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“Hey man, what do you think of this track?”
Thor opened his eyes.
He saw Peter splayed out on the chair across from him, an undisciplined frame smushed between the chair’s armrests. His legs dangled off the edge of one, giving his feet plenty of room to whip wildly through the air, and his head hung loosely off the other, flopping just out of time with the music. His body seemed to move on its own, lurching without grace. Without intention. It seemed to move, Thor thought, like it had no other choice.
Thor watched Peter as he considered his question. He stared as a patch of shadow stretched onto Peter’s face, claiming ground where the overhead lights couldn’t reach. He noticed how smooth Peter’s features became in the dark, how the soft black border erased all the tension as it crept farther across the room. It left behind a blank slate where Thor thought only crazed grins and indignant glowering could fit.
“It’s alright, cause you're all I’ve got tonight, hm hm hm tonight," Peter sang under his breath. “It’s repetitive, I know, but I like it. Sue me. Good lawyers are rare in this galaxy, anyway.”
Peter’s rambling obscured most of the music from Thor’s ears, for better or for worse. He only caught snippets of shrill violin.
“It sounds humble. Very human,” he forced himself to respond.
In truth, Thor found the song to be tinny and weak as it bled through the earpieces Peter was holding up to Thor’s ears. Perhaps he judged Earth’s music too harshly, but the triumphant displays of golden Asgardian orchestras lingered seductively in the back of his mind. Each song of Peter’s highlighted the length of the journey home.
“Wow. Very human. I’ve never heard that one before. It’s a compliment, right?”
Thor said nothing to that, only nodding in polite acknowledgement. He knew Peter was volatile, more so than most Midgardians, switching between quiet contentment and raging snark in the blink of an eye. An unusual comment like Thor’s could turn Peter’s mood upside down.
“You’re so lucky you have me to show you the human-music-ropes,” Peter continued, accepting his own optimistic interpretation of Thor’s words. Thor wondered if he had accidentally welcomed a lengthy conversation. He wondered how much Peter had to say about music today. Knowing Peter, he would likely talk Thor’s ear off until dinnertime. “Otherwise you’d be stuck thinking all of us worship that fake radio crap.”
There it was again, the snark Thor was familiar with. It dripped from the word radio, a word that Peter used quite often. *Radio*. It sparked images of unusual metal instruments, shaped like growths of quartz rock and painted a cool gray, vibrating like a young warrior too weak to wield his sword. Everything human was like the radio Thor pictured. Gray and uncertain, performing meekly, hiding behind with rough edges.
“The rock stations only play hair metal.” Peter chuckled. “Which is totally uncool.”
“Of course,” Thor added blankly. He placed no emotion in his words, as his mind was already beginning to drift away from the conversation. Away from the ship. Away from Midgard.
“The alternative stations are so repetitive, which sucks, too, and the eighties pop stations are cheesy as shit.”
Thor nodded.
“That’s why you need tapes, man. You can make your own little station. A vibe, an emotion, a story, whatever you want—all wrapped up in a cassette.”
Peter paused, removing his music device from the box. He called it a “Walkman.” Thor didn’t understand the name. It had no legs to walk and certainly wasn’t a man.
“I think I need something more hungry. A love song that really begs for it, you know?”
“Yes.”
“Great, we agree. Give me one second…” He pressed a button and the song changed. “How about this one? Here, get a little closer.”
A man’s voice cried out. Thor scooted forward in his seat, tilting his head closer to the earpiece in Peter’s hand.
“I’m a fool again, I fell in love with you again,” Peter crooned. Thor thought he was joking, singing louder than necessary and wobbling his voice on the higher notes, but he wasn’t sure.
“Please, can I see you every day?” Peter wiggled his eyebrows at Thor. Their eyes met. Their faces hovered inches apart, the space between them feeling like nothing at all.
“Such simple lyrics, but the delivery makes them feel so raw,” Peter concluded after the song ended. His voice was low and quiet.
