Broken and Beautiful

May 06, 2019 10:24

Title: Broken and Beautiful
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Characters/Relationships: Peter Quill/Thor Odinson, Guardians of the Galaxy crew
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 2,538
Spoilers: Avengers: Endgame
Content Advisory: Hate Sex, Hate to Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Romance, Fluff
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
A/N: This lovely post used as a prompt - all credit to original ideas to Viperbranium.

Summary: In the aftermath of dealing with Thanos, the Guardians of the Galaxy take on a new crew member in Thor Odinson. He gets along well, too well, and Peter is tired of feeling like a fifth wheel on his own ship. He solves it the only way he can think of, but what starts as a challenge and a battle is hiding something much deeper...



It’s too much. Five years gone in an instant, brought back only an hour after learning about Gamora’s death at Thanos’ hands with an opportunity to go after the sonfoabitch. Seeing her again, but it’s just like the first meeting. They’d won, but he’d still lost Gamora, at least the Gamora he’d known.

Instead he’d gained Thor, and found out his ship was no longer his own. Rocket had been piloting the Milano for five years, and Quill couldn’t even fit in the seat anymore since it’d been modified. Somehow it hadn’t felt as bad as he’d thought. He didn’t exactly remember the time he’d spent as dust, but he’d remembered seeing most of his friends dissolve before his eyes. Arguing who got to be called the captain seemed petty after that.

He still did it anyways, because Rocket enjoyed arguing.

They travel up one side of the galaxy and down the other, all of them too restless to sit still. Despite their win against Thanos, there’s still a shit-ton of trouble going on everywhere, and plenty of work for the Guardians everywhere they go. The work let them keep moving forward towards a goal, which is something they could all use.

Thor slots into their little crew of broken things with barely a rough edge. He talks weapons with Drax, gets Groot to contribute more than sarcastic comments, laughs with Mantis about everything she finds funny (which is a lot), works with Rocket on the ship, talks about family with Nebula. He talks about grief with all of them; it’s the thing that brought them together in the first place. It’s the one thing they have in spades. It comes up in casual conversation, spliced between the finer points of knifework and the latest game on the cosmic ‘net. What’s worse is that Thor isn’t ignoring him. There’s always a “Hello”, a “Good Morning”, a question about some little piece of something onboard Peter’s picked up from his travels, a little story about something he’s seen in his long life, a joke and a smile. None of it is in the slightest bit ironic or sarcastic, but every little question about pain Peter just swallows in silence and changes the subject.

Thor wasn’t immune to the grief they shared, either. He still drank, but from the look on his face once he’d hit four beers and tried to stop, he was trying to moderate. Mantis helped immensely by being able to sense when he was about to tip over the line from “casual social drinking” to “drowning his sorrows”. She solved it in a typically Mantis way (aided and abetted by Rocket, Peter was certain); she snagged the fifth beer before Thor could and drank it herself.

Four hours in close quarters with a lightweight, tipsy, giggling empath was enough to stiffen the resolve of anyone. Not that Thor needed it, but it helped cut down the necessary stops to get beer down to once a system, rather than twice a planet. Peter started a game night to fill that void with something other than talking deep subjects, teaching the others poker from half-remembered rules learned from his grandfather, along with another half-dozen other betting games learned from Kraglin and Yondu (helpful to keep bored Ravagers occupied in ways that didn’t involve fighting each other or accidentally blowing something up). Rocket cheated, Peter made up new rules on the fly, Drax made his bets on a system of logic only comprehensible to him, Groot participated at random intervals based on his mood, Nebula was a damn card shark, Mantis saw through every bluff, and Thor was pleased beyond all reason no matter how badly the game goes. It was the last, for whatever reason, that made Peter snap one night.

“A fine game,” Thor said as they were walking back towards crew quarters. “Mantis is most gracious in her victory.”

“Yeah, somehow,” Peter muttered. He’d made up three rules on the spot to try to swing things in his favor, and she still managed to trounce them all. He would have made up a fourth rule, but Nebula had started to glare daggers at him, and he quit before she started throwing daggers at him. Thor only gave a slight chuckle, his voice richly amused as he ducked under one of the low beams in the passageway. He had surrendered his bet without a fight.

