A Bit Of Both, Wayward son: Peace when you are done.

Peter Quill lurked nervously around the corner from his own house, peaking and peering and scuttling like a teenager trying to sneak back in at 3 am. Although in all honesty, he thought Yondu never posted quite this many sentries when I was a teen.

He might have realised that he didn't have a clue what Rocket's plan might be, and that knowing Rocket he'd probably not be prepared for it whatever it was, but he had to do something, so he'd kept pace with the Obfonteri as it made its way through Knowhere, predictably stopping right outside the warehouse Quill had claimed as his own and marching Rocket out towards the Collectors private airlock. He'd been gone a long time, so either the Ravengers had given Rocket an impromptu spacewalk (Quill thought it unlikely, Yondu tended to do his killing up close) or they'd taken him to the Galley, and Quill was trying to ignore the rising nausea and worry about what that might have meant (Yondu tended to do his killing up close) and just hang-tight near-by in case he was needed, without getting caught or vomiting with worry that when Rocket came out it might be as a hat.

That, and fuming at the sight of Hess of all people clambering all over the Milano.

"Oh come on, you can't put your feet up on the dash, I just got that cleaned, like, when Nova re-built it a few months ago!" he muttered, watching Hess, having finally, with the help of two friends, squeezed into the pilots chair, mess with the settings on the HUD, adjust the seat distance from the console, play with the mirrors and generally make a dick of himself as people generally do when trying out other peoples stuff.

Gods, nothing is worse than watching someone else mess with your vehicle. Quill thought Look, he's pushed the seat way forwards and everything!

They'd also put Gamora and Drax on the floor of the warehouse, out cold and tied to their stretchers, which was bad, he guessed, but seriously, they had a medic check them like every ten minutes But fatty-ass Hess attacks my captain's chair with his rolls of flab and that's somehow okay? Thought Quill.

He did not think that perhaps he was focusing on the damage being done to the Milano because that way he didn't have room to worry about the damage being done to his friends, or the fact that Groot or Rocket hadn't come back from the Galley yet, and might never. He very carefully didn't think about that, about once every three seconds. Bitching about my ship gives me something to do he thought times like this, best not to think too hard about things you can't control.

He just wished he knew what was happening to Rocket and Groot. He knew Yondu and his crew pretty well, and they were no monsters, but there were good and bad in any group as Groot and Rocket proved, and he was willing to bet that some of the more aint never tasted no terran before members of the crew would look at R&G and see nothing more than a potential BBQ main and a handy source of kindling for it.

I gotta brace myself for the idea that maybe they're dead already. And if they are, well, I guess that one of the few things that could make me angry enough to kill people I grew up with. Be prepared for the worst, that if I see Rocket alive again it's probably because Yondu wants to make an example of him, bring him out all beaten to hell and trussed up, and I'll just make eye contact and then he'll put a bolt though his brain, and then it's Groot's turn. He tightened his grip on his pistols Whatever happens, I can't cry in front of Yondu, I owe Rocket and Groot that much…

the docking Port hissed open, and with a flash of vapour a figure was outlined, terrible and strange in the distorted light thought the clouds of mist, and Quill readied his pistols here it comes…

..and Rocket, Groot nearly the same height as him but perched on his shoulder none the less, marched out from the galley gesturing and pointing with his free paw as he stabilized Groot with the other. Yondu followed, then Kraglin, Rocket's gun slung over his shoulder, and most of the crew following up. At this distance Quill couldn't hear the words, but Rocket's body language was written bigger than he was as he pointed to Drax and Gamora, and then begun to gesticulate at radon pieces of machinery with his usual cocksure swagger. Crew-members hurried to pick up whatever he gestured at, and after barely a glace back at Kraglin and a brief word with Yondu, who looked like he was chewing on a whole grapefruit, the whole posy packed up and moved out, marching down the street towards the Collectors shattered manse. The whole Ravengers crew, taking their Prisoners with them.

After a good thirty seconds of watching the empty street where they had been, Quill took the pistol, his hands hurting from griping it so hard, and raised it to point at the ceiling, pressing his sweating forehead to the cool, smooth side of the blaster as he started to breathe again.

"Oh you lucky fuck Rocket. I sure hope you know what you're doing!"


