Sticks and Stones Let me Atone

The infinity stone fiasco may have cleaned Peter's record, but it doesn't leave him unscathed.

A/N I plan to stay with this one. Kiana, if you're reading this, feel no qualms about telling me if something's shitty and I need to change it. Or if you have a better idea for something. However, its not quite your fandom, so you're off the hook for revision duty. Now imma stop commentating because seasonal allergies just went from zero to sixty in 2.5 seconds, and I need to go take a benedryl. Desperately. While I can still see.

A/N 2: Edit!
Seriously guys, I had so many simple errors in this, and not one of you corrected me! I don't know if I just stumbled upon the nice portion of the internet, or if they weren't as blatently obvious as I thought they were, but it bothers me. SO. I read through these on my phone, and discovered that in one of the first three chapters, I forgot to capitalize the P in Peter. However, I've forgotten where it is, and can't find it for the life of me. Virtual cookies for the one who finds it and tells me where it is!

The first time it happened, he was alone. Not even one hour after the battle for Xandar, Peter Quill, Hero and Ex-con Extraordinaire, collapsed in a heap of blinding purple on the green carpeting of his Nova-provided room. He was seriously regretting shoving off the medics in favor of nursing his wounds in private at this point, as pain rocketed in violet veins across his skull and down his spine. He can't tell if the small squeak drifting through his ears is a whimper or a scream, drowned by the rushing sound of blood pulsing behind his ears. His skin feels too tight for his body, and he swears the burning feeling crackling across the expanses of his body means he's disintegrating again. It feels like hours, but the pain finally dims enough for him to sluggishly pull himself up off of the floor and onto the plush yellow bed. He lays back, or rather, plops his torso onto the soft, cool surface, relishing the gentle feeling on his stinging skin for about fifteen seconds-then someone knocked on the door.

Much to his irritation, he pulled himself out of bed with a groan, preferring that to yelling with his still sore throat. Maybe he had been screaming. He slowly trod his way over to the door, ignoring the slight purple tinge to his vision, and opened it. Contributing slightly less to his irritation, Gamora was waiting patiently on the other side of the door, Rocket close behind her, clinging to a small pot with a few sticks in it.

"Dude. You look rough" said the shorter one, eyeing him. "Remind me why you didn't want to see a medic?"

"I prefer to nurse my own damned wounds, thank you very much. In private." However, the words didn't come out as threatening as he intended them to, considering his voice cracked like an adolescent whining about a family vacation. Shit."So could you please leave me be?"

"You're hurt." Gamora, ever so gracefully, stated the obvious.

"No shit, Sherlock. Now can you please let me be? I've got to patch myself up a bit more before we meet with Nova Prime." Peter thought out loud, musing. "It's in about thirty minutes, isn't it?" It was set for two hours from the end of the battle. He had to get rid of the stone. Maybe since he was in close proximity, since he touched the damned thing, it still had a hold of him.

"That's why we came up. You're late, we were sent to make sure you weren't feeding us all a load of 'I'm fine' bull, shit-lord." Rocket entered the room, followed by Gamora. "Since you're missing about an hour, I'd say you were feeding us all a ton of shit."

Shiiiiit. "Oh." That fit lasted about forty minutes. Holy... "It would seem so."

"Sit down. Let me help you." Gamora used her 'kicking ass and taking names' voice, so Peter thought it best to obey. It totally wasn't because he was still reeling from his fit earlier.

"Rocket, would you mind fetching the med kit? I need to clean the burns." Gamora started to poke at his face, so, following the standard Star-Lord-Logic, Peter started fidgeting. "Peter. This will be far simpler if you just. Stay. Still." She said, grabbing his face to punctuate her sentence.

"Got it. Whatcha need?" The cyborg offered his help, albeit one armed.

"Burn Cream." The assassin put out her hand, and Rocket complied. "Where else are you hurt, Peter."

Peter complied with her demands, too tired to put up all that much of a fight. He took his right hand and lifted up the left corner of his shirt, showing a map of bruises and cuts littering the expanse of his side and back. Rocket whistled, "How'd you expect to treat that, princess? Magic? Doubt you'd have been able to reach most of that."

"To be honest, I'd almost forgotten about it." The words come out without much thought, and a moment later, Peter almost regrets it.

"What are you not showing me, Peter." Gamora almost sounds motherly, and it almost hurts him to hear that tone again, for the first time in years. But the attack should have only been because of the proximity, right? No need to make a big deal of it. That's at least what he thought.

"Nothing." He said, just a little too fast, which earned him a very sharp look from Gamora. "No, really." He scoffs, but it sounds shallow. Finally, Rocket crawled over and gently grabbed Peter's left hand, opening it. Peter tensed and hissed slightly in pain, the area still raw from the stone.

"Now, was that truly so hard?" Gamora chides, trying to sound light, but her eyes betrayed otherwise as she pushed up his sleeve past his elbow. She gingerly dipped her fingers into the jar of salve, and prayed that it would do something to aid the angry purple-red cracks.

"Yes." Peter hissed, as the cooling sensation spread up his arm, he felt a tension he didn't know he was holding in his shoulders release. He hoped they wouldn't see through the thin lie, as he sat still and allowed Gamora to tend to his wounds.

Peter made it to the meeting without another attack, which made him believe that it really was just a one-time deal. He thought that it was just a strange little fluke, a mistake of the universe. A remarkably miserable mistake, but still, just that. He handed over the stone with pleasure, and retreated to his room for the night.