The meetings soon became a regular occurrence. And both Percy and Wanda found that despite having no idea how the connection started, they could influence the world around them and make it look however they wanted.

It came easier to Wanda than it did to Percy. The girl was already used to influencing the landscape of other people minds, so when she created a common area in their Mindspace, Percy could not have been more excited about it.

Another thing that had happened was Wanda decision to open to him about her life and by extension, the powers that she had and how she had gotten them, and Percy had to say. Getting tricked into becoming a human experiment for a group of Nazis was not the best experience for the older girl, and neither was her brother getting killed because he wanted to save a man he barely knew. It was heroic, but tragic none the less.

So, Percy did the same. He told her the watered-down version of his life. He told her about his powers, using an explanation that would make sense to her. He told her he was a mutant, and that his powers had manifested when he was younger, at age 12, and that manifestation accounted for all the batshit crazy stuff that had happened to him in the following years. He promised himself that he would tell her the truth when the time was right, when he was sure it would be safe for both of them.

Then Wanda showed him her powers and he noticed the way her eyes became tinted red as energy coated whatever thing she was focused on. He noticed how her hands moved like they were in a stop motion animation. And when she turned her attention on him and used her powers to lift him off the ground of their Mindspace, and Percy did not know what, but something inside of him thrummed with anticipation of what was about to happen

Percy's vision went black as Wanda power seeped into his soul and pulled. It was tentative at first, like it was testing to see how much he could withstand. After seeing that he did not completely fall apart at the seams, Wanda's magic dugs its claws into the young demigod and squeezed.

And Percy screamed.

Wanda released Percy from her hold in shock, but Percy stayed floating in the air with her energy surrounding him. She watched as he floated there, writhing in pain, and then something changed.

It had not been long before the boy stopped moving all together and Wanda feared the worst. It was quiet for a while, so quiet that Wanda could only hear her own breathing as she looked at the scene in abject horror. Her heart pounded in her chest as she wondered if she had murdered the only friend that she had made in years. One of the few people who had listened to her about how badly Pietro's death had hurt her. It pained her to think that she had just lost someone else, and so soon.

She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.

And then Percy took a deep shuddering breath and a wave of energy rippled throughout the Mindspace. It felt like her own but changed. The waves of red continued to emanate out from Percy as if he were the one who had made them instead. But slowly, she saw that the energy began to change color, going from red to orange to a bright shining green. Even the way it moved changed.

Its movement was sporadic, twitchy, and unpredictable. Wanda recognized it. Of course, she did, it had been on her mind for the last few weeks. But that did not mean it made any sense. Percy had never been to the Avengers tower. From what she could tell, he barely even knew about the Avengers. But somehow, his energy signature had been in her room and that meant, by her own conclusions, that someone had placed it there, and that someone had wanted her to find it. She looked at the boy with worry drawn across her face.

She was missing something important, and it was like it was right in front of her face, but she still could not see it. Things were not adding up in the way that they should have been, and she was missing very vital pieces of the puzzle. Power surges, mysterious energy signatures, and this longing for someone that she had never met. And now of those clues seemed to point to the friend that she had only just met. None of it made sense.

She was brought out of her musings by Percy's slow decent onto the ground. The energy waves slowly subsided from waves, to ripples to nothing as he rested on the floor. Wanda stared at his prone body for a moment of two, silently wondering whether she should approach the teenager or leave him alone all together. A fear crept into her heart, telling her that she was being tricked again, that she was being manipulated. Doubt settled into her bones like the foundation of a new house, and she hesitated.

Percy let out a groan of pain and she steeled herself before walking over to the unconscious boy. She had no idea how that worked when they were already in a Mindspace, but she did not question it as she went over to see if the younger boy was okay. She had to, because after she did, then she finds the answers that she wanted.

Somewhere, simultaneously outside of the realm of the Mindspace there was a man. His physical body sat comfortably while his soul floated outside. He had been sensing disturbances in the forces of magic for several weeks now and he could pinpoint exactly where the power surges were coming from.

Doctor Stephen Strange was the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, but in this situation, he did not have any of the variable that he needed to solve this mystery. What concerned him even more was the fact that these surges showed themselves to possess more magical energy as time passed on. It was a concerning development, and the good doctor feared what would come out of it.

Strange willed himself back into his body as a knock on the door resonated through the room.

"Come in." He simply and he was not surprised when it was Wong that entered.

"We detected another magical surge, stronger than the last one like we predicted. It ripped open a few portals that we're working on fixing now." Wong paused and his eyebrows creased. "Stephen, these things are getting stronger, who knows what the next one will do. We need to find the cause of this before someone gets hurt, and we can't get there in time to save them."

"I agree wholeheartedly, but it is proving to be more difficult than I thought. The magic being used is tremendous, but unrefined. Its bouncing off local magical hotspots and making the spell being used impossible to identify or even trace. What could be powerful enough to cause all this trouble?"

"The Ancient One's texts might be able to tell us something useful." Wong suggested and Strange nodded thoughtfully.

"You may be right."

And with that, Doctor Strange and Wong made their way to the library of the Sanctum Sanctorum.