Chapter Text
Yondu's thought processes can be conveyed through simple flow diagrams. One thing leads to another, leads to another, leads to the next.
This isn't to say he ain't smart. In fact, if there's one lesson he's learned since Stakar slashed his name from the official Ogordian Archives and sent him and his crew out to fend for themselves in the big bad galaxy, it's that oftentimes it's safer to pretend to be a helluva lot dumber than you are. But at the same time, Yondu's a doer, not a thinker. No endless pontification or poring over the potential outcome of an action; nosiree. He'd rather just do it, and deal with the shit that hits the fan only once the stinky brown gunk is airborn.
You want money? You steal money.
You want respect? You earn it.
You wanna be captain? You prise that golden flame off your predecessor, by force if you gotta.
For every problem there's a solution, and where Yondu's mind fails to summon one up, his experience always provides. Which is why when Quill refuses to stop crying five whole hours after Yondu yanks him away from his dead carrier, Yondu does what had been done to him a thousand times as a child.
He slaps him.
Ain't a hard blow. Quill's a mite of a thing, small and skinny. His neck scarcely looks sturdier than the wire frame that holds his funky lil' headset together. It's hard to imagine that he's of divine heritage. If Yondu whacked him about at full strength, he'd crack the snivelly critter's cranium and do Ego's job for him. So when his palm is introduced to Quill's cheek, it’s with a snap that echoes louder than it stings.
Yondu's left bemused when, rather than freezing, cowering, and most importantly shutting up, Quill blinks twice, shell-shocked, and starts to bawl louder.
“Aw hell...”
He hits him back in the opposite direction. Still no dice. He picks him up by the throat – gently, gently; can't break him – and gives him a shake.
The sobs only increase, until the tremors make Quill's tiny body quake with their force. He's craning as far from Yondu as he can get, lil' legs running on air and delivering kick after futile kick to his stomach. His headphones slip over his forehead and dangle by the wire that links to the strange Terran contraption at his belt. Yondu dispassionately observes his flailing attempts to retrieve it. He takes in his snotty nose, the spit and tears that glaze his chubby cheeks.
Seems this route ain't gonna be effective. Time to change tactics.
He drops him. Quill hits the floor hard enough to wind, headset clattering besides him. It's a momentary reprieve. Next second the crying returns: all shaky sucks of air and reedy wails. The kid scrambles away from Yondu, belly-up and wide-eyed, dragging his earphones along the greasy floor. When Yondu makes to follow, he flings up his arms, quivering like a bunny.
Yondu stops.
Frowns.
Crouches, so he and the kid are on the same level, head tipping to a new angle as if that'll help him understand why the spill of saltwater from the Terran's tearducts has yet to cease. “What'chu so damn upset about, boy?”
Quill's face scrunches from the nose; his features seem drawn in towards that pointy centerpoint, as if they too are trying to make themselves small. “You hit me!”
“'Cause you was bein' noisy. I'll do it again if ya keep it up.”
“B-but I can't help it!” Quill gestures to his blotchy, freckled face with his blotchy, freckled fists. “I-I-I just... My momma...”
Yondu waits patiently for the sputtering to get out the way of the words. Then, when that doesn't happen, he sighs and makes to stand again – only to abort when the kid gasps and throws himself rearwards, so hard he damn near slams headfirst into the wall and knocks himself unconscious.
Something tells Yondu that saving the brat from Ego only to render him a vegetable wouldn't apply any balm to his conscience – which is, despite his best efforts to booze and whore it into oblivion, still spitting the name of every child he sent to their death in an endless guilty mantra. He sits back down.
“Okay, okay. I'm stayin' right here. But you gonna tell me whas' got ya so upset.” Violence hasn't gotten him what he wants, so he tries for a smile instead – big and toothy, one of his best.
The kid pulls a face. Well, Yondu'd like to see him coax the Ravager bureaucracy into putting together a dental plan – much less convince Stakar to extend it to his banished legion. He draws himself up, puffing out his chest and planting his thumb in the middle of it.
“You tell me what's wrong right now, boy. M'captain of this ship, you hear? Which means if you gotta problem, you come to me. Then I can sort it out, yeah?”
“What, by hitting me a-again?”
Yondu rolls his eyes. God, the kid's like an M-ship radio stuck on repeat. “Count yerself lucky thas all I did.”
Any color brought to Quill's face by the crying rapidly leaches out again. “You're gonna probe me! I knew it!”
Yondu blinks. “What?” Then scowls. “No. What? The hell you been fillin' yer fool head with, Terran?”
“That's what aliens do!” Quill glares at him, mutinous and terrified, a ball of vibrating pink emotion. “They abduct people, then they probe 'em! Everyone knows that!”
“Probe – kid.” Yondu shakes his head. “Yer way too young for that kinda talk. Look, only reason yer here's cause my boys wanted a snack.” A cover story he perfected in the mirror that morning. Quill will be safer – everyone will be safer – if his heritage stays on the DL. “I told 'em we weren't gonna cook you cause yer so small and skinny. Good for wigglin' in and out of places for thievin'. But it's too far from Terra to waste fuel droppin' ya back – so I guess that makes you one of us.”
Quill doesn't look enthusiastic about this. The sluice of tears doubles in magnitude. “Y-you m-m-m-mean, I'm I'm never, I'm n-never going home?”
Yondu rolls his eyes. “No shit. Okay kid, rules. You do what I say, when I say. Hell, you do what anyone on this ship with a flame patch tells ya to...” He pauses. Reconsiders. “Unless they try to probe ya. Then you come find me, and I kill 'em.”
Yondu considers himself a shining example of an ex-slave. That doesn't mean he wishes the crap he suffered on anyone else – least of all this blubbery, big-eyed kid, who quails on the floor of the storage cupboard he's been held captive in while they sort out his anti-virus injections, translator chip ugrades (thing's only calibrated for Xandarian and Kree so far, which'll let Quill understand an approximate quarter of the crew, Yondu included) and his basic biomed status, so they can feed him at mess without having him break out in hives.
Quill would never have survived, had his and Yondu's situations been reversed. He's too delicate. Raised too soft, too weak – whereas Yondu's parents made sure he knew what he was worth from the moment he was born. If Yondu treats him as he's been treated, Quill won't harden under the pressure. He'll just break. And that ain't fun for nobody.
Yondu's gotta toughen him up somehow. He's gotta protect this kid, whose fate has been laid out by heritage – and if that means he's gotta hurt him a lil' along the way, so be it. It'll be a fine line between pressing too hard and pushing too little. But that's a line Yondu struts along every day when dealing with his crew. Adding one more name to his list of able-bodied starmen can't be that difficult.
So he thinks.
Perhaps Yondu is as dumb as he pretends after all.