MCU fanfic: Peter and Peter
Man my fanfiction has been all about the Peters recently hasn’t it? This one stars Peter Parker but is actually about Peter Quill. There is no point in loving Quill because everyone on the internet and beyond loathes him, but I do it anyway.
Title: Peter and Peter
Fandom: MCU/Spider-Man/Guardians of the Galaxy
Summary: In the immediate aftermath of Tony Stark’s death, Peter Parker suddenly runs into a weird dude.
Read on AO3, or click below:
*
When Peter woke up he was in a safe place. Some sort of hotel. Or a house? It was big. He had vague recollections of being bundled into a plane or something and taken there. Or maybe someone had just picked him up and flown with him? He was so tired.
He had called his aunt, he knew that for certain. She was alive and well. She must have known where he was because she was coming to get him. She’d said so. Okay, that was the most important thing. Five years had passed but both of them were alive.
Peter felt his feet hit a carpet and then he just kept walking. It was definitely someone’s house. There were lots of rooms but not a lot of noise. Was everyone asleep?
The house had no stairs and its walls stretched up high. Someone big lives here, Peter thought, or someone who carries a lot of heavy equipment around on the regular.
One door was open and the light was on. There was someone moving around in there. For one bizarre moment Peter thought it might be Tony behind the door, somehow alive, ready to tell him and the world all about how he’d saved the world and cheated death.
It wasn’t him. It was a dude in his underwear.
“Shit!” the man said upon seeing him. “Hang on.”
He grabbed a pair of pants from a rail behind him and hopped around trying to get them on both legs.
“Shit shit shit – what are you, twelve? Look away!”
Peter unfortunately could not, his mind was too hazy. The man managed to conquer the pants and then scrambled around retrieving a t-shirt. While he was doing this Peter noticed a piece of paper on the nearby table. On it there was a numbered list, in big childish handwriting. It read:
- SEKRET XTRA COUNTRY IN AFRICA – LASERS FORCE FIELD FLYING CARS???
- NEW STAR WARSES
- NEBULA AND ROCKET ARE FRIENDS???! (this one was accompanied by a :O face)
- ZUNES NOT ACTUALY POPULAR
- NEW JURASSIC PARKS
Number six was written in much smaller and less exuberant lettering:
- are grandpa and gran still alive?
“I’m good, I’m good!” the man yelled, getting up fully clothed. “I thought everyone was still asleep. Can’t sleep. Look at this stuff.” And he suddenly thrust a mug of coffee towards Peter. “What the hell is this?”
Peter stared at it.
“Coffee,” he eventually managed to say.
“What time is it?”
“Um,” said Peter, “about 8 in the morning.” There was in fact a clock in the room, a very big one, over the door. Peter would have not however have been able to name the day or date.
“Mmmmf,” said the man.
“Whose house are we in?” Peter asked.
“Oh. Big guy. Glasses. Green.”
“Dr Banner? Is he here?”
“Think he went somewhere during the night. I kinda lost track of time. He looked rough.” The man took another slurp of coffee. Peter had the urge to take it away from him.
“I know you,” the man suddenly said. “You’re the spidery boy!”
“Spider-Man,” said Peter.
“You should meet my sister Mantis. She’s a bug too!” the man said with sudden excitement. Then he turned sober. “Wait… didn’t I have a gun at your head?”
“Yes,” Peter said, putting together the pieces. “You’re the one Mr Stark called Flash Gordon.”
The man looked quite pleased about that, but then he said, “My name’s Peter Quill, but people call me Star-Lord.” After a second he added, “Sorry bout the gun.”
“I’m Peter Parker,” said Peter.
“Another Peter. Cool…” He noticed that Peter was looking at his list and snatched it up off the table. As he put it in his pocket he said, “Star-Lord, that name, that don’t seem right here. Not on Earth. I haven’t… this is the first time…” He lifted his mug of coffee but didn’t drink any. Peter knew he was trying to hide his face.
“Just call me Quill. Whatever,” said Quill.
Peter nodded. He wasn’t sure what to do next. He stared out of the window. There were lights overhead. Helicopters or something.
“Tony’s dead,” he found himself saying. “He’s really, properly dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Quill said.
Peter struggled to organize his thoughts, to understand what had really happened on (one of) the most traumatic nights of his life. In the aftermath people had been talking to him, explaining things to him, yelling about things and people he’d never even heard of…
“I… it’s partly because of me,” Peter said. “He had a daughter. He was happy with his wife and his daughter and he could’ve stayed like that, but he decided to act, because I was still dead-“
“I was also still dead,” said Quill pointedly.
“You know what I mean,” Peter found himself snapping. He had no clue how to talk to this weird spaceman, and in the moment he also didn’t really care.
“Hey,” Quill said, sounding nervous, “people make their own choices, all right? You had nothing to do with it. No, wait. I mean…”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Peter.
Quill drummed his fingers on the table. Clearly, he wasn’t going anywhere, despite the signals Peter was sending out.
“I know what it’s like to lose a father figure,” he finally said.
“Actually,” said Peter, “he’s far from the first father figure I’ve lost. I don’t-” He paused, and then said his next three sentences in a cracked voice. “I don’t have much luck. In that area. At all.”
“I understand. My biological dad was a sentient planet god who tried to destroy the entire universe,” Quill offered. “And my adopted dad spent most of my childhood faking that he didn’t love me and then saved my life and died in front of me.”
Peter had no idea what he had been expecting from this guy. All he could really give in answer to that was a slow, bewildered nod.
“You know, if you want to get into a death-off,” said Quill, a strange tone in his voice, “my mom’s dead too. My bio father-god-planet murdered her.”
Taken aback, Peter managed to say, “She, ur, my mom’s dead too. But not murdered.”
“I thought that kinda hot lady with the glasses was your mom. I saw her video calling you.”
“She’s – okay, first of all, she’s not my mom, she’s my aunt, biologically I mean. Also why do people keep saying she’s hot?”
Quill gave a sort of smile. Then he said, “I mean, I know a thing or two about hotness. There’s this, yeah?” He gestured up and down his body. “Lots of hot alien babes wanted a piece of this. Then, I met the best girl in the universe. She was the hottest. But more importantly she was brave, and clever, and kind, and…guess what? She is also gone!”
Peter was starting to twig what was going on. He ventured, “My uncle was killed and I still think it’s my fault.”
“Oh yeah? Well Thanos got away from us the first time around because I freaked out, and that’s definitely my fault.”
“I endangered lots of lives because I was arrogant when I first started as a superhero,” Peter suggested.
“Pffft. That’s nothing. I was a space pirate! I lied and cheated and stole right through my childhood!”
“I, uh, I lied to my aunt.”
“My only living relatives think I’m dead.”
“I fought against Captain America and I still worry that makes me technically a traitor.”
“Don’t talk to me about traitors, I’ve betrayed so many people I can’t even count ‘em.”
“I put my girlfriend’s dad in prison.”
“My dad WAS a prison!”
Peter had to stop at that, he just had to. After a second to regain his composure, he opened his mouth to speak but Quill got there first and said,
“See? See? You have nothing on me, man.”
“Thank you,” Peter said.
Quill reached into his pocket and pulled out a battered device Peter eventually recognized as a Zune.
“There’s nothing else to do I guess. Wanna listen to some music?”
“Yeah, okay,” said Peter.
“You like Fleetwood Mac? I like Fleetwood Mac.”
Uncle Ben had liked Fleetwood Mac too. “I could get into them,” Peter said.