Gamora sucked hard on the gag, sliding one of the bendris leaves Yondu had said he'd secreted away inside, out into her mouth, and swallowed. She usually made tea with them for herself, but for Peter, they acted as a pretty potent drug and painkiller. Which was convenient, as they were inexpensive cooking ingredients, easily obtainable, despite the opioid reaction in Quill. The oils in the leaves affected Rocket as well, so Drax probably had some in a dissolving capsule in his mouth.
She hoped.
She didn't even know what they were doing with (or to) Groot. The Kree hadn't done anything to her other than throw her in one of the heatsinks for the engine, but she simply shucked the red jacket back off her body (not completely, due to the hand bindings, but enough to not make her overheat) and kicked away her shoes, and let herself steam in just the thin shirt and cargo pants.
They were probably saving whatever they'd planned on doing to Quill for their public display. Not a show of extreme power if Peter Quill were already unconscious or dead. They'd probably want to strike fear in them, break them…
She knew this well. She could take this.
She closed her eyes and prayed for Drax and Groot.
Drax had it easier than expected. They'd cut him out of his suit and left him naked in the coolant tunnel, still caged and bound, in deep darkness. They might as well have sung him a lullaby and offered him a snack. The Kree believed Rocket when he'd told them that raccoons were desert creatures and loved dry, hot places with lots of light, doing the exact opposite to Drax as a form of minor torture.
"Ruul likes warm spots," he'd said, when the Kree scientist asked him. "He's always sunning himself when he can, and look how he snuggles me to stay warm! You going to be nice to the talking one, too?"
"Yeah, kid. We'll let him run around in the heatsink."
When they simply shoved the entire crate into the coolant tube, and sealed it behind them, Drax listened how long it took for them to both open the spot, and seal the opening behind them. Five minutes, approximately to open, seven to close; you wouldn't want the ship to drop to freezing temperature, and separating the service door from the insulation took time.
Plenty of warning for Drax. The minute it was shut, Drax twisted his paws, sliding out of the bindings (careful not to undo them), and curled up tail-over-snout, puffing out fur as insulation.
His upper back was a bit chilly, sure, but overall, it could have been far worse. His belly fur was plenty warm and left untouched, as were his face and tail. He could have shrunk down to young Rocket for more fur while he waited, but he'd lose the burn marks and possibly make-up.
Overall, not bad. He listened for the noise of the hatch being reopened (actually, all the noises on the ship telling him how fast they were going and when they might dock, from his many sessions meditating with Rocket) and thought of Gamora and Groot.
Groot didn't quite understand what the big deal was. He knew non-consenting reproductive copulation was a large societal taboo; he understood forcing someone to do something against their will was invading their personal space. But why this particular act, instead of, say, breaking a bone, or another act of violence?
It didn't even happen, anyway.
"Do you want to die?" Trig asked two of the Bloodline Federation members. "She's a daughter of Thanos, how many men do you think she's seduced, then slain? She could very well be poisonous there, or something to that effect. I know I wouldn't risk my life on that."
One of the Kree nervously clutched his crotch, backing out of the room slowly.
"Honestly, we're not even sure how to break her," another added, as they slid and locked the door behind them. Groot turned up the reception on his hearing augs and listened to the rest.
"Thanos has already given her the five star treatment," the crotch-grabber butted in. "I'm not sure anything we have would do anything at all. We may just shoot her and move on to the others."
"Yeah, but killing her? Rogue or not, she's a daughter of Thanos. If you want to incite his wrath, be my guest," replied the other.
"Clamp her eyes open and make her watch her friends be reduced to pitiable animals, then," interjected Trig. "If anything, Thanos might appreciate her seeing her friends reduced to a pet and a… what were you planning on doing with that Terran, anyway? Either way, she'd get a stern reminder of what happens to her if she goes against her father's wishes. You might even be able to brainwash her and pass her off to Thanos as a reward afterwards."
