Work Text:
“This,” says Gamora, “is not normal.”
They’ve been arrested. Again. It's become worryingly commonplace.
To their consternation, this arrest traps them on a swampy, brackish moon that scarcely has the resources for exploring their own solar system, let alone interstellar travel. No hope of ringing Irani Rael to plead for a pardon. But despite the relative backwardness of the place, space-goers have visited this part of the proverbial galactic wood. The Guardians know this because all of the jelly-like children who’d snuck from their sun-dried seaweed shacks to greet the newcomers, their mothers’ chastisements ringing after them, take one look at Peter, shout “Star walker!” and scarper.
Peter’s “It’s Star-Lord!” goes unheard.
After that, the chastisements ring considerably louder. The words ‘Red coat’ and ‘Star walker’ and ‘Dangerous, haven’t we told you?’ filter to join the squawking gulls and soft slap of water on reeds.
Fear of newfolk is to be expected on settlements this isolated. But the wary gazes linger longest on Peter.
That’s odd, to say the least. Peter’s tall for a Terran (or so he informs them). But he’s not intimidating. Certainly not besides Drax, or a nearly-full-grown Groot. Even Rocket can look scarier than him, if it suits him - he has claws. All Peter has going for him is ginger fuzz and a music box, and an element gun that backfires more than it shoots straight.
And that gold patch, sewn to his coat-sleeve by a practiced adult hand. The flame that declares him Ravager. But he’s been a Guardian for so long by now – first year anniversary is approaching; they ought to throw a party, if they make it out of jail in time – that none of them think of that.
The mystery only escalates once they’ve been dragged before the magistrate (distinguishable by the long, tentacular feelers draped down her squiddy head). Turns out they broke some local custom or another, and now their records are being dredged one by one on the achingly slow network receiver, while the townsfolk decide whether their sentences should be served by aid of shackles or a guillotine.
“There,” says Peter proudly, hands on his hips. He nods at the screens, which are cracked and dusty from disuse. All that appears under Gamora’s name, first to be assessed, are her most basic details and a link to the longer factual breakdown. Not a black mark for misconduct in sight. “All crimes expunged. You can thank the Xandarian Empire for that – because, as I may have mentioned several times, we’re the Guardians of the freaking Galaxy and we personally know Nova Prime.”
A mild exaggeration. After Ronan’s dust settled, they’d been sent on their way with a swanky new ship, a reminder that the amnesty was over and any fresh indictments would have them tossed in the Kyln before they could say ‘oh God, don’t taze me, these pants were fresh on this morning’; and a polite request that they never contact the Nova Corps again except in states of absolute emergency.
“There are no Empires here,” growls the magistrate. “We haven’t heard of you, or your Star-walker friends. All we know is that you crash-landed outside our temple and your pet rodent urinated in our sacred grove!”
“Hey!” Rocket protests, hackles raising. “I was bustin’ – it were a long roadtrip, and Drax takes hours in the bogs…”
“I am not sure of which bog you speak. But as I dislike mud, I assure you that I would spend no more than five minutes in it.”
Peter, who’s already acquired a triple-scratch on his cheek for daring to crack a marking your territory joke, keeps his mouth shut.
While the court proceedings unfold, one of the squids scrolls through the boring extraneous information that the Nova Corps log whenever a new criminal swims to light. It's the Terms and Conditions of the Nova justice system, which no self-respecting Kyln guard would ever bother trawling. His bored gaze flits from one corner of the screen to another, picking apart the translation supplied by doddery, age-eroded chips.
Then his gaze halts, and widens into a bug-eyed stare. Blanching, the scribe bounds to his feet. He tugs on his boss’s nearest tentacle.
“Ma’am! Ma’am, you need to see this…”
“We’re in the middle of trial,” snaps the magistrate. Now that Peter thinks about it, her throne looks worryingly like a bone-cairn, constructed from past victims of decapitation. “Can’t it wait?”
“No, no it can’t. Her father…”
“Ugh, very well!” The magistrate glances down. It takes a second for her to parse for the necessary data – and then her tentacles flare blinding scarlet.
Peter hopes that’s a good sign. For once, the universe is on his side.
“Release them this instant!” the magistrate roars, banging her gavel on the nearest skull. “Now, now! Hurry!” There’s confusion on the guards’ faces – at least, Peter thinks it’s confusion; hard to tell, what with their exposed frontal lobes and lack of eyebrows. But they don’t dare disobey.
“Thank you,” says Peter as the chains jangle to the floor. He’d have slipped them, had they been left alone for a minute; but they’ve been under close watch, himself especially – heavens knew why, because it wasn’t as if he’d been the one to fertilize a blessed tree shoot.
“What’s going on?” murmurs Gamora, eyes thin. Peter ain't one for looking gift horses in mouths; he gives the cuffs a kick.
