6572/A Study In Scarlet

A Study In Scarlet
Date of Scene:	19 February 2019
Location:	Game Room - Avengers Mansion
Synopsis:	T'Challa and Wanda Maximoff share a meal and become reacquainted
Cast of Characters:	Black Panther, Scarlet Witch

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Black Panther has posed:
It is evening at Avenger's Mansion. The Wakandan jet landed a few hours ago, T'Challa walking off in his armor, letting out an exasperated sigh. "Jarvis, the next time that Ghost needs to be stopped? I suggest we send someone capable of running through walls after her," he says tiredly.

"I will make a note of that, your highness," Jarvis replies.

A hot shower did a lot to restore T'Challa's energy and good mood. He heads back downstairs and into the Game Room, looking about for signs of anyone. "It looks like I have it to myself," he comments, hands on hips. Whether that is a good thing is difficult to tell from his tone. Perhaps T'Challa was hoping for companionship with others of the team this evening. He places an order for food and then settles into a seat, turning on the news which shows footage of him chasing Ghost through the Lower East Side. "Enough of that," he says, turning the channel. Ah. Ghostbusters. He leaves it there and sighs, setting down the remote.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Someone who runs through walls? There happens to be one of them around in the Avengers Mansion. Possibly more than one, but the resident mystic on the team spends enough time phased out of the normal dimension to constitute a hazard to security. Jarvis likely has little fun tracing her signature here and there.

A hushed murmur outside the recreation room, among the finest in the city, warns of another presence imminently arriving. No loud warning rings out. No just cause for hair to rise on the back of the neck other than the faintest weight resting on slender shoulders, a weight that has no right to be there. Most never notice. More likely the staccato tempo of footfalls announcing themselves before the door opens, and in steps Wanda. She holds a small bricked smartphone in her hand, the sort of cheap burner popular among certain subsets of people. Usually the kind of people with a trail to hide and no interest in the authorities. It holds her focused regard, her eyes narrowed while she maneuvers around a chair that she tucks in with the palm of her hand. Presumably T'Challa or the television will take her by surprise.

"You could always watch the bad music channel?" she offers helpfully, her voice lilted and struck by that Transian accent.

Black Panther has posed:
The African man's eyes are over towards the door as if he is expecting someone to come around the corner. When he sees who it is, T'Challa rises up from his chair just as Wanda is making her way around it. "Ah, Wanda. Is it possible that you are looking even more radiant than the last time that I saw you?" he asks in his African accent flavored by his time at Oxford.

T'Challa's smile is a warm and happy one. "I have been looking forward to getting to see you again. it has been far too long," he tells her. "Please, would you join me? If you wish to show me which one is the bad music channel? Or, any other channel you wish. I was just waiting for some food to arrive," he says, motioning towards the comfortable seats.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Shadowy hair falls around her shoulders in slightly wet curls, held off her brow by a plethora of clips and bobbypins. Wanda brushes a strand away from her eyes with the back of her hand, the motion constrained by a certain eloquence in its carelessness. Oxfordian English meets its like, hers stamped subtly by Cambridge for certain colloquialisms not in common use on the other side of the Pond. "You have mastered an art of complimenting just so. I should know better. A diplomat always knows exactly what to say and then," she muses. There should be no sense of irritation there, only amusement.

A glance over her shoulder, those eyes unfocused, marks a deviation from existing in the present. "Good, no Pietro. He would ask what favour you needed." Her hint of a smile deepens and she sets the dead cellphone on the arm of a couch. T'Challa earns one of her rare, fleeting smiles. "It feels very long. How do you say, an age? You must catch me up on what you have been doing." Perching on the edge of the couch gives her a moment to look up at the screen, as though it's some kind of newly excavated stela in a language she understands with moderate fluency. "This one is not one of Tony's, is it? The light beams that need me to..." A wave of her hand.

Black Panther has posed:
T'Challa gives Wanda a pleased smile and inclines his head towards her. "Outside, the diplomat perhaps," T'Challa says in those precise tones. "In here though? No. Family," T'Challa adds, giving Wanda a smile that is a little lopsided, higher on the right than the left. The smile that always touches his eyes the most.