"I sure hope you know what you're doing." Said Kraglin lazily, looking around the fractured remnants of the Trophy-hall with an expression of mild distaste and Rocket's gun slung over his shoulder. "Kinda spooky in here."

"What, you afraid of the dark? Big guy like you?" asked Rocket, laughing at Kraglin as he walked towards the holo-console where the collector had done his little show-and-tell on infinity stones, his tail swishing behind him cockily. "We had to put is some place where the local kid's wouldn't find it and play around with it: we knew it would scare them off. But scaring off Pirates? Didn't have you down for a pansy. Guess this adventuring just ain't something everyone's cut out for… Groot, Groot what's wrong? Oh for the love of... you can uncover your eyes, that your shadow, dummy, it can't hurt you." He said as Groot, tentatively, waved at his own shadow on the wall before shrinking back, and hugging the top of Rocket's head nervously when it waved back to him. Rocket stood there for a second staring dead ahead as the Ravengers laughed, before raising a paw and scrubbing at his face in exasperation

"Parenting is just the worst."

"You tell me about that: just you wait till he's grown and starts stealing your ships and running off with your stuff." Asked Yondu, hands on hips as he walked around, examining the creaking remains of the shattered glass cages as they swung gently on their chains from the ceiling. "He sets up with a bunch of no-good outcasts as his crew and stabs you in the back, then you can complain about how the lone father has it bad."

"Yanno, you got a lot of issues about all this that I feel you're not being open to me about." said Rocket, distractedly dumping Groot onto the Collectors work bench between the device designed to open orbs and extract the infinity stones, which Groot immediately begun to play with, and a biometric scanner.

"I mean." Continued Rocket, walking under the work-bench and ducking as he vanished into the bowels of the holographic projector built into its underside. "If this pans out, we're gonna have a long trip back to Bligh with your booty, which I guess'll include me, so you may as well open up with me. Or wherever, it's not like I actually give a fuck about if you're all emotionally well-balanced thieving bald-bodies or anything, but if you keep internalizing it you'll probably get an ulcer or something."

"I'll be sure to remind you to keep an eye out for it on your trip though my gullet if you don't get this projector working." Muttered Yondu, gesturing to a half-dozen crew to secure the perimeter. He looked around Better get the force fields up over those windows too: wouldn't do to leave so obvious a route in open with Quill out there. Kraglin dumped Rocket's gun in the corner, and immediately got startled as a furred face popped back out of the scanner and yelled "Hey! That is expensive! I know I'm your prisoner and everything, but you throw it on the ground then it's gonna get scuffed, which I don't want, someone is gonna forget it's there and trip over it an break something, which no-one wants, and on the floor it's easy for me to get, which you really don't want. There is a frickin' trophy pedestal from that dickwad's collection literally a foot from you-" said Rocket, pointing to a low glass-topped table about three and a half feet high, and just big enough for the gun. "You don't think carefully and put that some place safe, don't blame me if it goes off and you take a round thought the shoulder."

Kraglin snorted, and, covering Rocket all the time with his pistol, placed the rifle on the table, horizontally so it wouldn't fall, with the muzzle pointing towards the console so the butt and trigger was as far from Rocket as possible. Rocket nodded with grudging approval, and disappeared into the console again. Yondu checked the perimeter was secure, and then waked back to check on his prisoners. He glazed blandly at the top of the work-station for a moment as Groot picked up a discarded hammer and swung it around, vaguely. Yondu watched for a second or two before he gave up on trying to supress the impish thought that had come to his mind, and pointed to a spot on the bench. Groot obligingly wacked it with a hammer, and there was an electronic crackle and some muffled swearing from within the panel and the projector sparked into life, and one of the side-vents opened up and Rocket poured out, swear-coughing, followed by a cloud of stinking black smoke.

"gahhh! Little bastard!" he swore. Yondu grinned.

"That's no way to talk about your tree-friend." he said, pointing. Rocket glared.

"I meant Quill. He musta slipped round your boys and got here before we did, frickin' ripped the image processor out of the mainframe, can't use the console to find him until I fix it. I just need-"

Yondu shushed Rocket silent, and held up a finger gently, appearing to consider this calmly. "You know that if is this is a delaying tactic or any crap like that, that I'm gonna gut you and send you back to Bligh in a cryo-tube with an arrow in you? You want to get popsicled, then just try and finish that sentence with any words other than 'But it's no problem Yondu cap'tin sir, I can fix it right now' and you see what happens."

