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For the first few weeks after being kidnapped, Peter kept out of the way. He was scared and angry, but he knew it was safer to just hide and wait to see what happened. Yondu, the man – alien? – in charge, began to take an interest in him when he snapped and badly injured one of the other Ravagers who tried to take his Walkman.
It impressed Yondu that the boy never tried to beg or cry out, he was silent no matter what the Ravagers did to him. Once Yondu had decided to keep him and train him to be a Ravager, the first thing he did was fit a helmet onto Peter. The advantage of the helmet was that it translated any language into words that could be understood by anyone listening.
Initially, Peter kept his silence even with the helmet; he refused to reply to anything that was said and Yondu was beginning to believe the boy was deaf or had mental problems. Kraglin, Yondu’s first mate, was the one to get Peter to speak; he sat down next to him and kept silent until, at last, Peter’s first words to the Ravagers echoed around the room.
“I want to go home,” the boy said in a dull tone. Kraglin missed the way Peter moved his hands, he didn’t see or understand that the movements had anything to do with Peter’s words. For Peter, he was shocked to hear his sign language translated into spoken English.
After that, Peter seemed to never stop talking; even Yondu began to wish he hadn’t encouraged the boy to speak. Peter himself was incredibly thankful to Yondu for giving him the helmet that allowed him to speak, but he never said it out loud. He knew that none of the Ravagers realized that he couldn’t speak without it, and he was worried that if they ever found out then they’d take it away.
For years, his mum and granddad had been the only ones to understand him; he’d been born mute and learnt sign language while growing up, but none of his friends had bothered to learn his language and his teachers made him write down everything he wanted to say.
By the time Peter met and teamed up with the other ‘Guardians’, he’d nearly forgotten that he couldn’t speak. No one seemed to notice that his hands moved while his lips didn’t; anyone who did see his movements just assumed he was dancing, something that he tried to encourage.
Thankfully, the helmet folded down around his ears while still working, allowing him to keep talking while not looking like too much of an idiot all the time. He would have been happy to keep wearing it forever without ever worrying about it; for him it was like a hearing aid for a deaf person.
Unfortunately, the helmet did need updating every so often to make sure the air filter was working correctly; it allowed him to transform any atmosphere into breathable air for himself. Usually, he updated his helmet at least twice a year, but he’d been putting off doing it since it took at least a day to do, longer if it had been awhile between updates or had been used on unfamiliar gases.
Hoping he wouldn’t be bothered, Peter closed himself into his room and took off his helmet. The chances were slim that no one would come looking for him, but he could still hope. With a sigh, he hooked his helmet up to the ship and began the update, wincing when it came up telling him that it would take about two days to do. Apparently, the Infinity Stone classed as an unfamiliar gas, and it didn’t help that it had been so long in between updates. Predictably, it only took an hour before someone was barging into his room.
“What have you plugged into the ship now, Quill?” Rocket demanded, frowning at him. For some reason, Rocket was of the opinion that Peter didn’t know how to not damage their ship, despite the fact Peter had managed it alone for most of his life.
Faking a calm that he didn’t feel, Peter gestured towards his helmet; if needed, he was planning on turning his music up so that he could pretend not to hear anyone; he already had his headphones on.
Rocket grumbled and walked over to inspect the helmet, noticing the fact that it was updating. He frowned, but it was obvious that Quill wasn’t doing anything that would damage the ship. Giving the helmet one last glare, Rocket left his room to go find something else to do.
Peter sighed in relief once he was gone, and he was seriously considering just staying in his room for the next two days and locking the door. However, his stomach growled at him, reminding him that he needed food, something that he didn’t have in his room.
Groot squeaked at him when he entered the kitchen, earning him a smile from Peter. The kitchen was full as everyone had had the same idea as him and were either eating or preparing something. Rocket looked up at Groot’s noise but quickly went back to his meal when he saw it was just Quill.
Out of all the Guardians, Rocket trusted Quill with Groot the most; he’d never made a big deal over the fact that he could only say three words and he always tried to make the little guy smile now that he had to grow up again. As if to prove his thoughts, Quill took his headphones off and wrapped them around Groot’s pot instead, turning the volume up so that Groot could hear it clearly while everyone else could hear the faint traces of background music.
Silently, Peter made himself a quick sandwich and sat down next to Groot, making sure to eat as fast as possible so that he could leave again. Groot swayed closer to him, dancing slightly as he listened to the music. Smiling at his small friend, Peter paused in his eating to watch him.
“You’ll be dancing out of your pot soon,” he automatically signed, frowning when he didn’t hear the words translated as he was used to. Groot paused in his swaying to blink at him, thinking that Peter was dancing with him. When it was clear that he wasn’t going to continue, Groot went back to swaying on his own.
“We’re going to need to go shopping soon,” Gamora commented, opening a few cupboards and then slamming the doors in disgust. “When are we next going to Nowhere?”
