[the question is a little unusual, and while wanda is not surprised at his just asking it,it’s curious that henry would ask it at all. she is sure, though, that he has a reason for it.]
[He asks because he's not sure how she'd take to the idea he's spinning in his head. One that hasn't taken form, but threatens to, given his recent discontent.
A pause. He supposes it would beat being dead, and his brows raise.]
...Wondering how much you'd be willing to fight for it. Or if you'd rather claw your way back home; though I suppose not, if you don't have anything waiting for you back on your world.
Sometimes, I just think we're being complacent.
[He's a fellow villain, so perhaps she would understand his restlessness. His dislike for being kept in a cage.]
[the issue here is that wanda’s keeping to herself (and a select few) the idea that she wants to return home, but in her own terms, with her own variables as far as the return trip would go.
but it’s interesting to hear what henry has to say, unfiltered, almost.]
More aggressively looking for a way back home. We were nothing short of kidnapped to begin with, trapped here whether we like it or not. I'm tired of being kept in a prisons.
[And that, of course, is the sticking point. He will always feel trapped, no matter how much more "freedom" he's been given here versus the lab.]
If the veil's already so thin to begin with, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.
[wanda stares at henry for a long time, keeps her gaze on him—and doesn't falter. she knows that they agreed that they wouldn't dig into each other's minds (the action futile, anyway, given how they'd both be able to quickly remove the other's intrusion the second they recognized it was there).
but that still leaves this certainty that there is... a lot that they are keeping from one another, about themselves.]
And you want my help.
[wouldn't that make sense, since they both managed to grab hold of whatever was just behind the veil and tugged it into their current reality.]
I like you, Henry. [that's no secret] And I don't need to know your most guarded secrets, but I can't — figure you out.
[this darkness, thrumming, quickly dismissed with a dark sense of humor. there's more than that here, isn't there?]
[Maybe so. Even in the pit, where Henry had made much of his anger known, others did not know the depths of which it ran -- nor why it existed, where it came from. Henry remains unassuming on purpose; an enigma and a "weirdo" to most, but harmless.
But the reality is one that Wanda can sense, something darker churning beneath. And much the same way, he doesn't know the extent of her story, either. Her predilection towards taking action, even if others tells her no. Even if a balance is slightly upset.
Otherwise, he'd not be asking. He'd be assuming. And he doesn't have enough information to assume.]
Well...
[He considers her with a tilting head, a pointed gaze.]
If there's something you want to know, something you want to make clearer... Then ask. I'll be honest.
[And for this one conversation, at least, he means it.]
[and perhaps that is the issue, that they both can only just about assume, navigate these waters without enough information to even do so properly. henry offers and it would be so easy to just shut this down, tell him that there is no good in looking for answers where he is looking for them.
but wanda—
wanda's never been one for the normal, for following the rules, for situating herself within the margins of what is expected of her.
(why should power be feared? why remain chained under the weight of expectations from others much weaker? a voice in her head churns out, and wanda doesn't try to shut that down either.]
I want you to show me.
[—a pause—]
The prisons you were kept in. Why you were kept there.
[I want you to show me. Somehow, that almost makes a light laugh gutter out of him. That would be easier, wouldn't it? It would be more visceral. But no one here has managed even close to that much from Henry; no one's even wandered into his Horizon domain except the rare times in which he's ushered them there, and of course all the unflattering things were kept at bay.
But this is different. Either she will help him or she won't. Either she'll grab hold of the power that's available to them as Summoned--or maybe just the power that's available to them by way of being Wanda Maximoff and Henry Creel--and use it to their benefit, or she'll stay her hand.
Opening up his mind means putting all the cards out on the table. Offering some trust. So, he'll roll that die and see where it leads him.]
All right.
[He taps at his temple, and perhaps she'll feel the walls lowering. A mental door gently opening.]
[the walls lower with two simple words, all right, and suddenly there's a flood of noise—thoughts, emotion, words, images—that had never filtered out before. wanda blinks several times to align herself, to settle in how this tips her world sideways, and braces for a walk through henry creel's mind.
the white fluorescent light above her is too bright, even as it blinks and crackles, making wanda squint her eyes for a moment. the world around her is dark, but slowly shapes start to form.
it's a long corridor, narrow and clinical, and it smells of antiseptic.
this is henry's world, right now.
wanda turns her head to the side to find him standing beside her, nonchalant and with his usual smile plastered on his face.]
