Ego looked at Star-Lord and Gamora as they came back through the cafe door.
"Well?"
Star-Lord dropped into his chair. "I'll come to your planet. I want to hear the story, and I want to know if I inherited whatever you're talking about." He picked up his coffee — cold now, but he drank it anyway. "After the Dragon Balls. That's my condition. We finish what we came here to do first."
Ego tilted his head. "Dragon Balls."
"Seven objects. Worth a hundred million Star Coins each on the current bounty market. We think they're somewhere on this planet." Star-Lord set the cup down. "Seven hundred million total. We came to find them."
Ego was quiet for a moment, turning this over with the unhurried patience of someone for whom time operates differently.
"If it's about money," he said, "then I'll tell you plainly — that concern doesn't apply to the son of a god. I own the planet I live on. Everything on it. What seven hundred million could buy you is a rounding error compared to what you'd have access to simply by coming with me now."
Star-Lord looked at him. Rocket, across the table, had gone very still in the way he did when he was listening carefully.
"That's your wealth," Star-Lord said. "Not mine."
Ego studied him for a moment. Something moved through his expression — not quite surprise, more like recalibration. He looked at his son and saw something he hadn't expected from a child raised by Ravagers.
"All right," he said. "Then I'll help you find them." He spread his hands. "As your father."
Star-Lord smiled despite himself. "Then it's settled."
He turned the phone on and called Fitz.
May put the transport down in the town square forty minutes later. Star-Lord boarded with the group — Rocket with his toolbox, Groot in his pot, Drax moving with the deliberate care of a man who has learned that human architecture is not always built for him, Gamora last, and Ego beside Star-Lord, apparently unconcerned about being on a SHIELD transport with four minutes of introduction behind him.
Fitz met them in the lounge doorway, looked at Ego, and looked at Star-Lord.
"Peter. Who is this?"
Star-Lord thought about it for a moment. "My father."
Fitz processed that. The available information on Peter Quill's biological father amounted to: had a relationship with Meredith Quill, disappeared before Peter was born, nothing useful since. The man standing in front of him was — physically fine, well-dressed, no obvious tells — and had apparently materialized in rural Missouri from nowhere.
Ego extended a hand. "Hello. I'm Ego. Peter's father."
Fitz shook it automatically. "Right. Yes. Hello." He gestured toward the galley. "There's food and drinks in the fridge — help yourself to whatever you want. And — does anyone need help with the ship once we land?"
Rocket was already past him, heading for the window seat. "No."
"Okay. I'll let you know when we're close."
He went back to the conference room, closed the door, pulled up Ego's photograph from the lounge security feed, and ran it against the SHIELD database.
No match.
He uploaded it to the Insight helicarrier network for a global personnel comparison.
No match. Suspected extraterrestrial flag triggered. Alert forwarded automatically to the director's office.
At the Triskelion, Coulson had Skye at a terminal finishing her onboarding paperwork.
"Level?" Skye asked, looking at the badge printout.
"Zero. Trainee." Coulson picked up his own coffee. "Formally speaking. In practice, our team operates under direct authority from the director's office, which means we access things that agents at level five or six don't routinely see."
Skye looked at the badge. The word Trainee was printed in a font that left no ambiguity. "Does everyone start at zero?"
"External recruits, yes. You build a record." He checked his watch. "The agency is short-staffed right now for reasons I'll explain in detail later. One person is covering about three roles in most divisions. The learning curve is steep but there's no shortage of actual work."
His phone buzzed. He looked at it.
Star-Lord's biological father has appeared — possible alien — currently aboard transport en route to New York base. — Fitz
Coulson looked at the message for a moment. "Another one."
"Another what?" Skye asked.
"Unknown alien affiliated with the Guardians. Appeared in Missouri, currently inbound with the group." He put the phone away. "Let's go meet them at the base."
Smith Doyle looked at the Insight Center's alert on his own screen.
Name: Ego. Relationship: Biological father of Peter Quill. Global database: No record found.
He looked at the photograph for a moment.
The identification wasn't difficult. The body was a projection — a construct assembled from the life-bearing planet's divine power, stable enough to pass as organic, capable of sustaining itself indefinitely. The real Ego was a brain wrapped in a billion years of accumulated cosmic matter, a Celestial embryo that had never completed its hatching but hadn't died either. It had woken up alone in the void, assessed its situation, and spent the subsequent eons building a planet around itself.
An unusual outcome, but the logic was internally consistent.
The planet itself — rich in energy, fully developed biosphere, a core that was essentially an inexhaustible power source — was the more interesting element. Smith had been thinking about suitable locations for Tree of Might cultivation since the Hive's planet had come into his possession. Maveth was viable but marginal: severely desertified, low ambient energy, infrastructure rubble. It would sustain a Tree of Might, but the fruit yield would be limited.
Ego's planet was a different category entirely. A Celestial-origin energy core generating continuous output, a thriving biosphere, stable atmosphere. The fruit from a Tree of Might grown in that environment would be qualitatively different from anything cultivated on a marginal world.
He set the alert down and considered the situation.
Ego had come to Earth to retrieve his son. Star-Lord would presumably end up going to Ego's planet at some point. If Smith wanted to assess the planet's suitability directly — and he did — the straightforward approach was to go along.
