"PETER!" Yondu rushed through the throng of violence, taking down any poor bastard who got in his way. Swiftly, coldly, with nary a spared glance, extreme prejudice and eyes glued to Peter shoved to his knees at knifepoint.
He took no heed of the enemies crawling at his back, trusting the remains of his crew and the other Ravagers' to take care of them. They tore through the Disciples, none so quick or vicious as Yondu as he progressed towards Peter.
He slit throats, stabbed through eyes and speared shrivelled hearts, slipping closer with each second and every dead body that hit the ground in his dust. So close yet so far. Never had Yondu understood these words so well. He edged the small circle Horger's Disciples left around him and his hostage. The Ravagers' had decimated most of the Disciples. But Horger yanked up Peter's head by his hair, filthy fingers twisted within his curls, and pressed the tip of his knife into Peter's throat and commanded everyone's attention.
The battle stopped dead in its tracks.
Yondu's heart jumped into his throat.
That was his boy.
"Yondu Udonta," he smirked and pricked Peter's neck with the knife. Yondu's eyes gleamed. "Make a move and I slit his throat before you can whistle your little arrow through my skull."
"You sure about that?" Yondu replied. Peter titled his head back with the knife and squeezed his eyes shut.
"You want to find out?" Horger asked. Yondu held his tongue and Horger gave him a smug smile. "This is what it takes to bring down the mighty Yondu Udonta? A pathetic Terran child has you whimpering at my feet? I'm disappointed. I expected a better fight."
Yondu flipped back his coat carefully, catching the lapels on his dagger's scabbards, and slowly raised his hands in surrender.
"What do you want Horger? All this time we've kept to ourselves, what's the end game?" Horger considered this with a smirk.
"What end game?.. You know, I'd thought on it. All o'us keeping to ourselves and I found it wasn't enough for me. I want you all to feel pain unlike any other and really, what pain is there like the pain of losing a child?"
Heart stopping fear bled into his veins, culling his reaction time. Yondu watched the knife lift from Peter's throat, heedless of the pain filled accepting gaze on him, it rose, hit it's peak and by the time Yondu had whistled his arrow through Horger's heart he had plunged the knife deep into the left of Peter's chest.
"NO!" Yondu ran forward as Horger dropped to the dirt, dead before he hit the earth.
"Peter! Peter look at me boy, it's alright, you'll be alright just.. Keep your eyes open. You hear me Quill! Eyes on me son." Yondu yelled. Horger's forces chose to flee with his death, opening easy paths for medical personal to reach Peter, cradled in Yondu's arms.
"Gotcha Yondu. Eyes on you." Peter coughed. Yondu nodded and gently moved Peter to his lap, shifting to sit at his head so the doctors could work unhindered.
"That's it Petey. Eyes on me, don't you worry 'bout those doc's pokin' around. They'll fix you right up." Yondu watched Peter hack up blood as, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the medics inject him with that awful field only solution. He swallowed against the lump in his throat and smiled down at Peter whom was looking sleepier by the second. The medics abandoned their tools and gave them a moment.
"You'll be alright now Petey. I promise." Peter shuddered with another hacking cough.
"Yondu.. Yondu I.. Gotta tell you somethin'... before I fall asleep," Yondu bit the inside of his cheek to hols back welling tears, making no move to interrupt. "I'm glad, it was you.. Who picked me up and... I'm glad you didn't.. Didn't take me to my biological father.. Cause I don't think, a-anyone, could be as badass as you.. haha, Yondu, I'm so glad that you.. You were my dad... Tell the others for me.. tell them that I couldn't, ask, for better brothers, for a better.. Family."
"Damnit boy!"
Peter gave a shaky laugh and closed his eyes.
"Funny, how you always said... that sentiment, would kill me... it didn't though.. Yondu!" Yondu pressed a hand to Peter's cheek.
"I'm right here boy." Peter moaned.
"Good night. I love you."
"Night Petey. I'll miss you."
Peter's lips twitched in a ghost of one last smile before his last breath passed through them and he relaxed completely into Yondu's hold. Yondu leant over him, struggling to control shaky breath, and pressed their foreheads together. Eyes clenched tight against threatening tears.
The field was silent bar the thud of feet running from them, they gave no pursuit. Knelt over the body of his boy Yondu felt a spark of rage flicker to a fire of fury that licked at his insides.
He was on his feet in an instant, Yakka arrow floating beside his head for less than a second before he let it fly after Horger's survivors. Within seconds he had twenty on the ground, their bodies prostrate without a care as he moved on mercilessly.
The remaining Ravagers' watched on in awe-lined fear as Yondu decimated the fleeing ranks. Reducing a force of two hundred Disciples to two in under a minute. The second last tried with all his might to escape Yondu's wrath before it drilled through his chest leaving a jagged hole behind where his heart would have otherwise been. The last looked on in acceptance and Yondu bored a hole cleanly between his eyes.
Yondu looked upon the dead with furious contempt as he recalled his arrow, slicing open his palm and fingers as he caught it and set his gaze, once again, upon Peter's body.
"It was sentiment that killed you Peter. It just wasn't your own."