Look What You Made Me Do (MCU)
- Thread starter mythSSK
- Start date
- Location
- Orange County, California
Congratulations! This might be my favorite MCU fanfic and I really look forward to every chapter.
- Location
- Christchurch, NZ
Fixed it
mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
Just in case a reader has the time to help me out -- does anyone know anything about US Congress legal stuff, specifically around the process where someone is issued a subpoena to appear before Congress and related stuff? And is willing to have a chat or answer a few questions via DM?
This is for story-related reasons.
This is for story-related reasons.
Man, this reminds me of that one scene from IM2, when Tony thought he was about to score and then gets hit with a subpoena instead. Also, dang, re-watching it just made me realize how incredibly short notice that was. The next day at 9:00? On the night of the previous day? In a different city?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uce2NrkeRg
Chapter 96
mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
Chapter 96
"And you're sure you're okay?" Natasha asked Wanda again, still feeling a little sick to her stomach. She was crouched in front of her girlfriend, holding both of her hands tightly.
Wanda gave her a half-hearted smile and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. Promise." She looked exhausted, slumping heavily in her chair, but she didn't seem like she was in pain or anything. Not anymore, at least.
Nat glanced back at Steve. He was standing off to one side, but his shoulders were still tense and his brow was knitted together in a tight frown. He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. Something had clearly gone wrong, no matter Wanda's assurances. Pietro was bouncing on the balls of his feet, hands twitching—Natasha imagined it was taking everything he had not to just grab his sister and run away. He already had: the moment Wanda had clearly emerged from Thena's mind, he'd dragged the chair she was sitting on about twenty feet away from the Eternals in a second, getting some distance between his sister and whatever the hell had just happened.
Back where Wanda had been, Thena was leaning forward in her own chair, elbows resting heavily on her knees, cradling her forehead in her hands. She looked about as exhausted as Wanda did. Gilgamesh was kneeling down next to her in a mirror of the way Nat was fussing over Wanda, speaking quietly to his companion in urgent, worried tones, one of his hands gripping her shoulder protectively.
"What happened?" Pietro demanded. He took a step forward, then a hesitant one back, before settling on just pacing next to where Natasha was crouched down in front of Wanda.
"The mind of an Eternal is on a bit of a different scale to a human one. It was a little rough, but I got through it." Wanda looked up at him curiously, as though she wasn't completely sure why everyone was so distressed. "…What did it look like from out here?"
Between Nat, Pietro and Steve, they explained that—not long after Wanda had submerged herself in Thena's mind—she'd started screaming in pain. The chaos magic she'd bound Thena with had shattered and, before even Pietro could react, strands of golden cosmic energy had lashed out and bound the two of them tightly together, trapping them in a dome-like wireframe structure that even a double-fisted strike from Gilgamesh hadn't been able to break.
Wanda had stopped screaming soon after, but over the next five minutes her condition had seemed to deteriorate. She started looking ill, her breath coming in ragged gasps, and she started sweating profusely. They'd brainstormed ways to break her out of the effect, but nothing had worked. Thena and Gilgamesh's home was in a cloaked-and-shielded blackspot, courtesy of Phastos, so they hadn't even been able to call for an assist. Pietro had hesitated—on the one hand, he hadn't wanted to leave Wanda's side, but on the other, he was the only one fast enough to potentially get out and back with some sort of help in an amount of time that might have made some difference. Delaying, however, had allowed the situation to progress.
Thena's eyes had flicked open, milky-white as though she was having a Mahd Wy'ry episode. She hadn't moved at all, though… She'd just sat there, staring sightlessly at Wanda. A handful of seconds after that, Wanda had seemingly relaxed and the dome trapping the two women together had shattered. Pietro had gone to immediately pull his sister away from Thena, but Nat had stopped him. She'd had a hunch that whatever difficulty Wanda had been having had been resolved, and a couple of moments later her decision was vindicated when Wanda had snapped back into her body on her own, opening her eyes and taking a deep breath as she woke.
Wanda nodded slowly to herself as she listened to their explanation, then raised her voice to call over to the Eternals. "Thena?" The other woman didn't respond right away. "I'm sorry. I don't know how much you remember now, but based on what happened in there I'm assuming—"
"I thought you weren't going to do anything to her memories?" Gilgamesh snapped angrily, cutting Wanda off as he rose to his feet.
Thena's hand snaked out, resting gently on Gilgamesh's leg. He stopped immediately, looking back at his companion with concern in his eyes. She took a deep breath and rose to her feet. "I remember," she said quietly, staring at Wanda. "Not just Centuri-Six. Others, too. Mesklin. Tralfamadore. Skako Minor. Korell. It's only fragments, but there's so much. So many worlds, so many Emergences…"
Nat's eyes widened a fraction and she glanced back toward Wanda. That had definitely not been part of the plan.
Wanda had a look of simple resignation on her face. "Okay," she said, nodding again. "Well, we've got a lot to talk about, then."
--
After taking a few minutes to collect ourselves, we relocated to the inside of the Eternals' home to spend some time talking everything through. It was getting fairly late in the afternoon by the time Thena and I finished our respective explanations.
"I thought we were heroes," Gilgamesh said once we were done, a morose look on his face. "Turns out, we're the bad guys."
The Eternals' home was an eclectic mishmash of bits and bobs from various eras, their shelves stacked high with souvenirs and keepsakes from all over the world. There were some things that were essentially modern, such as the appliances—the fridge looked basically brand-new, and the slightly-discoloured microwave sitting on the countertop next to it didn't look that old—but the more I looked the more obvious antiques I spotted, of varying different styles. I had no idea how long they'd been living here, exactly, but it made sense that they'd accumulate a heap of stuff over time.
The door that we'd entered through was solid wood, with thick rope threaded through and braided into a loop instead of a handle and a large keyhole below it. The main central living area itself was open plan, lit by some 'windows' that were essentially just holes in the walls and a couple of dangling electric lamps, a long wooden dining table in the middle. A metal tray rested in the centre of the table, stuck fast to the surface by the overflow of generations of candles that had been burnt there. The latest half-dozen dribbly examples—currently unlit—had fused at the base into a single, undifferentiated lump of wax.
Gilgamesh had sat down at the table with the rest of us, but Thena was agitated and remained standing as she spoke, her body language tense. Her memories were spotty. I'd unlocked all the echoes and fragments that had been left within her, but it mostly seemed like just a handful of strongly-held memories from each of her lifetimes. Even so, it was still a lot, comparatively speaking. Their group of Eternals had been preparing worlds for Arishem for millions of years, so she remembered bits and pieces of several hundred worlds now lost and dead. Outwardly, she seemed to be handling it relatively well, all things considered, but I couldn't imagine the scale of the grief and loss she must have been dealing with. The fragmented nature of it probably helped to blunt the impact of it all a little, at least.
At that point, I had no real choice but to explain essentially everything. Steve wasn't overly happy at the unexpected change of plans, but he understood the need given the situation.
I told them what had happened in the mindscape and what I'd had to do to save myself and Thena, and admitted that I'd known all along about Arishem, the Emergence, and everything that went along with it. There wasn't much point in holding any of the details back, so I had gone ahead and summarised what I knew about the Eternals and what had happened with them in the original timeline as best I could. I glossed over the Blip, for now—I wasn't sure if we wanted to tell them about Thanos just yet and I wanted to keep us focused on the matter at hand.
"You're not the bad guys," I said firmly. "You were lied to. It doesn't erase all the good you did. All the people you did save."
Thena's pale gaze flicked over me. Despite her controlled exterior, there was a hint of something cold and angry in her expression. "We were deceived for eons," she said, voice low and taut. "We fought for so long, overcame so many threats, all to save worlds just long enough for them burn as fuel for a Celestial Emergence."
I bit my lip. "I'm sorry. This wasn't how this was supposed to happen. I was planning on telling you the truth eventually, but it wasn't going to be… like this."
"You lied to us, too," Gilgamesh said. Though the statement was accusatory, there wasn't much fire behind it. "Said you were only here to see if you could help Thena."
Nat shook her head. "That wasn't a lie. We weren't intending on asking for your help with the Emergence. Not yet."
"We didn't want to drag you or the others into things, if possible," Steve agreed. "We're trying to come up with a solution on our own. Wanda really did just want to help, and you wouldn't have believed us if we'd led with the full story, in any case."
Pietro was pacing along the far side of the room. "One day, my sister will do something without everything becoming much more complicated than it needed to be," he said, shooting me a look that was half-amusement, half-annoyance. "But it is not this day."
"I'm sorry," I said, running a fingernail along the top of the table anxiously. "I was trying to thread a pretty narrow needle between protecting the planet and doing right by you and your family." After I said it, I noticed my phrasing and winced a little bit. I really was starting to sound like the Ancient One.
Thena nodded, then looked at Gil. "Ajak," she said, simply.
He nodded back. "We need to speak with her. With everyone."
My chest tightened a little bit and I straightened. "Um. I don't think that's a good idea right now, actually," I said hurriedly. "Thor's off-world, trying to find a way to avert the Emergence—maybe he'll discover some cosmic workaround. If you confront Ajak now, Ikaris—"
"I'm not afraid of Ikaris," Thena interrupted, a hardness in her voice. "Or even Ajak, if it comes to that. She has much to explain. She owes us that, at least."
"Ajak's still loyal to Arishem right now. Ikaris and Ajak, together, could be extremely dangerous if they decide that we're a threat," I argued.
This was far too soon. We weren't ready to deal with this yet. Ikaris was strong enough that I wasn't sure we could beat him without any casualties, and having 'one of the greatest healers in the universe' backing him up was probably the worst possible scenario.
"Ajak could be swayed," Gilgamesh argued. "We've been family for thousands of years. If we talk to her…"
"She deceived us this entire time, Gil. Lied about everything," Thena said. Her voice was cold, with a hint of barely-restrained fury in it. "She knew what Mahd Wy'ry truly was. Perhaps she even lied about there being no cure—she might have left me like this deliberately, if the alternative was to restore the memories that had been sealed away."
"Thena…" Gil said, a concerned expression on his face. "You can't believe that. She wouldn't."
"Wouldn't she?" Thena shook her head. "To protect Arishem's secrets? She's done this hundreds of times, Gil. I remember other times, other places, where one of us developed Mahd Wy'ry. It's always the same."
"It gets even more complicated if you bring in the others, too," I said. "Sprite will almost certainly side with Ikaris. When Ajak wasn't around, most of the Eternals decided to try to stop the Emergence, but if she's still alive and argues in favour of it going as planned, will she be able to convince some of the others?"
The two of them exchanged a reluctant glance. "When Ajak speaks, we listen. But I think Sersi and Druig will want to protect humanity, even if it means Eternals fighting each other," Gilgamesh said slowly, thinking it through. "Phastos, I hope, would as well, but if Ajak tells him to stand down, I can't say what he'll do. Kingo may still refuse to fight, or he may yield to Ajak's leadership. Makkari is… complicated."
"Beyond that," Steve said. "If Ajak feels like she's losing control of the situation, she might call for backup. Wanda says she has a way of reaching out directly to Arishem."