Once Wanda has chosen her place to sit, T'Challa retakes seat. "Jarvis seems capable of controlling most everything here. Though the TV does have a normal controller," he comments. "Would you like to join me for dinner? I have soup coming. Along with a meatball sandwich which I encountered on my first day back in New York. It was surprisingly good. I could ask them to add another. Or perhaps something else to your liking?" he asks.

"Was there anything eventful keeping you away of late? I have seen Pietro but he had not mentioned where you had been," T'Challa says as he relaxes back in his chair again. He's dressed comfortably. Some black slacks and sweater, perfect for the cold New York winter day.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
"You can stop being the diplomat?" Wanda shakes her head as T'Challa replies, the undulating veil of her hair skimming down her back. "Every family needs a diplomat. My own teaches me this, da?" The slightest slip into the native watering of her accent bleeds a certain warmth, a greater dexterity than the flat annals of English allows her. It's a curse of the crossroads of Europe as much as Africa, their musicality constrained to the ear. But she responds to the smile by dropping her gaze, her hands curling together. Not one to blush, her warm olive complexion too grudging in that. But in a mood of mirth, fleeting as it is, she responds.

"Jarvis could control it. But I should know how to do these things with myself. That box is not too hard to figure." Her gaze lifts again, and she fixes him with a quizzical look. "What is a meatball sandwich? Do you put the pasta inside the bread?" This is apparently a revelation, stunning on a scale relative to magnitude 4.5. "Is it good?"

Important questions out of the way first, this begets another thoughtful look. "Pietro is always everywhere. Like signals. He is there, waiting. He comes on when you expect him least. But I always know where he is. I have been hunting." A gesture given to the phone. "There are some people, they do things with magic that are not allowed. Forbidden. So these past weeks, I looked for them. Not only in New York, it goes much wider. Hong Kong, Rio di Janeiro, Capetown."

Black Panther has posed:
Black Panther leans forward in his chair, resting his elbows upon his knees. "Yes," T'Challa says, dealing with the important matter first, as did Wanda. "A submarine bun. The seasoned meat placed within it. And cheese. And then a marinara sauce. Placed within the bun. Which I believe is toasted, that it not fall apart? Yes? Apparently, this recipe came from SHIELD of all places. The only thing their agents look forward to."

The monarch's excitement is tangible as he looks up and says, "Jarvis? Would you please add a second meatball sandwich to the order? And another soup and beverages as well?" The AI's voice comes back right away, "It is done, your highness. The food should be ready in five minutes."

T'Challa smile gives way to more serious looks as Wanda speaks of what she has been having to handle. "I have become a permanent part of the team now. I go back to Birnin Zana a few days each week. But if you need assistance in your hunt? You know, you need only call on me, Wanda," he offers warmly.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
The description requires the effort for her, never mind that an enchantment grants insight to T'Challa's words. It could be any of the Bantu tongues he effortlessly shifts through and the witch would understand, but connecting a concept to a function is another matter altogether. The faintest dent mars her lower lip where her teeth sink into the satin curve, following him. "A ball inside marinara sauce. It is like spaghetti, except with the bread. I think this makes sense. It must be very large. Filling. Pietro will need to know one day. We are always hungry." A secret confessional there, given with a shadow of rue passing over the stark oval of her face. One knows too well their twin's predilections, and it might go in the opposite direction.

Still, this conundrum demands absolute focus and attention. Her hands loosen again with Jarvis come and gone, the ephemeral presence bringing out a flickering of interest in her gaze. "Have you finally? Be most careful." Tiny imperfections suggest just how far down the ladder English is in her polyglot world. "You will find yourself engaging in schedules. Practice. Soon we will have your heart and mind, just like your people. It is a hard thing to have a life outside these positions, da? You already know it. How to be the king, the protector, the shield and sword. But the man? Guard that if you will let me give small words of advice." A solemn mark there, and she smartly nods again. "I will remember. It is... new. This idea I can ask for help. You can ask mine. Your people's traditions are not so very unfamiliar to me."

Black Panther has posed:
T'Challa gestures to Wanda to indicate that she has the grasp of the sandwich. "He arrived just a little too late, the day I discovered it," T'Challa says of Wanda's brother. "But I am pleased to be able to share it with you. It is something that Captain Rogers and Jessica Drew both know from their SHIELD days," he shares.

