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“Looks like we’re not getting paid…”
If Peter Quill were honest - which, yes , he could be, thank you - he would later admit he’d barely heard a word Rocket said. And really, who could blame him? The cybernetic raccoon’s mouth moved faster than his fingers emptying pockets on the Boeshane Peninsula - and got him into just as much trouble. One of these days, maybe the next time they crossed paths with the Sovereign, he would follow through on his threat to muzzle him and-...
No. Focus.
Was he trying to distract himself? Absolutely.
Was it working? Absolutely not.
Because what lay before them…it was more than destruction, more even than devastation - it was annihilation . Whatever had happened here, it was deliberately and utterly without mercy. On Xandar, there had been hope - hope that what was being rained down on them could be fought, and then afterwards, hope in what was left behind, that they could rebuild, continue.
There was none of that here. Looking on the cluttered debris field somehow felt just as empty and cold as staring out into the void of space, a desolation that penetrated right to Peter’s bones.
A piece of shattered hull rebounding off the front wing panel with a clunk startled him out of his chilling reverie, and he started to turn towards Gamora in one of the seats behind - and then let out a decidedly un-manly yelp of fright as a larger, and uncomfortably human-shaped, object hit the windshield. At least he wasn’t the only one; there was a sharp intake of breath from Mantis, Rocket gave a yell of disgust that was almost certainly to cover his own startlement, and Drax…Drax definitely squeaked. Peter was more glad than he would admit that they couldn’t see the corpse’s face - just the back of its head, with a tangled mess of dark, curling hair - and any gruesome injuries were probably hidden behind the tattered, dark green cape that hung from its shoulders and half wrapped the body.
“Ugh! Get it off, get it-...”
“ Wait !”
Rocket’s paws had been reaching for the control for the windshield wipers, when Gamora’s voice cut him off and he turned his head and glared.
“What do you mean, wait ? That stupid cape’s gonna get caught in our thrusters, and then we’re stuck trying to salvage a proton valve from this mess and hoping whoever did it doesn’t come back to make sure the job’s finished!”
“Rocket - shut up.” It didn’t come out as the barked order Peter had been going for, but for once, to his relief, Rocket didn’t argue. Perhaps he, too, had caught that glimmer of something in Gamora’s wide eyes.
Something that might just have been…hope?
—
“There is no way this guy is still alive,” Peter puffed, tapping his earpiece to deactivate his helmet as he stepped out of the airlock. Moments later, he regretted saying it - but Gamora didn’t appear to have heard. She was following Drax, who had taken the body from him, and Peter trailed along behind into the pod bay. There, Drax dumped the body roughly on the bench, and the six of them gathered around.
He looked human enough, although Peter knew perhaps better than anyone that looks could be deceptive. Very tall, with a slender body and long limbs clothed in dark green, armoured leather, a form-fitting outfit that Peter thought vaguely-but-not-quite resembled something Sakaaran, if anything. His long hair was matted with blood and soot, and a pale complexion with angular features was marred with burst blood vessels and lurid bruising around his throat. Blue-green eyes, wide open and bloodshot, stared sightless at the ceiling and briefly reflected the glow of Mantis’s antennae as she moved to his head and tentatively reached out.
“Oh!” she gasped. Peter wondered whether she had been expecting to feel anything at all from the stranger; certainly he hadn’t really thought she would. “Oh - he feels…so, so afraid…and guilty…”
“Guilty?” Rocket echoed, suspicion lacing his tone. “What - did he -...?”
“...and…” Mantis continued, as though she hadn’t heard, “...there is…so much love …”
She raised her head, and a single tear welled in the corner of her eye and trickled down her cheek, as a soft smile began to tug at the corners of her lips - but then, her shoulders tensed, and her face fell.
“He is fading…”
Gamora stepped forward, jostling Rocket aside to pick up one of the stranger’s limp arms. She pressed her fingers to his wrist, leaned down and set her ear against his chest - and then straightened sharply.
“Drax - press down on his chest. Right there - with both hands.”
Drax stepped forward, bewilderment clear on his face as he raised his hands and poked the stranger hard in the middle of his chest with both index fingers, then stepped back. With a growl of frustration, Gamora reached across the bench and seized both of Drax’s hands, tugging him forward again. She placed the hands firmly in the middle of the stranger’s chest, palms down, one on top of the other, and pushed down hard.
“Like that. Keep doing it.” Drax’s confusion didn’t appear lessened, but one look at Gamora’s fiercely gritted teeth and he didn’t dare argue. As he set to pressing down rhythmically, Gamora moved to the stranger’s head, unheeding of Mantis who scurried out of her way, eyes wide and openly fascinated. She tilted his head back, pinched his nose shut with one hand, pressed her mouth against his grey, parted lips and exhaled forcefully. Any objection Peter might have been on the point of voicing was quickly swallowed, as he saw the stranger’s chest expand and realised in a flash what she was doing. She gave another breath, and Peter hurried around to the other side of the bench to pick up the stranger’s wrist. Across the room, even Groot had lowered his game at last and was watching intently, and Rocket and Mantis had joined him at his side, scarcely drawing breath themselves even as Gamora delivered another lungful.
