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The knock on Maria’s door at the crack of dawn was a regular thing, always recurring and driving her insane. If it was anyone other than Carol, she’d probably sucker punch them in the nose as soon as she opened the door, her gloss-black hair frayed and all over the place. Sure enough, Carol was smiling, like coy and cheekily as she always did when she woke Maria this early.

Captain Rambeau leaned her head and her arm against the frame of the barracks door and looked at her best friend with a fed up slack jaw that made Danvers smile even more. This was so regular and yet Maria would always pull the same routine herself. Carol’s eyes were splendid in the crack of the light through Maria’s blinds and her fair complexion woke her slightly, but it was still way too early. Not even Lawson would be up this early.

“You have any idea what time it is, honey?” Maria asked Carol, who didn’t say anything; she only shrugged her shoulders slightly and smiled more.

“The same time I get you up every day? Around seven? Give or take,” Carol excused, almost laughing in Rambeau’s face. Maria was not prepared to laugh, her body ached and her eyes were still glazed over from the same. She loved Carol, but in times like these, she hated her and her uncanny ability to wake up before the crickets. She’d even do the same in Louisiana back at their house, always at the crack of dawn, always either unable to sleep or just to spite Maria. She could never tell.

Maria shook her head, scoffing and lurching back into her room, flopping on the bed as Carol let herself in and opened the wardrobe. The USAF standard t-shirt, the slack cargo pants, her belt, and the bomber jacket with her callsign on it were pulled from the closet. Carol looked at the ‘Photon’ on the nametag and smiled. She loved Maria’s callsign, always thought it inspired and used to describe her lightning-fast flying better than anything. Captain Danvers tossed the shirt and pants over Maria’s body in a larking way and smiled when her friend made a moaning noise into the fluff of her sheets and pillow.

“Come on, Captain, Lawson wants us at the hanger by oh-nine-hundred. And you need some coffee before you pass out,” Carol chuckled as she shook her friend by her back.

Maria let Carol move her but remained deadweight on the bed and lay planking. “Can’t… Houston… We got a girl down… Critical too…” Maria joked, coming up for air as Carol continued to shake her back and forth under the set of clothes.

Danvers cackled audibly and fell to her knees, eyes locked on Rambeau’s and smiling at her. “Aw, a real shame, control… Looks like Captain Danvers is gonna be flying her bird solo. And to think ‘Photon’ would let her down like this,” she joked, pulling a jib and a face and smiling a toothy grin. Her persona was almost childish, but it made Maria grin back at her and leap from the bed, grabbing her bomber jacket instantly.

She pulled Carol down to the bed by the collar of her shirt and pinned her there, faux-aggressively and with the facade of a playful joke. As soon as the blonde hit the comfort of the ransacked bedding and found Maria looming over her (and not for the first time), Carol’s heart skipped a beat. A pause came between them, as both women looked into the other’s eyes and found the beat of the moment. They’d shared others, and this was just the latest of the beats of the unspoken thing each knew had formed between them. A mild rose formed under Carol’s cheeks and Maria found herself doing nothing but looking Carol in her eyes, simply staring at her as she gently blushed. Carol hoped Rambeau wouldn’t clock she was blushing but became helpless to hide it in the silence that began to form for multiple seconds. Roosters outside began to finally to signal the start of the day, which eventually broke Maria’s concentration into Carol’s begging eyes as she darted to look out her blinds.

“Damn girl, you up even before the Roosters…” Maria coughed as she got off of Carol and turned her back, to remove her sleeping shirt and fumble for a bra in her drawers.

Carol remained on the bed, a little stunned and gently savouring the moment when Maria was on top of her. While the unspoken thing had its bubbling moments like that, they did not happen so often, and Carol felt guilty as it consumed her faculties as she laid stationery. She was less petrified and more charmed rigid as Maria dressed herself a little quickly - Carol found herself staring at the woman’s form as she removed her shorts and hauled up a pair of black underwear before the baggy cargo pants that were standard issue. Maria strapped her belt around her waist and hoisted on her bomber jacket before sliding a comb through her hair twice or thrice. She’d wash in the changing rooms if they were going to be flight suits today, otherwise, she didn’t care. At the end of it all, she turned back to Carol, still stunned on the bed and the faint trace of the rose blush under her cheeks. Carol felt exceptionally warm under her shirt as if she’d run around the track a few times. Maria just looked at her a little incredulously, but Danvers knew that under sceptical eyes and abrasive-looking facade, the warmth of the unspoken thing was rising within her as it had done a few times before this. They were both silent again, Carol’s eyes doing all the talking she could possibly want to do for her. Maria’s spoke back, gentle negations or cancellations as to what had just happened, and for her sake, Carol let it go as she heaved upward and sat on the end of the bed.

“Camaro or Mustang?” Carol asked, her sly smile returning to her as she eyed Rambeau.

Maria adored that smile. The silent sarcasm of it, the beautiful and coy arrogance that it heralded. The gentle curve of that beautiful smirk could charm any man (despite Carol only ever wanting to charm the opposite) and it always had the desired effect on Maria.

Photon grabbed the keys to her Camaro from the bowl on the small dressing table next to her rack. “Oh, baby ain’t keeping me from the morning drive. Not on my life ‘Avenger’,” Rambeau joked as she smiled, and Carol leapt from the bed as they left the barracks.

The drive from the barracks to the flight command building was short, and the rest of the training day feeling even shorter. Dr Lawson had no flight exercises in the Aces that day, Carol had sighed audibly at the news of no time in the cockpit. Rambeau nudged her in the arm when she did and Danvers lightly punched her back as a joke. As usual, Lawson had delivered her line, the one she always told her two star test pilots when they were alone with the craft. And as always Carol had been listening as if Dr Lawson was made of the night’s sky and full of stars.

“Remember ladies. Our duty isn’t to fight wars…” Lawson had started saying before both of them looked at each other and smiled.

“It’s to end them,” both Danvers and Rambeau told her back, earning a warm and maternal smile from the aerological scientist. Carol loved how Lawson looked at them as if she held in the same regard as daughters. In many ways Lawson was a mother figure to Carol; Maria was her sister.

Or always something more.

Before they knew it they were back in the changing room and out of overalls they’d been in to run some other mundane tests on the Aces engines. Lawson was always so precise and preoccupied with the state of the engines on the experimental jets. She’d used the excuse that Project Pegasus wanted to see their money’s worth working on fighters that could enter the final tiers of the stratosphere. Still, the lack of flying made Carol perturbed.

“You wanna head out to Pancho’s? Grab a beer?” Danvers asked, out a prolonged silence, suddenly, turning from her locker to Maria and standing almost all on one leg, as if trying to look good.

“Say what?” Maria responded, pulling the last leg off of her mucky overalls.

“Let’s grab a beer? I mean, if you want. It’s the weekend, Lawson isn’t gonna be back until Monday, and I owe you one for getting you up so early every day this week,” Carol explained, looking innocent and trying to drag her friend out.

Maria smiled and stood up, in her shirt and nothing to cover her legs. “Girl you get me up early every day of every week. Y’know that, right, Avenger?” Maria chuckled a little, pulling out a can of Axe and spraying her pits.

Carol shook herself a little and smiled, chuckling back as she undid the belt of her overalls and dropped the pants of them, joining Maria in naked legs. “I’m serious, c’mon. It’ll be fun. We’ll go Pancho’s, grab some beers. Some hotshot fighter shitheads will make some comment about why it’s a cockpit and I’ll sucker punch him in the mouth before we play pool and then stumble home with two more bottles of Budweiser!” Carol rambled a little excitedly. “Now there’s no way you can tell me that doesn’t sound like a good night, huh?”

Again, Maria smiled, walking over and leaning on the lockers next to Carol’s. Standing this close, in only her shirt and undies, the shape of Maria’s figure make Carol’s heart beat a little faster as it had done in the morning. Maria’s eyes were enchanting as Carol attempted to hold her cool and not blush again as she soaked in Rambeau’s frame with the peripheral of her eager vision. She had no idea if Maria was following her line of vision, or if she was or wasn’t doing the exact same herself only with Carol’s nearly half-naked body. They stood parallel, mirroring the other and Carol only leaking out a small smirk; the same one that made Maria always cave into her, always.

There were a few more beats of silence, during which the length of Carol’s grin increased as she saw the twinkle of relenting in Maria’s eyes. She knew she was going to win this in the end, Maria couldn’t deny her, at all, even without the confident smirk.

***

The sound of

Take It Easy

by The Eagles could be heard even through the glass of the door to Pancho’s. Carol was smiling as she gently tugged at Maria’s hand in hers while pushing the door open - it wasn’t too busy, but sure enough, there were a group of guys in USAF bomber jackets (not unlike the one Maria was still wearing) stacked up against the bar like a row of toy soldiers. Their eyes followed both of the women as they entered; Carol clocked them instantly as her hand began to let go of Maria’s. She turned as they looked at her and grabbed both of Maria’s hands, smiling beautifully from a moment of giddiness and otherwise looking smart.

“What’re you drinking, Photon? First round’s on me, baby,” Carol teased, her tongue larking over her top teeth as she grinned obviously.

Rambeau clocked the guys at the bar and how they looked at the women holding hands. She wanted to recoil, to take her hands back and brush off how very friendly Carol was being in a place this public but she couldn’t do anything, nor did she really finding herself wanting to. They were just friends, Maria kept telling herself. They were just friends and Carol was excited, happy to be out again and drinking - they had their best times at Pancho’s, and Carol just wanted a good time.

“I’ll just take a beer, Carol, really I’m good. I’ll grab us a booth, yeah?” Maria asked, more than a little self-conscious of the boys at the bar, seemingly glaring at them like bitches. The nerves she felt soon turned to resentment and an eagerness for Carol to start throwing punches.

“Sure, and you want a rum and coke right? Gotcha,” Carol teased, gently letting go of Maria’s fingers. She was about to say a beer again but smiled and relented. A drink wasn’t a bad idea as she set their bags and jackets at the booth and almost ran for the jukebox at the far end of the room, near the doors to the toilets.

Holiday In Cambodia

,

Paradise City

,

We’re Not Gonna Take It

, and

Too Much Time On My Hands

were only some of what Maria found and set up in a queue for the jukebox from the single dollar coin she fed it by the time Carol came around her back with two glasses in her hands and her bangs waving past her shoulders. She was incredibly close and Maria was only comfortable for her to be so. The guys were probably still looking but she didn’t care when Carol was this close to her; her chest was almost pressed up against Maria’s back as she looked over her shoulder at the setlist for the night. Carol fed her the straw of her rum and coke like she was offering the water of life and Maria looked almost timid as she took the drink.

“Ignore the fighter ‘cocks’, honey. You know why it’s called ‘flying by the seat of your pants’,” Carol whispered, accidentally brushing the side of her chest against Maria’s shoulder as she walked past to get to the booth they’d be taking for the night. “We here?” She asked casually as Maria nodded.

They slumped in, Carol banging the side of her arm against the wall on the far end and both of them laughing at it as her own drink spilt over the hardwood table. Maria almost burst from the laughter partway through a sip of her short. Carol was such a loveable dummy at times, but then had a cooler head than anyone when she was in the air and that helmet was over her head. Rambeau had to take a moment to stop and look at her laughing face, the scrunch of her beautiful eyes and the curve of her lovely mouth. Her heart continued to beat as quickly as it had done when she had Carol pinned under her on the tarnished bed this morning. And Carol’s laugh was euphoric and sparked only flurries of joy in Maria.

Captain Danvers cocked her head when she had finished laughing, finding Captain Rambeau looking intently into her eyes. “What is it, baby?” Carol asked, a little more forward and tomboyish than she had done before.

Maria let out a stiff chuckle at the pet name and shook her head. “Nothing, honey. Nothing,” she brushed off, her tongue wrapping around the red and white straw in her glass. The succulent syrup of the rum and coke was saccharine to her tongue, making her smile as she saw Carol now leering and eying her as she sipped her own drink (which looked to be vodka and lemonade, from the number of bubbles and clarity of the drink) across the table. “What?” Maria asked incredulously. The night had only just started and already Carol was more excitable than Rambeau thought she could handle.

Guns N Roses flew over them on the jukebox and Carol looked up with the intensity of a hunting hawk. “Did you put this on?” She asked, the bands own emblem on her shirt almost pressed outward.

Again, Maria simply smiled and nodded, her body now moving to the beat of

Paradise City

as Carol smiled elatedly and shook her shoulders. They created a small dance routine between them, shaking shoulders side to side and clapping on the beat, sipping their drinks at a rapid rate as the rest of the bar began to flood with more and more patrons. A few caused an uproar over the billiards table and men crammed into the toilets as the heat and alcohol overflowed from the cheap bar. The Street Fighter II Turbo machine came alive with play and competition and made Carol eye it as a challenger but Maria grabbed her hand by the time she could turn around to leap over the booth to have at the arcade machine.

“Hey, Hollywood...” called one of the guys from the bar, as he and his circus-like entourage happened upon both of them. One of the top guns barred Maria from getting out of the booth as another came around the back of Carol and leaned over the chair. The main boy who’d heckled them set his palms on the table and smiled like a creep at both of them.

Prick, Jerk, Creep, Jackass. Slut, Pervert, Jock, Dickwad.

Maria and Carol both eyed at him, as he clocked the USAF of their bomber jackets, the embodied sigils of Project Pegasus and their callsigns.

“Photon, and Avenger. Well lookie here boys, we got ourselves an audience with Dr Lawson’s two wranglers. The gals who wish they were flying combat, huh?” The guy began, purposefully trying to intimidate and cause a stir. Maria wanted to instantly sock him one but relaxed when she felt Carol’s hand over her fist.

Captain Danvers turned to the ringleader and smiled gently, the grin that usually marked the arrival of her fist to someone’s face. That was one unavoidable faucet of Carol – sometimes she knew and liked that it was best to simply punch something until it stopped. “Can we uh, get you, two lovely little ladies, a couple drinks? You look as if you’re running low right there,” he followed, not noticing the look of apathy and pure patronisation that Carol was shooting him across the table.

“We’re pretty good, can we get you one, little boy?” She shot back at him while he was looking at Maria, Rambeau purposefully trying to avoid his creepy gaze. “Hey, Top Gun, talking to you over here,” she continued when he didn’t answer, still looking at Maria. Her kick to his toes got his attention soon enough.

“Kitty’s got some claws, huh boys?” He smiled, prompting the rest of his circus to laugh like hyenas as Carol still kept her apathetic and patronising smile. She held Maria’s hand still and clenched her free hand around the glass of her drink. There was still enough in there with all the ice.

“Claws? Nah, but I got balls. More than any of you boys by the looks of it, huh, jackass?” Carol spat, silencing the man in front of her. She could see just enough of his callsign on his jacket to see it was a sexist innuendo. Internally she grimaced, wanting to throw up a little.

He scoffed at her, trying not to have his pride wounded. He flicked his tongue around his mouth, Carol telling he’d wanted it to be halfway down her or Maria’s throat. But this was getting tiresome. Carol shot Maria a glance, one that told Photon exactly what was going on the smaller minds of all the men – They hated a woman with a mouth and a mind of her own, it was beyond what they had spoon-fed to them every other time talking to them. Carol was all about attitude, and men were below her. She’d been held below them all of her life, from father to friend to school companion to colleague anywhere. The Academy had put her below them all, but she’d never be second-bested by a man again.

“You know why it’s called a cockpit, right sweetie?” He spoke, laughing at the last mistake he’d make with Carol.

