Shattered

“Hey, Gamora?”

Gamora lifted her head up and looked at Peter. “What?”

“I think someone left you a message.”

She sat up fully. “You think?”

“Well, it’s addressed to ‘Gamora’, so, uh, yeah, I think.”

She rolled her eyes and made her way over to the screen, halfway expecting him to be joking. But, surprisingly, there it was- Gamora. 

“That’s all it says?”

“Um. Yes? I mean, I don’t see anything else-”

“Move.”

“Alright then,” Peter pouted as she brushed him out of her way (hey, at least she hadn’t shoved him.)

She peered at the screen. Someone was trying to contact her- someone who used the old channels she’d had running while she’d worked with Thanos. That meant that worse case, it was probably an enemy, and best case scenario was-

Nebula? Is that you?

She tapped her finger on the keyboard and waited for a response.

No, you mewling quim.

Oh. Not Nebula- the Trickster God. Loki. The one Thanos had sent to Midgard with the Mind Stone. 

What do you want.

Are you alone?

No.

Can the person be trusted?

She glanced up at Peter, who was peeking over at the screen in what she was sure he thought to be a discreet manner. She smirked.

Yes.

I need your help.

Why should I help you?

Because you hate Thanos.

Well. He wasn’t wrong.

I’m listening.

Can you come to Midgard relatively quickly?

Why?

Because there’s an infinity stone here, and Thanos is tracking it.

He doesn’t have any other stones.

Well, clearly he does. I suspect the Power Stone.

The Power Stone is safe on Xandar.

Oh my god seriously you left the Power Stone on Xandar what is wrong with you people first the Collector then someone’s forehead I mean honestly.

She narrowed her eyes. That did not sound like Loki.

Who is this?

Oh, this is Brunnhilde. Lackey’ll be back in a minute once he gets off the floor.

Am I supposed to know who that is?

No. She is unimportant. And it’s LOKI.

The stone is perfectly well protected.

I have to agree with Brunnhilde here. Xandar hasn’t been known recently to have wonderful defenses. Could they hold up against Thanos?

“Are they saying Xandar was invaded?” Peter frowned, coming closer to the screen.

“Yes. Meaning he has one of the Infinity Stones.”

“And they want us to go to- I’m sorry, ‘Midgard’?”

“He means Terra.” Peter bit his lip and shifted uncomfortably. “I know you don’t want to, but if Loki is right, we may not have a choice.”

“Who is this ‘Loki’?”

“He was a prisoner for a while on Thanos’s ship. I hate to admit it, but he’s usually right, when he’s telling the truth.”

Peter scowled. “So we’re going to Terra?”

She winced. “Sorry. But- yes.”

He sighed. “Alright. I’ll go tell the team. You let this ‘Loki’ know we’re coming.”

---------------------------------

“So? How’d it go, Reindeer Games?”

Hela looked up from where she’d been staring absentmindedly at the table. Loki and Brunnhilde were back- despite herself, she felt herself relax a bit. As much as the Avengers seemed nice, Brunnhilde was- familiar. 

“She will arrive on Midgard in a couple of hours. She was thankfully close to a jump point.” He took a seat next to Thor. “Apparently she will be bringing a few friends along- Gamora is much farther removed from her father than I thought she would be. Should make things easier for us.”

“So what’s the plan?” Rogers asked. “We can’t take on this Thanos guy with just ourselves, and we definitely can’t do it near any civilians.”

“We could call King T’Challa,” Romanoff suggested. “The Wakandan army is definitely formidable.”

“Or Asgard. I could take us up on the Bifrost. Our people are already prepared for war,” Thor told them.

Hela narrowed her eyes. “Why? If they’re preparing for war, we can’t divert them.”

Thor looked at her guiltily. “We were, ah, actually preparing for war in case you arrived.”

She scowled at him. “Thanks, brother.”

“What? We didn’t know that you wouldn’t try to take over once you got there,” he defended. “And, anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are prepared for war, and are more formidable than any Midgardian army.”

“And, what, we’re just all gonna travel up to Asgard?” Wilson asked. “Do we even have the time for that? Or the materials?”