To Yondu's complete lack of surprise, Rocket continued as if he hadn't heard the threat, but still somehow said what he wanted to hear. Not a soul spends time in prison and doesn't learn how to back-down without looking like they have, not if they want to survive long.

"I can fix it, and no, pretty please captain Yondu sir it won't take long. Not if your boys got the parts. It is too much to hope for your mechanic has some basic spares, or did Quill pick up his idea of space craft maintenance form you guys? You have an FTL core on that thing or do ya' just get out and push?"

"You name it, Trelzar has it or knows how to get it."

"Trelzar? Seriously? You guys pick your names after an explosion in a constinant factory?"

"Speak for yourself, Rocket." Said Yondu, lazily gesturing to a heavily bionicly altered pirate with a mechanical hand an electronic eye as he swept into the Collector executive swivel chair, let himself have just a moment of me time to appreciate just how damned comfortable it was compared to his Captains chair, and then signal to four guards as they dragged Drax and Gamora in: he didn't trust the dammed rodent farther than he could spit him, and he'd be buggered by Bedoon before he's let any of his prisoners out of his sight until the Rat kept his side of the barging and until Quill was secured.

As they loaded Drax and Gamora into a conveniently unbroken glass specimen case, throwing away some sort of shrived cocoon that was left in it and synced the palm-reading-lock to the Galley's computer. He then swivelled back to the racoon, now sanding cross-armed and taping his foot like every mechanic ever waiting on the parts, no matter the world. "You don't worry your pretty little whiskers over it Boy, you just tell Trelzar what you need, and he'll get you it."

Rocket snorted, and the very first primordial twitch that might, one day, evolve into a smile curled his lip.

"Quarnex battery, five meters of double 0 fibre optic cable, miniaturised dilithium sphere, soldering iron and that guys eye." He said, pointing dramatically to Trelzar without even breaking eye contact with Yondu.

"Aww captin! He's fucking with us again!" said Kraglin, pointing his blaster at Rocket's head. "He's just some low down rotten deceiver who deceives."

"Nice. Poetic. But no, seriously, I need his eye."

"Can I shoot him boss?" Kraglin asked.

"No seriously, I really need it this time, it's important to me!" said Rocket, gesturing.

"Why?" asked Yondu, Kraglin and Trelzar at the same time, each with decreasing levels of casualness. Rocket sighed.

"Oh come on! You guys at least frickin' use technology, right? Something round here must rub off other than Plick's skin condition! It's got a built in dedicated microprocessor that can handle multispectral imaging. Quill has pulled the imaging core out of the scanning suite so if we want to make usable frickin' sense out of the data the scanner provides we need a… come on, you know this. Anyone?" Ended Rocket, sarcastically

One of the Revenges raised his hand, like the keen pupil way at the front of the class. Both Rocket and Yondu stared, appalled.

"Hand-raising, really?" asked Rocket. "Okay, shoot."

"You… you need an image processor like the eye!" he said. he then look inordinately pleased with himself as his friends slapped him on the back and congratulated him Yondu, Rocket and Kraglin kept glaring in the hope that sooner or later one or more neurone would register the disapproval. They didn't.

"Huh. I guess Quill wasn't lying when he said he was one of the smarter Pirates he knew." Said Rocket, as the keep pupil and his friends moved on from high-fives to chest-bumps and headbutting. "What's their favourite flavour of window, out of interest?"

"We're an open-opportunity employer." Said Kraglin, deadpan. "We give folk the opportunity to open things: Like mouthy little cyborgs."

Rocket held his gave for a moment, before snorting. "Actually, that was pretty good." He said, as Trelzar moved over with bad grace and dumped a coil of fibre optic on the desk and begun to unscrew his eyeball. "A little dark, but humour needs that at times." He said, as he begun to dismantle the Console.

Kraglin looked over him, keeping his gun aimed between his furry shoulder-blades, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "The line about the windows wasn't bad either. Politically incorrect, but still."

"Thanks…. Have we met before, other than the thing with Ronan?" Kraglin shook his head.

