"Hi Muneeba, hi Yusuf," Ms. Marvel announced, stepping into the entry of her family's apartment. Victor shuffled between Dante and Ette in the hallway.

"Kamala, you're home early," the voice of Ms. Marvel's mother floated through the doorway. "I thought you and Doreen were working on a school project?"

"Well," Kamala glanced back at Squirrel Girl, tail tucked away, holding Ivy in her arms. "Change of plans, actually."

"You beat your father home," Muneeba said. "I was preparing dinner when he phoned to say traffic was backed up. Some emergency with ambulances blocking the roads."

Victor gulped. Did those ambulances happen to be near a certain five-star hotel?

"Uh, yeah..." Kamala bit her lip, eyes shifting. "Mom, I actually brought some friends over...can we talk?"

"Kamala! You didn't warn me Doreen was visiting!"

Victor couldn't see past the door, but Doreen stepped inside and waved to someone. "Hi, Mu--"

Muneeba gasped. "What happened to her? Kamala, did something happen? Doreen, who is this girl?"

"Ivy?" Squirrel Girl glanced down. And quickly slid her other hand to support Ivy's weight, as if it hadn't been easy with one arm.

The door yanked open fully, revealing a woman half a head taller than Kamala, magenta headscarf framing her face. She blinked behind thick glasses at Victor, then Dante, then Ette. Dante hesitantly waved.

"You didn't tell me you had five friends," Muneeba gripped the door. "Kamala, is this that sporting club you joined at the school?"

"Sort of," Kamala winced. "Can we talk at the table? Or the living room? Or not in the hall?"

Muneeba blinked at them again, mouth like a fish. "Come in, come in," she turned to Ivy in Doreen's arms. "What happened to her? Kamala, run and get ice packs from the freezer. Quickly now!"

Kamala slunk off, and Victor shuffled into the apartment behind Squirrel Girl. His nose hit layers of spice and vegetable steam, and he held in a startled gasp. The scent sent him back to the glowing mushroom planet, with those steaming bowls, spices ground from pale herbs mixed with mini pink mushrooms.

Dante imperceptibly nudged him through the doorway. Victor half stumbled and kept walking.

"I can sit on the floor," Doreen's voice echoed from the left. "Ivy can have the couch."

"Mom, we really need to talk," Kamala said.

Victor followed the sound of voices, ducking through an archway into a lavish living room. It had thick rugs, cushions on the chairs, and a long couch opposite some large curtains drawn apart, exposing sunset-filled windows.

"How was she injured?" Muneeba took the ice pack from Kamala's arms, holding it to Ivy's temple. "Was it in your sporting club?"

Victor crossed his arms, standing just inside the archway. Dante and Ette huddled beside him.

"Mom we're a superhero group," Kamala flinched.

Muneeba's knuckles went white around the ice pack. She carefully removed her glasses. "What, Kamala?"

She slowly un-winced. "We're--"

"--a superhero group," Ette said. "Most of us are inhumans. We have superpowers. I make plants grow really fast."

Kamala imperceptibly sighed, mouthing a silent "thank you" at Ette.

"My name's Ette, by the way."

Muneeba stared blankly.

"And I'm Dante," Dante said. "I do fire stuff."

"Well don't burn anything down!" Muneeba exclaimed.

Kamala's eyes bulged.

"I make portals," Victor interrupted, then pointed at Ivy. "She makes ice."

"So am I even helping?" Muneeba burst out.

"I'm not going to burn anything down," Dante muttered.

Muneeba replaced her glasses, blinking rapidly. "Of course not, I apologize, Kamala...you're a superhero group?"

"Yeah, Mom," she nodded. "I can stretch and grow bigger and--"

"--and you are a growing teen so of course you should!"

"But, I mean, well that too...but--" Kamala stretched an arm across the room, fist growing triple in size. "Like this."

Muneeba's eyes grew round as spoons. "You're a superhero group?"

Doreen rose from her cross-legged seat, shuffling forward on her knees to pat Muneeba's shoulder. "This seems like a lot for you to take in," she smiled sympathetically.

"What about you, Doreen?" Muneeba asked, still clutching the ice pack to Ivy's head. "You are part of this superhero group too, aren't you?"

"Oh. Uh, I talk to squirrels. And...a few other things I don't think you can handle right now so we'll just leave it at that."

"Talk to squirrels?" Muneeba frowned. "What do they say?"

