I curled up in a ball in shock for the next few days, existing in a state between unconsciousness and consciousness. Nothing changed outside, except I couldn't be sure of that. How could I trust SHIELD after all they had done? Created us, lied to Dad about our freedom, put us in horrible situations (the ones that weren't in on it anyway), created fakes lives, ripped us away from them, hidden our powers...

       But my conflict wasn't just with SHIELD, it was within myself. These abilities, these powers. Were tearing me apart, they were dangerous and deadly. I barely had to punch someone to kill them. You can see ghosts, you killed a man. My thoughts whispered.

       "No!" I cried, somewhat of a strangled scream, slamming my palm down on the floor of the cell, I had just enough room to lay out completely and right now I was laying out diagonally across the cell where there was a few inches to spare above my head. I rolled onto my back, glaring at the single light above my head.

You're a murderer. My feeble conscience hissed.

So I laid there, losing myself to the darkness in which I was fighting. Occasionally I would cry, not sound, just a motionless array of tears running down my face. Sometimes I'd kick and scream. Then I would stop, it was really the only rotation of time I had. Basic necessities like food and water were not needed, I had no urge to satisfy myself with such needs. This also sent me into a confused turmoil of how long I'd really been there. Then I'd decide it didn't matter. And then so the process would repeat.

After some amount of time, Tony came in and saw me, instead of his rumoured jerk self he was quiet.

"Hey," He said simply after a long time, I couldn't summon the energy to reply.

He obviously waited a little for a reply but said nothing. His hand were in his pants pocket, per normal, he was dressed in a suit, he looked around before continuing, "It's a bit screwed up, keeping you in here, the isolation, I don't know how you do it," I pursed my lips slightly and Tony noticed that, "so... Do you want to get out of here for a little while? Prison break, take two?"

"Dad," I whispered, a break of the silence and he looked slightly optimistic at my small response, "I don't think you understand. Whatever I am, it's a monster, I'm a monster," I began to cry again, the tears taking their sweet time trailing down my face.

"No you're not!" Tony slammed his fist against the glass, I flinched away.

"Not like Loki, not like Chen, no, a real monster who can kill people with a touch," I yelled, my throat raw and my voice hoarse.

"You're nothing like them!" Tony cried, I looked into his eyes, they seemed ready to break. Two brown wells in which and entirety of pain sloshed. "Do you understand? You're different, special, ready to choose your own path. Don't let your powers control you. Now, I have about forty-eight seconds before SHIELD agents come bursting in here, so please summon BlueBird,"

The door to my cell slid open and Tony tossed me my glasses case. I caught them and slid the glasses out. I paused, fighting within myself wether or not to put them on.

        You could get out of here, be free. One part of me protested.

       But you killed a man. Another part of me hissed, you don't deserve to live.

"BlueBird ready for deployment," SIS reported as soon as I put them on.

"Deploy," I said, picking myself off the floor of the cell. I took a cautious step outside, aware that the mist had temporarily faded.

It's inside of you.

       Thanks, pessimist.

The BlueBird came flying inside and so did Tony's suit. Consecutively they attached to us, Tony was a few seconds faster, his pieces coming individually instead of already assembled like mine.

We blasted out of the base and went flying into the night sky. I set BlueBird to follow Tony's course and was lulled into sleep as we flew, only being awakened when we landed at one of Tony's mansions in the forest.

...

I was awakened by Cleo shaking my shoulder.

"What?" I mumbled, not noticing the fact that Cleo was wearing medieval clothing. Then I took it into account later.

"Long time, no see little sis," She grinned.

"I was busy killing people and hacking into SHIELD," I muttered, sitting up, taking in the nicely furnished room, set in my bronze, "I can see that you got an upgrade,"

Cleo was wearing a red mini-skirt, the colour of her father's cape. She wore a breastplate similar to her father's with circular metallic plates at different sections of her chest. Her blonde ringlets were down and her head had a metallic circuit that dipped into a jagged bolt over her forehead. Her feet were leather boots and she had sleeveless gloves in the same style. She was visibly stronger, and more confident.

"You are looking at the new Princess of Asgard," She said confidently.

As if I couldn't be outdone anymore.

"That's great, and I'm the Princess of Death," I replied, sarcasm thick in my words.

"No really, I'm a descendant of Thor, whose soon-to-be king in Asgard, I'm a princess and when I turn eighteen, I'll be a goddess,"

Freaking goddess.

"Well I'm Tony Stark's daughter, which carries much more weight here on Earth," I replied. Cleo opened her mouth to retort but then rolled her eyes. I turned away to get changed in the bathroom attached.

"I got heaps of training done in Asgard, I can now wield lightning really well, not just throwing it around like with Lu," Cleo went to blabber on how great Asgard was and all of her fighting skills and what being a princess was like.

I tuned out the noise, looking in the mirror of the large, modern ensuite, Cleo hanging outside of the closed door. I glared at the mirror, my skin was pale and papery and for a second, I thought I could see my skull. I was thin from the lack of food my jawline becoming more prominent, a raw hunger glared in my almost-black irises. At least my brunette waves had survived and I brushed them out which took a little while. For presentability, I wore a leather jacket which was a metallic bronze colour and two, gold stripes down the outside of the arms. Underneath it, was a simple black shirt and jeans, my arc reactor glowing through the shirt.

