This is Book 2 of the Astronautical series. If you have not already read Book 1, I suggest going to my profile and giving it a look. This is set in an alternate universe which Thanos created by changing the timeline when the original timeline wasn't going how he hoped. A lot of this won't make much sense if you haven't read the first.
Title is from "Somedays" By Audioslave.
I do not own Marvel or the characters. This is purely a fanwork for entertainment.
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Book 2:
Astronautical: Luciferous
.:Prologue:.
Ego was born the last of his kind. He hadn't known it at the time. Indeed, he hadn't known enough to know that he had a kind at all. In the worst sort of irony that the universe proved ever so willing to dispense, the kind that was as cruel as much as it was uncaring, he discovered both truths almost at once; He was something extraordinary, and so very, very alone. For a time, it didn't matter. He entertained himself with building a world. Some nameless instinct, like a secret message nestled in the very core of his being, whispered to him that this was his purpose, what he was made to do, but when he completed his task, he looked about and found no one to share his beauty with. He had almost forgotten, so swept up in his purpose and then his accomplishment, but he was still alone. Wishing to forget again, he turned back to his planet.
Eons passed, and in his solitude the joy he felt in creating his world transformed into desperation. The aching loneliness pressed in ever closer, always breathing down the back of his neck as he fled deeper and deeper into the details of his creation. When every last stone, and leaf, and column was laced with the finest and most intricate details, and even the dust stirred in patterns that had been as rehearsed and coordinated as the most solemn of dances, he fled instead into the stars. Surely, there must be life beyond himself. Even if he was the last of his kind, there must be others who could understand him, at least.
Alas, out in the endless galaxies, that soon would prove too small, he found only insects. Mindless, buzzing, meaningless insects. Some feared him, some worshiped him, and some welcomed him as they would any of their own kind, but none understood him, and his disappointment was immeasurable. He was as a god, sitting in an empty field, no less alone for the all the chirruping songs of the insects around him.
Slowly, the insects began to grow faces and names, and he learned to tell them apart. They were not gods, nothing even close to it, but they were possessed of their own sort of simple charm, and as he observed their colonies, he began to notice that, while their individual lives were hopelessly short and meaningless, they could create others like themselves, to carry on the tasks left at their deaths. He grew envious of the insects because, they would never know the loneliness that defined his every moment. Envy turned to something darker, and before long he despised them with every molecule of his being. He no longer wanted to share what they had, he wanted to rip it away from them, he wanted them to feel the crushing weight of an eternity alone and unloved.
Then the thought came to him that he could do just that. If they could not understand him, then they served him no purpose, anyways. What use were any of these insects to a god? He would take everything they had. He would become the universe, life, existence, and he would no longer be alone, because he would be everything. That familiar whispering instinct, perhaps a bit more bitter and twisted than it had been the last time, returned to him, and the Expansion began. He traveled the universe, hiding little pieces of his core on every planet he passed. He soon became aware, however, of a new problem; the universe was vast, and he lacked the power to consume it on his own. It was another cruel reminder that he was alone. A fact that haunted him like a hound nipping relentlessly at his heels no matter where, or with how much vigor, he fled. In the wake of this newest twist of fate, he cursed the universe and all its heartlessness until even the voice of his created avatar broke from the strain, and he could do nothing but kneel in the dirt and gasp out at the stars above, which only stared back impassively as ever. That was the first time he had truly cried.
Now he envied the mortals for a new reason. Were he capable of it, he would have lain there until his death came, and he would have welcomed it with nothing but gratitude and relief. Alas, again, he was not mortal. There was no escape from the pain, and there never would be, unless he made it himself.
A new thought sparked to life as he thought of the mortals who he despised so much. The very source of his jealousy and spite -their ability to reproduce, to create more of themselves- would prove to be his inspiration for their downfall as well.
If he could not find another of his kind, perhaps he could create one. Not a true god perhaps, a bastard creation of his very own, but it would be his kin, and the closest thing to himself he may ever have. For the first time in countless ages, he felt the spark of hope again. It caught quickly, burning bright and hot, his desperation lighting it like gasoline.
