[ So Maya's been listening to a lot of music lately- more than she would normally, but when you spend close, personal time with Peter Quill, certain things tend to be catching.
And the more she listens to music, the more she finds songs that makes her think of him. It's a silly, sentimental thing, but it makes her smile, and she has a feeling he'd appreciate the sentiment. His mix tapes are precious to him in a way she could never replace, and nor does she want to, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to to give him a little something.
She's not great with words, or feelings- and boy oh boy does he make her feel feelings. So if one day he finds an ECHO device loaded with music and a simple note that says "from Maya" on it, well, it just means she finally found the words. ]
[ To say Peter is surprised to find the ECHO device is an understatement.
He's mentioned the history of his mixed tapes to Maya at different points in their many conversations -- maybe not straight out (some twenty-six years later, and he still feels the loss keenly), but it's clear by putting the pieces together that the two tapes and the Walkman were a gift from a dying mother, the last trinkets from a planet he has yet to return to.
So Peter knows that Maya would understand how Significant this gesture is. And that's why he doesn't hesitate to plug in his headphones and start listening to the recordings immediately.
It's different, is his first thought; he's unused to this kind of music, and it's very different to his mom's tapes. But it's so very Maya that after a few listens, he tucks the device into the pocket of his coat, right alongside Awesome Mix, Volumes 1 and 2.
Eventually he'll work to learn all of the words to these songs, too, but for now, he's knocking at Maya's door. ]
[ Peter's not accustomed to formal parties per se, but he's been to more than a few. Sometimes on the arm of someone who's hired him for protection (and he has such a pretty face, after all) or by crashing them just for fun.
This time around, the team's been hired to break into the vault, tucked beneath the mansion of a wealthy Krylorian -- and Peter thinks he ought to feel guilty about it, except that it's a well-known fact that this particular man made his fortune on slave trading and frequently pays off the authorities to turn a blind eye to his activities. That, and Peter ran into him once at one of the parties he was hired to attend, and he had watched as the man slapped the hell out of a servant who happened to drop a glass. It pissed Peter off at the time, but he was forced to keep his mouth shut and his fists to himself by his employer.
So he stole the Krylorian's wallet out of spite.
In any case, the Krylorian's party is the event of the season, and Peter is on infiltration duty, being the social chameleon of the group. And to avoid drawing attention, the team had decided to send only one other member into the fray. With Groot being a giant tree, Rocket being a raccoon, Drax being a literal maniac, and Gamora sticking out like a sore thumb (being possibly the last of her race), that left Maya as the only other feasible choice.
At the moment, the two of them are waiting to be allowed in; there's a thorough security check ahead of them, and knowing this ahead of time, the two of them were forced to come unarmed. Peter feels thoroughly naked without his quad blasters, and equally ridiculous in his suit, but it doesn't show.
In fact, a brief glance would show him to be the perfect image of an affluent, upstanding gentleman.
Listening to what he's whispering to Maya, however, is a totally different matter. ]
Ten credits says the fat guy in front of us has five guys on the side.
[ Maya has never had to dress formally for anything in her entire life. She'd sequestered herself away in her room days prior just so she could practice walking in heels without falling over.
Her dress is no less revealing than her combat suit, save for the fact that the sleeve is now on her left arm to cover her Siren tattoos, but she still feels naked. Maybe it's the lack of weaponry. It's only thanks to her training and mediation that she doesn't look as nervous as she feels.
She arches an eyebrow at Peter, though it's hidden behind her bangs. If nothing else, she has to admit, he cleans up nicely. ]
[ Maya had made Pandora sound like a shithole, yes, but it was the most amazing shithole ever. Truly beautiful sometimes, with the lush green of the Highlands, the cold beauty of the Southern Shelf, and the near constant aurora borealis hanging in the night sky. It was a planet built on the backs of criminals and capitalism, used and abandoned, but it was a planet that had learned to not give a fuck about the rest of the universe. To Maya, it had been her freedom. In the short time she was there, it was more of a home to her than the abbey had ever been.
And it was nice to see familiar faces. When Maya and the rest of the Guardians took the Fast Travel into Sanctuary, she was greeted with a sea of smiles and hugs. Lilith had given her a significant look, quirking a brow at Peter. Maya just gave a small nod, cheeks coloring slightly.
Gaige had been a little more direct, giving her a thumbs-up and a drawn out Niiiice.
But she had been spared further embarrassment when Rocket had taken interest in Gaige's mechanical arm and somehow managed to trigger Deathtrap's digistruct sequence. After a bit of robot-related chaos, Vault Hunters and Guardians dispersed in groups of twos and threes, settling in to talk shop or grab a drink at Moxxi's, where no doubt they would run across the town Bounty Board or people with things that needed doing. They would stay occupied and probably turn a nice profit in the meantime.
Maya and Peter made their way to Zed's clinic, where they explained to the doctor (the doctor without a medical license, but it was probably fine) what had happened. He lamented that by and large, Sirens were still a mystery, but he'd do his best to make sure there wasn't any lasting damage.
All in all, she was given a clean bill of health, aside from learning that she might be prone to nosebleeds when using her powers for a few days.
That left she and Peter to wander Sanctuary for a bit, arm in arm ]
[ After meeting all of Maya's companions, Peter had been in kind of a daze. Truth be told, when he was told he would be meeting her friends, Peter went through the same sort of nervous breakdown a boyfriend might when he has to finally meet the parents.
It wasn't so bad after all, though, and he was so, so glad when Rocket brought attention to himself and pulled it off of Peter.
Pandora wasn't nearly as bad as he had imagined it to be. It was about as bad as any other planet he had been on, but he had to admit some of the views were nice. If it weren't for the rampant murder, he could see himself living here at some point. ]
[ It hadn't been a difficult thing to convince the others of the need for a break, given the difficulty of their latest assignments, as well as the remarkable level of success. Granted, success in this case meant that no one had bled to death, and any missions involving cargo meant that at least 60% of the goods were still intact. Nevertheless, the Guardians were on the upswing, which meant a vacation was long overdue.
It also hadn't been a difficult thing to convince them of the merits of landing on Sarapis. The planet was renowned for its beautiful beaches and its relative seclusion. One of the few natural beauties left in the galaxy that hadn't turned into an overdeveloped mess. Touristy after a fashion, but anyone who wanted to be left alone would be.
What had been a difficult thing for Peter was convincing Rocket that, no, he did not need to bring five bombs to the surface with him (they begrudgingly compromised, finally, on one); telling Drax that, no, he would not need to chaperone Peter and Maya to ensure Peter did not take advantage of Maya in her "delicate state" (Peter reminded Drax of Maya's ability to set people on fire with her mind); and finally, forcing Gamora off the ship once they landed, despite her insistence that she did not need a vacation (Peter told her to think of it as his way of saying thanks, which worked).
Groot had been easy, at least. All he wanted was to enjoy the sun.
Peter had promised Maya beaches with white sand and clear water, and Sarapis delivered; it wasn't too unlike the tropical beaches on Earth, but the sky was a vibrant shade of blue, the water a clear, glass-like turquoise. Despite the odds, he and Maya had found themselves a stretch of beach without another soul in sight; Peter had, of course, insisted on carrying all of their things.
As he looks out from where he's seated on towel in the sand, Peter is trying and failing to remember the last time he's been to a beach just for enjoyment. He's had plenty of jobs that took place near the ocean, sure, and more than once he's ended up having to dive beneath the surface of the water, but that was to throw off pursuers and not for the joy of swimming. And swimming fully clothed sucks, which is why he's currently shirtless and in a pair of swim trunks. ]
So, like, beach stuff. [ His tone is cheerful, and he grins at her. ] Are we supposed to break into upbeat songs and start doing the Monkey? 'Cause that's what I was always taught.
I dunno. The last time I was on a beach, Sir Hammerlock got kidnapped by the locals and we had to kill the giant crab monster that was going to eat him.
[ She swears, her life sounds like a comedy of errors sometimes. ]
So, you know. Not very beachy.
[ Maya, for her own part, actually bought a bikini. Partially because she wanted to surprise Peter, but she still has on her oversized Torgue t-shirt over it. She's not really sure why she's so shy about the whole thing- Peter obviously had no problem wandering around without his shirt on. (And she certainly had no problem with him wandering around without his shirt on. She actually had to remind herself more than once not to stare, but damn.) She's being silly and insecure, she knows, but for now the shirt stays on.
She wanders idly around Peter's towel, enjoying the feel of the sand on her bare feet. ]
[ There were a lot of things that the Ravagers had taught Peter, after they had stolen him away from home:
Trust your fellow Ravager.
We steal from everyone but each other.
Don't ever. Ever. Ever fuck with magic.
Unfortunately for them, Peter had never been good at following instructions.
They had become something like his family over the past twenty some-odd years, had treated him as one of their own, but that didn't mean he was close to them. Not particularly. Being frequently told, even as he was a child, that they only kept him around as emergency rations would sour any relationship, after all. But he was content to keep his head down among the band of thieves, until he was old enough and trusted enough to be sent on jobs on his own.
It was never a secret that Peter didn't like being a Ravager. It had, in fact, become something of a sticking point in his training and one of the many things they mocked him for. He did the work well enough, though, and his fellows assumed he was putting on airs, deluding himself into thinking he deserved something more. Something better.
The actual secret was that Peter wanted power. He'd spent most of his life feeling like victim that at this point? He was pretty much ready to do anything.
There was a new job being passed around -- but this job was different. The best thieves among them would adamantly refuse to take the assignment, and something about the fear in their eyes made Peter curious. What the hell was wrong with this job that all these men and women, ostensibly at the top of their game, would turn ghostly white and go practically shitless at the mention of it?
Something amazing, probably. Dangerous. So Peter volunteered.
The job was securing an ancient relic, and when Peter held it, he understood what the problem was. It was dripping with magic, soaking with it, enough so that the entire chamber that housed it stank of something uniquely, darkly arcane. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, like in the moments before a thunderstorm, could taste something metallic in his mouth, could feel the power of it pulsing up his arm and course through his body. It was-- it was intoxicating.
He didn't make the rendezvous that night, or the back-up rendezvous the night after that. In fact, he dodged all the Ravagers sent after him in the following days.
The ritual to utilize the relic, as it turns out, was nothing more than channeling a desire in the dead of night -- something Peter finds out purely by accident after setting up camp in the forest. There was a flash of light, he remembers, and the relic had seared the palm of his hand before he was able to drop it with a hissed curse; there's also an excellent chance, he thinks, that he may have blacked out, judging by the fact that he's in a heap on the forest floor, and his head is throbbing in time with the beating of his heart.
It's not until he forces himself up into a sitting position that he sees-- someone. Someone where a "someone" definitely hadn't been before, which is reason enough for Peter to pull out a blade from his boot and scramble into a crouched, defensive position. ]
[ That someone is sitting on a nearby tree stump, one leg crossed over the other, and perched like gravity was more of a suggestion than an actual rule.
She regards him coolly with pale yellow eyes, unfazed by the knife in his hand- and perhaps amused by his reaction, if the slight quirk of her lips is any indication. How cute, she thinks, when he demands to know who she is.
If he knew anything at all about the dark forces in this world, the markings on the left side of her body, visible on her bare arm, and on her leg beneath the tattered remains of her yellow skirt, should identify her right away.
Siren. As powerful as they were rare, it took a great deal of power to summon one, even more to trap one in a relic like she had been. But she had to hand it to the Brothers of the Order of the Impending Storm- they knew their dark rituals. She'd be impressed, if the whole ordeal hadn't cost their leader his life.
Somehow this... this boy had freed her, though he didn't seem to realize it, but she was now beholden to him regardless. She'd felt his hunger, his need for power, when he picked up the relic for the first time. It had intrigued her. ]
Do you not know?
[ a question she already knows the answer to, but she asks it anyway ]
[ Despite himself, Peter was really starting to like Maya.
She was scary as hell, to be sure. Occasionally he had the feeling that if it weren't for their contract, she would be sorely tempted to light him on fire with her brain after a few particular smartass comments; and occasionally for Peter, the old Ravager-ingrained paranoia regarding her magical nature bubbled up to the surface, and he'd be overly wary of her.
But she had a surprisingly dry sense of humor (and it still surprised him even now, that a scary demon magic lady would be capable of making a joke), and there were times that she was-- strangely innocent, if he surprised her with some innocuous "human ritual" (as she called it), like holding open a door for her, or if he minded his pleases and thank yous with her. Apparently her last contractee hadn't offered her the same simple courtesy.
After a couple weeks, they hadn't encountered any more trouble since the first night with the Ravager scouts; and though Maya hadn't pressed him on it, Peter still wasn't sure how it was that he wanted to go about taking the rest of them out. The most obvious course of action would be to head back to the headquarters and strike in the middle of the night, but even with Maya's abilities, they'd be largely out-manned and outgunned. And he still wasn't convinced, despite Maya's insistence, that he had any magical abilities of his own.
And he was running out of time, too, before Maya would start taking time off his life. Not that he was particularly worried about it; he had resolved himself to a short lifespan a long time ago. Still, it'd be nice to use his free period and dismiss her before payment was due; and even then, he felt a weird reluctance to do so, as well. He found himself wondering if she might stick around, even if they terminated the contract. He hoped she would, at least for a bit -- and he would immediately feel stupid for thinking that. Sentimental. Of course she wouldn't stick around.
Currently it's midday, and they've stopped off in a small town for supplies; and for the past several hours, Peter's felt an itch at the back of his neck.
He takes in a slow breath as he tucks away his newly bought supplies. Once he exhales softly, he glances over at her. ]
[ After the one-two punch of Sophis and twenty-seven long years of imprisonment, Peter Quill was a breath of fresh air. He joked with her, and allowed he a degree of freedom she'd never had on the Order's short leash. She couldn't fault him for his occasional bouts of paranoia- old habits die hard, and he'd been raised to fear things like her, but even in spite of that, he took her in stride a lot of the time.
He had a goal in mind, she knew, but she was content just to travel with him and enjoy his company.
And she really did enjoy his company.
There was one other trick up her proverbial sleeve that she hadn't mentioned until they had come to their first town- a simple glamour. The spell hid her tattoos from sight, and changed some of her more fantastical features, such as her hair and eyes, to more natural shades. She passed as human fairly well, if a little strange sometimes. ]
Are we?
