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Tinley and Tempest rode on to the hub in silence. Tempest held on to the gifts in her arms while also making sure to attach herself to Tinley, but Tinley drove relatively easily since they had no more pressing matters. Christmas had been, more or less, saved. Tempest was riding the high off of it (and couldn't wait to tell Oliver), but Tinley didn't feel any better. Yeah, she was happy she got their gifts back, but the holidays still felt off and this proved it.

Tempest ran over to Bonnie to check. "I'm no doctor and we should get you checked out as soon as possible, but I can at least give you some help." Tempest used her healing power to help Bonnie, feeling the energy course through her as she moved to Bonnie's head. Bonnie would be healed and her concussion would heal fine. "Hopefully that will make it so you can ride back to base without fear."

Tinley nodded approval and, once transportation means were determined, the two of them rode back to the Hub. Once back in the garage, she parked the bike and both the women rode up to the Common Room. Tinley's eyes immediately darted to the alien corpse on the ground. Well, that at least explained why the others didn't join them. Tempest was either ignoring the corpse or hadn't seen it because she strolled into the room, "We come bearing gifts!" she said. She dropped them off back on the table before facing everyone else. "Ok, lot's of questions but let's start with the most pressing. Why is there an alien corpse? When we left there was not one and now there is. I'm not upset by it, but where, and why?"

She glanced at Maria, Novi, and Oliver, opening up for any of them to explain. "Well, let's share information then. We got Deadpool to the park where he knocked Bonnie pretty good so we took him down and Tinley kicked him in the jingle bells a lot and he's knocked out now, but we saved the gifts! Ok your turn." She motioned, but kept her eyes on Oliver.

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Flynn could shut the hell up. Niah thought. Yes, Bonnie was hurt, but that was no reason to be snapping at Tempest. She clenched her jaw trying not to be angry at him. He was worried about Bonnie. That was a valid feeling. But Niah knew that wasn't the only reason she was mad at him, and she couldn't continue to hold a grudge against something that he had no memory of.

On the drive back Niah tried to let her anger fall away. She thought about the good things from the day. The team had come together, they had gotten the gifts back. She could give Bonnie the gifts she got her. One for the secret Santa exchange and one for her privately. Even if in a weird way the second gift... She cut off the thought and tried to relax taking a couple of deep breaths.

At the Hub common room, she looked at the green creature on the floor confused. What the heck was that? Was this why Novi Maria and Oliver hadn't joined them in the park? And where was Roman?

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Matt, after getting off the bike, said to Harry. "If you ever want to go to the range with me let me know. You're a good shot." He felt a little awkward saying it. Hoping he didn't come off as condescending, he really did think Harry was a good shot and would enjoy time at the shooting range. What he hoped was Harry wouldn't think he was hitting on him.

Then Matt headed back to his room, to change out of his riding gear. This time he kept his gun on him though, under his coat. He didn't particularly care to get caught unaware again. After he changed back into his holiday outfit he returned to the common room. As he went for a stiff drink he stared at the green stiff on the floor. "That's new. Right? That wasn't there before we left?"

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Flynn still was glaring slightly at Tempest as she finally decided to walk over and actually help Bonnie out. It annoyed him to no end that she hadn't seemed to notice it at first. She had a healing power, and didn't notice when someone had a concussion? What sort of healer was that who wouldn't notice? Cass and Sparky were able to notice that one! It was a little ridiculous that she was someone who could heal people, and hadn't really noticed at all how bad Bonnie had been injured. "Whatever you say Bonnie," he grumbled, looking over at her after the others had taken off.

Sparky just rolled her eyes slightly at Raynor, "What do you mean it would be lame? I mean really, you are more then a little ridiculous, you know that right?" she said, shaking her head. His words once again was just a bit random, never really explaining anything, then of course he had to somewhat go off about his ego. Seriously, it was ridiculous in her mind, but she couldn't help but blush slightly when he once again pointed out that he wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Come on Bonnie, let's go," Flynn said to her, hopping back on the motorcycle, and he waited for her to get on before he fired up the engine and took off back to the Hub. At least this way they could get back to all of this crazy nonsense that was the Christmas holiday. He never understood that at all, but he figured since most people here celebrated it he could tolerate it for a little while longer.

"Let's get going already," she said to Raynor, before she walked over, picked him up and took off into the sky. She figured that they would get back to the Hub sooner or later, and odds were that the pair of them were drawing eyes considering the fact that they were flying through the air, and Raynor was wearing most of a Santa suit. "Also no way in hell would I be a reindeer Ray," she said with a slight eye roll, laughing slightly at that comment.

Both of the two groups got back to the Hub, and when Flynn walked into the common room area, he glanced over at the corpse on the ground. "So... Guessing we missed something entertaining..." he commented, glancing at the others.

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The Common Room...

Just two hours after the party officially started, everyone was finally back at the Hub. The Common Room was a little worse for wear, thanks to the battle with the skrull imposter. Bottles of vodka had been smashed and the glass shards were lying on the ground, but of course Roman's corpse was certainly the most eye catching feature. He wasn't human - he wasn't a mutant, inhuman, or mutate either. He was alien. "If I'm not conscious, then it's rape," Novikova told her fiancée very seriously. Her bottle of vodka was finished and by some stroke of luck, she at least had enough sense to not throw the glass at Tinley's head out of rage.

"What the hell is that thing?" Raynor asked, incredibly bewildered as he stared at the alien. He hadn't seen one of those before. As the only living alien in the room (that he knew of), Raynor was a little bit annoyed that he didn't recognize the race. "It's definitely not from the Nine Realms," he then added, wanting to make sure that his importance as the alien expert of the group was underlined. Without his shirt on, he definitely looked the part. He hadn't seen one of these things on Midgard in the last twenty or so years either. "And where's Roman?" he then inquired, noting that the creepy agent was nowhere to be seen.

The dog named Max started to growl at the skrull corpse, before yipping his little head off. On the puppy's collar was a single name: Flynn. It must have been his gift from his Secret Santa.

"That's Roman," Novikova snapped, pointing wildly at the corpse. She didn't care to hear Tempest's little recap about how all of her old friends had had a fantastic time without her. She was better off without S.H.I.E.L.D. anyways! She loved working with Pym and the rest here. They even were thinking about forming their own team of sorts - the West Coast Avengers. Of course, she hadn't discussed it yet with Maria enough to mention one of the odder members on the roster... the Scarlet Witch. "We were attacked by a man who looked like Jabba the Hutt fucked a piece of broccoli - so can we get on with the presents already?"

"... I'll go put, erm, Roman on ice then," Bonnie said, feeling immensely better after Tempest healed her concussion. The ride back with Flynn had been fun, though she was blushing slightly. The scientific potential of dissecting this corpse though was incalculable and she didn't want to let this opportunity go to waste. "Raynor, would you mind?" Bonnie asked, gesturing at the corpse. The Asgardian nodded, picking up Roman carefully. Bonnie walked with him to the morgue and directed him, as Raynor slid the corpse into the freezer.

It was only a few minutes before the pair returned to the room. "Come on, Santa, stop shooting a porno with Chase and hand out the presents!" Novikova whined at Raynor.

Raynor sighed slightly, but he oddly didn't protest too much. Gathering the presents quickly from everyone, he distributed them to their proper honors. "Merry Yule, everyone... I, uh... I want to say sorry for being a jerk earlier... It's uh... Well, in my culture, Yule is about the promise of my dad returning from the dead.... That never happened."



Novikova opened up her gift, not expecting much as she had been fired after all. Instead, as she saw the guitar pick bracelet, the turntable, and the headphones, she couldn't help but break out into a smile. This was actually an amazing present and she instantly put on the guitar pick bracelet, chuckling a little bit whenever she read the inscription. She figured that Maria must have been her Secret Santa then, it was such an amazing present - or maybe it had been Sparky? "Bae, was this you?" she asked, looking at her fiancée.

As Bonnie opened up her gift and saw the medical text, she smiled as well. She loved keeping these on hand as reference in the lab. "D'aww, I love it," she said softly. "Thank you Santa - whoever you are."

Raynor hadn't opened his gift up yet, his hands twitching as he waited for Sparky to open up her own.

