WHAT: Carol's translator implant starts acting up so she asks one of her favorite geniuses to fix it WHERE: L-Corp WHEN: This morning WARNINGS: Some medical stuff, nothing too graphic; mentions of Carol's canon memory/brainwashing stuff; mentions of violence against aliens STATUS: Complete
For as much as the Kree sucked, Carol recognized there were certain advantages to having been one of them for six years. They’d kept her alive, even if it was just to wield her as a weapon after absorbing the Tesseract’s energy. They’d taught her how to meditate (for the good of the Kree) and how to exercise control. Those were tools she still used when life inevitably included stressful spots.
The memory wiping and subsequent brainwashing they’d subjected her to afterwards - hell no, obviously not something she looked back on fondly. But she couldn’t say living without her memories, believing herself to be just a pink-skinned Kree who’d lost everything, hadn’t taught her patience she’d always struggled to exercise on Earth.
The tech, though? Chef’s kiss, regardless of their shitty belief that they should be the rulers of the universe. Vallo was ahead of the curve compared to Earth standards, but not much in Vallo came anywhere near Kree technology. Which was why, when her translator implant started acting up, she’d tried to just deal with it. At first, it only cut out occasionally, and when she asked whomever she was with to repeat themselves, understanding returned and it was fine.
Then it started cutting out for longer periods, at inopportune times. Vallo had a pretty healthy population of aliens - some from Carol’s universe, some from younger Danvers’, and some from other universes entirely. So far, the translator had worked on all of them - and since she dealt with aliens pretty regularly (stopping in at their businesses, hanging out at Al’s, or falling back into her role as space cop), it was kind of a necessity. She spoke Kree, English, a little bit of Spanish, and a handful of Asgardian Norse, but most of her communication with other species was because of the translator.
So, eventually, she knew it was time to get it fixed. She knew who her two best options were already, and since she didn’t feel like hearing Tony tease her about her makeout session with Emme at the Mansion (for the umpteenth time), her choice was quickly made. She headed off to L-Corp with a bribe in the form of coffee and a donut in hand.
Lena’s assistant, seated in the vestibule outside the CEO’s office when Carol stepped off the elevator, recognized her from a couple of past visits when she approached the desk. She clicked around for a minute before picking up the phone to inform Lena that “Ms. Danvers is here to see you.” Next thing she knew, she was being led to the office doors and waved inside.
If she wasn’t hiding away in the underground depths of her lab then Lena was here - on one of the upper levels of the building, immersed into manual paperwork and clacking her nails against the keyboard to compose correspondences that occasionally (and condescendingly) began ‘As per my last e-mail…’
Work here wasn’t much different than what she did in National City. A lot of it was network relationships with local organizations and charity. Investments, too - plus leasing out workspaces since the building still had so much available. Things were more flexible than they were at home too since everything was so localized. Back home she dealt with things on an international level and with another work branch (she missed Sam, so much) so everything was very much concentrated to here.
Regardless, she kept herself awfully busy and having heard that Ms. Danvers is here to see you perked Lena up considerably. Correspondences could wait. She slapped her laptop shut, prepared herself to witness the sight of her atrociously attractive girlfriend walk through those doors, and then -
“You did that on purpose!” Lena gasped and hurled a pen at Carol.
Curse her streak with women and the last name Danvers, honestly.
It didn’t occur to Carol until she was through the office doors that Ms. Danvers had probably set Lena’s expectations to Alex. Carol came by occasionally, but usually any time they spent together was outside of L-Corp - or, at the very least, she was expected when she dropped by. That suspicion was solidified when a pen sailed across the room and smacked against her chest before falling to the floor. Lena looked downright offended by her presence, and all she could do was laugh as she crossed the room, unfazed.
“Hey, I did nothing but exist,” she protested, placing the to-go coffee cup and white donut bag on the sleek white desk. “And have the last name Danvers, which I had first, by the way. Not my fault all your women have the same last name, Luthor. Maybe teach your secretary to say full names, huh? Wouldn’t want to keep setting your expectations for a -” She paused to glance at the watch on her wrist, then smirked as her gaze returned to Lena. “Mid-morning delight?”
