Better Days

WANDA POV:

My nap from after my spanking was short-lived and Nat had woken me up pretty quickly in order to eat dinner and get ready for school the next morning. I was absolutely dreading going to school tomorrow. 

I desperately wanted to ditch but my sore bottom was enough to deter me from continuing that thought process. I felt like crying, just thinking about going to school. I didn't want to relive my first day again but I didn't have another choice.

I silently ate dinner with the team, trying not to squirm too much on my seat to give away what happened to me. If the rest of the team found out, I would forever be embarrassed. Clint already knew, that was enough. I think the others had a slight idea, especially after hearing Clint threaten to spank me on the Quinjet after I snuck out to the mission. They also looked at me in a slightly sympathetic way after I had been spanked. 

None of them could confirm it though or be completely sure so I guess that would have to do. 

Nat asked if I had any homework to do before I went back to school and I told her that I had thrown out my only sheet of math homework the second I had gotten home from school the first day. I was pretty sure I was going to have stacks of homework as soon as I went back tomorrow from my week and a half "vacation" but at this point, I didn't care, I just wanted school to be over.

I took a shower before bed. It was relatively early but Nat insisted that I went to bed early due to having to go to school tomorrow. 

Nat was being extra gentle with me after my punishment but I was upset. I did not want to go to school tomorrow but I knew that Nat was going to make sure that I went no matter what. 

I wasn't mad at her but I was mad at the situation. I wanted her to pull me out of school and be sympathetic with me after hearing what happened to me at school but she was still making me go! I wanted my mama to tell me it was going to be okay.

I climbed into bed and tried to resist crying. I knew I was being a baby about this. It was school, I needed to learn how to deal with it and just go. I was having a hard time with it though. I just wanted to stay at home. I didn't get the point of school. 

I felt a hand run up and down my back. "Are you okay honey?" I heard Nat ask me softly. 

I sniffed, still trying to hold back tears. "Wanda, was I too hard on you?" she asked after a few more seconds of silence.

"No, it's not that," I told her in a shaky voice. 

"What's going on sweet girl?" 

I turned over so I could face her and she brushed some hair out of my face and she looked at me.

"I don't wanna go to school mama," I told her, finally letting some tears fall down my cheeks. 

"Oh baby I know," she said as she pulled me closer to her. "Shh, it's okay." I felt her fingers running through my hair as I laid on her chest, finally feeling somewhat content, despite the fact that I knew I was still probably going to have to go to school.

"The kids were mean, I don't know what I'm doing, and the teachers were too strict! I can't do another day mama, please!"

"Oh baby, I know, that was just one day though. I bet it'll get better. If the kids and teachers are still mean, I will have a talk with the school. I know it's hard, being the new kid and coming in halfway through the year but I bet you'll like it if you give it time!"

"It won't get better though," I cried as I pulled away slightly to look at her. "It'll be terrible everyday! I'll never make any friends, I already made several enemies and I was only there for one day! Everyone hates me!"

"I'm sure that's not true honey," she told me as she cupped my face. "Sure you were only there for one day but they don't hate you. You'll make friends! It will get better baby, you've just gotta give it a chance."

"But it won't mama!" I said, getting frustrated. 

"Okay, okay, calm down," she said gently. "Okay, how about this, you go to school every day until the end of the year-"

"But," I started to interrupt but Nat cut me off with a raise of her hand. 

"Hold on, hear me out. As I was saying, you go to school every day until the end of the year to give it a chance and if by the time you finish, you still don't like school, we'll figure out something else to do for next year and I won't send you back. You have to go to school though, no ditching, deal?"

"Really? You'd do that?"

"If you really don't like it, I don't want to force you to go. You'll still need to get an education but there are other options."

"Deal!" I told her with a huge smile. I still had to go to school for a while but it was better than being forced to go for several more years. "Thank you so much mama!" I threw my arms around her neck and gave her a huge hug, feeling much more confident in going to school tomorrow.

"You're welcome sweet girl," she said warmly as she hugged me back, releasing me after a few seconds so I could lay back down. "Now it really is time to go to sleep, you have school in the morning."

