Kitcat, Kitten around

. . . . . . . WAKE-UP SEQUENCE INITIATED ■ Initializing Audio Device… ■ Loading Playlist… ■ Reading Track Metadata… ■ Equalizer: ON ■ Shuffle Mode: OFF ■ Power Cell Status: ██████████ 100% [■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■] 100% Firmware v1.0.3000 Modified: T. Stark Device Registered: P. QUILL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Welcome Back, Star-Lord. ■ Library Verified. ■ 0 Tracks Lost. SYNC STATUS: COMPLETE ACCESSING: PETER PARKER’S PERSONAL PLAYLIST ▶ PLAY

▶• lıllılı.ıllı.ılılıılıı.lllııılı. Now Playing [Bad Moon Rising] 0:03 ———♡——— 2:18 ◁◁ ▐ ▌ ▷▷ I see the bad moon a-rising ♫ I see trouble on the way ♫ ♫ I see earthquakes and lightning ♫ I see bad times today —♫

[ 𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝚄𝙿𝚃𝙴𝙳 ] [𝚂𝚈𝚂𝚃𝙴𝙼] ▷▷ 𝚂𝚔𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐…

▶• lıllılı.ıllı.ılılıılıı.lllııılı. Now Playing [Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)] 0:27 ———♡——— 4:26 ◁◁ ▐ ▌ ▷▷

Feeling that it's gone ♫ Can't change your mind ♫ ♫ If we can't go on♫ To survive the tide, love divides —♫

[ 𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝚄𝙿𝚃𝙴𝙳 ] [𝚂𝚈𝚂𝚃𝙴𝙼] ▷▷ 𝚂𝚔𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐…

▶• lıllılı.ıllı.ılılıılıı.lllııılı. Now Playing [Who'll Stop The Rain] 0:14 ———♡——— 2:30 ◁◁ ▐ ▌ ▷▷ ♫ Long as I remember The rain been comin' down ♫ ♫ Clouds of myst'ry pourin' ♫ Confusion on the ground ♫ ♫ Good men through the ages, tried to find the sun ♫ ♫ And I wonder, still I wonder ♫ Who'll stop the rain —

“Dude. Dude!”

Quill leaned forward in his chair, his eyes glued on the music player resting in the palm of his hand, all while the medley of Creedence Clearwater Revival drifted quietly through the medbay room he occupied.

His grin was wide enough to be vaguely concerning.

“…dude!”

Perched atop the cushioned window bay across from him, Gamora had long since decided the autumn leaves drifting by outside were considerably more interesting than the conversation happening behind her.

“You have said that seventeen times now,” she responded dryly , never once looking his way.

Quill practically cackled as his thumb flicked through another endless stretch of songs.

“It just keeps going!”His attention remained entirely fixed on the device in his hands. If Gamora's growing annoyance registered at all, he gave no indication of it. “This thing is insane! I swear, I thought I hit the end like twenty minutes ago — and then there were more songs. Then more songs after those songs! I’m four hundred songs past what my Zune had, this thing is awesome!”

Propped upright beneath a nest of blankets and pillows that took up nearly half the bed, Peter looked up from the raised tray stretched over his him and the bowl of soup that sat atop it. The steam from inside curled lazily toward the ceiling with a stack of crackers left untouched to the side.

“I mean…Mr. Stark did build an entire clean-energy grid that powers most, if not like…all of New York City.” Peter fiddled with the handle of his spoon, his red fingerless gloves nearly disappearing beneath the bunched sleeves of an oversized gray hoodie that looked several sizes too big for him. “Hate to say it, but a new music player feels a little tame by comparison.”

“Yeah, yeah, cool, energy grid and stuff, got it.” Quill waved the comment away without even looking up from the screen. “Can your energy grid play Boston while I’m six galaxies away from Earth? Yeah, didn't think so.” He grinned ear-to-ear as he settled back in his chair, all while gesturing to the palm-sized device. “This wins — hands down.”

Peter snorted, the best he could muster up for a laugh. His attention dropped back to the bowl as he carefully guided another spoonful toward his mouth, focusing just enough to make sure it actually arrived there instead of ending up somewhere considerably more embarrassing.

