[ To Gamora’s own surprise, she actually sleeps. Completely at ease, completely disarmed, she falls asleep wrapped around Peter, like it’s the easiest thing in the world – even though it’s the first time she’s willingly slept in front of another person in years. She’s vulnerable when she sleeps, and even though she can respond quickly, there’s always the chance it won’t be quick enough. But in that enormous, plush bed, curled up with a prostitute, of all things, Gamora sleeps.
Her body wakes her after a couple hours, and (almost reluctantly) she detaches herself from Peter. She slips out of the room with her cases from under the bed, and in the darkness of the bungalow, she changes into black clothes, appropriately arming herself and packing surveillance equipment into a portable bag. As silently as she prepared, she leaves the hotel behind.
Finding Ramirez’s estate is easy enough. She quickly realizes her initial intel was completely right: the man lives in a veritable fortress with all the security measures he has in place. Breaking in and dispatching him isn’t an option now, but if she wants access to any of his systems (security or otherwise), she needs to physically plant the bug.
Sure, her father has lackeys who occasionally handle this sort of infiltration, but Gamora is guaranteed to be the most efficient weapon in Thanos’s arsenal – and besides, this is one of the reasons Gamora anticipated being in LA for so long.
She parks far enough away from the estate that her car won’t look suspicious. She treks through the back acreage on the hillside that’s technically part of Ramirez’s land, and she makes it all the way to the first electric fence. She follows the fencing along itself until she finds the connected breaker, tweaks a few wires, and then lets herself through the perimeter without so much as an identifiable print.
Gamora makes excellent time reaching the private security hub Ramirez has on-property – with a few hired guns manning the cameras and keeping watch. She even manages to clip the preliminary bug into place in Ramirez’s server with admirably short work, and she starts to think she might actually get back to the hotel and crawl into bed with Peter before sunrise.
That would— actually be nice.
Really nice.
An alarm blares in her ears before she even registers something went wrong.
Get out get out get out get out—
She needs to retreat, and she needs to do it now.
With practiced ease, Gamora has her bag zipped and on her back, and she’s leaving the security hub behind. She hears shouting, barking (does he have dogs?), and lights suddenly flood the area between the house and the hillside. Panic bubbles in Gamora’s belly, but she keeps pushing forward, keeps making for the fence—
She hears the gunfire, and it feels like it’s miles away. It’s not the first time she’s been shot at, not even slightly, but she at least thinks she’s in the clear this time, she thinks she made it out, because she’s past the fence, down the hill—
A too-familiar sensation of fire blazes up her side. It knocks her off her feet, sending her tumbling down the hill, and every bump and roll feels like knives jabbing into her ribs, but when she finally comes to a stop, she doesn’t waste a second. She staggers to her feet, pressing her hand against her waist, and she manages to cross the last stretch to her car before she even pauses to assess the damage.
Hissing through her teeth, Gamora tugs up her tight shirt, revealing a nasty, bloodied graze. The bullet didn’t tear through much, and it mercifully didn’t leave matching entrance and exit wounds, but there’s plenty of blood.
There’s goes the security deposit on this rental.
Gamora doesn’t deal with the valet this time. She parks the car in an open lot a block from the hotel, and despite the searing pain in her side (and from the variety of bruises starting to bloom under her skin), she sneaks her way back to the bungalow. As quietly as she can manage, even as her hands start to shake, she opens the door, locks everything up behind her, and then goes to dig through her cases for a triage kit.
In the middle of her search, she accidentally knocks a small set of knives off the table, and she swears under her breath as she quickly tucks them away in another case. Before she can make any more of a mess, she slinks off to the bathroom (attached to the bedroom, wonderful) to start dealing with her fuckup. ]
It's a goddamn luxury, not needing to deal with the thumping bass of music played in a distant apartment, the banging of footsteps on his roof, the noise of shouting and laughing and cursing in the halls. There's no risk of someone banging on his door and alerting him that So-And-So got caught doing some Stupid Shit again, and that they were in need of bailing.
