AN: Hey guys! So I just saw Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2, and I remembered I had a half-written fic for these to precious babies. I pulled it up out of the depths of my Google Dive, realized it wasn't too bad, and decided to finish it. This is not really canon at all for their relationship, but I'd like to think that it could be. (Yes, that's the beauty of the alternate universe). Picture it set after the first movie, or after the second, I guess, even though there are no spoilers for Volume 2. It's really just some light hearted fun loosely based off the song "Escape" (The Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes. As usual, I don't own any of this copyrighted material. Anyway, enjoy, since Peter and Gamora are just so cute, but also super badass.

Really, he had been smitten since the beginning, but it was only after a few months that her really fell for her. Only after a few months that he felt something deeper for her than he did for the rest of the crew.

For the first couple months of that initial mission, (a routine transportation of some potentially not-so-legal alien parts to be used for some cure for an outbreak of blue pox on the outer edge of the galaxy; it had good intentions at heart), he backed off. Didn't flirt. Tried to be a decent human being.

Mostly.

Fine. There were a couple remarks about her low cut tank tops, but he attempted to make sure Rocket wasn't in the audible vicinity.

There were a couple of "accidental" brushes on her part as well. Like when she'd lean over his shoulder to adjust the controls, her breath grazing his ear, her hand on his shoulder, her breasts definitely grazing his body on the pull back.

The sexual tension couldn't have just been his imagination.

Not when she glared at him while they argued about how often the community bathroom needed to be cleaned.

(He's the fucking captain. He deserves his own bathroom apart from the crew. And it's not his fucking problem that Rocket's shit leaks hazardous radiation that makes her hair turn purple.)

Or batted her eyes a little, asking if she could use his bathroom instead.

Sending rather indecent thoughts of her stepping out of his shower in only a bathrobe skittering through his mind.

Like he needed any more imagery to supplement his imagination. The shower sharing thing couldn't happen if he wanted to keep this professional. (Not that he really did, but...)

"You think my shit's less repulsive than Rocket's? I'm flattered, Princess."

She clenches her fists at the princess comment, but only grits out, "Make Rocket clean that fucking bathroom."

"I can't get Rocket to do jack shit around here, shit that actually matters to the success of this enterprize-"

"Funny, you think sneaking around the universe is an enterprize."

"-So what the hell makes you think I can get him to scrub up his own piss?"

She glowered for a solid minute, before her face cleared up and she said, "Fine. I'll clean it up myself." And then she was gone.

He found a shoebox of Rocket's shit under his sheets that night. His covers were strewn across his bed in such a manner that he noticed it by smell before he actually saw the box. (The unmade bed wasn't particularly unusual, going back to that point of him being, "the fucking captain.") She certainly wasn't careful not to get shit on his sheets. He tore them from his bed and sent them out the escape hatch, watching them billow gallantly in the vacuum of space.

Regardless, looking in the mirror the next morning, he cringed at the violent shade of violet his hair had turned.

"Did you stoop to use the commoner's bathroom?" Rocket asked snidely over breakfast.

"How come your fur doesn't turn purple?"

Rocket just snickered.

But it got better. A little.

Rocket had forced them to stop at the out-of-the-way planet of Laocoon to collect a debt from a rogue... ah, at this point he wasn't really listening.

A planet where he couldn't make more than two steps without stepping on snakes.

Did they make him squeamish? Of course. Their lean bodies slinked around his feet in slow spirals and he worried they were going to make a quick constriction around his ankles, and he'd fall face first into their vicious looking teeth.

Of course she marched through the writhing bodies without as much as a glance at her feet.

And thus, he wouldn't look like the dashing hero was if he kept shrieking at his feet, so he clamped his jaw together and tried to crush as many heads as possible under his boot.

Rocket, (in that ultra-pesky voice of his), claimed that only he and Groot were allowed to meet this vendor, because this guys hates, "all you weird-ass humanoids."

"My ass is not weird," Drax stated.

"Agreed, Drax," Peter gritted through his teeth, but his eye contact was with Rocket, hoping his glare was enough to combust his mechanical skeleton. "Are you saying that you had us come down to this infested planet," the snakes hissed up at him a little more loudly, "for absolutely nothing?"

Gamora snorted. "Even though Peter's a wimp-"

"Am not!"

She continued as if he hadn't spoken. "-he does make a good point. We unnecessarily abandoned the ship."

"Hey! I didn't make you come!" Rocket argued back.

"Fucking hell, rodent! Fine. We'll be in that bar. Come get us when you finish. This better be fucking worth it."

The bar was not worth it.

Snakes still coated the floors, and the alcohol tasted like piss.

Didn't stop Drax from buying the three of them at least five rounds. After that his brain kind of blurred into that fuzzy feeling. He barely realized that Rocket and Groot had been gone for two hours.

