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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[Unlike how he found Quill, Peter does not find Gamora out getting nearly murdered outside the wall by big monsters. Hilariously, he's about to step onto the tram leading to his studio apartment while she's stepping off, at some ungodly hour. Again. He's not asleep this time, but for a ridiculous moment, he's not sure if he's actually awake. Because he's just — she's here. And he's here. And she's dead. He supposes in all fairness, he is, too, but — but that old icy twist in his stomach reminds him of his mistakes.

("You should’ve told us.")

He looks like a deer in the headlights, honestly. She could punch his lights out and he wouldn't even remotely move an inch until he was laid out. Last time he saw her... he — he'd ran away from her, beside himself with guilt and misery.

("So if we're teammates," he tells Mantis, "then I'm definitely pitching in and helping you guys find your friend. I promise! I mean, as long as I can remember I kept it, but I totally promise.")

(From a small Pete to a bigger one — "... Well, then I might as well pinky swear with you, too. I’ll help out wherever anyone needs me. And I’ll try my best to keep up with... whatever happens, whenever it happens. I promise.")

(Gamora considers him silently for a moment longer, then reaches out to him with her pinkie extended.)

("It’s a nice thought. It really is," Quill says, "But don’t promise me shit when I already know you can’t keep your word.")

He opens his mouth, but no words come out — especially no promises. The tram door starts closing on him, prodding as if annoyed at the delay.]

Edited 2018-09-04 06:33 (UTC)

[ Life has a funny way of working out, sometimes.

Like, okay, Peter's used to it driving him to his knees. He's used to it kicking him the balls, and taking a massive dump on him, and then tapdancing on his back just for fun before setting him aflame, but— sometimes, it throws him a bone. Sometimes, it shows him the slightest bit of mercy.

Sometimes, he's in the middle of running errands, staring blankly at a box of cereal, when his comm goes off. And sometimes, when he answers, the movements automatic and instinctive, sometimes, the voice on the other hand has good news for him.

It's Gamora.

And he's heard those words before, a thousand times over in the four years they lived together, in a thousand different contexts. But right now, it makes something in him shift, makes him stand in stunned silence for a few breaths, until the person on the other end has to check on him, has to ask if he's still there.

Peter croaks out, where?, and he's told she's at the hospital. He has mind enough to only offer a quick, Thank you— before he hangs up and runs.

(He thought he'd be happier about this, because he knew she'd be back. He knew she'd show up, because he had to believe it. He thought he'd be overjoyed. But right now he's feels— numb and dazed, and he's letting instincts take over.)

And when he rounds the corner to the hospital, and there's a green blur passing him by, and— his heart twists (terror? worry? he's not sure—), and he runs after her, calling her name, pushing past other pedestrians with only a quick word of apology.

And when she stops, he's out of breath, and his still injured side aches, but— she's there. She's there. Here. And he had been terrified out of his goddamn mind that he would never see her again, but— She's— covered in dried, caked blood, and— it's like something out of a horror movie. It's like something out of his worst nightmares.

Punched out of him, ] Oh, god, Gamora—

[ And he draws closer, reaching for her, but she whirls around. The knife draws a sharp line across Peter's upper arm, and he shouts, startled and pained, and stumbles back. ]

[Laura sits on a way too high perch somewhere in said training facility, legs dangling as she eats potato chips. She had been excited about Gamora's return — though in being with Quill, she knows something really terrible had happened in their world, something that made them both not quite themselves. So she'd given her some time, let her re-adapt, and spied from a distance.

She's not really supposed to be here in the training facility, but it was easy to sneak by and hang out in the rafters. When Gamora tells the poor soul to run again, Laura gives a sitting ovation. Good job, that's top quality instructor. Leave no trainee standing.]

[ Gamora is on autopilot. She’s getting from Point A to Point B without thinking about what she’s doing or where she’s going except— home. Somewhere familiar. It’s disconcerting for her to remember being in the Quarantine, but being home, but the Quarantine, and home, and—

It’s so hard to keep timelines straight right now.

She’s about to walk right past Peter, but she stops when he does, standing just outside of the tram as the door starts bumping him insistently.

