HQ. Lonely apartment in Jersey City, just south of a pair of towering skyscrapers, sharp light reflecting off their windows.

Of course, that was only from the rooftop, facing north, the rising sun partially behind him.

Victor's next target--according to the image his communicator projected onto the concrete ledge--was Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, aka girl in the blue costume. Victor had known her name before this. He'd started the file report on her, of course he knew her name. He'd dug up her personal records, found information on her family, tracked her on social media--or, his laptop had done all that. But a night or so ago he'd copied it into the report to send off to Hala the Accuser or whoever read the reports for her. So he'd seen her name before.

But Hala just wanted him to move on and take girl in the blue costume to join the people Victor worked for, trying to give inhumans better lives?

He slumped to his knees. Hala didn't care about helping inhumans, she just wanted them for her army.

Victor tugged the communicator from his ear and set it in the gray dust, ledge wall meeting flat rooftop. He rested his forehead against the concrete.

Hala told him it was obvious the inhuman army was to...well, conquer the universe for the kree empire. Victor shut his eyes, running through the list of reasons he spouted off to inhumans, trying to recruit them.

We want to help you. Give you a better life. Give you a life that's worth something. You won't have to run or hide any longer. Our powers are a gift, come with me and help share them with the galaxy.

He wanted to prove himself to Hala. He could deliver results. Because those who didn't... Take Brute, for instance. He'd vanished back on Stratomere 4 after letting those two kids escape to the moon. Someone else took his training job, and Hala never spoke of his existence again. Victor swore he'd never end up like Brute, worthless and unneeded.

...but what if Dante did?

Victor punched the concrete ledge, banishing the sight of Dante groggy on the medbay table. The armor over his knuckles absorbed the shock, and his punch left a tiny crack in the glittering stone. "You fool," Victor muttered. Dante shouldn't matter any more than any of the others. Faces of inhumans Victor had recruited blurred, invisibility powers, weather, he hardly recalled the shapeshifter he'd taken weeks ago. The name had started with "M," maybe? And girl in the blue costume...he'd already forgotten her name.

And yet, Dante.

"You fool," Victor muttered, grabbing his communicator and sinking into the void. He dropped three floors down, cut diagonally across the building and emerged into his empty apartment. He avoided the closet this time, portaling into the common room. Drab carpet, dents in the walls from previous occupants, curtains drawn over all the windows. He marched into the bedroom, sweeping socks and boots off the bed and tossing the communicator onto the desk.

He'd deal with it tonight. After he slept.

Through the constant roar of the street below, names swirled through his thoughts. Girl in the blue costume with the red scarf, Dante Pertuz, Hala the Accuser--what did he believe, who did he hunt tomorrow night?

Maybe Hala was right, and he wanted to fight. He'd had no problems in any of the training, or on any number of planets before this. Yet...he thought they helped people with the powers they granted. How was making them bow to the kree empire helping?

Girl in blue, Brute, Dante Pertuz, Hala the Accuser--Victor tossed and turned, sleep fleeing his thoughts.

***

Night. Ripe with shadows. Victor grumbled and slid out of bed, shoulders sore and head pulsing. He blamed it on the travel to a ship orbiting the planet, the slight gravitational difference, the effort of teleporting back all that distance through the void. He blamed it on the whole day he'd spent wide awake, unable to sleep.

Victor checked the communicator first. No blinking lights. He tapped the laptop to life, images projecting onto the wall. His eyes ached at the looping camera feeds and scrolling data, which revealed nothing, no "sightings of interest" the program thought Victor should take a look at, no unusual robberies or fires or social media posts from Dante Pertuz.

Victor rubbed his eyes. Right. He hadn't updated it yet to filter for the girl in the blue--Kamala Khan. He shut the laptop and tugged open the drawer, yanking out the tablet. What did Kamala's file say about her? He hadn't checked since creating the thing.

The tablet glowed, left open on a close-up shot of fire blooming from Dante's palms, searing over a square of torn up concrete. The motorcycle incident. Victor stared closer. Stray sparks drifted down to Dante's boots, shiny black. Narrowed, his eyes burned with anger.

