The planet where they are currently docked has an official name, but 12 year old Peter Jason Quill finds it unpronounceable and just simply calls it Hellhole 5. Kraglin smirks at him when he says it, ever amused by the antics of their resident Terran.
This job is meant to be Peter's first as part of the away team. Most of the Ravagers stay on The Eclector to keep it in orbit and provide backup if necessary. That was always where Peter was told to stay, to keep you outta trouble and offa my last nerve Yondu told him.
This time however, Yondu finally relented to Peter's incessant badgering to take him along; promising to stay quiet and to follow every order. Kraglin snuck him a small blaster to keep hidden in his jacket, can't be a real Ravager 'less you gotta weapon to go with the name.
Peter practically vibrates with excitement as Yondu leads the small team off his M-ship and onto the brown near-wasteland of the planet. The meeting with the intermediary is to take place in the dingy bar at the edge of town and given how easy it is supposed to go, Yondu only brought Kraglin, Peter, and two others along with him. Couldn't fit too many in a joint like that anyway.
Yondu had unofficially assigned Kraglin to keep an eye on the kid while they were off ship. He already followed him around and seemed to listen to him a bit better than anyone else, and Kraglin was one of the only ones who wasn't flat out annoyed by Peter anyway.
They enter the bar and Peter immediately wrinkles his nose at the smell, or smells. It's difficult to stop and focus on just one and they are all terrible. Yondu makes his way to the very back, though another door and into a back room. At the table sits their contact: he is short, barely taller than Peter, almost as round as he is tall, and the most interesting shade of purple with jet black, close-cropped hair. He is mostly humanoid, though each of his two hands has two extra digits. Peter can't help but think those would come in handy playing video games.
He looks around the room as Yondu approaches the table, the rest of them hanging back. There are three others in the room, all congregated in the far corner. One seated and the other two flanking him. Peter wonders if this is the guy they are doing the job for. He seems the type: flashy, white suit, well-muscled guards, and something else that he couldn't put his finger on, but he didn't like it whatever it was. Hard to tell much more with his face in shadow.
"Yondu Udonta, it has been a while," the purple man speaks, startling Peter with how high-pitched it was. He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at the contrast.
Yondu makes it a point to remain standing, despite the chair that obviously awaited him.
"Frisk, good to see ya. Though I don't usually meet the clients face-to-face, you know that. What's he doin' here?" He asks, jabbing his thumb towards the occupied corner.
"Ah well, Yondu, this is a delicate job. Mr. Xahn wanted to assess you personally."
"That so?" he looks to the seated man across the room. "Mr. Xahn right? Anythin' you wanna tell me? Frisk here told me this was a quick in-and-out grab. That true?"
Mr. Xahn leans forward and Peter recoils into the Ravager behind him. He has bright red skin and a row of horns on either side of his head. He could just make out the tail-end of a thin black braid that hangs from somewhere on the back of his head, as the top is completely bald. Peter thoroughly believes he is looking at the devil himself.
"Mr Udonta," his voice is deep and seems to reverberate through the room. "Frisk speaks truth. This should be a very simple thing for someone of your reputation, but what you are to retrieve is something of great importance to me. I wanted to be sure that you had the…proper motivation to see this job though as quickly and efficiently as possible."
Yondu scoffs. "We ain't never had a problem before, don't see how we'd have one now."
Xahn laughs, deep and gravely. "Good to hear, yes, very good. What you are retrieving is of little value to many, but is greatly important to me. Frisk has everything you will need to know about the location of the object. Fortunately for all of us, it is on the adjacent planet. So you need not travel far."
Yondu swipes the pad off the table and flips through each holo: a detailed floor plan, blueprints for the grounds and the building as a whole, guard rotations, alarm and video feed locations.
"Well, this is some pretty good info ya got here. Where'd ya get it?"
Xahn smirks and a chill travels down Peter's spine. "I know a guy."
Peter taps Kraglin's hand, just light enough to gain his attention. He glances down at him and Peter tries his best to convey what he's feeling without having to voice it. Kraglin seems to understand, at least to an extent, and nods.
"Care to share with the rest of us Cap'n?" Kraglin hopes Yondu doesn't take offense to the interruption. Yondu glances his way, seeing that his first mate had something to speak with him about.