She feels like she hasn’t seen him in years, but he looks the same.

She wonders if she’s changed, though. ]

It’s going to leave without you.

[ Everything in her is screaming to fight back – get away get away get away – and hearing her name, she doesn’t even recognize Peter’s voice. She lashes out because she has no idea what else to do, and she can’t let him— she can’t let him—

The knife slices down Peter’s arm before she processes who’s standing in front of her, and her chest heaves as she looks at him with wild eyes, not seeing, not focusing—

But it only takes seconds more before recognition dawns in her face. Terror melts into horror, regret, as she sees the trickle of blood cut through his jacket. ]

—Peter.

[ Her voice cracks, the knife falling from her hand and dropping to the ground. She wants to rush forward to him, but her hands are shaking, and she keeps looking at the gash across his arm, and— ]

I—

[ The poor trainee groans as they take off again around the course, but Gamora doesn’t immediately turn to the sound of applause.

Finally, hands on her hips, she looks away from her squad member to Laura. ]

What are you doing here?

[ God, she looks fucking awful, and his stomach churns with it, bitter and acrid and cold.

Maybe Gamora won’t move forward, but Peter certainly will. He doesn’t surge forward to close the space between them, but he’s slow, careful, a hand held out to her like he’s trying to calm a spooked creature. No sudden movements. That’s what got him the gash across his upper arm in the first place. ]

Hey. [ Soft, gentle. ] Hey. It’s okay. [ Even if it isn’t. Not by a long shot. But— ]

You’re safe here, okay? You’re all right.

Edited 2018-09-04 18:14 (UTC)

[ She's not composed enough for a bark of hysterical laughter that might have bubbled up, otherwise.

(Because how hilarious, saying that "it's okay." It's not. It's not, nothing is okay—)

But she isn't looking at him like he's some stranger, because she knows it's Peter, and something in her is screaming with relief, knowing that he's here and he's intact (or he was, until she swiped at him), and she'd been so scared for him, for the others, for the universe—

She didn't think she'd ever experience such all-consuming fear again. ]

Peter.

[ His name. She can say that right now safely. ]

Yeah. It’s me. I’m right here.

[ Still gently, still carefully, because he doesn’t want her to lash out again, doesn’t want her to try and snap his neck or something. (Thankfully, they’re only a stone’s throw away from the hospital, so hopefully if she does accidentally kill him, they can bring him back.)

He closes the gap between them with deliberate movements, and when he’s close enough to touch her, he stops just shy, casting her a questioning look. It’s been a long while since he’s had to ask permission. It’s been years since he’s had to be this cautious, but with her nerves so shot, with her on such high alert, with her instinct to fight cranked as high as it can go, he falls back on those old habits easily.

And just so he’s abundantly clear: ]

Can I—

[ touch you? ]

[ Gamora doesn't let him finish asking.

She throws herself into his arms, her own winding around his neck, her face pressed against his shoulder as she holds onto him fiercely. The last time she'd seen him, he tried to do what she asked of him. He tried to go through with his promise, and they'd been so close and he could have killed her and that would have been better that would have been better—

He smells like himself. Clean and familiar and whole. He's warm and sturdy and there, and she thought she'd never see him again. After Thanos took her, she didn't have any real hope that she could escape or find her way back to the Guardians. It was too late, at that point, and all she could do was try to protect her sister, try to keep Thanos from taking the Soul Stone, and—

She failed.

She had opportunities to take her own life sooner, moments she'd been left to her own devices, and she could have pulled it off, couldn't she?

(No, he would have put her back together, if she was still on his ship. It would have been too easy to keep her alive with all of his resources at his disposal.)

But now, she's here, somehow back in the Quarantine, and so is Peter. They're safe. They're alive. They're... something.

They're here. That's all she can process right now. ]

[Ah.

He steps aside — notably not with the tram, but to stand with her. Seeing the full force of Quill's despondence over Gamora and what happened at home only serves to freeze him up even more, and he feels his legs shake with what feels like stage fright. And god, he knows what stage fright feels like; he's never been good with an audience, but this is so utterly different. This is someone he screwed over, someone he didn't keep any promises on. A dead friend, who might have been able to avoid her fate a little longer if he didn't run away like a coward.

