in the night — inbox.

[hext]

WANDA MAXIMOFF
username: witch
age: 27
(the invincible, rm 303)

ＣＡＬＬ ✖ ＴＥＸＴ
ＶＩＤＥＯ ✖ ＡＣＴＩＯＮ

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( akshun ) - July 20? 21?

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas does turn up, but not within the first five minutes. Only after Gene has shut him down does he prowl to the church, looking for the tell-tale red glow of Wanda's lantern. ]

[hext]

[ and there she waits, more patiently than he deserves, but he's her acerbic naughty duckling and he has crimes to answer for. they can cuddle again after.

when he reaches the throw of her lantern's scarlet cast, she calls softly, ]

We have talked about Mary. Do we need to talk about her again?

[ there's a foreboding in that tone. the sort that means the child should not want a second talk with Mother. ]

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas, whose guardian was always a man that was both never and omni-present and ruled him like a dog meant for cage fighting, is unflinching in the face of her tone. anyone else might have taken it as a warning, but Vanitas just looks at her incredulously. ]

This is what you wanted to drag me all the way out here for?

[hext]

[ she walks toward him, until they are nearly toe to toe. her voice remains quiet, calm. ]

Among other things.

[ wanda reaches low and careful, into the billowing shadows that puff and dissolve around him. it's not holding his hand, but it's... something very distantly related. she channels her sorrow for his recent death, her dismay at him being discounted by those who don't know him, her anger at his recklessness, the unleashing of his rage and spite on a small girl and a large crowd. ]

Do not target her. And do not make a target of yourself. [ she looks into the odd glow of his eyes, her own flaring briefly. ] You will only die again, and it will be worse.

[evulsed]

[ What's strange is the way she can feed it back at him, that Vanitas doesn't need to reach for her despair and anger on his own. He's accustomed to causing this kind of strife, so he should feel proud of making her feel the way she does; that she offers up the negative emotion willingly, for him to siphon into his power.

Before waking up in the church, he might have.

Now, he raises his chin, meeting her red eyes without flinching, stubborn defiance rolling off of him in waves. But under it, a thread of something almost confused: Is she worried about him? Why bother? ]

Because you're going to kill me?

You think that makes you special?

[hext]

No.

[ it's barely a whisper, but it carries itself to him in the density of the summer night, humid and damp, not unlike condensation rolling down a sweating glass. not unlike a teardrop.

she comes closer still, into the shadows, threads her fingers through them like webbing and wool and midnight secrets you're afraid to admit to yourself. wanda gives all of this to him. her reproach for the anger he displays that is a shocking mirror of her younger self, yes, and her fear not of him, but for him. all the fear and worry and protectiveness she felt for him when he returned, screaming and shattered, something she hadn't — hasn't — known since pietro. ]

Because someone, or something else will.

[ they are toe to toe, now. ]

And I would be... less, if you were gone.

[evulsed]

[ So much of it he can't understand, and simply because he has no barometer with which to measure it against. Grief for another person, that warm sensation of wanting to keep someone from harm— it crawls all over him. Like the sluice of gentle water, and then like a thousand spiders, and then back again. She pieces through his darkness like there's nothing to be afraid of, like it isn't as abrasive and harsh as the desert he'd been forged in.

He's embarrassed, and uncomfortable, and without his defense ripped down as it had been in the church, it makes him recoil internally. He can't do what she does, he has no grasp of what a mental wall would be to try and protect himself from what she could know about him. Every emotion rolls through him with all the violence of a hurricane.

He holds her gaze, his defensiveness bleeding into aggression. It seems for all the world that he might just hit her to make her back off.

Finally, Vanitas gives. Not by stepping away, but by cutting his eyes to the side, a dog losing a staring contest, conceding the power to his Master. Instead, he looks at the dark outline of the town, cast into relief by the bonfire he can't see from where they stand. ]

What's the big deal? Death isn't permanent around here, anyway.

And that little girl isn't what she seems.