strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check-in Day

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

It was a musical day at the Madonna Inn, both inside and out. Curnen had taken her usual place up on the roof and was singing charms to the sky to keep any wanderers from getting lost (though that part of it was not immediately obvious). Unrelated to that, Sunny was on the dance floor in the bar, summoning songs of her own with her knife to keep her moving before she went to do her shift at the library later. It was one of those days where if she thought about it too hard she’d start thinking about that empty bed in her shitty room and the person she most wanted to be there.

This of course eventually seeped into her magic. She knew better. Maybe she’d even wanted that to happen.

Because just once, between different pop hits and dance beats came a rather unexpected French love song. She sighed and rolled her eyes, but the exasperation didn’t last. Before the lyrics started up she was waltzing. By herself and not caring how it might have looked. And for those three and a half minutes, she dared let herself hope for the slimmest chance that Orlu might come through that door.

She didn’t let herself hope too hard, though. There was admitting to feeling things and there was setting yourself up for certain disappointment. She’d lived too long with disappointment to do that to herself.

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Peter's excitement was palpable. Quill liked to think it was mostly because Peter was meeting him. The Guardians of the Galaxy are cool. Finally someone who truly appreciatea us.

Peter Parker pulls a smile from Quill. A big, fat, overly confident with some swagger in his stance.

"Yeah. We're pretty cool," He said as if no big deal. "And we're totally going to kick butt when we get back. We just need to find a way home."

There's always a way out of a mess

"Last time I saw you, though, you were all," Quill gestured to his body with and up and down sweeping gesture while he spoke, "metal. Where's your suit? I mean, I get it, you're off duty, but that thing was kind of bad-ass. You could probably pick up a lot of chicks with that."

We're totally going to kick butt when we get back. This is basically the coolest thing. He gets to work with Mr. Stark and with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and --

Peter forces himself to focus and return to the reality.

"Yeah," he says. "I mean, there's no way for us to get home that anyone knows of. Some people just leave sometimes, but it's pretty random. I think that everything pauses for us while we're not there and then continues as soon as we are."

Peter can't be 100% sure there, though. The next thing Quill says is perplexing, though.

"My suit's upstairs, but it's not metal." And suddenly, Peter's feeling the same compulsion he felt around Mr. Stark to impress him.

"But I have a girlfriend here already," he finishes.

"I don't plan on staying here very long. I've been in tighter spots than this - I killed my god-like dad recently. It was a whole thing." He said casually, but with the notion to impress.

Quill could easily pick up that Peter was eager to please and Quill's ego was loving every minute of it. The kid seemed like he was pretty capable back on Titan, but he was definitely pretty new to the whole super hero gig.

"That's too bad about the suit though." He said about the suit. "It's obviously not as cool as mine, but it was definitely cooler than Iron Man's."

He raised his hand in the air for Peter to 'high-five' him and said, "Up top for the girlfriend."

I wonder where Gamora is. Quill briefly let the thought float into his mind and then pushed it back out quickly.

Peter feels plenty pleased as he gives Quill a high-five. He can't remember the last time he gave anyone a high-five for anything. The closest he came to that was the secret handshake he made with Alec, but he was always the one to initiate it, and it really wasn't a high-five if it was part of a secret handshake.

"Your dad was a god?" Peter's having a hard time keeping his excitement in check, and it's coming out in the form of many, many questions. "Does that make you a demi-god or just a regular one? And why did you have to kill your dad? Was this a Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker situation?" Quill didn't seem like the kind of guy who went around killing fathers needlessly.

Before Quill can even answer those question, Peter has one more:

"What'd the suit look like?" he asks. He wonders if it looks anything like the one that Mr. Stark offered him after the whole thing with the Vulture.

"Technically I'm half celestial," Quill explained. Celestial sounds way cooler than god. "And yeah, pretty much. He went to the Dark Side and I was all like 'No dad, how could you?' and then he was like 'Quill, I am your father' and I was like 'Dude, I know you just said that'. And then he tried to kill me, and then I tried to kill him. It was this whole big thing and then I won at the end."

