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Some places more than others, a dark-haired girl in a burgundy leather coat stands out. Among the businessmen in the Financial District, she acts as a beacon to lure the eye. Among the locals of Chinatown, a little less so.
She hasn't managed to access this far without a bowl of noodles and a few spritzes of tea, though the bowl is largely untouched and the teapot drained four times over before getting this far. Wanda wears a ragged knit scarf around her throat, probably handmade by someone amateur at best with needles, and rose faintly stains her cheekbones. Downstairs proves much warmer and drier than the damp weather at street-level. She waits patiently in the foyer as the guard stares at her, his face contorted into a gimlet look.
"Agent Croon said report odd things," she explains in heavily accented English. Eastern European, without doubt, maybe inflected a bit by German. Either way, it's odd around SHIELD. "So I come to report. Where do I do it?"
*
It's been a long day for Sean trying to get a hang of all the paperwork that he needs to fill out for his latest endeavour, especially since he is forbidden from having a drink while doing so. Checking his watch he decides that he can at least grab a bite to eat before he continues on this lovely journey of red tape.
Walking out into the lobby, Sean stops and looks at guard and the girl. He half raises his hand and asks "C'n I help you?" His own Irish accent easily identifiable if not quite as thick. It's odd that anyone other than an agent would be here, at least from the protocols that Sean knows. Extending his hand as he gets closer he states "Agent Sean Cassidy."
*
A benefit that Sean's Irish accent is something easily cut with a knife, rather than spooned through in search of actual English words Wanda understands. Wanda glances past the less than charmed guard up to the Irishman, her golden-brown eyes hollowed by a lack of sleep. Her pallor is similarly faded, though her warm complexion covers the effect of that somewhat.
With anyone else, the response might be facetious. "Can you?" With her, it sounds honestly uncertain. She looks at his hand, then up to him. American customs don't parse so readily, but she shows her empty gloved palms in similar greeting. He could easily shake her hand that way. "Wanda. Wanda Maximoff. I have to make a report. Two reports. I do not know how we do these things."
*
Sean is not really smiling or terribly friendly looking until he hears the name, and then breaks into a wide grin. He is at least aware of the two assumed mutant European imports like himself. "Miss Maximoff, I've read your file. Pleasure to meet you." He tentatively shakes her hand, only because now that they are both extending hands it would be extra weird not to, but it's brief and awkward.
"I'm actually in the middle of a storm of paper work right now, so come on in. Ye can add to the pile. I'm new here, from Interpol, so I'm still learnin' the ropes of how they 'andle things m'self." He tries to rack his brain to remember her precise status, agent? operative? resource? Obviously she knows the secret handshake to get into the base, but for safety Sean will assume nothing about clearance.
*
The young woman stares at him shaking her hand, and then her somewhat limp, warm fingers firm up a little. She clearly is not practiced at this form of saying hello, but she tries and sometimes, trying amounts for more than the end result. Sean's grin does not quite rub her fur the wrong way, though any sort of professional training realizes she is much like a wild cat or bird ready to fly off at the merest provocation. "You know me." Not quite a question. "This man asks me about pass codes. I gave him what Agent Croon told me but he says I need a card with my name. I do not have this."
It dawns on her to frown slightly. "How does one get a card? His was fancy. A photograph." Her nose wrinkles at that, for whatever reason. That being said, she speaks while she falls in behind Sean as he leads her in. Whatever her status is remains much to be seen — even to her. Limbo? Terrifyingly accurate magic 8-ball?
*
Sean notices the shaky demeanor and nods as she states what the problem is. He glances over to the guard and says "If I escort her back t'take a statement, it's fine right? So long as she promises not to be an evil secret agent sent to destroy us?" Ah jokes about evil secret agents, they never get old to Sean.
The guard glares at Sean very much not getting his sense of humor and says "If you vouch for her, and stay with her, it's okay."
Sean gives a slightly fake guilty look to Wanda and says "In that case Miss Maximoff try not to bring down SHIELD while under my supervision." as he leads her back to his work area. He casually flips closed some files on his desk and slides a few things around, ostensibly to clean up, in actuality to hide anything confidential.
*
Evil secret agent jokes probably go over like insults to the Queen at St. James' Court. Wanda has one hell of a poker face or the wits to keep her mouth shut. Waved through, then, she falls in something like a red shadow after the Irish agent.
