Rocket
"He's a fifty-five pound hybrid, Gamora, how is he gonna give birth to a ten pound kid?"
Gamora raises an eyebrow. "How do you know he's going to give birth to a ten pound human? He might give birth to ten one-pound rodents."
"I'm not ready for that level of fatherhood, so let's reel it in a little, and also don't call him a rodent, it's rude!"
"Hey," Rocket yells. "Which fucking one of us is incubating here, jackass?"
Peter throws his hands up. "She calls you a rodent and I'm the jackass?"
"You should count his nipples," Drax cuts in calmly.
They all freeze, then slowly turn and stare at him.
"It is an effective way to estimate litter size," he clarifies.
"Did you just call my -- them a litter," Peter yells, slightly morally offended for both his and Rocket's sake, but mostly deeply, deeply offput by the images that litter conjures.
Drax's brow furrows. "They are a litter?"
Before Rocket can launch himself at Drax and possibly scratch his eyeballs from his head, Groot picks him up, holds Rocket's middle to his ear and says, joyfully, "We are Groot!"
Groot
"I was drunk," Peter says, enunciating clearly. "Okay, I was smashed."
Gamora stares.
"I was drunk," Peter repeats, "and I came in there were some shed twigs on the floor and I thought, hey, I'll just plant them."
"Why?"
Peter shuffles his feet. "It seemed funny at the time?"
"Damnit, you asshole," Rocket yells. "Were you not paying attention to how we got Groot back in the first fricking place?"
He's standing next to what used to be the eyewash station basin, but is currently filled with dirt and four little former Groot twigs. Now waving gently back and forth in the way that, as Groot explained via Rocket, means they've taken root and life and are now growing.
Groot is kneeling protectively beside them, glaring at anyone that comes too close. He makes a low, disgusted noise.
Peter's suggestion that they just yank 'em out and empty the sink had gotten him a branch to the ribs and trip across the room.
"Damnit, Groot, if you wanted kids why didn't you just plant some twigs yourself!"
"I am Groot," he says, obviously and deeply offended.
Peter sighs. "No, yeah, okay, fine. You're right. I can't just plug my own dick into my asshole and expect to come up pregnant. It makes sense, sorry."
Groot gives him a long, hard look for a moment, then softens into a smile and pulls Peter into a very rough and woody hug. "We are Groot," he croons gently, stroking thick twigs through Peter's hair.
Three of the Grootlings begin their lives with, "I am Groot!" The fourth begins with, "I am Grootlord!" and she is totally, secretly Peter's favorite and the only one whose pot can stay on the control panel so she gets the best view of space on their way to the arboretum that agreed to take all four of the Grootlings.
Drax
"What's your excuse this time?" Gamora asks thinly, fists planted on her hips.
Peter opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and closes it again. "The condoms -- the Drax condoms, not the me condoms -- were on the other side of the room? And I meant to go grab one, right? Like, Gamora, I really did, I swear to God."
Gamora exhales through her nostrils with unnecessary force.
Peter swallows, and glances at Drax, comfortably ensconced in a chair with Groot petting his head. His smile is beatific. Serene. How is Peter supposed to feel bad about that?
"Look, I mean, we have figured this out before! We're great at figuring out accidental spawn. And besides!" Peter edges sideways to throw an arm of solidarity around Drax's shoulders. "It's not even like we're condemning this kid to be mostly raised by me. Drax, man, he's a great dad."
"I am not this offspring's father," Drax says calmly.
"Yeah of course," Peter says. "Whatever the word in your world is. You're great at it."
Drax shakes his head. "Father is an acceptable word. It is inaccurate."
"What the fuck does that mean?" Rocket demands, folding his arms over his chest so that he looks so much like Gamora in furry miniature Peter almost laughs, except he likes all his internal organs where they are.
Drax's expression goes slightly puzzled as he looks around at them. "I am this offspring's mother."
And really, Peter should probably have at least a couple questions about that, but mostly he's glad that it replaced flared nostril displeasure on her face with narrow eyed suspicion. Fair point to her, though, Drax's sense of humor is a wild ride from start to finish.
"Yeah," Peter says, rubbing Drax's shoulder supportively. "Yeah, he's this offspring's mother."
"She," Drax corrects.
"She?" Peter's eyebrow goes up. "Buddy, is there--"
Groot furrows his bark brows at Peter. "Groot," he says forcefully, glaring.
