[ He just-- nods. He's not sure if he's saying, "Yeah, I will," or if he's saying, "Yeah, we're kicking his ass."
He grabs the crate closest to him and-- well, they really only need one of these things, but he just grabs a handful and stuffs them in his pocket. The funny thing is, though, just having them on him is seriously creeping him out, even if they're not activated. Just. Jesus, this is creepy as fuck. ]
[ Suddenly there's a hand on her shoulder, yanking her backward, and she whirls around to come face-to-face with, presumably, another one of Tukkir's guards. He's a big man, broad and muscular, and- judging by the odd way his clothing bulges- probably wearing some kind of body armor.
He makes a grab for her arm, but she gets her gun up between them and squeezes the trigger, pouring bullets point-blank into his gut. The bullets don't seem to bother him, but the fire that suddenly catches on the fabric of his clothes sure does. His grip loosens and she breaks away, backing into the storage room to join Peter.
The thunderous sound of footsteps suggest backup is on the way. ]
What do you think the odds are that this place has a back door?
[ Somehow this is calming. It's just fighting, and she's done it a million times before. ]
[ -- shit, Maya's a lot quicker than he is, and the guy is out of the fight before Peter can even say, "Mother fucker."
The sound of more guards on the way, though-- now that's upsetting, and maybe Maya is calm, but Peter sure isn't-- ]
At a guess? I'd say those odds are pretty low.
[ --because he's thinking, I'm not gonna lose her again, and he's thinking of how badly he never wants to see those empty eyes on her face, of how if he sees that lack of recognition one more fucking time, he's seriously going to snap.
Peter has always had a selfish streak, honestly.
It's probably why he's thrusting the swiped collars into her hands and rushing forward to claim a kiss. ]
Wait half a minute, then get back to the others and call in the cavalry. Don't do anything stupid.
[ "I've got that part covered in spades" goes unspoken.
He doesn't wait for an answer, activating his mask and surging forward through the door. As he's slamming it shut behind him, the guards are rounding the corner, and he manages to get the first shots off before he leads them further down the hall and away from the exit. ]
[ she's screaming his name as he goes, but then suddenly he's gone, and footsteps are stampeding past the door and then it's so, so quiet.
She should do what he says. She should call for backup. Let the Nova Corps know what they've found.
She doesn't. As much as Peter doesn't want to lose her, she doesn't want to lose him either. She bursts through the door, but by then the hallway is empty. She shoves the collars into her digistruct device and moves cautiously, quietly down the hall.
They're leaving here together or not at all. She's already made up her mind. ]
Peter's always been good at playing bait, always been seriously awesome at distraction detail, because he loves hurling insults and pointing out when a dude is kinda pudgy or cross-eyed or wow, who taught you how to handle a gun, man? A blind, deaf hamster would be a better shot than you.
It should be pretty easy, in that case, for Maya to follow the noise and the chaos.
Usually, though, the distraction thing has an endpoint, but Peter's only endgame is make sure Maya gets out -- which means he's got to do this as long as he can. So he keeps running and ducking, and it's only through sheer, stupid luck (though he would insist it was skill) that he hasn't been hit.
It's when he's skidding into cover to catch his breath that he overhears one of the goons yell, "Admissions records say he didn't come alone. Find his partner," and he realizes he seriously has to up the ante to keep them focused on him. ]
You guys know who I am, right? Peter Quill. Hero of Xandar and Guardian of the Galaxy.
I'm Star-Lord, bros, and I've got Nova Prime totally wrapped around my finger. We've got the Nova Corps bearing down on your asses as we speak, and only I can call 'em off.
[ -- alright, the fact that they apparently weren't familiar with any of his titles doesn't bother him, really, but at least the mention of Nova Corps gets their attention again. He's up and running again, gunfire taking out pipes and chipping at the floor and walls around him.
[ the trail of destruction is easy enough to follow. Peter's been leading them on on quite the chase.
She has no plan. She doubts Peter has much of a plan either, but that's beside the point. Man, she wishes Zer0 or Gamora were here. She doesn't really do stealth, but she's keeping her eyes open for a chance to start picking some of these assholes off. ]
[ Her moment might come when someone finally has the bright idea to cut him off by taking an adjacent hallway. As Peter's rounding a corner, he's suddenly tackled to the ground before he realizes what's happening. He's damn lucky his helmet took the brunt of the hit when he fell forward, slamming his forehead against the ground -- but it's still enough to leave him dazed, white spots swimming in his vision. By the time he's recovered, he's already surrounded and seriously fucked.
