The Forth Holiday Special: Die Harder.

Peter Jason Quill, Grinning like a goddam idiot, Poked his head down the vertical shaft of the airvent and took a moment to admire the handwork of their unnamed John MacLaine wannabe.

"Oh Wow." He muttered, poking his pen sized flashlight about and trying not to let the dangling tails of his coat obstruct his view. "He's jammed the plasma carbine into the fan blades and used the shoulder sling to lower himself to safety and get away, that's cool as fuck. Gamora, did you see this?"

"Yes, I showed it to you." Said Gamora, somewhat muffled from the top of the air vent.

"Oh cool, he's jimmied off the security mesh on the vent entry with his teeth! That's metal as fuck. This guy is so cool! Drax, you seen this?"

"No." said Drax, gunning and sweating as he held Quill by the ankles and dangled him down the vent.

"Oh, you should, this is really really cool. I think he ripped out the security bio scanner with his bare hands! This guy is awesome!"

"You do realise he was shooting at you, right?" yelled Gamora, leaning down. "He was aiming at your head."

"Yeah well he- Up Drax- he had his reasons." Said Quill, brushing himself off as Drax pulled him up out of the vent with a grunt and propped him up on the side of the vent.

"I mean, we did kind of shoot that poor Mr Takagi guy in the face, so I can't say I blame him for thinking we're the bad guys."

"We?" said Gamora, crossing her arms and tapping her foot. "We shot him? Peter, I think only one of us can be blamed for that." she said, nodding to the blasters on Quill's hips, still with no sort of label to show which was the real one and which was the fake.

Peter Jason Quill shuffled awkwardly, and scratched his head guiltily. "Yeah well, but Gamora… it's really not fair to blame Drax like that."

Drax and Gamora glared.

"What?" asked Quill.

Gamora sighed. "Plan?"

"Well, Takagi sure as hell ain't opening the vault for us, so we need to run Rocket's system, contact the local cops with our demands, wait for them to kill the power, and then we bust the vault, Call in Rocket for extraction and blow an upper window or head for the roof, and hop on the Milano and get away in time for Christmas dinner."

Drax and Gamora glared.

"Okay, great plan Peter." Said Gamora. "With only two problems that I can see." She said, counting off on her fingers. "One, we already called in Rocket for extraction and you shot him down and he crashed in a wormhole!"

"Technically that was Drax."

"You gave me a gun that was secretly not a gun but secretly was a gun! I do not tamper with your equipment!" Protested Drax. "Imagine if I gave you a knife, that wasn't a knife, but which secretly shot smaller knives? How would you feel?!"

"Honestly, Drax? That would be pretty fucking sick." Said Quill, after a thoughtful pause. "Do they make those?"

"…No!" said Gamora and Drax after a moment.

"Oh, that sucks. That could be a Christmas top seller." Mused Quill cheerfully. "They should make those."

"Two." Said Gamora. "We have a-"

"Three." Corrected Drax. "Surely my point about giving me a fake gun that was actually a real gun was two."

Gamora bit her tongue, but rather than get deeper into an argument she continued. "Three." She conceded with bad grace.

"Technically Quill's question should be Three." Said Drax, pointing. "I think we are now onto at least five-"

"Two." Yelled Gamora. "Point two! Two, we have an armed man running about the building in a vest and no shoes trying to kill us!"

"And he's awesome." Added Quill. "Like, he's actually living my best life right now, and I'm kind of jealous. I've wanted to be in his position since I was a kid!"

Gamora glared, duck faced, still counting out on her fingers. She bent her wrist back and glared disbelievingly.

"You've wanted to be barefoot, under-armed and outnumbered being chased around a building by terrorists, on Christmas, since you were a kid?"

"Hell yeah! It's Die Hard, this is awesome!"

Gamora pinched the bridge of her nose "Peter, you know I love you but seriously… how do you not fall over more often?" she asked, with all seriousness. "I think there must be something wrong with your brain."

"Like what?"

"Like you left it back on terra." She said glaring. "Armed have-a-go-hero running around in extremely casual wear. We need to deal with this, Peter, no matter how cool he may or may not be."

"Agreed, tho', for the record, he is pretty damn cool." Added Starlord.

"Seven." Said Drax, counting out on his fingers. "We still have many dozen hostages on the floor below us, and no one guarding them."

Quill and Gamora stared.

"Okay, that is a fair point." Said Gamora after a second. Quill nodded, and started counting down on his fingers, starting on the second finger of his right hand and then skipping several fingers and he counted backwards from seven.

"Okay, so addressing these in reverse order: the hostages can't escape so long as we have the force fields over the doors and windows and control the elevators, and they've got a whole bunch of canapés and booze, so let's just let them get on with their party and hope they forget that we're even here."

"Peter, we did just haul one of them out of the room and shoot them."

"So you just put on some Jackson five and hand out freebees at the bar to distract people. Seriously, guys, that's just how you deal with a fatal shooting at a party: remember Rocket's birthday party?"

