Carol Danvers was anything but bored after the battle with Thanos.
After the Avengers brought everyone who’d been dusted back, the universe had to do some readjusting. After five years of living with only half of all population, the influx of souls going back where they came from caused some major... Disorder, for lack of a better word. Carol wouldn’t call it chaos, but it definitely wasn’t order either.She helped out as much as she could, popping around the universe and putting out metaphorical fires as they ignited. She stayed busy, made new friends, new allies.
She didn’t often let herself think about planet C-53.
Or Earth, as it was commonly called.
It was just one rock in a universe of millions, full of beings no more important than any of the others she’d encountered. But it was home. Her real home.
So she tried her best to keep Earth out of her head. Carol couldn’t afford to let a personal bias interfere with the work she was doing elsewhere. Besides, Earth had the Avengers looking out for it. Many other planets were not so lucky.
Or, Earth had most of the Avengers looking out for it. Carol wasn’t blind to the losses they sustained, the heros they had to sacrifice to win the battle against Thanos.
When Carol found Tony Stark in space, he didn’t look like anything special. The blue woman, Nebula, said they’d been stranded since they left Titan, their ship having run out of food and water days ago, fuel weeks before that. They’d been dead in the water, adrift in the cosmos with no way to signal for help.
Stark had almost succumbed to his hunger and thirst. At the time, the sight of him made Carol wince. Hollowed-out cheeks, emaciated frame, yellow-tinged eyes. The only thing that kept him from being a corpse was his thready pulse.
Despite that, despite having such a close brush with death, he was back in the game and willing to fight again five years later. Stark chose the lesser of two evils; his own death over the death of half of the universe. Her respect for the man and his actions hadn’t wavered, not since she saw him draw his last breath, lying on the battlefield surrounded by his loved ones.
An odd bunch, they were. Some in armor like his, some who could shrink, some performing spectacular acts of magic.
One, Carol recalled, That shot webs from his wrists.
He’d caught Carol’s attention almost immediately. He was young, crackling voice and short stature making his age apparent. But Carol couldn’t deny his skills; incredible agility, keen senses, enhanced strength. She didn’t know if those traits were a result of his iron suit or his own physical prowess. Regardless, her heart melted for him the second she saw him without his mask.
“I’m Peter Parker,” he’d said quickly, the Infinity Gauntlet cradled to his chest. He was filthy, blood dripping from his nose and making trails in the dirt on his chin. He looked terrified. The poor kid was obviously injured, shaking like a leaf from a mixture of adrenaline and pain.
After she took the gauntlet from him, they didn’t cross paths again for the rest of the battle.
As the fighting ceased, she watched him mourn Tony Stark.
Peter Parker had been one of the first to find Stark, the man propped up on debris and barely holding on. Parker kneeled before him, begging for...For what? For his survival? For him to hang on just long enough for a proper goodbye?
Carol couldn’t wipe the image from her mind for a long time afterward. Peter’s pleas, his sobs, his grief, stayed with her, adding to the weight of every other loss she’d been present for throughout her adventures.
After a while, the universe calmed down. Societies began rebuilding, governments reformed. There came a time when Carol’s skill set (destroying shit and kicking ass) wasn’t really needed. During those rare moments, she took time to take care of herself. To check up on those that mattered to her.
Despite that, Carol really wasn’t sure why the first time she revisited Earth after the final battle, she went looking for Peter Parker.
She obviously had no idea how to find him. Peter Parker wasn’t a unique name, and in a city like New York with 8,000,000 people (if he was even from New York), no amount of patience in the world could make Carol take the time to sort through a haystack that big to find a needle that small.
So, trying to make her haystack as small as possible, Carol flew directly to the upstate Avenger’s compound. It was the only location she knew to associate with the group, and figured it would be her best shot at finding the boy.
No one but security had even given her a glance as she walked into the compound’s main lobby. Carol assumed they were used to people walking around in mildly outrageous outfits and didn’t think much of it.
She rapped her knuckles on the lobby’s front desk, catching the attention of the receptionist. “Hiya. I’m looking for someone, was wondering if you could help me.”
The receptionist looked bored. “Do you have the clearance to be here?”
“She’s fine, she’s fine.” Someone else approached the desk, a woman with strawberry-blonde hair and a young child on her right hip. The child was asleep, one hand tucked into her chest and the other wrapped around her mother’s neck. Her eyes were shut, gentle breaths ruffling her mom’s hair.
The mom looked familiar. She’d been at the battle, clad in a suit of purple and gold armor.
She’d been the last person to sit by Tony Stark’s side as he died, kissing his cheek as he took his final breath.
She’d pulled Peter Parker off of her husband’s body.
“Miss Danvers. What a surprise.”
Carol smiled. “Mrs.Potts. Hello. I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
Pepper looked surprised at the lack of pleasantries, but rolled with the punches and quickly collected herself. “I mean, I can try. Follow me.”