Victor glared back at the image. He swept it away with a brush of his finger and tapped open the girl in blue's file.

The report contained two images: one of her with a taller figure, orange-haired and green-jacketed. They posed atop a roof, overlooking the bright city streets. The second was of the girl without her blue uniform, smiling with her parents.

The rest of the report featured dozens of snippets, family information and power set and media posts along with suspected locations. Victor sighed at it. Why bother? If he recruited her, it wouldn't matter who her parents were or when her birthday was or where she lived. That'd all be replaced by Hala's army. One life completely shed for another.

Victor tossed the tablet back into the drawer and slammed it shut. Paper cups toppled off the desk, bouncing across the carpet. Victor marched from the room, through the empty living room into the kitchen.

The fridge contained only Kree nutrient bars and a jug of water. Victor ate tastelessly, pacing back and forth on the tile, planning. He knew he should do more research on Kamala, if he was going to recruit her. But Hala wouldn't check in with him until next week; that could wait.

He could also hunt for potential inhumans, scanning the camera feeds from his bedroom or surveilling the city from the rooftops. But what was the point in that, when he'd barely been assigned a new one?

Or... He quit pacing. Tossing his empty cup into the sink, he bundled up a shiny wrapper in his fist. There was no rule that he couldn't visit the recruits on the ship. That was practically part of his assignment anyway. He'd brought the recruits in, he should check that they were adapting well and were still prime candidates for the inhuman army.

He marched to the bedroom. He cleared the desk of trash, filling a paper sack in the corner. He donned his boots, a flexible material in dull turquoise and gray. His communicator he jabbed into his ear, then he sunk into the void, a sack of napkins and wrappers and cups turned earthling trinkets to bribe the kree guards.

***

The void opened into the medbay. The space teemed with reptilian-skinned soldiers, bleeding red from gashes in elbows and long-toed feet. They waited in a jagged line disappearing into the stairwell, utterly silent and staring--at Victor.

He closed the void under him, ignoring the gaping expressions of the ring of soldiers who'd undoubtedly leapt away when his portal appeared in the floor. Tight-lipped, he shouldered past them, plowing through the line without a word, paper sack hidden under one arm.

He stormed up the stairs, back prickling until he turned out of sight. Chattering conversations slowly built in his wake, but he ignored them. He didn't have to answer to any of them; why he'd appeared in the center of the medbay, why he brought only a sack of trinkets when he nearly always came with a new inhuman. He ground his teeth together. He didn't have to explain anything.

***

"I'm here visiting," Victor informed the guard blocking the top of the stairs, her eyes hidden behind a shadowed visor.

Her indigo face pulled into a frown. "Exile?"

He sighed. "I'm here to visit the inhuman quarters," he held up the brown sack. "I brought earthling trinkets."

"For the inhumans? I thought policy was they weren't supposed to have connections to their home--"

"No!" Victor shook his head. "They're for you, for allowing me into the hallway."

She frowned further, lowering her spear. "Exile, why do you think I need bribed? Of course you can enter the hallway, I'm only confused because you've never--"

"And for your word that you won't tell anyone I was here," Victor added. "These trinkets arrived with me yesterday. I was never here today. Got it?"

She slowly nodded. "Of course, I understand, what's all the secrecy for? Or is that part of the secret?"

Victor set the paper sack by the wall, behind a cart heaped with meal trays and bundled up jumpsuits. "I'm here for questions," he informed her, strolling past. "That I need answers to."

"Got it," she nodded. "I won't tell anyone."

"Thank you," he replied over his shoulder.

He paced down the glimmering hall, door panels lining both walls. The path turned sharply, and once out of sight, Victor slowed to a halt and shut his eyes, heart hammering in his chest. It wasn't like he was doing anything wrong. This was well within his assignment. And the guard would keep her word, unless Hala was the one asking the questions.