It's only when they have him restrained and disarmed that someone starts barking orders -- Get a collar. Get the boss -- and some of the guards split off from the main group. ]
[ her heart is racing when she hears those orders. She won't let Peter go through what she went through. She won't lose him to this the same way he almost lost her.
Deep breath Maya. She won't be saving anyone if she lets nerves get the best of her. She skirts back, keeping a fair distance from where they have Peter pinned. She can do this. She's fought her way through countless bandit camps. She helped defeat ths Warrior.
The first man to round the corner gets the butt of her gun slammed into his nose. While he's reeling, she puts a bullet in his head. Two more come around the corner, and one instantly goes up in her phaselock- he suffers the same messy death as the man earlier. His friend is close enough to get caught in the torrent of elements, but Maya shoots him too for good measure.
There's one left, but he's smart enough not to charge in blindly. That's when Maya switches out her HellFire for her sniper- it has a wicked-looking bayonet on the front- and she surges around the corner, driving the blade into his gut and pulling the trigger. He goes down, convulsing as electricity surges through him.
She rounds the corner, puts the sight to her eye and targets the guard pinning Peter down. With his head in her crosshairs she pulls the trigger. ]
[ Even as she's taking care of the group that's split off, Peter is struggling to get free, because this? Is seriously one of his stupidest plans to date, and shit, what if they get the collar on him and it works? And that's fucking terrifying, his mind not being his own, his body not being his own.
And what will happen when his team and the Nova Corps come in and see him fighting on the wrong side? They'll squish him like a bug, because he's Terran (or mostly, anyway), and he has nothing special about him, and fuck, he bets Gamora is gonna have an awesome time kicking his ass--
The head of the guard above him fucking explodes (gross), and he doesn't have time to think how or why or what in the ever-loving-fuck, just surges to his feet and fights hard and dirty and desperate. ]
[ In the chaos that ensues, Maya holds her ground, picking off guards every time she gets an opening.
One gets too close to Peter for comfort, and she pops him up in her phaselock. Slag and flame and electricity and acid pour over the battlefield. The crowd is thinning, at least. She can only hope Peter gets out of there okay. ]
[ The phaselock catches him by surprise, but the sound is so familiar that he smiles a little behind his mask (even as he's thinking, goddammit, Maya, you had one job--).
He catches sight of her, finally, as he's ducking beneath a wild swing, and he sees his beloved blasters lying forgotten on the ground. He dives for them, grabbing them up and twisting onto his back to shoot at the guy he'd been tussling with -- not electricity this time, but bursts of fire lancing red hot into the man's chest, made all the more lethal by Maya's slag.
He twists again, aiming himself in Maya's direction, and slams the heels of his palms down onto the triggers for his jet boots. He skids along the ground on his back, firing at the guards as he goes.
He stops just short of her and gets to his feet. ]
I think we've stuck around long enough, sweetheart.
[ by the time Peter comes shooting down the hall, there's only a handful of guards left, and his shots land true more than once. If there's anyone unfortunate enough to remain standing, they meet a messy end by Maya's sniper fire.
She gives Peter something of a Look, which is all the warning he gets before she's in his face, jabbing a finger into his chest ]
[ He wants to reply, "I'm kind of the leader, here," or "Way to defy a direct order," but there are muffled shouts from up the hall and Peter just grabs her hand and starts running. ]
[ The mental image of rats in a maze occurs to her, and she shakes it off. They're going to get out of this. Never mind that, presumably, the only way out is through the courtyard, which is sure to be crawling with guards, and possibly innocent people. Never mind that they have no idea where they're going, and are up against unknown numbers. They've gotten out of worse scrapes before. Probably.
Okay, she can't think of any right now, but she's sure they have.
As they run, she puts her rifle back into her digistruct device- running with that thing in one hand is just asking for it- and out comes her little Jakobs pistol.
She's keeping her eyes out for doors, vents, anything. Oddly, she swears she can smell laundry detergent, and if that's the case, then the laundry is as good as anywhere to hide.
