• Stars Align •||• Peter Quill X Female Reader •

Chapter 14 - Guardians of the Galaxy

The dirty ground is the first thing I see when I open my eyes. The next thing I see is when I pick my head up to find a huge crowd of Xandarians circling around us.
The first thing I hear as my sense of hearing slowly returns is... music.

I shakily sit myself up. I groan, my whole body aching as it tries to heal itself as fast as it can. I place my hand on my cheek. Blood covers my fingers. "Ouch..." I grunt as I wipe my hand on my leather pants. I look around me. More Xandarians approach us as all of us come to.
Drax is lying down on the ground next to the severed cassette player of the Milano, his hand twitching. Gamora is on all fours, trying to pick herself up. Rocket... is on his knees, tears flowing out of his eyes as he grasps the remains of Groot. Peter is on the ground next to me, groaning in pain.

I crawl over to him and place my hand on his face. "Peter? Hey. Peter, are you okay?" I ask him as I bring my hands to the wounds on his face. They quickly begin to close up, responding to my magic touch. He blinks a few times and places his hand on mine. "Better, now," he mumbles with a smile.

I hear the rubble behind us move. And my heart sinks. The people of Xandar cower in fear at what is lurking behind us.
Ronan The Accuser approaches, somehow unscathed by both a ship flying into him and being inside of his own crashing ship. The Infinity Stone glows a radiant purple, chilling me to my core. Peter's hold on my hand grows tighter.

Rocket whirls his head around to face Ronan. "You killed Groot!" he growls. He screams and charges toward Ronan in anger but is easily blown away by Ronan's staff.
"Behold!" Ronan announces. "Your guardians of the galaxy! What fruit have they wrought? Only that my father and his father shall finally know vengeance."

"By murdering an entire race?!" I cry out, tears filling my eyes. My hands shake with anger. He ignores me, continuing his horrible monologue. "People of Xandar, the time has come to rejoice and renounce your paltry gods! Your salvation is at hand!"

I let my head hang down in defeat. Peter lets go of my hand after giving it a brief kiss. He turns to his side and begins to pick himself up. "What are you doing?" I quietly ask him as Ronan raises his staff. He holds his hand up, signaling me to wait. He quickly gets on his feet, giving me a reassuring look.

Ronan shouts out in Kree just when he's about to bring the staff down on the land.

"Ooh, child, things are gonna get easier! Ooh, child, things will get brighter!"

Everyone stops what they're doing as Peter stands in front of the Accuser, singing along to the music playing in the background. The Infinity Stone even stops glowing as Ronan stares at Peter in pure confusion.
"Listen to these words," he says to Ronan before continuing to sing. "Ooh, child, things are gonna get easier. Ooh, child, things will get brighter... Now bring it down hard!" He then begins to aggressively dance to the music while he whisper-yells the lyrics to Ronan.

"What are you doing?" Ronan asks him. This will have to be the one and only time I'll ever agree with Ronan The Accuser. Peter keeps moving his body, staring down at Ronan. "Dance-off, bro. Me and you." I glance behind Ronan and see Rocket messing around with the broken Hadron Enforcer as Drax holds it in his strong arms.

Ah! Now I know why Peter is dancing in front of a murderous Kree guy who was just about to blow up the planet! Peter turns to me, holding his hand out. "Y/N," he encourages.
I nod my head and take his hand, standing up with him. "Us against you. Come on! We dare you to go against the legendary Y/N L/N and Star-Lord." I taunt Ronan as I join Peter in distracting him by dancing.

The two of us dance hand-in-hand until Peter dips me, and Ronan repeats, "What are you DOING?!" Peter brings me back up and spins me. Then we separate, doing our own crazy dance moves. "We're distracting you, you big turd blossom," he grins.

Ronan finally has some sense and looks behind him just as Rocket brings two wires together. The Enforcer shoots Ronan's staff, breaking it apart and exposing the purple Infinity Stone. Peter lunges right for it just as Ronan is about to reach it. I gasp, realizing what's going to happen. "NO! PETER-" I'm cut off by the energy blast as his hand comes into contact with the stone.

