Author's Note:What if Lauren and her brother were slightly older than portrayed on the show. I honestly couldn't find her age on the Gifted Wiki, so Lauren is almost 18 since Johhny is mid-20's I'm guessing. Lauren has a decent grip on her powers with the exception of heightened emotions, and things tend to move or be blocked without her realizing it. Johnny is somehow one of the few new people in her life that help her reign everything in. He helps her deal with her emotions, form hiding her powers with her parents to being responsible for her younger brother. She'd been an adult for far too long and Johnny is somehow the one person that can see through her defenses. I'm also introducing bondmarks and bondmates, so we'll see how this goes.

Please tell me what you guys think. I love reviews, they tell me if I'm crazy for trying something new or not. Advice is always helpful too. Thank you all! As always, I own nothing, just playing with the characters and I have no beta so It was written in about 2 days in between chemistry homework. Also, please tell me if something doesn't make sense. I'd appreciate it.

She had been so careful to not reveal her powers or her bondmark, and then the dance had happened and now her parents knew that she was a mutant. Lauren regretted that, seeing as how she was almost eighteen and would soon no longer be protected by her parents…but she'd refused to leave Andy. She'd been afraid the bullying would trigger the gene in him; the mere fact that she had the gene said his chances were higher than most…and she'd been right.

She'd tried to protect him, and she'd failed. She'd failed them both. Her parents too. They were on the run because she hadn't been able to stop Andy's outburst and hadn't been able to prevent people from seeing her abilities either. She'd been able to keep the mark hidden though, thankfully. The questions would come about the ability, she didn't need questions about the mark too.

Lauren wanted so much to break down and just cry at the unfairness of it all, but she'd learned long ago that the world wasn't fair. It was beyond unfair. Everything was in favor of humans and everything was stacked against mutants, even those who had accidental outbursts after being bullied by humans. The police seemed to forget that while mutants could be dangerous, humans were even more dangerous at times. Human cruelty wasn't different though, mutants were and different was feared.

Seeing how Andy had been treated and seeing how the mutant girl at the bowling alley had been treated had been a harsh reminder that the image she presented to the world had to be perfect. There was absolutely no room for error, for difference.

The outward personal that Lauren presented was exhausting, but it had to be done. The world she lived in didn't accept anything that would hint at being different, so she had to be the opposite. As far as her parents knew, she was perfect, she didn't make mistakes. They were never supposed to know that beneath the perfect persona and the high walls she had built to keep herself safe, she was terrified and begging for help.

Lauren hadn't expected anyone to ever see through her walls and shields, she was good at keeping her real feelings hidden except that these new people, new mutants they had come into contact were throwing her equilibrium for a loop. She was struggling to understand the new factors in her life, to adapt and keep control of her abilities and had been doing somewhat decently at it…until she'd come into contact with Him. John Proudstar, Johnny, Thunderbird.

He was a tracker and a hunter, and she had a feeling he was either going to be helpful to her or a pain in the ass for her, or both. Lauren was betting a high chance for both.

Their race to get away from the Sentinal Services hadn't let them have much contact, but it had effectively exposed her shielding abilities and her strength. She'd seen his assessing eyes during the escape but they hadn't touched until the events with the portals. With how unbalanced Clarice, or Blink, had been, they hadn't had much of a choice, with Johnny being the protective leader he was and they'd had skin-to-skin contact and that was that. She didn't know how bonds were formed, but she did know that they were pretty much cemented after skin-on-skin contact. It was screwed up and also why she'd tried not to touch anyone except her human boyfriend. He didn't have a mark so she wasn't in danger of being connected to him.

Lauren's brief time with Johnny Proudstar had shown her that he was extremely capable of not only seeing through her walls and shields but he was also pretty capable of handling her in a closer sense, and she wasn't too fond of that discovery.

She'd had the requisite boyfriend because it was expected, and because he didn't have a mark, so she wasn't in danger of getting to close to him. With John, she felt an attraction but she'd never had the ease of having an honest relationship and she was determined to not be a cliché and start one in the middle of adrenaline fueled events. Her family needed her. Her brother and mother needed her to be strong now that her dad was MIA.

Lauren didn't have the capacity to deal with a boyfriend or bondmate at the moment. So, she was determined not to. She didn't realize that not taking Johnny's thoughts and feelings into account would be a massive disadvantage on her part. She also didn't realize that the bondmark that had flared up and cemented when he'd touched her back would give him an advantage with her.

She didn't know enough about the mark, her research having proven fairly fruitless, but if she had, Lauren would have known that her attempts to block it and forget about it would only work for so long.

She didn't though, and she didn't know enough about Johnny to know that not only was he a good leader, he was also stubborn, protective and possessive. She didn't know that now that he knew about the bondmark's connection with her, he wouldn't be letting her go.

Johnny, on the other hand, was very much aware of the bondmark, had accepted it a long time ago when his mark had flared up and had done his best to keep track of everything that had trickled through the new bondmark.

The bondmark allowed a variety of things to be shared between bonded; thoughts, emotions, glimpses of what they each saw and a variety of other things. He knew Lauren didn't know much, if anything about the bondmark and knew she hadn't been aware some of her thoughts and feelings had trickled in over the years. He did though, and he'd used it to keep track of his bondmate over the past three years figuring if she'd ever be in danger, he'd use it to help somehow.

With everything going on in their world, with Mutant punishment becoming harsher, Johnny had known it was a 50/50 chance they'd meet at some point. He just hadn't expected his bonded to be the young blonde daughter of the people helping capture mutants.

At first, He'd thought she was young, her height not helping with that assumption but he'd overheard that she was almost eighteen and her eyes told him she was older than she appeared. Weren't they all, though.

Either way, the recent events had shown him she was strong and stubborn, as well as protective and caring and knew he was going to have to figure something out. Her family needed to be safe, but he didn't know if he was prepared to let her go now that he'd found her. They could also use someone with her abilities in helping other mutants get to safe places.

For now though, he knew who his bondmate was and needed to make sure that she and her mother and brother were safe after the portal disasters.

Johnny also needed to talk with her about the bondmark. He'd seen that Lauren was guarded and it wasn't going to allow much distance between them, and to be honest, he wasn't either.

It was a good thing he was practically invulnerable, because he knew females and Lauren looked like she scratched.

He was kind of looking forward to their talk, even though he had a feeling she wasn't.