Chapter Text
Peter yelled as he was sucked out the hole in the ship. He grabbed onto the edge, barely holding on and trying not to think about the fact that he was in the vacuum of space. "Heaters on," came Karen's helpful voice.
"Kid!" he heard Stark yell as he flew towards the breach in the hull. Another piece of alien tech flew towards the hole and hit Peter's fingers, forcing him to let go and be dragged off into space.
Peter watched helplessly as the ship flew farther away and tried not to hyperventilate. "Wait," he said, "how am I breathing?"
Karen responded dutifully: "The Iron Spider Armor is equipped with eight minutes' worth of compressed air."
"Thank you, Stark," Peter muttered, though he knew Karen was the only one who could hear him. "Okay, eight minutes to figure out how not to die in space." He tried to get his bearings, but looking around, found that Earth was not in sight, nor any planets that were part of his solar system. There was, however, a dull brown planet that, if uninhabited, at least looked like it had an atmosphere, and potentially a warmer temperature.
"Okay, now how to get there, umm," Peter thought for a moment when a scene from Wall-E came to mind. "Duh! Newton's third law!" Peter shot a web in the direction opposite of the brown planet and, just as he'd hoped, the opposite force pushed him slowly towards it. There being no resistance in space, Peter figured he would continue at about the same speed until he reached the planet's gravitational field, where he would speed up. "Hey Karen, how long until I reach the planet's surface?"
"At this speed, I estimate about six minutes," she said. Peter nodded and exhaled, contemplating the actions that lead to this. Being lost in space. Stark was never gonna let him on another mission.
As Peter approached the planet, he saw that there were a few man-made structures below, at least one looked like a ship. His heart leapt. Sure, it meant more aliens that he had to potentially deal with, but it was still so amazing to see real live aliens, and in any case, if they had a ship, he might be able to get home.
Just before he hit the atmosphere, he realized that there were two things he hadn't planned for. The first, preventing himself from burning up on entry. The second, actually landing at the speed he was going. "Prepare for impact!" Peter said, half to Karen and half to himself.
Peter hit the atmosphere. He tried not to panic as the suit started to heat up. "Cooling systems engaged," Karen said. Peter tried to figure out how to fix the situation, but realized that there wasn't a lot he could do about the whole "burning up while entering the atmosphere" thing, and that he would have to leave that in the hands of Karen and Stark's suit. He tried instead to focus on the equally pressing concern of not splatting like a bug against the ground.
"This suit doesn't happen to have a parachute, does it?" He asked.
"No," Karen said, "just the wingsuit gliding device."
"Okay," he said, "gliding device, right." Peter figured it wouldn't be enough to slow him at the speed he was currently going. Peter spread out his arms and legs like a skydiver, hoping the extra surface area would slow him down.
Unfortunately, it also caused the suit to heat up faster. A few "Error" messages popped up in front of his eyes. "Crap, crap, crap, crap," Peter wondered if the gliding mechanism would even work with so many malfunctions, when suddenly, as if on command, web gliding wings expanded at his sides like the wings of a flying squirrel. Peter felt a jolt at the sudden decrease in speed, and then the wings ripped. He had still been going too fast for them. Crap, Stark's suit is so sensitive to my thoughts! Peter thought, and then realized that he was going to die, alone on an alien planet, an unrecognizable splat, crisp around the edges.
Aunt May was gonna be pissed.
"Deploying ba-ackup glider," Karen said, slightly glitched. New wings took place of the old ones and Peter felt another jolt, though this time, the wings actually held. He was slowing down, but as the ground quickly approached, he realized he might not have been slowing down fast enough.
Peter slammed into a tree which, sort of broke his fall as he broke through several branches. He hit the ground with a thud and groaned, suit smoking. "Ahhh jeez." The error messages cleared and were replaced with a "suit repairing" notification, which disappeared after a few seconds. Peter's whole body hurt, but he was alive! He started to laugh breathlessly. He was alive! He whooped and then rolled over, trying to stand. As much as he would have loved to lay there, he didn't think it was a great idea to fall asleep unguarded on an alien planet, especially not after such a loud entrance.
He took a few breaths to get his bearings and then tried to figure out which way to start walking.
"If you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain," Peter heard distantly.
He blinked. "Am I hallucinating?" He took a few steps towards the music. "Karen, do you hear that?" Why would there be really old Earth music playing on an alien planet? Karen didn't respond. "Karen?" Peter asked again. He remembered her voice glitching as he fell and started to worry. "Karen, are you okay?" No response.
Peter began to get emotional, though he knew she couldn't be dead, even if she was somehow broken. If he could get back to Stark, he could fix her. Still, it meant he would be doing all of this alone.
Lost on an alien planet, all alone.
