Bliss
The night terrors were the worst.
She would wake up, hyperventilating, panicking when the weight of her blankets seemed too overwhelming, when her sheets seemed to trap her arms to her side. Her heart raced. She habitually stared at the door, as if expecting someone to walk through it. She would lie awake for a couple of hours before restless sleep took her once more. She always awoke at 2:37 in the morning, like clockwork.
Then, she dreamt. Vivid, furious, dreams, white and red and black and grey. She dreamt of closed rooms, of shadowy figures coming towards her with needles, of puzzle pieces and a screaming man. She could not scream in her dreams, tried, but no sounds would escape from her throat. She had the vague idea that she was smaller than her attackers, but something was wrong. She was too slow to react, almost lethargic, vision swimming and blurry. Sometimes they would jab her, tie her to a cold slab, prod her. Sometimes a man would stand over her in scrubs, his face entirely blank, but in her heart she knew that he smiled. He would reach to touch her, start unbuttoning his smock, while another faceless man with white hair stood nodding in approval off to the side.
She always woke up before he touched her.
Wanda descended the stairs, narrowly avoiding one of Fred's socks as it lay, drooped over one of the steps. Her head was spinning. She didn't need to look in the mirror (not like she could - the grime was so thick) to know that she had purple bags under her eyes. The terrors had been coming more frequently in the last few months. She wondered how long she could handle them before they subsided. She wondered what they meant.
Entering the kitchen, she knew they'd heard her scream.
Pietro took one look at her and nodded an awkward good morning before zooming out of the room with an apple in his hand. Fred visibly cringed as she walked in, then busied himself with his waffles, slightly burnt. Lance glanced up at her, but shifted his gaze almost immediately to the cup of black coffee in his hand. Toad looked concerned, but uneasy. She'd never seen them so quiet.
"So..." Toad started, attempting a smile. "Rough night?"
Wanda didn't have the time to answer before Lance smacked him upside the head.
"Couldn't sleep," she replied curtly. She didn't feel like breakfast.
"Well, uh, I could help you with that, sweetie," he propositioned, looking up at her hopefully. "I'll be your teddy bear." Normally his suggestions and pet names would have warranted being thrown across the room. She didn't have the strength, or even the will to do so. Even her mug of coffee seemed to heavy too lift to her dry lips.
She made a non-committal noise, a cross between a half-laugh and a strangled sound. Her throat was raw. She needed to get outside. For some reason, the kitchen was making her feel claustrophobic. The tension in the air was stifling. They couldn't even meet her eye.
She stomped out to the porch, not even feeling her legs move.
Lance had a habit of making particularly strong coffee. Sometimes Wanda thought it was because he didn't clean out the coffee filter often enough. Sometimes she thought it because he wanted to prove just how manly he was. This time, she thought it might be because he was nervous, needed to steel himself for when he had to deal with her.
It was quiet on the porch, but not the ugly silence she faced inside. It was a disarmingly peaceful day. Maybe it was her anxiety, but the day seemed almost artificially bright, as if the world was trying to show her that she had nothing to be afraid of, that her nightmares were all in her head. She rocked back and forth in the chair that Fred had lifted from the garbage pile a the nursing home, and curled her knees to her chest.
Wanda had never seriously considered that there was something wring with her before. As far as she was concerned, she had a normal life. Grew up with Pietro and her father, never knew her dead mother, but was rather well-adjusted considering that fact. She was a mutant, yes, but had gained reasonable control over her abilities, thanks to Agatha Harkness. Nothing to worry about.
Until she got to the omissions, the lacunae, the holes in her memories. She couldn't remember huge chunks of her childhood. She could recall a picnic, but little else. She asked Pietro about their younger days, but no matter how she tried, she couldn't remember any of the things he talked about. She feared abandonment for some reason, was terrified of it. Rainy days made that feeling almost overwhelming. The night terrors were something else. Where were those images coming from? They felt ungodly terrifying, to real despite their surreality.
