Monster, Chapter 3
Author's Note: This chapter jumps around in time a bit. There are movie spoilers. There are parts where it's actually Yondu's perspective and not Peter's, and Peter couldn't know about the events that happened (or Yondu's personal thoughts). I considered just writing Peter's perspective, but it became maddeningly clear that the chapter would only be half told that way, so I left it in.
It occurred to Peter Quill that his problem had always been that he never fit in. He loved his mother, but she had, in her way, made things worse with her stories about his father. Unbidden, almost as if another strain of music on his mix tapes, he remembered one particular day at school before Yondu's faithful abduction of him.
There had always been bullies in his small community of Colorado. It was maybe first grade; and he might have maybe tried to defend one of his more studious classmates. And he might of gotten hit at recess. That hadn't been so bad, until his big mouth started to run.
"One of these days, my dad's going to come down from the sky and beat you all up."
Now, while being hung by your underwear on the monkey bars was horrible, the words "Sky Freak" hurt that much worse. What's worse, when he had finally got down and tried to see if the kid he had rescued was OK, the kid stared at him, and without missing a beat, went:
"I don't need to be friends with a Sky Freak like you."
That, and his mother's cancer, marked the first part of Peter Quill's lonely childhood.
Sky Freak. He hadn't thought about that in years. It drives him crazy sometimes how nostalgic he is for a place that hated him so much. Earth hadn't been good to its Prodigal Son when he was there. And yet; with the Awesome Mixes One and Two, he admitted that he missed the music. That with saving the galaxy, he had saved Earth, too. Had wanted to save Earth, even those bullies.
I'm willing to bet they don't have their own star ship. Peter Quill 1-Bullies of Earth 0.
Peter, in the present, smiled. After all, sometimes it's thoughts like that, that keep you going.
It is sometimes hard to be Peter Quill, the legendary Star-Lord, roguish bandit and leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy. One reason is the petty fights that teams—no, scratch that, more like families have. There was an incident with Rocket and the toaster and the inevitable discussion on how we don't try to turn household items into mini-nuclear devices, please. Particularly not the breakfast appliances.
"You suck the joy out of everything," had been the raccoon's retort that particular morning.
"How would you even manage to do it, Rocket? It's something I found in a market right after we defeated Ronin that was maybe a credit and a half. It was considered an 'antique'." Gamora gives him the 'you really shouldn't ask if you don't want to know that answer'. Apparently, with her ritual with Rocket, she's managed to figure out that he can make a weapon or a spaceship part out of anything.
The description is lengthy, and he was lost somewhere among the second expletive laden sentence. Apparently, there was a way to make a toaster that wants to make the galaxy burn. And yet, he can't help but oddly appreciate Rocket's effort. No, not on the toaster—he just wanted a damn piece of toast, after all—but the fact that Rocket hadn't discarded Peter as too dumb to try to explain this to.
Drax's voice breaks him out of the Rocket admiring reverie asking the raccoon, "Excuse me, small one, (Rocket hated the nickname, but accepted it as a few steps up from vermin or animal, a sign of Drax's emotional growth) but how does one work with a fucking heat coil? And how does a heat coil 'fuck'?"
Peter was laughing on the inside, he really was; but he sighed the sigh of the long suffering and said, "Hyperbole, Drax."
"Oh." was the answer from the tattooed warrior. A pause. "Has it occurred to you all to say exactly what you mean and are thinking?"
"Once or twice." Peter said, walking back to the cockpit, but thought to himself; not on your life.
Having a maniac that barely understood sarcasm, a regenerating sapling man who can only verbalize three (well, Peter remembered from the Dark Aster, five) words (Groot was making steady progress everyday, per Rocket), a deadly assassin with the tormented past of a lost little girl, and a genetically modified raccoon who swore like a sailor and took his displeasure at everyone and everything via creating weapons of mass destruction really weren't the hard parts of Peter's life. They drove you crazy, but the things and people you love did that. And he loved them, not that he'd admit it, since the last person he loved this much...well, she left. He put on the mix tape, and drifted off mentally to a world that was light years away and years ago.
Peter was shivering. There was such a thing as aliens, and they were making noises that he couldn't decipher to save his own life. They were escorting him (those guns were probably the ray guns mentioned in Moonage Daydream) and he found himself complying, still numb, into a holding cell. Shock buoyed him for a while, stopped him from feeling, but eventually, the soul shattering part of him that remembered he was now kidnapped—and more importantly, lost his mother, broke. He doesn't remember when he passed out from the exhaustion of crying.
Yondu, on the other hand, was pissed off. That's what happened with you dealt with royalty from distant planets; their idea of noblesse obilge was making sure you took it up the ass. Hard.
