Chapter Text
Midday, the streets bustle with people, a constant hum of activity and chatter. A cool breeze carries the smell of roasting meats, and Carol catches snippets of a dozen different languages as they walk— several of which she understands.
Madripoor is a beautiful city. Carol’s visited a number of times before.... including once to pull Jessica out of a depressive, post-Veranke haze. It’s a great place walk around at night— lights reflecting off the streets, vendors selling delicious, hot food available 24/7— despite the country’s infamous reputation. While it’s true that the lack of extradition laws has made it an appealing place of residence for wrongdoers, it’s never felt too dangerous while she wasn’t actively looking for trouble, even before she had powers. Maybe it’s a cultural respect thing, or maybe it’s because the random guy you robbed might turn out to be a member of a larger criminal organization that will take revenge. Either way, no-one bothers them.
Jess is on edge. Whatever positive feelings Carol has for the city don’t seem to be shared; it’s too closely linked nowadays with Madame Hydra in her mind. With Skrulls. Fear that they won’t find Gerry; fear that they will.
Bumping her shoulder companionably, Carol attempts to rustle up a positive memory. “Did you and Lindsay frequent any restaurants when you lived here?”
Jess’ quick stride doesn’t falter; if Carol were anyone else, she’d be struggling to keep up. “No.”
That’s just not true. But Carol won’t push. Some people go crazy in a tense silence, but not her. She’s always been plenty good at entertaining herself with her own thoughts. She allows Jess to lead, passively plotting out details of her in-progress novel while giving a subtle inspection to each person they pass, eavesdropping on their passing conversation. She buys a few pork buns on the way, running after her to catch up. To her pleasant surprise, Jess actually takes one, finishing it in short order. Carol passes her the third, which she had planned to eat herself.
Not wanting to attract any undue attention walking down the street, they’re dressed in plainsclothes, for now. Carol’s wearing the same outfit she’s had on for the last two days, with plans to wear it indefinitely, she supposes, until they complete their mission or she caves and buys a new shirt. Which she should probably want sooner, but she knows will take her at least another day or two, unless anything happens to this one.
Jess is wrapped in a bright red trenchcoat, light jeans underneath. Judging by the yellow sliver of “sock” disappearing into her sneakers, she’s wearing her Spider-Woman suit underneath it all. Large, cat-eyed sunglasses cover half of her face, but her pinched forehead gives away her furrowed brow underneath.
After an hour of bustling, Jess comes to a sudden, unannounced halt. “There.” She nods at a dark building several blocks down. “The underground base is for more specific business. If Viper’s home, that’s where she’ll be.”
“And Gerry.” Carol says. Jess hasn’t said his name aloud in a while.
“...Last time I came here, I was so angry. More than Skrull-hunting angry. I ripped this place apart.” Jess sighs. “I think I need to do this differently, if I want to learn anything new.” She sidles up to Carol, who stands still, accepting but not initiating touch, and curls her fingers over the back of her neck. “I don’t want Captain Marvel yet. Are you still actually capable of any subtlety? Just a couple ex-spies out on the town?”
Carol smiles, dipping her head. “Yeah, that’s still in there, somewhere. They won’t even see us coming.”
“All bets are off once we find him.” Gerry. “Then, we won’t let them forget we were here, either.”
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Some unstated, but seemingly multi-universal spider power is hyperflexibility. It’s always felt more natural for Jess to squat than sit, and one of the weirdest parts of the personal hell that is meeting other Spiders is watching them unconsciously choose to perch, too. Has Gerry unlocked this instinct, as of late, stuck to a counter’s edge somewhere in this building, unaware of her approach?
It’s this spider-flexibility that allows her now to move silently, easily, through this duct of the Hydra building. Carol’s flexible, too, she’s seen that high kick, but not enough, it seems, to bend her knees at the weird angles that allow one to walk on all fours in any space. She clunks along behind Jess, wide shoulders brushing the walls now and then, as she attempts to quiet her progression.
