The Milano was safely berthed in a large, anonymous port on a moon at the edge of the system; they used a fraction of the reward from their last contract to purchase another small ship, cheap and unremarkable but space-worthy. Once they returned to the planet, they kept as low-profile as they possibly could, because the Kree would kill Peter sooner rather than later if there was any warning.

They asked questions and they scouted, quietly and thoroughly. Gamora cleaned her sword, and Drax sharpened his knives, and Rocket made sure his favorite gun was in perfect working order. Rocket also made a handful of explosive devices. And they planned.

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Zoral had taken her sweet time. She'd switched back and forth between the dagger and the rod a few more times. She occasionally poked at Peter's right hand, and seemed satisfied with the desperate noises he made through the gag. She never seemed to be bored, merely curious, and sometimes frighteningly gleeful. The whole time she studied him critically, observationally: how many different ways can we make the half-Terran flinch? What makes him breathless? When does he make the loudest noises?

It went on forever, long past the point where Peter gave up on stoicism. Fuck principle. He just wanted it to end. He might have even asked her politely to please stop, if he'd been able to speak.

By the time she finally decided to take a break, he was barely conscious.

When they lowered the chain until his knees hit the floor, Peter roused enough to notice that they had removed the gag and were trying to pour water down his throat. He managed to swallow rather than choke on it - mostly. Then they left him alone for a while and he eventually passed out.

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Some indeterminate amount of time later, Peter was woken by a bucket of cold water to the face, immediately followed by a stun baton to the back. He was screaming before he even realized what was happening.

The baton was taken away, but Peter could still hear it humming ominously. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath. Tarvath walked around from behind him and made another quick jab of the baton into Peter's side, just enough to make the muscles along his ribcage spasm painfully.

Then Tarvath stepped back and gestured, and the chain between Peter's wrists was pulled up again.

Everything hurt. His shoulders burned with the added stretch as the chain dragged his body upward. He had been kneeling long enough for his knees to stiffen up; the left one felt like one wrong move might snap whatever ligaments remained. His right ankle felt swollen and stiff inside his boot. His skin itched with drying blood. He could feel the burn marks; the deepest ones were spots and lines of painful numbness, with a faint burning sensation lingering in the less-damaged surrounding skin. His right hand and some of the deeper burns and more ragged cuts felt feverishly warm - especially the deepest burn on the back of his left thigh and a handful of others scattered across his legs, which probably had pieces of fabric seared into them. The rest of him felt freezing cold. It was hard to tell how much was the fever and how much was the cold water dripping down his skin.

This time, when Tarvath gestured and the chain was secured once again, the toes of Peter's boots were barely scraping the floor. Probably better for his knee and ankle, but worse for his shoulders and wrists. You win some, you lose some.

"And how was your sleep?" Tarvath asked, and there was the sneering that Peter expected.

"Great, slept like a baby," Peter sneered back with as much energy as he could muster.

"Wonderful news." Tarvath shoved the baton into Peter's side again, and the muscles seized hard enough that Peter was reminded extremely painfully of his cracked ribs.

This one ended after a few seconds. When Peter caught his breath, he asked, "And why would you give a shit about how I'm sleeping?"

"If you are rested, perhaps your stamina will be improved."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Yeah, maybe, if you avoid zapping my fucking brainstem this time."

"Ah, of course," Tarvath replied, walking back around to stand behind Peter. "Excellent advice." The baton touched the back of Peter's neck, just for an instant; his head snapped back and his vision flashed white.

Then his head just hurt, and he let it roll forward. He could see sparkles swimming across his field of view. They were a nice addition to the dirty, blood-spattered gray floor. "That right there," he said dully after a moment, "that would be my fucking brainstem."

"Ah."

Tarvath was an asshole and a sadist. He was also impatient and kind of repetitive.

The baton jammed into Peter's lower back. Right on the vertebrae. Fire shot through his spine and his head snapped back again as everything seized. His back arched so hard he thought it might break.

This went on for interminable seconds.

Finally the baton moved away. Peter gasped for breath while his back muscles continued to twitch.

"You," Peter said between gasps, "are an... unimaginative... asshole."

The baton zapped the back of his shoulder and his whole arm jerked.

"Unimaginative, perhaps," Tarvath finally replied. "But effective at causing pain, nonetheless."

