[Closed to Quill] Reunion

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor's first encounter with someone from his particular reality had been with someone who had no recollection of ever having met him. So naturally, when he had been apprised of Quill's presence at the inn, Thor wasn't entirely sure if he could expect Quill to remmeber him at all.

Not that that particular possibility was going to stop him. Even if he he knew in advance that Rocket didn't know who he was, he'd still have hugged the sweet rabbit without so much as a second thought.

Quill is unlikely to get any hugs from Thor. Instead, what he'll get is a tall, muscular blonde knocking slightly-too-hard on the door leading to his room.

"Moron?" he calls out, again, slightly-too-loudly. "Are you there?"

Quill had the soundtrack to Footloose going on in his room and was finishing up shaving while humming when the sound of the door came. He thought he heard a familiar, annoying voice. No, it can't be him. That's impossible.

He turned down the music quick enough to hear the tail end of the question. It really sounds like him...

Quill walked to the door of the room and looked through the peephole. Oh my God... it is him

He looked around the room for clothes.

"One minute!" He shouted as he eyes fell on the perfect outfit.

Quill hurried to put on the clothes, changing his top twice and then after several moments, and throwing a tie across the room in windsor-knott frustration, Quill answered the door. He was wearing a suit and tried to look like he had been wearing it all day.

At casual

He leaned way-too-casually against the door.

"Oh, hey Thor." He said.

When Thor smiles at Quill, it's genuine. Quill remembers him and he appears to be unharmed.

"It's good to see you alive," he says, and he gives Quill an affectionate pat on the shoulder.

He puffed out his chest a little. Why do I feel weirdly happy he's happy to see me? Stop that self.

"Of course I'm alive," He said. "Was just about to kick some Thanos butt before this place dragged me here."

"Oh," Thor says. It's possible that Quill might have come from a time where he was fighting Thanos after he had summarily exterminated half of all the life in the universe, but his tone of voice suggested otherwise.

He doesn't know, Thor realizes, and he knows it was probably better that he didn't.

"Did you ever make it to Knowhere?" he asks, trying to segue the conversation elsewhere.

"Yeah. Thanos was there already. Pretty much destroyed the place," Quill replied, remembering as his expression dampened. "He took the stone and Gamora."

For some reason kept us alive.

"So we followed him back to Titan. Met some of your Avenger friends." He said. "Stark, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange? We're making a plan to ambush him... what about you? You make your fancy hammer? Did Rocket have an orgasm when you guys got there?"

Gamora. That had been the green-skinned one, hadn't it? The one who was his daughter. Thor hadn't seen her on the battlefield, but there had been plenty he hadn't seen. He just hopes that Thanos had brought her safe, far from the chaos that almost certainly erupted after he snapped his fingers.

"We arrived at Nidavellir and Rabbit was most impressed," he says. As he should be. "The star was was out when we arrived. We successfully reignited it so that the weapon be forged, but he forge's mechanism was broken. I held it open and took a full blast of the neutron's star energy until the Uru could be melted and the weapon crafted. Tree gave an arm to make its handle."

"I once held the power stone in my bare hands." Quill said, needing to insert that there. Did he really need to mention the neutron star? Ugh. So cool.

"...How is Groot?" He asked after a moment.

Thor avoids telling Quill what he's looking for, but still supplies an honest answer.

"His arm grew back quickly, if that's what you're asking," Thor says with a smile. "Your friend saved my life."

Thor gestures to the door. "Are you going to invite me in?"

"That's my Groot," Quill said fondly.

A beat.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Quill replied, opening up the room and stepping back.

It was then that Quill realized his room was a mess. He walked to the pile of clothes on the bed and scooped it up.

"Sorry," He began, "Mantis was always the one picking things up back home and I was just doing a spring cleaning, you know, of my wardrobe. Got to keep things fresh."

He threw the heap of clothes into the bathroom and kicked two pairs of boxers in with his feet, then closed the bathroom door.

He held out his hands to his room.

"Pretty sweet, right?" He asked.

Thor walks inside and gives the place an appraising look as Quill scurries around, grabbing his clothes.

"It's less pink than the rest of this place," he concludes. It is; the entire inn seemed to be slathered in the color, his room included. Not that he had a problem with the color scheme (as busy as it was sometimes) -- there was just a lot of it.