[ She frowns. Usually she could sense someone on their tail almost instantly. She closes her eyes and concentrates, her tattoos flaring to life briefly. With the glamour, it looks eerily like there's something slithering just under her skin.
After a moment, her eyes snap open. ]
I caught a glimpse, but they're shielding themselves from my senses.
[ Staying on the move, it seems, was far easier said than done.
Although they were avoiding them, they were still using towns as landmarks to guide their way, and the next one from the little den was approximately three days' travel. Maya had done an admirable job of repairing the damage from Mondo's magic, but Peter's body was still exhausted and repairing itself and, in a perfect world, he would've had another day or two to rest. But the world isn't perfect, because sometimes you get chased by a band of bloodthirsty thieves and maniacal wizards, and sometimes you make blood pacts with Sirens, and sometimes you lose the ones you love or get imprisoned by a bunch of assholes -- so, Peter thinks, you just have to make do with the hand you're dealt.
On the bright side, Peter's fears of slowing them down weren't proven true, mostly because sheer stubbornness and willpower (and, in some ways, fear of a repeat of their encounter with someone like Brother Mordo) kept him upright far after it was wise for him to still be moving. If it hadn't been for Maya noticing his unsteady steps and forcing them to rest, and subsequently lecturing him for how idiotic and irresponsible and bull-headed (and a whole lot of other negative attributes that Peter didn't hear because she was using her magic to heal him by that point, and once she did that it made him seriously drowsy), Peter would've kept going until he collapsed from exhaustion.
At the very least, he slept dreamlessly that night.
It's midway through the second day that Maya had had enough and gave him an earful, and whatever it was he heard finally got through his thick skull. Guilt probably had a lot to do with it. Pride, too, perhaps. He probably had those dark thoughts about being a burden and a liability, and what would happen if they were attacked and he was too exhausted and couldn't put up a fight? He would look ridiculous. Bad enough he was out-classed in every possible way when it came to a magic-user battle; the least he could do was be an annoyance and a distraction if members of the Order appeared.
So Maya stops forcing their breaks, because Peter's the one finally asking. Perhaps they're not stopping as frequently as they should, but that he's asking to rest at all is surely an improvement.
He's feeling a lot better by the third day, but still not quite at his best just yet. Maybe another day or two and he'll be fine, he thinks -- or he hopes, anyway. But at the moment he's leaning against a tree, trying to catch his breath as Maya moves on ahead. They're not too far from town, maybe another hour or two, and he'd really like to just keep pressing forward to at least reach the outskirts, but his legs are starting to feel like jelly, but they're so close, and maybe he could just keep going--? ]
Maya, hold on. [ He sounds a little pissed and embarrassed. ] Sorry-- could we stop again?
[ Maya is well-aware of the frailty of humans, Peter's, it seems, most of all. She's not sure what would compel him to push himself far beyond his limit, but having demonic strength and stamina, she has yet to actually reach hers so she really has no place to wonder.
She has no problems with sitting Peter down and telling him when he's being a dumbass about it. She cares about him (again, in what capacity, she has no idea), and would rather not see him exhaust or further injure himself.
So when he starts asking to take breaks, she really and genuinely appreciates it, because it means he's willing to take his own well-being into account and not just hers.
Which is why she stops walking, and turns to him with a nod and a look on her face that she hopes it reassuring. ] Of course. If you want to sit down, I can get you some water.
[ The last time Gaige was on a spaceship, she was stowed away in a cramped cargo bay with naught but the clothes on her back. She was on her way to Pandora, fresh on the heels of Marcie's messy demise at Deathtrap's hands and being broken out of jail by her father. She put on a brave face her her ECHOcast, but in reality, she'd been scared out of her mind.
That all felt like a lifetime ago. Sometimes the old aches came back, but for the most part, she'd come to enjoy her new life on Pandora.
And now here she was on a spaceship again. Maya's message had been a little strange (Hey, if I send you the dimensions of this room, would you be able to turn it into an inertia-proof library?) but there was nothing the Mechromancer loved more than a challenge. Which is why she's currently in Maya's former quarters on the Milano, welding a metal bookshelf into place. She's been at it for a while, welder's mask pulled down over her face. ]
[ Before the events on Xandar, space on the Milano had been limited at best. There was one room that acted as personal quarters, outfitted with four bunks, two stacked in either side. And while the ship could fit four, in theory, it was really only comfortable enough for maybe two -- if the second person was small and didn't own a lot, seeing as how Peter lived like a slob.
But after it had been totaled in the battle against Ronan and subsequently rebuilt by the Nova Corps as a thank you gift, the ship had been expanded, and rooms were split up to accommodate each of the five Guardians (though Groot roomed with Rocket). Space was still limited, and Peter still lived like a slob, but at least they each had a space to call their own.
But now-- the fifth bunk is being converted. Into, of all things, a library. On the Milano.
Still kind of weird, at least to Peter, but the others seemed on board -- well, everyone but Rocket, who had campaigned long and hard to turn the room into a personal workshop -- but, frankly, everyone was terrified by the idea, so it was quickly shot down. And Gaige was already hard at work by the time it really sank in for Peter, so by then it was too late to change his mind.
It's been a few hours, at least, and Peter has spent most of it exercising in the cargo area (because a physique like his requires work). He's surprised he hasn't seen more of Gaige. He figured with her being in such close proximity to Rocket, the two of them would've fucked off somewhere to start building atomic bombs capable of taking out entire sectors, and picking apart the toaster or the oven to do so, no less. But it seems Maya was right -- give Gaige a task, and she focuses on it.
... Unless she's building explosives up there, when she's supposed to be putting in shelves. It's when that thought occurs to him that he decides to check up on her under the guise of bringing her a bottle of water. ]
[ Peter was never naive enough to think he'd live forever.
Well, he had always sort of hoped he would, always sort of wished he would find the Fountain of Youth or something and live forever and ever, enjoying life and traveling the universe. It was a silly wish, especially given the fact that he was a Ravager, and Ravagers lived fast, died young, and tended to leave horribly mangled, sizzling corpses. When he accidentally wandered his way back onto the straight and narrow, dubbed himself a Guardian of the Galaxy, he had no idea that it would actually shorten his lifespan. But of course it would, of course it did, because there were more things at stake now than his own stupid life, and it took the mess with the Infinity Stone to make him realize that his life is nothing compared to an entire planet, an entire galaxy, an entire universe.
So when the Nova Corps contacted them, begged them for their help in thwarting almost universal annihilation, the Guardians set a really shitty plan into motion.
It was a suicidal strategy at best, even after fine-tuning. Peter doesn’t remember the particulars, except that there was a super weapon, a beam capable of taking out planets. He remembers they fought their way on to the enemy ship as it broke atmo on the planet of Khafreon Prime, ready to test its weapon on the unsuspecting populace below. He remembers setting the bomb to take out the weapon, the timer ticking down slowly, and the team struggled to fight their way out but-- something had gone wrong, hadn’t it? There were too many soldiers, he thinks-- and it’s so hard to think, right now, so hard to do much of anything but-- Something had gone wrong, there were too many--
The soldiers were going after the bomb, trying to defuse it, and Peter thinks-- why is his mind so sluggish? -- he doubled back to defend it, because what would be the point to get this far and have no results to show for it?
So he fell back, and then a wall of enemies separated him from the others, and he hunkered down next to the bomb, and-- fuck, why can’t he think?
He defended Rocket’s bomb, but-- he got stuck, didn’t he? He couldn’t fight his way out fast enough? Couldn’t get to the Milano before the explosion rocked the entire ship and sent him and thousands of shards of shrapnel flying through the air--
It’s silent here as he comes to, save for the ominous creaking of the bulkhead and blaring of alarms in the distance. He’s resting against a slab of metal -- he thinks it might’ve been part of that super weapon, but now it’s mostly useless scrap. Everything is bathed in a red light, or at least he thinks it is until he remembers his helmet is still in place. And he thinks it’d be nice to sleep, to just rest here and let blackness reclaim him. The smell of something metallic fills his nose and coats the back of his throat -- oil, probably, or grease, seeing as how he’s on a ship. He coughs wetly, and his mouth suddenly tastes like copper. He wants to spit it out, but his arms won’t listen to him, won’t move, so he swallows it back down.
Did the others make it out okay? He hopes they did. He doesn’t know -- in all the chaos, it was hard to tell who was and wasn’t still nearby, and he thinks he was mostly on his own, though every now and again he remembers hearing Rocket screaming, “BLAM! Murdered you!” or Groot crying out his own name, or Gamora and Drax’s voices joined in triumphant battle cries, or the fwoomp of Maya’s phaselock—
God. Maya. Peter’s fists clench limply at his sides. He doesn’t know where she is, but he really fucking hopes she’s alright.
The funny thing is, he’s not really in pain, but he thinks he should be. Mostly he feels numb and cold, and he should really be getting back to the others before they miss him. But-- his thoughts are fuzzy around the edges -- but the plan was to get back to the ship before the bomb went off, detach from the docking point and fly away, because-- why?
Because the enemy ship would be crashing. Because the weapon was housed in the primary control room, and the bomb was going to take out everything, and there was no way to control the ship’s free fall to the planet’s surface at that point. It meant sacrificing part of the city below (he hopes they evacuated in time), but better than the planet at large.
Ah. Well. He’s fucked, then.
And after a glance down at himself, at the sharp bits of shrapnel protruding out of his chest where metal definitely did not belong, he thinks he’s been impaled against the wall. So he’s doubly, triply fucked.
Everything had gone to hell so quickly. There were too many soldiers, and just not enough time. Going in they had all known that the chances of coming out of this alive were practically nonexistent, but when Peter doubled back, that had been the point of no return for Maya. She wouldn't leave this place without the man she loved. She refused. If the bomb took them both to hell, then at least they went out together.
So when the soldiers swarmed them and cut Peter off from the rest of the group, she fought her way back to him. She fought hard and dirty, and she was so close, but the bomb had other ideas. The world jumped, and everything went white hot and bright, ears ringing and dust choking her lungs for a few agonizing seconds before everything goes black.
She has no idea how long she's been out, but she comes to face down beneath a pair of dead soldiers, their bodies charred and riddled with shrapnel. Her world is swimming, she feels light-headed and dazed, and so, so tired. It's a long while before she remembers why she's even there.
Peter.
The thought sends her into a panic, and she tries to move, to work her way out from under the corpses. Pain lances through her from so many points that darkness creeps into the edges of her vision and threatens to overtake her again. She stills and focuses on breathing. Breathing hurts like fucking hell, but not as much as moving does.
Slowly, oh so slowly, she gets her right arm under her, but her left arm is numb and refuses to obey. So she's left to do an awkward combination of wriggling and an army crawl to free herself. When she does, when she finally pulls herself out from under the bodies of the men she'd been fighting, she realizes quite a few things.
It's likely she's broken more than a few bones, but the reason it hurts so much to breathe is the shard of metal sticking out of her side. She's caked in blood, some if her own, some of it not. Also, not only is her arm unresponsive, it's been torn to shreds, mangled by the explosion. What's left is charred shreds of flesh, shredded by the same shrapnel and cauterized by the same heat that got the soldiers unwittingly shielding the rest of her. Numbly, she tries to use her powers. There's a flicker of light from whatever tattoos are left, but nothing more.
Even if she was getting out of this alive, which she most certainly is not, she'd never use her powers again.
Numb to the pain of her missing limb, she yanks the shrapnel from her side with her good hand, and clamps it over the wound as she rises to her feet. The ship was going down, she knows that much. It was only a matter of time, and in that time she had to find Peter.
She catches a glimpse of the red lights of his mask through the haze of settling dust and smoke. For a moment she feels relieved until she hobbles closer and sees the state he's in.
God, is he even still alive?
She supposes it doesn't matter. They'll go down with this ship together, regardless.
For a moment she just stands there, broken remains of her left arm hanging limply at her side, taking short, pained breaths as blood seeps through the fingers over her wounded side. ]
[ When Peter had first offered her a spot in the Guardians, her only stipulation was that she could come and go as she pleased. She still wanted to know about her Siren lineage, and that had taken precedent.
The closer she got to Peter, the less she really cared. It would be nice to learn about where she came from and why she could do the things she could do, but she had no real desire to learn any of that without him. She loved her new place among the Guardians, and she wouldn't give it up for anything.
But then Lilith had contacted her with a lead to some hidden Eridian archives, limited time offer. The price for Eridian artifacts was high on the black market, and if they wanted even a hint, they would have to get to it before the treasure hunters, scavengers, and dealers did.
Luck would have it that the Guardians themselves were in the middle of something well-paying and a little more long-term than their usual fair. They could afford to spare Maya, but not she and Peter both. (That had been a very long and involved discussion, where by and large, the others insisted she go. There wouldn't be another chance at this. She should go.)
It's been a little more than a month since she left. (One month and eight days, ten hours, and twenty seven minutes, but she wasn't counting.) The archives had been a bust- she and Lilith had found them looted and what hadn't been taken had been destroyed- and while that left her feeling somewhat disheartened, she was anxious to get back on the Milano.
God, she missed Peter something fierce. Sure, they kept in contact with constant status updates (and maybe a couple of instances of ECHOsex), but it just wasn't the same. They had agreed to rendezvous on Pandora, near what used to be Opportunity (and had sort of become an extension of Sanctuary more recently). It was a good place for the Milano to land, and Lilith and Maya could part ways from there.
She and Lilith's little shuttle had touched down a while ago, and now she's waiting for the others to arrive.
A lot can change in one month and eight days, ten hours, and twenty seven minutes, and even Maya would admit she'd changed a little. She has to wonder what they would think of that. ]
[ Peter has no fucking clue how people could do long distance relationships.
Like, seriously, it was the worst thing. After months and months of getting to wake up with Maya beside him, having her watch his back while he watched hers on every job, fucking around (sometimes literally) when they found themselves with some downtime -- these past few weeks (well month, really [well, one month, eight days, and ten hours, actually]) have pretty much been hell.
He can barely remember what he used to do without her.
