Chapter 3: Flying
Amanda was getting dressed when there was a knock on her door. "One moment," she said. She tucked her shirt into her pants, slid her feet into her shoes, and went to open the door.
Warren stood on the other side. "Ready?" he asked her.
She stared at him blankly for a moment before she remembered their discussion of the night before. "No. I'm not ready." She shuffled her feet. "I changed my mind. I can't do it."
Warren sighed. "Amanda, you can't hide in here or in the labs forever," he said. "I know Hank loves you, and he's willing to do almost anything for you, but putting up with this childishness isn't going to be fun for him."
Stung, Amanda bristled. "I am not being childish!"
"Sure you are," Warren said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're acting like a spoiled child who's scared of trying something new so you're avoiding it, putting it off again and again."
"I am not scared!" Amanda tried to close the door. "I just changed my mind. I'm allowed to change it if I want to, don't I?"
"Nope!" Warren grabbed Amanda from behind, being careful not to crush the wings, and half-dragged, half-carried her down the hall toward his room
"Put me down, damn you!" she screamed furiously, lashing out at him with her feet. He moved his shin out of the way with an easy side-step, and continued walking
Despite her kicking and screaming, she was an easy handful for Warren. She didn't weigh much. Doors opened up and down the hall as the others checked out the source of the commotion. Mosdt of them just chuckled and went back to what they were doing, but Jubilee gave him a wicked grin and a thumbs-up sign before taking the stairs out to the back lawn.
Warren carried Amanda through his room and out to his balcony, finally depositing her on the low railing of his balcony. She squeezed her eyes shut. "GET ME DOWN OFF HERE--"
"Nope." Warren had his hands on her ankles, keeping her from falling. "Look up, Amanda." Her eyes remained stubbornly squeezed shut. "Amanda," he warned her.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. The sky overhead was a clear, endless blue, with a few puffy cumulus clouds drifting across it. Ororo, Rogue, and Jean were hovering there, having broken off their game of aerial tag when they saw Warren emerge with Amanda. Rogue gave her a friendly wave, and Jean called out, "It's all right, Amanda, we won't let you fall!"
"I'm not going to fall because I'm not going to try!" She wriggled furiously in Warren's grasp. "Put me down! I'll tell Hank what you're doing!" She wriggled again. "Let me go!"
"Okay," Warren said cheerfully, and released her ankles.
There was a moment of dizziness, a feeling of freefall, and a sinking realization that the ground was much too hard and was coming up at her much too fast. Amanda screamed in panic, grabbed for something, anything, to stop her fall, but her grasping hands found nothing but empty air.
Above her, Ororo watched as Jean's telekinetic 'hand' grabbed for the falling woman. She didn't stop Amanda from falling, just slowed her down enough so that she could get over the shock so instinct could kick in.
Amanda didn't even notice. She gasped in fright, and flexed her wings. Was it her imagination, or was there a tiny bit of lift? She tried it again, this time in a broad up-and-down sweep of her wings. Yes, that was a bit of lift! She started to flutter them frantically, up and down, rapidly, trying to keep herself aloft. Her eyes were squeezed shut as her frantic fluttering lifted her above the treetops. When she finally got up the nerve to open her eyes, she discovered that the mansion was quite some distance below her, and Ororo, Jean, and Rogue were hovering in front of her, faces alight with pleased smiles.
"I can fly?" Amanda risked another glance at the ground beneath her. The height was dizzying, but there was an odd feeling of exhilaration about being up so high, away from everything else. She peeked over her shoulder at her wings, which were pulsing gently, a few beats every now and then to keep her airborne. "I really can fly!"
Jean grinned. "They're not just decorative, Amanda," she said cheerfully. "They're pretty and functional!"
Amanda took another, longer look over her shoulder. In the sunlight, the rainbow sheen on her wings were much more intense, the colors almost blinding. "I can't wait until Hank comes home," she giggled suddenly. "He's going to be so pleased!" She stopped beating her wings, and just drifted down on the air currents until her feet touched the green lawn.
"Can you get back up standing, or do you need a jumping off point?" Jean called down to her.
"I don't know," Amanda said. She closed her eyes, concentrated, and beat her wings.
Jean cheered aloud as Amanda rose slowly in the air. "You can do it! You can fly!"
Rogue swooshed past Amanda as she regained her former altitude, brushing her arm lightly. "You're 'it'!" she said happily.
Amanda looked after her. "What?"
Jean explained. "It's a game we play every so often to sharpen our skills," she said. "It's just a simple game of tag."
"Simple!" said a voice. Warren swept past Jean, banked in a graceful arc of white feathers, and came to a stop hovering just above the two women. "It's never simple with the three of you!"
Jean nudged Amanda. "See if you can get Warren," she said. "After all, he's the one who pushed you off the railing."
Amanda redirected herself at him. Warren backpedaled in the air, laughing. "Whoa! I was just doing it for your own good, and for Hank!" he laughed. "Hank's been trying to get you to try out those wings for a while now!"
"My own good hah! If it was for my own good you'd have let me do this at my own pace instead of pushing me off!" Amanda shrieked as she dove for him.
The game progressed, winding in and out of the trees, the lead constantly changing as the person who was 'it' tagged another person. Amanda didn't serve too many turns as 'it', though; they were taking it a bit easier on her than they were with each other. After all, they were experienced veterans of the air; she was still a novice. The game finally ended when Betsy's mindvoice started calling them in for lunch.
