CHAPTER 74 - AN IDEAL(?) DATE

A/N: It's hard writing the basis for a good romance that I most times just end up repeating stuff.

I also saw in the comments, a few people mentioning how he's just going around and meeting girls and my answer to that is that I have no flipping idea that that was what it looked like. Same for the Domino bit.

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"Wanda… care to explain what I'm currently looking at?" I asked with a few twitches as I looked at the piece of metal she just dropped in front of me.

Wanda who was standing beside me showed a flash of irritation as she looked at it. "An Ultron bot on steroids? I don't know but it was incredibly annoying to deal with it as it kept trying to stand up."

A Sentinel.

An undeniably old model, but a Sentinel nonetheless. Seriously, why can't every villain in this world just pop in some chill pills every now and then?

"Were you able to find anything else?"

"Just some research materials and harvested organs. It is surprising how disgustingly low some people can go."

Well you're not exactly wrong about that, my dear. But most of these things were out of Buckman's control. He's by no means innocent but there's undoubtedly someone, or more precisely something, behind his actions.

Everything so far just has the shadow of Sinister and Sublime and while both were tricky opponents, Sublime takes the cake. How does one even go about finding a bacteria?

I stopped for a moment to read the message Raven sent about her getting the seat of the White King. I bet Shaw would have been quite furious but I'll let it stew in for now.

As for the Sentinel, at least they were smart enough to make this one run on automated directives. If I had been the one who fought it then I would have found out where it was sending its backup logs to. Everything that can transmit any ounce of data in this thing has melted or is broken.

"Where's Pietro?" I asked since the speeding youth was nowhere around the Compound.

"He said he wanted to hit one or two extra bases if he finishes early." Wanda said before pulling out a chair and sat in front of me, observing all my actions. "Do you need anything, Wanda?"

She only made a 'hmm' that left me oblivious to what she meant and kept watching me rip apart the robot in front of me to see if the level of upgrades it had were anything I can gain from.

"You are going to watch me work the entire time?" I said, pausing to give her a brief look before focusing on what was in front of me.

"It's not like I have anything better to do."

I smiled at her words, letting the amusement I felt be known to her. "You are making it a little too obvious, you know that right?" I half thought she'd take it back or maybe even make her intended thoughts clear but she simply squeezed her lips in a cute way before shrugging. "A little isn't bad."

That's a straight ball if I've ever caught one. A well appreciated sentiment on my part.

I didn't say anything else and since she said she likes seeing me work, I left her to her own amusement and masterfully took apart the Sentinel.

Time passed slowly as I focused mostly on the Sentinel, though I was unable to discern anything useful from it, leaving Wanda watching me the entire time, even after Pietro came and left.

"A bust?" I nodded before compressing everything to the size of a football and throwing it to the recycle bin and then turned to the red clad lady waiting on me for quite some time now.

"Yeah, and now I'm free till further notice." I said as I morphed my clothes into something comfortable. "So, got anything in mind?"

°°°°°°°°°

Wanda and I spent the next few hours terrorizing the criminal elements of New York and also driving further the modern myth of the Witch and the Man.

Honestly at this point, we just kept continuing doing it not to let out some steam but to have a few laughs at the expense of some poor sob.

I mean, it's a date.

No one is saying it, but anyone, even with a dumb brain, will know that this was just a date. Plain simple. The only difference was that instead of having fun at a restaurant or going to the movies, we had our fun with making criminals scream and pass out from fear.

Her magic too was coming very handy. It was already leaving the realms of just hex blasts and constructs to now affecting matters of different states.

It has started getting absurd to the point that even when I'm referencing from my entire bank of data, I am still stumped in trying to explain how she does most of the things she does.

'Maybe I should start thinking of paying the masters a visit.'

Since I was sure that Wanda wasn't going to go crazy anytime soon, or even in the future, I want to help her with her magic and what is the best way to do that other than having her learn from the Sanctum?

She already has the potential of the Sorcerer Supreme and more in spades so I'm sure whoever is heading the Sanctum at this time will help her out a lot.