"I do not think I could." The fact she has any doubt in there should not be comforting. It probably wasn't for the unfortunate asked to profile her, even from a distance in West Berlin or closer up in New York. SHIELD has barely had the twins for a month, at this point. Until given leave to sit, though, she stands in front of the desk. "How is this done? Telling a report. No one has given me information."
*
Watching Wanda's face Sean duly notes that his jokes are not terribly appreciated there either, not that it would stop him. He takes a seat and glances up at her with an arched brow as she stands over him. "Uhm.. take a seat. I can take down yer report or at least talk it through with you. Have ye not been assigned a handler? Or contact within the department?"
As he indicates the seat across from his desk with one hand, he slips a couple more files closed with the other. And considering her earlier reaction he wishes that he had her file in front of him, just in case this asset isn't quite as close in ideology and beliefs as he thought.
*
Clarification: not terribly understood. It is a small but finite difference. Wanda slips her hands under her thighs, capturing the burgundy tails of her coat beneath her as she settles into the chair. Nothing in her posture eases to give way to a slouch. "I met Mrs. Carter." Her nose wrinkles slightly in memory. "We agreed to come in. After this, the paperwork, the rest… Pietro knows of it more than I."
Read: status unclear. The complications surrounding her twin and herself bring a flat smile to her lips, nothing entirely warming her eyes. "The unorthodoxy of the situation is not lost upon me, yes? The agent from Berlin was not still assigned to us. I am still trying to understand."
*
At least he knows who Pietro is and that lines up with the file. Sean nods at her and says "Right well, I will write Heather, that's Mrs. Carter's secretary, a note about getting an appointment for you to get an ID and a meeting with someone about getting a new handler." He scribbles something down as he is telling her this, likely a note to himself to remember to do that.
"Right. So what did you come in to talk about t'night? I'm sorry that there aren't more senior types here."
*
Appointments, bureaucracy, the bane of existence. Wanda tucks her chin and nods. She slips her hands back into her pockets for lack of anything else to do with them other than generously inflect her words with a string of gestures. "The SHIELD wall around Central Park," she says, struggling until she settles upon the word 'wall' rather than a variety of options. English is clearly not her first language, and sometimes it shows. "It should no longer be needed. Yes, watch and be certain, but the threat it was built around went away. I was there when it left."
Understatement of the week, really, but she gives it a good college try, or whatever the inane maxim happens to be.
*
Taking notes on interviews is by now second nature for Sean. Of course in this case he only gets a few words scratched down before he stops, and looks up. "Wait? What?" He realizes that he needs to probably get a hell of a lot more detail. "What do you mean it went away? Did someone manage to close the portal? Doorway to hell thing?"
He may not be able to drink but he can certainly smoke at least in the office. He takes a pack out of his drawer and offers one to her first, before lighting up his own.
*
The cigarette is taken, though she turns it over and looks at the filter with something almost akin to regret. "I cannot. The smoke does nothing for me." No doubt that will make it into her file; resistance to soothing toxins offered by tobacco. It is tapped expertly on the desk and handed back. Wanda at least gives the peace offering something of a blessing, and crosses her leg over the other.
She considers Sean for a good long while before talking, taking the time to arrange her thoughts in a simple way. "The portal is shut and its source banished," she says. "I will not say it cannot happen again. These sorts of tears between places are rare. Those who try to create them are powerful and they are motivated. Driven like madmen, serving their dark gods. Sometimes they want to become a god themselves. Their minds are not sound, not often."
*
Absent mindedly he takes the cigarette back and places it behind his ear. Sean quirks an eyebrow and says "Oh.. kay" looking around trying to get his bearing with all of this. He says "I'm sorry, what source? I am not very well versed in dimensional .. things." He tilts his head and asks "Do we know who was behind the portal? Or d'ye know how it was closed?" Normally he would have a much more structured approach to this type of interview, but he's too confused and thrown off by the material though to really get his bearings.
*
Wanda listens in absolute silence. The complete lack of motion around her, except breathing and blinking, might be uncanny for someone unexpected. "I will start simply. There was a portal to a hell dimension in Central Park. Such portals do not open by themselves. Someone must make them. There are many ways these could open. By magic, a deal with a demon, some items of great power, rituals done at special times, a powerful sacrifice. Usually a human sacrifice. This particular one was very strong. There was a woman who may not have created the portal, but she took advantage of it to cause more harm. I can tell you her name. You are, I think, going to laugh at me if I do."
