Peter Quill (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nostalgiabomb) wrote2000-02-18 06:17 pm
nostalgiabomb) wrote2000-02-18 06:17 pm
(no subject)
Gamora was still only a child when she learned she could trust no one.
Thanos taught her that lesson soon after he took her from her home, after he killed her parents. She spent months under his care, such as it was, under his thumb, until breaking and mending and screaming and crying came as easily to her as breathing. There were other children in Thanos’ home, the ones spared from his endless slaughter, and when Thanos left to devastate another planet, Gamora found uneasy friends among them.
There was one in particular. A boy. She never knew his name – he withheld it as jealously as a starving man guarded his last morsel of food. But he was kind to her, and he would comfort her at night, as she wept for her family and home. She remembered his eyes, how round and green they were, how feverishly they gleamed in the dark of their quarters, as they huddled together and planned their escape.
It was foolish, of course. They were young and naïve and thought themselves invincible, after Thanos had unmade them time and time again.
The Titan called the two of them, and they knelt before him. Without Thanos speaking a word, the boy leapt to his feet, pointing a finger wildly at her.
“She tricked me,” the boy cried, frantic with fear. Gamora could only stare, mouth open and eyes wide, and betrayal sat cold in her gut. “She is plotting to escape, and she swore me to secrecy, Father. She means to leave, and she made me help her, or she would kill me.”
Thanos regarded the two of them, impassive, staring at his children over steepled fingers. In the silence that reigned, Thanos stood, and his throne slowly descended until he could easily walk toward them. He held out a hand to the boy, his white teeth flashing in the darkness as he smiled.
“Come here, my son,” he said, his voice rumbling with warmth.
The boy’s eyes darted only once toward Gamora before he rushed toward the Titan, arms wrapping around the man’s massive leg as he burst into tears. The boy begged forgiveness over and over, and Thanos stood silently, a hand resting on the child’s head. When his tears finally quieted, Thanos twisted the boy’s head with a flick of his wrist, bones snapping in the silence.
Gamora screamed before she clamped her hands over her mouth. The boy’s body dropped to the ground and Thanos turned his gaze to her, expression inscrutable and eyes cold.
“Stand,” he said, and he waited until she followed his command.
“I do not suffer treachery, Gamora,” Thanos said. “Neither do I suffer liars. Do you understand, child?”
“Yes, Father,” she whispered.
He nodded in return, turning back toward his throne.
“You are dismissed. Find a servant to clean up this mess and return to your room.”
“Yes, Father.”
She spared one final glance to the boy’s crumpled form, stared at his wide, green eyes – lifeless and cold. When she felt tears sting her eyes – not in sadness but in anger; how could she have trusted that boy, when she never even knew his name? – she quickly turned on her heel, rushing away before Thanos could see her weep.
Gamora trusts no one, yet somehow, she ends up on a team of misfits and idiots, thrust together by necessity. She is not sure how, but at some point she began to think of her teammates not as assets but as companions. As friends. And it frightens and thrills her, because there’s freedom in that, in choosing her company and her friends, when before she was assigned to an ally, forced to keep the company of scum.
And now, she can leave at any time. Peter made that abundantly clear on quiet nights, as they sat together in the common area of his ship – their ship – passing back and forth a bottle of spirits. They would sit on the floor facing one another, their legs brushing with every movement.
It took a long time for her to accept this casual contact, to stop tensing and expecting an attack. Peter, she learned, simply enjoys touching. He means nothing by it, or at least he never presses for anything more, not since the night on Knowhere. In the early days of their team's formation, as they helped to rebuild Xandar, she would observe him, catalogue his habits. He leaned against people's shoulders, patted others companionably on the back, wrestled with Rocket on the floor of their hotel room for a piece of tech. Peter simply touched, craves contact. And when she finally ghosted a hand across his upper arm as reward for a good day's work, his smile outshone every star she had ever seen.
“You don’t have to stay, you know,” he would say, cheeks rosy and green eyes sparkling. Effects of the alcohol, he had assured her the first time she saw him in such a state. “I’m surprised you do, honestly.”
“Where else would I go?” she would ask.
Sometimes, he would respond with, “Anywhere,” and tell her of his favorite places, of sunny beaches and quiet forests and bustling, gleaming cities. She would admit, quietly, that those places sounded nice, and he would smile and promise to take her there. To her surprise, he kept his word more often than not, when the alcohol failed to take his memory.
Sometimes, he would say, “Everywhere,” and wave a hand grandly, as though to encompass all of creation, his eyes bright and movements loose. "The world's your oyster," he would say and refuse to explain what an oyster was. She would roll her eyes at him, and he would smile anyway, wordlessly handing the bottle to her.
Sometimes, he would say, “I don’t know,” in a quiet voice. He would not smile, and that’s how she knew he was being sincere. And sometimes he would reach over to rest a hand on her knee, or to grasp her hand with his; something warm would curl in her chest, steal away her breath, and he would catch her gaze and say, “But I’m glad you’re still here.”
And sometimes, she believes him.
Their bounty runs aground, flees into a quiet town when the Guardians chase him. Leerin Sark, a man wanted for several murders, is wild with terror, and nothing is as dangerous as a cornered, desperate animal. He takes a hostage, uses her as a shield as he backs into an empty, half-constructed house, and the Guardians decide to attack on two fronts. Peter, walking unarmed through the front door, talking the man down. Gamora, through the back, using her skills to sneak her way into the house.
She creeps through the rooms, staying low to the floor, and tracks the sound of voices to the living room.
"You don't have to do this, man," she hears Peter say. She presses her back against a wall and peeks around the corner, sees Peter with both hands up, eyebrows knit together. His gaze never flicks to her, though he flexes his fingers slightly, acknowledging her position and telling her to hold. "Just let the girl go, and you and me can talk this out, okay?"
"Go away," Leerin bites out. "Leave me alone, or I'll kill her, I swear."
Leerin keeps the girl in front of him, and from this vantage point, Gamora sees only their backs. The barrel of Leerin's gun presses against the girl's temple, and his hand trembles, grips the gun like a drowning man clings to a lifeline. An errant twitch could end the girl's life. The hostage is still, though the tremor that racks her breath now and again betrays her fear.
