Filler chap!


Ichigo didn't wear a dress, much to Nat's and everyone else's disappointment.

She did however wear a lovely long sleeved azure silk wrap around shirt with a pretty magnolia pattern in cream and lavender purple, and a nice pair of faded jeans. That she sulked over having to wear instead of her dirty and ripped 'hobo' clothes.

Especially since everyone who saw her so far paid her much more attention than she was obviously comfortable with.

Which may have played a small part in her reluctance to actually buy herself anything once they were at the mall. Either that or she simply didn't find anything that she really liked in any of the shops that they had all gone too so far.

The others however, hung back just long enough for her to hand them each a credit card with their names on them, before they all vanished into thin air in typical teenage fashion.

Ichigo did however, hit a couple of shops.

And she even made a point of dragging Steve, Thor and Tony with her to carry her stuff. Which even Nat would admit was immensely amusing to see. Tony alone, complained like a child every time he was handed something that was either low tech or no tech.

Like the new computers that she had thought to buy. All of them HP laptops with excellent memory. Which the man obviously found utterly insulting because- hello, he was Tony Stark. Tech genius/whiz.

If she really needed computers so damn badly why hadn't she simply asked him for a couple? He would have happily built some for her from scratch.

As it was, Clint had to take the bags containing her new computers from him when he tried to chuck them into the water fountain that they passed on their way to a craft store.

So now, Tony was following the rest of them with a dark scowl on his face. Honestly, if he could have shot lasers out of his eyes- those damned store bought monstrosities would have been dead already.

Ichigo seemed to know exactly what she wanted the moment that she stepped into the craft store. She didn't hesitate over not knowing where anything was because of the layout of the store, if anything it simply gave her the excuse to walk around and check things out a little bit more.

Which Steve was absolutely loving.

As someone who was a fellow artist, craft and hobby shops were like Disney World to him.

So naturally, he helped in his own super enthusiastic Steve-esque way by pointing out what was what and where to find everything that might interest her. Ichigo was a good sport about it too.

Like an weirdly good sport about it. She went down every isle, and checked out every item mentioned and not mentioned. And she got a little bit of everything too.

Beads, molds, jars, different sized plastic totes, soap making supplies, lotion supplies, blank sketch/paint books, ink pens, paints, knitting supplies, yarn, embroidery stuff, fabrics, zippers, buttons, ribbons... The list was damn near endless and by the time they left the shop.

All of the guys were carrying nearly their body weight in materials and wondering what the hell the girl was going to do with it during the three months that she and her friends would be present in their home.

It was so bad that Ichigo and Tony had both thought to buy a couple of buggies just so no one would have to carry it all. After that the teen had headed to some clothing stores and got some t-shirts, pants, hoodies, and some stuff to sleep in. Nat had had to sneak in a few 'girly' items that she thought that Ichigo would look nice in when said teen wasn't really looking.

Like a couple of cute skirts, some leggings, some nice-ish blouses and shorts.

Which Ichigo found inevitably at the register and promptly set aside because she didn't want them. Not that Nat cared any, she simply snuck them back in with the teen's stuff when she wasn't looking again.

And after this went on for several minutes, and the stuff kept getting closer and closer to being rung up- Ichigo finally got pissed and turned on Nat and all but snarled at her that if even one of the items that she picked out wound up in her stuff again, then the only reason she'd buy any of it was to set it on fire in the fucking parking lot.

Nat backed off after that. But only after she bought the stuff herself and then thrust it into Ichigo's hands with a sly smirk before sauntering off thinking that it was the end of things.

However Ichigo handed the bag and it's contents to a young lady who had been outside the shop looking at the displays longingly, and told her that she was the millionth customer- so she got some free stuff.

Not long after that, Ichigo and the others met up and ate something before finally heading back to the tower.