I don't own anything except any original character and/or any original plot

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Chapter Thirty-One: The Guardians

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"How do we get into the main section of the ship?" I questioned quietly. We were stuck in a small opening between the landing bay and its holder.

"I don't know I didn't think about that," Peter whispered, as if whoever was on the ship would be able to hear them from the landing gear holding bay. Although we didn't know how many soldiers were on the ship, and fighting the two aliens was hard enough.

"Hang on, just give me a second," I pressed the insignia on my belt and released the water, throwing my hand forward. The water scraped against the metal near them. I repeated this process until there was a gap between the gear and the rest of the ship, "There, can you squeeze through that?"

Peter stepped through the small gap, giving a thumbs up to show that the coast was clear when he was out. Slipping through as well I looked at the ship around us. It was empty, no crew. Maybe it was only the two aliens from before that were driving the ship and that was it.

"Okay, I know we have to save Strange, but I have two cracked ribs so I need to deal with those first," I winced, the pang in my ribs coming back again now that I wasn't focusing on other things.

"You have cracked ribs? Why didn't you tell me?" Peter asked panickedly, "You should have stayed on Earth, or you should sit down, do you want to sit down?"

"I'm fine, I just hurt right now," I moved water over my ribs, the water sinking into my skin. The ache I felt dulled, but it spread over my entire torso, "Wow, that stings. Okay, I'm good. We can go now."

Peter and I attempted to silently move around the ship. We had no idea where we were going, wandering blindly until Strange screamed in pain, guiding us.

"Look, that's Stark," I pointed out the shiny, red metal of Tony's armor.

The two of us moved along the platform until we were standing above Tony. Peter wrapped his arm around my waist, shooting a web on the beam above us and lowering us down behind Tony.

"Wow, you are one loyal piece of outerwear aren't you?" Tony asked Strange's cloak, sentient and floating itself.

"Yeah speaking of loyalty," Peter set me down when we landed.

"What the-"

"I know what you're going to say," Peter began.

"You shouted be here," Tony stated the obvious.

"We were gonna go home," Peter continued, ignoring him.

"I don't want to hear it," Tony shook his head.

"But it was such a long way down and (Y/n) gave me this look and I just shot out a web and it stuck to the side of the ship. This suit is ridiculously intuitive by the way, so technically, it's your fault."

"My fault," Tony scoffed in disbelief, turning to me, "You know, he started getting rebellious when you got here. Before that it was just voicemails about bike theft."

"You love me Stark," I rolled my arms, "You know Peter would be dead by now if it weren't for me."

"Not the point."

"Kind of the point."

"You two are right here where I didn't want you to be. This isn't Coney Island of Xavier's, this isn't a field trip. This is a one-way ticket. Don't tell me you thought this through."

"We thought this through.'

"You could not have possibly thought this through."

"You can be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and Riptide if there is no neighborhood."

Holding back a grin, I nodded seriously. It was confusing, but I admired Peter's loyalty to New York and his attempt at an inspiring quote. It was the adorkableness I fell in love with.

"Okay, that didn't make a lot of sense but you know what I'm trying to say."

Tony sighed in exasperation, knowing he was outnumbered and not going anywhere by trying to argue. He instead walked over to the edge of the platform facing the bridge.

"Come on, we have a situation," Tony pointed at Strange, "He's in trouble. What's your plan?"

Peter thought for a few seconds before speaking up, "Okay, did you ever see that really old movie Alien?"

"What one? There are like five," I pointed out.

"I don't know I feel like they have the same solution for every one. We'll say the first one."

"What are you two talking about?" Tony questioned, confused as to how a movie could solve our problems.

"In the movie, they break a hole in the ship and it sucked the alien into space," Peter explained briefly, "We could do that and grab the wizard and close the hole after that alien dude is sent out."

"It's the best plan we have and we don't have much time before Strange either dies, goes crazy, or gives in," I crossed my arms, raising a brow.

"Alright, we'll do your pop-culture alien whatever plan," Tony waved his hand dismissively, "I'll blast the hole, Peter you grab Strange, and (Y/n) you'll freeze it over so we don't get sucked out."

We separated, going to the proper positions for our plan. Crouching down, I waited patiently.

"Painful aren't they? They were originally designed for micro-surgery. Anyone of them could-" The alien was cut off by Tony landing behind him, blasters raised and ready to attack. He slowly turned towards the hero, "Could end your friends' life in an instant."

"I gotta tell you, he's not really my friend. Saving him is more of a professional courtesy than anything else."

"You've saved nothing," the alien raised a few spare pieces of metal around him, "Your powers are inconsequential compared to mine."

"Maybe," Tony shrugged, "But the kids have seen more movies."

Tony turned and shot off one of his shoulder rockets, blowing a hole in the side of the ship. The alien was quickly sucked out. Strange moved towards it as well before Peter webbed him. As Peter neared the hole, four legs emerged from the back of his suit, grabbing onto the side and preventing him from moving any further.

