Peter Parker

Peter, who had been disguised as one of the partygoers by Aether, ordered the Celestial to drop their disguises and rushed over to Quill, where Bucky and Groot were also headed. A look of pain, panic, disbelief, and longing crossed over the green woman's face, but she made no move to approach Quill. The rest of the party slowly simmered down, until Peter could distinctly hear everyone's heartbeats.

Super-hearing was sometimes annoying.

Bucky's eyes flashed with relief when he spotted Peter, and he ushered the younger boy behind him and Sam. Peter accepted the safety with relief, but kept close to Quill, who was still shaking. Groot was saying soft words to the man, his round orbs flashing off once and a while towards the woman, who still remained in her position.

Two people, a man and a woman who had taken over the disguises of Peter and Aether, stepped forward. They were tall and beautiful, the man with his chiseled face and dark hair and the woman with stature and bright eyes. The man was dressed in a purple tunic, but not like the one Bucky had on. This one was deep, vibrant, and ever-changing. Almost sentient, not that Peter would be surprised if it actually was. His definition of normal changed after he had been bitten by the spider. The woman who was by his side, rather closely, was not wearing the same color; hers was a vigorous yellow-gold. It sparkled and when the light glinted off of it, Peter then realized it must have been actually woven with gold.

"Gamoul, do you wish to introduce us to your friends?" the man in purple asked. His voice was deep and thick, an accent hidden deep within his words. He looked up and sniffed haughtily at them, as if he were disgusted by their mere presence. But his look of hatred exempted Quill and Groot for some reason. The woman in gold shared this same look, except she gave a fond glance towards Vision. Behind Peter, he heard Wanda growl softly and the woman simply chuckled, looking on at Wanda with the same glance.

The woman with the green skin swallowed heavily, before lifting a shaky hand towards Peter and his friends. "Fellow Celestials and citizens of Friðrheim, may I introduce members of the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Avengers."

Bursts of applause shocked Peter. All around them, members of a foreign planet were celebrating their achievements, which they probably had never heard of. Peter blushed under all the excitement and praise. He glanced up at Bucky and saw that the older man was also slightly embarrassed, though he looked more confused.

As quickly as the applause had began, it began to silent; all except for four people. The woman in gold, the man in purple, another man in light blue, and one more man in dark green. By light blue, Peter meant the very definition of baby blue mixed with sky blue. It reminded him of all the little stars twinkling in the night sky. That man had slicked back hair, similar to the man in purple's, but he held a very amused facial expression, with true amusement glimmering in his eyes. The man in dark green was much older than the remaining members of the group: the gray was very noticeable in his thick and short beard, and scruffy thin hair. He had a genuine smile on, and he seemed wise. Why Peter picked up on that, he wasn't quite sure.

As how the others had looked with a lovingly gaze towards members of Peter's group, so did these two men. The one in blue seemed to look at Maria Hill and Nick Fury with a sense of amusement and unspoken laughter. The man in green seemed particularly proud of Dr. Strange; it seemed to be making the surgeon uncomfortable as he was dancing lightly from one foot to another.

"Welcome, Guardians of the Galaxy and the Avengers," the man in dark green spoke first. His voice was very distinct; it was an accent that Peter couldn't place, and his voice was deep, more bass than baritone. "We are glad you have come to celebrate our arrival here on the realm of Friðrheim."

"It's not like we had a choice in coming," snapped Bucky, and that seemed to be the thing that shook everyone out of their stupor. The group took a harden stance, and Peter's eyes were already wandering the room, looking for key exit points.

Peter heard a deep sigh, however, and his attention was quickly back on the mysterious group of people, whom Aether had now joined in line with. The man in green spoke again, and Peter began to pick up on the sense that he was their leader, "No, it was not your choice. However, our only options were either bringing you to our realm or letting you fade to dust as Thanos had wanted you to become." Peter's chest tightened just at the thought of the memory, and the man in green seemed to notice it, sending Peter an apologetic smile. "Now, where are my manners? Before we get into the nitty-gritty details of why exactly each and every one of you are here, let me introduce us all. We are the Celestials."

