Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kraglin doesn’t say much. It’s one of the first things Peter notices about him once he gets past his height and titanium teeth. He looks Terran enough until he returns from a mission with a split lip oozing blue blood. Xandarians are uncommon on the Eclector. He doesn't quite understand why and no one bothered to answer when he asks.

Kraglin isn’t like Yondu. Where Yondu snaps and snarls and threatens him with his words Kraglin is prone to physicality. Sure, Yondu'll give him a good smack over the head or pick him up by the scruff, but he holds back. Even at eight, Peter knows he's holding back.

Kraglin doesn't hold back. He gives Peter a swift kick to the ass when he’s moving too slow or a smack right on the mouth when he talks back to any of the senior members of the crew. Even a sharp, disapproving look from those big, blue eyes stings like he’s been hit.

Years later, decades really, Peter will realize that Kraglin and Yondu were doing their best with what they knew. Yondu is like a father to him, a fucked up emotionally unavailable father, but a father nonetheless. Kraglin is never a father. He isn't a mother or a cousin or even a brother. He's just family.

“I have a translator. Why do I need to learn this crap?”
 

He doesn’t expect Kraglin to jam a knife into the implant resting behind his ear. The main microphone piece pops off easily. Everything goes fuzzy and there’s a high pitched squealing noise that lasts for one second too long. Suddenly everything around him is distinctly not in English. Half of what he hears doesn't sound like English even with the translator. 

Kraglin speaks. He understands “Yondu” and that’s all.

He props his boots on the table and gestures to the holo-workbook Peter was supposed to be working on. It had been jumbled garbage then and now it is even worse. 
“I can’t read this! How am I supposed to do it if I can’t even read it?”
Kraglin stares at him and gestures again to the holo-workbook. He speaks but it sounds like absolute gibberish.
 

Tears flow heavy down his cheeks all of a sudden. He gives the sort of heaving, choking sob only children can achieve. He’s been on this stupid ship in stupid space for not even three months and now he can’t understand anything and Kraglin won’t help and he doesn’t want to learn Xandarian he just wants to go home and it’s not fair and Captain said if he doesn’t learn they’ll eat him and if he doesn’t show progress by the end of the day he won’t get no supper and he’s already hungry and—

Kraglin grabs him roughly by the cheeks. His long, thin fingers dig in extra hard to compensate for the wetness making Peter slippery. He slams the microphone plate back into the implant hard enough that there will be a nasty bruise around his ear. “You stop your fucking crying, Peter.” His grip tightens. “You’re gonna learn because one day that chip is going to go out. One day you’ll be ten times as scared as you are now because no one will be able to understand you. Ain’t nothing worse, you hear me? Nothing worse than being alone like that.”

Peter rubs his neck and then wipes his nose on his sleeve once Kraglin pushes him away.

Yondu had told him that Kraglin was "real educated". He got to go to school and knew lots of things the other Ravagers never got to learn. Peter should feel lucky, Yondu had said, that it would be Kraglin teaching him.

“I hate you.” He snivels even as he picks up a stylus.
Kraglin glances over at him. “Better start singing them alphabets before I get the Captain in here.”

In the middle of a firefight, a taser dart jams itself right into the cover of his translator. The little device shorts out sparing his brain from the electric shock. The last combatant drops. They’re some band foolhardy bounty hunters hoping to make it big by capturing the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Peter pulls the dart from his neck taking half the translator with it. “Oh fuck me.”

Drax is the first to speak up once they’ve all caught their breaths.

“Why do I understand you?”

Peter pauses his struggle. The damned dart is really lodged into the metal of the translator. It’s shot to shit but it’s easier to get a temporary fix from Rocket if there are parts to work with. “Because I’m talking? Dude, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“You’ve been speaking Xandarian this whole time?”

Of course, most spacers have universal translators implanted somewhere in their heads. Peter’s first had been unceremoniously jammed into his ear by a certain blue captain. The permanent translator had been more expertly implanted on the first Nova controlled planet they’d come across.

“You thought I spoke Terran?” He grunts as the dart finally dislodges. “Nah, man, my uh... My Terran is kind of garbage. I was eight when I was picked up. It’s not like I knew a lot of space vocab so my translator couldn’t, you know.” He waved his hand vaguely. It pains him on some level to admit this. "So I had to learn something the translator could work with."