The guy was turning around to another one of his friends, unseeing how Carol took her hand away from Maria’s too quick for Rambeau to grab it again to stop her. The palm called into a fist and as the guy was turning around, found out what it was like to cross Captain Carol ‘Avenger’ Danvers.

He flew up into the air as her fist socked him under the chin, lifting him off of the hardwood and into the air. He slammed against the billiards table and slumped down into a mess with his jaw bruised already. Carol remained standing, her fist still up in the air and aiming it at the rest of his entourage as they jerked away from her.

“Now, if you boys wouldn’t be too kind...” She told them all, before they ran to the door, two hauling her victim to his feet and dragging him out. Carol looking to Maria who was shaking her head but smiling nonetheless. “What?” Carol asked incredulously as she slumped back into her seat. Maria continued to shake her head as if silently judging her best friend.

“I ain’t saying nothing, honey, you do you. Just remind me to never get on your bad side, ‘kay?”

Carol leaned over, her hands coming to grasp around Rambeau’s even more warmly. “Aw, baby you could never get on my bad side.” They looked at each other again, Maria simply amazed at Carol’s will and the mesmerising beauty of her caramel eyes.

Carry On My Wayward Son

began to play from the jukebox and both women were a little relieved that the bartender hadn’t seen who had thrown the first and only punch. Carol looked at Maria glass and saw it emptied and immediately downed her own. “Come on, girl, another drink?”

“Oh no, baby, I got this round,” Maria protested but Carol was already pulling out Lincoln’s face on her five dollar bill.

“Keep your ass seated, Photon, mama Carol’s got this,” she flirted, a little more obviously than before as she almost slid her way to the bar.

When she got back, drinks in hand and

Paint It Black

now coming through the jukebox, filling the air with The Rolling Stones, she found Maria over at the Street Fighter Arcade Machine, punching in commands to have Chun-Li perform her fantastic kicking flurry at the CPU Guile. The chicken in the background of the stage kept distracting her. Even Maria would be the first to admit that she wasn’t the greatest player at arcade games – Carol was the one who could top the high score table on machines like this or Space Invaders. Carol observed her for a while before nudging another drink into her arm. When Maria looked at what Carol was drinking, her eyes went wide.

“Slurpee?” Carol asked, offering Rambeau the spiral straw coming out of the cup. Maria didn’t know Pancho’s now had a Slurpee machine.
Carol’s eyes and smile were still coy, cocky and obviously flirting, and the low music didn’t do Maria any favours to help her not fall completely in love and lust with her friend.

“What’s in it?” She asked Carol, cocking her head to the side a little judgementally.

Carol rolled her eyes and relented, still smiling her cocky grin that only reaffirmed how much she was trying to flirt with Rambeau. “A bit of vodka, a bit of rum...” Carol told her, offering her the straw again of her Slurpee. Maria was smiling too, a toothy smirk as she hesitated.

“Uh huh, what else?”

Danvers once again rolled her eyes, stomping on one foot. “Something I don’t really know what else, I’ll be honest,” she chuckled, and Maria sniggered too before a beat formed between them. A beat like the one in the morning when they were both on the bed, and once again Carol and Maria had locked eyes accidentally and were only staring at each other deeply, trying to know where they should stop. Maria’s hesitation was her thinking they should have stopped already, but Carol tested her, pushed the boundaries in a manner that Rambeau was only all too comfortable with.

“Come on, baby, don’t you wanna freeze your brain?”

Maria pressed her lips to the straw and tasted the succulent thickness of the syrup-like concoction in Carol’s cup. She coughed like a smoker when she recoiled. “Damn, honey, that’s some strong stuff!” Maria was cackling, Carol moving closer.

Her hand held Maria’s hip, between her body and the arcade machine so no one could see how she was holding her. “Come on Photon, I thought your mouth could handle anything,” Carol smirked, their faces getting a little closer. Maria’s eyes popped as she pressed her body all the closer, throwing caution to the wind and giving Carol what she knew she wanted, what Maria had wanted all day and for months.

“My mouth can handle anything... Avenger...”

***

They were back at the barracks before long, the soft lulls of The Rolling Stones and The Dead Kennedys left at Pancho’s and the thought of the jerk brigade of little boys further from their memories.

Maria lifted Carol’s Guns N Roses shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor, her hands immediately coming around her back to fumble at the clasp of Danvers’ nude bra. Carol was smiling more than ever, her breath a little husky and her hands all too quickly trying to shed Maria of her clothes. When her bra was off, Carol forced her body forward, pressing it against Maria’s and pushing them both down into the softness of the rack sheets. Her lips came to Maria’s in desperate and passionate kisses as she tugged at the belt of Rambeau’s jeans. She wanted it all off, she wanted Maria naked so she could roll around in the sheets with her like they were both edgy teens doing something others would deem scandalous.

Carol could no longer contain herself. She wanted this, badly, and Maria too, as she let Carol kiss her, kissed her and as her hands clenched around Danvers’ tight and ample ass.

“Whoa, hey baby, calm down. It’s okay,” Maria told Carol when she got too fast. She was wanting it, and so was Maria, but they had time, they had everything. “Relax, Carol... We’ve got time... Baby, we’ve got time...”

“We do?” Carol asked, her voice a little meeker than before, her resolve crumbling. Maria could tell this wasn’t the first time she’d played like this with another woman, but could theorise all the other times had been taboo, and nothing as loving as this.

Maria took Carol by her neck, her thumbs gently gracing her beautiful face as she looked protectively into her eyes, silently telling her the whole world of the late 80s could go to hell for what they thought of them. If they all thought two women loving each other like this was wrong, then they were all not worth fighting for or saving. Lawson had told them both day after day that it wasn’t their duty to fight wars, it was to end them. Carol and Maria would end all the wars. They loved each other.

“We got all the time in the world, Carol...”

Danvers looked Maria back intently, her smirk gone and her mouth a little agape, her eyes spilling her soul into their little boudoir. “I love you, Rambeau...”

“I love you too, Carol...”

Maria’s tongue was saccharine, liquid ecstasy by the time it hit Carol, as she arched her back and leaned over herself in the bed. They were both naked before long, and Carol trying not to let out moans that were too load as to stir the whole barracks. Talk about against regulations. But no one would find out, no one. She roped her fingers through Maria’s beautiful black hair as Blondie played in the back of her mind, lulling her into a coma of pleasure and ecstasy with Maria between her legs, her body tensing.

Carol’s breath hitched as Maria worked her magic for her. “Higher...” the blonde cried out. “Further...” She followed as Maria did as she asked. “Faster...” And Carol’s world utterly melted as their moment became immortalised.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

