Hello My Wonderful Readers! :)

Long time no see? heh… :(

I know, it's been a while since I've really updated anything but I am working on several chapters right now for all of my stories. The only reason this got posted was because I was avoiding my Argument Paper (which is due on Tuesday .) and I wanted to post it.

Just a reminder for those waiting on my other stories, I will resume updating my stories in the summer. I have a poll up on my profile for the first update I do this summer, so go vote! :) And another note, this is my first Guardians of the Galaxy fanfic, and I'm so excited! :)

-XXX-

Title: Three times Yondu was a Bastard…

Description: …And the one time he was a gentleman.

Rated T: Swearing (somewhat censored), chauvinism, and underage drinking.

(Kraglin's POV)
In the time that I've known Yondu I have been able to indefinitely conclude one thing: He's a bastard. Not the offensive term that implies that he was born to unmarried parents, but the kind of bastard that likes to make life miserable for everyone. The one to intentionally stick his foot out in front of you just to see you trip, or push you down a flight of stairs to see if you can catch yourself. He's a bully to everyone and everything, deliberately making life on the Eclector a living hell. Many have asked him why he acts this way (and later regretted it). He would smirk (or frown deeply) and simply say "I 'ave my reasons". I never asked, I never wanted too. As a tactical strategist at the time, I kept my mouth shut and tried to stay on the Captain's good side.

Adopting the Terran, Peter, into the Ravagers was not a call I backed when Yondu first brought it up. Terrans were weak creatures, and more primitive compared to most in the galaxy, but hey, who am I to judge that? I suppose we Ravagers are made up of the more primitive races after all. Our captain tends to attract this particular kind of crowd. However, adopting a child into the group was odd, even for him. What use would we have for a young Terran boy? And another thing, why would Yondu forego the payout that he would get for delivering Peter to his father? I would not question his logic, and I will admit now that I was too afraid too. So, adopt the boy we did.

Peter was something around ten years of age when Yondu decided to keep him. The poor kid was scared witless. I remember when the rest of the crew found out about him, they were so curious about the Terran that the boy thought he was being stalked by the whole ship. They would follow him around and watch him, testing him in different ways to see how he would react. Yondu played on Peter's suspicions and turned them into downright paranoia when he started suggesting that the crew wanted to eat him. "They ain't tasted Terran before," the Captain had said enthusiastically, using the boy's fear to manipulate him. It was cruel, but it kept the boy from venturing too far away from Yondu and I suspect that was what the captain was intending for it to do. Ravagers have a code amongst us: We look out for each other. But even Yondu can't predict what his men will do all the time. Peter was in danger among us because he was weak, and easily taken advantage of.

Some years later, Yondu's first mate was killed on a job and I was promoted. It was around that time that I saw more interaction between the Captain and the boy, and it became all the more clear to me just how much time Yondu invested into Peter. Although not a sole would admit it, Yondu was raising Peter like (I imagine) he would his own son. He taught the boy to fight, how to steal, how to hide, and how to survive. They were critical lessons that Peter had to learn, but they were taught in some, I will say, brutish ways.

It was sometime around Peter's fourteenth year of age when we all found out he couldn't swim. The boy was nearly a man and he couldn't stay afloat for more than three seconds! We learned this the hard way, and I had to save his sorry a** from a river while on a job. It cost us too. Two hundred thousand units… I still get mad just thinking about it. Yondu was similarly infuriated, and made a point to remedy the problem as soon as possible. Again, I will say, the way he taught Peter things was brutish.

A few days after our bum mission Peter was called to the airlock. We were in midflight over a particularly large lake on some backwater planet, and Yondu just pushed Peter out the door. Thirty feet above the water and Peter flailed all the way down.

The boy hit the water with an audible "sploosh" and Yondu was doubled over in laughter at the sight. I leaned over the side of airlock ramp and watched as Peter splashed around in the middle of the lake, sputtering and swearing like the Ravager everyone wanted him to be. When Yondu finally stopped clutching his sides he joined me in peeking out the airlock at Peter.

"Boy, stop flailing like a chickie and calm down!" Yondu shouted out the airlock. I glanced over at my captain and then back down at Peter, a little worried that the boy would drown.

"You sure he'll be alright? He don't look too good…" I commented, my arms crossing over my chest.

Yondu smirked, laughing as he shrugged off his red leather coat. "I ain't gonna let him drown." His multi-colored sweater joined the coat on the floor and I raised an eyebrow at him. "'M just teaching him a lesson."

I shrugged, turning my back and heading towards the observation area as Yondu jumped out of the airlock as well.

