November meant soccer. It also meant that it was finally starting to get cold enough for Gamora to start wearing a jacket when she hung around after school and waited for Peter's practice to end. It was a habit she started back when they were nothing more than friends- he was always in practice for some sport year round, depending on the season. She was never a team player, but sticking around for his practices gave her an excuse to stay after school instead of heading home. Then it became a habit. She liked the solitude too- it was centering, sitting alone on the bleachers or benches off to the side of whatever field of that particular sport season.

Gamora wasn't alone that afternoon though. She found she didn't mind.

Gen was the only other girl in school who had hair dyed an unnatural color- blue bangs- and with Gamora's pink tips it was like they were destined to get along. Was there such thing as solidarity in hair color?

Even though they'd been in the same art class since the beginning of that year, they didn't really end up talking until getting partnered up on a project recently. This was the first day she invited Gen to come with her as she started walking out to the sports field after the school bell rang. Much to her surprise, she accepted, and it was actually kinda fun just hanging out and talking on the bleachers for the past half hour.

Okay, not just kinda. It was nice, and Gamora was having fun. They both were. And Gamora was actually snorting with laughter as Gen tried to extrapolate the meaning of the horrendous pattern on the goalie's uniform that was like a psychedelic trip mixed with a kaleidoscope that was trying way too hard to get attention.

"I still don't see how you two ever became a thing," Gen commented, referring to Gamora's boyfriend on defense. Who she could hear whining from here for being whistled and shouted at for being offsides.

He makes me smile, was the first thought Gamora had

"He's quite… persistent," is what she actually said, with a begrudging fondness.

Her friend raised an eyebrow. "So what? He just annoyed you into going out with him? That doesn't explain why you two are still together."

It was no use pretending Peter wasn't what one would call popular. Everyone knew him, or at least knew of him. Gamora was used to it. Hell, she remembered whenever she used to be infamous on her own and labelled a loner before the gang got together. She also remembered how worried the teachers seemed to be whenever she, Rocket, Groot, Drax, and Peter really became a posse. It just seemed like a bad idea when five troublemakers became a group of friends. Though Peter was more mischief maker than troublemaker (you couldn't say the same for the rest of them). He was the class clown who got in trouble for goofing off, but had typical well-adjusted highschool student activities too. Like sports. Participation.

And he turned out to be a good leader. There was a reason he was usually voted team captain for all the sports teams he was on (though he definitely didn't act like it during practice). And he turned out to be a surprisingly good influence on the rest of their friends, Gamora included.

"No, he just has this way of worming his way into your heart, whether you want him to or not," she tried to explain. "Whether or not you give him permission to make you start caring about him. But it's… He starts caring about you first, and you just can't help but care about him in return. Or something like that. I don't know how it happened either. Damn him for being so cute and lovable. It's his fault. He just worms himself into your heart, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it." Yeah, that was it, shift all the blame on Peter. It was better that anyone thinks the sentiment was his fault, instead of Gamora being Sappy. Or… ugh… romantic. He must be rubbing off on her- she swore she wasn't this sappy before she met him. No way.

"Weren't you worried about his, you know, reputation at first? The love 'em and leave 'em Peter Quill who'd never been with the same girl longer than a week, and had a new notch in his bedpost like every other night?" Gen asked, not bothering to beat around any bushes. This was something that Gamora appreciated about her personality. "You're the last person I'd ever expect to end up with a guy like him, Gamora. Now it doesn't seem like a big deal since you've been together- how long?"

"A year as of July," Gamora supplied.

"Right. Now it doesn't seem like a big deal, but you didn't know that when you first started going out. Weren't you, I dunno, worried?"

She shrugged in response. "Not especially. He pursued me for a year before we went on our first date. Not like, hounding me. I would've cracked his jaw open for that. It's like I was saying about the whole genuinely caring thing he does. I always knew I was something more to him. He's got the whole puppy dog heart on his sleeve thing, and it's disgustingly endearing." She paused then, to recollect particulars- besides, she had time to kill. Why not tell the whole story? A truncated version, of course.

