Victor's helmet snapped open. Dante's face, a hands-length away, filled his vision. Water plummeted from the edges of the raised helmet.

Dante bit his lip, eyes worried. "Victor? You kinda shut down out there."

Victor blinked, squinting and shaking his head. "I..."

Ivy panted. Victor faintly recalled propelling across the bay floor, her voice panicking, her oxygen sensor beeping incessantly like she might run out of air any moment.

"Conserve your breath," Ette's voice rang in his ears, minutes too late.

"Ivy?" Victor turned. "I'm sorry--" he wobbled.

"Victor--" Dante propped him upright.

"We made it," Ivy grinned weakly. Illuminated by the glow of her lifted helmet, her cheeks inked from ashen to spotty red-brown.

"Is everyone okay?" Squirrel Girl's voice carried tinnily from the suit's comms.

"Yeah, we're all safe and accounted for," Ette's voice replied.

"I'm sorry," Victor muttered, legs unwilling to move. "I..." he shook his head. All those kree died in the spaceship and he'd helped crash it to the planet...all those...his limbs went numb inside the suit.

"Victor, we all made it," Dante's eyebrows knit together. "It's fine."

"And I didn't throw up!" Ms. Marvel said with forced cheerfulness.

The water elevator emitted the last of the Rescue-drones, water pooling on the concrete beneath Squirrel Girl's steps. "Good thing we moved the quilts out of the way," she said through their comms. "Good thinking, Ette."

Ette shrugged, face slightly too small inside the Rescue helmet.

"I am opening the drones," Hacker's voice said. Victor glanced around, eyebrows furrowed, counting the red suits standing in a huddle. Himself and Dante, Ivy, Ette, Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl...

The metal chinks all along the suit's front slid apart, clicking smoothly. Victor tilted forward, barely making a noodley step to avoid face planting to the concrete. Dante stumbled and Victor half-caught him, still not entirely stable himself.

"Where's Hacker?" Victor whispered.

"You may experience a sensation like sea-legs," Hacker's voice echoed from six helmets. "This is a condition where sailors who spend an extended amount of time offshore return to land and feel the ground rolling as if over waves."

Dante grinned sheepishly, carefully standing upright. "I'd make a pretty lousy sailor then."

"Where's Hacker?" Victor repeated.

"He flew up to Rescue's penthouse. To fetch some new oxygen tanks and some towels to dry the floor with," Dante glanced pointedly at the puddles and trails of water darkening the concrete.

"Oh."

"Did you, like, black out? Or did your oxygen run out? What happened out there after the...the ship stuff?"

Victor closed his eyes, loosening his arms around Dante's shoulder blades. "I don't know? I barely remember much after we left the cafeteria..." he squeezed his eyes shut tighter, forcing the back of his eyelids black.

"That was pretty disturbing," a faint shiver passed through Dante.

Victor pried his eyes open, staring blankly at Squirrel Girl eagerly furling her bushy tail about. She laughed with Ms. Marvel, and the edges of Victor's sight blurred. "We crashed the ship," he whispered. "I mean, obviously. We had to do it to get rid of Hala. Lots of the soldiers jettisoned into the city and...Ms. Marvel told us the news that they went to prison after that fight--but that wasn't all of them. Obviously a lot of people died when the ship went down. We knew that."

Dante rocked them side to side. "We did, yeah..."

"It's different when it's right in front of you though, you know?"

"Are we having a group hug moment?" Squirrel Girl interrupted.

Victor's eyes shot to the side and Dante pulled back. Except Squirrel Girl wasn't speaking to them, but to Ms. Marvel and Ette.

"No, we're excluding just you," Ms. Marvel muttered, cracking a grin.

"This is the no-puking celebration," Ette said.

"Sounds like a group hug to me!" Squirrel Girl spread her arms wide.

"Well," Dante's hand slid down to Victor's. "Group hug it is then."

"I love you guys so much!" Squirrel Girl squeaked, crushing Ms. Marvel and Ette in her embrace. Dante, wobbling sideways with each step, embraced them more timidly. Ms. Marvel gasped for air, and Victor just propped his head on Dante's back, letting his arms dangle.

"Get in here, Ivy!" Ette gasped. "If I have to get squished you have to join--"

Sighing, Ivy loosely flopped her hands around Victor and Squirrel Girl. "Yay, group hug," she muttered. "Go, Kree Annihilators..." she trailed off. "So was that cafeteria only full of blue-kree, or were those reptilian people in there too?"

Squirrel Girl planted Ette and Ms. Marvel back on solid ground.

"I don't want to talk about it," Ms. Marvel stuck her tongue out, grimacing.

"Because if that's what annihilating the kree means, we need better branding," Ivy crossed her arms.

"The reptilian people aren't kree," Victor reminded them. "They were from a war-ravaged world and Hala saved them by recruiting them into her service. They might be extinct now."

Dante's mouth slowly opened.

"What about the ones Squirrel Girl and I fought in the park?" Ette asked. "When the spaceship appeared, and they shot all the escape pods out, and we left them unconscious for the police or something? They're still alive, right?"

"Yeah," Ms. Marvel's eyebrows knit together. "The police wouldn't kill them."

Squirrel Girl frowned.

"Don't bring up squirrels, girls, and inhumans again," Ivy warned. "We're not changing our name to that."

