Ravagers As Family - Tumblr Posts

Okay, a bunch of random headcanons for Peter and the Ravagers (trying to) celebrate Christmas:

  The main reason why the Ravagers even try to go out of their way to set that whole Christmas-y thing up is because it got described to them as a feast. And feast means booze. A feast that also has the tradition of getting them the expensive stuff they wished for without having to steal it for themselves, but rather have others of the crew steal it for them, is a big plus, too.

(Reason number two, although nobody really admits it, is because Peter pestered them with it since he found a calendar in what was, like, late October. Kid kept telling them stories about Christmas since then, dropping hints or flat out pointing towards it in every single conversation since then, and while none of them would admit they want to see the boy’s face when he sees what they had come up with, they all can agree they hope Peter will get of their backs afterwards.)

  Some of the traditions get mixed up or lost or interpreted in a completely different way.

The Ravagers don’t really understand why they should sing songs they don’t understand, or why they should wrap presents in expensive and colorful paper when they can clearly just wrap a rag around it and be done with it. But they did get that there’s a tree involved and that it’s kinda important, so they think they can at least do that. The little problem - Peter neglected to mention what kind of tree, so they are left wondering. They scratch the idea of getting one giant tree – over twenty feet tall – and also don’t’ think Peter will be satisfied with a bush or something, so they go for a tree that’s around the height of a grown man.

(Peter, unexplainably for them, will burst out laughing when he understands that they got a leaf tree in it’s wintery, dead state, throwing colorful (mostly red) cloth and scarfs over it to decorate it, instead of a “real” Christmas tree. He doesn’t blame them, though, swallows his laughter even when they look fairly disappointed by his reaction to their trouble.)

  The one tradition that also seems of importance is the whole Santa Clause thing, they conclude while they prepare. Peter used to tell stories about that bearded old man with bright eyes and smiling, excitedly explaining how Santa would bring all children their presents – even though that roused many questions amongst the Ravagers. “Why would ‘e do that?” – “Yeah, why not keep it to ‘imself?” only a very few of them. Some of them declared Santa as downright stupid and not really Ravager-material, but Peter insisted it was “one of the really important things about Christmas!”

So, naturally, they decide that there’s gotta be a Santa on this Ravager-Christmas. Bearded, fat, with a hat and all that.

It takes about twenty minutes of arguing, one sly comment of Tullk, Oblo’s and Kraglin’s combined strength and some very good reflexes, but they finally manage to wrangle a very unhappy and murderous Horuz into a self-made Santa-costume consisting of some extra cleaned Ravager jackets decorated with some (almost) white fur, a self-made, a dangerously slanting self-made hat on top of it all.

“Ain’t ye lookin’ real pretty today Horuz!”

“’M gonna kill the whole lot of y’all one day.”  

“We’re gonna pay ye an extra drink, stop complainin’.”

  Yondu somehow managed to steer clear of most of the preparations, liking to pretend that absolutely nothing of this is happening. Can’t be that vile, heartless Ravagers prepare a feast for a kid, right, booze or not. (Part of him, a really tiny, quiet part that he likes to snuff out, points out that he also didn’t like the reminder of celebrating with family, when he, well, didn’t have that said family anymore.)

But even he can’t ignore when the crew starts dragging the tree down the hallways of the ship – stumbling over each other, knocking more than one thing down on the way – or the fact that Peter somehow always ends up in front of his cabin to ask what is going on, why everyone is avoiding the little Terran and not telling him anything. So Yondu locks a protesting Peter in his cabin and trudges off to catch one of the idjits responsible for this mess.

“Boys!”

“Capt’n?” Kraglin asks, all wide-eyed surprise even though he is currently sitting on Oblo’s shoulders, balancing up there while he tries to attach what looks like colorful scarfs and rags sewn together to the ceiling.

Yondu almost face-palms over their clear enthusiasm for all of this, but decides that even that is a waste of energy.

“One of ya jackasses can grab Quill n’ get ‘im off the ship before ‘e stumbles over y’all preparin’ that shit.”

The surprised and perplexed gazes he gets for that makes him wonder how the actual heck the men had even tried to keep it a secret from Peter up until now.