But that was the problem. Victor didn't want to explain to Hala why he was visiting the last inhuman he brought in here. Or, "interrogating," as he'd hinted to the guard.

Not that he was doing anything wrong. Hala might just...point out he was wasting precious time. And he didn't want to end up like Brute, useless.

He marched off down the hall.

The door to Dante's quarters was the third on the right under a section of red pipes in the ceiling. Victor hesitated over the door panel, sucking in a slow breath. Then he tapped the glowing square, the door sliding open with a hiss.

He entered silently, peering through the gloom. He risked a whispered "hello?" then winced. Of course Dante was in here; it was either here or the training rooms, and if the inhumans were in the training rooms, the guard would be stationed there, not in this hall.

The cot creaked. A shadow loomed against the wall. "I guess I should've expected to see you again," Dante's voice stung like a barb.

"Look," Victor put his hands up. "I'm not here to fight."

"Of course not. You've already taken me prisoner. What fighting is there to do, pound me against the walls?"

"No! I wanted...to talk. That's it."

"That's what you told me last time. And yet here I am," a sputter of fire flashed in the dim corner.

Victor hesitated. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"The last thing I remember? Why, your shield pounding me in the face, that's what."

Victor lowered his arms. "Really?"

The cot creaked, and Dante stepped into the blue light of the room. "Was I not supposed to remember that part?" he snarled.

"Never mind," he shook his head. "Dante, I realized...I realized you were right, and I lied to you. I don't think Hala actually cares about giving inhumans better lives--"

"Too late," Dante snorted. "You should have figured that out a week ago."

Victor crossed his arms, glaring. "You didn't say it a week ago."

Dante turned away. "Are you here just to gloat?"

"No! I just told you that you were right about something. I wasn't gloating."

"Whole load of good that does me. Being right. Sure makes up for how I'm a prisoner I-don't-even-know-where and my clothes have been stolen and all I've had to eat is oatmeal that tastes like sawdust. Thanks a lot, mister teleport face."

"My name's Victor."

"I don't care."

"I don't care you don't care."

"Great."

"Dante you idiot, I'm trying to help you!" Victor curled his hands into fists. "You don't get what it's like. My whole life I've had to prove how useful I am just so I don't end up discarded and tossed off the spaceship while I'm unconscious."

Dante's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't excuse you abducting me. Onto a spaceship? I'm stuck on a spaceship?"

"I know! I didn't think I was abducting anyone--"

"How?" Dante scoffed. "How did you not realize you were taking me against my will? Oh right," he rolled his eyes. "It's for a better life."

Victor blinked, fists unclenching. "I know. I...you wouldn't understand. Sometimes you have to do things to keep yourself alive."

"Like being selfish and putting other people in danger?"

Victor growled. "I thought I was helping, I didn't know that's what I was doing!"

"Then teleport me out of here!" Dante tossed his hands in the air. "If you didn't actually mean it, let me go!"

Victor's jaw worked. "You don't..." His shoulders slumped. "I can't. If you disappear, the guard will know I had something to do with it. And then Hala will find out, and she'll..." he shuddered.

"Throw you into space to die?" Dante whispered.

"Yeah."

"Then don't come back here after you free me!"

"I have nowhere else to go!"

Dante growled, fists lighting up. He charged for the open doorway, but Victor swung his boot into Dante's knee, the bone cracking. Dante collapsed in pain, fire puffing out.

"Don't try to escape," Victor hissed, marching to the exit. He glanced back, hand hesitating over the panel. "I'll have the guard take you to the medbay."

Dante pushed himself from the floor, grimacing, but his smoldering eyes bored holes into Victor's ribs.

Spinning away, Victor slammed the panel with a fist. The door glided shut. Victor shut his eyes and exhaled slowly, heart hammering. Then he marched toward the guard by the stairwell, asking her to sedate the newest recruit and take him to the medical bay.

She smirked. "Questioning went well?"

Victor glanced away, grinding his teeth and sinking into the void.

***

Author note: sparks fly...literally. Please remember to vote if you're enjoying this story:)