"Who are they?"
Peter ignored the question, running outside and almost tripping over the tree that had fallen across the door. It wasn't a real tree, he knew, but he didn't have time to consider the ramifications of that, just then. Tony and several of the others followed, while some stopped to secure the scene.
The boy stopped in the middle of the field, looking up into the night sky and Tony followed suit, standing beside him, suit engaged but helmetless at the moment. A faintly glowing light caught his attention, and Peter must have seen it, too, because his hands came up. Tony lifted his, as well, and then the repulser activated when he realized that what he was seeing was some kind of space ship – or craft – or whatever they wanted to call it.
"No…" Peter said, softly. "We're not killing it."
Tony scowled.
"You sure?"
"Yeah. We need to catch it."
Considering the thing was plummeting at insanely fast speeds, Tony hesitated for a moment.
"Put your helmet on."
Then he activated his own and was launching into the sky toward the falling ship.
Peter did as he was told, activating his helmet and then jerking his hands back up.
"What do I do?"
"We can slow it down. Trust Tony to do what he thinks best to catch it."
The spell came to mind, and Peter knew that he actually could have stopped the ship's fall completely, but that doing so would have wiped him out, and he definitely didn't want to be so exhausted that he couldn't find out what was going on – not to mention leaving Tony to tell Pepper what had happened.
Peter's hands were suddenly glowing and the force that shot out from them when the spell was unleashed was enough to light up the already well-lit field. It streaked through the sky, hurtling toward the falling ship and passing Tony, who stopped and hovered, waiting for Friday to tell him the best moment to catch the ship and bring it down.
OOOOOOO
"Get the systems back online!" Drax ordered.
"Yelling doesn't make it work any better," Gamora snapped, hands flying over the control panel. "It's not coming back up. Brace yourself because this is going to hurt."
Mantis scrambled under the heavy table, but she was still watching, and even through her fear her eyes widened.
"Someone is helping! Stop trying to fire the controls."
Drax and Gamora both looked at her like she was crazy, but then they felt their descent slow, a little at first, and then more – until it was possible to see more than just the heat of there passage through the atmosphere.
"What…"
OOOOOOOOO
"Now."
Tony launched the rocket boosters, once more, positioning himself in the Ironman suit under the belly of the ship – Which was large, but nothing like the two that had belonged to the skrull, as far as Friday's quick preliminary scan had informed him. He pressed his hands against the metal of the ship underbelly and felt the force of its fall driving him down.
"Fifty percent thrust, Friday," he ordered, and felt his suit react to the command, slowing the fall.
Peter watched as Tony positioned himself in position and fired the boosters on his feet, admiring – as he always did – just how amazing the tech was, and how incredible his adoptive father was.
"He really is…" Alec agreed, making the boy smile.
"We need to move," Peter said, suddenly, realizing that the ship was going to land right where he and the SHIELD security people were standing.
Since they had no trouble seeing the ship – which was now much closer and closing fast – they all fell back to the side of the field, near the building, and the fallen tree.
"Wow…"
The landing was as smooth as one could hope, all things considered, and Tony dropped to the ground as soon as the landing gear of the ship touched down. He then moved to the side, noticing that Peter and the security force were moving to stand beside him.
"Who's on board?" Tony asked, not disengaging the helmet.
"I don't know," the boy admitted. "I just know that they think they're saving me."
"From what?"
OOOOOOO
"What do we do, now?"
"They must have captured Peter…" Gamora replied, looking through the front view screen. It didn't show her anything, though. Only a field and some trees. "We'll have to negotiate to get him and Rocket back."
"Or we can just kill them all and take them back," Drax pointed out.
Gamora rolled her eyes.
"Whoever they are, they have this Peter child. We need to warn him. So we need to talk to them."
"And get Quill back…" Mantis said.
"Right." She hit the hatch command switch and moved toward the door that was now opening, catching the other two in her peripheral vision as they moved to come in behind her, flanking her. "Let me do the talking."
OOOOOOOOO
There was a sudden clanking sound and a hiss, and the door on the ship suddenly disengaged and began to open, stairs coming out to form all the way to the grassy field. Peter retracted his helmet, and Tony looked over at him, scowled and tapped the housing on the boy's hip, making the helmet reform.
The boy turned to him and he shrugged, an impressive gesture in the suit he was protected by.
"Just keep it on, for now. Okay?"
Tony wasn't quite ready to trust that whoever was in the ship was really someone he was willing to allow near Peter, unprotected.
"Yeah."
There was another sudden motion, and suddenly Stephen Strange was walking across the distance between the edge of the field and where Tony and Peter were standing. The sorcerer was staring at the ship, and his hands were empty and ready. On his collar was the Cloak of Levitation, and it was clear that the sorcerer supreme was ready to stand beside his friends and allies.
"What's going on, Tony?" Strange asked, coming up to stand on the other side of Peter, the two men now flanking the boy, putting him in as protected a space as they could without making him leave.
"Someone came looking for Peter, apparently," Tony told him, turning back to the door. "Heads up…"
A figure was suddenly standing there, looking out of the portal at the people and the area, passing over Tony, Peter and Stephen as if looking for something – or someone – else, and then turned to look at the trio, now. They all saw it was almost certainly a female, and pretty, but didn't look like a skrull. She walked down the stairs and was followed by two other – equally odd-looking to the New Yorkers.
A male, bare chested and bald. Oddly colored and bulging with muscles, looking at them suspiciously, while the other was much slighter, blue and had…
"Are those antennas?" Peter asked, softly.
"Looks like it." Tony stepped forward, hand up but not exactly pointing at anyone. He disengaged the nanotech forming his helmet, trusting the others to watch for any threat. "Did you need something?" he asked the woman, correctly assuming that she was taking the lead.
She nodded, not moving, and all three of them were immediately reminded of Natasha Romanoff when looking at her. She looked around as warily as Natasha might.
"You have Peter. We want him back."