She'd left the Kaplans' home with two business cards and a head more full of possibilities than ever before. One card was Rebecca's, and the other was that of a colleague, since a condition of Rebecca's agreement to training and time with Billy was that they have a neutral person to handle any emotional issues that might arise.
Wanda had stopped at a little Hungarian pastry shop on the way home, and was toying with coffee when a warm hand rested on her shoulder, startling her out of her thoughts. Steve was looking at the cards thoughtfully. "Went better than you'd thought, huh?" he asked, his hand squeezing gently, then releasing. He dropped into a chair across from her.
"In a sense. Rebecca Kaplan is..." Wanda sought the right words, looking out the window at the Cathedral of St. John, then fought off a smile. "... someone who can accept a great deal on faith, and still pull answers out of you."
"Sounds like someone who could be a good friend." Steve glanced around, and because he was Steve, managed to get the waitress' attention. "Coffee, please. And…" He looked at Wanda, a question in his eyes.
"Two poppy hamantaschen," she told the waitress, and got a slight nod. The bakery was family-run, with rickety tables and coffee that was neither good nor bad, but they did have good pastries if you came at the right time of day. "I think she could be. But as it is, everything's still… up in the air, waiting for it all to come crashing down around my ears."
Steve settled back in his chair, frowning when it creaked protest. He didn't tell her she was being paranoid, and in that moment, she could've loved him for that. Instead, he said, "That's what Mrs. Kaplan is trying to prevent, right?" He tapped the cards that Wanda'd set on the table. "Protecting her family as well as you, in case?" There was a question beneath the questions, and that was what Wanda stopped to consider.
She was silent for a time, and he let her be. Wanda did not let herself think of those brief bright moments with Vizh and a home up in New Jersey, quiet and comfortable and so full of hope, but this had brought them to the surface again.
In order to accept Billy as he was, if he was hers as well as the Kaplans', she would have to make her peace with the rosy-toned memories of the past. "... accepting people as they are rather than as we wish they were is not an easy task," she said, finally meeting Steve's steady gaze. "So even if he is not the Billy I-" She paused, re-evaluated her words. "He is Billy Kaplan, and not William Maximoff or Lensherr. And I think he is safer in that. No less loved, however, and that is what is important. If it does come tumbling down, however it may fall, there will be that, and Rebecca Kaplan is taking care to show it."
"I'm beginning to like Mrs. Kaplan more and more," Steve said, picking up one of the newly-delivered hamantaschen. "Doesn't put up with any guff from famous superheroines, which means Billy's going to have rules as well. Hopefully it'll keep him out of this." He punctuated his statement by biting into the pastry.
Wanda eyed him over the rim of her coffee mug. She understood his wariness, having seen - and been - a teenager caught up in the middle of a battle between forces she didn't quite understand, but- "I don't think there's a way to 'stay out of this,' Steve. Not for us, and not for him. Besides-" She gentled her words with a smile. "-I don't think he wants to stay out of it. He's quite a fan of yours." Though Billy'd said she was his favorite. She hid the smugness behind her lifted cup and regarded Steve.
He leaned back in his chair, finishing his bite while letting her words roll over him. He swept the crumbs into a pile in front of himself, then shook his head. "I can't say that he's wrong to want to fight bullies." Wanda's gaze dropped to his hands, solid and scarred and flattened upon the tabletop, slightly whitened at the pressure points. "Just hoping that the bullies he decides to fight are the sort who don't want to rule the world."
Wanda crumbled the last of her pastry onto her plate, then looked up. "On that, we can agree."
A massive claw slammed down where Wanda'd been standing a moment before. She sent its owner flying backwards with a hex, then whirled, cloak flaring, to meet its partner with a shield of pure magic. "And how long will that be?" she demanded over the comms, red sparks drifting down from her upraised hands as the creature tried to batter down her shield. "People need-"
The picnickers began to vanish in a familiar blur. "-evacuation," she finished weakly, then brought her other hand upwards, dropping her shield for an instant to let another hex through. It proved a bad idea: the creature stumbled, and began to fall onto her. Quicksilver was moving another civilian-
"IwanthertobesafeIwanthertobesafeIwanthertobesafe-"
About to move, Wanda caught herself as a blue-white shield flared around her, and the creature hit her and bounced off, crashing to the ground beside her. The power was familiar, but not. There was a crackle of electricity underlying the familiar synaesthetic riot of chaos magic, and Wanda wove a tendril of her own magic into it and unraveled the shield as Quicksilver rounded up the last of the creatures. "Where do these belong?" he asked, either not acknowledging the shield's probable origin, or not having noticed.
