"We don't want power, we want SHIELD and Russia and everyone to leave Sokovia alone," Wanda said, her hair pulled back into a bun, her eyes sharp. Her hair was browner than I had expected - Still red tinted, not quite as strong. We were speaking in the local dialect of Serbian and my accent was admirably thick, but they were putting up with it.

"Power is the only path to liberation for Sokovia," I said, my voice steady. "Power enough to protect yourselves, to change the course of Sokovia."

Giving people super powers is risky business. Giving people the Super Soldier Serum is even riskier. As far as I could tell when I was on Erskine, the personality effects are fairly mild - Mostly increasing confidence, the sort of thing you would expect when you went from a normal human being to a titan of physical musculature and health who could live to be comfortably a hundred and thirty. It was the effect you had on other people that was the real difference. Red Skull, Captain America, the Erskine Enhanciles. They had moved nations, changed the world. Inspired fanatical devotion.

"What kind of power," Wanda asked, taking the lead on the negotiation while her brother tried to menace behind her. "Can we stops tanks and bullets?" The Maximoff siblings began their life as anti-war organizers, a fact that brought me a great deal of pleasure. For my purposes, this is a perfect disposition. SHIELD was being petitioned to intervene there, they were petitioning for a free government.

I slid her a picture of Captain America from the war, "That kind of power." It said

She picked up the picture and held it in her hand before she threw it to the ground. "We don't need more soldiers."

"I'm not looking to make you one," I said politely, leaning down and picking the picture up, folding it in my hand. "I'm looking to set you free to protect Sokovia as you see fit. Captain America, the Red Skull, both had a charismatic power to them. You know people, but you're basically anonymous. Just two kids, living hand to mouth, trying to make the world a better place. I sympathize with your cause. I can make you icons."

"And why would you do that?" This kid was remarkably cold and suspicious for someone who got suckered by Ultron. I guess the contexts were different.

"The world is very interconnected now," I said, trying not to spout off about the drawbacks of globalization and the exploitative nature of capitalist extraction from developing nations that had undergirded both superpowers' international strategies in the Cold War, "And it can no longer afford to be interconnected on the basis of force. The time is already here where there need to be… bonds of friendship. But friendship isn't born on the edge of the sword."

"And this is your beatific gift?" Wanda asked, leaning back as if the thought appealed to her.

"Sometimes I may ask you for help," I conceded, "To protect the world from tail threats. And I'd like you not to ever mention it was me. I don't think that's objectionable, do you?"

Wanda turned to her brother, who was pacing anxiously and he nodded.

"Alright, we'll do it."

——

The lightshow and screaming came to their ends pretty quickly from within the pods and I switched them off. Wanda and Pietro stepped out of their green pods in my mobile tent. Pietro was six and a half feet tall now, all lean muscle. Without looking I tossed Wanda a shirt. Pietro laughed, "Surely you've seen plenty of ladies."

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"I'm engaged," I said sitting down on a stool next to my lone desk and shrinking both the pods once they were clear. The whole process was much easier in the twenty first century.

"It worked," Wanda said after she pulled on the shirt. She was shorter than Pietro at six feet tall but she was much buffer than an average woman. More of a mixed martial arts build than the Body Builder Captain American, but it was a very much muscular build. "So are you going to use it on yourself?" She asked.

"Can't," I said, tapping my skull. "Not sure this thing is vanilla and I don't want to risk it." I was sure it wasn't vanilla and didn't want to risk it, but it was barely even a lie.

"Fair enough," she said, lifting the shirt to touch her abs.

Pietro was standing on his hands as an exercise, then on one hand as an exercise, then on one finger. Much more aggressive with his powers. Interesting. "So this is it, we part ways here until you send up a signal flare."

"That's about the size of it," I said, taking out a measuring tape and walking over to him. My senses were very precise, but I wanted to make sure I got measurements right, "I'm going to be making you both combat gear. But you want your country to be free, so I don't imagine most of it will be useful."

"People will listen to us?" Wanda asked, spinning around like a ballerina .

"It's not magic. I'm not even sure how it works. But the experimental evidence points towards yes on this question and you're leaders already," I said. I wrapped the measuring tape around his upper torso.

"We are," Pietro agreed. He looked down at his clothes. "Leaders who are going to need new clothes."

I laughed and fiddled through the bracelet of charms, unhooking a suitcase on it and dropping it onto the ground. I sized it up. "I can't escape you if you decide to stop me," I admitted. "You're faster and stronger than me. I wanted anonymity so I didn't bring my usual guards. But if I go missing and your mutation is known to the public, the people who figure it out will have you killed." Or brainwashed like the Winter Soldier. "And I don't want that. It gets in the way. There's five hundred thousand American dollars in that case." I enlarged it with a click of a button. "Up to you."

"I wasn't threatening you," Pietro said, his head lurching back in offense.

"Sincerely," Wanda said, walking up next to me. "Thank you for caring about Sokovia." She wrapped her arms around me in a hug. I was so stunned that I froze stock stiff and she pulled back and looked at me cautiously. "Sorry," she said softly. "I didn't mean t-"

I felt strangely naked, receiving unconditional warmth from the twins. I wondered if it was the charisma of the Super Soldiers or if it was just... how different this was from working with Hydra. "It's fine," I said shaking my head clear. "I'm just.... used to more cutthroat environment. You're welcome."

Eventually I left, but that stuck in my mind.