Chapter Text
Gamora tells herself that it isn’t an impulsive decision.
She’s spent several weeks thinking about it, at a safe enough distance from Knowhere – and her sister, and Quill, and all of the others she cannot yet bring herself to face – that she should be able to reason clearly. And, to anyone on the outside, it would look like a well-reasoned choice. Thanos took her from her home, all but destroyed her homeworld. And her decision to leave – to betray him – has once again left her without a home. It follows, naturally, that she would want to lend her support to a project helping others in the same position. Especially because her hatred of Thanos and her brief interactions with Nebula are the only things that feel even slightly familiar in this timeline.
There’s also the small fact that she doesn’t actually like being a Ravager, even a captain of her own crew. That’s an understatement, actually. She hates being a Ravager. They’re unclean, they smell disgusting, and they are chaotic in a way that sets her teeth on edge. Plus, she can’t trust them. They may not be as deadly as Thanos or any of her siblings in the Black Order, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still harm her, and it doesn’t mean she sleeps well at night.
She is so tired of being on her guard.
So it makes sense, strategically, to take her crew to Knowhere and pledge their assistance with making it habitable.
She tells herself all of those things, but she knows it’s a lie. Because she might have taken time before acting on her decision, might have come up with half a dozen rationalizations before voicing it aloud to her crew. But the truth is, she made up her mind a split second after seeing the place strung up with a thousand frivolously colored lights; after seeing how impossibly happy her sister has become. She is an impulsive idiot, and maybe she always has been.
It would be more impulsive if she were to turn around now, she tells herself, as she pilots her M-ship into Knowhere. She’s already here, the decision has been made, so now she needs to go through with it. At least she had the foresight to leave the rest of the crew behind while she embarks on what may turn out to be a fool’s errand.
As she disembarks from her ship, she comes to the frustrating realization that she doesn’t even know where to find Quill; another sign of how impulsive she’s become. She could have messaged Nebula, or even Quill himself, but the idea of announcing her presence in that way feels so much worse than arriving in secret.
Forcing herself to walk with confidence, she strolls from the ship dock towards where the Christmas festivities had been centered. That is where Quill was before, and that seemed to be the center of the efforts to fix up the place.
Yet somehow she still finds herself taken aback when she turns the corner around a building and there, in the middle of the action, is Quill. He’s got a pad in his hands, talking to various people as they count the boxes surrounding them. He seems to be taking inventory of something. As she watches, several people hold out pads for him to sign, presumably needing his approval on something.
She’s frozen in her tracks before she’s consciously realized what she’s doing, all the bravado she’d mustered a moment ago forgotten. Fortunately her instincts still function, so she’s mostly concealed in the shadow of the building, still several hundred yards away from where the majority of the activity is taking place. She has no idea who any of the others here are, and she ought to be taking more stock of them, assessing potential threats.
But for some reason, all she can do is look at Quill. It isn’t just that he’s attractive – though he is, infuriatingly so. There’s a peculiar magnetism about him that she sensed before, that seems to draw others in around him. Perhaps that’s even what’s won her sister’s trust, something Gamora herself has never entirely managed to do. Still, though all of the workers in sight seem to view him as their gravitational center, he looks decidedly adrift. He reads each pad before signing off, but none of his expressions quite meet his eyes, which are filled with a deep exhaustion that makes her want to –
Gamora is about to shake off the inertia and force herself to get moving again, to announce herself and propose the deal that she came here to make. But she doesn’t get the chance, because somehow, Quill seems to sense her presence, or perhaps her attention resting on him. He looks up and meets her gaze from a distance, as he had that day during the musical presentation. Slowly, very slowly, a smile spreads over his face, and she feels as though she might be looking directly into the sun.
He says something to the person standing next to him and begins walking her way, making no effort to hide what direction he’s going. Gamora quickly ducks back behind the building so no one else will see her. It’s not that there’s a shortage of people surrounding her already, but those people have so far taken no notice of her. Seeing Quill, the leader of this entire enterprise, head right for her will draw a lot more attention than she wants.
She briefly considers turning around and heading back to her ship before Quill can make it, then shakes off that thought as cowardly. He has already seen her, and smiled because of it. She might not be the person he wishes her to be, but she does not want to be responsible for making that smile fall off his face.
