In arriving on the planet of Sovereign, their radio link was extended to a person on a landing dock. He told them to proceed to a number platform and land their ship at the bottom, then someone would come retrieve them to fight the Abilisk for their people. 

"Wait, it's coming right now?" wondered Charlie, leaning toward the speaker. "I thought we had a few weeks at the most."

The Sovereign was quiet. "Yes," he said.

Charlie scrunched her face at the speaker, saying, "Hello?" a couple times before she realized the Sovereign had hung up.

"Sound like a bunch of weirdos," said Rocket. He was throwing a hand held bomb in the air and catching it before he hit the floor.

Charlie simply snatched it from him and shoved it in her pocket, so used to the action she only had to point her finger at him menacingly before his ears flattened.

Sighing, she continued, "Yes, their race is rather proper and not much of the joking type, so let's be nice, okay? No rude comments or I'll take away one of your toys."

"C'mon, that's not fair," groaned Rocket. He looked around and waved his finger in Gamora and Drax's direction. "How come they don't have consequences?"

"Because we don't have to worry about them doing something stupid," interjected Peter.

"Oh, shut up and pilot! You're not gonna make that landing deck at this angle," critized Rocket.

"What, you think you could do it better? You can't reach the levers!" snapped Peter.

"That's what seat adjustments are for!"

"Hey!" yelled Gamora and Charlie at the same time. Charlie continued, agitated, "I've had it with you two and you constantly yelling at each other! I am two seconds away from sending you to sit and face a damn corner, you guys. Argue again and you bet your asses I will take over  and fly this ship if you two continue to argue over who has the bigger--"

Charlie squeaked when the ship jerked and rammed her body into the back of the pilot's seat; Peter landed the Milano on the center of the golden platform. Her face flushed into a soft pink, realizing the scary demeanor she worked incredibly hard to build had crumbled with just a tiny squeak. She frowned deeply. 

"I think," said Drax, raising his hand to bring attention to him, "Charlie wants you both to stop arguing. This woman lacks a threatening quality. I do not."

"Yes, thank you, Drax, threaten them until they're shaking in their bones!" cheered Charlie. She held her hand up to Drax. 

He looked between his hand and her own, softly applying it to her hand. A high-five was a Terra custom he found strange, but he did it for her. He then asked, "Metaphor?"

"Metaphor," agreed Charlie proudly. 

Peter allowed the Milano's engine to cool by powering her off. He knocked the dashboard with his knuckles twice, praising his ship for a generally smooth ride. He slid out of the pilot's seat, sent a mildly nasty glare to Rocket, then tapped Charlie's hip to guide her from the cockpit. 

When she followed Peter, the rest of the crew followed behind her. They all split their separate ways briefly to grab their signature weapons from different crooks and cracks within the ship-- despite being good friends, most of them didn't trust the others to know where all of their weapons were stored. A level of trust did exist within the team, but hiding their pieces made for a stronger bond, mostly because no one wanted Rocket to mess with their things. 

Before the back hatch, the Guardians gathered. Baby Groot, squealing and sprinting as fast as he could, was the last to arrive. He was hauling a pencil from the desk next to Charlie's bed.

"Groot, what are you doing?" wondered Charlie, squatting in front of him. 

Groot skidded to a stop in front of her and she scooped him up, where he lay across her hand, chest rising up and down. "I am Groot," he panted, pushing the pencil up with his trembling little arms. 

Charlie took the clearly heavy weight of the pencil from his hands. She looked to Rocket for a translation as she wiggled Groot into the breast pocket of her jacket-- an addition she had done just for him.

"He says it can be used to protect you," said Rocket, disappointed. "Groot, it's a frickin' pencil. What's a pencil gonna do?"

"Hey, leave my baby alone. I think it was very sweet of him to try to suggest a weapon for me," defended Charlie. 

She roughed up the fur on top of Rocket's head and then patted Groot's head in appreciation. When Groot wasn't looking, she tossed the pencil behind her and coughed when it hit the ground. She then pushed her elbow into the release button, allowing the bay doors to slide open for them. 