“And, uh, no offense, but I really don’t think bringing our infinity stone closer to another infinity stone would be smart. Not your best idea, Point Break,” Stark pointed out.

Ah. She’d forgotten that the Tesseract was on Asgard. That would be a problem.

“Is Thanos going to go after the Tesseract?” she asked, suddenly. “You said he has children, who knows how many of them they’ll send around the universe.”

Loki frowned. “It’s possible. He might not see Vision or Strange as powerful enough to face himself-”

“That would be a mistake,” Strange muttered darkly.

“- if I understand him correctly, he is very cocky. He might not bother with Earth.”

“So how would we know?” Brunnhilde threw her hands up in exasperation. “We stay on Earth to make it harder to get the stones, he gets them all anyway by splitting up. We go to Asgard to combine our forces, and he brings his entire army and gets all the stones. Even if Lackey says he knows him-”

“It’s Loki.”

“I don’t fucking care. Could you truly tell us what his plan will be?”

Loki seemed to zone out for a moment, staring hard at the table.

“Uhh- Reindeer Games?”

“I’m thinking, Stark.”

“Oookay, then.”

After realizing that Loki’s thinking would not be over anytime soon, Hela sighed and started cleaning out her nails. Stark looked down at some hologram device, Rogers poured himself a glass of orange juice, and Romanoff just sort of looked at everyone, like she was trying to divulge every secret from the depths of their souls (she was probably succeeding- Romanoff was terrifyingly good at reading people, she’d discovered).

“Alright.” Loki spoke so suddenly that Maximoff actually lifted a few feet off the ground in surprise before lowering herself back down again. He ignored her. “Here’s what we do. We split up-”

“Dude, you just spaced out for 5 minutes and the best you’ve come up with is ‘split up’?” Rhodes asked in disbelief.

Loki glared at him. “Let me finish. Whatever happens, Thanos cannot be in two places at once. So we keep the mind stone on Earth with a couple of our forces. Perhaps get the time stone with Strange somewhere else. And send a small contingent to Asgard to prepare their forces as well, although I am sure that Heimdall is already doing it-” he looked at the ceiling pointedly- “so that job won’t be too hard. Call every person you know who would be willing and able to help.”

“So we’re not trying to take the offensive?” Romanoff asked. “We know he’s coming, we have the element of surprise-”

“And we know absolutely nothing else about the enemy. No, I never thought I’d say this, but Loki’s right.” Loki looked at Rogers in surprise. “We just have to figure out how to split it all up now.”

“I’m staying with Vision,” Maximoff immediately said.

“That’s fine,” Rogers assured her. “I’m gonna have to think about everyone else, though. I’ll get back to you once the, um.” He suddenly bore the expression of someone who’s entire life had gotten turned upside down. “Alien. People. Get here.”

“Sounds good, cap. I’ll be down in the labs, see if I can’t put together some fun new gadgets for everyone. Hades, you want some special weapons?” 

She frowned at Stark. “I can make my own weapons.”

“No, like, if you want lasers or a giant gun or even like steeled boots-”

Thor raised a timid hand in the air. “Could we maybe not give the deadly sister even more dangerous weapons?”

“You’re just scared I’m going to make you look bad again,” she muttered. He glared at her.

“You didn’t make me look bad!”

“Oh, no, you don’t need her help for that,” Loki snarked.

Thor looked between them, then sighed deeply and got up and wandered away, muttering under his breath about “two of them” and “why me”. Hela exchanged a look with Loki and rolled her eyes- he smirked.

Then, she remembered that she found Loki irritating, and swiftly kicked him in the shin for good measure.

-----------------------------

Terra looked exactly as he’d remembered it.

Of course, Peter had never actually seen it from space, but there’d been maps and stuff back in school that he’d thought were so cool because they were of the whole entire world- and here it was. 

“Why’s it so blue?” Rocket asked. “You always told me Terra was green.”

“Well, yeah, some parts of it are. Y’know, the land parts. But I think most of it’s ocean.”

He made a mental note to try not to steer the ship into the ocean. It seemed like the kind of thing Gamora would get pissed at him for, and she already seemed on edge enough.

