3893/(Self) Hatred in Hell's Kitchen

(Self) Hatred in Hell's Kitchen
Date of Scene:	17 February 2018
Location:	New York City
Synopsis:	The Devil of Hell's Kitchen 'saves' the Scarlet Witch from the Friends of Humanity, afterwards a heart to heart is had.
Cast of Characters:	Daredevil, Scarlet Witch

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Daredevil has posed:
It was a lucky night for the Hell's Kitchen chapter of the Friends of Humany. They'd finished their meeting, hit the bar, and when they were coming out good and buzzed they saw someone they couldn't believe. Wanda Maximoff, just walking down the street.

"Holy shit, is that her?"

Another one looks and nods his head, "Yeah, looks like."

Another pulls out his phone and before cursing. "Damn net is so slow."

Eventually though the page he was looking for comes up, the Avengers site, member profiles, they check the slow loading picture for the Scarlet Witch, and yes it was her.

That was all one of them needed, he bent down and picked up a broken piece of concrete. "Mutie freak! Your father killed our President!" he hurls it at her.

"Yeah!" another shouts, rushing towards her. "Justice for Frank!"

Across Hell's Kitchen a red suited figure hears the noise from his perch on a rooftop water tower. The pitch of drunken hatred standing out amidst the cacophony of the city. He leaps down from his perch and breaks into a run. This, he thought, was going to get ugly.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
She isn't sure how she ended up in Hell's Kitchen. Mostly, she'd gone out for a walk, and kept on walking, expecting that long before now she'd have gotten tired. Except that hadn't seemed to happen, and while she'd started some distance away... here she was in Hell's Kitchen. Nowhere near home. And, as it happened, once the bricks and rocks started pelting, nowhere near help, either.

At first, she freezes. It really doesn't quite dawn on her what she's experiencing. Things being thrown at her? Mutie freak? This was her fault? Justice for Frank?

It was all some great blowback to her past, when she'd been a helpless child with her brother Pietro, being run out of town for being exactly that.. mutant freaks. Not normal. Unlike everyone else. Things to be reviled and feared. And that self-same ball of fear grew in the pit of her stomach, freezing her to the spot. She, Wanda Maximoff, bearer of power beyond most means of measuring... stood there, helpless in the face of a bullying bunch of human throwing rocks down upon her.

Eyes wide, and her hands thrown up to protect her face, she protests, "Please.. I can explain. It is not what you think.."

It hasn't yet occurred to her that none of the rocks need to make contact with her body - or that she could still them in the air ass they were thrown, and turn them back upon her oppressors. Or worse things - things she's spent several long years of adolescence plotting and planning to do if she were ever in this situation again.

Only our pasts own us more than we might be willing to admit, and first Wanda was a scared child, frightened for her life, and frightened of what she was. And it was that Wanda who stood there, letting herself be hit by what those shouting folks threw; a very small, frightened, girl of a Wanda who hadn't yet come into the fullness of her power and merely wanted to belong.

Daredevil has posed:
The men had not thought this through. They'd looked at her profile page but not her powers. They had no idea that they were attacking what amounted to a nuclear bomb of mutant power with sticks and stones. Their first hint of was how, while the first and the second stone thrown hits, the others slow, like they were thrown through molasses and hit her with no more force than the angry swat of a child.

The one man who charged, keeps coming though, fist raised, snarling "Mutie bitch!" before he intents to let her have it with a swing of a meaty fist.

That blow never lands, a stick in red and silver strikes the side of his head sending him to the ground as it clinks to the concrete beside him.

A moment later a figure in red leaps down from above, landing in a low crouch between the men and their target, straightening to full height with the appearance of deadly purpose.

"Go!" Daredevil growls at the men.

They don't listen. Too much to drink and hatred have set them on their course tonight and it'll take more than words to shake them from it.

"Fuck you, freak," one of the men says, advancing on Wanda and her defender. "You're both going to get it."

