More angst with this chapter, but also some tender moments. Also thank you Frost108 for reviewing. you made my day. Thank anyone else for following or favoring. but most of all thank everyone for reading!

Enjoy!


Natasha knocked on Wanda's door. She was getting worried. It was well into the afternoon; Wanda had been yet to be seen at all over the course of the day. This was worrying Natasha. Wanda had never done this. Usually she was up relatively early and ready to train. At first everyone thought that she needed to rest after having a very stressful day. That would make sense, considering that she had been upset about… well something. Neither Natasha, nor anyone else for that matter had managed to figure out what Wanda's deal was. All they knew was that something had been setting her off the past few days.

Well whatever it was, Natasha was hoping to get answers from Wanda, which so far was amounting to absolutely nothing. In fact other than the issue with Sam, Natasha hadn't even spoken to Wanda, but that was mostly because directly after they had released Wanda on her own recognizance, she had gone running off, apparently to gone speak with Pietro (or so Natasha had assumed) like she usually did when she was stressed. But after that she had just completely vanished. She hadn't turned off her communicator, but everyone had decided to give her privacy, not wanting to get on her bad side, considering how angry she was at the time. That was yesterday. Now that she seemed to have the time to cool off, Natasha was hoping that she could talk to the younger woman and help her. God only knows that she needed a friend. Natasha was that friend, since she came to see the young Sokovian as a little sister, something that (which she would never admit) wanted. So Natasha was going to fulfill her duty as a friend and a sister to Wanda. First things first though, she needed to actually get into her room.

There was no response on the other end of the door and that was starting to scare Natasha. Wanda was never this much of a recluse; even while she was coping with her brothers death. There had to be more of a reason for her sudden disappearance. Natasha knocked on the door one more time, but alas, there still was no response to her calls. Wanda should be in her room; the video footage of the garage showed that her bike had indeed returned after her long day out., and there was no sign of her anywhere else. So what could she have been doing in her room all day. surely it just couldn't amount to sleeping the day away?

At that moment, Natasha flinched, her ears picking up something very subtle and very quiet. Coming from inside the room. immediately concern welled inside of Natasha's heart and no longer willing to wait, she didn't bother with trying to open the door. her instincts kicked in and she kicked the door open, sending it off of its hinges. She bolted into the room, looking around. Wanda wasn't in her bed, nor did it seem she was anywhere in the room. Well she had to be around somewhere. It wasn't like she was able to just here something out of nowhere right? NNatasha tuned her sense and heard faint crying coming from the nearby washroom. Her eyes widened and she ran towards the room, opening the door. Her heart broke at the sight. Wanda was curled on the floor, tears streaming down her face. She looked terrible, with dark bags under her eyes and she was shaking uncontrollably, not even registering the fact that the door was open and that Natasha was currently looking down at her with a sympathetic look on her face. She just seemed so very broken.

Natasha bent down on her knees, inching beside the young sokovian. She didn't want to accidently set her off. From the information that she had on Wanda (and from watching her fight of course), she knew that Wanda's powers could be based from her emotion, and since she seemed extremely upset at the moment, getting to close might be a little bit of a problem at the moment. "Wanda" she whispered. It didn't seem though, that Wanda had even hurt her. She continued to sob; her arms wrapped tightly around her self, completely ignoring the fact that Natasha was trying to comfort her.

Natasha sighed, deciding to at least take a chance. She didn't like seeing Wanda like this; she knew what self-destructing could do to a person. She didn't want to see Wanda take the same path. It would lead her nowhere and not help her at all.

But what was she supposed to do? If Wanda could barely even find away to even sense her presence at the moment, what could she do to help her? then again, it was either try and help her, or leave her to wallow in her own despair. Natasha could not find it in her self to be that heartless. She might have been an assassin once, but even she had a heart. She needed to find a way to help Wanda, even if that meant taking a few sucker punches from the magic wielding avenger. She reached her hand out and tenderly placed her hand on Wanda's head, gently running her hand through Wanda's dark hair. Wanda stiffened her body stopping in its tracks. It was if she had finally noticed that there was someone else in the room. Her tears however, did not stop, as they continued to slide down her face. She seemed moved by Natasha actions and she sat up and wrapped her arms around the red head curling into Natasha's side. Natasha was surprised at first, but elected to hug the other girl, allowing her to feel comforted. She could wait until Wanda felt better to start asking the questions that she had intended to ask. She owed Wanda that much at least.


