7120/All You Have To Do Is Ask...

All You Have To Do Is Ask...
Date of Scene:	02 April 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Scarlet Witch, Black Panther

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Scarlet Witch has posed:
It all begins with a knock. Lightly applied to the door suggests this is no emergency occasion to send them rushing for the nearest quinjet. The hour falls somewhere midway into the evening, neither too early to interrupt a meal or late to crack open the light beginnings of slumber. On the other hand, Wanda Maximoff keeps nothing like a regular schedule.

Regular, by her standards, may or may not have a given circadian rhythm. It may not obey the spin of the sun and moon through the sky. Perhaps there are other cycles she answers to, but at least this arrival comes with a distinctive certainty of purpose.

So, the knock.

The hour is set. The pieces are moved. All that remains is a Nazghul to take flight over Minas Tiri--

She twists her hands lightly and she waits. There are worse ideas than this.

Black Panther has posed:
T'Challa makes his way over to the door and opens it. His face lights up as he sees who it is. "Wanda! What a pleasant surprise," the Wakandan says warmly as he motions for her to be welcome inside the room. He's wearing a dark sweater and a pair of slacks, feet clad only in socks with his shoes by the door. A fire is roaring in the fireplace, as if the African man still finds New York to be a cold place even on the first day of April.

"If you have come to prank me, I assure you that Jarvis informing me we were being invaded at 5 am this morning has already beaten you to it," he says, apparently learning of the April Fools Day custom the hard way.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
The door opened reveals the statue of a person attempting to play it cool. Albeit 'playing it cool' means not being Wanda, whose predilections and fashion sense start and end in the blood-cooled end of the spectrum usually visible only with the aid of scientific instruments or widened vision ranges. The day finds her in her habitual black, an effort made to replace the jeans with a dress in black, albeit one that suggests it's actually tried to be fashionable instead of purely sensible in 'murderous witch about to fix the world' chic. That style bandwidth tends to be fairly narrow, sadly. Bravery compels her to say "Hi."

So cool. It's 1996 all over again. Except she inclines her head, a lush chestnut curl sweeping over her brow and resting against the curve of her temple. T'Challa earns a faint smile out of her, but she hovers on the threshold for a moment. Eyes take in everything: exits, entrances, fireplace, incendiary materials. A brief reflex, but always there, how she drinks the atmosphere in through rimed lenses suggesting her power for a heartbeat.

"I do not play those games," she says. "You met my brother? All days are good for games." Saying as much is a betrayal of Pietro but she thinly smiles somewhat. But she leans against the doorway rather than advance. "Would you like to see the stars?"

Black Panther has posed:
T'Challa stays near the door as he sees Wanda isn't coming in, instead moving over to lean against the other side like they were bookends for the entrance. He seems to note the change in her attire today, saying, "You look nice. A night out of uniform," he comments.

A sort chuckle is given at the mention of Pietro. "Oh yes," he says in his soft, slightly raspy yet smooth voice. "I imagine there were no shortage of games for your growing up with him," T'Challa comments before he turns to look over at the windows.

The grounds outside are turned to shadows, lit only by the lights of the surrounding buildings. "A look at the stars would be welcome," he tells Wanda. "Would you like me to grab you a jacket?" he asks as he moves over to take one from the closet, pausing to hear her answer before he rejoins her.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
So this is how such things begin. Not with flowers or text messages or fair trade cacao products from some reasonable little corner of Sao Tome and Principe. They begin with the state of certain unease, the conventions of the American continent as remote to her as the stars are from the denizens of the megacities smoked and shrouded in their own pollutants. Her fingertips reach up to brush along her hairline and the loose curls straighten almost of their own accord. Less sharply defined spirals fall around her shoulders in a relaxed wave, falling down her back.

Tongue tracing her lower lip, she breaks into one of those rare smiles again. Not quite hen's teeth but an ingredient almost as uncommon, she uncrosses her arms from under her chest and exhales slowly. Her deceptive skills are purely legendary while T'Challa prepares himself for departure, and the apartment goes to what counts as dormant. "I am used to much worse." A simple fact. "Would you feel better to me if I did?" Ah, English, you treacherous little tongue. She wrinkles her nose and flips diction, dropping flat backwards into German. German is easier. "I do not want to offend your sensibilities. Not after..."

Her head tilts up slightly, considering his expression. Much more, she might well try to read past the masks shown to the world, uncertain where to drop her own. He is a complicated man and she is only herself, standing on tiptoe above the drop of the world. "Not like that, tonight. Let me err on something else, not the start."