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda doesn't notice at first when the rocks stop 'hitting', instead coming to bump up against her with no force, only to fall away to the ground and bounce away much as pebbles might. It happens, though, that she notices. It's what makes her drop her hands, suddenly no longer a cower, though she's still wide-eyed and looking frightened. Only, the tables are turning as to who she's most frightened of in this moment. That feeling is welling up. The anger. The fear. The helplessness. All giving rise to an overwheling urge to blast the lot of them back to the Stone Age and curse their ancestors.

Those hands of hers, rise again, this time with palms out and fingertips making the smallest of gestures.

The man who was about to hit her? He might never know how lucky he was that someone else stepped in and stopped that blow from landing.

Not that it stops the crowd. But it is enough to stop Wanda from doing what she had intended. A thing she /would/ have regretted. Only, now there is still some small matter of convincing them all to...

She knows, a thing or two she can do. She knows that none of them will reach her. Or the stranger. That she can make certain of. The air around them will merely warp any advances and reroute.

"You want to go home now," she says calmly, her Eastern European lilt prominent in her voice. "It is time to go home now. You do not wish to have this fight. You wish to go home." Each small sentence punctuated by waves of calm that are echoed in her voice. Much as a lullaby lulls a fractious babe to sleep. Or, for the geekier, these are not the droids you're looking for.

It's really all the same, and also quite that simple.

Daredevil has posed:
Indeed the man has no clue how lucky he is, because he struggles to stand, leaving Daredevil to lash out blind with a foot to put him back down. Leaving him slumped against a parked car. The other men fall easily under Wanda's spell turning and walking away as if they weren't about to throw down with the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

As for that Devil, he cants his head when the men turn and start walking away as if he can't quite believe what he's sensing. A ghost of a frown crosses his lips, like he'd been anticipating the fight, craving it almost. And indeed after his night fighting discount ninjas in Brooklyn, he had been craving another fight.

The frown turns from one of disappointment to one of guilt. It was a common change on those features and he did so with ease. Still, duty drove him on, he ducked down to pick up his baton. He gave a cursory listen to the man's heartbeat, it was slow and steady. He was out like a light but still alive.

He turns finally to the intended victim, wary of her now that she showed her powers. The red lenses in the eye holes of his mask turn her direction but he takes her in through other senses, cataloguing smells, heat, sounds and a dozen other things that painted a picture of her in his senses. He speaks to her then, keeping his distance for the moment, "Are you alright? And who are you?"

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda watches as the others merely walk away. It's as though she's as much in thrall of her spell as they are. It takes her a moment to realize that there is still one nearby, lying on the ground, and more, her saviour was still there. That he hadn't just fled when the fight broke up, or chased them down. That he stoops to check on the man on the ground gives her some relief. It's palpable within her as she blinks, coming back to herself.

"Oh. And you are still here. And he is hurt. He will be okay?"

As is her usual wont, her concern goes to the wounded one, even if he were just going to hit her. Her anger was still a guilty curl in the pit of her stomach, playing along with the fear that this attack had brought back to her. And she's aware, again, of how easily she could be exactly what they'd thrown at her: A mutant freak worthy of their fear and disgust.

It's sobering.

At first she goes to kneel down to check the man on the ground herself, but when she sees her saviour back away, in something of fear of his own of her, she pauses, and backs a step up, allowing him space. Even though it's clear he's blind and can not see her do so.

"I am.. that is, I am Wanda. Wanda Maximoff." Her name given like a scarlet banner of shame, expecting him to turn and throw curses at her as well.

Daredevil has posed:
Daredevil cocks his head towards the man, listening to more than his heartbeat but his breathing as well, there was a faint whistle speaking of broken teeth, the creak of bone when his jaw moved involuntarily, the faint heating of the bruising of his jaw, and temple. "He's got a broken jaw, a couple chipped teeth and he's going to hurt like hell in the morning, but he'll live."

He rights his head when the name is given, that made sense, people like the lot that chased her, they'd sell their mothers for a chance to take out Magneto's daughter. "I've heard of you," he says, there's no hatred or fear in his voice. "But we should also get off the street," he says as much for his sake as hers. "Are you hurt?" he pulls at the threads of his senses, checking for the smell of blood or other signs of injury on her.

