ashes in the air (chatzy) || wanda and k’lux
Summary: K’lux comes face to face with Wanda. Warnings: Violence, death
Johnny’s text had been a shock when Wanda originally received it. Franklin was unfortunately not as well-adjusted as he had originally claimed in his original phone call with Johnny, she had seen firsthand proof of that within his mind, but he certainly did not deserve to die. Immediately, she assumed he had been taken by a heart attack or something of natural causes, but the news quickly corrected her on that point. Johnny’s home had been attacked, and he had disappeared immediately. Worried, she’d contacted Sue, and later MJ, both of whom also hadn’t heard from him. Eventually, it became clear that while he was uninjured from the attack, Johnny had no desire for visitors, and opted not to be comforted. After Pietro’s death, Wanda had responded similarly, shutting down entirely, and refusing all forms of comfort. For a few days, she respected that, but worry ultimately won out, leading her to his home. Using the key he had given her, Wanda let herself in, and found Johnny sitting on his couch, looking restless. “I missed you,” she said in lieu of greeting. Absently, she noticed the absence of Franklin’s thoughts, something she had adjusted to while in her boyfriend’s apartment. “How are you doing?” Carefully, Wanda kept her distance, knowing that she was a distinctly uninvited guest.
For the most part, K’lux had spent his first few days under the Jonathan Storm disguise gathering intel. That was to say, he’d been avoiding Storm’s contacts and waiting for specific orders. Logically, K’lux knew that he was meant to be interacting with Storm’s friends and family, both in order to manipulate them and to maintain his disguise, but he was largely hesitant to do so. After all, K’lux did not have nearly as much training in this sort of thing as most of the other Skrulls who’d been placed. He was a soldier, not a spy; he was here simply because he’d had the fortune of being one of the last Skrulls standing after Storm’s rampage. It did not make him qualified for the task at hand, especially not when one of the people closest to his disguise was a powerful telepathic mutant. When he heard a key in Storm’s lock, K’lux was immediately on edge. Wanda Maximoff was, without a doubt, the worst-case scenario as to who might be outside now. Naturally, that was precisely who opened the door. K’lux frowned as she entered, careful not to do anything that would be out of character. Luckily, Storm was in mourning, saving K’lux from having to do anything distasteful. (From what he could see of Storm’s memories, the boy’s entire life was distasteful.) “You shouldn’t --- I would’ve called,” he stammered. The quickening of his heart was due to K’lux’s own nervousness at her presence, but he hoped it would be passable as frustration on Storm’s part. “If I wanted company, I would’ve said so.”
Wanda flinched at the frustrated edge in Johnny’s tone. She didn’t expect her boyfriend to be ecstatic to see her, he wanted to be alone due to his grief, and while that was completely understandable, Johnny was suffering. As long as he was alone on his couch, looking deeply hurt, she couldn’t stand to indefinitely stay away. “I didn’t say you would,” she reminded him gently. When he was ready, Wanda was positive that he would have reached out to her, apologetic, she trusted him. “How are you?” She asked, stepping towards him hesitantly. She ignored the strange pattern in his thoughts, quiet and more measured than Johnny’s typically were. Grief changed people, it could have easily quelled the usual fire raging inside of him.
She flinched at his tone and, privately, K’lux felt some mixture of disgust and amusement. He’d heard rumors of humans’ emotional vulnerabilities, but he hadn’t realized how vast their shortcomings truly were. A simple change in tone could create emotional distress; it was laughable to think that any member of the Skrull Empire might be wary of these idiots. Still, he knew he had to proceed with caution; as weak as her humanity made her, Wanda Maximoff still possessed the ability to peer into his mind. Storm had been chosen as a target largely because Maximoff avoided invading his thoughts, and K’lux could give her no reason to change her tune. “I’m fine,” he muttered, getting to his feet and walking towards the window in the opposite direction of her. He knew from Storm’s memories that the boy was nauseatingly fond of physical affection, but K’lux was hoping to avoid it. He had no desire to grow intimate with Wanda Maximoff. “I just --- I really want to be by myself right now, Wands.” He let the nickname slip off his tongue as easily as it would have come from Storm’s mouth, added no small amount of desperation to his tone in an attempt to convince her to leave. He was not good enough at espionage to fool her for long; it was a shortcoming he was entirely aware of.
