Just Like Old Times (Wanda)

Participants: Carol Danvers | Wanda Maximoff
Open/Closed: Closed.
Location(s): Wanda Maximoff's apartment, Greenwich Village, New York City
Time of Day: Mid-morning
Weather: Autumnal chills
Summary: Carol Danvers responds to a call from Wanda Maximoff, asking her for aid. Unbeknownst to Captain Marvel, she's about to get dragged into an investigation that could save the surface world from the terrors of the deep.

Carol waited at the door to Wanda's Greenwich apartment, hands stuffed into the pockets of slightly tattered jeans, the worn and ripped knees most certainly having seen better days. She'd turned the fleece-lined collar of her bomber jacket up, trying to keep the chill of the cool autumn morning at bay. Beneath that, a vintage (see: old and faded) Top Gun t-shirt was proudly displayed, baring the film's title and the codename of the famous protagonst 'Maverick.' It was one of her favourite tops as a kid, so big it had swamped her. That she still wore it – though it fitted infinitely better - was a testament to how much she'd enjoyed the film, and how much being a pilot had meant to her.

Danvers didn't let go of things easily, not when they mattered. That was why she'd answered the Scarlet Witch's call without hesitation. Even though they hadn't spoken in far too long, Wanda Maximoff mattered.

It wasn't that they were no longer friends, or that some argument had divided them. For a time, they had both served on the same Avengers' roster, and they had become close – helping each other through the personal issues they'd faced. On a team full of men with low emotional intelligence, they'd had to rely on each other: Wanda especially, as her then-life-partner was an android with about as much compassion and empathy as a rock. But as was common place with the Avengers, the team's members had changed; individuals parting ways to follow their own paths. Carol's had taken her to a low orbit space station and beyond, and over the past few years, she'd been 'off-earth' as frequently as she had been in New York City.

She'd found cell reception was pretty rough from neighbouring galaxies.

But that didn't mean she'd forgotten the Scarlet Witch, just as she'd not forgotten Jessica Drew or James Rhodes or Jennifer Walters. They didn't have to speak every day to remind her of their importance, just like Carol didn't need to watch Top Gun every day to remind her of its influence in her formative years. Just like her shirt, her memories of her closest friends were replayed frequently, no matter how old or faded.

Blowing a long strand of fringe hair out her eyes, Carol pulled her hand from her pocket, phone with it. She flicked a thumb over the screen – revealing a screensaver of Chewie – and then tapped at it a little, returning to the message she'd sent to Wanda suggesting she was on her way. She typed out a quick 'Outside', and sent it mere seconds before the door opened. Looking up from her device a little sheepishly, Carol offered a small, defensive shrug to the woman beyond the threshold.
“I tried the bell twice.”

Her kitchen island had transformed into a makeshift workspace. Stark tech intermingled with ancient scrolls; her Avengers ID card/communicator was next to a crystal orb that was full of shifting smoke; dossiers from the Avengers's database were projected as holograms on the air, while Wanda cross-referenced the details with texts written in an inhuman language on the pages of a weathered tome bound in some kind of scaled skin or leather.

Wanda was dressed in the majority of her work clothes; corset and leather trousers in place. Her boots, cloak and headdress were missing, stacked neatly on a nearby countertop, and her mess of brunette curls were tied in a hasty, messy mound on top of her head. The Scarlet Witch chewed her lip, squinting at a particularly difficult passage in the book and, reaching out with her other hand, scrolled down the intel on the file projected on the air.

It was only then that she remembered: the chime that had gone off, twice, that she'd decided, in the moment, to see to after she was finished with that sentence. Three sentences ago, in fact. Wanda pushed off of the counter and sped to the door of her apartment, opening it just as the sound of a phone vibrating against marble hrrmed from the kitchen.

"Sorry, Carol," Wanda said, breathing a little labored. She motioned Captain Marvel into the apartment, shutting the door behind her. "I was in the middle of something." Wanda gave Carol a quick hug, then almost jogged back into the kitchen. A beat later, she stuck her head out into the foyer and beckoned with a hand. "This way!"

Carol Danvers

Carol lofted an eyebrow as her gaze came to rest on the rather frazzled-looking Wanda Maximoff who greeted her. Clad in parts of her ‘work’ attire, crimson corset and leather leggings, the Scarlet Witch was barefoot, gloveless and without headdress. Her hair, usually free and flowing, was tied in a hasty top-knot that sat atop her head, the odd curl loose in a wild and unpredictable coil. Her breathing was slightly laboured, and the odd ‘pant’ was audible between words as she motioned her blonde visitor into her apartment.