Carol Danvers, you shit. Lena’s appearance of offense was all in jest but she played up the part a bit - narrowing those ice-blue eyes, pursing her lips like she was scrutinizing the woman before it. It was good to see her. She may have hoped that it was Alex paying her a visit but her friend here was a pleasant face to see too.
Legs crossing, she leaned back into her computer chair more comfortably and smirked back. “Don’t be so smug - you’ve no idea if what you’re about to sit on might light up under some blacklight or not,” she inferred shamelessly. “What do I owe this wonderful surprise? With offerings?” There was a soft, mock-gasp of surprise. “For me?”
Looks like this mid-morning delight was going to include carbs and caffeine. Bring it.
Carol smirked; she wouldn’t have been shocked if every piece of furniture in this office lit up under blacklight. Lena was hot and powerful, and were they both still single, she wouldn’t have hesitated to bend her over that desk herself. She had endless amounts of energy on any average day, and she would eagerly burn through it so pleasurably.
Obviously, circumstances had changed - they’d both found partners who managed to lock them down - so that wasn’t why Carol was here. She plopped down in one of the visually pleasing (but not so physically pleasing) chairs across the desk and crossed her legs as well - left ankle to right knee.
“Consider the offerings a bribe or a thank you, if you’re feeling generous. I need a big brain, and you’re prettier than Tony, so here I am,” she explained, a flirtatious grin naturally following - all innocent, though. “My translator implant’s going out. I was hoping you could get it working again. It’ll require some minor surgery, but I figured you could manage that.”
She brushed her long, blonde hair back off the left side of her neck and tapped the spot the chip had been implanted. She’d been unconscious when it was put in, installed at the same time as the photon inhibitor, but there was a hint of a scar remaining from the incision. It had been in there nearly thirty years, so it was probably past due an update, anyway.
“Choosing me for my looks now - tsk,” Lena teased. Her lips finally decided to form something less smug, like a smile. Imagine that. If help was what Carol needed then she’d happily oblige, always. Coffee and donuts weren’t necessary but they were a plus she wouldn’t object to.
Right when she swept her hair back to allow the chip to be visible was when she grabbed her cup, took a testing sip to gauge flavor and temperature and - wow. Perfect, actually. But it was set back down on her desk so she could rise from her chair and walk over for a better look, squinting to see. There was no visible chip but she noticed the line of discolored skin. “Sounds fun. I take it that it’s connected to your nervous system?” she inquired, reaching a finger up to press against that area lightly to see if she could even feel it.
“So I’m told,” Carol confirmed. She didn’t really have any exacts on the process, but she knew it was there. Quite a few planets had required full-body scans performed by their enforcers when she first landed, and they always picked it up. “Here.” She took Lena’s hand and pressed her fingers down a little more firmly against her skin. The chip wasn’t visible, but it wasn’t so deep that you couldn’t feel it beneath the skin if you knew where to find it.
Hmmm, there it was. At least it wasn’t microscopic. “Well, if you’re up for that minor surgery…”
Lena had the time. There were a few things on her schedule to look over but nothing pressing. All it took was a quick call to her assistant out front, a polite request to push everything to tomorrow and - voila, freedom. Perks of being your own boss. “We can head downstairs towards the lab. I’ll do a quick scan on you for an exact location, get a reading on it and we’ll go from there?”
The scans were a precaution but those were necessary when she would be cutting into the back of her friend’s neck. So without delay, she picked up her coffee and that bag and gave Carol a nudge with her elbow. “Follow me. I have a private elevator we can take all the way down.”
Carol had suspected her little problem would pique Lena’s interest pretty quickly. She sat back and pulled out her phone while Lena spoke to her assistant. She’d promised to let Emme know what was going on, so she tapped out a quick series of texts - the last of which promised she’d stop by with lunch as soon as they were done. She figured it wouldn’t take too long. She shouldn’t need to be put out for the procedure, and she was hoping the implant wouldn’t need more than a few tweaks to get it back in working order.