More ages passed, these in a whirlwind of planets and women, laughing faces and colorful skirts swirling about. One by one, his progeny came to age and one by one they all proved to be failures, but he would not give up. He mourned the loss of each child, more the loss of his own dream than the loss of their life. Death was surely a better fate for his children than to live their lives as nothing but mere insects. He could spare them from that, at least.
In his time among them, however, the insects again began speaking to him. It happened so gradually, that he hadn't realized until it was nearly too late. He was becoming like them. He had grown so used to dressing up in his false insect body and masquerading among them that he was forgetting he was a god.
The breaking point came by the name of Meredith Quill. A member of an unremarkable species on an unremarkable little planet in a very underdeveloped part of the galaxies. They were hardly more than cave dwellers, he had thought, when he had first arrived. But from these backwards little creatures, came a woman, and hardly that, all lanky limbs and giant doleful eyes that peered up at him with such innocence and genuine interest that for once, he almost didn't feel so alone. Much like he had once buried himself in the creation of his planet, he buried himself now under her gaze and within her surprisingly warm embrace, wrapping them around him like a warm coat to stave off the chill of his loneliness. He could have stayed there with her forever. Except, she was a mortal and he had a greater purpose now.
Three times he left, and three times he returned.
He never returned a fourth. He made certain he had nothing to return to. Still, there was no other woman after Meredith. He continued his travels, placing the portions of his core on planets as he had before, but he could not bring himself to create another life. He told himself that it was because so very many had failed. That he was simply tired from all the disappointment. That was all. It was in these wanderings that he would stumble upon Mantis, a peculiar sort of insect who would eventually become a band-aid to his tattered mind. She would be the first being beyond himself and his progeny to ever see his planet, but her awe and appreciation was lost to him in his bitter state. He still could not die, and with his purpose to harden his heart, he no longer wished to, but sleep became a new refuge in which he could hide from the shadow of loneliness, ever present, and ever growing.
The last of his children came of age and failed, and when the time came for his very last child, Meredith's child, he was prepared for this final disappointment. It was nearly a relief when he did not come, and perhaps it was for that reason that he did not immediately set out to enact any sort of revenge against the man who had failed to deliver his son as promised, and why, even when he did stir himself to seek out his last remaining hope for the Expansion, he did it with a halfhearted vigor at best. Often, he returned to his planet and to a long sleep much sooner than he needed to, and often he would follow a trail just a little too slowly, only to have the lead slip away. In the deepest shadows of his heart, he was afraid that if he hunted down the Ravager, he would find Peter, and if he found Peter, that he would find some piece of Meredith lingering within him.
When the whispering came to his ears of a Terran who had somehow miraculously held an Infinity Stone and survived, Ego knew right away that it was Peter. It was indeed a miracle, but not in the way that the rest of the universe thought. The true miracle was something much grander. It was like a sign from the universe which had always been so cold and cruel; the time for the Expansion had come.
When he found Peter, he was both relieved and disappointed to discover that while Meredith's child did bear some resemblance -Ego had learned enough in his travels to pick out some of the finer nuances of their features- he did not so strongly resemble her as to give him any further pause in his plans.
But all his planning, thousands of years of work and preparation, and countless children sacrificed to the Light, all added up to nothing more than a spectacular failure. Peter had refused him, and wasn't that irony just perfect? All of his children before had been eager to join their father as a god when they learned of what they could be. Peter alone had been possessed of the ability to achieve that immortality, and Peter alone had spat in its face and cast it aside.
Peter had cast him aside, and the rage that Ego felt at that final insult was inconsolable. An eternity spent in search of something like an equal, and that equal had treated him as nothing! Ego had been worth even less than the very insects that he had been interned with for eons. Even in his wild rage, Ego did not want to kill his son, but he thought perhaps the eternal silence that had so tortured him could school Peter to understanding his own place in the universe as well. A few thousand years suspended in the light would not harm him, but much like when Ego had grown to hate the mortals for their bonds and friendships and wanted to take them away, so he wanted to rob Peter of all these false loves and force him to understand Ego's plight. He just needed to understand. Once he knew the truth, he would see the sense in the plan. He would join Ego willingly and Ego would finally, finally, not be alone!
But Peter's friends were more cunning that Ego had realized, and with the destruction of his core he found himself ripped from the mortal realm. In its own way, the Expansion had brought him peace at last.
