InsaneJournal

Peter was anxious to get the hell away from home. Christmastime was when his dad always started putting on the cool, fun dad face – couldn’t be bothered to act like that any other time of the year, but he wanted the locals to think he was fucking Santa Claus when the end of the year came around. It was all competition, some bid to prove himself the better, more generous leader, even though they already had a power-hungry, piece of shit mayor.

Hard to choose which douchebag was worse, honestly.

He escaped as much and as often as he could. Dear old dad taking meetings and keeping business going even through the holidays was as good a time as any to make his escape. Thankfully, he had a pretty easy getaway, too; Mantis was working the gift shop at the ski resort, and Peter loved to ski. He loved pretty much anything that might give him a thrill, really, but this one came with a sweet family discount courtesy of his baby sister, and he was prone to take advantage of that.

The problem this particular morning was the snow was coming down. He could still see with his ski goggles shielding his eye and his hate pulled tight around his ears, but visibility was admittedly kind of rough. Still, he let the lift carry him to the right slope, and once he picked out his landing spot (after wiping some snow from his goggles), he made the jump.

But his control was dicey, and once his skis hit the ground, he careened out of control. He let out an alarmed yelp, doing his best to dig his ski poles into the ground. Instead, one snapped and he tumbled face forward – right into someone.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he exclaimed. He had finally stopped, at least, but it came at the cost of smacking right into another body, and he was sure whoever it was probably wouldn’t be happy. “Fuck, sorry.” He pushed himself back as much as he could manage to make space. “Didn’t mean to ram into you there. Are you all right?”

Gamora was going to kill someone. Blood would be shed, painting the snow a deep red, and she would victoriously hold their decapitated head towards the sky. Let nature claim the corpse of this fucking moron who – “Get off me!”

In retrospect, she should have gotten a map of this place because she hadn’t a clue where she was going, and the resort was bigger than she thought. A miracle, considering it was Serendipity Hills and there was nothing remarkable about Serendipity Hills, but their resort was some attempt at a tourism money-grab that her father might have funneled money into and it was just – more of a maze than she expected.

She had planned to leave. Coming here was a mistake. He needled at a weak spot, and out of obligation she packed her bags, caught a plane and now she was here - away from her city life, away from her laptop, away from all the things she preferred just to see the face of that man. The regret was instant.

Her rental wasn’t unpacked. All her luggage was there, and all she had to do was get in her vehicle and leave - but somehow the falling snow confused her paths, and she ended up not going towards the parking lot (valet parking kept telling her something along the lines of but you should stay in, miss, the roads are becoming dangerous). Maybe she should have listened.

Maybe she wouldn’t have gotten hit, and maybe her body wouldn’t have tumbled into snow with an extra weight added. Maybe she wouldn’t be wet from the snow seeping into her clothes and a jacket not meant for wintry weather.

“What the hell’s–” Gamora’s hand smacked his face. “Wrong with you?!”

“It was an accident!” Peter protested, swatting her hand away and pushing himself back so he landed on his butt in the snow. His feet were still strapped into the skis and consequently in a weird position, but he reached forward to unstrap the cheap boards from his boots. They slid away, but whatever – he’d just pay for the damn things when he got back to the resort.

“Are you okay?” he asked again, a hint of annoyance in his tone. He’d apologized, and she’d decided to smack at him, so he was admittedly not as patient as he should have been. But he reached out to help her stand anyway. “C’mon, I’ll get you on your feet.”

“I don’t need your help!” Gamora barked, slapping his hands next – this man had touched her enough already, and any contact with him would now be deemed as fucking cursed. There were harder things to hit than snow anyway, and she was confident in thinking she could rise to her feet and screw off into this incoming storm just fine.

Until she made an actual attempt and a stinging, unexpected pain shot up through her foot and ankle. The cry she let out was – humiliating, to say the least.

Gamora didn’t anticipate that. She hit the snow again, hissing. “I am suing you.”

