Work Text:
Carol loved flying. Correction, Carol loved piloting a plane. She loved flying in general, but the feeling of flying with and without a plane was very different. She loved them both, but there was something empowering about piloting a massive engine that perfectly responded to her every command. She tested all sorts of maneuvers, doing an aileron roll and chaining it with a looping.
"And stabilize at 35," she declared, placing the plane on a horizontal course once again.
Beside her, her co-pilot followed her order. With the few presses of a button, the plane was configured and would continue to fly at this precise speed and altitude until reengaged into manual mode. The plane could almost drive itself. Almost, and Carol was there to prove the vital role of the pilot.
"Everyone okay back there?"
She took off her seatbelt and walked up to the seven junior pilots seating in the back of the brand new Quinjet. They looked fine for the most part, though a few had a hard time hiding their excitement. They were all experienced pilots, but SHIELD insisted they followed a special training before being given the helm of their own Quinjet. And who better to train them then test-pilot turned training instructor/part-time superhero Carol Danvers.
"Tomorrow you'll all get to try this baby out. But right now, I wanted you to see what it feels like to be in the back when the flight gets a little rough. You're used to being alone in the cockpit, but Quinjets are team carriers. You always need to remember the people in the back."
"Captain?"
Carol turned around to her co-pilot.
"I have a transmission for you from Colonel Fury. He says it's urgent."
Carol nodded and sat back in her pilot seat, buckling her seatbelt on principle more than anything. She connected her helmet to the control panel. Sometimes she missed the wireless communication of the Krees, but according to some of the SHIELD engineers she'd talked to, it wouldn't be too long before human technology became wireless too, and it couldn't come too soon.
"This is Avenger," she said in the mike of her helmet.
"Carol? You're requested back home. Class dismissed, return to base immediately."
"Something wrong?" Carol asked with a frown as she switched the plane back into piloting mode.
She heard Fury sighed on the other side.
"Photon just got a call from Monica's school. She's stuck in mission so you have to take care of it."
Panic seized Carol's entire being as she whirled the plane around, and fired up the engines, pushing the Quinjet as close to its max speed. The entire plane began to shake.
"What happened?"
"Apparently, she punched another student. She didn't tell me more, but she was furious and she threated to tell about... the thing, if I didn't get you on it immediately."
Carol watched the cloud under them pass in a blink. Monica would never punch anyone. There had to be an explanation for all this.
"Avenger to the base, we're going home."
They arrived in record time back at the SHIELD base in Washington DC, and after biding a quick goodbye to her students, Carol disappeared out of sight and flew at breakneck speed straight south, back to Louisiana. She landed in front of the school, barely hidden behind a bunch of cars. Thankfully, her outfit could relatively pass for a normal pair of pants and tee-shirt combo. She strode into the school, ready to disperse any misunderstanding. Monica couldn't have hit another student. She was a smart girl who knew that violence was never the answer.
Carol found the principal's reception easily, and of course, Monica was seating in one of the chairs there, waiting. She looked up when she heard footsteps, and instantly her gaze shifted back to the ground when she saw Carol.
Carol took in a deep breath. She needed to be the responsible adult here, she needed to remain calm and see the situation in its entirety, even if all she wanted to do was hug Monica and tell her everything was going to be okay and that she had her back.
"Can I help you?" the secretary asked.
"I'm Carol Danvers, Monica's aunt. Her mother called me saying the school had called."
"Ah, yes, she said she would send someone else. Please have a seat, Mr. Pierce will see you in a minute."
Carol nodded and came to sit beside Monica. The teenager didn't dare look at her. She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, extending her legs. Carol adopted almost the exact same position as they waited. However, one of her legs was jerking uncontrollably, betraying her obvious nervousness. Monica had always been the perfect student, she had no idea how to handle her sudden rebellious streak.
"I hope you know your mom's furious," she murmured. "She threatened Fury to tell about his eye if he didn't get me to come over."
Monica said nothing. She remained walled in her silence, and Carol didn't like it at all.
"Did you really punch someone else?"
Still no answer. Carol sighed.