The man in purple took a step forward, giving the smallest of bows from the waist up. "My name is Orbous; I am the creator of the Power Stone."

The woman in gold was next. "I am Sceptra, and I am the creator of the Mind Stone." Wanda and Vision both tensed and their jaws dropped in disbelief. Peter suddenly understood then why the woman was looking at them in a maternal way; after all, her stone had given Vision life and had gifted Wanda her powers.

Following her was the man in blue. "I am Tesseract, and I am the creator of the Space Stone." Behind him, he heard Fury and Maria take in a sharp breath. If Peter remembered correctly, the Battle of New York happened over Loki trying to obtain the Tesseract and use it to open a giant wormhole into space.

Aether gave a brief way and small description of herself, even though the group already knew who she was: the creator of the Reality Stone. The next one was the woman in yellow, but she seemed very hesitant. The man in blue leaned close beside her, and Quill tensed up, gritting his teeth so hard Peter thought they were going to snap in half. Tesseract whispered something in her ear, and she took a deep breath. "M-My name is Gamoul...I-I am the holder of the Soul Stone."

Peter immediately noticed the difference. Gamoul had said 'holder', not 'creator'. Whoever she was, she was not originally a Celestial, especially with the way Quill reacted to seeing her.

"And I am Agamotto, creator of the Time Stone," the man in green finished off with a smile. He chuckled at Strange's strong disbelieving face and spread his arms out in a gesture of 'ta da'. "As I have been hearing from Aether, my dear friend, we have had some lack in communications. I am not, in fact, Vishanti."

"No you are not," whispered Dr. Strange, glancing at the rest of the group with a sense of awe and shock. Peter felt the same way, but only for a different reasons. The Celestials seemed...normal. What was so scary about them? Orbous and Spectra seemed to be the most 'intimidating', if one could even say that about them. Tesseract and Aether were neutral in their effect on the group, and Gamoul seemed more nervous than frightening. And Agamotto just seemed like a friendly grandfather.

"You have many questions for us, dear friends, and we will be more than glad to answer them," Agamotto continued, gesturing towards the other Celestials. "I feel that if we were to split up, only if it were comfortable with you, that we will be able to answer your questions more swiftly and effective."

The group eyed each other warily, before Bucky nodded for all of them. Peter could tell from the way Bucky was shifting awkwardly that he didn't care whether or not they were separated; he just wanted to know.

So, in the end, Peter was grouped with Bucky, T'Challa, and Dr. Strange with Agamotto. The others branched off with the other Celestials, and Peter noticed that Gamoul followed Orbous along with the other Guardians of the Galaxy. The party immediately resumed once the Celestials were divided and Agamotto lead them through the pulsating crowd of dancers to a small secluded table near the back of the large tent. Each man took his own chair, and Peter ended up between Bucky and Dr. Strange, with Agamotto directly across from him.

"Is there anything I can get you, gentlemen?" Agamotto asked politely, leaning back in his chair. He folded his hands neatly across his lap and gave the group a grandfatherly-stare. "Before you ask your questions?"

Peter glanced out of the corners of his eye towards Bucky and Dr. Strange, and both men looked slightly perturbed that Agamotto was stalling.

"No, thank you, Celestial," T'Challa finally hummed. The King sat forward in his chair and placed his folded hands firmly onto the table in front of them. "We have been stranded on a planet that we do not know anything about, in a realm that seems foreign to everyone, and every time we ask a simple question, it seems to be avoided with riddles and mysteries. So, forgive us if we are desperate for straight answers."

Agamotto was silent for a moment, taking in T'Challa's annoyed expression, before he chuckled lightly under his breath. "I understand completely, Your Highness. Please...ask me your questions. You will find no allusions here; just answers."

