Peter’s sleep was stirred by a loud shattering noise from beside him, followed by a quiet hiss of stress from another person.

He opened his eyes, seeing the cold steel ceiling above him, and turned his head after gathering his surroundings to see the large backside of Ms. Marvel, bent over as she tried to pick up the pieces of a shattered mug that had spilled its contents of coffee all over the floor.

“Not gonna lie-” Peter said with a grin, “I could get used to waking up like this every morning.”

“Good to see that drowning didn’t damage your brain,” Ms. Marvel chuckled, turning her head and smiling at him before standing straight, thumping her back gently before massaging out a small knot in her muscle.

“Seriously though…” Peter said, sitting up and leaning against the large pillow he had, “I didn’t think white girls had it in their genetics to have an ass that big.”

“Well… it might have something to do with the genetic manipulation from the Kree,” she suggested, sitting down on the bed next to him, crossing her leg over her knee and leaning back on her hands.  “Who knows, it might even be the source of my power?”

Peter laughed at the joke before realizing he didn’t know what the Kree were.

So he asked.

“The Kree is an alien race that, before they came to Earth, was a militant race of nomads that went from planet to planet, recruiting the strongest warriors they could find and, once they’d found them, manipulating their genetic code to make them into Kree soldiers,” Carol explained, looking up at a burn mark on the ceiling.

“You said ‘before’... what happened to them?” Peter asked, resting his hands on his knees as he sat up.

“We destroyed them with the help of one of their own, Mar-Vell,” Carol said, a solemn look blooming on her face.

“Mar-Vell?” Peter asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, his superhero name was Captain Marvel.  He was the one that found me and gave me my powers before I was able to convince him to help us fight off the Kree.  When he agreed to it, we worked together and the people we fought called me ‘Ms. Mar-Vell’ as a derogatory term… it just stuck after that”

“So how did you fight them off?” Peter asked.

“Independence Day style,” Carol said, a small smile coming back onto her face.

“You mean you came up with a bullshit plan to infect a super-advanced alien supercomputer with a human-made virus that shouldn’t’ve been able to infect the computer because it most likely wasn’t running on Windows Ninety-Five? Or any human programming for that matter?” Peter asked.

“Yeah, something like that” Carol nodded with a grin.

“Jesus, that movie sucked,” Peter said, his inner Nostalgia Critic breaking through his Parker-ness.  “Same with Godzilla and Stargate… Roland Emmerich’s a shit director”

“I can understand Stargate and Godzilla but… you didn’t like Independence Day?” she asked “Why not?”

“Two reasons: One, for the plot point I just explained and two, it was a rehash of the first two Emmerich disaster movies: The white, socially awkward nerdy scientist detects an alien threat and warns people about it.  Nobody listens to him because they’re assholes and then he comes in at the last minute to save the day by doing the thing people said wouldn’t work,” Peter explained.

“I’m guessing you’re not good to sit next to at the movies, are you?” she asked with a smirk.

“Hey, come along with me the next time I go for one and I’ll show you exactly how much fun I am at the movies,” Peter chuckled.

“I think I might take you up on that,” Carol said.  “But first, we’ve gotta take care of the Gear.”

“Ah, yes,” Peter nodded.  “Somehow, I’d completely forgotten about that.”

“Widow’s in with Fury and now briefing him on what you guys learned in there,” Carol said.  “After the tanker went down there was quite a lot of public interest with Mayor Maer, giving a statement she’d been told to about the ship experiencing electrical problems that lead to an atmosphere decompression in the lower decks that caused the ship’s hull to buckle and tear.”

“You know something?” Peter asked with a grin “I quite enjoy being part of the secret service.  I get to know what’s behind all the lies.”

“Not at your security clearance you’re not,” Carol chuckled, patting him on the leg before getting off the bed, Peter’s eyes once again locking onto her rear.

“Does that thing ever ride up at any point?” he asked.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Carol sighed.  “I had an older one that acted as more of a leotard that covered my butt instead of it being a G-String like it is now.”

“Then why don’t you wear that one?” Peter asked.

“I felt like it was too similar to the old Captain Marvel outfit Mar-Vell used to wear,” Carol shrugged “I liked this one because it was more original.”

“Well… I hate to piss on your parade but, uh, that one’s pretty much a genderbent version of Black Adam’s costume,” Peter said with a raised finger.

“Who?” Carol asked, turning around with a cocked eyebrow.

“Black Adam… he’s one of the… other Captain Marvel’s bad guys,” Peter answered.

“What d’you mean the other Captain Marvel?” she asked.

“Well… DC comics created a character in the nineteen-forties called Billy Batson, who was like an eleven year old boy who met a wizard named Shazam, who granted him these magical powers so that every time he shouted the name ‘Shazam’, he would turn into the superhero known as Captain Marvel,” Peter began, talking with his hands as he spoke.  “But the thing is, DC actually copyrighted the name ‘Shazam’ in reference to the character but forgot to copyright ‘Captain Marvel’, and if they had then, he’d be getting sued for unlicensed use of a copyrighted character.”

