a fishbowl with haunted house powers

—          WANDA MAY NOT know much of this world, america especially, but she was quick to learn, to notice how people acted.  in sokovia, she understood people.  in america, it was harder.  these were not her people, but she would have to adapt somehow. 

❝ i just figured you;’d want to take the mantle. ❞     he’s smiling.  something charming, no doubt an act to try and lower her defenses.  where he smiles, she doesn’t.  she stretches her fingers from around her cup, the joints crack.  she rolls the ache of her right wrist, that, too, cracks.

❝ you are implying i use my power to manipulate people into thinking the way you do. ❞     shift the blame off herself.  these are not her plans.  they are not her feelings.  she’ll keep her own feelings close to her chest for as long as she could.  her team, as split as they were against stark, wouldn’t be happy to hear the thinks she thought.     ❝ i don’t do that anymore. ❞ 

she hated to remember that she once did.  that she’d twisted people for her own gain.  that she’d hurt people with it.  it still made her stomach twist. 

❝ you will have to figure something else out. ❞

      She’s a difficult one -- not that Quentin had expected much different. Though he’s well-versed in the art of getting what he wants (and used to making things go his way), Wanda is a unique case. Although he’d worked with Tony once upon a time, Quentin had never had much exposure to people with real powers. He can’t imagine what the pressure of that must feel like, let alone with the stress of the Avengers’ rift.

      He senses the pushback in her expression, in her body language, and then hears it confirmed in her words. A disappointed frown can’t be helped. “That wasn’t what I’d meant to imply, Ms. Maximoff. My apologies for that. I was hoping you’d be a collaborator with myself and my team -- I’d never ask you to use your powers for anything you didn’t believe in.”

      Ground is quickly being lost, and for as much as Quentin wants to argue (and argue and argue until he wins), he suspects this isn’t the time or the place. The thought has been passed along, planted in her head. He’ll have to hope it sticks, makes her consider her options. Nodding and lifting his palms in a show of placation, he relents (against his better judgement).