The events of GotG from Vala's POV.

Chapter 2-Destroyer

A few years and a few adventures later, Yondu tells Vala to stick with her goddamn husband for a while because he's setting up a dangerous mission and Peter is causing trouble again. Vala might have been offended by the implication that she can't handle danger, except that she is very well acquainted with what the results of "Peter is causing trouble again" usually are. Vala leaves without arguing, nearly getting caught by a Kree privateer on her way back. The galaxy is not as safe as it was in years past.

Garthan is also too busy for her. He is one of Nova Prime's advisors nowadays and the developing peace treaty is actually not really developing at all. He is always working, and is exhausted and frustrated when he isn't.

"What's the name of that young kid of Yondu's?" he asks one day in the ten minutes Vala makes him take to eat lunch with her. He doesn't even leave the Nova Corp complex; she comes to him, with takeout from their favorite dive. Security doesn't even check her in anymore.

"Peter Quill. Calls himself Starlord." Vala thinks it is adorable and dorky and just like Peter.

"I just sent him to the Kyln."

"What?"

"He was booked with three other highly dangerous suspects and I didn't have time to sort out how he was related to them. There was nothing else I could do." Garthan sighs. "Rhomann called me out on it—Denarian Saal, he says, as if we haven't known each other for years, The Kyln is a barbaric place. Does he think I don't know that? I'm doing what I can. The Kree situation is the top priority right now."

Vala reassures him and then offers a distraction in the form of a message to Nova Prime. It's just Vala's next move in the strategy game they're playing together via Garthan, but it cheers him. Vala has never actually met Nova Prime—she's a mean strategist and she must have a sense of humor, Vala knows that—and Garthan is endlessly amused at the situation.

That evening Vala leaves a notes for Garthan and takes her old racer out to find Yondu. Dangerous jobs aside, someone needs to get Peter the hell out of the Kyln.

Things escalate very quickly from there. Yondu is not happy to see her but is too distracted to force her to leave. Peter is no longer at the Kyln but in Knowhere, and when they get there Ronan the fucking Accuser is there with the Dark Aster and Vala has to admit to being frightened. Eventually, they get Peter back on the ship, but Vala misses it because she is busy on the net trying to get a message to Garthan. Yondu's reception with non-underground lines of communication sucks, however, it always has, and she' going to kill him for not updating his damn software when suddenly her old Milano is requesting contact. She puts it on intercom and a very disorganized death threat comes through, and Vala thinks that this day can't possibly get any worse.

She's wrong.

Ronan is on his way to destroy Xandar with an unbeatable superweapon. He's going to destroy Xandar, her planet, and millions of people and Garthan. Garthan will be right between Ronan and Xandar with the rest of Nova Corps, Vala knows, and the thought is too much for her. She escapes to Yondu's cabin and breaks down and at some point forgets to breathe. It's called a panic attack, Yondu tells her with unexpected softness. She screams at him for his part in this mess, and for his shitty software connection that means she can't warn Garthan and Yondu lets her.

"Peter has a plan, darling," he says soothingly.

"Peter has a plan?" she says incredulously.

Peter does, in fact, have a plan, as well as several scary new friends, including a small creature called Rocket that Vala is pretty sure Garthan has included in his list of Interesting People he tells her stories about. Her theory is confirmed when she catches Rocket eyeing her racer appreciatively.

"You a racer?" she asks.

He nods. "Four circuit trophies, long while back."

Vala can't help but one up him. "Six. Been a long time for me, too," she says, grateful for a bit of a distraction. She tells him the name she raced under and is rewarded with a very impressed look that Vala supposes he doesn't give out often.

Peter later assures her that he has already gotten a message through to Nova Corps and when she pesters him he reveals that he knows Rhomann Dey from somewhere or other—probably from his arrest, Vala realizes. That is good. Dey will take Peter seriously, even if Garthan won't. Garthan would take her seriously, but apparently this is as good as they can get.

Vala bullies Yondu into letting her pilot one of the Ravager ships. The Dark Aster is huge, unbelievably huge, and the fighters swarm off of it like murderous ants. The sight of Xandar far below gives her the determination to charge towards them, weaving in and out like the racing dervish she is.

