“David wake up.” I opened my eyes hearing Daniel’s knocking outside my door.

“Yeah, I am awake.” Replying back, I got up and utilised the HE serum to pull me to my best state. Daniel left away from my door as I checked the time; it was 8 am.

'Did Daniel wake up late or something?' I wondered seeing the time. Usually, in movies; settings like learning martial arts or magic means waking up even before the sun rises to begin train.

'Let's see.' Walking to the bathroom I quickly washed myself before coming out.

Following the scent of pancakes, I went down to the kitchen to see Daniel was cooking. “Although I am not a chef like you, do give it a try.” Daniel pointed at the pancakes dripping with maple syrup.

“Sure.” I nodded as I went forth and had my breakfast only to be soon joined by Daniel as well.

“Your first lesson with her begins at 10 am.” Daniel informed me.

“Bit of an odd time,” I stated to which Daniel shook his head.

“Not really. She is coming here after attending to the matters and students at Kamar-Taj.” I nodded at that.

“You have seen the library right?” I nodded along as I remembered the tour Daniel had given me last night of the place.

“You are free to go through all the books and knowledge in the library. However, just because you are permitted to look through the forbidden books doesn’t mean you should do it right off the bat.”

“I know. I consider myself as a scientist and I very well know the true dangers of approaching the unknown with half-baked knowledge.” Daniel sighed in relief.

“The forbidden knowledge provides answers and solution to everything to the normal person’s eyes. However, only a true master of the mystic arts would be able to see the dangers held within those solutions. So, I don’t recommend you read any of the advanced books until you have finished the basics with her.” I agreed and appreciated Daniel’s advice.

“I will do so.” Daniel smiled as we both ate.

Finishing off breakfast I went to wash my plate just as Daniel queued behind me to wash his plates. “She should be waiting for you in the same room as yesterday.” Placing my plate back on the rack I went up, as I readied my mind.

‘Calm mind.’ Ordering my first potato I began my preparation.

‘Memorise everything.’ I ordered my 2nd potato just as I walked into the room to see the Ancient One holding reading a book while sipping on her tea.

“Shall we begin?” She asked me to which I nodded as I sat in front of her.

“To understand the true meaning of a word we often have to understand where the word originated from.

Similar to that, before trying to understand the mystic arts you require to understand where the mystic arts originated from…” She went on to give an interesting lecture on mystic arts, their origins and how they transformed into what it was today.

Just after she finished it she looked at me “Do you understand?”

“1 moment,” I replied before closing my eyes.

‘Comprehend everything that was just memorised.’ I could have done it myself, but I didn’t want to miss out on certain things she might have tried to convey, which is why I made my gift do everything for me.

Soon an understanding filled me about what she had explained to me.

“Yes,” I replied as I opened my eyes to see her tea cup and book had disappeared.

“Interesting, you memorise information first before comprehending it separately after a while instead of doing both at the same time like people normally do.” She said with fascination.

Since my calm mind was already active, I did not panic at the revelation and just smiled.

“Start to read the books in the library.” She stood up holding a folding fan in her hand.

“Any recommendation on where I should start from?” I asked her.

“Try learning the languages first. It will help you understand many of the ancient languages, used in those forbidden tomes, much more easily and will provide you with the necessary help should you visit certain countries or amongst other groups of sorcerer's.” I nodded at that as I too stood up.

“When you are finished with all of the books in the library, we will start your proper lessons on the mystic arts.

As that time arrives inform Daniel and he will contact me.” She instructed me before disappearing into a portal.

“Languages huh?” I smiled as I followed the path towards the library Daniel had shown me yesterday. 'Guess I will be done in a day or 2 with my speed.'

Walking into the library I was quite amazed by the collection. Not because it was a huge collection. I had seen bigger libraries with more books than this. It was just that although this library was small, most of the books it held was old or ancient.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the smell of books. “Are you a bibliophile by any chance?” Opening my eyes, I saw Daniel walking around with few books in his right hand.

