I hate winter, it's too cold. It's February now and last I checked, it was 15 degrees out. My costume isn't doing much to keep me warm for some reason and the wind's just making things worse. The Young Avengers can hardly even pass as assembled now. It's just Vision, Speed, and myself. On the bright side not many criminals feel like coming out in this weather either.

A bank alarm starts to sound.

Unfortunately, there are still those who don't care how cold it is.

"Freeze!" I said as we entered the bank. "Literally, freeze. It's cold enough to do it and it's only going to make things easier for us," I attempted to make a lame joke. Spider-Man was starting to rub off on me.

Shocker and Boomerang turned to face us. "You kids are really starting to piss us off, especially little Spider-Boy over there," Shocker sneered.

"Aww, Shocker I'm hurt by that. We came all the way out here, in the cold, just to see you guys," I went on with my joking. I needed some practice. Plus, I was distracting them while Vision phased into the floor. Boomerang threw three boomerangs at us and Shocker used his vibro-shockers to blast us. Speed moved across the room and out of the way easily but I was a different story. I didn't have my spider-senses and reflexes today unfortunately. I had my super strength, webbing, and ability to stick to walls. The latest three of Beast's formulas. I did the only I could think of and dropped to the floor as fast as I could, barely avoiding the attacks. I shot webbing at Shocker and covered his vibro-shockers. Vision emerged from the floor and thrusted his arms into the two and Speed ran behind them and knocked their heads together super fast, knocking them out. I walked over and wrapped them together with my webbing before the three of us left.

"That's a horrible power combination," I complained when we got back into the mansion. "Those would've been useful against the Sentinel though."

"Yeah, but those guys hardly ever do anything major. They're like Beavis and Butt-head. I bet you would've been able to take them done on your own like that if you had to," Tommy pointed out. "I know I could've. So could Vision. I actually thought about it for a sec."

"True, that probably would've taken too long though," I pointed out.

"Oh yeah, you have that date with... what's her name?" Tommy asked.

"Miu, isn't it?" Vision asked.

"Yeah, I'm supposed to pick her up in like an hour," I said.

"I still don't think it was a wise move that you let her know who you are so early," Vision scolded me.

"What was I supposed to do? Go on dates with her in costume?" I asked retoriclly. "She's a mutant. Just like me. She won't tell anyone."

"Look at it this way Vision, it's like if say... Ms Marvel went and ratted us out. We're all superheroes here so we're not gonna rat each other out, same goes for mutants basicly," Tommy explained.

"I never thought about it that way. I suppose you're right Thomas" Vision said.

An hour later I was standing on Miu's doorstep and realized something: Miu hadn't seen my face yet. Note entirely at least. That made me kind of uneasy. I don't know why. I started staring at the mailbox. "Sameshima" it read. I was prolonging ringing the doorbell. Regadless, I finally decided to end my self-torment and ring it.

"Hello?" a middle-aged Japanese woman opened the door.

"Hi, I'm Jason..." I wasn't exactly sure how to introduce myself. Picking up a girl at her house and meeting her mom was yet another first for me.

"Miu-chan!"she called upstairs along with something else in Japanese that I couldn't understand. While Miu was answering, also in Japanese, her mother said, "Come in, come in. She'll be down in a moment." She led me into a living room on the left when Miu came down the stairs.

"I heard him before he rung the doorbell," Miu told her mom when she walked in. "Hi Jason," she smiled and waved at me before sitting down next to me.

"Now, you say Jason is a mutant too?" Mrs. Sameshima asked.

"Yes," Miu and I answered simotaneously.

"And you go to the Xavier School for the Gifted?" she went on.

"Yes," I repeated myself, "I've been going there for almost a year now."

"Your parents are fine with this?"

"I'm not sure... they died before I enrolled," I explained. And that was the first I spoke of my parents in months.

"Oh... I'm sorry I asked. I-" Miu's mom started apologizing.

"No, no, it's fine. I'm okay, really," I reassured her. I don't know why but I can't say I ever really felt like their death was real. I miss them and everything but the way they died doesn't make sense to me. They apparently died in a car crash but that didn't seem right. Both of my parents were good drivers but then again I could just been overthinking this whole thing. Maybe it's because I never actually saw their bodies, other than at the funeral.

"Enough about you now. Miu, tell Jason about yourself," Mrs. Sameshima changed the subject after a few seconds of awkward silence.

"Oh, yeah, right," Miu snapped back to attention. "Well... you already know about my superhearing. And umm... My parents moved her from Osaka like a year before I was born. My mom teaches a mythology class at NYU and my dad runs a travel agency. And I go to public school..." Miu looked to her mom before finishing with, "Yep."

