Up. Forward, Back, Down, Squeeze.

Bang.

Up. Forward. Back. Down. Squeeze.

Bang.

I wiped the sweat out of my eyes, pushed my loose hair out of my eyes and repeated the action yet again.

Up. Forward. Back. Down. Squeeze.

Click.

Fuck it. I yanked the magazine out of my AWSM and replaced it with a new one. The action of yanking the magazine out of the rifle was enough to jar my injuries. But not enough to make me stop.

I'd spent the last 2 days mostly sleeping in medical with a wicked concussion, a small chip off the wing of my scapula and more bruises and abrasions than I could count. The concussion and bruising came from debris of the Quinjet hitting me in the head and body. I was lucky it was no more than a glancing blow. Or so the doctors told me. The scapula was from where I thought a rock had hit me. It turns out I'd actually been shot but body armour had done its job. Another piece of luck that I actually had the ceramic plates in. The bullet left an angry raised welt on my back that was turning all different shades of purple and red.

2 days of laying there feeling like shit about my fuck up on the mission. I hadn't been alone, Riley had barely left my side. My guilt only grew every time I'd seen his face. He'd been the one I punched in my panic attack while lying on the ground. His nose wasn't broken, but I'd hit him hard enough to make 2 black eyes spread across his face. On the rare occasion Riley wasn't there, Clint was. He'd come out of the mission unscathed except for a few scrapes. Even Coulson had dropped in a lot. He didn't lecture me, or even ask about the mission. He just seemed more concerned that I had everything I needed and I was feeling fine.

I hadn't talked to anyone about what happened. Jared and Natasha had gotten back last night after their contact proved to be unhelpful. Everyone kept a happy attitude around me, like nothing bad had gone down. Jared had even gone as far to grin and call me a complete badass after he'd been told about the mission. I'd returned the smile with weak and forced enthusiasm. I didn't fool him. He told me we were going to have a long discussion this morning about what happened.

So this morning had me sitting out on the range. I'd snuck out of the medical wing and gone straight to the armoury. I knew I wasn't cleared to even be out of bed yet so I went invisible, checked my AWSM out and a lot of full magazines and come to the range. It was barely dawn by the time I'd settled myself down in front of the long range targets and started shooting. It was strangely therapeutic seeing hole after hole appear in the targets.

I was so busy firing I didn't notice the figure behind me appear. I did notice the coffee cup put right in front of my scope. The shock of it being so close up made me jerk back and snap my head to look at who'd just busted me out here. The cup landed with a thump next to the rifle as soon as I jerked away.

Natasha was standing there, a smirk on her face while holding another coffee cup. She was dressed in her normal workout gear that usually mirrored my own. Tights, always Skins because they were so much more comfortable than anything else, sneakers, tank top with a sweater thrown over it. Being the clothing thief she was, Natasha had one of Clint's grey hoodies on. I was just as bad. I was beginning to use Riley's hoodies as well. It was just something about a man's hoodie that was so much more comfortable than anything else.

"I wondered how long it'd take you to sneak out," Natasha plonked down on the ground next to me. She was sitting cross legged, looking out over the range. I mirrored her own posture, sitting back from the AWSM very grateful for the coffee. I hadn't grabbed one before I left. An hour into shooting I was starting to regret it. Just not enough to make me get up and go searching for my own. I didn't exactly think coming out here very well. It was a long walk, I'd been near exhausted by the time I'd went to the armoury and then out here. I was dreading the walk back.

"Thanks," I ignored her comment. Taking a long sip of the coffee I looked out over the range. I'd demolished a few of the targets already. I only had 5 magazines left so my fun was going to be short lived even if Natasha hadn't of disturbed me. Natasha was silent next to me as we both drank our coffee, watching the sun rise the rest of the way over the base. The air was cool, promising a not too hot day. The weather had gradually begun to cool down during our stay. I was really hoping to get back home before Thanksgiving, but there had been no mention of going home yet.

