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(OOC Note: takes place after this.)

[Wanda starts off with confidence; she's familiar with this idea of video posting. She smiles. She looks directly at the camera.]

Hello. I'm Wanda, and I'm new here.

[New. Again. Wanda's gaze moves past the camera, the words she had planned drying up. Who out there really cares about one more arrival? And does she really care about arriving in yet another strange place? She fiddles around with the camera angle, so that it shows more of her, sitting in a leafy bower. She plucks a nearby leaf and shreds it in her hands along the line of the veins.]

I am...

[From off camera, a voice shouts something about 'water for the portcullis?' Wanda glances in that direction, and then gives a little shrug. Really, all she wanted was to put her image out on the network just in case her brother is out there somewhere. She's done that. Nothing else matters.]

I am...

[I am so tired, she wants to say, but even that suddenly seems like too much to say. Or too little.]

I am here, Pietro, if you are out there.

[Too much. More than she's said of pure truth in a very long time. She could redo this, but her expression is crumpling and she doesn't think she could do any better. She gives a wavering smile and stops the recording. Posts it before she can change her mind.]

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[He has to run and check that Wanda, the Wanda he's grown used to being here, is still in her room and hasn't disappeared only to be brought back blank. But confirmation from the TAB list only makes things confusing. Two Wandas and somehow neither came from home.

When he turns on the video, Peter looks wary. He'd been lucky that the current Wanda had recognized his powers, that she'd known who he was right away. He can't be so sure he'll be so lucky twice. He can't help but curse this mess that machines keep getting them into. He'd thought finding out about the other Quicksilver would be enough of a mind trip for one lifetime.]

Wanda Maximoff. That's your name, right? Maximoff. I'm- Pietro isn't here. That's the first thing. Sorry. Second thing. Um. Have you looked at the names in the TAB list?

[It might make it easier, if she's already seen her name twice.]

[Wanda doesn't check back until the next morning, looking rumpled. Not only did she sleep in her clothes, she passed a very busy night involving tanglesnakes. She has a glass of something strangely colored in her hand that almost spills as she flicks on the camera to reply.]

Do you ... did you know him?

[She asks it eagerly, but there's a level of resignation as well. She wasn't really expecting Pietro to be here, but ever since she began these interdimensional travels, there's always been that hope, even when she wanted to strangle it.]

Did he leave a message for me?

[She'd left messages for him, wherever she found herself. With that to concentrate on, the other question barely registers with her. She shrugs it away.]

Was he here?

Edited 2017-02-17 02:11 (UTC)

[It makes him worry, that it takes so long for her to answer. It's only the presence of the other Maximoff in the next room that keeps him from going in search. Stranger things have happened then people leaving after only a few words. He tells himself he shouldn't stray from the mansion, not until he's sure.]

He was here. [He starts tentatively, brows furrowed.] But he left, that was months ago. He didn't leave a message. He didn't need to. Because there's a Wanda Maximoff already here. He spoke to her, back then.

I know that's already a lot, but you should know how I know him. So you know if you want to keep talking to me. My name is Peter Maximoff. There's this theory about alternate universes? Um. Someone smarter will have to explain it. But I'm sort of my universe's version of him.

You should talk to the Wanda that's here. She can explain this all a lot better.

[That...was new.]

Another ... me?

[Her eyes widen as thoughts rush through her head. Questions, mostly, but what comes out is a statement.]

You don't look like my brother.

[Wanda stares at the image of the man who isn't her brother. Peter? Not Pietro? Then she shakes her head and looks away, swallowing hard. She thought she knew everything that could possibly happen, but this... It's unsettling. If it's true.]

You were here, and Pietro was here, both of you? And you didn't ... you were separate people with separate bodies and separate memories? And there is another Wanda, and she's a different person that I can talk to?

[Wanda's voice rises. She's trying to be calm and careful, but she's reaching some sort of limit.]

[ You don't look like my brother. That...hurts. He's spent the past year growing close to someone with the same face. It's like hearing it out of the Wanda he knows loves him.

But he swallows it. His feelings will be canned for later, after this is done.]

I know it's weird. And it's hard to understand. I'm not lying to you. I wouldn't, not about something like this.

[Not about anything to Wanda, not anymore. But he doesn't think she's ready to hear that just yet. The trust isn't there.]

If you have her powers, you could get in my head. You'd know if I was telling the truth, right? I- would that help? I really don't want to freak you out. But it's better if you know what's happening.

[Wanda panics. She's already revealed more than she has in years by mentioning Pietro and his importance to her, and what his loss means to her. But that was just personal, and something that she'd been growing more and more comfortable confronting. Her powers -- that's an entirely different level of secret, and she's not ready for that to go out on an open channel, and she's not sure if that's what this is. She didn't do anything to make it private.]

I don't know what you're talking about.

[She snaps the words, spills her drink across her lap, and fumbles for a second with the controls on her TAB, and then rethinks.]

But...

[And rethinks again. We should talk about this in person becomes something else.]

