Two seconds… Three seconds… Four seconds… Five-

"What?" Robin asked, clearing upset, "I've known you for four years, who wouldn't you tell me he was your father!"

"My business." I said firmly, crossing my arms. Stand firm, keep fighting. They will not bring you down because of your father.

"No, we're a team, and you had no right to keep it from us!" Wally exclaimed.

I was bout to shout, No, you're the team, I'm not! Artemis stepping foreword stopped me, as she struck Wally across the face.

"She had every right!" She yelled, as Wally stood there, looking at her in shock. "Her personal business is her own! You have no right to force her to tell you that, even if we might be in danger, she was taking precautions to prevent us being harmed. So don't you dare preach to her about keeping secrets, don't tell her she had no right Wallace!"

Wally paused for a long time, everyone else paused too. Artemis had hit Wally before, but never like that, and she certainly had never called him Wallace, or spoken to him like this.

Robin broke the silence, "Mio, we're not going to hate you just because of him, we just… we trusted you."

Kaldur nodded, "You always tell us that trust is a key element in a team."

"I'm pretty sure Canary told you that, but I'll take credit for it." I mumbled, "And, you don't know what it's like to be judged, to be hated, to be treated as a ticking time bomb, just because of the man who ruined your life, and just so happens to be your father as well."

Conner snorted, "At least he acknowledges you."

"Acknowledges me? I wish he'd just leave me alone! At least your's doesn't try to kill you!" I snapped, "At least he has the decency to leave you be!"

"Decency?" Conner roared, "He kills me every time he looks away!"

"Yeah? Mine kills me, literally, every time I see him!" I snapped back, "Don't try and tell me you've got it bad! I know what real Daddy problems are like Conner Kent, don't lecture me!"

Robin stepped in between us, "Enough, we get it, you both have sob stories, get over it already!"

"Easy for you to say." Conner mumbled.

"You'll never know what I'm going through Robin." I snapped, "Your father loved you."

Megan spoke up, "Anyway, let's focus on the matter of hand, we might be on Daken's list, remember? Why?"

I glared at her, "Because you got to close to me. This always happens, I get to relaxed with someone, a friend, and Daken, it's like he lives just to make me miserable by taking it away."

Finally, he just looked past her shoulder at me, and nodded slowly, "We'll be coming with you."

Robin nodded, "All of us."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Artemis cut me off. "Nothing you say is going to change our minds, because we've already decided."

"Yay!" Megan said, jumping up, "Road trip!"

Conner didn't say anything, just crossed his arms and glared at me, daring me to refuse.

Kaldur smiled down at me, "If we won't be intruding that is."

I sighed, slapping my forehead, and Kaldur cleared his throat nervously, "If it's inconvenient for you-"

"I should have stopped at one." I snapped.

"What?" Kaldur asked, confused.

"Just train this one kid." I said, imitating Batman's voice. Then I went back to mine. "I don't know, I mean, I'm barley a teenager myself, and I'm not a good example." I went back to batman's voice, "Don't be ridiculous, it's not like you'll be in charge of the whole team."

I growled, punching the wall, "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!" I punched the wall with each word, then jerked away from it, pacing back and forth, "Of course something like this would happen! You take on one side kick, then you end up saddled with six!" (Batman's gonna be saying that in awhile, huh?)

Jubilee laughed, "Yeah, guess what? Logan probably said that right around when you showed up! First came Rogue, then me, then Kitty, then Rahne, then Laura, and now there's you! The sixth side kick!"

I sighed, holding my head in my hands, then took a deep breath. "Final decisions up to Batman."

Robin smirked, handing my an envelope, "Just threaten him that you'll give these to everyone he knows, even civilians."

I opened the envelope, and my eyes bulged, "Is that Catwoman?"

"Yep." He said smirking.

I stuffed the picture into my pocket, "Why Don't you just threaten him with it?"

"I live with him. He's got a twenty-four hour shot at my neck."

"Good point." I said, "Ok I'll ask him, pack your bags kiddies, you're going to the beach!"

Needless to say, after Batman nearly fainted at the picture he agreed to it, tell the rest of their mentors that they would be going on a beneficial training experience at Utopia X. Translation: field trip.

A quick call to Professor X set everything up for us.

"So, are we taking the bio ship?" Megan asked, smiling, eager to fly her favorite... aline... thing?

"Nope." I said, pointing into the sky, as the Black Bird came into view.

"Whoa." Wally commented, slipping his goggles on, "What are the chances of me driving that slick little beauty?"

"Slim to none." I said firmly, as it landed with nearly no sound.

The door opened, and we all slowly entered. I looked around for who was flying it, and a girn threatened to break out on my face when I heard her voice.

"Well shugah, it's about time ya came down for a visit." Rogue said, the southern belle herself sitting behind the wheel.

I suppressed the grin, going instead for a smirk, "To busy to come over every weekend Rogue, den mother duties and all that."

She laughed, turning to the team, "Nice to meet ya'll, ya been keepin' Mio outta trouble?"

Megan smiled, "Actually, it's vice versa."

Rogue laughed, "I'll bet." Her eyes traveled to Conner, "This the young buck Jubilee won't shut up about?"

