Agony (Wanda Maximoff)

Chapter 51

||I am both the things I've done to myself and the things done to me.||

"Could she feel us in her head?" Wanda asked Emma, and the White Queen shook her head. 

"Not unless we invoke pain on purpose," Emma sat against the glass, facing Wanda. "I never knew Sapphire had a daughter." On the other side of the glass, Katarina was touching the gold embers that surrounded her, and instead of burning her skin, they just glowed brighter. To those embers, Katarina was their queen. 

"It does not make sense," Wanda began. "Those were her memories, but she doesn't remember them." 

"Trask must have had something to do with Sapphire's disappearance. I saw the way she looked at Katarina, there is no way she would just leave her behind." Wanda shuddered at that theory, and she found herself hoping that Trask wouldn't stoop so low as to take away his daughter's mother--his wife.  "I do wish she was here, though, to help us with her," Emma eye's peered up to look at Katarina. The girl was staring back us, regular tears falling from her eyes. 

"Help me," she said, her eyes flashing gold with her flames. Wanda ached with helplessness, and she began to stand when the door down the hall opened up. A young man, one of the mutants, came in. Natasha followed close behind him, an  unreadable expression painted on her face. Wanda's eyes beamed, and she remembered the man with the metal arm, and how she wanted to ask Natasha about him. 

"Bobby," Emma said, standing up to join Wanda. "Is everything okay?" she asked him. 

"Captain wants me to go in there with her so she can call her dad. You guys won't be done with her by tomorrow, and if she calls him tonight telling him she won't be going home, then we won't have to worry about him." Wanda studied the young man, and her fingers itched as her magic begged to look into his head. "That if it's okay with you," he added, and Emma nodded her head. 

As Emma walked Bobby over to the sealed door that kept Katarina in, Wanda stepped over to Natasha. Without having to speak, Wanda could sense something wrong with Natasha, just by the way she stood. Her eyes weren't opened fully, and her shoulders were hunched--nothing like the Natasha who was always alert, always ready to defend. 

"Something is wrong," Wanda said to her, and Natasha flinched, as if just realizing Wanda was standing beside her. 

"I'm fine," Natasha told her, and Wanda frowned. She wasn't fine, it was obvious, but Wanda didn't push her. If Natasha didn't want to speak about it, then it wasn't going to be discussed. 

"I have a question," Wanda asked, deciding to change the subject. "That man in Bruce's lab, who is he?" Natasha looked at her, and actually gave her a smile. The man with the metal arm really was a friend. 

"His name is James, but, people call him Bucky." Wanda could see Natasha's eyes light up, as if she were talking about a true love of hers. "Steve and Bucky have been friends, god, forever I think." Wanda remembered the name, and the man, from Steve's memories.  Bucky was Steve's best friend. Yet, when she saw them together, they acted like strangers.

At the sound of the sealed door opening, Wanda turned, watching as Bobby walked into the room where Katarina was being kept. "He'll be fine," she heard Natasha say, but Wanda couldn't peel her eyes away. 

Bobby was cautious when approaching Katarina, and when she looked up at him, her eyes glowed. But her flames didn't consume her, not even her embers glowed at the sight of another person. The surprise seemed to shock Katarina as well, because she stood up from the floor, and bowed at Bobby. Wanda glanced over at Emma, who was watching with the same amazement. 

He began talking to Katarina, but his words were whispers, and Wanda could barely make out what he was telling her. But she grabbed the phone from his hand and dialed a number. "Do you think he will believe her?" Wanda asked Natasha.