“Who cares? Let’s split this joint –“
“Wait!” the magistrate calls. She swarms off her throne, all gelatinous mass and bulging forehead, wringing her plump tentacles. “Please. Allow us to make a full apology for ever daring accost those of your family’s standing. We do not wish to bring the wrath of the Star-Walkers upon our planet ever again –“
Rocket picks the remains of something best left unidentified from his teeth and spits it at the guards’ feet. “Lady, us Guardians’re in the savin’ business. If you’re after smiting, it’s her daddy you better watch out for, not us.” He points at Gamora, who hisses something to the effect of ‘He is not my father’, which they’ve all heard a thousand times before.
While this jellyfish-esque community have yet to make contact with the Nova Corps, Thanos is infamous galaxy-wide. The magistrate’s tentacles wither like dry prunes.
“We are well aware,” she whispers hoarsely. But when she proposes a feast in apology, attended by their most nubile freewomen, Peter’s quick to agree.
“Diplomacy,” he explains to Gamora. “It's like a truce. They’re offering us a part in their local customs - it’s the right thing to do.”
Tragically, ‘nubile’ by jellyfish standards does not overlap with Peter’s personal definition of the term. But when Gamora pushes him towards the nearest girl, who’s been making bioluminescent sparkles at him for the past half hour, and growls “Go do some diplomacy”, he doesn’t dare refuse.
It’s only after they’ve been released to their ship, and Gamora has made her second blunt summation of events – “This is not normal, Peter. I don’t like it.” – that Peter realizes she’s not being her usual grouchy self. She's genuinely concerned.
He doesn’t see why. Sure, the entire village had gotten on their knees and genuflected before them, the little ones quaking like sea slugs in an earthquake. But who knows? Folks have strange rituals in space. Peter’s learnt to roll with them.
“S’cool,” he says, slapping her on the shoulder in that friendly, captain-y way that’d always made him feel relieved and safe when Yondu was in a good enough mood to comply. “We’re going now. We can put this behind us. Move on.” Groot waves at the children as the ramp reels up – none return the gesture, hiding behind their fretful mothers. He's the last to hear the magistrate’s parting words.
“Please!” she shouts, over the rumbling throb of the M-ship engines. “Tell Udonta we didn’t harm his children! Don’t let him destroy our home again!”
“I am Groot,” he says. But by then, the roar of their lift off is too loud for her to hear any reassurances, let alone those that can only be transmitted through three specific words in one specific order. The fearful circles of her eyes stay with Groot long after the hatch has closed.
“I am Groot,” he explains to Rocket, lifting Peter’s jacket from where it’s been tossed over the back of his pilot’s chair and shaking it for emphasis. “I am Groot.”
“Groot! Hey, put that down!” Quill rushes over, snatching the red leather. He tugs one way and Groot doesn’t relinquish his grip fast enough. There’s a rip. Peter’s left holding a ragged sleeve, Ravager patch torn at the seam. For a moment, they both stare.
“I am Groot?” Tentatively, he attempts to piece the jacket back together, winding small leafy tendrils around the gash in the hopes it’ll merge and heal. But fleshling clothes don’t operate like his bark-and-wood hide, and when he retracts his branches the jacket falls apart once more, landing with a soft flump on Peter’s boots. “I am Groot!”
“He’s sorry,” Rocket translates needlessly, leaving his new tinker-toy to posture at Groot’s side. “Ain’t his fault your clothes’re so shoddy.”
“I am Groot!” says Groot, flapping at him and shaking his head. Rocket amends himself.
“Okay, that last bit was from me. Point still stands. Weren’t his fault, so don’t you go blaming him –“
Peter stares at the leather – oddly fragile-looking, worn and creased and crumpled in on itself like a roadkill bird. He cuts through the burgeoning tirade. “It’s okay.”
“Huh?”
“It’s okay,” he repeats. Groot receives a small smile. “Nothing that hasn’t happened before. I’ll stitch it up again, soon enough.”
“I am Groot,” says Groot, not without relief, returning the bright beam when Peter ruffles his leaves. He remembers what he’s supposed to be telling him: “I am Groot! I am Groot!”
Peter looks to Rocket, who’s returned to his latest moon-blower-upper. “I told ya, numb-nuts. Musta heard her wrong. Why’d they be talkin’ about that smirky blue jackass? It were Gamora’s daddy they were pissing themselves over.”
Peter can guess who ‘that smirky blue jackass’ refers to. Gathering the remnants of his jacket in his arms (and praying there’s a patch kit somewhere on board that Rocket hasn’t rifled for spare parts) he makes for the exit, tossing back over his shoulder as he goes – “Yondu? What’s this got to do with Yondu?”