(That's not true. He knows he used to wake up next to a random, good-looking girl (or man, or undecided, or ???) that he met at a club or a bar or some divey restaurant, and he would try to sneak out before she woke, or he'd offer to buy her breakfast somewhere to get her off the ship; before he left the Ravagers, Yondu would give him solo jobs that didn't seem to require backup, though they always did; and during downtime he would go out searching for someone to share the night with and start the cycle over again.
Most of his relations were empty and meaningless. He thought he was having fun, but it wasn't until he had started something with Maya that he realized he was actually lonely as hell during all that time.)
It was just their luck that they'd get one of the best paying assignments in a long while just as Maya and Lilith caught wind of some Eridian artifacts, but he didn't begrudge her the opportunity. After all, they'd made the agreement early on that she could come and go as she pleased, and Peter was really trying to become a man of his word where his team was concerned. Even though they frequently messaged and called each other, he missed her like crazy, and it's the most distracting thing he’s ever experienced (also possibly not true, if he were to include that kinky guy he met several years back, who had decided that a strategically placed remote-controlled vibrator and taking Peter to somewhere very public and respectable was his idea of a really great time). It just sucked not having her with him as they took out this slaver ring piece by piece. It would've been fun.
(The couple that kills together, stays together? It occurs to Peter that their relationship is pretty non-traditional.)
Gamora often had to pick up some of his slack when they planned out their jobs, but while she didn't approve of his inattention, she understood where he was coming from, at least, and seemed to approve of that. Maybe she thought it was sweet how he was pining after Maya like a stray puppy left alone at home for the first time. Drax kept shooting him these knowing looks and nods of commiseration (at least he thinks they were commiserating looks? what if they were come hither looks? oh god), and Peter would just look away in embarrassment. At least Rocket and Groot were easy to deal with. Rocket didn’t give a shit, and Groot would just grow him a little blue flower when he noticed he was getting really down.
Peter has a lot of little blue flowers hidden away somewhere in his room.
But one slave ring dismantled and a month (and eight days, and ten hours, and twenty-fucking-seven long minutes) later, and the Milano is touching down outside of Opportunity. He sees the unmistakable flash of blue out of the ship’s canopy, and he can’t help the wide grin from appearing on his face. Once they’ve landed properly, Peter’s the first one out of his seat, naturally, the first one sliding down the ladder to the airlock, the first one out the door, and he’s fucking charging to sweep Maya up in a bear hug--
-- And skidding to a halt just in front of her, because-- ]
[ Peter Quill lived like a slob, there was no denying that. The other Guardians had their own ideas of what made for an acceptable living space, but with six of them practically on top of one another, clutter just sort of tended to... happen.
And there would come a point where Maya would hit her limit, and she had to clean something before she went totally crazy. She wasn't a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, but she liked a certain degree of organization and... empty horizontal surfaces in the common areas of the ship.
So sometimes when the Guardians would go out on the town for a bar crawl or whatever else they did, Maya would take it upon herself to stay behind and do some cleaning. (Common areas only, though. She didn't invade peoples' rooms or mess with whatever projects Rocket had going in the cargo hold.) She didn't mind it- actually, it was sort of meditative in its own way, and since Peter had introduced her to the idea of playlists, it had sure become a lot more fun.
She's currently in the galley with a mop, the others having departed for the evening. Her hair is tied back in a sloppy ponytail (she still hasn't gotten it cut again- she keeps teetering on the issue), and she's wearing a ratty t-shirt and an old pair of jeans. No shoes, though.
She must be pretty confident in the fact that she's alone, because she's dancing around the galley like a goober, singing aloud to the song currently blaring through her headphones. One moment the mop is her microphone, the next it's her dance partner as she slides across the wet floor on bare feet. She's cleaning, really.
Once she told Peter she wasn't a dancer. Funny how all that time with him has changed that. (She enjoyed Star Wars as much as the next girl, but if nothing else, she had really learned to let loose and enjoy the music. It was... sort of freeing.) ]
[ Peter has pretty much always been a slob. It definitely doesn't help that during his formative years, he had been picked up by space pirates whose idea of manners was not barfing up the shit you ate and whose idea of cleanliness was fluid at best. They didn't care if his bunk was a disaster zone, so long as the important parts of the ship were clear.
It's a habit that he's carried over to the Milano. So while Peter tends to leave shit lying around in his shared quarters with Maya, the helm is surprisingly bare. While he has a habit of leaving his coat or guns or whatever random thing he happens to pick up just sitting around on the table in the common area, the walkways from the helm to the engines are mostly free of obstacles.
But Peter is and always has been the worst when it came to leaving his shit everywhere. Sure, everyone else would leave a thing or two behind, but for everyone one thing someone left out of its place, Peter would leave four or five. Despite his shipmates' insistence that he keep his mess contained to his own bunk, he would stick to a routine for about a week before going, "Fuck it," and reverting to his old habits. Eventually they all learned to take what they could get, and learned to live with Peter's upswings and downswings when it came to the ship's cleanliness.
When Maya stays behind the first time to clean the common areas, Peter has to admit he's a little relieved -- mostly because he doesn't want to do it himself. The second time, guilt started to gnaw away at him. And all the times after that, the guilt kept building and building until they've finally come to this: Peter decides he's being a prick about this, pays his tab (a surprisingly short one, with only two beers), and heads back to the ship.
Naturally, he grumbles to himself the entire way, but it's messed up to have Maya do all the work on her own. And, hey, maybe he'll get some brownie points for helping out? Yeah, good, his mind says encouragingly. Think of the outcome, not of the grueling, tedious, boring-as-hell process to get there.
He punches in the access code with a sigh, climbs the ladder from the airlock to the ship proper, and as he's pushing aside the hatch, he calls out. ]
Lucy, I'm home.
[ It occurs to him after the fact that Maya probably wouldn't get that reference, and he sighs a little again as he's hauling himself up and shutting the hatch behind him. When he doesn't get an immediate response, he frowns-- then hears her voice from the galley and wanders over, thumbs hooked in his belt.
... The sight that greets him is amazing, and there's no way in hell he wants to interrupt, so he just leans against the bulkhead, grinning as he watches her dance and sing. ]
[ At one point in a conversation with Gaige, Peter had expressed his wish that the team be hired to break up a crazy, psycho, brainwashing group, though a fanatical hope for sentient machines to become thirsty for the blood of their creators was entirely optional. To him, destroying a cult seemed like an excellent team-building exercise, another war story the six of them could tuck under their belts.
("But an oration does not have a tangible form. Or do you mean to write this tale? Is there some Terran tradition for members of a company to transport these stories? Is there significance in storing it beneath the waistband of one's trousers? And how will Groot comply with this custom? He does not wear clothing."
"... Metaphor, Drax.")
Sure, they had razed the Order of the Impending Storm, but in Peter's mind, that didn't count; tearing them apart from the inside out had been entirely personal, entirely pro bono, and entirely satisfying.
(One of the most surprising things about Peter is that he rarely gets angry, especially given the company he keeps. He gets frustrated and annoyed and sometimes a little huffy, all at the drop of a hat. But to get him well and truly angry, one need only to threaten that which he holds most dear. In the Kyln, when a prison guard took his Walkman, it was the first time the Guardians had seen him as such.
On Athenas, when they realized what the Brothers had done to Maya, it was the first time the Guardians had seen him furious.)
It was only natural they were due for a cult-job one of these days, and that day had come in the form of Banton 5, now dubbed the Planet of Mercy. What was once a small mining colony had suddenly become something of a hotspot, all thanks to one Andop Tukkir, who had introduced them to the Way of the Elders. Whatever it was they were doing down there was working, it seemed, with prosperity at an all-time high and new members flying in from other planets almost daily. It would have been a wonderful success story, were it not for the fact that people had started going missing, and were it not for the fact that some of those people had started going dead.
Tukkir, naturally, claimed that his group had no involvement, and the members of the Nova Corps sent to investigate couldn’t verify any sort of link between the cult and the murders.
Enter “Corbin and Zoey Pentecost” (evidently fresh from their first viewing of The Fifth Element, Pacific Rim, and Firefly), who, along with a handful of others, are currently awaiting their opportunity to enter Mercy, Tukkir’s headquarters and cult housing facilities rolled into one.
“Corbin” is looking particularly nervous, but with a hopeful gleam in his eyes as he clutches his lovely wife’s hand. ]
This reminds me of our honeymoon. [ His voice is sort of distant and wistful as he sighs, then leans in close to whisper in “Zoey’s” ear. Nothing in his expression changes, but his voice sharpens and Peter takes on his usual sarcasm. ] Except there are a bunch of crazy people everywhere, and we didn’t have digistruct devices sewn into the linings of our suitcases.
[ There are a lot of things about this that are kind of weird to Maya. It's not the first time she and Peter have pretended to be people they're not, to get into a place they're not supposed to be, but the whole cult aspect makes her nervous in a primal sort of way.
And she knows that she has the Order to thank for that.
But she was needed on this mission, and honestly? This seemed like a good opportunity to face her fears. (She did, however, have an extensive talk with Peter on the subject, so he knew where she stood. She doubts she could do this without him, right there holding her hand.)
Another weird thing? Well, aside from trying to make herself stand out a little less- her hair is dyed a mousy brown, and the sweater she's wearing has overly long sleeves, enough to cover her tattoos easily. (If anyone asks, though, she's supposed to smile and laugh and talk about her rebel teen years, and how she'd like to get them removed, but, you know, money.) No, the weird thing is the wedding band. Doubly weird in that the thought of marriage had only just occurred to her, and now here they were, pretending to be husband and wife.
Maybe it was part of the reason why she thought she could stomach this whole cult thing so well.
It was nice to pretend after all.
But in the end, Peter was still Peter, and she glances sidelong at him. She doubts anyone heard that, but there's a lot more at stake her if he toes the line too much. Still, she sighs and looks a little wistful. ]
[ When the Warrior had been defeated, and Handsome Jack finally given his just reward, the Vault Hunters had made a startling discovery. When Lilith made contact with the Key to the Warrior's Vault to destroy it, she instead unlocked a map of Vaults scattered all over the galaxy.
The planets had been too numerous to count, and the Vault Hunters too bone-weary from their ordeal to give it much thought aside from silently agreeing with Lilith's remark of "No rest for the wicked." The discovery was placed on the back burner in favor of rest and recovery.
Maya never did get a chance to go back and catalog all the planets with Vaults. If she had, a certain little blue and green planet might have stuck in her mind. It might have rang a bell when the man she was entering into a relationship with told her he was from there.
She might have remembered there was a Vault on the planet Earth.
Though, remembering probably wouldn't have stopped a road construction crew from blowing a hole in a mountain somewhere in the Canadian Rockies and unearthing raw Eridium. It wouldn't have stopped the news from somehow spreading through the reaches of the galaxy to Pandora and beyond. And it most certainly would not have stopped the Dahl Corporation, with money on their mind and little else, from sending one of their biggest mining ships straight to the planet, and parking it over the blast site in the most menacing way they possibly could.
Earth's governments had panicked, and with SHIELD still reeling from practically being dismantled from the inside out (thanks to a long term infiltration effort by Hydra) there was no one around exactly skilled in dealing with menacing spaceships full of Vault Hunters.
But news travels fast, and when the Nova Corps found out that Dahl was just hanging out over the Canadian wilderness, they decided it was time to put an end to that BS. The Dahl Corp was used to the largely lawless Pandora, and didn't take kindly to the Nova Corps breathing down their neck. They withdrew their ship- not completely, just to an to orbit around the planet- but not before dispatching some of their troops and workers to the forest below. They were still going to stake their claim.
Fortunately, at least for the Nova Corps, a so-called Guardian of the Galaxy, and native of the planet Earth, happens to be dating a Vault Hunter. And his employers happen to know that. And it was with little ceremony that they pointed an accusatory finger at Peter Quill and his team and said in so many words, "Deal with this."
Their response, of course, had been "Fucking how?"
Minimize the damage. Clear out the rabble. Unlock the Vault. Do it before more whack-jobs from Pandora catch wind of this. "No" is not an option. In the meantime, they would be having a very long conversation with Dahl's CEO.
It was a job that had each and every one of them side-eyeing Peter. A native of Earth, yes, but it was a place he hadn't been back to in over twenty years. They all doubted that this was how he wanted to make his return.
The Milano is making its final approach, and there's a weird anxiousness in the air. Maya is hovering close to Peter, and is asking for probably the millionth time, ] Are you ready for this?
[ It comes out too quickly, followed by a nervous laugh. It's supposed to be a joke, as it has been every time before now, but this time he just-- can't muster it, and the honesty in the statement seeps through.
Maya's not the only one who's been worried about him and this newest assignment, that much he knows. The other Guardians have tried to alleviate the coil of unease in his gut in their own ways -- some of their tactics more tough lovey than he typically likes, but he appreciates the gesture, all the same. Appreciates that they're even trying, because for a team of sociopaths, it's kind of sweet that they're trying to comfort him at all.
If something like this had happened while he worked with the Ravagers, they would've just told him to suck it up and sent him on his way. To have people actually be concerned about him and his well-being, without also having an ulterior motive for it -- it's been a damn long time since he's experienced it. Not since he was a kid, in fact.
Not since he was last on Earth.
It's been twenty-six years since he's set food on Terran soil. And right now? He's fucking terrified. He doesn't know why, either.
At the moment he's seated at the back of the cockpit, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. When Earth comes into view, his hands are clasped so tightly together that they're actually shaking. This is the first time he's seeing the Earth like this. When the Ravagers had taken him that night in 1988, he didn't get the chance to peek out of a porthole, didn't get a chance to watch Earth grow smaller and smaller as they flew away. He had been knocked out almost immediately when they retrieved him from the airlock, since he had kicked and bit and screamed when the monsters had come for him.
At one time, the view would've been breathtaking. He would've found it beautiful. Right now, it just makes his stomach do unsteady flips.
He stands abruptly when Gamora announces they're moving in to land, tries to ignore the fact that everyone's eyes are on him, expressions tinged with something really close to worry. ]
I just-- I'm gonna-- I've gotta check my gear.
[ And he beats a hasty retreat, climbing down the ladder from the cockpit into the common area. ]
[ Peter Quill is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a traditional man.
