It had only been a week since Ashley's return to the mansion and honestly, it was nowhere near what the X Men had expected it to be. What they thought would be an influx of jokes, laughter and good times was really anything but, because Ashley had confined herself to her room and refused to speak to anyone.

She didn't want to interact. All she did was wake up, mindlessly watch TV, cry, and eat if she'd become too hungry to ignore the pains. Rogue tended to leave meals outside her door to keep her going, and sometimes she'd come back to see it untouched. She missed Ashley the most, but totally understood why she was being so uncooperative, and the guilt was eating her alive. The only thing Ashley would look after with immense care was Lady Bucky. She'd just turned nine weeks old, and was reasonably bigger and increasingly more active. Now she just wouldn't stay still, spending most of her days running up and down the threadbare carpet and attempting to climb up the thick heavy curtains. Ashley felt like a first time mother, and every time Lady Bucky came up to her to curl up and fall asleep on her lap she felt an immense burst of love - but that wasn't enough to keep her happy.

She was far too depressed. She knew what she had to do - she had to leave, but now that S.H.I.E.L.D didn't want her… where else could she go?

There was one person she wanted to speak to before disappearing, though - she couldn't leave without at least addressing him first. So Ashley pushed herself out of bed one cloudy afternoon, and forced herself to shower and at least look presentable. She blinked at herself in the steamy mirror as the shower ran, leaning on the edge of the sink with droopy eyes. Her reflection startled her - her face was drawn out and her skin was unusually pale. Her hair was greasy and knotted. It was clear that she was going through hell, but she didn't care. What was the point?

After a few solid minutes of preparing herself and pulling her hair back into a near ponytail, she bent down to where Lady Bucky was nonchalantly cleaning herself and gently placed her into her portable cat bed. "Sorry sweetie," Ashley apologised quietly over her persistently angry meows. "I'm sorry, I have to go now. Your Aunt Marie is gonna take real good care of you, I promise." But Lady Bucky didn't want to hear it. She was crying and hissing at the enclosed darkness of her bed, less than unimpressed. But Ashley ignored her, although it broke her heart, and quickly shoved on her jacket and shoes. She didn't bother taking anything else from her room - she wouldn't need it.

With the deepest of breaths, she picked up Lady Bucky's food and her litter tray, balancing them all in her hands as she opened her bedroom door with her foot. Lady Bucky fell silent as her giant blue eyes stared out of the breathing holes to try and see where she was being taken. Ashley scurried down the hallways until she reached the desired dorm and rapped her knuckles on the door. Within a few seconds, the door swung open to reveal Rogue stood grumpily in her pyjamas. Then the look of surprised registered on her face, having not seen Ashley in the flesh since she first ran away months ago. "A-Ashley? Oh my god-"

"Marie," Ashley cut her off shakily, trying to keep her cool as she lifted the cat carrier up. "Please, take my cat and look after her for me? Or pass her over to Storm if you still c-can't touch anything." Rogue's eyes darted from Ashley's dark circled eyes and then to the cat carrier.

"Ya got a cat?" she breathed, holding her gloved hands out to take her stuff. "Ashley, where…when…no, where have you been?"

"Please, just take her for me?" Ashley spoke over her questions as she shoved the carrier straight into her hands before doing the same with the litter and food. Rogue did as she was told but with reluctancy.

"What…but where are you going?" she spluttered as she placed the carrier onto the floor. "How long for? Are you okay? We were so worried about you, Ash-" Suddenly, Ashley suddenly leapt across and enveloped her in a desperate hug, a tear dribbling out the corner of eye as Rogue wrapped her arms around her as if she couldn't bear to let go. She was clearly petrified - Ashley could literally feel her heart beating against her own chest. She felt herself drain out, as was expected when touching Rogue, but this time she didn't care. "Please, don't do anything stupid Ash. Please," Rogue sobbed directly into her shoulder.

"I'll be back," Ashley muttered tearfully before they let each other go and she took a few moments to regain her strength. She roughly wiped her eyes and gave Rogue the wateriest smile that she could muster, despite the fact that her heart was surely breaking. "Love you. I'm off to see Dad…before…yeah." And before Rogue could even respond or ask her another question, Ashley had already turned on her heel and left without another word.

