"Shit," Steve says, because he's got nothing else to say that could possibly suffice for what he's seeing in front of him.

T'Challa tenses, as if wondering if they're going to need to attack. Sam still gapes at the creatures gathered around a strange looking… spaceship?

You already know aliens are real, Steve reminds himself. Why is this so shocking?

"What are you looking at?" snaps the raccoon. Sam yelps and Steve takes a step back.

"Oh hey," says the man, who actually looks like a human being. Two other humans loiter nearby, an enormous man with tattooed skin, and a woman with green skin and a smirk on her face.

And there's a walking tree.

Steve rubs his eyes. "Am I dreaming?"

"Erm, nope," says the man. "I've heard of you guys. Avengers, right? Cool name."

"I'm confused," states T'Challa. The morning sun shines down on them, and the humidity swathes them, seeping in through Steve's suit. Sweat drips down his back.

"I'm guessing you haven't heard of me. I'm Starlord."

"What kind of a name is that?" demands Steve. The other man sets his jaw.

"We haven't heard of you," T'Challa says, still trying to figure these people out. Creatures. People. Steve can't tell.

"Okay, Starlord, what are you doing here?" Sam demands.

The large man, who reminds Steve of the Hulk, glares at Sam. Steve clutches his shield.

"Relax," says the green woman. "We're not here to attack."

"Yeah, we come in peace, or whatever," adds Starlord.

"I am Groot," says the tree.

"There's now a talking tree," Sam squeaks.

"We did not come in peace," growls the tattooed man, who's roughly the size of a boulder. "We came to warn of war."

"You want a war?" snarls T'Challa.

"Great job, Drax," snips the raccoon. "Look, we're not here to start one. We're just warning you, is all. See, her dad—"

"Thanos is not my father," the green woman interrupts. She crosses her arms and surveys them. "The man who would like to consider himself my father is at risk of destroying the entire galaxy, your world included. We heard of the Avengers' exploits and came to warn you."

"Who is Thanos and why does he want to destroy everything?" Sam asks. "And how did you hear about us?" He looks to T'Challa, to Steve. "Are we famous in space?"

"Xandar keeps track of a variety of worlds," the green woman explains, as if that should make sense. She leans back against the ship.

"So you are aliens," Steve says.

"Not me. Well, I'm only half-alien, half-Terren," says Starlord.

"Are you here about our friends who disappeared the other day?" Steve asks. "To Asgard?"

"As-what?" asks the raccoon.

"I had enough things to deal with without extraterrestrial intrusions," groans T'Challa.

"Look, we can explain about Thanos," says the green girl. "I'd heard that Terrens spend their whole lives on one planet."

"Boring, if you ask me," snips the raccoon.

"Safe," Sam counters.

"So, boring," the raccoon says, waving its paw. His paw. Hand?

"We'll come with you if you want," adds Starlord, holding up his hands. "We're not trying to create a problem, but we're gonna have a lot to talk about. Where are your other friends?"

"At my palace," says T'Chalal, straightening out of attack mode. Steve still clutches his shield.

"Are the other Avengers still in New York?" questions the green woman.

How do they know so much? It's somewhat eerie. Sweat creeps down Steve's spine.

"Yes," T'Challa answers.

"Including the purple one? With the mind gem in him?"

"Vision?" Steve asks. "You mean the thing from Loki's scepter?"

"Yes, Loki's scepter had the mind gem," the woman says impatiently. Judging from the flash in her eyes, Steve's guessing she knows Loki, and that hardly makes him want to trust her. If you knew he planned to invade, why didn't you warn us then?

How much worse can the danger be now?

"That friend of yours is in great danger," the woman warns.


Every footstep echoes in this hollow moon. The sky around them glows a dark chrome, and the red-brown rocks—are they rocks?—jut out like angry warriors, ready to stab anyone unlucky enough to trip over the uneven terrain.

"If this is where someone who wants to destroy the world lives, I believe it," Natasha breathes.

Bucky glances at her. Unrecognizable in her Chitauri armor, she deftly dodges a strange crack along the surface. Bucky follows her footsteps.

"Don't you think?" she asks, as if she's trying to engage him in conversation.

He shrugs. In his childhood, maybe he would have pictured this empty place as the setting for a villain's lair. In his life, though, he knows exactly where villains live—in labs, in palaces, in Siberia and New York and Sokovia. "People are doing a fine job destroying the world from inside it."

Natasha pauses on the edge of a staircase that seems to float up. "True enough."

Bucky's surprised. "I thought you fight to save the world."

"Didn't you?" she asks. "Once?"

"Back in the war," he admits. Back when he thought there was a world worth saving.

"Do you miss them?" Natasha asks as she climbs the steps. "Your family. I know Steve struggled with it, when he realized how much time, and how many people, he lost…"

Bucky snorts, stepping onto the floating stair. It supports his weight. "How close were you with him?"

"We've done several missions together," Natasha answers.

Dammit. Bucky sighs. "I miss them, but I'm glad they're gone." He wouldn't have wanted his family, any of the girls he'd dated—to know what he's become. More villain than hero, soldier for the wrong side, an assassin with faces that flash behind his eyes when he needs them to go away. Like now.

