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[unquiets]

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"You've reached David. Leave a message after the tone."

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[unquiets]

What can they be used for?
Other than... What you went through.

( transcend time and space. sounds like an alternative to trying to find a time traveller, although—
probbaly not something that exists on his earth, given everything. )

Mm.
Doesn't excuse some of the choices I made.

Since Clockworks.

[carmesi]

I guess they manipulate things? I don't know. Thor would know, but.
He left to find out more. Maybe he told Steve if he ever came back.

( yes, thor. dwbi. )

The one Hydra had was the Mind Stone. It's now what gives life to a friend of mind back home. Makes him sentient.

( another dwbi. weirdly, this is not something she has felt compelled to talk with anyone else, worried of what it may bring up if she asked steve or clint directly. or bucky, even. there's no pressure in telling david, because he knows absolutely nothing about this. )

Clockworks, the hospital place? That definitely has massage learning classes?
I won't judge. I'm sure it wasn't without complications.

( this really is how they learn about each other. )

[unquiets]

Like, the god, Thor?

( there is, notably, a moment of what? that transitions into okay that transitions into— )

Was he an Avenger?

( there's a delay between responses that could be david trying to work out what 'gives sentience' looks like, what that means, or it could be him working out how (if) he wants to respond to that second part. or both.

(—is that why she mentioned about 'creating life'?)
(he'll come back to it, probably.) )

Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital, yes. I was lying. But there was dayroom time, bad films, and a lot of therapy broken up by however many doses of meds someone else decided you needed to be to be some level of not crazy.
Do you mean psych wards or being a junkie wasn't without complications?

[carmesi]

From Asgard. Yes. And yes.
We fought together against the thing that destroyed my home. He does use a hammer and thunder.

( bet what he thought about her 'work' and 'the avengers' is different from what she's portraying here. )

I know that you lied about the massages.
Six years, the same schedule?
I meant the choices that you made.

[unquiets]

Gods don't exist where I'm from. Not like that.

( does he consider himself a god? sort of. not like that and not in the way that farouk means it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't consider himself—

—well. it's complicated. )

Meaningfully? Same enough.
That's easy to say when you don't know what they were.

[carmesi]

Technically he isn't from Earth. And he's only a god because of the powers that he has.

( but, this isn't a debate about that. )

Do you think I'll take back all I've said to you if I know what they were?

[unquiets]

( only a god because of the powers he has. )

There's... The Shi'ar. They're not from Earth. Doesn't make them gods.

( do they have powers? david doesn't actually know. )

I've made mistakes, the kind that deserve apologies and forgiveness, the kind that you have to spend time working on yourself after.
I'm not going to pretend there's not a chance.
People surprise you.
But they surprise themselves more often.

[carmesi]

( what are shi'ars... wanda, again, is not gonna debate the god topic. )

Well一you work on that.
The David that I know is not one I need absolved from all his mistakes to like.
Whatever it is: I won't judge. I won't change my mind either. I said as much.

[unquiets]

( it's not about being liked, it's about being a good person. and that, in what it means for and to david, is more complicated. it's about the difference between david, and what david did because of farouk; absolution isn't what he's after, it's acceptance — which, it turns out, is tricky when you don't accept or like or love yourself.

but david's willingness to look at that critically is thin, so— wanda's words are the right ones, and he's willing to accept them (for now), but that doesn't mean they won't get revisited later. )

Is that a promise?

[carmesi]

Yes.

Worthy enough of a star for myself, even.

( she only half jests, but hopes that it lands. that she takes this "promise" seriously; that whatever this is between them means something to her, something important, it bears its own weight that she is more than willing to balance.

so, a little more soberly, no jesting, )

I promise.

[unquiets]

You don't get to award yourself stars.

[carmesi]

Consider it a suggestion.

( whatever! )

[unquiets]

I'll take it under advisement.
And... Keep in mind the bias of the suggestee.

[carmesi]

I won't keep my hopes up.



I meant it.

( the promise )

[unquiets]

I'm fair.

I know.

[carmesi]

( so long as he knows it. )

You're distracting me.
I have costumers.

See you later.

[unquiets]

( he's distracting her? as he recalls, she's the one that reached out to him but, in her defence, he doesn't have a job. he hasn't even been looking, that'd just been an easy out, an unasked-for fabrication of how he's been spending his time so she doesn't ask. panorama might not be the largest city, but it's large enough, and he's content enough to explore it without needing to offer any kind of explanation, no matter how innocent.

david hadn't precisely lied when he'd said he's looking at this as a second chance, but that's not the whole truth, either. he still wants (needs) to get back. a want and a need to fix things. it's just that without farouk, without D3 breathing down his neck, being able to take his time — as he had been before — is more appealing than the situation he'd been forced into.

when he gets back to the apartment, he's later than the 'maybe an hour' he'd suggested, but there's no-one here it'd matter to. true to his word, though, he doesn't touch the waffle batter.