…

Meanwhile, Christie had been feeling restless and uneasy all week. She was trying to organise a small funeral for Loki to put him to rest properly, just as Thor had suggested - but Ashley had taken precedence in her thoughts instead. The feeling of dread just got heavier and heavier on her heart as the days dragged by. What if she was hurt? What if she was going through something mentally? What if things were going wrong and she felt trapped? Nobody had been able to contact her, and Charles had managed to convince Mella that everything was okay - although truth be told he only knew that because Rogue said she'd been in vague contact with her.

No. Christie couldn't do this. She just couldn't allow someone else that she loved to struggle without doing something about it. She wouldn't and couldn't bury someone else like she had to bury him - least of all her sister that she'd grown to love again.

So she leapt up from her black leather sofa, ran into her bedroom and got changed into her signature sleek white leotard, paired with her black weapons belt that synched her waist. She tied her moonlit wisps up into that infamous long mid ponytail with the side fringe and grabbed her phone to dial Steve's number. She put it on speakerphone before hurriedly shoving on her boots. "Come on, Steve, please pick up," she murmured over the constant sound of the dialling tone. "Come on, come on, com-"

"Christie?"

"Steve!" Christie blurted out with a gasp, finally standing up straight again and grabbing her jacket. "Steve are you on a mission or are you at home?"

"Home," Steve answered quickly, sensing the urgency in her tone. "Why…what's going on?"

"Alright stay right there, I'm coming to get you. Oh, and round the others up too - tell them to suit up. We're gonna go get her," Christie instructed him firmly before speedily hanging up before he could ask anything else. She shoved her jacket on and practically flew out of her apartment, galloping back up the staircase and into her garage. After a few seconds of deliberating which vehicle would get her to her destination faster, she eventually pulled her phone out and dialled another number instead.

"Beloved?"

"Aunt Meredith," Christie began apologetically, "do you think you'd be able to come to my house and pick me up please? I need a small favour." Before Christie could launch into it, there stood Aunt Meredith directly in front of her, her curlers sticking out of her long grey locks and a cigarette carefully poised between her well manicured fingers.

"What is it Christianna, my darling dove?" she breathed with curiosity all over her face, smoke billowing from her rouge lips.

"I need you to drop me off at the Avengers Tower please," Christie asked her with an apprehensive wince. Aunt Meredith rose a perfectly arched brow at her request, knowing how much her youngest niece usually hated being held when she went into super speed. "I know what you're thinking. But I'm rounding up the others to go and get Ashley and I need to get to the Tower as soon as I can. I no longer give a sh*t about what the government did or didn't say - if they wanna play dirty, we can all play dirty. Taking the higher ground sucks." Aunt Meredith's face morphed into brief shock, before falling into a proud grin as she reached over and pressed a kiss against Christie's cold cheek.

"That's my girl. Now - hang on tight."

…

Ashley impatiently waited outside her father's office, the drowsiness slowly consuming her. She was just so fed up, so tired, so drained. "Come in?" came the sudden call of Charles, leading Ashley to swiftly snap her back head up and slowly rise to her feet, so as not to give herself a sudden headache. She made her way to the door and slowly cracked it open, poking her head around to make sure he was alone before walking in all the way. Charles briefly lifted his head and almost threw his pen down at the sight of her. He hadn't seen her since the day of the examinations. "Ashley, please - do sit down," he invited her gently, gesturing towards that beloved chair that she knew all too well.

"No, thank you," Ashley declined abruptly, fully stepping into the office and closing the door behind her.

Charles clenched his jaw at her harsh tone, but nodded.

"Fine. How can I help?"

"I…I just wanted to say that you were right," Ashley told him shakily as her eyes slowly focussed on the polished wooden floor instead of meeting his. "You were right about my mutation being too dangerous." Charles said nothing. "But you weren't completely right. It's not dangerous to others, it's mostly dangerous to myself-"

"Please, expand?" Charles suddenly interrupted.

"I was going to - thanks. Listen, I got kicked out of the Avengers after using my powers to defend myself from being kidnapped, for goodness sake. I saw silver and it kept me alive - but it's still managed to bite me in the long run. I can't have it all, Dad. I can't be physically and emotionally safe for as long as I have this thing in me. Yes it saved me, but it's also just gone ahead and damaged me in another form. I realise that now. It…it all makes sense to me now. I'm sorry for doubting you." Ashley finished her wonky speech with a tear dribbling down her cheek. Her hands were shaking, as if she was suffering withdrawals from something, and her leg muscles were starting to ache no matter how she positioned herself. It was becoming tiring just to stay standing.

She had to get out of there - and fast.

