Victor blinked, vision spinning with sharp blue and green and bright light. "Hold on!" Ms. Marvel's voice cried over the rushing wind.

Hold on to what?

His left arm jerked and he quit spinning. Nauseated, he managed to look up. Ms. Marvel had stretched out her whole body, widening to a parachute. She gripped Victor by one arm, held Ivy in her other, and had wrapped both her feet around Dante.

"Nice parachute!" Dante called.

"I don't know how long I can hold it," Ms. Marvel grunted, head goofily small above her wide blue costume and stretched out limbs.

"That's alright--" Victor began.

"Need a lift?" Rescue drifted beside Dante, matching their slow descent.

"Yes, please," Ms. Marvel said.

"I can make a portal," Victor added.

Rescue abruptly zipped off, disappearing above Ms. Marvel, who twisted her head around to watch. Muffled explosions rang out in the air above them.

"What just happened?" Dante called.

"There's falling debris," Ms. Marvel twisted back around. "Rescue blew it up so it wouldn't hit us."

Victor grunted, fixing his gaze on a spot of air below them. He spun open a wide portal.

"Looks like you've got it under control," Rescue said. "Nice going with bringing the ship down. Unfortunately it's going to crash into that park, so I'll have to power it towards the water."

"Good luck!" Ms. Marvel called. Victor's feet touched onto the portal and he sunk into the void, momentum slowing as if descending into thick syrup.

The others followed after him, and Ms. Marvel deflated to her regular size. She froze when she fully entered the void, legs slightly rubbery and lengthened. She held on to all three of them still.

Victor guided them down to the park, lifting them out of the void on the trail beside the parking lot. Ms. Marvel lay unconscious Ivy on the asphalt, then sighed, pulling in all her limbs and sprawling out beside her. Dante folded his arms. An eerie silence surrounded them; no wind, no human voices, no distant cars.

"Whew," Ms. Marvel sighed again. "That was intense."

"How's Ivy?" Victor shuffled over to her, holding his slightly wrenched left arm.

"I don't know. I was too busy getting sucked out the window and trying not to plummet to our deaths to check."

Ivy coughed, body shaking, and Victor closed his eyes in relief.

"Can Hala fly?" Ms. Marvel asked.

"Not that I know of."

"And Dante..." Ms. Marvel sat up, meeting his gaze. "I didn't know you could blow up an entire spaceship window. That was crazy."

Dante grinned tiredly. "Something just clicked, I guess."

Victor lowered himself to the ground, hardly caring about the sharp pebbles below or the explosions of Rescue-drones blowing up debris above. "We did it," he said.

Dante flopped beside him. "We did," he lifted his fingers, but hesitated. "Strange, how we can face explosions and falling to our deaths, but I'm still scared of this."

Victor frowned. Until Dante slid their palms together, day-old blister rubbing against skin that had just obliterated a whole command deck's observation window. "Yeah, you shouldn't be scared."

Ms. Marvel coughed. Victor and Dante both jumped. "Uh, so...where do you think Squirrel Girl and Ette are right now? And do you think Ivy will wake up soon? I mean, I'm sure they're both fine, but is waiting for them out here in the park the best idea...?"

"Sorry," Dante pulled his arm away. "We'll stop."

Victor folded his arms. "Thanks for grabbing all of us at the end there," he said to Ms. Marvel, who was repeatedly smacking herself in the forehead and muttering she was the awkwardest person alive. "And parachuting," Victor added. "That probably saved us."

She blinked, lowering her arm. "Yeah. No problem. That's what teammates do, right?" Her forehead had gone red from the constant smacking.

"Right," Dante said. "We save each other," he grinned at Victor.

"Hey!" Squirrel Girl's voice shouted. "You're all here!" She and Ette jogged up from the parking lot, red-cheeked and out of breath, but otherwise unharmed.

"And alive," Ms. Marvel added, before Ette could go pale at Ivy's unmoving form.

Fantastic," Squirrel Girl leaned heavily against a tree, rattling leaves onto the trail. "I think Ette and I caught most of the kree. They fought in pairs, but converged outside the park in droves. We came here after we knocked out all the ones we could find, and the cops or army or somebody were already rounding them up," she narrowed her eyes. "I wonder if the kree weren't looking for the inhumans at all yet, but were clearing this area for a landing zone..."

"I wish you could've seen the squirrels," Ette added, kneeling beside Ivy. "The kree hardly knew what hit them."

"I have seen them," Ms. Marvel nodded. "Maybe a month ago, a handful of squirrels snuck inside a speeding car to catch the car thief. I have no idea how they did it, but the car just swerved into a field and powered off. The windows weren't open, the doors were locked..."