  When it’s finally time and they have prepared everything – quite well, they think, quite well – and they let Peter into the mess hall, most of them think it was all worth the trouble. Worth it since Peter is beaming brighter than any of the tiny lanterns Oblo had set up, since he’s laughing tears when he catches sight of Horuz dressed as Santa, worth it since the boy races multiple times around the (not quite right) Christmas tree and cheers over how amazing this all is.

If anyone asks them, though, it’s worth it mostly because there is plenty of booze flowing that night.

  Peter is more than happy with the spoils of that evening – fingerless gloves from Tullk, a tiny knife from Kraglin, a set of lock picking tools from Oblo (that the man will probably come to regret) – so happy, in fact, that he decides to be extra generous that evening.

(It’s not like he thought about the gift for over a month, and went through quite some trouble for it. All of that can be ignored. It’s just because he is having a great time.)  

So when Yondu grumbles and shoves at him when the boy clambers on the Captain’s chair and on the Centaurian’s lap from there, then Peter doesn’t even complain, just slips right back off, just his head poking out from under the arm rest carefully.

Yondu actually seems to hesitate over the child’s lack of resistance, hand half-hovering between shoving again and reaching for his half-empty bottle instead. Behind them, the party is still going, loud and rude and with drinks for days, but between boy and man, there is some sort of careful, fragile peace and quiet for once.

Finally, Yondu gives in. “What is it, Quill.”

Peter grins, getting the hint, and rustles around for a second before quickly pushing a lumpy, clumsily wrapped package onto the Ravager’s lap. “Merry fucking Christmas, old man.”

It’s too quick and Yondu too dumbfounded (drunk, he will later say) and Peter has dashed off to safety before Yondu can find his voice again to snarl at him, or worse, laugh and throw the present back at him.

It’s a good thing he couldn’t, Yondu decides when he unwraps the thing far more carefully than he wants to admit and finds a fine, expensive scarf in it (together with a note that makes him bare his teeth in a crooked grin because that boy got some nerve.) Would have been a waste to throw around something nice like this.

  (And if Peter finds a set of new, child-sized blasters next to his bunk when he wakes up late the next morning, his excited happy yelling waking a hungover crew much to their disgruntlement, then Yondu really doesn’t know anything about where those came from. Nope. Go ask Santa, Quill.)  

Headcanon that the “nicer” Ravagers literally never stop their friendly bickering and banter, not even in the most serious situations. It’s a habit that mostly stems from the fact that Peter just never shuts up, so once they started taking the kid along to missions and Peter more and more often ended up in fights with them, there was always a child’s voice complaining, commenting and snapping right back when someone chastisized him. Yondu and Kraglin give back in much the same manner, too stubborn to let Peter have the last word, and it leads to the most talkative fight scenes ever.

Like – a bar fight, the Ravagers taking cover under tables, waiting out the first round of fire, and Kraglin bumps right into teenager Peter who has ducked under the same table as him.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

“Nice day for a shooting, eh?”

“Ain’t really. Now git, Pete, yer in the way.”

“Ex-cuse me, I was here first, you get out.”  

“Pete.”

“Kraglin.”

“Yer such a damn brat-…!” Kraglin uses the break in the enemy’s fire to lean around the table’s sturdy leg, shooting one of the jackasses right in the forehead before scrambling back. Peter at his side is done with high-wiring one their gravity mines, programming it so that it would attract living beings in a certain radius. He throws it nonchalantly, shooting Kraglin a wide grin as there are several screams once the mine does its work.  “Still want me to get out?!”

“Sure as hell, brat!” Kraglin yells back, grinning himself.

Peter laughs in his face.

A few feet away, Yondu whistles the nearest sniper into oblivion before he jumps and throws himself over the bar counter, ducking behind it. He stops whistling for a second, grabbing one of the bottles behind the counter before he rolls to the side and over to Tullk, who ducks back behind the counter after shooting down a few opponents quickly and effectively.

Tullk nods a thanks as he takes a quick swig from the bottle and shakes his blaster, hoping to cool it off.

“The boys?!” He has to yell over the shots fired and someone crashing against the wall – either a piece of furniture or a body, he can’t tell.

“Heard them bickerin’ on the way over, they’re good!” Yondu yells back, rolling his eyes as the other laughs at that. He can’t deny he’s smirking himself, though.

