Chapter Text
The Beyonder smashed into their corner of the universe, bellowing like a bilgesnipe, if that bilgesnipe was matched in size to a red giant star. It was so huge that they, encapsulated in their flimsy tin can, couldn't see more than a tiny portion of it at once.
That was more than enough. Yondu's skin itched under his leathers.
Mantis ran tiny fingers over the scars on his temple. “You're afraid. Why are you afraid?”
Because the Beyonder an' me ain't exactly friends. Because swapping one enemy for a bigger one only gets us equally dead.
For the moment though, the behemoths focused on each other. The solar system was their arena, the galaxy their audience. Ego stopped expanding, allowing their craft to gain ground for the first time. As this brought them closer to the Beyonder, the victory was somewhat sour.
“No,” Yondu hissed, dragging on Kraglin's arm. They wheeled up on one side, shooting out towards a portion of space that wasn't filled with tentacles. That sheer bleak quantity of nothingness was enough to drive a man insane, but Yondu'd prefer a little lunacy over the Beyonder. “I ain't fuckin' with this guy again.”
“Beyonders don't have gender,” said Kraglin in his poncy Rockless-knows-best voice. Then, immediately contradicting himself: “Ain't he on our side?”
“Beyonders don't have sides,” Yondu parroted, smacking his wrist until he held their course steady. “An' I don't think he likes me much.”
“Can't imagine why, after you disregarded every damn code of respect we got with the Elder Gods and tried to steal his gold.”
“Shaddup.”
“M-m-mom.” Peter hunched smaller than Yondu had ever seen him, knees drawn to his chest. “Mom.” His Walkman rested on his knees, skinny arms as spindly as his headphone wires. No music played. The cassette sat in its box, silent as a cadaver in the casket. The only noise was Peter's shuddery breaths, as the M-ship wheeled away from the giant entities sizing each other up for the first strike. Hopefully, Ego would keep the Beyonder sufficiently occupied until they'd made good their escape.
As for Merry? She was, perhaps, a touch braver than Yondu had given her credit for.
Yondu eased himself out of the footwell, grimacing at the protests from his back. He made it to his feet for long enough to tip the monsters behind them a salute before staggering to claim Meredith’s vacated chair.
“Nice knowin' ya, woman,” he said, falling onto the seat and – at last – strapping himself in. It was only a little sarcastic.
They swung by the battleground a week later. It was, as Yondu suspected, devastated. If it hadn't been for the coordinates on his holoscreen, he'd have thought they'd jumped into the wrong sector altogether.
“This is it?” Kraglin asked, evidently thinking much the same thing. Yondu nodded, easing his grip on the M-ship joystick.
“This is it.”
He'd ordered Quill to stay on the Eclector, fully expecting to be disobeyed. He checked every vent and peered under every smuggling panel, but his search turned up no curly-headed kid. It didn't sit easy on him, Peter's absence. Every creak of their thrusters or whine of their electronics made him jerk, glancing around for their stowaway.
Mantis had told him, in a quavering voice, that she didn't want to put people to sleep who didn't want to go anymore. That answered Yondu's question about how Ego kept his victims compliant – and robbed him of his easy fix for keeping Quill's temper in check. But if Mantis wasn't keeping Yondu's favorite Terran on lockdown, what was?
Yondu pictured Peter as he'd seen him last: a tuft of ginger hair poking out from a sausage roll of bundled blankets. His headphones sat silent on his shelf. His poky box-room hung in musty silence, mournful as a tomb.
In a way, it was. A shrine to Meredith Quill. Her music, her son, the spoiled sundress she arrived in, all of them gathered in that dark little hole beside Yondu's cabin, locked away from the starlight. Yondu didn't like to think about Quill moldering away in there. But the kid needed time to grieve, and anyway, his new roommate could always perk him up if he got too doleful.
That new roommate was the reason why they were here.
One kid? Yondu's crew huffed and grumbled, but fell grudgingly in line.
Two kids? Yondu had yelled at everyone who argued until they shut up – then, when that failed, whistled to far better effect. While he explained that Mantis's powers could be a help rather than a hindrance, his crew required a little more assurance. Hence: a return flight to the boundaries of deep space.
Ash hung in thick ropes. Most of it had been distributed, fine as smog particulates in a cloud from one of the many munitions factories that funded the Kree-Xandarian war. What clumped together were the thicker pieces, pulled in by their own weak gravity. Perhaps one day, decades from now, planets would form anew. But Ego wouldn't be among them.
He and Kraglin had taken a different M-ship this time, one designed for emergency deep-space manouevers. Its megawatt headlamp beams carved a tiny wedge from all that the dark. It wasn’t much, but it was better than being blind in the black. Although Yondu might’ve preferred that, if it meant he had an excuse to miss the sparkle of purple, floating off past their left wing.
