1963-10-30 - Strange Satisfaction
Summary: Clean up in the aftermath of murder and triumph.
Related: Closing The Hellmouth
Theme Song: Floating, Floating - August Wilhelmsson
strange wanda 


It's simple enough to draw a Gate back to the Sanctum. What's not so simple is finding the power to cast a little healing spell.

Strange strips of his battle-leathers with various sounds of agony. Flipping his undershirt, the one he wears beneath his battle-vest, is particularly painful. It catches on the end of his broken nose and the shirt is tossed to one side in a moment of base wrath at the unfairness of how his vision sparkles.

Already, the Sorcerer Supreme is getting an amazing set of black eyes.

"Uggggggggh…" he exhales as he pulls his red bathrobe around him. Forget a shower. Forget cleaning the mud from his battle-leathers, where they lie in a piled heap at the foot of the bed. He sits down on the end of it, content to just…exist…wearily.

But at least the Hellmouth is closed! And the Darkhold?

No one knows where it is now save for him.

*

Depleted somewhat, the batteries that Wanda fuels her spellcraft with nonetheless might prove sufficient to supply the needed force. Now, attaining the right frame of mind to interface with another caster is so far beyond her, they might as well be on the moon.

Heady and horrified, her arms stay wrapped around her all the way through the gate into the place called home. Ask her a month ago whether New York would be home, she might have thrown a wadded ball of paper — or a dagger — into the inquirer's face. Tonight, the mere prospect of a bed sheltered from reality's cares sings so strongly that she moves on autopilot towards it.

Clearly they are exhausted. Supreme or not, magic demands its due. There is always a price, and the price tonight will have dividends all the way through the year.

She leaves the discarded backpack somewhat near the kitchen. A use for the rest of the iron powder can be found. Her body reports its pangs and complaints, and the throb deep in her muscles tells her how far she's gone.

"Doctor?" A question given in German or English sounds almost identical. She slides through the room, grabbing onto the doorjamb when the floor decides to do some non-Euclidean bucking and arching.

*

His nerves are too scoured by conduction of ley lines and Elder God magics and more casting than he's done in a very long time. Who knows what the long-term price will be for this particular victory? Maybe he'll even need to give up tea — sacrilege!

Breathing through his mouth, Strange mops at his upper lip with a red-stained washrag as he glances up at the master bedroom's doorway. Oh, there she is. He doesn't move from the end of the bed, where he sits.

"Yes, Wanda?" His voice is still nasally, moreso than his normal Midwestern twang, and roughened with overuse and the sting of swallowed blood. "Are you alright?" It's asked in hollowed exhaustion, but still with the note of concern she probably knows so well from him.

*

There would be an easier definition in German, a clinical adjective for 'The ground is wobbly and my knees feel like springs,' but English lacks the thirty-eight letter compound word. Therefore the best Wanda can muster is a grim smile, and loosen her deathly tight grip on the wood. When she pries her clammy digits from the door, the next test is whether the floor is willing to support her weight without bucking like a yearling colt assaulted by a cloud of flies.

Turns out that might have been a tad premature, striking her with a watery sensation. Even the light slants to her eyes, but she remains upright, if light-headed. "How did this happen?" A wave of her hand indicates his face, even if her red-shifted irises caught under motes of rose petal sparks suggest she's measuring the state of the good Doctor's being.

*

Strange slowly closes his bruising eyes in mute response to her question. It conveys many things, mostly self-recrimination and exhaustion. Aloud:

"Remember when Morgan died?" He assumes she does; after all, he shook some of the remaining iron flecks from his clothing when he entered the Sanctum. No doubt they'll be tracking them around for weeks like demented crafting glitter. "She pulled some of the fallen stone from Marie-Ange's walls and threw it at me. Telekinesis or some spell… I think my nose is broken," and he pokes at it tenderly. The lightest touch makes him squint and utter another raspy groan. "I can't heal it just yet. Too drained."

It's a heavy admission from the Sorcerer Supreme. He's not supposed to be tired. "I'll need some tea first, maybe a nap…if I can manage it."