"And so father explained to me that even though Fandral sought the presence of many women, he was looking for a wife. Then he suggested that we court, which I think is the equivalent of boyfriend and girlfriend relationships. Can you believe that? My own father hooking me up with a three-thousand-year-old man and all I could think was; is this Asgard's version of shipping people?" Cleo's mindless blabber barely reached my mind.

After nicely convincing Cleo that I didn't really care about Asgard daily, she lead me to the others. However our thirty second trip didn't stop her from well informing me of the hot guard she thought I would like and her friendship with Sif.

All of the Offspring, as I was bent on calling them, were in the Living room and in various poses of boredom. The Twins had their arms crossed and were on scout duty, hovering near the glass wall which looked into a dense surrounding forest. Nile was pacing per normal, James was nowhere to be seen. Gale rushed over to me when he saw us enter and wrapped me in a tight hug. For a second, I was shocked then I relaxed and breathed in his smell- the scent of pine on a cold, Winter day.

"I thought I lost you for good," He said, pulling back.

"You can't get rid of me that easily," I chuckled nervously.

"It's been almost two weeks Lana, dammit!" He half growled and the other half grumbled.

"Wait. What?" I asked, shocked. I figured it had been at least a few hours, Cleo hinted a no to that when she talked about Asgard, but then, I expected a few days, not two weeks.

"We're at Tony's mansion while SHIELD and Avengers try to figure out what to do with us. Let's go play some laser tag, FRIDAY told me Tony has a whole underground room dedicated to it." Cleo said excitedly.

"Okay, I'm in," the few of words, Aaron spoke, we all looked at him, shocked. "I do have a voicebox you know," he said in response to our looks.

"Let's do it," Gale said, shrugging then looking back to me.

"Sweet," Cleo said, morphing into SHIELD-like clothing.

"I can do something like that," I muttered sulkily, still looking at Cleo's catsuit and wishing for my shirt.

The rest of the Offspring agreed in varying stages of enthusiasm. As we made our way down to the laser tag arena, I stopped at the kitchen for a quick breakfast and checked up on Tony who was at SHIELD. FRIDAY (Tony's new system after Jarvis had been downloaded into Vision's programming) reported that he would be returning in a little under an hour, I tried not to Fangirl the system.

We made our way down to the arena which FRIDAY transferred into an urban setting like ghetto New York or something, I don't know, I've never been to New York. It was centred around a large alleyway, there were apartments and within them there were a whole bunch of effects like ventilation ducts which one could hide in.

Since there was barely any of us, we decided to work together on the first scenario.

It was a protect-the-civilians-while-you-take-out-all-the-zombies scenario. The goal of the game was to evacuate one hundred civilians with an under ten percent zombifying rate. Gale lowered that to five percent.

Nile, Gale and Cupid set out a game-plan while I recalibrated Marine for game mode. Tony had transferred the suit here before he got me out of SHIELD. Aaron was also helping and Cleo was using some of the Asgardian battle strategies she'd learnt to create the perfect plan. Angel would be on lookout, I'd be air support for evac and delaying the zombies. Our main goal was to evacuate all of the citizens before we eliminated the zombies. Gale would be distracting the zombies with his abilities whilst also semi-working on evac which he was secretly happy about. Aaron and Nile were also on evacuation; they would be looking through the apartments for any remaining civilians. Cleo would be having the most fun which was to smash through the zombies and procrastinate them as much as possible.

I reviewed the rules of the game; humans were red, zombies were blue, they were a holographic image that could be physically interacted with. Zombies were able to turn the citizens into zombies as well. The area of the arena was two hectares exactly. The zombies would outnumber the civilians three to one but would be spread over a period of an hour. The game finished when all the zombies were eliminated or the remaining citizens were turned. Human players could also be turned and would be rendered paralysed if so. We had a ten minute head start on the zombies. To be considered evacuated, the civilians would have to be through the opposite entry of the zombies (which was a glowing red door which we had entered before - no zombies allowed). We were also warned that the civilians also had human emotions and attachments to objects and each other, therefore they were going to be really stupid and run back into the chaos and stuff.

We pressed the start and civilian holographic people appeared bustling and brushing past each other. A girl chased a puppy, a trio of friend passed a ball in between them. Some turned to gaze at me and their mouths dropped in excitement.

"All citizens," Nile called commandingly, "please immediately make your way uptown, there is going to be a terrorist attack in exactly ten minutes, this is not a drill, please make your way uptown, this is an order by the U.S. Military," We'd figured that it would be best to make it sound like a military evacuation.

People looked to each other and began to run into the finish area, my evac bar rose to fifteen percent when the majority of people moved away.

"He's right," I called, "You need to get out of here, now," A few more people moved to the end line.