I nodded. "I have no idea how Arishem would react to this exact situation. At the very least, he'd take you away and reset your memories again. Even if you kept quiet about our involvement, Arishem would be able to look through your memories and would find out that the Avengers are planning on stopping the Emergence. In the future I saw, with Tiamut already dead, he was willing to judge Earth on the basis of your memories rather than immediately destroying the planet in retribution. With Tiamut still viable, though, if he thinks the Emergence is at risk…"
"He will destroy you to safeguard it," Thena said. "The lives of a small group of mortals, balanced against a Celestial? To him, it wouldn't even be worth considering."
"Please." I took a deep breath, putting my hands on the table as I shot them both a pleading look. "I'm not saying don't confront Ajak or talk to the others. All I ask is that you hold off for a little while. If you could wait until Thor gets back, at the very least, we might be able to find a solution to the Emergence independently. Work around Arishem. It'll be easier for you to resolve things with Ajak and the others if you're not also arguing about the fate of the world. If we have to fight them… Look, I'm just trying to work through this in a way that keeps everyone as safe as possible. Your family and mine."
Thena stared at me for a few moments, blue eyes boring into me, then she exhaled slowly and nodded. "I owe you more than I can repay. If you ask that we wait… then we'll wait. For a time. But there are other Eternals out there as well—other Emergences. Other worlds that could be saved. Ajak and Tiamut will not be the end of this."
"We both owe you," Gilgamesh added, looking up at Thena, a brief smile flickering across his face. "It's been seven thousand years and, if what you say is true, we have time. A few more weeks or months shouldn't make that much of a difference."
I let out a small sigh of relief, feeling some of the tension in my chest relax. "Thank you. We really appreciate it."
Steve nodded and stood up. "I'm sure you two have a lot to talk about, so we'll leave you be for now. We can touch base again later."
Gilgamesh let out an incredulous snort and shook his head. "Are you kidding? Thena's cured. Tonight we're celebrating, and it'd be a sad sort of party if it was just the two of us. You'll stay. I'll cook."
Thena looked at him, smiled—the first completely open and genuine one I'd seen from her—and nodded. "That does seem appropriate."
Excitedly, I grinned and glanced in Steve's direction. "I mean, I can drop you at the compound if you really want to go, Steve. But I am absolutely down to celebrate." My eyes flicked over to Pietro and Nat, who both smiled and gave me small nods of acceptance.
Steve let out a small chuckle. "I suppose we can stay for dinner."
Turning back to Gilgamesh, I shot him a hopeful look. "I, uh, hear that Odin might've taught you a secret brew after you helped Asgard defeat Laufey's army?"
"Cutting right to the matter at hand, eh?" The Eternal's eyes twinkled in amusement. "Brewing's a bit of a hobby of mine. Asgardian ale might be a bit much for you to handle, though. I have some other things that are more… human-appropriate."
"Don't underestimate me," I countered, meeting his gaze challengingly. "Thor gave me Asgardian liquor once before and I've acquired a bit of a taste for it."
"Oooh, big talk! Alright! We'll have to see if you can keep up, then," Gilgamesh said, still grinning as he stood up. As he did, a small look of realisation crossed his features and he turned to Thena, putting a hand on her shoulder briefly. "You can finally drink some of my brews again! No more kids' stuff."
She nodded, smiling back, and Gilgamesh bustled off toward the front door, a small spring in his step. As he went, Thena looked at me again, her expression stilling for a moment. "Truly. Thank you," she said, her tone soft. "I won't forget this. There's still a debt between us."
This time I had to look away, dropping my eyes to the table. God, it always felt so good to get that sort of acknowledgement. I swallowed and shrugged, running a finger along the grain of the wooden table, trying to play it off. "I wanted to help, so I helped. You don't owe me anything."
Gilgamesh returned promptly, carrying a variety of assorted bottles and jugs stacked precariously in his arms with the skill and ease of someone who'd carried such loads hundreds of times before. Hanging from the crook of one elbow—as easily as someone else might casually sling a handbag—was an honest-to-god, Greek-style clay amphora, long enough that its bottom was level with his knee.
My eyes widened, an eagerly expectant grin spreading across my face as I took in the beauteous bounty he had brought before us. Gil saw my expression, matching it with a grin of his own as he laid the collection out on a side table. He seemed almost as excited to share his passion for alcohol with us as I was to indulge in it. Before settling us with our drinks, though, he flicked a bottle through the air toward where Thena had sat down—she caught it easily, a small smile touching the corners of her mouth before she leaned back in her chair to drink and watch the rest of us quietly.
Steve sampled a few out of politeness, but quickly settled on a lightly spiced mead that apparently reminded him of something he'd tasted in Norway once. Nat became rather quickly enamoured of a mix of wine, beer and mead that Gilgamesh claimed was drunk by the soldiers of Troy during their short-lived victory celebration toward the end of the Trojan War, which she sipped at sparingly.
"What is this?" Pietro said, a small amount of wonder in his voice as he sipped at a tankard of frothy beer. "It's really good, but it's not like any beer I've had before."
"Chicha," Gilgamesh supplied, smiling at my brother's praise. "Corn beer, from the Inca Empire."
Nat paused, side-eyeing the Eternal. "Made the traditional way?" she asked.
He spread his arms, a look of mock offense on his face. "Of course! What do you take me for? I chew each kernel myself and ferment it in my spit."
Steve coughed into his fist, clearly fighting back either a laugh or mild horror. Pietro froze and, after a second, very carefully put the tankard down on the table. He stared at it a moment, then turned to me and shot me an accusatory look, as if I must have known and should have warned him. I mean, I did know and could have warned him, but he still shouldn't assume.
"You don't want it?" I asked innocently. "Give."
Pietro made a small noise of frustration and disgust in the back of his throat and gestured toward the tankard, looking as though he didn't believe I would actually drink it.
Grinning, I picked it up and took a swig. It was sweeter than I expected, with a slightly sour tang and a pleasantly earthy aftertaste. Pietro was right—it was really good, and a bit different to anything I'd ever had before. I made an appreciative noise and had another mouthful.
"That's…" Pietro said, pulling a face, torn between expressing his disgust and not wanting to insult our host.
"It's fermented," I said, shaking my head. "It's fine. You are weak and would not survive the winter." With that, I knocked back the rest of the tankard.
Gilgamesh laughed, clapping me on the back with enough force that, if I wasn't enhanced with the Heart-Shaped Herb, I probably would have stumbled forward a step or two. "Oh, I like you! Here," he said, turning to fish out a pair of tall, half-litre bottles of unlabelled dark beer. "Asgardian ale, as requested. Cold as a Jotun's balls."
I took one of the bottles and cradled it reverentially in my hands for a moment—it was ice-cold and oddly heavy in my hands. "Thank the All-Father," I murmured, popping the flip-top. Gilgamesh opened his own and we clinked them together before I lifted mine to my lips.
It was so good.
I took a long draught, savouring the rich, creamy mouthfeel and intense, nutty flavour for a few moments then smacking my lips afterwards. It even had a noticeable kick to it—I could already tell that I'd probably be feeling a little tipsy by the end of the bottle. A potent brew, worthy of the gods indeed.
Once everyone was settled with drinks, Gil returned to the kitchen to cook, donning a 'kiss the cook' apron that hugged his muscular frame. I followed, intending on offering him my assistance—or maybe to see if he was interested in anyone following the instruction now plastered across his chest—but the Eternal firmly returned me to the table with everyone else: the kitchen was his domain. After a few minutes of seeing him work, I had to admit that he was right… even with magical aid, I would have only gotten in his way.
Gilgamesh swept through the kitchen like a force of nature—I watched, eyes wide, as he chopped vegetables and prepared meats with a speed and precision that I was pretty sure would have surprised even the most battle-hardened professional chef. He obviously loved to cook and, when it came down to it, seven thousand years of practice probably made him one of the best chefs in the world. As the air filled with the heady aromas of cooking meat and fragrant spices, I felt my mouth begin to water and, looking around, I could tell I wasn't the only one who was looking forward to the meal.
A little while and the rest of my bottle of Asgardian ale later, I was feeling the start of a pleasant buzz and staring in amazement as Gilgamesh stacked the dining table with more than a dozen different dishes—two different hearty-looking stews, one with plump dumplings and one without, a tray of charcoal-grilled skewers of spiced meat, a mountain of roasted vegetables, a rich chicken and orzo dish, a pair of pies with golden-crusted pastry (one filled with a thick beef and pepper gravy and the other with a rich, sweet blueberry mixture), a deep dish of moussaka, a huge bowl of fresh and spicy corn salad, and more.
I was at a complete loss. Gilgamesh had ducked outside to use the outdoor oven as well as essentially every appliance in the kitchen at the same time, but even with the ridiculous level of ability he'd displayed in the kitchen I was certain that he physically hadn't had enough time to actually cook all of it.
I exchanged a look with Pietro over the table and mouthed 'oh my god'—he nodded his agreement, eyes wide—before turning to Natasha with a pleading look, catching her eye before looking significantly between the bottle of godly beer and the insane feast that he'd laid out before us. "Can I keep him?" I asked in a fervent whisper, tilting my head slightly in Gil's direction.
Thena, who'd mostly been sitting back and quietly listening and observing—only really speaking when spoken to—let out a warm chuckle at that, her eyes crinkling in amusement. I looked at her and grinned, a small blush reaching my cheeks. I still had no idea if Gil and Thena were just BFFs or actually together and had sort of said it without thinking, but the laugh was at least a good sign that I hadn't inadvertently offended her by horning in on her territory. Despite how much had just happened, Thena seemed… calmer than earlier. Happy. Even if a little bit of tension did still linger in her shoulders.
Throughout and after the meal, I matched Gilgamesh drink for drink, ignoring the warm flush creeping through my cheeks and the tingling rush that spread from my stomach to my head. During one refill, I noticed Gil giving me a surprised and considering look—he probably hadn't met too many humans that could keep pace with him.
"Wanda," Steve said in a warning tone as he saw me grab a fresh mug. "You might want to—"
But I was already halfway through it, relishing the rare, blissful warmth that was making me feel genuinely giddy. The rest of the evening passed in a blurred haze of laughter and conversation.
A while later I was listing to one side, the floor beneath my feet stubbornly refusing to remain level and still, when I announced that I was going to step outside for a moment for some fresh air. Natasha stood, a long-suffering smile on her face, and placed a gentle hand at my waist to help guide me as I stumbled a little bit. We slipped through the wooden door and out into the cool evening.
"Are you going to be sick?" Nat asked me gently as I tottered away from the house.
"No, I'm good," I responded, moving purposefully beyond the small stone fence that enclosed the Eternals' homestead, walking the short distance to the top of a small hill that lay next to it. I felt light, like my feet were barely touching the ground. Nat followed a few paces behind.
Finding a likely spot, I flopped down onto the ground and sighed happily. The dry, red dirt beneath my palms was already pleasantly cool, so I lay down, resting the back of my head on the bare earth as I enjoyed the feel of the dull, happy buzz thrumming through my veins. Nat sat down next to me, stretching out and propping herself on her elbows for a moment before joining me in lying back fully.
We lay together like that quietly for a time, side-by-side, just enjoying each other's company. This far from civilisation, the unclouded sky above us was laid out in an almost-dizzying tapestry of brilliant stars. It was breathtakingly beautiful, even if it was spinning a little bit. If anything, that enhanced the effect, and for a moment it felt a little like I was floating weightlessly through space.
After a little while, Nat nudged me gently with her elbow. "Don't fall asleep," she said, a light teasing edge to her voice. "You're everyone's ride home, remember?"