Drax and Gamora looked pained for a moment, but then nodded reluctantly.

"Well, I guess they really can't get out and cause trouble, not until the force field over the stairwell goes down…"

"Which will be when the feds cut the power, letting us into the vault." Agreed Quill. "if anything, a bunch of civilians trying to escape but visibly unable to due to that field will encourage the cops to cut the building's power asap. It plays into our hands. Point three-"

"Two. No, wait, three." Said Drax, pointing.

"Three: I'm sorry about giving you a real gun Drax, I'll put a sticker or some tape on one of them."

"That was point Two." Argued Drax.

"Two: I'll label the damn guns." said Quill, glaring. "Two, wait, no three? Point A: Rocket; He's one of the best pilots alive and it was only a glancing hit to a control surface. If anyone can land it Rocket can. It's just a hyperspace express way, I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

*Cut to Rocket, barely handing off the control yoke by his fingertips as the ship spins and the centrifugal forces throw stuff around in the background and pulls his ears and cheeks back spinning him around. Groot floats in the background, clearly enjoying the zero g. The view outside the cockpit blister has gone all Dr Who, stargate from 2001 space odyssey swirling lights*

"Shit! Shitshitshtishitshit Groot! We're gonna die! We're going to Dieeeeeeeeee!"

"-so he'll be fine." Said Quill, counting off on his fingers. "I mean, I can't reach him of the coms so he's defiantly got sucked into subspace and entered a parallel universe, but that's what? Fourth time this month?"

"Fifth." Said Gamora.

"Fifth?" asked Quill, starting a new count on his other hand. "Wait… we had the one where everyone was a Zombie, the one where everyone was Reed Richards, the ren-fair one where it was the year 1600 but more awesome for some reason, and the one with the high school aged versions of ourselves… what was the fifth one?"

"The Noir one where everything was 1940's-ish" said Gamora.

"Oh, I thought that was just Milwaukee, they always seemed a little backwards. Anyway, he'll be fine, and I'm sure he'll call when he gets the chance. Little scamp: He's probably just mugging parallel versions of himself again. So, basically, we have no problems." Said Quill, grinning.

"And the armed shoeless man running around the building trying to kill us?" asked Gamora, foot tapping.

"Oh right, how could I forget about him, he's so cool. Okay, point zero: we seal off the building with Rocket's security program override, set up force fields to sub-divide the building into manageable chunks so he can't move about, and search the bits of the building we need to use room by room. If he's in the parts of the building we need to use we trace and eliminate, try to stun because he's a good guy really, but take him out none the less. If he's not in the bits of the building we need, we just leave him bottled up in there and let him chill: if he's contained somewhere we don't need to be, let's just leave him alone. Okay?"

Gamora and Drax looked to each other, and grudgingly nodded.

"Well." Said Gamora. "That seems okay so long as-"

A plasma bolt burst off the wall just behind their heads, sending them scrambling for cover.

"Frak! The little bastard doubled back thought the vets to get us!" yelled Gamora, from under a table drawing her sword.

"I know, right? This dude is so cool!" yelled Quill, hiding behind the vent as plasma bolts slammed into it sending sprays of molten metal everywhere. "Hey! Dude? Peter Quill, but most people call me Starlord, and I've gotta say, you Rock, Man!" said Quill, popping up and firing back a couple of quick shots form a blaster, forcing the cyborg cop in the vest to roll for the cover of a doorway. "I'm a huge fan of what you do!" he yelled, shooting.

"Quill, kill him or ask him out, one or the other for ancestors sakes!" yelled Gamora, moving to flank the doorway and blasting away with a target laser. "Just shoot him!"

"Okay, but I'm putting the blaster of stun, this guy is too cool to kill!" said Quill, moving left as Gamora went right. Drax, predictably, ran right down the middle, knives out, knocking the sliding door off it runners and spilling past into the corridor beyond.

"He's making a run for it!" yelled Drax, barrelling after him like a hound after a rabbit. Gamora leaned out into the corridor to cover them with her pistol while Quill ducked under her arm and chased after Drax. They zoomed ever farther away from the plush, well decorated parts of the tower and into a dusty utility corridor, the guy in the vest trading pot-shots with them at corners and intersections, Gamora following.

"Aww hell, he's got into the elevator shafts!" yelled Quill, with frustration and grudging respect as he came across the elevator door, jammed open with an office chair. "He wedged the door open so he'd have a pre-prepared escape route, how cool is that!?" said Quill, poking his head in the elevator shaft and peering upwards. "Drax do you think he went up or-"

A shot form below pinged off the door next to Quill, forcing him back.

"Down." Said Drax. Quill nodded, as Gamora kicked open the door to the stairwell after a brief check for booby-traps, and then waved them down the stairs.

Drax and Quill nipped down the stairs taking then two at a time, low power motion sensitive illuminators flicking on as they did.

"What floor?" yelled Drax, as they shot down the stairs. "Where is he?"