“Yes ma’am,” Carol replied with a playful grin. The nudge prompted her to dutifully rise to her feet to follow Lena over to the private elevator. “Thanks for doing this so last-minute. Should be a quick fix and you can call Danvers Junior in to entertain you.”
“Don’t call her Danvers Junior - that’s terrible,” Lena scoffed, eyes rolling playfully. The private elevator wasn’t far, or even out of her office (a fresh new feature she loved); it was a bit deeper into her office, hidden by a curved wall. It was the same elevator that led to her penthouse and was designed to recognize eye retina and fingerprints. Extra security measures, just in case.
It took only a handful of seconds for the elevator to drop to the underground levels, and right before the doors slid open there was a quaint little ding. “I do have specific equipment to use on you,” she explained as she walked into the space. It was spacious - white countertops and cabinets, wall-mounted screens, stations with specific equipment for very specific tasks. “I’m not a stranger to tough alien skin, and I’m going to be nice to you and numb the area before I slice into you.”
There was a medical cot by one of those very specific stations, and she gestured her coffee towards it. “Stomach down, Senior Citizen Danvers.”
“Alright, point made,” Carol grumbled, making a face at that new title Lena had bestowed on her. “No more Danvers Junior, I solemnly swear.” She teased because she liked Lena, though, and she liked Alex. This was just her way of expressing that, and she knew Lena understood that.
She took a minute to unlace and slip out of her boots, then pull her hair up and off her neck into a loose, lazy bun. “So glad you’ve had practice slicing into aliens before,” she joked. She’d had to have Stephen enchant a needle for her blood draw, but she wasn’t surprised Lena was prepared for this sort of thing. She climbed onto the cot, stomach down as instructed. “Numb me up, Doc.”
Lena smiled into her sip of coffee before setting it down. Carol was always fun to be around even outside the bedroom, and she was happy to have remained friends after the fact. It was nice to have a super-powered Danvers here that she was gal pals with - and while she and Kara were very different, it was a nice constant in this chaos they called their home. “All slicing has been done humanely and with no ill intent,” she insisted with a chuckle, and began to move around the area to get herself situated.
Latex gloves procured and slipped on, alcohol wipes to clean the area - and then she went to a special cabinet to retrieve an incision knife, needles, and the necessary numbing agent. “I have told you my family is incredibly xenophobic, right?” she conversed casually, settling beside her on a stool. The incision site was wiped down thoroughly. “My brother and mother came up with all sorts of things that harmed aliens.”
Then came a prick - the needle with the numbing agent. “I’m pretty fond of aliens myself, so - I try to use some of what they engineered for the greater good. This might burn just a little bit but you’re a Big Strong Girl, aren’t you?”
Yes, she was cooing in mockery.
Carol absolutely believed that Lena’s previous experience with aliens wasn’t anything bad. She’d known right off the bat that Lena was a good person. She liked to think she’d gotten to know her decently well during and after their no-strings fling, and she had never showed even a hint of the xenophobia that her mother and brother were immersed in. She wanted to help everyone - a lofty goal but one Carol appreciated a lot.
“You’re a good one, Lena. Never doubted that for a second,” she told her friend. She meant that, too. Lena was one of the first non-Avengers she’d involved herself with, and she trusted her. She wouldn’t ask just anyone to cut into her neck to dig out a translator implant, but she knew Lena wasn’t up to anything shady.
She’d folded her arms to rest her chin there while Lena worked and didn’t so much as flinch when the actual cutting began. She wished she could turn and smirk at Lena while she mercilessly teased her, but she’d have to just put on her best snarky voice in response. Luckily, she had plenty of practice with that.
“Damn right. You forgotten how recently I had succubus teeth tearing open my neck? If I can take that, I can take anything.” She wasn’t particularly fond of that memory; it was still pretty fresh and got her blood pressure up when she thought about it too much. But it had all resolved, so she was doing her best not to hold a grudge against a child.
It was a quick, simple procedure of slicing and dicing into Carol’s fortified skin - the small blade she had was meant for this, and cut into her like butter. Lena didn’t need to root around much to find the translator though, and she thought it best to leave it connected to where it was while she worked. It still seemed to be in good shape anyway, just in need of a proper tune up.
