Archive of Our Own

The first thing Gamora does after they deliver the infinity stone to the Nova Corps is fall into bed, utterly exhausted.

Actually, no; the real first thing she does is spend several minutes insisting, to both the Nova Corps medical team and to Peter, that she is in fact fine and doesn’t need any help with her injuries beyond pointing her in the direction of the first aid kit.

The second thing she does is fall into bed, utterly exhausted.

The Nova Corps has set them up with a hotel room, by far the nicest she’s ever stayed in. There’s a large communal living area surrounded by four bedrooms, and by some mutual, unspoken agreement they all gravitate towards their own rooms when they first arrive, ready for a bit of privacy -- and rest.

She hadn’t actually expected to be able to rest, anxiety about betraying Thanos still looming over her head, but she surprises herself by falling asleep as soon as she lies down, a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.

The third thing she does is get jolted awake by a knock on the door.

She hears Peter’s voice from the other side of it. “Gamora? It’s me. Can I come in?”

“Hold on.” She stands up quickly and smoothes the blanket out, wrinkled from where she’d been lying, as if she needs to hide the fact that she’d been asleep.

“Are you naked? I can come back later if you’re naked.”

She pauses, looking towards the door. “Why would I be naked?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes people are naked.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, I’m dressed. And you can come in now.”

He opens the door, still wearing the same clothes, dirty and torn in places. The burns on his face and arms have been cleaned and look all the more painful for it, but he offers her a warm smile as soon as he sees her.

She smiles tentatively back, then her eyes are drawn to the bag he’s holding in one hand. There’s an unfamiliar logo on it, most likely from a restaurant because whatever’s inside it smells absolutely divine.

A moment later she forces her gaze back up, clamping down on the sudden awareness that she’s starving. She’s had her life threatened in the past for less than simply looking at someone else’s food.

“Sorry,” says Peter, his expression turning a bit sheepish as he takes her in. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Gamora says automatically, her defensiveness more instinctive than anything else. Objectively she knows that she’s already been in far more vulnerable positions with Peter than admitting to taking a nap, and yet here she is, resisting.

“That’s funny,” he says lightly, nodding toward her as he speaks, “because the creases on your face sure look like they came from a blanket.”

She runs a hand over her skin immediately, wincing. The burns on her own face have mostly healed, but he’s absolutely right about the creases. Clearing her throat, she tries to turn embarrassment to irritation. “Did you want something?”

“Yeah,” he says easily, holding up the bag again, now clearly wanting her to look. “Someone to help me eat these burgers. Rocket and Drax went out drinking, so...guess it’s you and me.”

“You aren’t capable of eating on your own?” she asks, confused as she takes the statement at face value. But the subtext sinks in a moment later, and then she can’t help feeling terribly foolish.

Food, where she comes from, is a resource to be guarded, never shared. She has spent her life earning it, hoarding it, taking it when she can. Never has she had anyone just give it to her, let alone genuinely request that she share it with them.

To his surprising credit, Peter doesn’t mock her, doesn’t even point out her misunderstanding. Instead he just offers her the bag, waiting for her to take it from his hands before gesturing toward the common room. “C’mon. That couch looks like a pretty good place to eat junk food.”

She finds it on the dresser of her hotel room the day they’re going to meet with Nova Prime.

They’re still on Xandar, have been for several days now while they wait for their injuries to heal and for the Nova Corps to “prepare” for their meeting. It crosses her mind to be concerned with that wording -- if Thanos had ever needed to prepare for a meeting with her that usually meant he was planning to modify one of her organs -- but the Nova Corps are not Thanos. And if they were planning to arrest them, they’d have done it already.

Gamora and the rest of the… team? Friends, maybe -- have had to do something to occupy themselves the past few days, though. That something has mostly been going to bars, but a couple days ago it was shopping, since most of them only had their torn up Ravager uniforms and the clothing they’d been wearing the day they were arrested.

She’s made a few purchases of her own -- really just things that are true necessities, like a couple non-ripped outfits and a fresh set of throwing stars to supplement her sword. The dress is the single indulgence she’s allowed herself, justifying it with the fact that she doesn’t actually want to look like an assassin at all times, needs to be able to blend in with civilians if she’s going to start a new life for herself.

Her acquisitions have been downright minimal compared to Rocket’s assortment of tech, Drax’s industrial-strength cookware set, or Peter’s haul of necklaces, scarves, and leather items of dubious strategic value. Still, her few items are the most she’s ever purchased for herself at one time, and feel almost extravagant to her.

The box on her dresser is familiar -- slim, black, and bound with pink ribbon, the logo from one of the boutiques they visited yesterday. She remembers looking at it, remembers considering, trying to justify another purchase to herself, but she most certainly did not buy it.

Reaching out carefully, she pulls one end of the ribbon, waiting until it falls free before lifting the lid. There’s a note inside, in what she can only assume is Peter’s handwriting -- Know you wanted this. Enjoy. --P

She reads the note three times. She has no trouble understanding the words, despite Peter’s messy handwriting; it’s the significance of them that leaves her bewildered.

No one has ever bought her a gift before, at least since her parents. Not something she wanted, anyway. Thanos had given her useful things occasionally; mostly weapons, only things that he wanted her to have. Not actual gifts.

But this…

She takes the first item out of the box, holding it delicately, as if she’s afraid it’ll disappear into thin air if she’s not careful.

It’s an electric hair-curler, the type she’d always wanted but knew she’d never be permitted. Nestled inside the box is a matching hairbrush. They’re both pink, a few shades lighter than her hair.

For a moment, she considers refusing to accept them for the same reason she refused to buy them for herself in the first place; they’re too extravagant, too unnecessary. But that would be impolite, she figures. Returning a gift is considered rude in most cultures, and Peter clearly wanted her to have them.

She allows herself a smile as she removes the hairbrush from the box as well and heads straight for the bathroom.

When she’s curled her hair in the past she’s always had to use tricks passed on by ill-fated “siblings,” too helpful for their own good. The most effective way was to wrap her hair in wet rags torn off of old clothing and let it sit overnight. It worked, but never as well as she wanted it to -- inevitably she’d end up with flat or frizzy pieces that ruined the overall effect. Not that it really ever mattered what her hair looked like under Thanos, especially not when she resorted to wearing it up more often than not anyway.

Still, she can’t help remembering her mother’s curls -- long, shiny, and impossibly soft between her fingers. She can’t help remembering the way she’d loved burying her face in them and falling asleep like that, the way she’d always wanted to grow up to look that way. It has always felt like a link to the home that is gone forever, silly as it might seem in an objective light.

Her throat is oddly tight now as she runs the brush through her hair, allowing herself to smell the slight sweetness the Nova-provided shampoo and conditioner have left on it. The little curling wand heats in seconds, its handle emitting a faint pink glow to let her know that it’s ready for use. She holds it carefully at first, a bit clumsily, like it might be something fragile, might require some sort of cajoling to work properly. It turns out to be impossibly easy, though, the wand’s electromagnetic technology guiding her hair into place so that it forms big, soft curls almost without any effort on her part at all.

When she’s finished, she takes a long moment to examine herself in the mirror, trying to breathe through the wistful ache in her chest and arrange her face back into a mask of calm. Then she slips the dress on and heads out to the common area, where she can hear Peter doing something that sounds like bouncing a ball against the wall.

Her guess was close; he does indeed have a small, fist-sized ball that he’d picked up from one of the stores yesterday, but he’s throwing it against the ceiling, not the wall, up and down the way he’d done with the orb a few times. It lights up and makes a buzzing noise whenever it hits the ceiling, which seems to entertain him.

He looks over when she comes in and pauses, his expression not dissimilar to the one he had when they first met. She’s pretty sure he mouths the word ‘whoa.’

The ball, already on its way down from the ceiling, hits him in the shoulder and bounces off onto the floor, buzzing and flashing several times. This seems to jar him out of whatever reverie he’s in; he clears his throat and his cheeks flush.

“You look--” He gestures towards her, as if that is description enough, “um--awesome.”

“Thank you,” she says a bit awkwardly. “And thank you for the gift.”

Her words feel inadequate, not truly encompassing how significant this is for her. They will have to do, however, as she can think of no others that will suffice.

Peter waves his hand in a dismissive manner but he’s grinning. “It’s nothing. And you used it well.” He clears his throat again, shifting the way he’s standing several times.

“Are you alright?” Gamora asks, not sure whether to be concerned or amused.

“Yep,” he says, nodding once. “I’m just gonna… go to the bathroom real quick before we head out.”

He turns around and heads back in the direction of his room, walking strangely, as if his pants are uncomfortable.

Gamora bites her lip over a smile, oddly pleased.

“I am going to bed,” Gamora announces, in the hopes that Peter might take the hint and turn down the music that he and Groot are currently having a dance party to in the middle of the lower deck.

