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“I know a renegade soldier when I see one,” Fury had said, and the words ring in Carol’s ears.
Days later, she’s on this planet that she maybe knows, Earth, and their people’s language on her tongue tastes like a memory. She’s trying to piece together a life that comes to her in fits and starts, flashes like images caught out of the corner of her eye; there’s a sun glinting on metal wings, curving through the air as smooth as a bird. Carol thinks it’s strange, to have ever been dependent on a vessel in order to touch the sky, and that evening, when the watchdogs at SHIELD are fast asleep, she climbs atop the Triskelion and lets herself float there, eyes closed, imagining the metal of a plane around her. It seems primitive, in comparison to the ships she’s flown through galaxies, crossing solar systems like they’re merely streets, but there’s something comforting there, too, and the word that sticks in her head is Warbird.
***
Weeks pass, and Carol finds herself remembering things at the strangest moments. She browses the patched-up Blockbuster that had been her crash-landing pad, and her focus is captured by a poster for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Carol tilts her head, looks at the image from all angles, of a gang versus the galaxy, and is that familiar because of her Starforce squadron, or does it come from something older? The poster sparks the taste of a sugary treat in her mouth, and for a second she sees herself with two boys, brandishing sticks like swords —like Lightsabers —her mind supplies, and Carol puts a hand against the shelf to steady herself. Coulson had warned her not to come back here, but Carol had just had to know.
***
“Colonel Fury!” A man calls as Carol walks through SHIELD’s headquarters, and she finds herself standing to attention, even as she realises, on some fundamental level, that he doesn’t outrank her. There’s a woman named Rambeau on her mind, and she pictures her, wearing aviators that reflect Carol’s own image, distorted by time and mis-remembrance, but her uniform states that she is Colonel Danvers, and she knows that she’s earned the honour. When Fury summons her to a meeting the next morning, Carol takes her time in getting there, emboldened by this recollection, and when she arrives, Fury gives her a knowing look, and it’s like he can see the title restored to her, to the bearing of her shoulders and the tilt of her jaw.
***
There are Skrulls on this planet, Carol finds out, and something inside of her bursts open, like a planet exploding into existence. They emerge from the water, in a place called Boston, and when Carol touches down there, ready to fight, she’s assaulted by memories more than anything else. The grit of the sand that clings to her boots, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, she fights the Skrulls as if in a dream, just going through the motions, whilst her head is filling with the past. She is with a man, who has the same eyes as her, and he tells Carol that she can’t go to college, that he’s sending her brother instead. Carol blasts four Skrull at once as the anger hits with the memory, and she remembers signing away her allegiance, to find a small piece of freedom. Her mouth tastes like ash, and the sand at her feet burns.
***
At one moment, when the fight seems almost impossible, Carol craves the taste of a drink she doesn’t know the name of. She wanders into a bar, where the shelves are lined with bottles, and her hands itch to grab them, taste every single one, until she finds the release she’s looking for. There’s a memory she’s retrieved, coloured differently to the rest, hazy in a way that makes her think it’s always been that way, where she’s slumped next to an empty bottle, mourning someone, or something, and her head feels full of syrup. She remembers a hand on her shoulder, cutting through the fog, a figure that tells her it’s okay to need help, and Carol runs from the bar without ordering a thing, goes back to her quarters and stays away, from temptations and from memories that look like that.
***
The signal comes, that there’s been another Skrull attack, and Carol is still reeling from her latest recollections, from the memory of feeling weak, and she struggles to summon her powers, to find any energy at all. But then she remembers a girl, who could have been her, running as fast as she can, a bat in her hand, and in her mind's eye Carol watches as her feet tangle, she goes tumbling to the ground, skinned knees, bruised hands, and for a second she lies there, motionless, and Carol freezes right alongside her. But then, the girl stands, shakes it off, and Carol does too, feels the energy crackle through her fingertips, as in her mind the girl runs once more.
***
Afterwards, when the fight is done, she is given a device, a beacon, Fury calls it, and sent forth once more into the universe. Earth, as from above, looks familiar, and she thinks of a bulky suit, a helmet like a fishbowl, a tether holding her to a space station, and thinks that her freedom was always measured, given, weighed out and rented. The sun peaks over the planet, signalling the dawn of a new day, and Carol marches through her ship, all hers, grabs her new helmet, and leaps into the atmosphere. She feels her eyes alight with the selfsame energy as the sun, pupils flaring like a binary star. Now, this beacon isn’t a tether, it’s an honour, and she places it alongside her control centre, as a reminder. She flies, screaming into the void of space, throat hoarse with relief and reminiscing, as she glides alongside constellations. She feels at home.
***
Carol is on Zenn-La, haggling with a merchant over a plump ginger animal, which she thinks of as a cat but is told is a flerken, when the beacon in her back pocket blares to life. The merchant begins yelling at her, thinking she’s concealing a weapon, so she presses a button to transfer an astronomical amount of units to him, grabs her brand new flerken-cat, and runs back to her ship. She flicks the controls on her dash to life, dropping her new companion into the co-pilot seat, and sets a course. Sitting back, Carol retrieves the beacon, looking at its small screen.
SOS. EARTH. CODE 616.
“Welcome to my world, flerken-cat,” Carol says, as the engines rumble to life, and nebulas shoot past the windows. She simply gets a meow in return.
***
The second time Carol Danvers crashes to Earth, she’s greeted by an eerie silence, and an abundance of ash on the air. She’s landed in the middle of a forest, and when she emerges from the thicket, leaves tangled in her hair, she sees a world that's descended into quiet chaos. Carol leaps into the sky, flying high to search for signs of life, and when she finds people, at last, they cower from her in fear. When she finally manages to get someone to talk, she hears of devastation, and Avengers, and a kingdom called Wakanda, and takes off in search of it. From the air, Earth looks wrong, like a volcano has erupted over its surface, encasing it in decay. The quiet is unnatural, and Carol finds herself falling into silence herself, as if to make a noise would be to break the planet even further.
***
It’s another fight, as if she’d expected anything less. These Avengers, it turns out, know of Fury, and soon another ship crashes to Earth, carrying one of their own. This man, Tony, fights as Iron Man, and when he calls her Ms. Marvel, Carol rolls her eyes and corrects him to “Captain”, which turns him hysteric as he remarks, “There’s two of them!”, his voice caught somewhere in-between laughter and tears. The rest of the team seem to understand this behaviour, and when Carol is informed of their losses, she remembers a bar and a bottle, and turns sombre. She dons her battle suit, and prepares to fight a Titan.
***
She sits atop a skyscraper, to her left another Captain, Steve Rogers, to her right another Colonel, James Rhodes. The latter looks at Carol like she’s a mirage, and she feels like he’s a friend, from that other time, but she can’t bring herself to ask. They've vanquished Thanos, and Carol feels drained, a supernova about to go dark, but the sun still rises, and the ash has disappeared from the ground. Friends had been returned to them, and when she’d seen Fury, he had laughed, saluted Carol, and asked what took her so damn long.
“The renegade returns,” he’d finished, and Carol had simply nodded. Sitting at the top of the city, watching over this planet, turned from an echo to a symphony, a sense of peace settles over her. Earth, at last, feels like home.