entrancelogs | ( CLOSED ) ; don't call it a fight when you know it's a war

Wanda's return to Wonderland is on one hand, unceremonious. She doesn't make a network announcement about it, either. Not immediately, anyway. On the other hand, she was unlucky enough to wind up here with her Raft restraints on.

This now has her one year older (27 now) and, in theory, also one year wiser. However that latter part is debatable at best, she feels at present. Those restraints? She doesn't feel too wise after her imprisonment in the Raft -- the collar that they put on her there is still on her now; it's a shock collar that also inhibits her powers -- but at least Wonderland doesn't feel like a prison. At least not in the same way. Most of the people here have been alright enough, the magical closets are entertaining, and sometimes the events don't completely suck. (She could do without seeing her friends get yanked back home, though -- when their names disappear from Wonderland's rooms, so it's not just a temporary departure.) While it's true that there's also no one here to tell her that she's a criminal who is a danger to everything about society, and that is a plus, she's still wrestling with some feelings about her most recent experiences of being told otherwise.

She spends some minutes escape artist-ing her way out of the straitjacket, but the issue of the collar still needs to be taken care of. She doesn't have the muscles to rip it off, nor can she use her powers to blast it off, and trying to fit a pen or something in between the collar and her neck sounds like a great way to do a DIY surgery that would go wrong. Wonderland is full of witches and super-people who could take care of this for her if she asked, probably; she just has to find one she feels comfortable asking, someone who might have the powers or tools to do so.

Finally, with what seems like an age and a half, the straitjacket is off and in the trash, she wraps a red shawl (she's also changed into more decent clothes), around her neck to cover the collar, and exits her room. Time to go find someone she can trust with this, and honestly, one Cisco Ramon sounds like a good start. Sure, they've not spoken a lot, but given the nature of their conversation, he's ... probably one who could best understand this, outside of anyone else here from her own universe. And right now? Right now she'd rather hold off a little bit on approaching anyone from her universe. Just because she now knows what they've known for ... well, before she showed up. Not that she's mad at them, but, how does she say 'hi so I'm in the loop now?' when this is the loop?

So, she starts towards locating Cisco's room if she can, but if she happens to come across him elsewhere, than that's just as well.

The past several weeks have been...a lot of adjustment for Cisco. Things that should have been easy and natural to slide back into weren't. Though, he realizes, it could have been worse. So much worse. He could have been stuck on the wrong side of the mirrors a lot longer, and he shudders to think where that might have landed him, mentally, emotionally, nevermind the physical side of it. So he tries to focus on the fact that the Mirrors didn't get to keep him long and instead focus on the way his friends have gone out of their ways to help him.

He's been doing better, recently, with not keeping himself entirely isolated. He keeps it mostly to openly public spaces, like the coffee shop and the library. Places he can be alone, without really being alone. But he still spends a good amount of time in his room.

Which is fortunate for Wanda, and makes finding him pretty easy.

He isn't expecting anyone, but maybe it's Jesse coming by with some food or other she's cooked up. She does that a lot lately, to make sure he eats. But when he opens the door and finds someone unexpected on the other side, the surprise registers easily on his face. "Wanda? Uh- hi."

They hadn't actually...seen each other socially, so this was unexpected on several levels and he was a little confused by the sudden visit.

"Hi." She exhales a nervous breath as she almost sways back and forth, fidgeting. If she were sitting down, she'd probably be bouncing her legs or something. "I just got back in Wonderland, maybe an hour ago?" She's not exactly sure how long it's been, honestly. There have been other things on her mind. "I have kind of a weird favour to ask if you have a minute or five somewhere?" She sounds nervous, and a bit uncomfortable -- but not because of him. "Preferably somewhere as secluded as possible." If he doesn't want to have her in the personal space of his room, that'd be understandable and they could go elsewhere.

"Uh, yeah, sure," The nervous urgency rolling off of her has him stepping aside to offer her entrance into his room. This seems easier than going anywhere else, honestly. He's not really comfortable enough in any of the labs yet to bother there.

"What's-- going on?" He feels kind of bad for not even realizing she'd been gone, but then that's kind of ridiculous, they weren't exactly close or anything. But had anyone mentioned...? He wouldn't know, he's avoided things too much until the last week or so.

She unwraps the cloth around her neck to reveal a metal collar. There's a small red blinking light on it, something to indicate that it's 'on' or 'active' or whatever term. "It's a device that cuts off access to my powers and comes with a shocking capability. I can't get it off, and I was hoping you might have tools to deal with it?"

How she got it on is another story.

Cisco isn't entirely sure what he was expecting, but that wasn't it and it's obvious in the look that spills across his face. Internally, the reaction is practically visceral, and everything in him is screaming. And a part of him is yelling no. No, this is bad, it's wrong, and he can't help her because that's not what he should do, that would lead to trouble and trouble means being punished and being punished means--

Absently and in a way that he isn't really at all conscious of, he reaches up and rubs a hand across the back of his neck. "Uh- y- yeah." He nods a little. "Probably. Uh--" Think, Cisco. Use words. He spins on his heel to go grab the toolbox he keeps around at all times. "Can you tell me anything else about it? Is it-- rigged to do something if it's broken or anything?" Amazing how he can speak suddenly, when he's not staring at that thing around her neck. "You said you were...at home?" Because he would have assumed Mirror Side, if he'd been asked.