They’ve been living on the Milano full-time for nearly two weeks, and so far she’s been pleasantly surprised by how...well, pleasant it is. The ship is small and cramped, constantly full of people and motion and noise. It’s the polar opposite of the cell she grew up in, or the spartan quarters she’d earned later that might as well have been a prison in their own right.

If someone had asked her, before all this, she probably would have admitted to hating the idea of living in such a tiny, chaotic space. But now it already feels more like home than she ever would have imagined possible, lack of privacy and all.

“Okay!” says Peter, uncharacteristically chipper in his response as he immediately stoops to turn off the music, then turns back to Groot, whose lower lip has started to tremble a bit. “Don’t worry, bud, we’ll dance more tomorrow.”

“Good night,” says Gamora, eyeing him as he bounces back up to his feet immediately.

“Wait!” he interrupts, as she’d suspected he might. Clearly there is something going on here that is yet to be revealed to her. Peter is anything but subtle. “I’ll walk you to your bunk.”

She blinks at him. “You will walk me to my bunk…”

“Yeah!” He comes to stand beside her, as though this is the most natural thing in the world.

Gamora shakes her head, still confused. “It is roughly ten feet away, Peter.”

“Yep,” he agrees, “and I’m gonna walk them with you.”

“Alright,” she says slowly, eyeing him as if the reason for this strange desire will be hidden somewhere on his person. He just offers her a smile that reveals nothing but a hint of anticipation and gestures in the direction of her bunk as if to say ‘after you.’

She goes, watching him out of the corner of her eye. She’s wary, but not distrustful. She doesn’t distrust him, though there have been many times over the past two weeks when she’s told herself she should. Trusting people hasn’t been a luxury she’s been able to afford since she was a very small child.

And yet; Peter’s goodness, the kindness with which he treats her, his soft smiles, the confounding feelings that burrow and settle in her chest when he smiles at her... she cannot help but trust him.

They walk the short distance side-by-side and reach her bunk in a matter of seconds. She sees immediately why he’d wanted to come with her.

She doesn’t have a real room here. None of them do. What she does have is a bunk in the back of the ship, which she’d chosen due to its relative privacy in comparison to the arrangement of the others. She also has a button next to her bed which activates the privacy curtains -- an opaque force-field that surrounds the bunk in a circle -- and a small, flat piece of metal sticking out of the wall by the head of the bed that she supposes was the ship designer’s idea of a nightstand.

It has, up until this moment, been undecorated.

Tonight when they reach her bunk, the privacy curtain is activated. Gamora knows that she didn’t leave it that way, has been very intentional with the decision to only use it when she truly needs to, despite that going against every ounce of her training under Thanos. No -- because that goes against every ounce of her training under Thanos.

So she definitely didn’t leave the curtain closed this morning, which means it must have something to do with the way Peter’s practically radiating nervous, eager energy.
“Huh,” he says, not even a little bit convincingly, “how did that get that way?”

“Presumably you pressed the button when I was not looking,” Gamora says calmly.

Peter sighs. “You’re supposed to be surprised. Or at least act surprised.”

She shakes her head. “I am capable of basic reasoning, Peter. Is this why you wanted to walk me to my bunk?”

“No,” he says, grinning, then pressing the button fo deactivate the curtain with a particularly dramatic flourish. “This is.”

This time she does catch her breath in genuine surprise. As the curtain dissipates, she sees her few possessions as she’s left them, but also -- The threadbare blanket she’s been borrowing from Peter’s supply has been replaced with a thicker, fluffier, pinker one. On the wall by the side of the bunk is a thin holoprojection of a forest that she recognizes from their last supply trip -- that she passed over on their last supply trip. And over the head of the bed, there’s a thin, live vine climbing across the wall, delicate purple flowers blooming every few inches along it.

“Peter,” she breathes, in disbelief, unable to summon any other words for the mix of emotions she’s feeling in this moment -- instinctive apprehension, yes, but also gratitude, and a stubborn, immutable glimmer of joy.

“You like it?” he asks, waiting for her to nod. “I know you said it would be impractical to keep flowers in space, but I did some research, and this is a Voln lily. It doesn’t need light or water, just sound, so I thought--probably it’ll be pretty happy here.”

“I love it,” she whispers, reaching out a tentative, shaking hand to touch the petals of the nearest flower, impossibly soft against her skin. She thinks, belatedly, about how long it’s been since she used that word genuinely.

Peter runs a hand awkwardly through his hair as she turns back toward him. “Good. Good. Um, good night, then.”

“Wait!” says Gamora, reflexively reaching out and catching his hand as he turns to leave. He stops short immediately, meeting her eyes and making her swallow. “Thank you.”

“‘s nothin’,” he mutters, but she doesn’t miss his flush or his smile as he heads off toward his own bunk.

It’s the early hours of the morning and she’s sitting in the pilot’s seat of the Milano, watching the tiny pinpricks of distant stars as the ship flies between planets, when she hears Peter’s footsteps on the ladder behind her.

She turns, not surprised to see him. He doesn’t seem surprised to find her here, either; this is far from the first time they’ve both been unable to sleep at the same time.

She is surprised to see that he’s carrying a small box with him, though.

“Hey,” he says softly, coming over to sit next to her in the seat that’s normally Rocket’s, as she’s taken over his. He doesn’t seem to mind, or if he does he doesn’t say anything about it.

“Hey,” she echoes. She’s wearing her equivalent of pajamas, which is a pair of leggings and an old t-shirt she’s cut the bloodstains off of, so that now it’s missing one sleeve, and the hem hangs unevenly, a few threads creating a loose fringe at the bottom. A few weeks ago, she thinks, she might have been ashamed of being caught in such a casual state. But Peter is wearing a pair of boxers and a shirt that looks so threadbare, so stretched across his torso and shoulders that she wonders whether he’s literally had it since leaving Earth as a child. So she figures they’re on equal footing, and she’s quickly grown used to meeting him in this state besides.

“Bad dream?” asks Peter, which has become his standard greeting for nights like these. He has to know what she’s going to say, the same thing she always says, but he persists all the same. That’s who Peter is, she’s beginning to realize -- he really doesn’t learn, or refuses to learn, when he’d rather believe in something more hopeful than the truth in front of him.

“No dreams,” she lies, which has become her standard response.

“Someday,” says Peter, “I’m gonna ask you that and you’re gonna tell me that you’re awake in the middle of the night because you had the best dream of your life and you don’t wanna go back to sleep and forget it just yet.”

She arches an eyebrow, a silent challenge. “Oh?”

“Definitely,” he says confidently. “I’m always right.”

Gamora shakes her head, doesn’t bother to argue with him. He is right more often than she’d like to admit. Or maybe, she thinks, she would like to admit it. Maybe she is starting to want it to be true.

“And what about you?” she asks, deciding to move on. “Does your midnight appearance have anything to do with that box?”

He grins. “Yeah, caught an Orloni in it and now it won’t quit squealing. Wanna help me throw it out the window?”

It’s clear from his tone that he’s teasing, but that does nothing to assuage her curiosity over what his real intentions are. “What if I say yes?”

“Well,” he says with a certain glint in his eye, “then I guess you wouldn’t get to find out what’s actually in the box.”

“Alright,” she says, willing to play along. “Then no, I do not want to help you throw it out the window.”

“Good answer!” He leans back in the chair and holds the box against his chest, smiling like he’s a storyteller with an audience on the edge of their seats. “Because I think you’re gonna wanna see this.”

She waits a few seconds, but he appears to be no closer to showing her.

“Am I supposed to--say a spell?” she asks, unsure if she’s remembering the term correctly. He’d once told Rocket he had to say one in order for him to lend him one of his tools.

Rocket stole it from his bunk the next day instead.

“What?” Peter squints at her for a moment, then the confusion clears his from his face. “Oh, you mean say the magic word?”

“Right,” she says simply.

He chuckles. “No, no. Just building up the anticipation a bit. You don’t have to say please to get your own present.”

“It is--for me?” She looks back at the box, her curiosity growing exponentially -- as well as her confusion.

“‘Course it’s for you,” he says like it’s obvious.

“What would you have done if I had been able to sleep tonight?”

He shrugs. “Guess I really would’ve had to chuck it out the airlock then.”

She gives him a look and he relents. “I was just gonna give it to you tomorrow, but I heard you get up. I couldn’t sleep either, so it seemed like a good time.”

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” asks Gamora, suddenly self-conscious at the thought of him hearing her. It’s a bit silly, she knows, given how much she gets to hear of everyone else on the ship, between the thin walls and her enhanced senses.

“Nah,” says Peter. “Don’t flatter yourself. I sleep like the dead.”

“Yet here you are, awake,” she points out.

