Heroes

A Thing Isn't Beautiful Because It Lasts

Tony, Strange, and Peter followed their new found frenemies out of the remains of the ship onto the planet. It was weird, it was like there was gravity but there wasn't at the same time. Quill pulled out a glowing yellow device and held it out in front of him, Tony knew that he was feeling the effects of the planet too.

"The hell happened to this planet?" Quill asked out loud. "It's eight degrees off its axis." Quill informed the others, somehow reading it. "Gravitational pull is all over the place." He said walking around.

"Yeah, we got one advantage." Tony ignored the woman, Mantis, who was jumping up and down behind him. "He's coming to us. We'll use it. All right, I have a plan." He turned to Peter before turning back to Quill. "Or at least the beginnings of one. It's pretty simple. We draw him in, pin him down, get what we need. Definitely don't wanna dance with this guy. We just want the gauntlet."

Behind him the other man yawned, and Tony immediately got annoyed.

"Are you yawning?" Tony asked in disbelief and Mantis watched Drax as he yawned. "In the middle of this, while I'm breaking it down? Huh? Did you hear what I said?"

"I stopped listening after you said, 'We need a plan'." Drax said honestly.

"Okay," Tony turned back to Quill. "Mr. Clean is on his own page."

"See, 'not winging it' isn't really what they do." Peter said arrogantly.

"Uh," Peter raised his hand and pointed over at Mantis and Drax. "what exactly is it that they do?"

"Kick names, take ass." Mantis said as innocent as a five year old.

"Yeah, that's right." Drax rested his hands against the waist line of his pants as he agreed with Mantis.

Tony stared at them for a minute and Peter looked at him. God, he would take hanging out with Steve at a history museum over this any day. He sighed and then began to speak again.

"All right, just get over here, please." Tony tried to stay calm. "Mr. Lord, can you get your folks to circle up?" Tony said and only those closest to him knew he was mocking Quill.

"'Mr. Lord'." Peter mused, not catching the fact that Tony was mocking him. "Star-Lord is fine."

He nodded at Drax and Mantis and the two came over.

"We gotta coalesce." Tony told them. "'Cause if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude..."

"Dude," Quill cut him off. "don't call us plucky. We don't know what it means. All right, we're optimistic, yes. I like your plan." Peter told him. "Except it sucks, so let me do the plan and that way it might be really good."

"Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe." Drax suggested.

"What dance-off?" Tony asked, his patience running extremely thin...and he had twin one-year olds.

"It's not a...it's not...it's nothing." Quill stammered.

"Like in Footloose, the movie." Peter asked.

"Exactly like Footloose." Quill responded, excitedly. "Is it still the greatest movie in history?"

"It never was." Peter told him and Quill squinted his eyes, sadly, at Peter.

"Don't encourage this, all right?" Tony reprimanded Peter.

"Okay." Peter obeyed.

"We're getting no help from Flash Gordon here." Tony told the kid.

"Flash Gordon?" Quill asked. "By the way, that's a compliment." Tony turned to look at the very irritating man. "Don't forget, I'm half human. So that 50% of me that's stupid..." He pointed at Tony and Peter. "that's 100% you."