Carol stood there speechless for several seconds, her mouth agape as she tried her hardest to scramble together a sentence before giving up on the action entirely, pressing her rouged lips together and making a popping sound before looking down at her costume.

“And who did you say Black Adam was again?”

“Oh, he’s Captain Marvel’s archnemesis, big scary and kind of racially-ambiguous villain who has a black costume with a yellow lightning bolt down the chest and a yellow sash tied at his waist.

Carol gently lifted her red sash and looked at it with pursed lips.

“Maybe… maybe I should switch back to the old one?” she suggested.

“Yeah, before DC slams you up the butt with a cease and desist warning for copyright infringement,” Peter said.  “What does the other one look like?”

“It’s similar to this one in terms of shape except it’s red on the body and the hips sections as well as the neck and shoulders are black.  It had black gloved-sleeves instead of just long gloves.  And instead of a lightning bolt, it had a bright star on the chest.  Oh, and it had this scarf-thing, two long strips of cloth that came off the back of the neck.”

“What about the boots?” Peter asked.

“Don’t tell anybody, but I used the same boots for both outfits,” she said in a hushed tone.

“Blasphemous,” Peter said in a shocked tone, putting a hand to his mouth.

“I know,” she nodded.  “Now, you ready to go and see Fury to learn what our next move is?”

“I’m guessing it’s to wait for the Big Shell to be set up so we can go and stop Arsenal Gear?” Peter threw out with a wave of his hand.

“Arsenal Gear?” Carol asked “Is that another Gear model?”

“Oh yeah, it’s up there in terms of dangerous with Metal Gear D, Metal Gear ZEKE, Metal Gear Rex, the TX-55 Metal Gear, the Shagohod, the Intercontinental Ballistic Metal Gear, Outer Haven, Metal Gear EXCELSUS and the D-Walker,” Peter said, counting each model of Metal Gear on his fingers.

Carol stared at him with a horrified look on her face, complete disbelief taking over as she began to pray that they weren’t building all of the models Peter just mentioned.

“You… you said that these things came from a video game right?” she asked “Who was it that beat them and how did they do it?”

“Well…” Peter began, “different people have taken down the Metal Gears in different games.  Canonically, the first person to take down a Metal Gear model, which was the Shagohod, so technically it wasn’t a Gear.  It was Big Boss, known at that time as Naked Snake.  The other people to destroy the Gears were Solid Snake and Raiden.”

“W… Solid Snake?” Carol asked in a confused manner “Who was that?”

“Solid Snake was one of the sons of Big Boss created in the Les Enfants Terribles project in the nineteen-seventies by Major Zero as a way of keeping the ultimate soldier American.  He was born alongside his younger brother Liquid Snake, the two being the only two surviving embryos from the original eight that were fertilized in EVA’s womb, the other six being terminated to promote the healthy growth of the other two, and the two of them ended up fighting on Shadow Moses when Liquid took over the testing ground where the Armstech president and the DARPA chief were field testing the newest model of Metal Gear, Metal Gear Rex, where Snake was able to overpower Liquid in a fistfight and Liquid was killed by the FOXDIE virus that was implanted in Snake by Naomi Hunter who wanted revenge on Snake for killing her ‘brother’ Grey Fox when the two fought against each other in Zanzibarland when Big Boss staged a military coup using the Militaires Sans Frontieres, his soldiers without borders and-”

“Peter, Peter-” Carol interrupted, placing two fingers to her temple and breathing loudly.  “Stop.  I physically cannot process any more information than that without my head exploding.”

“Right,” Peter grinned.  “Point taken… can we go see Fury now?”

“Yes, but on the way there, I think we need to stop off at the med bay and acquire some ibuprofen,” Carol said.

“For your head I’m guessing?” Peter asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Please, nobody needs to be guessing right now,” she said, rubbing her eyes with her hands.  “It only leads to more headaches.”

“Fair enough,” Peter laughed, getting up off the bed and rolling his shoulders, his sternum now fully repaired.  “By the way, what happened to my chest?”

“Yeah, the only way to help you cough up the water you swallowed after you nearly drowned, I had to break your sternum to directly compress your lungs and squeeze the water out,” she explained.  “Sorry.”

“Right, as long as you’re sure it was necessary to smash my ribcage,” Peter said.

“I’ll let you do the same if you want?” Carol offered.

“Nah, out of all of the things you’ve got, your sternum isn’t the one thing I’d like to smash” Peter said, the look on his face giving away he was waiting for a reaction.

Carol raised a blonde eyebrow at the teenager as she crossed her arms, tapping her foot on the floor as the seconds ticked by.

“Very mature,” she commented.

“Thank you,” he chuckled.  “I try.”

Next Chapter: An Interesting Proposition Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes