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quietwings-fics · 5 months ago

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so don't forget it

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Fandom: Guardians of the Galaxy Ship: Gen (Drax & Gamora, Gamora & Thanos) Additional Tags: Hair Brushing, Past Child Abuse, Trauma, Past Violence, Gamora Needs a Hug (Marvel), POV Gamora (Marvel), Post-Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Pre-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Canon Compliant, Team as Family, Past Character Death, Song Lyrics Wordcount: 1950 Summary:

Murderess and Destroyer, plotting patricide over hair care.

Child of Thanos is a cruelly ironic moniker. Gamora has never been sure if that was the intention or if it was truly how he saw them. What could daughter mean when it came from the mouth of a man who’d starve her for a week for refusing to beat her sister’s brains in and praise her the next when she finally broke and kept hitting and hitting until she couldn’t see the green of her own skin under Nebula’s blood. Thanos said it was love, then, to allow Gamora to be led back to her room (cell) and given a hot meal and not made to stare at Nebula’s body. Gamora spent a long time thinking that she had finally killed Nebula. Some irrational part of her was jealous. There was more spite in her wishes for Nebula to live than sisterly love.

Nebula did not die. She came back with wires and metal holding together the bits of brain Gamora had broken open. For one brief second, all that anger at the idea that Nebula had gotten to escape, even in death, had vanished, and Gamora had just seen her sister.

Nebula had tried to put a knife in her throat. Thanos told Gamora to break her wrist. And she did.

Nebula had hair before. It was as dark as her eyes and long as Gamora’s own, something she was proud of. They must have shaved it when they welded her skull back together. It never grew back, never grew at all ever again. She got crueler about Gamora’s after that, always trying to rip her hair out from the scalp, yanking her head back nearly hard enough to snap her neck before Gamora always got the upper hand. She tore chunks of it out that Gamora had to grow back in uneven chunks. The only mercy she was ever spared was that Thanos never expected his children to be anything less than mangled. Some lost hair was nothing to another victory.

She knows, a very, very long time ago, that someone once brushed her hair and sang to her. (It’s possible she made that up. She wants to believe it’s true, and that’s what matters.) She knows someone gently untangled the knots with a comb and a kind promise that any pain would be over in a moment. She can’t remember if it was her mother or father, or some other relative she doesn’t even know she should remember, or a family friend whose face is long gone from everywhere in the universe. It certainly wasn’t Thanos. The only times he touched her are vivid in her head, the titan’s hand on her shoulder after every won fight, forcing her to look at what she’d done to her opponent while he droned on about survival, or his fist closing like cuffs around her wrist to drag her where he wanted her to go.

The last person she thinks may have touched her hair was Nebula, and Nebula wanted her dead. Not exactly a happy memory.

She’s used to being awake when no one else is. The Milano is small. Maybe that should make it feel cramped, and it does, some days, when Quill is on her last nerve, but mostly it feels alive in a way that every room she’s ever slept in before didn’t. Thanos’s ship was defined by its deferential silence. The Milano in the early hours is filled with snoring and Rocket’s sleep talking and occasionally, music that whoever was last at the helm forgot to turn off before going to sleep. She mouths the words unconsciously as she gets up, press your space face close to mine, love!

Drax is an early riser, too. He probably sleeps as well as she does, considering his whole... everything. So, they’re both running from nightmares, probably, and both pretending that’s not what they’re doing, that being awake at some ungodly hour is the mark of a disciplined warrior and not someone scared of their own memories. She’s walked in on him telling stories to a very interested Groot before. Sometimes, she sits and listens. She never believes a word of Quill or Rocket’s bragging, for her own sanity, but Drax? He could probably tell her he took on an entire army single handedly, and she would believe him.

The little tree is asleep today. Drax stares off into the expanse of space, still and soundless, an unreadable expression on his face. For all that they’re often the only ones who see each other this early, they don’t really talk. The ship fills their comfortable quiet with the low purr of the engine and the inescapable creak of metal that Gamora sometimes convinces herself means the ship is about to be torn apart by its own speed. That allows her to be pleasantly surprised every time when it is not. She drags her fingers through her hair and winces at the pull on her scalp when she snags a knot.

“Do you want assistance?” She tries not to jump at the sound of Drax’s voice, and when she fails, she tries to pretend that she didn’t instinctively reach for where she’d keep a dagger. (She’s stopped carrying any sort of sharp object on her while in the Milano. It cuts down on how many times a day she gets accused of trying to stab someone. Never mind that she hasn’t actually stabbed anyone, except for that one time Quill snuck up behind her and grabbed her shoulder, and besides that was just a tiny stab, and he shouldn’t have been such a baby about it.)

“I don’t need your help,” she says, automatic refrain.

