Tornado of fire

We are in the car on our way back to the Avengers compound. I joined Wanda in the back seat and laid my head on her lap. This is how I am still lying, with her softly playing with my hair. I repeat the events that happened in my head over and over again. The lust and dominance in his eyes, which I have seen so many times before when I was captured by Hydra. "How did you know something was wrong?" I ask the two women. Natasha is driving the car and she didn't turn on the music, that way she is capable of hearing me talk. "I wasn't gone that long." "Wanda heard you." Nat answers plainly. I squeeze my eyes, confused. "How? My voice was barely a whisper." Wanda looks at me and smiles, wiping a lock of hair out of my face. "I heard you in here." She points towards her head. "I heard you call out in my mind." "But I didn't call for you…" I immediately realize how stupid I had been, not doing that. She gives me a soft kiss on my cheek: "You didn't have to, we have a connection so I will always hear you if you need me milyy." I can hear Natasha sighing in an over the top dramatic way when she hears us talk. "Yes yes, that's just adorable. But back to the matters on hand: You need to start your training immediately. You need to learn how to protect yourself, we won't always be around to help you Ivanov. And I don't want you get hurt, not on my watch." It's sweet, Natasha's way of caring. I nod at her, than realize that she doesn't see me so I repeat myself with words this time: "I understand, thank you Nat." She lets out a barking laugh. "Don't thank me just yet Lidiya, you'll hate me in the morning. I want to see you in the training area at 8 am precisely. Don't be late because every minute you are I will make you do another push up." I groan and hide my head against Wanda's belly, mumbling "Ekspluatator' (exploiter)!" Wanda laughs and Nat replies with a "Hey, I heard that Ivanov! Make sure you don't come to regret it." The car falls silent while we continue our way home. Wanda murmurs a song in my head, that way I'm the only one who hears it and it doesn't disturb the peace. Slowly I fall asleep listening to her beautiful voice.

"Great she is asleep. Want me to carry her to her room?" I hear Natasha's voice very faintly, my body is still in the world of sleep but the stopping of the car and their voices pulled me awake a little bit. "There is no need for that Nat, I got it." There is a soft chuckle, from Natasha I presume. "Don't get me wrong little witch, but you're not nearly as muscular as I am. I think I am better suited for the job of carrying her." I absolutely love and adore Natasha and she means a lot to me, but the thought of leaving Wanda's side immediately terrifies me. I cling to her t-shirt, pressing myself as close to her body as possible and mumble some words which I am sure are impossible to understand. "It's okay baby, I'm not letting go of you." Wanda softly whispers into my ear. "I don't need to have muscles." I feel a very weird sensation around my body. It's slightly electric but not in an uncomfortable way. It's warm and full of live and it buzzes all around me. I can feel Wanda stand up and I move along, my body in the same position as before, pressed against her chest. "Really little witch? Using your magic to carry her? I think that qualifies as cheating." The chestnut haired woman laughs one of her warm laughs that make me fall in love with her even deeper. "You can help me by opening the doors to her room." I can feel us moving and cling even harder to Wanda. "Really? You can use your magic to carry your wanna be girlfriend to her room but you can't spear some extra magic to open the doors?" The voice follows us so I assume that Nat is following after all and her words are just meant as teasing. "I want to keep my energy as steady as possible and make sure nothing happens to her." Wanda says lovingly. The next couple of minutes happen in a comfortable silence and before I know it we have arrived in the room I am using. Softly Wanda places me on the bed and pulls the covers over me, but when she tries to leave I take a hold of her hand. "Stay. Please." I don't bother opening my eyes but I know she hears me. Natasha isn't capable of hearing my thoughts since I only directed them to Wanda, but she is still a top spy and she can read the room just as perfectly. "Going to stay with her again aren't you?" It keeps quiet but I assume that Wanda is nodding. "I understand. I'll leave two alone then." I can hear her footsteps halting right before she leaves the room. "Wanda, be gently with her. You entwined yourself into her life and she can't lose you, it would break her all over again." I feel a sadness wash over me and it doesn't feel like my own. Wanda. "I know." She whispers. "But I think that losing her would break me even more." Natasha leaves the room and closes the door, leaving us alone. I can feel Wanda getting into bed and immediately I crawl towards her, sighing in content when I can feel my head resting on her shoulders with my forehead touching her cheek. "Thank you moya lyubov' (my love)." I mumble with a sleep filled voice after which I immediately fall asleep, too far gone to feel the surprise radiating off of Wanda.

