"That went better than expected," Rocket said, several hours later, as he furiously scrubbed some kind of abrasive pad over Gamora's face, dipping it in a foul-smelling clear liquid when it turned too blue, before resuming removing the cinema-grade cosmetics. "Sit… friggin… still, Gams… this'll go faster if you just let me… ugh… you wanna do this and miss a spot? No? Then SIT STILL."
Peter had excused himself to the head to de-gunk himself. Unlike Gamora, who used stealth, Peter often used disguise to entertain a mark, and this wasn't the first time he'd have to clean himself off with makeup remover. Although, it was usually ageing makeup, or skin colorants like what Gamora was having stripped from her face with extreme prejudice by Rocket's abrasive hands, attitude, and cleaning pads. Peter had pretended to be Yondu's son on several occasions, and remembered having to sit still for a prosthetic frill and three hours of blue.
Peter spent a half hour at the sink, wiping away the goo and powder on his face. They'd plucked off all the feathers on his face- the thick lines he left for masculine looking eyebrows and the few he left as 'scruff' for a beard and sideburns were gone. They'd regrow eventually, but he felt a bit naked without them, touching the bare skin gently. It reminded him of mom too much to not keep some feathers on his face. Thankfully, they left his "hair", or he would have really been freaking out in the mirror.
He sat on the toilet, stripping off the clothing he'd been given, then carefully regurgitated the plastic key to unlock the bindings on his shoes. Freedom, finally. The tracer he'd eaten properly with food, and would come out the other end in a few days.
The metal bangles care off too, and then Peter remembered the polish on his nails. Rocket probably had some acetone lying around in his workshop; he'd do that after he cleaned himself off. Legs over the tub wall, he pulled down the shower nozzle and sprayed from the knee down, soaped, then rinsed. Toweled them off, wrapped it around his waist and carried the discarded garments and jewelry out of the bathroom, bracelets clinking in his hands. The scarves were real silk, six of them, he could fence them if Gamora (or anyone else on the team, really) didn't want them. The bangles were well wrought, but definitely some cheap alloy. If Gamora didn't want them or Rocket couldn't use them in some machination of his, they were as good as scrap. The skirt was long and voluminous, and powder-blue, the exact opposite color of Peter's plumage. They could probably dismantle it and use the fabric for rags, if nobody wanted it for clothing.
Once a thrifty Ravager, always one.
Peter returned to his own cabin, and put on a pair of boxers, a pair of pants, socks, boots. He still needed to clean the rest of himself off; he felt disgusting from being on the slaver ship and hadn't preened in at least two days.
Peter carefully cracked his back, leaving the clothes and jewelry from the slavers in a pile on his floor, then made his way down to the lowest deck. Finally, for the first time since Yondu picked him up in Xandar, he had enough room in the cargo bay to spread his wings out completely. He dragged a chair to the center of the room, and pulled out a bottle of alcohol disinfectant, sitting down and putting the tip of his left wing in his mouth to start cleaning.
And tasted fur. Not Rocket's.
It was the little Ailum girl's. Peter had gotten off easy; for him, it was almost like a hilarious little street performance; they even had a glossy little picture of Yondu holding him in a bridal carry in the galley, along with a few of Peter and Gamora before Gamora decided to evict herself from the chest binder she'd forced herself into. They couldn't have sent Yondu or Rocket inside, the former for obvious reasons and the latter might have been kidnapped by the slavers himself and sold as an exotic pet- and they needed someone who could really fight or flee if things got sour.
Telling Peter that she'd simply be a Krylonian, and not a disguise more complex (making her look like the Hygar Baron, who'd been imprisoned last week for enslavement? Really?), was to keep him from looking for her before she knew it was safe to take him home, as well as documenting enough with the audiovisual implant in her left eye. He had about forty hours of method acting, some cheap excuse of a theater production. The other six on that ship…
He spat out tan fur on the metal plating of the cargo hold and resumed cleaning.
"What are we doing now?" Peter said, as he came up from he hold to the galley after he finished preening, followed by spraying himself with disinfectant. Preening cleaned him, but he didn't really feel clean until he smelled like soap.
Baths. That was another thing he missed, up there with booze. He could kinda-sorta take one if he held his wings up and only let the water run up to his waist or so. Not the same though.
Interestingly enough, he thought punching out assholes would make that list, but he could still do that. The bones from his elbow to fingertip had actually strengthened, not hollowed. Same with the knees down. Everything else was a fragile hollow mess, but it made sense evolutionarily to keep those parts of the body able to withstand some form of beating, especially when Retribe fought by swooping and raking opponents with their talons. Peter thought about designing some boots with pop-out knives when he learned how to soar.