Rocket neatly bisects a wire with his teeth. He pulls off the plastic casing, copper innards untouched. “Nothin’; thas what I’m trying to tell him. But the big lug keeps insistin’ the magistrate said his name.”
“Huh.” Peter frowns. “Weird.”
The memory rolls to the fore several hours too late to be of any use. Peter, lying in his bunk and wondering why sleep is eluding him, figures he might as well indulge it.
He’d asked for the story of where the Ravagers had acquired their chef – a squid-shaped critter called Shorro, who was scared stiff of Yondu and couldn’t look anyone in the eye. Yondu chuckled like a cartoon villain, already half-pissed off a bottle he and Kraglin had been sharing in celebration of the latest raid. He had hickeys and tooth marks all up his neck, courtesy of the union of Kraglin and liquor, and now with his first mate slumped and snoring on his shoulder, he’d launched into a rambling story about heists-gone-wrong, crash-landings, and almost being killed by a bunch of uncontacted squidgies on a planet far beyond the reach of empire trade.
Apparently, he’d managed to call down an airstrike before his sentence could be followed through (capital punishment after desecrating some religious idol or another; details were malleable and changed whenever Yondu recited them). He’d spotted a young Shorro about to be squished by some falling masonry, whistled an arrow through his arm and dragged him to safety, then figured that made him his responsibility and hauled him along for the ride.
It sounded a few miles tall. All of Yondu’s best tales were. In fact, given Yondu’s usual subject matter ranged from ‘inappropriate’ to ‘would bring a Nova officer out in fits’, that was one of his tamest.
(For instance, Peter still calls bullshit about that time when Ravager captain and a choice selection of his men escaped a Kree army by crossdressing and hiding in a brothel. Taserface wouldn’t be able to pull off drag if he performed for a blind man.)
Anyway, the stories emerge whenever Yondu gets borderline maudlin. It’s a pity inebriation’s the sole means of plying yarns out of Yondu. His stories are rarely coherent and even less linear, and when Peter had been small enough to climb on his lap and listen, he had to concentrate to solve the riddle of a slurred Centaurian drawl. Yet difficult to decipher as they were, he never missed a word.
Equally, he’d never thought they were anything more than fictions, spun for a brat awake past his bedtime. Now though, the coincidence is too strong to brush off.
But if Yondu bombed some squiddy civilization to smithereens, then bundled Shorro off to cook gut-mangling slop for a crew of ungrateful space buccaneers, what of it? As Peter told Gamora, that’s in the past. Yeah, it’s odd that Yondu’s name is linked to her rather than him. But it isn’t like they’re ever returning to that planet, so what does it matter?
Next time it happens, Rocket and Groot are the victims. “I don’t know,” says the man, looking them over. “They don’t look related.”
“Well duh,” growls his partner, a dwarvish Kronan woman with more bicep than Rocket has torso. “Ain’t neither of ‘em blue, for one. But there’s this thing called adoption…”
“I know, I ain’t stupid!” The man squeezes Rocket’s jaw, making him open his mouth – and ignoring the spittle that's fired into his eye. “But d’you think he’d come for them? It’s the Guardians we’re after; don’t wanna deal with Ravagers too…”
All information is valuable; Rocket has learnt that the hard way. So as the man and woman storm out, still arguing, and the forcefield rolls shut behind them, he sets to contemplating that throwaway word.
Ravagers.
Any other day he’d be racking his brains for a means of escape, but given everything’s going to plan (flarking Quill and his flarking 12-percenters) he supposes it’s best he occupy his mind with something so he doesn’t start stripping the walls in search of spliceable wires he can bundle into a power-core.
They’re on an easy job, all things considered. He and Groot get captured, languish in a cell while their kidnappers contact the Guardians in the hopes of a cut from that ephemeral fortune gifted in gratitude by Nova Prime herself (ephemeral because it doesn’t actually exist, although the rumors of its presence are proving more than potent). Peter hands over the money, feigning compliance and not mentioning that all units are being tracked by Nova bugs. They follow the cash flow to the offshore bank that these goons have been using for all their racketeering and laundering gigs.
Hey presto. The Guardians walk away no worse for wear, and congratulate themselves on seeing scumbags shoved behind bars.
So why would those scumbags be worried about Ravagers? Yeah, Quill keeps his garb. In fact he diligently repairs it whenever it gets broken, and has a half-dozen identical coats in his fold-out wardrobe (none of which Rocket understands, because didn’t those guys want Quill dead?) But he ain’t one of them. Not anymore.
He’s a Guardian now – he’s proved it over and over. Any affiliation with the golden flame ceased the moment the false orb was deposited in Yondu’s grubby blue paws.
