A/N: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA THIS IS LIKE 2 DAYS LATE but here it is! it's been a while since we explored from gamora's pov so this is more gamora-centric :D
also it should be noted i wanted to write christmas fic really bad bc i loooooooove christmas but then i wanted to capitalize on peter and gamora being bffs so yeah let's gooooo
Starmora Week 2017, Day 6: Holiday
Terran jewelry is bizarre.
Peter had suggested they shop around to "kill time" before regrouping with the rest of the team and Thor's team—the Avengers—later, and somehow that turned into him dragging her by the hand into random stores within the building.
(He'd called it a "shopping mall.")
It's a little crowded, but she hopes that only helps them in their efforts to conceal her very inhuman-looking skin. She keeps her hood up and long sleeves over her hands to minimize exposure to her skin—thanks to the oversized "hoodie" Peter had bought for her. There's text printed on it, too, and from what Peter can remember (and has reviewed since returning to Terra) of his native Terran language, it says something about New York, which is the city they're in.
Now they're in an obnoxiously, brightly colored store looking at strange necklaces and bracelets that, judging by the demographic of the other shoppers in here, are intended for young Terran girls.
"All these matching necklaces are so weird," Peter comments, eyeing them. "Weird in a good way."
"I can't even tell what they are," Gamora says, frowning at two necklaces that he picks out. Each necklace is a broken piece that when put together make a full shape, but she's not sure the significance. Each piece has a Terran word on it.
"It's a heart," he says, pushing the halves together. "See?"
"I don't recall that being what a Terran heart looks like."
"It's…metaphorical? I guess?" He shrugs, putting them back on the little bar rack they'd been hanging from. "I dunno. Never really thought about it before."
There are a couple other necklaces with strangely shaped pendants. Some she assumes to be different Terran animals, while others are completely lost on her.
"I think these are pieces of bacon? With mustaches and googly eyes?" Peter asks more than says, pointing at another set. "Man, and people have the audacity to say the '80s were weird? This is easily weirder."
"In a good way," Gamora says, echoing his words seconds earlier.
"It's not outright bad." Peter looks up at the ceiling for a moment, where there's music playing from speakers throughout the store. "The new music, on the other hand…"
She rolls her eyes, but before she can say anything, the Terran communication device in her front pocket (the only convenient part of this cursed "hoodie") makes a sound. She pulls it out and Peter looks at the screen.
"Rocket's calling," he translates after a moment.
"Thanks," she says, rolling her sleeve up to uncover her hand. She taps the screen to answer the call, then presses it into her hood beside her ear. "Hello?"
"Hey, are you guys—soon—meetin'—Groot is—"
"Wait, Rocket, the signal's bad in here," she says, cutting him off. She glances at Peter. "I'll go look for a better signal outside."
"I'll be out in a sec," he says, pressing a quick kiss to her lips.
Once she's outside and Rocket's voice is clear, he groans. "Why do you two always exclusively kiss when comms are on? I hate you."
Gamora smirks. "What do you need, Rocket?"
Ten days and one nerve-wracking intergalactic war later, Gamora wakes herself up by sleepily rolling over onto Peter, bumping her head into his shoulder. He groans softly at the contact.
"I can never sleep in with you," he mumbles when she opens her eyes. He blindly reaches his hands down toward his legs, then lays a hand on her side, and groans again. "Right. No blanket for Star-Lord. Only for Gamora. Don't even know why I expect anything different anymore."
She pushes herself up, leaning over him. "You should defend yourself better."
"We can't all fight in our sleep, babe. I skipped that part of assassin training."
Despite her body mods, her body cries out in some protest at her movement, her (healing) injuries and sore muscles still making themselves apparent. Peter doesn't have any body mods, so she decides to take some mercy on him, pulling some of the blanket off herself to drape over him. He turns away from her with it, trapping her under the blanket with him.
"What else did you skip in assassin training?" she asks, settling her chin on his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his midsection.
