#also yes v2s missing arm is on the wrong side... but it was more for clarity because they would just be hanging onto nothing

[keideez]

Motorcycle racing in Hellscreek is really built different huh

Character designs from @megahertzmaroon 's Hellscreek au!

Original photos here; my last reblog is the masterpost these photos came from :D

[trashstoriesforthegarbagegang]

The Wild Things of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2)  Summary: Groot is overly tired. Gamora and Quill tuck him into bed with traditions from their home worlds. (some unspoken thing / family fic / right after V2 / too much sap on this sad tree to handle really and yep I just watched these movies alright but I fell in love fast and hard and haven’t posted a fic in years quarantine made me do it) Rated: K Word Count: 5,400

“Peter, bed time!”

It’s a memory that’s comfortable to slip into as a familiar melody plays on the Zune — a brief recollection that doesn’t take up too much time, a moment in time that is enough to put a smile on his face…and only slightly pulverize his heart.

“Five more minutes?”

His mother was tired, and it’s not just the end-of-day kind of tired that he grew up knowing. Somewhere in his heart, Peter knew that it’s the treatment which has her more exhausted than normal and when she held in a sigh, for his sake, he regretted asking immediately.

“I mean…” He grabbed the edge of the table where he had been fiddling with Erector Set that his uncle got him for Christmas a month ago that he hasn’t tired of for even a day. “I’ll go to bed. Yeah. Now’s fine.”

Meredith smiled despite her obvious desire to head to bed herself. She ruffled his sandy curls and asks, “What were you working on today?”

He beamed. “Just my cool Star Lord ship! Mama — mom?”  Meredith tilted her chin in a manner that told him to just ask. “Do you want to maybe read a quick book before bed? I mean, I can totally read to myself, I can read,” He emphasized, though truthfully he was behind for his grade and he has been struggling with basic books, but he didn’t want to worry his mother with one more piece of awful news. He’d been tossing the notes from his teacher in the trash and covering them with something gross so she wouldn’t know. “But you’re a better storyteller than me and I thought maybe…”

“Of course there’s time for a book before bed, if that’s what you want,” She responded sweetly. Letting him leave his spacecraft construction for another time, she didn’t even ask him to clean it up, just took his hand. “Do you want to read the next chapter in the book you’re reading at school?”

Due to the notes he’d tossed, she didn’t know he’d been downgraded from How to Eat Fried Worms and had been back to simple basal readers for two weeks. “No, no. I’m thinking something more classic. Something you used to read when I was half the man I was, and had half the strength I have now!”

She lead him to his room, covered from floor to ceiling in posters of all his favorites — Star Wars the most prominent of them. Peter crawled into bed and scooted close to the wall, leaving room for Meredith as she flipped through the old books from when he was younger, the few she’d picked up at yard sales over the years, as they didn’t own a ton of children’s stories. She was more of a library-trip-per-week sort of mom since it was something free to keep Peter busy for an hour; at least she had been that sort of mom before three months ago.

“Okay,” She smirked, holding up a title. She supposed it had been some time since she was last conscious enough to get through a book for him at bedtime, so the giddiness on his features was completely justified. She tried not to let guilt tear her apart.

“Yes, I still love this book even though I’m not a little kid.”

“Well I also still love this book and I’m definitely not a little kid,” Meredith teased him, kissing his nose as she slipped onto the mattress next to her son. He let out a contented sound and curled into her side, squeezing her tightly and nuzzling her arm. Meredith dropped another kiss to the top of his head.

“The night Max wore his wolf suit he made mischief of one kind and another…” Meredith’s familiar cadence washed over Peter and it was hardly long before his eyes droop until he shouted, “Be Still!” When it was time. Meredith rubbed his back, taming him just like a wild thing.

The book ended unceremoniously and it was too short and Peter was not ready for his mother to leave the room. As she told him sweet things and stroked his hair and kissed him three times and said a prayer, he clutched onto her hand, looking up at her with longing brown eyes to plead, “Please don’t go, I’ll eat you up, I love you so.”

Meredith was so tired. But as Peter’s eyes welled with tears of something that was impossible to verbalize for a little boy who was going through too many changes and anxious and a little bit lonely all the time, she laid down beside him, humming a comforting tune for him. “Baby don’t go…pretty baby, please don’t go. I love you so….pretty baby, please don’t go.”

“Mom?” Peter wondered, when he was almost asleep. “Can you put that book in my backpack?”

“Why?” She wondered, not sure that it was an appropriate read for school for a boy his age, no matter how much he loved it.