The well-groomed African gives a soft chuckle and says, "My dear Wanda, practice schedules are far better than council meetings and economic reports. Though, I do not get out of those by being here, unfortunately." T'Challa motions towards part of the mansion. "We have set up the holographic system so I can attend these Wakandan meetings from here. Now I truly cannot get away," he says with a joking sigh.

T'Challa's expression softens. "Actually, coming here? Being amongst my Avenger's family? In some ways, it is more chance to be myself than I have back home. Or, a different part of myself. A part that I like very much. And I am glad to share that, with the others, and with you."

And the food arrives about then. A tomato bisque soup. And the aforementioned meatballs subs that will live up to their billing.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
The details fit together clearly enough on the matter of the sandwich. Wanda murmurs, "I do not think SHIELD had it when I..." The thought goes off into the void, skating into a deep portion of the sea mired up behind her evocative, opaque eyes. The sharp eloquence of her expression need not rest purely on grins and smiles. They're but a limited array of her moods, the other expanses a sea of greyscale gone brilliant.

"You have ministers? People that can help with these things, yes? Or does the government need your hand at all places?" Geopolitics limited by the certain evocations of laborious translation isn't beyond her. Clearly not, asking that. Her lips purse a moment and she follows his gesture to the windows and beyond. Soup interrupts her before she can ask more, though that is something given a sharp, considering look. Given her speedster reflection, probably only natural anything sustaining the hummingbird metabolism that fuels here. Oh hello, tomato. A quiet sigh of a child of starving times passes her lips. She cannot help it.

"Home is important. To have a place you can call it. Home is not just one place, but many, they say."

Black Panther has posed:
"Oh yes. We are a parliamentary monarchy. There is a Prime Minister as well. Reverend Doctor Michael Ibn al-Hajj Achebe. A fine mind," T'Challa says. "But I have a closer hand and say in things than in many nations. And I am trying to bring my nation towards a stance of helping others more than we have in our past. Yes? It is slow going, and there is opposition along the way. I need to continue to exert that pressure. Slow, and gradual. But pressure just the same," T'Challa says.

He will pick up the sandwich with his hands, in part in case Wanda is not sure if that is the way to eat it. That was the case for T'Challa when he first was given one. Amidst bites of the delicious sandwich, the creation of some chef in a SHIELD cafeteria, deploying a family recipe amidst the normal, poor military that is served, T'Challa will smile back to Wanda. "Home is very important. Wakanda is home. But so are the Avengers," he says, reaching over to touch Wanda's arm and give it a gentle squeeze as he smiles to her. And spends the rest of the evening catching up with her. And humming along with the Ghostbuster's theme as the movie continues to play on the television.

T'Challa ain't 'fraid of no Ghost.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda listens. Oddly, she has no reason to speak at length. Happy to listen doesn't mean thinking up a response, or idly munching on her sandwich, or something short of turning those gemstone eyes on the Wakandan king with a levity her age betrays. Her head inclined leaves a sweep of her neck bare, the darkness of her hair falling over her shoulder. "Make haste slowly." First spoken in the original Latin. Then in the English translation. "Good then, and good now.

Her spoon dips. She eats the soup with a perfunctory grace, a haste that speaks very much to origins that might be obscure to anyone unfamiliar with the horrors of war, the calamity of hunger. Plague, starvation, upheaval: their song echoes around the world from favelas to ghettos, from the heart of wartorn Congo to the bleak strife of indoctrination camps. They are surely a song he knows. Those who bear its trauma eat fast and furtive, aware the meal may be a vulnerability.

Cracks in the armour even here in the heart of things where the safety is almost certain, where gods and heroes dwell. At the heart of their power, she looks over her shoulder. Down to his hand, braced around her lithe arm, and following up the line of his limb to the shoulder, to the face.

Her pupils are drowned in the shades of dancing motes, those halfway to sapphire, though not charged with the hyper-kinetic roiling of her power unleashed. To see means to /See/, in her case. A glimpse of intent, a glimpse behind the smile.

T'Challa teases out a look of slow consideration, and behind consideration, something else. Curiosity, the first of the seeds to germinate in that shellshocked earth.

And she smiles.