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The team sat around the table discussing how Connor had always been quite hot-headed but she was even worse now. Tony raised his hand awkwardly and they all turned to look at him.

"I've done some digging; Connor told us that shifters have two eye colours: red and yellow. Right?" The team nodded and Tony continued. "Her brother had blue eyes when he shifted. It says on his file that it was because he killed an innocent and when that happens it takes a piece of their soul and they aren't the same afterwards." The team sat in shock before Bruce broke the silence.

"What do we actually know about Connor's background though? Like I for one didn't know she had a brother." The team all mumbled in agreement, even Natasha and Clint. They all were realising that none of them knew a lot about Connor and the things they did know was common knowledge to most people.

"You guys haven't seen her scars, have you?" Steve said softly and the whole team looked at him, panicked looks on their faces.

"Scars?" Natasha questioned slept and the super solider nodded before looking to Tony.

"Ask JARVIS if he has footage from the training gym when Connor was last in." Tony did and soon JARVIS had pulled up the footage of Connor really punching the bag hard and the team were shocked at how much anger she had. They watched Steve's conversation with her and everyone gasped as they saw the scars on her stomach and back.

Tony closed the video footage and they all took deep breaths. Thor was being unusually quiet but he was in shock at what she had gone through and they knew they didn't know the worst of it.

"When she came back, she had yellow eyes. Not red." Bruce pointed out and the whole team confirmed this before they all remembered that she had told them she couldn't shift on TV because her eyes were back to being red and she knew it would just bring up more questions.

"That bracelet too, she told Jamieson Hunter that it was a present from us but I've never seen the thing in my life apart from her wearing it all the time." JARVIS interrupted Tony.

"It has a high level of energy that is radiated off the band." Tony thanked him quickly before continuing.

"What's worried me is that she seems to almost not be on our side anymore." Thor said slowly and Clint expanded on his thought.

"Something has obviously happened to her out there that was an experience that she can't get over but I get the feeling that even if she did want to tell us that there's secret information that someone has told her not to tell us."

They all exchanged glances and Pepper spoke up. "Well, you better go find her." She motioned for Happy to follow her and the two left the room, the rest of the Avengers staring after her in shock.

Natasha looked at the rest of the group, a confused look protruding her features and she suddenly realised something.

"What do we really know about Connor's apparent 'death'?" She started and the team mumbled in agreement before Thor interrupted.

"I believe we should give the shape-shifter a moment to herself." The team looked at him and contemplated his words before they all nodded, hoping she would return to them later that night or at the latest maybe even tomorrow morning.

Connor found herself out by the pier, swinging her legs in the water and watching as the sun started to set, the pinks and yellows of the sky calming her and making her feel lighter inside. She heard the soft footsteps approach and stop a few feet behind her.

"Mind if I join you?" The light voice of a woman - whom Connor presumed must have been in her early twenties or mid-twenties at the most – asked peacefully and Connor waved her hand to the left of her where there was just enough space for one. The woman gracefully sat down beside her and looked out at the view with Connor.

Connor looked over at her and saw she looked like the type of person that would be on the front covers of magazines or walking down top-end fashion brands catwalks for a living. She was in a light pink dress which hung to her knees and she had not bothered to remove her shoes and had let the casual white converse be drenched by the water. Her long blonde hair stopped just before her waist and as she looked over at Connor, the teenager's heart skipped a beat.

"You okay?" The woman inquired, seeing the look of shock cross her face. Connor blinked a few times before managing a weak smile and nodding slowly.

"You just reminded me of someone I used to know." The woman smiled sympathetically before noticing the girl had stopped smiling and gone back to staring wishfully across the water. She placed a light hand on the girl's knee, watching as the girl flinched at first but soon looked over at the woman before looking back down at her hand on her knee.

"You look like you need a place to stay tonight." The woman said carefully and the girl studied her for a moment before tilting her head slightly.

"You don't recognise me?" Connor asked surprised, but was stumped once the woman shook her head.

"Of course I recognise you, but that doesn't mean I can't tell when someone is needing space away from their life." Connor looked at the woman gratefully before nodding. The woman stood up and held out a hand for her, smiling down at the teenager.

Connor stood up, taking the woman's hand and looking around at the water once more.

"I have a boat, tomorrow we're planning on docking at a small island a couple of hundred miles away from here. We take off in a few minutes, what do you say? We should be back in a few days. There'll be no paparazzi, no reporters, no people asking for autographs and no-one demanding to know what happened to you."

Connor looked up and saw the bright lights of the Stark Tower in the distance and turned to look at the building for a moment before making her decision.

"I'll join you on your trip, as long as I won't be needing to use my 'talent'." She empathised the word talent and the woman laughed before nodding.

"It'll be as if you were completely ordinary. I promise."