"No idea, I was just following you!" panted Quill.

"Next floor!" yelled Gamora, checking a wrist mounted scanner. "Hang a left!"

They hung a left, Drax freezing up in shock as the lights flickered on. "Oh no." he said.

"Oh no." muttered Gamora.

Quill rounded the corner, and then grinned "Oh hell yeah!" he yelled, punching the air.

The next corridor was literally filled, floor to ceiling, with dozens of heating and air-conditioning ducks, all with the vent covers ripped off.

"He's hiding in the vents! Ha!" yelled Quill, walking to one and yelling into it. "Hey, bet you feel like a tv dinner! Ha!" he said, standing back. He noticed Drax and Gamora staring.

"That… that's funny because it's a line form the movie."

Drax frowned. "It's a line form Robocop?"

"What? No! Die Hard! Why would this be like Robocop!"

"Because he's a cyborg cop." Said Drax, levelly.

Quill stood "No… well yeah, okay I guess… but let's acknowledge one film homage at a time, okay?" he said, turning to Gamora. "Can your doodad detect him in there?"

"The motion tracker? Sure." Said Gamora, handing Quill the wrist mounted tracker. He took it in his hands, and tried to get a read off.

"So how does this work? Thermal?"

"Micro-changes in air density." Said Gamora. Quill froze up, and then glanced down the air vent. It looked kind of spooky, now he thought about it.

"Yeah…. Maybe not. Let's just poke at the vent from bellow with swords and guns." He said, taking a step back. Gamora and Drax shrugged, and then just got on with it. After a moment of poking at the vent with blades and pistols, Gamora paused, and then cocked her head on one side in disbelief.

"Seriously?" she said. There was a huge, very visible person-sized bulge in the ducting.

"Huh." said Quill. "Guess that hiding in the air vents isn't as smart an idea in real life as it seems in the movies." He said, aiming his pistol. Gamora put her hand on his arm.

"Quill, on stun, that pistol won't pierce the ducting at this range, you need to get closer if you're serious about taking him alive."

Quill nodded. He's still got his gun." he whispered. "Sneak up on him, try to close quietly, take him by surprise."

The three nodded, Quill drawing his pistol and setting it to stun, Gamora readying her target laser, and Drax grabbing a broom to poke with. The three huddled together, and begun to sneak up on the vent oh, so quietly.

*close up of the three sneaking, Quill tip-toeing with his tongue out in concentration, Drax readying broom to poke, Gamora walking perfectly normally and watching the other to with barely concealed contempt.

Quill aiming up and Drax about to poke with the broom when Quill's helmet-mounted coms set goes off with an annoying personalised ringtone.

The Beatles: Rocky racoon

"Dammit!" yelled Quill, quickly shooting twice with one hand and slapping the other to his com, accidentally putting it on speaker while Drax javelined the broom into the vent like it was a piñata he had a grudge against. Instantly the vent fell with a crash like an explosion in a bell foundry, spilling out the dozen or so fire-extinguishers that had been hung there. A shot from behind them got Drax, glancing of his shoulder and missing his head only because of his energetic throwing gesture. Gamora swore, and knocked them all flat, before rolling gracefully and shooting back in the direction they had just come from.

Quill swore, trapped under Drax, suddenly found out that Drax's weight was pushing his keys into his thigh, with a severely pissed of voice chittering in his ear.

"You goddam frickin Morons! You shot me down, you fuckers, you shot me down and now I've got sucked into some sort of swilling space vortex and crashed into some sort of goddam snow-choked planet full of primitives you moron!"

"Not now Rocket!" yelled Quill, trying to reach his gun with his arm trapped under Drax's body, while Drax swore and tried to right himself form under a pile of fire-extinguishers.

"Not now?" yelled Rocket, finger in his ear, hopping about with his other paw under his armpit to keep warm as the snow fell. The Milano had crashed on top of what looked like an abandoned inner-city warehouse, to his trained eye. Behind him a shivering Groot tired, futility, to push two mangled ship components back together where they'd popped out from the buckled maintenance hatch in the hull.

"Not now? Not now? You dumb hummie hick? I'm marooned! Trapped! The ship's main flux capacitor has delaminated and I'll need to reverse the polity of neutron flow in the binary couplings to even get main power back up! The ship is dead, I had to sacrifice the power cells on my main gun collection to boost the power enough to call you, you idiot! I'm down to the 3D printed survival pistols! I'm stuck wherever the hell I am, the the hole I tore in this worlds reality is rapidly closing. I'm trapped, you hear me?"

"No, not really." Said Quill, blazing away with his pistol for a good thirty seconds from floor level before he realised it was the fake one, and tossed it away, swearing.

"What? Are you listening?"

"No! Kind of busy! Get your tail back here, I need you!"

"You need me? I need uranium, barium and a set of giant electromagnets to jump start the engine, you dummy, and where am I gonna get all that?"

"Seers and Robuck?"