Carol followed Pepper to an elevator in the corner of the lobby. They took a quick ride down, Carol assumed into some sort of basement, and they made their way to a corner office near the back of the floor. The doorplate read Private. Entry Prohibited.
Pepper placed her thumb on a scanner near the doorway and the lock clicked, the door swinging open.
“Please, have a seat,” Pepper said quietly, gently removing the child from her arm and laying her on a leather couch in the corner. This must be a sort of ritual for them, because there was already a fuzzy red blanket folded on the arm of the couch that she carefully arranged on top of the kid.
Carol took a seat in one of the two chairs before the room’s large desk. Her eyes wandered across the surface, noting a few stacks of file folders with Classified scrawled across the front. There was a computer in one corner, pencils, pens in cups. The only non-professional item was a framed photograph behind the computer.
The image showed three people, obviously Pepper and Tony Stark, with the little girl currently lying on the couch held between them, maybe a bit younger than she is now. All had genuine smiles on their faces.
They looked happy. As happy as any family should be.
Pepper sat heavily in the largest chair. She looked tired. “Miss Danvers, I don’t mean this to sound rude in any way, but I’m really surprised you’re here.”
Carol snorted. “Yea. Me too.” She paused for a moment, choosing her next words carefully. Insensitivity was not the vibe she wanted to give off. “Have you been running things around here?” Since your husband sacrificed himself for the good of mankind, she finished silently.
“More or less. I mean, I have help. The other Avengers. Happy.”
Carol had no idea who Happy was.
Pepper shook her head like she knew she was talking nonsense. “I’m off-track. Why are you here, Miss Danvers? You said you needed help with something?”
“Yea. I was wondering if you could help me track down Peter Parker.”
Pepper’s eyebrows rose. She crossed her legs under the desk. “Peter Parker? That’s...That’s not what I expected you to ask about.”
“What did you expect me to ask about?”
“I don’t know, where to find the other Avengers? A place to stay? Where to find the best pizza in the state of New York?”
“Sounds promising. But no, I was just looking for the boy.”
“I don’t know where he lives,” Pepper said apologetically. “And I haven’t seen him since…”
“Since everything went down.”
Pepper nodded. “I only met him a handful of times. Tony was closer to him than I ever was, and from what I understand, the kid’s pretty protective of his private life. I guess he might be in the system, since he was registered as an intern for a while-“
The child on the couch began fussing, her little legs kicking and tangling themselves with her blanket. Pepper rushed to comfort her, jumping from her chair to sit on the edge of the couch cushion.
“Morgan, Morgan. It’s okay. You’re alright.”
Morgan calmed as Pepper ran gentle fingers across her forehead, brushing her hair away from her face.
“Any information would be extremely helpful,” Carol said.
Once Morgan had fallen back asleep, Pepper took her seat behind her desk once again and began typing on her computer. “Intern files. Intern files. Ah, here.” She sat back in her seat. “Huh. You ever been to Queens, Miss Danvers?”
Carol very quickly discovered that she had a love-hate relationship with New York City.
Love: The architecture, the diversity in the population, the pizza place that Pepper recommended.
Hate: Everything else.
Carol liked freedom, wide-open spaces. Room to stretch her legs, persay. New York had none, the entire city so stuffed full of people and stores and cars that personal space was an imaginary concept.
She’d been relieved to finally make it to Queens, an area that while still being crowded and honestly, a little dirty, seemed more like a neighborhood than a business capital. She saw average citizens having lengthy and friendly conversations with bodega employees. People walking dogs, a few even pushing strollers as they speed-walked to their destinations.
Peter’s apartment building was in the middle of the borough, smushed between a thrift store on one side and another residential building on the other. It was mid afternoon, and students were getting home from school. Parents held the hands of their children as they walked down the street, families breaking off occasionally to enter their respective buildings.
Carol was just making her way toward Peter’s building’s front door as she spotted a moppy head of brown hair rounding a corner.
Peter walked down the road next to two other teens. A tall, curly-haired girl punched him on the shoulder, but there was no malice in the hit. Peter feigned surprise and rubbed his arm. The other friend, a stocky boy with a fedora, pulled Peter away from her and wrapped an arm around him protectively. The girl rolled her eyes and kept walking.
If Carol was reading the situation right, Peter looked...Okay. He was surviving. Living day-to-day, enjoying an afternoon with his friends. She knew there was probably more brewing under the surface, turmoil that she’d never be able to see at first glance. She had a feeling Peter was used to this sort of thing, from the way he’d reacted to Tony’s death. Like he’d already felt the grief that comes with losing a loved one; a familiar but unwelcome sensation.
But for right now, he looked to be in one piece.
Peter suddenly stopped walking, accidentally tripping his friend with the fedora. The friend said something but Peter wasn’t paying attention, his hand slowly rubbing the back of his neck and his eyes searching the street around him.
By the time his gaze hit the other side of the road, Carol was already gone.