(he doesn't even look at it. it's batter.)

he still doesn't have keys — mostly, perhaps, because he hasn't thought to ask — and as per, he teleports in. his boots, this time, get left in his room rather than by the front door. there's little sign in any of the shared spaces that's david here at all, except, perhaps, the thrum of psychic energy that likely only wanda can pick up on.

(it doesn't occur to him that he'd never returned her 'see you later' with any kind of a goodbye.) )

[carmesi]

( the lack of a goodbye doesn't matter to wanda. the thrum of this connection between them remains, even when there are no words being exchanged—no thoughts, per se. david may return later than 'maybe an hour', but wanda's shift lasts even longer than an hour, and it's not until the sun is starting to set that she finally makes it to the lobby, keying herself in and calling for the lift. she also doesn't want david to feel like he owes explanations or needs to tell her (for her sake) what he is up to; she will wonder, of course, when there are matters that they could sort out together (like waffle-making), but it's not an expectation.

in the elevator, up to her floor, and out— she walks down the hallway to the apartment door, and the keys jingle as she turns them around and over. she closes the door, toes off her boots, and makes her way to the kitchen, turning on a lamp as she goes. she doesn't need to call out: she knows david is here, even without his boots by the front door. it's impossible to not notice his presence. her own psychic energy is likely caught on, too, but there's no clash. like two cats bumping heads against each other in recognition.

placing her rucksack on the kitchen counter, she pulls out a number of things wrapped in bags and sets them aside. here she goes about her business, turning on the light in the kitchen, washing her hands and moving things about in the living room space. they hadn't moved the items in the car last night, but wanda went through the effort of it after she had returned from the groceries (having completely forgotten that the trunk of the car's in the front—), so the waffle maker sits on top of the fridge; david's belongings were left on the couch, along with the blanket, wine, and glasses from last night. an easy flick of her wrist has the waffle maker levitating and moving down easy onto the counter, just as she turns to her cassette player, foreign music rolling out after pressing the PLAY button, a mix of what she recognizes as something like spanish.

waffle batter out of the fridge, she's going to let it sit for a moment to get to room temperature. in the meantime, wanda will be organizing the items she's brought from the store.

wanda figures he'll join her whenever he wants, and that's fine by her. )

[unquiets]

( he knows when she gets back. it's not about the jingle of keys, the click of the lock, or even the sound of her movements. hearing her isn't quite hearing at all, it's more awareness — presence and space being taken up by something that wasn't there before, someone that isn't him, but not in that way.

the walls in the apartment are thicker than the paper thin walls (and floors and ceilings) that'd made up the motel, the ones where his neighbour just needed to go from bedroom to bathroom and the creak of door hinges would wake him; or one of his other neighbours would run the taps and it'd sound close enough to be from his room. but though the sanctum may be better, the walls are still thin enough that he can hear her move from lounge to kitchen, hear the click of plastic as she swaps out a cassette, the thunk of the button before the music starts up.

for a moment, then two, then three, then four, he just listens. he doesn't recognise the music, but it sounds like something he might've listened to at one point. not necessarily by choice, it's a bit too melodramatic for that, but something someone else might've put on and he'd have been too lazy to turn off. he notices, too, that she doesn't sing along.

(what he hasn't noticed is his stuff on the sofa, left in a neat pile.)

when he leaves his room, it's with quiet, sock-clad footsteps. he stands in the doorway of the kitchen, attention split between her and the music. )

—New Wave?

[carmesi]

I think so.

( buying cassette tapes is something of a fun activity, especially when picking tapes out from a random pile with no labels nor list of songs. maybe that's why they're just worth one joolie. she likes this tape in particular because of the synth sounds; not quite like the rave those many months ago, but close enough.

she puts away the new (old) set of silverware into the drawer, putting away from dishes and glasses up on the cupboard. she picks out a piece of paper, raising her hand out to him. )

The only star stickers I found. ( wanda spent some time during the quiet in the store to put all the stickers from a different collection altogether onto one page. some things are clearly not stars, but, eh— ) Unless you can create more?

( a glance, and a smile. )

Want to help me with the waffles?

[unquiets]

( the cassette continues to play, and david moves on to ignoring it. music's never been easy for him, tones and sounds fighting against the rest of the noise in his head to make everything worse. it's not everything, of course — there's music he likes, music he'd actively choose to listen to, but there's a lot that just grates. this, fortunately, isn't that. that, though, is why he's more selective when it comes to the whole cassettes for sale thing.

his attention, then, is more on the (kind of questionable) sheet of stickers she's come home with. he eyes them, the corners of his mouth quirking momentarily. some of them are stars; very few of them are the sort of stars he'd been envisioning. could he make more? maybe. that'd be cheating though.

he steps forward into the kitchen to pluck the sheet of stickers from her. he mirrors her smile, before turning to the fridge and pinning the sheet with a magnet. it's square, and the photograph held underneath faded, dull plastic is of a field that certainly isn't panorama; the text overlay is, fortunately, blurred and almost unreadable unless squinting. (don't squint.) )

I told you, I don't cheat.