[Ah, yes. The cold, cold stretch of HNL unfurl before them. Those buzzing lights above, the tiled floors. Closed doors open closed doors, little rooms suited for the children who would spend years of their lives here. It was the only world they knew.
There's nothing warm and comforting about this place. And yet it was his home for so, so long. Twenty years of imprisonment.
But not his only home.]
I will. First, we need to go just a little... further back.
[They'll come back here, have no worry. He smiles at Wanda as the room shifts yet again, those cold walls of the lab melting away and being replaced by a much warmer, much homier interior. They stand in the middle of a room, a fire blazing in the hearth.
A man sits in a chair, reading the paper. Across from that, sits a woman next to a little girl, who threads her fingers through the child's hair to begin pleating it into a braid. The girls laughs, goes on and on about something at school. The mother smiles and listens, commenting occasionally with genuine interest.]
This is... was, my father, my mother, and my older sister. Here, in my old family home.
[But where's little Henry, in this visage of the past?]
[wanda follows after henry, all too aware that he is the one in control of his memories. it isn't like when wanda traversed her own suppressed memories alongside agatha; at that time, wanda had kept all of it under lock and key. henry is clearly fully in control, here.
though she watches the scene of the family unfurl before her, she does have that very question: where is little henry?
something makes her look up, to the ceiling. somehow, she knows there's a second floor to this home.]
[He nods. There’s certainly no need to hide his presence up above them, hidden in the attic; a psychic with keen senses would be able to know where the younger version of himself nestles himself away, and Wanda is more than just a powerful psychic, after all.]
That’s right. I didn’t spend a lot of time with the rest of my family when we moved here. I was…
[He trails off, something about Henry’s pride making the word stick in his throat. But being in his head, his memory, the feeling resonates like a subtle vibration in the air: unhappy.]
Come on. I’ll show you.
[And just like that, the environment warbles, and instead of the cozy comfort of the living area, they stand on the wooden flooring of the attic above. The ceiling is high and mottled with unreachable cobwebs in the corner. But in the center of this place, lit by a small lamp, is a workspace propped atop a short table. A young boy of about twelve sits crossed-legged beside it, pencil in hand, sketching out something in a notebook. Textbooks sit neatly in a stack beside him. It’s apparent he was working on schoolwork, or at least just finishing up.]
I liked it up here, anyway. The company was better.
[And, on the other side of that squat table, glistens a handful of glass jars. Leaves and twigs can be seen from within, as well as little black, eight-legged creatures ambling up and down their new enclosures.]
[it's with a sense of uncertainty that wanda allows herself to follow after him, the warbling of the environment leaving behind an image of a family life that she, herself, longs to be embraced by again. and yet they stand here like opposites, perhaps, in how henry pulled away from it while wanda looked forward to it every moment she had been allowed.
to recluse himself from his family, he really must have been it — unhappy.]
I remember this.
[she says, quietly, approaching young henry and glancing down at his schoolwork.]
When you first arrived and you were caught in the rain weeding out the garden, I saw this. [back when they both hadn't made an agreement to not venture into each other's minds.] You kept spiders in glass jars.
[but that still doesn't explain something.]
How did you go from here to that other place? You had a family. A home.
[except wanda knows what it takes to put children in a clinical place. still, she waits for him to either tell her or show him.]
[If she draws close enough, she will see a young Henry sketching out spiders in the margins of his notes, too; it seems this infatuation with the arachnids had become a fixation and one he's never quite shaken off. Or ever wanted to.]
Unknown to the rest of my family, this house is where I discovered my powers.
[The lead of little Henry's pencil breaks, and he frowns down at it. With a wave of his hand, he brings a small, silver pencil sharpening floating his way. The lights flicker dimly overhead.]
And with discovery required practice. In secret. In ways they wouldn't have approved of.
