Wanda and Wade (Backdated to Sunday)

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

She thinks she's recovered enough to go back on the road in the never-ending search for Agatha. Wade thinks differently.



The office resembled more of a ghost town than an actual office. Though, considering it was a weekend and after the events of Genosha, Wanda really shouldn't have been surprised. Paranoia was hard to shake, though, so she made sure to make her way through the entire office, poking her head into offices, server rooms and kitchenettes, before she made her way to her own desk. There was probably someone around but the chances were high that she'd come in while they stepped out. E-mail after e-mail had flooded her inbox and she'd been struggling to catch up even as she dialed up a travel agent on the other line. The only thing she was interested in now was locating the information from the contacts she had looking for scraps of anything on Agatha and booking the next flight out of the United States.

"Mary, no, forget everything I just said - Egypt. I need a flight to Egypt as soon as possible." Before Genosha, she and Stephen had bounced from country to country, continent to continent, in search of even the smallest scrap of information. The most recent lead seemed to point to Egypt and despite the fact that she'd landed back in the United States not that long ago, she was preparing to take off again.

Wade went into the Snow Valley offices after some of the pain medication Marie-Ange kept in her office. Blue pill number two and red pill number one. He figured he'd grab some of the orange and yellow ones, too, because variety couldn't hurt and he was pretty sure his girlfriend knew how to dose herself. The migraines had been getting better, but he wasn't planning on letting her out of the hotel room he'd so carefully fortified until they were both at the top of their game again.

Making his way past Wanda's cubical, he paused. She was talking. She'd gotten injuries vaguely similar to his own, at least so far as the ribs were concerned, and he was pretty sure she'd gotten a pretty significant conk on the head as well. He remembered Lorna having to stitch it up. They might have been healed but the lingering exhaustion and mental trauma were still there. "Hey," he said, voice rougher than usual. "Hey. Tall, Dark, and Gorgeous - put the phone down." This wasn't good. Probably really wasn't good. Or at least had the potential to really not be good.

The only reason she didn't put a hex blast through his head was because the voice of her in her head was screaming "Friend, friend, don't do something stupid!" Actually, more like her powers were still sulking and were sluggish after the abuse she'd put them through. But, still, she did end up chucking a small skull at his head before she really realized who was speaking to her. "Wade! Oh, fuck ... did that skull break? And, wait, what?" Mary was saying something but it was hard to focus on the words as her heart threatened to relocate itself into her throat.

"Can you hold, Mary? I'll still need those tickets but a ... co-worker just came in?"

Wade caught the skull and held it up, one finger hooked through an eye socket. "No, it didn't break." Walking over, he sat the skull back on Wanda's desk and took the phone from her hand. Holding it up to his ear, he made an effort to make himself sound cheerful as he said, "Mary? Hi - hello. Yes. My name's Wade. Wanda and I are running away together, so she's definitely on the right track with asking for help to a trip to Egypt, but I've already had my personal assistant, Wesley, set up the flight as well as the hotel and various other fun things like spa dates and those nice little things where they wrap you in leaves... wait, that happens at the spa? Weird. But awesome. So. Yeah - no. Thanks. I have no idea who Stephen is. Sorry. Bye!"

Hanging up, he quirked an eyebrow at Wanda.

"...what. What was that?" She was sputtering. She never sputtered. But, then again, no one ever interrupted her phone calls before by saying she was running away with them. "One, let the skull go. And two, what the fuck?"

"But it's so soft, almost silky," Wade said, practically petting the crown of the skull even as he maintained eye contact with Wanda. It looked like her left pupil was maybe a little bigger than the right, but he couldn't be sure. That might've just been the lighting.

"You cannot keep petting Wilfred," she said, frowning at him. Wade was staring at her oddly but she was now staring at him oddly because, really, he hadn't answered her actual question. "Wade. Why on earth did you probably just send my travel agent into a tizzy? Now I am going to have to call her back and probably buy her a very nice bottle of wine to make amends before she gets me my ticket. And call Stephen ..."

"No tickets. No more traveling. Not for the moment. Probably not for the next long while. You're formerly concussed. You're broken. You're exhausted. You need to rest." Wade took his hand off the skull. "Breathe, Wanda."

Rest? The very idea of resting just made her ... twitch. Wanda did sit, though, as she slowly sat herself back down into her office chair. "I am breathing," Wanda snapped and then actually forced herself to take the breath that Wade had suggested. "I'm sorry, I do not mean to yell at you. But, yes, I am exhausted but, really, when are we not? Agatha's trail grows colder every day and Stephen can only do so much. If I do not head back out, we might lose it altogether."

"How long have you been looking for her?"

What month was it? That was probably not a good question to ask, no matter the circumstances. "Over six months, give or take," Wanda said, though it was grudgingly. She didn't want to know why Wade was asking, she really didn't.

"Statistically speaking," Wade said, frowning, "Wait. Obviously I've been hanging out with Doug too much." Shaking his head, the mercenary blinked, then pointed at Wanda. "If you didn't find her within the first 48 hours, the likelihood of finding her alive decreases exponentially. You know that. I know that. You're chasing down 'maybes' at best." Propping his hip against Wanda's desk, he shook his head. "You can't hope to find her if you're not functioning at 100%, alright? And I'd be surprised if you're at like six percent right now."

For a moment, it was as if all she could do was stare at him. The fact of the matter was that Wanda had been living with that exact knowledge for months now but always in the back of her mind or, sometimes, at night, when she left Stephen asleep in their bed to pace around whatever hotel room they were currently in. But she'd never voiced it and certainly no one had voiced it to her. "The maybes are all I have right now."

Even to her own ears, Wanda's voice sounded ... tired. And sad. "And I'm all she has. If I stop actively looking, then she has no one." And Wanda couldn't leave it alone. Couldn't bear to know that their last conversations had been bitter and hurtful after years of a close relationship. Agatha had lied to her, withheld things, but she'd done so many good things for Wanda that to stop looking felt wrong.

"The maybes will still be there after you've gotten some sleep. The odds of one small clue in Egypt being the thing that leads you directly to her are pretty small - so get one of your contacts to check it out. Use your network of people or whatever - that's what they're there for, right? But seriously, take care of yourself or you won't be any use to her." Leaning over, Wade tipped Wanda's chin up so he could get a better look at the healed, slightly scarred cut on her forehead as well as her pupils. "Go on, get out of here. Or I'll start calling you Henrietta Potts or something."

Wanda curled her hand around Wade's wrist as she sighed - sleep sounded amazing. And, though she felt guilty about it, so did the idea of remaining in one spot; she knew Stephen must have been exhausted, too, though he had never said anything. When was the last time she'd thought of 'home'? People seemed to be strangers to her these days and home nothing more than a hotel room. "If you start calling me anything of the sort, you will end up with one hell of a prank war on your hands," she warned him with a smile.

"Promises, promises," Wade said, letting his hand fall away from Wanda's chin. "Don't make 'em if you can't keep 'em." Pushing himself up, he offered Wanda his hand. "I gotta get some stuff for Marie-Ange's office, but I can drop you off at the Brownstone before heading back to the hotel."


Wanda took it gratefully and squeezed. "While you get what you need, I will shut down my computer - Douglas will kill me if I let the infernal creature stay on over the weekend. And then ... home. To rest." And, perhaps, stay longer now.