Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

What Yondu noticed when he finally snapped awake was that the pounding on his front door was not, in fact, a dream. It was three in the morning and, out of spite for whoever was waking him up, he didn’t bother to grab clothes as he walked to the door. They could deal with the “haven’t done laundry this week” underwear.

He found himself face to face with someone he’d really hoped never to see again. It wasn’t a bad face, but that was the problem. A decent face on a very shitty person he’d love to avoid, before his life managed to get further ruined.

“Ego.”

Before he’d met Ego (which was a dumb name), his life had been okay. Well, maybe not okay. He still lived in a shitty part of town with shitty neighbors and a shitty car. But he’d had friends and, hell, he was in his twenties. Life was good when you were that young. Until Ego. Then it was a heap of bad shit that alienated everyone he’d ever cared about. The pain of loss was fairly unsuccessfully dulled by the ridiculous amount of money he got from it.

So he stopped talking to Ego, moved towns, started on a slightly more legitimate path, and that was supposed to be the end of it. Until a few years of banal not-quite-suburban existence was interrupted by Ego once again.

 “Yondu! Still fond of the no-pants look.”

Then he noticed the kid next to Ego; a sniffling boy with a black-eye and a bookbag over his shoulder. “Who’s that?”

“This is Peter. I need you to look after him for me, for a few days at most,” he said. Then he dropped his voice, leaning over Peter’s head to speak directly to Yondu. “His mother and grandparents died in an awful fire. He’s my son.”

He didn’t look much like Ego, but Yondu guessed that was in his favor.

“Fine. Call me when you’re ready to pick him up,” he said, gesturing for Peter to follow him inside.

“Where’s he going?” the kid asked, his voice hoarse.

“Says he’s got things to do, kid.”

He sniffed again.

“Your daddy give you that shiner, boy?”

The kid shook his head. “I got into a fight at school today.”

A scrappy lad. Not too much like his old man, then. “The spare bedroom is at the top of the stairs to the right.” Yondu trudged back to his bedroom, but stopped short when he didn’t hear the kid move. “Kid?”

A pause. What was his name?

“Peter?”

“…Can I stay with you tonight?” the kid asked. The kid was in shock, he guessed there wasn’t much else for it.  

“Sure. Follow me.” Yondu put on pants before he settled back into bed. The kid’s mom had died, he may as well try and be nice. Peter sat on the edge of the bed, fiddling with an old Walkman with frayed headphone wires.

Three weeks passed before he heard anything from Ego, and it was just an odd woman with a stack of papers that stated that Ego had forfeited his parental rights to Yondu. He wasn’t sure who had been paid off to make this possible, and frankly he didn’t care. Three weeks was enough for him to know a kid like this didn’t deserve a dad like Ego.

He signed them, and that was that. Peter Quill was his.

Peter made his life a little less miserable than it had been.

So when he found two street kids with no names or homes rummaging through the trash at his autoshop one day, he brought them home too. Suddenly the house was fuller and Yondu had a built in excuse to keep people at arm’s lengths; three sons to take of, certainly don’t have time to make friends or have relationships.

And that’s how he ended up taking care of Rocket and Groot.

He wouldn’t say he was a great parent. Hell, even “good” would be a stretch. But they developed like they were supposed to, ate two or three meals a day and had a roof over their heads. He was at least a mediocre dad.

Nine years passed from the night Ego dropped off Peter without so much as a hint of where the man had fucked off to. Peter was nearly grown. Life was pretty normal.

Of course, shit was gonna have to change eventually, right?

Chapter Text

First, Rocket got expelled from school.

Admittedly, he’d gotten expelled from the worst school in the district, at the end of the school year,  and a few terse phone calls that began and ended with “but his test scores!” got him a spot at the third-worst school in the district for the next school year.

Rocket was bright, but confrontational. He was constantly building weird gadgets and “fixing” things around the house. He liked to help around Yondu’s shop, though officially he wasn’t “allowed” to. His expulsion had been a result of “defacing school property” because he’d turned a clock into a stink-bomb time-release.

It had been his third strike.

They had all summer to find a new place in that school district, but it wasn’t so much the timeframe that Yondu was irritated with as he loaded the kids into the car and headed home. He’d kind of thought about moving anyway. Maybe they’d just rent a cheap place on that side of town and sell the house. Or something. It was irritating that his hand was being forced, however.

“How grounded am I?” he asked.

“You’re cleaning the entire house,” he said, which by Yondu’s fairly lax parenting standards was pretty damn grounded.

“We don’t have to move, it’s not that far of a drive,” Peter complained. The house they were in had been their home for nearly a decade, and maybe he was hesitant to let it go. Everything about it was so familiar. “You’re just being lazy.”

“How is moving lazier than driving twenty extra minutes a day?” Rocket asked.

Exhaling loudly through his nose, he resisted the urge to close his eyes and just swerve the car into a ditch to avoid talking to the boys. A normal sensation once puberty sets in. “It’ll be easier if we do, and I’ve been thinkin’ about it for a while anyway. That side of town is closer to work for me too.”

The only reason he’d stayed where he’d been was because it had been the school district Peter had been in when he came to Yondu and he didn’t want him to switch schools and lose friends. It was clear now that Peter had no friends, save his brothers, and whatever girl he’d taken a fancy to that week, so he felt way less guilty about Peter starting his final year of high school at a new school.

Groot had been silent through all of this. Groot was typically silent, mostly because he couldn’t actually talk, but he managed to be chatty enough through sign language. Usually he input his opinion, but right now he was just sitting quietly, trapped between his brothers.

“Something wrong, Twig?” he asked.

Groot looked between Rocket and Peter and shook his head.

“He says the stinkbomb thing was his idea and he didn’t mean for me to get in trouble,” Rocket said, but the voice he used was not his ‘translating for Groot’ voice. Yondu couldn’t actually look back and see what was transpiring, but he imagined Rocket had just gotten punched in the arm.

“He actually said he wants to move schools, but not if Peter doesn’t want to,” Peter interjected, properly translating for his brother. Of the three, Groot was the kindest, though he still had an edge of combativeness to him that is a necessary side-effect of living with Yondu Udonta.

They finally got home after a full car ride of sniping and complaints, and he sent them inside without getting out of the car himself. “Start cleaning or I’ll toss all of ya to the coyotes!” he called after them, immediately turning around and heading back to work. He at least needed to relieve Tullk for the last forty-five minutes of the day.

It was hard to differentiate between “best” friend and “only” friend, but Tullk was probably both. When he moved to town and opened the autoshop with the money Ego had paid him to take Peter, he’d only hired one other person, and that was Tullk.

“Get out of here,” he said as he walked behind the counter.

“Ain’t got anywhere else to be,” he said. “Not exactly a busy day, you coulda stayed home.”

Yondu grunted, kicking his feet up onto the counter and leaning back, grabbing the newspaper from their daily stack of mail and skimming through it. Same old shit. He’d never really concerned himself with politics, even the local sort, though some snotty white nationalist was making a fuss and the people of the town were a little pissed about it.

The bell over the door rang and someone walked in, a lanky guy with spiky hair and an unfortunate series of neck tattoos. “Got time for an oil change?” he asked, his accent thick. “Or are ya too busy?”

Tullk got up. “I’ll take care of it,” he said before Yondu could remind him he just told his ass to leave.

That left Yondu alone with Neck Tattoo, who handed off the keys to Tullk and took a seat in the tiny square they called a lobby. He chanced a look into the work area and saw the alleged car pulled into the bay. “That car looks like it needed to be taken out back and shot ten years ago, boy,” he said. It was a sad sight; a boxy sedan that was at least half rust. The other half might have been duct tape.

“Don’t call me boy,” was the response. Yondu gave him a longer look; at first he thought might have been a few years older than Peter or Rocket, but upon a second inspection, he might have been pushing thirty. It was hard to tell.

Why did it matter? Still younger than Yondu.

Kid put a cigarette in his mouth as he turned to walk outside and continue waiting for Tullk. Yondu knew he should stick by the phone in case one of the kids called, but he walked outside as well. He’d hear it, surely.

“Let me get one of those, b – ” he managed to stop. “Whatever your name is.”

“They’re really expensive,” he said as he shook one out towards Yondu. “Kraglin.”

“Thanks.” He lit the cigarette and watched Tullk pull the car back out to the front of the shop. It groaned unhappily as he did, and Yondu couldn’t think of a sadder sight than that car. He almost wanted to give him one of the junkers on their lot just to spare himself the indignity of looking at it.

“Is a paperclip holding your trunk closed?” Tullk asked as he tossed Kraglin the keys.

“Gotta do what you gotta do,” he said with a shrug. “Ain’t worth what it’d cost to fix,” he added, pulling out his wallet and handing Yondu two bills. “That should do it. Later.”

“Let’s close up a couple minutes early,” he said, waving off Tullk, who went about closing the bay doors while Yondu went to punch in the money to the register. A scrap of cardboard, clearly off a cigarette pack, fell out from between the bills, with a phone number scribbled on it.

He locked the doors and walked outside to where he had abandoned the still smoldering cigarette, picking up.

“I thought you were quitting,” Tullk said as he walked up, keys in hand.

“Rocket get kicked outta school today, I earned it,” he said.

“What’s that?” He gestured to the piece of paper, raising an eyebrow. Yondu was torn between saying it was nothing and sparing himself the riffing, or being honest so that no one thought he felt some sort of self-consciousness about it.

“Kid’s number,” he said gruffly, twiddling it between two fingers thoughtlessly. “Not sure what he means by that,” he said, his voice going loud over the sound of Tullk’s guffawing. “Shut up, man.”

“I’ll see you later, Yondu,” he said, shaking his head and wandering off to his own car.

Yondu left a minute later, throwing the card down on the passenger’s seat and heading back home. He was surprised to see the place clean. Well, clean by the standards that four men ranging from 13 to near-40 had.

Which were fairly low.

“Uh, Yondu?” Peter said in a meek voice reserved for “you caught me with a girl in my room” or “I broke something I was told not to fuck with” apologies. So he entered the kitchen ready for shattered glass hastily swept up, or something similar.

He was not expecting a girl, maybe 15, with big black eyes and a bookbag, brandishing a note from Ego. Just for a few days, it asserted, he’d be back for her certainly.

And that was how Yondu ended up taking care of Peter’s half-sister, Mantis.

Chapter Text

Yondu woke up the morning after Mantis’s sudden arrival to a bank account that was about six figures heftier than it had been when he’d gone to sleep. He knew where Ego got his money and knew it was certainly never going to be a problem for him, but he’d rather the man save it and start investing in birth control or something and stop just unloading kids on him.

Plus he’d never dealt with a girl child before.

The money and the girl solidified the need to move, and move quickly. He didn’t like the fact that Ego had kept tabs on him all these years, and suddenly moving felt like he was shaking off someone tailing him. So they put the house up for rent, instead of bothering to try and sell it, and found a house in the new district, pretty close to town. All-cash dealings were sketchy but did manage to get things done quicker.

He had enough left over to save and give Peter his old station wagon, picking himself a modest used car out and paying for it in cash. It was a small town, no one was going to ask too many questions. Everyone needed the money.

Peter had been bugging him about a car for over a year, and it delighted him to be given one, even a hand-me-down that was on its last year or two. Peter loved tinkering, however, and would probably keep it in good shape. He didn’t feel too bad about that decision, though the level of freedom he’d just given his eldest son troubled him ever so slightly. (“Don’t expect any birthday presents this year,” Yondu very convincingly lied.) Whatever. Kids grew up. That’s how it went. Stopping to be sad about it wasn’t really gonna help.

All in all, a busy couple of weeks.

Rocket was delighted by the attic in the new house, quickly declaring it he and Groot’s room. That was a relief for Peter, who wouldn’t have to share with them or, lord help all of them, his sister.

Mantis was quiet, but sweet. Supposedly she had been homeschooled all her life, but Yondu suspected that ‘homeschooled’ really meant ‘never allowed to leave Ego’s sight’. She was a little eerie at times, and seemed to have a knack for reading the emotions of a room like a book.

She was Peter’s opposite in temperament and interests. She completely lacked Peter and Rocket’s cynicism, which was troubling for Yondu, who would hate to ruin her.

“I learned so much today,” she said to no one in particular. Peter was listening to music and Rocket was tinkering. Groot was paying attention, though, and Yondu gave her an appraising head nod so she didn’t think she needed to repeat herself. “Like, how, you are not supposed to sniff people’s hair without asking. No one ever told me that until this lady on the street mentioned it.”

Picturing Mantis sniffing strangers’ hair, Yondu groaned. “Really?”

Mantis blinked. “Yes!” She grinned. It was a slightly unnatural thing, her attempt at a smile, but she had been getting better. He had balked at the notion that she’d never smiled before. What the fuck, Ego.

“Can I have someone over tonight?” Peter asked innocently.

He narrowed his eyes. Ever since Peter had barreled headfirst into puberty, Yondu had been thwarting his attempts to, ahem, spread his seed. Peter had a habit of being a little overly friendly, on top of irresponsible and not too terribly picky. Yondu’s biggest fear was the accidental pregnancy talk. At least Rocket seemed utterly disinterested in all of those sorts of things (though he was only 14, so time would tell) and Groot was still just too young for the talk.

Wait, what about Mantis? Was he going to have to give a sex talk more in-depth than ‘please use condoms, I’m literally begging you to wear a condom Peter Jason Quill’? She was 15, but completely naïve to the world. That could be good or bad. What if someone tried to take advantage of her? Other than the fact that he would be honor-bound to murder them (and he would take great joy in it), he would prefer to avoid any undue trauma during her stay with him (which was, given Ego’s track record, likely to be permanent).

Maybe he could get Peter to do it. That’s what big brothers were for, right? He was 17 and convinced he knew everything, it wouldn’t be too hard to get him talking…

“Hello, Yondu?” Peter asked, leaning over to wave his hand in front of Yondu’s face.

“Who’re you inviting over?” he asked.

“This girl I met at the park. She’s really smart, she’s all super into science,” he said. “I thought maybe she’d tutor me, we’ve got summer homework.”

“Fine. But she’s gone by 10.”

“Okay!” he said, speeding off to pick up this so-called tutor. He doubted she was into science. Other than whatever chemistry Peter had tricked her into thinking they had. He chuckled to himself and went to start the dishes.

Rocket disappeared (Groot in tow) from the dinner table to tinker in their new attic room. He wanted lofted beds and all kinds of weird shit and honestly, him putting his energy into building things was less energy he put into trying to beat the crap out of people or grow out that atrocious facial hair that only a 14-year-old boy could be proud of.

“May I go outside?” Mantis asked.

“Just don’t wander off,” he said, waving her off. She went out to the back yard (a fenced-in one with lots of coverage, which was a huge bonus within the city limits) and he went to smoke out on the porch.

Well, he was going to smoke, but the cigarette hadn’t even hit his lips when he looked up and saw Neck Tattoo Guy walking out of the house across the street.

“Nope,” he said to himself, turning around and going back inside. He had been too preoccupied with Mantis to remember that he had some guy’s number hidden somewhere in his car.

It’s not that he hadn’t thought about calling the dude, it was just that…well, okay, he hadn’t really thought about it at all. And he didn’t want to be questioned. The kid was a ballsy level of presumptuous, he had to give him that. If Mantis hadn’t happened, he might have called.

Then it hit him that he hadn’t cleaned out his car when he’d pawned it off on Peter.

Shitfuckdamn.

It was just a scrap of trash paper, he’d probably just end up spilling soda on it or throwing it away on the rare chance he cleaned out his car. It had been sitting there for two weeks.

It’d take him months – no, years – to find it, if he ever did.

That’s what Yondu told himself.

So imagine his unpleasant surprise when Peter came back, leading a girl in shorts and loud flipflops up the stairs by the hand, his free hand clutched around a little scrap of cardboard.

“Is this yours? I found it in the seat,” he said.

“It’s just a piece of a cigarette pack,” he lied, trying to put on the face of someone being shown a particularly lumpy dirt clod. (As he had been many times when Peter was far too old to be interested in dirt.)

“It has a phone number on it,” he said.

“Oh.” Yondu took it out of Peter’s hand with too much force. “Somebody from the job. Wanted a quote on a part.”

Peter was eyeing him with a lot of suspicion. “This is Bereet,” he said, finally changing gears. “This is my dad,” he said. They had, over the years, run through a million different explanations and phrases, but they always came back to ‘dad’. It was easier, cleaner, and honestly, Yondu liked it more than he’d ever admit.

“Nice to meet you,” she said.

He just nodded and they disappeared inside, allegedly to do homework. He stuffed the piece of paper in his pocket and tried to relax, which was impossible with four teenagers running around. Yondu used to do fun things in his free time. He used to have a life.

No real loss, when he’d had free time, it meant having time to get into trouble.

Chapter Text

Tullk came around the weekend after they moved. Peter was in his room, listening to his music far too loudly, though it had the benefit of drowning out the noise of Rocket constantly hammering upstairs.  Boxes were still strewn about, half-unpacked and creating a claustrophobic sort of environment.

Mantis peered out from the top of the stairs, shyly observing the new presence in the house.

Yondu had explained the situation in the vaguest possible terms, so his friend knew to approach Mantis with caution. She was so jumpy that Yondu was growing some legitimate concerns about Ego’s parenting. Not that he was in the running for Dad of the Year or anything, but being emotionally unavailable and grumpy didn’t make 15-year-old girls scared to be in a room with people.

“Hi,” she managed to say, smiling.

“Hi,” was the response.

“Go get your brother, would ya?” he asked her.

Mantis bopped off and returned with a cranky Peter (he was mad Bereet didn’t want to hang out with him anymore, something about telling her that her sister was hot. Honestly he didn’t listen when Peter got dumped anymore, he just pretended to so the kid got it all out in one go and felt better).

“Can you look after your siblings?” he asked. “Or do I need to call a sitter?” It was an empty threat, Tullk was the only babysitter he’d ever used for them, and he was being dragged out drinking by that very person.

“Sure,” he groused.

“Peter, may I listen to music with you?” he heard Mantis ask as they turned for the door.

There was enough of a pause before Peter answered yes that Yondu had to turn and glare up the stairs at him. He had been resistant to the idea of having a sister, especially one dropped off by his deadbeat biological father, but Mantis had gotten under his skin the same way she had gotten under everyone else’s in the house. He didn’t much worry about Peter or Groot being unkind to the girl. Rocket was a dick at times, but ultimately, he was harmless.

“There’s a place just around the block if you feel up to the walk, old man,” Tullk told him, pointing down the street where the neighborhood opened into the city.

“A college bar?” he asked, about to remind them that they were far too old to be surrounded by hammered college kids.

“Nah, neighborhood-y.”

“Fine, lead the way then.”

It was straight down the street Yondu lived on and to the left, down a small hill. It was an out of the way, divey kind of bar, with a few people and their dogs sitting out on a patio smoking. They dipped inside. Music was playing, but at the volume that was reasonable to people over the age of 30. A couple of rough looking guys were playing pool in the corner.

They sat the bar, and Tullk threw down a bill, calling for two of whatever was on special.

Two cans were put in front of them and Yondu finally looked up.

Right at Neck Tattoo.

“Aw, hell,” he said, a little too loudly.

Tullk was laughing from behind his beer.

“Did you do this on purpose?” Yondu muttered to his friend. “If you did, you’re fired.”

“Lighten up Yondu. Just a small-town coincidence,” he lied unconvincingly, occupying himself with his drink.

Instead of arguing, he just angled himself away from the bar and drank his beer. He watched the two men playing pool start sizing each other up – one was big, with more hair and beard than strictly necessary, and the other was a lanky guy with long dark hair, though half of his head was shaved down to the scalp.

They stepped up to each other and a fight seemed inevitable.

Neck Tattoo cursed, throwing down the rag he had been cleaning the bar with and stomping over. He shouldered his way between them, stepping up to the big guy. Beardguy had a couple of inches and probably a hundred pounds on the kid, but that didn’t seem to faze him.

Whatever he said sent them stalking off to opposite sides of the bar, though, and Neck Tattoo returned to his post, grumbling.

“Start shit when my shift ends, Half-Nut,” he called over the bar before he got back to work.

They ordered two more beers before Neck Tattoo disappeared and was replaced with a short bald guy that Yondu disliked on sight. He stepped out to smoke after the third drink.

“Can I bum one?” someone asked.

“They’re expensive,” he said, mostly as a jab at the kid, handing him the requested cigarette.

Yondu lit a match and the kid leaned in to light his cigarette off of it before Yondu could even get his own. He didn’t know whether to be impressed with his continued presumptuous or a little insulted. He lit his smoke and didn’t say anything.

“It’s not that big of a town, dude, don’t act weird about it,” he said.

Yondu rolled his eyes.

“What’s your name anyway? I like to know who I strike out with.”

“Yondu. And you are?” He wanted to correct him about striking out, but he also didn’t care to divulge any of the details of this very odd last few weeks.

“Kraglin Obfonteri.”

“Right. Thought it was something like that,” he said. There was a tense pause. “Wasn’t personal.”

“What?” he asked. “Forgetting my name?”

“Not callin’. I got thr – four kids. No time to remember shit like that.”

Kraglin frowned. His eyes darted down to Yondu’s hands, clearly scanning for a ring. “Four kids? You married? And opposed to gettin’ snipped? One of those weird anti-birth control religions?”

Presumptuous. “God, no. Adopted.”

“They let single middle aged mechanics adopt children?”

“Not gonna get into the specifics with ya, kid,” he said, shaking his head, bristling at being called middle aged even though it wasn’t strictly inaccurate. He chucked his beer bottle into the recycling bin and got up to look for Tullk, finishing his cigarette as he walked away. He hated explaining his situation to people, and with the appearance of Mantis he’d already done it too many times this month. Plus, hell, some random guy who hit on him at work wasn’t really deserving of his life story.

They paid their tab with the bartender and walked back home.

“I’m never letting you take me anywhere ever again,” he said.

Tullk cackled. “Lighten up Yondu.” It was something he said a lot these days.

Chapter Text

“I feel like it should be illegal to take teenagers out in public,” Yondu said, looking pointedly at Rocket and Peter, who were loudly bickering over some nerd thing that they disagreed over. They were attempting grocery shopping, just the three of them. Mantis had agreed to look after Groot, as he had discovered that she was, despite her quirks, the most trustworthy of the four.

“If it were illegal, you’d do it more often,” Rocket said, and both of them started laughing loudly.

“Be quiet,” he said.

Peter fell oddly silent after that, and Yondu was satisfied in a victory well-won until he realized that him telling Pete to shut up had literally never worked, so he turned and found that the boy’s face had gone weirdly blotchy.

“What the hell, Peter? I thought we was laughing.” Rocket was asking, and both he and Yondu followed Peter’s eyeline to where a girl about Peter’s age was standing. She was tall and dark haired and looked completely disinterested in her surroundings, standing next to a girl with a shaved head and a mean scowl.

Aw, hell.

“Come on boy, don’t go bothering girls in public,” Yondu said, grabbing him by the shoulder and maneuvering him away from where Peter had frozen in place.

“I want to go say hello.”

“She’s way outta your league,” Rocket told him.

As a father-figure, he was sure he was meant to disagree with that assessment, but she did look a little…how to put it, wealthier than them. Well, kinda. With Ego plying him with money he had rocketed socioeconomic statuses a couple of times in life. But they still had the vibe of a lower working class family, because that’s where they had come from.  

So he was very conscious of the fact that rich people would sniff out their easily perceived lack of wealth, and maybe he wanted his kids to avoid the sting of class-based discrimination until at least their early 20s.

“It just ain’t the time, boy, let’s go,” he settled on saying, and they managed to finish their shopping as painlessly as possible. Until they got out to the parking lot and started loading shit into the car and Yondu looked up, directly into the face of Aleta Ogord.

