Work Text:
My prey was moving quickly towards the kitchen. He was hungry. His fast movements meant he was solely thinking of food, but the fact that he was moving much slower than he normally would meant that he was tired. His defenses were down. I could relax a bit.
I swung from railing to railing following my prey down the hallway until he arrived at the refrigerator. There, I began my attack. I dropped from the railing onto him my arms around his throat, one leg wrapped around his, and the other around his waist. "Help!" he shouted before I moved a hand up to cover his mouth.
"Silence your pathetic whining or you will find things go much worse for the wear," I commanded.
He furrowed his eyebrows like he was confused. "I am about to let you go, but you must not utter a sound. If you make so much of a peep, rest assured I will be there to muffle it," I warned.
The man nodded his head up and down quickly and by the beating of his heart I realized he was genuinely afraid. I slowly let him go, and he proceeded to speed off in the direction of the hallway he had walked down to make his way towards the kitchen, but I had already predicted his move and threw a grenade that did not explode but just released a net around him before he could make it out of range.
I watched him struggle with the net until he spotted someone's shoes. He looked up to see the person of whom they belonged to, and his eyes rested on my older brother Clint. "Barton, there's a crazy girl in here who was trying to... I don't know, but she caught me in this thing," explained the man still trying to wriggle his way free.
I watched as Clint stepped over him and walked over to me. "Excellent work, Y/N. You'll make a great Avenger yet," he said smiling at me.
"Thanks, but you know, I learn from the best," I replied.
"Pssh," responded Clint waving his hand.
I smiled as I saw the man finally escape his trap. He stood up his facial expression one of anger, surprise, admiration, and fear. "Who's this, and why is she joining us?" asked the man.
"This is my adopted little sister," said Clint putting his arm around me.
"So there's two Bartons now," the man said.
"There's two Maximoffs. There we're even," replied Clint.
"Hi, I'm Y/N," I said sticking my hand out for him to shake it.
"I'm Pietro. You got in the way of my snack," Pietro said pushing past me to get to the fridge.
I grinned at him, and I could tell he hated me already. When he finally found what he was looking for, he turned around to see me perched on the counter staring at him. "So are you and Barton both predatory birds?" he asked a little thrown off by my presence.
"Yeah. Proof that it's not all in the genes," I said smiling obnoxiously at Pietro.
He began walking away slowly eyeing me suspiciously. "Oh, Pietro," I called.
"What?" he asked.
"Cute accent," I replied, and with that I began my aerobatics to get me back up to the railing in the ceiling and went swinging away.
"Pietro, wake up," said Clint shaking the man awake.
"What? What do you want?" he groaned wincing at the bright sunlight streaming through his window.
"Today you start training with Y/N," said my brother.
"Yeah, but Steve usually doesn't start training until much later," stated Pietro sitting up.
The sheets fell away, and I could get a good look at my prey... a very good look. "No, you misunderstood me. Y/N will be training you," said Barton.
"What? No, I should be training her!" exclaimed Pietro.
"You've only been here three months," argued my brother.
"And she hasn't been here for a full week," shot back Pietro.
"Yeah, well you need help in the dodging fast objects department, and I'm a bit busy so the next best to help you is her. Besides, we don't need a repeat of Sokovia now do we?" asked my brother raising his eyebrows.
Pietro sulked. "No," he responded.
"Alright then. Rise and shine," said my brother walking out the room leaving me behind.
"Alright, Pietro Maximoff. Let's begin," I said when we got to our designated training room.
He folded his arms and huffed. "Alright, so, I'd like you avoid being hit by one of my arrows," I said reaching back to draw a bow from my quiver, but before I could even touch an arrow I found myself pinned up against a wall. Pietro stood in front of me with his arms holding mine down grinning madly like he had just won a championship. "Very impressive. Very very impressive. But not always are you going to be prepared for someone to shoot straight in the middle of your heart," I said with an evil smirk on my face.
Pietro smirked back. "Ah, but see not all the time will the person who is pinning you to this wall be so friendly," quipped back Pietro.
"Yeah, you're right. Ususally they're a lot friendlier," I whispered the last part in his ear.
