Chapter 4
Toni’s brain was flying a mile a minute as she took in front of her which was, in fact the weirdest thing she’d seen that day.
At the front of the group was some sort of cyborg dude with red eyes and a green lady with pinky purple tipped hair. Just behind then was a gangly humanoid tree being with some sort of racoon hanging off its shoulder and a shirtless blue man with red tattoos littering his chest. Peering out from behind them was a pale-yellow person (Toni thought they might be a girl) with large black eyes and antennae.
Toni didn’t give them time to take in the situation. She was outnumbered and needed to act fast.
She shot a repulsor at them, more a warning blast than anything, but it succeeded in having them scatter and leave a free path towards the door.
Her and Peta lunged forward as one, darting through the door. As the exited, Toni twisted around, firing off another repulsor before she was tearing off after Peta, the suit making up for some of the difference in speed between them.
“In here!” Peta urged, punching a few buttons on a door, opening it.
The girl let Toni barrel in first, and Toni heard her set up a web blocking the hallway.
As soon as the Spiderling leaped into the room, Toni activated the panel, locking it from the inside with a little help from Jarvis’ nudging. Once that was done, Toni turned around to examine the room.
It looked like they were in some sort of kitchen. Not the best place they could have ended up, but not the worst.
“I think we bought ourselves a few minutes,” she told Peta, who was already sifting through the drawers. “We need to move quickly.
Toni opened a door to reveal what appeared to be a pantry, although there was a hodgepodge of items in there, both food product and more fun things. Toni grinned, turning around with her bounty to find that Peta had already begun pulling apart a toaster.
“Let’s do this.”
They got to work and managed to craft a decent pile of makeshift bombs before they heard banging from outside the door.
They heard a male voice. “Rocket can you get it open.”
“What is this sticky substance? It is quite annoying,” another male voice, this one deeper.
“They’ve done something to doors. It might take a while. It doesn’t help that I’ve got all this crap stuck in my fur.”
There was muffled cursing and Toni chuckled to herself as she pictured them trying to clean themselves.
Eventually, there was a loud sigh, before three loud knocks.
“Hey, uh, ladies, can you please get out of our kitchen?”
Toni rolled her eyes and stayed silent.
“Look, that room has no windows, and even if it did, you couldn’t escape. You’re going to come out sooner or later.”
The man waited a few more moments.
“We’ll even drop our weapons.”
There was a loud clank, and a few seconds later a few more thuds followed.
“Jarvis?” Toni asked.
‘They seem to have disarmed themselves,’ he informed her, projecting an image of the moteley group, surrounded by various lethal objects.
Toni took a deep breath and glanced at Peta, who nodded.
“Okay, we’re coming out.”
Toni punched a few buttons in the control panel and sent a little surge of electricity through it, causing the door to slide open.
The cyborg stepped forward, his face melting away to reveal a person that looked human.
“I think this is all a big misunderstanding.”
Under her mask, Toni raised her eyebrow.
“What part? The kidnapping of me? Or the assault of my intern?”
The man, and the green woman beside him, grimaced.
“Both?” the man asked.
Peta chose that moment to speak. “I’m guessing you’re Star Lord? The guy Mr Blue wants Toni to marry?”
The man sighed. “Yondu was…misguidedly attempting to make amends for being generally shitty to me for most of my life.”
“And that’s my problem because…?” Tony huffed.
The racoon let out a barking laugh. “After he and Gamora here fell out, Yondu wanted the only other woman in the galaxy that’s managed to put a chink in Thanos’ plan.”
Thanos? Tonu thought. Who the hell is Thanos?
‘Searching data base on ship now, Ma’am.’
“Who’s Thanos?” Peta asked, the eyes on her suit narrowing.
A stunned silence descended on the room for a few seconds, before the racoon broke out in renewed laughter, the tree joining in.
“Oh, that’s just amazing. The woman who singlehandedly destroyed Thanos’ fleet of Chitauri and set his plan back years doesn’t even know his name.”
Toni felt frustration spark inside her.
“What do you people want?” she all but growled.
