Chapter 13: Reconnection
Who in the city, now bathed in the light of the moon,
Will know that I yet drift on through the gloomy world?
~Murasaki Shikibu, from The Tale of Genji, trans. Edward G. Seidensticker
Wanda hadn't seen the sorcerers when she woke up the next morning. She did find a sealed envelope with her name on it sitting on the kitchen table. Inside had been a handful of $20 bills and a letter from Strange calling it a "stipend" for her to spend on clothes, food, or anything she needed for her room.
The thought crossed her mind that she could take the money and run. It took all of five seconds before she realized she didn't want to.
While out shopping, she kept thinking back to her first time in New York City. That had been just after Pietro died. She hadn't been in the right frame of mind to appreciate the city. And, honestly, she still wasn't.
She passed a payphone—an actual, working payphone—and realized something she should do.
One of the spy lessons Natasha drilled into her was to have important numbers memorized. It took her a few minutes of writing down numbers in various orders on the back of a receipt, but finally she felt confident enough that she picked up the receiver of the pay phone, counted out a handful of quarters, and dialed.
It rang. Her heart fluttered with nervousness. She wasn't sure what she wanted more: for him to answer the call or not answer it.
"Hello?" a familiar voice asked tersely.
She swallowed. "Hi, Clint."
"Wanda? Wha... Where are you?"
"It's a long story. I'm safe. I promise. I'm sorry I've been out of touch for so long..."
"Wanda, I thought...I thought you were dead. I...do you have any idea how worried I've been about you? How worried we've all been about you?" He sounded half relieved and half ticked off.
"I'm sorry. I was...There were just things I had to do on my own. I know I should have told you, but...I'm doing better now. I have a job." That was technically true if saving the world counted. "I'm not able to get away at the moment, but I'll come visit you when I can. How are Laura and the kids doing?"
Clint was quiet for several seconds, probably deciding between scolding her for disappearing some more or answering her question. "They're doing well. The kids are in school right now. They'd love to talk to you if you can call back this afternoon after four."
"I don't know if I'll be able to today, but I'll try to soon."
"How are you doing? Are you really okay?"
"Not okay okay, but I'm getting better," she said.
"I know what you mean. After losing Nat...some days are still so hard. I really could have used you here."
Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over. "I'm sorry."
"I thought you were someone else I lost." It sounded like Clint was weeping too, or close to it.
"I'm sorry."
"Where the hell have you been?"
"Kind of all over the place. I can't talk much right now. I should go. I just wanted to check in."
"Just tell me you're safe."
"I'm safe. I'll tell you all about it next time I see you."
She hung up. She didn't trust her voice to say goodbye.
She walked back to the Sanctum building to give her eyes time to dry. She rang the doorbell. Wong opened it a minute later.
"You know, you could just come in," he said.
"The door was locked."
"You expect me to believe a lock can stop you?"
She shrugged. "No, but...it's polite to knock."
"Come on in. Doctor Strange is waiting for you."
She followed him into the library. Strange was floating in the air, looking at his laptop. He glanced up. "Good. You're back."
"What did you want to talk to me about?"
"I've continued to collect cases of psychosis and reports of hauntings that could be caused by the mind lice." He levitated his laptop to a nearby table and alighted on the floor. "I wonder if you see what I see."
He waved his hand, and something like a hologram appeared in the air: a glowing globe, the Earth.
"The earliest occurrences were on whaling and sealing ships in the Southern Ocean." The globe tilted and pinpoints of light popped up in the waters around Antarctica. "And over about the last two centuries, they've been moving further and further north."
More dots of light appeared, more and more northerly. Wanda guessed they were appearing in chronological order. Once they reached land, the dots proliferated. It made sense; more people on land than the ocean meant more encounters.
"This is what it looks like when we combine my map of mind lice encounters with a modern night view of the Earth."
With another wave of his hand, the globe went dark. Cities showed up as clusters of brightness.
Wanda's heart beat faster as she saw what Strange had found. "They're avoiding cities."
"Yes. Keeping to more sparsely inhabited areas. Which means there may be a whole lot more of them than the reports indicate."
"But...why would they avoid cities, where they would find the most victims. Unless..."
"They want to spread across the whole world before making their move."
"It's like they're rigging a mousetrap," she said.
"Something like that. We need to destroy the source before the attack begins. Once that happens, even if we can still stop it, it won't be before a whole lot of people die."
"So have you figured out a way to find the source yet?" she asked.
"I'm working on it. I showed you this because I want to make sure you understand how dire this threat is."
"I do understand. I felt the source, just like you."
"Then you agree we have to do everything in our power to stop it, no matter the risk to ourselves, or the psychological toll it might take?"
"Of course I do."
Strange nodded. "Good. We should find and destroy the mind lice if we locate any more, not only to prevent the source from realizing we've identified it, but to refine our strategy."
"Okay."
"The problem is that since they're incorporeal, we can only get to them when they're out in the open. It would be convenient if we had someone on our team with super strength who could blast through rocks and phase through solid objects," he said.
"That would be very convenient, but the only person I can think of who fits that description is dead."
"True," he stated. "In this universe."
Wanda felt like she'd been unexpectedly doused in ice water. "What do you mean 'in this universe'?"
"I could open a portal to another universe and recruit a Vision to help us. If we can find one who's suitable. One who would be willing to leave his Earth to come with us and risk his life defending our Earth."
"I know just the Vision," she said before she could think about it, before she could process the emotional repercussions of this possibility. "Except he's not called Vision in his world. He's...called...Ultron."