The once lean, half-shaved pirate angel no longer had the Hollywood physique of an idealized Greek statue, but he seemed the happier for it; he’s no less strong, but it’s within a body that allows for relaxation along with the strength, instead of being constantly on the edge of battle. His hair and beard are long, luxuriant and well-cared for. Mantis seems to take delight in braiding it, and teaching Nebula and Drax to do so as well. Nebula seems to do it as a sort of meditation, Drax for the reason of showing off Thor’s accomplishments. (Apparently Drax’s people have a whole language of showing their history through hair and scars, except Drax has whatever the equivalent of male pattern baldness is for his race, hence his scarification from scalp to toes. Yes, Peter has seen all of it, and not by choice.) Peter caught flowers in it once or twice, which means Groot was in on it too. Thor seemed to enjoy it, but Peter felt himself getting irritated every time he heard Thor and Mantis laughing, or saw Thor and Rocket with their hands in the Milano’s guts.

“I very much enjoy these game evenings. My friends used to have something like it…” Thor trailed off, a flicker of sadness coming over his face, “And it is good to have something like that again.”

Peter doesn’t want to show his cards (metaphorically speaking, this time), but damn it’s hard to not feel like Thor is stealing what he thought was his. Thor’s lost more than him, not just his mom and his ideal of what a father could be, but his brother and homeland, and even his girlfriend chose to leave him. Peter doesn’t have a speck of moral high ground, can’t even win at the game of “who’s the most miserable?” He feels like a stranger on his own ship, and it makes him want to break something.

He glares sideways at Thor, at his widening smile that almost looks smug, and something twists in Peter’s belly. He shoves Thor up against the wall, and Thor goes with it.

“Yes?” Thor asks, as if shoving were a totally normal thing to do to start a conversation. “You have something you want to say?”

It’s not sarcastic, it’s an opening to speak, to lay a little of that pain on Thor’s broad shoulders.

But Peter is doing just fine hauling his pain around like hot rocks in his guts. He closes the distance too fast, realizes what’s going to happen at the last second, and quietly goes, fuck it.

He kisses Thor hard, teeth and tongue and open mouth, drawing a surprised grunt out of him, then a growl of challenge. That, Peter can deal with, and he punctuates that with yanking at Thor’s shirt, his pants, heedless of his fingernails, wanting a game where he can win, or at least try with a level playing field. He wraps a hand in Thor’s braided hair and yanks, surprising Thor into a gasp. That does more than a little something for him, and Peter closes the gap to press against him, hips tilting to rut against the muscles of his thigh. Thor just growls again, freeing the hand not holding onto the wall to clasp against Peter’s ass, encouraging him to keep going, to finish it. It’s rough, hot, and messy, and leaves Peter’s head spinning and reeling when he comes.

“So there,” Peter says, and it’s not the greatest comeback line in all of history, but the dampness in Thor’s disarranged shorts says he managed to win at least one battle. A little pebble of the hot rocks vanishes when Thor smirks at him, looking utterly pleased.

That kicks off a campaign of competition measured in little cheerful wicked barbs and dented walls, in game nights that end up christening and re-christening parts of the Milano, in ripped clothing and shirts and underwear found in odd corners, in Mantis blushing when she brushed by either of them, in scratched skin and swollen lips, in skin decorated in sucking bruises, in little tally marks that Rocket was keeping track of that Peter resolved to ignore.

And it’s enough, it’s enough to carve out a space for himself again, to be a Guardian again. He’s got his friends, and he’s got his thing with Thor, and it’s all just enough until the latest battle somehow ends up in Peter’s bunk. He hadn’t realized he’d been avoiding going there, not until he’s on his back with Thor’s tongue in his mouth and his leg between Peter’s thighs, and then looks over and then there’s the things on his shelf - the tapes, the Walkman, the troll, a dagger from Gamora decorated with her etching, a note from his mother, a dried flower from Ego’s world. The noise that wells up from him isn’t a sexy moan, but more the cry of a wounded animal.

“Peter, something troubles you?”

“Fuck you!” he nearly snarls, trying to sit up. Thor lets him, but doesn’t let him go, pulling him against his solidity. The hot rocks inside of him are burning, searing, forcing themselves out of him via scalding tears, and he hates it. “I don’t want this! I don’t need this!”

Thor’s arms are around him as he twists to try to get out, to leave, too strong to resist. “None of us wanted this,” he says quietly.