"Do you need someone to teach you how to clean your room?" he asks without judgment. Clearly, he might need the assistance if he normally has someone picking up after him.

"What? No" He said. "I don't need lessons on how to clean, I just wasn't expecting visitors. Most people phone before they come over, you know."

Quill does a survey of the room now and it looked a lot better. Nothing embarrassing seemed to be showing.

"What kind of room do you have?" He asked.

Probably some macho room with rocks and fire and stuff.

Thor sits down on the couch and looks up at the ceiling. It's a lot higher than the one in his room.

"It's green with pink flowers," he says. "I like it. It's very bright."

"Flowers, huh." He said with surprise, then shrugged. "So, when did you get here? Did you settling in alright? Probably a little confusing for someone not used to a lot of Earth stuff."

"A few days now." Thor runs the palms of his hands against the fabric of the couch. It feels nice. "I know Earth well enough," he says. "Dated a girl from Earth once." He visited Midgard more times in that years than he had in his 1500-ish years of existence. Not that in the end did that stop them from parting ways.

"Minus not being able to leave here unless someone allows it, it's not altogether different from Earth."

"Yeah, but this is 90s Earth," He said as if it matter. "This is practically my jam."

Maybe a decade too far in the future, but closer than him that's for sure.

"Wait, you dated a girl from Earth?" He asked.

"Yeah, her name was Jane. Jane Foster," he says, fondly. "She ran me over with her van. That's how we met."

He thought about the first time he met Gamora.

"Got to love the assertive types, huh?" He said. "Gamora stole the power stone from me and kicked me in the stomach. Then we kicked each other's ass before we were all arrested."

Quill spoke and looked fond of the memory.

"Yeah, they're great," Thor says somewhat wistfully. Jane had been great. What they had together had been great. But he had obligations and she had needs and in the end, things weren't going to work out for either one of them.

Even though Thor wanted them to work out more than Jane did.

"Jane absorbed the Reality Stone once," he says. Sure, they're broken up, but that didn't stop Thor from feeling the same pride in her that Stark felt in Pepper. "There aren't many who can wield an Infinity Stone without some other implement." Like Thanos' gauntlet.

"Of course, it is the Reality Stone, which isn't quite the same as the one with 'power' in it's name, but that's pretty impressive for a human, I guess." Quill said, trying to downplay everything.

He had seen the Reality Stone at work and it was not fun.

"None of the stones are to be reckoned with," Thor says. "I've seen them used, even before Thanos had them in his possession."

Not all of them, of course.

"Something we can actually agree with," He said. "Which is why we're going to take them back from Thanos and bitch-slap him with his own glove. "

Quill was quite confident in their plan back on Titan.

Thor can't talk about Thanos with nearly as much optimism or confidence as Quill can. Frankly, he doesn't want to talk or think about Thanos at all. He'd managed to shove all of those feelings somewhere where he'd deal with them later, just as he had after he watched Thanos and his "Children" butcher his people and kill Heimdall and his brother. There were things to be done then, and there were things to be done now. Before, all Thor could focus on was getting a new hammer and killing Thanos himself; now that Thanos had obliterated half the universe, his focus had changed: kill Thanos to get the gauntlet, then destroy the Infinity Stones. All of them.

There was no turning back time. There was no changing what had happened. The most he could do was prevent anything like this from happening again.

And in order for him to do that, he couldn't allow those feelings to intrude or else he'd lose his focus.

So instead, Thor changes the subject.

"I don't know if you noticed, but Rabbit gave me another eye," he says, gesturing to where his patch had been. "He says he stole it."

"Oh, did he?" Quill said as if noticing for the first time. "It's hard to say. Your face is sort of, you know, average, so it's hard to pick up on a lot of details."

Thanks Rocket, he was marginally less attractive with one eye.

"He steals a lot of things." He added. "Hopefully he didn't steal it off of a guy who was still using it."

"He said he stole it from some guy on Contraxia," Thor says. Maybe that'll provide Quill with some answers. "I'm not sure I'd have a collection of prosthetic eyes unless I needed them."

A beat.

"Though people have been known to collect far stranger things." Like the Collector.

"Contraxia, huh?" He said. "I have.... well, some of them are fond, but I definitely have memories there."