"Yes! Wait, what are those?" Peter questioned.

"Alright, Bug-Boy you gotta move," I landed on the metal just above the hole, freezing my feet so I wouldn't get sucked out.

The legs pushed Peter back into the ship. Moving a large amount of water over the hole, I clenched my fist and froze it over. It wouldn't shatter any time soon. All was silent for a few seconds as we recovered, gaining back our breath.

"We gotta turn this ship around," Strange panted, his cloak settling around his shoulders.

"Oh, now he wants to run," Tony stated sarcastically, walking to the front of the bridge.

"No, I want to protect the stone," Strange argued.

"I'm waiting for a thank you. Go ahead. I'm listening."

"There's so much ego in the room," I whispered to Peter, grinning when he chuckled quietly.

"I honestly don't know how you fit your head into that helmet."

"Admit it, you should have ducked out when I told you," Tony crossed his arms, "I tried to bench you, you refused."

"Unlike everybody else in your life, I don't work for you."

"I don't work for him either," I spoke up, ignoring the betrayed look Tony sent me.

"And due to that fact we're now in a flying donut, billions of miles from Earth with no backup."

"We're backup," Peter raised his hand.

"No, you're stowaways. The adults are talking."

"I'm sorry, I'm confused as to the relationship here," Strange motioned to me and Peter, "Dating, obviously. So is one of them your ward?"

"No."

"I'm Peter by the way," Peter held out his hand for Strange to shake.

"Doctor Strange."

"Oh, so we're using our made up names. Then I am Spider-Man," Peter announced awkwardly.

"No, Peter, his name is Strange. This is the whole conversation we had earlier," I put my hand on Peter's shoulder.

"Oh," Peter's face lit up with understanding, "That makes more sense."

Strange turned away from us, "The ship is already correcting its course. Can we control it?"

Tony stayed silent, looking out the large viewing window in front of us.

"Stark? Can you get us home?"

"I'm thinking I'm not so sure we should."

"Stark, under no circumstances can we take this stone to Thanos. I don't think you quite understand what's at stake here-"

"No! It's you who doesn't understand," Tony stalked towards Strange, "That Thanos has been in my head for six years since he sent an army to New York and now he's back! And I don't know what to do. So I'm not sure if we should fight him on our turf or his, but you saw what they did, what they can do. At least on his turf, he's not expecting it. I say we take the fight to him. Doctor. Do you concur?"

"Alright Stark, we'll go to him. But you have to understand, that if it comes down to saving you, or the kids, or the stone, I will not hesitate to let any of you die... I can't because the universe depends on it."

Peter and I shared a nervous look at Strange's statement.

"Nice. Good moral compass," Tony patted Strange's arm. He turned to Peter and me, tapping each of Peter's shoulders like he was knighting him, "Alright kid, you're an Avenger now. (Y/n), do you want the honor?"

"I'm still kind of an X-Men so just tap one shoulder," I motioned to my right shoulder. Tony sighed but tapped it all the same.

"You're an X-Avenger or whatever you want to call yourself."

Tony walked away from us to figure out what to do with the ship. When he was out of hearing distance Peter turned to me, a large grin on his face. I couldn't hold back a laugh. Even in the darkest situations, he could be excited over small things. If being dubbed an Avenger could be considered a small thing.

Now that we had time to relax- as much as we could relax, given the circumstances- I fiddled with the com Shuri gave me, trying to find the right frequency to reach Earth.

"You're two above what it needs to be," Peter grabbed my hand, pressing a few of the holographic buttons until it was right.

"How did you know that?"

"When Shuri was teaching you about what you'd be doing at the internship, I was researching the Wakandan system," Peter gave a dorky smile, "I had to find something to do."

"God I love you," I giggled, focusing on the objective.

"Right, well, I'll let you talk to Shuri," Peter walked towards Strange and Tony.

"Shuri? Shuri can you hear me?"

"Yes, I can. My scanner says you're outside of the atmosphere, are you on the spaceship that was in New York?"

"Yeah, I am. Listen, something big is coming to Earth, really big."

"I know, Captain America and his team are on the way right now."

"Good, you'll need everyone you can get. I need you to tell Cap that I'm with Tony, Peter, and Doctor Strange and that we're bringing the fight to Thanos. Tell him we'll get back to Earth as soon as we figure out how. If we survive against Thanos, that is."

"Survive? (Y/n) you don't sound very sure."

"We will, Doctor Strange is willing to let us die to protect the stone so... But, if I don't, if we don't, make it back. Tell my parents I'm sorry and tell the X-Men that I say thank you, for everything they've ever done for me."

"The Captain is arriving... get back... alive..."

Shuri's voice broke up before I lost it completely. I tapped the hologram a few times, huffing in frustration when nothing happened. Turning back to the boys, I joined their group again.