Maybe she was crazy. The thought was enough to dig a hole in the pit of her gut. She felt winded by the idea. It explained everything neatly. She was insane. Schizophrenia? She didn't hear voices, not really... Multiple Personality Disorder didn't seem likely either. But undoubtedly, something was seriously wrong with her brain. Her synapses must have been fried by her powers. Maybe it was genetic.
So sobering, the thought was, that she couldn't take the sunlight anymore. The sludgy coffee had gone cold, like her body. She felt numb to the core. What was the next step? The idea of seeing a doctor was unthinkable. Some part of her saw them as untrustworthy. She feared being locked away. Maybe her dreams weren't as far from reality as she thought.
She opened the door of the dilapidated house silently, closed it behind her with equal care. The caffeine heightened her senses more than it normally would have. The paranoia wasn't helping. And the voices... she could hear voices in the empty house, and it made her feel sick. Maybe it was schizophrenia after all.
Or maybe not. That was... Pietro, she was sure, talking, murmuring at an incredible speed. She couldn't distinguish any words, just the vaguest cadences of conversation coming from his room upstairs. Then there was Freddy's rumble, and she almost swore she could hear her name from their direction. She couldn't help herself, finding herself outside the heavy door, ear pressed to the cool wood.
"You seen what she looks like now?" someone was saying. The ground shook ever so slightly. Lance. "Lost so much fucking weight, it's scary. Somebody's gotta fucking tell her."
Wanda became painfully aware of her jutting hipbones against the door, of the roominess of her pants.
"I don't think that's a good idea." Pietro again. "See how much happier she is now? Less Scary Wanda, more Not-Gonna-Kill-Us Wanda."
"She's gonna figure it out, yo." Toad.
"No way. Not if we don't tell her. A few bad dreams, everyone's got 'em." Why did Pietro sound so desperate?
"Fine. We just won't fucking sleep for the next six months."
"She's not stupid." Fred. "She's smarter than the rest of us."
"Not saying much," she thought she heard Pietro snap back. "Don't say anything. She'll freak out. You wanna be the ones to drag her back?"
Silence.
"Look, they way her memory is now, she can't remember anything. We've got nothin' to worry about." He was trying to rationalize whatever they were talking about. Wanda's heart thudded in her chest. "I've seen the fucking reports. We don't need to deal with that."
"Reports?"
"With photographic evidence. Let's just say that it's not pretty."
"She'll find out, bro," Toad insisted. Wanda could hear the thuds as he bounced along the walls. "We gotta tell her straight. I don't like seen' her suffer, y'know?"
"She'll be more pissed if she finds out we knew," warned Lance. "What then?"
"I hit the road."
"Some brother you are," Fred groused. "Think she won't find you?"
Wanda could hear Pietro's aggravated sigh loud and clear. "Fine. We'll get that witch to mix her something for the nightmares, okay? The sooner they stop, the better we'll be."
"Man," she could barely distinguish Lance saying. "I'd like to forget half the shit I've seen, but not this way. Glad people have stayed the fuck outta my head."
A murmur of agreement. It made her stomach churn, and she couldn't listen anymore. Agatha. She needed Agatha. If anyone could fix her, if anyone could explain, it would be her.
"Someone has been playing with your mind, my child," Agatha Harkness said softly, placing her wizened hands on Wanda's temples. She ran unusually cold, but Wanda could still feel the heat from her fingertips spreading into her body.
"What do you mean?"
"There are things here that should not be, masking those that should. It's shoddy work." The old woman grimaced, her mouth a straight line. "These falsities were meant to replace the past, not gild it. Whoever did this was interrupted."
There was hope.
"Can you fix me?" Wanda demanded excitedly, starting to rise from her seat. Her sudden movements started Balthazar, a particularly fat black cat who stared at her from the windowsill in complete disapproval. Agatha shook her head sadly.
"Not I. This is beyond my scope of limitations."