Peter winced at the sound that came out of her. He’d been hoping she wasn’t hurt, but judging by that reaction, something was fucked. And he did feel bad about that. It wasn’t like he’d woken up today and thought, ‘I’m going to bowl down some hot green lady on the slopes today.’ He hadn’t intended to go skidding off-course like some unpracticed kid either; he wasn’t an amateur, and even without whacking into this lady, the whole incident was kind of embarrassing.

“You can sue all you want, I got nothing to give you,” he responded. He held out his hand again and raised his eyebrows. “You gonna let me help you now or what?”

Gamora whipped her head up to glare a thousand daggers his way – but there was a pause, a moment, where she drank his features in. The short, brunette curls; the rugged look; the sharp features and the blue eyes. He was actually–

An idiot.

“Fine,” she relented, seething with grit teeth, and she held her hand up for the official assist. “If you’re willing to be my human crutch, by all means. I need to get to my car.”

Driving involved sitting and didn’t require her to put too much pressure on her foot. It was entirely possible for her to drive with a wounded ankle. She could take herself to some Urgent Care facility just fine as long as someone helped get her to her rental.

“They’ve got medical care at the resort and it’s closer than the parking lot,” Peter pointed out, helping her hoist herself up and pulling her arm around his shoulders. “We can take the lift back up and it’ll save you a lot of hobbling and snow in your face.”

At the mercy of a stranger’s kindness – or guilt, if anything – and it was terrible. Gamora scowled, and it masked the wince she would have expressed when she was steadied onto her feet. She gave it another test, adding weight to it, only for it to become an instant regret.

Shit.

“I can’t go back–” Gamora stopped. She looked at the profile of his face and squinted. “Wait. Don’t I know you?” She knew his name, she knew it. “Pedro, right?”

Peter didn’t push her to move just yet. They’d have to move a little bit to get her back to the lift and back uphill to the resort, but it was fine. Something was clearly banged up pretty damn bad, and even if this encounter had been snarky, he wasn’t a complete dick. He’d make sure she got fixed up and didn’t freeze to death or fuck something up worse.

His expression shifted to surprise when she looked at him like she recognized him. It quickly shifted into a small scowl when she got his name wrong. “Peter,” he corrected her, looking right back at her. There was something familiar there, too. It shouldn’t have been this hard to place a green-skinned woman, but she was hardly the only one around Serendipity Hills.

“We met or something? I’d definitely remember you if we…y’know.”

It took a few seconds for her to realize what, exactly, he was referring to.

Then she got mad.

“I would never y’know,” she mocked acidly, “with you. No, that’s not—your father.” Gamora huffed, lifting the wounded foot off the ground because walking on it wasn’t happening. “He knows mine. Mine runs this little redneck town and is staying at this damn place.”

She had siblings. A sister she was sometimes at odds with, and a handful of distant others that she couldn’t stand. But she was the only one who came at her father’s call.

Steadily, Peter began moving them through the snow, abandoning his broken ski equipment on the hill. He’d come back for it later – or at least stop by the desk to let them know it was there. The hills were hazardous enough with this freaking weather. There was no point trying to make it worse.

Once it dawned on him just who his woman was, his eyes went wide. “Shit, that’s right. You’re Butt-Chin’s favorite kid with the fancy big city job. Gamora?” He’d always known of her, spending all their lives in this podunk town of theirs, but they’d never been close, never seen each other more than in passing. Her family was the competition, after all, according to his egomaniacal old man.

How flattering. He at least got her name right. Gamora hadn’t thought to apologize for incorrectly guessing his but considering he rammed into her and possibly broke her ankle, she didn’t sweat it.

“I’m not his favorite,” she protested with an irritable sigh, wishing that simply saying those words would make it true. That was a reputation she wasn’t proud of. She hobbled alongside Peter, putting all her strength into making sure she wasn’t inconveniencing him too much with her weight. “But I’d really –” Gods, it was cold, and the sharp breath she sucked in felt like she inhaled pinpricks into her lungs. “Really prefer not to go back to the resort. I can drive.”

Gamora couldn’t fathom staying. Her father knew what room she was staying in – he’d likely hound her down with unnecessary gifts, or just show up and demand her attention. He could easily just get a key to her room with the influence he had just to force a confrontation. She’d have to hide, somehow.

