DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from Guardians of the Galaxy, either in its movie or comic incarnation. I own any OC I can invent, though. I am not making a £ out of this. It is just for shits and giggles.
Thanks to , importchic and booknerd95 for their reviews and to all the people who faved/followed this fic. You guys are amazing!
Warnings: this chapter contains language, angst, violence and a little bit of gore.
If you feel uncomfortable with any of these themes, you might want to consider skipping this chapter.
Enjoy, and please don't shout at me!
They are down to the last fire-creature when they can feel another shift in reality. Something huge has happened, and Peter cannot help but worry about what else that omnicidal maniac is going to send after them.
Loki seems exhausted by all the freezing and dodging he has been doing, and his pretty face is peppered with burns from when one of the creatures has nearly caught him. Rocket is nearly out of bullets, and so is him, and so are the Nova officers, while most of the other warriors, including the newlyweds, are bone-weary and at least a bit injured. If whatever comes next is worse than the flaming giants, they are all doomed, he thinks.
"The portals!" Rhomann Dey exclaims.
"What about them?!" Peter retorts, emptying another load of ammo into the face of a death-seeker.
"They are gone!" Dey announces.
"What?! Are you serious?!" Peter exclaims, so tired that he can't even manage some enthusiasm.
"Yes! Positive! - Dey replies - The distortion has stabilised to background levels. Even the shift has disappeared!"
Peter blinks a few times, trying to make sense of the good news. He casts a glance in the direction of the Skrull, but they are still having at a group of death-seekers and seem none the wiser about the latest developments. Then who?
"Hey! Can we focus on the task at hand?! Pretty please!" Loki exclaims, struggling to nail down the creature with his freezing powers. The creature has eluded their attempts to contain it several times already, breaking out from half-formed ice caps and slipping away through the Temple, but this time the ice seems to stick, at least for a moment.
"Watch out!" Rocket shouts. Peter ducks, thinking he is going to shoot, but instead something charges in with a roared battle-cry and smashes the frozen fire-creature into finger-sized bits with a single blow, effectively ending the battle.
"Well, took you long enough, you crazy blue... - Rocket starts to comment in his usual acerbic tone, but his voice dies off - Oh shit, man! What?!... what the fuck happened to you?!" he adds, and now he is clearly worried, almost hysterical.
Peter jumps to his feet and is moving even before he knows what he is doing.
"Ronan!" he shouts.
Gamora is right beside him and they catch him as he staggers and nearly falls.
"Gods... bluebell, what did they do to you?" Peter whispers, feeling his eyes fill with tears and his heart fill with anger. He doesn't even know how to hold him to avoid causing any more harm. There is so much that is wrong with him...
His clothes are all torn and stained with blood and his upper body is patterned with deep, fresh burns, weeping blood and fluids. Twin burns run down his face, from below his eyes down to his chin.
It is too precise to be an accident of the battle. It was intentional. Someone did this to him on purpose.
Ronan smiles when he sees them, though it must hurt like crazy.
"Peter... Gamora... - he rasps - You are alive... and whole." he adds, raising a hand to Peter's face and brushing his cheek with the gentlest touch.
"Are you... real? This is not an illusion, right?" he adds, looking rather lost and desperate for some reassurance.
"What the hell did those bastards do to him?" Peter thinks.
"We're here, love. - Gamora says, trying to hold back tears - It's all over. You're safe." she promises, and tries to guide Ronan to lie down on the floor, but he is resisting and trying to keep to his feet.
"It was Everyman." Loki intervenes quietly, still wearing his blue face. There us something in his red eyes that tells Peter that their newest buddy has some history with this Everyman guy, and not of the nice kind.
Ronan nods. "He is dead. I killed him. He can't hurt anyone anymore." he declares. Peter can see a flash of something pass on Gamora's face, but this is not the time to pursue matters of that kind.
"Bluebell, listen. The battle is over. We have won. - he whispers to Ronan, who is still trying to stand on his own two feet - You are safe. We'll take care of you. Just lie down. We'll get a doctor. You'll be fine." he promises.
He will, he tells himself, he has to be.
When they hit him with the power of the Orb, he looked even more jacked up than he does now, and he was absolutely fine afterwards, without even a scar, he reasons.
But last time he was an enemy, a crazy wannabe genocidal maniac. Seeing him in pain like this now, even if it might be less than last time, seeing him lost, makes his own heart bleed and ache.
He should have watched his back, he should have made sure that he was safe. Ronan would have done nothing less for him.
"No... Peter... Can't lie down... - Ronan protests, brandishing something that looks an awful lot like a detonator - There are fire-bombs in the Temple. In the rafters... we need to..." he tries to explain.
"Oh fuck!" Rocket exclaims, and by the horrified looks on their faces, the Nova heartily agree with his assessment.
"We need to find them and deactivate them." Ronan manages to conclude, straightnening fully. He seems to have found some last reserve of energy somewhere.
"We only have twelve minutes left. Let's just evacuate the Temple, instead." Rhomann Dey proposes. The Spartoi start to protest, and with reason. This is their most sacred place, if the bombs go off, it will be completely obliterated, and with it priceless works of art and millennia of history.
