WHAT: After patrol, Gamora attracts some butterflies with how brightly colored she is WHERE: Vallo Forest WHEN: Today WARNINGS: All fucking fluff STATUS: Complete ART CREDIT:Here
Whatever all that portal crap was that the Outlanders had been dealing with lately seemed to have ended. Or paused, most likely. Peter didn’t think it was for good, but no one had been sucked up into another version of Vallo yet, so that was something. Last month’s adventure wasn’t sitting right with him, and he wasn’t up for another rescue mission that made him face alternate versions of his family and leave them behind. Not anytime soon.
He could still remember the way Rocket’s face had fallen when he’d admitted he’d come up to V.A.L.L.O. on a ship, not via their arrival point – some tree in their makeshift Forest that seemed to produce them out of nowhere. He’d wanted to drag Rocket and Groot out with him, but he knew he couldn’t. All he could do was hope there was some version of him there with them now – and hopefully not a slimy imposter version.
The sun was just starting to set when the alarm on his watch beeped, signaling the end of the patrol shift for the day. It had been a quiet day, aside from one ridiculously humongous ant that they’d managed to take down with the help of Godslayer, and he laced his fingers through Gamora as they continued on their path out of the forest, toward New Asgard where Knowhere was docked.
“You know, this is kind of nice,” he said, smiling down at Gamora and bumping his arm against her shoulder. “We’ve never really been a ‘take walks’ kinda couple, but I like it. We should just take walks more often.”
Never mind that they hadn’t had a whole lot of time for just walking back while they were running missions back home. They had the time now, and why not take advantage of it? Do some more normal shit.
“Only walking we did was running from someone trying to kill us,” Gamora reminisced fondly, fingers threading through his, clothes sporting only a minimal amount of insect guts. Their ant invasion problem would have been laughable if they weren’t genuinely formidable. Their experience with big, nasty things wasn’t lacking, and the injuries sustained were superficial at best - bruising, some nicks and cuts that would be scabbed over by tonight.
Though there was something – under her boots? It made a subtle squelch that happened often enough to catch her attention. She paused, making Peter stop with her so she could… wipe the bottom of her shoe on top of his shoe.
Bug carnage.
Gamora kissed him. “Sorry about that.”
“Super romantic, babe,” Peter smirked in response, but whatever. They’d gotten away pretty unscathed after dealing with a giant insect twice their size, and he was sure some gross bits were sticking to him, too. They’d hose themselves down when they got back to Knowhere; until then, bug guts on his beat-up boots weren’t going to hurt anything.
“Nice to not always have something trying to kill us, right? Almost like we’re normal people or something. Mind-blowing.”
Not that he hadn’t loved being a Guardian. He had, for a long time. He’d loved the life he’d had with his family out on The Benatar, but he’d struggled with it after the Blip. Coming back to a different Gamora who wanted nothing to do with him took some of the joy away from him. Gamora had been such a big part of what they’d built and having a version of her who just hadn’t given a shit had sucked.
Gamora knew he’d take it like a champ. They could pause their nice, normal walk for her to wrap her arms around his neck, kissing him again. They smelled of dirt and some sweat but that wasn’t a deterrent. “Normal people,” she repeated, voice low and husky and amused for two whole words. “Is that a good thing?”
She wouldn’t say that their lives were completely normal here. There was a routine that was new; back home they flew chaotically among the stars, navigating asteroid fields and enraged foes (usually because Drax said something stupid, or Rocket’s klepto tendencies). Or that’s just the last she remembered. Having Knowhere as home was new, and so was being stationary.
“Yeah, it’s a good thing,” Peter confirmed, wrapping his arms around her waist in return to pull her in closer. She could be actually covered in ant gunk, and he’d still pull her in this close. “You don’t think so?”
Normalcy was part of what he’d been searching for back home – reconnecting with his family, figuring out what life would look like without the Guardians. Vallo ended up being better – he got Gamora, his Gamora. Sure, having her came with a continued dash of weirdness, but he had no no complaints.