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When Cassandra walked into the room, she looked at Oliver, Maria and Novikova and then the body who apparently was actually Roman there she had never seen an alien like that before. "Well it looks like you guys had some fun.." Cass said as she watched Bonnie and Raynor going over to Roman's body and lifted it up to take it over to the morgue. The common room looked like it was a pretty big mess and it would take awhile to clean it all up as well. She was actually excited for opening some presents as Raynor handed everyone all of their presents out.

She took a moment and shook the box around a little bit and then started to unwrap it, opening the box seeing that it was a new tablet, which she smiled. She had been looking for a new for awhile now, she had it for a good five years or so now and looked around the room wondering who actually gave it to her. "Thank you." Cassandra said smiling a bit more when she was alone she would transfer all of the old stuff to the new one, she looked at Maria who explained more on what happened. She looked over at Raynor who actually apologized for his actions earlier. "It's alright." Cass said towards him.

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Harry took a moment and looked over at Matt and smiled a bit at his compliment. "Thank you, I actually could use someone to test some new weapons whenever I finish them." Harry said, he much preferred the safety of a lab one of the reasons he took the promotion was to get away from it all. But he didn't mind going out and doing field work either, he followed everyone else back into the Commons and as soon as he entered the room his eyes fell directly at the dead alien body that was on the ground. "Well I certainly wasn't expecting to see a body of an alien in here." Harry said looking over at the three who stayed behind while the others dealt with Deadpool and getting their presents back.

When Raynor started to hand the presents out Harry took a moment and started to look at the box, before unwrapping it and then opening the box. He smiled liking the multitool which would really be useful while working in his lab, he looked over at everyone in the room, he wasn't sure who gave it to him. "Thank you it will really come in handy actually." Harry said, he looked at Maria who explained more on what happened, which sounded a little more ominous as well. Harry took a moment and looked over at Raynor his jaw was still a little sore from being punched in the jaw and shrugged slightly. "It's fine." He said.

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Maria looked over at Novikova. "I was kidding, I would never ever do that to you." Maria said to her fiancé, and watched as everyone started to come into the room. And then the others started to ask questions on what happened while letting Novi tell them that it was actually Roman. "Roman turned into that and tried to attack Novi and bit her as well." Maria said watching as Bonnie and Raynor started to take the corpse of the Skrull down to the morgue. "It's a skrull from what Oliver found out from Tony, and can shapeshift obviously. Also mentioning something about a secret invasion." Maria said, right now though she was mainly interested in the presents as they were all being distributed to everyone else.

When he present was handed over to her Maria opened them up seeing that they were really interesting trick arrows, they would be useful in causing a distraction somewhere. When Novikova opened hers and asked if she they were from her and shook her head slightly, and gestured towards Cass. "I got her the tablet." Maria whispered, before going over to her purse and then pulled out a small box, to reveal a ring. "I was going to wait until we were home, but I wanted to give it to you now." Maria said softly and gave her a hug, as much as she wanted to kiss her, she couldn't really due to her powers. "Merry Christmas."

Oliver met Tempest's eyes. "That thing," He started, "is a skrull, apparently. Some kind of Alien that can perfectly mimic anybody, and according to the great Tony Stark, DNA testing might identify them, but there's no surefire way." He explained, looking back down at the alien, "Shield has some information on them, but accessing it sets off alarm bells, one of them alerting the aforementioned Iron Man. I'd very much like all of us to be tested, if we can. If Roman was a skrull, any of us could be."

In the mean time, Oliver went to grab his gift, opening it up, and paying attention to those around him as he did. He didn't need to know who got him a gift, strictly speaking, but he was innately curious about the matter. In any case, he grinned when he saw what it was, and held it out in front of them for all to see. Puzzles were something he particularly enjoyed, and the fact that people had figured that out about him already genuinely made him happy. He was about to say something in thanks, but around then it seemed Maria had stolen the show, so to speak, and he wasn't about to intrude on that.

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Tinley rubbed her temples as it was explained that Roman had turned into an alien, a Skrull apparently, and attacked them. Didn't this happen before? Or something like it? "Just what today needed. Dealing with Deadpool and aliens hiding amongst our ranks. Anyone else wish to change out of their form? No? Fair enough, at least enjoy the rest of the party. Nice work you guys." She spoke that to Maria, Oliver, and Novi as they did take down the Skrull.

Tempest could understand Oliver's skepticism, but she had also been working with this lot for a while. "I get your skepticism, but I think we're good now. There were plenty of opportunities for the others to turn into a Skrull or whatever and take us out during our chase with Deadpool. I think we're fine, but if it makes you feel better, we can see about checking that information. Two hackers are better than one. And Iron Man doesn't scare me."

Meanwhile, gift opening was happening. Tinley took hers and opened, seeing the make-up and perfume. She glanced around, wondering who gave it to her. The only person that made sense was Novi, which was perfect as she was the one that gave Novi her gifts. Though it amused her that Novi thought it was Maria. She decided to keep it quiet, satisfied she had Novi pegged. "Thank you, whoever it was. Merry Christmas."

Tempest launched herself into her gift, seeing the brand, spanking new gaming rig. She bounced around like a child. "Oh em gee, this is so boss! I needed a new one!" Tempest could only imagine it was Oliver, Maria, or Harry and since Maria said she gave the tablet to Cassandra, that left the boys. Oliver was new, did he know her that well? "Harry? Was it you?" She kind of hoped it was Oliver because that meant he at least knew one of her interests, but she couldn't be sure.

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Roman had been replaced? Or had he been an alien the whole time? Was he an alien in the alternate timeline? Niah blinked as her mind raced over the possibilities. She didn't like the potential answers to any of the questions. "I'm not a pod person." Niah said as she sat down to open her gift. She was happily surprised that it was a forensic textbook that she hadn't read yet.

Niah glanced around the room trying to guess who had gotten her gift. She was pleased that Bonnie appreciated the one she gave her. Later she would have to give her the private gift, but that could be dealt with after the part. She went through who might have gotten her gift and she honestly had no idea. It was an obvious gift to give her. Though kudos to whoever was her secret Santa since they found a book she hadn't already read. "Thank you to my Secret Santa for my gift. I look forward to reading this."

A genuine and large smile spread across Niah's face as Maria gave Novikova a ring. She was pleased they were together, and the ring was beautiful.

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"I promise I'm not an alien. I wonder if they can copy powers? If not that might be a good way to tell, at least for those of us with powers." Matt didn't know much about aliens, or at least not ones that weren't from Science fiction. It was unfortunate that this alien had been killed. Now they couldn't ask. Matt wondered how much SHIELD already knew about these aliens. If there was some documentation that Tony Stark had alerts around it might be enough, but from the way Oliver talked about it SHIELD only barely knew the aliens even existed. He didn't get the joke that Niah was making though.

Henry's offer sounded fun Matt decided. He chose a seat and opened his gift. It was an extremely kind "date night" type of gift. He didn't know who he would share it with, and for a moment Matt let the grief of his lost relationship cross his face before turning it into a bright smile. "Thank you Secret Santa. Who would like to catch a movie with me?" He had a strong feeling it had been Bonnie who had gotten him the gift, so he didn't want to ask her specifically if she'd like to go with him. Matt knew Bonnie and Flynn were an item, and well he didn't want Flynn to think he was hitting on Bonnie.

He was however surprised when Maria gave Novikova a ring. He had thought they were already engaged. To his knowledge, they lived in an apartment off-campus

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"...Wait you don't recognize what that thing is Ray?" Sparky said, a bit surprised. Then again, it was impossible for one person to know every single alien species in existence. It just made her even more curious as to what the alien was, or why the hell it had even been in SHIELD or why had it decided to infiltrate the team. Nothing like this made any sort of sense, but she supposed that they couldn't do anything about it now. They'd definitely have to tell the director of SHIELD at the least though.

Flynn just shook his head slightly at the commotion that was going on about the alien creature, when Bonnie mentioned moving the corpse to go put him in the freezer at the moment. He was about to see about going to move the body, when she asked Raynor of all people to do that. It was a little bit insulting to him, or at least he saw it that way, to just ask the Asgardian to move the body, even though Flynn was perfectly capable of doing that, but the fact that she had asked him to move it annoyed him slightly.

