What do you mean, of course I'm not starting another multi-chaptered fic smack in the middle of my other one... whoops :P This one won't be nearly as long I swear - probably three or four chapters long, tops. It's considerably more pointless as well. Also, while it's probably completely and ridiculously shippy, this fic can technically be read as strictly friendship, if you wish.
Enjoy!
Most of the time, surprisingly enough, the Guardians of the Galaxy get along well. Gamora supposes it's because they all, to an extent, understand each other. They all know what it's like to lose something dear to them, what it's like to long for freedom – they know the ache of loneliness, the want for belonging, and the kind of pain that makes you lash out even when you don't mean it. They get each other, something none of them have had before – and with that, they understand the harsher of the insults they throw out, and find forgiveness quick and easy.
Most of the time.
There are, of course, those fights that escalate too quickly, the ones that end in blows and screams and, when he's not a perpetrator, Peter receiving an accidental punch in the face as he desperately tries to rein his team back together. But, much like the devastating rage of a tornado, these fights are short-lived, relationships quickly repaired once heads have cooled.
It's the quiet fights you want to watch out for – the low-voiced accusations, the ragged, pain-filled tones that give way to icy, frigid dismissals in the span of seconds. Those fights are harder to repair, and considerably more awkward for the rest of the team to deal with, dancing around their silent teammates as they stomp around the Milano, cold, silent, and, quite frankly, terrifying. These fights take time to fizzle out – and, more often than not, meaningful, heart-to-heart apologies.
Which sucks, for the Guardians, because meaningful, heart-to-heart apologies aren't really their thing. That's when they go to Peter – because for whatever insane, utterly absurd reason that no one understands, Peter is rather good at defusing situations. The team has written it off as a result of years of talking his way out of deals gone wrong with the Ravagers, of course, but nevertheless – Peter is best at reconciling teammates.
Unless, of course, Peter is one of the quarrelling teammates in question.
And that sucks even more, because skilled as he is at reconciling others, Peter, when hurt, clamps up so tightly that drawing him out is nearly impossible. He'll come around eventually, of course, but it's notably awkward – the uncharacteristic silence that falls over the ship, ever-present music absent as Peter throws up every wall he has. Which, as Gamora's come to find, totals up to quite a lot of walls.
And that's why she hates fighting with Peter the most - it's painful, on both sides, and deprives her of her favorite person to talk to. Given the choice, she would take an argument with anyone but him.
But Peter is not perfect, and stars know she isn't either – and Gamora does not get a choice.
So now, sitting in the cockpit of the Milano as they overlook the small planet they've tailed their thief to, preparing to land, it is profoundly awkward.
And painful. She really, really hates not talking to Peter.
What's worse is that it's just them in the cockpit. The absence of the others weighs heavily, a stinging reminder of recent events.
Drax is not here to alleviate the silence with his conversation because he is currently recovering from a knife to the ribs. Rocket is not here to make scathing remarks on their mission failure (and respective silences, no doubt) because his arm is broken and he's concussed. And Groot is not there to simply comfort them with his presence because Groot is looking after the others, and, quite possibly, as pissed-off as they've ever seen him.
So it's Peter and Gamora alone in the cockpit, both sporting bruises and scrapes but the best off of their team. Peter and Gamora and their argument heavy in the air as they pilot their way onto the snowy planet, eyes roving the swirling white for the slightest glimpse of a town to land in. She sits perfectly still as she monitors the ship's sensors, at a loss.
Peter lets out a breathy exhale, hazel eyes darkened in the dimming light as they descend onto the planet. His brow is creased with a slight frown of concentration as he lands the Milano – but other than that, he is completely silent.
The ship touches down just outside the city with the slightest of jolts, the wind howling against the Milano's walls as they both relax minutely. Peter leans back in his seat, stretching slightly. He turns to her.
"Weather's bad, so we'll need to suit up," he says quietly. "And the others-"
"I'll let them know we're taking care of things," she says, rising stiffly. Peter nods at her as she slips down the ladder, making her way to where Rocket and Drax are laid up.