( they'd never quite settled on that, though, had they? )

What do you need?

[carmesi]

—sounds like something a cheater would say.

( no, they had not quite settled on that, and it's starting to become something of an inside joke: either none of them cheat or the both of them cheat, or one will cheat when the other doesn't. wanda shrugs; guess her quest for more star stickers will continue. there are other stores she could try out.

making space on the counter proper, tossing her rucksack on the couch, wanda brings the bowl with the batter closer to herself and uses a spoon to stir it. mix it up some more. left hand around the curve of the bowl, it's still kind of fridge-cold. )

Just need it to warm up a bit, and then we connect the waffle-maker. Can you get the cooking spray? ( she motions with a tilt of her chin ) Cupboard.

( he's tall enough, he can reach it (not that wanda couldn't, using her telekinesis or sheer will alone). a ploy, surely, so that not only can he find the cooking spray, but also note the three boxes of cereal she managed to find; blue, like the image he had shown her, but without any familiar brand name. definitely not frosted flakes, but there's a lot of sugar on them, and the picture on the front depicts cut strawberries and the rolled oats. should he inspect it, he'll find: a tiger. her best effort yet. on all three of them!

also, the boxes seem to be opened already.

casually, though he'll definitely be able to tell that it's anything but casual, )

Oh, yeah. I found those, too.

[unquiets]

( she explains what she's doing like, at any point, this is going to be a situation where it's david bothering to prepare the batter. it's not. still, he does as directed when she requests he get the cooking spray, turning to the cupboard and—

three boxes of blue cereal. the blue's not quite right, and david hasn't paid enough attention to the nutrition label of frosted flakes to know how these match up other than thanks to wanda's assertion about the eleven grams of sugar. there's a quiet tap of the bottle of cooking spray hitting the counter, quickly followed by the sound of cardboard doing exactly the same thing.

at the sight of the tiger, he laughs. )

What were they, buy two, get one free? ( a sidelong glance. ) You enjoy this.

[carmesi]

( three is a pretty random number to get. why not even it out to four? wanda hadn't put too much thought to it, and it wasn't a 'but two, get one free' deal, either. she keeps mixing for a few more seconds, until she figures it's about enough. )

I don't know what you're talking about. All you asked for was cereal, so—

( she had to make sure it was worthy of the 'frosted flakes' status. even if it isn't. wanda pushes bowl and cooking spray aside, going around him on the counter to busy herself with the waffle maker.

he might well be able to tell, through this connection between them (or maybe only due to wanda's general eagerness for him to notice it) that there's more to the cardboard boxes. there's a hand-drawn tiger on them, yes, but there's also a flimsy effort in closing up the top lids. inside, the plastic bag sealing the cereal is untampered with, but there's something else within the box. would it be better if he just got the surprise when he served himself cereal, whenever? sure, but.

with the waffle maker plugged in, it seems like it'll bring itself up to the heat it needs to be before adding the batter. another non-casual casual statement, )

You could check the inside to make sure it's what you asked for.

( very subtle. inside one of the boxes, there's a patch, the kind one irons onto their clothes or a rucksack. the other two contain slightly more exciting finds, such as a wooden toy whistle and a pinball toy game. she really went into some obscure store for these. whether he sees one or all, wanda's going to feel a bit smug about it, though anticipating a favorable response from him. i'm not 10, yes, but it's not about her trying to make him feel like a child. )

—I thought it should be the whole experience.

( i got you prizes already, she had also said. wanda is bad at surprises. )

[unquiets]

( the look he shoots her is one of light incredulity when she says she doesn't know what he's talking about, the pretence of it all. it may not even be that she's as bad at pretending as she seems — it's clear that she's put effort into this, even if his request for frosted flakes hadn't been as serious as to warrant all this, and so the spillover is almost expected, regardless of the connection between the two of them.

from him, there's a low bubble of curiosity and excitement, edged with something a little like affection. he could tell her that he doesn't need to check the contents of the boxes, that he trusts her. that wouldn't be fair, though, so—

he presses the sides of one of the boxes, the loosely closed opening with a subtle pop of cardboard. half on top of plastic, half slipped down the side of the box is a ridiculous game that definitely looks like it originally came from something like this, even if wanda's had to pull together her own homebrew variation.

there's a crinkle of plastic from the wrapping as he pulls the toy out, and that's followed by a thunk as he pulls down the lever. he doesn't wait to see where the balls land, instead turning round to lean back against the counter and— )

You know you didn't have to, right?