Millennials and Aliens
Life had changed a great deal after Peter had returned home following the defeat of Thanos. With his little disappearing act when he’d snuck off of the school bus, to his missing persons status while he was on the space ship, and then his return following the space-army’s defeat in Wakanda, it hadn’t been difficult for people to put two and two together and figure out his secret identity.
His life had been a whirlwind of crazy questions, people asking him to show them what he could do, and even more hoping he could introduce them to the rest of the Avengers. Because they were all such good friends, and ‘come on, Pete,’ and he was so sick of it. May had been as supportive as she could be, but having a nephew as a superhero was probably pretty stressful.
The moment that Evelyn had video called him, he’d absolutely lost it at the sight of her tearful, smiling face. Seeing her body laying in that lab, eerily still and all torn up and bloody, had felt like the worst moment of his entire life. And then had followed a rollercoaster of emotions as they’d been given hope that she wasn’t actually dead, and her soul had somehow separated from her body, and then the wizard had gone on a little spirit-journey himself.
And Peter definitely hadn’t forgotten what Mr. Stark had said to him on that space ship.
He’d seemed almost as shocked by his own words as Peter was. His parents had died before he could really remember them, and after Uncle Ben… well, Peter knew that he had latched onto the billionaire as a sort of mentor, but when he’d made that exclamation about not losing him too…
Peter had come to the facility as soon as Evelyn had come home, had greeted her with a too-tight hug that he hadn’t wanted to end. And then he’d had an awkward, uncomfortable, heartwarming conversation with Mr. Stark where he’d told him that he hadn’t realized that he considered him ‘his’ until that moment on the ship. And Peter had told him that he’d be lucky to have a dad like him.
So, feeling overwhelmed and knowing that he was welcome there, he’d called up Happy and asked if he could come to the facility for a while when the first week of summer break had begun.
And now, in a surreal twist he could never had predicted, he was sitting in the Avenger’s complex’s living room, playing the latest version of Mario Kart.
With a Wakandan princess and an alien tree-person.
The weirdness had faded when the tree-person, Groot, had started thoroughly kicking their asses.
“Oh! Are you kidding me!” Shuri screeched as a red shell took her out just as she was moving to pass Groot’s Toad avatar.
“I’m sorry! I was aiming for him!” Peter winced, avoiding her spinning Princess Daisy and advancing on Groot.
“I am Groot,” he chortled, his controller inches from his face as he hunched forward with his eyes glued to the screen.
“I still have no idea what you’re saying,” Peter murmured, his entire body tilting with his Yoshi’s turn.
“Stark is almost done with a translator prototype. He hopes to have it finished before the ship is ready,” Shuri remarked absently, and then let out a long, dramatic sigh of defeat as Groot crossed the finish line a good deal earlier than either of them.
“Man, I can’t believe this is your first time playing this game,” Peter said, and Groot shrugged.
“I am Groot.”
“You know what you need,” Shuri said, snapping her fingers as she reached into the backpack she had left against the couch. She pulled out a pair of dark shades with emerald green trim and leaned forward to put them on Groot, bending the frame so that they stayed on his head.
“I am Groot?”
“You look… really cool, actually,” Peter said with a huff of laughter, and Groot leaned back casually against the couch, crossing one leg over the other.
“I am Groot.”
Now,” Shuri said, pulling out a hand sized tablet and moving to sit next to the tree-person, motioning impatiently for Peter to join them. “I’m going to teach you all about these awesome things we have on our world. These, are called ‘memes’.”
*
*
*
Evelyn and Drax had planned their fight without informing anyone else, the gray-green skinned alien telling her that he did not want to embarrass her in front of her comrades when he smashed her face into the floor. She had merely smiled and nodded, though the darkforce had flickered amusedly in the back of her mind at the impossibility of his achieving that.
She felt close enough to her old self—aside from her extreme aversion to the medical wing again, and the nightmares that tore her from sleep far too often— to go for it, and had poked at Drax’s shoulder while the Guardians had been in the kitchen, tilting her head towards the training area.
He gave her a not-so-inconspicuous wink and slowly pushed himself away from the counter before following her out of the complex and into the training room.
“Will we wield weapons, or shall I destroy you with only my fists?” Drax asked, raising his chin and giving her a small smile. Evelyn slipped her ring off her finger and set it on the table on the side of the room before facing Drax on the opposite side of the floor.
“Let’s go with fists,” Evelyn drawled, and then dropped into a stance as Drax nodded and let out a furious, intense battle-call and charged her. She had returned to training as soon as she was able, and even without her powers, she was significantly faster and stronger than she had been before.
Drax pulled his arm back, telegraphing his attack in a manner than would have made Natasha cringe and then make him suffer for it, and Evelyn lunged, feinting forward and then sliding to the side to drive her leg up, catching him behind the knee and sending him spinning through the air.
