Nat and the others didn't really bother to tell the kids that part of the shopping trip was entirely- from their perspective anyways- for observation purposes. After all, if the kids weren't aware of it... Then why tell them and possibly ruin any chance to see how they acted while out in public?

Sure they had already figured out that Ichigo- and maybe Chad too, had some sort of special abilities, enhancements, superhuman something or another. And since the two of them had fought a monster that normally couldn't be seen. Not even on film- everyone had been trying to watch them like hawks.

Which was something that the teens both made easier than it should have been, and not. Especially since they didn't know if Orihime and Uryu did as well. Or if they were even really aware of the other two's abilities or not.

Honestly the kids acted more normal than they should have in an effort to throw off their suspicions. However they didn't realize just how paranoid some of them were about possible threats. Tony alone had Friday scan the tower for disruptions and disturbances every hour or so of every day.

Just to make sure that the kids were keeping themselves out of trouble.

So far during their outing they had found out the following.

Uryu and Orihime seemed the most normal of the four. Chad was a close second. And Ichigo...

Ichigo was an artsy person. Like insanely artsy. And liked to keep herself supplied and had to have several spare computers because of...well- they didn't really know why she had gotten so many computers.

All they could think was that the girl wasn't terribly tech savvy and tended to break things easily and needed spares because of that.

She also had a little bit of a temper.

Nat had seen a small glimpse of it when she had snuck some things into Ichigo's stuff in an effort to see how she would react to the unwelcome items. And though Nat had expected her to react somewhat like she had. She hadn't expected the girl to give said items away to someone else after Nat had bought them for her.

And while she wasn't really happy with the girl for what she had done, she couldn't help but smile anyways. In fact, she hadn't stopped smiling ever since they had left the mall.

Everyone had seemed to have had fun. Which was good.

Steve was chattering away at Ichigo excitedly. Finding out that she liked doing artsy stuff had sort of brought him out of his normally quiet and shy shell a little bit. Right now the two of them were talking paintings and sketches.

Nat knew that it shouldn't have come across as such a surprise to her, but the fact that the girl seemed to dabble in a little bit of everything imaginable seemed to really catch the woman off guard.

Steve had just asked her if she knew how to paint. And Ichigo had responded with, "With watercolors, oils, or acrylics?" At which point Orihime had chimed in and asked the girl if she was going to start painting again. And then she had pulled out her cell phone and showed some of the pictures that she had of some of Ichigo's works to the man.

Steve let out a low whistle of appreciation, his expression displaying his awe and absolute happiness before he'd handed Orihime's cell off to Clint so that he could see too.

Clint found a few paintings of birds amongst some of the girl's work and automatically fell in love with one particular painting of a beautiful snowy white owl and it's chicks, and had to have the cell pried from his fingers by Tony.

Who quickly flipped through the pictures with his own impressed look before handing it off to Bruce. Bruce, like Clint before him- found a few paintings that he absolutely fell in love with. Not that Nat could blame the man any, the paintings were stunning.

Plus the man tended to like anything that inspired calmness in him. So she could understand why he liked those particular paintings. Baby bunnies and kittens were fucking awesome.

Thor liked the paintings of blue and green lightening that streaked across a navy/soft grey colored sky. And Nat...once she finally got to see them, she fell in love with some of the floral and landscape paintings.

The plum, cherry blossom, peony, and magnolia paintings were by far her favorites. There was simply something about the colors that caught her attention and wouldn't let it go.

"Have you ever put some of your stuff in a gallery?" Tony asked out of the blue.

"Uh...no. Usually I just sell them online or at the store."

"We have a few events coming up that you four may need to attend with us. Ya know, because your too damned old for an actual babysitter. There will be a lot of rich people, military, politicians, and quite a few celebrities present. Do you think that you would be interested in selling them there? I could pay you for your work up front."

"I...would have to think on it." Ichigo said looking a little bit bothered by his suggestion, but didn't say anything else about it as Steve practically started to jump around in his seat and excitedly encouraged her to do it. She had a gift. And it was okay to let others help her get her name out.

After all, more people knowing about what she could do meant that she'd have more people to buy her stuff. And Tony ran in really, really rich circles. Those people would buy anything that Tony presented to them.

It was a win-win!

Ichigo firmly told the blond that she would think about it. Which sort of disappointed him a little bit as his excitement slowly died down some. After all, anyone else would have jumped on the band wagon and started to negotiate their selling price with Tony by now.

But Ichigo didn't seem all that keen to do that and he couldn't quite figure out why. She was a business woman, so why didn't she want to do business?

Even Tony seemed genuinely puzzled by her attitude towards selling her paintings to him. Though she did sell Bruce the paintings that he liked for a couple hundred dollars.

The man was practically vibrating with giddiness by the time they finally reached the tower and unloaded everything.

The first thing that Ichigo did once they were back, was disappear. Which might not have been so irking, except for the fact that she stayed wherever she was for days afterwards. And didn't even come out of her hiding place for food!

Finally after almost three days of not seeing her, and not being able to find her anywhere, Nat sat the other three kids down and began to interrogate them.

"Where's Ichigo?" She asked as she looked the three kids over.

She was beginning to worry about the girl since she hadn't shown up for any meals in the past few days. Especially given what the kids had said about her metabolism and how going without tended to make her sick.

Nat kept getting weird vibes that the girl might be curled up somewhere sick. She wasn't the only one who was worried either. Tony, Steve, Bruce, Clint and Thor were too. They just managed to hide it a little bit better than she did.

"Ichigo is fine." Uryu said, hoping to reassure the woman that she was worrying over nothing.

"That isn't what I asked. I asked you where she was."

"She's working and doesn't want to be disturbed." Orihime said next. Causing Nat to glare at her, impatiently. Orihime let out a squeak and tried to hide herself behind Uryu's back. Which didn't work well since she wound up accidentally knocking the boy over into Chad's lap and more or less pinned him in place.

The boy shot the two of them a vaguely alarmed look and gulped as Nat gave him a scary smile. "You'll get nothing out of me lady." He said defiantly. Nat merely gave the boy a slightly pitting look as her friends all quickly scurried away from her to take cover across the room.

"Oh sweetheart...you'll tell me everything I want to know and more." She said menacingly. Chad's eyes widened to the size of saucers and he quickly shoved Uryu out of his lap and scrambled to his feet and tried to run.

He didn't get far though. Nat was determined to find out where her missing adopted daughter was and wasn't going to let anyone stand between her and knowing where her little darling was.

Not even one of her other little darlings.

Needless to say, Chad told her everything. Where Ichigo was hiding, what she was working on, the fact that he'd been sneaking her food to keep her from getting sick. Even how many hours she'd slept in the past three days.

After she had the information, she let him and the other two run screaming from the room and then turned her attention to the others. And quickly gave them their orders.

Find Ichigo and bring her to the common room to eat something and rest.