It looks like their attack is futile, for a moment, but then Vala catches sight of the hundreds of Nova fighters swarming up from the planet. New model, very effective, she'd commissioned them just over a year ago, Vala thought with satisfaction. Then her attention is torn away by an incoming Kree fighter and she has to concentrate. She keeps the comms open.

"Peter Quill, this is Denarian Saal. For the record, I advised them against trusting you."

Oh stars, Garthan was up here too.

"They got my dick message!" Peter's voice flares up and then Garthan's returns: "Prove me wrong."

Vala turns on her mic. "Garthan! It's Vala." She hears him catch his breath, and searches for something to say that's not please don't get killed. "How are the new models working?"

"Vala, you need get out of here now."

"There's not going to be anywhere to escape to," Vala counters. "Just stay out of trouble, okay?"

"Trouble? You brought all the trouble with you, love."

"You two know each other?" Rocket interrupts.

"She's my wife."

"Damn, Saal, if I'd known your wife was a badass racer, I wouldn't have teased you so much."

"Teasing him?" Vala asks. "How do you know each other?"

"If ya'll gonna small talk, can ya do it on a private frequency?" Yondu drawls.

Right. Battle. Yala vaporizes another fighter. And another. It is endless. The Dark Aster moves relentlessly downwards. Yondu goes down with a warning to Peter and Vala convinces herself that he wouldn't be threatening Peter if he were about to die. Then again, Yondu might.

"Garthan, you need to start a blockade."

"Already on it."

The blockade is a brilliant innovation but Vala is terribly uncertain it will be enough. The Kree fighters dive-bomb the city, and Vala is not about to let that fly. Rocket and the other Ravagers take her cue and drop down to defend it.

"We got things down here, Saal. Just hold that blockade," Rocket says.

"I can't believe I'm taking orders from a hamster."

Vala hears Rocket laugh and feels that there is a joke somewhere in their history.

Vala takes a hit somewhere that jogs circuitry—she's out one gun, there's a pressure leak somewhere that will be giving her a hell of a migraine pretty soon and her mic is no longer responding. All she can do is listen.

"Vala, come in," Garthan says for the third time.

"Saal, she took a hit but her ship hasn't gone down. She's fine. Concentrate on the blockade," Rocket orders.

"It's not holding, Rocket."

"It's gotta hold."

Vala's fists turn white as she grips the controls. She knows that Garthan and everyone one of the corpsmen up there are channeling as much of the Nova Force as they can possibly handle. What if it's not enough?

Vala does not get to find out, because her ship takes critical hit and sh

e's spinning away from the battle, torn between wishing she good say goodbye to Garthan and Yondu and desperately hoping that this is not, in fact, goodbye.

Yondu tracks her down and pulls her out of the wreckage, although he does not stick around. Peter tells her this, when they meet in the hospital. She has just been let out of her bed for the first time.

Rocket is with Peter and he looks absolutely stricken. He is also holding a bundle of sticks in his arms, and Vala does not pursue the implications of that because she does not want to hear that someone else is dead. He seems to notice her for the first time when she asks Peter if he's heard from Garthan.

"The blockade went down," Rocket says in a monotone. "He held it to the very last instant."

Vala feels the floor rushing up at her and Peter stops her from falling.

The next time the doctors clears her to get up, she doesn't.

Peter visits, and she asks him if he can contact Yondu. Peter looks pained, and starts some explanation about how Yondu might possibly kill him for switching out—but he stops at the look in her eyes and leaves, embarrassed.

Rhomann visits, and Vala notices that he has been promoted to Denarian. It is unfair of her but she doesn't talk to him.

Yondu appears a day or so later but she only knows this because the nurses can't stop gossiping about how the Ravagers are helping to take apart the Dark Aster.

Rocket visits, and he sets a potted stick on the table next to her before climbing up on her bed and demanding that she make room for him. He sprawls by her feet, and talks despite the fact that she does not answer. He talks about the stick, which was formerly a very sweet tree monster named Groot. He talks about how Peter is hiding from Yondu and how the Ravagers are tearing apart Ronan's massive ship on Yondu's orders. He does not say that they are retrieving bodies, which is what Vala knows they are doing, or which body in particular they are looking for.

