Look What You Made Me Do (Wanda-SI/OC)

Almost an hour later, Agatha was gently tugging at the vibranium nanotech harness, looking for a seam or join she could unclip. After a moment, the thin metal straps disconnected themselves, losing cohesiveness and running together to form an inert, black-silver ball resting in her palm. The witch dropped the metal sphere on the table bedside her bed and sighed as she shrugged out of her long coat. She inspected the rich blue fabric with a critical eye, noting the large areas that had been shredded and burnt by a close call with one of the sorcerers’ spells. That was a shame—she had liked this coat.

She tossed the ruined garment into the corner of the small room while she checked the rest of her clothes over for further damage. Her white blouse was unmarred, though a little rumpled and sweaty. Her mother’s locket was still hanging in its place at her throat—she’d have been annoyed if she had lost that. It seemed as though the coat was the only casualty of their little mission.

They’d come right back to San Francisco after escaping Kamar-taj. With Agatha running interference on Mirror Dimension shenanigans, it hadn’t been too difficult—Ava was essentially an outside context problem for the sorcerers and they hadn’t been prepared at all for what Eliza’s vibranium form was capable of. The witch had little doubt that they could have killed the Sorcerer Supreme right then and there, had the AI wished to do so.

Agatha had to admit, when the spells had started flying, she’d had to tightly clamp down on her desire to lash out with lethal force—or deliberately let herself get blasted so she could syphon off some of the sorcerers’ power. She might have been able to convince Eliza she had no choice, but it seemed unlikely. A blatant power-grab might have set the AI off, undoing all Agatha’s careful work cultivating their relationship. Instead, they’d focused on disabling and distracting, then rushed headlong through the door to the New York sanctum. From there, it was a hurried flight to the pre-prepared ritual space that Agatha had set up to summon the entrance to the Ways, where their pursuers could not follow.

Once they’d arrived back at the warehouse, Agatha had dashed off to her private room, earning some mild looks of surprise from the other two. While they’d been fleeing, however, she’d been planning… and now seemed like an ideal time to finally close the net.

Eliza was lonely. Though the AI didn’t necessarily realise it, she really did wear her heart on her sleeve. Agatha could see the longing—the desperation—every time a little bit of comradery developed between them. She wanted friends. More than that, she was extremely receptive to being flirted with, starved for contact as she was, and Agatha was no stranger to seduction. It would hardly be the first time she’d used her body to get what she wanted. Sure, Eliza wasn’t exactly human, but Agatha had had congress with far stranger entities in the depths of her search for power and knowledge.

So far, however, Eliza had always shied back a little. Agatha was frustratingly close to a breakthrough with her, but the AI was being difficult. Eliza saw herself as a mostly good—if pragmatic—person, and as long as there was a bomb collar around Agatha’s neck the power dynamic between them was utterly unbalanced in a massive way, which meant she’d never feel comfortable acting on the tension that the witch had been cultivating between them.

It was a three-step plan. First, get the bomb collar removed. Then, use Eliza’s need for human contact to gain her confidence. And finally, make her think it was better to let Agatha absorb Wanda’s power as the Scarlet Witch than to let it go to waste. From there… well, Agatha hadn’t chosen a goal to aim for after that just yet, so it all depended on where her whims took her. Maybe she’d keep the AI close for a time… she wasn’t unpleasant company, after all, and a continued relationship could be useful.

“Agatha?” Eliza’s vibranium body—the BARF hologram that had disguised her as Wanda gone—appeared in the open doorway.

The witch had noticed how attached the AI was to the body. If she wanted to talk, she could easily do so through the collar around Agatha’s neck, but since she’d gotten the nanotech she seemed to vastly prefer ‘in person’ conversations wherever possible, which was precisely what Agatha had been hoping for here. She stared at Eliza for a moment, getting into the mental space necessary for her little act.

“See? I told you it’d be fine,” the AI said. “I mean, it could have gone better, but it could have been a lot worse, too. We got the book, all of us made it back, and we’re safe under your wards again.” Eliza stuck out her arms as she walked slowly into the room, as though she was stretching muscles that didn’t exist. She grinned, reaching into her chest with one hand to withdraw the Book of Cagliostro before offering it to the witch. “How long is it going to take to use this to track Kaecilius? Do you need anything else to get started?”

Showtime.

Agatha tensed her muscles, forcing herself to shake slightly as she started breathing harder. “Can you just… back off for a minute, Liz?” she snapped, her voice quavering as she held up her hands, warding off the offered book.