“That way, the next time we have a long night at the hospital, you can read it to me before grandpa comes?”

Peter jammed his finger on the pause button of the Zune, silencing Sonny and Cher. Maybe it wasn’t a completely easy memory to slip in and out of. He hadn’t heard the song since his mother sang it to him that night and when it came up on shuffle, it had been like a fist to the face.

Peter searched for a new song, relaxed in the comfortable chair in the lounge of what had been the Ravager’s ship that they’d made quick work of cleaning out over the last week since it became their second, much more spacious headquarters. Before he’d had a chance to sort through Thin Lizzy and Alice Cooper to the other random, random tracks that someone had downloaded to the device, Rocket suddenly appeared. He had a practically tantruming Groot following behind him, his little branch-like arms up, eyes squinted, tears on his cheeks and an awful sound that was not his usual coming from the back of his throat. Rocket looked as exasperated as the memory made Peter feel. “You’re it, Quill. I can’t listen to him anymore! He’s been carryin’ on like this for an hour! He don’t wanna play or eat or nothin’! Won’t say what’s wrong. Just hollerin’ like a baby.” He spit the word at Groot, who would usually stubbornly respond ‘I am Groot,’ — I’m not a baby! But their distressed, infantile colleague could just carry on in response.

“Well, he is a baby,” Peter said with a grunt, leaning over as Rocket rolled his eyes — of all of them, he still tried to think of Groot like a friend still, when clearly their little tree was not quite developmentally capable of that yet. “What’s wrong, bud?” Frowning a little at the sight of the toddler tree, Peter bent a hand low to try and comfort him, but Groot just walked up and kicked it pitifully, falling back onto his backside at the force and managing to scream louder.

“Oh, man, little dude! What’s gotten into you?”

He tried again to reach out, but Groot just flipped onto his side, kicking his arms and legs.

Rocket put a paw on his face and shook his head. “I seriously can’t deal anymore tonight. I don’t wanna hurt the twig.”

The second insult still didn’t work and he tossed up in defeat. Peter could sense that Rocket must have been really through with the behavior, given he’d pretty much sacrifice anything at any time for his best friend.  

“I got ‘im,” He said quickly and Rocket mumbled something incoherent about building a sound-proof greenhouse as Gamora, soaked in a layer of sweat in athletic clothes, obviously heard the fuss on her way back from working out in the Ravager gym, stopped in the doorway.

“Hey,” Peter smirked at her, despite the thrashing foliage on the floor. The skin-tight spandex pants she wore revealed her muscular calves and a good portion of her midsection as her top was cropped shorter than usual. Her hair was slicked back in a braid, small sections falling out. “Good workout?”

“Sure,” She mumbled, crouching on the floor to examine Groot. “Rocket just deposited him to you like this?”

“Said he’s been at it for almost an hour, that he tried everything to get him to stop. If Groot doesn’t even want candy?” He emphasized and the screaming didn’t cease, “Something must be up. Maybe he’s getting sick? Can trees get sick?”

“I’m not sure…” Gamora reached out her hand, but didn’t touch Groot. She kept it comfortingly beside him as he sniffed and screeched. “You know what?” She realized, finding another frown, “He didn’t take a nap this afternoon when we were on Berhert looking for our missing parts. He was being too stubborn in his attempts to help. He’s probably just overly tired.”

Peter scowled a little at their own shortsightedness and Groot quieted for just a second as he realized Gamora was in the room. “Hi,” She said sweetly, softly. “Are you ready for bed?”

“I am Groot!” He yelled at first, but it ended in a loud cry.

“I know you’re not a baby,” She replied with gentleness. “But that does not mean you do not require sleep. I know I am particularly tired today.”

“I am Groot?”

“Being strong also is not a disqualifier for needing sleep,” She gave a dramatic yawn for show. “I aught to get cleaned up and go to bed.”

“I am Groot?”

Peter chuckled. “You want to go with her? Buddy, you’ve got your own bed.”

“I am Groot!” He wailed.

Rumpling his brow, Peter wondered, “You sleep with her regularly?”

“Started when we got here…” Gamora shrugged as she tried to keep a blush down. “He says that his bed is too big and he’s scared of getting lost in it and he doesn’t like to be alone so…”

“I’ve said the same thing yet you kick me out of your bunk when I try it.”

“You’re not a baby,” Gamora leered though there was humor in her gaze.

“I am Groot!”

