They explained everything to her, who they were, who they lost, Wakanda, Thanos, the Infinity Stones. She was shocked to hear that inside the Tesseract was the Space Stone. She had gotten her powers from an Infinity Stone. It wasn't a wonder she was so powerful.

They asked her questions too. Who she was, where she came from, how she knew Fury, her powers. She refused to talk about her girlfriend, the most important person she had lost. Natasha understood and didn't pressure Carol into talking about her, having lost a lot of people in her own lifetime too.

Everyone was shocked to hear that Fury kept her a secret from them for years, never even hinting at her existence. They already knew about aliens, so that part wasn't surprising to them.

She was angry at Fury for not calling her to fight Thanos with the Avengers. They had needed every hand they could get, but he still apparently trusted the group to beat the Titan without her.

When Steve told her that the other half of their team was stranded somewhere in space, she knew what to do. Offering her services to look for them, she said her goodbyes to the team and headed to the moon of Jupiter, a relatively short distance for her to fly.

There was nothing she could do on Earth for now. The Avengers had no idea where Thanos went and until they found out, she just had to wait.

Finding the lost teammates proved to be more difficult then she thought. Titan definitely held traces of a fight, letting her know that they had, in fact, been here. But they were long gone. No ships nearby, not even in Jupiter's orbit. And without any sort of lead, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Twenty-one days after leaving Earth for the second time, it was finally her lucky day. A beautiful, small spaceship floated around in the blackness between the stars. It actually reminded her a lot of her own spaceship.

The large window in the front reflected her light back to her, before it disappeared and she could see through. A man and a woman lay on the ground. Underweight, disoriented from starvation and dehydration and breathing shallow from the lack of oxygen. Wasting no time, not even to say hello, she carried the jet on her shoulders back to Earth.

It wasn't a long journey with the speed she could manage while holding the ship up. Some of the Avengers were already warned of her arrival, waiting outside, staring up at the sky as they watched her land and put the jet down.

Natasha gave her a faint smile, something Carol learned was the most emotion she would get out of the woman, before her attention went to Steve, who caught what appeared to be Tony as he stumbled off the ramp.

'Couldn't stop him', Tony muttered to Steve.

'Neither could I', the other man admitted. It really hurt him to have lost. He looked like someone who hated losing and he just lost the biggest fight of his life.

Tony was almost in tears and had trouble saying the words. 'I lost the kid.' No idea who he was talking about, but he must have meant a lot to him.

'Tony, we lost', Steve tried to ease him, take some of his guilt.

'Is, uh...?' He trailed off, afraid of asking the question. She didn't need to know who he was talking about, the way he was saying it told her everything she needed to know.

An older, very kind looking woman ran up to the man. 'Oh, my God! Oh, my God!', she yelled, not believing her eyes. Carol's gaze fell onto her wedding ring and found the same thing on Tony's hand. When they hugged tightly, she averted her eyes. A month ago, she would have smiled brightly at this, knowing the feeling they were sharing. But now it hurt, knowing she had lost what they still had.

Everyone slowly trailed back inside, happy their long-lost friend and teammate was back, but unable to properly celebrate.

Carol stood back to the side, having taken the top part of her uniform off, leaving her in only a black tank top, while everyone gathered around the Holograms, not unlike the ones on Hala. They displayed what the Avengers knew and what had happened here. Tony had no idea of the devastation on Earth, so this was also a summary for him.

'It's been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth', the man she came to know as 'Rhodey', spoke, starting the session. Their fallen friends' faces rotated above the table, on display for everyone to see. Her heart sunk when Fury came around, an eyepatch covering one of his eyes, curtesy of Goose.

Natasha continued. 'World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did... he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures.' With Carol's arrival, they had learned that the destruction covered the whole universe, not just Earth.

Tony, who sat at the table in a wheelchair with a drip in his arm, was upset and angry. And if he could get up and fight right now, he would. 'Where is he now? Where?'

'We don't know.' Steve spoke to the ground. 'He just opened a portal and walked through.'

Tony, dropping the Thanos subject, now focused on the god sitting outside the room, looking sad and lost. There was a lot of that going on around here. Carol had heard of Thor and the Asgardians, but had never actually visited the planet. 'What's wrong with him?'

