The Winter Wraith

Chapter 20

Adina was meandered down a random hallway in the Compound in a state of boredom. This was her second week of wandering, and she was sick of it. She had already found all the cool secret rooms she wasn’t intended to discover in the building she was restricted to, so there was no point to her current exploration. She was just aimlessly wandering the halls trying to find something to do.

She would much rather be in the training room with the other Avengers, but the team had decided she wasn’t ‘ready’ for that, whatever that meant. She disagreed, but she chose not to bring that up to them yet. She would just have to be content with her pointless strolling around during the team’s three hour training sessions she was barred from.

Although she was banned from the secretive team training sessions, Adina was still included in other training these past two weeks, like sparring with the intimidating Natasha. The deadly woman had pointed out many areas that Adina needed to improve in, such as her lack of defensive tactics. Natasha has to remind her several times that sometimes it was more important to protect oneself in a fight, rather than constantly attacking with no regard for herself. This lack of self-preservation reminded Natasha of how Bucky used to fight back when he was the Winter Soldier.

Adina poured herself into the drills and exercise, albeit she didn’t have much else to do, as she lacked the normal and innocent lifestyle of a simple teenager. Despite this intense training, Adina just wasn’t allowed to use her powers, yet. The metal band on her wrist was a pleasant constant reminder of that.

Adina sighed discontendly and was about to go raid Sam’s well-stocked secret candy stash she had stumbled upon a few days ago when she heard some familiar voices traveling down the hall. They must be done with their training. Adina rerouted her course and went to catch up with the group. Even Sam and Bucky’s constant bickering would be more entertaining than her current situation.

She turned a corner to the hallway expecting to see one of the two purposely irritating the other—she did not understand why they still hung out if they were always like this—but instead she collided into a hard surface and was about to fall back on the floor, until the surface, or more accurately, teen boy quickly grabbed her hand, pulling her back up.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there, sorry, sorry, are you okay?” The boy frantically asked, pulling her back upright as a bright shade of red crept up his face.

Adina quickly snatched her hand back from the boy and looked up to see who the blabbering boy with the high-pitched voice was.

“AJ?” Peter Parker questioned in disbelief, forgetting his embarrassment, Bucky also echoing the same name with confusion behind him.

“It’s Adina,” she shortly replied, similarity surprised by his sudden appearance.

It dawned on her. Peter Parker was bug boy. That meant he had superpowers, too. She wondered what they might be. Did he have a superhero name like Captain America? Wait, is his superhero name literally bug boy? That’s pretty lame… she thought.

“Oh. Um, what are you doing here?”

Since Adina wasn’t quite sure of that herself, she looked to Bucky for an answer. Of course, he didn’t give a complete one, but rather a very vague answer, being very helpful as always.

“She’s staying with us for the time being.”

“Oh, well then, Adina do you want to g—”

“Sorry, Peter, but Adina and I were just about to go out for dinner. Maybe next time,” Bucky interrupted.

He didn’t look very apologetic; his expression was the opposite of regret. In fact, it looked like he took some pleasure in ruining Peter’s plans, whatever they were.