The effort felt ridiculous. Every movement required way more concentration than it ever should have.

Peter really hated that about himself right about now.

“I am Groot.”

The familiar voice pulled his attention away from the bowl.

Groot hung from the edge of the tray with both arms, his tiny legs bicycling furiously through empty air as he fought his way upward.

After a moment of determined effort, he finally hauled himself up with a triumphant huff before stomping directly through the scattered cracker packets on his way toward Peter.

“I am Groot,” he repeated, this time with a firmer voice, all but puffing his chest outward along the way.

Despite himself, a small smile tugged at Peter's mouth.

The little guy had been hovering around him for most of the afternoon, repeatedly abandoning whatever had briefly captured his attention elsewhere only to return a few minutes later. More often than not, he seemed to come back carrying something he’d decided would improve Peter's recovery.

At one point, Groot had proudly presented him with a brightly colored get-well-soon card he’d acquired from somewhere in the medical wing. The card had been addressed to someone named Cadet Williams.

For as lousy as he'd been feeling lately, the effort was oddly comforting.

“How many songs are on it?” Peter finally asked, managing a swallow of his soup, if only at Groot’s encouragement.

Quill barked a gleeful laugh.

“I don't know!” He raised the device triumphantly. “It’s an infinite mix-tape. It just goes on and on, it doesn’t ever end!”

“That’s nonsense,” Gamora chimed in, barely looking over her shoulder at the two of them. “It must end at some point. All things must end.”

Cradling the spoon a moment longer than necessary, Peter found himself smiling despite the effort it took just to eat.

“Mr. Stark’s tech is pretty awesome,” he defended, going for the soup again only to back off from the heat with a wince. “I wouldn’t be too surprised if he managed to find a way.”

“Pretty awesome?” Quill huffed. “That doesn’t even begin to touch this thing —this thing is way better than my Zune, and I loved my Zune. But this thing's insane! Do you have any idea what it's gonna do once we leave Earth? It can still get new music. New music, bro! While I'm flying through space!”

Groot followed the movement of the music player with surprising interest from atop the tray, eyes tracking it as Quill waved it around for emphasis.

“Every time I asked how it works — ‘Stark satellites.’ Like that explained literally anything for me. The guy just pointed up all smug and stuff and said, 'Stark satellites.’ I didn’t even understand half the words he used — he hit me with about twenty made-up science words, they had to be made up words. I understood maybe six of 'em. But this thing's got more songs on it than I could listen to in a dozen lifetimes, so I am not complaining!”

Quill leaned back in his chair, the excitement never really leaving him. His thumb continued flicking through the endless stream of songs while the occasional artist name earned a nod of approval, a scoff, or an enthusiastic grin.

“There’s no way I’m not finding your song now, Little Peter,” Quill declared, jabbing the player in his direction. The silver gunmetal reflected a shine off the overhead lights, catching on the orange strip that ran down the side. “Not with this much music. Somewhere in here is the one. The song that makes you go, ‘That's me. That's my entire deal in three minutes and thirty-six seconds.’ I refuse to believe it doesn't exist. Everyone has a song, just you wait and see.”

Peter rolled his eyes and lowered his attention back down to the tray. Balancing the spoon carefully between gloved fingers, he scooped up another mouthful and brought it toward his face. The steam curling from the bowl should have been warning enough.

It wasn't. The second the soup touched his tongue, he immediately regretted the decision.

“Ah — hot.”

Peter lowered the spoon with a grimace, making a face while trying very hard not to spit the soup back into the bowl. Recovery royally sucked.

“Oh, that's definitely not your song.”

“Quill.” Gamora finally looked away from the window, one brow arched upward against the emerald of her skin, her gaze shifting away from Peter's obvious discomfort to the music player still clutched in Quill's hand. “You have somehow become even more insufferable since Stark gave you that thing. Can you not see that this boy is recovering? He can barely manage to feed himself a proper meal. Leave him to rest in peace.”