“I think ‘normal’ is…” Gamora trailed off for a moment, a palm caressing a scruffy cheek. She liked the prickly feel of facial hair under her skin and against her lips. She loved a scruffy Peter, ruggedly handsome and a little older. “Relative. Our normal’s always going to have a dash of crazy, but I like the new normal we have. Romantic walks after a brutal shift. You showing me movies from your childhood.”
There was a pause of silence, and perhaps it was deadly, with—
“Me knowing the truth about The Fonz and his true identity,” she continued with a saccharine smile, a loving threat.
“Alright, in fairness to me, I was never hiding his true identity,” Peter protested, unperturbed by the tone of Gamora’s voice. Her annoyance might be genuine, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t really going to stab him for failing to explain pop culture to her the right way. Like, he was ninety percent sure. “It was just hard to get ahold of Earth stuff out in space, you know?”
Which was all true, but maybe he’d sort of enjoyed getting to make his childhood heroes seem like real heroes. It was kind of cute the way Gamora, Drax, and Mantis just bought into his legends based off of old movies. And Gamora couldn’t get actual heroes from their world straight in her head, anyway, so what was the harm?
“Our relationship was built on a throne of lies,” Gamora shot at him, brows flaring but lips curling into a wry smile. Finally having clarity to all of Peter’s references was nice, though she could still barely make heads or tails on who was what and what their missions were. There was a lot. Then shows like Flash Gordon? Terrible. They didn’t age well. The bad outfit and the blonde hair made her think of that She-Man cartoon or whatever.
She pulled Peter into another kiss and at the same time, began moving her feet through a gathering of bright wildflowers, bringing him with her. Kissing and walking wasn’t productive – they’d stop in a minute before one of them tripped over their own feet – but this was nice.
If there was ever a time Peter turned down kissing Gamora, even if the risk of stumbling over each other and landing on the ground again was high, then it was definitely a bodysnatchers situation. He held tight to her waist while their lips stayed joined and followed her backward steps with forward steps of his own. They were managing okay for almost a full minute there when something shifted under his right foot, and he pulled back in surprise, freezing before he could pitch forward.
“Alright, maybe seeing where we’re going beats out kissing in the middle of the forest,” he laughed, kicking the pointy rock that had gotten underfoot off the dirt path.
Gamora didn’t have an issue finding her footing, but she thought herself to be the more graceful of the pair. Her hands curled into the front of his shirt, somewhat realizing they walked into a tall patch of plants - at least knee-high, colors dancing in her periphery, the beginning parts of a meadow hidden behind more shrubbery. “You should be aware of your surroundings despite being occupied, Star-Lord.”
She would have kissed him again if it weren’t for this tickle on her arm. Her outfit today exposed her arms and shoulders, green skin to touch. There was a butterfly that landed on her, its wings a vibrant and iridescent blue. It was a big one, too.
“I don’t have to kill these, right?”
Peter blinked in surprise for a moment before his expression shifted into something more like awe. He didn’t think butterflies generally landed on people, but this one seemed super comfortable perched on Gamora’s arm. Even when he leaned in to get a closer look, it was totally undisturbed, almost like it would be landing on a tree out of his reach.
“No killing necessary, they’re harmless.” He felt sure enough of that to sound confident, even though this whole thing was weird. “I guess this one likes you, too. Doesn’t know any better,” he teased.
Gamora almost jabbed her finger into Peter’s chest for that comment. She didn’t for the sake of the butterfly on her arm (she didn’t want to scare it off just yet, though she also wasn’t planning on staying still like a flower for them to stay on), but she had that very distinct annoyed look, the one always reserved for Peter.
Another one came fluttering by, and she noticed it from the corner of her eye. She didn’t move, choosing to remain cautiously still - and she didn’t quite see where it landed, but she guessed it was somewhere on her hair.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she slowly said, confused. “Should I move?”
Peter moved back slowly, just a step, as the second butterfly landed on Gamora’s head. It was a continual surprise to see they weren’t scared by the movement. Whatever flower they thought Gamora was, they must be invested in sticking around. They were just there, chill, wings slowly and calmly flapping, in a state that looked like resting.