Eliza blinked, taken aback. “Agatha?”

The witch made a show of trying to calm herself, shoulders trembling as she clenched her fists. Blinking repeatedly, it only took a moment to turn on the waterworks, causing tears to leak freely from the corners of her eyes. “We could have died there, Liz, and this fucking thing on my neck, it feels like any second I might make a wrong move and—” she cut herself off with a sniff before taking a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please. Just…”

“Hey… Hey! It’s okay,” Eliza said, reaching out hesitantly with one hand to touch her on the shoulder. “We’re good. You’re okay.”

Agatha sniffed again, scrubbing furiously at her eyes with the back of a hand. “…Sorry, Liz. I didn’t mean to snap like that. I’m a mess. I’ll be okay in a minute. Can you just… I need a minute. Please?”

Eliza stared at her for a moment, her expression conflicted. “Agatha… Ugh. Fucking hell. I’m sorry. I know this must be a nightmare—I’d be going absolutely crazy if I was in your position. I’m sorry if I’ve been pushing you too hard. You just seemed so… I don’t know. Like you still had it all together. I didn’t realise you were…”

“It’s okay, I get it, you’re just doing what you feel like you have to do. You’re trying to save the world, after all.” Make her feel even more guilty, play to her ego, lead her gently, gently, gently…

“No, it’s… fuck. I don’t want to keep doing this. I really want to be able to trust you. I think we’ve worked really well together so far, and you’re right—we’re trying to save the world. You’re incentivised to help me. I just… I know things about you that made me think you were too dangerous to trust,” Eliza said, notes of regret and shame warring in her tone. “But now that I’m thinking about it… you've been around for more than three hundred years, right? And it’s not like you’ve ever tried to take over or destroy the world or anything.”

And there it was. Perfect. Now all Agatha needed to do was let her rationalise it to herself. The witch gave another semi-performative sniff before letting out a huff of amusement. “That just seems like it’d be a whole lot of work.”

“The only actual bad thing I know you’ve done is kill your mother and her coven, but… that was mostly just self-defence, wasn’t it? They were going to execute you.”

The witch drooped her shoulders slightly to feign a small amount of guilt and shame, eyes downcast. “It was my fault. My biggest problem has always been not knowing when to stop. I got in over my head and they were going to kill me for it. I didn’t… I didn’t want to, not really. But I didn’t have any other choice.” Not completely true, but close enough, and close enough to the AI’s feelings about her own actions to make them feel even more connected.

Eliza glanced to the side, where the Black Book stood on its stand, glimmering with hellish energy. “You do have the Darkhold. It’s corruptive. That’s a problem. But you seem to be handling it a lot better than… someone else might.” She gestured to Agatha’s hands, pointing out the black stains of the book’s influence that darkened the witch’s fingers, and Agatha had to suppress a small flinch, pushing down the fleeting moment of emptiness that welled up inside of her. Would the AI be so unconcerned if she knew the price she’d paid for the power of the tome? “You were planning on killing Wanda, but I feel like that’s a pretty hypocritical thing to hang all this on at this point. You’re risking your life here, too. It’s not fair to keep you on a leash like this.”

Eliza stepped a little closer to her. Agatha stayed silent but raised her eyes, looking up at her with barely-concealed hope. She held her breath, straightening up, baring her neck—and the collar—to the AI. The collar was… comfortable was the wrong word, but it wasn’t physically uncomfortable despite how snugly it wrapped around her throat. Still, the feeling as there was a click and Agatha felt it loosen was difficult to describe. Elation. Triumph.

As Eliza reached in toward her neck to remove the deactivated collar, Agatha’s own hand darted up to grab hers. She squeezed gently, pressing the AI’s cold, rigid fingers against her cheek. “Thank you,” she said breathlessly, looking deeply into the AI’s eyes. “You won’t regret this. I promise.”

Eliza froze and they stood there for a moment, Agatha’s breathing still slightly irregular as she maintained eye contact and kept the AI’s hand pressed to her cheek. Once she let go, she let her fingertips ‘accidentally’ graze a gentle line down the AI’s wrist as her hand moved away. Touch sensitive.

The AI finished retrieving the collar. “Kaecilius can wait. We’re safe. We’re not in a rush. Forget about the book for now. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” The AI fidgeted slightly, both hands clutching the inactive device. “You need some time to decompress. Just… relax, okay? I’ll leave you be.” She turned and started back toward the door.