“Heyyy—!” Peter’s weak protest came at the same time as Quill’s, “Whaa? No!”

Any attempt Peter made to defend himself was promptly bulldozed beneath Quill's considerably louder objection.

“There’s no time to waste,” he insisted. “I gotta find Little Pete’s song now before we leave!”

Quill reclined deeper into his chair, eyes never leaving the music player as another wave of songs slipped beneath his thumb. Whatever mission he'd assigned himself, he appeared fully committed to it.

Across the room, Gamora's expression flattened.

“Then do it in silence,” she insisted, turning back toward the window just in time for Quill to completely ignore her and crank the volume up another notch, rocking and bouncing in his chair to the beat.

♫ Still the rain kept pourin', Fallin' on my ears ♫ ♫ And I wonder, still I wonder ♫ Who'll stop the rain ♫

Across the tray, Groot had apparently taken a renewed interest in Peter's soup. The little tree leaned over the spoon hovering in Peter's hand and blew a determined stream of air across the surface.

Peter watched him for a moment before deciding not to question it.

The second spoonful went noticeably better, arriving at a temperature that no longer felt determined to strip the skin from the roof of his mouth.

“Sucks you guys gotta leave,” he said, his throat bouncing hard with a swallow as he followed up with, “feels like you just got here.”

Without looking up from the screen, Quill pointed vaguely in Peter's direction with the hand not holding his new music player.

“To be fair, you spent a decent chunk of that time trying not to die,” he said, almost too nonchalantly. “That usually makes the weeks blur together.”

Peter immediately made a face at him. The expression lasted only a second before he buried it behind another spoonful of soup, pre-cooled down by the tiny tree on his tray.

Across the room, Gamora let her gaze linger briefly on Peter and the increasingly absurd scene unfolding in the room she occupied — Groot dutifully blowing tiny puffs of air across each spoonful before Peter took a sip — until she finally pushed herself away from the window bay.

“I'll be back,” she said, smoothing a loose strand of dark mix-toned hair behind one ear as she headed for the door. “Drax can't be left unattended for too long.”

That finally pulled Quill's attention away from the music player.

“What? Why?” He frowned, following Gamora across the room with only his eyes. “I've been left unattended since Colonel Party Pooper bailed, and I've been doing great. I've only made, like… three questionable decisions. Drax can't be that much worse.”

By the time Quill spoke, Gamora had already reached the far side of the medbay. The automated glass doors parted at her approach with a soft mechanical hiss.

She paused, one hand resting against the frame. “The last time he was left alone, he challenged one of Stark's robotic vacuum cleaners to honorable combat.”

The room briefly fell silent.

“…who won?” Peter finally asked.

For a long moment, Gamora said nothing. The room settled into an awkward silence filled only by the music playing softly from Quill's speakers and the muted sounds of the medical wing from behind the open doors.

“I believe in no such thing as winners in a situation like that,” Gamora answered, not saying another word as she pushed away from the doorway and disappeared into the corridor. The glass doors slid shut behind her with a quiet hiss, leaving only the distant sounds of the medical wing and the music still drifting from Quill's speakers.

Peter watched the doors for another second before a weak chuckle finally escaped him. “I can’t imagine Mr. Stark’s upset that you guys are leaving.”

“Actually…” Quill was quick to start, “he was pretty torn up about it. Kept talking about how the Avengers would never recover from losing our combined expertise. Called us the backbone of the operation. I think there were tears.” He held up the player, tilting it just enough for the orange stripe along the side to catch the light. “Then he gave me this as a farewell gift. Said he wanted me to remember him when the planet realized what it had lost.”

Across the tray, Groot slowly turned to look at Quill.

Peter did the same.

For a moment, neither of them said anything. One, a recovering teenager wrapped in enough blankets to survive winter, and the other, a six-inch tree standing amongst cracker packets — both appeared equally unconvinced.

“Right,” Peter murmured, shifting himself deeper into the raised bed with a grunt. Across the tray, Groot remained planted beside the bowl, cheeks puffing as he continued blowing a steady stream of air across the soup with all the focus of someone defusing a bomb.