"Oh, what we have planned for the Terran? That one's fun," replied another. "We're going to make him go deaf. Rip out his translator chip, maybe rupture his eardrums for good measure, using some of his own music blasted directly in his ears. He'll never be able to understand anyone again."
"Hubris. I like it," replied Trig.
"And I appreciate your suggestion. Maybe we can even force her to control the music volume somehow, so she feels like it's her fault when he goes deaf…"
Groot blinked. He knew they weren't the nicest of people, and he understood that the Xandarians had not been squeaky-clean in their centuries long conflict. He understood that some Kree held an honest distaste and distrust of Xandarians, and did not begrudge them for it.
This however, was cruel. Thank Odin that Gamora could just change back, good as new, and that she trusted him.
He wasn't sure he could trust himself, though.
Drax had artfully slipped back into his bindings a full minute before the hatch was pulled off, fur patted back down.
If I were locked somewhere cold and dark for three hours and not equipped for it, how would I react? Drax thought, settling on a quiet whimper and shivering. He screeched loudly at the sudden shock of bright light, and they dragged the cage back to the bridge. Groot was there, sitting quietly, looking entirely unharmed. In fact, Drax noted elevated heartbeats and sweating in a number of the make Kree near him. Gamora, however, the real Gamora, did not look nearly as well. Drenched in sweat, without shoes, and a blank expression on her face. Was she meditating? Had they actually gotten through to her?
He sniffed.
Rocket was horrified. Drax was shivering, but Rocket knew the temperature of the cooling tubes in a Kree ship. He was almost positively faking (and faking well). Groot seemed just fine.
Gamora, however, did not. Had they already…?
Tap. Taptap. Taptap.
Peter was squeezing his shoulder in a deliberate pattern. Morse, just as they'd prcticed. Rocket reached up and scratched him behind the ear, and Peter started over.
She's high as a kite, Rocket. She's definitely eaten a bendris leaf, maybe more than one. She's fine.
The airlock hissed open, Trig and Rocket (with Peter by proxy) were ushered onto the planet with grace, and guided to an area for seating.
"You are beginning right away?" Trig asked incredulously.
"The minute we heard word that you has secured the real Guardians," replied an usher, decked in war-paints. "Well, it seems you are missing one. When we have overturned the pansies currently running government, we will make sure to return your birthright to you, Sir Trig."
Trig scoffed, as he gently clipped Rocket on the shoulder. "It's been quite some time since anyone has called me that, indeed."
It hadn't even been a half hour when Drax's cage had been dragged out onto a platform. Too fast. Drax's electro-shocking would buy the rest some time, but they didn't have very much to begin with. These Kree were organized, prepared. If they weren't trying to make such a statement to the galaxy as they were, Drax would have been dead (or, more likely, turned into Groot and trying to fend for himself- but transforming in public was to be an absolute last resort.
Drax thrashed against his captors. He knew he was being recorded, that some Kree was booming into a microphone, but there were so many noises, so many smells, that all he could focus on were the assholes surrounding him.
Someone clipped his nails.
His bindings were removed.
He didn't need to be told to run, his legs buckled from under him and he started towards a smell-any smell- he could pick from the crowd. He smelled himself.
Peter, his brain supplied.
He didn't get more than three paces before someone was on him, holding him up, naked to the camera to show off the modifications.
"If there is any doubt that this is the- the beast- that dared defy Ronan, well…" the announcer cried, as Drax struggled against the sheer size of the man who was holding him, "let him defend himself," he finished, as he took out a sword (really? Drax thought) and sliced off the muzzle from afar.
Drax did not grace him with the litany of swears he was considering, instead, choosing to keep silent and struggle.
"It's your funeral," the announcer boomed. "There's a young boy of noble blood with one of your species- the stupid animal you are inside that circuitry- as a pet. Let's give him another." One of the ones holding Drax in place pulled out a small device and strapped it to the angry beast they thought was Rocket.
"Blast him back to the Stone Age," the announcer yelled.