"Hm, I guess everything that actually has to do with being an assassin," he says with a shrug. "Except I have a reputation for being a pretty good shot. And you definitely don't want to cross me when I've got throwing knives."
"Where did you learn how to throw knives?" she inquires, closing her eyes.
"From this other really cool assassin, y'know, they call her the 'deadliest woman in the galaxy.' I learned from the best."
"You'll have to teach me sometime."
He turns to her then, pushing himself up. She opens her eyes as he starts leaning over her. "I could start teaching you right—ow."
He quickly lies back down, rubbing his injured shoulder, and she can't help but laugh. He huffs at her laughter, rolling his eyes.
"Okay, fine, postponing that lesson until I'm not sore from getting a frickin' moon thrown in my face," he grumbles, tilting his chin up to the ceiling. "Damn cockblocker, even from the frickin' grave."
Gamora sits up, carefully stretching her arms above her head. Once her arms return to her sides, she sighs, sitting in silence for a moment before turning back down to Peter with a small smile. "He's gone."
Peter's frown fades at that, soon replaced with smile not unlike hers. He takes one of her hands in his, holding it between them. "Yeah, babe."
She squeezes his hand, then releases it, pushing herself up from the bed. Upon standing, she turns to their dresser, whose surface has quickly become a gathering place for their vast collection of things, from weapons to half-built bombs (confiscated from Rocket) to Terran trinkets they've picked up during their stay.
One of said trinkets is a small calendar that Peter had picked out. He'd explained how his mom had had one like this while he was growing up; each page represents one day, so someone must rip off the page of the previous day for the calendar to display the correct date.
The written Terran "English" is still just a cluster of nonsensical letters to Gamora, so she's not sure what the words on each page mean, but Peter had chosen this one for the pictures of famous Terran musicians. Part of their morning routine became Peter tearing out the previous day's page to reveal a new face which he'd then either explain to Gamora or, in the case of an unfamiliar face, they'd have to look up.
And after they defeated Thanos, there'd been a quiet transfer of power, because, shit, she's living days she never thought she'd live to see—a universe without Thanos—so each day suddenly holds more weight and significance.
She rips the old page out carefully, the small smile still on her face when she turns back to face Peter.
"I don't think I can get out of bed to see the picture, babe," he says playfully, still lying on his back. "I'm too sore."
He hadn't complained about such a thing yesterday, but, whatever, Gamora picks up the calendar and brings it over to him anyway. He holds the covers open for her so she can settle back in the bed. He covers her legs and sits up, leaning his shoulder against hers.
"Alright, let's see," he says, taking the calendar from Gamora's hands. "Ooh, Bono from U2. There's a couple of their songs on the Zune. I heard they're still making music, though it's probably not as great as their original stuff."
She eyes the small text on the bottom of the page, below the lines where one could write their agenda for the day. "What is that?"
"Looks like there's some holiday today," he says, narrowing his eyes in concentration. He reads it slowly. "Nat—National…Best—"
He cuts himself off, sitting up straight. She raises an eyebrow. "National Best what?"
"Crap, I forgot it was today!" he says, throwing the blankets off and jumping out of bed. She watches him tear across the room in a whirlwind, grabbing a shirt and pants from his collection of mixed dirty and clean clothes, throwing them onto the foot of the bed on his way to the bathroom.
"What happened to being sore?" she asks pointedly before he closes the door.
"I've been cured!" he declares, then closes it with a little more force than necessary. "Shit! That was unintentional, sorry!"
She rolls her eyes then, figuring she'll find out the reason behind his squirrelly behavior soon enough. She looks back down at the calendar then, staring at the text to attempt deciphering for herself. The words look familiar.
Huh. Two of the three words are the same as the ones printed on those weird necklaces Peter had been looking at in that weird store.
Completed morning routines and a hasty breakfast later, Peter leads Gamora to one of the communal areas of the Avengers Facility, pulling her to sit on the couch with him.
"We're having a movie marathon!" he says, throwing an arm around her.
She tilts her head, looking between the large screen on the wall in front of them (a "TV"?) and Peter's bright eyes. "That's what all the rush was for?"
