Kid’s noisy. That’s Kraglin’s first impression. Already crying when he picks him up, too hard and hysterical to be down to the M-ship’s appearance alone, all swollen eyes and blotchy face. Must’ve been sobbing before the tractor beam latched onto him and sucked him up into his new life, and if the way he cowers when Kraglin approaches him is any indication, it’s a good job he won’t be staying with them long. Looks all pathetic, down on his knees with his thin shoulders heaving and his cheeks streaked with tears. Not Ravager material, for sure. Kraglin ain’t sure how old this one is, but he’s pretty sure that he himself wouldn’t have cried like this at half the brat’s age.
(If a tractor beam had plucked Kraglin from the throng of street urchins dirtying the backstreets of Xandar, he probably would’ve been so delighted he would’ve remembered to say thank you all nice and proper. He used to watch the recruitment lines at the spaceport and think, one day. Best day of his life, when he managed to con himself a place just a bit shy of the usual age requirement.)
He steps closer to the kid, hunkers down in an awkward half-crouch. Then, ‘cause he ain’t about to kneel down and get on the brat’s level just to check if he’s got a translator, he sets his hands on the skinny arms and draws him to his feet. Up, up, up, easy as anything. There’s barely any weight to him at all. He’s tiny, insubstantial, a terrified, trembling slip of a thing.
Kraglin opens his mouth. The terrified, trembling slip of a thing chooses that moment to lash out at Kraglin, duck under his arms, and take off at a wild panicked sprint.
Second impression: kid’s got bony fuckin’ elbows. Kraglin doubles over with a wheeze, clutching his protesting side.
He can hear the boy clattering about, trying to find somewhere to run to, like he ain’t on an M-ship that’s just gonna deposit him right back where he started. Kraglin grimaces, straightening up. He’s half-tempted to leave him to it, but cap’n likes the kids to know at least a little of what to expect before they get to the Eclector, if they’re capable of understanding. Kraglin ain’t one to question his captain.
Kraglin catches up with him in four quick strides and collars him again. Boy squeaks, twists in his grip, flailing at him with hard little fists. Kraglin disregards the attempts to batter in his ribcage, clamping down on an unexpected burst of amusement. Kid’s got spirit, at least. He catches both hands in one of his own, ignoring the boy’s little wail of despair, and adjusts his grip so that he can peer behind the brat's ear.
No translator. Figures. Earth didn’t exactly look like it’d caught up with the rest of the galaxy yet.
“Gonna be a quiet trip back then, kid,” he says.
The kid freezes, tilting his face up at Kraglin. His mouth falls open like the poster child for gormless little shits.
“Yeah, yeah. You don’t understand me.” Kraglin tightens his grip on the boy’s collar and steers him over to the nearest bunk, giving him a push until he sits down. “Pro’ly sounds like a loada nonsense to you, right?”
Kid blinks them big blue-green eyes of his. Kraglin regards him, getting a better look now the brat's not howling in his face. He ain’t never been good at guessing ages, not even with the steady line of children Ego’s punted their way, but this one seems younger than most, with his teary eyes and his chubby cheeks. There’ve been a couple smaller than him, but he reckons that was just a species thing. He wonders if there’s something special about this one, something about him that’s made Ego want to get his mitts on him quicker than the rest.
Yeah, there’s somethin’ going on there. He knows it, Yondu knows it. They haven’t mentioned it. But he saw the twist of Yondu’s mouth the last time Ego called, and he’d been silent for a moment too long before he agreed to pick this kid up.
Still. Units are units. And stars knows they need ‘em, especially since Stakar got all high and mighty and decided he was better than them.
The boy sniffles. He don’t look special, Kraglin thinks. He looks small and stupid and weak. He’s still got his dumb little backpack on and he’s clutching at the straps like he might float away without it.
No point trying to talk to him. They’ll fit him with a translator before they hand him over to papa, just so’s he knows what’s going on. He points at the boy and at the bunk with a stern, “Stay,” because he’s pretty sure the tone will register even if the language doesn’t.
Enroute to the Eclector, Kraglin glances at his pad to remind himself of the kid’s name. Not that it really matters, ‘cause he’ll be out of Kraglin’s life before long.
Peter Quill. That was it.
Kraglin glances over his shoulder. Quill’s huddled in the corner of the bunk, making himself even smaller than before. He’s crying again.
Kraglin rolls his eyes, returning his attention to the star-speckled sky ahead of them. If the kid keeps that up, maybe they don’t need to waste a translator on him. He can sob himself to sleep until he’s his papa's problem.
Still, he shouldn’t complain. The shaky breaths and stifled sobs coming from the shadows behind him are a hell of a lot better than the wailing from before. If Quill stays quiet for the duration of their journey to Ego’s planet, Kraglin might even like him.
Quill does not stay quiet.
Nor do they ever make it to Ego’s planet.
Kraglin ain’t sure exactly when Yondu made the decision. He knows that Yondu had one last call with Ego. Doesn’t know what was said, only that Yondu was uncharacteristically silent in the lead-up to it. He went into the call all terse and twitchy, and when he finally let Kraglin into his quarters some time later, there was a heap of broken glass lying against the wall and Yondu’s knuckles were bleeding.
He thinks maybe there’s a chance Yondu had already known that he was gonna do before he went into that call. Hell, maybe he’d already made his mind up when Kraglin hauled the boy in front of him for the first time with a warning hand on his collar (keeping his sensitive bits away from the kid’s nasty little elbows), and said, “Latest one, cap’n.”
Yondu had… winced, Kraglin thinks. Maybe. It was a funny little movement, jerky, aborted. Uncomfortable. No-one else saw. No-one but him and the dumbass kid, who was too busy staring up at Yondu and shaking in shoes still damp from the soggy ground of his home planet to notice.