“I am Groot,” says Groot, smoothing the fur across Rocket’s ears. Rocket leans into it, purring in his throat – another of those weird old animal instincts he’s never quite been able to quell. Funny, how since joining the Guardians he hasn’t been so sensitive about them. Heck, he even lets Drax pet him without complaint.
“What you talkin’ about them jellyfish-folk for?” he mumbles, crawling up the proffered limb and draping scarflike around Groot’s shoulders. “They got nothing to do with anything. Oh – hey, did I say you could stop?”
Groot shrugs, and keeps stroking.
Most people are terrified of Drax.
They don’t have to know about his incalculable priors; it’s something in the way he looms.
Looming is impossible to learn – you either have it or you don’t. Gamora does, Yondu does, Ronan did, Rocket… tries. Groot, for all his formidable size, doesn’t. But even if Drax had the approximate mass of a raccoon, he’d be able to loom so effectively that he’d send bad guys scrambling for miles.
So, seeing people’s pants get damper when they spot Drax lumbering towards them isn’t surprising. It gets weird when folks aren’t afraid of him. Or rather, when people he’s never laid eyes on stomp over and punch him in the face.
Drax doesn’t reel. It helps, being a six-four slab of muscle. The assaulter shakes out their injured wrist and makes to strike again. Drax catches the fist and gently applies pressure until they bow to their knees, gasping.
“Why do you attack me?” he rumbles. “I take no pleasure in hurting one so puny.”
The person – a slender mantis-headed thing of indeterminable gender – gathers coherence to shape words. “Give that to your father for me,” they hiss, mandibles chattering.
Drax looks as perplexed as his new drinking partners, who lounge across unpolished chrome benches in this sleazy Outer Rim tavern. The rest of the Guardians are absent, combing the small satellite pitstop for leads regarding a renegade Kree with affiliations to Thanos – a subject deemed too close-to-home for Drax to handle with due sensitivity, hence his being relegated to bar-duty, with his only mission directive being to get as sloshed as possible.
Unfortunately for the mantis, he’s well on his way.
“My father is deceased, slaughtered by Ronan…” His face darkens. “I have not yet avenged him. If you know him, you must know of Thanos too! Tell me where I might find him!”
“Everyone knows of the mad titan,” pants the mantis, as Drax squeezes their knuckles once more. “But nobody knows where he lurks. It’s not him I care about. Your father skimped on delivery. Ruined my business, he did! And all because I asked for a taste of his Terran –“
Drax releases them. Contemplates. Blocks their next clumsy jab and cross, and smoothly scoops their legs from under them when they attempt to ram a shot-glass up his nose. “What is my father’s name?” he asks.
If the mantis had lips, they’d be peeling back. It crawls into a low squat, preparing to lunge again. “Why, you forgotten? Yondu Udonta, stupid. And he owes me! If mutilating another one of his pet children is what it takes to have him remember, so be it!”
Drax calmly steps on them. He listens for the crunch of ribs. Then nods to the barman, and continues on his way.
The creature had been mad. It was the only explanation. Driven insane by whatever egregious crime Udonta committed in some faraway year. Kinder that Drax put it down like that, than allowed it to continue its pitiful existence: scraping out a life among the scum at the bottom of the Galaxy’s barrel.
Anyway, thinks Drax, tapping gore off his boot. They’d irked him.
The epiphany slams onto the Milano’s main deck a week later. It comes encoded in a message from an external source, one which reads “I have your father”, replete with photographic evidence and copies of their Nova files for proof.
After that there’s no fobbing things off as coincidence, mistakes, or clerical errors.
Well, said epiphany hits four of them. Groot suspected all along, but his quiet “I am Groot” is absorbed by the panicked bluster as the other Guardians deal with the fact that on all of their records, Yondu Udonta is listed as their adoptive father.
Peter’s the only one concerned by the actual message. The others are too busy computing, with little success.
“I don’t understand,” says Drax, putting general sentiment into words.
“You an’ me both,” Rocket growls. Gamora nods her agreement. “Why’d he adopt us? Is this some kinda trick?”
“Uh, guys,” says Peter from the monitor.
“It must be revenge,” Gamora decides, resting her sword on her knees and ominously tracing the glinting metal from hilt to tip. Shadows cast by her slim green fingers dance across the blade. “He’s after Peter. He’s got to be.”
“Guys.”
“Adoption…” Drax shakes his head. “I do not believe Udonta to be suitable. Parents should nurture and cherish their children, something I doubt Udonta to be capable of.”
“Yeah, look how Peter turned out,” Rocket adds, then sniggers when Peter makes to kick him.
After his attempts are proved futile – Rocket’s damn quick, and it doesn’t help that Groot trails a convenient root at ankle-height whenever Peter gets too close – Peter slumps on his chair, breathless, and flops a limp hand across his eyes.
