Quill felt someone watching him. Truth be told, he had not felt truly alone since departing Morag, although the feeling subsided momentarily on Hala, amongst the Kree. Slipping unnoticed through the densely packed streets of Xandar, he stopped every so often to glance behind him. Naturally, no one identified themselves, but still the feeling persisted. When he arrived at the main boulevard – it reminded him of the one time he had visited Los Angeles and Hollywood Boulevard, although this one on Xandar, he was sure, had fewer crooks – he lost himself in the crowd and the feeling passed.

Then it came flooding back.

The man grabbed Quill by the throat, slamming him against a wall and pressing hard on his windpipe. Quill recognised them instantly. Spluttering, he thrashed against the grip, cursing him wildly. He almost succeeded in prising the man's fingers from his neck when a heavy set of cuffs were clamped onto his wrists. Gloating immensely, the man plucked the Kree weapon from his hands and examined it. It was clear he intended to keep it.

Quill fought desperately against the restraints, intent on not being the victim of theft for once. In vain, however.

With a barking voice, the man ordered two lieutenants to find his ship and search it while he, himself, had a little too much fun searching Quill. All the while, a hateful sneer rested on his face. Against every instinct to fight dirty, Quill remained still.

His lieutenants returned. Empty-handed and with identical looks of fury, they released Quill's hands from the cuffs – he suspected, extremely begrudgingly – and waited in silence at his side. Flicking his eyes between the three men, Quill pursed his lips and muttered "Well, this is awkward."

"Quiet." One of the lieutenants turned and said, "he doesn't have it. I am sure of it."

The captain nodded slowly, hands propping up his chin. He gave Quill a dirty look, although a marked improvement on the one he wore previously, and left as soon as he had come.

Baffled and with more than a few bruises on his throat, Quill shook himself off, sending a quiet string of insults after them. Overcome with the sudden heat, he made his way to the nearest of the brilliant lakes that marked Xandar's capital and let the breeze over the water cool his face. Now that his visit was pointless, he may as well enjoy Xandar for all its heady delights.

If not for the persistent presence of intergalactic criminals, Xandar might have been a truly beautiful place. He leaned against a rail, staring into the lake – they adorned the city at regular intervals - and took in the greenery. The leaves curled slightly in the sun that washed his skin, warming him in a natural way that was all too rare on a ship.

Muscles relaxed, a sense of calm overtook him. His eyes almost fluttered shut when, for the second time in the past fifteen minutes, his luck ran out.

A foot connected with his ankle and batted it out from underneath him. Swearing colourfully, he flipped onto his back and grabbed at whatever was assailing him, hoping it wasn't Yondu's men again. He caught a flash of green and red, long hair brushing against his face. Snatching, he caught a handful of it and yanked the attached head backwards. Its owner growled furiously at him and socked him in the gut, hard enough for him to release her hair and sprawl across the concrete.

"Where is the orb, thief?" she demanded, a strange combination of purring and grittiness layered in her voice.

"What?" he choked, struggling to regain his composure. "What is with everyone today – I don't have it!" he punctuated each word with a gentle hand gesture.

"So, you're a liar as well as a thief," she said, already moving to attack him again.

She was, evidently, going to take a bit more convincing.

… … …

Another ship approached Morag. Larger and more advanced than the other, it hovered behind the ship that blocked its direct path to the ground. Its occupants watched curiously as a small pod approached the other craft and slotted neatly into a landing bay.

In his chair, Thanos smiled. A sickly, unnatural smile that spoke of his barely contained fury and the formation of a new idea. The sorcerer may have tricked him, and some lowly thief may have taken the power stone from his reach, but it seemed he was not the only one looking for the stone. This was worth the risk.

With Maw at his heel, he sank into a pod and jettisoned it in the direction of the smaller ship.

"Open the doors," he told Maw, who dutifully tapped into the control panel remotely and cleared them a path onto the ship. Silently, they landed in an unattended bay and disembarked, a throaty chuckle the only noise either dared to make.

The ship itself was old, rundown and in rather desperate need of repair. Thanos regarded the main walkway with disgust as they made their way into the cockpit, where they were confronted by three men, kneeling before a blue-skinned man with an expression of pure rage.

"He's hiding it somewhere, he has to be," the man spat, waving his hands. "He-" looking up, he noticed Thanos and Maw in the doorway, watching him intently. For a few seconds, they only stared at each other.

"Yondu Udonta," Thanos said.

"Who are you?"