There was a bit of a loud crash as there was a red blur shooting into the room, tossing around what looked like a dead rat. Goose was throwing the dead rat around, and was just as happy as can be. Part of that might be because he was likely high on catnip. Flynn chuckled slightly at the cat, as Raynor started handing out the presents and he looked at the puppy there that had his name on a small tag. "So... I got my present from that thing that just tried to kill you people... So that's fun," he commented as he started petting the dog gently.

"...Why aren't you wanting to open up your present yet Ray?" Sparky asked Raynor, before she glanced at the small box that she had been handed, a bit curious as to what exactly was inside of the box. She shook it lightly, holding it up to ear slightly as she did so, but she didn't hear anything from it. Shrugging, she unwrapped the box and opened it up, her eyes growing wide as she looked at the ring's intricate design with the stone on it. It was obvious who it was from, and she looked over at Raynor. "R-R-Ray?" she somewhat stammered out. The ring was still in the box, and she had it somewhat hidden so no one could really see what was in the box, since she was currently speechless and didn't really know if it was what she thought it was.

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The Common Room...

Raynor was moderately annoyed that Maria was trying to steal his thunder. He had rigged the Secret Santa selection to ensure that he would get Sparky, that way he could give her the ring and ask her to marry him. After everything he had been through with the Secret Warriors, the one constant had been her. It had always been about Sparky. He begrudgingly figured that Maria probably felt similarly about Novikova, but he was a bit selfish. He couldn't help his nature.

"Aww, it's beautiful, bae," Novikova said with a smile, hugging her fiancée back. She slipped the ring out of its box and onto her hand, admiring the way the jewels reflected the light. Yet there was a question then - if Maria hadn't been her Secret Santa, who was it? She got up from where she was, noticing that Tinley seemed to like the gifts she had gotten for her. Novikova was both angry and happy. And then a thought occurred to her - had Tinley been her Secret Santa? "Abercrombie - was this you?" Novikova asked, her shades hiding the raw emotion in her eyes.

She hated and loved Tinley - she wanted to hug her and she wanted to punch all of her teeth out. She blamed Tinley for her dismissal from S.H.I.E.L.D., but at the same time they were all a family - this team was more than just a job. She hated Tinley the way one hated a loving sibling. "Did you do this?" Novikova added, a bit of an edge to her voice.

Bonnie was doing her very best to stay out of whatever drama Novikova was about to cause. The ex-agent was clearly drunk and with Novikova's powers, that was hardly a good recipe. She figured that Tinley could handle her if things got out of hand - and if not, Maria could always slip off a glove and knock her unconscious. She smiled slightly as Matt opened up his gift. She hadn't been sure what he liked, so she got him everything a person would need to destress after a long week at S.H.I.E.L.D. There were two movie tickets as she didn't know if he had a special someone in his life, and even if he didn't, movies were always more fun with a friend. The wine was for getting a good happy buzz, the chocolate had a similar idea, and then the fuzzy socks were for keeping warm while watching telly. It hadn't even occurred to her that they could be seen as date night gifts.

"I can test everyone's DNA tomorrow - or maybe the day after," Bonnie volunteered. She only considered maybe waiting an additional day since tomorrow was Christmas and she didn't know if everyone would be on base. They were supposed to be here, but she figured at least a few would go to a Church service. Christmas tended to get everyone to go to mass. She then smiled slightly, petting Max the dog. "He's pretty cute - are you going to keep him?" she asked Flynn.

Raynor nodded at Sparky, getting down on one knee even though she had the ring box in hand. In an instant, it suddenly didn't matter anymore that Maria had tried to steal his thunder - he just cared about what Sparky would say next. "Theresa Sparks... Will you marry me?" Raynor asked her simply. He could have talked about how much she meant to him, that she was really his only family, that she was his best friend, and that in the other timeline, all he had wanted to do was go home to her. But something about keeping things simple just felt right to him. He knew that he wasn't perfect, but she was.

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Cassandra went to nearby plug spot and plugged in the tablet to charge it up, and leaned back a little bit as she watched everyone in the room. Seeing Maria getting Novikova a nice ring for Christmas, knowing that the two were engaged during Wanda's House of M, seeing the ring looked really nice and she was happy for the two of them. She waited to charge to go up a little bit more so that she could get the whole thing set up. When her attention turned to Raynor and Sparky as well Raynor getting on one knee and started to propose to her which was really sweet.

Though she didn't really say anything she didn't want to ruin their own private moment together, as Mathew opened his gift and looked towards him. It was probably a good chance to get to know him a little bit better, and in case he did want to go with someone instead of going it alone as well. "I can go with if you want to Mathew." Cass offered, as she leaned back seeing the cute puppy that Flynn was given she always did want to have a dog at some point. Cassandra shrugged slightly she didn't mind going through a DNA test to make sure none of them were aliens. She turned to look over at Novikova who took a few steps over towards Tinley asking if it was her who had given her the gift.

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Harry started to tinker with some of the tool options with the multitool that his secret santa had given him, when he turned his head up to look at Tempest when she asked if it was him who had given her the gift and smiled. "Yep that was me, I am glad that you like it." Harry answered smiling a little bit towards Tempest. He looked at Oliver and shrugged slightly he didn't mind if he had to submit some DNA to see if he was a skrull or not. "I'm free for whenever you want to do it Bonnie." Harry said, he would most likely spend his time in the lab building some more things which was what he did like to do.

Harry watched as Maria gave Novikova a ring which looked really nice and really expensive as well, but he didn't want to ruin the moment either, just as Raynor had given Sparky a ring as well and proposing to her. He was happy for the two of them, though Harry was still a little bit mad after Raynor had punched him earlier. He watched Novikova for a moment as she asked Tinley if she was her secret santa, though he couldn't get a good look at her expression if Novi was angry or pissed due to her glasses.

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Maria couldn't help but smile towards her fiancé when she picked up the ring, while she was shopping earlier, and stopped into the jewelry store she knew that it was the one that she had to buy. "I'm glad you love it Novi." Maria said, as Raynor dropped down to one knee and proposed to Sparky. She was certainly glad that the two of them would be really happy as well, while Maria watched everyone in the room looking at their presents. Maria certainly did have plans for Christmas after working of course, so she didn't know when they would want her to do the blood test whether she was an alien or not.

Maria tensed up slightly when Novikova turned her attention towards Tinley, asking if it was her who had given her the gifts, though she didn't make a move yet. She knew that her fiancé was a little bit to drunk right now, but she would restrain her if she had to but Maria remained pretty vigilant for the time being while looking over at Tinley.

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Tempest ran over and hugged Harry. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" She bounded up and down excitedly. It was truly the perfect gift. But, of course, nothing could overshadow the fact there was not one, but two proposals! "Wow, congrats you two!" she said to Novi and Maria. Hopefully, Raynor and Sparky would get congratulations too otherwise this would be hella awkward. Almost as awkward as whatever was going on with Tinley and Novikova. The tension could be cut with a knife.

Tinley didn't quite understand the edge Novi had in her voice. "Yes, I did. I figured you would like it. Was I wrong?"

Novikova just stared at Tinley for a moment, tears falling from her face as she got up and practically tackled Tinley with a drunken hug. "I love it."

Tinley, a bit startled from the tackle hug, patted Novi on the back. "Umm...good. I'm glad. It took some work to find it, but I know some people." She glanced at the others, especially Maria as if to silently say "Help Me"

Novikova didn't let go of her, her voice lowering to a whisper. "I hate you, you stupid fucking nice sweetheart of a person."

Tinley blinked. "You hate me? Why?"

"I was fired! You could have done something, you could have stopped it!" Novikova shouted, her volume abruptly raising. "I thought this was a family!"

Tinley almost ripped Novi off of her, placing her hands squarely and firmly on the girl's shoulders so she would have to look at her. "Wrong. That's fucking wrong! You were fired and that was out of my control. I did what I could to stop it but Hill was not having it. I fought for you, damn it! You're still part of my team, fuck whatever SHIELD says and I don't ever want you to think otherwise."

She was silent, staring at Tinley as she tried to keep her breathing even and steady, but the influence of vodka in her head was making that incredibly difficult. "You.... you did?"

"Of course I did, you idiot!"

"....Spasibo," Novikova mumbled.