"How'd you find me?" I finally broke the silence in my still gravelly voice. The hostile who'd tried to choke me had left me with impressive bruising around my throat as well. My voice box felt bruised from it still making it uncomfortable to talk. My voice felt like it was being forced out of a pipe. Even swallowing was uncomfortable.

"It was a flip of the coin for either the range or the runway," Natasha explained with a shrug. "There's no planes taking off so the range it was."

I was easy like that. No wonder she'd found me before I'd finished my box of magazines.

"Plus I figured the last thing you'd want is an interrogation from Jared, so I thought I'd come talk to you instead," Natasha finished. I tried to suppress my groan, but a tiny one slipped out despite my best efforts.

"There's nothing to talk about," I pursed my lips trying to keep myself indifferent to the conversation I know was going to take place.

"Really?" Natasha took a sip of coffee and looked at me with raised eyebrows over her cup. "That was one hell of a mission from what I heard."

"And what did you hear?" I tried to turn the conversation back onto Natasha so I didn't have to speak about my feelings. Gone were the tears over fucking up. I was at the angry stage. If I wasn't so fucking sore I'm sure I'd be in the gym punching my feelings out. I couldn't even raise my arms high enough to pull my hair up this morning, let alone lay into a punching bag.

"That the last thing you need right now is to be beating yourself up over it," Natasha was straight to the point. There was no escape from this for me. "That you did what you could in the circumstances you found yourself in. You were sent on a mission where the intel was shit. You were ambushed and the enemy got a lot more than he bargained for when he went for your nest thinking you were the weak one to take out."

I could only stare down into the mug half full of coffee at Natasha's words. I couldn't even bring myself to look my best friend in the eye at the shame I felt of running when I was compromised. It hadn't even hit me properly yet that I'd actually killed someone up close.

"I fucked up," it came out as a hoarse whisper. "I compromised the mission by running."

"Tell me," Natasha's reply was instant. "Did you tell the enemy where you were?"

That was a stupid question. I frowned looking back up to Natasha.

"Of course not," I said. "But,"

"Did you purposely get your position compromised?" Natasha didn't let me finish.

"No," my voice was growing smaller at Natasha's questions.

"Did you stand there and do nothing when a bomb went off and nearly killed both you and Rumlow?" Natasha tilted her head to the side as she looked at me. She took a sip of her coffee cup while I fumbled for an answer.

That was my other problem when I'd first come into medical. I was so dehydrated that the doctor could barely get an IV line in. There hadn't been enough moisture in the air to create the wall of ice like I did. So my power took it from my body. Not that I was complaining about it. I'd rather be dehydrated enough to need a few litres of IV fluid overnight rather than blown into a million pieces.

"When you found out your position was compromised, did you just run straight away? I heard from Riley and Clint that you took a shot and landed a damn good one as well before you got out of there," Natasha pressed on when no words came from me.

This time I at least managed a shrug. I didn't see the shot I'd landed when I fired. I'd only meant for it to be a warning shot. Not a kill shot.

"If you'd stay in your position there would have been nothing but a bullet riddled corpse left and Clint and I would be giving your badge and a pretty folded flag to your parents," Natasha's blunt words made me flinch. "You made the right call."

I had no words to reply to Natasha. She just sat there patiently sipping her coffee watching me. There was no judgement in her green eyes. Just a still calmness while she sat there. I knew she was right. I hated that she was right after the turmoil I kept feeling.

"I don't belong here," the biggest thing playing on my mind slipped out. "I don't deserve to be part of STRIKE Team Delta. I'm done. I'll request a transfer and wait out my year elsewhere. You guys don't need me."

"Huh," Natasha face gave nothing away. She schooled it into a blank mask so quickly. Gone was Nat, my best friend sitting there helping me out. In front of me was the cold Black Widow. The change was pretty terrifying. I was sure Natasha was about to launch into a verbal tirade at me.

I didn't even see the punch coming.

Her fist landed on my cheek with such force it made my head snap facing the other way. The reaction from my body was instant. My own fist went flying catching Natasha square in the cheek. I hit her hard enough to make the coffee splash out of her cup and onto the ground. Her head snapped around just like mine had.

