Ash's POV

I could feel the thrum of the Quinjet engine underneath me before I could even open my eyes...

"The news is loving you guys. Nobody else is..." Maria Hill's voice sounded from the background so I decided to open my eyes a bit more.

Right as I did, though, they felt like the time I was taken to the beach and I got a faceful of sand from a misplaced volleyball shot.

"Owwwww..." I rubbed my eyes with both my hands before they were taken away from my face and I heard someone say,

"Don't... you might get rubble in your eyes..."

I opened up my eyes as far as they would allow me to see Xavion sitting next to me on the floor in a corner of the Quinjet while Bruce was sitting in front me and both of us were given weighted blankets.

"What... happened... Xay...?" My voice rasped a bit before I coughed to clear it out.

"You went out of control." Xay explained before his tone lightened up and he told me, "On the bright side, you have your marks now."

"Marks?" I questioned before he handed me a small mirror and I saw the neon orange marks on my left eye; four circles in a curved line under my eyebrow and slightly above my eyelid and four upside-down teardrops under my eye.

"How...?" I traced the shapes with my finger as I continued to stare at them in the mirror.

"Well... I had to kick you into a fiery, crashed vehicle to fully surround you with enough fire to bring you back, but I think given the situation it was alright."

"Aside from the world having seen the both of us in our most uncontrollable state." Bruce interjected as he came to.

"Yeah aside from that..." Xay looked down with a sheepish expression.

"What happened after Ultron..." I asked Bruce and he sighed before explaining,

"After you left to go down to the labs, Ultron attacked us, said he killed someone and would 'turn the liability' so I got worried when I didn't see you after the attack."

"After Ultron destroyed JARVIS, I went to try to protect the Scepter, but I didn't get very far... Then he said he was going after all of you upstairs and when I tried to warn you, he used the Scepter against me to take me hostage."

"You said when Loki tried to use it to control you it only made you stronger, how is it this time it weakened you?"

"It was probably because you were beginning to experience Tayen," Xay remarked, "It makes us think less rationally and messes with our abilities."

"Your father told me about it, I just didn't think it would've gotten that bad." Bruce directed to Xay, making him look at him in surprise.

"You know my father?"

"We met him when this alien came down to try to get Ash for his master's 'dual arsenal of destruction.'" Bruce tiredly mimicked the Oajin's voice, making Xay smile before looking worriedly at me.

"I'm OK and now that you're free from HYDRA and Ultron, you can go back to the clan and your dad." I told him and he looked contemplative before suggesting,

"I think I should stick around a little while longer, y'know to help you adjust to your new powers." Xay gave me a sheepish smile.

"And maybe you can tell me more about home..." I added softly.

"Whaddya me-?" Xay was interrupted when Clint announced,

"We're here." Right before landing the Quinjet in a grassy field and we all got off to walk toward a house in the distance.

As they all walked up the front steps of the house, Thor questioned,

"What is this place?"

"Safe house." Tony stated as if it was the most obvious thing.

"Let's hope." Bruce sighed.

"Honey? I'm home." Clint called out and a woman wearing a flowy blouse to fit around her with long brown hair came out and hugged him, "Hi. Company. Sorry, didn't call ahead."

"Hey." The woman waved to the rest of us.

"This is an agent of some kind." Tony spoke up.

"Gentlemen, this is Laura." Clint introduced her and she waved to them before saying,

"I know all of your names. Except you two." Directing the last part of her sentence to me and Xay.

"I'm Ash."

"Name's Xavion, but you can call me Xay."

"Incoming." Clint spoke right before two children, a boy and a girl, came running from another room and Clint scooped up the girl while pulling the boy into a hug, "Hi, sweetheart! Hey, buddy. How are you guys doing? I brought you some playmates."

"These are smaller agents." Tony tried to convenience the others before I interrupted with,

"I think it's fairly obvious they're not agents."

"Did you bring Auntie Nat?" The girl asked and Nat's face lit up with a smile before saying,

"Why don't you hug her and find out?" Before pulling her into a hug as Steve apologized,

"Sorry for barging in on you."