There was this one time with this girl... - no, not the time, Quill

"Sometimes what Rocket collects is useful. Sometimes it's out of spite." He said. "Sometimes it's because it's shiny. He's a really hard guy to read."

"You've been traveling with your captain for how long, and you are still unable to read him?"

Thor thinks he has at least a reasonable read on the rabbit. He enjoys weaponry and messing around with people. Both Thor can relate to.

"First of all, he's not the captain. I'm the captain." Quill said while looking a little offended. "He might pilot, sometimes, but I'm definitely the leader. He just got star-struck seeing you because he doesn't get out much and made up lies to impress you."

"Are you sure he's not the captain?" Thor asks, doubtfully. "He seems massively competent. Vastly more competent than you, my friend. Perhaps he's simply tricked you into believing you're the captain so you don't forever argue the point."

He's pretty sure Quill would.

Quill's eyes narrowed and his hands when on his hips.

"I am so competent." He said. "I saved an entire planet through dance and I killed my megalomaniac celestial dad. That's pretty competent to me."

"Perhaps you are merely a competent dancer and father-slayer," Thor suggests. "Both worthwhile skills in their own rights. A bit limiting, though."

"Uh, number 1," Quill said, lifting up his index finger. "dancing has a lot of skills and is entirely not limiting."

Quill didn't think Thor would understand Flashdance or Footloose references, so he skipped that.

"And number two," He continued, adding his middle finger in the counting. "Father-slaying is just a by-produce of how incredibly awesome I am at defeating bad guys. I'm not the one who ended up floating in space and needing rescue."

Quill's quip strikes true, but Thor doesn't want to show it -- but that doesn't stop it from happening anyway. Irritation bristles his face for a second, same as it did when Quill was attempting to poorly imitate his voice back on the ship.

"I suppose we have nothing to worry about with regards to Thanos, then," Thor says, amiably. "It must have been a fluke that he got away with the stone and Gamora."

Quills eyes narrowed dangerously and he pointed at Thor.

"That was different," he said, voice low and more like gravel.

It wasn't and Quill knew it.

"Oh, was it now? Why don't you enlighten me as to how it was different?"

"Because, " Quill started, then paused. "Because.... Because he had more stones by then and Stanos was her dad."

He knew this was a weak argument, but Quill went with it.

"Excuses," Thor says. "You couldn't beat Thanos for the same reason I couldn't; he was stronger than the both of us."

"Yeah, but I almost had him," Quill insisted. "If Gamora had gone right like I told her to..."

Quill did not look as convinced as he sounded.

Thor looks over at Quill and lets out a sigh. This is stupid. Thor pushes himself up and approaches Quill and then stops once the other man is within arm's reach.

"There, there," he says, giving Quill a comforting pat on the back. "We all did the best we could."

"What... What is this?" Quill asked, tense and confused. "Is this some sort of... Reverse psychology thing?"

"It's pointless for us to fight over Thanos," he says. "I don't think things went right for either one of us the first time we encountered him."

Thor sits back down exactly where he was before, then looks down at the back of his hands. Thanos had taken important people away from the both of him. Thor knew Loki was dead; there was no second-guessing it. He had seen it all happen right in front of him. There might not be anything he can do about his brother, but he hoped at least one of them would have a happy ending. Or as close to one as you can get after everything that happened. Thor wasn't entirely sure that was possible.

Quill stood there and stared at Thor. He stared hard. His eyes narrowed.

"Okay, you are far too agreeable." He determined. "What's up"

Seeing Thor like that unnerved him.

Thor looks at Quill, uncertain. What can he really say but the truth?

"My brother, your partner," Thor begins. "Thanos took both of them from us when we were powerless to stop it."

He lets out a light, sad laugh. "I suppose I just accepted that I was powerless a lot more easily than you did."

There was a big struggle within Quill. He agreed. He felt his hearr ache. He wanted to offer to go get beer with Thor, and yet. And yet something was stopping him. Briefly his shoulders had slackened and his expression softened, but now they were determined again.

"Gamora's not gone yet." He said "I'm just going to have to make Thanos tell me where she is, even if I have to beat the shit out of that ball-sack of a face bastard."

