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The Avengers Watch Captain Marvel (2019)CHAPTER 1: That’s Some Pager“Natasha, Cap, the thing is doing something,” Bruce exclaimed from the other room.

Natasha, James, and Steve hurried into the room that housed Fury’s mysterious communicator. There was a holographic projection directed onto the opposite wall originating from the device. New controls appeared on it similar to those old VHS remotes, denoting stop, pause and directional buttons.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?” Scott asked as he came into the room holding his daughter Cassie, who had fallen asleep on his shoulder. Even though she was a little too old for that to be normal, she had seen her mom and step dad turn to ash, and then fended for herself for a few weeks before Scott found a way to return from the Quantum Realm.

The device’s projection took shape and there were gasps heard around the room. The projection on the wall worked like they were watching a movie, but what they were seeing beggared belief. They were looking at an office room with an old computer sitting on the desk. Off to the side, there was an honest to God cat bed, complete with a ginger cat who’s simple nametag read ‘Goose’.But that wasn’t why the Avengers were suddenly breathless, it was the man who was looking back at them. It was Nicholas Joseph Fury as none of them had seen him. He wore a haphazard silver eye patch held to his face using a single piece of scotch tape. He was wearing a white collared shirt with dual under arm holsters, which housed his standard issue 9mm.But that wasn’t what drew the gasps. This Fury was at least twenty years younger than the one they all recognized from the last time they’d seen him on the Barton farm.After pacing back and forth a couple times, Young Fury looked into the camera, “Well, hello there. If anybody is actually watching this, that means that something terrible has happened. Reason one, I activated the pager in the first place to summon Earth’s one-woman security force; and reason two, the Captain hasn’t arrived a week after I hit the button. Either she’s dead, or simply too far away to have gotten the signal or more likely arrive in time. Or maybe I really was too stingy with what I quantified as an emergency situation,” he said with air-quotes.The Avengers had so many questions, and while Fury looked like he was pondering what to say next, Cap shouted, “Thor, Valkyrie, get in here!” and then he muttered, “Who’s ‘the Captain’? It’s not me, that’s for sure.”He looked to Natasha and she nodded her ascent, “You didn’t show up until way after this. I’m not sure who he’s talking about either.”The two Asgardians entered the room alert, but calmed down when they realised they weren’t under threat. Valkyrie had followed Thor to Earth after the Decimation, she somehow managed to get the survivors of their race in contact with a group of rather friendly Skrulls, who were eager to help a group of fellow refugees.Cassie woke up when Thor set Stormbreaker on one of the metal chairs, causing a slight screech. “Daddy, what’s going on?” she mumbled.“I’m not sure, but I think it’s gonna be interesting,” Scott replied with a cheeky grin. That was enough for the young girl to rouse herself from sleep.“Apologies little one,” Thor said deeply.“No worries,” Cassie replied a little shyly. It warmed everyone’s heart, just a little to see that there was still a little good left in the world. Even with a smile, all Natasha could think about was the Barton farm. They were all dead, and nobody was sure if Clint was among the living or not.Fury stopped pacing and turned back to the group assembled, “If the Captain hasn’t arrived yet, there was probably a secondary signal sent to her daughter. I’m assuming in the future, there will have been modifications made to this pager thingy so that she’ll be arriving shortly, that is if she already isn’t there. Then again, I’m talking about future contingencies that are hopefully unnecessary. However, after four alien, Kree Empire, Accuser ships appeared in orbit and fired an opening salvo of an orbital bombardment that would’ve extinguished basically all life on earth, you bet your ass I’m planning for contingencies nowadays.”Steve hit the pause button and turned to everyone else with a look of horror on his face. “Orbital bombardent! What the hell happened in the nineties?” Unfortunately another casualty of the Decimation was Captain America’s no swear rule. It just didn’t seem so important anymore. Nobody mentioned the change, though Natasha, Bruce, and James assumed it was a small nod to Tony, who nobody had a clue about these days.“There wasn’t one,” James said slowly.“Which probably means this ‘Captain’ of his stopped it,” Bruce finished the thought.The Valkyrie shifted in consternation, “He said they actually fired the warheads. Not ‘were about to,’ he said they ‘fired’. I’m trying to conceptualize the power necessary to stop a Kree attack of that scale. Just one of those Accuser ships killed hundreds of thousands on Xandar not five years ago going after the gem of power. What do you think?” she turned to her King.Thor frowned in thought, “I’m not as familiar with these Accusers, but each Kree was capable of fighting on level terms with some of the best warriors Asgard had-has to offer.” He didn’t offer anything else, but Natasha looked back to the haunted look in her old boss’ eyes. The situation he was talking about must’ve been a close call.Cassie looked around before getting a gentle nod from Steve to continue the message. But before she does, there’s a notification that rings around the room; somebody’s at the front gate.Eveybody’s attention was drawn to the CCTV camera trained on the gate. There was a tall woman with flowing dark curly hair sitting wearing an U.S. Air Force emblazoned leather jacket on a motorcycle. “Let me in my dudes, or I’ll just walk in. Uncle Fury can vouch for me, if he’s alive. If he’s not, we’ll talk it out.”Natasha looked at the others before almost awkwardly activating the intercom, “Who are you?”The woman, who was tall, dark, and gorgeous simply smirked at the camera for a moment before taking a flip badge out of her jacket’s liner pocket and showed them, “I’m Monica Rambeau, S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 10, and retired Colonel in the Air Force. I came here because of this,” she said as she stowed her badge and produced an identical pager to the device that was currently projecting a bygone era on the wall.So, “Y’all bitches gonna let me in or what?” Monica grinned mischievously as her eyes briefly flared with power in a way they’d only seen from Thor.Natasha briefly looked at everyone, James in particular who just realised he was looking at his former superior officer despite her youth, before the Black Widow shrugged, “What have we to lose really?” after she pressed the button, the gates opened and the enigma that was Monica roared into the Avengers compound with glorious purpose.

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

CHAPTER 2: The Colonel“Is anybody else confused?” Bruce says as the mystery Colonel Rambeau was busy parking her ride.

Natasha was baffled. There were at least three things about Monica that seemed well, fucking out of left field. “She said she was Level 10? That’s Directorate level,” Natasha said out loud.“Is she S.H.I.E.L.D.’s new director then?” Steve asked.“I think she may have led with that if she was,” Natasha replied.“Did you guys catch ‘Uncle Fury’?” Bruce asked as he curiously peered at the younger version of the late S.H.I.E.L.D. director projected on the wall. “He didn’t strike me as the familial type, you know?”“She used to be my boss,” James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes said in a revelatory whisper. “She was S.H.I.E.L.D. the whole time?”Natasha offered him a raised eyebrow, “That must’ve been interesting, but did you really think we didn’t have people in every part of the military?” It was a fair point.All further discussion was shelved as Colonel Monica Rambeau opened the double doors to the room with all the flair of an eager teenager. Apparently her rank and titles didn’t diminish her mischievous streak at all. “So you’re the Avengers huh?”Nobody said anything as she pulled out a seat for herself and set her helmet down. “Yes. I’m Steve, it’s a pleasure to meet you Colonel,” whatever his other faults, Steve had good form, as indicated by his suddenly militarily rigid posture. He didn’t salute, as he wasn’t on great terms with the armed forces of the U.S. anymore, but the respect was still clearly there.“At ease there Captain Rogers, hey Rhodey!” she perked up as she noticed James.James did salute, “Colonel!”“Jesus, dude. At ease, it’s been a hot minute. Besides, I’m retired now,” Monica said with a grin as she calmly as you like walked over to the fridge and fished out a beer, which she uncapped using her thumbnail. It was a clear demonstration, however extra, that she was more than your average human.“Retired?” Steve asked.“I didn’t like that Secretary Ross ordered me to have you guys and gals terminated during your little spat in Germany. A small squadron turns the airport to ash and Ross suddenly has a lot more power, and fewer detractors. And I don’t particularly feel like having him assassinated, too complicated. So I pulled some strings, dodged an insubordination charge, then I quietly retired.”“He sent us there on his orders,” James spoke up, his voice layered with anger.“He don’t like you or Stark much. He saw it as an opportunity to kill all the birds with one shot. But again, that plan of his failed.“You’re awfully young to be retired, also, a Colonel? Doesn’t that take like, decades?” Scott pointed out as he too decided to get something from the fridge.Monica just shrugged, “I was the best candidate for the position, and Fury helped remove the biases from the folks who normally wouldn’t have blinked if I was a blue eyed blond dude,” she said as she glanced at Steve. Steve had the grace to look at his shoes in white-guilt.“Biases?” Valkyrie asked; resulting in Monica fixing her with a bewildered look.“You’re not from around here are you sister?” Monica returned with a curious tone.“My sisters are all dead, and I’m from Asgard,” Valkyrie replied curtly.Monica nodded seriously and then turned to the projection of Fury on the wall. “Damn, I forgot how young he used to look. That was his first eye patch. He let me pick it out,”Natasha was becoming increasingly unsettled by how close this woman seemed to be to multiple people in the room, but why had she never noticed her before? “How did you make level 10?” Natasha was dying to know.Monica sized up the Russian-born assassin with an appraising look. “Because, Natalia A. Romanova, from the time I was ten years old, I knew secrets that were already far above your typical S.H.I.E.L.D. agent’s clearance level. And honestly it was more of a practicality than an operational advantage. It would’ve been very awkward for a civilian being so intertwined with S.H.I.E.L.D. and national secrets, so it was really easier if I was made an agent. When he became director, he immediately granted me level 10 clearance, because I was one of four or five people he actually trusts. Trusted.”Black Widow looked the taller woman up and down with new respect, though her rank was still very high for one so young. She couldn’t be much older than thirty. “Secrets like what?”Monica pointed at the cat in the projection, “The Tesseract is somewhere in that room.”Nobody really knew how to respond to that, but Natasha wasn’t done with her questions, and was even more unsettled by the casual use of her birth name which nobody else other than Fury and Clint should’ve been privy to. “Even without the racist as sexist bullshit, you would’ve been approaching menopause before becoming a Colonel.”Monica shrugged at that, downing her entire bottle of beer in one go, to the horror of everyone except Valkyrie and Thor, who exchanged a surprised look. “Normally, yeah. I’m good, but not that good. However, when Hydra came out of the woodwork and I had to kill some folk. Those folk just so happened to be some of my higher ups, and some were rival candidates. Hydra was all up in the military, so many good people died. Also, apparently when you commandeer a bird and single-handedly shoot down Hydra soldiers fixin’ to bomb the life outta some soft targets along the west coast during a time of national crisis, not many people argue about hilariously generous promotions.”“Soft targets? Which ones?” James asked aghast.“Downtown Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Bay Area. I got a lucky shot on the last asshole, but it was a close call,” Monica clarified. “Enough of my life story, what’s with the home video?”“Are you the one Fury is calling? The ‘Captain?’” Thor asked.Monica looked up to meet his eyes, “No. That’s my mom. And when she gets here, things are gonna get hella interesting,” she said with a softer tone.The others didn’t have much time to collect themselves after Monica’s revelation before she wandered over to the mounted device and pressed ‘play’.Young Fury resumed his monologue, “Anyway, the Captain has plans to upgrade this thing with some of her memories. She said she wanted mine as well, but hell if that’s happening.” Monica paused it.“A hundred bucks says she convinced him to lend some memories to this thing,” Monica said with a wicked gleam in her eye looking around the room.“I’ll take that action,” Bruce said.Monica’s face broke out into a predatory grin before turning back and hitting play.Fury continued. “So anyway, here are some of her memories from a third-person perspective. I can’t disclose how that is possible suffice to say it’ll look like magic to the uninitiated. This ‘movie’ of sorts will act as her credentials, as well as a showing of her capabilities so you won’t have to plan around an unknown factor, in case you’re in the middle of some god-forsaken calamity. Oh, and Monica, if you somehow have the unique misfortune to be on the end of this message, don’t be a little shit. And good luck kid.” Monica briefly closed her eyes, though Natasha and Valkyrie immediately caught onto the fact that despite her overall demeanor, she was deeply saddened by his death. But she wasn’t ready to cry in a room of strangers.
The projection blacked out suddenly, Fury’s office was replaced with a slow-motion explosion of energy. The earth was being kicked up, the trees were tingling with that same blue energy. Then the image changed.