“It’s defiant. Persistent. Even more human than the last one,” Thor whispered.
“How about this one?”
After an unfairly loud dispute with Rocket, Peter had won the right to captain the Milano for the next few missions. He was poised carefully in the pilot seat, back rigid with both hands on the control board. There was only one sign he was alive at all: the gentle tapping of his fingertips against the ship’s glowing panels.
Earlier in the morning, over an hour ago now, Thor had asked Peter to show him around the ship. Formally. A real tour of his new home. Although Peter had agreed, promising he just wanted to finish the song that had already been playing, Thor’s faith in him was fading. Peter had let more than a few songs slip past, filling the front of the ship with the deep thumping of drums and Thor’s head with a pounding sense of regret.
“I can return later, if that would suit you better.” Thor stared at his hands, knitted together on top of his lap. He wanted to uncross them and scrub at the exhaustion beneath his eyelids, but he resisted. If Thor was to live on this ship with Peter, he would need to adjust to Peter’s immaturity. He would need to relax his expectations for how a leader should behave, or else each day would present him with a new disappointment.
“Huh? Don’t worry about it man, I like having a second set of ears. You’re not bothering me.”
Oh, gods.
“Of course. That’s wonderful, Quill. Truly.” Thor sighed. “Although, I was referring to our agreement from this morning.”
“Wow, oops, you’re totally right. I’ve been kinda caught up in this new tape, so that’s one hundred percent my bad.”
Thor said nothing. He gazed through the windshield absently, wondering if he should have said anything at all. He probably could have slipped out of the cockpit, trod back to his quarters, and disappeared without Peter registering his absence.
It took a few minutes for Peter to wrap up his impromptu monologue.
“Yeah, anyway, I’m sorry dude.” He jumped out of his seat, startling Thor and drawing his attention back to Peter. “Let’s do this. Right this way.”
As they walked through the tight hallways, Peter babbled about the ship, interrupting relevant details to tell winding tales about the tacky decor. He’d stolen a music poster from a galactic detention center’s evidence log, the baseball bat in the corner was stained with blood and not ketchup, and one of his “hook ups” had stitched the bead curtain now hanging in one of the doorways. Thor hadn’t asked any questions. Even when Peter used his strange Midgardian terms like “hook up.”
“Remember that song I was playing?” Peter asked once they reached the last hallway. He didn’t wait for Thor to respond, continuing instead. “I’m making a new mixtape. You know what that is, right?”
Thor shook his head. “Not quite. You mentioned them the other day. You said they’re like a story.”
“Okay, well, yeah. It’s a collection of tracks, or songs I guess, that you can play one after another whenever you feel like it. I have a whole bunch I flip between depending on how my day’s going.”
Thor noticed how Peter dropped the end of the word “going” so that it sounded more like “goin.”
“This new one, it’s a work in progress still, and it’s a lot easier to choose what tracks I want when I’m looking out at the stars. I just connect with the music better, you know?”
“Yes, I do,” Thor replied. Without thinking, he added, “My home is out there. Amongst the stars.”
Peter stared at Thor. It wasn’t unusual for Peter’s gaze to linger, but his attention weighed on Thor more heavily than it normally did. There was a special glint in his eyes that Thor had only ever seen when Peter sat by a window, watching the constellations dance just out of reach, starlight brushing his face.
“I’m jealous of you, man. My home’s in fuckass Missouri.” Peter laughed to himself with a smile that he pointed toward the floor. Thor didn’t understand what was funny. He didn’t understand what Missouri meant. Or fuckass.
“There’s not much magic out in the Midwest. No twinkling stars. Just a lot of light pollution,” Peter continued. “Space is way more raw. It’s like it’s naked or something. Not hiding from you.”
Thor considered this. Asgard’s views were gorgeous, undeniably, but Thor had never found them special. When he had looked out over the glistening palace spires, he simply saw the sky. He felt comforted by its consistent presence as the world around him shifted. As battles emerged, power changed hands, and prayers grew desperate.
