RUBILYKSKOYE INBOX.

[explosion]

TELEPATHY • HOLOGRAM • LETTERS • DELIVERIES • ACTION

✿ Rubi-telepathy (easy mode) feels different to ✦ Wanda-telepathy (hard mode).

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[rehandle]

[ A huff that's almost laughter, at the confession more than the reflection. The Duchess' expense more than Wanda's.

Stephen's past the point of sympathy for the woman who lives in her castle and sends others to fetch back all her missing pieces. So there's no frustration in his voice when he asks: ]

How?

[ Just genuine curiosity. What does it take to get evicted from the honors list while actively returning a chunk of heart? ]

[explosion]

[ Her face heats partly from shame. Would Stephen have made such a blunder? (Perhaps it's unfair to assume she and Stephen are so unalike when offering their skills to those who seem to need them most.) ]

I wanted to learn more about the magic here. She often asked us for help, so I offered to help her magically. To help her not be so reliant on all these organs. She didn't like that I positioned myself to be… on her level.

[ She needs a moment to control the anger that bubbles. Suppressing it caused the almost-destruction of Earth-838. Wanda's not sure if she wants to suppress it anymore.

So, she doesn't. When she thinks next, her words are thick and Slavic. She's upset. ]

So, she took something from me. I can't create anymore. I can't help anyone like I used to.

[rehandle]

[ Oh. What?

It takes him a second to really register. First the pettiness of what the Duchess had taken to be a slight, how easily offense could be clawed from the perception of threat... and then to understand the consequence.

She can't create. Power, stripped. From Wanda Maximoff of all people. His blood runs cold, then hot. ]

Did you recognise the method by which she stole from you?

[ His voice comes level, but there's a molten quality to it, magma rising. Any clue will start this moving. Any hint and he will set his mind to work around it. There's no use in apologising to her for the loss. The only thing to do now is to find a way to get it back. ]

[explosion]

No.

[ Despite the Darkhold's teachings, Wanda can't quite place it. She didn't suck the magic out of her like Agatha had tried. That would've made it easier to get it back.

Wanda's grateful he doesn't offer her a card of sympathy. What she's surprised to detect is anger from him. (Is it anger? She wants it to be anger. She's angry. If Stephen is angry, then it feels like her anger is justified. He's the most level-headed person she knows.) ]

But I think I will need to kiss her ass to get it back. I don't know what kind of magic she has, and I don't think trying to will it back to me is going to work. This place is built from different magic to ours. Mine has never worked quite the same as it did on our universe or even eight-three-eight.

[rehandle]

[ A long, heavy silence as he processes that. What Wanda lacks in formal training she more than makes up for in raw, intrinsic, terrible power. To find her reduced to sucking up, to asking nicely...

It should be a relief. That there's somebody, anybody, anywhere who has an edge. But the check on the Scarlet Witch these days is Wanda herself, and Stephen is not relieved. He's pissed. ]

Do what you have to do. If it doesn't work, we'll find another way.

[ We, because who else? ]

[explosion]

[ She doesn't wish to cry, so she doesn't. But something warm flutters in her chest. How long has she allowed her fear of becoming the monster she was, the monster Stephen refuses to describe her as, to keep her wedging distance between them?

He's not the enemy. Stephen never was, even though he fit it so perfectly in the original draft of her script. ]

I don't want you to get in trouble because of me, Stephen.

[ While noble, it's not worth it. It feels like something that needs to be said. She wants to say it. ]

But I will— [ Poignantly adds - ] and we will.

[ Thank you. ]