Who: Peter Quill, Darcy Lewis, & Morgan Stark What: A Trip to the Zoo When: A recent afternoon Notes/Warnings: There's a five year old with them so no
Peter's eyes darted quickly around to make sure no one was watching before he gingerly adjusted his sweatpants. Standing in front of the Delacorte Clock he took a drink from his giant plastic mug containing a mixture of Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Cherry Coke and Orange Crush all in perfect balance.
He'd invited Darcy to meet him at the zoo, because well..... an infinitesimally small part of him hoped that Rocket was in this reality..... maybe he'd been picked up by animal control and was laying low until his teammates found him. Peter knew that the chances that any part of this scenario being accurate were somewhere in the neighborhood of ten million to one, but he had to at least try.
Plus, Darcy had told him that she had been friends with Not!Him and he needed a friend.
Darcy was more than happy to skip out of work when Peter asked her if she wanted to go to the zoo with him. She framed it as a reconnaissance mission to Fury and, while he rolled his eye at her, he didn’t argue against it either. It was unlikely they would find Rocket here, but it was more interesting than sitting at her desk and filing more mission reports. She also decided to borrow Morgan so they’d look less odd visiting the zoo. She was very excited to have a day out with her big sister and was bouncing up and down next to Darcy.
“Do they even have a raccoon exhibit here?” she asked, studying the giant map in front of them to try and figure out where they should start.
“I have no f-..... idea.” Peter had been ready to drop the f-bomb, realized that the last thing he needed was to be blamed for teaching Stark’s youngest kid to cuss like a Ravager and took a long drink from his vat of soda, as he tried to remember whether or not Rocket had been vaccinated against rabies. He thought that the likelihood was pretty low.
“Maybe we should just head toward the woodland animals…. Like grizzlies and shit,” He grinned at Darcy, “Even if we don’t find any trace of him, it’s good to get out, you know?” Peter had never understood why his ship never felt claustrophobic, but being stuck inside buildings did.
“Can I pet a bear?” Morgan asked.
“Uh, no, I do not think that would go over well with the parents,” Darcy said. “Pretty sure I might get disowned if you get eaten by a bear on my watch.”
She looked over at Peter and shrugged. It wasn’t like she had a lot of experience with kids, so she had no idea if it was normal for them to want to play with wild animals. All she knew was that Morgan was cute and she was going to feed her junk food and probably spend too much money on souvenirs while they were here.
“It is good to get out though,” she agreed.
Peter shrugged in return, Yondu had been a pretty relaxed dad when it came to playing with dangerous wildlife, but then the dude had also threatened to eat him pretty much daily. The only thing that he remembered about bears was that when he and his mother and granddad had gone to Yosemite and there had been a giant sign warning people not to feed the bears.
“I think it probably depends on the bear, like some bears are probably cool. Others are total a... “ He stopped himself again, “..... jerks. Kind of like people,” Peter’s experience with children was limited to one who had started out in pot. He shrugged at Darcy and said, “Maybe I need one of those E-collars they use on dogs that bark too much?”
As they approached the sea lions, Peter said, “You know those guys sound a lot like T’laxians.”
In all fairness, Morgan probably heard worse from her father on a regular basis, but Darcy understood the desire not to swear in front of her since she tried really hard not to as well.
“What are T’laxians?” she asked, watching as Morgan ran ahead and started waving at the sea lions, clapping with delight as they seemed to wave back. “And do they look like sea lions?”
She felt bad for Quill, understanding that he wanted the rest of his team together, even if she thought this particular expedition would be fruitless.
“T’Laxians are a group of aliens from the gamma quadrant,”. Peter thought for a moment trying to figure out the best way to describe them. “They don’t look like sea lions, they more look like deranged muppets, but man, they complain more than any other species…..like ever.”
He saw a man selling giant ballons, “Kid, you want a couple of those?”
“Deranged muppets,” Darcy repeated. That sounded… amusing, almost, though not if they complained a lot. No one needed to hear that. She looked a little surprised when he asked Morgan if she wanted some balloons though she was not surprised that the offer was enough to make the girl run back to them, bouncing on her toes.
Morgan looked over at the balloon options. “I want a monkey!” she declared. “And a frog!”
Peter bought the monkey, the frog and a giant squid balloon, he asked the vendor for an additional ribbon and eyerolled as the man charged him an additional three dollars. Handing the first two to Morgan, he took the third, triple knotted the two ribbons together to make it much longer and tied the end to one of the small belt loops on the back of Morgan’s pants. The squid balloon floated a good five feet over Morgan’s head.
“Man, one time I lost Groot in a crowd on Hala. Gamora flipped her ever loving….,” he paused and continued, “...mind.” Peter shook his head irritably, “she wouldn’t even let me tag him with an rfid.” He shrugged, “So after that, if I took him somewhere on my own, I tied a floatie to him. Kids are fast and sneaky, ya just can’t depend on ‘em to stay with you.”