And the question that drove him back from her comes to his lips, "How'd you do that? Telepathy?" He builds up walls between Daredevil and Matt Murdock in his mind.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
"You hit him hard," Wanda murmurs. It isn't a question, but an assessment. And while she was afraid of her own response to what nearly happened, there does not seem to be any fear or disgust with the damage that Daredevil has done to the stranger.

Sudden realization dawns, and she gives a soft, "Ah. You are the Daredevil, yes? Which means I am far from where I started, or you have wandered far to meet me." Either case is just as likely in Wanda's world. Things like that just happen where she's concerned. Though in this case it's most likely that deep thoughts have kept her walking long past the time she should have turned around and headed back home - not that she can't be home in nothing more than a thought. There were certain advantages to being herself, and mundane magic for that matter.

"Telepathy?" she questions. "You mean did I read their minds?"

Wanda laughs, the sound bright, like springtime. "Oh no. No. I said things, yes. You were here. Did you not see?" Her lips purse and she consideres him. "Though you worry about that, don't you? That others might see into you and know your secrets." She's talking metaphysically, of course, and something of the slight change about him as he draws up those walls. But of course it sounds like she's totally aware that he has secrets to worry about beyond that of who he is behind the mask - a thing she hasn't even put thought to. To her, there is no need to know that. Like so many things, it is a gift she does not expect.

"No," Wanda repeats. "I merely made them wish to be elsewhere. Made it so that they are no longer angry. They will wake up tomorrow and not remember how they did make it home, but they should be okay. I did not harm them." Even though she dearly wanted to.

Daredevil has posed:
He he takes stock of the man he hit when Wanda mentions he'd hit him hard, drinking in the details he'd shut out before, the parts of him that made him a man, not just a thug, or someone to be taken out. The scent of women's perfume, the smell of baby powder and shit that spoke of a baby at home, flea repellant, light beer, the scent of gold in with the coppery smell of blood.

He closes that all off, focuses on other things, on Wanda as he replies. "He had similar plans for you," he says of hitting hard. And it was true, he could sense that much even as he threw his baton.

Her recognition of his name earns a slight nod, though when she says she doesn't quite know where she was, there's a faint smile on his lips, "You're in Hell's Kitchen," he says. "You came to me. Where were you going?" Not many people came to the Kitchen to stroll.

There is a faint tilt to his smile, like he was enjoying some private joke, "Yes, I saw what you did. I just wanted to know-" then she speaks the real reason, and seeing no point in lying says, "Yes. I have secret, everyone does," he says though it's clear by his tone he takes his more gravely more than most."

Something in how Wanda speaks of what she did, brings Daredevil's attention back to her. "You could have done worse," he says, it's not question so much as a statement.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda's gaze falls to the man upon the ground again.

"Yes," she agrees. He wished to harm me. They are angry. So much anger over what my father began."

She's come to believe, perhaps, that it is not 'what my father has done', even though she knows it is little difference if it was him or not, and in her heart, she knows it is a thing her father could and would have done. She just no longer knows what to believe of him, or that event. His calmness about it; his assertatations of his innocence; of how he's changed; so many things that have left her questioning her own beliefs and what to do about it.

Could she blame these people for fearing and hating her? Especially when she knows what she could have done. Had intended to do.

The man before her speaks of secrets. And that she has come to him. Only that is not where her thoughts dwell. It's deep thoughts that have had her walking so far and long this eve - though not all her thoughts for for her father and his actions. Some were for her own confusions about other matters. Like that kiss that did not happen.. and the invitation that did...

"I needed to think," she tells Daredevil simply. "It is too loud in the mansion. Too many voices of others living their lives. Too much personal." She adds the last lest he point out that the streets are noisy, too. She can think amongst the rush and crowd when they do not pull upon her personally. And she no longer has the luxury of running away. Had she thought, she might have merely walked The Road for a time, but it wasn't a thought she'd had. Instead she'd taken to the streets, completely secure in the knowledge that she would not be bothered.

Until she was.

"Yes," she admits, not looking to Daredevil until the last moments of her confession. "I would have hurt him badly. Worse than you have left him."

