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One thing Erik Lensherr can certainly appreciate about NYC; the prevalence of the Jewish deli. Katz's is a personal favorite, and after a long day helping those who were hurt and displaced by the war, he's found here, and quite famished.
He's nearly finished with his meal, and has taken to perusing the morning newspaper. It's mostly bad news, of course, but one particular article has caught his eye, for it features a photo on black and white. Upon the photo is himself, armored up, and mid duel with the elven Aelskith. The expression upon his face is hard to read; pensive, thoughtful to be sure. He hasn't had a chance to remove the X-Men uniform, but it remains safely concealed behind a brown sweater and a deep blue peacoat.
*
Katz's is a darn landmark. It represents a huge cross-section of society and no one really cares whether a girl comes with her grandfather or unescorted or surrounded by fifty guards. If they pay, have some pastrami on rye. This hour, she shows up alone, wrapped up in the same edgy, vicarious claret leather coat she always wears. It's more her uniform than anything else, anyways. The queue moves along at an orderly factory pace, and she keeps her head down and thoughts to herself while shuffling along.
At the end of the day, it's usually the same: sandwich, pickle, chips or fries. Her order is simpler still, and gets a very odd look from the preparer. Coleslaw, two pickles, slab of rye. With a very pointed look at her midsection, the kid offers her plate and mutters something about rabbits. She doesn't even complain, headed off to pay. Such is her life, and she refuses to apologize for it.
Stepping through the tables, the hopes of finding an unoccupied one are slim. Sitting with strangers or going outside is pretty much required, so she quietly picks her way through, reading on chance. Erik might recognize her before she picks him out, but there's a good chance a few people around him are leaving open spaces for a /reason/. They just don't know it yet.
If he doesn't pay attention, though, the amber-eyed witch is bound to be the one sighing at the fates silently and asking, "May I have this chair?"
*
One important fact about Magneto; he's always watching. Observant. At first, the assumption is that no one wants to sit near a man easily recognized by the papers, as one with the power to play with midrise buildings and throw tanks like marbles.
But then, he spies Wanda over the lip of his newspaper. A curious eyebrow rises, and he folds the paper into his lap while watching her approach.
"Please," he answers, and gestures toward the seat across from him.
*
They might have a measure for how frightening that particular man is. She's witnessed it firsthand; but then no one in this room has really seen her active. She inclines her head and puts down the tray on the table opposite the figure of increasing notoriety, and then pulls a seat back for herself. Very little space is left, but she slips in without knocking anything askew.
The napkin is spread as a precaution across her lap, a lavish addition in a place where dripping is the standard of a good meal. "You do not have to stop reading," she says quietly. "But thank you."
*
"I am no longer interested in reading," Erik answers plainly, directly. The newspaper is turned over and set onto the table next to his empty plate, and he studies Wanda for a long moment. If he has noticed her peculiar choice in dining, he doesn't seem to be acknowledging it in any way. "Wanda, isn't it?" he tells her, then reaches a hand for his mug of tea, looking at the drink thoughtfully for a long moment.
"It's ironic that we should encounter each other, here," he tells her, looking back to seek her eyes. "I have to admit; our first encounter was somewhat odd. What, exactly, was that all about?"
*
Wanda has partially disconnected.
*
Though not common in this age, it's reasonable to conclude Wanda might have dietary restrictions or, worse, be a vegetarian of some kind. She picks up her fork and spears a bit of carrot and coleslaw, looking up at the use of her name. "Yes." Then the utensil tucks into her mouth, a neat but hasty way of eating things allowing her to put away a significant amount of food in very short order. It has all the hallmarks of someone who eats when she can, or expects someone to take the plate. Consider her twin brother's abilities, and it might make sense. Nevertheless, she isn't messy. Quite the contrary.
Questions asked deserve an answer, however. She dabs the corners of her mouth with the napkin after putting her fork down, and that's why she took three paper serviettes in the first place. "It is a popular restaurant." Statement of fact, the queue stretches around the building at most daylight hours. Her gaze is clear, unusual only for the warm shade of amber brown, absent the red that very much appears then when she channels a given degree of energy. Or violet; it's been that, too. "Odd? My odd is a bad way to measure. We were looking for our family. In a big park, some methods are more accurate than others."
*
To be certain, Erik is taking note of the way in which Wanda eats. A bounty of insight can be granted by the way a person moves, the way they stand, their mannerisms… to Erik, there are a number of potential generalizations he might make by this, but they remain just that; potential facts. He quietly reminds himself that he does not know this young woman, and it remains unfair to cast any judgments about her.
Lifting his coffee, he takes a long and slow sip, offering a smile at her compliment to the establishment. "Oh, Katz's is certainly one of my favorites." A long pause is given, his expression seeming to drift for but a moment. "It reminds me of home."