But the laundry is below them, apparently, because there's another door- by the look of it, another laboratory-like room- and just out side of it, a square, metal door set about waist-high in the wall. ]
[ If she could see it, his expression would be screaming, "Are you fucking serious?" with just a hint of "Oh, fuck no." Because there's a weird, icy feeling that crawls into his veins at the idea of sliding down some dark, confining and suffocating space with walls on every side--
But it's their only option, and he knows it, and he holsters one of his blasters and yanks the door open for her. ]
Thankfully it's not a sheer drop, but the angle is still rather steep, and her tennis shoes don't have enough grip to slow her descent. As it is she goes careening into the darkness, and when she finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel, she braces for impact.
She lands in a bin of laundry, hard enough to send it toppling over (fucking action movies and their disregard for things like physics). For a moment she's trapped in a tangle in white linen, and she has to fight her way free. Once freed, she shoves everything back in the bin, and slides it back under the exit point of the chute as quickly as she can. ]
[ Okay, he's not like, right behind her? Because he has to convince himself that he's not going to get stuck in there, or that the chute isn't going to randomly close in around him and trap him and that, really, it's not that bad and it'll last maybe five seconds if that, and don't be a fucking coward, Peter--
Eventually sheer necessity forces his hand when he hears voices and the stamping of feet drawing closer. It's with an aggravated groan that he forces himself to jump down the chute, and he's damn lucky the door shuts behind him of its own accord, because he thinks he just heard someone rounding the corner--
But that doesn't matter because he's sliding down the chute and even with the lights in his mask it's really fucking dark and suddenly he's thirteen again and getting stuck in a ventilation shaft after the engineering crew on the Eclector sent him in there to help with repairs, and those bastards had left them in there as a joke and fuck if he gets stuck in here he's going to flip his shit--
It's only seconds he's in the damn thing, probably, but it feels like ages, and by the time he hits the laundry bin and tumbles to the ground, his breath is coming in short gasps and fuck this job, fuck everything about it. He slams his knuckles against the trigger to disengage his helmet and wrestles his way out of the sheets and he's not panicking you're panicking. ]
[ Never would she have pegged Peter as claustrophobic, but with the way he's breathing and flailing and clearly panicking, she can put the pieces together. He pulls the last sheet off his head and Maya's right there, hands on his shoulders ] Peter- Peter--
[ He grabs onto her hands, and he'll deny it later, but his grip is seriously clingy and desperate. But he nods at her direction and, yes, breathing's good. Breathing is a thing his lungs are supposed to do.
It takes a few moments before he just kind of sags with a mumbled apology, and a quick, "I'm fine," before looking around. ]
[ She takes his hand and gets to her feet- though once she's standing, she doesn't let go ] I still have my sweater in my digistruct. We're good.
Well, almost good.
[ She surges forward and kisses him- and honestly, it's a little desperate. She thought she was going to lose him, and then they were being chased and he had his mask on anyway, and dammit, she just needed to do this, okay? ]
[ -- Yep. This is okay. Totally okay, even if he does make a little surprised noise at first, but he relaxes into it, even if he's still jazzed up on fight-adrenaline and fear-adrenaline and we-need-to-talk-about-you-going-against-the-plan-adrenaline, but.
Screw it. Maya is here and they're not dead and, yeah, he needed that too. When he pulls back, he brushes her hair from her face. ]
[ She leans into his touch a little. It's nice, having a moment like this, even if it's fleeting, and coming on the heels of imminent danger. ] That's what I'm here for.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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He grabs the crate closest to him and-- well, they really only need one of these things, but he just grabs a handful and stuffs them in his pocket. The funny thing is, though, just having them on him is seriously creeping him out, even if they're not activated. Just. Jesus, this is creepy as fuck. ]
Let's just get the fuck out of here.
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[ Suddenly there's a hand on her shoulder, yanking her backward, and she whirls around to come face-to-face with, presumably, another one of Tukkir's guards. He's a big man, broad and muscular, and- judging by the odd way his clothing bulges- probably wearing some kind of body armor.