"You look as though you have walked through a location that is very unappealing to you," Drax replied, smiling. "Hell, perhaps?" He actually was getting the metaphors thing.
"Considerin' what happened, uh, I'd call that a 'yeah'," Rocket replied, as he was packing up the kit Nova lent them for Gamora.
"Any acetone in there?" Peter asked, holding up a hand, nails facing out.
Rocket laughed, chittering loudly. He'd gotten comfortable enough around them to be a lot less self-conscious, especially considering he didn't feel like the only beast on the team anymore. "I gotcha covered," he replied, pulling out a small bottle and some cotton balls before hopping up to his booster seat at the galley table. Peter slumped into one aside, and Rocket started furiously cleaning the yellow polish off his nails. Peter could do it himself, it wasn't like trying to remove makeup off of someone who probably never wore it before, but Rocket always seemed to need to do something with his clever little hands and Peter was just…
Burned out.
He really could use a spa day on Taspis. Or a month.
"Pete? Hey, hey, man," Rocket said, poking him gently with a claw. "Was askin' you for your other hand. You all right, birdbrain?"
Peter shifted in his set and held out his other hand, feathers ruffling irritably behind. Rocket resumed scrubbing.
"Not… not really," Peter responded, after a silence, the only noise on the deck was the background hum of the electronics and Rocket's nails against the plastic container as he poured out more solvent. "I kinda just want to hide somewhere for a few days."
"Did they do anything untoward to you?" Drax demanded, bellowing.
"No, I threatened to fight back if they did."
"Hah, really? They bought that? With your 'talons' bound 'n all?"
"Yes, because I reminded them that it would probably break every bone in my body," Peter replied, coldly. "Shattered merchandise isn't good for business."
Silence.
"Would you have followed through on that threat?" Gamora asked.
"Probably. I've had to dislocate my wrists and shoulders a whole bunch of times on jobs. I've broken a few bones before. Three of my teeth are synthetic."
"You should relax for a few days. This seems to be bothering you, emotionally," Drax said, breaking another long round of silence. "What say you, tree?"
"I am Groot," Groot replied, curled in a corner (as much as he could) against a heat exhaust.
"Yeah, we're dumpin' you off somewhere for a few days," Rocket replied, wadding the used cotton into a larger ball and screwing on the acetone's bottle's cap. "Go… do whatever is you do when you're not driving us insane. We're stealin' your ship and be back for you in a standard Xandarian week."
"Mutiny?" Peter asked, mildly amused.
"Eh, more like temporary insanity," Rocket replied.
"I have some personal business with Torbach and his crew," Gamora said, simply.
"Do you now?" Peter questioned, dripping with sarcasm. If he had eyebrows, one would be raised, probably close to the ceiling.
"An unfinished transaction," Drax responded. "One that would be better negotiated if you were not present."
"I can take a hint," Peter smirked. "Just drop me off on Taspis. I'll go pack a bag."
Peter flapped his wings as he stood up, blowing Rocket's exposed fur out into a hilarious case of bedhead, and turned heel to his cabin.
"So which one we goin' after first, 'Mora?" he heard Rocket ask as he pressed the airlock release to his bunk.
Peter thought being on a beach on Taspis, fruit punch in hand, lying face down in a deck chair sunning his feathers would feel better, but it didn't.
For one, he couldn't wade further than his knees in the pink lapping waves of the Parian Sea, couldn't use the hot tub, and the masseuse had no idea of what to do with him, apologizing profusely for almost cracking a rib. And Groot was always freaking stalking him (hee, stalk, he needed to remember that). Of course they weren't going to stand him on his own.
For another, while the thought of Drax ripping out Torbach's spine, or Gamora slitting his throat, or Rocket exploding and/or clawing his face to shreds did make him feel a bit better, it didn't change the fate of the slaves on his ship. They'd have been long sold by now, scattered to who-knows-where.
Day two in Peter's little would-hve-been-slice-of-heaven-under-normal-circumstnces cabana and a knock on the door around noon local. "Room service," gruffed a voice.
Rocket?
Groot got to the door first, so Peter couldn't see past. But he didn't need to. Rocket had climbed Groot and curled around his neck like a living stole, low purr and all.
"Thank Odin, I'm going stir crazy here," Peter moaned from the bed, before forcing himself up.
"Hey, just a pit stop for lunch, Quill," Rocket replied. "But we brought you some houseguests. Hope ya don't mind."