"Nothing is squirrel proof," Squirrel Girl beamed.

Ms. Marvel grinned slightly. "You just say that because you don't even know how they got in."

Squirrel Girl rolled her eyes. "Only because Tippy-toe wasn't there and the squirrels ran away before I could ask."

A loud boom rocked the air.

"Should we be helping Rescue land that thing in the water?" Dante squinted. Victor followed his gaze to the bulbous spaceship. It careened to the side and tens of Rescue-drones sped to support it, boosters burning brightly.

"Can you fly?" Squirrel Girl asked. "Because I can't."

Dante shrugged. Victor frowned at that.

"Wait, Dante," Squirrel Girl said, "you don't know if you can fly or not?"

Dante shrugged again. "I've never tried. Seems like it should be possible though, shouldn't it?"

Victor just stared, for lack of words.

"You don't know if you can fly or not?" Ms. Marvel exclaimed. "That seems like a very important question."

Dante's cheeks went red. "I've never wanted to try."

"That is changing, right now," Squirrel Girl told him. "Up. Go into the air, Dante. Fly. Arriba."

"But I just blew a hole in the side of that ship," Dante pointed. "I'm tired."

"Yeah," Ette said, "maybe we should also try somewhere a little..." she glanced around at the trees. "A little more safe?"

"I'll try flying in the bunker. But later. When I'm not tired. Do we still have donuts left?"

"I didn't check," Ette shrugged.

"I hardly ate them," Ms. Marvel said. "If I did, my mother would've asked what was wrong at dinner," she wrinkled her nose.

Squirrel Girl and Dante turned to Victor. Who sighed. "I guess we're all going back to the bunker. For donuts. Rescue should know where to look for us if she needs help."

***

A pyramid as high as Victor, composed entirely of water bottles, stood over the remains of the fire pile.

"Huh," Squirrel Girl tiptoed toward it. Victor closed the portal under their feet. "Anyone know why we have a pyramid of water bottles making a guest appearance?"

"Rescue must've left them," Ette carried a still-unconscious Ivy toward the glass seawall. "No one else knows about this place, right?"

"Not that I know of," Ms. Marvel shrugged.

"Well I'm taking one," Squirrel Girl reached for the highest bottle.

"Actually," a metallic voice spoke from the center of the pyramid.

"Yaah!" Squirrel Girl smashed a fist down the pyramid, sending the whole thing crashing to the floor, water bottles rolling into the shadows.

"Actually, it was I who brought them here," a pause. "Though I now see a pyramid was not the most favorable design."

"Who are you?" Ms. Marvel hopped around rolling water bottles, fists raised. Victor hung back, rubbing his arm--injured both from one of Hala's lasers and Ms. Marvel's parachute wrenching his shoulder.

"An AI program designed after Jarvis's demise. I have not settled on a name for myself yet."

Squirrel Girl and Ms. Marvel scanned the ground, visibly confused. "Where are you talking from?"

"I implanted a device in the packaging of one of the water bottles. I thought it wise if I watched the inhumans' base while they were busy saving the world." A pause. "I now see this was a bad idea, because I have no power to move, and you cannot find me. I shall send a Rescue-bot down to extract me."

Dante snorted. Victor quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Hold that thought--" Squirrel Girl said. A distant elevator dinged, and she sighed.

"There's another entrance into here?" Ette asked from the seawall, setting water bottles upright beside Ivy's head. "I mean, obviously there is because Rescue hasn't ever come through the water tube," she stuttered. "I mean, why don't we get to use that entrance?"

Distant, clanking footsteps echoed closer.

The AI said, "that entrance is inside a private apartment at the top of a skyscraper with VIP access to the rooftop for take-offs and landings. It would not be of much use to you."

Ette rolled her eyes. "Of course."

A Rescue-drone stomped into view, half of one arm missing. It bent over the scattered water bottles to pick one up. "Thank you, inhumans and Squirrel Girl," the water bottle it grabbed said. "I shall be departing now."

Squirrel Girl waved. "Bye, AI person."

"It was nice meeting you," Ms. Marvel waved too, and the Rescue-drone trod off.

Dante snorted again.

"What?" Victor turned to him.

Dante bit back a laugh. "I thought AI were all-knowing and stuff. This one doesn't seem to know what he's doing. It's kind of cute."

Victor's expression darkened. "Cute?"

"Like a brand new puppy. Maybe we should adopt him. Make him part of the team."

Victor tilted his head. "Okay. That could be the AI's name. Puppy."

"Or Spots."

Victor's eyebrows narrowed in confusion.