Anyway. Kraglin don’t know when Quill made the transition from temporary to permanent in Yondu’s mind, and he ain’t never gonna ask. S’not his place. Even if sometimes he’d like to ask why, exactly, they didn’t just ditch the kid somewhere else if they weren’t gonna take him to his daddy. Why they got saddled with him for the long haul instead.
Kraglin keeps his mouth shut. He nods in the background when Yondu tells the rest of them, stands confident and calm beside him. He’s new to this first mate business – got the promotion shortly before Stakar kicked them out. He’s got to make a show of being good enough, a steady reliable presence. He knows some of the lads’ll be looking at him, muttering under their breath about taking orders from him. He’s an unusual choice for first mate, young as he is, but him and Yondu, they’ve got a rapport. Kraglin cherishes it.
So he pretends he agrees with the plan to keep the kid, and he grips Quill tightly by the shoulders as Yondu struts about in front of them, proclaiming the genius of the idea. He can feel Quill leaning back into him, just a bit. Boy’s still not comfortable being around the others, though Kraglin can’t exactly blame him for that. He lets it slide, just this once.
The Ravagers are shifting from foot to foot, some frowning, not convinced by Yondu’s posturing. That’s rare, ‘cause cap’n is real persuasive when he wants to be. Course, he could whip the arrow out and have them all cross-eyed and agreeing with him in a moment, but so far his coat’s stayed folded over the holster. Kraglin gets it. Easier, much easier, if the crew accepts this without the need for threats.
He doesn’t like the way they’re chuntering, though.
Kraglin gives Quill a little shake, feels the slender bones rattle under his rough palms. “Boy’s skinny,” he shouts. “Good for thievin’.”
“Aye, less good for eatin’, though,” someone shouts back. The Ravagers snigger. Kraglin feels Quill’s shaky intake of breath, the way he presses back into Kraglin for support. Kraglin digs his fingers in harder to the boy’s shoulders in warning.
Yondu shrugs a careless shoulder, glancing back at Quill. “S’always good to have a back-up plan,” he drawls.
This time, the response from the crew is a little more positive. Kraglin relaxes, just a fraction.
So Quill stays.
Time rolls on, and he learns more about the kid. His first impression was correct. Once Quill’s got over the shock of being scooped up onto the Eclector and whizzed halfway across the stars, he returns to form with gusto. Noisy is one word for it. Irritating’s another. Full of questions, endless questions, most of them delivered without pause for breath as he trails round after Kraglin, tugging on a leather sleeve for attention. Brave – that’s another one of Quill’s traits.
Kid even does that to Yondu. Even more surprisingly, Yondu sometimes lets him.
Quill’s fierce – gets into a fight his second week aboard, ‘cause some idiot decides to nick his music and torment him with it, dangling the headphones above Quill’s furious little head and jeering as he tries to swipe for it. Kid goes straight for the groin, no hesitation, putting them elbows to good use and adding a knee for extra emphasis. Boy’s lucky that Ezro’s the type who's got something to protect in that area, ‘cause he drops like an Orloni sliced right through with Yondu’s arrow.
“Vicious little bastard, ain’t he,” Kraglin comments later, in Yondu’s cabin. They’re working on supplies list for the next solar cycle. Quill’s back in his allotted corner, the reedy warble of his music just audible over constant rumble and clank of the engines.
Yondu grunts, not looking up. Kraglin looks over at the boy in his makeshift bed. He’s got his back to them, but the little shoulders aren’t hunched. There’s a weightiness to the sprawl of his limbs, like he’s asleep. Kraglin wonders at the trust that implies, then scoffs. It’s not trust so much as Quill being a dumbass kid who thinks he’s safe with them just ‘cause Yondu’s given him a jacket and some boots and a few hot meals.
Quill’s soft. That’s another thing Kraglin learns. It makes contempt itch at his bones, in his fingertips, like he wants to give Quill a smack just to prove how stupid he is to relax in the company of predators.
Still, he’s got his uses. Kraglin ain’t sure how long Quill’s been with them when Yondu hauls him along on his first job, but they come back successful. The lads hoot and holler and a couple of them even ruffle Quill’s hair as they stream through to mess to celebrate. Quill rocks with the force of them, clinging to Yondu’s coattails for support. Yondu doesn’t seem to notice, ‘cause he doesn’t shove the boy away.
Kraglin joins his cap’n for a drink, which means he also joins Quill. Kid’s excited, almost bouncing on the bench. Yondu lets him tell the story, interjecting every now and then when Quill exaggerates or gets things wrong. Kraglin sees the flash of teeth as Yondu hides his grin in his moonshine.
When Quill’s exhausted even the most amplified version of events, Kraglin cocks his head at the kid and nudges his drink against the boy’s own. Quill beams at him. He’s still got chubby cheeks, his face flushed with excitement.
“Well done, kid,” Kraglin says. “Make a Ravager of you yet.”
“Quill! You take one step further and so help me, boy – ”
Kraglin ain’t sure when things got so… domestic.
He ain’t sure he likes it.
It’s a regular occurrence, this, Quill playing up over something or other and Yondu bawling him out over it. He smacks him sometimes too, though not as hard as Kraglin knows he could.
As Kraglin thinks he should, sometimes. Quill’s a mouthy little shit and they ain’t even hit them teen years yet.
Point is, it’s happening too much. It ain’t a good look for Yondu to chase Quill round the ship, spouting warnings and scoldings like he’s different from the rest of the crew. Almost like he’s the boy’s daddy. And it ain’t a good look when Quill talks back at him and doesn’t get an arrow through something sensitive like anyone else would.
