Rocket's hand was already moving toward his holster when Star-Lord grabbed his arm.
"Don't."
"They spotted us from up there," Rocket said, without lowering his voice. "We have the initiative. We should use it."
"We just crashed into their planet and destroyed a significant amount of their forest," Gamora said. "Starting a firefight is not improving our position."
Rocket looked at the hovering car. Then at Gamora. Then at Star-Lord.
Peter raised his other hand toward the car and waved.
Skye lowered the binoculars. "I think that one just waved at us."
Coulson considered the group below. Green-skinned woman, powerfully built man with no shirt and extensive tattoos, a raccoon standing upright with apparent attitude, something in a pot that might be a small tree, and one individual who could have walked out of any city on Earth without attracting a second glance.
"The human-looking one is interesting," he said.
"Exactly like an Earthling," Skye said. "You'd pass him on the street and never know." She looked at Coulson. "Do we go down?"
"We go down. If anything moves wrong, use your abilities."
"I may not be their match."
"You probably aren't," Coulson said pleasantly, and brought Lola down.
He sent the situation report to headquarters and to May one-handed while he flew — five life signs, mixed species, one reading in excess of five hundred combat points before the detector failed, threat assessment pending contact. Hand's reply came back in under thirty seconds: maintain contact, request immediate support if situation changes.
Lola settled onto a clear patch of ground twenty meters from the Milano's crash site. Coulson and Skye stepped out.
Coulson kept his distance and his hands visible.
"I'm Agent Coulson, S.H.I.E.L.D. — we handle first contact with extraterrestrial visitors." He looked at the group. "Can you tell me what brings you to Earth?"
Star-Lord was looking at Lola.
He was looking at her the way a man looks at something that doesn't fit inside the world he remembers. "You have flying cars now?" He pulled his gaze away with visible effort. "Has it really been twenty years?"
Coulson blinked. "You've been to Earth before?"
"I was born here." Star-Lord gestured at himself. "Missouri. Left in '88." He looked around at the trees, the overcast sky, the distant highway sounds. "I was trying to come back for a visit. The landing was not the plan."
Skye looked at him with undisguised fascination, then looked at Rocket, then looked at Rocket again. "He's—" She pointed. "It talks."
Rocket's expression went from neutral to incensed in about a tenth of a second. "It?"
"I meant—"
"You meant it." Rocket pointed back at her. "The rodent wants to say something in return—"
"I'm sorry!" Skye put her hands up. "I've never met a talking raccoon before. I'm catching up."
"Raccoon," Rocket repeated, with the energy of a man who has had this particular fight many times and has not yet made peace with it. He looked at Star-Lord. "Put me down or I start demonstrating the capabilities of this weapon."
Star-Lord, who had picked him up at some point without anyone quite seeing it happen, set him back on the ground.
Rocket landed, straightened his jacket, and turned to look at Lola.
Then he tilted his head.
"Coulson," he said.
"Yes."
"Did you name your car after a woman?"
Coulson paused. "I named it after a car. It's a 1962 Corvette. Her name is Lola."
Rocket started laughing. It was a full-body situation — he bent forward, grabbed his own knee, and made a sound that Drax apparently interpreted as a medical emergency because the Destroyer took a step toward him before Gamora put a hand on his arm.
"He named—" Rocket straightened up just enough to point at Coulson. "He named a car after a woman. This is incredible. This is the best thing I've seen on this planet and I've been here four minutes."
Drax looked at Coulson with complete sincerity. "Is she your wife?"
Everyone looked at Coulson.
Skye looked at Coulson.
Coulson looked at Drax. Then at Gamora, who was clearly working to keep her expression neutral and not entirely succeeding. Then at Star-Lord, who had covered his mouth with his hand.
"She is a modified antique automobile," Coulson said. "I am very fond of her. That is the full extent of our relationship."
Skye, who had been biting the inside of her cheek, pivoted neatly to practical matters before anyone else could take a run at the topic.
"Here's what I can do," she said, pulling a compact case from her jacket. She popped it open — inside, a row of small capsules in various colors sat in foam cutouts. She took out a red one and held it up. "I'm going to throw this onto the open ground. Nobody needs to do anything; just watch."
Star-Lord eyed the capsule. "Is it a weapon?"
"Opposite of a weapon."
She pressed the release mechanism and tossed it underhand onto the grass patch twenty meters away. The capsule hit, there was a soft mechanical exhalation, and a Ferrari 488 unfolded from it in about two seconds — glossy red, fully intact, sitting in the clearing like it had always been there.
Nobody said anything for a moment.
Rocket walked toward it immediately, crouching to look at the underside, running his hands along the wheel housing, his expression shifting from amusement to something that looked almost like respect.
"Spatial compression," he muttered. "Fifty grams of casing, full structural preservation, instantaneous deployment." He looked back at Skye. "Who built this?"
"Capsule Corporation. Dr. Bulma."
