9 ~ The Other Woman With Magical Fists

So now she had powers. Freaking superpowers. Speaking of real-life superheroes...

Yup, powers. Now that they had established themselves very dramatically (and very painfully) they made themselves known by casting a fuchsia aura around her, faint, and really only noticeable in the dark, at least so far.

Great, now she looked like a walking, talking pink glow stick. Awesome.

It all sounded so bizarre, impossible, but she guessed that in a world where a soldier from World War II had been kept alive frozen in ice only to wake up 70 years later, alive and well, where gods apparently walked the Earth, and where aliens attacked New York, maybe it wasn't all that bizarre or unique. She was just another case.

A completely random one, it seemed.

Why her? Why of all people had a loner, stuck, twenty-five year-old orphan ('orphan' - she had never used that term to describe herself before, but it was the right term, wasn't it?) be granted with such powers? It made no sense.

"Double-fisting?" she joked, taking a sip of her own drink as Fury come over to their table, a beer bottle in each hand.

"One for me, one for our guest." They had arranged to meet Fury's ally in a pub the following night, and judging how quiet it was this time of evening, Nora wondered if Fury has worked his magic (no pun intended) and requested the pub all to themselves. She knew from previously working in a pub that this lack of action was unusual. This only made her more curious about who this ally was.

"Yes, speaking of: so, who is this 'other' woman?"

"An old ally of mine."

"So you said. S.H.I.E.L.D. too?"

"Eh... Sorta - not really... But we worked together, back in the '90s-"

"The '90s?" How old was this woman? Nora found it a little strange how secretive Fury seemed to be about this mysterious woman.

He chuckled at her bewilderment. "Trust me on this one."

As if on cue, the bell above the door rang, drawing their attention to the person who stepped into the pub and immediately strode over to their table.

"Fury," the woman addressed.

"Captain. Thanks for joining us."

"My pleasure."

Nora's first thought was, okay, the woman who she found herself staring at was nowhere near old - she couldn't be more than a few years older than Nora herself, thirty at most. Did she have superpowers too? Was not aging her power? Was she also a Captain America case? Nora would have scoffed at the thought but then remembered, oh, yeah, I have superpowers now too. Guess anything really was possible in this world, nowadays.

Nora's second thought, after processing and pondering how this woman could have worked with Fury in the '90s and still look so young, was that this woman was drop-dead gorgeous. She was dressed simply, wearing dark-wash jeans and a grey tank top with a leather bomber jacket over top, the collar baring a few pins, and combat boots. Her golden hair fell in waves framing her face and falling down past her shoulders. Not only that, but she carried herself in a way that screamed a certain brilliant confidence that Nora was instantly both envious of and in full admiration of. It made her so proud she wanted to applaud the woman for having such confidence. She also radiated a certain powerful nature that Nora couldn't exactly explain but one thing was for sure: this woman meant business and was definitely not someone to cross. The vibe she gave off was immensely alluring.

Great. It was already obvious that Fury had literally brought the coolest person to help Nora and she felt like a complete loser in comparison.

"Captain Carol Danvers, I'd like you to meet Doctor Eleanora Bane."

Captain? Captain of what? It didn't really matter at the moment, but now the beautiful, cool, confident woman had a title too. Nora was about to correct Fury about her being a Doctor like her parents, but instead decided to roll with it.

The woman - Carol - slid into the booth next to Fury, who shifted over so that she was directly across from Nora. She gave the other woman a smirk that instantly sent Nora's heart pounding faster than it already was.

Had she known she was going to meet such a gorgeous and obvious bad-ass tonight she would have put more effort into her appearance. But there had literally been no way to predict who she was going to meet, let alone this Captain Carol Danvers.

If she had come across this woman elsewhere, she would have been flustered. But here, sitting so close their knees and feet were practically brushing beneath the table, with Carol directly involved in Nora's life now, was overwhelming.

"Nice to meet you, Eleanora-" God, for once she didn't mind her elegant-sounding name. "I'm Carol, like the old man said." She held out her hand across the table, while Fury scoffed into his beer.

"You too. N-Nora-" The way her voice shook made her want to slither under the table and hide, but she bit back a curse and shook Carol's hand which caused an electric shock.

Carol winced. Oh, so she had felt that shock too, it wasn't just the smitten, gob-smacked Nora. "Sorry, that happens sometimes."