"Huh." Said Rocket. "Kinda feel like we've got this connection going somehow… we should hang out more." He said, gesturing back and forth between them with the soldering iron.

"Hey you two!" yelled Yondu, as he begun to drum his fingers on the armrest, glaring at the door as if imagining Peter walking back any second. "Quit joking around. Guard, guard, prisoner, work. Enough with the damn-fool comedy, it's giving me a headache!"

"Sorry boss!" called Kraglin, only slightly undermined by Rocket calling it out mockingly in perfect sync with him. Yondu massaged his temples first mates; the one thing as bad as sons.

"I said no joking about!"

"Sorry." Kraglin looked back to Rocket and shrugged. "Cap'in says no jokes."

"Sure." Said Rocket, ripping a wad of cabling out. There was a thud as Trelzar slammed something onto the top of the heap. Rocket stared. It stared back, like robotic spaghetti and meatball.

"Don't lose it." said Trelzar, leaning in and glaring at Rocket from an inch away from his face to give him a good long look at the seared and puckered flesh of his eyeless socket. Rocket stared back impassively, then to Kraglin, then back again.

"I'll keep an eye on it." He said.


Quill cursed and cussed fit to burst a lung as he swore and sweated and sawed, the hacksaw making precious little progress thought the barrel of the flechette rifle clamped in the vice he'd found in an abandoned workshop a block from the collectors place.

"Why's it called a hack saw anyway? It doesn't even hack, it saws." He muttered to himself, tongue out the side of his mouth with concentration. "Is it because you end up hacked off, with a sore arm, and wishing for a fucking lightsaber?" he mused, as the last 18 inches of Bentior Ker's expensive riffle barrel clanged onto the floor of the shed. He held up the ignobly curtailed gun, and turned it this way and that before nodding approvingly.

"Times like this, I kind of see why Rocket loves you." He said to the gun, before tying the string around pistol-grip and trigger both: with a round in the chamber and the selector on full auto, once you pulled the string tight on this baby, it'd fire dry before it stopped. He checked the magazine: boron glass tipped steel rounds. Designed for prison pacification and police actions. They'd cut right thought a person, even wearing light armour, but hit concrete and the tips would shatter and the round spiral away with the force to wound but not kill. Handy if you wanted to minimize civilian casualties but weren't past fucking a few people up big time style-y. Quill hefted it a few times to check it's length and weight, and then dropped it down the leg of his pants so that the tip of the barrel protruded out the hem level with his boots. A few seconds to tie off the string at the right point, and he was ready to go. He noticed his reflection in the side of an old tin of caffeine-pods that the owner of this dump was using to store screws, and blew out a big nervous sigh as he addressed himself.

"Okay Starlord… this is Peter. I have no idea whatsoever what Rocket is planning, and all I know is that Yondu has Rocket in there on some sortta job, and Groot, and Drax and fucking Gamora in there too, so we need to pull something pretty damn spectacular out of the bag if we want to the team out of there alive so, the second it look like shots might get fired, I' gonna rely on you and me to see this through, okay?" he asked.

His refection declined to respond. Quill Grinned at that.

"Yup. Not insane until they talk back. Good to know."

"Good to know what?" called a voice.

Quill spazzed out at that spectacularly, trying to turn to see in all directions at once and draw his blasters at the same time, resulting in him turning in a tight circle and leaning at an imposable angle smooth criminal style before falling over into a rack of seedling trays. He looked around nervously, in the midst of his first existential crisis since the day his mother… since the day he left earth he frantically corrected.

"Are you there god, it's me… Starlord." He uttered, staring at the ceiling. "umm, so. What's up?"

"Who you talking to son?" asked a kindly voice from the door.

Quill turned and saw an elderly Kylarian man with a scattergun standing in the doorway. His wrinkles had wrinkles. Jesus, he looks like the wedding preacher in Beetlejuice. He thought, scrabbling up in an undignified manner and trying to hide his embarrassment.

"Oh, umm, no one. I'm not crazy, but the way, it's just, umm, oh god, your face looks like a mummified avocado Hey there, I don't suppose you know of any convenient tall buildings that would overlook the Collectors old place? Somewhere you could peek in from? Preferably with easy to jump off roofs in line with the windows?"

