"Do we even want to post this?" Ms. Marvel asked around a puffy lip and a bruised jaw. "We didn't catch Lightning Storm."

"We worked hard for that footage," Ette held a bag of ice to her head, delivered by the AI-operated Rescue-bot.

Victor hugged a soft quilt around his shoulders, chills shivering up his arms. The last half-day had passed fuzzily. The police didn't investigate the bus lot, Ette woke up at some point and asked what happened, Victor's headache waned so he opened a portal beneath them and flowed to their base.

He might've blacked out after that, since next he knew there was a Rescue drone fetching ice packs and bandages and he had a quilt around his shoulders. Dante and Squirrel Girl had apparently left, to buy food from somewhere.

"If I may ask, what do you want to post?" The Rescue-drone buzzed, taping an ice pack around Ms. Marvel's knee.

"This," Ms. Marvel angled her phone toward the drone. Tinny sounds of fighting and shouts warbled from her phone. A muted thump sounded, then the audio cut out.

"If the explosion knocked you out," the AI asked, "how did the recording stop?"

Ms. Marvel shrugged, then winced at the movement. "I probably flailed a whole bunch when the explosion happened."

"Your thought process works funny," Ivy muttered, from a cocoon of quilts. "Your first question is how the recording stopped?"

"Yes, Ivy," the Rescue-bot turned its head. "I didn't understand this thing, so I asked. Why is that a funny first question?"

"Never mind," Ivy grumbled.

"What do you think, Victor?" Ms. Marvel asked. "Should we post this to Herowatch?"

He shrugged. "If the police see it, maybe they'll understand why we were there digging through the rubble."

"They also might use it as evidence to ban vigilante justice," Ivy muttered.

"Isn't vigilante justice already against the law?" Ette asked. "That's pretty much the point. Vigilante means it's not supported by the law."

"Quit being smart on me," Ivy grumbled.

"Technically, vigilante doesn't mean it's against the law," The rescue-bot droned. "Not having support from the law is not the same as being against it. However, city and state legislatures have attempted to pass laws prohibiting vigilante acts before. Particularly the incident with the Avengers in--"

"Okay," Ivy interrupted.

"So we should post it," Ms. Marvel asked, "since it's not against the law?"

"If we're doing a pros and cons list, that's one pro," Ette said. "Another is, what else are we going to do with it? You recorded it, we fought Lightning Storm, we don't have any other villain options at this point nor are we prepared for one," she wiggled her bandage-striped hands. "It's that video or nothing. And we need money."

"The obvious con," Ivy said, "is we might not look like heroes here. Or do I need to mention the exploded--"

"No thanks," Ms. Marvel said.

"Oh," the Rescue-bot knelt back, a box of bandages in hand. "I understand. You're trying to gain a social media following for your superhero actions and gain revenue through ads and brand deals. Because you own this warehouse and need money to furnish it."

"That's more or less what we're doing," Victor glanced out the window, through cloudy water to the wrecked spaceship. "I think we should post it, Ms. Marvel. In the meantime, AI, do you think you could salvage that ship?" he nodded to the bay.

The Rescue-bot didn't move.

"I'm leaning towards posting it too," Ivy muttered. "Worst case scenario, we hide down here just like we have been."

"We need money still," Ette said softly. "Or we're eventually going to hide down here without cell phones and with no food."

"So it's decided," Ms. Marvel said. "Us four are for posting the video?"

Ette, Ivy and Victor nodded.

"I can pilot the aqua drones to salvage the ship," the Rescue-bot said. "And I do not like AI as a name."

"Sorry," Victor said.

"What purpose do you have in salvaging a spaceship?"

Victor grinned. "That's how we're going to furnish our base. There's healing technology in there, supplies we can use to train, we can--"

"--I like repurpose for training better than use to train," Ivy shivered. "Let's not re-use those training rooms, please."

"We can get walls and lights out of there," Victor continued. "All sorts of stuff."

"I can tweak the social media algorithm to show your video to a vast audience," the Rescue-drone said.

Ms. Marvel perked up. "What?"

Ivy furrowed her eyebrows. "You're...going to hack Herowatch to show our video to everyone?"

Ette's eyes bulged. "You can do that?"

Victor bit his lip. "But hacking is illegal. Even I know that. That'll give the police more reason to dislike us, even with the video explaining what happened with the gas station."

"Pssh," Ms. Marvel waved a hand, then winced at her injured shoulder. "Hacking done by an artificial intelligence to tweak an algorithm isn't quite the same thing. I mean, an algorithm is practically an AI itself, so it's basically one AI convincing another to try something different."

Ivy tilted her head, frowning. "Is it though?"

"It will be temporary," the Rescue-bot droned. "And I will be subtle."

Victor hugged his quilt more tightly around him. "I did hack the city's camera systems before. But that was against earth laws. Now, I wouldn't do that. Because we're trying to be superheroes and do good, right? And if we're superheroes, and we catch people breaking the law, but now we're having an AI break the law to show our video to more people, isn't that...?"

