"I think we need some fresh air," Ette interrupted, leaning back from their squished huddle on the quilt. "We're getting nowhere."

"Go for donuts?" Squirrel Girl asked.

Victor fixed her with an unblinking stare.

"Oh, right," she sighed. "Ray Beam burned it down."

"Donuts also cost money," he said.

"How are we supposed to make money when all the money Hacker's video got us is disappearing into food?" Dante muttered.

Ette groaned. "No more talk of money. We are taking a break. Going on a walk."

"Where too?" Victor asked, standing and stretching his legs.

"I was just thinking the park?" Ette stood too, rubbing her calves.

"How far can your portal go?" Dante asked.

"Space."

"I mean...never mind."

"That's a good idea," Ivy said. "Can we go to the serengeti? I want to see some real life lions."

"You've been to a zoo," Ette nudged her.

"Those aren't real life wild lions."

"Let's go see the Eiffel tower," Squirrel Girl bounced to her feet, eyes glittering. "Then we can go to the Louvre, and check out London--"

Dante raised his hand. "Why don't we go somewhere in Mexico? We could visit my grandma in Monterey."

"We could visit my grandma," Ivy said. "She lives in Canada. But she also disowned my dad after he changed his name and joined a gang."

Silence.

Uh," Victor frowned.

"I'm kidding," Ivy said. "My dad never changed his name."

"Should...I ask about those other two things?" Dante hesitantly asked.

"What other two?" Ivy blinked innocently.

"Ivy," Ette sighed, "your dad's mother lives in Ghana. Not Canada."

"How do you know? I have at least two grandmas. One of them could live in Canada."

"I haven't been to Pakistan since I was five," Ms. Marvel said. "We could travel there. And I've always wanted to visit the Great Wall of China."

Victor shook his head. "Should we just...go around the whole world?"

"We don't have time for that," Squirrel Girl's tail flicked to the side. "Ette, you haven't suggested any place exotic. Where should we go?"

Ette blinked with surprise. "I don't know. I thought we'd just pop over to the park and walk around for a while and come back. Victor's the one who asked where we should go."

"So where should we go?" Victor repeated.

"Um...a different park?"

Ivy sighed, draping her arm around Ette. "Chica, we could go anywhere on the planet. And you want to visit a park?"

"A...national park? In...Hawaii?"

"I like that," Dante said, rising to his feet.

"Sure," Ms. Marvel shrugged.

"Nice save," Ivy squeezed Ette's arm.

Squirrel Girl clapped, jumping up and down. "Yay, we actually agreed!"

Victor hesitated. "Does someone have a map? I don't know anything outside this city that well."

***

"Aw, the wondrous benefits of portals," Squirrel Girl sighed, sprawling on the pink sand beach. "Your power's pretty awesome, Victor."

"Thanks," his temples pulsed with the blinding sun off the flat water. "Hawaii was kind of hard to find though."

"And this isn't a national park either!" Ette shouted from the embrace of a palm tree barely as tall as her.

"Boundaries like that don't exist in the void!" Victor called back.

"Whatever!"

"I am going to have sand in my tail for weeks," Squirrel Girl sighed. "But I don't care right now," she rolled onto her side. "This is so warm and soft."

Victor jumped at a touch on his shoulder.

"Sorry," Dante, hiding a grin, shoulder-bumped him again, but Victor looped their arms together and held him close.

"No you're not. You just wanted me to hold your hand."

Dante wordlessly twined their fingers together, and Victor rolled his eyes.

"So I just had an idea," Dante squinted out over the water, where Ms. Marvel's head stretched above the incoming waves. "Plane tickets to Hawaii cost a lot of money. What if we moseyed on over to the airport, found some people waiting for a flight to Hawaii, and offered to teleport them instantly? Just ask for a thousand dollars from two or three people, and we're pretty set."

"Moseyed?" Victor whispered. "What..."

"I heard that," Squirrel Girl lifted a finger before Victor could form a complete sentence. "You forgot about trust issues, Dante."

"Trust issues?" Dante called back.

Ivy yelped from behind Ette's palm tree, which suddenly grew rapidly, Ette perched in its upper fronds.

"You can't start an ice age in Hawaii!" Ette shouted.

"People are never going to trust a couple random people in the airport offering to teleport them to Hawaii," Squirrel Girl said to Dante. "Especially if they hear about Ivy's ice age. And also I'm pretty sure it's illegal to advertise your own traveling company inside a literal airport. We'd get sued."

Dante crossed his arms, dragging Victor's interlocked forearm with him. "Why don't you ask your parents to pay for the scuba tanks? Or Ms. Marvel's?"