"What?" Her throat went dry, her eyes tight. The room was spinning. "You can't get rid of them?"
"Child..." the witch's voice was soft, patient from her centuries of life. She looked sad, tired. "I cannot reduce the damage to your memories, only see it. But this is something that I am not sure you would wish to remember. Recalling the past could be devastating, and, as the saying goes, ignorance is often bliss. I foresee no good coming from any revelations."
"I want to know, Agatha. I can't deal with the dreams anymore. I feel so left out of the loop, they're treating me like a time bomb. I need to know why." She was sobbing now. "I want to know. I can't keep going through life, knowing that there's something wrong with me, when I don't know what it is!" Dry, heaving, breaths. She was trembling; blue bolts ran from the chair's arms, gripped so tightly that her knuckles were white, up the walls and around the lights.
"Wanda..." A pause. "I understand, but I cannot help you. My hands are tied. This is not the job for a witch."
Cold fury took her. The room tinted red, and her limbs seemed to take a life of their own. Normally the last of prescience in her own body would terrify her, but perhaps it was the acceptance that she was unbalanced somehow that made the ordeal less nerve-wracking that in should have been. She watched idly as her hands swayed and the pots flew from the walls and crashed into each other, and the door flew open. The resigned look on Agatha's face sent a pang of guilt coursing up her spine and through her veins, but Wanda couldn't stop herself from walking out the door.
Not the job for a witch, but a telepath, Wanda realized. She had blacked out after storming out of Agatha's small home, woken up in front of Xavier's mansion, standing with her finger on the gates' buzzer. She heard a whirring sound, and looked up to see a small camera trained at her face. They swung open, and Wanda began the long, uncertain, walk up the driveway. The must have turned off the security system, for nothing was shooting at her, or trying to stop her journey. She dully noted a shiny new red sports car parked nearby. She had the feeling that it was expensive and, if Pietro could sit still long enough to drive, she was sure he would love it.
She hadn't even gotten to the door when it opened, and three sharp slaws were raised to her face. Wolverine, though short, was doing an admirable job of filling the doorway with his frame. She was too tired to pose any kind of threat; surely he could see that? She could barely stand. Her knees had never felt so weak.
"What do you want, kid?" he snarled suspiciously, looking her up and down as if gauging her potential threat level. She didn't blame him for being suspicious, not after what Pietro and the boys had done to their pool.
"I need to see the Professor," she replied. She was trembling. Was that really why she was here? How did she know? How had her thoughts progressed to that path of action? She wished she could remember the walk to the Institute. Maybe she was crazy, after all. Maybe she was lying, maybe she was making it up to hide the fact that she didn't know why she was here. Could he even help her? Was it her subconscious, that which riddled her dreams with disturbia, that drove her to come to the mansion in the madman's hope that she could be repaired? And if she was crazy, would she truly be so self-aware? Her mind reeled. Why was she so preoccupied with the possibility of her mental instability?
"Why?"
"I need help," she said, raising her arm and leaning against the wall, taking some of the weight off her legs. It helped ease the nausea somewhat. "I need him to get into my head."
Wolverine stared her in the eye. It was unnerving, the way he held it, almost as though he was attempting to read her mind. After what seemed like hours, he dropped his gaze and stepped to the size, enormous arms crossed over his broad chest. "You're telling me. I'll show you up to the office," he said. "Don't try anything funny."
Treated like a prisoner in a place that could possibly be a sanctuary, but again, Wanda couldn't blame him. She just didn't understand why such a logical procedure bothered her so much. Her skin crawled as he marched at her right, close enough to restrain her if she did anything - but what did he expect her to do? She swore she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, but that was entirely impossible. And the Professor's decorating scheme only intensified the nervous heat that was spreading through her body. Why could anyone decorate a house in such angry red shades?
"Come in, Wanda," came the Professor's voice from behind a door. "Logan, you can leave her here. She means me no harm." Wolverine -Logan- looked doubtful, but jerked open the door.
