Thanos spared no expense when it came to his fleet of warships, it was an audacious display of ludicrous wealth and power. They are famous throughout the galaxy for being the harbingers of death and destruction. Those who had been unlucky enough to see the war fleet in person, said that the last thing you see is the massive black ships blotting out the sun before Thanos destroyed the planet. It was that reputation that convinced warlords like Ronan the Accuser to work with Thanos. Despite the warship's monstrous reputation, the inside was cozy, warm even. The quarter deck felt like a luxurious hotel from Titan's fallen homeworld. To Peter, it was a soft place to land but it could never be a home.
He had arrived at the conference room early and was waiting for the meeting to start. He sat in a random seat watching the local news on his transmitter. The pretty newscaster was speaking in fast Standard, Peter followed along easily. Someone had been broadcasting security footage to the common channels during the Rho mission. The footage was low quality, glitching occasionally. A group of civilians, several families with children, are cut down by a figure hidden in shadows. What's left of their bodies litter the floor, blood and meat are splattered on the walls. There's a white glowing ring around the pupils of the killer. She looks into the camera before the broadcast cuts to static. They were calling her the Reaper of Rho. Those same eyes glare at him but despite her best efforts, they carry no real malice. Nebula pushes his transmitter down, leaning into his personal space. "Peter, you're not listening to me!"
"Sorry," Peter exhales slowly and chuckles. "What are you whining about?"
"I'm ten now, I don't whine." Nebula puts her hands on her hips. "I want you to trade jobs with me. Ever since Rho, dad has been giving you all the good jobs."
Peter tilts his head to the side, pocketing his transmitter. "There are good jobs? No one told me."
"You're deflecting, I hate it when you do that." Nebula sighs, taking a step away from him. "I'm stuck guarding the white coat, again."
"Well, if the great Reaper of Rho is too weak to handle one little escort mission, I guess I could take it off your hands." Peter tries not to smile.
"I'm stronger than you, Peter, I don't need to hide behind all those shiny toys." She snaps waving a hand at the holstered gun. "This is grunt work, I could do it in my sleep!"
Peter chuckles, "I think you just had a Marty Mcfly chicken moment, there."
"You're insufferable," Nebula says and Peter clucks like a chicken at her. The corpse in the white coat clears his throat and they turn to look at him. He's standing awkwardly in the doorway of the meeting room. "You must be Dr. Morgan. I'm Nebula and this is Thanos' dog, Peter."
"It's nice to meet you both," he says.
"That was mean Neb! They called you a dog too." Peter winces at the nickname, "if you apologize, maybe I'll trade jobs with you." Nebula jerks her head to the side, tensing slightly. She whispers her apology and Peter pretends he can't hear her, "repeat that."
"I said I'm sorry!" It sounds like it's physically painful for her to say.
Peter grins, "Wow, after all this time you can actually apologize. I didn't know robots could have feelings! I always thought you would short-circuit and die. This must be–" Nebula snaps and throws a punch. "Agh!" Peter barely manages to avoid it. His chair topples over sending him sprawling onto the floor.
"Do you ever shut up!?"
"You've lived with me for 3 years and you haven't figured out that the answer is: No!?" Peter giggles and stands up. Nebula yells an outrage and punches him again. This one connects with his shoulder. It shoves him back a step. She takes another swing, but Peter darts around the table. Her fist slams into the wall, denting the bulkhead.
Nebula chases Peter around the table, he manages to keep the distance between them. With luck, Nebula would run out of energy before she had a chance to beat him to a pulp. They're brought to a halt when Nebula turns to run the other way and Peter immediately does the same. "Stop running away!"
"I would prefer not to, thanks!" Peter yells back unable to keep the grin from his face. Nebula snarls, and moves to dive over the table. "Oh shit." Peter bolts towards the only exit.
Without the table between them, Nebula nearly catches him. He won't make it to the door. Instead, Peter darts behind the white coat. Nebula throws a punch but freezes when the white coat is suddenly in the way. She darts around the white coat but so does Peter. They're running in circles again. She can't touch him without also hurting the white coat. "Ah! You're using Dr. Morgan as a meat shield, that's cheating!" She stomps her foot in outrage.