Ronan raises his hand in command and the quarreling stops.
"No. We can't let Thanos destroy more of our cultures, or of the things we love. - he declares solemnly - Evacuate everyone not involved in the search. This is volunteers only. If we fail, we die." he adds.
No one moves to go away, not even Rocket, who usually is the most attached to his personal safety.
Ronan manages a smile.
"Alright, warriors. We'll split in teams and spread out. - he instructs - Denaarian Dey, do you Nova still have chemical scanners hidden in your uniforms, like back in the day?" he asks almost as an afterthought.
Dey makes a surprised face, probably asking himself how he knows, but eventually nods.
"Set them to scan for flammables. I want one of you in each team. - Ronan orders and the Nova officer doesn't hesitate a moment in relaying his order to his men - Dey, you come with me and the Guardians. The rest of you, if you find the bombs, contact Rocket, Peter or Emperor J'son. Don't touch them if you don't know how to defuse heavy ordnance." he adds.
There are nods and grim faces all around and for once no one complains about taking orders from someome else, not even Helenai, or Nebula.
It might be the fact that it is an emergency, or maybe it is because his crazy blue boyfriend is a damn natural leader even when he looks like death warmed over, Peter muses.
"May your gods guide you." Ronan says and everyone starts running for the closest staircase, heading to the matroneum.
"You can't possibly run like this!" Peter protests when Ronan sways on his feet again.
"I wasn't planning to. - he declares - Hold on to me and brace for impact." he instructs, somewhat enigmatically.
Peter does as told, as do the rest of the Guardians, and grabs Dey by the collar, just in time, as all of them start falling towards the ceiling.
"Whaaaa!" Peter exclaims, feeling his center of gravity realign with a nauseating shift.
"What the fuck did you do?" Rocket yells as they land quite hard on the ceiling.
"Local negation of gravity. - Ronan replies - I'll explain later. Let's move!" he orders, stumbling forward across the ceiling and towards the edge of the matroneum.
"Oh, crap! It looks like we have found them!" Rocket and Dey exclaim almost at once.
They are not exactly hard to find, Peter muses, feeling his heart sink in dismay. They are a bit everywhere across the upper floor, tied around the structural pillars, along the walls and clustered in the center of the floor. All teams have frozen in place, paralyzed by the magnitude of the task.
"Well, shit..." Peter thinks, whistling under his breath.
"But we have combed this place so many times! Last time this morning! - Helenai protests - How is it possible that we didn't see them?!" she asks, her eyes going a bit wide in desperation.
"They must have been here all the time, just they were phase-shifted. - Ronan replies - We can stil defuse them. We have ten minutes left!" he encourages.
Gravity shifts again, and they drop to the floor of the matroneum. Ronan's legs buckle and he falls to his knees with a pained gasp.
Rocket, hesitates a moment, then runs off to the main cluster of bombs, muttering curses under his breath.
"Go with him, Peter. And you too, Dey. - Ronan manages to say - There might be more than one control system. He'll need help."
Peter hesitates.
"I'll survive, meri. - Ronan whispers, grabbing him by a wrist - I'll take a breather and go myself in a moment. We can't stop now." he adds. Behind him, Gamora and Drax nod. They'll take care of him.
Peter nods in turn and makes to stand, nearly bumping into Loki and Nebula.
"Wait, comrades! Don't defuse them. - he exclaims - We have a better plan." he reveals, and there is a dangerous light in his eyes.
"What plan?" Gamora asks, also looking quite intense.
"Our father left the newlyweds an unwanted marriage gift. We'll return it to the sender." Nebula explains.
Peter blinks in confusion.
"How?" he asks, echoed by Gamora and Drax.
Surprisingly, the answer comes from Ronan.
"He is carrying one of the Infinity Gems." the Kree says, nodding towards Loki.
The Johtunn nods and slips the glowing blue cube out of his coat again.
"It is the Tesseract, the Gem of Space. - he reveals - How did you know?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.
"We all carried the Gem of Power, for a while. It feels familiar." Ronan replies.
Peter nods, but only to keep a united front.
Now that it has been pointed out to him, he kind of feels something odd, like a 'deja-felt' if they even exist, but, to be honest, he had not noticed anything earlier. But then again, he had carried the Orb uncovered only for a few seconds, while Ronan had it whispering destruction in his ear for at least a couple of days.
"Do you think you can teleport all the bombs to Thanos at once?" Ronan asks.
Loki nods. "With this? Easily. - he replies - We can get there, drop them and get back before he can react."
"We?" Gamora asks.
"Loki and me. - Nebula replies - I want him to know that he can no longer torment us with impunity." she adds, clenching her metal hand in anger.
Peter finds himself nodding. It is high time that the crazy fucker gets some comeuppance.
"I am coming too." Gamora declares.
Nebula and Loki nod.
"Of course. - Loki agrees - What about you, Ronan? Are you willing to defy him?" he asks.
"Until my last breath." the Kree replies, pushing himself back to his feet.
"Good. - Loki comments with smugness - Then we should get going."
"Wait! I am coming too!" Peter exclaims. He wants to see Thanos' face when he realises that somehow they are going to stop him for good.