Worst part is, Yondu doesn’t even seem to realise. He complains incessantly about Quill, but sometimes Kraglin thinks he enjoys it, even the whinging. Something about the uplift of Yondu’s mouth when he cusses Quill out for being a disobedient little brat, or the roll of his eyes when Quill comes up with some snarky retort, like he’s covering up his amusement under a well-practised front.
It is well-practised. It ain’t obvious to the others, not yet. But Kraglin worries all the same.
Today, Quill decides to risk it. He juts his chin in Yondu’s direction, and takes the step.
“Boy – ” Yondu begins.
Taserface is watching. Kraglin spotted him earlier, his sly gaze flickering between Yondu and Quill as they bickered over something or other – Kraglin ain’t even sure what it’s about this time. It makes unease pool in Kraglin’s belly.
He knows that Yondu will do, how he’ll threaten Quill some more and then put him on scrubs or something else that don’t really mean anything, or else he’ll smack the kid round the head but it’ll be a swat more than anything, gentle by Ravager standards. And Taserface will be watching, and calculating.
So Kraglin acts before Yondu can. He marches up to Quill, has just enough time to catch his surprised look before he grabs the kid’s ear and twists. Hard.
Quill yelps, folding under him. His hands shoot up to grasp at Kraglin’s wrist, trying to ease the pressure.
“You disrespectin’ your captain, boy?” Kraglin spits.
“Ow ow ow ow! Let go, Krags, that hurts – ”
“That’s first mate to you, and you didn’t answer my question.”
Quill sniffles, and hell, if he cries, Kraglin’s gonna have to twist the other ear too. But he manages to get himself under control, forcing out a, “No, sir,” that doesn’t sound genuine in the slightest.
But it’s enough. Kraglin lets him go. Peter nurses the side of his head, glaring up at Kraglin with glittering, tear-wet eyes.
That contempt crawls beneath Kraglin’s skin again. Stupid, soft little boy. The street kids would’ve eaten him alive.
But it’s not just contempt for Quill. He wishes it was. But some part of Kraglin stings at that look on Quill’s young face, even though he tells himself he deserved it. He hates that he’s dumb enough to give a damn.
He doesn’t let that show on his face. Keeps it nice and cold as he jerks a chin towards the exit. “Thought so. Now fuck off, you’re in the way.”
Quill sniffs again as he slopes off. There’s a snigger from someone else. Kraglin turns, meeting Taserface’s speculative gaze.
He holds it. Taserface looks away first.
“Stupid kid,” Kraglin mutters as he returns to the console, swiping a finger over the shimmering star maps without really seeing them.
He doesn’t look at Yondu. But he catches Yondu’s sideways look in the reflection of the viewing screen all the same.
A few days later, Quill gets into a fight. Kraglin doesn’t hear about it until he sees the kid sitting alone at mealtime with a real shiner of a black eye.
Kraglin hesitates. He’d been planning on joining Tullk, but…
Quill jumps when Kraglin’s tray clatters in front of him. He looks up, a bit wary. Someone got him good, his cheekbone purpling. It’s threatening to swell.
“Who ya got to thank for that?” he asks conversationally.
Quill’s mouth tightens into a flat line. “Horuz.”
Ah. Not surprising. Horuz has been of the opinion that Quill is better suited to the stew pot than to Ravager life ever since they picked him up.
Kraglin takes a long, noisy slurp from his drink. It’s a juice box from Xandar, reminds him of being a kid himself. They don’t get them all too often. He smacks his lips with a pleased hum as he gulps down the last of it.
Then he glances back at Quill. “You do something annoying?”
“No!” He doesn’t relent at Kraglin’s raised eyebrow. “Gef pushed past me and made me bump into him. He just likes picking on people who are smaller than him.”
It’s probably true. And Quill, at twelve, is still plenty small enough to pick on.
Kraglin doesn’t say anything else, other than an automatic, “Don’t waste your grub,” when Quill starts moodily pushing his food around his tray. When he’s finished he gets up, disposes of his tray, then heads back to his station and puts Horuz’s name on bog duty for the whole ship for the the next solar cycle. He lands Gef a nice little number scrubbing the exterior of the Eclector’s portholes, for good measure.
He doesn’t say anything to Quill, but the next day Quill is the one to join him at mess, and he pushes his full juice box over to Kraglin before he leaves.
Quill stays Quill, but he also becomes Peter. Sometimes Pete. Still brat, kid, boy. Still idiot, ‘cause he is. Not quite brother, never son. But not crew either; something more.
They don’t put a name to it. They just carry on.
Quill’s fifteen and finally hitting a growth spurt. This is both good and bad. Good because the sooner he grows up and puts a bit of meat on his bones, the easier it’ll be for him to stand up for himself. The less Yondu, and Kraglin by extension, will have to step in when he clashes with the select number of Ravagers who’ve made it their number one ambition in life to see if Terran’s as tasty as popular rumour suggests.
Bad, because he’s out-growing his use in money-making schemes. It’s been a while since they landed a good job. Stocks are depleting all too fast.
The bad outweighs the good. Hunger breeds discontent, and discontent is fast-spreading poison on a crew like theirs.
They’re together in Yondu’s cabin, the three of them. Yondu gave the kid his own room ages ago, far enough away for him to pretend he forgot where he put the boy, but close enough that he’s always within easy whistling distance should Quill need him. Quill still comes by more than Kraglin would've expected.
Kraglin's the last to arrive, looking for something to distract him from the gnawing in his belly and figuring that cap’n would definitely have some work for him to do.