"Uh," a voice calls from the hallway.
"It is not! I'm just using my environment to my advantage!" Peter says in a terrible impression of Proxima Midnight, their combat tutor.
"It's cowardly! You know if I break dad's scientist he'll be angry with me!" Nebula fumes.
"Excuse me?"
"What!?" Her head snaps around to glare at the corpses in jackboots. There's a group of them. They were cowering behind the one with rank and title.
The jackboot clears their throat. "Sorry, miss. The meeting will be starting soon…."
Nebula turns a touch purple. She punches the wall again, then she inhales deeply, holds it for a few seconds, and exhales. She stands at attention and nods. "Right. I'll sit down."
Peter sighs, knowing the fun was over. "I'm gonna make some tea. You want any, Neb?"
Nebula stares at him with a blank look on her face. Peter muses that she wanted to argue more, but now she had to act like a daughter of Thanos. "Oh, sure," she sighs, falling into the chair traditionally reserved for the captain.
The jackboots file into the room to take their seats as Peter boils water. He likes the time they spent traveling during missions. Even traveling at light speed it took weeks to go anywhere. He could pretend his life was somewhat normal when it was only him and his siblings on a ship. There were no aprons to keep him from making his own tea and no strict training regiment. He pours the tea into two mugs, adding extra sweetener to one. The smell makes his chest hurt and it takes him a minute to realize he's sad, Lightvale tea was Heather's favorite. Heather Douglas was their youngest sister, she couldn't go on missions yet.
"Thanks," he sets the tea down in front of Nebula. Peter leans against the door frame, sipping his tea leisurely as the meeting begins. The jackboots go over the plan while speaking sternly and pointing fingers at each other. His attention drifts to the fake window, it was a looping video of R Aquarii. He remembers someone had told him it was a solar system with two stars in a symbiotic relationship, whatever that meant. His attention is grabbed by a hologram of the science vessel carrying their target, he remembers he's supposed to be listening. "...would rather destroy the ship than lose the target." Nebula said, leaning forward to manipulate the hologram. "Peter will board the ship–"
"After Neb," Peter interrupts her. She looks up at him with anger and then confusion. Peter waved his mug at the hologram. "I'll get the white coat to the thingamajig, so he can retrieve it in one piece. Neb will keep them from blowing up the ship."
There was lots of confused muttering and pointed looks in his direction. "Peter will protect Dr. Morgan so he can retrieve the target. That's all you had to say!" Nebula snaps at him, but he can tell that she's trying not to smile.
Peter shrugged, "I don't see what's so hard to understand." Nebula looked like she wanted to say more but the meeting resumed. Peter makes faces at her for the rest of the meeting. These meetings were so boring and dull, he wonders why he bothers attending.
~~•˖✧•✯•✧˖•~~
Thanos' destroyer shutters as somewhere within, missiles are fired at the enemy warships. The white coat leans against the wall trying to steady himself. Nebula was pacing between the armory and the airlock like a tiger pacing her cage. The ship shuttered again. Peter pulls a large blaster off the wall, it was easily twice his size. Nebula stops outside the doorway, "you don't need that."
"Nobody needs an LC800," Peter grins loading rounds into the blaster, "they're fun!"
"Would it kill you to take this seriously?" Nebula turned to pace back to the airlock. Peter ignores her strapping the larger blaster to his back. He carefully loads a new magazine into his handgun. "Won't be long now," Nebula says to herself. She was watching the battle through the glass doors of the airlock. Peter grabbed a spare atmosphere suit and joined Nebula. The white coat was standing near the airlock, they had an atmo suit clipped to their bulletproof vest.
Nebula activated her suit and stepped into the airlock. "Have fun storming the castle!" Peter chirped, Nebula punches the button to open the door. There's a hint of a smile as she's yanked out into space. Peter turns on his transmitter, opening the channel he shared with Nebula. The wreckage of the warships escorting the science vessel obscured the light of a nearby star. Streaks of red flame erupted from the vessel moving towards Nebula. Peter laughed, "Is she shooting at us?"