I pretended to start snoring and she chuckled softly and elbowed me again, a little harder this time. Another minute passed as we lay there.
"Can you hear that?" Nat asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
The night was still and quiet. We were just far enough from the noise of the house that we could hear muffled laughter and Gil's booming voice in the distance, but it felt like we were worlds away. Even with my enhanced senses, the only other thing I could really hear was our breathing and the sound of my own heartbeat—no crickets, no breeze, nothing.
"No," I said.
"Exactly." I could hear the smile in her voice. "It's nice."
"You like the sound of silence?" I asked, grinning to myself as I summoned lyrics to my alcohol-addled mind.
"If you start singing, I will punch you," Natasha warned me, anticipating exactly what I had been intending on doing. "But yes. This sort of quiet, just, far from everything… it's my favourite sound."
I fought off the urge to be a brat and sing anyway—she'd caught me already, it wouldn't be as funny—and let the moment pass, spending another few seconds enjoying the silence before I responded. "I like it a lot, too."
"What's your favourite sound?" she asked.
I tried to resist for a moment, but no, the urge to be a brat had grown too powerful. I took a deep breath and made the loudest, most drawn-out, ridiculous, utterly-inappropriate-for-the-romantic-moment noise that I could: "Tweeeeeeeeeee-oooooooooo-eeeeeeeeeee!" When I was done, I turned my head to look at Natasha to gauge her reaction.
She was smiling, her eyes bright in the starlight, and I could see a subtle flush in her cheeks. Part of me realised that she'd done that deliberately, knowing I was going to do something stupid. "I like that, too," she said softly.
"And you're sure you're okay?" Natasha asked Wanda again, still feeling a little sick to her stomach. She was crouched in front of her girlfriend, holding both of her hands tightly.
Wanda gave her a half-hearted smile and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. Promise." She looked exhausted, slumping heavily in her chair, but she didn't seem like she was in pain or anything. Not anymore, at least.
Nat glanced back at Steve. He was standing off to one side, but his shoulders were still tense and his brow was knitted together in a tight frown. He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. Something had clearly gone wrong, no matter Wanda's assurances. Pietro was bouncing on the balls of his feet, hands twitching—Natasha imagined it was taking everything he had not to just grab his sister and run away. He already had: the moment Wanda had clearly emerged from Thena's mind, he'd dragged the chair she was sitting on about twenty feet away from the Eternals in a second, getting some distance between his sister and whatever the hell had just happened.
Back where Wanda had been, Thena was leaning forward in her own chair, elbows resting heavily on her knees, cradling her forehead in her hands. She looked about as exhausted as Wanda did. Gilgamesh was kneeling down next to her in a mirror of the way Nat was fussing over Wanda, speaking quietly to his companion in urgent, worried tones, one of his hands gripping her shoulder protectively.
"What happened?" Pietro demanded. He took a step forward, then a hesitant one back, before settling on just pacing next to where Natasha was crouched down in front of Wanda.
"The mind of an Eternal is on a bit of a different scale to a human one. It was a little rough, but I got through it." Wanda looked up at him curiously, as though she wasn't completely sure why everyone was so distressed. "…What did it look like from out here?"
Between Nat, Pietro and Steve, they explained that—not long after Wanda had submerged herself in Thena's mind—she'd started screaming in pain. The chaos magic she'd bound Thena with had shattered and, before even Pietro could react, strands of golden cosmic energy had lashed out and bound the two of them tightly together, trapping them in a dome-like wireframe structure that even a double-fisted strike from Gilgamesh hadn't been able to break.
Wanda had stopped screaming soon after, but over the next five minutes her condition had seemed to deteriorate. She started looking ill, her breath coming in ragged gasps, and she started sweating profusely. They'd brainstormed ways to break her out of the effect, but nothing had worked. Thena and Gilgamesh's home was in a cloaked-and-shielded blackspot, courtesy of Phastos, so they hadn't even been able to call for an assist. Pietro had hesitated—on the one hand, he hadn't wanted to leave Wanda's side, but on the other, he was the only one fast enough to potentially get out and back with some sort of help in an amount of time that might have made some difference. Delaying, however, had allowed the situation to progress.
Thena's eyes had flicked open, milky-white as though she was having a Mahd Wy'ry episode. She hadn't moved at all, though… She'd just sat there, staring sightlessly at Wanda. A handful of seconds after that, Wanda had seemingly relaxed and the dome trapping the two women together had shattered. Pietro had gone to immediately pull his sister away from Thena, but Nat had stopped him. She'd had a hunch that whatever difficulty Wanda had been having had been resolved, and a couple of moments later her decision was vindicated when Wanda had snapped back into her body on her own, opening her eyes and taking a deep breath as she woke.
Wanda nodded slowly to herself as she listened to their explanation, then raised her voice to call over to the Eternals. "Thena?" The other woman didn't respond right away. "I'm sorry. I don't know how much you remember now, but based on what happened in there I'm assuming—"
"I thought you weren't going to do anything to her memories?" Gilgamesh snapped angrily, cutting Wanda off as he rose to his feet.
Thena's hand snaked out, resting gently on Gilgamesh's leg. He stopped immediately, looking back at his companion with concern in his eyes. She took a deep breath and rose to her feet. "I remember," she said quietly, staring at Wanda. "Not just Centuri-Six. Others, too. Mesklin. Tralfamadore. Skako Minor. Korell. It's only fragments, but there's so much. So many worlds, so many Emergences…"
Nat's eyes widened a fraction and she glanced back toward Wanda. That had definitely not been part of the plan.
Wanda had a look of simple resignation on her face. "Okay," she said, nodding again. "Well, we've got a lot to talk about, then."
--
After taking a few minutes to collect ourselves, we relocated to the inside of the Eternals' home to spend some time talking everything through. It was getting fairly late in the afternoon by the time Thena and I finished our respective explanations.
"I thought we were heroes," Gilgamesh said once we were done, a morose look on his face. "Turns out, we're the bad guys."
The Eternals' home was an eclectic mishmash of bits and bobs from various eras, their shelves stacked high with souvenirs and keepsakes from all over the world. There were some things that were essentially modern, such as the appliances—the fridge looked basically brand-new, and the slightly-discoloured microwave sitting on the countertop next to it didn't look that old—but the more I looked the more obvious antiques I spotted, of varying different styles. I had no idea how long they'd been living here, exactly, but it made sense that they'd accumulate a heap of stuff over time.
The door that we'd entered through was solid wood, with thick rope threaded through and braided into a loop instead of a handle and a large keyhole below it. The main central living area itself was open plan, lit by some 'windows' that were essentially just holes in the walls and a couple of dangling electric lamps, a long wooden dining table in the middle. A metal tray rested in the centre of the table, stuck fast to the surface by the overflow of generations of candles that had been burnt there. The latest half-dozen dribbly examples—currently unlit—had fused at the base into a single, undifferentiated lump of wax.
Gilgamesh had sat down at the table with the rest of us, but Thena was agitated and remained standing as she spoke, her body language tense. Her memories were spotty. I'd unlocked all the echoes and fragments that had been left within her, but it mostly seemed like just a handful of strongly-held memories from each of her lifetimes. Even so, it was still a lot, comparatively speaking. Their group of Eternals had been preparing worlds for Arishem for millions of years, so she remembered bits and pieces of several hundred worlds now lost and dead. Outwardly, she seemed to be handling it relatively well, all things considered, but I couldn't imagine the scale of the grief and loss she must have been dealing with. The fragmented nature of it probably helped to blunt the impact of it all a little, at least.
At that point, I had no real choice but to explain essentially everything. Steve wasn't overly happy at the unexpected change of plans, but he understood the need given the situation.
I told them what had happened in the mindscape and what I'd had to do to save myself and Thena, and admitted that I'd known all along about Arishem, the Emergence, and everything that went along with it. There wasn't much point in holding any of the details back, so I had gone ahead and summarised what I knew about the Eternals and what had happened with them in the original timeline as best I could. I glossed over the Blip, for now—I wasn't sure if we wanted to tell them about Thanos just yet and I wanted to keep us focused on the matter at hand.
"You're not the bad guys," I said firmly. "You were lied to. It doesn't erase all the good you did. All the people you did save."
Thena's pale gaze flicked over me. Despite her controlled exterior, there was a hint of something cold and angry in her expression. "We were deceived for eons," she said, voice low and taut. "We fought for so long, overcame so many threats, all to save worlds just long enough for them burn as fuel for a Celestial Emergence."
I bit my lip. "I'm sorry. This wasn't how this was supposed to happen. I was planning on telling you the truth eventually, but it wasn't going to be… like this."
"You lied to us, too," Gilgamesh said. Though the statement was accusatory, there wasn't much fire behind it. "Said you were only here to see if you could help Thena."
Nat shook her head. "That wasn't a lie. We weren't intending on asking for your help with the Emergence. Not yet."
"We didn't want to drag you or the others into things, if possible," Steve agreed. "We're trying to come up with a solution on our own. Wanda really did just want to help, and you wouldn't have believed us if we'd led with the full story, in any case."
Pietro was pacing along the far side of the room. "One day, my sister will do something without everything becoming much more complicated than it needed to be," he said, shooting me a look that was half-amusement, half-annoyance. "But it is not this day."
"I'm sorry," I said, running a fingernail along the top of the table anxiously. "I was trying to thread a pretty narrow needle between protecting the planet and doing right by you and your family." After I said it, I noticed my phrasing and winced a little bit. I really was starting to sound like the Ancient One.
Thena nodded, then looked at Gil. "Ajak," she said, simply.
He nodded back. "We need to speak with her. With everyone."
My chest tightened a little bit and I straightened. "Um. I don't think that's a good idea right now, actually," I said hurriedly. "Thor's off-world, trying to find a way to avert the Emergence—maybe he'll discover some cosmic workaround. If you confront Ajak now, Ikaris—"
"I'm not afraid of Ikaris," Thena interrupted, a hardness in her voice. "Or even Ajak, if it comes to that. She has much to explain. She owes us that, at least."
"Ajak's still loyal to Arishem right now. Ikaris and Ajak, together, could be extremely dangerous if they decide that we're a threat," I argued.
This was far too soon. We weren't ready to deal with this yet. Ikaris was strong enough that I wasn't sure we could beat him without any casualties, and having 'one of the greatest healers in the universe' backing him up was probably the worst possible scenario.
"Ajak could be swayed," Gilgamesh argued. "We've been family for thousands of years. If we talk to her…"
"She deceived us this entire time, Gil. Lied about everything," Thena said. Her voice was cold, with a hint of barely-restrained fury in it. "She knew what Mahd Wy'ry truly was. Perhaps she even lied about there being no cure—she might have left me like this deliberately, if the alternative was to restore the memories that had been sealed away."
"Thena…" Gil said, a concerned expression on his face. "You can't believe that. She wouldn't."
"Wouldn't she?" Thena shook her head. "To protect Arishem's secrets? She's done this hundreds of times, Gil. I remember other times, other places, where one of us developed Mahd Wy'ry. It's always the same."
"It gets even more complicated if you bring in the others, too," I said. "Sprite will almost certainly side with Ikaris. When Ajak wasn't around, most of the Eternals decided to try to stop the Emergence, but if she's still alive and argues in favour of it going as planned, will she be able to convince some of the others?"