They went to Maria’s room first, Carol following Captain Rambeau around the house like a lost pet with her body still shaking a little as Maria changed from her overalls into something else. They left the Skrulls downstairs with both Monica and Agent Fury. Maria said it would be okay and that they needed time alone now.Now that Carol was beginning to remember at least some things about the life she had before the accident. But how much did she remember now? Maria caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she pulled the red hem of her top down past her midriff. Carol wasn’t looking, at least she didn’t appear to be looking this time. The last time she had looked at Maria as she dressed or changed had been six years ago, but those memories were as fresh in Maria’s mind as if they’d been living together for all of them.“Blue Oyster Cult?” Carol spoke, pulling Maria attention to her in the mirror just as her mind began to wander again back into the previous decade.Carol was examining the record player, looking between the two vinyls Maria had left over it. Blue Oyster Cult’s Agents of Fortune and Nirvana’s Nevermind. The blonde was perpetually intrigued by the former as she pulled the LP from the sleeve and slotted it onto the turntable. She could still operate a record player at least, Maria had to smile a little stiffly into the mirror as she watched Carol doing it. As she did, Maria toyed with the named necklace hanging just above the dip in her bust.She’d been given it by Carol for her birthday in ’87. Did Carol remember buying it for her? Giving it to her? Did she remember any nights they had at Pancho’s? Any nights in the barracks or anywhere around Project Pegasus other than the crash and the day Lawson and she had flown the Ace?Maria’s smile faded as the guitar riff began to play gently, flooding the room with music. The door was closed and Maria could tell she was going to cry a little before long as she saw Carol’s reverse in the mirror again. At least she was nodding to the song.
(Don’t Fear) The Reaper had been Carol’s favourite song for as long as Maria had known her. She’d even brought the record with her from California when they’d agreed to shack up together. The only reason it was in Maria’s room was that she liked to cry to it sometimes without Carol.“You don’t... Remember the song, do you?” Rambeau asked, Carol’s attention snapping from the turning record to her friend’s face, seeing the depth of mild hurt but assurance in her eyes.The Black Box had brought back that day and had opened the floodgates for so much more. As Carol examined Maria’s figure intently for a moment, she could see more flashes of her real life than ever, could see some things that Talos had sparked in her on the frigate. She saw in Maria’s figure some shadows of their time together. The swelling music of Blue Oyster Cult only triggered more and more memories around the pair as Maria came a little closer, seeing in Carol’s eyes and face that she was remembering more and more as each second passed her.“The... Song...” Carol whispered. Maria knelt before her, her hands grasping over Carol’s and her eyes looking deeply into hers. They were still the same shade of beautiful caramel, still containing the impeccable glow they had done that night at Pancho’s when she offered her the alcoholic Slurpee.Maria was smiling a little. “Come on, baby. Don’t fear the Reaper... We can be like they are...” Maria sang really softly to Carol, their hands holding each other and the blonde looking intently into Maria’s eyes. It was slowly flooding back to her, little by little but as Maria sang the song, it all slotted together faster.
You are Carol Danvers, Captain, ‘Avenger’, this is your favourite song, and this is the one woman in the whole universe that you love more than anything...
Carol’s lips twitched and snapped into a smile as she remembered everything they’d done – USAFA, Photon and Avenger, Pancho’s, Slurpee, Barracks, Higher, Further, Faster... Carol remembered absolutely all of it. She knew what she felt for Maria, and looked at her as if she’d only now seen her with fresh eyes, back from the brink of death, back from the abyss that Hala now was to her. She looked forward into the eyes of the woman who’d stolen her heart.“Come on baby... As she ran to him... They looked back and they said goodbye... Come on baby, don’t fear the Reaper...” They were soon singing together, as all the words came back to Carol as if they were burnt into her mind like her callsign, or like her address or telephone number and ZIP code. She remembered them all. And she knew this was her favourite song.Maria’s jaw slacked a little and she was smiling more incredulously than before as Carol and she both stood up, the blonde lurching forward, taking her hands back only to wrap her arms around Rambeau’s waist and back, taking her in an embrace. “Carol!” Maria cried over the sound of the song continuing. She was back, and Maria knew she was all there.Their lips collided, full of fire and passion as if six years had only gone by in a dream. To Maria, as she felt Carol holding her, more protectively and dominant than ever before, she melted into the kiss, her hands holding the blonde’s darling cheeks. She had barely aged a single day in six years as Maria felt her soft complexion, basking in her leadership as Carol held her and pushed her body against hers, not ever letting Maria fall over. It was hot and so full of passion that Maria moaned gently into Carol’s mouth, feeling the dimensions of her tongue coming for her, to explore her mouth again for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Her mind rolled over backwards reiterating Carol’s name, and Maria’s eyes threatened to unleash her tears.Just to feel Carol’s arms around her again, her lips on hers again since 1989, feeling her body this close again, as if nothing had driven a wedge between them, was pure heaven. Maria never wanted it to end, never, she wouldn’t let it this time.“I... I missed you so much,” Maria found herself whispering when their lips finally parted for breath. Carol was still holding her waist in strong, powerful arms. Her body was so suddenly warm to the touch.“I’m here. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. We lost each other... But I’m back,” Carol reassured her, kissing her gently, again and again, nipping at her jawline.Now tears were falling onto Maria’s cheeks, she couldn’t help them, couldn’t hold them back anymore. They’d all told her she was dead, but there had been nobody; only Lawson, Mar-Vell’s body had come back, no Carol. The red tape and redacted black ink that now littered and stained Carol’s file and reputation had drilled a hole into Maria’s heart, and yet here she was, fire in her fists to come and fill it again. Maria bit her tongue as she kissed Carol again, more desperately than before.“Do you... Remember...” Carol tried to ask, taking her lips back and looking still at Maria, holding her as hands came to her shoulders now. They were still standing between the bed and the closet with the mirror.A smile formed from the straight of Maria’s mouth as she anticipated exactly what Carol was going to say. She could tell, of course, she could. “That night at Pancho’s?” She asked, grinning.Danvers was smiling too, like a school kid at the mention of the bar. The last time she had been there was with Fury, still under the lie that she was Vers, a Kree just like Yon-Rogg. But the only thing that consumed her memories of the bar now was the night with Maria, against the Street Fighter II Arcade Machine, watching her play as Chun-Li, offering her the straw of her alcoholic medley of a frozen drink. All of it so rapidly followed by them tossing clothes off in the barracks.Maria’s fingers trembled as they came to the hem of Carol’s Nine-Inch Nails stolen top. “Oh, baby I remember...” She alluded, as the blonde’s lips parted and begged for another kiss.Her words flipped another switch in Carol’s mind, triggering another internal epiphany, more memories of their lives together flooding. This time before and after their night in the barracks. Monica’s birth, Carol being there, taking care of her for Maria and basically raising her too, supporting them both as a family. She was their family, and as Monica had told her, they were hers. Carol gripped the back of Maria’s thighs, the soft plumpness of her musculature kneading into the blonde’s strong grip. Danvers heaved and lifted Maria off of the ground, still kissing her more desperately. Memories of when they returned came to her, heaving Lt Trouble into the house on a starry night, settling her bed with Rambeau and then both of them retiring downstairs for a nightcap and more fun.Carol remembered don’t ask and don’t tell. They were roommates, they were rackmates, they were housemates.
Oh my god, we were housemates...
Maria was like clay in her hands as she wrapped her legs around Carol’s waist and held her tightly while Carol walked them back. The contact of the closet plywood door against Maria’s back made her gasp as she pressed herself closer to Carol again. Their bodies were so close, so warm. She could feel the solar fire of her powers rising within Carol, the fire coming to her fists and their bodies growing so very warm as they kissed further, the heated exchange making Maria smile as her fingers came to Carol’s cheeks.She bit Carol’s bottom lip, tugging on it with her teeth and begging for more as she heaved her chest closer to her blonde partner. The ecstasy rose higher and higher, along with their need to be closer, to be together like they used to be.Teeth came to nip at the other’s flesh, at Carol’s lips as they kissed more desperately. Maria entangled her fingers into the thick strands of bright blonde hair as she felt Carol’s hands and fingers clawing at her rear and grabbing a needy handful. Carol burned for her, finally knowing what they had, what they had never let anyone ever see, not even Monica. Her frustration swallowed itself until it was deep-seated and Carol breathed out her fire before kissing Maria again powerfully. She looked Rambeau in the eye as they stopped and took a breath and a beat.Maria felt Carol’s cheek, her thumb brushing close to her caramel eyes.“Do we have time?” Carol whispered, looking intently into Maria’s eyes and gently biting her bottom lip with wet desire. She could feel the heat within her rising faster by the moment, as well as the hum of the device attached to the side of her neck. It hummed into her body, whirling beats but the reprising heat within her and Maria before her took her away from all the lies, all the Kree and the myth she’d been living in for six years. She wanted the time now, she wanted Maria.In Maria’s head, all she could hear over the tunes of Blue Oyster Cult was Elton John’s Are You Ready For Love? as she looked deeply into Carol’s eyes. Talos, Fury and Monica were still in the shack, giving Carol and her space as they recollected all that had been lost, all that Carol needed. Would it be a crime to steal away some more moments for themselves? Would it really hurt that much?Maria looked to her bedside cabinet, to the second drawer where she kept her harness and toy. She had no idea if they’d be able to steal away enough time for what she now wanted to do to and with Carol. It had been six years and only now did Maria contemplate how long they’d felt without Carol touching her, holding her, rocking her body.“Mom?!” Came from down the stairs, and both women unleashed their breath, knocking foreheads together and sighing as they heard Monica from the main entrance room. What time they would have had had now run out, and Maria licked her lips frustratingly as Carol let her down gently.“Guess our time just ran out,” Carol sighed back, her lips wet and still begging for more of Maria. She’d been so much bolder this time, wanting to handle Maria herself, unlike any other time. Rambeau could tell that Carol was stronger, more dominantly-inclined now.Rambeau kissed her gently, one more lingering kiss before it would be back to don’t ask don’t tell. The whole idea of that now riddled Maria’s body with annoyance. Her house was filled with aliens, she was playing host to an agent of a government body she’d never heard of, that didn’t exist, and her best friend and lover had returned from the dead. And still it would be don’t ask, don’t tell. Would that ever change?“We’ll get our time, baby. I promise,” Maria reassured her before they both smiled and kissed again.
***
They barged into Maria’s room laughing and could not keep their hands off of each other. A day later, after all, that had happened in Mar-Vell’s Laboratory, back on Earth. Carol had kicked the shit out of Star Force, had beaten all of them, and even the Accusers, making even Ronan retreat at the sight of her abilities. She was free of them at last, of all Kree, and as she’d told Yon-Rogg, she’d be back on Hala to end it. But for now, as Maria kicked the door shut and locked it with her hands behind her back when Carol pushed her back against the wood, they were finally alone, and they had time. Finally, they had time.“You are one badass woman, Carol Danvers,” Maria had to say; reaching forward after the click of the door told her it was locked. Don’t ask, don’t tell. She lurched forward and practically ripped the shoulder pads of the Kree armour Carol was still wearing.The blonde leered and breathed, her hands turning a sunburnt orange through her fingerless gloves. She wasn’t angry, but her desire burned within her, and her powers would never harm Maria. Softly, as she pressed herself to Rambeau, as her hair all stood on end and flawed away from her like no gravity was acting upon it, Carol began to glow again like the sun. She was a heavenly body, a star in a red, blue and gold space suit. Maria had to chuckle into the kiss as she felt the heat between them.Maria had her hands all over Carol, tugging at the areas of the suit as she found them and shedding the layers that made it. The belt fell, the boots came off when Carol kicked them against the door, the sleeves and gloves as Maria pulled at them. She pulled at the breastplate until Carol was standing in the strapless bra and shorts that were Kree by design. Then, as Carol smiled, she knew it was her turn to undress Maria as they continued to hold each other close.“Do you still have it?” Carol asked, smiling and so obviously referring to the instrument in the second draw. She leered at Maria, gently curling the edge of her finger around at Rambeau’s jawline and looking at her with hungry eyes.“Higher,” Maria began, smiling a toothy grin as she wrapped arms around Carol’s shoulders and neck again, wanting to relinquish all control to the blonde superhero.Carol smiled back and they said the rest together. “Further, Faster!”They hit the bed, ruffling the sheets and Maria tossing them all to the floor as Carol ransacked her draw, pulling the harness out and stepping into it as if she’d never forgotten how to use. She knew the drill as if she’d been on Earth for every moment of her life and smiled the whole time as Maria tossed her clothing off layer after layer. She left on the black lacy panties and lay on her side, ready for Carol to look with body bare and the rainbow-coloured member protruding from the hole in the harness. She looked comical, and Maria had to laugh.“What? I think I look pretty hot, y’know?” Carol joked, standing with her hands on her hips and wearing the cock with pride as Maria laughed more and kneaded at her exposed chest in a flirting way.“Why don’t you stop grandstanding and how Momma Rambeau what she’s been missing while y’all been out there wit’cha Star Force, huh, baby?” Maria requested, rubbing her legs together and turning, offering Carol her feet and limbs like trophies.Carol gasped dramatically and smiled, crawling onto the bed. “Yes, ma’am. I wouldn’t wanna disappoint a superior officer, now would I?” She flirted, and slipped on the sheet of the mattress, whacking her hand on the drawers again and activating the record player once again. This time it wasn’t Blue Oyster Cult.
'Baby! Love really hurts without you! And love really hurts without you! It’s breaking my heart! What can I do? Baby!'
“Billy Ocean?”Carol asked as the beautiful thump of the bass and surrounding band flooded the room with gravitas and bravado that made her body sing to her with glee. It only made her grinning and slightly goofy smile intensify with loving adoration.“Don’t knock him, baby, just get over here,” Maria egged her lover on, reaching to grab Carol’s cheeks as the blonde brought her hands to the hem of her lacy panties and rolled them over her rear. They smiled and continued to kiss as the underwear fell down her beautiful legs. Billy Ocean serenaded them as Carol’s strong hands gently came to Maria’s strong thighs and parted her legs.Maria’s breath hitched a little, her heart pounding her chest as her arms gravitated to Carol’s body, sliding down her waist and then coming up her back, nails clawing at the iron-like flesh and feeling the beautiful heat. Carol’s eyes closed as she kissed Maria closely still, her lips moving to nip at her neck and her jaw, then diving down to her upper bust, between her beautiful breasts as her hand snaked down Maria’s glorious body and between her thighs. She fingered the gentle sex and unknotted the swatch of wetness that had already built up. With Carol’s lips gently kissing and taking little bites out of Maria’s splendid breasts, her fingers penetrating and curling up, to find the spot she knew would earn soft and gracious moans from Rambeau. More of Billy Ocean served as their backdrop, and Maria rocked her body a little to the music, blocking the rest of the world out, blocking the Skrulls and Fury, only Carol was real to her now, feeling her so close, the heat within her rising so incredibly.“Carol...” Maria moaned, pulling those caramel eyes back to her look at her intently.There were no more words, all that came from Maria were gentle and whispering moans as Carol pleasured her more, her fingers somehow more expert than when she had left Earth. Had there been experiences with other women? Was it different on Hala? It must have been. Maybe Carol and the Kree Sniper Min-Erva had exchanged something like this. Maybe she’d taught Carol a thing or two while she was off being a Kree weapon of a woman.Maria didn’t care, not at all; she couldn’t as Carol’s fingers touched her right where they were wanting to. The incredible explosion of ecstasy passed through Maria like a shockwave, an earthquake that rattled her to her core. She wrapped herself around Carol like a coil, arms and legs snaking around her shoulders and waist. Maria was helpless to control herself as she sank her nails into the blonde’s chiselled back, digging deep and earning a strained groan.Carol took her hand back and immediately positioned the cock, pressing the faux head to Maria’s entrance and holding her, powerfully gripping the Captain’s thigh like a handle.“I remember...” Carol whispered, still gripping onto Maria’s leg as Rambeau was panting softly as she held on.She unshackled herself and swallowed to bring some wetness to her otherwise dry mouth. “Remember what, baby? What’s wrong?” Maria asked, kissing Carol’s cheek and gently rocking her hips forward and back, wanting to drop herself onto Carol’s toy more than anything, needing her inside of her now, wanting them to be close again.Carol held Maria’s neck like a trophy, kneading the muscle of her thigh and hinting to pull her onto the shaft. “I remember... How much I love you, Maria Rambeau. I love you more than anything in the world... And I always will. No matter what, I will always love you,” Carol confessed, her breath a promise and her words an oath as she brought Maria in for another heavy and passionate kiss, more gravity in her lips and the kiss than ever. Maria melted into her arms, into the kiss, never wanting it to end. When Carol pulled on her thigh, pulling her closer, Maria moved with her. She came down onto the toy and her body shuddered with nerves and an explosion of euphoria. It was beautiful.Her hands came back to Carol’s back, dragging her nails down and marking the powerful hero as the heat within her began to rise even more. Before Maria could tell, before she could move her body anymore as Carol began to thrust slowly, Maria saw her eyes turn a brilliant and bright golden. Once again, Carol was glowing, exhuming power and looking like a solar giant. She felt incredible though. Maria rocked forward and back to meet her, while Carol gently dropped Maria to the bed again, gripping her wrists and putting them apart and pinning them to the bed. She held Maria strongly, holding her down and then pulling her legs up. Maria’s expression and now open mouth only told Carol to take her; she wanted to be in her arms, finally like this.The powerful blonde dragged her lips back down to Maria’s breasts, gently nipping around her nipples and holding her leg up, finding a groove and a rhythm that Maria loved. Her response was only a series of husky and rasped moans. Her voice was strained, her moans loud before long, drowned out still by the sound of Billy Ocean and the 70s. “Carol!” Maria began to cry out as she felt her.Carol brushed back Maria’s hair, still pressing her hips forward and back, seeing all of her lover’s beautiful face in her glowing golden eyes. She was so powerful, so beautiful, like a comet, an angel, a force of supreme nature. Maria was melting for her second after second.“I love you, Carol... Shit, I love you so much...” She moaned as she felt her body tensing and edging closer with each moment.“I’ll never allow myself to forget you, Maria... I’ll love you forever...”Maria felt her body buckling and her core detonated into orgasm, her walls clutching the shaft of the instrument tightly as she wrapped her arms around Carol instantly, the blonde letting her break from her grasp as she held Maria in her arms, feeling the intense heat from her too. Between the two of them, they were an inferno, erupting into systemic pleasure as Maria cried her eroticism and incredible feeling into Carol’s shoulder. Photons surrounded them, Carol’s power arcing all over her body and enveloping them in a beautiful field of sparks and energy. She held Maria in her arms as her lover rode out her orgasm splendidly, never feeling closer to her before.When all was done, the rested, the harness and cock washed and back into the drawer. They both settled Monica into bed in her own room as Talos and the Skrulls all elected to rest in the Quadjet. Fury said he’d be returning to LA that night and drove away. Carol made her bargain that she would help the Skrulls across the stars, but for now, she wanted her night with Maria.They fell asleep sure enough, after talking, laughing, listening to music quietly once more – Elton John this time. Maria was the big spoon, she demanded, and Carol slept lightly. She didn’t want to leave but knew she had a duty to the Talos and his people, she had to help and save them – and then she had to return to Hala and end the war. But she didn’t want to leave; she’d have to come back.As the thoughts of the future swirled in her head, Carol heard the door open.“Mom?” It was Monica, holding her blanket and reaching out for Maria, or for Carol. Carol remembered a scene like this.“What’s wrong, baby?” Carol replied, Maria still so soundly awake and cuddling her blonde lover from behind.“I had a bad dream, Auntie Carol...”Carol smiled, tears gently forming in her eyes as she opened up the blanket and Maria began to stir behind her. She was about to speak before Carol did.“Well... Climb on in... Lieutenant Trouble...”She would go back to Hala, to fight the Supreme Intelligence, so that the Kree one day wouldn’t turn their attention to Earth and Humanity. She’d go to make sure Monica and Maria were always protected. And she’d be back to see them. They were her family, and she loved them both more than anything else.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

By the time Carol looked at the Earth again, another six years had passed and she felt them weighing on her shoulders as she looked at the world from space above. Talos was with his people, somewhere across the cosmos and now Carol was getting ready to turn her attention to Hala once again. Yon-Rogg would be there, and the Supreme Intelligence was expecting her, just how she wanted it. Her power coursed through her like euphoric substance and she could feel it making her so powerful.

Carol looked at her opened palm through the visor slits in her armour’s helmet. Her photon energy dared to burn as brightly as a binary star system when she wanted it to but right now it was like an intense lamplight in the palm of her hand. She was capable of destroying an entire starship like it was made of butter, she could rip through the heart of a planet if she tried, and she could take on theoretically any being in the universe. But when she was tired, when luck wasn’t on her side, she knew she was vulnerable. And in a position like this, she felt more vulnerable than ever.

“What are you waiting for then?” Talos asked her over the commune system in her ear. He was still in the Kree Cruiser, just beyond the range of Earth and keeping the stealth drive operational. It had been the turn of the millennium down on Earth, and both knew that S.H.I.E.L.D would be able to look for much more sophisticated ships on Earth’s boundaries after their little adventure in the nineties.

She looked down on her homeworld and sighed a little, thinking of why she’d come back after six years again. Carol was more than nervous as she saw the US spinning slowly directly beneath her.

“It’s been a long time...” She told Talos, holding much of her breath and her suit reading her mind. The helmet came away and her hair floated in the zero gravity as if she was suspended underwater. The vacuum of space was her upthrust.

“Six years isn’t that long Carol,” the Skrull Captain responded from the cruiser a little further from Earth and in orbit. He was her only companion now, with the ship to house her when she ran out of energy to keep up her powerful form enough to traverse space on her own.

Carol laughed, chuckled even as she floated, suspended utterly in the bath that was the cosmos. She could almost smell Earth if it even had a distinct scent. “It is to a human, Talos. And what are they gonna say? I haven’t aged at all since we left...”

“Really? You might want to check in the mirror then, Carol...”

“Hey, easy there, I can still turn around and head over there,” she joked, smiling at his comment and looking right down to Louisiana with dark and dreaded eyes. But she wanted to see them so badly, her family, her lover. “What if they’ve moved on...? What if Maria’s found someone else? For Monica? It’s been a while,” she repeated, her mind playing tricks on her as she pictured Maria and Monica the way she left them. That final night, making love to Maria, then Monica coming into the bedroom after a nightmare, it all had remained on her mind for six more years, and now she was back, but couldn’t take the plunge back to the house.

Talos was still in her ear. “Carol... She’d never do that to you, or to Monica. That little girl loves you more than you know,” he reassured her.

“How do you know, Talos?”

“Because I know that look from a child. Monica and Maria will be down there, and they’ll see you and it’ll be like you never left. Go on, get down there,” he willed her on from the ship, her silent shoulder angel as she looked down on her old home.

Without another word, with the small and suave smile on her lips, Carol blazed down through the atmosphere with one destination in mind. She flexed her mental faculties and her power warped around her like a parabolic arc. She became an excretion disk, her own solar body with more power surrounding her and bathing her in a sun-like aura than any being around Earth could challenge – at least they couldn’t the last time she was here. She smiled as the Kree helmet formed around her, no mouthpiece ever forming because she didn’t need it. Even after twelve years of gaining this power, she still had no idea how she was able to breathe in space or fly with little effort at all. She and Talos had fathomed that her power came from the Tesseract, with power even truly unfathomable now, but neither knew how her own power could be this virtually limitless.

She trailblazed down to the States, to Louisiana and to the house she’d known for years, painted a beautiful white and in the middle of the bayou-like thicket of beautiful willows and only mildly swampy waters. She saw the plane in the wide-open garage and a Jeep not parked right outside the main house. Carol landed with little noise and strode equally quietly to the front door. She knocked and ended up letting herself in after no answer came.

When inside, Carol heard the sound of shower water running in the backroom. Maria had always kept the main bathroom on the ground floor, a design choice that still baffled but made Carol smile.