"It certainly explains the accent. I thought it was just a Terran quirk." Gamora comments.

"I do not have an accent. My Xandarian is perfect. Maybe you have an accent." He tosses the busted translator to Rocket. 

"No way, man. You definitely have an accent. Pure Ravager now that I listen." Rocket grins or maybe it's a snarl.

"Whatever. You spend twenty years with those a-holes and see what happens."

Chapter Text

He spends his first two years on the Eclector sleeping in the captain’s quarters. Captain cleans out a little nook for him and strings up and surprisingly comfortable hammock. He’s given a pillow and a blanket and two sets of tiny Ravager Reds courtesy of the tailor. He hides his most prized possessions in the locked cabinet under his hammock. It’s a simple key lock but to an eight-year-old it’s everything.

It’d been real weird when he found out the captain and his ornery first mate shared a bed. Men wasn’t supposed to do that or at least that’s what his grandad told him. Men like that got sick and died. Yondu didn’t seem sick and, despite his skinny frame, Kraglin didn’t seem to be dying. They slept sprawled together on the captain’s bed with Yondu curled against Kraglin as the Xandarian sleeps belly down and shirtless.

Peter wakes with a funny feeling in his tummy. He’s spent the last year on the Eclector taking in the filth, disease, and questionable food. Other than a nasty reaction to an Orloni bite he’d been declared to have a strong immune system for a human and he'd been properly vaccinated and deloused upon his arrival.

“Captain.” He pads over to the bed. After his daily scrubbing, he’s usually shoved into one of Yondu’s undershirts. Kraglin’s drown his tiny frame and Yondu is too cheap to buy him pajamas he’s going to outgrow. Plus, Yondu had argued, it wasn’t like they didn’t have the same general genital layout so it didn't matter what Peter wore. The shirt still nearly drags the ground. 

“Captain.” He tries again just a little louder. Yondu snores on.

Kraglin is the one who responds. He sits up slowly and with an unattractive grunt. “What’re you doing, kid?”
Peter walks over to his side of the bed. “My stomach hur—“ In that magical way young children seemed to have mastered, he suddenly and violently sicks all over his front mid-sentence. Their dinner of protein goo and unknown vegetable mash drops down his shirt and plops onto the floor.

“For fuck’s sake.”

Peter’s mouth wobbles and fat tears roll down his cheeks. Kraglin is going to give him a beating, he’s sure, and his tummy still hurts. Mom would give him some ginger ale and crackers when he didn’t feel good but Kraglin was going to spank him.

The Xandarian climbs out of bed with a low groan. “Come here.”

This is it. He’s going to hit him while he’s still covered in vomit.

Kraglin presses his mouth to Peter’s forehead and his hands to his cheeks. “You have a fever. You brats are always throwing up for no reason.”

Peter stands stock-still as his soiled nightshirt is removed and dropped in a heap over the floor-vomit. He can’t help but rest his cheek on Kraglin’s shoulder when he’s picked up with uncharacteristic gentleness.

“I’m gonna--” He whimpers out. More protein good and vegetable mash suddenly coats Kraglin’s naked back. He hears and feels the man take a deep, calming breath. “Outta throw you into the airlock.”

But he isn’t brought to the airlock. Instead, he’s brought to the captain’s private washroom.

Kraglin touches his cheeks again without a word. He’s usually the one out on “Scrub the Brat” duty as Yondu likes to put it. Those scrubbing aren’t exactly tender and loving like when his mom used to give him a bath.

“Water’s gonna be cold but you’ll feel better.” Kraglin strips out of his underwear and helps Peter out of his. He only grimaces a little when Peter dry heaves and spits.

The shower is lukewarm at best. Kraglin washes his face and arms where he’s collected a layer of sick. He’s quiet and almost tender. Most of all he looks exhausted. 

Once they’re both clean he takes care to wrap Peter up in a towel and dry his hair until it’s fluffy. He finds himself being deposited next to the captain in his bed. Yondu cracks his eyes open and glances at Kraglin. Sometimes Peter thinks he and Kraglin use their brains to talk to each other like superheroes. Yondu grunts and rolls to make room.

Kraglin cleans the mess Peter has made. He grabs Peter's blanket from his hammock and then climbs into bed.

