Notes: Written for rosecake for the Red round of the Writing Rainbow flash exchange. The "twinkle fists" nickname is from a deleted scene which is available on Youtube.
The red dusk is melting into the red canyon crags. Inside her shell of a dropship, Minn-Erva licks the last drops of water off the canister's mouth and watches as, eventually, all this Terran red begins to coalesce into a pulsing glow in the distance.
This light hurtles across the sky, towards the horizon. Towards Minn-Erva.
And then –
Vers is light-footed when she lands.
Just as lightly, she calls out, "You left your beacon on."
Minn-Erva tilts her head and starts clapping slowly. She says nothing. Instead she props up her dusty boots onto the dashboard, crosses them at the ankles. The empty canister wobbles in the crook of her arm.
"Okay," Vers says, her mouth twisted wryly. She stops by the dented nose of the pod. More than half of the synthetic glass was smashed, so through the bare frames Minn-Erva can clearly see the sparks melting on the tips of Vers' hair, on the hollows between her knuckles.
She's glowing, all right, but that's not new to Minn-Erva.
And more than the glowing, Vers looks like she's had a good hot meal. She even looks like she has slept soundly for once, this perpetual insomniac.
Minn-Erva knows that she herself looks like a mess right now. There's a gash on her forehead and her nose has just recently stopped bleeding. Because one can never be too careful when it comes to different atmospheres, she used the first emergency canister to wash her wounds, after which she stripped down and poured it all over herself in a bid for comfort. The heat is also different around here. Sticky, heavy, and red. The kind that makes Minn-Erva want to either laze about in a half-naked stupor, or else impulsively, greedily fuck all day long. It's not the best place to be stranded on for a Starforce Kree, this shithole; might as well try to be as clear-headed as possible.
Still silent, Minn-Erva reaches under her seat and pulls out the last emergency canister. Better to have this one close to her whatever happens.
Vers crosses her arms. She leans against the dented nose. "Gotta say, you playing the silent treatment again brings back old memories."
"Yeah?" Minn-Erva raises her eyebrows. She's hurting, and she's extremely annoyed. She feels like punching something but sadly that'd be counterproductive: she ought to save her energy, and anger only benefits the enemy. So she darts in like a knife. "What kind of old memories, exactly, twinkle fists? The kind that's more than six years old?"
Vers jaws tighten, her nostrils flare.
"You were there," she tells Minn-Erva. The look in her eyes is hard to parse. "That day by the lake, you were there. I heard your voice in a recording."
Minn-Erva says nothing.
"You're not going to say anything, are you."
Minn-Erva shrugs lightly. She deigns to say, "I'm a picky conversationalist."
But Vers is plowing on. "Just tell me one thing."
There's a note of pleading there. Sanded down. Almost unconscious. Knowing Vers, this is probably an impulsive request.
"For this one thing," says Minn-Erva, "you can drop me off Hala."
It's Vers' turn to shrug. "Okay. I was planning on it, anyway."
Minn-Erva was raised to be a noble warrior hero, so she acknowledges this deal with a polite nod.
Vers straightens and draws a bit closer to the pilot seat. "So, that day by the lake. I know you were there. What did I look like? How was I?" Then, true to form whenever she's around Minn-Erva, she tries for a flirty joke. A smile, only now it's jagged at the edges. "Was I just as mind-blowingly hot then?"
Minn-Erva puts her feet back down. She lets her gaze leisurely drag along the lines of Vers' body. Just like knowing about the true nature of Vers' twinkling fists, blatantly checking her out is also not new to Minn-Erva.
There are some new things, though. Minn-Erva takes in Vers' new flashy colours, the new subtly joyous gait in Vers' stance and lightness in her limbs, before saying, "Your blood was red. Did you know that? It was dripping from your nose. I could see it from my scope."
Vers' smile wavers.
"And you were so obviously afraid," continues Minn-Erva. "I remember thinking, I want to say that this is easy pickings. The choice should be obvious to this Terran, I mean, she must clearly see that she's outpowered and that cooperating would be for the best."
She has always enjoyed telling hard-boned truths. And these particular truths, to this particular person, now that the chance has come up. Well placed truths, after all, are not unlike a sniper's bullet.
Once, Vers told her that she's earnest in her own way.
What Vers says now is, "Who shot Mar-Vell?"
Ah, that traitor.
It's one of Minn-Erva's career high points.
"I did. I was eyes for Yon-Rogg that day. Shot her through a hundred paces, through smoke and dust."
Vers advances, then abruptly stops. Her fists are clenched tight. She's got a pained knit to her brows. "I knew her. She's – she's who I see in the Intelligence. I knew her."
"So did I," says Minn-Erva, unimpressed.
Divulging one's form of Supreme Intelligence just proves that Vers has never been and can never be Kree. It doesn't matter, the colour of her blood now. Minn-Erva herself cringes at the mere thought of telling even Maman, whose form the Intelligence takes with her.
She glances at the beginnings of sparks on Vers' fingers.
A curiosity suddenly makes itself known.
A curiosity older than Minn-Erva's time at Starforce. Perhaps as old as her child's self asking Maman's cheery dinner guest, Mar-Vell, what hurtlingstars are. Fiery rocks hurtling through the cosmos. They grant wishes so you had better keep your eyes peeled. Minn-Erva's childish reply was "I had better catch one, then. I'll keep it in my dress box. Eternal luck," and Mar-Vell only laughed, saying that nobody had ever caught one in flight.
"You know me now," Minn-Erva tells Vers. "Do you want me to continue?"
"Yes," Vers grits out.
It's this old childish curiosity.
Or maybe it's this Terran heat. This impulsive, baser, red hotness.