"You're welcome. Also, congratulations."

"If you need me, you call me? Or I'll kill you before whatever you're fighting does. Ty moya sestra."

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

Tempest watched and then cheered. "It's a Christmas miracle!"

It seemed as if everybody was proposing now, and for a moment, Oliver smiled. This was special, even if he wasn't quite a part of this family yet, this was a sight to behold. Christmas Eve, love, and good spirits seemed to be coming together in just the right way, making for something borderline magical. It was good, and it made him happy. Even with the threat of the Skrull eating at the corner of his mind, this was enough to banish that, if just for the rest of the night.

"Well, mozel tov!" He said, smiling at the group. He was happy to hear that Tempest wasn't afraid of Iron Man, because that made one of them. He had no illusions about how Tony Stark could royally fuck up his life if he wanted to, and the idea of rotting to death in the Raft didn't quite sit well with him, so he was glad to have another person to keep that from happening. Before asking her for any kind of help, however, he would need to spend some time thinking about things, and come up with a proper plan of attack.

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Some of the stress Niah was carrying released when Tinley and Novikova hugged and talked through their issue. Tinley had done so much for everyone she hated that anyone was mad at her. Which made Niah mentally laugh a bit. She had hated Tinley before they had become a team and now Niah couldn't imagine the team functioning without her. Sadness then washed over her as she thought about friends who were gone that would have been happy to see Niah and Tinley getting along. Niah let it rest in her mind for a moment and then moved on.

"Just in case I'll get tested too Bonnie." Niah said. She looked at Sparky and Reynor and hoped Sparky would say no. She didn't trust Reynor. Then again she didn't trust Flynn, well it less not trusting Flynn and just being plain angry at him. It wasn't like she could confront him about it though. He had no idea what he had done. Niah glanced away from Sparky giving her some privacy. She hopped if she ever got engaged that it would be in private and not in a situation like this one.

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"Sounds good." Matt nodded and smiled at Cass at her offer of going to the movies with him. It was a nice relief to know someone was willing to go to a movie with him. She might split the bottle of wine with him too but he didn't want her to think he was hitting on her too much. Though she was pretty and he wouldn't be upset if she was interested. He wasn't certain if she would be though and tended to error on the slower side dating...especially since his own engagement ended.

"Should probably make sure the dog isn't an alien, don't want Flynn to get killed in the middle of the night by his dog." Matt was partially joking and partially being practical. He hopped Bonnie would be able to tell with the dog as well. Most of the SHIELD agents had their DNA profile in the system so she would have something to compare it to.

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Flynn partially wanted to just rolls his eyes slightly at everything that was going on a bit around him. Everyone was so happy or whatever over the whole Christmas thing, it was more then a bit strange the fact that all of the chaos that had happened regarding the Christmas presents, and now things were calmer now, and seemed almost normal. Nothing seemed to be too horrible at all, or at least everything seemed to be going alright for the most part. There was a bit of chaos more or less, with apparently a lot of people getting rings of sorts but he didn't think much of it.

"I like the puppy, even if Deadpool sort of stole the dog for a little bit, I think the puppy is pretty cute too," he said to Bonnie, before turning to look at Matt when he made a comment about how the dog might be an alien too. As if somewhat sensing the comment, or understanding everything that Matt had said, Goose took a moment to get distracted from his dead rat friend, and go up and rub up against the puppy, as if trying to tell them that the dog was fine. The cat then proceeded to move away and start rubbing up against Bonnie, wanting to be petted.

"That certainly is a possibility, but considering the fact that the cat doesn't want to kill the dog for whatever reason, I'm all for trusting the cat's judgement on people or things regarding the dog at the least... He's not exactly normal," he responded, glancing over at Goose who by now had gone back to pouncing on the dead rat.

Sparky for the moment was rather speechless, as this had not been something that she had been expecting, at all. Raynor, was proposing to her, to her of all people. Part of her was sitting there, questioning why. Wondering why he wanted to marry her, but another part of her was just happy. Glad that he had, considering all of the hell that they had been through together, she loved him and wanted to always be with him. Sure, a small part of her given her personality would have preferred for it to not be in front of everyone else, but given the fact that Raynor was always one for dramatics it made some sense she supposed.

"Ray..." she started to say, not too sure what to really say in response to his question. Her brain was trying to find the right wording to say. However, at the moment it didn't really matter, and sometimes the simplest words were the right ones, and the best thing that someone could say. "...I love you Raynor, so yes, I will marry you," she said with a smile, before putting the ring on her hand. This was something more then a bit strange to her, especially considering the fact that since Raynor was Asgardian, she was likely going to die long before him, but that didn't matter. No matter what, she loved him, and wanted to be with him.

---

---

Novikova and Maria had gotten back from a luxurious honeymoon the day before, having spent their days sunbathing in the Bahamas. They had ended up eloping not too long after the entire fiasco with Deadpool on Christmas Eve and Spider-Gwen had insisted on having them throw a party at Pym Tech. The little community was growing there, with more super powered individuals calling the California area home. Novikova wasn't a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, but her mentor Hank Pym had allowed her to join the West Coast Avengers.

"Whatever you do, babe, don't challenge Carol to arm wrestling," Novikova warned, giggling slightly as they arrived at Pym Tech. "And Vis, he's a bit weird... Especially since I think he's dating Wanda, who I can't believe isn't turning evil already and betraying everyone."

Maria looked over at Novikova and smirked a little bit towards her. "I could probably take her on pretty easily if I snagged some of her powers." She said smiling while holding Novi's hand with a gloved hand, enjoying the nice little vacation at the Bahamas, she wasnt sure what to think of Vision and Wanda actually dating. "As long as they are happy that's all that matters right?"

"Careful, you'll give Carol Rogue flashbacks," Novikova teased, before shrugging. "I mean, I guess? But seriously, they're weird enough as co-workers." Heading inside the building, Pym had decorated the common space for the team with white balloons. There was a cake with Congratulations! written on it in pink icing. Everyone was there in civilian clothing, though the Scarlet Witch still had her headband on. She was talking in the corner to Vision, both of them sipping champagne. Scott and Hope were playing darts, while Carol was chatting with Hank and Janet.

"Yay, you guys made it!!" Gwen squealed.

"True, I wouldn't want to do that to her." Maria said giggling slightly as she looked up at the building, and then following Novikova inside Pym Tech. She looked around the common room seeing all of the decorations while looking over at Novi, she eyed Vision and Wanda on the other end of the room. "It's kind of weird seeing Wanda in person again, the last time I did see her was during the whole House of M she made." Maria said softly, and seeing Gwen there waving over at her. "It's really great to see you again Gwen." Maria said as she walked over to Gwen to give her a friendly hug.

Gwen hugged her back tightly. "It's super rad to see you too! I can't believe you guys eloped, that's so romantic!" she gushed, before pulling away from the hug.

"Kid, give her some room to breathe, alright?" Pym called out, sighing slightly as he shook his head. He was serving as Gwen's legal guardian, since she hadn't returned to her home reality just yet, and she could be quite the handful at times. Carol was pretty good with her, a fact that he was incredibly grateful for.

"Well, I am way too sober for this," Novikova said, taking Maria's gloved hand and dragging her over to get a drink.

Maria smiled and messed with Gwen’s hair a little bit when she let go, it was pretty hard to get the time off, but she managed to without any issue. “It was really nice, it was probably the best time I’ve had in awhile.” Maria said, when Novi pulled her away to grab some drinks. “You aren’t planning on getting drunk like you were during Christmas?” Maria teased.

"No way. I'm planning to beat that," Novikova boasted. "It'll be a new record of inebriation."

“Wooow I guess it looks like I will be the designated driver tonight then it seems.” Maria teased her wife. “Got any kind of beer then?”

Novikova glanced over the drinks that they had available, grabbing a bottle of vodka that actually had her name on it in pink, sparkly letters. Spider-Gwen must have gotten a little bit carried away with the decorations. However, she then spotted a bottle of Corona and she smirked slightly. "How's this?" she asked, showing the bottle to her wife. "You're not scared, are you? Been to the Wuhan Province in the last year?"

"I can assure you, that bottle is quite safe," Vision interrupted, heading over towards them with the Scarlet Witch. "Congratulations. My algorithm predicts that your union is 78.9% compatible."