“S-Sorry I got sick,” Peter whispers as he’s tucked in between Centaurian and Xandarian bodies.
Kraglin sighs. He always looks so tired when no one is around. “Ain’t your fault, kid. I got sick all the same when I was your age. At least you didn’t get it everywhere.” He rolls over and stretches out as much as he can in the overstuffed bed. “Now go to sleep. Wake me up if you gotta spew again. Don’t go bothering Captain.”

Peter rolls over too. A heavy blue arm flops over him and yellow claws slightly grip his new, clean shirt. He presses his nose against Kraglin’s now clean, naked back. “Thanks, Kraglin.”
“I said go to sleep, Peter.”

Gamora does not shriek when she suddenly finds the front of her jumpsuit covered in sticky, sap-like green goo. Groot whimpers and starts to cry as another blurb of goo exits his mouth.

“Peter! Rocket! Drax! Anyone!”

Peter nearly slams into the doorframe in his rush. “What? What is it?” He'd been sure it was a real emergency and not...This.

Gamora holds the sobbing plant out at arm’s length. If she could turn more green Peter thinks she might. “He... He...” She most certainly does not gag.

“Poor kid.” Peter takes Groot from her and holds him to his chest. He earns himself a splattering of whatever it is flora colossus
vomits up. It smells suspiciously like the energy jelly he’s caught the little twig sneaking despite very specifically telling him not to drink anything but water.

“I need a shower. I need ten showers.” Gamora, daughter of Thanos storms right past them. “Ugh!”

Groot whimpers. He casts those big eyes up at Peter. “I am Groot.”

“Yeah yeah. It’s alright, buddy. She’ll get over it. It’s not like it’s your fault, right? Can’t help being sick... But you see why I told you to stay away from that gel, huh? This is what happens. When I was a kid you would have gotten tossed out of the airlock.” 

It’s some weird impulse that brings him to press his mouth to Groot’s bark-covered forehead. His temperature seems to be his usual but the gesture is comforting the crying creature at the very least.

“Let’s get you cleaned up... And me. You can sleep in my cabin tonight. How does that sound?”
“I am Groot.”

Chapter Text

According to the Ravager Code, Ravagers don't steal from each other. There are, depending on the chosen font size, at least ten pages of basic Ravager Code and then another thirty pages of subsections and amendments. It's updated and reviewed on a yearly basis as declared by Article 3, Subsection 2. 

Peter knows this because not only did he learn to read using the 1987 version of the code, but he's currently being forced to copy it over and over and over. 

"Better wipe your nose, boy. You get blood on that holopad and you get to start over. I ain't checking over something that's bloody."

Peter wipes his nose on his sleeve, a nasty habit some of the senior crew have been trying to break him of, and sniffs in an attempt to keep his nose from bleeding any further. It hurts and tears prickle behind his eyes. "If you hadn't socked me I wouldn't be bleeding."

"You talk back too much, Peter." Kraglin glances at him briefly. He's got his boots up on the table, a habit Yondu complains about, and is happy to lounge in the captain's seat at the table in the meeting room turned classroom. "The faster you write the faster I let you go to the med bay. That nose of yours looks a little crooked."

"Didn't do nothing wrong."  He wipes his nose again and goes back to writing. "Was just trying to have some fun."

Kraglin twists his foot and knocked the stylus out of Peter's hand. It's either the sound of a bone or the stylus breaking that comes with the Terran's cry. 
"No backtalk, brat. You tried to steal from me. You're lucky Captain don't let me punish you for real."
"I hate you!"

Kraglin gets kicked out of the captain's quarters for a full two weeks once Yondu catches wind that he'd broken the ship mascot's nose and wrist. The argument between the captain and his first mate/mate had nearly ended in a fistfight and the crew had most certainly heard it even through the blastproof doors of the private cabin.
Despite the pain of having his nose set and his wrist splinted Peter feels like he gets the better end of the whole situation. Captain lets him sleep in his bed for two nights in a row while his wrist is wrapped up in some fancy cast that hurts like hell but heals the broken bone at lightspeed. He gets an extra plop of his favorite orange vegetable mash at mealtimes and he gets to sit on the bridge for a whole week. 

"Captain says you can't hit me no more!"