"You sure, Chuck?"
"Quite sure."
He looked at her askance before stalking away. Wanda couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard him mutter something about "she" and "snaps."
"It's all right," the Professor said with an easy laugh. "He has a difficult time letting go of preconceived ideas."
Wanda walked into the room and stood awkwardly before the enormous desk. The Professor looked at her over steepled fingers with a mild expression on his face. The sunlight streaming through the window glinted off his head, and the room was gloriously air conditioned. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but the golden rays seemed to take the edge off the room's red tint. He had a calming effect on her; it was almost like being with her father.
"How can I help you, Wanda?" he asked, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. She sat down, back ramrod straight, hands in her lap and shoulders tense. She felt foolish answering him, as though she was being mocked.
"Don't you already know?" she replied, words stilted.
He laughed again, but it was not one of derision. "I suppose I could easily find out, but I find it far more respectful to have someone give voice, a physical voice, to their thoughts."
"Someone went into my head," she said bluntly, unsure whether her courage was driven by her nerves, or her desire for closure. "They put in these nightmares, I can't remember things - I need you to go in there and get rid of them. Please," she added, on second thought, her breath now laboured.
The Professor looked grave, his smile wavered. His answer was long in coming, each word said with measure, heavy. "Wanda... I am aware that my powers of telepathy are considerable. In theory, this is something that can be done. But the risks are far too dangerous for me to consider this."
It was like being punched in the stomach; all the air seemed expelled from her lungs. They felt tight, squeezed together and pressed against her spine. "What?" her voice cracked. "But you can fix it, you need to-why won't you help me?"
"It is not a matter that I cannot potentially undo. It is a matter that I am not willing to do this. It is a difficult, risky procedure. I'm afraid my conscience prevents me from doing so."
"Somebody else did! Somebody put these things in my brain, these images that I can't shake off. If some random weirdo can go in there and plant them, why can't you get rid of the problem?"
"I don't know if you would want me to, Wanda. The results would be far different than what you think."
"Do it anyway."
Another sigh. "I cannot knowingly go into the mind of a child and do irreversible damage."
"I'm turning eighteen in a few months. I'm not a kid. I'm asking you to do this. Do you need my dad's permission?" She was desperate, shaking. "I'm sure if I find him, I can get him to agree- this is for my own good-"
"I'm not entirely sure that he would agree with your decision. On top of which, the procedure is extremely risky. I can't attest that you would be the same person you are now."
"I don't like who I am. I -"
"I can't guarantee your sanity, Wanda. This is not something I am willing to chance again. I'm sorry, but I cannot do this."
Her vision swam before her, rippling, spinning, tinted bloody scarlet. Her breathing rapidly increased; the short flow of oxygen to her brain made her dizzy. She was sure her blood pressure was rising; she could feel it rush to her face, felt her body temperature rise to unbearable heights. Sweat beaded on her body, evaporated off her arms like dew in a desert as she launched herself out of the chair, hands slammed on the Professor's oak desk as she tried to steady her body as it wracked with sheer rage. She was sure she could feel the adrenaline pumping through her veins - or was she just crazy, growing her-attuned to what would otherwise be a normal reaction in her body.?
She thought she snarled, but she couldn't be sure. The sound of rushing in her ears drowned out anything she said, anything the Professor tried to say. Wanda spun on her heel and threw open the door with a strength that didn't even phase her at this point. She wasn't surprised to see Wolverine lunging towards her; she waved her hand in his direction as she stormed past. He flew into a painting of a russet landscape with a groan that Wanda could vaguely hear as she continued her warpath out of the mansion, blasting her way through the front door.
One name reverberated through her brain. It was the only word that the Professor had said that stuck in her head. The only name.
Mastermind.
But who was he?
"Caliban." Not a call, not a greeting. A statement in a voice of barely controlled anger. It was dark, cold, starless. The bus ride had been hot and unbearable.