He shakes his head, apparently deciding that he isn’t going to win this pointless little sparring match. Instead he holds out the box. “Here. Open your present.”

Gamora takes the box from him, feels the weight of it in her hands for a moment, then shakes it lightly. There’s something that sounds hard shifting around inside of it, though the weight doesn’t tell her much of anything.

Peter laughs softly, and she glances up at him. “What?”

He shakes his head. “You look like a human kid on Christmas morning.”

She frowns. “What?”

But he only shakes his head more vehemently. “Nevermind, nevermind. I’ll tell you later. Open it now.”

Part of her wants to keep asking, but his eagerness is contagious and she can’t wait any longer.

The box is lightweight and easy to open. She slides her thumb along the edges to break the pieces of tape holding it together before finally opening it.

For a moment she doesn’t believe it, sure it can’t be what she thinks it is. “Peter--” she says, then breaks off, still staring.

It’s a knife with a rusted handle, a couple of tiny chips along the blade, and a worn, discolored look about it that suggests great age. She lifts it carefully out of its container, holding it reverently. Different colors seem to dance along the few clean spots on the blade as she moves it slightly, as if it’s made of pure white light that diffracts into every color that exists depending on the angle.

“It’s from Asgard,” he says excitedly, as if she couldn’t tell. “At least, I’m pretty sure it is. The guy at the junker shop couldn’t say for sure because I guess it’s too damaged, but --”

“It is,” Gamora interrupts, swallowing past a lump in her throat. “It’s… I think it’s a Valkyrie’s knife.”

“Holy shit. Really?”

“I believe so.” She runs her finger reverently along the dull side as if stroking an animal, and when she looks up at him he’s watching her with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth. He shuts it quickly when their eyes meet. “It is a bit too damaged to be able to say definitively but it certainly looks like one.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty beat up,” Peter says sheepishly. “I guess that’s why it didn’t cost a fortune. But I figured it just needed someone like you to fix it up. You’re so good with stabby stuff.”

She can’t help but laugh warmly. “I love it. But it’s… are you sure you want me to have it?” she asks, even as her fingers tighten around the handle. “It must have still cost quite a bit.” Certainly more than a hair curler or a plant, though she treasures those just as much.

“Ah.” He holds up his hand. “You’re not supposed to reveal how much a gift costs.”

“Still--”

“I really want you to have it,” he says.

He looks absolutely sincere, and she doesn’t doubt him about the cost, but --

“A Valkyrie’s knife is a weapon of honor,” she says softly, turning the knife over in her hands again. Beneath the dirt and wear she can see that it isn’t just the Asgardian sheen that’s special, the blade is also engraved with a tiny, intricate pattern. “It is meant to be wielded by a warrior who is good of heart.”

“Well,” says Peter, “then I really, really, really want you to have it, because clearly it’s meant to be yours.”

She swallows, tries to picture herself as deserving of this sort of possession, this sort of responsibility. But he clearly believes she is, so maybe--

“I will do my utmost to be worthy of it,” says Gamora, then sets the knife down and smiles at him. “Thank you for--rescuing it.”

Euhiri is a planet of green -- land densely forested with trees that smell faintly of fruit, buildings soaring into the sky above them, connected by an intricate series of open walkways so that the foliage below remains pristine, uninterrupted by the development of society.

They’re here for supplies, and to discuss a job, but Gamora finds herself surprisingly distracted by the beauty, the serenity that comes from having nature so close by. There’s something about it that reminds her of her own lost homeworld, she thinks, though it doesn’t look the same and she can’t articulate exactly what the similarity is.

Peter finds her in one of the outdoor seating areas that are interspersed throughout the walkways, stealing a moment to contemplate the view below while the others have been shopping.

“You alright?” he asks, sitting on the bench next to her.

“Yes,” she says honestly. “It’s pretty out here.”

He looks at her for a long moment before clearing his throat and looking out towards the nature in front of them. “It is. I just figured you’d want to take the chance to go shopping; we haven’t had a proper supply run in a while.”

“I don’t need anything.” She glances at the bags he’s set next to him, various reusable ones from different stores that take up an entire seat themselves, and gathers that he felt differently.

He sees her looking and shrugs, grinning. “You think this look happens by chance?” He waves his hand along his body, gesturing to his casually worn boots, flashy belt buckle, and leather jacket that’s thicker than necessary for the temperature. “I need supplies to cultivate this look.”

She rolls her eyes but can’t help the fond smile that tugs at her lips. “Of course.”