In the crater, a pretty, blonde-haired, and hazel eyed woman was on the ground, blue blood running from her nose and miscellaneous cuts on her face. She sat up, her hands were covered in blue blood. She was clearly in a military uniform of some sort. There seemed to be a downed plane several meters away to her side.

There was another woman standing over her, firing an energy pistol that emitted sickly green ordinance. There were smaller explosions all around. This was War.

There was a figure approaching them, it was shrouded in smoke. But before the woman on the ground could make him out, she woke up.

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

CHAPTER 3: Feeling

The blonde woman went to the room of one of her comrades, a golden-eyed man who was clearly not pleased with being woken up so early. “I can’t sleep,” the blonde woman chirped.

“As much as I want to beat the life out of Yon-Rogg, I can sympathise with him about Mom’s proclivity for waking up at ungodly hours,” Monica chuckled. “That look he’s wearing is one I’m intimately acquainted with.

The new guy calls the blonde woman ‘Vers’ (pronounced Veers).

“Her name is ‘Vers’?” Steve asks.

Monica replied, “Nope, but they recovered half of her dog-tag, and that’s what half of her surname read, ‘v, e, r, s’.” But she didn’t offer any further information.

“You’re gonna let us call her ‘Vers’?” Natasha asks with a frown, “I’ve been brainwashed before, Colonel. People have a right to be called by their name,” Natasha finishes quietly.

Monica fixed the shorter woman with a long and curious gaze. “Alright, y’all can call her ‘Captain Danvers’ or ‘Carol’ if you’re not here for that formality,” she said shooting a look at James Rhodes.

“She’s your mother?” Bruce asked with the tact of a child.

Monica turned to level him with a hard gaze, cowing the ‘strongest avenger’; “You’re a smart man, why does that seem strange to you? Is there something else you wanted to say?”

Bruce immediately shrunk back at her glare. Natasha on the other hand couldn’t help but grin a little bit, Monica expertly moved Bruce into a corner where he’d either have to bring up their very different skin colours and invoke racism, or imply something equally homophobic as well as racist.Monica’s lips twitched, and Natasha had to admire the young Colonel for not bursting out in the laughter she was clearly only just keeping at bay. “Well, y’all will see, I’m sure. If this goes where I’m thinking it will, most of your questions will be answered. In the mean time,” she made a ‘watch the film, dumbass’ gesture and Banner obeyed immediately, averting his eyes. This was much to the amusement of the others in the room, who like Natasha, picked up the grin that was breaking through Monica’s glare.

Onscreen, the two banter a little over the merits of taking tablets to sleep, specifically that Carol wasn’t having it. “Wanna fight?” she asks with a hopeful grin on her face.

Thor lets out a loud chuckle, “I like this one,”

The screen cut to Carol crashing to the mat, clearly bested if the annoyance on her face was anything to judge by.

“I slipped,” Carol dismisses her fall as she
rises
back to her feet.

There are chuckles around the room at her attitude here.

“You slipped as a result of me punching you in the face,” Yon-Rogg replied with slightly more decorum.

“I was slipping before you punched me, the two are unrelated,” Carol responds with extreme petulance.

Steve looked like he wanted to correct Captain Danvers, because she clearly just got her ass handed to her, but he wisely kept his commentary to himself.

They continue to spare until Carol is forced to one knee. But with her left hand free, she clenches her fist and her arm is swathed in flickering blue and gold power, only barely restrained in her mounting frustration.

‘Holy Shit!’ was the general consensus in the room. Monica let out a peal of laughter as she paused the motion onscreen to observe her new comrades.

“She could’ve won this bout without even trying,” Valkyrie speaks up in awe. The only time she’s seen cosmic power like that was when she was privileged enough travel via the Bifrost. Suddenly, she knew she was looking at somebody whose capabilities were well beyond extraordinary, probably on level or greater than that of the king standing at her side.

“Colonel, how powerful is she?” Thor asked quietly, not quiet as cowed as the others. But he wasn’t unaffected either. Even if he was only seeing Carol through a projection, he could feel her power. It was humbling.

“Oh, that’s part of the story,” Monica replied breezily. “Also, I may appear to know everything,” Monica paused as James hastily aborted his laughter at her glance, “But a lot of this is new to me too, deeply personal as well.”

“I have a question,” Cassie asked with his hand in the air.

“We aren’t in school, Cassie,” Scott chuckled.

Monica regarded the young girl with sympathy. It seemed so long ago that she was the little girl getting swept up in what seemed like a great adventure. “Yeah?” Monica replied in a tone softer than she’d be caught dead using with an adult.

“What is that guy? Like, he’s not human right?” Smart kid, Monica nodded.

“He’s a Kree,” Monica said.

“They’re on Hala?” Thor asked suddenly.

“Yeah,” Monica said.

The Asgardians exchanged looks. The fact that this woman, Carol, was able to keep up with a clearly militarily bred Kree raised her already powerful baseline well past Asgardian.

“How strong are Kree?” Cassie asked.

Monica spared the Asgardians a glance, before winking at Cassie, “Strong enough to go hand to hand with these two,” Monica said gesturing at the two aliens in the room.

“Really?” Steve looked to his taller comrade with surprise.

Thor shrugged, but Valkyrie responded, “In terms of strength, speed, agility, dexterity, and the like, yes. But I would be able to cut this Yon-Rogg down. He’s good, but he’s no Valkyrie.”

Thor made a sound that sounded suspiciously like, “Sure.”

Valkyrie raised her eyebrows and levelled her king with a look not to be trifled with, “If you didn’t have your additional lightning powers or fancy weapon, you would never last in a fight with me, and you know it.”

Thor looked like he wanted to argue, but having seen the Hulk so swiftly taken apart by Thanos’ well-placed strikes silenced his pride. He really thought about how easy she took him down on Sakaar, and spoke the truth, “You’re right,” he conceded.

James said, “Really? You don’t mean that right?”

Before Valkyrie could stride over there and decapitate that peasant for doubting her, Thor looked the airman in the eyes and said, “Imagine if somebody supremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat like Natasha, had Steve’s powers? You’d be dealing with a fare more dangerous opponent. ”

Nobody really offered a word in edgewise on that topic.

But Steve wanted clarification beyond doubt. “So each time they hit or block, that’d be enough to bend steel wouldn’t it?” Valkyrie nodded.

“We good?” Monica asked, the adults nodded. “Did that answer your question girl?” Monica asked young Cassie. Cassie nodded with a smile. “Cool.” Monica turned and hit the ‘play’ button, resuming the sparing match onscreen.
“If you use your powers without permission again, you’ll have to go before the Supreme Intelligence,” he chastised her as if he were talking to a child.

They spared some more, Yon-Rogg may be a sanctimonious piece of shit, but he was a formidable fighter. Yon-Rogg began to spew platitudes about emotionality being the ‘warrior’s’ greatest downfall. “There is nothing more dangerous to a warrior than emotion.”
Natasha shuddered; sometimes it felt like most of the Red Room horrors were designed to burn that exact sentiment into her mind.
Before anyone in the room could comment further, they started again, trading blows and escaping grapples until perhaps inevitably, Carol lost her chill. Her arm ignited and a blast of energy sent Yon-Rogg the Kree clear across the sparing mat, nearly twenty meters.

After a moment of groaning in pain, he looked up at Carol shooting her an unmistakable ‘bitch, why?’ face. And Carol ducked her head with an endearingly child-like grimace that said, ‘I done fucked up’.
Everybody laughed, though perhaps none more loudly than Cassie.

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

CHAPTER 4: Are You Worthy?"Your mom is hilarious," Cassie said as she started to regain her breath. Monica had to press pause again because there was so much laughing. "I really like her," Cassie decided."Well that's good," Monica replied with smile."That was impressive," Thor commented. He seemed to exchange a look with Captain America that communicated something Monica didn't quite get, but Steve looked skeptical. "I wonder if Mjolnir still existed…," Thor trailed off.The Avengers in the room were instantly on alert, remembering that night all those years ago when they each tried–and failed–to lift The Hammer. "You think Carol would be able to lift it. What about your axe? Does it have the same kind of ah, stubbornness regarding its user?" Banner asked. Thor shook his head."My…my father enchanted Mjolnir with that detail. Stormbreaker has no such limitation in who can pick it up. However, it would take a considerable amount of power to wield this weapon, for it is actually stronger than Mjolnir in every way.""Do you know how he did that?" Monica asked with genuine curiosity. While she was able to peruse the various S.H.I.E.L.D. reports about Thor and the Hammer, Asgardian business was very much a blind spot for her.Thor shrugged, "My brother later told me that he just held the hammer close and said,
'Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor'." Thor said slowly."Your father's a sexist asshole," Monica offered bluntly. Thor flinched a little, but nodded. "So no woman could pick up the hammer, regardless of worthiness?""I know not. I do not know any woman who tried," Thor said, looking at Natasha."You had the opportunity to see if you could have the power of a goddess, and you turned it down? C'mon, represent, woman!" Monica said as she turned towards the assassin.Shifting a little uncomfortably, Natasha said, "Even if I were 'worthy'," she said with air-quotes, "I know myself well enough that if I possessed that sort of power…things would end badly. It would start as a party trick, and end with one hell of a lot of dead men. I didn't want to tempt myself."Monica shook her head, not exactly sure what emotion she should settle on. Valkyrie on the other hand had been pondering her former liege's wording. "If the wording actually prevented a woman from wielding the hammer, which I'm doubting, I don't think it would've been an accident," she muttered darkly.Steve crossed the room to get himself a glass of ice water. "Why not? Was Odin really such a…" he cut himself off, not wanting to offend the dead, in front of the deceased's son.Valkyrie chuckled. "Oh, he was a monster. But he was a re-forming monster. I think he was aiming to spite
one
woman, not all women. His daughter."Thor grimaced, "That would make a lot of sense. Mjolnir was her weapon first.""You have a sister?" James asked."She's dead now." Thor cut off all other discussion of Hela. It was all so recent, atop of all the horror that followed with Thanos, he hadn't even begun to process his sister and her apparent death.There was silence for a little while before Natasha made the inevitable point, "What if Thanos or some other asshole manages to take Stormbreaker and use it against you? Maybe you should take a leaf out of your father's book."Thor hummed in thought for a good couple minutes before turning from them, and picking up his formidable axe. He stroked Stormbreaker's blade, causing sparks to gently ripple from it, and blue fire fun along the hammer end of it. "By the power invested in my family, by my father, my mother, my brother, and my sister…Whosoever holds this weapon, if they be worthy, shall possess the might of Asgard."
The change was instant; the flames running along the hammer end of the weapon flared from blue to indigo to green; the colour instantly reminded Valkyrie of Princess Hela. Thor set the axe down on the floor as it went through something of a metamorphosis or evolution. Sparks were running along the blade, marking it. The emerald flames too were scorching a mark. Everybody stepped back. After a couple minutes being engulfed in emerald flame, down to the butt of the hilt, it glowed brightly as it simply rested on the floor. Thankfully, the floor was deemed worthy, otherwise there would be problems.Before he went down to touch it, he realized there were a series of symbols that had appeared on the metal. Along both sides of the blade, on the lower end was a
Valknut; the symbol of the dead.
On the higher end of the axe, though only on one side, was the
Triskelion: the triple horn of Odin.
On the other, was Vegvisir, the runic compass. Thor wondered if the weapon had taken his words to its heart. The familiar Celtic knot that adorned
Mjolnir
was inlaid on the sides of the hammer end, fittingly. And on the top of the metal, opposite the handle, was the symbol of
Yggdrasil.Thor took a breath before approaching the weapon. Each symbol corresponded to a member of his family, and him. The
Valknut
for his sister, the
Triskelion
for his father,
Yggdrasil
for his mother, who spent so much of her life tending to that beautiful tree. The symbol of
Mjolnir
was obviously him. And the compass was for his brother Loki, who found his way home in the end.Everyone could felt the power this thing radiated, it was somehow more than before. But Thor realized this wasn't
his
power. It was as he said, the power of Asgard, for they were all his family now."Well, consider me impressed, my king," and for the first time, it seemed the Valkyrie wasn't being
totally
sarcastic.Thor chuckled, realizing she respected him, but would always be cheeky about it. He picked up the axe, and it hummed in his hand. It felt like home.He put it back down again and said, "So, would any of you like to test your worthiness?"Monica didn't even hesitate.