That Drax surrounded himself in triple breasted alien women from the fourth quadrant.

That Gamora's looking at him with with alcohol induced lust.

He's not really sure how it happened, how he ended up in front of her barstool, the thumping of heavy music ringing in his ears, her legs slinking around his hips the way the snakes wraped around his ankles. Her head hovered above his.

"Is this how you pictured it, Starlord?" she mocked, the alcohol clearly disrupting any of her normally rational thoughts.

He gulped because her breasts were practically right in front of his face, and hell if her gaze wasn't fucking intimidating.

He leaned in, like the charmer he was, his breath in her ear. "I thought it'd be a little hotter, actually."

Her eyes narrowed, as if she got personally offended by that statement. He gave himself a gold star for banter.

But when her jaw hardened and she crashed her mouth against his, she was the one who should get the gold star, because fucking hell could this woman kiss.

It was hot and fast, but also sweet and bitter like the shot she just downed.

He pushed himself in closer, pulling her deeper into the kiss. She moaned, her mouth falling away from his. His lips dropped to her collarbone, her flowery scent the only discernable thought in his jumbled mind. Her hips jerked against his, and he groaned into the soft skin of her chest. Her hand dragged against the scuff of his chin, coercing his lips back up to hers. His teeth nipped at her, drawing in desperate gasps between kisses.

That is until he felt a tugging on his trousers. He broke away and looked down.

To see that stupid raccoon sneering at him. "Come on, Lover Boy."

Yeah, there was no way he could fly the ship this drunk.

His lips felt bruised and raw as he stumbled out of the bar, tripping on writhing snake bodies. He forgets to avoid their faces, and felt sharp pains around his ankles. Thank the stars they weren't poisonous.

They didn't talk to each other for the next week. He woke up with a wicked hangover that tasted pungently of regret.

The only glimmer of hope was that they didn't sleep together.

Which got thrown to the wind six days later when Rocket claimed that he was "going to be gone, you know, maybe for a few hours, might be a couple days. And I need to bring this one," he pointed at Groot," and..." he deliberated for a moment," yeah, I need Drax too. I really fucked it up with this guy. Oh, and I'll need-"

"Don't you dare say my leg! Shit, Rocket!" Peter swore at him. "You can't just prance out of here-"

"We're leaving in an hour through the escape pods." Walked out.

"Are you going along with this?" Peter fired at Drax who just shrugged back.

"I have promised to help those who need help. The creature needs help."

"Fucking right that raccoon needs help," he muttered. "Fine, Rocket!" he called out. "Don't get paid this month!"

Little Groot looked at him quizzically. "I am Groot?"

Peter sighed. "No I won't punish you for his stupid antics."

He didn't realize until after they left that it meant that he was going alone with her. For an undetermined amount of time.

He tried to keep it light. Easy. "I'm going to heat up some... stars, what's even left of our food?"

Preparing and eating food? Yeah, that only kept them busy for about an hour. He was awful at cooking, and she insisted on micromanaging his every action.

And maybe it was the fact that, in spite, they broke out Rocket's four hundred-year-old bottle of bright green fermented zingbat piss (with an alcohol concentration of .39). Or maybe because they were both trying desperately not to make things more awkward than they already were, (there were a few times in the kitchen where the tight space had made it impossible not to be in each other's way, her hips hit his ass, his elbow hit her breast, etc.).

But things actually felt normal.

Until the fire alarm went off, and they rushed back into the kitchenette to find the stove left ablaze. And she blamed him, and he blamed her, and there was a fucking shouting match going on as they beat out the flames.

And then, (he honestly has no idea how this part happened), there were making out as aggressively as they had fought. Her lips burned against his, and he growled possessively in the back of his throat, pulling the nape of her neck closer. Her teeth stung his bottom lip, dropping his mouth open so her tongue could find his in his moment of momentary surprize.

And then she led him to the bedroom.

They shouldn't have slept together.

But he awoke to find her sleeping form curled around his chest the next morning.

They didn't talk about it over breakfast.

But it happened again that night.

And the night after that.

When Rocket and his henchmen finally came back, it was a pretty routine thing.

That they had never actually talked about.

It just sort of kept happening. And when it wasn't happening, it wasn't even alluded to. He figured she would get weird and shut down the sex entirely if he mentioned it, and he mostly didn't care if they did this no strings attached.

They were forced to be a little more discreet with the rest of the crew in the ship.

She'd slip into his quarters some nights, her robe dangling open, the curve of her breasts bare to tease him. It was hell to keep his mouth shut; he desperately wanted to make snarky comments about how predictable she was. (Every three to four days, without fail.) But her unspoken glares indicated that it was the only way this could keep happening.

