[Closed to Quill] Father's Day

[st_arkintern]

Ongoing. Tossing tags here as they come in for ease of editing.

Peter Parker has a plastic gallon baggie of muffins and a quart of milk in-hand when he knocks on Peter Quill's door. He's managed to learn a lot about cooking in the almost-year he's been at the inn, but his muffin-making is what has improved the most.

Normally, he makes blueberry, but today's muffins are chocolate chip, because Quill seems like the kind of person who'd prefer chocolate chip muffins to blueberry.

Quill also doesn't seem like the sort of person who's an early riser, which is why Peter doesn't show up at his door until 11.

Peter's assumptions were right. When Quill answered the door, he was dressed and almost forgot they had made plans. When he saw Peter, it all came back to him.

Father's Day.

"Wow." He said, looking at the muffin. "That's a lot of muffins, dude."

He didn't look upset about it.

"Yeah, I thought we could have breakfast together," Peter says. "I brought milk, too." He holds up the quart of milk in demonstration. Hopefully it was enough for both of them.

Quill's room is nice. Peter really likes the colors. They're not red and black, but Peter's pretty sure that there's no red-and-black rooms that have been unlocked. And a red and black room would probably be weird, anyway. Probably weirder than some of the rooms he's seen already.

Peter sets the bag of muffins down on the desk near the door. "I actually made them from scratch," he says, of the muffins. "I was using this instant-made stuff for awhile, but I found this cookbook in the library and decided I'd give it a shot."

If there was anything they weren't lacking here, it was time.

"Women like a guy who can cook," he said, thinking of what his mom used to say. "So you should keep on that."

Quill gestured to the tv.

"I borrowed the Nintendo console." He said, "I figured we can play. You seem pretty good at it."

Peter turns and looks at the TV. Sure enough, an original NES is hooked up to the system.

"You wanna play Mario or Luigi?" Peter asks. Clearly, he has no intentions of playing Super Mario World 3 solo.

"Mario all the way," Quill answered. "He's my man, even if he sometimes gets confused about where Peach is."

Playing video games with someone else was much more fun. He bet Groot would be super into the Nintendo if he were here.

"You ever play before?" He asked.

"Yeah, kinda," Peter admits, handing Quill the first controller. "I found a broken one in a dumpster and fixed it. It worked for a couple of weeks before it broke again. Then I salvaged it for parts and waited for another NES to show up in someone's trash, but it never did."

"Rocket's good at putting broken things back together too." Quill said as he turned on the game. "You do that a lot? Fix things?"

"Kinda," Peter says. "It's just me and my aunt and her job doesn't pay that much, so if I need something, it's easier to just find it and fix it."

He actually had found a DVD player in a dumpster that day that Mr. Stark came to ask him to fight in Germany. That was probably one of his better finds.

"Sometimes I make things, too," he says. "Mr. Stark improved them, but I designed the original web-shooters."

Quill had grown up with not a lot of money, either. As a Ravager, he didn't see a lot of money either unless they got a big score. Quill understood Peter.

"Really?" He said about the web-shooters. "Those things are pretty cool. Maybe you can show them to me sometime - Did you make the web stuff yourself too?"

"Yeah, happy to," Peter says, feeling pretty happy about it. Generally, no one's really expressed interest in how they've worked. "The ones I made were way simpler than the ones Mr. Stark made for me, though."

Peter was happy to have them. He was happy that Mr. Stark could improve on the tech. But looking at the new web-shooters made him feel like he'd never be able to reach Mr. Stark's level.

"I made the web stuff too using stuff I found in chem lab," he says. "I made a lot of mistakes. I thought maybe I'd try improving it while I'm here, but I don't know if I can with what we have here. I'm lucky enough that I had the stuff I needed to make even the basic stuff."

Peter turns his attention back to the game briefly. "Did you make your guns?"

"No, they were given to me." Quill said. "His name was Yondu. This blue guy who originally kidnapped me from Earth when I was a kid. I used to think he was this terrible guy, but turns out he was keeping me away from my dad who was a big d-bag."