The green woman took a step forward. “We do not want to fight. We apologise for Udonta. He’s an idiot, just like his son. We’ll be happy to return you to your home planet.”
“After we’ve finished our job,” the racoon cut in. “It takes forever to get to Terra since the jump points there were disabled when the Kree tried to invade it a few decades ago and Yondu fried our own jump drives when he kidnapped you.”
“So, how long will that be?” Toni asked, thinking of how worried Rhodey and Pepper and the rest of them must be, as well as Peta’s college acceptances.
“Ma’am?” Jarvis voice rang out from the speakers in her suit. “Files on Thanos have been located. I apologise for the interruption, but I believe you will want to see them.”
“Give ‘em to me, J.”
‘Uploading files.’
Suddenly, information exploded through Toni’s head. She staggered for a second as her mind tried to adjust, but as soon as she started registering the new data, she froze. The air closed in around her and it started getting hard to breath.
The next thing she knew, the suit was opening up and she was falling forward. The only thing that stopped her from hitting the ground was Peta darting forward and catching her underneath the arms.
“Dr Stark?” the girl asked. “Toni! What happened? Karen, upload the files Jarvis just gave Toni.”
Peta tensed for a few seconds, before she relaxed.
When she next spoke, her voice was soft.
“Toni? It’s okay. I’m here. Breath with me.”
After a few moments, Toni managed to match the rise and fall of Peta’s chest.
“He’s not here Toni. Everyone’s okay. Earth’s okay.”
“We’re not,” Toni murmured, shaking her head. “He’ll destroy us. We won’t be able to stop him.”
“Well, then, what are we going to do about it?” Peta asked. “Come on, Toni. We haven’t lost yet. We still have time.”
Toni flinched, sucking in another shuddering breath. She closed her eyes and counted to three. When she opened them again, she stood up, absorbing the suit back into her skin and looking back at the group standing a few metres away from them. They were staring at them in stunned, horrified silence.
“Is there anything being done about him on a galactic or, uh… universal scale?”
The green woman hesitated before answering. “There’s going to be a meeting of the Galactic Alliance in just over a month. It’s about the Kree, but since Ronan cut a deal with Thanos, my father will surely come up.”
Both Toni and Peta started at the word ‘father’ before Jarvis shoved data detailing her betrayal of Thanos into her mind.
The man nodded. “The Nova Prime asked us to be there since we’re the Guardians of the Galaxy.”
Before she could ask what that meant, Jarvis pulled up a file of the situation on Xandar a few years ago, as well as reports of the Guardians’ escapades of the years. Judging from Peta’s lack of questions, Karen had done the same.
“Gamora and I are planning to meet up with a few contacts at The Hub to see what he’s planning right now before we go there. Actually, you being there with us is probably good since you’ve fought his forces first hand.”
“Wait, we’re going with you?” Peta asked.
The man shrugged. “I mean we could make Yondu take you back, but there’s no telling how long that might take. If you go with us, I’m sure we can convince the Nova Core to open a jump point into your solar system.”
“We want to go,” Toni insisted quickly. “Please. Earth is just one big sitting duck right now.”
At that moment, the blue guy – Yondu – and the newly freed Kraglin came walking around the corner.
“Did you manage to get her boy? You know –,”
He was cut off as a blur of white streaked towards him, covering his mouth in webbing.
Toni whipped her head around to Peta, who retracted her mask and ducked her head, cheeks red.
“Sorry!” she apologised. “It was instinctual. I didn’t want that arrow coming after me again.”
The racoon laughed again, with the large blue man, the tree and the human-looking dude joining in as well.
Kraglin stared at the man beside him, his mouth quirking up for half a second before he looked back at the others.
“What the Captain was gonna say was that we’re heading off. Umm… will this stuff come off?”
“It should dissolve in a few hours,” Toni informed him before Peta could say anything.
Kraglin nodded. “Alright. I guess we’ll just go then.”
Yondu gave a grunt, glaring at Peta as he turned around and stalked off.
Kraglin rubbed the back of his head. “I’m sorry about all the trouble we’ve given you, Miss. I told the Captain it wasn’t a good idea, but I don’t like to argue with him. I accidentally mutinied the last time I did.”