His old friend group had parted on shitty terms, mostly his fault, not that he’d ever admit it. So he just rushed them through packing up the car, hastily waved to Aleta and got in, driving off feeling the familiar prickles of shame and resentment.

“Did you know her?”

“Yeah.”

“Ex-girlfriend?”

“No! None of your business!” he snapped.

Peter leaned back in his seat to talk to Rocket conspiratorially.

“If we got into a wreck right now you’d be cut clean in half,” he told his eldest son. “Sit in your seat right or sit in the back. None of this leanin’ shit.”

Rolling his eyes, he complied and sat facing forward in the car, but rebelled by kicking his feet up on the dash. Yondu didn’t bother to scold him for it. It wouldn’t work and he didn’t really care. He was still a little flustered at the sight of Aleta. If it had been Charlie, or god forbid, Stakar, it might have been harder to escape without barbs (or fists) exchanged.

Not that Aleta wouldn’t kick the ever loving shit out of him in an instant, it’s just that she would have the decency to do it in private.

“I’m guessing ex-wife, judging by their similarly advanced age,” Rocket said, picking up the abandoned conversation thread as they put up food.

“Ex-wife of a friend,” Yondu finally divulged. “Ex-friend. And I ain’t old.”

“Did you ruin their marriage?” Peter asked. “Sleep with her? Sleep with him?”

He was trying hard not to laugh at that line of questioning and give away that he might be onto something. “How many questions, exactly, do you intend on asking me about this?”

“Fifteen.”

“Well you’re down six.” Mantis and Groot had been outside all afternoon, apparently, and bounced in with dirt-covered hands. Groot had smudged some on his nose, and Mantis had made him a flower crown.

“Groot would like permission to start a garden in the back yard,” she said. She didn’t know sign language yet, but they had taken to communicating through writing and general vibe-sensing, which they somehow did incredibly well. It was eerie.

Yondu looked at Groot (who was dangerously verging on eye-level with Yondu at the tender age of 12 and needed to stop) and shrugged. “Sure. We could probably do with more vegetables.” He honestly didn’t care what any of the kids did as long as it was somewhere below “heroin” on the personal-harm scale and didn’t legally or financially inconvenience anyone (specifically him).

Peter wasn’t ready to let the previous topic go, however. “When was the last time you went on a date?”

“Why are all of these questions about me dating?”

“Because by my calculations you haven’t been on a date in at least nine years, if not…however old it is you are.”

“Just because you don’t hear about it doesn’t mean I don’t go out,” he lied. “I’m not answering to a 17-year-old boy about datin’, anyway. Go do...go away.”

Peter did not go away, he made himself a bowl of sugary cereal (his go-to dinner on nights no one bothered to cook) and sat in front of Yondu, staring at him far too intently. “You really should get laid. You’re not that old, you can probably still do it.”

Yondu nearly choked on his next inhale. This was not a conversation he wanted to continue under any circumstances. “What the fuck, boy? Stop!”

Groot tactfully pulled Rocket and Mantis from the room and Yondu tried to make his escape as well, but Peter’s voice carried over the scraping of his chair on the floor.

“I just don’t want you to be alone forever because of us! We’re old enough to take care of ourselves now. Don’t you get lonely?” He was being sincere now, which was worse than being a smarmy jackass in Yondu’s estimation.

“Y’all ain’t never gonna be old enough to take care of yourselves, you’re all human disasters.”

Chapter Text

He was sitting on his porch, resisting the urge to smoke a cigarette when Neck Tattoo – pardon, Kraglin the bartender – walked up to him, looking every inch the neck tattoo-having gutterpunk that Yondu assumed he was at heart, now that he saw him in the light and was actually paying attention. He was wearing a ratty sleeveless shirt and Yondu could see that the neck tattoos extended down to chest and arm tattoos. (And ok. Maybe he was a little curious about exactly how many there were under the torn-up tank top and ancient jeans. But that was a private thought for later.)

“You having a stroke?” he asked.

“I told my kids I’d quit. Fucked myself on that one,” he said. “Making promises to anyone without a fully developed frontal lobe is begging for trouble. They remember that shit.”

“Can’t relate,” he said, plucking the cigarette out of Yondu’s hand and lighting it. “There. Decision made.”

One lesson that Yondu had learned the hard way was to not smack strangers, so he just very lazily kicked him in the back of the knee. “Rude.”

Kraglin sat down on the step below him, smoking his stolen cigarette. “I didn’t realize it was you who moved in here ‘til like last week.”

“Because I’m a complete stranger to you?”

“Naw. Just saw the kids running around, assumed it was some gentrifyin’ yuppie married couple,” he said.

Yondu took in the sight; honestly this guy didn’t much look like someone who threw the word ‘gentrifying’ around freely. There was a knife sticking out of his boot, which he had definitely owned since the 90s, and a ‘goodnight white pride’ patch hiding a hole in his jeans (unsuccessfully, there were lots of holes in those jeans). “Nah. Lucky for you.”

“How’d you end up with four?”

“Found them in a dumpster,” he said, not fully dishonest, smirking slightly.

Kraglin looked at him. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“Two of the four,” he admitted. “Other two got dumped on me by…” He paused. Not dad. “Their sperm donor.”

“I’d definitely trust you with my children,” he drawled.

“You don’t know shit about me, boy.”

Kraglin seemed to concede that point, sitting in silence for a minute as he concentrated on his cigarette and the can of beer he’d walked over with. “I’ve been nothin’ but friendly. Wanna try not being a dick?”

“Fine. What do you want?”

“I just feel like we’ll get along if you give it a shot. Or is one friend your hard limit?” He was staring at him with eyes that were making him more than a little uncomfortable. He had a tattoo on his middle finger, glossy black and obvious when he brought his hand up to take a drag off the cigarette. Newer than the rest. Yondu wasn’t sure why he noticed.

“Fine, whatever. Not inviting you inside, though, those kids’ll eat ya alive.” Plus they’d never let him live it down.

He snorted disbelievingly, and paused. “You always been a mechanic?” Clearly, they were masters of small talk.

“No. You always been a bartender?”

“Nah. I’ve had loads of jobs. Like. An unfathomable amount.” He stopped and pulled a face like he was attempting to fathom it, but gave up after a second. “Tend bars at night, cook eggs in the morning, as it were.”

“Thrilling.”

“I thought we agreed you weren’t being a dick anymore.”

Yondu rolled his eyes. “My life ain’t that interestin’, not sure what I’m contributin’ here.”

“Well, Yondu,” he drew the name out, drawling around his cigarette. “This is generally the first step to makin’ friends. How’d you make friends when you were a kid?”

“Beatin’ the right people up. You?”

“Sellin’ drugs.”

“That how you got the scar?” he asked, gesturing to the bold line over his right eye.

Kraglin laughed, leaning back against the steps and looking up at Yondu. Yondu, for his part, jerked his foot out of the way to make sure there was no unnecessary physical contact. “No. That’s a reminder to not pick on people bigger than me.”

“Oh?”

“Not unarmed, at least.”

They shared a laughed this time, because it was a sentiment that Yondu had always agreed with. The laugh dwindled off into another protracted silence, but this time it was easy and natural. Then Yondu cleared his throat. “Don’t come around here sellin’ shit to anyone.”

His expression was dismissive. “I’m mostly legit these days. Not a fan?”

“Too old for that shit.”

“Aw, you’re never too old to have fun, Yondu. Don’t sell yourself short,” he said with a sharp grin.

He felt the urge to tell Kraglin to get the fuck off his porch because he didn’t like the way he was smiling at him, but he actually kinda liked the way he was smiling at him.

Chapter Text

School could not have started soon enough. Every summer was the same; at first, they were fine to be around, but after a month and a half, Yondu was suffering. He needed to get rid of them and he couldn’t (usually) afford to send them to the public pool every day to get them out of his hair.

The first week of school was predictably hectic. Shit to sign, teachers to briefly say hi to, plus the 500 extra things Peter had to deal with just by virtue of graduating that year. Yondu was sick of it after the first five minutes and just told Peter to go ahead and start forging his signature because he didn’t care.

Peter was alarmingly good at forgery, which would either get him far in life or get him in loads of trouble. Paired with a silver tongue, Yondu was hoping for the former.

He’d been thinking more about Ego in the last few weeks of summer, as Mantis got more comfortable in the house and her loud laughter bounced off the walls as she bonded with her brothers. Ego, produce and raise such a good-hearted kid? It felt wrong.

Don’t mistake him; Peter was a good kid who was poised to be a good man, but he still shoplifted candy from supermarkets and disrespected every authority figure he’d ever met and spun wild lies about why his homework was missing.

Okay, so…

Maybe Yondu was what had gone wrong with Peter, but that’s not to say he didn’t see occasional chilling similarity between Peter and his sperm donor. There wasn’t anything to do for it except hope that Ego stayed away from him and didn’t prey on his better nature for anything.

“I brought this from work,” Kraglin said, opening a brown takeout bag and handing some boxes to Tullk and Yondu. It was lunch time at the shop and, much to Yondu’s continuing irritation, the diner Kraglin worked at was a block down, so now he liked to pop by after the morning shift, usually with leftover food, and make small talk.

Yondu hated small talk so he left Tullk and Kraglin to it, eating the half a club sandwich he had been brought. They’d had their lunch-break rush of people trying to get maintenance in before they returned to work and now they were likely to be quiet until the end of the day.

So while technically an uninvited lunch guest wasn’t an imposition, Yondu was going to pretend it was by pretending to work as he ate, with monosyllabic answers and covert eye rolls.

Tullk went outside to deal with a customer, knowingly smirking in a way that would get his next paycheck docked if he kept it up.

“Oi, Yondu.”

Yondu ignored it.

“Yooooooooooondu,” he intoned, sitting directly on Yondu’s desk, all-but demanding his attention as he leaned forward to look him right in the face.

“What?”

“I have the night off. Do you want to have a beer with me?” he asked, tilting his head ever so slightly.

“Sure.” He was almost surprised at how easily he agreed to it. He had excuses at the ready, but found he wasn’t particularly interested in using them. Plus, he wanted to escape the ceaseless torment of dealing with four moody adolescents.

Kraglin looked surprised too, but pleasantly so. “Okay, walk over to my place when you get off work,” he said, and then he walked out of the shop and disappeared. Apparently that was all he had come for. Yondu didn’t know what to make of that.

He got home that day and the kids had already gone through two frozen pizzas and settled down for a movie. He was a little alarmed at the level of cooperation, until he heard Peter talking to Mantis. Up to something, then.

“So, you think she’ll come over to hang out with you?”

“I do not know. I’ve never had a friend before!” Mantis chirped back, grinning blithely.

“Quill, what are you bothering her about?” he asked as he tossed the mail down on the coffee table and eyed his eldest son skeptically.

“Mantis made friends with the girl Peter is in looooove with and he’s trying to use it as leverage,” Rocket explained, not taking his eyes off whatever sci-fi nonsense they’d decided to watch. How did he end up raising a bunch of nerds?

Nevermind.

Peter, red-faced, shook his head defiantly. “That is totally not it. I want my little sister to make friends! Totally altruistic.”

Groot expressed his skepticism directly to Yondu, who agreed.

However, this was innocent enough bullshittery that he could just let it fly. They weren’t blowing anything up, stealing, or breaking any significant laws, so he was just going to let them work it out amongst themselves. “You can’t have anyone over til the weekend,” was all he said. “Do your homework,” was an afterthought. Dad of the Year.

He excused himself to go shower (now that everyone was mostly grown, it was his alone time. When Groot had been tiny, sometimes he’d lurk right outside the bathroom out of boredom, and there was no telling when Peter would burst in. Now, boundaries were occasionally respected). Typically he took as long as possible because of the aforementioned alone time, but he was a little more efficient since he had plans, which was a rarity for him.

(And was actually almost looking forward to them. Another rarity.)

It took far too long to locate a white t-shirt that was relatively unstained once he was done showering.

“I’m going out,” he said vaguely when he came downstairs, finding Mantis on the phone with Peter creepily looming over her as she made plans with whatever girl it was that wasn’t giving Peter the time of day this week. “Hey, I told you not to make your sister do shit for you. Mantis, you don’t have to listen to him,” he barked.

She dropped the phone in surprise, quickly picking it up and apologizing to both the person on the other line and Yondu.

“I’m not making her do anything! We’re going to have a friend or two over on Saturday.”

“You don’t have any friends.”

“Yeah I do!” A pause. “I consider my brothers my friends,” he said, valiantly saving face. “And hey! Where are you going on a Wednesday night?”

“I’m the adult, I don’t need to answer any questions,” he said as he shut the door behind him, escaping into the evening air. He was perfectly aware that he was going to be watched going across the street to the slightly run down looking rental house that Kraglin lived in with what seemed like an endless amount of other people.

He knocked.

“S’open!”

The house was empty when he walked in, but felt crowded just by virtue of the clutter that populated every inch. Two couches were shoved into a wonky L shape in one corner of the huge front room, both of them looking as though they had come off a street corner. They probably had. Yondu remembered being in his twenties.

Crushed beer cans and abandoned bottles layered the floor. A table had been shoved against the back wall with a television and game system on top of it, half-buried in the evidence of about 5 different felonies. Flyers and posters were haphazardly hanging on the walls, definitely covering up the result of fists and heads through walls. A knife stuck out of the far wall at just about eye level.

“I’m in the kitchen.”

The kitchen was somehow better and worse; he’d expected mountains of old food or moldy dishes but mostly it was discarded paper plates, crumpled paper towels and pizza boxes stacked dangerously close to the ceiling.

“My roommates are disgustin’,” Kraglin said by way of apology, handing him a can of beer as he walked by, somehow feeling comfortable enough to be barefoot in his tetanus den of a house. “Uhhhh…” He was examining the couch – littered with dirty socks and at least half a jaggedly broken bong. “We have a pretty sweet back porch actually,” he said, snatching up the twelve pack he’d clearly just bought for this occasion and leading Yondu out of the house.

“I was gonna clean today,” he lied.

Yondu snorted. “I weren’t much cleaner when I was your age. Hell. Not much cleaner now. Ain’t one to judge.”

The back porch was nice, however. It overlooked a slightly overgrown yard and you could see the house a street over, but it was still private, and just littered with a few beer cans and cigarette butts.

“So, not allowed to ask about the kids,” Kraglin started, sparking up a joint and leaning back in the creaking, decrepit lawn chair that served as porch furniture. “Figure work talk’s boring as piss,” he added. “What topics would you like to delve into?”

“You ask a lot of questions for someone who ain’t said shit about his own damn self,” Yondu pointed out. “Who the fuck’re you, exactly?” It was hard to keep thinking about him as some random kid who had just floated conveniently into his life and started demanding a sliver of his already stretched time and attention. ‘Kraglin: friend’ was not a fixed concept in his head the way his friendship with Tullk was, or even his former friendships had been. He liked having a read on people. It made life easier.

“Well, uh.” This seemed to perturb the kid. “I don’t talk much.”

“Obviously.”

He glared over the rim of his beer can. “It’s easier if you ask specific questions.”

Yondu didn’t know specific questions to ask a 20-something drug dealer, he hadn’t been in that situation since…well, since he had been a 20-something drug dealer. “The tattoos.”

“Ah yeah. Brahl got a gun off the internet and wanted to practice,” he said, tracing the weird geometric patterns with a long finger. He pulled his t-shirt up over his head and displayed that they went from behind his ear down his chest in a random pattern, stopping around his ribs and down his arm at his elbow.

He abandoned his shirt, apparently satisfied by the temperature outside enough to go without. Yondu wouldn’t exactly say he was complaining, but he found the move slightly transparent. He wasn’t sure why he was entertaining the mating rituals of some scrawny punk, but maybe Peter was right and he’d gone too long without a date.

(Was four years too long?)

(Also, did hanging out with strippers count as a date? Probably not, right?)

“You gonna get fully naked to show off the rest of your shitty tattoos?” he drawled, abandoned his beer can and leaning forward to accept the offer of a joint. It hadn’t been too long since he’d smoked weed, but it tended to be a ‘Friday night when everyone was asleep’ ritual. He didn’t want Peter to get any ideas about what was okay to start doing before he moved out.

Kraglin grinned. “I ain’t opposed to getting fully naked, if you’re askin’.”

This was about the point where he realized that yeah, he was gonna have to just do it.

Plus, four years since the last time he’d screwed anything? That was just pathetic.

“Is your room less of a hepatitis breeding ground than the rest of your house?” Yondu asked. Clearly, one of his more effective pickup lines.

Chapter Text

It had started as losing track of time and morphed into waiting for the last of Kraglin’s five (FIVE) roommates to go the fuck to sleep so he could leave without drawing attention to himself. He was too damn old for a walk of shame amongst a filthy horde of delinquents.

And, okay, he had meant to make this sort of a wham-bam shang-a-lang kind of event but he was pleasantly buzzed and had to pause to make fun of Kraglin a few times for his shitty music posters and the mountain of all-black dirty laundry all over his floor. So it extended the proceedings a little. And he wasn’t complaining much.

(“If you’re going to take the piss out of me the whole time, we’re not gonna get far,” he’d muttered into Yondu’s ear, before he bit it.)

So when he got back home it was 3 in the morning according to the clock glowing above the entryway.

He shut the door behind him gently, kicking off his shoes and intending to fall into bed and pass out.

Then the light flicked on and Peter was sitting in the arm chair in the living room, looking at him accusatorially. “Where have you been all night?”

“The hell?”

“You were out all night! I was worried!” he insisted, and it was hard to tell if he was joking or not (damn the kid for taking after him). “I called Tullk to see if you’d fallen asleep at his house, since you’re pretty old and sleepy and he said he hadn’t seen you!”

“I’m not that old and…” Yondu remembered that he did not actually have to explain himself to his 17-year-old son. “Hey, I’m the adult here. You need to go to sleep, you got school in the morning!”

“You were getting drunk with that weird lanky dude from across the street!”

“I’m an adult, I can do that without causing a sensation.”

“Your shirt’s inside out!” Peter gasped, exaggeratedly. “Did you bang that guy?!”

He finally just gave up and walked past the kid, heading upstairs to drink a glass of water and pass out. He suddenly remembered exactly why it had been four years since he’d done anything – he couldn’t get anything by those fucking kids.

“I’m proud of you!” Peter called down the hall.

He crashed hard once he finally laid down, and by the next morning his head was pounding too hard for him to even remember that the conversation had happened. Popping two ibuprofens as he stared at himself in the mirror – god he looked like shit – he tried to get through the morning routine with minimal groaning.

Peter and Mantis had corralled the other two into getting ready while he slept in, apparently, and he could feel Pete’s judgement as he came downstairs, still buttoning his work shirt as he did.

“What?”

“I’m surprised you’re up so early, Mr. Night Owl,” he said, smirking.

“Yeah, where the hell were you?” Rocket demanded.

“None of your damn business kid, go to school.”

The chatter didn’t cease, but he mostly tuned it out and he managed to see the four of them off with minimal screaming and drag his own tired ass to work.

“What the fuck crawled down your throat and died last night?” Tullk asked, recoiling at the sight of a tired, still kinda hungover Yondu flopping down in his usual chair.

“Some fucking pretentious ass craft beer.”

“Also, Pete called me last night lookin’ for you. I didn’t cover. You know you gotta warn me if you want a cover story.”

He snorted. “I know, thanks for that.”

“What were you getting up to?”

“Goddamn, am I not allowed to do anything without someone breathing down my neck for it? I just went out for a couple of beers, it ain’t the end of the damn world. Pete just likes to stir shit.” He didn’t mean to come off quite as hostile as he did, but he had to say his post-“finally got laid” glow was being severely dampened by the people around him who supposedly cared about it, and yet never showed it by leaving him the hell alone.

“Fine, fine.” Most people would be off put by Yondu’s bad temper but Tullk just endured it. They’d known each other for twenty-five years, at this point there was no getting rid of him, no matter how much of a dick he was.

By the time the fog of his hangover lifted, he realized that Kraglin hadn’t made his usual stop up there with lunch and maybe he was just ever-so-slightly disappointed.

Because he could really use an egg salad sandwich or something, that’s all.

Chapter Text

He had been instructed to buy ‘snacks’ for the weekend because people were coming over and it was a big deal, apparently. Peter kept frantically straightening up the living room, as though that would really shift the tone of the day.

The phrase “snacks” was vague, so he ended up at the store with a basket full of random shit that was definitely unhealthy. Probably what they meant.

He thought about leaving for the afternoon to avoid the whole deal, but he tended to enjoy his possessions unbroken, so he decided he’d probably just hang out in his room and listen for any suspicious noises. He was content to leave them to their own devices, but not quite that much.

He was on the porch smoking when they came up, three kids about Peter’s age. The two girls looked vaguely familiar, like they’d seen them in line at the supermarket or something, and the boy was a hulking beast that towered over all of them, but still had that graceless adolescent quality to him that marked him at about Peter’s age, maybe a pinch older.

Peter burst out of the house, full of manic energy.

“Hi!” he blurted out, looking immediately mortified at his own overenthusiasm.

“Hey,” the older girl said coolly. The ends of her dark hair were dyed pink and she had a haughty quality to her. Her sister was more stoic, if possible, with a shaved head and a bright blue prosthetic leg and matching arm. There was a story there, definitely.

“Oh right, this is my dad,” Peter said. “Yondu, this is Gamora, her sister Nebula and Gamora’s friend Drax.” The big guy was silent, but the girls said hello. “They’re friends of Mantis’s and mine.”

“Just Mantis’s,” Nebula corrected as Peter led them inside. (Yondu had a feeling that of the three of them, he was gonna like Nebula the most.)

Peter looked sheepish.

It was Saturday, he hadn’t spoken to Kraglin since very very late Wednesday night, and hadn’t even really seen him around the neighborhood either. The guy worked two jobs, so it’s not like he thought he was being avoided, he had just noticed, okay?

But he was still a little surprised when he strode across the street and sat down next to Yondu, as if nothing was possibly amiss. “What’re you doin’?”

“Sittin’ here.”

He snorted. “We’re havin a little thing tonight, it’s liable to get loud so I figured I’d warn ya.”

Yondu was both glad he didn’t have to turn down the invitation and a little insulted he didn’t warrant one, but he let it roll off his back and just shrugged. “Right. I ain’t much of a noise complaint kinda guy so don’t worry too much.”

“Didn’t take you much for a pearl-clutcher, nah. But it’s polite to warn the neighbors,” he said, looking and sounding like someone who had never bothered to be polite in the entirety of his life as he used a pocket-knife to pick his teeth.

He was about to respond when the front door opened and Rocket popped his head out. “Hey, old man, is this the dude you were out all night with?”

“Go inside!”

“He looks like he smells weird,” Rocket muttered, disappearing back inside.

Kraglin very covertly sniffed himself and shrugged. “He ain’t wrong.”

“Yeah well…if you wanna avoid being interrogated, you probably need to get the hell outta here.”

He looked about ready to protest, and he hesitated after he stood, sticking his hands in the pockets of his battered jeans and looking down at him. “Aight. Uhm, if you wanna…grab a beer we got plenty. Figured it weren’t much your type of thing. Will I see you around?” he asked.

“We’re neighbors,” he said, avoiding the question pointedly, because he didn’t really know how to answer it.

He didn’t respond, but his shoulders sagged a little as he walked away with a final wave goodbye.

Yondu watched him go back to his house before he went inside, finding the kids crowded around the TV, bickering over video games. Peter was trying to sneak his arm around Gamora’s shoulders, and she was ignoring him in favor of laughing at something Mantis had just said.

Rocket and Groot were very serious about video games and it appeared they had met their match in Nebula. Loud swears bounced off the walls.