"Never mind," he sighed. "That's a super common puppy name on earth."

A shuddering moan rolled through the bunker, vibrating Victor's ribs.

"What was that?" Ette stared out the window. Ivy coughed from the floor.

Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl, water bottles in hand from the scattered pyramid, jogged up to the window. "Was that a blue whale?" Ms. Marvel asked.

"I don't think blue whales come into the bay?" Ette said.

Victor and Dante approached the glass, and the shuddering groan came again.

"Look," Squirrel Girl pointed, up near the surface. A dark square slowly twirled, sinking underwater. Gradually, Victor could make out a familiar paneling from the ship's medbay floor.

"It's the spaceship," Dante awed. "Rescue got it to the water."

"Or at least part of it," Victor said, the medbay panel sinking out of sight beneath the glass. Above, bubbles bloomed against the water's surface, trailing debris like streaming comets. In the distance, a large chunk of metal collided with the seafloor.

A shuddering groan rolled over them again, vibrating the glass under Victor's fingers.

"This'll be a show," Squirrel Girl said. "Donuts, anyone?"

***

Ivy regained consciousness sometime during the "show" of spaceship chunks twirling through the blue water, collecting on the seafloor. Victor handed her a strawberry filled donut which she took wordlessly, along with a water bottle from Ette.

"If I had fish powers," Squirrel Girl muttered, cross-legged before the glass, "I would totally swim out there and collect the wreckage for our base. We could string light bulbs up in here!"

Dante laughed. "We could do a whole lot more than light bulbs. Weapons, fancy computers, those nearly indestructible walls from the training rooms..."

"Healing technology," Victor added, fingers sticky with donut glaze.

"The space travel tech," Ette said.

Ivy grumbled something. Victor glanced at her.

"No, we aren't giving it up to Stark," Ette rolled her eyes.

Ivy grumbled about Ette being right about that.

Ms. Marvel stood, stretching. "I say the first thing we add here is a more convenient door. The water tube is fancy and all, but it's so slow. And it can only transport one of us at a time unless we squish. If we actually want to go anywhere, we have to use Victor."

"Well, I want a restroom," Ette said. "And a skylight so I can grow a garden down here."

"Like I said: light bulbs."

"How about some blankets?" Ivy suggested. "And we can put up actual walls so we have real bedrooms."

"I thought you were going to live on an island," Dante flashed a grin. "We defeated the kree."

Ivy chucked her empty water bottle at him. It bounced off his knee and rolled into Victor's foot. He kicked it away. "An island sounds super lonely," Ivy said, "especially if Ette doesn't come along. Maybe I'll drag all of you on a vacation to the Pacific sometime."

"You'll have to wait for summer break," Ms. Marvel muttered around a donut.

"What about this being Stark's bunker?" Dante asked Ivy. She chucked another water bottle--one of Ette's, half full--at his face. He swatted it away.

"I have an idea for that," Ivy said. "We make another deal with Rescue. Since we saved the city from the evil kree spaceship, she hands over ownership of this whole place to thank us."

Ette nudged her, pointing into the water. "Except Rescue also saved the city, by getting the ship to crash out there," a vibrating groan rumbled through the water, emphasizing her point.

"Fine," Ivy sighed. "We strike a deal for half ownership."

"Did you get hit in the head too hard?" Squirrel Girl asked suspiciously, shoving the last of a peanut-butter donut into her mouth. "You've disliked this place since finding out it belonged to Stark."

"And that's pretty much all I dislike about it," Ivy rapped a fist on the window. "Other than the dark, and the bare floor. But if we get partial ownership, everything we need to turn this place into an epic underground base is right out there."

"I like the idea," Ms. Marvel nodded. "But I don't know how to build walls."

"As long as the end result doesn't look the same as the ship, I'm down," Victor said. "I already lived there for years."

"I only lived there for a few days and I was already sick of it," Dante agreed.

"Unfortunately," Squirrel Girl muttered, "we need someone's nonexistent fish powers to get everything out of the bay."

Ivy waved a hand. "We'll figure it out. It can't be harder than wrecking a kree spaceship, can it?"

"Actually," Ette hesitantly said, "building something tends to be harder than destroying it."

"It'll be less life-threatening," she rubbed the back of her head. "I blew up a central computer today, and I nearly died. Building a base couldn't possibly be that risky."

Dante raised his eyebrows. "You never know. Maybe the walls will collapse and crush us in our sleep."

"Way to be optimistic," Ivy rolled her eyes.

"No problem!"

Ivy kicked another empty water bottle at him.

***

Author note: vote if you'd also enjoy donuts while watching a kree battleship plummet to the ocean floor:)