Quick word all: I am blind. I have a beta reader on AO3, but said beta has a full time job and kids to raise. If you see a typo, miss-spelling, etc., please let me know. Thanks.

"Ow. Effing OW." Peter's back hurt like ten ways to hell. He felt it in his shoulders, running down the length of his back and it was pure pain. He wondered if this is how Rocket felt all the time; Rocket never actually said anything, but odd amounts of painkillers went missing from the medbay on a regular basis, and Groot's hand usually strayed south to rub circles on Rocket's back after he sat upright for long periods of time.

Talking to him would be as good a start as any, if he could get past Rocket's wicked sharp tongue. And claws.

Peter rapped quietly on Rocket's door, knowing most of the team was asleep, other than Groot, who was up in the cockpit by the music choice, and Rocket, who, probably from his mods, only needed to sleep two hours for everyone else's' six-to-ten.

Rocket opened a crack in his door. "'S barely three hours into your sleep cycle, oh Great and Mighty Star Lord," he snarked. "What can I, a humble servant, do for you at this ungodly hour?"

"Back. Pain," was all Peter could sputter out; he swore he had something much more eloquent in his head a minute ago.

Rocket's whiskers fell. "All right, wuss. Medbay. I'm going to take a look."

Unfortunately, unlike the rest of the ship that had modifications for Rocket to use (ladders, catwalks, pushbutton doors, etc), the medbay was simply split in two- a small table and tools to use on Rocket, and a larger one for use on Peter, Drax, and Gamora's injuries. Rocket, meanwhile, probably from having to fix himself so often, had proven the most competent in its use, despite having to fumble with the oversized equipment and too-tall examination table when taking care of Gamora, Peter, and Drax, in that frequency of need.

Which led to the current situation- Peter, shirtless, lying on his stomach, with Rocket sitting awkwardly on the small of his back, poking around at his shoulder blades with a handheld X-ray scanner.

"Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news," Rocket finally said, as he carefully removed himself from Peter in a way that wouldn't scratch him. Peter groaned a little as he sat upright. Rocket's warm form on his lower back had actually helped, and the fifty pounds suddenly missing brought the searing pain all the way back down to his ankles.

"Just give me the bad news, Rocket," Peter replied, yawning.

"You're going to be in for some serious hurt for at least another year, Pete."

"Wha? Why?"

"Well, this is what you get for not letting me tell you the good news first," Rocket said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"And that would be?"

"I know what species your dad is. Or was. And you're gonna like his genetics."

"What, I'm going to enjoy being in excruciating pain?"

"Well, yeah, wait no, not the pain bit, but what your body's started growing. Infinity Stone might have set it off, or your humanity may have made it slower. You should have started growing them five or ten years ago otherwise."

"Grow what? Am I half Groot?" Peter rubbed his shoulders. Being half Groot was not his idea of good genetics, and made no sense with what his mother had said. His mom had told him his dad was like an ang… oh shit.

"Am I… am I growing wings?"

"You've got a pair of coracoid formin' under the skin, so yep. Start taking some calcium supplements. Go lighter on the weight training. You'll never get off the ground if you're too heavy. And stop sparring with Drax and Gamora. Your bones are starting to hollow out; in a month or so one good sucker punch is gonna shatter them. And try not to sleep on your back."

Oh joy, Peter mused. This was going to be interesting.

It was maybe a week later that he realized he couldn't wear his favorite tight grey shirt anymore. The bones in his back ad started protruding out enough that they made two sharply defined lumps in his back. He could feel musculature when he touched, but couldn't actually get them to move. And they were sore. He switched to loosely fitting Xandarian style high-collar shirts. Gamora remarked about the sudden change in fashion, but nothing more. Rocket wasn't talking; if Peter wanted to tell the team he was some kind of alien birdman, that would be on his terms, not Rocket's.

Rocket was helping, though. He'd given Peter a potent concoction to drink before bed, and it was some odd combination of mineral supplement, painkiller, and knockout drug. And sometimes, he'd wake to feel a warm, fuzzy presence on his bare lower back, still working on some sort of project by a single ball of Groot's bioluminescent spores trapped in a bottle. "I'll get you some heating pads the next stop we make," Rocket had grumbled, tail swishing. "But for now, I'll do. Don't tell Gams I told you this, but I did the same for her when her spine implant had been snapped in half."

Gamora had already told him about that herself, but Peter grinned all the same. It helped, it really did.