Bickering and silliness is better than having to drag two dead bodies out of a hiding spot.

The cruel image lingers a little too long before his mind’s eyes, and Yondu resolutely shakes his head to get rid of it, unwillingly to name the damn sentiment that squeezes his chest together when thinking of such things.

Tullk is looking at him with something akin to worry, and Yondu decides to change the subject. “Let’s git goin’ an’ get ‘em before they throttle each other!”

“Good idea, Capt’n!”

They pause, taking a breath to steady, reload and ready a whistle.

Once the enemies’ fire ceases just for a second, they move in tandem, popping out of hiding with fire and arrow.

It’s not like their opponents stand a chance.

“Boys!” Tullk thunders over Yondu’s whistling, the arrow massacring anyone dumb enough to aim at them. “Git movin’, we’re out of here!”

There are various shouts at that and the Ravagers burst forth from whatever spot they had been hiding it, either attacking whatever enemy is still left standing or helping those up who got hit when the fight broke out.

Kraglin appears right next to Tullk while Peter pops up next to Yondu. Both of them are fine, so Tullk nods over to Yondu, making a gesture for the entrance. The Captain nods, and they are off again - …

… with bickering still trailing after them.

“I totally helped with that, Kraggles!”

“Nah Pete, ye didn’t.”

“Boys, not now, for flark’s sake.”

“He started it!”

“Quill!”

“Okayyyy…”

We all know that Yondu cares more about Peter than he’d admit and he may be mean and gruff and an a-hole but deep inside he's just a big softie and doesn't know how to show it and/or can't because he fears for his crew finding out about this. So there were just these little gestures from time to time; small trinkets he’d swiped for Peter or little gifts he brought him from his raids, without ever anyone noticing and Yondu in fact never mentioned it, nor did Peter himself or Kraglin, Oblo and the others. These nice little things and some bad dad jokes, along with discreet smiles and few taunts and snarls, yeah, Peter's childhood on the Eclector wasn't the best but it was good in its own odd way.

I was talking with a friend and she’s had a rough year, so I wanted to give her a small gift.

I hope you like it @ssirius-blackk <3 

Word count: 747

Fandom: Gardians of the Galaxy

Rated: T

Peter’s First Christmas with Yondu

Yondu wasn’t sure what had gotten into him, but here he found himself raiding some clothing store trying to figure out what he could grab that would fit Peter.  

There was nothing to this beyond he knew the boy needed new clothing. Terrans grew fast at his age and he was already shooting out of the clothing Yondu had picked up a couple of months ago.

It had nothing to do with how the boy was counting down to a number circled on his calendar. Or that the day circled had Yondu curious enough to look into what it was.  

He was going to eat the boy. He wasn’t being nice, he was being smart. You can’t eat a Terran that small, they have to grow, get some meat on them. They can’t grow if they’re not taken care of properly.  

Grabbing what he thought would fit, he tossed it in a bag, slung the bag over his shoulder and made his way towards the waiting ship. Something caught his eye as he was leaving the store and he reached out to grab it, shoving it in one of the inner pockets of his duster in one smooth motion.  

***

The closer it got to the day circled on his calendar, the more depressed Peter got. He missed his mom terribly and the sudden loss of the rest of his life on Earth had made the loss of his mom so much harder to bear.  

Looking at the calendar he had made himself, he forced the tears that threated away. It was almost Christmas on Earth. I would have been his first Christmas without his mom, and now it was his first Christmas away from anything even remotely familiar. But he refused to show the Ravagers that had kidnapped him any hint of sadness. Anger, sure. Sadness? That was asking for a whole lot of trouble.

Rubbing the tears from his face he rolled over and went to sleep.

***

Yondu was sure tomorrow would be the right day. From the small amount of information he’d gathered about Terra and their traditions, all he had to do was put the stuff in Peter’s room and leave a note that said, “From Santa”. The tradition confused him, why the fuck would an old fat man take presents to random people.  

Not that he cared.

The ship was quiet when he gathered the clothes in a small bundle and made his way to the room he’d put Peter in. Slipping in quietly he saw the boy sprawled out on his bed, snoring lightly. Placing the bundle on a table across the room where he was sure Peter would see it when he woke. Turning to leave he looked at Peter sleeping soundly, and noticed the boy’s face was wet. Stepping closer and crouching down beside him he touched his face gently, wiping the tears from his face.  