Squirrel Girl sat up. "I could, but then I'd have to explain why we owe Rescue a thousand two-hundred bucks. Then they'd probably tell me to pay for it myself out of my college savings."

"You're going to college?"

Victor wrestled his dangling arm out of Dante's grip.

Squirrel Girl shrugged. "Probably? Maybe? I don't know, I was going to. I thought I'd be a computer programmer or something up until two years ago."

"But now you're a superhero?" Victor asked.

"Actually, first I changed my mind to living in a house in the woods. But now that I'm basically a superhero...it is a job, even if it pays lousy."

Dante sighed. "Why is money so annoying?"

"Because it's money," Squirrel Girl muttered, flopping back to the sand.

"Rescue suggested doing something with our warehouse," Victor said, glancing between them. "Maybe...we could give people tours or let them see the ocean window?"

"Uh-uh," Squirrel Girl shook her head. "We're not revealing the location of our hidden base."

"What if we made videos about it though?" Dante perked up. "We can do mysterious clips of a corner of the ocean window, with a caption about our underwater base."

"Then we have to hope the video does nearly as well as the last one," Victor said. "Without negative attention. And without Hacker's help."

"Okay, yeah..."

"This feels hopeless," Squirrel Girl rubbed her hands over her eyes. "We can make a video and get a little bit of money--maybe--or we can illegally use airport property to teleport people, or we can wreck my college savings."

Ms. Marvel marched up the beach, soaking wet except for anything above her neck. "What about college savings?"

Squirrel Girl lowered her hands from her face. "We're still talking about our debt dilemma. We've come up with three mediocre options. Videos, illegal use of teleportation, and using my college savings."

"Would your parents help us out?" Dante turned to Ms. Marvel.

Her eyes grew round. "I had to lie to them about being at Squirrel Girl's house Saturday evening to hide my injuries from the gas station, then pretend like I was using concealer to cover the bruises when they healed in two days. They think I'm part of a bowling club at school. I can't ask them for a thousand dollars!"

Dante slumped to the sand. Victor joined him. Ivy and Ette, abandoning the palm tree, trod over. "It looks like this Hawaiian vacay turned dour," Ivy said. "Weren't we on break from talking about our problems?"

"We were," Dante said.

"Then we started talking about money again," Victor muttered.

"Anyone have rich parents they can get money from?" Dante asked.

Ette snorted.

"What about your parents, Dante?" Ivy asked.

"I'm pretty sure they've disowned me at this point."

"Oof," Ette tapped her chest. "Same, Dante. Same."

Ms. Marvel glanced between them, a shadowy expression crossing her face.

"Maybe I'll talk to my parents," Squirrel Girl said. "College isn't that important, right?"

The beach fell silent, save the soft waves washing out down the shore. Victor carved tracks through the pink sand with his fingers.

"Hey, you guys want to play soccer with a coconut?" Ette asked. "It'll be a disaster in this sand, but it can't possibly be worse than the bottom of the ocean."

"Sure," Dante shrugged.

"Why not?" Ms. Marvel sighed.

"I'll get the coconut," Ivy darted off.

***

Victor emerged from the portal in Dorian and Maureen's tiny, fenced backyard. "--we all fit?" Ette finished.

"Yep," Victor closed the portal beneath their feet.

Ms. Marvel stumbled clear of a leafy frond against the back fence. "We do not all fit! I nearly got teleported inside a tree!"

"But you didn't," Victor pointed out.

"But I nearly did."

"Hey, fresh coconut," Ivy scooped their slightly-beat up, sand-coated coconut. She raised a questioning eyebrow at Victor, but he just shrugged.

"It fell through so I brought it with us."

Soccer had been...fun. They'd separated into teams, but had no clear goal markers, so they just kicked around a hard coconut and played keep-away from the other team, until they were all gasping for breath and wildly booting the coconut so far that only the least-gassed person would run after it.

Then it ended with Ms. Marvel declaring herself the winner, but only herself, not her teammates Dante and Ette, because they "tired out too fast."

"Anybody want to eat a coconut that's been kicked up and down a Hawaiian beach?" Ivy asked.

"Maybe we can sell it," Ms. Marvel said.

"There's sand in my shoes," Dante grumbled. "Can we go shower now?"

"There's sand in my tail," Squirrel Girl shot back. "I get the shower first," she marched up to the back door, jiggling the handle. Then she pounded on the glass. "My parents are obsessive about locking doors," she explained over her shoulder.

The door squeaked open, revealing a confused Dor, mouth hanging open.

"Hey Dad. We just spent like an hour playing coconut soccer--not even with a round coconut--on a beach in Hawaii, so now we're covered in sand, can we use the shower?"