Maria smirked as she reached for the bottle of Corona opening it up and took a drink from it while looking over at Novi and smirked a little bit. "Maybe, maybe not." She teased, though she never actually had been to China ever, as she turned around seeing both Vision and Wanda coming over. "Maybe having a kid or two would increase the odds of us being together forever?" Maria said teasingly while looking over at Wanda smiling at her. "It's great to see you two again."

Novikova's eyes widened slightly, taking a nice swig from her bottle of vodka. "I'm going to need a lot more of this if we're having kids."

"Actually, that would increase your odds by 0.1%," Vision said.

Wanda smiled uncomfortably at Maria. It was a little weird for her still, this entire hero gig. Though, her thoughts drifted as she glanced at Vision, not all of it was too bad. She got to visit with her brother whenever she wished and he actually talked to her again. Her father hadn't said a word, but she didn't care. He had received everything he wanted in the world of House of M and it still wasn't enough for him to actually care about his own children. "Thanks," she said dryly. "It's nice to not be attacked by you."

Maria laughed slightly looking over at Novi as she took a swig of vodka, she looked at Vision shaking her head slightly she wasn't sure about kids yet either. "I'm only kidding, unless you do want them someday." Maria said, before turning her attention over to Wanda. "It's nice not being attacked by you as well." Maria said before extending her hand over towards Wanda. "It's water under the bridge now. So, how is your brother anyway?" Maria asked, figuring it would be a nice change of subject while gently wrapping her arm around her wife.

Novikova nodded, understanding that Maria was joking. She hadn't really thought about having kids one day. It never factored into her life plan. Her goals had always consisted of career achievements - or saving her best friend from the Quantum Realm at any cost. Did she want to bring life into this world, have a screaming little baby demanding its diaper to be changed in the middle of the night?

Wanda stared at Maria's hand for a moment, before tentatively shaking it. "He's fine. He's trying to become famous on instagram."

"He has 9,950 followers."

"I really don't understand whats so great about Instagram really to be honest." Maria said shrugging slightly and looked at Vision saying how many followers Quicksilver had. "That is a lot actually."

"I think it's to fill the void of any sense of companionship or happiness," Novikova said with a smirk. "Don't have friends? That's fine, get followers. No pets? Followers. Family hates you? Followers. And I feel like there's probably some part of it that plays into corporate greed somehow. Do they pay people to be famous on it?"

"Right?" Wanda replied, opening up slightly. Her arms were crossed but she was slightly more engaged. "I do not understand the obsession with the little devices - with technology."

"In some ways, society has both been improved and harmed by technological advancements," Vision agreed.

"Then I guess that explains why some of them are assholes from what I've heard the really famous kind of Instagram models, and trying to pay their way with influence or whatever." Maria said laughing slightly as she took another drink from the corona while looking over at Vision and shrugged slightly.

"As long as technology doesn't go full on Terminator or something like that." She said while looking at the two of them, they didn't need to have another Ultron scenario on their hands, and she wanted to change the subject now away from that to. "So, someone said you two started dating or something?"

"I must again insist that the Terminator scenario is highly unlikely," Vision interjected, before the robot fell into silence, almost as if he was too flustered to continue.

"My brother is obsessed with that movie," Wanda commented, shaking her head. "And yes, we are dating... or something."

"Sorry I didn't mean to bring up the whole Ultron thing, it wasn't my intention to really." Maria said to Vision, feeling bad bringing it up. "You know what we should do, we should have a double date or something. Hope and Scott are still dating to right?" Maria asked looking over at Novi.

Novikova glanced over to where Hope and Scott were. Scott was trying to set up a game of beer pong, much to Hope's utter annoyance and complete disappointment. "For now, at least - though I bet she'll dump him within the week," Novikova joked with a slight grin. She wasn't too thrilled about the idea of going on a double or triple date with the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, but it wasn't exactly the end of the world either. "Babe, why don't we go say hi to Carol?" Novikova suggested.

"It's been delightful to see you both again - and yes, I believe we should try a group date."

Maria turned to look at her wife and smiled towards her and nodded. "Sounds good to me." Maria said as she turned to look over at Wanda and Vision once more. "It was really nice seeing the two of you, and we can try a double date or something soon." Maria said as she turned around wrapping her arm around Novi. "Lead the way love."

---

---

To say Director Hill was stressed would be an understatement. She had summoned her most trusted agents, those that led the largest teams and divisions, and had called in an old friend. The meeting room in a forgotten sub-basement of the Hub was filled with the very best of the best. Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, was sipping a black coffee from Starbucks. Dr. Jiang, the medical expert integral to the Phase Three experiments, was pouring over a tablet. Tinley Abercrombie, the leader of the Secret Warriors, was present as well - as this discussion concerned her team more than anything else.

"Apologies for the delay, we're just waiting on one more," Hill said. "In the meantime, I've prepared a briefing for all of you on this emerging threat. This is for your eyes only," Hill added, before handing out manila file folders marked CLASSIFIED to each person present.

The door then swung open, as the final member of this conversation came. "Sorry I'm late," Nick Fury, ex-Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., apologized dryly. "You wouldn't believe what alien threats do to the traffic on the interstate."

Tinley eyed Fury as he came in, smirking slightly at his attempt at humor. Given the situation, it was justified, especially as the CLASSIFIED file was placed in front of her. She would wait until Hill began the briefing before she opened it. She also cursed herself for not grabbing a tea or something. "Another threat? What is it this time?" It could be any number of things. The world seemed to be in jeopardy on a weekly basis.

"M-Pox. A number of our agents have already come down with the disease, including Agent Cassandra Reed," Hill began, opening her own copy of the folder. "Dr. Moira MacTaggert, a geneticist based in Scotland, managed to link this disease to something called the Terrigen Mists."

"The substance that gave you your powers, Abercrombie," Fury interjected.

"Yes. It turns out it is severely toxic to mutants. Dr. Jiang hasn't been able to find an effective treatment yet, so our mission is to contain this outbreak. Agents Fitz and Simmons managed to detect high concentrations of the mist in our atmosphere. From what we can tell, the device responsible for poisoning the air with terrigen mist comes from Attilan."

"...Attilan is real?" Black Widow interjected, cocking an eyebrow. "There's a secret kingdom on the Moon - that's real?"

Tinley could fully grasp the situation, especially when she heard that Cassandra had been confirmed infected. She would be all right, as well as a few others on her team, but the rest, not to mention the world itself, would not be. "It's severely toxic to mutants? Are there preventative measures for my team then? I'm not about to bench Cassandra unless I absolutely have to. And what about humans?" She knew Cassandra would not sit idly by as they all fought to contain this.

"And how do we go about containing it? In other words, what do you need my team to do? We're ready whenever." She had her team prepped for any mission, but this was not something she anticipated.

"I recommend quarantining any mutant team members," Dr. Jiang cautioned. "And the inhuman ones. Exposure to a second dose of terrigen mist can cause the inhumans to undergo another round of terringenesis, resulting in potentially deadly malformations..."

Director Hill shook her head. "Your team is the only S.H.I.E.L.D. asset with the experience to handle this threat. Our best chance at saving lives is if we send the Secret Warriors to Attilan to speak with the inhuman king, Black Bolt. I need you to find out everything you can about the mists from him, as well as why the hell they decided to cover our planet with it. I have SciTech recruits working around the clock on devising a method to remove it from our atmosphere, but if the inhumans have something already, find it and use it. No matter the cost."

Jiang bit his lip slightly. "If you must go into the field... Do not leave any skin exposed. Wear a gas mask of some sorts to keep yourself from breathing in the mists."

So not only was she supposed to quarantine her team that were mutants, but even the inhumans were at risk. That just figured. That didn't leave a whole lot on her team, especially if they were to go to this moon city and talk to the inhuman king. "I have a feeling this won't be a cakewalk. Should I expect resistance or do we feel this Black Bolt will be forthcoming with this information?" If she had to guess, it was going to be difficult. And she didn't much relish the idea of forcing people into Quarantine, though she knew it was for the best.

"Please, when do we not get resistance?" Fury pointed out. "Bring Goosey Goose with you. He's a flerken. Aliens tend to get scared shitless when they see him."

