Chapter 15: Hiding… Again

August 5

District Seven

Ever since Simmons had been snatched, both May and Coulson had made it a priority to get everyone else involved in Tahiti — as well as victors — somewhere safer. It had already been proven that the Triskellion wasn't going to cut it, but with Fitz — as well as Tony, when he arrived — working on mansion security, it seemed that District Seven and Howlett Manor was the best option for most if not all of the endangered kids.

"Careful there," Tony called out as he and Fitz worked on one of the jets — though he was a little late in his warning, and Fitz ended up hitting his head on the opened panel that Tony hadn't exactly mentioned to him was still open while Fitz was working on the underside.

May had asked Tony to keep the Capitolite scientist busy, since there was still no sign of his other half. Add to that the need to get the rest of the kids safely and secretly back to the manor, and that was how the two of them wound up working on their jet, installing what basically amounted to invisibility panels.

They weren't invisible, per se, no matter what both Hawkeyes insisted on calling it. It was more that they reflected and refracted light. But sure. Invisibility panels.

Fitz rubbed the top of his head and shot Tony a bit of a glare before he dusted his hands off on his pants. "Well, aside from open panels, everything looks fine down below," he said. "The girls can take the blackbird anytime — once we do a quick test in-flight to make sure the panels will activate while the plane is in motion."

"I doubt we'll have any shortage of volunteers to fly it," Tony pointed out as he finished up what he was doing and slammed the panel closed.

"Kate, Clint, and Peter have all already offered," Fitz pointed out.

"Yeah, it's a good thing we don't have everyone here yet, or that list would be even longer," Tony replied. "Rhodey can't resist a good test flight, either."

Fitz shook his head at that, falling silent as usual without a good project immediately in front of him. Thankfully, though, it looked like they wouldn't have to choose a pilot, seeing as May had been practically pacing outside waiting for the modifications to be done. She wanted to get Kamala Khan — as well as Luke Cage and Jessica Jones — out of District Eleven, especially with Miles missing and kids who had worked in the lab being targeted.

"It's ready?" she asked, tipping her head Tony's way.

"Just need to test it out in-flight," Tony told her. "They should respond the way we want them to, but if not, people might get suspicious about the giant cloud moving at mach 2."

May raised an eyebrow his way at that and then shook her head. "Once around the district, then," she said as she climbed into the jet. "Fitz, stay on the ground and record. Stark, you're with me."

"Yes ma'am," Tony said in a little sarcastic tone.

May cut him a dry look and then simply set to work getting the preflight done. She didn't speak, just watching him out of the corner of her eye as she did her thing, and honestly, Tony was a little disappointed to have her as the test pilot for what he thought was a brilliant invention. She wasn't appropriately awed in the least when the refracting panels rendered them functionally invisible.

When they touched back down, though, Fitz was definitely appropriately excited. It was the biggest grin — and the only grin — Tony had seen on the guy's face since he had arrived in Seven, and he was practically bouncing.

"The panels work beautifully," Fitz declared. "Not even the slightest indication there was anything amiss!"

"Good," May said. "Then it does what it needs to do."

"Um. You're welcome," Tony said, looking put out. "Though a thank you would be nice."

May smirked his way. "I'll thank you after I get all our people back here. I'm not going to celebrate too early."

"Fair point. Godspeed," Tony said, throwing one arm in the air and just walking away. He knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with her fast.

Once the jet had been cleared for use, May simply reset the coordinates, and a few minutes later, Natasha arrived as well, climbing into copilot without a word spoken between the two of them; they were both half expecting trouble.

So they were pleasantly surprised when, aside from a belligerent drunk at Luke's bar who got himself thrown out by the proprietor before he could try anything with Natasha, they had next to no trouble in Eleven. Kamala's family was concerned after Miles' disappearance and was of course on board for sending their daughter somewhere safer — for the time being — and while Luke and Jessica had pointed out that they weren't scientists in the least, May and Natasha combined were hard to say no to… especially when Natasha outright asked for help from Jessica in investigating their friends' disappearances.

"You mean this doesn't fall into strictly super spy criteria?" Jessica asked, with an expression that read she didn't believe it in the least.

"It falls into the 'we have absolutely no leads and I'm getting tired of seeing Fitz wilt' category," Natasha replied. "I'll take any help we can get, and you're a talented investigator."

"I'm going to want my own laptop," she said.

"That's fine," May said. "We'll make sure there's one in the room you and Luke had last time."

Jessica looked May up and down cautiously. "I'll be waiting in the plane," Jessica said. "Where did you park it?"

"Just outside of the city limits on the north end," May said.

Jessica looked up at Luke. "You coming?"

Luke looked around at the three women and then simply shrugged. "Alright."

