Flying lessons

Or: How to throw Captain America through a window, in 10 easy lessons

Lesson 8: There aren't any spells

After dinner at the end of the week, I finish the first season of Fear the Walking Dead, whereupon I shed ridiculous tears over Liza's death. Why should I care so much about her? She's not even real.

I decide to start on watching the Harry Potter movies next. It's a children's story, right? I need something light and fluffy, after the week I've had. This should be just the thing to lighten my mood.

It turns out I am wrong. I'm not even ten minutes in before Harry's parents are dead and he's sent to live with his horrible aunt and uncle. I grab the little captain doll off the shelf and hug it unconsciously while I watch.

And then they get to the "magic" part. He's in a school learning how to control magic. AS IF! It's completely ludicrous!

"What is this?" comes a voice from near the door. I hadn't even realize my door had opened, but I whirl around and find the captain leaning awkwardly against the doorframe with his arms folded, all of his weight balanced on his left leg.

I look him up and down before I answer, taking in the uncomfortable stance, the little pucker between his eyebrows, the tiny shadow of yellow-brown that still lingers under both sad-looking eyes. His gaze falls on the doll in my arms and his lip quirks up, almost like a smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Harry Potter," I say finally.

"Oh." He frowns at the screen. "He's a kid." On the screen a prepubescent Harry waves his wand, shouts a spell, and makes a book fly neatly to his hand.

"Yes, and they've got it all wrong," I grumble. I hit the button to mute the TV, just to make them all shut up with their silly "magic" and false hope.

"How do you mean?"

"There aren't any. . . spells, or charms, or whatever. It's completely unpredictable!"

"You seem to be able to control it somewhat. You're learning," he counters.

"I can't learn it."

"You're getting better."

"Tell that to the two dozen teddy bears I destroyed. Oh wait, you can't because they are in pieces in the trash."

"Ok, you can get better. You were getting better, before. . ."

"Before I broke your leg," I snarl. "I could have killed you."

The captain limps into the room and sits down on the bed next to me. His eyebrows are knitted together, mouth a straight line. "Wanda, this kind of power. . .If you can control it, you can do anything. We need that power on our team." I can see his jaw working from chewing the inside of his lip. "Please, Wanda."

I cave under the weight of his gaze. "Ok, I will keep trying."

His lips quirks up again, and this time his eyes crinkle up too, just a little. Oh, I am such a sucker for that smile. A little hope, I realize, is a dangerous thing.

"But we must slow down," I continue hurriedly. "If I can't keep control, you won't just fly up into the air; you'll be torn to pieces."

"I'm willing to take that risk," he says confidently, enthusiasm undimmed by my warning.

"I'm not!" I hug the little doll tighter, although he must think me ridiculous. "I can't live with myself if I kill Captain America."

"I'm notoriously difficult to kill," he says, grin widening. I press my lips together and glare at him, and he relents. "Ok, we'll take it slow," he says in an annoyingly patronizing voice. He's just humoring me, but I'll take what I can get at this point, as long as he cooperates.

He pushes himself off the bed awkwardly, right leg stiff. "Tomorrow morning, six a.m. in the main gym," he calls on his way out the door. Damn! Back to early mornings, I guess. "And make sure to thank Tony for that. . . doll."

Oh. So that's where I knew that handwriting from. His idea of a joke, obviously. Not that I'm complaining.

I make sure to arrive by six a.m. sharp this time, and again the captain is already there, doing stretches instead of windsprints this time. I suspect that he can't actually run on his injured leg yet, but I don't plan to ask.

It takes him a while to notice me, so I just stand inside the doorway and watch him using a long elastic band for resistance while he bends and straightens his leg over and over. It is clear, from the tension in his shoulders and his little grunt at the end of each rep, that it hurts, but he does not quit. Finally I get embarrassed to be standing there staring at him, so I clear my throat and say, "Good morning, Captain."

He startles but recovers quickly. "Hey, Wanda," he calls back. He climbs to his feet, wobbles a bit while catches his balance on his right leg. Then he limps over to the wall where he tosses down the elastic band and scoops up his shield and cowl.

"Are you sure you're healed up enough for this?"

"Yes, I'm ready. I've been practicing with Sam for three days now. I'm good to go." Stopping in the middle of the room, he demonstrates by jumping up and down on the balls of his feet. "See? I'm good. Now come on, let's get started."