"Yesss?" he replied softly, stepping out of the shadows with a wary, furtive, look around the alleyway. Wanda was sure they ad been driven even further below ground in the wake of the anti-mutant hysteria.
"I need you to find someone for me."
"Of coursse... Why else would you be here?" She wondered if he was being sarcastic.
"It's a mutant named Mastermind," she vehemently spit out, running a hand through her short, black, hair. "I have reason to believe that he's messed with my mind." She couldn't recall ever being this angry before. She'd had a happy childhood, no underlying resentments. But for some reason, this anger, this vicious bile flowing through her system, this angry fire burning her nervous system, it felt... comfortable. Normal. Manageable.
Caliban sighed, raising a pale, thin, forearm as he gave her directions, sketching them in the air.
"Thanks," she thought to call out over her shoulder as she made to leave. She turned her head, hoping that eye contact might soften her perhaps unnecessarily brusque tone.
But he was already gone.
Third floor, second door.
The derelict apartment building loomed ahead of her in the dark stillness of 2 am. A few sparse yellow lights still shone feebly into the night, and Wanda made her way up the few concrete stairs, idly aware of the sound of crunching glass under her heavy boots. The doorstep reeked of urine, and somebody had thrown up into the pitiful bushes to the side. She rang the buzzer, but wasn't surprised when nobody answered. The sounds of domestic arguments were heard loud and clear from what she guessed was the fourth floor. Wanda tried the doorknob; it turned in her hand and she strode into the filthy foyer without a glance behind her.
Third floor, second door, she chanted to herself as she walked up the stairs. The place was too broken-down for an elevator. Even if one was available, she wasn't sure she would trust it. A shattered glass pipe decorated the landing; the poor lighting reflected off the shards and cast a feeble, tiny, kaleidoscope of colour against the pea-green wall.
Third floor, second door.
Third floor, second door.
Her heart thudded in a steady rhythm as the words repeated.
Was this obsession?
Was it normal?
Third floor, second door.
She was so close, so near, to relief.
Third floor, second door.
She wrenched it open, wasn't surprised that its lock wasn't working. The metal looked flimsy. It was splattered with paint left over from a landlord's slapdash job at making the doorway look more inviting. She swore she could see bloodstains beneath the watered-down coat.
Third floor, second door.
There was no apartment. Just a sea, an endless, grey, roaring, seizing sea. Wanda felt the icy mist against her face, could taste the salt on her lips and tongue. It was cold - her knees knocked together, her shoulders were tensed against the cold. Her leather jacket, shorter than her usual trench, wasn't enough to keep out the wind.
The ground fell from her feet; she clung desperately to the doorframe to stop her body from pitching forward off the cliff, into those unfriendly depths. With a great heave, she pulled herself back, slammed the door behind her.
Third floor, second door.
What the fuck was that? She shook, as much from shock as from sick fear. Her throat was closing from the anxiety, her breathing and heart rate irregular. The blood rushing through her ears seemed to whisper to her, telling her that something was wrong with her. Her very body was working against her. Her mind was holding her hostage. That scene could not have been there. She was seeing things. Tasting things? God, maybe she was crazy after all.
Third floor, second door.
This time, daylight. Bright, warm, rays of sun beaming from an impossibly bright source somewhere in that vast blue sky. A field, grass so soft that it bent deliciously beneath her heavy combat boots. A sweet breeze blew gently past her face, tickling her ears. It was gorgeous. She smelled flowers, apples, the scent of summer. Happiness. She smelled happiness, felt peace. Had she fallen? Had she died? Or had her mind finally snapped?
If this was insanity, she had no choice but to embrace it. She took a tentative step forward. She heard the sweet, invigorating, sound of chirping birds as they soared in a cloudless sky. She heard the rustling of the wind through blades of grass. She heard her name, a whisper on the wind, but loud enough that it caught her attention, confused her. It seemed to surround her.