"What do you mean, the price has changed?" Yondu snarled at the masked figure. Yondu, being an infamous space pirate and purveyor of all things illegal (at least, in his own mind) knew that this wasn't the person who wanted the boy. This was an intermediary to the person who wanted the boy and wanted to keep their identity secret.
"The. Price. Has. Changed. We're not real impressed with your work, Mister Yondu. Even now, we're working with Terra governments to hide the fact that aliens had landed. We hired you to be discreet in your retrieval operation. Practically landing your ship not that far from a hospital isn't it."
"There's virtually no profit for me and my guys at that price. And excuse me if I point out that if you wanted finesse and secretivity, you should of sent one of your spec ops teams, not a illegal mercenary group that calls themselves the Ravagers, numbnuts*."
(*=This is actually a Centarian insult involving testicles, their version of a goat, and being suspended while you get kicked there repeatedly. Numbnuts is the universal translator version.)
Yondu couldn't believe it. The entire mission had a window of only a few days to grab the kid. Granted, the kid had come to them, and that was great; but apparently human funerary rites were both public and not really easy to steal a Terran child from. The hospital, hopefully timed for when the kid's mother had died had been the best time. Not to mentioned that fucktard here wanted the child before too many cycles.
"It's very simple. You get us the child for the price we name. Otherwise, you can do whatever you want with the child you like. You could even return him," the voice said patiently, as if describing this to a particularly stupid person, "although I'm sure Nova Corps will be by soon to address the violation of the secrecy clause."
"A clause which you helped us violate." Yondu gritted out.
"You had other options. If you read your contract, we have deniably in the actions of the Ravagers. Have a good cycle." The sound of the view screen turning off filled the room, with Yondu tossing anything loose he can find.
"Sir?" his first mate asked. "Some of the crew are asking what the best way to have Terran is. I don't believe they're planning on having him for dinner. Or more to the point, they are having him for dinner, but not as a guest." The call had been taken in the cockpit, and the gossip of Yondu's ship traveled fast.
This was not the best day for the Captain of the Ravagers. "Tell them whoever even speculates on eating the cargo will get a tour of our airlocks and then they will continue to see the wonders of the galaxy outside the ship. If I'm particularly kind, they might get a breathing mask to consider for the remaining minutes of their live where they went horribly wrong. Get a translator in the kid. Let me worry about a buyer."
Peter woke up, remarking to himself how utterly thirsty he was and how hard the 'cot' was. And his senses were beginning to play that game of 'what's that smell'? And why did his head hurt, like a little bee buzzing in his ear.
"We had some work done while you were out," said a voice on the other side of the door. He recognized, in a muddle, that the words weren't English, but he understood them. He blinked in amazement. "Yeah, getting a translator will do that do you. Inner ear canal, translates sounds to ones you recognize."
"How long...? And can I go home?" Peter stammered out.
"About three cycles (the translator helpfully explained that was days in Peter's mind) and no, ya can't. Your authorities and our authorities will be coming down on us hard, thanks to you spotting us." A kernel of an idea on how to explain this registered in Yondu's mind. "We were looking for valuable shit, not a snot-nosed little monster gawking at us. I don't have the capability to wipe your mind, probe your ass and leave you in a cornfield."
Somehow, Peter's mind fixated on one detail, and not the anal probing. "I'm not a monster!"
"Kid, all Terrans are monsters." Yondu said flatly. "You pollute your planet, you kill each other probably at a higher rate than anyone else in the galaxy that would even make Thanos proud. Plus, you worry about how the fuck you're different from each other. Each. Other. Xandarians and Kree may be getting off on their little war, but they're not worried about skin color quite so much."
Peter blinked, more overwhelmed at the lecture than anything else. "But aren't you...human...ish?"
Yondu laughed at the ignorance. At least it was cute. "The majority of races walk on two legs. My biology is much different than yours. I wouldn't worry about that if I was ya."
"What...should I worry about?" His voice trembled.
"What I'm gonna do to you next. If you're lucky, I'll find someone who wants a Terran freak or maybe make you my cabin boy. If you're unlucky...well, I've got an entire crew that's got creative culinary needs. You dig?" Yondu was certain he wasn't going to eat the kid, but compliance and gratitude could go a long way toward obedience.
"Please don't eat me! I can be useful. I promise!"
"We'll see, kid. Dethi will come by with some holostuff. You've got a lot of learning ta do." And with that, Yondu's footsteps retreated.
Events had eventually been sent in motion, like a bullet fired from a gun. Peter never knew whether or not to be grateful or not. His education had begun, but it was no mean feat. Yondu never seemed to find anyone who would want a 'Terran freak'.
