JUST TALKING TO MYSELF

By Anthony Crute

Stark International

“…We need to talk.” Truer words were never spoken. I stare out at him, me and cannot believe my eyes. The figure who appears to be me hovers outside the window of Stark tower beckoning me to join him.

Captain Marvel had been brought to the towers of Stark International in New York by the Avengers Warbird and Captain Marvel (III) who he had just discovered was his son. Here they had run some tests on him to ascertain whether he was the true Mar-Vell or some impostor, the tests were inconclusive. He had been Captain Marvel less than a day since his rebirth a few months ago and already he had run into conflict with the Avengers and a demented android with a grudge, who exploded in a shower of lights when he synthesized Mar-Vell’s powers.

‘I promised not to leave this place while the Avengers were away and not to get into any more trouble until they could figure out who or what I am exactly, a question which I myself have asked since returning to the world of the living with huge chunks of my memory missing. Yet the second after he spoke, the brief comforting smile he gave I knew I was going to follow him. He began to drift away from the window and I was pushing it open…thankfully having Tony Stark as an owner meant most of the windows could be opened to allow for Iron Man to leave the building if needed without showering the streets below with glass.

Captain Marvel took to the air leaving his own glittering trail behind him as he hovered through the window to meet this newcomer to the confusing life he was currently leading. He thought briefly about Carol and Genis his friend and his son who he barely knew. He had promised them both, all of the Avengers in fact that he would remain in this place but he had to know, seeing himself hovering outside of the window was too much of the temptation to gain answers about himself that he just couldn’t pass up.

“Who are you? What’s going on?” he asked. He realised he sounded almost like a frightened child as he asked the questions. He felt even more so when the hovering stranger smiled at him like a man might at a child who had just asked a silly question. He was not frightened, he did not know who he was but he knew that much, as a Kree warrior he did not get frightened. His confusion however mixed with the disconcerting effect of looking at his own face on that of another’s body gave a feeling which he imagined to be close to fear.

The face was one that he had seen ever time he caught his own reflection (Kree soldiers not being ones to admire their own reflection and so rarely purposefully looked in mirrors). This one however despite clearly being his looked different. He noticed for the first time something others had described to him of a air of distance in his eyes, a sternness in his face brought on by a life time of war and yet this man smiled slightly and gently exuding a warmth. “This is impossible,” Mar-Vell added to himself after his row of questions.

“You think this impossible? You’re a resurrected alien soldier superhero with no memory of where you’ve been for all of these years.” He smiled again, it was obvious he knew something. “Your other questions will have to wait, there’s better places than this to discuss everything. We don’t want The Avengers to return from their mission and interrupt us. Follow me.” He drifted slowly away, Mar-Vell didn’t follow him so he stopped and thought for a second. “When you were on Raxal-4 in the cadet training corps you told Vol-Zara you would bring her a blue Haxalar from the heart of Raxal-3’s core. She died that very same night and you never told anyone what you had promised her. You want to know more then you’ll have to trust me and follow me.”

He turned in mid air and stretching his hand out in front of him rapidly moved away from Mar-Vell and headed up and over the next row of buildings. The golden sparkling trail he left behind him was soon all that could be seen of him.

Mar-Vell stretched out his arm, realising only when he did so that he had the same posture as the other man and gave chase. He did not want to loose him, he managed to catch up with him in seconds.

The newcomer’s eyes watched him as he flew alongside him. Mar-Vell does the same watching this newcomer closely as they fly at the same speed through the mountainous skyscrapers at night high above the streets leaving the same golden trails behind them.

Their bodies matched one another’s posture perfectly as they flew. Their faces though despite having the same features were wearing different expressions. Mar-Vell’s stern expression and searching eyes tell a tale of his concentration and deep thought. The Captain Marvel who had been outside of his window however smiled a small smile, the corners of his mouth turning up subtly. A smile of happiness and contentment, every now and then when he had a clear space before him he closed his eyes and seemed to enjoy the feel of the cool night air on his face as he flew.

“Lets see what you’ve got,” he turned sharply and said spiralling in the air so his back was to the street and he looked up at Mar-Vell before he rotated again and shot off at his top speed. Mar-Vell watched him shoot off and with gritted teeth followed on behind him.

