Five in the morning. Three hours after Lotus woke him up. And now she was crying. Again. Peter groaned. He only had her for ONE week, he couldn't imagine doing this for the rest of his life. He groaned into his pillow and slowly sat down, rubbing his face. His hair was a mess and he had bags under his eyes.

"Quill! Shut her up…" Rocket said from another room. Boy, did that raccoon got grumpy when someone woke him up early.

"Yeah, I will…" He mumbled. Peter walked three steps across the floor and grabbed Lotus from her cradle. She immediately stopped crying, instead, giggling. "You little rascal, you cry to get attention?" She squealed. "You're going to be one hell of a troublemaker… Let's get you feed up." He walked up the stairs towards a small kitchen. He grabbed a bottle filled with milk from the fridge and gave it to her. For some reason, she didn't like warm milk.

"Enjoying fatherhood?"

Peter turned his head towards Gamora, who had just walked in.

"Well…"

She walked closer to him. "It's obvious that you have a soft spot for Lotus. She has you around her finger."

"Not true."

"You will always be that liar I meet the first day." She smiled as she grabbed a cup and fill it with juice. "You should do something about those bag under your eyes, though."

"Get some sleep? She doesn't want me to sleep, apparently." Peter said. "Every time she cries at night is to play with her or to just hold her. Last night it was a gas."

Gamora chuckled. "You should consider getting her a toy."

"A toy?"

"She's a child, Quill. Children get bored easily." Gamora washed the cup and place it back in place. "You could ask Drax what kind of toy he recommends. He had a daughter too, you know."

OOO

"Hey, Drax!" Peter called while entering the room with baby Lotus in his arms. The man was polishing his knives. Again. That guy needed a hobby or something. "I need your help."

Drax looked up from his knives. "You should do something about those bags."

"No kidding…" Peter rolled his eyes. "I need you to help me."

"How?"

"You had a daughter, right?"

Drax nodded sadly.

"You see, Lotus here just keeps waking me up in some ungodly hours of the morning to play and Gamora suggested I should get her a toy because she gets bored. Any suggestions?"

Drax seemed lost in thought for a moment. "Considering her young age, you could buy her something soft. Like a stuffed animal."

"A stuffed animal?"

"Yes. I once bought a stuffed raccoon for my daughter." Drax smiled. "Don't tell Rocket I said that."

"No promises there, big guy." Peter teased. "Thanks, anyway."

OOO

They made a quick stop at Xandar, which they haven't been two weeks before Lotus' arrival to the ship. Rocket and Groot went to the gear shops, Drax went somewhere else, Gamora went grocery shopping and Peter… went baby shopping.

He has NEVER been to a baby shop. He'll say it looked creepy with all those toys around… looking at him with those bottoms eyes. Great. Now he'll have nightmares with those toys. Note to yourself: make sure Lotus doesn't pick one of those… Peter thought as he walked further to the store. He held Lotus in his right hand while he held a small list in the other. Drax (again) was kind enough to make him a list of some necessities the baby needed. He grabbed a shopping cart and put Lotus in the baby seat. He grabbed the handle with his right hand.

"Let's see: Clothes, diapers… yuck! A new crib." He looked at the baby in front of him, who was watching his every move. "You can't keep sleeping in that cradle, you know." He kept on reading mostly to himself. "… baby food, bottles, sucker, and a toy so you can stop waking me up in some unholy hours of the-"

Peter bumped into someone. That someone was Nova Prime. She looked at him while she picked a bag of diapers from the floor. "Mr. Quill? What are you-" She cut herself off when she saw Lotus snuggling against her father's neck. "You stole a baby!? I thought you were now retired from stealing! You should return her to her-"

"If you were going to say her parents, I'm her dad, so… yeah. Deal with it."

Nova stared at him and the baby. Lotus cooed her head to one side, inspecting the newly arrived lady with her big pink eyes. Nova was doing the same, probably looking for similarities between her and Peter. "I see. I was not aware that you were a father, Mr. Quill."

"Well…" He scratched the back of his head. "Her mother, who I don't even remember, dumped her with me a week ago, so, I'm new to all this… experience."

