It was something they'd learned about Peter.

That he had a habit of walking in rooms without knocking.

He didn't mean to. He'd never had to knock before, hell, he didn't even have a room of his own, much less one with a door growing up with the ravagers.

Then he took off on his own with the Milano, and duh he never had to knock on his own private ship. It was his ship, he was the only one who lived there. The only time someone else was onboard was when he invited some company back for the night (sex, he was talking about sex).

When the guardians started out, it was the first time he'd never had reason to knock onboard the Milano.

The ravagers had no concept of privacy, so not knocking was just second nature by this point in his life. It was a hard habit to break.

Namely, he didn't.

It was a bit of an adjustment at first for the guardians, living in such close quarters with four other people.

But they'd quickly found out about Peter's habit of just walking into rooms, and learned to just lock their door by default unless they wanted him automatically walking in.

It was a simple solution, really.

Gamora never had a room of her own before. It was nice having privacy. A door with a lock was a luxury she'd never been granted before.

It was a simple solution to Peter's habit of walking anywhere about his ship.

They'd only been a team for a couple of days the first time he'd automatically walked into what was now her room, she was reading at the time, and gave him a death glare, and he apologized and gave the excuse that he wasn't used to knocking, seeming earnest enough.

The second time she thought he was doing it on purpose, and she started always locking her door.

It wasn't until she saw Peter automatically walking into Drax's room and then turn around and walk right back out with his hand slapped over his eyes and shouting sorry over his shoulder that she realized it wasn't an intentional thing at all.

She and Rocket had quickly learned that if they didn't want Peter automatically walking into their rooms, they just needed to lock their door. Drax never cared.

Over a year later, and Peter still automatically walked into his room with the intention of telling Drax something, and just walked back out because for the umpteenth time he'd walked in on a clothesless Drax who'd just gotten out of the shower or something cause seriously, dude never locked his door. He didn't even bother putting a hand over his eyes anymore, because by this point he'd seen Drax naked way too many times to bother covering his eyes.

Now they lived on the Benatar, and it was ingrained in the guardians that if you wanted Peter knocking on your door you had to lock it first.

And, after a year of living on a ship together with the rest of the team, Peter and Gamora were carefully starting to navigate a relationship. They started with dancing more often, and sometimes kissing. They hadn't gotten farther than that.

Gamora still kept her door locked most of the time, now that she and Peter had started this thing that they were. So he'd remember to knock first.

It was a system.

That's why he was so surprised. That morning.

Because he just walked into her room looking at the data pad with job listings to show her what might be a good one, and since he didn't get a face full of door, that meant that she left it open and he didn't have to knock.

That was the system, built out of necessity, now it was just normal. That's why he was so surprised.

He walked in, still reading the stipulations on the job posting, a bright smile on his face, her door already closed behind him by the time he looked up, excited to tell her.

His eyes widened though, and no sound made it past his open lips. He just froze.

Because Gamora was in her room. On her bed. And she was very busy.

scene cut

Author's note: this fic used to be 4,600 words long, but I was contacted by a mod about the sexual content of this story being at odds with the site's guidelines. I didn't want to just delete it because it's gotten some favorites, but until I can work in a way to complete the story while omitting the explicit parts, I'm just going to cut it off here. The full version is still available at archive of our own at

/works/17541473

(same story title, and posted under the same username, if that's easier for you)