They took Eleanore's car because Darren's Tesla was too small for all four of them to fit comfortably. Darren drove with Steve in the passenger seat since, as Eleanore had wisely pointed out, the two of them had the longest legs. She sat in the back behind Darren, but leaned closer with her hand on Darren's seat to be part of the conversation.
"So, do you want to hear why I have an alien in my apartment?" she asked as soon as they got pulled out of the driveway. It was a sunny day, with a very small breeze wending its way through the buildings of the city.
"Of course," Steve replied, musing that a week ago he would have been incredibly tense about anyone driving him who-knew-where. He mentally shrugged, figuring that out of all the people on Earth these two were more likely to prevent his death than not.
"Darren, do you have—"
"I turned it on as soon as I got to your apartment building," Darren replied. "But you were already talking, so if SHIELD was listening—"
"Then they'd be violating our agreement, and I'd have to stop working with them." Eleanore made a face, then brightened. "But we'd still hang out with you, Steve."
Darren started chanting, "One of us! One of us!" under his breath.
"Okay, stop it," Eleanore chided.
"What does he have?" Steve asked, left behind by their interjected exchange. He felt somewhat relaxed even so. Eleanore and Darren had that effect when Steve was around them.
"It's a scrambler device that prevents SHIELD or anyone else from listening in on our conversations," Darren explained. "Elle signed a contract with them that she'd report all important developments involving you, and in return they promised not to bug her home or car. But I don't trust them," he shrugged. "They want to corner the market on secrets—"
"Okay, but let's focus on me again," Eleanore interrupted cheerily, causing Darren to roll his eyes and smile. "So Darren here is an alien, and I had no idea when we started dating, but he told me right away, which pissed his dad off but he got over it." She settled into her speed-telling mode, and Steve settled in for the ride. Darren merged onto the interstate quietly.
"So I knew Darren was an alien, but he acted pretty normal most of the time. We dated for two years, and then he asked me one day if I'd like to go see his mom's home planet, because apparently he made a trip every year. And I was like, yeah sure."
"Not your brightest move," Darren joked, glancing back at her in the mirror.
"Actually it worked out pretty well," Eleanore rebutted. "So Darren called ahead somehow using magic and told them he had a plus-one and we went to a remote location for a beam-up— we'll show you Star Trek sometime, Steve— and it was painless, but when I looked around after it was over, I was in a wilderness of mountains and trees on a strange planet, no people in sight. They launched me too far."
"No, they calculated for my dad, not you, and you were basically lucky to be alive after that." Darren's expression changed as he remembered the close call.
"Right. So there I was, lucky to be alive," Eleanore continued energetically, ignoring her sombre boyfriend. "And night was falling, so I saw this glow far away on the other side of some trees and rocks, and I headed there."
"And you're supposed to stay still if you're lost," Darren loudly protested.
"Thanks mom. So when I got close to the glow I saw that it was these glowing, warm rocks. Well, not warm. More like kind of melting. But they warmed me and I was cold, so I stayed on the edge of that clearing place while the rocks kept glowing. After a while I could tell they were cooling off, obviously not naturally occurring, so I wondered what had made them so hot. Darren here hadn't really told me about native animals, so imagine my surprise when two giant flying things landed in front of me and started growling."
"They were dragons," Darren clarified.
"Hard to see that when night was falling and all I could think was, I didn't ask my mom if I could come to a strange planet oh my god she's going to flip when she finds out I got killed without even informing her." Eleanore's eyes grew distant with remembered fear. Steve could sympathize with that. He still got chills when he remembered his first real battle sometimes.
"But then one of the dragons— the smaller one: one was big and yellow, the other was smaller and orange— lunged at me jaws snapping, and I was just ready to die then and there. But the other yellow dragon got in its way, and they growled some more, and I don't remember a lot of their exchange because I think I got a little hysterical and hyperventilated. The next thing I knew, I was being looked at by these two dragons. The yellow one was closer, and it was coming toward me slowly. So I did the logical thing and stepped toward it, and we met in the middle in this really cool movie moment where I was right at its snout, and it could have snapped me up in one bite easy."
Darren shifted uncomfortably, glancing back in the mirror once more. Steve noted that they were heading into a more rural area, trees all around.
"But it didn't, just breathed on me a lot. Its breath was really scorching, and I backed away a little. It stretched its neck toward me, and then its tail was behind me and I reflexively grabbed it because I almost tripped. So that's literally the first modern human contact with a dragon— I'm wanting to change it in the history books." Eleanore smiled absently and paused for a moment, lost in memory. Steve could kind of see the picture she was painting with words, although he just imagined the landscape to be like Earth's.
"Then it wrapped its tail around me to keep me from falling, and we just fell still a sat for a minute, looking at each other. Then the dragon huffed a little and motioned back with its head, but I didn't get it. So it lifted me onto its back. And took off. And my memory fails me again there, because I was scared shitless and I don't know how I stayed on. But then we were landing somewhere warmer, like the air was warmer, and it was more rainforesty than mountainy. Before we entered the trees I saw what looked like buildings a couple of miles away. The dragon I was riding landed first, and I only knew the other one was there when it almost knocked me over with its wings as it touched down. I slid off my dragon friend's back, thinking maybe they brought me here to safety when both of the dragons started acting weird, and the yellow one curled around me and I could feel it spitting fire. I could hear the other one fighting too, and this went on for a while before the yellow dragon screamed and it was in horrible pain. I pushed on its leg and made it out of there, and then I was on this battlefield with fire all around in the trees, and people shooting arrows everywhere and throwing spears. The orange dragon was trying to protect the yellow one, but I could see the yellow one's side gaping open and blood spilling everywhere, so I ran over and tried to heal it. But I couldn't. The wound was huge, and I was already tired from everything that day, so really all I accomplished was getting covered in golden blood." Eleanore's face changed from excited to sad as she spoke. "So I went around to the yellow dragon's face and said I'm sorry, for all the good that would do, and I tried to make it as painless as possible. The orange dragon stopped fighting and curled against the yellow dragon's side as it died." Her voice grew softer and she paused, glancing at Steve and giving him a sad grin.