"YOU FUCKIN' DON' YA LITTLE PIECE'A" Drax started, before his voice failed him. He felt everything shutting down inside, and let out a frustrated whine. Drax could even feel his memory banks frizzing out inside of him- thankfully his own consciousness was independent of it all.
The announcer threw his microphone to the ground in a curse; he'd been too close to the device and his own mic frizzed out.
Drax didn't have to act much- he was fine, inside, but he was still dazed and confused. The sounds roared to life as the Kree hollered in victory, and Drax just wanted to find a quiet corner to curl into, settling for curling into a ball right on stage.
One of the Kree, who had, moments before, rudely dislodged bindings and clipped nails, reached down to stroke the soft fur between Drax's ears. If he wasn't so weak, he'd have bitten his hand. The man picked him up, carrying him to Rocket, Peter, and Trig.
"Hidoi," Rocket cried. "Omae, sono kawaikute, chiisai doubutsu ni itakunatta no ni!"
"Chigaimasu," the man replied, holding Drax up and passing him to Rocket. "Ii ko-araiguma ni natte dake desu."
Great, Drx realized, as he purred under Rocket's gentle grasp. My translator has been disengaged along with everything else.
Peter shoved his nose in Drax's ear, and then began grooming him with a little pink tongue.
"Looks like they will get on like brothers," Trig said to the guard, holding out a hand to Drax, waiting for the pulse of squeezes of Morse to confirm his condition.
Okay. Translator down. Cannot understand speech, Drax squeezed out, as Peter playfully nipped him. Drax screeched out, licking him back on the face, just under his left eye, as a quick sign to Peter and Rocket that he was inside and whole.
Gamora-as-Peter had been brought out next, as well as Groot-turned-Gamora, Both were strapped and locked into chairs; Groot had a heart monitor attached.
Heknew what was to come, did she? Gamora was sitting serenely, glazed over, breathing quietly from her nose, even as an ear device was strapped over her head.
It reminded Groot of Peter's headphones.
"Show Thanos how much you care for this stupid, worthless, Terran!" the announcer screamed. "The faster your heart beats, the louder the music. Know that when you rupture his eardrums, it's your fault for being the soft, useless creature you are! Drag yourself back to Thanos as you deafen this stupid, weak, backwater Terran!"
Oh. Groot, thought, smirking internally. That's it? That's the plan?
Even when they forced Groot's eyes open and his head turned towards the real Gamora, he sat there serene as wood in a forest.
I can outlast you all, Kree. Never underestimate the impassiveness of an ancient tree.
"Fuck this," the announcer spat, ten minutes later after noting- nothing!- (even with his men torturing 'Peter' lightly) happened. "I am going to show you why you do not cross us. You are a daughter of Thanos and a weapon. You have no friends. You are a machine to serve him. I won't kill you, but…" he pulled a blaster from a coat pocket, aimed, and shot 'Peter' right in the chest.
"I could have shot him in the head or heart, made it painless. But why don't you sit there and watch him die? You could have played along, blew out his eardrums, maybe saved his life. But this? This is all on you."
Just because Groot knew Gamora could survive this, that she'd probably already healed her own laser blast once enough blood had seeped from the wound to hide her turning into Peter, again and whole, didn't mean he hadn't had enough.
He began to shrink.
Harden.
His wooden wrists strained at his restraints, and he broke free.
"I… am… Groooooooooot!" he shouted, as he smashed the head of one of the Kree on his left, sending him flying like a rag doll.
Peter jumped off Rocket in the crowd, following suit. Nobody fucked with his music volume except for him. Gamora could take care of herself, but his tunes (even if it was just a copy of his real cassette Yondu planted on Gamora for realism)? You don't mess with his tunes.
"I am GROOOOOOOT!" he bellowed, hoarse from trying to speak with Groot's voice, a painless but difficult task. His eyesight was confusing, but as long as he walked straight and punched wildly, it didn't matter. Groot could see him just fine, and hopefully get Gamora out of harm's way if she couldn't get up herself.
