After calming the Hulk, Nick Fury boarded the Quinjet, lost in thought.
He personally piloted the stealth craft, heading to one of his many off-the-grid facilities.
Don't ask how the facility came to be.
This was Nick "Rabbit Hole" Fury. If he didn't have a thousand secret bases, would he even deserve the title of Director?
Is it paranoia to build that many hideouts?
No—it's prudence.
Anyway, an hour and forty minutes later, Fury landed on a remote hill.
He didn't enter the nearby structure. Instead, he walked to a pair of overgrown bushes, crouched, and brushed aside the weeds.
No trapdoors. No water. Just dirt.
But he kept going, digging carefully until his fingers hit a concealed switch.
He pressed it.
At first, nothing happened. Just silence.
But Fury wasn't surprised. He stood still, waiting.
After three long minutes, the air in front of him shimmered—like a mirror cracking under pressure—until the illusion broke.
A small Skrull scout ship decloaked, hovering silently.
Hiss!
The hatch opened with a faint hum, and two green-skinned Skrulls in tight purple uniforms stepped out.
"Nick Fury... long time no see."
The lead Skrull stepped forward and embraced him warmly.
Fury gave a cautious nod, glanced around as usual, then followed the alien aboard.
Inside, the atmosphere was calmer. After the hatch sealed behind them, Fury exhaled deeply.
"You okay, Nick?" asked the Skrull, handing him a glass of fluorescent green liquor. "You look like someone's tailing you."
"No one's following me, Talos. But I've got a problem. A big one. Cosmic-level."
He slumped into a seat, resting his boots casually on the console. Talos didn't mind—they'd known each other too long to care about protocol.
Talos sat beside him, swirling his own drink. "Cosmic trouble? That's rare. Between Asgard, the Nova Corps, and Carol, nobody's dumb enough to threaten Earth these days."
"Well, it happened," Fury said gravely. "You ever heard of Kryptonians?"
Talos froze. His eyes widened.
"Kryptonians? Are you serious?"
"I wish I wasn't," Fury muttered. "You've been on Earth long enough. You've seen the comics, right?"
Talos nodded slowly. "Yeah. Especially the old Superman runs. Iconic stuff."
"Well, this isn't fiction," Fury replied. He pulled out a tablet and played a video clip: a man flying, lifting tanks, firing heat vision, shrugging off artillery.
"Flight, strength, heat vision, freeze breath—classic Kryptonian profile. And he calls himself... Heisenberg."
Talos watched in silence. His brows furrowed.
"He's even stronger than the pre-Crisis Superman," Talos said finally. "Back then, Supes struggled to lift a space shuttle. This guy—he's on another level."
"Right?" Fury sighed. "It's like the more powerful we write them in comics, the more real and dangerous they get."
Talos set the tablet down, face serious. "We need to contact Carol."
Fury's eye twitched. "What?"
"She left you that communicator, didn't she?"
"Yeah... and I buried it. On purpose."
Talos chuckled and clapped him on the back. "Relax. You don't need to use it. We've got our own ways. But Nick... this isn't just your problem. This power—this Heisenberg—he doesn't feel natural."
He leaned back, voice low and cautious.
"The Skrull Empire, at its peak, ruled half the known galaxy. Even the Kree were once our vassals. But we were still crushed by the Shi'ar."
"Wait, the Shi'ar? As in...?"
"Yes. The Shi'ar Empire has two ultimate weapons: the Superguardian Gladiator—the so-called Supreme Combatant—and the Nova Praetor Corps. If this 'Kryptonian' exists, and has that level of genetic superiority... then how did we miss Krypton entirely?"
He paused, sipping the strange green liquor.
"There are countless yellow stars in the universe. If this was a natural species, we'd have heard of them. Which means..."
"You think it's a Shi'ar experiment?" Fury guessed.
"Or one of their enemies'," Talos confirmed. "A genetic weapon. Maybe reverse-engineered from Gladiator himself. Either way, it's a threat. And Carol has connections with the Nova Corps. They can trace anything linked to the Shi'ar."
Talos clapped his hands.
From the cockpit, the Skrull pilot turned, awaiting orders.
Talos nodded.
"Set course. We're contacting Carol Danvers."
After nodding, a holographic call prompt appeared on the porthole of the spaceship.