Thor really hopes that's the case. That Quill's okay and that Gamora's alive. Quill can be annoying in all his insecurities, but he deserved better than to be killed by Thanos.

Everyone did.

"Enough of this, though," Thor says, trying to force a smile. "How long have you been here for?"

Quill was thankful for the topic change as well.

"A month, maybe two." He said, "I didn't really keep track of time when I first showed up. I was pretty certain I could figure a way out before it mattered."

And yet, here I am...

"But you haven't been able to figure a way back yet," Thor says. "What have you tried?"

"I tried going as high as I can in the sky. No luck. Same with every direction on land and over the water." Quill replied, frowning. "Tried looking for some sort of magic generator thing, but haven't found anything yet either.... How about you?"

"I've tried repeatedly to teleport back to Earth by the power of the Bifrost," Thor answers easily. "It hasn't worked."

All that really happened was that he was randomly transported somewhere else.

"People believe that we've been trapped by some other being or force," he says. "Enough pressure and eventually we'll have to break free of whatever sorcery has us contained here."

"When I first got here, I thought it was Thanos." He explained. "A part of me still wonders if it's some weird messed up thing because of him, but somehow... It doesn't really seem his style."

Quill wasn't exactly sure what his style was, but Quill felt that way.

"I think you're right," Thor says. He had wondered the same thing himself; had this been the work of the Infinity Stone? He thought he had seen Thanos disappear right in front of him, but what if he didn't? But like Quill, Thor sensed that this wasn't his style.

And perhaps more importantly, Thanos had no real reason to trick them any longer; he had gotten exactly what he wanted.

He couldn't exactly explain that rationale to Quill, though.

"I think we should just... enjoy ourselves until we wind up home." Either through their own will or the will of the others that trapped them here. "We don't know how much time we have until we have to return to --"

Thor gestures vaguely, and doesn't complete that thought.

"-- so we might as well make the most of it."

"How do you plan on passing the time here?" He asked.

Quill could distract himself most of the time, but if he left himself idle for too long, his thoughts drifted to Gamora. He missed her. He was worried about her. He felt the need to find her and save her.

"I don't really know," Thor admits. He's done so much the last few years that the idea of having nothing in particular to do seems overwhelming itself. Fighting people and searching for things? By comparison, that was easy. Doing nothing was hard.

"I was searching for the Infinity Stones until I had to clean up the mess with my sister. The last time I had nothing to do was years ago."

"Yeah, me too." He said, this time not being competitive. "I've kept busy saving planets and bringing in bad guys. Kind of makes a vacation like this sort of... lackluster."

A beat.

"Rocket's been keeping busy by annoying the hell out of this guy here," he said. "I'm not saying it's a good hobby, but it's keeping him busy."

"Oh, you mean Alec?" Thor asks, amiably. He's not 100% sure it's him, but given Alec's reaction to Rocket, it wouldn't particularly surprise him if Alec were, indeed, the guy he was annoying the hell out of. Thor found Rocket's personality amusing, but he could see how others might not find it quite as agreeable.

"We had drinks our first night here," he says. "He's the only person I've met who's been able to keep pace with me when we're drinking."

His chin lifted higher.

"I could probably keep up with you," Quill replied with hesitant confidence. "I'm not entirely human, after all."

Thor looks amused at the suggestion.

"Would you like to try?"

I should say no

"Yes," He responded, maybe a little too quickly. "Anytime, you just tell me when."

"It's probably best you choose it. Preferably a time when you don't have anything you need to do the next day."

His eyes narrowed and Quill was even more determined to show Thor he was capable now.

"Fine.... The last Friday of the month." He said, picking a random day.

Thor pushes himself off the sofa.

"Then I'll meet you in the bar at 7. Last Friday of the month."

Thor's pretty sure he'll outdrink him easily, but he should manage to get Quill back to his room easily enough. He's not really sure what Quill is trying to prove with this particular challenge, but he should be able to put an end to it at the bar.

And maybe his other challenges as well.

"You bet," He said with a nod and a look of determination.

Oh, it is so on.

"I'm sure we'll see each other before then, but consider it done," Thor says. "7 PM, last Friday of the month."

And with that, Thor heads out the door, utterly convinced he's going to wind up playing nurse to a sick Quill in the wee late hours of the last Friday of July.

Credit.