“You can say that.” I smiled at that as I noticed the books in his hands were mainly of languages.

“She just dropped off 6,000 books on languages saying it was for you.” Noticing my gaze Daniel spoke up as he passed me the book in his hands.

“6,000?” I asked him in shock to which he shrugged.

“Yeah. Plus, the 1,000 books in here; that should be 7,000 books delivered for you about languages. Are you really planning to learn all these languages?” He asked me much to my confusion.

“You mean, you don’t need to learn all these languages before you had to learn the mystic arts?” He looked at me like I was a madman at hearing my words.

“Are you crazy? It is true we can do magic, but not crazy magic like this. We at most learned 10 languages; a mixture of ancient and modern.

I thought you asked for this specially of the Sorcerer Supreme, for her to deliver them here to me.” My eyebrows twitched at her plans to delay my time here for as long as possible.

“No. She just wants to stop me from learning too quickly.” I sighed as I walked forward to the table in the room much to Daniel’s confused looks.

“David, I think there is a mistake…” Daniel began with worry, but I shook my head.

“Not really Daniel.” I kind of figured the Sorcerer Supreme must not have told Daniel everything about me if he didn’t understand the reason why I was tasked with learning 7,000 languages.

‘7,000 languages huh?’ I looked at the book titled ‘Italian’ with a smile.

I wasn’t really pissed or angry with the Ancient One for requiring too much of me before allowing me to start learning magic. To someone like me, every single piece of knowledge in the world is more precious than any infinity stones.

I had always been planning to learn some languages, but never got the time or simply didn’t need to with the other important priorities I had in my hand. Now that I actually got a reason to learn them, I was enthusiastic.

“The journey to the moon begins with a step.” Opening the first page I gave rooted potato the most familiar command I loved giving it.

6 weeks! That is how long it took me to learn all 7,000 languages.

It is said it takes nearly 13 weeks at maximum for a person to learn a language fluently if they attempted to learn it without rest, meal, or any other activities.

It took me half that time to learn all the spoken, ancient, lost, and dead languages in the world. It was not just thanks to my enhanced mind and rooted potato.

It was just that one language often had very high similarity with another one: for example, Spanish and Portuguese. Then there were the ancient languages such as Latin which had roots in many of the European languages which quickened the learning process even more.

I just sat in one place reading every single day actively, without even bothering about taking a rest as HE serum covered that for me. My only motivation was the knowledge that the sooner I finish these books, the sooner I can learn magic and thus the portal magic.

*Thud* I closed the book on Taushiro. “Finally.” I sat up happily causing Daniel who was reading a book beside me to look at me in confusion.

“What?” Daniel asked me causing me to realise I had spoken in a completely different language.

“Sorry, I meant finished in Taushiro.” Daniel at this point had gotten used to my awesome learning speed after being surprised initially by how fast I learned.

“So, you can speak and understand any language in the world now then?” Daniel confirmed to which I nodded.

“No wonder you were asked to learn all those books.” Daniel placed his book down and stood up.

“I didn’t ask her to learn all these languages.” I pointed out to him once more to which he just shrugged his shoulders and carried on.

“At this rate, I won’t be surprised if you mastered the mystic arts in a second.” I chuckled at that thought and followed after Daniel.

“These are the next books you need to learn.” He began picking off several books from the shelves and threw them into my hand.

“Coding?” I looked at the book that Daniel just threw at my hand.

“Yeah, it’s to make everyone understand the idea of loops, iteration and other things,” Daniel explained.

“Guess that is one book less then.” I smiled as I passed him the book back to which he took it back in slight puzzlement.

“How much did she tell you about me?” I asked Daniel who scratched his bald head.

“Just that you are very strong; that you are not a mystical threat but rather a normal worldly threat; and she was monitoring you so that I don’t need to do it, since you were in New York under my jurisdiction.” I chuckled hearing that.

“Well Daniel, you can say I am one of the best programmers of the world.” Daniel wasn’t at all surprised by that and just nodded as he placed the book back.