"But aren't you sick of this yet? Same old, same old... It has to get boring after a while." Hopefully. Maybe if Tarvath got bored enough, he'd stop? At least for a little while? Or maybe he'd just zap Peter into unconsciousness. Again. That would work, too.

Tarvath came forward to stand facing Peter. "Oh, there are many more... possibilities. If we tire of one form of torture, we will move on to another."

Or, apparently, if they got bored he would have new painful experiences to look forward to. "Oh, great, new kinds of fun and games," Peter said. "Fantastic. I can't wait."

"Regardless of the method, I will savor this for as long as I can. For as long as you remain defiant." Tarvath raised the baton and trailed the end of it down Peter's arm.

Peter gritted his teeth and remained silent.

"For as long as you can still scream." The end of the baton struck Peter's right hand and dug into the crusted, torn flesh of his palm, and Peter screamed, then. Suddenly another bucket of water caught him in the face, from the side this time, and the scream turned into choked coughing.

"Fuck you," Peter sputtered, when he could breathe again.

"No, thank you," Tarvath replied lightly. "I have other plans... But you should ask Zoral."

Nope. Hell no. They were all scarier-than-usual assholes, but Zoral was fucking creepy.

Tarvath laughed. "Your face gives you away," he said. "Zoral is a treasure, is she not?"

"Zoral is a fucking crazy bitch." She was a fucking crazy bitch with a new favorite game: Let's See How Much Peter Quill Can Take Before He Cracks. Peter didn't like that game. Zoral was pretty good at it.

"Indeed." Tarvath looked inspired suddenly. "I will relay your... suggestion. I am sure that she will find it intriguing."

There was a tiny flash of panic in Peter's brain that started unfurling into a whole string of nasty ideas. He tried to keep the panic from showing, but he didn't entirely succeed.

Tarvath laughed at him some more. "Perhaps you will beg for death, after all."

Fevered delirium was starting to sound nice. Peter willed the infection to work faster. Septic shock was a lousy way to go, but at least he'd be out of his mind. Please god before Zoral got any more ideas. Tarvath was an asshole and a sadist, but he just made Peter feel painful, and weary, and angry. Zoral was fucking scary. She had the patience of a robot and the creativity of an insane artist. With Zoral, begging might start to seem like a really good idea.

Tarvath spoke to one of the always-present Kree behind Peter. "Find Zoral," he said. "Ask her if she is ready for another visit with our guest. I believe she was searching for a power cell. Help her search, if necessary."

Shit. Peter sincerely hoped that Zoral tripped and fell and broke her goddamned neck.

Tarvath turned back to Peter and raised the baton again, and then he paused. There was a speculative gleam in his eyes. "I will leave you for now," he finally decided. "You should save your strength for Zoral."

Then Tarvath walked away. Peter was almost tempted to ask him to come back and zap his brainstem some more. A few good hits could fry out some neural circuits, so Peter might not even notice when Zoral came back.

But Peter kept his mouth shut, and the footsteps faded.

His wrists hurt, and his back hurt, and his shoulders, and a lot of other things. He tried to focus on those, and not on Zoral's weirdly specific shopping list.

There weren't enough distractions in the galaxy to keep him from thinking about that. Not when he was stuck hanging here, staring at a blank wall and a dirty floor, with the ever-present handful of anonymous Kree lurking on the other side of the room.

It was more than a few minutes, but probably less than half an hour. Peter wasn't sure that he was experiencing time linearly anymore. Whatever. Tarvath was back, and he looked gleeful.

"I am not sure what she plans to do," Tarvath told Peter. "But I am sure that it will be terribly fascinating."

Then Peter heard Zoral's voice behind him, not too close, but close enough that Peter gave a tiny, barely noticeable flinch. "Move him to the chair," she commanded. "And bind him. Securely. I don't want to be distracted by flailing limbs."

Thug 1 and Thug 2 appeared, and the chair was dragged closer to Peter and another anonymous Kree stepped up to unwind the chain from the crossbeam. As they lowered him onto his feet, Peter's left knee refused to lock and started to fold under the pressure. Dull pain shot through his swollen right ankle, but he ground his teeth and pulled with his arms and held part of his weight with his screaming shoulders.

They dragged the chair a little closer and shoved Peter into it. He struggled, half-heartedly, because it felt better than doing nothing. But Kree were a lot stronger than humans, and there were four of them and only one of Peter. He was going nowhere.