Three weeks later and Peter's wing development was no secret to anyone. His physical size hadn't shrunk any, but he definitely felt lighter on his feet. The scale said that his mass had shrunk by at least twenty kilos already, and he'd probably be down twenty or thirty more before it was over.

And yet, he was eating as much as Drax, with no signs of stopping.

"Peter, your choices of sustenance are going to need to change," Drax admonished. "Although I do not know by how much, as you are only half Retribe." Retribe. That word still didn't fit right. Peter had finally looked at pictures and read a bit about their culture after Rocket's fifth insistence.

They were a pretty isolated race of birdlike aliens, about six feet tall with monstrously massive wingspans, along with more humanoid arms. Their legs were still birdlike and squat, with talons that Peter wasn't growing- at least not yet. But the wings and feathers grew in puberty (and their bones hollowed out then too); the kids were ugly and kinda pinkish-naked with talons before their transformations around the age of twenty- so, until Peter's body told them otherwise, the team ran under the assumption that he'd only get wings and probably feathers. He liked being able to wear boots and his thruster packs, and those Retribe talons didn't look conducive to either.

How his dad had been on Earth without anyone flipping their shit was beyond Peter.

Drax and Peter had done a little research on diet, at Drax's strong insistence. He needed the right minerals and enough protein to build the new muscle, bone, and feathers, or his wings would be deformed. Getting ahold of a Retribe anywhere, or even decent reliable internet information, was a bit of a challenge, but the suggested diet was pretty similar to what Rocket usually ate- raw nuts, seeds, small mammals, and fish, in quantities about three times what Peter was used to consuming.

Eating like a bird was a simile Peter decided to scrub out of his vernacular.

Raw fish was disgusting. Peter imagined how bad his dad's breath must have smelled. Gamora noted his discomfort, and started showing Peter some tricks to reducing the horrible fishy aftertaste. A little vinegar, some femented bean sauce, and time.

Peter was starting to be okay with this.

That is, until the morning he woke up and rubbed his eyes to remove the crust after a good night's rest. Something didn't feel right. His face was….

Smooth.

He touched where his eyebrows should be. Nothing. No eyelashes. A small pile of auburn graced his pillow and the top of his head felt…

Holy shit, he was bald.

He checked his arms, now sleeping shirtless since the protrusions on his back had grown to about thirty centimeters in length, thick enough muscle at the base that he could start moving them. Lo and beold, no hair there either. Or "there", for that matter.

Peter had to bite on his lower lip to not completely pass out.

His medical bracelet, created by Rocket to alert to any serious changes in his body like heart rate, oxygen levels, or blood pressure, sent an alarm blaring through the ship.

Of course Gamora had to be the one to answer the call. Of course she did.

"Peter, take my… what happened to your face?" Gamora asked, half in shock and half laughing.

"ITHINKIHAVECANCERNOWTOO," Peter screech-sputtered, as Gamora rushed over, grabbing him by his midsection, quickly loosening her grip as she felt his ribs give far too easily. Peter was becoming very, very fragile.

"Cancer?" Gamora asked, the small smile on her lips gone and genuinely concerned. "Cancer doesn't cause hairloss."

"When mom had… when she did her hair fell out…"

"That may have been a side effect of the treatment, no? Doesn't Terra use radiation poisoning to stop cancers? That would easily cause hairloss. Your body is just getting itself ready to grow feathers."

Peter breathed out.

"We can have Rocket check you for radiation poisoning if it helps, but I think this is just part of your package," Gamora said firmly. "Come on, you need to eat. Unless you just want a pair of limp protrusions on your back instead of actual, useable wings."

Peter had Rocket check after breakfast anyway. The only thing he said was "Calmus startin' to grow in your skin, bud," before breaking out in laughter. "Peter, man, you're makin' quills."

"You should have some down on ya by the end of the week. I'm putting you on thyroxine so you'll molt and get your adult feathers a bit quicker. You also need to spend some time under one of Groot's sun lamps, or I can add some gonadotropins, too."

"I don't understand half tat sentence, but I do trust you."

"Pills it is."

When Peter's first layer of down started to grow, it was grey and fuzzy. It wasn't auburn, but it was temporary and Peter wasn't really running out trying to hit on women. But Rocket was suddenly acting different, licking his muzzle, and slapping himself.

"What is WRONG with you?!" Peter demanded, ad he barreled through the ship after Rocket after the third time this morning, dropping more down on the deck as a few bits of harder, adult orange feather started peeking through the molt.