Although, a few weeks after Yondu's discussion with him (to which the captain had been distant, aloof, and checking his teeth like one would a horse), Yondu brought a visitor. The visitor was...unnerving to say the least. There was a Xandarian wearing thick glasses, the eyes luminous behind the frames, ending almost in sparks. Peter at once felt terrified and hypnotized. Yondu had used the word 'freak' to describe him, but under this man's gaze, he felt like a freak, to examined, to be taken apart.
"He's quite the specimen, Mr. Yondu." That voice was terrifying in a quantity he couldn't place.
"Yeah. Could you stop being creepy as frack in front of the kid, please? He's wet his front." Yondu said, arms crossed. That explained the bizarre warmth that Peter felt.
"Alright. Should we discuss...arrangements?" That voice. It was like a whip. Yondu snorted and nodded, stepping out of Peter's cell.
Knowhere had a wealth of conference rooms. They weren't conference rooms in the sense of there were a number of beings in chair adorned with suits making decisions of importance for a company or cartel.
No, what Knowhere had was a number of back rooms where beings of various sorts could transact business, very discretely for a discreet price. There was just one rule to that: make sure your price was discreet enough so no one would want to pay to discern what you wanted to talk about. Besides the fact that the buyer was creepy as fuck, the fact that this particular host of this particular backroom looked terrified and was very solicitous didn't sit with Yondu.
"Three hundred thousand credits," The creepy fuck was saying, Yondu paying half attention.
"Nah. Kid's worth hundred times that." Yondu said distractedly.
"My superiors would be willing to front that much. A Terran, particularly a young, well taken care of one would be rare enough for us to be interested."
"Kid's not for sale."
"I believe, Mr. Yondu, you are making a-" A whistle ended the sentence of the Xandarian, feeling the point of an arrow at his throat.
"You. Don't. Wan't. To. Finish. That. Threat," Yondu drawled out the words, "You seem to think you're dealing with a certain level of scum here. I wish to inform you that you are wrong. I have no compunction of paying our host additional to clean up your body and despose your body. No, no. You're looking like you're wanting to speak. Don't speak. I'm leaving, with the boy. Nod if you understand."
Yondu saw the nod. He whistled, the arrow following him. Thirty million credits; but no one deserved the look that the creep had given Yondu discussing the boy. Still...sometimes it didn't pay to be the principled kind of scum.
Peter had heard that it took many different people to raise a child. The Ravagers were an odd family, but a family nonetheless. The bad parts were the fact that most of the Ravagers would call him a 'Terran freak' or 'their honorary pet Terran', 'the captain's personal pet boy', or cuff him to get him out of the way. The good parts is that school was...actually fun. Pickpocketing. (It turns out that in a mixed race group, Terrans looked 'average' enough to practically be invisible). How to be charming enough to run a fleecing scam. How to jury-rig a ship to keep her flying after you've taken damage (although, to adult Peter's chagrin, Rocket had been million more times adept at this than he had ever been) and how to keep her flying. How to shoot. (Again, another thing he found annoying about Rocket; the raccoon was an excellent marksman.) Peter found, at adolescence, that making the crew laugh earned him a place on it; and that charm worked better when you didn't have the menace of say, Yondu, backing it up.
Yondu was a bizarre contradiction. At times, the captain seemed to delight to remind Peter that he was little more than a stowaway, the legacy of something gone wrong (he considered, after a point, that Yondu might be his father, a thought that continued to cause him to shudder) and then there was time the captain would call him his boy, telling the crew to step off when Peter inevitably did something wrong (even then, with the beatings, he never did something wrong twice).
Yondu, captain of the Ravagers, master of contradictions.
He was mildly gratified when Yondu had told his engineer to help with and galvanize the Walkman and tape inside. No one in the Ravagers had ever asked, and he never told them, but somehow everyone involved knew how precious it was to Peter.
It had surprised him when Yondu taught him how to pick up women.
It had surprised him even more when Yondu deducted his cut from a particularly lucrative job and gave him the Milano.
So, when Peter had (kind of) betrayed Yondu to get the orb (the first time), it was just business. He had suspected that Yondu wasn't paying out the cut he could, and the buyer he had was going to pay dividends over what Yondu would of paid him for his buyer. Having seen Yondu do similar to people over the years, he suspected that Yondu would be angry, but not murderous about it.
Yondu was pissed off (professionally). He had done everything for that kid, and this is how he repaid him?
Actually, everything was going exactly to plan.
Yondu had expected this, had driven Peter toward it. Frankly, for being a little Terran monster, there was more of Yondu in Peter than Yondu'd admit. When he had left his boss to form the Ravagers, it had been over a small job like the orb. Yondu knew what Peter wouldn't admit, that even as a free agent with as much freedom as Yondu gave Peter, it was time for Peter to get a group of his own.