The two of them exchanged a reluctant glance. "When Ajak speaks, we listen. But I think Sersi and Druig will want to protect humanity, even if it means Eternals fighting each other," Gilgamesh said slowly, thinking it through. "Phastos, I hope, would as well, but if Ajak tells him to stand down, I can't say what he'll do. Kingo may still refuse to fight, or he may yield to Ajak's leadership. Makkari is… complicated."
"Beyond that," Steve said. "If Ajak feels like she's losing control of the situation, she might call for backup. Wanda says she has a way of reaching out directly to Arishem."
I nodded. "I have no idea how Arishem would react to this exact situation. At the very least, he'd take you away and reset your memories again. Even if you kept quiet about our involvement, Arishem would be able to look through your memories and would find out that the Avengers are planning on stopping the Emergence. In the future I saw, with Tiamut already dead, he was willing to judge Earth on the basis of your memories rather than immediately destroying the planet in retribution. With Tiamut still viable, though, if he thinks the Emergence is at risk…"
"He will destroy you to safeguard it," Thena said. "The lives of a small group of mortals, balanced against a Celestial? To him, it wouldn't even be worth considering."
"Please." I took a deep breath, putting my hands on the table as I shot them both a pleading look. "I'm not saying don't confront Ajak or talk to the others. All I ask is that you hold off for a little while. If you could wait until Thor gets back, at the very least, we might be able to find a solution to the Emergence independently. Work around Arishem. It'll be easier for you to resolve things with Ajak and the others if you're not also arguing about the fate of the world. If we have to fight them… Look, I'm just trying to work through this in a way that keeps everyone as safe as possible. Your family and mine."
Thena stared at me for a few moments, blue eyes boring into me, then she exhaled slowly and nodded. "I owe you more than I can repay. If you ask that we wait… then we'll wait. For a time. But there are other Eternals out there as well—other Emergences. Other worlds that could be saved. Ajak and Tiamut will not be the end of this."
"We both owe you," Gilgamesh added, looking up at Thena, a brief smile flickering across his face. "It's been seven thousand years and, if what you say is true, we have time. A few more weeks or months shouldn't make that much of a difference."
I let out a small sigh of relief, feeling some of the tension in my chest relax. "Thank you. We really appreciate it."
Steve nodded and stood up. "I'm sure you two have a lot to talk about, so we'll leave you be for now. We can touch base again later."
Gilgamesh let out an incredulous snort and shook his head. "Are you kidding? Thena's cured. Tonight we're celebrating, and it'd be a sad sort of party if it was just the two of us. You'll stay. I'll cook."
Thena looked at him, smiled—the first completely open and genuine one I'd seen from her—and nodded. "That does seem appropriate."
Excitedly, I grinned and glanced in Steve's direction. "I mean, I can drop you at the compound if you really want to go, Steve. But I am absolutely down to celebrate." My eyes flicked over to Pietro and Nat, who both smiled and gave me small nods of acceptance.
Steve let out a small chuckle. "I suppose we can stay for dinner."
Turning back to Gilgamesh, I shot him a hopeful look. "I, uh, hear that Odin might've taught you a secret brew after you helped Asgard defeat Laufey's army?"
"Cutting right to the matter at hand, eh?" The Eternal's eyes twinkled in amusement. "Brewing's a bit of a hobby of mine. Asgardian ale might be a bit much for you to handle, though. I have some other things that are more… human-appropriate."
"Don't underestimate me," I countered, meeting his gaze challengingly. "Thor gave me Asgardian liquor once before and I've acquired a bit of a taste for it."
"Oooh, big talk! Alright! We'll have to see if you can keep up, then," Gilgamesh said, still grinning as he stood up. As he did, a small look of realisation crossed his features and he turned to Thena, putting a hand on her shoulder briefly. "You can finally drink some of my brews again! No more kids' stuff."
She nodded, smiling back, and Gilgamesh bustled off toward the front door, a small spring in his step. As he went, Thena looked at me again, her expression stilling for a moment. "Truly. Thank you," she said, her tone soft. "I won't forget this. There's still a debt between us."
This time I had to look away, dropping my eyes to the table. God, it always felt so good to get that sort of acknowledgement. I swallowed and shrugged, running a finger along the grain of the wooden table, trying to play it off. "I wanted to help, so I helped. You don't owe me anything."
Gilgamesh returned promptly, carrying a variety of assorted bottles and jugs stacked precariously in his arms with the skill and ease of someone who'd carried such loads hundreds of times before. Hanging from the crook of one elbow—as easily as someone else might casually sling a handbag—was an honest-to-god, Greek-style clay amphora, long enough that its bottom was level with his knee.
My eyes widened, an eagerly expectant grin spreading across my face as I took in the beauteous bounty he had brought before us. Gil saw my expression, matching it with a grin of his own as he laid the collection out on a side table. He seemed almost as excited to share his passion for alcohol with us as I was to indulge in it. Before settling us with our drinks, though, he flicked a bottle through the air toward where Thena had sat down—she caught it easily, a small smile touching the corners of her mouth before she leaned back in her chair to drink and watch the rest of us quietly.
Steve sampled a few out of politeness, but quickly settled on a lightly spiced mead that apparently reminded him of something he'd tasted in Norway once. Nat became rather quickly enamoured of a mix of wine, beer and mead that Gilgamesh claimed was drunk by the soldiers of Troy during their short-lived victory celebration toward the end of the Trojan War, which she sipped at sparingly.
"What is this?" Pietro said, a small amount of wonder in his voice as he sipped at a tankard of frothy beer. "It's really good, but it's not like any beer I've had before."
"Chicha," Gilgamesh supplied, smiling at my brother's praise. "Corn beer, from the Inca Empire."
Nat paused, side-eyeing the Eternal. "Made the traditional way?" she asked.
He spread his arms, a look of mock offense on his face. "Of course! What do you take me for? I chew each kernel myself and ferment it in my spit."
Steve coughed into his fist, clearly fighting back either a laugh or mild horror. Pietro froze and, after a second, very carefully put the tankard down on the table. He stared at it a moment, then turned to me and shot me an accusatory look, as if I must have known and should have warned him. I mean, I did know and could have warned him, but he still shouldn't assume.
"You don't want it?" I asked innocently. "Give."
Pietro made a small noise of frustration and disgust in the back of his throat and gestured toward the tankard, looking as though he didn't believe I would actually drink it.
Grinning, I picked it up and took a swig. It was sweeter than I expected, with a slightly sour tang and a pleasantly earthy aftertaste. Pietro was right—it was really good, and a bit different to anything I'd ever had before. I made an appreciative noise and had another mouthful.
"That's…" Pietro said, pulling a face, torn between expressing his disgust and not wanting to insult our host.
"It's fermented," I said, shaking my head. "It's fine. You are weak and would not survive the winter." With that, I knocked back the rest of the tankard.
Gilgamesh laughed, clapping me on the back with enough force that, if I wasn't enhanced with the Heart-Shaped Herb, I probably would have stumbled forward a step or two. "Oh, I like you! Here," he said, turning to fish out a pair of tall, half-litre bottles of unlabelled dark beer. "Asgardian ale, as requested. Cold as a Jotun's balls."
I took one of the bottles and cradled it reverentially in my hands for a moment—it was ice-cold and oddly heavy in my hands. "Thank the All-Father," I murmured, popping the flip-top. Gilgamesh opened his own and we clinked them together before I lifted mine to my lips.
It was so good.
I took a long draught, savouring the rich, creamy mouthfeel and intense, nutty flavour for a few moments then smacking my lips afterwards. It even had a noticeable kick to it—I could already tell that I'd probably be feeling a little tipsy by the end of the bottle. A potent brew, worthy of the gods indeed.
Once everyone was settled with drinks, Gil returned to the kitchen to cook, donning a 'kiss the cook' apron that hugged his muscular frame. I followed, intending on offering him my assistance—or maybe to see if he was interested in anyone following the instruction now plastered across his chest—but the Eternal firmly returned me to the table with everyone else: the kitchen was his domain. After a few minutes of seeing him work, I had to admit that he was right… even with magical aid, I would have only gotten in his way.
Gilgamesh swept through the kitchen like a force of nature—I watched, eyes wide, as he chopped vegetables and prepared meats with a speed and precision that I was pretty sure would have surprised even the most battle-hardened professional chef. He obviously loved to cook and, when it came down to it, seven thousand years of practice probably made him one of the best chefs in the world. As the air filled with the heady aromas of cooking meat and fragrant spices, I felt my mouth begin to water and, looking around, I could tell I wasn't the only one who was looking forward to the meal.
A little while and the rest of my bottle of Asgardian ale later, I was feeling the start of a pleasant buzz and staring in amazement as Gilgamesh stacked the dining table with more than a dozen different dishes—two different hearty-looking stews, one with plump dumplings and one without, a tray of charcoal-grilled skewers of spiced meat, a mountain of roasted vegetables, a rich chicken and orzo dish, a pair of pies with golden-crusted pastry (one filled with a thick beef and pepper gravy and the other with a rich, sweet blueberry mixture), a deep dish of moussaka, a huge bowl of fresh and spicy corn salad, and more.
I was at a complete loss. Gilgamesh had ducked outside to use the outdoor oven as well as essentially every appliance in the kitchen at the same time, but even with the ridiculous level of ability he'd displayed in the kitchen I was certain that he physically hadn't had enough time to actually cook all of it.
I exchanged a look with Pietro over the table and mouthed 'oh my god'—he nodded his agreement, eyes wide—before turning to Natasha with a pleading look, catching her eye before looking significantly between the bottle of godly beer and the insane feast that he'd laid out before us. "Can I keep him?" I asked in a fervent whisper, tilting my head slightly in Gil's direction.
Thena, who'd mostly been sitting back and quietly listening and observing—only really speaking when spoken to—let out a warm chuckle at that, her eyes crinkling in amusement. I looked at her and grinned, a small blush reaching my cheeks. I still had no idea if Gil and Thena were just BFFs or actually together and had sort of said it without thinking, but the laugh was at least a good sign that I hadn't inadvertently offended her by horning in on her territory. Despite how much had just happened, Thena seemed… calmer than earlier. Happy. Even if a little bit of tension did still linger in her shoulders.
Throughout and after the meal, I matched Gilgamesh drink for drink, ignoring the warm flush creeping through my cheeks and the tingling rush that spread from my stomach to my head. During one refill, I noticed Gil giving me a surprised and considering look—he probably hadn't met too many humans that could keep pace with him.
"Wanda," Steve said in a warning tone as he saw me grab a fresh mug. "You might want to—"
But I was already halfway through it, relishing the rare, blissful warmth that was making me feel genuinely giddy. The rest of the evening passed in a blurred haze of laughter and conversation.
A while later I was listing to one side, the floor beneath my feet stubbornly refusing to remain level and still, when I announced that I was going to step outside for a moment for some fresh air. Natasha stood, a long-suffering smile on her face, and placed a gentle hand at my waist to help guide me as I stumbled a little bit. We slipped through the wooden door and out into the cool evening.
"Are you going to be sick?" Nat asked me gently as I tottered away from the house.
"No, I'm good," I responded, moving purposefully beyond the small stone fence that enclosed the Eternals' homestead, walking the short distance to the top of a small hill that lay next to it. I felt light, like my feet were barely touching the ground. Nat followed a few paces behind.
