Inspired by this post on tumblr: tryingtogroklife dot tumblr dot com/post/123/ asking "Who you would rather date: Saal or Yondu?" The response was so perfect I had to write a fic for it.
Fuck: Yondu, oh god yes.
Marry: Saal because he is perfect.
Kill: sorry Ronan, you can't compete.
This started out as utterly shameless wish-fullfilment and somehow morphed into a real romance. There is no actual smut in this, however, mainly because just thinking about smut involving these two gets me too distracted to write.
The first chapter is light-hearted and humorous if that is what you're looking for, the story can stop there. The second chapter includes the events of GotG and made me cry while writing it.
Lastly, this fic has no relation to my other Saal story.
Rated for light sexual content, language and the emotionally intense second chapter.
Disclaimer: Saal and Yondu are fictional characters owned by Marvel and it's just as well because I would probably embarrass myself if I met them IRL.
Chapter 1—If You Can Share
It hurts, not getting into the Corps. Vala knows she did just as well as Garthan in the aptitude tests, all fourteen of them, because they compared notes afterward and he had no idea what he was doing for about two thirds of test number nine and she had to explain to him exactly what kind of imbecile he was for trying to use navigational theory to solve a diplomatic problem. Garthan is no kind of diplomat, Vala knows. He barely tolerates people at all; for all that he is kind, he seems to prefer human interaction when it is conducted from opposite ends of a ten foot pole—or from a ship in orbit. Garthan is going to be an ace pilot, someday; Vala knows this and it hurts now that she's not going to be any kind of pilot at all.
Because apparently test number fifteen is some sort of pass-or-fail evaluation of your worthiness to be a conduit for the Nova Force. Vala thought it was bullshit before, and now she's certain it's bullshit, even though the other presence in her head during the test had been undeniably real.
Vala is hurt, and Garthan obviously feels bad but he doesn't even hesitate to accept the Nova Corps position, and that hurts, too. For a while they pretend, while he is stationed on Xandar, that everything is just the way it had been every day growing up together. But it isn't. Vala knows Garthan like she knows her own face; she knows Garthan the surly introvert that has never had her easy way with people, Garthan the sardonic son of a bitch that let her take the fall for the hovercar they stole when they were fourteen but who broke her out of the local holding cells afterwards, Garthan the endlessly loyal friend who pretended to be her boyfriend for months to keep a pervert at bay and ended up nearly killing the guy when things went wrong. Vala knows Garthan well enough to know that when his first off-world assignment comes he will take it and expect her to stay on Xandar to wait for him.
They're not together, not officially and neither of them were ever into the romance thing anyway, but Vala knows he is surprised when she takes off a week before he deploys. She knows he's hurt, even, and a small spiteful part of her is very happy about that. It's the reason she leaves before he does, to see the look on his face. But her parting words are kind:
"Stay out of trouble, huh?"
"Me? Trouble? You're taking the trouble with you."
Vala doesn't see him for years, and it doesn't bother her that much. Garthan is such a constant that she knows he'll always be there, and until she sees him again she's going to have all the adventures she can fit into her life.
She does become an ace pilot, after a fashion. First a racer, then a smuggler, when life intervenes and she gets banned from the circuits. Racing is where she meets Yondu.
He's just a familiar stranger at first, placing overlarge bets in her favor and one day he sticks around long enough into the post-victory celebration that her very high, very drunk brain decides to that he's handsome and mysterious and she is in need once more of an adventure.
"You're not my type, darling." His drawl is delicious and Vala is suddenly very invested in tasting the tongue it rolls off of so fluidly.
"Type has nothing to do with it. I just won you a very large amount of money. You own me. Owe me. I meant owe me." She's way too drunk right now, but maybe it's alright because his eyes glitter a little and he allows her to shoo away his two accompanying thugs with the promise of as many rounds as they can drink on her tab.
In the morning Vala does not remember nor care about anything at all until she gets a hangover shot and then after that she is pleased to find out that Yondu is just as fascinating when she is sober—and his drawl just as delicious—and to recall that his tongue is very, very satisfactory indeed. He's not the type to hit it and quit it without staying for breakfast, either, so he shows her a few tricks with something he calls his yakka arrow. Vala decides that Yondu is a badass and makes him her new adventure.
