[ Peter stays silent, his thumb smoothing over the bruised patch of skin where his hand rests. Partially because he’s taking the time to let that gaping hole in his chest fill up, slowly but surely, filling with warmth, making him finally feel like a person again. But mostly because he doesn’t have an answer.
Drax’s appearance in the doorway saves him from having to answer, though, and he feels the other man’s gaze on him, the weight of it. He must have passed the trail of bodies Peter had left in his wake, and even now, he stands beside the Jolly Green Giant, whose face Peter turned to pulp just minutes ago. Those ice blue eyes of his flick down to Peter’s hand, still atop Alec’s arm, to Alec’s various injuries, then back to Peter.
That knowing in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, and Peter finds himself bristling, those lingering vestiges of denial stirred from the mess of his emotions. Reluctantly, he steps away, feels the air punched from his lungs when that connection snaps. He waves Drax forward sharply, impatiently. ]
Grab him. [ Rough. Clipped. Professional. His hand brushes across the trigger for his helmet, the blue light filling his vision and leaving metal in its wake. He pulls his guns from their holsters, gives them a brief, nervous spin, because that bloodlust is crawling its way back up his throat, that need to make someone pay for what they’ve done. ]
I’ll cover you.
[ After that, Peter lets himself fall back into that red haze. Shooting and firing and leaving a bloody, body-strewn path to their escape route. Wasting precious seconds by glancing over his shoulder, gaze snapping to Brennan as if part of him worries he’ll disappear, even though something in him is fixed on his presence, spins and tugs like a compass needle pointing at magnetic north. It’s wildly disorienting, as much as it is comforting, but Peter needs the visual confirmation, all the same.
They escape, because of course they do. They’re the motherfucking Guardians of the Galaxy. The trip to the closest medical facility is spent in tense silence. Peter takes up watch by Alec’s side, stares into the middle space between them. He fights when they take Alec away to perform something better than slapdash, stopgap medicine on him, something instinctive and visceral raging inside him. Gamora grabs him by both wrists and fucking stares him down until he calms.
(Thank God for Gamora, he thinks later. And thank God she didn’t see fit to knock him the fuck out for being such a shit.)
And hours later, Peter’s skin itches for an entirely new reason. Hospitals. The quiet hum of conversation. Distant sobs and moans muffled by multiple walls and doors. The soft, insistent beeping and whirring of machinery. The crackling voices over the PA system. The overwhelming smell of disinfectant and medicine.
It makes him want to throw up.
But he situates himself at Alec’s bedside, jacket thrown over the back of the chair in which he now sits. He rests his cheek against the crook of his arm, folded over the edge of the mattress. His free hand rests against the invisible band on Alec’s arm (or his closest approximation of it; his memory of that brief second in which Alec showed it off was a little muddled). Nighttime on the station, and well past visiting hours, but Drax stands outside the door, scaring off anyone who would express any reservations with his existence.
And so he sits. Waits. Basks in the feeling of being whole after God knows how fucking long. And swallows down that overwhelming urge to beat the shit out of Alec for all of it. ]
no subject
Drax’s appearance in the doorway saves him from having to answer, though, and he feels the other man’s gaze on him, the weight of it. He must have passed the trail of bodies Peter had left in his wake, and even now, he stands beside the Jolly Green Giant, whose face Peter turned to pulp just minutes ago. Those ice blue eyes of his flick down to Peter’s hand, still atop Alec’s arm, to Alec’s various injuries, then back to Peter.
That knowing in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, and Peter finds himself bristling, those lingering vestiges of denial stirred from the mess of his emotions. Reluctantly, he steps away, feels the air punched from his lungs when that connection snaps. He waves Drax forward sharply, impatiently. ]
Grab him. [ Rough. Clipped. Professional. His hand brushes across the trigger for his helmet, the blue light filling his vision and leaving metal in its wake. He pulls his guns from their holsters, gives them a brief, nervous spin, because that bloodlust is crawling its way back up his throat, that need to make someone pay for what they’ve done. ]
I’ll cover you.
[ After that, Peter lets himself fall back into that red haze. Shooting and firing and leaving a bloody, body-strewn path to their escape route. Wasting precious seconds by glancing over his shoulder, gaze snapping to Brennan as if part of him worries he’ll disappear, even though something in him is fixed on his presence, spins and tugs like a compass needle pointing at magnetic north. It’s wildly disorienting, as much as it is comforting, but Peter needs the visual confirmation, all the same.
They escape, because of course they do. They’re the motherfucking Guardians of the Galaxy. The trip to the closest medical facility is spent in tense silence. Peter takes up watch by Alec’s side, stares into the middle space between them. He fights when they take Alec away to perform something better than slapdash, stopgap medicine on him, something instinctive and visceral raging inside him. Gamora grabs him by both wrists and fucking stares him down until he calms.
(Thank God for Gamora, he thinks later. And thank God she didn’t see fit to knock him the fuck out for being such a shit.)
And hours later, Peter’s skin itches for an entirely new reason. Hospitals. The quiet hum of conversation. Distant sobs and moans muffled by multiple walls and doors. The soft, insistent beeping and whirring of machinery. The crackling voices over the PA system. The overwhelming smell of disinfectant and medicine.
It makes him want to throw up.
But he situates himself at Alec’s bedside, jacket thrown over the back of the chair in which he now sits. He rests his cheek against the crook of his arm, folded over the edge of the mattress. His free hand rests against the invisible band on Alec’s arm (or his closest approximation of it; his memory of that brief second in which Alec showed it off was a little muddled). Nighttime on the station, and well past visiting hours, but Drax stands outside the door, scaring off anyone who would express any reservations with his existence.
And so he sits. Waits. Basks in the feeling of being whole after God knows how fucking long. And swallows down that overwhelming urge to beat the shit out of Alec for all of it. ]