He spent a moment focusing on the game they were playing.

"Rocket's spruced them up a little," He said after a while.

"I don't think anyone is ever completely terrible," Peter says, thinking of other-Liz's dad. "There was this guy I had to fight -- the Vulture -- who kept taking alien tech and making weapons out them. He eventually ended up trying to hijack Mr. Stark's plane full of a lot of tech when he was moving stuff over to the new Avengers facility, too." Peter stops a second to focus on a series of difficult platform jumps. Only once he's completed them does he speak again, though he's still focused on the game. "I mean, that's -- it's not great, it's not a great thing to do."

Peter takes a breath as he finishes the level. He turns to look at Quill. "He was doing it for his wife and for his daughter -- Liz. And I mean, I know it's not a great thing to do, but people might have good intentions, but a not-great way of actually acting on it."

For a moment, Peter doesn't say anything. Then he asks:

"What did your dad do?"

Quill listened and nodded. Most people had more to them than their evil ways. Quill didn't think that applied to Ego.

"My dad?" Quill asked. "oh, you know, the same ol' story. Celestial being goes around the universe impregnating women. Meets a woman from Earth, impregnates the wonderful woman. Decides to give her brain cancer so she dies and I can be kidnapped. Oh and then tried to use his children as a vessel to take over the universe, but they all died before me and then I said F that."

Peter's not sure what to say. It's not that he doesn't know how he feels about it - he does. But what Quill just told him was beyond tragic, and he finds himself feeling both angry and sad for Quill all at the same time.

Maybe there's really nothing that you can say at times like these. Peter presses SELECT and pauses the game, then looks over at Quill.

"I'm sorry," he says first, because he is. Then:

"Is it okay if I give you a hug?" he asks. "I mean, it's fine if you don't want one, I just -- Mr. Stark's not really into the hugging thing, so I didn't want to assume anything."

Peter presses his lips together and wishes that he wasn't as awkward as he felt.

All this was unexpected. Maybe with Gamora or Mantis he would have been given a hug, but the support from the others showed up in different ways. Rocket told him to suck it up buttercup, Drax talked about punching things, and Groot would have probably just paused his game for a second and then went back to playing it.

"Uh, yeah, sure." Quill answered. I have never been asked first for a hug before. That's new..

He held out his hands.

"Okay, bring it in." He said. Rocket would have so many things to say right now.

Peter gives Quill a hug

Maybe it should feel weird for him, as a sixteen-year old guy, to hug another guy, but to Peter, it doesn't feel weird at all.

"I'm really sorry you didn't have a good dad," he says, quietly.

Quill hugs Peter back.

"Hey, I had a great mom," he replied. "And Yondu wasn't half bad either."

Quill ignored any other feeling he had on the subject.

"What about your dad?" Quill asked. "What's he like?".

He held out his hands.

"Okay, bring it in." He said. Rocket would have so many things to say right now.

Peter settles back down next to Quill, then picks up the controller. He doesn't press SELECT to un-pause the game quite yet.

Peter looks over at Quill as he answers his question.

"My dad died when I was young so I never really got to know him as a person. He liked music and cooking, though. And putting together little model kits of trains and planes and stuff."

He was probably where Peter got his love of LEGOs from. Sure it was different, but it was still in the same ball park.

"I'm sorry, dude. That's rough." He said. "It's nice you have some memories of him. No one who likes music and cooking can be a bad person, so no worries there."

Sometimes Quill wondered if thinking his dad was dead instead of meeting Ego would have been better.

"Yeah, I'm sure," he says. "My mom's gone, too, and my uncle, so it's just me and my aunt. I'm really glad that I have her, you know."

He's pretty sure she's glad to have him, too.

Peter scratches his nose with the back of his hand and unpauses the game. It's the sun level. Peter's pretty sure this is the worst level in the entire game.

