Hello everyone! Hope you're all doing well! This chapter takes place in between the last chapter of Carry On and the events of Crossfire of Stardom; you're welcome to read them if you'd like but it's not required, this chapter is basically just filler! Hope you all like it! :D

"You look like shit, Quill."

"I could say the same for you, old man."

That's fair, honestly, but Yondu thinks that for being recently dead he looks decent enough. Peter, on the other hand, looks like he's been stretched to the point of breaking. He's haggard and worn, like he's suddenly gained ten years in the span of a few weeks. He's scruffier than Yondu remembers and he has the gaunt, ragged appearance of someone who's taken a lot of shit lately and hasn't exactly been handling it well. There are bags under his eyes and the way his clothes hang off his shoulders indicate he's lost a bit of weight too. So yeah, Quill looks like shit and Yondu hates it because he knows he's the cause of most of it.

They're sitting in a mostly empty bar, staring at each other from across the width of a small table that might as well be a galaxy. There's a bottle sitting on the table between them, the contents dark and smelling remarkably like a combination of tar and licorice. Neither of them are really interested in it but if there was ever an appropriate time for alcohol, now was it.

Getting Peter out of the alley across town had been a process. The anger and grief that had exploded to the surface upon finding out that Yondu was alive had left him drained and more than a little exhausted. Not only that, he was still wary and suspicious of the ex-Ravager's miraculous resurrection and allowing a previously dead man to coax him away from the alley had been no small feat. However, the aforementioned exhaustion had dulled his hesitance enough to where he allowed Yondu to more or less drag him out of the alley and direct him to a new location. The bar hadn't really been the first choice but it was empty and it had chairs (which Peter was badly in need of) so they had ducked inside and found a table toward the back of the room.

The bartender is chatting quietly with the only other patron in the bar but he eyes the duo carefully as he speaks. Apparently word had gotten out about the bar brawl on the other side of town and the wariness in the bartender's eyes makes it clear he's on the lookout for a repeat performance.

The bar remains quiet, however, the few patrons inside more concerned with their own affairs rather than those around them. It's for the best really; they needed a quiet place to discuss things and it wasn't shaping up to be a short conversation.

Peter pours himself a glass of the liquor on the table and eyes it silently. It's dark brown and thick and he does an admiral job of suppressing the shudder that ripples through him once he swallows it. He drops the glass back on the table with a dull thunk and leans back in his chair.

"So now what?" he asks after a second, staring intently at the glass like he's convinced it's about to get up and move at any moment. "Where do we go from here?"

Yondu doesn't have an answer; it's one of the few times in his life he doesn't know what to say. Instead he sighs heavily and leans forward to rest his elbows on the table. "Hell if I know," he mutters, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. "Trust me when I say this," he says, gesturing to himself. "Wasn't part'a the plan. Hate to be blunt, kid, but I wasn't exactly plannin' on comin' back."

Peter scoffs and it's a raw, bitter sound. "Yeah, most of the time death is permanent," he retorts but there's little heat in his voice. He's slowly started to move from anger and disbelief to anger and cautious acceptance; he doesn't understand it (neither does Yondu) but he's started to accept it as new, confusing reality. It's still a lot to digest, though, and Peter is clearly struggling under the weight of it.

His eyes are still bloodshot from earlier and while he's no longer shaking like he was before, he's still tense and rigid as a bowstring. He fidgets with the edges of his jacket, nervous energy keeping his hands moving almost constantly. It looks like it's taking a lot of effort to keep himself still and seated instead of pacing the floor.

"What are you going to do?" Peter asks after a minute, finally looking up from the table.

Again, it's a question Yondu doesn't have an answer for. He's always had a plan, thinking two, sometimes three steps ahead of whatever is going on and preparing for what came next. But now...well, now he hasn't planned on what happens outside of this bar, let alone what he's going to do now that he's back among the living. Being dead tends to put a damper on all current and future prospects.

"Haven't figured that part out yet," he replies with a small shrug. "I blew up the ship, killed most'a the crew, got myself killed in the process...that's pretty hard to come back from." He reaches for the bottle and pours himself a shot of the dark liquor.

"You gonna get back in?" Peter asks, keeping the question vague and ambiguous as possible; he keeps the word "Ravager" out of it entirely, leaving it as an implication only. The bartender looked skittish enough already and name-dropping a group known for violence and destruction wasn't the best idea in the current setting.