She doesn't see him the whole rest of the season. Vala thinks about him about as often as she thinks of Garthan and doesn't feel the least bit guilty about it. When he shows up once more with a professional request she decides that throwing races is worth the dent to her integrity in exchange for the pay cut Yondu gives her and for the sex. Especially the sex. Vala screws him over, once or twice, winning a race she is supposed to lose, just to make sure he knows that he does not, in fact, own her, as Vala drunkenly suggested when they first met. She finds out he has a horrific temper, and that angry sex is very exciting.
Good things do not last, and Vala is kicked out of the racing circuit and charged with fraud. At Yondu's suggestion, she lays low on his ship. Vala had known before this that Yondu was a Ravager, abstractly at least, but the reality is jarringly different. Yondu is an unholy tyrant and Vala refuses to let him treat her as part of the crew. They both find that living together is unbearable. Vala can feel the cracks forming in their relationship and she becomes desperate to leave before it shatters and she loses him.
It's a relief when Yondu leaves her stranded in the middle of a smuggling deal, even though she is arrested. He winks at her and calls her darling in that self-assured drawl of his even as she shrieks bloodcurdling profanities at his retreating figure. She is pretty sure he will forgive her for telling Nova Corps everything she knows about his last four jobs and the one he is planning to tackle next. Maybe.
Vala spends thirty-six weeks in the local penitentiary and when she gets out she finangles herself a sleek little cruiser to do freelance transport with—some legal, some not. She discovers that prison sucks no matter how low the security but that breaking out is not worth the trouble and that adventure always is. Vala spends nearly a year coming back to a tiny little moon in the fourth quadrant every weekend in order to have a slow, sweet, disgustingly saccharine affair with a Kree girl studying at the university there.
Then she meets Garthan again, like she always knew she would, but it doesn't go how she had anticipated, mainly because she is caught smuggling and Garthan is the officer arresting her. He is a Millenian now, which means he's had several promotions since she's seen him and she is so proud and so happy to see him she could burst.
He pretends he doesn't know her.
Vala is shocked and the only reaction her apologies are able to extract is a single pained expression that he quickly hides. She is almost unaware of the time she spends in prison this time, except to note that it is considerably shorter than it should be. Garthan comes to see her out on the last day, and she realizes he has been pulling strings to shorten her sentence.
"Vala, don't make me do this again. Don't ever put me in this position again," he tells her, looking very cold and serious. Vala suddenly knows for a fact that he hasn't made another friend since they parted; she knows this because she knows Garthan and knows that this is exactly the kind of person he would become without anyone to force him to pull back his thorns a little.
But because she is angry and hurt Vala doesn't realize right away that he is not talking about her jeopardizing his reputation but is trying to say in his awkward-Garthan way that he can't bear to arrest her again. When she leaves she makes sure to trip the nearest fire alarm and steals his cruiser to replace her impounded ship.
Vala goes to Yondu, who is not easy to find and does not, in fact, easily forgive her for ratting him out to Nova Corps. Yondu is not the comforting type, but their time apart has done them good and they return to what they had. He has picked up a scrawny Terran kid in the interim, however, and despite grisly jokes about possible cannibalism, it has softened him slightly.
Vala has Garthan's cruiser refitted and rips out the tracking software and repaints it until it's a fairly sexy looking little Milano, and she lets Peter play at flying it. The kid seems to enjoy her as much as any ten year can enjoy an adult's company but reacts with violent negativity to the slightest bit of mothering. Vala figures it's Yondu's influence.
"So who broke your little heart, darling?" Yondu asks once, and Vala doesn't tell him. He goes on as if she had, and if he is jealous that someone else has enough of her heart to break it he doesn't show it. "You're a right howling bitch, Vala, but you've always had a spark I liked. You're no fun without it."
"What are you getting at?"
"You've moped around my damn ship long enough, little girl. Go find the asshole and show 'em how much they'd like to own you, since I clearly don't."
Vala just stares, because Yondu is a good man but he is also a bastard and he doesn't share.
He smirks at her and winks. "And then come back."
