Hela cried and hated herself for it.

She had been given a small room and she curled in the corner like a small child upset. Instead of armour and cape, she wore Midgardian clothes; jeans, boots, a thin woolen sweater in dark green. Her hair was loose, the curls covering her face in a makeshift attempt to hide her tears should anyone walk in.

She wanted to go home.

The haughty part of her was sickened with herself. What are you going to do? Run home to Daddy because you don't like it and the Avengers are meanies? Well, you can't. So deal with it.

But she couldn't help it. Hela loved Asgard, despite what she might sometimes say, and she missed it. And the Avengers were cruel. She was a princess, completely unprepared for a group of people who, no matter what they tried to tell themselves and Thor, hated her. Growing up with people who she could have fired, imprisoned and executed at a click of her fingers hadn't readied her for this.

I don't need their approval. I don't need anyone to like me.

It was little things. Stopping talking when she walked in to the room. Refusing to reply to anything she said. Staring at her when they didn't think she noticed. Jokes behind her back.

They're just some stupid mortals. Get over it, Hela.

She wanted Loki. Possibly - no, certainly - the only being in existence who understood her at all. If he'd been here, they would have just laughed over it and then set up several pranks with their illusion magic all over the tower. But without him, she was lost.

Somebody knocked on the door.

Hela scrambled to her feet too late. The door swung open and in stepped Bruce Banner, the Hulk. He looked a mixture of nervous and concerned, and he said, "Um... I thought I heard crying. You've been crying," he added as he saw the tears on her face.

"Don't be ridiculous," she spat, simultaneously very obviously wiping away her tears.

Bruce looked down at his feet, awkwardly. Suddenly, he asked, "Hela, how old are you?"

The abrupt question shocked her into answering. "Fifteen."

"Right." He nodded. "I have to talk to the team about something. I'll see you later."

Bruce took no notice of Hela's bemused expression, turning and walking straight to the main room and speaking directly to the air. "JARVIS, I want every Avenger in the main room right now. Steve, Clint, Tony, Natasha." Thor was briefly away on a visit to see an old friend of his.

"Sir, some of them are busy."

"Get all of them in here right now or I'm about to get angry."

There was a pause. "Yes, sir."

Slowly, the four of them arrived. Tony raised an eyebrow. "Are we here for a reason, or do you just enjoy threatening AI systems?"

Bruce was in no mood for Tony being Tony. He pointed towards Hela's room. "I want to know why there's a fifteen year old girl crying up there."

Steve frowned. "There is?"

"He means Hela," Natasha put in, reaching out for a glass on the table.

"She's crying? Who knew, that spawn of the devil actually has a heart." Tony grabbed the drink out of Natasha's hand, drank it and smiled his thanks.

Bruce slammed his fist on the table, and everyone paid attention. "I am sick of what all of you have been doing. She's homesick. She's missing Asgard. She's missing her family. And all you can do is be cruel."

"Her family is a psychotic murderer, Banner," Clint replied sharply.

He took a deep breath, and contained the Hulk as best he could. "Let's take a look at all of you. Let's start with you, Steve. Captain America. All round good guy, right? Except for the fact that he runs around killing people literally all of the time. It is, in fact, his job. But let's cover that with a shiny shield, patriotism and old-fashioned manners. That makes it all okay, doesn't it?"

"Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow. She's got red in her ledger, but if you ask me, she doesn't care that much about wiping it out. Because she still, just like the rest of you, runs around killing people and hardly for perfect motives all the time. SHIELD's motives, as morally objectionable as all of us. Not to mention her evil assassin past."

"And now we see Tony Stark, the Iron Man whose suit isn't even iron. How did you describe yourself? Oh yes, I remember - first it was genius. Which, no matter what you say, you're still using to make weapons, only now you alone get to decide when, why and where they should be used. Then billionaire. How did you get that money, Tony? Playboy. Hardly the best hobby for a man to have, but you have a girlfriend now, so let's just forget every single incident of that. And last of all, philanthropist. Because we see so much evidence of that, standing in your massivd luxury tower."

"Last, but oh certainly not least, we have Clint Barton or Hawkeye. I have to say pretty similar to Natasha's - how do they put it in the job description, Clint? "Run around shooting people with a bow and arrows, injuring them severely and killing them, whenever we tell you to, despite the fact that you have no idea what they have and have not done"?"

Bruce looked around at the Avengers. The awkward, shamefaced Avengers giving each other odd looks. "And every single one of you has the cheek to decide that one girl, one teenage girl, is 'the spawn of the devil'. Taking your lives into account you've got absolutely no right. There's a girl upstairs who's curled up in the corner of her room crying because she's homesick, and the people she's been forced to live with are needlessly cruel to her. And you four have decided she's 100% evil because her father was evil. You are all disgusting."

None of them spoke, until Natasha began in a mildly rebellious tone, "Bruce, you've got to understand-"

"Well, there's one thing I don't understand, Romanoff," he replied, the suppressed anger in his tone obvious. "It's that you people call yourselves the good guys."

I enjoyed writing that, but I feel like it could've had more of a buildup. Thoughts? Should I write an extra chapter inbetween?