[b]Baltimore, MD[/b]

[i]"Once I had a love and it was a gas,"[/i] Debbie Harry crooned to the thumping beat. [i]"Soon turned out had a heart of glass."[/i]

Something about Blondie always calmed Carol's nerves. Heart of Glass was always the track she listened in the ready room, decked out in her flight gear with the earbuds wedged into her ears. She always hated she couldn't take her iPod into the F/A-18 with her. Carol took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let the music play while she thought.

[i]Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind[/i]

The earbuds and iPod she had now she could certainly take with her up into the air. SWORD designed it to be ultra-durable and dense to stand up to the intense speeds she traveled at in the air. Carol liked that she could listen to music when she flew. At least in the jet there was the idle radio chatter to listen to as white noise. Now, when she flew without a jet's help, all she ever heard was the whipping of the wind in her ears. The music acted as a constant companion on those long flights. There was nothing else in the world like being able to fly; the speeds and beauty of seeing the world from a bird's eye view were breathtaking, to be able to touch the sky like the old gods. But there was also isolation up there where the angels tread. She liked the isolation some of the time, a chance to be alone with her thoughts... but sometimes her thoughts were too much to take. The music kept those bad thoughts at bay.

[i]In between
What I find is pleasing and I'm feeling fine
Love is so confusing there's no peace of mind
If I fear I'm losing you it's just no good
You teasing like you do[/i]

Carol thumbed open her phone and brought up the email. An official joint message from SWORD, SHIELD, and the Navy. A united front all sending her their message. Ten days had gone by and she hadn't been around, officially listed as AWOL. If she failed to report for duty within the next six hours would result in Carol's termination from both agencies and a court-martial from the Navy on desertion charges. She tossed the phone across her small apartment and leaned back in the chair. She knew that was coming ever since they announced the Sentinel bullcrap. The rest of the former Avengers had been making a stand, but Carol kept her head down and went about her job. What was going on sucked, but was it her place to act? That's what she thought at first, but as the situation got worse and worse she started to reconsider. Carol loved working for SHIELD and SWORD and working with the Avengers whenever they needed her. She loved the Navy and her rank, and now all of that was being threatened by them because she wanted to take a stand.

[i]Lost inside
Adorable illusion and I cannot hide
I'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside
We could've made it cruising, yeah[/i]

Carol stood up and looked out the window to the street below. Not many people out today, but the few she did see were going about their business like any other day. For one brief second Carol wished she was one of them, to give her powers and all the rest of her life up for a chance to be ignorant of what was going on behind the scenes. But she couldn't trade, and that moment of weakness didn't change anything about the world. 

She picked her phone back off the floor, the screen now cracked. Along with the email from Carol's superiors was the encrypted message from Stark. Coordinates and a brief message. She couldn't change anything by wishing it to go away, but she could change things by [i]making[/i] them go away. All of her life she had been fighting for something, a chance to become a fighter pilot, and then later the enemy, and then finally the monsters and aliens that threatened the world. Now, the people she was going to have to fight were the people she had but her faith in for so long. It wouldn't be an easy fight, but it was a necessary fight. 

Today it was mutants, tomorrow it would be metahumans, and then what? Liberals? Conservatives? Where would it stop? She decided it would stop right now. Carol crushed the cellphone with one hand and pulled the microchip out the back, crushing it into powder in case the government wanted to monitor her. She turned up the volume on Blondie and walked to her closet where the Captain Marvel suit was hung up on the rack.

"Time to fly," she said to herself.

[i]Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind[/i]