“Out by ten,” he called down the hall as he went in his room. He left the door open so he could hear any impending fights to the death break out but pulled out some battered old book he’d been trying to reread and laid there, irritated – at who? Probably himself.

Nah, Kraglin, definitely. It’s not like he expected anything from him, so he wasn’t sure why it irritated him that the follow up to hooking up with him had been radio silence and then a casual, after-thought invitation to a party he didn’t want to go to.

But hell, Yondu was mad at everyone half the time and had never gotten far into figuring out why or how. He just let it ride.

As the afternoon wore on, he could hear the volume increasing across the street, so once it was verging on time for people to start leaving his own house, he quietly made a point to slip out of his room and step out onto the porch. Just to monitor the situation. A group of people looking several shades rougher than Kraglin were all gathered in the front yard, smoking cigarettes and loudly boasting for the couple of girls that someone had managed to rope into showing up. Probably strippers.

Mantis and Peter walked their friends out onto the porch and to where they had parked their car in front of the house, and someone across the street shouted something that wouldn’t be appropriate to shout at an adult and was basically criminal to shout at a kid.

Yondu got up with every intention of walking over there and defending Mantis’s honor (with violence, because it had been a while since he’d gotten to use violence to solve a problem), but before he got to the bottom of the steps, Nebula had stormed over, her sister not far behind.

He didn’t catch the entirety of the conversation but by the time he had caught up to the enraged girls, Nebula was finishing her speech with “you’ll like my arm even more when I take it off and beat you to death with it”, and yeah, he definitely liked Nebula.

Mantis squeezed his arm and looked at him apologetically, as if she had caused this simply by existing.

“You didn’t even do anything,” he said, his voice a little too rough. “Pete, take your sister inside.”

Peter was disagreeing loudly with a short bald guy. The guy who had yelled – half his head shaved, Yondu recognized him from the bar – was looking more than a little put off by Nebula, so he felt their job had been done. The urge to commit violence had waned, he was now more interested in seeing Nebula escalate the situation instead of himself. No one was going to arrest the girl with one leg.

Gamora and Drax pulled Nebula back, glaring as they walked off to Drax’s car.

“Bye!” Peter called lamely, looping his arm through Mantis’s.

“Have you apologized yet?” Yondu asked when he turned on shaved-head-guy.

“What?”

“Being rude to my daughter?” It was the first time he’d used the word, but it felt right in the situation.

“Not much of a family resemblance.” The bald guy snorted.

Yondu rolled his eyes, straightening up a little and making it clear he was willing to wait.

“Yondu?” someone called from the porch. Kraglin jumped the railing to walk up, at first looking happy (way too happy) to see him, and then looking concerned that he had squared up to one of his friends. “….Half-Nut, what the hell?”

“He shouted somethin’ rude at my girl here, and if her friend hadn’t already threatened to beat him to death with a prosthetic arm, I’d’ve broken his jaw. As it were, he needs to apologize. She’s fifteen.” The “if he doesn’t apologize there will be blood” was unspoken, but conveyed effectively.

Kraglin groaned loudly. “Do what he says,” he said, roughly slapping his friend across the back of the head.

“Fine. Sorry.”

Yondu looked at Mantis. “Accept his apology?”

She nodded. “Thank you,” she said, but she was talking to Yondu. She and Peter walked back towards the house, finally, and he turned back to the partygoers.

“Glad we settled that.”

“Want a beer?” Kraglin offered before he could leave. “If you’re still mad, you can break the bottle on Half-Nut’s face, he won’t feel it. He’s coked all to shit right now.” Half-Nut laughed loudly in agreement.

Yondu had to resist the urge to slap himself on the forehead just to forget the level of stupidity he’d just had to hear. “Nah.”

Kraglin waved his friends off and they dispersed. He caught up to Yondu in a few quick steps. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“My friends are shitheads. Seem kinda pissed beyond that. I don’t know.”

“Being pissed would require having any sort of investment in you as a human being whatsoever, and I don’t. Ain’t shit to apologize for.” That was probably too mean, but he was committed to it now, so whatever.

Once again he was left watching Kraglin turn and walk back without another word, shoulders slightly slumped, with a wave of two outstretched fingers, as he returned to his friends.

“Maybe you’re the one who should be apologizin’,” Peter said, almost under his breath, from where he was standing in the doorway, waiting for Yondu to come inside.

“Go to bed, kid.”

Chapter Text

Mantis found him the next morning, making a pot of coffee. “Hello.”

“Mornin’,” he said. He wasn’t in the best of moods, but it was hard to take that out on Mantis as she smiled guilelessly at him with a bowl of cereal in her hands. She held everything like she’d never held anything before; as if it might shatter at any moment.

“No one has ever stood up for me before,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Nebula did most of the work. I’m just…responsible for you while you’re old man is gone.”

Her face fell. “Ego is not coming back for me.”

“I know,” he said, and he wondered just why he hadn’t bothered to ask Mantis about Ego since she’d arrived. At first it had just been a stubborn lack of desire to know, and then it had been out of a sense of preservation for both his feelings and hers. She seemed so damaged and brittle, even as much of a jackass as Yondu knew himself to be, it seemed difficult to wound a little girl by trying to get her to talk about a guy who had probably been abusing her.

“I do not mind, though. I have friends, now. I smile. It is much nicer here. No one has ever called me their daughter before.”

It was meant to be a nice statement about him and the boys, but what it really turned into was a somewhat disturbing picture of Ego. “What was Ego doing before you came here?” he asked.

“We traveled a lot,” she said. “He was very concerned with his children. I don’t…”

“That’s fine. Ain’t important,” he said, feeling like he opened the door that led to a girl crying in his kitchen, and honestly he was a fan of avoiding any situation like that.

“Would you drop me off at the mall today?” she asked. “Gamora said she would like to meet there, it is apparently a thing people do.”

“Pete’ll probably wanna do it one he rolls outta bed.”

She glanced at the clock and nodded, returning to her cereal. He returned to his coffee and they sat in silence until the rest of the house woke up, bringing the noise thundering downstairs with them. Weekend mornings were more laid back than school mornings, but it was still hard to fathom the amount of manic energy in the house.

Had Yondu ever had that much energy? Surely not.

Once everyone had fought their usual battles over who got the shower first and who got the last bowl of what, it was time to go. Peter had ‘generously’ agreed to escort Mantis to the mall, as predicted.

“Pete said you were fighting with your boyfriend last night,” Rocket said once the house was empty.

He choked on the sip of water he’d just taken. “In what universe does that sentence sound right to you?” he asked.

Rocket shrugged. “I don’t know how this kinda shit works I was just asking, pops.”

“It ain’t however Pete told you it was, I’ll tell you that for goddamn sure.”

“We’re gonna weed Groot’s garden and pick some peppers,” he said, holding up his hands in a show of surrender. “You wanna come or you gonna sit here and sulk?”

Yondu figured he might as well go out there. Groot’s garden had become quite impressive in the month since he’d planted it, with pepper and tomato plants in abundance. He had fought with rabbits and deer and bugs and managed to come away with a modest crop. More vegetables than they usually ate, for sure. And it gave him something to do, which was supposedly important. Groot tended to go along with whatever Rocket was doing, so seeing him do something that was Groot-exclusive was a good sign he still had a personality left that hadn’t been overtaken by his much more forceful brothers.

The rustling in the bushes was probably just a squirrel. He was going to have to sit out here with his bow one day and pick them off if they were that noisy.

Then he caught a glimpse of someone on the other side of the fence. Just a neighbor, probably, they had them on three sides.

Only something about the beard and the hair was uncomfortably familiar.

He didn’t say anything, just continued to watch Groot struggle with weeds as his basket of vegetables filled up.

Yondu had to have been imagining things, because he didn’t hear or see anything for the rest of the afternoon. Rocket and Groot had long gone inside when he walked around to the front of the house, catching Kraglin coming in from his day job.

He walked across the street briskly, grabbing Kraglin by the arm.  “You seen a guy with a beard and gray hair lurking around my place lately?” he asked, feeling ridiculous and paranoid as he did.

“Uh, like the one on your porch right now?” he asked, pointing.

Yondu turned and his eyes met someone he had really been hoping on never seeing again, until they inevitably met in whatever hell they were both going to. “Yeah, that’d be the one.” He let Kraglin go and got ready to deal with whatever it was he was gonna have to deal with now.

“Who is it? Cop?”

“The sperm donor,” he said, leaving him in the street and walking back to his house. “They ain’t home right now, Ego, can I take a message?” he asked.

“Is that all the warm welcome I get?”

“How the fuck’d you find me, jackass?”

“That’s more along the lines of what I was expecting. It isn’t that hard. Where’s Peter?”

“Out with friends. I can take a message.”

Ego scrawled down his phone number. “Just tell him to give me a call.”

“What about the girl?”

He squinted, as if he was having a hard time remembering the kid he’d dumped on Yondu not three months previous. “Oh, yes, her too. As soon as possible.”

“Sure thing,” he lied through a fake smile, immediately throwing the paper into the garbage when he walked back inside, watching Ego disappear down the street through a crack in the blinds.

This certainly did not bode well.

Chapter Text

He was on edge for a week. Ego would come back and talk to Peter, he knew that, but he thought maybe if he just ignored it…maybe if Peter never found out… Whatever. Not going to be a problem. He had thought for years about what he’d do if Ego came near the boy. All of it was firmly in ‘revenge fantasy’ territory, and he knew that the most he would do is talk some shit and shoo the man back out of their lives. He wasn’t a crook anymore, he didn’t have the right friends to help him get away with murder. Talk was all that it’d be.

Or he hoped that was all it took.

“That beardy guy came back by today,” Kraglin said, walking up on the porch with a pizza box balanced on one arm. “No one was home.”

“Thanks for looking out.”

“What’s your deal with him?” he asked, taking the muttered gratitude as an invitation to sit down, opening the box and taking a slice out. He nudged it in Yondu’s direction. “Want one?”

“None of your business,” Yondu said as he leaned down to grab a piece of pizza. “Ever learned not to get involved in shit that ain’t relevant to you?”

Kraglin narrowed his eyes, snapping the box lid closed and resting his elbow on his knee. “I get this is a sore subject for ya, but this is my neighborhood. If there’s some freak wandering about, it’s relevant to my interests.”

There was too much pizza in his mouth for him to form an argument.

“Where’re the kids?”

“Football game. Can’t fuckin’ believe…they don’t give a shit about sports, Pete’s just got it bad for that girl and she likes ‘em.” He had rolled his eyes so hard he thought he might lose them when he’d been informed of their Friday evening plans. But hell, it got him the house to himself.

“So you’re free for the whole night then,” he said.  

“Just enough time to tell you my whole tragic life story?” he said, completely deadpan.

Snorting in disdain, he shook his head. “Not exactly what I was thinkin’, but if you need a good cry I can go fetch Taserface.”

Yondu considered both the fact that Kraglin lived with someone named Taserface and the smoldering, but not outright hostile look on his face. “Thought you were pissed at me.”

“Don’t that make it better?”

(Yeah, it did.)

He didn’t say anything, just waved Kraglin inside. The pizza was quickly abandoned on the kitchen table before they retired to Yondu’s room, after rejecting a suggestion to use the table for more than just holding pizza.

It went predictably well, and at a certain point he was struck with the notion that he was starting to like this guy. They stopped for a cigarette, enjoying the night air, but quickly found themselves back inside. He was, strictly speaking, probably too old for two rounds in one night, but he was willing to give it a shot just because of the raw enthusiasm Kraglin was exuding.

Until the front door clattered open and Peter shouted with all of his usual bombast: “Dad! We’re home!”

“Shit. Get outta here!”

“Is it really that big of a deal?” he hissed back as he struggled into his jeans, trying to locate where he sneakers had run off to as he buckled his belt. “I’m pretty sure they’ve figured it out by now.”

Yondu opened the window next to his bed and pointed at it. “Out. Now.”

The sigh of exasperation was more of a snarl, and Kraglin elbowed Yondu ‘accidentally’ as he pulled on his shirt and walked over to the window. “And here I thought you’d gotten past being a dick,” he said as he disappeared into the bushes. Yondu tossed his shoes out behind him.

Sure, he was being a dick, but it was better than getting busted with some dude in his bed by a bunch of over-caffeinated teenagers. For both of their sakes. They didn’t have proof of the first time they’d done this and it had still taken them four days to let it go. He’d never live it down this time.

He slammed the window shut with a little too much force and his bedroom door was flung open as he turned around.

“Had a good time, then?” he asked, trying to sound casual as he pulled on his shirt.

Unperturbed by walking in on Yondu in a state of undress, he nodded. “Yeah. You got pizza?”

“Yup. Finish it if you want,” he said, making a mental note to pay Kraglin back for the lost pizza, if he ever spoke to him again. “Win?”

“Yeah! Drax gave someone a concussion, too. It was cool,” Rocket said, of course more entertained by the violence than anything else.

Peter lingered in the door as his siblings vanished back into the ether. “Hey so…you haven’t…heard from my dad lately, have you?” he asked, his voice a little halting.

“No. Why?” His tone was too sharp, his eyes too narrowed. Shit.

“I just…saw someone who looked like him today. Thought maybe he was back in town. Must’ve been hallucinating.”

Yondu shoved his discomfort down with a sneer. “It’s been ten years since you’ve seen him, how do you know what he looks like?”

“I meant…you know, forget it,” he said, throwing his hands up in irritation and turning away.

“Peter.”

“Sorry I even tried to talk to you about it,” he shouted down the stairs as he stomped up to his room.

He was just one disaster after another, wasn’t he?

Chapter Text

The outburst went unmentioned and the weeks dragged on. Yondu’s fear of Ego waned with every passing day that he didn’t show his stupid face. Routines were settled, children were fed and ostensibly happy.

Gamora, Nebula, and Drax started becoming regular fixtures around the house, and while Yondu kind of hated it, he also figured they could be doing much worse than stomping around the neighborhood in a broody little posse with an autistic football star and two rich girls. Another set of misfits to fit with. Probably best they finally had some real friends.

He still caught Peter moping from time to time, pretending he totally wasn’t when he noticed Yondu was watching him. Hell, he knew the kid better than anyone else on the planet, he could tell it was still bothering him. But he wasn’t gonna bring it up if Pete wasn’t.

Fall had crept up on them, which meant it was time for the dreaded once a year shopping trip (because last year’s fall wardrobe inevitably didn’t fit). Usually, Peter got new-ish stuff and Rocket and Groot got Peter’s old-ish stuff, but all of them had grown in weird ways this year, and he had enough money to justify getting everyone something new.

Plus, there was Mantis to think about. She was happy to wear Peter’s old crap, but that seemed a level of lazy that he couldn’t justify. She had some clothes when she’d arrived, but nothing particularly seasonally appropriate for the encroaching cold.

So he took them to the mall. Usually he didn’t linger on these trips, giving them an hour to do what they had to do and meet him at the car, but he wanted to make sure they didn’t misspend their allotted funds, so he lingered. And maybe he was more paranoid than usually.

Mantis met up with Gamora and Nebula, who immediately got her to blow off her brothers and shop with them. That was probably for the best. If she shopped with Peter, she’d end up with a hundred stupid t-shirts with weird obscure brands or TV references on them instead of actual clothes.

“You gonna keep an eye on them?” he asked Peter, pointing to Groot and Rocket.

“We’re old enough to look out for ourselves!” Rocket protested, crossing his arms.

Yondu just waved them off instead of starting an argument, trying to seem like a normal person while out in public. He found a bench that would probably give him the best vantage point to spy on the kids and tried to relax.

Key word: try.

Rocket and Groot shook Peter in a matter of minutes, and he watched them run around and harass older shoppers. He couldn’t stop himself from laughing. A better father would stop them, but he wasn’t a better father.

(He might argue that he was being a good dad by letting them express themselves, though. If anyone asked.)

Peter was with Drax, watching the girls moodily from across the food court.

Then Peter was banished when Drax’s girlfriend appeared.

He had just managed to worm himself into the girls’ group when Yondu’s attention was drawn away from him and to someone attempting to share his bench.

“You know you can’t avoid me forever,” he said.

Yondu didn’t look at Ego, Ego didn’t look at Yondu.

They both watched Peter.

“You don’t even want him,” Yondu said, ten years of anxiety raging into his head all at once. He tried not to entertain any of the thoughts, but he could remember every detail of the hurt in Peter’s voice when he’d declined to talk about his father. He could remember the night Ego had dumped him off as if it were yesterday. It had all been filed away in the “Yondu Udonta’s Failures: Greatest Hits Edition” part of his brain.

“I’m in a better place to get to know him than I was ten years ago,” Ego argued.

“I ain’t stoppin’ you, am I?” He gestured to where the kid was now, a floor above them, completely oblivious. “Go see him.”

“If I did more than speak to you about hypothetically talking to Peter, I know you would intervene.”

“Then you don’t know me at all,” he lied.

“I want to do this in a way that doesn’t alienate anyone, Yondu. I’d like it to be painless.”

“Then leave and never come back,” he muttered, getting up and pretending he had somewhere to be, finally sparing a glance at Ego, who looked impassive as ever. He could beat him to death right here and no one would miss the guy.

“He’s my son.”

In one final act of defiance, Yondu shook his head. “No, he ain’t.”

Goddammit.

Chapter Text

They were going to something called a ‘homecoming dance’ (again, extracurriculars were never Peter or Rocket’s style, this was only happening because of Mantis and the sisters). Typically, this involved dressing up, but Peter’s version of dressing up was a t-shirt that he hadn’t worn in the past two days, so they left the house looking mostly normal. The jeans were clean. That was an improvement.

“Need to blow off some steam?” Tullk asked, leaning against the porch railing.

“Fuck. Yes.”

So maybe going to a strip club with your best friend was a sad way to pass the time, but Yondu had been a bundle of nerves since the run-in with Ego. What a few weeks of silence had gained him in security and comfort had been thoroughly ripped away from him and he was now waking with dread in his bones every day.

Going to the usual club for a few beers and maybe to chat up a few of the girls was going to help, a little. Maybe.

It wasn’t the type of place to get raucous, even on a Friday, so Yondu’s desire to be left mostly to his own devices and drink overpriced alcohol while Tullk laughed at the pictures of some stripper’s kid was easily fulfilled.

Maybe being on a first name basis with a bunch of dancers was a sign that they had become creepy old men with no lives.

Sitting at the bar, finishing his drink and contemplating just how much of Ego’s money he wanted to spite spend in this seedy strip club, he felt someone come up behind him and, most alarmingly, kiss him on the back of the head.

“The fuck?” he snapped, turning around only to find himself nose to nose with a hilariously, almost adorably drunk Kraglin Obfonteri. Whom he hadn’t really spoken to since he’d kicked him out of bed.

“I thought that was you!” he said, grinning. He was way too happy to see him, considering how poorly Yondu had treated him.

“You came up and kissed me before you were sure it was me?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

He shrugged. “What’re you doing here? Where’re the kids?” he asked, looking around as though Yondu was such a shitty parent that he’d bring a handful of underage kids into a strip club.

“Homecoming something or other,” he said.

“You gonna get a dance?”

“Nah, I’m just here for the five dollar light beers,” he deadpanned.

“Hey, I don’t judge,” he said. “I’m just here to see this girl I’ve been dating.”

Yondu choked a little on his drink. Disappointed? No. Of course not. Having a potential booty call across the street had certainly never occurred to him. He wasn’t sure why he knew the phrase booty call. Probably Peter.

“And I mean, the guys love to blow their paychecks here.”

“When they aren’t blowing their paychecks literally?” he asked, still not quite over the Half-Nut encounter.

He smirked. “Somethin’ like that.”

“Go back to your girl.”

“She’s workin’,” he said, turning and offering half a wave to a girl with teal streaks in her hair.

Yondu’s cell phone rang before he could say anything else, so he just waved Kraglin off.

It was a very little-used item, Yondu’s personal phone. They were a luxury in their house, and mostly for emergencies, so he didn’t even check the number when he answered, since it had to be the kids.

“Daaaaaaaaad,” someone sing-songed into the speaker.

“Peter.”

“The nice occifer says we need a ride home…You drunk?”

Yondu didn’t like that the first impression the cop was getting of him was that he might be drunk, though he guessed if the cop didn’t know him by name or sight already, it’d be a miracle.

“Where are you?” he asked. The address rattled off was to a very fancy neighborhood not too far from their house. What in the hell were they doing there?

Only, Tullk had driven, and was not going to move his ass any time soon.

Whatever pride and dignity he had left was going to be demolished as he walked over to the table that Kraglin and his band of miscreants had co-opted.

“Gimme your keys,” he said.

“What?”

“I need to borrow your damn car.”

He was just blinking at him at this point, as if that might clarify the statement. “Lemme come too,” he said, abandoning his friends without a second thought, rummaging for his keys as he stumbled out of the booth.

“No.”

“Do you need my car or not?” he asked sharply.

“Fine!” He restrained a snarl, dragging the kid out by the collar of his frayed and patched jacket. He took the keys and found himself inside a metal deathtrap of a car that smelled like old weed and spilled beer.

“I hate you so much,” he said, mostly to the car, but a little bit to Kraglin.

“Where are we going?”

“To pick up my kids.”

“Oh, fun I haven’t met them yet.”

“Yet?”

“Sorry buddy I’m drunk,” Kraglin said, his tone becoming sulky as he leaned against the window. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

The conversation stalled there.

The hunk of groaning metal Kraglin called a car managed to get to the provided address and it looked even more disgustingly decrepit in the cul-de-sac they had pulled into, among million dollar houses. Which was a nice feeling, to him. Fuck these people and their money. “Wait here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Yondu ignored that he kinda liked the way that sounded and got out to find his two sons and one daughter on the front lawn of a huge house with a cop. The cop didn’t look too upset, so that was a good sign. He was a genial fellow with curly dark hair and an easy smile.

“You the parent?”

“Of sorts.”

“They were at a party and things got a little rowdy, not in any trouble, they just gotta head home and sleep it off.” His nametag said Dey, and Yondu wasn’t about to extend the conversation long enough for him to be recognized. “Kids’ll be kids.”

He managed a fake smile and a nod. “Right they will. Get in the car,” he said, noticing the missing child but not wanting to draw attention to it in front of a cop. Corralling the three of them into the back seat of Kraglin’s car, he pulled off a reasonable distance before slamming on breaks again.

“Where’s Groot?”

“He left with Nebula and Gamora like two hours ago…should be home by now…”

“Didn’t think to leave with them?!”

Peter was visibly drunk, Rocket and Mantis seemed clearheaded enough, though. None of this should have happened. Peter’d never had enough of a social circle to get invited out underage drinking before, and Yondu might let him try a beer with dinner once in a while, but he’d never really been a fan. What was this called? Peer pressure? Had he been peer pressured?

“Who the fuck is that? Whose car is this?” Peter asked, completely distracted from how much trouble he was theoretically in.

“What did you do?” Yondu repeated stubbornly.

“We got into a fight with Ronan,” Rocket said. “He totally deserved it, he’s such a douchebag. And besides, Drax started it, he just didn’t get caught because he ran and we wanted to toilet paper the stupid house.”

“Who the hell is Ronan?” That was a dumb name.

“Some guy from school! He’s a total dick. He was mean to Drax’s girlfriend, he called her…somethin’ real bad.” It must have been bad, to make Peter hesitate to actually say it. “His dad’s a senator or something so he just does whatever he wants and no one ever calls him out on it.”

“His dad’s a white supremacist,” Kraglin mumbled, starting to fall asleep in the passenger’s seat.

Rocket latched on to this tidbit of information that he’d definitely not actually known before that second. “Yeah! See, he deserved it!”

Yondu couldn’t argue there, really. He’d had his fair share of fights with his fair share of skinheads in his life. Maybe, just maybe, he was a tiny bit proud. “How were ya intending to get home if the cops hadn’t come? You’re in no shape to drive and Rocket can’t reach the pedals.”