There were men on Yondu's boat that would never be anything but Ravagers, that they enjoyed the cut and the little structure that Yondu gave them as long as Yondu paid on time.
Peter Jason Quill was not one of them. The kid would not be on a team unless he was at least an equal, or leading it. And Yondu wasn't looking for partners.
So, time to cut the kid loose. He would have to threaten; yes, that was part of the game, and if the kid ever showed up again...there'd better be a damn good reason for it.
Peter had felt helpless watching Gamora drift through space.
He had never done good with helpless. So, he did the stupid thing. Knowing Yondu would have a entirely poor reaction to being burnt, he realized he had to take the chance. He drifted out to space, ignoring Rocket's cries, threats (his heart lurched to hear the raccoon, actually—Rocket sounded how he felt when he saw Gamora, and he felt helpless to help Rocket with this), he did the one thing that might keep him alive, putting his mask to keep the assassin alive. He called Yondu, the only parent he'd ever known, except from Before, when his mother was still alive.
He had expected Yondu to treat him roughly—he had, after all, essentially tried to screw him out of credits, but the arrow to the throat was different. Was a bit much. As he progressed through the explanation of why he needed the Ravager's help, he couldn't help but notice things were different this time.
Yondu knew things were different this time. First off, he hadn't expected the boy back. Secondly, the boy had gotten into the kind of trouble that was...unique to say the least. After the 'rescue' mission from the boy's friends and promise to secure the Infinity Stone, the Ravager captain had been left to his devices on the way to think on Xandar.
Honestly, he had already mentally agreed to say yes to whatever Peter needed to have happen, as long as the boy was willing to sweeten the pot so Yondu could save face.
Peter rarely disappointed. Now had been no different.
Still, it had been a surprise when the raccoon cyborg had shown up threatening to destroy the ship if they didn't return Peter and the green woman. Yondu wondered if the bounty hunter animal would be interested in some work on weapon systems on the side. Yondu could appreciate a good weapon when he saw one. Both the gun and the green woman were very good weapons.
He actually didn't want the Infinity Stone, however. Frankly, he knew it'd be better in Nova Corps' hands. Let them worry about it. He still had a bloodthirsty crew to satisfy, and he knew that the stone was worth it's weight in millions of credits.
So, he made the deal that Peter would have no choice but to accept and either screw Yondu or turn the stone in to him, which he'd have to make sure the buyers didn't walk directly to Thanos.
It was a test. He hoped that little Terran monster didn't actually turn out to be a monster.
Peter was reeling. They had managed to save the galaxy with the power of love. Friendship love, not the pelvic-y kind. He couldn't even mentally form the quip that he wouldn't mind that kind of thing with Gamora; he was too strung out, too exposed between himself, Gamora, Drax and Rocket. Naked. (Although he had to admit, the look on Ronan's face during the dance-off and when they had managed to control the stone was priceless.) However, he had the presence of mind to switch the items when Yondu came looking for his prize. His life could stand to be forfeit if the galaxy kept spinning, and after basking in the glow of the warmth of his team—his team, he reminded himself—he knew that it was a small price to pay.
It was time for the payoff. Yondu was either going to get a huge payoff or the utmost faith in the boy that he raised. He opened the orb, curiously.
He saw the troll doll within. Son of a bitch. Not only did he raise the boy right—there are few things better than money, but the entire galaxy was one of them—he always wanted one of those Terran troll figurines. He laughed, and oddly, even though they knew they weren't going to get paid for the last job, his crew laughed with him.
As he expressed, not for the first time, but never in front of Peter, that he was glad he didn't drop him off with that asshole of a father Peter had, he couldn't help but feel pride that his son had finally found a group of his own—the Guardians of the Galaxy.
As Star-Lord declared they were off to do a 'bit of both', he looked around his crew of misfits. He had known and felt Rocket's injuries, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual; Gamora's outer assassin warring with her inner lost girl, Drax's pain and the feeling that he had to do anything to fill the hole his wife and daughter had left, and his own painful legacy left by being raised by space pirates, the epiphany hit him. Were they freaks? Maybe. Were they criminals? Certainly. Were they kicked around, battered and bruised by the entire galaxy? No argument there.
One thing they weren't, and would never be, was monsters. Yondu, the scientists and Gamora's victims were all wrong. None of them were monsters.
Post Note: Yes, there are still chapters for Drax and Groot coming. This ending seemed...while, almost saccharine hopeful in tone, seemed right for this chapter. Peter has different baggage and viewpoints than Rocket (who's dealing with horror) and Gamora (who probably didn't even have the childhood Peter did and now has to live with not being Thanos's weapon). All of the above is more or less headcanon; and I had hoped to capture a complex relationship between Peter and his adoptive father, Yondu, without writing Stockholm Syndrome. The next chapter will be up...when it's up.