"Would you prefer the dual or monomolecular system?" asked the stall-owner of Tech and Technicalities Incorporated. "And for that matter are you interested in a gratuitous atomic amplifier?"

"Hrrrrmm," said Quill, frowning deeply and rubbing his chin in an effort to hide the fact that he had no idea what he was doing.

When it came to maintaining the Milano he wasn't anywhere near as ignorant as Rocket liked to act like he was. He didn't have the raccoon's gift for mechanics, sure, but after twenty or so years in space he could handle a quick repair here and there. He also knew what a particle generator was and had a vague idea of how it worked (most spacefarers not named Drax did), but he'd never owned one of his own and had no idea what make Yondu had aboard the Ecletor.

It didn't help that there was no discernible difference between the pair he was being offered. And Rocket of course hadn't specified. And would throw many a jab at his intellect if he bought the wrong one. All the raccoon had specified was 'particle generator' but the little guy could be quite the stickler for details after the fact.

Rescue came in the form of Gamora, entering the shop with a rather distracted look on her face.

"Hey!" Quill called her over. "Do you think we need a mono or dual molecular system?"

She looked at him with confusion, the same way she did whenever he shared a particularly obscure bit of earth trivia. "What?"

"For the particle generator," explained Quill, oblivious to the beads of sweat now pouring down the salesman's face behind him. "And should we get an atomic amplifier too? It's not on the list but it might be useful."

Gamora shot the shopkeeper a look that had sliced many an alien in two. "Unless it's recently-developed tech, all particle generators work on a monomolecular system. And there's no such thing as an atomic amplifier."

One hastily-bargained discount and a very apologetic salesman later, Drax joined them to help lug the generator back to the Milano. One other detail Rocket had failed to mention was that particle generators weighed a tonne. Gamora could probably handle it on her own (she was another one of those aliens ridiculously stronger than terrans for no reason whatsoever and that was before accounting for her enhancements), but there were still a dozen bits of tech on the list and the Destroyer was less likely to get swarmed by fans.

"I will not return from the Milano," the kylosian warned, picking up the generator as if it weighed nothing (but he at least looked the part of 'ridiculously strong alien'). "I despise the way these creatures continuously observe me."

Quill followed his glare to where it fell upon a distressed-looking salesman and a stack of tabloids, almost all of whom featured one of the Guardians. "I see."

Perhaps because he'd always been a bit of a schmoozer, Quill found it easiest to deal with the fame and adoration that came with saving a planet. Where he'd always advertised himself as a lovable rogue, Gamora had to adjust to her formidable reputation doing a u-turn. The fact that media continuously referred to Rocket as an 'it' did nothing to endear him to them. And Drax. Well Drax either revelled in the attention (and had once hijacked an interview to tell the story of how he and his wife had slain a volturhog together to celebrate their anniversary) or floundered beneath it (and had once punched a journalist in the face when they made the mistake of offering him a handshake).

"These Xandarian scum believe me to be a simpleton," Drax growled, which made every stall-owner in the vicinity grow nervous. "No doubt they are envious of my dizzying intellect."

"Dizzying is one way of putting it," said Quill, patting him on the back consolingly. "You just get that to Rocket. He'll know what to do with it."

Once Drax was out of earshot and well past the market, Gamora handed the tabloid salesman a stack of units. "For your troubles."

Despite the fact that journalists were among the most formidable, terrifying and villainous foes Quill had faced in all his time as a professional thief, he had to admit that the things they wrote (and for the most part made up) about him and the rest of the Guardians was always worth a read. So while Gamora shook her head in disapproval he haggled for a small stack of the more prominent titles.

"Don't give me that," Quill mock-scolded as they made their way towards the next item on the list. "We're supposed to be on our honeymoon." He said lightly, showing Gamora the front page article that said so.

"Don't push it," she warned, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.