He sent a conferring eyebrow scrunch in Kraglin's direction. “You see it too, yeah?”
“Unfortunately.”
“It survived?”
“It's an Infinity Stone, sir. It'll outlive the universe. Trust me, it won't even be scratched.”
They floated closer. The stone emitted pulses, like a beacon left by a marooned ship. Or perhaps that was merely the impression of the dust, which thickened and thinned, swirling on residual momentum from when the Titans clashed.
“We could always leave it here?” Kraglin suggested. He didn't sound all that hopeful. Yondu transferred the steering column controls to his copilot, and reached under the dashboard, retrieving the lead lined gloves and the containment sphere.
“An' let Thanos find it? Or the Collector?”
“Didn't realize yer motives were so alturistic, is all, sir.”
“I mean, why the hell should we let 'em fetch it themselves, when we can hand it over for profit?”
Kraglin sighed. “That's more like it.” But he flew them close on Yondu's command, to where the crystal glimmered and spun in a weightless pirouette. “You just gonna hop out and grab it then, sir?”
Yondu forced himself to concentrate. He walked away from the cockpit glass, which he'd been craning out of in the hopes of spotting a stray wisp of ginger-blonde hair, an outflung hand illuminated ghost-white by the edge of the headlights' beam. There was nothing. Miss Quill had been eradicated as thoroughly as Ego and the Beyonder, all of them blasted to base atoms. No chance of a Ravager funeral, not for her.
Damn shame, that.
Nothing Yondu could do about it, of course. He was no Beyonder. He couldn't bring back the dead. Only one other guy could pull stunts like that, to Yondu's knowledge, and he liked him impossibly less. He wouldn't do it for free, that was for sure. If, hypothetically, Yondu opted for the resurrection route, he'd need a damn good bargaining chip.
The stone revolved slowly, tauntingly, a meter from the rear hatch. Yondu watched it turn.
“Hell,” he said softly. Then, stomping to the hatch: “Krags? Get Thanos on the line.”
Of course, Thanos wouldn't rock up personally for a smuggler like Yondu. Even if that smuggler had somehow laid hands on an Infinity Stone.
Thank flark. This would never work otherwise.
Yondu donned his best, greasiest smile as the Other approached. It wasn't returned. Then again, the Titan's freaky minion didn't really have lips, so that was hardly surprising.
“Sup,” he said. “You meet all my, uh, requests?”
The Other stepped to one side. He revealed the Terran chick behind him, stood meekly with her hands clasped in front of her, eyes on the ground. Wise girl. Now wasn't the time for acting out. Meredith had saved Yondu last time. Time to repay that debt, before she started collecting interest.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, Merry.”
She looked up, and Yondu was struck again by the intricate blue of her eyes. Turquoise and sapphire and dishwater, all wrapped around glossy dark pupils, which might as well be black holes for all they absorbed of their surroundings.
“Yondu,” she said, with half a smile. “I have to admit, you're the last person I expected to see.”
Yondu scanned the bank transfer reader. Two million units, safely across the divide. Not as much as he could've gotten if he hadn't requested this favor on the side, but still more than enough to make his men stop licking their lips whenever they looked at Mantis and Quill. If this didn't get the brats off the menu, nothing would.
“Didn't expect to see myself here either,” he lied. “S'all Peter's idea.”
There she went, mouth softening, eyes turning limpid and bright. “How's he doing? Is he okay? I hope he didn't cry too much -”
“Why,” interrupted Yondu, tossing the Other the orb for the delight of watching him fumble it, “don'tchu come back to the Eclector an' find out for yer own damn self?”
Meredith's lips wobbled. In all the time he'd known her, facing gun-toting animatronics and infinity stones and her evil, child-gobbling ex, she'd never once shed a tear. Even as she plunged to her death, there'd only been a liquid sheen across her eyes, easily blamed on the wind. But now that moisture ran over. She flung her arms around Yondu's neck.
“Thank you! Thank you!”
She smelt... nice. Yondu wasn't used to nice. He suspected it gave him allergies.
“Uh. Sure.” He leaned away before she could get to the canoodling, if only because he wasn’t sure he’d pull back after. “Y'ain't gonna open that?” He pointed at the orb in the Other's clawed hand. The Other champed its teeth at him.
“And risk destroying us all? I think not. I have no aspirations for power – the stone shall be returned to my master, as intended.”
Yondu stuck his finger in his ear and waggled it about. “Sure. Whatever. Have fun – give him my love.”