“Your song yesterday. I said it sounded humble.” Peter was human, a trait Thor couldn’t forget. The wars Peter watched were waged on battlefields smaller than Odin’s throne room. But in a world without magic, without warriors, a world so distant from gods’s grip, the smallest war was too large.
“Yeah, I remember,” said Peter. He had leaned one arm on the side of the doorway, tapping his fingers on the wall to a silent rhythm.
“I was being untruthful.”
“Oh. Um, okay, I guess, but there’s nothing super snobby about The Cars. They actually are pretty down to earth, except for all their MTV appearances, maybe, because that got them a lot of attention which would totally get to my head.”
Down to earth. Ironically, Thor thought it was an arrogant phrase. Humans complimented the least self-centered of their species by labeling them the most ignorant of other worlds.
“I mean that I called your music humble as an insult,” Thor said. The words tumbled out of him. They tasted bitter on his tongue. “To my ears, it sounds simple and undeveloped—“
“Ouch.”
“—But I see now why it affects you as deeply as it does.” Thor paused. He chose his next words carefully “You celebrate parts of life Asgardians have yet to notice.”
Peter’s fingers froze. His whole body stilled. For the first time that day, he was completely quiet in a room devoid of music. No sound from his strange box, no words from his mouth. A ripe silence passed between them.
“Hey, dickhead, who’s driving the ship?” Rocket’s shrill voice cut through the hallway. He quickly spotted Thor standing next to Peter. “Jesus, you are creepy as shit. Oh, sorry, you and Jesus probably don’t get along. I meant, ‘Zeus, you are creepy as shit.’”
“Zeus is Roman, dumbass. Thor’s from… fucking, I don’t know, Asgard. That’s in space. Which is super far from Rome.”
“Zeus is a Greek idol,” Thor mumbled, straightening his posture and turning toward the doorway Peter’s slouching body still occupied. Thor had witnessed a few of Peter and Rocket’s fights already, so he had learned to seek refuge at the first sign of a burgeoning argument. As he squeezed past Peter, Thor’s forearm brushed Peter’s hip. Peter continued hollering at Rocket as if Thor were never there.
Behind the shut door of his quarters, hiding safely on the opposite side of the ship, Thor swore he felt the walls tremble under the volume of his crew mates’ dispute.
Thor didn’t see Peter for a while after that. The rest of the crew, the real Guardians, had docked the ship on a planet that was emitting strings of SOS messages. No one told Thor exactly why they needed help, but he had overheard exclamations about a hostile takeover and missing soldiers. He put the pieces together for himself.
Although Thor had the ship to himself, the walls seemed to press into him as his days went on. He busied himself with useless chores, simple tasks like dusting the shelves and watering the foreign crops Rocket was always chewing. They smelled bad, so he left them alone after the first time.
The days bled together as he stalked the halls, searching for something he could contribute to his team. They had explained he’d been left behind because they needed someone to watch the ship, but the lump in Thor’s gut kept reminding him that wasn’t the truth. He knew they didn’t trust him yet. He saw it on their faces whenever he pitched in during mission meetings, their mouths snapping into shallow smiles lined with pity. They pretended to listen, but his odd dialect and conspicuous hammer told them he was trained to conquer and rule, not rebel and rescue. If they kept holding him back from missions, they would never have proof of his true intentions.
He thought about Loki a lot while the crew was gone. His own situation mirrored his estranged brother’s too well. A messy fall from grace. A harsh exile. Could Loki have overcome his envy and ushered Asgard to peace? Would he get another chance to try or was his legacy cemented, a spot of rust on the golden palace walls?
“Hey, big guy, let’s get this show on the road,” shouted Rocket. Thor snapped out of his thoughts as heavy footsteps rattled the ship’s metal floor.