The old timer considered this, chewing. Why are old people always chewing? Is it to stop the remaining teeth escaping? Quill thought, as the old-timer lowered his gun to Quill's intense relief

"Yeah, the old Lurg place: tall apartment block four blocks over, on the right."

"Really? Okay cool, nice one bro… dad… great uncle… um, sorry about the mess. Hey, can you point the gun elsewhere?"

"Can. Won 't. Some little shit kicked over my gnomes. Beat up my grass. Who even does that? Gotta be careful."

"Yeah, standards are slipping everywhere. Look, I gotta go save my friends from messy death so, if you could…" he made a please put down the gun gesture, and thank god the old dude pointed it to the ground. "Thanks man. Feel free to keep the sawn-off gun barrel on the floor." Yelled Quill, jogging in the direction of the old Jurg place. I sure hope it says that on the mailbox he thought.

Behind him the old-timer picked up the chrome steel rifle barrel and grinned like all his life days had come at once. "Hot damn." He said. "Gonna make a sweet sex toy out of this baby!"

"Dude! Did not need to know!" yelled Quill as he sprinted round the corner.

"Swingers meet every tenth day at my place!" yelled the old timer, as Quill sprinted away. He sighed, wistfully, as Quill rounded the corner blasters raised. "Dammit, why are the cute ones never pansexual?" he mused.

After a moment, Quill popped his head back around the door. "Actually, unconnected to the last comment, could I borrow a cup of sugar?"


The ground car rolled over in the desert sand, and then just as he begun to bellow his rage and loss the seat-restraint snapped and flung him out into the cool desert night and-

He did not recall the infinity stone being there the first time this happened.

Drax Woke.

There was the usual moment of mindless terror as he reached for his knives, before he remembered that they weren't there and snorted and gasped his way to wakefulness. He grabbed at a presence he felt on his chest, remembering only the pain of the car crash and the sting of stunner bolas as Rocket shot him, and then the paused as his hand hit a wrist, and he reflexively tried to wrench it apart before the twitch of modified muscle and enhanced bone told him that that wasn't happening today.

He opened his eyes.

"Gamora?" He muttered, gently rubbing at the hand on his chest, glad it was a friend and not foe. Then his memory flicked back on fully.

"Rocket!" he snarled, leaping up. Gamora, who had been pretty sure that no-one had noticed her wake up tried to shush him for a moment before he flung her aside and begun to beat against the glass walls of the habitat.

"Rocket! You verminous ring-tailed villain. I will gladly pull out, roast and eat your traitorous heart for this, you deceptive tree-climbing assailant!"

Rocket looked sideways, disinterestedly, from his soldering.

"Oh hey, you're up. How's it hanging?" He said, handing Groot the cybernetic eye to hold for a moment as he adjusted the link between the decryptor and the quarnex battery under Kraglin's mercifully ignorant gaze.

"The only thig that will be hanging is your carcass when I affix ropes to your lifeless libs and haul you to the top of the tallest structure in this wretched hive as an example unto others, deceiver!" snarled Drax, smashing one hand against the glass angrily.

"So about usual then?" Asked Rocket, to Kraglin's slight snort of amusement, as he turned back to the holo-suite. After a moment, a large graphical timer appeared in the air above the suitor and begun to count down from two minutes towards zero. Before it was even properly projected, it leapt upwards so that the top third of the graphic was beyond the upper limit of the projector, giving Yondu and his crew the stellar view of the bottom two thirds of letters counting down.

"What the ruttin' hellfire am I looking at?" asked Yondu, after a moment. Rocket grinned.

"Estimated time until I get the sensor suite on-line and find you Quill. Just a courtesy on my part, but that said, I need a ton of credit for it, and, like, a bottle of whiskey on the way to Bligh by way of a thank-you, if there's any frickin' justice in the galaxy."

"You'll get a bottle not broke over you mangy head and be happy with it." Muttered Yondu. "Just find me Quill."

"Whatever you say, boss." Said Rocket, in exactly the same sarcastic tones he used when addressing Quill.

"Rocket" called Gamora. "Come on, I know this isn't really you! Just help us out of here and I'm sure there is a way we can make this right!" she called. Rocket rounded on her, snarling so viciously that Groot recoiled in horror.

