Peter never cries. Ok, this would be an exaggeration. Peter rarely cried. You see, being a ravager, he soon learned that nobody liked a cry baby, especially Yondu.
If you got punched? Too bad, get up. If you broke some bone? It will heal, stop whimpering. So, for Yondu, nothing seemed to be a good reason to cry. Tears were for losers and none of his men were losers.
But today was different. Quill woke up in a great mood, he had eaten his strange space food, joked with the face of the new members, he didn’t even irritate Kraglin today, so yeah, it was being a good day. If Peter had to choose a moment when everything started to get wrong, maybe he would say that was when he refused to listen to Yondu.
"But I wanna go, c'mon, it’s not fair that I have to stay in the ship while you guys have fun on the planet" He pouted and the captain of the ship sighed, Peter was making him old, what a weird feeling.
"Quill, I said no. Now stop the pout before I make ya'" The blue man was fairly tired, he didn’t sleep well and the planet that they would land on wasn’t a pleasant place. The only thing Yondu wanted was to buy some supplies and get the hell away from the planet.
Peter was seventeen, in human age, almost a man. He didn’t disobey so often the centaurian as he used to do with thirteen, but he was trying to get more freedom, and oh boy, this was annoying as shit.
"Pleaaase, I never saw this planet before, ‘cause you said that I was too young" He had puppy eyes, so the captain sighed.
"Ok, but ya' gonna do what I tell ya'" Yondu narrowed his eyes, and Quill smiled and agreed.
"Yes, cap'n" He saluted and the older one smirked and walked to the door. One more pair of arms would be nice for Yondu and Kraglin.
Everything was going fine and they were returning for the ship, when they heard a slash.
"I told you to move, brat!" The word 'brat' made Peter turn around to see what was going on. His stomach flipped when he saw a kid, just a little kid, around nine years old, was with a collar around his neck and cuffs off in his arms and legs.
"B-but sir, I can't carry much weight" His purple eyes had tears and his teal skin was covered with bruises. The man, however, seemed to be annoyed with the kid. He whipped the kid again.
"I give you an order, so you obey"
"Hey, what does he think he is doing?" Quill asked and he was getting mad "What the heck he thinks he is doing?"
He tried to move, but Yondu stopped him, he put a hand on his chest.
"Take care of your damn business, Quill" Udonta said with a firm tone.
"He’s hurting a kid! This is wrong!" Peter glared his captain in his eyes. Peter was taller than Yondu by a few inches, but this didn’t mean that he intimidated the captain. Not a bit.
"This is how things work on this planet, Peter" Kraglin said in a lower tone. He seemed a little distressed with the sounds of the kid, as well.
"Why is nobody making anything?" He struggled to get rid of Yondu's grip "Let me go! Hey, jackass! You can’t do it! Leave this kid alone!"
Yondu was irritated and he shoved Peter in the nearest wall, his arm on Peter's neck, making him unable to move.
"I will not repeat that, knock it off right now, Quill" He showed his arrow for the redhead.
"Go to hell!" Quill couldn't give a shit for his life right now, the only thing that his mind kept repeating was that he had to help the kid. He had, he had…
They heard a bullet sound. Then Quill saw the little kid fall to his knees and made an empty thump on the ground, the purple blood filled the ground. The child was dead. The man who fired had a shit grin on his face, Peter heard him talking about finding another one. But nobody stopped to help the kid, nobody even looked at the little corpse on the ground. Was just a normal day.
Peter screamed in furious, he struggled to get rid of Yondu, Kraglin had to hold him, too, cause Peter was using all the strength that he had. All that he could see was red, in better words, all that he could see was the purple blood on the ground. He wasn’t capable of saving this kid, not anymore, and he never felt so useless as he was feeling at that moment.
Peter was lucky that only Kraglin was present in the scene, otherwise, Yondu would have beated him stronger than he did back in the ship. Peter's nose was covered in blood and Yondu was lecturing him. His eyes had the beginning of tears and the captain saw it.
