Hi! This is my first GOTG story. It will have a bit of swearing, so I apologize about it.

English is not my first language, so if there are any mistake I would really appreciate if you tell me so I can learn more and write better things. This chapter is an "introduction" chapter to my story and I hope you enjoy it.

There will be swearing, bit of violence, and Peter whump!

Chapter 1

It's always hard to lay down to rest after a long exhausting just for your brain cells to rebel against your body and fight the ache till you became wide awake again.

You can feel your body muscles trembling for the need of a break, but at the same time your neurons function in such a way that everything seems enhanced: you can predict the movement of the wind around you, the dancing of the simplest sounds at your vicinities –some you would not even normally hear—and even give a detailed recapitulation of every single thing you've witnessed been said and done during that day, even if you weren't paying attention to it, it always seems as if your brain actually was.

His deserted room was colder than usual, or so it seemed to him, but this was not the first time he had been in this kind of situation. No, not at all. Since they had left the Nova Corp he had encountered this kind of nightmare situations a few times, always having a few nights without a single hour of rest until his body could no longer accept his stupid brain decisions and shut down. Badly. He would feel tired, hungry and grumpy for a few days —with even Groot leaving his side during those times — and then out of nowhere he would find himself asleep in the weirdest positions in the weirdest places of the Milano, and the cycle would end. So, no, he was not worried this time, but he knew it was the beginning of a cycle he could no longer afford to be on.

And that was how Peter Quill found himself one horrible night on his bed, his body screaming for a night's sleep after hours and hours of cleaning the Milano because "someone" –mainly Gamora—felt it was the most disorganized ship she had ever put a foot on, and his brain fucking functioning like it was made of Christmas lights and it was midnight on the 24th of December.

Damn it…— was his only thought.

Closing his eyes for the 4th time that night, he began thinking about what had happened the last few months, something he never puts time into unless his in this kind of situation, because if he did… he would probably freak out and get the hell out of there to the nearest moon.

After saving the universe, he and his crew — yes, his crew — had decided to work on different type of jobs, to make it interesting, for the Nova Corp and other creatures around. Simple things, nothing too complicated or out of the ordinary for a trained assassin, a talking genius raccoon and a literal maniac. Yeah, those were his friends and crew. When had that happen, uh? When had he decided to become a hero and a captain? To save the universe from evil creatures while making a living out of it? He was supposed to be the screw-up, a lone wolf that lived life a day at a time and now… now others depended on him and though it was nice to wake up to a known face that did not want to kill or shoot you, it also was freaking him out.

During his childhood Yondu and the scavengers had told him to learn to follow orders, to not fuck it up — though he had done it every single time and they never stop reminding him of that — and to never trust or care for anyone but himself. That aliens where there to eat his tender Terran flesh and you were always better on your own.

Peter chuckled at the dark thought that often came to him during these sleepless nights. How had he put it? Oh, right…

"Listen, my boy..." — he closed his eyes and could remember ever muscle of that ugly blue face tensing so as to make every word out slowly for the brat to understand them. This had been when he was barely a kid and he had been so close to him that he could feel his rotting breath against his small face like a slap, his broken teeth and mouth moving forming each and every word and drops of saliva hitting his face with every single one. But he had not moved during the entire speech — "If you want that sweet little ass of yours to survive, take care of it on your own. 'Cause if ya give it to someone else, you might find yourself under a rock at the age of 30 and you ain't be coming back to blame me, got it?"

Yeah, it was something like that — he thought and smiled to himself.

But if something had happened these past few months was that he was no longer sure about Yondu's wise words. His comrades had each other's backs and even when he thought he had been alone and surrounded, someone had always appeared out of nowhere to save him.

He counted on them, he really did, and they seemed to count on him. They were a team, a weird one, but a team none the less and he… he cared. He had finally given a chance to the joy of friendship and all those happy ending movies he always heard about, but it was on him. He was the captain, he was the leader, this entire thing depended on him and though he didn't think bad about himself, he had only taken responsibility about something else than himself once before and that damn plant had barely survived a week before it was too weak for its own stem to actually supports its weight.

Granted, he had been only 14 at the time and no one had told him how the hell you took care of a damn plant — how was he supposed to know it needed water and light at least once a day? — but he had screwed up again and his badly functioning brain knew he would do it again.

