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 diarmour, Raptorwen, importchic and Priest of Pain for the reviews.
I will be posting late next week, because I am at a conference until Tuesday, and after that, I will finally be on holiday for two weeks with very limited internet access, so there will be no more updates until I am back.
Warnings: politics, guilt by the bucketload, expiation journey, some language and some illegal stuff going on. And oh, a cliffhanger.
Enjoy, and please don't shout at me!
Ten minutes later, they are all sitting in the meeting room.
"What are these people doing here?" Dey asks, looking pointedly at Helenai and Gladiator, then at Loki and Nebula and finally at Vesta.
"They're family." Peter retorts with a shrug.
"And we all want the Council to succeed." Vesta chimes in.
"And to keep Ronan and ourselves out of jail." Nebula adds, tapping her metal fingers on the table.
"So, what is the problem with Nova Prime again?" Rocket jumps straight into business.
"There is no problem with her personally, at least I don't think so. She has been quite cryptic as of late. - Dey replies with a sigh - The problem is within the Senate." he reveals.
His words are met with perplexed silence.
"Alright, let me get this straight. - Dey starts, sighing again - Some of the people who made the call for the Great Fires are still in the Senate. They hold a lot of sway and influence among the most conservative and nationalist strata of Xandarian society, and they have a lot of friends with money in the heavy industry sector and in the media." he reveals.
Ronan starts to realise what he is getting on about.
"Ever since the start of the Council and the first whiff of a trial over the Great Fires, these gentlemen have started a massive campaign against it. - Dey continues - They have been saying that the Council wants to strip the Nova Empire of it sovereign rights, that they want to mutilate our victory, spread infamy about our heroes... I'm sure you can imagine the rest." he adds.
From the looks on their faces, the Guardians can.
"Fascist bastards!" Rocket growls.
"More or less. - Dey agrees quietly - But after the events of last year, they have been on the rise in the polls, and they have been playing a lot on the fact that you haven't been executed or thrown in jail." he adds, looking pointedly towards Ronan.
"So Nova Prime is trying to throw them a bone?" Peter asks.
"Her position is very precarious. - Dey replies diplomatically - If they push too hard, her government might fall under pressure and those fascists and their friends would be in the best position to win the next general election. They would withdraw from the Council, undo everything you guys have fought to achieve." he explains.
"So to keep her seat, Nova Prime has either to show a firmer hand with me, or protect those criminals." Ronan summarises.
"Or both." Loki adds.
"It is not for her seat, look at the bigger picture! - Dey protests - Xandar still has the biggest fleet of the Council..."
"Only because you had the Kree destroy most of theirs with the treaty." Gladiator points out.
Dey gives him a dark look and continues.
"If we withdraw, the Council will be mutilated and Thanos would score a bloodless victory." he points out.
Ronan would like to object, but the Xandarian has a big, compelling point. He has vowed to himself that he would take part in the Mad Titan's downfall, he has imagined himself as a hero, a Guardian, but what if his part in this story is just to make sure that the real heroes are able to fight as they should?
What if this is the fight he has been called to fight to ensure the salvation of everything, not against a foe, but against himself and his worldly attachments?
"So what do you want us to do? - Rocket asks - Roll over, show our bellies, and hand our buddy over like a present?!" he yells, pulling out his penknife and sticking it into the table so hard that it vibrates in place.
"Yes, well, no. - Dey stammers, visibly scared - If you just let me..." he tries to explain, but Rocket is already standing up on his chair and hurling his choicest expletives against Dey.
"Rocket. Rocket! Calm down! - Ronan admonishes, grabbing the Raccoon by the collar and forcing him to sit down - He is right." Ronan says gravely.
This stops the argument immediately, and everyone turns towards him.
"What do you mean?!" Rocket exclaims, looking astonished.
"Nova Prime will be seen as the driving force behind the harsh sentence the Council will mete out, she will regain her standing on Xandar and can keep on propping up the Council. - he explains - And as a bonus, the Council will have its impartiality validated. Those men will pay for what they did. It will be victory for all." he concludes.
"It's not going to happen. - Peter objects - Emperor J'Son would never stick you in jail, and I doubt Derdryu would either."