He has to stand on a chair to almost reach Kraglin's height. He grins wide in his best impression of their captain. At ten he's hit his first growth spurt and lost both canine teeth. He's not particularly intimidating— he pokes Kraglin's chest— or smart. 

"Captain said I can't leave marks on you." His hand is smacked away quickly. "But it's time to learn a thing or two if you're gonna be a real Ravager." A pause. "Assuming we don't eat you before you come of age. In the real world, your ass would have been thrown in prison or worse for getting caught like that." He taps the ugly tattoos on his neck. "And you don't want to go to prison, Pete."

Peter's original target had been Kraglin's communication band. He only removed it at night and Peter had seen him input the passcode enough times to memorize it. If successful he was sure he could have stolen one of the M-ships and escaped to...Somewhere. His plan hadn't exactly worked out considering he'd been caught almost right away and backhanded but whatever. He'd asked for pickpocketing lessons for weeks before and no one listened.

"Shouldn't I practice on someone...Easier?" He peeks into the mess hall and then ducks his head back out. He has to push his mop of hair out of the way to see again. He needed a haircut according to Yondu.

Kraglin leans against the wall and rolls his eyes. "You wanna learn you don't start all easy. It ain't how I learned. Captain set me loose on Stakar himself my first time."
Peter meeps. He's only heard of Stakar in stories and from watching broadcasts of various Ravager crimes. According to the stories, his solar wings could rip through the hull of even the most advanced ships and his crew was as savage as they were loyal. 

"But I don't even know how!"
"It snaps right off."

Peter huffs up his cheeks until he's an ugly pink color. "I know how the patch stays on! I ain't stupid! I don't know how to get it!"
Kraglin gives him a quick tap on the cheek. "Make you a deal, Pete. If I can take his arrow then you can do something as easy as snatch a simple patch. You do that then maybe you'll get an early promotion. You don't need no help."

The Terran considers it. No one could get their hands on Yondu's arrow unless it was being whistled through them. "And if you can't?" He pokes Kraglin's belly which earns him a swat that he manages to dodge. 
"I'll convince the captain you're ready for shooting lessons."
"...Okay! Deal!"

Kraglin pushes off of the wall as soon as Yondu and two members of the navigation team step through the doors and into the corridor. Peter watches in awe as he walks right up to the captain and presses up close to him. Whatever he whispers in the Centaurian's ear makes his red eyes go wide and his ears turn navy. 

Just as quickly, Kraglin steps back with a metal-filled grin. "It's time for Peter's lessons, sir. I might be a might late for the strategy meeting." He smacks Peter on the back more painfully than fondly. 

Yondu mumbles something as the two navigators snicker. 

Peter holds his hand out once they've rounded the corner. "Did you get it?" He feels smug when he sees both of Kraglin's hands are empty. 

Kraglin smiles down at him and then raises his wrist slowly and taps whatever button it is that dials Yondu. "Captain, Peter got ahold of your arrow. What should I do?"

The yaka radiation leaves a permanent scar on his back. He screams as he's yanked through the air by the arrow pierced into the back of his jacket. 

Something like guilt shoots through his stomach when he hands the dummy orb over to Yondu. Switching the real orb out with Gamora's had been simple. Loading it in front of a crowd had been a little more difficult. Nearly thirty years of being taught every sleight of hand trick in the book were really, really tested at that moment. 

Nova Prime asked him how he did it. 

"That's a Ravager secret, ma'am."

Chapter Text

There aren't very many female or female-ish aliens aboard the Eclector. When he's young, Peter doesn't mind at all because girls are still gross and he doesn't want to have to deal with girl stuff. He figures out, very quickly, around the age of eleven that girls aren't gross at all. Girls have soft parts (and sometimes razor-sharp parts) and they usually smell nice. 

At thirteen he's allowed to accompany the crew on one of the pleasure planets they stop on every few months. The crew needs to blow off steam and there's always back-alley deals and jobs to be found. Usually, he'd left behind with one of the trusted senior officers or locked in his new bedroom until either Yondu or Kraglin return. 