Squirrel Girl frowned back. "Lots of things? I have this one friend named Tippy Toe who I met after moving from California, and she likes the color pink and ribbons, and acorns are her favorite nuts and--"

The door creaked. "Muneeba, I'm home!" a deep voice called. "Mmm, that smells delicious."

Muneeba leapt to her feet, the discarded ice pack sliding down the couch arm. "Yusuf!" she exclaimed. "We have superhero visitors!"

Victor sunk to the couch. Dante and Ette crowded between him and Ivy, and Ette planted the ice pack atop Ivy's skull.

Kamala sighed, shaking herself and sinking slowly into a chair. "That went marginally better than I thought."

"Ha!" Squirrel Girl snorted. "She hasn't even seen my tail yet!"

"Kamala is a superhero!" Yusuf cried. "We...we--we need to throw a party! Invite all the neighbors!"

"What?" Kamala cried. "Dad, my secret identity!"

"I hope they let us sleep here," Dante whispered.

"Oh they will," Squirrel Girl nodded. "They're super nice."

"Even with the fire?"

"Eh," Squirrel Girl waved a hand. "She'll get over that."

Dante grimaced.

"Don't worry," Victor said. "I trust you not to burn us in our sleep. Been doing it for weeks."

Ette nodded gravely. Dante jabbed her with his elbow.

"So these are your superhero friends, Kamala?" A voice boomed from the archway. "I have an excellent icebreaker. If you were to compare yourselves to the original Avengers, who would be who?"

Kamala's eyebrows knit together. "Um..."

"What?" Squirrel Girl asked. "We're just Kree Annihilators, we don't need to compare ourselves to--"

"I'd totally be The Hulk," Ette said.

"I don't know the original Avengers," Victor muttered. He didn't know any current Avengers either, quite frankly. Other than what Dorian mentioned about some Captain Marvel, Spider-man thing.

"Ette, just because you like the color green doesn't make you The Hulk--" Dante said.

"Says who?"

"Victor's Black Widow," Kamala said. "And Squirrel Girl is Captain America, and Ivy is sorta like Hawkeye because she throws things and he shoots things, and Dante..." she pursed her lips.

Squirrel Girl smacked her forehead. "Guys..."

"How about I be Thor," Dante said, "and you can be Captain Marvel."

A booming laugh interrupted him. Victor turned to take in the short man in the archway, jacket in his arms with Muneeba peering wide-eyed over his shoulder. "Captain Marvel wasn't part of the original Avengers," he wiped tears from his eyes. Either with pride at his superhero daughter or because it was that hilarious...

"Correct," Muneeba nodded sagely, "it was Iron Man."

"We know," Kamala said, staring at the ground.

Ette slowly exhaled.

Squirrel Girl lowered her hand from her face. "Is...now a bad time to say we need a new base?" she whispered.

"What was that, Doreen?" Yusuf asked, sniffling slightly.

"Dad," Kamala fidgeted, "we kinda need Aamir's bedroom. For the long term. Is that alright?"

He frowned, turning toward Muneeba. They stared silently for drawn out seconds, and Victor held his breath.

"Should we discuss this over dinner?" Yusuf asked.

"Yes," Muneeba nodded. "Come to the kitchen everyone and help," Muneeba jabbed a finger at Ette. "Except you. Take care of her."

Ette nodded, still holding the ice pack on Ivy's head.

Muneeba and Yusuf left, muttering down the hall.

"This is promising so far," Squirrel Girl whispered.

"You're not the one sweating buckets," Kamala hissed back.

"What if I don't like the food?" Dante whispered, rising from the couch. "Should we tell them we just ate?"

"Pretend like you like it," Victor whispered back. "But it smells like the glowing mushroom planet, whatever it is."

"Let's go, everyone!" Squirrel Girl skipped from the room. "It's chicken karahi!"

"What?" Dante muttered.

Victor dragged him along, surreptitiously releasing their touch outside the kitchen. "Just don't burn anything down when you can't stand the flavor," he grinned.

Dante glowered. "That was a lousy joke, and you're going to continue it?"

Victor's smile disappeared and he shook his head. "That was the last time, sorry."

"Good," Dante glanced into the kitchen, hesitated, then tapped Victor's fingers. "I'm guessing this thing will have to come after asking for a place we can all sleep, won't it?"

Victor slowly nodded.

"Well," Dante sucked in a breath. "We'll get through that too, I guess."

Victor fleetingly tapped his fingers back. "Yes we will."

***

Can you Hear the Violence?