"Fair enough. - Loki agrees - Anyone else?" he asks calmly, then turns towards the rest of the crowd.
"Is there anyone else who wants to tell Thanos that we are no longer his toys? That we have stopped playing his game? That we are free?" he shouts, raising his fist, clenched around the Tesseract, to the sky.
A chorus of yells rises from the ranks of the defenders.
"Then leave that detonator be and come here! - Loki orders - Hold on to me! We are going to throw the chains in his face!" he adds.
Peter grabs Ronan's hand and Loki's arm, as more and more people gather close, forming a multi-species, multi-coloured chain.
There is Rocket, Helenai and Gladiator, Emperor J'son and Emperor Kl'rt, Rhomann Dey and a few others whose names escape him. All have the same look in their eyes, like they have never been so pissed off before.
"Ready, comrades? - Loki asks with a grin - Then brace yourselves! We go!" he announces gleefully.
Peter feels reality shift all around him in a swirl of blue and silver. He is aware of Ronan and Gamora close to him, of Rocket's hand clenched on the back of his tunic, but everything else is blurry and distorted, at the same time impossibly close and inconceivably distant.
It is a very disorienting feeling and he is starting to feel rather queasy, when suddenly all motion ceases and the entire group of them appears on what looks like an asteroid, stranded in the middle of space. The stars are clear and so close that Peter thinks he might almost be able to touch them, and the silence is deep and velvety, almost complete. A massive throne stands at one end of the asteroid, turned away from them.
"Wow! - Peter thinks - The dude must be huge..."
"Who dares to disturb me?!" Thanos growls, and his voice is so deep that Peter feels it thrum in his bones. The throne turns.
Thanos is sitting calmly and confidently, arrogantly even, as if he knew that no one can really represent a threat to him.
He is actually huge, enormously tall and broad, and clad in some sort of golden armour that makes him look even bigger and more majestic. Eyes black as the void glitter with malice from his thick-featured, purple face.
Peter admits he is usually fearless to the point of idiocy, but even he feels a bit intimidated by the Mad Titan.
"Greetings, 'father'. - Loki replies, his voice dripping with sarcasm - We were passing by, and thought you'd appreciate the visit..." he mocks.
"My traitorous children... and some pitiful would-be-heroes... - Thanos comments disdainfully - Pathetic! Do you think you can defy me?" he challenges, motioning to stand up.
Peter feels a bit of a shiver go through him, but Loki doesn't lose his cool.
"Actually, yes." he replies, smiling broadly.
Space distorts again in a silver-blue swirl, depositing all the fire-bombs between them and Thanos.
"Now!" Loki commands.
Two things happen at once. Ronan presses the button on the detonator, a bloodthirsty grin on his face, and Loki re-activates the Tesseract, yelling an ironic "Farewell!".
The feeling of displacement hooks him again, but before they completwly disappear from Thanos' buen retiro, Peter thinks he sees the Mad Titan's fathomless black eyes go wide, and his prominent jaw slacken in astonishment.
He imagines he can hear the asteroid go kaboom from the other side of the Galaxy. It sounds good.
"That was awesome!" Rocket yells as soon as they reappear in the empty Temple on Spartax.
"You're my new favourite in-law!" he adds, clapping Loki on the back.
A shy smile appears on the Johtunn's handsome face.
"Thanks. - he retorts - I don't think we have managed to kill him, though." he adds apologetically.
"It must have hurt a lot, at least." Nebula comments with a shrug.
"We made him taste his own medicine. - Ronan declares - And now he knows we are in earnest." he adds, faltering again.
"Are we really going to fight against that thing? - Dey asks with dismay - I mean, have you seen him? He looks like he could eat us for breakfast!"
Pointed looks are exchanged all around the group.
"Well, yes." Gladiator replies.
"Of course." Helenai echoes.
"It's not gonna be easy, but hey! We can't really let him do as he pleases, can we?" Rocket chimes in.
Emperor J'son nods and Kl'rt cracks his stony knuckles.
"No one calls me pathetic!" the Skrull declares.
"We are not just going to fight him, we are going to destroy him." Nebula clarifies.
"We are going to put an end to his selfish games." Gamora adds, gently squeezing Ronan's hand.
"We will stand together. All of us, like we did today." Peter intervenes.
"We will gather the Infinity Gems, all of them, like in the beginning of times. And together, we will give him what he most desires: death. - Ronan reveals - We will make him pay for all the crimes he committed against all life in this Universe. We will restore Ma'at, and end this mad spiral of war once and for all. Together, we can do it." he declares quietly.
The switch for the bombs slips from his fingers, shattering on the floor, and his legs buckle.
He doesn't land facefirst on the floor only because Peter, Gamora and Drax are holding him. He must have been going on out of pure strength of will.
"I think I am going to pass out." Ronan declares, surprisingly calm.
"It's alright, bluebell. We got you." Peter whispers, helping Drax to help him lie down.
"You're safe, love. You saved us all. You can let go, now. Rest, we'll guard you." Gamora adds, letting him lay his head on her lap.
Ronan manages a smile before he actually passes out.