"You lose, Banner! Haha!" Scott Lang cheered, pumping a fist in the air. Bruce took his defeat in stride.
"Alright, alright! I accept my loss," Banner shrugged with a good-natured smile.
"I told you," Tony said with a smug grin. "He's a scoundrel, but he's not an idiot. There was never any chance he'd actually hand the Orb over to Gamora."
[Inside the Milano, Rocket was getting impatient. Forty billion units were no good to them if they were dead.]
["If we don't leave now, we're gonna be blown to pieces!"]
[But Gamora refused to abandon her only chance to strike back at Thanos, and she rejected his plea decisively.]
["No! We are not leaving without the Orb!"]
[Just then, Drax, who was sitting nearby, spotted a figure flying toward them. It was Star-Lord, propelled by the thrusters on his boots.]
[The hatch hissed open, and Gamora and Drax hauled Star-Lord inside.]
[Drax exclaimed, "You are very brave! A worthy ally to face Ronan! My friend, what great prize did you risk your life to retrieve?"]
[Star-Lord unzipped his jacket, pulled a battered Walkman from his pocket, and held it up.]
[Looking at the device, Drax's expectant expression froze. After a few seconds, he declared, "You are an imbecile."]
[With Star-Lord safely aboard, Rocket piloted the Milano away from the Kyln Prison, blasting toward deep space.]
[After switching to autopilot, Rocket began humming a little tune while tinkering, assembling something from various parts he'd scavenged from the ship.]
["Whoa! Hey! What are you doing, you walking carpet? You can't just tear my ship apart! What the hell is this?"]
[Star-Lord reached out to pick up one of the components.]
[Rocket slapped his hand away. "Don't touch that! It's a bomb!"]
[Star-Lord looked at him, incredulous.]
["You're just leaving a bomb sitting here?"]
[Rocket spread his hands nonchalantly. "So find a box for it."]
["I'm not putting a bomb in a box!"]
["How about this one?" Rocket asked, casually opening a nearby storage locker.]
[He pulled out a beautifully wrapped gift box. It was the last present Star-Lord's mother, Meredith, had given him before she died. He had never dared to open it.]
[The sight of Rocket holding his mother's gift made Star-Lord's blood run cold.]
["No! Whoa! Hey! Don't touch that!" he yelled, kicking the locker door shut.]
["Why? What is it?" Rocket asked, startled by his violent reaction.]
"It's a cultural misunderstanding," Andrew's Peter chuckled. "Clearly, Quill is going to have to work on his cultural outreach program if he wants his new friends to appreciate his stuff."
The mood in the room shifted, however, as the scene lingered on the gift box.
"I don't think they'd understand even if he explained," Captain George Stacy said quietly, taking a sip of his coffee. "He didn't just put his mother's last gift in a random cabinet. He hid it."
Gwen looked from her father to the screen, her expression soft with understanding. "He's running from it," she realized. "You're right. He couldn't bring himself to take his mother's hand in her final moments. I… I guess he's afraid to open the gift. Afraid of what it will make him feel."
["Just shut up, okay?"]
["Hey, fine," Rocket grumbled, turning back to his project.]
[Star-Lord pointed at the device on the floor. "So what is that thing?"]
[Rocket puffed out his chest with pride. "This thing is very important! Unless you have no interest in blowing up moons!"]
[Gamora looked unconvinced. "No one can blow up a moon."]
[Rocket threw his hands up in exasperation. "You people have no sense of humor!"]
[Star-Lord ignored him and walked over to the ship's console.]
["So! I need you to give me the buyer's coordinates. Now."]
[Gamora held up the Orb. "We're headed in the right direction. Don't worry."]
[Star-Lord turned and faced her.]
["We agreed to cooperate! How about showing some good faith?"]
[Gamora shot back, "Have you shown any to me?"]
[Star-Lord took the Orb from her hand. "My good faith is off the charts, but that's conditional on you telling me what this thing is."]
[Star-Lord still couldn't wrap his head around it. Why would someone pay forty billion units for this thing? Forty billion! He couldn't earn that in a hundred lifetimes!]
["I have to know what kind of weapon I'm holding," he said, placing the Orb on a table and studying it.]
[Gamora shook her head.]
["I don't know what it is."]
[Drax picked it up and began examining it.]
["If it is a weapon, then we should use it to kill Ronan."]
[Gamora glared at him. "Put it down, you idiot! You'll get us all killed!"]
[Drax yelled back, "You only fear that I will be the one to kill him!"]
[Gamora sneered, "Stop being such a whiny princess!"]
[Drax, completely missing her sarcasm, replied earnestly, "I am not a princess."]
[Seeing the two of them squaring up, Star-Lord shouted, "Hey! Don't even think about starting something on my ship!"]
["We're partners until we get paid!"]
[Drax casually tossed the Orb back to Star-Lord.]
["I have no interest in your monetary schemes." With that, he turned and left.]
["Great!" Star-Lord muttered. One less person to split the money with.]
[He looked at Gamora and Rocket. "Looks like it's just the three of us. More money for us!"]
[Groot raised his hand, and Star-Lord sighed. "Right. The four of us. What a team."]
["We just reached a consensus," Gamora said coolly. "But I have no interest in being your partner. I will provide the buyer with the Orb myself."]
[She walked past him, adding over her shoulder, "And Quill? Your ship stinks."]
[Star-Lord watched her leave, then scoffed. "Ugh, so uncivilized! If you just turned on the blacklight, you'd see it's like a Jackson Pollock painting in here."]
[Rocket shook his head. "You're an idiot, Quill."]
Tony Stark watched the exchange, a thoughtful expression on his face. He made a silent command. "JARVIS, update the file on the Guardians. Add a tag for Rocket: 'Demolitions Expert.'"
He mostly assumed the raccoon was bluffing about being able to blow up the moon. But… what if he wasn't? Who knew what kind of "black technology," as the System called it, these aliens had access to? His brief contact with Asgard had been a massive wake-up call. Their science, which they often disguised as magic, was centuries, if not millennia, ahead of Earth's.
It was their culture that held them back. The Asgardians possessed technology that could level continents, yet they still preferred to solve most of their problems with swords and hammers. This cultural quirk, Tony surmised, was one of the main reasons a wise old king like Odin would even bother establishing a connection with a backwater planet like Earth. He knew his kingdom's reliance on tradition over technology was a glaring weakness. In a galaxy full of creatures who could build moon-destroying bombs out of spare parts on a stinky spaceship, Asgard's combat effectiveness was dangerously outdated. Odin and Thor were powerful, but they couldn't be everywhere at once. One day, an enemy would arrive that they couldn't simply punch their way through, and on that day, they would need allies who thought differently. Allies who knew how to build a better bomb.