Chapter 3: Thaumaturgy
AN: First and foremost, thank you all for the follows and favourites, I appreciate each one!
I realize that my writing is boring but I promise it will get better after this chapter! Next chapter will have more dialogue, be longer, and hopefully I don't screw that up too badly.
I haven't watched Agents of Shield, so anything that's happened there is not canon, just thought I'd throw that out there just in case :P
Anyways, I apologize for delay and I hope you enjoy!
It would be a lie to say Wolfgang von Strucker did not love his experiments. After all the effort he put into creating them, it would be an absolute waste not to feel anything but a strong sense of paternal pride.
The Baron barely saw them as people anymore. They were works of art, shaped by his own hand into the masterpieces they were now. The twins had been his magnum opus and his loss of them had been devastating. But the world was an ocean, and tides can change. Quicksilver had been washed back, and with a little... conditioning, von Strucker could perfect his greatest creations.
A slender hand reached up to slide across his shoulder. Warm breath tickled his ear as a dulcet voice spoke in lightly accented tones. "Is it my turn yet?"
Strucker nodded. "Go on, Schmetterling."
He watched her leave, admiring the swing of her hips as she traversed the wreckage of a once proud Sokovian city. Her bright clothing and immaculately styled hair made stark contrast with ruins around her, like a butterfly in a battlefield.
Solange Delacroix.
When one was German nobility, one was obligated to attend certain events. An ice skating show was among the stranger social functions von Strucker had experienced, but it turned out to be quite worth it.
Her stunning Eurasian features and the way she danced on ice with a languid grace that could never be learned or imitated had drawn his attention. It wasn't often a someone could catch his eye like that, and it had been months since he'd had a woman.
She had been a professional figure skater when the Baron found her in Paris. Now, she was something better.
A prototype for Scarlet Witch, that's what all the women had been, really. There was similarity between all of them, yet each individual reacted differently when exposed to the scepter.
At first, Eveline seemed to have not reacted at all, her powers dormant even with injection after injection. They pushed her using all sorts of stimuli. Gently at first, then harsher when there was no response. Finally, something made her snap – von Strucker still wasn't sure what – for he never bothered to find out. The result was all that mattered. His little Romanian had somehow managed to kill a guard without ever laying a finger on him, and in the following commotion, revived his body. After several trials, she was a classified as a glass cannon with a slow recharge. Her powers were limited if she needed to save up to perform a resurrection, but useful on occasion, especially one such as this. She was able to perform other small tricks – draining life from plants to add to her own reserve – but none useful to the Baron.
Solange was a another matter entirely. Beautiful even before the Baron's meddling, the scepter's magic turned the young woman into an irresistible siren. Men fell before her like flies to honey, and like the flies, they drowned in while still in a stupor of happiness. Her words were music. She would speak in sultry tones with the barest hint of French, an elegant hand tracing warm patterns on their skin, and the listener would feel a compelling urge to do whatever she asked, no matter the consequences. The effects lasted only a few hours, but repeated contact made slaves of her lovers. A kiss could rob men of all reason, and just like that, the Baron had created the thing he would come to dread.
Pietro woke up slowly. His body ached like he had fallen from a great height. Had he? His mind was still sluggish and he couldn't recall much of what had happened up to this moment. He remembered fighting robots and leaving Wanda alone to defend the church. Was the battle over? Who had won?
Countless heaps of metal littered the city but when he looked closer Pietro could also see the fallen bodies of many Sokovian citizens. Not two steps away from him was the motionless form of a girl in street clothing, face down in the dust. Her fingers were bloodstained and her hand rested on grey cloth.
Was that his shirt? Pietro looked down to see his bare, bloodied torso. What on Earth? He didn't have too long to ponder this new development as he was distracted by the unmistakable crunch of shoes on gravel.
Nothing around him moved so it was easy to spot the figure walking towards him. A little apprehensive but wildly curious, Quicksilver ran to it.
A woman, wearing a dark skintight dress with vibrant orange and white patterning. She didn't look fazed as Pietro appeared in a flash of silver. "My, my, you're in a rush." Full red lips pulled up into a smirk.
