All rights belong to Disney/Marvel. I own nothing.

The Bucephalus

As the ship rocketed towards Cambridge, Massachusetts, Kamala and Kate tried to find ways to alleviate the awkward silence in the hold. Cassie sat up front with Skaar, whom she had developed an odd friendship with that none of the others understood, but knew it was there.

Eli sat by himself, a little ways away from the two girls, staring at the wall across from him. He hadn't said a word since meeting them at the warehouse. He had put his stuff in one of the empty storage places before settling down.

It was clear that he still had a lot on his mind and the two heroines wanted to help.

"Eli, how are you doing?" Kamala ventured cautiously.

"Fine," Eli grunted, keeping his gaze on the wall. Kamala shot a quick glance toward Kate, silently pleading for help.

"You know, Eli, we're happy to have you on the team," Kate tried.

"Thanks."

The awkward silence took control of the room again as the two girls rallied for round two. They were determined to ease Eli out of his dark mood. Once they did that, then they could finally get to know their newest team member.

"You know," Kate sighed, pulling a rubber ball out of her jacket, "we spend a couple of hours on this ship at a time. Kamala and I made a game to pass the time. Do you want to join?"

Eli eyed the ball. He still wanted to keep up his walls around the other two, but there was a spark in his eye. He was a competitor and couldn't turn down a chance to compete. "Fine. How do you play?"

"It's simple," Kamala said, her hands glowing as a circle of hard light the size of the dinner plate appeared in front of Kate. "You hit the target, you get a point."

Kate twirled the ball in her hand before throwing it at the target. She hit it dead on and the target disappeared while the ball bounced back to her. She tossed the ball to Eli, who caught it easily.

"Come on, super soldier," she joked, her eyes gleaming mischievously. "Let's see what you got."

Eli cracked a smile for the first time since they met him as Kamala conjured a new target. He threw the ball and hit the target, but he missed the bullseye by a little more than an inch to the left.

"You didn't hit the middle," Kate pointed out.

"A hit is a hit," Eli shot back, his smile growing slightly bigger. He gave the ball back to Kate. "A basket is a basket whether it swishes or hits the backboard."

Kamala laughed as another target appeared. It was much smaller than the first and tilted at an angle, making the bullseye that much harder to hit. Kate considered the target before throwing the ball at the wall. It bounced off the wall and hit the ceiling before coming down on the target, hitting it once again in the bullseye.

"You might need a little backboard help for this one," Kate said.

Eli's smile dropped as his eyes narrowed and his competitive side took over. "Throw up the target."

As the target appeared, Eli thought for a moment before throwing the ball. It hit the ceiling and ricocheted, hitting the target. The super soldier grabbed the ball as it came back to him and gave Kate a grin.

"As simple as a free throw," he said with a smirk

For the next hour, Kate and Eli went back and forth, having to find creative ways to hit the variety of targets that Kamala created with her hard light powers. While Eli didn't hit the direct bullseye every time, he still managed to hit the target, no matter how big or small it was. It could have been as thin as an arrow shaft and never got bigger than a basketball hoop with a golf ball-sized bullseye.

Eventually, they had to handicap themselves since Kamala was limited by the creations she could make. They started by simply turning their backs and throwing the ball behind them. That was upgraded to spinning in place for ten seconds before throwing. After they got to the point where they had to be blindfolded and had to rely on their memory to know where the target was.

The hardest shot either had to make was when they were blindfolded and the other person was responsible for letting them know where the target was. Kate hit her target whereas Eli missed by centimeters.

"Damn," Eli sighed, sliding down to the floor. "Fair game."

"Not bad, super soldier," Kate congratulated, shaking Eli's hand as she called him by his new nickname. "Maybe next time."

"There will definitely be a next time," Eli promised as Kate and Kamala sat around him.

"How'd you get so good at that?" Kamala asked.

"Basketball is the only thing that unites my neighborhood. Guys would play it for as long as they can see the hoop," Eli explained easily. "I'm decent from behind the arc and my mid-game is solid, but I've always liked Magic's game. He's a passer. He loved to share the ball, so I got good at passing. Because the guys in my neighborhood played all the time and there weren't many rules, I had to get creative with my passes. I was bouncing it off the street, the backboard, nearby cars, even other players."