Sufficiently cooled to Groot's standards, Peter dug his spoon back in.

“Thanks again..by the way. For helping save me and all,” he mentioned, nudging the spoon through the broth before finally scooping up another mouthful. “That was so crazy.”

“Oh man, was it.” Beside the bed, Quill's attention drifted between Peter and the music player in his hands. His thumb continued flicking through song after song, occasionally stopping just long enough for him to make a face before moving on. “I haven't seen a rescue go that sideways since a Ravager crew tried extracting a guy from a Kylos prison. Whole thing ended with three ships totaled and some guy getting stabbed with a cafeteria tray.”

Only the monitors continued their steady rhythm as the conversation stalled.

Peter’s spoon slowed halfway back toward the bowl. The brief smile he’d managed earlier had vanished, leaving him staring down into the broth instead. His shoulders had tightened beneath the oversized hoodie, the hand holding the spoon lingering motionless for a beat too long.

Quill happened to look up just in time to catch it. The movement of his thumb slowed, then stopped altogether against the screen.

“But I mean, we've gone through way crazier stuff, you know,” he quickly countered, looking for a different approach to lightening the room — the way Peter had gone quiet told him he'd accidentally stepped in something. “You gotta understand man, we're the Guardians of the Galaxy. Sure, Groot was about three seconds and two fire balls away from becoming the galaxy’s biggest burnt toothpick —”

“I am Groot!”

Quill pointed at the little tree without missing a beat. “Which Groot says totally wouldn't have been your fault anyway!”

Something in Peter's expression tightened. His eyes fell back to the soup, the spoon having stopped moving altogether, suspended above the bowl as heat shimmered above the broth.

The steam continued to rise in slow, twisting ribbons. Peter stared straight through it, unmoving, the utensil still suspended in his hand while the broth beneath it settled.

Quill frowned.

“Hey.” He reached over and gave the edge of the tray a gentle bump with his fist. “Don't start doing that thing.”

The tray shifted slightly beneath the bump. Peter startled just enough for the spoon to slip from his fingers and fall back into the bowl.

Across from him, Groot wobbled and threw both arms out to steady himself.

“That thing?” Peter blinked once.

“Yeah, that thing. I know what that thing is. The whole 'if only I'd zigged instead of zagged' thing that you’re doing in your head.” Quill waved his hand vaguely. “Trust me, that road goes nowhere good. You don’t think I haven't replayed every dumb decision I've ever made? I'd never get anything done if I was always doing that. At some point you've gotta stop treating every bad thing that happens like it was your fault. So I don't know how much responsibility you're assigning yourself for the whole getting-kidnapped part of it all, but from one abducted kid to another? First time it happened to me I woke up in a spaceship, in another galaxy. Sometimes life just decides you're having a weird day.”

Peter looked down at the spoon, then slowly wrapped his fingers back around the handle. He didn't look convinced, his attention remaining fixed on the bowl while Groot settled down beside it, his legs going on to dangle over the edge of the tray.

Quill watched both of them for a moment, a frown pulling at his mouth as he caught the look on Peter’s face.

“Dude, come on.” He pointed toward Peter with the music player. “For a guy who'd fought this hard to stay alive, you sure are spending an awful lot of energy acting like it’s a bad thing. You know, I've seen Ravagers get themselves taken out by stuff so unbelievably dumb it should be illegal. Bad airlock seals. Bar fights. One guy somehow got trapped in his own cargo lift for three days, died of dehydration — not a smart fella.”

Quill let the words hang for a second.

“Listen. I don't know how to explain this to you, but getting abducted by a giant green bean meanie murder-monster is not usually considered a skill issue. The fact that you got turned into a limited-edition Capri Sun and you're sitting here eating soup instead of being a tragic cautionary tale is already a pretty awesome outcome, in my honest opinion.” He gestured toward the bowl. “So maybe stop trying to make this into one big L and instead focus on getting through lunch. Gamora was kinda right, you know. You’re not doing too good there. Wasn’t gunna say anything at first. But here we are.”