Instead of Steve, the little raccoon Rocket spoke up. She had to admit, he was not the weirdest thing she had seen on her space travels. 'Oh, he's pissed. He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but you know there's a lot of that's going around, ain't there?'

'Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear.' Tony couldn't help but make a joke, something Yala would have probably done in this situation too, always hiding her emotions behind humor.

She had expected Rocket to be offended, but he just looked sad, a hidden meaning in his words as he spoke. 'Maybe I am.'

Steve interrupted them, getting back on track. 'We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep Space scans and satellites, and we got nothing. Tony, you fought him.' Carol turned from Steve to Tony to see his reaction.

A faked surprised expression came on his face. 'Who told you that? I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street Magician gave away the store. That's what happened. There was no fight.' He was pissed at himself for losing, even though he had no chance to win.

'Okay', Steve said quickly, trying to calm him down and move on the conversation, but Tony wouldn't have any of it.

'He's unbeatable.'

'Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?' Steve tried again.

But this only angered the man more. 'Pfft!' Natasha rolled her eyes annoyed. 'I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming.' Tony was clearly done with everything, feeling nothing but hopeless.

'Tony, I'm gonna need you to focus', Steve did anything he could to reason with him, but the man didn't want to. At that point, he was almost as stubborn as Carol.

'And I needed you', Tony almost seethed. Everyone tensed at his words. 'As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late buddy. Sorry. You know what I need?' He stands up from his wheelchair, something he clearly wasn't ready for, swaying back and forth on his feet. He pushes things over on the table with a loud clatter, everybody wincing at the noise. 'I need to shave. And I believe I remember telling you to stay-'

'Tony, Tony, Tony', Rhodey tried to stop his friend from pulling the IV from his arm.

'-alive and otherwise what we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not- that's what we needed!' He was really pissed now. Even though Carol had no idea what they were talking about, she followed the conversation closely, studying her new teammates.

Steve was pissed now too, even though he hid it well. 'Well, that didn't work out, did it?'

Tears formed in the older man's eyes, shuddering breaths telling us he was on the edge of crying. 'I said, "we'd lose". You said, "We'll do that together too." And guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren't there. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers, we're the Avengers. Not the Prevengers. Right?'

Rhodey caught his arms, seeing he was becoming more and more unstable, too weak to stand on his own for too long. 'Okay, okay, you've made your point. Just sit down.' His arms trying to push him back in the wheelchair, but Tony wasn't finished yet.

'Nah, nah. Here's my point. You know what?'

'Tony, you're sick', the man tried again.

'She's great, by the way', he suddenly pointed to Carol. He hadn't even looked at her for the whole time they were sitting in this room. She didn't even think he had noticed her, but he had, and had already formed an opinion. 'We need you. You're new blood. Bunch of tired old mules!' She didn't smile at his compliments, knowing what was happening now was far from okay.

A venomous whisper came from Tony as he strutted up into Steve's face. 'I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar.'

Steve looks seriously affected by his words, hurt that his old friend would say that to him. They just stare at each other before he rips the glowing triangle from his chest and shoves it into Steve's hand. 'Here, take this. You find him, and you put that on. You hide.'

With those words, the excitement finally gets to him and he falls down, his legs giving away. 'Tony!' Carol reached her hands out, trying to catch him if needed, but he fell down too fast and passed out with a thump, everyone gathering around him. It was truly sad how much this man was broken. He would never fully heal again, the loss of this fight for always eating away at his brain.

Carol had to be honest, she was getting tired of this pointless conversation. Tony clearly didn't know anything and if he did, he wasn't going to give them anything soon. The others didn't seem to know anything about Thanos' whereabouts either, so she was just wasting time here.

The frustration and unrest slowly began building up inside her. She needed to do something, not wait here pointlessly.

As soon as Rhodey returned in the room, announcing that Tony had received a sedative and he would be out for the rest of the day, she decided to announce her departure. 'You guys take care of him. And I'll bring him a Xorrian Elixir when I come back.' She had used the Elixir once, when Aayala was so heavily injured and exhausted that she had passed out for days. The Elixir heals your body at once, giving it so much energy and power that it feels like pure energy is running through your veins. It would help Tony a lot.

