Chapter Text
This is a bad idea. This is a really bad idea. Stealing from the Collector is already a terrible idea but doing it by yourself? Peter Quill is a dead man. Not only there are probably hundreds of security guards inside this place but there are so many creatures that could kill him in a single kick that he needs a good plan if he wants to make it out with his objective in hands.
He's not even sure if the item he's looking for is real but his gut tells him it is, his wallet tells him he NEEDS to find that thing right now and his trustworthy source, a bartender he met three times at most, tells him being here is the best decision he'll ever have in his entire life.
Having just got here through a vent, Peter had a plan. A concept of a plan. He had found a map of this place in a sketchy tent in Knowhere, not far from the bar he heard about the item. The plan was simple, enter through the zoo, walk to the treasure museum, go up to the third floor and if he followed the correct path, he should find what he's looking for, a paintbrush.
...Well. A paintbrush definitely didn't sound exciting in Peter's book but his source tells him it holds immense hidden power and many experts would be wanting to buy it for unfathomable amounts of credits. He just needs to trust his gut and do everything according to his plan. Then everything will be alright, he'll get the brush, go back to the Milano, his loyal ship, and get the hell out of that creepy place.
He's currently walking around the place trying to make sense of where he is. He didn't bring the map but if he stared at it for long enough, he should be at the Southwest part, heading to the northwest. The south section is covered entirely by the zoo, where the weirdest creatures of the cosmos lie around, encapsulated but still very alive, trying to get out at all costs. Honestly, this makes Peter kinda emotional since they're still living creatures but he isn't here to start a riot, the opposite, the less attention he can get, the better.
There's a surprisingly low amount of guards in the part with the deadliest creatures but he can only assume the place is at least being monitored, right? This has been easy, way too easy. He could've broken one of these enclosures and fly away to his objective with one of those gryphons, or make himself disappear to the eyes of others with one of those mind-controlling creatures from Helion-7, or even grab some extra protection from that Flora Colossus in the corner. There's no apparent risk from the guards or the creatures but one specifically catches his attention. He makes his way towards an enclosure that has "Canis Lupis - Earth" written on the bottom with tiny letters.
He crouches in front of the dog for a few seconds, it looks so innocent, what the hell would the Collector want with this little guy? Well, every creature looks innocent when sleeping but this guy looks extra cute. He's a Golden Retriever if Peter remembers his stuff correctly, probably an adult, with a funny-looking white suit, the kind a human astrounaut would use. Since he doesn't want to disturb the dog's sleep, neither get caught freeing a creature that'll add nothing to his plan, he decides to step away from the enclosure even though he's sure the memory of it will linger for a while.
He keeps walking through the endless hallway with many enclosures keeping all kinds of species in place, some peacefully sleeping, some wanting his skull for dinner. Thank God these are soundproof. He'd been thinking about the dog for a bit, those tiny, innocent closed eyes, the strawberry blonde fur that matched Peter's hair, the tiny bits of dog food scattered in the corner.
He was getting closer to the other section of the museum when he realized he was walking directly to where a security guard was on duty. He immediately made his way to hide behind an enclosure, crouching and peeking quickly at the guard. He needed to get his mind on the right track again. He wasn't here for a pet, he was here for an item, a valuable item, which he needs to get in order to survive in this capitalistic cosmos.
Peter's hands run through his jacket, looking for something useful to help distract the guard. There's a few packs of gum, a gravity mine, a fake-ID that he used with a low-level employee from the Nova Corps, a ...whoa, okay, he's not using that right now, he thinks.
He quickly realizes he has nothing useful to his current situation. He needs a distraction and he needs it now. After trying to think of something for what felt like an hour but probably was less than a minute, he looked back to see what was being held in the enclosure he had hid behind. It's a tiny dinosaur. Like, literally. It's not a baby dinosaur, it looks like a grown up Red T-Rex but... tiny. Ignoring the fact this is weird, this is literally the best idea of a distraction he can get, breaking the enclosure and letting the little beast roam around the place, maybe destroying stuff and causing chaos.
He puts his hand in the trigger of his signature pistol, moving the barrel to touch the glass and after DEFINITELY not thinking too hard about it, he takes the shot. The glass in that part gets shattered, a few shards falling on the poor dinosaur but his hard scales make it so he doesn't get hurt at all. After he starts running to the other hallway to hide again, an alarm starts to sound and all the lights are now switching quickly from red to pitch black continuously. The guards around the section quickly move to inspect and try to detain the tiny T-Rex who is now running around in the hallway, not particularly causing any destruction but certainly causing chaos to the guards wanting to catch it. Peter watches this with an amused smirk and decides it's time to move, since he won't have another opportunity like that.