"Ashley, I assure you, that's not the case-" Charles attempted to interrupt, but Ashley had already left the room again. He was left sitting there with his head in his hands, and the ball of anxiety and regret was growing larger and larger in his chest.

Something, just something wasn't sitting right with him.

…

A few hours later, Storm was on her way to the dining hall to grab herself a lunch tray. She'd been marking final exams for the past two days and was finally finished, so she was hoping to use this evening to relax. As she made her way down the large wide winding steps to the massive corridor however, she heard a consistent thudding at the school's grand main entrance doors. She frowned and rushed over to take a close look at the camera screen to see who it was. And when she swung the door wide open, she gasped at the sight in front of her. "Oh god," she breathed, looking them all up and down apprehensively.

"Hi! You don't know them, but we're here to speak to our friend and my sister Ashley," Christie beamed, standing there with folded arms of determination and silvery eyes of thunder. Behind her was Steve, Tony, Thor, Clint, Natasha and Coulson. The Avengers were suited up for a fight whilst Coulson was in nothing more than a suit, clearly with no intention of getting his hands dirty.

"Um…right, come on in," Storm sighed defeatedly, stepping aside and swinging the door all the way open so that they could enter. Christie led the rest to follow suit, the newcomers staring at the grand school walls and large, winding staircase surrounding them. Christie couldn't help but raise an impressed eyebrow as she took in her surroundings for the first time in her life.

So this was the school she had been missing out on?

Well, it was pretty expensive looking, she could see that much. There were still students milling about, most of them now huddled in groups to stand there and gawk at the group of new people who were hovering about awkwardly. "Follow me," Storm instructed them with a hiss before promptly leading them towards the staff room.

"Ya know, I always hated school," Tony murmured under his breath as they uncomfortably strutted through the hallways.

"Why, you weren't the hot shot in class?" Clint frowned back, keeping his eyes focussed firmly ahead of him.

"No, cos kids are bullies," Tony corrected him quietly. "Which makes these kids nothing more than weird ass bullies."

"I don't think calling them 'weird' is the best idea, Tony," Natasha grumbled back, shooting a pleasant smile at one of the little girls who had in her tracks stopped to stare whilst clutching her colouring books. The freckled faced sweetheart gave her a little smile back and her cheeks flushed red before scurrying ahead. Natasha smirked to herself as she continued the conversation. "They are just normal kids with….pretty darn amazing talents."

"Darn?" Tony crinkled his nose at her choice of words.

"Is this place paying you for all this good promo, Tash?" Clint asked, his brows furrowing together in confusion. Natasha shot him a scowl and continued walking on in silence. Within the next minute or so, they reached the designated door and Storm swung it open, bustling them all into the staffroom before any more students could stop and stare. Coulson and The Avengers all filed through and Storm shoved the door shut behind her and leant herself up against it with a sigh.

"So…excuse me for asking so bluntly - but why the hell are there so many of you here if you're only here to speak to one person?" she asked, eyes darting between each and every one of them.

"Well we didn't know if you were gonna try and pull any 'special moves'," Tony put it bluntly, taking a look around the kitchen and living room. "Yikes. This place could certainly use a bit of TLC, huh? I mean what are you guys, Tudors?"

"Special moves?" Storm repeated slowly, ignoring his last sarky comment. "You are aware that you're the ones trespassing here, right?"

"Didn't you trespass into Christie's apartment the same way?" Steve suddenly piped up with a frown as Christie let out a slight chuckle from beside him. Storm pushed her tongue into her cheek and said no more.

They had a fair point.

"Plus, we can't be trespassing if you've physically let us in," Natasha pointed out with a tight lipped smile as she took a seat at the kitchen island.

"Also - weird you'd call it that, given that your Mystique friend definitely trespassed the Avengers Tower to pose as Fury and then a base that she shouldn't even know about to pose as Ashley! Now how's that for a violation?" Christie gasped sarcastically as the finishing move, making her way over to stand directly in Storm's face. Storm clenched her jaw and dropped her gaze, now understanding. "What the f*ck were you playing at?"

"We…we had to get her back," she mumbled out a little ashamedly.

"Have you ever thought that if you had go through all of that just to get her back in this dump, no offence - that it might not've been what she wanted in the first place? She's 25 - not a kid," Coulson piped up, pulling Christie's arm back so that she wasn't as threatening. Right now he didn't see any need to escalate it, and he wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible, as he still had no idea what they were dealing with.