Peter looked away from Groot and shrugged, putting what was left of his sandwich into his mouth so that he had an excuse not to talk. Unluckily, they seemed to be willing to wait for him to swallow so that he could answer the question. The Guardians were a tough bunch to command, but they seemed to accept his leadership – providing that they agreed with him that is.
The silence became awkward very quickly as everyone suddenly realized that Peter had no excuse not to be talking, and yet he still wasn’t answering. Groot, recognizing that something was going on, stopped his dancing and started blinking around at everyone. In the silence, the lyrics off Spirit in the Sky began to float around the room.
“Quill?” Drax questioned, watching Peter’s deer in the headlights look. “Are you well?”
Peter nodded, probably a little too franticly, before standing up and trying to edge towards the door. He was stopped by a butter knife that embedded itself into the wall next to him, thrown by Gamora who had stood up at the same time as him.
Unable to help himself, Peter rolled his eyes and quickly signed out the words he would have said. “Little bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?”
There was no point pretending to not understand them, Peter could understand many languages and – as far as the Guardians knew – could speak them all too. Rocket may have known that he wasn’t wearing his helmet, but that wasn’t an excuse for not talking.
Knowing that it would be impossible to keep his secret for another day and a half after this, Peter sighed and accepted the fact that he was going to have to find a way of telling them the truth instead.
Using quick gestures, he mimed writing and then pointed to his throat, repeating it until Rocket understood what he was trying to say and passed him an old looking tablet to write on. Of course, Rocket would have been the one to understand, he was used to guessing meanings from the littlest amount of postures thanks to Groot, so Quill’s little mime was quickly understood.
I can’t speak, Peter typed out, unsure how to feel about telling them something he’d kept secret all of his life. My helmet normally translates my gestures into words. I’m mute.
“Gestures?” Drax frowned, silently wondering if this was another thing that he had misunderstood.
From behind Peter, Groot piped up with a little squeak that Rocket seemed to understand straight away. “The dancing you do with your hands?” He repeated, looking away from Groot to stare at Quill.
“I have noticed these gestures on occasion,” Gamora spoke up, saving Quill from having to try to explain it by writing down. “They allow your people to speak without words?”
Peter nodded, relieved that at least one of them had seemed to understand. “It’s called sign language,” he gestured before writing the same thing down for them to read.
“I haven’t heard of it before,” Rocket grumbled. “Why can’t you speak?”
Peter shifted uncomfortably; he disliked having to admit there was something wrong with him. It had always upset him and his mum when people had called him disabled as a child; at the time, people had labelled him as broken and made it clear that this meant he couldn’t be that bright.
I was born with a problem with my vocal cords, he wrote down resentfully. I don’t know why, but it means that I can’t make noises.
“If we switched off the translator on your helmet,” Gamora commented thoughtfully, causing Quill to tense up and flinch. “We would have a method of communicating silently with each other when on stealth missions.”
Peter blinked in surprise, not having expected that train of thought. He was even more amazed when the others also began to see the tactical advantages and turned towards him questionably.
“We’ll have to wait until his helmet’s updated,” Rocket mused thoughtfully. “But if we pay enough attention, we should be able to learn it. What about you, Groot?”
Groot squeaked in a way that told Rocket that while he would be able to learn this sign language, he wouldn’t need to use it; especially since he chose to be silent most of the time anyway. For Peter, he watched the scene around him in bewilderment; no one had ever wanted to learn how to understand him before.
Without any input from Peter, the Guardians seemed to decide that learning sign language would benefit them and they would start learning as soon as he got his voice back in the form of his helmet. For the rest of the time his helmet was updating, the other Guardians didn’t act any differently, other than to pass Quill something to write on if he didn’t already have something.
It was a little disconcerting to have everyone watching him so closely whenever he spoke once his helmet was back on. Peter knew they were trying to learn, so he made sure to speak even more than normal, but it was weird from his point of view to have everyone stare at his hands as soon as he started to talk.
Eventually, the Guardians picked up on enough sign language that he was able to update his helmet more frequently. From there, it didn’t take long before they were gesturing to each other whenever stealth was needed, or if they were too far away to be heard. Rocket managed to fiddle around with his helmet so that it would stop translating his signs when he wanted it to.
Though he understood the gestures, Groot never used them to communicate; Rocket was unsure if it was because he couldn’t – going on the fact that he never learnt to speak either – or if he just didn’t feel the need to find another way to communicate.
Peter always felt a strange mixture of acceptance, joy, and relief whenever one of the others used sign language. He hadn’t realized how worried he’d been about it before; an echo of his childhood fear must have followed him, always scared that someone would take away his only method of communication if they knew. It wasn’t an idle worry, many people had commented on how much he talked and how annoying he could be.
Without even knowing it, the Guardians had given Peter something he’d only had from his family; someone willing to learn how to understand him. Maybe it was the fact that each of them came from a different planet and were used to quickly getting over cultural differences, but none of the Guardians ever acted like his lack of speech was a disability. In fact, Peter and Groot could often be found listening in silence to Peter’s mixtape, both of them swaying in time with the music.