"You and I both know I can't leave you with her," Peter says. His voice is calm, but his shoulders are tense, his eyes hard. His weapons sit on the doorstep, along with the trigger for his mask. Their slipshod plan leaves him as the distraction, and while the plan was his, Peter still complained about being so vulnerable. "Put the gun down, Leerin. We can settle this quietly."
"Why, so you can arrest me? Huh? Sell me out to the Nova Corps so they can ship me to the Kyln?" Leerin takes a step back, dragging the girl with him; she chokes back a sob. "No. Fuck no. I'm leaving, and she's coming with me."
Peter takes a step closer, and Leerin responds with another step back. "You leave with her, and you get every Corpsmen in the quadrant breathing down your neck. If you let her go now, we can figure something out. No one has to get hurt."
"Fuck you."
"Don't be an idiot, Leerin--"
"I'm not an idiot!"
Leerin levels his gun at Peter, and Gamora leaps from her position behind the wall, looping her arm beneath Leerin's gun arm and driving it upward as he fires a shot. The bullet buries itself in the wall, showering Peter in drywall as he dives forward and grabs the girl. Two more wild shots fire just as Gamora twists, spinning the two of them into the next room, and she forces them into a controlled fall. The gun clatters out of Leerin's hand when he hits the floor, face-first, and Gamora grabs a handful of his hair, slams his head against the floor once, then twice. The man stills.
"Clear," she says. She glances back into the living room, and her stomach drops when she sees the splash of red on the carpet. "Quill?"
"We're okay," he calls back. He looks up from where he's kneeling on the floor, the girl clinging to his shirtfront, pale and trembling. He rocks back on his heels, his left arm held tightly to his side, and Gamora sees the bleeding wound on his upper arm. He tracks her line of sight and shakes his head. "Just a graze. I'm-- Gamora!"
Even before Peter shouts, Gamora knows something is wrong from the widening of his eyes. She throws herself to one side as Leerin awkwardly swings a knife at her, and he rolls away, grabbing up the fallen gun. The gun's barrel fixes on Gamora, but Gamora's thrown blade buries itself between Leerin's eyes. He collapses, dead.
The room falls silent, then, save for the girl's muffled sobs against Peter's chest, before Peter heaves out a long breath.
"I really hope that bounty said, 'Dead or Alive,'" he murmurs.
She and Peter sit in a cramped, dirty cell together. Blood dries against her forehead from a slowly healing gash, and Peter is only half-conscious, thanks to the welt on the side of his head. His own blood mats against his hair, sticky and thick and staining the fabric of her trousers. He lies on the floor with his head resting in her lap, and she speaks nonsense to him, because it keeps him awake, keeps him with her.
Better for him to rest, she knows. It is better that he sleeps to conserve his energy and to heal.
It is selfish for her to keep him conscious like this, but she does not want to be alone.
She recognizes their captors, though thankfully, impossibly, they do not recognize her. Leerin had burned the majority of his bridges when he went on his murderous rampage, all those months back. Even so, his brother seemed to be out for revenge.
“Quill,” she says, when the silence fills the cell for too long, when his eyes stay shut. “Quill, stay awake.”
He makes a small, whining noise at the back of his throat, and when she says his name again – this time in warning – he manages to pry his eyelids apart. His pupils are blown, eyes dark with pain, and she brushes her fingers through his hair.
“Worse than Yondu,” he mutters. She ignores the way his words run together, as if his tongue were thick and heavy in his mouth.
“I would hope so,” she says primly.
The corner of his mouth twitches up in what might have been a smile, but it disappears instantly. He whispers in a strained voice, “Tired. Really tired.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Stay awake.”
Peter winces and reaches for the injury just above his right ear. Gamora bats his hand away with a murmur of disapproval. “Hurts,” he manages to rasp out. He screws his eyes shut – too tightly for it to be another attempt at sleep. “Fuck. It hurts, Gamora.”
“I know, Peter. I know. You’ll be alright. Just stay awake.”
Sark's men attacked them in broad daylight in the market, blindsided them with civilians present. Only by chance did one of the men shatter the attachment for Peter's helmet, slamming his mallet against Peter’s head. Gamora had screamed when Peter crumpled to the ground -- too fragile, too delicate, too Terran -- and someone came from behind her, drove her to her knees while another man stood with a gun over Peter's still form. She surrendered without a thought.
And now, they wait.
Peter shifts against her, and she frowns down at him when his movement draws a hiss. Still, he turns, and she pretends to not notice the effort it takes him to focus on her. "This is bad, isn't it?" he asks softly.
"No," she lies, and she knows she betrays nothing. Thanos trained all of his children in the art of deception; he would not suffer lies, but he fathered liars. "We'll be fine. The others will find us."
She doubts they will.
A crease appears between his eyebrows as he peers at her, but his eyes wander away after a few heartbeats. "You don't call me 'Peter' unless it's bad."
"That isn't true," she says, but she is unsure. It shows in her voice.
He smiles faintly, bitterly, and when his eyelids flutter closed, she makes a disapproving noise. Startled, he glances around their cell, at the floor covered in a film of grime, at the sickly, yellow light filtering through the eye-level slot on the door.
"This is bad," he repeats.
This time she hesitates before letting out a breath. "Yes. This is bad."
They could be anywhere in the system -- perhaps even beyond that, if their captors' ship was fast enough -- and Rocket, for all his technical knowledge and cleverness, would never be able to find them without a nudge in the right direction. Like looking for a needle in a haystack, Peter had grumbled once on an assignment months back, as they pored over a map together. It was a fitting analogy.
Gamora has not hoped or wished in decades. She does not trust in good or bad fortune. At the moment, though, she hopes, just a little, that today they'll be lucky.
"What was that?" she asks, after Peter mumbles something unintelligible.
He stays silent, and she wonders if he is trying to ignore her question. At length, he clears his throat. "No one calls me Peter anymore." He pauses, and adds softly, "I like when you do. Even if it's only when things're bad."
Words escape her, then. Instead of speaking, she continues to card her fingers through his hair. It seems to comfort him.
"Hey, 'Mora?"
"That is not my name," she says, though there's no heat to her words.
He ignores the warning and looks up at her again. He does not smile, and he says, "I'm glad you're here."
"Thank you," she says, as she always does when he recites those words.
