"Did you have lots of friends? On Terra? As a child, before everything…" Gamora asked him, although she was fairly certain she already knew the answer. There was something about being here in the dusk on the- playground, Peter had called it. Meant for children, but here they were, two adults sitting on this swing set, the metal chains still hot from the setting sun, their feet skimming the ground, scuffing the wood chips and leaving tracks in the darker earth beneath them like a trail to bring them back. Playing on a swing set like the children they never got to be, not really. Rather than pumping legs required to get really swinging, now they were both just lazily moving back and forth, their feet dragging in a way that was surprisingly comforting, soothing. It felt calm, just sitting here, drifting. Their conversation had grown as aimless as their supposed swinging, just a soft, directionless thing that felt something like peace as the sky shifted from orangey-pink hues to swirls of dusky purple in between the shades of accommodation and acceptance. It was beautiful.
"No," Peter said simply, much to her surprise. Asking was really more of a formality. She thought she already knew the answer- apparently not. "Didn't really have any friends at all as a kid. None, in fact."
Peter was focused on his feet moving along the ground, kicking idly at the wood chips, fingers curled around the chains, still hot in his grip. Burning, not in a way that hurt, but wasn't quite comfortable after soaking up the heat from the sun all day. Still, he didn't let go.
He looked up then, noting the surprised look on her face that she hadn't even registered yet.
"Why, does that surprise you?" He asked with a smile, half joking.
"Yes," Gamora answered, completely serious.
"Really?"
She nodded in confirmation.
Peter paused his barely even swinging, his feet sticking flat on the ground to keep him still, his brows furrowing and lips pursing just the slightest bit in thought.
"Why is that so surprising? Just because I was kidnapped when I was 8 doesn't mean I automatically had any friends before then, either. I didn't," Peter shrugged, lifting his feet up to let the lazy pendulum of the swing carry him again, back and forth, back and forth.
Gamora watched him, her own motions momentarily halted by using her feet as breaks on the ground. Peter kept moving though, not really swinging, more like swaying in the summer breeze.
She struggled to put it into words, exactly why, but she gave it her best try, for him.
"You seem like- like one of those types who have always been loved by everyone. Who has always been surrounded by those that are drawn to you. You did not even have a- what have you called it? Your best friend? I had several peers that I was especially close to as a child. And you have been my first 'best friend' since I was a child," she smiled fondly, recalling the first time he called her his best friend, and explained the significance of the title. "But I did have one of those as a child," she continued. "But you… didn't?"
Peter's heart kinda crunched and fluttered at the same time.
His heart always fluttered when she shared stuff like that from her childhood, memories that she's kept close to her chest, and his heart always fluttered because yes, he was important enough to her to share all these details with, and as dumb as it sounds, he always felt special when he learned something new about her like this, when they talked like this.
And his heart crunched at the weight of her words, knowing that these childhood friends of hers are dead, have long since been dead.
His heart crunched at the pain she's gone through, knowing that these friends she spoke of were murdered as children, before she was taken and lost any remnants of her childhood she had left.
Still, when they shared memories like these, they were always filled with bittersweet smiles- something about sharing things like these with your best friend was awful healing.
Peter chuckled, a bit self deprecating. "No, I wasn't one of the popular kids. Like the exact opposite. I had this older cousin who kept me from being picked on too much when I was younger, and by the time he was old enough to go to a different school than I did, I was already gettin' into fights with the other kids. So yeah, pretty much always off on my own unless I was fightin' with the other boys my age. And older than me too. My mom used to worry about that a lot," he said with a wry smile.
Gamora's chest ached at the sadness she felt for him, and she wanted to reach out for him. So she did. She did have to move a bit out of the path her own feet had carved, pushing sideways to move into his orbit, but it wasn't hard. The chains of the swing groaned in protest at the horizontal movement she was pulling them into, but nothing more than that. She of course had to brace her legs to keep herself right next to him, but it wasn't hard. Was the easiest thing in the world. And when she reached out to him, Peter stopped himself too, so they could be still together.
Her fingertips curved behind the shell of his ear in a comforting touch, and Peter closed his eyes and sighed.
He's called it a southern accent, before.