"Wake up milyy, it's 7 o'clock. You have to get ready to face Natasha." I groan and refuse to open my eyes, pressing my forehead against the pillow in a sad attempt to keep the light out of my sight. "Noooooo…" I mumble, my voice smothered by the pillow. Wanda laughs when she sees my action and my heart warms up. "Yes Lidiya, I would highly recommend you get your ass out of that bed. Natasha is very strict when it comes to being late. When she was training me, every minute over time were ten pushups. And no she didn't care about the fact that I had no physical training before." She warns and slowly I turn around so I lay on my back, covering my eyes with my hand. "But I'm so tireeeeeeeed!" I nag, and Wanda replies by waving her hand. Multiple things happen at the same time: the curtains open and allow the sun to take over the room, my blanket flies off of me and my hand moves on it's on, ending up next to me. I turn to face Wanda and am still in time to see the red eyes slowly disappearing. "Hey!" I call out, and as quickly as I can I sit up and hit her head with my pillow. "Take that!" For a moment her face is just an expression of surprise, before a grin appears on her face and she fights back. "Oh hell no, you're going to lose big time!" She uses her scarlet powers to take control of three pillows at the same time, coming at me from all directions. "Aaaaah!" I yell, trying my best to stand my ground against this attack but within thirty seconds I am lying on my back and have to admit defeat. "Stop, stop, stop!" I keep calling out, but laughter taking over makes it hard to understand me. Wanda pinches me to the ground, sitting down on me and looking into my eyes. "And what if I don't?" she asks me with a smirk, a mischievous glow in her eyes. "Then I will shout." "And you think someone will come?" I try to shrug, which is hard with Wanda holding my wrists in a death grip. "Maybe not, but at least I have the opportunity to yell into the compound." Wanda laughs when she hears my explanation which is completely made out of bullshit. She rolls off me and ends up next to me, still laughing. I stay still, just taking in the sound. I am aware of the fact that I have only known her for a short time but somehow she makes me feel complete. She makes me feel like a human being again, like I'm whole once more. We lay next to each other, on the ground, both trying to get out breathing back under control. Slowly Wanda her laughs disappears and we enjoy the silence for a while. Suddenly she sits up and says "Really malysh, we have to get going. It's almost 8 am and Nat is going to kill you." I take a deep breath. "I'm ready, let's go." Wanda get's up and offers me a hand, when I grab it she pulls me on my feet. She throws a pair of workout clothes in my direction and I'm very proud when I manage to catch it in the air. She gives me a wink and just stands there staring at me, watching me blush when I realize she's not going to turn around. "Uhm, sorry, I need to undress…" I mumble and turn around, changing my outfit in the most clumsy way possible. It takes me a lot longer than it should. "Need help?" I drop my tank top on the floor when I hear her voice in my head and mumble a quick: "No thanks." When I finally manage to get dressed I turn around and see Wanda's eyes waiting for me, taking me in. "We have five minutes to get to the gym." She announces and immediately an "Oh fuck!" slips out my mouth. I open the door and rush into the hallway, I don't remember where the gym is but I do know my way to the elevator which is step one. Wanda follows slowly and joins me. "Oh no!" I groan while the elevator is moving down. "What is it?" "I forgot to have breakfast." I say with a yammer. Wanda laughs when she hears this and ignores the puppy eyes I make.

