Actions

Work Header

A Day in the Life

Summary:

There was a bang, a flash, and a baby.

In which the Guardians find themselves stuck with a pint-sized Ravager Admiral.

Notes:

New fic??? New fic!!!

 

 

Totally inspired by that one written by the lovely Capsing, which involved Peter, Drax, and a baby/omelette-in-the-making.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Summary:

In which the Guardians acquire a(nother) baby

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Gamora blames Drax. Drax blames Thanos. Peter blames Yondu – then changes his mind and blames Rocket instead. Rocket blames everyone involved in this flarking mission, the Collector included. As the Collector’s not here to defend himself, everyone decides he’s by far the biggest culprit.

All except one.

“I am Groot.”

“No, no, no, buddy!” Peter sweeps up the little tree one-handed. His other is occupied: massaging his temples to dispel the headache.

He’s glad Gamora offered to pilot. Their efforts at making profit at the Ravagers’ expense had disintegrated into screams, bright lights, and mayhem. After that, Peter doesn’t have the mental fortitude to face the asteroid-strewn trip back to Nova-governed skies – and anyway, Gamora’s already made it clear that she’d rather be as far from their youngest passenger as possible. Really, this works out for everyone.

But for now their second-youngest needs reassurance. Peter forces a smile. “It wasn’t your fault, Groot. You didn’t mean to.”

“I am Groot?”

“None of that. C’mon, guys. Let’s agree here and now. Not Groot’s fault.”

Drax frowns. “While I maintain that this is another of Thanos’s evil schemes, in lieu of his presence I must admit that Groot was the one to drop the item…”

“Which you handed to him, although I told you he was too small to carry it!” Gamora’s gripping the joystick as if she’s imagining it’s one of their throats. Possibly all of them, compressed into a single stressball. “The item Rocket was supposed to be disarming, and Peter and Yondu were supposed to be steering well clear of, because it’s calibrated to affect idiots from the Silver Spiral galaxy. The item which the Collector commissioned us to fetch in the first place.”

Peter grins. “So I’m the only one who did what I was supposed to.”

The baby, left on a pile of smelly leather in the back seat of the Milano, wakes from its nap. Discovering itself to be surrounded by unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar colors, it promptly starts to scream. Again.

Rocket glares at him, shouting to be heard. “And a fine flarkin’ job you made of it!”

Peter’s smarmy grin makes a dive for the agonized. How the hell do lungs that small  project so much noise?

Gamora maintains her stranglehold on the joystick, albeit shakily. She’s not the one Peter's worried about. Eardrums vibrating, he drops Groot in Rocket’s lap and scrambles after Drax.

The man’s a juggernaut of pure beef. Right now, he’s barrelled out of his chair and is on a direct collision course with the infant.

Despite everything; despite his confusion and his mistrust and his petty sense of loss, as if he’s been robbed of his right to be angry with the man who took everything from him and dared presume he’d be grateful; Peter can’t let that happen.

“Drax!” he roars. “You stop right there!”

Everyone’s surprised at the force of his voice, Peter most of all. Drax pulls up short, one flimsy plastic chair between him and his target. He turns to pin Peter with a glare so cutting it feels as if Peter’s insides have been excavated by the big guy’s kukri.

“You would have me ignore a crying child?” he asks.

 

Oh. Huh. Seems like a communication wire has been crossed.

"I know who he is to you," Drax continues. "But nevertheless, right now he is vulnerable, and in need of our help. Would you have me neglect this innocent, to sate your paltry anger?”

Peter points at the squalling bundle of blue. "You’re not gonna stomp on him because he’s noisy?”

“I wish he would!” Rocket winces as the baby’s cries ramp up a notch. Its eyes scrunch shut, and its hands – such tiny hands! – knot into cerulean fists.

A fighter even at this age. Not that his self-defence mechanisms extend beyond deafening them. Honestly, Peter’s just grateful Yondu’s too young to whistle.

The proximity of the massive grey man isn’t helping the once-and-future Ravager captain feel at ease. When Drax looms over him, the cockpit lights bounce from his scarified skull as if the flames etched there have actually begun to smolder.

The baby rolls its head bonelessly to one side. Its angry screams devolve into hiccups. Shuddery wet hiccups, accompanied by a sluice of tears.

“I am Groot!”

Rocket scowls at his companion. “I ain’t taking it back! Still think the ugly blue sod deserves everything he gets.”

