Hello all! Hope you're doing well! So I know the whole resurrection thing is a bit slap-dash in this chapter but I plan on fleshing it out a bit more in a future project (hopefully) Right now it's all a bit deus ex machina but hopefully it's not too bad! Thanks so much for sticking with this story guys! I'm so happy you've all enjoyed it! :D

Peter punches him straight in the face.

Granted, this was not exactly how he envisioned their reunion occurring but still, damn. The kid's always had one hell of a right hook and he definitely knows how to use it. He'd be surprised if the blow didn't break his nose.

He supposes he had that coming though, and yeah, it hurts like a mother, but he can't exactly say he blames Peter for his reaction either. It wasn't like he left the kid with a good final memory or anything. Hell, the last time he saw him Peter was screaming his name while he froze to death in the cold vacuum of space. So yeah, the punch hurt but it was understandable.

Once again, this was not how he wanted their reunion to go. In fact, if he's being honest with himself, he'd nearly made up his mind that he didn't want any kind of reunion with Peter, figuring it was best to let the Guardian move on with his life after everything that happened with Ego. Peter needed time to rebuild and recover and the best way for him to do that was to stay the hell away.

That didn't mean he stopped checking in on him though. Peter might think he's dead but he never lets the Guardian off his radar for very long. That's still his boy and Yondu has spent the better part of the past few decades making sure Peter never got in over his head (because Lord knows Peter is shit at keeping himself out of trouble) and dead, resurrected, or otherwise, that hasn't changed. He keeps an eye on Peter because he's always kept an eye on Peter even when the kid didn't realize it.

He never gets too involved and he certainly doesn't make his presence known; he just checks in occasionally to make sure Quill is still alive and kicking and hasn't landed himself in a world of trouble. He's fine staying on the outskirts of all this and Peter never needed to know. He was happy to keep it that way.

The universe had other plans, though, the tricky bastard. He was back in Peter's life, whether either of them wanted it or not, and now they're both left to deal with the fallout.

Yondu never believed in things like fate or destiny or anything like that because it was stupid and a waste of time but he's beginning to wonder if maybe he should reconsider his stance on that because seriously, what are the odds? Of every run down, seedy, backwoods bar in the entire damn universe to stumble into, he happened to end up in the one place Peter Quill is.

It was not intentional nor was it planned; had he known Quill would have swaggered his way into the bar like he owned the joint he might have just turned on his heel and walked the other way. As it was, he'd been sitting in one corner, getting quietly and contentedly hammered for the past hour, and if there was one face he never expected to see in a gutter bar like this it was Peter's.

Peter didn't see him when he walked in but then again he wasn't looking. For all intents and purposes, Yondu was still fully dead and gone out in the cold void of space. He resisted the urge to curse when he saw the man walk through the door because the place was small and if Peter spent more than exactly two seconds scanning the bar (idiot), he likely would have recognized the hunched, blue figure sitting against the far wall.

Yondu remedied this by sinking down a little further in his chair and adjusting the hood on his jacket. He wasn't hiding, that was stupid, but presumed dead or not there were still a lot of people who had a bounty out on his head the lower profile he kept, the better. However, all his efforts for discretion were in vain apparently because Peter didn't even seem to notice the movement, his attention focused elsewhere (once again, idiot).

The Guardian was here on a job, he had to be otherwise there would be no sane reason for him to be here. There were no signs of the others though which meant either this was a solo mission or they didn't know where he was. That thought set him on edge for some reason and he watched from the shadows as Quill sidled up to the bar with that goofy, open grin of his like he'd never been afraid of anything in his life.

He started a conversation with someone at the bar, too far away to hear the specifics, but from the look of things the man was not exactly happy to see him. Judging by the look on the other man's face and the tense, rigid way he was holding himself, this will turn into a fight before it's all over.

It seemed the man wasn't here alone, either. The surrounding tables and chairs were filled with people who were eyeing the exchange between Peter and the man he was speaking with like they were just waiting for the opportunity to strike. There was an electrified tension in the air, lightning hot and dangerous, and all it would take was one wrong move to set the entire thing off.

Said wrong move came in the form of someone flipping the safety off of their gun. There was a soft click as the lock was flipped and that was all it took for the bar to plunge into utter chaos almost immediately. People were screaming, glass was shattering, and the bar turned into a full blown war zone in the blink of an eye.