Black Panther has posed:
T'Challa brings just the one jacket then, moving back to join the auburn-haired woman at the doorway. "While Wakanda has some cold mountains, I admit I am not used to spending much time in them," he says. "Though if you do find it colder than you expected, you may wear this one," T'Challa offers of the one he's brought.

His head tilts to the side slightly as he regards Wanda. "I do not imagine you would offend me, Wanda," he tells her in a warm tone. "You have a very gentle and genial way about you. There is little to find offense with from what I see," he tells her with a soft smile and a little bow of his head.

T'Challa motions towards the door for her to lead the way. "I am sorry I have not been by to see you more recently. Between attending council meetings remotely, and some research I am doing to try to tell our two Janets apart, this has been quite the week," he tells her.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
"The highlands must be cool but the lowlands warm. A near equatorial forest?" In German, she's a hell of a lot more proficient than she is in English, at least on certain technical terms. Boil it right down, German is all about precise and technical terms rather than the regular ones. Wanda dips her head to that survey but she returns it, gilt-green eyes settled upon T'Challa's features. They might well be memorized at that rate by an artist's eye.

Her lips blotted, she turns into the hallway. He has to be able to leave, after all. "Council meetings and research. I may help with the latter. Have they the same aura? It will not always help. Can at least be copied by me." Her shoulders lift slightly as she straightens herself out of the casual slouch, attaining by unconscious effort what normally takes years of practice to achieve. The smooth pace keeps with his as long as he doesn't rush, finding her pace to the stairs rather than the enclosed steel box that might just fall if attacked.

"I like your company. This," she gestures ahead, "is how I pull you out." Around and around to the bottom of the tower, sooner or later they will emerge into the night and the city rather than going up to the rooftop. Clearly it was considred for a moment. But not until the cool April sky greets them does she hesitate, looking right up. Up among the stars, and the glorious clouds, and a hint of a smile persists. "A good night for sky-dancing, no?"

Black Panther has posed:
"Yes, Wakanda is a mix of jungles, forests, and plains. With many hills and mountains. Rivers that have cut deep valleys and gorges," T'Challa tells her as they walk along the hallways of the Mansion together. The African is no particular hurry, the journey together as important as the destination, seemingly.

"It is a beautiful land. Rugged much of it, left untamed. But the city would surprise most of the world to see," he tells her in his African accent, softened and cultured by time at Oxford. "I enjoy New York, but it will always be a bit too urban for my preferences," he comments as they work their way down the stairwells.

He looks thoughtful at the mention of Janet, though his expression speaks of mysteries around the matter which he still has to uncover. "I can tell them apart," he says quietly, but only after glancing about. He looks to Wanda and touches his nose. "Not always. I believe I might know what the difference is. Though I have been trying to confirm it in the lab before I say anything. I believe I am close," he tells her. "Though still unsure of the nature of the other Janet. They do differ though," he comments.

Stepping out into the grounds cloaked by night, T'Challa moves a little closer as they wander slowly along the grounds and pause to look up at the sky. "Yes, it is," he agrees. "I wish the city lights did not obscure so many of the stars here. I wonder what New Yorkers would think, to see the sky from somewhere without such light to hide them. I bet they do not believe there are so many visible," he comments with a soft sigh before looking back to Wanda.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
The description of the country's wild beauty and topography isn't lost on the young woman listening. It takes her a little to parse through certain details, but not many. Her stride shadows T'Challa's, and she has no great need to bolt down the stairs when they reach them ten or twenty at a time like her brother. "The city would surprise them for?" An open opportunity for him to enthuse if he wishes to confess but she will not force the matter. Such runs contrary to the nature of a casual chat, and so much of magic is forcing nature to behave according to the heights of pride and arrogance.

When the air wraps its tentacles around them, a frosty embrace settles in. Still cool and damp with a hint of ice to nip the plants, it is not an evening for light attire. Sweaters and coats are called for. Pride will goeth before the fall, and in Wanda's case, that might be a long fall indeed. Nonetheless, she laughs for a moment. Rusty but the sound is there. "They have one of the observatories and space museums here. A kind of museum where they study the stars," she says in English, trying to wrap her tongue around it. However she managed to pluck a degree, that's just a question to leave wondering. "It's a special place. No, they know the stars are there but many more are upon their earth and in their eyes. Why look up when they can look around?" she asks lightly.

Her arm brushes T'Challa's as she looks up at the heavens and negotiates the street without being flattened by a car. Lucky thing, really. "I sometimes go up there to meditate. Easy for me to feel the sky around me. Do you ever take a jet to be in the atmosphere and think of air moving around you, night holding you? It is a way to remember you are small and part of something much bigger."