"Nile and Aaron, start checking the apartments, we barely have five minutes to go, Gale, start making an ice wall of some sort," Cleo said, in-charge. "Lana, convince some of the civilians still hanging around to move their butts,"

I grumbled to myself as my mask flipped up and I spoke quickly to the civilians, "Ma'am please move uptown, there's going to be a terrorist attack extremely soon and I don't want you and your children to get hurt," The holographic woman looked at her children urgently, then at me, she picked up her kids and ran. My evac bar rose up to twenty-two percent however we still had three minutes to go.

Nile and Aaron managed to get some people onto the street and they ran until the bar displayed on my mask became thirty-five percent. We managed to get forty-eight percent of the population out before the first zombie wave came.

It was about thirty zombies, they ran at the ice shield Gale was forming, throwing themselves upon each other to get over the wall like in World War Z. Only two of them made it over which gave the daydreaming civilians something to fear. I made quick work of them, leaving them simply for the purpose of motivation.

By the time we finished off the first wave, about fifty percent of the population was evacuated. Angel had only needed to use two explosive arrows, Cleo has roasted a few and some were blown to bits, courtesy of your truly. Nile and Aaron had finished the first block of apartments. Gale had taken a few steps back to ice the nearby area.

The next wave was double the zombies and Gale began fighting.

"Lana!" I heard Nile cry and I turned to see a child falling out of a window. I swooped over and grabbed him before he hit the concrete.

"Run kid!" I shouted as I turned and took out two pursuing zombies. The kid adhered to my warning and ran. "Run Forest, Run!" Then in a serious voice said. "Fifty-eight percent of the population is safe,"

The third wave came shortly after the first, they began beating up against the melting ice wall. Gale pushed his fist into the ground and an array of ice spikes shot up. The zombies made it through the wall, tens of them falling onto the spikes that Gale had made.

A lot of people from Aaron's apartments made a run for it, to the point where the meter rose up to eighty-eight percent.

"Well done guys," I spoke, "keep 'em coming,"

I spotted a family on top of an apartment waving madly for help as the zombies began to crawl up the side of the building. I flew to them and the mother pushed the children into my arms. Before I lifted off, I blasted a few zombies for good measure. I managed to get the children to the edge of the evac zone before turning back to blast a few of the surrounding zombies. I picked up the mother and elder daughter at the father's request.

"Cupid I need some backup," I cried, luckily Angel got the signal and began shooting at the zombies surrounding the father. I dropped the mother with the children and they caught each other in a tight embrace. I blasted off to the father who was on the ledge of the flat rooftop, ready to jump off. A zombie lunged for him and he catered towards the edge, falling.

Someone screamed behind me and I just managed to catch the dad before he hit the ground. I rushed him and his reunited family through the evac point.

"Ninety-five percent civilians evacuated," I reported.

The steady flow of zombies increased, "This is way more than three hundred," Someone cried over the coms.

"How many zombies did you input Lana?" Gale shouted.

"Three hundre-" I trailed off as I realised I had put in three thousand.

"What did you do?" Cleo cried, I stopped her down and further back.

"I may have accidentally added an extra zero to that mix," I muttered.

"Great, just great," Aaron grumbled and proceeded to swear a long stream of curses after that.

"Hey, extra training experience," I replied cheerfully and sent a small swarm of missiles into a cluster of zombies. Out of the corner of my vision I saw Nile evacuate the final people and my meter rose to one hundred percent.

"Well, all of the civilians are out with no casualties, let's tear this place apart." I said and began shooting blasts at the rising zombies. They began rising into a wave of bodies.

Aaron and Nile exited their respective apartments and joined the fray. Angel stood at her perch and fired arrows every half second until the buzz of flying arrows was a common sound. Cleo leaped high into the sky, her spear raised into the air. She summoned a large amount of electricity before slamming it into a large hoard of them. Gale drew out his knives and began slicing the zombies to ribbons. I fell into a continuous pattern; aim, fire, fly, aim, fire, fly...

After a long time, I kicked off a zombie that had attached itself to me and the Holographs ended.

"Team Mini Avengers for the win," I cheered as we exited. Everyone else looked exhausted, panting and collapsing in the prep room. I de-suited and sent it away. "Guys it's been two hours."

"Well done," Nile congratulated.

"SIS where is Dad?" I asked as I began to make my coffee, I turned around to sip the beverage when I heard her reply.

"I cannot locate Mr. Stark," FRIDAY supplied. "His last movements were at SHIELD, he is untraceable," I dropped my cup, the mug cracking and spilling hot drink everywhere.

"Lana?" Cleo asked, worried, not realising what I'd just heard.

"What about the rest of the Avengers?" Aaron stood worriedly, his fatigue forgotten.

"My systems cannot trace their location," FRIDAY reported.

"Display visual of their last location," I cried. A display of the Avengers came up, all of them in formal or civilian clothing, shaking hands and about to leave before a bright light blinded the camera and they disappeared.

"Get Nick Fury on the line," Angel stood.

A visual of Fury appeared, he nodded towards the Twins and glared at me, "Alana, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"The Avengers have gone missing," I replied curtly.

Fury looked away and shouted a few orders, after a few moments he turned back to the screen, "I'm sending some agents your way, we have a Level Two situation; the Avengers are missing,"