The loose end of the chain was pulled up and they slung it back over the crossbeam, out of the way.

While two of the nameless Kree lashed Peter's ankles and calves to the chair's legs, the Thugs unbraided the cargo straps holding his wrists together, and used the loose ends to tie his wrists to the arms of the chair. They came up with two strips of fabric to tie down his elbows, and another length of cargo strap went around his waist. Then they moved back to the other side of the room.

Showtime, motherfucker.

Zoral strolled past him, carrying a small storage crate. She set it down on the floor in front of Peter; another Kree followed her, set down a large power cell next to the crate, and retreated.

Where the hell did she find a power cell that size, just lying around?

Zoral leaned down to rummage through the crate. "This place is full of interesting things," she said, removing a thin coil of insulated wiring, placing it on the floor, and turning back to the crate.

Peter had some ideas about the power cell, and the wires. It was going to hurt. Probably in new and interesting ways.

Then Zoral straightened, brandishing a handheld power drill. "See what I discovered, hiding on a dusty shelf."

Oh, god, now she had a fucking power drill to play with. Last time, she had thoroughly dismantled Peter's resolve with some judicious application of heated metal to skin. Peter didn't want to find out what she could do with a power drill.

Even Tarvath looked a little surprised. "And what will you do with that?"

"I have not yet decided," Zoral answered thoughtfully. "I may have a use for it later." Her head swiveled toward Peter, and she asked him, "What do you think?"

Peter thought a lot of things, but he kept it simple. "I think you're a sick bitch."

"That is not a nice thing to say." Zoral turned her whole body then and did a little hip-shimmy in Peter's direction. "Do you not find me desirable, Star-Lord? You are a man with something of a... reputation, after all. Do you not wish to lie with me?"

Peter glared up at her and tried to make himself as clear as possible. "Hell no. Not if you paid me."

"Well, now I am insulted," she said.

"Too bad."

"No man has ever refused me." She reached down to pick up the coil of wiring, and removed a pair of wire-cutters from the crate. "Clearly, this is a challenge I must overcome."

Tarvath raised his brow. "No man? Ever?"

"No man," Zoral said firmly. She unwound and cut two long pieces of wiring, efficiently stripping a few inches of insulation from the ends.

"You inspire desire and fear in equal measures, I'm afraid," Tarvath told her.

Zoral leaned down again, checked that the power cell's output was turned off, and wrapped one exposed end of each wire around each of the terminals. "Perhaps," she said. "But I can be very persuasive." She traded the wire-cutters for a small spanner, and shoved the power cell closer to Peter.

Peter looked down at the power cell, and then back up at Zoral. "Not persuasive enough," he told her.

"Oh, on the contrary." She slid carefully onto his lap, straddling his knees. "This time, Star-Lord, you will beg... for me."

"No way in hell," Peter promised. "Beg for death, maybe. For you? Not in a million years." He managed to show more attitude than he felt. Internally, Peter was the tiniest bit afraid that Zoral might be right.

Zoral threaded her fingers through Peter's hair and wrenched his head backwards. "You will," she said. "And... then, perhaps... you may beg for death." She glanced over her shoulder. "Tarvath, some assistance, please?"

Peter could see Tarvath approaching from the corner of his eye.

"Hold him like this," she instructed, forcing Peter's jaw open with her other hand.

Tarvath's hands replaced Zoral's. For a moment, Peter was confused - What, she's going to yank out teeth now?

Then Zoral took the free end of one of the wires attached to the power cell, and used her fingers to wrap it around one of Peter's lower left molars. It took a few moments of Zoral fiddling and Peter wincing, but she got the wire jammed in down to the gumline.

Peter wasn't confused any more. This was going to be worse than pulling teeth.

"Thank you, Tarvath, that will be all," Zoral said.

Tarvath took his hands away and stepped back. "No gag, then?" he asked.

"No. When he does beg, I wish to hear it clearly."

"But will he not scream? You said before that you found it tiresome."

"He will. Most assuredly." She reached down to drag the power cell closer, and picked up the free end of the other wire, and wrapped it around the head of the spanner.

"And you do not mind?"

Zoral narrowed her eyes at Peter. "This time, it will be my pleasure." With her right hand safely holding the insulated handle of the spanner, she brandished it towards his face. "Are you sure you don't wish to reconsider?" she asked.

"I said hell no the first time," Peter told her, enunciating carefully around the wire. "And I meant it."