“Anyway,” he says, rummaging around in the bags, “I was in one of the shops and happened to wander over to the jewelry section -- oh, I got this awesome necklace, check it out.”

He hooks his thumb under the chain of one of the necklaces he’s wearing, which is made of some corded material and ends in a circular charm, almost like a gear.

“Isn’t it cool?”

He waits for her to tell him, “It’s nice,” before turning back to the bags.

“That’s not the point, though,” he mutters, shoving one bag to the side in frustration and digging through another. “While I was there I saw something and -- dammit, I know it’s in here somewhere -- I thought you’d like it -- aha! Here we go.”

His hand emerges from the bag, curled into a fist around a small, square box. He releases his fingers so it sits against his palm and holds it out to her.

She takes it slowly, setting it delicately in her own palm. There’s a clasp in front, a small bead with a bit of material similar to Peter’s necklace wound around it a few times, but she doesn’t open it yet.

“Why do you keep doing this?” she whispers.

He furrows his brow. “Doing what?”

“Giving me things,” she says, looking at him imploringly, wanting to understand. It’s not that she minds; quite the opposite, actually. His gifts are kind, generous, and surprisingly thoughtful -- a reflection of him as a person, really.

And maybe that’s why she finds them so confusing, she thinks. Maybe it’s because she finds him confusing, though never unpleasantly so. It’s more that the pieces of his life don’t fit together in her mind, leaving her struggling to understand how someone who has been through so much loss can remain so carefree, so willing to put his heart into the world. How unconcerned he seems to be about the possibility of being hurt again. Not unlike the way he goes out of his way to show her kindness without ever seeming to expect any sort of repayment, any sort of reciprocation. From anyone else, she thinks, she’d be highly suspicious of manipulation, of some sort of trap. But no sign of that has come from Peter so far; in fact, he seems genuinely happy to just...keep doing this.

“Oh!” he says quickly, the response jarring her from her reverie. He runs a hand through his hair, looking suddenly oddly self-conscious. “Because I care about you? Because you’re my friend.”

“The others are your friends too,” she points out. “I haven’t seen you giving them gifts like these.” Then again, she supposes it’s possible that she just hasn’t noticed. He has been pretty private with the ones for her, after all. But she has a feeling that neither Drax nor Groot would be subtle enough to resist flaunting presents, and she’s fairly observant as it is.

“True,” says Peter. “True. I guess I just--They buy things for themselves, you know? See something they want and just--get it. You don’t. You look, and it’s clear when you want something, but you hardly ever actually buy it.”

Gamora looks away for a moment, focusing her gaze on the trees as she feels a shiver of her own insecurity. He’s not wrong; she just hadn’t realized she was so obvious about it. “I am accustomed to having only what I need.”

Peter sighs. “Yeah, but that’s kind of my point. You deserve to have what you want, too. So--If I can give you that, then I’m gonna. I mean--unless you tell me that you want me to stop.”

“I don’t,” she says, bringing the box almost imperceptibly closer to her as if someone is going to try to take it away. Despite some hesitation over whether or not she truly does deserve the things he gives her, she loves all of them. He’s right; they are all things she wants.

Though the fact that they come from Peter may, perhaps, make them even more special to her. She’s getting to a point where she can admit that, at least to herself.

“Good,” he says, easy smile returning. “Now, are you gonna open that one? Or just keep staring at the box forever?”

She smiles, remembering their conversation from a couple weeks before, when he’d given her the knife. “What if I said I was going to keep staring at the box?”

He grins knowingly. “Well, then you’d miss out on something really cool. Not that the box isn’t neat, I guess.”

“It is a unique box,” she says. The material is woven and feels like leather but lighter, and the bead that acts as the clasp is shaped like a flower. “But I suppose I would not want to miss out.”

She carefully unwinds the material that’s wrapped around the bead, not missing the way Peter has suddenly sat up a little straighter next to her. His hand, previously resting casually on the back of the bench just behind where she’s sitting, is now fiddling absently with his necklace, as if he’s nervous.

She nearly gasps when she gets the box open.

“They’re earrings,” she says quietly, reaching in to touch one. They’re studs, so they won’t fly around or dangle dangerously when in combat. Each earring is an identical jewel, a deep purple that looks almost black unless it catches the light at a certain angle. “They’re beautiful.”