Contraxia is freezing cold and apparently a favorite of the various Ravager clans. Udonta reds blend in among a sea of yellow, purple, black, and a half dozen other colors. Yondu sits him down at a table in a corner near some dancing yellow ladies and threatens him with several types of death that he is to stay put until he's collected. The nice Sneeper madame brings him a blanket and some warm, hot sweet stuff and one of the yellow robot ladies sits with him and smiles at him as he talks about how Yondu promised to let him go on a real job after this trip. 

She smiles and twirls her synthetic hair and asks him questions and she smells nice because Love Bots always smell nice. 

"What's a little thing like you doing here?"

Suddenly things don't smell so nice. 

Peter bundles his blanket around himself a little more. Yondu had specifically forced him into one of his red leather jackets. He hadn't been granted his Flame yet but Yondu was adamant he wears red. It had been kind of weird but Yondu could be weird a lot. 

The alien is wearing dingy lime-green. He's probably some sort of Xandarian mix. Kraglin always said to just assume someone that if someone was a halfbreed then Xandarian was one half. His hair is greasy red and his eyes are glassy from whatever weird, green stuff he's drinking. Peter had tried sneaking a sip of Yondu's favored red drink but had gotten a good smack on the ass for it. Kraglin drinks the green stuff and is always hungover the next morning. Drinking doesn't seem too fun. 

"Uh... I'm not supposed to talk to strangers." 

The Love Bot's head cocks and she blinks her long-lashed eyes. Her gears whir loudly but she doesn't say anything. 

"M'not a stranger. I'm a Ravager. You're a Ravager, aren't you?" His teeth are all crooked and he sways into Peter's personal space. 

He's been tossed around by senior Ravagers a few times and gotten his ass beat for all kinds of things but this doesn't feel like it's just going to end in a whack on the head or a wrench tossed into his gut. Instead, the nice warm drink he'd been given makes his stomach feel weird. 

"You don't wear reds. I'm not going to talk to you. Fuck off." His voice wavers but he's going to blame it on pew-burr-tee or whatever Kraglin had mumbled. 

Things happen fast after that. The alien strokes his strawberry brown hair once, twice, and then his hand is gone and flopping on the table. The Love Bot smiles serenely and pulls Peter away from the blue blood spray. She even tucks his blanket closer around his suddenly very pale face and body. 

The alien ends up on the ground with a brown boot smothering him into the dirty, packed snow. "Get back to the ship, Peter. Now." Kraglin's knife drips blood onto the snow and there's a spray of blue on his jumpsuit. "I said now!"

The Love Bot trails behind him as he stumbles over himself to make it back to where the Eclector is docked. She smiles and pats his freezing cheeks as the ramp drops to let him in. 

Two days later Kraglin marches him to one of the padded training rooms. They haven't talked about what happened on Contraxia and for once Yondu doesn't say a word when Peter hides under his coat after one of the gunners threatens to eat him. 

Kraglin straps a leather wrist cuff onto his arm and shows him how to hide a blade under his sleeve. "We ain't always going to be there to protect you, Pete." He squats so they're eye to eye. "And you can't let nobody touch you that you ain't want touchin' you." He's sporting a black eye and a nasty cut on his forehead that's held together by a row of butterfly bandages. "Today you're going to learn to gut somebody. Stinks something fierce if you knick their inside bits, but sometimes you gotta."

"She's too small to hold those things, dude." Peter waves Drax away. 

Mantis blinks and her antennae light up as Peter straps a dainty leather cuff to her wrist. He shows her how to hide a blade without hurting herself. "You're...Angry." She frowns. "But happy?"

Peter shrugs. "No one is ever going to touch you like that again unless you want them too." He grins wide and goofy which shifts her expression to one of those endearingly awkward smiles. "I'm gonna teach you to kick some ass."
"Oh! I want to kick ass!"

Chapter Text

Yondu and Kraglin share the captain’s quarters despite the first mate’s quarters being directly next to the captain’s. The room was dusty from disuse and makes a good hiding spot when Peter was trying to escape a beating.

On what is more or less his tenth birthday Peter is lifted out of his hammock with no fanfare. He's carried through the captain's bathroom and into the mate's quarters next door. Then, he is deposited onto a bed covered in new, brown sheets and the fur of some creature that hadn't run fast enough. There's no discussion about the change. Peter is still bio-coded to the captain's quarters and the shared bathroom is never locked.