"Who I am is of no importance. Yet. You are looking for the power stone." Yondu swore he felt a question in there somewhere.

"The what? No, don't know what you're on about. We're looking for the orb, not that it's any of your business. My son was tasked with stealing it, but he never returned. My men are certain that he did not take it from here today." Sensing the insurrection rippling off him, Thanos stepped closer, letting Yondu see his full height. Without needing instruction, Maw scanned the ship for any signs of the stone's presence but found nothing.

"My business is everything. If you are so certain that your son does not have it, have you any idea who does?"

"Afraid not. Although," Yondu considered his words carefully, "my men did happen to see your assassin hanging around, watchin' my boy."

"Interesting. So, Ronan, too, is looking for the stone." He paused and looked around, smiling coldly at each of the kneeling men. "Thank you for your time, gentlemen."

He said nothing as they returned to their pod and docked in their ship. Nothing as he sat down, stroking his chin in thought. He broke the silence with a rumbling voice.

"They will not find the stone. Peter Quill is the first being to have visited Morag in quite some time. Loki Odinson took it." Rage rippled off Thanos in overwhelming waves. For the first time in his servitude, Maw was tempted to recoil.

"What can I do to right this wrong?" Maw's sycophantic obedience returned with a flourish.

"There are now five stone on earth. The humans are concentrating them for us. Set our course for Earth."

Maw bowed deeply. As an afterthought, Thanos smiled and said, "But we have a stop to make first."

… … …

"You really don't have it, do you?" she had let up her assaults eventually, allowing Quill all of ten seconds to catch his breath. He shook his head insistently, stepping back from her when she moved.

"No," he puffed, "I went there to steal but it was gone." He decided to leave out the part about the Kree on the assumption that this woman would have some past strife with them. Most people did, if truth be told.

Gamora's face lightened. Nodding slowly, she held her hands up as a peace offering.

"Well, then I need to find out who did. I have a buyer for it." Quill bristled but said nothing. There was that feeling of being watched again. It wasn't unfamiliar to any outlaw, certainly not to them, but it remained unnerving however much one experienced it.

For years beyond that day, neither Gamora or Quill would truly know whether they ought to have been afraid or not.

"Hey, why'd'ya stop fighting, it was just getting interesting!" Gamora quickly released Quill's arm and spun around, coming face to face with what, to her fight-weary eyes, appeared to be a talking racoon and a disturbingly human-like tree. The racoon wore a blaster at his side and a look of disinterest on his face.

"Excuse me?" Gamora demanded.

"Your fight. Most interesting thing happening here today, watching this idiot get his ass kicked."

"Hey," Quill tried to defend himself, but the sight of this racoon was too much.

"Now, now, no offense meant. Well, okay, some offense. But hey, gotta have some entertainment." With a wink, he ran for Quill's knees, causing them to buckle beneath him. Crying out in anger, Quill gripped the racoon by the scruff of his neck, only to find branches curling around his arms, prying them apart.

"I am Groot," the tree – Groot, apparently – said, in a way that seemed to indicate mocking.

Escaping Quill's grip, the racoon let out a shout of laughter and barrelled into Gamora, knocking her sideways. Hitting the ground with a thick thud, she hopped back onto her feet and slashed her blade at her assailant. Rocket sensed the fight ought to end while still in jest, but his thoughts were interrupted by a heavy hand wrestling his arms behind his back. Looking around, he saw Quill, Gamora and Groot all subjected to the same fate.

Great.

… … …

"Kyln prison. Goddamn perfect," Quill muttered, pacing about what was less a cell, more a huge room full of the galaxy's most wanted criminals. As they moved, inmates sneered at Gamora, a few screaming threats. One particularly bold man bared razor-sharp teeth at them. He vaguely wondered what she had done but thought better than to ask. By the time he had stopped indulging in prideful thoughts of his own restraint, they had entered a quieter part of the prison.

It was too quiet. In a place where space was limited, there should not have been this much empty space.

A cough behind them told them they were not alone. The air thickened.

"Gamora." The voice was deep and loaded with dulled emotion. Gamora stayed silent while the rest watched her closely.

A hulking figure, far larger than anything Quill had seen before, stepped out from a cluster of shadows. His skin was smooth and almost grey, decorated with intricate sets of what they assumed were tattoos. His heavy brow furrowed in steady anger.

Then he moved. With speed Quill thought impossible for a being of his size, Drax threw himself at Gamora, pinning her against a wall. If the look of murder hadn't been so apparent, Quill might have laughed at the turn around from his own first encounter with Gamora that morning.