But Peter makes a small, frustrated noise, and he struggles to sit up, despite Gamora's protests. He manages to prop himself up on his elbows
"I mean it. I really do. I know you don't believe me, I know I'm a liar, but I'm glad. I'm really glad." Faltering, he hisses and falls back, head in her lap once again. He brings a hand up to his injury, and Gamora catches hold of his wrist. He resists for less than a second before letting his arm go limp, Gamora's fingers still around his wrist when he drops it against his forehead.
"Wish you'd believe me," he says faintly. "You're the best friend I've ever had, but even more than that, I-- You don't have to say anything back, okay? But--"
She meets his gaze, and his green eyes shine, feverish. She says his name, a warning in her voice, though she does not know why.
"Just let me say this," he pleads. "Just let me say it once, because if this is bad, I want to say it before I can't."
She can't help but fall silent, her grip on his wrist suddenly boneless.
"Gamora, I..." Peter takes a deep, shuddering breath and moves his hand to lace his fingers with hers. "I just want you to know that--"
The door crashes open.
Their captors bind their wrists behind their backs and frog-march the two of them through the ship. Peter can barely stand, much less walk, thanks to his head injury. The color is all but gone from his face, leaving his skin ashen, and his head lolls forward as they half-drag him ahead of her. She wants to rip her bindings apart, wants to tear their captors limb from limb for hurting him, but they are outnumbered, and anything rash will surely spell their doom.
They enter a room, empty save for one man. The sharp smell of disinfectant stings Gamora’s nose, though it fails to mask the undercurrent of something metallic. She notes a drain in the center, flecks of red and dark blue clinging to the metal. Blood, she knows. Peter sees it too, and the two of them exchange glances. His expression is dark. Regret, maybe, or guilt? She cannot tell.
The men shove them to the ground, force them to their knees. Peter nearly falls on his face, but stays kneeling by sheer force of will alone. Gamora can see the tight set of his jaw, the sweat on his brow.
She will murder them all for this, she thinks.
“Hey there. Sorry about the accommodations,” Sark says, his voice deep and gravelly. He holds a knife in one hand, twisting the tip lightly against the pad of his forefinger. Intimidation tactic. A cat toying with a mouse.
He must be Leerin's older brother, Gamora thinks. His hair is streaked with more white than the other man, and the wrinkles lining his face are deeper; a patchwork of scars crisscrosses one side of his face, pulls the skin taut around his nose and left eye.
“So you’re the pricks who killed my brother,” he says conversationally, and he crouches down to make eye contact. “Peter Quill, second-rate thief. And Gamora, deadliest woman in the galaxy. Weird, the way you two started hangin’ out.”
He interrupts himself, and he glares at Peter, who has his head bowed – busy concentrating on not passing out, Gamora expects, and anger sparks all over again.
“Hey,” the captain says. He grabs a fistful of Peter’s hair and wrenches his head back. Peter gasps, wincing. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Gamora jerks toward the captain, but a guard grabs her by the elbow. She growls, “Leave him alone.”
Sark laughs at her, releasing Peter. “Protective,” he notes, then arches an eyebrow at Peter, ignoring his scowl. “Didn’t know you had yourself a guard dog, kid.”
Standing, he twirls the knife in his hand, the movements practiced and precise. “Let’s get to business, then. You guys probably think I’m pissed about you killing my brother. I’m not, really, but he was family, you know? I can't really just let that slide. I'm a nice guy, though. I got standards. So I have a proposition for you.”
The captain grins again, waving the guards over with his free hand. They grab the two of them, holding them in place; Gamora strains against the man’s grip, but she freezes when the captain stands in front of Peter.
“You're the leader, right?” He traces the line of Peter’s profile with the tip of the knife, drawing it down until it rests on his throat. Peter stills and leans back as far as he can, though the guard keeps him from drawing away any further. Gamora wants to scream, to rip out the captain’s throat. “They follow you, bark and growl and snarl for you. It's a stressful job, I know. All that delegating and peacekeeping and making hard choices.”
Peter's throat bobs as he swallows, and he grits out, "Didn't sign up for an after school special."
The captain sighs. "I'm saying, kid, that you're still new to this. And I wanna help you grow into the role. Let's try this exercise, right? For making difficult decisions. Choose right now: am I killing your guard dog, or am I killing you?"
The tip of the knife digs in to Peter’s neck, and Peter hisses. Gamora does scream this time, but the guard holds her fast when she tries to throw herself at the captain. He only laughs brightly, though he pulls the knife away. Peter sags, casting Gamora what he probably means to be a reassuring smile. It’s too tight around the edges, though, too strained.
“I only need one of you,” the captain says. “That's enough to send a message. The other one can go free. That’s reasonable, right?” He turns to the guards, seeking their agreement; they nod dutifully. “See? That’s reasonable. So, Mr. Quill. I'll leave the decision to you. Who gets to stay behind? Talk amongst yourselves, if you want. Ten seconds.”
The captain starts counting. Peter’s gaze flicks to the floor, and he stays stubbornly silent.
"Peter," she says quietly, levelly, hoping to gain his attention. He doesn't move.
When the captain reaches five, Peter finally looks up at her, and that dark expression crosses his face again – regret. Guilt. Sorrow. She frowns at him, and something sinks in her stomach, cold and heavy. She doesn’t understand what it means. “Peter?” she says again, uncertain.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Gamora—”
“Peter, don’t.” She remembers kneeling on stone. She remembers the sting of betrayal from a boy with gleaming, green eyes. She remembers that Peter Quill is a selfish man; one must be selfish to live as long as he has in this life. “Peter—”
"Me."
Her mouth shuts with an audible click.
“Take me,” Peter says again, turning to the captain, defiance written across every inch of his face. "Kill me, if you want, but let her go."
Gamora has forgotten how to speak, words dying in her throat. The captain’s eyes widen, and he barks out a laugh. He claps a hand on Peter’s shoulder, chuckling.
“I like you, kid,” he says. “You’ve got balls. You’re stupid as shit, but you’ve definitely got balls.”
Sark drives the back of his fist against the side of Peter’s head – right on top of his injury from the market. Peter falls to the ground, gagging silently, but Gamora roars. Her protests fall on deaf ears, though, and the captain kicks Peter in the gut – once, twice, three times – then once in the face.
“Take her away,” the captain tells the guard between blows, even as she struggles and shouts, screaming Peter’s name. Dazed and in pain, Peter only rolls onto his stomach, spitting out blood. “Chuck her out the airlock. Maybe someone will find her body a few centuries from now.”
