Ella woke up in her cage again, this time unbound by the ropes that her assailants seemed to favour for the more energetic captives. She knew they believed her confession that she was useless in their aim to uncover Avenger's secrets, but also understood that they would not let her free in fear that she would run back to them, alerting the forces of their presence.

A set of heavy shoes walked past Ella's cage, rhythmic and slow; the nightly rounds made by another soldier in the sea of children. The teenager waited for the footsteps to fade before catching sight of the closest lock in her range.

"Hey," She whispered to the child enclosed inside, "stay back and keep quiet."

Ella closed her eyes and visualised mechanisms turning inside, shifting and sorting themselves before hearing a tell-tale click of a lock opening. The child inside touched their door experimentally, a wall of metal slowly swinging back and forth off the hinges, letting out a mellow creak as it did. Ella looked at the child and motioned for it to close the door once again, pretending as though it was still locked. She continued unlocking as many cages as she could for the rest of the night, foregoing rest in order to let more children free.

In the morning, the forces aimed straight for her door once again, soldiers grabbing her swiftly and lifting her into the wheelchair that sat waiting outside her door. Ella sat quietly as she was bound into the chair, allowing the restraints to be tightened around her wrists and legs, swallowing the panic forming insider her mind. As long as she was the focus of attention from the party of maniacs running the place, the rest of the children seemed to be safe, and she could try to unlock the rest of the cages that night.

Her questioning went similarly to the day before, except she was lifted out after the beating and placed onto a gurney waiting for her in another room. After being strapped into the bed, the mysterious man reappeared without his baton, instead favouring a large syringe in his right hand, weeping a fluorescent liquid that Ella knew was not an ideal substance to be injecting into the body. The man tapped the glass vial to rid any air bubbles and proceeded to plunge the needle deep into Ella's neck, letting the bright liquid ebb into her veins slowly and painfully. The girl gritted her teeth in agony before slumping back into a comatose state once again, her world fading into nothingness before waking up on the cold concrete of her cage once more.

That night, Ella managed to complete her task of unlocking every cage, making sure the children inside knew not to let the guards know of her actions. The young girl knew that if the children had any chance of escaping, they had to leave altogether, at risk of any soldiers finding out about the doors, and relocking them in a more secure way.

It turns out Ella didn't have to wait too long until her plan came into action, as a few days later, after her daily session of beatings and experimentation, a rumbling ran through the building late at night, as everyone was trying to clutch at the weak moments of sleep they could, before the morning patrol woke them up rudely.

The bars of each cage rattled, and the children had to hold the doors in place, in fear they would swing out and expose Ella's work at unlocking them.

A hole was blast in the roof high above the children's heads, dust and plaster raining down upon them like a blessing of hope. Ella looked up at the intrusion, only to be met with the sight of her gang of heroes, descending from the newly implemented skylight.

Tony saw her first, changing his trajectory to land in front of her cage, clutching at the bars in a moment of lost control over his emotions.

"Ella." He gasped breathlessly, his faceplate rising to reveal a very worried Tony Stark, lines creasing through his forehead, and blue rings hanging underneath his eyes, as though he hadn't slept since the child had run away.

"Hi Mr Stark." Ella waved awkwardly, wincing as her ribs shifted under the movement, still sore and bruised from her last 'meeting' with the mysterious man.

Before Tony could lay into the teenage girl about her reckless decisions, a shot aimed at the back of the Iron Man armour alerted the team to the fact that they were no longer alone. Stark swivelled around, his face plate lowering as he took in the image of the mysterious man and his gang of soldiers, already engaged in combat with the rest of the Avengers. The man in the iron suit blasted away from the cage, aiming himself towards the closest goon.

Ella saw Captain America land a few feet away from her cage, and waved him over frantically, trying to ignore the amount of pain it caused her. He ran towards the teenage girl, eyes scanning her to see what was wrong. Before he could ask her what she needed, Ella rambled a set of instructions to the leader of the group, aware she had a limited amount of time to make sure that her plan was successful.

