The older Peter grows, the wider his independent streak becomes. He's constantly getting in trouble, and it becomes clear to Kraglin that, even though Yondu always dishes out punishment, he doesn't always enforce it. When Peter is young, it's a swat on the bottom or a cuff upside the head. As he grows, it becomes chores. And Peter begins to shirk these chores. When he's in his late teens, he's restricted to the ship and banned from going planetside.

But it doesn't seem to stop him, and it drives Kraglin insane.

Today for instance, they're visiting a small planet after the heist they pulled yesterday. A heist which Quill nearly cost them when he tried to boost one of the target's vehicles and triggered an alarm. Yondu confined the 18-year-old to quarters for three weeks. No missions, no planetside ventures.

And yet, here he is, lounging at the bar talking to a pretty Arcturan girl. She runs her hand over his shoulders as she whispers something in his ear and walks away. He bends backwards in his seat to get a look at her as she retreats.

Kraglin marches towards the younger man, and he seizes his arm. Peter whirls around, hand straying towards his blaster. Once he sees it's the First Mate, he relaxes and laughs, running a hand through his hair. "Shit, Krags, you scared the crap outta me."

"What're ya doin' off the ship? Weren't ya confined to quarters?"

Peter chuckles and slaps Kraglin's shoulder. "Technically, yes. But Yondu doesn't need to know I'm here, does he?"

Kraglin's jaw tightens slightly. "Ya better head back before he sees ya."

"Oh, come on, man. You're too uptight all the time! Chill out. He's brokering with that Danan guy – it's going to take at least two hours. You know how slow that old geezer is. I thought I was gonna die when Yondu dragged me in there with him last time."

"Dawran."

"Huh?"

"Yondu's dealin' with Dawran this time, not Danan."

Peter straightens up. "How long does that usually take?"

Kraglin watches as the door opens and Yondu sidles in. "Well, seein' as the Cap'n jus' walked in, I'd say not long. Yer in deep shit now." The words come out with no small amount of satisfaction.

Yondu turns and spots the both of them.

"I'd run," Kraglin says, settling in a seat a couple away from the younger man.

"Yondu," Peter says smoothly as the Centaurian approaches. That's another thing. It's never Captain, never Sir. Always just Yondu, like they're buddies. And Yondu rarely bothers to correct him. It was cute when Peter was little, but now it just grates on Kraglin's nerves.

"Quill," Yondu replies, one of his sharper teeth glinting in the low light. "Mind tellin' me what the hell yer doin' down here?"

Peter gives Yondu his most charming smile and shrugs. "Oh, you know. Just needed a little change of scenery." He takes a sip of his drink and sets it down again with a confident thunk.

Kraglin just stares. If he had flippantly disregarded the Captain's orders like that, he'd be publicly shamed and possibly beaten in front of the crew. This punishment only happened to him once, and once was all it took. He'd taken the blame for something Quill had done to cost them an entire mission, to protect the younger man from Yondu's wrath. Yondu had beaten his First Mate in front of the entire crew, so hard that he'd blacked out. He'd taken it without protest - someone had to answer for the mistake. The worst part of the beating was not the pain, nor the embarrassment. Yondu is not stupid, and he must have known that it wasn't really Kraglin's fault that the mission had gone south. That hurt most.

Needless to say, Kraglin did not take the fall for Quill again. Now he sits, silently fuming as Peter smiles innocently at Yondu, and the Captain smiles proudly back - at least before yanking down on the Terran's ear so hard he nearly rips it off, marching him out the door, yelling about feeding him to the crew. Kraglin swipes Peter's drink and finishes it with a satisfied smirk.

Peter is now nineteen. His hair is shiny and curly, he's muscular and tall – taller than Kraglin, much to the First Mate's chagrin - and cocky as hell.

"Oh yeah?" he's saying to Yondu as Kraglin sits down next to him at a little dingy café, "Okay, I'll make you a bet, old man."

The Captain's eyes glitter over his glass. "Careful, boy."

"Yeah, yeah. I bet you can't seduce that girl over there."