“Maybe you can just— hover. Fly. Straight,” Jess whispers.
“I don’t think my flight is quite that precise,” Carol hisses, “especially at slow speeds.”
She re-settles into a pushup position, inching along on her hands and tiptoes. Air squeaks from the side of Jess’ palm as she slaps a hand over her mouth to stifle a hysteric laugh.
“This would have been hell on my wrists, once,” she mumbles, stupidly following Jess like a pretty, buff, red-and-blue caterpillar. “No biggie now. I can lift with my back all I’d like, too... under 10 tons, at least.”
“Stop talking,” Jess begs, burying her mouth against her shoulder.
They progress like this for a good distance, Jess staunchly not turning around, like Orpheus, if he were unable to look because Eurydice looked dumb as hell and he was trying not to laugh. The visual of it haunts her, but the anxiety she’s been feeling since they landed is more than enough to swallow it whole, and the end result just sort of settles her churning stomach.
“Don’t you think I want to Skrull hunt, too?” Carol asked her, once. And, “Jessica, when I was as down and out as anyone ever... who helped me?”
It’s better, with her here. Jess couldn’t bring herself to do this again, alone; not so soon. After all the work Carol put in to sincerely affirm to Jess that she was always there for her... it was difficult when she wasn’t. Running the Avengers is serious business, Jess knows, especially for someone who takes every single loss of life as personally as Carol does. Jess would have been more worried for the state of her friend’s mental health, if she herself weren’t going through the worst year she’s ever had; which was impressive, as it’s a highly competitive spot.
Carol has claimed to be good at picking up the pieces of her own life, starting over. Jess is in the ranking for the most screwed-over person in the history of the world, up there with Wolverine, but so is Carol. Jess has had to start over a lot, too, but she’s been very good at shrugging it all off while she rebuilds, pretending she’s not furious at the universe. Maybe Carol can teach her how in the hell she is ever supposed to move on from this, once she’s found some closure, with Gerry. How in the hell.
A small groove in the metal catches her eye; Jess had carved it herself, last time she was here. Carefully, she unscrews the panel in front of her, one hand firmly stuck to the metal so it doesn’t clatter noisily to the floor. Jess crawls out of the duct, clearing the room, and Carol follows floating silently to the ground.
Hm. They’ve repainted. Jess’s fault. A pretty large drywall fix was needed, she supposes, after she put one Hydra agent’s head through it. Plus the blood stains, from that other dude’s Hydra-goggles breaking into his eye. She’s not sure how she feels about the color; green’s their favorite, obviously, but hue is a little pukey.
With a pained whine— she’d damaged the hinges, too— the door opens, a murder of Hydra agents bustling inside. Jess leaps straight up to the ceiling without a sound, trusting her compatriot to hide herself.
Three of them, in their stupid green uniforms. One tosses the door closed; before he can shout, before he really registers the woman standing on the other side of it, a casual tap to the side of the head drops him. Carol chops the other in the throat, silencing him, and similarly knocks the third, then his lights out, with ease. Jess drops back to the floor. Binding their mouths, hands, Jess pulls them, one by one, into the closet. Carol strips them of their phones, confirming they don’t have radios or earbuds.
“Want to borrow these?” she asks, pinching the collar of the smallest man’s uniform; Jess’ size.
“I want Gerry to recognize me. Don’t worry, I chose this place so we don’t have to go through the hallways. Viper keeps an escape hatch here, in case of emergency.”
“Not a great one, if you know about it.”
“I loathe being here, or anywhere near her. I’m not nearly as much of a threat to Viper as she desperately wants me to be.”
Throwing open the doors to a wide, empty, metal cabinet, Jess taps a foot lightly against its floor. Nodding, Carol drops to her knees, digging her fingers slowly into the metal. Her broad back muscles flex as she peels it like an orange, strained with the effort of pushing hard enough to break through, but lightly enough to not do it loudly, all at once. The layers of sheet metal, gears, and wires, piling up beside Jess’ feet, eventually break through to the inside of a tunnel.
