Chapter Text
“Oi, rookie, up and attem, cap’n wants ta see ya.”
Yondu looks up from where he’s methodically cleaning his blaster to a hand waving in front of his face, as Tullk leans down to catch his attention. When he sees he’s got it, Tullk jerks his head in the general direction of the door.
Yondu blinks, sets the blaster down carefully. Captain Stakar?
Then he bites he lip, scowls. Kraglin. Of course. He’d told those fuckers who’d caught him unaware in the storage cupboard the other day that he’d report it up the chain. Yondu’d thought it’d been an empty threat, but clearly not.
“Yessir,” he mutters, slinks grudgingly to his feet to follow Tullk down the passageway.
Tullk knocks smartly three times on an unremarkable metal door, only the stylized star superimposed on a Ravager flame giving away the identity of its occupant. When there’s a gruff welcome from inside, he waves Yondu forward.
“He’s expectin’ ya lad, go right in.”
Yondu hesitates, before squaring his shoulders and stepping forward. He can help the shot of jitters that runs through him, about to face the captain he hasn’t really spoken to since he’d collided with him in the tunnels leaving the gladiator pits.
That day is still mostly a jumbled blur of of shaky adrenaline and flashes of sharp images, the fierce pulsing knot of determination in his chest, the blinding flare of Stakar’s solar wings in the blackness, how his vision cleared to someone standing there looking like a goddamn dark avenging angel.
He remembers screaming at Stakar, screaming that no one was gonna take him back now and if they tried he’d kill them all, how the captain’s face twisted, colored with old sorrows, and the way he stepped back, given him an offer and way out.
The sluggishly bleeding wound in his side had meant he’d all but collapsed by the time they’d gotten back to the ship. When he’d woken up everything he had on him was all gone – replaced by a scrubbed clean set of blue-black Ravager leathers and a dull ache like a phantom limb, as his implant tries and fails, over and over, to connect with his arrow.
Pushing the door open, he stops in front of where Stakar’s half-slumped over a desk and gives a hesitant salute. Stakar waves a hand tiredly at him, gesturing him to sit in the chair opposite him. Yondu’s shoulders tense, and he shakes his head.
“Rather stand.”
Stakar raises his eyebrows, clearly unimpressed.
“Just siddown, son, you’re not in trouble.”
Yondu doesn’t trust that for a minute, but he slumps into the chair, giving him a look that’s half grudging respect and half defiance. Stakar huffs out a sigh, then reaches under his desk to pull something out.
Back stiffening, Yondu leans forward as he senses what Stakar has, eyes widening a little when it’s carefully lifted and offered to him. He grabs for it greedily, cradling it gently in his hands and pulling it into his chest.
“Tullk tells me it’s your arrow, tied to you specifically,” Stakar says, watching him with a measured look. “It wasn’t kept from you on purpose, son, we didn’t realize it was more than what ya fought with in the ring. Kept everything ya came with in case it meant somethin’, it’s all yours if you want it back.”
Yondu doesn’t give two shits what happens to his old clothes, to that stars-damned collar. But this… he can feel a gentle pulse start in his implant and he struggles to hold back the shaky breath of relief, hold back the gratitude that wants to spill out. He’s had the implant about as far back as he can remember, been singing the arrow high nearly as long, and it’s like a piece of him has been slotted back into place.
Stakar watches him, seems to see right through him to everything he won’t let himself say, and smiles.
After a beat though, his face turns stern.
“An’ don’t think I haven’t noticed what’s been going on ‘round my ship, I gotta Code and that crap don’t fly.”
Curling a lip, Yondu resists the urge to hutch in on himself. Stakar narrows his eyes, looks straight across to lock their gazes.
“I mean it – it’s one thing t’have a little brawlin’, everyone gets antsy all cooped up like happens here but if someone’s ganging up on you, you report that shit, clear?”
Giving a grudging nod, Yondu shifts uncomfortably. Now he’s got his arrow, he wants nothing more than to bolt. After searching his face, Stakar seems to decide his point’s sunk in and gives him a nod.
“Getton back t’the gunnery, give the crew a show with that thing,” he says, gesturing towards the door.
Yondu eels up from the chair, still clutching the arrow in one white-knuckled grip, and gives a last salute.
Walking the corridor back he feels a little heady, filling up with a restless sort of energy now he can think clearly. The faint throbbing ache in his skull he's had since coming onboard is finally relieved, and he makes a quiet fierce promise to himself – no matter how difficult it’ll be to find more yaka, he’s going to make sure he has multiple arrows, a backup implant. And, he thinks, now it's not just him. He's got Kraglin too, and even the thought makes something warm and soft throb deep in his chest. For once, he almost feels light, like the ever-present weight on him is eased, just a little.
He’s never going to let anyone take this away from him again.