Quill sang along to Escape, "I was tired of my lady, we'd been together too long," as he sorted through a bag of valuables he had nicked off of someone at the market a few clicks back. To be fair, the man had a gang tattoo, showing he'd been in a Zarthan prison recently, and he been incredibly unruly, even tried to start a fight, so in Peter's opinion he deserved it. He was a criminal, after all. His singing was interrupted by a crash behind him. He turned and looked at the mass of trees, seemingly unchanged and turned to Rocket, who was fiddling with some device near the hangar door of the ship.
"Did you hear that?" Quill asked.
"I can't hear anything over your obnoxious music," Rocket said. Peter rolled his eyes. He knew rocket liked Awesome Mix Vol. 1 & 2. He had even caught him singing along a few times.
"Whatever," Peter said, going back to the bag.
Gamora came out of the ship. "Hey, did you guys see that?" She asked.
Rocket and Quill looked at each other. "See what?" Quill asked.
Gamora looked in the direction where Peter had heard the crash. "It looked like something entered the atmosphere nearby— and fast."
They all paused and Quill looked up at Gamora. "Like a ship, or a meteorite?" He asked. She thought for a moment.
"Neither. Too small to be a ship, but it didn't look like a meteorite," she said.
"So what was it?" Rocket asked.
She rolled her eyes. "I don't know. But I think we should probably leave. We don't need any more trouble."
"We're leaving because of a friggin asteroid?" Rocket asked.
She shifted her weight and grit her teeth. "I told you it wasn't an asteroid, it was something else."
Groot stumbled out of the ship. "I am Groot."
"Yeah, he's right. I think I agree with Gamora," Quill said, standing up.
"Alright, alright we'll go. Don't get your panties in a twist."
There was a boom of laughter, coming from Drax. "Quill wears women's underwear?!"
"It's a figure of speech!" Said Quill and Gamora simultaneously. Quill glared at Rocket's smirk as they all boarded the ship.
Spider Man got to the source of the music before long. It was coming from a huge orange and blue alien ship. "Cool!" Peter whispered. He looked over at the aliens just nearby. It was an odd collection, a raccoon wearing a jumpsuit and holding some sort of gadgetry, a leather-clad green woman, er, it looked like a woman, Peter didn't want to assume anything, and what appeared to be a regular human.
Considering the Earth music, he decided that it was most definitely a human, and since they had a human, they had to be going back to Earth sometime, right? At the very least, Peter would feel better knowing there was another human in the vicinity, and he didn't want to be stranded on an alien planet.
Did the raccoon just talk? Peter furrowed his eyebrows. He was supposed it could be an alien species that just had an uncanny resemblance to Earth raccoons.
Another alien joined the bunch, this one looking woody and plantlike.
Wait a minute if the raccoon is an alien that looks like a raccoon does that mean the human is actually an alien that looks like a human? He thought. After all, why would a human be out here?
A large grey man joined them, laughing heartily.
Peter shook his head. No, he's gotta be human, he's listening to Earth music.
The group argued a moment more before heading into the ship.
"Crap, they're leaving!" Peter whispered. This was his best chance to get home. "It's now or never," he said. With that, he leapt up onto the ship and snuck inside just as the door closed behind him.
He watched them walk down the corridor, being closer to them than he would have liked, despite clutching the ceiling. Gotta hide, he thought. There was a quiet buzz and Peter could no longer see his hands in front of him. He looked at one of them in amazement. It wasn't invisible, as he'd originally thought, but it had changed color to blend into the ship.
"Cool!" He whispered. The human looked back.
Crap, Peter thought, going completely still. Now he'd done it.
The human looked around before deciding nothing of it and walking away.
Mr. Stark had thought of everything. Peter would have to thank him if- when he got back. Peter saw a nearby hatch in the wall, perhaps to vents or electronics, and decided that hiding there was better than hiding on the ceiling. Quietly as he could, he crept over, removed the cover, crawled inside and put the cover back.
He released a breath. Who knew being stranded in space could be so stressful?
"This is the second time today you've stowed away on a spaceship, Peter." Karen said, making Peter jump.
"Karen! You're alright!" He said.
"Of course I'm alright, Peter, I'm an AI. The suit has a self-repair function."
Peter nodded. "Hey Karen, do you know where we are?"
"I can't tell exactly, but I estimate that we are at least a few light-years away from Earth."
"Light-years?!" Peter jumped and them cupped his hand over his mouth. He needed to keep it down. "How did we get light-years away?" He whispered.
"From what I can tell, Ebony Maw's ship traveled through some sort of rift just before you fell out," she said.
"Shoot," Peter grabbed his head. Light-years from home. What a predicament. Peter smiled, nonetheless. He imagined how Ned would react when he told him that he had traveled light years away from Earth and stowed away on two alien spaceships in one day.