[Here, she experiences flashes of disjointed memory. His sister, Alice, waking up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, screaming. His mother, seeing an illusion of black widows spiders crawling out from the drain of a bathtub. Even, unfortunately, the corpses of small, dead animals littered in the yard.]
[wanda likes henry. he is odd, but he's one of the few—or only—her age here in solvunn that shares aptitude with powers of the mind. she feels a sense of kinship, beyond that, to how she's always been labelled "weird", for henry too holds on to certain aspects of that, even as she sees the sketching of spiders in the margins of his notes.
but there's something worrying about all this.
with the flashes of what could (and should) be labelled as torturing ones family with these powers that he had to practice using. wanda would never force such a thing on her own family.
—which is why she takes a leaf out of agatha's book, and draws further in, towards a door out of the room.]
Let's go further in.
[an exercise in trust, this, she realizes, putting a handle to the door handle and pushing it open, further into henry's mind. his past, his memories, his motivations.]
[An exercise in trust, indeed. But he doesn't mind her taking charge, pushing that door open. He follows, even, knowing what will be there, but curious to see what she'll think.]
This was the night it all came to a head.
[And before her is a scene, should she open that door and push past the threshold. She's still in the house, and Henry follows quietly after, into the dining room. The radio plays a song.
But strewn on the floor is his mother's body, twisted with broken bones, eyes bleeding from being pushed back into her skull. She looks not unlike a doll, contorted and thrown aside by an angry child.
In the main hallway, leading out from the dining room, sounds of sobbing.]
The night before I was taken away. [A beat, and a concession that seems... cruel, for what its focus centers on.] In retrospect, I didn't think it through too well.
[the thing that wanda realizes, in this moment, amidst the sight of his mother's broken body and the sobbing of whom she can only imagine is his sister, is that henry didn't need to show her this.
she glances away from the sight, to stare at henry with hardened eyes.
there's something under the surface. something broken, but also marred with so much darkness, it's almost hard to place with henry's usual clean and neat demeanor.]
[How much time do you have, Wanda. Henry is a well of misanthropy and anger churning below the surface, and within that is so much cruelty he would just love to displace upon the world.
But she's asking about this moment specifically, isn't she? He meets her gaze with ease, blue eyes unblinking.]
I never wanted to be here, in this small town. As if moving here would have changed anything from before. And even then, it wasn't enough for my parents. My mother, especially.
[Her broken body lies before them, as if proof of that.]
They wanted to send me away. To "fix" me. As if I was just trash to be tossed out, becoming someone else's problem.
[wanda could sympathize, here and there, with henry’s plight, what with similarities churnign so close to the surface between them, but she gets it now — his selfish nature, that unrelenting want to just destroy because he can and nothing else. whatever would she have given to live in a home like his, to be delighted by the comforts offered in safety and familial warmth?
she glances away.]
And you still were sent away.
[not as his parents had planned, perhaps, but in another way entirely. the walls dissolve from the warmth of mahogany and the orange glow of lamps, like paint dripping down from the ceiling—white and cold static.]
[The scene begins its transition, the walls dripping, dripping, revealing only white walls and the fluorescent buzz of the light above. The hallway shifts and then solidifies completely.]
The government did, technically. But...
[Footsteps echoing down the hall, distant, but drawing nearer.]
He had us call him "Papa." Would you like to meet him?
[the place feels familiar in essence alone, in how it is a place devoid of any human warmth; meant to be only a place to contain subjects at the mercy of the government or, in her own experience, scientists with a streak towards committing war crimes.
in her case, wanda is grateful that von strucker never had her and pietro call him anything remotely close to ‘papa’. the idea alone, for henry’s experience, sounds dreadful.]
Sounds like a sick man. [she’d like to put a ‘name’ to a face.] Show me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[He says with a thin smile, wry beneath his politeness, but not at all worried if Wanda interprets it as acerbic. One more sip of his tea.]
Let's put that thought on hold for a moment. Can I ask you something? [He's gonna anyway.] Are you happy here?
no subject
Beats being dead.
[—back home, and considering what she has here.]
Why do you ask?
no subject
A pause. He supposes it would beat being dead, and his brows raise.]
...Wondering how much you'd be willing to fight for it. Or if you'd rather claw your way back home; though I suppose not, if you don't have anything waiting for you back on your world.