"Yeah, we would've called ahead, but we were busy having no idea that you existed." Tony stated bluntly.

"Yeah, well, Fury helped me set this up when I joined. He kept it off S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files. I'd like to keep it that way. I figure it's a good place to lay low." Clint explained and Xay tapped my shoulder before motioning with his head to go back outside as everyone started to talk.

3rd Person POV

Once they got outside Ash asked Xay as she went to lean against the fence that surrounded the house,

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did." Xay smiled before chuckling lightly and she laughed a little before asking,

"Now can you tell me more about home?"

"You never told me why you wanted to know that." Xay questioned as he leaned against the fence next to her and Ash looked at the tags on her wrists before answering,

"When I arrived on this planet, my escape pod crashed into a nuclear power plant, right in its experimental power core, making me emit gamma radiation whenever my emotions spike and making me lose some of my memories."

"That sounds hard..."

"For a while, I couldn't even remember who you were or my mother and sister, even though I always carried our pictures." She pulled out her pendant which had miraculously stayed in her pocket the entire time she had "raged" out and opened it for what felt like the millionth time that day alone and was beginning to feel like some kind of initiation for people she trusted.

"I remember when we took that photo." Xay pointed to the one of her and him with their arms over each other's shoulders looking like they were trying to walk in sync.

"I can't..." Ash admitted quietly and Xay looked at her worriedly before looking to the sky and reminiscing,

"It was the day after arriving at the training grounds, I had turned another rotation older so I was older than you again and you never like that we only stayed the same age for 9 months so you were pretending to be mad at me, but then I made a glimmer fizzle since I knew it was your favorite trick to see."

"Glimmer fizzle?"

Xay held out his hands palms down before flipping them upwards quickly and a column of tiny sparks whirled upwards toward the sky where they began to rain down on them like a snowy flurry.

"I... remember now..." Ash looked at the sprinkling of sparks in awe before holding her hands out to allow some to land on and get absorbed into her skin, "The first time you did this you almost burned down your home growth."

"I was only 9 rotations old." He retorted defensively in a joking manner.

"It looks more... powerful than it did back then." Ash wondered out loud.

"That's because Tayen allows us to access more of our core's power to heighten our abilities. Watch." Ash waited as Xay put both of his hands on his chest and her eyes widened when a small circle of light appeared under his hands and sent out small tendrils of wispy light to cover his hands making their way to his marks on his shoulder to make it light up with a warm light before repeating the trick and sending an even bigger flurry of sparks down on them.

"We might want to be careful, I don't think Clint will like it if we burn down his house." Ash lightly joked after she stamped out a tiny fire that formed on a patch of dry grass under their feet.

"Wow!"

"That was so cool!"

They both turned to see Clint's kids, Lila and Cooper, standing behind them with amazed looks on their faces.

"You are aliens..." Lila looked up at them with awe in her eyes.

"Can you do more cool tricks like that?" Cooper asked.

Ash and Xay looked at each other and he smiled and nodded, before Ash smiled and answered,

"Sure, but not here I wouldn't want to accidentally burn down your nice house."

"We have a secret place you could do your magic." Lila took Ash's hand and began to lead her away while Cooper did the same with Xay and the four of them disappeared into the forest, unaware they were being watched by Bruce and Natasha from the window of their room while they were talking.

Time Skip to Dusk

"One more time pleeeeaaaasse!" Lila clapped her hands joyfully as the last of the embers faded into darkness.

Lila and Cooper had brought Ash and Xay to a clearing by a river that was mostly rocks and pebbles so there wasn't much to burn as Ash continually practiced enhancing her powers with her core's energy and Xay answered all her questions about their home planet and Ash told him all about Bruce and her time with the Avengers.

"One more time and then we have to head back." Ash agreed before she placed her hands over her core, making it light up the same way Xay's did but her marks around her eye glowed before she blew sparks out from her hands and they zipped around them like hyperactive fireflies before exploding into mini fireworks whenever Lila or Cooper touched them.

