Work Text:
5 Times Squirrel Girl Teamed Up With a Hero (+1 Time it Was A Villain)
Ms. Marvel
She was doing homework in the library, chewing her pen and staring at the high school tour-group right outside the window. Anything was more interesting than the paper she was writing, especially when a giant centipede skittered across the lawn towards the library.
She jumped up and dashed towards the door. "Seriously, peer review, guys, giant arthropods are generally a bad idea."
Costumed and ready, she burst out into the sunlight. "Hey, centipede, you should probably cease and desist, and all that." It only went up to her waist, but as long as a house. This might be a problem.
She looked around - where there were giant bugs, there were usually cackling and/or crying scientists with grow-rays. She saw most of the tour group she'd seen before, but one girl with covered hair was shouting, "Kamala!"
Doreen hopped over to them. "Are you all okay? Any injuries? I'll distract the bug, you guys get inside and shut the doors, ok?"
The tour leader started shepherding the crowd, but the girl shook her head. "I can't find my friend Kamala. She's got dark hair, about this tall."
Squirrel Girl put on her Serious Hero face. "I'll look for her, promise, but you should get inside where it's safe. I'll bring your friend over as soon as I find her."
She then turned to punch the centipede in the nose, because punching things was usually a good solution.
Well, in most cases. This bug was tough, though! It barely phased him. Fortunately, right while it was rearing up to bite her with sharp, sharp teeth, a giant fist hit it from the side, tossing it into a tree.
Squirrel Girl whipped around. "Ms. Marvel! I didn't know you worked in New York!"
The other girl laughed. "I usually don't, but I hear team-ups are all the rage these days. We know what caused the whole giant-bug thing?"
Jumping into the air and landing on the bug's head, she said, "Nope! Do you see any crying or cackling scientists around? It might have escaped from a lab or something."
Ms. Marvel started stretching up. "Cover me for a minute? I'm going to have a look."
On giant legs, the other hero took, like, 10 steps to circle the library, coming back around with a guy cradled gently in her hands. He was wearing an Entomology Graduate Student Club sweatshirt and glasses, with a bandana holding his afro back. He did not look like a cackling villain, which was a relief, and he was also holding large metal box.
Ms. Marvel set him on the lawn in front of the library. "Do your thing, buddy."
The guy set the box on a park bench and handed a coil of bright orange extension cord to Doreen, who ran it into the library.
"Can someone plug this in? We need to shrink the bug-thing."
The student tour guide took it and ran it over to the wall, and Squirrel Girl headed back outside.
Ms. Marvel was struggling to hold down the bug, so she ran to help the other hero.
The grad student plugged his tablet into the device, flicked at it rapidfire for a minute, then said, "Get clear, I'm going to try science!"
The two girls stepped back, and a beam of blue light shot out of the machine, and the centipede quickly shrunk down to the size of a car, a snake, and back down to normal centipede-size. Turning off the beam, the guy scooped up the bug in a glass jar.
"Thank you so much. One of the kids in the lab I teach was messing around with my boss's experiments and must have bumped something. Was anybody hurt?"
Doreen shook her head. "Not that I know of, but one girl's missing from her tour group. I'm going to look around - she probably just ran away like any sensible person would do when confronted with ginormous centipedes."
The guy sauntered off with a wave. "Thanks again, Ms. Marvel, Squirrel Girl!"
Ms. Marvel grew back up to big-n-stretchy size with a gentle gold glow. "Hey, um, I gotta go, but I think I saw your missing student around the other side of the building. I'll send her this way okay? Great!" She ran off to the left side of the building before disappearing from view.
A minute later a dark-haired girl matching the description of the missing student rounded the corner. "Sorry I made people worry, I'm just really, really scared of bugs and ran away."
Squirrel girl smiled kindly. "No problem, kiddo. My job would be a lot easier if everyone ran away from trouble. Your friends are worried about you, though, so why don't you head into the library?"