"Wanda," it cooed seductively. "Wanda, darling, come to me."
She whirled around, trying to see if anyone else was there. The door was gone, replaced by a stunning horizon line.
"Where are you?" she asked, her voice growing louder with every word. "Who are you?"
"You know me. There's no need to explain, is there?"
"But I don't know you," she said to the omnipresent voice. "So I'd like to, really. I ant to see you."
"You want to see me?" She thought she heard a chuckle carried on the suddenly cold wind. The sky filled with clouds, first innocently white, then ominously grey. "You want to see me?"
The voice was behind her.
A faceless man, tall, clad in grey-green hospital scrubs with a mask obscuring the lower half of his face, where his non-existent mouth should have been. A stethoscope hung around his neck, powdery latex gloves encased his hands.
The face of her nightmares.
She screamed.
Her eyes were closed for a split second, but it was enough time, Wanda realized, for her capture. She could not move her arms or legs; they were bound by medieval shackles to a sterile autopsy slab. The light that shone directly in her face from above blinded her whenever she stared at it directly; the pain in her retinas forced her to turn her head to the side. Her captor, the faceless man, was washing his hands at a sink that was attached to the floor by a series of pipes, but which had no wall to support it. The room didn't have any walls that she could see - it was an endless space of clinical white. He turned to her, sleeves rolled up as he snapped on a new pair of gloves. She thought she saw a set of inked numbers on his forearm - 214 was visible, but the rest was lost to fabric- that seemed so absurdly familiar that she could not place them.
He smiled, or she thought he did. After all, there were no distinguishing features of any sort that might have exuded happiness, but the way the skin wrinkled and stretched over his disturbingly smooth face signified that he was enjoying the predicament. He picked up a scalpel, moved towards her with menace. Wanda struggled against her restraints, but they were tight. She had gotten so weak after the weight loss. She couldn't breathe; sweat beaded on her skin as he drew closer, holding it against her breastbone.
"Stop!" she shrieked, pleading. The tip had cut into skin, but the pain was excruciating. He mercifully paused, tipped his head as if confused, or awaiting something more.
"Don't," she begged between heaving breaths. She could barely see the blood that pooled over the tiny incision. "Please, don't. Stop-" He shook his head as if in disappointment. Another tiny slit, probably the size of a staple, but that felt a foot long.
"Why are you doing that?" she cried, "I'll do whatever you want-"
It seemed to catch his attention. He looked up, put the scalpel away on the tiny side table that Wanda hadn't noticed was there. It was as if it sprung up out of nowhere. She squeezed her eyes against the pain and felt his hand caressing her head gently, in a steady pattern that did nothing to soothe her nerves. She opened them again to see the skin of his face stretched into what should have been a grin on a normal face. She froze as he began to loosen the ties of his pants and remove them, revealing nothing underneath. His hands were rough as they struggled with her belt, and Wanda's terrified paralysis soon gave way to a rush of adrenaline.
The blue bolts that crackled around her hands were enough to finally break the thick leather restraints that had felt tighter and tighter with each passing second. She was able to sit up just as the faceless man was successful in undoing her belt buckle. Wanda lashed out at his face with force that he emitted a sharp cry as his head spun a full one-eighty degrees. She had managed to remove his mask. The face that turned towards her was one all-too familiar.
214782.
Auschwitz.
Her father, with a disappointed but menacing look on his face turned towards her. The surgical tools on the table levitated a foot above their tray.
"Daddy?" she asked in shock. Her teeth chattered, her knees shook. "What's going on?" This man couldn't e her father - he would never hurt her. She knew he was a man pure in heart and mind, a man who loved her. But here he stood, pants down and weapons at the ready as she sat on the slab.
He came closer. A butcher's knife flew to her head, but she deflected it with a wave of her hand. Her heart had never beat at the rate it suddenly did. "Daddy?" she asked again, voice small and whimpering. He responded with a barrage of syringes that missed their mark. But the scalpel that he wielded so lovingly drew closer with tantalizing slowness; he didn't want to miss this time.