I think I know what is going on.

[That being sufficiently ambiguous, she smiles.]

Wanda?

[He hates this; seeing her so frazzled and upset. Even if this isn't his Wanda, either of them, he doesn't like seeing that face paled with panic. He'd always loved his sisters, believed it to be the one truly good quality he possessed. He'd do anything for them.

And right now that might mean backing off. Letting her do this own her own terms.]

Good. I mean, if you're okay with it. It's just-do you want to talk about it? Have questions? I know you don't know me. But if you want help, I want to help.

[Pretend like everything is okay, Wanda tells herself. Then maybe no one will notice...]

It is kind of you...

[She usually says that ironically, but it was kind of him, she realizes. And if everything were okay...but everything isn't okay.]

Maybe ... some other time. [She didn't want to close this door entirely.] When I've had a chance to...

[Eat breakfast. Clean up. Learn origami. Climb a tree. Go swimming in the creek she hadn't had a chance to explore yet. Then maybe think about another Pietro who wasn't really Pietro at all. Peter. Not Pietro.]

Are you from Sokovia?

[It's out before she knows it; she can't hold on to that one tiny, important question.]

That's okay.

[It's not. It's really, really not. But he can't push her. Can't risk scaring her off.

He was the big brother once. He knows how this goes.]

Whenever you're ready.

[He sighs, shakes his head.]

I'm not. My mom's family is Russian, but me and my sisters were born in the US. Sokovia, um, doesn't exist where I'm from.

[Wanda lets out a tiny disappointed puff of air.] Oh. [She blinks a few times, wondering how Peter could be like her brother if he doesn't share that. Sokovia has not always been kind to her, but it is her homeland.]

[After a moment, she shrugs.]

Sokovia, it is not the same as Russia. Someday perhaps I can tell you about the Battle of the Black River, or the death of Nikola of Barshpach... There is an opera, and a famous statue--

[She's never tried to explain this before; she assumed that those who would understand would, and those who wouldn't--]

Famous in Sokovia. [She says it dryly. She shrugs again, but her gaze is pitying, before she rallies.]

And I would like to hear more about you, and about ... what has ... happened here already ... to my brother? Or ... to me?

[It isn't easy to find the words to acknowledge another Wanda Maximoff. She understands the concept, but her mind slides when she tries to focus on the idea of it. Faults already lie within her identity, two sets of memories... She doesn't want to put pressure on an area of tension, but she should make an effort. There are things she needs to know.]

Pete-- Peter? If I was ... if I am already here, am I going to remember it, being here, eventually? Can you tell me how quickly it might happen?

I know. The other Wanda- [His Wanda.] -she showed me. I mean, she showed me some of the country. Parts from her memories.

[He pauses, wondering if that makes it any better. He knows so much about her when she knows so little about him.]

It's a beautiful place. Nicer than the suburbs.

[He sighs.]

I can't say that you will remember. We've got a case here already, a teenager and the same guy as a much older dude. Adult version has been here months. Almost a year, I'd guess. Teenager version nearly half that. Neither are getting any memories from the other, last I'd checked. I'm sorry.

But I can tell you what I remember about Pietro. He was here for a couple months. We only spoke a few times. I didn't want to intrude with him and, well, the other you.

[He'd felt like an outsider as long as Wanda's real twin had been around. Peter had made himself scarce in response.]

He loved you. He was worried about you being on the ship alone.

[Wanda quirks a brow at that. Of course if Wanda Maximoff is already here, then anything she thinks of would already be done. It feels strange, though, the implications of another Wanda Maximoff hitting home. She's redundant here. Out of place in a way that she hasn't been up until now, no matter where she travelled.]

No, it's okay. I don't ... need ...

[She doesn't need another set of memories, but the thought of more memories of her brother has her angrily blinking back tears. When they spill over and streak down her cheek she lets them fall, doesn't bother to try to brush them away.]

[She leans forward and tries to smile, since what Peter says about Pietro is enough to let her picture him, imagine what he must have done. The movement shifts wet cloth from her spilled drink against her leg, reminding her that she's a mess in more than one sense.]

[She looks down, closes her eyes against the evidence. She can't help but wonder if the other Wanda has things more together.]

[She shakes her head; useless thought. But she also can't help but wonder what she's doing here, at all the levels of such a thought.]

I'm going to go now.

[Pause. She feels like she needs to say something more than that, but she feels blank.]

Thank you, Peter Maximoff.

[She's crying.

Peter never does well with people crying. He'd hated it every time his mother got weepy after too many drinks, he'd hated it every time his baby sister had woken teary eyed from a nightmare. Crying always made him feel useless, like there wasn't enough he could do to fix whatever horrible thing the other was going through.

It makes him feel useless now.]

I'm sorry.

[What else is there to say? He doesn't feel like he's earned any gratitude here.]

Please be careful.

[As Wanda fiddles with her TAB before getting it to turn off, the camera captures a fleeting, baffled look. Careful? Why do people say that to her?]

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