“Thor! Fucking move!” Gamora prodded when Thor apparently took too long to start the ship’s engines.
The plan had been for Thor to prepare the ship for a quick escape from the planet after the Guardians had returned the stolen soldiers. Gamora would handle their navigation, Rocket would man the ship’s front guns, and Drax would take the back guns. Groot would strap himself into his “car seat,” as Peter had called it, and call out any surprise attacks the opposing ships attempted.
“It’ll be like Snatch. You’re Tyrone, and we’re Vinny and Sol,” Peter had unhelpfully explained. When Thor shrugged at the comparison, Peter had added, “God, Thor, Asgard must be so boring. Do you even have heist movies? What about Reservoir Dogs? We have to watch that sometime.”
“Overrated.”
“Fuck off, Rocket.”
Unsurprisingly, the crew had forgotten to signal Thor that they were on their way back until they were already stomping up the entrance ramp.
Now, having been shoved aside from the ship’s control panels, Thor had nothing left to do for the team. He could agonize over Loki’s fate or imagine what a movie about thieving canines would look like, but watching Peter pilot the Milano was the least strenuous option.
Thor didn’t have to think as he watched Peter, eyes tracing him from his tense fists, skin pale from effort, up to his pinched eyebrows. As the ship swerved through a deluge of missiles, it tossed shadows onto different surfaces, hiding wires and buttons from Thor’s view. The shadows periodically hit Peter, deepening the grooves visible in his scrunched face as he concentrated. He reminded Thor of the Earth’s moon adorned with craters. Imperfect, but unique.
“Gamora, can you grab my Walkman?” Peter shouted as the ship lurched out of the way of a sparking warhead. “Please?”
“I’m busy charting our course. Unless you want to crash headfirst into an asteroid, I’d suggest you shut up and focus on driving.”
“‘Charting our course?’ Who are you, Columbus? Welcome to the New World, you can use a touchscreen now instead of a map.”
“Is this supposed to offend me?”
“Of course not. Groot, Walkman, please, now!” Peter’s voice climbed a few octaves when he talked to Groot. It was as if Groot was the team’s small pet goat. No matter how many memories Rocket recounted of his past with Groot, Thor would never believe he had been a formidable threat. Groot’s current tallest branches barely surpassed Rocket’s height.
As the branches in Groot’s stubby arms grew longer, they twisted around each other, forming sturdy limbs more than strong enough to lift Peter’s music device.
“I am Groot,” he said, depositing the device on Peter’s lap.
“He said ‘my pleasure,’ right, Rocket?”
“He called you a lazy ass bum.”
“You’re screwing with me. No one’s taught him to curse yet!”
Thor frequently doubted the abilities of the Guardians. He trusted their battle instincts as much as those of the Warriors Three: they had quick reactions to unpredictable attacks, returning enemy blows with incredible force and precision. With the exception of Groot, they all looked gnarled to some degree, sporting deep scars, permanent scowls, and ragged suits. It was evident they had earned their place on the team.
But, Thor still questioned their dedication. They let their attentions drift too easily, and they focused more on each other than their enemies. Only Drax seemed devoted to his assignments, performing in tense silence. On Asgard, the warriors pledged undying allegiance to the throne, consistently demonstrating a love for their nation greater than that for their own lives. The Guardians seemed unwilling to procure even a scratch for each other. Their petty infighting infected the cohesion of the whole group long after the arguments had ended.
With each pump of his heart, the itch to take control, to neutralize the team’s dysfunction, was reinvigorated. He forced himself to maintain his background role, if only to prove to the team that he was capable of it, but it stung knowing he was doing less than he could.
“We need to jump in 12 clicks. Get ready,” Gamora said, cheeks a deeper green than usual. She gathered her loose hair into a ponytail and adjusted her seatbelt.
“Is your seatbelt on, little guy?” Rocket asked.
“I am Groot!”
