The compound turned out to be exactly as awesome as Kamala expected it to be. The clustered buildings loomed up from the landscape, almost completely concealed until they stepped through the treeline. Kamala and the Black Widow took a flight of shining stairs up to a multipurpose living area, and everyone froze.
The first thing she noticed was the Vision, because he was designed like a six-foot tall, hovering Christmas ornament, had the power of a god, and was currently peeling potatoes. The Hulk (who was not currently the Hulk, but a normal guy who looked like he could be a wacky science teacher) was playing chess and sharing doritos with War Machine at the table, and both of them were staring at her.
"Is Tony back yet?" Black Widow said. "We have...news."
"Nope," The Hulk ate a dorito, then shifted his attention to Kamala. "Who's this?"
"Ms. Marvel," Kamala said, stepping forwards and offering her hand. The Hulk looked at it for a moment, then wiped his dorito-y hand on his jeans and shook hers.
"Nice to meet you," he said.
War Machine shook her hand too, which made her feel like she'd stepped onto a movie set.
"Don't tell Iron Man," Kamala told him. "But I think you're way cooler than him."
" Thank you," War Machine said. He turned back to the Hulk. "See, Tony isn't everyone's favourite."
"Ms. Marvel." Black Widow interjected, crushing the happy atmosphere in an instant.
Kamala scrambled to get the tech out of her backpack, feeling a little bit dumb because of how starstruck she was. Serious business first. Handshakes and autographs later.
She felt a little like she was ruining the mood, hauling the ugly first-draft of War Machine's sonic gauntlet out of her Steven Universe backpack and plonking it on the table. There was a glass wall opposite her- she could see the franticness of her body language in her reflection.
"Someone-" she said, her hands sweating as she dug out another plastic bag. "-Probably the Vulture, is copying your tech."
There was a brief silence, and Kamala wondered if she'd done something wrong.
"Well, that's not good," The Hulk- Bruce Banner- said, finally. "We… will get on that. Do you play chess?"
And that was how Kamala ended up in a chess match with Col. James Rhodes, who was honestly just really nice . That was the most surprising thing about the Avengers, or what was left of them- they were all genuinely pleasant to spend time around, even off the battlefield. Tony Stark made it seem like egotism was part of the whole superhuman thing, but the compound had a surprisingly welcoming atmosphere, especially considering everything that'd happened to them in the past year or so.
The bubble burst, though, when Iron Man got home.
He didn't storm in, per se, but the stress was contagious. He wasn't alone, either. Kamala didn't get a chance to make eye contact with Spider-Man, but she recognised him in the way he moved and the tone in which he whispered oh shit upon seeing her, and she felt pretty terrible about it.
"Don't take it personally," Iron Man said, breezing through the kitchenette and thumbing a button on the coffee machine like he had a personal vendetta against it. "He's cranky because he's not feeling well."
"Why are you cranky, then?" Bruce asked.
"Because kids are awful," Iron Man said. He glanced back to Kamala. "No offense."
Iron Man was forty-six, which was pretty old, in Kamala's opinion. That was almost fifty , older than her parents. People that old had a different perspective. Their definition of kid included people old enough to drink.
"None… taken?" Kamala said. "Uh, your… repulsors…"
"I know, I know, 'Tasha text me," Tony said. He joined them at the table."Now, we have two options. Option one, we go crazy, and chase this lunatic to the ends of the earth because he's good at engineering, or two , we keep calmly keeping an eye on him and wait until either other authorities step in, or he becomes a big enough threat to fall under our jurisdiction."
Accords. Of course.
"He attacked me!" Kamala protested. There was a tangle of thought behind the words- that this was a catastrophe waiting to happen, that anyone with access to Tony's tech was smart enough to be a major threat, that the stupid red tape seemed to be choking the life out of the scraps of team that were left over.
Tony Stark snorted a laugh into his coffee.
"We all get attacked, kiddo," he said. "You're not special."
"Tony," Col. Rhodes' tone was a warning one, and gave Kamala just enough time to pull herself together.
