Yondu looked at the bounty figure one more time, then looked at Peter Quill.
Quill had already done the math. Seven balls, a hundred million a piece. His eyes had the particular brightness of someone running calculations they're trying not to show.
"That's Earth," he said. "My hometown. I know it better than anyone on this ship." He spread his hands. "You need me. Fifty-fifty split, straight down the middle."
Rocket, three feet away and already losing interest in the navigation console, snatched a tablet from the equipment rack and started searching the Cosmic Bank network. Something worth seven hundred million Star Coins was worth knowing about.
Yondu stepped forward and grabbed Quill's shirt at the collar.
"I saved you and your friends from Xandar," he said. "You want to tell me that's worth fifty percent?"
Peter's smile went slightly crooked. "June the fourth — sixty-forty. You take sixty."
Yondu reached into his coat and lifted one side of it. The Yaka Arrow sat in its holster, waiting, the control fin catching the light.
"You took the Orb by yourself this time," Yondu said. "Didn't tell anyone. Didn't cut in your crew. Ran straight at the biggest score in the quadrant and nearly got everyone killed in the process, including me." His voice stayed even and conversational, which was somehow worse than shouting. "How are we settling that debt, exactly?"
Peter looked at the arrow. His eyes moved to the ceiling briefly — running the mental math of his current negotiating position — and came back down.
"Seventy-thirty. You get seventy."
Yondu kept going. "You were twelve years old when I pulled you onto this ship. You couldn't find food. You had nobody." He tilted his head. "You know what the crew wanted to do with you?"
"You know I don't believe that anymore, right?" Peter said. "I'm not twelve. Nobody on this crew eats people."
"You sure about that?"
The arrow lifted from the holster on its own.
Peter looked at it hovering at eye level. Then he looked at Yondu.
"Eighty-twenty," he said. "You take eighty. But I'm the one who knows Earth, and that matters, so I want it on the record that I'm being extremely reasonable here."
Yondu's face split into a grin. He stepped forward and wrapped one arm around Peter's shoulders, pulling him in hard enough to make his ribs creak.
"I knew this kid was going somewhere," he announced to the bridge at large, squeezing Peter's neck. "Told every one of you. He didn't disappoint me."
The crew arranged their expressions into something enthusiastic. Under Yondu's arm, Peter looked like a man who had won an argument and somehow ended up with twenty percent.
Smith Doyle's office, Triskelion.
Bill Foster sat across the desk with the slightly formal posture of a man who'd worked under three different SHIELD directors and had learned to read new ones carefully. Ava Starr sat beside him in the white suit that kept her in the world — composed, watchful, the faint shimmer around her edges visible if you knew to look for it.
Smith had read the file twice before calling them in.
"I came across Ava's records when I reviewed the director-level archive," Smith said. "I wanted to understand the situation directly rather than just from documentation."
Bill relaxed slightly. "Of course, sir. Is there a new operational requirement?"
"Not an operation." Smith picked up the desk phone and gave a brief instruction. Then he set it down. "I want to understand her current condition. SHIELD has been providing equipment and funding to maintain her stability — I want to know what we're actually working with before I make any decisions about what comes next."
Bill nodded. "Whatever you need."
The office door opened. Bulma came in.
She was carrying a tablet and wearing the expression of someone who had been pulled out of a research session but wasn't particularly annoyed about it. She looked at Bill, looked at Ava's suit, and read the situation in about four seconds.
Bill stood.
"Dr. Bulma." He extended his hand. "It's an honor. Your work on space-folding compression technology — the Capsule system — it's remarkable. On par with anything coming out of Stark's lab, and that's not a comparison I make lightly."
Bulma shook his hand and smiled. "Thank you, Dr. Foster. I've heard good things about your work too."
They sat.
Smith looked at Bill. "Dr. Foster — tell us about Ava's situation from the beginning."
Bill folded his hands on his knee.
"Ava's father, Elijah Starr, was a physicist. He and Hank Pym were colleagues at SHIELD before Pym's departure. After Elijah was let go, he continued his research independently — specifically quantum tunneling and quantum energy manipulation." Bill paused. "He was running an experiment when the tunnel collapsed. Ava was young — she ran toward the explosion. Her parents didn't survive. Ava did, but the quantum energy exposure altered her at a molecular level."
He looked at Ava for a moment, then back to the table.
"She can shift her molecular structure. Phase through solid matter. The suit stabilizes her enough to function, but without it her quantum state becomes dangerously unstable. She risks crossing into a phase state she can't return from — effectively ceasing to exist in our physical layer." He exhaled. "The suit manages it, but it doesn't solve it."
Bulma was already up, moving around the desk toward Ava, tablet open. She studied the suit's readouts, then studied Ava herself — the shimmer at the edges, the way the air seemed slightly uncertain around her hands.
"Quantum superposition," Bulma said. "The explosion didn't just expose her to quantum energy — it locked her into an intermediate state. Solid and non-solid simultaneously, phasing in and out of our matter layer depending on the stability of the superposition." She tilted her head. "The suit is managing the oscillation frequency. It's functional, but it's maintenance, not treatment."
Bill said, "Yes. That's exactly it."
Bulma straightened and looked at Ava directly. "With proper access to quantum energy — the right kind, controlled — there's a theoretical path to stabilizing the superposition permanently. Anchoring you to our matter layer without the suit." She made a short considering sound. "I'd need to run tests first. I'm not going to promise what I haven't measured yet."
Bill's expression had shifted. "You think it's actually solvable?"
"I think it's worth investigating seriously," Bulma said. "That's more than what she's had so far."
Bill covered his mouth with one hand for a moment. When he lowered it his voice was steadier than his eyes. "She's my daughter, in every way that matters. I've spent years trying to find something that could actually help her rather than just keep her stable." He looked at Bulma. "Whatever you need from us — tests, time, data — we'll cooperate completely."