The Other drew itself up pompously to tell him to amend his tone when speaking of the Lord Titan – then, wisely, decided it wasn't worth the effort. A wave of its hand, and a gash in spacetime appeared, similar to the one the Beyonder had flailed out of. Through it, Yondu spotted a causeway of boulders: basalt columns ejected from an eruption that tore apart an ancient moon.
Merry tugged at his sleeve. “That was the stone? You're giving it to him?”
Yondu waited for the rift in spacetime to heal, fronds intersecting and binding together like oil and water in an emulsion. Only once the atmosphere of their chosen meeting-planet reformed, did he meet Meredith's accusatory glare with a grin.
“What're you smiling for, Yondu? You just gave a man far worse than Ego a superweapon.”
“You admit it then? That Ego weren't a good guy? You was wrong about him?”
That earned him a huff. “Gloating isn't an attractive look on you.”
“Every look's an attractive look on me.” His leer met rolling eyes.
“That one definitely isn't. How does Kraglin cope?”
“He usually fucks me from behind.”
Meredith snort-laughed. She quickly clapped a hand over her mouth, pushing the sound back inside. But she couldn't feign offence, not after that.
“So,” Yondu asked, once she'd gotten her giggles out her system. “You plan on stayin' round an' all?”
“Of course! I don't know why I ever thought a year would be enough time to show you how to raise my son.”
“Our son,” said Yondu, with admirable hope. Meredith eyed him warily.
“You'd better not be thinking about getting down on one knee, mister.”
“Not without permission. Kraglin don't like sharin'. So, uh.” He found it oddly hard to meet her eyes. “Feel free to keep baking them cookies he likes, I guess.”
It might be his imagination, but there was a touch of pink, colouring the space between the freckles on her cheeks. “So it's decided then?” she asked, cutting right to the quick. “I stay with you and Peter, until such a time as one of us dies and we no longer have any means of resurrecting them. Or until Thanos blows up the entire galaxy with those dreadful stones of his.”
Of course, she couldn't resist that one last jibe. Yondu'd been counting on it. He produced the second orb from under his coat, with a mocking bow and flourish.
“Man, he's gonna be so pissed when he finds out I swapped this on him.”
Meredith snort-laughed again, loud as Kraglin when he slept on his back. A gutsy laugh, a laugh with balls to it. The laugh of a Ravager.
It faded far too fast.
“He's going to kill you, Yondu.”
Yondu shrugged. “He's gonna send one of his lil' assassins after me first. Y'might have met them, while you was there?”
“Gamora and Nebula? Gosh, those poor girls…”
“Them's the ones.” Yondu's fangs caught his lips from the breadth of his smile. “Already picked up two stray brats, thanks to you. Reckon another pair won't make much difference to stock levels. We all know blue looks good in red leather, but... Hey, Miss Quill? Think a lil' jumpsuit would suit greenie?”
Merry’s smile quirked up another notch. “We'll find out, I'm sure.”
They walked to the waiting M-ship together, not hand in hand, but close enough that as their arms swung, their pinkies brushed. Barren earth crunching under their boots.
“Y’know,” said Merry, after a pause, “Peter’s going to want you to teach him that trick with the orb.”
“Oh?”
“And perhaps I should learn it too, if I’m going to make a go of this whole space pirate thing.”
Yondu shut the door behind them. The Warbird's engines were rumbling, warm for take-off. Kraglin fidgeted in the pilot’s seat, one hand on the joystick; Yondu pressed a quick ‘hey look, I lived’ kiss to his shaved temple. His mate was too stressed over the whole ‘stealing from Thanos’ part of this plan to reciprocate, or to do more than shoot Merry a nervy smile – but though he didn’t wait for them to strap-in to blast off, he got them in the air real smooth-like, and when Merry stumbled, Yondu steadied her with a hand on her arm, and she flashed him a really nice smile. So, yeah, Kraglin could be forgiven.
“Reckon you and the brats will need a good teacher,” he said.
“Excellent idea. Kraglin, are you free?”
And as Kraglin sniggered and Yondu made offended noises and Merry’s smile turned to something teasing and wicked that, if anything, Yondu liked even more – the comm sputtered to life and out spat Quill’s shrill voice: “Hey, are you guys nearly home?”
Grief hung on his words, making them slow, lethargic. The outward signs of that grief might fade in time, like bruises (or even whip scars, to a degree). But, Yondu knew, some hurts you never truly healed from.
He hadn’t said shit to Pete about his intention to exchange Merry for the stone – hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up. Still, it made his heart sing to realize that, for once, he was gonna give Peter Quill more than disappointment.
He winked at Kraglin and raised a finger to his lips before Meredith could reply. “Yeah, we’re nearly home,” he said in her stead. “Meet us at the hanger, boy. We got a surprise.”