“What?” Peter grits it out through clenched teeth, lifting his head with effort. “Wait. No. You said—”
“I told you I’d let her go," he says, punctuating his words with another kick against Peter's side. "Didn’t promise I’d keep her safe, did I?”
The ship lurches abruptly, and Gamora can hear a muffled explosion at the bow of the ship, followed by shouting and gunfire. Alarms blare overhead, and an automated voice, level and calm, speaks over the system: Warning. Hull integrity compromised.
“What the hell was that?” the captain shouts. Anxious, Gamora thinks. Fearful. She can work with that.
The speakers overhead shriek with feedback – a shrill, mechanical noise that makes Gamora grimace – and a familiar, gruff voice cuts in over the alarms.
“We interrupt your regularly scheduled recording to bring you assholes this special announcement,” Rocket says, and Gamora could almost laugh with relief; the report of gunfire echoes in the background, and a tiny cry of "I am Groot!" is just barely audible. “Your ship has been boarded. Most of you guys will be killed, and we will be leaving with the two idiots you guys captured. Have a great friggin’ day and a really shitty afterlife.”
Another explosion rocks the ship, accompanied by shouts and screams, and Gamora uses the distraction to drive her head back, headbutting the guard holding her fast. He stumbles away, and she spins, kneeing him in the ribs and driving her foot into his face when he doubles over. He falls to the ground and does not rise.
She jumps up, tucking her legs against her chest and bringing her bound wrists beneath and in front of her, as the second guard charges. She steps to one side when he aims a wild swing at her and grabs his wrist. She turns, yanking his arm over her shoulder and flipping him onto his back. He slams into the ground, the air rushing from his lungs. She stomps on his throat and wrenches his arm, pulling the bone from its socket. The guard's mouth opens in a silent scream, and when he falls still on the floor, she steps over him.
“Don’t move a fuckin’ muscle,” the captain hisses, and Gamora’s head shoots up. Sark grips a handful of Peter’s hair, forcing his head up and leaving his neck bare. Blood spills from Peter’s nose, dripping down his chin and leaving red splatters on the floor, and he bites his lower lip to keep from crying out. That alone is enough to cloud Gamora’s vision with rage, though the captain certainly doesn’t help matters by pressing a knife to Peter’s throat.
“Let him go,” she says, her voice far more calm than she feels.
“And get rid of my only bargaining chip? Fuck no.” Sark wrenches Peter’s head back again, eliciting a small noise of pain from the Terran and a growl from Gamora. He digs the knife’s edge into Peter’s throat, just enough to break the skin, and Gamora jerks forward, stopping herself only when Sark glares at her in warning. He grins, shaking his head as though with pity. “Look at you. Gamora. Daughter of Thanos. Deadliest woman in the galaxy. And you actually give a shit about this stupid, low-life asshole, don’t you?”
Her lips draw into a thin line, and every nerve in her body cries out to attack, to move, to do something. If this were a different time, she would have leapt at him. She would have sought revenge on this man for daring to capture her, to threaten her, to berate and mock her. She would not have cared who was hurt or killed in the process, so long as she made the message clear: no one toys with her and lives.
But she is not the same woman. Not anymore.
Peter stays silent, eyes screwed shut and teeth digging into his lower lip. His blood stands in stark contrast against his pale and paling skin, on his neck, on his lips, and she cannot move. She needs to do something, because Peter needs her help, Peter is in trouble, Peter is in pain, and she is frozen to the spot. She meets Sark’s gaze, and she knows what he sees there, because he laughs again.
She gives a shit. Of course she does – Peter is her teammate, her best friend. He is kind and honorable and selfish and infuriating. He is patient and passionate and ridiculous.
He is Peter Jason Quill, biggest idiot in the galaxy, and he is hers.
“Let him go,” she repeats, “and I will kill you.”
“Don’t you mean ‘or,’ genius?”
Her lips curl into a feral smile, voice dipping low. “I know what I said.”
Sark flinches.
It’s a gamble, but Gamora has worked with less.
She charges at him, and in a panic he releases his hold on Peter’s hair to back away, his grip on the knife shifting to better defend himself. She leaps, driving him to the ground with her on top. He swings his arm around to stab at her, but she easily catches his wrist with both of her hands, redirects his momentum to jam the knife into his throat. His eyes bulge, and when he tries to speak, his blood gurgles in his mouth.
The fight is over in seconds.
Gamora yanks the knife out of his neck and wipes it clean on the captain’s shirt before cutting her bindings. She rushes over to Peter, cutting the ropes binding his wrists, and he groans quietly as his shoulders settle into their natural position.
“Dead?” Peter asks.
Words crowd behind her teeth, stalled and trapped, and she only nods as she rolls him onto his back to check him over for damage. Cuts on his throat (superficial), a bleeding nose (possibly broken), bruising and swelling around his left eye, blood caked on the side of his head from the earlier injury. Possible broken ribs from his wheezing breaths.
It could have been worse. It could have been much, much worse.
Carefully she maneuvers his head into her lap, carding her fingers through his bloodied hair.
“You’re alright,” she whispers, voice shaking. “I’ve got you.”
“Yeah, I know,” he murmurs, shifting. His mouth curls with a soft smile. "Hey, ‘Mora?”
“Yes, Peter?”
“Think I’m’a pass out, now,” he says, and he does exactly that.
Their rescue comes in the form of a handful of Nova Corpsmen, the other Guardians, and a duffel bag filled with grenades. Their escape was heralded by explosions and hails of bullets and far too much fire. It ends in a quiet hospital room in the middle of the station's night cycle -- the closest facility to their former captors' ship.
The room is dark, lit only by a single, dim overhead lamp behind Peter's bed, and Peter looks like a mess. An eye swollen shut. Bandages around his head and nose and neck. Dark bruises standing against pale skin. Gamora sits on the sill of the room's only window, drawing a cloth dampened with oil down the length of her sword's blade. In the silence, the shift in Peter's breathing rings out like a klaxon, and Gamora darts to his bedside just as he begins to rouse.
He curses and groans as he regains consciousness, reaching for the bandages wrapped around his head. Gamora bats his hand away, and he finally notices her.
"Hey," he says, voice strained and thick, and his hand drops to his side. Licking his lips, he glances around the darkened room, tense and much more alert as he takes in his surroundings. "Where are we?"
