InsaneJournal

Who: Peter Quill, Wanda Maximoff, Dr. Strange
What: recharging the ship, discussing trips to space for infinity stones
When: presently
Rating: yellowish.

If Peter hadn’t been 1000000% convinced he was not pregnant, he would have thought everything he was doing was ‘nesting’. For the last few weeks, he’d thought nothing of his ship, which was fair. It was his baby, his home, and the only thing that really belonged to him. Every spare moment was spent tinkering around, to the point where he was sure Gamora was getting annoyed with him flopping into bed at all hours of the night only to wake up angrily when the alarm clock blared a few hours later.

Stark was going to fire him one of these days, Peter was sure but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Something was coming, and the unsettling feeling he had about it was growing. That conversation with Dr. Foster didn’t help things either. Even though he hadn’t asked her any questions at their coffee date, and he’d basically disappeared after he’d dropped her off with Gamora, he was still thinking about their conversation, about the things she described.

He might have played it off, but he remembered everything about touching the stone. Everything.

None of it was good.

Now, finally, after all his hard work, the pieces were done. The ship looked good, but he wouldn’t know how good until they got the energy going. Stupid frickin’ pearls. Next time he got up there, he was buying a buttload of them and hoarding them, damnit.

So now, it was his least favourite thing to do in life: wait. Specifically for Doctor Strange and that Wanda chick to come and help out.

When it came to impending doom, Wanda was not feeling so great herself - she was glad that she’d been able to go to the astral plane with Dr. Strange and connect with the mind stone, to absorb knowledge that would help them. But that did not stop the anxiety, the way her nerves felt frayed to the quick and how they were jumping together in all different directions.

She constructed scenarios, assuring herself that everything would be alright - but nagging voices in the back of her skull said otherwise.

Well. If she could assist someone with fixing their ship - much more than that, it was obviously a vessel very important to its owner - she would do so. “Mr. Quill?” Her accent curled around the words she spoke as she entered his workspace. Stephen was with her, of course - she wouldn’t attempt to exert great amounts of power and energy without someone she trusted, a mentor, present.

“I’m Wanda. I’ve come to help you fix your ship.” She twisted one of her silver rings on her finger, around and around (her dark nail polish was chipped too, she needed a manicure), taking in her surroundings. Interesting indeed.

“Finally!,” Peter exclaimed, looking more annoyed than grateful. “This is the last thing, and we can test this baby out, get her back up in the stars where she belongs, not grounded here like this.” And then, as if he suddenly remembered his manners, he wiped a grease-covered hand on his pants and stuck out his hand. “Right. I’m Mr. Quill -- er Peter. Peter. Please don’t call me Mr. Quill. I’ve literally never heard that before and I don’t wanna start. Makes me sound old and important, and I’m definitely not old.” He gave a sideways grin and looked around.

That Strange guy was ...strange, and Peter always felt oddly uncomfortable around him. Keeping an eye on him, Peter motioned towards Wanda. “Follow me, I’ll show you where the pearls are.” In case this didn’t work, Peter didn’t want to everything to be short-circuited again, so he’d decided to take them all out, and put them on the table in the eating quarters. There, Wanda would see about 5 small pearls, grey in colour, and light to the touch. “Can you fix this?”

Wanda shook Peter’s hand (after glancing at Stephen in a is he serious? sort of way), and she was classy enough to be discreet when she wiped off any residual grease on her black skirt - right, she’d definitely be washing that later. “Peter, then,” she nodded, following him to where he had the energy pearls all spread out.

What she did was really not so different than the Masters of the Mystic Arts, what Strange himself did - it was pulling energies from other dimensions in a precise, organized, and purposeful fashion. Whatever the cosmic rays from the scepter, the mind stone, did to her it unlocked the potential for mystic mastery within her as well - only thing was, Wanda never had any training in the past but she was fixing that now. She was becoming more focused and controlled thanks to his tutelage. So she was confident she could do this.

