“We’re going after Rumlow -- finally got enough intel to get a step ahead of him.” There was a slight reverb in Steve’s voice as it bounced off cell towers and satellites to land in her ear. “Can you come with?”
Nita shook her head, regretful. “I can’t, sorry. I’ve got a working in Yellowstone that needs supervision. Besides, you’ve got one wizard on the team already. You’ll be fine.”
File under: conversations Nita replays in her head, as she watches the footage of Wanda in Nigeria over and over and over. And as she lies sleepless in her pup tent. And as she checks her spelling, for the sixth time, because she can’t get her clauses to balance and she really needs this pressure release to work before the next earthquake swarm panics the park rangers.
She should have been there. She could have helped.
She should call Wanda, but she’s guessing Wanda wouldn’t pick up.
“My brother thought the Oath was a joke,” Wanda says. Her rings chink against ceramic as she wraps her hands around a mug of tea.
Nita cocks her head to the side, pouring her own tea. “How so?”
“When I took it, he thought it was fake. What else could it be?” Wanda draws her fingers through the steam rising through the cup, a gesture reminiscent of the way she uses her powers, but without the red glow of psionics in use. “And after our parents were killed -- the idea of Powers That Be that would let such a thing happen to us seemed . . .”
“Laughable,” Nita fills in, when Wanda doesn’t finish the sentence. “Sure.” She takes a sip of tea, considering Wanda across the table. “What did you think?”
Wanda lifts her eyes from her tea to meet Nita’s. “Wizards are here to solve the problems the Powers won’t. No other power in the world helped us. Nobody helped Sokovia. Why should They?”
That was almost a year ago. And Nita knows she’s not an Avenger, that Wanda has a support system over there in the compound--
But nobody there is a wizard, and she can’t shake the feeling that she left a cousin in the lurch.
She can’t leave the colleagues she’s working with on the caldera in the lurch either, though. At a lunch break, while Ioannis and Nurah are chatting about gating arrangements, she grabs her phone and texts Steve.
Can I do anything? Should I come out when I’m done here?
It takes a couple of hours for her to get a response.