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Chapter 1: Plain Clothes and Miranda Rights
Peter dreamed of walking among a starry landscape. There was no pathway or patches of land, so he used the stars themselves as stepping stones to traverse the darkness. He could feel the cold heat of eyes watching him carefully as he wandered, but try as he might he could never find where the sensation was coming from. All the stars seemed to twinkle back at him with a glint, as though they knew, but thought this a fine entertainment and so were unwilling to share their information.
He wandered through empty fields of stars, and through galaxies and nebulas that he had to wade through like colorful fogs. He skipped down asteroid belts like he was a child playing hopscotch on the playground of his school back on Earth. He thought at first that he had been wandering aimlessly, but as time passed -in the obscure and impossible to define way of dreams- he became aware of the sound of singing in the distance. He couldn't place the tune, but it felt somehow familiar, and grew louder with every step.
As he drew closer to his unknown destination the stars began to shift around him. Some began gathering towards him as though pulled by magnets within his boots, and forming a glowing pathway under his feet. Others were pooling together in the distance, traversing the sky in a swirling dance like water sweeping towards a drain. The sky from which they had been pulled became impossibly dark and endless. Soon the stars had arranged themselves in such a fashion that to one side, the space around him was filled with empty nothingness, while the other side had gathered so many stars so as to become impossibly bright. Peter stood in the middle where a few stray stars still twinkled, like a strip of reality between the darkness and the light, on a pathway made of stars.
The song was stronger than ever and Peter decided it must be coming from the light. It was a sort of tuneless lullaby. The kind his mother would hum sometimes when he was sick.
"Peter." A voice broke through the peaceful moment, and when Peter looked over his shoulder, he wasn't surprised to find Yondu this time, standing on nothing in particular among the small strip of stars. "Come away from there, boy."
Peter considered the false man for a moment, finding none of the fear he had felt that last time they had met. Perhaps because he had been expecting this, or perhaps because this was a dream, and he felt secure that he would not be harmed. The false Yondu had a strange expression on his face, neither anger nor fear, but Peter could not otherwise place it.
The humming grew in another swell, and Peter turned back towards the pathway before him. The bright light felt warm and soothing, and when his eyes grew tired of staring into their depths and he turned to look at the void, he found that, rather than the terror that had filled him before, he just felt a calming peacefulness wash over him. Like taking a cool nap in the shade after a long hot day's work. He thought he could crawl into that darkness and fall sleep and be content to never again awaken.
"Peter," the voice insisted from behind him, "it's time to come back."
"Why?" Peter breathed out, aware that he sounded like a petulant child whining at being told it was time to come inside from playing in the yard. He liked it here. He couldn't quite recall where 'back' was, but he felt like returning would hurt. He didn't want to hurt.
"You don't belong here."
Peter stared at the soothing light and the peaceful dark. He felt like he belonged here. Slowly, he lifted his boot and took another step forward.
"What about your friends?"
The question halted Peter in his tracks. He had forgotten about his friends. They still needed him. He couldn't stay here. As if it could feel his thoughts, the music from ahead rose even louder and he felt his heart beat a little faster. There was an ache in him so deep and terrible, like a homesickness that threatened to tear his very heart from his chest if he turned away.
"If you leave now, they will die."
Peter wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a warning or a promise.
His feet weighed a thousand pounds each as he turned around, and he thought it might have been less painful to rip his eyes from his skull and leave them here than to pull them away this time. He clung to the thought of his friends like a life-saver on a stormy sea to keep his conviction as he returned the way he had first come. As he walked, the light behind him unraveled into stars once more and the humming faded. Yondu offered him a single smile before vanishing, leaving the pathway back clear, and Peter desperately hoped he would not come to regret his decision.
-x-
Peter didn't wake up, so much as he slowly came to the realization that he had already been awake for some time, he just hadn't noticed it yet. By the time he thought to wonder where he was, the four corners where the walls of his little white room met the ceiling were already a familiar sight. There was a soft beeping that had been keeping a rhythm with his heart, and threatened to lull him back to sleep again. The rest of the world around him was a perfect sort of silence; peaceful and safe.
