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━━ "I WANT YOU TO TRY SOMETHING." Fury stood in front of the two younger Avengers with his hands behind his back as they sat on the floor of the shooting range. "Power combination. It makes an average power even stronger. We believe that the combination will create an effect of hypothermia and heatstroke. Unbearably cold on the inside, boiling hot on the outside."
"How do we do this?" Aleyna's hand raised.
"That's what we have to figure out."
"Will this kill us?"
"It shouldn't." Fury shrugged nonchalantly, which caused the girls to share a worried look. "Now, one of my guards will bring in a testing dummy. When we're done with each practice round, we'll cut it open, examine the inside, and decide if it's a success or not. If it is, great. We practice and perfect it. If it's not, then we still practice and perfect it. Are we clear?"
Aleyna nodded as she swallowed the lump in her throat, the two girls standing up and mentally preparing themselves.
"What if we have to hold hands?" Wanda asked, clasping Aleyna's hand. "Sometimes, they do it on magic shows."
"Try it." Fury stood to the side as two of his guards brought in four mannequins. When Wanda's energy surrounded their hands, the Ukrainian girl quickly pulled away, wincing.
"Sorry, I'm not into third-degree burns."
"Right... so no physical contact." Fury held his hand out as a guard passed him a pen and clipboard, the director scribbling something down before making an x. "Throw out your powers at the same time."
Aleyna and Wanda looked at each other, then attempted to send their power at the same time. Aleyna's sharp icicles flew out from her hands first, and Wanda's energy followed.
Although they both hit the target, their power hit different parts of it at different times.
"Right idea, wrong execution?" Aleyna shrugged.
A couple of hours later, a familiar, red synthezoid phased through the glass wall pane, confused to find the three still training.
"I thought you completed your training hours ago." Vision's eyes looked to the burned, frostbitten mannequins that were cut in half and laid askew on the ground.
"We did. He brought us back." Wanda's head cocked towards Fury as she rolled her eyes.
"Is that sass I hear, Miss Maximoff?" Fury's brow rose as the girl looked to him.
"No, sir." She replied sarcastically, Aleyna's brows furrowing with concern. Wanda wasn't normally this blunt, so what changed?
"Sorry, Fury." Aleyna looked to the S.H.I.E.L.D director. "We're just... we're kinda tired. We don't have the same stamina as Nat or Steve."
"And Miss Tunikova is iron deficient." Vision added on.
"Fine. Go." Fury waved them off, Aleyna and Wanda sharing a smile. Along with Vision, the two began their journey back to their rooms, leaving Fury and his guards alone.
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"Are you actually iron deficient, or did he just say that to get us out of training?" Wanda implored, shutting the door behind her as Aleyna plopped onto the girl's bed.
"Oh, you didn't know? I am. Y'know when Vision made all those eggs? They have a lot of iron in them."
"I didn't realize why you needed so much..." The Sokovian girl admitted, laying on the bed beside Aleyna. "Yeah, I almost died." She nodded as she let the water from Wanda's cup on the nightstand slowly drift around her fingers.
"I almost died multiple times. Stark, Ultron, HYDRA..." Wanda shrugged nonchalantly, Aleyna giving her a troubled look again. "I'm kidding. But not really. Teenage mutants are really popular right now."
"Teenage mutants as in ninja turtles?" Aleyna teased, which got a smile out of Wanda as she looked up to the ceiling.
"Yeah, I just have my shell in my closet right now." Wanda went along as her eyes traced the tile of the ceiling. "I'm the red one."
"I'm blue." Leyna laid beside her, fiddling with her ring. "I like how we're filling our stereotypes."
"Yeah," Wanda nodded, realizing that the girl was right. "If only they had a clear color for your water."
The pair sat in comfortable silence, Wanda's eyes tracing the tile, Aleyna's mind wandering.
"Yes." Wanda replied, Aleyna looking at her in confusion.
"Yes what?"
"To your question. If I like my old life more than my new one."
"How did you-"
"I'm a mind reader, Aleyna." Wanda chuckled sadly, looking at the Ukrainian girl. "I do. I miss Sokovia. I didn't have lots of friends, but the friends I had were great. Quality over quantity." Wanda seemed to stare into space for a brief moment as she reflected on her life, carefully selecting her next words. "My family and I... we weren't the most well off. I can't lie about that. But, we had fun. We watched old sitcoms. We played American games, mostly card games. Uno was my father and I's favorite. Pietro's was spades, and my mother's was mahjong, shockingly enough." The Sokovian girl let the Ukrainian girl pull her into a hug as Wanda continued.
"I remember, one time on TV, Pietro saw that you could talk to someone with two tin cans and a string. He and I tried it, and he got so upset when it didn't work. I couldn't stop laughing; Pietro was an ugly crier. His face was all red, and our mother kept getting at me for laughing. She made me apologize, even though we all knew I didn't mean it. Our father ended up bringing home strawberry ice cream after work. Not because of Pietro, but he found a nice deal. Organically made and everything. It only made me laugh more because it was- it was like-" Wanda chuckled at the memory.
"Pietro looked like the ice cream! So I told everyone at school, and we called him Berry-Face for six months."
Aleyna smiled along as Wanda sighed. "My dad was always my favorite." Aleyna sat up, Wanda following suit. "He liked me. I don't think my mom wanted a kid, so she- she resented me for it. Maybe? That's my guess, could be wrong. That's not the point. I remember when I was little, my dad would take me to the park on Sunday in the spring, usually after it rained. We'd go and find frogs and lizards and things like that. We'd bring a little vat of sugar water, find hurt bees, and feed them. We even found a little beehive that started to like us. There was this specific bee with a white dot on its back. It would come over to the house every day, to the back door, and it would let us feed it. Every day at six."
"Did the bee ever sting you?"
"No, it never did." Aleyna grinned. "We named it Dew Drop. It stopped coming after a month. I cried for that bee so much. So much so that when I got out of school, my dad got me a bee plushie, and painted a white dot on it. He called it my achievement for getting out of school in one piece. I just wish I got the chance to bring it before I came here."
"Let's get it while we're gone." Wanda suggested eagerly. "Get the bee."
"I thought you didn't want to go?" Aleyna's head tilted to the side in confusion. "You didn't seem too thrilled when I gave the idea. What changed?"
"I thought over it," Wanda began. "I mean, you seem to know what you're talking about, and if we can- if we can plan out everything, then- then we'll be good. I wanna do it. We just- we gotta think it through."
Aleyna's lips curled into a smile, which only caused Wanda to do the same. "You're right. I mean, look at our audience. We're trying to run away from the Avengers, and they, or we, I guess, fight crazy space shit on the daily. We're also running from S.H.I.E.L.D, which is basically the police for super weird and intergalactic crimes. And we're two teenage girls who don't know how to use their powers. We need to overthink everything. And we can't do it alone."
Wanda bit her lip before giving out a sigh. "I have a person. Don't- don't hate me for saying this."
"Who is it?"
A long silence passed before Aleyna realized who Wanda was referring to. "Please, no." Aleyna pleaded in a whiny voice. "Please don't say it."
"He's the only person I can think of." Wanda rubbed her temples. "I know, I know. But what other choice do we have?"
"Fine." The Ukrainian girl gave in. "Do you have his number?"
"Um..." Wanda hesitated. "I can- I can get it."
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word count: 1,444
a/n:
Who do you think they're gonna call?
-v