“Maria?!” Carol cried out, hoping she’d hear her, but no response came from Rambeau in the shower. She looked around the entrance hall, seeing the difference of the turning of the millennium, but not how she would have expected it. Most of the photographs that had depicted the Captain and her daughter now featured a third member to almost all of the framed moments. Carol saw the photographs Monica had shown her to jog her memory before, and now they were framed and put up to show the three of them all as a family. She noticed the one of Christmas, all three of the girls in their pyjamas with presents unwrapping. She smiled when she saw the Halloween picture of herself and Monica as Janice Joplin and Amelia Earnhardt respectively. There were a few of Maria and Monica separately – Monica had changed more so than her mother. Carol realised she would be a teenager now, in high school and fawning over boys and dreaming of what she’d be when she graduated. Maria had developed some beautiful wrinkles to her angelic skin, but Monica had formed wonderfully into a beautiful young woman. Her teeth were straighter and whiter, her eyes beautiful abysses, and her nose no longer wide and bulbous. Her smile was wonderful, her jawline alluring. Carol dared to feel proud of her Lieutenant Trouble but felt sad that she hadn’t been able to see the girl grow into the one she was looking at documented in the photographs.

As Carol observed the last row of photographs, seeing Maria and Monica in t-shirts that perfectly replicated the pattern of red, blue and gold with the Star Force star on their chests, she noticed the water had stopped.

Carol turned to the archway leading to the kitchen and saw Maria in a towel, still dripping and jaw slack. There she was, staring at Carol, and the hero could not help but grow her cocky and coy grin, the one she knew Rambeau simply loved and could never say no to. She saw the faintness of a smile growing on Maria’s face too, from her mouth agape and in her eyes she saw the excitement, ready to explode.

“Here there, Photon. Permission to come aboard, Captain?” Carol joked, hands out and ready. The table was no longer in the middle of the entrance hall now, and nothing was stopping Maria.

She ran to Carol, running so hard her towel came away and forced a massive laugh from the alien suit-clad heroine as Maria leapt into her arms and wrapped her legs around her waist. Maria was on her like a spider monkey so hard she was going to squeeze Carol until she popped. They were both cackling at the display as Carol stumbled back with the cumbersome woman attached to her, fully naked and still dripping wet from her shower. Carol kicked the door shut with her leg and held Maria up in her strong grasp, both still laughing as Carol heaved.

“Oh, permission is definitely granted, Avenger,” Maria flirted, forcing her lips onto Carol’s.

Six years later, and Maria looked almost exactly the same as when Carol left her and the heroine not ageing a single day (or so she thought). Her powers sustained her better than any being had been suspended. Her body had barely aged at all. Carol eyed her in a suspended moment, lasting a lifetime as she smiled at Rambeau, all the years of missing her bare on her bust like her heart, beating with a swollen lump of longing and love evermore.

They kissed again, in almost natural slow motion as time warped and arced around them like a corona. Carol fell back inside of herself, years of travelling in space disappearing and feeling like she had never left Maria and the lonely house. She didn’t want to leave again, knowing she had to; she had to go back to Hala before long. But for now, she was holding Maria and walking her into the living room as Maria’s hands wrapped back around her collarbone, ripping off the shoulder plates that had worn completely to exposed gold. The only thing about Carol that had changed was the length of her hair – after Maria had ripped off her shoulder plates and the armour of her biceps, she game to Carol’s elongated golden curls and tugged at them, pulling Carol’s head back and exposing her neck. Carol laughed and moaned euphorically as the tone of their reunion snapped into something she’d been longing for six more years. Maria’s teeth came to her neck and she bit
down into hardened and warm flesh, marking Carol as she had never done before. They were both dominant, both willing to mark and brand and rut the other, as time had told, but Maria seemed to exhume a more needy demeanour than before.

Carol loved it. It made her salivate.

She set Maria down on the brown and plush leather sofa, her body only gently wet and now mostly dry from Carol’s natural solar heat. She dried her and leaned over her, Maria clawing at her suit as if to silently order her a simple ‘off’. Carol obliged, shedding the layers of her suit until she was presenting in the underlayers of the Kree getup. And then Maria told her again, audibly this time.

“Off, Danvers. Get it off...”

It came off, slowly and with a little tease. The sentiments of their reunion would come, and both were saying such lovely things to each other in their minds. When Carol joined her in nudity, Maria lifted herself up off of the sofa again, only to pull the naked hero down to her again, lips colliding and hands gripping Carol’s back, almost clawing at her flesh with nails dragging as they kissed passionately. Maria had waited years for this – to feel Carol’s naked body against her own once again, feeling their hearts connected again, sharing the room with her, sharing the air, sharing herself. To Carol’s own relief, Maria had not moved away from her, had not found someone else. She was only interested in Carol, for now, and evermore.

“Wait,” Carol gasped, pulling her lips away from Maria, but Rambeau did not let up, she maintained her kissing barrage as she pecked her lover with eager lips. “Wait, wait, wait, where’s Monica?” Carol was asking, her voice meek and trembling, she was even gently kissing back, letting herself down to cuddle and make out with her lover all the more.

Maria was shaking her head. “She’s in school baby, it’s okay, she’s in school... She’s fifteen after all,” she was reassuring Carol, begging for more kisses, her hand coming to grace the inside of Carol’s thigh.

They continued to make out, passionately and heatedly. Maria’s fingers came between Carol’s legs, gently stroking her slick and wet sex, softly rubbing her slit and finding her budding pearl, knowing it was begging for attention. Carol shuddered in her hands, her clitoris bulging and coming out of its hood. Carol gasped and moaned rather audibly into Maria’s loving kisses. She was growing warmer and warmer as her eyes began to glow a little. Even six years on and she couldn’t control herself and her power when Maria touched her intimately.

“Wow, wow, wow, what time is it? When is she home?” Carol asked, with Maria’s hand still cupping her vagina. Rambeau smiled at her.

“Relax, baby. It’s not even noon. We got time... We got time, baby...”

Carol remembered the last time Maria had told her they had time. A beautiful smile formed across her face with a thankful and solemn look in her passive and caramel eyes. Nothing had changed, no matter the years. Maria would never change.

She snaked down Maria’s perfect and statuesque body like water, kissing her collar and then planting more as she lowered her way down. Carol kissed her upper bust, cupped her incredible breasts and kissed both of Maria’s nipples, biting on them teasingly and earning a sharp jolt and accompanying moans before moving down to her slightly tense and muscular abdomen, her beautiful navel and then down to her mound. Carol kissed her lover’s labia lovingly, again and again, little and light pecks that let her lips linger as if mouthing on a gummy candy. Maria’s body moved fluidly, her breath becoming husky and muddled with steam from her person before Danvers peered open her petals and began to lick out the succulent wetness like hidden honey. It was exquisite to Maria, her mind leaving her body and becoming a third party, viewing the hot scene from the ceiling as her back arched and her chest heaved up and down. Huffed air filled her lungs from shocked and euphoric gasps, heaving inhalations that came out in the form of luscious and lucid moans with Carol’s head rooted between her lavish thighs. Maria wanted to press them around her lover, her finger snaking and threading through the golden hair and tugging upon it with a ravenous need. Carol made her react so virulently, visceral pulling on her hair as the plump thighs closed around her, but Carol held Rambeau’s legs like dumbbell bars, her tongue dipping to lick her lover’s sex out with a determined passion. Her muscle entered Maria’s entrance to feel the soaked heat like the insides of a magma fissure on a distant world, swirling in the thick wetness and ingesting it lovingly. She felt Maria’s inner walls and their grooves, tickling them with the tip of her tongue and her hand snaking up to grip and cup at a breast, feeling Maria’s chest rise and fall rapidly. The pace was ecstasy, the taste her own addictive, and Carol felt her lips curl around the edges of Maria’s labia as she felt herself smiling at her job. She even felt her own heat rising, her body a solar body beginning to swell and turn into a pulsar with regular beats. Maria’s body reacted further, edging closer and closer as her chest oscillated faster as Carol held her breast, flicking the peaked nipple and pinching her in her hand. She could feel Maria’s own hand come over her own and noticed (as she looked up, still licking her way between her lover’s lower lips with all passionate delight) Maria massaging the accompanying breast, groping herself and looking like a dream.

Danvers took the hand on her lover’s chest back and immediately gripped the thighs clasped around her head with both, only to move the other between her own thighs. Eating Maria out like this, the heat shared between them, made Carol only more and more pent up. She needed relief herself and took a hand to her own soaked sex between her thighs.

Maria looked down, peering around her parted and crossed legs as she felt gentle mewing into her sex from Carol. She saw the hand buried between the blonde’s own labia, rapidly filling herself with two desperate fingers. Every cylinder of Maria’s engine burst with an incredible fetish.

Holy shit, she’s touching herself...

She found herself recoiling, her body maxing out and her nerves firing with lust and euphoria so potent it made her eyes turn to hearts in her body. She felt not herself, not even inside of herself. Seeing Carol licking her way up and down, in and out of her own sex, soaking her with saliva and her own wetness, while fingering her own pussy was pleasure, with a determined need to orgasm herself, it made Maria become aflame with ecstasy and gentle kink, one she loved so addictively it killed her. Carol was her own drug, one she had not had in so long the effects were plain as day on her body as she began to sweat from the pleasure. Continuing to moan, Maria arched her back and felt her muscles straining. Her arms and legs were growing limp and her vagina was white hot from the rawing of Carol’s intrepid tongue. She wished she was between Carol’s legs; either finger-fucking her to within an inch of her superhuman life or eating her out as wondrously as this. But Maria felt her body growing weary with sexual exhaustion.

With Carol taking her clitoris in her mouth, cautiously and softly nipping at it with her teeth and flicking the bulbous pearl with the tip of her tongue, Rambeau broke. Her resolve shattered and she felt a release deep within her.

Orgasm flew through her, and as she screamed in ecstasy, Carol herself forced one from within her, wanting to come together. “Fuck... I’m coming!” Maria cried and Carol brought her hand from the thigh to Rambeau’s clitoris, flicking it rapidly as she fucked herself with a desperate hand.

They rode it out together, in such a heated display that Carol’s eyes were a blinding light under her eyelids. It was fast, visceral and incredible, like pure fire and powerful eruption within them. The aftershocks made them limp and trembling as they cuddled up together on the sofa, so tired and bodies fatigued they couldn’t move from the room. Carol pulled the blanket from behind the sofa to cover them and they were suspended in looking at each other.

After a moment’s silence, they laughed a little.

“Six years, huh?” Carol joked, her smile so wide.

Maria jerked up. “Girl you could have told me you was coming back! Give a woman some notice while she’s in the shower!” Rambeau was joking, smiling wider and her teeth grinning. Carol was cackling like a tickled child as she held her lover’s hand.

Their fingers were interlaced. “You waited for me...”

“Like hell I wasn’t gonna, Carol,” Maria told her starkly, without a hint of regret or any other possibility for her life in her words. “It could have been one year, six years or forty years. You could have been doing your space thing and never have come back to me and I would have waited for you forever, baby,” she promised, holding the blonde’s hand and kissing it gently.

Carol was speechless, tears only barely holding back in her eyes as she leaned forward and kissed Maria again. “I had to come back...”

The door opened rather abruptly. “Mom, I’m home!” Monica called inside; her voice deeper than the last time Carol had seen her. “Mom?”

“We’re in here, baby girl. Don’t come in, you don’t wanna see this!”

“We? Mom?” Monica called again, peering her head in through the archway and seeing the mix of black and white flesh and blonde and black hair under the brown blanket. “Auntie Carol!” Monica screamed, almost coming into the living room as the blonde pulled the blanket over her chest completely.

Maria lurched but kept the blanket. “No, no! Monica no! Baby!”

“Ew! Mom! Oh my god, Mom! What the hell!? Mom!”

Carol burst out with laughter as Monica shielded her eyes and retreated out of the living room before she was scarred. She knew her mother and Auntie Carol were close, were closer than close could be, but had never walked in on something like this as a child (fortunately). Maria was trying to pull something to cover her so she could leave Carol.

“Hey, Lieutenant Trouble!” Carol called out as the mother and daughter began to shout and scream horrifically, Maria trying to calm her teenager down.

“Mom! Get some clothes on! Mom! Hey Auntie Carol! Mom! Clothes, now!” Monica continued to berate, Carol continuing to chuckle.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Carol trudged onto the bridge with a pounding her head and something worse than dread running all over her body. It had called out to her, from across the galaxy when it’d been destroyed and now Carol was overrun with a deep and terrifying dread that she wanted to be sick.

“Talos. Set a course for Earth, right now,” she barked at him, her eyes flickering from golden to normal rapidly like a strobe. She couldn’t control it and felt so sick now. The warbling vibrations across the stars screamed at her.

“Carol, what’s wrong?” The Skrull Commander asked, seeing her worse than she could see herself. As she looked at her hands, the photons around her flickered worse so than her eyes but glowed an icy blue that made her all the more fearful of what was happening. It had been destroyed, she knew it, it was telling her across the cosmos that something terrible was happening and something even worse about to happen from what had just transpired.

She looked in the reflection of the bridge window pane and saw the sickly blue tint in her flesh. What was happening to her?

Talos called her name again, and she began to feel a deadly sick. “Carol?” He asked and she flipped as the pulses grew worse in her head. As she felt the stone touch the inlet in his gauntlet, Carol’s powers pulsed a deeper blue, sapphire flame bursting from her hands and consuming her without her own free will. It was so painful to her Carol thought for sure her skin would melt off of her. She screamed out of fear and agony on the bridge before it ended and she fell to her knees, dithering an incredible cold. Every feeling of pain raped her body so suddenly and she felt the sickness coming. Talos leaned over her, deathly afraid and concerned for his friend. “Carol! What’s happening?” He begged her.

She spewed onto the panel flooring, throwing her guts up almost as she forced the repulsion out of her. Her sickness was a rancid green a turquoise, certainly not Human nor Kree, or even Skrull.

“Earth, right now Talos. I need to get to Fury!” She barked at him.

The Skrull forced back, recoiling and afraid. “What’s happening, damn it!” He shouted back. Seeing his close friend like this was horrifying enough, but not knowing at all what was causing it was striking him with tranquilising fear.

“Carol, tell me what’s happening!” Talos implored her all the more, helping her up onto her haunches and helping her remain on her feet. She looked viscerally sick, ill even as if infected with some alien disease. She stumbled over to the seat near the commander’s chair.

She gurgled a little, struggling.
“The Tesseract,” she slurred. “It’s been destroyed, Talos. I can feel it. Some... Titan, smashing it into a thousand pieces and taking the power source that lay within...” She confessed, struggling now to even stay awake as he set her into the chair next to his own.

Talos sat into the captain’s chair and began to set the course. “I thought the Tesseract itself was a power source... What the hell could lie within?” He asked, checking on her as she continued to maintain herself, her photons glowing a glacial blue.

Danvers gurgled as if she was going to be sick all over again, heaving forward in the chair and feeling the pounding in her head. “Inside the Tesseract... An Infinity Stone, the Space Stone... He has it now and the Power Stone from...” She paused as the Stone echoed across the cosmos to tell her all of this silently, her connection formed through space itself. “Xandar. And now he wants the rest of them. Talos how long until we can get to Earth?” She barked, slamming her glowing fist onto the dashboard and almost melting it.

“The nearest jump point is twenty hours away, Carol,” Talos reported glumly after checking the readings.

Her head pounded again. “Then set the damn course! I need to get to Fury. If the Titan has the Space Stone, he’s on Earth!”

“Coordinates set, and what are you going to do?” The Skrull asked as the cruiser began to drift forward at sublight speeds.