Peter's grip tightened around the spoon for a moment before a reluctant smile finally tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah...Mr. Stark kinda said the same thing.” He stirred the soup once before adding, “A few times, actually.”

“Smart guy.” Quill immediately pointed across the room with the hand holding the music player, as if gesturing to the man not present. “Massively arrogant, completely conceited, way too pleased with himself most of the time — but if that's the guy giving out these things?” His thumb was already moving again before he'd finished the sentence, flicking through another stretch of songs. “Well, I'm willing to overlook a lot.”

Peter huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. It faded almost as quickly as it had appeared, a tight brow creasing at his forehead as he looked back down.

The spoon drifted through the broth in a slow circle before tapping softly against the side, and he watched the ripples spread across the surface, his partially-gloved thumb rubbing absently against the handle.

“It's just that…I dunno, man. Everything's been going wrong lately. Like, all the time.” Peter nudged a floating noodle beneath the surface. And then another after that. “All year long I keep…I keep messing things up. Big time. I keep making the wrong call, or thinking I've got something handled and then I really don't…I know I'm still figuring this stuff out, but it'd be nice if I got at least one thing right once in a while.” His grip tightened slightly around the spoon as a dry huff escaped him. “Absolutely none of this would happen to Mr. Stark. He'd never let himself get chloroformed in a freaking parking garage—”

“— you really look up to this guy, don't you?”

For the first time in several minutes, Quill set the device aside. The music player settled into his lap as he looked across at Peter.

Peter's eyes lifted from the soup. The look he gave Quill suggested he was preparing an argument, right up until he realized he didn't actually have one.

“He looks up to you too, you know,” Quill added, as if noticing as much.

Peter rolled his eyes so hard it looked physically painful.

“No, really. That's good, that's healthy.” Quill shrugged, as if it were the most obvious thing to be said. “You don't want one guy doing all the idolizing—”

“It’s not idolizing.” Peter's grip tightened around the spoon as he shot Quill an irritated look.

“Oh no, it's definitely not,” Quill didn’t so much as hesitate, nodding with exaggerated seriousness, already fighting a grin. “No reason to unpack any of that. Not your dad-dad, obviously.” He looked down at the screen of the music player with an obvious smirk. “That's why every story starts with 'Mr. Stark' and ends with…'Mr. Stark.'”

The irritation from Peter was immediate, but so was the uncomfortable realization that arguing the point would only make Quill's grin worse.

After all, it was difficult to dispute the optics when Mr. Stark had apparently looked at Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, and decided all were needed to rescue one kid from Queens.

Sitting there beneath a pile of blankets with a bowl of soup, Peter felt a lot closer to Groot's height than theirs. The comparison wasn't doing much for his confidence.

His spoon drifted through the broth in a slow circle, the motion carrying on for a few seconds without Peter even realizing he was doing it.

“Hey, you know — did we ever tell you Groot's story?” Quill suddenly asked, looking up from the music player just as abruptly.

Peter's attention lifted from the soup, the spoon slowing to a stop halfway through another idle stir as he gave a quiet shake of his head.

“I am Groot!”

Across the tray, Groot immediately straightened to his full six-inch height. Tiny wooden feet planted against the tray while he looked between Quill and Peter — one branch-like hand even rose halfway into the air.

“Yeah, yeah, you.” Quill waved him off. “Well, technically you, but also not you. It's complicated.”

Groot looked deeply offended.

Quill ignored him.

“See, when I first met Groot, he was…” Quill's thumb paused against the screen of the music player. His gaze drifted briefly toward the little tree perched beside Peter's bowl. “Actually, this is already confusing. There’s this Groot, but before him, we had a bigger guy. Well, we didn’t have — Rocket had…you know, yeah — let's just call him Rocket's Groot.”

“I am Groot!”

“Anyway, Rocket's Groot was different.” Quill rolled the music player idly between his hands, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Bigger. Talked less. Hit people with other people. Great guy, really, miss him to pieces.”

Across the tray, Groot puffed out his chest proudly. Peter glanced from the tiny tree to Quill, then back again.