PeridotPrincess2

I left the only Earth home I know just yesterday. I drowned my phone in the ocean but after some open air and a jar full of rice it's doing okay.

I'm coming back to this video because I can't believe it was only a week and a half ago. So much has happened since then. We never did track down Lightning Storm again, did we? I guess we got distracted with...other things. Didn't have any good leads either, I suppose. Maybe the police got her. Or maybe we'll track her down again.

Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl are making a school video about Hacker. They're scrambling to make something that does him justice at the same time they're keeping their superhero identities secret from the school. They're labeling it a fiction story about a robot who became friends with a group of teens until the robot ran out of battery power.

It's still called Horror of the Haunted Bear House because Ms. Marvel edited their title sequence for an hour last week and doesn't want to change all the effects. And apparently each letter has its own effect.

But then there's the real video. The one Frostbite is feverishly writing a script for on her phone. The only place this video will be shown is on our phones, just the six of us. It's about aliens dead in a drowned spaceship and long scrabble words and this stupid video about Lightning Storm, which it seems the world has forgotten about in the past week and a half. Which is nice. I feel safe writing an excessively long comment here, where likely only one person will ever check.

But it's better that way, only one person ever seeing this. I've never been great at owning the spotlight, knowing what to do with attention. My boyfriend literally is the spotlight--Inferno. Glowing, shooting flames. I'm the one you might catch at the edges, disappearing into black portals in the floor. My name used to be Exile.

Now it's just Victor.

My parents never told me why they gave me that name, what it meant when they chose it. So I guess it means whatever I want it to.

I was given the name Exile by a warlord. Because I exiled things to the void and brought them back, because I forged things from the shadows. I never liked that name.

Now our robot's the one in exile.

Edit: Our robot didn't run out of power. Our robot lost his memories because of someone who shall not be named here. We're just a couple of Kree Annihilators in Jersey City by night, and we did stop an alien invasion once, but for the sake of protecting ourselves, we won't name certain names. Cowardly, maybe. But we don't claim to be brave superheroes. Just Kree Annihilators.

Hacker, as you were once called, or PeridotPrincess, hi. We're still rooting for you. To find yourself, maybe come visit us sometime.

In the meantime, we met Ms. Marvel's parents. Who were super nice and encouraging about some things, less so about others. Inferno and I haven't held hands in their apartment at all, for instance. But they happily feed us every day and thank us for stopping crime in the city, and Ms. Marvel thought they'd ban her from fighting crime because it's "too dangerous" or something but they haven't done that either. And they're helping us pay rent for the apartment next door in a month (Inferno got a job, and Wild gets paid for gardening, so we can pay for half of it ourselves, and while SG and MM are busy with school, Frostbite and I work on a video. Which is mostly sneaking back to the warehouse and trying to figure out how to record underwater).

So hi Hacker. How are you doing? Frostbite and I now have an entire script about your life as we knew it. Which admittedly isn't much. But the way you left us wasn't fair. So we're going to remember what you were there for, even if we are missing the spotlight character.

A little bit ago, someone told us about forgiving and poison in hearts. I thought I forgave myself for terrible things before all this, but tiny reminders still get flung in my face. How I never would have met these friends if years ago I decided to do the right thing. That only would've gotten me killed. So was I right for doing the wrong thing for years until I came here?

Or sometimes I remember that the sword I pull from the shadows is a mimic of an alien sword. Or right now I'm thinking of how strange Ray Beam and Lightning Storm acted, and how that might be my fault. And the dead aliens on the ocean floor are because of me too.

But I do my best to forgive myself. The shadows in my heart I don't form into swords, or shields, because there is nobody to battle within here but myself, and those weapons would only weigh me down. Instead, when I find a new shadow, I try to spin it into a portal. Dark, faintly violet, a window to transport myself across worlds of time. To a place where I spoke to you, Hacker. To the place where I find myself.

The person who shall not be named, well. We're all trying to deal with the shadows and thorns and hurt inside us there. How someone could be so understanding, and welcoming, and even infuriatingly fair, and yet destroy you--our friend--too?

We're not quite sure how to deal with that. But this video is helping, I think. Frostbite no longer glares daggers into space at the mention of a few particular names. I no longer miss the window in the warehouse quite as much, or miss you there with us.

So. That's all for now. I think. Frostbite and I are going to experiment with this voice changing app to try and mimic the way you talk. Maybe if you find this, you could give us some good lines.

Good luck out there finding yourself, Hacker. Or PeridotPrincess. Or Exile. Or whichever name you've taken up for yourself now.

-Victor