Sentimental fool, she chastises herself. She is here for a purpose, for business, not to care about whatever expressions may or may not cross Peter Quill’s face.
Though she cannot help but note that the expression he wears when he comes all but running around the corner is full of hope, hope that transforms into an even bigger smile when he catches sight of her.
“Gamora,” he says, with that soft tone he’s used the few times he’s said her name… Well, the few times she’s heard him say her name. “You’re–you’re here. Hi.”
She crosses her arms and stands her ground, resisting the urge to lean toward him. It’s as if he has his own damn gravitational pull, and it irritates her. Is that a little-known fact about Terrans? But no. That would be ridiculous, particularly for such a primitive species.
“Yes,” says Gamora, narrowing her eyes at him. “Did you think you had imagined it?”
She meant it sarcastically, as a jab at his reaction. But the way that he flinches, eyes darkening and mouth tensing at the corners – and why does she keep looking at his mouth, anyway? – tells her that perhaps he actually did think that. Nebula has told her of his obsessive search for her. Of his grief, and the fact that his friends are worried for him. It’s pathetic, she tells herself. A weakness that could so easily be used against him. And one about which she most certainly does not care.
Yet she can’t help noting that he looks even more exhausted than when they’d spoken before, the shadows under his eyes darker and the beard shadowing his jawline a little longer. She also can’t help wondering about the fact that, in the intervening weeks, he’s sent her only one message – a simple acknowledgement of hers – despite having her code. If he was as inconsiderate, as obsessed with something as frivolous as a lost love, as she would like to believe, why hasn’t he bombarded her with attempts to communicate?
“‘Course not,” he says finally, shrugging in a poor attempt at nonchalance. “Obviously you’re here, in the flesh.”
“Obviously,” she drawls, with what she hopes is a better attempt at disdain than he’s managed at nonchalance. She forces herself not to shift from foot to foot or give any other sign that she’s feeling anything but cool and confident, and certainly not like she’s now struggling with how to start the conversation she came here to have.
“So, um…” Quill rubs the back of his neck, then puts one hand on the wall of the building they’re standing next to and the other on his hip. “What are you…did you come to see the Christmas stuff again? Cause we took that down last week, but we definitely kept all the stuff! I’m sure Mantis would love a reason to put it up again –”
“I am not here for that,” she interrupts, because he’s taken his hand off the wall and seems poised to go unpack all of the holiday stuff himself for some reason.
“Oh.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets now. She follows them to make sure he’s not going to grab a weapon, as she’s been trained to do her entire life, and certainly not to look at his thighs. Does he always wear such tight pants? Are his thighs truly as muscular as they look?
“Are you here to see Nebula?” he asks, snapping her out of her thoughts. She feels heat flood her cheeks, purely from anger at having allowed her mind to wander like that.
“Obviously not,” says Gamora, embarrassment boiling over into defensiveness. She has no reason to be snapping at him, and yet she cannot quite contain the impulse. Which also is not like her. Perhaps his impulsiveness is somehow contagious. “If I was here to see my sister, it would be at a previously appointed time and place.”
“Good point.” Quill looks around, as if searching for Nebula. As if he expects to be told that actually this is the appointed time and place she’s just mentioned. For a man Gamora’s been viewing as self-absorbed, even cocky regarding her particular interest in him, he seems…awfully uncertain.
She clears her throat, hating the way his hesitance seems to be contagious as well. “I believe I am here to speak with you.”
“With – you believe –” he stammers. “With me?”
“Yes,” says Gamora, aiming for confidence again but forced to admit that she probably falls well short. “You are the leader of this operation, are you not?”
He runs a hand through his hair, then shifts to lean against the wall again, an image of cool poise that’s ruined by the way she can see the muscles in his throat working and hear his heart racing. “Well, of the Guardians, yeah, I am.”
“And the Guardians –” It feels strange to say that word. To imagine her sister belonging to such a group. To imagine herself that way, as they all seem to see her. “The Guardians own Knowhere, correct?”
“Yeah,” says Quill, drawing the syllable out in a way that’s now decidedly cautious, like he’s expecting her to try and stake a claim on the place or perhaps dispute his ability to undertake this endeavor. Which, to be fair, she has imagined doing. Before coming here, of course. Before realizing that he is…like this. It defies words. And the logic she has always relied upon.
“Then I am here to speak with you,” she says firmly.