He finds Peter already there, sprawled on his back on Yondu’s bed. He’s awake, but he doesn’t respond when Kraglin comes in, just turns his head to watch him listlessly. Yondu’s not sitting at his desk, like Kraglin expected. He’s sitting at the other end of the bed, back against the wall and his legs stretched out alongside Quill.
He pauses in the threshold, hand still raised from the biometric scan. Then Yondu jerks his head and moves over, just a bit, nudging the boy in the side to get him to do the same.
It’s a tight squeeze, the three of them side-by-side. Nobody complains.
Nobody really talks much at all, but that’s okay. Kraglin’s still hungry, and he knows they are too. He knows that Yondu’s worried, about stocks and the crew and about Peter, always about Peter. He knows the kid’s old enough to understand what’s going on, and to help them look through the job lists later, when they’ve had a rest and made it through to their next rations.
But they’ll get through it. They always do. Another job will come along and bring the units with it. They’ll act like they haven’t looked into engine supplies and tried to calculate if it’s worth bursting on a burst of speed in the hopes of coming to a planet boasting sentient life before their stocks run out, so they can go and steal some food. Yondu will lead the way to mess and then pretend that it’s an accident that Pete got jostled in ahead of him, and his face will lose that pinched look when the boy finally eats something proper.
Kraglin’s sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Yondu, Peter lying between them facing the other way. He glances down at the curly head at the other end of the bed. Kid’s got his face turned away, so he can’t see if he’s fallen asleep. He suspects he hasn’t.
It rattles him, sometimes, how Yondu treats the kid. Coddles – it’s a word he’d never dare use, but it’s true. It’s like something snapped in Yondu, that day he turned to Kraglin and flat-out told him he was keeping the kid. Like his centre of gravity went all wobbly and found itself a nice new home in Peter flarkin’ Quill.
Not ideal. Not for a Ravager captain with a reputation to uphold.
But… the boy’s not so bad. Not now he’s grown up enough to remember that he has a brain and it’s sometimes a good idea to engage that before you speak. He’s funny, and them tunes are pretty catchy once you get your ear in. Kraglin likes to think that he has, after seven years. He’s even helped Kraglin out of a couple of tight scrapes on jobs, once or twice.
Kraglin ain’t nearly so attached as Yondu is. But he supposes he can understand why Yondu might want to get the kid sorted and fed first. Growing boy, and all that.
He leans back, Yondu’s shoulder nudging his and Peter breathing quietly between them, and settles down to wait.
There’s a guiding hand, an exasperated shove, a fist slapping against a back to the tune of a noisy guffaw. There are swats to the back of Pete’s red-gold head, reaching higher every time. A thump to his broadening shoulder, light enough to leave no bruise and only a lingering sense of affection.
There’s an imaginary punch in the curled fist by Kraglin’s side. He dreams of planting it in Quill’s stupid mug.
Ain’t they always done right by him? Yondu, more than anyone. And this is how he repays them?
Sure, it ain’t the first time he’s taken off. Usually in a huff over some perceived slight, or following an argument with Yondu where Quill gripes and groans and whines about having the freedom to take his own jobs.
Looks ridiculous, he does. He’s a big boy now, their l’il Quill, but when it boils down to it he’s still trailing round after his captain and stomping his foot when he don’t get his own way.
It’s the first time he’s tried to steal from Yondu, though. And a hefty amount at that.
Yondu postures, of course (they’re more alike than either of them will admit), says he’s gonna kick the boy’s ass from here to Knowhere. Says he’s gonna kill him in front of the others, but Kraglin ain’t the others.
He’s more bothered than he wants to admit. Kraglin can tell.
So’s Kraglin. After twenty-six years of Quill’s presence, there’s a lack aboard the Eclector that’ll take some getting used to.
Not much surprises Kraglin in their line of work. Their dumbass little tagalong saving all of Xandar, taking down Ronan with the fury of an infinity stone burning in his eyes? Yeah, that’s a surprise, alright.
“Yondu’s gone soft,” says Taserface. It ain’t the first time he’s said it.
They’re eating well enough at the minute. Got a job that paid well enough to soothe the boys’ tempers over the orb business, most of them at least. The slop’s tastier than usual, and Yondu made a show of sorting out some big repairs to illustrate how they don’t need that orb, not one bit.
That’s probably why Tasie’s audience only grunt at him in response, too busy shovelling their grub down. It doesn’t stop him.
“He shoulda put the hit out on Quill when he first tried takin’ off with that orb. Wanting him back alive.” A snort of disgust. “If I’d caught up with him…”
He trails off, voice full of menace. He don’t need to explain what he would’ve done had he caught Quill, but he goes ahead and does it anyway. Kraglin, a table away but close enough to hear his descriptions of the exact noises Quill would make as Taserface slit his belly open, shifts uncomfortably.
He’s spent a fair few days, since the orb business, imagining what he’d like to do and say to Peter. Most of these daydreams involve the crack of his hand against Peter’s cheek, grabbing him and shaking him and yelling in his stupid face until he coughs up what he owes.
Other times, Kraglin wants more. He wants to hurt Peter, really hurt him, stick a knife in his back like Peter stuck in theirs. That’s usually on the days that him and Yondu go over the books and try to make ends meet in tight-lipped silence, ends that would’ve met and more had Quill not used the tricks Yondu taught him against his protector-mentor-sort-of-dad.
He knows he never would.
Tasie ain’t finished. “And Yondu wouldn’t be able to say a damn thing ‘bout it,” he continues, slamming a thick fist against the table for good measure. The trays rattle and jump. Oblo eyes him contemplatively. “In fact, I’d make him watch. Tie him there so he can watch his boy squeal.”
There’s a tracker on Quill’s ship. Kraglin planted it there on Yondu’s orders, as Xandar crumbled around them.
He hopes Taserface don’t ever find out.