"Just to be triple clear," Peter began, gulping loudly before continuing on, "we aren't dead…?"

"When Thanos activated the Infinity Gauntlet, he originally did try to kill you all," Agamotto began, a grimace falling onto his elderly features. Apparently, this Celestial didn't like Thanos anymore than Peter and the rest of the gang did. "The Celestials had been gathering at that time, watching all the events unfold. We refused to allow such noble beings, as yourself, to perish by Thanos' ungodly hand. Using Tesseract's powers, folded on top with Aether's and Orbous', we extracted you and brought you all here, where you are safe from Thanos' grasp." Peter let out a large breath he didn't realize he had been holding.

"There's more to it than that," Bucky grunted, and Peter turned towards him with a confused look. Bucky's entire posture was tense and his face was neutral, leaning towards anger and betrayal. "You didn't simply rescue us because we're pure beings...you need us to do something."

"Something that involves Thanos and his defeat," Dr. Strange added on, and his cape whipped around slightly. It looked just as annoyed as T'Challa had been only a few moments before.

Agamotto sighed deeply, and stood up quickly, startling the four men. With his right two fingers, he snapped and the entire party seemed to halt. No one moved in the tent, except for the men seated around Agamotto's table. An eerie, green mist rose from the floor, peeking out through crevices and spiraling around their feet. Once the mist was lapping at their ankles, Peter leapt from his seat, moving so fast that the chair went tumbling backwards onto the cold, hard ground. The top half disappeared into the smoke. Peter's chest tightened, and the other men looked warily towards the smoke in the same way. It was only when Dr. Strange said, "Relax, my friends. This is Agamotto's powers...time manipulation, one could say. There is no need for alarm" that they actually calmed down.

"Long before the ages of men and even the Gods of Asgard," a deep baritone voice rang out. It was Agamotto's voice, but the man in question didn't move, and his lips were not open. On the contrary, they were snapped shut. "The Celestials were there."

Six shadow-like figures appeared in the smoke, and Peter jumped at their sudden appearance. Their features began to clear up and Peter watched as shadow-replicas of all six Celestials took shape. Agamotto kept up his narration as the shadows began to move. "We lived in many different areas of this realm, but we all needed a way to vent excess energy that was stored within our cores. So, we created the Infinity Stones as a way of extracting all that energy and funneling it into a more adaptable source."

Above each shadow, a small stone began to form from the shadows: each Infinity Stone. Their colors burned brightly, and a matching color aura wrapped around each shadow-Celestial.

"At a later time, a massive catastrophe hit the planet of Titan, killing all of Thanos' people except for him. All of us had previously met the Titan giant on different occasions for different things, but we had all agreed: he was too wild and crazed. He would do whatever it took to bring back his family and his planet. That is when we all decided to hide our objects."

Peter found himself nodding his head as the stones and people all morphed together and shifted into yet six different objects. "Tesseract hid his stone within a blue capsule and named it the same. He gave it to the realm of Jotunheim, hoping its freezing capabilities would distract Thanos and make him believe that it was simply an artifact of magic that the Frost Giants had created. Orbous placed his stone with a dense obsidian rock and sent it far into space, where the Guardians of the Galaxy eventually found it on the planet Morag. Sceptra hid hers within a blue mineral and built a scepter out of the finest metals to hold it. She gifted it to the First King of Asgard, where it was passed down. Loki Laufeysson eventually gained the scepter, and from him to you. Aether warped her powers, the most volatile one, into a type of mist and created a device to hold it. The magical dark elves of Svartelfheim gained the power and device as a sign of goodwill, but they used it for evil purposes. One of the many reasons that Aether is now distrustful of other creatures."

Peter's heart felt a sharp pang. That reason explained why Aether was so tense and angry around Dr. Strange: the Sorcerer Supreme held magic, just like the dark elves did. Peter sniffed, looking towards the last two stones that Agamotto had yet to detail: his own stone, the Time Stone, and Gamoul's stone, the Soul Stone.

