𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 | 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒍

confero

Pietro and I enter the hut to see Nat sitting in the same seat, but she's put away the knife she had out when I spoke to her and instead has my vials in front of her. She's looking closely at the unknown vial when we come in, and she pulls it away from her face and leans back in her chair when she sees us.

"Yes?" Her face is back to holding its stony, unbreakable expression.

"I shouldn't have said what I did," Pietro starts, not meeting Nat's intimidating eyes. "It wasn't fair to you, you were right that I was feeling a lot at once and I took it out on you. I'm sorry."

I'm a bit surprised at Pietro's apology, but Nat doesn't change her expression. Instead, she nods, then kicks the two chairs next to her out. "Sit," she says sharply, and we do. Though I've done nothing wrong, I can't help but feel nervous as I sit down next to the assassin, as if I'm about to receive a scolding from a parent.

She hands me the vial she was looking at before, and I finally get a look at it since the dark room. The letters look foreign, and though I have some knowledge of a few languages outside English, I have no clue what these words are.

"Any thoughts?" Nat asks, her voice taking on the gentle tone she spoke to me with earlier.

I shake my head. "It's obviously foreign, but nothing I know. Closest guess I'd have is Russian, but if it were I doubt you'd be asking me what it is."

"You're on the right track; I'm a bit rusty, but I think it's Bulgarian. Only problem is that I haven't spoken or read Bulgarian in probably ten years, so we're back to square one."

"Let me see," Pietro says quietly, and I hand it to him.

"Do you know Bulgarian?" I ask, and he nods. "When did you learn that?"

"About a... year ago, for an under...cover mission," Pietro says distractedly, his eyes squinting at the letters. "Think I got it."

"What is it?" Nat asks, her voice holding the gentle tone she used with me. She must've chosen to move on, also understanding that holding a grudge in a place like this isn't the best idea.

"премахване на усилване," Pietro says, the words gracefully forming in his accent. "It's a bit of a weird transfer to English, but if we put it in context I think it roughly translates to enhancement remover. If I'm right, it's supposed to be used on someone who has a genetic power, like me or you. If I were to take this, I think it would get rid of my super speed."

"Wait, so if we were to use it on Steve, hypothetically, he would go back to the way he was before he was injected with the super soldier serum?" Nat asks, a mischievous grin growing on her face.

"I guess so," I say, and look to Nat. "But we aren't trying it."

"Come on, Ridley, you hear all the stories Bucky tells about pre-serum Steve, you don't want to see it for yourself?"

"It's not that I don't want to see it, it's that we don't want a super soldier against us, and I'm sure that if we use a serum remover on him, he won't want to be best friends with us," I say, and Nat tilts her head in confusion.

"She's come up with an entire list of allies and people to avoid here. It's pretty brilliant, but also a bit strange how she thought it all up already," Pietro says, cracking a smile.

"Who's on this list of allies?" Nat asks, her smile growing too.

"Well, you two obviously. Bucky is an immediate ally, and with Bucky comes Steve and most of the time Sam. We decided that Sam and most of the other Avengers are most likely here. We came up with a list of twenty Avengers that we think were taken too while we were sitting outside.