Sighing deeply Peter moved both arms to the side of his body and pushed himself up so he was sitting on the bed with his blankets already on the ground. It was then he decided his stupid gray matter had won the battle and he was not going to have a nice recovering queen-like sleep and with the ideas he had right now flying around his mind, it was obvious that even if he tried to fall asleep, he would have the worst nightmares ever and barely a couple of minutes of rest, so why try it and frustrate yourself when you could do something else, right? Something productive.

"Okay, Peter, time to wake up and be useful for once". – he said out loud as he ran a hand over his face to try and hide his tiredness before pushing himself up and out of the bed.

Quickly he dressed with red leather pants and a black tight short-sleeves t-shirt before grabbing his Walkman and leaving the room towards the cockpit. He stopped at the door as his body trembled for a couple of seconds. He placed his hands around his chest to keep warmth where it was needed but before he could wonder what the hell was going on, it stopped. Uh, maybe it was colder around this area of the universe? Maybe Gamora had been wrong about the temperature or they had turned the calefaction off?

Shaking his head he quickly decided to grab a simple black and white woolen vest and turned again to leave. He would clean his room some other time… yea, he most definitely would.

The lights were off everywhere on the Milano, something he had yet to get used to as he ran a hand over the metallic walls to get a sense of where the hallway started and when it ended, so as not to get a crushing headache for walking right into a wall and waking everyone up. He used to leave them on all the time so as not to feel alone, but now… now it bothered the others, so after a few "discussions" where Rocket would call him a baby for needing a night light and Drax would ask why Peter was being called a baby as he of course was a grown-up, he had finally agreed to turn them off.

As he walked towards the upper floor, he couldn't stop but feel annoyed at the silence surrounding him. He could hear his own footsteps as his feet made contact with the cold metallic floor and even his slow breathing, but that was it. Nothing more, not even a snore.

Why could they all sleep so peacefully yet he could barely get a couple of hours a week was beyond his comprehension. Why was he the only one that felt the weight of the universe crushing down on his crest in such a way that every breath came with pain such as the one from a broken rib? He shook his head and kept walking… those kinds of thoughts where getting him nowhere.

He was not a cry baby! He was not… he was not…

Sighing for the 10th time in a row he finally got to his destination and sat down on the pilot's chair. He put his legs up and rested his head on the seat while pressing play to his Walkman and leaving it at a high volume to shut everything else out.

The Milano was on auto pilot so there was no real need for him to be there, but it was the only place where his thoughts flew away and left him with the emptiness of a magnificent view.

He placed his headphones on his ears and starred at the vast universe in front of him with a sad smile on his face.

Everything in the background in front of him was black telling him how small he truly was, yet from time to time something really tiny barely able to be seen with the naked eye would appear on his peripheral vision and he would wait as it grew and grew shaping itself around the darkness till he could try and guess what it was. He'd then wait a little longer to see if his guess was right — it was a planet, a moon, a sun, a piece of metal…— and watched it move slowly towards him like a hunter to its prey to finally swing around the Milano as if deciding it was not worth disturbing.

He tapped his fingers over his chest to the music as his body finally began relaxing. This was his sacred palace, the place he would often go to just let everything go. It was the place where he had spent restless nights thinking about his mother, about Yondu, the only father he had met and about everything else. But the difference was that here, here everything felt small and simple, nothing felt too big for the universe and someone's problems just became easier to solve.

Yeah, the universe was a beautiful moving painting that changed constantly to the point where you could never see two exact images of it in a life time. It was wonderful, filled with mystery and adventure, something Peter Quill knew very much about. How Terrans still hadn't felt in love with it to such extend to feel the need to explore it was a wonder to him, but he was glad to be out there in the middle of nowhere and not at some school studying some boring textbook that made no sense.

Smiling halfway he came to the same conclusion that he came to every time he was trapped in his mind and succumbing in his despair: he would give it a shot. He would try his hardest this time… for once in his life he really wanted to try it and he was NOT going to screw this up. If winning meant sacrificing his life then he would be the hero, Peter fucking Quill.

So what do you think? Erase it? Worth the time? Thank you for reading and I hope to have a new chapter soon!