"Okay, well you two enjoy yourselves, and be careful," she told Miu and I before starting to say something in Japanese again. After about a minute of me not understanding what they were saying to each other we left and started walking downtown.

"Sorry about my mom," Miu apologized.

"Don't worry about it," I told her.

"Hey... umm... do you mind if I ask you something?" Miu asked.

"Shoot," I agreed.

"Were your parents mutants?" she asked quietly.

"No... I mean if they were then I didn't know but I think they would've told me," I started. "I think my grandpa was though. He fought in World War II and he told me he'd never fired a gun before joining the army but when he started he never missed anything he shot. Even when he played games like darts he never missed. They used to call him Crackshot."

"So he was like Hawkeye basicly?" Miu asked.

"Guess so," I answered. "So, what movie do you want to see?"

"Umm... I kind of wanted to My Bloody Valentine," Miu said.

"Okay, let's go then," I agreed.

Two hours later Miu and I were walking in a very cold Time Square. I had my left arm wrapped around her and she was pressing herself against me to keep warm.

"That part when the guy got his eye picked out was gross," Miu said with chattering teeth.

"Looked kind of fake to me," I replied.

"Liar. You jumped, I saw you," Miu giggled a bit.

"Yeah, well when he got the girl in the motel you screamed," I pointed out.

"Well I'm not the superhero here, am I?"

"Touche." I said. "You wanna go somewhere warm?"

"Yesyesyesyes!" Miu exclaimed. "There's a coffee place like... 2 blocks from here. Let's go there."

Miu practiclly had us running to the coffee shop but it was worth it. It was warm in there. Miu and I got some coffee and sat down at a table and started talking some more.

"So..." Miu started.

"You look great. I don't think I told you that yet," I said.

"Thanks," Miu blushed.

Suddenly my phone started ringing. I looked at it and saw that Tommy was calling me. I picked it up, "Tommy this better be important."

"It is. Kate and Eli are missing," he told me.

"What?" I asked.

"I called them and they didn't pick up and I looked everywhere for them. They're nowhere!" he explained.

"Calm down dude. Maybe they're at the-" I started.

"Movies? NO! I checked every thearter, I checked every gym. I even checked libraries! I can't find them!" Tommy kept panicing.

"Look dude... just calm down. Unless like... Ultron just killed all the Avengers then don't worry about them. They'll show up. Maybe they went somewhere and forgot to tell us," I suggested.

Tommy sighed, "Fine." He hung up.

"Sorry about that," I told Miu.

"It's okay. Superhero stuff?" she asked.

"Yeah. Sort of. Speed thinks Patriot and Hawkeye disappeared," I explained. "It's probably nothing."

"Oh, okay. So... what's it like?"

"What?" I wasn't sure what she was talking about.

"Being a superhero," she whispered.

"Oh, that? It's... harder than it looks. And painful sometimes," I explained.

"Ahh, makes me kind of glad I only have superhearing," Miu joked.

"I'm glad that's all you have too, otherwise you might not have needed to save you and we would've never met," I agreed.

Miu smiled then leaned over the table and kissed me. "Thanks for saving me."

***

The next day Beast told me that he had the formulas all finished and that they should give me back my powers permanently. I looked at the individually labeled needles he had out for me when I walked into the lab: "super-stength", "agility", "spider-sense", "webs", "stick to walls".

"Did I ever tell you how much I hate needles?" I asked Beast as I injected myself with "agility".

"Last I checked you claimed you didn't mind needles," Beast asked.

"Yeah, well it's not that I'm afraid of getting them it's just that after a few injections it gets really annoying," I explained.

"Ahh, well on the bright side this is the last you'll need to take to recover your powers," Beast pointed out as I finished injecting "super-strength" and started moving on to "spider-sense".

"Thanks again for this Beast, really. This means so much to me," I thanked Beast again.

"The pleasure is mine Jason. You're situation was a rather intriging one and I'm honored that you asked me to help," Beast replied.

"I'm glad you were able to help."

***

Later when I was finishing up my shift at the comic shop Miu had come over to visit me. We were going to hang out as long as I didn't get called by the Young Avengers. "Hey," Miu said flirtatiously as she walked in.

"Hey there beautiful. Anything look good?" I smiled at her.

"The hot guy behind the counter looks good. How much?" Miu asked.

"Hmm..." I pretended to think for a second, "We're actually having a special today. If you can say 'I'm buying the pizza' in Japanese then he's free."