It's Yondu's turn to scoff and he shakes his head slowly. "I still got a couple dozen bounties on my head, boy, an' a whole lotta people who'd be happy to take another shot at it if they find out I'm alive and kickin'. So for the time bein' stayin' dead probably ain't such a bad idea." He levels Peter with a mild glare. "Which means I'm gonna request that ya keep my inexplicable resurrection to yerself. Less people who know I'm alive the better."

Peter smirks, the expression dry and brittle as kindling. "Who am I gonna tell, man? Actually, scratch that, who would believe me? I could shout it from the rooftops and I doubt anyone would listen to me." His voice drops a little before he speaks again. "Last thing I need is for the others to think I've gone more crazy."

There's something about the way he says it that makes it clear concerns about his mental stability had been a subject of discussion recently. Peter had always been impulsive, thinking with his heart rather than his brain, a trait that usually led to absurd levels of recklessness. After everything that happened with Ego (finding out he was responsible for his mother's death, getting used as a glorified battery, basically just being an egomaniacal prick) it wasn't too hard to imagine that Peter probably made some pretty reckless decisions for a while after that.

Hell, if Yondu knows anything about Peter Quill, those "reckless decision" had probably become downright suicidal. Where Peter tends to lack self-preservation instincts in himself, he more than makes up for it in protecting those he's closest to. And yeah, the Ravagers may not have given him the best childhood on the books but he still considered some of them close enough to be family and was willing to fight to death for them. Then to lose the one person who was the closest thing to a father figure he's probably ever known…

Once again, Yondu wants to point out that his decision was 100% his choice but he figures now really isn't the time to bring that up. It's abundantly clear that Peter had not handled his death very well and his coping skills, if they could be called that, were questionable at best.

He decides to change the subject to something that's been bothering him ever since he first laid eyes on the Guardian earlier in the evening. "I didn't see any'a yer new friends watchin' yer back during that brawl back there," he comments, watching as Peter's eyes shift warily.

He shrugs before he speaks again. "Look, 's not exactly my place or nothin' but they seem pretty fond'a you which makes it weird that they weren't with you on this job. That it unless you went off on yer own, like a dumbass, an' they don't know where you are."

It's Peter's turn to look away and he shifts slightly in his chair. "They know I'm on a job," he answers vaguely, sliding his glass back and forth between his hands. "I didn't tell them where I was going because I didn't want them to worry."

The crimson glare leveled at him makes Peter roll his eyes. "Dude, knock it off. I knew the risks and I knew if I told them where I was going they would try to follow me."

"An' you thought goin' off on yer own was a smart move?" Yondu doesn't even try to keep the disapproval out of his voice. "Boy, I outta kick yer ass right here. Or better yet, send a message to yer team let yer green girlfriend do it for me. I raised ya to be a lotta things, Quill, but stupid wasn't one of 'em."

"Man, give me a break," Peter grumbles peevishly, shooting the ex-Ravager a glare of his own. "Everyone's been tip-toeing around me for weeks now and watching every single thing I do like they're waiting for me to explode. I just needed to get off a ship for a couple days and clear my head, that's all. I didn't want them to worry about me so I didn't tell them where I was going."

Yondu stands then and reaches across the table to smack Peter upside the head. "They're part'a yer crew, idiot, it's their damn job to worry about you! It comes with the job! And you sneakin' off without tellin' 'em where yer goin' sure as hell ain't helpin'!"

Peter scoffs and shakes his head. "Dude, I used to sneak away all the time and you never knew where I was."

The ex-Ravager narrows his eyes. "You think so, huh? Boy, since you were nine years old you never got twenty feet off the ship without me knowin' exactly where you were. I kept track'a you even when ya thought I didn't because it was my job to know what kinda stupid shit you were gettin' yerself tangled up in at all times! You sneakin' off the ship had nothin' to do with a lack of awareness on my part an' everything to do with me allowing you to do it."

He leans forward then, jabbing one blue finger into the table top to emphasize his point. "Yer crew is yer family, Quill, an' like it or not they're gonna worry about you just the same as you would about them. So yer plan'a sneakin' off alone because you didn't want 'em to worry about you probably just made things worse."

Peter is silent for a moment, his expression unreadable as he eyes the bottle on the table passively. "What do you mean you kept track of me?" he asks finally, shifting his gaze up to meet Yondu's.

