"Why must the Captain insist on making training at the crack of dawn."
"Pietro, it's seven o'clock. Stop being dramatic," Wanda replied.
"Hey, you know this greatness doesn't come naturally," he said, gesturing to himself, "I need my beauty sleep."
"Alright team, enough chit chat. Finish your stretching and get started with an easy jog of five laps," Steve ordered.
The speedster sniggered at Wanda's grumbling complaints about running, but not quietly enough.
"Pietro, you run twenty-five laps."
The speedster groaned, but twenty-five laps was still nothing for him. The rest of the team dutifully ran their laps on the large indoor track.
"For the first half of this session, you all will be using your powers. If you don't have powers, then you will be assigned as a mentor. Sam, you'll take Vision. Natasha, you'll be with Adina and Wanda. Bucky and I'll be with Pietro. Get to work, everyone," Steve directed.
Everyone went to separate areas of the gym. Natasha led her group to the corner that had a pile of big foam blocks and a tall rock climbing wall.
"Wanda, I want you to practice your control by doing your usual routine with the blocks, while I test Adina on her powers," Natasha directed.
"Got it," Wanda replied and quickly started using her powers to lift and carefully arrange the blocks.
"So, Adina, what are all of your powers?" Natasha asked.
"Teleportation, force fields, and I was injected with a few questionable recreations of the super soldier serum."
"Did they train your powers at Hydra?"
"Not particularly. I only got them recently and with Bucky escaping and all, my training was sort of pushed to the side. Plus, they didn't really want to risk me escaping by just teleporting out of there, so I always had a power dampener on."
"Okay, well, we're going to see how much control over your powers you have. To start off, I want you to teleport a few feet away and then teleport back. Keep repeating this, but make the distance greater each time. Got it?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Go ahead. And drop the ma'am."
Adina did as she was told. Once she had increased her distance to forty yards away, Natasha called for her to stop.
"It looks like you've got your short distance teleportation done fairly well. We'll work on your long distance another day. Now, let's test the strength of your forcefields. Make one that protects your front side."
Adina held her hands out in front of her and focused. A few blue sparks started to appear in the air in front of her. A couple of seconds later the blue forcefield was fully formed, albeit small, with undercurrents of purple weaving in and out. It flickered in and out, clearly weak.
"Concentrate on making the forcefield stronger first, then try expanding it."
Listening to the advice, she tried focusing on the center of the shield. It stopped flickering, the fibers becoming stronger, but the forcefield also shrunk to the size of a plate. Once the center was completely enforced, she then tried expanding it. It took more of her energy, but Natasha's advice worked and the forcefield protected her whole body. That is, until it abruptly flickered out fifteen seconds later.
"That's alright," Natasha reassured her, "We'll work on holding the force field for longer at a later time. For now, I just want to establish a baseline for your powers."
After a long hour of testing her enhanced abilities, Natasha decided that she had enough information on her powers for now. Thank goodness, because Adina was exhausted. She really needed to work on her stamina in regards to teleportation and force fields. Although Adina got to take a break, the other members of the team were still hard at work. Steve called all of the individual teams in for a group sparring. While everyone moved to the mats at the center of the room, Steve pulled Adina to the side with him.
"Adina, I want you to pay close attention to how they spar. You'll be joining them in a week or so, depending on what Nat reports," he said, before taking a step forward, away from her.
"Alright, everybody pair up and get started. No powers, and let's keep the fighting clean this time," he instructed.
Listening to his orders, Bucky paired up with Natasha, Sam with Wanda, and Pietro with Steve. Vision walked over to where Adina was sitting on the mat, just outside of the sparring area. No one wanted to spar with him because they didn't want to break their hand by attempting to punch his indestructible and vibranium head. So instead of sparring, Vision was the unofficial referee. He would walk around and make sure everyone was being safe, of course, but he would also give suggestions here and there. But, he would never again try to give a pointer to Natasha. He learned his lesson quite well after last time.
The sparring quickly began, and Vision made his rounds through the pairs. Bucky and Natasha were evenly matched, whereas Steve was just laying it on to poor Pietro. Pietro was a decent fighter, but he could not keep up with the spry hundred-year-old man. Meanwhile, Wanda was on the defense with Sam. She was a powerful avenger, but she was clearly lacking in her hand-to-hand fighting skills.
"Wanda, you need to widen your stance," Vision coached. "No, no that's too much. And you've got to keep your fists tight and up."
Wanda let out a groan of annoyance at the constant remarks. "Vision, you're not helping. Let me do this on my own."
"Oh, alright."
Pietro, who was sparring a few yards away from them, had been listening to the whole interaction. He snickered at the android's dismissal, until he got punched right in the side of his face.
"Ow!" he exclaimed, rubbing his face, and preceding to give Steve a nasty glare.
"You've got to stay focused at all times. Your opponent is going to take any advantage that comes their way," Steve said.
"Yes, you need to pay attention at all times, Pietro. This is a problem you've been consistently having lately. In fact, it reminds me of our last mission where..." said Vision, who apparently just couldn't help coaching the Maximoffs.
Pietro groaned and rolled his eyes at the android who was still recounting one of his embarrassing moments, "You've got to be kidding me. This day is just going great. I love my life."
After twenty minutes, all of the sparring was over. Steve dismissed the team and reminded them to not forget about team bonding this afternoon. Bucky was heading to the kitchen to grab a drink of water when Adina caught up to him in the hallway.
"Hey." She said, lengthening her stride to keep up with his fast pace. Why did he always act like he had someplace important to be?
"Hey," he replied back. "I thought you were avoiding me." He gave her a questioning and accusatory side-eye.
"What? No, I wouldn't do that. I've just been exploring this giant place," Adina replied. It definitely wasn't like she had been meticulously avoiding him for the past few days after giving him that awkward hug. "Anyway, I think it's pretty lame that you guys won't let me spar with you all. It's probably 'cause I'd beat you and all."
Bucky just gave her a look.
"Ok, fine, fine. But I'd definitely beat Sam, just saying."
Bucky didn't reply as he went into the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cabinets, but Adina was sure he agreed. She sat at the island as Bucky put some bread in the toaster.
"I'm bored."
"Go explore some more."
"I've already been everywhere in this facility. I want to go to the city or something."
"You can't go out in public." Bucky grabbed a tub of butter from the fridge and pulled open the silverware drawer.
"Why not?" she replied, frustration clearly lining her tone.
"For multiple reasons," he said, turning around to face her. He took in the way she sat deathly still. She looked normal, but he picked up on her accelerated breathing, her chest rapidly rising and falling. Her eyes were locked to the knife in his hand that he was planning to use to butter the toast. "That being one of them."
He put the knife back in the drawer and took a bite of dry toast.
"I'm sorry. It's-It's just that I-"
"Don't fret, kid. It gets easier with time, but until then, you can't go out."
"But what about that time we went to the diner with the pancakes?"
"Don't mention that to anyone. We weren't necessarily supposed to go out, and it was a one-time thing. Frankly, I'm surprised Sam hasn't blabbed his big mouth about it to anyone yet."
"Oh, okay," Adina replied, a slight frown pulling at her lips.
"Hey, don't get down. We'll find something to do."
"Yeah, sure." She crossed her arms on the cold marble countertop and rested her head in between them while Bucky finished his dry toast.
A/N: I'm sorry I took so long to update. Hopefully this is a good chapter, and I'll try to update more often.
Published: 7/23/23