Magic Tutor
After accidentally setting fire to the building in CACW, Wanda realizes she still has a lot to learn about her powers, but does she even want to use them anymore? Doctor Strange can barely keep the New York Sanctum and his hands together, is he really the right person to help? NO SLASH! Just a student/teacher, father/daughter type of relationship.
AN: So I've been reading a lot of fanfics about Iron Man mentoring Spider Man since they're both science nerds, and I thought, why not one of Doctor Strange mentoring Wanda since they both do magic? It's not actually in the movies like the Iron Man/Spider Man one is, but I think it's possible.
The man fighting Steve detonates the device. Wanda knows she has only seconds to protect everyone in the street. Instinctively, she uses her powers to throw the man high into the air. The device detonates well above the street, saving everyone on it… but killing everyone in the skyscraper right next to the explosion.
Wanda leaps out of bed only to bang her head on the ceiling and fall to the floor. She's been having reoccurring nightmares that cause her to use her powers while asleep. Today, it seems she had been levitating just below the ceiling until she woke up. Sighing and rubbing her head, Wanda walks out of her room and into the adjacent bathroom in the guest house in Wakanda that she and the other "criminal" Avengers are staying at after being broken out of the floating jail. Wanda turns the sink on and splashes cold water on her face in hopes of chasing the nightmare away, even though she knows it will always come back. She walks back to her bed and wraps herself in a comforting cocoon of soft sheets, but still it takes her a long time to fall back to sleep.
Wanda wakes from another nightmare to the smell of burning. She leaps out of bed and quickly uses her powers to put out the magic fire burning her dresser down that she must have conjured during the nightmare. Yet even though the dresser fire is out, the smell of burning keeps getting stronger! Wanda starts panicking, thinking that maybe she didn't just set the dresser on fire in her sleep, maybe she set fire to the whole building, and the Avengers are trapped by a giant wall of fire, AND THEY'RE BURNING TO DEATH, AND—
Knock knock! "Wanda, would you like some pancakes?" Steve asks.
"Um, sure," Wanda replies. "Is everything alright? It smells like something is burning?" she asks cautiously.
Steve chuckles. "Sam tried to make the pancakes. It didn't go so well. Don't worry, I made some that aren't burnt."
"Oh, that's all it is," Wanda says, relieved. "Thank you, I'll be out shortly." As Steve walks away, Wanda lets out a shaky breath. She knows she needs to get a handle on controlling her powers, but that's a bit hard to do considering she's also trying to use her powers as little as possible. Wanda turns her attention to getting dressed to avoid thinking about it. She decides on a red short-sleeve top and a short black skirt since Wakanda is a hot country, along with black boots, black makeup, and bracelets. Lots and lots of bracelets.
"Hey Wanda," Sam smiles at her as she enters the kitchen. "The pancakes Steve made are over there," he says, pointing at a platter full of pancakes.
"Thank you," Wanda replies. Although Sam and Steve are smiling at her, she knows that they, along with the other Avengers, don't entirely trust her. They all know that she can mind control them to do stuff, and it makes them uncomfortable. Only two people trust Wanda completely. One is her brother Pietro, who died because they were so concerned with revenge that they stupidly trusted Ultron. The other is Vision, who probably only trusted her because he had just recently been "born" and didn't know any better. Not that it matters now, since he stayed with Iron Man and the other "official" Avengers. Now Wanda has no one.
In the New York Sanctum, Doctor Strange tries not to let the disappointment show on his face as he looks around at his fellow sorcerers. He heard that several people gave up magic upon hearing The Ancient One had been using power from the Dark Dimension to keep herself alive, but he didn't realize just how many until now. This will make his new job of protecting New York from magical threats a whole lot harder.
Doctor Strange and the other mystics work all morning to put more protective spells around New York. After all, Loki opening a giant portal in the sky caused enough damage, no one wants Dormamu or whoever throwing a taking over the world party here as well.
After a few hours, Stephen decides they've done enough for now and tells the other mages to take a lunch break. He notices the others look relieved when he says that, maybe because they aren't proud to be mages after the whole Ancient One incident, or maybe they just don't like Stephen bossing them around. Whatever the case, he's glad to take a break as well. It's not easy suddenly being in charge of 1/3 of the Earth's best magicians.