He had not originally intended to meet the Guardians. That calculus had just changed.
He left the Triskelion, arranging two pending meetings to be rescheduled.
The SHIELD base in the New York suburbs was a clean, functional facility — warehouses, vehicle pool, technical support wing, nothing that announced itself from the exterior. May brought the transport down in the central yard, and Coulson and Skye were already standing outside when the boarding stairs extended.
The group filed out. Coulson watched them come down — Star-Lord, Rocket with the toolbox, Groot in the pot, Drax checking his immediate surroundings with professional habit, Gamora, and then a man who looked entirely human and moved with the quiet self-possession of someone who has no particular opinion about whether he makes a good impression.
Coulson stepped forward with his standard smile.
"How was Missouri? Your grandfather doing well?"
"He's doing well," Star-Lord said. "Still sharp." He looked around at the facility. "Earth keeps surprising me. I've been gone twenty-six years and you've got flying cars and combat power detectors and universal capsule technology. In the universe, that last one alone would make you interesting."
"Most of that comes down to one person," Coulson said. "Our director. The Capsule Corporation products, the enhanced personnel programs, the alien contact protocols — all connected back to Smith Doyle."
Rocket looked up from his toolbox. "The one who destroyed Ronan."
"The same."
Rocket went back to his toolbox with an expression that said he was filing that information carefully.
Star-Lord glanced at the facility. "You mentioned our ship was here."
"This way." Coulson led them toward the main warehouse. "Our technical team did a full exterior scan while it was in storage. They found the material composition interesting. You should know that — professionally speaking."
Rocket stopped walking. He turned slowly to look at Coulson.
"Exterior scan," Rocket said.
"Exterior only," Coulson confirmed, with the easy steadiness of someone who has prepared for this question.
"Did they take fragments?"
Coulson kept his expression entirely neutral. "There were some fragments already detached from the engine impact. Those were logged and preserved."
Rocket looked at him for a long moment.
"I'm going to know exactly what's missing when I open the hull," Rocket said.
"Of course," Coulson said pleasantly. "We'll settle that later."
Inside the warehouse, the Milano sat under a gray tarpaulin in the center of the main bay. Coulson pressed a control, and the tarpaulin pulled back along its rails, revealing the ship — engine housing dented and cracked on the port side, deck plating scored from the atmospheric entry, otherwise structurally intact.
Rocket set his toolbox down and walked the perimeter without speaking, running one hand along the hull, stopping at the engine section, crouching to look at the damage from below. He came back up.
"Three days," he said. "Maybe two if the parts I need are in the toolbox."
Coulson looked at the ship and then at Rocket with unconcealed respect. "Our people estimated two weeks minimum."
Rocket shrugged. "Your people don't know where anything is."
Star-Lord grinned. "He's the best mechanic in the outer systems. Just don't say that out loud or he'll want a raise."
"I'm standing right here," Rocket said.
"Leave him to it," Coulson said, and turned to the rest of the group. "In the meantime — lounge, drinks, and I'd genuinely like to hear some of those stories. Skye and I have a lot of questions about what it's actually like out there."
Skye, who had been watching Groot carefully because Groot had been watching her back, looked up. "So many questions."
Star-Lord spread his hands. "Pick a direction. We've got stories in every direction."
Ego, who had been silent through the entire exchange, watching Coulson with the mild attentive interest he gave to competent people, finally spoke.
"I'm quite curious myself," he said, "to hear what Earth's perspective is on the universe." A small smile. "From the inside looking out, for once."
Coulson looked at him with the professional warmth that gave away nothing, and gestured toward the lounge.
"Right this way."
Smith Doyle walked into the warehouse while Rocket was three components deep into the port engine housing.
He stood for a moment, looked at the Milano, and then looked at the lounge door where voices were audible — Star-Lord apparently in the middle of a story about the Collector that had Skye audibly reacting.
He wasn't in a hurry.
The Tree of Might question had arranged itself in his mind with the clarity of a decision that had already been made: Ego's planet, not Maveth. The energy differential alone made it obvious. He'd need to see the planet directly to assess the cultivation site, which meant the ride to Ego's planet was a practical necessity rather than a social call.
He'd let the conversation run its course, wait for a natural moment, and propose the arrangement directly. Ego would agree — a Celestial-origin being who wanted his son's trust wasn't going to object to his son's director coming along for the trip.
He walked to the lounge door and knocked once before opening it.
The room went quiet in the way rooms do when someone walks in and the assembled people run a rapid background assessment and arrive at a unanimous conclusion.
Smith looked at the group — Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Groot on the windowsill, Rocket visible through the warehouse door still working, Coulson, Skye, and Ego — and then looked at Ego specifically.
"Director Smith," Coulson said.
Smith nodded. He looked at Star-Lord. "Peter Quill. Welcome back to Earth." He looked at Ego. "And welcome to you as well."
Ego looked back at him with the quiet attention of a being who has spent a billion years assessing things and is not easily assessed in return.
"You know who I am," Ego said. It was not a question.
"I have a reasonable idea," Smith said. He took a chair. "I'd like to discuss a proposal with you, when you have a moment. Something that might be of mutual benefit."
Ego settled back in his seat. Something in his expression shifted — not quite surprise, the same recalibration he'd shown Star-Lord in the cafe.
"I'm listening," he said.