InsaneJournal

Who: Peter Quill, Tony Stark, Drax
What: Ship repair begins!
When: sometime after July 4th hiring.
Rating/Warning: Green, some language.

It was getting harder and harder to dislike that Stark guy.

First he offered Peter a job, which Peter couldn’t really refuse. Then, he finally told Peter where the ship was. And THEN he got him a pretty sweet car that he couldn’t really drive but that’s okay because chicks dig cars.

Not trusting Rocket (which wasn’t any different than any other day), Peter managed to escape the apartment with just Drax (no one was happy about that) to go and tinker on the ship. He didn’t want to bring along anyone else because to be honest, Peter wasn’t even sure how fixable the ship really was. Crossing parallel Earth streams couldn’t have been good for the ship, and also, why the hell was Earth so technologically backwards??It’d taken Peter weeks to fix the toaster to his exacting preferences. What he wouldn’t do for a functional spanner…

It hadn’t taken too long to get to the upstate headquarters, especially considering that he used his rocket boots. Of course, a few minutes into carrying Drax, he realized it was too much weight and almost let him fall. Instead, they landed and took a cab which was much less regal but worked better. Before too long, they were at the ship, and Peter did a quick perimeter sweep.

“Well Drax, you almost killed my ship, but it looks like we could patch it up together. There’s not even a hole really. Just a bunch of dents. Not too shabby.”

"We will not even need the trash panda," Drax said, pursing his lips and nodding slowly, "for the damage that I did not wreak upon your ship. So that is good."

It wasn't his fault. It was the time stream crossing. Or them inhabiting the bodies of their counterparts in this world, which was akin to the Terran movie about body snatchers. See? There were complex further thoughts going on in Drax's head that....nevermind, he began wandering off toward the big building. The attention span is short, indeed.

"I require more Pringles," he said, not even bothering to yell it back to Quill. "I shall return, once I find what is known as a vending machine."

He didn't stop even when the sound of thrusters got louder and louder, until Iron Man descended from the sky like a red missile honed in on a target. Tony only slowed the decent at the last moment, as though he didn't want to ruin the landscaping. Too much, considering the reactor tech left some divets in the grass.

"Damn it," Tony said once the helmet retracted back. He kicked one of the uprooted clumps back over with his foot and looked over at Drax, who was now opening the door to the headquarters, followed by the scream of a startled employee.

As he walked toward the ship he was muttered under his breath, "Uh, Friday? Clear that Drax guy pronto so no one shoots the alien with experimental non-lethal weapons. Thanks. Anyway?" He looked right at Peter. "Hi, Star-Lark! I see you found the ship. What's the damage?"

There were very little things in Peter’s life that he had total control over. Even his ship, his pride and joy, was something he shared with his teammates/pseudo-family. Because of that, he enjoyed taking little pieces of control … like now.

He ignored Tony for the moment as he continued to peek around and look. A few well placed kicks and he gave a head tilt. “Well, I think the majority of the problems are probably inside. Like I said before, it’ll definitely need new directional boosters and possibly some gravitational work. Not sure how the life systems are going to be, but they were functioning right until we landed here so that’s a good sign.” He banged at the door and looked happy when the hatch flipped open. “And looks like some of the automation is still golden.” Excellent. Peter was worried he’d have to jimmy his way into the ship. Doing that would have ruined the circuitry even more.

“After you, Iron Guy. Feel free to poke around, but if you find any porn, that’s not mine, it’s Rocket’s.” For real. That raccoon had an addiction.

Behind Peter's back, Tony spared a moment to roll his eyes a little bit. The armor retracted into the RT housing, and he casually strolled onboard after Star-Lord finished his checkover.

He actually wanted to break out into a jog and start oogling everything, but he somehow managed to keep himself contained while taking a look around at a bonafide spaceship. He was uncharacteristically quiet as he made his way up to the helm, taking a cursory glance at the controls. This looked a lot more manageable than the helm of the Doom Donut that Squidward was flying around in. Trying to turn a space pastry was not easy to do at all.

Past the tech fest in his head, Tony finally registered what Peter was saying and wrinkled his nose a little bit. Not because of a smell.

"Rocket's the talking raccoon, right? If he's got porn, hard pass. Not into the whole furry thing. But more power to him since he's already furry." He caught a whiff of something sour, wrinkling his nose because of a smell. "Guess it's hard to get Lysol and bleach wipes in space."

He swiveled in place to find Drax the Destroyer silently standing about three feet behind him. He had a hot dog piled high with about three fistfuls of sauerkraut and half a bottle of mustard.

"Found the funky smell. I win!" Tony announced, pointing over at the big grey alien that returned from his cafeteria trip.

"...damn it. His eyesight is keen," Drax grumbled under his breath, having been spotted again while perfecting his invisibility mastery. He took a bite of the hot dog, chewing with several pieces of kraut sticking out of his mouth.

"Wishing it wasn't," was Tony's quick reply, as he side-eyed Peter. "Gross and his ninja skills suck. So where do ya wanna start looking first?"

On that, they both could agree. Peter gave Drax no attention at all and instead motioned towards the bridge. “Well, the majority of the work would be down in the boiler, but I won’t know what actually needs work until we try out the interface.” Walking in like he owned the place (cause he DID), Peter sat down in the captain’s chair and bounced around a bit. “Gotta find that groove, you know,” he called out to Tony.