“Of course, of course,” She rolled her eyes. “You’re not a baby, either.” Gamora looked down at her glistening chest and shrugged. “I will let you come to my room if you let me take a shower first. Can you stay with Peter for a little bit?”

“I am Groot,” He whined, flopping over onto his back and glaring at the captain.

Peter winked. “I got ‘im. C’mon, buddy. I’m gonna show you something cool.”

“Just…” Gamora winced. “Do not get him all wound up if we want him to sleep, please?”

“I’ve got something in mind,” Peter agreed, managing to scoop Groot up, who finally stopped fighting him.

Gamora disappeared to get herself showered and Peter got the little tree on his shoulder. “So, when I was tired but didn’t wanna sleep, you know what I used to ask my mom?” Groot shook his head. “Five more minutes?” Peter said in a jumbled, silly kid voice. “I’d say, ‘mom, pretty please with a cherry on top can I have five more minutes? Then, she would take me into my room and do something like read a book or sing for me.”

“I am Groot?”

“No, Gamora is not my mother, dude,” Peter almost chuckled. “I like her a lot and she likes me a lot…we’re…well, it’s complicated. But we’re friends.”

“I am Groot?”

“Well, no, I’ve never asked Gamora for ‘five more minutes,’ because she’s never told me to go to bed before.”

“I am Groot! I am Groot!”

“Well, it is fair, but no, it’s not because you’re a baby. But you know, it’s ‘cause you’re growing. And you gotta eat lots of vegetables and sleep if you want to get big and strong like me.”

“I am Groot.”

“Hey, I am too strong! Mouthy little thing.” Groot let out another distinct whine and flopped back against Peter’s chest, making him chuckle. “Dude. We are so not skipping out on nap time just because you want to be a helper in the future. Anyway,” He switched topics before Groot could argue, “I wanna show you something.”

He walked the little bugger to a storage compartment where he kept the majority of his special… stuff. It didn’t have a lock on it. Despite their general attitudes towards each other and them being a bunch of assholes, he did trust his team. They knew better than to mess with something of one another’s that was sentimental.

The drawer was fireproof, though, just in case someone else tried to mess with his family at large via the ship.

Groot tried to jump into the compartment, but Peter firmed up his grip and tugged out a thirty-some-odd-year-old backpack. “This was mine, when I was a kid. On Earth, where I’m from, you have to go to a place called school whether you like it or not.”

“I am Groot?”

“Nah,” Peter smirked and tickled his chin with his thumb, making Groot squirm. “You’re gettin’ the best schooling in the galaxy right here, pal. But…” He tugged at the zipper with one hand. “I wasn’t really using it for school the last time I had it on. I had to go places a lot, kind of like we do, only I was no hero then…that’s for sure…” He shook his head after a moment of silence. “So I had stuff in here that wasn’t really for school. And this,” He pulled out a very well-worn paperback book, with a monster like something he’d find on a planet probably just four jumps away on the cover. “Was one of my favorite bedtime stories.”

“I am Groot?”

“A bedtime story! It’s…when you don’t really want to go to bed, and you ask your mom for five more minutes, and she doesn’t really want to give them to you, but she does ‘cause she loves you so stinkin’ much, but she still has to be responsible. So she reads you a book instead. Even if you’re too old for that.”

“I am Groot.”

“Well, Gamora could read it to you,” He said, he’d trust her with his special book, however, “I’m right here, though and she’s getting all clean and smellin’ pretty just for you, so how ‘bout I read this to you while we wait.”

“I am Groot?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Yes, you can still ask Gamora for five more minutes when she gets back.”

He pouted shrugged, bringing a little hand to rub his eye. “I am Groot.”

“Great. Glad you’re ready,” Peter held back a chuckle, plopping into a chair and keeping Groot on his chest as he touched the title like his mother always did. “Where the Wild Things Are, story and pictures by Maurice Sendak.”

“I am Groot?”

“Well, if you listen,” Petter squeezed his leg playfully with one hand, “You’ll find out what a Wild Thing is. Ready?”

When Peter turned the first page, he didn’t even get a chance to read before Groot gave a gasp and leaned forward, delicately touching the fluffy tail of Max’s wolf suit in the illustration. “I am Groot!”

“That’s not Rocket,” Peter laughed. “That’s Max!”

“I am Groot?”

“That’s Max!” He tried not to let himself get carried away as he pointed to the face of the boy in the picture. “He’s a little boy. Probably like…six Earth years old. Older than you, but not by much. He’s just as naughty as you.”

“I am Groot?” He pointed to the blanket on a string and Peter sighed.