It was still a firm rejection, though a nicer one than Quill was used to. He turned the page and failed to hold back a laugh. "Well now I see why Drax was upset. Ahem, 'contrary to popular belief and common anatomical structure kylosian brains are stored in their nipples, explaining both their sensitivity and their relatively small size. This is still more cerebral matter than the rest of the Guardians put together', oh wow!"

"The author clearly wasn't too keen on Cosmo's trick with the cameras." Gamora sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "What else are we up to?"

"Let's see," Quill turned the page and flinched as if struck. "Rocket has some very strong opinions on neutering and I wish I could unsee all of this… also pretty sure he has a dick."

Gamora cocked her head to the side for a moment as if considering, before abruptly shaking the thoughts away. "Can we not discuss this?"

"Yes ma'am." Quill flicked to the next page and snorted. "Apparently Ronan's still alive and is hiding in some of the beat-up parts of the city. Turns out he was working with Nova Prime this whole time to help with her re-election. Think we should go kill him properly?"

"Leave him for the demolition crew."

"And Cosmo's here too! Turns out she's a victim of our secret animal trafficking business."

Gamora played along and gave him a quizzical look. "Is it still a secret if it's in the newspapers?"

Quill did not think of himself as particularly introspective. He lived his life as it came at him, and usually it came at him in the form of adventure, danger and hot chicks. Well. Mostly hot anyways. But as he made his way through the market, the sun shining brightly above him as he shared the Guardian's more ridiculous exploits with the Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy, he couldn't help but think of how lucky he was.

"And now they're accusing us of treason! Guess we're hiding the rest of the Children of Thanos from the Nova Corps."

"What?"

Quill held the magazine out to her. Spread out over two pages was a rather unflattering artistic rendition of Nebula. Gamora's crazy blue 'sister' that had stood beside Ronan during his final hours. The Legendary Star-Lord did his best to keep his face severe and his tone serious. "Has she really been hiding in our vents this whole time?"

Frowning, Gamora crossed her arms over her chest and nodded at a nearby market stall. "That one looks like it might have some quarnex batteries."

"What's wrong?"

She failed to meet his eye and quickened her pace. "Nothing."

"Come on," Quill rolled his eyes and grabbed her by the wrist. Gamora could have broken both his arms for that, or one at the very least, but chose instead to spin towards him and press a knife to his throat. Muscle memory from years of being an assassin. Unphased, Quill waved away the apology before it could leave her mouth. Secretly, he congratulated himself on not screaming and/or peeing himself this time. He had long since lost count on the number of times one of his teammates had almost killed him.

"If you don't want to have this conversation, that's fine by me," he raised both arms in a gesture of surrender. "But just for the record, you're even less convincing than Rocket."

Gamora relented with a sigh and lowered her blade. "Noone has seen or heard from Nebula since Ronan attacked," she explained, while a dozen on-lookers hastily averted their eyes now that it was apparent they weren't about to witness a murder. "The last I saw of her she cut off her hand to get away from me."

"What?" Quill's heart skipped a beat. Somehow despite the dozen or so times he had been debriefed about it, that detail of the battle of Xandar had escaped him. "Don't get me wrong that's really hardcore, but honestly kind of-"

"It was a mechanical hand, Peter," Gamora interrupted, guessing where his mind had gone.

"Still pretty hardcore." Quill quipped, nevertheless breathing a sigh of relief.

The zeihoberei went on as if she hadn't heard him. "The Nova Corps haven't found a body so she's not among the dead and if she was still on Xandar she'd have been found by now. If what Proxima said is true she's not with Thanos anymore. Which means she could be anywhere. And she may be a murderous pyscopath but she's still… she's…" The assassin trailed off, once more turning her attention to the shopping list. "I'm pretty sure Rocket never owned a reversible solarium."

