Hey! HEY! What the matter with your head, head…

As Star Lord danced his way through the ruins of Morag, he did not see the two figures observing from behind the rubble.

"Come And Get Your Love!"

Doing a cool slide across the ground, the metal fist came out of nowhere.

BAM!

And with that, Star Lord was out cold.

Steve Rodgers stood in the shadows of the Temple Vault in Morag, preparing to return the Power Stone to its proper place. He was about to take a step when he heard voices coming.

Ducking back into the shadows, he stood there observing. Three guys with big guns entered, the leader appearing fairly human with dark skin, and the other two wearing some sort of hood, or with faces he couldn't make out.

Steve knew Peter Quill was supposed to intercept the Orb on Morag, and having met him briefly in the final battle against Thanos and at Stark's Funeral, he could tell that none of these guys were him. He had a bad feeling about handing over the Infinity Stone to them, so in the darkness of the shadows, he just watched as the Leader approached the empty alter.

"The Infinity Stone! Where is it!" The Leader yelled.

The other two henchmen looked around, not knowing how to respond. Steve ducked deeper into the darkness, hoping they wouldn't notice him. Where was Peter Quill? Was he supposed to be here by now?

As important as it was to keep the timeline in check, Steve knew here he had to improvise.

"Somebody got here before us," the leader concluded, "We need to report this to Ronan so he can send out a search for whoever took it immediately!"

With this course of action decided, they rushed out of the vault, leaving Captain America standing there unnoticed.

Making sure the coast was clear, Steve stood up and approached the alter. Carefully taking the Orb out, he returned it to its rightful place.

Star Lord gave out a moan as he slowly cracked his eyes open.

"What hit me?" he moaned.

Suddenly, he remembered the reason he was here. Somebody must have stood in waiting to ambush him and take the treasure!

Typical.

Scrambling to his feet, he looked around. All seemed quiet. This place was actually kind of eerie without his upbeat music playing in the backdrop. He looked at his Walkman. It was past the last track; he must have been out for quite some time.

Star Lord put everything away and rushed toward the temple. Reaching the vault, he was expecting to find that what he came here for was long gone, but there it was, just sitting on the alter, no lasers or anything. He looked around. This was too easy.

Okay, not typical.

Cautiously, he stepped across the room toward the alter, no booby-traps appeared. He picked up the Orb and looked at it. Nothing happened.

"Well, I expected this to be more exciting, but I'm not going to walk away from an easy prize."

So with that, Star Lord walked effortlessly out of the Temple with the Orb and the Infinity Stone which it contained.

At the TVA the monitors were going off their charts, one of the three major branch realities created as a result to the events of the Avengers ordeal with undoing the Blip was splitting from the Sacred Timeline. Because of how time worked in the TVA, it was only necessary to Prune this branch once as it was a singular offset of the events created by bigger actions as part of the Valid Timeline created by multiple Realities, but as a result of identical actions in all of them, an inevitable requirement to maintain the Sacred Timeline in all the other realities, an offshoot of multiple Realities condensed into one.

But things had just changed in the TVA, something was wrong, branches were opening up all over the multiverse, too many to properly deal with.

As Sylvie stood looking at the body of Kang the Conqueror in the Castle at the End of Time, they had entered a Multiverse of Madness, one where the Branch Reality where Star Lord had walked away with the Orb had not been trimmed.

Ronan stood in the hallway of his Great Ship, anger raging through him. After he'd received word that the Orb was missing, he had not taken it well. He'd tried to get in contact with Thanos. Thanos had previously promised to send him his two daughter Gamora and Nebula to help with the hunt - he could use their help to discover who'd stolen the Orb - but Thanos had mysteriously disappeared without a trace.

His Soul filled with hatred and frustration at his inability to do anything. Where was Thanos!?

"I am inevitable!"

And with these words, Thanos snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened. He looked at his Gauntlet, it was empty. The realization hit him. He looked over at the pesky man in the metal suit who he hadn't taken the time to learn the name of. All six Infinity Stones were lining up in the glove of his suit, their energy eating up at him.

"And I am… Iron Man."

Before Thanos could fully process the moment, Iron Man snapped his fingers.

Star Lord stepped out of the Broker's shop, pleased with himself. He could not believe how much that Orb had sold for, he was set for life (or until he spoiled all his riches unnecessarily, but did it matter?).

Wait until he showed this off to Yondu and showed him how much better of a Ravager he was than him.

As he left the shop, there was no green lady waiting for him. Not distracted from the fight that would have followed, he was able to notice the Rocket and the Tree waiting to ambush him below.

What do they want? He asked himself.

Taking an alternate path back to his ship, he managed to lose them, leaving of Xandar with a clean getaway.

Using the dough he managed to pick up from the Stone, Star Lord was finally able to break free from the Ravagers and set his own path. Within a few years, he had become one of the greatest independent outlaws in the Galaxy (Though maybe he was able to bribe some help out of a certain Tree and a Racoon after they had caught up with him from time to time).

This was a Galaxy without Thanos, a Galaxy where Star Lord was too powerful to be caught up under Ego's influence.

He thought back to his mother on Earth, and the strong memories of her love for him. He had finally become what she always told him he was, the one and only Star Lord.

(Take that T'Challa)

(Just joking, we all love you T'Challa. Rest in Peace.)