"'Scuse us, just gotta run through some quick ideas with my first mate here."
He gets as close as possible to the group, which encloses and winds up circling around young Peter.
"Problem?" Yondu asks, glancing around.
Kraglin speaks up "Peter here's got a bad feeling 'bout this guy. Gotta say as I agree with him Cap'n. Su'im don't feel right."
Yondu sighs, "Yer right, I don't like it either. Pay's pretty good for this job, but I'm thinkin' we can get by without it. Whatcha say boys?"
The rest of the group nods their consent, Peter quite vigorously, whether his vote counts or not. Yondu affirms it and turns back to the room.
"We've discussed the situation here and I havta say we're just not interested. I'm sure ya can find someone else to do the job." He lays the pad back on the table and backs a couple steps away, giving him ample space to survey the room. Because the youngest member of his crew had it right, there is something very wrong about this job and he wants to be prepared for anything.
"Well that's certainly a pity. But I do understand. Thank you for your time Mr. Udonta." Xahn leans back into the shadows and seems to dismiss them entirely.
Yondu watches the corner and throws his hand over his shoulder, waving the Ravagers out the door ahead of him. He refused to turn his back on the room. Back in the bar, a glass crashes to the floor, effectively distracting them all for a brief second. A second too long it would seem as when they all look back, they are short one Ravager. Yondu and Kraglin simultaneously whip their heads around to the room they had just left, and there in the corner sits a smug Xahn next to a body guard grappling a struggling Terran in his arms. Xahn reaches up and grabs Peter's face in one sharply clawed hand.
"I'm afraid I really do need you to retrieve my trinket for me. And it seems I have found the proper motivation. Awfully foolish to have brought one so young with you. They are so delicate at this age," he says releasing Peter's face only to drag his nails across his cheek, leaving three quickly bleeding scratches in their wake. To the boy's credit, he doesn't cry out, but his eyes water and he kicks even harder at his captor.
Yondu growls deeply. "You leave the boy outta this. He ain't got nothin' to do with it. Ain't even a Ravager yet, we keep 'im around more for entertainment than anything. Be a shame for the crew to lose somethin' like that." He realizes too late that his anger already showed his feelings toward Peter.
"Somehow I don't believe you, Ravager. Get me what I asked for, and no further harm will come to your…pet. But I will be keeping it here, just to make sure you do as you're told. Hurry now, there's no telling what could happen if you were to take too long," he grins, gleaming white teeth sharp and malicious.
While they stare each other down, Peter remembers the blaster that Kraglin had given him and notices that beefy bodyguard #1 has a grip around Peter's arms and a hand grasping tightly to his throat but left his hands loose. He keeps up the pretense of kicking his legs out and moves his hands around to counterbalance, all the while inching his right towards his jacket pocket. Yondu starts speaking again, but Peter doesn't catch a word, he is too focused on his partially formed plan and trying not to pass out from lack of oxygen. He grabs a hold of the weapon, yanks it from his pocket and shoots his captor in the knee. Peter drops to the floor and darts as quickly as possible to the other side of the room.
Chaos erupts a nanosecond later. Yondu whistles his arrow to immediately hover in between Xahn's eyes, while the other Ravagers fire their blasters at his two guards, both going down entirely unconscious and potentially dead. Kraglin moves to train his blaster on Frisk, just in case.
Xahn keeps his eyes focued on the arrow but clearly understands that moving or speaking at the moment would be a bad idea.
"Quill, you alright boy?" Yondu yells.
A mess of red-blonde hair pops up from behind a chair on the far side of the room. He flashes a thumbs up then drops back down to lean against the wall, trying to get his breathing back under control.
Good enough for Yondu, he turns his full attention to the man in the corner.
"You really screwed up, layin' hands on my boy."
Kraglin speaks up as well. "Cap'n don't take too kindly to that. And neither do we."
"Got anythin' to say to keep me from drillin' a hole straight through to the other side of your skull?"
For the first time since they had arrived, the devil in white looks scared. "I-it was just business." His bravado returns a bit; anger momentarily replacing fear. "What's it to you anyway if the thing dies? It's not big enough to pull any real weight around your ship and it's clearly no relation! Completely useless to keep someth—"
He doesn't quite get the rest of that sentence out as Yondu's shrill whistle drives his yaka arrow straight through Mr. Xahn's head, leaving a perfectly circular hole right between his eyes.