I stared in horror at the reddening mark spreading across Natasha's pale skin. She was still facing the opposite direction like I'd been. Her red curls had fallen across her face. Slowly and very deliberately Natasha flicked her hair out of her face and turned to face me. I was poised ready to either run for my life, or cop the returning blow I knew would be coming. I can't believe I'd just landed that punch without Natasha blocking it.

"And you say you aren't worthy of STRIKE Team Delta," Natasha turned to face me. She flicked her hair again so her stray curls was completely out of her face. Her expression was completely unreadable. "You earned this. No one else did it for you. If I ever hear those words come out of your mouth again I'll do more than punch you across the face."

I rubbed the offending mark on my face. It'd been a hard enough hit that it would leave a bruise. Strangely enough, I felt better. Only Natasha could punch me across the face to set my mind straight again. Natasha would never lie to me. Even if she'd let me land that blow, which is highly likely, I trusted her words more than anything else right now.

"What happened was messy and you have every right to be not sleeping well at night over it," Natasha looked at me with a flicker of emotion finally coming back into her face. She looked troubled and I don't think it was just me that was doing it. "But if you keep blaming yourself you aren't going to achieve anything other than making yourself sick over it. Believe me when I tell you even the experienced Agents had a rough time after that mission. You walked into a very carefully planned ambush, nothing any of us saw coming. It was only by skill you all got out of there alive."

That was defiantly a sobering thought. It no one saw this ambush coming, what else was out there for us to stumble upon? Maybe next time we wouldn't be so lucky. Going into the mission I thought it was slight overkill sending in a STRIKE and SEAL team for such a small lead. When shit went down I'd never been so glad to be over prepared. Just like right now I was very glad to have a friend like Natasha.

"So you're saying I should just put this all behind me and forget about it?"

"No," Natasha shook her head. "I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying you need to stop with the pity party and all the guilt that comes with it. Nothing good ever comes of it. Agent's have gone crazy over things like this and shot themselves on the range, or thrown themselves of the roof of the Triskelion. You can't change what happened. Learn from it. Grow from it and for fuck sake talk to me if you aren't coping."

Another flinch from me. In jobs like ours I could see both of those things happening very easily. PTSD ran pretty rampant through the Enforcement part of SHIELD. There were pages and pages of protocols about it whether your, or another Agent, were having issues enough to turn into full blown PTSD. I was sure as soon as I stepped off the Quinjet when we got home, I'd find myself straight back in Andrew Garners office. But Natasha had a very good way of putting things into perspective. She was right. Nothing can change the past and nothing good ever came out of it from dwelling. I knew that well enough from when I first joined SHIELD. I just had to keep trudging along, eyes forward and never looking back. No matter how hard it was to not look back.

"Thanks Nat," It seemed so insignificant to be saying that. Words could express my gratitude right now for her brutal honestly. As much as I didn't want to hear it, its what I needed right now. It was like a weight had lifted off my shoulders. I still wasn't feeling 100%, but it was a start.

Natasha's face slipped into an easy smile.

"You owe me another cup of coffee."

"I think I owe you a bottle of vodka," I chuckled. That felt good. A little bit of humour went a long way.

"Lets do that tonight," Natasha's face brightened even more. "Go get wasted and make ourselves regret it deeply in the morning."

"I'm not even meant to be out of medical," the excuse was lame considering I was sitting here at the range. The dead panned expression Natasha shot my way was enough to make me quickly reconsider my answer. After a hastily said yes from me, silence lapsed between us. It was a comfortable silence, stretching out in the quiet morning air as we both overlooked the range. I'd finished my coffee before Natasha spoke again.

"Tell me about the group you faced," Natasha stretched her legs out in front of her. She lent back so she was resting on her arms. Her now empty coffee cup was sitting on the ground beside her.

"Well trained," it was the first thing to pop into my mind. The enemy that had attacked my nest knew exactly what to do. There was no fumble in his hands at any stage of our scuffle. "Well organised, knew the area enough to keep to the shadows. Definitely not a ragtag group of amateurs. What did you and Jared uncover?"