Drax and Rocket looked at each other and shrugged, watching Gamora tear her clothes to shreds as she grew over a meter in size, both growing rapidly as well and barreling through the crowds.
Rocket was blasted in the chest by a laser cannon.
Become Groot again, he thought, and the wound healed.
Drax lost an arm, ripped straight from the socket.
Become Groot again, he thought, and a new one began to grow.
They didn't need to be good, or agile, or able to manipulate their bodies into twirling, thrashing vines, like the smallest Groot among them.
They just needed to keep becoming adult Groots until the Kree realized their enemies regenerated too quickly for them to fight, fleeing for their lives.
Let Groot- the real Groot- grow a long tendril and whip a blaster from someone's hand. Let Groot lift a Kree and hurl him like a bowling ball into a crowd. Peter, Drax, Gamora, and Rocket were tanks, wildly swinging and re-coalescing with each shot to their bodies.
At this point, the idea of earning any money from a living bounty was out the window. The Guardians were fighting for their lives.
Trig, meanwhile, called Yondu, aware he was probably still monitored.
"Yondu, get your pasty ass down here and get me, you flarker. We're being attacked by… trees. Flarking regenerating trees."
"I'll send someone by, ya idjit. Jus' hang on. I don't leave my men behind."
The five Guardians holed themselves up in their own cargo bay, exhausted, and hungry, all but Groot metaphorically and literally burned away from the stress, after Yondu and his men carefully cornered them with flamethrowers and set one of the large Groots on fire to absolve themselves of any association with the plants as they came to do cleanup.
Peter, Yondu knew, from the discrete hand signal. He could take the hit. The real Groot couldn't reform as easily, and Yondu kept a close eye on the flames licking their way around to make sure he didn't get singed.
Their mission may have gone off the rails, but the Kree weren't messing with the Guardians again- at least not soon. Not if their carefully crafted plan could be thwarted by a copse of trees.
"Hey, Groot, buddy," Rocket whined out, flat on the floor and back to his own form, once Groot jettisoned their ship from the Eclector. "Order us some delivery, wouldja? I ain't movin', and don't think none a' us fleshbodies really have th' energy for it." Groot knew. They were all so exhausted that Yondu and his men- now all privy to their real secret- had to re-dress them. Whooka boxed Peter's ear for "being too fuckin' cute, you little flarker".
Groot leaned over, scratching Rocket under the chin, before going into Rocket's workshop to grab himself some Peter-sized clothes.
"We are Groot," Groot replied, as he circled back past the other four, growing in size as he pulled a charcoal-colored T-shirt over his head and slipped into shorts as he made his way up the stairs.
"That we are," Drax said, breath hitching as he stared at the ceiling of the cargo bay.
"That we are."
Epilogue
"I am Groot." Groot squeaked out over to the comms, as Rocket squished in next to him on the seat facing the display. Peter, Drax, and Gamora hung back, a bit sheepish, listening to their "I's" and "am's" and "Groot's" between the two towering trees on the comms and their own meter-high Groot on the ship. After about a half hour of discussion, the two giants ended the call, and Rocket and Groot turned back to face the other three, grinning like maniacs.
"Man, oh, man," Rocket said, elated.
"What happened?" Peter asked with interest.
"So, uh, hm," Rocket started, as he passed a large blanket to Groot to provide a little decency as he changed into a second Rocket.
"Those were my parents, the king and queen of our people," Groot cut in, as soon as he had a voice. "They thanked us."
"What did we do?" Gamora asked, leaning down to scratch Groot and Rocket between the ears. "Your people are self-isolated, they should have been furious."
"'Cept now everyone thinks that Groots can transform like Skrull, 'n cant be detected like Skrull can. 'N Groot's parents are pretty keen on keepin' up that ruse. Makes people goin' to X less likely. When 'nythin' could be a giant, angry, unkillable tree…"
"So everyone who saw the holo…" Peter started.