Rocket filed that away behind his eyes. "This would fetch a significant price in almost any major port system in the galaxy." He stood up. "I want it."
"That's why I brought it out," Skye said. She looked at Coulson. "Trade for Lola."
Coulson opened his mouth.
"I can't reimburse you for a Capsule-Ferrari collaboration piece," he said. "That's not within my expense authorization."
"My mother gave it to me for my birthday," Skye said. "You don't need to reimburse anyone."
Coulson looked at the Ferrari. Looked at Lola. Looked at Rocket Raccoon, who was already examining the capsule deployment mechanism with professional interest.
"All right," he said.
Skye walked Rocket through the ownership transfer process — palm print registry, capsule calibration, access confirmation. Rocket pressed his hand to the panel with the focused attention of a man taking custody of something he intends to take completely apart before the week was out.
The Ferrari folded back into its capsule. Rocket pocketed it.
"The genius who built this," he said, turning back to Skye. "Is she available for consulting work?"
"She's very busy."
"I'll pay well."
"She's very, very busy."
Rocket pocketed the capsule with the satisfied expression of a man who has come out of a bad situation with something valuable, which was more or less the standard outcome he aimed for.
Star-Lord had been watching the grass where the car had been. He turned to Coulson. "Is this actually Earth? My Earth? I'm not in some parallel universe or future timeline?"
Coulson considered how to answer that. "As far as we can determine, yes. If you can give me some identifying information, I can verify it against records."
"Peter Quill. Born 1980, Missouri. My mother's name was Meredith Quill. I disappeared the same night she died."
Coulson relayed it to Fitz on a separate channel while he kept his expression neutral.
Fitz's response came back in under two minutes. Peter Quill, born 1980, mother Meredith Quill, deceased — fan of Captain America, advanced cancer, passed the same evening her son went missing. Case was filed as unexplained disappearance and closed after standard follow-up.
"It's your Earth," Coulson said. "You've just missed about twenty-six years of changes."
Star-Lord looked at the trees. At the sky. At Lola, still hovering two feet off the ground out of habit.
"My mom," he said quietly. It wasn't a question.
"I'm sorry," Coulson said.
Star-Lord nodded once. He didn't say anything else for a moment.
Then: "We'd like to go to Missouri. To visit her grave, if it's still there."
"We can arrange that," Coulson said. He keyed his headset. "May — clear for landing. We're bringing some guests aboard."
Above the tree line, the SHIELD transport dropped its stealth coating and descended — a large aircraft, unglamorous by spaceship standards but solid and capable, settling into the clearing with the unhurried confidence of a well-maintained machine.
Star-Lord watched it come down and smiled despite himself. "Stealth coating."
Rocket looked at the transport and made a short sound that was not quite dismissive. "Functional. The Milano does it better, but we can talk about options later."
Star-Lord's smile widened. "Yeah, let's talk about options."
The transport's boarding stairs extended. Fitz and Donnie Gill came down and stopped at the bottom, looking at the assembled group with the expressions of two people doing their best to receive this situation professionally.
Coulson made introductions efficiently.
"Peter Quill. Rocket Raccoon. Drax."
Drax looked at Fitz and Donnie Gill. "I am Drax the Destroyer."
Groot raised both arms.
Gamora inclined her head. "Gamora. We are the Guardians of the Galaxy."
Star-Lord straightened slightly, as if hearing it said aloud reminded him it was true. "Yeah. Guardians of the Galaxy."
Fitz looked at Coulson. Coulson's expression said later.
"Good name," Coulson told them. "My team goes by something less official, but we'll make it work." He held out a business card to Star-Lord. "Your spaceship — I'd suggest leaving it for now. We'll move it somewhere secure and no one touches it without your say-so. You can come back and handle repairs yourself."
Rocket pointed at him without looking up from the boarding stairs. "Nobody touches the ship."
"Nobody touches the ship," Coulson confirmed.
"With tools."
"With or without tools," Coulson said patiently.
Star-Lord took the card. He looked at it for a second, then looked at Coulson. "Thank you. Genuinely." He offered his hand.
Coulson shook it. "When you get back, come find me. I have a lot of questions about what it's like out there, and something tells me you have a lot of answers."
Star-Lord grinned. "I have a lot of stories. Whether they count as answers is a separate question."
He turned and followed the others up the stairs. Groot waved from the top step.
Coulson watched the boarding stairs retract and the transport lift off — smooth, quiet, already starting to climb. He stood in the clearing with Skye, the Milano cooling and creaking twenty meters behind them, the forest full of the small sounds of things that had not been disturbed by a crash landing.
Skye looked at the transport until it was a shape in the cloud cover.
"Guardians of the Galaxy," she said.
"Mm."
"What do you think they actually do?"
Coulson considered that for a moment. "Based on the debris field their ship left on the way in — and the fact that they're still alive — probably something dangerous and intermittently successful."
He turned back to Lola and patted the hood.
"Come on. Let's get the Milano into a warehouse before someone on the internet photographs it."