This is not my definition of "slowing down", but what can I do? He's the captain. He's already pulled on his cowl and is arranging his shield on his sleeve with practiced ease.

I keep a tight rein on the door this time, just allowing it to open wide enough to let through a few scarlet strings, which I roll in my hands for an unnecessarily long time, until his lips are pressed together in annoyance. All right, fine.

I fling out the strand and send him up into the air, only a meter or so, then haul him back down, where he lands gently on his left foot, right foot barely touching the ground.

"Well, that's a start," he says, with his eyebrows raised. "Go higher next time."

So I lift him up again, almost two meters this time, and set him down again carefully. I'm afraid to let go even for a second lest he fall on his injured leg and get hurt all over again.

When I release him, he flings his arms out. "I'm not made of glass," he snaps. "I'm not gonna break!"

"That's not true!" I rejoin hotly. "You could break. I've seen it!"

"C'mon, Wanda. This is useless. Don't you want to be useful to the team?"

Now that is unfair. I feel the heat climbing up my neck and into my scalp. "If I'm not useful, will you send me away? Send me to prison?"

He shakes his head. "No, I won't do that. Of course I won't do that."

"You might not, but what about Mr. Stark?"

There is a pause. He blinks, and says finally (much too late), "Tony won't either."

I scoff. "You don't know that. This is the first place I've lived in a long time that had the lock on the inside of the door instead of the outside. Do you have any idea what that means to me?"

He stares at me silently with a troubled expression: eyebrows pulled together, mouth tight. Finally he takes a deep breath and says slowly, "I promise you can stay," His eyes drill into mine. "Do you understand me? I promise."

"Not if I kill you."

"You won't kill me. You can stay even if you hurt me again. No matter what. I promise. Do you believe me?"

After a long pause, I swallow hard and say, "Yes," in a small voice.

"Wanda, these powers you have, they have enormous potential, but you have to learn to control them, and I believe you can. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't have you on my team." His gaze is steady, but he's chewing the inside of his lip again. After a moment, I catch a flash of anxiety behind his eyes, and then it's gone. Why would Captain America be anxious? Why does he want me on his team anyway? Is it enough that he does? I don't know, but I do want him to smile, even though that seems unlikely at this point. The enthusiasm he had exuded at the beginning of this process appears to have dissipated entirely, leaving in its place only a desperate determination.

"For you," I say finally, "I will keep trying, but you have to understand it's not easy. I have only ever used my powers to destroy."

"That's not all they're good for. You have to believe that," he insists.

"I wish I could."

"Wanda. . ." He seems ready to keep trying to convince me, but I am done. Enough pointless talk.

"I'm ready to keep trying now. Isn't that what you wanted?" It comes out harsher than I intended, and I see him flinch.

"Ok, yes," he says, backing into position with his shield at the ready.

Taking a deep breath, I summon a several-stranded braid of red and toss him into the air—higher, but nowhere near as high as we had done at previous practice sessions. At the end I add a flick of my fingers to produce lateral movement, but save some of the bolt to catch him on the way down. Unfortunately, he is already attempting to catch himself, so he lands awkwardly with his right leg buckling under him.

He tucks, rolls, and comes up favoring his right leg, mouth pulled back into a grimace.

"Captain!" I exclaim as he limps back to the starting position, but he waves me off.

"I'm all right."

"Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine. Let's go again." But he doesn't look fine. He's clearly in pain.

"Your leg is hurt," I point out.

"I said I'm fine!" he snaps, his mouth a straight, tense line. "Go again!"

I feel a spike of anger at his tone, which makes the chaos harder to control. I clench my hands into fists to keep the strings from escaping, but I feel them crackling at my fingertips.

"Come on." He motions to me impatiently, like 'bring it on.' He does not understand what he is playing with. How could he understand? He's never tried to plug a volcano.

Closing my eyes, I push my anger down until it reaches a slow simmer. Despite my misgivings, I try again, and this time he flies up into the air. When I flick him to the side, I push too hard and he tumbles off the far side of the walkway with his body curled into a tight ball. Fear replaces anger at the sight: my fear, but I can sense his as well. The ability to sense fear is one skill I've mastered. Go, me.

I use my fear to reach out again and grab him quickly enough to slow his descent. I am sure I have hurt him again, but he rolls and comes up to his feet with a grim expression on his face. Yanking off the cowl, he tosses it away as he stalks back into position. His sweaty hair hangs down over his forehead and sticks up in the back.

