Victor bent over his crossed legs and placed a card, single red diamond in the center, atop the pile. He pulled his hand back to silence.

"Anyone got a Joker?" Ivy asked, chin on her fist.

"We've played both those already," Squirrel Girl flicked through the pile of previous hands. "Right here," she fished one from the pile.

"I played one in the first round," Hacker added, from the Rescue-bot between Squirrel Girl and Ms. Marvel.

"Then it's yours, Victor," Ivy swept the current pile of cards across the quilt.

"Okay..." Victor stared at the five other cards in his hand. "So I can play doubles if they're the same number, and it doesn't matter the color, right?"

"Righ--" Dante began.

The elevator dinged open. "--Right."

"Hello?" Rescue's metallic voice echoed.

"We're over here, Pepper!" Squirrel Girl waved a hand overhead. "Are you finishing the box moving today?"

"Hopefully," Rescue called. Victor twisted around to catch flickers of light behind the last rows of boxes. Over the past few days, they'd gradually been able to slide their quilt and supplies further from the water elevator back to their original places in the center of the ocean window. "Is my AI down here?"

Hacker didn't say anything. So Squirrel Girl shouted, "yep!"

Rescue, in a suit of gray armor, appeared around the boxes, hands on her hips. "We need to talk."

Victor frowned.

"About what?" Squirrel Girl asked.

"I need to talk to you," she pointed to Hacker's suit, "and you alone. Come on."

"You may continue without me," Hacker lowered the final two cards the suit held to the quilt, rising to follow Rescue. Victor and Ivy leaned away so Hacker could step between them.

"Alright then..." Squirrel Girl's gaze followed Rescue and Hacker.

Ms. Marvel pointed at Victor. "Your turn, yeah?"

Victor set a pair of three's in the center of the quilt.

Ivy sighed in frustration. "Can't play. Go, Kamala."

"Shh," Squirrel Girl hissed, holding up a finger. Low muttering floated from behind the boxes.

"What?"

"It sounds like," Squirrel Girl's face scrunched up, "Hacker is getting grounded?"

Victor checked over his shoulder again, two silhouettes behind the boxes staring at each other.

"What for?" Ette whispered.

"Do you have to ask that?" Dante whispered back.

"Shh," Squirrel Girl hissed again.

In silence, Ms. Marvel set a pair of six's on the pile, atop Victor's three's. They waited, the murmuring beside the boxes rising to a low din.

"Wow, I hate Scum," Ette muttered.

"I hate being scum," Dante said.

"You're only road scum," Ette whispered. "You've only got it half as bad as my sewer scum."

Dante looked to him for support but Victor just shrugged. "I barely know how this game works."

Dante leveled him with a flat stare. "Yet you managed to beat both of us last round. What's your secret?"

Victor shrugged again.

"Shh!" Squirrel Girl hissed, intently focusing on the distant boxes.

"It's your turn though," Ms. Marvel said.

"I'm trying to eavesdrop."

Silence. The murmured conversation by the boxes fell quiet, then bootsteps paced toward the elevator.

"What'd they say?" Ms. Marvel whispered.

Squirrel Girl sighed. "Not good things. Rescue's mad at Hacker for taking the aqua drones on an unauthorized dive, for expending six of the oxygen tanks, plus apparently Hacker won't reply on any of the devices in the helicarrier or in the penthouse, and she also found out about the video comment. Somehow," she set a pair of eight's on the pile.

"Oh..." Dante said. "That's not good."

"Maybe Hacker took the rebellious AI thing too far," Ivy winced.

"And maybe we should've double-checked that Rescue was okay with us using her drones," Ms. Marvel grimaced. "Why didn't we think of that?"

"What do you think Rescue's going to do with Hacker now?" Ette asked. "Also, pass, I can't play anything."

"Pass," Dante said.

"Pass," Victor lowered his cards.

Ms. Marvel planted a pair of queens on the pile, lip twitching. But Squirrel Girl followed it up with a pair of ones, called aces in this game. None of the others knew why when Victor asked.

Ms. Marvel sighed. Squirrel Girl scooped aside the hand. Then she tossed her final card to the quilt, a ten. "Woo, woo, I'm still the president!"

"Pass," Ette grumbled.

The elevator dinged.

"Ha--" Squirrel Girl began to ask, until Ms. Marvel kicked her in the knee. "Ow! Sorry I beat you--"

"What if Hacker's name being Hacker causes more trouble?" Ms. Marvel hissed. "That doesn't sound like a Stark-approved name."

"But--"

Clanging footsteps approached their quilt.

"Hello. Kree Annihilators, as I hear."

Dante grinned over Victor's head. "Hi, Rescue." He played a J-card on Squirrel Girl's ten.

"Is this game nearly over? We need to...have a discussion."

