How they should have met

The debriefing of the Guardians was nothing short of silly.

After they finally managed to get inside it became clear that those two groups, earth fraction versus odd aliens didn’t have much common ground. Their expectations and ideas how things should be handled were clashing in every aspect.

For Quill it was hard to find back into a society were a qualification on paper had so much weight after him growing up as an outlaw no one asked how especially he had learned what he knew. He also realized soon that he and his team with their history of petty and not so petty crimes could far easier adapt to accepting Loki’s good intentions than the others. Strangely it was Gamora who made even getting started possible by pointing out that she had done much more harm in her lifetime than Loki could even hope to do. She pointed out that if they could believe her despite she’d aided genocide they should also listen to him since it was possible he saved more than he killed. This relaxed the situation somehow. With a hard look, she gave up all her knowledge first without Loki close so the agents would have a frame of reference with which they could judge the worth of what the trickster had to say.

It was hard to hear what she had done in her time as Thanos’ stepdaughter but he realized it didn’t diminish his view of her in the slightest.

He realized he’d have a hard time gaining respect around here. He didn’t have much to brag about.

Watching the debriefing of Loki was a hard thing to do. Mantis hesitantly offered her help and after a very furious look, Loki accepted to everyone’s surprise but insisted on being bound in case her intervention would trigger undesired side effects. He sweated when Mantis positioned her hands on his temples to invade and manipulate his mind.

It came as a surprise when she didn’t just tear down his inner walls which kept him from talking the full truth but his outer glamour as well.

Seeing him as he really was, skin icy blue and eyes red, alienated them even more and with Mantis as a bridge, holding his own powers in check and reporting everything she did or learned he had to take the full brunt of their raw emotions unshielded. Quill only felt sympathy at this point just as he had with Gamora despite everything he knew about the man and he was grateful that he didn’t project anything worse.

Then he didn’t simply tell them what he had experienced during his time with Thanos, he relived it. His body frozen on the chair he was chained to, Mantis manipulating his powers they found themselves surrounded by a vision of what had happened to him from Loki’s point of view. The ghost-like universe surrounding him when he fell, the broken terror, his bloody hands appearing before his view when he crawled over the barren surface where  ‘The Other’ had found him on.

Then the torture, the healing, the torture, the healing, going on and on till he begged to be allowed to serve.

His actual enslavement, how they had roped him in, his feelings when he was manipulated while manipulating himself, the secret plotting hidden in his broken persona in part even from himself.

They could see it and as more as they’d gotten attuned to Mantis powers which grew leeching from Loki’s powers as well they could even feel after a while what he had felt. The craziness, the grandeur and narcissism which hid a deeply disturbed and self-loathing personality. The bitterness and the thirst for triumph, for success, for … acknowledgement.

The desperation caused by the need to accomplish a win that would mean a defeat. He had planned meticulously, deceiving himself first of all. The split personalities. The feel of slipping into insanity. Being the one who tried to disprove to be a monster by becoming an even bigger one.

Loki was not a nice guy. He was twisted and poisonous and bitter. But on the other hand he’d never had a chance. Right now he saw another opportunity to make himself grand. His brother had shown it to him. Following his brother's suggestion was a way out of being split, a way to be grand on his own terms, being desirable for what he is and not what he thought he was supposed to believe.

He wanted revenge on Thanos almost more than anything else, but even more he wanted to be somebody.

Being so far removed from himself had made him a sociopath, his own feelings so different from others without having an explanation for it had deemed all other beings irrelevant. He had raged in his greed for grandeur, in his desperate try to eradicate everything that might diminish him and it had destroyed any idea of self-preservation. After a while he had lived only to outshine his stepbrother, beating the expectations of Odin with an obsession which the latter had unwittingly fuelled. Accepting himself as what he was and realizing his ‘father’ hadn’t intended to make him feel like being the second choice brought him back on track, put his feelings and perceptions into perspective.

He was still dangerous, but now he at least wasn’t insane anymore.

When it was over and Loki regained enough control to renew his glamour, their eyes met. Quill smiled at him full of respect. In his opinion, the other had done remarkably well considering the circumstances.

Nonetheless, Loki almost fled onto the Benatar and wasn’t to be seen for the unforeseeable future. Peter didn’t think he’d acted any different had his innermost memories been projected for everybody not just to see but to feel as well. It had even been possible to record the visual part of the ordeal, Stark and others were now sifting through the footage searching for clues and hard facts about Thanos assets.

He had used the distraction the major impact of Loki’s raw feelings had created to sneak away and research on his grandfather.

