📍MORAG, 2014
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The trio watched from behind the rocks how Peter Quill arrived in Morag just like they predicted. They followed after him, careful not to distract him as he walked or danced his way to the temple that contained the Orb. It was a strange sight to say the least, watching how he danced and sang out a song that no one else could hear because of his headphones.

"Now I know what Tony meant by 'Flash Gordon'," (Y/N) mumbled.

Rhodey made a sound in the back of his throat like he agreed. He turned back to face Nebula. "So, he's an idiot?"

"Yeah." she answered disappointingly.

They snuck up behind him and Rhodey smacked him in the back of the head with a baton. Once he dropped unconscious, Nebula scavenged through Quill's bag in search for a specific tool; she pulled it out and held it up in her fingers for them to see.

"What's that?" Rhodey asked.

"The tool of a thief."

Nebula used the tool to open the entrance of the temple, resembling the simple act of picking a lock. The doors opened slowly and (Y/N) balled her fists in a defensive stance, since she didn't know what was hiding behind the doors. Rhodey was in charge of providing light, since everything around them was darkened and was hard for them to see.

Nebula took a step forward once the doors stopped moving, but Rhodey grabbed her arm before she could move.

She stared at him in confusion and he jumped to explain himself. "This is the part where the spikes come out with skeletons on the end of them and everything."

(Y/N) stared at him with raised eyebrows.

"What are you talking about?" Nebula frowned.

"When you break into a place called 'The Temple of the Power Stone', there's gonna be a bunch of booby traps — "

Nebula didn't wait for him to finish and stepped forward, proving his theory wrong. (Y/N) walked behind her, still holding her hands up in defense. Rhodey was still muttering phrases under his breath, but they were incoherent for (Y/N) to hear.

The temple didn't have any sort of trap, or any sign that someone had stepped foot in it for a long time. Everything was dark but there, in the center of the room, laid what they were searching for. Protected by a shield, the Orb that contained the Power Stone hovered in midair.

Nebula extended her robotic arm forward and entered the force shield with no hesitation. (Y/N) was about to protest whether it was a good idea, watching how the metal started melting as it spent more time inside the shield. In a matter of seconds and without even a shriek of pain, Nebula pulled off the Orb from the shield. She held it in her hissing hand, the force shield disappearing since now it didn't have anything to protect.

Nebula handed the Orb into Rhodey's hands and she blew some air into her burnt hand, the red and orange from starting to disappear as it spent more time cooling off. (Y/N) couldn't help but stare, but what caught her eye the most was the way Nebula looked more embarrassed of having the robotic arm instead of being in pain.

She felt their stares. "I wasn't always like this."

"Me either," Rhodey referred to himself. "But we work with what we got, right?"

(Y/N) couldn't help but lower her head and avoid their eyes because of that.

Rhodey seemed to notice the tense atmosphere. "Let's sync up."

The quantum realm suits appeared over their bodies in a matter of seconds, the helmets covering their faces too. (Y/N), Rhodey and Nebula had a hovering finger over their tracker in order to press it at the same time. (Y/N) felt a slight twitch in the arm that held the tracker, sensing some sort of glitch, but thought it was just her mind playing tricks with her.

"Three, two, one."

(Y/N) was about to press on her tracker when she saw another glitch, this time in her own suit and not in the quantum one. Rhodey disappeared in a matter of seconds, but she couldn't get her own suit to work for an unknown reason. Nebula seemed to be experiencing something similar, since her own suit disappeared and her right eye started twitching.

She collapsed in the ground and a hologram started playing out of her eye, like an old projector. (Y/N)'s own quantum suit disappeared as she knelt down to see what was wrong with Nebula, when the wrist gauntlet of her uniform started glitching, distortion being the only thing she could see before a small alert showed up in the small screen; Location Found.

She froze in horror since she didn't know who could've found her location. A part of her felt a pit in her stomach at the mere thought of the Kree finding her like she had nightmares about. Just when she was about to voice her concerns, Nebula stood up from the floor.

"He knows," was all she muttered.

(Y/N) saw the terrified look behind her black eyes and knew exactly who she was referring to.

They tried to activate the quantum realm suits again, but they didn't seem to work. It was as if something or someone had blocked them. With nothing else to do, Nebula and (Y/N) made their way to the pod back outside the temple in a panic, since they didn't know what else to do.

Nebula made it to the pod first and she grabbed the first radio that came across her gaze. "Barton! Barton, come in. Romanoff!"

(Y/N) focused on starting the pod in order to escape if necessary, hoping to hear someone answer to Nebula's call for help.

"Come in, we have a problem," Nebula grew angry that the radio didn't work and she smacked it against the wall before speaking again. "Come in, we have a — Thanos knows. Thanos — "

(Y/N) heard a faint rumble from outside and didn't want to know what it was, instead pressing the buttons to start the pod before it was too late. Nebula peeked out the glass to see what the sound was, and she could see the enormous ship hovering above them.

"Hurry!" she called back for (Y/N).

(Y/N) pulled down a lever and the pod hovered in the air, though it didn't have that much altitude. Before they could fly off and escape, a powerful beam of light emitted from the ship above them. No matter how hard (Y/N) tried to pull the ship away from the beam, her efforts were useless and they were dragged up into the air.

(Y/N) didn't know what to expect, but based on the horrified look in Nebula's eyes, it wasn't anything good.

you didn't see that coming, right :)
hehe, flashbacks of y/n's past are coming !!
also i published this like 3 hours ago but i realized i used the wrong banner at the end and i wouldn't sleep tonight if i didn't change it lol
-see you soon, bex