He could have laid there, content to trace the shadows in the seams of the ceiling for hours, if it weren't for the low hum of pain that slowly filled his limbs and wormed its way into his body, demanding his attention. For a while he tried to ignore it, but the pain built up until he was forced to stir from his position in search of some relief. The second he tried to move, however, the pain that had been only creeping up to this point, seemed to explode. Peter gasped and rolled onto his right side, the left one seemed to be the epicenter of the worst of his pain, although his head, which felt like someone had been practicing with a power drill on it, was offering close competition.
A mess of wires was stickied to his chest and tangled under his elbows when he rolled. After a couple failed attempts to untangle himself he gave up and ripped them off, discovering in the process that his left hand was casted again. Immediately after the wires were plucked from his skin the soft beeping turned into one long whine. Oh. Peter forced his bleary eyes to look up and take in the little medical bay around him. It was a small room -not tiny, but definitely small- and the medical equipment and carts pressed up against the walls offered very little in the way of clues as to where he was or how he'd come here.
Peter was laying on a bed that took up the better part of the back wall. The mattress underneath him was hardly more than the length of his body, but it was deceptively comfortable. At the head of his bed was the heart monitor that had been providing him company, a flat red line and a series of warning symbols adorned the bottom of the screen.
Finding no help in the present, he tried to cast his mind back to see if he could recall anything of importance. The last thing he remembered was crawling through the dust and debris on Traxxon III. After that came a piercing light, then darkness, and a sense that he had been dreaming again. A weight settled in his belly as he considered the possibility that he had been captured. He didn't appear to be bound in any way, but that didn't sooth him overly much right now. All he really knew was that he was alone, and he needed to find his friends, or at the very least, find out what their fates were.
Slowly, Peter pulled himself up until he was sitting and dropped his legs over the edge of his bed. The floor was chilly and the cold seeped quickly through the thin socks that covered his feet. As he stared down at his feet and the unfamiliar socks, he realized that he was dressed entirely in a set of soft white pajamas that he had never seen before. Hospital clothes may have been a more apt description, but the thought made Peter uncomfortable and brought up memories he didn't have the time to dwell on now.
The door on the far wall opened with a little swish, startling him out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see a woman who struck him as vaguely familiar standing with one hand on the door frame. She was breathing a bit hard, and her mouth parted slightly in surprise at the sight of him. He didn't have long enough to figure out where he knew her from when she blinked her huge eyes and turned to dash away.
Peter tried to call after her, but his words got caught up in his painfully dry throat and he was reduced to a brief fit of coughing. When the coughing subsided he wiped the dampness from the corner of his eyes and pushed himself to his feet. He was pleasantly surprised that, despite some minor protest, and a renewed burning in the place where the blaster had caught him square in the shin, his legs bore his weight. Slowly, Peter shuffled his way over to the door. It opened readily at his approach, casting further doubt on his initial worry that he was a prisoner.
Outside of the room was a small hallway. The walls were a pale grey-blue, and a few doors which looked similar to his were set into both sides before the hallway turned out of sight. Peter was debating which direction to try when the sound of footsteps and hushed voices reached his ears. A moment later a pair of people rounded the corner and Peter's bafflement only grew.
He knew why the girl had looked so familiar now. He hadn't placed her because she'd been out of uniform. She was still in a loose white t-shirt and comfortable pair of jeans as she lead her new companion back towards Peter. Her loose brown curls were rumpled and a corner of her shirt was untucked, giving him the impression that his waking had interrupted her rest. It was such a casual look for the Nova Prime's personal secretary, that it may have taken him longer still to place her if not for the fact that Denarian Dey was trotting at her heels.
Peter stared in slack jawed confusion as the pair finished their approach. Xandar had burned. He had seen the blackened planet with his own eyes, and by all accounts he had heard, the Nova Corps had burned with it. Was he dead after all?
These people certainly didn't look like they belonged to any afterlife as they came to a stop in front of Peter. Dey was holding a hand out in greeting. When Peter did nothing, Rohmann Dey mistook Peter's shocked silence as nervousness and offered him a friendly smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Peter noticed up close that the Nova Corpsman looked much older than he remembered. There were deep lines on his brow and a sadness to his eyes that seemed out of place on the cheerful Xandarian, and a dusting of white hairs along his temple. Peter supposed the stress of losing your entire planet may do that. Peter shook himself from his stupor enough to accept the offered hand. Dey's grasp was feather light over the bandages that covered Peter's right palm, and he was reminded that both of his blasters had been destroyed on Traxxon III. The thought elicited a wave of loss he hadn't been expecting over the inanimate blasters he'd carried since he was a child still learning the ways of this new life among the stars, and reminded him of a bigger issue.