He opens his mouth, but nothing happens. No apologies or hellos or questions.

Did Quill tell her? Does she know that he knows?

How angry will she be? How much will she blame him?

He looks like he's seen a ghost, and against every ounce of restraint someone as sensitive as Peter tries to scrape up — his vision blurs and tears pool in his eyes. He hates it, but it's impossible to stop, no matter how much he tries to will it. His motormouth goes without him, though now what he blurts is surprisingly short and simple:]

Gamora, I — I'm so sorry.

This is all my fault.

[ He lets out a small, surprised sound as she throws herself at him, and it’s all he can to do to rock back a step, wrapping his arm around her waist to steady them both. His injured arm stays pressed against his side.

And— fuck. Fuck, he’s— he’s missed her. So fucking bad. This has been the longest goddamn week of his life, and— maybe, maybe if the situation were different, he’d actually fucking cry. Right then and there. He might break down into hiccuping sobs and gulping breaths from joy. But this is the situation they find themselves now: Peter, feeling weirdly... empty. Relieved, of course; over-fucking-whelmingly relieved, because he thought— he didn’t know if he’d— if Gamora would ever—

He’s relieved. Of course he’s relieved. But there’s blood flaking off the back of Gamora’s coat, and when Peter reaches to the nape of her neck, there’s blood matted in her hair, knotting the strands together, and when he ducks his head, he smells it, that metallic scent, and she’s trembling against him, her grip too-tight and desperate, and—

(He mourns.

... Gamora.

I had to—)

Peter screws his eyes shut, his grip briefly tightening around her. He can’t break down. He can’t. He has to hold it together. Because Gamora is— she needs him to be steady, right now. She needs to lean on him. She needs him to be supportive. She needs him to be the captain, just like Groot does, just like Mantis does. He shoves away his nausea, his mounting horror, that writhing, hideous guilt.

He swallows around the ugly lump in his throat, takes a shuddering breath as he lifts his head. He doesn’t pull back, not yet, and instead murmurs into her ear, ]

I’m taking you back to the apartment, okay? We’re gonna get you home and cleaned up.

[ Oh, he's—

He looks like he's going to cry, and he stammers out an apology, but rather than look heavily on with judgment, Gamora looks... confused. She didn't meet Peter back home, so she has no idea of his involvement or... any of it, really.

Is he apologizing for ditching her on the tram weeks ago?

(Years ago, for her.)

She puts a hand on his elbow, steering him away from the platform. ]

Come on.

[ Home.

The Quarantine was home for over a year, and now it's home again, isn't it? The only place they really can call "home," now.

Or, at least, the only place she can. Maybe Peter and the others are still alive through the portal, but she knows that if she went back, it would be to nothing. To literal, empty nothing. Would she disappear? Would there be some sort of afterlife waiting on the other side? Or would she go back long enough to experience the impact of hitting the ground far below the shrine on Vormir?

If she goes back, she's gone.

So Riverview has to be home, if she's going to live.

She nods against his shoulder, but her arms don't loosen around him yet, like she's terrified letting go will make him vanish. If she pulls away, will she find herself with nothing but fistfuls of bubbles? ]

I— Peter, your arm.

[ Because she cut him open. She did that, and she should take care of it. ]

[He lets her lead him, his heart thumping in his chest. He not only needs to just admit what he'd done, he needed to admit that he was involved — deeply involved, and that he was this Spider guy, that he wasn't normal and he didn't just surveillance for money, that he lost shoes and sleep over this entirely private thing he kept from her. So many stupid secrets, so many reasons he screwed this up—]

Gamora, you don't — you don't understand!

[He tugs his hand back a little, slowing them, looking at her desperately.

Just say it—]

I lied about what I do. I'm —

I'm one of the people who fought Thanos, on Titan.

[ He shakes his head. In a different moment, he might shrug his good shoulder and say, I’m fine, try to brush it off out of some compulsion to be macho or whatever.