Peter flipped himself behind an overturned table a few feet away, narrowly dodging a laser blast that took away the top corner. He adjusted the setting on his gun (apparently the assignment, whatever it is, was capture not kill so he switched the setting to stun) and kept an eye on the group of people trying to shoot him from across the bar.

There were eight of them at least, all spread out and blocking the exit, and it was clear that none of them had any intention of letting anyone out of there. The other patrons who were unlucky enough to still be caught in the middle of all of it were now trapped there and there was no way to escape without running the risk of getting shot. There was about to be a lot of innocent blood spilled if something wasn't done in a hurry.

Peter seemed to realize this and tossed something small and metallic toward the closest wall. The blast was immediate and blew a large section of the wall out into the street, allowing several of the trapped patrons to escape the fire fight of the bar. At the same time, the Guardian leveled his gun at the nearest group of assailants, the three closest to the door, and fired an electrified wire net over them which instantly clamped together at the ends and rolled them into a tangled pile of guns and limbs. The currents in the net disabled their weapons and kept them painfully but not lethally disabled on the floor of the bar.

He managed to take down two more in the same fashion, effectively freeing the exit for the fleeing bar patrons. It all happened in a matter of minutes, impressive and a little terrifying in its efficiency, and Yondu couldn't quite suppress the tiny smirk of approval as he watched his boy in action. There had been a few times when Peter was a kid that he wondered if the Terran child would ever make for a decent Ravager. Now, watching him single-handedly take on an entire bar full of armed thugs with only his gun and a table for protection, he realized Peter turned out infinitely better.

Peter's stroke of luck was cut short though when an errant blast destroyed the table he was crouched behind and knocked him back a few feet. The blow wasn't lethal but it left him dazed for a second as the smoke cleared and that was all it took for the other men to move in. They would be on top of him in a matter of seconds and then it would be all over.

Yondu didn't realize he'd said anything until it was already out in the open. It was involuntary but then again he'd come to accept his weird knee-jerk reactions whenever Peter was involved. He saw the men approaching, guns raised and leveled, and all previous intentions he had of not getting involved went out the window. "Peter, get up!"

For a brief moment, Peter's expression contorted into stunned confusion because he recognized that voice and the impossibility behind it but there was no time to dwell on it. It was also abundantly clear that he wouldn't have time to pull his gun before they reached him and death is all but a certainty.

Once again, all of this took place in the span of seconds and the decision to move took even less time. Yondu quickly realized his choices were to a) stand by and watch Peter get shot in the face or b) blow his cover and intervene. And, as he'd dedicated the last several decades of his life to ensuring that Peter did not, in fact, get shot in the face, his decision was pretty easy.

He cleared the space between them in approximately four steps and shot the nearest man point blank in the chest. The man staggered back a few steps before he finally sagged to the ground in a heap. Peter might have been interested in keeping things as non-lethal as possible but Yondu had no such qualms about making the shot more final. Whatever job Peter was on probably stressed the catch-not-kill factor for the guy he was questioning earlier but likely didn't specify what to do with any backup he had in tow which meant they were fair game. They had guns and those guns were aimed at Peter and that just wasn't unacceptable.

The appearance of yet another person with a gun in the bar was surprising enough to make the second man pause for a split second and glance away from his original target, Peter, to the new threat, Yondu. That split second hesitation was all it took for the ex-Ravager to put a hole in his chest as well, dropping him just as efficiently as he had the other one. Now it was just the three of them, Peter, his intended mark, and Yondu.

From where he was standing, half in front of and half over Peter, the Guardian couldn't see his face. Yondu kept his back to him and his weapon raised, full attention focused on the last man still holding his a gun. He hadn't thought much past this point, what he was going to say to Peter, how he was going to address the whole not-being-dead situation, but he wasn't worried about that right now because this man still had a weapon which meant Peter was still in danger and once again, that was not acceptable.

Before anyone else could move, there was a loud, piercing wail of a siren from outside, a sure indication that the city enforcers were on their way. It made sense, they did just blow up half a building, but the enforcers in a place like this were often just as dangerous and deadly, if not more so, as the crimes and bar brawls they were sent to deal with. Run-ins typically ended with multiple broken bones and imprisonment if they were feeling generous; if not, well, people who ended up on a planet like this weren't likely to be missed by anyone so if they conveniently "disappeared" and were never seen or heard from again, there was little chance anyone would come looking for them.