"Whispers," Natasha gave a half hearted shrug. "Rumours. Talks of a group known as the Ten Rings making themselves known."

"Never heard of them."

"Neither have I," Natasha turned to face me. "A new player in an already dangerous game. What else did you see? What weapons were they using?"

"They had Stark weapons," the detail didn't feel important. We'd seen in the satellite imagery the crates. But suddenly the bomb that had whizzed past my face came boring into the front of my mind. "The bomb that nearly got Rumlow and I, It was Stark tech. It had a delayed fuse on it, otherwise we would have been dead."

"It was probably a fragment bomb," Natasha mused. "The shrapnel is designed to kill you. Not the actual bomb itself, very nasty weapon. SHIELD has them. Most other organisations don't like them. What else?"

SHIELD had a lot of things that no one else liked. Like a lot of Enhanced people working for them. That bit of information didn't surprise me. Regardless of what it actually was, I was glad I hadn't been on the receiving end of the explosion.

"AK-47 was about the only thing I saw," I chewed on the inside of my lip in concentration. As soon as my teeth sunk into the skin I winced. I'd split my lip somewhere during that mission. I could taste blood in my mouth again from reopening it. I spat it out before I kept speaking. Yuck. "But that bomb that went past me would have had to be fired from a missile launcher of some sort. If it's Stark tech it's not cheap, so my guess would be well funded as well."

"So a well trained, well armed and well funded extremist group is running around that we know nothing about. One bold enough to set a trap and draw out of forces to test our strength as well," Natasha's lips turned downwards in displeasure. "I'm not liking the sound of this at all."

"If Stark wasn't involved in this my solution would be easy," I glanced towards the runway where I knew a lot of sleek fighter jets were currently parked. "Send a few Raptors and bomb the fuck out of them."

"If only it was that easy," Natasha laughed dryly. "I'm starving, are you coming to breakfast?"

My stomach growled in agreement betraying the negative answer I was about to give her. It was loud enough for Natasha to glance down with a small smile.

"Traitor," I grumbled looking down at my sweater covered stomach. "Apparently that's a yes."

"And we'll go find Coulson and tell him we're going out tonight," Natasha added. "He might even come with us. He looks like he could use some winding down."

Where we were going to find somewhere to drink I had no idea. Afghanistan was a pretty dry country on the alcohol front. There wasn't anywhere to drink on base so we'd have to head into Kabul to do it. But a night out did sound like fun. Even if it was an hour drive there. It'd break up the monotony of the last few weeks.

"Pack up your shit and lets go," Natasha instructed. She got to her feet, giving her pants a quick brush off. "Unlike you I was smart enough to bring a car."

"And my aching body thanks you for it," I couldn't help but say dryly. I complied with her request though as I quickly disassembled the set up. I had it packed away within a minute and following Natasha off the range.

"You need to talk to Riley," Natasha said as we neared the vehicle. I faltered in my steps as we neared the black SUV we had use of. Talking to Natasha was one thing, but I didn't know if I could talk about this to Riley. He seemed over protective right now, barely leaving my side and not letting me do anything for myself. If I wasn't in so much pain those first 48 hours I probably would have snapped at him by now. He was treating me like I was made of glass and he was scared he was going to break me.

"I know," I said despite my reservations on it. I picked up my pace again, walking to the back of the car. "He's barely left my side since it happened."

For 2 people who weren't meant to work together a lot, Riley and I seemed to keep getting missions together. It was great having him here because I'm sure I'd miss him like crazy if he hadn't of come along. It was also frustrating to never get a chance to really be with each other as a couple. There was no time for romance and it felt like we'd just skipped over the entire dating stage of our relationship. While I was crazy for Riley, I kind of missed the excitement of the first stages of dating. There was so much we didn't talk about because we were either too busy, or things just got forgotten about.

"Invite him tonight," Natasha suggested as she unlocked the car. I popped the trunk and carefully placed the case down into it. "You guys should get a motel room for the night. Get away for a bit. It'll do you the world of good."

Sometimes I wondered if Natasha was a mind reader. I'm sure it was just my poker face sucking and giving everything away.