Kraglin and Yondu both look over to see a pretty Krylorian girl in a skin-tight dress perched on a stool at the bar.

"If you lose," Peter continues, "I get your cut from next week's mission."

"And if I win?"

Peter snorts and rolls his eyes. "If you win - and that's a big if - I'll - I dunno. Hell, I'll bring you breakfast in bed every morning for a month."

"How 'bout yer on toilet duty for a month."

"Yeah, sure whatever," Peter says with a smirk. "How about it, old man?" He extends his hand.

Yondu grasps it and squeezes, not gently. "That's Cap'n to ya, boy. Ya got a deal," he says with a shark's smile.

He disappears from Peter's side, and Peter laughs as he orders another drink. "Gonna buy another piece of that stereo for the Milano with Yondu's share."

Kraglin is silent, smiling as he sips at his own drink. He's not going to say anything, and it's going to drive Peter crazy.

"It's almost done, you know," Peter continues. "I just have a few more pieces that are really hard to find. There's that little junk shop on Byrmal where that dude collects Terran stuff, though. I think I might have what I'm looking for. Problem is, he's not cheap."

Kraglin just nods.

Peter shifts in his seat. "Yeah, it's gonna be awesome when it's all finished. This is gonna be no sweat, Yondu could never pull this off."

Kraglin offers a shrug of his shoulder.

"Okay, what?" Peter asks, rounding on him.

"Oh, nothin'."

"Krags, what?"

"Jus' think yer underestimatin' the Cap'n, that's all."

Peter snorts. "You always take his side," he says with shove against Kraglin's shoulder. "He's old and ugly. No girl in her right mind is going to fall for someone like that."

"Huh. She must be insane, then."

Peter blinks. "What? What do you mean?"

Kraglin nods over Peter's shoulder. The younger man whirls in his seat.

Yondu is seated next to the Krylorian, who is blushing a deep red and giggling. Yondu is speaking softly, and as Peter watches, he tucks a dark pink curl behind her ear. She covers her mouth as she giggles harder, and Yondu grins.

Peter gapes. "What?" he splutters. His mouth drops as Yondu gets up from his seat and holds a hand out to the Krylorian girl. She slips a dainty hand in his, and he leads her towards the exit, passing by Peter on his way. Just as he passes, he leans over and says, "I'll have that toilet brush ready fer ya." With a cackle, he slings an arm around the girl's waist and saunters out of the bar.

This incident is just the first of many bets, tricks, pranks, arguments and fights that Yondu and Peter get into over the next five years.

Kraglin sips his drink at the outdoor bar, kicking the red dust of the ground off his boots. Yondu banished Quill to organize what has been dubbed the darklands by the crew - the bowels of the ship, where all the odds and ends, scraps and the like are tossed without any regard for what goes where. It has at least fifteen years of accumulation at this point, and everything is heaped in haphazard, towering piles. It's everyone's least favorite job, which is why it's gone unaddressed for so long.

Kraglin believes Quill is getting off extremely easy. Although, Yondu really did threaten to kill the Terran this time – they had their nastiest fight yet, as a result of Peter's breaking into the Captain's quarters while he was planetside and having sex in Yondu's bed with a Aakon girl. Kraglin was planetside with the Captain when this happened, and they finished the mission earlier than expected. Yondu retired to his room and raised hell, chasing a barely-clothed Quill through the ship with his arrow.

Yep, got off easy. The Captain would have unquestionably murdered anyone else – although no one else would have had the audacity to do such a thing in the first place.

There's a grunt behind Kraglin, and he doesn't have to turn to know that Yondu has seated himself by his side. "Anythin' good?" the Captain asks as he hails down a bartender.

Kraglin lifts his glass, which has a clear alcohol in it. "The Rhonne ain't bad. Ain't too good, but ain't bad," He takes another drink and turns to the him.

Yondu nods, and there's something in the movement that causes Kraglin to shift uncomfortably. There it is again, in the slight tremble as Yondu takes his glass from the barkeep.

Kraglin spins in his chair so he's completely shoulder to shoulder with his Captain. "Everythin' all right, Cap?"