If she hadn’t been invited, Danvers would have assumed she’d come at a bad time.

“Don’t worry about it,” she responded to Wanda’s apology, her voice betraying her mild confusion. “You were clearly preoccupied…” With what, Carol didn’t have time to ask. As soon as the door was closed behind her, Maximoff stepped into Danvers and wrapped her in a hug. She barely had time to return it, managing the briefest of squeezes before Wanda detached herself and fled back toward the kitchen, leaving her guest somewhat dumbfounded - watching her go with her head tilted, brow raised and mouth slightly agape, unsure of whether-or-not she should follow.

It took only a few moments for the Scarlet Witch’s head to reappear, poked around the threshold between foyer and kitchen. “This way!” Carol followed her lead, stepping after her old friend, still brimming with questions. “You ok? Did I catch you mid-work out…?” Maybe she’d taken up Pilates in the time they’d been apart, and found her Avengers costume more comfortable than Yoga pants - it was about as fitted.

As Carol entered the room she’d been beckoned toward, her mouth dropped open in a quiet gawp and her eyes went wide. Strange scrolls lay open upon counter tops and Stark Tech holograms flickered, about which unfurling tendrils of smoke coiled and shifted. A crystal ball sat proudly at the centre of the room, and ancient tomes were stacked high either side of it, as if protecting it from prying eyes. “…Or something…” Danvers added to her earlier query – now confident that whatever she’d interrupted Wanda doing, it most certainly wasn’t some light cardio.

Wanda Maximoff

Wanda's black-painted nails slid down the margins of the scroll that still lay open, stopping underneath the passage she'd stopped at. She bit her lip gently, trying to process and digest the information before the context faded in her mind. She straightened, nodding in personal confirmation when Carol cautiously walked into the kitchen.

The sorceress took a deep breath, reorienting and smiling, tired, but bright. "Thanks for coming on such short notice. I knew I could count on you." There was, technically speaking, a long list of people that Wanda could've called on in the current situation. Technically. Carol was the first and only name that came to her mind, though.

The Scarlet Witch realized that an explanation was well in order, and with the last bit of the scroll properly retained, there was no better time than any. The problem was... "The situation's a bit knotted," Wanda confessed, trying to decide where best to begin. "I assume you know the tenuous state Atlantis is in with the surface world at the moment." Really, it was rhetorical. Carol was much more A-list and ingrained in superhero politics and goings-on than Wanda. If the Scarlet Witch knew, it was impossible for Captain Marvel not to.

"Well, apparently the X-Men came to believe very firmly that something alien has been influencing Namor's mind or emotions toward conflict. They investigated and found it was most likely magical in nature, then reached out to me from there." Wanda's hazel eyes glimmered as she explained, but the vague excitement of discovery and feeling useful was tempered with the gravity of the situation. Gravity that was the reason for reaching out to Carol at all.

"I think I've gathered the resources to counter it, but it will require some... directness. And I could use a chaperone who can go toe-to-toe with the Sub-Mariner, if the worst befalls." The Scarlet Witch gestured at Carol and smiled.

Carol Danvers

Carol picked her way toward Wanda cautiously, moving carefully through the kitchen, ducking under plumes of violet smoke and leaning about holographic projections, not wishing to disturb any of the ambient electronic witchcraft. She came to a halt upon reaching an unclaimed area of work top a few feet away from the brunette, and Carol leaned against it as nonchalantly as she could, arms folded, trying to look somewhat relaxed. Her interest in her surroundings, however, was obvious, as was her mild confusion.
“I like what you’ve done with the place…”

A few moments of silence passed as Wanda finished pouring over the open scroll before her, and then she turned, offering her fellow Avenger a tired smile.
"Thanks for coming on such short notice. I knew I could count on you."
Carol smiled and shrugged off her thanks. “Anytime.” And she meant it. It was incredibly heartening that, even after so many years working in rather different fields, the Scarlet Witch reached out to Captain Marvel above anyone else, as if no time had lapsed between them. Wanda had no shortage of options, any of the Avengers would have come to her aid, but she had chosen an old friend first and foremost. For someone who had, throughout their life, suffered crippling bouts of self-doubt, Carol found such instinctive trust incredibly reassuring.