Vala leaves, and tracks Garthan down to a border station he is in charge of. He's Denarian Saal now, and the amount of bullshit she has to make up in order to get an audience with him is impressive. He is busy, she knows, because the Kree are making strafing runs on the planets in this area and he is responsible for the wellbeing of a great many people.
He is shocked to see her, but this time he doesn't pretend she's just another criminal. This time he practically crushes her in a hug that she doesn't want to ever stop.
"I'm sorry."
He apologizes for being a jerk, and for a thousand other things that didn't really matter, and Vala is warmed by it until she realizes he, too, expects an apology. For what exactly she drags out of him slowly, because it is so obvious to him he can't even explain—for leaving, for turning into a criminal, for forcing him to bail her out at his own expense. The anger comes back.
"You have no right to judge me, Garthan. You haven't been a part of my life in years." You don't know me. It is left unsaid but clearly understood, and Vala is struck with the sadness of that truth.
"And whose fault is that? Who ran off?"
The argument is never finished, because the Kree attack the actual station in what is apparently a well-planned ambush. They are surrounded, and Vala realizes that the Milano is far smaller and faster than any of the Nova ships docked at the station. She's a racer; she could get out, but she knows she's not leaving Garthan. She offers a plan, and the other officers scoff before Garthan icily shuts them up and asks her if she's really okay to do this. Garthan has never underestimated her.
The station ends up instigating a skirmish with the blockade as cover for the Milano. Vala drives like she's back on the circuit, with Garthan as her copilot, and they pilot so recklessly and so well together that Vala is sure the squad of corpsmen with them must think the both of them crazy. They make it past the blockade, taking only a single hit. It's bad, Vala knows immediately, because it's hit the engine plate and the power to several systems is suddenly cut off, most importantly to the life support.
Then Garthan does something—later he'll say something vague about the Nova Force—and life support is suddenly functioning at 100% despite the fact that the power is still dead and it's amazing. She pulls the Milano up behind the unaware Kree command ship and they blow it to pieces with remote explosives. By the time the Kree retreat, Garthan is looking inexplicably exhausted, and immediately after Vala docks the Milano and the station's life support takes over he collapses. She learns that he'd been holding the ship together with the Nova Force, which apparently isn't exactly easy to channel. Vala had to be very scary indeed to find even that much out, since details about the Nova Force were considered state secrets.
She stays on the station, alternating time between the medbay and fixing the Milano, and when security personnel make disapproving noises about a civilian's presence on the station, she feels completely justified in telling everyone that Garthan is her fiancé so they had better leave her the hell alone because she has rights under Xandarian law.
Garthan laughs when he wakes up to congratulations from his aide and his medical officer, and doesn't refute Vala's claim. For a few minutes things are quite as easy as they had been so many years before, but too soon enough they fall into a silence born of simultaneously not having enough to say to each and having too much to say to each other.
"Garthan," Vala said hesitantly. "Would you like to get know me again?"
"I would like that very much."
Garthan calls in on accumulated leave and they spend it on Xandar, going to all their old places and to new ones. Garthan is an important figure nowadays and people whisper. Vala cannot stop herself from purposely insulting a few snobs here and there but she holds herself back so as not to embarrass Garthan. They talk. Garthan does not tell her everything about the Nova Corps but he tells her the important things—most of which have nothing at all to do with his job per say as with the fascinating people he meets doing it. Vala is delighted to find him the same in all the best ways, and what differences exist are intriguing, not disappointing.
In turn, Vala shares what matters to her and keeps things to herself as she feels appropriate. They are not looking for co-dependence. Vala does tell Garthan about Yondu—sparing with the details, as she doesn't want to get her lover arrested, after all.
"Are you taken then?" Garthan asks immediately.
"Not at all, if you can share."
Garthan goes on duty again but arranges to have an assignment on Xandar. One of his subordinates—a charismatic, idealistic Millenian called Rhomann Dey that Vala is fairly sure Garthan considers a friend even if he will not say it—lets her know that Nova Corps is opening up a transport contract and she takes the job, which mainly entails sweet-talking local shipbuilders into making ships for Nova Corps at cut price. She abuses the position slightly by taking fancy new models out for little jaunts across the solar system.