The ex-Ravager muttered a curse and shot the man in the wrist in the same breath. The gun went flying and it's owner let out a pained yelp as blood began pouring from the wound. It wasn't fatal but it was probably permanent and he likely wouldn't be able to pick up a weapon again for a long time, if ever. None of that was Yondu's concern however; his concern was getting Peter and himself the hell away from this bar before the enforcers get here.

While the man was still distracted with the gushing wound in his wrist, Yondu flipped the setting on his gun to stun and shot him in the chest. The man let out another pained yelp and collapsed the the ground as a jolt of electricity rippled through him. Catch-not-kill was so boring...

Threat eliminated, he turned just the slightest bit to grab a fistful of Peter's jacket and jerk him up off the floor. He didn't check to see if the Guardian was injured or upright or even following him; he just grabbed him and started moving. He kept his grip tight and took off running through the crumbling remains of the bar wall, Peter in tow.

The entire bar was swarmed with enforcers not five seconds after they fled. They would round up whoever was left alive and figure out what to do with the rest of them from there; that would likely put a kink in the outcome of Peter's job, whatever it was, but it was better than being dead. With that thought in mind, he dragged the still shell-shocked Guardian away from the bombed out ruins of the bar and further into the heart of the city.

Their flight came to an end after another block when Peter skidded to a stop in an alley and wrenched his wrist out of Yondu's grip. He planted his feet, leveled his gaze, and pulled his gun.

"Who the hell are you?"

Yondu kept his back turned, still not ready to face the reality of the situation; he seriously doubted Peter would be either. He was beginning to wonder if he should have just let go of Peter in one of the numerous alleys they'd run through and ducked the other way. He didn't really have a choice about getting involved earlier but he more than likely could have made a clean break by now if he'd just let go-

"I ain't gonna ask again," Peter growls from behind him and there's a heavy inflection of Ravager twang in his words, something he hadn't used in years. Peter had lost much of his drawl as he got older, the long, heavy accent slowly mellowing and fading out almost entirely. It was back now, though, with a vengeance.

There was the soft click of a gun behind him. The safety is off and Yondu doubts it's set to stun. It never really occurred to him that Peter might actually shoot him if he were so inclined. "Who are you?"

Yondu sighed heavily because there was no way to avoid it any longer. Peter was smart and if he hadn't figured it out already, he was about to. He braced himself for the inevitable fallout and let the hood of his jacket fall back as he turned back to face Peter. "How's it goin' runt?"

That's when Peter punched him. There was no hesitation, no gaping in stunned confusion, Peter took two steps forward and punched him straight in the face.

Yondu braces for it but he doesn't dodge it and the blow is hard enough to make him stagger back a few steps. It hurts but then again so did dying so he figures he's coming out a bit ahead this time around.

Peter is staring at him, fists clenched tightly at his sides. Now the look of shock and disbelief are written all across his face, the anger and incredulity and surprise. Peter is looking at him like he's seen a ghost and for all intents and purposes he has. People don't just come back from the dead like this (at least they shouldn't) and Peter needs some way to make sense of this situation before he loses his mind entirely.

"You son of a bitch," he grumbles shakily, his voice quavering with a hundred different emotions all at once. "I don't know what you're tryin' to pull here but you're about to be a dead man if you don't start talking right now."

The gun comes up again, level with Yondu's chest, and in spite of the shakiness in his voice, Peter's hand is steady. "You have exactly five seconds to tell me who you are before I blast you through the wall."

The ex-Ravager keeps his hands raised but his eyes stay locked with Peter's. "You know who I am, boy," he says slowly, keeping his voice level. "You've known me since you was a pup. This ain't exactly how I thought we'd be meetin' up again but…" he fades off with a slight shrug before looking back at the Guardian. "Put the gun down, son."

All at once Peter goes the color of plaster. He sways just a bit, dizzy and overwhelmed by the gravity of everything and if he weren't still holding a gun on him, Yondu might have stepped forward to steady him.

