riverviewlogs | ( open ) did you do it?

Entry tags:

( open ) did you do it?

who: gamora and YOU
what: returning from an infinity war canon update and Trying To Deal
when: beginning of september through the middle of the month
where: around the quarantine
warnings: infinity war spoilers, mentions of death, probably body horror, etc etc etc

ɪ. ᴀ ʀᴜᴅᴇ ᴀᴡᴀᴋᴇɴɪɴɢ

[ Everything hurts.

It’s been a long time since Gamora could safely say “everything hurts,” but when she jolts awake in a hospital bed (familiar and strange at the same time), her whole body feels like one big bruise. She sits straight up, ignoring the way she hurts, trying to shake away the insistent pain.When she reaches to touch the pounding point on the back of her head, her fingers find dried blood, what seems like a scabbed-over trauma, though she can’t quite figure out how—

It hits her like a blow to the gut.

Vormir.

The cliff.

The Soul Stone.

Thanos.

Gamora covers her mouth with a hand before she makes herself sick thinking about it. She shakes on the small cot, her eyes wide, sounds trapped behind her palm as four years of memories war with the realization of where she is.

Riverview. The Quarantine. She knows this place, she knows this hospital, but she— hadn’t. She had forgotten all about it, and she’s four years older now. She’s four years older, and she’s—

When an attendant comes to check on her, Gamora nearly strangles them on instinct alone, reacting to the adrenaline in her system screaming fight fight fight fight fight run—

She’s a mess, but when she grounds herself enough to let the poor attendant go (coughing, choking, looking absolutely startled and taken aback), she bolts. Her familiar leather coat is covered in dried green blood. Her hair is matted with it, the smell of ancient dust clinging to her skin, scapes across her face, her hands still left to heal. But she doesn’t care. She can walk, she can run, so she isn’t going to bother with the 24 hours of supervision.

If they want to try and hold her, they can.

Good luck.

She makes it blocks away from the hospital before she finally stops running, and she grabs at her shirtfront with trembling fingers as she gasps for breath, still quaking, still processing, still raw and running on the adrenaline of remembering what it felt like to be dragged to the edge of a cliff and thrown. She finds the spot on her stomach where she’d tried to stab herself, only to lose her dagger to bubbles, but that glimmering silver knife is back in her belt, untouched.

With a shout that fills the night air, she rips the knife away and hucks it as far from herself as possible.

No, no, no.

She’s not paying attention to where she throws the knife (fortunately retracted), so there’s every possibility she’s thrown it at someone or it’s simply clattered across the pavement, remaining unscratched and unscathed with a glittering red jewel that seems to mock her from a distance. ]

ɪɪ. ʙᴜsɪɴᴇss ᴀs ᴜsᴜᴀʟ

[ Days later, and Gamora is more composed. Not settled, not happy, not relieved – but composed. She’s cleaned up, put back together, and reinstated as captain of her squad again. Some might reasonably argue that she’s not ready for duty again, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be benched.

She needs something to do. She needs something to keep her mind off of everything that spins through her head when she lets it.

Which is why she’s spending extra time at the training facilities, running some poor unfortunate souls through some unusually rigorous drills.

When an obstacle course is cleared for the second time, Gamora stands waiting at the finish line, her arms crossed, her face impassive and unimpressed. She jerks her chin back to the start of the course. ]

Run it again.

ɪɪɪ. ɴᴏᴛ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏʟɪᴅᴀʏ sᴘɪʀɪᴛ

[ Oh, hey, it’s Dragosta. Gamora remembers the festival well, though it’s still strange to try and reconcile her memories of home with her memories of the Quarantine. Unlike vague curiosity the first year around, Gamora looks on with fondness in her eyes (just the faintest softening in her expression, barely readable to a stranger) as she plucks up a little bottle with red thread inside of it. The woman minding the display offers it to her with a warm smile, but Gamora turns her down.

She doesn’t need it.

