Trust | 2 |

Chapter Fifty

Waking up was strange because I didn't expect it. Where I woke up was even stranger. I looked around and found myself in what looked like a hospital room, but I wasn't in an actual hospital. I was in a hospital bed, however, with the proper machines and all hooked up to me.

There were some voices so I looked to see the direction they were coming from. Right outside the door. Then, it opened and I saw Nat standing there. She looked surprised I was awake. "Hey, how're you feeling?" she asked, walking further into the room and letting the door shut.

"Okay," I said in a scratchy voice. "Just really confused. What happened?"

Nat pulled a chair from the side of the room over to the edge of my bed. "You passed out. Most likely from exhaustion, plus you were still recovering from..." she didn't continued, because we both knew what she meant.

I sighed. "I thought I was gone," I admitted quietly, my gaze moving to the ceiling. "Wanda had just... disappeared right in front of my eyes and I was so scared that's what was happening to me. I was really scared until I felt it coming strong so I just closed my eyes and let it."

A hand grabbed mine and squeezed it in a comforting way. "You're okay now. We still don't know what has happened to the others but we've got a count going to see how many," she explained.

I shook my head, but then thought of something. "Wait, have we heard from Tony yet? Peter? Strange? Anyone?" I asked. They were either dead, dusted, lost in space, or here.

By the look on Nat's face, I knew it wasn't the last option. "We don't know. We haven't heard from them yet," she answered. I appreciated the addition of 'yet' because all we could do now is hope.

"Then they're out in space somewhere. I refuse to believe they're dead," I said, determined.

Natasha didn't disagree with me, but she also didn't feed into my hope. Both were smart moves. "You've been out for a while now.," she said suddenly, breaking the silence. "We've got some stuff going on if you feel up to it?"

'Stuff' could be a lot of things, but it surely beat being stuck in a hospital bed. "Sure, as long as I can get some water along the way," I answered.

Nat grabbed a cup from a table nearby as I sat myself up. We carefully removed the things attached to my arms, then I was following her out to where everyone else was.

Rogers was staring a hologram over a table. It was of the Earth, with several different counters going. One was labeled 'Global' and was over three billion and counting. Fast.

"This is a nightmare," Rogers said as we came to stand by him.

Nat sighed. "I've had better nightmares," she said.

"I don't know if much could beat this," I mumbled. Multiple countries had counters on display, some going up faster than others.

"Hey." I turned and saw Rhodes walking in. "So that thing just stopped doing whatever the hell it was doing."

Roger and Nat shared a knowing look while I was confused. "What thing?" I asked them.

"Let's go show you," Rogers answered and he started to follow Rhodes to where he came from. Nat and I followed behind.

We walked in and I saw Bruce with his glasses on. "What do we got?" Nat asked. Her, Rogers, and I all stopped in front of a glass case. Inside, I saw a black box hooked up to several different things.

"Whatever signal it was sending finally crapped out," Bruce answered.

Rogers looked confused. "I thought we bypassed the battery?" he asked.

"We did," Rhodes confirmed. "It's still plugged in, it just stopped."

"What is 'it'?" I asked, done with being confused.

"It was Fury's," Rogers answered. "We found it and it had been sending a signal. There was a symbol on the screen, red and blue with a yellow star in the middle. We hooked it up here to keep it alive, see what he was doing."

I nodded along. "A friend? Someone else he knew who isn't in the Avengers?" I offered. "He was a man of many secrets. It's possible some of those secrets were allies."

The others nodded. "We need to reboot it. Send the signal again," Rogers said.

"While I like your ally theory, we don't know what this is," Bruce countered.

Nat answered this time. "Fury did. Just do it, please," she said. "You tell me the second you get a signal. I want to know who's on the other end of that thing."

She turned to leave, and I did the same, but we both stopped at the sight of another woman. She wore a blue, red, and gold suit and had long blonde hair. "Where's Fury?" she asked, confirming my suspicion.

She was the receiving end of the signal.

The others were immediately defensive but I stepped closer to her. "How do you know Fury?" I asked. "Did you give him that?" I pointed behind us to the black thing in the case.

She looked at it and nodded. "I met him years ago when I crash landed on this planet. I gave him that communicator for emergencies only. He hasn't contacted me in almost thirty years. When I got the signal, I knew it was bad," she explained.

The others still didn't let up their stances. "Who are you?" Rogers asked.

She looked over at him. "My name is Carol Danvers."

"How come Fury's never mentioned you? His friend from thirty years ago?" Nat interrogated. It was a good point.

Carol sighed. "If you know Fury, you know he always has a card or five up his sleeve. I'm one of them."

There was a pause where no one knew how to respond to that. Fury did always have at least one card up his sleeve. Everyone knew that. And if that device was in his possession and it called her, I felt as if we could trust her.

I did the only thing I could think of. I walked up to her and held out my hand. "I'm Reyna-Rose Silva, but people call me Rey," I introduced. She looked at my hand, but then brought her own to it and we shook hands. "Forgive us for being hostile. It's been rough..."

We let our hands go and she nodded. "I understand. When I got Fury's message, aliens were dusting all around me. I knew that's what it was about. Don't tell me..." She tried off and I knew where she was going.

"Afraid so, it seems," I answered. Carol looked away for a second and I saw her close her eyes for a moment before looking back at me.

I wanted to know her, figure out who she was, so I decided this would be a good distraction. "You want to tell us about yourself? I mean, we did just meet you and are a bit confused as to why you're wearing such a suit and know Fury."

She shrugged and got into a more relaxed stance. "It's a long story. You up for it?" she asked with a smirk and I knew I made a good subject change.

"Always. Gotta know who I'm teaming up with, you know?" I said back with a similar expression on my own face.

Carol put her hands on her hips. "My real name is Carol Danvers, but in space, they call me Captain Marvel."

A/n: And that's the end of Trust book 2! I hope I caught you off guard with this chapter, revealing Rey didn't actually dust away. I thought about it, but decided I had too much left to do with her before I could kill her off.

Book three will be a bit, but I've already started working on it! My current plan is that book three will be the last book in the Trust series. I love that you guys have read and supported this series- it brings me so much joy! Trust started out as an idea that I wasn't sure I would ever finish with how I could never get a solid start. But then I did, and I decided to be adventurous and post it.

I'm so glad I did because I got all of you lovely people! You're all wonderful and supportive and I couldn't dream of anything better. I love you all and hope you're just as excited for book three as I am!

But, for now, bye Lovelies!!!!!!!!!!!!!