I still wasn't looking forward to school but at least I would have a way out by the end of the year. There was no way I would want to go back to school, I knew that for a fact. 

I remember when I went to school as a little kid. Pietro always hated it. He would cry every time our parents dropped us off. He could never understand any of the subjects and I would sit at home with him for hours after we got home, trying to walk him through the simple steps. He could never understand it though, no matter how long I spent trying to teach him. 

I never minded school. The subjects came easy to me and I always had Pietro there with me so it didn't matter if the kids were nice or not. I don't remember much else about school though. 

This time, I was all by myself, no Pietro to hang out with if I didn't make any friends. I also couldn't understand the information being taught to us. It was too hard. 

I fell asleep thinking about my first day of school and how it compared to school as a kid. 

o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o

I had one minor nightmare early in the morning but I was able to fall back asleep quickly, only waking up again when Nat got me up for school. 

I was slow to get ready, dragging out every task in order to prolong the inevitable...going to school. 

Nat tried to encourage me to go faster all morning, trying to help me with some tasks such as getting breakfast ready or packing my bag, but I insisted I do it myself, trying to make us late. 

"Wanda let's go!" Nat shouted from down the hall as I was getting ready in the bathroom. 

"Coming!" I yelled back even though I had no intentions of going faster. 

"Wanda!" I heard after a few minutes as she started banging on the bathroom door. "We're going to be late! Let's go!" 

"I'm coming!" I yelled once more as I quickly finished my hair and left the bathroom.

"Perfect, grab your stuff and let's go!" I grabbed my backpack and ran after Nat towards the garage. We were running a tiny bit late but we still had plenty of time to get to the school, I don't know why she was overreacting. 

"Alright, so you're going to stay in the school today. If you have any problems, you can text or call me okay? You're going to be okay, you can do it."

"Okay, I can do this," I said, mostly to convince myself. "And yes, I'm going to stay in the school," I told her with a roll of my eyes. 

Nat laughed lightly as she continued the drive to the school. I felt nauseous as we got closer to the school. I wondered if my teachers would know where I had been for over a week. I hoped not, that would just make my life more difficult. 

We pulled up to the school and I was hesitant to get out of the car. 

"Hey," Nat gently said as she grabbed my arm to make me look at her. "You're gonna be okay. If you need me, I'm just a call or a text away, okay?"

"Okay," I told her, nodding slightly.

"Have a good day sweetie," she told me as I started to climb out of the car. 

"You too," I told her quietly. 

"Love you."

"Love you too." I shut the door and shouldered my backpack as I made my way up to the school. I turned around at the doors and saw that Nat was still sitting there in the car, watching me, waiting to make sure I actually went into the school. 

I followed a group of boys through the doors and into the school. I was nervous and fiddled with the straps on my backpack as I made my way through the halls and to my locker.

I almost got lost since the only other time I had been in this school was my first day when I started in the office. The office was at the other end of the school so I hadn't really been at the front of the school much. 

I managed to find my way to the lockers though and grabbed my book for math. I was dreading this class, not because of the teacher, but because of the subject. I was even more behind now and I still had no idea what they were doing in math. 

I decided to head to class a bit early again, wanting a few minutes to get all of my work from the time that I missed. If it were up to me, I would not be grabbing my work but of course, that's what Nat told me to do so I'm going to do it. 

I walked into the class and the group of girls were in the same spot as they were my first day, mumbling quietly amongst themselves. Mrs. Rivera looked up as soon as I walked in. 

"Wanda! How are you feeling? I heard you had a bad cold!"

"Um, I'm feeling better," I told her. So apparently they didn't know about the reasoning behind my absences. I was slightly relieved to hear that.

"Oh I'm so glad! We were all worried about you!"

I nodded and then decided I should get my work before class started. "Can I get the work that I missed?"

"Of course!" This woman was so energetic, I had no idea how she could be this early in the morning in a hellhole like this.

I watched as she went through some files, grabbing different sheets of paper. She had a pretty decent stack by the time she was done and I had to check through my memories to make sure I had only missed a little over a week.

"Here you go sweetheart!" she told me as she handed me the stack. "Here is everything that we did while you were gone. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in class or email me. Did you happen to finish the worksheet that we had on your first day?"

