The first meeting of Earth's Mightiest Heroes and the Guardians of the Galaxy didn't go as well as one might have expected. Overblown egos mixed with fear and confusion only made for a grab bag of misunderstanding, swirled into a tornado of distrust and compensatory murderous rage.

Actually, in retrospect, it went pretty much as anyone should expect as a complete and utter disaster.

"Where is Gamora?!"

"I'll do you one better," Tony hissed, "whois Gamora?"

"I'll do you one better," Drax joined in, "whyis Gamora?"

"Oh my god, what in the hell is happening right now?" you asked urgently, your voice just barely loud enough to drown the men out, despite using all of your might to yell for their attention. You had your weapon aimed at the one with the antennae in her forehead, even though she didn't look nearly as intimidating as the others; Tony had the largest one pinned to the ground, while the one who seemed to be the leader had his grip around Parker's neck. "Can we please just bring this in for a minute?"

"Alright," Stephen tried next, "let me ask you this. What master do you serve?"

"What? What master do I serve?" Quill scoffed. "What am I supposed to say? Jesus?"

"Are you with Thanos?" Parker finally asked when no one else seemed to be able to get down to the point. The furious line of questions were tumbling from everyone and from all directions, but no one had yet to ask the one thing that would finally draw the clear divisions between them.

"WithThanos?" Quill answered with a disgusted look. "No, we are not with Thanos. Who the hell are you guys?"

Pete tried to shift himself within Quill's grip that still squeezed tightly around his throat, getting his mask to clear away so that his captor could see that he was a human in a suit and not an actual spider creature that he needed to kill. He never once thought that he might be mistaken for a spider with just a human head; he had no idea what this guy might have seen out in space, but he still hoped for the best.

"We're the Avengers, man."

~~~

After the one of the most fumbling and misunderstood greetings in the universe, the Avengers and the Guardians quickly split into their respective groups to keep to themselves. Each of them were formulating a plan on how to defeat Thanos and get the Gauntlet away from the purple bastard with the ball sack for a chin, without taking the time or consideration to share them with the other.

As per usual, Tony tinkered with Quill's ship as they planned, casually moving a few broken pieces from the landing here and there, and connecting wiring back into place like a maddening puzzle that no one else had dared to tackle. The ship's Captain stood and moved closer to watch once he realized what Stark was doing, only rather than to try to stop him, he quietly sat and watched. After all, it's not like things could get much worse. Peter sat very still at first, other than the quick flicker of his eyes as he tracked Tony's remarkably fast hands. Finally giving in and leaning back against one of the nearby boulders, he reached into his pocket to find some music on his Zune so that he could share and add some enjoyment to what could be their last minutes together.

"Hot damn," Quill sighed heavily, "Rocket would kill to see you in action. I mean, sure, he kills anyway, but at least for this he'd have a legit reason. Not to give you a bigger head or anything, but you're a genius back on Earth, aren't ya?"

Tony peeked his head out from behind one of the bulkheads after his tinkering became full-on work, and he was now covered in grease and a smile that only came with the comfort of grime and the essence of his lab back home. "Obviously. And Rocket is?"

"Oh, right...you haven't met the little guy," Peter smirked. He stood and pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants first, rummaging around until he came up with nothing, instead trying the inner compartments of his jacket until he found exactly what he was looking for. He held out a small, torn, and weathered picture that looked far too delicate to be shoved into a pocket so that Tony could see, "here, that's Gamora, that's Groot, and there in the front...that's Rocket."

"Okay, so that's a raccoon. You guys roll with a trash panda? Like a pet with a rifle?"

"Thank you!" Peter exclaimed with a sharp slap on Tony's shoulder. "That's what I said! Someone finally gets it." He paused again and shook his head solemnly as the mood quickly drifted away; the more he looked at the picture held shakily in his hand, the more he wished that the little shit were here to help in the fight. Also...just maybe...he missed him and was worried that they hadn't made it to Nidavellir. With a hesitant and restrained sniffle and a quick swipe of his hand, Peter shoved the picture back into his pocket and gave his best attempt at a smile, completely failing at convincing anyone. "Worst thing about this guy though? His taste in music is crap. Lucky for you guys, since he jumped ship with that unattractive Thor guy, I've had free reign over the playlist. But, without Gamora...it just kinda sucks the fun right out of it..."

Tony immediately sensed the shift in the man, recognizing the hurt of losing someone so close. He had watched Pepper fall to her death, believing that he was the cause, and he nearly jumped into that fire with her rather than to face a life without her. When he got her back, he swore to himself to never let anything like that happen again. Maybe Gamora was alive, and Thanos really did care about her, but no one could know, and he could see the guilt tearing Quill apart even when he barely knew the man. Grief and blame were universal ideas, apparently, and Tony had a knack for drawing them to him.

"So, let's hear it," Stark offered with a shrug. "What kind of music does a dipshit from Kansas listen to?"

Peter's eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning, standing with a renewed energy, "dude, check this out. This is the song that we were jamming out to when unimpressive Thor hit our windshield."

"Oh, yeah, The Rubberband Man, that's a good one," Tony agreed readily. "Here, let me see that thing." Tony's fingers flew over the tiny controls of the device, scrolling through hundreds of songs in the blink of an eye. "Hold up, you don't have any AC/DC on here. When we get back to Earth, that's the first thing we're going to fix."

"Hey, come on, there's a lot of good stuff there!" Peter grabbed the Zune back and hurried through his playlists to find something that they could have a common interest in, even with the little he knew about the man standing in front of him. "Hmm, Brandy...nope, too many daddy issues there...Father and Son...obviously not...shit, Yondu was kind of an asshole with these uploads..."

"Daddy issues too, huh?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," Quill scoffed. "If we live through this, maybe we can share over a beer. Aha! Here we go! You can't argue with Fleetwood Mac. I don't care who you are, or what planet you're from, you just can't."

As the soft beats and perfectly harmonized voices of the band began to fill the ship and spill out into the air around them, the two men simply smiled with a common understanding, and an unspoken pact to put differences aside for now. Not too far away, Parker was sitting with you and Mantis, who he finally believed to be friendly and not at all interested in laying eggs in his chest. He still stared at her, however, and he kept to your side with just enough distance between them.

"Can I...uh, c-can I ask you a personal question?"

"Of course," she smiled, albeit awkwardly, "no one ever asks me personal questions. Except for that one time Peter asked me about my antenna and now he doesn't ask me anything anymore. I gave away his deepest, darkest secret."

"Oooooh, what is it?" you asked with a wide grin, ready for gossip to lighten the mood.

"No, I can't say."

"He feels sexual love for Gamora," Drax yelled out from the far side of the jet where he had been inconspicuously napping, "but he doesn't want to talk about it. It's one of his hang-ups."

"Dude!" Quill gasped. "Shut up! We don't even know these people, you ass!"

Now that you had entertainment, the three of you stayed where you were after finding joy in your troublemaking, laughing quietly together while you watched Quill and Drax argue, but Parker still had his question to ask. "So, Mantis, what are your antenna for? Do they light up to help you see at night or something?"

"No, they don't light up to help me see at night," she mocked heavily with a roll of her eyes. "They keep me from being decapitated by a doorway."