“Point is, when this little dude showed up, everybody kept looking at him and comparing him to Rocket's Groot,” Quill kept on. “None of us knew — was he going to be as strong? Is he gunna be as smart? Is he gonna grow the same? Does he…you know, does he remember the same stuff? Any of the same stuff?”

“I am Groot.”

Quill snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “Right, and then about after about three months, we stopped doing all of that.”

Peter frowned. “Why?”

“Because this Groot kept trying to eat batteries,” Quill ticked the first item off on his fingers, “flushed the ship keys. Stole Gamora’s soap, and then ate Gamora’s soap, and then we had to start changing sap diapers for about nine weeks straight.” He shrugged, all while Peter's brows climbed a little higher with each example. “Turns out it's pretty hard to compare somebody to a legend when they're busy trying to glue themselves to furniture.”

“I am Groot!”

Across the tray, Groot threw both arms into the air in protest, nearly losing his balance in the process.

Quill gave him a look. “Don't act like that didn't happen.”

Peter looked across the tray, where Groot was standing with both arms folded across his chest, looking every bit as offended as a six-inch-tall tree could manage.

“Thing is, everybody kept looking at him and expecting the old Groot to come back. But he never did.” With the music play forgotten in his lap, Quill’s attention lingered on the tiny tree for a moment longer, a faint smile eventually breaking the pause. “Because he wasn't the old Groot. He came from him, sure. Shared pieces of him and all. But that never meant he had to spend his whole life trying to live up to him, you know? Wouldn’t be fair. Wouldn’t give him a shot to be…you know, him. At the end of the day, he’s his own…tree..thing.”

Peter's gaze drifted back toward the little tree standing atop the tray. Groot looked nothing like the towering version Quill had described, and yet nobody in the room seemed bothered that he wasn’t. Not Rocket. Not Quill. Not any of the others.

The thought lingered longer than he wanted it to. His spoon sat forgotten in the bowl while a knot tightened somewhere behind his ribs.

“What happened?” Peter cleared his throat to clarify. “To Rocket’s Groot? You said he’s gone?”

For a moment, Quill didn't answer. His fingers drummed against the armrest of the chair, the easy humor he’d been carrying through the conversation fading just a little.

"Yeah…yeah. He, uh…he died. Saving us..we lost him in that mission…" Quill's gaze drifted toward the floor. "Afterward, Rocket, he — uh, well, he planted a cutting from him. And then, this little knucklehead showed up.” Quill looked up, finding Groot still standing atop the tray with his arms stubbornly folded. “He’s just a baby right now, but…he’s growing. And one day, he’s gonna grow to be his own big fella, aren’tcha?”

Quill reached over and poked Groot in the side.

The little tree shot him an annoyed look that didn’t last long.

“So will you. Trust me,” Quill mentioned to Peter, letting his hand fall back to the music player with a small shrug. “But it’s kinda hard to figure out who you're gonna be when you're busy measuring yourself against somebody who's already got like, a forty years head start.”

A pause fell between them as Peter watched Groot for a moment, the little tree having wandered back toward the bowl, peering over the rim with both hands resting against the edge.

Peter looked down at it too, the spoon shifting slightly in his hand as something uncomfortable began fitting together in the back of his mind.

He realized, thinking on Quill’s story — nobody seemed to look at Groot and compare him to the one they'd lost. Nobody expected him to live up to somebody else's legacy. Somehow, being connected to someone else had never turned into an obligation to become them.

Peter found himself staring at the little tree a moment longer, quietly wondering when he'd decided the same rule didn't apply to him.

“I died, too,” he finally heard himself say. “Mr. Stark had them bring me back to life.”

“Yeah, exactly.” Quill glanced down at the music player again, idly scrolling through the playlist as though the conversation had already reached a perfectly reasonable conclusion. “See? That's why this metaphor is working so well.”

Peter didn't answer. His gaze dropped back toward the bowl, the spoon drifting once through the broth before going still again. The realization settled somewhere deep in his chest with uncomfortable clarity.