"Oh um, no, sorry. I didn't finish it, could I possibly get another copy of that worksheet?"

"Of course, no problem!"

"Thanks," I said as she handed me that sheet. The bell rang and I headed to my seat, flipping through all of the papers. None of them looked familiar. Maybe I could find a kid to give me the answers but it was unlikely. 

We had yet another worksheet today and just as I suspected, I had no clue how to do them. 

I struggled through that class but luckily none of the students said anything. A few of them looked at me as they walked into the classroom but they quickly got busy with their work or with other students. 

The bell rang and it was time for science. I walked in and went straight to the teacher, needing to get the work that I missed. 

He looked at me as I stood in front of his desk, waiting for me to initiate the conversation. "Hi, um I was gone Tuesday through Friday of last week as well as Monday and Tuesday of this week. Could I please get the work that we did?"

"Oh, well you missed a lot. Were you here on Monday of last week?"

"Yeah, I was here to go over lab safety but that's it." I was slightly nervous when he mentioned that I missed a lot of work. I guess I did this to myself though. 

"Okay awesome, well your classmates have spent the last week or so working on a lab and collecting data. I don't have you assigned to a lab group but what I can do is have you come in either before school, at lunch, or after school to complete the lab and collect your own data. You can just complete this as an individual assignment since the rest of the class is almost done. That's all you missed though. When would you like to come in?"

I didn't want to come in at all but I figured I'd might as well get it over with. "Um, does today at lunch work?"

"Yes," he said, jotting down a quick note. "We can get you started today during class but you may need more than that to finish this lab but we can find another time if you need it." He smiled at me and I took that as my cue to leave. 

"Okay, thanks," I said, heading to my seat. 

The final bell rang as the final students trickled in. 

"Alright, get straight to work. Today is the last day during class that I'm giving you all to work on your lab so try to finish collecting data or else you're going to have to find time outside of class to finish it."

All of the students got straight to work, grabbing science goggles and gloves, arranging beakers and other tools. 

Mr. Kennedy made his way to my desk as soon as the rest of the students had dispersed. 

"Do you have the lab that I handed out last Monday?"

"Yes," I exclaimed as I fished the packet out of my backpack. 

"Awesome." He crouched down next to my desk to give me instructions. "So go ahead and read through the procedure and then I'll help you get started on the actual lab. Any questions?"

"Nope, thanks," I smiled slightly at him as I flipped the packet to the procedure, starting to read all of the steps. 

I was confused by the time I was done but at least I had done it. It had step by step instructions but I had no idea what most of them meant. There were names of chemicals that I had never heard of. 2M Hydrochloric acid? What was that?

I walked back up to Mr. Kennedy's desk after I finished reading and he helped me set up the lab, giving me chemicals and making sure I knew how to measure everything correctly. 

Once I had the chemicals measured for me, I felt a lot more confident in completing the lab because a lot of it was already set up for me. The goggles were uncomfortable but I had to wear them in order to do the lab so I did. 

I was actually able to make it pretty far through the lab, almost halfway, by the time class ended. I would probably need today's lunch and possibly tomorrow's in order to finish the lab but I shouldn't need anything else. 

I wasn't sure if I was doing it correctly but there were some reactions that weren't blowing up the school occurring so at least it was something. I recorded my observations and answered some questions as I continued the lab. 

Clean-up was also easy and by the time I was done, I felt a little more confident in science. At least I had a slight idea of what I was doing. 

Now it was time for the dreaded class, English. 

I got to the class as soon as possible, not wanting to be late again, and made my way to the teacher's desk. 

She looked up at me and stared at me. It made me uncomfortable so I started talking. 

"Hi, I was gone Tuesday through Friday of last week and Monday and Tuesday of this week. Could I get all of the work that I missed?"

"Why did you miss that much school? Vacation?" she asked sternly. 

I swallowed back tears as I looked at her. "Um, I had a bad cold," I told her, hoping she didn't know the real cause. 

"Well I'm glad you're feeling better, we read chapters 1-13 in our textbook and here are the grammar worksheets that you missed." There was a pre-made stack of papers on her desk that had a sticky note on it that read 'Wanda.' Apparently she had already gathered my work for me. 

