InsaneJournal

Who: Peter Q, Drax, Valkyrie, Fury
What: meeting to go undercover and infiltrate the worldwide Fight Club ring.
When: backdated, sometime in March
Rating: Green.

It was always a stressful day when the Guardians were coming in. Their numbers seemed to fluctuate more than the Avengers numbers, but two always remained: Peter and Drax. Or as Fury called them internally: Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer.

It wasn’t clear who was who.

What mattered was after his converastion with Valkryie, Nick felt more confident in the fact that he was on the right page, and that he needed to infiltrate the club immediately. The only fighters he had that weren’t recognized throughout the world were the Guardians. Even if they were fucking annoying.

So he called them in and waited at nu!SHIELD headquarters. Val would hopefully come later and test them out. God, he hoped they didn’t fuck up.

Peter had no idea why Fury had called him.

If Peter was honest, he worried it was because he had inadvertently broken the indestructible punching bag with his jerry-rigged space blaster but in his defense, he totally thought it wouldn’t work.

“He can’t still be mad about that, can he?”, he hissed to Drax, as they walked into the building. “I mean, come on -- that’s pretty cool that we found that weakness right? Otherwise, he could still have totally not indestructible things and advertising them as such. We practically stopped a lawsuit.”

Drax looked thoughtful. In reality, whenever Drax looked thoughtful, it meant he couldn't remember what happened sixteen seconds before being asked a question, much less what happened sixteen minutes before that.

As proof of this, Drax skipped over what happened with indestructible punching bags and made the statement, "Of course that needed to be stopped. Laws can't wear suits."

"What? I didn't say that at all." Like usual, Peter had no idea what Drax was going on about now. "Laws don't wear suits. LAWYERS do. And they have slicked-back hair, ‎and expensive cars."

Once upon a time, Peter wanted to be a lawyer. Their shoes were so shiny.

Drax didn't know what Peter was talking about, but he did acknowledge the one thing that made sense to him.

"These loy-yours make sense to me. Instead of slicking their hair, they should shave it off so it isn't in the way when driving expensive cars. Hair is stupid," says the guy with no hair.

There were very few things Val sincerely cared about. But battle? That was close to the top of the list. She was not about to enter into anything half cocked or without the protections. So when Fury asked her to SHIELD, she decided to get there a little early and wait around to get the full scope of what she was working with.

Needless to say, they were definitely not up to Asgardian standards… let alone a Valkyrie.

If she had wanted, she would have been able to slice both of their heads off and they wouldn’t have even noticed because they were too busy bickering insead of being on guard. Although she supposed the exact art of being able to live your life and also be constantly ready to fight at literally any second is why she had so many emotional issues.

That realization made her shudder and she tacked up a mental note that she needed to watch less midgardian television.

Stepping out of the shadows, she was wearing her Sakaarian leathers, her sword strapped to her hip as she eyed them. “First of all, there is nothing that is indestructible truly, that is a naive thought for anyone. Second of all, that is not why you are here though I do hope I get to watch him yell at you for it.” She smirked and nodded her head towards the doors. “Do you know who I am?”

Drax studied Val, before proving his on-the-spot admiration for Asgardians was an actual syndrome he lived with.

"You are a strong woman," he observed. "Like a mighty galactic conqueror and a powerful goddess mated, and you are their offspring. You remind me of Gamora, even if she decided to hook in to this dude."

Not aware of what 'hooking up' was in comparison to putting a hook into someone, Drax patted a hand on Peter's shoulder.

Gamora was still a sore topic for Peter and he glared at Drax with the fiery passion of a million suns before turning his attention to Val. Had he ever spoken to this woman before? Or seen her around? Peter really wasn’t sure at all.

“I have no idea who you are,” Peter said honestly. “But you look terrifying, and Drax apparently thinks you’re a worthy opponent. He can recognize talent pretty well for a complete moron.”

Val’s eyebrow arched up dangerously high as she eyed Peter and Drax, wondering what exactly ‘hooking into’ meant. Putting hooks into others? That sounded like something she might like… she would have to tell Loki. She let out a huff of air and unfolded her arms from across her chest. “My name is Valkyrie, of Asgard. You have met Loki or Thor, perhaps? They are my prince and king.” She would be lying if she didn’t say her chest puffed out a bit with pride at being associated with such powerful beings. Not to say that she wasn’t also but they both had reputations while Val… well let’s just say no one who feared her as she should be feared was alive anymore.

She turned fully to walk away before calling back over her shoulder. “Also you are right to be afraid of me. Perhaps you are smarter than you look.”

"I know of the Pirate Angel. He is a real man." Drax nodded appreciatively at the words of a fellow warrior. "You are strong. You look ready to pull out the spines of those who offend you, and would never settle for a dude."

Drax nodded over at Peter, as though he was indicating Exhibit B. Exhibit A would have been a man like Thor.