"Several billion people…" Drax continued.
"Think a bunch'a renegade massive-ass trees played the Kree hardliners for fools. Nova wants us to jet off to Taspis and laze on the beach. She's payin', too… just to rub it in that the Kree fucked up so hard. That we was just chillin' in some cabana the whole time."
"Nova's paying?"
"Well we did basically just give the Kree a giant middle finger. Even though we didn't get no bounty money outta the deal. Oh, and, we may be getting free fresh vegetables, fruits, and grain for life, courtesy of some backwater-ass planet. And fuel," Rocket added, as he elbowed Groot in the ribs.
"Honestly, and I can't believe I'm being the responsible one saying this, but free food and gas any time we pass X might actually be worth more in the long run than the money from Nova. But that does mean after our little vacation we need to get back to work. Can't trade fruit for guns in most places."
"Just a thought, however," Drax said, as Peter already giddily went to the console, setting a course for Taspis. "Won't X become a target for the hardliners? Fire is still an issue."
"Watch the holos later. Mother and Father have already staged being furious, exiling four adult Groot and one child. Naturally, it was fake, and those five were honored later at a private ceremony, but we're not the only ones with some skill in acting. It does help that no-one can ever tell us apart, and we can always carve ourselves to look like each other if we do have egregious differences."
Drax shook his head in awe.
"We are Groot, indeed," Drax said, picking up Rocket in one arm and the swaddled Groot in the other, walking to the bridge to await their next adventure.
Guys.
Guys. Guys. Guys.
I finished my first multi-chaptered fic. Everything else I've finished up to now has been one-shots.
Thanks for the crazy crazy ride.
Want to read more?
I have twenty-six (!) one shots, seven posted on their own (Nesting, Anatomy Lesson, Toddle, Truth, Ship Repair, Squish, and Order Me Something Strong) and the remaining nineteen in a collection (Nova, We Have a Problem) ranging from original Guardians stories with Vance Astro and Yondu to the 2008 run with Mantis, more MCU, and everything in between. I'm sure you'll find a short to enjoy.
On top of that, I have four continuing stories:
1. The Hunt is my first fic, and still being written, it's slow going due to its puzzles.
2. ReN is only one chapter and on hold, I'll be posting the entire rest at once (or on a set schedule once it's done), since the plot for it is quite tight. This one is going to get dark, and it's a hard M for a reason (violence, mostly).
3. More recently, I have Thrusters, which deals with some of the transformation themes here done in a different way, following Peter as he deals with his mixed up half alien genetics. It's finishing up too, and the last chapter should be posted by week's end, maybe the beginning of next week.
4. Lastly, I really, really want to plug Risky Business. Yes, it's a Rocket/Gamora fic, which may be a turnoff. I know a lot of you guys ship Pocket, and for some reason, Rockmora gets a LOT of backlash. But if you like my work, give Risky a try! An absolutely amazing writer, somelittlemonster (he only writes on Archive of our Own, go look up his stuff), and I are working on it as a pass-along story. We leave each other with crazy cliffhangers that the other person needs to write themselves out of without breaking continuity. We're 40,000 words in and have had only one continuity error so far, and a minor one caught quickly at that. If you like my work at all (which you obviously do, coming all this way and finishing the story, thanks!) give it a try, even if Rockmora isn't something you'd consider reading.
Wether you're a first time reader or follow all my work, thank you ALL. Seriously. You're awesome.
Lastly, with two of my five ongoing fics finishing, and one of the remaining three a pass along (so I'm writing only every other chapter with quite some down time in between), I'm looking for some new ideas. Prompts are always welcome, whether they're a crazy action crossover or fluffy Pocket. I take all suggestions, so long as they're not smut/PWP, but I may take them in an interesting direction (someone asked for a wingfic, I wrote Thrusters, for example). And if you give me your name instead of just being anon, you'll get credit, just like Nianque did.
Again, I can't thank you enough. Thanks for reading and enjoying.
Go out there and keep being awesome!