Having Chthon's avatar and prime successor as one of their supporters is a flex as big as any even when taking the wider Marvel Multiverse into play.

"How many now?" Wanda asked as we made our way inside a cash/drug house which was a sight we've gotten used to by now.

"17." I said with a whistle as I tallied the amount of liquid cash in this place to be a little over $15 million dollars. "These crime lords really do have some serious money."

"What do you expect?" Wanda said offhandedly with her hands and eyes covered in an eerie red glow. "People spend a lot of money on things that give them pleasure. That's why porn industry's worth is the same as the world entertainment industry."

I could see the sneer on her face as she said that while looking at the group of girls dancing naked on platforms with money thrown at them at the crackheads that all had more than one lady in their arms.

"I guess I can understand that… in context." I said with a dry chuckle, narrowly avoiding the cold eyes that were about to be sent my way. "So? Your call."

"It's not as if there's any merit in leaving them alive." She said.

I went to the bar and sat there before tapping on the board to call the barkeep.

"Sir?"

"Two shots of 'Death in the Afternoon'."

He nodded and went to mix the rather ironic drink when taking what was about to happen here in the next few moments.

I could already feel a few eyes on me due to my unfamiliar face given that I just materialized when nobody was watching and was now ordering a drink in a gang-exclusive cash house.

"Oi, cabrón." I turned to look at the two people behind me with guns in their hands, looking me dead in the eye. "The boss is calling you." They said why tilting their head in the direction of a man who was having his dick blown, raising a cup in my direction with a smile on his face.

"Sure." I took the two drinks from the table and made my way to the boss.

This was all just theatrics as Wanda and I quickly figured out that just running through base after base made it a little stale and since we were trying to have fun, a little role play could spice things up for the next three minutes, and I also get to have a drink in a crime den. That's a double check for me.

I ignored the crowd surrounding me and the room that suddenly fell quiet and sat in front of the man who at least at the decency to keep his dick in his pants. No points for him though.

"Two questions: Who are you and how did you get in here." He said while dropping his firearm on the table while everyone else cocked their gun at me.

With the same gaited ease, I shifted the gun's nozzle facing me to the side and set down the two glasses in my hand. "Two answers then, I guess."

"A man, and I walked in."

The room fell silent as I sip my cocktail and just as the so-called boss was about to order them to blast me to high heavens, something splattered on the ground and sprayed the others with a red sticky liquid.

Before one of them could let out a scream, someone clamped his throat and started vomiting both blood and intestines on his face, which scared the man into shock.

"B-Baba Yaga."

'Seriously Wanda, that's kinda dark.'

{Sorry. I was trying out something new.}

'Oh. Then by all means, carry on.'

"Do you know who you are messing with?!" My attention was drawn to the convulsing trembling boss who had a gun to my head. "This warehouse belongs to the Kingpin!"

I ignored him completely and focused on my drink. I don't know what type of horror Wanda was playing out in their eyes since I was using my abilities to cancel out any attempt at illusions affecting me. That, and I am not much of a fan of eldritch horrors.

Those not affected were huddling at a corner and crying at the crazed actions of those unfortunate. It was magnified even more when they looked at my direction and saw the featureless face of a man drinking a cocktail mix.

A minute and a half was all it took for the entire cash house to quieten down.

I raised the other glass and gave it to Wanda who had a little smile on her face as she took it.

"That's one of my cleanest work yet." She said with satisfaction as she looked at the clean cash house behind us, without even a drop of blood or broken item.

"So this Kingpin… What's his deal? This is his third base we've rundown."

"Forget about him. He's just some crime lord who has a lot of the city officials in his pockets." I said while waving off Wilson Fisk. I had more important things to focus on than giving significance to the oversized boss baby.

"Got anything else in mind then? I think I've had my fill of crime hunting."

"If you're asking, there's the order of sorcerers I think we can visit to help your magic or put that off for another day. We could also drop by at the mutant school you wanted to take a look at."

I threw out a few suggestions as we left the building the same way we came in.

Sure enough, the NYPD was about to have another busy day.

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