He nods and stands a little straighter, shoulders appearing even wider as he does so; not that she is paying attention to his shoulders or how wide and strong they may or may not look. “Okay. Do you, uh…I don’t really have an office we can step into, but do you wanna sit down or something?”
“That will not be necessary,” she tells him, then braces herself to just do the thing she came here to do. “My crew and I would like to help you in your mission to make Knowhere a sanctuary for those displaced by Thanos.”
She watches as another one of those slow smiles spreads over his face. It takes a shameful amount of effort not to allow her face to transform in response. “Really?” he asks eagerly, as if she has just offered to complete the work herself with a snap of her fingers – no, bad analogy. “I mean, that’s awesome! That’s great! Wait.” He looks at her, puzzled. “The Ravagers want to help?”
“The Ravagers want to do whatever I tell them to,” she says with much more confidence than she feels. “Provided, of course, we are paid accordingly.”
“That sounds more like the Ravagers,” he mutters. He used to be one of them, Gamora knows, because she makes sure to research anyone who she is possibly going to work with. Not for any other reasons.
“Is that going to be a problem?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She suspects that it will be. A part of her is banking on it, in fact. It would give her a reason to say no, to conclude that doing this thing – which, she’s increasingly alarmed to discover, she really wants to do – is simply impossible. It will be difficult enough to convince her crew to follow her here even with steady pay. In fact, she’ll be lucky to return to her ship and not discover that a mutiny has occurred in her absence.
Quill scratches the back of his neck again, a motion she’s beginning to recognize as a tell. She can’t decide, though, whether it indicates that he is trying to outright lie or simply that he’s doing a very bad job of feigning confidence that he doesn’t feel. “Of course not. We’re not, you know, lookin’ for free labor. That would basically be slavery and that’s not cool.”
Gamora arches a brow. “Or volunteerism.”
He lets his hand drop, looks at it as though surprised by its presence, and stuffs it into his pocket. “Right. Right. Which might be okay for you, but not for your crew?”
She wonders whether he is this anxious around everyone or only her. She’s used to intimidating people, of course, but that isn’t quite what she’s reading from Quill. “Right. Shall we negotiate a rate, then?”
“Yeah,” he says too quickly, then clears his throat. “I mean, yes. But, uh, that’s the thing.”
“The thing?” she prompts.
He winces, then immediately tries to cover it with more bravado. “I can’t make that decision by myself.”
“Ain’t no way,” Rocket says vehemently, which is exactly how Peter knew he would react. This is why he’d been so nervous about this part. He’d have been willing to give Gamora all the money they have if it meant she would stay, but there’s the small matter of it not being entirely his decision.
Still, he tries to remain calm and diplomatic as they talk. They’re meeting at the Tivan Corp's old offices, where the rest of the team had been focusing their efforts the past few days. He’d messaged the team on their way, hoping not to surprise them with Gamora’s presence. Mantis, Drax, and Groot had still reacted excitedly, but held themselves back at Peter’s quelling glare. Nebula did not seem super surprised at Gamora’s presence, despite Gamora saying she hadn’t told her she was coming. Rocket is pretending not to care, but Peter knows him well enough to know he’s happy to see her. Even if he’s not happy to give up money to keep her here.
“Why not?” Peter asks, glancing back to make sure Gamora hasn’t bolted. She hasn’t, though she is holding herself a few steps back – a deliberate choice, Peter’s sure, to keep herself apart from the team. She also hasn’t spoken thus far, instead allowing him to make her case for her. It seems uncharacteristic, though he knows that she isn’t always fierce or assertive. Sometimes her brilliance is in knowing when not to act. Still, he isn’t sure if that’s what’s going on right now, whether her reticence is strategic or driven by fear.
“‘Cause we’ve done nothin’ but drop units on this place,” says Rocket, predictably. “We paid the Collector, we’re payin’ for repairs, and we’re payin’ ourselves to do this instead of other jobs.”
“Which means it’s only logical that we also pay anyone else who helps us fix it up,” Peter counters, though it’s certainly not an argument he’s made before or one that’s been consistently applied. Bzermikitokolok and his crew, for instance, are here without pay, though they have cut a deal to keep the profits from anything they find worth salvaging and selling. Provided he signs off on it, of course, which means that he spends a whole lot of his time lately deciding what to approve or not.