"With me, I wrapped my stone within a veil of secrecy and built an amulet out of metals found only in Friðrheim," Agamotto's voice continued, and his shadow-figure disappeared into the blank amulet that Dr. Strange was wearing around his chest. However, in the shadow version of the amulet, a misty green rock was glowing solidly. "I had been communicating with the first Sorcerer Supreme, and due to the intelligence and wisdom in his words, I gave mine to him. He had never failed me, and neither has any of the Sorcerer Supremes to follow him."

At this moment, Agamotto paused, and all the shadow figures and objects fell away, leaving only Gamoul's shadow-figure to remain. Peter glanced back at the table, and it seemed as if the other men were confused as well. The young man moved his gaze then towards Agamotto, and he was surprised to find a sad smile on Agamotto's lips. The next time that Agamotto spoke, his mouth did move along with the words.

"Gamoul is not the original designer of the Soul Stone. She was an unfortunate victim that was killed in order to retrieve the Soul Stone," Agamotto sighed, shaking his head. "She was taken before her time was up. You see, in order to retrieve the Soul Stone, one must sacrifice the person they love most. A soul for a soul. The creator of the Soul Stone, a woman named Selene, had lost someone very dear in her life. She felt like the price was necessary: if someone wanted to use the object of her power, then they needed to be in the same position that she was. Alone, unable to go to her most precious loved one because they were dead."

Peter blinked his eyes in surprise at the story. It was...morbid, to say the least. The other Celestials, while they seemed tough and had been through many a rough time, were still sane. This Selene woman sounded...too crazy to be true. Peter sat his chair back up and took a seat in it, his mind whirling from all the details that Agamotto had just spouted out. Bucky glanced at the younger boy and Peter caught his eyes: it was the look of 'I-can't-believe-that-just-happened' and 'I-stopped-being-surprise-seventy-years-ago'.

"Gamora…"

Peter's neck cracked audibly as he whipped his head towards Dr. Strange. The doctor's hand was resting casually over his mouth, but his eyes were whirling. Peter could literally watch the thoughts zoom around in his head. "D-Dr. Strange...what did you say?"

"Gamora," he answered, this time speaking the name louder. T'Challa and Bucky both seemed as confused as Peter was. The doctor turned his head towards Peter, ignoring the looks of distress and confusion coming from the two other men. "Peter, remember back to when we were on Titan. We were fighting Thanos, and we almost had the Infinity Gauntlet off. Quill...he walked up to Thanos and asked him where Gamora was, remember?"

"Wasn't Gamora his weird alien girlfriend?" Peter asked hesitantly, his mind racing to try and keep up. The memory of when Peter, Dr. Strange, and Tony had all first met the Guardians of the Galaxy came vividly to mind. "Oh! He was asking where she was when we first met them. On the spaceship thingy!"

"That's her," Dr. Strange confirmed, and he turned to look at Agamotto. "That's her, isn't it? Gamoul is Gamora; she was sacrificed by Thanos in order to get the Soul Stone."

All Agamotto did was nod in return.

"Not that this information is unnecessary," Bucky cut in, eyeing Peter in a way that made the teenager realize that he was going to have to re-explain everything to the ninety year old later, "but back to the real question at hand: what do you want us to do?"

"Thanos is a monster that must be stopped," Agamotto said fiercely, surprising Peter. Peter didn't think the grandfather-like Celestial could be stern with a single bone in his body. "Your task is to go out and search for the one thing that can defeat the Infinity Stones: the Convergenst Stone and the Watch of Fate."

"Ok, you have officially lost me," T'Challa put in, shaking his head. He ran a hand over his short, curly hair in frustration. "Please, in the fastest yet simplest way, explain what the Convergenst Stone is and what is the Watch of Fate?"

