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It should’ve been a simple mission—bust in, grab the stolen goods, bust out, drop the stuff off with the Nova Corps, smile prettily and pretend not to be ex-criminals. Well, mostly ex-criminals. Okay, still kind of current criminals.
None of them had expected to be ambushed after they’d split up, but they had, they had, and now Peter’s team is being held somewhere, and he’s strapped to a chair, some smarmy asshole grinning victoriously above him.
“You’re with the Nova Corps, huh?” Smarmy Asshole says, with a smarmy asshole-ish grin. “Let’s see what secrets you hold, hm?”
“Like they’d tell me anything,” Peter shoots back, his own cocky grin in place. “And even if they did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
The man’s smile falls to something small and knowing. “We’ll see.”
Two men grab Peter’s head, holding his jaw and forcibly opening his mouth. He would’ve made a crude joke, but he can’t make words around the slippery substance being shoved into his mouth. Hands clamp tight around his nose and mouth, forcing him to swallow.
The substance slides down his throat, hits his stomach, and then, and then—
Peter blacks out.
When he comes to, he’s shaking, trembling all over, and a stream of words are leaving his mouth without his consent. “He still uses it against me even now, as though not letting another person be eaten is a big favour, rather than just common decency. A part of me hates him, really does, for how rough he was with me—he left me alone, let the crew rough me up, even when I was just a kid. But at the same time, I’m so glad I’m not on earth, where she di—where my mom—where—where we used to live. I’m grateful, I am, I mean Yondu’s my father figure—”
The Smarmy Asshole is no longer grinning. Instead, he’s arguing with a confused subordinate, throwing his arms out to gesture at Peter, who continues to shake, words still dribbling out.
“You said this would work!” Smarmy Asshole hisses.
The subordinate fumbles with a dirty jar of sloshing liquid, looking from it to his angry boss with wide, panicked eyes. “I thought it would! It—it should’ve worked properly, he is human, isn’t he?”
“He looks it. Bleeds red and everything.”
They turn to Peter, expectantly, and he blabs, “I thought I was human, but I’m apparently I’m not? My dad was something—I dunno, actually. Something not-human.”
“That explains it,” the subordinate says, with a wince.
“I never met my dad, and I hope I never do, though I kind of want to, just so I can punch him for leaving me and mom. He’s the reasons she—it was so hard on her, being a single parent—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Smarmy Asshole snaps.
“I can’t—I can’t, I’m trying. Why can’t I stop? I want to stop, but the words keep coming—” It’s a little bit like vomiting, Peter thinks. There’s something uncomfortable sitting in his stomach that his body is rejecting, fighting to bring it up and expel it. Except, instead of bile, it’s all of Peter’s secrets, all the hidden parts of himself, even the most insignificant ones. “—I just want to tell you everything. Like, I didn’t do the dishes this morning. I should’ve, it was my turn, but when Rocket asked, I blamed it on Drax. I shouldn’t have done it, but I don’t feel bad about it, doing the dishes sucks—”
The subordinate puts his face in his hands. “Oh, my god.”
Smarmy Asshole’s face screws up, disgusted at Peter, the babbling mess he has become, chained in front of him. “Throw him in the cell,” he tells the guards by the door. “I have no use for him like this.”
Peter is is thrown into a cell. His soft groans are drowned out by the sounds of his protesting teammates—namely, Rocket’s swears and promises for retribution. The guards had had to half carry, half escort Peter there, his own body too weak to support itself, and when they push him inside the cell, he flops against the wall uselessly.
“You assholes think I can’t get out of here, huh?” Rocket calls when the door slinks shut. He doesn’t say anything to Peter, barely even looks at him, no doubt too focussed on an escape plan. “I’ll show you!”
“Don’t bait them,” Drax advises.
“I’ll do what I like,” Rocket shoots back, all ire, no real heat behind the words.
“I am groot.”
“Don’t take his side, you leafy traitor!”
Peter slides against the cell wall, legs giving out. Butt flat on the ground, the restraints reach up and curl around his wrists, locking into place. An automatic locking systems. Shit. Those are expensive; their captors must have money, if they can afford that. Who knows what other kinds of security they have.
The bindings are thick and cold, but Peter barely registers the metal cuffs. Everything feels too far away.
His teammates are still shouting, but Gamora is silent. Her keen eyes are focussed on him, assessing. She’s too vigilant, he thinks.
And then words come, unbidden: “You’re so vigilant, Gamora. You’re really special. You think your skills make you monster, but they don’t. It makes you--it makes you awesome. I think you’re awesome, you know that?”
He smiles, loopy, punch-drunk. Definitely high.
“Quit flirting, Quill,” Rocket snaps. “Now is really not the time.”