He heard a shrill whining behind him. "We don't tolerate stowaways," said a voice behind him, and Peter was blasted out of the vent. He landed hard on the floor and looked up to see the raccoon climb out of the vent with a gun in hand. Peter shot it with a web, and threw it across the room. "Hey!" yelled the raccoon, pulling out another gun. Peter leapt up onto the wall as two more crew members ran in, the human, wearing a helmet of some sort, and the green woman.
"I thought you were gonna shoot it!" the human yelled.
"I did!" yelled the raccoon in response, shooting at Peter again, who dodged and threw his second gun across the room too.
"Stop taking my stuff!" the raccoon yelled, pulling out yet another gun.
"Stop shooting at me!" Peter said, dodging more raygun fire.
"You snuck onto my ship!" the raccoon said, as if to justify.
"You mean my ship," the human said.
Peter threw the raccoon's third gun and then webbed it's paw to the wall behind it. "You know, maybe we could just discuss this," Peter said.
The raccoon pulled out yet another gun with his free hand, though this one was somewhat larger than the others."Discuss this, you—"
"Everybody stop!" The green lady yelled.
Obligingly, everyone froze, the human with his twin guns out, Peter about to shoot another web, and the raccoon with his large gun. Peter hadn't noticed before that three others entered the room, the large grey man from earlier, the plant creature, and a lady with antennae.
"Can we not blow up the ship?" She asked.
Everyone seemed to consider this for a moment. "That sounds good," said the human, lowering his guns slightly, but not enough to make much of a difference.
"Would hate to get sucked into space again," Peter admitted, relaxing his hand. Everyone looked at the raccoon.
"Fine," he said, lowering his gun. He tugged on the webbed paw. "I can't believe you sprayed me with, ugh, bodily fluids? It's disgusting," he said. "Can someone get me out of this?"
The green lady obligingly walked over and cut the webbing off with a knife she pulled from some concealed sheath.
"I-it's not bodily fluids, it web fluid, I make it." Peter said.
"Yeah whatever," the raccoon said, wiping his paw on his jumpsuit, "it comes out of you, I don't want it on me."
Peter was about to tell him that it didn't come out of him, when the human spoke.
"Who are you anyway? What are you doing here?" He asked, one gun still pointed at Peter.
"Um, I'm Peter, er, I mean, Spiderman—"
"You are not Peter," the gray man said. He gestured to the human. "He is Peter."
"Oh, really?" Spiderman said. He shared the name of a spaceman. One with a rad helmet, nonetheless. "Cool. So that means you're from Earth, right?" Spiderman asked.
The man's gun lowered slightly and he pressed a button on the side of his helmet, making it recede to the sides of his head, similarly to Stark's suit. "You mean Terra? Yeah."
Spiderman's shoulders dropped in relief. "That's great man, I um, could really use a lift."
"What do we look like, a taxi service?" The raccoon said, walking across the room to retrieve his thrown guns.
"Um, I was just hoping—" Spiderman said.
"Why do you want to go to Terra anyway?" the human, Peter asked.
Spiderman paused, a bit confused at the question. He hopped down to the floor. "Cause it's where I live?" He said.
Peter raised an eyebrow.
The grey guy turned to the older Peter. "Quill, you never said you had humanoid spider creatures on Terra," he said.
"We don't," he responded. He eyed Spiderman again. "Wait is that a suit?"
Peter looked down at his armor. "Oh, this? Yeah."
"You are human?" Asked the antennae girl.
"Uh, yeah," he said. She cocked her head.
"Spiderman is a strange name for a human," she said.
"Well— I mean, it's not my real name," Peter explained.
"Why did you tell us a fake name?" She asked.
"It's like how Quill likes to be called 'Star Lord,'" the raccoon said, moving his claws to indicate air quotes. "Ridiculous. It must be a humie thing.
"Star Lord?" Peter asked. "That's a cool hero name."
"Thank you," Quill said, putting away his gun and glaring at the raccoon. He looked at Spiderman. "Well, since you know my identity, it's only fair I know yours," he said.
Peter bit his lip. "I can't," he said.
"Why not?" Quill asked. He could see the spider kid looked hesitant, but the more they coaxed him to talk, the more relaxed he seemed.
Peter paused. "I don't want my aunt to find out," he muttered.
The raccoon laughed. "Did— did you say," he laughed again and Peter blushed. Freaking alien raccoon thing. And Peter's big mouth.
"I am Groot," said the small tree creature, looking at the raccoon.
The green lady glared at the raccoon until he shut up. "Well we certainly aren't in any position to tell her," she said.
Peter relaxed a little. "That's true," he said. He looked at this strange group of aliens. He supposed he could trust them. After all, how badly do you have to screw up to get stuck on a tin can in the middle of outer space with a bunch of aliens you couldn't trust? Peter ignored the voice in his head reminding him how often he screwed up as he took off his mask. "I'm Peter Parker."