“I’m changing course. We’re gonna get him.” He doesn’t leave any room for negotiation. Just plugs in the co-ordinates they’ve been sent, and starts cooking up a plan.
The plan goes something like this: shoot whoever’s necessary, get Yondu out, keep shooting until enemies stop coming.
It is, Peter thinks, one of his better ones. Gamora doesn’t agree.
“That’s stupid,” she says. Then, as Peter’s been dreading – “Why are we even doing this?”
It’s the same question he’s been asked by all of the Guardians since announcing their destination, Groot being the lone exception.
(“He ain’t your father,” Rocket insists, chucking a screw at Peter’s head. “You don’t owe him shit.”)
(“He’s not my father either,” says Drax, apparently still miffed at the insinuation. Peter’ll have to keep an eye on him; keep him from gutting Yondu before he gets the chance.)
(“He’s done nothing but hurt you,” murmurs Gamora as they sit side by side on the observation deck under the wheeling stars. That isn’t exactly true – isn’t true by a long shot, in fact. But Peter’s wise enough not to suggest that she’s projecting her own messy paternal relations. Yondu’s better than Thanos. They can both agree on that.)
Peter takes a deep breath, and delivers the answer as he’s been prepping. “We’re doing this because I wanna know what sort of idiot adopts us lot.”
“How about this idiot?” She taps the screen showing the security feed. It flickers, revealing a familiar blue figure curled on a bare cell floor. Peter isn’t sure if the butterflies in his gut come from worry, exasperation, irritation, or all three. He gives Gamora a grateful smile though.
“Can I take that to mean you’re in?”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Of course I’m in, fool. I follow your lead.”
The source of those butterflies are easier to identify. Peter grins, big and goofy, head ducked to hide the blush. He snaps off the safety on his gun, and pats the unconscious security guard on his balding yellow head before tapping the comm. “We’ve found him. Let’s roll.”
Yondu looks… well, not small, without the coat, and certainly not human. But small-er. Mortal and vulnerable, stripped of Ravager garb and his usual shit-eating grin.
When the door clangs open, he forces himself to his feet, immediately on the defensive, eyes narrow and fists clenched. Then he sees who it is, and bursts out laughing.
“Quill? Ya gotta be kiddin’ me.”
“The usual response,” huffs Quill, jamming the heavy cast-iron door with the leg of a guard who’d wound up on the unfriendly side of Drax’s knives (not, admittedly, that there’s a friendly one), “is ‘thank you’.”
“Nah. If they’d caught yer bunch along with me, the collective bounty’d still only be worth a coupla hundred thou’. That orb was worth millions. You, my boy, are still owin’.”
But when Quill glares at the Guardians until they turn away and drags his mentor in for a hug, Yondu returns it. He loops his arms over Peter’s broad shoulders, yanking him down so they can bump foreheads.
Any harder and the clang of implant on brow bone would be a headbutt. But Peter’s suffered this show of pride, or respect, or sentiment, or whatever else it might mean, plenty of times. The familiarity suffuses through him like the warmth from a well-stoked fire.
“Where’s the arrow?” he asks. Then, because while the captors hadn’t invested in a top-notch private army, anyone who can take down Yondu deserves admiration, in the short window before they’re eviscerated – “And how’d they get you?”
“Still on the Eclector, and those bastards dunked drugs in my drink when I was at a no-weapons client meet.” Yondu studies the fresh stitching that rims Peter’s jacket sleeve, running ragged navy nails over the uneven threads. His mouth puckers, half smile and half scowl. “Yer hand’s gettin’ shaky, boy. Need me to teach you how to sew again?”
Peter shudders. “Fuck no. Only thing scarier than you trying to be patient is Kraglin.” Yondu’s face shutters at that. He smooths the scowl, but not soon enough. Peter tips his head. “Uh. Something you wanna tell me? Any reason Kraglin ain't tearing this place apart looking for you?”
Yondu shuffles away, giving ground without appearing to move. “He may,” he says in an artfully slow voice that Peter has learnt to take with many, many grains of salt, “be a lil’ bit mad at me.”
“Why?”
“He found out about somethin’ I did without askin’ him, an’ –“ Yondu shakes his head. “Look, this’s cute an’ all, but we oughta be movin’.”
“Fucking finally,” Rocket gripes. “Thought you two was gonna act mushy until the reinforcements arrived.”
As it turns out, Rocket’s prediction rings true. But even with Yondu lagging, under-fed and running on adrenaline, they make short work of them.
“Hey, beastie,” says Yondu, pinging a Guard’s extracted middle finger at Rocket – a flipped bird on a whole new level. “I ain’t never mushy. Don’t say that again, or I’ll disown ya.”
“Um,” says Rocket, finger bouncing off his nose. But by then an escape route clears, and he’s too busy hauling ass to spit a comeback.
