A/N So regarding the technology that will be used in this story: I'm going to assume. The guardians have some impressive alien tech, but I could be wrong. If I am, though, just assume it's me using artistic license and don't correct me heh!

OOOOOO

"So are you going to homecoming?"

Peter shrugged, even though Ned couldn't see it over the phone – and Nutmeg dug claws into his shirt to avoid being displaced by the motion.

"I want to. But I don't know if MJ is planning on it. Did you hear her say anything?"

Ned had more classes with her than Peter did.

"She hasn't said anything to me, but you know she'll go if you ask her."

"I don't want her to think I'm just assuming she's at my beck and call," Peter said, uncertainly, rubbing a finger along Nutmeg's nose and smiling when the kitten pounced on it and started gnawing on it. "We're-"

"Just call her, Peter," ned interrupted. "Stop being such a wuss."

Peter laughed.

"I'm not."

"When's Natasha coming back?"

"Sunday. Same as Steve and Carol."

Ned knew that; the fact that Natasha wasn't at the compound was one of the reasons that his friend had decided not to come out that weekend. Peter was his friend and they had a pretty good time hanging out, but Natasha watching was one of Ned's favorite forms of entertainment.

"You hanging out with Pepper and Tony?"

"Yeah. Tony went patrolling with me, tonight."

"Seriously? Awesome. Anything interesting happen?"

"He wanted to try out Shuri's new scanners. Nothing interesting happened. Pretty boring night, really. It has been the past couple of times I've gone out."

"Well, better to be bored than have some kind of crazy alien invasion…"

Peter smiled at Ned's obscure reference to the skrull incident before school started.

"True." He felt his stomach suddenly tighten, just a little, and frowned, sitting up in his bed and looking around – catching Nutmeg when he tumbled off his chest. "I need to go, Ned…" Peter said. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Let me know if Natasha comes home, early."

Peter rolls his eyes.

"Yeah. See ya."

He ended the call, looking around and then standing up and walking to the window. Looking out over the field, he didn't see anything that would make his spider senses tingle like they were, just then – and it was the faintest of sensation – not something that made him think anything terrible was happening.

Serious enough to need to checked out, though.

"Karen? Ask Friday to tell Tony I'm not sleepwalking."

"Sure."

"You don't think you should let him know something's up?" Alec asked.

"Nothing is, yet," Peter said, walking through his quarters, pulling on a sweatshirt and settling Nutmeg on his cat tree before closing the door behind him. "If I find something wrong, I can let him know."

Unspoken (but still heard by the alien in his head) was the fact that he didn't want to pull Tony out of bed if it wasn't important.

"He wouldn't mind."

"I know. I would, though."

There weren't a lot of people at the compound that weekend. Steve and Natasha had gone with Clint to North Carolina to take a large group of new SHIELD recruits to a training session with some special forces. Carol Danvers had joined them, interested as always to see how that was handled. There were always agents around, though, as well as security forces – and of course Tony was on the premises, so Peter wasn't too concerned.

"Peter?"

Not surprisingly, Tony's voice came through his communication watch.

"Yeah."

"What's up?"

"I'm just checking something outside," he said, trying to sound nonchalant. "It's nothing. I just didn't want you to think I was sleepwalking."

"Are you feeling something?"

"Yeah…"

Peter was in the corridor and nearing the entrance to the area by the field by then.

"Hang on. I'll be right there."

"It's probably nothing serious," the boy pointed out. "You don't need to-"

Just as he reached for the door, it swung open and Peter found himself face to face – kind of – with a raccoon. A raccoon that was standing on its hind legs, dressed in some kind of outfit and holding a large (for it) gun of some sort.

The thing looked at him, the gun coming to bear on Peter – who brought his hands up.

"Are you Peter?" the raccoon asked him.

"You've got to be kidding me…"

Peter was so shocked that he didn't answer and he barely heard Alec's reaction, either. The mobile face of the raccoon made an annoyed expression.

'"Kid? Are you deaf? Are you Peter?"

"Yeah. What-"

"Peter?"

Tony's voice was coming from his communicator, just as the security alarms went up all around the compound – alerted by FRIDAY that someone was there that didn't belong.

The boy and the raccoon were looking at each other, and Peter was jerked from his shock by the appearance of a strange man coming through the door behind the raccoon – and behind him what looked like a moving tree with eyes and a mouth.

"Hey, we don't have all day to – oh." The man looked at Peter – and he, too, was holding a weapon in his hand. "Is this him? Are you Peter?"

The sound of shouting coming down the corridor brought the guns in the hands of the newcomers down, facing that direction, and Peter's hands were suddenly glowing, slightly.

"Who are you?"

"Come with us, kid," the man said, reaching for him with the hand that didn't have the weapon. "We'll introduce ourselves later."

Predictably, Peter stepped back, easily, out of the man's grip – even while Alec was making himself known in the boy's head.

"He's here to help you," the ancient sorcerer said. "At least, he believes that he is."

The boy didn't have time to listen, just then. Several things were happening at once. And he had no intention of going with anyone he didn't know – he was long past the days when he was an easy grab. The raccoon brought the gun up – and while it seemed to be aiming at Peter, he knew instinctively that it was being aimed at someone behind him – or at the sound of approaching people.

The guy who grabbed at him stepped forward, as if to make another attempt, and a spell roared through the boy's mind – compliments of the mind stone or Alec, he wasn't sure – and it didn't matter. A sweeping motion of his right hand brought blue light that seemed to freeze everything in the area for just a moment, and then sent the raccoon and the man both to the floor of the corridor, bonelessly.

He was turning to see who was coming and moved just in time to avoid a sweeping tree branch that had aimed at his head and a deep voice shouting the names Peter and Rocket, even though it sure sounded a lot like I am groot, as well.

Tony and several SHIELD agents – security forces and people who had been roused by the alarm raised – came storming down the corridor, the Ironman suit leading the charge, and Peter belatedly activated his own suit, sans the helmet.

As Peter turned, Tony's hand came up, pointing at him and fired. The blast went over his shoulder and he heard a grunt as the repulser blast hit the tree that had been attacking him, knocking it back, out of the corridor and into the open air right outside.

A shouted warning from Alec had Peter raising his hand before Tony could fire, again.

"Wait! Don't kill him."

Tony came to a halt, the SHIELD guys behind him. He looked at Peter; immediately checking for any sign of injury, and then at the three bodies splayed on the floor – and out the door.

"What the hell is going on?"

Before replying – urged by Alec – Peter made another wide gesture with his hands and now it was a green light that swept from his hands – this time aimed upward. It shot through the ceiling and vanished.

"I'm not sure…" he admitted. "But they were after me…"

OOOOO

"Shit!"

"I told them to let me take the lead," Drax said, already gathering up his weapons. "Send me down there. I'll take care of it all."

Gamora shook her head, her eyes on the display in front of her, and her fingers moving, quickly.

"I'm just going to bring them back. I told him this was a dumb-"

Mantis suddenly made a squeaking noise, her eyes wide as she looked out the forward viewer.

"What is that?"

Gamora and Drax both watched as the green light suddenly came from nowhere, enveloping their ship before she could activate any kind of evasive maneuver. Alarms screamed all over the ship and the internal lights blinked, twice, and then everything went dark.

"What's happening?" Mantis asked in the blackness and silence that followed.

"We just got shot out of the sky," Gamora replied, trying to restart the power and failing as the Milano started plummeting toward the earth.