He was raised by a single mother; he was kidnapped by alien pirates; he was raised by alien pirates; and he was more or less left to his own devices as long as he didn't inadvertently set anything on fire. His independent streak was only cemented when, after a job well done at the age of seventeen, Peter was rewarded with his own ship -- an M-Class and a hand-me-down -- and was allowed to take solo jobs.
Every once in a while he used to think, wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it be nice to have something normal, something consistent in his life? Wouldn't it be nice to have more than just a bed and a fridge full of beer and an empty ship to come back to? And for a while bringing back someone to share the night with was enough to satisfy that weird ache, but soon enough that became the wrong sort of routine, too.
But then there was his team. And then there was Maya.
Opening himself to the idea of a steady relationship had been worrying, at first. He never thought it would be something he could do, thought it'd be something he'd screw up immediately, nevermind the whole mess of attachment and weakness and vulnerability. It was like wandering into a dark room and hoping you didn't step on a Lego. It took a whole lot of time and a shitton of effort, he managed to do it.
But love? That was sending yourself out into the vacuum of space without a suit. It was dumb and reckless and terrifying. He had ventured out into space with only the clothes on his back to protect him once before, and for a few harrowing seconds he wasn't sure he would survive. He never wanted to do it again. But with Maya, he thinks if he had to do it to stay with her, if he had to do it as an act of faith or of loyalty or even if she asked him to just for fun, he would leap out of the Milano a million times over.
Obviously he hopes that won't be necessary. He's done a lot of terrifying, idiotic things in his life, and jumping out unprotected into the freezing void is way up there.
What he's about to do, he thinks, has all that other shit beat. Hands-down. No contest. He tells himself, Hey, past-Peter, you think carrying the containment unit for the Infinity Stone was scary, after experiencing its power firsthand? Try carrying a goddamn ring in your pocket. See how you feel then.
There are only two people who know what he's about to ask. The first is Lilith, who was puzzled as hell when he called, but was less puzzled when he explained the Terran tradition of asking for permission. She had said something along the lines of it's about fucking time and Krieg is gonna be so pissed.
The second was Drax, who had noticed Peter's growing anxiety over the course of several days and saw it for what it was. "I have experienced this agitation, my friend," Drax had said. "When I proposed the idea of marriage to Hovat, I, too, experienced uncertainty to the point of destruction."
(... I think you mean you were a nervous wreck, big guy.
"Yes. That is what I said.")
It's evening on Xandar, the night air crisp and cool, and the Guardians had been shepherded off by Drax, much to Peter's eternal gratitude. It's only when he and Maya reach the restaurant that Peter realizes that Xandar had been a mistake, even if it had been the location of their first date. Dinner had been a chore, with people dropping by to say hello or thanking him and his team for their service in stopping Ronan the Accuser. Any other time he would be preening from the attention or he'd be laughing as Maya tried desperately to keep his ego in check. Right then? Seriously inconvenient.
Even worse, all these interruptions have totally thrown him off his game, and he knows it's making him act weird. If it weren't for all these people, he totally would've been smooth and suave like Double-Oh-Seven. Instead, he's babbling and quiet by turns, and getting worse with each I'm sorry to bother you, buts.
He has his face covered by his hand, right about now, feigning as though he's rubbing his temple to ward off a headache. This is the worst fucking thing, he thinks to himself. This is worse than trying to hide out from fifteen jilted one-night stands, because these people totally mean well and probably don't want to stab him with kitchen utensils. ]
You mind if we skip dessert? Or, like, go somewhere else, at least? This is seriously getting old.
He's been somewhat skittish and preoccupied, and every time she asked about it, he would joke and brush her off. Honestly, it was starting to worry her a little.
And now here they are, here they are getting interrupted by Peter's adoring public and Peter seems annoyed.
[ Complicated doesn't begin to describe these past few weeks.
Traumatic, perhaps, would be more apt.
Peter can't count how many times his world has been shaken, overturned. He doesn't like thinking about the number of times he's nearly been killed, or the number of times he's woken up after a blank spot in his memory. He doesn't want to talk about the fact that he isn't the man he thought he was, that the only thing keeping him himself is a small pendant hanging from a chain.
(He keeps that pendant close, though, the chain wrapped around his wrist beneath his sleeve. He can't risk being without it again; he doesn't want anymore blackness where time should be, doesn't want to unleash-- that and disappear.)
The only good to come out of this is Maya -- and that scares him, too. In a lot of ways, he barely knows her, and yet he's placed his life in her hands, over and over again. Would do so until the end of time. His whole life, he's only trusted himself; in the span of a few weeks, he's learned to trust in Maya entirely. For a while there, he was terrified she would leave to find greener pastures, less worthless charges, but-- she hasn't. She's bound herself to him, and he's still trying to figure out why. He needs her, certainly, even loves her. He just-- doesn't get why she loves him back.
Still, he trusts Maya, trusts her judgment -- and she's way smarter than him, anyway. They're making the trek up a mountain trail to some out of the way city-- Sanctuary, if he remembers right -- where Maya thinks someone may be able to help him with his-- problem.
Not for the first time, he envies Maya her limitless stamina and her ability to ignore the laws of gravity. It's freezing up here, and his boots keep sinking into the snow, and he has to struggle his way through each step, and--
[ Peter had given her quite the look when she told him she needed the bones of whatever small animal they managed to kill for food next.
"It's for scrying. I don't eat animal bones, stop it."
Peter's predicament was worrying, and she had ideas on how to help, but she didn't have the means. So she needed to find someone who did. She needed to see which if her sisters were on the human plain. It was a long shot- there could only be six of them on this plain at a time, which meant they could have a lot of ground to cover.
But luck, for once, was on their side. There were two other Sirens nearby. Her youngest, and perhaps most unfortunately named, sister, Angel, was in a land to the east. Presumably under contract with the monarch there, but even this far away, there were stories of his tyranny. She doubted that was a viable option.
To the north, in the secluded mountain town of Sanctuary, there was Lilith. Lilith was her sister she trusted above all else, and she had far more experience on this plain than Maya herself did. And if nothing else, it would be a place to hide, to rest and recuperate and plan.
Maya can feel Peter's annoyance, flowing steadily through the ties that bind them. She has no idea what it's like to feel cold, but now she's certainly aware of how being cold would make her feel. She walks ahead of Peter, standing atop the snow at though it were solid ground, and shots him a glance over her shoulder. ]
Did you want to find somewhere to stop for a while?
[ It's a rarity, but every once in a while, the Guardians have downtime.
That is, some breathing space between assignments, ones they don't call for themselves. Sometimes they have to travel long distances for their jobs -- and in some cases, the time frame they're provided in conjunction with the distance they're traveling makes it impossible to pick up assignments in between. Currently, they're grinning and bearing it, flying out to pick up some researcher or other who had retreated to some fringe planet in some fringe system in the fringiest of fringe space.
On day one of three, Peter had done some much needed maintenance on his blasters. Given his penchant for punching people in the face with both the muzzle and the butt of the gun, it's little wonder how the alignment had been thrown out of whack. It takes most of the day, but he manages to get it to almost factory conditions, and he's rather proud of the accomplishment. He figures, with the next couple of days free, he can keep working on all the productive things that he's been putting off.
... Then he decides, no, screw that noise.
It's day two of three, and Peter is lying back on the bed, legs and feet up in the air and resting against the wall. For the past few minutes, he's been bouncing a ball against the bulkhead above his feet and catching it. Bounce, catch. Bounce, catch. Bounce, catch. Bounce, catch--
Then, he suddenly flops his arms out to either side of him on the bedspread and announces, ] Maya. I'm bored.
[ A certain Peter Quill has been anxiously awaiting for seven p.m. on Saturday to roll around -- and has been for the past several days, even. His housemates wouldn't let him hear the end of it, really, constantly making kissing noises whenever he had occasion to enter or leave the main room (and he regrets telling them about the awesome night where he and "the hot chick from the bookstore" finally talked.
"It's about friggin' time," one of them said. "If I had to see you come home one more time makin' that stupid face doin' that stupid sigh, I was seriously gonna blow up your room.")
The waiting, though, proves to be the worst part -- mostly because in the interim, he's had time to think of the myriad ways everything could go wrong. He could find out that she's, like, crazy smart -- which is highly likely. But, like, so smart that he'd never be able to keep up, and then she'd get so bored, and he'd be like, "So. Uh. TV is cool, right?" And she'd sigh and say she was feeling sick or something, and before he could even say goodbye, she'd slam her door in his face.
Or he could say something super rude or inconsiderate, and she'd get super offended and toss a drink in his face and storm off, and he'd be there, water dripping off his chin, mortified and red from embarrassment. Or he could make a move too fast, like he tends to do, send the wrong signal and then it's just another one of his one-night stands all over again. (Because Peter's shitty at relationships, and a single shared night and goodbyes in the morning has been the extent of his romantic life for a while now, honestly. The one long-term relationship he had ended in tears and voodoo hexes, so suffice it to say, Peter's not great at the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing.)
He's still thinking of every disastrous scenario when one of his roommates peeks into his bedroom, frowning.
"You are aware it's past six-thirty?"
Oh, fuck.
The next fifteen is a mad scramble to get ready -- and at least one of his housemates is nice enough to pick out an outfit for him. ("Anything you would have chosen would've been unacceptable," she told him when he thanked her profusely. "You're a slob, Peter Quill.") After that, it's a mad dash to Maya's apartment, and he makes it there with only moments to spare.
It's as he's knocking on her door that he suddenly realizes he forgot flowers. Shit. ]
[ Despite her remark that her roommate was usually off with her boyfriend, she had been home the night Maya had come in after Peter had walked her home, and she'd grilled Maya thoroughly about the cute guy who is at the bookstore all the time. (The conversation had concluded with Maya begging Lilith not to be home Saturday night. Lilith gave her no end of shit about it, but agreed.)
Maya realizes on the Friday before that she has no idea how she's supposed to dress. Is this a fancy date? He mentioned a movie, and those usually aren't too fancy, right? After tearing her closets apart (and then Lilith's closet and then back to her own), she settles on something that could go either way- a plain yellow sundress and a jean jacket. The crop showed off her tattoos well, she thought.
It's just as well for Peter that Maya wasn't expecting flowers. When she opens the door, she finds herself staring, just a little, because holy shit. ]
[ The Siren was a force of nature, like the Order of the Impending Storm had preached for decades.
Twenty-seven years, she had been used as a threat. "Pay the tithe, or the Siren will kill you." "Stay in line, or you will face her wrath." "Obey our every word, or you will know pain unlike any other." Needless to say, the threats were terrifying enough to keep the people of Athenas in check. No one dared question Brother Sophis or the other monks. The Siren was an unknown quantity. There was no telling what powers she had, sequestered as she had been.
And finally the Siren was put to the test, faced with men and women who dared to defy the Order. Brother Sophis aimed her like a gun and pulled the trigger. When the room was in a shambles, coated in blood and viscera of the terrorists and criminals who sought to undermine or overthrow the Order, Brother Sophis praised the Siren, said to her, "You have done well, my child." The Siren turned to her mentor, said, "Don't call me 'child,'" and shot him.
At least, that's how the story goes.
Peter doesn't really care to know whether or not it's true. Sometimes that shit gets exaggerated, where three men over time became twenty men, or a head shot in cold blood had actually been a bloody fight of survival. But Peter gets the impression that this one is legit, at least from the way the monks gave the two of them a wide berth whenever they walked down the halls, or the way everyone seemed to be filled with hatred or fear whenever they set eyes on the Siren's back. And once or twice, Peter thinks he spots old, dried blood -- so old it was no longer red, but so new that it hadn't yet been chipped away -- forgotten in the cracks of the stone walls.
As for him, he doesn't have much of a horse in this race, except he's being paid for his loyalty. He's lucky to even be alive, actually, considering he had been on the wrong side of Maya's judgment once before. A mercenary come to Athenas -- a corrupting influence, most likely, or so the monks had explained to Maya. He had only been here to smuggle in some rare weapons, but his buyer sold him out. When Peter landed, he was immediately ambushed by whatever the fuck the police were called here. He hardly knew what was happening until he was suddenly in cuffs and frogmarched to what looked like an abbey. They shoved him roughly to his knees as some hot chick with killer tattoos stared down her nose at him.
And then suddenly she dismissed everyone in the room, despite the meek objection of a monk who stood beside her, and once they were cleared out, she asked Peter questions about what, exactly, his profession entailed. The outlaw wasn't in much of a position to refuse to answer -- that, and he was still reeling from the series of events that it didn't occur to him to lie -- and so he dutifully answered her every question. Then before he knew it, they were drafting up a contract, and she was calling in someone to remove the cuffs, and suddenly Peter Jason Quill was the personal guard of the most powerful woman on Athenas.
That had been several months ago, and Peter's surprised she hasn't seen fit to dismiss or fire or kill him, yet. He must be doing something right. It helps that she hasn't died, yet, too, so that's something. Maybe that's all she needs? Or maybe she's lonely, or at least that's the slightly misguided impression he gets; that she's sick of the kiss-asses and the sycophants, and that she just wants someone who doesn't give enough of a fuck about making a dry remark here and again in her presence.
Or, more likely, she just didn't trust any of the fuckers on this planet enough to have them watch her back. Familiarity breeds contempt, or whatever. And given what he's seen Maya do, the people of Athenas have more than enough reason to fear her and more than enough reason to desire her gone.
Currently they're in between judgments, and Peter almost feels sorry for the poor assholes getting plopped down in front of the Siren to face her wrath. They're preparing the next victim when Peter ducks down to speak with her in her -- throne? thing? -- under the guise of whispering to her privately. (He doesn't miss the disapproving glances one of the Brothers sends his way.) ]
How many more dudes are you gonna murder, do you think? I'm starving.
[ Every so often, one of the monks would presume to ask her just why she kept the mercenary around, and she would fix them with a glare the promised unthinkable amounts of pain if they questioned her again. They would make simpering little apologies and crawl away, their proverbial tail tucked between their legs.
It spared her from having to answer, because truthfully, she didn't know why, herself. Peter Quill grated on her, with his sarcasm and the way she could tell he didn't approve of her methods. Maybe there was a part of her that was looking to stay grounded, or perhaps she knew that a more like-minded individual would try to use her, focus her powers as a tool for their own gain, like Sophis had.