Yondu takes a long, deep drink before answering, and his eyes are darting all around. "I dunno," he answers quietly. "Have a weird feelin'. Keep yer wits 'bout ya."

"Aye, sir."

Yondu downs his drink, and he's starting on another when Kraglin gets a chill down his spine. He straightens, spins slowly in his chair, eyeing the horizon and their surroundings with what he hopes is a nonchalant air. He doesn't see anything out of the ordinary - the crew is acting normally, as are the passersby. Then his eyes fall on a doorway across the street. There's a figure there, and although they are mostly hidden by shadow, he glimpses blue skin peeking out from a gap in their hood. It's not the same deep blue as the Captain. Kree, he realizes, as he lifts the cup to his lips again. He swivels in his chair, flagging down the bartender.

"I think there's a Kree in the doorway across the street," he murmurs to the Captain.

"Shit, I knew it." Yondu mutters. He gnaws his lip. "Git Scrote, he's over there. See if he can spy a lil' on him, see if he's up to anythin'."

"Yessir. Hey Scrote!" Kraglin calls.

The man belches and gets up from his seat to walk over to the First Mate. "Kraglin?"

"Don't look around," Kraglin says pointedly, pushing over his glass. "Just take a drink a' this, smile."

Scrote, who's used to being sent on spy missions, takes the glass with a smile and drinks. He holds out the cup, nodding at it as if in approval of its taste. "What's the target?"

"Across the street, in the doorway" Kraglin says, also smiling. "We think it might be a Kree. See if ya can find out what he's up to."

"Aye, sir."

Kraglin reaches over and slaps his shoulder as if in comradery; Scrote does the same with a smile, a tip of the glass, and continues on his way.

To Kraglin's dismay, he returns a few minutes later. "There's no one there."

"Shit," Kraglin hisses, turning slightly in his seat. Sure enough, the doorway is empty. "Okay. Jus' keep an eye out."

Scrote nods and returns to his original spot.

Kraglin scans the area again and is about to turn back to Yondu when there's a loud cry of pain nearby. The First Mate vaults out of his seat. Yondu does the same, and they look at one another. "Quill?"

There's a murderous flash in Yondu's eyes, and he takes off running in the direction of the sound. It's all Kraglin can do to keep pace. Though Yondu is older and shorter, the Captain has a stamina that his crew has a hard time keeping up with. He was a battle slave under the Kree for 20 years, he remembers a drunken Tullk telling him once. 20 years. The number rolls around in Kraglin's head as he follows the Captain.

The yells are interspersed with loud swearing, and as they grow closer, they hear fists on flesh. There's the crackling sound of a blaster, and Peter screams. They slide to a halt at the next intersection, where four Kree are nursing wounds and bruises. The two Kree that are standing are hovering over Peter, who's down and clutching his arm. Blood runs over his fingers and drips onto the ground, dying the earth an even darker shade of red. The standing Kree jerk their heads up at Yondu's approach, and the shorter of the two darts forward to grab Peter, flicking out a blade attached to a mechanism on his arm and sliding it under the Terran's chin. "Not another step, or he dies."

Yondu halts in his tracks. "Let him go, or I swear to all the gods I'll-"

"Perhaps we can make a bargain," the Kree interrupts. Yondu narrows his eyes. Upon closer study of the Kree's face, he realizes that this must be one of the aristocracy - parts of his face, especially around his eyes, are smeared with a paler light blue powder, a mark of high social rank. "You are Yondu Udonta, correct?"

"Yes," he answers. "What the hell d'ya want?"

The Kree laughs lightly. "Why, you of course. We've observed this boy in your crew for some time, and he seems important to you. If that's true-"

Peter snorts. "It's not," he interjects.

The Kree seems slightly startled and looks down at him. "Pardon?"

"I'm not important," Peter says with a roll of his eyes. "You're wasting your time if you think Yondu's going to-"

"Shut up, Quill," Yondu snaps. "Yer jus' gonna make it worse."

"See what I have to put up with?" Peter says, gesturing to the Captain.