In all his seventeen-year-old wisdom, Peter obviously hadn’t thought of that.

“You’re inside all weekend for thinkin’ about driving drunk, boy,” he said.

“You still haven’t explained who this is,” Peter said, kicking the back of Kraglin’s seat with a sulky expression.

“Kraglin.”

“From across the street,” Rocket said, with a tone of realization.

“I was out when you called. Had to borrow his car.”

“And him. Were you two on a date?”

Yondu didn’t respond, parking in front of Kraglin’s house and kicking everyone out of the terrible rustbucket of a vehicle. He wasn’t particularly surprised when their drunk neighbor followed the kids inside instead of going to his own house and he was too tired to complain.

Groot was waiting on the porch, feeding chicken nuggets to some of the stray neighborhood cats, looking tearful. At least he’d eaten.

“You’re okay!”

After stopping to pat his favorite cat (a one-eyed, one-eared beast they called Bosscat), Yondu sent them all off to bed (and Kraglin crashed on the couch, face first into a throw pillow) and immediately collapsed into his own, not thinking about calling to tell Tullk what happened. He’d make his assumptions. Whatever. Didn’t matter.

Chapter Text

The next morning, he woke up to the smell of breakfast. This wasn’t unheard of, but the smell was actually pleasant and the smoke detectors weren’t going off, so it was actually kind of unheard of. Bacon and eggs were on the stove when he walked out, and he was clear enough to remember that his beloved children were sucking up to apologize for getting drunk and jumping a senator’s son.

He sat down, and was handed a mug of coffee and a plate of food, and looked a pathetically hungover Peter in the eye as he took a bite of bacon and said: “you’re still grounded, boy.”

He nodded into his orange juice.

“I told you it wouldn’t work,” Peter said sulkily to Kraglin, who was finishing more bacon, oblivious to how very unwelcome he was in that moment.

“You’re still here,” he said in a flat voice. “Why?”

“Breakfast,” he said, as though it was obvious, his tone measured.

Yondu kept staring at the back of his shaved head until he turned around and finally noticed the death glare. He didn’t seem particularly fazed.

“They asked for my help, thought it’d be rude to say no. Apparently don’t know how to cook bacon?” He sounded skeptical of this. “What’re you teachin’ them?”

A lie. Bacon was the only thing they could cook. Yondu knew making a bigger deal out of it would clue the kids into the fact that something was going on, but he tried to make it clear that this was an argument for later by the raise of his eyebrow, focusing instead on coffee and bacon. "Apparently not to avoid strangers."

“So, are you dating our dad?” Rocket asked him in a very pointedly fake-casual voice.

He didn’t even have time to react before Kraglin said a very firm ‘nope’.

Maybe he would have been less offended by a stuttering defense, instead of a quick denial. It would make him feel like he was less of a dick. “Don’t ask strangers personal questions.”

Rocket looked at Yondu and narrowed his eyes. “Why did you have his car?”

“I told you, I was out when you called and didn’t have my own,” he said. “I thought I needed to hurry before all my kids went to jail.”

“Jail ain’t so bad,” Kraglin said. “Might be you shoulda let them go.” He sat down between Peter and Rocket with a plate of food, and it was unnerving how natural it looked, having him there. Like it was right, and Yondu’s desire for distance was very wrong.

Groot looked frightened at the prospect of his brothers going to jail, looking between Kraglin and Rocket frantically.

“Yondu wouldn’ta let us go to jail, don’t freak out.”

“Kinda regretting my kindness in that regard,” he said, but he forced himself to smile as he did so they knew he was joking. “Make sure you clean all this shit up, too,” he said, getting up and walking out of the kitchen. Then he paused. He needed to be a Good Dad in front of company. “Thanks for breakfast.”

He stood outside by himself in the cool autumn air for a few minutes before finally joined by Kraglin, who already had his hands out in surrender. “I know you’re pissed,” he said slowly.

There were a million mean things Yondu could have said. Maybe wanted to say. “Oh no, what gave you that impression?” he said, tone dripping with sarcasm.

Irritation finally got the better of Kraglin, apparently. “I was just waiting on you to get up so I could get my keys! Stop being such an asshole!”

Yondu, being admittedly a somewhat self-centered person (yes, only somewhat), had not considered this. To his sleepy mind, clearly Kraglin was out to get him, or out to charm his kids. Or something. But, well, he did have the guy’s keys. Shit. Was he a dick? Yes, definitely. But the anger he was feeling about this perceived attempted integration into his life was not rational and was not calming down any time soon.

 “I hate to interrupt this lovers’ spat,” someone (who clearly was loving every minute of this) said.

“Fuck off, Ego!”

But before Yondu could really make anyone fuck off (and he wanted everyone to fuck off), the door opened and Peter walked out. He didn’t really look happy to see Ego, but he also didn’t look nearly mad enough for Yondu’s taste.

“Hey, dad,” he said, his voice too small.

“Peter! I was wondering if we could get some lunch!” he said, a well-practiced smile spreading over his face.

“I just ate,” he said, a little defiant, a little sheepish.

“And you’re grounded.”

“Grounded? By Yondu Udonta? What did he do, help an old lady across the street?” Ego joked. No one on the porch found it particularly funny. Even Peter, owner of the worst sense of humor in the nation, kinda groaned.

“Beat up a white nationalist and tried to drive home drunk.”

“So…an ordinary Tuesday night for you back in the day. You really are reformed.”

If anyone else had made that joke, Yondu might have laughed. Instead, all he could do was flash his teeth in a weak attempt at a grin.

“I could take him to get his car, it’d be a short drive and we’d still spend some time together…” He was a little alarmed that Ego knew that Peter’s car was missing. That he knew that he even had a car. Had he been watching them? Fuck. Were they gonna have to move again?

Peter looked pleadingly at Yondu and he knew that he should grow a spine and be the bad guy, but a petty, spiteful little creature had set up in his gut and kind of wanted Peter to see the nuclear fallout of this first hand. If he didn’t want to listen to Yondu, he could get burned.

He was terrible.

“Fine. But if you’re not back in an hour, I’ll report it as a kidnapping,” he said dismissively.

Grabbing his shoes, Peter hopped into them as he rushed to get off the porch before Yondu changed his mind.

“I’ll get your keys,” he said to Kraglin, casting a glare towards Ego’s retreating back.

“I don’t like that guy,” was the answer he got back.

He was glad Kraglin had some form of self-preservation instinct. He didn’t know well enough to stay away from Yondu, but he could still sense pure evil when faced with it.

“Is Peter going with Ego?” Mantis asked from the doorway to her bedroom.

“Just for a second. He’ll be back.”

That didn’t seem to quell her anxiety, but he didn’t linger on it, instead finding the unfamiliar key ring among last night’s dirty laundry and walking it outside. He shoved the keys into Kraglin’s bony chest, an expression of frustration that had nothing to do with him. He could apologize, but instead, he managed to say 'later' and look kind of sheepish. It was not satisfying for either of them.

“Whatever,” he responded, walking off.

Chapter Text

It was the third time Peter had gone off with Ego. They were at dinner. Yondu had no excuses to keep him home other than his own bad feeling about the proceedings, but that wasn’t much to go on, so he just kept letting it happen. The nights Peter wasn’t with Ego, he ran off with Gamora. Sometimes taking Rocket and Groot, sometimes leaving them.

All together it painted a clear picture; Peter was somewhere else. All the time.

Not that Yondu missed the kid. One less stinky, moody, emotionally stunted teenager to deal with was a dream he had weekly. But now that it was a reality, he liked it less than he’d thought he would.

When Ego’s car rolled up, Peter got out smiling and laughing at something Ego had said. Ego parked and got out as well, and the sight of him rankled Yondu. He stood up and crossed his arms, letting Peter by (with a cry of “I brought leftovers!”) and stepping in front of Ego. “You’re not coming inside,” he said.

“Yondu, come on,” Peter said, “Please?” As if he had been legitimately invested in Ego coming into the house before Yondu had expressly forbidden it.

He didn’t look back at Peter, his eyes firmly on Ego. “No. Fuck no. Go home, Ego.”

“Peter, it’s fine,” Ego said, the picture of grace. God he hated him.

“It’s not fine!” he said, his voice rising. “Yondu, he’s my dad. I deserve to get to spend time with him! Why do you have to be such an asshole about this?!”

It didn’t sway him. Peter didn’t need to know. All it would do was hurt him. Sometimes, Yondu’d learned in his shitty, shitty life, you had to hurt people. For their own sake. Caring about someone wasn’t always making them happy.

“Go inside, boy.”

The door slammed so hard that the windows rattled. Yondu didn’t move, Ego didn’t flinch. They just stared at each other.

“I thought, you know, maybe you’d told the boy,” he said. “But you haven’t. Not a thing. Why?”

He deserves to think better of both of us, he thought, but didn’t say. Yondu looked down for a second before recovering and locking eyes with Ego again. “Get off my goddamn porch, Ego.”

“If I were ‘up to something’, you’d be making it so much easier for me by keeping all of my secrets, Yondu. Lucky for you, all I want is to know my boy, before it’s too late.” With that, he turned and walked away. He knew a taunt when he heard one.

Walking back inside, he walked upstairs to Peter’s room, gently knocking on the door. “Son,” he said.

“Go away.”

The jiggled the knob and found the door locked. “Get out here and talk to me.”

“No! I’m not talking to someone who just wants me to be miserable.”

He could easily pick the lock or bust down the door or scream and rage until Peter came out. But it didn’t matter. “Fine, then! Stay up there all damn night,” he snapped.

Rocket, Groot and Mantis caught him on the porch an hour later, chain-smoking and contemplating what Ego had told him. It wasn’t like Peter would even buy it if he did tell him the guy was clearly up to something. Had he caused this by letting Peter live a life ignorant of Ego’s bullshit?

“Are you gonna tell us what’s wrong with Quill’s old man?” Rocket demanded.

He tossed the cigarette butt into the yard and looked at the three of them. Mantis was shrinking back behind Groot, her figure hunched. Rocket’s dark eyes were narrowed in concentration.

“Why?”

“I wanna rub it in his face when it blows up on him!” Rocket lied. He was worried, just like Yondu was. He’d never show it, though. Just like his old man. Probably not a good thing.

“Don’t say shit like that. It ain’t funny.”

“I’m being serious!”

Yondu didn’t feel like arguing. “I take it you ain’t gonna drop it ‘til I tell ya,” he said with a sigh.

Groot nodded.

Where to start? “When I was your age, I was in and out of foster care and jail,” he said. “I was a shithead, like you.” He pointed at Rocket and Rocket protested. “But when I got older I made some friends, and we…well. We worked together, not in strictly legal capacities, but mostly just unsavory, shit jobs no respectable person wants but pay pretty good as a result. Chop shops, strip clubs.” He put a hand up before Rocket could comment. “Not as a dancer, you idiot. I was a bouncer. Shit like that. We were young and stupid.”

“You’re still stupid.”

“Shut up if you want me to tell ya the story,” he said. “I met Ego at the bar I was bouncing at and he offered me a ridiculous amount of money to do security for him a couple of times. I didn’t know what he was up to, I didn’t care. It weren’t legal, but hey. It was more money than I’d ever seen in my life at that point, in one lump sum.”

“What was it for?” Groot signed, concerned.

“He was runnin’ drugs, mostly. Manufacturing, I think. Didn’t ask, I was too stupid to care.” Yondu grimaced. “Of course, the one time I do one of these exchanges without Ego there, all hell breaks loose. People gettin’ shot, cops, all of it. I got out, but barely.” He shrugged, lighting up another cigarette and pulling down the collar of his shirt, exposing the bullet hole that they’d always asked about. “But I had been lyin’ to all of my friends about this job and finally they knew and…well, it caused some problems. It was way riskier than any of the shit they wanted to be involved with. So we got into a big fight and stopped talkin’.”

“Ego never got in trouble?”

“Nah. And then a couple years later he dropped Quill on my doorstep and fucked off to wherever.”

Rocket slumped forward a little, his elbows on his knees. “So what does he want with Peter?” he asked, but he turned to look at Mantis, who was wide-eyed, chewing on her lower lip and wringing her hands.

“I…”

“Don’t bother her about it, she don’t know. No more than we do.” She probably did, he realized, but he’d rather them not pester her about it.

Rocket and Groot put their heads together, clearly trying to figure something out.

Satisfied he wasn’t going to answer more questions, he got up and walked back to the house, brushing past where Peter had been leaning in the doorway listening the entire time.

Chapter Text

It was obvious that Peter was struggling with what he had heard about his father, but he was doggedly refusing to talk about it. On the one hand, Yondu had never really raised the kids with a strong distaste for breaking the law. It seemed unfair, considering where they’d all come from. So learning that Ego was some kind of criminal mastermind (honestly, even Yondu knew he didn’t know the extent of it) probably wasn’t going to instantly ruin his impression of his father, but he knew there were questions to wrestle with.

Yondu left him alone to deal with it. When they did speak, it was perfunctory and polite. He should probably offer the kid something, but he wasn’t sure how to.

He was out with Mantis, shopping for the week.

He hadn’t spent much one-on-one time with her, mostly because he didn’t really spend one-on-one time with anyone, but he felt like he needed to distract her from her father’s looming presence over the house, so he asked her to come along on errands.

“May I ask you something?” she asked as they browsed different brands of packaged dinners.

“Sure.” Her questions were usually fairly innocuous.

“If one has a…a crush on someone. How do they tell them?”

Aw, hell.

Yondu pretended to be really interested in the nutritional value of bagel bites while he contemplated this. Mantis was socially stunted by years of apparently total isolation, but he had kind of hoped she’d ask Peter about this kind of thing. “Have you talked to your brother about this?”

Who could it be? Drax? If it was Drax…wait, no. Drax had been dating the same girl since second grade. Not Drax, then.

“I considered it, but Peter has had no success telling Gamora about his feelings, so I thought he probably would not be able to offer me any insight in actually saying something. You are a grownup, so you probably know more than I do.”

Well, she’d be disappointed if he told her he wasn’t any better than Peter at this. “Uhm, well. Teenage boys tend –”

Mantis looked perturbed for a second. “Boy? Oh, no, it is not a boy.”

He grabbed another pack of bagel bites and continued down the freezer aisle, quietly thanking whatever unseen force was holding the universe together for giving him this mercy. But also, he did not need three packs of bagel bites, what was he doing?

Time to assess this situation. “Well, hm. You like boys at all?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not like that. Boys are so weird. Drax is a boy and he’s very loud and always smells odd.” A pretty insightful observation into the world of a teenage boy.

Of course she was so sheltered that she didn’t even realize some people found it abnormal that she only liked girls. For Yondu’s part, he did not give a fuck. It was less money he had to give out for condoms. He wasn’t going to make her feel weird about it, he wasn’t quite that shitty. “Okay, well. That changes things. Do you think she likes ya?”

“I’m not sure how to tell...”

“Spend time with her?”

“Yes. We are friends and have many classes together. No one else wanted to work with me because I was new. It was very nice and I felt very special.”

The utterly saccharine way she spoke was liable to make Yondu vomit. “What kind of things does she like?”

“Video games. Sports. She and Gamora spend lots of time watching sports with Drax. Gamora is captain of the field hockey team, we go to all of her matches.” (Field hockey was a sport that gave rich people an excuse to beat on each other, if you asked Yondu.)

Then what Mantis had actually said hit him.

“Wait a minute…”

She tilted her head at him.

“D’you like Nebula?”

Mantis nodded, grinning and blushing a little.

This was, in every universe, the weirdest situation that he had ever had to deal with. This was not Peter ‘I might need a round of antibiotics please don’t ask’ Quill bringing home anyone who gave him the time of day. Nebula was…great…but also a little rough around the edges. Double-edged sword. The bafflement was overtaking how ridiculous this whole thing was – he was giving a pep talk to his lesbian daughter about her first crush in the frozen food aisle of the discount supermarket. How far the mighty had fallen…

“I think in that case, you should just tell her upfront. She’ll be honest with you.”

Mantis contemplated this and then, looking around to make sure no one was around, moved in and gave him a hug. He appreciated her discretion. “Thank you.”

“Yondu Udonta.”

And of course, Aleta turned the corner in time to see it.

“Aleta Ogord.”

“Can I ask who this is?” she said, gesturing to Mantis. Mantis was already, at 15, a solid few inches taller than Aleta, but she might have been a giant judging by the look of apprehension on the girl’s face.

“Introduce yourself,” he muttered to Mantis when it was clear she wasn’t going to. Aleta wasn’t going to tolerate him speaking for her.

“Oh. I am Mantis! I am his…daughter.”

“It’s a long story,” he said before she could ask.

“You care to tell it?” she asked. “Maybe come by the club?”

“Stakar won’t want...”

“Stakar does want to speak with you. He’s too proud to call himself, of course.” She rolled her eyes, fondly. “He’s been hoping to catch you around but you’re hard to track down.”

He was tempted to ask if he was being summoned for any specific reason, but instead he just nodded. Play nice in front of the kids. Basic parenting rule. “How about tomorrow night, then?”

“Sure. It’ll be good to see you again.” She walked past him and squeezed his arm.

Mantis didn’t even wait until she was out of earshot to turn and declare: “She seems nice. I like her!”

That made him laugh. Aleta Ogord was certainly nice, but also one of the most terrifying people that Yondu had ever met. “You got no idea, girlie. Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

The next night, Yondu recruited Tullk to keep an eye on the house. Usually, he’d just leave it to Peter and risk the property damage, but Peter’s complete withdrawal from the rest of them made him a less than ideal babysitter. He didn’t want to risk it. Mantis was responsible, but only in short bursts, and he didn’t know how long this was going to take. “Don’t let ‘em go anywhere,” was the only rule laid down.

It was likely that Tullk would just nap on the couch and not invest a lot of time into watching the kids, but honestly, he just wanted someone there to tell him if Ego came by, because he didn’t know that Peter would divulge that information to him.

However, the possibility of going to the club to meet Stakar by himself made him uncomfortable. Last time they had been near each other for more than five minutes, he had ended up with (somewhat deservedly) three broken ribs. He’d been 27. At 27 you (erroneously) believe that you could bounce back from anything. These days, he knew better.

So, pride abandoned, he walked across the street and knocked on the door.

He was met by the big burly guy – Taserface, which was definitely a fake name, and that was coming from a guy named Yondu Udonta – who looked him up and down scrutinizing him. “What? Lose your cat?”

“Obfonteri here?” he asked. He didn’t like Taserface. They’d never really spoken in the months that they’d been neighbors, but he knew he hated him just by the sight of his unkempt beard and hair and his ripped up heavy metal t-shirts threatening to burst around over-muscled arms and the smugly disdainful way he looked at everyone around him.

“Kraglin! Your sugar daddy’s here!”

Kraglin punched him in the arm when he walked out into the main room, shooing away the crowd of people who had stopped to watch what they probably assumed was going to be some kind of fight. “What do you want?” he asked, sighing a little.

He deserved that.

“I’m going to meet some old friends. Come with me.”

Kraglin’s blue eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Backup.”

That seemed to make sense to him, because he disappeared for a second, door still open into the den of disgust he called a house, and returned pulling on actual jeans instead of the tattered sweat pants he’d been wearing, sliding on his sneakers and slamming the door behind him.

“Tullk busy?”

“Watching them,” he said, pointing across the street.

“So what’s in it for me?”

“I’ll buy you a dance.”

“Oh, that’s where we’re going?”

“It’s a club an old friend owns.” He remembered the nights they’d wasted in that stupid club before Stakar had taken it over. Too much of any substance and too little sense. It was the classier of the town’s three strip clubs, with membership fees and no weird ‘all day buffet’ billboards advertising its existence, but they’d still treated it like a personal playground.

They’d been idiots back in the day.

They were probably still idiots.

He definitely felt like one, walking up to the doors.

“Cover’s waived,” someone said from behind the bouncer – a sturdy looking girl with blue hair. Stakar was already waiting for him. Yondu waved Kraglin off to the bar and tried to think of something to say to his former best friend as they sized each other up. The tension was there, all the bitterness and angry thoughts that had culminated over the last twelve years coming to the surface as they stared at each other.

Finally, Stakar grinned. “You look old,” he said, grabbing him by the shoulders as he examined him.

“So do you.”

They laughed, both still obviously feeling the tension between them, but neither willing to acknowledge it. Stakar took him by the shoulders and led him to a booth where the rest of the old crew was already sitting, drinks scattered around the table.

Stakar took his place between Aleta and Martinex and Yondu squeezed in next to Krugarr, who signed a quick greeting that he returned. Mainframe was tucked in beside Charlie, and she waved cheerily, looking much the same as she had ten years ago, though her fashion sense had improved.

“I’m guessing you know why we asked to see you,” Stakar said, leaning forward and looking very diplomatic in the low, flashing neon lights.

Yondu had thought about it long and hard after he’d seen Aleta, and he’d come to one conclusion that seemed right. It was not going to be a meeting to hug and talk about their feelings and forgive one another. He wasn’t interested in that and neither was Stakar. This was business.

“Ego.”

“Yes.” Stakar leaned forward onto his elbows, looking serious.

“Hate to disappoint, I ain’t got shit to do with the man. Whatever you wanna know…don’t ask me. Won’t be satisfyin’ for either of us.”

Something like relief passed over Stakar’s face. “Well I’ve heard that before.” A laugh. “Not falling back into old habits?”

“Priorities are a lil different these days. Ego’s coming around because of m – his son. Not sure what he wants other than that. Nothin’ good.”

“Well, we want him outta town,” Charlie said in his deep, slow voice. “Makin’ everyone edgy.”

“You and me both,” he said. He chanced a glance at where Kraglin was sprawled out, talking to a couple of strippers in a friendly voice that carried over the music. Just making sure he was behaving, obviously. “I’m not much help.”

“About the kids.”

Defensiveness immediately walled itself around Yondu, and he felt his shoulders stiffen involuntarily as he stared at Stakar. “What about ‘em?” Things had been going well, but a fight wasn’t completely off the table.

“You’d feel better if Ego wasn’t sniffing around, wouldn’t ya? For them?” It felt like a low-blow to go after concern for the kids. Stakar knew it. They all did.

“Yeah. What’re you askin’?”

“Find out what he’s up to if you can. Then we can get rid of him. Helps us and helps you, right?”

“So, let’s get this perfectly straight. You want my help?”

“Yeah, I guess we do,” Martinex said, looking at Stakar with a shrug.

Yondu knew his old friends. He definitely knew the magic words. Words they’d said to each other so many times before: “What’s in it for me?”

There was a murmur. “What would you even want from us?” Charlie asked. “You’ve gone stra -- clean.”

“Babysitting,” he said immediately, rubbing his hands together deviously. “Unlimited free babysitting.”

Everyone immediately shouted their protests, except Mainframe, who looked way too excited at the prospect. That was much more troubling.

Chapter Text

“You heard from your daddy lately?” he asked Peter. The weekly outings with Ego had tapered off after about a month, which was what he’d expected. Come around and get the boy’s hopes up and disappear again. Like the one time he’d called when Peter was ten, and then never followed up on any promised visits. It was par for the course.

“No. I thought…after…uh.” Peter paused to compose himself. “You said I shouldn’t.”

“Do you want to?”

He looked like answering might hurt someone in the vicinity, which was answer enough.

Yondu tried not to be wounded, because now he had a goal. “Look, boy, I know I came off harsh before. I ain’t stoppin’ you if you wanna spend time with him. And ain’t forcing you if ya don’t.”

“He asked a lot of questions about if I was going to college,” he said.

This was a conversation they hadn’t had in many years, and it was probably one he should have struck up much sooner. “You are.”

“Am I?” he asked, his tone brittle.