There was an empty seat next to him, Rocket’s co-captain chair. “Sit if you want. Let’s see what this baby tells us.” A few moments later, the interface was up, and while it wasn’t the usual vibrant blue, it seemed to so far work. Peter tried a few things, pushed a few buttons without explaining anything before twisting his lips. “So looks like the voice command system is down, so we’re stuck here, having to push buttons like we’re barbarians or something.” Pathetic.

A few more clicks and he hit the screen with both hands. “And looks like life-systems are barely functioning. We have some oxygen, some heat, electrical… but this is basically a giant piece of crap right now unless we can get shit going.”

While Drax worked on inhaling a hot dog - and not silently either - Tony followed through Star-Lord's domain. He sat down, silent, dark eyes assessing everything as if making several mental notes. There were a few similarities to controls and HUDs he knew, but there was a metric tons of things he didn't...but that he'd catch onto quickly.

"Yeah, I get the vibe here. You're the boss in here. I'm the boss out there. So, boss? Walk me through this," he asked, wagging a finger around at the interface screen. "I have a fabrication facility inside the headquarters. If we pull a part, we can scan it and replicate it. Or a rough equivalent. You've obviously got diagnostics running right now. So how many parts are we gonna have to replace?"

“Shush.” Peter continued to scan the screen, looking for the one thing in particular he was hoping against hope wouldn’t be damaged.

And then he saw it was.

“Unless you got some extra beryllium on hand...and some energy pearls, then we’re kind of fucked. It looks like the power core is leaking, and I can’t refuel it here. The rest, yeah, we can replicate. Doesn’t seem too bad, like some panelling, a few wiring deals, maybe the odd converter ...but that core. We need it. Period.”

Being shushed meant a few pearls of wisdom almost shot out of his mouth like high calibre ammunition. That was quickly replaced by a knowing smirk on Tony's face. While he wasn't sure what energy pearls were, he worked with developing smaller and smaller energy sources. There were RTs and heavy weapon blasters stored inside of the reactor in his chest, after all.

What he was smirking over, was that he had links to Federal weapons contractors and beryllium was something he knew how to get. A few years ago, the U.S. government produced about two hundred metric tons of the stuff domestically. He could get his hands on it, despite having both friends and foes in the government. Money talked, after all.

"Show me those energy pearls, and I'll get that beryllium," was the self-assured reply, including a thumbs up.

A thumbs up that Drax also engaged in. "We shall return to space soon, Quill. For I am also becoming psychic and I have foreseen this."

Or maybe it was because the Terran known as Stark seemed too confident. Not that Drax was about to admit that.

Holy shit, who WAS this Stark dude? Was he just posturing, like Gamora loved to accuse Peter of? For once, Peter didn’t have a smartass answer back. Instead, he got up and walked over to the front panel. Opening it showed a mass of wires connected by round circles. Plucking one out, he brought it to Tony. It was grey, and looked worn out. “When these are fresh, they’re swirly and blue and super trippy to look at it. This colour means it’s been shorted. They connect the wires and basically run the AI. Also, if we ever got a Mu, then we could automatically transfer their consciousness here but those are way too fucking expensive and I’m smarter than a Mu anyways."

"You are not smarter than a Mu," Drax said under his breath. "The last Mu we encountered when you issued such an outlandish claim told you that you were not."

"Ok, well, this is the one time I'm not gonna debate. One time. Don't count on it happening again." Tony looked it over with a scowl. This was definitely a problem that he couldn't solve, and there was no posturing about that. It was smaller than expected, and a test on a depleted power source wasn't going to help much to identify capacity or type. "Let's take this back to the lab," he told Quill and Drax, "we can run some tests. If it's a consciousness thing though, it might be a magic based thing. We've got a wizard. Otherwise, I can see about rigging up some test batteries? Try 'em out. If it doesn't work, try try again."

He was going to be building a Quantum Tunnel with Hope and Scott too. And probably Hank Pym. Fun times. It looked like he was going to have to tell Pep that he was logging more work hours. Either way, he wasn't just posturing, since he was convinced that all things were fixable. Including this ship.

“Yeah??” Peter had completely forgotten about the magician person. The thought of getting his ship going was unbelievable and exactly what he needed to perk him up. “That would be the best. I miss being out there, and man, you can’t keep a good space pirate down. He’s gotta be out there in the stars, just …...cruisin.” He stood up and gave a sharp nod to Tony. “Alright, Iron Boss. Let’s get down to the engine room. Drax, you can take pictures of what we need, but be careful this time -- I do not want an entire roll of blue nipples. Again. First time is an accident, second time is weird, third time is disturbing.”

"Sure thing, Space-Lord. Let's get to it," Tony replied, making a motion with one hand like Peter should lead the way. He was purposefully keeping his eyes on Star-Lord and off the Destroyer. "Otherwise I'm gonna stare at his nipples and I just can't hack that."

As they left for the engine room, Drax followed behind, taking out a packet of Nutter Butters. He opened it while saying under his breath, "I was attempting to keep a visual account of the nipple chafing."

No one wanted to reply to that. Not even Tony.