let's see how far we'll go

Carol and Jean hadn't been at a party together in years, so obviously at the first one they attend, Carol found herself sitting in a lounge room with her best friend and a bottle of Asgardian mead.

Carol had been gone for a while. Joining the Starjammers meant leaving the Earth, and time was different out there. She’d seen so much, and yet, all she had wanted the whole time was a night back at home, in her tiny apartment, with Chewie. It wasn’t a big wish, but when your everyday is saving the universe, sometimes the small stuff is what seems truly extraordinary.

She’d been contacted, asked to come home. After everything that had happened with Ultron, they - the government, S.H.I.E.L.D., whoever They was this week - wanted her on standby. ‘If anything happens, we need someone we can trust,’ she’d heard.

Trust. Ha! Control, more like.

But, Carol had always served her country, even when they’d left her out in the cold. If they were asking for her back, the Earth needed her, and she couldn’t say no to that. Plus, she could really go for a coffee. The food out here just wasn’t the same.

By the time she had taken her first sip of coffee - real coffee - Carol had already learned enough about what Earth had been going through to realize that the ballgame had completely changed since the last time she’d been here. The fact that it was only the Avengers still operational made things even worse - these big league problems needed big league hitters, no matter if they were mutants or not. At least that solution was in the pipeline. Hopefully that would be enough...

Lost in thought, Carol only came out of her own mind when she realized someone was speaking to her - and had been trying to get her attention for some time.

“Oh, uh.. Can I help you?”