"The Watch of Fate is simple to explain, so I will explain that first. Just as the Infinity Gauntlet is the only way to safely harness the power of the six Infinity Stones, the Watch of Fate is the only way for the Convergenst Stone to be safely handled. The Convergenst Stone was created by all six Celestials: Tesseract, myself, Sceptra, Orbous, Aether, and Selene. We created it as a fail-safe; a way to deactivate the Infinity Stones in case anything happened, or anyone happened," Agamotto explained, and Peter found himself nodding along to the description, just like the other men at his table. "There are multiple steps for this plan to work: the first step is to locate the Watch of Fate. It has been deeply hidden within a small moon, as to not attract the attention of any treasure hunters. The second step would be to locate the Convergenst Stone. Both of these items are hidden within the realm of Friðrheim and can be found with a Keeper of Friðrheim." Again, this was a moment where Peter and Bucky looked at each other with confusion, but Agamotto kept on speaking. "After you have found the Watch and the stone, you will need to choose a Wielder."

"A what?" Bucky asked, still looking completely baffled by Peter's standards.

"A Wielder. In order to work, someone must be compatible with the Watch of Fate and be willing to wield it. Afterwards, you will move on to step four, which is locating Thanos. We have been unfortunate in our attempts to locate him after he left Earth, but by the time you return here, we should be able to give you a route. Then, the tricky part: you must defeat Thanos with the Convergenst Stone, and use it to purify the wrongdoings of the galaxy. Destroying the Infinity Gauntlet is also a need that must be done, so that no one else besides the Celestials can control the Infinity Stones all at once. Step six would be bringing each Infinity Stone safely back to each of the Celestials' home planet: Friðrheim, Hugrmir, Rúmmir, Vormir, Aukimir, Stundmir. Afterwards, you will return the Convergenst Stone and the Watch of Fate back to their original homes. Then, and only then, will we allow you to return home to your planet of Earth," Agamotto finished off dramatically.

Agamotto snapped his fingers and sat down, and the party whirled back to life, everyone moving about as if nothing had happened; as if an elderly Celestial being hadn't basically formed together a group of soldiers, spies, mutants, and aliens in order to defeat the legend of darkness himself. Agamotto leaned forward his seat, folding his hands together and resting them down onto the table in front of him. "Well, my friends, what do you say?"

Peter didn't even need to wait for Dr. Strange, T'Challa, or Bucky before he gave his answer.

"I'm in."


A/N: Hey y'all! I know, it's been a heckin' long time since I've posted last. I've had tons of schoolwork (college, baby!) and my weekends have been booked solid.

I just saw Endgame last night. Wasn't my favorite movie, but it has its high moments. Just a warning to everyone reading this story: from here on in, I can solidly say that Endgame Spoilers will show up. There's no way for me to continue this story unless some do. So, yeah XD

lastarael: I'm glad that you like what I've done with the Asset and Bucky! Yeah, I did realize when writing that that it might not have been very Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes like, but hey, what the heck? You'll have to wait and see with the Aether comment :)

SceneQuiverBroad: I'm glad that you got it right! Thank you so much for your compliment! :)

Guest: Ooooh...yeah, I'll definitely have to play with that and see what happens. Thanks!

MadCrazyChloe: Yep! It's actually Gamora.

cardboardbox2.0: First off, love your name. Secondly, I understand that he is acting a little younger than he is in canon, but you have to keep in mind that he's a 15, maybe 16, year old who has been turned into dust and thrust onto a planet with a bunch of strangers he doesn't know very well. I'd be terrified out of my wits and acting much younger than my age if I was him.

Estel Ashlee Snape and AliceCullen3: Thanks you guys! I love seeing your reviews throughout the chapters, even if they are just small "You done good, kid"s XD

I have no idea when the next chapter will come out, so have fun until then! Please review, favorite, follow, or whatever until then! (And see Endgame, very good).