"I'm here to help, you know. If you don't tell me what happened, I can't help you."
Finally, Monica relented.
"Nancy was harassing Julia, again."
It took a few moments of reflection for Carol to remember where she'd heard the names before. Julia was one of Monica's teammates and friends, a year younger than her. Nancy was the school's queen bee. So, the stage was set.
"She insulted her and she wouldn't stop no matter how many times we told her to go away. So I punched her."
Carol nodded. She couldn't blame her daughter, not after the number of times she'd punched a fuckboy getting a bit too close for comfort when she was younger.
"Did you punch her like I showed you? Thumbs out of the hand? Knuckles first?"
Monica nodded, showing her hand to Carol. It was barely bruised.
"A bit of ice when we go home and it should be right as rain," Carol said.
The door to the principal's office opened, and a girl walked out. She had puffy eyes and her nose was red. She'd obviously cried quite a lot. Monica watched her walk away with concern, but the girl nodded as if to indicate that she was fine. This must have been Julia, Carol assumed.
"Monica, if you please?"
Monica stood up, and Carol jumped to her feet as well. She came to stand in front of the principal quickly. He was a tall, lanky man with gray hair, and only a faint hole in his right ear betrayed that he must have been a pretty cool dude when he was young. Now, he looked extremely serious and tired.
"I'm Carol Danvers, Monica's aunt," she introduced herself as usual.
"Mr. Pierce, please come on in."
They walked into the man's office and he closed the door. A massive shelf behind him was filled with books and folders and the likes. A blocky computer rested on his desk, definitely an old model.
He sat down and opened the file in front of him.
"Mrs. Danvers, during the lunch break Monica punched another student in the face. From what I gathered that student was harassing one of her teammates, calling her names. I can understand that she wanted to defend her friend, but violence is not and never should be the answer."
Carol hated how Monica shrunk into her seat, how small and sad she looked. She hated hearing the principal talk about her as if she weren't there at all. But she pushed all of that aside and pretended to be a good parent.
"Of course, I completely understand, and Monica knows it."
"Now, Monica has always been a good student, she's the captain of our female basketball team. This is her first infraction. I would be willing to look the other way if Monica apologized to Nancy. No sanction will be taken against her."
Carol said nothing. She knew it wasn't up to her to decide, no matter how much the principal looked at her. It was Monica's decision to take.
Before she could ask her daughter about it, they heard a high-pitched shriek coming from the other side of the door, and it suddenly burst open. A woman elegantly dressed stood there, the secretary right behind her and trying to hold her back.
"Principal Pierce, I demand to speak with you immediately!"
"I'm sorry, sir," the secretary apologized, "I tried to..."
"It's alright, Lucy, thank you."
The secretary returned behind her desk, glaring at the woman.
"Mrs. Peterson, I would like to finish speaking with Mrs. Danvers first, if you don't mind..."
She cut him off before he could finish his sentence, glaring down at both Carol and Monica.
"My daughter is the victim in all this, and I want to make sure the girl responsible for disfiguring her is expelled permanently."
Carol fisted her hands, anger boiling in her blood. She could feel energy wanting to sip out through her skin. If the daughter was half as annoying as her mother, Carol would have punched her a long time ago. Monica sent her a terrified look, and Carol knew it was about time this woman was knocked down a few pegs.
"Mrs. Peterson, I have multiple students testifying that your daughter has been insulting and harassing a younger student for the past few weeks. We will discuss her punishment later. I will have to ask you to wait out..."
"Punishment?" She sneered. "My daughter is the victim in all this and you want to punish her? This is ridiculous!"
The principal was starting to cave under the shrilling voice, Carol could see. It was about time she intervened.
"Why did she harass her?" she asked.
"Excuse me?" Mr. Pierce asked, visibly relieved to see her joining the conversation once again.
"You said she insulted her? What words did she use? On what basis did she insult her?"
The principal was suddenly at a loss for word. Monica, however, wasn't.
"'Dyke'," she said, straightening slightly as she spoke. "She called her a dyke. She's been calling her like that since she cut her hair. I told the coach, I told the school counselor, but no one has done anything."