He was impressed how far technology had developed since he’d been taken away. He had mixed feelings when he found out that pops were still alive. He still lived in St. Charles, Missouri and had barely survived the expanse. His statement as somebody to be barely spared was in Stark’s databank.  

The reports about him going missing were there as well.

Now he stood at the windows facing the Benatar pondering if and how he could get out and pay his pops a visit. He asked himself whether or not it was a good thing to go as well. He held the prints he created, unconsciously crumpling them in his hand when Gamora stepped at his side.

“I think you should go.” She stated matter of factly.

“Go where?” he replied. She just smiled gently and pressed his cold fingers with her warm hand.

“You should go where your heart already went right now.”

He smiled at her and went to look for somebody to ask how and if he might possibly get to Missouri.

In the end it had cost him a lengthy argument and the threat to simply take his ship and his crew to go there and make a scene till they’d given him what he needed to go where he wanted. A nice enough guy named Hogan was put in charge of transport and babysitting. After initial stiffness and awkwardness they finally found some common ground, they started joking on board the private jet Stark had generously provided and went on in the car drive to the old farmhouse his granddad owned.

With all the distraction Quill barely registered the pulling feeling becoming stronger and stronger. He put it down to anticipation to see his Grandfather at first. The closer they came the stronger the feeling got till he could almost pinpoint a location he was drawn too.

Only when they turned into the dusty road leading to the farm he got a hunch it might not have anything to do with pops. It pulled him very strongly now to a different direction. This time it cost him a lot more energy to shove it aside.

Now they sat in silence next to each other, he and the man he was now allowed to call ‘Happy’. He had no idea how to proceed now.

The other one looked straight ahead and Peter was grateful he didn’t push him, didn’t talk. He had only known him for about an hour and already found him very agreeable. He had even only half-jokingly invited him to an adventure on the Benatar.

His heart made a jump when the front door opened and an old man stepped outside, shadowing his eyes and warily watching the black limousine standing at his gates.

Quill swallowed hard. This was definitely his grandfather. The rough figure had aged well. Even in his late eighties, he looked sturdy and agile. His hair had gone white and his hands looked gnarly even in the distance, his face had become a bit more rounded, the skin a little sagged but his no-nonsense lifestyle had served him well.

Happy wordlessly moved out and went around the limousine to open the door when the old man moved closer. Peter sat in the car, eyes fixated on the approaching figure and cowardly hiding beneath the tinted windows. He had faced alien monsters, the Black Aster, gone into a dance battle with a raging madman, had fought the Sovereigns, an infinity stone, vacuum, Rocket and a living planet among others but now he was frozen in fear when facing the idea of meeting an old man.

Happy just stood there and looked at him with deep sympathy in his eyes. His grandfather had stopped just outside his gates, right in front of the car, watching the man smelling like government or agency holding the door and staring inside. His face displayed an unreadable mix of emotions. All of a sudden he looked fragile as if he had a hunch of what was to come. Shaking Quill set his foot outside the car. He shivered like a branch when getting up and out. He had his back to the old man, he could not turn around, could not face him. What if Pops didn’t believe him, what if the other simply refused him as his grandchild? What if he hated him for being away for so long? The reason he had been away was that he’d been abducted by aliens. How was he supposed to tell that without sounding like a complete lunatic? Pleadingly he looked at Happy who just cocked his head and closed the door, moving around the car to get back inside.

He had dressed up in his full Ravagers gear, coat and all, trying to look as impressive and big as possible, he had even intimidated anybody enough so no one had taken his equipment, but now he felt naked. He bent his neck, closed his eyes and took a deep breath when he heard the shuffling of approaching feet.

Shaking he opened his eyes and looked up right into the old face he didn’t really know anymore and which was still so familiar.

His Grandfather’s questioning looks slowly changed when he looked him into the eyes. A single tear escaped him and his voice shook when he spoke.

“You!” he forced out, “Do I know you? Wh-who are you?”

“I-“the mighty Star Lord found himself at a loss of words. He swallowed dryly.

“It’s me, Peter.” He finally stated quietly while looking firmly into his granddad’s eyes.

His grandfather simply stared at him for a while. Then a shaky and insecure smile crept upon his face. “Yes,” he managed to say, “yes, I can see that.”

It had been a real meetup in the kitchen later. His grandfather had insisted to call his uncle and aunt as well and they had come after a while, Happy a quiet and smiling shadow in the background, sipping ice tea and his unobtrusive presence the only hint he had to be back at the compound later that day. He was half alien, they would not let him wander around and having night outs just now, even if it was his own family he was visiting. He felt a bit miffed about that but he had given his word for peace’s sake and after all, he had so much as forced his time here already. But he and Happy were in silent agreement that later that day could be…very late.