"Yes, it's adorable, really." Nebula's reply comes through the transmitter. Peter can hear the smile in her voice. The destroyer retaliated, the missiles crashed into each other in a fiery explosion. Nebula disappeared into the smoke. The white coat tightened his grip on the tool bag until his knuckles turned white.
Peter activates his atmosphere suit, "Let's go."
"While they're still shooting at us?!" The white coat backpedaled until he was pressed up against the wall.
What a pain. Peter never intended to give him a choice. He activates the white coat's atmo suit and opens the inner airlock doors. They're yanked into space with a pop of air. Peter grabs the white coat by the back of his shirt, as Peter's rocket boots click on. There was a blinding explosion to their right as a missile shot past overhead. They fly through the smoke as another missile flies directly at them. In one swift motion, Peter shoulders the LC800 and fires it. A multi-colored laser with a burning white center erupts from the blaster smashing into the target. Peter is thrown back as the missile explodes, his shoulder slams into the white coat's chest.
"That was so cool!" Peter can't help but laugh. They're thrown in the wrong direction, doing somersaults in the air. He flickers his boots on and off until he stops spinning. He grabs the white coat and flies towards the science vessel. Peter hits the ship hard rolling forward. The rockets click off and the magnets click on. It keeps him from floating away.
The white coat is sitting on the haul, nearly hyperventilating. He's going to use up all of his air like that. Peter knew he should do something. Neb would get in trouble if Thanos' nerd died. But Peter couldn't bring himself to care. If the white coat didn't die here, Thanos would kill him after he stopped being useful. The white coat was dead the moment he signed up to work under Thanos. Peter gives the white coat time to decide if he wants to die now or later. It's terribly boring. Peter aims the blaster at another missile and laughs gleefully when the laser finds its mark. There's an explosion of color and light. It reminds him of watching the 4th of July fireworks with his mama. "I've gotta get me one of these babies!"
The white coat decided to die later, and stopped hyperventilating. They wince and stand up. They say something but Peter is more interested in the laser. He shoots another one of the missiles. There's a whirring sound echoing from deep within the science vessel. The lights around the airlock shut down, and the missiles disappeared from the sky. An irritating voice chirps in his ear. "Peter, you better not be messing around! I'm already done!."
Peter let's go of the cannon and it floats behind him as he moves towards the airlock. The white coat follows him. Peter blows a raspberry, "I would have you know that I'm working very hard, Neb."
"I bet you're not even inside the ship yet."
"I am too!" He had to manually close the door and pressurize the chamber. The door opens revealing a long dark hallway, three guards lay dead in a pool of their own blood. The emergency lights pulse creating ripples of blue light, the red glow from Peter's mask washes everything in purple. Peter steps over corpses, drawing his handgun as he checks the hallway. The white coat tries to step around them. There was an uncomfortable squishing sound. He staggers forward and pukes. "Jesus Christ! Watch it, man!" Peter jumps out of the way.
The white coat was leaning against a wall as if he might collapse at any moment. "My name is Dr. Morgan,"
"No, that's not–I wasn't," Peter stammers and then smirks, "Nevermind. I'm surrounded by philistines. Can you walk?"
The white coat nods, he keeps one hand on the wall as Peter scouts ahead. He signals for the white coat to stop, they crouch outside the door to the stairwell. Voices and footsteps are drawing closer, the white coat holds his breath. Peter ducks around the door frame. Seven total, he fires twice. A bullet rips through the skull of the first enemy. The second bullet pierces the enemy's eye. They drop like flies.
Peter pulls back to safety as the enemy returns fire. He grins, "bullseye!" They're firing at them with reckless abandon. The bullets turn the door into swiss cheese and it falls forward. Peter waits for them to reload. He darts into the stairwell and returns fire. He takes out three this time. He pushes the enemy back down the stairs as the white coat watches from a safe distance. The remaining two retreat to the lower level.
"By the stars, what is that thing?!" The enemy shouts retreating down the hallway.