“Some might find that kinky,” she mused, taking a tiny screwdriver and some needle-nose pliers (there was even a magnifying glass wheeled over so she could properly see) and going to work. “Very glad that got resolved. You had the Grumpy Cat face the entire time - it was cute, but worrisome.”
The translator design wasn’t anything insanely elaborate. There was a sophistication in its simplicity, and it didn’t take Lena long to find the spots that needed tweaking. “I’m almost done here so just stay very still, and…”
Lena bit the inside of her cheek, twisting the instrument in her hand before taking a deep, triumphant breath. “There. We should be good. Let me clean this off and put a little bandaid on it. Do you want Baby Shark or Paw Patrol?”
Lena was joking. Or was she.
Grumpy Cat face was an understatement. Carol had been furious - not at Emme, or even at Jennifer, the aforementioned succubus. It wasn’t their fault any of that had happened. It was some kid Thor was watching over messing with things she shouldn’t have been messing with. She’d tried to let it go because kids made stupid mistakes, and she knew Emme wouldn’t want her blaming someone who was still learning, but she’d been irked, to say the least.
It was over now, though, and after about a week of refusing to let her girlfriend out of her sight, she had been getting back into her normal routines. Stopping here to have Lena get her implant back up and running hadn’t been part of the plan, but it had worked out well, gone smoothly. Quick in and out, just like she’d known it would be. Lena was that good.
“Paw Patrol, obviously. Much less annoying than that stupid shark song,” she replied easily, pushing herself back into a sitting position and poking at the spot herself. She’d have to take it for a test run, but she trusted that Lena was astute enough to know what she was doing. “Thanks for this, again.”
Turns out that Lena was, in fact, not joking. Sometimes (although more rarely than that, let’s be real), a child would grace the laboratory for something - she’d done blood draws before, helped a few locals figure a thing or two out about their kids genetic makeup (especially since hybrid children here weren’t common) and went on their merry way. Lena didn’t always advertise those services but they were available for the connections she’s made through this world.
So, yes, she had stocked up on some cartoonish bandaids for that reason.
“Always,” Lena chuckled, applying the bandaid over the incision in Carol’s skin. Paw Patrol was a look she rocked. “I’m glad you stopped by anyway. This was probably the most normal bonding we’ve done in a bit. Last time I saw you I was bringing you a cheeseburger while you guarded the literal She-Devil, so.”
Their lives were fun.
A real-life Paw Patrol bandaid being slapped across her neck made Carol grin like the three-year-old it was really meant for. She pulled her hair loose again, letting it cover her neck and fall down her shoulders. It would be a nice surprise for Emme later on tonight, maybe make her laugh and tell her, “You’re a mess, Carol Danvers,” and get her stomach all fluttery. They’d been doing plenty of making up for their involuntary time apart, and she’d never say no to a continuance.
“Yeah, she was fun,” Carol chuckled. She could laugh about it now - and had even laughed a little bit then at the teenaged demon and her attempts to rile her up from the containment unit she and Stephen had stuck her in at the Avengers Mansion. “I appreciated the burger, too. I’d offer you one now, but you've still got that donut waiting upstairs.”
“Well - for future opportunities, my favorite burgers come from Big Belly Burger,” Lena informed with a coy bat of her lashes, pitch-black and plump (no doubt from a meticulous application of mascara, it was an artform). “But the donut’s a good trade for simple favors.”
The gloves were plucked off her wrists, slid off and tossed into a nearby trash can - and everything else was either properly disposed of or put away to eventually go through proper sanitation protocols. “Come back upstairs and watch me gorge myself with it too, I could use some chit-chat as a small break from firing out some emails.”
“Big Belly Burger - gotcha.” The name rang a bell; Carol was sure she’d at least passed by there a time or two on her treks around the city, if she hadn’t stopped in. There were burger joints galore around here, but having Lena’s favorite in mind would stop any sort of brainstorming if they had any lunch dates in their future.
Finishing lacing up her boots, she got to her feet and looped her arm through Lena’s, grinning at her playfully. “Lead the way, hot stuff. I’ll chat your ears off.”