The former Captain shifts his attention away, mildly flustered by the question. "I have my ways, runt, just leave it at that."

A ghost of a smile tugs at Peter's mouth, the first one he's felt in weeks. He knows better than to pry so instead he reaches forward and grabs the bottle, pouring a shot for both of them. "You're probably right," he mumbles after a minute, taking one glass and nudging the other across the table. "It was kind of a dick move on my part."

"Ya got that right," Yondu grumbles, taking the offered glass and knocking back the shot. It burns all the way down and tastes horrible but it's getting the job done so he can't complain. "They seem like a decent enough bunch," he adds after a second, gesturing vaguely to Peter. "That crew'a yers. Figures you'd find yer own band'a misfits before it was all said an' done."

Peter smirks and takes his own shot. "I grew up with thieves and murderers, what else was I supposed to do? Settle down with a normal family?"

"I'd kick yer ass."

"You'd try."

A comfortable silence falls between them and for a few very brief moments everything feels normal. For those few moments it's easy to forget about Ego and Yondu's death and everything else that had happened over the past few months. For the time being there's nothing but them and this bar and the disgusting liquor on their table.

After a few more seconds of silence, Peter reaches for the bottle again and purposely keeps his attention focused on everything except the man across from him. "You know, you could join us if you wanted to."

Yondu laughs once, a soft, quiet sound and mulls over the offer. "You mean become a member of yer little ragtag group? Become a Protector of the Planets or whatever it is ya call yerselves?"

"Guardians of the Galaxy."

"Right." Another beat of silence passes followed by a small shrug. "I dunno, Quill, that ain't exactly my style."

Peter just shrugs and pours another shot. "Fair enough, just an offer."

And it should have ended there, the conversation should have stopped and moved in a different direction. But it didn't.

"This Guardian gig," Yondu begins and it's his turn to look everywhere but in Peter's direction. "Does it pay anything?"

Peter smirks and shrugs again. "Sometimes," he answers vaguely. "It depends, really. Sometimes we get paid and sometimes it's pro bono. It's a case by case basis."

He's answered with another scoff. "I didn't raise you right."

"I could'a told you that," Peter retorts smoothly, filling the ex-Ravagers glass again and pushing it toward him.

Yondu accepts it and drums his fingers on the rim. "So you all just travel around the galaxy, rightin' wrongs and stadin' up for the little guy like some kinda interstellar Superman?"

"Pretty much," Peter says with another small shrug. "Except we're not glorified boy scouts; we actually use guns and bombs when we stop the bad guy."

The ex-Ravager flashes a crooked grin and chuckles. "Well, at least there's that." He takes the shot and doesn't bother stifling the cough that accompanies it. "Eh, what the hell, it ain't like I got anythin' better to do. Kraglin too, for that matter. Might be an interesting change'a pace."

"That's one way to describe it," Peter says with a grin as he kicks back his own shot. He drops the glass back onto the table with a soft 'thunk' and goes quiet for a second, clearly considering something. Finally, after few more seconds of silence passes, he sits up straight and shifts his way out of his jacket, reaching out to drop it on the table next to his glass.

Yondu eyes the piece of clothing and cocks an eyebrow. "The hell is this?"

"A jacket," Peter tells him simply as he leans back in his chair. "Can't be a Guardian without a jacket."

The ex-Ravager smirks and takes the offered jacket. "That so, huh?"

Peter holds up his hands in surrender. "Look man, I don't make the rules. There was a meeting a couple of months ago and you missed. It."

"Smart ass."

"Sometimes."

Yondu slides it on and rolls his shoulders to shift it into place. Peter is still slightly taller than him and his broad shoulders make the jacket just a little loose but it's a good fit and the jacket settles warm and comfortable across his back. "So not what?"

Peter shrugs one shoulder and pours out two more shots. "Now we take on the next job that comes our way. Could be something good, could be something bad, could be something in between."

Yondu muses for a second before dipping his chin in a nod. "I can handle that." He takes the glass Peter slides to him and holds it up. "To being a Guardian, I guess."

Peter grins and holds up his own glass. "To being a Guardian."

So I know Yondu became an unofficial Guardian at the end of GotG2 but this is just kind of a reinstatement. Also I like the idea that the DCU exists in conjunction with the MCU enough that both of them know who Superman is.

Thanks so much for reading guys! Have a great holiday! :D