"Have you ever tried to track down any relatives, or descendants?" Natasha asks as she duck beneath the outcropping of another floating mass. A moon? An asteroid?

"I'm not going to put them through that." Bucky shakes his head. "Have you tried to track down your family?"

"They're dead. I watched them die," Natasha says. "The Avengers are my family. Like Steve is for you."

Bucky does not want to talk about this. He can only imagine how enraged Steve might be. But if he can get his mind back…

Scream tears through the dead air, rushing down Bcuky's spine. He tries to focus. Longing. Rusted.

Stop! Stop!

"Bucky?" Natasha asks

Seventeen…

"Oh, shit," Natasha says as she grabs the one arm he still has. Focus. Focus on her, and not on the screams.

He sees her grabbing something, a rock maybe, and he sees faces, all those faces, again, and they're—

Something slams into his skull, and everything goes black.


"Oh, Tony's gonna react to that real well," scoffs Sam. "People from space say we need you."

"Are all Terrens this petty?" Starlord wonders.

"You hardly seem to inspire a different opinion," the green woman, Gamora, tells him. Steve snorts and exchanges a smirk with T'Challa.

"Look," says Rocket. "We came to warn you, and now we have."

"Warn us that a mad Titan has space jewelry he's going to use to blow up the world?" asks Scott.

"Is it really so hard to believe?" asks Wanda, lifting her hands. Red tendrils float around her skin.

"I am Groot," says the tree appreciatively. Wanda smiles. Clint rubs his face, studying his shoes as if they hold the answer.

"Thanos is not to be trifled with," Drax says. "He killed my family. He needs to be destroyed."

"He also killed mine," Gamora says. "Before he adopted me. He adopted Loki, too."

"What?" Clint jumps to his feet. "Did you say—"

"Thanos is a master manipulator," Gamora says, her voice permeated with a bitter tinge. She crosses her arms and look sstraight at T'Challa. "He takes in children who survive his assaults on their home worlds, after he's massacred everyone else. He molds them into weapons. He takes in anyone he finds lost in the galaxy in whom he sees something he can use, and he breaks them down and uses them however he wishes."

Like Bucky, Steve thinks. He studies the green woman. What did he do to you?

"My sister Nebula found Loki," Gamora says.

"Loki tortured me," Clint says coldly. "Not physically. He used the scepter to—"

"I know," Gamora says. "He saw you had heart, and he used that. Thanos showed us all."

"Good thing baby Thanos is dead," Clint mutters. Gamora cocks her head.

"So this mind gem," Wanda says, her brow creased. "Thanos wants it?"

"Looks like aliens are becoming an ordinary part of life. Great," Scott comments.

"Thanos took the power gem recently from Xandar," says Starlord. "Somewhere in space," he clarifies. "He's going after the mind one next."

Wanda glances at Steve, at Sam, at Clint. "We can't let them hurt Vision."

"We won't," Steve promises her. She sided with him when he needed to protect Bucky. Now, as sketchy as the situation may be, he won't let her try to save Vision on her own.

"Tony is never going out believe this," says Sam darkly.

"Would he believe a bunch of aliens?" asks Starlord. "If we showed up at this tower I've heard about on the Milano?"

"Like the actress?" Scott asks.

Steve rubs his head. T'Challa's eyes are still wide as if to say I can't believe I'm entertaining aliens in my palace.

"Everyone," Wanda says, rising and clenching her fists. "This is the life of our friend we're talking about. If what they say is true, and this Thanos comes for him, he'll—"

"Funnily enough, you raise a good point," Clint says as he leans forward. "Why should we believe them?"

"Um, because we came from space to warn you?" Starlord challenges.

"Ungrateful," grumbles Rocket. Every time that animal speaks, Sam jumps.

"If they go, I could go with them," Wanda suggests. "I think if they're lying, I'm the best one able to handle it." Red glows from her hands, in her irises.

"Are you sure that's safe?" Clint grabs her arm.

"We don't need one of you tagging along," Rocket snaps.

"I am Groot," the tree disagrees. Oh good grief, am I starting to understand that thing? Steve wonders, rubbing his face.

Rocket shakes his head. "I know it's her friend, but I—oh, all right, fine, whatever makes you happy, witch."

"Hey!" Steve shouts, but Wanda smiles as if she's not opposed to that name.

"It's settled then," decides Gamora.

"Is it?" Sam glances at Steve, who looks to T'Challa.

The king nods. "I'll provide you with food before you go."

"Won't take us very long. We'll just jet back out into space, and then come back. It's the only way to travel, man," Starlord tells them all.

Steve shakes his head.


His head burns. The stench of whatever Chitauri used to own this armor shoves its way up his nose. He coughs and groans.

"Who am I talking to?" Natasha demands, grabbing him. She relaxes when she sees his face.

"What did you do?"

"Recalibration. It worked for Clint when Loki enchanted his mind." Natasha scowls.

"Where are we?" They're inside somewhere, shadows crisscrossing over the floor, a bit of dull light dotting under craggy ceiling.

"Some cave." Natasha shrugs as more screams split the air.