“No, bud, you’ve gotta—“ Rocket was cut off by the deafening crash of an alien missile striking the ship’s back engine. Red and yellow warning lights flashed erratically, making the room appear aflame. Thor was reminded of the sparkling walls of Heimdall’s Observatory. As Drax emerged from the belly of the ship, a dark cloud of smoke puffed up into the control room. It doused the crew in a bitter blanket of fluttering ashes.
Drax said nothing as he collapsed into the seat beside Thor. He seemed to sigh or groan, but the noise was lost beneath the ship’s weary creaking.
“They got me. I’m out,” he declared.
“How bad’s the damage?” Peter asked.
“Bad. We’ll need to land for repairs.”
“Jeez, okay.” Thor noticed Peter’s hands had left their place on the control panel. They were fiddling with the Walkman in his lap with an urgency Peter saved only for his music. Not even missions received the thoughtful attention his tapes did. He plugged the Walkman into a box on the dashboard, and the first hesitant notes of a soft piano melody began.
“Okay,” Peter repeated. “Okay. I’m ready to make the jump. Gamora, let me know when it’s time.”
The piano grew more confident, the musician pressing harder into the keys.
“It’s been a mystery…” Peter mumbled. “Hmm hm hm try to see.”
Thor didn’t recognize the song, though he didn’t expect to. Peter’s collection of tapes grew almost daily, filling his room with cases of songs Thor would likely never hear.
“Not this again,” Rocket whined. “Every damn day.”
“What do you mean? This is good shit!”
“It’s some type of shit, that’s for sure.”
“Boys, enough!” Gamora interrupted. “Two clicks.”
Leaning forward in his seat, Thor eyed Peter. The wrinkles in his face had melted away, ebbing like the tide, leaving Peter’s face smooth once more. He looked gentler than usual. Thor listened carefully to the next lines of the song.
“One love feeds the fire, one heart burns desire,” Peter sang. His voice grew in both volume and tonal inaccuracy as the lyrics filled the air. They danced through the plumes of smoke, turning the suffocating room into a lively concert.
Thor could hear the guns firing at them getting louder and louder, screaming to be heard over the howling of the electric guitar.
“Peter, now!”
Thor was shoved backward into his seat, the force of the jump slamming his brain against the front of his skull. His head started to hurt, thumping in pain in time with the song’s drums.
The crew rode the high of a clever escape until they had to land for repairs. They were smart enough to recognize the unavoidable arguments, nicked fingers, and long nights that lay ahead, but until then, they whooped and hollered, then cheered and laughed, then smiled at each other more intimately. Peter cast Thor a smile aglow with pride. Thor grinned back, despite feeling like he was interrupting a private moment.
Peter’s tape spluttered and fizzled out, leaving the room brushed with silence for a few seconds. Thor froze, forcing his muscles to still. To remain hard, solid, and hidden.
Drax chuckled to himself, clenching and unclenching his fists, mumbling affirmations of his bravery and heroism.
Rocket leaned back in his seat, arms behind his head and legs propped up on the dashboard inches from where Peter’s hands lay limp on the controls. He let Rocket’s intrusion slide, turning to the windshield and the stars behind it. Thor remembered how Peter had told him how the stars made him feel. They didn’t hide, he’d said. Thor let his body relax. He could be like the stars.
Peter’s tape started up again, playing the next song in the queue. It hummed underneath the chatter in the room. “I will be king and you will be queen,” it said. “We can beat them just for one day. We can be heroes.”
His eyes drifted towards Peter, as Thor noticed they often did, but they landed on Gamora instead. She had left her own seat and was leaning on the back of Peter’s. He was looking up at her through his eyebrows, smiling and laughing as she whispered in his ear.
Something about the interaction, the privacy of it in the middle of a space dense with excitement, made Thor tense up again. He thought he’d found a place in this team, albeit a peripheral one, a place on the sidelines where Peter sometimes visited, but he realized he’d misunderstood his role. He was the stray they’d picked up. The squirming animal they pitied.