“He’s making a blanket fort.”

“I am Groot?”

“It’s this, when you take a bunch of blankets and make them into like a cozy place to hide or be alone.”

“I am Groot?”

“Well, he wants to be alone because…actually, you know…” Peter touched the expression on Max’s face. “I don’t think he wants to be alone. I think he just wants his mother’s attention.” He could relate to that a lot. “I think he’s actually lonely. So he’s carrying on like this,” He looked down at Groot with a little frown. “Because he doesn’t know what else to do to get his mother’s attention.” Kicking himself for not realizing why Groot was acting the way he was with Rocket before — and even himself, he gently rubbed the top of Groot’s head with his finger. Gamora would be back before the little bundle of sticks knew it.

“I am Groot.”

“That is sad, huh? You know, maybe I should read it. Let’s find out if Max gets happy, okay?”

Groot nodded and Peter cleared his throat, making sure there was no emotion. “The night Max wore his wolf suit he made mischief of one kind…” He flipped the page, “And another,” Groot gasped, not liking the way that Max was chasing the dog around in the image before him. Peter turned to the next one, “His mother called him ‘wild thing’ and Max said, “I’ll eat you up!’” Groot shook his head as Peter had a flash of Yondu saying the same thing to him and smiled sadly, carrying on, “So Max was sent to bed without eating anything.”

“I am Groot!”

“Max is gonna be hungry, huh. He should have been kinder to his mother.”

“I am Groot,” The little one on his chest looked down.

“Of course we still feed you even when you’re…well, you’re not bad. You just don’t always make good choices, especially when you’re tired or when we’re tired. But this is just a story, remember? Besides, I think you’ll like how it ends.”

Peter managed to read as the forest grew in Max’s room and he sailed over the sea, Groot’s eyes growing wide as he touched Max’s fierce stance on his little ship as he prepared to fight a sea monster.

“And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”

Groot covered his eyes and Peter quickly turned the page, practically still knowing the book by heart to know what would come next. “Till Max said, “BE STILL!” and tamed them with a magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all.”

Peeking with another started sound, Groot stood up on Peter’s chest and shouted, “I am Groot!” holding his little hands up in the same way that Max did in the book.

“Are you going to be the most wild thing of all?” Peter asked with a little chuckle.

“I certainly hope not,” Called a gentle voice from the hall. Gamora had reappeared, squeaky clean in just minutes. Her hair was still wet and all tied up on the top of her head to be dealt with later. A pair of comfortable pants for sleeping was low on her hips, revealing gorgeous green skin. Peter swallowed hard.

“‘Xpected you to take a little longer.”

She leaned forward, her oversized shirt from some awful junk market they’d been too revealing too much with nothing underneath it (probably intentionally, Peter thought), “Well I knew I had a very over-tired somebody waiting on me, so I just wanted to wash the sweat off. “Are you ready, little wild thing?”

“I am Groot!?” He asked in a panicked tone, pulling his hands together under his chin and looking between her, the book, Peter, and back at the book.

“Five more minutes?” She chuckled. “Oh, you’re in the middle of reading,” Gamora said with a amusement in her voice.

“I am Groot,” He glanced up at Peter.

“Start over?”

“I am Groot!” Groot pointed to Gamora.

“That’s okay,  I have no need to start from the beginning,” She tried to start but Groot pouted hard and crossed his arms.

Peter winked at her, mouthing, “It’s short.”

At least, he assumed it would be, until he flipped back to the beginning and Gamora touched the same spot that Groot initially had saying, “It is a tail like Rocket’s!”

“It’s a wolf’s tail, a raccoon tail has stripes — like Rocket’s.” He said with an exasperated sigh the same time that Groot agreed with her, “I am Groot!”

Continuing to read, Gamora sat on her knees beside him, genuinely interested in the Earth bedtime ritual that involved reading of stories for children. There were no such works for children on Zen-Whoberi. Books anywhere in the Galaxy (outside of Earth, apparently) were honestly rare to come by, let alone with pictures meant for little kids.

“No wild rumpus,” Gamora whispered as Groot made a move like he was going to jump up and participate in his own halfway through the book (again).

“At least not before bed. Maybe tomorrow morning. You can boss Rocket around and tell him you’re his king.”

“I am Groot!” He approved of the plan.

Peter kept going, “…and Max, the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”

“I am Groot,” The littlest of the guardians sympathized, looking up at Gamora, who tried to hide her sympathy but didn’t do so well.

