Chapter Text
Kraglin doesn’t say much. It’s one of the first things Peter notices about him once he gets past his height and titanium teeth. He looks Terran enough until he returns from a mission with a split lip oozing blue blood. Xandarians are uncommon on the Eclector. He doesn't quite understand why and no one bothered to answer when he asks.
Kraglin isn’t like Yondu. Where Yondu snaps and snarls and threatens him with his words Kraglin is prone to physicality. Sure, Yondu'll give him a good smack over the head or pick him up by the scruff, but he holds back. Even at eight, Peter knows he's holding back.
Kraglin doesn't hold back. He gives Peter a swift kick to the ass when he’s moving too slow or a smack right on the mouth when he talks back to any of the senior members of the crew. Even a sharp, disapproving look from those big, blue eyes stings like he’s been hit.
Years later, decades really, Peter will realize that Kraglin and Yondu were doing their best with what they knew. Yondu is like a father to him, a fucked up emotionally unavailable father, but a father nonetheless. Kraglin is never a father. He isn't a mother or a cousin or even a brother. He's just family.
“I have a translator. Why do I need to learn this crap?”
He doesn’t expect Kraglin to jam a knife into the implant resting behind his ear. The main microphone piece pops off easily. Everything goes fuzzy and there’s a high pitched squealing noise that lasts for one second too long. Suddenly everything around him is distinctly not in English. Half of what he hears doesn't sound like English even with the translator.
Kraglin speaks. He understands “Yondu” and that’s all.
He props his boots on the table and gestures to the holo-workbook Peter was supposed to be working on. It had been jumbled garbage then and now it is even worse.
“I can’t read this! How am I supposed to do it if I can’t even read it?”
Kraglin stares at him and gestures again to the holo-workbook. He speaks but it sounds like absolute gibberish.
Tears flow heavy down his cheeks all of a sudden. He gives the sort of heaving, choking sob only children can achieve. He’s been on this stupid ship in stupid space for not even three months and now he can’t understand anything and Kraglin won’t help and he doesn’t want to learn Xandarian he just wants to go home and it’s not fair and Captain said if he doesn’t learn they’ll eat him and if he doesn’t show progress by the end of the day he won’t get no supper and he’s already hungry and—
Kraglin grabs him roughly by the cheeks. His long, thin fingers dig in extra hard to compensate for the wetness making Peter slippery. He slams the microphone plate back into the implant hard enough that there will be a nasty bruise around his ear. “You stop your fucking crying, Peter.” His grip tightens. “You’re gonna learn because one day that chip is going to go out. One day you’ll be ten times as scared as you are now because no one will be able to understand you. Ain’t nothing worse, you hear me? Nothing worse than being alone like that.”
Peter rubs his neck and then wipes his nose on his sleeve once Kraglin pushes him away.
Yondu had told him that Kraglin was "real educated". He got to go to school and knew lots of things the other Ravagers never got to learn. Peter should feel lucky, Yondu had said, that it would be Kraglin teaching him.
“I hate you.” He snivels even as he picks up a stylus.
Kraglin glances over at him. “Better start singing them alphabets before I get the Captain in here.”
In the middle of a firefight, a taser dart jams itself right into the cover of his translator. The little device shorts out sparing his brain from the electric shock. The last combatant drops. They’re some band foolhardy bounty hunters hoping to make it big by capturing the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Peter pulls the dart from his neck taking half the translator with it. “Oh fuck me.”
Drax is the first to speak up once they’ve all caught their breaths.
“Why do I understand you?”
Peter pauses his struggle. The damned dart is really lodged into the metal of the translator. It’s shot to shit but it’s easier to get a temporary fix from Rocket if there are parts to work with. “Because I’m talking? Dude, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“You’ve been speaking Xandarian this whole time?”
Of course, most spacers have universal translators implanted somewhere in their heads. Peter’s first had been unceremoniously jammed into his ear by a certain blue captain. The permanent translator had been more expertly implanted on the first Nova controlled planet they’d come across.
“You thought I spoke Terran?” He grunts as the dart finally dislodges. “Nah, man, my uh... My Terran is kind of garbage. I was eight when I was picked up. It’s not like I knew a lot of space vocab so my translator couldn’t, you know.” He waved his hand vaguely. It pains him on some level to admit this. "So I had to learn something the translator could work with."
"It certainly explains the accent. I thought it was just a Terran quirk." Gamora comments.
"I do not have an accent. My Xandarian is perfect. Maybe you have an accent." He tosses the busted translator to Rocket.
"No way, man. You definitely have an accent. Pure Ravager now that I listen." Rocket grins or maybe it's a snarl.
"Whatever. You spend twenty years with those a-holes and see what happens."