"Pete," Kraglin warns. "These are Kree, they mean business, so I'd shut it if I were you."

"Oh, shut up Kraglin," Peter cries angrily. "I know what they are! And if you think-" he makes a gagging sound as the Kree presses the knife deeper into his skin. A small rivulet of blood trickles down his throat.

"Stop!" Yondu shouts. "He ain't done nothin'. Jus - let him go and maybe I'll let ya live."

"Told ya he wouldn't-" Peter croaks, then yelps as the Kree grips his hair, hard.

"That's enough out of you. What'll it be, Udonta? Return to your masters, or I will slit this boy's throat and let his blood warm my hands."

"Fine, fine." Yondu replies through gritted teeth, holding up his hands. He's about to purse his lips when Kraglin seizes the shoulder of his duster.

"Cap'n," he hisses in warning.

Yondu glances behind them and sees there are five more Kree behind him. "Shit." He can't make a move now, it's too risky. While he's taking out the Kree holding Peter, one of them behind could get the drop on him, or worse, Kraglin.

"The arrow," the lead Kree says. "Get it away from him."

One of the Kree behind him comes up on his right side and slips the arrow from its holster, retreating quickly to his leader. "Lord Garrus," he says, offering the arrow. Garrus plucks it from his hand, releasing his grip on Peter's hair, but brings the blade up even further, so Peter breathes in sharply as the edge scraps against his throat. "I've only seen recordings of this amusing little gadget. Think of all the enemies you will destroy for us with this," he says, studying it. He looks to Yondu with a smirk on his lips. "Bind him." he snaps.

Yondu gasps as he feels a noose slip over his head. He jabs his hand between the rope and his throat, and it cuts into his fingers as it tightens. He gags. His right arm is bent behind his back, and he's forced face-first into the dirt. He can hear Kraglin screaming for him and turns his head just enough to see the First Mate being detained by two Kree. They're having a hard time keeping a hold of him.

Kraglin watches, still fighting to get free, as Garrus shoves Peter into the arms of another Kree. "Take him away."

"Wh-what?" Peter shouts, struggling against the Kree holding him. "Hey! Asshole! Let me go!"

"He's attractive," Garrus continues. "Someone will pay well to have him in their bed."

Another Kree comes along side and secures Peter's other arm. The Terran's eyes are wide and panicked. "Let me go!"

"No!" The word comes strangled and hoarse from Yondu's mouth. "Quill!"

"Oh, you didn't really think I was going to trade him for you, did you? Oh no, not when I could have the whole set." Garrus steps closer, twirling the arrow in his fingers. "And this is Kraglin Obfonteri, correct?" he says, sliding the arrow under Kraglin's chin to lift his gaze. "You have quite a bounty on your head from the Corps." He chuckles darkly. "Of course, I hear there's an even greater reward if I return you to the Skrulls."

"Over m'dead body!"

"Luckily, they just changed that specification. Alive or dead, I hear." Garrus grins at him cruelly. "Perhaps I'll kill you in front of your Captain, so he knows he's failed you. Yes, that's a lovely idea. Bring him here," Garrus beckons to the Kree holding Kraglin, and they drag him forward. "I'll even kill you with his arrow. Wouldn't that be-" he doesn't finish his sentence. He's interrupted by a flash of bright light, and a sharp crack like breaking glass. Blood pours out of his mouth, a hole sizzling in the side of his head. As he goes limp, there are more crackling blaster shots, and the Kree fall dead all around them.

As Kraglin helps the noose off Yondu, he looks in the direction from whence the shots came, expecting to see one of their crew, perhaps Brahl or Taserface, who are some of their best shots. All he glimpses is a head of dark hair and a flash of green leather disappearing behind a window sill on an upper floor of a nearby building. He doesn't have time to dwell on it. As soon as Yondu is free, he's whistling the most ferocious, piercing note Kraglin has ever heard. The arrow tears itself from underneath Garrus' dead body and zooms after Peter. "They're loading him onto a ship!" Yondu cries, racing after the arrow.

Kraglin follows, drawing his blaster.