"Nowhere, you clod! I'm scanning my surroundings and I'm picking up over ten million life signs in a twenty click radius, and zero advanced tech. No quantum computers, no fusion signatures, the fuckers are still probably using fossil fuels and 4G phones. I'm on somewhere with terran levels of technology, it's that primitive!"

"So? Back to the future yourself and either make do or find some Libyans to buy the stuff from. I sent you to the store for milk last week and you bought back a nuke, if anyone can find the parts, you can! Get back here ring-tail, I'm getting my ass kicked!"

"Fine! But if by some miracle I do get back, I'm kicking your ass, and if this is terra or some sort of time travel shit, I'm sleeping with your mom!" Yelled Rocket, decapitating his stuffed toy in a fit of pique. "How'd you like that, heh? Hell we know she's got a thing for aliens, why not try my luck-"

Quill hung up, and finally freed himself from under Drax as the huge tattooed warrior pulled himself up, groaning. Gamora was still trading shots with the guy, who was peering out round a corner, separating them from the stairwell. He noticed Quill standing up with his blaster, and begun to flee towards some frosted glass office doors, keeping low and weaving to avoid Gamora's shots.

"Schießen die Fenster!" yelled Quill.

"What?" asked Gamora, frustrated as tried to draw a bead.

"Shoot the glass!" yelled Quill, Aiming both pistols at the door and blazing away.

Gamora followed suit, and even Drax joined in, throwing an extinguisher. The glass door practically exploded, shredded by the hail of firepower. The Cyborg cop yelped with pain, but staggered thought the storm of shrapnel and lurched into the office out of sight.

Quill was just about to lurch after him, when the doorway off the office was covered with a shimmering force field.

Quill looked sideways. Gamora was holding the data stick with Rocket's security override to the wall mounted data-panel.

"Wha?" said Quill. "What gives, Gammy, We should chase him."

"That office is self-contained, no way in or out. It's like you said, Peter, if we get the chance, just seal him in and let him stew." She said, daintily stepping around the pool of bloodied glass on the landing and checking on Drax, who was rubbing at his wounded shoulder.

Quill stood and stared, gesturing at the door. "But… But… The cool fighting!"

"Quill!"

"Fine! Okay, fine! Let's just rob the place and get this over with." He said, gloomily re-sheathing his guns. "Fine, but I promise you, just when we think this is over, he'll re-appear for a cool climatic show down, I know it!"

"Fine, when he does we can just shoot him. In the meantime." Said Gamora, clamping a folded handkerchief to Drax's burnt shoulder. "Drax needs a medical compress and that arm immobilized, I need some water, and you need to label up both those guns and start work on getting into that vault."

"Fine," said Quill, pulling out a Band-Aid from his man-bag and sticking it to his fake blaster to identify it. "But I'm telling you: he's going to surprise us again." Quill said. "And it's going to be awesome."


"Well, this is dull." Said Quill, watching the hostages walk, one at a time, down the steps to rescue. The local cops had cut the power, after a two hour standoff in which time the have-a-go-hero had failed to re-appear, and Quill was now on the floor the party had been, a few below the scene of their gunfight with the cyborg, watching as they walked away unharmed. Drax, one arm in a sling, was emptying the vault with a repetitive efficiently and a bunch or cursing, and the one good bit about Rocket being lost in space is they didn't have the usual loss off time as the racoon cackled manically and rolled in the cash scrooge McDuck style. They didn't need the hostages any more, and Even if Rocket didn't get there in time for extraction, letting some go would be a sign of good faith to stall the cops from busting in.

"You'd prefer if the plan was going sideways?" asked Gamora, standing next to him and leaning on the wall, watching carefully for trouble.

"No. Not exactly. I mean, I'd be reassured on account of that's what usually happens so I'm familiar with it." He said, leaning back next to her. She smiled, trying to hide a small laugh, and she nodded in agreement. That made him smile, and he shot her a look before glancing around.

"So, yeah, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, an yeah, I can't deny it would be cool as all fuck if that guy came back and we had an awesome Die hard style fight, but I can't deny: getting paid, with no problems, for just one Christmas, would be nice."

Gamora ginned, and nodded in agreement, "Well, Nova have their info, and it turns out the guy we shot by accident was a bad guy, as it happens, so we've completed the mission brief, we're getting paid. There is a twenty thousand unit bonus in bearer bonds in the vault that should go some way towards covering our debts and fixing any damage to the Milano… we did it, Peter. We actually got paid, for once. " she said, smiling.

Starlord, despite himself, grinned. "So, what are you going to do with your money? Gammy?" he asked. "You going Voltron, or you want the He-man action figure this year?"

Gamora paused, tried to work out if she wanted to know what he was talking about and then chose to ignore it, it was just Quill being Quill.

"Frankly, I was just going to pay to get a decent hotel for the night, so we don't have to spend another Life Day on the ship avoiding Rocket's pilfering, Darx's snores and the various smells." She said, looking over the escaping hostages, wistfully. "Somewhere fancy, for once. With a spa, and a real bed, and a huge, hot bubble bath."