He’s given her beautiful things before -- the knife and the plant come to mind -- but this…

“I wasn’t sure if you liked earrings,” he says, scrubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve never seen you wear any. But then I saw you looking at some in a store the other week that were kind of like these. And I don’t think your ears are pierced, so I got you the kind that attach with magnets.”

She bites her lower lip. There he goes again; observing her preferences, paying attention to her likes and dislikes, treating her like--a person. A person he cares for. A person he looks at with those intense eyes and that soft expression, lips slightly parted in a way that suggests he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it.

“Peter,” she whispers, and then can’t come up with any other words to say. She wants to thank him, wants to say something to articulate how all of the little things he’s done have profoundly changed her life in just a few weeks. Before this, she thinks, she subsisted on spite, on the immutable desire to cause pain to those who have hurt her and others like her for so long. For years, she lived without solace, without more than the slenderest shred of hope, and now -- Perhaps Peter’s optimism is contagious, if foolish. And she still has no idea what to say to him, what she can say to him to express her gratitude when ‘thank you’ feels so inadequate.

“You wanna put them on?” he asks softly, when she’s been quiet for too long.

It takes her a moment to break free from her thoughts and realize he means the earrings; then she nods enthusiastically. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

Her fingers shake a bit as she takes the earrings from their card and carefully arranges them into place, tucking back her hair so that they’ll be visible. When she looks back at Peter, the intensity in his gaze actually immobilizes her for a moment, the pure joy she sees on his face in this moment.

Very slowly, he reaches out, brushes tentative fingertips over the skin of her cheek before pulling back and holding out an arm instead. “C’mere?”

She knows instinctively what he’s asking, what the gesture means, though it’s been years -- no, decades -- since anyone embraced her. Exhaling slowly, she leans into him, wraps one arm around his shoulders and allows herself a moment to feel nothing but his solid warmth.

She still doesn’t have words for him or his gifts, but right now she thinks she might not need them.

It’s not an uncommon thing for the whole team to be gathered in the same area of the Milano, doing separate things in the same space. Gamora normally enjoys this; it’s a nice contrast to her old life, where the group activities tended to involve attempting to murder each other.

Tonight, however, she could do with a little more privacy.

They’re congregated in the lower deck of the ship, occupied with their own activities. Drax is sharpening his knives. Rocket is “working on something,” which almost certainly means he’s building a bomb. Groot, only recently liberated from his pot, is running back and forth across the table, trying to fight dust particles. Peter is sitting next to her, listening to his Walkman and occasionally sticking his hand out onto the table to give Groot an obstacle to jump over.

Gamora is ostensibly reading her holopad, looking for jobs, but she’s read the same offer three times now without taking in any of the information. The thin package that’s hiding in her jacket pocket feels heavy despite its negligible weight, and she has difficulty focusing on anything else.

She’s suddenly gained a much greater appreciation for what Peter must have went through to give her all those gifts. Not the buying them part, so much -- this had been easy enough to buy -- but actually getting her alone long enough to give them to her in the first place.

It’s been several days now that’s she’s had it, waiting for an opportunity to catch him alone for long enough to actually give him the thing, but one or more of their friends seems to be constantly near.

She’d made up her mind to do it tonight, one way or the other. She’d been planning to wait until everyone else went to bed, hoping that she and Peter would happen to be the last ones. But her inability to focus on this task, as well as the others’ noisy activities and the stubborn presence of the gift in her pocket, finally becomes too much.

“Hey,” she says quietly, nudging Peter’s arm.

He slips his headphones off his ears to hang around his neck. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to take a walk?”

“Um…” He glances, confused, out the large back window, where the nearest planet is so far away it’s not even visible. “Are you trying to trick me into suffocating out in space?”

She huffs, frustrated with herself for not coming up with better phrasing. “No. I just meant--up to the cockpit.”

She attempts to prepare an excuse for this in the two seconds it takes for him to respond, but he never asks for a reason; he just says, “Okay,” and stands up, looking at her expectantly.

Gamora is aware of his eyes on her as she climbs the ladder ahead of him, thinks that this probably would have irritated her just a few weeks ago. But she’s no longer threatened by Peter’s obvious affection, she realizes -- because he’s so good-natured about it, because he treats her with kindness above anything else. Because, if she’s being honest, she’s feeling the same way, catching herself staring at him more and more often.

All of those things considered, she absolutely doesn’t walk with an extra sway to her hips as they make their way up to the front of the ship.

“What’s wrong?” asks Peter, when they finally get to the cockpit.