He caught him with little effort, a look of concentration had now came across his face as he tried to pour on the speed but Mar-Vell had no trouble keeping up with him. The newer Captain Marvel began to slow and Mar-Vell copied until both were at a stop just bobbing in the air next to one another. “This is it,” he smiled and thumbed behind him.

Mar-Vell looked up. He hadn’t realised where he had been led to but he stared up at the Empire State Building. “This is all well and good but you still haven’t told me who you are and what’s going on.”

“I couldn’t, not till we got here at least. Were going to sit down up there and have a long chat, it’s the way I was told it had to happen.” He smiled and thumbed up at the pinnacle at the top of the tower and began to rise slowly.

“Told it was to happen that way? Who told you?” Mar-Vell asked as he began to follow once more.

I was becoming sick of his stupid chasing games. It was obvious he had important things to say and wanted to say them but he was beginning to try my patience drastically. I doubted at this moment that any answer he was going to give me after this stupid game would be enough for me. I still didn’t really know who he was, he looked like me and knew things only I could know, but then I don’t know who I am or why I don’t know things I should. Yet I feel I should trust him.

“You did, you told me everything in the future,” he flashed the smile again and then began to rise quicker.

He followed. The two came to a halt and landed upon one of the raised platforms at the top of the Empire State building and stared out at the city below them. They sat perched upon the ledge above the 102 floor of the building one staring down 5th Avenue and one down 34th street. The between them could see all of New York stretching out in the darkness as a million blinking lights.

“You need to start giving me answers,” Mar-Vell spoke seriously as he looked at himself. “You’ve met me in the future? So you’re not me even though you look like me? I need to know what is going on. I need to know who I am.”

“That’s what I’m here for, I’m here to set you off on the journey that you have to undertake. The rest you’re going to have to find out for yourself in the times to come.”

“But you know don’t you? Everything?”

I watched his face for signs that he’s lying or stalling for something but there is none.

“Not everything, most things certainly. You go on after the first time I meet you whereas next I go home to die,” the smile slowly faded from his face as sternness filled it once more as he looked out across the city.

Mar-Vell stood for a moment trying to make sense of what was passing between the two of them. “Will you tell me anything about who I am…or who you are?”

“I’m Captain Mar-Vell of Hala, Protector of the Universe. You’re the same you are Captain Mar-Vell of Hala, Protector of the universe. I’m being very cryptic aren’t I?”

“Somewhat,” Mar-Vell nodded. He drifted into the air and laid his feet on the ledge where he had been sitting only a moment ago. He stood over this ‘stranger’, they looked the same but could not appear to be more different. Mar-Vell was upright, his fists clenched and his body taught as he looked down at this strange man who seemed to know everything he wanted to know. The stranger himself was sitting with his legs dangling idly over the edge resting comfortably slumped forwards leaning against his own hands.

“Good,” a slow but sad smile spread across his face. “You told me I should be. I can’t go telling you everything. It’s not exactly in my nature to be so cryptic or talk in circles I have no time for that. I prefer the facts and just that. You should know, were close in temperament.” He flashed a larger smile now.

“So you’ve come back in time, sent by me…to tell me nothing?” This thought did not relieve any of the tension that was building up in Mar-Vell.

All I want is a straight answer. Is that too much? That a man may know who he is or where he has come from? To know his true self and not be racked with fear that he is little more than a copy.

“I didn’t say I tell you nothing. What I do tell you sets you on your course for…well as long as I know you. It’s just you have to make the decisions and realisations you have coming if history is to pan out right. I can’t give you spoilers on the things to come, not all of them at least.”

I exhaled sharply. This other version of myself was right about one thing. I don’t have time for riddles and cryptic talking in circles. The very use of them already had me annoyed with the figure who was treating me life with such nonchalance.

“What can you tell me?” he asked through loosely gritted teeth.

“We’re going to meet twice more after tonight in your future…well technically one is in the past and they’re both in my past but from your personal perspective they’re both the future.” He creased his brow as he tried to work out the logic in what he had just said. “We meet three times in all,” he nodded as he began again “This is the first time for you but the last for me. This is how I know you so well, we’ve spent some time together.”

Mar-Vell nodded. He had studied time paradoxes known to the Kree during his training and he had some memories from some Earth movies which Rick had watched during their bonding.