As much as the Guardians liked to pretend everything Thanos was in the past, noone was dumb enough to actually think that. It was an unspoken rule aboard the Milano to never bring it up, just like they never talked about Drax's family or whoever it was that had stitched Rocket together. The Black Order had broken the rule by virtue of their very existence and no doubt facing them had dredged up a slew of unpleasantness.

Quill very carefully wrapped an arm around Gamora's shoulder, aware that she was more than capable of karate flipping him into the pavement if she thought this was an invasion of privacy (been there, done that). She tensed on contact, but seeing as he still had all of his teeth, Quill figured it was safe to proceed. "You know I was thinking, when we're done here we could try complete the set. You know, fill in the Black Order Bingo Card. Galaxy's not as big as you'd think. I could ask some Ravager buddies of mine, see if they've heard anything."

Gamora raised an eyebrow. "I thought Yondu put a bounty on you?"

"There's more Ravagers than just Yondu," Quill shrugged. And then he sighed, because hoping Yondu wouldn't be stupid enough to open the orb was wishful thinking… Needless to say he wasn't looking forward to his own 'family' reunion. "Do I want to know how much I'm worth?"

"Sixty thousand units."

"What!?"

"And he wants you alive." It was Gamora's turn to shrug. "Rocket considered it."

"That figures." Friends or not, a lifetime of looking out for yourself would make anyone a selfish bastard. And whatever else he was or wasn't, the raccoon was still very much a money-hungry bounty hunter. Still… "Any active bounties on Eddy the Rac?"

"Peter."

"Fine, fine. But I'm stuffing him into the washer."

Gamora smiled at that… probably because she thought he was joking. Well, his first choice would have been the oven but Drax had melted half of it away. And the washing machine was funnier…

"For the record Nebula and I were never part of the Black Order," said Gamora matter-of-factedly. "We didn't 'fit the aesthetic'."

Quill failed to hold back a laugh. "Seriously?"

She nodded, smiling alongside him as she did so. "Maw's words, not mine."

"Guess you aren't supposed to be able to tell them apart." Quill pulled his arm away and turned his consideration back to the magazine and it's double page spread of Nebula "So what'd you say? We finish up Dey's mission report tomorrow morning and catch up with your sister in the afternoon?"

Gamora hesitated, and it was a rare thing to see her so conflicted. "You'd be looking for a bizmak in an asteroid field."

She wasn't a particularly good liar, but Gamora did have the poker face and body language of a champion gambler. It was impossible to say what she was thinking, but if she didn't want to do it, she'd have said as much. And besides, negotiation was Quill's strong suite. He didn't know what a bizmak was anyways. He cleared his throat and gave a nonchalant shrug. "I mean, if you don't want to-"

"That's not what I-" Gamora cut herself off with a sigh, realising too late she had fallen into his trap. Screwing her eyes shut to block out his obnoxious grin, she punched the terran on the shoulder. "I would like that very much. Thank you."

"Anytime," Quill beamed, returning the punch.

Even as she instinctively caught his arm and twisted it behind his back (stopping herself halfway before breaking it and showering him with a slew of apologies) the Legendary Star-Lord could not help but appreciate how lucky he was.

"I'm doomed," Rocket groaned, hiding his face behind his paws as the rest of Batch 89 fought to untangle Floor from the scarf she'd somehow wrapped herself up in. "Don't pull that." He said without looking up. An audible KLANG! told him the Jackass hadn't heard him and would be sporting a black eye for the foreseeable future.

Rocket was used to being the smartest guy in a room. No doubt a byproduct of being manufactured for intelligence. And bounty hunters were hardly among the sharpest knives in the metaphorical kitchen anyways, so it wasn't like he had much competition. Still most people he worked with tended to understand that robbery was more than some stupid game. Even Groot, dumb tree that he had been, had known that. Granted, he had never tried to teach Groot clothes...

"Your pants are on the wrong way," he said, before Lylla could ask. "That hole's for your leg, not your tail."