"You were yelling at Yon-Rogg. Did your recording catch that? You had a weapon drawn, yelling at him. You know, your Kree words through the universal translator were all rough corners. An alien brogue, I remember thinking." Minn-Erva allows herself a small smile. "Red blood and an alien brogue. And the thing that checked me from dismissing you as easy pickings, something about your eyes. The set of your mouth. You were obviously afraid, but your hands on the weapon were stea –"
Vers advances again. This time, she doesn't stop until her thighs are almost pressed against Minn-Erva's knees.
"All this time," Vers breathes out, "all this time, you knew all of this. All of this."
Minn-Erva leans her elbows on her knees and regards Vers calmly. "Yes, I know more than the others. Aside from the commander, of course. We were specifically ordered by the Supreme Intelligence not to tell you."
"You knew more than I did."
"Yes."
Vers is obviously upset now. Her fists are glowing.
"You seem upset," goads Minn-Erva. "I have never lied to you. I never brought it up, but I didn't tell you stories about where you came from, nor was I ever your favourite therapist-mentor."
Vers crowds into Minn-Erva. There's a sheen of sweat on her knitted brow. "What else? You turned off our universal translators when we hooked up my first year at Hala, don't think I don't remember, you turned them off and you didn't speak the entire time and all along you couldn't understand me! You didn't understand the things I told you! What else are you not telling me about that day? What else? Cause you know what's funny? You were the ones who got into my head. What's funny is that the Intelligence takes the form of who we most admire and respect to get into our fucking heads, and if that's not the definition of an insidious shape shifter I don't –"
Minn-Erva surges to her feet and punches Vers.
Vers' head cracks to the side but she doesn't so much as stumble.
Minn-Erva pulls back her fist again; Vers catches it and holds onto it with her shocking strength. She grabs Minn-Erva's other arm. Heat crackles along Minn-Erva's spine, making her shiver. The canister tumbles to the ground. She uses Vers' iron hold on her, swings herself, tackles Vers with her legs.
Minn-Erva bites onto Vers' bottom lip, hard. Vers' grip falters but only briefly.
But it's enough for Minn-Erva to twist mid-fall, cushioning her sore body on Vers' when they crash on the hard-packed ground.
Vers still hasn't let her go. Harsh, short, both of their breathing. Blood is pounding in Minn-Erva's ears and her face feels warm.
Minn-Erva shouldn't have done that.
It's this damned shithole.
"What else?" Vers bites out. "Tell me what else."
Minn-Erva peers down at Vers' bleeding lip. She takes in the feel of this hard, sturdy body beneath hers and thinks of that weak and injured creature hooked up to tubes in the medical bay, unconscious for weeks and clinging to life, guarded by Minn-Erva herself. This human with a fractured memory and was once so weak, injured, and in pain, and everything that unsettles Minn-Erva, everything that she swore to herself she wouldn't become. This creature whom she watched dream and mumble, in her alien brogue, a name which sounds close to Minn-Erva's. This creature who gingerly got to her feet again, eyes full of wonder like a newborn. Always smiling invitingly at Minn-Erva, and always keen on her friendship despite her rebuffs and her short-lived indulgence.
She looks into Vers' snapping eyes now.
"What else did you hear in your recording? Heard the commander decide to take you with us?" Minn-Erva thrusts her face even closer. "Did you hear me find your shitty broken badge?"
"What?" pants Vers.
Minn-Erva lets the snarl fully form on her face. "I found it. Vers. Cheap material. The commander was preoccupied with the mission report, he's the one who sent it, you see. I found your badge. Held onto it. Got reprimanded for that, but not so much. You know why? Because I named you. Vers. The Intelligence agreed with me, and stopped Yon-Rogg from taking credit for that or giving you another name. It was I who named you."
Minn-Erva hears that familiar hungry, dark-edged echo in her voice now. The very same tone from when she was speaking about this very subject with the Supreme Intelligence. Almost jealous. Almost possessive.
But she doesn't tell that to Vers.
The iron grip is still on her. Stubborn as ever. Vers' chest is falling fast, rising faster.
Minn-Erva wants to wrap her hand around some part of Vers, squeeze it tight, hold it and keep it, but she adapts. She ducks down and takes Vers' upper lip between her teeth.
A shiver ripples through Vers' body.
Maybe it's in memory of how Minn-Erva did this to her, once. Bare skin to bare skin, high off a mission. You think with your head, twinkle fists, not your hands. Hey, Minn-Erva, I was gonna make fisting jokes but let's just do it.
Maybe. Maybe not.
"I named you."
"You didn't," Vers spits out. "My name is Carol. Carol Danvers."
Knife-like. "Who's that?"
Vers' face twists into anguish, into anger. A messy crumple. It still doesn't make her release Minn-Erva. Her various glowing holds on Minn-Erva are so warm. A red, wet warmth. Sweat trickles down between Minn-Erva's breasts and condenses behind her thighs. Briskly, she presses her knee up against Vers' clothed cunt. It feels as hot as the rest of Vers' body. Always has.
Minn-Erva has been raring to know how that pulsing glow, that power, feels like.
How would it feel if she touched it. How would it feel to have got it. If she herself had this.
"Still not letting me go?"
Vers matches her snarl. "No. No, tell me what else. Tell me, dammit."
With that she brusquely pulls Minn-Erva closer to her, so very close, until they're thigh pulse to thigh pulse.
It makes the urge to hold and keep her stronger, really. Minn-Erva's lips curl up. She licks at the salty track running down from Vers' eye. She sucks on Vers' unsplit upper lip, tasting the spark, muffling Vers' pleas of, "Tell me, tell me."
fin