She handed me the sheets and I made my way to my seat. I wrote down chapters 1-13 on the sticky note so that I knew what I was going to have to read later. 

I watched as the boy from before made his way into the room. He grinned when he saw me as he made his way to his seat behind me. I just hoped he wouldn't mess with me today. 

As soon as class started, Mrs. Hardy jumped right into the lesson, wasting no time. She passed out a worksheet with an article on it. There were questions on the back regarding the information in the article. 

It was then quiet time to read the article and finish the worksheet. 

I struggled through both the reading of the article and the questions but still managed to finish it by the time class was over. I was pretty sure the answers that I had written down were wrong but at least I finished it. It was one less thing I had to do tonight. 

I felt small items hitting me in the back or the back of the head all throughout class but I ignored them, not wanting to get in trouble for talking.

The second the bell rang, I was out of there, trying to beat the boys to get to history. Unfortunately, I was too slow.

"Hey new girl!" I heard as I felt a hand wrap around my bicep. "Where've you been? We all missed you!"

I ignored them as I tried to remove my arm from their grasp. "C'mon, tell us what's been going on! Were you sick, on vacation, ditching?" His friends made a whooping noise when he said ditching like it was cool and I briefly wondered if they knew. 

"I have to go," I said as I tugged my arm again. 

"Where? Class? You've missed so much of it, what's another day?"

I thought of using my powers but knew that that probably wouldn't go over well with Nat, no matter how good my excuse was. 

"Please let me go," I spoke a little louder, not wanting to be late to my next class. The hallways were getting less empty as time went on. 

"One day we'll get you to talk to us," the main boy said as he let me go. I had to hurry to my class to get there in time but I managed to make it a few seconds before the bell. 

I still went to the teacher's desk to quickly get my work. 

I gathered another stack of worksheets before heading to my seat. Mr. Wagner gave the class an online assignment where we had to go through a certain link to find all of the answers. It was pretty easy because just like the first worksheet in that class, all of the answers were given to us. 

I was kind of glad that I was going to go work on my lab during lunch because it meant that I didn't have to find a table at lunch. I walked in and Mr. Kennedy told me that I could get right to work as long as I had no questions.

It was a bit awkward being the only person in the room with him but he stayed at his desk and ate his lunch while I worked on my lab. 

Somehow, I managed to gather all of the data and just needed to answer a few more questions by the time lunch was over.

"How far have you gotten on that?" he asked me once I had finished cleaning.

"Um, I finished," I told him, worried that I had done it wrong since I finished so fast.

"Awesome! I figured you'd finish it quickly since you were doing it independently. It's a lot easier when there's just one person handling all the work instead of four. It's easier to keep track of what's going on. So now you should be on track with the rest of the class so you're all good for my class."

"Thanks," I told him as I left his room and headed to my next class. I didn't eat lunch but I wasn't really hungry so I was fine. 

Once I got to the art room, I did the same thing in all of my other classes except for this time, instead of being handed a stack of papers, she told me that they had been working on a project using charcoal. 

She told me that it wasn't a huge one and that she would gladly excuse me since I was sick. That was a relief because I didn't want to have an art project on top of all of my other school work. 

We worked on a new project using charcoal in that class but at least that was another class I was now considered caught up in. 

Advisory luckily didn't come with any homework so I used the short period to try to catch up in some of my other classes. I tried to work on my reading for English but I couldn't focus for some reason. 

My digital class also came with some work. Ms. Mueller was giving me an extension on the activity that was due today. It had something to do with using google sheets to complete some tasks. 

I wasn't great with technology so this was probably going to be hard. Oh well, just another thing to add to my long list of assignments. I was able to start it during class but didn't get too far on it due to my pounding headache as well as the exhaustion that was now starting to set in. 

I had never heard a sweeter sound than the bell ringing, signaling the end of the day. I practically ran out of the school and collapsed into the car. 

"How was school today?" Nat asked with a smile. 

I all of a sudden felt overwhelmed by the amount of work that I had to complete by the end of the week. 

"I have so much homework!" I cried as I burst into tears. "And I have no idea what I'm doing!"

"Woah, woah!" Nat said as she looked over at me. She had already pulled out of the parking lot so she did a lot of glancing as she continued driving. 

"I got so many worksheets and none of them make any sense!"

"Okay hold on, I bet if we work together we can figure some of it out okay?" she asked as she rested a hand on my leg, trying to offer me some comfort. 

I tried to calm down, knowing that I was overreacting, I was just so tired. Luckily none of the kids or teachers were really too mean. 

"Okay, sorry," I told her with a shaky voice, still trying to rein in my emotions. 

"You're okay, deep breaths." Her arm had moved to my arm and was now moving up and down, comforting me the most she could while still driving. 

We got home and she turned to me after parking the car. "Are you okay?" she asked me gently.

"Yeah," I told her. I had stopped crying and was now just occasionally sniffing. 

She got out of the car and came around to my side. She opened the door before I could get out and gently pulled me into a hug.

"I'm so proud of you kiddo, you made it through the day and didn't leave. That's huge Wanda, you did it!" A few more tears leaked out of my eyes as I held onto her, soaking up all of her comfort. 

"Were any of the kids mean to you today?"

"No," I told her. I also didn't want to tell her about the boys in the hallway. I could take care of that myself and they weren't exactly being mean, just difficult. There was a difference.

"That's great baby!"

I nodded into her shoulder, glad I was finally home but not looking forward to starting on all of the homework.

"How about we grab a quick snack, you can tell me about your day, and then we can work on your homework?" Nat suggested. We were still standing in the garage holding onto each other.

"That sounds good," I told her, finally pulling away. "Thank you."

She smiled as I grabbed my backpack and headed inside. 

The team was there like normal, excited to hear about my day. I wasn't sure if they knew about my ditching or not so I was careful to not mention anything about missing school, just talking about what we did in class. 

I had a small snack and then Nat and I headed to her office to work on homework.

Nat had been trying to explain to me how to do my math for over an hour. 

I was getting increasingly more frustrated but she kept calm, continuing to explain it to me in different ways, trying to find the one that worked. We went over several problems but it still didn't make sense. 

I was working through a problem when I got stuck again. I was only on the first step. 

"Ugh!" I shouted as I threw my pencil across the room and buried my face in my hands, trying not to cry again. 

"Hey, you're okay," I heard Nat's soothing voice as her hand rubbed my back. 

"I can't do this Tasha! None of it makes sense, I'm too dumb for it!"

"Hey!" Her tone was slightly sharp as she started but it quickly softened again. "You're not dumb sweetheart, you just haven't been to school in a long time. You're having to learn what these kids have gradually been learning over the last several years. Don't beat yourself up over it. You'll get it eventually, I know you will."

I sighed but took my face out from the cover of my hands. 

"Can you explain it to me again?" I asked softly.

"Of course." Nat stayed calm as she explained a different problem to me, going through each step slowly and carefully. Even after she did this, it still made no sense to me.

"Okay, how about we move on to English?" Nat suggested and I nodded, ready to be done with math right now.

English only took about 45 minutes of explanation before I was able to slightly understand it. Nat told me it wasn't my fault, English wasn't my first language, I was able to pick it up pretty quickly though. I just couldn't understand all of the rules that it had. Nat helped me though and soon, I finished all of my English homework except for my reading, I wanted to do that later. 

I understood history just fine and the only other class I had work for was my digital class. Nat taught me some basic things about google spreadsheets so that way I was able to complete my assignment. 

I managed to complete the entire assignment with Nat's help. Now all I had to do was finish all of my math sheets, I was done with that for tonight though, read the chapters for English, and do the rest of my history assignments. Math was the only thing that seemed too hard though. 

It was getting late because we spent hours on the homework so Nat called it quits for the night and had me go eat dinner and then go to bed. 

I argued slightly, telling her that I had to read my chapters for English, but she told me I could do that later and that I needed to get some sleep. I was scared that Mrs. Hardy would yell at me if I went to school the next day without doing any of the reading but I just had to chance it because there was no way I could read all 13 chapters by the time I got to her class tomorrow.

I felt extra needy tonight so I cuddled up next to Nat, letting her soothing rubs on my back ease me into a deep sleep.