bound by blood
by quicksilvering
Summary: Carol has unfinished business with the Kree, and none more so than with Yon-Rogg, her former commander, and the man whose blood she shares.
Chapter One – Five Years Later
She found him again five years later.
She'd been looking for Pheragot survivors, yet another race displaced by Kree incursions. It was a slow process, building a coalition that could one day stand up to the Kree Empire, but she and Skrulls had found unlikely allies across the galaxy. And the Nova Corps offered their assistance and protection whenever they could.
And it wasn't even like she'd been looking for him. Not really.
She'd just kept an eye out, that was all. He'd been such a part of her life for so long that she felt – unbalanced without him there. She'd wake in the middle of the night, mind a mess of memories she couldn't even begin to process, and get up, ready to go to him and ask him to spar with her. And then she would remember that she was no longer Kree, had never been Kree, and that everything had been a lie.
He had lied to her that whole time. He had used her….
He had never turned her away when she appeared in the middle of the night at his door. Not once. No matter the time or how tired she could see he was. He'd snark at her and sometimes he'd seemed concerned – for you or because he was afraid you were remembering? – and he always asked about the dreams.
He was a soldier, doing his duty, she reminded herself, every time she felt her rage, her sense of betrayal at him, turn her stomach into a sick knot. And it was true – he took no delight in hurting others, unlike Ronan, and always sought to minimize causalities.
'He bonded with you and he gave you his blood only because the Supreme Intelligence told him to. He didn't do it to be cruel,' she would say, to lessen the feeling of loss and hurt. But it never helped. She didn't remember much but she did know she had difficulty making friends – connecting with others.
And she remembered his smiles, their inside jokes, that he had let her tease him when no one else was allowed to.
To bind you to him, and to the Kree.
But they had been hard-earned those smiles. She remembered six years ago and how stiff and cautious he'd been with her; kind and patient but also wary and bemused.
He had given her the blood – his blood – before they'd gotten to Hala. She remembered that now.
And he'd listened to her, really listened to her, and offered his advice. He never forced her. And he'd always had her back.
I'm fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.
It hurt. In a way that wouldn't leave her, wouldn't let her sleep at night, crept up on her unawares.
Perhaps she had weaseled her way into his heart as he had apparently done to hers.
That ass.
So no, she wasn't looking for him. She'd just happened to have heard on the street that he'd been exiled – foolish of the Supreme Intelligence, Yon-Rogg was both loyal and highly skilled.
And now here he was; on a real shithole of a planet – remote impoverished, riddled with crime and basically a single biome desert all the way around.
The sun was high in the sky, hot against her skin, as she pushed the creaking door to the dingy little drinking dive open and stepped inside. Behind her, the dry wind whipped sand and dust into the air and it was so bright that the darkness inside had her blinking and waiting for her eyes to adjust.
All bars were universal, although this one was dirtier than most. A half-dozen species were represented, slumped in rickety stools along the counter as they attempted to locate the meaning of life in the bottom of their huge tankards of alcohol.
Music played dully from somewhere, and the big, hulking alien behind the counter looked up questioningly when she banged in. But she ignored him. All her attention was on the man at the end of the bar.
He looked terrible – hair dirty and unkempt, beard covering his jaw and dressed in civvies that were several sizes too large for him. He'd lost weight and he was so haggard she knew he wasn't sleeping. He was half slumped against the sticky-looking bard, listlessly swirling the drink in his tumbler before tilting his head back and swallowing the rest. She watched his throat work, the muscles moving, the tip of his tongue moving as he caught the last drops on his lips.
She narrowed her eyes and marched decidedly up to him. Her blood buzzed.
She lost some of her steam as she watched his shoulders slump, his eyes closing in weariness. He wavered, unbalanced on the stool, almost toppling over, and she wondered how much he'd had to drink. She had never seen him drink before, not so much as a single drop, even when she'd dragged him to that nightclub on Hala once.
She leaned on the counter next to him, ignoring the grime. She could help herself. "What's a guy like you doing in a place like this?"