“I really can’t believe you have been abducted by aliens!” his uncle exclaimed for the umpteenth time again when pops simply looked back. “How can you believe that dad?” he exclaimed to his father.

“Well,…” the older Quill hesitated. “I saw it happening.”

All of a sudden they fell silent altogether. Peter was the first one to react.

“You saw it? How?”

The old man tried to say something, swallowed and then started again.

“When your mother died… well, I had thrown you out, but she was undeniably dead. There was nothing I could give my little girl, nothing I could do for her.  She was out of reach for me now and the only thing left was you. So I followed you as soon as I realized that I had done the exact opposite of what she had made me promise before. Instead of taking care of you I had shoved you aside.”

He shook a little and rubbed his eyes with his hand before he went on.

“But when I reached outside all I saw was you being pulled up in the air towards that ship and your screams have followed me into my dreams all the time since then.”

Everyone stayed silent after that. It was his aunt who spoke first this time.

“That explains it.” She said. Now all eyes were on her. “We were all looking for you, we put up leaflets, we annoyed the police, there was no trace of you, dad said he had seen you being taken but he couldn’t give a description. He went on with us, with the search but I always had the feeling he was just going through the motions. As if he wasn’t really into it.”

His uncle just stared at his hands.

Peter cleared his throat, “well, it’s not as if you could have done anything.” He stated. “The moment you started searching I was very far away from earth.”

“What did they take you for?” Again it was his uncle to ask the dangerous question. He stubbornly looked at Happy who didn’t look that happy now. He knew what was coming. He knew he shouldn’t do this but he had seen what denying one's heritage had done to Loki, he would not go down that path of lies. So he let the bomb drop.

“It’s because my father wanted them to fetch me and bring me to him as soon as my mother was dead.”

Again they stared at him. It was his grandfather again who spoke first. “So it was all true in a way? The things she told us?”

Peter looked aside. “In a fashion.” He stated. Looking back at them he went on: “It’s complicated.”

It hurt to tell them what really happened, who he really was and what his father had done. His grandfather was still shaken when he remembered the day Ego’s expansion had nearly swallowed him and the cousin he hadn’t even met yet and the fact that it was Peters father who had caused the loss of his daughter almost devastated him. But in the end, Peter truly felt at home. His family accepted him, believed him. Happy’s presence making his statements so much more official didn’t hurt either.

At last, he got to say goodbye without bad feelings, promising to come back as soon as they let him.

It wasn’t until they were on their way back to the runway and the waiting jet Peter felt the strange pulling feeling again. This time it was so overwhelmingly strong he could not suppress a moan.

“Hey in there!” Happy bend over and looked at him while waiting on a red light. “You all right?”

“Hmmm, dunno, not sure.” Quill managed to reply. They were now heading in the direction his inner magnet seemed to be pulled towards. With that the pull became almost unbearable. “I got a strange feeling there’s someplace I should be.” He looked up at Happy with something like desperation showing in his features now. “Would you mind if we took a little detour? It won’t be far.”

Happy was thoroughly unhappy now. The other man had been so approachable and normal he had liked him. Of course, in a cerebral way, Happy had been aware that Peter wasn’t exactly the common guy next door but while he was boisterous and a bit ‘Tony’ on one side he was generous, forgiving and good-natured on the other. He had behaved in a nice contrast to all those over boarding superhumans and heroes around him so Happy had simply forgotten why he was supposed to accompany him.

Now the man looked strained and there was an alien glint in his eyes. For the first time Happy realized he was out of his league with this one too and that no one had realized this before. The formerly so friendly and funny person had turned into something strange and slightly sinister.

His first impulse was to get away from wherever the other desired to go but he didn’t dare to go against the man. His whole posture had changed and he didn’t want to risk a confrontation so far.

His opinion changed when the directions Quill gave him to follow lead him directly into the restricted zone.

Here it had happened not so long ago that a strange mass nobody was able to stop or even identify had emerged without any warning. He didn’t know exactly what had happened but he knew it had been bad. Soon they came close to the base and he really felt he should turn but one look at the Star-Lord he knew it was too late. The eyes of the other had turned a bright, electric glowing blue. Little flashes and sparks played around the other's body. He spoke monotone and commanding. It was as if he were in trance. The energy dancing around his body looked exactly like the formless mass that had destroyed everything in its wake.