It was easier for Quill to focus on the Ego than any of the other events. Definitely not about his mother or about Yondu. Quill refused to even let those thoughts seep in as they stood there. Peter Parker had a lot of questions which aided in the distraction.

"Your suit, huh?" He said as he 'hmmed' and tried to find the words to describe it. He gestured to his body as he continued, "It's red and this dark blue with a huge, bad-ass spider on the front that's legs go out like here and here and here."

"Half-celestial," Peter says, awed. Peter would agree -- celestial sounds so much cooler than god. Besides, Thor was a god and it was cooler if there weren't two of them running around the galaxy.

Quill gets his references! He knows what Star Wars is!

"I'm sorry about your dad," Peter says, because he really is. Luke hadn't known his father as anything other than Darth Vader, and he still had very conflicted feelings towards the end. He can't imagine anyone wouldn't have conflicted feelings about killing their father, even if they didn't really know them.

Quill's description of the suit confirms it for him. "That's the suit Mr. Stark offered me after everything that happened with the Vulture! It had legs? That's -- it's --"

Peter feels so completely overwhelmed by the sheer coolness of Quill and the sheer coolness of the future that he's having a hard time getting the words out. He sputters for another second longer, then finally finishes:

"-- so cool!"

Peter just wishes that Mr. Stark's offer back then was actually serious, and not just a test. It did mean that later on, he did get the suit, though.

Then, a thought occurs to him; if Mr. Stark offered the Avenger title with the suit --

Did that make him an Avenger?

"Did I say I was an Avenger?" Peter blurts out.

Edited 2018-05-16 14:04 (UTC)

Quill liked Peter's enthusiasm as he did with most people who actually seemed to appreciate his talents and how cool he was. Finally someone who actually gets it..

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "You said it like, at least a half dozen times with pretty much the same excitement. I guess the Avengers are a cool name, but it's understandable you guys had to pick the runner-up name since we trademarked the best one first."

The excitement has just been ramped up to about 100. Out of 10. Peter can't remember the last time he was excited. Maybe when Mr. Stark took him to Germany. All of this is so unbelievable and cool and he's actually an Avenger. A real Avenger. Like the Hulk and Thor and --

-- like Iron Man. Like Mr. Stark.

Peter might have argued that the Avengers had a cooler name if his brain was processing anything correctly. All he can think about is how he's an actual Avenger. An Avenger.

"You said earlier that we fought," Peter says, latching onto that. "Why did we fight if we were both fighting Thanos? Was I fighting you alone, or was Mr. Stark, too? And what -- what are your powers?"

He had to be really strong if he was fighting him and Mr. Stark solo.

"I can basically create matter and use like energy to change things," he says as if no big deal. I haven't actually had a chance to see if that works off of Ego's planet... I should get on that. "But, you know, I'm also really strong, a great shot, and I'm a master thief."

Quill winked to Peter and he's proud. He believed the stuff he was saving.

"That? Oh, that," he replied with a wave of dismissal, "It was a misunderstanding. You and Iron Man and some other guy in a cape. Uh. Doctor Strange I think his name was. You were in an enemy ship so of course my friends and I thought you were the enemy.... But you're lucky it was only half my team. If Rocket was there, he'd have shot you guys for sure. He's a big gun happy."

Groot... Would probably not even know they were fighting. I really need to do something about that video game addiction he has.

"Are you serious?! That's like -- I mean it's like -- it's amazing!" The create matter and energy thing. "How strong are you? Are you Hulk-strong?"

Peter has to resist the urge to ask for a arm-wrestling competition, even though he's pretty sure that Quill would win.

"We were in an enemy ship?" Peter swallows in an attempt to . "Wait, Rocket's on your team? Rocket lives right next to me -- he's -- have you seen him? He just arrived today, too. He pulled a gun on me today."

"I don't know who the Hulk is, but probably." He said with a nod. "And - wait. Hold up a second. Rocket is here? That's amazing. I'm going to need to good find him."

"Did you want me to take you up to his room? I can show you where my room is, too, that way you know where to find me if you have any questions."