“Cause we’re lovers, and that is a fact,” the song said. It was one line sandwiched between many, yet it seemed specifically placed to taunt Thor. It was a jab that reminded him how distant he really was from the crew. He was floating, really, in a web of constellations, trapped in the shadows of space while the Guardians partied and fought and laughed inside the ship.
Thor didn’t even notice when the song ended. He was too lost in thought. Lost in space.
“Thor,” Peter said, leaning over Thor. His voice was quiet but clear. “Everyone’s going to bed.”
“Oh. Thank you for informing me.”
Peter laughed. His laugh always stood out, being louder and crisper than the others, but it cut even more clearly into Thor’s chest when it was the only sound in the room.
“Are you going to stay up?”
“Possibly,” Thor said, careful to keep his words neutral. “I have many things to consider.”
“Mysterious.” Peter smiled.
Thor hummed curiously. Sometimes Peter said things he didn’t understand — not because the words were foreign, but because they felt out of place. “How so?”
“You always have something to ponder. Doesn’t it get overwhelming?”
Thor sighed. “You’re right. Goodnight.” He moved to get up, but Peter’s body trapped him where he sat.
“Hey, what?” Peter said, hands gripping the armrests of Thor’s seat. “I’m saying you don’t have to retreat. We’re here for you. Maybe Rocket isn’t, and you don’t understand Groot, and Drax won’t get it, and Gamora won’t care, but… I’m happy to listen. To whatever you need to let out.”
The direct confrontation was unsurprising. Peter rarely sheltered his thoughts, opting to express his ideas no matter the audience. Thor was, however, intrigued by Peter’s thoughtfulness. Having spent his time on the Milano occupying the edges of every room, Thor expected Peter to show less consideration for Thor’s needs.
He sighed, wondering whether to speak freely or reinforce the barrier between him and Peter.
“I would hate to impose. And I need to get some sleep. But…”
“…But if you go to bed now, your dreams will be haunted by emotional sleep demons?”
“Exactly.” Thor chuckled. Peter frequently irritated Thor, possibly more than Loki ever had, but he always noticed Thor in a way the rest of the crew failed to. He paid special attention to him, asking him questions and drawing him out of the shadows. “Truthfully, I feel that my place in this team is impermanent. I don’t think you’ll want me here much longer.”
Peter opened his mouth the second Thor closed his. “I want you here. For much longer. As long as you want to stay.”
Thor needed more. “I am not part of the crew’s clashes, or your celebrations. You whisper jokes too quietly for me to hear.”
“What?”
Although he felt himself toeing some boundary, quickly approaching a pathetic level of desperation, he continued. “Gamora was whispering to you earlier this evening, and you laughed like it was your first time. You looked at her like no one else mattered… I have no such connection with anyone here.”
The sound of his doubts echoing openly in the room, bouncing off the walls and returning to his ears, made him feel less and less like the noble warrior he was raised to be. His anxieties slapped him right in the face, knocking images of Loki into his mind. How Thor felt on the Milano must have been how Loki felt on Asgard: imprisoned by his insecurity, convinced he was alone before Odin ever cast him out. Loki had never planted roots on Earth, always convincing himself his stay was temporary. Thor would be braver than that. He would share himself with others, even if that meant exposing his vulnerabilities. He would be brave.
“I wasn’t joking before. I’ll listen whenever you need,” Peter said. Quietly. With his head turned down. “Thank you for being honest with me. I’m a little rough around the edges, I know.”
“You aren’t.”
“We all are. That’s why we need other people to help smooth ourselves out.” Peter’s eyes lifted, meeting Thor’s from under his lashes. His expression was soft, a small smile reassuring Thor that he understood. “I'm going to help you get used to life here. I’ll save you a seat at breakfast, order you some shots at alien bars, explain Earth references. Whatever you need. Just ask.”