"No, what I mean is," she said. "I won't be the only one. He's not doing this for no reason. There's an agenda here and I think you need to pay more attention to it, before he can actually do whatever he's aiming towards."
"What I mean is, we're already doing that ," Iron Man explained, like she was stupid. "Do you know how many wannabes I've gotten since I made the first suit? God, it must be coming up for fifty, now. Most of them aren't successful, and even if they are, they're not the worst thing in the world. Don't panic."
He wasn't wrong. There'd been others. But this time seemed different.
"Iron Man, with all due respect ," Kamala said, digging her metaphorical heels in. She didn't like being condescended to. "I don't live under a rock. I know about your copy-cats. And they went after you, specifically. None of this… degrees of separation stuff. Attacking Spider-Man makes no sense, and going after me makes, like, negative sense. That just gives you forewarning."
"He's probably just trying to start drama," Black Widow said. She'd obtained a cup of coffee at some point, though Kamala couldn't have said when. "Get Tony off-kilter."
Kamala considered that, for a moment. She couldn't rationalise a plan out of that, but it was very much not her style. She just didn't think like that. And for all of the time she spent reading about it, she didn't know what Iron Man and Spider-Man's dynamic was actually like. Popular consensus was that Spider-Man was one of the many, many secret illegitimate kids that Tony probably had, brought back into the fold after developing superpowers. If that was true...
"That doesn't make him an easier target," Col. Rhodes said. "If anything, he'd be over prepared for the next strike."
"It worked for the last guy," Bruce said, quietly.
The ensuing silence was utterly smothering.
"Ms Marvel," The Vision turned from the onion he was chopping, after what felt like eons. "Are you staying for lunch?"
Kamala blinked.
"Uh, sure?" She didn't have any other plans, but she wasn't sure when this had spiraled from a one-off ride along mission to just 'Kamala and the Avengers hang out'. She didn't really trust the situation.
Was this how they screened people? Over lunch and board games?
A reflection in the glass wall caught her eye. A person behind her. Kamala's mind went scary, strangulation-y places.
"Fuck it," Spider-Man dropped into the chair beside her, maskless and exposed. "Hi."
Kamala couldn't really distinguish between 'bad' pale and 'just naturally super pale' pale, but she was pretty sure nobody should ever look so ashen . Spider-Man slumped forwards with his arms on the table, meaning the mahogany took a significant portion of his weight. He'd changed into sweatpants and a bright red 'Mathletes' shirt with fraying cuffs.
"Uh," Kamala drew a spectacular blank, and fumbled for anything to say in response. "I thought you would be hotter."
"I thought you'd be a nicer person," Spider-Man retaliated. "That's… a common sentiment, really. Mostly 'cause people think I'm older. Like, twenty-five, or something."
"You're not unattractive ," Kamla clarified. Certain, very inaccurate fanart came to mind. "Just. Not what I was expecting? It doesn't matter. Anyway. I'm not taking my mask off."
Domino masks were like glasses, in that the change seemed subtle until you actually saw someone without one of the major fixtures of their face.
"I didn't ask you to?" Spider-Man said. He ran a hand through his damp hair, making it stick up it dark curls. He looked very, very young, maybe even younger than Kamala. "I just- I dunno, we're friends? We text and stuff. Sometimes. And you live in New Jersey? And probably won't rat me out to my evil bird guy?"
"He's an evil bird guy, not your evil bird guy. I fought him too," Kamala protested. "And I wouldn't tell him who you are because I don't like evil bird guys. I had an evil bird guy once, and he sucked . Not like yours, though. Mine was a clone of Thomas Edison and his pet parrot."
Spider-Man was silent for a second. Kamala felt a little guilty for allowing her eyes to jump from detail to detail across his face. A bruise that had just dodged being a black eye. Sparse freckles and scattered pimples. A slight gap in the middle of his left eyebrow, like someone had taken a razor to it then chickened out.
"New Jersey sounds really weird ," he said. He stifled a cough. "Whatever. Mi evil bird guy es tu evil bird guy, I guess."
Kamala wondered if he understood just how many brunet, brown-eyed white boys there were in New York. He wouldn't stand out at all without the costume.