Across from him, Quill's thumb drifted across the scroll wheel for another second before stopping.

“…wait.” A frown pulled at his face as he looked to Peter. “Is that what this is about?”

Peter's head snapped up so fast it was almost jarring.

One hand left the spoon and swept sharply around the room — the IV stands beside the bed, the tubing still tethering him to machines. The gesture was quick, frustrated, and entirely wordless.

“Oh.” Quill's eyes briefly followed the gesture, that single syllable carrying considerably more understanding than the last few minutes of conversation combined. “You think you’re blowing that second shot they gave you.”

Peter didn't answer.

His hand fell back to the tray.

He didn't have to.

Fingers drummed persistently against the armrest of the chair, as Quill’s gaze lingered in an empty space between Groot and Peter, and whatever crackers had been discarded on the tray.

“Okay…” Quill exhaled slowly through his nose and sank deeper into the chair, his free hand rubbing against his beard. “Yeah…that, uh…that-that is actually a lot, little dude.”

The room fell quiet.

For a few seconds, only the distant hum of the medbay and the occasional clink of Peter's spoon against the bowl filled the space.

“Well. Honestly?” Quill cleared his throat, his thumb resuming drifting through the endless library in his hands. “That just means finding your song is way more important than I thought.”

Suddenly, Peter creased his forehead. “What?”

“Think about it.” Quill pointed at him with the device. “You've got all this crazy stuff rattling around in your head. Green-meanie monster near-death experiences, identity complexes, weird mentor issues. All that and you're practically a whole album at this point. We find you that song, and it’ll all start to make sense.”

Peter rolled his eyes. Quill ignored him, leaning forward in his chair, his attention dropping fully to the music player.

His thumb spun the wheel faster now, scrolling through artists and albums at a pace that suggested he wasn’t wasting anymore time.

Across the tray, Groot's head tilted. The little tree abandoned his post beside the soup and hurried across the plastic surface, weaving around cracker packets and Peter's bowl before stopping at the edge nearest Quill's chair.

“I am Groot!”

Quill looked down, his gaze following the tiny tree as he pointed insistently at the device. “No, Groot, I’m not playing the Macarena.”

Stretching up onto the tips of his roots, he pointed insistently at the music player.

“I am Groot!”

“Yeah, dude, I know you like that song, but I'm looking for something —”

“—I am Groot!” Groot immediately stretched after the device, nearly losing his balance in his determination.

Quill stared at him.

Groot stared right back.

A beat passed, with the standoff somehow feeling far more serious than Peter ever thought an argument regarding music could ever get.

“Okay, fine.” Quill gave in with a long-suffering sigh, shaking his head as he pressed the button and surrendered control of the playlist.

A second later, the familiar opening notes spilled from the speakers, and the little tree immediately shot to his feet atop the tray.

Peter barely had time to set his spoon down before Groot launched into an enthusiastic, wildly exaggerated rendition of the Macarena dance — a performance that, judging by Quill's complete lack of surprise, was hardly a new development.

Tiny wooden arms swung left, right, up, and over his head while he stomped from one side of the tray to the other with complete musical confidence.

▶• lıllılı.ıllı.ılılıılıı.lllııılı. Now Playing [Macarena] 0:23 ———♡——— 2:18 ◁◁ ▐ ▌ ▷▷ ♫

“—and then, blam-blam! Do-do-do-do—blam blam blam! Blam! There’s this totally crazy laser beam that just — whoosh! — went right over my head and I’m like, holy cow—! It was insane, Mr. Stark, you should’ve seen it!”

Peter’s voice stretched thin where it tried to sound excited, pulled taut over something fragile beneath his vocal cords; barely rising above the steady chimes and beeps of the many machines lining the infirmary room.

It was a space he knew all too well by now — the kind of familiarity earned through frequent repetition. And each one, he made sure to note, was against his liking.

Both he and Mr. Stark had both spent way too much time here over the past year.

At least he got a bigger room this time.