Now focused upon Wanda once more, Erik's body language is attentive. He sets the mug down and leans forward just so, one wrist resting upon the table while the other remains in his lap. "Your family," he answers. "Yes, you did mention something about that. Lorna and I… we are family." He speaks in a way that might suggest that matter is settled, but there's a trail to the final note that drifts into the potential unknown. "Your methods were certainly remarkable, Wanda. I'm not sure 'odd' is the best way to describe them." His head tilts just so. "How long have you possessed these abilities?"
*
Very tidy. Wanda does not favour excess and she uses the minimum effort necessary upon dining, deriving very little pleasure from it. Potential facts. She would do terribly in the slow dining nations of the Mediterranean Basin. They might not know what to make of her, but on the other hand, the Germans probably adore her functional manner and speed.
She glances around when Erik mentions he finds the place reminds him of home. Many possibilities about what: the question is drawn on her face, briefly, but collapses into ash before she speaks of it. She is content to let him talk while she slices a pickle in twain, and then cuts the half lengthwise.
"Lorna said she was a Pole. Adopted," she muses on the verb; such are the irregularities implicit in English she has to halt and review her choice in words. Precision matters, and she speaks softly enough in her fluid Transian accent. "She is kind. A better person than us." That us doesn't seem to indicate Erik, her gaze sloughing away towards a window. There's no one remarkable out there to see. "Baby. Always. We never had not."
*
Wanda has partially disconnected.
*
Erik nods his assertion in regard to Lorna. He also doesn't seem to mistake Wanda's use of the term 'us'; he's a perceptive man, and while the term could have easily been misconstrued by less intelligent men, he's keen enough to pick up on it, based on what he witnessed of Wanda's interaction with the very, very fast man who claimed to be her sibling. That being said, his brow falls and an expression forms, suggesting he doubts her judgment on that matter.
"I doubt it is in anyone's purview to determine who is better or worse than another," he tells her, before squinting slightly toward the woman once more. "Since you were children?" he asks, and sits back for a moment, chewing on this information thoughtfully.
*
"We live in times when it is hard and dangerous to have soft beliefs." The statement takes her a moment to consider, translating through two languages to reach English, and she does so after biting one of the pickle spears elegantly. It barely survives for a moment or two, whatever crunch the dill would have completely lost behind Wanda's shut mouth. Her manner is upright and precise, and in many ways guarded. So too for that master of magnetokinesis: she's armed, as ever, an assortment of knives and a Walter PPK, in addition to a host of very interesting coins: they're mostly gold and silver, one copper one, strung to a scarf around her waist below the rivets of her boned corset. Old metal, the coins. Closet collector, maybe. "Maybe you are right. It would be nice." Not an ounce of wistful regard there. She is a factual creature, doused in the darkness of her own upbringing. Gauging Erik's reactions, her own silence is a telling factor of its own.
"Yes." She nods. "Very young. A long time with them. You?"
*
Much of this conversation seems to be the both of them, gauging each other. However, where Wanda seems guarded, Erik is… invested. His body language is that of inquiry, curiosity, and the insight of a visionary. It isn't until she poses a volley to his own inquisition that his demeanor changes.
All of the sudden, Erik seems introspective, and now he seems guarded. He looks away from Wanda, studying his coffee for a long moment, before reaching out with it to take a drink.
"Mine manifested when I was a boy," he tells her, drily. "As is often with mutants, these genetic changes remain in remission until something triggers them. Adolescence." Then, a shadow crosses his face. "A traumatic experience."
A brief pause, during which Erik hazards to look Wanda's way. If she's as perceptive as he believes, she might see it… a connection when he speaks of trauma.
"Sometimes both." He sets the coffee down again. "Which leads me to believe that, whatever has caused you to have these abilities, Wanda… it is not genetic mutation. At least, not in the traditional sense."
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 39
*
The woman behind the mask might laugh or nod in commiseration or frown. It's too hard to gauge whom the real creature is; she's too good at averting attention thrown her way, schooling her features behind the stony façade of a person stripped of innocence before it ever had roots. The merest inflection of a frown bows her lips downwards at the corners, the hardening of her jaw bringing those sharp cheekbones into higher relief. That might be similar to looking into a mirror. Trauma welds her burning gaze to a higher spectrum, shadows moving over the luminous amber. They are not glowing. Not yet.
"She spoke of Poland." A gesture made upon the table clears her napkin away; the other parts of the pickle are forgotten, as is the coleslaw. Bread, though, is deliberately broken in front of him with all that might mean to an Old World European. She tears it down the center, turning half to him. Half she reserves for herself, and does not touch. "A place she does not know. Events she did not know, but you carry in you and on you like a shadow. A Pole under twenty saw things and knows things that cannot be unseen. We remember."