But there had only been one Groot, not four, and they had never tried to take on the entirety of the Nova Corps. And more often than not they hadn't been risking certain death... To keep his mind off the metaphorical stormcloud on the horizon, Rocket picked up his infoglass.

It was probably a bad habit, but any tech he made came with a failsafe or two. Self-destruct sequences, hidden trackers, fairly standard stuff for the most part. In the case of his communicators, they also doubled as one-way eaves-droppers. And because he was plotting a robbery under the nose of a telepath and the Deadliest Woman In The Galaxy, he'd programmed the wire to transmit certain keywords automatically. That way he'd know about any conversation the other Guardians had about him or the stone.

As he scrolled through the messages, he was unsurprised to find he came up a lot in conversation. Quill was buying a bunch of scut for him after all.

'Rocket has some very strong opinions on neutering and I wish I could unsee all of this… also pretty sure he has a dick.'

… And that was no excuse whatsoever to be talking about his privates. Rocket bit back a growl and opened up a separate app.

The transmission system wasn't perfect of course, it had been a rushed job and one he'd lacked a dozen parts for, but there was more than one way to snoop.

"Noone has seen or heard from Nebula since Ronan attacked," came Gamora's voice, who (considering the previous message) was the last person Rocket expected to hear from Quill's comm. "The last I saw of her she cut off her hand to get away from me."

Rocket set the tablet down and did his best to ignore the way his insides were squirming with unease. He'd installed the wire as a precautionary measure, not to snoop on his friend's personal stuff. And this was most definitely 'personal stuff'. It was a major violation of privacy and not a conversation he had any right to pry on.

Unable to resist temptation, Rocket clicked the feed back on.

"The Nova Corps haven't found a body so she's not among the dead and if she was still on Xandar she'd have been found by now." Gamora went on. "If what Proxima said is true she's not with Thanos anymore. Which means she could be anywhere. And she may be a murderous pyscopath but she's still… she's…" Rocket grimaced. It made sense. As much as Gamora liked to pretend she was done with Thanos and her 'family', the opposite was a lot closer to the truth. She'd always be the Titan's Daughter, just like he'd always be some stupid experiment. And of course it was Quill she opened up to.

"I'm pretty sure Rocket never owned a reversible solarium."

Despite her attempt to change the subject by throwing him under the bus, Rocket made a mental note to check for Nebula in some bounty circles later. The Biggest Sadist in the Galaxy was no Gamora, but her reputation was formidable enough to catch a few eyeballs.

"Who you talking to?" asked Floor, appearing beside him and startling him out of his thoughts.

"Noone," Rocket replied, disconnecting from the comm call and setting his tab down. He glanced up at Floor and was surprised to find that she'd figured it out.

"Floor is ready," the rabbit announced, taking great pride at being the first to do so.

Regular clothes didn't work for something with her anatomy. So Rocket had based her outfit on Cosmo's spacesuits. Just smaller, and with twice the number of sleeves. The measurements were a bit off too, so the suit was a lot looser than he'd intended, but it was serviceable.

"I think I am too," announced Teefs, tying a bow (that Rocket most certainly did not remember buying) over the top of his headpiece. Pants and wheels were a match made in hell, but a baggy vest (that still failed to cover the walrus' circumference) and a long scarf helped somewhat.

"Me three," chirped the Jackass, pulling a pair of goggles over his eyes. He and Lylla were similar enough in anatomy to have been graced with identical jumpsuits. That also happened to match Rocket's measurements because the tailor had started asking too many questions after the 'eight-limbed dog suit' and there was no polite way to tell the flarknard to mind his own frickin' business.

"I'm done too," added Lylla, smoothing the fabric around her shoulders.

It was only after about a minute or two of staring at them that Rocket realized they were expecting something from him. "Y-you er, you look good," he stammered, scratching awkwardly at his chest. "Th-the er- colour it- the pants- it- they suit you." With some difficulty he managed to stop himself from facepalming.