"Where are my friends?"
Dey and the assistant who's name Peter couldn't quite recall shared a look, and in the silence Peter's imagination was left running wild with fear that they were going to tell him he was alone. He nearly melted in relief when Dey finally spoke.
"Why don't we take you to them?"
Dey waved Peter in the direction they had come from, and Peter quickly fell in step beside him. The lady fell in step on Peter's other side, and he was well aware that they were carefully slowing their pace to match his own more hampered stride. He was grateful, but also impatient with himself to get to where his friends were and see them with his own eyes.
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions," Dey said with false casualness. "Why don't we start with introductions? I'm-"
"Rhomann Dey," Peter supplied immediately. Dey's eyebrows rose and he shared another look with his companion.
"Yes," he continued, less surprised than Peter would have expected, and with a calculating look in his eyes that made Peter suspect someone had told him of Peter's belief he belonged to another timeline, and the Denarian was feeling him out. That was fine. Peter would be happy to supply them with whatever proof they needed.
"And you," Peter turned to look at the woman on his other side, "were the secretary for Nova Prime, right? I don't remember your name, sorry."
"Emeryn Marlowe," she offered, not unfriendly, but not much more than that either.
"I'm Peter Quill." He was sure that they were already aware but it wouldn't hurt to be polite. "So." Peter moved on, deciding to dive right into his real question when he couldn't find a softer way to approach the subject. "What are you guys doing here? I was told that the Nova Corps was destroyed."
Peter had directed his question towards Dey, but Marlowe answered instead.
"Most of us were," she said in a matter of fact way. "We lost 85% of our fleet, all of our ground crew and..."
"All of the citizens," Dey broke in, staring ahead. "Everyone who was on the planet."
Marlowe continued like she hadn't been interrupted.
"Those that survived were forced to go into hiding. We help when we can. Assisting refugees and protecting supply routes and information channels for those who still stand in opposition to Thanos's spread. But we're a small force and stretched thin as it is, and we have to lay pretty low if we don't want Thanos to find us and finish the job before we can grow strong enough to survive another attack. If we want to start making a real difference we need to find a way to take on Thanos and his generals more directly." Those huge eyes were staring at him with a sort of hunger that made Peter feel a bit uncomfortable. It reminded him of the look that Ego had given him when he was planning to use Peter as a battery for his plan to destroy the universe. He didn't know how much they had been told about Peter and his supposed powers, but he'd hazard a guess that she knew enough to want to use those powers against the Titan.
She was far from the only person to have such thoughts. After all, Nebula and Drax had first agreed to help him for the very same reason, but he was still relieved when the conversation quickly took a turn to other matters.
"I believe your friends are in their bunks right now," Dey informed him with a short wave of his hand as they entered a wider hallway with numbered doors set into the side. "We gave them their own set of rooms in a section of barracks that's been unused. We thought it would be better for everyone if they weren't sharing with the main crew. It's pretty late in the cycle, but they're probably still awake, and anyways they've requested we inform them as soon as you wake up."
"How long was I out?" Peter asked.
"Not too long," Dey assured him. "About a cycle and a half. You're injuries were very bad when we found you. You were hardly conscious and just babbling nonsense. The medical staff was worried you may have done some permanent damage, or might not wake up at all."
Peter tried to remember anything like that. His clearest memories cut off in the dust and smog, but he thought he could remember lights shining through the dark even as he faded away. Were they ship's lights he had seen? The more he tried to focus, though, the more the vision of stars and humming voices mixed memory and dream until he gave up on recalling anything useful.
"How are you feeling?" Dey asked after a pause.