He talks about how he first met Garthan back during the months following their marriage. How Rocket had been up for grand theft and Nova Corps wasn't sure if he was a sentient being and deserved a trial, and how Garthan was in charge of his case. How Garthan kept twisting his wedding ring on his finger and how easy it was to get him upset by insulting Vala. How they ended up, strangely enough, talking more about her than about questions of Rocket's personhood and how Garthan talked about her like she was a fairytale he couldn't believe he was waking up to every day. How Garthan had eventually recommended to Nova that Rocket go to trial, which was ironically one of the best things to ever happen to Rocket because it meant that Nova Corps was legally bound to recognize him as person, and anyway he broke out of prison right away afterwards. Vala is crying by the end.

On the same day that the gossip vine tells her that Yondu and his Ravagers have left, a strange woman visits Vala. She is short but her demeanor is very tall; she must be in a position of power and Vala wonders if she is the head of the hospital here to kick her out.

"Blue destroyer to E5," the woman says.

It's Nova Prime. It's the next move in their strategy game and it's a very good one, except that Nova Prime doesn't know about the Red fighter-carrier Vala's got on E4. Vala has been saving up this bluff for a while now, explaining it to Garthan as the game went on so that he could be properly smug for her when he delivered her winning move to Nova Prime. The thought brings tears to her eyes.

Nova Prime sits next to her and puts a hand on Vala's arm.

"You sent him out there." Vala's voice is small.

"I know, dear. I know." Nova Prime does not apologize. There is nothing to apologize for. She does not tell Vala that her husband is a hero, like the nurses and doctors have. She does not tell Vala she is sorry for her loss. They sit in silence. Nova Prime's time is precious, Vala knows, but the woman sits with her awhile before informing her that there is literally nothing left of Garthan or anyone else from his area of the blockade. It's all ash. Vala knew this because Yondu would have come to see her if he had found a body, but since he hasn't and he doesn't know she's aware of his presence he probably felt it better to just slip away. Yondu had always understood, better even than Vala had at times, where her heart was.

"Vala Saal, I have taken quite a lot from you already, I know, but I am going to ask you a favor."

"What is it?"

"I've lost quite a lot of my command chain. A lot of people are eager to enlist but a many of them will be rejected by the Nova Force."

"Why?"

"Because they're enlisting out of bloodlust, or they are too free-spirited, or prone to disloyalty. Nova Corps needs people who sincerely value the greater good over their own."

"Like Garthan."

Nova Prime closes her eyes a moment, and Vala can see that this woman relied on Garthan nearly as much as Vala did. "Yes."

"What do you want from me?"

Nova Prime looks at her very seriously. "I want you to sign your life away to the cause that your husband gave his for. I want you to join the Nova Corps. You're already familiar with the politics and duties involved. You won't be doing his job but you'll be helping me rebuild. As a Centurion, probably. A Denarian at the very least."

"The Nova Force already rejected me. I'm not good enough."

"You were rejected as a wild and overly free-spirited nineteen year old. And I do believe that anyone good enough for Saal will be quite good enough for the Nova Force. Will you do this for me, Vala?"

Vala remains silent. It is a lot to think about. She'd be taking orders, shuttled here and there on assignment, no longer finding her own adventures but being directed to certain ones. She'd be on Xandar much of the time, without Garthan to come home to and no Yondu to run off to. Is that what she wants to spend the rest of her life doing?

It's what Garthan spent his life doing. Would still be doing, if only.

"I have a Red fighter-carrier on E4," Vala says, in answer.

Nova Prime smiles. "I know. The blue destroyer is mined."

It was a suicide play. Vala's red fighter-carrier was dead, and with it her chance of winning the game. She had never expected her opponent to give up the destroyer. "But that's your best ship."

"Yes, it was," Nova Prime says, and if her smile wavers and for an instant both of them know she is not talking at all about a strategy game, neither of them feels the need to say anything about it.

I waffled a bit over whether to write this bit at all, and then whether to kill Saal or save him. The story ended up perfect the way it was, if a little bit more profound than I originally intended. Love is seriously business, folks.

Also: to be clear, since there was not room in the fic to be explict, Saal is asexual, Yondu is het, and Vala is pan. Their relationships are just one of many forms that polyamory can take, with Vala and Saal as primary partners and Yondu as Vala's secondary partner/fuck buddy/partner in crime. Some may or may not consider this a threesome, since Saal and Yondu never have a relationship.