"Woah, woah, big guy," Rocket said, moving to pull him away. Drax batted him away as if he were nothing, returning his focus to his prize for patience.

"Her father killed my people. Her master killed my wife. My daughter."

"I am Groot," Groot said gently – second students of this particular Asgardian elective would be able to translate: she didn't do it. Her crime was merely association.

"She has killed many others," Drax countered, apparently able to understand. "She is Ronan's weapon."

"I have betrayed Ronan," she said quickly, fighting out of his grip. He let her go.

"Lies."

"No," she continued, "I meant to steal the orb and sell it to a third-party buyer. But it wasn't there."

"If you cannot prove to me that you betray my family's killer then you are my family's killer."

"Hey, hey," Quill tried his best to come across as soothing, but it had never been his strong suit, "she's telling the truth. I also went to try and find it, but it was gone."

Drax hesitated. With an almighty sigh, he backed away, no less furious in expression but visibly less tense. Gamora released a breath and nodded her thanks to Quill. The hardness in her eyes warned him against asking any questions.

A taunting voice met their ears. "C'mon, Drax. You're just going to let her get away with it?"

Anger flared inside him. Doubling back, he pulled Gamora into what, by Quill's count, was at least her third fight of the day. There was more ferocity here, though, from both parties. Cheers and curses echoed around the room, baying for blood. Most people didn't seem to care whose.

A good deal of it covered both of their faces before the four Nova Corps soldiers on duty in their area deigned to step in. At this very same moment, Rocket tapped at Quill's leg.

"Hey, let's skip this joint."

"We can't leave them here, they'll kill each other," he hissed back, although he followed Rocket's lead to back away towards an abandoned corner of the room.

"Sure we can." Well, the racoon had a point.

"How are we going to do that, exactly?" To Quill's eye, there were no conveniently marked exits – this was a prison, after all – or weak spots in the walls. Only solid iron behind them and warring criminals in front, can't go around them, can't go over them and all that.

The walls reconfigured themselves so suddenly and so silently that Quill was sure he was hallucinating. Steel bars melted away, taking on the slightly blurred shape of a perfectly sized exit.

"Now, you don't see that every day." Rocket was just as stunned as the others, but he had an image to maintain. After a brief discussion on the potential pitfalls of going through – 'we might get vaporised' being the main objection – they took a final glance in the soldiers' direction and bid Gamora luck with her fight, stepping through into the blinding light of the setting sun.

"How the…" Quill trailed off, looking frantically around him for any sign of what might have freed them. He briefly considered that the tree or the racoon might have magic powers, but that was a stretch even for his imagination.

"You are welcome." The voice that greeted them was deep and smooth, a smile shining through even if none existed on the face to whom it belonged. Quill had never seen a Titan before, and the sheer size of him struck him dumb.

"I am Thanos," he said, slowly and with so much tenderness.

"Okay, and what do you want with us?" Quill watched Thanos carefully, observing his considered movements.

"I want your help," his expression changed to one of deep thoughtfulness. "I sought to buy the orb from Gamora." Even the words left a bitter taste in his mouth. To buy an infinity stone sullied everything he held dear.

Quill held up his hands defensively, but Thanos reassured him.

"Rest assured, I know that you are not in possession of it. But I believe I know who is. Help me, help Gamora."

"Why would we want to help her?" Rocket cut in, his only solid memories of her ones of fighting, lots of kicking and good deal of chatter that she was an assassin.

"Very well," Thanos conceded, "help me, help yourselves. I will use the orb to bring balance and peace to a disturbed planet. That is all I seek, to do peacefully what others have done with war. After that, you may have whatever you desire most." His smile was almost enchanting, but Quill's reservations remained.

"We work alone," he said, "if we help you, we do it ourselves."

"Naturally."

"Then, Mr Tough Guy, I think we have an agreement."

… … …

The sun had never felt better on Gamora's skin. She grabbed Drax by the hand and pulled him around a corner, hiding them from view of any particularly keen bounty hunters or suchlike. Energy surged through her in the afternoon heat, her shoulders losing their tension for the first time in months.

It didn't stay away long, however. Lifting her head to the sky, she watched as, high above the city, a small, battered ship was engulfed by another, far more familiar one. Batting Drax's arm, she drew his attention to it, horror spreading over her face.

"What have they done?" she whispered as her father's ship fled the atmosphere.