CLOSED | ❝Though we can't control the rest, one thing will always be true: This was a home once❞

[divaricate]

WHO: Wanda Maximoff [ divaricate ] & Erik Lehnsherr [ frankensteinian ]
WHERE: A cafe.
WHEN: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
WHAT: Talking.
WARNINGS: Will update in subject lines if needed.

Wanda had reached out to Erik, whom she's only spoken two twice here, and then wound up in a dreamscape or whatever with him, to see if he would meet her for a snack and coffee at a cafe. She's waiting at an outdoor table, one leg crossed over the other, as she idly doodles in a journal.

Comments

[frankensteinian]

It had been strange to have a relative stranger reach out to him with a request to meet for coffee. He's still been mostly keeping to himself since arriving here; it's hard to know who he can trust, even with so many people here having abilities of some sort. He'd agreed only because Wanda had provided assistance during his dream. It's the same reason he'd told Carter the things he had; he'd already known them from the dream.

He approaches the cafe and settles himself in the chair opposite her. "Good afternoon."

[divaricate]

She closes her book a little too fast and offers him a smile. "Hi. How're you?" Start small, she figures.

[frankensteinian]

"About the same." She doesn't know what 'the same' is, maybe, but at least she knows that things haven't been changing. And for him, that's a big thing. It's also about all he's willing to talk about right now.

"I think I'm mostly settled now."

[divaricate]

"I'm glad. Way better than things being bad." A quick nod and a slightly nervous inhale. "I know I really only very slightly alluded to it when you first showed up here, but as I'm sure you've already figured out, you haven't just arrived. It happens sometimes, people come back here without their memories from a previous stay here. I'd say that I know I sound crazy but..." She trails off. There's not much here that isn't crazy.

[frankensteinian]

"There was someone else who seemed to know me, right after my arrival." So there's some other evidence of what she's telling him. It's the easiest thing to adjust to about this place, honestly, the idea that he might have been here before.

"It would sort of fit in with some of the theories being proposed in the scientific community, particularly in the area of physics."

[divaricate]

"Most of those theories are probably legit. At least in this world. Multiverse shenanigans and all." She slides a menu over to him.

"So, that.. dream thing. It wasn't the first time I'd seen that scene, or what actually happened. I'm sorry." For seeing it or that it happened or that she wasn't forthcoming sooner, or what, she isn't exactly sure -- maybe for all of it. Probably for all of it. "I grew up in a warzone too, lost my parents when I was ten, then my twin over ten years after that."

[frankensteinian]

She'd seen it before. He doesn't know what to make of that, or what it means, but that's not the part he wants to think about right now, anyway.

"It wasn't a warzone." Not for Nina. He'd been determined to give her a better life than his had been, which honestly hadn't been that hard, even in a country controlled by the Soviets. "It was her having me for a father." Because they wouldn't have died if it hadn't been for him.

He reaches for the menu and flips through it, bringing the tattoo on his left arm into view. A reminder of his warzone. "She was frightened because I told her no one would take me away, and then men came to take me away."

[divaricate]

"I'd argue it was their prejudices and biases, considering murder isn't generally an acceptable response to 'hey thanks for saving one of us'." He didn't have to stop someone from dying at work. "I would be frightened too." Nina's response wasn't out of the norm or unreasonable after all. It was probably much of the same kind of fear he'd felt when people took his parents away. Who wouldn't react like that? Not that anything she says will make him feel any less guilt over it, and it isn't really what she's going for.

[frankensteinian]

"What they did was an accident." He can acknowledge that much, at least, even if that doesn't make it any easier to accept. And they had purposely used Nina as bait to get him out of the house. "They were afraid of me, and of her, because they didn't understand. When they thought I was human, they didn't have a problem. It was only after they discovered the truth that there were problems."

Which is kind of her point. But it's also kind of his. Two people he cared about had died because of him.

[divaricate]

She nods slightly, understanding. Once the server comes over, Wanda orders her food quickly, and while Erik requests his, Wanda takes a large drink of her ice water.

"Either way, it shouldn't have happened." That's really all she can say about it. She knows he knows that too, but she'll say it again. A short pause, then:

"What if you had family here? I mean, from a similar but technically different version of your world." Not that she's asking for any particular reason HA HA HA.

[frankensteinian]

"Is that possible?"

Of course he knows that it must be. The worlds themselves are possible, he already knows that, and it stands to reason that if there are worlds that are almost the same, that the same thing should be true of the people in those worlds. Which means that potentially his family is out there in some other world.

[divaricate]

"Yeah, I mean.... someone was here a couple of years ago who in his world, he was my son. The version of me that was where he was from. Even though we weren't really from the same place, he called me 'mom' after a bit. A different version of my brother was here."

She looks down for a moment.

"I know that in the multiverse, you have two other daughters and a son." Technically there's a Wanda and Peter in his world, but Peter, when he was here, made it sound like he never knew that there. And there may be a Lorna floating around there too.

[frankensteinian]

"Two daughters and a son." He knows there's a reason she's telling him this, and he has his suspicions about where it's going. Most people wouldn't care, after all, if they even knew that in the first place.

"Should I take this conversation to mean that at least some of them are here?"

[divaricate]

She's kind of afraid that he won't care, that losing a second family in his world means he doesn't feel like caring about a third because it sucks too much. And maybe she's also afraid that he will care and then he'll just get ported out again, and she'll lose... god, what number of family members would this make? A lot.

"All of them were at some point. Now it's just me."

[frankensteinian]

"Just you." There's the news he'd been pretty sure she was working up to. Why else would she have cared? It will be awhile until he sees her as family, but, well, it's nice to know she's here, and is willing to acknowledge his existence.

"So what's your story then?" At what point in his past did she come to be?