We reach the gym and I push the doors open and immediately call out: "I'm sorry I'm late Nat!" I come to a halt when there is nobody waiting for me. Confused I look around and walk towards the mats, while Wanda stays a little bit behind. "Where is she?" I ask, wondering what I have done wrong for Natasha to give up on me before we even started. While I'm thinking about this, I feel a arm around my neck and within a second something kicks my feet from under me and I end up on the ground, landing on my attacker. The person turns around (how on earth does someone have that much power?) and pins me down, the side of her arm pressed against my throat. Natasha. Green eyes stare down on me and I can see she is quite pissed. This is definitely not the nice Nat who took me out shopping yesterday, this is Natasha Romanoff. The world deadliest spy. I swallow and try to look away from her. "So it's the very first day of your training and you decide that it's a good idea to be late?" I try to speak but she presses even harder. "I have better things to do than wait around for a newbie to decide when she can grace me with her presence. A lot of people want me as their tutor and I always turn them down. I accept you and this is how you repay me?" Shit, Wanda was right. Natasha was going to kill me for being late. "I'm sorry…" I whisper, knowing very well that saying that will change nothing. But I still have to tell her, because I really am sorry. For once somebody bothers to teach me something that will help me live a better life and this is how I repay her, by being the most disrespecting student ever. "Stand up for yourself." I hear Wanda's voice in my head, but how can I when Natasha is right. "I was just…" "Just what? Sleeping in? Eating breakfast?" I am starting to feel slightly annoyed even though I have no right to be. Of course she is right, but still… I was not doing any of these things. A pressure in my head is slowly building up. "No, Nat, I…" "Only friends can call me that, I'm your teacher Miss Romanoff." "Please, listen, we weren't…" "I don't care Lidiya. You broke my trust." I feel the pressure building even more, it's pressing against my temples, trying to get out. "I didn't mean to! Please let me talk!" She shakes her head. "No, only people who deserve my respect are allowed to talk to me." "STOP!" I call out, and it's like all the pressure that has been building up explodes. A fire explodes from within me, and I scream. It's like a miniature tornado with me in the center, forcing Natasha to let go of me and move back. "It's okay Lidiya, it's okay." It's Wanda's voice, and when I open my eyes I see her standing next to Natasha. They are behind a veil of fire. "It's okay Lidiya, you did good. You protected yourself, which was what I wanted to happen. You are absolutely right doing this, you did nothing wrong. It's okay now. You can let it go and let us back in again." Natasha says with a warmer voice than usual. I look at her. "You didn't mean these things?" My fire is getting less strong but it's still not ready to go away. "Of course not malen'kiy ogon' (little fire). I'm a very hard teacher, and this was just one of my methods. There is a reason why a lot of people drop out when I teach them. And you can definitely still call me Nat, don't worry about that. I'm still your friend." Slowly I manage to get my breathing under control. I close my eyes and concentrate on Natasha and Wanda's energy around me, feeling their strings. None of them have bad intentions. Wanda is a little bit worried but has trust in me. Natasha's emotions are locked away as I expected, but I feel a little bit of faith coming my way. Faith in me? I continue breathing, every time I breathe out trying to take the fire with me and turn it down. After a while I manage to make it completely disappear, and exhausted I let myself fall on the mats. Wanda sits next to me and wipes my hair from my face, giving me a warm and encouraging smile. "You did amazing devochka (girl). And actually, Natasha was helping me out with my class." I look at her, confused. "I asked her to do this, so that we can get you to reach your fire power. Because if my calculations are correct, expect from the incident at hydra, you have never used it?" I sit up and shake my head. "No I haven't. It saved me from the fire, and it's the reason why I hate cold showers and why I love everything warm. But I never had the change to use it." Wanda nods at me and Natasha sits down as well, a little bit further. "I want you to ultimately get to the point where your power feels as a part of you." "You mean like a second nature?" I ask, but she shakes no. "As an extension of your body parts. It is part of you just as much as your arms or your toes are. The first step of teaching you how to use your power, is to teach you to accept your power as part of you. It's not easy but I'm sure you'll get there." "And you don't have to do this alone." I turn my head when I hear Nat speaking, and when she sees both Wanda's and my confused faces she shrugs. "I mean, Wanda is going to help you so there's that. Me on the other hand? I'm going to continue to kick your butt." This makes me laugh and a lot of the buildup tension is disappearing. "Now get up, I still have to teach you my class." I groan but do as she says, I don't feel like getting punished again by Natasha any time soon.