Peter wants to answer all of Quill's questions.

"Yeah sure." He said with a smile, "and hopefully he won't shoot us through the door - he's really protective of his space."

Quill liked this space.

Peter leads the way to the stairs. Despite being numbered with a 2 prefix, the rooms are actually up on the third floor.

Peter's trying hard to restrict himself to one question at a time right now.

"How did you and Rocket meet?"

"Me and Rocket?" He repeated as they walked. "Let's see... well, I stole this orb which, turns out, was super valuable. It had this power stone in it capable of destroying planets?"

Quill's eyes take in where they were going as they walk. He was memorizing the layout.

"Anyways, I had it, then Gamora - she's my girlfriend now- she stole it from me." He explained. "But then Rocket and Groot showed up and we all got imprisoned. General hijinks ensued as we escaped and he's basically been smitten with me ever since."

If Rocket ever heard me say that, I'd be never hear the end of it. Quill grinned.

"Power stone," Peter says, nodding. He's listening attentive, hanging onto every one of Quill's words.

And Peter's one-question rule is temporarily disregarded because Quill's explanation is deserving of more than just one question.

As they walk up the first flight of stairs, Peter asks: "Did you steal it from some bad guys?" Obviously, Quill would only steal from bad people. "Did you end up getting it back after you broke out of prison?"

Because even though Quill didn't explicitly say that:

• Quill had incredible abilities that would prevent him from being held captive in your standard prison facility, and Quill looked normal enough where Peter would think he was just a normal human being
• If he was a master thief, he was probably good at getting into and out of places undetected
• He had to escape prison in order for them to fight Thanos

"We sure did," Quill said with a nod as he chose to be deliberately vague about which question he was answering. "We got it back, killed the bad guy, and brought the stone to a place where we thought it would be safe."

Then Thanos came and ruined everything.

Peter takes this all in, then speaks:

"Where you thought it'd be safe?" he repeats. Peter might not have picked up that Quill was deliberately being vague, but he did picked up on that particular wording.

He glanced in Peter's direction. Kid caught that, huh>

"Yeah." He said and then cleared his throat. "That big bad I talked about? He found it. He's collecting them all. So we're going to kick his butt and take them back and keep them away from anyone else who wants them."

This is probably a bigger deal than even the Chitauri. Peter was only a kid then, but he remembers everyone in his apartment building going down to the building basement, which was filled with boxes and supplies. Once power was restored, he watched the footage on TV until Ben turned it off.

School was closed for a week. One of the teachers that taught another class didn't come back.

Peter really doesn't want something like that happening again. New York City always seemed to be a target for whatever bad things happened. Like the Stark Expo. And like the Chitauri. That was probably why Mr. Stark moved the Avengers upstate.

There's plenty of questions that Peter wants to ask now, but there's perhaps a more pressing question he needs to ask:

"Were we friends?" Peter asks as they reach the second floor. "After we fought, I mean."

"Yeah!" He said, "well, okay, there wasn't a lot of time to like, learn a lot about each other and I still question your position on Footloose, but yeah."

Quill smiled. I really like this kid

Peter looks really, really pleased to hear this. If they were friends back then, then that probably made it easier for them to be friends now.

Peter can't imagine why Footloose ever got brought up, but this bears questioning.

"What's your opinion on Footloose?" Peter asks.

Peter's pace visibly and obviously slows as they approach the end of the hallway. Not because they're coming in for a landing, but because he knows that as soon as they get to Rocket's room, they're going to have to part ways.

"Uh, just about the greatest movie of all time," Quill answers. "That's what."

Quill really liked Footloose.

Peter looks bewildered, as if Quill had just told him that he that The Phantom Menace was the best of the Star Wars movies.

"It never was," Peter quips. He's eager to please Quill, but not enough to compromise his opinions on films.

"And this," Quill said with an air of fake exasperation, "Is where we differ on opinions. Because Kevin Bacon is a hero and what other film could have inspired a dance battle that saved the universe? Answer: none."

He smiled smugly.

[GP/EP] Check-in Day

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