“Skilled,” Peter repeats. “Like—like a superhero. When I was little, I used to read these comic books, about heroes. Superman, Captain America and Bucky Barnes—”
“No one cares, goddamnit--”
“—and I always wanted to be a superhero when I grew up. I had this cape I got from my Grandpa when I was little, and I used to wear it and run around pretending to be a hero. My mom used to call me Star-Lord, her little hero.” Peter’s cheeks are red hot, burning with a combination of embarrassment and a climbing fever. This is humiliating; this distinct lack of control, his private moments spilling out without his consent.
“Quill, shut the fuck up,” Rocket snaps, preoccupied with trying to fiddle his bindings loose.
“But then I grew up,” Peter continues, and no, oh no, he knows the words bubbling to surface, and he wants to stop them, push them down, because god, his team can’t know he’s this pathetic, they can’t—! “Superheroes are supposed to be kind and selfless and smart, but I’m none of those things. I never stopped loving superheroes, but I realised how worthless I am, the complete opposite of a superhero. I miss her everyday—miss her so fucking much—but I’m glad my mom isn’t around to see what I grew up to become. How—how shitty and disappointing—”
Rocket is staring at him, mouth hanging a little bit open. The team’s stopped arguing. Four sets of eyes are focussed on Peter.
Rocket shakes his head. “Is this some kind of a joke—?”
“Rocket,” Gamora interrupts. “I think Peter’s been drugged.”
Rocket’s head snaps up. “Drugged?” Rocket hisses. He looks up at Peter, eyeing him—pupils two different sizes, colour high in his cheek, breathing unevenly— properly taking in Peter’s ragged state for the first time. Rocket swears, paws balling into fists. “They fucking drugged him?”
Out here, in the ass-end of the galaxy, where the crowds are a mixing pot of species, drugs are intensely dangerous. Different species respond differently; what might be a mild sedative for one person might be a deadly poison to their neighbour. Not to mention the forbidden substances, illegal cocktails invented in dirty basements, no knowing what they might do to a person…
“Humies have shitty immune systems,” Rocket adds with mounting horror. “Damnit, Quill, of all the things to do to your squishy lump of a body.”
Peter does not offer a witty retort, probably because he could not manage one in this state. His face is flushed, eyes blown wide and fever-bright. He’s a mess, sweating and squirming in his chains as though his own skin is uncomfortable to sit in.
Peter flinches at Rocket’s words. “Sorry. Sorry, I shoulda, shoudla—my fault, it’s obviously my fault, fuck, why can’t I ever do anything right, I should’ve—”
“Your injuries suggest you fought them off to the best of your abilities,” Drax says, eyeing Peter’s blooming black eye, and the blood dribbling from his open split lip.
“Not enough, it’s—I’m not enough,” Peter murmurs, feverish. “Never enough, never enough.”
“Peter’s health is deteriorating,” Drax comments.
“No shit!” Rocket hisses. “Fucking hell, Pete.”
Peter shakes, his tremors ripping him apart. Deteriorating, deteriorating.
Peter wants laugh it off, or to say least I’m in one piece, or it’s not that bad, really. He wants to be silent, hunch in on himself, turn away from them to better hide his suffering. But he can’t. Instead, his traitorous brain conjures, “It hurts—it hurts so much, please—my skin feels like it’s too tight, it’s too hot, my insides feel like they’re melting, it hurts—”
“Shit,” Rocket says. “What did those fuckers give him?”
“Truth inducing halogens,” Drax recognises. His hands have curled into fists around his chains, eyes tight with anger.
Groot lets out a mournful whine, pained and low, and his leaves visibly droop.
“A fucking truth serum?” Rocket says. “That shit is dangerous and painful as all hell. I—fuck—those bastards, when I get out of here, I’m gonna rip their faces off—”
“How dare they hurt our teammate in such a way,” Drax agrees. Gamora is silent, but her eyes are sharper than usual, her expression morphed into something quietly deadly.
“Sorry, sorry sorry, I should’ve—”
“It’s not your fault, Peter,” Gamora murmurs.
Groot coos sadly, extending his vines toward Peter, only looking sadder when the broad expansive of the room keeps him from his drugged teammate. And Groot’s eyes, shit, they’re so huge, and sad, and concerned…
It’s too much. Peter just—it’s too much.
“Why do you care?” Peter continues to squirm, his breathing coming out in rough pants between his babbled words. “No one’s ever cared when I hurt, not since my mom, not even when I was ten and one of the Ravagers beat and stabbed me for stealing his credits. He—Yondu said it was a good life lesson, pain to teach me how to be quicker and not get caught next time, but I had to climb up into the vents and find a locked back room and—and I remember it, sometimes, what it was like laying in that cold room in my own pooling blood—” Peter gags, shaking his head.
“Friend, Quill,” Drax murmurs.
“—and it took days for the stab wounds and open cuts to properly heal. I shoulda died, I think, the wounds were kind of deep and there was so much blood, but I think maybe my mixed genes saved me? I don’t know. I don’t—”
Peter shakes his head again, desperately wanting to push the words back, wish his hands would cooperate so he could reach out and physically force his mouth closed.