"They will, once they know what is at stake." Ronan declares.
Peter stares at him looking wounded, but eventually lowers his head and thumps his fist on the table.
"Fuck!" he exclaims.
Ronan lays a hand on his arm and squeezes gently in reassurance.
"I don't like this either. I want to stay with you. I promised. - he whispers - But it is the only way."
"No." Gamora declares shaking her head.
"Gamora..." Ronan calls, turning towards her.
"No. - she repeats - I can't accept this. I have lost my family once already. I won't let it happen again." she declares. Her face is pale and her hands tremble. She grips the edge of the table and leans forward, as if she is on the verge of jumping at Dey's throat.
"I won't accept this. - she repeats - There has to be another way, even if it means that I have to fly to Xandar and stil the those bastards' throats one by one." she threatens.
"And that I have to help." Nebula adds, taking her stand next to her sister.
"Gamora, Nebula... this is not..." Ronan tries to say, but Gamora turns towards him swiftly as a snake.
"Don't you try! - she shouts - You are selfless, a hero, and ready to sacrifice everything for the greater good. Well bully for you! I am not! I won't let those bastards take you away! We had terrible lives, all of us here! Don't we deserve at least a bit of happiness, for once?" she argues. This is maybe the first time Ronan sees her shout at anyone, and the first time he hears her swear.
"Those bastards took your family, ruined your existence, and now you have finally managed to heal, you are just going to hand over to them the rest of your life?!" she confronts him.
"This is not just about me, or even us. If i don't do this, those people would just go on with their lives scot free!" Ronan retorts with a hint of a growl. It is already hard enough as it is, why does she have to make it even bloody harder?
"What else am I supposed to do?" he asks, nearly shouting himself.
"I don't know! But there has to be another way!" she exclaims.
"Because there is, right? - she carries on, turning back towards Dey - Otherwise, why would you have bothered to get us somewhere private to discuss the matter? Otherwise, why would you have bothered to raise your fist in the Council hall so that your boss could see you?" she continues, a bit more quietly but not less decisively.
"There is, I promise. Just calm down, everyone, alright? - Dey declares, raising his hands in surrender - Do you remember your casefile on the Fires, the one you had on your ship?" he asks Ronan.
The Kree nods, and Nebula and Gamora nod too. How could they not? He used to be obsessed by it.
"Of course I do. What of it? It must have been destroyed either in the crash of the Dark Aster, or by order of Nova Prime" he says with a shrug.
"It has not. I don't know how the drive survived your ship smashing into a few buildings, but it did..." Dey starts to narrate.
"And once Nova Prime realised what was in there... She wouldn't throw away so much prime blackmailing material, would she?" Loki intervenes with a smug little smirk.
Dey grimaces at the phrasing, but nods.
"She had the contents stored in a secure drive on Xandar. - he reveals - Nova Prime told me to leave it the hell alone, but then let me see how it could be accessed." he reveals.
"Why would she do something like that?!" Rocket exclaims.
Dey shrugs. "Insurance, I suppose, in case something like this happened." he hypothesises.
"I like your leader. She has style." Loki comments.
"Have you seen what's in it?" Ronan asks the Xandarian, giving him a long, inquisitive look. Dey's face drains of colour and his eyes go vacant for a moment as he recalls. He has seen it.
"I wanted to understand why you hated us so much." he confesses.
"And did you?" Ronan insists, watching him closely.
Dey hesitates only for a moment. "Yes. - he admits - What those people did, what they ordered done... It was monstrous, unacceptable."
He makes a rather long pause, perhaps trying to find the words.
"I still don't like you. I still think you are a crazy bastard. - he blurts out, returning Ronan's stare - But I know at least you have been trying to make amends. And I know what you can do on a battlefield, I have seen it. We will need you in this war, so if it comes to the choice between screwing over those fascists or you, I pick them." he declares, sliding something out of his jacket and setting it on the table.
It is a slim, compact hard disk.
"You made a copy of it?!" Peter exclaims, holding out a hand to touch its smooth, white plastic surface.
Dey nods once more.
"All four terabytes of it." Dey confirms.
