Guardians Family

Once upon a time, in a prison floating in the cold dark between the stars, five very different people shared a very small space and could not agree on anything at all.

The prison was called the Kyln. It was not a pleasant place. The cells were grey and the floors were metal and the food was joyless and adequate. But in one corner, in a cell block humming with fluorescent light, there was Drax the Destroyer — who had been there for some time, patient as stone, waiting for an opportunity that had not yet arrived.

Then the newcomers arrived.

First Peter Quill, who called himself Star-Lord and was the only one who did. He was a human from Earth who had been taken into space as a boy, learned to fly, learned to steal, and had recently made the poor decision to try to sell something that a great many dangerous people wanted very much.

Then Gamora — green-skinned, quiet, ferocious, adopted daughter of Thanos and running from him as fast as she could go. She had the look of someone who had spent years doing difficult things and was not done yet.

Then Rocket Raccoon — small, raccoon-shaped, large-cannon-loving, and deeply grumpy about most things — and Groot, who was nine feet of walking, gentle tree, whose entire vocabulary was the words "I am Groot," arranged in ways that, if you listened closely, said everything.

Drax looked at all of them.

"I do not know any of you," he said.

This was accurate.

But something tends to happen when people spend enough time together in difficulty: they started to know each other. Not right away. Not neatly. One small piece at a time — a plan of Rocket's that worked against all odds, a quiet sentence from Gamora that saved them from a terrible mistake, a crackling human song from Star-Lord's cassette player that made everyone in the room go quiet and listen, because something about it felt like comfort even when no one expected it.

And there was Groot. Groot moved through the world gently. He would hand you a flower out of his own wooden hand because your face looked sad. He said "I am Groot" but Drax — who took everything literally and usually found figures of speech maddening — understood Groot completely and immediately. Groot meant every word. There was never a gap between what he felt and what he showed. Drax respected this more than almost anything he had encountered in the galaxy.

When the battle over Xandar came and the Guardians' ship took a terrible hit and began to fall, the ground rushing up with no time left, Groot stood up.

He began to grow.

His branches spread and curled and wove together, out and around and over, until the whole group was encircled in warm living wood. Drax felt the branches close around him and understood immediately what was happening. He looked at Groot's face through the lattice.

"You will die," he said, because Drax always said the true thing.

Groot turned and smiled. Three words.

BOOM. The ship hit the ground.

They were alive. Groot was in a thousand pieces. Rocket found one twig — barely the length of a finger, with a single tiny bud. Still alive.

Drax picked it up very carefully and tucked it safe. He checked on that twig every day. He spoke to it sometimes, very quietly, when no one was close enough to hear. He did not know if the twig could hear him. He decided that did not matter.

In the weeks after Xandar, as the twig slowly grew back into a seedling that danced when Star-Lord played music, Drax spent a great deal of time thinking about what a family was.

He had thought family was the thing he had lost. That was true. That would always be true.

But family was also this. Five people who had met in a prison and chosen, again and again, to stay together. Gamora, who taught him when to pause. Star-Lord, who tried to explain jokes and mostly failed, but kept trying. Rocket, small and fierce, who showed that strength came in all kinds of packages and was always worth respecting. Groot, who said three words and meant everything.

And a tiny twig, still growing, still becoming.

Drax held the small pot where Groot was reappearing and thought: I would do anything to keep these people safe. As simple as that. As complete as that.

Once upon a time, a warrior had a family, and lost them, and crossed the galaxy in grief. And then, in the most unlikely place, he found another.

Not the same. Nothing is ever the same. But real, and warm, and his.

Close your eyes. Some of the best families start in the strangest places.

Sleep well.