Groot is exactly where they left him, keeping careful watch over the two injured Guardians. Gamora spares him a slight, tentative smile as she draws near, her friend's ever-calm demeanor relaxing her slightly. Glancing behind him she can see Drax reading in his bunk, skin still far too pale but looking infinitely better than he last did. Rocket is still unconscious – but Groot seems relatively at ease so she figures his condition has not worsened. She clears her throat slightly, alerting Drax to her presence.
"We've reached the planet," she says, resting her hand on the doorway. "Peter and I are going to take care of things with our Skrull mercenary."
"Alone?" Drax frowns, wincing as he attempts to raise himself. "One of us should accompany you-"
"No," Gamora says, a bit frantically as she pushes him back into the bunk. "It's alright – we can handle this. You need to stay here, with Rocket and Groot – and heal," she says pointedly. Drax looks unhappy.
"I do not like this," he says. "Sending the two of you alone seems a great risk, given what happened last time."
"This isn't last time," she says tightly. "We won't mess things up so quickly. In and out. We'll be fine."
"Will you?" Drax says, looking at her intently.
"I told you, we can handle ourselves-"
"That is not what I meant," he says, face knowing. Gamora's grip on the door tightens.
"It's nothing," she says quietly. "We'll sort it out soon enough."
Drax looks as if he's going to say something else, but Peter's footsteps halt the conversation.
"We good?" he asks, snow jacket thrown over his arm. He glances at Drax, his face darkening slightly as his eyes flit over the bandages. "You okay?"
"I am fine," Drax says, just as Gamora gives a clipped "Yes." Peter nods, then turns to Groot.
"You'll take care of them, right, bud?"
Groot nods, face determined.
"Alright," Peter says, turning to Gamora. "Let's go."
Nodding goodbye to the others, Gamora follows him out, grabbing her own snow jacket as they go.
"Do not underestimate him!" Drax's concerned warning follows them out of the ship, lost immediately into the howling winds.
It was everyone's fault, really. The haphazard plan Peter scraped together last-minute might have worked – had anyone put enough faith in it to carry it out.
Heck, scratch faith in the plan – they didn't even have faith in each other.
The mission had gone to hell in a matter of seconds. The data chip they were supposed to be retrieving wasn't where it was supposed to be. Instead, it was clasped in the protective hands of a Skrull mercenary just sliding into his ship.
That, they could have handled. The dozens of armed Skrull forcing their backs against the wall? Less so.
So Peter threw out a plan that more or less consisted of wreaking their usual havoc upon the mercenaries – except he kept insisting that they stay together. Like, shoulder to shoulder, right smack against each other together. No one was a big fan of that particular plan.
Especially Gamora, because she'd told Peter they needed to check the air docks first, told him they needed to get there earlier, to trust her. But he had shaken her off, insisting that they couldn't risk deviating from mission parameters any more than they already had.
It irked Gamora a good deal when people didn't listen to her. It irked her even more when it was Peter, who she trusted to always listen to her.
So she didn't listen to him – eye for an eye, and all. And, of course, everyone else followed suit, splitting away and attacking eagerly.
It took them a minute to realize why Peter had let out a particularly agonized groan when they disobeyed his orders – given a minute the Skrulls had them surrounded with exact replicas of themselves.
Shape-shifters, in Gamora's opinion, were really an unfair species.
It went downhill from there. Between the expected cries of "No, I'm the real insert-Guardian-name-here!" and the reluctant waving of weapons, things descended into utter chaos. And to make things even more humiliating – no one had any idea who their real teammates were. At all.
Looking back, Gamora can think of several hundred things that should have tipped her off – Drax's intonations, the jerking movements Rocket uses when cocking his gun, Groot's tendency to go on the defensive first rather than the offensive, Peter's quickened, Terran breathing and his dance-like maneuvers – all things she could easily recognize, things they should have all recognized.
And maybe they did – maybe the problem wasn't a recognition failure. Perhaps the problem lay in what seemed to be the heaviest issue lurking in all their dark, murky pasts – trust.