“I am Groot,” says Groot, after they’ve all collapsed behind the M-ship loading ramp, Gamora racing to the cabin to get them into orbit. He stands, tree-trunk legs rolling upwards until his toppermost branches graze the central light panel, and holds out a twiggy hand for Yondu to shake.
Rocket drops his whiskery little face into his hands. “Don’t call him dad,” he groans.
“I am Groot,” comes the stubborn reply. Yondu uses the hand to scramble to his feet before pumping it enthusiastically, grinning like he’s ransacked a hold overflowing with gemstones without having to squeeze out a single whistle. Rocket, meanwhile, stamps his tiny feet and snarls.
“I know you ain’t never had one before; I ain’t neither. But ya don’t want him –“
“Don’t talk to yer father like that,” Yondu scolds, wagging a finger.
“I am Groot,” Groot agrees.
“See? He likes me, don’t ya, treeboy? And Quill does too –“
“Uh, I demand a second opinion.”
“I don’t like you.” Drax unrolls to his full height. When he encroaches on Yondu’s personal space it’s like watching a gorilla size up a fox, but Yondu just crosses his arms and crooks an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You will relinquish your claim on me this instant.” The brandished knife, nicking Yondu’s jaw, suggests he’s serious. Yondu either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
“Ya really wanna fly to the nearest Nova port? It's a helluva lot of paperwork –“
“Must’ve been a lot of paperwork to sort out originally, too.” Gamora returns to the hold, having jammed the ship's autopilot on course for Knowhere, as that’s the optimum place for ditching unwanted cargo. “Why go to that effort? For what – a joke? You can’t have meant it.”
Peter coughs, certain he’s not the only one who picked up on the sliver of hope in her voice.
Evading the blade draws a nick across his neck, blue blood tipping the steel. Yondu spins to fasten his smirk on Gamora, spreading his arms wide. “You sayin’ you don't appreciate my efforts? C’mere and give daddy a hug – Ow!”
“Quit being a dick,” Peter orders, who’s just smacked Yondu on the back of the head. Then, when he’s accosted with a dark glare, backs hastily to the rear. “Hey – hey! You don’t have your arrow, you can’t do anything!”
“Wanna bet?”
“I am no longer allowed to gamble,” Drax drones, levelling his blade at the cut he’d left previously. “But if I were to do so, I would not wager on your odds, Ravager.”
Yondu’s silver-studded grin fades after Groot steps between them, stopping his retaliation with a shake his head. He’d be unfaithful to himself if he didn’t sneak in a last jibe though. “Family shouldn’t fight, dear."
Groot takes the knife to the arm to stop it embedding in Yondu’s eyeball.
“Groot! I apologize, I was not aiming for you –“
“Perhaps,” says Gamora, touching Drax’s shoulder, “we ought to put the weapons away and let him talk. Threatening him will only make him antagonize you more.”
“Smartest thing I’ve heard,” agrees Yondu, and leads the way to the Milano’s cramped kitchen like he owns the place. Which – okay, yeah. He did, once.
When Peter bounds to catch up, Yondu slings an arm over his shoulder, the motion so practised that he doesn’t bang Peter’s ear to compensate for the height difference. Drax scoffs. Rocket copies, although quieter and more pensive, and climbs Groot’s trunk so he can re-enact that filial closeness by resting his cheek on his friend’s gnarled collarbone. Sighing to herself, Gamora trails at the rag-tag group’s rear and sets up guard by the doorway. Her eyes linger on the seal of Thanos that’s stamped into the pommel of her sword.
“Very well,” rumbles Drax once they’re all seated. “Talk. Why are you masquerading as our father?” Yondu’s sprawled on Peter’s favourite chair, dirty boots on the tabletop – he eats there, dammit, but complaining will be all the encouragement Yondu needs to pick grime from his treads over his placemat.
“Got anything t’drink?” he asks.
Peter kicks his chair. “Answer the question. We all wanna know.”
“But I’m feelin’ mighty dry-throated, boy. Ain’t like they gave me nothing substantial in that cell…” Yondu might be a practised swindler, trickster and cheat, but there’s far too much mirth in his pitiful stare for even the most soft-hearted fool in the galaxy to be conned. Peter abuses his chair leg again.
“I don't care if you're starving. Answer, or I’ll call Kraglin.”
That gets Yondu talking. “Alright, alright! Look, I was just messin’ with ya. Had to hack into the Nova records for something-or-other, figured I’d see how ya were doin’ on the way.”
Peter patiently kneads his temples. The strain of the day has left an ache, kinda like he's had his brain scooped out his ears with a teaspoon. “You hacked the Nova Corps. To check up on me.”
Yondu rocks his chair down, glower fully-fledged and defensive. “Well, what was I supposed t’do? Ya never call, ya never write –“
“You threatened to kill me.”