"You look good too!" Floor giggled, as the rest of Batch 89 chorused their 'thank you's' with well-practiced (and somewhat befuddled) politeness.

Rocket opened and shut his mouth, struggling to find something else to say and failing spectacularly. This was why words were Quill's strong suite and explosions were his.

"Yeeeees?" Floor urged him on, which only served to weaken his already crumbling resolve.

Rocket gave up with a sigh. "Could you pass one of those immolaters?"

It wasn't that he didn't want to talk. On the contrary, there was plenty he wanted to say. He just had no idea how to. His friends didn't remember names, or him, or anything, really. They didn't know anything about the wider Galaxy so politics, sports, current events, media and things like that were all off the table- not that Rocket cared much for them anyways. He doubted his batchmates would approve of the vast majority of his exploits, either. And he loved them, sure, but mushy stuff like that was weird coming from a stranger and had never really been his fortee.

Most people figured it out without him having to say it anyways. The old Groot had. And Cosmo, Quill, Drax and Gamora too... probably. They'd likely have second thoughts if they could see what he was doing now but, as much as that was a topic of conversation Rocket was ill suited for, there'd be time for apologies and honesty and hopefully forgiveness and all the rest of that mush later. A couple of stones down the line, assuming he got past the first.

Truth be told he'd given a lot of thought on what would happen if things went poorly. He'd already seen it once. The light fading out of Lylla's eyes as she stared up at a non-existent sky. Floor, crumpled on her side, startling white fur stained red. Teefs, still in his stupid, frickin' cage...

The odds could go flark themselves. It wouldn't happen again.

The immolater screamed to life, and started the countdown. Ten o' five sharp. "Twenty-three left," Rocket sighed. No going back now.

"Woooo!" cheered Teefs, clapping his flippers together excitedly. "I'll start the ship."

"Oh er- yeah, I forgot to mention." Rocket scratched the back of his head as his Batchmates gave him an inquisitive look. "We're not taking that," he explained, gesturing at the stupid box ship that was just a cage with no bars. "Cloaking or not, folks will notice something that frickin' irregular. And there is no way in hell I am getting on something Sire can remotely pilot from across the galaxy."

"Oh not this again," Lylla groaned, dragging a hand over her face.

"You know, he might like you more if you were just a bit more respectful," the Jackass pointed out.

"And, most importantly!" Rocket went on, pointedly ignoring them both. "My one's better."

Any further protests they had were cut off by the roar of a distant engine.

Footnote: Weaving the Nebula portion from the deleted scene I posted earlier into the 'canon' version of this fic was pretty challenging. While I like the idea of Gamora asking the Nova Corps about her, I think having Quill gently pry her worries to the surface and offer her some degree of comfort is a better way of going about it while also giving the pair of them something to do- because I do really like their relationship as hard as it is for me to write. It also sets up the next (chronological) arc so double yay!

Another thing I really wanted to keep in from the aforementioned deleted scene was the bit about Rocket and his tech having contingencies. It's a headcanon I adopted from the fact that the Bowie has a self-destruct sequence and it's an idea I'm rather fond of. It also adds a bittersweet twist to his 'love language' being gift giving- he only gives tech to people he cares about, but at the same time expects them to turn on him sooner or later so takes some precautionary measures. Somewhat more justified here since he's doing something the other Guardians probably wouldn't approve of.

Another short-ish/set-up chapter because while I spent a lot of time planning out the actual heist I did not give enough thought on how I'd set things up before I got to it. Something I definetly need some more work on. What happens when I enter these 'blank' spaces so to speak is I start writing one scene only to realise there's a few more I want/need to write and then I have to fit them in and as I'm writing them I think of more scenes etc etc etc- ad inifinitum.

I will say though that for the most part I'm pretty happy with all this stuff and the next chapter may be my favorite in the fic so far. Top five for sure. It's also moooostly done so the next update shouldn't take as long as this one.

Hope you all enjoyed!