Avengers Mansion, Less than an hour later... "How did we not beat her?" Billy asked. "There were seven of us."

"I don't think she wanted to fight us, she was just trying to escape," I pointed out as Kate helped tend to my leg.

"Clearly. She wanted Stark and Tommy got him out of there so she had no reason to stay," Vision elaborated.

"She's too quiet," Hulkling pointed out. "At least our other villains talked. She just hit us."

"She's a proffesional mercenary, I don't think she wanted to add us on Myspace," Kate said.

"Yo, Tommy called. He said Stark's armors are all fed up. Digitek got to them or something. He wants Vision to check it out," Eli announced as he walked in the room. Vision floated through the wall without a word.

"Great... they were working together," Cassie sighed.

"And without Stark's armor he's pretty much defenseless... well for Tony Stark," I added.

"Great... just great. We've got to deal with Diamondback and Digitek... this isn't gonig to be easy..." Kate muttered ."Look guys, let's just call it a day. I'll think of something for tommorrow."

The next morning... "You think of a plan yet?" I asked Kate as she spotted me while I benchpressed.

"Sort of... I was thinking of going for a divide and conquer stradegy. Once we find them that is," Kate presented her idea.

"How do we find them?" I questioned her plan.

"I don't know! Look I'm not the only one who can do stuff for this team. You guys can do stuff too ya know. Why do you guys always have to go and lay all of the team's problems on me?" Kate snapped at me.

"Sorry... I... sorry," I apologized.

Kate took a deep breath, "Don't be... it's just... I'm stressed. Between school and fighting supervillains... and this other thing... I just- I don't- I'm stressed."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry... what's the 'other thing' you were talking about?" I poked into Kate's business.

"It's embaressing," Kate said.

"So?"

"So I don't wanna tell you."

"Come on Kate," I exaggerated a groan.

"Fine..." Kate sat next to me. "There's this guy, on the team, and I like him but he's just so caught up with his only things that he doesn't notice how much I like him and it's just, I don't know what I'm supposed to do to get him to notice me."

"Wow, Kate was right. I was too busy thinking about my problems. I had no idea that she feelings for me this whole time. Now that she's told me I might as well do what I think's best now," I thought to myself. I kissed Kate. Thing is she pulled away ten seconds later.

"Jason... I, uhh... hate to break it to you but I was talking about Eli..." she started staring at her feet, embaressed.

"Oh... sorry," I did the same. I felt like an idiot. "I wasn't thinking."

"Let's just pretend that didn't happen," Kate suggested.

"Good idea," I agreed.

Later in Chemistry class... "Maybe I'm just cursed. I mean Kitty isn't going to go out with EVER again yet I'm still attracted to her. Then when I try my luck with another girl it just doesn't work out. Sure Kate's just ONE girl and that was my stupid mistake but still, it's the principal of the situation. And now I'm staring at Kitty like an idiot!" I thought to myself as I stared at Kitty. Definately a bad idea. Sure, she may have been paying attention to the lab assignment but that still didn't mean she couldn't notice me.

"Jason... can you like... do something?" Nori(Surge) asked me retoriclly as she thrusted a beaker into my hands. I tried to stay focused on my work but I couldn't help but glance at Kitty. I missed her. I needed to talk to her or something otherwise I'd go crazy.

"Look will you just stop staring at me already?" Kitty practiclly ordered me as she walked across the room to "throw out something", and in turn shattering my hopes and reminding me how much she'd hurt me.

"I wasn't staring," I lied.

"Yeah, you were," Kitty shot back at me. "You're trying to make me feel guilty for dumping you because you're an asshole. You were being selfish!"

"How was wanting to help people selfish?" I asked.

"Because you don't have superpowers and could easily die and you don't give a shit about the people who LOVED you enough to stop and save them some grief!" Kitty shouted.

"I can handle myself!"

"NO YOU CAN'T! Why can't you see that? You're such a thick-headed dumb-ass! Look I don't care how much you beg or cry or whatever the hell you're gonna do cuz I'm not going to care! EVER!" Kitty exploded.

"Do you realize how stupid you sound right now? I'm saving people from nutjobs so the people who care about them don't need to go through the trouble of losing them and you're saying that makes me selfish," I made an attempt to keep my nerve.

"That's bullshit, you can't even defend yourself against a girl," Kity claimed.

"What?"

Kitty punched me in face and left the classroom. At this point everyone else in the class had been staring at our arguement. I wasn't too concerned about that. It was what Kitty had done that had my attention. She punched me. Not a slap. A punch. A full force punch that I'd soon discover gave me a black eye. That's a nice thought to wrap your mind around: Getting a black eye in the middle of chemistry class from your ex girlfriend because she didn't like that you were staring at her.

I needed to get out. I walked out of the mansion and within an hour I was walking down 42nd street. Problem was that it was only 1. That meant all of the other Young Avengers were in school. Vision was out trying to find a lead on Digitek or Diamondback so I wasn't exactly sure where he was, plus he probably would be better off with me complaining about my girl problems with him. I really wasn't sure what I should do until the others got out of school. I could always try thinking up an excuse as to why I have a black eye other than "Kitty did it.".

I bumped into a man a few minutes later while contemplating what I needed to do. He was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. "Shouldn't you be in school?" he asked. I quickly realized he was Tony Stark.

"Shouldn't you be... somewhere safe?" I asked.

"Touche," he replied. "Don't worry about me. I've got ways to look out for myself."

"Oh, well I'm... I can't really stand it there anymore. It's not much of a home anymore. Kind of just a prison now," I explained.

"Hmm... that bad? Is that where you got that little gift?" Stark asked in a joking manner.

"Yeah," I chuckled.

"Hungry?" he asked me.

"Kind of," I answered.

"Let's get lunch, my treat. We can chat."