The stranger’s skin was cold to the touch - too cold. Peter supposed he shouldn’t have been too surprised, given that they had pulled him out of open space; he did his best to ignore it and suppress his shudder, pressing his fingers in deeper until…was it his imagination…?
“I’ve got a pulse!”
He couldn’t regret the childlike excitement that slipped into his voice, not when he saw the spark in Gamora’s eyes.
“Did we do it?” Drax ventured, his hands stilling. “Did we bring this man back to life?”
But even as he spoke, Peter felt that feeble fluttering beneath his fingertips slow; he pressed harder, desperately seeking.
“Whoa, whoa, I’m losing him…”
Gamora swore, and bent to give another breath.
“Drax!” she snapped, between breaths, and startled, Drax resumed his pressing on the chest.
“Come on, come on …” Peter found himself muttering, as his fingertips searched between the tendons of the wrist he held.
“Harder, Drax! Harder !”
Rocket opened his mouth, but seemed to think better of whatever he’d been about to say and closed it again. Peter barely noticed; Gamora didn’t even turn her head. Again, again, Drax’s immense hands pushed into the stranger’s breastbone, until all of a sudden, something gave way with a sound like a laser whip.
“Keep going!” Gamora gasped, and Peter winced as he heard several more ribs cracking on the next compression. There - was that a…no - no, that had been his own pulse in his thumb as his heart pounded and he fumbled with the stranger’s wrist in his hands now slippery with sweat. Gamora’s gaze snapped to him; he shook his head, searching with the fingertips of both hands now - and then dropped the arm, his own heart leaping into his throat.
“ DAMN YOU !” Gamora suddenly screamed, slapping the stranger hard across the cheek. Leaden numbness gave way to a roll of nausea in Peter’s stomach; there was something not right about the way the stranger’s head moved on his neck, lolled to one side with absolutely no resistance, not even…those dark blotches of bruising on his throat seemed all the more stark now, bared…
“Gamora…” She was bending to give another breath when Peter caught her shoulder, tensing as she whirled on him, eyes blazing.
“ What ?”
“Gamora - he’s…” He drew a deep breath, met her eyes - eyes that were daring him to speak another word - swallowed hard. “There’s…there’s nothing…”
For the space of several heavy, shaky breaths, she held his gaze - and then, abruptly, her eyes were blank, lips pressed together in a perfect line, eyebrows level. She stepped back from the table, and when she spoke again, her voice was even and perfectly toneless.
“Put him back.”
—
Peter had initially automatically recoiled at the idea of just…dropping the body back out of the airlock and into space. A burial, he thought, or a cremation, or disintegration and a firing of the Colours, next of kin, a sendoff…
But these were his next of kin, Drax had pointed out, indicating the numerous other humanoid corpses scattered around the wreckage field. Mantis, after checking one last time and finding no spark of feeling in the body, had agreed. As had, surprisingly, Rocket - on condition that they give him a bit of a push when they put him out of the airlock, to make sure he ended up far enough away that they weren’t going to bump into him and his cape again.
Far kinder to leave him here among his people, to drift among the stars together. They didn’t know what funereal rites and customs these people had had; it wasn’t their place to decide for them. Peter could see the sense in that. It didn’t mean that the part of him that was still stubbornly Earthling even after all these years in space wasn’t going to nag at him for a very long time, though.
Only Gamora had remained silent, watching on the bridge with a face like a painted mask as the lifeless body floated out into the void, cape and hair fanning out around him as though he were underwater. Then, she had turned away to stalk off towards the corridors of the ship.
Peter caught her arm.
She didn’t pull away, but nor did she turn back and bring the bridge back into view. Peter stepped up alongside her and, after a moment’s hesitation, slipped his hand into hers and intertwined their fingers.
“You gonna tell me what that was all about?” he asked quietly, and felt Gamora tense through their linked hands.
“I wanted to save somebody,” she replied steadily. “Isn’t that what we do now?”
“Well, yeah, but…” He shifted his feet, drew a deep breath and let it out in a huff. “I mean, we’re not… responsible or anything, are we? We would’ve saved that guy if we could, but - hey, we don’t even know who did do this. We just-...”
“I do.” Her eyes were shadowed now not only with what they had just stumbled upon, but with…oh - Peter knew that look. Oh .
“You mean…”
Gamora nodded.
“And I thought that maybe, if I could save just one …” She trailed off, and Peter’s heart twisted.
“We could…we could keep looking?” To his ears, the suggestion sounded feeble, unconvincing. He wasn’t at all certain that there would be any chance of finding a survivor, and it had come through in his voice. He closed his eyes for a second, and then turned back to the bridge. There had been a spark in Gamora’s eyes before. All around was nothing but ruin and dust, but he drew conviction in his voice from a sudden resolve to dig through these ashes until he found the little glowing ember of hope again, and then fan it for as long as there was breath in his lungs.
“There - there’s one who doesn’t look too bad. We could check him? Beefy guy, blonde hair, big red cape…”
---