Carol set herself back in the chair and held her gut and sides in her Kree suit, worn away even more since the last time she returned to Earth. Her hair was even longer now, drifting down her back. She settled and tried to stomach the sickness the Space Stone was inflicting within her. “I’m gonna try not to throw my guts up for twenty hours. And figure out what the hell is going on...”

***

As soon as they were within view of the planet, both Carol and Talos noticed the ship centred above Africa. It was a ring shape, with more, smaller projectiles coming back up from the surface to meet it. It was not particularly big, but the design was so peculiar it made Talos shiver with dread.

“Hang on, I know that ship...” Talos mused as Carol got up from her chair. She felt better, the callings of the Space Stone ceasing for the moment as the hours rolled on. Talos looked as if he had seen a ghost. “Who did you say had the Tesseract?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

“A... Titan...”

Talos swallowed hard, a stone in his throat and a worse dread in the back of his mind eating at his resolve. He knew who owned those ships, who owned those aboard them. And if they were here, there was only one thing following them if he was not here already.

“The Mad Titan, Carol...” Talos told her, mesmerised by the ring-shaped ship in orbit. “Thanos...”

Carol turned to look at her friend, and her expression turned from apprehension and hardiness to utter ruin as she saw him. He was cracking, splintering all over his body and his clothes. His face looked like cracked terracotta, about to crumble to a pile of stone chiselled by something she didn’t know. “Talos?” She asked, no idea what was happening to him but she felt a sudden surge of agony wrenching through her entire body. Something had happened, something terrible and it was happening to Talos right before her eyes.

He looked back at her and at his hand, seeing the crumbling of his green person. “Carol..?”

She was helpless as suddenly Talos’ entire body turned to dust, fading away into tiny particles of which he used to be and gathering on the floor with a wave of air wafting him. Talos was gone, completely, and Carol was alone.

The Space Stone vexed her mind again with another pulse of pure agony. Talos was dust. What was happening? Carol felt it all throughout her body, in one singular pulse of feeling. Then she felt it all across the world, and all across the universe. It was as if this Thanos, the Mad Titan spoke to her from hours previously.

When I’m done, half of Humanity will still be alive... I hope they remember you...

Her power coursed through her like nothing she had ever attempted before, blazing all around her and destroying most of the bridge with her like a volcanic eruption. Half of Humanity... No, she knew it was bigger. It was half of all life in the universe. She entered so close to her peak power level it almost hurt her as the Space Stone had – with a powerful blast of energy, she broke through the front of the bridge and shot herself down to the surface of the planet as fast as she could. Not to Los Angeles, or New York, not to Fury. Now she couldn’t give a damn about Fury.

She needed to get to Louisiana as fast as she could. She needed to get to Maria and Monica.

Carol didn’t even stop shooting photon energy out of her feet before she hit the surface and crashed with a mighty bang right before the tree line of the road before the house. Within seconds she was on her feet and sprinting to the front door of Maria’s house as fast as her legs could carry her but still, it wasn’t fast enough. A quick blast from her fists sent her faster across the road and landing into a tumble before the steps. She broke the roll and flopped over herself as if she’d been punted, landing on all fours before the opened doorway where the woman stood in a white shirt and with hair like the teenaged Monica Rambeau.

Before her were the remnants of a falling pillar of dust like the one Talos had been reduced to.

“Auntie Carol?” The woman asked. It was Monica, now in her thirties, which meant the dust pile next to her... Carol was already sobbing as she looked at Monica. Carol still hadn’t aged by much, but Monica was now thirty-two and tears were streaming down her face. “Auntie Carol...”

Carol tried not to explode into another blast of photon energy as she looked at Monica. “Lieutenant Trouble?” She asked, checking, and Monica nodded. Carol’s heart snapped once as she looked at the pile of dust right next to the woman, and then she felt another breaking of it as she looked back to Monica.

There were cracks all over her body.

“Monica?” Carol asked, refusing to believe it. She couldn’t. No. Not Monica too. Talos, Maria, Monica. Carol even saw Goose sneaking behind Monica. “Monica!” Carol screamed, tears rolling torrents down her face as she began to instinctively burn a blazing and incredible gold.

“Auntie Carol, what’s happening?” Monica asked, and her body broke along with Carol’s heart.

The woman who had been the little girl Carol loved as if she had been her daughter faded into another pile of dust before Carol, floating and falling to the ground with the remnants of Maria Rambeau. Both mother and daughter, the only two people in the whole universe Carol loved, reduced to dust in an instant. Goose behind them piles mewed a warning meow, and Carol looked at him through streaming tears.

“Oh, Goose... No...” Carol whimpered, knowing what was happening to him too.

Goose faded away into dust, and Carol was left entirely and utterly alone. Alone, devastated and angrier than anyone in the universe ever could be.

Fun isn’t something one considers when balancing the universe... But this does put a smile on my face...

Carol erupted, going as close to a supernova as her body knew how blasting the entire house away and everything in it and reducing it to complete ash. Nothing was left, only a crater as she burned like a sun, weeping and holding herself, crying among the remains her family. She was too late, she didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know what this Thanos was after, or whatever he was trying to do. She knew now – whispers from the Space Stone had told her – Half of all life in the universe. Talos, Maria, Monica and Goose had all been in the half that was to be murdered, in cold blood, for a reason Carol refused to give time to. This wasn’t ethical, it wasn’t genius, wasn’t mercy to the half that lived. This was murder, passionate and egomaniacal, she knew this.

After what felt like an age, Carol finally got to her feet, tears still streaming out of golden eyes, her hair a bright and solar flame levitating away from her head. She was going to find him, Thanos, and she was going to kill him. As passionately as he had killed her family, she would passionately kill him to avenge them.

She was ‘Avenger’.

Fury was in New York. She checked the device on her wrist and began to scan when she felt the buzzing, the beeping from it. Fury’s pager, coming from just away from the city itself. That’s where she was going, lifting off like a rocket. She was a fusion engine.

She almost phased through the building within hours, passing through the corridors to exactly where the pager’s signal was coming from when she saw them. Four of them huddled around it in a chamber – A blonde woman, a rugged man with a full beard, a dark-skinned man in a grey shirt with advanced splints around his legs, and another rugged man in a purplish shirt.

“Well whatever it is, it meant a lot to Fury...” The blonde woman was saying to the rest of them. When she turned around she wasn’t startled by Carol’s presence. Carol didn’t know what she was expecting, nor what she should say.

The words passed through her lips instinctively.

“Where’s Fury?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Carol sat silently on the bridge of the cruiser just... waiting. Something was in the air, in her body and coursing throughout the universe. She knew it would only be a matter of time as the ship sailed as fast as it could to Earth. Once again she was speeding to the planet of her birth, this time it would be different than it had been five years ago, however.

As soon as she felt it, she’d be in space and going binary. She could handle it better now, knew how to better channel the power the Space Stone had granted her, and she knew that when the time came, she’d see them again – her family.

“What are you expecting to find when we reach the C-37?” Came over the intercom from a below deck. Carol cracked the joints in her neck and gently seethed. If it were not for the desperate state the universe was in, she’d never have gone looking for him. But she was one woman and had confessed to Romanoff that she had a lot of territories to cover.

Yon-Rogg was the only person that could help her in a universe like this. She couldn’t wait for him to be off of the ship.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she told him flatly as she stood, beginning to pace around the bridge.

“You want me to come up there Vers?” He asked. He’d never corrected himself, not ever in the five years she’d used him to look after Kree and Nova space. Not that there were many of either side left in the universe.

Just a few more minutes

. She thought to herself, if Stark was right and if Rogers’ transmission wasn’t the last trace of the Avengers she’d ever hear or see. Carol hoped that Nebula and Romanoff were both okay, Rhodes too, she needed them all to be alright and for their plan to succeed. She found herself giving into the hope that had been void from her system for five miserable years.

She opened her fist to the crumpled photograph of the three of them – Monica, Maria and herself.

“Her name’s Carol, Rogg, and you get your ass to the engine room; let’s see if we can’t shave off a couple of minutes from this trip. The Avengers could be in a bind,” another voice came over the intercom to correct Yon-Rogg, a younger masculine tone.

Carol couldn’t help but chuckle at the younger boy’s voice. “You tell him Rider. Any time you can shave off, do it.”

“That still doesn’t explain what you’re expecting,” Rogg protested.

“Look, I don’t know what I’m expecting. But there’s no way the universe is gonna sit tight while Earth’s heroes try to pull this off. Just get us to Earth damn it,” she spat on the bridge, holding the crumpled photograph of her ladies to her chest. Stark had to succeed, they all had to – there was no way what they’d did to Thanos was going to be the end of it, it couldn’t be.

There was some silence as Carol closed her eyes and ran through the memory of five years ago once more. Louisiana, seeing the dust that had been Maria falling to the floor as the same began to happen to Monica, now in her thirties, and then even Goose. Fury too, everyone.

“Rogg, get your carcase down here now. I won’t ask again,” Richard Rider told his companion.

“No need to explode, Nova. I’m on my way,” Yon-Rogg relented. “Let us know the situation when we reach Earth... Carol.”

Carol herself was across the room before the intercom ceased making noise, on the floor and shaking a little as she clutched the photograph. The waiting was utterly killing her more than anything had. The years lost to the Kree, and she was using Rogg to safeguard the universe that Thanos had left after he snapped his fingers. It all felt so empty, emptier than anything ever had to her in her life. Half of creation still drew breath, and yet the half that Thanos had murdered had taken all the light with them. There was simply nothing left without them. Carol looked to the command console and remembered when it had first happened to her – she’d asked all the Avengers who they had lost and each of them had told her. Steve had lost Bucky (for a fourth time), Rhodes had lost Sam, Romanoff had lost Maximoff, Okoye had lost her King and her Princess, Stark had lost Parker, Rocket and Nebula had lost their entire family. Everyone had lost someone, and yet Carol felt as if she was one of the people alive that had lost absolutely everyone.

Talos, Maria, Monica, Goose, Fury, everyone.

She’d lost Talos in the same room she was crying in now, and it seemed to break her all the more when she looked to the captain’s chair. The dust wasn’t there anymore, she didn’t know where it was, but Talos wasn’t here anymore.

Carol bowed her head into her lap and cried into her photograph as the ship edged closer to earth, hoping that Stark and the Avengers had something.

“In all my years of knowing you, Carol Danvers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry like this...”

She looked up to see the green scales and elvish features she hadn’t seen in five years, with a long and fashionable overcoat with a fatherly look in his eyes that she had missed more than she thought she ever could.

Carol scrambled to her feet faster than if she had used her photon powers to propel herself into Talos’ arms, embracing him harder than she had done anyone in her life. “Talos!!” She screamed into his ears, progressing from weeping to sobbing into his shoulder, and he was crying too.

“Talos, you’re back, fuck, you’re back.”

“Well, I was the last time I checked...” He chuckled as they cuddled on the bridge. The moment was like a supernova, and the intercom was ablaze with beeping.

“Carol! This is Nova! We’ve got intruders in the engine room down here! We need help!” Rider was already shouting at her, Carol was laughing into Talos’ shoulder in response.

“They’re not intruders Nova!” She shouted back at him, parting from Talos as they looked at each other. His green hand was on her cheek and he was smiling like a proud father after years of seeing a child.

Carol’s eyes were glassy and her skin blotchy, more ragged than she’d looked in years.

“I have to say I’m a fan of the hair,” the Skrull laughed as he noticed her pixie cut. She looked as gay as she was. As they stood in semi-embrace, the shit juddered and reached her destination. Immediately there came a proximity alert from the command console.

“Captain Marvel! Kraglin from sensors and we got a frickin’ huge bogey in atmo ma’am!”

Talos and Carol both looked to the command console and found the shape immediately identifiable. “The Sanctuary-II...” Carol mused. “But how?!” It was impossible, but already Carol’s photon powers were already beginning to react all around her body. She was flaring up bright than a white dwarf, she became a pulsar and felt more powerful than ever. Her hair was sparkling and her flesh glowed an angelic hue of bright gold and solar blue.

“Carol?” Talos asked, confused and concerned at the state of his friend, looking like a nuclear bomb contained to the structure of the most powerful human in creation.

This only served as evidence that they’d done it. Talos, her power – the Space Stone was back in existence and Carol was reacting to the stones being used again. Everyone was back, and somehow, so was Thanos and his ship.

“Captain! Picking up radiological alarm! That ship is firing down on the planet surface ma’am!” Kraglin reported again.

“Where’s she firing on son?!” Talos asked in a barking order.

Carol didn’t need confirmation from Kraglin to know where Thanos was raining his wroth this time. It was New York, and she clicked to the rest.

They’re all back, the Stones are down there, and this is a Thanos from the past, it has to be. If he gets their stones...

“Talos!” Carol shouted in his ear.

“What?!” He shouted back as the ship seemed to panic before her.

But Carol was smiling and her powers were glowing brighter than ever before. “Hold on to something...”

***

She ripped through the Sanctuary-II with a speed and force the likes of which the world had never seen. With the memory of Monica and Maria, with the faith that they had returned too, with the zeal and muster of the Space Stone coursing through her veins, and with the holy fury to beat the never-ending shit out of the purple mess of alien that was Thanos the Mad Titan behind her fists, Carol broke through the entirety of his world ship in one clean cut. Like a surgeon she neutered the whole craft, detonating the habitation module and exploding through the wings to cripple the whole thing. And when she blasted through on to the other side, she found her work had reduced the Sanctuary-II to nothing more than a falling hunk of space metal singing into the Atlantic.

Carol sensed the gauntlet, the Stones – a young boy dressed in red hunkering down from the rain of fire and aliens encroaching on his position. She was there.

Is that a Pegasus? An actual Pegasus? Who the hell is riding it..? She’s pretty cute... And holy shit why does Rogers command the lightning with a hammer now? What did I miss?!

She landed before the boy, a spider forged into his chest and a look of bewilderment on his face at seeing her glowing self. “Hey kid, I hear ya got something for me?” She asked him, seeing the Stark Infinity Gauntlet in his arms. The battle around his position was savage and she saw the sides forged – The Avengers on one side with Captain America wielding what looked to be a stout hammer and a coterie of gods at his back, and Thanos on the other, with a horde of alien war machines what could destroy Earth three times over if he tried.

“I see now that nothing can truly balance this ungrateful universe. So once I have that gauntlet, and the stones, I’ll fashion a new one, and all those who live in it will be grateful,” the Mad Titan was saying as he and his forces formed their battle line. Captain America reached Captain Marvel and they shook hands again, Carol smiling at the hammer in his hands.

“Mjolnir?”

“Long story,” Steve was smiling. They both turned to face Thanos as he swung his dual-sword with a flashy spin.

“All it will take is the snap of my fingers... Again,” he mocked them, the five that were his children at his back.

Carol eyed him, the faces of Monica and Maria burning in her mind and the threat that he posed to them still consuming her determination. This was it, and it had to be.

“Cap, where d’you want these stones?” Carol asked him, still glaring at Thanos across the destroyed battlefield.

“There,” Steve pointed, just as Tony landed beside him in the red and Iron-Man suit, Hulk joining them, as well as Rocket and Nebula and Hawkeye. They were all there, Valkyrie, Okoye, Shuri, Hope Van Dyne, and Wanda Maximoff. Carol knew now just who made up the Avengers. Carol saw the van Steve pointed to, behind the forces of evil. “We get the stones in there and back to their realities before Thanos gets his hands on them.”