"A hospital on Sprina-3. The Nova Corps dropped us off."
Thanos taught her that lesson soon after he took her from her home, after he killed her parents. She spent months under his care, such as it was, under his thumb, until breaking and mending and screaming and crying came as easily to her as breathing. There were other children in Thanos’ home, the ones spared from his endless slaughter, and when Thanos left to devastate another planet, Gamora found uneasy friends among them.
There was one in particular. A boy. She never knew his name – he withheld it as jealously as a starving man guarded his last morsel of food. But he was kind to her, and he would comfort her at night, as she wept for her family and home. She remembered his eyes, how round and green they were, how feverishly they gleamed in the dark of their quarters, as they huddled together and planned their escape.
It was foolish, of course. They were young and naïve and thought themselves invincible, after Thanos had unmade them time and time again.
The Titan called the two of them, and they knelt before him. Without Thanos speaking a word, the boy leapt to his feet, pointing a finger wildly at her.
“She tricked me,” the boy cried, frantic with fear. Gamora could only stare, mouth open and eyes wide, and betrayal sat cold in her gut. “She is plotting to escape, and she swore me to secrecy, Father. She means to leave, and she made me help her, or she would kill me.”
Thanos regarded the two of them, impassive, staring at his children over steepled fingers. In the silence that reigned, Thanos stood, and his throne slowly descended until he could easily walk toward them. He held out a hand to the boy, his white teeth flashing in the darkness as he smiled.
“Come here, my son,” he said, his voice rumbling with warmth.
The boy’s eyes darted only once toward Gamora before he rushed toward the Titan, arms wrapping around the man’s massive leg as he burst into tears. The boy begged forgiveness over and over, and Thanos stood silently, a hand resting on the child’s head. When his tears finally quieted, Thanos twisted the boy’s head with a flick of his wrist, bones snapping in the silence.
Gamora screamed before she clamped her hands over her mouth. The boy’s body dropped to the ground and Thanos turned his gaze to her, expression inscrutable and eyes cold.
“Stand,” he said, and he waited until she followed his command.
“I do not suffer treachery, Gamora,” Thanos said. “Neither do I suffer liars. Do you understand, child?”
“Yes, Father,” she whispered.
He nodded in return, turning back toward his throne.
“You are dismissed. Find a servant to clean up this mess and return to your room.”
“Yes, Father.”
She spared one final glance to the boy’s crumpled form, stared at his wide, green eyes – lifeless and cold. When she felt tears sting her eyes – not in sadness but in anger; how could she have trusted that boy, when she never even knew his name? – she quickly turned on her heel, rushing away before Thanos could see her weep.
Gamora trusts no one, yet somehow, she ends up on a team of misfits and idiots, thrust together by necessity. She is not sure how, but at some point she began to think of her teammates not as assets but as companions. As friends. And it frightens and thrills her, because there’s freedom in that, in choosing her company and her friends, when before she was assigned to an ally, forced to keep the company of scum.
And now, she can leave at any time. Peter made that abundantly clear on quiet nights, as they sat together in the common area of his ship – their ship – passing back and forth a bottle of spirits. They would sit on the floor facing one another, their legs brushing with every movement.
It took a long time for her to accept this casual contact, to stop tensing and expecting an attack. Peter, she learned, simply enjoys touching. He means nothing by it, or at least he never presses for anything more, not since the night on Knowhere. In the early days of their team's formation, as they helped to rebuild Xandar, she would observe him, catalogue his habits. He leaned against people's shoulders, patted others companionably on the back, wrestled with Rocket on the floor of their hotel room for a piece of tech. Peter simply touched, craves contact. And when she finally ghosted a hand across his upper arm as reward for a good day's work, his smile outshone every star she had ever seen.
“You don’t have to stay, you know,” he would say, cheeks rosy and green eyes sparkling. Effects of the alcohol, he had assured her the first time she saw him in such a state. “I’m surprised you do, honestly.”
“Where else would I go?” she would ask.
Sometimes, he would respond with, “Anywhere,” and tell her of his favorite places, of sunny beaches and quiet forests and bustling, gleaming cities. She would admit, quietly, that those places sounded nice, and he would smile and promise to take her there. To her surprise, he kept his word more often than not, when the alcohol failed to take his memory.
Sometimes, he would say, “Everywhere,” and wave a hand grandly, as though to encompass all of creation, his eyes bright and movements loose. "The world's your oyster," he would say and refuse to explain what an oyster was. She would roll her eyes at him, and he would smile anyway, wordlessly handing the bottle to her.
Sometimes, he would say, “I don’t know,” in a quiet voice. He would not smile, and that’s how she knew he was being sincere. And sometimes he would reach over to rest a hand on her knee, or to grasp her hand with his; something warm would curl in her chest, steal away her breath, and he would catch her gaze and say, “But I’m glad you’re still here.”
And sometimes, she believes him.
Their bounty runs aground, flees into a quiet town when the Guardians chase him. Leerin Sark, a man wanted for several murders, is wild with terror, and nothing is as dangerous as a cornered, desperate animal. He takes a hostage, uses her as a shield as he backs into an empty, half-constructed house, and the Guardians decide to attack on two fronts. Peter, walking unarmed through the front door, talking the man down. Gamora, through the back, using her skills to sneak her way into the house.
She creeps through the rooms, staying low to the floor, and tracks the sound of voices to the living room.
"You don't have to do this, man," she hears Peter say. She presses her back against a wall and peeks around the corner, sees Peter with both hands up, eyebrows knit together. His gaze never flicks to her, though he flexes his fingers slightly, acknowledging her position and telling her to hold. "Just let the girl go, and you and me can talk this out, okay?"
"Go away," Leerin bites out. "Leave me alone, or I'll kill her, I swear."
Leerin keeps the girl in front of him, and from this vantage point, Gamora sees only their backs. The barrel of Leerin's gun presses against the girl's temple, and his hand trembles, grips the gun like a drowning man clings to a lifeline. An errant twitch could end the girl's life. The hostage is still, though the tremor that racks her breath now and again betrays her fear.
"You and I both know I can't leave you with her," Peter says. His voice is calm, but his shoulders are tense, his eyes hard. His weapons sit on the doorstep, along with the trigger for his mask. Their slipshod plan leaves him as the distraction, and while the plan was his, Peter still complained about being so vulnerable. "Put the gun down, Leerin. We can settle this quietly."