She leaves the table of jars and spells behind, instead heading back to community housing. She makes it most of the way back, navigating through a crowd, before—

Those damn fairy lights.

She finds her way suddenly impeded, and when she pushes her hand against the invisible enclosure, she downright glares when she can’t move forward.

Sorry to the person who happens to be stuck with her, because your fellow prisoner looks particularly murderous. ]

ɪᴠ. ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ʜᴇʀ sᴜɴᴋᴇɴ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ

Has anyone returned home through the portal and then come back to the Quarantine? Did you lose time? How much?

ᴠ. ᴡɪʟᴅᴄᴀʀᴅ

( ooc: you know the drill. hit me with anything and everything or send me a pp @poprocks to work something out! )

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[ His gaze flicks over to her briefly before returning to stare at the window.

And still in that careful tone, ]

You were being rough on them. Rougher than they probably needed. That's all.

Noted.

[ And she seems prepared to leave it at that, especially as the tram is slowing to a stop at their station.

Groot hangs onto her hair from where he's perched on her shoulder, but he keeps glancing back between the two of them with some measure of uncertainty as Gamora steps out onto the platform. ]

[ He lets Gamora step out first, watching her back for a breath or two.

(His hands are shaking again as he pulls one down his face, as he tries to rub the grit of one too many sleepless nights out of his eyes; they always seem to shake these days. Exhaustion, probably.

But he's keeping it together. He's tired, sure, and that familiar numbness sticks with him throughout the day more often than not, like he's on the outside looking in, but he's keeping it together. That's the important thing. He's doing a decent job, he thinks, taking care of the others. It's worth it.)

He follows her out not long after, staying a step behind as they return to the housing building. He's quiet as they go – a marked difference from the soft, reassuring babbling he had offered when she had first returned.

There's just... not much to say, these days.

But Groot flashes him a worried look, and Peter offers up a smile and a shrug in return, as if to say, What can you do, huh? It placates the kid for the moment. ]

[ She's— tired, she realizes. And it's odd to feel tired – actually tired, when her body needs so little sleep to begin with – but sleeping means stopping and slowing down, and it means leaving her open to too many memories and nagging nightmares and—

She has better things to do.

She makes it up to the apartment with him, going into the kitchen to let Groot hop off of her shoulder. She gets his food out first, and once the lid is off of his rice bowl, he's practically diving headfirst into it to stuff handfuls into his tiny mouth.

... He's an absolute monster, but the forks are still too big for him, so this... works?

She fetches utensils for Peter and herself, setting them by her own bag of food, before she's shrugging out of her jacket (a new one) to go hang it up. She's about to walk past Peter on her way to the closet, but she pauses, just long enough to reach out, set a hand on his arm (above the bandages she knows sit below his sleeve). ]

[ Peter sighs a little as Groot dives into his food, leaves a mess as he practically swims in the thing. He grabs hold of the kid by his waist, pulling him out bodily. ]

Slow down. That food's not going anywhere.

[ And Groot casts Peter a dour look, rice and sauce and bits of broccoli clinging to his face. He looks on the verge of saying something snitty, but instead, the kid just goes back to his food – albeit at a more restrained pace.

Peter's about to shrug out of his own jacket when Gamora pauses beside him. He— doesn't quite tense, but it's near enough, before he answers the gesture by resting his hand atop hers, lightly squeezing her fingers. ]

Go ahead and dig in. I'll take care of that.

[ And he holds out a hand to take her jacket. ]

[ She feels that shift, slight as it is, and she has a hard time not latching onto it as she glances down to his hand set over hers. She shakes her head, and she lays her jacket over her elbow, before holding her hand out for his instead. ]

I can take care of it. Just eat.

[ For another brief second, Peter looks on the verge of arguing, but—

He really doesn't want to fight. And especially not over something as stupid as putting a jacket away, so he nods, shrugging out of his own jacket. The movement on his right side is a little slower, a little more careful, but not so obvious as to be worrying.