"I was only just thinking we never get to spend much time together as a couple," I said with half a smile. I slammed the trunk shut and stiffly made my way to the passenger seat. It was an awkward slide into it, trying not to jar anything that hurt. I finally got settled while Natasha drummed her fingers on the steering wheel waiting for me.

"You look like you got fucked up the ass the way you're moving," Natasha smirked at me as I gingerly sat down.

I tried really hard not to laugh. Really really hard. I nearly held it in but when Natasha's smirk turned into a shit eating grin it came out. Once I started laughing I couldn't stop. I laughed so hard I snorted and had tears running down my face. It hurt like hell, but the pain was worth it. Yep, leave it to Natasha to make me feel better.

It was so good being out of medical. Even if all I'd done so far today was make it to the mess, have a quick shower which made me feel like a human again, and collapse back into my own bed. I'd run into everyone this morning, or so it seemed. Just as I walked into the mess, a few of the SEAL team and been leaving. To my embarrassment every single one of them stopped to have a quick chat. If I thought I'd be spared but after that I ended up sitting with Rumlow and his team during breakfast with their very loud conversation. Clint and Jared joined halfway through my meal to add into the chaos. I'm sure if we hadn't left when we did we would have all been kicked out. It went a long way into making me start to feel normal again.

Coulson had found us just as we left the mess. Instead of the lecture I expected he handed me over a bag full of painkillers and told me to get back to my own bed. My energy was fast running out so I was more than happy to comply with that order. Turns out I was being discharged this morning anyway so my sneaking out was null and void. I'm sure he didn't need to ask where I'd been. Like Natasha said it was a pretty safe bet to find me either at the range or the runway. I needed to learn to stop being so predictable.

The only missing piece of my day had been Riley. He'd sent me a text message during breakfast saying he'd be gone for the day and would meet up with me sometime this afternoon. No matter what bribery I sent him he wouldn't tell me where he was or what he was doing. I just got told to be patient.

While I was not being patient I decided to steal Jared's hard drive and laptop to watch movies back in my own bed like I was ordered. My fun was ruined about 10 minutes into watching Batman Begins when Jared pushed the screen shut. I jumped back at the sound of it and scowled up at him. He didn't need an invitation. He threw himself down on the bed next to me, lying on his stomach, his head propped in his hands. I opened the screen back up and restarted the movie. I lent back against the bedhead to watch the action.

"So that bruise on your cheek is new," Jared broke the silence after only a few minutes.

"Yes it is," I grimaced reaching up to rub the bruise that had made itself known. "Natasha packs a punch."

"Did she punch all the stupid out of you?" the smirk on Jared's face was clear as he turned to face me. "Cuz you suck at hiding your emotions."

"Thanks," I tried to give Jared a shove with my elbow. He barely moved from his casual lying position. It only hurt the scraped skin along my arm. Hitting him in the leg was a reminder that gone was my scrawny brother. He felt like he was solid muscle now, despite still looking slim. I envied him for it. I was still in limbo land with the muscling up stage. I could see it sometimes, but other days I still looked skinny.

"Feeling better?" Jared asked simply.

"A little," I wrinkled my nose slightly. "Its all weird."

"Weird?" Jared hit the spacebar to pause the movie and he turned to look at me. "Kari, you can conjure ice from the air and I can teleport. What part of our lives is ever normal?"

Jared had a point. A very good point. No part of my life was ever normal. No matter how much I tried to make it normal there were just parts of me that weren't. Being part of SHIELD guaranteed that at least for the next year, nothing in my life will be normal. During high school and my adult life I'd tried my best to be normal but I never fitted in. Now I was with the crazy misfits everything seemed to fall into place much quicker than ever before in my life.

"You know who was the first person I killed?" Jared held my gaze. I simply shook my head. "A guy who tried to kill us walking back from a bar in Paris. My first and only partner Phillip was shot in the head from behind by our mark. I didn't have time to think, or even process what I was doing. I pulled my own gun out and shot the mark right in the head. Then I found myself on my knees, in an alley throwing up uncontrollably. It took me months to stop seeing it every time I closed my eyes."