Finding a likely spot, I flopped down onto the ground and sighed happily. The dry, red dirt beneath my palms was already pleasantly cool, so I lay down, resting the back of my head on the bare earth as I enjoyed the feel of the dull, happy buzz thrumming through my veins. Nat sat down next to me, stretching out and propping herself on her elbows for a moment before joining me in lying back fully.
We lay together like that quietly for a time, side-by-side, just enjoying each other's company. This far from civilisation, the unclouded sky above us was laid out in an almost-dizzying tapestry of brilliant stars. It was breathtakingly beautiful, even if it was spinning a little bit. If anything, that enhanced the effect, and for a moment it felt a little like I was floating weightlessly through space.
After a little while, Nat nudged me gently with her elbow. "Don't fall asleep," she said, a light teasing edge to her voice. "You're everyone's ride home, remember?"
I pretended to start snoring and she chuckled softly and elbowed me again, a little harder this time. Another minute passed as we lay there.
"Can you hear that?" Nat asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
The night was still and quiet. We were just far enough from the noise of the house that we could hear muffled laughter and Gil's booming voice in the distance, but it felt like we were worlds away. Even with my enhanced senses, the only other thing I could really hear was our breathing and the sound of my own heartbeat—no crickets, no breeze, nothing.
"No," I said.
"Exactly." I could hear the smile in her voice. "It's nice."
"You like the sound of silence?" I asked, grinning to myself as I summoned lyrics to my alcohol-addled mind.
"If you start singing, I will punch you," Natasha warned me, anticipating exactly what I had been intending on doing. "But yes. This sort of quiet, just, far from everything… it's my favourite sound."
I fought off the urge to be a brat and sing anyway—she'd caught me already, it wouldn't be as funny—and let the moment pass, spending another few seconds enjoying the silence before I responded. "I like it a lot, too."
"What's your favourite sound?" she asked.
I tried to resist for a moment, but no, the urge to be a brat had grown too powerful. I took a deep breath and made the loudest, most drawn-out, ridiculous, utterly-inappropriate-for-the-romantic-moment noise that I could: "Tweeeeeeeeeee-oooooooooo-eeeeeeeeeee!" When I was done, I turned my head to look at Natasha to gauge her reaction.
She was smiling, her eyes bright in the starlight, and I could see a subtle flush in her cheeks. Part of me realised that she'd done that deliberately, knowing I was going to do something stupid. "I like that, too," she said softly.
Oh man, Thena is pissed. I would be as well in her spot. Ajak definitely did lie about what Mahd Wy'ry was. OTOH, I think that Gilgamesh is probably correct that I don't think Ajak has with her the means to correct Thena's Mahd Wy'ry, even by freeing the echoes. If Wanda hadn't had those Mind Stone bindings to chain Arishem's echo, then I'm not sure the fight between the Thena echoes and the Arishem echo would have reached any sort of definitive conclusion.
Arishem extending his reach into other fictional properties now?
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mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
Sometimes, Wanda does a thing and it just works. Everything turns out perfectly. Not always, not often, but sometimes.
True, but Ajak is supposedly one of the greatest healers in the universe via her own personal manifestation of cosmic energy, and on top of that she has whatever Celestial tech the Domo is outfitted with to support her. I'd say it's not clear one way or the other whether Ajak could replicate Wanda's feat, but there's a distinct possibility.
I've mentioned before that the Eternals don't really dwell on Ajak having lied to them the whole time because (1) she's already dead by then, so it's not like they can confront her about it, and (2) the Emergence is happening so there's an immediate crisis that distracts them from the revelation. In this situation, where Ajak is right there and there's no big distraction demanding attention, I think there's a lot of potential for a messy/explosive family drama blow-up over it.
All of those named planets are from other fictional properties -- I thought it was a fun little silly throwaway thing that some sharp-eyed readers might pick up
Yeah, I suppose I just always envisioned her healing as being something related to physical injuries, rather than placing/removing mind blocks.
I do wonder what sort of stuff the Domo has apart from Phastos' lab. I forget if it has their armor or if they can form that spontaneously.
- Location
- Orange County, California
Ecin. A sappy waffy chapter, the opposite of horned up Wanda.
Its interesting to consider MCU Eternals and their comic book counterparts. I actually think the first instance (tho I never did a read through) of the Eternals being considered cosmic bioroids was actually the Chuck Austen Eternal mini-series from Marvel Max, though it was also an element of the Neil Gaiman Eternals mini-series. Kieron Gillen really brought that to the fore in his Eternals series.
The Eternals movie treats the Eternals as cosmic robots too, but malfunctioning ones which is neat.
I did think the connection you made between them and Vision is something I'd quite like to see explored more.
Evil Legend
Shiny Scales
This is exactly the kind of strange question about a super-specific hypothetical situation that GPT can help a lot with. Just tell him the context, your question, and what you think the end result might look like, and he'll pull out all the details you need. I copied your question as it is, and he just gave me a pretty good explanation for it.
mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
I'm pretty sure their armour is in the ship -- they don't 'suit up' until they reconvene there.
It's not clear if Ajak's healing is limited to physical injuries only. With cosmic energy, I tend toward a more conceptual interpretation of powers just because I think it's cooler, so I think mental or spiritual wounds may well be within her remit ("one of the greatest healers in the universe", after all). However, it's worth pointing out that Ajak does say: "All I can do is erase them so that you can start over. I will have to inform Arishem and take you back to the ship where we have the technology to help you."
Which I think does imply that she'd be using the tech at the Domo to do it, not do it herself. In this circumstance, I think it's Thena just being generally angry rather than necessarily believing that Ajak could have helped her and deliberately chose not to.
Even if Ajak could heal minds, there's still a pretty strong argument that 'healing' Thena is sealing her memories, because that's literally how she was designed to work. I wouldn't really describe what Wanda did as healing.
Wanda did explicitly try to follow Gilgamesh into the kitchen to flirt re: his apron, so it's not entirely devoid of horny Wanda.
Also, the chapter cuts off before it because I thought it was a nice/cute/sweet final line, but if you think Wanda didn't immediately try to make out sloppy drunk style with Nat on the ground after that you've got another thing coming.
I've mentioned before that I don't read comics, which isn't a hundred per cent true but is good enough for government work, but I really absolutely have never seen/read anything about the Eternals outside of the movie.
I do have a little bit more Eternals stuff coming up at some point -- Thena, in particular -- so it'll be interesting to see what you think about what I do with her as compared to comics stuff.
While that specific connection isn't going to get super explored (Vision himself has obviously been butterflied out of existence), there will definitely be some continuing slow exploration of cosmic energy and how it functions/is used. I've had a few people help with some theorycrafting around this over on SB in the worldbuilding thread.
I actually did end up biting the bullet and asking Chat-GPT for a couple of answers to my questions, but my experience with AI is that it's really not reliable as a primary source and can hallucinate details quite easily. I guess we'll see if I managed to come up with something that sounds plausible enough.
Yeah, that's fair. I misremembered that quote too. I thought that Ajak implied Arishem would be needed for the healing/mind erasure and that she couldn't do it on her own, hence her needing to contact him. But instead she can do it, which begs the question of why she would need to contact Arishem at all.
Is Thor finally going to get his vaunted return? It does feel like we've been locked into protag (Nat and Wanda) POV's for a while, it would certainly spice things up to start getting Loki POVs again.
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mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
Reporting upwards to your superiors when things aren't going to plan is normal, I think. It gives Arishem a heads-up in case the situation progresses so he's not blindsided if something happens and Ajak has a full Eternal revolt on her hands (like what Wanda's enabling now, actually...). Plus she'd need to send him a copy of the erased memories for his weird memory wall so he can study them.
You can blame my beta reader/editor for that -- my original plan was to keep inserting regular Agatha POVs, but after I went over my general overarching plan for the story with him his opinion was that it was better not to.
I know that you're a lover of chaos and tension, but I think the regular villain POV interludes were one of the big reasons a lot of readers complained that, even when Wanda was in a relatively safe and happy bit of the story, it always felt like the other shoe was about to drop and stopped people from fully enjoying Wanda's successes.
Apocrypha/Omake: Patron of the Arts
mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
Patron of the Arts
"Still, I don't think we should rule out—"
Natasha cut herself off as the muffled—yet still quite loud—sound of the Mexican Hat Dance, as played by a traditional Mariachi ensemble, filtered in from somewhere nearby. She exchanged a look with Tony and he shrugged, just as confused as she was. Turning her head to better pinpoint the music's origin, she tipped her head toward the door in a silent question. Tony nodded in response, and together they exited the room and headed down the corridor toward the main common area.
The music was much clearer from the hallway, no intervening wall between them and its source—it had to be coming from the common area—and grew louder as they approached. Once they arrived, the source of the commotion was obvious.
Wanda was reclining on the couch, sprawled out in an undignified puddle, a giant grin on her face. In front of her was a full, seven-person Mariachi in traditional garb, its members a little on the older side.
Tony shot Nat a dubious side-eye and she sighed.
Wanda perked up as she noticed their arrival, gesturing for the band to stop playing. The men stopped, wide eyes fixed on Natasha and Tony as they fiddled with their instruments nervously. "Hey!" she pointed at the band. "Did you know that you can just hire a Mariachi band? Like, it doesn't even need to be for an event or anything."
"This is your fault," Nat said quietly to Tony, who had the gall to look surprised.
"My fault?"
"You paid her too much for that orbital lifting job. She has more money right now than she's ever had in any of her lives. She has no idea what to do with it."
"Hey!" Wanda said. "I can hear you, you know. And I know exactly what to do with my money. I'll have you know these guys recorded with Juan Gabriel!"
From the concerned looks the Mariachi shot each other at Wanda's comment, Nat very much doubted that they had. Was she actually mistaken or just making another reference? It was so hard to tell with her, sometimes.
"I mean, I guess it's not as bad as collecting sports cars?" Tony said hesitantly.
Wanda shrugged and turned back to the band. "Muchachos, adelante! Tres, cuatro—" and with that they started up playing again.
Tony shot Natasha a helpless look, as though he was expecting her to do something about this. Instead, Nat just shrugged and hopped over onto the couch, scooching up beside Wanda and leaning her head on her shoulder as the band played.
"Still, I don't think we should rule out—"
Natasha cut herself off as the muffled—yet still quite loud—sound of the Mexican Hat Dance, as played by a traditional Mariachi ensemble, filtered in from somewhere nearby. She exchanged a look with Tony and he shrugged, just as confused as she was. Turning her head to better pinpoint the music's origin, she tipped her head toward the door in a silent question. Tony nodded in response, and together they exited the room and headed down the corridor toward the main common area.
The music was much clearer from the hallway, no intervening wall between them and its source—it had to be coming from the common area—and grew louder as they approached. Once they arrived, the source of the commotion was obvious.
Wanda was reclining on the couch, sprawled out in an undignified puddle, a giant grin on her face. In front of her was a full, seven-person Mariachi in traditional garb, its members a little on the older side.
Tony shot Nat a dubious side-eye and she sighed.
Wanda perked up as she noticed their arrival, gesturing for the band to stop playing. The men stopped, wide eyes fixed on Natasha and Tony as they fiddled with their instruments nervously. "Hey!" she pointed at the band. "Did you know that you can just hire a Mariachi band? Like, it doesn't even need to be for an event or anything."
