Vanished {Pietro Maximoff}

Chapter 26

"Alex!"

"Don't touch me." She warned, batting away Phil Coulson's hand.

"Sorry," Phil turned to Pietro, "You must be one of the enhanced twins."

"Pietro Maximoff." Alex supplied. "Be glad you're meeting him now and not when he hated us."

"Nice to meet you, Pietro," Phil smiled "Okay, let's get down to business-"

"To defeat the Huns." Alex sang.

"Did they send me daughters, when I asked for sons." Phil joined in.

"I am very confused," Pietro said.

"Don't worry, you get used to it," A random agent shouted as Phil and Alex continued to sing.

<~~>

"So," Coulson began. Per Alex's request, he had commandeered a small meeting room and forced drinks onto both the teenagers. "How's Kameela?"

"She's...good." Alex shot finger guns to Phil, who returned them. "Doing Classics at NYU in January which everyone was proud of."

"What about you? You're eighteen now, can't spend your whole life as an Avenger."

Alex took a sip from her cider, "Tony's helping me get qualified for a GED and then I'm planning to do psychology at M.I.T next year."

"Stark's suggestion?"

"Better than Cap's which was to never let me leave Manhattan." Alex teleported to the door, and Pietro noticed she hadn't snapped her fingers to do so. The lock on the door slid too and, satisfied that they had privacy, Alex sat in the chair next to Pietro, "Right, let's get serious now."

"It's never just a courtesy call with you, is it?"

"No." Alex's voice had changed. It was quieter with a dangerous edge— like a snake luring in its prey.

"What do you want then? I assume it's connected to the attack on Avengers tower."

"Correct. We're planning a mission to get them back but we want your help."

"And what do I get in return?"

Alex had a knife pressed against Phil's throat in less than a second.

Pietro had stood when he first saw Alex vanish, moving into a corner and holding his gun out in front of him in case she'd set him up. Alex noticed him and jerked her head down, indicating for him to sit,

"You will get nothing and expect nothing back from me. If you say no, I'll slit your throat and take what I need and I don't want to have to do that."

Coulson looked remarkably calm, as though it was a situation that regularly happened. Which, Pietro supposed, as a part of S.H.I.E.L.D, it probably did happen more than it would to a normal person.

"Do you know what's in this knife?" Alex whispered, a drop of blood trickling down Coulson's neck, "I'll give you a hint— I suppose you remember Loki's scepter?"

Coulson twitched, head jerking to the side as he answered, "Unfortunately."

"It contained the mind stone, as does this knife. Only a little thing but it does hold a grudge." The gentle voice dropped into a hiss, a snake giving the last warning before it attacked, "It failed to kill you once, I don't think it will again."

"Romanoff and Barton trained you well."

"So?"

"I'll help." Conceded Phil. "Out of the goodness of my heart and the pockets of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Thank you," Alex shoved him away from her and he disappeared into thin air.

"What the hell was that?" Pietro snapped, running to snatch the knife off Alex.

"Oh, I sent him to the weapons room to speed things up."

"You could have killed him." Alex held out her hand and the knife teleported to it, leaving Pietro grasping air,

"People threaten to kill each other all the time here."

"So, when I do that to you, I'm hated by pretty much everyone but when you do it, it's alright? That doesn't seem fair."

"I'm more likeable than you." Alex strapped the knife onto her arm. "And I didn't badly hurt him."

"You threatened too."

"Why does it bother you so much?"

It didn't feel like a trick, yet Pietro knew from experience that it could be. Logically, the move was the best thing that Alex could have done and Pietro would have done it himself if Alex had told him too.

Maybe it was that seeing Alex like that reminded Pietro how dangerous she could be.

One moment she had easily been talking to Phil, the next she could have killed him. It was a testament to how well she'd been trained and Pietro recognised the Black Widow's influence from the tapes he'd watched at H.Y.D.R.A. But it also scared Pietro,

He knew that Alex was dangerous but to see it in action after allowing himself to be vulnerable around her and thinking that they were friends was like whiplash. If Alex had been like that with Phil, a man she knew well and liked, then what would happen if she decided she needed something from Pietro, who had only just sided with her.

"I don't understand you."

"You meaning women in general or just me?"

"Would you actually have hurt him?"

"Yes. He would have been fine though, I was planning to stab above his right lung; bad enough to disable him and cause a distraction but with the tech S.H.I.E.L.D has, he would have made a good recovery."

Oddly enough, that didn't reassure Pietro.

He didn't get a chance to say anything more, however, as someone knocked on the door. The two of them moved in sync; Alex summoning two knives to her hand and Pietro preparing to move.

"Alex, I know you're in there."

Pietro glanced over to Alex, expecting to see her look confused or worried. Instead, relief had broken over her face and the grin she bore had dropped into a small smile,

"Is that you, Sam?"

"No, it's someone else who is stupid enough to get involved in saving the Avengers' ass. Again, may I add."

"Pietro, can you open the door." It was a command rather than a question and Pietro obeyed, though only because he saw how badly Alex's hand was shaking.

He recognised the man stood behind the door; having seen him a few times around Avengers Tower after Alex was rescued from Ultron.

They hadn't been introduced but Alex had called him Sam through the door, and since she was yet to make a noise or throw a knife, Pietro was fairly confident that this man was Sam.

Sam lowered his aviators, eyes flicking back and forth between Pietro and Alex behind the lenses,

"So, what the hell has been happening?"