Jared's voice had grown quieter throughout his little speech. Once he got to the part about throwing up in the alley his gaze dragged away from mine and he looked down at the bed instead. His fingers absently traced the keys on the keyboard, as if he couldn't stop himself from fidgeting. His quiet confession broke my heart, and made me feel a hell of a lot better all at the same time. So it wasn't just me struggling with this. If Jared had gone through the same thing I did, it was more like a normal response. Then again who knew what a normal response to killing a person would be. It's not something that you could bet trained or ever prepared for. On impulse I lay down next to him, mirroring his own position as I hugged him. He jumped in surprise, but then his arms were around me as well. It'd been a lot of years since we'd hugged each other in comfort. It made me miss how close we were when we were kids.

"I threw up too," I confessed quietly, my voice muffled against Jared's chest. "I hate throwing up."

"Some things never change," Jared chuckled quietly. He gave me a very gentle squeeze. "No matter what, talk to me ok? Even if I'm not here just tell me you need me and I'll be there for you."

I nodded my head mutely in agreement.

"And when we get back to DC, please practice with your powers," Jared added softly. I pulled back in confusion to see his face while he was speaking. I thought he might have been joking but his face was deadly serious. "Please Kari? You missed out on a lot of stuff in high school about control and how to really channel your power so you can use it properly. Its like a muscle, it won't get any stronger if you don't use it."

"Fine," I agreed reluctantly. As much as Jared had a point it still wasn't something I was comfortable with. I wasn't even sure how I was going to practice it. Clint was going to be so fucking smug about it if I asked him.

"By the way, sneaking into the showers is an awesome way to use your invisibility," Jared broke the emotionally charged atmosphere just as quickly as it came. I gave him another shove, really meaning it this time. Jared half fell off the bed, clinging to the sheets to stop himself toppling over completely while he just laughed at me.

"Who told you that?" I scowled at him. My scowl was ruined by the smile breaking onto my lips at the sight of Jared hauling himself back into his lying position on the bed. Damn, I envied his core strength right now.

"Barton, who else? He loves watching us use our powers. I think he's a little jealous he's not a cool kid," Jared's laughter died down enough for him to speak. "Now come on and watch the movie. I've had my share of all the feels today. Too many feels make my brain go to mush and that's not good for me."

My brother. The worlds biggest idiot. But I loved him dearly. It was good to have him here. As much I was still debating about staying in SHIED or not. Being here had provided me with some of the things I'd been missing in life. A close relationship with my brother again. True friends who'd stuck their necks out for me more times than I could count. A boyfriend who seemed to worship the ground I walked on. No matter what happened in the next 9 months I couldn't deny I was enjoying those few things in my life. There was small part of me was still saying I didn't belong here, Perhaps that little voice in the back of my mind was right. But there were many worse ways I could be spending my life right now.

Jared started the movie again as I sat back up. We only got 30 seconds into it before Jared's phone chimed as a message came through. I was half tempted to shove him off the bed again while he did some weird contortionist position to actually reach his phone on the floor.

"Who loves you?" I asked as Jared scanned over the screen. A small half smirk was pulling on the left side of his lips.

"Stand up," Jared instructed as he bounced to his own feet. I followed him at a much slower pace. As soon as I on my feet, Jared grabbed my hand. I opened my mouth to protest but it was too late. The world dropped out from underneath us as Jared teleported. On instinct my eyes snapped shut at the feeling of being thrown around in the vortex that came with Jared's teleporting. A second later my feet hit solid ground again. I only swayed slightly as my eyes pried open one at a time. I was standing in a hotel room. A very fancy hotel room that looked like it'd cost a fair chunk of cash for the night.

"What's going on?" I turned to Jared confused as hell at why he just brought me here.

"Have fun," with a wink Jared was gone as quickly as we'd appeared.

"Okaaaaaay," I turned around the room taking it all in. Jared had left me in the bedroom at the foot of a massive king sized bed. Right in front of me was the bathroom, the door open enough for me to see the large spa bath right in front of me.