"My boy ain't no thing," Yondu mutters to the corpse, kicking it for good measure as he walks by. He calls his arrow back as he makes his way to where he'd last seen the little Terran.
"'Ey Cap'n, what 'bout Frisk here?" Kraglin calls, blaster still trained on the slightly shaking purple man.
Yondu pauses in his walk to answer. "Eh let 'im go. Frisk won't do nothin', will ya Frisk?"
"N-n-no, Captain Udonta. I would v-very much like to l-leave however."
Yondu nods at Kraglin to drop his weapon, who then jerkily motions for Frisk to beat it, leaving just a room of Ravagers behind.
Yondu is as cautious as he could manage while approaching Peter, he doesn't want to spook the kid.
"Hey there Quill, y'alright son?"
Peter is still sitting against the wall taking deep breaths, relishing his ability to do so. He nods, but neglects to speak. Yondu looks the boy over as he crouches in front of him. Peter's right hand is bone white, clutching the blaster he'd used to defend himself. The other is clenched tight in the fabric of his pants. The scratches along his cheek don't appear too deep, but are sluggishly bleeding, drops of which were making their way down his pale face and to his shirt. Yondu briefly sees red as he takes in Peter's face, and even more so when he sees the darkening necklace of bruises around his throat. Real shame I can't kill 'im twice.
He shoves his anger down deep; it would do little to help him now. "You ready to go home boy?"
Yondu doesn't wait for his response; he gently takes Peter's hand in his and pries the stiff fingers loose, releasing his now trusty blaster and pocketing it to give back later. Yondu leads Peter into standing and then waits just to make sure he won't black out or anything. He thinks a minute, observing the obviously still shocked boy in front of him.
"Tell ya what, kid. Just this once, I'll give ya a ride." He crouches again, turning his back to Peter to show him what he meant.
"You sure?" He croaks, though his voice is quiet.
"Yeah I'm sure. Hurry up 'fore I change my mind."
Peter complies, wrapping his skinny arms and legs around Yondu's neck and torso, surprisingly light and gentle for a 12 year old boy.
"Thank you," responds a very tentative and still raspy voice behind him.
"You gon sound like me now, ey boy?" Yondu feels a puff of air against the back of his neck and knows he'd managed to get a laugh.
The Ravager captain hefts his load once to make sure he is secure and then makes his way out of the room, nodding to the rest of his crew to follow along. Kraglin catches up, expecting to receive orders of some sort.
"Keep an eye out. I wouldn't put it past 'im to have another couple'a armed guards here in the bar or just outside. I wanna get the kid back to the ship as quick as possible, make sure he don't get some weird infection in those scratches."
"You got it Cap'n. Move out and keep yer eyes peeled."
The small group moves swiftly out of the bar and out of town, happily leaving it behind. As they approach the M-ship they'd arrived on, Yondu hears a stifled laugh from his first mate.
"Somethin' funny Kraglin?"
"Just Peter's nickname for the planet…it does seem to fit, don't it Cap'n?"
Hellhole 5, yeah that about covers it.
They arrive at the ship and Kraglin immediately moves to get it off the ground and back to The Eclector. Yondu glances around at his Terran backpack only to grin when he notices the kid has nodded off. He motions to one of the other crew members to help him lay the boy down. He walks away to help his first mate finish with the start up sequence, but Peter's small hand latches onto his and he whimpers for a second at the loss of contact. Yondu may have been a jerk most of the time, but he wasn't completely heartless. He sits down on the floor of the ship, back against the bench Peter is sleeping on, letting the Terran keep a hold on his hand. Just this once.
Hours later, little Peter Quill wakes up in what the Ravagers passably called the med-bay, more or less a room close-ish to the engine that remained sterile from its lack of use. He can feel the sticky gel-glue they used to clean and heal the cuts on his face and his throat is already feeling less raw. All of this he expected once he realized where he was. What was unexpected was finding the Ravager captain lounging in a chair next to his bed, his hand outstretched and cradling Peter's own.
The boy smiles, grateful that Yondu's kindness hadn't been a dream. He lays back down, eager to rejoin his captain in a well-deserved long rest.