"Why, so you can arrest me? Huh? Sell me out to the Nova Corps so they can ship me to the Kyln?" Leerin takes a step back, dragging the girl with him; she chokes back a sob. "No. Fuck no. I'm leaving, and she's coming with me."
Peter takes a step closer, and Leerin responds with another step back. "You leave with her, and you get every Corpsmen in the quadrant breathing down your neck. If you let her go now, we can figure something out. No one has to get hurt."
"Fuck you."
"Don't be an idiot, Leerin--"
"I'm not an idiot!"
Leerin levels his gun at Peter, and Gamora leaps from her position behind the wall, looping her arm beneath Leerin's gun arm and driving it upward as he fires a shot. The bullet buries itself in the wall, showering Peter in drywall as he dives forward and grabs the girl. Two more wild shots fire just as Gamora twists, spinning the two of them into the next room, and she forces them into a controlled fall. The gun clatters out of Leerin's hand when he hits the floor, face-first, and Gamora grabs a handful of his hair, slams his head against the floor once, then twice. The man stills.
"Clear," she says. She glances back into the living room, and her stomach drops when she sees the splash of red on the carpet. "Quill?"
"We're okay," he calls back. He looks up from where he's kneeling on the floor, the girl clinging to his shirtfront, pale and trembling. He rocks back on his heels, his left arm held tightly to his side, and Gamora sees the bleeding wound on his upper arm. He tracks her line of sight and shakes his head. "Just a graze. I'm-- Gamora!"
Even before Peter shouts, Gamora knows something is wrong from the widening of his eyes. She throws herself to one side as Leerin awkwardly swings a knife at her, and he rolls away, grabbing up the fallen gun. The gun's barrel fixes on Gamora, but Gamora's thrown blade buries itself between Leerin's eyes. He collapses, dead.
The room falls silent, then, save for the girl's muffled sobs against Peter's chest, before Peter heaves out a long breath.
"I really hope that bounty said, 'Dead or Alive,'" he murmurs.
She and Peter sit in a cramped, dirty cell together. Blood dries against her forehead from a slowly healing gash, and Peter is only half-conscious, thanks to the welt on the side of his head. His own blood mats against his hair, sticky and thick and staining the fabric of her trousers. He lies on the floor with his head resting in her lap, and she speaks nonsense to him, because it keeps him awake, keeps him with her.
Better for him to rest, she knows. It is better that he sleeps to conserve his energy and to heal.
It is selfish for her to keep him conscious like this, but she does not want to be alone.
She recognizes their captors, though thankfully, impossibly, they do not recognize her. Leerin had burned the majority of his bridges when he went on his murderous rampage, all those months back. Even so, his brother seemed to be out for revenge.
“Quill,” she says, when the silence fills the cell for too long, when his eyes stay shut. “Quill, stay awake.”
He makes a small, whining noise at the back of his throat, and when she says his name again – this time in warning – he manages to pry his eyelids apart. His pupils are blown, eyes dark with pain, and she brushes her fingers through his hair.
“Worse than Yondu,” he mutters. She ignores the way his words run together, as if his tongue were thick and heavy in his mouth.
“I would hope so,” she says primly.
The corner of his mouth twitches up in what might have been a smile, but it disappears instantly. He whispers in a strained voice, “Tired. Really tired.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Stay awake.”
Peter winces and reaches for the injury just above his right ear. Gamora bats his hand away with a murmur of disapproval. “Hurts,” he manages to rasp out. He screws his eyes shut – too tightly for it to be another attempt at sleep. “Fuck. It hurts, Gamora.”
“I know, Peter. I know. You’ll be alright. Just stay awake.”
Sark's men attacked them in broad daylight in the market, blindsided them with civilians present. Only by chance did one of the men shatter the attachment for Peter's helmet, slamming his mallet against Peter’s head. Gamora had screamed when Peter crumpled to the ground -- too fragile, too delicate, too Terran -- and someone came from behind her, drove her to her knees while another man stood with a gun over Peter's still form. She surrendered without a thought.
And now, they wait.
Peter shifts against her, and she frowns down at him when his movement draws a hiss. Still, he turns, and she pretends to not notice the effort it takes him to focus on her. "This is bad, isn't it?" he asks softly.
"No," she lies, and she knows she betrays nothing. Thanos trained all of his children in the art of deception; he would not suffer lies, but he fathered liars. "We'll be fine. The others will find us."
She doubts they will.
A crease appears between his eyebrows as he peers at her, but his eyes wander away after a few heartbeats. "You don't call me 'Peter' unless it's bad."
"That isn't true," she says, but she is unsure. It shows in her voice.
He smiles faintly, bitterly, and when his eyelids flutter closed, she makes a disapproving noise. Startled, he glances around their cell, at the floor covered in a film of grime, at the sickly, yellow light filtering through the eye-level slot on the door.
"This is bad," he repeats.
This time she hesitates before letting out a breath. "Yes. This is bad."
They could be anywhere in the system -- perhaps even beyond that, if their captors' ship was fast enough -- and Rocket, for all his technical knowledge and cleverness, would never be able to find them without a nudge in the right direction. Like looking for a needle in a haystack, Peter had grumbled once on an assignment months back, as they pored over a map together. It was a fitting analogy.
Gamora has not hoped or wished in decades. She does not trust in good or bad fortune. At the moment, though, she hopes, just a little, that today they'll be lucky.
"What was that?" she asks, after Peter mumbles something unintelligible.
He stays silent, and she wonders if he is trying to ignore her question. At length, he clears his throat. "No one calls me Peter anymore." He pauses, and adds softly, "I like when you do. Even if it's only when things're bad."
Words escape her, then. Instead of speaking, she continues to card her fingers through his hair. It seems to comfort him.
"Hey, 'Mora?"
"That is not my name," she says, though there's no heat to her words.
He ignores the warning and looks up at her again. He does not smile, and he says, "I'm glad you're here."
"Thank you," she says, as she always does when he recites those words.
But Peter makes a small, frustrated noise, and he struggles to sit up, despite Gamora's protests. He manages to prop himself up on his elbows
"I mean it. I really do. I know you don't believe me, I know I'm a liar, but I'm glad. I'm really glad." Faltering, he hisses and falls back, head in her lap once again. He brings a hand up to his injury, and Gamora catches hold of his wrist. He resists for less than a second before letting his arm go limp, Gamora's fingers still around his wrist when he drops it against his forehead.