I would have made him not be, she thinks to herself in secret shame. That had been the thought in her mind as the hand came towards her: Be Not. She didn't stop to think of that meant dead or merely cease to exist. She was merely grateful she hadn't found out, that this man had stepped in.

"Thank-you."

Daredevil has posed:
"Yes. I imagine a lot of people are," Daredevil says of what Magneto began. Given what had come out about the late President just before and after his death, Matt found he had little regret for the President's passing, but the manner of it was unforgiveable. Not if this country was going to be ruled by laws instead of violence. "Doesn't mean you should suffer though. You're not the your father or what he's done."

It wasn't as though Matt wasn't without his own questions that gnawed at him, most of them having to do with Elektra and her offer. No, ultimatum, the files and the danger his friends were in if he was exposed. It had been half of what he was doing when he'd heard Wanda being attacked. And despite the distraction of the fight giving him a brief reprieve he was no closer to answers to those questions.

"I know what you mean about needing places to think, of things being too loud," he says with a quiet smile for Wanda, even as he hears the bartender finally call in the fight to the police. "Speaking of, do you fly, we may not want to be here in a few minutes the police are on the way." He pulls out his baton, ready to use the cord to climb up off the street. Normally that would have been his cue to exit, but there was something about this meeting that felt significant so he left things open for them to depart together.

"And you're welcome," he says about stopping her from doing worse.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
That laugh returns, again as light and bright as spring runoff. "Oh, I am not that kind of witch. But we can be elsewhere. Come. Give me your hand."

Wanda holds her hand out to him in a quick, secretive gesture. As though they were naughty children about to run off and hide at bedtime, only delaying the inevitable.

Daredevil has posed:
There's a skeptical expression on the lips below the mask. Matt hadn't been much of a child even when he was a child but there was something contagious about Wanda's brightness and so he takes her hand in his own. "Alright, what's next?" he asks, already hearing the sirens closing in on them.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Once his hand has nestled within her palm, Wanda's fingers close around his, and where one moment before they are standing where sirens can be heard in the distance - the next they are on a rooftop, where the only sound is the whistle of late winter winds picking up around the building; a car honking its horn at a driver not realizing the light has gone green; the rustle of bottles and cans against the inside of a trash bin; a cat singing the song of its people, followed by a loud yowl as some perturbed citizen throws the proverbial shoe at it.

In short, they're merely a block or so away. A place Wanda does not recognize, but Matt should given these are his haunts. It was merely where need and necessity first found them on her part. Much like anything else, she needed somewhere, and the picture came to mind. Perhaps unconsciously drawn from his memory.

Once there, her fingers do not linger in his. She lets him reclaim his hand. "We are safe now. Or as safe as we might be." There is the slightest hint of guilt in her voice as she says that, knowing that really, what went on there in the street they should not have merely walked away from. But she could not let this man be arrested on her behalf, for stopping and saving her; nor did she wish to be subbjected to questioning and have to dwell with her thoughts on all they had said and done, and the fact that she still bears guilt oer freeing her father.

It is, she knows, a deflection of a decision she's been warring with since she and Hope faced down her father, and she took away Hope's powers. Wanda not willing to pay the price of her freedom for that, but feeling all the while that she should, rightly, do so.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt's senses swim as he shifts from the tapestry of sensations that was where they began to the one where they ended up. It takes a moment but he orients and finds the space they're in familiar. He knew the sounds and smells of it, and the lay of it's nooks and crannies. Hell, he even knew that was Mrs. Gonzales' cat yowling down below. "This way," he says to Wanda leading her to the lee of a cluster of pipes and machinery offering them shelter from the breeze. "And thank you, that was, an interesting way to travel," he says crouching down out of the wind his arms crossed over his chest to warm himself from the sudden cold.

He catches that hint of guilt. "He'll be alright, the cops will call the ambulance and he'll be taken care of." He also knew the man would be let go back. There was no victim or witnesses and being beaten up in the street wasn't a crime. The man had gotten lucky tonight.