"Not here." She knew her voice was terse. She tapped into the roil of magic again, and sat in lotus to focus. When she opened her eyes, she saw the threads tying people together and to their origins. With a twist of one hand, she seized the creatures' threads and cast the back to their homes. Then she turned her attention back to the others, narrowing her glowing eyes at one of the threads tied to her. It was suddenly closer.
When Wanda's vision snapped back to normal, Billy was dangling from Pietro's grip like an awkward puppy. Pietro hadn't missed Billy's presence after all. "All yours, sister," Pietro said dryly. "Thankfully, I have a few years before this starts." With a quick kiss to her cheek that did little to soothe her ruffled feelings, he vanished, leaving Billy with his hands behind his back, looking at a point somewhere between her boots and his unlaced sneakers.
Wanda took a deep breath, in through the nose, and out through the mouth. Another. On the third, she felt calm enough to take a step forward and put a hand beneath Billy's chin, drawing his gaze up to hers. "First. Thank you for the shield." He brightened, started to speak, but she held up one hand, one finger raised. "Second, when I said I would help you learn, it meant that you would follow both my rules and those of your mother. Which means not running to any new crisis point in New York to try to help."
"Oh, like you didn't need my help," Billy muttered, then immediately clapped his hand over his own mouth, eyes wide.
"This is not the place to have this discussion." With a sigh, Wanda turned away to lead them home.
Massaging her temples where her headpiece normally rested, Wanda settled onto the couch next to Billy, turning to face him and pulling one leg up beneath her. She waited.
He cracked quickly. "I didn't really mean that. But if people are hurt, that's what we're supposed to do! Step in!"
While one part of her heart warmed at this, another felt chilled. "In a normal situation, yes," she said, "but you aren't trained for this. Being /safe/… Billy, magic is amazing, yes. Yours and mine, however, is chaotic. Using it like that might grant your wish, but it also might do it in a strange or dangerous way."
He looked down at his hands, and she bridged the gap, taking his hands in hers, squeezing them gently. "Magic is very prone to the Law of Unintended Consequences. Do you know it?"
"Uh…" He seemed startled both by the contact and the question. He frowned, looking back up at her face. "Where you fix one thing and another breaks because of it? We were studying the whole thing with rabbits in Australia, and-" He shrugged, mouth flattening into a line. "Then why do you use it?"
"Because she's learned to control it and change the chances of something bad happening." Steve leaned in the doorway, dressed in his uniform, but with his helm off, shield slung on his back. Billy jerked his hands out of Wanda's, shifting uncomfortably. "I'm glad you're brave enough to step in," he said, and Wanda wondered at the guilty look on Billy's face, "But punching out of your weight class is easier when you've got a plan and a way to do it."
"Isn't that kinda… hypocritical of you?" Billy looked mortified the moment after he'd said it, and looked at Wanda out of the corner of his eyes. She gestured to Steve.
Scratching his chin, Steve said, "A bit. I'm not gonna apologize for being a punk from Brooklyn who got into too many fights as a kid. That was my choice at the time. Doesn't mean I want to see someone else with as many black eyes and fat lips as I had."
"I'm not from Brooklyn," Billy blurted out. "I'm- I mean, I'm just this kid who gets beaten up anyway, so it's not like-" He shook his head. "It doesn't feel like anything's gonna change if suddenly it's guys with powers trying to beat me up. At least then I might actually be able to do something about it."
"It does get b-" Wanda began, and was interrupted by Billy pointing at her.
"Don't tell me that it gets better. That whole thing's great! Sure, I just have to survive school, then maybe college, and then maybe, just maybe, I'll be happier? Why can't I do something about it now?"
Steve's eyes had narrowed at this, as if a thought'd struck him. Wanda thought she'd had the same one. "You're right," Wanda said, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that it gets better - too much not listening, hmm?" Billy nodded warily. "What do you want to do?"
Billy opened his mouth, then closed it, and Wanda sympathized. It wasn't a question people could answer with certainty when their lives weren't complicated, much less with the Scarlet Witch and Captain America listening in. "I don't know," he said, shoulders slumping. "I want to make things change, but I'm also really scared of everything. I mean, that bully? I was so happy when he found someone else to beat up. But I'm sick of running away from things like that, and the Avengers've been my heroes forever, I even used to collect the trading cards and I still follow the AvengersSightings hashtag. And I thought maybe if I could have powers then I could somed… I want to be an Avenger someday."
Wanda had no time to react to this, as Bruce edged into the room, fidgeting with a stylus. Steve didn't appear surprised. "It's not as fun as you think," he said, "But sometimes it has interesting parts. I've got some news for you."