Course, the universe ain’t that kind.
Miss Hoity Toity comes along and puts a price on the Guardians. Yondu says yes, like he has any intention of hurting a hair on Quill’s head. Kraglin don’t know what he’s planning, but it sure as hell ain’t handing his kid over to the vengeful Sovereign.
Kraglin don’t exactly know what he wants Yondu to be planning. He pushes that insidious little thought to the back of his mind.
They trot off to Berhert. Yondu’s in good spirits, on the way. Kraglin reckons he’s secretly glad of the chance to check in on the kid.
Him? He’s looking forward to planting that punch.
The words that burst out of his mouth replay later in a merciless loop.
How could he? How could he? How could he?
The bloated corpses of the Ravagers he called friends hang in the void like grotesque puppets, strings cut. Space takes them apart, bit by bit.
Kraglin’s glad, fiercely, desperately glad, that Peter ain’t among them.
He always knew Quill would be the death of Yondu. There’s no comfort in being right.
When the Guardians haul them inside, Peter’s face is streaked with tears just like it was when he was eight-years-old and cowering in Kraglin’s M-ship. He’s still crying, but almost silently, like he’s left his voice out there in the cold vacuum. His fingers are knotted in Yondu’s ice-crusted leathers and he won’t let go, not even when Gamora places her hands over his and tries to guide him away.
They stand in an awkward circle, everyone except Thanos’s other girl, whose name Kraglin isn’t even sure of. Gamora stays crouched beside Quill, more unsure of herself than Kraglin’s ever seen her. The rodent is staring at Yondu like he’s seeing his own death laid out before him, for once heedless of the tiny wooden fingers pattering questioningly at his neck.
Quill clutches Yondu, and sobs. He sounds just like he did all them years ago, when it was his momma who’d been wrenched away from him.
Kraglin is the first to move. He tears his eyes away from Yondu – from Yondu’s body, ‘cause his cap’n ain’t there no more – and takes a step forward. Gamora looks up, assesses him. Then she moves back.
Kraglin takes her place. He kneels beside Peter, his hand settling into its usual place on Peter’s back like no time has passed at all.
Pete,” he says. His voice cracks and he sniffs, hard. Gotta do Yondu proud. He’d forgive Quill for bawling over him, ‘cause he’d forgive his boy anything, but Kraglin needs to hold it together. Needs to be a good first mate, like he always has been, ‘cept for that one moment when he let Yondu down and everything went to hell.
He won’t do that again.
“Come on, kid,” he murmurs. His hand moves in a half-circle on Quill’s back – it’s not quite a stroke, too awkward for that, but something in Peter responds regardless. Maybe it’s the familiar touch, maybe it’s the familiar voice. He lifts his head, looks at Kraglin with eyes that ain’t changed, no matter how much everything else has.
Kraglin squeezes his shoulder, just gently. “Let’s get him ready for his rites, boy. S’what he’d want. We can get him ready together, me and you.”
“He said I was his,” Peter tells him in a voice too small for his full-grown frame.
They’re in the cabin that Yondu used as his own in the third quadrant, slumped on the bed. The fur throw’s softer than anything Kraglin uses for himself – Yondu always did like nice things, even if he always pretended otherwise.
Damn, but that past tense is gonna take some getting used to.
What turned into a post-funeral drink together turned into more tears, mostly from Quill but from Kraglin too. Most of them are for Yondu. Some of them are for Peter, and the loss in his trembling mouth, his bottomless gaze.
He sees, now. All of it, their history together, slotting back into place like one of them Terran jigsaw games he’d found on a junk stall that one time. He’s had all the pieces but he’s never put them in the right places, the pieces hard-edged and strained, jostling for space where they should sit neatly. Peter’s been reading Yondu wrong for years.
It ain’t his fault. Yondu didn’t want him to know, most of the time.
Kraglin hums under his breath. “Yeah.”
Pete’s looking at him, slanting his eyes sideways. It’s similar to the look Yondu used to give him when he was trying to suss out how Kraglin felt about an idea, not wanting to be seen to ask. Kraglin almost smiles, but then grief cracks him apart right down the middle. He takes a breath.
“You knew?”
“Mhm.” Kraglin gives his bottle a shake, listens to the slosh of liquid inside. It’s a bit light and fruity for his tastes, but it’ll do. Helps dull the ache, and he needs to raise a bottle of something to his cap’n.
Peter’s drunk more than he has. Boy looks exhausted, and no wonder. Kraglin still don’t know exactly what happened down on Ego’s planet, but he saw the bruises and scrapes when Peter got changed earlier – putting on something softer to sleep in, ‘cause he likes nice things too and he’s his daddy’s boy through and through.
Kraglin glances at him. He’s still awake, though he’s gone from sitting up against the wall to slumping down by Kraglin’s side with his chin resting on his elbow.
Damn Terrans and their dumb expressive faces. Peter looks so sad that it makes Kraglin feel all hollow inside.
“Listen, kid.” He stops, tries to find the right words. He ain’t used to talking about mushy stuff. “Cap’n cared for you a whole lot. But he wasn’t so good at putting it into words, or showing it. He didn’t have no father figure of his own, not ‘til Stakar found him.”
And hasn’t that just been the kicker on top of all of this? Stakar letting Yondu back in, after all this time. But not whilst he was alive to see it. Peter’s known about the other Ravager factions for a long time, of course, but never the truth of the fracture between them, not until tonight. When Kraglin told him, he’d watched the emotions play out across the kid’s face - surprise, anger, and then, strongest of all, guilt. His mouth had gone all tight and tense, and Kraglin knows what he’d heard, even though it’s not what Kraglin had said. Your fault. It’s your fault that Yondu lost his family. He had to choose you over them, ‘cause you wouldn’t survive without him.