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

CHAPTER 5: Whom Do You See?Monica stepped forward, looking at the god of thunder. Thor simply gestured for her to give it a go. Monica let a soft smile colour her features as she reached her hand out to Stormbreaker. There was an immediate surge of energy that arched between her outstretched hand and the hilt of the axe. Monica’s eyes flashed violet as she laid her hand on Stormbreaker.The ethereal flames flickered to life all over the metal of the weapon, reflecting the violet colour in Colonel Rambeau’s eyes. Monica’s expressions rapidly shifted from determination, agony, surprise, and then it was an expression that could surely only be normal in the bedroom.

Monica stepped back relinquishing the handle, but the string of violet energy tethered Stormbreaker to her glowing hand. So when she took a few steps back, Stormbreaker went with her, dragging on the floor, causing a groaning, tearing sound as the metal flooring was rent apart by the act. The symbols that had appeared when Thor enchanted the axe were glowing; the intertwined trio of triangles, the Valknut glowed brightest of all in the same sharp violet colour that had now taken over Monica’s irises. All of a sudden, the light show disappeared, and Stormbreaker righted itself from the angle Monica was pulling it at. The violet hue her irises had taken receded back into their normal dark chocolate colour. The flames on the weapon gradually petered out.The silence ended when Monica let out an unrestrained peal of laughter; the kind of revelatory glee that usually only spiritually unburdened are capable of. When she finally got ahold of herself, Monica was breathing heavily. The former Air Force woman looked up at everyone, whose eyes were all agape she was able to move Stormbreaker. Stormbreaker’s scar on the floor was a solid foot and a half long. “That was…woah. That was extraordinary. I’m gonna need some time to come to terms with that. No questions until then, yeah? I’m still wrapping my mind around it.”“Are you alright?” Natasha asked in concern.Monica waved her concern away with a genuine smile, “Literally never been better. What do you y’all say we continue with this thing for now?” she asked, indicating the frozen image of Carol’s ‘oopsie’ face.“If you’re sure,” Steve spoke up. Receiving thumbs up from Monica, he hit ‘play’ again.
Suddenly they were on some sort of public transit. There are prominent screens the size of advertisements in Times Square, paired with a massive intercom announcement about recent ‘Skrull Attacks’.
“Wait a minute,” James interjected, “Doesn’t that look like a light-rail car you’d find in any American city, with different aesthetics? Like it was re-decorated or something? And what the hell are Skrulls?”Natasha shushed him as Yon-Rogg and Carol began talking.
They’re talking about the Supreme intelligence, and Yon-Rogg says that it’s different for every Kree. It’s ‘who you most admire’. Carol immediately took that opportunity to pepper him with questions. “Is it your father?”

“No.”

“Your brother?”

“No.”

“Your former Commander?”

“Vers…” he was clearly over this interrogation. His exasperated expression gave the same impression as when she so unceremoniously woke him up: Carol was an annoying little shit.

“It’s me you see, isn’t it.” Carol declares with only a hint of total smugness. Only the twinkle in her eyes give away the fact she is totally fucking with him.

“It’s personal, spiritual. No Kree would ever disclose who they see,” Yon-Rogg says with confidence.

Carol just shrugs. Yon-Rogg begins chastising her over her lack of control. Carol becomes fed up, “What’s the point of giving me these,” she counters as she raises her fists, “If I don’t get to use them?”

He lets her know how disappointed he is in her because she has the temerity to use her emotions when she makes decisions. “Act more with this,” he says as he pokes between her eyes, “and less with this,” he prods her just below her collarbone. “I’m trying to make you into the best version of yourself,” he said with finality.

Carol just looks annoyed. They’d clearly had this conversation a great many times before.
“The Kree are kinda repressed aren’t they? Do they have Thought Police?” Steve asked with real anger in his eyes.“You’ve read 1984?” came Natasha’s immediate response.Steve just rolled his eyes as Valkyrie replied, “The Kree are a very repressed people. Every once in a while, one would fall to Sakaar. They were never very…open-minded, quite boring really,” Valkyrie said, almost haughtily. It was a strange look on her. Her insinuation went over some the Avengers, but Monica, Natasha, and Scott tried with varying success to hide their mirth at her words. Valkyrie was talking about sex, and the Kree were prudes, apparently. No wonder Carol didn’t fit in.
They arrived at their destination, and Carol walked into a room alone and stood on a silver panel in the floor. Tentacle-like fibres crawled up her body, connecting to her at certain points, and she closed her eyes.
“That’s creepy,” Natasha muttered.“No joke,” James agreed.
Carol opened her eyes, and before her, there was a thing forming out of the same cables that were on her in the real world. The world around Carol had a naked simulation feel to it. The Supreme Intelligence wasn’t even trying to project an illusion of the real world. It was a grey-haired woman with unnaturally turquoise eyes that stepped forward to greet Carol. She was wearing a military uniform of some kind with a star prominently displayed.

She gives Carol a more propagandist version of the same spiel she’d been hearing from Yon-Rogg. But she also included some stuff about how the Skrulls were a threat to the Kree’s borders. She said that Carol was one of countless victims.

For the first time, Carol seemed genuinely insecure. “I don’t remember. You’re supposed to take the form of the person I most admire, but..” Carol gestured helplessly at the avatar of the Supreme Intelligence. “I don’t even know who this person is to me.”

“Jesus,” Steve uttered as he looked at the expression on her face. He’d seen it before on Bucky Barnes. Having made the connection between the two, he was firmly in Carol’s corner, even if her more petulant instincts annoyed him a little.

“Maybe it’s a mercy that you don’t remember, sparing you from a deeper pain?” The Supreme Intelligence supplied.

There’re a couple hisses of outrage around the room. Natasha was glaring at the A.I. with hatred in her eyes. This thing reminded her so much of her masters in the Red Room.

“We have given you a great gift, and you must be ready to do what you must, for the good of all Kree. Your commander thinks you are ready.”

“I want to serve,” Carol replies resolutely, her hands lighting up slightly.

“You must master yourself, for what was given, can be taken away,” the device implanted between on Carol’s neck and left shoulder blinked, and her powers disappeared, clearly jarring her.

“You have a mission. Serve well, and with honour,”

Carol opened her eyes, the Supreme Intelligence’s cables releasing her. Carol had a smile on her face.

Monica stepped forward and paused the video. She paused before she looked around, and saw that Cassie was just barely keeping herself awake. They had gotten caught up in the excitement of the video that they forgot the time. “I think that’s enough for tonight.” There were a few protests, but she silenced them with her glare, she jerked her head towards young Cassie. “It’s not like there’s a critical advantage to watching this all in one sitting, I need to sleep too, I’ve got a terrible case of jetlag as it is. We’ll resume this tomorrow morning with all of us present. If one of you starts without me, I’m gonna put my foot where it ain’t supposed to be, you read me?”

That seemed to settle it. The Avengers spent the next several minutes clearing out. It was just Natasha, the Valkyrie and Monica left. “Your mother is a fierce warrior, a hero, even,” Valkyrie said.

Monica’s mouth twitches into something of a bitter smile. “Don’t I know it,” Monica muttered. Her earlier merriment was gone.Thor had left the axe on the floor when he retired for the night. Monica walked over to it, and in plain view of both Natasha and the Valkyrie, she picked it up from the ground, effortlessly. Her eyes blazed violet once more, and Stormbreaker responded, lighting up in a silent flicker of near purple flame. Before the other two women could do much more than stare, Monica set the axe down, though she rotated it; so that when the others came back in, they would know it was moved, but not by who. With a wink at the astonished pair, Monica left the room.When she had found her own room, well, a room nobody else had dibs on; Monica took out her communicator, which she flashed to everyone when she showed up. After a deep breath, Monica activated it, “Mom, I’m at the avengers compound in upstate New York. Please get here as soon as you can…I miss you.” Her voice wavered in the end, and just for a moment, she was a little girl again, waiting for her second mother to fly home to her.

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

CHAPTER 6: Morning Musings“She lifted the axe,” Valkyrie said without preamble as Thor came downstairs for breakfast. The Avengers had sleeping quarters on the second and third levels, interspersed with labs, the gym, and other recreational/specialty training areas. At one point, Tony Stark had even built console controllers large enough for the Hulk to use. Those controllers were dusty in one of the many cabinets that lined the walls now. After Sokovia, and the horrible confrontation with Ultron at the flying city of Novi Grad, the poor green bastard never got the chance.Thor walked past the impressive collection of game consoles, and sat down at the counter with the former Scrapper-142. “She dragged the axe, with some strange power I’ve not yet seen before yesterday,” Thor clarified. “Impressive, yes, but I do not think it counts fully. Besides, I may have enchanted it wrong or something. Nobody else tried it.”Valkyrie chuckled, “After you all went to retire for the night, she picked it up without effort. Go look for yourself–not now,” she said, grabbing his arm as he made to sprint back downstairs and confirm Valkyrie’s story. “Eat first, or drink, or whatever you royals do,” she smirked as she polished off the last of her own paltry meal, which consisted of Cocoa Puffs and a brown liquid that smelled suspiciously like rum.“Valkyrie?” Thor asked as the Valkyrie was about to make her exit, “Watching the memories is one thing, but why in the nine realms is there music playing as well? Please tell me I am not the only one hearing music play alongside the memories.”Valkyrie shrugged, “I hear it too, I actually quite like it. I imagine one of the humans, Fury probably, organized the music at a later date, somehow. I really don’t care, it’s nice, and that's all about it that matters to me.”Valkyrie left the god of thunder to sit there in thought. Who was this woman, Monica, and what gave her such powers? Thor pondered.It was early in the morning, the sun had risen, but the non-military members of the group had yet to rise. Steve, James, and Natasha decided to properly make breakfast after witnessing Thor’s noble but mildly horrifying attempt to make pancakes. It was only due to the Russian’s quick intervention with the fire extinguisher that saved the room from being doused in sprinkler water.“Christ, Thor, have you made pancakes before?” James asked in horror at the state of the charred remnants in the pan.Thor, who had backed away from the stove; herded away from it by Natasha, really, looked at the man in leg braces. “No, I have not. Though Darcy had often regailed me with tales of their nutritional and flavourful value. She said they were the perfect breakfast with chocolate chips in them. Also, who is Christ?” He asked with nothing but honesty on his face.Steve just looked at the others, now including Monica who had walked in after being woken up by the antics with the fire-extinguisher, and looked back at Thor. How does one explain to a god, the concept of another?“First of all, your friend Darcy sounds amazing, and secondly, that’s a discussion for another time,” Monica spoke up. Steve shot her look of betrayal. Pancakes are not nutritious! Don’t let him believe these lies he thought with annoyance.Natasha on the other hand admirably stopped herself from bursting into laughter at Thor’s flat out incorrect supposition about the nutritional value of chocolate chip pancakes, and then when Steve got that look on his face with Monica totally backing this Darcy chick.Thor’s expression however turned serious as he registered Monica’s presence. “Did you lift Stormbreaker last night?”Monica looked at him evenly, despite being several inches shorter, and replied, “Yep,” popping the ‘p’.Thor approached her before holding out his hand. Monica almost chuckled as she shook his hand. His grip was stronger than her, that was certain, but he was surprised that her grip was Asgardian strong all the same.

“We should wake the others and watch the rest, right?” James asks as everyone is in varying stages of finishing their breakfast.And so, by 10am, the rest of the group was awake, showered, and fed. “Everybody ready to continue?” Steve asked as Cassie hurried in with the popcorn she insisted on making for everyone.“How did we not do this yesterday? Everone knows you need popcorn if we’re watching an awesome movie!” Cassie insisted when she generously passed around several bowls of the buttery snack.Valkyrie took one curiously, and slowly ate it. She then preceeded to rip the bowl out of Thor’s hands, “Theese are mine now,” she declared.

“I’m your king,” Thor retorted, scandalised that he’d been disposed of the popcorneasily.

“And this is my food. Share with your other friend, your majesty,” she replied as she finished chewing the mouthful of popcorn she’d immediately stuffed in her face.

Cassie looked at the popcorn-munching Valkyrie, and smiled as she turned to her dad and whispered, “I want to be like her when I grow up.”Her father, the Ant-Man, looked over and said with a wink, “Me too monkey.”

“Shall we get this started back up then?” Bruce asked from his position on one of the bar stools they had brought in to accommodate everyone.