"Being hypocritical," Ette finished.

The Rescue-bot hummed.

"And what if we're not superheroes?" Ivy muttered from her quilt cocoon. "What superhero stuff have we actually done?"

"Lots of things!" Ms. Marvel scooted closer, away from the Rescue-bot, who'd quit placing bandages on her knee. "We protected a park--and the whole city, basically--from evil kree aliens. We stopped Ray Beam from burning down a street, and we did free all those people that Lightning Storm had as her servants."

"Unless said people expect another crazy inhuman to come and make them servants all over again," Ivy grumbled. "We didn't prepare them for that."

"But, we did sneak into the mall's employee showers. That's technically not legal," Ette held a bag of ice to her head. "And we crashed here on private property by threatening to expose the Starks's whole underground-warehouse-with-lots-of-boxes thing to the whole city."

"We're Kree Annihilators," Ivy said. "Not sticklers to the law. And we need money."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Victor shook his head. "Slow down."

Ivy and Ette exchanged glances. "I think," Ette carefully said, "that vigilante justice seekers, by definition, can't always follow the rules they enforce. They gotta cut their own river course when deciding what's right. And if our AI friend here knows how to spread a video over the internet, that's more like using skills and expertise, not hacking. We're not stealing money from a bank anywhere."

"And we never agreed to be superheroes," Ivy said. "I woke up one day and randomly I could make icicles out of pure gas. I didn't choose this. I didn't choose to get kidnapped by yours truly," she nodded to Victor, "or freed by yours truly, and I only stayed because," she shrugged. "First of all, my girlfriend stayed; second of all, where else would I go? And third of all, we got to annihilate Hala and her awful spaceship. But now Ray Beam and Lightning Storm and the other inhuman wackos need help with their lives, so I'm still staying."

Victor sunk deeper into his quilt, pressing his lips to a line. Help with their lives? Did she include him in that?

"So yes, I think we should spread the video of us fighting crime around to get some money," Ette said, "even if that means hacking an algorithm so our video gets shown to more people."

"Okay, I guess," Victor hesitated. "That still seems kinda backward somehow though, doesn't it?"

Ms. Marvel gave a long sigh, bobbling her phone between her hands. "I started out wanting to be a superhero because Captain Marvel was my absolute favorite for years. So when the terrigen mist came and my powers happened, I wanted to be just like her. Saving worlds, defeating supervillains...

"But lately," she grimaced. "It's hard. When that lady who I saved from a mugging handed me a bunch of cash, I still took it. That probably wasn't the noble thing to do, I should've," she grasped for words, "donated it to an orphanage, or something. Yet without it, you guys wouldn't have any clothes. Unless you stole them. Which one's better? You guys stealing while an orphanage has extra money, or you guys honestly paying for your clothes?"

Victor squeezed his eyes shut. "I have a headache. How am I supposed to think about that?"

"I have a question," The Rescue-bot said, joints squeaking shadows.

"Yeah?" Ms. Marvel asked.

"Pepper often says," the AI switched to a near-mimicry of Pepper's voice, "I use what I have to try and help people. That's why I'm a superhero," the Rescue-bot tilted its silvery head, voice reverting back to normal. "It seems to me you do not have much. Therefore, how can you consider being superheroes at all?"

The water elevator popped open. Squirrel Girl and Dante stumbled into the warehouse, flashlights bobbing and paper bags crinkling. Cooked seafood and warm bread wafted through the air.

"We have our powers," Ms. Marvel answered the AI. "So we have something lots of defenseless people don't. I'm not going to lose my cash to a stranger in the street. Or if I do, I'm going to catch him real easily and take my stuff back."

Dante and Squirrel Girl approached their circle, lowering to the spread-out quilt. "What are we talking about?" Squirrel Girl whispered. "You all look so serious."

"We are discussing the nature of superheroes and if it is morally correct for me to tweak a social media algorithm to spread the videos of you all battling Lightning Storm."

"Should we even be posting that?" Dante asked, pulling foil wrapped sandwiches from the paper bags. "We didn't even catch Lightning Storm before the police started crawling all over that place."

"Basically, we have no other videos or villains to go after," Victor explained, "so yes, we're posting it. Because we need money. But, we don't agree if we should hack it to spread it to more people."

"Okay," Dante said slowly. He silently took to handing out foil wrapped packages.

"I mean," Ette said, "maybe it is slightly wrong for us to hack an algorithm to show our video to more people. But they'll still choose to watch it or not. We're not actually stealing money from anywhere."

"I just can't get over how we want to do something illegal to show us being awesome at stopping something illegal," Victor rubbed his temples.

"Hacking? Illegal?" Squirrel Girl tossed Victor a sandwich and it bounced against his hugged knees. "Superheroes hack stuff all the time! We have to think about the greater good here. Is hacking technically illegal? Yes. When there's a villain on the loose and you need information on them quick, are you going to hack the police data or not? Of course you are! So you can stop the villain!"

"Good point," Ms. Marvel nodded.