"After it was over I heard the yelling die down, and then just one voice yelling at me. It was Darren. He'd been in the village trying to pinpoint my location, and he arrived a little after the fighting started so he didn't see me until I went around to heal the wound. Apparently the dragons and the Vanir— people from Vanaheim— had an ongoing cold war, and each side would attack every once in a while. They had lookouts who spotted us flying in and attacked right away. It was nighttime so it was hard to see me anyway, I suppose. So then we were reunited and I screamed at everyone who had fought the dragons, which, let me tell you, is a great way to introduce yourself to your future in-laws. The orange dragon just lay there, and I thought it was dead too, except then I felt its emotional pain as well. Darren told me they had to have been mates. So I went up to the orange dragon because no one else was going to, and I sat by him for a few hours. Then we got up and came home. And the orange dragon came with me." Eleanore turned to Jet, who had been steadfastly looking out the window, and stroked his head. He shook her off. "He's not very cuddly, but he is protective."
"Wait, so Jet is the orange dragon who didn't like you?" Steve understood, but was still wrapping his head around the unexpected turn.
"Yeah." Darren spoke up, his voice loud in the quiet car. "Dragon mate strictly for life, so when one mate dies the other one either dies with them or lives alone. The ones who live alone often go crazy."
"But Jet's not crazy," Eleanore assured Steve. "Darren's mom says that he made his new purpose protecting me, since his mate died doing that."
"So he can talk?" Steve asked, bewildered. Would a talking dragon be any stranger than a non-vocal one?
"No one knows," Eleanore replied. "Dragons do have their own language, although they haven't been studied closely enough to decipher most of it. They're kind of like dolphins, only smarter. Jet can understand what we're saying, but I don't know if he doesn't respond because he can't or because he's just not into sharing."
"Dragons are beings born of magic," Darren interjected. "So they could pass the Allspeak down from generation to generation. Some have communicated before, but not through language. More like a mind-meld."
"Well, here we are." Eleanore sat back in her seat as Darren parked the car outside the same abandoned factory Eleanore had brought Steve to the day he saw Peggy again.
"What happens here?" Steve got out of the car and stretched his legs, surveying the trees surrounding them. When he turned back to the car, the Eleanore was standing next to the orange dragon from her story. The eyes were the same blue with the underwater pattern, so it was easy for Steve to identify Jet. The dragon was like legends come to life. He was large compared to the human in front of him, his shoulder ending about three feet above her head, the serpentine neck going up another five feet or so. He was covered with glistening scales that shifted hues as he moved, two rows of evenly-spaced blue spikes that carried down his back tapered to one at his tail, and his face was undoubtedly lizardlike. The wings were also gleaming, and as Steve focused on them he noticed very tiny scales overlaying them as well. Two strong back legs and two smaller front ones resembled a lion's powerful limbs, ending in reptilian clawed feet. The tail coiled around the body whip-like, smaller spikes adorning its length.
"Darren and Tony set up this place. It projects an image up into the atmosphere for an area of about three square miles, and Jet and I come here a couple of times a week to fly." Eleanore grinned and went over to sling an arm around Darren's back. He kissed her forehead.
"Want to watch a flight?" Eleanore asked, swinging up onto Jet's back with apparent ease.
"Don't you need the saddle?" Darren cautioned, opening the trunk of Eleanore's car.
"I'll put it on later," she replied, patting Jet's neck. Before she said another word, the dragon crouched and spread its impressive wings, and then hurtled itself into the sky.
Darren sighed and leaned against the car's bumper, pulling a pair of binoculars from his pocket. Steve walked over to stand beside him, looking at the sky until his eyes hurt. The dragon's flight was something to behold. On the ground, he was certainly formidable, but in the air he was something else entirely, weaving through the lower clouds at gut-wrenching speeds.
"She ever fallen off?" Steve asked nonchalantly.
"Yeah, but she acted like it was on purpose," Darren winced at the memory. "Jet caught her, but it was close. Want a look?" he handed the binoculars to Steve, who thanked him and held them to his eyes.
It was difficult to track Jet's movement, and even more so too identify Eleanore on his back. The glimpses Steve caught of them showed the dragon flat-out, Eleanore sitting plastered to his back, legs clinging to his sides, hands on a couple of spikes at Jet's shoulder. She looked like she might have been yelling at times, whooping with joy, but none of the sound made it to the ground because of a light breeze stirring the trees.
The pair flew for around ten minutes before soaring down, Jet's wings out like a kite to slow them as then landed gently in the exact spot they'd taken off from.
"Whew!" Eleanore jumped down, smiling. "I'll get the saddle now. Windy up there." She came over to Darren and they pulled a large silver vinyl blanket with straps out of the trunk and Jet knelt down and actually smoothed his spikes down so they could throw it over his back, straightening them back up to fit through holes in the fabric. It only took a moment for the two of them to get everything strapped, since there were only a few buckles. The saddle had one strap to go under Jet's belly and one to wrap around his chest so it wouldn't slide off. It looked sturdy, and the actual saddle part was small with a clearly defined seat, a small pouch behind that, and two sets of straps for the passenger's legs on the side.
Eleanore reached up to Jet's head to bring him down to her level, and he complied, snaking his head around so he blocked her from sight. Steve could hear her voice whispering, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. Finally they separated and all three of them— two aliens and one human mutant— focused their attention on Steve.
"So Steve," Eleanore asked, "Fancy a ride?"