"We're on a loosely tight schedule," he says with a grin.
(Did one of their translators just glitch?) "Isn't that a contradiction?"
"It's the truth," he says. "Alright, let's go!"
Hours later, they've watched a variety of movies and even some shows, too (they're like movies, except broken up into parts called "episodes," so they can't watch it all in one sitting—or so Gamora thought, until Natasha Romanoff walked by and told them all about "bingewatching"), and Peter's still bouncing in his seat with a big smile on his face. Her eyes follow his repetitive movements.
"Did you like them?" he asks. "I haven't actually seen all those movies and shows myself, so I wasn't sure what I'd think, but they sounded good."
"I liked them," she says, unable to contain her smile at his excitement. "That Disney person is very creative."
"Yeah, Walt Disney is the guy who started the company way back in the day," Peter explains. "But he died a while ago, so most of the movies we watched were made by other people who work for his company."
"I also liked the one about the students who were in trouble."
"The Breakfast Club is a classic!"
"I can see why."
His grin widens. "So, did you notice any similarities between everything we watched?"
"They're all Terran entertainment?" she guesses, eyebrow raised, but he shakes his head.
"Well, true, but, nope, I picked them all because they were about something similar. Like, had a similar theme."
She's not sure how two Terran animals befriending each other relates to a group of Terran students being stuck at school together, but Peter makes it sound like it's all part of some master plan he has.
"They all had something to do with friends," he says emphatically. "Y'know, friendship."
"That's…a common theme in Terran entertainment, from what I've seen."
"I mean, yeah, but it had a lot to do with the plots here." He bumps her shoulder. "Okay, time for our next activity!"
A brisk walk across the compound later, Gamora finds herself awkwardly sharing a seat with Peter at a table with some of the other Avengers. On the table is some sort of game, with a very detailed board unfolded before them. Peter enthusiastically places what appears to be a metal shoe down on the corner of the board, where there's a box with two large Terran letters printed in red.
"So that's 'GO'," Peter explains, pointing it out to her. "That's where we start. Every time we pass that spot, we get to collect $200."
Right. Dollars. Terran currency. She nods.
"Wait, we're letting Quill play on a team?" Sam Wilson, the "Falcon" (a Terran animal), says, looking at the other people at the table with a skeptical expression. "How come I don't get a team?"
"No one would want to be on your team," Bucky, the one missing his arm, says snidely, earning an eye roll from Sam.
"Be nice, we have guests over," Natasha scolds, setting down another piece beside Peter's. "Besides, between Quill and Gamora, they only have the reading level of a first or second grader. They're not a big threat."
"I'll have you know that I was a smart first and second grader back in the day," Peter insists, sitting back in their shared chair and wrapping his arm around Gamora's shoulders. "Don't underestimate us."
"I can always best you on the sparring mat later," Gamora adds, offering Natasha a smirk.
"I'm holding you to that," Natasha says.
Wanda Maximoff, who has telekinetic powers from one of the Infinity Stones, places a stack of cards on the board. "Shall we begin?"
"I'm ready to win," Peter says.
Predictably (at least, to Gamora), the two of them go "bankrupt"—lose—first.
"What the hell?" Peter groans, lamenting over their money-less side of the table. "I swear, the rules have changed since I played this game."
"Just be glad Tony wasn't playing," Natasha says, depositing the last of Peter and Gamora's money back into the game's box—the "bank." "He's scarily good at this game."
"He's a billionaire," Wanda reminds.
"He's an asshole," Sam says.
Bucky remains quiet.
"I thought we'd pull a win through the power of love and friendship," Peter says, dropping his head to the table.
Gamora lays a hand on his shoulder. "If we brought this game back to the Milano, we could probably beat the others."
Peter glances up at her then. "At least I can win my pride back that way."