“I done that every other day of your life, boy. S’my brand of fatherly love, and yer friends’d better get used to it –“
Groot manages to wrap a limb around Drax’s waist before he can lunge over the table, dislodging Rocket in the process.
“Hey, big guy!” he roars, rubbing where his jaw bonked Groot’s lichen-crusted knee. “Quit it! We’re handlin’ this civil-like!”
Yondu sniggers. “Says the animal –“
Drax isn’t the only one who goes for him then.
“Okay,” says Yondu, hands above his head and a Guardian menacing every pulse point with the closest pointy instrument. “Per’aps I misspoke.”
“Stand down guys,” Peter orders. He’s gratified when they obey – although Rocket, who’s on femoral artery duty, lets the sharpened chopstick he’d grabbed off the counter linger against Yondu’s inseam rather longer than necessary. He snaps at Peter’s fingers when he attempts a soothing pat at his head. “Rocket…”
“Yeah. I’m goin’.” Lips rolling over his teeth, Rocket shoves the chopstick into Yondu’s boot before sauntering for the exit, his little shoulders wound high. “Tell your papa he can take his adoption certificate and shove it up his bright blue –“
The door slides closed before he can finish his sentence. Yondu extracts the chopstick and twizzles it around his fingers. “The youngest’re always spoilt,” he says sagely, at which point Peter’s saintlike patience shatters and he punches him in the face.
By the time they dock on Knowhere, Yondu’s still bitching about his black eye, but he hasn’t called Rocket animal since. Regardless, the crew’ll be glad to see him go. If Gamora and Groot had, in their unspoken way, been excited by the thought of prospective family, that excitement had ceded to aggravation after point-five minutes in Yondu’s company.
Drax, who’d been against this botchy rescue from the start, is kind enough not to say ‘I told you so’.
But things will be back to normal soon enough. They’ll deposit Yondu, call Dey, and demand his name be struck from all of their records. They’d never gotten a straight reply out of him as to why he’d adopted them in the first place – which Peter should have realized before the Milano’s magnetic bolts locked to the Knowhere port, because now the curiosity will be eating at him for the next decade.
Of course, he could always ping Yondu a message; get his excuses in writing.
You never call; you never write…
Peter brushes that recollection away – unasked for, unneeded – and peeps from the porthole. There stands Kraglin, arms folded and five shades of furious. Blood drains from Peter’s face all the way to his toes. Kraglin’s a genial sorta guy for the most time, although you get the feeling, as with Yondu, that his smile’s more mocking than empathetic whenever it’s directed your way.
Peter’s seen this expression enough times to know it’s associated with immanent spine-ripping. “Uh. Gamora. Be ready to make a drop-and-run –“
A warm palm settles on his shoulder. “Ain’t you he’s mad at,” says Yondu. He pushes past Peter and punches in the code that’ll pop the M-ship hatch. Peter goggles at his back a moment before realization sinks in. Then grabs Yondu’s arm, pulling him to a halt.
“Hey! That’s my coat! You can’t just steal my stuff because you lost yours –“
“Ain’t you s’posed to be generous to your father? My casa, Sue casa an’ all of that?”
Peter groans. “We’ve been over this. You’re not my – our, father. And it’s mi casa, su casa, for the record.” In the background, Kraglin’s seething in silence – Peter would be impressed that he hasn’t marched over and started yelling already, if he didn’t know how much the first mate hates making a scene. “Uh, shouldn’t you go talk to him?”
“No chance I can stow away in yer undercarriage?” Peter shakes his head. Yondu deflates. “Then yeah.”
There’s a twitchiness in his gaze, one which puts Peter automatically on edge. He finds himself scanning the port for assailants out of instinct, before he realizes it’s Kraglin Yondu’s eyes keep flicking to. While imprisonment must’ve been a holiday compared to dealing with a fuming first mate, Yondu hadn’t put any effort into endearing himself to the Milano’s crew. Despite that, Peter feels a little sorry for him.
Kraglin nurses grudges better than anyone he knows. He’s never heard of him holding one against Yondu until now (at least, not one that couldn’t be cured by a quick, rough bout in the bunk).
“What’s he so mad about, anyway?”
Yondu winces. Just a little. “I sorta signed all them adoption papers without tellin’ him.”
Oh-kay. That doesn’t seem such heinous crime; at least, not one worthy of warranting this level of evil-eye. Peter squints at the far-off figure, who’s shifting from foot to foot as if he’s pinching himself to keep his anger battened. “Is that… bad?”