"Wish you'd believe me," he says faintly. "You're the best friend I've ever had, but even more than that, I-- You don't have to say anything back, okay? But--"
She meets his gaze, and his green eyes shine, feverish. She says his name, a warning in her voice, though she does not know why.
"Just let me say this," he pleads. "Just let me say it once, because if this is bad, I want to say it before I can't."
She can't help but fall silent, her grip on his wrist suddenly boneless.
"Gamora, I..." Peter takes a deep, shuddering breath and moves his hand to lace his fingers with hers. "I just want you to know that--"
The door crashes open.
Their captors bind their wrists behind their backs and frog-march the two of them through the ship. Peter can barely stand, much less walk, thanks to his head injury. The color is all but gone from his face, leaving his skin ashen, and his head lolls forward as they half-drag him ahead of her. She wants to rip her bindings apart, wants to tear their captors limb from limb for hurting him, but they are outnumbered, and anything rash will surely spell their doom.
They enter a room, empty save for one man. The sharp smell of disinfectant stings Gamora’s nose, though it fails to mask the undercurrent of something metallic. She notes a drain in the center, flecks of red and dark blue clinging to the metal. Blood, she knows. Peter sees it too, and the two of them exchange glances. His expression is dark. Regret, maybe, or guilt? She cannot tell.
The men shove them to the ground, force them to their knees. Peter nearly falls on his face, but stays kneeling by sheer force of will alone. Gamora can see the tight set of his jaw, the sweat on his brow.
She will murder them all for this, she thinks.
“Hey there. Sorry about the accommodations,” Sark says, his voice deep and gravelly. He holds a knife in one hand, twisting the tip lightly against the pad of his forefinger. Intimidation tactic. A cat toying with a mouse.
He must be Leerin's older brother, Gamora thinks. His hair is streaked with more white than the other man, and the wrinkles lining his face are deeper; a patchwork of scars crisscrosses one side of his face, pulls the skin taut around his nose and left eye.
“So you’re the pricks who killed my brother,” he says conversationally, and he crouches down to make eye contact. “Peter Quill, second-rate thief. And Gamora, deadliest woman in the galaxy. Weird, the way you two started hangin’ out.”
He interrupts himself, and he glares at Peter, who has his head bowed – busy concentrating on not passing out, Gamora expects, and anger sparks all over again.
“Hey,” the captain says. He grabs a fistful of Peter’s hair and wrenches his head back. Peter gasps, wincing. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Gamora jerks toward the captain, but a guard grabs her by the elbow. She growls, “Leave him alone.”
Sark laughs at her, releasing Peter. “Protective,” he notes, then arches an eyebrow at Peter, ignoring his scowl. “Didn’t know you had yourself a guard dog, kid.”
Standing, he twirls the knife in his hand, the movements practiced and precise. “Let’s get to business, then. You guys probably think I’m pissed about you killing my brother. I’m not, really, but he was family, you know? I can't really just let that slide. I'm a nice guy, though. I got standards. So I have a proposition for you.”
The captain grins again, waving the guards over with his free hand. They grab the two of them, holding them in place; Gamora strains against the man’s grip, but she freezes when the captain stands in front of Peter.
“You're the leader, right?” He traces the line of Peter’s profile with the tip of the knife, drawing it down until it rests on his throat. Peter stills and leans back as far as he can, though the guard keeps him from drawing away any further. Gamora wants to scream, to rip out the captain’s throat. “They follow you, bark and growl and snarl for you. It's a stressful job, I know. All that delegating and peacekeeping and making hard choices.”
Peter's throat bobs as he swallows, and he grits out, "Didn't sign up for an after school special."
The captain sighs. "I'm saying, kid, that you're still new to this. And I wanna help you grow into the role. Let's try this exercise, right? For making difficult decisions. Choose right now: am I killing your guard dog, or am I killing you?"
The tip of the knife digs in to Peter’s neck, and Peter hisses. Gamora does scream this time, but the guard holds her fast when she tries to throw herself at the captain. He only laughs brightly, though he pulls the knife away. Peter sags, casting Gamora what he probably means to be a reassuring smile. It’s too tight around the edges, though, too strained.
“I only need one of you,” the captain says. “That's enough to send a message. The other one can go free. That’s reasonable, right?” He turns to the guards, seeking their agreement; they nod dutifully. “See? That’s reasonable. So, Mr. Quill. I'll leave the decision to you. Who gets to stay behind? Talk amongst yourselves, if you want. Ten seconds.”
The captain starts counting. Peter’s gaze flicks to the floor, and he stays stubbornly silent.
"Peter," she says quietly, levelly, hoping to gain his attention. He doesn't move.
When the captain reaches five, Peter finally looks up at her, and that dark expression crosses his face again – regret. Guilt. Sorrow. She frowns at him, and something sinks in her stomach, cold and heavy. She doesn’t understand what it means. “Peter?” she says again, uncertain.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Gamora—”
“Peter, don’t.” She remembers kneeling on stone. She remembers the sting of betrayal from a boy with gleaming, green eyes. She remembers that Peter Quill is a selfish man; one must be selfish to live as long as he has in this life. “Peter—”
"Me."
Her mouth shuts with an audible click.
“Take me,” Peter says again, turning to the captain, defiance written across every inch of his face. "Kill me, if you want, but let her go."
Gamora has forgotten how to speak, words dying in her throat. The captain’s eyes widen, and he barks out a laugh. He claps a hand on Peter’s shoulder, chuckling.
“I like you, kid,” he says. “You’ve got balls. You’re stupid as shit, but you’ve definitely got balls.”
Sark drives the back of his fist against the side of Peter’s head – right on top of his injury from the market. Peter falls to the ground, gagging silently, but Gamora roars. Her protests fall on deaf ears, though, and the captain kicks Peter in the gut – once, twice, three times – then once in the face.
“Take her away,” the captain tells the guard between blows, even as she struggles and shouts, screaming Peter’s name. Dazed and in pain, Peter only rolls onto his stomach, spitting out blood. “Chuck her out the airlock. Maybe someone will find her body a few centuries from now.”