Peter rolls his eyes. Something like irritation blooms in his heart. He wished he had his Walkman on him, but he had sworn off taking it on missions after it was destroyed for the 6th time. He couldn't take the heartbreak. "Some people call me the space cowboy." His voice echoes down the hallway. He skips down the steps four at a time, then dives and rolls to safety. He hums a little under his breath to keep calm.
"I've never heard of you space cowboy," the first one grunts, before firing off a few rounds. They were shooting sparsely, it wouldn't be long until they ran out of bullets.
"Some people call me the gangster of love," Peter continues singing over the gunfire. He shoots the first one in the chest. His buddy pulls them into a nearby storage closet for cover. Not that it would do them any good. "Some people call me Maurice, 'cause I speak of the pompitous of love."
"Pompitous isn't a word," The white coat says as he inched his way down the steps. Peter chuckles, the white coat was right, of course. It makes him feel a little better.
"No, no, oh gods!" The first guard cries out, "That's one of Thanos' dogs of war! That's not a child it's a monster–"
"Shut up!" Peter leaped forward so he could get a clear shot on them. The first guards head splatters against the walls as he slumps over dead in the arms of his friend. The enemy started to beg as Peter stalks towards them. He grabs them by the collar and slams them to the floor. He puts his foot down on their throat. "I really hate that nickname." There was a satisfying crunch of bone and squish of meat. "I'm not anyone's dog."
Peter can feel the white coat staring at him with disgust. Peter was certain that the white coat would hate and fear him now. They all did. Peter pushes all the distracting bad feelings to the back of his mind. He tried to force a chuckle but only managed a sigh, "Neb gets all the cool nicknames it's not fair." Peter replaces the magazine for his blaster. He walks down the hallway taking the lead again. The white coat follows at a distance.
Peter stopped him in the corridor before engineering, there were two people guarding the door. They didn't notice Peter until it was too late. His movements were fast and methodical, it was barely a fight. Peter checked inside engineering, moving silently, "Clear!" he pulled the corpses out of the way, as the white coat entered. "This the target?"
"She's beautiful." A black sleek computer that was roughly the size of a refrigerator, sat dormant in the middle of the room. The white coat opened his tool bag and began disconnecting her from the ship.
Peter sat on top of the ship's navigation system and deactivated his mask. He swings his feet impatiently. "What does it do, exactly?"
"She's a highly advanced artificial intelligence, designed to keep ships or space stations fully operational without a crew." Peter got bored while they were talking and accidentally pulled a panel off the computer. He tried to hide it behind his back. The white coat raises their eyebrows at Peter. He holds out his hand expectantly, "Please don't break the work engineering genius. There are only three of them in existence."
"Sorry," Peter smiles sheepishly and hands over the panel. The white coat attaches it quickly. Peter wonders if that meant the white coat wasn't afraid of him after all.
The white coat continues to work in silence for what feels like an eternity to Peter but in reality, is exactly five minutes, "Can it shoot lasers?"
The white coat furrowed his eyebrows, "can it…shoot lasers?" The white coat stares at Peter dubiously and Peter nods his head. The white coat clears his throat, and smiles gently, "The Ai cannot shoot laser by itself. However, if she was piloting a warship it could."
The weight of that statement hung in the air. Of course, Thanos would find a way to ruin lasers. "Oh, uh thanks, white coat," was all Peter could think to say.
"My name is Dr. Morgan, space cowboy."
Peter giggles, and hums the song under his breath as he waits for Morgan to finish. The low gravity made it easy to transport the AI off the ship without too much hassle. It also helped that Peter had already killed most of the working crew. "Hey, Neb!" Peter sang into his transmitter, "got the target we're heading back now."
"It's about time, I'm dying of boredom," Nebula said.
Morgan carried the AI up the steps. Peter skipped ahead, "Let's make things interesting then. I'll race you back, loser gets flambéed."
"What do you mean flambéed?" Morgan asked and was ignored.
He was surprised to hear Nebula chuckle, "you sure? That white coat and their shiny calculator are dead weight."
"Worried you'll lose?"
"You've got ten minutes," Nebula said, "I hope those cybernetic enhancements of yours can handle a little fire."