Steve looked briefly at Monica, who nodded, and he pressed ‘play’.

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

CHAPTER 7: Noble Warrior Heroes
The screen showed what looked like a hangar. There was a singular ship sitting there. The fact it was the only ship that occupied the hanger spoke volumes about how elite its crew must’ve been to the Kree.

Several figures were walking towards it; all of them wore identical turquoise dark grey uniforms with a silver eight-pointed star in the centre of their chests. Carol was in the front of their little formation with her game face on. She was flanked by a fierce-looking blue woman and wide-eyed blue man on either side of her. They seemed to be walking in slow motion. The music that someone had programmed to play alongside the memory was doing a great job of making Carol, and by extension the others, look even more badass.

They board the lone ship, and immediately speculate about why they all seemed to be called on short-notice.
Cassie had been watching with her mouth slightly agape, much to everyone’s amusement. Even Natasha had to admit that Carol pulled off the ‘hero walk’ effortlessly.“That’s Korath the pursuer! I guess this was before his zealot days,” a new voice said sleepily from the doorway leading to the kitchen. Rocket had decided to finally see what had everyone so busy yesterday. “He doesn’t have that gross cranial implant yet, that’s interesting,” the racoon muttered to himself as he indulged himself in James’ bowl of popcorn.Scott had to visibly restrain his young daughter from tackling the cynical woodland creature in one of her trademark high-velocity hugs. He was just so adorable.“Rabbit, you’ve met this Kree?” Thor asked.“Quill killed that a–hole,” Rocket corrected with pride. His expression dropped at the thought of his dead friend.
The Starforce members were talking about Skrulls; Carol asked if one had ever simulated Korath. “Yes. Once. It was highly disturbing,” he replied seriously.

Sounding perhaps a little too chipper, Carol asked why. Korath replied, “Because when I looked into the face of my mortal enemy, the face staring back at me was my own.”
Captain America briefly paused the film, “They’re shape-shifters?”“Yep,” Monica replied casually, as if the very idea didn’t bother her. Natasha shot her a sharp look, you’re not telling us everything. Monica just shrugged and gestured for Steve to continue the film.
“Maybe if you were more attractive, it wouldn’t have been so disturbing,” Carol replied quickly.
Monica snorted in laughter, she paused the film as well.“He’s so attractive. How does she not see that?” Steve asked without a hint of humour. James looked at Steve a little oddly.Natasha coughed something that sounded like, “She’s gay,” before she reached over Monica and pressed the ‘play’ button.
“You think you’re funny, but I’m not laughing,” Korath responded coldly.

“You never laugh,” the bearded Kree ribbed Korath from where he was standing in the corner of the room.

“I laugh…on the inside. I’m not doing it now,” Korath replied pointedly.

The bearded Kree was unfazed though, “It’s funny,” he said as he shot Carol a pointed look before continuing, “Because objectively speaking, you’re quite handsome,”

“Oh. Thank you,” Korath acknowledged the complement with a tilt of his head.
Natasha paused it, reaching over Monica again. Monica shot her a raised eyebrow with the Russian shrugged off. “I think those two are cute together, I ship it.” Natasha said with a little bit of humour in her voice. Then a thought occurred to her, “Do we know if the Kree allow non-heterosexual relationships?”Monica looked like she was going to reply, but the Valkyrie beat her to it, “Not usually no. They aren’t big on any relationships that aren’t focused on ‘the good of all Kree’. Though I imagine if population control became a problem, they’d embrace more interesting forms of love,” Valkyrie trailed off in thought.“More interesting?” Thor asked, only slightly offended.Valkyrie just patted him on the shoulder with a look that said, ‘oh, you sweet summer child.’ and then she vocalized, “You have much to learn, my king.” Thor unsurprisingly donned a baffled expression.

Cassie was just looking on in a state of confusion, while Scott looked tragically torn between covering his daughter’s ears and laughing uncontrollably. So naturally he did both.

Once he quieted down, Monica pressed ‘play’ again.

“Enough of that,” Yon-Rogg stormed onto the ship, singling out Carol. She instantly looked like someone’s chastised little sister…basically entirely unrepentant.

Yon-Rogg brought up a hologram and explained their mission: an orbital bombardment of the planet Torfa and an extraction from behind enemy lines. There was a moment of silence, almost like a prayer before they launched. The Helion took off, followed by three much bigger flagships, each of them approximately three miles wide each jumped through hexagonal portals that appeared in the sky.

The flagships all launched a bomb each, but the detonations were seen from orbit. Those were geography-changing weapons, beyond anything Earth could muster. Even in the 21st century.

“Those are big explosions,” Natasha murmured in awe.

“Nuclear? No. Even then, they’d be pinpricks. Those are on another level,” Steve muttered to himself with horror. They were exactly the calibre of weapons he was worried about Fury developing with the Tesseract all those years ago. But seeing this? Maybe he’d been out of line to become angry with Fury so quickly. Humanity was ‘hilariously outgunned.’

The mission went mostly to plan, until Minn-Erva lost comms contact with the rest of the group. Carol was determined to go alone to get their mark, and while Yon-Rogg was initially incompliant, he quickly changed his mind. So Carol went towards the structure alone while the rest was on local population control. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Yon-Rogg said as he pointed lethal weapons at the civilians.

“Then why are they pointing guns at them,” Cassie wondered aloud. James, Natasha, and Steve, were perhaps a little too uncomfortable to admit their own armed forces were every-bit as aggressive with civilians they deemed to be ‘potential enemies’.

Things were then going okay, until the local inhabitants were revealed to be Skrulls.

“Holy shit, I get it now,” James muttered as the dead Skrull that Minn-Erva killed reverted its form. “I can see how that other dude, Korath, thought it was disturbing as hell.”

Monica shifted uncomfortably, but resolved herself to silence on the Skrulls, unless they truly started to shit-talk her old friends. Then she’d make her mind known.

The Skrulls all charged the line of Kree. A battle ensued, and it was clear while the Skrulls had the numbers, and maybe even equivalent physical strength, the Kree had a huge armament advantage. The green energy weapons slew multiple Skrulls at once.

Scott was quick about the carnage, and managed to mostly cover Cassie’s eyes before most of the violence broke out. “Dad, let me watch,” Cassie muttered with zero chill.

“He’s right kid, this isn’t a movie, it’s real lives that ended, and badly,” Monica spoke up soberly. Cassie seemed a bit cowed at that, and Scott sent the former airwoman a grateful look.

Carol approached a crouching figure in a hood, she immediately called out a sequence of numbers, and got the reply she wanted, because she let her guard down.

The guy they were supposed to extract turned out to be a Skrull when he jammed one of those purple electric maces into her neck, bypassing her armour.

Carol was stunned more than angry or afraid, she asked how he knew the code, to which the Skrull, Talos, replied, “I’ll tell you my secret, when you tell me yours,” and the screen blanked out under a barrage of purple energy as he knocked her unconscious.

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

CHAPTER 8: The Memory Well Part 1

“What the Fuck just happened?” Natasha asked as the screen went black. Monica paused the projection just so they didn’t miss what happened next.

“I know you’re looking to me for the answers here, but I was really young when all this happened,” Monica said. “I only truly know my part of the story. Everything else I know about, I learned second or third-hand. And there’s a hell of a lot that I was never told,” Monica continued. For the first time, her voice carried a distinctly new emotion: frustration.

“Why didn’t they tell you? Seems kinda dumb not to in retrospect,” Rocket asked. He was perched on the counter. It seemed to Monica that everybody knew the clothed racoon walking and talking well enough to not react like there was a stray animal in the house, so she didn’t react either.

“Probably because they thought I couldn’t handle it at the time, or maybe they just didn’t want to?” Monica replied honestly. She chuckled darkly as she went to pour herself a cup of coffee. She then poured some chocolate syrup and milk into it and stirred. “Oh, you guys can start it up again, don’t mind me.”

Natasha did exactly that.

“Open her up,” Talos ordered. His voice was disembodied. What appeared onscreen was Carol, walking through the massive doors of an Air Force Hangar.

“Where are we?” Talos wondered aloud. Whatever he was expecting to see, this wasn’t it.

Carol was wearing aviator shades and took a moment to stop and admire the rising sun glinting off of the state-of-the-art military jets adorning the runway.

Another woman walked up to Carol, also wearing shades, and asked, “Where’s your head at?”

Monica almost spat out her coffee in surprise. Natasha seemed to be the only one to notice her distinct but nonverbal reaction. Everybody else was engrossed with what was on the projector.

“In the clouds. Where’s yours?” Carol replied with a mighty smirk.

“On my shoulders,” the mystery woman replied with a matching grin. “ ‘Bout to show these boys how we do it? You ready?” They were so confident.

“Higher, further, faster, baby!” Carol smiled as they made to get into their respective jests.

There was an idyllic feel to the scene. When Carol looked over to her sister-in-arms, for a moment she glitched Kree blue.

Valkyrie hastily made to go use the restroom. “I’m fine,” she muttered at Thor’s searching look. Nobody saw the tears she was fighting as she turned the corner.

“This…this can’t be right, go back further,” Talos said. One of his men obliged off-screen as the scene changed drastically.

They were suddenly watching a go-cart race, specifically a little girl behind the wheel.

“Holy fuck,” Natasha breathed. “They’re probing her memories?” there was something dark in the redhead’s eyes at the violation. Monica didn’t really want to stoke the woman’s hatred of her friend Talos, but even she had to admit that he and Carol really did get off on a terrible foot.

The boy next to her made some shitty comment about how she should be going slower, as he sped up himself. The little girl–Carol–stepped on the accelerator and promptly spun out on a turn, crashing through the hay barricade.

“Ouch,” Cassie winced in sympathy. “That’s Carol right?” she asked Monica for clarification. Monica was too engrossed herself in seeing such a young version of her mom in real-time, she just nodded to the little girl.

As Carol got to her feet, riddled in scrapes and covered in dirt, a shadow descended on her; a very tall and angry man.

“So that’s her dad,” Monica muttered to herself.

“Who is this person?” Talos seemed truly baffled now. But he was cut off by the angry man, Carol’s father.

“What are you thinking? What the hell are you doing out here?” He yelled at his roughed-up daughter.

Young Carol is clearly holding back tears, from anger or pain, or both. “You let him drive,” she responded with a righteous anger that should not have come so naturally.

“He really was an asshole,” Monica breathed.

“You’re not going to hear any arguments from me,” Natasha agreed with the taller woman. They were standing together in the kitchen. They weren’t yet far enough from the actual projector to hinder their view of events, but they did have a little privacy.

After Talos once more conferred with his memory-invading accomplice, the scene changed from an angry little girl to an angry young woman holding a rope, several meters above the ground. There was a group of men, fellow airmen no doubt, standing below her. Instead of cheering on their comrade’s bravery, they were heckling her instead.

There was a cold look of determination in her brown eyes, even though she fell. One of them stepped forward and said with the utmost triumph, “They’ll never let you fly.” When she clenched her fist in retribution, it sparked with the same energy as when she sparred with Yon-Rogg.

“Am I the only one who’s confused?” Talos’ voice again floated over the scene.

Scott chuckled at Talos’ commentary, earning him hard looks from both Rhodes and Steve. “What? The guy’s got a point.”

The asshole talking to her shifted into a different asshole, but he was standing where the group had seen Yon-Rogg standing earlier after he had hit Carol.

His face remained, but the context changed, there was music blaring, they were in a bar of some kind. He was looking down at Carol with so much condescension and said, “You do know why they call it a Cockpit right?”

A pool ball hits the table; the whole screen becomes the explosion from the very beginning, for a fraction of a second.

“That explosion is important,” Bruce said aloud.

“Well no-shit, egghead,” Rocket replied with a chuckle.

Banner, to his credit, didn’t look angry, “No, I mean that it’s an intrusive thought. They’re looking for something in her head, and I think it’s the explosion, but something else is happening here. It’s like the explosion casts a shadow in every one of her memories.” The rest of the room paused and looked at the scientist.

“You’ve actually got an interesting point there Bruce,” Rhodes agreed.

The bar remained the setting, Carol was being eagerly led through a door to what looked different from the bar itself. It was the bathroom at the bar, maybe? And then Carol was singing and dancing with the other female pilot from before. They were having so much fun. They didn’t seem to be the best at Karaoke, but they were sure enjoying the hell out of it.