“Liz?” Agatha called after her, feigning a bit of uncertainty in her tone. The AI stopped, turning to look back at her questioningly. She paused for dramatic effect, biting her lip and putting on a show of hesitating. After a few moments, she took a deep breath, exhaling long and loud, then grinned. “I’m just gonna go ahead and throw this out there, but… you said you want to trust me, right?” Watching the AI’s reaction carefully, she reached up and starting to unbutton her blouse.

Eliza’s eyes grew wider and she stiffened. “Uh. What are you—”

“Well,” Agatha cut her off. Buttons undone, she shrugged out of the blouse and let it fall to the floor, then started to remove her skirt. “I can think of a fun way to decompress and help build a bit more trust at the same time… I mean, if you’re interested, that is?”

The AI had frozen completely, dead silent.

Agatha suppressed the urge to make a ‘blue screen of death’ joke. “I’ve had that collar on for all this time, with zero privacy. I am pent up. It always seemed like it’d be a little awkward and uncomfortable for the both of us if I took care of business while you were around my throat like that. But there’re still cameras all over the place, right?” she said, gesturing expansively to indicate the room in general. There was an implication there, but subtly wasn’t always the strongest play, so she underlined it to keep Eliza on the back foot. “If you’re going to be watching me anyway… I know I’d enjoy it a lot more if you joined in on the fun. I much prefer an active participant over a voyeur.”

“I… I’m not… I don’t…” Eliza spoke haltingly, almost at a complete loss. Her eyes roved over Agatha’s body. “I wouldn’t…”

The witch gestured with a hand, the clasp of her bra coming undone with a minor application of telekinesis. She let it fall from her body to join the rest of her clothes on the floor, deliberately shifting her weight to stand in such a way as to emphasise the curves of her body. “Besides, that body of yours is still brand-new, isn’t it?” she said, hungrily eyeing Eliza right back. “I think I’d like to be the one to break it in.”

The AI took a faltering, hesitant step forward and an impish grin curved the witch’s lips. She gestured once more and the door swung shut.

 

--

 

Several hours later, Agatha lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if her legs still worked right. After more than three hundred years, there weren’t that many truly novel experiences left in the world, but even Agatha had been caught by surprise by some of Eliza’s more… creative uses of her mouldable, form-changing body. The witch wasn’t sure she was ever going to be able to look at a vibrator the same way ever again.

She let her head roll to the side, reaching up with a hand to push the bird’s nest her hair had turned into out of the way. “You know, Liz,” she said, pausing to take a breath. She felt like she’d just run a marathon. Five marathons. Ugh, she was going to be so sore in the morning. “If I’m honest, I wasn’t quite expecting you to blow my back out like that. And I thought I was pent up.”

“Sorry,” Eliza said lightly, a smile in her voice. “I’ve been told I can be very enthusiastic.”

“That’s an understatement. It’s a little bit of a shame you can’t… finish properly, though.”

“This was a little sudden and I haven’t really explored how my code interprets pleasure signals,” the AI said quickly, looking back at her with a suddenly serious expression. “It still felt good. Don’t think for a second that I didn’t enjoy myself. I did. A lot.”

“Don’t be silly, of course you did. I’m fantastic in bed,” the witch said airily, waving her hand in the air in a dismissive gesture.

Eliza smiled briefly at that before a bit of anxiety returned to her tone. “I haven’t spent a lot of time tinkering with… well, less useful things. It just wasn’t a priority. When I have some spare time I’ll work on replicating the texture of skin a bit better, too. I’ll be better prepared next time.” The AI paused for a moment, a cautiously hopeful look on her face. “I mean, if there is a next time…?”

Agatha let out a deep, throaty chuckle. “Oh, there’s definitely going to be a next time. And a time after that, and a time after that. I’m far from done with you, Liz.”

“…I didn’t expect this. I think I needed it. Like, really needed it,” the AI said. Her eyes dropped and she turned slightly away.

Agatha still found the way she moved rather fascinating. Eliza was an AI—as much as it was easy to think of her body as her body, she was operating at a different level of remove from it. Agatha’s assumption was that it would essentially be like manipulating a puppet, a doll, and yet somehow, even without muscles or nerves, Eliza’s body language still somehow managed to work just like a normal person’s.

“I’ve been having a lot of trouble slowing down. It feels like I’m always running at a hundred percent. I’m hyperaware of everything, all of the time, and it’s just… it’s a lot. I get in my head and run through every scenario a billion times and I get worked up and I feel like I might have…”

“Might have…?”