His attention returns to Wanda. "Anyhow, I meant what I said before, about you not being your father, what happened back there, you didn't deserve that," he says trying to absolve her from some of her guilt.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda is silent until they find that small space of shelter. Though it does make her smile some, as she notices the arms crossing, and realizes that he is cold. It's not something she pays much attention to. Cold is.. something she notices more in the abtract than the reality. Certianly she wears clothing, and winter gear, but in all truth, the cold does not touch her much. It merely is a thing that exists in the world she is in.

Unless, of course, the purpose is to feel the cold. Such as on a day where the men of snow are being made. Where the hot chocolate later and the rosy cheeks and noses, and th cupping of cold hands around warm mugs and reason to snuggle in to one another is part of the all and the everything. Then, then she feels the cold. Much as she feels anything.

"Perhaps not," Wanda says of her father. "But he would not be as he is if we were not what we are. He wishes well. He wishes to do right by us, his people, but his methods are.." Wanda grimaces. "It is only that he knows how it is he is seen. Or how others will react. And he sees no other way. His heart is a good thing, but his mind is clouded by.."

Power, she wants to say. The very thing she bears so much of, and struggle with just the same.

Instead, she hunkers down in the lee of the machinery with him, and as she does, the space becomes inexplicably warmer. As though the wind only blew to convince her to come closer to him. To do what is natural between man and woman and share a space, however platonically.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt rubs his hands together, "That's circular logic," he says of Wanda's answers for her father's behaviour. "If he is as he is because you are as you are, it makes you are as you are because he is as he is," Matt says, the lawyer in him coming out in his response. "It's all bullshit anyhow, everyone influences who we become, we can't help it, but in the end the big choices, they're ours to make. You, or your brother," he'd heard of Quicksilver. "Didn't make Magneto plot to kill the President, he did that on his own, so the guilt is his as well."

The rest is turned over in his head. "And if he can't see that what he's doing is wrong, then maybe your people need a better leader, what happened in Washington, it didn't help your people, here or in Genosha."

Matt feels the sudden rise in temperature as Wanda comes closer, and he welcomes it even as he doesn't quite understand how it happens. He should have felt it before he was engulfed but suddenly, inexplicably it simply was. Still despite the weirdness of the warmth, he moves closer to her, draping an arm over her shoulders protectively, despite the warming of the space around them.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
"Circular?" Wanda frowns, tensing the first moment he puts his arm about her shoulder. It's a casual gesture he makes, but it's clear it's oddly personal to her, and she's uncertain what to do with it, realizing too late that the correct response would have been no reaction at all, or perhaps a light laugh as she relaxed. Instead, Wanda is left to deliberately school herself back into a semblance of calm.

She is too many things jumpy these days, she notes of herself.

"We are feared, so he becomes fearful. I do not think he sees it. He sees only that he is reacting to others. That they leave him no choices." Though that, she thinks, is not necessarily true. He seemed to have been making noises at understanding how his actions needed to change. It was whether or not she could believe him that had her so confused. "At least he has felt he had no choices in the past. I do not know any longer. You are right, though. I have argued the same to him, how he has hurt us with his actions."

Daredevil has posed:
"Sorry," murmurs Matt as he feels the flinch under his arm. The arm is withdrawn and settled on his knee. "Seemed colder a moment ago," he says. Though truthfully as powerful as Wanda was there was something about her that tugged at his protective instincts.

Matt setting back against the old air conditioner unit, he nods at Wanda's words. "That's how it usually goes, one side is afraid, they strike back and make the other afraid, they strike back and on and on it goes. That only stops when someone decides to change," he says, he offers a small smile. "And having met the other side tonight, I don't think it's going to be them. So, whether he likes it or not the ball is in your father's court."

He pulls his lips into a thoughtful frown, "Have you ever tried to stop him?" he asks. "Your father, it's clear you don't agree with his methods, but, would you go against him?"

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Immediately, Wanda regrets the flinch. Knows as soon as he pulls away that she's done the wrong thin in reacting. It leaves a small shape of sad upon her lips as she tells him, "It is okay. You did not do wrong. I am just.." Her hands spread in a gesture of inability to explain it all, though she tries. "It is I am unused to such things. You only startled me."

It isn't the entire truth, but it is enough of it without explaining the confusion she's already feeling about such things without adding a platonic touch to the mix. Though of all the myriad of confusions, perhaps that is the one she should most be welcoming.