*

"Yes." The curt nod comes almost distractedly. How not to forget the sight of the triumphant sorceress choking in the air, poisoned by the rainfall that was a Hail Mary of sorts. Merlin's storytelling serves a purpose beyond lightening post-council teatimes and amusing a distrustful witch, and now Wanda adds it to the string of dark marks she has to live with.

Pulling her dark hair off her bruised neck, she assesses the tally of known factors and damage blossoming in front of her very nose. "This will never do," she mutters to no one in particular. Perhaps it's the nasal quality of Strange's voice, the darkening mask distorting his features stirring something.

"Stay there. The city is no longer on fire thanks to you. Let me fix something for you." Even she can find the mental energy to brew a proper pot of tea. How surprising when her people are masters at reading futures in tea leaves? Whatever compels the witch, she gives next to no indication of her shifting focus accelerating from ten to ninety at the speed of thought. His pain is her fuse, and the strike of the match ignites the line.

The tips of her middle and ring fingers curl to meet her thumb, the index extended down to her palm through the circular gap. The apana vayu mudra acts as the seal for the heart, and all matters blood related. Her fingers flex and the hex snaps free at full force, disrespecting all ions and atoms zinging around space in its wake. Head tilted, her eyes narrow in upon that battered line of the good Doctor's fine nose, patrician and askew from its proper lines. Not for long.

*

The hex hits him square between the eyes — just as it should.

Strange absolutely wasn't expecting it. He'd been staring at her bare feet, idly taking in the lines of the fine bones and the delicate ankles — women's legs are always so delicate right there, at the base. Movement in her hand and her mentioning fixing something for him makes him glance up blearily.

"It's the tisane with the orange wrapping, not the yellOW — " Right in the nose.

There's a wrenching moment of realignment, but the searing lightning of agony is quickly nulled by the claret-hued hex. Even as he blinks away tears and the ceiling stops swimming, the good Doctor feels at his nose and…it's fine. All better.

"Wanda! What in Agamotto's name?!" he chokes as he lies there on the bed on his back, one scarred hand covering the upper half of his face, including his no-longer-raccoon-like eyes. The washcloth was tossed aside in the quick flail of his limbs. No blood remains. That patrician nose is back to normal!
*

The surgeon in him probably respects when the patient ought not to be aware of what comes next. Keep them in the dark and enjoy the happy consequences. This isn't the Royal Navy in the eighteenth century, where surprise amputations or bone-setting could be performed. A sip of rum and a wooden dowel between the teeth constituted good bedside manners. Wanda prefers a slightly higher standard of civility, and one cannot fault her for the accuracy of her bedside manner.

Now, the surgeon probably doesn't anticipate his treatments knocking a patient flat on their back in a moment of surprise.

Strange is still on the bed, however, and the brunette's shapely silhouette thrown over the covers, backlit where her loose, increasingly wild hair obscures the glowing lamps. Leaning over him, she considers the contour of his face and the reduced swelling.

"Yes. That will do." The nod to herself is fairly certain. "Faster than your tea."

*

Strange brings his hand down his face slowly, turning his head to give her a look.

"I would appreciate a warning next time," he grumbles, even as one corner of his lips begin to rise. He's too tired to consider much beyond how he is suddenly very comfortable lying back on the bed. It's a shame that his feet hang over the edge; it's tempting to fall asleep but for the idea that his toes would get very cold.

"We still need…" and a yawn interrupts him, even as he levers himself stiffly back up into a sitting position. "Still need tea. A casting hangover is nothing to sneeze at." He sniffs, experimentally, and nods, glancing over at her again. "It's nice to know that I'll be able to do that now. Sneeze, I mean."

His gaze lingers on her and he can read how she's equally tired, even behind that moue of muted delight. The lines of his body, expression, they soften in affection and appreciation of the bewitching sight of her. "Tea and then sleep."

Doctor's orders.

*

Oh, he thinks he sits back up, does he? Strange achieves it for about six seconds, before that abortive pounce from earlier is met with a shyer hug from Wanda.

And her more than likely toppling him right back where he was. Warm toes or no warm toes.

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