"Take on a fighting position." Natasha commands me and I just stare at her confused. "You didn't teach me one yet?" "There aren't multiple fighting stances, there really is only one. All of your moments flow from there. I want to see how your natural intuition is, so take on a stance you would say is good for fighting." We are standing in the ring and Wanda isn't in it, so she gives me an encouraging smile. "I also had to go through all of this, you got it." I give her a small nod and think for a moment. Having a good fighting stance means you have to be in balance, otherwise your opponent just pushes you to the ground. Also you should protect your face at all cost, and honestly I think it's a smart idea to protect your sides as well. I put my left foot a bit forward, trying to rest my balance on both of my feet equally. I place my hands before my face and fold them into fists. "Done?" I nod. "Good. I have to admit, I thought you would do much worse. Actually your intuition seems to be even better than Wanda's, because she had no clue what she had to do." I chuckle and Wanda replies with an indignant "HEY!" "Can you explain to me why you chose this pose?" I start to feel uncomfortable, obviously I did it wrong. "Hey, I'm not saying you did a bad job. I just want you to talk me through your decision making, that way I can tell you what needs to change and why." Natasha gives me a comforting smile. I have no idea if she just read me like that or if Wanda gave me away, but honestly it doesn't really matter. I nod and take a deep breath. "I thought it was best to keep my feet apart and not next to each other, that way they are more balanced." Nat nods. "Right you are, nothing to add to that. And you did it pretty good too. Of course it still needs more work, but this is a very good start. Next?" "I thought it might be important to keep my hands in front of my face, to protect it. Oh and also keep them close to the sides, for the same reason." "Keeping your arms close to your side is a very smart idea. A lot of people don't think about it but it's very important. So you get points for that. However, you are keeping your hands way to close to your face. This way it's very easy for an opponent to use your own body against you. Don't get startled, I'm going to touch you to show you what I mean. But I won't hurt you." She takes a step forward and I take a deep breath, reminding myself that Natasha is a friend and that she has no bad intentions. She slowly pushes against my hands and immediately I can feel them going back, into my face. I get what she is saying. "You see? You have to keep them a bit more forward, like this." She adjusts my hands into the way she wants them to be. "The height of the left hand should be about the same as your shoulder, and your right hand is a bit closer to you. About the height of your left elbow." I nod, I get it. "Keeping your fists in front of your face is cute but sadly enough you made two mistakes. One of them is that you shouldn't use that as your basic stance, and secondly if you are going to punch me like that you are going to break your hand big time." I look at my hand confused. "Why?" She places my thumb over my fingers, instead of under them the way they were. "It should be like this. And why? If you hit something with your down under there it's going to get hurt and it's going to break. Trust me." "You speak from experience?" Natasha nods. "The Red Room teaches you by giving you experience. So I learned it the hard way, by experiencing it. Trust me, it's not something I would recommend." My heart clenches a bit, even though she is a strong and badass woman I can't help but feel sorry for her. "Secondly, if you stand like that the first impression you give people is that you want to fight. Put your hands up and keep them open, like this." She shows me the way it has to be done and I follow her example. "Good, that's better. That way you are less threatening but you're still ready to interfere if you have to. Now I'm going to try to hit you with my right hand, you have to bring your left arm forward and hit my elbow with the side of your hand. A quick jab to my elbow makes me lose my concentration probably, and if not, there are still a lot of things we can do then. But first, let's practice this!" I take on my stance, try to collect my thoughts and quiet them. "Go." I hear Natasha's voice and I can barely see her coming towards me.

I'm laying on my back in the ring, sweat is dripping off me from places I didn't even knew it could. I'm out of breath and my heart rate is probably going 200 an hour. I got hit by Natasha so much that I lost count, but she told me it was the only way to learn. Wanda stands next to me on the ground, so her head is the same level as mine even though she didn't enter the ring, and Natasha sits down cross-legged drinking some water. "Me too, pleaaaaseee…" I plead to Nat who simply raises one of her eyebrows at me. She takes a bottle and thrown it right at me. "Catch!" I yell when I see it coming down on my face in a very rapid pace, but before it can hit me a ball of red catches is and gently puts it down. I give a very grateful smile to Wanda and sit up so I can enjoy some of the cool fluids. "Cheater." Natasha tells Wanda, who simply laughs with the accusation. "You did good for a first class Lidiya, I'll see you tomorrow again for the next one. Same place, same time." I groan from despair but know that going against it is no use. "Hi, stinky devochka (girl), I think you need a shower!" Wanda is waving her hand in front of her nose, indicating that I stink. I drop back to the ground and protest loudly. "Noooooo just leave me be, I'm going to sleep here." Wanda makes a disagreeing voice with her tongue. "If you go shower now like a good girl, we can go have lunch together." I can hear my stomach rumble, but honestly I'm not sure if it was the thought of food or Wanda calling me a good girl which gave me the motivation to get off my ass within a minute. "Ready to go!" I announce and both Natasha and Wanda laugh when they see my newfound motivation. Natasha gives me a big over the top wink and says: "Sure you are malen'kiy ogon' (little fire)!"