“Grades are fine, right?” Peter was a smart kid, if lazy, so his grades were firmly middle of the road. Very rarely did he get calls about academic processes, it was almost always calls about ‘bad’ behavior. He still had a chance with higher education.

“Figured you’d wanna save the cash to put Rocket through instead, he’s the smart one,” he said, looking surly.

Yondu leaned forward in his chair. He had been sitting out on the porch talking to Kraglin about something stupid. They had somehow bounced back from their disagreement since the night Yondu had spoken with Stakar and the others, and now he was once again imposing on Yondu when he had the time. To the guy’s credit, at that moment, he was pretending not to listen.

“You can go wherever you wanna go and do whatever you wanna do,” he said. That was what you were supposed to say, right? Sure, maybe he’d entertained the fantasy of sending him off to become a mechanic and take over for Yondu and Tullk, but he knew actually saying that would send Peter off studying some kind of floofy liberal art. He’d let him decide.

“Oh. Well. Applications are due at the end of the month for most of the state schools.”

They lived down the road from a state school. That was, at least, promising. Yondu had, not that he’d ever admit it, maybe been avoiding the college talk because admitting that he knew that Peter was nearly an adult was too uncomfortable for him. He had never counted himself particularly sentimental – his life had never allowed it – but maybe he was, deep, deep down. Acknowledging that Peter’s exit from the house was imminent was hard to deal with. The kid couldn’t even hold down a summer job, how was he gonna function in the real world? It seemed like a reflection on Yondu’s own failings as an authority figure.

“Good. Do ‘em. If you need help…” He paused. “We’ll find someone who can help ya.” He had never gone to college, so he wasn’t gonna pretend he knew anything about it.

“It’s expensive.” Money was a sore spot for Peter, though they had certainly never been completely poor, there was plenty he hadn’t gotten to do on account of being broke. That might have been why Yondu’d never told him that Ego had paid him to look after Mantis.

“So?”

“Maybe that’s what Ego wants,” he said. “To pay for it.”

“Don’t take money from him,” Yondu said, his tone sharp.

Peter looked taken aback. “Oh, okay. Yeah. I’m gonna go make some food. Later, Kraglin,” he said. He eyed Kraglin with skepticism every time he saw him now, and Yondu was, for once, not wholly sure what his kid was thinking.

“So we hope the kid calls his criminal mastermind dad and sets up a playdate? And asks the right questions?” Kraglin said. “No offense to your kid, I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in that.”

Yondu reached over to half-heartedly slap his arm. “I ain’t putting him that kinda position. I’ll ask him my damn self. That’s the thing about Ego. Once you get him talkin’, he’s so up his own ass he won’t even consider he should keep his mouth shut. It’s just a matter of getting the chance.”

“Huh. No wonder you two got along.”

An empty beer can was flung in Kraglin’s general direction for his troubles.

“What the hell you sayin’, boy?”

“Talk a lot.”

“Ever thought maybe you don’t talk enough?”

“Good thing you talk enough for the both of us,” he said, mustering a sort of cockiness only a 28-year-old could pull off without sounding pathetic.

He wasn’t gonna let that go unnoted. “Us?” Yondu arched an eyebrow. It wasn’t a conversation that had been had. Since the night he’d shoved the guy through a window, the physical contact had been pretty minimal, plus the whole girlfriend thing.

Kraglin’s silence was a smug challenge.

“Ain’t you sleepin’ with that girl from the club?”

“I mean, yeah. What's that got to do with you?”

“You already got an us, and it ain’t here.”

“Jealous?”

That would be stupid, of course Yondu wasn’t jealous, he just didn’t get wrapped up in people’s personal drama. That was definitely it. “Don’t be an idiot.”

The response he got was an eyeroll, but a fond one.

“Kiss him!” Rocket yelled from the window.

They just ignored it. Rocket started laughing at his own joke, as if he were the funniest thing in the room. The best cure for that inflated sense of self was a healthy dose of the silent treatment.

“I should probably head back,” Kraglin said after a pause. “See ya around.”

Of course, the temptation to ask him to stay was there, and he lingered long enough to make it clear that he was hoping for it, but they weren’t standing on steady ground. Kraglin going inside the house, with all the noises and the kids and the shouting, that was steady ground.

The problem with moving from unsteady ground to steady ground was that you almost always stumbled, and that was the part neither of them wanted to do. They couldn’t teleport from the point they were at to a point where everything had settled, and that’s what he would prefer. Something clean and easy.

So he kept his mouth shut and they were stuck halfway there.

Chapter Text

Now, Yondu had never had a father of his own (of course in the literal sense, he had, but he didn’t ever remember meeting the guy), so he had never really understood the protocol on most (okay, all) parental milestones. Television told him that his daughter’s first ‘date’ was the time to intimidate the poor kid until they peed themself and lay down some sort of ‘law’.

He wasn’t gonna do that.

For one, his ‘daughter’ was going on a date with another girl, and that girl was Nebula, whom he liked (and didn’t think he’d be particularly successful at intimidating, all things considered). Plus, according to every woman he’d ever spoken to (there had been a couple, in his lifetime), that kind of cliched overprotective dad schtick was insulting to your kid.

Instead, he sat on the porch waiting for Nebula to arrive with Mantis, who was basically vibrating with excitement.

Peter intended on pulling the ‘protective big brother’ angle, but Yondu knew that Nebula scared him a little, so he didn’t expect that to last. Mostly, he was there because Gamora was Nebula’s ride, and he wanted to weasel his way into a double date. He did not know what that girl saw in the kid, but she seemed to enjoy his clumsy attempts at romance, even if she hadn’t reciprocated (kids had no idea just how much their parents actually knew about them, did they?). It was better than a soap opera. (But he definitely didn’t get involved, because they were children and could figure it out themselves.)

Still, he had to lay down some ground rules.

“You can say no to anything,” he told Mantis. This was the same talk he’d given Peter last year when he’d gone on his first real date (one that didn’t involve sneaking someone in in the dead of night. Yes, he knew about that every time it happened, and yes of course he’d thoroughly embarrassed Peter by calling him out on it), he figured it applied regardless of gender. Equality and all that, right?

“If you wanna leave early, you can call me. Don’t need a good reason. Got it?”

Mantis nodded, but her excitement for the date was making it hard for her to take him seriously.

“Alright. Behave. Home by ten.”

Gamora and Nebula pulled up, and after what was clearly a conversation in the front seat of Gamora’s car, they both got out and walked up to the house.

“Are you ready to go?” Nebula asked, more than a little gruff.

Gamora sister shook her head, exasperated.

“I am!” Mantis was completely unbothered by her brusque nature. He guessed she’d have to be in order to develop a crush on her. It would definitely take someone as socially inept to look past Nebula’s complete lack of social graces.

Nebula was halfway smiling, but looked nervous and, in turn, a little angry about being nervous. He definitely understood that process.

“I’ll drop them off and come back,” Gamora told Peter before he could invite himself along.

“Are you sure? I don’t know what your sister’s intentions are!” he said. “I figured we could drop them off and get some foo –”

She very gently shushed him. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. We’ll hang out here. My sister’s intentions are pure. …I think.”

Peter slumped against his chair, sighing loudly. “Okay, see ya soon.” As soon as she was out of earshot, he let off a string of unintelligible mutters that culminated in a barely audible “I love you please have my children”.

Yondu groaned. “Son.”

“Yondu," he responded mockingly.

“You sound pathetic.” He considered that for a second. Maybe too harsh? “She’s a good kid, don’t blow it.”

“You’d know all about blowing it – ” Peter seemed to have realized what he’d said, horror dawning on his face. “And I mean that in the sense of ‘screwing i–’” Another pause. “I mean that you’re a disaster when it comes to dating. Not the whole... Not the other thing.” He mimed gagging.

Yondu just hid his face in his hands and tried not to laugh or cry or both.

“Let’s just talk about something other than your romantic failures,” Peter said quickly, as he returned to a normal color.

“I am not failing.”

“You’re striking out really badly, and that’s you getting like, seven-hundred chances to stop being an idiot.”

Starting to feel uncomfortably defensive, he looked out into the yard instead of at Peter’s nauseatingly sincere concern. “You don’t know shit about it, kid.”

“I know there’s someone who likes you that you barely give the time of day to for some reason I don’t understand,” he said, gesturing to the house across the street.

What had he done to deserve this? (A lot of things, actually.)

Yondu looked up and they glared at each other for a long second. “It ain’t that simple and, more importantly, ain’t any of your business.” Half of that was a lie.

Peter never really knew when he was beat, though. “I think it’s pretty simple. You’re impossible, if someone is willing to tolerate you, you should hold onto them. Like, never let them go. He tolerates you. Even if he’s kind of a dick.”

Weighing the different ways he could end this conversation before he had to start yelling, Yondu settled on grimacing, leaning back and lighting himself a cigarette, ignoring Peter’s protest. “You hear from Ego?”

He was flustered for a second, checking over his shoulder and then looking back at Yondu. “Wants to hang out tomorrow. Is that okay?”

“If you want to, yeah.”

If Peter was suspicious of his sudden permissiveness when it came to Ego, he didn’t show it. He didn’t need to know that people he’d never met had something against the old man. He had the facts he needed, as far as Yondu was concerned. Being too transparent would trip him up. He was a great liar, but had never excelled at lying to the people he cared about. And damn the kid, he cared about Ego.

“I thought you weren’t going to talk to him anymore!” a new voice chimed in. Gamora had returned quietly, and looked concerned at the idea of Peter seeing Ego. “You told me…”

Yondu decided he’d probably be best to avoid listening to this conversation, but he caught Peter’s choked out ‘he’s my dad, I should give him a chance’ and Gamora’s half-snarled ‘you said he was a criminal!’

Apparently, he’d left out the part of the story that indicted Yondu on similar crimes. He kind of appreciated that, ever since he found out that Gamora and Nebula’s father was some kind of fancy lawyer.

He sat on the couch and tried to engross himself in whatever Rocket and Groot were watching, intending to stay up until Mantis got home, but he ended up dozing off with Groot’s head on one shoulder and Rocket’s on the other, only to be woken by Peter trying to covertly snap a picture, Mantis giggling in the background.

“It’s so cute I wanna die,” Mantis wheezed through her laughter.

Chapter Text

So the next day, Ego came by. He was still not allowed in the house, so he patiently waited on the porch under the suspicious eye of both Yondu and Gamora. The others were inside, obliviously playing videogames (they had been, somewhat fruitlessly, trying to teach Mantis how to play). Neither she nor Drax excelled at video games, and as a result spent much of their time hanging out talking to each other and laughing too loudly, pausing to cheer on their friends.

(While Yondu hadn’t asked, he was fairly relieved that Mantis’s date had gone well, judging by the frequent, loud shouts of “go Nebula!” and her occasionally squeezing Nebula’s hand.)

Peter came out, damp from the shower but ready to go, and Gamora grimaced when he gave her a half-hearted hug. It was pretty pathetic to watch.

“You gotta cut the boy loose if you ain’t gonna date him,” he said once Peter was gone. “He’ll pine forever if ya let him. He needs a direct approach.”

Gamora turned the same pink as her hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, we’re just friends.”

Yondu snorted. Now, he didn’t get involved in personal drama. That was the rule. But he also had some kinda responsibility to the happiness of his kid. Catch-22 when your kid manufactured as much drama as Peter did. “You’re as oblivious as that big guy then.”

“I’m…aware of Peter’s feelings,” she said, stiffly. “But I’m not allowed to date, so it seems unfair to tell him I reciprocate, when I can’t do anything about it.”

“How does Nebula get away with it, then?” He narrowed his eyes, working out the puzzle for himself.

Was he about to get stuck with more proof he wasn’t the shittiest dad in town? He didn’t like the thought.

“Thanos doesn’t know that it’s…non-platonic. And he certainly wouldn’t approve if he knew. We’re only allowed to come over here because he doesn’t know that Mantis has brothers.”

Yup, he was officially at the very least, only the third worst dad in town. “Gotcha. Well. I’m not sayin’ this because I love the kid or anything, but tellin’ him would do you both a favor. Honesty is supposedly the way to go.” He had always doubted that wisdom, but they were kids.

She didn’t respond, the color on her face fading and returning to its normal brown. “Do you know what Ego wants with Peter?” she asked quietly, smartly diverting the topic. “I’m sure something is going on, and you know him. He really wants to think the man just came back after ten years to hang out.”

“Workin’ on it, girlie. Don’t worry about the boy too much. He’s…” Smart? Hmm. “I think he can take care of himself.” Operative word: think.

Gamora returned inside.

And he was finally alone.

For a few blissful minutes.

“What’re you up to?” Kraglin asked. He was walking home from his shift at the bar, hands in the pocket of a tragically tattered hoodie.

“Waitin’ on Pete.”

This was his cue to invite himself to a chair next to Yondu. “Out with the old man?”

He nodded. Would Peter think to ask him what his intentions were? Would he remember, or care? The last few months since they’d moved had become a shapeless blur, and only the yellowing leaves and chilly air reminded him that it was nearly November now, and not still the dead of summer.

Had it really been that long?

Shit.

How long was this guy gonna hang around?

“I’ve got tomorrow night off, for once,” Kraglin said. “Don’t usually get Saturdays. Wanna…” He seemed to be weighing his words carefully, as he did. “Hang out?”

All options were considered: ‘no, I have children to look after’ (a lie), ‘no, I don’t want to’ (also a lie), or just…saying yes. That was an option, right? Plus, he did have a new bevy of free babysitters to torture.

“Sure.”

“We could get dinner or something?” he said, and Yondu finally registered that he had just sincerely agreed to an actual date.

There was still time to back out, right? He could definitely change his mind. “Yeah, that’ll work,” was what came out of his mouth instead. Because he had to accept a few things: he probably shouldn’t keep using the kids as an excuse to put off socializing, he legitimately enjoyed being around that skinny punk with his dumb mohawk and bad attitude, and he probably did need to get a life.

Kraglin was openly grinning.

So Yondu didn’t say anything else about it. If he opened his mouth, he’d spoil the moment.

It wasn’t much longer before Peter came back to the house, looking troubled. That meant that Ego had finally fessed up, right? He didn’t say anything before he went inside, but he could hear Rocket’s loud inquiries over the din of the video games.

Ego drove off before Yondu could walk up to him. That was unusual. Usually he lingered, as if waiting for today to be the day he was allowed inside.

He just narrowed his eyes, sat back down, and stole the cigarette out of Kraglin’s mouth, taking a long, aggressive drag off of it, and returning it to where it had been stolen. “I hate him so fucking much.”

Then the kids were yelling.

One thing he had learned for the five-ish years he’d been dealing with teens was that, until it escalated to promises of bodily harm, you were always safer just letting them yell. So he didn’t get up until Gamora (trailed by her sister), burst out of the house.

“I can’t even believe you’d consider it, Peter!”

“Gamora, come on, calm down!”

“Don’t tell me to be calm, you’re being ridiculous! How could you even – ” She screamed in wordless frustration and stomped off to her car, leaving Pete on the porch, gaping like a goldfish.

Peter, red-faced and clearly self-conscious about the angry tears in his eyes, kicked the nearest chair, cursing when it hurt his socked foot.

“What’s the matter, boy?”

“I told her what my dad told me and she got all mad!”

“What about it?”

“He said he’d pay me through college but he wanted me to be like a chemistry major or whatever so I could go into business with him. Honor his legacy or some shit!”

Yondu stared at him, almost blank with shock.

“I didn’t answer him really either way I just mentioned to her that I hadn’t said no and she freaked out.”

“I’m about right there with her,” he said. “You’d best believe you aren’t taking his money or going into business with him.”

“I mean…I know…but…would it really be all that bad? You got out of it just fine!” Whatever weird bullshit Ego had been spouting to the kid was clearly causing some dissonance. “How do I even know what you said is true?”

Yondu chose to ignore the accusation. “Fine is a stretch. And you ain’t doin’ it. Don’t even consider it.”

Peter sighed.

How the fuck did Yondu end up being the voice of reason?

Chapter Text

“So, ‘bout that free babysitting,” he said when a sleepy-voiced Stakar Ogord picked up the phone. “Tonight. Get here a few minutes early and I’ll tell ya what Ego’s up to.”

“You got it. Address?”

He rattled it off and then hung up when he got a grunt of affirmation. It would be weird, introducing his old life to his new life. But…well…

Yondu didn’t want to use the word ‘excited’, but it was something he’d thought about. If his life had taken a better path, he wouldn’t have the kids to even introduce to Stakar. But if he had been…less of a shithead, maybe made some apologies sooner, they could have known them as kids. It’d be a lie to say he hadn’t imagined them growing up with his friends around them to teach them shit Yondu didn’t know.

Well, here was the chance.

He greeted Stakar on the porch. Peter was salty that they needed a babysitter, and out of spite had invited Drax, Gamora and Nebula over, with the intention of pestering Stakar to death. Yondu let him entertain that notion.

“You have seven hormonal rage beasts in there. Mostly old enough to take care of themselves but, hell, any time I leave ‘em alone they try and trash the place.” They didn’t have enough friends to throw a party, so they usually just ended up playing baseball inside or building bombs.

“Gonna give me like, emergency contact numbers or an allergy list or somethin’, Dad of the Year?” he deadpanned back, scoffing slightly.

“Nah. Figured I’d let you figure it out by yourself. Can you disarm explosives? Rocket’s a big fan of explosives.”

In spite of his sarcasm, Stakar did look a little horrified.

Yondu laughed. “Shit, man. I’m kidding. Sorta. Not about the explosives. No allergies. They’ve got Tullk’s number if ya need it. Don’t let ‘em sneak off to do god knows what.”

“Hormones, right. I remember being seventeen.”

Had they been anywhere near as bad as Peter was? Maybe not quite. But it had been the 80s, so they had probably been a different kind of bad.

“Do ya, old man?”

Stakar rolled his eyes, pivoting topics. “So, Ego.”

“Ah, right.” He paused to look over his shoulder. “He wants the kid to get into business with him. Study chemistry. Feel me?”

Stakar nodded. “You said he had a girl. Dumped her off with you.”

“Yeah. All accounts he raised her.” He hadn’t pried but that’s what it had sounded like. “Why?”

“Why not just make her do it and not come bother you? He’s gotta know you’re not his biggest fan.”

“She’s not…” Yondu shrugged. This was an angle he hadn’t considered, but he thought he knew the answer. “Might’ve asked her to and she said no. Or maybe she just didn’t have the knack for it. Plus, she’s barely been to school. Traveled with him all the time instead.”

“You think maybe he was looking for somethin’? Or maybe he was running from somethin'?”

Yondu frowned. “You think he wants to use Pete to take the heat off him?”

“I mean, he dumped Quill with you, who he knew to be a criminal, maybe he thought that’d make him more…well. Open to crime.” Stakar was looking in the window of the house thoughtfully; the glow of the TV had outlined the cluster of kids on the couch.

“Might be. Either way, we can trust Pete telling him no will get him out of our hair.”

“And if it don’t?”

“I don’t know, find a pig farm. Take care of it ourselves.”

They laughed. It was like old times, with a few more grey hairs and a lot less attitude. Yondu led him inside and cleared his throat loudly, attempting to get their attention. “Oi! Take your eyes off the screen for five damn seconds!”

That did the trick and they all looked over.

“This is Stakar. Listen to him and I’ll be back later.” That said, he went to hunt down a pair of shoes that weren’t work boots and as he was tying them, he heard the door open and someone mumble a greeting.

“Dad, the weird neighbor is here!” Peter called.

He wasn’t even going to admonish him for that. “Aight!” he shouted back, grabbing his wallet and walking out into the main room. Kraglin had not cleaned up for their date, which made him feel a lot less self-conscious about the whole thing. It was a normal evening, just two dudes hanging out. Two dudes who’d had sex twice and probably would again with some regularity depending on how well the evening went.

“Later, pipsqueak,” Kraglin called, directed at Peter, who wordlessly protested the nickname as Drax laughed. (“Because you’re so small!” “Only compared to you, steroid freak!”)

“So, there’s a pizza place down the road, or a wing spot. What do you think?”

Yondu looked at the two of them; Kraglin sporting a flannel button up over an ill-fitting band t-shirt and bright red jeans, artfully shredded, tucked into boots, on top of a mysteriously fresh black eye. His own incredibly drab t-shirt-and-jeans combo. Hmm.

“Nah, let’s go somewhere nice,” he said, gesturing to his car.

They managed to find the nicest restaurant that wouldn’t kick them out on sight but still balked at the idea of serving them, sat down at the bar, and started ordering drinks from an alarmed looking bartender with a handlebar mustache.

“I’ve never eaten a place this nice,” Kraglin said, eyeing the scallops he’d ordered with a certain level of mistrust.  It wasn’t even that nice of a place – maybe a notch or two below the nicest place in town. People ate here to feel fancy, not to really be fancy.

Yondu laughed. “Used to do this once or twice a month. Get a fat stack of cash and wander into the nicest place that’d serve us. And we looked rougher than you do.”

“With that guy who was in your house today? From the club?”

“There was a group of us,” he said, trying to sound dismissive of his own fond memories. No need to get sappy. “Anyway. Figured it’s a good tradition to pass on. Plus, Ego’s bankrolling it.”

“Howso?”

“When he dumped Mantis with me, he left me some money too.” He shrugged. “Let’s not go there. What the fuck happened to your face?” he asked, pointing at the shiner before taking another bite of asparagus.

Thoughtfully chewing the seared scallop, he shrugged. “Remember the girl from the club?”

“She did that?”

“Nah, her husband.” He started laughing. “Probably shoulda ducked outta that one a while ago. But she was nice.”

Yondu shook his head, sighing fondly. “Ya don’t think?”

They ate quietly for a second, ordering refills on expensive cocktails that neither of them even really liked. “Apparently I’m all about emotionally unavailable ones.”

He tried not to flush at the scrutiny. “Shut up.”

“Fine.”

“If we’re keepin’ score, we hooked up and you avoided me for four days.”

Kraglin pulled a long-suffering face, pausing to throw back his drink. “You didn’t exactly make an effort either,” he said. “Since I met you, it’s been like that. Go along if I initiate but otherwise, nothin’. If you want something from me, you gotta contribute. A least a little.”

When he put it like that, it made Yondu sound like a little bit of a jerk.

“Wanna go get some ice cream?” Yondu asked as he paid their food bill with an offhand toss of cash, steering him outside and trying to avoid contributing to a conversation about feelings. They walked down the street, their target a dessert place down the block.

“I’m not a kid. You can’t bribe me with sweets.”

He groaned. “Look, I’ve got four kids. I ain’t interested in things that make my life any more difficult than it already is. I don’t have time to chase some lanky pothead around to make him feel special.”

Kraglin rolled his eyes. “You always use that excuse?”

Yondu stopped walking and turned to look at him. He was lighting a cigarette and staring Yondu down, completely stone-faced. “What?”

“When they was kids, I bet it made sense. ‘Nah, I got a five-year-old at home I can’t go socialize’,” he said, in an uncanny approximation of Yondu’s own, much raspier voice. “But they’re grown now and using them as an excuse ain’t fair to anyone. So stop.”

It was almost hard to argue, but he was Yondu Udonta. He was going to argue, even though he knew Kraglin was right. “What the fuck do you know about it?”

“Not shit. But I think I know you.” He flicked the ashes away from the tip of his cigarette. “If you don’t like me, that’s fine. But if you like me and don’t wanna do anything about it because you’re too scared or unmotivated or whatthefuckever, nah. Ain’t abiding that. Like ya too much. Otherwise I woulda bailed on this complete shitshow ages ago. It sucked ass. Wanna at least be your friend, all said and done.”

