Gamora and I were running through the Black Order and their abilities. The room was large, spacious, and crowded, a military installation with bare concrete walls and Tina implementing one of Loki's anti-scrying spell above us. "Maw is the most powerful by far," she said, surrounded by Fireflies as we took in the information. Even a relatively small percent to serve emissaries could fill up even a large room. "He's a wizard, he uses his abilities to move objects and himself. I'm not aware of any upward limit for his telekinetic powers – He can manipulate dozens or hundreds of objects, multi-task fairly easily, and he's brilliant. I think of Thanos' loyal children, he is the most likely to inherit after Thanos."

I nodded, taking notes. "Can he stop explosions? Is he vulnerable to vacuum?"

Gamora shook her head, "No, he can't."

"So we blow up his ship on the way out," I said, noting it down.

"He can stop teleportation on his ship," Gamora warned.

I had figured. If Tina could do it, I figured Thanos' wizard could too. "We'll launch a missile," I said. It had worked last time.

"How're you going to get past his point defense system?"

"Shrink it to the size of fingernail clipping."

"Could work, though they know you can do that now," Gamora said. "I heard about that ship. Going down to a nuclear warhead… embarrassing."

"My wife actually used several nuclear warheads," I said, proud of her. It was overkill, the best kind of kill. Thorough. Final. Unmistakable.

We tallied through the rest of Black Order. The next big heavy was Cull Obsidian, who had a multi-tool hammer and, from the sounds of it, strength to the north of the Fireflies. Unfortunate, but we could also launch eighty fireflies the size of mosquitos at him, so I had confidence we could kill him. The Fireflies were hard as vibranium and their insides were fortified. As long as they could keep breathing, it would be fine. Corvus Glaive, disarm, disable. Proxima Midnight, tough, needed a heavy assignment as well. All of Thanos' children were insanely well-equiped.

But in the spars, Gamora had only been able to fight three Fireflies off at most, even with a gun, so I wasn't in terror of these people. Gamora had been his favorite. Eventually, we dismissed the Fireflies.

I closed my notebook. "Thank you for your time Gamora, we will avenge your home world."

"Wait," she said, before I walked off. "If we go to fight Thanos. I need to make sure that… I need something to kill me, if I'm captured. Everyone says you can design anything."

Wait, what? "Why on earth would we do that? You've been nothing but helpful."

"If I'm captured, Thanos will be able to discover the location of the Soul Stone. I'm the only one who knows where it is."

Ah, that made sense of the 'Quill working up the will to shoot her' scene. Nonetheless, "I don't want to be contrarian, but I have literally thousands of soldiers who, while not quite as good as you, are very, very dangerous. They're nearly invulnerable. They're tougher than any terrestrial metal. They have laser hands and can shrink to the size of gnats while punching harder than a sniper round. Stay planet side. Let us kill Thanos."

Stolen story; please report.

Gamora shook her head, "He could have Nebula. Heimdall wasn't able to find her." Ah, Thor, we need to talk about the wisdom of allowing assets access to the all seeing eye. "I won't go without her."

"Alright," I said with a shrug, "We'll make a pocket sized consumable that will blow out the inside of your head on command. Not a problem." Pathetically easy, really. "Is your digestive system 24 hours like humans?"

"Yes," she said. "Why?"

"Necessary information for the supply of Micron Particles," I said, texting ordinances. "We'll give you a command phrase, if Thanos captures you, just say that phrase. What command do you want it to be?"

"Go to hell," Gamora said.

"Alright, okay, but how about a command that you might not say by accident."

Gamora paused and thought, for many moments, her face careful. Then she nodded her head slowly. "I love you and goodbye, Peter Quill."

Wow, okay, that was dark. But there wasn't anything for it, she wouldn't say it by accident. "Alright," I said, putting my phone on record, "Say that into the microphone here five times and I'll have a pill for you to take and eight bombs for you to wear at all times."

"Isn't that excessive?" Gamora asked, before saying the code phrase five times, her eyes welling up with tears by the end. Understandable, really. It was a difficult situation.

"Absolutely fucking not," I said. "If I didn't need your continued help for preparation and strategy, I'd be refusing you outright. We can save your sister without you being there."

Gamora shook her head, "You know nothing of honor."

I shrugged, "I confess to it not being my primary virtue. But I promise you, Gamora, we will kill the man who murdered your world. We will save the universe. I will not be asking anyone's permission to achieve that goal."

Gamora nodded her head respectfully. "I'm just glad I don't have to ask Peter to do this."

I understood that. I wouldn't want Andromeda to have to kill me either, though she certainly might given the right circumstances. "If I have to die by someone else's hands, I'd choose for it to be my wife. I am sure he would have done the honor, or tried his best, if you had asked it of him."

Right then, a portal opened and Thor, Loki, and Strange walked through. "Heimdall has seen Thanos' ships above Nidavellir."

I sighed. I had hoped for more time, but I just pressed the rally call on my phone, sent a message to Garrett to do the same, and walked through Strange's portal to Norway.

"No ma'am," I said, pointing at her. "Go down to munitions, get the bombs first, then meet at the rally point with a Quantum Tunneler. Nidavellir won't burn in a minute." Thor looked at me askance, "But hurry."

We didn't have much time to waste.