“I know. You’re incredibly skilled.” Drax doesn’t really do compliments. Drax does statements of fact. He continues to look at her, waiting for an answer that isn’t a deflection because he’s not going to register it otherwise. She glances away, at the stars outside, at Groot sleeping in his pot, at a grenade that someone (Rocket) has left out on the table like an explosive breakfast muffin.

“Yes,” she answers, finally. It’s not like anyone else will see. Except maybe Groot, and she gets the feeling that he can be a reliable secret keeper when he wants to be. Drax stands up and goes rustling around in the cabinets for a bit. At this point, she’s not that surprised when he comes up with a comb. It turns out, search around in the Milano long enough, and you can find just about anything. Quill’s a part time space mercenary, part time hoarder. She sits down in front of Drax and realizes that she’s going to have to consciously turn her back to him for this to work.

She can do that. They’re teammates now.

(And there’s still a dozen ways she could kill him, even without turning to face him, she reassures herself.)

She braces herself. The Milano creaks again. Drax’s hand brushes her back as he gathers up the magenta tips of her hair. He starts at the bottom. She stays rigid, waiting for the inevitable yank, but there’s just an insistent sort of pull instead, until the knotted ends are straightened out. Slowly, he moves upwards, the strokes of the comb becoming longer and longer. The Milano creaks and creaks, but it flies steady and strong through the stars.

She can’t help relaxing after a little while. It’s the most pleasant thing she’s felt in years. Decades, really. It feels like patching each other up after bar fights (that Gamora has stopped pretending she’s above) and exchanging money for the bets they made beforehand on who could take on how many assholes. It feels like when one of them will start humming, and another will tap along to the rhythm, and eventually someone will break into the lyrics because there’s no way not to. It feels like that time Quill went and got himself shot, and they all decided separately that the best thing to do was to pile up around him to sleep.

She has no idea what to name this feeling, but she’s going to die if she ever loses it. And she’ll go to that death gratefully.

Drax brushes her hair, a soft scratching sound where her hair rubs against the teeth of the comb. It scrapes at her scalp sometimes, never aggressive, leaves a tingly warmth behind. She thinks she might be smiling. She stops that immediately. A minute later, her face does it again. “You’ve done this before,” she says, because maybe if her mouth is more focused on forming sentences, it will be less likely to make ridiculous expressions.

“For my daughter.” Gamora’s smile falls away. Well. That is what she wanted, isn’t it? “Kamaria used to claim that she would grow her hair long enough to reach her feet. Ovette and I both told her how impractical that would be. She still refused to cut it. She might have even achieved her goal.” The shadow of Ronan lurks accusingly behind his words, and behind him, a greater shadow and one Gamora is all too familiar with standing in.

“I’m sorry.” It’s what you’re supposed to say in these sorts of situations.

“You are not the one who murdered them.” Some part of her wants to point out that it didn’t matter before, that proximity to Ronan was enough for Drax to lay a death sentence on her head. Murderess, he named her. He wasn’t wrong, not really. “One day, when I’ve separated Thanos’s head from his neck, they will be at peace, and I will be at peace.” He sounds certain. He runs the comb through her hair again. The knots are all gone now. “And you will be at peace.”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works.” Drax hmms thoughtfully.

“Would it help if I also let you remove parts of him before we kill him?” Gamora actually considers it. She thinks about Nebula’s blood on her hands. If she could cover that blood with Thanos’s instead, she still won’t be able to see her own skin, but at least she won’t be looking at her sister’s viscera whenever she closes her eyes.

“I’m not sure about ‘at peace’,” she says, “but yes. That might make me feel better.” Drax claps her on the shoulder. She stiffens, but his hand is already gone. The comb clatters when he puts it on the table.

“If killing Thanos doesn’t work, there are plenty of horrible people in the galaxy. We can always find more.” That sounds like a promise. She runs her fingers through her neatly combed hair. Murderess and Destroyer, plotting patricide over hair care while another Earth song hums through the air, I like to see you, but then again, that doesn't mean you mean that much to me.

Groot stretches in his pot and stares at the both of them sleepily. Gamora reaches out a finger for him to hug.

“Why not?” She agrees. “Someone should.” And if that someone is a bunch of assholes in a too small ship, well. Who’s going to stop them? Groot butts his head against her hand. It’s going to be chaotic, soon, when Quill and Rocket wake up and they all argue about where to go next and what to do and who, exactly, ate that last pack of cookies they picked up on Telmorra. And she will throw Drax under the bus for that, even if she was the last one anyone saw near the cookies.

So if I call you, don't make a fuss.

Don't tell your friends about the two of us.

The Milano sings, and Gamora listens, and Gamora understands.

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#fanfiction #1001-5000 #teen and up audiences #marvel #genfic #drax & gamora #gamora & thanos #gamora mcu #drax the destroyer #groot mcu #hc

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