Ice cream was purchased and they exited the store, finding a somewhat secluded bench to continue their disagreement. By the time Yondu sat down, birthday cake ice cream firmly in hand, he found he had less and less of an argument with every passing minute. What could he say? ‘It’s my right to use my kids as an excuse to avoid people, I like having that excuse’? It had been a little bit of a shitshow.

“Fine.”

“What?”

“I said fine. You’re right.”

Kraglin was trying not to grin as he finished his waffle cone. It was nearly winter, but Yondu’s fondness for dessert wasn’t restricted by seasons. Plus, it didn’t melt as quickly. “So.”

“Don’t get all sentimental about it. I’m just sayin’…whatever, I like you just fine and I’ll make more effort.” That was all he would get out of Yondu, and if he pushed for more, he’d ruin the whole thing for both of them.

Instead of saying anything else, he leaned in and kissed him. They had kissed before (considering they’d already had sex twice) but this seemed more qualified to be called a ‘first kiss’ than those. It didn’t last long, because apparently neither of them were really fans of making out in public, which was good to know. “What time did you tell that guy you’d be back?”

“I didn’t.”

“Wanna go back to my place, then?” he asked, reaching his spoon into Yondu’s cup to steal a bite.

“You’re dumb if you think I’m going back into that deathtrap.”

“Your place?”

Yondu wasn’t exactly comfortable with that, either. “We’re gonna have to ease into that one.”

“I’m tryin’ to ease in t – ” That comment was silenced by a kick to his ankle. “Right. Fine. Car?”

It was worth a shot, he supposed, tossing his trash into the nearby can and getting up to walk back to where they had parked.

Chapter Text

He walked into the house an hour or two later, massaging a kink out of his neck. “I’m too fucking old for doing it in the c--” he was saying to Kraglin, expecting to come home to sleeping teenagers and Stakar watching TV or having abandoned post earlier in the night.

He did not expect four wide-awake kids and a somewhat baffled looking Stakar still in the living room, clearly listening to him.

“It’s nearly midnight, what are y’all doing?” he asked. Groot was nodding off on Mantis’s shoulder, but the rest of them were clearly wired.

“We were up talking to Stakar about the old days,” Peter said, with the face of a kid who now knew too much. “Why did you never tell us you had a bright red mohawk when you were our age?” he asked.

Yondu looked around and – oh god, there were pictures on the coffee table. Yondu’s terrible fashion choices from the late 80s were documented? “I thought you burned those,” he said, snatching them up when he saw Kraglin move to grab them.

“Consider it a delayed revenge,” Stakar said, smirking, getting off the couch and walking over. “Those are your copies. Mainframe insists we all have some, she’s been holdin’ onto them for ya.”

Pictures of the whole group outside of the group home where they’d met, pictures of Yondu sporting the bright red mohawk and destroyed denim vest that had been his uniform back then. Aleta, Yondu and Stakar making rude gestures at the camera. A picture of Yondu inappropriately caressing one of his archery trophies while Krugarr and an incredibly young looking Martinex cackled in the background. A picture outside the record shop they’d frequented. He was oddly touched by evidence of their delinquency. (Though there was at least one of someone [Yondu] getting very handsy with someone else [Stakar] in the background of a nice picture of a statue, which he managed to hide before Kraglin managed to wrench them out of his grip.)

“This is...” Thanking people wasn’t in his vocabulary, but Stakar knew him well enough.

“Things haven’t changed too much,” he said. “I’ll see ya later, Yondu.”

Stakar left, and Kraglin gave the pictures back to Yondu. “I should probably hit the sheets, got a six AM shift.”

“See ya around, then,” he said, knowing that Peter and Rocket were watching him intently.

“You aren’t gonna ask him to stay?” Peter demanded.

“Not tonight, and you four need to get to bed.”

“Why? It’s Saturday!”

“Fine, just keep it down.” Car sex was more acrobatic than he remembered it being the last time he’d had it, and he was aching pretty much all over. It was time to sleep.

“Did it go well?” Peter asked.

Kraglin had already left, so Yondu felt comfortable at least saying “yeah, it went fine.”

“I like this look on you, old man,” Rocket said, waving a picture. “And the picture of you beating the shit out of some Kree dude. Hey! That looks like Ronan’s dad actually!” They all started laughing.

“Now you know where you get it from.” He couldn’t help but grin at the thought. “’Night, guys.”

He fell asleep almost immediately, but was roughly woken by small hands shaking him a few hours later. If this had been three years ago, he would have assumed Groot was having a nightmare, but then he remembered that none of the kids had insisted on sleeping in his room in some time.

He clicked on a lamp and found himself face to face with Mantis, clad in a pair of Peter’s old pajamas, looking at him tearfully.

“What is it, girlie?”

“I need to tell you what Ego is doing!” she said.

“Slow down, calm down. You don’t gotta talk about it. I’m not worried about it.”

She sat down next to him as he sat up, fully awake now and unlikely to fall back asleep any time soon.

“I was talking to Drax earlier and he said…well…I feel like I should…I didn’t before because I was scared but you should know.” She took a deep breath. “When we traveled, we went to see all of his children,” she said, her voice small.

“All of them?”

“He had a lot. They all still lived with their mothers, he said something about birth certificates…” She furrowed her eyebrows.

Yondu tried to work that out, a little too sleep-addled.

“He went to see them and sometimes their mothers wouldn’t let him and sometimes they would, but he didn’t like any of them. He said they were disappointing. Like me.”

“Why’d he keep you around for?”

“My mother died after I was born. She was sick. So he had to take me. He thought maybe I’d be what he wanted…” Birth certificates, dead mothers, secret children all over the country. Sounded like Ego.  “But I wasn’t. I didn’t…I couldn’t do the things he wanted me to do.”

“So he just kept you until he found a place to dump you.”

Yondu’s heart was pounding uncomfortably. He didn’t know how Mantis had kept this all inside for so long, and it made him wish he had just asked months ago. It had to have been worse to keep it a secret. He could have ended this ages ago if he had just stopped acting like not knowing meant it wasn’t happening.

“I thought he wouldn’t come back, so I just wanted to forget,” she said, as if she knew what he wanted to say. “I didn’t want to talk about it. But he’s back. Peter is the last one left. He left him with you because…”

“He thought being raised by a crook would make it easier to convince him to join up,” he finished for her, his tone dull.

“Or that Peter would hate you so much he’d do anything to get away from you.” She flinched as she said it. “That is just what Ego said. He does not…he is…”

“He’s a jackass, I know. So why does this matter?”

“I do not think Peter saying no will make him go away. He will keep trying. He has this way about him… You’re a grownup, so you can do something to stop him. You can call the police or –”

“I don’t have any proof he’s done anything wrong, girlie. Ain’t that simple...” He trailed off, trying to coalesce this new information into something linear and digestible as Mantis sat there, looking miserable as she stared at the floor. “Hang up. About the birth certificate thing.”

“He said,” She screwed up her face, clearly trying to wrack her brain for the details. He wanted to tell her to stop, but asking her not to talk about Ego was what had gotten them here in the first place. Torn between prevented undue misery and his own curiosity? That was a weird one. “He said that he wasn’t on any of their birth certificates. What does that mean?”

Yondu sighed. “Just means no one really knows he’s these kids’ daddy.” Meaning no child support, no obligations, no one to call him when shit got bad.

She didn’t seem to know what it meant, but she did seem to know it was bad. “Oh.”

“He was on Peter’s birth certificate,” he said, remembering the paperwork and the harried young woman who had asked him to sign it. His heart was pounding uncomfortably hard.

He also remembered the crappy house that Meredith Quill and her daddy had lived in, the one that burnt down. He’d driven by it every day until they finally bulldozed the husk. “Poor kids?”

Mantis frowned. “Maybe? I do not know. It seemed like it. I am not good at telling.”

“So he knocked up a bunch of lower class gals and planned on swanning back in when the kids were nearly grown to dangle the prospect of free college under their noses if they were good enough to do business with him,” he said, running a hand over his scalp anxiously. “And only Peter has proven to be good enough.”

“I think that is it,” she said.

“Go back to bed, Mantis. Don’t worry about him anymore, he ain’t gonna be a problem much longer,” he said.

Mantis quietly obeyed, turning and shutting the door. Yondu laid back down, turning off the light and staring at the ceiling for a long few minutes, horror dawning on him as he did.

Peter was the only kid who had any sort of paper connection to Ego. He was the only one whose mother had put him down as the father of her kid.

And she’d ended up dead.

“Shit.”

Chapter Text

Ego had probably killed Meredith Quill and that was not a good sign for her son, who loved his dead mother more than anyone else in the world. He didn’t talk about her with Yondu at all now that he was grown, but he remembered.

He couldn’t tell the kid.

But he had to do something.

He remembered Meredith. It was a small town. She worked in the record shop. Sometimes his friends loitered around, making a nuisance of themselves, but she only laughed at them. He hadn’t met Ego until a few years later, but he’s sure the man had been there too, at some point. Hell, he even remembered little Peter coming to work with her once or twice. (Though for some reason he’d never told Peter that. Mainframe might even have a picture. Now wasn’t the time but he’d remember.)

He waited until he got to work on Monday morning to express the full brunt of his frustrations, kicking a shitty folding chair that had been unceremoniously tossed out by the dumpster until it was twisted into something barely chair-shaped.

“Fuck!”

“What’s wrong, you just realize the kids are gonna be home for two weeks?” Tullk asked mildly, handing him a cup of coffee.

“Peter’s stupid fucking father, man.”

“Say no more,” he said. And Yondu appreciated it, because he had no interest in saying anything else about it.

Well, until Charlie showed up for a tire rotation later that day.

“Stakar told me what you said this weekend.”

Charlie was a massive guy, a barely-fit-through-doorways type, but Yondu had always found him somewhat less intimidating than some of their leaner friends. Mostly because he made sure to carry himself in a way that made him seem a little less volatile than say, Stakar or Aleta, who strived to be as unapproachable as possible.

“Well, I got more than what I told him, now. Good news? Not looking to do anything around here. Bad news? Trying to recruit his own children to become drug manufacturers. Apparently just posting a Help Wanted ad ain’t grandiose enough for him, had to go around starting secret families all over the country or some weird bullshit.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Your boy gonna go for it?”

“Nah. I’ll lock him in the basement for four years if I gotta. But Ego needs to get outta town. I think I can handle it on my own. I’ll call if I can’t.”

They agreed. Charlie paid for his rotation and went on his way without saying much else about it.

Tullk was wiping his hands with a pathetically dirty rag, shaking his head. “Handling things again, are we?”

“Just one teeny-tiny little thing,” he said, with a devious grin. “Don’t you worry your sweet little head.”

He snorted. “It’s creepy when you do that. You know that right? It’s real creepy.”

When he got home, Mantis and Groot had endeavored to cook dinner. He showered while they finished up their baked chicken breasts and the big salad that Groot had created from the vegetables he’d saved from his garden. He’d looked up how to safely freeze them before winter, now their freezer was overflowing.

“Thanks for cooking,” Peter said to Groot and Mantis as he helped himself to thirds. “I don’t think Ego’s gonna come back around,” he added suddenly, looking at Yondu. “Haven’t heard from him.”

“Good.”

Peter still looked a little disappointed.

Yondu thought maybe he should say something nice, but he was saved from it by his phone ringing. He got up and wandered out of the room to answer it. “Hello?”

“It’s Mainframe,” she chirped.

“Oh, what’s up?” he said, leaning on the doorway, assuming she wanted to talk about what he had discussed with Charlie earlier.

“I’m making up a menu for the company Christmas party and was wondering about allergies.”

“Company Christmas party?”

“Yeah, well. Not really a company…” She stopped short and turned to yell something at (what sounded like) Martinex. “We usually clear out the club one day in December and have a Christmas party for the group. So, allergies?”

“No allergies.” He was still a little in shock that he was being invited to a Christmas party, but…he wasn’t going to look a gift meal in the mouth, either. “When is it?”

“About two weeks? We get it catered so you don’t need to bring food and we have booze…”

“Alright. We can make an appearance I guess.”

“Yay! Cool! I want to meet your daughter.”

Yondu almost smiled. He’d had such a shitty few days that it kind of hurt the muscles of his face. “Just don’t try and give her fashion advice, please.”

“Hey, too mean!”

“Talk to ya later, M.”

They both hung up and Yondu came back into the kitchen to see that his plate had been picked over. No leftovers survived their house long, so he probably should have expected that. “You guys got homework?”

“Studying for end of term tests,” Peter said.

He took his usual spot in the living room, the kids spreading out or disappearing to do their evening rituals. Kraglin walked into the house around nine and sat down next to Yondu without even a ‘hello’. He kicked off his boots and stretched out, taking up the rest of the couch, his back against Yondu’s side.

“Have a good day?”

“Absolute garbage,” Yondu muttered.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Peter was sitting in the armchair, listening to Meredith’s ancient Walkman (that only worked by the grace of how much Pete and Rocket liked to tinker with electronics), pretending to study. The sight of that kid made him want to throw up or cry or beat someone (Ego) to death.

“Nah. Not the time.”

Chapter Text

By all appearances, Peter had been right. They didn’t hear from Ego again. Not that it made it easier for Yondu to know what he knew. Every day he didn’t see Ego’s stupid bearded face was a day where the horror was a little dimmed, though. He knew what he wanted to do if the opportunity presented itself, but he was at peace with the notion that the opportunity might never present itself.

Life went on.

Grades came in, the holiday barreled towards them, and they were a week removed from exams when they were dragged out to the club for a group Christmas party.

It was on a Tuesday, so as not to interrupt the profitability of the place, though judging by Stakar’s car, they weren’t too concerned with profits anymore.

“A party in a strip club?”

“There are no strippers here tonight, boy,” he said, before Peter got his hopes up.

“Is this the one you used to work at?” Rocket asked. “It’s fancy!” he added, admiring the crystal chandelier and velvet drapes. “I figured it was…”

“Just stop.”

“Gotta admit, wasn’t sure you’d show!” Stakar called from where he was tapping a keg. “Fair warning: we’ve never had kids at these kinda things. Not sure how to make it work for them.”

“What, you ain’t knocked one of the girls up yet, you old pervert?” he shouted back, laughing.

“’Leta made me get snipped, man. Best decision of my life.”

“I’ve got a couple extra you can have if you’re feeling a paternal yearning. They’re almost grown, you won’t have to do much.” Yondu looked at the kids, who were still completely baffled by the six people in front of them. Kraglin was trailing behind them, doing a much better job of not gaping like a loon.

“Food’s over there, it’s a buffet so help yourself,” Martinex said, walking over and shaking Yondu’s hand. “I guess introductions are in order?”

“Right, right…Martinex, this is Peter, Rocket, Groot, Mantis, and not my kid,” he said, pointing them out individually. “Kids and Kraglin, Martinex. And that’s Mainframe, Aleta, Charlie, and Krugarr. Already know Stakar. You four go eat or somethin’, stop standing around staring.”

“Good kids?” Martinex asked.

“I mean, Peter’s a lil bit of a klepto and Rocket’s nearly had the bomb squad called on him once or twice, but I ain’t got too many complaints.”

“By our standards, positively tame,” he agreed.

Peter was marveling at a crab leg, taking a second to bite the shell gently, as if testing it.

Yondu groaned. “Peter, stop eating crab wrong!”

“I’m starving, let’s eat,” Kraglin said as Martinex was swept up into Mainframe’s whirlwind. She was wearing a silver Christmas sweater with functioning lights on it, her long hair dyed silver, standing out like a beacon against dark skin.

They walked over to the buffet table, which contained one tiny fake Christmas tree and little else to indicate that this was a holiday party. Stakar was teaching Peter the finer point of crab leg eating while Groot, suddenly shy, lurked behind his eldest brother, unwilling to engage.

Yondu handed his plate to Kraglin, instructing him to grab one of everything, and gestured Groot over. “Hey, did you meet Krugarr?” he asked.

Groot shook his head.

“I learned sign language from him, you know? He’s…” He tapped his ear and Groot’s eyes lit up a little. Straightening up, Yondu gestured to Krugarr from where he was talking to Charlie about something.

Groot pushed forward to introduce himself before Yondu could even say anything, signing an enthusiastic ‘I AM G-R-O-O-T’ at the man.

Satisfied with a moment well-parented, he reclaimed his plate from Kraglin and found a table to sit on.

“Use a chair,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes. “Were you raised in a barn?”

“You know for a fact I was!”

“Raised by wolves, Charlie. Raised by wolves,” Aleta said, cackling. She and Mainframe walked over to Mantis, taking her by each arm and guiding her to a couch. Mantis looked back at him, petrified.

“It’s fine,” he said. “They don’t bite too hard.”

“They are going to bite me?!”

“It’s an expression, Mantis.” Drax’s literal-mindedness was rubbing off on her apparently.

The evening progressed peacefully. Yondu had never imagined this kind of thing happening in his lifetime. He’d expected to die tragically young and have the group reunite at his funeral, maybe throw themselves on his grave and weep. However, this was better.

Peter ran up to him, mouth stuffed full of marshmallows for some reason, eyes bright. “You never told me you were a champion archer!”

“The trophies in my closet didn’t tip ya off?” he asked. It wasn’t something he hid from them, after all. He’d just never really talked about it.

“Champion archer?” Kraglin asked, incredulous.

“What? My case worker said I needed a hobby to get my rage out,” he said, with a shrug.

“Why’d you stop? The rage problem ain’t solved.”

Yondu rolled his eyes and scoffed, focusing on his food instead of the defense of his own character.

“That’s so cool. You were – ”

“A fully formed human being with accomplishments and interests before you came into my life?” he asked, skeptically.

“Yeah, exactly! How weird! I never expected that!” He was joking now, or at least Yondu hoped that was meant to be a joke.

“Did you think I spent 29 years just waiting for you to be dropped on my lap?” he asked, and he thought honestly maybe he could have been. He was seeing glimpses of his life before and he didn’t miss it. He was glad that his friends were back on his team, but it wasn’t the same. He didn’t want all the old bullshit. Luckily, it didn’t seem like the old bullshit had really followed them either.

Peter laughed, finally choking down his mush of sugar. “This is great.”

“Isn’t it? Thank me later.”

“Thank him? I’m the one who invited you!” Mainframe shouted.

“Fine, thank her.”

“Dude she knows all about computers and stuff, it’s so cool,” Rocket said. He had joined Mantis in talking to Aleta and Mainframe. “I could totally do this stuff. You gotta teach me!”

Groot interjected with: “Definitely one of our better Christmases.”

“What, Yondu Udonta isn’t the master of the holiday spirit?” Martinex deadpanned as he walked by.

“The first three years I lived with him he said my Christmas gift was that he didn’t feed me to the coyotes,” Peter said.

He grumbled a little. “That was a joke. I still got you a present.”

Chapter Text

Somewhere around the new year, Yondu had nearly forgotten about Ego in exchange for newer, shinier issues in his life. Issues like “oh my god, prom is a thing? My child wants to go to prom?” and “reciprocal amounts of emotional labor in a relationship” were now prominent. Piece of shit murdering narcissists, less so. It wasn’t that he didn’t want a chance to retaliate, he just knew it might not come, so what was the point of dwelling on it? Dwelling on it meant Peter found out. So he let himself forget, little by little.

Walking into the house one day after work, pulling off his jacket, he was greeted by Peter sitting on the couch with a blond girl he’d never seen before.

This wasn’t abnormal for Peter, but since meeting Gamora, there had been a significant downturn in the amount of random people in and out of Peter’s room when he thought Yondu wasn’t paying attention. So he was a little surprised.

 “Oh, hey,” he said. “This is Ayesha.”

“Hi,” he said in a flat tone. “Another study partner?”

“Oh, goodness no. I go to a prep school near Peter’s,” Ayesha said in a haughty tone. The cardigan, skirt, tights and leather shoes made her look like an eight-year-old that had been transported into an eighteen-year-old body and never really figured out how to adapt.

“Where’re your siblings?”

“In the backyard.”

He couldn’t imagine why they didn’t want to hang out with this frost queen, not even a little bit. So he excused himself to walk out back, where Mantis was sitting with Gamora and Drax, while Rocket and Groot climbed around on the one big tree in the yard.

“Can we build a treehouse in the spring?” Rocket asked.

“Sure, but if you fall and break your neck you’re on your own.”

“Is she still in there?” Gamora asked, looking at the house as though she might set it on fire just with her glare.

“Goldilocks? Yeah. Where’s your sister?” he asked, not seeing Nebula in her usual spot next to Mantis. They had, somehow, become an infuriatingly cute couple, if only because they were both so unsure of how to do anything normally.

“Grounded.”

Sounded about right.

“I can’t believe he’s even talking to her!” Gamora blurted out, throwing her hands up in frustration. “She wrote an article for our school paper about how we should use eugenics to get rid of gay people! She doesn’t even go to our school!”

Yondu felt the urge to go inside and kick her out, but he settled on a wry chuckle. “It’s a shame I put all of my rainbow shit up for the year,” he joked.

Gamora continued to rant to Mantis before Drax cleared his throat.

“Gamora, you shouldn’t be angry with Quill, you rejected his advances. He has needs that you aren’t fulfilling right now – ”

It was about this point in Drax’s peptalk to Gamora that Yondu excused himself. Unwelcome in his own house apparently, he decided to grab his jacket (Peter and Sweatergirl having disappeared from the living room, very subtle) and walk down to the bar. Kraglin would be off soon, at least he was kinda sane.

There was a beer sitting on the bar for him as soon as he sat down.

“Pretty dead tonight, gonna dip out early,” Kraglin said. “What brings you down this way?”

Yondu didn’t usually go to the bar, especially not alone, if he wanted to drink beer by himself he’d do it at home. “Pete’s got some girl drama bullshit going on. Not dealing with it.”

“Oh, hit me with the hot gossip, old man,” he said mockingly, leaning on the bar with his chin in his hands.

“Shut the fuck up.” He took a sip. “Pete’s got some weird pro-eugenics young republican in his bedroom and Gamora’s plotting a murder.”

“Ah, the old ‘make ‘em jealous with a garbage person so they date ya’ trick. Not actually all that effective,” he said, making a good show of ‘wisdom’.

“I don’t know where he learned this shit. Maybe I shoulda actually taught him something.” He’d thought that the technical stuff would have been enough, but apparently not.

“No offense, but if you’d actually taught him something, he’d probably be worse.” Yondu did take offense, but before he could respond, Kraglin wandered off to serve another guy who was way too drunk for 5:30 on a Wednesday.

Wretch showed up to take over for Kraglin a little while later. So he bid his regulars farewell and met Yondu on the patio, where he had gotten distracted by an improbably fluffy dog someone had brought to the bar with them.

Kraglin hit him with his shoulder, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. “Hey, you wanna hear a joke?”

“Sure.” Kraglin’s jokes were notoriously bad, so he was prepared for the worst.

“What’s the difference between a Kree and a trampoline?” he asked.

Yondu immediately smirked. “Oh, what?”

“I take my boots off before I jump on a trampoline.”

They were both still laughing by the time they got back to the house (shared life experience is funny like that), in time to see Peter walking his guest out, the rest of his friends looking mutinous on the porch.

Shit, the girl was tall. At least an inch taller than Peter.

She still looked as though something in her vicinity smelled off as she walked to her car – gold and far too expensive for a teenage girl – and said farewell to Peter. “As fun as it is to see how the other half lives, next time we should hang out at my house.”

Peter was looking at her with something akin to surprise (mingled with a tiny bit of disgust). “Sure. Later.”

Then she was gone. “Little does she know I am never calling her again,” he announced. “I looked through her stuff while she was in the bathroom and she either has a twin brother or a boyfriend who looks exactly like her,” he said. “Either way, they are close.”

“You know what, that’s all you need to say,” Yondu said, putting a hand on his head. “Don’t need to know. And I doubt your girlie up there wants to hear it either.”