"Mr Rogers, I need you to open a door somewhere, it doesn't matter where, but we need to get these kids out of here as soon as we can." Ella gasped, eyes frantically scouring the children in the cages, still holding tight to their doors, trying to keep themselves from being caught in the crossfire between the soldiers.

"But their cages, it will take ages to open them all - " Steve began, but Ella caught him before he could finish.

"Don't worry about that, just get them outta here" She spoke sternly, her accent slipping through in her desperation to help the prisoners.

The captain turned and threw his shield at the closest wall, shattering the concrete and plaster, letting a stream of light fall through the cracks, showering the room in the golden rays of the setting sun. His shield returned to him and he threw it once more, the hole in the wall finally forming an escape big enough for an average adult to get through, let alone the small children surrounding them. He turned back to Ella just in time to see her deep in concentration, hovering a few feet above the floor of her cage, eyes closed and brow furrowed in focus. Her arms were lifted in the direction of the cages around her, slowly drifting alongside her energies, grabbing every door and holding it in her power. Ella flicked her hands in a sudden movement, and simultaneously every cage door in the building slammed open, freeing every child and letting them escape into the open air. Every door except hers, that is. Ella looked around frantically, yelling at the children to run, before she fell back to the concrete floor of her cage, out cold.

Steve grabbed at the bars surrounding the child, bending them with ease, as though they were made of dough, rather than steel. He rushed towards the girl he had come to care for as a friend, and held her head as she lay unconscious, checking for signs of bleeding and injury. His hands ghosted the blue and purple bruising across her ribcage and legs, noticing the pattern continuing up to her forearms, as though they were continually hit from protecting her face. The captain's hands tightened in anger as he realised what they had done to his child, only loosening his grip when the figure beneath him let out a small whimper of pain. As he looked down at the girl, a hand on his shoulder made him flinch from surprise. Tony Stark looked down on the pair in concern, his face visible between the bordering armour of his helmet, eyebrows furrowed as he took in the image of his female protégé, still woozy and waking from her effort.

Ella slowly sat up from Steve's arms, and allowed herself to be led into the open air outside the building, noticing that the fight was long over. Sitting on the edge of a step in the brisk evening, she saw ambulances filled with children, each of them huddled under foil blankets, small as anything, but grateful smiles gracing their dirty faces. She knew each of them were going to be taken care of both physically and mentally, and had all been promised a safe and loving home, built and funded by Stark industries. Surrounded in her own foil blanket, a ring of shadows approached her, silhouettes illuminated from behind by the bright white street lights, forming halos on each member of the Avengers as they crowded around Ella, shielding her from the rest of the commotion on the street.

"Why didn't you call for help?" Mr Stark's reply was harsh and questioning, and Ella felt as though she was being chastised by a father.

"I don't want to bother you," Ella whispered, not making eye contact with the team of heroes that now surrounded her, "also, I may or may not have broken my phone before I left."

"Bother us? What would make you think you were bothering us?" Steve asked, astonished.

"The week before I left, you were all busy. I mean, it was my fault for annoying you, you all had things to do but, I don't know, Mr Stark told be not to bother you guys anymore."

"Shit," Tony sighed, "I told you to stop bothering me when I was drunk that night, didn't I? I'm sorry kiddo, nothing I say is true when I'm three days in without sleep, but it still doesn't mean I should have said it." Ella had never seen Mr Stark ramble so long about something other than science for once. A deep red rushed over her face as she began to realise that she may have overreacted to the responses from the team before she had run away.

"No Mr Stark, it was my fault. I shouldn't have made such a mess of the tower. You warned me before that I wasn't a hero, and the fact that I couldn't control my own abilities proved it. I'm sorry for worrying you, but it was for the best." Ella began again, insistent in her own sense of self-dismissal.