Honestly, Gamora's not even sure what the holiday from the calendar even is anymore, because they've gone from movies to a failed attempt at Monopoly to a more tragically failed attempt at baking cookies—
"How is this harder than it was in the '80s?" Peter howls over the blaring sound of the smoke detector, Gamora opening all the windows in the kitchen as he fans the smoke away with magazines from the small, yet loud, device in the ceiling. "Why is this so freakin' complicated now?"
—to them retiring back to the couch so Peter can just braid Gamora's hair.
"Here's one 'friend' thing I can actually do without screwing it up," he mutters with a hair tie pressed between his teeth as he brushes out a stubborn piece of her hair.
"So that's what today is for?" she asks, resisting the urge to turn to face him. "'Friend' things?"
"Uh, forget I said that."
Later, he pulls out a wooden basket from an unknown location and fills it with snacks, drinks, and a blanket.
"We can't screw up a picnic!" he says happily, forcing everything to fit in an attempt to close the basket.
"What's a picnic?" she asks.
He somehow gets the lid secured, and then loops his arm through the handle of the basket, turning to her with a grin. "You'll see."
Apparently, a "picnic" is a Terran eating custom where one takes their food outside to eat with friends on a blanket. It sounds fairly uneventful based on its description, but it's a lot more enjoyable than Gamora had expected.
The Avengers Facility is in a pretty isolated area, surrounded by thick trees that remind Gamora of Berhert, the planet they'd crashed the Milano on just before the whole Ego debacle years ago. Since it's so remote, Gamora doesn't bother pulling her big sweatshirt on when they go out.
They hike through the trees for a while, Peter insisting that they eat at the "best" spot, which he insists will be recognizable upon first sight. They even see a few Terran animals in passing, before they scurry off into their homes underground, though Gamora has yet to see a "raccoon."
"We need to see one before we leave," Peter says, swinging their connected hands between them as they walk. "It's been three frickin' years, Rocket needs to see what I'm talking about."
"What about a 'trash panda'?" Gamora asks.
Peter snickers. "They're one in the same."
Finally, they come upon a small clearing, next to a small pond. There, a group of Terran birdlike animals sit in the water, one much larger than the rest.
"Oh my god, ducklings," Peter nearly squeaks, setting the basket down a safe distance away from the water. "That big duck is the mom. The babies all follow the mom around."
"They're cute," Gamora says, smiling a little at the sight. The yellow babies—ducklings—chirp at each other and their mother, swimming around in circles. The mother looks in her and Peter's direction for a moment, then returns her attention to her babies.
When Gamora turns back to Peter, he's already opened the basket and is pulling the red blanket out. He lays it out on the grass carefully, smoothing it over with his hands, before gesturing for her to sit. She sits on one end while he sits on the other, moving the basket between them.
He pulls out the different food and drinks he'd stowed away in there, splitting up the collection evenly between them.
"So, on a picnic, we just get to eat while we sit out here and enjoy nature," he explains, gesturing to their surroundings. His eyes fall on the ducklings again, and she can't blame him. "I used to go on them with my mom sometimes."
At the mention of his mother, Gamora's smile widens. She picks up a Terran sandwich and unwraps it from the plastic. "Thank you for sharing this tradition with me, Peter."
He just nods, unwrapping his own sandwich and taking a bite out of it. They eat in a comfortable silence, Gamora constantly switching her attention from Peter to the ducklings to the occasional sounds from the trees to the bright blue Terran sky, trying to take it all in. She's enjoyed their time on Terra, despite the circumstances, and feels more connected to Peter because of it.
(She wishes she could return the favor and take him to her home world, show him her culture, but it's impossible. At least they'll always have Terra—Earth.)
Eventually, they're down to the extra sandwich Peter had packed in case either of them got particularly hungry, but Peter separates the bread from it and starts breaking it into small pieces. He tosses some of the pieces into the water. A few other fully grown ducks had since joined the ducklings in the pond and swim toward the pieces quickly, bending their necks down to eat what Peter had thrown.
"Ducks like bread," he says, handing her the other slice of bread to pull apart herself. She mimics him, breaking it up, and adds to his pieces floating in the water. The ducks react the same way as they had to Peter's bread, hastily eating up the pieces.