“What?” Peter grits it out through clenched teeth, lifting his head with effort. “Wait. No. You said—”
“I told you I’d let her go," he says, punctuating his words with another kick against Peter's side. "Didn’t promise I’d keep her safe, did I?”
The ship lurches abruptly, and Gamora can hear a muffled explosion at the bow of the ship, followed by shouting and gunfire. Alarms blare overhead, and an automated voice, level and calm, speaks over the system: Warning. Hull integrity compromised.
“What the hell was that?” the captain shouts. Anxious, Gamora thinks. Fearful. She can work with that.
The speakers overhead shriek with feedback – a shrill, mechanical noise that makes Gamora grimace – and a familiar, gruff voice cuts in over the alarms.
“We interrupt your regularly scheduled recording to bring you assholes this special announcement,” Rocket says, and Gamora could almost laugh with relief; the report of gunfire echoes in the background, and a tiny cry of "I am Groot!" is just barely audible. “Your ship has been boarded. Most of you guys will be killed, and we will be leaving with the two idiots you guys captured. Have a great friggin’ day and a really shitty afterlife.”
Another explosion rocks the ship, accompanied by shouts and screams, and Gamora uses the distraction to drive her head back, headbutting the guard holding her fast. He stumbles away, and she spins, kneeing him in the ribs and driving her foot into his face when he doubles over. He falls to the ground and does not rise.
She jumps up, tucking her legs against her chest and bringing her bound wrists beneath and in front of her, as the second guard charges. She steps to one side when he aims a wild swing at her and grabs his wrist. She turns, yanking his arm over her shoulder and flipping him onto his back. He slams into the ground, the air rushing from his lungs. She stomps on his throat and wrenches his arm, pulling the bone from its socket. The guard's mouth opens in a silent scream, and when he falls still on the floor, she steps over him.
“Don’t move a fuckin’ muscle,” the captain hisses, and Gamora’s head shoots up. Sark grips a handful of Peter’s hair, forcing his head up and leaving his neck bare. Blood spills from Peter’s nose, dripping down his chin and leaving red splatters on the floor, and he bites his lower lip to keep from crying out. That alone is enough to cloud Gamora’s vision with rage, though the captain certainly doesn’t help matters by pressing a knife to Peter’s throat.
“Let him go,” she says, her voice far more calm than she feels.
“And get rid of my only bargaining chip? Fuck no.” Sark wrenches Peter’s head back again, eliciting a small noise of pain from the Terran and a growl from Gamora. He digs the knife’s edge into Peter’s throat, just enough to break the skin, and Gamora jerks forward, stopping herself only when Sark glares at her in warning. He grins, shaking his head as though with pity. “Look at you. Gamora. Daughter of Thanos. Deadliest woman in the galaxy. And you actually give a shit about this stupid, low-life asshole, don’t you?”
Her lips draw into a thin line, and every nerve in her body cries out to attack, to move, to do something. If this were a different time, she would have leapt at him. She would have sought revenge on this man for daring to capture her, to threaten her, to berate and mock her. She would not have cared who was hurt or killed in the process, so long as she made the message clear: no one toys with her and lives.
But she is not the same woman. Not anymore.
Peter stays silent, eyes screwed shut and teeth digging into his lower lip. His blood stands in stark contrast against his pale and paling skin, on his neck, on his lips, and she cannot move. She needs to do something, because Peter needs her help, Peter is in trouble, Peter is in pain, and she is frozen to the spot. She meets Sark’s gaze, and she knows what he sees there, because he laughs again.
She gives a shit. Of course she does – Peter is her teammate, her best friend. He is kind and honorable and selfish and infuriating. He is patient and passionate and ridiculous.
He is Peter Jason Quill, biggest idiot in the galaxy, and he is hers.
“Let him go,” she repeats, “and I will kill you.”
“Don’t you mean ‘or,’ genius?”
Her lips curl into a feral smile, voice dipping low. “I know what I said.”
Sark flinches.
It’s a gamble, but Gamora has worked with less.
She charges at him, and in a panic he releases his hold on Peter’s hair to back away, his grip on the knife shifting to better defend himself. She leaps, driving him to the ground with her on top. He swings his arm around to stab at her, but she easily catches his wrist with both of her hands, redirects his momentum to jam the knife into his throat. His eyes bulge, and when he tries to speak, his blood gurgles in his mouth.
The fight is over in seconds.
Gamora yanks the knife out of his neck and wipes it clean on the captain’s shirt before cutting her bindings. She rushes over to Peter, cutting the ropes binding his wrists, and he groans quietly as his shoulders settle into their natural position.
“Dead?” Peter asks.
Words crowd behind her teeth, stalled and trapped, and she only nods as she rolls him onto his back to check him over for damage. Cuts on his throat (superficial), a bleeding nose (possibly broken), bruising and swelling around his left eye, blood caked on the side of his head from the earlier injury. Possible broken ribs from his wheezing breaths.
It could have been worse. It could have been much, much worse.
Carefully she maneuvers his head into her lap, carding her fingers through his bloodied hair.
“You’re alright,” she whispers, voice shaking. “I’ve got you.”
“Yeah, I know,” he murmurs, shifting. His mouth curls with a soft smile. "Hey, ‘Mora?”
“Yes, Peter?”
“Think I’m’a pass out, now,” he says, and he does exactly that.
Their rescue comes in the form of a handful of Nova Corpsmen, the other Guardians, and a duffel bag filled with grenades. Their escape was heralded by explosions and hails of bullets and far too much fire. It ends in a quiet hospital room in the middle of the station's night cycle -- the closest facility to their former captors' ship.
The room is dark, lit only by a single, dim overhead lamp behind Peter's bed, and Peter looks like a mess. An eye swollen shut. Bandages around his head and nose and neck. Dark bruises standing against pale skin. Gamora sits on the sill of the room's only window, drawing a cloth dampened with oil down the length of her sword's blade. In the silence, the shift in Peter's breathing rings out like a klaxon, and Gamora darts to his bedside just as he begins to rouse.
He curses and groans as he regains consciousness, reaching for the bandages wrapped around his head. Gamora bats his hand away, and he finally notices her.
"Hey," he says, voice strained and thick, and his hand drops to his side. Licking his lips, he glances around the darkened room, tense and much more alert as he takes in his surroundings. "Where are we?"
"A hospital on Sprina-3. The Nova Corps dropped us off."