Peter's hand is shaking and a slow, full body tremble rattles him from the inside out. There's a flurry of emotions that slicker across his face that are too quick and jumbled to read. He shakes his head once, teeth clenched tightly. "You're not him," he growls, almost more to himself than to the other man. The gun is starting to shaking and Peter is beginning to shake more with it. "You're not him," he says a bit louder, voice cracking a little around the edges. "I watched you die!"

Yondu doesn't try to refute that because he can't; even though he's standing there, alive and breathing, it doesn't change that fact that he did, indeed, die in front of Peter.

"Yeah, ya did," he replies quietly and he can't quite erase the twinge of shame in his voice. "An' I'm real sorry 'bout that. Trust me, bein' dead wasn't no picnic for me either."

The joke falls flat and heavy like a waterlogged lead balloon. The guardian is staring at him in a mixture of disbelief, anger, grief, and more than a little wariness. It's not an expression he's seen on Peter in a long time and it's not one he enjoys seeing now. He hadn't expected it to be this hard, to see Peter so broken up, and a deep, heavy ball of guilt settles somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

"How…?" Peter asks brokenly, eyes never leaving the ex-Ravager.

Yondu shakes his head once. "I don't know."

The gun is gripped tighter in Peter's hand like it's the only thing tethering him to reality now. "Don't give me that bullshit!" he snarls, angry tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. "How are you standing here?!"

"I don't know!" the ex-Ravager roars back, frustrated and more than a little desperate himself. He sighs and shakes his head in defeat. "I don't know," he says again, voice soft and resigned.

Peter wants answers, that much is obvious, but the problem is that Yondu doesn't have any to give him. He doesn't know why he's alive or how it happened, all he knows is that one minute he's cold and dead in the empty vacuum of space and the next he's waking up naked as the day he was born on some planet called Kastyr on the outskirts of Knowhere.

He didn't know much when he first woke up, only that he was in more pain than he'd ever felt in his life. Every nerve felt shredded and raw, his entire body one giant gaping wound. He felt like he had been ripped apart and then crushed back together like a piece of scrap metal tumbling out of a compactor. His skin felt like broken glass, lungs filled with sandpaper, and he wondered what the point of being alive was if he was going to be in this much agony.

For one entire day he just laid on the ground, staring at the purple and gold nebula that glittered overhead. He wasn't sure how many hours he laid there, trying to convince himself to get up, but he finally did muster up the strength to pull himself off the ground, the act of standing up alone took the rest of the day. By the time he was upright, it was dark again.

By some stroke of luck, a party of merchants had touched down less than a mile away and he was able to stagger toward the light of their ship. They took him in, gave him clothes, and got him off that God-forsaken planet and back into known space. He was eternally grateful to them but he couldn't provide them with any useful information about himself when they asked where he had come from. His mind wasn't a blank slate, not quite, but it seemed that every one of his memories had been carefully wrapped in several layers of cotton and he just couldn't pull it all away.

It took days for him to even remember his own name, a full week and half to remember he'd been a Ravager. It came back slowly, bits and pieces at a time, and it took months before he remembered enough to piece things together. There were still holes here and there, gaps and spaces that could be filled but were probably best left blank for the time being. A month and a half after his death, he located Kraglin's ship and sent a message.

The other Ravager's response had been remarkably similar to Peter's in that he didn't believe it was him at first. He ignored the message, bounced it back with a string of vulgar obscenities and a threat to shut up or he'd hunt him down and shut him up himself. Yondu was undeterred and sent another message. And another. And another until finally Kraglin was forced to accept it and meet his messenger head on. He opened the message and came face-to-face with his previously dead ex-Captain and promptly fell out of his chair.

It had been an unexpected reunion to say the least and neither of them understood how or why it had happened but they didn't spend much time dwelling on it. Yondu was back, he was alive, the universe kept moving. Except it seems Peter isn't nearly as passive about his resurrection as Kraglin was.

Peter looks like he's torn between taking another swing and taking off in the opposite direction. He's frantic and pacing, circling back and forth in the small space of the alley like he's desperately trying to regain some kind of control of the situation. His hands are shaking, hell, all of him is shaking, and the pallor of his skin is a little concerning.

"Why?" he asks finally, slowing his frantic pacing and fixing the ex-Ravager with a look that's equal parts leery and borderline furious. "Why did you do it?"

Yondu feels like he's been punched again. "Boy, I didn't raise you to be stupid. What kinda question is that? You know why I did what I did."