This time, though, he offers, ]

I’ll take care of it when we’re home.

[ An assurance, solemnly given. He doesn’t want her to argue.

He reluctantly pulls back, the hand of his good arm curling over the line of her jaw, his thumb brushing over the deep, silver lines at the swell of her cheek. (Fuck, he’s missed her. He’s missed her so much, and his heart swells even as it twists, as bile rises up his throat. ]

Let’s get you home, okay?

[ She turns her face into his palm with a slow, shuddery inhale, bringing her hand down to curl around his wrist. She needs every point of contact she can manage, but if he's going to agree to deal with his arm back at the apartment, she doesn't have much reason to continue arguing. She nods, but she doesn't step away from him to start back.

She's not doing very well on this navigating part. ]

[The girl, who is in her signature shades, looks down with interest.]

I am watching people suffer to pass the time.

[ It’s just as well, because Peter’s already wrapping his arm around her waist, helping her to do the same with his. She seems— not unsteady, exactly, but not quite back yet. And considering he had been the exact same way when he first came back, shaking and panicked and wild with terror, he knows how grounding a solid touch can be.

He walks her home, taking familiar routes, familiar trams, and while passersby cast them alarmed looks (some of them horrified), Peter ignores them all in favor of murmuring to Gamora in a low voice, pointing out little landmarks as they pass. (Hey, remember that place? They serve great burgers. Oh, that’s the place that Groot broke their sandwich board, remember?) Nonsense, mostly; a constant hum of inane commentary, but anything to fill the silence that’s doggedly trying to settle between them.

They make it back to the housing building without anyone calling the cops on them, and he walks her into their shared apartment, kicking the door shut behind them. ]

—and Mantis has been staying here.

[ This, apparently, is attached to some earlier bit of information he had offered as they came up the hallway. ]

She and Groot are out, but— they’re okay. They’ve been here since we’ve been—

[ Home. But that can’t really be “home” anymore, can it? Not anymore.

He moves to help her shrug out of her coat. ]

—since we’ve been gone.

[ The chatter helps. She doesn't really respond, but she looks at the things Peter points out as they go by. It helps to jog her memory, bringing back the time in Riverview that had completely been erased when they went through the portal.

(She'd been counting on remembering everything from their time in the Quarantine. They'd tried so hard to prepare, but...)

She watches old hangouts pass by, clinging to the flashes of memory that remind her of the good times they've had in the city, as it lets her rebuild what she can remember of times that are now four years removed for her. But she knows the streets, she knows the way home, and she stays pressed against Peter as she ignores every onlooker and gawking pedestrian. She doesn't know what she looks like, but she can guess.

Once at the apartment, she just nods along as Peter explains that Mantis has been living there, and she thinks that must be nice. She's glad Mantis has been looking after Groot, that he hasn't been left alone (and he's little again, isn't he? It's so strange after dealing with their snarky bundle of twigs back in their world), and she just takes stock of an apartment that she knew so well.

She lets Peter help her out of her coat, but she barely casts it a glance. ]

Throw that out.

[ The coat is ripped, covered in her blood, and she doesn't want to try to salvage it. ]

[ The apartment is clean, at least.

Four years have left him a little more responsible, and shockingly, it’s translated to his brief time back in Riverview. It means he’s been keeping it up. And more importantly, it’s something to do with his hands, something to keep him moving. Something to keep him from sinking down and down and down into the dark muck of his thoughts. Little, easy tasks to keep from staring long and hard at the shadows just around the corner.

When she takes off the coat, when she condemns it to the trash heap, he doesn’t argue with her, just tosses it over the back of a chair to dispose of later.

And he guides her to the bathroom, breaking away from her momentarily to set up the shower, to let the spray of water heat up. He helps her strip off the rest of her clothes. It’s careful, slow, gentle and almost clinical with the way he does it. There’s dried blood on her clothes, too, leaving the material stiff, and— it’s flaking off with every shift, dusting the floor, dusting his hands, and he—

He feels sick, for a second. He feels so fucking sick, because it’s— it’s so much. It’s too much. It’s way too fucking much.