"Again," he growls.

My anger flares again. It would be so easy—so easy—to give up the fight, let the Chaos destroy him, let it tear him to pieces like the teddy bears. He's afraid, I remind myself. Even though he sounds angry, really he's feeling anxious for this to work, which is a desire I share. We are on the same team. The captain is not my enemy.

So I do it again. I shoot out the red rope and pick him up, throw him higher—yes, high enough!-to the side, where he. . . overshoots the walkway and flies directly toward the window.

"Shit!" I cry frantically. I fling out a bolt to pull him back, but it's too late. He pulls the shield up in front of himself just in time to avoid getting a faceful of glass as he crashes through an upper pane of the window. Sparkly bits of glass rain down around me; I have to wrap my arms around my head to keep them out of my eyes, which means I can't catch him. He's too far away anyway now, outside the building in the semi-dark, where he will land with full force on the concrete.

Shielding my eyes as best I can in the crook of my arm, I sprint toward the doorway, but before I reach it, the door opens and he comes limping back in with his shield hanging loosely at his side. His chin, elbow, and knee are scraped but otherwise he looks fine. Oh, thank god.

My relief quickly returns to anger as he stomps back to the middle of the gym and lifts the shield. His arm trembles from the effort of simply holding it into place, but he will not quit. He will not quit, but I can.

I drop my hands to my sides and force my fists to uncurl. "I'm done for today," I grind out through gritted teeth.

"No! We're not gonna quit!" he shouts, but I'm already headed toward the door. "WANDA!" Even though I can now hear a hint of desperation in his voice, I am not swayed. I am done.

Just before I reach the door, he calls after me, "Tomorrow morning, same time."

I snarl at him in reply, grab the door and haul it open with far too much force, so much so that it bounces against the wall, causing the glass to shatter. I don't even slow down.

I stomp up the stairs instead of taking the elevator, five floors, with each step echoing off the hard walls and ceiling until I am surrounded by noise, LOUD and clanging, just like the noise in my head, just like the staccato pounding of my heart.

When I get back to my room, I slam that door too, hard enough that it bounces open again, so I just leave it. It doesn't matter anyway. If Vision wants to come in, he will whether the door is open or closed, so what does it matter?

I pace, back and forth in the small floorspace, back and forth, anger building up and building up as I replay the end of the "practice session" over and over. Why won't he just give up? It's not going to work! It's pointless and infuriating.

I can feel the Chaos building up behind the door, responding to my rage. I'm so sick of holding it back when I just want to lash out. Destruction is what I was created for, what I trained for. It's what I DO!

The Chaos finally breaks through. With a roar, I fling my hands out and unleash a bolt, which flies into my TV and shatters it into a thousand pieces of plastic, metal, and glass. I am surrounded by a sea of little sparkly bits, like the stars have fallen from the sky. On the part of the shelf that is still intact, the little Captain America doll has fallen over onto its side. The expressionless, painted-on blue eyes silently mock me. I grab the doll (with my hand, because I still don't want to destroy it) and toss it under my bed. Then, breathing hard, I sink down on the wrinkled blanket and put my hands over my face, spent.

After a moment, I become aware that someone else is there, and when I look up, I find Sam leaning casually against the doorframe with his eyebrows raised.

"Hey, Wanda," he says with a note of amusement in his voice. "I was going to ask how things were going, but I think I can figure it out on my own. What happened?"

I survey the wreckage with my lips pressed together and shrug carelessly. "I destroyed the TV."

"I get that. I'm asking why?"

"I threw the captain through a window," I admit, guilt weighing down the words. I chew on my lip anxiously.

Sam's eyebrows climb even further. "You're letting him practice again?"

"Isn't he practicing with you? He said he was."

Sam scoffs. "I benched him."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I practice, and he watches from the bench. He's not ready to get tossed around the room."

"That's what I told him!" I cry. "He wouldn't listen to me."

Sam shakes his head. "That boy. . ."

"He's hardly a boy," I point out.

"I call 'em like I see 'em," Sam said. "And if that boy doesn't slow down, he's gonna end up with a lot worse than a broken leg."

A/N: coming soon, lesson 9: Steve Rogers gets broken (This one may not have been an accident, sorry)