“It sounds like you need to work on communication,” Tony told him with a raised eyebrow.
Kraglin shrugged and sighed. “I know.”
With that, the humanoid left, eyes downcast.
“You know I have the dissolving formula in my suit,” Peta murmured.
Toni grinned. “I know. I just wanted my revenge.”
The man snorted, whilst the blue man, the racoon and the tree outright laughed and the girl with the antennae giggled. Even the green woman cracked a smile.
“So…” the man began once they had all calmed down. “I guess your stuck with us. For the next month and a bit at least.”
Toni nodded absentmindedly. Peta bumped their shoulders together and flashed her a quick, encouraging smile.
Toni suppressed a tired sigh. This was not how she’d planned her day to go. Nevertheless, this was what she had to work with. And, if she was being honest, no matter how unwelcome this news was she was glad that she found out about Thanos sooner rather than later. So, without much else to do, she took a step forward and stuck her hand out.
“Hi. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. My name is Toni Stark. And this is my intern, Peta Parker.”
The man smiled at her and took her hand. “I’m Peter Quill, or Star Lord, as you know.”
He gestured to each of his crew in turn. “This is Gamora, Rocket, Drax, Groot and Mantis.”
Peta and Toni introduced themselves to each one of the Guardians. Toni heard a whistling from the kitchen when she had started bemoaning the idiocies of men with Gamora.
“I’m glad we didn’t fight you guys. This used to be our toaster!” Rocket exclaimed whilst carrying out their bombs.
Peta ducked her head. “I can help you rebuild it if you want.”
Rocket just shook his head. “Nah, these are more fun. We can pick up another at The Hub or a junk yard.”
Peter rubbed the back of his head again. “Um, is there anything you need? We still have a few days until we need to bet at The Hub.”
Toni glanced at Peta, who shrugged, which basically meant that she was fine. But then again Peta rarely complained. However, Toni decided to table thoughts of what to do about Peta and how this would interrupt her life for a few hours before she started complaining.
Instead, she asked, “Is there any way I could contact Earth? Or set up some sort of connection?”
Peter frowned and looked thoughtful, but Rocket was the one to answer.
“If you know their radio frequency, you can program it into a communication station to get a message to them. Then, for a few credits, you can set up a channel to them when we get to the Hub. You could probably even build your own device to transmit and receive signals instead of buying one.”
Toni nodded.
“If I may,” Jarvis’ voice rang out from around them, using the speakers from the ships intercoms as well as the ones in the suit. “I have located a communication station approximately four hours from our current location, if that is suitable.”
Every Guardian except Gamora jumped at his voice, with Drax and Rocket pulling out weapons from seemingly nowhere.
“What the hell was that?” Peter asked.
“Oh, that?” Toni asked, shrugging nonchalantly. “That’s my AI, Jarvis.”
There were a few beats of silence as Toni saw most of the Guardians puzzle over the meaning of that statement. However, Rocket’s mouth dropped open.
“You have an AI?” he asked incredulously. “How?”
“Programmed him myself,” Toni informed him, more than a little proudly. It had been a while since someone had been truly gobsmacked by J.
Rocket gaped, opening and closing his mouth, drawing a laugh from Peter, and, surprisingly, Gamora.
“That is the first time I have heard him shocked silent,” Gamora confided, still chuckling.
“I’m guessing he’s your tech guy?” Toni asked.
Peter shrugged. “Yeah. I guess so. Though Gamora and I know our way around fixing most tech and ship parts.”
Toni nodded and then turned her head down to the talking racoon.
“Would you mind showing me around this space tech? I’m gonna need to get familiar with it before we get to the communication station.”
Rocket shook himself, getting over his shock, before nodding as he turned to leave the room.
“Sure. Though don’t think I’m too impressed by you just because you can produce an AI. I know how crap most of Earth’s tech is.”
Toni rolled her eyes as she stepped forward, intent to follow him. “Yeah, yeah. The puny humans and their shitty tech. I’ve heard it before.”
She heard Peta fall into step behind her and suppressed a wave of excitement. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.