"No, it wouldn't hurt anyone else if it were rigged to do that." At worst, it would taser her.

She sighs slightly, more to get more of the nervousness out than anything. "Yeah." A quick nod. "Short story is I made more mistakes, people were afraid of what I can do, so, I wound up in a prison that was built underwater. Literally most of the governments in my world consider me a criminal now. I have a few friends from home here, they just weren't in the same position, really, not to that degree," She was the only one who got extra restraints and a smaller cell. The others were not restrained and actually had a bed in their cell; she had barely enough room to stretch her legs out, and a hard metal stool bolted the the floor. "so when I thought of who might have tools for this and who might have a little more perspective..." Well, she came here. He probably still feels terrible for his offense here, a feeling she could understand then and even more so now. She meant what she said to him then -- he shouldn't beat himself up, he should forgive himself -- and while she didn't come here for that, she did feel like he more than anyone would understand how she feels now. That perspective that she'd not wish on anyone to have, but that they both have the unfortunate luck to have most in common right now.

He comes back a few moments later with the tools he'd been searching for. He might have purposely taken a little longer than necessary to find them, just to give himself those few seconds more to collect himself. Now that he knew about the collar, he was prepared to deal with it.

"Underwater?" He shakes his head a little, that sounded awful. Based on things he's heard from various people, it seems like as bad as Wonderland ever is, a trip home is almost always worse. "People are... often afraid of things they don't understand, but...it doesn't make you terrible or irredeemable, just because they're scared."

He talks while he fusses with the collar, brushing her hair to one side to get a better look at the mechanism.

She doesn't have a hairtie, but she'll hold it up like she's going to tie it up. "Multilevel facility right in the middle of the ocean made for mostly people like me." She'd not known about its existence beforehand. If she had, well, she'd probably go wreck it. "That seems ... pretty substantial of an obstacle to overcome so people aren't afraid and give me a chance. One of those not being here to my knowledge is nice, yeah. I guess it doesn't keep me from doing something by accident that causes that kind of fear though. In some hypothetical future point here." Does that even make sense?

"People like you?" He echoes, frowning a little. "People they slap a danger label on?" He hates the way the world works in ways like that. Maybe she had done something to deserve it, maybe she'd done nothing at all; but treating people like caged animals instead of people who need to be seen and heard and feel valued, tends to backfire pretty massively.

"It is, it's a huge obstacle and an unfair one to need to work around. But it's unfortunately how the world works." He pause and grabs something from his toolbox before setting back to work. "Accidents shouldn't be held against you that way, either. People just like to feel they're in control, and when you add abilities like ours into that mix, they let the fear guide their actions." In some ways, it's surprising there hasn't been more of an issue with metas back home.

With a soft click, the collar separates and he unhooks it from her neck. "There."

He's not wrong. The world works in lame ways, more often than not.

"Ours?" She tilts her head slightly to the side. "I mostly just thought you had tech skills. You can do the .. telekinetic and psychic things too?" His wording is curious, is all.

With the collar off, finally, she rubs at her neck with one hand to try to get the weird feeling away sooner rather than later. With the other, she lets a few red wisps float in the air, not doing anything but that. Just to illustrate what her power actually looks like.

He freezes for a fraction of a second when she asks that. He thought everyone would have seen Georgia's piece about her interview with him, detailing how things had been derailed. But maybe he shouldn't be so surprised, not everyone paid attention to those sorts of things. And given her trip home, maybe Wanda had just missed it altogether. He isn't sure when she left, really.

He starts putting his tools away and explains, "Not so much telekinetic or psychic--" There's a beat. "Well, maybe a little psychic..." He frowns a little as he puts the toolbox away. "It's hard to explain, it's...vibrations, and energy from them, I can tap into it. Make portals to other worlds, theoretically I can make concussive blasts from that energy too." He pauses and folds his arms across his chest. "I met a doppelganger once who had the same powers...he could do that, so...I know I can, but I don't know how." He waves one hand, somewhat dismissively. "And the psychic thing-- sometimes I get these...vibes, I see things before they happen. It's super sporadic and really hard to force. Hasn't happened in awhile, though."

His powers are weird and multi-layered and complicated, Wanda.

"Yeah, that does sound like a lot to have on your plate, powers-wise. Lots of interesting applications to it, though." She offered another half smile. "Takes a while to get the hang of stuff, doesn't it?" And even then. Well. Things don't always go according to plan or theory or whatever else.

"Makes you wish it came with a users manual or something. I would have loved one of those for mine: 'So You Have Powers, What Now?' or some other appropriately cheesey title. Other than that it's just ... hitting up training rooms that can take it and hope for the best."

He chuckles softly and nods, "Yeah, it is...a lot to figure out. I'm still not sure how most of it works." He admits. Having a non-Team Flash person to talk to about this stuff might not be the worst thing in the world.

"That would be great. There'd be a real market for that kinda thing back home, if someone could actually make one." He snorts. The powers in the metas were so varied, it would be hard to do a one-size-fits-all sort of guidebook, though. "I'm not looking to do too much with mine just yet." Maybe one day. He'd taken a bit of a backslide in his confidence when things fell apart a couple of months ago.

( CLOSED ) ; don't call it a fight when you know it's a war

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