Avengers One Shots

Said and done

When all it's said and done, Carol gets to come back home- after so many years. Her brother now an old man, her mother a frail creature on the verge of dying. But with a secret she needs to tell, before it's too late.

Fury drives her back home on a fall day – it's evening, the wind is whistling from the bay, and the dying leaves are coloring the air with their thousands of shades of yellow and orange and maroon.

When their park in her- their – small walkway, she is trembling when she leaves the car. She swallows, her legs barely able to sustain her, her heart  beating as fast as light speed, and Carol just knows, in that moment, that she is scared. She has fought empires, tyrants, galactic warriors, but nothing is worse than this - coming back home after over twenty years.

All it's different.

And yet, nothing is.

A man – well in his fifties – stays by the door, biting his lips, looking at her, lost in his thoughts. Even from a distance, Carol knows that his eyes are glassy with unshed tears, and that, by the way he is clenching his fists, he'd have a couple of words for her. Yet, as on autopilot, they walk into each other's direction, meet halfway, and when is finally, finally in his arms, she does something she hasn't done since the accident - she sobs, crying into his shirt.  Because she doesn't need to hear his voice – doesn't need for Fury to introduce the two of them – to recognize him.

Joe Junior. JJ. One of her half-brothers, same father, different mother (not that JJ had ever cared about that. – he had loved Marie like she was his real mother, and Carol his full blood. Steve... he was harder. His father's son. A piece of art. Especially with her.)

(He smells just like their father – lemon and old spice and booze. Not the old man's cheap stuff, though – JJ'S classier – and definitely not a drunk. She just knows by looking into his clear eyes.)

"She's been asking of you."  He whispers in her hair, and she nods. She grabs his hand, and follow him inside, where she gets lost in her own head, seeing ghosts and memories with each and every steps she takes- playing together, their grey cat, their parents kissing, but also the arguments, her father not wanting to pay for college, running away.

And then, here she is. At death's doorstep.

Her mother's room.

Marie's in her bed – not the same she used to share with her husband, a new one, simple grey metal – looking as pale as a ghost, the shadow of the strong woman she used to be, that her daughter had saw while growing up.

"Car Ell..." The old woman breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of the former pilot, and Carol feels her heart breaking- again and again and again – because the old, grey-haired, frail and broken woman right before her (one who can't even spell her own daughter's name rightly) just can't be her mother - it's not who she left so many years before.

(It's not how she wants to remember her mother in the years to come.)

"Cancer. After the furniture plant opened up, a lot of people got sick – turns out they were contaminating the water and didn't give a shit. Ma's been lucky, she's has had more time than a lot of other people here." JJ says, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. Despite the age, his hair is still as blonde as the yellowest corn, and his eyes soft. He doesn't even have a lot of lines: he looks younger than his age, not a father, but definitely her older brother.

"My Car Ell, I'm so glad I got you back before my time came..." Marie turns, and reaches for her daughter's hands, and all Carol can do is falling into her mother's welcoming embrace. She kisses all her tears away, only to wet the frail and dying body with her own ones.

"You need to know, my sweet girl, you need to know the whole truth, before my time comes." Marie says as she cups her daughter's face. "Hala gave you back to me, so that I could share with you your true heritage."

"Ma?" Carol's eyes widen hearing the name, a word forever inscribed in her heart. Hala was her everything back she was simply Vers; her mother shouldn't know that name- And yet, she does, and just like for Vers, if her sad, tired smile is of any indication, it's just a place, not just a word for her too. 

"Larson – she took you under her wing because she felt the truth, she understood what you truly were the first time she met you. Carol.... Car Ell... you do not belong here, in this cold, harsh world... and yet, you do. You are made of stars, just like I am. But like your father, you are ashes."

She cups Carol's face, her bony hand cold, her skin rough. "M-Ma, who... who are you?"

Her mother smiles again, her mind filled with memories of a world forever lost to her. "I wasn't Mari back then. Just Mari-Ell, daughter of Hala, by bloodright and starlight, the youngest captain of the Empress Elite Guard. They gave me a mission. Sent me to Earth."

"But... then you are..."

"A Kree soldier. And you, you, my sweet girl, are Car-Ell, daughter of Mari-Ell, Captain First of the Supreme Protectorate, champion to the Kree Empire, daughter of Hala by birthright and starlight."

Carol's eye fill with tears. Still kneeling at her mother's side, she barely acknowledges Nick's presence, the seasoned spy – a made she helped forging – moved by the exchange, and the knowledge that the only reason Mari is finally sharing this hard truth with her daughter is not because Carol has been finally returned to her home, but because Mari's end is looming over them, with death's inevitable cold touch.

"A Kree soldier made me pancakes when I was a child? Gave me a hot bottle when I had my first period?" Carol half-laughs, and her mother nods.

"This wasn't my target, but I ended up here as I was blown off course. It was night, and chilly. Your father was on Uncle Rick's boat, stargazing. I pretended to be... normal. Just Marie, that my boat had capsized.  He was kind to me- and his two boys. He was a widower with a big heart. I told myself it was just a cover, but, as months passed, I knew I had to tell him the truth... and that's how I knew I loved him. At first, your father didn't believe me. Then, I didn't believe him when he told me we could make it work. I tried to break it off, but your father just proposed. And I said yes. Dooming our life together. Because, even if he just wanted Mari... part of me was still Mari-Ell."

"Ma... I can't believe it..."

"I can." JJ bites his lips, and crosses his arms over his chest.  He doesn't look hurt or surprised- just tired, and old. Like a man his own age. "An you should, too. We once caught ma and pa once, out at the lighthouse, and she was flying."

"So, if I'm half Kree, my powers... you gave it to me, right?"

"What humans see as powers, are just our biological adaption to a life of combat, usually triggered around adolescence and in battle.  When there was the explosion, an ancient Kree defense mechanism kicked in. Your powers, my girl, are your legacy, light and power and speed and strength, they are who you are – who we are."

Mari-Ell smiled, her face looking younger in the semi-darkness of her old room, and her eyes filled with joyful tears. Carol, too, after the longest time, cried as well, as Nick squeezed her shoulder and her mother closes her eyes for the last time.