A moment later, upon seeing the projected image of the woman known as Carol Danvers—Captain Marvel—Nick Fury clenched his jaw so tightly, he nearly cracked a molar.
His grandma's!
He'd held onto that pager for thirty years. Thirty! And he hadn't pressed it once—hadn't dared.
And now? Now it turns out that she's been in contact with the Skrulls the entire time?
Are you even from Earth anymore?!
You just didn't want to come back!
And what about my little Nini by Daming Lake?! You just left without a word!
Still, despite the storm brewing inside him, Nick Fury kept his expression calm and even smiled.
Captain Marvel, meanwhile, looked genuinely surprised to see him.
"Huh? Fury? What are you doing here?" she asked, brow raised.
For a brief moment, Fury's heart sank. That question told him all he needed to know—this really was Carol Danvers.
He had told her—deliberately and more than once—that no one called him "Nick." Just Fury. It was one of his old spy tricks: a verbal fingerprint. He used it to spot imposters. If someone called him "Nick," they probably weren't real.
The fact that Carol forgot—or never learned—meant she wasn't an imposter.
She was genuine.
And that stung worse than a Skrull nerve toxin.
He'd waited all these years, fingers hovering over that pager, and she had the means to communicate the entire time?
You could've called. Just once.
But Fury forced it down, cleared his throat, and spoke softly.
"Long time no see..."
Sometimes, those four words say more than any argument.
Carol seemed genuinely happy to see him. A brilliant cosmic flame shimmered around her, flaring with emotion. In the next instant, she tore through three enemy ships like they were made of cardboard.
Once things settled, she floated beside him, arms crossed and smirking.
"You're so old, Fury. And your eye...?"
"It's fine. Just a scratch," he deflected quickly.
But Carol wasn't buying it.
"Oh God, it was the Flerken, wasn't it? I should've told you—you need horned dragon blood to treat a scratch like that. I only learned that on Tai'a, near the Centauri system."
Nick nearly choked.
"No! No no no! It wasn't Goose. It wasn't a cat. It was... betrayal. I lost my eye in the line of duty. That's the story, and I'm sticking to it."
Carol blinked.
Talos coughed awkwardly.
Whether they believed him or not, the subject quickly shifted—namely, to Heisenberg.
Carol's eyes lit up when she heard the name.
"Wait—that Heisenberg? When I was a kid, my favorite cartoons were Captain America and Superman. Cap because I could join the military... Superman, well, I couldn't exactly become an alien."
She chuckled.
"But now? Guess I'm more like the alien. The powers, the strength... It's closer to Superman than I ever expected."
In the Marvel universe, nearly everyone has a story involving Kryptonians now—especially with Heisenberg's sudden rise to power.
After half an hour of strategizing, an uneasy alliance formed between Earth, the Skrull refugee fleet, and the Shi'ar Empire.
Step One: Keep Nick Fury safe. Heisenberg's power made him too dangerous to underestimate.
Step Two: The Skrulls would assign two elite operatives—one to impersonate Fury, and another to replace a key S.H.I.E.L.D. figure—to establish contact with Heisenberg.
Given the Skrulls' shapeshifting talents, they could mimic nearly any form—inside and out. Their failure to show this in earlier appearances (like the first Captain Marvel film) was due to the lack of powerful genetic samples on Earth at the time.
Now, however, that limitation no longer applied.
Carol's own power came from the Space Stone, not her Kree-human DNA, making her an unreliable template. But she remained a valuable ally.
Fury nodded.
"I want one of your agents to impersonate Hill. That should give us some wiggle room."
"Done," Talos agreed with a grin.
The two old spies shared a drink—though the battle of words at the table was no less dangerous than any battlefield.
Talos made his pitch.
"We need something to strengthen our people. A gene sample. From the Hulk."
Fury stiffened.
"That's a line I won't cross. I'm not building you a Hulk army."
They traded barbed words until Carol stepped in to cool them off, launching into tales of recent galactic upheaval.
"The Kree are cracking. Ronan's on the verge of turning rogue. And Thanos? His Chitauri have been massing near the outer edge of Kree space. It's only a matter of time before they pick their next target."
Talos nodded grimly.
"Good thing they're far from Earth."
"Yeah," Carol said. "Let's hope it stays that way."