"This is your fault," Nat said quietly to Tony, who had the gall to look surprised.
"My fault?"
"You paid her too much for that orbital lifting job. She has more money right now than she's ever had in any of her lives. She has no idea what to do with it."
"Hey!" Wanda said. "I can hear you, you know. And I know exactly what to do with my money. I'll have you know these guys recorded with Juan Gabriel!"
From the concerned looks the Mariachi shot each other at Wanda's comment, Nat very much doubted that they had. Was she actually mistaken or just making another reference? It was so hard to tell with her, sometimes.
"I mean, I guess it's not as bad as collecting sports cars?" Tony said hesitantly.
Wanda shrugged and turned back to the band. "Muchachos, adelante! Tres, cuatro—" and with that they started up playing again.
Tony shot Natasha a helpless look, as though he was expecting her to do something about this. Instead, Nat just shrugged and hopped over onto the couch, scooching up beside Wanda and leaning her head on her shoulder as the band played.
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mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
Same thing as every other omake I've posted, lol -- I drank a bottle of wine yesterday >_>
Someone has to write dumb comedic omakes. I don't see anyone else stepping up, so...
mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
How do people feel about these sort of minor Easter Egg references, by the way? Cute? Hate them?
Like if (theoretically) Wanda went to Hell and there was a bunch of demons described, and one was clearly from the description, I dunno, a uniquely identifiable demon from DOOM or Diablo or something, is that fun, or bad/immersion-breaking?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My thoughts on cameos like this is that it only really matters if they have an active role or are acknowledged by the characters. Like, if you had Vegeta in a crowd shot, it doesn't really matter because it's just a fun background detail. If Vegeta actually talks to a non-background character, or does something relevant, or a character points at him and says "oh look Vegeta's here," that's potentially more of an issue.
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mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
*sadly crosses out notes about Vegeta cameo*
Evil Legend
Shiny Scales
It's all a joke, but!
I think a cameo can still work even in this case, if that character plays a similar role in the scene as someone from the canonical universe would, and doesn't go beyond the scope or significance of that role. In such a way that, within the universe itself, it wouldn't matter — the only one it would mean something to would be the reader.
(EDIT)
It would probably also be amusing to watch Wanda go a bit insane over it for a while, with no explanation — not just for others, but even for herself. I'm not actually calling for a crossover, but drawing attention to such a cameo would play a role similar to dramatic events from other MCU movies that Wanda hasn't seen or even heard about.
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Chapter 97
mythSSK
The Scarlet Witch
Chapter 97
Natasha paused briefly at the threshold to Lab 3B, taking in the quiet hum of the various bits of monitoring and refrigeration equipment. Bruce was standing in front of a tall lab bench at the far side of the room, his eyes flicking between a tablet held in one hand and a large, transparent cylinder that pulsed with a faint green glow. On the bench next to him was a half-disassembled sensor array and a trio of dirty coffee mugs that had been shuffled off to one side.
She took a quiet step forward, letting the door swish shut behind her. Bruce was locked in, utterly absorbed in whatever he was currently working on—the door opening and closing had seemingly not even registered to him. Nat watched him quietly for a few more seconds, a faint smile tweaking the corners of her mouth. He frowned at the readouts on his tablet, then tapped the glass cylinder gently with a fingertip, as if it were misbehaving and a tiny bit of percussive maintenance might be all that was needed to get it to do as he expected.
"Hey, Bruce," Nat called softly, stepping lightly across the polished floor toward him.
Bruce glanced up, his weary expression lighting up with a small but genuine smile. "Hey, Nat. You're up early." He set the tablet aside, his forehead creasing momentarily. "Or is it late?" he asked. There was a genuine question in there—he'd lost track of time again and wasn't actually sure.
"You're as bad as Tony and Shuri, sometimes," Nat said, shaking her head. She leaned one hip against the nearest worktable, crossing her arms loosely. It was a light, flirty pose, emphasising the curve of her waist and hip. Deliberate, but natural. "At least they notice when they pull all-nighters."
He snorted softly, looking a little sheepish, but she saw his eye briefly flicker down her body. "I'm having to do double-time just to stay relevant," he hedged. "I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep up."
Nat gave him a wry smile, nodding toward the cylinder he'd been monitoring. "That looks vaguely terrifying. Not working the way you wanted it to?"
Bruce laughed, but there was a trace of nervousness beneath it. "No… well, not yet. Let's call it a new containment prototype. I think I'm close to stabilising the cross-emission. I might need to get an assist from Shuri, though. These results aren't what I was expecting."
Nat took a step closer, turning to place both of her palms on the steel-topped bench and take a closer look at the prototype before giving Bruce a surreptitious sideways glance. "I'm sure you'll figure it out. 'Don't sell yourself short, Dr Banner'," she quoted teasingly.
A faint green light, reflected from the gamma containment, glinted in his eyes, and his cheeks coloured slightly. He cleared his throat. "Uh, you don't usually come over to the labs unless you need something. Everything okay?"
"I don't know," she said, lips still curved in a faint smile. "Feels like things've just been getting more and more complicated this year."
He nodded. "You're telling me."
Nat bit her lip, intentionally letting a little bit of concern leak into her expression. It was genuine, of course, but it was hard not to see every expression and bit of body language as subtle manipulation, even if she did mean it. "Have you given much thought to what Wanda said about the Hulk?" she asked, her tone a little more subdued.
Bruce immediately closed off a bit. His expression went wooden and he looked away from her, sudden tension appearing in his shoulders as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. "About what? Her 'fixing' me?" he asked, a note of bitterness in his voice. "Accepting the Hulk as part of me? Nat…"
"Bruce…" she responded, raising her eyebrows at him.
He sighed. "I've had this… this thing inside me for ten years, now. Ten years, he's made my life hell. And what, I'm just supposed to reconcile with him, somehow? I don't want to be friends with the Hulk, Nat. I want him gone."
"Things have been better lately, though, haven't they?" Nat kept her voice relaxed, casually leaning to one side to catch Bruce's eye again and re-establish some eye contact. Once she did, she offered him a light shrug. "You've gotten him under control. We have. The lullaby, everything…"
"Things are under control until they aren't, Nat. You know that. Sooner or later…"
"All the more reason to listen to Wanda," she argued gently. "Like she's been telling you from the start, the Hulk's not some foreign entity hijacking your body. It's not healthy for you to keep treating him as a separate thing."
Bruce scoffed lightly, his lips pressing together in a thin line. "How am I supposed to do that? If he is me, then every time he's hurt people, it means I…" He trailed off, words freezing on the brink of some deep pain. "It makes it worse. It means it was me, Nat. It was all me."
Natasha hesitated, words forming in her throat before she even knew what she was about to say. "I know what that kind of self-hatred feels like. I've done things I regret, too—things I thought nothing could ever fix. You think you're the only monster on the team?" she asked softly, echoing something she'd said to Wanda what felt like an age ago, back on Carol's ship, when they'd first been coming to grips with Eliza.
At the time, Wanda had told her that if things had been different, it would have been Bruce she was saying it to, and Nat had to admit that the words still felt right. Her gaze had drifted toward a distant spot on the floor, but she forced herself to meet his eyes again. "The difference is I've never been able to label it as some other thing. When I look back, there's no alter-ego to blame. Just me. It's not… It's not the end of the world, to accept that."
"…It's easy for Wanda to say 'he's not separate'," Bruce said evasively, trying to avoid her point as he looked away from her again. "She hasn't had to live with him."
Nat took a step forward—close enough to be right up against his personal space without invading it—and reached over, placing a hand lightly on his forearm. "Wanda might not have lived with him, but this has sort of become her area of expertise, Bruce. She broke Yelena out. A few days ago, she dealt with the Winter Soldier, then last night she tackled yet another person with a problem almost as bad as yours. One and done this time, too. I know it's complicated. And I know it's scary. But I really think this might be your best shot."
He swallowed, gaze dropping to the lab floor. "So, what, there's some part of me that's just supposed to… what? Talk it out with him? That's what Bucky did, isn't it? Pieces of himself talking to each other, inside. The Hulk's not exactly much of a talker."
Nat let herself chuckle. "From what Wanda's told me, everyone's mind is different and she never knows what she's expecting ahead of time. It might be different for you."
"I'm just… it's…" Bruce hesitated, tension thrumming between them for a moment before he let out a sharp sigh. "Ten years is a long time to hate something inside yourself."
"And how's that been working out for you?" she asked quietly, keeping any hint of judgment out of her tone, just prodding him with a gentle observation.
He winced, arms crossing over his chest defensively. "Not great," he admitted. "But the alternative? Reconciling? Deliberately opening myself up to that? Reintegrating him? What does that even look like? What would it even mean for me to do that?" He shook his head. "I'm not sure I can. Or that I'd want to."
"You've told me yourself that the Hulk saved your life more than once, even if it was messy. Maybe there's less distance between the two of you than you think there is. The Hulk's not all bad, Bruce. He's saved me before, too." Nat tipped her head, letting him see the sincerity in her eyes. "I'm not trying to push you into anything. But I see how hard all of this can be for you. Blaming yourself for collateral damage, worrying about changing involuntarily—about maybe one day not being able to find your way back, losing control forever. If there's a chance, I think you owe it to yourself to at least talk to Wanda. Hear her out. Maybe you end up deciding not to go through with it in the end. That's okay, too. But at least you'll know."
Bruce swallowed again, visibly anxious. After a moment, he nodded. "I'll think about it," he said, voice subdued. "Seriously. But no promises."
Nat let a glimmer of relief and gratitude enter her eyes. She smiled and gave his arm a very gentle squeeze before letting go. "Good," she murmured.
--
"It's not a good match at all," Yelena said, rolling her eyes. "But, if we were going to compare… You're clearly the Jeremy, Wanda. Not the Mark."
My jaw dropped and I made a small choking sound, looking at her in disbelief. "That is quite possibly the most actually insulting thing you've ever said to me."
She let out an amused snort in response and I raised a couch cushion threateningly. "Don't be a child," she said sternly, holding up a finger warningly.
I grunted in annoyance, but lowered the cushion, clutching it to my chest like a teddy bear and glowering at her. We'd just finished binging the first series of Peep Show and, I mean, I wasn't about to die on the 'I'm the Mark of this apartment' hill—Mark and Jez were both uniquely horrible, after all—but if I had to pick one of them that I thought I was more like, it wouldn't be fucking Jeremy.
The two of us were sitting side-by-side on Nat's couch. I had stolen Yelena's blanket to cover my legs, while she had hers tucked up underneath her as she toyed idly with the TV remote. Despite how long it had been, the couch was still serving double-duty as Yelena's bed, and she'd made no clear indication that she intended on finding her own place anytime soon. Then again, neither had I, and I actually had money to rent or buy a place now if I wanted to. I was just… happy with the current arrangement and didn't have a lot of motivation to change it. The apartment was small, sure, and we could have used more space, but I liked living with Yelena and Nat and I wasn't sure what the outcome would be if I tried to get a larger apartment for the three of us.
The afternoon sun filtered through the blinds at a lazy slant, painting the living room in stripes of dusty light. Outside, the traffic hummed just enough to remind us we were in the city, but not enough to be distracting.
"Hey," I said suddenly, making Yelena look over. "First of October already."
She blinked, looking at me questioningly. "And…?"