Quill died halfway through and to his credit didn't swear, but the look of determination was evident on his face.

With only one life left, they made it to the next level.

"What's your aunt like?" He asked.

"She's the best," Peter says, smiling. "She and Ben took me in after my parents died, even though she didn't want to have kids. She's really good at it, though. The parenting thing, I mean. She lets me call her May and she's always making these weird foods -- way weirder than my dad."

That's for sure.

"She likes artsy stuff. She paints in her free time. Not for a living, just for fun. I really like her paintings." He pauses there and presses his lips together. It doesn't feel like it's enough to just say those things.

"She gives me a lot of freedom and she doesn't get angry at me really often. When she does, it's definitely because I deserve it." Like the ferry thing. "She found out I was Spider-Man a couple of weeks before I ended up here. She freaked out at first, but then she just ended up drawing up some ground rules that I had to follow. I think she realized she wasn't going to be able to make me stop the whole Spider-Man thing."

Mr. Stark had learned that lesson the hard way.

"I hope you can meet her," he says. "After we beat Thanos. Her food's really weird, but it's really good and I think she'd like meeting you. She likes Footloose, too. The old one, not the new one."

No one liked the new one.

"There's a new Footloose? Why would you need to make a new one? The first one's a masterpiece." He said with a scoff.

Quill looked at Peter.

"She sounds really nice. You think she'd really like me?" He asked honestly. "You know, I haven't been back to Earth since I left as a kid."

"They're making remakes all the time. They did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Planet of the Apes, The Karate Kid, Carrie, and Robocop, too." There's more than just that, but those are the first few that come to mind.

"And yeah, yeah. I think she'd like you. She'd probably like you more than Mr. Stark, anyway." That was a low bar to cross though.

Peter stops for a second there as he navigates a tricky couple of platforms in the game.

"Why haven't you been back?" he asks. "If you've got a spaceship, you can go back anytime."

So many unnecessary remakes...

"Why? Well, for one I was on the other side of the Galaxy." He said, thinking about it. "There's not a whole lot of planets in Earth's solar system that has life, right? And then, well, I guess things just kept getting in the way."

He shrugged. Plus there is no one left for me there.

Peter gets up while Quill navigates a level as Mario. "Do you want to go back?" he asks, retrieving the muffins, the milk, and two glasses.

He sits back down and sets them between them, opens the bag, peels off the muffin liner, then takes his first bite of chocolate chip muffin.

It's actually pretty good.

"Back to Earth?" He repeated.

He finished the level, but it was a close call, and reached into the bag to grab one of his own.

"Yeah, probably." Quill answered. "Eventually.... Maybe..... why?"

He took a bite and smiled.

"Hey, this is really good!" He said after he swallowed. "Good chocolate to muffin ratio."

Peter beams at the compliment. He always used to overcook them, but practice made perfect.

"I don't really know what other planets are like," he says, setting the remainder of his muffin down on the ground atop its wrapper. "But there's a lot of great things there. You like the movies, right? There's tons of great movies and video games and TV shows. And people, too. Yeah, there's people who aren't great, but there's tons of people who are. I'm pretty sure bad people are everywhere."

Peter knows this to be true.

"The food -- it's really great. Especially in New York, 'cause there's so much of it. Queens has a really great sanndwich place -- it's being rebuilt right now, but it's the best. I'd travel from clear across the galaxy for one of Delmar's sandwiches."

Peter smiles to himself, then picks up the controller. They're coming close to one of the matching game levels. Those are his favorite.

"If you're trying to sell Earth to me, you had me as chocolate muffins." He said, smiling. "Seriously. There's no where to get muffins like this in space. It's like Earth invented how to miniaturize cakes and make them slightly healthier and the rest of the universe was like pfffft, why?"

He took another bite.

"I've never been to New York either. I'm from Missouri." He continued. "Not exactly the state everyone rushes to for vacation... but I liked it there."

"I've never been to Missouri," Peter admits. "I've been to Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and DC, but that's about it. I hadn't even left the country until Mr. Stark took me to Germany."