A few hours later we picked 'em both up on an island about a mile away. Peter was soaked and shivering, looking as miserable as ever. However, he had a certain gleam in his eye now, most likely proud of his new found aquatic abilities. Undoubtedly the boy would pass out once he hit his cot that night. Yondu climbed up into the ship after the boy, a smug smirk plastered to his face. Squeegeeing the water from his chest and arms, and ringing out his pant legs, he gave Peter a rough clap on the back. It would have been mistaken as pride… for a moment.

"Now maybe you'll think twice before costing us two hundred thousand credits." Yondu grumbled at the boy. "Next time I'll drop you twice as far away from land and I won't be jumpin' in to save ya."

What was left of the gleam in Peter's eyes faded, and he nodded solemnly.

That was the first instance as his second in command that I saw Yondu do something really harsh to Peter.

The second instance I will admit was a little funny. It was only a few weeks after Peter had his impromptu swimming lesson from Yondu that I caught the boy sneaking beer from the storerooms. Now, I personally didn't know how to handle that situation. I wasn't well versed in Terran customs or biology. I didn't know if the boy was meant to handle the stuff yet or not. However, he wasn't going for the stronger booze that we kept onboard so I figured I'd let it slide. He wasn't hurting himself… at least, as far as I knew…

This went on for a while I suppose, perhaps even longer than I had been aware of, but it was only time before Yondu himself found out.

I had not kept Peter's drinking a secret by any means, but perhaps I should have said something to Yondu before the boy stumbled into the cockpit before a mission, tipsy. Yondu was furious, grabbing the boy by the ear and dragging him off to his room to sober up. When he returned he swore up a storm and declared that anyone who had known about Peter's "tapping the stores" would be thrown off the ship. I am glad to say that I wasn't the only one with tightly sealed lips at that moment. None of us had known, or could have known, how the Captain would react.

When Peter had sobered up and Yondu calmed to a reasonable level, the boy was called to the Captain's quarters. There Yondu and I sat, he glaring daggers at the boy and I trying to tell Peter with my eyes how sorry I was for what was about to happen.

"So…" the Captain started, his voice scarily cheery. "You thought you'd give the ol' bottle a taste hm?" Peter made a move to say something but closed his mouth quickly at the look I gave him. "Sit down boy." He did, so quickly he nearly missed the chair. Yondu crossed his arms as he leaned back in his chair, taking a moment to scare shit outta the boy before he spoke again. "You know how old a Terran has to be before 'e can consume alcohol, boy?"

Peter shook his head, looking down at the floor with guilt-filled, wandering eyes.

Yondu grunted and turned to me. "Do you know how old 'e should be, Kraglin?"

Unlike the boy, I looked him straight in the eye as I answered, my stomach churning in sympathy for the boy. "No sir, I don't."

"Hmm…" The Captain mock-pondered the situation, his eyes drilling holes into Peter. "Well, maybe I don't know all that much about Terrans, but I do know out 'ere the legal age ain't what you're at…" the boy flinched, a flash of defiance crossing his eyes.

Don't say anything Peter. Don't open your mouth, just this one time… I internally implored him, hoping to the stars that he wouldn't provoke Yondu. Just take the scolding and leave. You won't like the alternative…

But, seeing as he couldn't hear me thinking, the teenage boy did as most and said something he shouldn't. "I don't see why I have to follow the laws. None of you do."

I groaned internally as Yondu's eyes narrowed, knowing exactly what was to follow. "Well then, by all means- break the law! Apparently if one person breaks the law it's okay for anyone to! Did you know that Kraglin?" I shook my head. "Huh, neither did I. Ye'r a smart kid boy, you gonna jump off a cliff if someone else does it too? Huh?"

Peter, that stupid kid, rolled his eyes. "You've already pushed me out an airlock into the middle of a lake, I can't imagine a cliff being any worse…"

Needless to say at this point, Yondu was royally pissed. He kept his cool in front of the boy, but I could see the storm brewing in his eyes. I had no doubt that, if he hadn't already had a plan for punishment, he would have smacked Peter around the room until there were more bruises than skin. Honesty, I don't know which option was more cruel.

"Fine, you want to drink? Here, have a beer." Yondu picked up a bottle and tossed it to the boy, who barely caught it in time to catch the bottle opener as well. Peter looked up in confusion, but the Captain simply handed a bottle to myself and took one for himself. "Tonight you're drinking with me."

The next few hours were spent getting Peter completely wasted. The Captain and I took turns drinking and talking with Peter about the responsibilities of becoming an adult, since in his eyes he was old enough to drink, and by the time he and I had each had our third bottle the boy was full out drunk. He was nodding his head as he spoke, sloshing what was left in his seventh bottle out onto the floor. I watched as Yondu started to smirk, and I shook my head sadly.