Drax, however, loudly demanded all the details. Mantis and Gamora, both red-faced with embarrassed irritation, just decided to hang back on the porch. (“I’m not getting THAT specific, Drax, if you need tips you can use the internet!”)

“Yondu,” Mantis said, once the loud voices of the boys faded. “Earlier…while you were gone, Mainframe called. She wants to know if I can go out with her and Aleta this weekend. She said ‘just the girls’ and said even Gamora and Nebula could come.”

“Sure, if you wanna,” he said. “Probably be fun.” He had been vaguely concerned about the lack of a female influence since Mantis had moved in, but then once he’d realized she’d literally never had any kind of influence at all, well, he’d felt a little better. But only a little.

Chapter Text

Aleta and Mainframe came over first thing Saturday morning with a box of donuts. “Wake up, old man,” Aleta demanded of him, making her way into his room and pulling the covers off of him and Kraglin. “And young man.” It was definitely not the first time they’d caught him in bed with some dude, so they looked fairly unperturbed.

When he’d been younger and they’d all crammed together in a shithole house (not dissimilar to Kraglin’s shithole house), Mainframe had rigged up a particularly elaborate alarm clock system to accommodate everyone’s wildly differing work schedules. Yondu was immune to its powers, though, and usually required force to be woken. So, it was unsurprising that he immediately regressed to a 20-year-old who didn’t want to go to work when he saw them.

“’Leta my shift’s not…” he groaned. “Wait. Who let you into my house?” he asked, very unconcerned with them seeing him in his underwear because, well, they’d seen him in less. Kraglin also lacked the capacity for shame, so they were both just lounging there, eyeing the two far-too-awake women skeptically.

“We’re taking Mantis and her friends out for the day. We brought breakfast,” Mainframe said.

“Are you wearing a disco ball?” Kraglin asked, shielding his eyes from the garish reflections off of Mainframe’s jacket.

“I like metallics.”

“The 80s were a hard time for anyone who had to be around her,” Aleta said in a mock-solemn tone. “Just wanted you to know we’d come by.”

“What’re you gonna do? Pedicures?” Kraglin asked innocently.

Yondu tried to cover his head with a pillow in time to avoid having something pelted at the both of them for that comment.

“Shooting range,” Aleta deadpanned. “And then frozen yogurt and pedicures.”

“But mostly the guns!” Mainframe said with a sharp grin, tossing silver hair out of her eyes.

“If Mantis don’t wanna shoot she doesn’t have to,” Yondu said as he got up to find pants. “She’s sweeter than you, keep it in mind.”

“You think we’d force her? I oughta shoot you right now, clearly your brain is rotting,” Aleta said in response, finally disappearing back into the main room. He followed them out and found Mainframe fussing over Groot’s hair while Aleta tried to get her to leave, the boys all bickering over a sprinkle donut.

“You need to let me fix this, Yondu,” Mainframe announced, hands still on Groot’s head.

“Up to the boy,” he said.

She released him to join Rocket in the standoff for the donut and finally disappeared with Aleta.

“This alliance is tenuous, Quill,” Drax announced.

“Right back atcha!”

“If you cross me, I’ll…I’ll call and tell Ayesha you still want a second date!”

“Jokes on you, I told her we were all gay illegal immigrants and now she doesn’t want anything to do with me! Shut up! We need to get that donut! I’ll split it with you!”

He felt like he should be concerned about the donut-related dissent already being sown in the house, so he solved the problem by taking it for himself. What? He loved sprinkles.

He left them to bicker over the cake-style donuts that no one wanted and a few sad looking glazed ones and the semantics of calling everyone gay if there were “so many bisexuals” (Rocket’s words) there, and that Rocket was not illegal, “for like the 5000^th time!” (“I know that but I don’t think she knows that you can be brown and legal so it works out!”)

Kraglin ended up with the cake donut, grumbling the whole time.

“So, Mantis and Gamora get to learn how to shoot today,” Peter said, swallowing too much donut in an attempt to speak, coughing roughly. “You gonna teach me?”

“I don’t own guns anymore,” he pointed out.

“That’s what I sa – wait, anymore?” Rocket asked, perturbed.

“What about your bow?”

“Hm. Might be a lil rusty but…what the hell.”

Even though it was barely 9 in the morning and he had kinda wanted to sleep in, Yondu found himself dragging out old archery equipment. He gave Groot the very special task of drawing a picture for the center of the target while he set up in the backyard.

“Aim kinda low so we don’t have shit sailing into the neighbors’ yards,” he said as he tried to readjust to the posture. “Got our target, Groot?”

Groot ran out, holding a piece of construction paper and some tape, and immediately affixed the drawn representation of Ego to the target.

“Very mature,” Peter said, but he was kind of smiling. The no-contact had hurt his feelings more than he’d let on, even more than the drugs and attempts at bribery. Yondu let him keep that private. He wasn’t gonna push it. He didn’t want to slip up and tell the kid something he didn’t want to hear.

Yondu squared up. “Pay attention, I’m only doing this once or twice. Supposed to stretch.” His first shot was a little off the mark, somewhere in what was supposed to be Ego’s hair.

They still cheered, until he landed the bullseye, right in between paper-Ego’s eyes.

It’d be a lie to say he hadn’t dreamt of that before.

“Okay, go grab those,” he told Groot. Then he handed the bow to Peter and critiqued his stance.

Peter wasn’t too bad of a shot. He didn’t get a bullseye but he came close enough that Yondu felt good clapping him on the back and saying ‘good job’.

Drax was a terrible shot and Groot was somehow worse. Rocket was barely even tall enough to man the bow.

“I might have a shorter one inside.”

“It’s fine, old man, not my thing anyway,” he said, but the sulk was apparent in his voice. “I’m never gonna hit puberty.”

“Hey, I was a late bloomer too,” Yondu joked.

“Why does that matter? I’m adopted,” he said.

“What? Who told you!” he shouted dramatically, a back-and-forth they had done for the better part of Rocket’s life, because a stocky white guy did not produce a small Latino boy and that much was obvious.

Everyone laughed.

“Hey, you guys wanna see a cool trick?” Kraglin asked once the arrows were safely away.

“Is this PG? The last ‘cool trick’ you showed me – ”

He was cut off by the disgusted protests of his children. Vengeance was sweet.

“Totally,” he said, pulling a knife out of his boot. He looked at the target (paper Ego had been thoroughly mutilated by then) and then with a frustratingly attractive level of confidence, threw the knife at the target and stuck paper-Ego in what had been one of his eyes.

“Hey, Dad, I’d think twice before you ever break up with this guy,” Peter stage-whispered at him.

Yondu wasn’t gonna admit that he’d just uncovered a secret Thing for throwing knives, so he just shifted uncomfortably. “Shit, dude.”

Kraglin grinned. “I needed a hobby and hated my parents.”

“Can I try that?” Drax asked, looking absolutely rapt by the proceedings. Kraglin went and got the knife, pointing out all the relevant parts to Drax before sending him off to practice at less of a distance than what Kraglin himself had cleared.

Drax proved much handier with a knife than he was with a bow.

“I enjoy this!”

“Good. When you gotta retire from football early due to decades of traumatic head injuries, at least you’ll still have a hobby,” Rocket joked.

Drax immediately started arguing, and Peter and Groot joined in, and somehow four teenage boys got onto the topic of professional sports regulations and attitudes towards players health and Yondu was still kind of unsure of how he’d raised so many nerds.

The girls were home after lunch, looking manicured and relaxed.

“I fired a gun!” Mantis told Peter with a grin on her face. “It was terrifying and I cried but I did it!”

“Very…proud of you, Mantis,” he said, kissing her on the top of the head before greeting Gamora.

“Thanks for taking them,” Yondu said after allowing Mantis to hug him.

“Our pleasure. They need strong female role models.”

“You’re tellin’ me…” he joked. “If you wanna, you can stay for lunch, it’s just gonna be pizza bagels and shame, though.”

“We already ate, but we’ll see you later. Call us if anything comes up,” Aleta said with a casual wave.

“Will do.”

Chapter Text

Things come back in Spring, that was the way of the world.

College acceptance letters.

(And one rejection because apparently ten hours of community service is a deal breaker?)

Allergies.

Cute baby animals.

And, of course, as everyone knows, deadbeat dads return in the spring. Conveniently after the college acceptance letters.

As if that was exactly what he had been waiting for.

Peter had gotten into the two local community colleges, all with strong vocational programs like auto repair, culinary or computer sciences, but also the local state school and another, slightly less-local state school. The private, vaguely religious-y school he had applied to as a joke had rejected him, and he’d framed the rejection letter and hung it up in the hallway.

Gamora had gotten into every school she’d applied to, and Drax had a football scholarship to the state school, so hadn’t bothered to apply anywhere else.

They had apparently reconciled after their tiff regarding the golden gal. Peter had even bought Gamora a plant for Valentine’s day. Not a flower, a plant. It was a rosemary bush. (“Drax said she’d like it more because it was more practical!” he said when he was inevitably picked on by his brothers. Turned out, Drax had been right. Apparently having known Gamora since they were in pre-school helped.)

(Yondu himself pretended Valentine’s Day didn’t exist, but he bought a cart full of discounted candy the day after for everyone, to him that was enough.)

So the three high school seniors got together nearly daily to discuss college options, but it looked likely they’d all go to the same school.

And then Ego came back.

Peter was more hesitant this time, but he still smiled when the man walked up on the porch. “How’s it going?” he asked, his voice tentative.

“Sorry I couldn’t call, son, I was busy with work,” he said.

Yondu rolled his eyes from where he was hovering on the porch.

“Yeah.”

Ego looked pleased. He hated it. “You want to go somewhere and talk?”

Peter looked back at Yondu and Yondu shrugged, unsure of how else to respond. “Sure, yeah. Lemme grab my shoes,” he said. Gamora took his hand before he walked in the door, and he gave her a somewhat doleful look when he pulled away.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Drax asked when Peter disappeared.

“’Cause he’s gotta make his own decisions, kid. Don’t worry about him.” It was an easy lie, because admitting to an eighteen-year-old boy that you froze up in fear because a murderer has run off with your son would be foolish. He could handle this. He just had to slow his heartrate down a little first. Deep breaths.

“He’s our friend, worrying is what you’re supposed to do.” Drax said this with such surety that Yondu didn’t even want to argue.

“This is foolish,” Gamora said. “His father is a criminal! He wants Peter to be a criminal! You’re responsible for him!”

“I know, girl,” he said sharply. “Tellin’ him not to is the best way to make him do it behind all our backs. You gotta know that by now.”

That was a lame excuse. Yondu was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, trying to remember to breathe. Making accusations meant Peter knowing that Yondu was clued into something and hiding it from him. He wasn’t sure concealing the truth would be easily forgiven.

“You lot’d better head home,” he told Drax with a heavy sigh, planning to spend his evening on the porch waiting for Peter. “He’ll call and tell ya everything, I’m sure,” he said.

It was late when Peter came back. Yondu hurried him inside before catching up with Ego as he got into his car, not so shaken anymore. He’d had hours to cultivate the exact right amount of hate.

“So, now you want to talk?” Ego said, looking pleasantly surprised. “Coming around?”

He shook his head, leaning on Ego’s car. “If you come back here, I’ll kill ya,” he said, his tone flat.

Ego smiled, running a hand over his beard and keeping his eyes locked on Yondu’s. “I’m not scared of you Yondu. Peter’s an adult, he can make decisions for himself. He wants to spend time with me, get to know what I’m offering him.”

Young hot-head Yondu probably would have dragged him from the car right then and beaten him down in the street.

Older, wiser, mature Yondu reached into the car window and grabbed him by the shirt collar. “I know what you did, jackass. I know about your weird breeding program and I know about Meredith Quill and if I had anything resembling proof, I’d have your ass in jail already,” he said, his voice a threat. “So stay away from my boy.”

“We’ll see, Yondu. He’s more like me than you know.”

He didn’t argue, he just let Ego go.

When he got inside, Peter was sitting in his usual chair, looking serious.

“What?” he asked as the kid stared at him.

He looked almost scared to speak, but did it anyway. “Maybe I should do what my dad wants me to do.”

“No.” He didn’t know what Ego had been filling the kid’s head with but he didn’t like it. All he knew was he felt unsettled by the blank look in Pete’s eyes.

“He’s…he’s offering me a lot of money to go to school and I can just take it and not do what he wants me to do. I can lie, I’m good at that.” His tone darkened. “Just like you, apparently.”

“What’s that, boy?”

“Ego said he paid you to take us. Me and Mantis both. That you wouldn’t have if he hadn’t.”

“Bullshit.” Mentally revisiting the night he had taken in Peter wasn’t really on top of the list of things he wanted to do, but he guessed they were there. Ego was trying to drive a wedge between them, and he wasn’t going to abide it. “I didn’t sink a decade of my life into you because he gave me some cash.”

“So he did pay you?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t believe that. You can take money from him but I can’t? Do you even care about me at all?” he asked, his voice rising.

Yondu just sat down and let him ride out the rage.

“Of course you don’t. If you cared about me, you’d let me see my real dad instead of acting like he’s out to get me! You’re the criminal, what gives you the right to tell me that he’s a bad guy?” He was standing up now, pacing and ranting, keyed up from the anger that seemed as though it had been simmering for a while. It was hard to tell where Ego’s words ended and Peter’s began. “Ego’s offering to give me a future and your response is just to shut it down! Do you want me to be stuck in this shitty town with you forever? Do you?”

Once it finally seemed like he was done, Yondu looked up at him from where he was sitting. “Shut up and sit down, boy.”

Defiant, he kept standing. So Yondu stood up and walked over to him. They were nearly nose to nose, and even though Peter had several inches on his old man these days, he seemed to wilt at the direct confrontation.

“If I’d just wanted money, I would’ve tossed you out years ago,” he said, his voice barely a growl. “I never wanna hear any of this bullshit again. You take Ego’s money and you’re on your own. You pick him over me, that means you pick him over your whole family. You don’t come back here. Hear me?”

Peter’s face crumbled. “You can’t keep me away –”

“Wanna test me?” No response. “Go to bed.”

Begrudgingly, he dragged himself up the stairs and to his room, slamming the door as hard as he could.

Yondu went outside and sat down, trying to figure out how to handle this before it got even further out of hand. When Kraglin got home, he tried to explain the situation to him, but anger got the better of him and he couldn’t get the words out, so Kraglin told him to stop and just try to sleep.

Chapter Text

Peter scheduled time with Ego at a pace that was deliberately attempting to goad Yondu into another outburst, defiant and blustery. As far as he was concerned, if this was what Peter wanted, he just had to wait until the kid graduated and he’d be able to kick him out.

He hated the thought.

They hadn’t spoken in days.

He hated that too.

“You can’t actually let him go through with this,” Gamora said, over and over again.

“He’s grown, he made a choice,” Yondu said.

It only took a week and a half for things to break down.

They pulled up in Ego’s rental car and sat there for a few minutes. The windows were tinted, so he couldn’t make out the conversation. When the passenger side door flew open and Peter all but burst out of the car, a bad feeling started gathering in Yondu’s gut. He handed the cigarette he’d been halfway through to Kraglin and made his way down the stairs.

Ego got out of the car, his hands up in surrender.

“I told you, it was an accident,” he said in a placating voice.

“If it was an accident why did you take me out that night? You hadn’t seen me in three years! Pretty convenient timing!” he was yelling.

And Yondu knew what it was about when Peter lunged forward and punched him straight in the jaw. Ego stumbled and the fight had officially started, the kid tackling him and both of them becoming a struggling blur of fists and feet.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

He saw Ego land one hit on the kid and his brain kicked into overdrive. Fuck no. That wasn’t gonna stand.

“Big guy!” he snapped at where the kids were on the porch, stunned.

Yondu grabbed Peter by the collar at the first opportunity, dragging him back and pulling him to his feet. He was crying at this point, rage rendering him completely incoherent as he pulled against Yondu, his lip bloodied. “No, son, you don’t need to…” He paused, looking at him for a long moment, memorizing the misery on his son’s face, letting it be all he knew for a moment. “I’ll handle it.” Drax grabbed Peter around the middle and all but carried him back to the porch.

That’s what dads did, right? Handled shit.

Ego was sitting up on the curb, nose bleeding and a huge lump growing over one eye when Yondu walked up. “So much for killing me,” he said, spitting blood. “You were always more talk than action.”

“Don’t hit my kid, you piece of shit,” he said, kicking Ego straight in the face.

He had earned that one, Ego had ruined his life. Ruined Pete’s life.

“Chuck me your keys,” he called to Kraglin, not letting his temper get the better of him quite yet. Well, no, he was completely sustained on anger right now, but he was at a point where he was thinking clearly enough to see what had to be done. The rage had turned zen.

Knowing better than to argue, Kraglin tossed the keys to him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, stalking off to where Kraglin had parked. He pulled out of the spot, backed up sharply and then, finally letting the fifteen solid years of bitterness get the better of him, accelerated straight into where Ego had just stood up in the street.

There was a thud of a body against the hood of the car.

He parked.

“Oops,” he said. Kraglin’s piece of shit car had started to spew white steam, the radiator busted.

Ego was mostly just winded, clutching his ribs and trying to catch his breath.

“Just let me walk away, Udonta, I’ll disappear.”

Yondu planted his boot on Ego’s shoulder, listening to Peter’s sobs as Mantis and Gamora tried fruitlessly to comfort him. The sound was a knife. “Nah. Not doing that no more. You hear that? You did that. To my kid. I ain’t lettin’ it stand.” He snapped his fingers at Kraglin. “Kraglin, tell your boys to search his car.”

Kraglin whistled at his roommates, who had been watching all of this unfold from the porch. They walked over and checked inside the shiny silver rental, pulling out a couple of binders and a wallet that contained an above average number of fake IDs.

“Thanks,” he said when they handed over the stolen items. He gave the binder to Kraglin and pocketed the wallet. “Go back inside. If cops ask what happened, I just accidentally bumped him with the car. Got it?” Then he pulled out his phone and called 911.

They all nodded, except Taserface, who just rolled his eyes. A tall guy named Oblo hit him in the back of the head and muttered ‘be cool’. An ambulance and a cop car arrived in a few minutes. The curly-haired cop who had picked up Peter and Rocket a few months ago was there, accompanied by a tall, lanky partner with a deep voice.

“Saal!” Kraglin said, greeting the tall cop.

“Obfonteri.”

“We went to school together,” he informed Yondu.

Yondu pretended that was interesting until he had to recount the events of the evening to Dey. He did so in an unnecessarily loud voice, so that the kids could hear the story and stick to it. All of them were interviewed and Dey took a long, shrewd look at Ego.

“So his face was already like that when you hit him?” he asked.

“I assumed that was from the crash. I suppose it was,” he said, sparing a glance at Peter, who was hiding his bloody knuckles in his hoodie pocket, waiting his turn to say his piece, still tear-stained. “Not sure what he was doing, I was just pulling up. He’s the kid’s biological father, but I wasn’t expecting him to visit today!” He was doing his best impression of a frazzled middle-aged man, and thought someone should fetch him an Oscar, because Dey was either buying it or very good at pretending to buy it. Maybe they both needed Oscars.

Peter finally couldn’t hold it in. “He killed my mother!”

Dey and Saal both stopped their note-taking to stare at him.

“July 6^th, 1998! There was a fire and it killed Meredith Quill and her dad and he started it!” he managed to choke out through the tears. Gamora was holding onto him as though he might sink into the Earth if she let him go, her face screwed up in rage.

Yondu was sleep-walking through the rest of the conversation, but a thought occurred to him as Dey was wrapping up, talking about insurance companies or pressing charges or whatever. He pulled the wallet that had been given to him out and said; “My buddy found this on the street after the accident, assumed it had fallen out of his pocket but…didn’t really check.”

Dey flipped it open to verify the ID, and was met with an eyeful of fake ones.

He leaned over to his partner and handed him the wallet. Yondu heard the distinct mutter of ‘maybe run those names’. “Thanks for that, we’ll get it back to him when we meet him at the hospital,” he said, sending the ambulance on its way and packing it in. “I’ll be in touch.”

Yondu felt like Ego would probably make a run for it from the hospital, or they’d find nothing and send him on his way with a plaintive “are you sure you don’t wanna press charges?” and nothing else, but it didn’t matter, because it was over, as far as he was concerned.

And his only real concern now was Peter.

“Why don’t you kids head home?” he said to Gamora, pulling Peter free of her grip very gently.

She looked ready to argue, but Nebula took her by the elbow and steered her away, looking somber.

“I’m so stupid,” Peter sobbing into Yondu’s shoulder. “I shoulda known.”

Kraglin was standing there awkwardly, unsure of if he was one of the people who should head home.

“Get Tullk to tow your car,” Yondu told him. “Then come inside.” They exchanged a knowing nod and Yondu worked to pull Pete into the house, depositing him on the couch and sitting down, letting him reattach himself. Crying kids had never really been his strong suit, but Peter was clutching him too tightly to even consider escape.

He patted him on the face.

“He was never your dad, kid,” was all he managed to say. “You know that, right?”

Peter sniffed. “How did I not see it? He was using me the whole time. He wanted somewhere to put his money in case the feds found him.” He wiped his eyes, another moment of coherence hitting him. It was coming in waves.

Rocket and Groot were still outside with Kraglin. Mantis had hidden away in her room once Nebula had left and she no longer had a hand to squeeze.

It was just the two of them.

Like the last time he’d hugged the kid while he cried over his dead mom ten years ago.

Full circle, or something.

He put an arm around Peter’s shoulder and pulled him in. He couldn’t say it was gonna be okay, because he didn’t know if it was or not, but he had to do something. Say something.

“I got you, son. Don’t doubt it. Ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Peter was out of breath, wiping his eyes and shuddering through sobs. “Thanks, Dad.”

It was over. Finally.

Chapter Text

“So, this is gonna sound nuts, but the guy you hit? He had warrants out in like, five states. All under different names. He isn't pressing charges on you for hitting him, he’s too busy trying to get out of being shipped back north to be tried,” Officer Dey said into the phone a few weeks later. “I’m telling you this off the record, though. Other than whatever insurance claim you gotta file, you’re in the clear.” They had already given up and crushed Kraglin’s car, to be honest. Yondu had promised him a replacement, but he was fine walking to work or bumming a ride from Yondu when needed.

The binders had been creepy. Full of handwritten notes about the kids and his business and brief, rambling notes to himself about family and legacy. Yondu was happy to shove them into the back of a closet and forget it. So he did.

And that was that. Ego was gone. He was sure they would get a phone call about him some other time, but Yondu knew he was likely to just hang up when the time came. Maybe they’d have to give statements if he ever got charged for Meredith’s death, but that was a long way off, if it even happened.

Peter was a little traumatized from the whole thing, but coping as well as could be expected. Yondu didn’t push him, but he made more of a concentrated effort to be aware of the kid’s mental state.

Weeks passed, spring heated up, and graduation was just around the corner.

Peter, Gamora, Drax and Drax’s girlfriend, Hovat, were all in the living room dressed up for prom. Could you believe it? Mainframe had volunteered to use her camera to document the day, since it was better than anything Yondu owned, and apparently it was traditional to take pictures of things like this. He had never thought about it before.

Pictures had started to line the walls of the house now. He’d hung up some of the ones Mainframe’d given him, and some old ones of the kids that other people had taken and given to him. School pictures, shit like that. He’d never really been sentimental enough for decorating the house, but he was starting to see the value of it, and it made Groot smile as he walked down the hall and examined them all. Plus the time it took to do it was time spent distracted from how things had gone down with Ego, which both Peter and Yondu needed.

“We’re gonna try and crash Ronan’s afterparty,” Peter said as Drax taught him how to tie a tie, lamenting that Peter was going to be absolutely lost if they didn’t room together during university. “But I won’t drink, swear on your life.”