"Hey! Now you listen here, I've been the butt of jokes an' generally not taken seriously since I joined this team, an' when I asked for you guys to get Groot away from this mess, no one acted, and when I worried that Quill didn't have the stones to just pre-emptily kill Mohawk boy here no body spoke out! I've been trying real hard to make this team work, and no-one seems to have listened to my warnings here so now we're in this mess. You reap what you sow, people, so just shut it, and let me get on with things for once!" yelled Rocket, practically spitting with rage. He held Gamora's gaze for a good moment as Yondu watched, and she realized that despite all they'd been through he really wasn't any more than the vicious selfish s bastard he was when she first met him, willing to let her die in the Kyln without a gram of sympathy and-

-and Rocket winked, his left eye, the one Yondu couldn't see, and Gamora held his gaze a moment, uncertain, and nodded her head, very slightly.

"Dammit Rocket!" She yelled, dramatically, banging both fist on the glass, and signalling meaningfully with her eyes. Rocket's gaze flickered for an instant, showing where her and Drax's weapons were, and she slammed against the glass dramatically, instantly distracting Kraglin and two-thirds of the Ravengers present because, well, cleavage. As she did, Rocket made a sudden fast hand movement that he was pretty sure no-one saw, and the she yelled. "Curse you, Vile Rodent!"

"What's up with the amateur dramatics?" asked Yondu sourly as he turned to take in the scene. Rocket shrugged. "Well, she's the last survivor of her species, guess that comes with a little angst."

"Truly?" asked Yondu. Rocket nodded. "Only one of her kind." He said, staring bitterly. "I guess there's a lot of that going around here at the moment."

"Tell me about it." Muttered Yondu. "How long till we find Quill?" Rocket shrugged. "Not long now, look at the screens. We're nearly there." he said snatching the bionic eye and tossing it around like a ball as he wandered away from the main console with his info-glass to adjust some small details on an adjacent unit. As he did Yondu looked, and the battered holo-unit stuttered and the view flicked up and down for a moment, showing the top third of the screen for a quarter second.

"Nearly there Huh?" asked Yondu, standing up from his chair and putting one hand on the side of his coat, near his arrow. He looked over the tangle of wires Rocket had built with a cynical eye. He paused, waited until Rocket was the maximum possible distance from the main console, and then said. "You know, a distrustful man would wonder why you needed a Quarnex battery and have hooked it to a dicryptor, which you somehow neglected to mention to me. That's a pretty good combination for breaking into secure computer systems. A truly distrustful man would wonder why that countdown you're putting up saying it's how long before we get Quill appears to be the timer from Mr Chief the friendly cooking app and therefore not likely related in any way to any station system. An' bein' a deeply cynical person, I'd wonder why the code streaming along the background of that timer looked a lot like a patch for something on my ships. I ain't no expert, but 'GalleyMainfraimDLC dot exe' looks fishy to me, what say you Trezlar?" Said Yondu, looking sideways at Rocket as he froze up, for just a split second, and tossed they eye nervously from paw to paw.

Trelzar looked to the code visible on the projector for a good moment with his organic eye, and then swore loudly. "Little fucker is trying to load something to our mainframe!"

Yondu looked back to the console philosophically, were Groot played innocently between then infinity-stone extracting device, and a biometric scanner.

"Yep, that's what I thought. 'Course, you've have to have a way past my ships biometrics before you could get in…way to beat the rental scans, including the inorganic component." He said, turning hands on his hips as Kraglin and the other pirates cottoned on and begun to cock guns and aim them at Rocket, as he stood head bowed, not moving and staring at the bionic eyeball in is paw like he was about to go alas poor Yorick on the galaxy.

The count-down reached zero and begun to ping, ominously. Yondu looked back from him, to the rental scanner on the console, then back to the racoon again. He unfurled his coat to reveal the arrow.

"I hear your reflexes are pretty good, rodent. You recon you can get that there eyeball to the scanner before my arrow gets you?"

"Yeah, Yondu. Actually, I recon I can, if I'm forced. The problem is, I recon you'll gut me before I can say a word to your newly hacked computer afterwards. " said Rocket, rubbing the eyeball up against his cheek contemplatively. "So, thing is, I recon you'd better get Kraglin to get that Cryotube pretty damn pronto, because even if it's an arrow though the spine, pride says I can't walk away without a fight. You get me? I gotta frickin' try."