But he looks guilty, conscience provoked by that snivelling sound: the universal indicator of fear. He digs a claw into one furry ear, rootling around as if he can dig out the tinnitus.

“Least he’s quieter when he’s crying like this.”

Quieter, but so much worse. Peter doesn’t protest when Drax lifts the baby. He cups the soft blue skull in a hand that looks shovel-sized in comparison. He manages to make the action look tender. Yondu frets nonetheless. His toothless gums are smeared with snot and drool. He always complained about how much Peter leaked as a child, but given the amount of liquid seeping from his eyes – still plastered closed, as if they’ll all vanish if he doesn’t acknowledge them – he’s as big a hypocrite on this subject as he is on any other.

Peter wonders if Centaurian babies have any sense of object permanence. He wonders if they drink milk, and if so, where they’re supposed to acquire a suitable synthetic blend. He wonders if Yondu has any recollection of who they are and where he is, and is sobbing because he knows he’s among enemies; or whether he’s reverted fully to infancy and is stranded in a galaxy as scary as it is broad, a very long way from home.

Peter knows that feeling.

Swallowing, he pads closer. He’s been avoiding looking too closely at him. What he’s afraid of, he has no idea.

Is he worried his heart’ll melt at the sight of trembling blue fists and moist red eyes? Is it because he might forget everything this man has – will – put him through?

His obligations weigh on his shoulders as if someone’s dialled up the gravity, grinding him into the ground.

Yondu’s a baby. A helpless baby – more vulnerable than Peter’s ever seen him. Peter snatched him, along with the man-sized coat he’d slithered out of, as the Guardians sprinted for their exit. And now he has to take responsibility.

Things had seemed simple back then, as the bright flashes left by the device’s activation-mode receded from Peter’s vision. Now they’ve put distance between themselves and the Ravager horde, Peter has time to think things through.

He could’ve walked away. He could've left Yondu to his men. But what would they have done, had they stormed the hollowed-out smuggling moon where the device had been hidden, only to find it bereft of artifact and thieves alike?

What if they’d then discovered their leader, who had flown ahead with the promise that he’d deal with his Terran nuisance once and for all?

Worthless, frail, more vulnerable than they’d ever seen him…

Peter has a vague idea. It involves stewpots and meathooks, and Taserface, head of the Eclector galley and chief tormentor of Peter’s childhood, laying dainty slivers of blue on plate after plate.

He shudders.

He can’t let that happen. He won’t. For now it’s him, the Guardians, and Peter’s shrunken not-dad. Happy families all around.

Drax angles Yondu away.

“Don’t crowd him,” he snaps, and Peter realizes he's been staring. But his voice gentles to a curious, crooning singsong as he shuffles Yondu into the crook of one mighty arm. "Calm yourself, child. You’re safe now.”

Peter knows Drax had a daughter. He knows, logically, that a guy so earnest and forthright would’ve been actively involved in her upbringing.

(No such thing as pink-and-blue chores in the Andromeda galaxy. Peter’d discovered that the hard way, aged eight and in charge of his first scrubbing brush. He’d complained that cleaning was for girls – and promptly had the entire masculine Ravager workforce turn on him and threaten to make him eat his sponge.)

But despite this, Peter’s still terrified. Drax is massive. A stars-damned bull in humanoid form.

Peter’s no waifish thing himself. But while he’s of a height with his companion, there’s at least fifty pounds weight-difference. And Yondu's so small.

It’d take one squeeze, one too-hard poke… Bye-bye, little blue scream-machine.

“Be careful,” he pleads. “He’s so tiny. Don’t hurt him.”

“I will not,” says Drax, with the certainty only a species with no concept of falsehoods could muster. “I never will.”

That’s a little further than Peter would go. Drax tilts his head to a contemplative angle.

“Unless he returns spontaneously to adulthood, in which case I shall defend myself and all of my friends against him.”

Much better. They have no idea how this contraption of the Collector’s operates. They could face a fully grown Centuarian any second, and Peter bets that the Ravager Captain won’t be pleased to find himself being carried about bridal style in his birthday suit.

Speaking of birthdays… “How old is he?”

Rocket grimaces. “Hopefully,” he says, “Old enough that he don’t shit himself.”

And either Centaurians develop language-comprehending capabilities at an incredible rate or Yondu has an impeccable sense of timing, because he chooses the ensuing silence to answer that question.

Notes:

Hope you enjoyed! Please comment.