“Yes, I can fix it. You need all of these pearls charged, to power the ship?” she asked, just to be sure. She picked one up and studied it, the composition and construction - the last thing she wanted to do was overload the pearl and end up destroying it, but though it was light it seemed as if it could hold a lot of input.

“Yup,” he said with a click of his tongue. “Pretty much. I mean, well, Okay, I just need one or two? But I’m not taking any chances since I don’t know really what’s out there.” He motioned upwards, referring to space. If he was completely honest with himself, the idea of going out there where Thanos could still be waiting … terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

And not just because he was technically Peter’s father-in-law.

Watching Wanda, Peter had to ask. “So like …. You have magic or something? I don’t even know what you’re going to do here, and it’s a little freaky. Usually, you gotta get these babies from the source, and I’m telling you -- if I do get up there? I’m upgrading this ship and going straight with Millorian crystals. Those babies last for centuries.” Well. Decades, at least.

“Magic, yes. I suppose you could say this,” Wanda replied, and she attempted to think of a way to explain her particular skill set. "My country was being ripped apart by political unrest so my brother and I volunteered to be experimented on in a program run by HYDRA, to see if exposure to their relic - it was the mind stone, embedded in a scepter - would give us powers we could use to fight for our country. We were lucky. The experiments did not kill us. Others, they were not so fortunate..." she trailed off.

She remembered. The aneurysms suffered by others and the afflictions like severe coronaries, the way 'experiments' would stop breathing and that would be the end of it. Of course, some doctors said Wanda should have been among the first to go - she was small, somewhat scrawny. But she'd survived. Probably due to her hostility - she was too mad to die like everyone else.

But she didn't really want to talk about - those memories, they weren't what she shared with just anyone. She couldn't even remember her other self sharing them with Vision, and she'd been closer to him than the others. So she wouldn't talk about it now either.

“Anyway, I can project energy - in many forms. I will do that now and it will charge these pearls.”

Feeling comforted by Stephen near her, she hovered her fingertips over the pearls - soft, red tendrils enveloped them, her eyes beginning to glow the same shade of crimson. It was nearly a mist that spun through the air like silk until it gained traction, twisting and turning. The pearls glowed as well, they lifted up and spun into the air as her eyes glowed deeper red and she began to charge them with even more energy.

Peter couldn’t help but take a step back as he watched Wanda do her thing. “This is wild,” he said in awe under his breath. The closest he’d really come to magic was when Ego had let him create a ball out of the light. He still remembers the raw power and how it felt to bend it to his will, to feel like he was the only one in the world -- no the UNIVERSE -- who could do this.

It was intoxicating. And he was so glad he didn’t have that power anymore.

The pearls turned a deep red, something that he hadn’t really expected. Although let’s be real -- he had no idea what he expected.

“So it’s just going to work now?,” he asked, watching Wanda at work.

Wanda didn’t respond at first. She was concentrating too hard on what she was doing, connected with the energy and ensuring it didn’t overload the pearls. Her brow was furrowed, her look determined - she was stubborn, really, and once she set her mind to something she didn’t let up until the task was done.

The pearls, now charged, continued to levitate - she held out the palm of her hand, and they hovered there as her eyes maintained that eerie scarlet glow. She felt a little woozy but pushed it aside for now.

“They should,” she said. “Try them and see.”

Peter hesitantly took the pearls, still not sure if the red colour was right...but hey, what else did he have to lose? He put aside some of the extras, and worked on hooking the bridge back up. A few moments later, he had the wires set up, and he gave her a grin. “Well, moment of truth, hey?” Pushing a button he stood back, arms crossed as his eyes flitted across the screen.

His grin widened and he gave out a hoot of happiness. “Oh yeah!” He pumped a fist in the air. Everything was loading up, and it looked right. Pushing buttons, he kept nodding his head before he turned back to Wanda. “I’d hug you but I think you’d kill me,” he said happily. “I think it works! It looks like it works anyways. I have all the systems back up, looks like the AI is going the way it’s supposed to and most important -- I got jump capability!! My FTL isn’t USELESS anymore.”