Carol's heart broke when she heard Monica's stormy tone. It was obvious she was trying to contain herself, but much like her she was angry, and she had good reasons to be. Silence settled in the office until suddenly Mrs. Peterson said:
"It's not an insult, it was probably just a joke."
Carol jumped to her feet, facing the woman who was taller than her and staring down at her with barely contained fury.
"Now you listen to me, lady! I've been in the military for over twenty years now. There were only five women in my class, and we were only two when I was first assigned. I had to suffer through every single insult in the goddamn book, multiple times every fucking day, both behind my back and to my face. It doesn't matter. Insulting, or belittling someone based on their sexuality, or gender, or race, is never, ever, a joke. Do you hear me? Never. Dyke is an insult when it is used to make someone fill bad about themselves, and whether it is true or not doesn't freaking matter. This word has pushed people to the darkest places you can't even imagine. Kids killed themselves because of words like that, constantly repeated to them because it was a joke. So you better shut your goddamn mouth and wait outside for your spawn's punishment, or I'll take you out myself."
Mrs. Peterson imitated a goldfish for a good minute, her mouth closing and opening repeatedly until she finally walked out, and shut the door behind her. Carol let out a long sigh. One more second and she would have gone binary. She fell back into her seat with a huff. The room was silent once again.
"Mrs. Danvers?"
She looked up at the principal who was still quite stunned beside her.
"I think we can agree that Monica is free to go for today. I will keep this off the record as long it doesn't happen again. Miss Peterson will be appropriately punished for her behavior."
Carol could only nod. She'd put everything she had in her speech and it was draining. Twenty years of pent up rage she hadn't quite gotten rid of. Twenty years of homophobes and misogynists she hadn't had the opportunity to put back in their places. This was literally the drop of water which had broken the dam.
"Monica, if anything like this happens again, please, be sure to let me know. I'll organize a student assembly tomorrow to talk about harassment in the school."
Monica nodded.
"Of course, sir."
"You are free to go home for today.
Because Carol had come flying to her rescue, they had to walk home. They walked side by side, silently. Carol was still filling the aftermath of her anger, as energy was running wildly through her cells, desperately wanting to get out. She wanted to fly. She wanted to destroy things. She wanted to go binary and fly to the moon and punch it in half until all the negative energy in her body had dissipated. But she didn't want to leave Monica alone. So she'd fisted her hands in her jacket pockets, in hope that she could control herself.
Monica's hand came to rest on her shoulder, and she exhaled slowly, trying to push all of her anger out of her system.
"Are you okay?" Monica asked with concern.
Carol sighed longly. She didn't mean to make her daughter worry.
"I'll be better after I can punch a few trees," she confessed. "You think Tom would mind if I punched down the big elm in his garden?"
Monica chuckled.
"Probably."
Carol sighed again.
"You did good, Lieutenant Trouble. I'll talk to your mom and tell her to be cool for this one. Just, don't punch the girl again, even if it must be very tempting. I tried punching my way through everything before, and it would have ended very poorly for me without Maria's intervention, believe me."
Monica smiled and nodded.
"I'm sorry you had to go through all of this," she said.
Carol shook her head.
"If I hadn't someone else would have. You have to suffer to get what you want. I wanted to be a pilot, I suffered through fifteen years of bullshit to get to the respected position that I have today. Same for your mom. Same for you if you really want to join the Air Force this summer. You'll have to suffer through twenty Nancies. Except these Nancies will be taller and stronger than you, and they'll be looking for your weak spots every time you do something, to strike you down."
Carol smiled at her encouragingly.
"Just remember, it doesn't matter how often they strike you down, as long as you know how to get back up."
Monica nodded, searing her mother's words in her brain. Carol glanced at her watch.
"So, we have a few hours before your mother comes home. I'll try calling her when we get home, give her an update on the situation. In the meantime, sundaes at Josie's?"
Monica smiled, and Carol smiled back. Together, they started walking down the street toward their favorite diner, ready to put this whole mess behind them.