The ship came out of 'hyperdrive' and approached its final destination. Titan is what that one alien guy had called it. So it must have been where Thanos was from.

"Alright, I don't think this thing has a self-park function. Peter, get your hand in that steering gimbal there. Close those around it," Tony waited for Peter to insert his hand before he continued, "Now this was made for one big guy, so we gotta move this at the same time. Alright?"

"Yeah, got it."

The ship entered the planet's atmosphere fast than I expected. Though, with everything I had seen on the ship already, it shouldn't have been a surprise.

As we neared the ground a large structure suddenly appeared in front of us. The way we were flying had obscured our view of it until that moment.

"You need to turn," I stated, grabbing Peter's free arm for support, "Yeah, turn, turn, turn."

Peter and Tony moved their hands in sync, veering the ship away from the building. But it wasn't fast enough as the back half of the ship got caught and ripped off. Doctor Strange made a few movements with his hands and seemingly made a shield around the four of us as we started our rough landing.

The half of the ship that was remaining slammed into the ground, sending everyone to the ground from the impact, but, thanks to Strange's shield, we were relatively unharmed.

"Everyone's good?" Tony questioned, "When I say everyone I mean the kids, Strange I don't care about you as much."

Strange rolled his eyes at Tony's statement. I looked up and spotted Peter hanging from the ceiling. He must have shot a web out when we started to crash and I didn't notice.

"I just want to say that if an alien implants eggs in me and I end up eating one of you I'm really sorry," Peter apologized sincerely.

"Peter this is not the Alien," I assured.

"No, I don't want another single pop culture reference from either of you for the rest of the trip," Tony ordered, pointing at the two of us.

"What I'm trying to say is that there's something coming," Peter pointed towards the side of the ship.

As if on cue, a smoke ball rolled between us. A large flash of energy threw all of us back to the floor. I hit a rogue pole and groaned. I would feel that in the morning. Pushing myself up on my elbow, I jumped to my feet.

"Thanos!"

A group of three ran onto the ship. A blue, shirtless man, threw two knives at Strange who easily blocked them. He then sent his cloak after him. A bug resembling woman made her way towards Peter, while the man in the middle flew towards Tony, starting a match with him.

"Hey! Hands off the boyfriend!" I ran and tackled the woman in green, knocking her over, "Peter web her!"

I jumped back when the woman reached out to touch me. Her powers must have only worked when she was touching someone. When I was out of range, Peter shot out multiple webs and stuck the woman's arms to her sides.

"Stay down clowns!" The flying man shot his blasters at the two of us as he flew past, knocking us backward.

Peter jumped out at the man, his Iron-Spider legs extending. The man threw a rope at him, trapping Peter and causing him to fall. I swung my hand up and knocked the man out of the air, closer to Peter. As I swung my hand again, the man reached over and grabbed Peter, holding his blaster to his head.

"Everybody stay where you are, chill the eff out," the man yelled.

Tony's repulser charging caught my attention. He was holding his blaster against the blue man's head, who had managed to pry off Strange's cloak. The flying man tapped the side of his mask and it moved away, revealing he was human.

"I'm gonna ask you this one time, where's Gamora?"

Gamora, that name was familiar. Where had I heard it before?"

"I'll do you one better, who's Gamora?" Tony questioned.

Gamora. Oh shit, she was the one that the big purple scary guy mentioned when my astral form got kicked out of her body. Gamora was the scary guys' daughter. Was the scary guy Thanos? Was all of this somehow, weirdly connected?

"I'll do you one better, why's Gamora?"

I gave the blue man a strange look. Something clicked in my head and I spoke up hoping to diffuse the tension. slightly.

"Are you the guys who played Rubberband Man for two hours straight?"

"How the hell do you know that?" The human shook his head, before continuing, "Tell me where she is or I swear I'll french fry this little freak."

"Let's do it. You shoot my guy I shoot yours," Tony's blaster grew larger at the threat.

"Do it, Quill, I can take it," the blue man encouraged.

"No, he can't take it!" The woman in green hopped over.

"You really can't do," I crossed my arms. Tony's tech was second to Shuri's, he wouldn't survive a direct blast to the head.

"Oh yeah, you don't want to tell me? That's fine, I'll kill all four of you and beat it out of Thanos myself."

"Wait. Thanos," Strange hesitated, "All right, let me ask you one time. What master do you serve?"

"What master do I serve? What? Am I supposed to say, Jesus?"

"You're from Earth."

"I'm not from Earth I'm from Missouri."

"That's on Earth idiot," I snapped, "If you're from Earth then why are you fighting us?"

"You aren't with Thanos?" Peter questioned from his place next to the man's gun.

"With Thanos? No, I'm here to kill Thanos. He took my gi- Wait who are you?"

"We're the Avengers man."