"That's good." Stephen said, from where he stood off to one side as though separated from everyone else, even if he was in a crowd of people. The burden of knowing too much was still weighing heavily on his shoulders, as was the fact that he felt that oppressive sense of time running out.

He wasn't a timid person, and he wasn't about niceties either. It allowed him to get straight to the point, after he gave Wanda a glance to make sure she was doing ok.

"You and your crew need to get into space," he told Peter. "As soon as possible. See if you can track down any leads on the missing Infinity Stones."

Wanda blinked owlishly at Peter’s enthusiasm, but the smallest of smiles flitted across her face - since she couldn’t help it, she was kind of darkly amused at the notion she’d kill him for a hug. “I am glad they’re working as they’re supposed to,” she said, then went to go stand by Stephen while the space explorer tinkered more with his controls.

She too understood the necessity of obtaining the missing infinity stones - the tidbit of knowledge she’d received as a result of her connection to the mind stone, it was very important. “We must find them first,” she chimed in. “Before Thanos does.”

At least they knew where the mind stone was even if others were still a mystery. But as usual, she was concerned for Vision’s safety.

“Hold on there, weirdo,” Peter said, his hand in the stop position. “My crew and I are a business. We don’t work for free and we don’t take orders from you. On this ship, I’m the captain.” Once the words slipped out, he felt slightly bad, considering Wanda had just recharged his ship. Potentially.

“Look, let me do a quick cruise or something, see if this baby is running the way she’s supposed to be, and maybe I’ll come back and take you into space, how’s that sound? Might be in a few weeks though, considering there’s no starmaps or jump points in the Milky Way.” He paused and thought for a moment. “Maybe one by Neptune..not sure though. It’d be long abandoned, I mean, the one Mars is definitely abandoned…”

"Wanda's right. We don't have a few weeks," Stephen said, sounding as though he wasn't even interested in the prospect of going into outer space. He was standing by Wanda's side, like a tower of dry sarcastic willpower and wisdom that was not to be question. "The stones need to be claimed and have the will of an individual imposed on them. So they won't bend with ease to Thanos' will, Captain, should he ever claim them. So the faster you can find one of these jump points and get your crew together? The better."

Time was running out. He could feel it. He knew Wanda could feel it. Anyone touched by a stone would, for that matter.

A few weeks? Wanda lifted one slender brow, as if hardly daring to believe someone could be so cavalier when mass genocide was right on the horizon. “Do not call him a ‘weirdo,’” she warned - and on her end, she was used to being called much worse besides weird. Freak. Monster. Weapon of mass destruction. One of those, or all of the above. But she didn’t like it when others insulted those she felt close to.

“Thanos will claim the stones here - or he will try to,” she added. “Trust me, you do not want that to happen. I have no interest in going to space, Captain. I only have interest in ensuring half the universe does not literally disappear.”

She faced Stephen, glancing up with cornflower eyes. “We need a backup plan.” If Peter wouldn’t go to space, they’d find another way to track the missing stones - she was not about to put all her eggs in such a flimsy basket.

"I'm going to consult someone, who is very powerful," Stephen told her under his breath, watching what Peter was doing for a long moment. He looked down and there was the hint of a smirk pulling at one corner of his mouth. The sort of smirk that made it known he had something tucked up his magician's sleeves, but what it was wouldn't be revealed just yet. "They may not answer the way we intend, but I think they've got potential for some very powerful insights."

He was hopeful that one last piece of information could be obtained, as well as the stones being found before it was too late. The person that Stephen had in mind hadn't accumulated a bevy of powerful titles, without having the power to back it up.

Wanda trusted Stephen, though she had to admit that the ‘they may not answer the way we intend’ gave her pause. No matter. She would see to it that they did acquire all of the infinity stones, before it was too late. “I am coming with you,” she insisted. “To talk to this person.”