“Look, going downhill isn’t going to do your ankle any favors. The lifts don’t go that far. At least come up there and get it wrapped or something before you try to drive.”

This was getting aggravating. He totally got the dad thing. Totally. He had come here to get away from his own dad, and he wasn’t aiming to put Gamora back in the line of fire with her own. But he felt responsible – well, he was responsible for whatever the hell was wrong with her foot, and he wanted to be sure she got it taken care of.

“My sister works up there. She can help me keep you out of Butt-Chin’s way if that’s what you’re all worried about. If you know me, you know my dad’s a piece of fucking work, too. We’ll have your back.”

“The longer I stay here, I’m just gonna get–” The wind picked up for a minute there, icy air and wet snow whipping at their faces. The visibility of everything was getting worse. “Stuck. You know what’ll make this go faster?”

Gamora stopped her one-foot hobble, squinting at Peter through the onslaught of weather coming down on them.

“Let me climb your back.”

“Genius,” Peter decided, shifting to help her climb onto his back. It was best this way; he wouldn’t have suggested it himself, even if he’d thought of it, because he wouldn’t have figured she would be receptive. Her suggestion, though, and it was faster and easier to agree. He’d skidded around but wasn’t hurt, so he could get them back to the little cable car lifts much easier if he was carrying her instead of acting as her crutch.

Gamora didn’t particularly like this solution, but for the moment it was practical, and she was eager to remove herself from the harsh outdoors (and, quietly, soak up a little bit of body heat before her body betrayed her and her teeth began to chatter). She swallowed her pride and mounted Peter, cursing this predicament. Cursing everything.

“You do know where you’re going - right? You’re not just walking around aimlessly?”

Peter secured his arms around her legs and made sure she was steady before he reassured her, voice raised a bit to make sure she could hear him. “Yep, we just need to go a little further this way.” He canted his chin in the direction he had started walking. With the snow hammering down around them, it wasn’t the easiest task to make out the cables ahead, but he could make them out if he squinted.

It took him about five minutes of steady trudging before they arrived at the slow-moving cars. He reached out when one came within reach and it stopped as grabbed hold of the side of the door, tossing one foot up and crouching to get them both inside without any ridiculous maneuvering. As soon as he had deposited Gamora on the bench seat, he reached out to pull the door closed and sit on the bench seat opposite her.

“Shit, this thing’s gonna close if the weather keeps up,” he commented, peeling off his gloves and rubbing his hands against his red face. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Gamora strained out, trying to ignore the throb that suddenly felt more pronounced as the minutes went by despite not putting weight on it. She wanted to rip off her boots, roll up her pants and take a look but the air was biting at them, and she kind of wished Peter could at least sit next to her so she wasn’t so –

It was nothing. She could handle the cold.

“Do you think our dads know they’re under the same roof?” she asked, crossing her arms across her chest tightly.

“Nah, my old man’s not here,” Peter clarified. “He had some sort of meeting downtown today, so I came out here to see my sister. And ski, ideally, but that didn’t exactly work out.” He puffed out a breath into his hands, rubbed over his face one more time, then crossed over to crouch near her feet. “Lemme see it.”

Yes, he was asking. Or, well, requesting was probably closer. He wasn’t just going to roll up a lady’s pant leg without asking. His mom had taught him some manners.

Well, that was relieving. Gamora wasn’t interested in witnessing a cockfight between two old men who thought they were absolutely right in everything they said or did – and she was sure Peter felt the same way. It was exhausting. “What,” she snorted, the sound coming off as less angry and more tired, “do you have the medical ability to diagnose it?”

She wasn’t declining the offer, obviously, not with how she was actually moving to roll up her pants for him. The boots she wore underneath had a zipper on the side, and she had to carefully drag it down. Once she pulled her foot out, it wasn’t the best sight.

It was beginning to look swollen, and some purple coloring bloomed beneath the most prominent bone.

Peter very visibly cringed when Gamora gave him a view of the damage he caused. It looked bad, and he felt like an asshole for it. His control had failed, and because of it, her ankle was pretty screwed up. Hard to blame anyone else for that.