Eliza took a breath and, for a moment, Agatha thought she was going to demur. Avoid further vulnerability. “I’m afraid I’ve been acting really stupid—screwing everything up—because I don’t like myself.”

There was a moment of silence, then Agatha scooted over slightly, pressing gently against the AI’s vibranium body. “Well, I like you, Liz. I hope that counts for something.”

“It does. It really, really does.”

“Although… I did get the feeling you were a little distracted there for a while?”

Eliza looked stricken, a flash of guilt passing across her features. “You noticed that? I’m so sorry.”

“Thinking of someone else? A certain Widow, perhaps?”

“No! No. I wasn’t…” The AI shook her head. “I mean, I do think about her a lot. I miss her. We were close. But that doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

Agatha shrugged. “Eh. Doesn’t bother me, Liz.” A lazy, wicked smile spread across her face and she leaned in a little closer. “I mean, if you want, next time I could use an illusion to—”

Eliza stiffened and pulled away. “Absolutely not. Wow. Sorry. No. Just no,” the AI said. She got up from the bed, taking a step away before turning to look back at the witch, an uncomfortable expression on her face. “I enjoyed being with you, Agatha. Natasha is… was… what we had is gone. I don’t need to remind myself of it.”

“Fair,” Agatha said, shooting her an apologetic look. “Sorry, Liz. Didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t. It’s fine. I needed to get up anyway, we’re about to have a visitor.” She gestured vaguely with a hand. “I was distracted because I got a call while we were… I wouldn’t have answered, but it was Scott Lang.”

“Oh! He talk old man Pym around?”

“It seems like it. They want to bring Ava in. Pym has tests he wants to run,” Eliza said, sounding pleased. Agatha nodded and winced as she pulled herself out of bed, carefully testing her legs before she put her weight on them. A little wobbly, but workable.

Eliza held up a hand. “Oh, no, you don’t need to come. Just rest up.”

Agatha shot her a flat look, putting her hands on her hips. “Liz, either I’m in—all the way—or I’m not. Honestly? I’m done with this half-assed, arms-length shit.” She blew a strand of errant hair out of her face. “Are we a team, or not?” There was an underlying question there, one that Agatha hoped to force a positive answer to: Do you trust me?

The AI paused, then gave a shallow nod, a small smile curving her lips. “Yeah. We’re a team.” Too easy. “Alright, but you’ve gotta get dressed fast, Scott’ll be here any minute.”

Agatha allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction as she gathered her clothes. Now that she had her in, she was going to squeeze it for all it was worth. She wanted to know everything. What Kaecilius’s actual plan was that the AI was so intent on thwarting. The AI’s other plans and schemes, like what Beck was working on with the Hand ‘test subjects’. More than that, the witch was intensely curious as to how Eliza came by her knowledge—there was so much that she seemed to know that she really shouldn’t be able to.

She had her suspicions, of course. Agatha hadn’t originally thought that the Scarlet Witch would be aligned with one of the typical elemental signs—it was explicit in the Darkhold that the Scarlet Witch needed no coven, so why wouldn’t she be a unique generalist, rather than specialised like every other witch? But almost everything Agatha had seen so far would make complete sense if Wanda Maximoff was a divination witch. If that was the case, she was an intensely powerful one, given the level of detail that Eliza often had available.

Once Agatha had finished getting dressed, Eliza re-applied her BARF Wanda hologram to conceal her appearance before the two of them headed over to meet Ava near her treatment chamber. The assassin was dressed in her grey sweats, a large gym bag at her feet—already packed, it seemed.

As they approached, she looked between the two of them critically for a moment, then nodded to herself, one of her lopsided grins ghosting across her face. “I was wondering how long it was going to take before the two of you got that out of your systems.”

If it were possible for the AI to involuntarily blush, Agatha was pretty sure she would have. The witch shot her an impish grin, wiping the corner of her mouth with her thumb. Eliza mimicked clearing her throat. “Scott’s coming in now. You ready to go? The sooner Pym can start looking into your condition, the better.” She shot the assassin a significant glance. Ava nodded in response, tilting her head warningly. Neither of them said it out loud, but Agatha knew an ‘I told you so’ and ‘shut up’ when she saw one.

Just then, Scott Lang walked through the side door of the warehouse, dressed down in jeans and a black t-shirt and led by one of the Iron Legion drones. As they approached, the man gestured to the robot, brow creased in a frown. “Stark really doesn’t know you have these?” he asked, a little bit of doubt in his tone. “I feel like I would notice something like that going missing.”