Still, she has an answer for the rest of his words to her. Or part of one anyway. "I was going to," she admits softly. "I had it all ready to release upon him. Only I changed my mind." Because I did it to another and saw what a terrible thing it was I did wreak, she thinks, not sharing that thought with him. Not yet, at least. It's just another brick in the wall of guilt she is laying about herself.

Daredevil has posed:
"No need to apologize," Matt says quietly turning his head in her direction. "My fault," he says offering a reassuring smile.

He gives her a moment with her thoughts sensing her body's reaction stress level rise a touch as she dwells on whatever thoughts are troubling her.

When her answer comes he considers it, feeling at once guilty and relieved she answered as she did. Someone else, who had stopped short of what they needed to do, "Why?" he asks. "What changed your mind?"

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda is silent for a time before she answers his question, turning to give him a frank look - or as much of one as she can given they're sitting in such close quarters. "Do you truly wish to know the truth of why? Of what did make me change my mind?"

Daredevil has posed:
The frank look is lost on Matt, but the tone of her voice and her body language conveyed the same message just as clearly. Head still turned in her direction, he gives Wanda a small nod, "Yes," he replies.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda nods, and looks away. It's much easier to admit what she's done if she doesn't have to look him in the eyes.

"I was going to. I had it ready, on the tip of my tongue, only, she was going to kill him. So, instead, I did it to her."

Wanda is still and silent as she remembers Hope's screams. They weren't just anger; they were so much more than that.

"I had to listen to her. To see what I had done to her as she fell, and know I had not just rendered her powerless, I had taken away what made her. For all she was, those things were her. It was like I had made it so that the very air she breathed was no longer hospitable."

Like I'd torn her soul from her, Wanda thinks. It was the horror of that which had made her still her hand against Magneto.

Daredevil has posed:
For a moment Matt wonders if this is what Father Lantom feels like when Matt confesses to him. The mix of detachment, sympathy and horror. Though of the three right now it's the sympathy that wins out. "You did the right thing," he says with quiet certitude. "You hurt this other person, but she was going to kill someone. However much she's been changed by what you did, she's still alive, she still has a chance to redeem herself."

What she did sounded horrible, almost unforgiveable but Matt clung to the belief that where there was life there was hope. It applied to Wanda as well, "Though you should help her if you can."

He turns his thoughts to his own questions then, to Elektra, her offer and what she did and how he had not lifted a hand to stop her.

"So, was saving his life the only reason you didn't stop him?" he asks.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Whether or not he's willing to see forgiveness for her actions, Wanda herself isn't. It's a guilt that clings to her like a second skin, warring with the guilt of leaving her father as he is. The two things a situation she can't justify to one another.

"No," she protests softly. "It is not okay. It is he I should have stopped. Or I should have let her take his life. She would kill one, and be done with it. He will cause the sorrows of so many, and each of those will now weigh upon me. I will always know I could have stopped that."

His other question takes her by surprise, though. It's one she hasn't a full answer for; a thing she's been wrestling with.

"No. It is not the only reason."

It wasn't that simple. Could never be that simple.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt knows something about guilt and he can sense the signs of it on Wanda, even if he doesn't agree with her on its source. "You're wrong," Matt says, quiet and sure. "You saved two people when you stopped this woman from killing your father, Magnus and the woman. Even if your father is too wounded to see the truth, you've given him a chance to change, to embrace whatever light is inside of him. If he doesn't take it, that's on him. And the woman, she doesn't have to carry his death with her," he puts a gloved hand on her arm. "You did the right thing."

Matt takes in the other answer with a breath of relief, "But also because he's your father?"

Scarlet Witch has posed:
"I wish I were wrong," Wanda murmurs, quite sad. Regardless of his assurances and willing to absolve her, she knows it isn't quite so simple. If it were, she wouldn't be caught in this well of angst over her decision. Would not be feeling the depths of guilt she did over what she did to Hope.

"It is not so simple. I acted in anger. Not in any mercy or any thought of saving anyone. I did not even stop to think. I merely reacted in the moment. Had it been but a moment either way, I might have done worse or nothing at all."