All she knows is that, despite her threats, she had no desire to kill him. He'd done what she paid him to do, and done it well. She could live with his sarcasm.
That does not stop her gaze from sliding in his direction, ice cold and razor sharp ]
Don't tempt me to add you to their number, Quill. I'll be finished when I'm finished.
[ To say times have been rough would be an understatement. They hadn't only been rough, after all -- they had been downright abrasive and scathing and scalding and, just in case times hadn't been bad enough, the universe also saw fit to dump some salt and vinegar on the entire thing, then light it on fire.
So, yes. Times had been rough, with bad news tripping on the heels of other bad news, which was practically being bowled over by even further bad news. And while this whole damned mess had the happy outcome of Peter meeting (and even more happily, falling in love with) Maya, that doesn't mean the two of them couldn't use another win. Something nice and normal, just for them.
And apparently, that meant getting a puppy. Because it just did. It had come at Maya's suggestion, and Peter wasn't about to turn it down, as he had always wanted a dog as a boy; he was always jealous when the other boys were allowed to take their family hunting dogs with them while they walked around the village. Coincidence would have it that a family in Sanctuary bred hunting dogs of their own, and this time it came at Roland's recommendation.
(With the caliber of advice they had received from Lilith lately, it was hard to take her at her word. Even with Roland, Peter made it very clear that should this meeting with the breeder result in someone getting knocked out or kidnapped or otherwise restrained or detained or hurt, or if mindless demons or spirits or dragons sprang up out of the ground and attacked, the two of them would most certainly be having words.)
It's a couple of weeks after the whole-- mess. The literal mess. The one with men torn apart by a monster's hands. (A few of the intervening nights, Peter had dreamed of his fingertips digging into flesh and ripping, feeling the resistance of skin and muscle and ligaments, had woken up with the taste of fresh blood in his mouth -- and he had rushed out of bed to vomit.) Currently the two of them are in a barn with a small litter of puppies freshly weaned, and so far there haven't been any disasters. Peter's sitting on the ground and playing with one puppy, while another sleeps contentedly against his leg and oh my goodness puppies are the best. ]
Consider this. [ He glances up at Maya, expression solemn and earnest. ] What if we bought all of the puppies?
[ The dogs were a little bit wary of Maya at first, but after a bit they warmed up to her spectacularly. Right now she's laying on the floor of the barn with a puppy standing on her chest. The little thing keeps licking her face, tail wagging so hard its entire body wiggles ]
As tempting as that is-- [ and a pause for more face licking ] --puppies eventually become dogs. We can't afford to feed them all.
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And the more she listens to music, the more she finds songs that makes her think of him. It's a silly, sentimental thing, but it makes her smile, and she has a feeling he'd appreciate the sentiment. His mix tapes are precious to him in a way she could never replace, and nor does she want to, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to to give him a little something.
She's not great with words, or feelings- and boy oh boy does he make her feel feelings. So if one day he finds an ECHO device loaded with music and a simple note that says "from Maya" on it, well, it just means she finally found the words. ]
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He's mentioned the history of his mixed tapes to Maya at different points in their many conversations -- maybe not straight out (some twenty-six years later, and he still feels the loss keenly), but it's clear by putting the pieces together that the two tapes and the Walkman were a gift from a dying mother, the last trinkets from a planet he has yet to return to.
So Peter knows that Maya would understand how Significant this gesture is. And that's why he doesn't hesitate to plug in his headphones and start listening to the recordings immediately.
It's different, is his first thought; he's unused to this kind of music, and it's very different to his mom's tapes. But it's so very Maya that after a few listens, he tucks the device into the pocket of his coat, right alongside Awesome Mix, Volumes 1 and 2.
Eventually he'll work to learn all of the words to these songs, too, but for now, he's knocking at Maya's door. ]
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This time around, the team's been hired to break into the vault, tucked beneath the mansion of a wealthy Krylorian -- and Peter thinks he ought to feel guilty about it, except that it's a well-known fact that this particular man made his fortune on slave trading and frequently pays off the authorities to turn a blind eye to his activities. That, and Peter ran into him once at one of the parties he was hired to attend, and he had watched as the man slapped the hell out of a servant who happened to drop a glass. It pissed Peter off at the time, but he was forced to keep his mouth shut and his fists to himself by his employer.
So he stole the Krylorian's wallet out of spite.
In any case, the Krylorian's party is the event of the season, and Peter is on infiltration duty, being the social chameleon of the group. And to avoid drawing attention, the team had decided to send only one other member into the fray. With Groot being a giant tree, Rocket being a raccoon, Drax being a literal maniac, and Gamora sticking out like a sore thumb (being possibly the last of her race), that left Maya as the only other feasible choice.
At the moment, the two of them are waiting to be allowed in; there's a thorough security check ahead of them, and knowing this ahead of time, the two of them were forced to come unarmed. Peter feels thoroughly naked without his quad blasters, and equally ridiculous in his suit, but it doesn't show.
In fact, a brief glance would show him to be the perfect image of an affluent, upstanding gentleman.
Listening to what he's whispering to Maya, however, is a totally different matter. ]
Ten credits says the fat guy in front of us has five guys on the side.
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Her dress is no less revealing than her combat suit, save for the fact that the sleeve is now on her left arm to cover her Siren tattoos, but she still feels naked. Maybe it's the lack of weaponry. It's only thanks to her training and mediation that she doesn't look as nervous as she feels.
She arches an eyebrow at Peter, though it's hidden behind her bangs. If nothing else, she has to admit, he cleans up nicely. ]
That's not a very gentlemanly thing to say.
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[ Maya had made Pandora sound like a shithole, yes, but it was the most amazing shithole ever. Truly beautiful sometimes, with the lush green of the Highlands, the cold beauty of the Southern Shelf, and the near constant aurora borealis hanging in the night sky. It was a planet built on the backs of criminals and capitalism, used and abandoned, but it was a planet that had learned to not give a fuck about the rest of the universe. To Maya, it had been her freedom. In the short time she was there, it was more of a home to her than the abbey had ever been.
And it was nice to see familiar faces. When Maya and the rest of the Guardians took the Fast Travel into Sanctuary, she was greeted with a sea of smiles and hugs. Lilith had given her a significant look, quirking a brow at Peter. Maya just gave a small nod, cheeks coloring slightly.
Gaige had been a little more direct, giving her a thumbs-up and a drawn out Niiiice.
But she had been spared further embarrassment when Rocket had taken interest in Gaige's mechanical arm and somehow managed to trigger Deathtrap's digistruct sequence. After a bit of robot-related chaos, Vault Hunters and Guardians dispersed in groups of twos and threes, settling in to talk shop or grab a drink at Moxxi's, where no doubt they would run across the town Bounty Board or people with things that needed doing. They would stay occupied and probably turn a nice profit in the meantime.
Maya and Peter made their way to Zed's clinic, where they explained to the doctor (the doctor without a medical license, but it was probably fine) what had happened. He lamented that by and large, Sirens were still a mystery, but he'd do his best to make sure there wasn't any lasting damage.
All in all, she was given a clean bill of health, aside from learning that she might be prone to nosebleeds when using her powers for a few days.
That left she and Peter to wander Sanctuary for a bit, arm in arm ]
You know, it almost feels like I never left.
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It wasn't so bad after all, though, and he was so, so glad when Rocket brought attention to himself and pulled it off of Peter.
Pandora wasn't nearly as bad as he had imagined it to be. It was about as bad as any other planet he had been on, but he had to admit some of the views were nice. If it weren't for the rampant murder, he could see himself living here at some point. ]
It's like coming home, right?
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It also hadn't been a difficult thing to convince them of the merits of landing on Sarapis. The planet was renowned for its beautiful beaches and its relative seclusion. One of the few natural beauties left in the galaxy that hadn't turned into an overdeveloped mess. Touristy after a fashion, but anyone who wanted to be left alone would be.
What had been a difficult thing for Peter was convincing Rocket that, no, he did not need to bring five bombs to the surface with him (they begrudgingly compromised, finally, on one); telling Drax that, no, he would not need to chaperone Peter and Maya to ensure Peter did not take advantage of Maya in her "delicate state" (Peter reminded Drax of Maya's ability to set people on fire with her mind); and finally, forcing Gamora off the ship once they landed, despite her insistence that she did not need a vacation (Peter told her to think of it as his way of saying thanks, which worked).
Groot had been easy, at least. All he wanted was to enjoy the sun.
Peter had promised Maya beaches with white sand and clear water, and Sarapis delivered; it wasn't too unlike the tropical beaches on Earth, but the sky was a vibrant shade of blue, the water a clear, glass-like turquoise. Despite the odds, he and Maya had found themselves a stretch of beach without another soul in sight; Peter had, of course, insisted on carrying all of their things.
As he looks out from where he's seated on towel in the sand, Peter is trying and failing to remember the last time he's been to a beach just for enjoyment. He's had plenty of jobs that took place near the ocean, sure, and more than once he's ended up having to dive beneath the surface of the water, but that was to throw off pursuers and not for the joy of swimming. And swimming fully clothed sucks, which is why he's currently shirtless and in a pair of swim trunks. ]
So, like, beach stuff. [ His tone is cheerful, and he grins at her. ] Are we supposed to break into upbeat songs and start doing the Monkey? 'Cause that's what I was always taught.
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[ She swears, her life sounds like a comedy of errors sometimes. ]
So, you know. Not very beachy.
[ Maya, for her own part, actually bought a bikini. Partially because she wanted to surprise Peter, but she still has on her oversized Torgue t-shirt over it. She's not really sure why she's so shy about the whole thing- Peter obviously had no problem wandering around without his shirt on. (And she certainly had no problem with him wandering around without his shirt on. She actually had to remind herself more than once not to stare, but damn.) She's being silly and insecure, she knows, but for now the shirt stays on.
She wanders idly around Peter's towel, enjoying the feel of the sand on her bare feet. ]
What else do people even do on beaches?
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AU magic/demon time muhfuggassssss
Unfortunately for them, Peter had never been good at following instructions.
They had become something like his family over the past twenty some-odd years, had treated him as one of their own, but that didn't mean he was close to them. Not particularly. Being frequently told, even as he was a child, that they only kept him around as emergency rations would sour any relationship, after all. But he was content to keep his head down among the band of thieves, until he was old enough and trusted enough to be sent on jobs on his own.
It was never a secret that Peter didn't like being a Ravager. It had, in fact, become something of a sticking point in his training and one of the many things they mocked him for. He did the work well enough, though, and his fellows assumed he was putting on airs, deluding himself into thinking he deserved something more. Something better.
The actual secret was that Peter wanted power. He'd spent most of his life feeling like victim that at this point? He was pretty much ready to do anything.
There was a new job being passed around -- but this job was different. The best thieves among them would adamantly refuse to take the assignment, and something about the fear in their eyes made Peter curious. What the hell was wrong with this job that all these men and women, ostensibly at the top of their game, would turn ghostly white and go practically shitless at the mention of it?
Something amazing, probably. Dangerous. So Peter volunteered.
The job was securing an ancient relic, and when Peter held it, he understood what the problem was. It was dripping with magic, soaking with it, enough so that the entire chamber that housed it stank of something uniquely, darkly arcane. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, like in the moments before a thunderstorm, could taste something metallic in his mouth, could feel the power of it pulsing up his arm and course through his body. It was-- it was intoxicating.
He didn't make the rendezvous that night, or the back-up rendezvous the night after that. In fact, he dodged all the Ravagers sent after him in the following days.
The ritual to utilize the relic, as it turns out, was nothing more than channeling a desire in the dead of night -- something Peter finds out purely by accident after setting up camp in the forest. There was a flash of light, he remembers, and the relic had seared the palm of his hand before he was able to drop it with a hissed curse; there's also an excellent chance, he thinks, that he may have blacked out, judging by the fact that he's in a heap on the forest floor, and his head is throbbing in time with the beating of his heart.
It's not until he forces himself up into a sitting position that he sees-- someone. Someone where a "someone" definitely hadn't been before, which is reason enough for Peter to pull out a blade from his boot and scramble into a crouched, defensive position. ]
Who the hell are you?
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She regards him coolly with pale yellow eyes, unfazed by the knife in his hand- and perhaps amused by his reaction, if the slight quirk of her lips is any indication. How cute, she thinks, when he demands to know who she is.
If he knew anything at all about the dark forces in this world, the markings on the left side of her body, visible on her bare arm, and on her leg beneath the tattered remains of her yellow skirt, should identify her right away.
Siren. As powerful as they were rare, it took a great deal of power to summon one, even more to trap one in a relic like she had been. But she had to hand it to the Brothers of the Order of the Impending Storm- they knew their dark rituals. She'd be impressed, if the whole ordeal hadn't cost their leader his life.
Somehow this... this boy had freed her, though he didn't seem to realize it, but she was now beholden to him regardless. She'd felt his hunger, his need for power, when he picked up the relic for the first time. It had intrigued her. ]
Do you not know?
[ a question she already knows the answer to, but she asks it anyway ]
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~~magical girl Star-Lord AU~~
She was scary as hell, to be sure. Occasionally he had the feeling that if it weren't for their contract, she would be sorely tempted to light him on fire with her brain after a few particular smartass comments; and occasionally for Peter, the old Ravager-ingrained paranoia regarding her magical nature bubbled up to the surface, and he'd be overly wary of her.
But she had a surprisingly dry sense of humor (and it still surprised him even now, that a scary demon magic lady would be capable of making a joke), and there were times that she was-- strangely innocent, if he surprised her with some innocuous "human ritual" (as she called it), like holding open a door for her, or if he minded his pleases and thank yous with her. Apparently her last contractee hadn't offered her the same simple courtesy.
After a couple weeks, they hadn't encountered any more trouble since the first night with the Ravager scouts; and though Maya hadn't pressed him on it, Peter still wasn't sure how it was that he wanted to go about taking the rest of them out. The most obvious course of action would be to head back to the headquarters and strike in the middle of the night, but even with Maya's abilities, they'd be largely out-manned and outgunned. And he still wasn't convinced, despite Maya's insistence, that he had any magical abilities of his own.