Peter is taken down by a jumping cheep-cheep. He lets out a sigh, sets down the controller, and finishes off the rest of his muffin.

"What do you usually eat in space? Is any of it at all like Earth?"

"Yeah, some of it." He said. "There's always some form of potato. Sometimes they're different colors or starchier, but it's like the resilient vegetable of the universe. Lots of things that taste or look like Chinese too."

He looked at Peter.

"You like Chinese?" He asked.

"Yeah, me and May get Chinese all the time." Both the real stuff and the Americanized stuff. Which apparently boded well for him if his forays into space didn't stop on the planet they fought Thanos on.

"Sounds like you're pretty much on your way to be a space hero to me." He said with a grin. "Though, you know what I also miss? Baseball hot dogs. Those things are the best - Are you a ketchup man or mustard man?"

Peter can't help but smile at the space hero comment. He really wishes that Mr. Stark would tell him things like that. Not that he minds it coming from Quill, but it's different with Mr. Stark. He didn't pay compliments very easily, which just made Peter want his approval even more.

"Both," he says. "What about you?"

And because it seems important: "I'm a Mets fan." Hopefully this doesn't have any negative impact on their relationship. People could get pretty heated about sports.

"I'm more of a mustard guy, though my mom liked relish so that's not half bad either." He said. "I could get behind ketchup as long as it wasn't the dominate condiment on the hot dog."

Quill had a lot of feelings about hot dogs.

"The Mets, huh?" He said, considering Peter. "I like the Cardinals. As long as it's not the Yankees, am I right?"

Peter laughs lightly. "Yeah," he says, smiling.

For a minute, Peter doesn't say anything; instead he looks at the screen. His eyes might be focused on the green, but his thoughts are elsewhere.

"Hey, Mr. Star-Lord?" he starts, but just as he gets some momentum, he stops again.

But only for a moment.

"Thanks for agreeing to hang out with me today," he says. "Things kinda -- they kinda suck on holidays like these when you -- when you don't have a dad."

He looked back at Peter. He almost corrected the 'Mr. Star-Lord', but Quill kind of liked it.

"Yeah, I get that." He replied. It doesn't get any better when you find out you have one and he's a totally douche-bag. "And thank you for suggesting it. For one, playing Nintendo is way more fun with two people. Plus the distractions nice."

A beat.

"You have anyone here or back home you think of as a dad figure?" He asked.

Peter smiles.

"Uh, yeah, kinda. My Uncle Ben kinda filled that role until he died," he says. "Then after that --"

Peter looks down, embarrassed. He hasn't actually admitted this to anyone before and even though he knows it's silly to be embarrassed about it, he still struggles to push the words forward.

"-- it was kinda Mr. Stark," he says. He can already feel the heat rising in his face at that particular admission.

"Iron Man, huh?" Quill said as he pictured the obviously less-charming man from back home ."I guess I can see that. He seems to like to pretend to be in charge, at least."

And you definitely look up to him. Quill remembered the way Peter looked at Stark.

"What's his deal, anyways?" He asked. "He seems pretty tightly wound."

If Quill noticed Peter's embarrassment, he didn't indicate as such.

Without context, it kinda feels like Peter's taking a stab in the dark. Though to be fair, he would be taking a stab in the dark, anyway. Mr. Stark isn't exactly forthcoming with him about his personal life. Still, there were some things he was able to glean about him from the internet. He'd basically been a Stark fanboy since even before Iron Man saved him at the Stark Expo.

"He inherited this really big company, Stark Industries, when he was pretty young," he says. "He was CEO for a really long time, too." That somehow seems important. "He was the first real superhero Earth had in a really long time." Captain America was a superhero a very long time ago, but he didn't come back until relatively recently. "So he was fighting a lot of threats by himself at first, and then a lot of bigger threats later on with other people. The Avengers."

A beat.