“I hate it!” It was the cry of a child whose mother was stolen from him, whose father betrayed him, who was stolen from his world and had his childhood turned upside down by a man who could only manage to show he gave a damn through rough sympathy under a veneer of indifference. Peter realizes his face is wet with tears and goddamn it, he can’t be doing this. But Thor is pulling him to his shoulder, letting him cry into that long, soft hair, and it’s too nice, it’s too sweet, it’s too soft for what they’ve been doing.

It’s like pulling out a single thread, and Peter unravels, talking into Thor’s skin, unloading the rocks so they no longer burn, but just make him feel empty inside. Thor’s hands caress along his back, soothing and calming, but when Peter can finally pull back and look up, Thor’s eyes are as wet as his, his own face marked by tear tracks. Peter realizes what he’s done and wants to think about panicking, like, at any time now. Thor brings them closer, kissing him softly, so softly, and God, Peter can’t handle that. He’s too open right now to even try to close up again, too raw to want to push back. He thinks about squirming away, because there’s always an out, but Thor shifts himself so he’s supporting Peter fully, arms fully circling him, taking his weight, holding him.

Peter’s hand spasms on Thor’s shoulder, almost curling into claws, into a fist, then drifts up to his hair and caresses the strands. Soft. So soft. He moans into the kiss and melts back into Thor’s arms, into the bed, realizing what he’s doing an instant before he does it. He hasn’t felt surrender like this, the desire and trust, the want and caring, for a long, long while. He hadn’t wanted it, didn’t know if he could find it again, but here it was, built up through dozens of little battles over the past long months, and now he can’t stop it.

“…Love you,” he breathes, because he’s already dumped his heart out on a plate for this man, so why shouldn’t Thor have those words too? Thor response with a rumble deep in his chest as his hand comes up to caress him. Little tingles of lightning mark its passage, and Peter feels like his skin is coming alive. It’s better than the fiery marks that come from scratching and clawing at each other’s skin, and Peter lets himself fall open to Thor’s hands, dragging him down for another kiss, not quite as soft, but more sincere, more true than he has been in a long time.

“I have much I want to give you, love,” Thor murmurs, and Peter’s breathing gets faster, because he knows he’s ready for this (because he’s been preparing himself every damn day like he couldn’t realize he was falling so hard for this man, like an idiot), but Thor’s sparking fingers are edging closer and closer to his hole and Peter knows he doesn’t have the control to handle what comes next.

So he spreads himself wider and tips his hips up to Thor, cock heavy and leaking steadily onto his stomach. Control is fucking overrated. Thor smiles that brilliant, beautiful smile and slides two fingers inside him. The thick stretch is nothing in comparison to the small shockwave that hits his body as Thor’s spark-laden fingers brush over his prostate, and then he’s coming without another touch. Pleasure thunders through him as spurt after spurt of white stripes over his chest and belly as his back arcs in a perfect bow. Peter laughs weakly in joy, a sound he didn’t think he still had in him. Thor toys with him a few moments more, then withdraws his hand from inside him. When he gets his breath back, Peter turns his head, hungry mouth open, and licks his lips. He only has to gesture once, and Thor shifts to straddle him, feeding the substantial girth of his cock down Peter’s throat. He chokes on it willingly, tears pricking at his eyes, working it over with hands, lips, and tongue. He keeps one hand on Thor’s cock, sliding the other up Thor’s belly and chest just to feel all of him that he can. It’s a lot, but a good amount of a lot, and Peter hums a lot and gags a little until Thor is thrusting very shallowly, overflowing Peter’s mouth with a shout of ecstasy. Peter swallows and swallows the flood of bitter salt down until Thor pulls out and lifts him up to kiss him again, so easy despite the mess.

They’re lying down together, instead of separating at the first opportunity, and Peter finds it simple to let Thor pull him so he can rest against Thor’s chest and hear his heart beat. Thor’s arms curve around him, and the empty feeling is gone, filled by something right next to where he has Gamora’s name. Peter winds his hands through Thor’s hair again, and tries to braid some loose strands. He can’t quite get it to work yet (couldn’t either when Gamora had asked him to), but he thinks he’ll figure it out soon. Thor just smiles at him, a little beautiful and broken and healing, and gives himself over to Peter.

guardians of the galaxy, thor, avengers, marvel cinematic universe, peter quill, slash

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