An odd statement, perhaps. But he's talking to the linchpin of reality itself.

Black Panther has posed:
The pair's soft footfalls are mostly lost in the sounds of the surrounding city. Cars traveling down the streets even at this late hour. People laughing and engaged in conversations along the streets that surround the mansion and it's block-sized estate. "Most of the world still thinks Wakanda a nation of herders," T'Challa tells her quietly. "Though our actions in defense of others have slowly opened a few eyes? By and large, most would be surprised to see a true city there. As much a city as New York. And yet, one composed in harmony with the land. For all that buildings soar towards the heavens, the land is still green and alive rather than looking like a jungle of concrete as here," T'Challa tells her.

The step out into the streets, crossing as T'Challa follows Wanda's lead. He slips the jacket off and if allowed, reaches over to slip it about her shoulders as he gives her a gentle smile. "I do sometime go out in my jet, seeking places away from here. And to unwind. Though not as often just seeking the heights. Though there is something to that money you pull through cloud cover on what has been a dreary day. To see the sun blazing above the cloud tops like a hidden gem," T'Challa says, smiling. "I am afraid I do not quite have your abilities to enjoy the heights unencumbered," he says.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Noise tumbles where it will, even around the living green heart of the city. Wanda glances aside, aware she has not fully committed to the span of a conversation. Snapping radiators and bubbling upwellings of hot air from the sewers invariably add to the confusion of laughter and music on the air. A beautiful place, but a dangerously busy one that not even high walls and fences can blunt. The rich try to blind themselves to the presence of one another and New York's endless traffic through all sorts of ornamental barriers, but they cannot be mistaken for what they are. "As though other places cannot have cities. See that Asia has built them from plains in no time at all." She shrugs, letting their ignorance stand. "I find this place too dead sometimes. All steel. Rivers lie underground. It was hard in London. Their spirits lay in steel pipes and they cried for the sun. The Thames is often angry. I heard it sing to me in sharp words, sorrowful and then angry. It remembers the treatment."

She is a daughter to the earth. No escaping the facts of what they are. When he removes his jacket, she blinks and looks to him. Nothing prohibits him from slipping it over her shoulders but her slim fingers run over the lapel, feeling the weight of the fabric gathered around her. The heat still clings and permeates the cooler expanse of her sleeved gown. Wrists revealed, she extends her hand to his. The gesture is far from uncertain but it is shy. "I walk different Roads," given quiet emphasis. "Sometimes I fly. Sometimes I am in the stars in a heartbeat. The benefit out there," a nod to the direction of the Park, "is how close we are. But I give you the choice. Dance in my stars or dance under these?" A glance up to the sky suggests it. "Or stars in a club. I have not done one of those in the city. It feels..."

A word trails off, and she glances over his shoulder, then back to him. Probably making sure Pietro is nowhere in sight. "I'd like to spend an evening with you if I can."

Black Panther has posed:
While the Scarlet Witch feels the earth, city and stars as if she were a part of them, for T'Challa the walk is sometimes like would be for a great cat loosed in the city. The cacophony of sounds heard at distances that other men can not. The smells that wash over, the exhaust of the taxi that just passed and the smoke laced with scents of bbq'd meats from the restaurant down the street. The scents of a dozen different foods left discarded in the refuse cans. Each separate aroma reaches his nose, most of them pushed from his mind as unimportant. Even the woman beside him. The distinctive sound of her stride, and the beat of her heart. The scents that are as distinctively Wanda as is her name and that shade of green in her eyes.

T'Challa pauses as they reach the other side of the street, turning to look about the city at the choices. "Given that you feel the chill in the air? Down here on earth? Perhaps a night in the sky should be saved for a warmer time," T'Challa suggests with a warm smile and a soft chuckle. "Though it sounds enchanting."

As Wanda's hand extends to him, T'Challa takes it, holding it for a moment in both of his. "I would enjoy being your companion tonight," he tells her. T'Challa pauses a moment. "Forgive me if I misunderstand anything. But, I would have you know a few things of me," he tells her as he turns to see a dance club in the distance. Motioning to it to see if it gets her approval, and then starting to walk that way with her.