“Tonight apparently makes you realise some things and sets you on your journey. In your personal future we’ll meet again next in the chronological past, this is the first time we’ll meet from my perspective…I’ll apologies now for what happens,” he smiled as he turned to look up at Mar-Vell.

“We fight?” Mar-Vell asked with a raised eyebrow of quandary.

Superheroes always fight when they meet one another.

“Superheroes always fight when they meet one another, it’s when you’ll explain everything to me that I have to tell you and what I’m not allowed to speak of.” The traveller smiled again. “We’ll meet again in the future, both yours and chronologically. We should both understand what’s going on around then.”

Mar-Vell stooped and then sat next to his doppelganger in the same position. “This is all quite confusing.”

This was all very confusing actually but for some reason massively comforting. If I believed him, IF, it meant I was going to get through this. This confusion and this loss will pass and I’ll be in a position to tell someone everything.

“It gets worse if you take into account Bre-Knar’s theory of time,” he smiled. Mar-Vell nodded and then shook his head as if to dispel the thought. “If all of these different time periods are happening continuously like separate places and the only flow of time is our own personal one so we move from time to time at once…so were actually meeting all three times currently just not from our perspective. It’s even worse if we acknowledge cross dimensional slips in time travel, you might not be the Mar-Vell I’ve met previously. You could die tomorrow rather than embark on the journey I think you’re supposed too.”

This…whatever he was of me was not making me feel comforted anymore.

“I always hated fourth dimensional studies,” Mar-Vell sighed.

“Me too,” the time traveller smiled as he turned. They both had to laugh gentle at that one.

The two sat quiet for a minute or so. They sat however with smiles on their faces as their minds raced. Mar-Vell was sure tonight should be a happy moment for some unknown reason and that’s how he felt. He had been alone, confused and lost in the universe earlier on in this night but being here with this other him he may have been even more confused but he was no longer alone and simply knowing what little he did about the future made him feel like he wasn’t lost.

“It’s all changed so much,” the stranger said with a sigh as he looked across the city. “It’s amazing.”

“It hasn’t changed that much, sure there are some differences,” Mar-Vell shrugged “but it’s only been what 5 or 6 years since I…you…we,” he looked at the man for some guidance.

“Look I know it’s complicated. I fully understand everything and I’m still confused as hell. Lets for now just say were brothers of a kind….a very strange kind to be sure.”

“Can you even tell me which one of us is older,” Mar-Vell turned his head to question hoping that whatever the answer would give some clue.

“Well that all depends on which period were in surely,” the stranger smiled again. He was actually beginning to enjoy this game of trying not to give anything away. It was almost like trying to remain silent under torture but using words to keep the secrets rather than silence.

“Well either way it’s not been so long since ‘me and my brother’ died. So it doesn’t look that changed to me. I suppose it depends on what part of our life you come from though,” he paused for a moment. “Obviously you come from sometime after the fight with The Super-Adaptoid where my memory gets spotty which would mean I’ve been resurrected.” He paused for a moment and sighed “or you’re a future version of me with regained memory and you’re heading back in time now to die.”

“This is why we hate fourth dimensional studies,” smiled the time travelling Mar-Vell.

“Either way the city hasn’t changed that much surely.”

“I’ve just spent a few months in the past with you followed by some time in the future and now I’m here for one night…before I bounce back to my own time ready to die. You know about the cancer by now?”

Mar-Vell nodded with a sadness. “It is not the death of a warrior,” he looked upon the time traveller with sympathy.

“No but it is my death and I will face it bravely. I barely had time to deal with it after Mentor told me before I got bounced through time. The city has changed much even if you can’t see it yet.”

Mar-Vell thought it over for a moment “I suppose with the Towers and Avenger’s mansion gone…”

“The mansion? Gone? How?”

His reaction, his look of shock and confusion sent shivers of fear running up and down my spine.

“Didn’t you know? Shouldn’t you know?” Mar-Vell asked. He was confused, surely this time traveller from his own future should have known about the destruction of the mansion.

“You didn’t tell me!” he barked before quieting himself a moment later “You wont tell me, you did say I would be surprised and apologised.” He hauled himself forward and plummeted from view over the edge of the mighty tower before rising slowly back into view with his golden trail once again behind him. “Come on.”

Mar-Vell followed him as the time traveller moved away from the side of the building. He knew already where they were going as the two changed their direction to arc around the side of the skyscraper on which they had been sat and flew towards central park where the remains of Avengers Mansion would be found.