Peter was first down the ramp. At the end of the ramp, he held his hand out to help Charlie down, then interlocked their hands protectively when he noticed a golden man climbing a set of spiraled stairs that led to the top of the platform. 

"Gamora," said Peter, subtly nodding. He knew his talking would only get him so far; Gamora was the true best at negotiating and handling deals. 

Gamora stepped to the front beside Peter and Charlie. Entirely meaning to, she covered Rocket's body with her tall figure. She wanted to avoid the rodent speaking out and causing both the entire team and the Sovereign issues. The deal needed to go as smoothly as possible if they were going to obtain what made the deal worthy of their aid: Nebula. 

"Hello," said Charlie, turning on her polite voice. She saluted with two fingers lazily. "We're the Guardians of the Galaxy. You called?"

"Our Lady Aisha did request your help, yes," said the man. In the slight raise of his golden nose, his clear distaste was present in even requesting their aid, let alone seeing them with his own eyes. 

"O-okay," said Peter. He interjected to stop Charlie from saying anything she was going to regret; he felt her own projected distaste in the tighter clasp of his hand. "Do we get, like, a briefing or somethin' about this thing?"

The man unfolded his hands. He pointed into the sky. 

Their necks craned into the bright lights. Squints or hands over their eyebrows occurred to see through the glare of light hitting the golden structure of literally every inch of their planet, especially the higher you looked. 

"At that platform you will defeat the Abilisk. There is a ship on its way that will take you there. You will wait for the Abilisk. Good luck," he said, folding his hands. He turned and began to saunter away. He stopped, turned and spit, "Guardians," then continued on his way away from them. 

Charlie stared after him in shock. Peter wiggled his hand with her own, chuckling slightly when she pulled her hand away to pace the length of her team. Her small face was scrunched in an angry twist, her fists shaking in the air like she was ready to fight. 

"I have never wanted to 'accidentally' hit someone so bad. The disrespect! The audacity!" she cried, softly, though, in case another Sovereign was near. "I am a Guardian of the frickin' Galaxy! We coulda let Ronan take Sovereign, but we didn't, did we?"

Used to her rhetorical questions during an angry session, the team chorused, "No," for their girl. 

Rocket cracked his knuckles. "You sure you don't want me to 'accidentally' claw up his face a little? Because I can."

"Violence is bad!" said Charlie, pointing her finger in his face. 

Peter raised his brow. "Do we wanna revisit when you started a bar fight?"

Charlie stopped pacing to place her hand on her forehead. Eyes closed, she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. "No," she said repeatedly, because that was all she could think of to say. 

"Charlie?" prompted Drax excitedly. "The tiny woman instigated a brawl? I'd like to hear that story."

"Suddenly, I've forgotten every day in my past," said Charlie quickly. She pointed behind them to an incoming aircraft big enough to fit the six of them and transport them to the bigger platform. "Look, it's our ride, let's go!" 

She grabbed Rocket's hand and made him run with her to the edge of the platform. Standing eagerly, they watched the golden hemisphere land in front of them. Part of the bottom folded out into stairs, then a Sovereign woman extended her hand at the top while the other woman focused on piloting. 

Charlie stood at the end of the staircase and scooted Rocket up the steps, then Gamora, then Drax. All gave her different looks, from highly amused to highly determined to the casual 'just happy to be here' kinda look. 

Peter placed his foot on the first step, stopping in front of her. On his lips was a half-smirk, the one Charlie was so familiar with, because it meant one of three things: he wanted to do something, he was satisfied with making her frustrated, or he wanted her to bake lemon squares. In the moment, it meant the second reason. 

Charlie squinted her eyes, daring him to bring up her first ever bar brawl again while they were on the planet Sovereign. Their eye game was too strong for the others to understand; communicating through eyes and eyebrows related to their own language, almost. 

In the end, Peter shook his head in playful defeat. Despite silently agreeing to leave the topic alone, just to keep everyone in line and focused while on a job, he didn't agree to never agreeing to the topic again, which he knew she was pushing for.

Charlie patted his butt lightly to get him to move up the stairs. She followed behind him and the stairs folded up behind her feet hopping each step quickly to account for every two steps Peter took. She settled for winning the energy draining battle of keeping her family in check-- for now.