He moved back a bit to look at me, but before he could say anything else, an arrow shot right past his head sticking into the wall. He jumped off of me and recoiled back halfway across the room in a matter of milliseconds. "What was that?" he half-exclaimed.
"A message from my big brother," I replied.
I stared at the arrow before saying, "Okay, really, back to training."
"So, highly trained assassin?" asked Nat at dinner.
"Yeah. Clint must've told you," I said eating quickly.
"No. No, he didn't. Why not?" asked Natasha looking over at Clint.
"Because I lost her. I only just recently found her... we've been separated for so long," responded Clint looking down.
"Wasn't your fault," I said reaching out to touch his hand.
"So you're a bird like Hawk. Show me. Show me, show me, show me, show me, show me," pleaded Tony.
"Alright," I said an evil grin forming on my face.
I diverted my gaze away from my prey, but directed all my mental attention on him. His muscles tensed in the corner of my eye. He was anticipating the attack. His sister's eyes widened, and I could tell she knew what I had planned. I slightly quirked an eyebrow at her, and she got the message to shut up. I took a carrot from my plate and put it on my fork aiming it directly at a salt shaker standing directly opposite it on a counter. My prey relaxed. He thought the carrot was meant for the salt shaker. Quick as ever, I jumped on the table, and ran across it jumping on the table, to the counter, to the refrigerator, to the top of the cabinets doing as many acrobatics as I needed to get me to the railing on the ceiling. On the way, I had grabbed a red solo cup that was lying somewhere on the counter and carried it with me. I released it when I got just in the right distance from Pietro letting it fall on his head. I then let go of the ceiling falling hard enough back onto the table so that the fork tuned to line up with the red cup. Without even looking at Pietro, I let my hand fall on the edge of the fork flinging the carrot smack dead into the center of the cup which fell off Pietro's head. The Avengers cheered.
"So you're a complicated, immature William Tell?" asked Stark raising an eyebrow.
"Precisely," I said standing up on the table and curtseying.
"So, the difference between you and the Hawk over here is that you can fly too?" asked Pietro scowling.
"Only for you, dear," I replied winking.
Nat gave me a strange look.
I volunteered to help clean up after dinner. No one was around as everyone else had gone to sleep. I was surprised when I heard the clicking of footsteps. "He likes you. You know it. You pretend he's just a game your playing. Prey you're hunting. No one could ever like you. You were trained to kill without flinching as a child, and it just won't leave you," said a female voice.
I turned to see Natasha looking at me. "Yeah, I suppose you'd know. You don't know how hard it is to feel attraction for someone after leaving love behind with breast milk," I ground out, "You've got Banner. Yeah, I've noticed. That part of you didn't die. I hate Pietro. I hate him because the only feeling I can associate with feeling as strong as love is hate. I want to kill him. I see him as prey because I feel the urge to pounce."
"No, you feel the urge to fly. It's new, and you can't stand it. I thought I left love behind too... but then I met someone who needed me, and I realized love is just as much about the other person as it is you. Banner taught me peace. Pietro can teach you how to fly," said Nat walking away.
The short training sessions Pietro and I had ended quickly as he developed the art of dodging my weaponry quite well. He was surprised when I asked him after our sessions were over if I could join him on the couch and watch TV. He was watching a broadcast in his own language, but he explained to me what was going on. He became used to having me around- especially on his daily refrigerator raids.
One day on one of those raids, Pietro stopped and looked up to see me fly from metal bar to metal bar. When I noticed him looking, I stopped moving hanging upside down by my legs with my arms crossed. "What?" I asked.
"Where did you learn how to fly?" he questioned.
"I taught myself... funny thing is, I hadn't done it in awhile until the day I met you," I said.
Pietro smiled and continued his trek to the kitchen. When he was done in the fridge, there I was perched on the counter waiting for him to notice me. "So why do you fly when you're around me?" asked Pietro.
"Um, I used to think I knew. Now, I'm not so sure," I replied looking down.
A few seconds later, I felt fingers underneath my chin willing my head up, and Pietro's lips were on mine. It was in that moment that I realized why I flew. It was not so I could kill him. It was because I could soar above that part of myself and grasp onto that new part I had. The part called love.