The space around him is filled with dark purple, sending violent sparks toward everything around him and blowing remarkable wind. I pick myself up and see Peter screaming out in pain, holding the deadly Infinity Stone in his hand.

He stands strong, staying in one piece in front of Ronan. My mind flashes back to what the Collector said. A group shared the power of the stone once. Maybe...
Without thinking any more about it, I bring my arm out toward Peter. "Peter!" I yell. "Take my hand!" He slowly turns his head to me as the skin on his face cracks. I come closer to him, reaching my hand out. "Take my hand, Peter!" He whispers something I can't hear. "Please! Take my hand!" He raises his hand up and grabs mine.

Pain shoots up my arm and to the rest of my body as if my insides were being fried. I scream out only for a moment until the pain quickly subsides. My whole body heats up, almost as if it were countering the damage of the Infinity Stone. I tighten my grip on Peter's hand. "I won't ever let you go," I say to him loud enough so he can hear.

Gamora approaches me to my right and holds her hand out to me. The moment her hand meets mine, she yells out in pain. I keep my grip tight, as does she. Drax comes toward Peter, fighting the wind. He places his hand on Peter's shoulder and shares the same painful power with us. Even Rocket, despite his size, manages to navigate through all of the clouds and explosions. He holds Drax's finger and joins us, also showing signs of pain.

The five of us stand in front of Ronan, sharing the power of the purple Infinity Stone. There are no signs of us dying. No signs of us letting go.
Ronan, confused, yells, "You're mortal! How?!" "You said it yourself, bitch," Peter retorts. "We're the Guardians of the Galaxy."

Peter opens his hand up, releasing all of the power the stone has built up. The energy hits Ronan at the center of his body. He's lifted up into the air, screaming as more of the energy of the stone attacks his body. In just a few seconds, his body explodes as if he were any normal person holding the stone.

Gamora takes out one of the containing devices she has on her and hands it to me. I bring the spherical container down onto the stone in Peter's hands, which takes in the stone as if it were any normal rock.
The purple energy cloud surrounding us fades away as does the heat in my body. All of us are exhausted, holding all of that power. Everyone displays visible injuries to their bodies.

I take a look at Peter. His hair is all over the place, and his face is bloody and slightly burned. We look at each other as we catch our breaths. We did it... We killed Ronan. For real, this time. And we didn't die.

"Well, well, well," Yondu's voice breaks the silence. "Quite the light show." He, along with the other Ravagers, approaches us. I close my eyes and sigh. He wants the stone. No matter what we say, there's no fighting him on this. He chuckles, looking at Peter and I. "Ain't this sweet. But you got some business to attend to before all the nookie-nookie starts." He comes closer to us, grinning greedily.

"Peter, you can't," Gamora pipes up. "She's right," I tell him. "You gotta reconsider this, Yondu," argues Peter. "I don't know who you're selling this to, but the only way the universe can survive is if you give it to the Nova Corps." "I may be pretty as an angel, but I sure as hell ain't one," Yondu states, showing us his arrow threateningly. "Hand it over, son."

Peter takes out the container and hesitantly places it in Yondu's hand. With a satisfied laugh, he signals the rest of the Ravagers to leave. As he turns around, Peter calls out to him. "Yondu." The blue man turns around to see what he has to say. "Do not open that Orb. You know that, right? You've seen what it does to people," Peter warns. Yondu gives a grin and points to him in affirmation.

And there he goes, Orb in hand. Peter and I's betrayal is forgiven... but at what cost? The five of us watch the Ravagers get inside the ship and begin to fly away. In the window, I see Yondu and Kraglin exchange a few words as they eye us like hawks. But they're too high up for me to see what they're saying. 

"He is gonna be so pissed when he realizes I switched out the Orb on him." Wait, what?! Peter pulls out another containing device, which apparently has the real Infinity Stone inside of it.

I let out a sigh of relief, as does Gamora. "He was gonna kill you both," she says. "Oh, I know," replies Peter, looking up at the sky. "But he was about the only family we had." Gamora puts a hand on my shoulder and another on Peter's. "No," she curtly tells us with a soft smile. "He wasn't."