Proven

Part 2

Refreshed.

It was a feeling that Carol Danvers had not felt in quite a while. She sat up in the comfortable bed that came with the quarters of the Avengers' base of operations. It also had been a while since she had woken up on her own home world. The last time was a decade ago when she came back to Earth to attend the high school graduation of Monica Rambeau. Carol figured that Monica would be at Edwards by now. Provided that she and her mom, Maria, were not affected by The Snap.

Carol quickly ejected that thought out of her head. She had to suppress an urge to head to Edwards and Louisiana to check on them. But Maria and Monica were not part of the mission. Her priority was to find the missing members of the Avengers.

She brought her legs over the edge of the bed and uttered, "Priorities suck."

She dressed back into her uniform and headed out to the kitchen. She saw the former Russian spy, Natasha, sitting at the table alone. She had a blank stare looking at nothing in particular. Carol gave her a quick morning greeting. Natasha mumbled something that was barely audible.

Carol spotted the coffee maker on the main counter and quickly poured herself a cup. She sipped it, savoring the taste. "Ahh, I miss coffee. There's a similar drink on Quasar, but it's not the same." She sat down at the table opposite Natasha. Carol saw that the mug in front of her lacked the steam of a hot beverage.

Carol asked, "Aren't you drinking yours?"

"It's gotten too cold," Natasha said absently.

"Well, that's no problem." Carol cupped Natasha's mug in her palm. The same yellow glow appeared around her hand. Within seconds, the beverage was steaming hot again. Carol released her grip on the mug.

Natasha quipped, "That's certainly a handy power."

"I'm a hit at camping trips." They laughed.

Natasha asked, "What's the source of your powers? And don't say 'long story'"

"Fine. Short version is that I got hit with a great power source after I destroyed it."

"Must have been quite a power source."

"It was part of the power from the Tesseract. I found out much later that it had an Infinity Stone inside of it."

Natasha nodded. "The Space Stone."

Carol raised her brow. "You're familiar with it?"

"All too well. Years ago, it created a multi-dimensional portal that allowed aliens to come through and attack New York. I used a staff with the Mind Stone inside a gem to close the portal."

Carol nodded. She then stated, "When I was here in '95, I told Fury to keep the Tesseract here on Earth. My team took years to try and find the other stones. Never occurred to me that another one would also be here."

"You have a tight crew?"

Carol gave a grin. "The best. They're all from different parts of the galaxy. All with different skills. There was a refugee on Torfu who I rescued. She and I became good friends over the years through many adventures." Carol blew out a long breath. "I watched her and my team literally turn to dust in front of me. Thanos was playing God. But there was no reasoning in the choices of who was erased. Was it random? After it happened, I kept thinking, why wasn't I erased? Why weren't you erased, or Captain America? Or, Heaven forbid, Rocket. I have friends here on Earth who I don't know if they're gone or still here."

Natasha said, "I was thinking the same thing after it happened. Worst part wasn't just that I saw my friends disappear. I was here on Earth when he made the Snap. I saw it happen. And we could have stopped him. We almost did."

"Don't blame yourself. Thanos planned this all of his life. By the time we got wind of it, he was already ahead of us in getting the stones."

Natasha ran her hands through her hair. She took a sip of her coffee. "I'm starting to believe that it would have been better if Thanos had erased everyone from the universe. That way, the half who are still here now don't have to be in this world living with the cruelty of seeing their loved ones being taken from them."

After a brief moment of silence between them, Rocket entered the kitchen. He had in his hand what looked like a half eaten chicken leg. "Hey, guys. I gotta tell ya, you do have some decent food on this planet."

Natasha looked closer at the food in his hand. Her mouth gaped before she cried, "That was chicken we had last week! Did you take that out of the garbage?"

"Oh, so that's what the bin with the food and papers was for." He took another bite of the leg. "Still good."

"Gross."

Carol deadpanned, "I can't say that I'm surprised."

Rocket threw the remains of the bone in another bin of garbage and he sat himself at the table. Natasha took a large gulp of coffee and got up from the table. "I have some things to attend to. Thanks for the reheated coffee, Carol. When you're done here, come down to the main hangar."

Carol gave a nod of acknowledgement. After she left, Carol turned to Rocket and said wryly, "I hope you're being civil here on my home world."

"I can be civil."

She gave him a glare as she tilted her head. "Says the thief who tried to steal the golden dentures of King Velos on Colaxia."

"Hey, those would have made a fortune on the black market."

"Too bad we caught you."

"Yeah, you got lucky."

"No luck involved. Just followed the mistakes of a poor crew."

"Yeah? Sue me."

"You're really speaking like a Terran, now."

"Hey, listen. I worked on a transmitter last night to try to get a signal to the Benatar."

"How did you do that?"

"Well, there was an intergalactic chip already here that I didn't know about."

Carol was confused. "The only chip like that here would be...No! You didn't."

"I only borrowed it."

She leaned forward on the the table. "You took the chip from the pager I gave Fury years ago?"

"Well, I figured since you already answered it and since you're already here..."

Carol sat back in her chair. "You are so passed civil right now." She breathed out and then asked, "All right, what did you find out?"

"Not much and a lot."

"You lost me."

"I tried bouncing a signal directly into the Benatar's nav-com, which worked. Sorta. The only thing that came back was a low pulsing sound."

Carol raised her eyebrows. "So we can rule out that the ship was destroyed."

"That's not the only thing. The signal was too weak to make out a location vector. But because I'm getting back a low pulse, means that the ship's power is low."

Carol thought a moment. "So the ship is either sitting powerless somewhere on, say Titan..."

"Or it's sitting dead in space."

"If that's true, then life support is low too." She quickly ejected herself out of her seat. "I have to go. Now!"

She left the kitchen to head down to the main hangar on the base. She saw Captain America, Rhodey, and Natasha standing nearby a large aircraft. It looked familiar to Carol. She stopped in front of them while ogling the jet. "What is this?"

Steve answered, "An advanced prototype quinjet. Bruce swears she is space worthy."

"Ah, now I remember. I flew a similar craft back in '95 with Fury. Thrusters were much larger. Fins were less streamlined."

Rhodey said, "I don't remember the quinjets back then being space worthy."

Carol shrugged. "We had to improvise."

"How?" Rhodey asked.

Carol began, "It's a–"

"Long story," they all said in unison.

"Cute." Carol grinned.

Steve said, "We're letting you borrow it to help you find the rest of our team."

Carol tried to stiffle a chuckle, but failed.

Rocket was standing next to her and asked Carol, "They didn't see you arrive, did they?"

Instead of answering him, she addressed the Avengers. "Look, that's so sweet and greatly appreciated. But it's really not needed. And, honestly, it would slow me down."

Rhodey went wide-eyed. "Slow you down? Carol, this thing can go past hypersonic. Maybe even close to Mach 10."

"It's impressive, I'll admit," Carol said. "But I really do have to go quicker than that. The Benatar may be losing power and that won't be good for your team." She started to walk out towards the open area behind her. "I'll return as soon as I can. I'll have your answers, one way or another."

"Thank you, Carol," said Natasha.

"Carry on, soldier," said Steve.

Rhodey was still confused. "That's all great, but where's your ship?"

Carol only grinned again and then turned around to break into a run. As she started running, the yellow glow surrounded her and got brighter with her speed. She was going faster than humanly possible. The bright yellow glow became a solid yellow trail. It suddenly went straight up into the sky. Within seconds, Carol Danvers disappeared into the Heavens.

The remaining Avengers stood gaping at the sky where Carol sped off on her own.

Rocket chuckled. "You see, Captain Marvel don't need a ship. She is the ship!"

tbc