With a cheerful wave, Kamala skipped towards the building.
Doreen giggled, hoping that Kamala, Ms. Marvel, got the glowing under control before her friends noticed. She could totally respect a secret identity and wouldn't tell, but glowing was a little obvious. Even to those without the combined powers of Squirrel and Girl.
Mr. Fantastic
It was three AM, she had fourteen problems of calculus homework left to do, and her Avengers phone was ringing. She ducked into her closet and shut the door. "Squirrel Girl speaking, what's the emergency?"
"Ah, yes, um. It's Mr. Fantastic. And I have approximately twenty-six interdimensional squirrels that just arrived at my tower, and I think they're trying to communicate. I believe they want to get home, but I don't speak squirrel."
"So you're asking for a consult."
He sighed. "Yes, how soon can you be here?"
She rolled her eyes. "Mr. Fantastic, with all due respect, it's three in the morning, I'm not done with my math homework, and I have class at eight. So I can get across town in twenty minutes, but I'm not helping you with your completely non-critical problem that could have waited until morning unless you help me finish my homework first. Got it?"
Tips chirped in agreement. "And we need a pound of nuts. Good ones. Standard rate."
The leader of the fantastic four must have been on his last straw, because he just said, "Fine, fine, twenty minutes, and we can do homework first. This is a school, after all." Of course, because he was Reed Richards, the jerk hung up without even saying goodbye.
She and Tippy snuck out past her sleeping roommate and ran towards the F line.
The Invisible Woman walked her patiently through the Second Derivative Test for her remaining homework problems while Tippy made friends with the squirrels upstairs. She finished, and Tips hopped onto the table, nibbling on a walnut. "They're from Loomworld, Earth 001, and found a dimension-hopper watch left there by one of the Spidermen. Only they don't know how to configure it to get back, and they think it's broken."
"Thanks, Tips." Doreen said, stretching out her tail and standing up. "Thanks, Sue. I think I understand this now."
Sue Storm smiled at her and waved her to the elevators. "No problem, sweetie. Any time you want to spend a weekend with the Foundation kids, you're welcome here."
"Thanks!" Doreen headed upstairs to convey the message to Reed Richards, who looked positively frazzled. She quickly explained the problem, and got the squirrels to hand over the teleporter.
Reed adjusted it, and handed wrapped it around the paw of a squirrel. "It has a pretty wide range, and I can even activate it remotely like -"
She shouted, "No!" but it was too late - she was getting zapped right along with the squirrels.
Spider-Woman (but not the one you think)
She clung to Tippy, who said some words in Squirrelese that she was not repeating in public.
They landed in a forest, and the group of squirrels ran away from her and back up into the trees. With the teleporter.
"Oh, come on, you guys! I need to get back home! Can't I have it back?"
"Ours by salvage, human-girl."
"Yeah, ours."
Doreen sighed. "Well, did the Spider-people leave any others?"
"We don't know!"
She rolled her eyes. "Are there any Spiders left here?"
The squirrels chirped happily. "Queen Jessica!" They were delighted to point her in the direction of 'Queen Jessica', who was very sparkly and nice, at least to squirrels.
Doreen and Tippy set off in the direction of the city. "Well, I hope we get back by sunrise, because I worked hard on that homework and do not want to miss class."
They munched on some nuts from her backpack at the edge of town, seeing a tall, important-looking building not far away.
Before they got there, though, they ran into...Kang the Conquerer! Who was fighting...Spider-Woman? Yep, that was definitely Spider-Woman, in the middle of the street.
And the bad news was, it looked like he was winning. "Well, that won't do." Doreen cracked her knuckles and stretched her neck, calling up nearby squirrels with a whistle as she ran towards the battle.
"Kang, you big bully, leave this world alone!" With a leap, she kicked him in the gut with both feet, knocking him back a few feet.
