A few days later, S.H.I.E.L.D. had picked up on new HYDRA base intel and was showing it to the team in the Avengers Tower's meeting room. Well, Maria Hill was - the rest were figuring out a strategy, particularly when it came to Bruce. "So am I meant to kinda just…wait? Like, hover around till you guys finally get home?" he was asking as he took regular sips of his morning cup of coffee.

"…no, you're gonna suit up with the rest of us?" Steve gave a light chuckle as if it were obvious. Ashley couldn't help but smile at her boyfriend's constant 'teamwork makes the dreamwork!' strategy.

"Yeah but when we're done, you guys get to come home in the jet and cool off and I…I won't even be able to fit in the jet. Unless, of course, you're all willing to twiddle your thumbs until I get over myself again," Bruce blinked as if it were obvious.

Everyone around the table immediately fell quiet, realising that he had a point.

"How do you usually snap yourself out of it?" Ashley asked him, leaning on the palm of her hand and absentmindedly stirring her hot chocolate with the other.

"It subsides on its own," Bruce mused. "He kinda just…goes."

"So how do we make it just…go…faster and on our time?" Clint blinked at the rest of the group.

"He needs a trigger word," Tony decided with an affirmative nod as he stood to his feet and began to pace, "something that we drill into your head now that, when the time comes, will wake you outta your…mood. Like…I dunno, 'pumpkins'."

"Pumpkins…?" Natasha raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, does anyone else have any other smart ideas?" Tony scoffed, glancing around at the rest of them. There was a thick later of silence silence across the table as they all shrugged at each other. "Then 'pumpkins' it is!"

…

"PUMPKIN! PUMPKIIIINNNNN!" Tony yelled out as he soared beside Hulk, who was carelessly destroying and dismantling the HYDRA base piece by piece.

"Very smooth plan by the way, Stark!" Ashley rolled her eyes from where she was on the ground, spraying one of the backdoors with ice so that she could smash it open. She didn't want to burst all the doors through with fire, just in case there were delicate pieces of intel on the inside. The last thing she wanted to do was accidentally destroy them. As she blasted away Christie was covering for her, shooting any soldiers that attempted to run up on them.

"If the sceptre's actually in there, we're absolutely screwed by the way," Christie added in as she shot down another two agents. "Banner is really going to town today!"

"I mean technically…like, did Thor ever specify he needed the sceptre all in one piece?" Tony winced over the disruptive sound of Bruce's roars.

"'Tis much preferred, Stark!" Thor bellowed back as he crushed a few more of the HYDRA soldiers with his Mjonlir, working side by side with Steve a little further away from the compound.

"Let's face it, guys," Clint grunted, whilst aiming and shooting his arrows from where he was perched on the roof, "Banner really doesn't need to be at every mission."

"What? Spoilt sport! He's apart of the team too, isn't he? Why don't we leave you at home and see how you like it?" Tony pointed out with a pout whilst soaring around the destroyed half of the building.

"Yeah but there's a time and a place, Stark - and this was clearly neither. The compound is tiny and there's not even enough guards for him to be of any proper value," Steve pointed out as he used his shield as a frisbee to take out the remaining soldiers. "Well, the compound was tiny."

Natasha hopped into the ruins of the base with her torch risen, searching amongst the rubble for any sign of what was left the sceptre. Hulk finally rested and stood still, seeing that there was nothing else to smash and no more 'immediate' threats. The shooting had stopped - they had taken all of them out. Stark landed next to him and swiftly took himself out of the suit, giving him the freedom to roam around as well.

"No sign of the sceptre down here. Another dead end," Natasha sighed, settling herself in front of one of the comms systems. "In fact, looks like this base didn't hold a lot at all. Some information that we're scanning in now but…nothing fun from the looks of it, I'm afraid."

"Yeah, unless it's under all this damn rubble," Clint scoffed back as he shoved his bow back in the holster. Thor flew over and landed right in front of them with a hefty grunt before looking around as well.

"No, it's not," he muttered. "It would've been easier to spot - much easier, at that. It's too powerful to be left sitting out."

Suddenly, the back door blew open, revealing a smiling Ashley with a bored looking Christie by her side.

"Oh," Ashley's smile faltered once she had seen that everything had already been completely trashed. "Well. Uh…I guess 'pumpkins' didn't make a difference, then?"

"What can we say? Stark's clever ideas strikes again," Christie whispered under her breath, as Tony rolled his eyes and flung his head back in exasperation.

