Like Teacher, Like Student /// A Doctor Strange Fanfiction

Chapter 11

Shields dropped all over the courtyard, and Stephen's dissipated along with them, gold sparks scattering into the air. "Are you hurt?" He gave her a stern look.

Casey shook her head, waving her fingers at him. "No, that shield thingy held up pretty good," she said. "How did you do that?"

"You haven't taught her to shield yet?" The grumpy librarian was walking toward them, frowning fiercely at Stephen.

Stephen looked away from her, seemingly satisfied that she hadn't gotten hit by the battle spell. A woman with blue hair was talking to the three combatants and waving her hands and pointing at them in a way that made Casey glad she wasn't the one being scolded.

Casey somehow kept her smirk off her face as Stephen assumed a long-suffering expression as he turned toward Wong. "I told you, I just started training her a few days ago."

"The shield technique seems like it would be a useful skill to start with."

"I didn't start with that,' Stephen retorted.

"I'm working on astral projection," Casey offered with a heap of feigned innocence, unsure if would get Stephen in trouble or not.

"Just because that's one of your specialties does not mean it will be hers," Wong said sternly, narrowing his eyes at Stephen. "Did you even test her to see what her strengths were?"

The dark-haired sorcerer drew his shoulders back. "I'm training her, not anyone else, so I'll do it how I believe it should be done."

So that was a no, then? Casey couldn't help but be curious about that test. Was there some kind of magic that she was going to be particularly good at?

"And this is coming from the years of experience you've had with training young wielders of the mystic arts, correct?" Wong said. His words were drenched in sarcasm.

"Do you have a book on it?" Stephen shot back.

Casey stepped forward. "What'd you guys talk about?"

That made both of them stop fussing at each other and look at her in surprise.

"That's not nosy at all," Stephen said languidly, crossing his arms over his chest. "If you were excluded from the conversation, you should assume we didn't care for you to hear it."

"Yeah, but you could give me the highlights," Casey said, "Like who's Jonathan Pangborn?"

A shadow flashed over Stephen's face, and Casey suddenly didn't feel as amused as she had a moment ago. Stephen and Wong shared a glance and then Stephen shook his head at her. "No one you need to be concerned about."

"And now she's going to be overly curious," Wong said with a huff, "Have you even been around a teenager in the past few decades?"

It wasn't false. Now that Jonathan Pangborn had essentially been designated off-limits, Casey wanted to know more about him.

"He used to be a student here," Wong said, ignoring the look that he got from Stephen, "He's gone missing."

"Does that happen often?" she asked. That couldn't have been all they talked about, or they would have let her listen to the conversation. They were keeping something from her, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know exactly what that was yet. Of course, being ignorant about all this mystical magic stuff had gotten her grandfather killed, so maybe more information would be for the best.

"No," Stephen said firmly, "And that's enough assuaging your curiosity."

"Mr. Wong?" Casey looked over at the librarian as the briefest glimpse of surprise crossed his face.