"Ye'r gonna destroy his liver at this rate." I muttered, tipping back the last of my beer. Yondu shrugged, and Peter replied to some extent with: "I-ain't *hick* gottaliver…"

The next morning Peter was forced to go about his regular chores with, what I can imagine was, the most skull-splitting headache. The boy didn't touch another drop of alcohol until he was well within the legal age.

The third example I will mention actually didn't occur until a few months after Peter struck out on his own. Sometimes I think Yondu is just sadistic, using any excuse he can to be brutal to someone. Although, I will admit, this particular Ravager had it coming. His name was Walton. He had been with us for as long as I can remember, and he was extremely sexist. This always rubbed me wrong, as I had grown up with my ma and three sisters. Walton viewed women as objects, and their problems as nothing but trivial. However, since we had been a ship of all men, and boy, this was never an issue. He had no one to offend… that was until we got a new mechanic.

Her name was Layla. Lanky kinda girl with blond hair and… you know? I've forgotten what color her eyes are. Oh well, details like that aren't too important. Point I need to make is: she was very… what's the word… expressive? She was never shy about telling others exactly what was on her mind. And hell, that girl never stopped thinking. She was a sarcastic sort, and she wouldn't put up with any BS. So, she an' Walton never got along too well. He pawned off his "woman chores" on her once, and she left dirty toilet brushes on his bunk after she was done. Heh, woman reminds me of my sis' sometimes…

Anyway, this sort of behavior continued between them for some time and it caused a rift in the crew. Other chauvinists treated her like dirt for her "misbehaviors" and the others, like myself, who had grown up with girls started to intervene. Now, Layla wasn't one for all that. She could fight her own battles, as she had proven time and time before. But, a day came around when she just couldn't.

We were on Xandar, about to do a job when Layla came down sick. Our whole plan revolved around the fact that we had a woman on our team, so the job had to be pushed back.

So, Layla was stuck with her head in a toilet bowl all morning, puking up whatever dinner she had ate the night before, when Walton decided it was a good idea to poke his head in. He had made some lewd comment about her being pregnant, which would have set her off had bile not be rising up in her throat again. A few of us heard it and I personally shoved him down the hall to where he was s'posed to be at, but the jibes kept coming. The poor girl was sick to the bone, hardly five feet away from a bucket at all times, and Walton grilled her every chance he got. It was beginning to really piss me off.

The funny thing was, as it was happening, I didn't realize it was bothering Yondu at all. Looking back at it now I can see why it did though. Although the captain hadn't been around sisters, or his mother, he could remember that in his culture women were not treated poorly. They were treated as equals. He just kept his thoughts on the subject restrained better than the rest of us, hiding his anger at Walton until he hit his boiling point. And finally, the third day Walton tormented Layla for being sick, Yondu reached that point.

I hadn't been around to hear the argument, but from "hear-say" and the actions that followed I figured it was another pregnant jibe. I wasn't until later that I was given the whole story.

Layla had been sitting with Yondu in the recreational room, going over some parts that needed to be replaced in the ship's main thruster unit. All had been going fine until she rushed to her bucket to empty her stomach. Walton had just entered the room with some of his closer buddies and he snickered at her.

"Pregnant women are such whiney b*tches." He scoffed, kicking her foot as he passed her crouched form in front of the bucket. His buddies laughed, nodding in agreement. Yondu sat still on the couch where Layla had left him, observing, tight-lipped.

"Shove off Walton." Layla choked, turning back to the pail to spit out the foul taste in her mouth. Her words, as usual, only fueled the man's determination to "put her in her place".

"Why? I'm so proud of you Layla." He exclaimed, momentarily confusing his friends. "You've finally accepted your place in this universe, in a man's bed and at his feet." He laughed again with his friends and kicked her as they passed by, nearly sprawling her onto the floor. When she was finally able to pick herself up, and dust herself off, Yondu had gone.

Later that same day, or I suppose it could be called the "night" shift, the Captain called Walton to the galley. Now, Walton was our main-arms man, as most of us called him. He was the muscle of most of our missions and was very intimidating at the best of times. He stood a few heads taller than Yondu, with arms the size of tree trunks, but the Captain wasn't afraid of no one. Yondu was smart, and Walton was much less so, and he would use that to his advantage.

"You wanted to see me boss?" Walton stood in front of the Centurian, arms crossed over his chest calmly. Yondu had nodded, indicating to the chair next to him for the larger man to sit down. "We got another job?"

Yondu shook his head. "No, we're still waiting on Layla to get healthy for the one we got lined up already. It's a good job and I ain't moving on until it's done." He watched as Walton huffed, the man rolling his eyes at the mention of her.