“Oh no, you gotta at least let me get a picture before you move,” he replied with a grin, patting his pants pockets in search of his phone. By the time he pulled it triumphantly out of one of his cargo pockets, another blue butterfly had fluttered down to perch right on Gamora’s shoulder. “I’d say smile, but then you wouldn’t look like you.”
He was asking to be hit when she lost her patience, but he could take it. He swiped the camera open and peered at Gamora as he snapped a few pictures.
Pictures. Really?
Gamora could have slapped it from his hand but she rolled her eyes instead, letting him take the photos. “With comments like those I might live with the butterflies instead,” she told him, tossing some hair over her shoulder to see if it dislodged the butterfly from her hair. It didn’t move much aside from twitching wings, and while she didn’t completely see it, she could tell it was still on her. “They like me more than you do.”
A fourth and fifth came by, delicate wings flapping softly. They hadn’t landed on her but they were circling, probably curious.
“Pfft,” Peter scoffed, taking a couple more pictures of the circlers before sticking his phone back in his pocket. “Impossible. I like you the most, babe. Even when you look like you’re ready to tear my head off. That’s love.”
He studied the sight for a few moments before he stepped forward again carefully and slung an arm around her waist, pulling her from her stock-still position. That was the key, at least for the moment. Her butterfly friends burst off their perches and fluttered on ahead of them, and Peter chuckled. “Whoops, guess you don’t have enough pollen for them to stick it out.”
Free from her butterfly prison at last. Gamora’s muscles went lax with Peter bringing her back into his orbit, arms winding around his neck as if they were about to initiate a dance in the middle of the forest. “Hope you got your fill of photos. Don’t show Nebula. She’s been looking for ammo since I screencapped messages of her other self sending me messages with emojis.”
“I won’t show Nebula,” Peter replied solemnly. “These are for the Star-Lord files only.” That was followed by a grin and his hands falling to Gamora’s hips, swaying her just a bit. They might not have any music, but no music had never been reason enough to stop Peter Quill from dancing. “Won’t even call you Butterfly Queen, ‘cause I’m pretty sure she’d just hack my phone looking for clues.”
“You’re just dishing out these insults today, aren’t you,” Gamora sighed with all the love in the universe, pinching his chin between her fingers. “Call me Butterfly Queen behind closed doors and I’m going to slap you in the balls, Quill, but at least kiss me again before they come back and we can go home. I’m going to scrub the stink off you. It’s not going to be pleasurable.”
“Just don’t peel my skin off,” Peter huffed. But he relented, tipping his head down to seal their lips together. He was not looking forward to being eviscerated via loofa, but a kiss to get him through the trauma could only help.
Maybe the threat of the scrubbing not being pleasurable was something of a fib, but Peter didn’t need to know that. Gamora smiled against his mouth, giving him the bare bones of a kiss - a slow, sweet peck - before pinching his side. “Quit complaining, you infant. Flaying isn’t my love language. You’ll be spared, mostly.”
“Mostly,” Peter echoed in a grumble. “You’re such a romantic, babe.” He smirked at her as he pulled away, letting her out of his arms just to take her hand again. “We’re trying this again another day, by the way. Gotta see if it was a one-off or not. Maybe they just really liked the giant ant guts.”
Gamora brought the back of his hand to her mouth for one last kiss – for now. She took every opportunity she had to kiss Peter. She warmed up to being a little more affectionate in public, but in private she let the floodgates open. Every brush of lips, every hug, every time they held hands and he said something that made her think idiot, she was drinking up.
“I’m prettier than you,” she replied breezily, pulling him away from the wildflowers to get back on track. The air was already beginning to feel a little humid from the sea, and the aroma of salt was beginning to be carried by the wind. “That’s why.”
“Damn straight,” Peter agreed without hesitation, letting her tug him along so they were back on the carved out path. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, face turned toward the warm breeze, then grinned back at Gamora. “Prettiest Butterfly Queen I know.”