“Logic doesn’t mean we can afford it,” Rocket insists, with that glint he gets in his eyes every time he discusses money.
“We made plenty on the Terran Christmas Experience,” Peter points out grudgingly. “And besides, as I keep reminding you, this isn’t a business for profit.”
“It’s not?” Drax asks. Peter ignores him, but Gamora side-eyes him.
“It is a venture,” Rocket argues. “A venture that needs money to stay alive. A venture that does not need three dozen Ravagers stealin’ everything they can find!”
Peter scoffs, but he does have a pretty damn good point there. “Ravagers don’t steal everything they can find. And that’s rich, coming from you! You love stealing!”
“I am Groot,” he agrees.
“Rocket says it is not stealing if you want it more than the other person,” Mantis says.
“Rocket is an idiot,” Nebula says without bite. She’s sitting on a crate close to Gamora, pretending not to watch her.
“Oh, yeah?” Rocket says, equally without bite. “What did you get me for Christmas, again?”
“Guys,” Peter says quickly, before this can devolve any further. “Can we focus, please? You gotta admit that more help would get the work here done quicker.”
“Not if that work is done by a buncha drunk thieves,” Rocket argues, shaking his head. He turns to Gamora, addressing her directly. “Sorry, Gamora. We can pay you. But not your whole crew.”
Peter sighs, but not even Drax or Nebula argue the point. “The Ravagers will not do anything for free. And there’s no way to keep the respect of a Ravager crew if you even suggest doing volunteer work.”
“Correct,” says Gamora, finally speaking up. She takes a few steps forward, which doesn’t quite make her a part of the group but at the very least brings her out of the shadows. “My crew can be a considerable asset, provided that they function under my orders. I understand you have some of your own experience with Ravagers, but I doubt you’ve encountered any with a captain like me.”
That’s true, Peter thinks immediately. Because he knows the Ravagers and their penchant for functioning in total chaos, right on up to their leadership. He’s been wondering how Gamora fits into that structure, knowing how much she dislikes disrespect, disorganization, and poor hygiene. But also, because there just isn’t anyone else like Gamora. Not in the whole damn universe. He knows that better than anyone.
“Maybe we should give them a chance,” he suggests to Rocket. No point trying to appear unbiased when nobody will believe him anyway, right?
“‘A chance’ with our units, you mean?” Rocket retorts. “No. Payin’ her is givin’ things a chance. Payin’ a Ravager crew to come into our home and steal from us is insanity.”
“We can negotiate a rate,” says Gamora. “But we must be paid, and it cannot just be me receiving compensation. Either you pay all of us, or you get none of us. That’s the choice.”
“None of you, then,” says Rocket, drawing himself up to his full height.
Peter is about to interrupt, to beg Rocket to reconsider or the others to intervene. Anything to keep her here, even just a little bit longer. He hasn’t had enough time with her – will never have enough time with her, or enough of her. He never could, he’s certain, but the inherently selfish part of him can’t stop grappling for as much as he can get.
But Nebula speaks before he can, surprising him as she slips off the crate and stands. “There is another option, sister. We pay you, as Rocket said. And the Ravagers go on their smelly way.”
“I am not dropping everything to become a Guardian,” Gamora says, as soon as Nebula has dragged her into another room to talk in private.
Nebula rolls her eyes. “Odd that you should say that, when I do not recall suggesting it.”
Gamora bristles instinctively at her tone. “You suggested I abandon the Ravagers to come work here with you.”
“That is exactly what I suggested,” Nebula says calmly. This calm, collected, mature Nebula is still taking some getting used to for her, as she’s so different from the Nebula she remembers…But that Nebula is gone. As is the Gamora that this Nebula knew for the past four to ten years, depending on how she thinks about it. “At no point did I say you had to re-join the team.”
“Join,” Gamora insists. “Not re-join.”
Nebula waves her off. “I have never been interested in semantics, sister. Call it whatever you like. But you cannot honestly tell me you would rather continue living with the Ravagers than living here, doing something you clearly want to do.”
“You do not know what I want,” she says stubbornly. Nebula just levels her with a look, which is a look that Gamora’s pretty sure she has given Nebula in the past. It makes her relent just a little. “Fine. I do not enjoy living with the Ravagers. They are disgusting. But they at least don’t expect me to be the person they remember me being rather than the person I am.”