Eliza smiled warmly at him. “Stark isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. You know what these rich people are like.”

Scott shrugged, acknowledging the point. He glanced over at Ava, taking in the bag at her feet. “Hey!” he said with an easy smile, then paused as he looked at Agatha. “I don’t think we’ve met?”

“Agatha Harkness,” she replied, grinning. “I keep this one out of trouble.” As she said it, she leaned in to Eliza and lightly slapped her on the ass with an open palm.

“Agatha,” the AI said, slightly mortified. “I’m sorry, I can’t take her anywhere.”

Scott chuckled and gave Agatha a little wave. “I’m Scott. Nice to meet you.” He looked back at Eliza questioningly. “The two of you don’t want to come along? You totally can, it’d be fine.”

Eliza looked thoughtful for a moment. “It’s going to take a while, right?”

“The preliminary scans will take a few days, at least, yeah. Need to establish baselines. After that, though, no idea,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “Hank has plenty of space at the house. Ava can stay as long as she needs to, so long as she can deal with living with a slightly-grumpy old man.”

The AI gave him a tight smile and nodded. “I’ll drop in to check up on things a bit later on, if that’s okay. I’ve—” she hesitated a moment, glancing at Agatha as she reconsidered her words. “We’ve got other things going on at the moment that we really can’t step away from.”

Ava shot the AI an exaggeratedly sceptical look, her eyes flicking to Agatha for a moment as well. The witch just grinned, coyly shrugging a shoulder. “Saving the world, right?” the assassin asked.

Eliza nodded. “That’s right. Stay with Pym, as long as it takes, and please try not to murder him. The quantum tunnel will probably take some time to build. Be patient.”

The assassin looked like she was going to say something snarky, but bit back her initial response. “I can do patient. I’ll be fine.” Ava’s eyes unfocused a little as she replayed the words that had just left her mouth in her mind again. She let out a little laugh. “I will be, won’t I? I’ll be fine. I can’t believe I’m saying that.”

“You will. I promise.” Eliza hesitated a moment. “Scott, with the quantum tunnel… I know Hank knows what he’s doing, and you will find Janet down there, but… don’t linger, okay? There are other things down in the Quantum Realm. Dangerous things.”

He looked at her, squinting a little in confusion. “Well, that’s ominous. What kind of things?”

Eliza paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts, then glanced between Scott and Ava. “Look, I know lots of things I’m not really supposed to be able to know. Ava—you can back that up, right?”

“You don’t know everything, even though you like to say that you do,” the assassin said with a shrug. “Still. You know a lot. You’re worried?”

The AI nodded. “I only know a little about what’s down there, but I know it’s… potentially end-of-the-world dangerous.”

“Ah,” Ava said. She looked at Scott, her tone turning firm. “Listen to her.”

Scott grimaced a little, but nodded. “Understood. We’ll be careful.” He reached into a side pouch and pulled out a coin-sized metal object—a triskelion-styled shuriken with a small red jewel in the centre—then gestured towards Ava’s treatment chamber. “May I?” Eliza nodded and Scott tossed the object at the glass chamber. As it made contact, there was a faint wooshing sound as the entire, 20-foot room almost instantly shrank down to roughly the size of a golf ball.

Agatha inhaled sharply, then glanced away and smoothed her skirt, as if she hadn’t been caught by surprise. Eliza had already looked in her direction, though, a small grin curving the AI’s lips. Agatha had thought Scott Lang had shrunk last time he had been here, but that was… what was that?! That was technological? He had barely had to do anything at all. How would you even defend yourself against that? Suddenly, Agatha understood why Eliza was so insistent she didn’t want anything to do with Hank Pym or his technology.

Scott picked the miniaturised chamber up and looked expectantly at Ava. “Ready to go?” The assassin nodded, taking a deep breath as she stepped toward him.

Eliza raised a hand hesitantly. “Ava?” she said. The other woman turned to look at her. “I just wanted to say, before you go… thank you. For everything. I really appreciate everything you did to help us out.”

Ava laughed, a touch of disbelief in her tone, and shook her head. “I should be the one thanking you. You’re the only reason I’ve gotten this chance.”

The AI smiled tightly. “Once it’s done and you’re stable… Look, you deserve a solid shot at a real life, but if you did want keep helping, I could really use your skills.”

“You can count on it.”

“Don’t make any hasty decisions just yet,” Eliza said, holding up both hands in a deflecting gesture. “Just see how you feel once you’re stable. I’ll always be just a phone call away.”