"Halloween's coming up fast." I shifted under my blanket, idly fiddling at the edges of it with my fingers. "The Avengers are having a big party at the compound. You going?"
"No. Sounds annoying."
"The Avengers throw good parties," I said, my tone insistent. "We had one when Thor headed off, it was like the first real thing I got to do as a group with the team and it was a heap of fun. Or… hang on. Has Pietro not asked you to come, yet?" She didn't respond immediately, which was all the confirmation I needed. "Jerk. Don't worry, I'll kick his butt. He's been really busy with Avengers stuff but that's no excuse."
"I don't really care," Yelena lied, trying to look disinterested. "I'm not really a Halloween person."
"Oh, come on. Don't be lame. It's a celebrity party—can't really get any cooler than that, right? Have a few drinks, mingle with the rich and famous…"
She sniffed. "If it will shut you up, fine. I'll go. Maybe."
I grinned, bouncing upright a little. "Excellent. Now, the important question: What are you gonna wear?"
Her expression was blank. "Clothes."
"It's a Halloween party." I gave her a look, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. "You have to wear a costume."
Yelena scrunched up her face—not quite a scowl, but close. "Look, I said I'll go to the stupid party, but I'm not wearing a stupid costume. I can just wear something normal and say it's a character from a TV show or something."
"Yelena," I whined. "You can't not wear a costume! It's half the point of a Halloween party!"
Oh god, am I the Jeremy?
"Why not? Lots of people do that sort of thing. It's normal."
"Lots of people like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, Yelena," I snapped at her. "Lots of people doing something doesn't automatically make it okay."
"Uggghhhhhh," Yelena made a drawn-out noise of frustration, throwing her head back against the couch dramatically. "Why are you so annoying?"
"Honestly? Once I realised that the dopamine hit attached to annoying the shit out of you far outweighed any of the repercussions, there was just no turning back."
"Сука. I hate you so much," she groused. "Fine. You know they sell sexy Black Widow costumes, along with all the Avengers? I could go as Natasha. Do some poses," she said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Nah, doesn't work. You were a Widow, too. Can't go as yourself." I snapped my fingers, a lightbulb going off in my head. "How about an actual black widow? Like, a big spider with spindly legs. That'd work really well as a joke."
Yelena looked at me flatly. "No."
"But there are layers there, Yelena. Layers."
"Why… ugh. What are you going to wear?" she asked—it was a transparent attempt to deflect, but an effective one nonetheless.
"I haven't a hundred per cent decided yet, but I'm seriously considering… Um, have you seen those, like, inflatable t-rex costumes?"
"Oh my god." Yelena wrinkled her nose at me in disgust.
"The only problem with them—" I said, ignoring her reaction, "—is that you can't really eat or drink anything while you're wearing it. So, I'm thinking show up in it, everyone gets a good laugh, then once the initial novelty wears off, I take it off and have a second, smaller costume on underneath. Costume-ception. What do you think?"
"What do I think? Honestly?" she scoffed, shaking her head. "I think that you couldn't be less cool if you were actively trying to be uncool."
"The second costume would be a sexy one!" I protested. "Sexy Halloween costumes are cool. They're traditional."
Yelena let out a small sigh. "What sort of sexy costume? Do you mean like a nurse or something?"
"Well, I don't know exactly. Originally, I was vaguely thinking of doing a sexy Scarlet Witch outfit, but after Westview… ehhh. I feel like sex dungeon Elizabeth Olsen ruined it for me. It'd just feel a bit weird now," I said, tapping my chin thoughtfully. "Oh! Maybe a sexy sheep?"
"A sexy sheep?"
I nodded. "Yeah, like in Beep, Beep, I'm A Sheep."
There was a brief moment of silence as Yelena processed this statement. I felt a flicker of amusement, watching her expression change as she went through several stages of grief realising that her curiosity to know what the fuck I was talking about outweighed the fact that she knew she would almost certainly regret asking about it. She let out another sigh. "…What is Beep, Beep, I'm A Sheep?"
I straightened up and retrieved my phone, doing a Google. My eyes widened a little. "Huh." I tapped at the screen a few more times, searching on YouTube directly. "Fuck. What year did Beep, Beep, I'm A Sheep come out? Does it just not exist here? …Okay, Tomska does exist, adsfmovie is a thing, but no sheep?"
"You are just making random noises, now."
"Beep, beep, I'm a sheep; I said beep, beep I'm a sheep!" I sang, then paused. Yelena was staring at me. "Meow, meow, I'm a cow?"
"Stop. Cows do not meow."
I looked down, feeling a little abashed. "Maybe not a sexy sheep, then," I grumbled.
"You're an idiot," she said, leaning back into the couch and lifting the remote toward the TV. She hit a button and the opening of the next episode of Peep Show started to play.
"I'm not sick but I'm not well… and I'm so hot, 'cause I'm in hell…" I sang along to the intro under my breath. A sudden, errant thought crossed my mind as the episode began in earnest. "Hey, Yelena?"
"Hey, what?" she said back, sounding a little annoyed.
"Am I your best friend?"
"What?" she spluttered, jerking forward and untucking her legs to put her feet flat on the floor as shock and distaste warred across her face. "No!"
"I mean, Nat's your sister, so she doesn't really count. Pietro…" I made a little bit of a face. "You're dating? So I guess he's your boyfriend, so he doesn't count. You don't really have any other friends, do you? Not that I know about. So I think that makes me your best friend. By default."
She stared at me with mounting horror. "That is so not… I don't—that isn't… I have friends! Lots of friends! That are all much cooler than you."
"You know, for a highly-trained master spy and social manipulator, you're an absolutely terrible liar sometimes," I countered with a wide, shit-eating grin. "I totally am! I'm your best friend."
A faint but noticeable pinkness had risen in her cheeks. "Shut up. That's not a thing. That is—" she sputtered, shaking her head in violent denial. "Ridiculous. Do not ever say that again."
"Default, default, default," I started to chant softly.
She raised a warning finger again, thrusting it forward at me to punctuate her words. "No. Stop. No more things are said today, okay? We watch TV quietly. That's the rule now." That said, she turned firmly back to the TV, hammering the volume button on the remote to make it obnoxiously loud.
"What do I know about love and happiness?" Mark Corrigan's internal monologue blared from the TV. "I know you have to play dirty, my friend."
I smirked to myself, settling back in to watch. Shifting my foot a little, I let it rest gently against Yelena's. She made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat and muttered something in Russian that I didn't quite catch. Even though she steadfastly refused to look at me, there was still a small twitch at the corner of her mouth that I was pretty sure was her trying not to smile. And she didn't move her foot away.
--
Author's Note
@thag has recently started posting a new MCU SI fic that I've really enjoyed the first few chapters of, so I thought I'd give them a quick shoutout! If you're looking for more MCU shenanigans, head over to Galatea OR: The Super Modern Ultra Graphic High-Tech Girl. It's a Vision SI that looks like it's going to do some really interesting things with the unusual nature of the MC. Please do check it out!
Natasha paused briefly at the threshold to Lab 3B, taking in the quiet hum of the various bits of monitoring and refrigeration equipment. Bruce was standing in front of a tall lab bench at the far side of the room, his eyes flicking between a tablet held in one hand and a large, transparent cylinder that pulsed with a faint green glow. On the bench next to him was a half-disassembled sensor array and a trio of dirty coffee mugs that had been shuffled off to one side.
She took a quiet step forward, letting the door swish shut behind her. Bruce was locked in, utterly absorbed in whatever he was currently working on—the door opening and closing had seemingly not even registered to him. Nat watched him quietly for a few more seconds, a faint smile tweaking the corners of her mouth. He frowned at the readouts on his tablet, then tapped the glass cylinder gently with a fingertip, as if it were misbehaving and a tiny bit of percussive maintenance might be all that was needed to get it to do as he expected.
"Hey, Bruce," Nat called softly, stepping lightly across the polished floor toward him.
Bruce glanced up, his weary expression lighting up with a small but genuine smile. "Hey, Nat. You're up early." He set the tablet aside, his forehead creasing momentarily. "Or is it late?" he asked. There was a genuine question in there—he'd lost track of time again and wasn't actually sure.
"You're as bad as Tony and Shuri, sometimes," Nat said, shaking her head. She leaned one hip against the nearest worktable, crossing her arms loosely. It was a light, flirty pose, emphasising the curve of her waist and hip. Deliberate, but natural. "At least they notice when they pull all-nighters."
He snorted softly, looking a little sheepish, but she saw his eye briefly flicker down her body. "I'm having to do double-time just to stay relevant," he hedged. "I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep up."
Nat gave him a wry smile, nodding toward the cylinder he'd been monitoring. "That looks vaguely terrifying. Not working the way you wanted it to?"
Bruce laughed, but there was a trace of nervousness beneath it. "No… well, not yet. Let's call it a new containment prototype. I think I'm close to stabilising the cross-emission. I might need to get an assist from Shuri, though. These results aren't what I was expecting."
Nat took a step closer, turning to place both of her palms on the steel-topped bench and take a closer look at the prototype before giving Bruce a surreptitious sideways glance. "I'm sure you'll figure it out. 'Don't sell yourself short, Dr Banner'," she quoted teasingly.
A faint green light, reflected from the gamma containment, glinted in his eyes, and his cheeks coloured slightly. He cleared his throat. "Uh, you don't usually come over to the labs unless you need something. Everything okay?"
"I don't know," she said, lips still curved in a faint smile. "Feels like things've just been getting more and more complicated this year."
He nodded. "You're telling me."
Nat bit her lip, intentionally letting a little bit of concern leak into her expression. It was genuine, of course, but it was hard not to see every expression and bit of body language as subtle manipulation, even if she did mean it. "Have you given much thought to what Wanda said about the Hulk?" she asked, her tone a little more subdued.
Bruce immediately closed off a bit. His expression went wooden and he looked away from her, sudden tension appearing in his shoulders as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. "About what? Her 'fixing' me?" he asked, a note of bitterness in his voice. "Accepting the Hulk as part of me? Nat…"
"Bruce…" she responded, raising her eyebrows at him.
He sighed. "I've had this… this thing inside me for ten years, now. Ten years, he's made my life hell. And what, I'm just supposed to reconcile with him, somehow? I don't want to be friends with the Hulk, Nat. I want him gone."
"Things have been better lately, though, haven't they?" Nat kept her voice relaxed, casually leaning to one side to catch Bruce's eye again and re-establish some eye contact. Once she did, she offered him a light shrug. "You've gotten him under control. We have. The lullaby, everything…"
"Things are under control until they aren't, Nat. You know that. Sooner or later…"
"All the more reason to listen to Wanda," she argued gently. "Like she's been telling you from the start, the Hulk's not some foreign entity hijacking your body. It's not healthy for you to keep treating him as a separate thing."
Bruce scoffed lightly, his lips pressing together in a thin line. "How am I supposed to do that? If he is me, then every time he's hurt people, it means I…" He trailed off, words freezing on the brink of some deep pain. "It makes it worse. It means it was me, Nat. It was all me."
Natasha hesitated, words forming in her throat before she even knew what she was about to say. "I know what that kind of self-hatred feels like. I've done things I regret, too—things I thought nothing could ever fix. You think you're the only monster on the team?" she asked softly, echoing something she'd said to Wanda what felt like an age ago, back on Carol's ship, when they'd first been coming to grips with Eliza.