As Johnny walked away from Wanda and towards the window, her brow furrowed, and once again, Johnny’s thoughts struck her with a stark contrast to what she had come to associate with him. There was none of his usual silent insecurity, and they lacked his usual tenderness. As he spoke, she turned her focus back towards him. “You said you wouldn’t lie to me,” she said reflexively. Johnny was far from okay, and far from himself, judging by his organized, strange thoughts. He attempted to dismiss her once more, and Wanda’s gaze narrowed. She trusted her boyfriend implicitly, but he was lying to her. Wanda focused on Johnny’s mind, and what she found was definitely not her boyfriend. This… Skrull, she assumed, was a warrior, and his thoughts were primarily strategic and on how he could possibly fool her. “What happened when you found out, Johnny?” She asked calmly, intending to use her advantage to discover the truth about her boyfriends fate. She was a terrible spy, her tone was much sharper, and as she advanced upon him, it was no longer hesitant and concerned.
The accusation was soft, almost loving, but K’lux tensed all the same. The ice he was skating on was thin. One wrong move, and his entire facade would shatter, putting the Empire at risk. Sighing, he shrugged stiffly. “I don’t know how I am, Wanda,” he muttered darkly, allowing the grief and pain that coated Storm’s latest memories to slip into the sentence. He turned at her question, brow furrowed. “When I found out what?” The confusion in his tone was genuine; he wasn’t sure what she meant. He hoped it wasn’t something he was meant to understand instinctively, some sort of secret code embedded in the words that Storm would have picked up on. Truly, K’lux wasn’t made for this. He’d been certain that his time to serve the Empire would come in the final battle. He’d been prepared for glorious violence, not subtle manipulation. He was disappointed, but determined to do his part all the same, and that involved fooling Wanda Maximoff.
The Skrull showed a fraction of what Johnny was feeling during the Skrull capture, and Wanda’s stomach rolled. The pain was intense, and his anger, even through the Skrulls memories, was overwhelming. “What can I do?” She asked, swallowing harshly. This wasn’t Johnny, but that distinction in her mind was difficult to focus on, particularly as her boyfriends memories flitted through its mind. What had they done with him? The Skrulls wouldn’t have kept him alive, they had no reason to, and she was a problem they would face the second she discovered the truth behind Johnny’s fathers death. Surely that was the cause. Johnny was dead, the Skrull had killed him, and now her only option was to discover how. “Show your true body,” she demanded coldly. The answering magic ripped through her, unlike the usual comfort of her hexes, this was far more intense. Immediately, green skin appeared over Johnny’s usual form. “What happened to my boyfriend?” She asked, cupping her hands together, a hex forming between her palms, a silent treat.
Her voice was thick with emotion as she spoke, and K’lux wondered what the point to humans’ fragile emotions were. Where was the sense in feeling a sense of grief for a loss someone else had suffered? K’lux didn’t understand the use of it all. Skrulls’ emotions were strong, but only when they needed to be. His feelings drove him forward when it made sense for them to do so. “I just need to be alone,” he sighed. “Can you --- can you just go?” At some point along the way, he had failed spectacularly. He realized it when she spoke, when his disguise slipped from his grasp despite his best attempts to keep it up. He scowled as his skin turned back to its natural state, turning to face Wanda and dropping all semblance of his act. It made no sense to keep it up now, of course, and K’lux wouldn’t insult himself by attempting to pretend otherwise. Eyeing her carefully, he considered his options. Lying to her and telling her Storm was dead would likely only upset her and end in his own death. There was nothing to be gained from it, not for K’lux and not for the Empire. Instead, he smiled and shrugged a shoulder. “He lives,” he said, “but only for the moment. If you kill me, you’ll be signing his death warrant. My people have no reason to keep him alive if I die.” It was a lie, but K’lux was careful to keep his mind blank of this fact. Instead, he focused on the memories still in his head, the ones of Storm’s last moments before his capture. Hopefully, seeing her ‘boyfriend’ in such distress would distract Maximoff enough to keep her from digging further into his mind.
The Skrull’s personality quickly shifted as its ruse dropped. Confidently, he turned around to face Wanda, and she cocked her head to the side, studying him. His memories already revealed that he was a soldier, and for that fact alone, she was wary. When she promised Johnny she’d no longer behave recklessly, she had meant it, and if he lived as this Skrull suggested — his thoughts showed no signs of deceit — Wanda would do everything in her power to save his life. “Why would they have no reason to keep them alive?” She responded, her voice cold. The Skrull’s mind was filled with memories of Johnny’s capture, and her eyes flared red, the hex bolt expanding between her hands. Rather than repeatedly watch Johnny in distress, hating himself, she dug through the Skrulls mind systematically. It was far easier than digging into the depths of Pietro’s, whose mind she wished to keep intact. Wanda tore through every memory she could grasp, revealing the structure of the mothership, and his copious amount of training for battle. Idly, she wondered whether the process was painful, having his identity torn apart. Finally, she stumbled upon a blank area, one he was purposely keeping from her, and she dug her magic in deeper. “You cannot keep secrets from a telepath,” she warned him. As the truth of Johnny’s capture bled out in his mind, her jaw clenched. “Who else has been replaced? Where is your ship?”