"Wow. Sounds good. Room enough in that bath for two?" asked Quill, jokingly. Gamora elbowed him in the ribs, but she laughed and he survived so, he knew it was playful.

"Ouch," he joked, rubbing his chest. "Thank god I didn't ask about room in the bed."

Gamora laughed. "You wish!" she said, turning to face him, her back to the windows. "I, for once, and going to be having a good night's sleep without you snoring at me from the next bunk. That old Starlord pelvic sorcery is not working today, Peter!"

Peter Jason Quill looked her up and down, realised that it was, for once, just him and her, and then stepped a half pace closer.

"So… you had noticed the pelvic sorcery? I was starting to think I was working away at it for nothing." He said, moving forwards and brushing an errant strand of hair away from her cheek "You know… on a day like this, with Christmas magic in the air, and everything going so well… there are just times I want to say…."

"Yes?" asked Gamora, looking him up and down, and slightly biting her lower lip.

"I want to say…" Quill glanced past her shoulder, to the window "Say Holy Shit it's Die Hard!" he yelled, shoving Gamora to the floor and drawing his blaster and aiming: for one moment making a perfect mirror image to their cyborg cop, who was outside the window, swinging towards it on a fire hose from the upper floor they'd locked him in, his pistol aimed at Quill. And while Quill was pissed off that his romantic moment had been ruined and was biting his tongue with fear at the sight of the lunatic swinging towards him with a gun, he couldn't help but smile.

This is cool as fuck! He thought, taking aim and squeezing the trigger of his blaster.

His shot did nothing.

Quill had just enough time to look confused before noticing the band aid on his gun, and then then Cop's round blasted thought the window and scorched the hair by his ear, before the window shattered and shoeless-vest-man kicked him in the chest, slamming him into the wall.

Their cyborg Bruce Willis wannabe crashed to the floor on top of Gamora. Quill, winded with two bare and bleeding feet planted squarely in his midriff, landed on top of the two of them in an awkward tangle of limbs, weapons and hosepipe. He tried to extract himself and reach down for the other gun at his hip, but Machine-Mclanie bit him, hard, on the nose.

"EYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEE! Jesus dude! I admire your dedication but can you not?" He yelled, jamming his elbow into the guy's gut and trying to fend off the guy's pistol with the other arm. Gamora, adapting to the situation far faster than Quill did, got both of her legs wrapped round the guys waist and was trying to choke the man out with an elbow around the windpipe and the other arm pulling on her wrist for leverage.

"Quill just shoot him before he-"

There was a flash of pain in Quill's hand, waist and thigh and a large patch of the expensive marble floor to one side of them turned to glass as the plasma-pistol went off in Quill's hand, scorching the pattern of the containment coil into his palm Home Alone style. He winced, let go of his own gun which was trapped under his weight, and raised it to his neck. He activated his helmet, and the segments materialised one by one, which if nothing else should at least stop the guy chewing his nose off. Jesus, Rocket is bad enough! Why does everyone want to bite at me? He thought, reaching down with both hands to try and wrest the gun away from him.

"Drax, get down here! The guy we're chasing just swung thought the window on a firehose! It was totally awesome! We're wrestling right now! "

"Drax is wounded, I'm not sure how good he'll be in a fight!" yelled Gamora, punching the guy in the head.

"What? No I wasn't asking him to join in, it's just someone needs to film this! Drax, bring the holo-caster! I want to use footage of this at my wedding; this is too cool to miss!"

"Do you want us to use the footage at your damn funeral?" yelled Gamora. "Drax, get down here and kick this lunatic's ass! The cyborg guy in the vest too!"

"Not cool!" yelled Quill, grappling for the gun. "I mean, yeah, it's pretty cool, but for once could you let me have the moment, Gammy? It's not like I get to do shit this cool every day!"

"Yes you do! This is literally your job!"

"But this time it's Die Hard! This is a big thing for me. Bring the camera, Drax!"

"Get his gun, Quill!" yelled Gamora.

"Working on it, nearly there, nearly there… holy shit, your gun has fingers? What the…. Dude!? Is your gun built into your hand? That's so cool!"

"Quill!"

"What? That's really, really cool. Gammy, why don't you or Rocket have anything like this? Clearly all the cool cyborgs are doing it… uh-oh. " said Quill, glancing over the cyborg's shoulders and they grappled. Behind them, out the broken window, he'd just seen the big metal reel for the fire-hose fall past the window.

"Oh boy… Gammy! Brace!" yelled Quill. Sticking one hand on the guy's gun hand, an using the other to grab Gamora's sword belt. "this is about to get-"

The hose went tight.