"...We have no idea how Black Bolt will react to your arrival," Hill said, ignoring Fury's comments. "The detonation of a terrigen bomb - we can't explain it or guess at the reasoning behind it. You'll be going in blind, but it is critical that you succeed. Otherwise, the mutant race may be extinct by next week."

"So standard fare. The fate of the world rests in our hands. Don't fuck it up." She was a bit miffed to have to take Goose with them, but it made sense. The thing was an alien and it usually freaked people out. "So we go in, collect this information and come back? Done. How soon do we leave?"

"Two hours. I'm having a quinjet modified for space flight prepared now for your team," Hill answered succinctly. "Agent Blake will pilot it. He's an alien and he has the most experience with space vessels."

Tinley nodded. "Understood. We'll get it done." She stood up, picking up the file to read over as she prepared herself to brace the team for the upcoming mission, as well as determining how she would break it to the others that not everyone would be coming with. She would need them all, she felt, but she also could not risk their lives, especially those that were not inhuman. "Let's go save the world again."

---

---

---

---

Christmas morning Niah remembered she hadn't given Bonnie her private gift. She sent her a quick text message, "I've got something for you, mind if we meet so I can give it to you?" She had enjoyed the party, minus dealing with Deadpool. Though the whole ordeal had made her feel closer to the team again (even the new guys). She definitely wanted to make sure she stayed in contact with her friends on the team. Niah was uncertain when she would return to the team, if ever (when she was honest with herself).

Sure! I just got back from mass. Where do you want to meet? -B

"Mind just coming to my room?"

Omw! -B

A few minutes later, there was a knock at Niah's door. "It's Bonnie," Bonnie's voice came from the other side. She was wearing a pair of dark washed jeans, black heels, and a warm red sweater. She didn't really have too many plans for the rest of the day - she'd probably watch a few movies on the Hallmark Channel as she worked on the DNA testing to see if anyone else on the team was a skrull.

Niah opened her bedroom door when Bonnie announced herself. "It's good to see you." She smiled and hugged her friend. "Merry Christmas." She let go of Bonnie and reached over to her desk where a bag stuffed with tissue paper rested. "I meant to give it to you last night but things got a little crazy." Niah grinned. "But I also knew I wanted to give this to you in private. It would not have been appropriate." She added handing over the gift.

Bonnie raised an eyebrow. "Should I be scared to open this?" Bonnie asked, taking the gift and shaking it slightly.

"I hope not." Niah laughed. "But you're under no obligation to ever use it. Consider it, a gift to the future."

"....Okay, you are definitely acting a little weird," Bonnie started to giggle, before she opened up the gift to find it was lingerie. Her brain froze for a moment, uncertain what to do or say. She hadn't been intimate with anyone since her husband passed away. She wasn't dumb - she was pretty certain that Flynn wanted to have sex - but was she ready for that? It was a big commitment in her mind. Yet as much as she didn't know what to say or think, she didn't want Niah to think she didn't like the gift. "Aww, thank you so much Niah."

"You're welcome. And again, use it in your own time. And please don't tell me when you do use it." Niah could tell Bonnie was a bit uncomfortable, and a part of Niah hoped Bonnie wouldn't ever use it with Flynn. She had committed to bringing the two together because of how happy it had made Bonnie in the aborted timeline, but it was different now. They didn't have the world dying around them.

Bonnie shook her head slightly, tucking one of her curls behind her ears. "Got it, I will not tell you when I use it," Bonnie laughed a bit, mostly to try to cover up her discomfort. "Hey, Niah... I do have a question for you... What happened between you and Flynn? I know he's not always the most likable guy on the team... Did he say something to you?"

Niah sighed. "That's a loaded question. He didn't say anything to me. It was something that happened, in the bit of time that only I remember. I am trying not to hold it against him too much. Sorry that it was that obvious." Niah looked down at her hands as she spoke. Remembering the heat that radiated from Flynn, and the anger in his voice at Pym. She hadn't told anyone what had happened. If it was brought up all she said was that something had made the future even worse and Dr. Strange gave her a chance to fix it. She had been lucky that it had only taken one more loop to fix.

"Is it something I should be worried about?" Bonnie asked, shifting uncomfortably. "Since I know that whatever it was, it wasn't this him but... I trust your judgment, Niah. If he's bad news..." she let her voice trailed off. She was scared of falling in love only to be hurt.

"What he did out of love for you." Niah said, and then added. "What I did was out of love for you too. I couldn't stand a world without you in it. We had to fix it." Her eyes filled with tears and she looked up at Bonnie. "He would do anything for you and that's why I encouraged you to consider dating him. I know how much you mean to him."

She nodded slightly, drying her eyes a bit as well. "Thanks, Niah..." Bonnie then pulled her into a hug. "For what it's worth, I love you too."

Niah hugged Bonnie back tightly. "Good cause you're my best friend." Her tears fell. "I'm so glad you're okay. I just want you to be okay and happy." She let go of the hug and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. "I'll try to contain my dislike more." She tried to joke.

"....Actually, want to prank him?" Bonnie asked, a mischievous glint emerging in her eyes.

"Absolutely." Niah grinned brightly. She would enjoy a bit of mischief directed at Flynn.

---

---

---

Flynn had been looking into a lot of things, namely concerning who his family really was. The whole thing with House of M bugged him to no end, and the fact that he'd been Magneto's kid there didn't sit well with him. He was currently sitting in the common area of the Hub of sorts, with a laptop, flipping through a bunch of files that were now covering the screen. Namely, a few things that more or less confirmed his worst fears.

"Are you going to talk about it?" Bonnie asked him, pouring over files on a tablet. She was in the process of confirming the DNA entries of everyone on the Secret Warriors and the sequencing was a bit cumbersome at times. She was doing a lot of it manually in terms of data interpretation, not wanting to leave the results up to a computer - for all they knew, there was a skrull hacking files to change them anyways.

"...Depends on what you mean by that," he responded, glancing over at her. His mind was racing a million miles a minute at this point.

She sighed slightly, setting down her tablet. "Whatever it is that's eating you up inside - if you're not careful, they'll throw you in a mental ward. I should know." She grimaced ever so slightly. She had become severely depressed after her husband died, resulting in S.H.I.E.L.D. institutionalizing her for a while. It had been the right call, as much as she hated it at the time.

"...Remember during the Christmas thing, when Cass mentioned the whole House of M thing and even though I really really really wanted to punch her at the time, I didn't at least, and she mentioned what my life was like there?"

How could she forget? Yes, she really liked her boyfriend but he had a painful temper at times - really, all of the time. Her memories of fighting Deadpool that Christmas were a bit fuzzy, thanks to her concussion, but she had a brief image of Flynn yelling at Tempest over all of it. "Yeah?" Bonnie said simply, not wanting to discourage him from sharing with her if that was what he felt comfortable doing.

"...What if I told you that a few aspects from that life might actually be real..."

"I'd say that you sound a bit like a clickbait article, to be honest," she answered. "But in our line of work, strange things happen all of the time. Half of our team is made up out of lab experiments. We've time traveled and gone to alternate worlds."

"Okay, I'm not dumb enough to click on every single article I see online, those things are annoying," he said with a slight laugh, before falling silent, thinking about how best to word what was going through his head. However, he couldn't really find the words, so instead, he moved over closer to her and just showed her his laptop screen, which still had a bunch of files scattered across it. The most prominent being a DNA test that linked him to Magneto and an adoption record.

Bonnie was silent, studying the records displayed on Flynn's screen. Maybe the DNA test was invalid, but she had re-analyzed Flynn's DNA herself - and she hardly was able to ask Magneto for an additional sample. The adoption record appeared to be even more evidence in favor of this narrative... that Flynn was not biologically related to his parents. "This doesn't change who you are, Freddie," Bonnie told him gently.

"Now see, you say that, but to me it freaking messes with a lot of things in my head. Like really? I'm apparently related to literally the most well-known mutant terrorist in the entire world. How does that not somewhat change things?"

"...It's all about potential, right? Everyone can be pure and everyone can be wicked. But the choices you make, those aren't determined by your genes. You can't inherit things like talents or personality traits or innate goodness. The reason why those cycles tend to continue is because of the parental influence. But in your case, you didn't grow up with Magneto as a father. You had a nice, caring father who loves you - who adopted you and raised you as his own. Statistically, he's who you'll become... not Magneto."