Carol squeezes inside first, catching Jess as she follows, and lowers them gently to the floor, a 20 foot drop when unassisted by the mechanisms of the cabinet. From there, Jess leads, following the path to Viper’s room. It won’t be easy to get in there quietly, but they’ll figure something out. Or, if they must, she supposes they can bust right through the floor and coat Viper’s bed and all her belongings with rubble and (with any luck, toxic) dust.
Following the maze she’s long since memorized, Jess pauses, confused. She must have turned the wrong way. She turns, re-counting the access points they’ve passed so far.
“Something wrong?”
“I think we... no.” Jess stares at this new, unexpected hatch. “That’s new.”
“Check it out?”
“If he’s in there... he’ll hear us,” Jess breathes. “Fuck subtlety. Move fast. We see him, then we grab him, tear out of here.”
“Understood.”
Carol rips the hatch off like a disposable coffee cup lid, grabbing Jess and launching them both up the ladderway, busting through the next with ease. Startled, a figure dressed head-to-toe in green turns towards them, a bright beam firing from his large gun with a hiss.
Jess lands smoothly as Carol tosses her out of its path, easily absorbing the blast from the footsoldier. Dust rains through the air from their entrance, hazy like a smoke bomb, and the air splits with a familiar, beautiful, wailing cry.
It’s a goddamned nursery. Blue-painted walls, soft carpet, toys littering the floor. No windows. A metal cage over the crib. Inside, face red from crying, blonde hair longer than it’s ever been, dressed in a little green jumpsuit... Gerry.
Ignoring the chaos around her as more goons flood inside, Jess smacks and rips the cage until her hands bleed, tearing a hole through the side, and plucks Gerry free, pulling him to her chest. He smells different. But he stops crying, and he clutches her back.
“Mama,” he greets, delighted. It’s him. She’s sure of it.
So who the fuck, then, Jess wonders, as a back door to the nursery slams to the floor, and the unmasked, glaring Green Mamba steps inside, is that?
Stepping over the twitching bodies Carol left littering the floor, Jess stalks menacingly towards the imposter.
“Gerry,” Carol’s voice cracks as Jess shoves her son into her arms, the only person she could bear to let touch him right now. She’d prefer to never let him go again, but she has something to do, first.
“You!” she snarls, hands sparking, “you fucking dare pretend to be my son?”
“I am!” the imposter claims, despite all evidence to the contrary, his eyes nervously flicking to the baby held in Captain Marvel’s arms.
“Viper just wanted me to quit looking so she could steal my kid, huh? So she gave some Nazi chump my son’s powers? And all you had to do in return for them was convince me that he was gone??”
The venom blast won’t hurt him enough; he has that power, too. She picks up a twisted, broken piece of the cage restricting Gerry from crawling right out of his crib, brandishing it like a stake. She won’t kill him, but she’s going to take a chunk out of this bastard; let him question if following Viper like a dog was really worth it.
She rears an arm back to strike, lurching as a strong hand wraps around her wrist.
“It’s him, Jess,” Carol says, “it’s— I think they’re both him.”
“What?” Jess stutters, watching dumbly as Green Mamba takes his chance, turning heel and bolting out of the room.
“I met Gerry, in that awful, alternate future. That looked just like him; younger, but... I’m sure of it.” She hands Jess’ young son back to her. “Stay here, I’ll pursue.”
Baby Gerry sighs, resting his head on his mother’s collarbone, small fingers curling into the material of her suit. Stunned, Jess shakes her head. “We need to get him home.”
Carol stops, but doesn’t turn away from the doorway where Green Mamba disappeared. Gerry reaches out, tugging at her sleeve.
“Okay...” she says, at last. “Let’s get him home.”