WHO: Jay, Evie, Peter Quill WHAT: Finding out about Gamora WHEN: WHERE: Their house WARNINGS: Infinity War spoilers STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Jay and Evie had been on their own for a day or so now. They hadn’t been good days. Jay had really liked being part of a family, and he’d really liked Peter and Gamora, and having both of them gone really, really sucked. There was no promise that they’d come back at all...and if they did, who knew if they’d even remember them? They could come back with no memories of this place at all. It had happened before.
He’d just stayed in his room, quietly, for the first day or so, hoping that nobody would notice and take them away.
But several days had passed now, and he’d been spending most of his time with Evie. They could take care of themselves - he wasn’t worried about that. It just hurt a lot to know that he’d had something that was amazing for just a short amount of time and then he’d lost it.
Now, they were sitting on the couch watching something on TV, just trying to pass the time. It wasn’t working very well, and Jay was getting fidgety.
Finally, he grabbed the remote and turned it off, and turned to Evie.
“Are they going to come back?”
***
It was really fucking awful, being left alone without it being their choice. It'd been not good when Peter had gotten sent home, but then Gamora had too and it was just her and Jay. Where Jay had chosen to hide in his room, Evie had curled up with Warren and went back and forth between being pissed and being upset. She wanted to spend time with Jay though when she was home. It just didn't feel like home when she was on her own.
When he turned off the tv, Evie sort of just blinked and looked over at him. "They're going to come back," she replied, definitive and defiant all at once. There was no other option. They were coming back. She reached over for the remote and turned the tv back on, even though she honestly didn't have the first clue of what they're watching.
"They have to come back."
***
It was supposed to be over. Peter was supposed to die and he’d felt himself start to fall apart and leave the world that didn’t have Gamora in it anymore and then he’d been standing in one piece back on their house in Madison Valley. For one wild moment he’d hoped that Gamora would be there too but once he slammed out of his room and into hers only to find it empty he’d screamed in rage and slammed a fist into the wall.
And that didn’t help enough so he did it again.
***
Jay jumped a little. It wasn’t that he could miss that. It was pretty loud when people were hammering on walls with a fist. It was a little weird, though, because Peter didn’t scream like that very often. Something bad must have happened, and that made Jay’s stomach curl a little. He looked over at Evie and grabbed her hand and the two of them headed upstairs to try to figure out what the heck was going on.
“Dad?”
Man, he didn’t look good. He hoped that didn’t mean...
“Where’s mom?”
She was around here somewhere, she had to be. Because...because she just had to be, that was why.
***
Evie had jumped a lot more than Jay at the scream because it just sounded painful. She was glad for Jay's hand as they raced upstairs and when they found him on the floor of Gamora's room, she knew it wasn't good. Immediately, Evie threw herself at Peter, her arms tight around his neck. They'd figure out what happened to Mom, but at least they had Dad back.
"She'll be back," she answered for Peter. Evie wasn't ready to hear anything else. "Dad came back. She'll be back, too." Right now, she just wanted to be glad that their Dad was back. It'd been a really terrible time without them.
"How bad was it?"
***
Peter didn’t want to stop being angry, as soon as he wasn’t angry it was all going to crash in on him again but Evie throwing her arms around his neck kept him from hitting things and they were talking about Gamora...about their mom...and it just cut all the strength right out of him.
Peter didn’t mean to but he collapsed to his knees dragging Evie with him and shook his head. He couldn’t say what happened to Gamora without losing it completely.
“I...I don’t know…”
***
This was...this was wrong. Peter wasn’t the kind of guy who just broke like this. It was really really scary in ways that Jay couldn’t explain and he just wanted it to stop. Since Evie was hugging Peter, Jay stood and started pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“Well, I mean, did she go to the store? Is she at the library? Where is she?”
His voice was getting a little more desperate with every word because he’d found family here and he didn’t want to lose it. Not so soon. Please.
***
Evie could tell that something was seriously wrong. She knew it wasn't good with the way that Peter just dropped to his knees and she went right with him. It took her a moment to sort of weasel her way under his arms so that she could bury her face in his chest. It was reassuring to just have him back again and she wasn't interested in letting go anytime soon.
"Jay," she snapped, in part to get him to shut up and in part to get him to come sit with them so that he wouldn't get more and more agitated. "She might not be back yet. They went separately," Evie added, softer this time. It wasn't Jay's fault that Gamora wasn't back yet. Just like it wasn't Peter's fault that he came back first.
"She's going to come back." She had to. There wasn't another option.
***
“This, this guy, Thanos, he killed a lot of people.” Peter was glad to have the two of them there. He wished he hadn’t forgotten about them when he went home. They deserved better than that. “I’m pretty sure he maybe killed me too but I’m here so maybe...maybe Evie’s right.” It was something to try to hold out hope for. He was going to need to be reminded of it a lot because he wasn’t thinking very well right now.
“How long?” How long was he gone. It was a lot more time back home than here he was sure.
***
Jay had lost track of the exact number of days - but that was what it was. Days.
“Less than a week,” he said. “We were going to try to make it until we turned eighteen so that we didn’t have to find a new guardian because we didn’t want anyone but you and mom.”