It's blessedly quiet, and the bed is soft and plush and warm, and even if Gamora wasn't paying him a ridiculous amount of money, he'd be more than willing to spend the week with her just for the chance at a decent night's sleep.
When Gamora takes her leave, he's none the wiser, sleeping through her near-silent exit.
It's only when he hears a sharp, metallic clatter that he finally jerks awake, pushing himself up on an elbow and instinctively turning to look at the door. Living in such a shitty neighborhood in such a shitty apartment means he immediately assumes break-in. He glances to the space beside him on the bed, and he has the abrupt, stomach-clenching realization that Gamora isn't there. He gets out of bed quickly, clicking on the bedside lamp. He throws on a pair of sweats, tugs on his old, threadbare tanktop, and as he dresses in record time, he has a couple seconds to wake up a little more and think.
It's— probably safe to assume that was Gamora, right? And that it wasn't, in fact, a burglar, as much as his hyperactive imagination insists?
He steels himself, moving toward the door, but someone beats him to it. The door opens, and Gamora steps in, clad all in black.
The metallic scent hits him first before he can register anything else, and he looks down to where her hands are pressed against her side, slick with blood. For a second, he feels like he's been punched in the stomach, and he just stands there, staring, too thunderstruck to properly react.
Then, like a computer suddenly unfreezing, he rushes forward, that blank, stunned expression immediately replaced with fear and worry. ]
Gamora freezes in the same moment that Peter does, staring at him almost owlishly for a whole heartbeat. God, she'd been hoping he'd sleep through all of this, that she'd be able to come up with some excuse in the morning (and she'd probably have to cut their week short, because how the hell is she supposed to explain this?). But Peter is there, halfway to the door, staring at her with—
Worry?
Actual— concern?
The throbbing in her side and the panicked realization that someone completely uninvolved is present shakes her out of her own holding pattern. Peter steps towards her, suddenly in her space, but she lifts up a hand to keep him at bay – the one holding the triage kit. She keeps pressure on her side with her other palm, hyperaware of the wet throbbing under her skin. ]
Don't ask me to explain.
[ She grimaces, drawing in a shakier breath as she presses more firmly against her side. ]
[ For a second, he flashes her a completely incredulous look, though he quickly follows it up with, ]
Are you kidding me?
[ With her coming in the way she has, dressed like the burglar he had been trying to convince himself wasn't lurking in the living room, bleeding like hell, he definitely wants an explanation.
But he clenches his jaw, teeth clenched so tightly he thinks something at the hinge of his jaw must pop, but he forces himself to shift gears. There are, in fact, more pressing matters.
Like, you know. The fact that Gamora is bleeding like hell.
He moves to her bad side, offering an arm to help support her. ]
[ Reasonably, Gamora understands why demanding that Peter follow her instructions without question would be incredibly difficult – and bordering beyond unreasonable. But she's also bleeding, and that's a more immediately concern than explaining herself.
(She has no idea how she's going to explain this to him.
She can't leave him alive after this, can she?
God, she doesn't want to think about that.)
Reluctantly, she accepts Peter's offered arm with a nod. She leans on him until they reach the bathroom sink, and then she sets the triage kit down and starts trying to pull her shirt over her head with one arm. ]
[ His mind is racing as they make the relatively short trek to the bathroom – though it feels like it takes forever, with the stench of blood hitting him full force now that he's at Gamora's elbow.
When she tugs at the shirt, he gets a better view of the wound, and something cold falls in his gut, makes it hard to breathe.
His gaze snaps up to her face when she speaks, and he nods a little numbly, opening the kit and fishing out the gauze. ]
[ She says it flatly as she drops the ripped, bloodied shirt to the tile. She leans against the counter to get a look at the wound – a graze, far from the worst she's ever had, before she reaches out to take the gauze from Peter. She plucks out the disinfectant, unceremoniously wetting the gauze, and then proceeding to press it against the source of the bleeding.