"Do you know the Chitauri? They attacked New York when I was younger." Peter remembers that all pretty well. "That was one of those threats."

"I've heard of the Chitauri, yeah," He said. "They work for Thanos."

Gamora did not have nice things to say about them. Quill considered Peter's words.

"Well, I guess since he has all of you guys now, maybe he can start to relax," Quill said. "At one point I thought he might have an aneurysm right there."

"I don't know," Peter says uncertainly. "I don't know how it is for anyone else, but I don't think he trusts me not to get myself killed."

He stops there and thinks about the ferry. As much as he really wanted to forget so much about that day, he's pretty sure he couldn't forget all the things Mr. Stark said to him.

And if you die, that's on me.

"He kinda--" And this is embarrassing to admit. "--took my suit away after I didn't listen to him about these bad guys I was trying to stop. I know now that he was probably just trying to protect me, but..."

It definitely didn't feel like that at the time. And even now, Peter still had a hard time seeing it that way.

"wait." He said, "So you made one mistake and he took your suit away. Lame. How are you going to learn if you don't make mistakes. It couldn't have been that bad."

Quill wouldn't have taken a suit away. He might have grounded Peter, but the suit would have stayed.

"He kinda told me not to go after this bad guy," Peter says. "And I went after him anyway. A lot of people could have gotten hurt." Peter was at least willing to admit that he wasn't completely innocent here.

And yeah, in the end, everyone was safe, but they wouldn't have been if Mr. Stark hadn't shown up to help.

Quill took in Peter's expression beside him.

"Sometimes... you can't save everyone." He said, quieter. "Sometimes it's about saying as many people as possible.... sometimes it's about saving the ones that matter. And you'll only learn which decision is right when you make it."

A beat as he chewed his muffin.

"But you obviously got your suit back." He said, "Or an upgrade, because you're definitely on Titan now."

Maybe it's the quiet way that Quill talks about choosing one life over another that gives Peter the feeling that Quill's had to make that choice before. Peter hopes he never has to. That if he works hard enough he will be able to save everybody and won't have to choose between one person and another. But Quill is more experienced than he is -- and more confident, too, and it scares him to think that unless he gets stronger, he might be forced to make that choice, too.

Peter is thankful when Quill segues the conversation elsewhere.

"Y-yeah," he says. "I got it back after I stopped the Vulture after he hijacked Mr. Stark's moving plane. I think he thought I had earned it back -- that I could be responsible with it."

"Damn right you can," He said assertively with a nod. "You wouldn't be part of the plan to stop Thanos if you couldn't handle it, trust me. We don't have time to babysit."

Peter feels pride well up inside of him. It was really nice hearing that he was actually going to be able to pull his own.

"How'd you get your superhero name?" he asks, glancing over at him from the screen for only a moment. But a moment was all it took for him to get hit by a spiny. Luigi lost his power-up. Peter's frown deepens as he redirects his focus back to the game.

Quill considered how to answer it. He weighed the pros and the cons. He wondered if Peter would stop calling him that. Probably not.

"My mom was the first one to come up with it, actually." He said, watching the screen. "So I've always been Star-Lord."

"It's a cool name," Peter says, just as he finishes the level. He sets his controller down and picks at the rest of his muffin. He looks over at Quill and smiles. "I don't think most moms think of nicknames like that. My mom just called me Pete."

"My mom also went around telling people my dad was a space man," He said with a fond smile. "No one believed her, but she didn't care. She knew what was what."

Except dad was a big tool

"You like Pete better?" He asked. "Or is that reserved for a select few?"

"I don't mind it," Peter says. "But no one calls me Pete anymore."

Not even May did.

"I can start calling you that, if you like." He said, glancing his way. "Pete has a bit of a ring to it."

"You think so?" Peter dampens his lips and smiles. He doesn't know what is is about Quill, but every time Peter says something to him, he doesn't feel nearly as awkward or weird as he probbaly should.

And maybe that's a big part of why he likes Quill so much.

"Yeah, you can call me Pete if you want to."