Monica smiled to herself, letting a here eyes mist up before turning away to make sure nobody noticed. Well, nobody except Natasha who was standing right next to her and obviously noticed.

There was an older boy lying down in the grass next to Carol, who looked little more than four or five years old. Carol’s older brother; he was telling her about the stars. Suddenly, adult Carol replaced child-Carol, but her brother was replaced by a very small, and very cute little girl who was just as in awe of the cosmos as young carol was. “No way,” she said to the delighted laughter of the older blonde.

The other pilot from before, the woman Carol was having so much fun with at the bar stepped out of the house and affectionately called, “Get your butts inside, it’s time to eat!”

Carol immediately leapt to her feet and scooped up the gleeful cackling of the little girl, “Prepare for take-off Lieutenant Trouble!”

Talos spoke again, but his tone was wistful this time, “Charming memory…”

Before the scene changed, Steve paused it. “That little girl, that’s you isn’t it,” he asked Monica, who had admirably hidden her earlier tears. Natasha’s pointed look said she’d certainly be asking her about that later.

Monica regarded Natasha with a slow blink that she hoped conveyed, ‘later.’ She addressed Captain America with a shrug, “Yup,” she popped the ‘p’, “Lieutenant Trouble is me, and that other woman you saw, that’s my other mom.” Monica sighed long and slow. Natasha was sure she knew what was coming, so she gave Monica’s hand that was dangling behind the counter–out of view to everyone else– a squeeze.Monica paused for a moment while she gathered herself to put words to her next bit. “Her name was Maria.”

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

CHAPTER NINE: The Memory Well Part 2

Valkyrie came back into the room. Apparently she’d found a bottle of vodka, which was half-empty now, naturally. She slouched back into the stool she occupied before, brushing off the concerned look that Thor was giving her.

They were suddenly at the airfield again. Carol was talking to an older woman with grey hair and a mischievous gleam in her eyes. There was an orange cat curling around Carol’s leg, “Goose likes you,” the new woman said in bemusement, “She doesn’t usually take to people.”

“That’s the lady from before!” Cassie exclaimed.

“No. Remember what Carol said earlier?” Scott corrected. “This woman is the person Carol admired most.”

The moment replayed itself, but the Skrull in control wanted a detail. “What is that on her shirt?” The Carol shown on screen was becoming visibly increasingly confused. The words on the jacket read ‘Dr. Lawson,’ ‘Project Pegasus’ “It’s her!” Talos said.

The scene shifted to a frenetic dogfight in space. Carol was losing, as she tried to bail out, Talos was desperately trying to force her to re-focus on the memory, and read the coordinates displayed in front of her. The Skrulls ability to manipulate time in the memory was shown again as she successfully bailed out, but was then shunted back downward before her eyes, her real eyes opened.

“What the hell was that about?” James asked the room. The projection had been paused by Natasha, who frankly, couldn’t bear to see more of Carol’s memories being extracted like that.

“They can watch your memories? That’s not a surprise right? Because that’s basically what we’re doing, but remotely,” Dr. Banner pointed out.

“We aren’t violating her to do it though,” Natasha pointed out harshly. Monica looked at the bleached-haired assassin in surprise. Not unpleasant surprise, but Monica wasn’t expecting anyone else to feel as uncomfortable as her when Carol’s autonomy was so clearly violated. She made a silent motion to Valkyrie, and received the bottle of vodka in return. She gently passed it to the blonde assassin with a small empathetic smile.

“Jesus, that must’ve sucked for you,” Natasha murmured after taking a hefty gulp of the poison.

“It wasn’t pleasant, that’s for damn sure,” Monica replied. “I’m sorry you were so effected by it. I didn’t think it would bring up unpleasant memories for you guys, but I’m realising I may have jumped the gun with that assumption.”

“So what do we know?” Steve asked the group. He diligently waited until there was a lull in the ladies’ private chat before speaking. “Carol was human, right?” He shot Monica a look.

“I’m not gonna be spoiling stuff for you guys. I’m sure most of your questions will be answered alright?” Monica replied casually. There was a vibration in her pocket. It was her flip phone, not the pager.It was a text message that read, ‘Hang in there Lieutenant Trouble, I’ll be there in a few...Fury’s dead isn’t he?’ Monica smiled sadly, and diverted her attention to the phone. She texted back, ‘Yeah.' I’m sorry.’
‘Well, that fucking sucks. But I’m so relieved you’re okay.’
‘Likewise. Also, define ‘a few.’’The final response was a quick one: ‘Look out the window?’ There was flicker of light that illuminated the windows. It was similar to a lightning strike, but it was warmer somehow; a sonic boom shook the windows almost immediately after. Cassie chirped in surprise, reaching for her dad. Thor looked up in surprise, “It wasn’t thunder, your majesty,” Valkyrie drawled with a smile. From her view, she could see outside the window, and she liked what she saw. But by the time the others made it over, there was nothing to see other than a smouldering patch of grass; like a less elegant Bifrost scarring. Still, it was not good for lawn maintenance.“Wait in here,” Monica spoke up, as Rhodes, Steve, and Natasha all made to go outside. She held up her flip phone, “I called, they answered.” They all paused but hesitantly returned to their seats at Monica’s gentle urging.

“You know something,” Natasha stated to Monica, who couldn’t really stop her smile. The Colonel just nodded her head. Before Natasha could hit play on the pager device, there was a new and familiar voice from the doorway.

“Is this the Fury’s idea of a ‘welcome wagon’?” Everybody turned. Carol Danvers was standing there, in the flesh.

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

CHAPTER 10: Roll Call

“Jesus Christ,” Steve muttered almost involuntarily.

“High praise, thanks!” Carol replied with a smirk. She casually brushed past the other Avengers and immediately sought out Monica, whom she pulled into a crushing hug.

“I somehow thought she’d be taller,” Scott muttered from across the room. As it was, Monica did stand noticeably taller than the blonde in her arms but Cassie slapped her dad’s leg reproachfully.“Don’t ruin the moment,” she accused him with an adorable little frown. At her father’s shrug, Cassie just rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the two women who were quickly becoming her heroes.

“How are you Trouble?” Carol whispered into her daughter’s ear as their embrace loosened a little.

Monica looked a little sheepish and gave a sort of unconvincing shrug, “Okay…”

“Nobody’s okay right now,” Carol replied softly. “And that’s alright. I’d be worried if you were totally cool. I’m so happy to see you again Monica” Carol quickly kissed her taller daughter’s forehead and brought her into another albeit shorter hug. Monica took a step back and for a moment rubbed her arms in a display of awkwardness she thought she’d quarantined to her teenage years.

“You’re embarrassing me in front of the ‘Avengers’,” Monica muttered with faux petulance. She was so happy Carol was home again; she was basically vibrating with energy.

Carol let out a peal of laughter before turning from her daughter and taking in the rest of the room. “‘Avengers’?” she asked with a tone that could’ve been equating ‘avengers’ with adorable puppies or toddlers.

“Yeah, got a problem with that name?” Rhodes replied with a little bit of bite.

Carol’s smirk became almost predatory in its glee. She looked at Monica with a question in her raised eyebrow. Monica gave a shrug and a quick nod. Carol whipped back to Rhodes to tell him just where that team name came from before she found a hand on her shoulder. Carol turned to find Monica with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Before you so rudely interrupted, Mom, we were watching the recollection of your memories via Fury’s pager. You know, the one you gave him for situations when everything goes to shit?” Carol considered her daughter before paying attention to the projection on the wall for the first time since entering the room. She walked up to it and briefly traced the shape of her own eyes before turning to the rest of the group again.

“Well shit,” Carol muttered in awe. “So, what have you guys seen so far? Wait. Before that, can we have a roll call? I don’t know who any of you are, except for the American legend over there,” she said pointing out Steve. Steve just shook his head a little bashfully.

“Surely we can watch this first right?” Natasha asked.

Carol turned to the shorter blonde with a grin, “Unless you want me to make up nicknames while referring to you guys that’ll definitely stick for the rest of your lives, sure, fire it back up then Cap’n Crunch,” Carol easily continued, mock-saluting Steve as she spoke…who was not having it.

“I’m Captain Steve Rodgers, former U.S. Army and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent…” He looked like he wanted to continue, but Carol spoke up first.

“Nope, you were too slow. You’re Cap’n Crunch now, Rodgers. Now let’s see, who’s next?” She wondered aloud maliciously, casting about the room with an entirely too smug grin on her face.

“I’m Scott! The Ant-Man, and this is my daughter,” Scott spoke up, not wanting a terribly conceived nickname from Carol.

Carol looked at the little girl who was slightly hiding behind her dad now that the charismatic woman was actually paying attention to her. “Hi, I’m Cassie,” the little girl said softly.

Carol just restrained herself from cooing at the adorableness of the kid and replied in an oddly respectful tone, “It’s nice to meet you Cassie, I’m Carol.”

Cassie smiled and promptly hid her face in her dad’s ribcage. Monica muttered something like, “Super-cute.”

“I’m Dr. Bruce Banner, and I turn into the Hulk sometimes,” Bruce said. He was situated next to the father-daughter duo.

Carol turned to him and her head tilted in rumination. “The Hulk? I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before…” Carol muttered the last part to herself, but the Valkyrie heard.“Been to Sakaar recently?” the Asgardian asked as she filched the depleting bottle of vodka back.

Carol’s eyes lit up in recognition, “Like, the 10ft tall green gladiator Hulk?” Carol asked with interest. She considered for a short moment before activating her left forearm’s interface on her suit, and soon pulled up a holo-video of a gladiatorial battle for the room to see. It was definitely the Hulk, beating the shit out of a sturdy looking blond guy with red war paint…Thor?

Valkyrie made a mock toast to the footage, “That was one spectacular fight.” Bruce looked at her, betrayed. “I was rooting for the green guy mate, no hard feelings right?” Thor looked at her betrayed now with his hands out in an ‘I feel so attacked right now’ gesture, while Bruce looked somewhat mollified.

“What is that,” Natasha asked sharply, indicating the footage. Thor and Banner immediately looked uncomfortable.

“A title match between the ‘Incredible Hulk’ and the ‘Lord of Thunder’ from a little while back,” Carol replied as she banished the holo-vid just as the Hulk jumped vertically out of frame for what she, Valkyrie, Thor, and Banner knew was the final blow of the fight.

“It’s a long story,” Thor said. “But I was stronger,” he couldn’t resist but quip.Upon seeing Valkyrie’s raised eyebrows and Banner ready to defend the Hulk’s honour, Steve quickly spoke up “Guys, and Lady, we can discuss that later.” Valkyrie just shrugged and fixed her king with a smirk.

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

CHAPTER 11: Mara“I’m Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, Air Force,” James continued the introductions with some much-needed professional courtesy.“Did we serve together?” Carol asked.“Nope. I think I would’ve remembered,” James replied after a little thought. To his credit, he wasn’t even being flirtatious, just factual; Carol was a hard person to forget.“I’m Rocket…the last Guardian of the Galaxy, as far as we know,” the genius racoon spoke up.“Guardians of the Galaxy? They guys who fought Ronan the shithead Accuser?” Carol asked. The presence of a talking racoon didn’t even daunt her; her pet was a Flerken after all.Monica ribbed her mother and muttered, “Language,” while indicating the middle-schooler in their midst. Carol had the grace to look a little sheepish.“You knew that a-hole?” Rocket asked curiously.“Unfortunately, we met.” Carol decided to keep it at that. Rocket clearly wanted to know more, but the King of Asgard spoke first.“I’m King Thor of Asgard,” Thor declared deeply. The sadness in his voice needed no explanation. He was grateful Carol didn’t press him.“I’m the last Valkyrie, also of Asgard,” the Valkyrie spoke without a hint of her earlier mirth. Carol nodded at them both. Theirs was a look she was all too familiar with. She had seen it on Talos’ face all the time.“I’m Natasha Romanov,” Natasha supplied without ceremony.

Carol raised her eyebrow at the brusqueness of the former Soviet, but since roll call was over, she turned her eyes back to the projection on the wall. “If I’m remembering this right, things are about to get unfortunately interesting,” Her demeanor dropped a little.While her memory of the battle aboard the Skrull ship was filled with exhilaration in the moment, she killed some of Talos’ people. It was all fun and games until somebody, multiple somebodies with families; families that she had to meet and get to know later. It was no wonder that working with the Skrulls was an emotional minefield in the early days after leaving Earth.“Where’d you go there?” Monica asked softly, placing a hand on her mom’s upper arm.“Nowhere good,” Carol muttered. “Let’s start this thing up then yeah?” She said, recovering her earlier confidence.Captain America obliged.