The way of speaking he sometimes slipped into when reaching back to childhood and digging into memories formed when he was young- memories that he's pressed into his mind, so afraid to forget after he was taken.
She loved how he dropped off his word endings sometimes, how his dialect and way of pronouncing things soften- he somehow sounded more innocent, in a way where she wants to protect him with everything she has.
She had no trouble picturing the sweet little Terran boy who used to be at home on a farm land in the middle of Mizuri when he lapses into words like fightin' and ain't (his words get even more slurred when he's drunk and talking about back when he was a kid).
"I would've thought the silver tongued thief would have been able to charm his way into anything, even as a child. I would have guessed you were an especially social and talkative child, friend to all. Just as friendly. Tell me, have you not always been as gifted with words as you are now?"
Peter let out a huffy breath from his nose in good humor, because Gamora didn't sweet talk often, but she was very good at it when she did.
"Guess I did most my talking with fists as a kid."
Gamora shook her head with a smile. "I don't know why I've always assumed it was the exact opposite for you. I guess my experience made me think yours was similar. I had a happy, normal childhood before… everything. Then it became what it was," her face darkened momentarily at the flood of memories. She took a deep breath inward. "And still I find it… especially difficult to remain positive like you. You are so bright, Peter. I thought you must have had the happiest, most wholesome childhood to come out with your current disposition. To be the kind, selfless person you are now. Peter Quill, friend to all. I thought you must have always been that way. A precocious child who got along with everyone to the silver tongued thief who can get himself out of anything that we all know and love today."
Peter looked down, a stupid, silly smile on his face, cause he still couldn't get over the fact that she was saying she loved him time and time again now.
"'m pretty sure I had to get good at talking after I was kidnapped to make it out here in the wild unknown. Certainly wasn't a person who got along with anyone as a kid. If anything that makes it seem like the friendly personality was more of a survival thing- evolved as a survival thing. I've never really thought about it that way before. Weird. I guess that's true though- I wasn't a social child at all. No, the friendly and 'bright' Peter didn't happen until after space. Had absolutely no friends as a kid back on Terra. Total anti-social outcast who fought with everybody, absolute opposite of popular. No friends and nobody liked me. Man, that sounds sad," he laughed a little at himself, hearing how that came out.
Her response came without hesitation. "They would have," she answered easily.
"Huh?"
"They would have liked you. If they had gotten more time to know you," Gamora told him, almost assuring him, though she had never been more certain of something. This, she knew was true. "They would have seen the light that you've always had in you. I know. Eventually they all would have experienced your brightness and found it for themselves. You were a child back then, under an enormous amount of stress- of course the other children didn't have the opportunity to see your light. You were under no circumstances to express your true self up to the eight years you left Terra. The other children would have liked you. The other children would have loved you, in time, had you stayed. Though, personally, I am glad you didn't," she admitted, finally breaking eye contact to smile something slight and shy at her knees. "I am glad you are my best friend, not friends with your Terran peers. You know, I am of the belief that we are all formed of our experiences. As such, I like friendless child Peter. Because he is you. So I like him very much. Maybe, if you were a social and popular child before age 8, you might have grown up into a huge ass after you were kidnapped by the Ravagers. It is impossible to know. As such, I am glad I got the opportunity to meet the Peter who extends hands of friendship to those he barely knows even after all he has been through. The Peter who smiles and tries to make others laugh with all he is. He is the Peter I like. My Peter," Gamora said, her dipped head suddenly darting forward to his, giving him a sweet kiss on the cheek before pulling back again.
"Holy shit, Gamora, I thought I was going to be able to get through this conversation without crying like a lame-ass weirdo like last time we talked all serious and the like about this stuff. I thought I was gonna be able to not cry at this childhood memory talk. Dude, you totally ruined it," he said, smiling brightly, wiping at the tears in his eyes.
Gamora could only smile in turn, an overwhelming fondness for him threatening to take over as she pushed off the ground, kicking her feet up high and pumping her legs like he had shown her when they first sat down on this swing set.
Yes, something about sharing bittersweet memories from years long since past and swinging with your best friend was awful healing.
In a way where you couldn't help but feel whole.