"Don't tell me that you're crying because of this! You know that ravagers…" Peter didn’t let him finish.
"Fuck off, Yondu! I don’t care for your stupid rule, you can punch me whatever you want, but I can’t just saw this kind of thing and make nothing" Peter shouted, he was close to crying "It was a kid! Goddammit, just a kid! Not everybody it’s heartless like you, you don’t care for anybody but you!"
Yondu's heart sank. But he knew that it was better for Peter to think that way.
"And ya' better start to act the same way, 'cuz listen my words son: nobody gives a shit about ya' in the galaxy and if you don’t protect yerself, tomorrow will be you with a collar around your neck, do ya' hear me?!" Peter didn’t answer and he was avoiding the red eyes "Quill, I made you a question!" He hit the wall and the sound was like a rumble of thunder.
"Yes'sir" He grumbled, tired of this.
"Great."
Udonta left Peter's room and thought that everything was solved, but then, Peter didn’t show up in the mess hall for lunch and neither for dinner. The captain sighed when e listened it of Kraglin and he moved to Peter's room again.
"Leave me alone!" It was the first thing that he heard from Quill when he entered, the second thing was the whimpering. Peter sobbed a little and tried to hide the fact that he had been crying for the entire day, but Yondu knew his boy.
"Are you planning to starve yerself? Because if that’s the case, I would be glad on speding fewer credits on food, y'know." He had a smirk on his face and a plate on his hands. He sat at the end of Peter's bed "C'mon, Quill. Get up, today is your favorite."
Peter loved Thursday dinners cause the boy always said that it reminded him of the Terran fries, and nobody questioned Yondu when the captain said that this would be a fixed dinner, however, the one who had a few more brain cells (Kraglin), guessed the reason, but he didn’t dare to say it out loud. Because like I said, he was smart.
"Don't feel hungry" Peter murmured and Yondu rolled his eyes.
"Peter Jason Quill, ya' gonna get your ass up right now and eat 'yer dinner before I make you clean the bathroom for three weeks" Well, at least, the threat worked, cause Peter started to eat instantly and Yondu smiled. He didn’t know why, but using the kid's full name always worked.
Yondu stared at the kid while he was eating. His nose was red, just like his eyes. Well, Peter had always been a pink mess if you asked Yondu, but today was worse, it reminded him of the time that Peter was a little brat, who would be always crying for a thing.
"It's ok to be sad for the right things, jus' dun' let anybody see that. People will take advantage of you." He said and Peter's eyes went wide for a little. Yondu never allowed any kind of sentiment "But you must know that the kid is better now, believes me"
Peter didn’t know, and Yondu was glad to leave it like this, but Yondu had been a slave himself, like Peter’s words “just a kid”. He recalled how many times he wished he was dead, because he would finally rest from all that pain. Not everyone had the luck to get away from this life. And in a small part of his body, he was proud that Quill had a good heart to never do that with anyone. He lied to himself by saying that he raised Peter well, but he always had been a soft brat for his own sake.
"This planet is all like this?" Quill asked in a rough voice, probably because he cried a lot.
"The folks who are tired of their kids always drop them there, for anyone who can pay better" Yondu shrugged "Nothin' that you, or I can do about it."
"This is sick" Quill complained and took a bite of his meat.
"This is life. Now, after ya' finish yer dinner, ya' go right to sleep, you have plenty of chores to do tomorrow, and if I don’t see you at breakfast I will kick your butt, understand?" Peter gave a little smile before nodding.
Yondu left the room again, with no good night because he didn’t care for this kind of stuff. He didn’t hug Peter and said that everything would be fine like his mom would do. No. But strangely, Yondu would always know the right thing to say when Quill was hurt, maybe not what he wanted to hear, but what he needed.
Decades later, Peter would think that he was grateful that Yondu never leaved him when he was a kid. Even when it was hard, Yondu never thought to leave Peter on that planet.