His eyes flew open, bloodshot, dull gold fixing on her for a single, piercing instant, before he closed them again and turned away from her. "Go away," he said.
Ok, enough trying to be nice then. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, feeling her temper flare as he continued to ignore her. She could feel her hair crckle, lights traveling up and down her body before she managed to bring herself back under control.
Use your powers, he'd told her once. Don't let them use you.
He glanced at her – at her glowing – with an expression she could read before seeming to lose interest and looking away again.
She slammed a hand down on the counter, rattling his empty tankard, but he didn't even flinch. Look at me, she wanted to yell at him. Look at what you have made me, with your blood and your tesseract and your wars.
But she was more than just him, than what the Kree had tried to mold her into. She always had been.
"You don't get to tell me what to do anymore," she snarled, in answer to words he had not said. She stopped glowing.
He levered himself up from the bar stool, wavering dangerously and leaning heavily on the counter. For a moment she considered lending him her shoulder to lean on. She thought about how far he had fallen; a noble, respected Kree warrior to…this. She looked up from the dirty, loose clothes he wore to realize he was finally looking at her, dull eyes fixed on her face.
"I don't think I ever succeeded in telling you what to do," he said quietly, before staggering off out the door and into the blinding sun.
She watched the door swing back and forth behind him, creaking on its hinges, and his hair glinting in the sunlight over the top of the small partition. Without conscious thought her feet followed him. She had followed him to hell and back for six years. He was her commanding officer. She'd fought beside him longer than she had even with Maria.
She remembered him and Starforce clearer than Maria and the other pilots back on Earth. She wanted to remain angry at the injustice of it, but it had been five years since she'd left the Kree and the memories remained as distant as ever. Mostly she just longed for something familiar.
She flipped a coin onto the counter for the barman and walked out.
She trailed after him across the desert – across hard-packed, sandy earth, sparsely covered with low, tough bushes and sporadic, prickly cacti. The sun was ruthless and relentless. Before she'd even gone ten paces, she could feel sweat break out on her forehead and under her armpits. Another five minutes and a trickle of sweat slid down her back. It reminded her of the American south-west. She might not remember much, but she remembered that heat.
Yon-Rogg staggered and wandered in a meandering fashion, once or twice falling as he lost his balance, and apparently making for a settlement just visible on the horizon. It looked as dilapidated and rundown as the rest of this place.
Carol kept him in sight, watching him make his slow, painstaking way without offering to help. He didn't appear to notice her following him, but it was more likely that he was just ignoring her again.
This suspicion was confirmed when she lost him at the edge of town – city, whatever the locals called it – with dusk rapidly approaching. Muttering under her breath, she began knocking down doors.
The town was bigger than it looked, spread out, with every third building seeming to be a bar of some sort, and it was only the sudden commotion, the sounds of a fight, several hours later, that led her back to him.
She jumped up to the nearest roof to get a better look, and then cleared several buildings at a leap, all without her powers, until she was directly above the beginnings of a standoff.
Yon was backed up against the wall of yet another seedy, alien dive, looking far too drunk to stand. "What! Are you afraid of one Kree soldier?" he shouted at the five men who menaced him. "I can take every single one of you with one hand behind my back!"
From their faces, this arrogant pronouncement did not go over well.
Carol didn't wait. She dropped down from her spot on the roof above, swept her arms out and shoved them all into a wall with a single powerful photon blast.
Including Yon-Rogg.
She stood over above him where he was slumped against the wall, tapping her foot as she waited for him to shake the stars from his eyes.
The five thugs behind her picked themselves up, took one look at her glowing form, and ran, but she paid them no heed.
Yon-Rogg tilted his head up, golden eyes slowly focusing on her from the depths of his drunken stupor.
"Beautiful," he whispered, sounding awed, but it was his small smile which got to her.
So, she punched him right in the face, knocking him unconscious. She didn't need that today on top of everything else. Then she hosed him down to get rid of the smell.