Jubilee piped up, "Sure is."

"What?" Conner asked.

"She won't stop talkin' about you shugah." Rogue said again, smiling at him, "Keeps goin' on about how you're the only boy she knows who'll put up with mah little sister."

Conner shrugged, "Uh… yeah I guess."

I snorted, "Okay, you clearly know them all, guys, this is Rogue. One of Logan's litter, and my favorite sister."

"Hey!" Jubilee complained.

"Truth be spoken or tongue be held." I shrugged.

Rogue rolled her eyes, "Forget it Jube, she's just pickin' on ya."

"Nice plane." Artemis commented, sitting down.

"Can I drive home?" I asked.

"Ah just ate lunch shugah, so no." Rogue said, as I walked away from her.

"Spoil sport." I accused.

She shrugged, "No, I just don't wanna lose mah lunch."

I snorted, sitting down next to Conner, "Funny."

He looked at me, "Your family always like this?"

"Most of us." I said, shrugging. "You should see us when we all try to have dinner together. First we argue about staying home or going out, and either way we argue about what to make or where to eat. Then it's about who cooks, or who drives, it takes us nearly an hour just to get that all sorted out. And Rahne takes forever to find out what she wants to eat, then Jubilee sometimes get's us kicked out of the restaurant, once, Logan nearly snapped the waiters neck."

"Why?' Conner asked, bewildered.

"He hit on Laura." I said.

"You don't talk about your sisters much." He noted.

"Same goes for them, they don't really talk about me. We're just that kind of family. If a stranger doesn't ask, they could be totally convinced we're an only child. Then Logan makes us bring them to a family dinner. Then they usually freak out with all the girls and arguing." I explained.

"Was Jake one of them?" Conner asked.

"Why so interested in Jake?" I asked, frowning. He was opening some old wounds.

"Well, from what I can tell, he's the only other guy who put up with you." He smirked.

"He didn't freak out, partly because he met Rahne and Rogue before the whole family. Logan made him break out into a sweat within the first three minutes though. Set a new record."

"Don't sugar coat it!" Jubilee called back to me.

"… I liked it better when she didn't have super hearing." I mumbled, then sighed.

Jubilee shouted out again, "First thirty seconds! He had him sweating like a pig!"

"Why would anyone think Logan was intimidating, he seemed nice when I saw him." Conner said.

Rogue and Jubilee busted out laughing, and I snickered, "You haven't seen him in Daddy mode."

"I thought you said Daken was your father." Conner said, confused.

Suddenly the plane dipped, and everyone yelped, then Rogue righted the plane, "Sorry honey, ya spooked me."

"Let me rephrase that, Daddy/Grand Daddy mode." I mended.

"Oh." Conner said, and then the rest of the trip was silent. Silent enough for me to let my mind wander. Wander back to the Dark Avengers, my first, or maybe second, big mistake.

Back then, I hadn't known Daken was my father. Back then, I hadn't known anything about my father. I had just thought Daken and I had similar powers, and I had come to respect him for his skills.

They had all known, Venom, Norman, Daken, all of them. How they managed to keep it a secret from me for three months was beyond me. Then, Bulls Eye had been arguing with Daken one day, like usual. I had been several rooms away, but thanks to super hearing, it wasn't hard to hear the conversation.

Bulls Eye yelled at Daken for being cold hearted and selfish, and Daken had said, "Like you?"

The Bulls Eye had gotten so mad, he let the secret slip, "No, you're worse! You don't even care enough for your own daughter to even tell her the truth, let alone do anything for her! How long are you going to just let her keep believing that apart from that annoying kid, she's all alone in this world?"

I had never heard of Daken having a daughter before, and from the sound of it, he didn't treat her that well. Annoying kid? His daughter or some friend of hers?

Before then, Daken had just been a friend of mine. Not even a good friend. Our relationship was pretty much me admiring his skills, to the extent of wanting to be like him, and him being my 'mentor' in the Dark Avengers. That was the only condition Norman had given, mostly because I was under eighteen. That was the only relationship we had, it was nothing beyond that.

"Mio is none of your concern." Daken had growled, and then walked out of the room him and Bulls Eye had been in.

Yeah, it had been obvious then. Running away hadn't been hard, getting Lovette out of the tower with me was simple. Hot wiring the car took about three minutes, mostly because my hands wouldn't stop shaking. Getting out of the city was easy too, I took the back roads, and I took them fast. Then, on one turn, I took it to fast, and the car rolled.

Lovette screamed, and I grabbed her, pulling her into my chest as the car rolled, so none of the breaking glass would touch her.

As soon as the car stopped, I jumped through the now windowless windshield with her tucked under one arm, using my pheromones to try and cover up the scent as I took off through the woods, how long until they knew I was gone? They probably already knew. How long until they gave chase? If they did at all.

The job was an offer, not a requirement, so they might not pursue me, but then again… they might.

I had waited for the day I found my father, trained for it, so I could kill him, but it turns out the only man I respected, the man I actually admired for his skill, was the man I had to kill.

I couldn't beat him, sparring with him had made that painfully clear. Literally, painfully clear.

It scared me, the fact that he was so much better than me, to the point where he could probably kill me without using his hands. It was confusing, the man I had vowed to kill for not being there for my mother and me, was the man who was training me, so I could kill my father.

Lovette wouldn't stop crying, asking "What's going on?" "Why are we running away?" And the one that hurt me the most, "Why can't we just go home?"

I got to tired eventually, running with about fifty pounds of crying toddler will do that to you. So, I stopped, setting Lovette down and collapsing onto my knees, panting.

"Mio, what's going on?" Lovette asked, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"We're... running… away." I gasped.

"Why!" She sobbed, wiping her eyes. She was scared, she had just been in a car crash, and then had been dragged through the woods, who knows how many miles we had come.

"Because… they… were… trying to… use us Lovette." I said, slowly gaining my breath back.

"No they weren't!" She protested, "They were nice to us Mio! It was nice there, everything was… clean, and it was warm." She sobbed a little harder, "I don't want live on the streets again Mio!"

I bit my tongue, and then let it go slowly. "You won't. I'll make sure of it."

I could drop Lovette off at a group home, they'd find a foster family for a cute little kid like her pronto. She'd be off the streets, safe, warm, well fed. I'd check up on her every once and awhile.

"But… they were nice! I thought you liked it there too." She said, begging me with her words.

"We have to leave." I mumbled.

"Why?" She whispered, eager for the truth.

"Daken… he's my… I think he's my father." I said whispering the last part.

"Well, you're right." came a voice from behind me.

I rolled foreword, grabbing Lovette mid roll and yanking her behind me as I stood up, facing Daken straight foreword. He stood there, his signature smirk on his face. I hated that smirk, the one where he would grin ear to ear, showing only his top teeth. It made me think that he knew what I was going to do, and he was already three, no, thirty steps ahead.

He chuckled at me, "Question is, what are you gonna do?"

"Why?" I growled, my voice had never sounded more animalistic to me.

"Why what?" He asked, his smirk now a relaxed smile, as if he was putting up with a temper tantrum from a five year old.

"Why didn't you-" I wanted to ask him why he didn't tell me, but I already knew that. "Why weren't you there?"

"You mean there for your mother? The woman you keep going on about? The one who you watched get shot by some Hydra foot soldier?" He taunted.

"Don't you talk about her!" I barked. "You lost that right the minute you left her with a baby and no way to make ends meet! If you ever talk about her again, I'll kill you!"

He just laughed, not a chuckle, not a snicker, a flat out laugh. "You talk like you actually could! But I'll grace you with an answer, the reason is simple. I didn't care about her, to tell you the truth, I don't even remember her."

I leapt at him in a blind furry, aiming my adamantium claws for his face. He easily countered with his bone claws, shoving me off, and then plunging his claws into my stomach, and ripping them out, cutting through organs and muscle with ease.

I screamed as he kicked my sternum, sending my tumbling back. I hugged my sides tightly, trying to keep entrails from seeping out, "Lovette, run!"

Lovette took off running, and I stood up, biting my tongue, trying to think away the pain. I didn't even see him fly at me, I just felt the claws, sinking into me and slashing, cutting, tearing… making each little prick as painful as possible.

I tried to block, but I was weak back then. He carried on, hitting me while I backed up into a tree, and he pinned me to it with one arm, and really started to dig into me with his other. Any attempts to kick him off or bat his claws away failed, and after several minutes of it, I just hung limp, tears threatening to spill and biting my tongue so hard, it started to bleed, just like the rest of me, until he let me drop. I landed into a pile/puddle of my blood that had seeped down into the ground, and little bits of muscle and organ. O had never felt pain like thus before, it was like… how I imagined fish felt when they were skinned alive after being caught. I couldn't move, and I was afraid to breath. If he thought I was dead, I sure didn't want to prove him wrong. He would want to be right…

He turned around, and walked away from me, "If you want to leave, fine, but don't expect me to be empathetic when everyone rejects you because of me."

I laid there for so long, feeling my wounds close up slowly. To many things to do had slowed my healing factor down, and it was painfully slow. Literally, painfully.

I hadn't known what he meant back then, all I could really think about was the pain, and it wasn't for about twenty minutes until the pain faded away to nothing.

Looking back, I now know what he meant that day, and I can honestly say, I've been on the receiving end of judgmental people, racists, mobs of mutant haters, and people who were just plain crazy all my life, but I have never known the kind of hatred people gave me when they learned my father was Daken.

Conner shook me out of my thoughts by putting a hand on my knee. I looked up at him, "What?"

"You just seemed… sad." he mumbled, looking away, and removing his hand.

I looked around the jet at all the people here, and the others we would see at the mansion. Yeah, my father had been right. There were a lot of kids at the mansion that hated me, or at least kept me at arms length, actually, for every person that cared about my, there were ten people I knew that hated me, or kept me at arms length. If you counted all the people that I didn't know about that hated, me there was probably one hundred for every one person.

I smiled a little, shooting a glance at Conner from the corner of my eyes. You were right Daken, but it's all worth it, just to have one person who cares. You'd know that, maybe if you cared about anything.