[ Somehow, training with Peter again comes much more easily than the other things she's tried to share with him since he lost his memory. The familiarity of a fight, of keeping her body in motion as she shows him move after move keeps her grounded, and true to her word, she doesn't mind starting from the beginning. He responds well, already in good shape and in actual fighting condition (unlike after the bullet wound months ago), and so at least their work isn't entirely from scratch.
She's also shockingly patient, even as she has to go over the basics, helping him with his form and correcting him when necessary. She teaches him how to take a fall and how to recover, how to use his weight and how to keep his balance, and at first, that's all she's showing him. No sparring, no fights, because he isn't ready (and maybe because part of her is hoping that at... some point, it might jog his memory?). But she lets him practice on her, lets him see how she blocks and evades to demonstrate for a frame of reference that she knows is just as gone as the rest of his experiences now, and she at least slows it all down just enough that he can learn from it.
It's nice, if she's honest. It's some flicker of their old normalcy, and she didn't realize how much she needed that for herself in the wake of everything lost with Ego and the changes their lives had undergone. She can't fight him like she used to, but it's still refreshing to see him engaged, to see him genuinely trying instead of wandering the ship, aimless and lost.
Purposeless.
This provides a goal, something for him to reach for after he's made it clear that he wants to contribute, that he won't just sit back like a silly houseplant or a useless pet while they take on new work — which they have to, to keep themselves afloat. Even if those jobs don't involve Peter right now, they still have to maintain a presence and bring in units, and though there's the occasional notice of Star-Lord's absence, they get things done and hold it together (because they have to). There isn't the same kind of seamless teamwork that comes out in their fights with Peter there as their leader, but they've had to make it work without him before, and they try to treat it like yet another exercise in cohesion.
(Even if all of them acknowledge that they just want Peter back. They want him fighting at their sides, keeping them grounded like he always does. At least they aren't at each other's throats when it comes to getting down to business. Bickering? Certainly. But they pull it together, and that helps.)
Another three weeks pass with no sign of the old Peter Quill, a couple of short jobs coming and going along with them, but Gamora still keeps up their training. She's started moving them onto sparring, and when Peter takes a swing, she retaliates. She doesn't fight him hard enough to hurt, doesn't try to overwhelm him, but she still comes back at him with her own attack each time he goes on the offensive.
For what feels like the tenth time, she finds herself sweeping his ankle out from under him and taking him down to the mat — fortunately for him, without the same heavy, careless impact that she used to employ when they trained before. There's a strange sense that she's done this before, with how easily she keeps knocking him down, but she waves it away, banishes it to the back of her mind.
(It's just a hint of something that seems ages away now.)
With Peter's back on the mat and her knee on his chest, she just looks levelly down at him — and unlike before, unlike those moments of failed memories and empty places where familiarity should be, there's no disappointment in Gamora's eyes.
Instead, determination. ]
Again.
[ She rises effortlessly off of him, then offers him a hand up. ]
Watch your footwork; you leave me too many openings to knock you off-balance when you stay stationary too long.
was your heart prepared for more of this au bc mine was Not
She's also shockingly patient, even as she has to go over the basics, helping him with his form and correcting him when necessary. She teaches him how to take a fall and how to recover, how to use his weight and how to keep his balance, and at first, that's all she's showing him. No sparring, no fights, because he isn't ready (and maybe because part of her is hoping that at... some point, it might jog his memory?). But she lets him practice on her, lets him see how she blocks and evades to demonstrate for a frame of reference that she knows is just as gone as the rest of his experiences now, and she at least slows it all down just enough that he can learn from it.
It's nice, if she's honest. It's some flicker of their old normalcy, and she didn't realize how much she needed that for herself in the wake of everything lost with Ego and the changes their lives had undergone. She can't fight him like she used to, but it's still refreshing to see him engaged, to see him genuinely trying instead of wandering the ship, aimless and lost.
Purposeless.
This provides a goal, something for him to reach for after he's made it clear that he wants to contribute, that he won't just sit back like a silly houseplant or a useless pet while they take on new work — which they have to, to keep themselves afloat. Even if those jobs don't involve Peter right now, they still have to maintain a presence and bring in units, and though there's the occasional notice of Star-Lord's absence, they get things done and hold it together (because they have to). There isn't the same kind of seamless teamwork that comes out in their fights with Peter there as their leader, but they've had to make it work without him before, and they try to treat it like yet another exercise in cohesion.
(Even if all of them acknowledge that they just want Peter back. They want him fighting at their sides, keeping them grounded like he always does. At least they aren't at each other's throats when it comes to getting down to business. Bickering? Certainly. But they pull it together, and that helps.)
Another three weeks pass with no sign of the old Peter Quill, a couple of short jobs coming and going along with them, but Gamora still keeps up their training. She's started moving them onto sparring, and when Peter takes a swing, she retaliates. She doesn't fight him hard enough to hurt, doesn't try to overwhelm him, but she still comes back at him with her own attack each time he goes on the offensive.
For what feels like the tenth time, she finds herself sweeping his ankle out from under him and taking him down to the mat — fortunately for him, without the same heavy, careless impact that she used to employ when they trained before. There's a strange sense that she's done this before, with how easily she keeps knocking him down, but she waves it away, banishes it to the back of her mind.
(It's just a hint of something that seems ages away now.)
With Peter's back on the mat and her knee on his chest, she just looks levelly down at him — and unlike before, unlike those moments of failed memories and empty places where familiarity should be, there's no disappointment in Gamora's eyes.
Instead, determination. ]
Again.
[ She rises effortlessly off of him, then offers him a hand up. ]
Watch your footwork; you leave me too many openings to knock you off-balance when you stay stationary too long.