A pair of hands covered my eyes. I knew those hands very well. I giggled as I covered Riley's hands with my own. He pulled me in close so he was pressed up to my back.

"Guess who," Riley whispered in my ear. I could hear the smile in his voice.

"The best thing in my life," I felt a little breathless at the surprise. This had been a level of sneaky I'd never expected from Riley. "What's all this?"

"This is," Riley paused and gently pushed me forward. I let him guide me with his hands still over my eyes. We stopped after a dozen steps and Riley removed his hands from my eyes. "Our romantic evening away that we never seem to have."

There was a small lounge room off the bedroom. As Riley's hands uncovered my eyes it took me a few seconds to everything in. The lights were dimmed, Heineken bottles were sitting in an ice bucket and there was a pizza sitting on the coffee table. Meatlovers as well by the looks of it. Riley had definitely thought of everything.

"Umm," I couldn't think of anything to say as I looked around the room. "Is this where you've been all morning?"

"Yep," Riley draped his arms around my shoulders. "Like?"

"Like is an understatement," I turned around in Riley's embrace and thew my arms around him. "You're the best. What did I do to deserve this?"

"I figured we could both do with a night away," Riley smiled as he leant forward and brushed his lips against mine. "Its been a long few days."

I tangled my hands through Riley's hair and pulled him back to me. I wasn't satisfied with the chaste kiss he just placed on my lips. I wanted more. After these last 2 weeks of having next to no privacy I was keen to make the most of tonight by ourselves.

"Pizza will get cold," Riley murmured against my lips before he pulled away. "Come on, we have all afternoon and night for that."

I was very much looking forward to seeing what else Riley had planned for tonight.

Once the pizza was devoured and onto my second beer I was curled up next to Riley as he somehow managed to find Batman Begins in the DVD collection. Once I started watching a movie I always wanted to finish it. No matter how many times I'd actually seen the movie. Riley had his free arm around me, keeping me cuddled in close to him. I was nestled with my head on his chest near his shoulder.

"I'm sorry it couldn't be much more than this tonight," Riley spoke up during one of the quieter parts of the movie. "I had to beg Coulson for 20 minutes and in the end I think he only relented because Jared offered to teleport you in and out."

"You didn't have to do anything," my free arm was draped over Riley's waist. I gave him a small squeeze. "The fact you planned something is amazing. Its going a long way to taking my mind off things."

"Yeah it was a fucked up mission," Riley sighed. He turned his head and kissed me on the top of the head. His lips stayed there for a few moments before he spoke again. "You did a good job. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"I'm hearing that a lot today," I cuddled further into Riley. "I might even start believing it soon."

Riley chuckled and kissed the top of my head again. We fell into silence as the movie played along. By the end credits I was down another beer and feeling extremely relaxed. It was a stark contrast to how I was feeling a few hours ago.

"So I have a confession to make," Riley sounded nervous as he turned the TV off. I craned my head to look up at him so I could see his face while he made this confession. "I've kind of been emailing your Mom over the last few days."

I choked on the air I just inhaled. I was not expecting that.

"Coulson told her what happened and she was worried about you," Riley said in a rush. "And she sent me an email just asking me if I could keep her filled in while you were out of it and Jared was away."

Oh Riley. You poor soul, you just got ensnared right into my Mom's charms without her even needing to use her power. I fought very hard to keep the smile off my face as Riley barrelled along with his explanation.

"So we got talking because I wasn't sleeping and I needed something to take my mind off things," Riley's words fell out of his mouth quicker at my silence. I frowned and swiftly cut him off.

"Why weren't you sleeping?" I asked.

"I'll get to that in a minute," Riley's ears started to turn red in his embarrassment. "And she invited us to Thanksgiving because she knew you wouldn't do it."

That's not true. Well maybe a little bit. I would have gone for a day or two after Thanksgiving since we were already going to Riley's Mom's place for Thanksgiving.