…

A few weeks later, Ashley and Steve were in his apartment, suiting up for the dismantling of the final HYDRA base in Sokovia. Steve was wearing his Captain America suit of course, and Ashley in her black tank top and stretchy black pants. Meanwhile, Lady Bucky, their beloved cat, was watching them with suspicious eyes. She was a clever feline, and by now she knew that them suiting up meant that she was about to be left home alone, which she enjoyed.

Ashley was staring at her mirrored reflection with a little pout. "Ugh, I never, ever lose weight in my face," she grumbled under her breath - but Steve overheard.

"Ashley," he called out sternly from where he was waiting in the bedroom. "How many times? You're beautiful as you are. Please stop saying that stuff about yourself-"

"Steve, sweetie, I know I'm beautiful," Ashley rolled her eyes, before turning around and walking back into the bedroom. "I just want a slimmer face. You see Christie's face? That's slim! That is what I want and this is why I always stand by the fact that Christie was the prettier sister…and, to be honest, she always will be." Steve crinkled his face in wonder, not understanding what she wasn't seeing in herself, but deciding not to question it. "Oh, I almost forgot - Dad called earlier and said that he wants to lend us money so that we can move out of this place and into our own apartment!"

Steve froze and looked up at her, blinking at her words.

"What? Ash, we don't need money, least of all your father's money-"

"Steve, stop being so old fashioned and…proud!" Ashley tutted, spinning around on her heel and pushing the leftover wisps of her cherry red hair out of her eyes. "Do we wanna stay in the Avenger's Tower forever? I thought you wanted to move to downtown Brooklyn!"

This had been an argument for a while now, and although Steve and Ashley rarely fought, this conversation never seemed to land well between them. Steve was adamant on not taking Charles' cash, whilst Ashley saw it as no problem and found his attitude towards it rather irritating.

"I do wanna move - but we still can't accept your father's money. We can just save up from cheque to cheque, can't we?" Steve was clearly attempting to find reasons that made sense, but Ashley could tell that he was struggling a little.

"If you'd like to live from cheque to cheque, you absolutely can," she whispered before pressing a kiss to his chiselled jaw. "We should be out within the next four years at that rate! Now ain't that exciting!" Steve simply rolled his eyes as Ashley left him standing there, knowing that this battle might just be one that he wouldn't win.

…

"Guys, we're finally in the clear down here," Ashley informed the rest of her team with a sigh of relief about eight hours later. They had just taken down the final HYDRA base, and they had finally acquired Loki's sceptre after all that time searching aimlessly for it. "Nat?"

"Yup! Locked down here too," Natasha confirmed from where she was prodding the HYDRA agents' bodies with her foot.

"Then get to Banner," Steve instructed her, still not done on his section of the snowy woods yet, "time for a lullaby." Christie threw her head back in relief and ran her hands through her white locks, breathing in and out deeply. At this point, she was one step away from hyperventilating, and Ashley glanced over at her with a little frown playing on her plump lips, clearly concerned.

"You okay, Chris? You look like you're kinda freaking out," she murmured, placing a gentle hand on her tensed bony shoulder.

"I'm fine, Ash," Christie answered shortly without so much as looking up. "Let's just…make our way back to the jet." Ashley shot her another look of uncertainty but nodded, and they made their way onto the aircraft in silence.

Once they had all boarded, they saw that Thor had already settled himself down on a bench, anxiously awaiting the sceptre's arrival. An injured Clint was also laying down on one of the other benches, already wired up to medical equipment to keep his fluids up. Christie rushed over as soon as she lay eyes on him and crouched down beside where he lay, wincing once she saw the extent of his injuries. They had known each other for years, and had trained for their roles together. In fact, it was him, Natasha and Christie as a trio - until things went quite wrong between them. Natasha and Christie could barely stand each other - but Clint still cared for them both separately. "God, Birdbrain, look at the state of you," Christie sniffed, shaking her head at the sight of him. "How the hell-"

"It was…something fast," Clint answered tiredly, taking deep breaths in and out to help regulate the pain. "Super fast."

"It hit me, too," Ashley spoke up as Natasha and the shaky looking Bruce entered the aircraft too. She glanced over at Christie and nibbled her bottom lip. "Honestly, the speed reminded of…our Aunt Meredith." Christie looked up with exhaustion written across her face, now feeling even more drained.

"Who?" Clint grumbled to them both in confusion.

"Oh please, let me guess - you think it was a mutant?" she guessed, settling herself on the edge of Clint's bench and drawing her knees to her chest.

