Gamora has a nightmare and it goes like this:
Peter is saying something so stupid she cannot help but smile. The urge to touch him is overwhelming- it's her dream so she does.
His skin peels off his face, the blood begins to fall from his mouth and eyes. She tries to pull away but he holds her hand in place.
"Did you forget?" says Thanos's voice in Peter's throat. "Did you forget what you are?"
Peter falls to bones at her feet. Gamora can see the others are already husks against the floor of the ship. She can't- she can't scream or he'll knowshe's weak and she'll die- it's her own fault for involving them-
Gamora wakes gasping, reaching instinctively for her sword. She spends the rest of the sleep cycle tapping it against her knee. Itching for a fight.
She has to remember that she's someone else now.
She thinks this might be healing in its own way. Under the thumb of Thanos she never slept easy enough to dream. Still, she spends the day staring at her own hands.
"Hey," says Peter. "The boys are picking up a new signal in the city today. I was thinking maybe we could-"
She turns away from him.
It's easiest to love Quill when they're dancing. It's the spiritual opposite of a spar.
You dance with someone to show you care about them. To show how well your bodies can work together.
You spar with someone to show you're better than them. To show your body can beat their body down.
Sometimes Gamora forgets the difference between the two. Peter moves in too quickly to show her a new step her body wants to twist his arm until the bones break. She has to shove him away.
When Peter Quill is fighting he will turn it into a dance. She once saw him dip a bounty hunter- before remembering to drop the fool to the floor.
If Nebula were here, if they'd ever been the sort of sisters who talk, Gamora suspects she would say Gamora and Peter are spiritual opposites as well. Their bodies don't fit together. Nebula always said crap like that at random.
Someday he will reach for her and she will slice his throat.
Peter is still Peter and he reaches for her anyway.
The next time Gamora has a nightmare she practices the steps to the slide Peter does when stealing priceless artifacts. He called it some sort of boogie.
It's not enough. Her muscles are coiled for the kill.
Instead she leaves her room to pace the ship. She finds Rocket and Dax in their own corner-
Gamora forgets she isn't the only one here with nightmares.
Dax is calling Rocket a cruel creature. There are small claw marks on the side of his face.
Rocket is angry that Dax might wake Groot. He's waving one of Dax's knives over his head.
Gamora hisses at the both of them to behave .
They're a good team. The three of them insult and sigh at each other until she falls asleep again. She wakes with a tarp over her shoulders.
Gamora feels safe here.
She'll work her way up to true touch. Peter will push and she'll pull back. They'll talk around each other.
Another sort of dance.
She'll take all time in the galaxy.