Chapter Text
"How is he?"
Rocket looked up at Gamora from his perch at the foot of the hospital bed, looking just as rumpled and exhausted as his charge.
"Still off his rocker. Did you bring coffee?"
The green-skinned assassin lifted an eyebrow as she entered from the doorway where she had been leaning. "Giving someone of your size an tenacity caffeine?" She passed him a cup of juice instead, ignoring the smaller alien's grumbles about discrimination. Taking a seat next to him, she joined in observing their fallen friend.
Peter Quill for the most part looked rather pathetic. Thank goodness for small miracles, but the absence of grievous injuries was not exactly a huge comfort compared to the fact that the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy was sick enough to not even be in his right mind.
"Where're the others?" Rocket asked looking desperate to keep his mind off the feverish Terran laying before them.
"Groot is off entertaining some of the younger patients, I think. Drax went back to the Milano after we spoke with the doctors."
Rocket took a gulp of the juice, looking rather incensed that he had no coffee. "What did the doctors say?"
"They were predictable," Gamora replied with a sigh. "That they were doing what they could for him, but that the antibiotics might not take for a Terran. That it was up to Peter."
Gamora did not do a roll of the eyes, but Rocket did. Both of them were well aware that the ideal planet to have sought help from was Xandar, but Quill's condition had taken a nose dive too quickly for them to go so far. Instead they were in a substandard hospital on a far closer planet. The locale was not the worst, but it still wasn't Xandar. Xandar would have been up to date. Xandar would have had friends.
The light in the doorway was blocked by a familiar silhouette. Drax entered, looking deeply concerned, especially when Quill began to moan as if on cue. Their sick friend's walkman was in the giant man's hands.
"Has there been any progress?" he asked as he knelt by Quill's side.
"Not much," Rocket answered. "Just the usual. Mostly unconscious..."
Quill's lips parted as his moans became words.
"Yuhh..." he murmured.
"And that," Rocket said, visibly annoyed.
"Yondu..." the red-haired man managed to say.
Drax's brow wrinkled as he looked back at the others.
"Still he says the curr's name?"
"It's really grating my nerves," Rocket muttered. "He keeps askin' for that dick. Fever must be higher than a sun for him to want Yondu's company."
The Destroyer glanced back at the pained expression on his friend's face, glistening in sweat. His own tattooed visage softened. The others watched as he placed the walkman under Quill´s motionless hand.
"I am Groot?" their bipedal tree companion asked the group. Rocket looked at him incredulously.
"Of course we're not going to call him, ya simpleton!"
"Not so loudly," Drax said, his whisper a rumble of thunder. Rocket acquiesced, but only slightly.
"Of course we're not!" he repeated. "In case you forgot, we left the Ravagers with a phony orb and they're probably going to take advantage of the situation our fearless and very peaky leader is in. Likely put him on a spit and roast his pasty ass..."
"Why would they roast only his"--
"Save it, Drax. It would just be a bad idea. Period."
Gamora finally decided to speak up, seemingly lost in thought until then.
"Yondu is still the individual who raised him."
"Oh, not you too."
"I hazard to say he's like a father to him."
"A father who would turn Quill into his own personal pin cushion."
Drax stood upright, mentioning that such an act would be too messy to serve the proper purpose of a pin cushion, but he was seemingly ignored in favor of the snarled out whispers of Rocket's argument with both flora colossus and Zen Whoberi. As he walked out of the room, unnoticed by all except Groot, he heard the argument continue, and it likely went onward even as he had left the hospital to return once more to the Milano.
"He's had plenty of chances to take revenge against us, Peter especially, and yet he hasn't."
"He's just biding his time for the right opportunity. And right now would be perfect!"
"I am Groot."
"The day that jerk-off makes exceptions is the day I eat one of my own bombs."