Back at Xander's house, Xander was currently sitting shirtless on his bed, being treated by Lynn. Lynn's parents had been medics and she had learned a thing or two from them about injuries and how to treat them. Xander had a cracked rib from the attack he sustained from Creed and the bullet hole had been stitched shut by Lynn. That had hurt immensely, but it needed to be done in order to stop the wound from leaking once again. He was just thankful he didn't have to go off and revisit the hospital; he hadn't told his parents about the first time he had been there; he didn't even want to think about the repercussions of having to go there twice and having to explain that to his parents. Then again, the only person who knew about this was Wanda (for the fist incident) and Lynn (for this incident). In all honesty, he was hoping to keep it that way simply because he wanted to pretend that most of what just happened today didn't. He was afraid of Creed. Creed had done much worse to him in the past, which included one incident with a broken shoulder during physical education class. Of course it had been written off as an accident and everything had returned to normal. At least until the rough housing continued. The problem was that every time something happened it was always an accident (well except for today, but again no one seemed to be around except for Lynn) besides, graduation wasn't that far away, so he really didn't have to worry about Creed for very much longer. Not to mention, given that he had just been beaten by a girl, he doubted that Creed was going to be messing with him again. To that he would forever be happy.

Lynn finished rubbing the sore spot on his chest with ointment, and then proceeded in wrapping his bruised torso with gauze. Ashe hadn't stopped glaring at him the whole time, probably thinking of the many ways that she could lecture (or perhaps torture him) for his stupidity. He couldn't believe of all the things that could be happening to him at school, it had to be being bullied. He seemed like such a nice guy (which considering the fact that he had managed to be friends with an Avenger, was more likely to be true.) So why would anyone have such a problem with him?

Well at this point, Lynn didn't care. She was just happy that Xander was all right, for the most part. If she hadn't gotten there when she did, it could more than likely be said that Xander would be in a far worse condition. Of course with that cracked rib of his, he didn't get away completely unscathed and it would probably continue to hurt well into the next week or two. That would give her plenty of time to formulate her plans as well as her current need for revenge…

She gave Xander a smile, before punching him in the shoulder hard enough to cause him a bit of pain. Xander gave her a frown, rubbing what was now probably going to be yet another sore spot. Jeez for a girl that didn't look at that physical, Lynn sure knew how to pack a punch. No wonder Creed and his cronies were going to be afraid of her. He definitely needed to stay off her bad side.

Lynn sighed, heavily, before gathering enough breath to yell "Xander! Don't you ever hide something like that! Mute or not, you know that can't go unsaid. You would have to be out of your mind to have to let that continue for as long as it has. I don't ever want to se him near you again! is that understood?" her face was a dark red by the time she finished yelling at him. He never would have imagined that a girl could get so mad; he really had never seen an angry woman before. Now that he saw Lynn mad, he didn't want to imagine Wanda being angry.

Speaking of Wanda, how was she doing? Despite the fact that they had exchanged numbers, the two of them really hadn't texted each other. Though that could just as easily be attributed to the fact that he had been in school most of the day, while Wanda was probably busy doing who knew what in the super hero community.

Her looked at Lynn, simply shrugging in response. Lynn shook her head, "Xander. You can't just…" she raise a hand to his cheek, grazing her knuckles against it, "just…" she leaned in closer, her lips just about to graze his…

When suddenly Xander's phone beeped, indicating that he had received a text. The two sprang apart, Lynn blushing madly and Xander about as red as a tomato. With a sorry smile, Xander pulled out his phone, checking who it was that had texted him. his eyes widened when he saw that the text was from Wanda, though it didn't seem like she sounded very happy

"Xander… I need you to come by Avengers tower, it's an urgent matter"

that's all that it said. There was no 'how are you' or anything like that. It was just a simple request. The other odd thing about it was that it was a request to come to the Avengers Tower. You know the building where the Avengers resided? Why in the world would Wanda ask him to go there? It wasn't like that it would have been a public meeting spot. It was called the Avengers Tower for a reason. But he wasn't going to turn down a chance to see Wanda; especially not when she needed him.

Lynn seemed to notice the look of concern "you need to go?" she asked him Xander nodded. Lynn stood up. "Its ok… I know when someone is needed. Go…" she said. Xander stood up and together they walked out the door, with Xander quickly making way to his car. He stopped however when he realized something. Lynn had driven him. How was she going to get back home?

He turned to her gesturing to the car. She seemed to understand and shook her head "I can walk… I live not to far from here."

Xander gave her a concerned look but she just waved her hand "go!" she said. Xander nodded before getting into his car and heading off to the Tower

Lynn watched him go. When he was out of sight she waved her hand and she vanished into thin air.


Hopefully things will start speeding up here. In the next few chapters, we will get to one of the 'trailer scenes'!