"We will see how long that lasts." She pressed the tip of the spanner into the underside of his jaw, just below the wired molar, and then she reached down with her left hand and clicked the power cell's output dial past zero.

Peter flinched, but that was it. He could feel a low current running through his jaw, trickling tiny icy stabs of pain down into his gums. Not nearly as bad pulling teeth.

Then Zoral started turning up the power. Slowly. She pressed harder with the spanner, and Peter let his head tip back and he focused on breathing. Breathe through it. The current kept increasing, and Zoral shoved the spanner into his skin harder. And harder. Until Peter was growling through his clenched jaw.

Until he was sure they were well past the pain level of pulling teeth.

Then she took the spanner away from his jaw, and Peter had a moment of relief - a short moment - and then Zoral turned up the power another click, pulled his head sideways with her hand, and dug the spanner into the exposed left side of his neck.

And held it for a few seconds.

And turned up the power another click. And paused for another moment, and moved the spanner down about half an inch.

And repeat.

She kept up this cycle for a little while, slowly moving down Peter's neck and then across his shoulder in tiny increments, turning up the power one more click with every contact. Peter's neck had continuous muscle tremors by the time she got to his shoulder; his skin was marked by a trail of gradually darkening contact burns.

He was screaming by the time she got down past his elbow.

Zoral finally paused for more than a second. "Do you wish to beg for me now?" she asked him.

Peter shook his head, and then took another breath, and said, "The answer... is still no."

"Good," Zoral said. "I'm quite enjoying this for now." She turned up the power another click and moved to the next spot on his forearm.

And so on. Down along his wrist, and into the palm of his hand, and then she moved over to his hip and started revisiting some of the older burn marks along his left side.

Finally, some time later, Peter took a breath in between screams to gasp, "Stop!"

Zoral blinked at him and then took the spanner away from a particularly deep burn line along his ribs. "Please," she prompted.

"Please," Peter gasped. He could feel the residual burning all the way back up to his jaw. His whole upper body was shivering and he couldn't make it stop.

"Please, what?" Zoral asked, and leaned in close.

He thought for a moment, and then told her, "Please... go fuck yourself." Part of his brain said, Ha! And another part said, You masochistic fucking idiot.

Zoral watched him with her eyes narrowed. "Surely you must remember, Star-Lord, that we have already played this game once before... And I won. I know what your face looks like when you've given up."

"Not this time... you looney bitch."

"Not yet." She stared at him for a moment longer, and then smiled again. "But soon." She turned up the power, two clicks this time, and pressed the spanner back against Peter's ribs.

Peter lost track of time again. There was a lot of pain and a lot of screaming. The screams got more ragged as his voice turned hoarse.

Eventually, Zoral stopped when she got back up to his shoulder.

"This is becoming tiresome," Zoral sighed. "And my patience wears thin."

Peter didn't comment. He couldn't think of anything that didn't consist of Please, please leave me alone. He concentrated on breathing through the muscle cramps and random twitches.

Tarvath spoke up behind Zoral. "Surely you are not finished?" he asked her.

"Not until I've kept my promise," she said, looking intently at Peter, and then glanced back over her shoulder at Tarvath. "But I wish to accelerate the process."

"And how might you accomplish that?"

"Anything but the power cell, please," Peter muttered, glad that he could still manage to be sarcastic. "It's getting boring."

Zoral stared at Peter for a long moment, and then slowly she smiled. "Well," she told him. "Because you said please." She reached down to turn off the cell's power output, and dropped the spanner on the floor next to it. Then she slid gracefully off Peter's lap and walked up to the crate.

Thank god. Peter's muscles trembled with fatigue and shock, and his teeth ached. His shoulder gave another painful twinge.

Zoral studied the crate's contents for a few moments. Finally she said, "Ah," and reached down, and when she stood up she was holding the power drill.

Shit. Peter was missing the power cell already.

"This will do nicely," Zoral said, walking back towards Peter and coming to stand in front of him. The drill made a short whirring sound as a drill bit locked into place. "I will make you an offer, Star-Lord."

The less stubborn, more self-preserving part of Peter's brain said, She has a power drill, you moron - give it up already. He hesitated, but then shook his head. "Answer's still no."

"This is a different offer."

Peter watched her warily.