"Alright, done deal," He said. "Pete it is."

Quill grinned.

"You know, I should probably mention this to you, but my actual name is Peter too." He said, "Peter Quill."

Peter smiles and he's not sure if he's smiling over the fact that Quill has a sorta-nickname for him now or that they both share the same name.

"Do you prefer Star-Lord?" he asks. Quill hasn't corrected him so far, but...

"I mean, yeah, who wouldn't?" He answered with a grin. "It's a pretty awesome name."

"I think Mr. Stark would be weirded out if people called him Iron Man all the time," Peter says, turning his attention back to the game; it's his turn to play again. It'd probably be weird for him, too, but that was mostly because he had a secret identity.

"Most people call me Quill," He said as he watched Peter play. But Star-Lord reminds me of my mom... and sounds really cool. "So whatever you feel comfortable with, Pete."

He glanced at Peter and winked.

"Mr. Star-Lord, then," Peter says. He's gotten used to calling him that, anyway. It'd be like him suddenly calling Mr. Stark "Tony". It'd just be weird.

With the help of the Magic Flute, the two of them managed to push through several worlds without playing them. They're in World Eight now, all fire and brimstone and moving tanks.

"Do you have a costume?" he asks, as he avoids one of the tank's flamethrowers. "I had to make my first one."

"You saw me out in the desert, right?" He asked rhetorical. "That's mine. Not exactly as fancy as yours or Iron Man's or even Magic Cape Wizard, but it's sort of goes with the whole bad-ass space hero thing."

His costume was a lot of leather, similar to the way he had dressed up Liz.

"How'd your first costume look?" He asked.

"It's not what you have," Peter says, about costuming. "It's what you do with it."

Peter hits SELECT to pause the game, then fishes his cell phone out of his pocket. He brings up the galley and then swipes through until he finally finds a selfie of him in his homemade suit. He hands it over to Quill.

"I know it's not as impressive as Mr. Stark's suits, but I kinda had a limited budget."

"Hey, that's still pretty cool." He said, looking at the phone. "I have no clue how to sew or anything, You should take credit for it. Plus I dig the fingerless gloves."

He handed back the phone.

"When did you start being a superhero?" He asked.

Peter looks down at the picture and smiles at it. It seems weird that just looking at a picture of himself in his old costume could rouse up such fond feelings, but... maybe he was just getting sentimental. Things felt way simpler back then, before he fought the other Avengers... before he fought the Vulture.

"When I was fourteen," he says. "So about two years ago. I was bitten by a spider during a school trip and I just ended up getting these powers, and I thought I should probably do something good with them. Just like the Avengers."

"Wow. Fourteen, huh? Intense." He said, then thought of the conversation Alec had with him. "That's a lot to take on."

He glanced to Peter. Quill felt bad at this sort of stuff.

"You ever feel overwhelmed?" He asked casually.

"Yeah, but I can handle it," Peter says, confidently. He taps SELECT to unpause the game and continues his playthrough. "There's people counting on me."

He nodded, understanding exactly what he meant.

"Yeah, I get that." He said. "And you can do the things you do, so it'd be pretty messed up if you didn't help."

Quill felt the same way.

"But, uh.." He continued. "...you know. I'd rather do the things I do with my team, than alone."

I wonder if that's good enough...

"Yeah," Peter agrees. "I like it, too." He really did. Fighting with the rest of the Avengers had been a dream come true. Fighting with them again against a really big bad guy on another planet? That was probably going to be everything he'd ever hoped for.

"But most of the time I'm just fighting alone," he says. "The stuff I do is under the Avengers' paygrade."

At least for now, Spider-Man was a solo act.

Anna Kasko
Fri, Jun 29, 9:07 PM (9 days ago)
to me

Quill nodded.

"You ever think of trying to find a few people like you who help?" He asked casually. "Like, I could totally kick ass by myself, but every guardian has their own unique thing. Mantis has her emotionie thing, Drax is a tank, Rocket, as you know, like to make things explode... Maybe you could find some people to be on team Spider-Man. Like your girlfriend is here."