The ship is in mid-air when they reach it, but the gangplank is still halfway open. Peter is fighting against the Kree holding him. He spots Yondu and reaches a hand towards him. "Yondu, help! Let go of me!" Peter rears back his fist and lands a powerful punch in the jaw of the Kree holding him; he tumbles out over the gangplank. He catches Peter's ankle on the way down, and the Terran tumbles after him.

The ship is now fifty feet in the air, Peter is clutching the hydraulic pistons responsible for opening the gangplank, and the Kree is clutching Peter's leg, holding on for dear life.

"Hold on, boy!" Yondu yells, and whistles. The arrow drives through the Kree's hand, severing it at the wrist, and the Kree falls, screaming, to the ground below.

"What's goin' on?" Tullk comes running up, Oblo, Brahl and Horuz at his heels. "Fekkin' hell," he says upon seeing Peter. The ship just keeps rising.

Kraglin looks at them and his eyes widen. "Horuz! Horuz, yer jet boots. Give 'em t'me!"

Tullk hurriedly helps Horuz slip them off, and Kraglin pulls them on over his own boots, clicking them into place. They're loose, not meant for his smaller feet, but they'll have to do. He's not letting the Kree take Peter. He runs forward a few paces until he's clear of the group and activates the boots with a tap of his heel. His ascent begins unsteadily – he hates jet boots, he always has, and prefers the safety and stability of ships. If Xandarians had been meant to fly without vehicles, they would have been born with wings.

But he tucks his knees together slightly, squares his shoulders and lays his arms to his sides, and he takes off like an arrow towards the Kree ship. He grips the still-open gangplank. "Pete! Pete, gimme yer hand!"

Peter shakes his head, clinging to the pistons, trying to get a leg aboard the ship. "I'm gonna fall, Krags!"

He's right. Peter is pale, tired, and injured - the arm of his shirt is soaked with blood, his hands slippery with it – his grip is failing. Gripping the edge of the gangplank as guidance, Kraglin steers himself towards the younger man and clenches a hand around his belt, pulling upward. If they can't get off the ship, they're going to have to go inside it. It's just a little puddle jumper, used to get between motherships and not much else – if they can take down the pilot, they can commandeer the ship and land it safely.

He gets inside the ship, deactivates the jet boots, and plants his feet. He's almost got Peter onboard when there's a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns – and receives a harsh blow to the face. He feels himself fall, roll over the edge of the gangplank – and then there's nothing holding him. There's just open space, the wind roaring in his ears as he turns head over feet, tumbling down. The ground is speeding towards him. He can't breathe.

Panicked, he activates kicks his heel against his opposite foot to activate the jet boots again, but he's not upright. The propulsion drives him faster towards the red earth. With a yell, he forces his body right side up – just in time. The toe of one boot touches the ground before he's catapulted up again. He grits his teeth and pulls the blaster out of the holster at his thigh. Damn flarkin' Kree!

He overshoots the ship, but the Kree that attacked him is still struggling to remove Peter from the gangplank pistons, and he aims his blaster. One shot, and the Kree falls. He lands back on the ship, and gripping Peter's blood-slicked hands, pulls him aboard. He hurls the dead Kree over the side and slams the button down to close the gangplank.

He wants to collapse after it's safely closed, calm his furiously-beating heart, but they're not done. "Stay here," he hisses at Quill, and he charges into the ship. He only has to fire twice – the pilot doesn't die on the first shot. He gains control of the ship, turns it around, and lands it.

Only then does he allow himself to take a breath, just for a second. He opens the gangplank again, and walks Quill out. Yondu and the rest are waiting for them, blasters raised, just in case.

"Ya hurt, son?" the Captain asks.

Kraglin's about to answer, when he realizes that Yondu is not talking to him, but Peter. He walks away without a word, removing the jet boots and shoving them into Horuz's hands.

"All right, wee man?" Tullk asks, clapping his shoulders. "Fek me, yeh did me a scare, fallin' out a' the sky like that."

He hears Yondu yelling at Quill, but he's coming to realize it's all for show. He sighs. "Yeah, I'm fine."