There was a very sudden lurch as the spool dragged them along. Gamora, pre-warned manged to get both boots on the unbroken window frame, the momentum flicking her from lying prone to half upright. Cyborg-cop went sliding along, feet tangled in the hose, and slid out the gap. He did, however manage to get his non-gun hand on Gamora's ankle. The momentum of the slide across the floor sent Quill spinning out the window, still holding onto onto the guy by his gun-hand. They hung there for a moment in the chill winter air, sirens and lights blazing below them, as they barrel-of-monkeys hung from the window.

"Drax!" yelled Gamora, straining to pull the cyborg cop, and by extension Quill, up back into the building. "Get down here now, I need your help!"

"And bring the camera!" yelled Quill, trying to hold onto gun-hand without getting it aimed at him "This is!" he ducked, shying away from a pointing finger "Ah! This is so- Don't point that at me!- so cool!"

"Quill, do you really think Drax cares about how cool this looks?" yelled Gamora, straining.

"Good point, I should call Rocket, rub it in what he's missing!"

"What?" yelled Gamora. "Peter do you think this is the right time for-"

"I'm calling him!"

"Did I say Three-quarter?" Asked Rocket, half way though uncoupling the electromagnets from a primitive medical scanner.

"Yeah?"

"Make it a five-eights. Thanks." He said, handing back the wrench when Quill called. He answered with a nerve impulse fired through his bionics. Quill sounded somewhat exited, or in the middle of exercise, because there was a lot of panting and the sound of rushing wind, like he was jogging.

"Yeah, what?" asked Rocket, moodily.

"Hey, Rocket-man? How are you? Having fun? Get the ship fixed yet?"

"I'm working on it Peter. I…."

"Guess what I'm doing? You'll never guess! It's sooooo cool."

Oh god he's discovered masturbation. Thought Rocket, but Quill interrupted before the racoon could say anything.

"You'll never guess where I am now, Rocket, I'm hanging of a building! A guy swung thought the window on a fire-hose. It's Die Hard! We're finally doing Die-hard!"

"What do you mean you're doing Die Hard?" yelled Rocket. Quill, ducking under a plasma-bolt the guy fired past his ear, smiled, punched the cyborg in the crotch jarring his knuckles on something huge and metallic, and started filling Rocket in on the situation, grinning like a kid at Christmas, which he guessed he kind of was.

"We took those fake hostages, like we planned, accidentally killed the Takagi dude and then this cool cyborg cop guy popped out from under the table and tired to kill me! I'm dangling off a 50 story drop from his wrist right now. We had a cool gunfight and the air-vent bit and he's even wearing a vest and no shoes! It's totally Die Hard, and I'm Hans! Hostages, tower block, fake terrorists, gunfights! No shoes! This is awesome! Drax is going to film it!"

"Hostages, tower block, fake terrorists, gunfights? no shoes? Great, just great, you're having a great time, and I'm missing it because I've got to fix up our ride. Perfect. Frickin' perfect."

"I know, right? This is amazing! How amazing is this? Ow." He said, as the guy kicked him in the head. "Hurry up, Dude, you're missing the cool stuff! Also, we kind of need our getaway vehicle. Get over here, this is awesome, you wanna see?"

"No, I don't care, I'll be there when I'm there. I hope Alan Rickman shoots you. Best Christmas story ever, and I'm in the wrong frickin' special." scowled Rocket, cutting he wires on the electromagnet so he could roll it out easily.

"You sure as hell are! Hey, you want me to grab you a souvenir while I'm here? Like his vest or something?" asked Quill. Gamora swore at him and told him to stop messing around.

"No, get bent." Said Rocket, hanging up. "Prick." He muttered, wiggling out of the scanner.

"Well I… the guy hung up! The furry little prick!" said Quill, indignant. "Can you believe that?" he asked the cyborg cop.

The cyborg shot the window out from next to them, and swung both him and Quill through onto the next floor.

Quill hit the ground with a thudding crunch, smashing his way through an architect's model of a city.

"And Alexander wept for there were no more worlds to conquer." Muttered Quill, a tiny model person stuck to the lens of his helmet's optical systems as he tried to pull himself up from the wrecked table. A sudden bolt of plasma striking the wall next to him got him to his senses and his feet sharpish. He drew his pistol, noticed the band-aid, and cursed and lobbed it at the cop, hard. To his complete and total surprise it struck him, flattening his nose. He drew his other pistol and fired while the guy was distracted, and he instinctively raised his hand to try and block. As a result, Quill's round took him right in the gun barrel growing out of his wrist, sheering it in half.

Quill grinned, and sheathed his blaster. "Okay, cowboy, cool, so… you're unarmed, and so am I, so we can talk it over, maybe settle this in a civilised-"

The guy rushed forwards and stabbed him in the shoulder with a model skyscraper, growling.