Victor caught Dante's wary gaze, quickly covered by a carefully blank one. It didn't sound like Hacker was the only one in trouble.

***

"We need to establish some ground rules," Pepper stepped from the Rescue armor, which promptly turned and marched to the row of boxes, scraping one toward the elevator. Victor nibbled his lip, staring at the quilt.

Squirrel Girl awkwardly shuffled the deck of cards. "Ground rules about what?"

"Using a Stark owned AI program for your personal benefit," Pepper said.

Victor's backside prickled. He scooted around, breaking their game circle by planting himself in the middle, staring up at Pepper. She crossed her arms.

"Hold on right there," Ivy raised a hand. "We didn't use your AI--"

"He indicated otherwise."

Ivy's mouth twisted in confusion.

"No," Ette said. "That's a lie. Ha-he came to us. Lots of times."

Pepper raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I did tell him to deliver some water bottles down here. And to deliver a couple messages and keep the place under watch."

"Keep the place under...you sent him to supervise us?" Ivy exclaimed, fists clenched. "Like toddlers?"

"We don't need a babysitter," Ms. Marvel rose to her feet. "Especially not from him, he'd make a terrible one."

"Please don't tell me how to run my own AI," Pepper said. "But you're right, he wasn't babysitting you. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to convince him to illegally spread a video of the six of you causing damage on private property."

"We didn't convince him of anything," Dante interrupted, hugging his knees in his hands. "We tried telling him that wasn't okay, but he did it anyway."

"We were against that happening," Victor added.

Pepper pursed her lips. "I checked his memory banks before coming down here. He was convinced you were in desperate need of money and needed his aid."

"You clearly didn't check all the memory banks," Squirrel Girl muttered. "Yeah he was convinced, but not because of what we told him."

Pepper squeezed the bridge of her nose. "He was inspired by the way you all spoke about doing what's right. He thought he was doing the right thing by breaking the law. That's not acceptable. Surely you know that. That AI is an assent of Stark Industries. We can't have him thinking breaking the law is acceptable."

"Sorry," Ivy muttered. "What were we supposed to do?"

"You were supposed to be careful. You were supposed to inform me. I'm sorry it happened, but perhaps you could've held your conversation about the right decision away from an artificial intelligence capable of breaking the internet."

"Don't know how we were supposed to do that," Dante whispered low enough that Pepper couldn't hear.

"Sorry," Ivy muttered again, picking at the quilt.

"The larger issue here that concerns you six," Pepper said, "is those," she pointed to the red aqua drones.

"Yeah," Squirrel Girl stood beside Ms. Marvel, shadow dancing over Victor's arms, "about that. We didn't realize--we probably should've asked before using them, we just didn't think about that at the time, it was...a whole mess of things and yeah. We should've asked."

"Thank you for the apology," Pepper said stiffly. "However, there's still consequences for taking those suits without permission."

Victor bit his lip.

"Uh...consequences?" Squirrel Girl asked.

"You'll have to pay for the scuba tanks you used up."

Victor blinked. That didn't sound bad. Ette audibly sighed.

"That's around 1,200 dollars. Total."

Victor's eyes bulged. The shoes from the mall cost less than fifty dollars, that meant practically...lots of pairs of shoes. Far more than he'd use in a whole year.

"Wha-" Ms. Marvel choked.

"We don't have a thousand dollars!" Ivy exclaimed. "We're barely paying for groceries!"

Pepper gave a sympathetic smile. "You used those oxygen tanks, you get to pay for them."

"How are we supposed to make over a thousand dollars?" Ivy exclaimed.

Pepper shrugged. "I don't know. But using my AI to illegally spread another video is not an option."

"What?" Ms. Marvel sputtered. "But...but...what?"

"Sorry," Pepper shrugged. "Maybe you can do something with this warehouse you now officially own. Although, I'm locking off that elevator. Personal space...you know."

"What if we can't get that kind of money?" Dante's fingers sparked red.

"Well, in the real world, if you can't pay a debt, you have to liquidate your assets. Sell equipment, sell cars and property...whatever you have."

The veiled prospects slowly settled in, and Victor shivered.

"Is that a threat?" Squirrel Girl growled. "Are you going to take away this warehouse if we can't pay?"

Pepper's eyebrows subtly shot up. "That was never my intention, no," she shook her head. "I'll give you two weeks to come up with the money. If you don't have it by then, we'll work something out."

The question nobody actually dared speak rang in Victor's head--what if in two weeks this warehouse was all they had?

"Sounds...good," Dante gave a thin smile. "Thanks, Pepper."

"I will be taking my suits back, also," she pointed at the aqua-drones standing guard by the elevator tube. "Those belong elsewhere."

***

Author note: want to help the Kree Annihilators make enough money? One vote=10 very real dollars and a comment=50 (this is a totally precise and mathematical process--totally works.)