Peter shakes his head once, angry tears still wavering in his eyes. "You had no right," he says quietly, his voice a rough whisper when he speaks. "You had no right to do something that stupid."

Yondu does lose what little patience he still possesses then and he can't quite rope in the sardonic scoff that tears out of him. "I had every right!" he growls back, red eyes narrowed sharply at the Guardian. "You may not like what I did, brat, but I don't regret it. You're the only half-decent thing I ever did in my life an' I sure as hell wasn't gonna let that jackass father'a yours get the upper hand. Be mad all ya want, Quill, but I don't regret my choices if it meant savin' you."

"I didn't want you to die for me!" Peter shouts back suddenly, all the anger and grief and raw emotion spilling out into his voice like a flash flood. "I didn't want you to save me at the cost of your own life, you asshole! I didn't want to live when I had to watch you die right in front of me! It was like losing my mom all over again!" He glares, breathing hard and harsh like he's right on the verge of hyperventilating. "I already watched one parent die in front of me and I didn't want you to be the second!"

And damn, doesn't that hit like a punch in the gut. He doesn't regret what he did, never had and never will, but he regrets what it's done to Peter. He didn't have to deal with the aftermath, the cleanup and the disposal and the grief that came with it; he was dead and cold and nothing so it didn't matter. In a very private, fleetingly selfish way he's glad for that.

But Peter did. Peter had to pick up the pieces and move on, cope with everything that had happened and learn how to live with it. Peter blamed himself, that much was painfully obvious, and it's the one thing Yondu never wanted him to do. He didn't want Peter to fight with the survivor's guilt, to blame himself for the ex-Ravager's choices. Yondu's decision was his own and he accepted that but now Peter is shouldering the responsibility for it.

"Peter," he says quietly, reaching out with one hand toward the distraught Guardian.

"You shouldn't have…" Peter mutters softly, voice broken and jagged around the edges like shattered glass. He's stopped pacing and he's standing still and heaving in the confined space of the alley. All at once he looks more worn and exhausted than he has any right to, stretched thin and pulled too far in every conceivable direction. He's one step away from crumbling and when Yondu's hand catches his arm, he lets it happen.

In the span of a second he closes the space between them, gripping two thick fistfuls of the ex-Ravager's jacket and pushing him into the wall. For a very brief moment, Yondu wonders if he's about to attack him again. But Peter doesn't attack him, he doesn't take another swing or reach for his gun or anything of the sort. Instead, he sags against him, hands still gripping his jacket like it's the only thing keeping him from drowning. He's shaking all over, trembling so hard it's a wonder he's still standing, and his forehead is pressed against the other man's chest.

Yondu freezes because he's not exactly sure what else he should do in this situation. He's never been big on physical contact and his first instinct is to push Peter away. But he doesn't, not this time. He stands stock still and motionless against the wall while Peter grips the front of his jacket like a tether.

Peter, for his part, isn't doing much different. He just stands there, shaking and breathing and holding on. He's not speaking anymore, either too stunned or exhausted to try carrying on a conversation, and the backs of his hands are white from the grip he has on the ex-Ravager's jacket. He's still trembling but it's beginning to die down and he slumps a bit more against the man in front of him.

He's not sure why but slowly, very slowly, Yondu moves his arms up and wraps them around Peter's back. It's not a hug; he can count on one hand the number of times he's ever hugged Peter and half of those were more or less a headlock rather than an honest to God embrace. It's not a hug; he's just wrapping his arms around the Guardian to make sure he doesn't fall over because even though it's died down by now, Peter is still shaking like a leaf. It's not a hug; that's what he tells himself at least.

He wraps his arms around the other man's back and holds on as the trembling slowly lessens. Peter is heavy and tall and awkward against his chest but he holds onto him because he can't bring himself to let go.

"You're such an asshole," Peter mumbles against his chest, hands still gripped tightly in the fabric of his jacket. The words are coarse and broken and heavy and so is Peter.

"I know, kid," Yondu mutters back, keeping his arms wrapped tightly around Peter's back. He holds on a little tighter, pulling Peter a bit closer to his chest as the Guardian sags against him. There's nothing else he can do and for the moment there's nothing else he wants to do. He keeps his arms around Peter and holds on. "I know."

Thanks again for reading guys! Y'all are the best! :D