Maybe Kraglin would’ve let him go on thinking that, once upon a time. But not tonight.
“Yondu made his own choices,” he says. “It weren’t right, what he – what we did with them kids. We didn’t know, but that don’t make it alright. Stakar was… he wanted us to be better than that.”
Gamora had described the cavern of bones to Drax and Rocket, voice pitched too low for Quill to hear. This day’s given Kraglin the worst three moments of his life, all piled neatly into one little package. He hadn’t thought anything could feel as bad as watching his friends drift apart in the vacuum, or seeing Yondu’s eyes glazed over forever. Turns out, it can. Them little white bones, he helped ferry them to their killer. One after the other. And they was Quill’s siblings.
He remembers wondering why Yondu didn’t just dump the kid on an orphanage somewhere. Remembers feeling frustrated over it, resentful, half-wishing on some days that he could accidentally-on-purpose forget to keep hold of Quill’s collar when they were wading through the crowds on some scummy little planet where the child beggars peered out at them from alleyways and looked jealousy at the kid’s boots, his warm jacket.
He remembers, too, Yondu’s last call with Ego. The smashed glass, the way he’d never once suggested that Peter belonged anywhere but at his side, under his protection. He wonders if Yondu knew that the other kids were dead all along.
“You… you was a chance for him to try and do better,” he says. As soon as he puts it out there into the air between them, he knows it’s true. Peter’s looking at him, quiet for once in his life. Kraglin releases a breath. Might as well go the whole hog, like he knows Yondu would want him to do. “And kid – he never regretted it. Not once, alright? He couldn’t say it, ‘cause of the crew and all, but was so damn proud of you. Like you wouldn’t believe… his boy, a hero.” Kraglin shakes his head, smiling despite himself. “He wouldn’t regret saving you for one damn second, and he never regretted keeping you around either.”
Some of that awful sadness is fading from Peter’s eyes. Not all of it – it’ll take a while, Kraglin knows. But it’s a start.
“Not even when you was being really annoying,” he adds, and Peter laughs softly, like Kraglin wanted him to.
They sit in silence for a while longer. Pete’s falling asleep, head sliding further onto his arm, cheek pillowed against his wrist.
Kraglin thinks he is asleep, but then Peter speaks. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Regret keeping me.”
Kraglin doesn’t answer for a few moments. There’s so many things he could say. Yes and no and every minute of every day and never.
“Nah,” he says eventually. “Not really.”
After a moment, Pete lifts his hand. Gives Kraglin’s own hand a quick squeeze. Nothing too mushy, kid knows he couldn’t bear it. Then he sighs and settles back down, exhaustion taking over.
Kraglin watches him for a few moments. Brings back memories, it does. A child’s face pressed into his neck, head heavy and one little hand curled around in his shoulder in a loose grip, dozing in his arms as Kraglin carries him back to his room. Yondu hadn’t asked him to carry Pete to bed, but his eyes had. It had been tough for a kid, settling into their way of life. Long stakeouts and longer jobs, taxing on a young Terran more accustomed to his mama combing his curls than the feel of a blaster in his hand. He’s seen Peter fall asleep in so many different places.
He gets up, stretches out limbs that feel as though they’ve been carrying the tension of a whole lifetime. Peter sighs and rolls over, taking up more space. Kraglin’s mouth twitches.
“Guess you’re sleepin’ here,” he mutters. “I ain’t carryin’ your heavy ass back to your room no more.”
He sees the half-smile, smushed into the pillow. He feels better for it, he realises. Just a bit.
Kraglin don’t know what tomorrow will bring. He’s got an arrow and no captain, the quadrant but no crew, the boy that Yondu loved enough to die for and an assortment of sort-of-heroes watching him with mingled judgement and curiosity. He don’t know what his place is, here, if he even has one.
He used to think he knew what the future would look like – him and Yondu, more grizzled with every year, but still side-by-side. That future’s gone, the last golden particles of it fading into the endless black.
But he glances back at Peter’s sleeping form, one hand twisted into the furs just like he used to when he was a kid. That kid’s his captain now, somehow, if he’ll have him.
He thinks they’ll be alright.
“You comin’, Krags?”
“Huh?”
It ain’t the best response. Peter looks amused, standing here in the doorway with Drax behind one shoulder and Mantis hovering nervously behind the other.
“We got a job,” Peter specifies. “You comin’?”
A Guardians of the Galaxy job. And Pete’s inviting Kraglin.
“Uh, I guess?” he says.
“I fail to see how this scrawny individual will be of much use to us,” Drax comments as they buckle themselves in. “He does not have control of the arrow. His attempts to master it are quite pathetic.”
Kraglin sputters at him. Then at Pete, ‘cause that was definitely a laugh disguised as a cough.
“I’ll show you,” he retorts snippily. Drax looks unconvinced.
He doesn’t really show them. The fin sits uncomfortably on his head and the arrow is missing its true master. But he’s got other skills, ones that served him well enough as a Ravager for all those years. He stops someone from decapitating Drax with a well-flung knife and grins for the first time in ages when Peter whoops in celebration beside him.
Afterwards, Drax claps him on the back so hard he nearly faceplants the floor.
“You are not quite as pathetic as you look!” Drax says, beaming. Kraglin thinks that’s a good thing.
A year passes, then another. Kraglin doesn’t always go out with the Guardians, except sometimes he does. He saves a few civilisations, makes a few new friends. He tinkers with Rocket, helps babysit Groot as the tree grows and grows – stars knows he’s got experience with that – and practices with his knives alongside Gamora and Drax. He ain’t nothin’ compared to her, but she doesn’t say so. Drax does, loudly, but Kraglin finds that he doesn’t mind.
