8.
Strange Gets Weird
The weird thing wasn't that the guy sitting in an armchair across from the rest of them-Fury, Tony, and Bruce, all crowded onto an overstuffed loveseat like Victorian suitors calling on the mayor's daughter-was dressed like a medieval alchemist as interpreted by the costumer for Cirque du Soleil. The weird thing was how nobody except Bruce had to really try to hide their incredulity in his presence.
Since their arrival, the military-precise Fury had been chatting with Strange like they went to the same band camp or something. Jesus, how the hell did he know? Maybe they did. Throughout the entire ordeal, he tried not to look in Strange's direction too often. That huge fake dimestore jewel the Doctor had around his neck appeared to be winking at him.
It bothered him that Tony, who had a hangover now, was staring sullenly at his cup and not saying a word. Back on the plane he'd been at least as put off as Bruce; and now he just sat like a bump on a log, fogged in a throbbing headache.
Bruce turned away and quietly absorbed all the eclectic, esoteric, religious artifacts covering the walls and shelves-masks, swords, prayer wheels, fetishes of every size and provenance-and decided that the only thing needed to finish the perfect picture of a well-traveled necromancer's home was a silent Asian houseboy who doubled as an assassin.
Strange interrupted himself. "Wong?" he called out. A slight, bald, Asian man walked into the room with a tray. After a brief but complicated ritual with hot water and handleless cups, he served everyone tea. His movements spoke of precise, deadly skill, held at the ready.
Bruce blinked and sipped his tea carefully. He was thankfully distracted by the elfin woman seated on a hassock next to Strange. She looked kind of like Edie Sedgwick, if the latter's hair had been longer and white instead of gray.
Things got more alarming when Strange, who had been nodding at Bruce every so often, finally turned to him with a wide smile and said, "I'm so pleased to finally meet you, Mr. Wayne. I've been admiring you for some time now." Then, as Bruce reeled from this sally, the Doctor turned to the woman beside him. "Clea, could you go see if-?" She kissed Strange's cheek briefly and slipped away for parts unknown. He looked at his guests again, replacing his smile with a solemn expression. His sense of triumph was harder to mask.
Fury looked sharply from Bruce to Strange, his sociable demeanor gone. "You know this man?"
"We've never met," said Strange. "But I know of him. It's the sheerest luck that things happened as they did, despite all the work it took in the end." He smiled fondly at Bruce, who was now awash in the same displaced anxiety that had gripped him at the airport.
Even Tony looked worried. "Work?" asked Fury. "I brought him here because he's the only unaccounted-for passenger in a flight that has every organization in both the public and private sectors of aviation under heavy surveillance. I wanted to show you these." He handed the airplane photographs to Strange, who flicked casually through them with the kind of recognition that stems from seeing a familiar landmark in a postcard.
"Yes," said Strange. "About what I expected. It's such a rare event, even when it occurs naturally. To orchestrate one is almost impossible."
Fury stood up, both fists clenched. "Orchestrate-you did this?" Bruce started forward in his seat. Tony gaped silently.
Strange nodded. "I had help, naturally."
"What-? Why-who? Who helped you?"
"Well, you did, for one. Recall if you will the roster you presented me for the Avenger Initative recruits. You wanted me to help vet those who had mystical abilities, since that sort of thing is outside your scope.
"At the time I was aware of a growing problem that fell under the same aegis. One of your members fit the bill. She was my other source of help."
Bruce stood up, too. His voice came out through gritted teeth. "What did you do to me?"
"I didn't do anything to you, Mr. Wayne. Not as such. I opened a very brief portal into another world. Yours, to be specific. None of your identification has any meaning to Mr. Fury's filing systems for the simple reason that you're from a parallel universe."
Tony's mouth dropped open. "Jesus Christ. You're kidding. This is crazy."
"Not at all. Mounting scientific evidence is finally catching up to the fact that-"
"Don't bore them, Doctor," said a clear, feminine voice.
Bruce took a step back and collided into the loveseat, accidentally sitting down again.
Clea stood in the doorway. Leaning on her and looking spent was a strikingly lovely woman in crimson silk pajamas. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in a dark, auburn-tinted cascade, and the eyes in her pale, heart-shaped face were jade green.
It was the woman in red from the plane.
"Mr. Wayne," she said with a weak smile. "I'm sorry to have abandoned you earlier. I'm afraid I collapsed before we could meet properly. My name is Wanda Maximoff. Our friend Mr. Fury has me codenamed under the Avenger Initiative as the Scarlet Witch."