Shaking his head gently Yondu stood up, ruffled Peter’s hair and walked to the door. Turning back once more he called out softly, “Merry Christmas boy.”

***

A loud bang woke Peter suddenly the next morning, and he jerked up right breathing hard. Looking around the room his eyes fell on the stack of clothes he could swear were not there the night before. Crawling out of bed towards the pile he saw something round sitting on top of a crinkled piece of paper. Picking up the note and what looked to be a stone from on top of it he read the note:

“To Peter, From Santa”  

Confused he looked at the stone ball and the pile of clothes, and back to the ball. Looking closer he could see that it was a mixture of green and blue with patches of white. It looked like earth. Holding it close he cried, thinking about his mom.

***

Hours later, new clothes on, though distinctly too big, he ran in to Yondu in the mess hall.

“What is it boy?” Yondu asked, mouth full of food.

Peter just stared at him until Yondu turned to face him.

“What?” He barked, with a scowl.

“Thank you,” Peter answered quietly, before turning tail and running back to his room.

Yondu sat there staring after the boy before shaking his head, and turning back to his meal.  

No one saw the small smile that softened his face for a split second. Though even if they did, they sure as hell knew better than to mention it.

No one asked for this!!!! No one goes here anymore!!!!!! But sometimes my brain overflows with Space Trash Pirate Dads who are wholly unqualified to kidnap surprise adopt a Terran

Keepin' yer safe and warm

Due to an unexpected stopover, the Ravagers have to set up a camp on a unhabitated planet. And while everyone has laid down to rest, little Peter is shivering in the cold of the night and Yondu, sitting nearby, eventually hears the small Terran.

"What's up with ya, boy?"

A gruff voice called from nearby and Peter shifted his head, shivering and rubbing his shoulders. He looked up to the Centaurian with a sad expression, biting his lip in despair.

"I-i'm cold..."

The child had crossed his arms, in an attempt to warm himself, which didn't help much, though.

Yondu grumbled and let out a humorless laugh.

"Ain't my fault, I told ya to dress warm."

Sensitive Terrans...

Ignoring the child, he turned around again. Not his problem if the boy freezes his ass off. Serves him just right. This stupid brat didn't want to listen and that's what he gets now.

The Ravager grunted, closed his eyes again and tried to ignore the boy's chattering teeth and helpless whimpers in the cold. He waited to fall asleep again. Though, he had to admit that it was kinda chilly tonight, even for him.

Almost dangerously cold, especially for little Terrans - in fact, the boy only wore his thin leather jacket that barely contributed any warmth. Maybe he could...

Nah, he's gonna be fine. Don't care. Ravagers don't give a damn 'bout stupid Terrans.

Yondu still heard Peter shivering desperately under his breath, kinda glad that he at least made any noise by this cold. Admittedly, he had this uneasy gnawing in his chest, whenever he didn't hear any more noises from the kid but relaxed again as he was still breathing.

Great. Now he couldn't even sleep because of the brat.

The Centaurian turned around to the boy who by now had huddled to a bundle, pulled his legs close to his little trembling body. Rolling his eyes in annoyance, the man left out a reluctant grunt.

"C'mere."

Peter immediately turned too, raising his head. The boy stared at him with a glazed sight, surprise written all over his face. He didn't need to be told twice and scrambled over to the man.

"Hurry up, before I'm changin' my mind, boy!"

The Ravager held up his arm, pulling the shivering child under his coat to warm him up. Peter snuggled up to his side, his lips of bluish color, cheeks burning red from the cold.

"And if ye tell anyone 'bout this, I'm gonna kill ya myself an' eat'cha then, got it, boy?!" He hissed down to the kid.

Peter already made himself comfortable and eventually stopped shivering, mumbling into Yondu's coat.

"Mhm..."

And he will deny it later on, say that he just couldn't stand the noise, boy was gonna damage his chompers from all the clatterin'.

Couldn't have let his best little thief freeze t'death, he'd be stupid if he did, now did he?

Hell, he couldn't care less. But when the little Terran lay that close to his body, cradled in big strong arms and buried his face in the warm chest, even the Ravager allowed himself to put his guard down.