Whether or not they had even the slightest idea which of their teammates were the real ones, the very idea that they might be an imposter was enough to put them all on the offensive. So instead of listening to Peter (who might not even have been Peter) and his desperate yell of "Don't attack!" they did exactly that – attacked their doppelgangers.
It ended badly. Gamora feels no need to go into further detail.
It was only after they had finished weeding out the imposters, after the three uninjured Guardians rushed Drax and Rocket to the Milano for medical aid, the she and Peter finally lost the cool they'd barely been clinging to.
They had failed – humiliatingly so. And frustrated at the situation, worried for their friends, stressed to the breaking point, they needed someone to take it out on. So words like reckless and thoughtless and blind were thrown out, punctuated by a unanimous statement : You don't trust me.
They'd yelled at each other until Groot had roared at them, stressed to breaking point himself with Rocket and Drax injured.
They shut up after that. It did nothing to dissipate the icy, bitter air between them.
They had managed several civil words, agreeing to chase the Skrull mercenary down to where he'd fled and retrieve the data chip. Other than that, the ride had been in silence.
One of the better things about the whole hero thing is that ordinary people are actually willing to help you. They smile warmly at you and offer the best information they can, as opposed to, say, screaming in fear and running for the authorities.
The people in this city are particularly enthusiastic. Gamora will wager it has something to do with the lack of traffic in the freezing, snowy town – the sight of new faces alone is probably enough to excite the people. Their help is reliable, though, and appreciated, Peter tells them, as they make their way towards the abandoned mining operation several miles away from the town, where a suspicious-looking Skrull was rumored to have headed to not long ago.
The speeder they've rented whirs as they speed through the howling winds, heading further and further into the endless expanse of white. Peter's hands clench on the controls as he jerks the speeder back on track for what must have been the tenth time – piloting in this weather is far from easy. Gamora takes a moment to tighten her jacket, adjusting the fur-lined hood over her neatly braided hair. The jacket is warm but far from the best defense against the bitterly cold weather – besides, she's hoping they won't be out in it for long. Get the data chip and go. In and out.
"Pretty sure that's our place," Peter says, his voice jarring after the hour-long ride of silence. The dark buildings and mining scaffolding loom against the swirling snow, dark and abandoned and empty-looking.
"I see no trace of anyone," she says, scanning the area as Peter brings the speeder to a halt.
"There," Peter says, pointing to one of the boarded-up mine entrances. It's near-unnoticeable, but there are tell-tale signs that someone's broken in and hastily boarded up the door again.
That, and it's the only opening not entirely buried in snow.
"Sloppy," she remarks, tightening her jacket as they step out of the speeder. The bitter wind bites at her face, tiny snowflakes falling lazily around them. Peter shivers.
"Let's get this over with," he mutters, heading towards the entrance. "The sooner we get out of here the better." Gamora agrees. She can't decide which one will drive her mad first – the freezing weather or the cold, uncomfortable air between them.
Peter kicks through the door with a splintering crack, peering into the darkness. Gamora wrinkles her nose as the sulfuric, musty smell of the mine greets them and they step gingerly in, Peter pausing a minute to pull out his spherical light.
"Makes you wonder if this guy's entirely with it," Peter mutters as they head further into the darkness of the mine, the air gloomy and oppressive. "Why would he run here?"
"It's likely serving as a set meeting place for whoever he's selling our chip to," Gamora says tonelessly. "Far from public eye and more likely to be undisturbed."
"Then we'd better get our chip back and get outta here," Peter says, glancing at the walls warily as his light casts disfigured shadows. "I'm not looking forward to dealing with any more mercs this week."
Gamora gives nothing more than a low sound of agreement, her own eyes tilted down as she picks her way carefully over the scaffolding of the mine, looking out for the abandoned shafts lying nearby, the dark holes pitch black where they stretch miles under the earth.
Peter lets out a weary sigh from behind her, shifting awkwardly.
"Gamora," he says hesitantly. "About – about what happened…"
Gamora stiffens, pulse quickening as she realizes where this conversation is heading.
"I – I just –"
"Wait," she cuts him off, squashing her own emotions and the spark of guilt she feels at his expression - but this conversation is the last thing she needs now. "I think he's ahead."