She hisses out a short sound, a curse under her breath, but she stubbornly holds the dressing in place. ]
[ He winces when she presses the gauze to her side, when he sees how clearly in pain she is.
Fuck, he feels useless.
He chews on his lower lip for a second, feeling entirely out of his depth, before gesturing for her to take a seat on the lip of the tub. His hands are shaking a little as he picks up the kit. ]
[ A little numbly, Gamora moves over to the tub, easing herself down as carefully as she can. She maintains the pressure on her side (as much as her body screams at her for it).
She looks up at him, guarded and confused, because he's— offering to help, not bolting for the door. ]
[ He nods a little too tightly as he kneels on the floor, depositing the kit on the edge of the bath. He digs through, hands shaking a little from nerves, and he finds a pair of tweezers and another packet of gauze. ]
You're gonna have to walk me through this.
[ He's done a lot of weird shit, but field medicine hasn't made it to that list. ]
[ Gamora nods as she reluctantly pulls the gauze from the wound. The bleeding has slowed noticeably, but it's still messy with coagulating red near the site. ]
Wet one of the hand towels; we need better visibility first.
Clean the blood until you can see the edges of the wound.
[ He nods, tugging one of the towels off the bar in front of the sink and wetting it with warm water from the tub's faucet.
He offers a quick, apologetic glance before he carefully wipes the blood away from her side, working his way up to the wound itself. It takes a few rinses of the towel under the warm water before he clears enough of the blood away to get a better look at the injury. ]
I take it you've done this before.
[ She has plenty of scars as proof, after all, which explains at least one small thing.
On the other hand, it also opens up a million, billion more questions. ]
[ Gamora holds herself still as Peter cleans away the blood, tense – trusting, despite the vulnerable position she's in. She's wounded, in pain, and unarmed; this would be the perfect opportunity to lash out at her, to take her out, but—
Peter is just cleaning her up.
Nothing more. ]
Yes.
[ It's a blunt, honest answer. She doesn't try to downplay her experience, but she also doesn't offer him further details.
Reaching for the triage kit, she pulls out a small penlight, flicking it on and lifting her arm again. She shines the light onto the source of the bleeding and the flesh the bullet's path exposed. ]
The shrapnel will look like metal fragments in the entry site; it should stand out against my skin.
[ You know, only moments ago, Peter would've claimed he wasn't a squeamish person.
Now, though, as he picks up the pair of tweezers with blood-stained, shaking hands, he thinks he might, in fact, be a little squeamish.
He clears his throat, visibly shaking himself and taking another steadying breath, before he does as she asks. He examines the wound, paling a little as he gets a better look at it, but he picks out the little fragments glinting under the light Gamora shines on it. He's slow about it, trying not to do more damage in trying to rush things, trying to control the nervous tremble of his hands. He drops the fragments onto the bloodied towel.
It takes him a while, but at length he rocks back. ]
[ Again, Gamora is as still as a statue as Peter plucks out the scraps of metal that flaked off of the bullet when it passed through her – shallow as it may have been.
Finally, with that reassurance, Gamora allows the tension to sink out of her with a shaky exhale.
[ She's silent for a prolonged moment, trying to decide how to phrase any of this. She's never told anyone about her life before – not if she intended to leave them alive.
Finally: ]
The work I do for my father has nothing to do with business acquisitions. He's not interested in acquiring competition; he wants me to... get rid of it.
[ Part of her is still trying to phrase this carefully, to maintain a hint of deniability – even if they've probably passed that point with the bullet wound. ]
[ "Practically nothing" is a whole lot safer for Peter, but of course he's not going to accept the easiest out. Gamora frowns at the sink, not watching Peter as he rises. ]
Because I got shot trying to run preliminary surveillance on Ramirez.