As Stephen is eating lunch, he suddenly hears a far-away person's astral form calling for help. Stephen frowns and sets down his sandwich. It's not unusual for magicians to send a psychic distress call when they are in trouble, but most distress calls are strong, and stop as soon as the magician receives help, or, in some unfortunate cases, dies. This distress call is faint though, as though sent by a beginner sorcerer, and has been happening on and off for several weeks. Stephen opened a portal to investigate when the distress calls first started, but upon teleporting to Wakanda, he quickly opened up another portal and went home. Wakanda is well-known for its magic, science, and dislike of intruders. If the Wakandans wanted his help with whatever the distress call is about, they'd let him know. If he tried to meddle without their permission, they'd likely punch him all the way back to their country's border. Still, it's hard for Doctor Strange to just ignore the distress call, especially as it gets stronger every time. Deciding he can always open up a portal back here if Wakandans get mad, he sets off for Wakanda.
The first thing he notices when he steps out of the portal is green. New York doesn't have a ton of trees, but Wakanda is a rain-forest-covered country in Africa. Everywhere he looks are trees and moss. The second thing he notices is the time difference. While in New York the sun was directly overhead, here it is just starting its climb up the sky. Looking around further, he discovers a building nearby, nearly hidden by the trees. Stephen figures this must be where the distress call is coming from, since it's the only area big enough for people to be hiding. He purposefully set the portal a mile away from the distress signal, not wanting to teleport directly to the person because he might be walking into a trap. Cautiously, Doctor Strange makes his way to the building, which looks somewhat like a hotel.
Doctor Strange opens the front door as quietly as possible, wanting to assess the situation before anyone notices him. The smell of smoke upon opening the door doesn't reassure him. That is, until someone yells "Oh shit, the pancakes are burning!" followed by a second voice exclaiming "Language!" Doctor Strange frowns at this, because the two men's voices sound familiar, but he can't remember where he heard them before. He decides to stand outside and listen with the door ajar until he can remember, since it doesn't seem like the two men are currently fighting, plus the psychic distress call has stopped.
Doctor Strange listens for a while as the two men chat cheerfully and the smell of pancakes, bacon, and coffee comes floating out the door. He is starting to wonder if he's at the right place, when suddenly, he hears one of the men say "Hey Wanda, the pancakes Steve made are over there." Doctor Strange thinks the name Wanda sounds familiar…. Suddenly, his eyes widen as he remembers hearing about Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlett Witch on the news. Could she be the source of the distress signal? The grabbing motions she makes to create red energy are a bit different than the spinning motions he makes to create orange magic, is she really a sorcerer too? Then the name "Steve" hits, and Doctor Strange realizes why the voices sound familiar: they are the voices of Steve Rogers and Sam (what is his last name?)! Somehow, in his quest to rescue the mage in distress, he stumbled upon the criminal sect of Avengers!
"Thank you," Wanda replies, sounding a bit tired, but not in terrible distress. With that, Doctor Strange decides he doesn't need to rush to the rescue, and instead politely knocks on the door. The talking stops, and a few seconds later the door opens, but instead of a person coming out, a drone does. The drone scans him, then pauses, probably searching for public records with his image on them. Then the drone abruptly turns around and closes the door. As this happens, Doctor Strange feels his cape lift into the air, then plop back down hard on his shoulders, which he has come to learn means it's moping. Stephen smiles. "Don't worry, you're much cooler than that drone," he says, causing the cloak to puff up in pride.
Just then, the door opens, and Captain America steps out. "Sir, I don't want to fight you, but if you've come to tell people where we are, then I can't let you do that."
"I'm not looking for a fight either," Doctor Strange says, holding his hands in the air as a sign of peace while willing their constant shaking to stop. "I came here because a magic distress signal was set off in this area."
"Magic huh," Captain America replies, seeming to notice Doctor Strange's sorcerer outfit for the first time. "Who sent you?"
"No one, I sent myself," Doctor Strange replies. "I am Doctor Stephen Strange, Protector of the New York Sanctum Sanctorum."
"Well, Doctor Strange, it's nice to make your acquaintance, Captain America replies. "I'm afraid I've never heard of the New York Sanctum though," he says, looking lost in thought. "Wanda!" he exclaims.
"Yes Steve?" Wanda asks, eyeing Doctor Strange with curiosity.
"Do you know anything about a magic distress signal?" Captain America asks.
"No," Wanda replies, looking back and forth between Captain America and Doctor Strange."
"That's strange, since you sent it," Doctor Strange confirms, as he was just able to detect her magic presence and it matched the distress signal.