The Carol who was suspended upside down came to in a clear panic. She was suspended upside down; first of all, second of all, the Skrulls had taken off her boots for some reason.

Talos was talking in the background, “Do we have any information we can act on?”

One of his men responded, “She was somewhere on planet C-53. We’re close by it now.”

Talos was getting angry, “We need to find that light-speed engine!”

She closed her eyes when she saw one of the technicians approach her and tap her forehead.

The screens changed images, providing a distraction as she burned through the restraints and reminiscent of Luke Skywalker trapped in that ice cave, she destroyed the tethers holding her upside down, and flipped, landing on her feet. She looked up at the Skrulls who were rightfully beginning to panic, and readied their weapons. All except Talos who shouted “Not yet,” as his men prepared to fire.

She made quick work of the few Skrulls in the room, sending them into walls and into the ground with startling violence. One hit was more than sufficient to remove each of her adversaries from the fight.
“Holy shit,” Natasha muttered to herself.At the same time, Monica was wincing, “Damn.”Thor and Valkyrie exchanged looks of begrudging appreciation.“After this, how would you feel about an arm wrestle,” Steve asked. Carol turned to the other captain and nodded.“You’re so gonna lose,” Carol chuckled.
“What did you do to me?” Carol demanded as she bent Talos backwards over the console. She had her arm in his face, and the metal encasing her hand was rapidly heating up. As threats go, it was an effective one. “What did you put in my head?”

“Nothing that wasn’t already there,” Talos replied with unnerving calm.

Carol shook her head in disbelief, “But those aren’t my memories!”

“It’s like a bad trip, isn’t it? They did a number on you, no wonder you can’t keep it straight,” Talos sneered.

“Enough of this, what do you want?” Carol snarled, the glowing metal getting very much closer to Talos’ face.

To his credit, he didn’t play any mind games, “The location of Dr. Lawson and her light-speed engine.”

“But I don’t know any Dr. Lawson,” Carol replied.

“Then why is she in your head?” Talos replied smugly.

Carol seemed to realise he was speaking sense, because she started to clearly power down her hand. She was about to take a step back and possibly stand down, but before they could talk more, reinforcements entered the room. So instead of getting the opportunity to talk more with her curious adversary, Carol had to bodily toss Talos into the oncoming soldiers, knocking most of them to the ground.
“Ugh, they were totally getting somewhere,” Cassie complained loudly, hands on her face. Monica laughed at the girl’s astute observation.“You’re a smart one, aren’t you,” Carol asked.“Yeah, I guess,” Cassie seemed to shrink in on herself in shyness once she realised she was talking to both those impressive woman at once.Carol decided to pause the memory replay, to much annoyance, “Really?” James asked with his hands in the air. “It was just getting good.”Carol shrugged, “Whatever, I need to eat, dude,” she tossed the pager to Cassie, who beamed.“Good luck getting that away from her,” Rocket mumbled.Natasha rolled her eyes, “I guess we’re taking another break folks, a shorter one this time. How much do you need to eat in a day?”“8,000-15,000 calories depending on how much I’m planning on using my powers,” Carol responded promptly, causing Natasha’s jaw to drop halfway. “You guys don’t need to take a break, I remember this stuff,” Carol pointed to her mind with an eye-roll.“Well, I’m sure we can rummage up something,” Monica snickered as she led Carol away from the flabbergasted spy. She shouted over her shoulder as she dragged her mother off to the kitchen. When they were out of everyone’s view, they could hear the memories resume. A few moments later, Monica turned Carol around, “Are you alright? Like, watching this stuff?”Carol’s earlier expression of carefully arranged cockiness was gone, in its place was a deep weariness. “I’ll be fine. I just don’t need to watch myself slaughtering the family members of people I’ve come to like very much. I just…I can’t do that with a straight face.”Monica nodded. “Yeah, that’s rough. You know you’ve made up for it though right? Like, you saved their families.”Carol just shrugged, “It didn’t make me feel better. There was this little girl, you know the one, Mara. I sat by her bed every night for months, holding her through her sobbing, because I orphaned her that day,” Carol whispered vehemently as she gestured back to the room with the avengers in it.Monica thought for a moment, before saying, “Of course I know Mara! You do remember Mara’s my actual flatmate right? Like, I could call her up right now to prove my point about redemption to you literally right now.”Carol fixed Monica with a curious glance, “You live together?”“I needed to split the rent, London is fucking expensive Carol! And I’m a fancy bitch!” They both laughed at that. When Monica quieted down a little, she said, “Look, Mara is fine. You’ve gotta forgive yourself some time okay?”Carol gave a noncommittal shrug, but then Monica flicked her shoulder, eliciting a reaction, “Fine, you’ve got a point.”Monica smirked, but then Carol’s stomach rumbled awkwardly loud, “You really should get something to eat though.” Carol face-palmed.Carol’s expression lightened a little with her small grin, “Alright Trouble, you may have a point there. Is the food here any good?”Monica shrugged, “It’s alright. Certainly better than your usual standards,” she replied with a light punch to Carol’s shoulder.“First of all, harsh; secondly, a little too true there. The kitchen is in this direction right?” Carol asked as she pointed to the correct hallway.“Yep. Do you want me to join you?” Monica asked kindly.Carol stopped herself from reflexively brushing off Monica’s offer, but thought better of it, “Yeah, actually. If you could take ten or so minutes, I’d really like that, kid.”Monica rolled her eyes at being called ‘kid’. “I look older than you now,” Monica groused.“Correction, you’re biologically older than me, barely,” Carol was quick to point out, “But you’ve clearly got superior genetics cause you could still totally pass for an undergrad student finishing up their Bachelors’.” Monica just sighed at Carol’s painful honesty.“I still get carded at bars Stateside sometimes,” Monica moaned. But Carol just swung an arm around her the taller woman’s shoulder and laughed as they left the avengers to their watching for the moment.

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

Hello everyone,Sorry for (perhaps) getting your hopes up with an emailed update on this story.

However, since Endgame is released this week, I thought I'd address it. I won't personally be able to see it until after many of you, so please don't leave spoilers in the comment section. It's moments like this I wish that ao3 had direct messaging. In a future chapter, I'll put up spoiler banners for discussion of the film, but that'll probably be at least a week from now.
(It might be sooner if I get to see it this weekend)Unlike my other story Avenge Us, this isn’t tied to Endgame as much, but it may encorporate some things down the line ( like character roster).
Sorry for the false alert. Don’t hate me too much?
As always, thank you for reading,Azure
EDIT: 4/28/2019I totally shirked some obligations to see the Endgame a few days early...but I STILL don't want any spoilers in the comment thread until I give the 'OK'. I'll let you all know on the next chapter whether it's ok or not.

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

CHAPTER 12: Re-Entry

While the title character had left the room with her daughter, there was still so much to watch. “Hit ‘play’, kid,” Scott said as he turned back to his daughter. Eagerly, she did so.

The next few minutes was a showcase of Carol knocking Skrull around like pinballs despite having her powers effectively restrained for the time being.

There was a moment when one of them roared at her, and she just yelled back at it with zero hesitation, and then smashed him into the floor. As far as one-sided fights went, this was a slaughter. Though when she left the hallway, all the Skrull were unconscious or too injured to get back on their feet.

“Damn, she don’t play,” Rhodey muttered. “Can you two do that?” He asked to the Asgardians.

“There wouldn’t be survivors if that were me,” Valkyries replied haughtily. Thor just shook his head good-naturedly.

“Can we tone town the murdery talk, please?” Scott asked. He gestured at his daughter, who slapped his hand out of the air.

“You’re no fun,” Cassie huffed.

“Just looking out for your mental health squirt,” Scott fires back. He’s rewarded with a pout. While he may have been bantering with his daughter, he was also being serious. He didn’t want his middle-school daughter to be traumatised by this group of veterans.

Carol eventually finds her way back to the room where they were keeping her boots. The recording of her memory replays the memory of the guy making the cockpit comment. She buts a photon blast through his face, destroying the screen. She encounters more Skrull and takes them down with ease.

“So you’re okay with innuendos from predatory airmen, but not the barest insinuation of real violence?” Natasha throws at Scott.

“Hey, he’s clearly a bad guy, and Carol blasted him for it. It’s the words said by our friends that inform to the better parts of us.” Scott replied.

“Why did Carol and Monica step out?” Bruce asked as more Skrulls on the screen had unfortunate encounters with the fuming soldier.

“I’m not sure, exactly, but it’s for her to tell us. Only if she wants to,” Steve said firmly. He’d recognize that haunted look in her eyes anywhere.

A big Skrull appeared. It was easily over two meters tall. Carol punched it, and while it wasn’t entirely ineffective, the punch back she got landed her on her back.

“C’mon Carol!” Cassie whispered to herself. She was really getting into it. Her small outburst drew affectionate eyes from everyone else.

Carol tried to use her powers again; she was crawling backwards, trying and failing to break the shackles. Once her enemies were upon her, she unleashed as much power as she could muster, her shackles superheated and then shattered. “Yes!” Cassie punched the air. While non-vocal, the rest of the Avengers seemed equally relieved.“I was worried that would backfire and we’d be into hard-R territory for blood and gore,” Rhodey muttered.Bruce tapped him on the shoulder and nodded emphatically.“Don’t be stupid,” Valkyrie rolled her eyes. “She’s in the other room, no prosthetic arms.”Natasha raised an eyebrow at Valkyrie’s casual drawl. It certainly didn’t match the glimmer of fear she was wearing seconds earlier. Hmm, does the big bad Valkyrie have a crush? Natasha wondered.
Carol’s powers exploded outward from her fists, killing the three Skrull bearing down on her. Her photon blast was sustained and actually propelled her across the room. Her grin of triumph was electric; she clapped her hands together and turned to face the remaining Skrulls in the room with an eager glint in her eyes.
“They’re so screwed now,” Bruce muttered. It took him a second, but he realised he had just unconsciously compared Carol getting her arms back to Thor’s arrival in Wakanda. He desperately hoped this turned out better.
The Skrulls looked over Carol’s shoulder and instead of rushing her like every other Skrull had, they were whimpering and desperately holding onto the grooves in the wall. For all her confidence, Carol wasn’t unobservant, she turned to see what they were, and saw that her photon powers had melted right through the bulkhead. Before she could grasp something, the wall imploded, sending all the Skrulls into the void of outer space. She managed to snag a pipe while her mask materialised over her face.
“Damn that was close,” Rhodey breathed. “It’s because of disasters like that I never wanted to be an astronaut.”Thor looked at him and said, “Being in the void is truly terrible. You’re right to fear it.”
She pulsed her powers again, propelling her against the current of air rushing past her, landing her behind the airlocked door.

She saw Skrulls sprinting to the escape pods. It was easy to liberate one, but then a blaster bolt fired into the console from over her shoulder. “We were just getting to know each other,” Talos drawled. He wisely hit the deck when Carol returned fire over her shoulder and launched the pod.

Her good luck had clearly deserted her because the pod fragmented with thousands of feet to the ground.
“Is she gonna be okay?” Cassie asked her dad as she paused the thing. She didn’t want to see Carol hit the ground and go splat after all.“She’s gonna be fine kid, don’t you worry,” Monica said from the threshold. She and Carol were back. Carol was holding a big plate stacked with grilled cheeses in one hand, and a six-pack of root beer in the other.Carol winked at Cassie, causing the middle-schooler to blush, much to the amusement of everyone else. “You guys are really gonna like the next part, trust me,” Carol smirked. It seemed her uneasiness from earlier was mostly gone.“Why is that?” Natasha asked bluntly.Monica just smirked at the shorter woman before walking over and plopping down on the stool next to the spy. “Oh, you’ll just have to see it with your own two eyes,” Monica replied with her Cheshire cat grin. Her immaculate smile was entirely mischievous glee.“Don’t tease them too much, Trouble,” Carol chided half-heartedly as she sat down between her daughter and Valkyrie, who scooted over quickly to make room. Thor’s eyebrows went up a little at how unusually polite the Valkyrie was being around Carol.“Well, let’s get on with it then, if that’s alright with you,” Steve said kindly to Cassie, who made a sheepish look and resumed the memory.
Of all things she could’ve landed on, Carol plummeted straight through the roof of the much loved and late great staple of the 90’s: Blockbuster.

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

CHAPTER 13: Starforce Lady

Carol got up pretty quickly, considering she’d fallen at least 10,000 feet. The lights were still swinging on the ceiling and the dust hadn’t settled yet. She looked around, baffled by her surroundings. She picked up a VHS tape, inspected it briefly before setting it down. She tried to contact Starforce Command, but her communication device was damaged from the fall, or maybe when the pod exploded with her in it.

She makes her way outside to the mall cop and asks, “Hi, I’m Vers, Kree Starforce; is this C-53?”
“That poor dude is so out of his depth,” Rhodey chuckles. “He’s not getting paid enough for this shit,” Scott sent him a scathing look, but Rhodey brushed it off.“I’m guessing the Kree have never been to Earth before,” Natasha said. To her surprise, Monica shifted next to her. No, Monica flinched. What the hell? Natasha thought. “Have they?” Natasha asked, fixing Monica with a rare look of total surprise.“I’ll explain later,” Monica muttered, looking distinctly put out. Carol rubbed her shoulder in a soothing gesture, but didn’t any further information to Natasha.Romanov didn’t want to wait for Monica, so she turned to Valkyrie, “Have they? Been here before?”To the surprise of everyone watching this exchange, Valkyrie looked uncomfortable now.
The mall cop directs her to the Radio Shack for ‘communication equipment’. Carol walked off, and the screen went blank.
“What happened?” Cassie spoke up.
The projection abruptly cut to morning, and Carol had taken apart a GAME BOY and attached the wires from it to the pay-phone, which she was using to boost the signal of her comms. She eventually made contact. “Hey, what happened? Are you guys alright?”

“Ambush,” Yon-Rogg replied. “We lost you, where are you?”
Carol had a flicker of power run along her clenched fist, though it was at her side below the counter, so nobody noticed it except Monica, who gently squeezed that hand until Carol’s tension drained away a bit. Carol dipped her head to bump it on Monica’s shoulder in thanks. The daughter chuckled at her mom’s slightly childish display.
“C-53,” Was Carol’s casual reply.

“What about Solar?” Yon-Rogg asked after a noticeable hitch in his breathing.

“Talos simmed him, he had the code too.” Carol replied seriously. At Yon-Rogg’s reflexive ‘That’s impossible!’ Carol continued, “They had this thing. A machine that looks at memories. That’s probably how they dug it out of his subconscious. They messed with my mind. They’re here looking for someone called Dr. Lawson. Lawson is in possession of a light-speed engine they want their hands on.”

“Who?”

“She’s…who I see.”

“What? Sorry, Vers, I can’t–––hold your position. Vers…. Vers!”

The transmission breaks off, and Carol’s still grappling with what she just tried to tell Yon-Rogg. Lawson is the person she admired most, the form the Supreme Intelligence took when she was in its presence.
“You know, for all that fancy tech, you’d think the Kree had working communications,” Steve floated.“Hey, I was working with what I had Cap’n Crunch,” Carol shot back, immediately silencing the gobsmacked Captain America.“Can I have a new nickname?” Steve asked politely.“Nope.” Carol smirked back at him.
There were several cars that pulled up, the Men in Black had arrived, apparently. “You called this in?” one of the agents asked the night shift mall cop, who apparently hadn’t moved an inch in what must’ve been at least several hours.

Carol was still busy fiddling with the comms device. “BEACON ACTIVATED,”

The agent who went to the mall cop straightened up, revealing himself to be none other than,–
“Coulson!” Steve got there first.“Damn he looks young,” Natasha muttered.“You guys know him too?” Carol asked.“How do you know him?” Bruce replied to Carol. “He died on the helicarrier in 2012.”Carol raised and eyebrow and shrugged (somewhat unconvincingly for Natasha).Monica spoke up while she extended a hand and purple power surrounded it. “It has something to do with this, but that’s a story for later. Is this the part you’ve been looking forward to?” she asked her mom.

Carol smiled really hard and just nodded like a six-year old juiced up on candy. She turned her full attention back to the wall with the projection and lightly nudged Monica to do the same. With an eye-roll and a playful sigh, Monica followed her mom’s lead.However, the younger woman’s hand went to her pocket where she retrieved a separate but similar communication device to the one she, Fury, and Carol carried as a matched set. She hit the transmit button before the projector started again.

Carol was trying to get the phone to work again, but it wasn’t looking good. Suddenly, there was a knock on the phone box’s glass. Carol turned to reveal a young and noticeably two-eyed Agent Nick Fury.

“Excuse me. Do you know anything about a lady going through the roof of that Blockbuster over there? The witness says she was dressed for laser tag,” Fury said with an honest to god smile on his face.

Carol didn’t miss a beat and replied, “Oh yeah! I think she went that way!” she was pointing away from herself. It was a pathetic deflection, but what was she going to do?

Agent Fury didn’t even acknowledge her ruse, “I’d like to ask you some questions. Can you show me your identification please?”

“Vers. Kree Starforce. We don’t carry identification on tiny plastic cards,” Carol said as she shot a confused look at Fury’s own badge.

“Vers? Star–Force?” Fury looked flummoxed, but also like he was surprised that this lady was coming up with the bullshit and transparent lie to end all bullshit and transparent lies. “You planning in staying in town for long?”

“Oh shit,” James muttered. “The big bad Director doesn’t know about aliens yet does he?” he looked over at Carol, who was doing her best impression of the Cheshire Cat.

“Only until I track down the Skrulls infiltrating your planet,” Carol replies with a bright smile.

Fury looks to Coulson with a major ‘WTF??’ expression before turning back to Carol. “Skrulls?”

“Yeah, they’re shape-shifters. They can take the form of any life-form down to the DNA.”

Fury still looks baffled, and Carol is quickly losing patience. “Oh boy, you really don’t have any clue do you?” She made to move away from him when he grabbed her elbow, she looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time, and it wasn’t a generous expression on her face.

“Hold on, how do we know you’re not one of those…Skrulls,” Fury says as he lets her go once realising her expression.

Carol relaxes a little bit and replies with a smirk, “Congratualations Agent Fury, you’ve finally asked a relevant question.”

“Oh, congratulations to you! Starforce Lady, you’re under arrest,” Fury is done with this apparent charade.

Right then, a man in a wetsuit purched atop a nearby building raises a clearly Skrull rifle and takes a shot at them. Carol throws Fury into the phone box, saving his life, and immediately fires back with a photon, obliterating the concrete where the Skurll had been less than a second prior.

Without waiting for any more words from the men in black, Carol sprints after the Skrull, leaving Fury looking like his world view just got decimated.
The projection is paused again. “Was that Fury’s first encounter of the third kind?” Natasha asked Carol point blank.“Yep. As far as I know,” Carol replied with the same smirk her past-self had worn when complimenting Fury on a question well-asked.“And you saved his life right then,” Steve stated.“Obviously,” Carol rolled her eyes at the other Captain.“I thought I was Director Fury’s first encounter with the unkown,” Thor groused over by the opposite wall, having left Valkyrie to sit alone with the other women.“You thought wrong my dude,” Monica replied casually.“Can we take a break to talk about this? I feel like you guys need to talk about this,” Scott supplied from his place with Cassie at his side.“That’s not a terrible idea,” Bruce said. “I want to know more about how you know Agent Coulson.”Monica was unconsciously fiddling with the device in her hand, and Natasha noticed, “What’s that you got in your hand there, Colonel?” There was no real accusation in her voice, just curiosity.“Seeing Coulson reminded me about some other folks I know. But I don’t know if they’re dusted or not. I’m waiting for a–,” the device pinged once, and Monica’s face lit up in a smile, “reply,” she trailed off.“Is that who I think it is?” Carol asked with an eyebrow raised. Monica nodded with a warm smile.“Well, I think it’s time for more drinks,” Valkyrie said as she got to her feet.As she made to leave the room, Carol also stood, “I’ll go with you. I want to see what this place stocks,” she added as an afterthought that didn’t exactly fool Monica.“Hey mom,” Monica called as Carol and Valkyrie went to retrieve drinks for their small intermission. “Wanna fly and get takeout or something? Not that this place doesn’t have decent food, but it’s kinda shitty, guys, and I’m getting hungry again,” Monica said unapologetically.“I too am hungry. It’s been too long since I have indulged in ‘Earth food’,” Thor said with a smile.Steve rolled his eyes, but when he looked at Cassie, he could see her silent agreement with Monica’s words; she was just too polite to say anything. “Hold on a minute,” he said as he quickly jogged off to get some burner phones for the pair getting food to keep in contact, one of which, he tossed to Carol. “We’ll update you with our order once you choose a place.”Carol nodded to Steve and waved to Monica before stepping outside with Valkyrie. She then grabbed squawking Valkyrie around the waist and
yeeted out of there in a
burst of cosmic light.

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

CHAPTER 14: S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Finest HourAuthor’s Note: Spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5.

Monica was laughing at Valkyrie’s expression just before Carol grabbed her and blasted off. Asgardian or not, that was going to be a rough ride. “I’ve never seen her show anything less than confidence or casual drunkenness,” Thor remarked as he watched them go. “It’s nice, seeing her smile.”

“Carol will get those moments of surprise out of you, just wait,” Monica chuckled.

Thor had a small think about it before replying, “I certainly hope not,” Monica just laughed at the look of total apprehension on his face. Even Natasha hid a bit of a grin.

“Who’s on the other end of your spy beacon there, Colonel?” Natasha asked casually.

Monica raised an eyebrow, but responded candidly anyway, “Some friends of mine from S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“I thought they ceased to exist after Hydra came out of the woodwork?” Steve asked.

Monica tilted her head while she considered what she should say. “Well, who do you think has been beating Hydra back all these years since then? Did you really think all of them were at that testing facility in Sokovia where you found Pietro and Wanda Maximoff?” Monica regretted bringing them up immediately, despite making her point succinctly.Natasha and Steve both flinched; very out of character for them. Rhodey looked at his feet uncomfortably and Scott just looked gutted. You had to open your big fucking mouth didn’t you? Monica berated herself while pressing on, hoping to get this team away from the fresh loss of their dead friend/frenemy Wanda.“After Fury stepped down, his successor rebuilt the organization. It’s not nearly as sprawling, but they’ve been handling apocalyptic threats that you guys just don’t know about. The proliferation of ‘enhanced’ people is also because of them. Though that was the collateral result of a worse catastrophe averted.” Monica said with the same casualness she had before.“Their Director is enhanced actually,” Monica said with a shrug.

She walked over to one of the consoles and activated the screen before anyone could get their dropped jaws back in place. With far too much ease, she pulled up an image of Chicago that nobody in the room was expecting:

There was a massive space ship that had landed across at least five skyscrapers. From the angle of the cameras, it was laid out across most of the skyscrapers in the area. Clearly hundreds of people were already.

“Oh God,” Steve gasped at the horror up on the screen next to the projection of Carol running after the Skrull.

Rhodey winced. He had some friends who died in New York during 9/11, and this image of multiple skyscrapers destroyed like that was bringing back horrible memories.

“This is Chicago, last month. I doubt you guys heard about it because obviously a thousand or so deaths would’ve gone right under the radar, especially on the day Thanos snapped his fingers. And if S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t there, the planet would’ve been quite literally shattered.”

“Shattered?” Banner asked after a moment.

Monica spent the next couple minutes tapping, constructing a whole moving picture of events compiled from multiple angles from CCTV cameras and miscellaneous phones from bystanders recording the event.

There was a man standing tall in all black. He floated to the ground like some kind of dark angel.

“That’s Graviton, formerly a good man named General Glenn Talbot,” Monica said sadly.

The Bad Guy in the black, Graviton, was using his powers to raise enormous pillars of earth into the air, almost as tall as the surrounding buildings.

“What the hell is he doing?” Rhodey asked. A fair question, Monica thought.

“He’s mining gravitonium,” Monica replied.

“There’s gravitonium on this planet?” Thor asked aghast.

“Oh no,” Banner breathed as he sat down with a hand over his face.