[ There it is. ]
My father doesn't try to ruin his adversaries financially.
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my hand slipped whoops
[ To Gamora’s own surprise, she actually sleeps. Completely at ease, completely disarmed, she falls asleep wrapped around Peter, like it’s the easiest thing in the world – even though it’s the first time she’s willingly slept in front of another person in years. She’s vulnerable when she sleeps, and even though she can respond quickly, there’s always the chance it won’t be quick enough. But in that enormous, plush bed, curled up with a prostitute, of all things, Gamora sleeps.
Her body wakes her after a couple hours, and (almost reluctantly) she detaches herself from Peter. She slips out of the room with her cases from under the bed, and in the darkness of the bungalow, she changes into black clothes, appropriately arming herself and packing surveillance equipment into a portable bag. As silently as she prepared, she leaves the hotel behind.
Finding Ramirez’s estate is easy enough. She quickly realizes her initial intel was completely right: the man lives in a veritable fortress with all the security measures he has in place. Breaking in and dispatching him isn’t an option now, but if she wants access to any of his systems (security or otherwise), she needs to physically plant the bug.
Sure, her father has lackeys who occasionally handle this sort of infiltration, but Gamora is guaranteed to be the most efficient weapon in Thanos’s arsenal – and besides, this is one of the reasons Gamora anticipated being in LA for so long.
She parks far enough away from the estate that her car won’t look suspicious. She treks through the back acreage on the hillside that’s technically part of Ramirez’s land, and she makes it all the way to the first electric fence. She follows the fencing along itself until she finds the connected breaker, tweaks a few wires, and then lets herself through the perimeter without so much as an identifiable print.
Gamora makes excellent time reaching the private security hub Ramirez has on-property – with a few hired guns manning the cameras and keeping watch. She even manages to clip the preliminary bug into place in Ramirez’s server with admirably short work, and she starts to think she might actually get back to the hotel and crawl into bed with Peter before sunrise.
That would— actually be nice.
Really nice.
An alarm blares in her ears before she even registers something went wrong.
Get out get out get out get out—
She needs to retreat, and she needs to do it now.
With practiced ease, Gamora has her bag zipped and on her back, and she’s leaving the security hub behind. She hears shouting, barking (does he have dogs?), and lights suddenly flood the area between the house and the hillside. Panic bubbles in Gamora’s belly, but she keeps pushing forward, keeps making for the fence—
She hears the gunfire, and it feels like it’s miles away. It’s not the first time she’s been shot at, not even slightly, but she at least thinks she’s in the clear this time, she thinks she made it out, because she’s past the fence, down the hill—
A too-familiar sensation of fire blazes up her side. It knocks her off her feet, sending her tumbling down the hill, and every bump and roll feels like knives jabbing into her ribs, but when she finally comes to a stop, she doesn’t waste a second. She staggers to her feet, pressing her hand against her waist, and she manages to cross the last stretch to her car before she even pauses to assess the damage.
Hissing through her teeth, Gamora tugs up her tight shirt, revealing a nasty, bloodied graze. The bullet didn’t tear through much, and it mercifully didn’t leave matching entrance and exit wounds, but there’s plenty of blood.
There’s goes the security deposit on this rental.
Gamora doesn’t deal with the valet this time. She parks the car in an open lot a block from the hotel, and despite the searing pain in her side (and from the variety of bruises starting to bloom under her skin), she sneaks her way back to the bungalow. As quietly as she can manage, even as her hands start to shake, she opens the door, locks everything up behind her, and then goes to dig through her cases for a triage kit.
In the middle of her search, she accidentally knocks a small set of knives off the table, and she swears under her breath as she quickly tucks them away in another case. Before she can make any more of a mess, she slinks off to the bathroom (attached to the bedroom, wonderful) to start dealing with her fuckup. ]
bless u
It's a goddamn luxury, not needing to deal with the thumping bass of music played in a distant apartment, the banging of footsteps on his roof, the noise of shouting and laughing and cursing in the halls. There's no risk of someone banging on his door and alerting him that So-And-So got caught doing some Stupid Shit again, and that they were in need of bailing.
