Space Museum

The sky darkens, deepens from blue to black, and grows innumerable stars. High above and off to one side, a single auburn star grows and resolves into a rectangular prism, a brick-shape if you will, blotting out many stars.

The Richards Rocket is not headed to the Space Museum, or so it appears, but Sue Storm explains that the ship has to match velocities before it blends its orbit with that of the Collector's ship. Otherwise the intercept becomes less of a meeting and more of a collision.

Machine Man indicates a doorway; there are many. It will flood with air automatically once the rocket is inside.

Fortunately, the Collector is not the Astronomer, the Watcher, or the Recorder. The Space Museum has few sensors and fewer windows. He is likely not aware of the Earthlings' stealthy (well, blatantly obvioius: the rocket is even white) approach.

The rocket docks with the massive Museum Ship. In the cavernous entry bay is another ship, brass and gold along its entire length, with spikes tapering from every surface except the top, which mounts three masts and three sets of mirror-mesh sails.

"That's a Shi'ar starjammer," Machine Man explains. "The Collector bought it off Corsair when he traded up."

The air inside is cool but healthy. Except for Ant-Man, no one should retain his space suit, because their colorful costumes will not be visible if they do.

"The Aether Stone is in the jewelry section," says Machine Man. "It's right along here, past the rainbow of Kryptonites ..."

As he leads the group through a doorless archway, a feathered tornado knocks him sprawling with a clang!

"Howard ... it's me! Abel!" insists Machine Man to the humanoid duck who has just kicked him across the room.

"I know!" quacks the duck. "An' I been listenin' to your yap all I'm gonna take! Whip out those arms, Robby, because I'm gonna open up a whole can of Quack-Fu on you!"

Behind Howard the Duck, the jewelry area extends, vast and resplendent. It has high ceilings with overhangs, excellent for swinging, and lots of lights and polished mirrors for ants to climb on.

And it's huge ... which means it can sustain its own weather system.

So huge is the Space Museum, in fact, that Machine Man's clattering fall onto the metallic deck was probably not heard in most of the vast ship's area. Which means there's only a small chance the Collector is now on his way down here with fire in his eyes, almost literally.