"Ahhhhhh! Hard-core dude! You are just so cool!" yelled Quill, punching him in the face, aiming for his broken nose. "Much respect!" he yelled, grabbing a model bridge and smashing it over his head with both hands. "Huge fan of your work!" yelled Quill, kicking him hard in the crotch, wincing at the damage to his foot, and following up by tackling the guy through a model city. As they grappled and rolled about like rutting Godzillas, smashing each other with tiny container ships, there was a banging as the stairs from the floor above, and the stairwell door opened , and Gamora and Drax piled in to help, Drax with a cooling burn gel strapped to his upper arm. Drax grabbed the man, and threw him through the wall of the room in a crash of drywall, before charging thought after him. Gamora charged after him, vaulting through the hole, and Quill staggered along, choosing the door and trying not to slip on the bits of tiny city they'd covered the floor with.

*tracking shot as Quill pulls open the door, walking into a room filled with staircases and hanging chains, as the cop and Gamora fight their way down the stairs and Drax dangles from the chain that the cop has looped around his neck, kicking and struggling. Quill, weary and weaving slightly from his head injury, staggers past and without even looking shoots the chain out, droping Drax to safety. Quill then follows the fight down the steps, taking a moment to grab some tape of a mail cart and strap his gun to his back, before rising his hands, and stepping through the door.*

*over the shoulder shot, showing the pistol, with no band aid, strapped to his back. Camera focus shifts to show Cop aiming the other of Quill's pistols at Gamora, who's brandishing a knife and waiting for an opening. Behind them, a window has already been smashed in the fighting, revealing a sheer drop*

"Hi." Said Quill. the Cop twitched, but noticed Quills raised arms, and didn't shoot. "Hey, no guns, dude, no guns. I'm un armed, and I just want to talk, okay?"

The cop glared, growled, set a rugged chin that Bruce Campbell would have killed for, spat, and then spoke.

"Say your peace, scumbag, I don't negotiate with terrorists." Said the cyborg cop, in a high, nasal squeaky voice with a very slight lisp.

Quill cursed, lowering his hands slightly. "And the voice ruins it!" he yelled, bitterly disappointed. "Oh man, I can see why you didn't speak up until this point! Oh jeeze, what a let-down!" Quill said, lowering his helmet and running a hand thought his mop of sweaty hair, despondent.

"I mean… you have a literal hand gun, would it have killed you to get a voice synthesiser while you were at it?"

"Hey!" he buzzed. "I was kicking your ass, with or without a voice synthesizer. How I sound makes no difference to the execution of my duties."

"Oh, sorry? How I sound makes no difference to the execution of my dooties." Mouthed Quill, immaturely while giving a nasal falsetto. "It just kills it man! It's the turd in the punchbowl."

"Hey, it doesn't alter how cool or impressive everything I just did was… right?" he asked, licking his lips as he switched his aim between Quill and Gamora. "Right?"

Gamora gave a grudging tilt of his head to one side. "He kind of has a point, Quill." she conceded. "He's still done some pretty impressive stuff."

"Thank you!" he lisped.

"Yeah but it's just so… incongruous. I can't take it seriously. It takes me right out of the moment, and makes what should be awesome just… just silly. Comedic. What's that word for that again?"

"Bathos." Yelled Drax, in a slightly strangulated manner from the next room.

"Bathos?" asked Quill

"Batttthossss?" said the cop. Quill flinched.

"Uggg… anyway. You don't negotiate with terrorists, and I can see why now. But look, we let all the hostages go, we're not interested in bloodshed and we only killed that Takagi guy because Drax has the trigger discipline of an epileptic monkey."

"You gave me a real gun! No one said it was a real gun!"

"No one likes a cry-baby Drax. But look, no harm no foul?" asked Quill.

"You killed a man and robbed the vault. You're going down." Said the the cop, charging the pistol with an ominous whine. "Sixty stories down." He said, nodding out the window.

"See, that should be really cool but with that voice it's just- Ugg. Blah." sad Quill, making a gagging gesture.

"Surrender or I shoot, cowboy." Yelled the cop. Quill grinned.

"Yeah, that pistol? The one you have? It's a fake. A decoy. Like I said, we were trying to avoid bloodshed." Said Quill, drawing his pistol blindingly fast and aiming right at his head. "The one I threw at you? It's a dud."

"I know." said the cop." That's why I swapped it for the one in your belt when were were grappling over the table."

"Yeah, nice try. The decoy one has a band-aid stuck to it." Said Quill.

Gamora froze up, and glared at Quill as the cop grinned. "Quill." she said, horrified. "You have the band-aid stuck to your jacket." Quill looked into the cops pitiless eyes, and then his gaze flicked down to the band-aid, just for a moment.

Quill started to laugh, it was just too silly a mess to find himself in. After a moment, Drax started laughing too, then he gave Gamora a glance, and she remembered the great Xandarian dance off, and begun to laugh too, to distract the cop. After a moment, even the cop had to smile, lowing his gun slightly.

"Yippy ki-yay." said Quill, with a smile, before suddenly rising his gun and shooting without warning.

The cop and Quill shot at almost the same time. The real plasma bolt from the cop, the one that would have hit him if he hadn't just got the cop in the eye with a festive light display at the exact same moment making him filch, went slightly wide. Quill charged him, jumping up like a volley ball spike to smash him with the fake pistol and grab the real one with his other hand. He got it, but as he did so, his charge got him in the way of Gamora's knife thrust, and the Cop just spun on his heal, spinning him about and then tossing him neatly out the broken window, holding the gun.