To say that there was some discomfort as the telepath dug through his mind would be an understatement. It was excruciating, but K’lux had been trained to endure far worse. The exercises Skrull soldiers went through in order to ensure them ready for battle dipped into areas many humans would call torture; if anything, it was another testament to their weakness. K’lux showed no outward reaction to the pain beyond gritting his teeth together, though he was sure Maximoff was aware. “They need him alive for me to maintain my disguise,” he responded, teeth still clenched tightly together. “If I die… Well, he’s already given them a lot of trouble. I doubt they’d bother trying to replace him again, and keeping him around would be a hell of a liability.” He focused his mind anywhere but the truth, thinking of his training, of Caden’s rigorous exercises, of the injuries and wounds he’d suffered in order to grow into the soldier he was. Truthfully, he was almost glad to drop his ruse; interrogation and torture were far more familiar to him than manipulation and espionage. “I’m very good at secrets,” he told her, flashing a smile that was all teeth. “You won’t be getting information from me through torture, Ms. Maximoff.” He knew from Storm’s memories that the idea that she was torturing a living thing wouldn’t sit well with the Scarlet Witch. He hoped pointing it out might force her from his mind one way or another.
K’lux, Wanda learned his name was, was certainly uncomfortable as she continued to rifle through his mind. Some of the soldiers she’d been forced to perform similar extractions upon had been shouting through the process, begging for mercy, and Strucker had always encouraged her to continue. K’lux had far more willpower than that, and memories of his training proved how truly rigorous it had been. The Skrulls drilled them ruthlessly on how to withstand torture, and for that fact alone, Wanda continued. “You’re trying to manipulate me,” she replied matter-of-factly. Strucker had attempted the same techniques, threatening her brothers life if she was disobedient. If it were the truth, memories would have flitted through his mind as he spoke. As disciplined as K’lux appeared to be, it was a basic mechanism, a crucial function of the mind. “Is that so? Your mind says otherwise,” Wanda replied angrily. He had threatened Johnny’s life, and now he was purposely using Johnny’s intricate knowledge of her against her. “I believe I had already gotten information out of you. I know the layout of your ship — very well organized bedroom, K’lux. I know that you’re a trained soldier, and a woman named Caden trained you. I know that you do not enjoy espionage, and that you were afraid of encountering me. I also know that you’ve made no move to attack me which seems foolish. You may confess nothing, but your mind is something I can manipulate.” As she spoke, she sifted through his mind once more, and picked out one of his deepest fears. It was a strategy that she hated implementing, but for Johnny, and for every other person on Earth that had been replaced, the gross perversion of her morals was worth sacrificing.
A scowl appeared on K’lux’s face as she spoke. He’d underestimated her, it seemed. There was a reason why K’lux was not a spy, a reason why he had not been initially chosen to replace any humans on Earth. Ever since he was a child, he’d solved his problems through violence. He’d never been one for manipulation, never been one for talking his way out of a problem. He’d tried it now only because it was what he was meant to do, because it was what his queen would have asked of him. But Veranke was not there, and K’lux was done talking. “You’re right about one thing,” he said, lifting his hands and letting Storm’s flames shoot from his fingertips. Even with his disguise melted away by her magic, he still had control over the Torch’s abilities. “Not fighting you was foolish.” If he could not talk her out of his mind, he would keep her too busy to uncover anything of value. If she killed him in the process, so be it. Better he die for his queen than divulge anything that may injure the Skrull Empire. If he perished here, he would do so with pride and take no small amount of satisfaction in knowing that Maximoff would likely never see Storm again.