Oh, the treasure section. The section that occupates the entirety of the north area of the museum. After setting foot in there, the air feels lighter for him just knowing that there are no creatures wanting to crush the bones in his body and leave out the flesh for dessert. This place feels a lot, in lack of a better word, richer, in all ways. Every item looks expensive and most definitely is, given the Collector's reputation of only grabbing top tier treasures to put on display. After thinking this is just the first floor of three, Peter feels sick just thinking of how much money this guy actually has. The thought of just grabbing one of this items and being set for life while he has hundreds or thousands laying around is horrible but that's life, ain't it?
Not that he was feeling guilty about stealing before thinking about it, but he feels ten times better now that he's stealing from a guy that has everything, that likely won't even realize what he took was missing on the first place. That was definitely a confidence boost Peter needed at that time, after the thought of this brush being worth 2 credits at max lingered on his mind for longer than he'd ike to admit. Just the thought of this being one of the easiest heists he's ever had in his life was enough to get him moving towards the stairs and soon enough, he was on the second floor.
The second floor was exactly like the first, nothing special about it, not too many guards around given the immensity of the place, still dozens of valuable items taunting him to just take them and make a run. But after finding out there's an alarm for every enclosure, or he thought there was at least, he decided against it. He couldn't use the same trick twice, especially now that the guards are on high alert.
He could only hope the guards were scattered more around the zoo section rather than the treasure section but still, he couldn't let his guard down. He was already seeing the stairwell to the third floor in the distance, then, it was game over. This is the only step of the plan he memorized, after getting up to the third floor, he'd turn right on the second opening and left again on the first opening. Then, it'd be there, his valuable and treasured... brush... yeah, he's trying not to think about it that much.
Well, that was the right time to snap back to reality as he realized there were two guards standing on each corner of the stairwell, probably talking to eachother.
At this point, it's the final stretch. He could actively fight the guards, give himself an adrenaline boost and get the sheer pressure of needing to grab the brush in time and go back to the Milano. That was a really good deal for someone who lives life like Peter Quill but after thinking about it for more than two seconds, it would be better to not make the Collector an enemy of his. So back to planning, there's the pack of gum, the gravity mine, the fake-ID, the item that doesn't need to be mentioned...
To put it simple, he's lost. He has no way of going through those guards or distracting them again. He could use the pack of gum to make a giant bubble and restrain the guards, or use the gravity mine to pin them to the ground, grabbing way too much attention, use the fake-ID to pretend he's a guard after stealing another one's uniform...
Wait, that's not even a bad idea, why the hell did he discard that. He can definitely pull that off, right?
And so he goes, back to the zoo section where he knew there would be a guard. A few actually but hey, whatever, he wasn't expecting this to be easy by any means. His legs are definitely starting to hurt from walking up and down around this place but in no time, he's back at the south section where most of the guards would likely be after his tiny distraction. After moving along the shadows, he notices a lonely guard in the distance.
This guy is also armed head to toe, like every other guard in this place so nothing's new. He doesn't want to make any noise so he carefully walks towards the guard and sticks a gravity mine on his back, the guy falling to the ground without making a single sound, getting scared. When on the ground, Peter uses a hand to cover his mouth before he could call for help and the other to punch him in the chin, knocking him out. Phew. That was easier then he thought. He carefully unpinned the mine from the guy's back and dragged his body closer to the north section.
When he figured they were already in a safer spot, he awkwardly took the guy's clothes off and changed his own. It's a little embarrassing to leave an unconscious guy laying on the floor on his underwear but Peter's gotta put himself first. He put on the fancy black pants, the extremely fancy turtleneck dark blue shirt that looked absolutely ridiculous on him and the black beret. He proceeded to grab his stuff from the jacket laying on the ground to put on the pants' pockets and took his leave. Thankfully, nothing really stood out on his outfit so with that, he was ready to grab his precious paintbrush.
After walking towards the guards once again, Peter felt pride of himself, knowing his whole plan was a success.
"G'night, guys." — Peter muttered to the guards, already taking a step up the stairs.
"Hold on a second, man." — One of the guards put a hand on his chest to prevent him from taking another step. — "Don't think I've seen you before. You new 'round here, kid?"
"Uh! Yeah, yeah, I'm new! I started last week, I was told to be roaming around after that alarm on the southwest section. Sounds like a dinosaur broke free from his cage." — Peter could only hope that excuse was good enough.
"Sure, sure. Can I see your ID, new guy?"
"Oh, yeah, for sure!" — Peter grabs the Fake-ID from his pocket, dropping the pack of gum on the floor. After handing over the ID, he crouched to grab it again, his pistols making noises from the movement and grabbing the guards attention.
The guy stared back and forth at the pistols, the ID on his hand and Peter's face. Well, Mike, actually. Mike Miller. — "So, Mike. These bad boys over there, huh? What do they do?" — The guard nodded towards the guns in Peter's belt.
