[Tigra]
The cool, sterile air of the Secure Vault Level was a familiar bite against my fur, a stark contrast to the humid streets I usually patrolled. Late at night, the Avengers Tower hushed itself, its usual bustling corridors replaced by an echoing silence. Here, on this sub-basement floor, it was even more pronounced. The only sounds were the soft, hypnotic hum of the servers and the distant, rhythmic throb of the core systems. Overhead, artificial lights cast everything in a stark, unyielding glow, making the shadows sharp and unforgiving.
Tonight, my companion for this particular flavor of exquisite boredom was Spider-Man. As I gathered from the occasional slip-up from the other Avengers, though he rarely dropped the mask even during off-hours unless it was absolutely necessary. He was, along with me, one of the newer recruits to the roster, and frankly, I didn't expect much from a night of guard duty with him. His reputation preceded him as a quippy, hyperactive whirlwind, a walking, talking, web-slinging headache in red and blue.
"So," he began, his voice a little too loud in the quiet, "you ever wonder if these things actually work? Like, what if someone just… walks in? No alarms, no nothing. Just, 'Hey, mind if I borrow your cosmic doo-dad?'"
I didn't dignify the question with a coherent answer. Instead, I let out a low rumble, a sound that usually conveyed disinterest or mild annoyance, which was exactly what I felt. I was sprawled across the main console, my tail flicking lazily behind me, a silent declaration of ownership over the space. My claws, usually retracted, were just barely visible, catching the light as they rested on the cool metal. From this vantage point, I had a clear view of the massive vault door, gleaming with reinforced adamantium and Vibranium alloys, and the containment field shimmering around the anomaly within – a cosmic device, pulsing faintly with a soft, alien light, like a trapped star. It radiated a peculiar warmth that was barely perceptible in the chilled room, a constant, almost hypnotic hum that was distinct from the tower's own machinery.
Spider-Man, meanwhile, was doing laps around the small monitoring room. He'd already tried to climb the walls (I'd stopped him with a growl), rearranged the ergonomic chairs (poorly), and was currently – I watched with a mixture of exasperation and morbid curiosity – webbing crumpled paper balls at a specific sensor panel on the far wall. Each thwip was followed by a soft thud as the paper ball made contact, then a soft shlurp as he reeled it back in.
"Pretty good shot, huh?" he chirped, pulling in another soggy ball. "You know, for someone who mostly webs bad guys to lampposts, my accuracy with paper products is actually pretty top-tier."
I closed my eyes. "Go to sleep, Spider-Man."
"Can't," he answered promptly, thwip-thud-shlurp. "Too much energy. My spidey-sense says… there's no danger. Which is boring. My spidey-sense needs danger to feel alive. Like a shark, but with less teeth and more puns."
As the hours crawled by, marked by the slow progression of the city lights outside the reinforced windows – a blanket of glittering embers beneath a cloud-streaked sky – his restless energy, initially grating, began to feel… less so. He wasn't arrogant, not truly. Just… uncontainable.
At some point, he stopped the paper ball assault and just stood by the window, gazing out at the sleeping metropolis. His posture, usually so coiled and ready, seemed almost… small. He was humming a tuneless, off-key melody – a habit I'd noticed. It used to grate on my nerves like claws on a chalkboard. Tonight, it was merely there, another ambient sound in the quiet.
"You know," he said, his voice softer, devoid of its usual manic energy, "it's weird, being here."
I opened one eye, still half-lidded. "Here? In a vault? It's not exactly a theme park, no."
He turned, the white lenses of his mask seeming to gaze directly at me. "No, not just here. Here, as in, here. With the Avengers. With… you guys."
I waited, a flicker of genuine curiosity stirring. This wasn't the usual quip.
"I mean," he continued, almost tentatively, "I've always kind of… watched. From the sidelines. When aliens attack, or robots fly out of a portal, it's always… them. Iron Man. Thor. Captain America. And I'm just…watching." He shifted uncomfortably. "Now I'm here. In the big leagues. And honestly…" He trailed off, then finished in a rush, "I don't feel like I've earned it yet. The title. 'Avenger.' It feels… too big."
The confession hung in the air, a fragile thing in the sterile quiet. It caught me off guard. Vulnerability wasn't something I expected from behind that mask, from the guy who joked his way through life-or-death situations. I had always assumed the bravado was a shield, but I hadn't expected to see the man behind it quite so clearly. Not tonight. Not to me.
I pushed myself into a sitting position, my tail curling around my legs. "You're here, aren't you?" My voice was rougher than I intended, a little deeper. "Fury doesn't hand out invites to the janitorial staff. They know what you can do."
He shrugged, a nervous gesture. "Yeah, but… it's one thing to stop a mugging, or even a supervillain trying to kill a bunch of students because of an electrical lobotomy. It's another to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the guy who literally controls lightning."
I didn't have an answer to that. I understood the sentiment, though. The feeling of being out of your depth, even when you knew you were strong enough.
The silence stretched again, more comfortable this time. He went back to gazing out the window. I watched him, truly watched him, for the first time. The set of his shoulders, the way his head tilted slightly, like he was listening to the city's heartbeat. He wasn't just a quip machine; he was a person. A young one, at that.
Suddenly, an idea seemed to strike him. He snapped his fingers, or tried to, with his gloved hand. "You know what I could really go for right now? A churro. Or maybe one of those weird space-donuts they have in the commissary. You think they're open this late?"
Before I could answer, he was already moving, his web-slingers out, aiming for a small, innocuous-looking panel near the door, a panel I knew controlled the snack dispenser in the break room just outside this secure area. He seemed to think it was a shortcut.
"Spider-Man, don't you dar–"
THWUMP!
Instead of webbing the snack dispenser, his web-line, with uncharacteristic inaccuracy, splattered across the emergency override panel for the vault's primary containment lock.
And then, all hell broke loose.