Rising from the Ashes

An Explosive Failure

3rd Person POV

"You can't go!" Xay chased after Ash as she dragged a bulky duffel bag onto the Quinjet and went to retrieve the last of her supplies. She had been helping Steve and Nat to train the new recruits for the past few months and was still learning herself on how to fully control and bring out the full potential of her new core-amplified powers, but now she was setting out to do something different and to put her training to the test.

"Why not?" She questioned as she loaded the last bag and was walking over to the console that controlled the hangar before Xay laughed in disbelief as he went into hysterics,

"'Why not?' First, traveling anywhere by yourself is a bad idea but around the world! Second, you have no idea if he's even out there and if he even wants to be found!"

"That's why I need to do this." Ash cut him off from saying any more as she finished entering the passcode for passing control of the Quinjet to her and she paused for a second before breathing deeply and explaining, "I owe a lot to Bruce, he took me in, gave me a home, protected me all those years I spent wondering about where I came from and who I was. Now the very least I can do is find him and bring him home."

Xay let the information sink in before he sighed through his nose and took Ash's hand into his own to relent,

"Alright... on one condition; you let me come with you."

"I can't ask you to do that." Ash told him as she took her hand back and turned around to grab her backpack with Hop's little furry head poking out and set it on the co-pilot chair of the Quinjet's cockpit.

"Like how you're asking me to let you go around the world by yourself." Xay swept his arm out to gesture to the outside to emphasize his point.

"You've been away from your home for too long and I thought you promised your father that you'd return once you were sure that I would be OK so you could start your Protector training." Ash motioned to the two metallic-looking armbands around Xay's upper arms with the carved markings that represented a Protector in training.

"You going off like this means you won't 'be OK' if you get caught and your friends won't be able to help you."

"Xay, I can take care of myself, I did for a while before I met any of them."

"Oh and how did that work out for you?" He snapped while gesturing to Ash's radiation tags as well as the scar on her neck from almost getting killed before Bruce saved her.

That struck a chord with Ash and she stopped what she was doing to walk over to Xay and looked him straight in the eye with a dead-serious expression that was a combination of scary calmness and suspenseful anger before declaring,

"I am leaving. You need to go home and let me handle this."

Xay looked back into Ash's hardened eyes before asking,

"We've already split up once before with dangerous consequences, do you really want to risk that happening again to you, me, or your team?"

Ash had had enough and turned around to start walking to the Quinjet before she was stopped by Xay warning her gently,

"I heard this quote once, 'Don't get burned twice by the same flame.' It's a little more literal in our sense, but be careful not to fulfill it."

Before he walked out of the hangar, leaving his right armband on the bench closest to the door, and left Ash standing there with tears welling in her eyes. After a moment, she sniffed and put on a "brave face" as she boarded the Quinjet and started to pilot it out of Avengers HQ and flew away with her one mission in mind; to find her adoptive father...