Peter considered the question as Dey managed to fix him with a sympathetic look that, while genuine, didn't quite cover up the spark of curiosity underneath. He was fishing for answers. Not so subtly looking for evidence of whatever other secrets Peter may be hiding, such as his increased healing and durability, which, although nothing as spectacular as Gamora or Nebula's enhancements, were once again the only reason he was up and about when he should have been bedridden or worse. Nebula was the only one he had confided in about the truth of his powers and heritage, and he doubted she had told anyone else. Yondu knew a good deal of the truth as well, but again Peter found it hard to believe the captain who had so faithfully kept the secret for so many years would betray it now.
In his dealings with the Nova Corps, Peter had learned that Dey was far sharper than his goofy smiles and easygoing personality would suggest, but he had a terrible face for lying, so Peter could safely guess that he was just digging with no real goal in mind right now.
"I hurt," Peter answered truthfully. "My ribs, my head and my shin are the worst. Everything else is just... mildly crippling agony."
Peter pulled his lips up into his best attempt at a humorous smile, but it came out as more of a crooked grimace.
He thought Dey's answering smile almost reached his eyes this time before the Denerian stopped to rap his knuckles against one of the doors.
There was the sound of muffled voices, and a chair sliding across the floor from within while Peter shifted impatiently on his sore legs. A moment later the door opened to reveal Drax looming in the opening, his body blocking most of the room behind him. The Destroyer certainly looked worse for the wear; bandages covered nearly every inch of his arms, and sat snuggly under his ribs. His upper chest remained stubbornly bare despite a gash the length of Peter's lower arm that cut across from his left collarbone to the lower ribs on his right side. The wound, which looked like it had just barely missed splitting his ribcage open, was held together with a long row of surgical staples. The edges looked puffy and inflamed, and Peter didn't bother hiding a wince at the sight.
"Peter Quill?" Drax greeted with much less enthusiasm than Peter was feeling himself, and he tried to ignore a wave of disappointment at the less than spectacular reunion. "You are awake, this is good." The Destroyer continued, offering him a tired but sincere smile and stepping back into the room in wordless invitation.
Peter didn't need to be told twice and followed him inside. On both side walls were a pair of bunk beds made up with simple grey-blue sheets that neatly matched the walls. In front of the door that Peter had just entered through was a small open space with a table and set of chairs. One of the chairs was pulled out and Drax's knife sharpening kit and one of his twin blades were set down on the table.
Groot was currently occupying one of the remaining chairs -a portable type of folding chair that looked like it was nearly at its limit- and looking much better than his companion. A couple of charred patches across the thicker pads of bark and the fact that one of his arms was just a touch smaller than the other was the only evidence of the battle. The colossus greeted him much more warmly than Drax had, and Peter's pride was soothed a bit.
On the bottom bunk of one of the beds was Cosmo who appeared to have been curled up and asleep before Peter's arrival had disturbed him. To Peter's amusement, it appeared someone had fashioned the dog a ramp that ran the short distance between the edge of the mattress and the floor. That amusement quickly vanished when Cosmo pulled himself to his feet and limped down the ramp, picking his way down the short path carefully as he favored his left side. Cosmo's astronaut suit was conspicuously absent, making him look smaller than Peter remembered. White stretchy bandages covered a portion of his chest, holding several healing packs against the side Ronan's hammer had struck. One of his forelegs had a small shaved patch where it was likely an IV had been placed at some point. Still, Cosmo approached him with an easy smile and a wag of his tail.
Brother Peter. Cosmo is glad to see you up and about so soon.
"Glad to see you, too, Cosmo," Peter greeted as Cosmo came to stand among the gathered group. Peter scanned the room again, his smile fading as he failed to find any evidence of the rest of his crew. "Where are Gamora and Nebula?" he asked. "...And Rocket?"
An uncomfortable silence took the room as the others seemed to be debating who would answer. After a moment, Dey cleared his throat.
"Your... remaining friends... have some very considerable criminal records." Dey's watched Peter carefully as he spoke, seeming unsure about how he would take this news. "They are currently incarcerated where they won't be a danger to anyone until a decision can be made."
"Decision about what?" Peter asked darkly. Dey shifted nervously but held his ground.
"About what to do with them. There are some-"
"The Prime and Upper Council will make their decision after the trial." Marlowe cut off whatever Dey had been about to say in a sharp tone. "The crew will just have to accept whatever decision they make. Now that you're awake, Peter, we can get more information and be that much closer."
"I want to see them," Peter demanded, squaring his jaw and standing as straight and imposing as he could manage.
