Hero (Loki & Avengers)

Fifteen

Today marks my fourth afternoon of training, and I'm almost at my breaking point again. Cap is making me do drill after drill to hone in my powers and my arms are shaking terribly. I try and throw a heavy metal disk through a hoop he set up with my powers but my hand wobbles and it clashes to the ground with a bang.

"Get it under control!" He shouts at me.

"I'm trying! My arms are killing me." I tell him.

"That sounds like complaining. Push through. Work harder, Cassidy." He scolds me and I clench my fists in anger.

"I'm. Trying." I repeat.

"There is no trying. You either succeed or you fail. You do it or you don't." He repeats and I let out a frustrated scream at his thick skull, "Do you even want this?"

"Of course I do!" I shout. I want to be perfect more than anything. I want this training so bad I'm willing to give every last ounce of my strength. I will never be irrational in battle. I want to be better than that.

"Do you want this for you? Are you doing this for you?" He asks, stepping closer to me.

The second he says it I know I don't want this for me. If I was doing something for me I would try and get rid of my powers, not refine them. I'm doing this for the woman in the car, and for everyone in my life who has ever doubted me, and for every person on Earth that I vow to never hurt.

"Kind of." I settle on.

"If you kind of want this, then you'll kind of get the results you want." He frustratingly gives me what he thinks is a wise saying and I huff in annoyance. "Take a five, cool down."

He walks away and I roll my eyes. Cap always thinks he's right, and some days it infuriates me more than others.

"He's hard on you because he cares." Wanda says beside me, handing me a bottle of water. I take it graciously.

"He's hard on me because he thinks I'm incapable." I correct her and she gives me a sad smile. I can feel my relationship with Cap slowly toxifying, like the acid of our differences and anger is eating away at the edges of the happy friendship we once had. I still love him, but I don't look at him through the rose-tinted glasses of a girl looking at her childhood hero and crush anymore. No. Now I see him for what he is, what he was made into. He's a soldier. I, it turns out, am not.

"I heard Natasha telling you about the Sokovia Accords. Did she tell you why the United Nations drafted them? Because I set off a bomb in an office building. Dozens of people died, because I made a mistake." She says and I'm rendered speechless, "We are not perfect, but we do what we can to be better. Cap just wants you to be better so you don't have to go through that again."

What she says makes sense, and it comforts me well enough despite my constant and dully burning pessimism about all of this. I'm not sure if that's really what Cap is thinking, but it's nice to know at least Wanda is on my side. She has a quiet air about her, but she is intensely caring and sweet in her own way.

"Thank you, Wanda." I tell her, half because I mean it and half to make her think I mean it. She smiles and squeezes my arm briefly before leaving me to sit by myself.

Before Cap can come back and berate me some more, Tony calls us all inside for a meeting. I sit in my usual spot towards the back of the table and Loki in his spot beside me. In an uncharacteristic move, he places a hand on my knee under the table.

"You saved my life. I never thanked you." He says quietly to me while everyone else files in.

"Did I? Can't seem to remember." I say with a small smile, playing it coy.