"Ah, well, I don't even know. Boss handed me these without explaining what they do and thankfully I haven't had a chance to test them yet." — He lets out a chuckle, trying to light up the mood. He just wants to get out of there already, why is this guy asking so many questions?? — "Can I go now?"
The guard let out a grunt and handed back the ID, to which Peter quickly, almost way too quickly, put back in his pocket. — "Y'know, we can't have you walking around with weapons you don't even know how to use. But yeah, go on, I'll talk to the boss later. If you see something, be careful."
"Yeah, for sure. Thank you!" — Peter lowered his cap with one hand and kept a firm grip on his pistol with the other to transmit confidence. With a huge smirk on his face, he left. It worked, the guard just went back to his place and let Peter go. About damn time. He didn't waste a single minute, already walking up the stairs, back to his objective.
He almost couldn't believe it. He could already see his oh so precious paintbrush at the end of the hallway. He couldn't believe it was actually real. He'd done everything correctly up to this point, turned right on the second opening, right after the crown of the last imperator of the Shi'ar empire, and left again on the first opening, right after a failed prototype of a golden, already rusty, gauntlet.
He approached the room carefully, as if the thing would crumble if he got too close. It looked like a regular paintbrush except for the fact it was like two times bigger five times larger. The colors were a bit unusual too, purple and red weren't really good colors for a brush but he didn't come all this way to judge the item's appearance. He wasn't even sure what he could do now. Would there be traps? Would there be guards? Another alarm? He needed to be ready for anything. He grabbed a piece of gum from his pocket and stretched it enough for it to be useful and threw inside the room. No lazers, no alarms, no anything.
He took a single step inside, still being cautious. The paintbrush was just ahead of him, he could take another step and take it for himself. And that's exactly what he did. After preparing himself for to make a run outside. He mentally traced his way out, needing to remind himself to grab his clothes, mainly his deared jacket, on the way back and then back to the Milano. He wasn't even sure where he was going after that. He guessed Xandar had some pretty known merchants that'd be willing to buy this, hopefully.
So that's it, just gotta carefully grab it. His hand made it's way to the paintbrush, grabbing and pulling it. He finally had the item in his hands.
That was it. That's it, that's what this whole thing was for. He had succesfully stollen an artifact from the Collector, he just needs to go back to his ship and...
...
The doorway is closed.
...
Fuck.
He froze in place, he couldn't even think about a concept of a plan before he heard a gate opening on the roof.
"What the hell!?" — He made sure to exclaim as loud as possible as he saw a huge boulder, probably made of the hardest rock this lunatic could find, make his way down a ramp, in his direction. So that's why this place is so big for only three floors, the Collector is an Indiana Jones fan. He quickly made his way to the other corner of the room, as far from the doorway as possible.
The boulder hit the closed doorway, immediately crushing it and going on with it's path. After the smoke cleared and an alarm got set off, Peter realized that was his way out, he put the paintbrush on his belt and ran like his life depended on it. Because it did, to a certain point. Who knew what would happen if he went to jail. He ran, turning right on the second opening, past the rusty gauntlet and left on the first opening, past the last memory of the Shi'ar empire. When he made his turn, the two guards from before were standing right there, ready to shoot.
"Woah, woah, woah!! What the fuck!?" — Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK. — "You guys didn't hear that!? I was there by myself, this pesky thief threw a boulder at me and you two didn't do a single thing, really?! Did you two even hear it!?!" — He exclaimed, his pulse rushing at the situation. He'd have to rely on God himself to make them believe he's a legitimate guard a this point.
"Not this time, pal. Your luck ends right now, surrender or we won't hesitate to shoot." — The one guard who asked way too many questions before was now making his way towards him, the both of them with weapons pointed at his chest. But he was wrong about one thing. His luck was not ending now, not after he almost had a heart attack just to grab this stupid looking paintbrush.
When the guy got close enough to crouch and handcuff him, aiming his weapon at the floor, Peter elbowed him in the nose, making him drop to the ground, whining in pain. The other guard managed to graze a shot on Peter's arm before he grabbed his pistol with the healthy arm and shot straight at the other guy's chest. And then, again, he ran like his life depended on it. He made his way towards the other set of stairs, this time to the first floor, while he heard on the distance — "We got a runner, North section, hallway 2-H, making his way to hallway 2-K. Shoot on sight, shoot on sight!"
He barely heard everything before he was already throwing himself down the stairs again and heading towards his clothes, he could tell he did some damage to the guy's nose tho, his voice being audibly more nasal than before. When he got to the hallway where he left his clothes, he spotted a guard standing besides the man he knocked out, leaning against an enclosure, wrapped around his jacket. The guard was talking on a walkie-talkie, seconds away from spotting him. His jacket wasn't worth more than his life, barely. He had to abandon his dear black jacket that he spent so much to customize to have his name on the back. Fuck, this place sucks. Rest in piece, dear jacket, you will certainly be missed by him. He sets a goal on his mind to avenge it by taking this brush back home, to the Milano.