It had taken a lot for Jay to accept them as his guardians, and to come to trust them. He definitely wasn’t going to do it again.
“So how do we kill him? We’re going to find a way, right, to kill this Thanos guy so he doesn’t kill you or anyone else and everything’s right again?”
Jay wasn’t actually doing too well at the moment either. HIs mind was all over the place and refusing to accept that Gamora might have been gone. Because that wasn’t okay. He’d never had a mom before.
***
"Not long enough that we thought you wouldn't come back," Evie assured Peter. Jay hadn't really been doing so well with the whole thing but she was determined to be more positive about it. At least as positive as she could be.
When it was clear Jay wasn't going to come to them, she let go of Peter and got back to her feet so that she could walk over to her fellow VK. He was more a brother now than ever before and she wasn't just going to abandon him. Evie stood right in front of him to get him to stop and pulled him in for a hug. This was a lot of hugging, but the situation warranted it.
"Stop, okay?" she asked, sounding as tired as she felt. "Can we just be glad Dad is back?" One step at a time. They needed to take it one step at a time.
***
Peter stayed on the ground and ran his hands over his face and back through his hair. His hands were shaking but he was doing a fairly good impression of being together for the moment. He really wasn’t. Peter wasn’t together at all and the only thing keeping him from pulling a gun and blowing a wall the fuck away was how much Jay wasn’t doing well. If he continued to lose it in front of him he’d probably bolt. The problem was it was hard to care with how much he hurt right now but it was one thing to hold onto.
“You don’t kill Thanos. Okay?” He didn’t want them to kill anyone. They had it hard enough as it was. “We’ll figure it out. And I need a drink.”
***
That was actually pretty likely. Jay wasn’t in good shape either. He hated it, but holding it together and keeping up with his generally easy-going demeanor was getting harder and harder. He’d trusted Peter and Gamora and that wasn’t something that came easily to him. And now, even though it wasn’t their fault, he was feeling betrayed and he kind of wanted to go bury himself somewhere where he could hide behind his walls again. But it was too late for that. Which was terrifying.
He hugged Evie, though, a little tighter than normal.
“Right. Yeah. Welcome back, Dad.”
***
Whatever it was, it definitely wasn't good. Evie could only do so much to make sure Jay and their Dad kept it together, but at least it gave her something to focus on so that she didn't lose her shit as well. Someone had to keep them together because none of this would be worth it if they didn't get to stay together.
"No one's killing anyone," Evie promised, even as she hugged Jay back just as tightly. It was as much an echo for him as it was a reassurance to their dad that they wouldn't kill anyone. She let the hug linger for a few moments before she tugged Jay toward Peter.
"Come on. We can go downstairs and we'll get you that drink, Dad." She didn't understand why or where or what had happened, but Evie knew she couldn't push him for answers. Not yet.
***
Peter held his hands out to the two of them, ignoring bloody knuckles from smashing his fists into the walls and silently asked for help off the ground. One thing he knew was taking care of the people he’d picked as family. Hopefully that would keep him moving even though he really wanted to quit right now. It’s what his mom would have done, what she tried to do for him while she was dying of cancer and he couldn’t do any less.
“A drink would be great.” He’d tell them, he just needed to do it in doses so he didn’t break down.
***
Jay took the hand extended to him and helped yank him to his feet. His stomach hurt because he knew something bad had happened back home, something really, really, really, really bad, and he didn’t know what it was so his mind was jumping to the worst possible conclusions. He thought he might throw up if everything didn’t get said right away, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to push Peter more than he already had. He was obviously upset.
“Yeah. Okay. Drinks.”
He was too young for one, of course, but for the first time in his life, he really, really wanted one.
***
Evie also helped Peter up and once he was on his feet, she laced their fingers together. Even though she tried to be mindful of the scrapes, she was more interested in keeping a connection to him. He wasn’t alone and he didn’t have to deal with everything on his own.
She led the way downstairs and set the boys at the table. She headed for the liquor cabinet and grabbed the strongest thing she could find, along with three glasses. Evie poured a generous glass for their dad and then a smaller amount for Jay, more a mouthful really. She set the bottle down close to their dad and then grabbed a soda from the fridge so she and Jay could drink that, too.
“Whatever happened, we’ll get through it together,” she told Peter. “You have us, you have Groot.” He wasn’t alone. He looked like he needed a lot of reminders about that.
***
Peter would definitely need the reminders he wasn't alone and he couldn't care less if Evie and Jay drank so he didn't say anything when some got poured out for Jay. The first glass of alcohol got downed like it was water and he poured out another glass for himself. He wasn't quite at the stage where he was going to pick up the bottle and drink directly out of it but give him a few more glasses and he might be there.
"Don't go anywhere okay? I'm tired of people going away." It was going to be a long night for all of them. Peter was going to have to be drunk enough to tell what exactly happened to Gamora and it was going to take a while to get there.
"Let me get some of this into me and I'll get Groot and I'll tell you what happened." Knowing he'd have to be drunk enough for it he shot back the next drink and poured a third. Maybe when this bottle was about half gone he could do this.