20 years ago…
Young Peter Quill stand at his mother’s grave with a minister by his side, who tells him the foster home folks will be along shortly. They’ll take him to his new home. They never knew his dad and now his mom’s gone… Peter’s the captain of his own ship now. It’s up to him to determine the course of his life.
After that, his life on Earth was a nightmare…
Present:
But if he’s honest, sometimes life in space can be a real pain in the ass.
Right now, Star-Lord is defending a pretty woman and two kids against several threatening-looking Badoon. Pete warns them he’s been killing Badoons since he was ten years old. Their leader grins. When he was ten, he ate a human brain every day. Keeps the doctor away. They take away his element gun.
The woman, Donna, the principal of the orphanage, tells them to get the hell out of her orphanage. The Badoon leader orders her to calm herself and holds up a crystal. They got what they came for. She probably didn’t know the Mandalay gem was even here. She knows everything that goes on here, Donna retorts. When the Spartax army turned tail, they hid it here. That was kind of his fault, Peter mumbles.
The Badoon hints that Quill was here to rob the stone as well. The legendary Star-Lord caught stealing from poor orphans. Peter stammers.
Soon he is taken away as prisoner of the Badoon pirates. Some mysterious stranger watches this and decides to follow the ship.
Aboard the ship, the Badoon make fun of Star-Lord’s gun, which apparently doesn’t work. He hopes to keep them focused on the gun, so they don’t notice his boots.
Looks like they score twice, the gem and Star-Lord. Mr. Knife put a blood bounty on his head, he is told, and they are going to collect. Peter is genuinely confused. He never heard of this Mr. Knife. One Badoon scoffs he’s lying. Mr. Knife collects esoteric weapons. They say he’s gunning for Earth. He’s the scourge of the cosmos this month. A real tough gangster. Have the Guardians of the Galaxy been under a rock?
They’ve been busy with important things, Peter retorts. What kind of important things? the Badoon mocks. Peter thinks back to gambling, womanizing, adventuring, Karaoke with Rocket and Groot. Really important things, he replies evasively. Things their greasy reptile brains could never understand.
Annoyed, the leader orders Thumbnail, a large Badoon with a club, to get into Peter’s cell and put him to sleep. Be gentle? Peter asks hopefully and in vain.
Sometime later, he wakes up and takes a hidden comm.-device from his boot. He uses it to call Kitty Pryde on Earth. A hologram of her appears and she asks where he’s been. Is there some attack on Earth happening? he asks. Why, she’s lovely, thanks. How is he? Kitty asks sarcastically. She’s pretty sure Earth is quiet right now. Does she maybe want to check? They’ve been invaded like twenty times since she bat mitzvah’ed, she replies. And ever since Thanos--
That may have been his fault too, Peter thinks.
If there was an attack she’d know, Kitty finishes.
Yeah, it’s just that he’s in— Wait, is she in bed? She’s grading papers, calm down, she tells him. And what else? he flirts. Grading papers! she repeats. No fun, he sulks. She tells him he is fun but she’s had bad luck with Peters. So call him Baby boo, he offers. Rocket does. The raccoon gave him a pet name? Kitty asks, doubting.
Who is he talking to? he hears a harsh voice. What was that? Kitty asks. He is kinda in jail and… Kitty, meet Thumbnail, he announces as the giant guard enters the cell. Thumbnail hate cute talk! he shouts. Luckily, he also hates shutting the door behind him. Peter fires blasts at him from the soles of his boots.
He moves out of his cell and grabs his element gun, which is coded to his DNA and only works for him or members of his family.
He points it at the Badoon and the captain points out he can’t shoot all of them. Instead, Peter fires at the wall, creating a hole in the hull. As the others are sucked outside, Peter holds on to grab the crystal, then allows himself to be sucked out as well. His uniform automatically creates his airmask.
One of the people watching him asks his boss of they should reel him in. No, she replies. She wants to see what he does next.
Peter sneaks into the orphanage to be caught by Donna. They’ve got nothing left to steal, she tells him angrily. She’s got him all wrong, he defends himself. He’s sorry about before. He would never— he grew up in an orphanage himself. She interrupts. Tell the kids if they do their studies and hope real hard they can grow up to be a thief like him? No thanks. Thanos makes a better role model! He doesn’t care about those kids. He broke into their home. Half of them won’t sleep for weeks!
Ice cream worked well for him, he suggests. Ice cream won’t make up for what he did, she tells him bluntly. Maybe this will, he replies and empties the bag he is carrying. It’s full of money. He fenced the gem, he explains. When he heard rumors that the military hid the gem at the orphanage, he knew it would be a target for the wrong crowd. He was trying to safely remove it before bad guys stirred up trouble. He was too late, but— everyone thinks that the Badoon have the gem now. She can spend the money on the kids without worrying. Should buy a lot of ice cream. Flabbergasted, Donna asks why he did that.
Flashback:
Is he listening to him? Father James asks 10 year old Peter at the graveyard. His mother gave her life to save him. But maybe he can make her sacrifice mean something. Make the world a better place. Not the world, Peter replies. Space! He’s gonna make space a better place. They are sure gonna miss his wild imagination, Father James tells him and hugs him.
Present:
Real smooth, Peter tells himself as he holds the gem. Those were the last of his emergency savings. But at least he got his hands on this baby. The Mandalay gem, one of the most powerful minerals in the universe. Twelve more days, purple potato head, he vows, then time’s up. He is coming for Thanos…
Suddenly over comm., he is warned that he is surrounded and should give up. The leader of his attackers introduces herself as Captain Victoria, commander of the Spartax royal guard and daughter of former Emperor J-son. Under her own authority, she is taking him into custody. Yield or she’ll kick his pathetic ass in front of the entire galaxy!
He has a sister? Peter exclaims.