Yondu looks at him like he’s stupid. “You try adopting a bunch of brats without yer green lass’s permission. An’ then don’t mention her on any of the documents, when ya know she’s been desperate for kids since before ya picked up some dumb Terran and made him yer own. And when the pair of ya ain't reproductively compatible, cause some Kree scientist a-hole fucked up your innie bits an' yer pouch and made it so ya can't carry nothin' but snacks…”
No point arguing that neither he nor Gamora have pouches. Or that they aren't together-together. At least, not in the same way as Yondu and Kraglin (for a start, there’s yet to be any Pelvic Sorcery).
Peter’s jaw distends in an unattractive gape. Hunching in the baggy duster, Yondu locates a middle-distance to sneer at. “Shut yer gob. You wanna catch space-wasps?”
“Y-you were being serious?” Peter stutters. “About adopting us?”
Yondu hoists one shoulder: a non-committal half-shrug that admits far too much. “Weren’t plannin’ on tellin’ ya proper until I’d sorted shit with Krags. Figured it’d be better that way. But I went about things in the wrong order, I guess. Got the idea when I was lookin’ over yer jobs –“
“Spying on us, you mean.”
“- And then just did it, without carin’ much about what he’d think. Or you.” Usually, the exorbitant grin and boundless energy strips years off the Ravager captain, but when he sighs every one of them returns, compounded into the creases around his eyes and mouth – the ones that’ve deepened since Peter last saw him. “Guess I jus’ wanted to get you back for the troll-doll. Heck, I dunno.” He sighs again, burying his hands in Peter’s coat pockets. Then snorts, loud and scornful.
Peter sees that same disgust that’d been levelled at him whenever he dared show sentiment flash across Yondu’s face. This time it’s directed inwards.
Yondu starts to shuck his trenchcoat off. “Here,” he says gruffly. “Take it –“
Peter grabs the coat by its plated shoulder, preventing Yondu from unbuckling the strap. In the five minutes it takes to forcibly sets it to rights, smacking Yondu away whenever he makes to turn their struggle into a wrestling match, he thinks he catches the glint of a reborn smile.
“Go on,” he says, once the oversized coat is well and truly lashed on. He nudges him down the gangway. “Go apologize.”
“S’like ya don’t know me at all.” Neither of them are good with goodbyes, but Yondu’s boots still pause before hitting the ramp. Kraglin, who’s begun to stalk forwards – fully intending to drag Yondu away to somewhere private where Kraglin can snap and growl and fuck him in peace – throws up frustrated hands and halts again, giving them their privacy. “Uh. See you round, boy.”
There’s a question in that statement.
You never call; you never write… Why does that dumb phrase keep echoing through his head?
Peter plans to answer Yondu truthfully – Probably not; it ain’t like you’ve made friends here. But there’s no need. Gamora steps from the dim-lit adjoining corridor. She stands besides Peter, tall and proud and gloriously beautiful as she slips her hand into his. “Yes you will. And that goes for all of us.”
He half-expects Rocket, Groot, and Drax to bound out and utter similar proclamations – in which case Yondu can, and will, fetch his arrow and hunt them down for daring to witness him being a bit of a sap. As it is, he stiffens until the skin around his implant bunches. His eyes flash gore-red – but then that tension seeps away and he nods, plastering on the usual fangy smirk.
“I’ll hunt us some bilgesnipe and get Shorro t’prep us a family dinner. He ain't such a bad cook, if yer not of discernin’ tastes.”
Oh God. Peter has a prophetic vision. In it Yondu and Kraglin empty their horde of blackmail-material-slash-baby-pictures onto the Eclector’s recreation table, then lounge around, acting despicably lovey-dovey and offering juice and biscuits like a weird old married couple, while the Guardians peruse the photographs, select their favourites, and pocket them to be used as insult muses for the years to come.
“Is it too late for take-backsies?” he asks weakly. He’s ignored.
Gamora inclines her head, looking for all the world like a queen granting clemency to a subject. Yondu lifts a single hand: joint acknowledgment and farewell. He hops off the gangway as the Milano’s airlock grinds closed, and doesn’t look back – although Peter figures that since Gamora’s made their future dinner-date official (the traitor), he doesn’t really need to. Outside, Kraglin gives Yondu his customary welcome punch, which is returned with enough force to have him wheezing. Then grabs his captain by the neck and drags him into a fierce, rare public kiss.
Peter groans. “Well, oh great green genius? How’re we meant to tell the others they have two dads more than they’ve ever needed?”
Gamora observes the shrinking Ravagers as their ship hurtles towards the forcefield that keeps Knowhere’s air supply where it belongs.
“The others might be… difficult,” she says, breathing on the chilly porthole. “But from what I remember of my father, parenthood is reciprocal. You need them as much as they need you. And they need us a lot.”
Peter knows Thanos isn’t the father she’s referring to. He squeezes the green fingers entangling his own, and they watch the last glossy tints of Knowhere’s atmosphere disintegrate into the star-spangled black of open space.