Rapid Love | P. MAXIMOFF

[16] amnesia

They had returned to the warehouse a few hours later. While Julien Beckers had indeed been there, they hadn't run into him.

"How about 'hot stuff'?" he suggested.

"How about 'no'?" she replied.

"That seems rather boring."

She rolled her eyes, "You're an idiot."

"And that's just mean," he informed her as she fell back onto her bed.

"You have twenty hours to come up with a good nickname."

"How am I to do that when you turn them all down?" he asked as he sat down at the table.

"You're terrible at picking nicknames for yourself," she explained simply as she sat up. She furrowed her eyebrows in thought as she looked him over, "Do you ever sleep?"

He looked up in confusion, "What?"

They had been in Belgium for almost a week now and his bed remained untouched. "Sleep. You know, the thing that's necessary for a human to function. I'm only half human and even I do it."

He rolled his eyes, focusing his attention back to the file he was reading, "Of course I sleep."

"You're a liar," she concluded and he paused his reading to look over at her.

"I am not lying."

"You totally are," she countered as she stood up and made her way over to him. She took a seat next to him as she scanned him over. Now that she was really looking at him, the bags under his eyes were prominent and she couldn't help but frown, "When was the last time you slept?"

"Last night," he replied as he trained his eyes on the paper in front of him.

"Pietro," she tried, placing her hand on his upper arm, "What's going on? You can talk to me."

He pulled his arm away from her touch, "There is nothing to talk about."

"Clearly there is," she countered. "Why haven't you been sleeping?"

"Let it go, Princessa."

"No," she shook her head. "You're my partner."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does," she replied. "Do you know how dangerous it is if you don't sleep? What happens if we encounter a threat and you're too drained to do anything? What would have happened tonight?"

"I'm going to go out for a little," he informed her as he stood up.

"Oh come on, Pietro," she huffed as she stood up as well. She followed him to the door, "I'll drop it if you just stay here."

"I need air," he replied before he sped off.

She let out a breath before crossing the room and taking a seat on her bed. She fell back with a sigh. She really needed to work on reading a room.

There was a noise from outside and she sat up. Maybe he actually talked some sense into himself and decided to return. That or he got bored. Either way she didn't care because he was safe.

Beatrix stood up and made her way to the door. She opened it, "Look, I'm sorry I-" She cut herself off as she realized it wasn't Pietro. She moved to tap her wrists together to block whatever was going to come out of the man's gun but the shield was fast enough to form.

She felt a sharp point hit her arm before whatever serum they had put inside entered her blood stream. She stumbled backward as her vision blurred. She tried to teleport to anywhere but here but was rendered incapable. Whatever it was they injected her with was extremely effective.

She attempted to perform a scan of the person in front of her but it was as though everything was stalling before the room fell black.