Kang charged toward her with whirring armor, but she just punched him in the jaw. He flew across the courtyard, landing with a crash as approximately 90 squirrels swarmed around him.
She gave Spider-Woman a hand up, and Kang just looked between them and hit his time-zapper thing.
Good riddance! Kang was never up to anything good.
"Thanks for the hand," Spider-Woman said. "Who are you?"
Doreen turned and told the squirrels thanks, as she and Spider-Woman walked up the street. "I'm Squirrel Girl! Guess they don't have one of me here? That's ok, I just got stuck in this dimension by accident, and was told that, um, Queen Jessica? Might have an extra dimension zapper to get me home."
Spider-Woman laughed. "What a coincidence." She turned to face Squirrel Girl, walking backwards as they shook hands. "Queen Jessica of Loomworld, it's a pleasure to meet you."
Jessica walked up to the door and smiled at the guard, who let them both in with a nod. "And I don't have any dimension-travelling technology, but I think I can still get you home."
She led Doreen up several flights of stairs to an enormous bedroom, with an enormous canopy bed. The young woman on the bed was probably about her age and wore blue hipster underwear with white stars. And nothing else.
She turned to her side with a yawn. "Hey, babe, why are you up so early? Come back to bed."
Jessica laughed. "Well, Kang the Conquerer decided to show up-"
"WHAT?!" The girl sat straight up, her hair following suit in a cloud of dark curls.
"-and we have a guest." The queen finished, as the girl yelped and clutched a sheet to her chest.
"Sorry, chica. It's Squirrel Girl, right? What are you doing so far from 616?"
Doreen blushed and looked at the ceiling while the other scrambled off the bed, presumably to get clothes. "Long story, Mr. Fantastic asked for a consult-"
"Say no more. That guy is a pain in the &#$."
Once she was dressed, she grinned and shook Doreen's hand. "America Chavez, sometime Young Avenger, interdimensional kicker of butt. I'll get you home, no problem. Where are you headed?"
"Empire State; I've got an 8AM class."
"No problema." America said, shrugging into a denim jacket and kissing the queen's cheek. "Milady, I hope we meet again."
With that, she was kicking a giant white star into the floor and pulling Squirrel Girl through, Tips on her shoulder. They stepped out onto the street across from the university, disturbing a few birds but escaping human notice.
"Thanks!" Doreen said, as America waved goodbye and sauntered down the street, whistling in the pre-dawn light.
(She got 10/10 on her homework, and made sure to bring it to show Ms. Storm, when she went back to claim her nuts.)
She-Hulk
The internship was only five hours a week, but managing the computer systems for a small law firm was good experience and paid better than minimum wage, so she'd take it.
She'd sit at She-Hulk's laptop, wrangling Jen's case files into something resembling order. Hei Hei and Tippy got along well, and Speed was always running in and out of the office, running errands between studying for some CLEP exam or another. Every Friday afternoon, she got to be herself, tail out, for five hours or so. When they had a case to research, she ended up staying until six or seven, but the slow weeks made up for it. When Hellcat came over to Jen's office and locked the door behind them, Doreen and Angie and Tommy all went home early. Sometimes, she'd join Speed and Prodigy for noodles after work - it was great to hang out with heroes her own age for once.
And normally it was super boring - plenty of time to work on her coding homework and to check her email.
One such quiet Friday, she was quizzing Tommy on US History while Jen and Angie talked with a client.
"Um, which of the following was acknowledged as a clear advantage held by the Union over the
Confederacy during the U.S Civil War? Control of the Mississippi River, a sense of purpose in the confl-"
CRASH
The Abomination crashed through their wall, scowled at all of them, and leapt back out.
"Yougottabekiddingme." Speed pulled on his mask and sped away through the giant, gaping hole in the wall, followed shortly by Squirrel Girl and She-Hulk.
"Wow." Squirrel Girl said. "A fight right here and no one invited us?"
A group of Avengers was fighting against the Abomination, and She-Hulk jumped right into the fray, being one of the few that could go head-to-head against another gamma mutant.