They watch the ducks in silence for a few moments before Gamora turns to Peter. "What did the calendar say today was?"
The question's been lingering on the tip of her tongue all day, throughout their random assortment of activities, but she'd resisted asking it, worrying it would foil Peter's seemingly grand plans for the day, judging by his reaction to the date this morning.
Peter laughs a little, his smile apologetic. "I've probably been driving you crazy all day."
"Not crazy," she says, though, okay, she'd felt a little crazy at times, given the whimsical nature of Peter when it comes to planning: meticulous, yet laidback. "Curious."
He nods, then reaches into the pocket of his pants. He pulls out two chains—necklaces, she realizes, similar to the ones they'd looked at in the strange store—and holds them up, lowering the pendants into his palm. He holds his hand out between them for her to see.
"I got them while you were on the phone with Rocket last week," Peter says, almost shyly. "I know you can't read them, but…"
"They're the same words as on the calendar this morning," she says, glancing up at him.
She looks back down at the two pendants, which appear childish in nature, but much less so than some of the other necklaces they'd seen—like the "bacon" one. The pendants are silver, shaped like a flower with six petals. The designs on each are mirrored: a purple Terran bug called a "butterfly" facing right with small flowers printed below it on the left pendant, and a blue butterfly facing left with small flowers printed below it on the right pendant. There's a word above the butterfly on each.
"I picked these ones 'cause they're, uh, a little more subtle than some of those other ones," Peter says. "And they look less likely to, like, snap in half in the middle of a fight, or something."
Once she's committed the designs to memory, Gamora looks up and meets Peter's eyes. His face flushes slightly as a nervous chuckle escapes his lips.
"Apparently, today's national best friend day," he says quietly. "Which wasn't really a thing when I was growing up, and I don't think it really counts as much as Christmas or Easter or anything like that, but…I saw it on the calendar before we bought it so I thought I'd do something for you, for us, to celebrate it. I mean, obviously we're in a relationship, like, a romantic relationship, but you're still my best friend at the end of the day."
She stares at him for a few moments, turning his words over in her mind. The chatter of the ducks in the pond fills the silence between them, until Peter gestures back down to the necklaces.
"This is another, uh, Terran thing, I guess. Kids like to get matching things that say 'best friends' on them, so they can show off their friends to people, I guess…" He pauses. "I never really had anyone to do that with growing up—I was kind of the weird kid, I guess, not really popular—so, I thought it'd be kind of funny to do now. I guess."
He's deflecting, but she lays a hand over the one he's holding the necklaces in, as if protecting the two pendants from the world around them. That uncomfortable feeling of impending tears bubbles up in her throat, but she swallows it down, gathering herself with a small smile. "I love it, Peter. All of it."
He shrugs. "It's cheesy—"
"It's how I feel, too," she cuts in. "We were both alone, until—until this. You're my best friend, too."
"Seems I'm not alone at being alone," he says, referring to a line from a song that had recently stuck out to them from the Zune—something about it being too real (Peter's words). He smiles, and she pulls her hand away, taking the two necklaces between her fingers to study them. He leans closer to her, pointing to each one. "The one on the left says, 'best,' and the one on the right says, 'friends.' So when people see us wearing them together, they know that we—that we're together. That we belong together."
And they really do. It may have only been three (Terran) years, but Gamora feels as if a lifetime has already gone by just in her time with the Guardians, who fill her days with adventures and laughter and more than enough love to compensate for those dark years she'd spent under Thanos. Peter plays the largest role in it all, challenging her in new ways that ultimately better her as a person and showering her in endless affection and warmth and everything inherently good.
"So," Peter says, "do you want to be 'best' or 'friends'? Personally, I'd go for 'best,' because I think I'm the best at least a few things…"
She laughs, separating the two pendants so he can grab the "best" one. "Then I will be friends."
"That means you'll always have to stand on my left, so it makes sense to people," he says, taking "best." "Otherwise, we'll say 'friends best.'"