Wanda's lips fall over a small, sad smile as she draws her knees up towards herself and wraps her arms about them, resting her chin atop her knees.

"It might have been simpler if I'd let her kill him. In that moment, I knew I was choosing to let him go. I may not have admitted it then, but it was the choice. If I stopped her, then he would be free. If I let her be, he would be dead. There was no mercy in my act. Only selfishness."

There's the slightest of nods from her.

"Despite all he is, I love him. In the end, I could not change that. For all the people in the world, I could not change that."

Daredevil has posed:
Matt kneels beside her, back resting against the air conditioner. Her words reach him, but they don't change his mind. "Your motives are between you and God, but whatever your reasons, you saved your father and saved this woman from taking a life. That's worth something."

"Simpler, yes, but not right," he says with the same surety as he'd said the rest. "As for selfish..maybe? That's an easy thing to answer," he says with a twist of a frown on his lips.

Her words about her father strikes a cord, "I know what you mean," he says quietly. Elektra would always be Elektra, no matter what she did, she'd always hold the same place in his heart. "If your father offered you a chance to do good, and if it meant you were turning a blind eye to what he did, would you take it?"

Scarlet Witch has posed:
"And if I do not believe in God," Wanda asks simply. "It is not always so easy as you make it seem. Things are not black and white. Sometimes they are not even grey."

Sometimes, she thinks, they just are.

She smiles, though, when he asks about her father. "You ask that as though it were a simple thing. I could be all things good so easily. But would that make up for what he does? Would any amount of my being goodness make up for knowing that I have allowed him to be all that is not?" She shakes her head. "It is not how things are. We all live with our choices, no? I stayed my hand knowing what he will do. He will try not to, but I know what he will do. I will circle back to that moment with regret for all my life, even as I would have regreted taking his powers from him. We are the sum of our choices, regardless of what we tell ourselves. Only now I must learn to live with what I have done."

And decide what to do next, she thinks. She no longer wonders if she should believe her father. She is certain that way madness lies.

Daredevil has posed:
"Then that's between you and Him as well," Matt says with another of those self-depricating smiles. He knew this was a sensitive subject for most and so the smile usually helped ease that path.

"And the world may seem grey, but there's always a right choice, and I think you made that choice when you spared your father."

Matt goes silent in response to her answer, the sounds of the city filling the place his words should be. For all they disagreed on some fundamental things, her words rung distressingly true. There could be no compromise, no deals with the devil, even if he wanted there to be. The compromises he already made with regards to Elektra, were already damning enough. To take on more compromises, even for the good of others, it would take him down a path he wasn't sure he could come back from.

"I guess I'll need to find another way," he says as much to himself as to Wanda, before he catches himself and says a murmured, "Sorry. But you're right, we are the sum of our choices and just because we might make some exceptions to allow the people we love to do wrong, to accept more of that, makes us all the more complicit," he lets out a sigh then, as he asks. "And your father, do you think he'll ever change who he is?"

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda laughs softly, but self-derisively. "Oh, see? That is where we are not the same. I can not believe that. Even if I believe that there are better and worse choices. But if it were so simple, then I would not be what I am, and we would not be having this conversation."

She could, she knows, be an answer to so much of this. Be bright, and beautiful, and beloved, even as she struck terror into the hearts of all who loved her.

That was the nature of power. And choice. For each action, an equal and opposite reaction. And why lives were spent in so much greys.

HIs words drag her to the present, though, and have her canting her head at him quizically. "I do not follow. Another way?" Suddenly aware he isn't speaking of the same thing she is anymore.

As to her father, she shakes her head. "No, I do not think he will. Thus you see why my choice is such a sad one. Because I love him, I do not stop him, and because I do not stop him.." She doesn't finish the thought.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt cocks his head at Wanda, the reflective lenses of the mask staring past her. "I don't follow," he says of her not being what she was if she believed in right or wrong choices. "You mean, if you felt things were black and white you wouldn't have needed me to save you?" he asks, save having a touch of irony to it. He knows she was in no danger of anything but destroying that man utterly.