He makes a grab for her arm, but she gets her gun up between them and squeezes the trigger, pouring bullets point-blank into his gut. The bullets don't seem to bother him, but the fire that suddenly catches on the fabric of his clothes sure does. His grip loosens and she breaks away, backing into the storage room to join Peter.
The thunderous sound of footsteps suggest backup is on the way. ]
What do you think the odds are that this place has a back door?
[ Somehow this is calming. It's just fighting, and she's done it a million times before. ]
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The sound of more guards on the way, though-- now that's upsetting, and maybe Maya is calm, but Peter sure isn't-- ]
At a guess? I'd say those odds are pretty low.
[ --because he's thinking, I'm not gonna lose her again, and he's thinking of how badly he never wants to see those empty eyes on her face, of how if he sees that lack of recognition one more fucking time, he's seriously going to snap.
Peter has always had a selfish streak, honestly.
It's probably why he's thrusting the swiped collars into her hands and rushing forward to claim a kiss. ]
Wait half a minute, then get back to the others and call in the cavalry. Don't do anything stupid.
[ "I've got that part covered in spades" goes unspoken.
He doesn't wait for an answer, activating his mask and surging forward through the door. As he's slamming it shut behind him, the guards are rounding the corner, and he manages to get the first shots off before he leads them further down the hall and away from the exit. ]
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She should do what he says. She should call for backup. Let the Nova Corps know what they've found.
She doesn't. As much as Peter doesn't want to lose her, she doesn't want to lose him either. She bursts through the door, but by then the hallway is empty. She shoves the collars into her digistruct device and moves cautiously, quietly down the hall.
They're leaving here together or not at all. She's already made up her mind. ]
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Peter's always been good at playing bait, always been seriously awesome at distraction detail, because he loves hurling insults and pointing out when a dude is kinda pudgy or cross-eyed or wow, who taught you how to handle a gun, man? A blind, deaf hamster would be a better shot than you.
It should be pretty easy, in that case, for Maya to follow the noise and the chaos.
Usually, though, the distraction thing has an endpoint, but Peter's only endgame is make sure Maya gets out -- which means he's got to do this as long as he can. So he keeps running and ducking, and it's only through sheer, stupid luck (though he would insist it was skill) that he hasn't been hit.
It's when he's skidding into cover to catch his breath that he overhears one of the goons yell, "Admissions records say he didn't come alone. Find his partner," and he realizes he seriously has to up the ante to keep them focused on him. ]
You guys know who I am, right? Peter Quill. Hero of Xandar and Guardian of the Galaxy.
I'm Star-Lord, bros, and I've got Nova Prime totally wrapped around my finger. We've got the Nova Corps bearing down on your asses as we speak, and only I can call 'em off.
[ -- alright, the fact that they apparently weren't familiar with any of his titles doesn't bother him, really, but at least the mention of Nova Corps gets their attention again. He's up and running again, gunfire taking out pipes and chipping at the floor and walls around him.
Sorry your boyfriend is such an idiot.]
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She has no plan. She doubts Peter has much of a plan either, but that's beside the point. Man, she wishes Zer0 or Gamora were here. She doesn't really do stealth, but she's keeping her eyes open for a chance to start picking some of these assholes off. ]
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It's only when they have him restrained and disarmed that someone starts barking orders -- Get a collar. Get the boss -- and some of the guards split off from the main group. ]
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Deep breath Maya. She won't be saving anyone if she lets nerves get the best of her. She skirts back, keeping a fair distance from where they have Peter pinned. She can do this. She's fought her way through countless bandit camps. She helped defeat ths Warrior.
The first man to round the corner gets the butt of her gun slammed into his nose. While he's reeling, she puts a bullet in his head. Two more come around the corner, and one instantly goes up in her phaselock- he suffers the same messy death as the man earlier. His friend is close enough to get caught in the torrent of elements, but Maya shoots him too for good measure.
There's one left, but he's smart enough not to charge in blindly. That's when Maya switches out her HellFire for her sniper- it has a wicked-looking bayonet on the front- and she surges around the corner, driving the blade into his gut and pulling the trigger. He goes down, convulsing as electricity surges through him.
