It's All In The Past

In which Peter Quill realises that sometimes old habits die hard… especially with his crew

-Start-

Peter whistled a familiar tune. It wasn't from his awesome mix but rather from an… old friend. Yes that old friend happened to be none other than his kidnapper and part-time surrogate father figure Yondu. He often mused over how things could have been different if he chose to stay. Of course the moment he grew into realisation that the man had manipulated him most of his childhood. He didn't hold it against him- that much, but he figured that all if not most parents or figures of authority manipulated those under them. If anything the man had helped him survive this long.

"Quill!" Drax roared.

"Oh boy, what did I do this time?" Peter asked backing up.

"What did you do?! I'll tell you what you did," Gomorrah shrieked.

"You accepted a job from Yondu/ Where is the food?" both Gomorrah and Drax yelled at once.

Peter backed up and plastered a sheepish smile. It was as close to charming he could come in this situation.

"Hey guys, we're all friends here right. I thought maybe we could patch things up with Yondu a bit. You know we could never have too many allies," he tried reasoning.

Gomorrah growled catching the fib instantly. "You've angered Yondu purposefully in the past and you expect me to believe you suddenly want to be friends again? Don't you have a grudge against him?"

"Ok, ok, you got me there," Peter relented backing up a little and pulling his hands up in a surrendering position. It wasn't like he was comfortable getting all serious or anything he just wanted to defuse the situation the best way he usually did. "I found a great mission, you know that involved acquiring a certain valuable possession and thought we could get some help on this one."

"And by acquiring you mean stealing," Gomorrah pointed out.

"Like you stole the food! Where have you kept them?" Drax growled.

"Why aren't you pointing fingers at Rocket?" Peter whined.

"The pellets are still in the cupboard"

"Fair point," Peter mumbled.

Gomorrah sighed. She had pretty much had it with Peter's childish attitude. It was one thing when he stashed food in the most obscure of places for reasons unknown, and it was another when he consorted with double-crossing thieves. Then again he was a Ravager at one stage… it still didn't explain why he would want to go back to them. What sort of person would want to go back to the people who had kidnapped them from their family, and she didn't think that they were the family oriented kind that took care of him as a child either. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and decided that for once she would get to the root of these problems and fix it from there. She didn't want to deal with this anymore.

"Why do you stash food anyway? There's a cupboard for that in the kitchen area," she asked.

Peter rubbed the back of his neck and mulled over that for a second. Now that he thought about it he really had no reason to do that anymore. He'd started this little habit during his time with the Ravagers and it had just sort of stuck.

"Well… you know I was… let's just say old habits."

"Why did you use to hide food?" Gomorrah prodded.

"Do you not understand the rationing process?" Drax added.

"No, I understand! It's just that well- this may sound stupid- but back when I was with the Ravagers sometimes someone would eat a lot of food or someone would take my portion. So I started hiding food away. It also helped that one time our ship was in siege and I hid in the exhaust vent for a week with my hidden food. Good times."

"Good times?!" Gomorrah asked aghast. "You do realise that they were starving you right? Even Thanos didn't starve me."

"I do not think that is an ethical way to treat a child," Drax agreed.

Peter huffed. "Morality lessons aside can we just focus again. I was on an alien pirate ship so why did you think they'd treat me like a princess? I'll stop stashing the food away- don't blame me when your forced to eat Rocket in an emergency crisis."

"It'll rot by then," Drax pointed out irritated.

"Peter, you do realise that we are not the Ravagers right? We are not going to starve you, double cross you, or eat you."

"Ok. First of all I was way over the eating part when I turned 12 and secondly they're not as bad as you chalk them up to be. They taught me how to fight-"

"By beating you," Drax pointed out.

"-They also taught me how to survive-"

"By teaching you not to trust and starving you," Gomorrah pointed out. "Look I'm not saying I wasn't much worse of (god knows my siblings and I don't have the best relationship either) but at least I'm not condoning their actions. Did Yondu make it seem like it was alright for them to starve you? Did he beat you?"

Peter was speechless (not an easy feet mind you). Wow his crew was nosy. In a way they had done that to him but they weren't his family. They had no reason to treat him nicely or provide anything for him. There had been no one to do that for him until his crew came along and they had done the next best thing for him- teach him how to cope living alone. He was never alone in the sense that he was isolated but he was alone in the way that meant no one else would look out for him. Sure Yondu made sure no one ate him or raped him for that matter but that was the extent of their relationship. The rest was a merit based system in the which the strong survived and the weak perished. He had been starved and beaten but as he got older and more experienced it stopped happening as frequently and through it all he learnt how to take care of himself.

"Look, my past considered I want you to give Yondu a chance. I have a contingency plan for my contingency plan anyway. A triple-cross is sure to ensue."

"You mean you're going in knowing that he isn't going to hold to the deal?"

"When does a Ravager ever hold to a deal?" Peter pointed out.

"… Fair point, but you didn't answer the question. Did he beat you?"

"By beat me do you mean I was not allowed to fight back or~"

"You know what don't answer," Gomorrah growled.

"The food," Drax reminded.

"I was getting to that," Peter whined.

At least after that talk the cupboards were always left with stocked food… and a little extra

-End-

Thanks for reading! This is just a small one shot for my first story on fanfiction. Read and review!