Tomb Raider - Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel

23. Just Some Light Forgery

Two pieces of staff down, one to go. The long, intensive search had begun.

"These things always happen in threes," Nora commented during one long searching session. "And the third and last part is always the hardest."

"Not always," said Fury.

"Well, usually.  More often than not. And it certainly seems to be the case here."

It was true.  Luckily, Fury was combing through the extensive S.H.I.E.L.D. files, both paper and digital, helping with the search.  And good thing too, for that was where they ultimately found their answer. 

"This is an old S.S.R. report - Strategic Scientific Reserve,  S.H.I.E.L.D.'s predecessor. It says here that the piece of staff was hunted down and located by agents of H.Y.D.R.A., the Nazi deep science division," Fury read off of a computer file of a scanned document.  "This was in 1943.  They were pretty obsessed with old, supposedly powerful relics.  

"Oh no, not Nazis."

"Yeah..." Fury scanned the page. "Well, looks like the staff, or piece of it rather, was confiscated during a final confrontation between the Nazis and Soviets towards the end of the war.  But it was destroyed."

"Oh, good." Good that it was out of Nazi hands.  "Wait, did you say destroyed?"

"Afraid so."

"Oh..." Not so good... "So, now what?" But everyone was wondering the same. Nora felt her heart sink. 

"I don't have a damn clue," said Fury, speaking for all of them.

"Maybe you don't need the staff," Carol ventured.  "I mean, you're doing really well with keeping your powers controlled without it." She took Nora's hand to emphasize her point and gave it an equally comforting and reassuring squeeze.

"Yeah, maybe, but we've come this far... Damn it.  Lost is one thing, but destroyed is another."  Quite another.  She literally had no clue what to do next.

She took the two pieces they had, examining them together.  They had both ends of the staff, like long batons in her hands, and were just missing the middle section to hold the two together and complete the staff.

"Hang on - Carol, do you still have that hologram of the full staff you originally showed me?"

"Yeah, sure." With a mere swipe of her fingers across her arm, Carol had pulled the image up.  It was mostly just an outline, not detailed, but it showed the staff as a whole, and that counted for something. 

"Hmm." Nora leaned in close to examine it.  "And it bears these glyphs, like the ones Mum drew in that file." A smirk was crawling up her lips, one to rival Carol's famous one.  "I think I may have a solution."

"Ooo, I like that look." Now Carol smirked too. They met smirks and Nora blushed.

"What have you got?" asked Fury.

"Well, Director Fury, as you may recall, we met under rather particular circumstances where I had  managed to forge a pretty damn good replication of an agent ID badge, if I do say so myself. And then you caught me selling forged coins on the black market..."

"You think you can forge the staff?"

"Yes, the piece of it that's missing.  Look, the glyphs on the pieces we do have seem to follow a certain pattern across, so I just have to follow that. It's worth a shot, seeing as we don't have access to the last piece." 

"Sounds like a plan, Doc," said Carol.  "I'm in."

"Oh, no," sighed Fury.

"Oh, come on, Director! It's just some light forgery!" Nora cracked her knuckles.  "Stand back, folks.  I'm about to work my magic - no pun intended."

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"What you're doing is so cool," Carol said as she peered over Nora's shoulder while she worked. Her presence behind Nora was both comforting and intimidating. 

"Says literally the coolest person I've ever met."  Nora could feel Carol smirking behind her in response to her words, but dared herself not to look, knowing full well that she wouldn't be able to focus if she did.  And she needed to focus.

"I just hope this works."  Because if it didn't, and her efforts proved well-intentioned but useless, she had no idea what they were going to do.  What she  was going to do.  

The first  step was to sketch out the whole staff, following the pattern of glyphs at each end through the middle as well.  Then, do a larger sketch of just the middle piece, and then 3D print it, and voila! The staff would be whole and complete.  Well, hopefully.   

"I've been meaning to ask you - where do you sleep?" Carol looked at her.  "Okay, that sounded a bit weird.  Do you sleep on your ship?" She had long wondered where Carol went when they weren't together, and just assumed that she stayed on her ship. 

Carol nodded. "Yeah, it's my home. I'm usually moving around so much, so that makes it difficult to settle down anywhere. So it's helpful to have a 'house' that can  travel along with me."

"Yeah, makes sense.  While you're here, if you want, I have a whole spare bedroom, Mum and Dad's old room, just sitting there unused.  You can stay there if you like.  I'm not sure what your living space is like aboard your ship. No pressure or anything, just so you know you have options."

Carol grinned.  "I might take you up on that. Thanks Doc."

"I won't even make you pay rent," Nora joked.  "It can be my repaying you for all you've done for me, to help me."

"As I've said, my pleasure.  And you've more than 'repaid' me." Carol winked and for a moment, Nora forgot where she was, what she was doing, and even who she was.  The hum of the 3D printer was what brought her back to reality. Oh yes, that. 

"So, what now?" Carol asked after a moment of them both standing silently listening to the machine work.

"We let it do it's thing.  It's going to take a while, so we don't have to stand here waiting."

"What would you like to do while we wait?"

"Well, I suppose we could continue searching the database for - oh...." There had been a hinting in Carol's voice that she hadn't caught onto right away.  Way to go, Nora. Very smooth. 

Carol smirked.  That damn smirk! "Well, I mean, researching does sound like fun..."

"Oh no, forget I said anything. What were you going to say?"

"I wasn't going to say anything." Carol kissed her. 

Now that was smooth. How was Carol so good at this? She may never find out, and honestly, she didn't mind. 

(SO MANY READS!!! Thank you so, so much for the 10,000+ reads, that's truly amazing! :D Thank you to you all who continue to show love and support for this story, it makes me so happy! :)

I'm very sorry for such a long wait, but school was super busy and I was having major writer's block.  But I'm finished school now and am feeling inspired (yay!) so hopefully it continues! ;) 

Thank you so much for reading - and for sticking with me despite the long wait - and I hope you enjoyed! :))