"Alex, are you really from 1964?"
While the other heroes clustered in small groups, Captain Marvel drifted over to Alex, her eyes sharp with curiosity.
She already knew from Captain America that this Alex wasn't the one from her timeline—but he was still Alex. Somehow, that alone stirred a familiar warmth in her chest.
Which meant… her relationship with his future self was far from ordinary.
"It was a beautiful accident," Alex shrugged, giving her the short version of how Rogers and Stark had tried—and failed—to snatch the Tesseract from him.
"For them, I imagine it wasn't so beautiful," Captain Marvel smirked.
She studied him for a moment, then tilted her head. "So this was you back then? Can I be honest?"
"Go ahead," Alex said, half-curious.
"Green," she replied simply. "Even though you just killed Thanos and everyone's treating you like a god of war… you still haven't seen yourself at full power. Right now, you're just a big boy."
Her smile was playful, but her tone was certain.
Alex only shrugged. He didn't know what his peak self was like, so what could he say? Still… the way she looked at him made it clear that her bond with his future self was strong.
Wait.
Something clicked in Alex's mind.
Captain Marvel's entire origin had been an accident. In the original timeline, Project Pegasus and the Tesseract led to Carol Danvers absorbing cosmic energy and becoming what she was. But in this altered timeline, Project Pegasus never happened.
By all logic… Captain Marvel shouldn't even exist.
Yet here she stood.
And from her warmth toward him, Alex could guess why.
Her existence is tied to me.
"Danvers," Alex asked bluntly, locking eyes with her. "What exactly was my relationship with you? With the future me?"
Captain Marvel arched an eyebrow, sipping her wine. "Guess."
"…Not lovers, right?"
"Pfft—!"
She choked mid-sip, spraying wine.
Alex instantly threw up a telekinetic barrier, blocking the splash.
"What? Lovers? Hahaha!" Carol doubled over laughing. "You're killing me. Honestly, with how you look at me, that guess does make sense… but no."
Alex let out a slow breath, part disappointment, part relief.
"You're my savior. My guide. My mentor."
Carol's laughter faded. She set down her glass, her voice steady.
"You made me who I am today."
Alex blinked. "…So I was involved."
"If it weren't for you, I would've died in that war," she said, recounting her story.
The details had shifted, but the broad strokes remained—Kree and Skrulls waging war, Earth caught in the middle, Carol nearly dying in combat. Only this time, Alex had intervened, using the Tesseract to not only save her life but to remake her into the unstoppable Captain Marvel.
Alex leaned back, lips twitching. Figures.
"And after that?" he asked, curious.
Without the Kree brainwashing, she hadn't been dragged off to serve Starforce. So what path had she taken through the cosmos?
"You gave me a mission," Carol said simply. "To help Xandar win their war. In return, I was to secure an agreement with them."
Alex froze. "...What kind of agreement?"
Carol glanced around, lowered her voice, and leaned closer.
"To relocate all mutants… to Xandar."
Alex almost spat out his drink this time. "The hell?"
That was the truth behind the mutants' disappearance?
But something didn't add up. If relocation was the plan, it should've been easy—just send ships, load people up. Yet in the present, the mutants had vanished as if erased from existence.
And judging by Carol's face, she hadn't seen him again since that mission.
Which begged the question…
If he was behind the relocation—then what the hell went wrong?
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