This statement of fact comes without a blush of irony, and her brassiness is met with barely blinking intensity in those brilliant honey-brown eyes fixed upon Sean's face. "The attacks on civilians," her accent stilts over the word, "were partly her responsibility. She expanded the Hellmouth — the gate to the hells — herself. That darkness in Midtown? It was her creation. She wanted, I think, to kill everything in New York for her own power. A sacrifice of that scale would grant her such strength, it would be beyond what a government group could hope to attack. Very dangerous and evil. Wrong. So several people came to stop her by closing the portal. I was present, Agent Cassidy. I watched her try and kill many people, raise the dead with dark magic, and animate the trees. Perhaps this sounds like a mad person talking. I promise you it is not."
*
Getting into it, Sean starts to take down the notes and nods along as she explains it in easy words. "Nah, I won't laugh. I fought a couple o' those beasties m'self." He pushes his sleeves up at this point to show some bandages, and there are some faint scratches on his face. He nods "Course.. I don't know why there wouldn't be human sacrifice involved."
He takes another drag and nods intently as she continues. "So are ye.. only going to tell me the name if I promise not to laugh? I mean, I may have had a hard time before I got swallowed by a walking shadow." Somehow he doesn't think his one off brawl with dark things really compares to Wanda's apparent deep experience with these things. "An' am I to assume ye used… magic to close this thing? Or some other force?"
*
"Do you need a demonstration? Sometimes people do. I try not to scare them. What alarms you might have here, others who might frighten." Wanda looks around, making very little show of it. No doubt those who have any idea of who she is might be a bit tense. On the other hand, she isn't actually moving or revealing her hands otherwise. "You are correct in your assuming, yes. Mostly. I did very much need the stories of Ireland and England and the Scots to know what to do. The woman belongs to the stories of those lands. She is real. I have cause to know."
If only she actually could take that cigarette. Unfortunately magic is not kind to biology and those simple pleasures are fairly denied her, and she will not complain otherwise. A nod shows to his scratches, and she rubs her face. "Did you find the demons, the vampires, the undead or the trees? Something else? I heard about a large spider."
*
"No!" is offered perhaps a little too quickly by Sean at the offer to show him and he covers that awkwardly with "Tha' won't be necessary. I'm actually a little familiar with some of these things, at least.. " He pauses for a bit and says "I t'ink I know a few faerie folk.. from Ireland. B't nothing like these things."
"I t'ink they were vampires. There were fangs 'n claws and someone … another agent helped me behead 'em. There were other things, like these livin' shadows that could swallow up an area in darkness. Those… I have no idea what that was." He pauses right before offering her a drink, realizing that he for once doesn't have anything at his desk.
*
Eyes darken, pupils widening as the slant of their natural shape grows more exaggerated when she narrows her gaze. Wanda nods, the curt movement enough to signal familiarity without breaking deeper into the narrative with an interruption. "Tea, please, if you have it. There are several forms of animated shadow. Some drink the life from men. Some possess them. Imagine an effect, they can probably do it. So I report this to SHIELD so they know the threat is reduced and they will not ask why I did not tell them about being there, did they learn it later."
Diplomacy over dead demons, how charming. Her breath stills and she thinks for a moment. "There is someone the leaders should talk to for more detail. I don't know if they have met him. However, I am telling my part, and suggesting he is someone to speak with for more."
*
Watching her eyes with interest Sean glances around quickly as if there is anyone around. "Tea? Yea.. I c'n do that." He sets the pens down and stands up slowly and looks around trying to remember where the break room is. He says "Yea, I'll write that up in my report… can I get a name though? For both? The source and this other person we should talk to?"
He comes back with a hot cup and a bag of tea. "Sorry they only have one type in there.."
*
Tea will suit her no matter what; Wanda at least can stomach the taste of the leaves better than other sources. Coffee no longer suits her palate, though it's not too rude to take a mug. "Thank you. The heat is very good." She blows over the surface, waiting for it to cool and Sean to take his seat.
"The woman who used the gate to her own purposes and agenda is Morgan." She hesitates. "Le Fay."
Because Sean is going to love her delivering this to him, she gives the slightest smile of regret. It will not reach her sleep-shadowed eyes. "The contact, Doctor Strange on Bleecker Street."