That she doesn't flinch is something, and the factual manner of speech might be off-putting in someone that young. And so, so old.
"You may be right. The scientists and the experts were very clear." There is no smile in those words, nor her eyes, and she makes Triton's surface look positively tropical in comparison to her quiet, contained words. "They were quite… how do you say it in English? They had a goal for their experiments. They proved it. They did it again to prove it. They were most sure." A shot in the dark: German. "«Their notes were explicit. We are what we are.»"
*
"She wasn't raised there," Erik acknowledges. "As I understand, she was orphaned and… given the war, many of the orphans were sent here, to America. Everything about Poland in those days…" He shakes his head, allowing the shadow of war to linger upon his face, no longer feeling that he must hide it from Wanda. "She'll have no memory of it."
Erik looks down at the bread, and a long breath is drawn inward. There are some things that people simply won't understand, lest they be raised in such an environment. It almost brings a tear to his eye. In fact, the left one grows a bit misty, but he stills himself long before the tear can truly form. He accepts the bread with a modest look, then rips a piece free and eats.
"She's fortunate, you know," he points out, before silencing himself to listen.
When Wanda switches to German, Erik can't help but smile. It is… a good guess.
"Dann wurden Sie von der Wissenschaft geschaffen," he tells her. «Then you were created by science.» "Sagen Sie mir, Wanda, was haben die Wissenschaftler Ihnen gegeben?" «Tell me, Wanda, what did the scientists give you?»
*
Normally she would be loathe to shift into German. It's plain in her expression, how certain glissandos in the language hit her teeth and she hisses them with a distinct sibilant quality. Wanda is mindful of her surroundings, looking about to be sure that no one is glaring at them. In a Jewish deli, there may be hard feelings. On the other hand, here's a man who throws tanks for fun. They might just hide under the tables and pray to God who seems to unlikely to listen.
"Wissenschaft und Glaube. Ehrfurcht und Wahnvorstellungen." «Science and faith. Awe and delusions.» Her fingertips splay against the edge of the table, held flat. It won't really make a difference depending on whatever she is; her brother moves faster than a dream, and might have a doom spelled out for someone before they know to breathe, to blink. Still, with the broken bread, it's something of a neutral statement if he knows how to read it. "«They were not satisfied by their already reprehensible achievements. We were a pinnacle. Only the best to make the best.»" She looks briefly to the ceiling, compressing her lips as the cushion between her teeth. Darkness lurks under the surface, never very far. "«She asked me about the fall and the aftermath. I believe your daughter wants to know you better, and herself. She learned the broad strokes. A few unpleasant truths. Nothing like what we know.»" That insidious use of the plural; on this it's a common ground between two survivors separated by very little.
"«They gave my brother the gaps between time. They gave me fate." Let him laugh at that if he wants, but her words are dark and precisely ordered. "The strange gifts, the ones you called phenomenal, are my other inheritance. They could not touch them. But they want them."
*
Log edit: tack on » at the end. Lazy me.
*
By now, Wanda has captured Erik's attention in its entirety. The bread is left alone, as is the cooling mug of coffee. "What you have is, in fact, a phenomenon," he says with certainty, switching with ease back into English. With his free hand, he gestures toward Wanda. "Do not think of yourself as some… experiment. Do not think of yourself under the same moral mistakes as those who made you what you are today." He shakes his head. "You, and your brother, are unique. My advice is to remember that."
So much has been learned, and yet there is more to understand, perhaps for both. Erik reaches for a napkin, wipes his mouth clean, and folds it up in a symbol of conclusion. "You and your brother have a place to stay, yes?" A pause. "I would like to come and speak with you both, again."
*
"We do. For now. The way things are here…" She shrugs her shoulders, and there is little more to be said. Wanda's glance towards the window and the city beyond speaks volumes. "We will stay. When we go we find new… trouble. Something here calls us, and we stay." For now. The unspoken statements are there, even as she watches Erik rather as a hawk considers a golden eagle. There is great care necessary in dealing with such a proud, unmistakably wild creature.
She dips her head. "Me, yes. Pietro makes his own decisions. If you are family then the door is open." And if not, they at least have Nazi hunting in common and that's as good as blood, right?
*
Erik smiles with a warm understanding, and nods his head slowly. He retrieves a free napkin and slides it across the table, before an ink pen floats out from within his peacoat, seemingly of its own accord. The pen clicks, and it comes to rest upon the napkin. "Tell me how to reach you, then," he requests, before scooting his chair back and offering Wanda a smile. "I hope, it will not be long before I come calling."