"You don't know that at all though. And statistics be damned, some things also can be considered hereditary in some way so odds are I'll probably end up screwed up anyway," he pointed out, rolling his eyes. She was trying to make him feel better, that much he did know, but currently it was not really helping at all.

"Sure, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder - those can all have a genetic basis but they're also treatable," Bonnie stressed. "Have you considered trying therapy, maybe? We have in house therapists here at S.H.I.E.L.D. with security clearances, so you can actually talk to them without being fired for revealing trade secrets."

"...I never really ever wanted to go to therapy... Since that sort of thing would actually make me feel like I really am going crazy." Once again, her attempts to make him feel better weren't really helping. This is what he got for dating someone who was a scientist and medical person of sorts. Definitely made things like this a bit difficult.

Bonnie did her best not to take that comment too personally. "Think about it, please? Therapy isn't just for the insane - just like how doctors aren't just for those on death's door."

"Fine... I'll think about it..." even though he said that, he knew that in reality he probably wasn't going to and just deny the entire thing.

"Thank you."

He nodded his head slightly, "...So, how are you doing?"

"I'm alright," Bonnie said, shifting the way she was seated on the chair so that way one of her knees was propped up. She circled her arm around it. "I'm trying to confirm that no one on our team is a traitor... This entire skrull thing, it's worse than HYDRA."

"Sounds like so much fun, trying to determine if one of us is an alien," he said with a small laugh. "The idea that an alien might have switched places with someone is more then a bit weird..."

"I mean, what if I'm the alien and I'm going to falsify the results to show that I'm human?" Bonnie joked, her tongue sticking out slightly as she smiled.

"So nice Bonnie!" he responded with another laugh.

"How do you know I'm not an alien, Freddie?" she teased.

"I just do," he said with a bit of a smirk.

---

---

---

Sparky wasn't too sure about whether or not this was a good idea. It had been a while since she had actually seen her family, but she did talk to her parents every so often, but her sisters were out of the question. They hated her very existence, and were so glad when she left Florida and moved away from them. She wanted nothing more then to see about crawling into a box and hiding far far away from them, but if they just so happened to stop by her parents' house, she couldn't control that. Sparky was taking Raynor to meet up with her family, and she was way beyond nervous to do this. She'd deal with giant spiders before she chose to really deal with them.

"Lighten up, Sparks," Raynor teased, lowering the quinjet down to the ground outside of Sparky's childhood home. He hated flying commercial, preferring to take advantage of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources. "After this, we can take the jet to Vegas, hit the Strip."

"You say that, but honestly you haven't met my family at all... Especially my sisters," she mumbled, and she started fiddling with the ring on her hand.

"Can't be any worse than my brother," he argued, powering off the jet.

"If you say so," she said, before she headed off the jet and headed towards the front door.

"My brother invented the Filibuster," Raynor pointed out. "And the United States Senate," he added. It was hard to tell whether or not he was joking, as he followed after Sparky.

"Also, you might not want to mention that you are an alien to them," Sparky said with a slight eye roll, before she knocked on the front door. "Just be warned, if my sisters are around, they tend to not be the best of people..." As if right on cue, the door opened, and there stood a blonde with hair that fell below her shoulders, looked to be at least a few years older then Sparky and she more or less made a sort of annoyed face when she saw her.

"Oh hello there Theresa, been expecting you," she said, her words had a bit of a bite to them, and then she glanced over at Raynor, her eyes widening for a split second, before she gave him a smile, "And who might this guy be?"

Raynor smirked slightly, holding out his hand. "Agent Raynor Blake - and I take it you're the wicked older sister?"

"Well that's a little rude Terry," she said with a laugh, shaking his hand slightly. "I'm Laurel Sparks! Why don't you come in?" she asked, stepping to the side slightly to let them in, but it was obvious that she was more of talking to Raynor then Sparky. As for Sparky, she was more or less staring at the ground, wishing that she was anywhere else but there.

Raynor headed into the house, contemplating shooting Laurel, but he figured that Sparky would be cross with him for that. And it was probably a little bit of an overreaction. He then decided the best course of action would be to ignore Laurel. "So you wanted me to meet your parents, right?" he asked Sparky.

"Yeah..." she said to him, following him into the house, but Laurel tripped her slightly, causing her to stumble before her sister shut the door and walked along ahead of them out of the area. "...My sisters don't like me at all..."

"Do you want me to beat them up?" Raynor asked instantly.

"Uh no... You can't beat them up... I'm honestly used to them by now... I think part of it was because back in high school I was in the same grade level as my oldest sister..."

"I mean, I can beat them up. But if you don't want me to, then I won't. They'd probably get hurt way too easily anyways."

"I don't want you to beat them up, since that'll cause even more problems..." she said as they entered a living room area. Sitting on the couch was Laurel as well as two other women, both also blonde ironically, and they instantly stopped talking and giggling when they entered the room, and they glanced over at them. Sparky partially shrunk back behind him.

Raynor raised an eyebrow, knowing quietly that Sparky should have picked up something being amiss with all of her siblings being blonde. But he hadn't told her yet that she wasn't from this reality and he didn't intend on telling her until she was ready. That secret would have to wait. "Where are your parents?"

"Probably in the other room or something," she said with a shrug.

"Well Terry, this must be Raynor. Laurel was just telling us about him," one of them said, she looked to be the oldest of the three, and she gave Raynor a bit of a smile.

"He's certainly an interesting looking person," the other said, also giving him a bit of a smile.

"...Ray, these are my other two sisters, Jessica and Marcy," she mumbled, indicating that the one who had spoken first was Jessica, and the other was Marcy.

"It certainly is nice to meet you Raynor," Jessica said, before looking at Sparky, "Mom and dad are in the other room."

"Uh huh," Raynor said. He didn't really want to be nice to Sparky's sisters, as he didn't want to essentially support the way that they were treating her. "Let's go see your parents, then?"

"Sure," Sparky said, glancing towards her sisters and then turning and heading to the next room over. Eventually they'd see her parents there, and they glanced up and looked at them. Her mother was, like her sisters, a fairly pretty blonde of sorts, and she gave the pair a kind smile. Her father was a brunette, his hair fairly short and somewhat messy as he looked at them both.

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Sparks - I'm Raynor Blake," he said, introducing himself as he held out his hand.

"A pleasure to meet you Raynor, I'm Wynona," the woman said, still giving him a kind smile as she took his hand in her own.

"And I'm Owen... So Theresa, how have things been for you?" her father asked, turning his attention to her.

"Oh... things have been going alright," she responded, once again fiddling with the ring on her hand.

"That's definitely good to hear."

Raynor put an arm around Sparky, hoping that it would give her some comfort. He was a bit confused as to why she wanted to come here so much, since she was clearly uncomfortable around her family to an extreme, but he supposed that she might have felt obligated to let them know. She also loved them, he knew that much. "We're engaged," he said, breaking the brief awkward silence.

"Oh you are?"

"Uh, yeah, we are," Sparky said, nodding her head a bit, giving Raynor a bit of a smile now. She did feel better knowing that he was there with her. Also knowing that for the most part he had to deal with her crazy family now too, she did feel somewhat bad that she had to essentially subject him to this.

"And I'm an alien."

Now Sparky wanted to smack him upside the head. It was hard to tell just what her parents would believe in terms of this sort of thing. She wasn't sure if they'd believe him or not, and she really was hoping that they wouldn't, since that would make her life so much easier.

"You are what?" her mother asked, sounding a bit confused by the fact that he had just randomly said something like that.

"I'm not from this planet - not even this universe, actually," Raynor added.

"...Where are you from then?" she asked him, raising a bit of an eyebrow.

"...Ray, I told you earlier not to tell them," Sparky whispered to him.

"Norway," he said, breaking into a big grin as he laughed slightly. "Feels like a completely different world from Florida. It's so.... hot and humid here."

"You had me worried for a second about whether or not you were insane," her father commented. Sparky shot a sort of glare at Raynor, before she used her powers and zapped him slightly in the side, so that her parents couldn't see what she was doing.

