So.

The Guardians of the Galaxy didn't make as many friends from their occasional 'good' deeds as they did enemies. All it really took was Quill wandering off alone during a trip to a bazaar-like planet for a group of thugs that they had might've angered at some point (they had all stopped keeping track of who and when a while ago) to jump him. Obviously Quill wasn't about to go down without a fight, but he was also badly outnumbered and caught by surprise. The ending blow came from the back, sharp and on his neck. An unsettling cracking noise followed it before the world faded.

So.

Terra is strictly off limits, well into Asgardian territory, and seeing as it had almost no space travel or large amounts of priceless substances, it was rarely even a blip on anyone's radar, known only in passing lately for having dealt with a chitauri invasion. When described, those who knew anything about it tended to call it Neolithic, backwater, not worth the trip, and fun to spook with crop circles. A planet fairly out-of-sight out-of-mind that made both it and its solar system a great place to get away to.

So.

oOo

When Quill woke up handcuffed, sore, and in an unfamiliar ship, he just gave a little groan, sat up, and took note of his surroundings. This was far from the first time he had been in this kind of situation, and it (hopefully) wouldn't be the last. His physical condition could've been better, but it also could've been way worse. He was missing his shoes, coat, weapons, and helmet, which sucked. The room he was in looked like a bedroom, and a large window on one side gave him a great view of an area of space that he didn't recognize, which was just fantastic. The little marbles that orbited a fairly small star looked sad and rather lifeless, though he knew appearances could be deceiving. The only promising one was the one that the ship hovered over, an orb of white, blue, and green.

The one good thing that had happened so far was that his kidnappers were obviously broke or close to it. One glance said that this ship was little more than a hunk of metal that was lucky to be flying and didn't meet almost any safety regulation. Little random pieces of crap were strewn around the room, much to Quill's delight, and in no-time the half-Terran had found a suitable lock pick and set to work on the handcuffs, which never stood a chance. Back when he was younger, Yondu had made him go through a ton of different capture-escape scenarios, often with his actual well-being on the line.

The door was next, and the mechanism needed almost no encouraging to click as the lock came undone. Peter couldn't help a huff of amusement. These guys were obviously ill prepared for holding somebody hostage, probably their first time. Back to the task at hand, Peter kept the door closed, listening carefully for movement before cautiously opening said door, peeking into the hallway and seeing nobody. The next step was to contact his partners, grab his gear, and stall until they got to him. The last step would be the hardest, since Quill had no idea where he was, much less where that was relative to his ship, so he had no idea how much time it would take for them to get to him.

As far as Quill could tell, there were less people on the ship than had attacked him. It made snooping around easy, and he only had to hide once while a tired alien moved towards the cockpit. His things were thrown to the side in what looked like a storage room, and he happily reclaimed his belongings. And since things were going to well, obviously that was when he felt the floor shift as the ship began to move.

A quick glance out of the window confirmed that it was the worst case scenario. The ship was heading towards the planet. While it hadn't even crossed Quill's mind to wonder why the crewmember was heading to the cockpit, but it made sense if they were preparing to enter the planet's atmosphere. Which also meant that Quill's current position in a room full of loose objects was one of the worst places he could be. He rolled his neck, slipped on his headphones, drew his guns, and walked to the cockpit.

Luckily, there were only three of them. They were obviously idiots, probably thought they'd keep him around until the others came or sell him to somebody or any other action for revenge and/or units. Honestly, Peter didn't really care. He took the first two down with two clean shots, but the third one was freaking out, drawing his weapon and no longer piloting the ship. Peter took a hit to the shoulder; pilot took a blast to the heart. But things would be better if Peter's first shot hadn't missed, seeing as it hit the control panel.

"Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!" Peter ran over, but they were entering the planet's atmosphere fast and it was all he could do to get to the seat before he was forced painfully backwards. The controls looked completely fried, but communications seemed to be in working order.

"groot?" Peter was relieved to see someone was around to answer the call. Groot was finally big enough to walk around outside of the pot, but he still needed to regularly rejuvenate in fertile soil and make sure he was getting enough sunlight and water, not to mention he wasn't much taller than Rocket.

"Hey, sort of in a bit of a situation here. Get Rocket or Gamora to track this signal, okay?"

"Groot!" The tiny tree-man called, looking like he desperately wanted to reach through the projection and wrap around Peter like he had not too long ago. But Quill just shut down the line and blasted his music into his ears to block out the pounding of his heart. He closed his eyes. He had survived Ronan, he had held an infinity stone in his hands and lived to tell the tale, he had been abducted by aliens and avoided being eaten by them.

Peter Jason Quill would survive this.

It would probably hurt like hell.

oOo

Sam Wilson would go anywhere that Steve Rogers did.

That currently meant bustling through buildings and yelling at people to evacuate.

Apparently there was some UFO heading for this block and showing no signs of letting up. Suicide-alien-bombers would be new, but at the same time Sam wouldn't be surprised. Steve, Natasha, and him were evacuating the area while Wanda and Vision were in charge of trying to slow down the spacecraft to minimize damage and hopefully keep the it in mostly one piece. They knew literally nothing about the aliens doing this, so hopefully they'd be able to interrogate whatever was in there. If things took a turn for the worse, though, Tony was nearby ready to blow it up while it was in the air.

Wanda was successfully able to slow it down, but not enough for a gentle landing. It ended up crashing down in front of one of the evacuated buildings. Sam couldn't help but wince at the screeching sound as the front of the ship bent inwards and one of the wings were snapped off. For a moment things were still as smoke drifted upwards from the wreck, and the Avengers took this as a chance to surround it, weapons drawn and ready for action. Muscles tensed as a loud *thud* echoed from the ship, followed by two more before what looked like a door was blown off, out stepping their extraterrestrial visitor.

