“Still, at least we managed to stop yet another disaster? Even if it was only as little one.”

Wanda eyed the object that came out of Amanda's bag with equal parts distrust and distaste. Her own diet was as unbalanced as it could get without tipping over into fear of scurvy. "I'll take all the victories we can get right now," she agreed with Amanda, happily unwrapping her own food. "I mean, we have not been doing pretty badly, all in but still."

"It hasn't helped, losing people," Amanda pointed out almost innocently before biting into her sandwich. She watched Wanda's face, however, looking for the tell-tale signs of the older woman's reaction. Chasing after some sauce that leaked down her wrist, Wanda's face went blank for a moment before she slanted a glance in Amanda's direction. "It was bound to happen anyway," she said, a bit stiffly. "It is the way of this life, really. But Remy came back - that is a plus, at least."

So, not okay. Amanda made a mental note to make sure Wanda had plenty of support from her assistant for a while. She'd long ago reconciled herself with Jake's tendency to flee - their friendship was fairly transient, for that very reason. He disappeared, he reappeared, they picked up things where they'd left off. "Yeah, it is. At least now I can hopefully stop the random disappearing acts?"

At that, Wanda laughed a little bit. "We can only hope. Without the subconscious emotional gears in full swing - with good reason, mind you - you could probably even start actively working on it. Instead of it working you, as it were."

“We’ll see. I might go see Doc Blue and Fuzzy first, see if he can’t rig me up with some kind of super GPS. ‘S not like I’m going to get phone signal every time and if I get stuck for some reason, it’d help you lot to be able to track me down.” Amanda gave a wry grin. “At least before I start eating out of rubbish bins and drawing on the walls.”

"The life lessons we have learned..." Wanda shook her head in part bemusement and part resignation. "Besides, I have a feeling Henry would be delighted to do something like that. Mainly since he is a disturbed, if brilliant, man."

"Well, it was just the once I went crazy..." the witch replied, trying not to laugh too much. "I ought to go see him any way, let him see me being a productive member of society and all." Since she got way too much of a kick from seeing the reaction those who had known her as a student had when seeing her now.

Wanda snorted at that and grinned at Amanda, knowing her younger friend far too well to be fooled. "I think he would be quite pleased to see you. So many years have passed and, I think, for good in some cases." She tilted her head and wondered how to broach the subject but then, again, she had never been shy. And there was nothing but gentle concern in the question she wanted to ask. "And visiting the mansion will not be awkward?"

"Awkward? Why would it be... oh, right." Amanda had been honestly taken aback, and her expression fell a little as she realised what Wanda was getting at. "No, that's not a problem - fuck, we went out drinking with Bobby when he came back, nothing to it. We're still mates, just not anything else, is all."

"Good," came the firm reply. "The mansion was home to you once and you still have so much put into it that I was concerned. An 'old' woman's priorities, as it were." She stretched out her legs, tossing some garbage into the brown bag so she could continue eating the rest of the food. "Sex and romances are always fleeting but the bonds can - and should - in some cases, outlast the physical aspects. I'm glad that you were able to do so with Angelo."

“So, this means you won’t string me up for breaking his heart?” Amanda suggested, remembering a prior conversation not long after she and Angelo had gotten together.

Laughing, Wanda left the rest of her food alone so she could lean back on her elbows and stretch herself out as far as she could go. Which was a rather long way. “Ah, but you did not break his heart,” Wanda countered, “so I have no recourse to follow through. You have both grown even in the time that you have been together – neither of you are the same person you were back then.” She felt a bit wistful but blamed it mostly on the weather instead of anything related to ‘emotions’. "Which was the problem - we'd both changed too much," Amanda admitted. "I mean, I can't say I won't miss it, but... we'd had our time. Whatever we need, it's not that, not any more." "Better to move on than to be that rock stuck in the river, forever rolling in place until one or the other, or both, were worn down."