Garthan does nothing to dispel people of the notion that they are engaged. Vala teases him about it over ice cream and he suddenly asks her very seriously if she will marry him. She hesitates.
"I'm not the kind of person who settles down, you know. I'm going go gallivanting off into the galaxy to have an adventure every so often."
"So gallivant, then. But when you come home, come home to me."
Vala wants to say yes. She wants to say that she already considers him home. But she needs adventure in her life and she knows that Garthan is not ever going to want to have that with her. He loves the adventure as much as she does, else he would never have joined Nova Corps, but because Vala is living in his apartment she is there when he wakes up shaking in the middle of the night and Vala knows that Garthan needs someone to rest with, to be safe from adventures gone wrong. She tells him she'll think about it.
The next day she takes the Milano to see Yondu. Peter has somehow grown up since she's seen him but is just as in love with the Milano as he was at age ten. Yondu takes her gambling and swears at her when she flirts with the dealer. She tells the bouncer he's been counting cards—which he has—and they both get kicked out and narrowly avoid ending up in a jail cell for the night. The next night they pull similar shenanigans at a strip club and Vala enjoys herself immensely.
Nova Corps picks up one of Yondu's thugs for a petty offense and lets him go scot-free—he returns with a message for Vala. It's from Garthan, letting her know that he's gone to quadrant two for an assignment and where to find him. It ends with: "Have fun, but please don't get arrested."
Vala watches it over several times and realizes that she wants to be Garthan's rest and that she needs him to be hers.
"So when were you going to tell me that my competition was in the stars-damned Nova Corps?"
Vala winces. "Don't you dare start harassing him, Yondu."
"Well, he put the spark back into ya, at least. Let me tell you though, darling, I know the sex can't be half as good."
"We don't have sex." Vala informs him thoughtfully; it has only just occurred to her that this is true. "We don't… need it."
Yondu grins his wolf grin at her. "So you'll be coming to me for that, then?"
"If you can share." Vala grins back and does something with her free hand far too naughty for the pricy venue they've snuck into, in full view of all the very respectable patrons. He doesn't stop her, and she takes that as his answer. This time they do end up in a jail cell.
Vala later catches Peter trying to steal off with the Milano and some of Yondu's latest booty. She tells him he can have the Milano on the light-hearted condition that he aggravates Yondu as much as possible and he gratefully drops her off on Xandar.
She enlists Rhomann in a conspiracy to plan a large, fancy wedding and can barely hold in her glee to see Garthan torn between joy and mortification when he arrives in the middle of it all. She sends a very elaborate invitation to Yondu, knowing full well that he will not be able to set foot on Xandar without being arrested, and that he knows it. In keeping with the true spirit of their relationship, he shows up anyway, in a suit no less but still packing the yakka arrow.
Garthan reacts with considerable grace, subtly arranging for all the corpsman in the vicinity to become selectively blind. Vala allows Yondu to dance with her once and stops him from become horrifically lewd three times. Yondu goes on to charm or terrify the rest of the guests with minimal intervention needed. At some point Garthan, Vala and Yondu all end up in a private corner together. The silence is not exactly awkward but there is no way in hell Vala is going to be the first to speak.
"I applaud your restraint, Udonta. You've been almost civilized this entire evening."
"Just lulling ya into complacency, son," Yondu drawls. They're both sizing each other up.
"I will arrest you if you're still here in the morning."
Yondu grins. "Won't you be on a honeymoon? If you're too busy for Vala I could take her on one myself."
"No you can't," Vala cuts in sternly, wrapping herself in Garthan's arms pointedly.
"Remember you don't own her, lawman," Yondu says seriously.
"Neither do you. Nobody does."
"That's just the truth, ain't it." Yondu looks to Vala. "I'm going, darling. Clubs haven't closed yet, I hear." Then he has the gall to kiss her thoroughly while she is still in in her husband's arms and Vala figures that if Garthan and Yondu are ever going to kill each other, it would be at that moment, so it's relieving when they don't.
Vala realizes later that Yondu stole her wedding ring off her finger. Bastard, she thinks with a smile.