"So I realised I hadn't actually invited you properly to Thanksgiving at Mom's and we hadn't talked about it and I feel like I'm pushing you into stuff without us really discussing it," Riley had barely taken a breath during his entire confession. "And I really, really don't want to fuck things up so, will you come to Minnesota with me for my family's Thanksgiving? I'm happy to go to your family's thing as well if you…"

I cut Riley off by kissing him. His rambling was pretty hilarious but he just seemed to be getting more and more nervous the more he spoke. He stiffed against my lips for a second before relaxing. He returned the kiss gently, reaching up to tangle his fingers through my hair. It must have been a novelty for him to see me with it down. He hadn't been able to stop playing with it the entire time throughout the movie.

"Of course I'll come to Thanksgiving with you," I pulled back after a few seconds. "I already said I would. So, why weren't you sleeping?"

"I knew you wouldn't let that one go," Riley wrinkled his nose at me, pulling a face. "It happens sometimes. My mind just fucks me with after missions sometimes. It seems to like showing me all the shit that could have gone wrong when I fall asleep. Like the last few nights what would have happened if you hadn't ducked when I shot at the guy aiming at you. Or you hadn't made that massive wall of ice in front of the bomb. Its why I haven't really left your side. I wake up and find out you're still here and in one piece."

"Battered and bruised, but still in one piece," I said to reassure myself more than Riley. That mission really hadn't gone well for any of us. I hadn't stopped to think how hard it would have been on Riley to watch everything unfold in front of him. He wouldn't have been able to do a damn thing to help me. Thank god for Rumlow coming to drag my ass out of there. I hadn't missed the bruises and scrapes covering him at the breakfast table either.

"One piece is all that matters," Riley reached down and kissed me again. It was still soft and chaste before he pulled back. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"How does your power work?" Riley asked carefully. "It seems like you made it come from thin air."

I couldn't deny such a simple question. Especially after all the trouble Riley had gone to getting us off base for the night. Plus he'd been talking to my Mom without me even knowing. He was definitely looking like he was a keeper.

"Its hard to explain," I started. I untangled myself from Riley so I could sit sideway on the couch to face him while I explained. "But it starts with being able to feel the moisture in the air. There's always moisture coming from somewhere, whether it be a lot or a little of it. The more there is of it, the easier it is to make it freeze. Like right now the air conditioner puts a lot of moisture in the air, plus the melting ice in the bucket helps as well."

I turned my palm so it was facing upwards. Concentring on the centre of my hand I let the moisture around it come to me and pushed my power into it to form a small ball. I half smiled down at the gold sized ball of ice sitting in my hand. Riley wasn't able to take his eyes off it.

"I can use that moisture and manipulate it to ice," I focused some more and made the ball of ice grow bigger. "It's hard to explain the exact process that goes through it, but yeah basically my power grabs onto any moisture and turns it to ice. Its like Jared's teleporting. It's essentially him opening a wormhole in the earth to take him where ever he wants to go. But explaining the exact physics and process behind it is a bit beyond me."

I reached over and put the ball of ice into the ice bucket. Riley grabbed it out straight away, turning it in his hands as he stared at it absolutely fascinated. He was silent until he dropped it back into the bucket.

"And here I was thinking I was cool being able to shoot just about anything that moves," Riley laughed. He shifted from his position on the couch so he was leaning over me with a grin appearing on his face. "So, what do you want for dessert?"

"You," I grabbed Riley's shirt and pulled him down to my face height. My kiss was instantly demanding silencing any protests Riley might have had. The way he kissed me back was a pretty good indicator that there wasn't going to be any protest from him either.

Authors Note

So I'm not 100% happy with this chapter. There was a lot to cram in emotionally and it can be hard to find a good balance. I was going to end it with a nice smutty scene at the end but I'm sitting here at finished this at the lake near work. Lots of people walking past so not exactly the best time or place to write smut!

Thank you to all my reviewers and followers. You guys are all amazing for reading and following this. I reached 1200 visitors last month alone on this and I'm just blown away by all the readers. And 90 followers! I cant believe that either. I know this story isn't for everyone…. thanks to my first negative review... But I'm glad people like it enough to keep reading!

I hope everyone had a good New Year and until next time.