She had no choice as it drive to her heart, suddenly changing speed.
She shut her eyes, threw up her hands, and let the crash of energy flood her system with a flash of blue light visible through her eyelids.
She was an a derelict apartment, one which reeked of cabbage. Her hand flew to her chest, and drew it back. No blood stained her palm. This room had walls, it had a door, it had dingy wallpaper and a television set that buzzed on a static channel. Apparently the discharge of her powers had left some damage. And there, hiding behind a torn armchair that had seen far better days, was a tiny man with wild hair. He looked dazed.
This was no time to waste, Wanda realized, and in a move worthy of Lance, she vaulted over the chair and hauled the man up by his shirt collar.
Mastermind.
"You," she hissed vehemently, the room tinting red, "have a lot of explaining to do."
His scared eyes bored into hers. He seemed incapable of making so much as a peep.
"But first, you're going to undo whatever you planted in my brain. You're going to get rid of those nightmares."
He managed to chortle. She shook him violently, slammed him against a wall. "What's so funny?" she demanded. "Answer me!"
"So you want me to get rid of what I put there? And you think it's the bad stuff?" He laughed uproariously.
"It's not funny to me, that my head's been fucked with. I know you did it, and you'll get rid of whatever you put in that isn't supposed to be there. I want my life back, Mastermind. Or else." As a threat, one hand wavered a few inches away from his crotch, flickering electric blue. "You won't be messing with girls for a long while."
"Kid, your mind was fucked to begin with," he started, but stopped as the blue grew more intense. "But I'll so it," he added hastily. "Just don't hurt me."
"We'll see how I feel after this," she sneered. "And you better not try anything. I'm a little unstable right now. Your fault."
It was eight in the morning by the time she returned to the Brotherhood mansion. She'd kept her promise not to hurt him - not too badly, anyway. She'd stopped short of her threatened castration. the ordeal less than an hour, but the rest of the night had been spent in a New York diner with a too-friendly waitress who had thankfully given her a bottomless supply of black coffee. Coffee that didn't taste like it had been made with gasoline and crushed Corn Pops.
She'd needed the time to process things. Catharsis seemed out of reach. The best she could hope for was resentful acceptance. Realizing that oneself was clinically insane was a difficult thing to grasp. Knowing her father had insisted upon it was even harder to deal with. The fact that he had tried to cover his tracks only served to spike her fury. Part of her thought that everyone had been right, that she was better off not knowing; the other half said that it would have been cheating her out of herself. She was more inclined to believe the latter half. When she thought that she was no longer an immediate threat to her roommates, she returned.
Pietro was the one who opened the door, looking jumpy, but relieved. "Wanda," he said, "Where were you?"
"Doesn't matter," she replied curtly. "I'm back."
"Snookums!" Toad yelped ecstatically, bounding towards her, "I've been so worried!"
He flew into a wall with a force that he hadn't felt in months.
Oh yes, she was back all right.
"Bout time you came home," Lance said, drinking from a dirty mug. He shot her a wary look. Fred, standing behind him, said nothing, but had a small smile on his large face.
"Yeah," she said by means of a reply. "We don't have any records lying around here, do we?"
Pietro blanched. "Not unless you're talking about the CDs I lifted last week."
"Oh no, I'm thinking something more... permanent. Official."
It wasn't her imagination. The boys were frozen in place by her words. They had known, but she couldn't fault them. This ordeal hadn't been their doing. She knew whose it was.
"Let's just say I have some reading to do," she said conversationally. "And leave it at that."
Reading.
And revenge.
She had a lot of lost time to make up.
-FIN-
Author's Note: A darker Wanda-centric piece I've been working on for a few weeks. I like my Wanda angry - why wouldn't she go searching for answers? C & C is totally encouraged! I also hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day!
PS: The next chapter of No More Than Opiates should be up this week - Reading Week at last!