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Lilo watched Stitch get a grip on the unfamiliar alien's flying motorcycle thing, twirl it over his head like a lasso, and then let it fly into a string of others, ending in the mouth of some kind of space whale who clearly did not appreciate the skill required to make that shot.
She was going to have to be the responsible one, wasn't she? It was probably only fair that she be sensible this time since Stitch had to fix her mess in Xi'an. Still.
Lilo sighed, but dutifully pulled out her mobile, ignoring the screaming masses who charged past the cafe to wave down a gaping barista for a refill. No sign of intelligent life there, so she stood up and meandered behind the counter to fix her own drink as the phone rang once, twice, three - nope. There it is. Predictable as one of Jumba's machines going wrong and only half as fun on a good day.
"Hey Mr C, remember how I promised to give you or Uncle B a week's heads up before I visited any new states, countries, or major cities? Surprise! Stitch called in a marker and we're in Manhattan so he can climb the Empire State Building - watching the King Kong remake was a terrible decision. Anyway, if you're in town, give me a call and I'll try to keep Stitch from having too much fun with whatever mess this is. Which is totally not my f - BEEP."
Lilo scowled at the end of recording tone; she hated being interrupted by ridiculously limited Earth tech. Glancing up, she raised her phone to get a shot of Stitch juggling three of the motorcycle things - distressed riders included - to send to Uncle Jumba.
Three minutes and five increasingly amused texts from Jumba later, her phone rang with an incoming video call from Mr C's Personal Emergency Line. She frowned, but put it through, already talking as she turned away to grab her finished drink.
"I thought you hated video calls, Mr C? Didn't you say Stitch's face gives you indigestion you can't afford during an actual emergency? I - " At that point she noticed three worrying situations and went quiet: the face on her phone screen was definitely not Mr C, her latte was scalding a layer of skin off her tongue, and Stitch was about to use a police car as a bowling ball with three cops and a dozen aliens for pins.
Prioritizing the way her international and intergalactic travels had taught her, she set her coffee on the counter to cool, asked the strange woman to please hold, and promptly charged out the cafe's front door to take six lightning quick shots with her Jumba-special mini blaster. Five shots took out half of the aliens menacing the cops, while the first came close enough to knocking the car out of Stitch's hand that he finally noticed her approach, put on the sheepish face, and gently set the car back in its spot.
Lilo put on her best Nani face, gestured 'I'm watching you' at Stitch and then waved him toward the beleaguered cops while she returned to her call.
"Hi, back, not that I don't appreciate making new friends but I kind of need to reach Mr C, not the creepy lady holding his phone." Creepy Lady who should really emote at some point soon, raised a single eyebrow.
"Phillip Coulson is dead. Who are you and how did you get this number?"
Lilo had to blink a few times and shake the metaphorical zombie cobwebs out of her head before she could reply to that.
"Uh, sorry, but you're wrong about Mr C and the rest is none of your business. He knows he's not allowed to die while Jumba still has dibs on his corpse for study - pretty sure there was actually a legal addendum passed to that effect. Even if he were really dead, I would have been notified so I could hide the body until someone talked Jumba down from some sort of cyborg resurrection."
That bit of rambling actually got a blink from Creepy Lady Who Had Yet To Introduce Herself. Lilo sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose in a very Nani gesture of exasperation, and ducked under the lamppost Stitch had sent flying as she walked out with her phone.
"Look, if Mr C's not available, can you put me through to Nick? Big guy with an eyepatch, always wearing black? I don't know you and I'm really not in the mood to get the clearance speech again." Wow, that was astonishment on Creepy Lady's fail-emoting face, she hadn't shocked anyone that stoic in a while.
Before she could say anything else, the call cut out and a familiar face appeared within seconds. Lilo beamed.
"Nick! You're psychic again!" Watching just one eye roll was always a trip.
"Pelekai, it's a little busy, you think you can hold your instinct to cause chaos for twenty four hours?" Now that was just unfair.
"Hey," Lilo was a mostly grown woman, she was not pouting, "Don't be rude, Nick, I'm not calling about my trouble, I'm calling about yours - which Stitch is handling, once again, and I just wanted to check in with Mr C before he found out we were in town from the news."
That long pause was ominous from the pirate king of sarcasm.
"Nick, where's Mr C? I know he's not on forced vacation like Uncle B, and if you try to feed me the 'he's dead' line Creepy Lady gave me, I will have Stitch take me straight to you by any means necessary so we can have a talk."
Lilo had learned a lot of unconventional skills from her unconventional family. How to sink every ounce of vicious intent in her body into one word had been a lesson learned in some form from almost all of them. Nick didn't even last thirty seconds of pointed silence.
"He's not dead. Anymore." If she cared, she would have noted that Nick actually sounded unnerved, but she didn't care. She hadn't been this pissed off by anything since she and Stitch stumbled on that ring of child traffickers.
Whatever was in her voice when it came back summoned Stitch like lightning to a rod.
"Nick, are you telling me that you let Mr C die and then revived him with some no-doubt dubious Earth tech and never contacted me?"
"There hasn't exactly been time for notifications, Pele - "
She forced herself to laugh, already expecting the wrong answer.
"You know what, never mind. Update Stitch on the essentials, get a handle on the more obvious fuck-up here, and in twenty-four hours, expect me wherever you're hiding. We will be having a long conversation about your position and if I still want to bite you at the end of it, I will have the Chairwoman assist me in laying out your future career options. Here's Stitch."
She passed over the phone without another word, marching toward the nearest sounds of fighting.
It had been years since she had to scream into a pillow - these days, she was allowed to make deserving people bleed.