Once Annie had left the room Clint once again turned towards Natasha. He wasn't clueless sure he had stopped arguing for a small amount of time with Natasha. But there was clearly something going on between the two women. And he wanted to get to the bottom of it, before they went out to whatever mission they were heading out on. 

"Nat, tell me what's going on between you two. I'm not stupid." Clint started without the menace in his voice, perhaps if he could coax it out of her it would stop them having to argue. 

"We had an argument whilst you were gone that's all." Natasha was trying to brush off whatever had happened between the pair. She didn't want to have to explain what she had said. Her words hadn't had the desired effect she had wanted them to. And now she was sitting waiting to see what happened next. She had lost the power and was sure she didn't like it. 

"That's not a normal argument. She wouldn't even look you in the eye. You guys have argued time and time again but she's never responded like that before." Clint continued to talk calmly about it, he hated when the two fought but he was hoping it would blow over like last time but couldn't be too sure.

"I said some stuff, I regret, thinking it would keep her safe. It didn't work and now I'm facing the consequences." Natasha dragged her hand down her face with these words. She really didn't mean to cause such a riff in their relationship for no apparent reason. All she had wanted was for Annie to be safe, all she ever wanted was for the younger woman to be safe. But she had gone about it the wrong way. 

"Annie's stubborn even if you had asked her nicely to go home she never would have. Give her time." Clint patted her on the shoulder feeling completely faithful in the words he had just spoken. He knew that Annie wouldn't hold this grudge forever. Natasha only wished that she too could be as confident. She was more than aware of how much her words had hurt. She had been stood outside of Annie's room just moments before the attack. She had heard the other woman begging to go home and leave SHIELD. But Natasha didn't want her to leave. She couldn't leave them. 

"I don't know Clint. I'm going to go and get ready and I'll meet you there." Natasha moved to give him a kiss, a feeling she had been missing these last couple days, before heading to the door. 

"Love you Nat." He hollered as she walked away, hoping one day she would finally say it back. 

It was about twenty minutes later when the group finally came to be together again. It looked a whole lot smaller than Annie had anticipated. Thor was not with them which meant they would be down on people power until he arrived. If he arrived, she still wasn't sure he was behind fighting against his brother. She guessed she would never know what that felt like, she was an only child. She never did that whole sibling bonding thing. 

"Ready to go team?" Captain America started again. Sure by now Annie probably knew him well enough to be able to call him his first name. Or at least Captain Rogers. But this was the man her father had idolised. Her roommate had idolised. And at one point in her life, Captain America had been Annie's own hero. She couldn't bring herself to call him anything else. 

"Everyone got a comm's system?" Were his next words when he got no answer. Annie didn't want to speak up but she knew she had to and therefore raised her hand just like she was in school. 

"Have something to share with the class kid?" Stark asked her noticing the arm

"I had a disagreement with mine, I don't have one." Annie replied only to be given one by Captain America himself. 

"Hill said she had been trying ages to contact you and assumed you disconnected it again. Gave me a new one for you." Annie took the communicator realising she was going to have to take the hearing aid off and fiddle with it to get them paired again. Knowing it was going to take ages and slow them down she turned to Clint who was a damn sight faster than she was connecting the two pieces together. 

"Do you mind connecting them and I'll get us in the air?" She gave him what she hoped was a pleading look. Not knowing that in this moment of time he would do anything for either of his girls considering he was back where he belonged to be. 

"Go on goggles." He gave her a wink as he walked onto the plane. Annie was quick to follow, getting herself comfortable in the pilots seat happy that some other agent wasn't going to have to deal with flying them. She always felt more comfortable when she was behind the wheel. The others slowly clambered on other than Stark who was going to fly alongside them. If Annie could keep up apparently. And normally she would have taken the challenge. But knowing the speed of the SHIELD issued planes she couldn't for the other man would be there significantly faster. 

"We need to remember to call each other by our code names. Don't want the public to easily be able to recognise us all." Captain America started the conversation, Annie could just about hear a little bit from where she sat. But she wasn't sure why didn't everyone on here have codenames everyone else knew. Then she realised that he didn't know hers. 

"Hex. My name is Hex." Annie confirmed from the front. She hadn't got the chance to be called that name in five years now. And the familiar feeling of getting ready to go into battle with the rest of her X-Men was back. The only problem was she was the only one there. There was no Kitty singing One Direction off tune. No Bobby playing with the straps of his seat belt. Rogue wasn't there reciting a biblical passage. And she was pilot. Not Uncle Hank. 

But other than that Annie was ready. She had after all ignored the SHIELD approved version of her tactical gear. Going for the original version with its proud yellow X insignia and her code name sewn on the front. The colours were similar, the outfit looked almost identical. She had just swapped out her glasses. The glasses weren't exactly the most practical to fight aliens in, so she had been told. And therefore, the visor she normally only wore to bed, to avoid a cheeky little nighttime accident, were on her face. They were modelled after her father's own in his youth hers were just a little more streamline and feminine. 

Landing the plane was easy, considering they had approval to land on a helicopter green patch near a hospital. But by the time they had gotten to where Stark had signalled them Annie couldn't believe her eyes. Sure she had seen a variety of different things during her time as an X-Men and a SHIELD agent. But these were aliens. 

A tap on her shoulder caused Annie to quit admiring the aliens and turn around. She came face to face with a hand holding out her hearing aid with attached communicator. 

"One of these days we'll make it so they're not so obvious." Clint tapped his own before turning towards the display of aliens. Annie cast her eyes towards Natasha to see how she was doing, despite having unpleasant thoughts towards the other woman she still needed to know she was okay. Natasha seemed the most ready out of them all for what was coming. But perhaps that was the spy training. Annie wasn't sure. 

"Welcome to the party, what took you lot so long?"