"I wasn't going to," Squirrel Girl's tail twitched, and Tippy's little gray form appeared on her shoulder. "We have Hacker now, so that doesn't work."

"Do you think all those kree slowly drowned to death?" Ette whispered.

"Maybe the crash to the ocean surface did them in," Dante shrugged. "That's not a smooth landing."

"Yeah..." Ette slowly nodded.

Victor rubbed his temples, stepping back from the ruins of their group hug. "Why is it so impossible to do the right thing? We're not superheroes. At all. Superheroes don't kill hundreds of kree just so they can defeat one villain."

"Regardless of our branding, those kree were part of a galaxy-conquering empire, too," Ivy said. "It's not like we crashed a spaceship full of babies."

Victor clenched his jaw, fists balling. "Those kree followed Hala because they had no choice. They couldn't just run away--that's called deserting the army. You get hunted down and punished for that kind of stuff."

"Why are you defending them?" Ivy glowered. "They were trying to kill us. Or keep us prisoner."

"Because that was me not that long ago! Do you realize what we actually did?"

Ette stepped between them, hands cautiously raised. "Calm down, guys."

"Yes, I know what we did," Ivy said behind Ette's silhouette. "At least I know how to not make myself extra guilty about it."

"That's exactly the problem. With everything else."

"Guys!" Ette exclaimed. Dante took Victor's fingers, but he shook free.

"I'm not mad at you, Ivy," he muttered. "But we can't run away from the truth."

"We're not running away from it. We're talking about it right now."

Ette lowered her arms and sighed.

"I don't know how to talk about a room full of bloated bodies," Ms. Marvel crossed her arms. "Like, are we supposed to give them a funeral?"

"Would a funeral help us feel less guilty for being somewhat responsible?" Dante asked, glancing among them, sinking wobbly to the floor.

Victor shrugged. Ivy shrugged back.

"How does one even do a funeral for the kree?" Ette muttered, eyebrows furrowed.

"Don't look at me," Victor cut in, before anyone could. "I don't know."

Squirrel Girl marched to the ocean window. She planted her hands on her hips. "You were worthy adversaries, kree soldiers. At least for the hour or so when we snuck onto your ship and I blasted you with your own weapons, and the time Ette and I fought you by the park. I wish you well in your mysterious, alien afterlife."

Ms. Marvel wobbled to her side, leaning on Squirrel Girl's shoulder for support. "We did destroy your ship's supercomputer and help crash it in the ocean," she said, glass reflection distant-eyed. "We're probably the wrong ones to give you a speech now that you're dead, but if it's any comfort you did give most of us our inhuman powers. Or...maybe that's just worse, because you brought the terrigen mist that gave us our powers which we then used to defeat you in battle--" Squirrel Girl nudged Ms. Marvel and she stopped. "I guess...I should say, sorry you had to follow Hala, some crazy warlord, and it led you to your deaths."

Ivy and Ette stepped beside them, forming a semi-circle toward the window. Victor helped Dante to his feet and followed. "This is stupid," Ivy said to the glass. "But as long as I don't have any crocodile faces or blue aliens haunting me from the afterlife because we found your bodies, so be it," she took a deep breath. "Sorry for crashing your ship when you all were just eating breakfast or something, and that got you killed. It wasn't personal. But sorry anyway."

"It wasn't revenge for holding us prisoner," Ette said.

"Not directly, anyway," Ivy muttered.

"Maybe if we met on different terms," Ette said, "we could've been friends--we were prisoners to you, but you were prisoners to your empire and probably had to make a lot of hard choices on Hala's ship. Maybe in a different life, we could've taken down Hala together, and found freedom away from her tyranny," she smiled weakly, then glanced at Dante.

"Sorry about blowing up your giant window," Dante ducked his head. "And sorry to whoever got sucked out after that and couldn't fly. It's war, you know? All of us were fighting to survive," he shrugged. "There's probably something official they say at kree funerals. May you reside among the stars, or something. Did any of you have families on faraway planets?" Dante took Victor's hand. "Sorry you'll never get to see them again, but in a weird way, you helped me find a second family," he glanced at Victor. "So thanks for that."

Blinking, Victor slowly began, "you all likely have a grudge against us. If your souls are still around. You probably hate me the most, since I betrayed you--and since you ended up dead, and we ended up...here. Uh, sorry? About that?" he glanced down the line, where the others stared into the bay or glanced down at shuffling feet. "Maybe we're stupid for thinking we could give you a funeral, but maybe you'll forgive us for your deaths knowing we at least tried to make it better, afterward. May your souls fly as swift as the light of stars, speeding to your rest until you rise amidst the cosmos again."

"You too, Dad," Ivy said in the barest whisper, ice curling from her feet. "Go fly among the stars and be happy."

"But not you, Hala," Ette said. "Please never come back as a reincarnated tyrant ever."

Squirrel Girl sniffled, wiping her eyes. "That was beautiful, guys. Lovely funeral."

"Is the ground still rolling for anyone else?" Ms. Marvel asked. "Or is it just me that feels like ocean currents should be trying to knock me over but they're not?"

"I think we should have a moment of silence," Dante said. "They usually do that at funerals."

"Okay," Squirrel Girl sniffled.

***

Author note: silent votes for this moment of silence 😶