Hey guys! Sorry for the short chapter but I'll hopefully get a longer one up this weekend! Hope you all enjoy! :D


"Is he alright?"

"What the hell happened?!"

"Did you find Reeper?"

"I am Groot!"

"Careful! Don't drop 'im, ya big idiot!"

"I was not going to drop him!"

"Enough!" Rocket snaps, the single word filling the entire cabin. "Knock it off, all of you! And back off!" He shoots a look at Drax and nods him forward. "Bring 'im over here."

Drax nods once and walks across cabin wordlessly, Peter still cradled in his arms. He finds the nearest bunk and lowers him onto it carefully, mindful of the broken bones in his ankle. Peter remains much too still and much too quiet and it makes the room around him seem much too big. It's deeply disturbing and a short growl from Rocket and a sharp whistle from Yondu are the only things that keep everyone else from rushing the bed.

"Now," Rocket says, his eyes drifting from one person to the next. "One at a time, tell us what happened."

Gamora takes the opportunity to speak first. "It was Reeper," she says simply, confirming any lingering fears/doubts. "We didn't see him but Drax did."

The tattooed Guardian nods, his gaze fixed on Peter's motionless form. "We fought in the hallway," he says without looking away. "I cut off his hand." Normally a statement like that would have been delivered with a sense of pride and accomplishment but now it just comes across as distracted.

"Did ya kill 'im?" Kraglin asks, the question coming out with a sharp, biting edge.

Drax shakes his head once. "He escaped before I could."

The former Ravager mutters an ugly curse under his breath, his jaw set tightly.

"No surprise there," Rocket mumbles in Drax's defense. He digs a small scanner out of his pocket and fumbles with the switches as he speaks. "Reeper's never been caught for long and those who do catch him usually end up dead or missing a couple limbs." He adjusts a few more dials and whacks it once with his paw and the screen flickers to life.

"What is that?" Gamora asks, frowning at the device Rocket is holding.

"Med scanner I've been workin' on," he tells her simply with a small shrug. "Figured we'd eventually need somethin' portable in our line of work so I've been messin' around with a prototype for a couple weeks now."

He levels the scanner at Peter and punches in a few commands. There's a soft whirring sound like a tiny motor spinning and after a second the screen flickers again with its findings. It makes Rocket's stomach drop. He frowns at the screen, plugs in the commands again, and re-scans the unconscious Guardian. The scanner's screen flickers again and produces the same results.

Rocket curses and shakes his head in disbelief. "There's no freakin' way…" he mumbles, staring at the screen to make sure he's reading it right.

"What?" Yondu (or maybe Kraglin?) demands.

He shakes his head again and tinkers with the scanner one more time, getting the same results over and over. "Shit," he mutters, passing the scanner to the nearest person (Drax) and rushing back to the front of the ship.

"What? What's wrong?" someone yells from behind him but Rocket ignores them.

He comes to a stop in front of one of the storage lockers and jerks the door open, dragging out their meager medical kit. It was woefully depleted and lacked any kind of major medical supplies that would be useful at the moment.

Rocket curses himself for not restocking the last time they were on Xandar; the thought had crossed his mind and just as quickly disappeared in favor of weapons parts. At the time he'd reasoned they could do without them; Drax and Gamora hardly ever needed medical attention and with his enhancements and Groot literally being a tree, neither of them really needed it either. Peter was the only one among their little ragtag group who might ever need legitimate medical care but luckily he'd never needed more than a few dermal patches and a couple stitches.

Until now.

Rocket curses again, grabs an epinephrine patch from the kit, and runs back to bed Peter was occupying. He rips open the package with his teeth and slaps the patch onto Peter's shoulder, suppressing a shudder at the coolness of his skin.

"What the hell is going on?"

Rocket sighs and scrubs his paws across his eyes. "What's going on is that we need to get Quill to a hospital ASAP. If that med scanner is accurate," he says, gesturing toward the device in Drax's hand. "Quill ain't gonna last much longer. He needs blood, a lot of it, and we don't exactly have a surplus on the ship. That epi patch should keep 'im going for a little while but it ain't gonna be enough."

Drax holds out one arm in response. "He can have my blood."

"Mine too," Mantis pipes up from the back of the group.

"I am Groot!"

"No, no, no," Yondu says, shaking his head slowly. He steps forward, eyes locked on Peter and expression grim. "It don't work like that. Terran biology is weird; they have specific blood types and if ya try shootin' 'em up with somethin' that don't match you'll end up killin' 'em. Not only that, he needs human blood, not-" he fades off that the end, gesturing vaguely toward Drax, Mantis, and Groot. "Well, yours."

"Well, we can't just leave him like this," Gamora protests furtively. "There must be something we can do for him."

"There is," the former Ravager captain says, grabbing a handful of the blanket that had been kicked to the end of the mattress and tugging it over Peter. "Keep 'im warm, keep 'im breathin', keep 'im alive." He gives them all a hard, unmistakable look. "There is no alternative. Got it?"

A series of nods follow his words, silent agreement spreading throughout the ship. They had just gotten Peter back; there was no way they were losing him now.

Rocket turns and begins walking back toward the front of the ship. "Xandar's gonna be the best place to go for somethin' like this but we need to make a pitstop at Knowhere first."

"Why Knowhere?" Kraglin asks, frowning in confusion.

"That's the closest place I can think of to get universal plasma," Rocket tells him as he slides into the pilot's seat and plugs in the coordinates. He's sitting in Peter's chair and as much as they bicker and argue over who the better pilot is, he really hates that he has to be the one in the chair now. "It ain't blood but it's gonna help Quill a whole lot more than that epi patch will."

He glances back over his shoulder, eyes landing on the unconscious form of his fellow Guardian. His jaw sets a bit more tightly and his ears flatten a little against his head. "Just make sure he stays alive until we get there."


More to come soon! :D