“No,” Nebula counters, “they expect you to be a dirty, drunk, petty thief.”
“The captain of petty thieves,” says Gamora. She’s aware it’s a stupid argument, but she still winces at just how asinine it sounds when she says it aloud. Being a Ravager was never her plan – not that any of her plans included coming nine years into the future. But she did have plans before, or at least fantasies. She had always meant to find a way to stop Thanos, to break free of his control, exact vengeance for her parents, her homeworld. All of his other crimes. She isn’t certain what she imagined doing after that – because, if she’s honest, she never truly expected to survive it – but it certainly wasn’t ever this.
“You have always been better than that,” Nebula says firmly, without any hint of the scorn Gamora would expect. It’s these moments with her sister that she finds the most disorienting, the most unsettling. “And no one said that they expect you to be your counterpart. Have you considered that perhaps you are the one placing that expectation on yourself?”
“Quill expects it of me,” says Gamora, because it’s an easy argument, even as it rings hollow.
“Does he?” Nebula asks skeptically. She crosses her arms, though, taking up a bit of an offensive posture. “What has he done to make you think so?”
“I…” Gamora starts to speak, then realizes she does not have a concrete answer. She tries to think of something Quill has said or done, and is startled to find that she cannot come up with anything. “It’s the way he looks at me. Like he knows me. Like he wants me to be able to jump right back into being in a relationship I have never been in.”
Nebula tilts her head and, to Gamora’s surprise, actually smirks at her. “If you do not know him, how can you discern his expressions so well?”
“It is obvious,” Gamora says through gritted teeth. “As is your smug attitude.”
Nebula scoffs. “Gamora. I know Quill. If I thought he was trying to pressure you into something, I would run him through with a dull, rusty knife.”
Gamora tenses instinctively; for some reason, as happy as Nebula’s willingness to defend her makes her, the idea of her – or anyone – hurting Quill causes something unpleasant to unfurl in her chest. It is quite inconvenient.
“You know what I think, sister?” Nebula asks, still infuriatingly smug.
She sighs. “I’m sure you are going to tell me.”
“I think you are keeping yourself from happiness,” Nebula informs her.
Gamora crosses her arms, bristling. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Yes,” Nebula agrees, cocking her chin in a way that indicates she’s talking about Gamora’s own behavior, not the statement she’s made. “It is. And here I thought you prided yourself on your ambition and your strategy.”
“I did,” says Gamora. “I do. Which is why I can only stay here and help rebuild if my crew and I are to be adequately paid.”
“That’s an excuse,” Nebula insists. “I should know, I had plenty.”
“What,” Gamora scoffs, “when you were captain of a Ravager crew?”
“I was, actually,” says Nebula, surprising her. “For a time after we both left Ronan. And Thanos.”
Gamora can’t help gaping at her for a moment, trying to determine whether this is a manipulation tactic, a lie to make her admit to something she wouldn’t otherwise disclose. “You?”
“Oh, yes,” says Nebula. “There was also the interlude where you attempted to return me to Xandar to collect the bounty on my head.”
“That does sound like me,” Gamora admits, feeling a brief stab of guilt. On some level, she has always known that her sister deserved better from her. As does everyone here on Knowhere. But that requires her to believe herself capable of better, and that’s where she is certain she’ll disappoint.
“Do not go feeling guilty,” Nebula says disdainfully, as if feeling bad for treating one’s sister as a bounty is absurd. “I tried to kill you plenty of times, so we are even. Actually, I am winning.”
Gamora huffs out a small laugh despite herself. “Is this a competition? And if so, are you winning because you have more reasons to feel guilty or less?”
“Everything is a competition,” Nebula says with a shrug. It’s a familiar phrase, one passed between them and their other siblings over and over under Thanos. And yet now, she says it so casually, as if it doesn’t matter nearly as much who wins said competition. “And more reasons, I suppose.”
“Then I think I may still be winning,” Gamora says softly.
Nebula rolls her eyes again. “Fine. Think what you wish. Be insecure about your own abilities if you wish. Make yourself miserable for no reason other than thinking you’re not allowed to be happy if you wish. But you are not fooling me. I’ve been in this spot.”
Gamora glares at her sister, mostly because she’s right. Not that she is about to admit it. “I am not insecure in my abilities.”
Nebula smirks, victorious. “Prove it.”