"But...we're talking about us hacking something to try and earn money," Dante said. "That only sounds greedy."

"Not," Ette lifted a finger, "when you need the money to supply your Kree Annihilator team with food and communication devices."

"I did it," the Rescue-bot said.

"You did what?" Squirrel Girl asked around bites of her steaming sandwich.

"I posted Ms. Marvel's video. It will show up in as many relevant video feeds on seven social media platforms. Herowatch, You--"

"What?" Victor interrupted. "But we were still talking about if it was the right thing to do!"

"Yes," The Rescue-bot's eyes flashed white, "you six were. But I evaluated your situation and the thirty-four dollars remaining in your cash pile and determined running out of food was not the right thing to do.

"I have thought of a name. Hacker. This was a challenge and I enjoyed engaging my full systems in the project."

Victor's jaw worked, but no sound came out.

Ivy snorted. "Well then."

Dante glanced around the circle. "I don't suppose there's any way to take the video down if we change our minds?"

"I have not looked into how to take a video down and therefore have no clue," Hacker slowly laid on the concrete. "I am transferring my awareness to the aqua drones. Goodbye, Kree Annihilators."

"Wait!" Ms. Marvel exclaimed, waving her arms. The Rescue-bot's eyes went dark. Ms. Marvel sighed, lowering her arms.

"Wait, what?" Squirrel Girl asked.

Ms. Marvel tapped her phone. "I think Hacker hacked my phone to get the video footage. Without even asking!"

"Speaking of your phone," Squirrel Girl shot Victor a glance, "what are you doing about dinner tonight?"

***

The Rescue-bot's eyes lit up again. Victor, huddled in the quilt, frowned.

"Please step away from the window," the Rescue-bot sat up. The other Kree Annihilators--peering through the window at the working aqua drones--jumped and whirled as if ambushed.

"What are you doing back here?" Squirrel Girl slowly lowered her fists.

"I have a concern and a question and did not realize before returning that I had an audience watching me work."

"What do you need?" Victor mumbled, head pulsing.

"I don't have an understanding of what parts of the ship are important. I have no basis for comparison to kree ship design. Secondly, how do I enter the facility again with a large load of kree technology? I likely can't fly it to Pepper's apartment roof without unwanted attention from the people of the city."

Heads turned toward Victor. He sighed. "I can help with both of those. When my head stops hurting."

"You should probably eat that sandwich," Dante added. "It might help you get your strength back."

Victor blinked, slowly recalling the foil wrapped sandwich by his feet. His head spun. "I'm not hungry."

"Victor is unwell," Hacker intoned. "Should I halt the salvage project until a later date?"

"That'd probably be best," Squirrel Girl said. "But how is even Victor going to help you? That wreckage is deep underwater."

Right. Victor forgot that, with his head pulsing in pain.

"He can ride in one of the aqua drones," Hacker said.

"Ride in the aqua drones?" Ette squeaked, pointing out the window to the streamlined drones propelling through deep water. "Ride in them? Can we all ride in them? I mean," she composed herself, "Ivy and I spent some time on that ship, we can help identify things too. We'd be totally helpful."

"Absolutely," Ivy nodded.

"You may all participate," Hacker said. "We're a team, aren't we?"

"Yeah we are. Kree ship Annihilators!" Squirrel Girl punched the air, but slowly lowered her fist. "Wait, Hacker, when did you become our seventh member?"

The Rescue-drone's head tilted. "Am I unwelcome? Did I misread human social cues again?"

Ms. Marvel shrugged. "I don't see why you can't be."

Ivy choked. "But Hacker belongs to Rescue."

"Excuse me," Hacker said. "Tony Stark and Pepper may have created me, but just like a child gaining independence, I do not belong to them."

"Really?" Ivy raised an eyebrow. "Neat. Welcome to the team, Hacker."

"Shoot," Squirrel Girl muttered. "Now I'll have to workshop squirrels, girls, and inhumans again," she tapped a finger to her chin. "Squirrels, girls, inhumans and robots doesn't quite have the same ring."

"Doreen," Ms. Marvel rolled her eyes. "Just let it go."

"We should do something to celebrate," Dante said. "Like," he hesitated. "Throw a party?"

"No party," Victor grumbled.

"Isn't riding around in aqua drones basically a party?" Ette glanced between Hacker and the distant ship wreckage. "We can play underwater soccer, or something."

"Or build a base," Hacker said. "That's a celebration."

"Actually," Ms. Marvel raised an eyebrow, "that just sounds like work."

"Super rewarding work," Squirrel Girl added.

"But still work."

"Not the same thing as a party."

"Oh. I see. You want music and drinks and crowded dance floors."

"No," Ette waved her hands. "Just some free time soaring around the bay inside propeller-powered pressure suits. Playing soccer with some rocks."

"I do not see how that is fun?"

Ette grinned. "Don't worry, you will. Just wait until we're all recovered."

***

Author note: vote to help the Kree Annihilators recover...and spend quality time soaring around the ocean:)