At the time, Wanda had told her that if things had been different, it would have been Bruce she was saying it to, and Nat had to admit that the words still felt right. Her gaze had drifted toward a distant spot on the floor, but she forced herself to meet his eyes again. "The difference is I've never been able to label it as some other thing. When I look back, there's no alter-ego to blame. Just me. It's not… It's not the end of the world, to accept that."
"…It's easy for Wanda to say 'he's not separate'," Bruce said evasively, trying to avoid her point as he looked away from her again. "She hasn't had to live with him."
Nat took a step forward—close enough to be right up against his personal space without invading it—and reached over, placing a hand lightly on his forearm. "Wanda might not have lived with him, but this has sort of become her area of expertise, Bruce. She broke Yelena out. A few days ago, she dealt with the Winter Soldier, then last night she tackled yet another person with a problem almost as bad as yours. One and done this time, too. I know it's complicated. And I know it's scary. But I really think this might be your best shot."
He swallowed, gaze dropping to the lab floor. "So, what, there's some part of me that's just supposed to… what? Talk it out with him? That's what Bucky did, isn't it? Pieces of himself talking to each other, inside. The Hulk's not exactly much of a talker."
Nat let herself chuckle. "From what Wanda's told me, everyone's mind is different and she never knows what she's expecting ahead of time. It might be different for you."
"I'm just… it's…" Bruce hesitated, tension thrumming between them for a moment before he let out a sharp sigh. "Ten years is a long time to hate something inside yourself."
"And how's that been working out for you?" she asked quietly, keeping any hint of judgment out of her tone, just prodding him with a gentle observation.
He winced, arms crossing over his chest defensively. "Not great," he admitted. "But the alternative? Reconciling? Deliberately opening myself up to that? Reintegrating him? What does that even look like? What would it even mean for me to do that?" He shook his head. "I'm not sure I can. Or that I'd want to."
"You've told me yourself that the Hulk saved your life more than once, even if it was messy. Maybe there's less distance between the two of you than you think there is. The Hulk's not all bad, Bruce. He's saved me before, too." Nat tipped her head, letting him see the sincerity in her eyes. "I'm not trying to push you into anything. But I see how hard all of this can be for you. Blaming yourself for collateral damage, worrying about changing involuntarily—about maybe one day not being able to find your way back, losing control forever. If there's a chance, I think you owe it to yourself to at least talk to Wanda. Hear her out. Maybe you end up deciding not to go through with it in the end. That's okay, too. But at least you'll know."
Bruce swallowed again, visibly anxious. After a moment, he nodded. "I'll think about it," he said, voice subdued. "Seriously. But no promises."
Nat let a glimmer of relief and gratitude enter her eyes. She smiled and gave his arm a very gentle squeeze before letting go. "Good," she murmured.
--
"It's not a good match at all," Yelena said, rolling her eyes. "But, if we were going to compare… You're clearly the Jeremy, Wanda. Not the Mark."
My jaw dropped and I made a small choking sound, looking at her in disbelief. "That is quite possibly the most actually insulting thing you've ever said to me."
She let out an amused snort in response and I raised a couch cushion threateningly. "Don't be a child," she said sternly, holding up a finger warningly.
I grunted in annoyance, but lowered the cushion, clutching it to my chest like a teddy bear and glowering at her. We'd just finished binging the first series of Peep Show and, I mean, I wasn't about to die on the 'I'm the Mark of this apartment' hill—Mark and Jez were both uniquely horrible, after all—but if I had to pick one of them that I thought I was more like, it wouldn't be fucking Jeremy.
The two of us were sitting side-by-side on Nat's couch. I had stolen Yelena's blanket to cover my legs, while she had hers tucked up underneath her as she toyed idly with the TV remote. Despite how long it had been, the couch was still serving double-duty as Yelena's bed, and she'd made no clear indication that she intended on finding her own place anytime soon. Then again, neither had I, and I actually had money to rent or buy a place now if I wanted to. I was just… happy with the current arrangement and didn't have a lot of motivation to change it. The apartment was small, sure, and we could have used more space, but I liked living with Yelena and Nat and I wasn't sure what the outcome would be if I tried to get a larger apartment for the three of us.
The afternoon sun filtered through the blinds at a lazy slant, painting the living room in stripes of dusty light. Outside, the traffic hummed just enough to remind us we were in the city, but not enough to be distracting.
"Hey," I said suddenly, making Yelena look over. "First of October already."
She blinked, looking at me questioningly. "And…?"
"Halloween's coming up fast." I shifted under my blanket, idly fiddling at the edges of it with my fingers. "The Avengers are having a big party at the compound. You going?"
"No. Sounds annoying."
"The Avengers throw good parties," I said, my tone insistent. "We had one when Thor headed off, it was like the first real thing I got to do as a group with the team and it was a heap of fun. Or… hang on. Has Pietro not asked you to come, yet?" She didn't respond immediately, which was all the confirmation I needed. "Jerk. Don't worry, I'll kick his butt. He's been really busy with Avengers stuff but that's no excuse."
"I don't really care," Yelena lied, trying to look disinterested. "I'm not really a Halloween person."
"Oh, come on. Don't be lame. It's a celebrity party—can't really get any cooler than that, right? Have a few drinks, mingle with the rich and famous…"
She sniffed. "If it will shut you up, fine. I'll go. Maybe."
I grinned, bouncing upright a little. "Excellent. Now, the important question: What are you gonna wear?"
Her expression was blank. "Clothes."
"It's a Halloween party." I gave her a look, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. "You have to wear a costume."
Yelena scrunched up her face—not quite a scowl, but close. "Look, I said I'll go to the stupid party, but I'm not wearing a stupid costume. I can just wear something normal and say it's a character from a TV show or something."
"Yelena," I whined. "You can't not wear a costume! It's half the point of a Halloween party!"
Oh god, am I the Jeremy?
"Why not? Lots of people do that sort of thing. It's normal."
"Lots of people like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, Yelena," I snapped at her. "Lots of people doing something doesn't automatically make it okay."
"Uggghhhhhh," Yelena made a drawn-out noise of frustration, throwing her head back against the couch dramatically. "Why are you so annoying?"
"Honestly? Once I realised that the dopamine hit attached to annoying the shit out of you far outweighed any of the repercussions, there was just no turning back."
"Сука. I hate you so much," she groused. "Fine. You know they sell sexy Black Widow costumes, along with all the Avengers? I could go as Natasha. Do some poses," she said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Nah, doesn't work. You were a Widow, too. Can't go as yourself." I snapped my fingers, a lightbulb going off in my head. "How about an actual black widow? Like, a big spider with spindly legs. That'd work really well as a joke."
Yelena looked at me flatly. "No."
"But there are layers there, Yelena. Layers."
"Why… ugh. What are you going to wear?" she asked—it was a transparent attempt to deflect, but an effective one nonetheless.
"I haven't a hundred per cent decided yet, but I'm seriously considering… Um, have you seen those, like, inflatable t-rex costumes?"
"Oh my god." Yelena wrinkled her nose at me in disgust.
"The only problem with them—" I said, ignoring her reaction, "—is that you can't really eat or drink anything while you're wearing it. So, I'm thinking show up in it, everyone gets a good laugh, then once the initial novelty wears off, I take it off and have a second, smaller costume on underneath. Costume-ception. What do you think?"
"What do I think? Honestly?" she scoffed, shaking her head. "I think that you couldn't be less cool if you were actively trying to be uncool."
"The second costume would be a sexy one!" I protested. "Sexy Halloween costumes are cool. They're traditional."
Yelena let out a small sigh. "What sort of sexy costume? Do you mean like a nurse or something?"
"Well, I don't know exactly. Originally, I was vaguely thinking of doing a sexy Scarlet Witch outfit, but after Westview… ehhh. I feel like sex dungeon Elizabeth Olsen ruined it for me. It'd just feel a bit weird now," I said, tapping my chin thoughtfully. "Oh! Maybe a sexy sheep?"
"A sexy sheep?"
I nodded. "Yeah, like in Beep, Beep, I'm A Sheep."
There was a brief moment of silence as Yelena processed this statement. I felt a flicker of amusement, watching her expression change as she went through several stages of grief realising that her curiosity to know what the fuck I was talking about outweighed the fact that she knew she would almost certainly regret asking about it. She let out another sigh. "…What is Beep, Beep, I'm A Sheep?"
I straightened up and retrieved my phone, doing a Google. My eyes widened a little. "Huh." I tapped at the screen a few more times, searching on YouTube directly. "Fuck. What year did Beep, Beep, I'm A Sheep come out? Does it just not exist here? …Okay, Tomska does exist, adsfmovie is a thing, but no sheep?"
"You are just making random noises, now."
"Beep, beep, I'm a sheep; I said beep, beep I'm a sheep!" I sang, then paused. Yelena was staring at me. "Meow, meow, I'm a cow?"
"Stop. Cows do not meow."
I looked down, feeling a little abashed. "Maybe not a sexy sheep, then," I grumbled.
"You're an idiot," she said, leaning back into the couch and lifting the remote toward the TV. She hit a button and the opening of the next episode of Peep Show started to play.
"I'm not sick but I'm not well… and I'm so hot, 'cause I'm in hell…" I sang along to the intro under my breath. A sudden, errant thought crossed my mind as the episode began in earnest. "Hey, Yelena?"
"Hey, what?" she said back, sounding a little annoyed.
"Am I your best friend?"
"What?" she spluttered, jerking forward and untucking her legs to put her feet flat on the floor as shock and distaste warred across her face. "No!"
"I mean, Nat's your sister, so she doesn't really count. Pietro…" I made a little bit of a face. "You're dating? So I guess he's your boyfriend, so he doesn't count. You don't really have any other friends, do you? Not that I know about. So I think that makes me your best friend. By default."
She stared at me with mounting horror. "That is so not… I don't—that isn't… I have friends! Lots of friends! That are all much cooler than you."
"You know, for a highly-trained master spy and social manipulator, you're an absolutely terrible liar sometimes," I countered with a wide, shit-eating grin. "I totally am! I'm your best friend."
A faint but noticeable pinkness had risen in her cheeks. "Shut up. That's not a thing. That is—" she sputtered, shaking her head in violent denial. "Ridiculous. Do not ever say that again."
"Default, default, default," I started to chant softly.
She raised a warning finger again, thrusting it forward at me to punctuate her words. "No. Stop. No more things are said today, okay? We watch TV quietly. That's the rule now." That said, she turned firmly back to the TV, hammering the volume button on the remote to make it obnoxiously loud.
"What do I know about love and happiness?" Mark Corrigan's internal monologue blared from the TV. "I know you have to play dirty, my friend."
I smirked to myself, settling back in to watch. Shifting my foot a little, I let it rest gently against Yelena's. She made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat and muttered something in Russian that I didn't quite catch. Even though she steadfastly refused to look at me, there was still a small twitch at the corner of her mouth that I was pretty sure was her trying not to smile. And she didn't move her foot away.
--
Author's Note
@thag has recently started posting a new MCU SI fic that I've really enjoyed the first few chapters of, so I thought I'd give them a quick shoutout! If you're looking for more MCU shenanigans, head over to Galatea OR: The Super Modern Ultra Graphic High-Tech Girl. It's a Vision SI that looks like it's going to do some really interesting things with the unusual nature of the MC. Please do check it out!