"Someone tell me what flambéed means!" Morgan yelled in a panic. That's when the emergency lights changed to red, and an alarm blared over the speakers. Thirty seconds remaining, a robotic voice said, evacuate immediately.
Peter took the AI from Morgan and took off at a jog. "It means you should run very fast!" Peter yelled to be heard over the alarms. "Let's go! Come on!" He sprints ahead. It was all a blur of movement and deafening noise. Morgan falls behind Peter very quickly. The wind tousled his hair. He can't keep himself from grinning.
Twenty seconds, the ship said.
As they rounded the corner Peter could see the airlock at the end of the hall. Nebula emerged from the hallway behind him. She moved with frightening speed, she caught up to him without trying. She slammed Peter into the side of the hall. He stumbled but regained his balance quickly. He shoved her back. It only slows her down a second. She shoves him again. They keep shoving each other and Peter starts giggling. As they get closer to the airlock, Nebula sprints ahead. Peter can't keep up. She darts inside the airlock first, punching the button to shut the door. Before Morgan could stop Peter, he threw the AI forward. It stopped the airlock door from slamming shut. The metal frame crunched under the weight of the doors, bending inward. It was probably fine. Peter dropped to his knees, sliding under the AI and into the airlock. He threw his arms into the air as he jumped up, "Safe!"
"Ten seconds", the ship said, "please evacuate immediately." Morgan wasn't going to make it in time. He stumbled and fell.
"If we let him die here, Thanos will punish us for sure! Lemme go back for him!" Peter tries to push the inner airlock door open. It's too heavy. He's straining under the weight.
"There's not enough time! Thanos will find another scientist." Nebula clenched her fists at her side. She says something too soft to hear under the alarms.
Peter shakes his head. This white coat wasn't afraid of him but the next white coat might be. "No, I got an idea. Help me open the outer door!" Together they opened the outer door. Morgan was shot out of the science vessel. It takes Peter a second to adjust to his surroundings. Nebula taps her atmo suit on and a second later so does Peter. Nebula flies over to Morgan and slaps his atmospheric suit on as well. He gasped for breath, as she pulled him towards the destroyer. Peter and the AI floated to his left. Then the science vessel exploded.
The force of the blast threw them at a deadly speed towards the destroyer. A burning white light engulfed everything, and Peter's skin felt warm. His shoulder was popped out of its socket as he hits the flight deck and rolls. The AI screeched to a halt as it slides across the deck. Nebula and Morgan crash into Peter. They skidded to a stop, landing in a tangled heap. Nebula and Peter were laughing and arguing about who won. Morgan lay on his back breathing deeply.
Peter pops his shoulder back into place and can feel his fractured bones healing already. Healing always hurts a little. "Hey doc, you still alive?" Peter leaned over him, he had deactivated his mask. Morgan watched with fascination as a bruise on Peter's cheek faded until it disappeared.
"Yeah," Morgan's voice cracked, he swallowed and started again, "yeah, I'm alive."
Peter exhaled loudly, "oh thank god, Thanos would kill me if I broke his nerd." Morgan chuckled, but something about the way Peter said it told him it wasn't a joke. "Ya know, you're not too bad for a white coat, Morgan."
Peter punched Morgan in the shoulder, and he winced. "Uh, thank you?" Morgan let his eyes droop closed, as the other white coats arrived to see to his injuries.
Nebula stares at Peter with a look of surprise. "What?" He grins at her.
"It's nothing," Nebula lies. She stands up, wiping her bloody palms on her jeans. "It's nothing, I just haven't heard you call them by their name since…"
The smile vanished from his face. "I know. I learned that lesson the hard way, I haven't forgotten what they're like."
Nebula drops her gaze to the floor. "I shouldn't have brought it up."
Peter shakes his head. "Just you, me, and our siblings. That's all that matters."
"Dad too?"
"Fine. Thanos, too, I guess." They start walking towards the exit. The smile returning to his face. "But not the Black Order! They all suck and I hate Proxima specifically."
Nebula cracks a smile, "Oh finally something we can agree on." They wandered towards the mess deck. Talking turned to roughhousing and that turned to playing. And for just a little while, they were happy.