He's still trying with the arrow.
He spends a fair bit of time with Mantis, in between jobs. She’s still settling into her new life just like him, tentatively feeling out a future she never expected to get. He was a bit spooked by her at first, after hearing the story of how she spilled Pete’s feelings out to everyone back when they first met her, but she’s learning her social graces now. She don’t touch Kraglin. They talk, swapping stories. She doesn’t tell him about the parade of kids that got brought to Ego by a Ravager M-ship, and he’s grateful for that. She tells him instead about her adventures with the Guardians thus far, the funny things Drax has done, the progress she’s making with Gamora. He tells her about life aboard the Eclector. She’s fascinated, eyes wide at the tales he spins.
Pete joins them sometimes. He smiles, now, when Yondu comes up in conversation. The sadness will always be there, rooted deep into both of them, and those roots are tangled up with a whole mix of feelings, some good, some bad. But there’s light, too. Peter laughs at some of their memories and groans at others. Sometimes, when he leans back in his chair and his shoulder brushes Pete’s, Kraglin can’t quite believe that they’re still in it together.
But he’s glad they are.
Nebula – he’s learned her name by now – calls in on them from time to time. It’s never easy, a hint of tension always in the air around her. She doesn’t stay long. Sometimes Gamora manages to coax her into joining them to eat, but more often than not, Nebula makes her report and then sidles away, making her escape from the tumult of complicated familial feelings.
Kraglin knows the feeling.
One day, when Nebula has actually responded to Gamora’s convincing and said that she might, perhaps, stay a little longer, Kraglin finds himself alone with her in the space they’ve carved out for recreation – ‘bonding time’, Quill calls it, ‘cause he’s still a goofy idiot no matter how grown he gets. Gamora’s just left to see what they’ve got to eat and Peter was hot on her heels, naturally. Nebula’s hovering by the wall still, arms crossed over her chest. She’ll only glare if he looks at her, so Kraglin pays her no heed, focusing on the glint of the arrow between his fingertips as he polishes it.
After a few moments, he hears the scrape of a chair being drawn back. Nebula sits down opposite him. That’s new.
He does glance up this time. Not quite glaring, though it’s close. She looks tense and uncomfortable. Kraglin nods at her.
“Y’alright?”
Nebula’s jaw works as though she has to remind herself how to speak. “Yes,” she says shortly.
She looks as though she wants to say something else. Kraglin doesn’t question it. He’s a bit of an expert in providing a quiet, steady presence until someone manages to spit out what’s actually bothering them, as it happens. Especially if they’re blue.
Nebula jerks her head in an abrupt movement, indicating the door that Peter just disappeared through. “What is he to you?”
Kraglin raises his eyebrows. “Pete? He’s cap’n.”
“Udonta was your captain.”
He was and is. Always will be. Kraglin nods. “Pete’s his boy.”
“You helped raise him.” It’s a statement, not a question.
Kraglin scratches his beard. “Eh, sort of. I was there. Helped out, I s’pose. I weren’t his daddy or nothin’, that was Yondu. I’m only ten or so of them years of his ahead of him.”
He used to think Nebula’s black eyes were emotionless. He’s getting better at reading her, though, just like he’s getting better at reading all of them. He can see her straining to understand.
“He is your.. brother?”
Ah. So that’s what this is about.
Kraglin considers. “I guess,” he says eventually. “It ain’t really that simple. Me and Pete… we’ve been a lot of things to each other, over the years.”
“He betrayed you,” Nebula says. Another statement.
Kraglin nods. “Circumstances,” he says. That’s what he’s come to understand, now. There was no way Peter could’ve given Yondu the orb, not really. And Yondu probably knew that.
“You do not blame him?”
“He’s family,” says Kraglin.
Nebula does stay a bit longer. Sits next to Gamora and everything. Kraglin’s aware of her gaze flickering between him and Peter as they eat.
Thanos snaps his gauntleted fingers. Peter Quill turns to dust.
Kraglin does not.
He doesn’t listen to music for five whole years.
The first thing that Kraglin does, when the dust has settled over the ruins of the Avenger’s compound and the blood and the tears have been wiped away, is drag Peter into his arms.
“Missed ya, kid,” he chokes out.
Peter’s still in shock. Kraglin don’t know the full story, but apparently Gamora didn’t come back with the rest of ‘em. She’s still here, somewhere, prowling about the scorched earth and the remains of the greatest battle Kraglin’s ever seen, but there’s something wrong about her. Rocket said something about how she don’t know Quill anymore, in the brief conversation they managed to snatch before Rocket went hurtling off to reunite with the other Guardians, as close to tears as Kraglin’s ever seen him.
Peter clutches at Kraglin. He’s trembling, hard. Kraglin thinks they might both be.
Life moves on.
Peter picks himself up and gets on with things, because he’s always been resilient like that. The Guardians grow ever closer in the wake of Thanos’s demise. Peter bonds with Thor a bit, which Kraglin is glad of. They’re both nursing wounds. He hears them sometimes, sitting up together late into the night, Peter murmuring words of support to the Asgardian and trying to help him find his way out of the darkness. Even after all this time, Kraglin marvels at the heart on that boy.
Peter’s still a Guardian. He saves planets, cities, families, individuals.
He just can’t seem to save himself.
The absence of Gamora gapes at his side, an open wound still weeping around the edges. It’s infected, because she’s still out there, only she doesn’t give a damn about Peter anymore. Peter pretends that he ain’t looking for her at every spaceport, on every planet, but Kraglin knows him too well to be fooled.
He longs to help. He has no idea how.