“The situation’s a bit knotted…”
As Maximoff began to explain why she had need of Danvers, never had such an opening sentence been more apt. Tensions between Atlantis and the surface world were high, to put it mildly, and any news that involved Namor’s kingdom beneath the waves put heroes world over on edge. Conflict was brewing, and no matter the words of sense, peace or compromise spoken between opposing sides, it seemed almost inevitable that the sea would rise to try and claim the land.
“I’ve been informed…”

"Well, apparently the X-Men came to believe very firmly that something alien has been influencing Namor's mind or emotions toward conflict. They investigated and found it was most likely magical in nature, then reached out to me from there." Danvers nodded her understanding, the slightest of smiles tugging at the corner of her mouth. There was something captivating about the barely notable twinkle in Wanda’s hazel eyes – the glimmer of excitement that existed despite the gravity of the situation. It felt good to be useful, to be needed. Carol understood that all too well.

“So I’m your muscle?” Carol grinned almost playfully. “I throw punches while you bend time, space and matter to your whim, saving the Earth and everyone on it?” She let a pause pass between them for a moment, mock ‘thinking’ upon the request. “I’m in.” Then, she looked Wanda from head to foot, and back again, using her eyes to gesture at her half-uniformed self. “Are we…leaving now or have I got time for coffee?”

Wanda Maximoff

T h e n

A small flutter or relief went through her at Carol's answer. Wanda hadn't expected anything less, but hearing it made her feel so much better about the very tall order that stood in front of them. Her brow furrowed, confused, at Carol's once over, then glanced down at herself and laughed. "Our meeting isn't for a half hour. That will give me time to finish preparations just... Don't touch anything."

Wanda gave a significant, but not unkind look to Carol. In the home of a witch, the most unassuming everyday object could be misleading. She trusted the other woman not to let curiosity get the better of her, and didn't even wait for blatant confirmation before carrying out those preparations she'd mentioned. Twenty-nine minutes later, the Scarlet Witch stood over a teleportation diagram and smiled at Carol over her shoulder.

"Here goes-"

N o w

"-old on!" The rift in the air gave a brief glimpse of an underwater throne room and a whole force of security standing around the sea sorceress who'd been pulling the Sub-mariner's strings. Most terrifying of all, Namor himself loomed over her. So the witch and the pilot had succeeded... Somewhat. Outing the magical manipulation hadn't stopped their enemy from getting in one, last curse.

The curse, it so happened, rent a tear in the borders of dimensions and swallowed the Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel in it. Wanda saw the last look of the opposing magical practitioner getting run through with tridents. The portal snapped shut and she and Carol were free-falling through a sky of multicolored nebula and an alien, bizarre landscape below that was rushing up to meet them.

Carol Danvers

T h e n

Carol had turned toward what she assumed was a kettle when Wanda gave her strict instructions: not to touch anything. The pilot’s hand froze, hovering just above the apparatus’ metallic handle. Glancing back at the witch, whose hazel eyes were affixed on the Captain in a kind-yet-cautionary manner, she slowly withdrew her fingers. “The drink can wait…” And with that, she shoved her hands back into her pockets, stood in the most central part of the kitchen, and did her utmost not to lean against or nudge anything in the Scarlet Witch’s chaotic workspace.

Within half-an-hour, she had been summoned to Wanda’s side, and she peered over the other woman’s shoulder at the arcane diagram she’d drawn out. It made little sense to Carol, but she trusted in her friend’s competency enough to know, whatever it was designed to do, it would work flawlessly. “Here goes…” she murmured, repeating Wanda’s words with far less of an idea as to what was coming next.


N o w

The underwater throne room they’d inhabited was no more, the two heroes cast through a pulsating tear in reality. Behind them was left a sorceress of the deep, one who had been revealed to Namor the Sub-Mariner; one who had deceived and bewitched him, influencing his every action. Surrounded by Atleantean guards about to mete out a rather final punishment, she had uttered one last spell: a hex that had banished both Carol and Wanda to…well. Somewhere that most certainly wasn’t Earth.

The portal they’d been hurled through closed in their wake, and they plummeted through a sky dominated by twisting nebula, while the ground below – an alien landscape – awaited them hard and unflinching. Acting on instinct, Carol reached for her friend, taking hold of her waist and pulling her close. Once her grip about Wanda’s midriff was secure, she channelled the ambient energy stored within her person – that of the cosmos itself – and slowed the pairs’ descent.

They hit the ground with less force than they might have, but still with force enough to leave a small, Captain Marvel-sized crater. Carol had ensured she took the brunt of the impact, turning her back to the floor, allowing the Scarlet Witch to land atop her. As all-powerful as Wanda was, her body was far more fragile than the blonde’s. For a moment, Danvers lay in the dust their impact had kicked up, then groaned.

“Ouch.”

Wanda Maximoff