Yondu paused for a second, and then nodded. "Yeah. I Get. It's stupid, but it's what I'd do. Krag too, Quill too. I respect that. Still dumb tho'. You really think we wouldn't notice you hacking my system?"

Rocket chuckled, nervously "Yanno what Yondu," He said, rubbing the coarse fur on the top of his head with the eye distractedly as he carefully weighed up the distance to the bioscanner and licked his lips nervously. "I was kinda hoping for a timely distraction."

It was then that they heard the music playing over the station's internal com's. Yondu stared, unimpressed.

"Ya think a little music will put me off my aim?"

Rocket looked around, just as confused as Yondu. "Actually, that isn't me. My distraction was going to be better than that." Yondu frowned.

"Well who the hell is it then?" he asked.

And then the tall window over their heads exploded, and Quill sailed in on his jet-boosters, guns blazing, the Dongle Rocket had built for him blaring out his battle-cry on all frequencies.

Awesome mix vol 2: Kansas, Carry on my Wayward Son.

"Wooo-Hooo!" yelled Quill, moving fast and shouting, hoping to keep the Ravengers confused and shocked enough not to realise it was just him, but he knew them from old, and he knew how little people liked shit like this going down un-expectedly, especially when their attention was elsewhere. He blazed away with his Tasers and, as he passed over a collection of the collectors sample cases, kicked down sharply to make the flachtte-sawn-of slide down his leg, tightening the string on the trigger. The shattering of glass and wild ping off ricochets made half the crew dive for cover, and the rest were desperately trying to concentrate as he fired off Tasers and used his knowledge of the Ravenger com's system to spam their earphones with extremely loud Classic rock.

"-Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high-"

Quill ducked under a swinging habitat case, empty save for cigar butts and an old copy of PlayDuck and, deciding that the sporadic shooting from the Ravengers was getting a little too accurate for his tastes, resorted to phase two, and begun to lob the bags of sugar and then shoot at them with the Tasers to light them. He'd opened a few flechette rounds an mixed the gunpowder with the sugar, because like all good pre-teen delinquents of the 1980's he knew how to make a pretty good smoke bomb out of sugar and saltpetre. Within seconds the room begun to fill with an opaque, white smoke and the carnival stench of cotton candy.

"-Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming,
I can hear them say!-"

As the second chorus kicked in the spun low and strafed, using Tasers well and, dear baby Jesus in heaven, your actually starting to enjoy this! he thought. Saving the day and going MacGyver on all your old pirate buddies? Hell yeah!

"Hey Plicks, this is for that time you accidently shot me in the ass!" he yelled, stunning him as he went past. "and for calling me dumb!"

"Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man,
Well, it surely means that I don't know!"

"and Hess, don't you ever mess with my ship!" ZAAAAP!

"On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about, I'm like a ship on the ocean

I set a course for winds of fortune,

But I hear the voices say!-"

Quill wheeled and sored, laughing all the time, and for the first time in a while, he felt like he had earned the name Starlord.

"Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no-"

Whhhhhhrrrrrrrriiip!

The first he even knew he'd been hit was when he was slammed up against the glass of the case behind him jolting the dongle off the Walkman so that it fell and broke on the floor below, killing the music instantly. As the case swung gently, making its chains creak like a gibbet, Quill groaned and tried to raise a hand to his head, and it was only when he couldn't and the pain blossomed in his shoulder he knew he was hit bad.

Why haven't I fallen down? He thought, Jolt stalled my Rocket boots. He thought, gazing blearily at the floor five meters below him. Directly between his boots, Groot looked up, startled.

It was then that he noticed the arrow in his shoulder, and realised that he was pinned to the glass like a Lepidopterists favourite moth.

Apt metaphor given the location. Thought Quill, through the pain. Damn that arrow was cold.

There was the slow click of boots on concrete, and Yondu walked into view from behind a specimen case and stood with his hands on his hips, glaring.

"Alright Peter, 'nuff of your trouble boy. Recon it's past time you had I had a little talk."

"Yeah, I guess." Winced Quill, letting out a low moan. "Your beef is with me, 'tho. Let my friends go and we'll call it even."