There was little to no chance that they would lose Morgan in the crowd. Darcy had a strong suspicion that there was Stark security strategically placed around the area, keeping an eye on both of Tony’s daughters from a distance. She didn’t mention that though, especially since Morgan giggled and kept trying to turn around and look at the balloon, resembling a dog chasing its tail until Darcy stopped her, pulling the squid around so Morgan could see it and then crouching down to tie the frog and the monkey to her wrists so they wouldn’t float away.
“Okay, wait. I thought Groot was a tree,” Darcy said. “How do you lose a tree?”
“He is a tree, but you know how they are at that age, little and fast. Bad attitudes, too.” Peter remembered the stage Groot had gone through when he insisted that every other being even close to his own size was talking smack about him.
Peter saw a brief flash in the bushes, his eyes narrowed suspiciously, “Did that look like a racoon to you?” He saw a small black hand reach out and swipe at a bag of chips that had fallen from the trash.
As the animal scurried into the bushes, Peter turned to Darcy, “That wasn’t him, but I bet you that he’s been here. Probably taught them to steal stuff and be hostile, angry little jerks.” He shook his head, wishing that wherever Rocket was he’d get his obnoxious, foul tempered ass back to the Benetar.
“I don’t know,” Darcy said. “Racoons are pretty vicious even without an alien teaching them things.” Then again, maybe there were more like Rocket running around and making them that way. Anything was possible, she’d certainly learned that over the last decade.
The mental image of a cute baby tree with attitude was fun though and she found herself hoping that Groot would eventually show up in New York so she could meet him. “So it sounds like Groot was basically yours and Gamora’s kid,” she remarked.
“Yeah, that’s probably why the Halfworld chose them as the base, that and the whole five fingered hand thing.”
Peter thought about it for a minute, His first instinct was to deny that he had ever been anything as uncool as someone’s dad. Then he remembered that actually he had been uncool enough to complain that Groot was playing video games. He’d also been the guy to tell Groot that his room was disgusting….. And he’d had to defend himself from the teenager’s accusation of being “boring.”
“Pretty much, I mean everyone on the ship helped, but mostly it was me and Gamora.” He paused, “I mean you know, the Gamora that was my Gamora then, not the Gamora that is here now. She doesn’t remember that at all.”
He double checked that Morgan was still close enough that if a gun battle broke out, one of them would be able to grab her. Verifying that she was, “Am I the only person who is weirded out by that?”
Darcy shook her head. “No, definitely not,” she said. “Time travel and interdimensional travel are both wild as hell.” Putting them together had to be the biggest mindfuck in the universe. Or multiverse. Whichever.
“When I first got here, I found out that there’d been a previous me around. And she was with Loki.” Her nose wrinkled in automatic distaste at the thought, even though she considered him a friend now. It was still hard to believe that any version of her would be with him, especially with how toxic Jane and Thor said their relationship was. “It took me a while to process that one.”
Being on the opposite side had to be tough too. It wasn’t the same for her with Peter, since they didn’t have any history prior to being here. But she couldn’t imagine how she’d feel if Jane or Thor was here and didn’t know her.
The idea that another him might have chosen to be with someone, well, someone that he couldn’t imagine getting along with, much less getting naked with, hadn’t occurred to Peter. Then he thought about the times that he had woken up next to someone whose species (beyond humanoid) he wasn’t entirely sure of and whose name he definitely did not know. “Yeah, I bet it was a little like waking up after a three day bender going, ‘wait, I tapped that? The hell was I thinking?”
He did a quick scan of the bushes, “It’s useless to look. I know that,” he looked sideways at Darcy, “But if he does show up someday, I want to be able to tell him I at least looked for him, you get me?”
Circling back to the previous topic, Peter asked, “So like is it ever weird being around Loki or Valkyrie? Like for me, if I woke up next to someone awkward, I’d just leave the planet.”
After confirming that Morgan was still out of earshot and happily chattering at an exhibit of snow monkeys, Darcy chuckled. “I mean… I’m pretty sure Loki is not the worst sexual choice I’ve ever made,” she admitted. “And, you know, it wasn’t me me, so,” she shrugged.
“I haven’t really spent any time with Valkyrie. Loki and I are cool now though. It took a while.” For Thor and Jane’s sake, she was glad that he was not causing undue trouble these days. Even the whole needing to be rescued from Genosha thing wasn’t really his fault.
She glanced around again, looking for anything out of the ordinary. “I’m pretty sure if Rocket or Groot was around here, Strange would know,” she said. “But I don’t blame you for keeping an eye out.”
“You’re probably right,” Peter tried to think about what his worst sexual choice had been. There had been quite a few, “Compared to some of mine, Loki’s not that bad, actually.
He shoved his hands into the pocket of his jacket, as they walked through the park. “Thanks for coming with me, even though you knew it was pointless.” Peter smiled at her, thinking that not!him had done good choosing Darcy as a friend.
“Nothing’s ever hopeless,” Darcy said. “Besides, it scored me some cool big sister points.”
She called Morgan back over to them so they could explore the rest of the zoo. “Are we going to get hot dogs after this?” she asked. Morgan bounced, chanting “hot dogs hot dogs hot dogs”.