“I should have expected that, seeing your ridiculous learning speed.” He went to pick another book for me.

“Anything else you are not specialised in?” He asked just before picking the book titled 'Advanced Physics'.

“Just spirituality and mystic arts.” He rolled his eyes at the reply I gave him as his hands passed over the Physics book before he threw me 2 other books.

“The sorcerer supreme gave me few hundred books just yesterday on the history of mystic arts and some theoretical books to add to the library collection for you. Once you are done with those books…” He pointed at my hand.

“…and the books she brought in yesterday, feel free to take any book in this section of the library in any order.” His hand motioned at the semi-large hall of books. I nodded as I went along to begin reading.

I sat down with my phone beside me updating me every second about anything related to Bruce and Nat.

Seeing both of them suffer in their own ways was my only source of motivation to keep going. When others learned mystic arts to raise the dead, revenge or to heal themselves, I just wanted to learn it to see the 2 most important people in my life as soon as possible.

---------------------------------------------------

[Nat PoV- 6 weeks ago]

I ran ignoring the panicked yelp of those I brushed past as I made my way towards the med bay.

“Romanoff?” Coulson came out of the room just at I was about to go in.

“Where is he, Coulson?” I asked Coulson in slight anger for excluding me from this mission.

“He escaped.” I took a deep breath to rein my emotions in.

“I meant Clint.” I lied to which Coulson just stared at me for a few moments.

“Just having some tests run on him. David injected something in him, had to make sure it wasn’t anything dangerous.” My heart froze in place hearing that, as I remembered the smiling face of Laura and Lila.

‘You bastard! If anything happens to him…’ Pushing past Phil I went in to see Clint sat in the bed, while a nurse drew his blood from his arm.

I sighed in relief seeing that he was alright. “Nat?” Clint looked at me apologetically.

“How is he?” I asked the nurse, taking the sample of blood from him, while ignoring Clint.

“He is perfectly healthy. Just taking a blood sample to make sure no traces of whatever was injected in him is left behind.” I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulder hearing those words.

Both of us waited until the nurse left the room, leaving Clint and me alone.

*Clack* Just as the door shut, I glared at Clint. “I am sorry, Nat. We didn’t know he was there. It was all last-minute work. We didn’t even have time to bring in reinforcements.” Clint apologised to me.

“Why are you telling me that?” I asked him causing him to quietly stare at me.

“I don’t care about him anymore.” I felt my heart bleed as I said those words using the very mouth I used to state my love for him.

“He just played the same game I used to play to get information. Just that this time I was his target and he played much better than I did. After all, all is fair in war. I just got to suck up my loss.” Clint sighed hearing that as he looked up at the roof.

“It’s love and war.” He suddenly spoke up to my confusion.

“What?” I looked at him.

“All is fair in love and war.” My heart tightened hearing that word again.

“Really? I must have forgotten.” I smiled as I lied.

“What if he still loves you, Nat?” My smile froze at those words.

A part of me screamed to not ask him the question I wanted to ask, but I did it anyway. A large part of me wanted to hear and cling to hope. “Hahaha! Why would you think that Clint?” I laughed away at my pain as I asked with high hopes.

“Because you love him. He has to be a heartless monster to turn a blind eye towards your love.” ‘He is a heartless monster!’ I screamed inside me.

“Well too bad because I don’t love him, Clint, not anymore. He is just another target for me and Shield.” Just how many more times I have to lie to make everyone else and myself believe that as the new truth, I had no idea. I just hoped it won’t take too long.

“The moment you hesitated to say the word ‘love’ proves that you still love him, Nat, you can’t run…”

“I DON’T!” My outbreak out of nowhere caused Clint to be taken aback.

Taking a deep breath I calmed myself down. “I don’t love him, Clint. I used to, but not anymore!” Turning around I made my way out.

‘I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!’ I just wanted to cry but I can’t. I promised myself not to cry again for him.