"Alright let's go." Xay clapped his hands and started to lead the way when Cooper told him,

"How? We can't see."

"It is getting dark." Ash noticed that the last of the sun's rays were disappearing over the horizon and she and Xay's natural night vision started to kick in, making their eyes glow a tinted green to anyone looking at them.

"Ooh! New lesson!" Xay blurted out excitedly.

"Xay!" Ash scolded him, reminding him that two other kids were with them and they were looking around their dark surroundings nervously.

"Ok fine..." Xay relented dejectedly and they each picked up one of the kids and flew over the trees to make it back to the house, Lila and Cooper whooping in excitement the whole way there.

Once they got inside and Lila and Cooper went to go do their own thing, Ash saw Nick Fury in the kitchen and looked at him wide-eyed, but kept out of eye range from him and the others as he continued to talk to the other Avengers before Xay whispered loudly,

"Who's that?"

"Someone who can clearly see you two there even with only one bad eye." Fury answered as he and the others noticed the two of them standing there.

"I thought you were supposed to be dead." Ash spoke confused remembering the news from the day HYDRA tried to kidnap her from the Tower.

"I thought he was supposed to be dead." Fury directed toward Xay.

"Hasn't everyone died at one point or another?" Xay tried to joke but it fell flat as everyone looked at him blankly and he grinned sheepishly before saying, "Ooookay then..."

"New look?" Fury directed to Ash, motioning to his eye to point out her marks, "Not bad."

"Thanks?"

"Anyways, Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction. All this, laid in a grave. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard." Fury declared and Nat snarked,

"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk."

"You know what, Romanoff?" Steve started to say but stopped when he saw her smirking.

"So, what does he want?" Fury pronounced each word of his sentence while Ash moved over to Bruce and he looked at her in concern before she nodded and smiled.

"To become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies." Steve stated.

"Person bodies. The human form is inefficient. Biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it." Tony added right as Ash caught sight of the butterfly painting that Lila made for Nat earlier and thought aloud to herself but catching Bruce's attention as well,

"Chrysalis..."

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed." Nat brought up

"They don't need to be protected. They need to evolve." Bruce started Ash's thought and she finished with,

"Ultron's planning to evolve..."

"How?" Fury questioned.

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?" Bruce questioned and was answered with the silence that followed.

"Let's get to it then." Fury suggested and everyone started to get ready to leave.

"Where are we going?" Xay came up to Ash and Bruce, eager to find out what the plan was.

"Actually..." Ash started to say but hesitated so Bruce finished her thought,

"It might be best for you to go back with your dad."

"Why?"

"We signed up for battles we might not return from, but I don't think your father can handle losing you a third time, Xay..." Ash told him as she held his hand and looked him in the eye.

"I guess, but I don't want to lose you either Starlight."

"Starlight?"

"It was my nickname for you back home." Xay explained and Ash scrunched up one of her eyes in thought before saying,

"I think we'd be more like solar flares."

"Ooh that's a good name, mind if I use it sometime?" Xay asked and Ash smiled while looking down before answering,

"Sure thing, Solar Flare."

"Time to go, you two." Fury came over to them before asking, "You three?"

"Nope, just two." Xay spoke with a bit of discouragement but shook it off to give them an encouraging nod.

"Let's go then." Fury led the way out and Ash stopped right outside the jet Fury used to get there to hug Xay one last time.

"See you around Solar Flare."

"See you soon Starlight." Xay quickly kissed her cheek, leaving her stunned as he grinned sheepishly before taking off to the sky.

Ash stood there for a few more seconds as her cheeks turned a darker red and she put a hand to her face before Bruce called her aboard and she boarded in a daze.

"You OK?" Bruce asked, noticing her deeper reddened face.

"Everything is wonderful..."

"Ok..." Bruce raised an eyebrow at that but let it go as Ash stared out the window as the jet took off for Avengers Tower.

2443 Words