She came back on a Wednesday.
For several days, she kept telling herself she would file it as a threat assessment.
She drafted the file in her head while doing other things, adding a quick sentence here and a procedural paragraph there.
By the time she set the SHIELD-issued tablet on her hotel bed and grabbed her jacket, the file was nearly finished in her mind.
She stopped on the way to the elevator.
She thought about the file she had been drafting in her head.
She thought about the title she had been giving it.
She walked back into her room and sat on the edge of the bed.
She took out her phone, opened a new document, and titled it with careful honesty: Diplomatic Check-In.
She refused to think about why she changed the title.
She avoided looking too closely at how her view of the assignment was shifting, as if admitting it would only make things harder.
She closed the phone.
She left.
By mid-morning, she landed at the gate.
Dara was in the garden when she arrived.
Dara noticed her, paused for a moment to take it in, then turned without expression and went back inside to find Alaric.
Alaric sat at the kitchen table with the morning’s residency applications in front of him.
He was reading the third one, from a forty-two-year-old man named Tobias from upstate New York.
Tobias had a mild electromagnetic sensitivity that had cost him three jobs and a marriage, and his letter sounded tired.
Alaric circled the line.
I could feel appliances, and was making a note in the margin when Dara appeared in the doorway and said, in her usual tone, “You have a guest.” “Who?” “The one Stark warned us about.” He looked up.
“Right,” he said.
“All right.” He stood.
Closed the file.
Went out to the porch.
Carol Danvers was already on the porch.
She had walked up the path while he was still taking in the news.
She stood at the porch step in plain civilian clothes, not quite casual but not a uniform either.
She looked up at the flag as if she had already decided what she thought about it.
“Captain.” “Mr.
Vane.” “Coffee?” “Tea, if you’ve got it.” “I’ve got it.” He brought the tea and a second cup for himself.
He motioned to the other chair, and she sat down.
She asked him, without any introduction, the question that had been on her mind since Manhattan.
“Why the mutant-protection clause specifically?” “Because it was the right declaration.
The laws should say what the place is.” “That’s a slogan.” “It’s the same answer I’d give the long way.” “Give it the long way.” He paused for a moment.
He had gone over the answer in his head many times, but realized he had never said it out loud to someone whose opinion mattered.
“There are people in the world,” he said, “for whom the question of whether they’re allowed to exist as themselves gets asked of them every day, by the world they’re walking through.
Most of those people aren’t mutants.
Some of them are.
The clause is in the document because, if it’s in the document, those people, when they read it, know without having to ask that this is a place where the question isn’t being asked of them.
The clause is a small, efficient way of saying you don’t have to ask.
I could have left it out.
The country would have been close to the same country, on most days, without the clause.
But on the days when it mattered, it would have been a different country.
So I put the clause in.” She drank her tea.
“What do you want, long term?” “I want to prove that this kind of sovereignty is possible and stable.
I want to be a model.
I’d like other people to look at this and decide to try their own version.
I think the proof of concept matters more than the size of this particular concept.” “That’s a theory.
Most theories don’t survive contact with power.” “I know.
That’s why I’m doing this instead of theorizing about it.” She looked at him for a long moment over her mug.
“What happens,” she said, “when you die?” He had been waiting for that question for some weeks.
He realized he hadn’t prepared a clear answer for it.
He had a few messy ones in mind, and in the moment before he spoke, he chose the messiest.
“I don’t know yet,” he said.
“That’s not a good answer.” “It’s the answer I have.” “You should have a better one.” “I know.” “You’ve been thinking about it.” “Every day.” “And you don’t have one.” “Not yet.
The structure I’ve built ends with me.
The houses will stay.
The community, if there is one, will stay.
But the laws will end.
Everything I’ve put in place stops being true the moment I can’t enforce it.
Figuring out how to make something last beyond its creator is the project’s biggest unsolved problem.
I don’t have the answer yet.
I’m working on it, but I don’t know how long it will take.” “You’re being honest about that.” “There’s no way to spin this that would make my position look better.
It is what it is.
If I lied, you’d notice, and you’d lose interest in me.
That would be the worst outcome.
So I’m telling you the truth: I have a problem, and I haven’t solved it.” “You assume I’d lose interest if you lied.” “I do.” “Why?” “Because Tony said you were the most observant person he knew.
And because you came back.
People who return have made a choice.
What they’ve chosen can’t survive a lie.” She set the tea down.
“He shouldn’t have told you that.” “You can take it up with him.” “Yeah, I will.” She looked out at the water.
The morning was clear, and the wind was gentle.
The flag moved slowly on its pole.
In the kitchen, Dara made a quiet clatter as she put away dishes.
After a while, Carol said, “I’m going to come back.” “All right.” “Probably soon.” “You’re welcome any time.” “I haven’t decided yet what this is.” “That’s all right.
You don’t have to.” “Don’t get ahead of me on this?” “I won’t.” “Good.” She finished her tea, stood up, and looked around the porch at the chairs, the small whiteboard with household chores, and the flag.
She took it all in, as people do when they’re about to leave but want to remember the place for next time.
“Captain.” “Mr.
Vane.” “Thank you for coming.” “Thank you for the tea.” She lifted off from the gate.
He stood on the porch and watched her leave.
The trail in the sky above the western horizon grew bright, then faded, then disappeared.
He didn’t move for a while after.
Eventually, Dara came out onto the porch.
She was holding a tea towel.
She watched him for a long moment.
“That woman,” she said.
“Right enough.” “Is going to be a problem?” “I know.” “For you, or for her.” He didn’t answer.
She watched him a moment longer, then gave a small, precise nod, as Okoye had at the flag.
It was the kind of nod people give when they want to remember something, even if nothing was said.
“I’m going to write that down,” she said.
“All right.” She went back into the kitchen.
He sat down on the porch.
The journal was on the rail next to his chair.
He picked it up.
Opened it.
He did not, for a long moment, write anything.
Then, in his handwriting: Day [unmeasured].
Carol Danvers came back.
I gave her the long answer to the mutant-protection clause and the messy answer to the death question.
She did not look away from either one.
Dara called her a problem.
Dara is going to write something down.
I think I am going to be in trouble for a long time.
I think I am going to be all right with that.
He closed the journal.
He set it back on the rail.
The afternoon light began to appear, slowly.
— CREATORS’ THOUGHTS FanficForger Hey there!
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