They flew through the night sky once more, this time they both shared the same expression of confusion and concentration. They neither at that moment could have mustered a smile if they wanted.

They flew down the length of 5th avenue and over the boundary into central park. The site of the old Avenger’s mansion lay below them and they quickly descended landing among the slight ruins and foundations that remained.

The Captain Mar-Vell from the future walked through the grounds and up to where the front door had once been. He stepped off the small stoop and dropped to the dirt behind it. His eyes closed as he imagined the old mansion that used to stand on this ground.

“What happened?” he asked. Mar-Vell was on one knee moving the cindered ground through his fingers in a trail that drifted to the ground. This was the first time he had been here in many years.

“I was living as Tim Lee when it happened, I saw it on the news but I was too busy to deal with anything else other than my own amnesia and finding somewhere to live. The military destroyed it back when the Avengers were enemies to the state.”

The words sound odd to me. The thoughts and motivations of Tim Lee for some reason now feel so distant and foreign to me. These were my friends going through such horrible times and I hadn’t seem to cared. The thoughts stabbed at me with guilt at the moment.

“I don’t know whether to think I died at the right time or at the wrong time,” sighed the traveller. Mar-Vell looked up across the distance they had separated. He had been thinking the exact same thing about his resurrection and regaining of his memory. If only it had been sooner.

“How did it all happen?”

“Something to do with Doctor Doom if I remember correctly. The government stopped trusting The Avengers and decided to reclaim their land.” Mar-Vell hung his head, he didn’t even know the exact details that caused such pain for his friends.

“Do you ever wonder what happened to the world in our absence? Did you think back in the day that the government would ever question the heroes’ allegiance?”

Mar-Vell strode towards his counterpart through the debris of the mansion. The place which was once the stronghold of the worlds greatest heroes was now little more than ash. He wondered what symbolism this could take in the world they lived in. Tim Lee never paid much attention to the superheroes but even he could fail to notice that a darker mood seemed to be influencing the lot of them.

“Brother,” Mar-Vell looked to the time traveller, the title of brother seemed right for him. “I need to know more about the future. You said the things you tell me tonight would set me on my path to discover the truth but so far other than knowing when and where we’ll meet in the future I’m no further forward. If anything I just have more questions.”

The two were standing once again next to one another. The time traveller lowered himself slowly to the ground and sat in the dirt. He moved his hand through the dirt and raised it up letting it sift through his grip. Mar-Vell followed and sat opposite him looking into his face. “All of this would be too depressing to bare if I didn’t know that it was all going to get better eventually. So you need a direction?”

Mar-Vell nodded. He was lost and confused not knowing what the first step to discovering what had happened to him.

“You want to find out who you are and where you came from?” Mar-Vell nodded again. The traveller laughed gently. “That’s not even the beginning, well it is the beginning but there is so much more beyond that. You have a destiny to complete, a destiny beyond which you can believe. Discovering who exactly you are is just the first step on the way. Are you or are you not Captain Mar-Vell of the Kree? It’s a difficult question and you have to wonder would anyone really know? Even some of the most brilliant minds on Earth with their intelligence couldn’t tell you.”

Mar-Vell nodded. Tony Stark had after running all of the tests he could conceive was no closer uncovering the truth. He for some reason expected that this would forever be the case. “His intelligence is one of the highest of all humans and he knew me well as did Carol but they can’t really tell me anything. I need someone who knows me well enough who has a higher intelligence…no,” he looked to the traveller who smiled and nodded.

“He told me he got it straight away once I’d phrased it right,” he smiled his knowing smile.

“The Supreme Intelligence. He’s the repository of all Kree knowledge and the copies of the minds of all the Kree when they die. He’ll have a copy of our mind from when we died, it can fill in any blanks and he should be able to tell me.” Mar-Vell had climbed to his feet and he stared up at the night sky over New York, there wasn’t a star in the sky he could see thanks to all the ambient light. He scanned the skies trying to calculate the correct direction to look towards Hala and Kree-la.

“That’s just the first step you have to take though. Once you’ve done that you should know more. Enough Brother to set off on the next part of your journey, our destiny.”

Mar-Vell looked at him carefully. He had a look of concentration and seriousness as if his words were more important than Mar-Vell could ever know. “There are many Marvels in this world, more than we thought possible. You must seek them out, they need to know about us. We’ll need them when the time comes all of them, there’s a reason they were all brought together in the first place. Destiny.”