“Yes, that is why I let you stay beside me when you ask. It is hard to feel lonely.” She looked up at Peter with the smallest smile and shrugged. “But it is nice to have friends who can help you not to feel so alone.”

“I am Groot!”

“Hey,” Both Peter and Gamora corrected him at the same time. His best friends were the Guardians of the, “Freakin’ Galaxy.”

They read on as Max gave up his position in the forest, and the wild things told him, “Please don’t go, we’ll eat you up, we love you so!”

Gamora found that to be exceptionally cute as she looked at Groot, leaning back against Peter again, his eyelids so, so heavy as he struggled to stay awake for the end of the book.

As Max sailed in and out of weeks, Gamora observed Peter’s cadence getting a little slower as it came to an anticlimactic close. She imagined his mother must have read the book to him in much the same way when he was little.

“I am Groot!” Groot made a contented, happy sound almost like a giggle when he learned that Max had supper waiting for him in his room.

“…And it was still hot.”

“That is an excellent Earth legend, Peter,” Gamora said sincerely as he shut the book. He smirked as she used such high praise for a simple kid’s story. “Was this Maurice Sendak a philosopher of yours? Did he see the tale in a vision?”

Recalling several of the other oddly illustrated books by the guy that his mother had checked out of the library for him, Peter was quite sure, “Oh he was getting visions, though I don’t know they were celestial. More acid induced, probably. It was the sixties. Times were different.”

She didn’t know what that meant but accepted his answer seriously, as she usually did when he described anything about Earth. Groot had his eyes closed as he laid back Peter’s chest and Gamora smirked, nodding him towards the quarters she’s been sharing with Mantis since they arrived. “He could probably go in his own bed, if he’s already asleep?”

Gamora shrugged, voicing on his behalf, “I don’t want him to wake up feeling lonely.”

Nodding, Peter swiped his Zune and stuffed it in his pocket, carefully balancing Groot to stay in his sleepy position as they shuffled quietly down the hallway.

Gamora opened the door and gestured to the bed on the left, which had a little metal tool box on the nightstand beside it, with a red… “Is that my scarf?”

She shrugged. “He needed it more than you do. A regular blanket was too big,” She patted it and Peter tried to move with extreme caution, desperately hoping to keep the little guy asleep, but the movement was just enough to cause Groot to shoot up and cry, reaching up for Gamora. “Okay, okay.”

“I am Groot!”

“You have your own bedtime ‘ritual?’” Peter smirked, stuffing a hand in his pocket.

“I am Groot?”

“Sing?” He all-out smiled and took a seat on the edge of Gamora’s bed, making it obvious he wasn’t going anywhere for that. If she got to hear him read a bedtime story, he was going to hear her lullaby… “I’m just kidding, I can go,” He said when he watched her face go through a whole process.

“Um,” She was flushed as she held Groot on her shoulder and he cuddled into her. “I…it’s…”

“Seriously, I’m teasing —” He stood and was met with her other hand on his chest like a slap as she tried to let herself be vulnerable.

“You shared an important tradition from your home, so, I can share one, too.” She patted Groot’s back and took in a deep breath before sitting on the mattress with a little hum. “I, there’s…not many things I remember about home. I was so young and Thanos…he really manipulated most of my thoughts to make me forget. But, I…I never forgot the song my mother always used to sing before I went to sleep. In my cell in the Sanctuary, I could not sing it out loud. I would have been punished for that…but I would think it every night, so that no matter how much he tried to brainwash me, strip me of all the things important to me, I could never forget my mother’s song.”

Peter held his breath as Gamora hummed again, finding the tune. In a small, sweet voice she sang her people’s traditional lullaby for Groot, and him. There was such honor and privilege he felt to receive such a performance. “Foar tiid om te sliepen is it myn bern en de wyn groeit rêstich, en de loft is tsjuster, it is tiid, it is tiid. Ik sil jo hearre foar as jo rêstje, oant slûch jo forteart. Mar dan moatte jo allinich ôfdriuwe, mar noait echt allinich. Ik bin hjir, ik bin hjir, ik bin hjir.”

By the end, Groot was fully asleep again. Carefully, Gamora tucked him into Peter’s scarf in the little makeshift bed. Stroking his cheek, she smiled down at him then looked at Peter with a gaze that expressed a little bit of embarrassment, but mostly gratitude.

“That was beautiful,” He said with such genuine beam at her, it made her further blush. “What does it mean?”

“I…I’m not sure,” She responded with a longing sound from the back of her throat which meant she was suppressing a lump of emotion. “I do not remember our language. Just the song.”