Six years later he throws his first real punch at the captain's face. He's taller than the Centaurian now but still beanpole thin and gangly. He knows how to fight, damn it, but Captain's faster. Captain knocks him in the gut and then in the jaw and then gives him a good kick in the side when he falls. The crew snickers and laughs as he gasps for air. His pimpled cheeks are nearly as red as the sea of leather surrounding him. "Swing at me again, boy, and I'll kill you."

Kraglin tosses a holo-workbook onto the lump of Peter's head. Only the head medic, Yondu, and Kraglin are coded in for Peter's door. The one time he'd tried to hack the door he'd fried the scanner and Yondu had forced him to suffer through two weeks of his door being stuck wide open. "Up, kid. It's time for your schoolwork." Every year for the past eight years Kraglin gets his hands on the Age-Appropriate Curriculum for the Spacefaring Children of the Nova Empire. And, every year, he forces Peter to work through it all. 

"Fuck off." Peter pulls his blanket over his head just a little tighter. "I hate you."
"Yeah yeah. Up. I ain't putting up with your moping shit. Maybe if you look like you're doing something useful Captain won't rip you a new one once his shift changes." 

He throws another holo-workbook at Peter's head. "Now, Peter."

Peter had quickly grown accustomed to the different sides of his caretakers. Captain wasn't the same as Yondu and Kraglin, well he doesn’t go by another name, but he’s different too sometimes.

Kraglin threatens to snap his fingers if he types in coordinates wrong in the flight simulator but sometimes he lets Peter take full control of Kraglin's M-ship and he doesn't even tell the captain about it.

Captain tossed him in the brig for two whole days when he cried about a meal being gross but Yondu still lets him sneak candies out of the inner pocket of his long coat and pretends not to notice.

As he grows the crew grows more and more vocal that Yondu is too soft on him. He gives the boy too many chances. Any other Ravager would have been spaced for less. 

"You know when I was your age I tried to hit my daddy too." Kraglin tosses another holo-workbook at him. "And I actually landed it. He shipped me off to Nova boot camp the next day, but I think he already had that shit planned to try and get me to find some discipline or something."

Peter slowly peeks out from under his blanket. It's the same weird, furry thing he'd been given years ago. "Why'd you hit him?" He sits up and pushes the holo-workbooks away. He can still feel the twinge in his side where a black, boot-shaped bruise has already formed. "...Get your feet off my desk."

He just gets a shiny grin and dirty boots tapping together. "I never liked him. He married off my brothers and sisters soon as they reached majority." He tips his head back to stare at one of the posters Peter's attached to the ceiling. "And I turned sixteen and he told me I was going to Xandar. Told him he could go fuck himself. I wanted to go to college, you know." He chucks the last holo-workbook at Peter's head. It just misses knocking him in the forehead. "Instead he was marrying me off to some old fuck for political gain. Same old Xandarian politics that've been going on for forever."

Peter gathers up the holo-workbooks into a stack in his lap. "You got to do what you wanted though! I'm sixteen. I'm majority now! I earned my Flame!"

"I'm gonna tell you a secret, Peter Quill." Kraglin tips his head to look at him. "You think you're all grown now, huh? Captain is gonna give you your Flame one day, but he ain't never gonna see you as anything more than the crying lil grub we picked up on Terra."

Months later Peter wakes to find a familiar long, red coat draped over his sleeping body. It's been cleaned, as much as you can clean old leather, and a brand new Flame has been attached to the shoulder. Captain gives him his first real solo mission not long after and Yondu gives him a rough ruffle of his hair when he comes back mostly unscathed. 

"I am Groot."

"Excuse me?"

"I am Groot."

"Language, Groot! When I was your age that would have gotten me thrown out of the airlock!"

"I...Am Groot."

"Real mature. Yeah. You think you're all grown up, but you're still acting like a sprout! You know what? You're grounded! You heard me!"

"I am Groot!"

"Well take it up with Rocket because I'm not dealing with this."

Chapter Text

His first week is spent curled up in his hammock crying himself to sleep. Yondu snores through the sound like Peter’s a white noise machine.

Kraglin, however, sends him looks that could kill.

On his eighth night, Kraglin slides out of bed and lopes over to the sobbing boy.