A spell seemed to wind around them, inviting silence. Everything was still. The gentle ticking of the control panel paused. The hallway light bleeding into the room crawled back where it came from. Their eyes were the only things left living.
“Can I hear more of your music?” Thor whispered.
A grin fought for control of Peter’s face. “Yeah, duh,” he murmured, reaching across the console to grab his Walkman. “Hold your head here.” He gestured to the tiny foam earpiece.
“Next to yours?”
“Yeah.” The grin won out, brightening Peter’s entire expression. “What are you in the mood for?”
“Whatever’s your favorite.” Peter’s grin was infectious, tempting Thor’s own lips into a smile
“Coming right up.”
A heavy guitar opened the song, repeating harsh, almost angry, chords. The music grew, welcoming a passionate voice overflowing with frantic joy. Peter hummed the first few lines of melody, clashing with the singer at times and merging with him at others. His voice grew wilder, reaching for higher notes and beginning to form real words.
“We’re just a million little gods causing rain storms, turning every good thing to rust. I guess we’ll just have to adjust,” the song shouted, right into Thor’s ear, reinforced by the sound of Peter’s singing. His breath tickled Thor’s cheeks.
“This song isn’t your favorite.” Thor struggled not to turn his head. Peter was right there, breathing life into the music, breathing purpose into Thor, and he was impossible to ignore. “You just wanted me to hear what it has to say.”
“Ha! You got me. My favorite has to be Do You Realize by The Flaming Lips. Such a beautiful song. The lyrics are kind of simple, but they’re so honest that—“
Peter gasped, his lips suddenly smothered. Thor smiled against him, running his hands over Peter’s waist, working up to his neck and cheeks. He preserved the feel of every inch of skin he touched deep in his mind.
Pushing lightly on Thor’s chest, Peter pulled away just enough to separate their lips. He pressed their foreheads together.
“I knew you liked me better with my mouth shut.”
“Of course I want to hear it! That’s how relationships work. We both have to open our hearts, dude.”
For the past week, Peter had been begging Thor to sing an Asgardian piece so he could add it to a special mixtape. Thor had resisted, citing both Peter’s incongruous taste in music and Thor’s own lack of musical prowess.
Despite Thor’s insistent refusals, Peter refused to drop the subject.
“Please look at me,” Peter grabbed Thor’s hand and held between his palms. “I don’t care how bad your voice is. It can’t be worse than mine, right?” He raised his eyebrows, drawing Thor’s eyes to his face.
“You’re sure I won’t disappoint you?”
“Impossible.” Peter squeezed his hand.
“Alright.” Since their kissed following the last mission, Thor had wanted to do anything Peter asked of him. He wanted to support Peter as substantially as Peter supported him. Perhaps this was a small step toward repaying Peter’s kindness.
Peter rose from his seat, slapping Thor on the shoulder and promising to be right back. He returned with a special device in his hands that reminded Thor of the radio Peter had described to him.
“Ready whenever you are.”
Thor nodded, meeting Peter’s gaze and holding eye contact with him. He began a song describing the ventures of a young warrior wounded by illness and poverty. He sang softly, careful to keep his voice hidden from the rest of the Guardians. For now, his voice was Peter’s.
He reached the final chorus, feeling relief at reaching the end of his performance but also pride at having shared something so personal with Peter. He’d uncovered a weak spot, and nothing concerning had come of it.
“Hey losers, settle a bet,” Rocket called, striding into the room without looking. “Drax is obviously wrong, but if—wait a second! What in the lame is this?”
Thor tensed. He trailed off, ending the song before the story was over.
“Uh,” Peter eloquently responded. “I’ll take your side of the bet?”
Rocket narrowed his eyes. “Of course you will. I’m counting Thor for my side, too.” As he stalked out of the room, he mumbled, “Keep that cute shit away from me. Eugh. Disgusting.”
Breaking into a bashful smile, Thor watched Rocket leave. He was finally in on a joke.