She rounds the corner, puts the sight to her eye and targets the guard pinning Peter down. With his head in her crosshairs she pulls the trigger. ]
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And what will happen when his team and the Nova Corps come in and see him fighting on the wrong side? They'll squish him like a bug, because he's Terran (or mostly, anyway), and he has nothing special about him, and fuck, he bets Gamora is gonna have an awesome time kicking his ass--
The head of the guard above him fucking explodes (gross), and he doesn't have time to think how or why or what in the ever-loving-fuck, just surges to his feet and fights hard and dirty and desperate. ]
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One gets too close to Peter for comfort, and she pops him up in her phaselock. Slag and flame and electricity and acid pour over the battlefield. The crowd is thinning, at least. She can only hope Peter gets out of there okay. ]
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He catches sight of her, finally, as he's ducking beneath a wild swing, and he sees his beloved blasters lying forgotten on the ground. He dives for them, grabbing them up and twisting onto his back to shoot at the guy he'd been tussling with -- not electricity this time, but bursts of fire lancing red hot into the man's chest, made all the more lethal by Maya's slag.
He twists again, aiming himself in Maya's direction, and slams the heels of his palms down onto the triggers for his jet boots. He skids along the ground on his back, firing at the guards as he goes.
He stops just short of her and gets to his feet. ]
I think we've stuck around long enough, sweetheart.
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She gives Peter something of a Look, which is all the warning he gets before she's in his face, jabbing a finger into his chest ]
Don't you ever do that to me again.
Now let's go.
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Okay, she can't think of any right now, but she's sure they have.
As they run, she puts her rifle back into her digistruct device- running with that thing in one hand is just asking for it- and out comes her little Jakobs pistol.
She's keeping her eyes out for doors, vents, anything. Oddly, she swears she can smell laundry detergent, and if that's the case, then the laundry is as good as anywhere to hide.
But the laundry is below them, apparently, because there's another door- by the look of it, another laboratory-like room- and just out side of it, a square, metal door set about waist-high in the wall. ]
Peter! Laundry chute!
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But it's their only option, and he knows it, and he holsters one of his blasters and yanks the door open for her. ]
Go! I'll be right behind you.
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[ And in she goes, feet first.
Thankfully it's not a sheer drop, but the angle is still rather steep, and her tennis shoes don't have enough grip to slow her descent. As it is she goes careening into the darkness, and when she finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel, she braces for impact.
She lands in a bin of laundry, hard enough to send it toppling over (fucking action movies and their disregard for things like physics). For a moment she's trapped in a tangle in white linen, and she has to fight her way free. Once freed, she shoves everything back in the bin, and slides it back under the exit point of the chute as quickly as she can. ]
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Eventually sheer necessity forces his hand when he hears voices and the stamping of feet drawing closer. It's with an aggravated groan that he forces himself to jump down the chute, and he's damn lucky the door shuts behind him of its own accord, because he thinks he just heard someone rounding the corner--
But that doesn't matter because he's sliding down the chute and even with the lights in his mask it's really fucking dark and suddenly he's thirteen again and getting stuck in a ventilation shaft after the engineering crew on the Eclector sent him in there to help with repairs, and those bastards had left them in there as a joke and fuck if he gets stuck in here he's going to flip his shit--
It's only seconds he's in the damn thing, probably, but it feels like ages, and by the time he hits the laundry bin and tumbles to the ground, his breath is coming in short gasps and fuck this job, fuck everything about it. He slams his knuckles against the trigger to disengage his helmet and wrestles his way out of the sheets and he's not panicking you're panicking. ]
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You're okay. Breathe. Just breathe.
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It takes a few moments before he just kind of sags with a mumbled apology, and a quick, "I'm fine," before looking around. ]
Okay. So. Evil laundry room.
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Looks like it.
Logically, there's got to be a way from here into the housing complex, right?
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What do you think, hide our gear and sneak out? [ His eyes flick over to her tattoos, and he amends, ] We'll need to swipe a coat.
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Well, almost good.
[ She surges forward and kisses him- and honestly, it's a little desperate. She thought she was going to lose him, and then they were being chased and he had his mask on anyway, and dammit, she just needed to do this, okay? ]
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Screw it. Maya is here and they're not dead and, yeah, he needed that too. When he pulls back, he brushes her hair from her face. ]
Thanks for the save.
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Hate to be That Guy, but we're still on the clock and still liable to get riddled full of bullet holes, so we'd better get going.
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