And thankfully her instincts, as always, never fail her, because before Peter can manage out a reply there's a bright flash of blaster fire that misses them by inches, dark figure sprinting away.
"Hey!" Peter yells, following close behind her as they sprint after the mercenary, panting breaths and voices echoing loudly in the mine shaft.
The chase is over in an instant as the Skrull screeches to an abrupt halt in front of them, hands wind-milling as he stops inches from the sheer drop before him. Gamora surges forward as he whirls around, eyes wide in panic as he fumbles with something in his jacket.
"Don't come any closer!" the Skrull yelps, a spherical device gripped tightly in his hands. She freezes, hearing Peter's sharp intake of breath as they realize what he's holding – a bomb. Judging by the design, not one of great firepower, but dangerous all the same. And, more importantly, the type of bomb that's set to go off seconds after it leaves his hand.
"One step closer and I'll kill us all," he says, a manic, shaky grin on his face. Out of the corner of her eye Gamora can see Peter go rigid, eyes fixed on the bomb. She stops herself, leg twitching anxiously as she glares at the mercenary – the bomb would be a whole less concerning if it weren't for the sulfuric smell permeating through the mine shaft.
"Hey hey hey, no need for that," Peter says, the confident, convincing mask of Star-lord sliding easily onto his face. "We're not gonna hurt you – we just want to talk business." He gives Gamora a pointed look and she huffs angrily, fingers drifting away from her knife.
The Skrull is glaring at Peter in suspicion, shaking fingers still tight on the bomb.
"You want money, right?" Peter says, voice calm and soothing, as if he's talking to a frightened animal. "We can give you that – we just need that data chip."
"Sure," the Skrull says, eyes wild. "And then you blow my brains out the second you've got it in your hand."
"We aren't interested in killing anyone, much less you," Peter says. "We just want our data chip. So if you want to disarm that bomb, we can talk it out and, y'know, all live?"
The Skrull frowns, but he looks unsure, eyes darting between the two of them wildly. Peter edges forward, raising his hands in an unthreatening gesture.
"No one's gonna be killing anyone, I swear," Peter says, staring firmly at the Skrull. "Just disarm the bomb we can all get out of here."
Gamora thinks Peter's got him – the Skrull's eyes have widened, his hand relaxing on the bomb, and she thinks, for a second, that they may actually get out of this without much trouble.
But that is before a crack resounds from above them, a portion of the rotted ceiling breaking free as their voices resound throughout the mine.
The Skrull reacts instantaneously, yanking out his gun with his free hand and aiming it at Peter. Gamora is there in an instant, snapping his wrist and kicking his feet out from beneath him and, more importantly, getting Peter out of the gun's sights.
It's sloppy, but for a second, lost in the adrenaline, she forgets about the bomb.
The mercenary loses his grip on the bomb as he falls, the blinking orb flying through the air in almost slow-motion.
"Go, go, GO!" Peter yells as he rushes towards her, eyes wide in terror. Before she can react, the bomb explodes.
A rush of heat sears over them as the explosion rocks the ceiling, destroying the supports in a gulf of flame that quickly catches the sulfur lining the rest of the ceiling with a another deafening explosion.
The fragile scaffolding explodes in a splintering barrage of wood as the masonry collapses on top of them, stones and flaming debris raining down.
"Move!" Peter's desperate cry echoes in her ears as she feels him yank her away from the screaming mercenary, throwing them both towards the exit as the mine collapses around them. She pulls herself out of the daze, sprinting towards the exit, harsh breaths matching Peter's panicked gasps. She can just see the bright strip of daylight ahead, they are mere yards from the door-
Peter cries out as a heavy beam smashes down in front of them, sending them sprawling to the floor. Gamora gasps as she struggles to push herself back up, dust and rubble blinding her as it rains around her. Coughing, she struggles to her feet, looking around desperately.
"Peter!" she yells, her voice a desperate cry among the loud crumbling of the building. "Peter-"
A blinding pain explodes in the back of her head, her vision blinking out as she collapses onto the floor.