But he swallows down the acrid taste creeping up his throat, takes a shuddering breath. Hold it together, he tells himself. Hold it the eff together, Star-Lord.

He tosses his own clothes aside, and he steps into the shower first, guiding Gamora in. ]

[ The way Gamora moves is almost mechanical, stiff as her filthy clothes are abandoned, and she isn't sorry to see them go. Naked with Peter, she lets him guide her to the shower. Her whole body goes tense for a second when the water hits her skin, but as it washes over her, she starts to unwind, bit by bit by bit.

Dark green washes down her body and swirls around the drain. Mud goes along with it, and though the warm water stings over the remainders of her scraped-open skin, she doesn't flinch away.

Instead, she reaches out to set her hands on Peter's chest. The skin contact is a relief, and it's absolutely foolish, but she feels like she has to keep touching him. If she stops, he could melt away, so she has to hold onto him. She has to keep him safe.

She has to. ]

[ Gamora makes no move to wash herself, which Peter expected.

Instead, he pulls her against him, guides her to rest her brow against his shoulder, and he sets to work. A handful of bodywash, worked into a lather, and he rubs it into the worst of the mess caked onto her back. He tries to be gentle with the still-raw scrapes, the deep, dark bruises mottling her skin – and probably far more careful than he needs to be. He treats her like she’s made of porcelain, and— even with how often she insisted she wasn’t delicate, all the other times he’s done the same, he hardly feels guilty for it now.

And as he works, he keeps up that babbling, murmuring whatever comes into his head, just barely audible over the white noise of the water hitting tile. ]

It’s Dragosta again, apparently. Remember that stuff? Remember when you took that potion, and then we watched that movie? “No one puts Baby in a corner.” Maybe we can do it again, huh?

[ The shampoo comes next, and he hesitates before working it into the matted mess at the back of her head. His breathing hitches for a second, his words faltering, and he can’t— he doesn’t know what happened. He knows Thanos— he knows that the purple bastard—

He knows it happened, but Peter doesn’t know how. But with all the blood, he can hazard a guess.

He swallows thickly, loudly, hands shaking as he tries to untangle her hair, but his voice remains just as quiet, just as steady. ]

We can go to one of those dinners, when you’re feeling up to it. We can— we can walk the gardens, whenever you’re ready. Or see a movie again, or just— whatever you want. When you want. Okay?

Edited 2018-09-04 21:08 (UTC)

[ The patter fills the shower quietly, not disturbing the peace as she closes her eyes, leaning heavily into him. It hurts whenever he brushes over something open or barely scabbed, but she doesn't flinch or give any outward sign about the way she aches or how much her whole body feels like a throbbing, raw nerve. But finally, Peter is working the blood out of her matted hair, and she turns her face against his throat, breathing in the smell of him, exhaling all over again. ]

We can do that.

[ It's the first thing she's said to really respond to him. But the thought of Dragosta tries to kick up some soft flicker of warmth, because she does remember going to dinner with Peter, going to see a movie together with that absurd little thread tied around their fingers.

She wants to ask him if he's okay. She wants to know how long he's been here and what he remembers, and if he's alive back through the portal. She doesn't know what she's missed or what happened after Thanos took her, and...

She just wants Peter to be okay. She wants her family to be okay. ]

[ He pauses as he works, almost a little startled. He hadn’t expected a response, it seems; the babbling was as much for him as it was for her, if he’s honest, because he can’t— deal with the quiet. He’s never been able to, really.

He exhales slowly, just the tiniest bit of tension draining away, and he gently untangles her hair, working out the dried blood.

(The blood spins away into the drain, dark green and intense in a way that Peter isn’t ever sure he’s seen before. He’s helped her bathe after serious injuries in their four years together; he’s been caught, almost hypnotized, frozen and staring at a drain as her blood spun way and disappeared, but—

Never like this. Never so much. And he thinks for a second that he might be sick.) ]

No rush.

[ Murmured again, and he turns, brushing his lips over her temple. ]

You should get some rest. And when you’re feeling up for it, we’ll go. We have time.

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