“I know, like, basic first aid,” he said, reaching out to pull off his scarf. He tugged the ends out from beneath his coat and spread it so he could see the full width. “They’ll have better stuff up the hill, but I know compression can help with swelling. Ice, too, but it’s cold enough as it is. This thing should be heated.”

He was no expert by any means, but he managed to wrap the scarf around Gamora’s ankle without struggle, pulling it around and around to steadily tighten it. He didn’t want to make it hurt worse, but there had to be some pressure for it to make any difference. He looked up at her as he held the two ends of his scarf.

“How’s that? Too tight?”

The sight of her wound wasn’t promising. Gamora had broken bones before, and while this wasn’t the broken level kind of pain - it was still wildly uncomfortable and didn’t make the prospect of walking appealing. Forcing it would make it worse. She was stubborn, yes, but she also wasn’t a fucking idiot.

“Thank you,” she exhaled, voice tight because that pressure - while understandable - did make it worse for a moment there. Driving was pointless, then. This was her right foot. The one she needed to use to hit the gas pedal or the brakes.

She was stuck here.

Peter tied off the scarf, watching Gamora’s expression to make sure she was okay. It was bound to hurt initially, but hopefully it would give her a little bit of relief until they got back to the resort. There was no way in hell she was walking on that no matter what, and he didn’t figure driving was in the immediate cards either, but he kept those thoughts to himself. She seemed like the stubborn type, and he got that – she probably had to be with a dad like hers.

When he rose to his feet, this time he sat down on the bench beside her. “I’m sorry,” he said again, quiet but earnest. “Guess I underestimated how well I could handle the hills with the weather being what it is right now. Last thing I intended was to slam into you.”

“I was probably headed the wrong way anyway,” Gamora admitted, defeat evident in her words. She tipped her head back against the lift, curling her fists into tight balls for warmth. “The guy up front wouldn’t get my car for me, and then insisted I shouldn’t go outside because of the snow coming our way – don’t even know my way around this place, but I sure as hell fucked off like I thought I did.”

The laugh she let out was half-amusement and half-loathing.

“This is only about fifty-percent your fault, I think,” she tacked on, watching him from the corner of her eye. “You’ve seen my skin, right? I’m hard to miss when everything around you is white.”

“It’s less the noticeability, more the spiraling out of control part,” Peter replied with a smirk. They seemed to be finding some sort of ease, and he was going with it. He got the feeling making Gamora his enemy wasn’t the way to go if he could help it. Well, not anymore than he already had; she didn’t seem all that endeared to him either, but she was shooting him less evil glares.

“But yeah, I’ll take the fifty percent blame. I’d have noticed you in normal circumstances, trust me.” Aside from the green skin, she was freaking gorgeous. He’d never paid enough attention to her to really clock that before, but now that they were here, sitting side by side, it was easy to see. “Might even generously go to sixty since I kind of ruined your Escape Butt-Chin plan.”

“Now that you’ve reminded me about that, it’s going up to seventy,” Gamora shot at him, eyes narrowed at the thought of her father. The Butt-Chin. He had many names people would insult him by behind his back, but not many dared say any of it to his face.

The lift was nearing the landing, which was good – because she wasn’t sure how much longer she could tolerate this snow exposure. She looked down at her wrapped foot, knowing she’d be unable to put her boot back on (and she shouldn’t; it was painful getting it out, and having to shove it back in would probably be just as bad).

Time to swallow her pride, again.

“Do you think I could get a–ride–to this place’s medical care facility?” she asked, her face completely deadpan.

“Nope, thought I’d just let you limp your way there and fend for yourself,” was Peter’s deeply sarcastic reply, followed up with another of those smirks. “Obviously. I told you I’d help you out and since I’m seventy-percent responsible and all, you can piggyback ride on me all you want.”

That sounded–nope, no. Gamora wouldn’t take those words crassly, nor would she dare make some kind of suggestive joke. She had dignity, thank you, even if she felt as if she had very little of it right now.

The lift came to a stop, and she was already dreading getting up. “Let’s make this quick.”