There was a beat, as Carol drew breath and shifted to see the van. “Got it,” she shouted, taking flight. Thanos eyed her back and screamed at the Avengers.

Both sides collided, and Carol held the Gauntlet in her arm and pounded the ground with a powerful thud. Thanos’ legion were sent in all directions and she broke out into the sprint, seeing Captain America finding the Mad Titan and engaging him with the hammer and the final half of his shield. Spider-Man flew in on web into the fight and Valkyrie and Thor launched into the air on a Bifrost of lighting that scorched the earth around Carol and ridding her space of aliens. She was alone again before long but closing in on the van as Antman grew into Giantman and The Wasp began clearing her a path. Photon blasts exploded from Carol’s free fist to get the aliens away from her. Three in front caught plasma blasts from Rocket’s rifle and a wild tree branch skewered a whole row before her. She leapt into the air with the Gauntlet still firmly in her arms. The van was closer and closer to her. Arrows came whizzing over her shoulders to snipe more of Thanos’ forces around her. Lightning caught them, beams of Arc Reactor energy batted them away and Carol heard the human roars from banner behind her. The van was so close she could through the Stark Gauntlet into the Quantum Tunnel and be done with it.

Just as she leapt into the air, she felt the spinning of the rogue alloy under her feet. The dual-sword span directly into the van and the tunnel collapsed, dimming into nothing but a chassis of wreckage. Carol landed in a violent shock and turned to see him walking from the tides of the battle. Suddenly there was no one around but she and he in the crater of one of his ship’s missiles and Carol still held the Gauntlet in her hands.

“The work is done, human... Now hand me the Gauntlet, and I will kill you quickly,” Thanos called to Carol, his lips even spreading a malicious smile across his grotesque face.

“I don’t think you noticed, Grimace, but I kinda wrecked your ship,” Carol taunted him, trying to cover the swift beating of her heart in her chest with gusto and bravado. In truth, she was beginning to succumb to the fear of facing the man who had killed half of the universe. The Gauntlet in her hands tempted her as she Space Stone fuelled her with power.

Thanos smiled all the more. “I admit I’m impressed. But a woman is nothing against me...”

Carol seethed as she eyed him, dropping the Gauntlet to the floor and standing ready. “My name... Is Carol.”

She launched herself at him, Thanos drawing his sword to him seemingly by magic. Carol landed into a punch across his wide face, the power of her photon energy behind the blow making it all the harder and bruising the titan as she landed. The sword came to his massive hands and he swung down upon her like a lumberjack and she a tree. Carol rolled into a dodge and kicked up at his torso, knocking him back a bit. She followed with another blast from her fists, catching his shoulder but Thanos was hardly phased. He bore his sword against her again, sweeping at her feet until she fell. Another swing came down at her but she kicked at his knee with a blast from her feet and unbalanced him before the fall. As Thanos moved to catch himself Carol caught his foot and gripped his hand, swinging around the crater and throwing him to the wreckage of the van. He collided with the metal heap in a mighty bang, his sword flying from him again. As she caught her breath for a semi-second, he was already out, his face a little bloody at the nose and lips. He saw the Gauntlet, and she did the same, seeing the real prize.

Thanos jumped from the wreck of Antman’s van to the Gauntlet.

Carol blasted herself to it as fast and as hard as she could.

Purple fingers slipped into the Stark-coloured glove and Thanos smiled as Carol landed directly before him. Her hands came to his fingers with a desperateness she had never felt before.

If he snaps his fingers...

Steve saw the scene, saw Thanos with the red and gold around his hand and Carol seemingly struggling to keep it from closing into another snap. He grimaced and swung Mjolnir against the head of Corvus Glaive before him, sending him flying across the battlefield. Tony saw it too, from above the crater, sniping Chitauri away from him as he desperately tried to reach her. They both pushed and sprinted as fast as they could to aid her but could not get there quickly enough.

Carol struggled a little against Thanos’ hand, keeping it open at any cost as he glared at her and held her hands over his own with a manic smile across his face. He was laughing as she put all of her strength into holding his massive fingers in her hands.

“I know what it’s like to lose...” Thanos taunted her, smiling as he leaned in closer to her, inches away from snapping his fingers again.

Time seemingly stopped before her, as she smelled the evil of Thanos’ breath and looking through his eyes into the grim pulp that she knew to be his soul. There was no way he could win, no way at all. Maria and Monica... She would see them again, there was no conditionally about it – Carol was not going to lose this, she would not let Thanos snap them away again. His murdering of trillions to save quadrillions had been impartial, impersonal, and fair. Her defeating him would be absolute, so powerfully personal, and destiny.

Thanos grinned all the more as he punched her face with his free hand, but as his fist connected, Carol did not flinch at all. In fact, her body didn’t move a muscle, and she was unphased as the photon and solar energies of the Space Stone surrounded her in a cocoon of power. Her eyes were glowing bright and incredible gold.

“I never lose...” She told him, before channelling the power of the Space Stone in her hand under his own and blasting him clean out of the Gauntlet with an almighty explosion of her powers. Thanos fell across the arena and the glove was once again in Carol’s hand.

There’s only one way... To end this...

Carol stood bravely, knowing she had to do it, even if it might kill her. Was she as strong as the Mad Titan? As the Hulk? Would this even work? Could she survive it to see Maria and Monica again? She had to try.

Slipping the Gauntlet onto her hand allowed it to morph to her shape as the immense power of the entire cosmos coursed through her. If Wanda had the power of the Mind Stone, enough to destroy it, the Carol had the power enough from the Space Stone to wield the Gauntlet long enough to...

“Cap!” Steve shouted to her suddenly.

The destroyed final half of his vibranium shield came flying at her like a boomerang and into her grasp as the power reached equilibrium within her. She wasn’t dead, nor dying, she felt incredible and had no clue how to channel it. But Thanos was back and on her with his sword, the Space Stone told her.

His blade cut into the shield as Thanos roared at her, the gems of the Infinity Gauntlet glowing and sustaining her. She used the Power Stone to strengthen her grasp on the shield as she felt the rest of her will and her strength leaving her suddenly. It was taking everything to simply remain alive.

Her arm gave out, the shield along with it as Thanos grabbed it and took it from her with a heave of his hand. She was defenceless and barely cognitive to recognise him as he plunged it deep into her collarbone. Her powers were sapped, back into the Space Stone just to survive to wield the Gauntlet and blood was pouring from her wound as she fell to the floor, the Mad Titan looming over her. It was over, she’d failed.

Thanos gripped her arm, the wrist of the Infinity Gauntlet and held her up in the air by it, all of her strength now gone utterly. Her vision blurred until he held her face in his free hand and smiled at her. Captain America and Iron Man raced to save the Gauntlet, but he had her, had the Gauntlet in his grasp.

“Don’t you see? I am inevitable...”

Carol came back in a drawn-out moment, seeing his face and seeing the universe in the six colours of the Infinity Stones on her fist. This was the final moment.

“Hey asshole,” she gripped his attention before he could reach for her Gauntlet.

Thanos smiled and chuckled at her once again, thinking her nothing.

“You should have gone for the head...”

His expression dropped, his eyes widening as his smile faded away into nothing. She was fading, but in a final thought, she saw Maria, her smiling face blotting out the ugliness of Thanos before her, and with all the effort in her body, Carol snapped her fingers...

***

"Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be. As a friend, as a friend, as a known enemy. Take your time, hurry up, the choice is yours don’t be late. Take a rest, as a friend, as an old memoria... Memoria... Memoria... Memoria...”

The song brought Carol back into the realm of the living. The song that had been playing when she had had her contest against the Supreme Intelligence, shaking off the shackles of the Kree and realising who she really was, and what her true powers were. She felt her power flaring gently around her fingertips in the bed.

She was in a bed. A medical bed too and the heat hit her with a humidity that was still familiar to her. Looking around the room she recognised it instantly.

Louisiana?

There were pictures lining the room and the fragrance was so familiar. Her bed was in the centre of the room but in the corner, there was a chair, and in it was a woman with beautiful black hair beginning to grey a little. Her face began to show some mild signs of age but overall she looked the same as she had done in 1989, and 1995, and 2001, and 2004, 2007, 2010, 2012 and no doubt in 2018. Every year Carol had returned on, the woman looked similar, but to Carol, she would look no different. And as Captain Danvers saw her in the chair, her face smiling and looking angelic, she immediately began to sob in the bed.

“Weren’t thinking of staying in bed all day were ya, Avenger?” Maria Rambeau asked, standing up and walking to the bed, planting herself on its foot.

Carol barely found the power to speak through her tears, but somewhere it was and it came to her. “Just... Just until I felt strong enough to go find the woman I love...”

Maria reached for and took Carol’s hand in her own, kissing her fingers and her palm. “Funny, ‘cause I think she’s a bit tired of waiting for your sorry ass, Captain,” she teased, leaning over and kissing Carol on her trembling lips. The tears could not be held back at all, and Danvers completely broke before Maria, letting the older woman kiss her.

“Is she awake?” Another voice spoke from the doorway. Monica was there, still thirty years old and looking as beautiful as her mother.

“Why don’t you ask her yourself? Lieutenant Trouble?”