"We should just hire some prostitute to fill the position. If you ask me," Walton looked the Captain right in the eyes, "this crew'd be better off if that girl weren't around. She ain't nothing but a distraction and a hindrance. And now, now she's even pushing off a mission because she can't control her damn stomach." Walton huffed again, leaning back in his chair. "B*tch is gonna cause a lot more trouble than she's worth…"

Yondu grunted in response to that. "You thirsty?" he asked suddenly, getting up from his place at the table. This was the point where I believe Walton should have known that something was up, but nonetheless, the story continues…

Yondu returned to the table with two drinks, sweat tea mixed to his liking with syrup. He handed one to Walton, taking a sip of his own as he sat back down. Walton toasted his drink with enthusiasm, drinking down two gulps without pause. Yondu smirked briefly, showing off his crooked teeth, but concealed it quickly as the man glanced up at him. They spoke briefly over the matter of security on their next mission, going over it in detail for a few minutes before Walton finally suspected something was off. The Captain was staring at him way to intently. Then, it was like a switch, he tumbled out of his chair in a rush for the nearest toilet. His retching could be heard a whole two corridors away, and lasted nearly half the hour. Yondu stayed where he was, sipping his tea with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Later that night, I saw him slip a bottle of *Ipecac Syrup out of his coat pocket and back into the medicine cabinet.

Yondu is undoubtedly a bastard, but I believe he does the things he does for a reason. Everything cruel he inflicts on someone can vaguely be seen as a lesson he wants to teach, or some sort of indirect punishment for some wrongdoing. But he isn't all that bad. No. I believe, that under the hard exterior he shows the whole crew, he has a soft spot for some people. He does have his un-bastardly moments. Hell, I would even say he could be a downright gentleman at times. One example sticks out in particular…

I don't know if Yondu would want me repeating this but I feel that I cannot say all the times where he was terrible and leave out one of the few times that I personally saw him do something good for someone. That would be like, I don't know, baking a cake without sugar… or, something like that.

It was a normal shift on the Eclector. Plans were being made for another job, on a planet close to Xandar, and everyone was still drunk out of their minds from celebrating the success of the last one. The only serious persons to be found on the ship were the Captain, the entire engine repair crew, and myself. There had been some damage made to the main thrusters that needed to be repaired before we could even move into Xandarian space. It was a lax enough situation that repairs could be made at a leisurely pace, but serious enough to get irritated over not having a mechanic show up for their shift.

It was this day that Layla, one of our best mechanics (despite being a girl and naturally a little bit weaker than the rest of us guys), didn't show up for her shift. Now, this was quite some time after her episode of sickness that resulted in Walton getting booted off of the ship at our next stop, and she had made sure to take all precautions against sickness since then. Therefore, since we were sure that there was no way in hell that she could be sick again there was only one option left in any of our minds: She was ditching work. It was unlike her, but that was all we could think of. Naturally, I asked around to see if anyone had seen her (hoping to not have to go to Yondu about it since as head mechanic I should be able to find my own people), but no one had seen her all day. I checked the engine room over, twice, wondering if maybe she had wormed her way into one of the engines and none of us had noticed. With no luck there, I was beginning to get mad. I'll admit it now that I was pissed at her. How dare she ditch her work when there was so much of it needing to be done? It was inexcusable! And I had decided that when I found her I was going to chew her out like I never had before. Finally, I checked her bunk room.

I was met with a sight I don't think I can ever forget.

When you work and live with a man, supposedly from a more primitive race, who would sooner push you off a cliff than save you if you were falling (just for his own amusement), it's strange to see that man so calm and… dare I say it? Caring.

The hatch to her bunkroom was wide open and I could clearly see both her and Yondu on her cot. My mind instantly jumped into the gutter for a moment, and I nearly turned away as quickly as I had came, but I noticed that they just seemed to be talking…

Layla was lying on her back, a cup of tea clasped between her hands resting on top of her stomach. Her cheeks were flushed and she still had the remnants of tears in her eyes, but there was something of a smile on her lips as if she was striving to fight off pain. Yondu was sat beside her on the cot, handing her some small pills and muttering something about putting a date on the calendar (to which she laughed weakly). Overall, the scene was somewhat serene. They continued to talk in hushed voices until Yondu stood to leave, at which point he caught me standing there watching them. I gulped, unsure of what to do, but he had just walked calmly towards the door with a farewell to the woman.

"Yondu," she called after him from her place on the bed, still not seeing me, "thanks for the tea. You didn't have to do that for me…"

Yondu smirked. "You're in pain and bleeding to death in here, it's the least I could do." By the time he had turned back around I had disappeared down the hall and back to my post. Yondu had turned back to Layla with a chortle, shaking his head. "I'll tell Kraglin you ain't showing up for yer shift today."

So yeah, Yondu can be a jerk, but he can also be nice…

…to women.

A**hole.

*Note: Ipecac Syrup is a vomiting inducer that tastes sweet.

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