Amanda touched down lightly on the green grass and was startled to realize she was ravenous. "I'm hungry," she said, more to herself than to anyone else, but Rogue heard her and laughed.
"Doin' somethin' strenuous like this takes a lotta energy," she explained to Amanda. "Yah think yoah hungry now? Yah should see us after a mission! We practically devour everythin' in the fridge after one a' them." She walked into the house.
Amanda lingered a moment longer outside, feeling the warm sun on her wings. She hadn't been outside the mansion since her transformation, and it felt good to be outside again. She suddenly realized how she hated being cooped up in the house. The warm summer breeze caused her wings to stir in the wind ever so slightly, and the feeling was delightful. She should be going in…but the temptation was too much to resist, and she stirred her wings again, letting them take her up above the trees, into the wild blue sky.
She had dreamed, when she was little, about being able to fly. She'd wondered what it would be like. Incredible, she had thought. Exciting.
Now she realized that none of her imaginings could ever have been able to give her an idea what it really was like. Flying straight up into that incredible blue expanse was intoxicating, like being drunk on a drug that had no side effects.
She turned, the movement coming almost naturally to her now. She smiled to herself. Funny how it hadn't taken her long to figure out how to fly. Somewhere in her genetic code there must have been instructions on how to use the wings, or it wouldn't have been this easy. She smiled happily, and dipped low over the woods, brushing the tops of the trees with her hands. Dipping below the canopy, she came to rest on a branch for a moment, looking for all the world like a big, exotic butterfly.
She wished Hank were here. With his strength and agility, it wouldn't be hard for him to swing from tree to tree, branch to branch, as she flew alongside. She giggled as she thought of that. Maybe even a race. That would be fun.
It was odd; he'd only been gone a few days, but she already missed him and couldn't wait for him to get back. She'd never felt like that about anyone before; not even her ex-fiance. Unbidden, the image of Bruce Garrett intruded on her thoughts, and she shook her head to clear it. The image was replaced by another face, just as handsome but endowed with more warmth and personality than Bruce ever had. Warren's face. She liked Warren. He was like an older sibling to her. Brash, arrogant, bratty, annoying, and refusing to take no for an answer, just like Katherine had refused to take no for an answer when a young Amanda had refused to listen to her older sister.
Warren might be handsome, but he wasn't like her Hank. Hank, despite his outward appearance was warm, sensitive, patient, caring, and kind. He loved her, and she loved him. He reminded her somewhat of her first husband; except that Dave was human, and he wasn't patient. Not by a long stretch. He had filed for divorce, not her, because he couldn't stand being second to her research. Although, in retrospect, Amanda had to admit that she hadn't loved him as much as she thought she had; if she had loved him the way she loved Hank, he would have come first. Maybe she had spent so much time at the labs precisely because she didn't love him. She couldn't talk to him like she could Hank.
She looked up, at a funny-shaped cloud in the sky that, if she looked carefully, looked a bit like Hank. "I wish you were here," she said to the sky. "I really miss you. I miss your smile, I miss your laugh, I miss being able to talk to you about anything and everything under the sun. It's funny; a whole mansion full of people, and I'm lonely. For you. I miss hearing you say my name. I miss that funny snore you have. I even…god forbid…miss you hogging the blanket at night and finding your dirty clothes in the drawer because you absent-mindedly put them there while you were thinking of something else."
"Hey, Amanda!" Jubilee called from the back door. "Enough brooding! Come on! There's a delivery guy at the door and he's got a package and he says it's yours!"
Amanda flew into the house…literally…and then ran the rest of the way to the door. The deliveryman didn't seem surprised to have the door opened by a girl with rainbow wings, rather, he stared openly at them while she signed the slip he handed her, and before he left he said to her, "I'm sure you hear this all the time, Ma'am…but you gotta be the prettiest little lady my tired old eyes have ever seen!"
Amanda laughed, leaned forward, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you," she said. The man left rubbing his cheek and looking rather dazed.
Jubilee was snickering behind her hand as she followed Amanda up the steps. "Maybe now you'll listen to Hank when he says you're pretty," she said as Amanda grabbed her sewing scissors and cut open the packing tape on the box. "What's that, by the way?"
'Something I ordered for Hank," Amanda said. "I was browsing online when I saw it, and I know his birthday's coming up, so I bought it for him. I thought he might like it." She fished around in all the packing peanuts until she finally came up with a small velvet box. She opened it, and Jubilee oooh'ed.
Inside, nestled on the black velvet, was a heavy gold man's ring set with a blue stone the same color as Hank's fur. There were also matching cuff links and a tie clip set with the same blue stone.
She handed Jubilee the box as she went fishing around in the box again. This time the box was a polished dark cherrywood, and inside was a gold-plated pen and pencil set, each with a small blue stone set in the pocket clip. Jubilee blinked. "Wow. How'd you know?"
"Know what?"
"Hank had one of these pen sets a long time ago. Then the girl he was going out with at the time stole it and broke it. He was really upset; he loved that set."
"Well, now he has another one," Amanda took the pen from its bed and held it out. "I even had his name engraved on it. You know, just to make it more special." Jubilee peered at the tiny line of script on the pocket clip just above the stone. "I can't read it, so I'll take your word for it," she said.
"I hope he likes it," Amanda put both boxes in the top drawer of her night table.
"Oh, he will," Jubilee nodded. "He will. Come on, let's go get dinner."