"I mean…I wouldn't be overly surprised," Ashley shrugged as she watched Steve and Tony shuffle into the jet too. Tony had the sceptre clasped securely in his hand and Thor practically leapt over at the sight of it - whilst Christie's breath hitched in her throat. She knew the power of the sceptre, and it disturbed her - and although it wasn't the first time she had seen it since Loki died, those feelings of dread had remained the same. The feeling that hit her in Asgard was exactly what was consuming her now, and as the team got ready for takeoff, it took everything within her not to grab it and destroy it right then and there.

The jet was gliding through the afternoon sky beautifully, giving the team the chance to have a well deserved rest as Tony took them back home. "Thor, report on the Hulk?" Natasha suddenly asked, breaking the comfortable silence.

"The gates of hell are filled with the howling and pleading screams of his victims," Thor beamed, clapping his hands together in genuine pride. Ashley rolled her eyes and bit back her laughter, having well expected something so careless to come out of his mouth, whilst Natasha shot him a look of death. "Oh, but not the screams of the dead, of course…n-no, wounded screams! The screams that-"

"Thor," Ashley hissed an interruption, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head quickly. "Leave it, mate. Shh." Meanwhile, Christie was hovering close to the sceptre, staring at it as if it was something sent straight from hell. There was nothing but disgust in her eyes.

"You okay, Chris?" Steve murmured to her in concern. Christie jumped at the sound of his voice and she gave a rushed nod.

"I-I'm fine," she hummed shakily. "I just…it's been a while since I've seen…you know." Steve nodded in understanding as Tony slid over to them.

"It feels good, right? I mean, you've been after this damn thing since S.H.I.E.L.D collapsed…not like I haven't enjoyed our little raiding parties," Tony shrugged, nudging Thor's extremely dense side.

"Yes, we've certainly had fun but this…this brings it to a close," Thor smiled as his eyes stayed fixated firmly on the sceptre. Christie ran her tongue over her bottom lip, silently agreeing with his words.

"Well it will, as soon as we find out what else this has been used for," Steve piped up with a focussed frown. "And I don't just mean weapons…since when has Strucker been capable of human enhancement?"

"They're not enhanced, Steve," came Ashley's voice from behind them, causing them all to turn around and watch her approach them. She tied her hair back out of her face with a little sigh. "You were enhanced. They are mutants. You were saying there was a second one, a woman that had an energy source at her fingertips, right? Now does that sound like you or does it sound like me?" Steve's eyebrows shot up, realising that she had a solid point.

"I know that wasn't meant to be shade, but it sounded like shade," Tony whispered to Thor, who gave a chuckle in response. "Well, either way, we'll run some tests on it before you take it to Asgard, if that's cool with you? Just for a few days before the leaving party…are you staying? You are staying, right?"

"Of course! Victory like this should be revelled," Thor confirmed with another chuckle.

"Captain?" Tony asked Steve. He turned to Ashley with a nod. "And wife?"

"We literally live in your building - of course we'll be there," Ashley beamed, hooking her arm around Steve's sturdy neck as he smirked and nodded back, making Tony grin in excitement.

…

As soon as the jet landed back on the Avenger's Tower landing pad, Cho and a few other S.H.I.E.L.D medics quickly wheeled Clint out with Natasha walking quickly behind them, whilst Agent Hill strode into the jet wearing a beautiful blue pencil dress. She passed Christie who was on her way out. "Agent, you look nice," Christie smiled quietly as they passed each other.

"Coming from the style icon of the team? Means a lot," Maria smiled back, ducking her head slightly. Christie smirked to herself as she left the landing pad to go and check on Clint too, whilst Agent Hill got down to business. She showed Steve the little video that S.H.I.E.L.D had acquired of the twins. "Alright Cap, we have footage of these two. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, they're twins. Turns out they're not enhanced…they're-"

"Mutants?" Ashley, Tony and Steve finished the sentence for her, causing her to blink at them before nodding.

"What're their abilities?" Steve asked with a sigh.

"Well he's got increased metabolism and improved thermal homeostasis. And she has neural electric interfacing, telekinesis, mental manipulation," Agent Hill listed without stumbling once as Ashley and Steve followed her into the tower.

Steve suddenly stopped walking and blinked at her hollowly.

"He's super fast and she's super weird…and powerful," Ashley rephrased it for her baffled boyfriend, nibbling on her bottom lip. "Really powerful in fact."

She knew exactly who she had to call about this one, and she assumed that the news about them would make him worry and potentially get the X Men involved - but what else could she do?

They were mutants, and mutants were Charles Xavier's responsibility.