The screaming. Bucky clamps his lips shut as the shrill shrieks scratch at his skin.

"Listen," Natasha says. "If you can't do this—"

"I can. I need to—"

"I can do it for you," Natasha interrupts. "I can't risk something happening to you. Steve would kill me."

Bullshit. There's no way Bucky's letting that happen. He's capable of this. "Where are those screams coming from?"

"I investigated while you were out." Natasha picks up a small rock in her hand and tosses it into the air. "Nothing good."

"They're torturing people. Or, aliens." Bucky frowns. Chitauri?

Natasha tosses and catches the rock again. "Yes."

"How soon can we get away from this place?"

The rock clatters onto the ground. Natasha swallows. "I think there's a tunnel under it. Remember, Loki did say there was a tunnel…"

"Directly under it?"

"Yeah."

"Shit." Bucky rubs his face. "Fine. If I freak out—"

"I'll bash you over the head," Natasha tells him with a smile.

"You don't have to look so happy about it," he tells her, surprised by the teasing lilt in his voice. She laughs, and the sound—happy, free—offsets the tortured screams.

She cocks her head and reaches for her helmet, and plants it over her curls. "Let's go."

Both of them climb down into the canyon. The screams echo all around them, shredding the sense of calm Bucky remembers sheathing him for all of those missions. He tenses. Maybe, without it, he's useless now.

This mission is to save yourself. And maybe other people, too, if Loki's telling the truth, Bucky tells himself.

"Here," Natasha says, stopping in front of a small gaping hole at the base of the cliff. "We've gotta be quick."

He nods and ducks inside. His shoulders barely squeeze through, but he gets in. Hopefully the tunnel doesn't narrow at all. Only once he's inside does he realize he should have let Natasha go first, so she could kick him in the head if the screaming gets too much. And then he wishes he hadn't realized that. His brain's all over the place. It's a mess. Like him.

The tunnel's pitch black, and dust flies up into his nostrils. Natasha coughs behind him, and instead of feeling nothing in the air, heat swoops in. Sweat trickles down his back, and the rocks surrounding them burn against his clothes.

The screams erupt, and Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, freezing.

"Bucky," Natasha says. "Come on. You can do it. Think of—of Steve."

He hates this. He hates being useless, being a mess, being something pitiable. He should have died when he fell off that cliff.

But he didn't.

He didn't, and now he needs to do this. Drawing in breath through his teeth, Bucky shimmies on.

"Where are you really from?" a voice roars.

"Tell us, and we'll make it stop—"

"Tell us what you know about Alfheim, little elf, and maybe Thanos will have mercy and adopt you—"

Pleas explode, and Bucky crawls on. If hell exists, it must be here. But Natasha's stopped.

"Come on," he growls to her.

"Do you think they tortured Loki?" comes her response.

"Don't you think they'll torture us if we get caught?" he responds. Not that it would matter if they tortured Loki.

Except, it would. Maybe he does know what it's like, Bucky thinks.

The nothingness retakes the heat, and Bucky slides out of the tunnel, Natasha behind him, still coughing.

"What now?"


"So what is your plan? To defeat this Thanos?" T'Challa inquires as he and Steve jump into the SUV driving everyone back to the ship. The Milano. Named after an actress Steve doesn't know.

"We don't have a set plan," Drax grunts. "Would have been easier before he grabbed that power orb."

"It would have," Gamora agrees.

"We're still going to kill him. Somehow." Drax glares out the window, and Steve remembers what the man said about Thanos killing his family.

Steve thinks of Tony and cringes.

"Are you looking to start a war over this?" T'Challa demands.

"A war's already started. Thanos has been planning for ages and ages," Gamora informs him, leaning forward. "He wants power. He wants to kill everything and everyone."

"To rule the world?" Steve suggests.

"To kill it. To destroy it. He's in love with death," Gamora says, her eyes boring into Steve's.

"How exactly does that work?" T'Challa asks.

Gamora shrugs. "I don't know. He's as much an enigma to me as he is to you. All I know is he needs to be stopped."

"I don't want a war based on vengeance for what he did to you or to your family," T'Challa says. "I can't let the people of Wakanda—not again—"

"Not again?" Gamora inquires. She studies T'Challa with her eyes.

He grimaces. "My father died in a desperate bid for revenge. I almost let it destroy me. It tore the Avengers apart," T'Challa says. "I can't—"

"Your father sounds like he was a good man," Gamora tells him, reaching out and placing her hand on his shoulder. He doesn't pull away. "My father taught me to always take revenge. And that was before Thanos."

Steve swallows.

She looks back at T'Challa, her dark eyes stark against her green skin. "I don't want vengeance. I want peace. But I know what Thanos plans to do, and I have to stop it. We do."

"I can respect that," T'Challa tells her.

"We're the Guardians of the Galaxy," puts in Starlord.

Steve exchanges a glance with T'Challa.

"It's a better name than Avengers," snorts Rocket.

"More alliterative," Starlord continues.

Wanda sighs, peering out the window as if she's wondering what she's gotten herself into.


Thanks for reading! I know I update on Saturdays; however, next week I'll be traveling, and will probably update on Sunday instead.