---------------------------------------------------

[David PoV- Present]

4 weeks went by where I spent all my time devouring all the knowledge in the library. The only thing left for me at this moment was the books in the section belonging to masters and the forbidden books.

“Finished.” I passed the last book to Daniel who took the book with a sigh.

“Are you alright with not sleeping at all?” Daniel asked me in worry seeing that I had not slept a wink in the past 10 weeks.

“Enhanced body and mind man. No problem!” I gave him a thumbs up. The both of us were alone in this place, hence we both got along pretty close at this point.

The ancient one, apparently, had everyone here relocated to the other sanctums to guard my privacy. I had just recently learned of this from Daniel. My respect for her grew seeing how much effort she was putting in just for me.

“Are you not going to try mystic arts at all? I mean you have more than enough knowledge to try it without anyone’s guidance.” Daniel tempted me like always, but I curbed my temptation reminding myself of Nat.

“No thanks.” Magic was just as dangerous as the raw hulk serum. Attempt to practise it without the proper guidance and soon you will find you are not in control.

“Just a while longer and I can just whizz through whatever she might teach me.” I looked forward to that day as a smile grew on Daniel’s face.

“Alright. Follow me.” I had passed whatever test he had decided to give me. Whether it was under the orders of the Ancient One or his own personal assurance, I had no idea.

Taking me deeper into the library there were several books carefully stored on shelves. There were also few more books sealed in chains on the wall.

“The Sorcerer Supreme instructed me to allow you to read the forbidden books as well. But I highly recommend you to only touch those subjects after understanding the books for masters.” He pointed at the books on the shelves before pointing at the books that were chained to the walls.

“Also, under no circumstance should you practise any of the spells suggested in the forbidden books, no matter how tempting or beneficial it sounds, okay?”

“My only reason for learning magic is for love, Daniel,” I told him the truth to make him feel assured.

“You will find many spells that can make anyone fall in love inside those books David.” Daniel pointed out.

“If I wanted to make her fall in love with me like that, I would have given her the very cause of her dejection, pain and regret long ago, Daniel.” Daniel looked at me in confusion and slight shock.

“Then why are you learning the mystic arts for?” I smiled as I looked ahead at the books.

“I don’t like to see her hurt or crying Daniel, and right now I hate to say it, but she is in a lot of emotional pain because of me.” Daniel quietly listened as I went forward to pick the books titled ‘Mirror Dimension’.

“Mystic arts is just another means for me to get strong enough, so that I can stand before her without any interference and apologise.” I looked at Daniel who just frowned at my answer.

“You just need to learn the portal spell if you need to see her without any interference. You don’t have to waste your time with all these forbidden knowledge for that.” I shook my head at Daniel’s reasoning.

“You have no idea how far she will go to protect the ones she loves. I merely wish to stop her from going that far ever in her life.” Daniel looked slightly confused, while I remembered how she sacrificed herself for the soul stone.

“You wish to control her?” I shook my head once more.

“No. I will just make sure; she won’t ever have to go too far to protect anyone. I will do it by travelling that extra mile for her. And for that, I need all the strength in the world to make sure that: whether mystic threats or the worldly threat, all stay off this planet and leaves her and those she loves alone.” Daniel looked at me quietly for a moment.

“Wow, you are crazy with love.” He stated to which I laughed.

“Meh, I am saner now,” I told him, which he didn’t seem to believe at all.

“Yeah right…” He gave me a blank look.

“Seriously, you should have seen me a few years ago then. Even the Ancient One had plans to either kill or seal me up somewhere at that time.” Daniel glanced over at me with his narrowed eyes.

“I can see you being crazy, but not dangerous.” He nodded causing me to burst out laughing along with him.

“She changed me, Daniel. She made me a human and loved me, only to end up being crushed and humiliated for that same reason. If I don’t do at least this much for her, then there is no point in even living.” Daniel nodded with a smile while I went to read the book in my hand.

'Few more books before the real magic begins huh...' The temptation was real, especially when I was so close to my goal. However, each time I felt like giving in, I reminded myself of Nat and her pain..