"He copied the webshooters," Tony Stark said. "The evil bird guy, that is."
Spider-Man sighed, and laid his head in his arms. Bruce said something to Col. Rhodes, too soft for Kamala to hear.
"I'm- I'm not dealing with that today," Spider-Man said. "Just- not right now. I'm too tired ."
Kamala prodded his shoulder.
"Are you still drugged?" she asked.
"Nope," Spider-Man tilted his head to the side, looked at her with one brown eye. There was an opaque ring around the iris, like coloured contacts sometimes had. "I'm just having a really bad day ."
"Through no fault of your own, of course," Tony Stark rolled his eyes, oozing sarcasm.
"I said sorry," Spider-Man mumbled, before turning his attention back to Kamala. "So, Ms. Marvel. You gotta tell me who made your suit, 'cause it is awesome ."
"I did?" Kamala said. "Well, my friend helped, actually. We, like, collaborated."
Spider-Man sat up and made actual, enthralled eye contact for the first time in their conversation. His hair was squished on one side, flat against his head. Across the table from them, Tony Stark raised an eyebrow.
" Dude ," Spider-Man breathed, sounding impressed. And like he was starting to lose his voice, but mostly impressed. "That's so cool. I had a homemade suit, but Tony didn't like it so he gave me- like, a better version that's all sleek and technological and stuff."
"Like a makeover. Like in princess diaries?" Kamala asked.
"Like in princess diaries," Spider-Man agreed. "But...less-"
He broke off into a fit of harsh, dry coughing, shielding his face with the crook of his elbow. Kamala winced. The adults at the table shared a look of concern.
The whole situation made Kamala feel awkward, like she was stranded with a group of friends where everyone was already close. Which, really, she was.
"Less princessy," Spider-Man concluded, once he'd got his breath back. "Than princess diaries. It was way more badass."
"Are you saying that Mia Thermopolis isn't badass?" Kamala asked, faux-offended.
"Why have you seen princess diaries?" Tony asked.
"You don't think it's weird that I've got spider powers, but you think it's weird that I've seen princess diaries?" Spider-Man said. He shrugged. "One of the kids I babysit doesn't watch anything princess in princess diaries is, like… you know what happened to Captain America? That but with more dresses. But she's still pretty badass. It's not a bad movie."
"But, evil bird guy," Kamala said, snapping back to subject with the beautiful knowledge that Spider-Man had seen and enjoyed princess diaries in her heart. "Are we just… waiting and watching on the evil bird guy?"
"All in favour of watching and waiting on the evil bird guy?" Col. Rhodes said. There was a chorus of ayes.
Kamala frowned.
"I think we should, like, crowdsource it," Spider-Man said. "Like, we could- could, uh, would Friday do data aggregation? I mean, it worked for me, but it took forever and it sucked ."
"Oh, I have a program that… sort of does that," Kamala said, then realised how much she'd fucked up. "I don't use it for, uh, tracking evil bird guys, but I could tweak it if you want."
Technically, she used it to phase out the squicky genres and tropes and select the good ones, across her six favourite fansites. The system it was based on could easily be modified to probe through everything surrounding the tweets and videos, and rule out everything that was actually about birds. And Black Widow would never have to know that half of the internet thought she was Spider-Man's mom.
"I've been working on something like that, actually," Spider-Man said. "Or, like, trying. I'm still super tired from almost getting disemboweled."
"How's that going for you, by the way?" Kamala asked. "Are you healing any better?"
"Not really," Spider-Man said, looking slightly uncomfortable. "Do you like board games? We have like a billion, for some reason."
"Sure, I guess?" Kamala said. Nobody had moved the Vulture's tech; the individual pieces were still piled in the middle of the table, a squat, imposing heap.
Kamala wanted to relax. To calm down and kick Spider-Man's ass in Settlers of Catan, and eat robot-made vegetable soup that he would have no part in. But she couldn't shake the feeling of a looming threat. It was there at the back of her mind, digging in like a rock in her shoe. She was slowly being consumed by the desire to do something , even if the only result was her own reassurance.
If the Avengers weren't going to investigate, Kamala would do it herself.