"Right, yeah, you're right, that was totally rude. Who am I to judge the gender roles of entirely different civilizations." Peter turns back to Gamora. "She is a great mom."
Gamora
"I am innocent here!" Peter yells, back pressed against the wall of the ship as Gamora advances on him. "I am an innocent victim of your freaky, like, alien pheromones this time, and this is not my fault!"
Gamora's skin is rapidly going from normal cheerful green to darker gonna kill something green.
"I warned you!" she yells.
Peter can see Groot, Rocket, and Drax -- baby strapped to his chest with an elaborate arrangement of fabric strips -- ranged a safe three feet behind her. Their expressions, varying shades of amusement, confusion, maybe a little bit of lust from Rocket, all uniformly say that Peter is so very, very on his own for this one.
"No," Peter protests. "No, you said that we--" he gestures to include himself and the other three, "--were supposed to entertain ourselves for the night because you wanted the ship to yourself!"
"What else could that mean!"
"Maybe you wanted to paint your toenails or sharpen your weapons or -- or -- I don't even know! All I did was forget my Walkman, and I can't do my free time thing without my Walkman to pump me up."
Gamora growls. Peter gulps.
"We are...Groot?" Groot says tentatively, reaching out a hand.
Gamora whips around to face him. "Do not tell me to be calm! I have reproduced with Quill!"
There's a moment of silence, then Rocket bursts out in laughter. "Join the friggin club."
"Hey!" Peter protests, then, "...oh. Hell, man. Jesus."
Gamora gapes for a moment longer then starts laughing in a way that Peter has never, ever heard her even come close to. And once she gets going, Drax's mouth quivers and then he starts and Rocket's still going and Groot can't really laugh but he's smiling and making a noise sort of like wind through branches.
"You are a menace," Gamora manages, actual, literal tears sliding down her cheeks.
"We should frigging neuter you," Rocket adds, bent over double with his face mashed into Groot's leg.
Peter glares at them all. "Look, I never even took Terran sex ed, okay? Screw you all."
"You have already done this," Drax says, and Peter stomps to the cabin with their asshole laughter following behind him.
Peter
"Do you think he's gonna grow tits?" Rocket's voice is mostly speculative, but also, very possibly, a little lecherous.
"Go away." Peter pushes his face deeper into his pillow. "Fuck off."
The edge of the mattress dips a little, then enough that Peter ends up half rolling onto his back until he runs into Groot. Who is smiling.
"I am Groot," he says, putting one big, twiggy hand on Peter's head. Then, "We are Groot," moving that hand to Peter's belly. Peter tries to wiggle away, fails, and settles for grabbing a blanket and yanking it up over his head.
"I know," he yells, "But thanks, buddy, glad we keep checking in about this. Just in case I managed to fricking forget."
"Who is father to your child?" Drax dares to ask--and he won't stop calling Peter she, either, damn it. Fricking literal fricking race.
The combination of pregnancy hormones, Peter's latent gender issues, and the warm burst of feelings make it really hard to keep correcting him. "How the fuck should I know!?"
"See," Drax tells the Draxling--they don't name them until the children are old enough to name themselves, apparently--"therein incubates the fetus of your partial sibling, little one."
"'Partial sibling' makes it sound like half a kid, Drax," Peter says, but can't stop himself from cupping a hand protectively over the baby bump. Damn aliens anyway.
"We shoulda neutered him," Rocket says sagely to Gamora.
"That would have been wise," she agrees. There's a distant crash she doesn't react to, because her feelings lay firmly in the camp that children will never learn not to almost kill themselves unless they are given the freedom to try.
"I hate, like, literally all of you." Peter means to sound severe, but of course he ends up sounding pathetic. Groot grumbles and rubs his belly again, Gamora's mouth twitches in that exasperated and reluctantly affectionate smile she only seems to use for Peter, Rocket punches him lightly on the arm, and Drax sets Draxling on the mattress so she can immediately burrow into Peter's side.
He won't feel better. He refuses to feel better.
He relaxes a little.
"It will be all right," Gamora says. "After all, we are adept at coping with accidental spawn."
"Yeah, we all lived through it," Rocket agrees. "And hey, at least you have the comfort of knowing that dad's not...you."
Their laughter is more than loud enough to drown out Peter's yells.