There was a time when Pietro might have been entranced by the beauty before him, and even now, he wanted to feel the smoothness of her skin beneath his hands, the suppleness of her body as her back arched with pleasure, the warmth between her legs. "Have you seen my sister?" He blurted out instead.
"Sister?" The woman pouted, her hand coming to rest on Pietro's bicep. "Why think about her when you can think about me?"
A moment of terror flashed through his mind but it was too late – the spell had been cast. The woman smiled up at Pietro, eyes twinkling with merriment.
He smiled back, Wanda forgotten. "Oh, I'm definitely thinking about you."
"The name's Solange." All Pietro saw was the cling of the dress to her curves, the gold of her skin. In some back part of his mind a warning signal flashed, screaming "Danger! Find your sister! Danger!" but Solange's magic settled over him like a blanket, muffling the alarm bells.
Pietro had been rescued from the valley of the dead only to become lost in the world of the living.
Wanda felt Pietro take the first breath of his new life. She felt half of her soul flutter back and settle gently on the wound created when her twin died, melding back so smoothly that it seemed there had never been one in the first place. A deep and instantaneous joy filled her before her brain had time to catch up.
Was she going mad?
She then decided she didn't care. Insanity was better than having to experience the hole in her mind that Pietro had once filled.
Her magic never lied to her before, but Wanda supposed it was possible that she had hit some sort of breaking point. She had heard of phantom limbs before. Now she had a phantom brother.
Tentatively, like it was the first time she had done so, Wanda reached out for her twin's thoughts. It was hard, considering the distance between them, but the link between their minds was a well-worn track and once she found it, it was easy to fall back into the familiar path.
Pietro was a jumbled mess when his sister found him, but even in the disarray of his thoughts, one thing in particular stood out: WANDA.
A floodgate broke within her, and for the first time since the battle Sokovia, the Scarlet Witch broke down and cried. She wasn't quite sure what for, but sometime in between the great heaving sobs that wracked her body, she felt something change.
A thin film of some shimmering dust had settled over Pietro's mind like autumn leaves over forest floor. Watching his thoughts was like peering through a gauze curtain, and Wanda could only see the vaguest of ideas floating around like lost kites.
She wanted to scream, to rage, to storm off to wherever Pietro was and demand answers. Was it even real? It didn't seem fair that she had just got him back and now he was gone again. She felt her magic brewing dangerously within her like a storm waiting to be unleashed, and unleash it she did.
The blast reduced two rooms to chalky rubble and blew out most of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the 54th floor of Stark's tower.
All she could hear was the tinkling of glass as it settled, ignoring the surprised shouts that came from the other people in the building. How could the world be so cruel? To take Pietro away then teasing her with the smallest sliver of hope before destroying that as well.
Vision was the first to find her. He stood there for a moment, silent, head tilted slightly to the side, observing her with a bright blue stare.
"Wanda."
She turned at the sound of her name. Her dark eyes met his mechanical ones. "Vision." She blinked, letting a glistening tear rolled down her cheek. She hastily scrubbed it away with the back of her hand. "Tell Tony I'm sorry about this," she said quickly, gesturing to the shattered windows and chunks of metal that littered the surroundings. She turned away from him, making to leave.
"I will." The android drifted over the debris, closer to the Maximoff girl, and reached out a hand. "For what it's worth from me, I'm sorry."
Wanda turned her head to offer him a shaky half-smile. "Thank you," she whispered before walking out.
Vision let his hand fall back to his side as a rush of foreign emotion entered his mind. Sorrow, sympathy, sadness. All beginning with an s, just like sorry. He mouthed the word again. Pre-existing data had told him that humans offered an apology in times of grief. Somehow, it just didn't seem adequate. The girl had lost half of herself and all he had was one word.
Sorry.
AN: My goal is for the Baron to have German nicknames for all his "miracles," because he's a creepy weirdo.
I don't know how to write for Vision, can you tell? XD
PLEASE REVIEW, I'LL LOVE YOU FOREVER IF YOU DO. (And please tell me if this chapter uploaded properly, I'm on a boat and the internet's kind of wonky.)
Schmetterling - butterfly