It was probably a blessing that Drax didn't say this word for word. Instead he spoke to Valkyrie, not bothering to hide what he was getting at: "That was a hint."

“Thank you, Drax.” Fury was not in fact thankful for Drax, but he wanted the conversation to end and move on.

With a nod to Valkyrie, he motioned to the other two men to follow. The new SHIELD building was rather large for the small amount of staff. No one else was there when Fury led the group to the sparring floor. Flicking a switch, it showed what looked like an ordinary gym, complete with a boxing ring.

“Fight clubs. What do you know of them?”

Peter had no idea. For some reason, his first thoughts of a fight club were a group of men getting together to fight, and for some reason, this couldn’t happen at a gym. Weird, but whatever, who was he to judge.

He gave a shrug. “I mean, I don’t NOT know of them. Everyone knows fight clubs. Even Drax knows, and he’s an idiot. Drax, tell the man what a fight club is.”

In Drax's very literal mind, that was easy to answer. He let out a soft pffting noise and said, "It is a long blunt object that you use to hit foes with, preferably to cave in their skulls. That is a fight club."

Val literally couldn’t stop her mouth from falling open in surprise before she smirked. “As ridiculous as this is going to sound… he is perfect.” She nodded at Drax while her eyes flicked to Fury, catching herself and adding, “I do not mean you yourself are a perfect being, but rather, would be perfectly suited to this task.” Her arms folded back across her chest. “They’ll never believe he’s behind anything."

Drax nodded like he understood what she was talking about, but he was really thinking about the best makeshift clubs he's used to murder or maim others with.

Fury nodded his agreement. Of the two, Drax was his pick as well. Peter would overthink the whole mission and find a way to mess it all up. “I don’t know that I want to send him alone though.” He gave Val a look. “I think you should go too.

“Whoa there,” Peter said suddenly. There were plans being made over his head, and he had no idea what was going on or why he wasn’t actually the best choice for something over Drax.

“I think you guys are mistaken here about who is in charge. Drax is part of MY crew, and I’M the captain, that means you gotta talk to me. I’m not going to just let you do something that might break him. He’s already broken enough, we don’t need to deal with anything else.” He motioned frantically up and down at Drax. “Can you IMAGINE this guy with a brain injury?? He’s barely functioning as it is!”

Drax looked at each of them in turn, before saying, "I lost track of what was said. Whoever you need me to kill, warrior goddess and man with one eye, know that I will do it."

As usual, Drax's mind leaped from a fight and landed into murder. This, folks, is why he ended up in space jail.

Nick had no patience for Star-Lord’s posturing, but he understood having to massage fragile male egos. It was how he managed to work with Stark for so long. “I need a team to go to Estonia, infiltrate a powerful weapons-only fight club, and get me information on who is fabricating these things so we can put an end to it.” He lifted his brows in a ‘bitch please’ look. “Any questions? Or is that too hard for you?

Peter didn’t like being put in his place. Grumbling a little, he gave a half-assed nod. “I guess. So you need me to fight and stuff? Cool, I can do that. I’m pretty awesome, especially if weapons are there.”

There was no way Nick could hide his laughter. “No. You would die in an instant and even though you have no next-of-kin for me to notify, I don’t want to deal with the paperwork. Drax and Val will fight. You’re their agent. I don’t care enough to come up with a cover story for you. In the meantime, Val is going to train Drax, and you guys are shipping out next week.”

Val crossed her arms over her chest and looked like everyone in the room was lucky she had decent self control.

“Not to mention the actual fighting is done in hand to hand, in which case,” She eyed Peter for a literal second before smirking to herself. “... it would not end well for you.” She took a step closer and eyed Drax, sizing him up as well before nodding to Fury. “This will do.”

She crossed her arms again as she eyed Peter and Drax. “Embarrass me, get us caught, do literally anything but exactly what I tell you to do... and I’ll kill you.”

While she looked deadly serious about it... maybe she wouldn’t actually go that far, considering how upset Thor might be… but no one else needed to know that.

Drax nodded in approval. There was no way he was going to argue. As proof of this, he muttered so only Peter could hear him, "She's like a murder angel...."

Peter glared at Drax. “What is with your weird obsession with angels?” Actually, he didn’t want to know. He was too busy glaring back at Val. “Whatever, lady. You have no idea how unbelievably amazing I am with plans and stuff, so maybe you should just follow MY lead.”

Nick was nipping this in the bud. “Val’s in charge. Listen to her and maybe you won’t die. I expect results, and Peter?” The brunette turned to look at Nick. “I changed my mind. You have a cover story now: your name is Tim Sharp. You are officially the most boring man in the world. Amaze me.”

With that, Nick strode away, feeling confident that things would resolve themselves or the Guardians would die.

All in all, he’d be okay with either result.