"We almost kissed the week we met, but then I threatened him with physical violence if he ever tried to pull something like that with me. A kiss. So he didn't. He just became my annoying best friend after that, somehow. And we just got closer and closer. All the while, Peter Quill, big man on campus, stopped hooking up at parties like he used to have a reputation for doing once we started hanging out. Started being friends." Once they all started being friends, really. Once the group got together. Peter always said they should come up with a name, she recalled fondly. Drax thought it was a great idea (he always thinks it's a great idea whenever Quill brings up that long argued over point). Rocket threatened to 'quit' if he ever even tried to give them a team name.

"He's told me since that he already started… developing feelings for me by the end of the month we met," she continued. "And whenever he had feelings for me, he didn't want to be with anyone else, even superficially, at all. So no, I wasn't worried. He was horribly honest about all of it, too. I always knew how much I meant to him."

"How'd you guys meet anyway? You run in totally different circles."

"Detention," Gamora answered easily, and Gen laughed.

"Okay, now that I buy."

"There's a reason why Drax, Rocket, Groot, and I are such good friends now. Why our group of friends even exists. It's because of Peter." Gamora's learned that sharing things about yourself is a way to make friends, and to solidify a budding friendship. She's also since learned that it's much easier to talk about Peter than herself. And waxing poetic about your boyfriend is a way of getting personal, in a friendship building way- so it's a work around. Gen is probably the first friend she's made in years, outside of their little group. It's nice. Plus, Gamora's also proud of her boyfriend, and she secretly liked bragging on him. Not that she would ever admit that.

"Now don't tell him I said this, because his ego doesn't need to get any bigger, but he's the best person I know. He has a way of changing people, for the better. I think it's that whole genuinely caring about other people that he has a habit of. The whole reason our little 'posse' is friends- it's cause Peter reached out to us first. We were all in pretty bad places when we met him. And he reached out and stuck around and made you feel important because you were important, and this utterly ridiculous goofball of sunshine actually cared about the sad sack of shit you were, and gave a crap about you, when you're not used to mattering to people at all. It… he's infectious."

"You make it sound like he's some benevolent sort of superhero."

"No, he's just kind with a drive to help out other people, for whatever reason. And a keen sense of someone in trouble I guess. Not like spider sense sort of trouble, but… he has a good heart. I think he sees pain in other people, and wants to help them. I won't speak for the rest of the group, but none of us come from very good… situations. Rocket likes to joke we're the most fucked up kids in school, so of course we all became friends. I certainly wasn't at a good place when we met. My parents died when I was a kid, and my adoptive family after them… let's just say they weren't healthy. I think Peter was the first person who cared about me in years. So yes, he has a way of kicking down the door to your heart and announcing to make room cause he's taking up permanent residence there."

"Gamora!" Peter shouted, waving his arms above his head as he jogged over to the bleachers. Like he was trying to get her attention or something. Even though he literally did this every practice. Every time he got a break, he'd run over to go bug the prettiest girl in the world (who he also happened to be dating). "My biggest fan!" He greeted with the widest smile on his face once he reached her.

"Try your only fan," Gamora scoffed, rolling her eyes at him and their familiar banter that they always fell into so easily.

Peter gasped, his hand flying over his heart like she'd just shot him through it. "Oh, ouch!"

It only took two seconds for him to drop his mock offense though, his facade falling into his easy laughter that always made her want to laugh too. His cheeks were a bit pink from all the running and exertion, and with the happiest look on his face- Gamora just had to smile at how cute he was. She obviously wasn't going to say so, not in front of her friend (she did have some respect for other people to not put on gag worthy sentimental displays like he was prone to), but she thought she may just have to tell him sometime later.

Speaking of friend.