"Do you still play?" Kate asked.

Eli shook his head. "Once I noticed my condition, I stopped playing. To get me out of the house, my gramps called up an old friend of his who ran a boxing gym. So I took up boxing. Been training for the last few months."

"Is it just you and your grandpa?" Kamala asked carefully before quickly backtracking. "It's okay if you don't want to answer. I don't want to…"

"Nah, it's okay," Eli said gently. "Yeah, it's just me and him. My folks got into some trouble and he took me in. I kept his secret and never gave others a reason to look into him, you know."

"Now everyone knows about him," Kate said. "We heard that there's a statue of him."

"Yeah, Sam Wilson put that together," Eli nodded. "It was pretty cool, seeing him get the respect and recognition he deserves. Some activists and news sites wanted to do stories on him, but he said no to all that. The fact that it's memorialized in a museum is good to him. His story was told and that's all he ever wanted, even though he never said it out loud."

"Does Sam know about the blood transfusion?"

"Nah, he doesn't know," Eli answered. "Gramps and I think that it was better kept in the dark. We did our research on the Sokovia Accords and didn't want the hassle." His mood darkened. "It seemed like we got hassled anyway."

The group was quiet for a few moments as neither Kamala nor Kate wanted to go down the rabbit hole. They didn't have any answers for him about why soldiers raided his house and put his grandfather in the hospital and wouldn't know how to console him if he needed it.

"Did you ever test your powers?" Kate asked curiously, changing the topic.

"Yeah, I tried some things out," Eli said, his tone changing now that the conversation was on emotionally safer ground. "I gotta admit, it was pretty cool for a few days. I was stronger, faster, and more athletic than most Olympic athletes. I won't say I was smarter, but I found that I was picking up things quicker."

"You have quicker processing," Kamala offered.

"I also have some crazy recovery," Eli chuckled. "I ran five miles without stopping and only needed a couple of minutes of rest before I ran another five miles."

"It must have been hard not to tell your friends," Kamala said. "I mean, my friends knew about my powers not long after I got them."

"Not really," Eli replied. "I spent so long protecting my grandpa's secret that it was natural to protect my own. Besides, we're not exactly the kind of people to get special powers."

"Neither am I," Kamala said, her tone soft. She connected with what Eli said, perhaps more than anyone else on the ship. She had read enough comics and books to know that not many heroes looked like her.

"So, uh, what are we going after?" Eli asked. "I know this Fury guy…"

"Nick Fury," Kamala helped. "Former director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and current director of S.A.B.E.R.. He's the guy who founded the Avengers."

"Right," Eli said slowly. "So Fury asked you," he pointed at Kamala, "to put a team together to deal with some threat that he hasn't figured out yet."

"Yep," Kate said before laughing awkwardly.

"That doesn't worry you?" Eli asked. "I wouldn't join the team when the coach doesn't know anything about the guys we're playing."

"Maybe this coach just hasn't shared it yet," Kate suggested.

"If the coach knows and doesn't share, then he's a bad coach," Eli countered firmly, refusing to change his mind. "Every good coach shares what they found on film with the team so that they can get a plan together to win."

"I'm sorry, Eli, but I don't know if sports analogies are going to work with someone like Nick Fury," Kamala said sadly. "He's a spy. He's secretive by nature."

"More than that, he does give out information until he's positive that it's true," Kate added, paraphrasing the information about the man that Clint had given her. "He can't tell us what to expect in the game if he's still reviewing the game film."

"I thought you said we can't use sports analogies for Nick Fury," Eli joked. "Look, if you trust him, I'll trust him."

"Thanks," Kate grinned, grabbing the rubber ball. "Now, how about a rematch?"

Hey y'all,

These are all the chapters I have done at the moment, but I'll have more done soon. I know where I want the story to go, I just need to sit down and write.

I have a history of revising as I write, so don't be surprised if some of the chapters change or things are added/removed from chapters that are already uploaded. I like for there to be continuity in my writing.

As I've said before, any comments are welcome, good or bad.

Be safe and Be kind,

King Beleram