Intertwine

81 - She Is Family After All

Very slowly like before Roara turned her head to face Wanda. "Hey." She broke into a smile. It happened in slow motion again, like a film being moved to three quarters of the speed.

"I'm just going to read your mind, okay?" Wanda asked, shuffling her chair towards Roara.

Roara nodded. Wanda placed both hands on the sides of her head, flares of red flowing in between her fingers. Wanda closed her eyes and we all waited.

One minute went by. And then another. By minute three we were all getting restless. 

Wanda let go and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Well?" Bucky asked.

Wanda shook her head. "She's not... she's not thinking anything." 

It was Roara's mind that had so much information flooding it, while in a coma, that Wanda had had to stop after less than 30 seconds. Now she'd waited for 3 minutes and found... nothing?

"Wanda, what do you mean she's not thinking anything?" Rhodey asked from the end of the table. "As in nothing... nothing at all?"

"There must be something." Steve said. 

Wanda shook her head. "Nothing. No fears, no memories, no thoughts..."

"I haven't had any memories from her for a while." Aditi said from the back of the room. "They became fewer and fewer and now... I haven't had any for at least a week, if not more."

I looked at Loki. "Fine." Loki groaned, getting up. "I'll try."

"Why would you be able to do anything better?" Wanda challenged him, standing up.

Loki sighed and glanced at me. I nodded encouragingly. 

Loki grabbed the seat Wanda had just vacated, while his brother stood by his side, and sat down. "She did something a couple of weeks ago." Loki said finally. "Roara I mean. She said something that seemed to indicate..."

"It indicated that she was able to read Loki's mind without borrowing his powers, and didn't even know she'd just done it." I finished for him. He scowled at me. "What, it's true." I protested.

"It felt private." Loki snarled.

"So does her brain, but we're still trying to find out what's going on with it. I mean look at her," I held out my hand towards her. She had her head tilted, smiling vaguely at Thor. "We're talking about her as though she's not even here, and she can't even hear us!"

Loki pulled his seat the other way so that he was sitting on it backwards, the way Tony always did, and pulled himself closer to Roara.

He cupped her face in his hands. "Hello my love." He said gently.

Her eyes drifted from Thor to Loki, and finally a sense of Roara came back to her face, a sort of clarity. "Why do you look so sad?" She asked him.

"No reason darling, I'm just going to check something, okay?"

"Okay." She said softly. "I trust you."

Loki looked like he was about to cry, but he shook off his emotion, schooling his face into one of passive interest. He pressed a thumb to her forehead and closed his eyes. A few minutes later he opened them again and got off his chair, pacing around the room.

"What?" Thor asked.

"It doesn't make sense." He replied, sounding agitated.

"What doesn't?" Thor pushed.

"Her memories, I found some, but..." he shook his head, "not many."

"Like amnesia?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Not like amnesia. Actually..." He stopped pacing. "Rat, can you come here a second?"