Peter looked expectantly between the two girls, noticing how close they were sitting and how they were talking until just a moment ago. He raised his eyebrows, almost bouncing on his toes, and he was very clearly waiting for an introduction, but no one said anything. He didn't seem surprised.

"So… let me guess," he started excitedly, motioning to whoever was sitting next to his girlfriend. "This is… new friend from art class?" Peter phrased it as a question, but he was confident he nailed it.

Gamora's friend raised her eyebrows, looking reasonably impressed.

"Gen," Gamora corrected him.

Before he had any real time to chat, Peter was being called back over by the other guys on the team (who were shouting at him to get his butt back on the field and stop flirting, cause his teammates were so unoriginal).

So he gave Gamora a quick kiss on the cheek and said an even quicker goodbye to her friend before jogging back onto the field, prepared for the ribbing he was definitely going to get from them before they got back into the game. It was a rather short break, apparently.

Meanwhile, Gen looked at Gamora, awaiting an explanation. They'd really only met last week, and them hanging out right now wasn't planned in advance, so Gen was curious as to how Peter knew who she was.

"I told him about you one time," Gamora sighed in answer to the unasked question. "And I'm pretty sure my exact words were 'I met someone in art who's as big of an asshole as I am.'"

"A boy who listens to you?" Gen waggled her eyebrows with a knowing smile. "You'd better hold onto that one."

"Trust me, I don't plan on letting go of him anytime soon."

"Though for real, that was some deep shit," Gen told her, meaning it as a sincere compliment. "All reflective and introspective. Seriously, Gamora, you sound way too mature, especially when talking about that ridiculous goofball, as you like to call him. I swear, you could submit what you just said to some sort of writing competition and win, like, everything. You'd be so good at angsty poetry. I'm not even kidding, what you just said sounded really good, and beautiful, honestly. But you should maybe take out all the curse words before submitting it to something. Did you just come up with that off the top of your head? Cause that was deep."

Gamora shrugged. "Peter comes up a lot in my mandated therapy sessions. I still have to go to them every week, even though I haven't been in a fight at school in over a year now. I of course spend a lot of time with my boyfriend, so I end up talking about him whenever I have to talk about what my week was like, every week. You realize a couple things with forced reflection."

"Man, I wish I had known you back when you got into fist fights," Gen said almost wistfully. "I only got to hear about them afterward when everyone was talking about how you beat someone up at lunch. I thought you were the coolest girl in school when I heard those stories. I mean, good on you for not punching anybody lately. I just kinda wish I had gotten to see Michael Crichton cry. Dude's an asshole. Even a bigger asshole than the two of us," Gen elbowed her with a smile, and Gamora had to laugh.

Yes, she was glad to have found a friend with the same asshole sense of humor she did.

"He still won't look me in the eyes in the hallway," Gamora stated proudly.

At that, Gen held up her hand for a high five, and Gamora gave it to her.

"You are my hero, man," Gen grinned. "I heard you got suspension for that, right?"

"Mhmm. Three days," she confirmed.

"Well, on behalf of all the girls who've had to put up with him for two years, thank you for taking one for the team and decking him in the face. That day was the last time he cat called anybody. He's too afraid you'll hear him and punch him again," Gen snickered.

Yes, Gamora had a feeling this was the start to a beautiful friendship.

AN: For my friend lettersfromnowhere on AO3 and ephemeralcontinuum on tumblr, who I first met when I became obsessed with the brief but fantastic run of her starmora highschool au I guess it's half timing (and the other half's luck) over on her AO3

It's my personal opinion that meeting in detention is the highschool au version of meeting in prison.
Anyone who ever went to highschool should know damn well that Gamora would be an art kid, and I will fight you over it. Only the art kids ever died their hair unnatural colors (I know I did, and got in trouble for it too). I have never been in a fight though, so she has that on me.

Title from the Jackson 5, of course.

Anyone have any more highschool headcannons? Starmora or just in general?

#Gamora is proud of Peter and secretly likes bragging on him #You know it's true