"There's not a lot of superpowered people on Earth," Peter says, setting down the controller after he successfully finishes his level. "Most of them are adults and I haven't really gotten to talk to any of them. Even when Mr. Stark took me to my first big Avengers fight, I didn't really get the chance to talk to anybody else."

Not really. Not outside of combat, anyway.

"I couldn't put anyone else in danger," he says. "I want Liz to be able to protect herself in case I'm not there to help, but... when it comes down to it, if there was danger and I was there... I'd do everything I could to draw it away."

"Pretty much what I would do too." He said. Though I wouldn't have to worry about Gamora, necessarily. "You never know. Maybe you'll meet some kids soon with super powers and you can team up. Start a Teen Avengers and show all of the older ones how it's really done."

Peter resents being referred to as a kid, but he's willing to let it slide. But only for Quill.

"I really hope that happens," he says. "I just don't feel like -- like I belong. And I know that sometime in the future, I'll really be an Avenger, but I'm not now and I'm not sure if any of them will accept me because I'm not as experienced or as old as they are."

He takes a breath.

"I just don't think that'd be a problem with people my own age."

"You're probably right." He admitted. "It's kind of way I made the Guardians... because we're a bunch of people that don't really fit in anywhere else, but we fit in together."

We're all a bunch of misfits

"But I will tell you something," he continued. "It's not just about experience, so anyone not willing to give you a chance because of just that is an idiot."

Peter smiles at that and looks down, embarrassed at being so happy about that. It seems weird that he should feel embarrassed about being happy, but he really is.

"Thanks," he says. "I hope so, too."

Peter unpauses the game and keeps playing. He's almost done with this level. "I've never gotten this far in the game before," he says. "It's kinda nice to have someone here to play with."

So far, he hasn't found anyone else that's really liked video games. At least, it's never come up before.

Quill nodded, agreeing.

"Groots the only one who wants to play video games, but a) he's at that annoying 'my family is uncool' stage and b) we don't have any two-player video games on the ship, so, I feel you." He said.

Peter can't imagine feeling his family was uncool. May was basically one of the coolest people he know. But maybe it was just different for other people.

"Are you Groot's family?" Peter's not entirely sure who Groot is. Maybe Quill's son? But like May, Peter can't imagine thinking Quill was uncool if he was his father.

They're almost at the end of the game now. Peter's playing through the second-to-last level.

"We're all family. Rocket's my family too." He said, then realized Peter might not know who Groot is. "Groots a tree, basically. Used to be a grown tree and then stuff happened and he started over as a sapling. Rocket's the closet to him. Don't tell him I said so, but I think he probably misses Groot the most."

A sentient tree sounds pretty weird, but no weirder than alien-robot things attacking New York City on a god-Alien's orders. Weird sounds like it's going to be a big part of Peter's future. It's probably better that he get used to it now rather than later.

"Is he still the same person?" Peter asks, glancing momentarily at Quill -- a mistake that proves fatal to poor Luigi on-screen. He looks back at the TV just in time to see Luigi get hammered by a canonball.

Peter lets out a sigh of frustration.

"Brutal." He said, commenting on the death of Luigi as he picked up his own controller.

Quill thought about Groot.

"Yeah, he's pretty much the same, I guess." He replied. "I mean, he's like a teenager now, but deep down he's the same guy, you know? He's just all hormonal right now. He still has all his memories and whatever. But if you really want to know more, you should talk to Rocket. Those two were together before we even met. They tried to capture me - Rocket tasered me. It was not fun."

"So the Guardians are you and Rocket and Groot," Peter says. A human. A raccoon person. A teenage tree. "Do you have any women members? The Avengers only have two. Just Scarlet Witch and Black Widow."

That was always kind of disappointing to Peter. There had to be more female superpowered beings out there, right? It could be all guys all the time.