After a few quiet footfalls, T'Challa says, "While you were away? There was a time I had feelings for a member of the team. In the end I decided the best thing, was to just be a friend. And that is where it remains," he tells Wanda. "Since, I had kept to myself for some time. Of late there was someone elsewhere who has received more of my attention. Though, I do not know what might come of it." He stops a moment to look over towards Wanda. "I thought it right you should know this. We can go dancing, regardless. But if any of this changes your mind on how you might like to spend the evening out, I would understand," he says softly.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Her aura, were it wholly incarnated, has its own signatures -- largely aural and visual. The black stitchery of Chthon's impression on her soul isn't readily visible but for the greatest of care, but the hints of the earth dance around her in the scent of the water on her skin, the lacework of woodsy impressions on the basenotes that carry whatever faint perfume she bothers with. Leather, always, for the signature of her coat is woven from that where nothing else lies.

"A night in the city sky is worth it. The way that the streets spread out. I remember up there how to find my way on the ground." She gestures at the avenue cutting in a grid, the rise and fall of stone going this way and that. "You would not upset me being honest. I have lived through too much. War, anger, hate, blood. Truth is precious. It stands no matter." She doesn't smile; but she need not. The truth flows over her in the sunset sheen of acceptance, someone who knows the position of the world. What illusions could there be? No blinking there.

"You know to live in a strange place. That is enough." Her tone says it all as she follows the path indicated. Light of foot and sure of direction he may be; she is something elusive, a ghost in their midst, willing to don the masks needed to fit into such places.

"Then I will be happy to dance. And leave you to decide for yourself, as you surely will and do." Her rolled shoulder under his coat speaks to a youthfulness absent, slipping away from the usual shadowed, guarded creature she is. "Your happiness is what counts."

Black Panther has posed:
The well-groomed African looks to Wanda as they walk, and speak, and he tells her. "Nothing would make me happier than to spend an evening dancing in your company," he tells the Eastern European woman as their steps take them gradually towards the club, where the sounds of pulsing music are straining to make it past the walls as if it infect the world around with that sense of rhythm and movement. "Your happiness matters as much," he tells her. "I would not do you any dishonor though," he says of his making sure she knows his situation.

The club is close ahead. A small line waiting to get inside. The bouncers do not actually know King nor Witch, not out of their normal attire. Yet there is such in their bearing that they are singled out. The type that the club wishes to be seen as patrons, waved to the front of the line and allowed entry. T'Challa walks Wanda inside with a nod to the doorman and an exchange of gratuity to cover the entrance before he pauses inside to take stock of the club.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
"Dishonour? I am by birth dishonoured, your majesty. It is a state among my people to even be here makes me..." She holds up her hand to emphasize a point, no real bitterness there. Conditions vary. Peoples shift their positions in society, accepting one graced truth and in a land beside, hating it. Wanda doesn't allow a bright spark to come to her fingertips. "Unacceptable. You cannot wound me that way. My sensibilities put up with Pietro, no?" The thrumming whispers of music reach out to them, calling to the blood.

It's not the kind of rave club gathering up the unwanted masses and swallowing them in the electric beat. It's uptempo, something more in line with the darker, seductive slink of Berlin to the brash scene of Southern California. A place where drinks are on offer with an eye to overpriced cocktails and admixtures perfected four to six decades ago, rather than anything neon, and relatively exclusive. To be so close to Fifth Avenue, it has to be. The gleam of a piano slinks across the ears, an aural profusion that winds around a grid of low edison bulbs and the dim wattage picking out a great deal of slippery surfaces: oiled metals, the rings of booths around the dance floor. Whatever the place used to be, likely a restaurant and in a long ago life, a bank, it's become more of a haven for the creative literati who like more than noise pounding them into absolution.

Whatever sound system the have is promising indeed. She melts into the shadows easily, but then they are her natural environment. The witch curls her fingers and smiles up at the ceiling, lost for an instant to the threnody of being, the press of humanity swirling around them.

Black Panther has posed:
The club is to T'Challa's liking, the man less a creature of electronic dance and thrashing raves than the youthful inhabitants of the city around him. T'Challa looks over to Wanda Maximoff, gauging her reaction. The smile that graces the auburn-haired beauty as she looks upwards and lets the music wash through her is all it takes to make the night a glorious success for the Wakandan. He smiles over to his teammate, hand closing over hers if allowed to draw her deeper into the club, body turned with his attention up on her as much as where they are going.

The space left barren of tables has been populated by bodies, small knots of dancers gathering upon the hardwood flooring. Coming together and drifting apart. Some orbiting one another like celestial bodies caught in each other's pull. Others meandering along, just letting the music pull them along.

It is to the dance floor that T'Challa leads Wanda. Backing out amidst the sea of quiet revelry to find their space within the dim light. Where the music can come calling, encouraging them to let free the cares of the world and find freedom and expression in the movements of their bodies.