Time slowed for Quill. Gamora, instinctively, jumped to save him, but the stupid cop got in her way, and she missed grabbing his hand. She was however, still wearing that wrist mounted motion detector, and Quill's Questing finger found it, leaving him dangling off her wrist as both Gamora and the cop fell flat, half in and half out of the building, with Quill swinging mid-air over a 50-plus story drop.

"Dude, I'm innocent!" protested Quill, hanging of that wrist strap.

"I don't care." Wheezed the cop, reaching for the strap too.

Time seemed to slow, as Quill raised his gun to shoot at the cop, and the cop leaned over, half pinning Gamora, as he reached over and, before Quill could draw a bead with his pistol, unbuckled her watchband and sent him falling in slow-mo of the building.

"Woo-hoo!" yelled the cop, jumping upright "I win! In your face, terrorists."

Gamora, looking down of the building, narrowed her eyes, sighed, and inflated her cheeks before letting out a long, slow frustrated breath.

"I saved the day! I defeated the hostage take I- oh." Said the Cop, looking down as Gamora, without even bothering to look at him, stabbed him through the heart. Then, as he staggered and leaked all over the place behind her, she sighed, and held out a hand.

"So you finally remembered that you're wearing rocket boosters?" she asked, taking Quill's hand has he shot back up to the level of the window and stepped in, taking her hand with his left and shooting the cop twice with his right. Gamora put both hands on his shoulders, protectively, but also turned her head, scolding him.

"What? No, I've known I could fly at any point I wanted." He said, stepping down onto the floor. He looked at her confused. "I'm not an idiot Gamora."

She glared back. "Then why the hell were you dangling out of the windows not once but twice in the last quarter hour!"

Quill did a double take, leaning back. "Because it was awesome! Didn't you see how cool that looked?" he said, leaning farther back and turning to give Drax a grin and a thumbs up. Drax, who was filming this on his personal coms-set, gave him a serious nod back, and returned the thumbs up like it was a solemn sacrament.

Gamora took put her head in her hands, sighed, massaging her brow, and then walked away, cussing. "Oh my gods I'm surrounded by idiots!" she said. Grinning, Quill grabbed the dying cop by one shoulder as Drax got him by the other, and tossed him out the window. Quill, still psyched by the fight, chest bumped Drax, much to the tattooed warrior's confusion, and then leaned over to see if the footage he'd got was good.

"Whoa man, you film that? Oh god, that looks so cool!" he said, admiring he shaky and out of focus film. "Nice one Drax. " he said, as the two of them begun to walk back to the vault and their paycheck. "Cool day overall. So, one question, exactly how did you end up dangling of that chain? Did you just do that because it was in the film, or what?"

"it was in Robocop? I do not recall that." he said, as they walked along and the Milano re-materialised form the wormhole.

"No… Die Hard. Wait, so if you didn't do it for a joke, did you genuinely get overpowered by that guy?"

"Yes. I could not help it. It was just his voice." Said Drax. "It was just so seductive, almost hypnotic."

Quill looked at Drax, and made a face, just as Rocket called on the com.

"Quill!" yelled Rocket over the com. "I got the ship fixed up as fast as I Frickin' could! How's the fight going? We still doing cool Die hard stuff?"

"What? No! Jesus, man that was ages ago. Get with the program. And get the ship in so we can get out of here with the Intel and our loot, Trash-Panda!"

"I…. you goddamn sneak Quill! You frickin' sneak, how dare you have a cool adventure without me! Did you throw a guy of a building? Because there's a guy with his spine wraped around a lamp-post that stays you threw a guy of the building!"

Quill grinned. "Building throwing, purely in self-defence, may have happened. What can I say? It was a hell of a wild Christmas."

Rocket snorted, over the com, the decapitated and mauled remnants of his Christmas stuffed toy behind him. "If this is is your idea of Christmas, I can't wait to see new-years!" he said, Groot slapping a tape into the ship's deck.

Dean Martin: Let it Snow.

Gamora and Drax stood with Quill, money in hand, and watched as the ship came in to pick them up.

"So… just to confirm, seeing as I missed out, you all owe me one guy thrown of a building, right? I now get to do that, whenever I want? Right? On freebie frickin' defenestration?"

"No Rocket! That's not actually how it works." Said Quill. "I regret showing you Gremlins, you're not supposed to drop people to their death down chimneys at Christmas!"

"What? So it's one rule for you and another for me? This is so frickin unfair…"

And with that, another festive family argument started. But it doesn't matter, because so long as a family has love, and a good understanding of how to use extradition treaties to their advantage, they can indeed spend New Year's on a beach, sipping cocktails, and earning 20%.

Merry Christmas and happy new year, wherever you may be.

BunnyRock