There was a feeling in his chest, which he ignored. And he put his hand on the boy's shoulder, just so his coat isn't slipping off and the kid won't start annoying him again. No other reason for that.

And by the stars, Yondu will never ever admit it - even in the afterlife - but he held the boy a little closer that night, making sure he is secured from the cold weather, keeping him safe and warm.

Even more doodles about Peter's interactions with the Ravagers during his time growing up on the Eclector.

Not everyone there has crossed the young boy's way with kindness but those who did were definitely 'Yondu's inner circle', say Oblo, Kraglin, Tullk, Gef and the captain himself. (we all know those guys liked Peter more than they'd admit... :D)

And in this I emphasized their height difference to the boy by different hand movements AND got to practice drawing hands in various positions, for example Yondu proudly ruffling Peter's hair, Oblo playing and fooling around with the kid and nice Ravagers putting their arm on his shoulder. (it all just comes down to nice little details like this :3)

The Bite

Anyone remembers that gory scene in Stranger Things 3 where Jonathan cuts into Eleven's leg with a burning knife? This but with Peter & Yondu :D

CW: Blood, Gore, Whump, Child whumpee, Open wound

--

It all didn’t exactly go the way it was planned. Not only that the stuff the Ravagers wanted to get for their own, was guarded by some tentacle alien monsters but also that they were outnumbered and thus had no chance against them.

More risk, more fun, Peter guessed when they were attacked by the critters that weren’t really satisfied with someone entering their nest.

The things weren’t too nice to look at. They appeared like huge spiders, only with living tentacles and faceless. Instead, they had wide open mouths with hundreds of sharp teeth. 

Pure nightmare fuel. 

But Peter tried to play it cool, acting all brave and 'manly' in front of the Ravagers, especially Yondu. 

He wasn't a little kid anymore, no, he's twelve now! 

Which means, he'll soon be old enough to fly the Milano all by himself, without Yondu or Kraglin or Tullk looking over his shoulder.

And although he still suffered from terrible nightmares, the boy hid his fears from the Ravagers. Or else they would never take him seriously if he would start talking about it and make it obvious that he was afraid of every mission. 

So Peter held his small blasters in his hand, shooting one of the beasts in the head as it was about to attack Gef. He's gotten a lot better since his training with Yondu and today would be the day where he could show him what he learned. 

"Cap'n, 's too many of 'em!" Oblo shouted to Yondu while fighting the alien monsters. 

Not even the skilled Ravager captain's arrow could kill all of them as they kept splitting into more over and over again, making it almost impossible for the others to defend themselves. 

"Gef, Tullk! Go get 'm ships ready for backin' off!" Yondu ordered, killing the thing in front of him with one whistle. "Kraglin, Peter, yer comin' with me!" 

"Yes sir!" 

Peter briefly glanced over to the others when, in this moment of distraction, one of the monsters knocked him over by stabbing a tentacle right into his left leg. The boy squinted his teeth in pain as the thing pulled him by his leg. It felt just like someone had rammed many knife blades into his skin, all at the same time. But to his luck, Oblo was there and cut through the tentacle, so that it let go off Peter’s leg. 

The part that got stuck in his leg, was still moving in an ache until he had pulled it out in an instant, letting out a shriek as he did so. The boy felt warm blood running down his leg underneath his dark leather pants while the wound started to sting. 

But the kid had pulled himself up and continued to shoot the monsters to help the others, trying to ignore the awful pain.

Kraglin, seeing the blood streaming down his leg, shouted over to him.

"Quill! Ya losin' blood!"

The Xandarian came over to the boy who stood there on shaky legs trying to still fight although every further step hurt even more. 

But the boy immediately waved off. "I-it's nothing! Just a small scratch!" He panted, his heart hammering in his chest.

Kraglin raised an eyebrow in disbelief but at the same time, he didn’t really have the time to ask himself about the kid's strange behavior. Soon, the hopeless situation came to an end. The Ravagers fled back to their ships, leaving the loot behind. 

"Hey, we're headin' off!" Peter heard one of the Ravagers yell as he was also making his way to the M-ship standing in the woods nearby. 