After getting out of his hiding spot, he kept running, trying to find the best opportunity to get in the South section again and when he spotted his best shot at doing this. There was another dinosaur. It was probably from the same species as the tiny one. He shot the enclosure while sharply turning left, past the big red T-Rex. He could only hear the roar from the creature and the alarm going off a third time before he could see the exit. The main entrance's doors were being closed at the distance, slowly, from top to bottom, like an actual movie. He knew that if he pulled this off, he'd be the luckiest motherfucker on the whole cosmos, also the coolest. He ran, and ran, and ran, the distance closing off but the door almost shut. He figured he'd have to slide himself down the door if he wanted to get out now and when he was getting closer...
The door closed. He has a serious problem with doorways.
He was so close. What the hell does he do now? He quickly looked around the place. That guard couldn't be right, his luck couldn't have possibly ran out now of all times. He was far away from the place he came in from and it was way too dangerous to go there again so no shot at going back through that vent.
He walked a big in the opposite direction from where he entered this place, heading towards the Southeast section. And with God on his side once again, he spotted another vent on the wall that could barely fit a single person and didn't think twice, he ran towards it, shooting the hatch and jumping to grab the edge of it. He almost fell, given his hurt arm but sure enough, he slid himself in there and crawled like there was no tomorrow. His legs were killing him but he couldn't think about that if he wanted to come out of this alive. The alarm sound was already giving him a headache, it was so loud on top of the bright red lights coming and going, he closed his eyes and kept crawling.
After a few seconds, he hit his head on the other end of the vent. That was just pathetic but anyways, there he was. He could barely see the Milano on the other side, he was getting out of here with his treasure. Honestly, he couldn't care if this thing was worth less than 10 credits, stealing from the Collector was definitely the biggest achievement in his whole life. He shot the hatch, slid himself out of that vent and started to run to his ship.
Everything felt like it was in slow motion. He felt the brush jumping up and down as he was frantically running, there were no guards on the outside, no alarm noise in his head, no nothing. Peter had succesfully stollen from the Collector and came back to tell the story.
He opened his ship, ran as fast as possible to the pilot's seat and he was out of there. The paintbrush that once belonged to the Collector was now his. His treasure, his succesful heist. He couldn't believe it. He succeeded in his mission. He was going to sell this thing and be rich, goddamnit he couldn't wait to hear people's reaction when he tells them he stole this from THE Collector.
Peter Quill succeeded, he could maintain his title of Star Lord, the Legendary Outlaw, once again. He kicked the Collector's ass that didn't even had a chance to attack back. He was the fucking best thief in this entire cosmos.
"What do you mean he got away!?" — Taneleer Tivan, the Collector, shouted, in a way his assistant and the guard's ears almost fell out. He watched the screen in horror, he couldn't believe his guards could let someone come in, steal something from him and leave unpunished. The image on the screen paused exactly on the time Peter elbowed the guard in the face, probably breaking his nose and drawing his pistol to shoot at the other guard, who wasn't here to tell the story now.
"I'm sorry, sir. We tried our best, we thought..."
"Silence! Your best clearly isn't enough!" — Tivan screamed, again. He glanced at the guard with a huge bandage on his face, standing besides his incompetent assistant. — "I don't wanna see you ever again!! Out of my way now. Kaelett!!" — A soft "Sir, my name is Kaelith" could barely be heard from the assistant's mouth. — "I want you to identify this bastard that dared steal from me and I want you to contact someone to bring his skull to me so I can show it on display!"
"...Well, sir. We got here that his name is Peter Jason Quill, he's from Earth. He was a member of the Ravagers for most of his life but now acts as an artifact hunter, for his own benefit."
"And what are we waiting for!? Kill him!! Contact someone right now, one of those top tier mercs, I don't care, just get the job done!!" — He still couldn't believe the audacity of someone pulling a heist on him of all people and succeeding.
"...Right away sir." — Kaelith sheepishly guided the guard out of the room while looking at his tablet. He managed to find the information he needed, a contact number of one of the mercenaries out there with the highest amount of recommendation. No one really knew much about this guy other than the fact he did his job magnificently well and his nickname used for negotiation.
The assistant typed out a message for him in hopes he'd see it as fast as possible. Word got around that the guy was busy so hopefully a bounty from the Collector himself would make them a top priority.
The message was as followed:
"This is a classified text coming from the Collector himself, it is important you read it's entirely before replying with an answer. This is a job offer derivative of your innumerous successful bounties around the cosmos. The target's name is Peter Jason Quill, there's a photo attached to the text on the bottom if you'd like a close inspection. For more informations, please come visit the Collector at his museum as soon as possible.
The Collector sends his regards and may this message find you in the best way possible, Star Reaper."