Oh god, he really had fucked up.

“Peter?” he tried against better judgement, “Peter what’s happening?”

The man turned to him and he saw the desperation in the other’s eyes.

“It didn’t die with him!” Tears streamed down the other man’s face. They had come to a halt in front of the gates and Happy could hear voices exclaiming close by, there was a ruckus and the guards had left their posts. The blue glow was emanating on the other side of the walls as well as from Quill.

“What Quill, what didn’t die and with whom?” he asked although he had a hunch what the other was talking about. He had heard the story not an hour ago.

“I have to go,” Quill stated. “If I don’t go and stop it…” his voice died down and he left the car. Whit firm, determined strikes he simply walked forwards, the energy field reached out for him. It simply dissolved the walls and barriers in his way. Happy could see the soldiers and agents running around, their equipment dissolving in their hands, but he realized with relief that it seemed as if the energy didn’t harm the people themselves. Maybe Peter had some control over what was happening anyways.

He followed carefully, giving the man a wide berth. To his surprise, all he could see in the centre of the energy mass was a very pretty, very alien flower.

Its glowing roots were reaching deep into the earth and as soon as Quill reached it, some glowing appendages reached out for him. The man was openly crying now.

He looked down onto the flower and spoke again. “NO!” he exclaimed. “You can’t have that! Stop it!” The vines creeping away turned their path and started burying into Quill. He shook his head in denial.

“No please no! I can’t…” he made a move to step back, step away from the plant and as soon as he did the spreading of the energy became more forceful again. Hogan could now feel a slight burn like beginning destruction on his skin. Before he could react or do anything, an orange glow appeared out of nothing and a very impressive figure stepped out of the materialized portal.

The man looked as if he had been summoned from a fairy-tale. He was the picture of a wise wizard coming to the rescue from the sophisticated grey tinged hairstyle to the mystical looking blue robes, the dark yellow gloves and the flowing red cape stitched with intricate patterns flowing in a non-existent breeze. He withstood the energy mass without blinking. Firmly he reached over the flower grabbing Peter’s shoulders, effectively stopping him from running away.

“I hear it too.” The deep baritone was soothing and firm. “But it’s not mine to tame, it’s yours. I could see your energies swinging in sync for a while now but I could not pinpoint what was about to happen or where. As soon as you stepped foot on this planet the decision was made though. This is your bequest, your energy. You HAVE to take it on!”

Quills eyes looked broken now. “I can’t! It’s too strong, it will devour me! It will make me…”

“No!” the denial from the other man was firm and absolutely sure. “It can’t do anything to you. It’s just energy, it needs a vessel but it has no mind. It can’t break you if you do not resist. It will be yours if you accept it.”

A sad smile appeared on Quill’s face. “You know it will chain me.”

The other squeezed Peter’s shoulders sympathetically. “Do you really wish to sacrifice everything, even your own life, just to stay carefree and unbound? Is the prize you’ll have to pay really too much to ask to save the world you’ve been born to? Is it too much to pay for your friend's lives?”

Peter cast his eyes down. He looked resigned now. “I’d do anything for them.”

“Then prove it!” The stranger demanded. “You know what you have to do. You can feel it.”

Without any more hesitation, Peter kneeled down and let himself be devoured by the plant. It latched onto him hungrily, buried deep inside him, for a moment he looked as if it had replaced him. The glow reaching inside the earth became stronger and a low rumble run through the surface. It wasn’t quite an earthquake, more a content shiver.

The burning subsided, the touch of the glow was now warm and pleasant. Beginning from the alien flower vegetation started to sprout as if welcoming the man’s sacrifice and turning it into life. Soon the flower wilted away, the glow subsided until it was just Quill again sitting among the explosion of plant life which had sprouted around him. Happy and the personnel which had been stationed to examine the plant that had cost so many lives could do nothing but stare at the two figures in their midst. Their weapons, technology, even the car and the buildings were gone as if they had never existed.

With a huff, the stranger pulled a mobile from his pocket, how he had managed to preserve it was anybody’s guess.

“I’m afraid this’s one of the situations that call for the promised collaboration.” He stated to no one in particular. He pressed a few buttons on the old fashioned phone and then held it to his ear. Happy and the others had now time to fully take in the absolutely absurd picture of what looked like a full-blown mystic, looking skywards in annoyance while pressing an old Nokia to his ear. If that would not have been maddening enough the first sentence the other uttered as soon as his connection established gave Happy the creeps.

“Hello Mr Stark here’s Dr Strange, we have to talk.”