Of course, running with the wounded leg wasn’t that pleasant but in the last seconds the boy had made his way to the ship as few of the men had pulled him inside before the hatch closed. Peter held himself up to one of the rocket seats, almost losing balance when the ship left the planet behind. From second to second his breathing became heavier, his leg was burning. 

"Damn it! We was so close!" Peter heard one of the Ravagers complain about the failed mission. The man gnashed his teeth in anger. 

They all stood in the ship’s cockpit, heavily breathing. Right after, another snapped back, turning with a scowled face.

"Yeah, if ya ain’t lazed away that one transmitter, buttock!" 

"Ugh, shut'cher mouth, Halfnut! Ye ain't allowed sayin' anythin' after 'em last job on Contraxia!" 

The rest of the conversation Peter didn’t notice. His head suddenly got dizzy and he felt like everything was spinning around him. The boy tried to walk towards the exit of the cockpit while he only heard a ringing sound in his ears along with his own heavy breathing. Trying to look up to the lights on the ship’s ceiling, he saw them spinning before his eyes when his vision became blurry. 

In the distance, he only heard muffled talking from the others.

 "...'s up...with 'm?" 

Peter closed his eyes before he fainted, losing his balance. 

Only a few minutes passed when the boy had slowly gained back his eyesight. The first thing he saw was the blurred face of Kraglin, who called his name, slightly smacking his cheek so that he would return to reality. 

"Hey, Pete!"

Peter blinked his eyes, trying to understand what happened to him. As his consciousness kicked in again, he felt such a tormenting pain from his wounded leg which he had never experienced before. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a cry in pain. 

"Pete, what's wrong?!" Kraglin repeated in shock with widened eyes, staring at the kid, whose head he had shored on his knees.

In an instant, his glance fell on Peter's leg, where his dark pants were covered in dried blood. Slightly, he shoved up the fabric so that he could look at the wound. And to his horror, the wound wasn’t only infected and suppurated but swollen and it looked like something was moving underneath the skin. Everyone else standing beside seeing this was flinching back and gritting their teeth in disgust. 

"Oh shit!"

Peter lifted up his head a bit to look at the wound himself when he saw what made the others gagging. He screwed up his face in terror of what he was looking at while at the same time, the pain was still unbearable.

"'s that yer small scratch?" Kraglin frowned with a bit of sarcasm in his voice.

The boy ignored the comment, as he still stared at the wound with widened eyes, whimpering, pressing his lips together. Eventually, Yondu pushed away the others blocking the way while hissing at them.

"Out of the way!"

He hesitated when he saw the Terran laying there with tears running down his cheeks. Glancing at the wound the captain knew what to do immediately. In the same moment, he remembered the story about the same parasite monsters he used to scare the boy with when he didn't want to sleep. How ironic.

"Kraglin, keep 'm awake!" The Centaurian hollered, rushing to the back of the ship. 

Kraglin briefly looked up to his captain, then again turned back to Peter as ordered. He placed both hands on the boy's cheeks in tension about the whole situation. 

"Okay, kid, stay 'ere! Hey, look at me! Don't'cha close yer eyes, ye hear me?!" He sputtered nervously, moving Peter’s head while his eyelids became heavier from every second passing. 

In the meantime, Yondu went to the makeshift 'kitchen' of the small ship, which consisted only of a few drawers full of cutlery. He opened them in a rush, searching for something useful like a knife. In it, he finally found a huge one, holding the tip over the flame of a burner. Finally, the Centaurian took an old towel, ripping off a piece of it. 

Coming back to the cockpit with the knife and cloth, Yondu said to Peter briefly, "This'll gonna hurt as hell now, boy. 'ere, bite on that." 

He kneeled beside the terrified child and put the piece of cloth between Peter's teeth so that it would prevent him from screaming, because what now would follow, would be awfully painful. And although the Centaurian would really like to renounce doing that, it was the only way to save Peter’s life. He took the knife into one hand and looked at the Terran, who stared at him with widened eyes, clenching his jaw to bite on the piece of cloth. 

Without further ado, Yondu then started cutting with the burning knife into the flesh where the thing was moving. Blood and pus flowed out of the infected wound and Peter’s jaw tightened even more, he shut his eyes while he was screaming in pain, what through the rag in his mouth sounded more like a loud whine. 