Sometimes, I just think we're being complacent.
[He's a fellow villain, so perhaps she would understand his restlessness. His dislike for being kept in a cage.]
no subject
but it’s interesting to hear what henry has to say, unfiltered, almost.]
What exactly do you have in mind?
no subject
More aggressively looking for a way back home. We were nothing short of kidnapped to begin with, trapped here whether we like it or not. I'm tired of being kept in a prisons.
[And that, of course, is the sticking point. He will always feel trapped, no matter how much more "freedom" he's been given here versus the lab.]
If the veil's already so thin to begin with, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.
no subject
but that still leaves this certainty that there is... a lot that they are keeping from one another, about themselves.]
And you want my help.
[wouldn't that make sense, since they both managed to grab hold of whatever was just behind the veil and tugged it into their current reality.]
I like you, Henry. [that's no secret] And I don't need to know your most guarded secrets, but I can't — figure you out.
[this darkness, thrumming, quickly dismissed with a dark sense of humor. there's more than that here, isn't there?]
no subject
But the reality is one that Wanda can sense, something darker churning beneath. And much the same way, he doesn't know the extent of her story, either. Her predilection towards taking action, even if others tells her no. Even if a balance is slightly upset.
Otherwise, he'd not be asking. He'd be assuming. And he doesn't have enough information to assume.]
Well...
[He considers her with a tilting head, a pointed gaze.]
If there's something you want to know, something you want to make clearer... Then ask. I'll be honest.
[And for this one conversation, at least, he means it.]
no subject
but wanda—
wanda's never been one for the normal, for following the rules, for situating herself within the margins of what is expected of her.
(why should power be feared? why remain chained under the weight of expectations from others much weaker? a voice in her head churns out, and wanda doesn't try to shut that down either.]
I want you to show me.
[—a pause—]
The prisons you were kept in. Why you were kept there.
[—and beyond, if he'd allow.]
no subject
But this is different. Either she will help him or she won't. Either she'll grab hold of the power that's available to them as Summoned--or maybe just the power that's available to them by way of being Wanda Maximoff and Henry Creel--and use it to their benefit, or she'll stay her hand.
Opening up his mind means putting all the cards out on the table. Offering some trust. So, he'll roll that die and see where it leads him.]
All right.
[He taps at his temple, and perhaps she'll feel the walls lowering. A mental door gently opening.]
Then come in. I can show you from the beginning.
no subject
the white fluorescent light above her is too bright, even as it blinks and crackles, making wanda squint her eyes for a moment. the world around her is dark, but slowly shapes start to form.
it's a long corridor, narrow and clinical, and it smells of antiseptic.
this is henry's world, right now.
wanda turns her head to the side to find him standing beside her, nonchalant and with his usual smile plastered on his face.]
Lead the way.
[from the beginning, he had said.]
no subject
There's nothing warm and comforting about this place. And yet it was his home for so, so long. Twenty years of imprisonment.
But not his only home.]
I will. First, we need to go just a little... further back.
[They'll come back here, have no worry. He smiles at Wanda as the room shifts yet again, those cold walls of the lab melting away and being replaced by a much warmer, much homier interior. They stand in the middle of a room, a fire blazing in the hearth.
A man sits in a chair, reading the paper. Across from that, sits a woman next to a little girl, who threads her fingers through the child's hair to begin pleating it into a braid. The girls laughs, goes on and on about something at school. The mother smiles and listens, commenting occasionally with genuine interest.]
This is... was, my father, my mother, and my older sister. Here, in my old family home.
[But where's little Henry, in this visage of the past?]
no subject
though she watches the scene of the family unfurl before her, she does have that very question: where is little henry?
something makes her look up, to the ceiling. somehow, she knows there's a second floor to this home.]
Are you up there?
[she can feel it—feel him.]
no subject
That’s right. I didn’t spend a lot of time with the rest of my family when we moved here. I was…
[He trails off, something about Henry’s pride making the word stick in his throat. But being in his head, his memory, the feeling resonates like a subtle vibration in the air: unhappy.]
Come on. I’ll show you.