Carol didn’t need to look anywhere else. Seeing this, made her know that it would be worth any sacrifice, nothing in the universe could hold her back from Maria and Monica Rambeau.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The bag was pulled from over Maria’s head and she had to close her eyes save being blinded by the bright light dangling from the dilapidated ceiling that was coming apart. Judging by the architecture crumbling all around her and the stereotypical fashion and looks of the predominantly bald male thugs that had carted her off to be interrogated and then most likely killed, they were Russian, or some subset of the former Soviet Union. Ukrainian possibly, at a push they could have been Georgian. The collar of her white tuxedo shirt was stained with the blood from her lips where they’d socked her, knocking her out back in the summit hotel, now she was here.They didn’t say a word for the longest time, during which Maria watched the blood trickle down her swollen lip onto her white shirt. They’d ripped her suit jacket from her and her sleeves were loose around her restrained arms. She’d lost all her guns, even the one concealed in the private holster around her ankle in her sock. They’d been thorough enough, which did only to piss her off all the more.But she wasn’t Rambeau like this, in the suit and on the job she wasn’t Maria Rambeau – she was 007.She’d find a way out of this, Maria always did, for almost ten years now, ever since the Infinity Gauntlet had given her the youth she’d had in the nineties. Carol had been to blame for that – when she snapped her fingers to wipe Thanos and his army from existence, she’d unintentionally given Maria her youth back – she was in her sixties, her eldest daughter Monica now in her thirties, and yet Maria looked as she had done when her and Carol had stopped the Kree in Mar-Vell’s lab ship. It had been something about locking Maria’s genome chronology to Carol’s own, and with the space stone imbuing her with solar power and delayed ageing, Maria was practically the new super soldier Captain America, yet working for MI6.The Slavics were pacing her, regarding her slowly as the only light source in the abandoned slum dangling absently above all of them – there were about six thugs in all, and Maria herself, Agent 007. Still, she was in a sticky mess of a situation and wasn’t yet sure how to actually free herself before all of the thugs’ AK-74 submachine guns could rip her to shreds. If only her wife were here... Carol was still literally bulletproof.One of the bald thugs, a tracksuit clothing him so he looked like a random working class nobody, came at her, his hands over hers which were bound to the arms of the chair. He wasn’t smiling, in fact, his whole face and head looked slightly like a wrinkled up thumb, creasing at his under-bite and where his chin furrowed into loose folds of rugged and barely neatly shaven flesh. To Maria, sapphic and renewed young, he was rather repulsive and purely off-putting to her. When he breathed all she could make out was rotten teeth and stale food in the odours of his mouth, the excess of stiff vodka and other alcohol, and drugs. In the veins and dilation of his wild eyes and the dark of his pupils. There was evidence of drugs, or perhaps worse.Perhaps M and Q were correct, perhaps the Russians or an independent were trying to mess with the serum again, especially given that Captain America had passed. Everyone was trying for a token of his DNA. The mania in the thug’s eyes made Maria reel and budge against her restraints. She clicked her shoe against the wood of the chair leg and the lip began to poke out like a razor blade. Tilting her foot up she fumbled to get to the knot of her ankle bindings to try and cut them, doing the same with her other foot. One of Q’s beautiful gadget upgrades to her wardrobe – and if the things hadn’t have knocked her out away from her bowtie, Maria would have the garrotte hidden within. She didn’t even have her stun cufflinks anymore; she was completely disarmed apart from the thin and trimmed razor blades sticking out the lip of her shoe.“Who do you work for, woman?” The thug spat at her, as one of his counterparts pulled out a sledgehammer and began to pace behind his leader.She said nothing, just looked at his face, observing him and moving her foot as slightly as she could against the rope of her restraints, hoping none of the thugs could notice her gentle movements against it. If they did, she was dead.“Come on Dmitri, she’s a spy, she won’t say a fucking thing. Let me knock in her kneecaps and make her talk,” the goon with the sledgehammer brutishly spat at his superior.The thug silenced his compatriot with a violent yelp and a frantic hand, speaking in either Ukrainian or just plain Russian, or some dialect therein between the two or more. Maria had a good repertoire of dialects and accents from her training, her time with Project Pegasus and the handful of missions she’d done with shield and in outer space. Outer space was never the hard part; there were villains back on earth who could be far worse than Yon-Rogg, Min-Erva or other bastards Maria had faced with her wife.It was times like these where she missed Carol greatly, in the middle of hell without her wife but with the wedding ring still around her finger, made out of even vibranium as a gift from Kink T’Challa himself for the battle against Thanos. There was no way it would ever come off of Maria’s finger.“Dmitri, she knows we’re working with Hammer, why else would she be skulking around the casino?” The sledgehammer thug let slip again, clearly working on not too many brain cells, yet Maria’s expression betrayed her, and the thugs knew it.“You idiot! Now we have to kill her! The boss wanted her alive!”“I mean if it’s all the same to y’all,” Maria decided to distract them, breaking her facade of an English pompous accent and returning to her natural Louisiana tongue, her plump and gorgeous lips curling from an arrogant smile as she continued to slice her way through her ankle restraints. She just needed her legs free. “I don’t think my wife would quite enjoy me not getting home tonight. She was supposed to watch the kids while I was out.”The two goons looked confused, unsure what the hell Rambeau was rambling about as she subtly cut through the rope at last. As long as they were looking at her face they weren’t checking on her legs, letting her augmented shoes break her free. All she needed were her legs free and she’d soon follow.“You think this is a game? You think this is a fucking game, bitch?” The thug hurled abuse at her, outraged at her change of accent and drop of her facade like a hat. Maria felt the roped coming loose at her ankles, she was prepared to fight at any moment now, but she wanted the bigger guy. The goon signalled him and he brought the sledgehammer close to Maria, trying to intimidate her with it in his hands.“I’ll ask you one more time, Ms Bond. Who the fuck to do you work for and what do you know about our organisation? Who supplied you with this information? Was it fucking Fury and Hill at the bastard Shield?” The goon continued to hurl abuse at her.Maria was smiling even more even with the sledgehammer placed between her legs to try and scare her with the idea that she would be pummelled to death by it. As she looked up she saw the light beginning to shake and rattle a little more, as if something powerful was approaching and the spy had some idea what it could be. She was very late home and especially with two newborns she couldn’t expect Carol to wait forever. Young Parker had always said he was good at babysitting, Hulk too if they needed him. The big green guy was mysteriously gentle with babies considering his size and power.“First,” Maria confronted all of the hired guns in the room as they too became aware of the shaking in the building. Soot and dust began to leak from the ceiling boards and worn beams. “My name ain’t ‘Ms Bond’. It’s Maria Rambeau, and I am double-oh-seven. And second, I’m really late tonight, and you’re about to see why that ain’t a good idea.”From the wall erupting they could all guess what sort of babbling 007 was referring to. The worn plaster and concrete of the shabby wall detonated into dust and debris as a woman who looked to be on fire stepped through, her hair golden and her eyes glowing as bright as the sun ready to destroy all of them. Maria took that as her cue to free herself.She held the arms of her chair, lifting her lower half and legs up in the air to grab at the sledgehammer thug’s neck, snapping it as she turned with all strength. The burn from the ropes over her hands as she slipped from under them killed at her flesh, tearing it up rapidly but she was loose. Carol had taken flight immediately, soaring into the air at the balcony and began to pelt the positions of the rest of the hired gun coterie with photon blasts from her hands. Maria was diving for the lead interrogator on the ground and kicking up dirt and dust all over them both, ruining her already bloody suit shirt and messing it from beautiful white to mucky and dusty khaki. Meanwhile, he’d pulled a knife from his belt and thrust it at her, to which the new 007 dodged with a sidestep, coming to batter him with a roundhouse kick. Her wife did much of the suppressive fire up above but as Rambeau looked into the eyes of her quarry she saw not only unnatural but artificial strength. There was something wrong with him and something very right with her. As the space stone had returned to Carol her powers and invulnerability, it must have done something to Maria in addition to giving her the nineties youth she used to have. She felt so much more revitalised and now aged slowly, at the same rate as Danvers. She hit harder and dodged quicker, evident when the thug, clearly under the influence of something powerful, lunged at her with his knife. Maria caught his hand and twisted his arm with ridiculous and ravenous precision. She was like a machine, tearing up his tendon with a hold and a twist, making his arm grow limp. From then on he was swinging wildly at her with his free hand, but Maria kicked the knife away and controlled herself, toned her breathing and calmed her pace, letting everything come naturally.Her thoughts were not even on the fight before her, but with Carol in the open air, blasting her lover’s assailants with other-worldly proton blasts. No weapon was prepared to deal with Captain Marvel; nothing on earth could still yet deal with Captain Marvel, not even in 2031.The thug leader came at 007 once again, flailing his arm and limp broken one to try and hit her hard – Maria had no doubt that if could hit her the contact would be crippling. She kicked high, swatting his arm away with a roundhouse kick followed by two quick stabs of her foot to his jaw. He was on the floor once again, allowing her to grab the gun that had come away from his partner. Picking it up, Rambeau realised her was her own pistol, they must have stolen it from her sock-hidden holster and now it was back in her grasp. When the thug got up she had him at gunpoint, and he chuckled.“Bullets will do nothing to me, Ms Bond, or ‘double-oh-seven’ whatever it is Shield calls you...”A fiery solar beam hit is back from the balcony and he fell forward onto the floor, his back charred and burned from the photon blast up high. Maria looked up to see her wife’s fist smoking from the beam she’d charged at her partner’s foe. “Her name’s Maria Danvers, asshole.”“I coulda handled him, honey... This my job y’know babe,” Maria excused herself as her celestial and powerful superhero wife came levitating slowly down from the balcony down the ground floor and her wife. She turned off binary in no time and the solar wisps and flames from her leather jacket and casual ensemble fainted as she touched the ground.Carol didn’t look the most impressed at all with her lover. “You know what time it is?” She asked Maria, crossing over as she came hand in hand with the new 007. “You said you’d be home at midnight,” she continued, making a little scene of the whole thing, not really phased by the blood on Maria’s collar and shirt overall. She’d expected this from most of her wife’s work now and Maria always came home in one piece.“I said I’d try and be home by midnight, baby, something came up...”Carol’s eyebrows did their usual trick, failing with expert control. “Getting captured again, huh?” She tutted, holding Maria’s hands in hers and coming closer, almost until their bodies were touching again. The captain could hardly remain mad forever, especially when her gorgeous other half was near, even if she looked tarnished and in proper state. “Wait until I get my hands on M. He’s pushing his luck with all this work,” Carol groaned. “Does that guy know how hard it is with newborns?”Maria sighed a little, cocking her body on her hips. “Who did you get to watch them? Not Rhodey, right? Baby, he can’t change a diaper...”“Honey, Rhodey’s still at Alpha Station while Quill’s back for vacation. I had to call Pete...”“Parker?!” Maria almost exclaimed, shocked that she would grab Spider-Man of all people to look after Natasha and Wendy; he was still practically a kid himself of barely into his twenties. Still, he was useless with children, utterly useless. “Honey, please don’t tell you got Spider-Man to babysit the twins, please!”Carol was left gobsmacked at how the tables had turned, but one of the thugs began to stir. She shot at him with her closed and powerful fist, a burst stream of photon energy hitting him in the chest and launching him through the wall at the balcony level. She was not finished rescuing her beloved yet.“What did you expect me to do? Banner’s away with Betty and I wasn’t exactly gonna leave them with Sam Alexander, was I? Guy’s just sixteen; Pete was the best I could before I had to fly to the former Soviet Union babe. Sorry, you were in need of rescuing...” Carol tutted, rolling her eyes in a mocking yet flirty way as she let her lips curl. When she saw Maria’s mouth gaping again from the shock of what her wife had just said, Carol couldn’t help but feel mischievous elation force her lips to smirk.There was a beat, and Maria took one hand back, pointing between them as she stood there in her filthy shirt and bloodied lip. “Okay for the record I did not need rescuing, Carol Danvers. I may not have photon blasts comin’ outta my fists but I can open a can of whoop-ass on some Georgian gangstas working for Justin Hammer, okay?” She corrected, feeling proud of herself for the latest mission as an MI6 operative. It was still relatively early days working for M as the new 007 – James hadn’t long left her the position.Carol decided it was time enough to stop talking and pushed herself forward, pressing her lips to Maria’s in a desperate plea for kisses and longing affection. The kiss started the double-oh but Maria was not about to deny or say no to her wife when she wanted her mouth. Mrs Rambeau-Danvers melted into the kiss, holding the back of Carol’s neck as she kissed back and Carol’s hands transpired directly to her wife’s hips, holding her neatly as they stood in the middle of the tarnished and run down holdout for a wonderful exchange. Maria decided she could easily get used to this, her role as a British spy, married to the most powerful Avenger and the most powerful woman on Earth. The woman who’d destroyed the greatest threat in time and space that they knew of, and she was all Maria’s, and always would be. Even with relatively newborn twins – Natasha and Wendy Rambeau-Danvers named after two of the bravest women either had known in their lives.“I’m still gonna talk to M about this,” Carol continued after they broke apart from the kiss and Maria was smiling.“Wanna kiss me again here babe?” Maria quickly responded and pulled Carol in again for her own heated exchange, the double-oh wanted to lead this time, making the blonde move her hands to the bloodied collar of her lover’s shirt. Maria would no doubt need another tux, and Q would have to replace almost all of the gadgets for the mission but he who had filled the role of Q had been doing that for as long as there’d been a man to call James Bond.Now there was only Maria. No more James, only Maria Rambeau as 007. She could easily get used to this life again; married to the girl of her dreams (all of her dreams innermost fantasies even with newborns and a thirty-year-old daughter Monica who looked as old as she did thanks to the Infinity Gauntlet), new twins consuming their lives for the moment, and a job as an agent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Life could not be better as the pair walked out of the house, arms around each other and Carol practically clinging to her wife with a bubbly need and want for her to be out of her tarnished tuxedo.“Is there a hotel anywhere around here, babe?” Maria asked, still not knowing what part of East Europe she had been kidnapped to – she’d have to find the Aston Martin before checking in at London, Thames House would be furious if she lost the car too.“There’s a little B&B a walk away, why do you ask?” Carol countered, holding her wife’s hips as possessively as she could, even tugging on the double-oh’s belt as if to say ‘off’. This was the world of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ no longer, and oddly enough it had been Parker who’d clued Carol into that face one pride month while he flew the transgender flag around him.Maria’s hand went exploring, finding a beautiful place to settle on the perky curve of her wife’s rear where she gently squeezed and forced a different kind of quirky grin from the powerful blonde. They were both powerful together, and if Carol didn’t click before, she certainly had now as her adorable cheeks began to glow a little red.“Because I think Parker can handle the twins until tomorrow, how ‘bout you?”
Captain Marvel and Agent 007 – a marriage made in heaven.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

New Asgard became a haven after the war on Thanos. Thor had left with Quill and his ragtag team to find Gamora and continue their deeds and misdeeds across the galaxy, but Brunhilde was left as King, a just and perfect ruler for a group of people who had been decimated twice in as many weeks. Five years after the snap of the first Infinity Gauntlet and she’d been their paragon, now their ruler. Needless to say, Carol had been drawn to a woman who radiated such heavenly and godly qualities during the galactic depression, finding solace in visiting her and retaining some semblance of normality to an empty universe.“So what’s she like? This ‘Valkyrie’” Maria was asking, lugging her backpack up the hill and around the highlands with hiking boots wearing at her heels. She made a wiggling motion with her fingers, talking about Brunhilde’s nickname with some hubris. Carol had been talking about the Valkyrie for some time since things had reverted to normal and they’d been talking again.They’d brought almost the whole Rambeau-Danvers household from Louisiana to Norway – both hiking up backpacks of supplies and clothes and not wanting to take the pickup route or conventional transport. Maria had denied them using the Quinjet or her personal plane and agreed with Carol that they should hike it and make the trip worth a few more days before getting to the sanctuary.Carol held her hand and beamed a little as they walked up the hill, slowing behind Monica as the trekked ahead and waited at the peak, beckoning them over. It was beyond weird to see her now for Carol – to see Monica in her thirties compared to her mother now in her sixties and yet looking the same as she had done in the nineties when she and Carol first got as close as they were now. The Snap of Carol’s had rejuvenated so much of Maria’s youth to her, and seemingly locked her DNA degeneration to Carol’s genome, keeping the synced perfectly with age so much so that now Monica was beginning to outpace them in it. And Carol aged even slower than Steve even did with the Super Soldier Serum in his veins. The Space Stone rendered a hundred years on Carol to be almost twenty-five. And now Maria aged at the same rate, if they had children now, so would they; they were as close to immortal as any humans had become, but with Carol possessing the powers of several star systems.She was still grinning thinking about it all as she held her wife close. They’d tied the knot almost exactly after Maria and Monica had been restored from the snap – Carol could not bear to wait any longer or be apart from her for another moment. It had been Parker who broke the news to her that gay marriage had become legal in the States.“Actually,” Carol began, her hair blowing as the cold air came around them, forcing them closer together as they caught up with Monica. “She’s a lot like you, thinking about it,” she confessed, thinking about all of the times she had been three glasses of wine in and talking about the best and worst of the galaxy. “If she was a goddess who could fly a plane and stick her foot up a guy’s ass on demand,” she added.“I thought you said she was a literal goddess? You said she’s the last surviving Valkyrie of Asgard?” Maria asked, confused.Carol just grinned at her, her usual cocky smirk as she leaned in and planted a loving kiss on her wife’s cheek. “You’re the goddess around here, Photon,” she teased, even reaching down and giving Maria’s rear a quick and loving squeeze, making the pilot jump a little.“You can’t call her that! I’m the real Photon now, ladies!” Monica called to them as they made their way up the last of the hill’s incline and up to the peak. She was posing like an action hero, Wendy the Welder as her inspiration and mimicking the motto of the poster that now decorated the room she had still in the house. “You are looking at the new and genuine Captain Monica ‘Photon’ Rambeau-Danvers right here, ladies, step aside as she forges a path into New Asgard! Realm of Love and Thunder! The domain of the beautiful Brunhilde, Queen of the Gods!”Maria stopped the flamboyant woman right there, coughing. “Actually honey, she’s King of the Gods. Right, baby?” She asked Carol.“Asgard has to have a King, I think. And Thor made her the king... So she’s King.”“Tell me she at least has her Queen, right? Can’t be a King without a Queen...”Carol smiled, knowing the truth and clenching hold of Maria’s hand tightly with excitement to see her friend again, overlooking the now sprawling and homely town of New Asgard, boats coming in and even a small landing pad for extra-terrestrial vessels. Carol could make out one Nova Corps shuttle and several other ships she knew the design of already. Her powers flared slightly and she could feel her body warming like a motherly sun all around her family. She tugged Maria up the last step of the hill and wrapped her arm around the shoulders of the girl she loved to call her daughter. Monica might not have been hers biologically, she might not have any hand in Maria having her, but Captain Danvers had helped raise the new Captain Photon for most of her life. And Monica had always had a bond with her ‘Auntie Carol’ that transcended non-relations.“Oh, she has her Queen. King Brunhilde and her Mighty Thor.”