The pain was so unbearable, that the poor boy was squirming and wailing but Kraglin held him tight in his grip. Every second felt like an entirety, pure torture. After the cut, now followed something more grievous than it already was. So Yondu didn’t hesitate to not torment Peter even more. The Centaurian reached his hand into the opened cut, to take out the parasite, making the Terran shriek louder while his eyes were flooded with tears. Yet, he didn’t dare to look, what, for his own sake, probably was better. 

"Just 'bout havin' it! Keep 'm still!" The captain growled to Kraglin, who tried to prevent Peter from moving around during the process. 

The Centaurian clenched his teeth and dug deeper into the wound, until he finally grabbed the slimy disgusting thing and tore it out of Peter’s leg. Throwing it away, the crowd of Ravagers behind them stepped aside in fear mixed with disgust of what they just witnessed. Peter tore the cloth out of his mouth, heavily breathing and crying when it was finally over.

"Hey, ya did it, Pete. It’s over." Kraglin said softly to him, placing a hand on the boy's back to calm him down.

Yondu put away the blood soaked knife and sighed in relief while more blood ran down his left hand. 

Just in time, he thought. Any moments later and he would’ve lost the boy.  

"That'll leave one huge scar, boy." Yondu said after he was finished bandaging Peter’s leg and knotted it up all tightly. 

The boy let out a small whimper and flinched as it still hurt but kept himself from crying. He didn't even shed another tear as the Centaurian had cleaned the wound with some alcohol, bravely swallowing his pain.

"But scars are cool, aren’t they?" Peter raised his head to look into the man's face. "They make me a real Ravager now!" 

Yondu snickered softly about the boy's words, tapping his blue fingers on Peter's leg. He grinned slightly at the kid, but instead of answering his question, he took him to task.

"Now ya tell me what'chu were plannin' with this." 

Peter felt his stomach tighten. He probably meant his behavior down there on the planet, Kraglin had told him for sure about that. 

"Why didn't 'cha tell Kraglin ye was wounded, heh?" Yondu dug deeper, sensing that Peter felt more uncomfortable now. He raised an eyebrow, expecting an answer. "So?" 

The boy gulbed, trying to avoid the captain's piercing look on him. Peter looked down, nervously fiddling his fingers. 

"I...uhm, I didn't want the others to know..." He mumbled under his breath, still with his head downcast. "Halfnut and Taserface just would've laughed at me again..." 

Great, now he could forget about flying the Milano for sure, Peter thought, ready for every punishment Yondu was about to give him. But then the boy felt a finger tucking under his chin, raising it and his eyes met the Centaurian's again. 

"Boy" Yondu said gently "Ya shouldn't listen to these jerks out there, they don't know shit. What'chu did was hella dangerous and stupid, ye could've died if I ain't saved ya." 

Peter opened his mouth but closed it again as the Ravager gave him a warning look. That's it, there comes his lecture about how he screwed up, he thought. 

"But ya also did good down there." 

Huh? Did he just praise him?

"I did... good?" Peter repeated in disbelief. 

"Don't 'chu think I ain't seen ya shootin' these parasites." Yondu smiled, pointing at his leg. "An' as for this, ya was really brave, boy. Had one of 'em too, when I was a young lad. And if my captain then ain't come to save me, I wouldn't be alive t'day. See?" 

The Centaurian shoved up his sleeve to reveal a long scar on his blue forearm, a similar one to Peter's. The boy gasped in surprise, realizing that the Ravager captain had been through the same pain as him. Still, it's weird to be praised when you expect to be scolded and such praise coming from Yondu is even weirder.

"So you're not mad?" Peter asked carefully, to make sure that there was not anything else behind all of this. Yondu was very unpredictable when it came down to things like these. 

But the Ravager just chuckled, ruffling Peter's hair. 

"I ain't, boy. But don't 'cha get used to it, yer lucky I'm in such a good mood today!" 

A little giggle escaped the boy's throat as the Centaurian stood up, making his way to the door of Peter's quartier. Outside in the hallway the boy already heard him yelling at his crew for screwing up the job and Peter could help but grin as Yondu returned back to his usual tough demeanor as Ravager captain.

But sometimes, in moments like these, he knew that there's this other side of him, a way softer one only Peter gets to see.