“Mhm-hm.” Pressed shoulder-to-shoulder beside him, Tony managed to wedge himself into the hospital bed without complaint. Half-reclined against the raised backing, his head tipped slightly back with his eyes shut, looking almost like he was dozing off; if not for the attentiveness hidden in every quiet hum of acknowledgment he gave.

Both his arms folded loosely across his chest, almost lackadaisically. He listened to Peter’s constant ramblings like it was any other day.

“Then there’s this crazy bright light, and next thing I know Thor flies right over me — and Vision, Mr. Stark it was so crazy, he just tore through everything with his yellow stone laser thing and there were lasers everywhere — blam! Blam blam! It was insane!”

The room itself seemed to breathe in quiet, artificial rhythms, a sharp contrast to Peter’s highly excited and breathless chattering. Ventilation whispered through hidden ducts as the purified draft of air filtered down from the ceiling. Sleek panels hummed low along the walls, transparent displays flickering faint blue light that painted everything in a sterile, muted glow.

Somewhere behind him, a pump cycled with strict precision — whirr…pause…whirr — pushing fluids through clear lines that disappeared beneath the tangle of blankets and tape at Peter’s arms; a steady, persistent soundtrack that had been on repeat.

“…and then you fly by — at first I had no idea it was you, ‘cause, you know, there was so much going on. And then one second I’m still strapped to the table and the next…wait, no, the next…no, that was after Bucky tried to get me out, which — okay, that part was insane, ‘cause he just, like, came outta nowhere…and there was fire everywhere! I swear, even the ceiling was on fire, and there were these like, fire-balls flying around that just fwoosh! fshhrr! It was everywhere — it was so crazy, Mr. Stark!”

Though animated with excitement, Peter’s eyes still looked utterly drained beneath it all, faded pale and hollow with dark exhaustion carved deep beneath them in bruised half-moons. Yet his words still came out quick and eager, tripping over themselves in uneven bursts, each word rushed for the next. All as his voice thinned into something weak and crackly, his breaths catching on themselves as the energy started to slip away.

Tony wasn’t surprised Peter kept talking, words spilling out in stubborn defiance. The kid had already informed him and every nurse that passed by that he was, verbatim, “officially more sick of sleeping than sitting through A.P. Bio.”

Tony didn’t argue with that. After all, he’d seen how this would end.

“Mhm-hm,” he hummed, low and steady.

He just let the kid have the sliver of wakefulness while it held.

“One second I’m laying there, and the next — wait, no, Groot. Did I tell you about Groot?” Peter pushed on, his voice lower in volume yet still persistent all the same. “He was yelling — or, you know, Groot-yelling, which is still yelling, I think, just more…plant-like? I don’t know, it was weird…and I think Bucky was throwing Rocket, that raccoon, at some point. That I could’ve imagined. That was really weird. It was all so crazy, Mr. Stark!”

Tony listened to the recollection with one ear tuned to Peter, and the other turned to the machines. His attention flickered between the rise and fall of Peter’s voice and the steady lines on the monitors. Never fully settling on either.

Still, his response came easily. Familiar.

Automatic.

“Mhm-hm.”

While he’d never tell the kid, Tony didn’t exactly require the play-by-play from Peter. He’d lived through the same battle with significantly more consciousness and substantially less blood being siphoned out of his body at the time. Safe to say, his version of events had considerably fewer gaps in it.

And whatever gaps adrenaline and panic had left in his own memory, FRIDAY had spent the last several days methodically tearing apart every second of footage available. Suit telemetry, thermal scans, comm logs, HUD recordings — replaying the disaster on an endless loop while searching for anything that could give them answers.

Anything that explained what Osborn had turned himself into.

“And then this music starts playing — old people music, Mr. Stark, like, really old — and then Star-Lord’s just flying around shooting stuff and there were explosions and yelling and Thor was crashing through walls —”

But somehow, none of the footage or his own recollection hit quite the same as hearing Peter talk about it.

Maybe, he figured, just maybe — it was because the kid recounted the whole nightmare like it had been some chaotic Avengers field trip instead of the closest Tony had ever come to losing him since actually losing him.