"I did not send a distress signal," Wanda frowns "…unless it was during the nightmare," she whispers.
Now it's Captain America's turn to frown. "Wanda, if you're still having nightmares, you should talk to someone about them. I thought you said they stopped."
"…mostly," Wanda mumbles, staring at the ground. Then she seems to regain her composure and raises an eyebrow at Doctor Strange. "Yet that was only a few minutes ago. I'm curious how you managed to get from New York to Africa in that time," she says, crossing her arms and staring at him as if she doesn't believe him.
"By making a portal, of course! Like this!" Doctor Strange exclaims, waving his hands in a circle and opening a portal to the snowy mountain The Ancient One stranded him on when he was first learning how to cast spells. Today, it seems, there is a blizzard there, because snow starts falling out of the portal.
For a few seconds, Wanda and Steve just stare in amazement. Slowly, Wanda comes forward and holds her hand out, letting the snow fall onto it and melt. "I didn't think magic could be beautiful," she whispers.
Doctor Strange frowns at this. "Magic can be used for more than warfare," he says, thinking about all the scenes of Wanda fighting on the news. "I originally sought magic's healing properties to heal my hands," he says, holding out his shaking hands, "but I found wonderful things instead, like this," he says, lifting the cloak off his shoulders.
This causes the cloak to protest by reaching for his shoulders. While in life-threatening situations, the cloak will do anything to protect those it cares about, in non-life-threatening situations, the cloak is shy around strangers, and usually stays still and pretends to be a non-magic cloak to avoid attention. It's not happy that Doctor Strange is drawing attention to it, and is trying to go back to hiding.
"You're cloak is alive?!" Wanda gasps. "That's amazing!" The cloak puffs up upon hearing the praise. Slowly, it floats towards Wanda, then reaches a ruffle out to her.
Wanda giggles. "Nice to meet you too, Mr. Cloak," she says, shaking the end of the cloak like a hand.
Doctor Strange smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes, as he knows that, sooner or later, he will have to deliver the bad news. "I'm afraid my visit here isn't just to show you the wonders of magic," he begins. "If I could hear your destress call all the way in New York, so can other powerful magicians around the world, as well as less powerful ones close by. I'm actually surprised none of them have paid you a visit yet. If you keep having these nightmares, sooner or later, another sorcerer will investigate, and unlike me, they might be interested in the price over your heads."
"So you don't care that we're criminals?" Captain America asks, looking ready to protect Wanda if necessary.
Doctor Strange shrugs. "I think you are protecting the world in the way that's best for you. I mean, it's not like I signed the accords either. I even re-wound time so no one would remember me or the disaster in Hong Kong."
Steve frowns. "What disaster in Hong Kong?"
"Exactly," Stephen smiles. "I didn't come here to turn you in, just to make sure Wanda is alright. So if you could stop with the distress calls—"
"I don't know how," Wanda whispers. "I didn't even know I was doing that. I know sometimes I use my powers when I'm asleep, but I…."
Doctor Strange sighs as he realizes how little control Wanda has over her powers and how big of a problem it's causing. "I could teach you," he blurts out.
"Really?" Wanda asks.
"Well, maybe," Stephen says, backtracking. "It would take some time," he says, thinking about how long it might take, and how boring it would be to teach a teenage girl magic who has had powers for longer than he has yet hasn't bothered to practice much. As much as he tries to improve, Stephen finds himself comparing teaching Wanda to a routine surgery, the type of surgery he's done a million times before, yet takes all day. And teaching Wanda magic would take more than just a day. Stephen tries to shake the thought from his head. It doesn't matter if it's boring, as knowing proper magic could save her life someday. Also, Wanda isn't a typical magic user. She got her powers from the Mind Stone, which could be interesting. Yet it is Wanda's pleading face that causes him to finally say "Yes, I'll teach you."
"Thank you!" Wanda exclaims, giving Doctor Strange a hug, while he worries about just what he's getting in to.
AN: So I realized halfway through this chapter that Captain America's name is Steve and Doctor Strange's name is Stephen. Hopefully that didn't confuse anyone. Also, what do other people like Doctor Strange call themselves? Sorcerers? Magicians? Guardians of the Sanctums? Idk.
Anyways, let me know if you want me to continue this story. If people are interested and I continue to get inspired, it will be a short story like Jurassic Stark (which was 12 chapters).