“All of this talk of Destiny,” Mar-Vell shook his head “I never believed in Destiny, which means unless I do end up becoming you in someway and something has changed my mind along the way you shouldn’t either.”

“Fourth dimensional studies again unfortunately, Destiny is just causality viewed from a future period yes? If I from the future tell you what will happen and then it does surely that’s the same thing as destiny.” He stood to his feet with a smile “I’ll show you, come with me.”

He took off into the air in a streak of golden light. Mar-Vell swore in Kree, whilst he in the past short period of time had grown to have some strange feeling of trust and like for this man who shared his face. Where first there had been only amenity and mistrust.

He watched as the golden trail arced overhead across the surface of the slowly rising sun and then he gave chase.

We flew in silence as I milled over the things that my brother had told me about my future. I was already planning the things I had to do before I flew off to find the Supreme Intelligence and the trials I could face in order to make that meeting happen. I was after all an enemy to The Kree races both blue and white. I also apparently have a destiny, my life is set out before me in some known path which I had to blindly follow.

The traveller as if to make this point clear spoke “This is the place destiny leads us,” he smiled as he did so and landed atop a low rise building. Mar-Vell followed suit and landed beside him.

“What now? Why are we here?” he asked.

“The Brothers Grimm should be coming out of that bank across the street at any second. They managed to rob it in the early hours of the morning using their tricks to ensure no silent alarms were triggered, we get here just in time to foil them.” He smiled and crouched down peering over the ledge of the building to across the street.

Mar-Vell looked at the bank. It was a relatively small one built in art deco style. A pillar stood on either side of the door holding up a solid stone awning. He looked at it taking in the detail for only a few seconds before the shutters on the front of the bank which were rolled down shivered and disappeared as if they had never been there, which they hadn’t being part of the Brothers illusions.”

The two skull masked brothers burst through the glass door almost taking it off it’s hinges as it swung open. They each carried two large mail sacks on their back. They laughed as they did so.

The two Captain Marvel’s launched forward at one time and glided down to street level opposite the two villains who were stopped in their tracks looking up at the two identical Captain Marvels.

Two and a half minutes later…

The two alien visitors to the Earth stood victorious over the fallen forms of The Brothers Grimm who lay in the street their bodies slumped on top of one another. Their sacks of money lay at the feet of the alien visitors.

“I’ll call the police from that payphone,” Mar-Vell nodded momentarily to the call box.

“Just wait a moment, I can feel I won’t be here much longer,” the traveller smiled.

“So what happens now?” Mar-Vell asked.

“We go our separate ways for the minute, forever for me. We have our own parts in our destinies to complete, I have to die so that you can be re-born, born, resurrected or whatever you’ll come to class it as.”

“You can’t even give me a straight answer now can you?”

The Traveller smiled his warm smile and shook his head. “Spoilers,” he laughed. “So I fly off and get eclipsed by the sunlight shining in your eyes before I vanish into time. There’s just a few last things first,” he smiled as he spoke.

“Like?”

The Traveller raised his arm in salute which Mar-Vell returned before the traveller stepped forward and embraced him. “You’ve been a good friend and a better brother than I could have ever asked for. Thank you, also it was nice to get to be the big brother finally and know more than you.”

He took a step back and rose from the ground slightly before stopping himself. Mar-Vell could see the Sun know peeking through the gaps in buildings just off to the side of his brother.

“Oh, as I’m the big brother I get to taunt you. You told me that this one really had your head spinning, I’ve been looking forward to telling you since the first time I met you. When you meet them tell our kids that I’m sorry I was never there for them when they grew up.” He smiled and darted off leaving a golden trail as his body soared across the sun.

Mar-Vell squinted his eyes and turned his head slightly as the light from the sun shone into them. He knew now however that his ‘brother’ was gone.

He cast a glance at the Brothers Grimm and shook his head before making his way to the phone box and picking up the receiver.

The words of his ‘brother’ rattled around his head.

He now not only had to travel half way across the universe to visit his home world but seek out the ‘marvels’ of the world, find his children, travel through time at least once and now he had a destiny to contend with.

He swore and dialled 911.

NEXT: NITRO the man who killed Captain Marvel!