The Marvels

Ep. 31 | World's Greatest Power Couple That Never Was

The same process that made Juggernaut also made Lady Marvel, but while he was an accident, she was an intention.

Celestro took the chaotic science from the lab explosion and spent seven years turning it into a milder, safer procedure, and when they needed a recipient for their breakthrough, they asked the top student at the FBI Academy: a twenty-six-year-old woman who was only one week away from graduating. She accepted, and Celeste Jones became Lady Marvel, the second-strongest superhuman in the world.

There were mixed reactions to that. People liked her, but they also started debating the ethics behind intentionally altering a human being, even if the risks were incredibly low. Celestro, being the people-pleasers they were, promised to never conduct an experiment like that again, which Lady Marvel later found out had always been their plan. One's enough, Dr. Palmer had said. Any more will make us look like Frankenstein. It was still brought up every now and then, but for the most part, the world had gotten over it.

Lady Marvel herself didn't think about it that much. More than eight years had passed, after all, but her 'origin story,' as people called it, was so closely tied to Juggernaut's that thinking about his meant she had to think about hers, too. Figuring out their relationship and how it ended up like this meant going back to the reason they were even coworkers in the first place.

She was walking through the lab, which was now a tourist attraction. Most of the real equipment had been stripped away, but the neon-lit switchboards and panels remained, along with the electrical burn marks and a single, monstrous-looking machine in the center: the supposed cause of it all. Most people, her included, didn't know what the lab was researching or the exact details of how everything went wrong—they were old trade secrets, kept only by those who were working there at the time.

It wasn't the busiest of places anymore, but it still got its fair share of visitors, and Lady Marvel broke in during the early morning, before it even opened, so it would be empty. The lights were off, but sunlight poured in from the glass panels on the ceiling and bounced around the room. She sat down on the top of the short steps that led up to the raised machine and ran her eyes across the room, waiting.

"Of all the places you could've asked to meet," Juggernaut said, walking out of the shadows of a connected hallway and leaning against a wall, "you picked here."

Lady Marvel studied him, trying to gauge an emotion as he looked around the room. There should be something: nostalgia or disgust, awe or annoyance, positive or negative, just some sort of feeling, but there was nothing on his face but indifference. It was as if he had absolutely no regard at all for the place that changed his entire life as well as the course of human history, and even though he'd been like this for as long as she'd known him, it was still unnerving.

"What did it feel like?" she asked.

"You asked me that same question eight years, three months, and twenty-six days ago," he said, "and my answer hasn't changed."

Lady Marvel simply shrugged. "Why are you a hero?"

"Because I believe in truth, justice, and the triumph of all that is good," he replied monotonously.

"No."

"Because I'm an egotistical maniac on a power trip."

"No."

He looked surprised this time, if not a little relieved. "Alright then," he said, eyes narrowing in a challenge. "Why don't you tell me why I'm here?"

"I can't. That's the problem." Lady Marvel shook her head. "I may not be the best hero out there, but I did start out with a genuine desire to do good...and I don't see that in you. Not even the slightest, remnant hint of it." She stood and went down the steps, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "I honestly have no fucking clue why you're here. But whatever the reason is, I hope it's enough to make you care, even a little."