[And just like that, the environment warbles, and instead of the cozy comfort of the living area, they stand on the wooden flooring of the attic above. The ceiling is high and mottled with unreachable cobwebs in the corner. But in the center of this place, lit by a small lamp, is a workspace propped atop a short table. A young boy of about twelve sits crossed-legged beside it, pencil in hand, sketching out something in a notebook. Textbooks sit neatly in a stack beside him. It’s apparent he was working on schoolwork, or at least just finishing up.]
I liked it up here, anyway. The company was better.
[And, on the other side of that squat table, glistens a handful of glass jars. Leaves and twigs can be seen from within, as well as little black, eight-legged creatures ambling up and down their new enclosures.]
no subject
to recluse himself from his family, he really must have been it — unhappy.]
I remember this.
[she says, quietly, approaching young henry and glancing down at his schoolwork.]
When you first arrived and you were caught in the rain weeding out the garden, I saw this. [back when they both hadn't made an agreement to not venture into each other's minds.] You kept spiders in glass jars.
[but that still doesn't explain something.]
How did you go from here to that other place? You had a family. A home.
[except wanda knows what it takes to put children in a clinical place. still, she waits for him to either tell her or show him.]
no subject
[If she draws close enough, she will see a young Henry sketching out spiders in the margins of his notes, too; it seems this infatuation with the arachnids had become a fixation and one he's never quite shaken off. Or ever wanted to.]
Unknown to the rest of my family, this house is where I discovered my powers.
[The lead of little Henry's pencil breaks, and he frowns down at it. With a wave of his hand, he brings a small, silver pencil sharpening floating his way. The lights flicker dimly overhead.]
And with discovery required practice. In secret. In ways they wouldn't have approved of.
[Here, she experiences flashes of disjointed memory. His sister, Alice, waking up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, screaming. His mother, seeing an illusion of black widows spiders crawling out from the drain of a bathtub. Even, unfortunately, the corpses of small, dead animals littered in the yard.]
no subject
but there's something worrying about all this.
with the flashes of what could (and should) be labelled as torturing ones family with these powers that he had to practice using. wanda would never force such a thing on her own family.
—which is why she takes a leaf out of agatha's book, and draws further in, towards a door out of the room.]
Let's go further in.
[an exercise in trust, this, she realizes, putting a handle to the door handle and pushing it open, further into henry's mind. his past, his memories, his motivations.]
no subject
This was the night it all came to a head.
[And before her is a scene, should she open that door and push past the threshold. She's still in the house, and Henry follows quietly after, into the dining room. The radio plays a song.
But strewn on the floor is his mother's body, twisted with broken bones, eyes bleeding from being pushed back into her skull. She looks not unlike a doll, contorted and thrown aside by an angry child.
In the main hallway, leading out from the dining room, sounds of sobbing.]
The night before I was taken away. [A beat, and a concession that seems... cruel, for what its focus centers on.] In retrospect, I didn't think it through too well.
no subject
she glances away from the sight, to stare at henry with hardened eyes.
there's something under the surface. something broken, but also marred with so much darkness, it's almost hard to place with henry's usual clean and neat demeanor.]
Did they do anything to upset you?
[what else would explain this?]
no subject
But she's asking about this moment specifically, isn't she? He meets her gaze with ease, blue eyes unblinking.]
I never wanted to be here, in this small town. As if moving here would have changed anything from before. And even then, it wasn't enough for my parents. My mother, especially.
[Her broken body lies before them, as if proof of that.]
They wanted to send me away. To "fix" me. As if I was just trash to be tossed out, becoming someone else's problem.
no subject
she glances away.]
And you still were sent away.
[not as his parents had planned, perhaps, but in another way entirely. the walls dissolve from the warmth of mahogany and the orange glow of lamps, like paint dripping down from the ceiling—white and cold static.]
Who took you in?
no subject
The government did, technically. But...
[Footsteps echoing down the hall, distant, but drawing nearer.]
He had us call him "Papa." Would you like to meet him?
no subject
in her case, wanda is grateful that von strucker never had her and pietro call him anything remotely close to ‘papa’. the idea alone, for henry’s experience, sounds dreadful.]
Sounds like a sick man. [she’d like to put a ‘name’ to a face.] Show me.