"He likes to be more then a bit over dramatic."

Raynor twitched slightly from the jolt of electricity, but he laughed through it. He gave Sparky a kiss on the cheek, wrapping his arm around her. "What can I say? It's in my nature."

"Well you should try not to be? I will admit it gets more then a little bit tiring!" Sparky said, giggling slightly at that now. This definitely was something that needed to happen, since for some strange reason Raynor loved theatrics and being dramatic.

"You want me to change? To alter my winning personality?" Raynor gasped.

"Award winning personality? I would definitely not call it that!" she said, still giggling a bit.

"Oh? What would you call it then? Magnificent?"

"No way! Not to mention the fact that your ego definitely doesn't need to be bolstered at all. Honestly it could do with being knocked down a few pegs."

He chuckled a little bit, before looking at her parents again. "As you can see, we're madly in love."

"I thought that was obvious."

Sparky rolled her eyes slightly, before she zapped him again slightly in an attempt to get his ego to shrink back down slightly. In her mind he really needed to learn when to not flex his ego, now was not the time to do that at all. Hence why she decided that zapping him was appropriate.

Raynor twitched slightly again, but Sparky's powers did nothing to hinder the size of his ego. He had been alive longer than most people currently on the planet and he had the hubris to accompany it. "Which means I have something to ask... Any embarrassing baby stories about Sparks?"

---

---

Human. They all were human, so it appeared. The problem for Oliver, then, was how far he could trust that information. He had to make a series of assumptions, chief among which was that, even if some Skrull were capable of copying people down to their DNA, this team was not important enough to merit a Skrull of that capability. This was, however, an assumption, and what'd he'd learned over his time as a mathematician was that assumptions were where things started to break down. He had to, at least until he assessed this threat further, minimize people besides him that knew what he did.

He'd assume that any member besides Tinley, and maybe Raynor had an equal probability of being a Skrull, however low, and so whether or not he should share this information with any member of the team besides those two depended solely on the utility they could provide. There was no room for emotion in this decision for now, too much could be at risk if his suspicions were correct. Tempest, he thought, then, would be able to best help him determine whether or not there was anything they all should worry about.

Grabbing the laptop he'd been working on for the past few days, he stepped out of his room. He looked like he hadn't slept much since Christmas Eve, because in all honesty, he hadn't. Most of his waking moments were spend obsessing over this new mystery, and it definitely was starting to get a bit unhealthy. Making his way over to Tempest's room, he knocked on the door, saying, "Hey, it's Oliver, if you're not doing anything, there's something I need to talk to you about." His voice sounded shakey, like he was nervous about something, but trying to hide it. He wasn't exactly in the best state right now, but such was the nature of the situation he'd found himself in.

Tempest hadn't been doing much other than playing World of Warcraft and responding to emails when she heard the knock. Her heart fluttered a bit at hearing Oliver's voice, and then she remembered his paranoid nature and how they all had to get tested. The fact he did not trust her hurt, but she could also not blame him. He was attacked by a Skrull. So she could put it aside for now.

She stood up quickly, checked herself out, and then opened the door. "Hey Oliver! Sure, I'm not doing much other than pwning noobs in Warcraft. Whatcha need?"

Oliver blinked, trying to compose himself for a moment, before saying, "Can I come in? There's something I need to show you, it's about the... incident on Christmas Eve." He seemed to be clutching his laptop tightly, for a moment, before saying, "This is some pretty sensitive stuff, it's all on here, but I need you to promise to keep it to yourself for awhile before I let you see it." He cleared his throat for a moment, before holding the computer out to her.

Tempest smiled warmly, "Course, my dude. Lips are sealed. Come on in." She took the computer and stepped back to allow Oliver to enter her room. Oliver would see her computer system, full of the latest tech, along with her new gaming rig she got on Christmas. Multiple monitors, each doing their own thing, along with World of Warcraft on the main screen. "This is your baby, Oliver. What do you need from me?"

Oliver scullied in, and took a moment to appreciate Tempest's set up. He loved the entire aesthetic of multiple monitor set-ups. Something about the density of information they could hold just made him so happy. The organization, information, and presentation were accentuated by them, and he had a deep appreciation for all of those things. Looking back at her, he said, "Was my baby." He corrected, speaking quickly, "It'll go back to being that at some point soon, but for now, I've gutted it too much for me to call it that. It's totally air-gapped now, no network connections in or out." He was sure of that, at this point. Realizing that made him sound a little unhinged, and ran his hair through his hair for a moment, and took a breath, before saying, "I know that makes me sound crazy, but just... read through what's on there. I think you'll understand. I set the password to "Illuminati"." He explained and leaned against one of the walls, waiting with baited breath to see what she thought.

Tempest shrugged, setting the computer down and logging in with the password. Her hands glided over the keys quickly as she found the information Oliver discovered. She read quickly, making mental notes of the things she considered important. She was impressed with his work on this. "So you think these members of the Illuminati, points for the name, may be Skrull in disguise? If that is true, then that's a big bad, because those are some powerful names and could do a lot of damage. So what do you intend to do from here? Investigate them one by one? That'll take a while and you already got chewed out by Iron Man once. If that really was Iron Man."

Oliver nodded, "That's precisely my thought process." He said, glad to hear somebody else came to the same conclusion. It made him feel less crazy, and even calmed him down a little. "The Skrull had said, "Your planet is lost, the secret invasion has already begun." before it died." He explained, "So I got to thinking, well, if I were an alien race with the ability to shapeshift, that wanted to invade the Earth, how would I do it? I'd replace people in power with my own kind. Soooo, I think the Illuminati never actually returned to the planet, but they came back as Skrull in disguise." He exhaled and crossed his arms. "That's why I'm coming to you. I figure that, if we want to find out if this is true, the best we can do is investigate them, but I'd bet that any information they have has been secured by Stark, or the skrull that's impersonating Stark, or whatever. So hacking them would be a big risk. It's my go-to plan, but if you have any better ones, I'd love to hear them." He then pursed his lips, trying to think of any possible alternative.

"I mean, there's only so much the two of us can do. We aren't like the others that can sneak into places stealthy-like and find out through that. We are the techies, so hacking is our go-to. If Stark really is one, it makes sense why he was so adamant you stop the first time, but he could also be paranoid. I think the best first step is to confirm whether or not Stark is one and go from there. If he's safe, we can see about maybe getting his aid on the others. If he is, then we can work out how to take down his system to investigate the others so he is unaware."

Oliver nodded in agreement. "That's fair, but if we're gonna hack Stark, we're gonna need to be careful. I really don't wanna end up in The Raft. I figure that, between the two of us, we should be pretty safe." Thinking for a minute, he said, "To me, we should assume that we're going to be detected if we intrude on one of Iron Man's systems, therefore, we need to make sure that once we're detected, it can't be traced back to us. Keeping our identities away from the devices we use for this is paramount." Those were his initial thoughts, anyway. "The other things we should consider, is when, or if, we should tell the rest of the team about this. In my experience, the more people that know something, the harder it is to keep a secret."

Tempest understood and agreed. "The one person we should tell is Tinley. She's kind of the one we need permission for anyway, but even then, if this does get out, she's the one who takes the heat. If we're going to do this, we also need high caliber tech, which means we will need access to SHIELD's stuff. My stuff is dope, don't get me wrong, but I can only do so much, especially if we are going to remain untraceable. After we figure out if Stark is one or not, we can move on to letting the others know. They'll need to know eventually, especially if the invasion has already happened."

Oliver flinched for a moment at the notion of telling Tinley, he was afraid she was going to say that. To him, if any of them would be replaced by a Skrull who could copy people down the DNA, it would be Tinley, but if this was risk they needed to take, so be it. "I agree, telling Tinley is the only way forward. Should we let her know now, or what are you thinking?" He asked. He didn't want to hold off on anything here, every second wasted, to him, was a second that could be used to stop an invasion the likes of which the Earth had never seen.

Tempest caught the flinch. "Tinley is not a Skrull, my guy. We all did the DNA test thing and came back fine. Granted, she's the head of the team and could easily fake the results, but she's also one of the most trustworthy people on the team and she looks out for her own. I say we tell her sooner rather than later. If we do anything without her say so, we're likely to get creamed."