And he was running out of time, too, before Maya would start taking time off his life. Not that he was particularly worried about it; he had resolved himself to a short lifespan a long time ago. Still, it'd be nice to use his free period and dismiss her before payment was due; and even then, he felt a weird reluctance to do so, as well. He found himself wondering if she might stick around, even if they terminated the contract. He hoped she would, at least for a bit -- and he would immediately feel stupid for thinking that. Sentimental. Of course she wouldn't stick around.
Currently it's midday, and they've stopped off in a small town for supplies; and for the past several hours, Peter's felt an itch at the back of his neck.
He takes in a slow breath as he tucks away his newly bought supplies. Once he exhales softly, he glances over at her. ]
We're being followed, aren't we?
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He had a goal in mind, she knew, but she was content just to travel with him and enjoy his company.
And she really did enjoy his company.
There was one other trick up her proverbial sleeve that she hadn't mentioned until they had come to their first town- a simple glamour. The spell hid her tattoos from sight, and changed some of her more fantastical features, such as her hair and eyes, to more natural shades. She passed as human fairly well, if a little strange sometimes. ]
Are we?
[ She frowns. Usually she could sense someone on their tail almost instantly. She closes her eyes and concentrates, her tattoos flaring to life briefly. With the glamour, it looks eerily like there's something slithering just under her skin.
After a moment, her eyes snap open. ]
I caught a glimpse, but they're shielding themselves from my senses.
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because happy is also good
Whatever I want?
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This is the face of someone who knows he may have made a mistake. ]
... Yes?
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~In the name of the Stars, I will punish you!~
Although they were avoiding them, they were still using towns as landmarks to guide their way, and the next one from the little den was approximately three days' travel. Maya had done an admirable job of repairing the damage from Mondo's magic, but Peter's body was still exhausted and repairing itself and, in a perfect world, he would've had another day or two to rest. But the world isn't perfect, because sometimes you get chased by a band of bloodthirsty thieves and maniacal wizards, and sometimes you make blood pacts with Sirens, and sometimes you lose the ones you love or get imprisoned by a bunch of assholes -- so, Peter thinks, you just have to make do with the hand you're dealt.
On the bright side, Peter's fears of slowing them down weren't proven true, mostly because sheer stubbornness and willpower (and, in some ways, fear of a repeat of their encounter with someone like Brother Mordo) kept him upright far after it was wise for him to still be moving. If it hadn't been for Maya noticing his unsteady steps and forcing them to rest, and subsequently lecturing him for how idiotic and irresponsible and bull-headed (and a whole lot of other negative attributes that Peter didn't hear because she was using her magic to heal him by that point, and once she did that it made him seriously drowsy), Peter would've kept going until he collapsed from exhaustion.
At the very least, he slept dreamlessly that night.
It's midway through the second day that Maya had had enough and gave him an earful, and whatever it was he heard finally got through his thick skull. Guilt probably had a lot to do with it. Pride, too, perhaps. He probably had those dark thoughts about being a burden and a liability, and what would happen if they were attacked and he was too exhausted and couldn't put up a fight? He would look ridiculous. Bad enough he was out-classed in every possible way when it came to a magic-user battle; the least he could do was be an annoyance and a distraction if members of the Order appeared.
So Maya stops forcing their breaks, because Peter's the one finally asking. Perhaps they're not stopping as frequently as they should, but that he's asking to rest at all is surely an improvement.
He's feeling a lot better by the third day, but still not quite at his best just yet. Maybe another day or two and he'll be fine, he thinks -- or he hopes, anyway. But at the moment he's leaning against a tree, trying to catch his breath as Maya moves on ahead. They're not too far from town, maybe another hour or two, and he'd really like to just keep pressing forward to at least reach the outskirts, but his legs are starting to feel like jelly, but they're so close, and maybe he could just keep going--? ]
Maya, hold on. [ He sounds a little pissed and embarrassed. ] Sorry-- could we stop again?
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She has no problems with sitting Peter down and telling him when he's being a dumbass about it. She cares about him (again, in what capacity, she has no idea), and would rather not see him exhaust or further injure himself.
So when he starts asking to take breaks, she really and genuinely appreciates it, because it means he's willing to take his own well-being into account and not just hers.
Which is why she stops walking, and turns to him with a nod and a look on her face that she hopes it reassuring. ] Of course. If you want to sit down, I can get you some water.
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C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER
That all felt like a lifetime ago. Sometimes the old aches came back, but for the most part, she'd come to enjoy her new life on Pandora.
And now here she was on a spaceship again. Maya's message had been a little strange (Hey, if I send you the dimensions of this room, would you be able to turn it into an inertia-proof library?) but there was nothing the Mechromancer loved more than a challenge. Which is why she's currently in Maya's former quarters on the Milano, welding a metal bookshelf into place. She's been at it for a while, welder's mask pulled down over her face. ]
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But after it had been totaled in the battle against Ronan and subsequently rebuilt by the Nova Corps as a thank you gift, the ship had been expanded, and rooms were split up to accommodate each of the five Guardians (though Groot roomed with Rocket). Space was still limited, and Peter still lived like a slob, but at least they each had a space to call their own.
But now-- the fifth bunk is being converted. Into, of all things, a library. On the Milano.
Still kind of weird, at least to Peter, but the others seemed on board -- well, everyone but Rocket, who had campaigned long and hard to turn the room into a personal workshop -- but, frankly, everyone was terrified by the idea, so it was quickly shot down. And Gaige was already hard at work by the time it really sank in for Peter, so by then it was too late to change his mind.
It's been a few hours, at least, and Peter has spent most of it exercising in the cargo area (because a physique like his requires work). He's surprised he hasn't seen more of Gaige. He figured with her being in such close proximity to Rocket, the two of them would've fucked off somewhere to start building atomic bombs capable of taking out entire sectors, and picking apart the toaster or the oven to do so, no less. But it seems Maya was right -- give Gaige a task, and she focuses on it.
... Unless she's building explosives up there, when she's supposed to be putting in shelves. It's when that thought occurs to him that he decides to check up on her under the guise of bringing her a bottle of water. ]
Hey--oly shit, this used to be a bedroom?
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everything is awfullllllll everything is bad and you just wanna scream
[ Peter was never naive enough to think he'd live forever.
Well, he had always sort of hoped he would, always sort of wished he would find the Fountain of Youth or something and live forever and ever, enjoying life and traveling the universe. It was a silly wish, especially given the fact that he was a Ravager, and Ravagers lived fast, died young, and tended to leave horribly mangled, sizzling corpses. When he accidentally wandered his way back onto the straight and narrow, dubbed himself a Guardian of the Galaxy, he had no idea that it would actually shorten his lifespan. But of course it would, of course it did, because there were more things at stake now than his own stupid life, and it took the mess with the Infinity Stone to make him realize that his life is nothing compared to an entire planet, an entire galaxy, an entire universe.
So when the Nova Corps contacted them, begged them for their help in thwarting almost universal annihilation, the Guardians set a really shitty plan into motion.
It was a suicidal strategy at best, even after fine-tuning. Peter doesn’t remember the particulars, except that there was a super weapon, a beam capable of taking out planets. He remembers they fought their way on to the enemy ship as it broke atmo on the planet of Khafreon Prime, ready to test its weapon on the unsuspecting populace below. He remembers setting the bomb to take out the weapon, the timer ticking down slowly, and the team struggled to fight their way out but-- something had gone wrong, hadn’t it? There were too many soldiers, he thinks-- and it’s so hard to think, right now, so hard to do much of anything but-- Something had gone wrong, there were too many--
The soldiers were going after the bomb, trying to defuse it, and Peter thinks-- why is his mind so sluggish? -- he doubled back to defend it, because what would be the point to get this far and have no results to show for it?
So he fell back, and then a wall of enemies separated him from the others, and he hunkered down next to the bomb, and-- fuck, why can’t he think?
He defended Rocket’s bomb, but-- he got stuck, didn’t he? He couldn’t fight his way out fast enough? Couldn’t get to the Milano before the explosion rocked the entire ship and sent him and thousands of shards of shrapnel flying through the air--
It’s silent here as he comes to, save for the ominous creaking of the bulkhead and blaring of alarms in the distance. He’s resting against a slab of metal -- he thinks it might’ve been part of that super weapon, but now it’s mostly useless scrap. Everything is bathed in a red light, or at least he thinks it is until he remembers his helmet is still in place. And he thinks it’d be nice to sleep, to just rest here and let blackness reclaim him. The smell of something metallic fills his nose and coats the back of his throat -- oil, probably, or grease, seeing as how he’s on a ship. He coughs wetly, and his mouth suddenly tastes like copper. He wants to spit it out, but his arms won’t listen to him, won’t move, so he swallows it back down.
Did the others make it out okay? He hopes they did. He doesn’t know -- in all the chaos, it was hard to tell who was and wasn’t still nearby, and he thinks he was mostly on his own, though every now and again he remembers hearing Rocket screaming, “BLAM! Murdered you!” or Groot crying out his own name, or Gamora and Drax’s voices joined in triumphant battle cries, or the fwoomp of Maya’s phaselock—
God. Maya. Peter’s fists clench limply at his sides. He doesn’t know where she is, but he really fucking hopes she’s alright.
The funny thing is, he’s not really in pain, but he thinks he should be. Mostly he feels numb and cold, and he should really be getting back to the others before they miss him. But-- his thoughts are fuzzy around the edges -- but the plan was to get back to the ship before the bomb went off, detach from the docking point and fly away, because-- why?
Because the enemy ship would be crashing. Because the weapon was housed in the primary control room, and the bomb was going to take out everything, and there was no way to control the ship’s free fall to the planet’s surface at that point. It meant sacrificing part of the city below (he hopes they evacuated in time), but better than the planet at large.
Ah. Well. He’s fucked, then.
And after a glance down at himself, at the sharp bits of shrapnel protruding out of his chest where metal definitely did not belong, he thinks he’s been impaled against the wall. So he’s doubly, triply fucked.
What a way to go. ]
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Everything had gone to hell so quickly. There were too many soldiers, and just not enough time. Going in they had all known that the chances of coming out of this alive were practically nonexistent, but when Peter doubled back, that had been the point of no return for Maya. She wouldn't leave this place without the man she loved. She refused. If the bomb took them both to hell, then at least they went out together.
So when the soldiers swarmed them and cut Peter off from the rest of the group, she fought her way back to him. She fought hard and dirty, and she was so close, but the bomb had other ideas. The world jumped, and everything went white hot and bright, ears ringing and dust choking her lungs for a few agonizing seconds before everything goes black.
She has no idea how long she's been out, but she comes to face down beneath a pair of dead soldiers, their bodies charred and riddled with shrapnel. Her world is swimming, she feels light-headed and dazed, and so, so tired. It's a long while before she remembers why she's even there.
Peter.
The thought sends her into a panic, and she tries to move, to work her way out from under the corpses. Pain lances through her from so many points that darkness creeps into the edges of her vision and threatens to overtake her again. She stills and focuses on breathing. Breathing hurts like fucking hell, but not as much as moving does.
Slowly, oh so slowly, she gets her right arm under her, but her left arm is numb and refuses to obey. So she's left to do an awkward combination of wriggling and an army crawl to free herself. When she does, when she finally pulls herself out from under the bodies of the men she'd been fighting, she realizes quite a few things.
It's likely she's broken more than a few bones, but the reason it hurts so much to breathe is the shard of metal sticking out of her side. She's caked in blood, some if her own, some of it not. Also, not only is her arm unresponsive, it's been torn to shreds, mangled by the explosion. What's left is charred shreds of flesh, shredded by the same shrapnel and cauterized by the same heat that got the soldiers unwittingly shielding the rest of her. Numbly, she tries to use her powers. There's a flicker of light from whatever tattoos are left, but nothing more.
Even if she was getting out of this alive, which she most certainly is not, she'd never use her powers again.
Numb to the pain of her missing limb, she yanks the shrapnel from her side with her good hand, and clamps it over the wound as she rises to her feet. The ship was going down, she knows that much. It was only a matter of time, and in that time she had to find Peter.
She catches a glimpse of the red lights of his mask through the haze of settling dust and smoke. For a moment she feels relieved until she hobbles closer and sees the state he's in.
God, is he even still alive?
She supposes it doesn't matter. They'll go down with this ship together, regardless.
For a moment she just stands there, broken remains of her left arm hanging limply at her side, taking short, pained breaths as blood seeps through the fingers over her wounded side. ]
We're quite the pair, aren't we?
[ She doesn't expect an answer. ]
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The closer she got to Peter, the less she really cared. It would be nice to learn about where she came from and why she could do the things she could do, but she had no real desire to learn any of that without him. She loved her new place among the Guardians, and she wouldn't give it up for anything.
But then Lilith had contacted her with a lead to some hidden Eridian archives, limited time offer. The price for Eridian artifacts was high on the black market, and if they wanted even a hint, they would have to get to it before the treasure hunters, scavengers, and dealers did.
Luck would have it that the Guardians themselves were in the middle of something well-paying and a little more long-term than their usual fair. They could afford to spare Maya, but not she and Peter both. (That had been a very long and involved discussion, where by and large, the others insisted she go. There wouldn't be another chance at this. She should go.)
It's been a little more than a month since she left. (One month and eight days, ten hours, and twenty seven minutes, but she wasn't counting.) The archives had been a bust- she and Lilith had found them looted and what hadn't been taken had been destroyed- and while that left her feeling somewhat disheartened, she was anxious to get back on the Milano.
God, she missed Peter something fierce. Sure, they kept in contact with constant status updates (and maybe a couple of instances of ECHOsex), but it just wasn't the same. They had agreed to rendezvous on Pandora, near what used to be Opportunity (and had sort of become an extension of Sanctuary more recently). It was a good place for the Milano to land, and Lilith and Maya could part ways from there.
She and Lilith's little shuttle had touched down a while ago, and now she's waiting for the others to arrive.
A lot can change in one month and eight days, ten hours, and twenty seven minutes, and even Maya would admit she'd changed a little. She has to wonder what they would think of that. ]
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Like, seriously, it was the worst thing. After months and months of getting to wake up with Maya beside him, having her watch his back while he watched hers on every job, fucking around (sometimes literally) when they found themselves with some downtime -- these past few weeks (well month, really [well, one month, eight days, and ten hours, actually]) have pretty much been hell.
He can barely remember what he used to do without her.