It's blessedly quiet, and the bed is soft and plush and warm, and even if Gamora wasn't paying him a ridiculous amount of money, he'd be more than willing to spend the week with her just for the chance at a decent night's sleep.
When Gamora takes her leave, he's none the wiser, sleeping through her near-silent exit.
It's only when he hears a sharp, metallic clatter that he finally jerks awake, pushing himself up on an elbow and instinctively turning to look at the door. Living in such a shitty neighborhood in such a shitty apartment means he immediately assumes break-in. He glances to the space beside him on the bed, and he has the abrupt, stomach-clenching realization that Gamora isn't there. He gets out of bed quickly, clicking on the bedside lamp. He throws on a pair of sweats, tugs on his old, threadbare tanktop, and as he dresses in record time, he has a couple seconds to wake up a little more and think.
It's— probably safe to assume that was Gamora, right? And that it wasn't, in fact, a burglar, as much as his hyperactive imagination insists?
He steels himself, moving toward the door, but someone beats him to it. The door opens, and Gamora steps in, clad all in black.
The metallic scent hits him first before he can register anything else, and he looks down to where her hands are pressed against her side, slick with blood. For a second, he feels like he's been punched in the stomach, and he just stands there, staring, too thunderstruck to properly react.
Then, like a computer suddenly unfreezing, he rushes forward, that blank, stunned expression immediately replaced with fear and worry. ]
What the fuck happened?
no subject
Fuck.
Gamora freezes in the same moment that Peter does, staring at him almost owlishly for a whole heartbeat. God, she'd been hoping he'd sleep through all of this, that she'd be able to come up with some excuse in the morning (and she'd probably have to cut their week short, because how the hell is she supposed to explain this?). But Peter is there, halfway to the door, staring at her with—
Worry?
Actual— concern?
The throbbing in her side and the panicked realization that someone completely uninvolved is present shakes her out of her own holding pattern. Peter steps towards her, suddenly in her space, but she lifts up a hand to keep him at bay – the one holding the triage kit. She keeps pressure on her side with her other palm, hyperaware of the wet throbbing under her skin. ]
Don't ask me to explain.
[ She grimaces, drawing in a shakier breath as she presses more firmly against her side. ]
I just— I have to take care of this first.
no subject
Are you kidding me?
[ With her coming in the way she has, dressed like the burglar he had been trying to convince himself wasn't lurking in the living room, bleeding like hell, he definitely wants an explanation.
But he clenches his jaw, teeth clenched so tightly he thinks something at the hinge of his jaw must pop, but he forces himself to shift gears. There are, in fact, more pressing matters.
Like, you know. The fact that Gamora is bleeding like hell.
He moves to her bad side, offering an arm to help support her. ]
Bathroom, right?
no subject
(She has no idea how she's going to explain this to him.
She can't leave him alive after this, can she?
God, she doesn't want to think about that.)
Reluctantly, she accepts Peter's offered arm with a nod. She leans on him until they reach the bathroom sink, and then she sets the triage kit down and starts trying to pull her shirt over her head with one arm. ]
Will you— [ A wince. ] There's gauze in the kit.
no subject
When she tugs at the shirt, he gets a better view of the wound, and something cold falls in his gut, makes it hard to breathe.
His gaze snaps up to her face when she speaks, and he nods a little numbly, opening the kit and fishing out the gauze. ]
You should really go to a hospital.
no subject
[ She says it flatly as she drops the ripped, bloodied shirt to the tile. She leans against the counter to get a look at the wound – a graze, far from the worst she's ever had, before she reaches out to take the gauze from Peter. She plucks out the disinfectant, unceremoniously wetting the gauze, and then proceeding to press it against the source of the bleeding.