"That's a lot of stuff!" Helenai comments with admiration.
"The work of a lifetime." Dey agrees with an almost proud smile.
Ronan manages to smile back at him. It seems unreal. He thought it lost, and in a way it is still a symbol of his obsession, but now it is also his best hope of finally, finally setting things right, once and for all.
"And what do you plan to do with it? - Nebula asks - Make more copies and threaten the fascists?" she asks.
"Possibly..." Dey replies, like someone who has not really thought the plan through yet.
"I am Groot! I am Groot!" Groot chimes in.
"I like the idea, but how do you plan to shame them all in front of the whole Universe? It's rather big." Drax objects.
"The ComNet! - Vesta suggests - When a video becomes viral, there is almost no way of eradicating it. Everyone would see it!" she explains.
"Could you make a video out of this?" Dey asks.
"Of course I could. - Vesta replies smugly - Not alone, though. I don't want to be eyeballing four terabyte of death and gore on my own, and I would never make it in time for noon tomorrow. It's half past two already."
"You're not doing it, little sister! - Gladiator warns - If they trace the video back to you, we'd have a diplomatic crisis with Xandar to deal with." he explains.
"They would not. I know my tricks. I am not just your average clairvoyant, I have mad hacking skills too. - Vesta retorts, crossing her arms on her thin chest - I'd create a warren of fake accounts with fake IDs, and pretend to be a hacktivist group. I could tie them in knots."
At her words, Ronan feels as if an electric shock has gone through him.
"Why pretend? - he chimes in - You said you can't do it on your own, right, good-sister?"
"Right, but..." she starts to object.
"Someone hand me a comm, please. I'm going to call for help." he announces.
His comm starts ringing in the distance, then stops almost immediately.
"Lukan it is for you! - Siobhan calls out from the changing room behind the stage - It's a guy called Coehl! Says it's urgent!" she adds.
Lukan leaves his scriptwriting mid-sentence and darts towards the comm.
Coehl from the Silk Den, he thinks, tall, sexy and very much in love. Did his Xandarian boss dump him? Why would he comm urgently to his account otherwise?
"Hey, handsome!" he greets into the comm. The caller ID is hidden and Coehl has not activated his camera, he notices, staring at the black screen. It is odd.
"Greetings, Lukan. - Coehl replies - I am sorry I didn't make contact in the last few weeks. Life has been a bit... hectic." he says apologetically.
"Don't worry. It has been quite crazy around here as well. So... did you finally hook up with your boss?" Lukan teases.
There is a brief hesitation, then Coehl makes an affirmative noise.
"Yes, I did." he admits.
"Bugger! There goes my hope of dating the sexiest sub I have ever met..." Lukan thinks, but in truth he cannot help being at least a bit happy for the two of them.
"It was worth the risk, wasn't it?" he asks.
"It was. It was worth every minute of the wait." Coehl confesses.
"Good for you, mate. I am glad you sorted it out. - Lukan declares - So, did you call to chat? Or is there something urgent going on?" he asks.
"Your status says you are on Spartax Prime." Coehl says, pretty much as a non sequitur.
"I am. We rented a small warehouse in Lakedaimon to set up our show, my mates and I. - Lukan replies - We have been having a decent success, until all hell broke loose at the wedding. Now people are a bit too worried to care for the performative arts." he explains ruefully.
"Have you seen it?" Coehl asks.
Lukan nods at the camera.
"We were in the plaza, watching the ceremony from the widescreens. - he explains - It was crazy, man. Totally, utterly nuts. It has been all over the news and the ComNet ever since." he adds, to keep the conversation going. It is hard to tell without being able to see him, but he reckons that his weird Kree friend is rather nervous, for some reason.
"It was. - Coehl agrees - I was in there." he reveals.
"What?! How did you get in? Is your boss with the press?" Lukan asks, flabbergasted.
He would have given anything to gatecrash the 'Wedding of the Century', but security had been tighter than a vice grip, and in retrospect, he is glad that he hasn't managed. Weddings shouldn't come with a casualty count.
"Things are a bit more complicated than that. - Coehl replies - I have not been completely truthful with you. My name is not Coehl, to begin with, and my master was not a Xandarian businessman." he reveals.