(That's not true. He knows he used to wake up next to a random, good-looking girl (or man, or undecided, or ???) that he met at a club or a bar or some divey restaurant, and he would try to sneak out before she woke, or he'd offer to buy her breakfast somewhere to get her off the ship; before he left the Ravagers, Yondu would give him solo jobs that didn't seem to require backup, though they always did; and during downtime he would go out searching for someone to share the night with and start the cycle over again.
Most of his relations were empty and meaningless. He thought he was having fun, but it wasn't until he had started something with Maya that he realized he was actually lonely as hell during all that time.)
It was just their luck that they'd get one of the best paying assignments in a long while just as Maya and Lilith caught wind of some Eridian artifacts, but he didn't begrudge her the opportunity. After all, they'd made the agreement early on that she could come and go as she pleased, and Peter was really trying to become a man of his word where his team was concerned. Even though they frequently messaged and called each other, he missed her like crazy, and it's the most distracting thing he’s ever experienced (also possibly not true, if he were to include that kinky guy he met several years back, who had decided that a strategically placed remote-controlled vibrator and taking Peter to somewhere very public and respectable was his idea of a really great time). It just sucked not having her with him as they took out this slaver ring piece by piece. It would've been fun.
(The couple that kills together, stays together? It occurs to Peter that their relationship is pretty non-traditional.)
Gamora often had to pick up some of his slack when they planned out their jobs, but while she didn't approve of his inattention, she understood where he was coming from, at least, and seemed to approve of that. Maybe she thought it was sweet how he was pining after Maya like a stray puppy left alone at home for the first time. Drax kept shooting him these knowing looks and nods of commiseration (at least he thinks they were commiserating looks? what if they were come hither looks? oh god), and Peter would just look away in embarrassment. At least Rocket and Groot were easy to deal with. Rocket didn’t give a shit, and Groot would just grow him a little blue flower when he noticed he was getting really down.
Peter has a lot of little blue flowers hidden away somewhere in his room.
But one slave ring dismantled and a month (and eight days, and ten hours, and twenty-fucking-seven long minutes) later, and the Milano is touching down outside of Opportunity. He sees the unmistakable flash of blue out of the ship’s canopy, and he can’t help the wide grin from appearing on his face. Once they’ve landed properly, Peter’s the first one out of his seat, naturally, the first one sliding down the ladder to the airlock, the first one out the door, and he’s fucking charging to sweep Maya up in a bear hug--
-- And skidding to a halt just in front of her, because-- ]
Holy shit, your hair.
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And there would come a point where Maya would hit her limit, and she had to clean something before she went totally crazy. She wasn't a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, but she liked a certain degree of organization and... empty horizontal surfaces in the common areas of the ship.
So sometimes when the Guardians would go out on the town for a bar crawl or whatever else they did, Maya would take it upon herself to stay behind and do some cleaning. (Common areas only, though. She didn't invade peoples' rooms or mess with whatever projects Rocket had going in the cargo hold.) She didn't mind it- actually, it was sort of meditative in its own way, and since Peter had introduced her to the idea of playlists, it had sure become a lot more fun.
She's currently in the galley with a mop, the others having departed for the evening. Her hair is tied back in a sloppy ponytail (she still hasn't gotten it cut again- she keeps teetering on the issue), and she's wearing a ratty t-shirt and an old pair of jeans. No shoes, though.
She must be pretty confident in the fact that she's alone, because she's dancing around the galley like a goober, singing aloud to the song currently blaring through her headphones. One moment the mop is her microphone, the next it's her dance partner as she slides across the wet floor on bare feet. She's cleaning, really.
Once she told Peter she wasn't a dancer. Funny how all that time with him has changed that. (She enjoyed Star Wars as much as the next girl, but if nothing else, she had really learned to let loose and enjoy the music. It was... sort of freeing.) ]
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It's a habit that he's carried over to the Milano. So while Peter tends to leave shit lying around in his shared quarters with Maya, the helm is surprisingly bare. While he has a habit of leaving his coat or guns or whatever random thing he happens to pick up just sitting around on the table in the common area, the walkways from the helm to the engines are mostly free of obstacles.
But Peter is and always has been the worst when it came to leaving his shit everywhere. Sure, everyone else would leave a thing or two behind, but for everyone one thing someone left out of its place, Peter would leave four or five. Despite his shipmates' insistence that he keep his mess contained to his own bunk, he would stick to a routine for about a week before going, "Fuck it," and reverting to his old habits. Eventually they all learned to take what they could get, and learned to live with Peter's upswings and downswings when it came to the ship's cleanliness.
When Maya stays behind the first time to clean the common areas, Peter has to admit he's a little relieved -- mostly because he doesn't want to do it himself. The second time, guilt started to gnaw away at him. And all the times after that, the guilt kept building and building until they've finally come to this: Peter decides he's being a prick about this, pays his tab (a surprisingly short one, with only two beers), and heads back to the ship.
Naturally, he grumbles to himself the entire way, but it's messed up to have Maya do all the work on her own. And, hey, maybe he'll get some brownie points for helping out? Yeah, good, his mind says encouragingly. Think of the outcome, not of the grueling, tedious, boring-as-hell process to get there.
He punches in the access code with a sigh, climbs the ladder from the airlock to the ship proper, and as he's pushing aside the hatch, he calls out. ]
Lucy, I'm home.
[ It occurs to him after the fact that Maya probably wouldn't get that reference, and he sighs a little again as he's hauling himself up and shutting the hatch behind him. When he doesn't get an immediate response, he frowns-- then hears her voice from the galley and wanders over, thumbs hooked in his belt.
... The sight that greets him is amazing, and there's no way in hell he wants to interrupt, so he just leans against the bulkhead, grinning as he watches her dance and sing. ]
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("But an oration does not have a tangible form. Or do you mean to write this tale? Is there some Terran tradition for members of a company to transport these stories? Is there significance in storing it beneath the waistband of one's trousers? And how will Groot comply with this custom? He does not wear clothing."
"... Metaphor, Drax.")
Sure, they had razed the Order of the Impending Storm, but in Peter's mind, that didn't count; tearing them apart from the inside out had been entirely personal, entirely pro bono, and entirely satisfying.
(One of the most surprising things about Peter is that he rarely gets angry, especially given the company he keeps. He gets frustrated and annoyed and sometimes a little huffy, all at the drop of a hat. But to get him well and truly angry, one need only to threaten that which he holds most dear. In the Kyln, when a prison guard took his Walkman, it was the first time the Guardians had seen him as such.
On Athenas, when they realized what the Brothers had done to Maya, it was the first time the Guardians had seen him furious.)
It was only natural they were due for a cult-job one of these days, and that day had come in the form of Banton 5, now dubbed the Planet of Mercy. What was once a small mining colony had suddenly become something of a hotspot, all thanks to one Andop Tukkir, who had introduced them to the Way of the Elders. Whatever it was they were doing down there was working, it seemed, with prosperity at an all-time high and new members flying in from other planets almost daily. It would have been a wonderful success story, were it not for the fact that people had started going missing, and were it not for the fact that some of those people had started going dead.
Tukkir, naturally, claimed that his group had no involvement, and the members of the Nova Corps sent to investigate couldn’t verify any sort of link between the cult and the murders.
Enter “Corbin and Zoey Pentecost” (evidently fresh from their first viewing of The Fifth Element, Pacific Rim, and Firefly), who, along with a handful of others, are currently awaiting their opportunity to enter Mercy, Tukkir’s headquarters and cult housing facilities rolled into one.
“Corbin” is looking particularly nervous, but with a hopeful gleam in his eyes as he clutches his lovely wife’s hand. ]
This reminds me of our honeymoon. [ His voice is sort of distant and wistful as he sighs, then leans in close to whisper in “Zoey’s” ear. Nothing in his expression changes, but his voice sharpens and Peter takes on his usual sarcasm. ] Except there are a bunch of crazy people everywhere, and we didn’t have digistruct devices sewn into the linings of our suitcases.
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And she knows that she has the Order to thank for that.
But she was needed on this mission, and honestly? This seemed like a good opportunity to face her fears. (She did, however, have an extensive talk with Peter on the subject, so he knew where she stood. She doubts she could do this without him, right there holding her hand.)
Another weird thing? Well, aside from trying to make herself stand out a little less- her hair is dyed a mousy brown, and the sweater she's wearing has overly long sleeves, enough to cover her tattoos easily. (If anyone asks, though, she's supposed to smile and laugh and talk about her rebel teen years, and how she'd like to get them removed, but, you know, money.) No, the weird thing is the wedding band. Doubly weird in that the thought of marriage had only just occurred to her, and now here they were, pretending to be husband and wife.
Maybe it was part of the reason why she thought she could stomach this whole cult thing so well.
It was nice to pretend after all.
But in the end, Peter was still Peter, and she glances sidelong at him. She doubts anyone heard that, but there's a lot more at stake her if he toes the line too much. Still, she sighs and looks a little wistful. ]
I was just thinking the same thing.
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The planets had been too numerous to count, and the Vault Hunters too bone-weary from their ordeal to give it much thought aside from silently agreeing with Lilith's remark of "No rest for the wicked." The discovery was placed on the back burner in favor of rest and recovery.
Maya never did get a chance to go back and catalog all the planets with Vaults. If she had, a certain little blue and green planet might have stuck in her mind. It might have rang a bell when the man she was entering into a relationship with told her he was from there.
She might have remembered there was a Vault on the planet Earth.
Though, remembering probably wouldn't have stopped a road construction crew from blowing a hole in a mountain somewhere in the Canadian Rockies and unearthing raw Eridium. It wouldn't have stopped the news from somehow spreading through the reaches of the galaxy to Pandora and beyond. And it most certainly would not have stopped the Dahl Corporation, with money on their mind and little else, from sending one of their biggest mining ships straight to the planet, and parking it over the blast site in the most menacing way they possibly could.
Earth's governments had panicked, and with SHIELD still reeling from practically being dismantled from the inside out (thanks to a long term infiltration effort by Hydra) there was no one around exactly skilled in dealing with menacing spaceships full of Vault Hunters.
But news travels fast, and when the Nova Corps found out that Dahl was just hanging out over the Canadian wilderness, they decided it was time to put an end to that BS. The Dahl Corp was used to the largely lawless Pandora, and didn't take kindly to the Nova Corps breathing down their neck. They withdrew their ship- not completely, just to an to orbit around the planet- but not before dispatching some of their troops and workers to the forest below. They were still going to stake their claim.
Fortunately, at least for the Nova Corps, a so-called Guardian of the Galaxy, and native of the planet Earth, happens to be dating a Vault Hunter. And his employers happen to know that. And it was with little ceremony that they pointed an accusatory finger at Peter Quill and his team and said in so many words, "Deal with this."
Their response, of course, had been "Fucking how?"
Minimize the damage. Clear out the rabble. Unlock the Vault. Do it before more whack-jobs from Pandora catch wind of this. "No" is not an option. In the meantime, they would be having a very long conversation with Dahl's CEO.
It was a job that had each and every one of them side-eyeing Peter. A native of Earth, yes, but it was a place he hadn't been back to in over twenty years. They all doubted that this was how he wanted to make his return.
The Milano is making its final approach, and there's a weird anxiousness in the air. Maya is hovering close to Peter, and is asking for probably the millionth time, ] Are you ready for this?
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[ It comes out too quickly, followed by a nervous laugh. It's supposed to be a joke, as it has been every time before now, but this time he just-- can't muster it, and the honesty in the statement seeps through.
Maya's not the only one who's been worried about him and this newest assignment, that much he knows. The other Guardians have tried to alleviate the coil of unease in his gut in their own ways -- some of their tactics more tough lovey than he typically likes, but he appreciates the gesture, all the same. Appreciates that they're even trying, because for a team of sociopaths, it's kind of sweet that they're trying to comfort him at all.
If something like this had happened while he worked with the Ravagers, they would've just told him to suck it up and sent him on his way. To have people actually be concerned about him and his well-being, without also having an ulterior motive for it -- it's been a damn long time since he's experienced it. Not since he was a kid, in fact.
Not since he was last on Earth.
It's been twenty-six years since he's set food on Terran soil. And right now? He's fucking terrified. He doesn't know why, either.
At the moment he's seated at the back of the cockpit, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. When Earth comes into view, his hands are clasped so tightly together that they're actually shaking. This is the first time he's seeing the Earth like this. When the Ravagers had taken him that night in 1988, he didn't get the chance to peek out of a porthole, didn't get a chance to watch Earth grow smaller and smaller as they flew away. He had been knocked out almost immediately when they retrieved him from the airlock, since he had kicked and bit and screamed when the monsters had come for him.
At one time, the view would've been breathtaking. He would've found it beautiful. Right now, it just makes his stomach do unsteady flips.
He stands abruptly when Gamora announces they're moving in to land, tries to ignore the fact that everyone's eyes are on him, expressions tinged with something really close to worry. ]
I just-- I'm gonna-- I've gotta check my gear.
[ And he beats a hasty retreat, climbing down the ladder from the cockpit into the common area. ]
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please baby go all the way
He was raised by a single mother; he was kidnapped by alien pirates; he was raised by alien pirates; and he was more or less left to his own devices as long as he didn't inadvertently set anything on fire. His independent streak was only cemented when, after a job well done at the age of seventeen, Peter was rewarded with his own ship -- an M-Class and a hand-me-down -- and was allowed to take solo jobs.
Every once in a while he used to think, wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it be nice to have something normal, something consistent in his life? Wouldn't it be nice to have more than just a bed and a fridge full of beer and an empty ship to come back to? And for a while bringing back someone to share the night with was enough to satisfy that weird ache, but soon enough that became the wrong sort of routine, too.
But then there was his team. And then there was Maya.
Opening himself to the idea of a steady relationship had been worrying, at first. He never thought it would be something he could do, thought it'd be something he'd screw up immediately, nevermind the whole mess of attachment and weakness and vulnerability. It was like wandering into a dark room and hoping you didn't step on a Lego. It took a whole lot of time and a shitton of effort, he managed to do it.
But love? That was sending yourself out into the vacuum of space without a suit. It was dumb and reckless and terrifying. He had ventured out into space with only the clothes on his back to protect him once before, and for a few harrowing seconds he wasn't sure he would survive. He never wanted to do it again. But with Maya, he thinks if he had to do it to stay with her, if he had to do it as an act of faith or of loyalty or even if she asked him to just for fun, he would leap out of the Milano a million times over.