“Gamora,” He frowned, opening his arm up. She let him hug her from the side. “It’s still beautiful. And I think it’s really sweet that you’re sharing it with Groot before he sleeps.”

Biting back a comment about how it would likely be the only time she ever got to share her mother’s song with a baby she was raising, Gamora added, “I really liked your story. How did you manage to keep it and your walking man and your orange-haired talisman all these years?”

Choking back a smile with how she referred to his stupid troll and broken music player, Peter explained how the book, among the other few possessions from 1988 had been in his transition bag from school to grandpa’s to hospital and that had been all he’d had on him when he was abducted.

“My mother also used to sing to me before bed.” He smirked, pulling out his Zune. “I didn’t hear this song since I left earth and it hit me like a ton of damn bricks earlier when it came up on shuffle.”

Offering her one of the earbuds, he clicked play and restarted the song. They got most of the way through it until Peter bit the inside of his cheek to keep from replicating the lyrics himself. “When I get to the city, my tears will all be dry. My eyes will look so pretty, no one's gonna know I cried.”

Gamora looked at the little album cover on the screen as the song started to fade. “Your mother, did she know Sonny and Cher?”

“She didn’t know them personally, but she admired the heck out of Cher. Sonny, well, poor guy. They’re basically like you and I, Sonny and Cher. Sonny was this guy with an annoying voice and bad haircut, and Cher was basically a goddess, but she saw something in him anyway and they were a great team.”

Gamora found a little grin at that. “I am hardly befitting of a goddess. I am physically more capable of you. But I do not believe you have a bad haircut, nor is your voice annoying. Just off-pitch.” He took his turn to let his cheeks flush through a chuckle. “Why did your mother pick their song as her lullaby if she did not know them personally? What was the meaning of it, then? Who sang the song to your mother, to pass down to you?”

“Oh,” He shrugged his shoulder. “That isn’t like, a traditional lullaby. I don’t think I know any of those. My mam—mother, she just liked to sing. Any song that came into her mind, so like, a different song every night. I can’t remember them all. But when this song came on, I remembered it very, very distinctly like a memory sucking me back in time.”

“Do you know of any traditional Earth lullabies we can sing to Groot?” She wondered with such an innocence about her, he was fairly sure she just wanted to hear him sing one for himself.

“I…” He thought back thirty years and shrugged. “I’m sure there was but they weren’t…just weren’t really important to me. I mean, there was a song they used to play on Sesame Street a lot that I’m pretty sure it was a lullaby.”

“Where is Sesame Street?”

“It’s where the air is clear,” He said in a joke that only he understood. “Sesame Street was a TV show, for children.”

“People of Earth value their children most dearly,” She said with her brow furrowed. “They make them telly-vision shows, movies, even books!” Peter shrugged, hiding another amused noise at her concept of ‘telly-vision.’ “What is the lullaby from this show?”

“Ernie, he was a muppet,” He paused, explaining, “That’s a puppet, which is like a plush animal, where a human controls it’s mouth and makes it look like it’s talking.” Gamora gave him a very confused expression but did not ask a clarifying question. “Ernie sang this song about the moon, and…good god, now that I’m thinking of it I think it might’ve been a warning for me,” He chuckled, trying to remember all of the words. “It went something like…Oh I’d like to visit the moon…but I don’t think I’d like to live there.”

“Well that is fortunate,” She said fighting her own smile. “You are well past the Earth’s moon out here.”

“Yeah,” He wound his arm around her again — he really had it in for the alien girl who was raising a talking stick with him (what a bedtime story that was). “You know, there’s another bedtime tradition on Earth that I could teach you about.”

“Hm?” She blinked up at him curiously finding a shit-eating grin stretched between his cheeks.

“A goodnight kiss.”

Gamora shoved off his chest playfully, responding, “Well, go ahead and give Groot a kiss goodnight before you leave.” She took her still-damp hair out of it’s bun and carefully reached into her nightstand drawer, taking out a brush and a tie. Peter extended a hand out and Gamora raised her brow.

“Are you going to tell me that hair brushing is also a bedtime custom on your planet?” She asked sarcastically.

“Nah,” He shrugged, taking the brush and starting to gently detangle her locks. “But we could make it a custom here.”

Flushing so her roots were pink like her ends, she let Peter brush her hair out with a surprisingly gentle hand. Gamora starved off a yawn. It was early, for the adults of the crew, but she supposed there was nothing wrong with succumbing to a very comfortable bedtime routine.