"No Ella, blame me for god's sake," Clint started, "I was the one who basically told you that you weren't a hero and I feel like shit about it. You have every right to be in the tower as the rest of us. I was so focused on training alone, that I didn't realise you were asking for help as well. I'm sorry kiddo." The archer moved to ruffle the young girl's hair like he used to, but stopped as the little one flinched, her years of living rough re-ignited after her stay in the experiment.

Natasha slid through the crowd of heroes after Clint's speech, like a snake in tall grass. She looked hurt, conflicting emotions flitting across her face, a rare occurrence for the usually poker-faced assassin. "I'm sorry too, El, you tried to talk to me, and I basically ignored you. From now on I promise, if you need me, I'll be there – Us girls have to stick together, especially in the sausage fest that is the Avenger's Tower." She closed her speech with a small chuckle, still keeping strong eye contact with the younger teen, showing her that the assassin meant every word, regret thick in her voice.

"Me too," Bruce stepped forward, "I know you didn't mean to lose control. I was so focused on trying to keep myself in check, that I forgot I had someone else struggling with the same problem. You have every right to be angry at me, kid, of all people, I should have seen your struggle earlier." The scientist looked small amongst his team-mates, still fitting in perfectly amongst them. The man looked down at Ella, sorrowful and sincere, and she forgave him on the spot, all of them. Ella knew they regretted their actions when she was asking for help, and felt sure that they would make an effort to repair the damaged trust they had caused by letting her slip by.

"I thought you wanted space."

Ella looked up at a familiar voice, her stormy eyes locking with sincere blue.

"I should have run after you, told you that the mess in the library was nothing. I wasn't mad at you, I don't think I ever could be; I just thought you needed space to breathe. You always came to talk to me, I was so happy about that. So, when you ran away, I didn't know how to react; I see now, my reaction was the wrong one." Steve looked as though he was about to cry, his soldier-straight posture breaking down as he knelt before Ella, holding out his arms. Tentatively, Ella stepped into them, her fear of contact breaking down as she embraced her mentor, relaxing into the heat of another body, a loving guardian.

" 'm sorry." Came a choked sob from the older man, his Brooklyn accent thickening with emotion.

"It's okay." She whispered to the Captain, knowing his serum-enhanced hearing would allow him to hear the words crystal clear, her own matching accent coming through, "'m okay"

The sound of a throat clearing behind them forced the two apart. In the space stood a familiar red and blue clad figure, looking awkward and out of place in the sentimental moment.

"I'm sorry too El," Peter started, jumping on the apology train, almost like a cheesy lifetime movie, "I was on the plane home to see you guys. I tried calling you back like a million times after that missed call, but you never picked up, I just assumed you didn't want to speak to me. I mean, even in our video chats, you never seem to talk, which is okay and all, but you know, there's only so much a spider can do before thinking that - "

Ella almost laughed over the situation, diving into Peter's outstretched arms and cutting his ramble off. Whispering into the boy's ear, she explained that her phone had mysteriously fallen off the side of a very tall building.

"You don't need to apologise too, punk. I never spoke in those videos because I knew you wanted to talk to the Avengers first, I mean, they are your family."

"Ella, you idiot, you're part of the family too." The spiderling shook his head in disbelief, before hugging Ella closer, letting her sense his apology wordlessly. Ella accepted his embrace and melted into it – two puzzle pieces finally interlocking in the perfect way.

Here we are - the end! I might be considering another series starring Ella, but I'm not 100% yet - let me know if you guys would be interested in that because I had so much fun creating her for this fic. As I said at the start, this is my first effort writing anything at all, so let me know if theres any gaping plot holes or huge errors, I'd like to fix them up :) also let me know if you enjoyed the fic! I didn't expect it to be this long tbh, but it just kept writing itself. I know the main character's a lil problematic, but Im a sucker for angst so there you go :P Thanks for reading!