He hands it over before taking a seat at the table next to Groot &ndash apparently he's intent on keeping the kid from literally swallowing down his own hand in his rush to scarf down the food. ]

Thanks.

Mm.

[ She takes the jacket from him, and she goes to hang the two garments up in the hall.

For half a second, she pauses at the closet door, pressing the heel of her hand over her eye – not rubbing, but fighting off some of the heaviness that's stubbornly clung to her since... well, since everything. But the moment passes, and she walks off to join Peter and Groot with their food.

Her fingers trail briefly over Peter's shoulder, before she sits beside him, pulling her bowl over to set in front of herself. She pokes at it with a fork, mostly watching Groot stuff himself. ]

[ As has been the case these past few days, quiet falls over them again. Usually they'd eat dinner on the couch, side by side, with the TV on while some movie or whatever programming passes for sitcoms on Riverview played. Peter hasn't done that since he's been back, though; the noise is— grating. The canned laughter feels irritating, the stupid situations the characters find themselves even more so, and it just— didn't entertain him, really.

The same has been true since Gamora's been back. It just hasn't felt right. So they have this instead: weirdly quiet dinners, because Peter is finding it harder and harder to keep up idle chatter, like he usually does.

He pokes at his food, deigns to take a mouthful, every now and again, though he's keeping an eye on Groot. When the kid starts picking up again, becoming a small hurricane and tossing food aside, Peter murmurs, ]

Groot. C'mon. Slow it down.

[ And the kid pauses, a hunk of meat hanging from his mouth. He chews slowly, pointedly, but does as Peter says.

With the silence broken, Peter clears his throat. Then, quietly, ]

You work again tomorrow?

[ Gamora lets Peter handle scolding Groot, if only because he's more on top of it than she is right now.

(It's somehow odd to be dealing with him at this age again? Not bad, per se, because he's... not quite so dour, but unfamiliar.)

She shakes her head with a sigh, resting her arm on the table as she takes a bite of her rice.

Peter's voice makes her glance up, but she shakes her head. ]

No, I haven't been assigned anything.

[ Oh.

He pokes at his food again, working his way up to something again, then, ]

Did you—

I, um. The festival thing is still going on, I think. Dragosta. Did you... wanna go look around, or...?

[ Peter is so tentative about this, and it reminds her of when they'd first arrived in Riverview, what feels like ages ago. Careful, uncertain, testing boundaries. ]

We could find one of the dinners they host.

[ She also has no problem poking around the festival in general.

(Even if there's still a cold pit in her stomach that dully asks "what's the point?"

She tries to ignore that.) ]

Or one of their movies.

We could. If you want.

[ Because Peter's been bowing to the needs of the others, lately. It's easier, seeing to what they want than it is attending to himself.

Peter's not entirely sure if he wants to deal with Dragosta and the crowds therein, but this is something to do, at least. Something better than staring at a wall or driving coworkers to exhaustion, something better than standing still and letting all those dark thoughts catch up to them.

He moves a piece of beef around in his bowl, apparently not yet committed to plucking it up. ]

Or if you'd rather just have a quiet day in, that's fine, too. Whatever you want.

[ Gamora pauses in turning over her own food, watching Peter with the smallest wrinkle in her brow.

"Whatever you want."

It's been his mantra since she got back, and as much as he'd differed to her before, as he'd been eager to do things with her that she enjoyed, this... grates in the wrong way. It feels nervous, like he's tiptoeing around her, and that's worse than just being.

She's about to say something – she really is. But then she looks down at Groot, still stuffing his face, and rather than bring anything up right now, with the little sapling present, she decides this isn't the time. ]

I said I wanted to already.

[ He pauses, fork poised over the piece of meat he's still poking around, and he blinks at her for a second. Was that a telling pause? Or is he reading too much into things?

But he doesn't want to press, so he nods, finally scooping up a mouthful of rice. ]

I was just makin' sure. I know that atmosphere isn't really, you know. Your kinda thing.

But it is yours.