"Beg me to take you. Now. And I will. Or..." Zoral brandished the drill in her right hand. "I will damage you severely, and then I will take you." She took another step closer and crouched between Peter's knees, and he froze. "You have ten seconds to decide. Then I will decide for you." She ran her left hand up Peter's thigh, and she smiled again. Her fingers wrapped around his belt. "Either way, I will enjoy it more than you will."

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As soon as they were able to confirm the last critical piece of information, the plan went into motion. It had been 19 hours since the Kree woman delivered Quill's jacket with a threat, almost a full planetary day-cycle. It was the middle of the night here, so they had the cover of darkness as an added benefit.

The Kree were operating out of an unused maintenance building on the fringe of the commercial port. There, Rocket climbed up to the roof and entered the building through the ventilation shafts; Gamora and Drax disappeared into the shadow of a nearby building to wait for Rocket's signal.

Rocket moved as quickly and silently as he could through the air ducts. The building was mostly quiet. And then, as he neared one of the designated storage rooms, he heard faint voices. The closer he got, they became more distinct; Kree voices. And then a very human-sounding scream.

Shit. Well, at least it meant Quill was alive.

Rocket found a vent opening in the air duct that gave him a partial view into the room. He could see Quill, and two Kree - one of whom was the bitch who'd showed up at the Milano with Quill's jacket - and maybe a couple of humanoid-shaped shadows over by the far wall, but Rocket couldn't see that far. More importantly, Rocket himself couldn't be seen by those in the room. He quickly scrolled open his holographic tablet, marked the location on the floor plan that they'd downloaded, and sent the information off to Gamora and Drax. Now it was their turn to act; they would plant Rocket's improvised bombs, to encourage confusion and panic at the right time, and then the real action would start.

But that would take a few minutes; until then, Rocket had to keep quiet and out of sight. He settled in to appraise the situation.

It didn't look like Quill was missing any pieces - so far, so good - but he looked like shit. One of his hands looked fucked up. His arms and torso were littered with bruises and blood and burn marks; the Kree woman straddling his legs made a few new burn marks along Quill's torso as Rocket watched. And Quill was still smart-mouthing at her, when he wasn't screaming.

Quill was a fucking lunatic sometimes. Rocket liked that about him.

Then there was a break in the action, and the woman went and dug out a power drill. She gave Quill a weird ultimatum, and Rocket thought, What the fuck? Clearly he had missed an earlier, critical part of the conversation.

But Quill's face went an unhealthy shade of pale under the blood and bruises. The woman leaned in closer and Quill started to look panicky. Bordering on really fucking freaked out.

Rocket silently readied his gun. Gamora and Drax should be kicking things off any time now. Rocket would make sure to shoot the woman first - because she was closest to Quill, and also because she was a creepy bitch and Rocket instinctively disliked her.

Finally, the sound of distant explosions rumbled through the walls. The people in the room looked toward the sound, away from Rocket's location; Quill's face was a strange mixture of curiosity and relief.

The woman made a dismissive noise and turned back to Quill, leaning closer to him in a half-crouch between his knees.

Rocket kicked out the vent cover and shot her in the side of the head. She did a full-body twitch and slumped forward, still clutching the drill. As Rocket took aim again and shot the Kree man standing a few feet away, Quill shrieked and jerked, and then went rigid. Rocket winced. Shit, the woman must have triggered the drill on her way down. Rocket hoped it hadn't hit anything important.

The other Kree on the far end of the room were moving. Rocket shot one of them as the Kree entered his line of sight; then he leaped down to the floor, darted past Quill to get a clean field of fire, and made a few more quick shots.

Four more Kree down - and no one else left standing. Rocket could hear shouting outside the room. He scrambled over to the door, slammed it shut, and threw the locking mechanism. Hopefully that would keep them out long enough for Gamora and Drax to get here. And if it didn't, well, Rocket would be happy to shoot a few more Kree.

"Rocket?" Quill groaned. He sounded terrible, his voice hoarse from screaming.

Rocket kept an eye on the door, and moved back to where Quill was. "Yeah, I'm here."

"You guys came?"

"'Course we did," Rocket answered gruffly. "You're safe now, we've got you. Gamora and Drax should be here any minute, as soon as they're done killing everybody else."

"Great." Quill hissed out a long breath between clenched teeth. "Then, would you get her the fuck off of me?" he demanded, his voice rising into a pained snarl. "And get this fucking drill bit out of my leg!"