Still within the recesses of K’lux’s mind, Wanda was aware of his shift in intention. He was a violent man by necessity, and she had finally pushed him to the brink. She withdrew her psychic attack, focusing on the battle of hand. She had learned plenty about the Skrull culture, including the fact that they were most likely not killing their prisoners. Johnny was still alive, and she truly believed he would remain that way until their invasion was complete. The others who had been replaced, although Wanda was not sure who was among them, were also likely alive. Freeing them was hope the world desperately needed, and it was ultimately a cause worth dying for. “It was a very illogical move,” Wanda replied, intoning Caden’s lessons. As the flames spread across his hands, the hex she had contained in her hand grew in size, magic ripping from the ball unconfined, and she threw it towards K’lux. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure whether it would be enough to end his life. Skrulls were unstudied, and unpredictable, but as long as he was abusing Johnny’s flames, flames that had once belonged to her, K’lux deserved whatever magic he could withstand.
The fighting skills of the Scarlet Witch were well-known among the Skrulls though, ultimately, they were far less dangerous than her psychic abilities. The death of a single Skrull meant little in the grand scheme of things, after all. K’lux did not want to die, but he would gladly lay down his life if need be, and would do so secure in the knowledge that he would be rewarded in the next life. He loved K’lux, after all, just as he loved every Skrull. “You speak of logic as if you’re at all familiar with it,” he snorted, dodging her attack and throwing a steady stream of flames in her direction. He was far less skilled with the abilities than Storm was, the flames uncontrolled as they reached out to touch and engulf everything in their path. “I’ve seen every memory Storm has of you. I’ve seen every memory he has, period. Did you know that? I know his every thought and feeling, Wanda Maximoff.” He hoped the conversation would distract her. If not, he hoped to goad her into killing him quickly, to prevent her from getting any information regarding the identities of his fellow Skrulls. “Well, that’s not quite true, I suppose. I don’t know what he’s feeling now. We try not to subject ourselves to unnecessary physical pain when it can be avoided.”
As K’lux mentioned Johnny by name, magic crackled at her fingertips, and the resulting hexes she threw were uncontrolled amounts of powers. Typically while in battle, Wanda calculated every single strike, ensuring that the damages were manageable. With K’lux, she no longer offered that luxury. He had hurt the man she loved, impersonated and imprisoned him, and now he was once again attempting to use her love for Johnny against her. It was exactly like the monsters of her past, and he had created one more in her mind. Days ago, she would have reminded herself that the Skrulls were living beings, capable of complex through processes and feelings, but she no longer cared. “Are you going to attempt to distract me by informing me of every feeling my boyfriend has for me?” Wanda replied coldly, narrowly dodging the flames as they uncontrollably spread throughout Johnny’s apartment. “I don’t want to hear them from you,” she hissed, sending one more hex that forced him to the ground. “Your people have violated our privacy, you have attempted to turn us against each other, and you have failed every time. You deserve no mercy, and the information I received directly from your memories will be your downfall.”
Mentioning Storm by name certainly got a reaction, and while it wasn’t idea, K’lux would take it. There was honor in dying like this, and honor was all he had ever sought. “It may be the only way you ever get to hear them,” he taunted, falling to the ground with her last hex. This, he knew, was where his life would end. Dying in battle had always been his destiny, and while he might have hoped for something bigger, he would meet this fate with pride. He laughed at her confidence, looking up at her from the ground. “You think that will help you now? A few months ago, maybe you could have done something with it, but now? The Invasion is nearly over. You’ve already lost, Scarlet Witch. Your planet will fall to us, just as it was always going to. Your people will be defeated with ease. You were never going to win. The fact that you ever believed otherwise is laughable.”
Carefully, Wanda remained at a distance, relying on her magic to keep K’lux pinned to the ground. Johnny’s powers were most fearsome up close, and burning her severely was the only way he could possibly win this battle. Even then, she doubted it, a fact that K’lux seemed resigned to. Rather than respond to his petty taught, she increased the intensity of the hex, knowing that it would now cause pain rather than merely hold him in place. “That’s difference between the people of earth and Skrulls, K’lux. We fight until the end, and we defy impossible odds. You hide behind masks and rely on deceit, and it will not guarantee you victory. As long as you’re blinded by overconfidence, we stand a chance. As long as heroes will reunite and our civilians will support us, we stand a chance. You never came close to winning this planet, but you certainly helped our chances.” Once her words were finished, Wanda once again increased the intensity of her hex, and aggressively threw him down through the floorboards. K’lux’s body fell through numerous floors until it touched the concrete, barely visible, but Wanda was not through. She barricaded his body far below city grounds, but it did little to forget the memory and the implications of what she had just experienced. Johnny was a Skrull prisoner among countless others, the Invasion was close to finished, and they would all die within weeks. With shaking hands, she pulled out her phone, and called an Avengers meeting with those she had recently encountered, and whose thoughts she had personally read. To the best of her knowledge, they weren’t yet compromised.