*
Taking a seat back down, Sean takes his cigarette and uses it to light the next one before stubbing the first out, classy. Sean listens as she explains. His eyes go wide as she says the name. He looks at her and just nods "Alright. Well that's … unexpected, yer right. B't I believe ye" He is quick to add that part. "I mean openin' portals to hell and tryin' t'sacrifice cities fits pretty well within tha' stories about 'er as well."
Sean doesn't really blink about the contact, just writes it down and asks "W'd he mind if someone reached out? I mean it's best if we can get this type of information down t'have on file.. in case somethin' like this 'appens again. And .. t'anks. I mean personally thank you for yer part in shuttin' this down. Ye saved thousands.. 'r more lives."
Realizing as he starts saying it that it should have come sooner he is sure to put the pen down and look her in the eyes as he says it. "An' ye saved other non powered personnel from havin' t'deal with it. I mean, I c'n take care o' myself b't some of these guys 'r just … good agents with guns." He doesn't want to demean them, but seriously.
*
Wanda takes another sip of the tea. Her fingers curl around the mug in a somewhat unladylike manner, suggestive that thirst drives her to take every opportunity she can get. "You may. You might also use my name to say I came. He'll expect it. The good Doctor and I know one another." Her gaze brightens a fraction and it may just be the praise hits home, though like a dog with an arrow, she isn't much sure what to do with it.
"The right thing to do is stop a woman like that. Too many lives at risk, and I am getting much tired of those demons about. I kill them, where I can. Banish if I can. This was too much for anyone." Another sip as she lingers upon that point, and thinks the better of saying more. At least her posture as gone a little more casual in Sean's presence, though her corset assures she will never slouch about. "SHIELD is… I thank everyone for being there. To risk their lives against these things. I've never seen any group try that. Why would you be willing to die under their claws?"
*
Nodding as he adds just a few more notes to his sheet, Sean sets the pen down as it turns to more conversational tone. "Aye. It's the right thing t'do. An' from what I can tell tha's what most of the people in this unit 'r here for. It's .. almost shocking, b't they genuinely are willing to lay down their life to make the world better." He pauses and adds "Even if they don't have crazy powers 'r magical connections…"
Thinking about it for a minute "Ya know, I'm not sure how everyone here will view havin' magic folks jump in an' solve this. Frankly I t'ink some w'd rather of j's shot it with a big 'nuff gun, b't that's Yanks f'r ya. Somethin' tells me that Mrs. Carter will be pretty open t'any type of help that comes, so long as it's not got strings attached." He is of course speculating here based on his limited experience within the organization.
*
"I had a gun. I had knives. If I thought they would have killed her, I would have used them," Wanda replies, giving a shake of her head that throws her chocolate-brown hair in disarray around her shoulders. "Guns do not work well against all monsters. Two or three demons I fought did not trouble with guns. How do you shoot a gun at an oak tree walking towards you, trying to tear you apart with its branches?" Credit where due; she doesn't flinch to the question, though the memory flips her stomach and sends bile climbing up her throat.
She swallows that and drains the tea in good stead, all the way down to the bottom. "I will ask this be not on the record. Will you do this for me? I may have killed her. I may not have. It was a very simple trick any miner could do. Any agent, magic or not. But she dropped dead like a stone shortly after. The doctor led the fight, that was merely a bit of luck on my part. The director ought probably to know but no credit given to me for it, please. Only that everyone gives what they have. Without your wall, the attacks would have been worse. Without guns, more monsters in the streets. Without the Doctor… do not imagine."
She puts the cup on his desk and stands. "I think that is enough for the night."
*
Sean indicates the pen still sitting on the desk as she asks for something to not be included. He nods and says "I can certainly leave that part out, but f'r my part I hope ye did. But something tells me if that was actually Morgan le Fay, like the original one… we won't be tha' lucky." It's not that he doubts any of it, just if Morgan has survived this long, it's unlikely that she is easy to kill.
He stands and says "Well thank ye Miss. Maximoff. I will see that I get ye properly sorted out f'r next time, and I'll pass along the report. It was a pleasure talkin' with you." A pleasure it's not really how Sean would describe most official interviews, but this one was certainly more pleasant than most. "Have a g'd night.." And now to finish up this bloody paperwork and get himself a proper drink.
*
"Probably not. She is more than likely still about somewhere, somehow," Wanda agrees. "Wear your faith in an iron cross or charm." She puts her hands back into her pockets again and gives a slight incline of her head, chestnut hair skimming off her shoulder. "It has been… nice, Agent. Maybe you and I can try something in the future."