Not that anyone in the galaxy outside of Terra can read them, but, whatever, that just means it'll be their thing. Almost like a secret. Gamora smiles, curling her fingers around "friends" protectively.
"So today is best friend day," she says. "What did the rest of our day have to do with that?"
"We watched movies and TV shows about friendship," he says. "Then we played a board game, baked cookies—well, tried to bake cookies—and I did your hair, which is, like, total best friend material, and now we're on a picnic!"
She tilts her head. "This is what best friends do?"
"Uh, I may or may not have done some research on it beforehand to brainstorm ideas," he admits, scratching the back of his neck. "But the results were all sorts of weird. Free museum day? Apply for jobs together? Window shopping? We're a little limited here. Things were simpler back in my day."
"I had fun," she reassures him.
"I'm glad," he says. "I did, too."
He glances down at his necklace, then back up at her, holding it up. "Help me put it on?"
She nods. He hands it to her and turns away. She unclasps the chain and brings it around his neck, putting it back together. When he turns back to her, she mimics him, handing him her necklace, and he does the same for her.
Then they spend a moment looking between their matching necklaces. She smiles, finding his hand and intertwining their fingers.
"Ready to go back?" she asks.
"I'm mostly ready to go make the others jealous of our matching necklaces."
"I'm ready for that as well."
So maybe Gamora flaunts the necklace a little more than she'd intended (or expected) to.
Maybe when they return from their picnic, hand-in-hand, Terran flowers weaved into her braid (when they'd passed a field of them on their way back, Peter had insisted they stop so he could do it—part of the whole "best friends doing each other's hair" thing, supposedly), she walks with her head a little higher and the "friends" pendant swinging freely from her neck.
None of the Guardians can read it, so none of them really ask about it when they see her, but the Avengers each regard her with one, maybe two, curious glances, before remembering that the Guardians do as the Guardians please, which, in this case, is celebrating a hardly legitimate holiday by acquiring matching necklaces declaring their close friendship, so there's no point in asking, really.
(Natasha Romanoff and Wanda Maximoff compliment her on it later, though. Gamora later overhears them offer the same approval to Peter at the sight of his matching pendant.)
Maybe Gamora forgets to take it off even when she showers sometimes, because it binds her with Peter in a way she's never felt bound to anyone before. Without the necklace, she felt just as connected to him, but now, she can show it off to anyone and everyone by quickly pulling the chain out from under her shirt in tandem with Peter pulling his own out.
And maybe the day comes when they get new jewelry to announce their relationship to the universe in the form of two rings, and yet, Gamora can't bring herself to remove the necklace, instead opting to wear both. Peter teases her for it initially, but she quickly catches him doing the same.
The ring declares her wife, but the necklace declares her best friend, and somehow the two hold equal value in her heart.
A/N: terran pop culture references included: the ridiculous best friend necklaces they sell at Claire's omfg, Bono (lead singer of Irish rock band U2), The Breakfast Club, The Fox and the Hound, Disney movies in general, "Seems I'm not alone at being alone" (a line from "Message in a Bottle" by The Police which i think kinda really sums up our beloved peter and gamora), aaaaand i think that's everything haha
oh and the title of the fic came from the song "best friends" from pokemon, and the necklace that peter gives gamora is based on this one have irl that i got in kindergarten
SO YEAH I MADE THEM CELEBRATE WHAT'S BASICALLY A SOCIAL MEDIA HOLIDAY BUT? IT'S STILL KINDA A HOLIDAY SO? YEAH? national best friend day is on june 8th!
i left the list of movies/shows they watched open up to interpretation based on whatever stuff you think best shows friendship! i'm not a big '80s movies expert but i think the breakfast club def deserved a spot on the list, and i also think disney's the fox and the hound is a gr8 friendship movie :))) personally, i like to think they also watched some episodes of pokemon bc that's where my understanding of friendship came from as a child HAHAHAHAHA
...i think i put way too much thought as far as the earth culture references go in this one whoOPS