[ And Gamora likes doing things with Peter. She likes doing the things that he likes (within reason, obviously). She wouldn't do something if she found it particularly distasteful, but—

She likes seeing Peter happy, and it's rare that she ends up genuinely displeased by spending her day like that with him. ]

I guess so.

[ It is, admittedly. It's 100% his thing, usually, but a part of him would rather just— do nothing.

Which, admittedly, isn't productive.

But, okay. She's right. It's his thing. (Like that song by the Isley Brothers.) And even if Peter isn't particularly feeling it, if he's really honest, maybe that little bit of normalcy is what they all need, right now. Peter slotting into his usual role, and Gamora slotting into hers. Maybe it'll help with this weird, suffocating atmosphere that's settled over all of them.

He takes a breath, puts on a sunny, tight-lipped smile. ]

Yeah. It'll be fun.

[ Of course she isn't convinced by that smile.

(It's hard to believe much of Peter's good cheer right now.) ]

It will be.

[ She gestures lightly to Groot with her fork. ]

Maybe Mantis will babysit.

[ A quick hesitation, barely more than a blink of an eye, before he lets out a quiet, noncommittal hum. ]

Yeah, maybe.

Won't be a big deal to take him along, though.

[ The hesitation may have been something to brush off in another circumstance, but the answer outright confuses her enough to take notice.

She... kind of assumed Peter would want to visit the festival as a date. That's the point of Dragosta, isn't it? It celebrated romantic love, unlike Hygge or some of the other events that made sense to enjoy as a family; most of the activities were for couples or intentionally made it easier for couples to have time together.

Groot, as much as she may care for him, was not conducive to a romantic evening.

(Does Peter not want that? Is he intentionally avoiding it?

What if he's worried about being alone with her? What if he thinks she's been so affected by everything with Thanos that she's become unstable? What if he thinks she might do worse than cut open his arm?

What if—)

But Groot is right here, and the idea of asking for an explanation is suddenly wildly unappealing, so she just— shrugs. ]

All right.

[ The truth of the matter is, Peter prefers having everyone where he can see them.

Mantis needs her privacy, though, so he doesn't begrudge her that. She stepped away, and even if he had wanted to keep her nearby, wanted to tell her, "No, no, it's cool, just— stay. Please," he didn't.

Maybe he's being overprotective, though. Maybe he's being unreasonable. But it feels like every time the team separates, every time they put lightyears between them, bad shit tends to happen.

Rather than explain that, though, his gaze flicks over to the subject in question, and— apparently Groot is right back to inhaling his food, bent over the bowl's edge and just shy of swimming in his rice. Peter plucks him up again, putting him on his feet. ]

You're gonna choke on broccoli if you keep that up, kid.

[ Groot makes the whiniest noise imaginable when Peter takes him out of his bowl, but he also doesn't immediately try to dive back in.

Gamora reaches over to brush a little sauce off the top of his head with the edge of her napkin, sighing as she cleans him off. He puts up with the fussing, though he's still shoving handfuls of rice into his mouth as Gamora wipes some of the mess away.

He's going to need a bath after this.

But that seems to be enough for her dinner, because she crumples the dirty napkin, getting to her feet to go drop it in the trash. She finds the lid for her leftovers so she can take it to work for lunch on her next shift, then deposits her mostly-full bowl into the refrigerator.

Rather than leave her fork in the sink to be dealt with later, she sets about washing it, along with the stray plates that sit at the bottom of the basin. ]

[ He glances up as Gamora moves, watching her for a breath or two and— ]

You're done already? You barely ate.

[ —he says, having done the same.

(And for a brief second, he feels and sounds like his mom lecturing him when he was seven years old, but he shoves the stray thought aside.) ]

I didn't say I was hungry.

[ In fact, she intentionally asked if Peter was, instead. She rarely had that nagging reminder to eat these days, like she just... forgot to feel hungry.

Her body will get over that eventually. She knows that it will. ]

You should still get something down, you know?

I mean, you barely touched it.

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