Ok, ok, I admit I'm a little biased towards Cassie, but she's one of my favorite characters, and I think I quite understand why she left the team in the Civil War (she didn't in the Mighty Avengers case, and that's final!), even if she made a mistake.

Anyway, since all those fanfics with her branded a traitor, I think she deserves something better than just being ashamed and stuff!

Sadly, I don't own any character; Marvel does!

Not a Traitor

"I'm just saying I don't understand why the hell there are still two Avengers team!" Billy said, perplexed. "It' not a bad thing, you know. They can rotate : one team goes to take down a supervillainy supreme ruler wannabe, and the other can stay here as reserve!" replied Teddy. Kate said matter-of-factly from her seat : "Yeah! Too bad they didn't ask any of us to join, I wouldn't mind go first-class sometimes!" That was too much of a temptation for Tommy, who casually said, looking purposely out of the window : "Well, in my opinion they should've formed another team, formed by all the turncoats... this way, it would be more difficult to do that more than once!"

The comment was met with silence and awkward looks and, in Vision's case, open annoyance; Tommy could find countless pretexts to remember them he hadn't forgiven Cassie for leaving them. And usually, she replied by looking ashamed and lowering her head.

Not this time.

"Ok, I'm through with this!" The angry tone of her voice surprised the speedster, who looked up, but what he saw was the hand of a twelve foot sized Stature about to grab him; a second later, he was hopelessly trapped in Cassie's grip. The others looked at her with stunned surprise, then Kate exclaimed, jumping up : "Cassie! Put him down, he didn't mean..." She trailed off, as she knew all too well he meant what he had said.

The young superheroine didn't move her eyes from Speed, who was quite far from his comfort zone. "Listen up, mister! You know what my father was before becoming Ant-Man?" she said in a low, dangerous tone. Tommy managed to shake his head no, and she went on : "He was a electronics expert, who to sustain hi family turned to burglary. He was caught and went to prison for three years. I was too little to clearly understand what was going on, but later my mother made sure I knew my father had been a thief; it was one of the major causes of their divorce. Can you understand how this hit me?" Again, the now-trembling Speed motioned negatively. "Since my mother won custody over me, I had to listen again and again how his actions ended their marriage, made him a less-than-honorable human being, voided everything good he later made as a superhero; having a cop as a stepfather didn't help, either. Because all he could think about being a stepfather was comparing his law-and-order stuff with my 'felon' father!" She paused a little while, briefly looking around, and seeing all the others listening to her, still in semi-shock. "Then that whole Civil War thing came off. And after that battle I quit. Now I bitterly regret that, but you fail to grasp two things, my dear quick-tempered speedster : one, for the aforementioned reasons, I had had quite a difficult time being on the wrong side of the law, even if the law itself was wrong! Second, did you ever think that maybe I was a little scared from what happened to Goliath? That Thor clone zapped him dead! I... I was afraid I was next! First the giant man, then the giant girl! Did any of you think about that?" She looked in the eyes of her teammates, which looked away (in Teddy's and Billy's cases) or glared back (in Eli's, Kate's and Vision's cases) in a way that was a clear answer : no.

Calming down a little bit, she let go of Tommy, who fell on a chair, heavily breathing, and returned to her normal size. "You don't have to tell me I screwed up; I know I shouldn't have gotten scared that way. But being a recently killed superhero's daughter can put on you quite a burden; and as much as I want to better myself, I'm still an insecure, self-conscious fifteen years old girl." This time, the silence lasted longer. Then, Cassie spoke up again, now with sadness in her voice.

"I admit that for that thing you can rightly blame me, up to a point. But scoffing at me for 'bailing out' with the Mighty Avengers... well, I'm sorry, but I'm not accepting that! Jonas" and she pointed to the synthezoid, "and me were practically kidnapped by that fake Scarlet Witch, actually a disguised Loki, to form that team, and we decided to hang around them just after they told them we could still be Young Avengers! But of course, you had to assume we just went to them and begged them for membership, hadn't you?" Tommy at that point was dearly wishing he had said nothing.

Cassie was on the brink of tears, as her rage had burned out. "It's true, I can make a mistake, and I made some; I gladly take responsibility for them, but I can't stand someone judging me without properly knowing me, Tommy! I may screw up as everyone else, but not for that I can accept to be called a traitor! I just want to make my best... but at least you should give me that in the times past, it was quite hard to say what was the best I... we could do!" And with that, she exited the room, hiding her face in her hands.

Tommy looked at Kate, who was looking at him with quite an annoyed expression. He stammered : "I... I didn't know... I didn't think..." "Well, maybe that's the problem, Tommy. You should think before acting!" was the reply. Jonas, looking quite embarassed (could a synthezoid look embarassed?), stepped towards the door, saying : "Well, I think... I should go and check on her, making sure she's alright!" "Don't worry, Vizh." Eli said to him curtly. He was, too, looking at Tommy. As Vision exited, he told Speed with a stern tone : "I want to say this just once, Tommy, so listen carefully. We know what Cassie did, and we forgave her. As she said, we all can make mistakes. And sometimes, it causes more damage someone who turns his back to a friend who wants to make amends, than what he actually did. So, matter's closed. I don't want to hear any more 'traitor' stuff, is that clear?"

Notwithstanding the situation, the eagerness with which Tommy nodded made Billy chuckle a bit. After all, that was something any family had to confront sooner or later : forgiveness. And that was a lesson much better learnt sooner than later.

Let us forgive each other, only then will we leave in peace – Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoj