Chapter Text
April 27th, 2018
She awakes with a gasp.
The sheets are tangled around her legs, sweat has collected on her brow, and images flash before her eyes - of dust where people once stood, a God crying out in rage over a massacre, a man broken by time withstanding the power of the universe. A familiar name placed to an unfamiliar face, a robot commanding armies across Earth, a hand of scarlet reaching for nothingness.
She stands. Gathers her hair up into a tight bun (for some habits from the Air Force never leave, even years after the fact) and washes her face. Her hands, trembling slightly, glow with the aftershocks of her nightmares - her dreams - her future. Bloodstained and apocalyptic, an alien of untold terror with power absolute taking over not just Earth, not just a solar system, but entire galaxies, the universe in its infinity.
Carol Danvers is 52 years old and looks not a day over 25. She is no longer fully human and still wakes with broken cries in the night. Her pager sits by her nightstand, on her hip, in her hand, waiting for a call from an old friend she hasn’t seen in years as stars and galaxies stretch out for forever in front of her eyes. Carol Danvers, an Avenger, a hybrid, crowned princess of Aladna, touched by the Tesseract and blessed by alien races no one has ever seen or heard of before, if they’re lucky.
Carol Danvers, who has just watched her homeworld burn and blaze by machines and aliens. She strips her old nightclothes on and tries her best to recall the swirling images that threaten to leave her mind’s eye - Gods, aliens, a scarlet hand burned black. A man with a star where his heart resided, a battlefield of heroes running and fighting as if nothing else in the world was more important than winning the fight before them.
Carol checks her ship over. Pulls her suit on, eats a partial meal of rehydrated dried grain from a planet known as A’pree in the Delta Corvi system. The star over her chest brings back more memories and she searches her ship for an old photograph, feeling a sense of relief when she finally locates it.
In the center is a living legend brought back to life, Captain America. Next to him is the man with a star in his chest, his suit a mess of dents and scrapes revealing the metal beneath the blood-red paint. Behind them, an alien/human hybrid (she assumes, anyhow) of green, in torn purple pants, grinning broadly. Kneeling on the ground is an archer dressed in black and purple, also grinning, though his is tired, with his arm slung around a red-headed woman’s shoulders. Next to the pair stands the God from her dreams - Thor, in a cape and armor, hammer by his side.
The date of the photo is from May 2012 - 6 years ago almost to the day. Written in Nick Fury’s familiar scrawl are the words Earth’s Mightiest Heroes! with a subscript below.
P.S - don’t worry Danvers, we’ve got Earth covered for you. You go take care of those galaxies of yours. We’ll be waiting for you.
N.J.F
6 years. It’s been a long time. Another image flashes in her mind - a pager, the twin to her own, with her symbol flashing on the screen, falling through the air as screams gradually grow in volume.
She sets a course for home.