Peter's now improved hawk-like hearing alerted him to the footpads of another shoeless mammalian creature walking on the wooden floor, followed by the clinking noise of nails on wood and the familiar sounds of two distinctly different pairs of boots- Gamora and Drax were entering the space along with…
Two of the women from the slave ship?
The Ailum girl, upon seeing Peter, break-ran for the bed and jumped; Peter barely had enough time to dodge the tackle hug by rolling to the floor.
"Waina, don't," Drax admonished, after she'd settled on the mattress, bouncing a little. "He weighs less than you do!"
"Sorry," she said, embarrassed, ducking her head under her paw. She was soft and fuzzy, catlike, and a good head taller than Rocket. She could have crushed Peter, and he wasn't sure weather to laugh or bemoan the situation. The bow tied around her neck loosened and came undone, and she sloppily retied it.
He went with laugh.
The other female, a young adult Silurian, peeked her bluish-green scaly head out from behind Drax shyly, flicking her forked tongue in and out of her mouth. "Anolise," she said, quietly. "I can't believe the Guardians of the Galaxy found us."
"Neither can I," Peter replied, straightening himself.
"Oh, Nova ID'd the asshats that bought up everyone from Gamora's audiovisual feed," Rocket chirped brightly from his perch. "These two were bought by Xandarian empire citizens, so they were the easiest to retrieve. Arrest warrant, wasn't much excitement. The other four should be pretty interestin', though. But we all figured you needed some R&R after that. I know I would have been… ahem," he trailed off, fur puffing out in irritation. "Eh, never mind. Let's all get some grub, huh? I could go for one of them drinks with a little umbrella in it."
"Yeah… sure," Peter replied. More than the idea of lounging around on a beach, the prospect that his team was going to track everyone else down really showed him how far they'd all come, and how much they knew seeing others in a tight spot bothered him.
Waina slipped her paws into Peter's hand again. Peter rubbed the top of her head with his wing tip and took them without hesitation.
"So, where's the leader-guy?" Anolise asked as they locked up the cabana and followed a stone path to one of the resort's outdoor restaurants. "Star Lord. The guy with the mask."
"Eh," Peter replied. "He's probably on another mission." If lounging on the beach could be called a mission.
"What's your name, mister? Waina asked, as they got a table for seven and sat down at the deck patio.
"Peter," Peter replied honestly. "Honorary member, of sorts," he added with a grin.
Anolise squinted her eyes and held up her claws in a picture frame shape around Peter's face. "Man, you know, if I were as famous as Star Lord I'd probably pretend to be Xandarian. Then I'd totally sneak onto slave ships as myself since I'm so rare and nobody would know."
Rocket snorted a little.
"You are aware that the Nova Corps are still on a hiring spree, especially for talented, perceptive individuals such as yourself?" Drax said, as he flipped though the menu. "Rocket, I cannot read Xandarian, can you assist?"
"I'll look into it," Anolise replied. "But, y'know, something signed by Star Lord, authentic, would probably fetch a high price. I've got nothing but the clothes on my back and a dead family to bury," she said nonchalantly. Plucky lady.
"I'm sure something can be arranged," said Gamora with a smirk. "We'll have you two stay with Peter until we retrieve everyone else and I'm sure he can call Star Lord for you and ask for a favor."
"Can't go swimming in the ocean, saltwater."
"Neither can I," Peter replied, "so natch. We'll keep busy, won't we, Waina?"
"Mph," Waina replied, having stuffed her face with bread from the basket as soon as it hit the table.
Scratch that. Peter was on a mission.
Babysitting.
"We will return as soon as we are able," Drax said, after the meal. "Enjoy yourselves until our return. Someone from Nova will be here tomorrow to provide you with official documentation; Anolise, some appropriate work-studies will be offered if you wish to take them."
"I'll keep an eye on them, Drax."
"That sounds unusually painful," Drax replied with a knowing smile, before he, Gamora, and Rocket headed back to the drydock. Peter, Groot, Anolise and Waina waved them off, before heading back to the cabana, Waina's full belly catching up to her as her ears began to droop.
"Anolise, can you carry her?" Peter asked, awkwardly.
"So, Mister Weak Lord can't even pick up a kid, now, huh?" Anolise snarked with a light smile.
"Bird," Peter replied, shrugging. "I can't even carry the smartass."
"Can't carry yourself, then, huh?" She scooped the dragging Waina into her claws and kept step with Peter, who unlocked the door to the cabana.
"Let's get her into a bed, yeah? Then you and I can do something if you want."