He landed roughly on the mat and then scrambled to his feet, letting out a loud, boisterous laugh.
“Ha ha! I thought this would be over already! You have surprised me!” he shouted happily, and then advanced again, slightly more purposeful with his attacks, but Evelyn still easily evaded them. The super soldier serum Schur had injected her with meant that, in addition to her own well-earned combat skills, she was able to move quickly and smoothly out of the way of each swing and kick. Evelyn hadn’t trained with anyone else yet, still hesitant to risk hurting anyone, and the way her blood quickened with adrenaline felt amazing.
Knocking his arm away from her after an unbalanced swing, Evelyn leapt up and drove her foot into his chest with a side-kick, driving him back across the space to land roughly on his back.
“Ahahaaaa! Ha, ha! She’s kickin’ your ass!” came Rocket’s voice, and Evelyn turned to see that the racoon, Peter, Shuri, Groot and Nebula were all watching from behind the viewing area. The glass had been retracted, and after a moment, Shuri raised a small device and grinned broadly.
Knowing what she was doing, Evelyn played along and shifted her weight onto her back foot before tilting her chin at Nebula. She hadn’t missed the tension in the woman since they’d arrived here, and thought that she might want to blow off some steam.
“You wanna get in on this? I can take you both,” she taunted, and the blue woman stiffened and glared at her before leaping over the barrier and down into the training room.
“Rules?” Nebula growled, and Evelyn grinned and shook her head.
“Even if you manage to hurt me, I’ll heal. Show me what you’ve got,” she goaded, and Nebula snarled and leapt forward, moving faster than Evelyn had expected. She arched backwards, moving into a back handspring to avoid the woman’s attack, and the moment that she regained her footing Drax was in her face, swinging swiftly.
She twisted and ducked, using her palms to knock away his fists and then redoubling her efforts when Nebula joined the fray. She felt the darkforce whispering in her mind, telling her to use it, and Evelyn gave a vicious grin and then vanished in a whirl of smoke.
Reappearing in the air slightly behind Drax, she kicked out hard at his broad back, sending him flying before teleporting again into a kneeling position just beneath him. She drove her forearm up into his lower abdomen, causing him to flip rapidly through the air and slam into the wall behind them.
Nebula swept her leg out in a lightning fast kick, but Evelyn whipped her hand up and caught her by the ankle. She had a brief moment to appreciate the surprise ghosting across the blue woman’s features before she leapt up and crossed her legs over Nebula’s torso. With a wrenching jerk of her body, Evelyn flipped her legs out and threw her opponent away from her, watching as she spun across the floor before landing.
She rolled for a few more rotations before punching at the ground to stop her momentum and swing herself to her feet, and gave Evelyn a furious growl before charging again. Evelyn inhaled deeply and called on the darkforce, and the shadows flowed from her to take on a liquid black form at her side. Nebula hesitated when she discovered that there were two Evelyns; the one she had been fighting, and a pure black twin.
Letting out a chuckle as the darkforce twisted in amusement and pride at their manifestation of their newly-developed synergy, Evelyn and her twin advanced on the blue woman. The movements were exact mirrors of each other, and Nebula managed to duck and block one blow from each, until they both kicked out at the exact same time. She took the hits straight to the chest and flew back, hitting the wall hard and slumping to the floor.
Evelyn let her shadow-twin dissipate and glanced over to where Drax was leaning against the wall next the viewing nook, breathing hard but unharmed, and then moved forward towards Nebula. She grunted as she pushed herself away from the wall, and Evelyn extended her hand to help her up. The blue woman glared at her hand for a long moment, and then reached out to take it, squeezing harder than Evelyn thought she needed to, but allowing her to pull her up.
“You good?” Evelyn asked with an arched brow.
“Fine,” Nebula growled, though her expression was slightly less hostile than it had been before. Evelyn had gotten the expression that the blue woman was losing her patience at being stuck on this planet, and needed an outlet. She was glad she could provide one while also having a bit of fun.
They both moved back towards the others, and Drax stepped forwards suddenly, swinging out at Evelyn. She caught his wrist in her hand and used his own momentum to hurl him behind her, grinning at the way he bellowed in laughter while in mid-air.
“I am Groot!” Groot shouted from the viewing nook, and Rocket leaned back to regard him as his lip curled.
“What the hell does ‘yeet’ mean?”
Evelyn, Shuri and Peter all burst out laughing, and while she was curled over, her eyes blurring with amused tears, she was suddenly tackled from the back. Drax landed heavily on her, pinning her to the floor for a few moments before he leapt up and punched at the air with a triumphant expression stretching across his face.
“I am victorious!”