She hisses out a short sound, a curse under her breath, but she stubbornly holds the dressing in place. ]
no subject
Fuck, he feels useless.
He chews on his lower lip for a second, feeling entirely out of his depth, before gesturing for her to take a seat on the lip of the tub. His hands are shaking a little as he picks up the kit. ]
Tell me what you need me to do.
no subject
She looks up at him, guarded and confused, because he's— offering to help, not bolting for the door. ]
... You don't have to do any of this, Peter.
no subject
Sure. 'Cause I'd feel real good about twiddling my thumbs in the bedroom while you're in here, bleeding on the tile.
[ That at least shakes him from his daze, and he visibly steels himself after a deep, rallying breath. ]
Just tell me what you need.
no subject
No.
She averts her eyes finally, looking down to triage kit. ]
I need you to help me clean the siite and look for any shrapnel.
no subject
You're gonna have to walk me through this.
[ He's done a lot of weird shit, but field medicine hasn't made it to that list. ]
no subject
Wet one of the hand towels; we need better visibility first.
Clean the blood until you can see the edges of the wound.
no subject
He offers a quick, apologetic glance before he carefully wipes the blood away from her side, working his way up to the wound itself. It takes a few rinses of the towel under the warm water before he clears enough of the blood away to get a better look at the injury. ]
I take it you've done this before.
[ She has plenty of scars as proof, after all, which explains at least one small thing.
On the other hand, it also opens up a million, billion more questions. ]
no subject
Peter is just cleaning her up.
Nothing more. ]
Yes.
[ It's a blunt, honest answer. She doesn't try to downplay her experience, but she also doesn't offer him further details.
Reaching for the triage kit, she pulls out a small penlight, flicking it on and lifting her arm again. She shines the light onto the source of the bleeding and the flesh the bullet's path exposed. ]
The shrapnel will look like metal fragments in the entry site; it should stand out against my skin.
no subject
Now, though, as he picks up the pair of tweezers with blood-stained, shaking hands, he thinks he might, in fact, be a little squeamish.
He clears his throat, visibly shaking himself and taking another steadying breath, before he does as she asks. He examines the wound, paling a little as he gets a better look at it, but he picks out the little fragments glinting under the light Gamora shines on it. He's slow about it, trying not to do more damage in trying to rush things, trying to control the nervous tremble of his hands. He drops the fragments onto the bloodied towel.
It takes him a while, but at length he rocks back. ]
I think I got it all.
no subject
Finally, with that reassurance, Gamora allows the tension to sink out of her with a shaky exhale.
A little hoarse, ]
Hand me a pressure bandage?
no subject
As he's handing it to her, ]
When are you gonna tell me why you got shot?
no subject
How does she— even begin to explain? How can she even tell him without putting him at risk? ]
... I don't want to involve you in this.
no subject
Uh, I dunno how to tell you this, but.
[ He gestures sharply with his blood-stained hands. ]
Kinda too late for that.
no subject
Maybe they've gone too far past that. ]
If I tell you— you cannot go to the police.
Not for my sake, but for yours. Do you understand?
no subject
For his sake? What the hell does that mean?
His expression shifts from disbelief to something a little wary, but otherwise, he nods. ]
Yeah. Fine. I've never liked cops anyway.
no subject
Finally: ]
The work I do for my father has nothing to do with business acquisitions. He's not interested in acquiring competition; he wants me to... get rid of it.
[ Part of her is still trying to phrase this carefully, to maintain a hint of deniability – even if they've probably passed that point with the bullet wound. ]
no subject
Is practically nothing.
He huffs out a sharp breath, frustrated and confused, and he rocks back, getting to his feet. ]
What do you mean, "get rid of it"?
And how does that explain why you came back with pieces of a bullet in your side?
no subject
Because I got shot trying to run preliminary surveillance on Ramirez.
[ There it is. ]
My father doesn't try to ruin his adversaries financially.
He would rather have them dead.
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