Obviously he hopes that won't be necessary. He's done a lot of terrifying, idiotic things in his life, and jumping out unprotected into the freezing void is way up there.
What he's about to do, he thinks, has all that other shit beat. Hands-down. No contest. He tells himself, Hey, past-Peter, you think carrying the containment unit for the Infinity Stone was scary, after experiencing its power firsthand? Try carrying a goddamn ring in your pocket. See how you feel then.
There are only two people who know what he's about to ask. The first is Lilith, who was puzzled as hell when he called, but was less puzzled when he explained the Terran tradition of asking for permission. She had said something along the lines of it's about fucking time and Krieg is gonna be so pissed.
The second was Drax, who had noticed Peter's growing anxiety over the course of several days and saw it for what it was. "I have experienced this agitation, my friend," Drax had said. "When I proposed the idea of marriage to Hovat, I, too, experienced uncertainty to the point of destruction."
(... I think you mean you were a nervous wreck, big guy.
"Yes. That is what I said.")
It's evening on Xandar, the night air crisp and cool, and the Guardians had been shepherded off by Drax, much to Peter's eternal gratitude. It's only when he and Maya reach the restaurant that Peter realizes that Xandar had been a mistake, even if it had been the location of their first date. Dinner had been a chore, with people dropping by to say hello or thanking him and his team for their service in stopping Ronan the Accuser. Any other time he would be preening from the attention or he'd be laughing as Maya tried desperately to keep his ego in check. Right then? Seriously inconvenient.
Even worse, all these interruptions have totally thrown him off his game, and he knows it's making him act weird. If it weren't for all these people, he totally would've been smooth and suave like Double-Oh-Seven. Instead, he's babbling and quiet by turns, and getting worse with each I'm sorry to bother you, buts.
He has his face covered by his hand, right about now, feigning as though he's rubbing his temple to ward off a headache. This is the worst fucking thing, he thinks to himself. This is worse than trying to hide out from fifteen jilted one-night stands, because these people totally mean well and probably don't want to stab him with kitchen utensils. ]
You mind if we skip dessert? Or, like, go somewhere else, at least? This is seriously getting old.
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He's been somewhat skittish and preoccupied, and every time she asked about it, he would joke and brush her off. Honestly, it was starting to worry her a little.
And now here they are, here they are getting interrupted by Peter's adoring public and Peter seems annoyed.
What in the world was going on? ]
Uh, sure. If you want.
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fighting evil by moonlight
Traumatic, perhaps, would be more apt.
Peter can't count how many times his world has been shaken, overturned. He doesn't like thinking about the number of times he's nearly been killed, or the number of times he's woken up after a blank spot in his memory. He doesn't want to talk about the fact that he isn't the man he thought he was, that the only thing keeping him himself is a small pendant hanging from a chain.
(He keeps that pendant close, though, the chain wrapped around his wrist beneath his sleeve. He can't risk being without it again; he doesn't want anymore blackness where time should be, doesn't want to unleash-- that and disappear.)
The only good to come out of this is Maya -- and that scares him, too. In a lot of ways, he barely knows her, and yet he's placed his life in her hands, over and over again. Would do so until the end of time. His whole life, he's only trusted himself; in the span of a few weeks, he's learned to trust in Maya entirely. For a while there, he was terrified she would leave to find greener pastures, less worthless charges, but-- she hasn't. She's bound herself to him, and he's still trying to figure out why. He needs her, certainly, even loves her. He just-- doesn't get why she loves him back.
Still, he trusts Maya, trusts her judgment -- and she's way smarter than him, anyway. They're making the trek up a mountain trail to some out of the way city-- Sanctuary, if he remembers right -- where Maya thinks someone may be able to help him with his-- problem.
Not for the first time, he envies Maya her limitless stamina and her ability to ignore the laws of gravity. It's freezing up here, and his boots keep sinking into the snow, and he has to struggle his way through each step, and--
-- Snow, he decides, is the goddamn worst. ]
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"It's for scrying. I don't eat animal bones, stop it."
Peter's predicament was worrying, and she had ideas on how to help, but she didn't have the means. So she needed to find someone who did. She needed to see which if her sisters were on the human plain. It was a long shot- there could only be six of them on this plain at a time, which meant they could have a lot of ground to cover.
But luck, for once, was on their side. There were two other Sirens nearby. Her youngest, and perhaps most unfortunately named, sister, Angel, was in a land to the east. Presumably under contract with the monarch there, but even this far away, there were stories of his tyranny. She doubted that was a viable option.
To the north, in the secluded mountain town of Sanctuary, there was Lilith. Lilith was her sister she trusted above all else, and she had far more experience on this plain than Maya herself did. And if nothing else, it would be a place to hide, to rest and recuperate and plan.
Maya can feel Peter's annoyance, flowing steadily through the ties that bind them. She has no idea what it's like to feel cold, but now she's certainly aware of how being cold would make her feel. She walks ahead of Peter, standing atop the snow at though it were solid ground, and shots him a glance over her shoulder. ]
Did you want to find somewhere to stop for a while?
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That is, some breathing space between assignments, ones they don't call for themselves. Sometimes they have to travel long distances for their jobs -- and in some cases, the time frame they're provided in conjunction with the distance they're traveling makes it impossible to pick up assignments in between. Currently, they're grinning and bearing it, flying out to pick up some researcher or other who had retreated to some fringe planet in some fringe system in the fringiest of fringe space.
On day one of three, Peter had done some much needed maintenance on his blasters. Given his penchant for punching people in the face with both the muzzle and the butt of the gun, it's little wonder how the alignment had been thrown out of whack. It takes most of the day, but he manages to get it to almost factory conditions, and he's rather proud of the accomplishment. He figures, with the next couple of days free, he can keep working on all the productive things that he's been putting off.
... Then he decides, no, screw that noise.
It's day two of three, and Peter is lying back on the bed, legs and feet up in the air and resting against the wall. For the past few minutes, he's been bouncing a ball against the bulkhead above his feet and catching it. Bounce, catch. Bounce, catch. Bounce, catch. Bounce, catch--
Then, he suddenly flops his arms out to either side of him on the bedspread and announces, ] Maya. I'm bored.
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She looks up from her book ]
I thought you said you had a whole list of things to do.
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oh the mundanity
"It's about friggin' time," one of them said. "If I had to see you come home one more time makin' that stupid face doin' that stupid sigh, I was seriously gonna blow up your room.")
The waiting, though, proves to be the worst part -- mostly because in the interim, he's had time to think of the myriad ways everything could go wrong. He could find out that she's, like, crazy smart -- which is highly likely. But, like, so smart that he'd never be able to keep up, and then she'd get so bored, and he'd be like, "So. Uh. TV is cool, right?" And she'd sigh and say she was feeling sick or something, and before he could even say goodbye, she'd slam her door in his face.
Or he could say something super rude or inconsiderate, and she'd get super offended and toss a drink in his face and storm off, and he'd be there, water dripping off his chin, mortified and red from embarrassment. Or he could make a move too fast, like he tends to do, send the wrong signal and then it's just another one of his one-night stands all over again. (Because Peter's shitty at relationships, and a single shared night and goodbyes in the morning has been the extent of his romantic life for a while now, honestly. The one long-term relationship he had ended in tears and voodoo hexes, so suffice it to say, Peter's not great at the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing.)
He's still thinking of every disastrous scenario when one of his roommates peeks into his bedroom, frowning.
"You are aware it's past six-thirty?"
Oh, fuck.
The next fifteen is a mad scramble to get ready -- and at least one of his housemates is nice enough to pick out an outfit for him. ("Anything you would have chosen would've been unacceptable," she told him when he thanked her profusely. "You're a slob, Peter Quill.") After that, it's a mad dash to Maya's apartment, and he makes it there with only moments to spare.
It's as he's knocking on her door that he suddenly realizes he forgot flowers. Shit. ]
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Maya realizes on the Friday before that she has no idea how she's supposed to dress. Is this a fancy date? He mentioned a movie, and those usually aren't too fancy, right? After tearing her closets apart (and then Lilith's closet and then back to her own), she settles on something that could go either way- a plain yellow sundress and a jean jacket. The crop showed off her tattoos well, she thought.
It's just as well for Peter that Maya wasn't expecting flowers. When she opens the door, she finds herself staring, just a little, because holy shit. ]
Hey.
[ Good job, Maya. ]
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a darker timeline
Twenty-seven years, she had been used as a threat. "Pay the tithe, or the Siren will kill you." "Stay in line, or you will face her wrath." "Obey our every word, or you will know pain unlike any other." Needless to say, the threats were terrifying enough to keep the people of Athenas in check. No one dared question Brother Sophis or the other monks. The Siren was an unknown quantity. There was no telling what powers she had, sequestered as she had been.
And finally the Siren was put to the test, faced with men and women who dared to defy the Order. Brother Sophis aimed her like a gun and pulled the trigger. When the room was in a shambles, coated in blood and viscera of the terrorists and criminals who sought to undermine or overthrow the Order, Brother Sophis praised the Siren, said to her, "You have done well, my child." The Siren turned to her mentor, said, "Don't call me 'child,'" and shot him.
At least, that's how the story goes.
Peter doesn't really care to know whether or not it's true. Sometimes that shit gets exaggerated, where three men over time became twenty men, or a head shot in cold blood had actually been a bloody fight of survival. But Peter gets the impression that this one is legit, at least from the way the monks gave the two of them a wide berth whenever they walked down the halls, or the way everyone seemed to be filled with hatred or fear whenever they set eyes on the Siren's back. And once or twice, Peter thinks he spots old, dried blood -- so old it was no longer red, but so new that it hadn't yet been chipped away -- forgotten in the cracks of the stone walls.
As for him, he doesn't have much of a horse in this race, except he's being paid for his loyalty. He's lucky to even be alive, actually, considering he had been on the wrong side of Maya's judgment once before. A mercenary come to Athenas -- a corrupting influence, most likely, or so the monks had explained to Maya. He had only been here to smuggle in some rare weapons, but his buyer sold him out. When Peter landed, he was immediately ambushed by whatever the fuck the police were called here. He hardly knew what was happening until he was suddenly in cuffs and frogmarched to what looked like an abbey. They shoved him roughly to his knees as some hot chick with killer tattoos stared down her nose at him.
And then suddenly she dismissed everyone in the room, despite the meek objection of a monk who stood beside her, and once they were cleared out, she asked Peter questions about what, exactly, his profession entailed. The outlaw wasn't in much of a position to refuse to answer -- that, and he was still reeling from the series of events that it didn't occur to him to lie -- and so he dutifully answered her every question. Then before he knew it, they were drafting up a contract, and she was calling in someone to remove the cuffs, and suddenly Peter Jason Quill was the personal guard of the most powerful woman on Athenas.
That had been several months ago, and Peter's surprised she hasn't seen fit to dismiss or fire or kill him, yet. He must be doing something right. It helps that she hasn't died, yet, too, so that's something. Maybe that's all she needs? Or maybe she's lonely, or at least that's the slightly misguided impression he gets; that she's sick of the kiss-asses and the sycophants, and that she just wants someone who doesn't give enough of a fuck about making a dry remark here and again in her presence.
Or, more likely, she just didn't trust any of the fuckers on this planet enough to have them watch her back. Familiarity breeds contempt, or whatever. And given what he's seen Maya do, the people of Athenas have more than enough reason to fear her and more than enough reason to desire her gone.
Currently they're in between judgments, and Peter almost feels sorry for the poor assholes getting plopped down in front of the Siren to face her wrath. They're preparing the next victim when Peter ducks down to speak with her in her -- throne? thing? -- under the guise of whispering to her privately. (He doesn't miss the disapproving glances one of the Brothers sends his way.) ]
How many more dudes are you gonna murder, do you think? I'm starving.
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It spared her from having to answer, because truthfully, she didn't know why, herself. Peter Quill grated on her, with his sarcasm and the way she could tell he didn't approve of her methods. Maybe there was a part of her that was looking to stay grounded, or perhaps she knew that a more like-minded individual would try to use her, focus her powers as a tool for their own gain, like Sophis had.
All she knows is that, despite her threats, she had no desire to kill him. He'd done what she paid him to do, and done it well. She could live with his sarcasm.
That does not stop her gaze from sliding in his direction, ice cold and razor sharp ]
Don't tempt me to add you to their number, Quill. I'll be finished when I'm finished.
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So, yes. Times had been rough, with bad news tripping on the heels of other bad news, which was practically being bowled over by even further bad news. And while this whole damned mess had the happy outcome of Peter meeting (and even more happily, falling in love with) Maya, that doesn't mean the two of them couldn't use another win. Something nice and normal, just for them.
And apparently, that meant getting a puppy. Because it just did. It had come at Maya's suggestion, and Peter wasn't about to turn it down, as he had always wanted a dog as a boy; he was always jealous when the other boys were allowed to take their family hunting dogs with them while they walked around the village. Coincidence would have it that a family in Sanctuary bred hunting dogs of their own, and this time it came at Roland's recommendation.
(With the caliber of advice they had received from Lilith lately, it was hard to take her at her word. Even with Roland, Peter made it very clear that should this meeting with the breeder result in someone getting knocked out or kidnapped or otherwise restrained or detained or hurt, or if mindless demons or spirits or dragons sprang up out of the ground and attacked, the two of them would most certainly be having words.)
It's a couple of weeks after the whole-- mess. The literal mess. The one with men torn apart by a monster's hands. (A few of the intervening nights, Peter had dreamed of his fingertips digging into flesh and ripping, feeling the resistance of skin and muscle and ligaments, had woken up with the taste of fresh blood in his mouth -- and he had rushed out of bed to vomit.) Currently the two of them are in a barn with a small litter of puppies freshly weaned, and so far there haven't been any disasters. Peter's sitting on the ground and playing with one puppy, while another sleeps contentedly against his leg and oh my goodness puppies are the best. ]
Consider this. [ He glances up at Maya, expression solemn and earnest. ] What if we bought all of the puppies?
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As tempting as that is-- [ and a pause for more face licking ] --puppies eventually become dogs. We can't afford to feed them all.
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