Sam's first thought was 'Oh my god, we're being invaded by Antman'. Of course, they really weren't. But the thing – guy? – thing's face (which was either a helmet or just a really weird face) resembled Antman's helmet, two bright red glowing eyes looking at the place around him. One hand held what was obviously some type of gun while the other dangled uselessly at his side. The alien wore a long jacket that probably held all types of 'fun' items, and Tony took a step forward threateningly, one hand outstretched and ready to fire.

"Listen, this'll be a whole lot easier if you'd just put the gun down and come quietly." The alien cocked his head to the side and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm going to give you to the count of five. One. Two. Three. Four. Five!"

The alien jumped out of the way just in time for the bolt to just clip his side. It shouted something and shot at Tony. At this everybody else jumped to action, shots flying through the air as the alien limped to the other side of his ship for cover, throwing something over his shoulder. It hit the ground and Tony, Sam, and Vision were pulled towards it, slamming into each other and left momentarily disoriented. Vision was able to blast it to pieces after a moment and the three of them quickly flew to where the alien had gone. They found him unconscious underneath Natasha's foot, one red eye badly cracked and what had been his good arm sitting at an awkward angle. Natasha herself looked to be no worse for wear, but Steve looked like he'd been knocked down and was just getting to his feet.

"So now what?" Sam nudged the alien with his foot. It didn't react.

"Tony, why don't you, Vision, Natasha, and Wanda check out the ship? Sam and I'll bring thing guy to the cells in the tower." Steve lifted the alien with ease and nodded down at the gun, which Sam picked up. It was a strange design, but for all Sam knew this was state-of-the-art in space. He followed Steve to the tower, careful not to pull the trigger.

oOo

For the second time that day, Peter woke up shoeless, walkman-less, jacket-less, and just all around –less. This time they even confiscated his socks. After his some-how survivable landing, everything had happened so fast. His arm and leg had been injured in the crash, and he got the hell out of there as quickly as he could. The natives of whatever planet he was on had already surrounded the ship. One of them started talking and when the words, while familiar, weren't making sense, Peter remembered the cracking noise from when he was first knocked out. Of course it'd be his luck that his translator was broken. The native that might've been a robot continued talking, deliberate spaces in between words almost like he was counting…

So then Peter obviously got the hell out of there too.

Behind the ship there more of them and Quill stunned the one that was immediately coming at him… only the guy just fell to the ground, didn't go unconscious. Then somebody else came up from behind him and painfully yanked his arm back and yup that now that Peter had a chance to look at it it looked dislocated and still hurt. Before he could really struggle against the native's hold a piece of metal surrounded in red-glowy stuff hit him in the face and the person behind him used the momentum of it to slam him into the ground.

And now he was here.

So things were going great.

At least he still had his helmet on, though one of the eyes was badly cracked. Standing up, he carefully rolled his shoulder back into place before touching the side of his helmet, grumbling a bit when he got no response. Looked like wherever he was, it was blocking his communicator. Not that that was a big surprise. It looked like his new prison was better quality than the last one. This one looked as one thought a cell would look like: small bed, toilet to the side, desk, and nothing else. The wall with the door was made of what looked like glass, but was more likely than not highly reinforced.

Peter sighed and ran his hands down his face. At least he wasn't handcuffed this time. And whoever had captured him had made the effort to put braces on his arm and leg. They were very humanoid, which was a relief as that hopefully meant that their biology was similar to most of the others of that shape. There was something almost nostalgically familiar about the language here along with that man he shot.

As if on cue, said man came into view, hands behind his back all militaristic-like. He pressed some button next to the door and started talking and Quill furrowed his brow. Again, familiar. And then it hit him like truck. It reminded him of when he was young. Just a kid, no older than 9, people talking to him, him responding, the following months that stretched on after he was abducted and had his translator chip put in but was forced to learn Xandarian and Common. And when had he started thinking in those languages? And when had his translator started translating into those?

And oh, the guy was still talking.

Peter held up a hand, going through what he could remember of English. But it was like an old song. The melody was there, but the lyrics? Not so much. He's pretty sure he can still sing all of the songs in Awesome Mix #1 and 2, but he's not so sure that'll be helpful in this situation. It's not helping that now a part of his concentration has devoted itself to reeling at the fact that the planet he's on must be Terra. The guy had quieted at Peter's raised hand, which was a relief, and after a moment he finally found some of the words he was looking for.

"My English bad." Even he could tell that sounded barbaric and heavily butchered, the weird accent he had required from space not helping in the slightest. The man looked a little startled and started to say something else. He was only able to pick out a few words, but it sounded like his name was Steve and he wanted to know who Peter was and why he was here.

"Peter Quill, also Star Lord. Um, accident? 'I come in peace'?" Yeah Steve didn't look like he believed that. To be fair, Peter wouldn't either. Steve opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, closed it, sighed, and then tapped a few things on the side of the door. Two pieces of metal flew off the wall, encircling each of Quill's hands before snapping together. So much for the no handcuffs thing. At least slap-bracelet-cuffs were something new.

Steve opened the door, eyes steely, and Quill rolled his eyes, but left the cell nonetheless. It wouldn't be long until his fellow Guardians of the Galaxy were here and he'd be off of Terra and back to exploring the galaxy and saving world.

He tried to ignore the part of him whispering interest in what had been going on at his home planet since he left.