"Pretty much." Amanda was amused at Wanda's poetical way of putting it. "The jobs didn't help, either. His or mine." She cocked her head at her mentor. "All right, tit for tat. Can I ask you something personal?"

Despite pretty much guessing where the questioning was going, Wanda’s response was immediate. “Always,” she replied, giving up to gravity completely to lay back on the grass. Warmed from the sun and fed, there was a catlike desire to nap but she ignored the impulse, turning her head so she could still see Amanda.

"Why didn't you tell me? 'Bout you and Jake, I mean." Amanda looked down, plucking pieces of grass from the lawn. "I mean, 'Yana knew and blabbed all over the journals about it."

Wanda’s face softened for a moment. “It had nothing to do with not telling you,” she said firmly. “Illyana knew because Mark, that sneak, somehow managed to figure it out the next morning and with gossip that good, he could not resist telling someone.” She sighed at the memories it stirred up and thought over her next words. There was a reason she had spoken very little of what had come up between Jake and herself but this was Amanda after all.

“I was unwilling, really, to speak of it much to anyone because it may or may not have had the potential to turn into something more than just the physical,” she finally admitted, a bit roughly. She lifted her head and grimaced at Amanda. “When it comes to a fight, I have no ‘flight’ response as they have all been dedicated to ‘emotional entanglements’.”

“And ‘Yana, having the emotional maturity of a bowl of petunias, got all bitchy on the journals about it.” Amanda sighed a little. “Jake’s the same, about emotional stuff. Which is why he up and ran, I’m guessing? Couldn’t handle dealing with you and Jean-Paul?”

Tactfully, Wanda didn’t comment on the Illyana aspect – though Mark had remarked that Wanda had made the “D-Face” at everyone for days afterwards. “I think that was part of it,” she admitted. “But more a mix of everything at once. His arm, his family, the rather brutal life style we sometimes lead. I think something cracked under the pressure, so he cut his losses before he got even more dragged down.” She snorted. “Jake’s cultivated unattachment was threatening to unravel around his ears so he. Just, well, left.”

“That’s Jake for you.” There was wry understanding in the witch’s voice. “He’ll show up again, like a bad penny.”

Wanda snorted. "We have a standing agreement to try and catch up in places when I'm not on jobs," she sighed, trying to sound as if the arrangement was more than just fine with her. Shaking herself, literally and mentally, she turned a grin onto Amanda. "But in other news, seems someone has found herself a student!"

"Yeah, I'm still figuring out how exactly that happened," Amanda replied wryly. "Nico's a good kid, but I've got to say, I'm worried about this Staff of hers. I can't find much about it so far, but anything that needs a blood ritual to be used can't be good." "Karma has a fantastic sense of humor?" Wanda guessed with amusement. "Do you think you should bring her by the offices? There might be something else we can find on that staff - and I am with you, it sounds interesting. And, unfortunately, in our line of work, interesting is rarely anything good."

"Yeah, I thought I might. There's a book too, apparently - might be worth getting Doug to take a look, see if he can make any sense of it." Amanda chuckled a little. "Strange actually laughed when I told him. Tho' it didn't last long when I mentioned I'd need him to sub in while I'm off on a job."

Wanda smothered a laugh. "I can just imagine the look on his face," she said fondly. "There has to be someone in our large and sometimes dubious network of contacts who has heard of one, or both, of these objects."

"It'll be a bit of deja vu for him, but I think we've both learned a lot from my student days. Like I said, Nico's a good kid, but she's so like me back then it's almost scary. I want to make sure she doesn't make the same mistakes." Amanda's expression turned wistful.

Reaching over, Wanda patted Amanda's hand and then gave it a squeeze. "Experience is a good teacher, which means you will have good lessons to impart to her," she said. She grinned suddenly, an impish smile that made her look younger and less tired. "Though that thought might not be enough to counter balance some of the potential headaches you are in store for."