*Author's Note: If you haven't read Chapters 1 and 2 since Chapter 3 was uploaded, please do so! I updated them so they're longer and a little different.
The Avengers are formidable. Pietro knows this. He saw them in the guards' minds and in Strucker's mind but that does not prepare him to see them in action. They are … strong, impressive, intimidating. They are able to work cohesively, to have each other's backs and to trust each other. Pietro found himself watching them closely feeling as though he had lost something. He felt as if he once had something similar to what the Avengers have together. But he didn't and never had it. He was alone and he always had been.
Hawkeye intrigued Pietro the most out of all the Avengers. The man, Clint Barton, was able to keep up with the rest of them using only a bow and arrow. He also did what he did without enhancements of any kind nor was he a genius like Stark or Banner. He was the most normal of them all, yet perhaps the most important. Barton was their eyes in the sky, the sniper more suited for long range attacks rather than close quarters or hand to hand, and an infiltrator, scout, assassin.
Hawkeye was also interesting to Pietro because Pietro could sense his emotions and surface thoughts but nothing more. Everything else was guarded and hidden. It was as if someone had been traipsing in Barton's mind before him and utterly destroyed it, completely taken over him, leaving it broken and vulnerable. And now to protect itself and similar to something the human body would do, his brain had adapted. His mind had grown back stronger than before and more resilient to outside forces. It fascinated Pietro, the tenacity of the human mind as demonstrated before him by Barton. However, with Pietro's level of power it would be all too easy for Pietro, if he wished, to brush Barton's mediocre defenses aside and gain access to the deeper levels of his mind.
Something hummed in the background and Pietro reacts before he even realized what he was doing. He rushes toward Hawkeye, knocking him over as a blast of blue energy hit the tree Barton had just been standing in front of. Essentially Pietro had protected Barton from a potentially fatal injury.
"You didn't see that coming?" Pietro asked his voice taunting and accent thick. He slowly circled Barton a few times, watching him recover. Pietro frowned. It looked like he had broken a few of Barton's ribs when he knocked him down. Strangely this fact distressed him. For some reason, Pietro didn't want to hurt Barton. Pietro sped off after that realization. He was so confused and that distressed him further.
Laughing albeit hysterically, Pietro caught the arrow Barton shot after him. He waved in Barton's incredulous face before tossing it to the side. Racing away Pietro spared one last look at Hawkeye before something exploded to his right and he refocused on his running.
-Line Break-
Clint had wandered away from the rest of the Avengers to catch any stragglers and take out any outlying outposts he came across when something, someone, slammed into him. He heard the blast of one of the energy cannons the guards liked to use pass over head. The boy, who was now circling him, had pushed him out of the way. Clint winced. It was at the expense of a few broken or cracked ribs but that was better than being hit by one of those energy blasts.
"You didn't see that coming?" The kid was taunting him. He had a Sokovian accent, so he was a local. However, Clint didn't know how he got the super speed. Had Strucker moved onto human enhancements and experiments rather than advanced technology like their intel stated? They knew he had several Chitauri artifacts and specimens and it was rumored he had Loki's scepter. The scepter was the reason the Avengers had shown up to deal with him. Ever since the fall of SHIELD some things had slowly disintegrated without SHIELD influence and the Avengers had been left to pick up the bigger things. Without SHIELD supervision and interference, the Avengers had started to come under scrutiny as they began to work autonomously.
The kid frowned and ran off as Clint struggled to his feet, trying to avoid jostling his ribs. Clint shot an arrow at his retreating back and was impressed when the kid plucked it out of the air. The kid waved it at him before tossing it to the side as he raced off again. Clint watched avidly as the arrow landed in the bunker that had shot at him before it exploded.
There were other variables in this fight now. They had an enhanced in the field and it seemed his loyalty was unknown. He acted hostile at first but he saved Clint and then took out one of the guards' bunkers.
-Line Break-
Pietro zig-zagged his way through the Avengers, watching them fight. Suddenly he was jolted out of stride. He had bumped into the Captain. Pietro got lost for a few brief seconds in the Captain's jumbled mind. Cold. The Captain was afraid of the cold. The Soldier flashed in his mind and then a strange, happy version with short hair. Pain. Who the hell is Bucky? Heartbreak. Hate. An odd symbol, like a skull with six octopus-like arms. Loneliness. A man out of time. Pietro paused slightly and watched the Captain with wide eyes filled with an unknown emotion. He rushed off again, his mind filled with turmoil.
-Line Break-
Steve was surprised when he was knocked to the ground. A boy, the one who had hit him, stood oddly sprawled before him, panting slightly as if had been running. He was maybe 20 years old with odd bleached blond hair and his blue eyes were so wide and scared. The boy's skin was pale as if he hadn't been out doors in a long time and Steve could see a multitude of silvery scars on his body. What was he doing out here, on a battlefield? Why, before, had he only been a silvery blue blur on the field? Steve was even more shocked when images and emotions that weren't his filtered in his mind.
Various experiments, tests and tortures, he experienced them all first firsthand. It was sickening and terrifying. Had this boy been through those things? Was Stucker doing human experimentation? Then a girl with long cinnamon brown hair and eyes that flashed an odd scarlet color. She was accompanied by feelings of loneliness and confusion. Who was she? And lastly Steve saw Bucky, or the Winter Soldier he guessed. Watching him as he was strapped down into a char that cracked with electricity. Fear and overwhelming pain. And then he felt empty, lost.
Steve felt strangely hollow as he watched the boy speed off using his enhancement. Left echoing in his mind was a feeling of desolation and a single thought. Help me.
"We have an enhanced in the field," Steve informed the team almost sadly.
-Line Break-
Pietro was confused and distressed as he watched somewhat curiously as the Captain confronted Strucker. He had experienced so many emotions today. It was strange for Pietro. When he was noticed and Strucker's mind became hopeful, Pietro pushed the Captain down a flight of stairs with the red energy. Before racing away, he pinned the Captain with a pleading gaze. Pietro ran, slamming the doors behind him with his power and leaving Strucker to his fate. He could feel Stark deeper in the fortress.