It seemed they had been expecting this, however, as Dey and Marlowe shared another brief look before Dey gave an ineloquent shrug and stepped back out of the room.
"It's a bit of a walk, but as long as you think you can make it I don't see any reason why you can't at least see them. We'll have to keep it short, though, and then we should take you back to your room for the night. It's late, and the Council will want to get your statement first thing in the morning."
And before they had a chance to corroborate their stories. Peter had been in enough interrogations to hear what Dey had left unsaid.
Cosmo gave a quick stretch, made awkward by having to avoid moving his injured side too much, and followed the Nova Corps out.
Cosmo will come with, he stated matter of factly. Peter looked up at his other friends, but Drax just excused himself as being tired and Groot decided to stay with Drax for now. Peter wished them both a good night, promising to return when he could before turning and following the others back down the hallway.
"So what happened?" he asked no one in particular. "I mean, after I... fell unconscious. Is Ronan..?"
"Dead?" Marlowe guessed. "No. We barely managed to get you and your allies out of their and escape with our lives. Our forces are still too small to take any of Thanos's generals on directly." Her voice had taken on a bitter note at the end. "Is it true?"
"What?" Peter asked when she turned her eyes on him with a sudden intensity.
"That you can hold an Infinity Stone?" she pressed, eyes bright with that same hunger from before. "That you can use it?"
"Marlowe!" Dey reprimanded.
"Don't you see, Rhomann?" she continued, rounding on Dey with her bright eyes. "This could change everything! Just think of what we could do if we had that sort of power. We could start saving bigger targets, recruiting more forces, start going on the offensive, maybe even turn the tide of this whole war."
"Marlowe," Dey sighed, softer this time, and something in the tone stilled the assistant's ramblings. A slight coloring rose to her cheeks as she seemed to suddenly realize she'd made an outburst.
"Of course," she continued more sedately, eyes turned down apologetically, "that's all up to the Upper Council and Nova Prime."
Peter felt an uncomfortable tug in his chest when he realized his own opinion wasn't included in her list of considerations.
-x-
Peter's legs were growing more insistent in their complaints when they came upon a heavy sliding door that split apart in the middle, locked with a keypad that only granted them access after Dey produced some sort of keycard from his pocket. On the other side was a small guard's station, hardly more than a couch, table, and kitchenette, with a number of screens set into the wall that could probably be used to monitor the prison rooms if they were on. For now, the screens all sat blank and empty.
Beyond that, stretched a short wide hallway. The walls were lined with something that looked like glass, but was no doubt much stronger. Behind this wall was a number of small rooms, divided from each other with more of the same heavy glass so that if a guard were to peek in, they could see all of the prisoners at once. In each of these small rooms was a simple bed, a nightstand with several books, but no drawers -so nothing could be hidden within, Peter assumed- a small chair that allowed the nightstand to double as a small desk, and a toilet and a sink.
Peter briefly marveled at the very thoroughly equipped prison.
At the end of the short hallway was a cell that was markedly larger than the rest, taking up the entire end wall to wall. This one was equipped with two beds, one on each end, and two desks and chairs. It also possessed a sectioned off corner that Peter guessed was a bathroom with a sink set into the wall next to it. Pretty nice as far as prisons went, honestly. This thought, and the fact that neither Nebula nor Gamora looked to be in any outright duress softened the blow of his friends being once more imprisoned.
Gamora was reclining on one of the beds, propped half-way up against the headboard with her arms pillowed behind her head. White bandages were visible under her top covering the portion of her side where she had been speared through with the piece of ship's paneling. Small scratches laced her arms and face, but they were all shallow and already healing so that they more resembled fine spiderwebs than injuries.
Nebula was on the far side of the room, sitting on the chair that had been provided with her feet thrown up on her own mattress. She had a book held loosely in her hands, but Peter got the impression she was more interested in the excuse to ignore her sister than the actual contents. There was a series of gashes on her right arm and one across her face that must have been pretty nasty as they were still in the process of healing and looked a bit painful.
Both assassins had looked up at the group's entrance, but Gamora had quickly lost interest when she spotted Peter and returned to staring at the ceiling. Despite her apparent distraction, Peter had no doubt she would be listening closely to anything that was said.
Peter hadn't actually seen his reflection yet, but he guessed he must be looking pretty disheveled as Nebula had raised her brows and curled a lip up like he'd just tracked mud over a clean carpet.
"Peter," she acknowledged. At first Peter was upset at the sudden coolness in her tone, but after the initial hurt settled a bit he realized that she was probably remaining intentionally distant due to the Nova Corps in the room with them.
"How are you guys?" he asked, one hand pressed against the glass.
"We're fine," Nebula replied in a deceptively flippant tone. "Better than you by the look of it."
Peter ignored the insult that might have been Nebula's own way of worrying about him without admitting it.
"Where's Rocket?" Peter asked, not seeing him anywhere in their room.
Nebula closed her book, keeping place with one of her fingers, and used her free hand to wave at one of the smaller cells to Peter's other side. When Peter looked to where she had indicated he was surprised to find that one the closest cells had been stripped bare of everything that could be removed. He must have been too caught up in the sight of the assassins and walked right past it. All that was left in the small space was the sink and toilet, and Rocket was tucked into the corner next to the toilet. Curled up on his side, unmoving, and with his back to the room, he was hardly more than a shadow.
"Rocket?" he called, stepping over to this new cell. Rocket didn't so much as twitch an ear at him. "Hey, Rocket, you okay?"
Nebula's voice broke in. "He's tired" When he met her eyes she had a strange look, like she was trying to tell him something with her gaze that he just couldn't understand. Deciding to take whatever warning she was trying to give him, he gave up on trying to rouse a response out of Rocket.
The sound of someone clearing out their throat brought his attention back to Dey and Marlowe.
"I'm sure we're all pretty tired," Dey stated. "I think it might be time to head back."
Peter was ready to protest the short visit, but when he glanced at his friends for support he found Nebula had returned to her book, and Gamora looked like she was ready to nod off at any moment.
"Right," Peter sighed, reminded that he still had some sort of interrogation, no matter how nicely worded, in the morning. He had seen his friends with his own eyes, and he'd have to be satisfied with that for now. "If you need anything-"
"We're fine, Peter," Nebula cut him off with that same clipped tone that made him feel like he was missing something important. "It's cleaner in here than your ship anyways. Just do as they say."
Peter was escorted back to the medical bay he'd first woken up in. Even though he hadn't been awake for long, his body was spent and he was thankful to settle back down onto the mattress and relieve his legs. Cosmo wished him a good night and assured him once more that everything was as he'd seen it and his friends were in no immediate danger. Dey and Marlowe's goodbye was much more curt and with one final reminder that they'd be back in the morning, and a subtle suggestion that he not leave it until then, they left.
End
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Chapter 2 Preview: "...He didn't have much time to dwell on this as, as though possessed of one mind, all of the Council stood at attention. The movement was so sudden and so well-coordinated that Peter actually jumped slightly before realizing that someone had just walked through the door..."
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Book 2! OMG! So excited! Sorry this so long. The prologue ran a bit longer than I was planning. I considered uploading the prologue as a separate chapter, but it would mess up the chapter count and just slowly drive me nuts. I'm slowly making progress towards making up the weekly update I had to drop. The good news is I've been to the chiropractor twice now and feel way better! Along with the issues I was already aware of, I also had three ribs and my collarbone out, and a vertebra shoved out of place. I'm bruised as all heck from the muscles being reset, but it's been such a relief overall.
Anyways, the title for book 2 is Luciferous, meaning 'bearing light' as Celestials and the Light will be a major factor in this book. Astronautical (About traveling/navigating through the stars) will remain the name for the series as well as for the first book.
NOVA CORPS! Or what's left of them. This was a plot point I was planning since the very beginning, but also one that wasn't actually hinted at anywhere in book one, so I don't expect anyone to have guessed it. The first part of this book is an 'answer arc' of sorts so we'll be getting a lot of those soon. This also adds a few new game-changers for Peter and his companions. They might not all be good things, though. *coughs*
Emeryn Marlowe is a completely made up name. I couldn't find her listed as anything other than 'Nova Corpsmen' or 'the Prime's Assistant' anywhere, but if she does have a name and I just missed it please let me know.
Thank you for sticking around for the journey!
-OMaM