With that taken care of, all that was left was to go to the Khan residence, where Kamala was already waiting on the doorstep with a couple of suitcases in hand and a pair of puffy eyes that told Natasha and May that she had been saying goodbye to her family. Her brother was waiting with her on the step and seemed to relax the slightest bit when he saw the welcome wagon.

"You're not going to let my sister disappear like the others, right?" he asked with his arms crossed and a pointed look at the two women who had come for Kamala.

"Not a chance," May replied, meeting his gaze. "We're taking her to the safest place we have access to."

"And it's not permanent, right?"

"Aamir…" Kamala said in a tired tone.

"I'm just saying: last time, you were gone for ages," Aamir pointed out.

"Once the initial threat is over, we'll reassess, but I'm sure that if it's not safe for her to return, you will be allowed to come to her," May offered.

Aamir seemed to think about this for a moment before he nodded and then turned to Kamala to gently wrap her up in a hug. "Be safe," he said very quietly, and she nodded and sniffled the slightest bit before she rushed over to where Natasha and May were, clutching her suitcases.

"Have you found anything yet?" Kamala asked after a few moments of silence on their way back. "About Miles — or anyone? At all?"

Natasha paused and glanced at the younger girl. "Not yet," she admitted.

"You'd tell me if you'd found something out and it was bad, right?"

"Yes."

"Alright." Kamala bit her lip and seemed to shrink in on herself.

"All of your friends are waiting to see you," May told her. "Some of them were pretty concerned for you." She paused. "And you can train while you wait if you need an outlet for the excess energy and nerves."

"Is Logan still teaching?" Kamala asked, seeming to brighten the slightest bit.

"He will be," May said flatly. "He's been playing with Kurt, but that's about it."

"Well, I'm a little rusty. I hope that's alright. It's just… with the war done, I didn't think I'd need it."

"You and just about everyone else," May assured her. "Just the more paranoid victors kept going."

"So… Logan," Kamala said with a little giggle.

"Yes, Logan." Natasha couldn't stop the smirk. "Exactly."

"I'm sure there were others too," May said, though she wasn't even trying to hide the little smirk she was wearing too. "But they were doing it in a much more closeted manner."

"Clint and I kept up the training," Natasha offered. "If Logan's busy swordfighting, you can always find me."

"Oooh, is he training with swords?" Kamala asked, wide-eyed.

"Only every afternoon," May said, eyes forward.

"I have got to get in on that," Kamala said, her eyes shining with excitement.

"I'm sure he won't say no to you," Natasha said with the same expression May was wearing.

"He absolutely won't," May said before she tipped her head Natasha's way and said very softly, "Master Po wants him teaching more."

"It's good for everyone involved," Natasha replied just as softly. "He's been sparring with me in the mornings."

"How's he looking after the drugs wore off?"

"Back up to snuff," she said. "Though decidedly less fun." She grinned. "The dopey sparring was … beyond entertaining."

"How so?"

"At one point, I told him we'd already finished and that I won, and he decided to take it at face value for about three seconds," Natasha chuckled.

"It's fun to watch the wheels turn."

"Especially in slow motion."

Both May and Natasha shared little chuckles as they got back to the plane, and from there, it was just a matter of getting Kamala's suitcases loaded up, checking that the panels Tony and Fitz had installed were working — and taking off.

August 10

Howlett Manor

Kamala really was glad to be back at the Howlett Manor. Really. She had missed having all of her friends in one place, and as more and more of them started trickling in and taking up the rooms that they had left unoccupied, she felt a little better about having to leave home all over again.

So the homesick feeling? That was lessening with every day and every new person. She got to hang out with Skye, who was hilarious; pregnancy just seemed to have made her sassier and more likely to tease anyone in her path. She got to hang out with Kitty again — and she and Kitty were supposed to start getting sword lessons with both Kurt and Logan, which would be amazing.

But the thing was ... the more people came to the manor, the more it was glaringly obvious that they were missing several key residents.

Like her favorite Spiderman.

She felt a little stupid moping around about the whole thing, because it wasn't like she was the only one with someone missing. The other victors were upset because Jess was gone, and the whole of Team Awesome was worried about their missing member. Kitty missed Gwen as much as Kamala did. And even Tony seemed a little off, halfway blaming himself for that escort's death since, after all, the guy had been working for Stark Industries for security… and whoever was doing the snatching was looking for scientists and tech people…

And she and Miles ... well, they were dating, which kind of made it harder, but they were also young enough that it wasn't like it was serious. Not like Peter and Gwen. Not like Kate and Kurt. They just… liked being around each other, and if Kamala had to hazard a guess at what being in love was like, she was sure that wanting to spend all your time with someone was the definition of it.

So yeah, maybe she had more cause than the others to be upset, but Miles had been missing for a long time now, and you'd think she would have gotten used to it.