It wasn’t a question - she wasn’t inquiring whether she could join or not. When it came to the mind stone, at least, she would have the most insight - it was the one most relevant to her. For her own sake and, more importantly, for Vision’s sake - she wanted to be involved in any discussions involving the stone. Vision had been nothing but kind to her ever since she’d known him and maybe in this universe they were not together the way they had been a reality away, but she couldn’t bear to experience his pointless death again. Just dreaming of it, of watching him get torn apart just so some megalomaniac could take what he wanted, had been painful enough.

She turned her gaze toward Peter. “We are finished here, then?” Not like she would stand around convincing him to take a space trip, or forcing him to even if she could - it was a decision he’d need to come to on his own.

Peter was processing everything they were saying to him. Part of him knew -- had always known -- that this was an emergency but he didn’t want to accept it. Peter was excellent at ignoring anything that wasn't important to him, or that he didn’t want to know about.

Sighing, he brought a hand up to his hair and scruffed it up, leaving it sticking in various points. “Yeah, I guess we’re done…..fuck, this is going to be a nightmare isn’t it?” Green eyes looked straight at Strange. “Things are going to happen the way before aren’t they?” He clenched his fist and shook his head. “I can’t do that … I can’t go through that again. Fuck!!!!” Turning suddenly, he punched the wall so hard that the skin broke, blood slowly welling on his hands. “FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!” Each word was punctuated with another punch, until he couldn’t think anymore.

Stalking out of the room, he intended on letting Wanda and Strange to see themselves out before turning around and pointing a finger at them. “I’m not going to let her die again. I’m not. You’ve got my help. My crew too. That fucking purple BASTARD is going down. I’ll talk to some people, see if they can help me figure out the jumps, but I’ve got this. I know those stars better than ANYONE ELSE and I WILL figure this shit out.”

"Afraid I'm going to have to talk to this individual on my own," Stephen mumbled in response to Wanda, as it wasn't just a question he would be asking but also a test. It would be an all too brief encounter, he imagined, and he meant to be in and out, as there were spells to look up and more astral plane ventures to take, as well as gauging other dimensions of reality for any leads on the stones.

Of course, all of that discourse was shattered when Peter Quill decided to drop some F bombs, the likes of which Stephen had only heard come out of Stark's mouth after he was informed about the universe being broken. And the harsh reality of this moment was that there was nothing to say that could console Peter Quill. Because what was said just might be true.

"...so. I take it he'll be going after the stones," Strange said aloud, his voice and expression comprised entirely of dry sarcasm. He raised his voice up just enough that Quill might hear him, "We're going to go now. You might want to ice that for ten minutes every hour until the swelling goes down." There was an awkward pause. "Good luck."

Wanda pursed her lips until they disappeared into a white line, as if she was biting back a retort after being told she couldn’t attend a discussion about the infinity stones - one of which she was intricately connected to. She was getting irritated, and she willed herself to calm down - breaking something in a telekinetic rage was rude; Peter could punch his things all he wanted, but she would refrain.

“No one will die,” she insisted - for Peter’s benefit, for her own. If she said it with enough conviction, it will come true. “We can do this.” Her heart twisted a little for him too - so his reluctance was not because he was holding out to be paid or something. It was because he was trying to protect someone he loved.

She could understand this sentiment. “Fine then, let’s go,” she spoke to Stephen, turning and making her way toward fresh air. It was something she sorely needed, after all that.

Peter barely noticed they left, now that the stinging in his hands was starting to make itself known. Walking up to his captain’s chair, he flopped down hard, ignoring Strange’s advice to ice his hands. Flexing his fingers, the pain intensified but that was okay. A few buttons later, and “Words” by The BeeGees started streaming through the ship. It would be okay, he told himself. It would be completely okay. Gamora didn’t have to die. He didn’t have to let Thanos live. It would all work out.

In that, he was similar to Wanda: maybe if he said it enough, it would come true.

Too bad the tears on his face said otherwise.