"I get what you're saying but at the end of the day, her father knows what's best for her and we trusted him, so you guys should too," Storm began to assure them, but the look of uncertainty on her face showed that even she didn't know that to be true anymore.

"Ah yes! Speaking of father - where is he?" Christie spat angrily as she started to look around the staffroom.

"Woah! Now what the hell is going on here?" came the sudden shout of Scott, as he burst onto the room with Logan close on his tail. Tony raised an eyebrow and glanced over at Thor and Clint, knowing that they would've found the visors on Scott's face just as amusing as he did. Scott wasn't overly happy with the silence he had received as a response. "Um hello? Anyone wanna tell me-"

"I'm sorry, must the world always answer to you?" Tony asked, stepping over towards him - but Scott didn't even budge. In fact, they were practically squaring up.

"Hey pal, I'd back the hell off if I were you," Scott chuckled back as he took a step forward too. This only caused Steve to bound across the floor to get between the two of them before anything could else happen, pulling Tony's shoulder back

"Alright, we get it," he told Scott firmly as he restrained Tony successfully with one hand and put the other hand on Scott's shoulder in the meantime. "You're the main guy and we're in your territory, so you wanna look all tough. Look, we don't mean any harm so just cool off, alright?"

"Right, cos you got me allll figured out huh? Mind me asking who the hell you are?" Scott continued to scoff as he shook Steve's cooling hand off his shoulder.

"Woah, chill out buddy. You don't want it with me, not after how you treated Ashley," Steve warned him lowly, edging closer towards him and causing Logan to spring up next, immediately joining Scott's side.

The testosterone was rising to the point that it was suffocating everyone else.

"Now who needs to cool off, pretty boy?" Logan growled at Steve, immediately extracting his claws with a threatening grunt.

"Hey - down, Lassie," Tony tutted, leaving Christie and Clint to forcefully stifle their laughs. This just riled Logan up even more - but Steve certainly wasn't fazed by it and Tony was simply amused.

"Logan, don't," Storm hissed irritably, tugging on the sleeve of his arm. But it was too late.

"Lassie? Alright, do you wanna take this one outside, Cap?" Logan snarled at Steve dangerously.

"Gladly," Steve muttered back without so much as a blink, "Tony?"

"Oh you know me. Always up for a bit of fun," Tony gave him a confident nod through gritted teeth.

"Okay," Christie interrupted tiredly, getting in between them all and shoving them apart with her hands on their firm chests. "Boys, as amusing and rather sexy as that all was - that's enough. Listen, the one person we all have in common isn't even here. We need to-"

"We need to find her," came a voice that made Christie's blood run completely cold at speed.

She slowly dropped her hands from Steve and Scott's chests and spun around to see her father wheeled in by a distraught looking Rogue. The room went silent as Christie took a singular step towards the man that she had truly been resenting for over a decade, her breath abandoning her throat and her words being too stubborn to come out.

"What…do you mean we need to find her?" was all she managed to choke out. He still looked the same, nothing about him had changed - but she still couldn't really recognise him. Perhaps it was because he never looked worried and this time, he genuinely did. Charles seemed uncomfortable at looking directly at her too, but he held his own regardless.

"Ashley's gone again and we need to find her because this time - it looks like its permanent," Charles answered quickly after a few registering moments with his youngest daughter.

"How do you know it looked permanent, sir?" Steve asked concernedly, stepping forward with his arms crossed.

"Because she gave Marie here a parting gift before she left," Charles responded, nudging his head over to where Rogue was now crying behind him, her head buried firmly in her hands.

"A gift?" Christie repeated, eyes darting to Rogue now instead. "What…what 'gift'?"

"A sweet lil' kitten," Rogue blurted out with the tears streaming down her face. Christie turned to Steve in horror, both of them knowing exactly what that meant.

"Steve, she left Lady Bucky behind! She w-would never leave Lady Bucky behind," she murmured, clutching his broad forearm as her face went a dangerous pale shade in worry. "Unless…f*ck."

"Oh god," Natasha blurted out, slamming her hand over her mouth. "Oh god, Ashley, no-"

"Alright so then let's go and find her - like now?!" Scott encouraged them all, pushing their differences aside for a second. "Where do you think she is? Where the hell do we even start?"

"I think I know," Christie told the rest of the room, trying her hardest to keep cool even though she was still steadying herself on Steve's arm. "I think I know."

...

i think next week might be the 'finale' chapter (depending on if i continue the story on or not)! if i do continue it, then obviously it won't be the finale lol x