"Yeah, I can do that." Rocket reached past Quill's arm to carefully remove the woman's loose hand from around the drill, steadying the drill with his own hand, and then he gave her body a shove. She crumpled to the floor with a wet-sounding thud.

"Oh, god," Quill said. "I never thought I'd be so glad to see someone else's head explode in front of me." At that, Rocket looked up momentarily - sure enough, there was a fine spray of blue Kree blood across the side of Quill's face, with a few tiny gobs of other stuff mixed in.

Then Rocket focused his attention back onto the drill, stuck into the top of Quill's thigh, about a third of the way down from his hip. It felt like it was jammed - hit the bone, maybe. Rocket would need to be careful. "Hang on, Quill, this'll hurt. I gotta back this thing out."

Quill gave him a small, exhausted nod, and visibly braced himself. Rocket nudged the trigger in the reverse direction. The drill whined, but didn't budge. He nudged it a little harder, and suddenly it jerked loose, and Quill made a noise deep in his throat.

But that was the worst of it. Rocket turned the power off and carefully slid the drill bit straight out, and turned and tossed the entire drill towards the crate on the floor.

"Fuck," Quill said with a heavy sigh. His head rolled back against the top of the chair. "I am so glad to see you, Rocket. You have no idea."

"I have some idea," Rocket muttered. The wound left by the drill was welling with blood, not dangerously fast but enough that it was concerning. He grabbed some of the discarded strips of fabric, wadded them up, and pressed them against the wound.

With his other hand, Rocket drew a small switchblade from a pocket and flipped it open. Quill gave a tiny, involuntary flinch. Rocket froze.

"No, it's fine," Peter quickly assured him. "I just... had some shitty experiences with knives recently."

Rocket narrowed his eyes in sympathetic anger. "Yeah. I can imagine." He sliced through the various bindings holding down Quill's arms, making sure not to touch Quill's skin with the blade. Then, while Quill reached up with his left hand to gingerly tug the wire out from between his teeth, Rocket made short work of the rest of the bindings.

And none too soon. As he closed the switchblade, there were three loud bangs against the door.

"Rocket!" Gamora shouted from the other side.

"Yeah, we're clear!" Rocket yelled back. "Hold on a sec!" He put the switchblade back into his pocket and tapped Quill's leg next to the wound. "Hold that," Rocket told him.

Quill moved his hand to press down over the wad of fabric, and Rocket removed his own hand and scampered to the door. He turned the lock and pulled the door open. Gamora and Drax stood on the other side, holding their sword and knives at their sides. The blades were coated in blue Kree blood.

"I hope you killed 'em all," Rocket told them.

"We did," Drax answered. Gamora nodded solemnly.

Rocket bared his teeth with grim satisfaction. "Good."

"Peter!" Gamora said, and darted past Rocket. She stopped at Quill's side, hovering, like she wanted to touch him but couldn't decide whether or not she should. Finally she laid her sword on the floor, reached down to tear a wide strip from the lower leg of Quill's pants, and busied herself with carefully wrapping it around Quill's thigh to cover the wound.

Drax followed at a more sedate pace. He stood next to them for a moment, and finally asked Quill, "Who did this to you?"

Quill blinked up at him, and then pointed at the two nearest bodies. "Them, mostly."

"I swore I would remove their heads."

Quill blinked again. "That's... um... Thanks?"

"Well," Rocket said, "I already removed her head. Sort of." Almost half of the woman's skull was missing.

Drax looked at the body for a moment, and then nodded. "That is sufficient." Then he walked over to the other body, and he made a sharp downward swing with one of his knives to sever the neck.

Quill looked like he couldn't decide if this was heartwarming or slightly disturbing. Maybe a bit of both.

Rocket would have loved to let Drax go back through the building and behead every last one of these bastards. But Quill still looked like shit, and he also looked beyond exhausted. "We should get out of here," Rocket said, and the others agreed.

As it turned out, Quill wasn't going anywhere under his own power. One of his knees was fucked internally, and the other ankle was probably broken. So Drax carried him. Quill didn't make a single complaint about the princess treatment.

When Gamora was looking at Quill she looked sad and worried; when she wasn't, cold anger crept over her face. Rocket kind of felt the same way. So he took a detour on the way out of the building, and after they left, his quick piece of sabotage caught fire and the basement of the building imploded. The rest of it burned down from there.

The anger in Gamora's face subsided a little bit after that.