“Unfortunately,” Monica replied, glad that at least one of them understood how terrifying this unassuming metal was. “It makes vibranium look like a little bitch, in terms of potential power. It’s mostly used on space ships to supply false gravity, and even then, only in very small amounts,” Monica supplied for the still confused. “This idiot infused himself with the stuff using the same machine that administered Erskine’s serum to you,” Monica said as she pointed at Captain America. “This,” Monica gestured at the 9/11 imagery all over the screen in Chicago, “Is Hydra’s doing, for context. His powers over gravity are terrifying.”

Suddenly another figure in black collided with Graviton, sending him into the ground. A woman, who was punching him in the face repeatedly in the face, as they rent a ditch in the concrete of the street at least twenty yards from where she grabbed him. They only stopped when they crashed into a bus.

“Isn’t that Quake?” Cassie asked with sudden interest.

“The vigilante who hunted down that neo-nazi-ish biker gang across the country?” Rhodey asked with suspicion.

“That’s my friend Daisy, by the way,” Monica said as she fiddling with the controls at the console, and suddenly audio was available.

Daisy was screaming at her adversary, “Stop! People are DYING,”

Graviton’s response was as calm as it was chilling, “This is war. Collateral damage is part of it. I need to arm myself so I can fight my enemies.”

Daisy was devastated, “You are becoming The Enemy, whether you believe it or not.”

“I knew Talbot, what the hell happened to him?” Rhodey asked in horror.

“The gravitonium destroyed him. The man you knew as Talbot died when he put himself in that machine. I’m sure he did it for a good reason, after all, the earth was being invaded at the time, space ships over Wakanda and one destroyed part of New York, again. He wanted to help. To be a-a patriot,” the word rolled off Monica’s tongue with distaste, “But he just…” Monica clenched her fist and violet energy crackled up her forearm into her hand. “He just did something really dumb trying to be a hero, and this is what happened.” Monica was clearly fighting tears. “He became a monster, for all the right reasons, but a monster all the same,” she said a little more softly as she tapped the console and the footage resumed.

Daisy continued to try and talk him down, “Thing about your son.”

“I’m doing this for him,” Graviton said with absolute certainty.

“Did you see it in his face? How scared he was? Of you?” Daisy fired back, though keeping her voice calm and entreating.

“Even after all that, she’s trying to talk him down,” Steve observed in awe. “That’s strength of character,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be talking at this point,” Natasha muttered to herself, only a little embarrassed when Monica looked her in the eye.

“That’s okay, Natasha, I wouldn’t be talking to him either,” Monica said with a sad smile.

“It’s just because I seem different. I’m becoming the most powerful being in the universe. You’ll see, one day. The ends justify the mean, right?” Graviton said again with certainty, but he was also genuinely trying to convince Daisy.

Daisy stood up away from him and replied, “The only people who say that, are the people doing bad thing.”

“I like her,” Cassie spoke up. “I think she’s right,” she continued.

Steve looked at her and said, “You’re right about her, and I think you’re right too, Cassie.”

Monica wasn’t sure who looked prouder at Steve’s praise, Cassie or Scott, who was beaming with pride at his daughter being so validated by his hero. Monica couldn’t hide her smile at the small interaction. She noticed Natasha grin too before the spy made her face neutral again.

“I’m becoming a hero,” Graviton said. He sounded less sure, but only just.

Daisy looked at him for a moment with something unreadable in her eyes and said, “You ARE one.”

That got through to the villain. Graviton’s brows furrowed in confusion at his adversary’s words.

Daisy reached her hand down to pull him up. Daisy continued valiantly, “The minute you enlisted, you became one, we all did. Look! Look around! You’re surrounded by them.” Daisy said as she pointed out the cops and fire-fighters corralling civilians away from the chaos. There were a few others marshalling civilians away from the destruction who were dressed in the identical tactical pants and jacket with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo that Daisy wore.

“What S.H.I.E.L.D.’s supposed to be,” Steve murmured. Natasha looked at him with tears in her eyes.

Monica looked between them and asked, “Did I miss something?”

“When we though we were all gonna die in Sokovia, Fury showed up with the Helicarrier. Pietro Maximoff asked if that was S.H.I.E.L.D. and Steve said, ‘It’s what S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to be. Helping people.”

Monica nodded. “You know, procuring that Hellicarrier for that big save caused a rift in the remaining S.H.I.E.L.D. hierarchy. The Sokovia accords also just made everything worse, got a lot of people killed because their teams were tied down in bureaucracy, so thanks for that Lieutenant Colonel” Monica jabbed at Rhodey, who had the sense to look ashamed. Coulson was barely able to manage it.” Monica winced as she realised she said the C-word.

“Coulson?” Steve asked.

Monica looked like she was going to clam up, but she found a firm hand at her elbow, “We deserve to know,” Natasha said softly. But Monica knew she’d be in deep shit with the spy if she flat out refused.

Groaning, Monica said, “Coulson was murdered by Loki, right. Well, Fury used Kree blood to resurrect him after things calmed down a little.” Monica saw all the questions in the eyes of the Avengers. “Nope, that’s a longer story. Suffice to say, after Hydra tore everything apart, Fury realised that his way of running the organization wasn’t the best. So he named Coulson director, and gave him the keys to the kingdom so to speak.” Monica turned to Thor. “Your friend, Lady Sif,” Thor snapped his head to her at the mention of his oldest friend.

“What of her?” Thor asked.

“She knew about Coulson, though did the noble thing when Coulson asked her to keep the secret. Him and his team helped her out a couple times. The first one was when this bitch named uh, Lorelai showed up and started enslaving dudes.” Thor put a hand over his face. “It was fine though, the second time was because of how Daisy got her powers. That time, she was tracking a Kree came to earth. Like, that’s a big discussion, about why that Kree came here. She took him back to Asgard though after a bit of a misunderstanding about Daisy.” Monica’s lip curled in distaste when she said misunderstanding. She shook her head and said, “None of that is the point now, just watch the damn video,” she said as the action resumed.

“You’re surrounded by them. Anyone who signs up to lose friends, or limbs, or your mind, or you life in protection of humanity. We’re in this together. We need to join forces.” Daisy finished with conviction.

“Little heavy on the propaganda there,” Scott pointed out.

“She’s not wrong,” Steve argued.

“Obviously it’s propaganda, but it’s pretty damn effective,” Rhodey said. “Talking down a homicidal maniac isn’t the time for intelligent debate about the role of the American Military-Industrial complex dude.

Graviton’s look changed to something almost pitying, “You know, Hale gave that speech. Right before she tortured me. And Coulson says it every time he’s gonna stab me in the back.” Graviton’s featured hardened. “Humanity is on the brink, and only I can save it.”

“Oh no,” Banner uttered as things looked immediately worse.

Daisy raised her hand much like how Stark did when firing his pulsar beams, or Carol with her photon blasts. But she was too slow, and Graviton pulled her to him with his powers. “You were right about one thing,” he said menacingly, “We should join forces.

Natasha had a pit of dread in her stomach almost immediately following that line. “What does he mean,” she beseeched Monica, her eyes wild with something akin to fear.Monica put a steadying hand on the bleached blonde woman and whispered in her ear, “Daisy will be alright, okay?” Natasha looked up into Monica’s eyes and nodded.
Still holding Daisy, Graviton propelled them straight up into the air. They kept rising until they were well above the skyscrapers, even the Sears Tower.
Outside, Carol and Valkyrie returned. Monica paused the footage replay to the outcry of everyone else. She silenced them all with a look she had learned from her moms in her childhood. “You guys didn’t call back so we just got a shit tonne of pizza,” Carol said as she and Valkyrie walked in with several big-ass pizzas apiece.“You aren’t flying with me again,” Valkyrie muttered. Her windswept hair was spilling across her face, much to Carol’s clear amusement.“You loved it,” Carol grinned as she lightly bumped Valkyrie with her hip, sending the Asgardian staggering a couple steps to her left. “Sorry, too much excitement there. On the bright side, you have a favourite pizza now,” Carol nudged Valkyrie a bit lighter this time.Valkyrie grunted something in a language none of the humans recognized, but Thor suddenly pointed his finger at the Valkyrie and started laughing. She chucked a pizza at him, which he caught and immediately began to eat. Carol just looked at Valkyrie and her king with bemusement. She’d get the pretty Asgardian lady to fess up later.Monica looked at her cell and sure enough, there were a couple texts from Carol that she had totally missed in the excitement over the revelation of Coulson and the fight they were watching. “Hey it’s Daisy!” Carol smiled as she looked at the screen. Her happy expression was in sharp contrast to Daisy, who’s expression was only slightly short of furious with Graviton.Monica just rolled her eyes as she took the pizzas from Carol and set up a surprisingly efficient buffet line.A few minutes later, everyone was ready to resume the footage of Daisy vs. Graviton.
Graviton inverted their momentum, and plummeted them both towards the ground at terminal velocity, achieving such speed in a relatively short distance due to his powers. Their impact shattered the ground beneath them. The shockwave that resulted from that crash scattered the civilians and frayed the foundations of the buildings around them. Glass and debris rained down around them.
“There’s no human who can survive that,” Valkyrie said. Carol punched her on the arm, “Okay, other than Blondie over here.”“I could,” Monica casually raised her hand as if Valkyrie was calling attendance. Valkyrie just looked at Monica and Carol before looking back at Thor. “What the hell has gone about on Midgard in the last few years to produce warriors of this calibre?”“Aww, that sounded like a complement,” Carol grinned as she stole Valkyrie’s slice of pizza and began munching on it unashamedly.Monica raised her eyebrows at Carol’s obvious flirting. There were some things the young Colonel just didn’t need to see. “That surge of power was actually Daisy’s. It was her powers protecting her,” Monica felt the need to point out.
Graviton was on his feet, and Daisy was crawling away from him, coughing out flecks of blood as she went. “I’ll be able to get to that buried gravitonium once I can quake the ground apart.”
“What the does he mean by that?” Scott asked with apprehension.Monica and Carol exchanged a look, Monica said, “Part of his power set is the ability to absorb other people. He can consume them, trap their minds in his own forever, and take their powers.”No sooner had Monica given that stark explanation, they began to see Graviton doing exactly that.
Graviton dragged Daisy to her feet, and held her against him with an arm around her throat. His other arm shot out liquid metal, gravitonium, and it began to surround Daisy. It was all over her. She seemed to understand that she was about to suffer a fate worse than death.
“No!” Cassie shouted in fear. None of the adults reassured her as the metal continued to attach itself to Daisy.
It began to obscure her, most of her body was already covered with it. It was over for her.

But then something changed in her eyes. Disregarding her body about to be digested by the gravitonium, she picked a syringe out of her gauntlet. The look in her eyes wasn’t relief or victorious; it was horror. Tears began to spill from her eyes as she gingerly took it out of her gauntlet and with a sharp movement, jabbed it into her own neck, pushing the contents into her bloodstream, just as the gravitium obscured everything other than her eye.
“What was that?” Steve asked.“A superpower serum combined with her mother’s DNA to fascilitate an extreme healing factor,” Monica said.
Daisy’s eye blazed with power. She threw her arms out, and the gravitonium, and Graviton was repulsed from her body, leaving her untouched. Graviton staggered to his feet. Daisy fell onto her back, looking up at him as he towered over her menacingly.

“Well, now I’ll just break you in half,” Graviton stated as he raised his hands to do exactly that. Daisy raised her hands from her position on the ground, as if to protect herself.

BOOM!

The focused shockwave that came from her hands sent him flying directly upwards at speeds that the human eye couldn’t follow, immediately breaking the sound barrier. All the glass on the adjacent skyscraper’s upper levels shattered as the wake vortex from Graviton hit. The clouds parted in a wide radius around him as Daisy’s last effort carried him straight outta the Earth’s atmosphere; and continued to carry him outside of the planet’s orbit. He died in space, alone and cold.

Daisy laid back onto the ground, which cracked beneath her from the force of her defence.
“Wow,” Carol said with wide eyes. “It’s one thing to hear about it, it’s another to see it. Damn.”Monica stopped the footage and said, “The Avengers Initiative was never just one team. It’s everyone who protects the planet in a way that the ordinary governments just aren’t equipped for. As far as I’m concerned, that girl, Director Daisy Johnson of S.H.I.E.L.D. is just as much an ‘Avenger’ as all of you are.”With that, Monica decided to resume the memory projection.