Peter stops for a moment, face going blank and uncomprehending, tipping his head to the side to survey the cell. “Where… where am I?” His words are becoming increasingly slurred.
“Shit,” Gamora hisses. Rocket chokes on a frustrated groan.
“You’re in a cell, friend Peter,” Drax says softly, voice pitched low and reassuring. “You were captured, you’re with your team, do you remember?”
“O-oh,” Peter says shakily, squinting at them. “You guys are here. Hi. Hello. I’m glad you’re all here. I may not act like it, but I am, I always am. Do you know I miss you when you're not? I spent so long by myself. The Ravangers were just as likely to try and get rid of me or hit me, as they are to talk to me like a normal person, and it was so hard, after I left Yondu and Kraglin, to be by myself.”
Peter pants open-mouthed, spit and blood dripping onto his chin. He’s a mess. Still, the words come: “I used to think I was so small, that the universe was so big and full and I’d get crushed under it all, or get impossibly lost, or—I mean, I know I’m going to die alone, and probably soon, and that nobody will ever miss me—”
“No,” Gamora says firmly.
“H-Huh?”
“When you die, it will be with us by your side,” she tells him assuredly, like this is a scheduled event on their itinerary, something marked and known, understood. She believes this. The others in the cell nod, serious. They believe this, too.
“You have us now,” Drax says.
“I am groot,” Groot declares.
“Yeah,” Rocket grumbles, “you’re stuck with us. Don’t think you can leave us just like that, asshole.”
“I have you all,” Peter says, wonderingly. He looks embarrassed. “It’s so amazing, being with you. I… I love having a team. You were my first friends, close ones at least, and then—now, I feel like we’re becoming something like a family. I miss that, having a family.
“I’m afraid you’re going to wizen up and leave me,” Peter confesses. “I guess it’s only a matter of time before you realise what a fuck up I am, how worthless and useless I am—I mean, you’re all so awesome, how can I lead you? Why would you pick someone as useless as me to be your leader? You’re so much stronger and skilled and smarter and braver than I am. I’m so dumb, and—and I’m afraid. All the time. In general, I’m afraid—that you’re going to be taken from me, god, that any of you are going to die, that I’m going to die, just when I’ve found something good—”
Peter gasps for breath, like he’s been submerged underwater for a long time and he’s only just coming up for air.
“This is an invasion of privacy,” Drax says.
“What can we do for him?” Rocket asks. His words are kind, but his tone is harsh. His face is downturned, and his shoulders are tense, muscles bunched up. Most days, Rocket’s worry transforms into angry.
“Nothing,” Gamora says. “We have to wait for it to burn out of his system.”
“It hurts,” Peter slurs, eyes unfocussed. “I’m—I’m used to pain, but this is burning me apart, this—I want it to stop.”
This is a weakness. This drug is tearing Peter open, ripping in to him apart to expose the darkest, most vulnerable parts of himself. It’s skinning him, pulling out his organs, bearing his very heart to the cold cell air. Like this, Peter’s more vulnerable than he’s ever been before, and that kills him.
Gamora reaches across the space between her and Peter, stretching her chained body as far as she can. Her fingertips are only just able to brush against his head, the slightest of touches, but Peter still pushes up into her hand, closing his eyes.
“Gamora,” he breathes. “Gamora, Gamora.”
“I’m here,” she says.
“We’re here,” Drax echoes. “It is alright, Peter Quill. You are amongst friends. Family.”
Groot gathers his strength—he is newly grown, his energy still somewhat depleted, but for a family member, he will manage this—and pushes outward, unfurling himself. Vines grow out of his shoulders and torso and climb along the cell wall, creeping around the room, all around them, until leafy tendrils press against Peter’s back. Peter leans into this touch, too.
“We are groot,” Groot says.
Peter groans, a pained but grateful sound, and mumbles, “Groot. Groot.” Grounding.
Rocket sighs, shaking his head. His eyes are suspiciously wet. “You're all fucking saps, I swear to go. Sentimental assholes, the lot of you. God, we’re criminals, not some shitty feel-good family film.”
“I am groot.”
“Yeah, yeah, I fucking love you assholes, too.”
“I thought I'd be alone forever,” Peter admits. He is no longer spewing words, but the impulse to do so sits inside him, waiting. He’ll be reduced to blubbering confessions soon—he knows that when this time comes, he’ll be okay, that his team won’t judge him for that weakness—but for now, Groot’s presence is at his back, Gamora’s fingers at his temple, Drax watching him with his steady, concerned gaze, Rocket with his uncomfortable, twisted mouth, a confession of familial love sitting in the air. For now, Peter is held together. They hold him together.
Peter exhales softly. His breathing is more even, less panicked. “Thank you.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Rocket tells him, fondly.
Peter smiles at that, dipping his head forward in a nod of acknowledgement, and let’s his eyes slip closed.
“Shutting the fuck up,” he says, and lets the cell fall into silence.