They’ve spent plenty of time up here, mostly keeping one another company in the dead of night, when sleep has been elusive. But something feels different today, more….charged, somehow. Neither of them sits, and Gamora feels anticipation tightening in her chest again.

“Nothing,” she says quickly. “Nothing is wrong.”

“Okay….” He draws the word out, clearly equal parts skeptical and expectant.

“I just--wanted you alone,” says Gamora. She reaches into her jacket and takes the package out of her jacket carefully, showing it to him. “Here.”

He blinks, examining it, his expression a mix of surprise and confusion. “Is this for a job, or….”

“It is for you,” she repeats, her heart beating faster as she waits for him to actually open it. “Please look at what it is.”

He obeys, taking it from her and turning it over in his hands as he takes in the simple brown paper packaging, tied with white string. Gamora holds herself stiffly, watching him. That’s the way the store clerk had wrapped it, and now she wonders whether she should have done something more elaborate with it.

There’s a slow smile spreading across Peter’s face, though, as he seems to realize what’s going on. “You got me a present?”

“Yes,” she says, still nervous but determined. “Are you going to open it?”

“You take forever to open yours, you know?” he teases, but he doesn’t make her wait any longer.

“I will be sure to tear mine open faster next time,” she says lightly, watching as he rips the string and paper off with abandon. She’s glad he does it so quickly, though; even the few seconds it takes are agony, the knot of anticipation tightening in her chest.

She wonders if this is how he feels when giving her things. It’s not an entirely unpleasant feeling, really. Or rather, it’s a mixture of pleasant and unpleasant; the hope that he’ll like what she picked out combined with the fear that he won’t; the longing to express how much he means to her combined with the instinctive panic at the thought of doing so.

The desire to make him happy combined with the doubt that she possibly could.

Her anxiety begins to ease, however, when Peter gets the package open -- letting the paper fall carelessly to the floor -- and lets out a joyous laugh.

“This is awesome!” he says, grinning. He grabs hold of the fabric and holds it up and away from him, apparently so he can see more of it.

It’s a scarf, long and deep red, a similar color to that of his favorite jacket.

“Do you like it?” she asks. His response seems positive, but she needs to be sure. “I know you have several scarves already, but you often complain of the cold, so I thought another might be--useful.” She swallows. Her explanation sounds detached and shallow when she says it, not at all conveying the depth she means.

“Gamora, I love it,” he says enthusiastically, slinging it around his neck. “This is easily my favorite scarf now.” He arranges it so the ends hang all the way down to his thighs, which seems rather impractical.

“I believe it will be more functional if you wrap it around your neck,” she points out.

He makes a ‘psh’ noise. “Its function is to look badass.” He gestures to himself, as if that proves his point. “Like a rockstar!”

She furrows her brow, trying to picture a star that is somehow made out of rock. “Is that a Terran term for a celestial body of some sort?”

Peter chuckles, shaking his head, which makes the scarf swish back and forth. “No, no, it’s--Remember when we talked about rock music?” He waits for her to remember the conversation and nod. “If you sang rock music and you got famous doing it, then you were a rockstar. That’s what this makes me look like!”

“You like it, then?” she asks, cursing the insecurity that’s still crawling beneath her skin, though a bit less intense than before. She never would have thought that selecting and delivering a gift could be so vulnerable and yet here she is, one of the most formidable warriors in the galaxy, worrying about whether Peter truly approves of her fashion sense.

“Yes,” he repeats firmly, running his hands down the ends of the scarf.

“Your gifts are always so thoughtful,” says Gamora, the words coming almost absently, more of an admission than she would normally allow herself.

“Hey,” he says softly, meeting her eyes, then reaching out to take her hand loosely. “I love it. But also, I’d like anything you got for me. You’re my best friend.”

“Peter,” she breathes, lacing their fingers and squeezing his palm lightly as her throat grows tight. It’s not fair, she thinks--she’s supposed to be the one in control here, and yet here she is, touched and proud and so damn vulnerable.

He seems to realize how she’s feeling, though, because his grin turns from purely sincere to a bit goofy in the next moment. He steps back and begins to rock his hips a little, shuffling his feet. Then he takes the ends of the scarf in both hands and twirls them as he moves. “See? Rockstar.”

She snorts softly, shaking her head.

“Come on,” says Peter, beckoning her with the scarf as he shimmies back toward the ladder. “I gotta show the others my new look.”

Peter Quill is absurd, she thinks. And she has never been more grateful.