They buy Knowhere and start to build a home, for themselves and for all the other lost souls on this side of the Galaxy. It’s a distraction, and it does Peter good. Sometimes, just sometimes, they get a flash of the old Peter back – a laugh that rings out at something Drax says, or a genuine smile when he sees a refugee family settled into their new home.
They all try to give him more reasons to smile, in their own way. Mantis and Drax even steal Kevin Bacon and wrap him up all nice as a present. It don’t exactly go to plan, but it ends well enough. The wondering look on Peter’s face when he takes in all the twinkling lights sends Kraglin back about three decades in time, and he’s no longer surprised by the clench of protectiveness in his own chest at the sight of it. When he tells Bacon that Pete’s the greatest hero in the galaxy, he means it.
There’s music on Knowhere again that night. It ain’t ooga chaka, but Peter’s laughing, Mantis cuddled up at his side, and it’s the most relaxed Kraglin’s seen him in a long time.
It don't last.
He’s been drinking more than ever. Kraglin noticed it a long way off, even tries to talk to him about it. But he can’t find the right words and Pete just swears at him and shoulders him out of the way, already reaching for another beer.
He drinks himself into oblivion more than once. Nebula is there to pick him up and carry him to bed these days. The sight of him cradled in her arms, head lolling, makes Kraglin’s chest go all tight as he trails in their wake.
“He thinks I am Gamora,” she tells him, one night, when she’s put Pete to bed and the two of them are sitting in the same bar that he passed out in. She’s staring straight ahead. A muscle ticks in her jaw, or maybe it’s an electrical circuit. "When he is drunk. He talks to me as I though I am..." She stops.
Kraglin thinks of the five years he spent without Pete, his sort-of-brother, the yawning chasm of grief that opened up in his belly whenever he thought about a child’s hand tugging at his sleeve for attention or excitedly showing off the new blasters Yondu got him or the brave man he became. His relationship with Peter has been all over the place, more ups and downs than the Galatica mountain range. He’s wanted to hit him as much as he’s wanted to hold him, and yet when Kraglin thought he’d lost him, he felt like he’d lost a limb. Some essential part of himself, severed at the joint.
He can’t pretend to know exactly what went on with Nebula and Gamora. But he thinks he knows a bit of what Nebula’s feeling now.
“She’d be real proud of you,” he says quietly.
Nebula doesn’t say anything. But she doesn’t leave, either.
When Adam comes and Rocket bleeds, Peter doesn’t hesitate it. He’s straight off to find a way to save him because he’s Peter goddamn Quill and there isn’t a thing he wouldn’t do for his friends. It gives him purpose again, at least, even if it’s in dire circumstances.
Peter comms him from the Bowie. “I need you to keep watch over Knowhere ‘til were back,” he says. He looks more alert than he has in a long while, jaw set, some of that old determination burning in his eyes.
Kraglin thumps his chest twice in the Ravager salute. “Aye, cap’n,” he says.
Once upon a time, he’d have seethed at the idea of calling him that. But as the viewer fades on Peter’s serious face, Kraglin thinks he’s never been more relieved to see Peter Quill in the captain’s chair, ready to take on the galaxy.
He’d wonder what Yondu would have to say about it, ‘cept he doesn’t have to. He knows exactly how proud Yondu would be of his boy.
They fight the fight, and they win. The arrow dances for Kraglin. Peter nearly dies, because Yondu ain’t there to sacrifice himself this time. But Adam pulls through. They’re alright, in the end – even Gamora, this new, angrier version, who seems a little less angry by the time she leaves.
Pete’s still sad, but it’s a different kind now. Quieter, more at peace with his own grief. He’s accepted it. He’s ready to try and move forwards.
When Peter comes to Kraglin and tells him that he’s going back to Earth, Kraglin just looks at him for one long moment.
Peter shifts self-consciously. “What?”
“Just thinkin’.” Kraglin quirks a small smile at him. “’Bout how much you’ve grown.”
A sandy eyebrow inches upwards. “I’ve been taller than you since I was sixteen,” Pete says, but Kraglin ain’t fooled. Pete knows exactly what he means.
Kraglin grasps him by the arms. Thinks about them skinny little arms he gripped way back when, the wide-eyed face of the eight-year-old who couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Hard to believe it’s the same Terran in front of him.
Except it’s not, not really. Not when he looks him in the eyes.
He pulls Pete in and down until their foreheads clunk together. They stay like that for a moment.
Peter’s yet to change out of his Guardians uniform. The Ravager emblem glints on his chest in the shadows between them.
“Keep in touch, kid,” he says.
“How ‘bout your favourite musical act?” Rocket asks.
They’re perching on a cluster of rocks on the outskirts of a civilisation in need. The air’s hot and dry, Groot making the most of the opportunity to curl up for a nap behind them. There’s a stampede heading their way, by all accounts, and the locals tremble fearfully in the background as the Guardians swap musical preferences back and forth.
“What about you, captain?” Adam asks.
Rocket’s got the Zune, the one Kraglin first saw in Yondu’s hand, held far more reverently than he’d ever admit. “This one’s kinda special,” he says, and he presses play.
The opening beat of Come and Get Your Love fills the air between them. Kraglin recognises it right away. How could he not? 26 years he spent in Quill’s company with that first mix tape on repeat, when the second tape was still parcelled up in his momma’s pretty wrapping paper and he had no idea he’d one day receive a Zune full of his daddy’s songs. It puts him in mind of a kid with red-gold curls, nestled in close to Yondu’s side, eyes huge at the great big galaxy before him – and of chasing that kid all over the Eclector, usually bawling at the top of his lungs over some misdeed or other.
His grin is so wide it almost hurts.
He stands up, and the Guardians move onwards to the familiar beat of Redbone.