Brunhilde embraced Carol warmly, even if she was slightly shorter than the blonde Captain. They were all smiles and longing for the hug as they met, Carol stepping aside for a moment to show the King of Asgard her wife.“This must be the fabled Maria Rambeau I’ve heard so much about since we became goddamn heroes, eh?” Valkyrie asked, sliding forward past the blonde and holding the still youthful Captain’s hands. She planted a warm and greeting kiss on Rambeau’s cheek and held her close, an affectionate welcome from one powerful queer to another. Carol was a little starstruck and Maria utterly moonstruck as she was kissed by a King.“Actually,” Maria was smiling and awkwardly chuckling and stammering. “It’s Maria Rambeau-Danvers,” she corrected, slowing the wedding band around her finger, Carol reflecting her display when Brunhilde looked to her.She held Maria’s hands all the tighter and hugged her again in jubilation. “That’s what I’m talking about! Congratulations!” She cheered between them, peering around the mothers to see the thirty-year-old at their flank, hair bigger and wider than her mother’s and frazzled to an almost afro. She looked hardy and determined and with her head in the clouds.Brunhilde considered her, seeing the difference or lack thereof between the big-haired woman in the retro flight goggles (reminiscent of Amelia Earhart) over her chocolate brown frazzles and the other one she was flanking now. There was something there; Brunhilde knew as she inspected the pair of them that she was looking at the now older Monica Rambeau-Danvers. Like Carol, although because of her alien qualities and the Cotati metal fibres that made up all of her muscles and the pigment in her beautiful and brown flesh, Brunhilde aged slowly as all Asgardians did.“You must be Monica, right?” She asked, smiling warmly as she looked up at the taller pilot. Apart from Carol, Monica was the tallest women among the small group.“That I am, Your Majesty,” the youngest Rambeau-Danvers replied, smiling and even blushing a little under her dark cheeks before leaning over to bow before the King of Asgard.Brunhilde stopped her, tugging on her hand and reaching for her, embracing her in a manner that looked as if it had come from Odinson. “We’re not a Flight Academy, darling. You’re in Asgard now, Captain, the realm of the Woman King. No women bow here, right?” Valkyrie told the younger woman, patting her back and holding her hand in an affectionate display. Carol couldn’t help but see being King and having some semblance of the Odinforce flowing through her (as all Kings of Asgard had to have) had made Valkyrie a lot as Thor was before relenting the mantle.That happened to remind her, as the King and Monica talked about Asgard for the moment; Captain Danvers looked up to the sky and saw the overcast coming to block out the sun entirely, the wave of a storm forming all too quickly. She checked around them, not seeing anyone else around except the Kingsguard and Lady Sif in the background. She was waving frantically at Carol having recognised her – The pair had met among the stars some years ago and hit off as fond friends. Maria’s arm wrapped around hers and fingers entangling brought Carol back to the scene.“Something up, honey?” Maria asked, still smiling from the welcome wagon by the King.“Nah, nothing’s up. Just those rainclouds,” Carol smirked, knowing what was hidden within as the winds began to pick up. She leaned over to the King as all of the entourage began to walk down the hill meeting place into the port town. “And how’s the wife, Val?”Brunhilde had her own arm around Monica’s, keeping close to her new friend and smiling as she waded over the grass with bare feet. She looked beautiful in the traditional dress of what the Norwegians believed their gods to be, yet slightly older than when Carol had seen her last. She was clad in royal layers and her hair was down and braided almost all the way down her back and her robes covered most of her if only to keep her warm. Valkyrie had reached for her Kingsguard and was now walking with Gungnir as a staff.“Doing well!” She chirped as they all walked on, looking down to keep her step with Monica. “Last time I checked she was in New York with Banner and Bishop, they were checking out some group called A.I.M. She’ll be around here somewhere,” she confided, blissfully happy. Carol checked the weather again and smiled.Monica could sense the wind and thunder coming too, her hair waving back and forth as the torrents began to sweep into the valley, the waves lapping against the shore some ways onwards. “Shouldn’t we get inside? The storm could be bad,” she informed them, but all were suddenly smiling, especially King Brunhilde.“I don’t think that’s the storm, baby,” Maria corrected her daughter, seeing the streaking bolt of lightning cracking and knifing itself through the sky before the sound of its assault had even hit their ears.“It entirely depends on what sort of mood she’s in I’d say,” Brunhilde told them all, looking into the thunderous sky with squinting eyes and a ready smile to see who rode on that streak of blasting and raw thunder. “Loki always says she’s not fond of what follows lightning.”Deep within the mass and crushing weight of the clouds, a low and primal rumble split them as it tore through the air and into the ears of the welcome party. The crackling bolt of lightning split the afternoon, tearing the heavens in two as it drove a deep scar across the sky, something at its head as Monica looked at it while it moved slowly. It wasn’t real thunder, it was far too slow, but was warping too and wrapping back on itself as the one who rode it came closer and closer to the planet. Monica caw a motion of black and a shimmer of a silver helm. She looked to Brunhilde on her arm.“Thor?” She asked, still confused.“The one and only, Monica... The Mighty Thor, Queen of Asgard.”The bolt of thunder came spiralling rapidly to the ground and the vanguard of its arrival landed in a hunkered-down stance, her mighty hammer Mjolnir hitting the earth and scorching it with a Norse pattern like traversing the Bifrost itself. It was not the original hammer of the same name that Thor had once held in his hands, but this Thor, she had had it remade by the Dwarves and now it held more power it than ever before. The Odinforce and the Thorforce flowed in her electric veins like the lightning and thunder of her namesake and Thor was standing before the welcome party with bright lips and a complexion that was more youthful than even Carol’s. There she was, the God of Thunder – Thor.“I’m gonna ask again... Thor?” Monica asked, wondering why the thick-set blonde man whom she knew as Thor in 2012 wasn’t standing before them with thunder in his eyes and a brandished axe named Stormbreaker in both hands.But Thor was already looking to the youngest Rambeau-Danvers and taking her helmet off from over her eyes, looking at her wife and new arrivals with a fond and famous smile that she once used to look at Darcy with, as well as all her colleagues of the various Astronomy divisions she used to work for. She didn’t need to look at the stars now; she could travel them through the Bifrost.“Don’t worry, I get that reaction a lot when they’re expecting a man twice my weight to be holding this,” Thor smiled at Monica, knowing immediately who she was and tossing Mjolnir from one hand to the other effortlessly as she offered her hand in a shake. Monica took it only for Thor to pull her into a heavier and prouder hug than the one Brunhilde had given her. “You must be Photon, am I right?”Monica was laughing already as she looked to her mothers who were wrapped in each other’s arms. “I might have mentioned something when we were dismantling Osborne’s Dark Reign,” Carol excused, brushing it off with her sly smirk before holding Maria close. “What was it I said, Jane?”“My daughter’s gonna be the next Star-Lord only she won’t be a pussy, I think was what you said, dear,” Thor told her, letting Monica go and passing her helmet to one of the Kingsguard.The hair that used to belong to the woman known as Jane Foster was now blonde, as the original Thor’s had been, and unlike his, it was silky smooth and better flowing than she had ever had it. Her flesh had been revitalised and her jawline more defined. Her body was now jacked and her muscles even rivalled her progenitor’s, she was truly mighty indeed – the mantle hadn’t known status mightier than her run as the God of Thunder. Thor’s fingers even sparked with mild sprinkles of thunder as she dusted her hands and threw Mjolnir into the air, tossing it back to the storms as they began to subside.She saw Monica’s expression as she walked over to her wife and King, Valkyrie Brunhilde. “Don’t worry, it’ll always come back to me, or else I wouldn’t be worthy, would I?” She said arrogantly and with a smile that she knew was coy.Her King took her in her arms and leaned up to kiss her endearingly – the new Thor was about as tall if not more so than her previous titleholder and Brunhilde always had to lean up on her toes to reach her Queen. Thor kissed her Valkyrie sweetly, pressing her lips deeply to Brunhilde’s and not ever wanting them to part, not getting enough in the blissful flush of the wind as her storms left the sky. Thor was so used to this, but never unthankful for her life, for her power, for her King. She had to refrain from going all in and claiming Brunhilde’s lips for her own in front of Carol and Maria. They should be inside already, she thought.“How was New York?” Carol had to ask, her arms still around Maria as they walked into New Asgard in moments, Monica now in the middle of the two couples and holding her back so she could do something with her hands.As they approached the limits of the town, Lady Sif came to her, pulling her back a little on accident for her mothers and the royalty to advance beyond the limits. “Can I carry you for that?” The warrioress mumbled with her eyes flickering and her cheeks blushing a little. She felt herself lucky that Monica had misheard her.“Huh? Sorry, I didn’t catch that, I’m Monica,” she introduced herself immediately and smiling as she thrust her hand forward.Lady Sif was noble, and not just with her wolf’s shield or her splendid blade, but due to her years of being a knightess to Odin himself, part of the original Thor’s entourage and being the keeper and protector of the Æther when it was in The Collector’s possession. She’d barely escaped Knowhere before Thanos brought down his wroth on the platform. Even more, she found herself luckier still that she survived the first snap. Her nobility over the centuries had kept her sheltered in part and she’d never found a partner worthy of her advances – but Monica was gorgeous, especially with the olden flight goggles that made her look like an outer world scavenger. Sif was intrigued by the adoptive daughter of Captain Marvel herself.“Lady Sif, of the Kingsguard,” she spluttered, taking Monica’s hand and feeling the warmth of her beautiful and mocha skin. “I asked you if you wanted me to carry your bag for you, you’re a guest of New Asgard now Lady Rambeau,” she continued, decorum dictating everything she said and did.“Oh honey, call me Monica, or Photon if you’re big on nicknames. And I’m actually Rambeau-Danvers if that’s okay,” she corrected the noble knightess, keeping hold of her rucksack.“Oh no, of course! And that’s good! That’s really good,” Sif began to stutter and trip herself up on her own words. Men she could handle at the best of times because they only required telling ‘no’ or some other less pleasant negative depending on how much ale they’d had to drink beforehand. Talking with women, talking with Monica, was much more difficult.But Photon was all smiles, staring deeply into Lady Sif’s eyes and almost nowhere else as they stepped down through the levels of the town. “Why is that good?” She asked a little mixed but a little lost in Sif’s eyes and following the lines of her body when the woman was all the more flustered.“I’m not exactly sure... but I’m sure it is!” Sif floundered but Monica just smiled and grabbed her hand.“I can carry my own bag, but you can buy me a drink if you want, Lady Sif,” she bargained the noble warrior woman and pulled her back into step with the rest of the welcome party as they reached the overturned and traditional-looking Viking longboat that made up the town hall and the throne room.Inside was a long and grand banquet hall that spanned rungs and rungs along the boats’ topsides, containing the seat of New Asgard’s government, where Brunhilde sat the throne that Odin wanted to be preserved at all costs, where Thor sat and stood next to her, her Queen as the last Valkyrie protected and governed the realm of the aliens Gods. They came to the door and the Kingsguard stacked up as the King turned to Monica.“No one pays for a drink here except the King. So you two can have the first dance if you’d like,” she smiled at Monica and pushed open the doors into the King’s Hall of the last bastion of Asgard. The crowd erupted as the King and her Queen entered with guests in tow.

The banquet lasted hours upon hours – drinking and feasting from the afternoon long into the night with more and more entertainment taking up the throngs of the King’s Hall. Banner and Bishop arrived a little soon after the Rambeau-Danvers family had and Thor made sure they were watered before rejoining her wife at the throne. Korg had to remind them a few times that they weren’t along in the confines of the hall so they’d have to keep their lips separated for at least some semblance of the evening. Meek stole a lot of the food laid out for the rest of the townsfolk and Monica rarely left talking with Lady Sif to check in on her mothers as they dined with the King and Queen. Richard Rider had returned from the newly forming Nova Corps line of space, he was mostly seated with Banner, Korg and Meek, making Kate Bishop feel about as comfortable as progenitor and mentor Clint must have in the company of Rocket, Carol and Nebula as they quested for the Stones. Carol kept close to Maria for the whole evening, just as Thor held on her own wife’s every word and arm. Until everyone began to file out and the two couples were left with some stragglers.“Looks like our little bird’s flying the coop, baby,” Carol gestured as she saw Monica waving before leaving with Lady Sif. The noblewoman was bowing to both Thor and Valkyrie as a sign that she was retiring and the God of Thunder bowed back with her love on the matter of Sif and Monica.Maria was laughing in no time as she saw their daughter walking out of the King’s Hall with Sif holding her hand. “She’s in her thirties, honey. I saw her leaving the nest a long time ago,” she noted, taking another tankard and drinking a little more as Thor and Brunhilde joined their table.“She’s a wonderful woman,” Brunhilde had to admit, pouring more wine for Carol and bringing another flagon of mead for Maria and Thor as she sat hand in hand with her wife and God of Thunder. “I haven’t seen Sif charmed like that,” the King continued.“What did she even say?” Carol asked, bewildered how Monica had charmed a woman like Sif in the course of a single day.Thor was chuckling already, drinking a whole tankard in almost one gulp just as her previous mantle had been able to do – so much of his behaviour had been inherited along with his namesake, his father’s and his won powers entangled. Her fingers sparked involuntarily as she rested the empty tankard and reached for the flagon again.“I don’t think she needed to say anything at all. Sif’s a woman who knows what she wants – she’s been alive long enough to figure that out already, just like you two, right?” She asked, trying to nudge the two older women closer.Carol scooted directly next to her beloved and gently gave Maria’s thigh a loving squeeze, intent behind her warm and solar hands before holding her hand. Brunhilde smiled with raised eyebrows as she sipped her wine again and poured yet more. Asgardians had tolerance for alcohol bigger than certain stars and Brunhilde’s beer belly was totally bottomless, not even Thor (either of them) could rival her drinking.“What’d’you mean Thor?” Maria was asking, slightly confused.“Look at you two!” The King boasted, resting her chalice and interrupting for her wife. “You’re both bloody gorgeous, you’re married now, finally I have to add and there hasn’t been a universe-level threat for a hot minute why aren’t you both thinking about what you’re going to do with the rest of your inhuman lives?” She cut to the chase and began slightly drunkenly berating the two women with four-times longer life spans.Carol stayed mostly silent and kept drinking, knowing what Brunhilde was talking about. “Well, I don’t see you two making busy with the supernatural god babies either!” Maria shot back, half-joking and half not. They all laughed it off and drank their fills again before going for more but both of the Norse gods were serious indeed.“Look, all I’m saying is that Monica’s a beautiful woman, perfect for someone like Sif, and she’s a Captain now like you both were,” Thor restarted, all of her progenitor’s memories flowing through her too – in her own mind she fended off Thanos in the remnants of the Avengers base, she saw Captain America wielding the first Mjolnir stolen from an alternate universe for the fight.She held the original’s Thor appeal and like of Carol in her own mind and heart, and it transferred to her own fresh experiences seamlessly. “You two are going to have that house in Louisiana to yourselves again in no time... And it’s not the nineties anymore,” she finished, pointing to Maria and Carol and then herself in the chest. But what alarmed the couple the most was when she pointed to Brunhilde’s tummy and the King beamed like a proud father.A proud father.“Holy shit,” Carol cursed like lightning and almost choking on her drink.Maria’s reaction was more elongated and drawn out, and all the quieter as she looked between Thor and her Valkyrie. “Holy fuuuuuuuck, wow... How long?” She asked the King as Carol tried not to die, reaching forward to Thor for her hand.“We’re six weeks along,” Brunhilde confessed, the happiest smile across her face that Carol had ever seen. The King called over to one of the waiting lads and beckoned him. “Fetch the liquor from Gunnhild’s Fleet if you would,” she requested and the bowed before leaving to grab it.“Anyway... Why don’t you two, you know, try for another?” Thor was saying after she poured a replacement for Carol. They were still awestruck by the regal news and suddenly Carol was perturbed by the wine in Brunhilde’s chalice, she looked back to Thor and fingered in the open air between the King and her drink. “Oh don’t worry, call it Asgardian Magic, we’re designed for drinking at almost all times, remember. Surely you could tell via Thor,” she joked, drinking herself.Carol and Maria looked between one another and the blonde was smiling, a little from the drink, a little from the sudden baby talk and a little more from just looking at her wife and already wanting to eat her up all over again. Memories from the eighties and nineties were wafting into her head, overwhelming everything that had happened since the turn of the millennium – almost dying to Thanos in order to secure the safety of her loved ones couldn’t have been further from her mind.“I ain’t doing that again... Did you see me the last time?” Maria almost cried, being deadly serious.“Relax,” Carol beamed, her hands coming to Maria’s and holding them dearly, even kissing them in a slightly tipsy haze. Despite the onset of drunkenness beginning to creep around her mind and water down her faculties, Carol was now completely serious. “I’d carry them,” she told her wife, Maria shrieking a ‘what’ in response. “I’ll carry them. I mean it... If they were ours, if they were yours, I’d carry them,” she swore, her eyes locked on Maria’s.“Are you being serious right now, babe?” Rambeau asked, calming down and even leaning in as Brunhilde and Thor weren’t there at all.Carol nodded and hummed and became helpless as Maria engaged her in a momentous and beautiful kiss that was unable to be defended from. It was ablaze with slightly tipsy numbness but Carol poured her entire soul into the kiss she received from her wife, unable as the King poured a few drops of something into her wine. It forced them apart again when Thor did the same with Maria’s mead.“The hell are we doing now?” Maria asked.“Get ready, ladies,” Thor heralded as all four raised their flagons and chalices. “This was brewed for a thousand years in the cask made from the wreck of Gunnhild’s Fleet, and it is not made for mortal men,” she explained with eager eyes and an even more eager smile.Brunhilde leaned in and kissed her wife on the cheek, holding her close as she prepared a toast to her baby and to the mass of love that had graced her hall. “But we are not men, are we ladies?” She looked at Carol. “Whatever it takes!”“Whatever it takes!” She cheered back and all four drank their fill, mixed with the spirits of the cask of Gunnhild’s Fleet. Their heads would be pounding in the morning.