"Oh."

"What are you, Nova Prime, doing in this creepy store, with a bag of diapers?"

"I was buying a bag of diapers for my grandson. He's probably the same age as your daughter." Nova seemed to inspect his eyes for one second. "You should do something about those bags under your eyes."

Peter frowned. "I've been told…"

"Well, good luck with her. All I can say is that parenthood is a very interesting experience." The woman started to walk away when she suddenly turned around. "And Quill? Don't get in trouble. Good day." And she went out of the store.

Peter turned around and keep walking, searching the aisles for the items he needed. So far he found the diapers, bottles, a sucker, clothes and baby food. All that was left was the crib and get a toy for Lotus. He walked through the aisle that contained the cribs. He didn't had time to check them he just looked at the sample pictures.

"Too ugly. Too white. Too shocking. Too expensive. Too black. Too green. Don't tell Gamora I said that." He told Lotus, who just giggled but had no idea what her daddy just said. "Too boyish. Too girly. This one looks like it's made for stripers. So Rocket... Is this one even made for babies? OH, what the hell, I'll just grab the brown one."

He finally went to the toy aisle, specifically to the stuffed animals section like Drax told him. "Alright, what about this one? Do you like elves, Lotus?" He held a small elf toy and hand it to the baby. She grabbed, looked at it… and threw it to the floor. Peter rolled his eyes. "Alright. Not elves. What about Thor?" He held a plushy made in the form of the famous demigod. Lotus started to whimper. Maybe it had scared her. It had bottom eyes. Creepy. "No, no, no. Don't cry!" Peter threw the doll away. "See? I don't like it either."

Lotus stopped whimpering. She reached for a stuffed bunny close to her. Peter grab it for her. "You like this one?"

Lotus held her tiny hands towards it. "Here you go. So you make decisions fast. I like that about you." After paying for the items and a pair of wooden blocks later, Peter was facing a larger problem now. "How do I carry a baby and four full bags of baby shit?"

A woman passing by with who seemed to be her husband glared at him, probably for saying certain obscenity in front of a baby.

"What are you staring at?"

OOO

Ring, Ring!

Rocket looked at his wrist communicator and sighed. It was his dickhead leader, Peter. He answered. "What the hell do you want?"

"How do you carry a baby and four full bags of baby shit, one of them including a baby crib box?"

Rocket would have laughed, if Gamora wasn't glaring at him. "We'll be there in a yippee."

OOO

Peter waited ten minutes outside the store sitting on the crib box, while people looked at him holding the baby. Finally, the Milano landed a few feet away and Groot and Drax walked out of the spaceship.

"Took you long enough. You have no idea how people stare at me."

Another couple passed by, with questionable looks on their faces.

"Yeah, people like you. Keep walking. Nothing to see here." He mumbled later. "Bitches…"

OOO

"So what did you get for Lotus?" Gamora asked while watching Peter building the last part of the crib beside his bed and watching Lotus at the same time, who was busy playing with wooden blocks.

"A stuffed bunny and a pair of wooden blocks sets." He answered. Gamora raised a questionable eye brow. "What? Those were the ONLY things that got her attention."

The green skinned woman just shrugged. "Need any help?"

"No thanks. I almost finish. After this, I'm taking a well-deserved nap."

"Well, somebody already did." Gamora answered while looking at Lotus, who just fell asleep above her blocks.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Just in time." Gamora did him the favor of picking her up and placed her in the newly finished crib.

"Finally. Now I can get some sleep."

Gamora kept looking at Lotus. "You're doing a great job, you know."

"How can you said that?" He got up and looked at his daughter. "It's only been a week."

"You didn't turned her away."

"You guys pressured me on keeping her. Except for Rocket."

"But you could have just denied her."

Peter stayed quiet for a few minutes. She was right, he COULD have turned Lotus away but he didn't. He didn't know what got over him. He was not going to tell what he really thought so he just decided to say some shit. "Do you realize that we look like a mom and dad looking at their baby?" he smirked.

She just punched him in the shoulder. Right, don't tell Gamora this kind of stuff.