Yondu didn’t buy it, so he turned to Gamora and said; “make sure he behaves.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she said, straightening her bright green dress and turning back to talk to Drax’s girlfriend, who Yondu had discovered was almost hilariously humorless, a foil to Drax’s socially stunted bombast.

They all finally left. Mainframe packed up her stuff and Rocket and Groot went back to doing something other than making fun of how Peter looked in his rented suit.

“You still got tons of pictures from the old days, don’t ya?” he asked her as they walked out onto the porch.

“Yeah! I digitized all of them too, so I didn’t lose them,” she said. Mainframe had always been up on technology, she’d worked with every kind of electronic one could imagine.

“You remember that record shop we always went to?” he asked.

She thought for a second and nodded. “Why?”

“You got any pictures of the girl who used to work there?” he asked. “Remember, she’d bring that baby in sometimes?”

Mainframe still had not made the obvious connection. She furrowed her eyebrows thoughtfully. “Might have a few.”

Yondu knew he was gonna have to spell it out. “The baby was Pete,” he said. “The girl from the record store was his mom.”

Her dark eyes lit up with understanding. “His mom who got…”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my god. I’ll find all of the pictures I can of that store,” she said. “I had no idea that was the same baby!”

“Honestly, it took me a couple years to make the connection. But yeah. Doesn’t have any pictures of his mom, figured you might still have some.” It was a more sentimental gesture than Yondu ever wanted to be accused of doing, but listening to the kid sob himself to sleep was more than he could stand.

“Hey,” Kraglin said, sauntering up onto the porch, allowing Mainframe to hug him before he took his usual seat. “Sent off the prom-goers?”

“Yep. Wanna order a pizza?”

“Sure,” he agreed. They both waved bye to Mainframe as she got into her car. They went inside and ordered the pizzas. Groot and Rocket were building something in the corner out of an old radio Rocket had found in a dumpster. Mantis and Nebula were leaning against each other on the couch, watching TV, looking peaceful.

He set down the cash on the table and told them to keep an eye on it, following Kraglin back to his room and shutting the door. The difficulty of the past few months for everyone else had put the whole relationship-thing under a microscope, and things had been going…well. Apparently strife brought out the best in them. Growing pains aside, they got along.

Neither of them were particularly chatty or sentimental, so there hadn’t been any long drawn out talks about feelings or whatever. They had just fallen into a routine. Gotten comfortable. Kraglin came over if he got off work early, usually left once Yondu had passed out, occasionally staying the night, but typically not. The only sign that things between them weren’t so serious.

“How hammered do you think Pete’s gonna get tonight?” Kraglin asked, falling onto the bed.

“Hopefully not so hammered he thinks he’s okay to drive,” Yondu muttered, sitting down next to him and leaning down to take off his shoes. “Beyond that, don’t care too much. He knows he can call.”

“This might sound creepy at first but ride it out,” he said. “But… Wish I’d had a dad like that as a kid.”

“You’re right, that is creepy. I’m not into Daddy Issues,” he said, though mostly in jest. He understood what Kraglin meant, though he didn’t often find himself praised for his parenting. The kindest thing he’d ever really gotten was “you’ve done well considering the circumstances” from Peter’s fourth grade teacher.

“I mean, like. You treat them like people and not extensions of yourself,” he said, rolling his eyes at Yondu. “Don’t let it go to your head, I’m not sayin’ you’re winning a good parenting award or some shit.”

“Too late, you already said it,” Yondu said, as Kraglin wrapped his arms around his chest and rested his chin on his shoulder. “You think I’m a good dad.”

“I think you’re an okay dad.”

“Think you could do better?” he asked, raising an eyebrow, though they had already worn through that conversation.

“Not even slightly interested in being a dad, you know that.” There was a pointed pause. “Or a step-dad.” He had been the one to bring that up weeks ago, not Yondu, but now it was something of a joke between them.

“Darn, I’ll have to take that diamond back,” Yondu joked, elbowing him gently off his back before he could start kissing his neck. “After dinner, yeah?”

He looked ready to pout, until his stomach growled loudly. “Sure.”

The pizza came within the promised thirty minutes, and disappeared in about half that time. The promise of ‘after dinner’ became more ‘after Pete gets home’ because Rocket and Mantis refused to go to bed, and they ended up sitting on the porch, enjoying the summer night and trying to find peace from the kids as the video game tournament raged on inside.

Peter got home well after midnight, having clearly gone back on his promise to not drink, but Hovat had driven them all home, and Gamora seemed steady when she got out of the car, waving goodbye to Drax and his long-suffering girlfriend.

“I challenged Ronan to a dance-off!” he all but shouted when he got up on the porch. His tie had been loosened, his collar was smudged with blood from where his lip had been split. There goes their rental deposit. “And he got a lil salty when I won.”

“You need to go to bed,” Gamora said, opening the door for him and pushing him inside.

“A dance-off, really?” he asked.

“It was…well. I’m sure there’s video of it,” she said, trying not to smile. Her hair had fallen out of its up-do, a clear indicator that she’d been involved in whatever scuffle had followed this so-called dance-off.

She disappeared inside to fetch Nebula and bid goodnight to everyone before leaving.

“Okay, everyone’s here,” Kraglin said, pulling Yondu out of his chair by his shirt collar. “No one died, you can relax.”

“Keep your pants on, man…”

“That’s the exact opposite of what I wanna do.”

Chapter Text

At some point, it hit Yondu that Peter was graduating high school. He’d known about it, but the reality was setting in. The kid was on his way out.

A few short weeks after prom (and several angry phone calls from school administrators about how they couldn’t technically punish Peter for acting like a dumbass at an unsanctioned prom afterparty, but they were Very Put Out about it because Ronan’s father had complained), it was all ‘my cap and gown got delivered’ and ‘how many tickets do we need I should have asked months ago’.

In two months, Peter would be 18 and off to college.

He’d even managed to score a summer job lifeguarding at the pool Drax worked at.

Yondu wasn’t sure he liked the wistful, sentimental feeling he got when he thought about it. Ten years of hard work was apparently paying off, because by all accounts his son had grown up okay.

He tried to push down the sentiment and just feel smug about a child well raised.

“I don’t think we’re gonna get to go to the fancy graduation party Thanos is throwing for Gamora,” he overheard Peter telling Rocket one time. “She said they couldn’t bring any of their friends at all. Seems like it’s just for his fancy friends.”

Yondu hadn’t gotten much of a read on Gamora and Nebula’s old man over the past few months, but the small glimpses of him painted the picture of someone deeply unpleasant at best, downright awful at worst.

And he’d never even known graduation parties were a thing.

“Think we should throw a party for Pete’s graduation?” he asked Rocket after the aforementioned Quill had walked away, called off to remind Mantis how to use the microwave.

“I mean…maybe. Who would we even invite?” Rocket asked.

“Just…the family.”

“I bet he’d lose his shit over a surprise party,” Rocket said. “He’s always talked about wanting one.”

Yondu wracked his brain for any instance where Peter had talked to him about wanting a surprise party, but couldn’t really find one. He was sure it had been buried in what Peter thought were subtle hints but were really comments that went completely over Yondu’s head.

So he made some phone calls, and from the ashes of the shitshow of the past six months rose a surprise party to end all surprise parties.

Mainframe informed him she had found all the pictures he had asked her for, and he resolved that a surprise graduation party would probably be the best place to give them to him.

They managed to rush all the parts of party planning that usually took time – the benefit of being well-connected. It somehow stayed a surprise simply because Peter was so busy pretending to study for exams as an excuse to see Gamora that he had ended up actually spending a lot of time studying.

It wasn’t heavy on the frilly, dumb shit that Yondu didn’t care about.

It was food, a place to gather, a cake, and a couple of gifts for the grad. That was it. Streamers and shit seemed useless.

He managed to get a playlist of all of Peter’s favorite oldies to Mainframe to play over the party, and Gamora had gotten the video of the dance off, in case everyone needed a laugh.

The day finally came and Peter was completely in the dark, even though Rocket and Groot had nearly blabbed about thirty times. Mantis, it turns out, was pretty good at keeping secrets. He guessed it was a side-effect of living with Ego. They had just not bothered to tell Drax or Nebula what was happening, because neither of them could keep a secret.

Everyone was already there, it was just Yondu’s job to transport Peter and enjoy his absolute delight at the proceedings. Graduation was that weekend, he had finally taken his last exam, and he was worn out from the end of the year. (And bragging about how many people had signed his yearbook due to his frequent clashes with Ronan rocketing him in popularity from weird loser to weird okay guy.)

“Why are we going to Stakar’s club?” Peter asked. “I don’t need a lap dance, I’m not old enough…” he stammered as Yondu parked. “I don’t want to dance to pay for college! I’ll take a gap year!”

“Don’t be stupid, boy, come on.”

So they walked inside and as the door swung shut on a pitch black room, the lights flicked on, and everyone yelled (or signed) ‘surprise!’, and the look of joy on Peter’s face was immortalized by a quick thinking Mainframe.

“What the hell?” he asked, turning to Yondu.

“…It’s a graduation party. You mentioned you couldn’t go to Gamora’s so…” He shrugged, trying to act like the gesture was minor, knowing that he was going to get about five-hundred hugs.

The first hug was immediate and suffocating.

“Go eat your food and hang out with your friends,” he said, trying to squirm out of his grip.

Peter finally released him, immediately attaching himself to Groot and Rocket and thanking them.

“It was Yondu’s idea not ours, dude, get off me!” Rocket grumbled, but Groot was clearly loving the embrace. Mantis snuck in to hug Peter’s back, sighing happily.

Another flash indicated that Rocket struggling to escape the pile had also been captured on camera. Yondu was free to mingle, keeping an eye on the kids as he hunted down where Kraglin had gone to, finding him in a heated discussion with Charlie over something that sounded too political for Yondu’s liking.

He wasn’t gonna get involved.

“So, been keeping up with the news?” Stakar asked, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket.

“I’ve been neck deep in paperwork for college. Apparently Peter hasn’t been vaccinated recently? Honestly didn’t know that was something I was supposed to handle,” he said with a shrug. “What is it?”

A mugshot of Ego followed by a brief article about a mysterious man whose fingerprints are associated with dozens of crimes around the country was waved in his face.

“Yeah, figures,” was all Yondu said, shrugging. “It’s done now.”

They both looked over at where Peter was flexing his biceps, trying to compete with Drax and Charlie while Gamora rolled her eyes. Nebula and Kraglin seemed to be discussing something, but it seemed as friendly as either of them were capable of being.

“Didn’t do a half-bad job. I mean, except that whole not vaccinating thing. When was the last time any of them saw a doctor?”

He ignored the question (it had been a while, okay). “High praise, from you,” he snarked back. “Thanks for letting us use the place.”

“It’s what you do for family.” They shared an appreciative look and fell into silence.

Kraglin caught his eye and came over a second later, hanging out at Yondu’s elbow, not talking.

“Why are you hovering?” he asked after a minute.

“’Cause I wanna know when I can have a piece of cake,” he lied. Kraglin was adept at a lot of things – knife throwing, breaking up fights, cooking breakfast food – but lying wasn’t one of them. Or maybe Yondu just knew him too well at this point.

Narrowing his eyes, he waved off Stakar, and walked to the buffet line with Kraglin. “Not getting cake until Pete cuts it. And I ain’t blind.” He supposed that keeping that slightly inappropriate picture of him and Stakar in his bedside table (solely so the kids didn’t find it, okay) had given someone a distinctly incorrect impression. “That –” He jerked a thumb towards the Ogords where they had convened. “Is ancient history. If you’re concerned.”

“I wasn’t concerned,” he lied again, but that answer seemed to satisfy Kraglin. “But seriously, ‘bout that cake…”

Yondu slapped him on the shoulder and shook his head, laughing. “No. Go mingle.”

On the projector screen in the back of the club, the video of Peter challenging Ronan to a dance off was playing, and the whole party seemed oddly transfixed by it. Peter was looking sheepish at the reminder of his bad behavior, but grinned when everyone clapped at the end.

“You take a punch like a champion,” Charlie told him.

“Yeah, one thing my dad taught me how to do,” Peter joked back.

Yondu walked upstairs and out onto the balcony at some point, getting ready to give Peter his presents. He’d prefer to do it in private, but he was probably going to do it at the party, and he need a minute to prepare himself mentally.

Luckily, he didn’t have to, because Peter found him up there after a few minutes.

“I was wondering where you went,” he said, looking out over the city from where they were standing. “I really appreciate this. I know I was kinda shitty before…with Ego. Thanks for not staying mad at me.”

Looking over at Peter, he shook his head. “I shoulda been honest with you about the guy from the start,” he said. “I fucked up, on that count.”

“I guess we’re both fuck ups when it comes to him.”

He grunted in acknowledgement. “I got ya somethin’,” he said, pulling out the envelope full of pictures.

“What is it?” he asked, opening it and pulling out the pictures. The first one was an incredibly angry baby Quill being held by a flustered looking Mainframe. Meredith was in the background laughing.

“Baby pictures.”

“Is that me? How did you…?”

He flipped over to one of Meredith sitting on the counter of the record store, sundress and bare feet, smiling mildly at the camera.

“Mainframe has always been fuckin’ obsessed with cameras. There was this record shop we hung out in when we were…I guess about your age, a lil older, and your mama worked there. Even met you a couple times,” he added.

“You never told me…” he said, trying to pretend like he’d gotten something in his eye as he covertly wiped it, flipping to a picture of a delighted looking toddler Peter reaching for Yondu’s mohawk.

“It took me a while to make the connection, honestly. By then you had stopped talkin’ about her.”

There were a few more. Meredith working in the background while the gang goofed off in the foreground, baby Peter passed out in a stroller, being watched fascinatedly by Krugarr. And a group shout outside of the record store.

“This one doesn’t have me or her in it,” he said, but he flipped it over as if she might have been hiding on the back, and she kinda was, because her handwriting, slightly faded, adorned it. She listed their names, signed it with a little heart. “Taken by Meredith Q, 1991.”

Yondu knew he probably should’ve told the kid ages ago that he’d met his mom, but it was better late than never.

“I’m gonna go show Gamora what a cute baby I was,” he said, clutching the pictures to his chest. He turned to leave, but hesitated at the doorway. “Hey, Dad?”

“What?” he asked, leaning against the railing, looking casual.

“Love you.”

It was not the first time he’d ever told Yondu he loved him, but it had been years. He had been a kid. For his part, Yondu thought he’d done an okay job of showing it and a piss poor job of vocalizing it, so he made a conscious effort to respond this time.

He still had to look down instead to making eye contact, though. There was a line. “Love you too, Pete.”

Chapter Text

Yondu was skeptical when Peter demanded to be taken to the record shop. He didn’t think it even still existed.

He was half-right. The building was still there, hell, even some of the old signs, but it had clearly been closed for a few years, probably since they had stopped going there in the mid-90s. But they found it.

His demand was simple; he wanted to recreate the group picture Yondu had given him of Yondu’s old crew, with his friends and siblings, in front of the building his mom had worked in.

Getting everyone in order of height against the faded brick wall was a little tricky, Drax kept underestimating how much he towered and Groot had hit a growth spurt a week ago and was now Peter’s height and close to eclipsing him. Once everyone was in the right spot, Peter in the middle with his arms around Rocket and Gamora, grinning broadly, they managed to get a picture snapped.

“I want this one printed before I move out,” he said.

Yondu nodded, putting the camera back in its bag and staring at the old building, remembering how good he’d had it back when he was young and stupid. But things were better now, right? He’d gotten out of the good times alive, which was more than a lot of people could say. Still, it was odd.

Old life meets new life.

New life takes priority.

He was spending the summer up to his ears in bank statements and paperwork to get Peter ready to head off to school. He’d spent the first 30 years of his life keeping all his money in a hole in his mattress, so calculating interest and figuring out bank accounts was a frustrating process that he’d only just bothered to undertake recently. He knew enough to keep the autoshop afloat but otherwise he just deposited money and kind of shrugged about it.

They weren’t going to have to take out a loan to send Pete to school, barring any medical emergencies or legal snafus, thanks to the leftovers of Ego’s contribution. If he played it cool, Mantis and Rocket and Groot would also be fine if they opted to go, as long as he had a few years to prepare.

It was still more than he’d ever bothered to think about it. It was almost easier when he hadn’t had savings or money or a real job, but this was life now.

Peter was gone for two days for orientation, Rocket and Groot had convinced Mantis to chaperone them to the pizza place down the road, and the house was quiet.

He was calculating when Kraglin walked in with a six-pack. “Hey.”

“Go away, doing math.”

He didn’t go away, but that was sort of Kraglin’s defining trait at that point. He stuck it out even when he really shouldn’t. Since it was summer and the kids were out of school, he dropped by a little less. He had made it clear he wasn’t too interested in the step-dad gig. He got along okay with Rocket and there was still an edge of skepticism between he and Peter that would probably never go away, but he was there to see Yondu, not the kids, so he tried to mostly come by when they were busy, which wasn’t as often during the summer.

For his part, Yondu appreciated that. Kid time and Kraglin time overlapped occasionally, but the conscious effort to keep it separate was a nice gesture.

Finally looking up from the pile of paper, he saw that Kraglin had made himself comfortable on the bed, shoes abandoned by the door, beer already in hand. Typical.

“You know it’s been a year since we met?” Kraglin said.

“Oh really. Should I have gotten you a gift?” he asked, standing up from his desk and stretching the kinks out of his back. It had been a year. A really long, fucking crazy year.

“Nah.”

“Might be I should get Mantis somethin’. A year since she showed up…”

“Might be.”

He sat down on the bed, helping himself to one of Kraglin’s beers. “Fuck, what a goddamn year.”

“At least shit’s stable now,” he said, agreeing, though it was hard to tell if he was talking about the shit with Ego or the shit between them. He wrapped his arms around Yondu’s middle, trying to pull him down, albeit not very determinedly. “They’re gone for the evenin’, right? Wanna unwind?” he pressed.

“Yeah, yeah, just give me a second,” he said, indicating to his beer. “I think you’ve gotten spoiled. What if I can’t keep up this pace you’re demandin’ from me? I’m old.”

Biting his lower lip, he shrugged. “I can get a new boyfriend in a dumpster, not worried.”

“Oh, I’m that easy to replace?” he asked, trying to ignore how much he hated the word ‘boyfriend’. He finished his beer and let Kraglin pull him down onto the mattress.

“Not in a million fucking years,” he said with a smirk, lacing their fingers together.

“Well I don’t like it when you insinuate I am, boy.”

The rest of the night was communicated in growls and laughter, and was (for once) uninterrupted by the ridiculous squawking of teenagers storming around the house.

“It’s been a year,” Yondu mused, out of breath as a half-asleep Kraglin draped himself over his chest several hours later, both fully exhausted. “How the fuck did you stick it out this long.”

“Just love ya, I guess.”

Goddammit. He guessed both of them were gonna have to stop pretending this wasn’t serious sooner or later.

“Yeah, you too.”

Chapter Text

Sending Peter off to college was both the hardest and easiest thing he’d ever done.

Having one less teenager in the house now that Groot had turned thirteen and started holing himself up in his room to play video games and not shower was blissfully appealing, on the one hand. Just one less stink of teenage BO.

On the other hand, he had spent ten years with Peter and he was about to be gone.

He had gotten his way and gotten to room with Drax instead of a random stranger, and the two of them had packed Peter’s station wagon to the brim with possessions they intended to cram into their dorm (which was tiny and smelled faintly of ammonia.).

Most of them were apparently Drax’s.

“Got everything?” he asked.

Peter nodded.

The dorm building was a plain brick high rise with a name stamped on the top of some long-dead donor.

“You can see the dorm from our house, it doesn’t really matter if I forgot something,” he said as other freshman clearly trying to cope with moving in milled around them, oblivious to anyone but themselves. He wasn’t parking his car at school, because parking passes were worth their weight in gold apparently. He’d suggested not living in the dorms a few times, insecure about the price tag, but Yondu, in spite of his reservations, wanted him to move out. It’d be good for him, he thought. “I can just walk back.”

“Fine. Right. Okay. Well, have fun, I’ll see you whenever,” he said. Drax had already gone up to their room and was probably impatiently waiting for the rest of their stuff to be brought up.

Peter handed him the keys to the car and Yondu took them.

“I got ya somethin’,” he said, patting his pockets until he found it.

“What? Really?”

“It’s an MP3 player,” he said, handing it over. “Figured you’d probably wanna upgrade at some point.”

Looking around covertly, he quickly hugged Yondu and took the gift. “Thanks. I’ll be home when I need food or to do laundry or somethin’,” he said.

Yondu paused to ruffle his hair a bit. “I’m proud of you, kid.”

With that, it was done. Peter had moved out successfully.

When he got home, he collapsed onto the couch, oddly exhausted from the simple act of having to say goodbye. Everything was quiet, and he was looking forward to a moment of peace.

Or not.

“Hey,” Kraglin said, coming out of Yondu’s room, where he had clearly been napping.

“How did you get in here? No one was home.” In spite of certain recent escalations, exchanging keys was a relationship milestone they had not yet come to.

“Picked the lock, duh,” he said with a dismissive scoff. “So, Pete’s gone?”

“Yup.”

“Everyone else, too?”

“Mainframe kidnapped Groot, she’s been helping him do something with his hair now that he’s growing it out, Rocket went with. Mantis is helping Gamora unpack at school.”

“So what you’re saying is that everyone’s gonna be gone for a while?”

Yondu eyed him suspiciously. “Yeah.”

“That mean we can do it in the living room now?” he asked, tilting his head. Kraglin’s weirdly ingrained aversion to doing it in a bed was a point of confusion, but Yondu supposed it was a matter of novelty. He’d never really cared much for novelty, personally.

He considered this for a second, looking around at the empty house. “Sure. Just the one time.”

Clothing was quickly discarded and the temperature in the room steadily increased for a few minutes, and things were going very well. Yondu was still very aware that anyone could walk in at any moment, but he didn’t expect them to, not without enough warning to cover up. They usually sounded like a herd of elephants coming up the front steps.

Until the door swung open and Peter walked in.

He shrieked. “What the hell, guys, I haven’t even been gone an hour!”

Chapter Text

Life went on as it usually did.

Once Rocket, Groot and Mantis were back in school, things were pretty peaceful around the house. Rocket got into the same amount of trouble he usually did, but he was a little more reserved without Pete egging him on constantly. (Not that Pete didn’t visit every weekend with the sole goal of egging Rocket on, though.)

It didn’t get too dramatic. No random children dropped on his doorstep, no shitty dads, nothing. (He eventually realized he’d jinxed himself with that thought.)

Kraglin’s lease was running out at the house across the street and he had all but moved in. Despite his insistence he didn’t wanna ‘get like that’, they were very much ‘like that’ now, and neither of them would ever change it.

 Yondu didn’t say anything and Kraglin didn’t push it, they just left it unspoken as more and more of his possessions started appearing in Yondu’s house and he started doing things like giving Rocket rides to school and forcing Groot to interact with other humans instead of staying in the attic and moping about whatever wrong his pubescent mind had invented. He helped Mantis with homework and cooked dinner some nights, for everyone.

Yondu would never admit out loud that he liked it, but he did. A lot.

Things were as close to normal as they’d ever get for a brief, shining few months. Until a very ordinary fall day when someone knocked on the door. The kids were in school, Yondu had taken a day off to get some repairs done around the house. It was probably just a deliveryman or something. Nothing unusual.

Yondu opened the door and was faced with Nebula, a fresh bruise covering half her face, looking unsteady on her feet. Foot. Whatever.

“What the hell?”

“I need somewhere to go. Can I stay with you?”

Well, shit.

He waved her inside and shut the door.