"N-no worries." She realized she still had her hand awkwardly outstretched. She drew it back and cleared her throat. "T-thanks for coming."

"Yeah, was told I was needed to help with something."

Nora wanted to avoid why they were all here, the elephant in the room - the bright pink glowing elephant. "Fury said you worked together in the 1990's?"

"Yup." Carol was now sipping the beer Fury had gotten for her.

"When were you born then?"

Carol's smirk grew a little wider. "1959. You?"

Nora's jaw literally dropped. "Girl - how?!"

Carol and Fury shared an amused look over her obvious shock. "Tell her what you told me," Fury said with a chuckle.

"What? That space does wonders for one's complexion?"

"Yeah, that."

Nora was still staring, jaw-agape, while Carol just sipped her drink as if all was casual. "You didn't answer my question."

"About what?" Nora couldn't recall being asked something.

"What year you were born."

"Oh. 1989."

"Ah. Good year." Nora just nodded.

"So what is it exactly that you need help with?" Carol asked directly. "Fury said it had to do with some glowy-powers?"

There was no point in avoiding it any longer. "Yeah..."

"May I?" Carol lay her hand out on the table, palm up, and Nora realized Carol wanted her to put her hand in hers. She was about to, but then hesitated and drew back. "I-I'm sorry, I just don't see how you can help - it's nothing personal, I just don't know if anyone could really help-"

BLAST!

Nora uttered a little scream and ducked as a sudden burst of blue and orange light shot past her face and struck the wall a ways behind them, burning a painting that had been hanging there. When she peeked back up she found Fury chuckling and Carol smirking - her fist glowing orange.

"W-wha-wa-" Nora couldn't speak.

"It's a photon blast," Fury said.

"You finally got it right," Carol told him. She rested her chin on the fist that had now stopped glowing and turned back to Nora. "Trust me, I understand."

All right, that was proof enough for her. This time, Nora willingly offered her hand to Carol, who inspected it as it began to glow.

"Well, this isn't a photon blast," she confirmed. "I don't know what this is, I've never seen anything like it before. Although it seems more natural than my powers."

"We think it might have something to do with these - do you have the pictures?" Fury was looking at Nora, prompting her. She had been too busy staring at Carol.

"Oh, yes - sorry, just one moment-" She drew back her hand and began rifling through her bag on the bench beside her, glad for the low lighting to mask her furious blushing. She produced a print-out of the glyph photo and handed it to Carol.

"Ever seen those in your space travels?" Fury asked her.

"You just love saying 'space' don't you?"

"I think they're some sort of glyphs or runes," Nora explained.

"Could be, but I've never seen them before. But there's definitely a distinctive pattern with them." Carol looked back up from the photo. "I have lots of galactic connections, so if need be I can see if any of them know about these."

This time - oh, who was Nora kidding, she probably saw her staring before - Carol caught her staring and smiled.

"So wait, you've been to space? Like actual outer space?" Nora asked.

"Really, really. I've spent the last few years out there. Up there."

"All right, Space-girl."

Fury snorted. "Space-girl? I like it. That's what I'm going to call you now when you call me 'old man'."

A few beers and one long story later, and Nora was all caught up on their adventure in the 90s, complete with space travel, pilots, Skrulls, Kree, alien-cats, and plenty of photon blasts.

"So wait," Nora broke in once their laughter had died down. "You really were telling the truth when you said an alien clawed out your eye?"

"I sure as hell was," Fury confirmed. "Hurt like hell, too."

"Well, this just keeps getting more interesting-" Nora glanced at her watch. "Oh wow, well, this has been great, but I should get going, I have weight-training tomorrow." She managed to slip in the 'weight' last minute, in an attempt to sound cool.

It worked. "Oh cool, where do you train?" Carol asked.

But then she had to go muck it up. "The gym-" Nora visibly cringed at the stupid shit that had just come out of her mouth. Well no shit, Sherlock. No shit it's the gym! Bollocks. "I mostly do weight training and self-defense," she tried to cover for herself.

"Well, you can add superpower-training to the list now too," Carol said.

"Thanks for agreeing to help me. I really appreciate it."

"Yeah, helping friends when they're lost with no where to go is kinda what we do," Carol said, sharing a nod with Fury.

Only took nine chapters, but they've finally met! And Nora is very smitten! ;) Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :)