Chapter One

Hey, so I had wanted to get this chapter up simultaneously with the last chapter of So Shall Pigs and Swine, but a few hours isn't to big of a difference I reckon. I hope that you enjoy the new story and I look forwards to finally getting to introduce this new Peter to the Guardians.

"Come on…pleeaaase!"

"No."

"Please, please, pleeeaaase."

"No."

"I don't wanna take Wiz 'n Raja."

Yondu raised an eyebrow and finally glanced away from the windshield. "Ship rules."

Peter groaned and flopped against the back of Yondu's seat.

"Ship rules, Peter."

Peter groaned again as Maris firmly pushed him off the seat and onto the floor. He crossed his legs and arms, trying to ignore the fact that his Ravager jacket was still slightly too big on him.

"No solo missions 'til you're an adult on your planet."

"Uh huh." Yondu said, flipping the ship's autopilot on. "And the age of adulthood on Terra is?"

"Eighteen." Peter mumbled. Maris was facing the other way but somehow Peter could feel the smugness radiating from her perfectly straight shoulders.

Yondu spun his chair round to look at him. Yondu as reclining in the seat, casual as a king surrounded by his treasures – a motley collection of tat, statues, crystals and mismatched ceramics that the crew had gifted him over the years.

"And are you eighteen?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "There's like nine months. I'm basically -"

"So, no." Yondu interrupted, smug look on his insufferably blue face.

"Oh, C'mon. You know I can handle it. Rava hates getting out of bed and Wiz is gonna get distracted by something shiny. I might as well be doing the heist alone anyway."

"So, there's no problem."

"Aw," Peter whined, slumping into even more of a puddle on the floor. "Dad's dead, do you really still hafta be so anal."

Yondu raised an eyebrow and Peter deflated. "Yeah, Yeah, I'm going." He said, scooping up the pad with the job spec on it. As he did so the front screen dinged with an incoming message. Peter squinted at the screen. It was coordinates and a picture of a grey orb in some kind of temple. Below it there was a price. A price with many, many zeroes.

Peter glanced around the cabin. Maris was looking out the window, Yondu was reading the message. Very, very carefully he tilted his pad upwards, just enough to snap a picture of the screen. Neither of them looked round as he ducked out of the room, swallowing the victorious cackle in his chest.

Xxx

"No."

Peter scowled, "Ah, c'mon, everyone's saying no to me today. It's enough to give a guy a complex."

"Die mad about it." Wiz said, his head was buried in the plating of his M-Ship and every now and then sparks would fizzle out of the entrance.

"Rava agreed."

"Rava would agree ta' stop breathin' if he thought he could get away with it."

Peter glanced over at Raja who at that very moment was lying face down on the floor of the hanger. His pink skin against the metal gave Peter vague memories of chewing gum stuck to school chairs. Rava raied two fingers in acknowledgment of Wiz's statement but didn't dispute it.

"Breathing is so much effort." He said.

"See." Said Wiz, his voice muffled by the layers of metal between them. "It is not a great plan."

"My plans are always great." Peter said.

Wiz ducked down into a crouch, just so that he could give Peter an incredulous stare. The effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still wearing his welding goggles and that the tips of his hair were smoking slightly.

"Your plan's ta lie to the capt'n and say you're on the heist with us, while you steal a job from beneath the capt'ns nose." Wiz pointed out, pushing his goggles up. His skin was stained with grease and, as he moved the goggles, he revealed a single stripe brilliant red. "An' then, when the captain finds out we…what? Say sorry?"

"The captain," Peter said. "Is gonna be so impressed that he aint gonna care. He'll bump me up to solo mission and you can spend all your time fiddling with your gadgets and Rava can…I don't know what Rava does…sleep?"

"I don't think this plan is gonna work out how you think it is." Wiz said, slamming the panel back into place and tossing the spanner he was holding in the direction of his toolkit.

"So, you agree to do it?"

"No." Wiz said. "It's like you're tryin' to get spaced. Capt'n will kill you for this. Seriously, is this like Terran thing? Are all your teenagers just thick as shit?"

"Ah, c'mon." Peter whined. "I'm more than ready. I'm basically eighteen. I'll…I'll buy you those Bavarian batteries you're always going on about."

Wiz went very still. "You mean Bouvillian?"

"Yeah, Whatever, Bolivian." Peter waved a hand.

"You know just one a those'd power a ship this size for nineteen months." Wiz said, voice very close to worshipful.

"Uh huh."

"You also know that they cost about 12 million credits. Each."

As a matter of fact, Peter did not know that. That seemed like way, way too much money to pay for a battery. Still. It had been a very, very large number.

"Yep." Peter was proud of the fact that his voice was only a little bit strangled.

"Deal." Wiz snapped, lunging forwards to shake Peter's hand before the Terran could change his mind. Peter grimaced at the grainy oil smeared across his palm and tried to discretely wipe it off on his trousers.

"Great. I just need you to buy me like" Peter waved his hands a vague circle as he tried to decide on a time. "Twelve hours? A little more if you can manage it. The planet aint too far off so I shouldn't need more'n that, if you two could just stay in your rooms or something that'd be great."

"Uh huh." Wiz drawled, scooping up his tool kit and sauntering in the direction of the hanger doors. "I'll go tell Kraglin we're headin' out. Do try not ta get killed 'cause I will sell your kidneys to pay for this battery now."

Peter pulled a face. Wiz was such a drag lately.

Rava actually managed to expend the effort to roll onto his side and was staring up at Peter with a completely black eye.

"You didn't offer me twelve million credits to let you go kill yourself on a deserted planet." He said.

Peter kicked him back onto his front. "If you wanted 12 million credits you should have held out for longer than the 'Wanna do nothing for a day' bit of my speech."

"Eh." Rava dragged himself to his considerably lanky height and flipped the long front of his unrecut to the side. "I regret nothing. I'm going to head to my room and sleep for exactly twelve hours. If you need anything else…"

"Go to literally anyone else?"

Rava flipped him an irreverent salute. "You got it. Where is this grey orb thing anyway?"

Peter pulled the pad out of his bag and squinted sceptically at the screen. The picture wasn't the best, it was blurry, and his thumb covered half the screen. Still, you could just about make out the destination.

He shrugged. "Some place called Morag?"

Rava snorted. "The ghost planet? Good luck."

Peter rolled his eyes. "We do half our trade in a literal giant skull. I'm not gonna freak out just 'casue a planets a little abandoned."

"Yeah, Yeah." Rava managed to get a hand out and ruffle Peter's hair before the younger boy could pull away. "Just looking out for my baby brother."

Peter narrowed his eyes. "After I pull this off, I'm not gonna be anyone's 'baby' brother."