Ava had been quiet through all of it. She was studying Bulma with the cautious appraisal of someone who'd heard promising things before and learned to wait.
"Thank you," she said. "For taking it seriously."
Bulma waved a hand. "Come back when I've set up the testing equipment and we'll start properly." She gave Ava a once-over. "I'm not worried. We'll figure it out."
Smith looked at Bill. "I'll leave Ava's treatment in Bulma's hands. She'll contact you to arrange the testing schedule."
Bill stood, said his thanks, and guided Ava out. The door closed behind them.
Bulma turned around, walked to Smith's desk, put both hands flat on the surface, leaned forward, and kissed him.
Then she stepped back and looked extremely pleased with herself.
"I like your office," she said. "Very authoritative."
Smith smiled. "I need to talk to you about something."
She dropped into the chair across from him. "That face means it's complicated. Go ahead."
"You understand the concept of parallel universes," he said. It wasn't a question.
"I came here from one," she said. "So yes."
"In a parallel universe close to ours in structure, there's a virus in the quantum realm. It behaves like a zombie pathogen — spreads through contact, infects organic matter, bypasses standard immune responses. Enhanced individuals aren't immune. The infection spread to Earth's surface in that timeline. Every superhero that world had, including Tony Stark's counterpart, couldn't stop it."
Bulma looked at him for several seconds without speaking.
"And you're asking me to look into whether our quantum realm has the same thing."
"I'm asking you to be prepared before anyone starts experimenting with quantum access points. Because that experimentation is coming regardless of what we do. There's a physicist named Hank Pym who founded a company specifically to develop quantum particle technology. His wife went into the quantum realm on a mission and couldn't get back out. He will keep researching until he finds a way to retrieve her. Ava's situation is another data point pulling in the same direction. The quantum realm is going to get opened — the question is whether we understand what we're opening first."
Bulma leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "And if the virus doesn't exist in our version of the quantum realm?"
"Then we've built a containment and monitoring system we didn't need. Which is fine."
"And if it does exist?"
"Then you had advance warning." Smith looked at her steadily. "You are someone who could built a time machine, Bulma. You've cured diseases that shouldn't have had cures. If anyone can develop a quantum antiviral with enough lead time, it's you."
She was quiet for a moment.
"We'd need a dedicated research facility," she said finally. "Isolated. Quantum-shielded if that's even possible yet. Nothing that connects to live quantum channels during the study phase." She tapped her fingers on the armrest. "And if Shenron's current form is what you've described — I'd want the Dragon Ball option catalogued as a contingency before we start."
"Already noted," Smith said.
Bulma looked at him. "All right. I'll start designing the research framework." Then her expression changed into something considerably less scientific. "But you owe me something first."
Smith waited.
She held up one finger. "One month. You and me, traveling. Wherever I want to go." A pause. "Wherever. Including, potentially, other planets."
Smith thought about the calendar. He thought about the past year — the Kree invasion, the helicarriers, HYDRA, the tournament, the space. He thought about the fact that he had, at some point, stopped being a person who took breaks.
"Fine," he said. "One month."
Bulma's smile was immediate and entirely self-satisfied. She was already pulling up a list she appeared to have prepared in advance.
A proper honeymoon, she thought. Better than what that Fox got.
The transport aircraft set down at the Triskelion field with a full commando escort standing in formation on the tarmac.
Coulson looked out the porthole at them and felt his jaw tighten slightly.
"Ward?" he asked, without turning around.
May shook her head. "Still nothing. He sat through the truth serum and didn't break. Still insisting Garrett's HYDRA designation is a fabricated smear against a dead colleague who can't defend himself."
Fitz, standing near the rear of the cabin, said carefully: "Is it possible he genuinely doesn't know? The serum worked fine — he answered everything else. Could there be a clerical—"
"A small number of agents with exceptional willpower can maintain a cover story under truth serum," Coulson said. "We've always known that. It doesn't happen often, but it happens." He looked at the formation outside. "Garrett trained Ward personally. If anyone could produce an agent resistant enough to manage it, it was Garrett."
Simmons was very quiet. She hadn't said much since May's briefing.
"He saved my life," she said. Not an argument. Just a fact she was trying to reconcile with other facts.
Coulson looked at her. "I know."
He turned to Donnie Gill. "You escort Ward off the plane. Stay close. Nothing happens to him in transit."
"Yes, sir."
They filed out.
The tarmac felt different than it had three weeks ago — the same concrete, same hangars, but with the weight of something that had recently broken and not finished settling. The commando team stood aside, and Agent Hand came through the gap.
She looked at Ward. She looked at Coulson.
"Just the one," she said. "Better result than I projected for your team."
"He hasn't admitted to anything," Coulson said. "He resisted the truth serum. Could there be a possibility of error in the—"
Hand glanced at Ward with something that wasn't quite pity and wasn't quite contempt. "Director Smith augmented the inspection department with a group of enhanced individuals. One of their capabilities is blood memory extraction — full access, no limits on time range." She looked back at Coulson. "Ward appeared in the memories of confirmed HYDRA members. Multiple sources. The serum resistance doesn't matter anymore."
The team heard that.
Coulson watched it land on each of them in sequence — Fitz going very still, Simmons looking at the tarmac, May's expression not changing at all, which meant something worse than any reaction would have.
They'd trusted him. They'd worked alongside him. Simmons was alive partly because of choices he'd made.
None of that was the reason he was standing in restraints on a Triskelion airfield.
Ward looked back at them. For the first time since the plane landed, he didn't say anything.
Hand took custody of him from Donnie Gill and turned back toward the building.
Coulson stood on the tarmac and watched them go.