She told herself all these things, repeatedly, even as she was miserably curled up in the living room couch pretending unsuccessfully to be reading a book instead of crying about something as stupid as the fact that she missed Miles. Everybody missed Miles — and all the other missing people too. If she was going to get upset, it should be about something really awful. Because it wasn't like he was dead, right?

That was what Kate and Skye and Kitty and everyone else she talked to kept telling her: He wasn't dead. There was no way they would go to all the trouble of snatching them if they just wanted to kill them. If they'd wanted Miles dead, they would have hit him with a dart like they did to Kurt and Logan. Or just shot him like they did to Otto Octavius and Happy Hogan.

Though… that was really not all that comforting. After all, that meant Miles was trapped somewhere he didn't want to be, and there wasn't anything she could do about it at all.

Kamala let out a sigh and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. She was thinking herself in circles at this point, just… trying to calm down or trying to talk herself out of crying. Or maybe into crying. She really wasn't sure.

And in the hallway, Skye had finally pulled Logan aside to clue him in that their resident sweetie pie was getting more and more down. "I know you're going to work with her on her sword fighting, and other fighting, and all that, and that's great," Skye said in a rush before her tone softened a bit. "But … you need to go talk to her."

Logan frowned slightly and tried to deflect. "I'm sure she'd rather talk to Scott or …"

"You," Skye countered, poking him in the chest. "Trust me on this one. I know what I'm talking about."

Of course, Logan thought she was blowing things out of proportion, but all things considered, he wasn't going to fight with her on it. So he gave her a kiss and headed out of the kitchen, sure that it would take him some time to find where their youngest was hiding. The fact that he had no idea where she'd go anyhow just made him more convinced that it would take longer to find her than it did.

So he was a little surprised to find her so quickly, and with no one around her — which he thought was strange, considering everyone loved the kid. "Mind if I join you?" Logan asked as he came to a stop behind her.

Kamala nodded with a sweet little smile and a very obvious brave front that was fooling absolutely nobody. "I was just reading," she lied, gesturing to the book propped open in her lap.

"Well, if I'm gonna be bothering you …"

"No, not at all," she said quickly. "Really. It's a big living room and… I don't mind company. I kinda prefer it, honestly." She shrugged both shoulders nearly up to her ears. "It's hard… the being alone lately."

Logan went around the couch and took a seat, giving her some room if she wanted it. "We're gonna find 'em," he swore. "You know that right?"

"Yeah, I do," she said quietly. "I just…" She took in a deep breath. "I'm just really tired. I thought we were done, but it seems like people aren't ever going to stop trying to use everyone here," she admitted in a rush. "I don't want … I don't like being used."

He drew in a deep breath and simply watched her for a moment or two. "No one does," he said quietly. "But we can't just sit around and hope they'll stop, because it's never gonna happen. There's always gonna be someone else waitin' ' in the wings to take advantage if they can."

"That's… exhausting just thinking about it," Kamala said, biting her bottom lip as she looked even more down at the answer.

"Hey," Logan said, tipping his head down to catch her gaze. "I'm not gonna lie to you. It'd just make it worse the next time someone tried to use you." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Just got to be ready to stop them, that's all."

She sniffed and sort of halfway leaned over his way as she nodded. "I'm just really worried about Miles," she said quietly. "I don't know where he is or what… I mean… I don't know what's happening to him…"

He adjusted the way he was sitting so he could pull her in a little better. "Hey. If it was Hydra — and I don't think it is — they'd be bragging about it. I don't think whoever it is wants to do anything permanent."

"How do you know that?" she asked, leaning into the hug and starting to sniffle.

"Kamala, how long was I stuck with Viper?"

"A while."

"She rarely let me out of her sight," he told her. "I know how they operate."

"But you said it wasn't Hydra," she pointed out, though Logan didn't miss that since she'd started sniffling into his shoulder, she at least looked a little more relaxed.

"Which just means it's a new player that doesn't want to use him for status."

"Bunch of science geeks," Kamala said with an attempt at a laugh. "No one's using us for status."

"Right. But … if he was hurt, or drugged ... what good would he be?" Logan asked. "Think about it."

Kamala fell silent for a while as she chewed on her bottom lip and then just had to sigh out a long breath. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right," she said. "I just miss him is all. I mean." She sat up a little straighter. "Not just Miles."

"It's okay to miss him more," Logan pointed out. "I'm not gonna say anything."

"It's just… it's kinda stupid, but he's turning sixteen in a week," she admitted. "And we had plans to spend the whole day together."

He watched her for a few seconds and then nodded to himself once. "Then I guess if he's not back, then we'll have to spend the day getting you ready to rescue him."

Kamala nodded and tried to straighten up, wiping at her eyes with the palms of her hands. "Thanks, Logan," she said, before she threw her arms around him for a quick hug.

"Anytime," Logan replied as he wrapped her up in a bear hug.