"Who are you then? What do you want from me?" Lukan retorts, feeling like the situation is escaping from his grasp.
"I will tell you, if you promise you will at least hear me out." the man who is not Coehl replies.
"Deal." Lukan agrees.
The camera switches on on the other side.
The first thing Lukan sees are the scars, still fresh and raw, black-blue like blood.
"Shit, man! - he exclaims, pressing a hand to his lips in horror and sympathy - What happened to you?!"
"A nichilist with a blowtorch. - the Kree replies quietly - I had worse. I'll heal." he adds with a small smile.
Lukan smiles back and forces himself to look again at that handsome, scarred face.
And then suddenly he sees it, in the way the Kree looks at him from beneath his eyebrows, in the dark marks like tears of blood down his face.
"Fuck... - Lukan exhales - You are him! That guy with the hammer!" he adds in terrified recognition.
He remembers him from the news, looking merciless and unstoppable with that big, fucking hammer, and then bound and broken and covered in scars, as he was paraded throughout the city after his capture.
The Kree sighs and nods.
"I am. - he admits - I am Ronan, former Accuser of the Kree, now haaq to the Guardians. I am very sorry that I had to deceive you. Star-Lord and I were incognito, that night on K'soth." he reveals.
Lukan's mind does a double-take again.
"Star-Lord?! - he repeats, sticking his hands in his hair - The guy who was with you was Star-Lord?!"
Ronan nods and manages a shy smile. He even blushes.
He doesn't seem like a villain at all now, and he had not seemed like one at the Silk Den.
Lukan can hardly believe he has chatted and flirted with and nearly kissed the scariest guy in the Galaxy Cluster, but at the time he seemed... normal, cute even.
He shakes his head and laughs.
"Is there something wrong?" Ronan asks.
Lukan shakes his head again.
"Sorry, but this is crazy! - he replies - I mean! I am comming with you! And we are talking about your boyfriend, which incidentally is the same guy who made you look like a total plonker and kicked your butt to oblivion and beyond... And all of this seems normal, as if you weren't a crazy maniac!" he babbles, giggling to himself like an idiot.
"I am no longer that person. I have changed." Ronan says with conviction.
"Well, yeah. You didn't tear my head off when I teased you at the club, so whatever twelve-step program for recovering villains you have been following must have worked, at least a bit. - Lukan comments airily - I suppose you didn't comm me just to tell me that you've lied to me, though. Right?" he adds, turning more serious.
Ronan shakes his head again.
"I need your help." he declares, and it paints a really, really scary scenario in Lukan's head. The guy was legendary for being able to tear through whole companies of Xandarian soldiers without breaking a sweat, and for being totally unkillable. If he is asking for help, shit is not just going to hit the fan, but already has, and is now being sprayed all over the room in a fine mist.
"I am not sure I can help you. - Lukan backs away - I am a playwright and a performer." he points out.
"You told me you were an anti-war hacktivist, that you wanted to blow the whistle on violations of sentient rights. - Ronan retorts - Is it true, or do you use that just as a pick-up line?" he asks, quirking a hairless eyebrow and laying it thick on the sarcasm.
"It is true. I was. The war is over now." Lukan replies stiffly.
"True, but the abuses you lost so much to denounce still risk to go unpunished. - Ronan objects - What I am asking you to do is to help me blow the biggest whistle of them all." he adds, casting him an intense look.
"Are you talking about the Fires?" Lukan asks, awed by the mere idea. It is hard to imagine the effort that the highest ranks of the Nova Corps and the conservatives took to cover the whole thing up.
Ronan nods.
"D-do you have proof? Concrete proof, not just hearsay?" he insists.
Ronan nods again and a wide grin appears on his face.
"As much proof as you might want." he declares proudly.
"Holy fuck!" Lukan exclaims, unable to keep silent. The idea of being able to finally give Illian Darhun and his gang of fascists what they deserve is enough to give him a hard-on.
"Will you help me, then?" Ronan asks, without dropping the smile. He is slightly terrifying like that.
"Of course I will! - Lukan exclaims - What do I have to do?"