Miu said something in Japanese that I had to assume was "I'm buying the pizza" before she started pulling on my arm saying, "Come on...." she whined.

"Yeah, okay," I agreed. "Just let me grab my coat." While I was putting it on I asked, "Did you actually say it?"

"Nope. I said 'Nice try but no thanks'," Miu answered.

"It was worth a try."

"A valiant effort. How about we go back to my house, order a pizza that you'll pay for, and watch a movie or something?" Miu suggested.

"Let's see..." I pretended that I needed to think about, "I can live with that."

While were waiting for the pizza Miu was looking around her room for a DVD. Her room was kind of cluttered. There was a hamper overflowing with clothes that were now starting to fall on the floor in the corner of the room. She had a desk and a bookshelf on the wall opposite her closet. The desk had a lamp, books, notebooks, pens, a soccer trophy, a picture frame with a picture of Miu in a soccer uniform in it, a half eaten Hershey bar, and an mp3 player on it. The bookcase contained an assortment of books, DVDs, and CDs that looked to be randomly placed on the shelves. Next to the door was a tv and on the wall opposite a bed with a nightstand next to it. The walls were decorated with an assortment of posters, mostly of bands, some of movies, most of which were in Japanese. And there was a soccer ball in the middle of the floor.

"You play soccer?" I asked looking at the picture on her desk. She looked cute in it.

"Yeah, love it," Miu answered.

"Good?"

"Made varsity forward in my freshman year, I guess that would make me good," Miu explained modestly.

"Nice. So, what movie are we gonna watch?"

"You ever see Wanted?" Miu asked while she was feeling for something under her bed.

"No," I replied.

"What's wrong with you?" Miu asked retorically. "We're watching it... once I find it."

"Okay," I said as I sat down on her bed on a lump I didn't notice. "Your bed's lumpy."

"Sorry... I needa clean it. Did you sit on a book?" Miu asked.

"I really don't know what it was." I admitted, " And I'm kind of afraid to look."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" Miu threw a shoe at me, that I caught(gotta love spider-senses), as she came up from under her bed and placed her hands on her hips.

"It means I'm afraid I'll find a body in there if I checked," I joked.

"Oh, I'll give you a body to worry about," Miu smiled flirtaciously before throwing herself on top of me. I fell onto another lump as we started to kiss but I ignored that. Miu sure was something else. We kept kissing for another minute before we rolled a little bit and fell off the bed.

"Ow," Miu rubbed her elbow. "Oh, hey found it!" Miu reached her arm over my head and pulled a DVD out from under her bed. "And the pizza's here." A few seconds later the doorbell rang.

"Want me to go get that?" I asked.

"Yep." she said as she turned on the DVD player.

--Two hours later...--

"Wow... that was-"

"Amazing?" Miu finished my sentence.

"Yeah. I really did not expect that ending. Crazy..." I let out a sigh.

"I love that movie," Miu said.

"I can see why," I replied.

"So... what now?" Miu asked.

"I... don't know exactly... I've still got like... half an hour before I really need to go be a superhero," I explained.

"Ooh! I got an idea," Miu ran over to her closet.

"What?" I asked clueless to what her idea could be.

"I'm gonna sing to you," Miu sang as she pulled a set of iPod speakers out of her closet. She brought it over to her desk and plugged it in then put her iPod in it and started a song. It was in Japanese so I was clueless to what the lyrics were supposed to mean, but Miu's voice was good. "How'd you like that?" Miu asked once she finished the song.

"It was good, I just had no idea what you were singing," I told her.

"Yeah, I figured you probably wouldn't but it's my favorite so you had to hear me sing it," Miu explained picking up her soccer ball from the floor.

"You really are something," I admired Miu. I didn't realize how much I grew to like her in the short time we've known each other. She wasn't Kitty, that's for sure. She wasn't a person I could compare with Kitty either though.

"Funny thing is you're the Avenger here, not that I'm not amazed with you or anything," Miu said as she bounced it against her wall.

"Young Avenger actually," I corrected her.

"Same thing," Miu threw the ball at my head.

As I caught it I replied by saying, "Can't argue with a comp,liment like that." Miu and I continued to talk for ten more minutes before I looked at the time and realized I should leave. "I've gotta go... I'll call you tonight." I kissed her on the lips.

"You better," Miu smiled at me walking me to the door and opening it for me. Before I stepped out she hugged me, "Bye."

"Bye, I'll miss you," I replied kissing her again before actually leaving.

While I was walking to Avengers Mansion I felt my spider-sense start to go off. I turned to see what it was but everything blacked out before I could.