Dor's eyebrows knit together.

"Dad? Hello?"

He shook himself. "Why, yes. Shower. Yes. Hawaii?" he glanced at the rest of them, huddling amidst the trees and bushes sprawled over the yard. "Hawaii?"

"Yes, Dad, Hawaii," Squirrel Girl slid past him. "Thanks for letting us use the shower thanks goodbye we also need to talk later bye!"

Dor stared after her, speechless.

"Mr. Green," Ms. Marvel said, "we can teleport. So we went to Hawaii."

Dor turned, gaze sweeping over the rest of them. "And you picked one of those exotic pink beaches? My," he pushed his glasses up his nose. "My, my my," he stepped back and shut the door.

"Uh," Dante said.

"So we're just going to wait out here?" Ette said, voice rising with each word.

"What does 'my my my my' mean?" Ivy asked.

"I have zero idea," Ms. Marvel whispered.

The door opened again, and Dor poked his head out. "Apologies. Could you please wait out here until heading up to the shower? We want to avoid getting sand tracked everywhere. Doreen can find you enough towels after she's finished."

"Okay. Thanks Mr. Green! But we actually can go get--we have our own towels and clothes."

He nodded. "No problem," and the door clicked shut again.

Ms. Marvel sucked in a slow breath, releasing it in a sigh.

"Did you just volunteer me to teleport to the warehouse to get everyone towels and clothes?" Victor crossed his arms, mock glaring.

Ms. Marvel froze. "Uh, I mean we can all go..."

"I've got an extra towel if you need it," Dante said, crouching by a fruit tree in a black pot and prying his shoe off. "Since your stuff's all at your house."

Ms. Marvel sighed again, rubbing her forehead. "Thanks."

"And you can borrow one of my shirts," Ette added.

"I really should've thought this through before we jumped off to Hawaii," Ms. Marvel muttered.

"Or we could sneak you into your house," Victor said.

"I'm not tracking pink sand across my bedroom and getting Muneeba suspicious."

"Speaking of which," Ivy frowned into a bushy pine. "Our base needs a vacuum after we track sand everywhere in there."

"Add it to the list," Ette said.

"Nobody's keeping track of a list," Dante dumped sand from his shoes.

"Well...somebody start a list."

***

"Dear," Maureen clasped Squirrel Girl's hands across the table. Evening light floated through the window, shadowing half their faces. Victor glanced between them, hair dripping water on the back door mat. Maureen closed her eyes.

"What?" Squirrel Girl asked.

"We're not letting you throw away your college funds for an afternoon of scuba lessons!"

"But Mom--"

"It's not worth it," Dor said from the sink. "That money represents years of your life, not a single afternoon."

"But Dad--"

"Doreen, superpowers don't make you invincible. Your tail and hearing and sense of smell are all amazing, but you can't make money off it overnight."

"Believe me, I know. But Dad--"

Footsteps pounded down the stairs. "What did you guys do with your sandy shoes?" Dante called. "Do we just carry--"

"Dante, be quiet!" Squirrel Girl said. Dante froze in the kitchen archway, and the room went silent. "Mom, Dad, we already used the oxygen tanks, and now Rescue expects us to pay for them. It's not like I'm asking for permission to blow off a ton of money in a week from now because scuba diving suddenly sounds like fun!

"We owe money to a literal superhero icon, and we don't have a good way to get money! I can make up my college money this school year, I promise, but we have to pay Rescue in two weeks. Otherwise...Mom, we might lose our super secret underground base."

Maureen tugged her hands back, folding them in front of her. "I see."

"Hmm," Dor said.

Victor bit his lip, glancing between the four people in the kitchen. Dante met his gaze, eyebrows raised.

"You know, Maureen," Dor said slowly, fingers circling the rim of his water glass. "It's nearly our twentieth anniversary."

Dante slowly crept through the kitchen, dropping his shoes to the doormat of the small foyer and prying the back door open to let Ette know she could shower. By formal duel of rock-paper-scissors, Victor had earned the right to shower after Squirrel Girl. Ivy got last position.

"We have been planning that trip to Albany," Maureen nodded, flashing her canines. "It was cost effective."

"But I've always wanted to see the volcanoes of Japan."

"And I wouldn't mind a trip to frigid Alaska myself."

"Uh, what are you saying?" Squirrel Girl's eyes darted between them.

"If you and your friends teleport us, we can save thousands of dollars!" Dor grinned from ear to ear. "No hotel costs, no airplanes, no taxis!"

Squirrel Girl's jaw dropped. She shot a look to Victor, who reached for the back door to support himself. Ette barged inside, sending him stumbling to the wall.

"Would you want to do that, Victor?" Squirrel Girl asked.

"Uh...would I?"

Ette gave a puzzled frown, but slunk through the kitchen for the stairs.

"You'd only have to teleport us here every night, teleport us back in the morning, and pick us up when we finish at one destination and leave for another!" Maureen clapped her hands.

"Only for a few days, too!"

Victor's vision spun and his knees went weak. "A few days of constant portaling?"

Dante stepped beside him. "I think that's a bit extreme. You want him to be your chauffeur everywhere? Making portals gets exhausting after a while."

Dor drained the last of his water glass. Maureen pursed her lips. "How exhausting?" she asked.

"Hawaii and back with six people makes me want to take a nap," Victor stood up straighter, pushing away from the wall. "And I had a slight headache the first time because Hawaii wasn't easy to find in the ocean."

"Hmm," Maureen's eyes narrowed.

"Perhaps we can purchase a hotel room for a few nights?" Dor shrugged. "That would cut down on the long distance travel."

"Actually..." Victor hesitated.

"We could spend the night in Alaska and see those northern lights!" Maureen announced to the room.

"And try one of those sleep pods in Japan!" Dor added, bouncing on his toes.

"Actually..." Dante prompted Victor.

"I..." Victor shrugged, muttering, "the worst part won't be taking them here and back every day, even though that's hard. I really don't want to wait around while they hike a volcano or something, then teleport to a restaurant, and wait around some more until they're done, then teleport to somewhere else and wait more."

"What about for a thousand dollars?" Dante muttered back. In the kitchen, Squirrel Girl had disappeared into the fridge, tail a red smudge behind the top of the door. Maureen and Dor danced in a circle around the tile, spouting ideas for their twentieth anniversary trip. Kayak tour. Bullet train. Sushi bar. Bear park. Victor forcibly tore his attention away and focused on Dante, the wet hair sticking to his forehead.

"For a thousand dollars and keeping the warehouse? Definitely. But it won't be fun. Especially with the rest of you still here, patrolling streets by night and beating up goonies."

Dante raised an eyebrow. "Goonies?"

"Squirrel Girl's rubbing off on me," he sighed.

"We'll wait for you," Dante said. "You can teleport Mr. and Mrs. Green around Japan and Alaska by day, and fight crime in Jersey City by night."

Victor grimaced. "Japan's on the other side of the world."

"Right," Dante hesitated, glanced into the kitchen, then took Victor's hand. "Japan and Alaska by day, shopping in the mall also by day?"

A grin tugged at Victor's lips. "We went shopping there once."

"Well, we need a clothes washer. And cell phones. And probably a lot of other things on the list we're not keeping track of. But surely Squirrel Girl's parents can pay you at least two thousand dollars and still save money from airplane tickets and transportation--so we'll have money left over after paying Pepper."

Victor shrugged. "Sure. It just sounds lonely and boring spending a few days with just Squirrel Girl's parents around."

Squirrel Girl slid beside Dante, stuffing her face with half a bread loaf. Her parents twirled in circles around the kitchen, breaking into a rattling song. "How's it going?" Squirrel Girl mumbled.

"I'll do it," Victor sighed. "How much are your parents going to pay us?"

She shrugged. "When they hit reliving-their-twenties-dance-skills stage, communicating with them becomes impossible," Maureen and Dor vanished into the living room. "I'll have to ask later."

"What are we going to do around here without Victor?" Dante asked. "We'll have to walk everywhere."

"Kamala and I conveniently have a big project for our film studies class," Squirrel Girl took another yawning bite of bread. "Convenient only in the sense that my parents were going to be gone for a few days in Albany, but now they'll be in Japan and Alaska instead, so Kamala and I have the whole house for filming."

"So it'll just be me, Ivy and Ette on crime-fighting duty?"

"And Hacker," Squirrel Girl paused. "Probably."

Dante sighed. "I'll just resign myself to the third wheel crime imposter now."

"Don't worry," Squirrel Girl punched his arm and he winced. "You can come help us film a video instead if it gets too weird."

Footsteps creaked down the stairs, announcing Ette's return. She breezed through the kitchen to the cramped foyer, sandy clothes stuffed in a sack under her arm. Her gaze darted to the living room, where a loud, brassy anthem blasted from tinny speakers. "What'd I miss?"

Victor opened his mouth.

"Let's go outside," Squirrel Girl swept the door open, nearly clobbering Dante in the head. "We have a capital-P Plan, folks!"

***

Author note: vote on this chapter to spare Dante the third wheel awkwardness of fighting crime alongside Ivy and Ette