Rocket looked sour. "You smell good," he finally explained. "There. Damn. I said it. It's out. You smell like dinner. And it's driving me absolutely nutty."

"That's it, I'm doing this the right way and going off those hormone pills," Peter replied. "If, and only if, you still are a lunatic when I'm off, will I take them again. I don't need my best friend's crazy good nose making him think I'm Thanksgiving."

"Done," Rocket said, before scurrying as far out of Peter's new bubble of bird-pheromones as he could. He heard the comms shudder to life, and Rocket's voice. "I'm goin' into hidin' for a few days. Peter, once you've been off for a week, find me."

"Peter pulled angrily at the soft gray fuzz on the top of his head and stormed back to the galley.

Hungry.

And the small fuzzy creature known as Rocket qualified as small mammal. At least Peter felt a little better about the nagging feral voice in the back of his mind.

He sent the hormone supplements down the incinerator. He didn't need to speed this up for convenience; his mind wouldn't keep up otherwise.

Another month passes. Rocket and Peter have both become accustomed to the situation, to the point where both make "om nom" gestures to each other at dinner. Gamora calls them children. Rocket points to Peter and reminds them all that he's basically a twenty-year-old Retribe, which, with their long lifespans, is basically a child. Peter brandishes a fork and says he's thirty-four. Rocket flings a vegetable from his spoon like a catapult.

Repeat.

Occasionally, Drax will pluck the vegetable midair and eat it, but for the most part, they've worked up a routine.

The protrusions, and most of the rest of Peter's body, are now adorned with hilariously gaudy orange, yellow, and brown feathers. Shampoo isn't a good idea anymore, and while Rocket's got fur, the process of grooming and preening is similar enough that he teaches Peter how to clean. Peter isn't sweating anymore, and everyone (Rocket especially, because he does it too) laughs when his feathers puff out when he's too hot or angry. Peter thinks he looks like a human Big Bird, and he's starting to be okay with it. He's even learning how to control how puffed out his plumage is. Turns out he lets off a pretty potent cocktail of pheromones when he does.

Peter doesn't shave anymore, he plucks. The feathers on his face aren't essential to flight, he read, and they can go down the incinerator without affecting his later ability to fly. His bodyweight has stabilized.

At this point, there are only two things left for him.

The first big one is doorways. He's not sure how to posture himself to fit, and awkwardly walks through sideways. Groot's a lot more perceptive than people realize, and as he notices Peter's wing parts growing out big enough that it's becoming an issue, he starts growing a very strange set of protrusions of his own. Rocket doesn't seem to mind, it's a new perch, but peter notices that Groot's growing what Peter has, in wood form. Groot tries moving them the way he's seen Peter able, trying to squeeze himself through the airlocks on the ship. A few days in, Rocket comes barreling up to Peter in the cockpit, (which Peter now laughs at because the English pun is too much) and drags him down to the bulkhead. Groot is grinning.

"He's figured out the best way for ya to squeeze through doors, birdbrain," Rocket explained.

Groot turned his back to face Peter, and folded the protrusions high on his back, before tucking one under the other. It takes Peter some effort, he needs to spend more time on the physical therapies the Nova corps suggested, but he manages to copy the motion.

It's a bit painful; Peter really needs to start on those weird exercises, but his part-wings are folded in enough that he can walk back out through the bulkhead without hitting himself. He hears the crunch of branches being torn off. Groot's probably pulled out the extra limbs.

"What did you do that for?" Peter heard Rocket yell as he sauntered back to the cockpit, wings folded neatly behind his back. "I liked that foothold!"

It's been almost a year now, and Peter looks at himself in the mirror. The plumage is still ornate, but not as gaudy. Peter was typically the distraction anyway, so it actually didn't affect his combat as much as he thought it would.

He now slept the way Retribe did, with his almost four-meter wingspan, he didn't have much of a choice; the wings partially folded behind him, he leaned into a nest of his own appendages. Peter's favorite old pillow was stolen, and with his keener sensed knew the culprit was Gamora.

He didn't need it anymore, anway.

What he still did need, however, was learn how to fly.

Unless he could hunt down a xenophobic bird alien, this was something he'd half to figure out on his own.

He couldn't extend his wings out completely anywhere on the ship aside the cargo bay, but Peter stretched them out as far as he could in his little cabin.

Soon, he thought. Soon I won't need my thruster packs anymore. Rocket had been begging for a jetpack; he thought about tinkering with them to make one for him.

He'd still wear the boots though. They were too cool not to.