Yondu snorted at that. "You look like you're in a position to threaten?" he asked, as Quill weekly tried to lift a blaster with his non-arrowed arm, discovered how much pressure that put on his chest, and let it slip down again. Yondu grinned. "Thought so. Bounty is on all of your good-for-nothing crew, so feeling's aside, me an' the boys got good call to hand 'em to Bligh."

Rocket moved forwards an inch closer to the bio scanner, on top of the distance he had made while Quill was distracting everyone, and Kraglin snapped his gun up and pointed it square between his eyes, taking a step sideways to keep Rocket covered. Rocket tried moving again, experimentally, and Kraglin moved with him. Yondu glanced over.

"And besides, I don't like bein' taken for a fool. Your little pal made it personal."

"Rocket? Yeah, he's good at that. Come on Yondu, fuck Bligh. This is about me an you, lets settle it ourselves and-"

"No! No you listen boy, you don't get to make the calls here! That has always been your problem ever since I picked you up from that dirt-ball planet of yours and fought tooth and claw to stop my boys eatin' you, you have never once shown me the respect I deserve! You lie, you cheat you steal, but by the stars, you got some bad qualities too boy. Now maybe some of that's on me not woopin' them out of you in time, but think you can cost us a billion unit orb and just let it be? No. No it don't work like that. "

"A Billion units? Oh boy Yondu, that Broker saw you coming. The collector was offering us four."

"This is why I hate middle men." Muttered Rocket, to Kraglin. "Always after a cut." He said, trying to slip sideways. Again Kraglin scowled, and moved with him.

"You don't get to talk either." Said Yondu, holding out a finger in the mechanics general direction without taking his eyes of Quill.

"You cost us when you switched the orb, all five of you knew it, all five of you knew the cost. And ya did it anyway. So, unless you happen to have that orb on your person, it's gonna be the hard way."

"Oh yeah, sure, that orb we tried to get you to hand over to Nova, and wanted rid of really bad? It's on the Milano under my bunk, why don't I just run and fetch it?" Said Quill sarcastically.

Yondu stared, looked around at the stunned, angry and incredulous faces of his crew, and shook his head with genuine sadness. "Even now, you'll still sass me, time like this? No. No that won't do. You're breaking me up Quill, but I can't let that fly. You don't pay cash, ya gotta pay blood, boy. Captain's got to do, what a captain's gotta do."

"Captain's got to do, what a captain's gotta do." Echoed Kraglin, with all the gruffness and aggression he could muster. He could see this would just break the captain's heart, but there was just no other way.

"and so has a first officer." He muttered under his breath.

"Yeah, I was afraid of that." Said a voice to his side. He turned to his prisoner, and Rocket was still eyeing up that dammed bio scanner.

"Show some dignity!" he hissed "That's your captain up there, and he's about to die tryin' to save you guys!"

Rocket snorted at that. "You're not wrong about that. Fly thought the window and shoot some stuff up a bit?" he glanced sideways, and narrowed his eyes evilly "I told you I had a better distraction than that planned." He said, and them put his fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. As it happed, one of the exact same frequency as the one he gave seconds before surrendering his weapon.

There was a mechanical chirp on the table behind them, and Kraglin had just enough time to look sideways before the sonic trigger activated and Rocket's gun opened up on full auto. Pointed directly at him due to all of the backwards and forwards steps Rocket had been doing with them both.

There was a meaty noise and Kraglin found himself on the ground with a big hole in his shoulder and his blaster spilling away across the floor as the recoil forced the gun around and around in little circles, sending out perfect horizontal covering fire at just above Rocket's head height, and Rocket was gone. As the Ravengers dived for cover and Yondu got tackled by Plicks to keep him from getting sawn in half, Kraglin had just enough time to shout out a warning.

"Yondu!"

Yondu's eyes flicked quickly between Quill pinned to the glass and Rockert sprinting with the eye, and he snarled and let out a whistle-

- And as Rocket leapt at the scanner eye raised, heart pounding in his narrow chest and the tang of adrenaline in his mouth, time slowed down, and he almost, almost, felt that somehow the infinity stone was watching this and judging him somehow-

- and then in one smooth motion he grabbed Groot off the worktop, slammed the eye in to the scanner and rolled over the top of the console as the arrow slammed into it and it exploded into coloured sparks, and then something hit him and everything went black.