The earth grew closer and closer by the minute, until he could make out tiny houses, tiny cars, the tips of trees, a giant compound-

Quill shuddered, suddenly overcome with an image of the ship crash landing into the roof, and made sure to steer clear to the grassy area surrounding the compound. If they were trying to make a good impression on these Terrans, trashing their compound would not be the way to do it.

Were they trying to make a good impression? Gamora seemed to think that this was extremely important, so he supposed he should at least make an effort to not completely insult them.

When he finally landed down on the grass (which he could have done perfectly well without Rocket, thank you very much), a group was already coming out to meet them. 

“Well. Time to go make some friends,” Gamora sighed from behind them. “Don’t let Loki get to you too much, he’s all bark and no bite.”

“Noted.”

They got out of the ship and started walking towards the group meeting them. Peter had been desperately tempted to make them come to them, but then Gamora had taken off and if he’d stayed behind it really just would have looked stupid. 

Both groups stopped a little ways from each other- they were looking at them strangely, which he probably should’ve expected, since they didn’t generally have green people on Terra, or ones with antenna, for that matter. 

“Gamora.” The man who must have been Loki stepped forward after a moment of silence. “These are your… friends?”

“Why didn’t you tell us she was green?” one of them blurted. Peter glared as hard as he could in his direction- it seemed to do nothing to faze him.

Loki shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me. There are green people in every other part of the galaxy.”

“But-”

“This is irrelevant,” Gamora snapped. “Should we head inside? Or is it a Terran custom to hold all meetings outside?”

“No, it’s not. We can go inside right now. And sorry, about Tony, sometimes he doesn’t know when to shut up.” A bulky man with a thick beard and baby blue eyes turned towards Gamora with a genuine expression as he spoke- he looked familiar, for some reason. 

“It’s fine.”

The silence was near excruciating on the way back to the compound- neither party seemed to want to be the first to speak, and Peter wasn’t eager to start, despite how many questions he had. There were only about 6 people that had come out to greet them- were they the only ones? How powerful were they? Did they like Footloose?

He had a feeling that, somehow, he should save that last question for a later, less serious day. He decided to follow that feeling. His instincts were usually correct.

The building was like nothing Peter had ever seen on his time on Earth. It was so- high tech, like something out of a futuristic sci-fi film. Earth, apparently, had changed a lot.

They were led into a spacious room with a giant couch and a table in the middle and- was that a television? It was huge! There was a group of people already sitting on the couch, and there were snacks and plates littered all over the table. 

They all sat down awkwardly. Several people looked strangely at them- damn, he kept forgetting that aliens were not the norm on Earth.

“So, uh…,” started the bearded man from earlier. “Should we introduce ourselves, and then get to it?”

Loki cleared his throat. “Yes. As you all should know, I am Loki.”

“Wait, really?” A scary looking woman with cool looking tattoos smirked at Loki. “Here I was thinking your name was Lackey.”

“Shut up,” he growled. 

“Never,” she grinned. “And my name is Brunnhilde.”

“Pleasure. I’m Gamora.”

“Very nice to meet you!” A very muscular man grinned at them from the couch. “I am Thor.”

They went around the room like this until Peter’s head was spinning with name after name and he knew he would never be able to keep track. He remembered a few of the cooler ones- there was Tony Stark, he’d of course heard of the Starks (who hadn’t?), and a woman named Hela, which just, wow, what a metal name, and a strange red man named Vision.

“So. What’s the plan, cap?” Stark asked.

The man who he was pretty sure was called Steve looked up. “Right. Everyone gather round-”

“Cap? I thought you said your name was Steve,” Drax frowned. 

Steve blinked at him, confused. “Wha- oh. Oh, right, sometimes I’m called Captain America, haven’t used that name in a while-”

“Wait a second,” Peter breathed. “The Captain America? I thought you crashed in the Arctic, like, a hundred years ago!”

“I- I did. But. I’m back now.”

Holy shit. Captain America? This was- wow. He was a legend! Before he could stop himself, he blurted, “Can I have your autograph?”

Stark sniggered, and Captain America turned to glare at him. “Maybe later.”

Oh. Right. They were supposed to be fighting Thanos.

He nodded, still vibrating slightly from excitement, and settled down to listen.