"uh, and my girlfriend, remember?" Quill said, " Also Drax - he's an alien too. Big, burly, likes to walk around topless. Works for him. And Mantis. She's new to the team. She used to work for my dad but decided working for an evil guy sucked."

"Yeah, your girlfriend," Peter echoes, watching as Quill plays through the level. At least the female-to-male ratio was a little more balanced in the Guardians of the Galaxy than they were in the Avengers. Still, Mantis' name piques his interest.

"Is Mantis her superhero name or her name-name?" he asks. Was she another bug-themed superhero?

"uh... Sort of? I think that's her actual name." He said.

Come to think of it, I have no idea if that was a chosen name or if my dad gave that name to her... I should ask.

"She kind of looks like a human bug person. " He explained. "From some empathic alien race. My dad was basically keeping her as his slave."

Peter feels bad.

Sure, losing his own dad wasn't great. There were times where he missed him badly or wondered what he'd think of him. And even though Peter didn't know his dad as a person when he died and Peter was sure he never saw any of his flaws, he knows that his dad could never possibly be as bad as Quill's.

And finding out your dad is an evil guy who enslaves people and is bent on using you to destroy the universe has to be about a million times worse than anything Peter's experienced.

"Do you ever want to be a dad?"

Peter himself isn't sure why he asks it; all he was doing was thinking about how bad Quill's dad was and then somehow the thought occurred to him that Quill would be a much better dad than his was and then --

-- it just kinda slipped out.

Quill suddenly made a mistake, almost at the end of the level, and Mario died. He looked at Peter.

"Uh... Yeah." He said first, unsure, but then sounded more sure. "Yeah. Yeah I do. And I'll be a great dad, too."

I wonder if Gamora wants children...

Peter picks up his controller and starts up the level again as Luigi.

"I really want to be a dad someday, too." A beat. "If I have time for it, I mean."

He quickly glances over at Quill -- just for a second, not quite long enough for him to fall to a perilous death and says, "I think you'd make a great dad, too."

"Thanks, Pete. That means a lot to me." He said with a smile. "And, for what it's worth, so will you. You'll totally have time at some point. Can't let life get in the way of those things."

"Yeah, maybe," Peter says, thought he doesn't sound entirely confident. He's considerably more confident about their odds of beating this game today, though -- especially after he finishes the second-to-last level.

"It's all on you now," Peter says, setting his controller down. "Good luck."

"No pressure, huh?" He said with a grin.

He turned his full attention to the tv. Mario dodged and jumped. He almost lost it... Mario reverted back to his tiny size, but he endured. Quill ended up finally being triumphant.

"And the crowd goes wild!" He shouted, hands up, and then made the 'crowd cheering' sound.

Peter immediately raises his hand up to give Quill a high-five.

"I can't believe we did it," he says. "I thought even with the magic whistles there'd be no way we'd get through it in one day."

Peter's happy to be wrong, though. Even though it meant he didn't have an easy excuse to hang out with Quill again. So maybe... maybe he should address that now.

"I really, really had a great time today," he begins. "So... if you ever want someone to play games with..."

Peter's voice trails off.

"Dude, you're welcome here anytime." He said without need of prompting. "Even if you just want to come and hang out and do homework or whatever."

Quill missed having people around like on the ship.

"Really?"

There's no masking Peter's delight at all. It was great that if he wanted to hang out with Quill again he didn't need to find an excuse.

Though that reminds him...

The credits continue to play, and Peter watches them for a second before pushing himself off the ground. "I should get back," he says. "I have an essay I need to finish for Professor Song tomorrow. History stuff."

"Essays," he said, making a face. "Well, to each their own."

I am so okay not having to do essays, ever. Thank Yondu for that.

He stood up and let the credit run.

"Thanks for coming over." He said. "Pretty much the best Father's Day I've ever had."

"Yeah," Peter says in agreement. "Thanks, Mr. Star-Lord."

It really was the best Father's Day he's had in a very long time.

Credit.