"Isn't he supposedtobe dead?" Speed asked, tossing Squirrel Girl one end of a downed power line. "You've seen Empire Strikes Back, yeah?"
"Of course!" She shouted. "AT-AT takedown, right? And since when does anyone stay dead around here?"
"Exactly." Tommy said before blurring away, circling the snarling Abomination while Squirrel-Girl held the cord.
She had to brace her feet against the curb and her tail around a lightpost to stay upright, but pretty soon Blonsky was all tied up, which bought the struggling Avengers a minute to get their feet under them and escort some more civilians away.
Of course, since the Avengers were all moving away from the villain, he charged at She-Hulk and Squirrel Girl instead. Jen grabbed her left hand and they braced, clotheslining the bad guy. He tried to stand up, but he only got halfway before Doreen punched him out.
"That was awesome," She said to her boss.
Jen gave her an amused look. "You'd think it was less fun if your clothes had gotten ruined, trust me. I liked this suit. Speed!"
The speedster arrived at their sides. "Yeahboss?"
"More of that cable. We need to tie him up so he'll still be here when SHIELD arrives."
"Yesboss." He vanished and reappeared a second later. "Here you go. I'm going to help with cleanup."
She-Hulk waved him off. "Go ahead, kiddo, we've got this."
And that was how She-Hulk and Squirrel Girl punched out the Abomination, who came back to life for no discernable reason.
Their lives were like comic books - nothing ever made sense.
Young Avengers
After that, she started seeing a lot more of the Young Avengers. Pretty much, they snagged her for Friday breakfasts, Monday noodles, and Wednesday study parties. Inevitably, at least one of those a week would end in heroics, despite Wiccan insisting that he was still retired.
Yeah, right. Heroes that wanted to retire didn't live in New York City, and definitely weren't engaged to other heroic types. Didn't happen. (The Cages being an exception, but they had Danielle and came out of retirement pretty fast.)
Tonight, it was a fire in an apartment building. The squirrels had warned her when they were leaving the pizza place, and within minutes they were a block down the street, in costume, fighting fires and saving babies. Yep, that's the hero's life!
+1: Loki
She didn't mean to team up with a villain, she really didn't. She was just getting breakfast when she got a call on her Avengers phone. "Hello?"
"You don't know me, but my name is Verity Willis and I heard you're a friend of the Young Avengers and none of them are picking up and I need your help."
"Where are you, and what can I do?" She set her tray down with a sigh and hurried out of the cafeteria.
"Thor thinks that Loki - Young Avenger Loki - is Old Evil Loki, but he's just a construct, and he's trying hard to be a hero, but now Thor wants him dead and brought him up to Asgard and is telling them all lies about who Loki is. You know Thor, and you might be able to talk some sense into him, or at least help me prove Loki's innocence. Well, his innocence in this one matter, I can't pretend he's completely innocent but he's closer to chaotic good these days than evil and I'll take what I can get."
"Verity, breathe." Doreen ran into her dorm room and dove under the bed, looking for her Iron Squirrel armor as Tippy started packing nuts, and other essentials.
"They're in Asgard, right? Do you need me to pick you up?"
They sorted out the logistics and got to Asgard, in time for Doreen to
1)Tell Thor to stop being a jerk and listen to Verity
2)Tell Odin to stop being a jerk and listen to the All-Mother
3)Punch Thor out when he got too antsy and started shouting at his mom
4)Get the assembled all-parents to agree to a trial, in one week's time
5)Convince them that since Thor broke Loki's sword, it should count as his bail
From there, it was dropping the poor kid off at her boss's office and flying back to campus. She got to her computer lab, late, with no homework.
Thanks a lot, Asgardians.
[The story of how Loki got free with no smiting from the Angry and Hammerless Odinson is, alas, a tale for another day. Let's just be clear, though: it probably involved punching.]