“You listen here, kid.” He yanks the headphone cable out of the Walkman and holds it out of Peter’s reach. “You shut the fuck up. I’m tired of hearing you snivel all night.”
“Ain’t trying to cry!” Peter reaches weakly for the cable. “I miss my mom! I want to go home!”

That earns him a sharp swat on the thigh.

“This your home now. Captain says we’re keeping you. Stop crying. Your tears won’t fix a damn thing. You think your mama would want you to cry, huh?”

Peter heaves a stuttering breath. “No. Boys don’t cry.”

Kraglin rubs his hand over his face and for the first time but not the last time, Peter sees how tired he is. “That ain’t... That ain’t what I’m trying to say, kid. Boys cry. Men cry. Ravagers don’t cry. That shit gets you killed.”

He hands the cord back to Peter and then awkwardly arranges his blanket for him. “You gotta learn what to cry about. I cried when my mama died. My daddy killed her. She didn’t deserve that.” He sighs. “But you can’t cry about this, Peter. Your mama went out fighting. Ravagers don’t cry over fallen soldiers. You understand?”

Peter sniffles. He wipes his nose on his sleeve and then gives a tiny nod. “I’m sorry about your mom.” He whispers.

Kraglin ruffles his hair once. “Get some sleep.”

The captain’s quarters are a mess. The room has always been a mess but Taserface and his band of idiots had really trashed the place. Knick knacks lie scattered. Blankets and pillows and clothes are ripped and cover the floor.

Peter pretends not to hear the sniffles. He pretends to not notice how Kraglin’s whole body seems to shake.

“So... What are we looking for?”

The man breathes a deep breath and sighs it out. He doesn’t turn to address Peter directly. “A box. It’ll be made of red metal and have the flame on it in gold.” His voice wavers. Peter pretends not to notice. He can't notice.

Kraglin gathers a few of Yondu’s favorite pieces of collected junk as Peter searches for the box. He’d stopped sleeping in here years and years ago but he still remembers his little hammock. He still remembers crawling into the bed with Yondu and Kraglin during space storms and he still remembers being tucked into the furs when he was sick.

“I think I found it.” He turns to find Kraglin sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. He can’t ignore his shaking shoulders or the wet, ugly sound bubbling up from his throat.

He sits and the bed sags slightly. He sets the red box on his lap and is quiet for either too long or not long enough.

“Ravagers don’t cry, Kraglin.” A ball forms in his throat. The hammock he’d once inhabited is now overflowing with soft toys. His old cabinet has been ripped open by nosy, mutinous hands.
“Haven’t been a real Ravager for a long time, Pete.” The elder man’s voice wobbles and pitches. He squeezed a little blue toy in his hand. It’s soft and looks not unlike a Centaurian. Yondu had once told him it was a souvenir from his youth. He hadn’t realized that meant it was a cheap toy sold outside of blood-soaked arenas. “He uh... He told me he didn’t blame me, before the drop... But... Fuck.”

Peter runs his fingers over the emblem engraved on the box. Inside are a half dozen service ribbons and memories from before Ego had gotten his claws into Yondu’s brain.

“Do you blame me?”

They’ve always had this unspoken thing. Kraglin was the one who taught him to read and write. He was the one who cleaned him up when he sicked all over himself. He taught him how to pickpocket. He was the one who beat him for disrespect but comforted him, in his own way, when Peter had no one else to turn to. 

“I always see you as that eight-year-old little shit we snatched out of a field.” Kraglin turns those wide, blue eyes to finally look at him. He’d heard, in quiet whispers in the dark and loud, uncomfortably public flirtations how much Yondu loved those eyes. “Yondu always saw you that way too, I think. Thirty-something and you were always his kid or his boy.” He sniffs and wipes his nose on his sleeve.

“I should blame you. If you had just... Just realized where your family is then none of this would have happened.” A final sniffle and slowly the mask only a lifelong Ravager can wear dries his eyes and steadies his breathing. “I don’t blame you at all, Pete. You never asked for this life and Yondu? He went out on his terms for his boy.” He knocks their shoulders together. “Bring that box. Can’t have a proper send-off without it.”

He stands and ruffles Peter’s hair with his free hand. That hand lingers for a heartbeat. "And Pete? Cry."

The door slides shut behind him and Peter, well he can’t stop the ugly, wet sob that escapes his throat as soon as the airlock seals.