With that, she walks away. But before she could even make the door, Natasha speaks up. 'Where are you going?'

'To kill Thanos.'

It was quiet for a second before two sets of footsteps followed her. 'Hey!' Carol turned back around to see the blonde woman behind her. 'You know, we usually work as a team here, and between you and I, morale's a little fragile.' Natasha gave her a nasty stare-down. Letting her know she didn't trust her.

'We realize up there is more your territory, but this is our fight too', Steve added more subtly.

Rhodey, who had also followed at a distance, asked 'You even know where he is?'

Not wanting to give in so quickly, she offered the help of all the people she knew. The thousands of people in space that owed her. 'I know people who might.'

A new voice came from behind her. She hadn't realized somebody was standing there, but she had a feeling that was a normal thing here. Everybody was highly trained and could sneak up to each other without problems. 'Don't bother. I can tell you where Thanos is', Nebula grabbed everyone's attention. She walked right past all of them, back to the room they just came out off.

'Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. And when he worked, he talked about his great plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I'd ask where would we go once his plan was complete. His answer was always the same: "To the Garden."'

Carol had trouble keeping her eyes from rolling and out of the corner of her brown ones, she saw Rhodey had the same problem. 'That's cute, Thanos has a retirement plan.'

'So where is he?' Steve asked confused.

Rocket answered him from where he stood on the table, wanting to minimalize the height difference with those around him. A Holo-presentation followed his words, first showing Earth and then the rest of the universe. 'When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions. No one's ever seen anything like it... Until two days ago.' The Holo changed to a planet she didn't recognize, where a shockwave visibly traveled over the planet. 'On this planet.'

'Thanos is there', Nebula confirmed.

Natasha put her face as close to the Holo without touching it, focusing on the source of the surge. 'He used the stones again', she mumbled alarmed.

Bruce spoke up, not happy with the idea he knew was forming in our minds. 'Hey, hey, hey. We'd be going in short-handed, you know.'

Rhodey joined him. 'Look, he's still got the stones, so...'

But Carol didn't pay attention to their protest, she was with Natasha on this one. Staring at the spinning planet, she decided to speak what everyone thought. 'So let's get 'em... Use them to bring everyone back.'

'Just like that?'

'Yeah', Steve agreeing with her plan. 'Just like that.' He looked at Carol, sharing a knowing look with her. He liked her, she was someone of action and clearly very powerful. They needed someone like her.

Natasha agreed too, ready for a fight. Carol had a feeling that Natasha agreed on almost everything Steve did too. They clearly shared a close connection. 'Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this... I mean we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try.'

Carol's eyes fell to the ground, not so strong and determined now. She had done such a good job keeping Yala out of her head, but with Natasha's words, she came floating right back to the surface. She would have loved this, all these powerful people in one room. If the situation wasn't so gloomy, she would jump up and down from excitement and Carol would just laugh at her.

But she wasn't here, and the blonde woman was right, they needed to try.

Bruce was almost convinced. 'If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?'

Carol looked at him, saying words that sounded a little cocky. 'Because before, you didn't have me.' Yala would have rolled her eyes at her, silently apologizing to the others.

Rhodey, clearly offended, said a little rudely 'Hey, new girl, everyone here is about that superhero life. And if you don't mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?'

But she didn't let it get to her, held her head high and answered confidently. 'There are a lot of other planets in the universe. And unfortunately, they didn't have you guys.' Steve raised his eyebrows in amusement and even Natasha gave her a small smirk when she roasted Rhodey.

Suddenly, Thor, who had been sitting behind her, eating and saying nothing, stood up. He tried to intimidate her by slowly walking into her personal space and towering above her. Carol just stared at him as he held out his right hand and waited for his axe to fly into his hand. With a little woosh, it skimmed right past her left cheek, the wind blowing her hair forwards. But she didn't flinch, so much as blink. Thor sighed, examining the woman in front of him. She gave him a small smirk and narrowed her eyes.

'I like this one', he then loudly announced to everyone.

Steve, satisfied by Thor's approval, stared back at the planet and gave a silent order. 'Let's go get this son of a bitch.'

~~~~~~~~

Okay, so far, so good. This part of Endgame I don't mind writing, but the fight at the end will be so painful to rewatch...

Hope you enjoyed!

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