When she catches him out with his comment, he says, "I wasn't speaking entirely in the hypothetical. Someone made a similar offer to me, take her help to do some good or don't and risk people close to me getting hurt. I've been wrestling with it."

There is a pang of guilt at that admission, when it's made plain he had been pursuing these questions for his own selfish motives. "Sorry, I should have said something," he murmurs.

"I'm making similar choices about the person offering this deal, I don't want to think about what she does. What I allow her to do. It's not easy, is it?"

Scarlet Witch has posed:
"If things were black and white.." Wanda muses. "Perhaps I would have needed you to save me more than ever. It would be too easy to have stopped him." And she would have. Had he made contact, she would have obliterated that man into startdust, a thought that terrified her. When did she start being that person? Who was she that she evenn thought about making someone unbecome merely for the sin of striking her?

It was sobering.

When he spills the truth of things, a soft 'ahhhh' of understanding.

"So you wish absolution for your own choices, whatever they may be."

She understands the danger she is now in, how anything she says can be weighed heavily against his own mind, and what he will do. It was easier when she did not know, when it was merely the hypothetical of her own thoughts.

"I think," Wanda offers quietly, "That you can not make her decisions, as much as you wish to. All you can do is decide what you can live with."

It pains her to say this, knowing how her own choices have left her tortured and without the softening of the blow of what her choices have wreaked, knowing only that good or bad, any decision she or anyone can make, ultimately, is one you have to live with.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt nods at those words, they were familiar to him. It would have been so easy to have stopped them. Matt lacked Wanda's raw power but he made the same choice every night he put on the suit. Did he stop them for tonight or stop them for good? At a certain point an inch one way or another was all it took to make that difference. "Faith helps," he says of that choice. "Knowing that there are lines you can't cross," he says without the sales pitch, it was just his honest advice.

He stands, giving her space with her thoughts while he waits for her reply. When it comes he takes it silence, turning it over, did he want to make Elektra's choices for her? Of course he did at least when it came to killing. It was with no shortage of guilt that he admitted if he could change one thing in the world, it would be that. Though that wasn't going to happen. So it left him with the other part, how much was he willing to live with?

That was the question.

"You've given me a lot to think about," he says of her answer. It was clear her words have reached him.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
"Faith helps," Wanda agrees. She might not believe in God or gods as he does - how can she given who and what she is? - but she understands and accepts his words for what they are. They resonate deeply within her, and despite her misgivings about so many things, they give her peace.

"There are many lines I do not cross," she tells him, taking a slow rise to her own feet, recognizing that their time together is near a close. "But if I do these things, then what does that make me? I am not a god for any people. Nor should I wish to be. I would.." She sighs softly. "All would love me, and despair," she echoes words made famous long ago, long before she even had these decisions to make.

"You will know the answer," Wanda offers with a gentle smile, touching a finger over his breastbone. "Here. You will know it here. The questions will go and you will know the answer."

Her hand falls away as she gives him one last, small smile of sympathy. "It will be okay. All will be well. This and all manner of things will be well."

Daredevil has posed:
Matt accepts her words about faith without challenge. He knew there was more than one type of faith and if hers helped her, then it helped her. It wasn't his place to question it.

He takes in those other words, hearing the truth of them, "Dangerous prospect, but all the more reason for those lines. To keep that person, that version of you in check." He knew the source of the lines, of course, he'd seen those movies before he'd lost his sight and there is a slight smile despite the darkness of what they promise. He listens to the rest before he speaks, smiling a little faintly. "Thank you," he says, of her advice. "And if I can return the favour, the way clear of being that person you're afraid of?" he says before nodding towards the gentle thump of her own heart. "Is in there too. So, maybe we both have some listening to do."

When her hand falls away, leaving them standing together on the rooftop, Matt smiles and for the moment lets himself believe Wanda's words, it was a nice fantasy, one he could rest in for awhile. "I hope so," he says quietly, as the city carried on around them.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda nods, allowing the touch, and letting it sit deeply within her. This, she knew, was one of those moments that would be remembered in times to come. Would solidify and clarify her thoughts. But for now, she let it rest upon her without words but for, "I should go."

And with that, she does.