The sex, shit, he couldn't even describe it. Sure it started with smirks and easy touching. He learned her expressions quickly, interpreting it as their only communication. The one he despised most: she cock her head confidently while she straddled him as her nails skidded down his abs, her ass sashaying against him. He'd swallow harshly in response, and her eyebrows went up in smug assuredness. After which, he got pay back, laying her on her back and toying with her until she was near the brink of screaming. He'd have to kiss her more harshly, silencing her whimpers.

Stars only know how much the rest of the crew heard.

And then.

Perhaps it got a bit routine. The illicitness of the act fading since they hadn't gotten caught.

But she stopped coming.

And he couldn't say anything. He had never said anything before. There was no way to bring it up.

So yeah, he was pissed off.

"Dude, you look like you need a lay," Rocket commented over breakfast. Gamora didn't even look at him.

"Fuck off, Rocket. Have you gotten laid recently?"

"You want me to talk about my extremely active sex life? Well, two nights ago-"

"No one needs to hear this Rocket." Gamora interrupts. "Captain, don't we have places to be today?"

"Of course."

Was he desperate? Yeah.

But he really shouldn't have gone looking for an escort.

But the listings weren't escorts, per se. It wasn't money. Just casual sex.

He wrote up a listing for himself...

If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain, if you´re not into yoga, if you have half a brain, if you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape, I´m the love that you´ve looked for, write to me, and escape.

(Or more like Rupert Holmes wrote it, and he was just plagiarizing for his own gain.)

Yeah, it wasn't great. But he needed to get her out of his head.

He posted it to an intergalactic forum and waited.

And a few days later he got a response. A humanoid female (he wasn't into weird shit anymore) who would meet him on a planet not far away.

He gave the crew the day off, left them at a casino where they wouldn't notice he was missing for a few hours.

"You expect me to gamble with them?" she asked him.

"I don't care what the fuck you do."

He slipped away to the seedy hotel a few blocks away, surprised when the desk receptionist told him that a woman had already taken the first key. He had thought he was a little early.

He ruffled his hair in the elevator mirror, and hating every moment of this.

He knew what he wanted, and it wasn't a random woman plucked out of the galaxy.

But he couldn't have her, and he knew that.

And this, this was going to help him come to terms with the fact that she didn't love him.

He paused outside the door, letting his mind go blank from all thoughts that weren't primal sexual desires. He turned the door handle.

The lights were dim on the inside of the room, the faint amber glow of the lamp casting odd hues across the floor. He set down his pack, and took off his cloak as he rounded the corner. "Hello-"

And halted in shock.

The woman was lying on the bed, scrolling through the feed on her pad. She looked up when she heard his voice.

Her eyes widened, her jaw dropping. "You fucking bastard..." she breathed, running her her fingers through her reddish hair as it fell back over her green shoulders.

"Gamora?" he sputtered.

"What the hell, Quill?"

"You're-"

"You aren't supposed to be here!"

"I'm pretty damn sure I am. Why the hell are you here?"

"That's none of your fucking business."

"It sure as hell is I'm waiting for-" he cut off as the realization dawned on him.

That she was not here by mistake.

"Gamora," he choked out.

The realization hit her too. "Quill," she bites out.

"Yeah."

"It was you, wasn't it."

"Yep. Little surprised you didn't recognise the lyrics to 'Escape'."

"I knew that ad sounded familiar."

"Gamora. Why?"

"What?"

"Why are you trying to fuck a stranger."

"I should ask you the same question."

It was quiet for a long moment in which the both of them pointedly stared at the floor and not at each other.

He broke the silence. "Gamora."

"Yeah."

"We should talk about this. We should have talked about this awhile ago when we first started sleeping together." He sat down on the bed beside her. Tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"I..."

His head tilts up, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. "You..."

"Don't make this harder than it has to be, Quill. I, I like you, I guess."

"You guess?" He tilts his face in so that his nose bumps hers. Her lips press together forcing back a smile.

"I like you," she said. "And I wanted to block that out, and that's why I responded to your ad."

"That wasn't so hard," he chastised.

She shoved his shoulder playfully, and he pretended to look offended.

"You're an asshole," she said.

"But you like me. And I like you."

Her nose scrunched, but instead of answering, she kissed him.

She pulled back. "We do have this room for the night."

"What are you thinking?"

She slipped her fingers under the hem of his shirt. "Perhaps what we came here for." She kissed him then, her lips parting his, her hands dragging through the pieces of his hair.

"Fuck, I've missed this," he murmured.

"Shut up, and take your clothes off Starlord."

He smirked down at her, transfixed by the halo of hair around her head.

"You only had to ask."

~Fin~

AN: Thanks for reading! Leave a comment below: Fangirl about Chris Pratt! Fangirl about Zoe Saldana (my queen)! Geek out about Marvel and their money-making obsessions that have us obsessed too!