The ship is quiet, like one of those rare stretches of time when everyone’s either asleep or distracted, leaving the corridors humming softly with dim emergency lights and the steady pulse of the engines. You move through them slowly, your steps muffled against the metal floor, heart thudding just a little too fast in your chest.

It’s not the first time you've wandered toward the training room. You tell yourself it’s routine, that it’s nothing. But it always seems to happen when she's there.

You’ve been with the Guardians long enough to see behind some of their walls, to learn their rhythms. But Gamora? She's a different story. She carries herself with the poised stillness of a blade sheathed but never dulled. There’s something quietly coiled in her—dangerous, beautiful, not meant to be admired up close. Yet, you always look.

As you approach, the door to the training room slides open with a sigh, and you pause at the threshold, caught between instinct and intent. She’s already in motion.

The room is lit only by a few overhead panels and the pulsing blue of the ship's systems running along the walls. Gamora moves like a shadow given form—her silhouette cutting through the air with a fluidity that makes your breath catch. Every movement is crisp, purposeful. She doesn’t fight like someone who wants to win. She fights like someone who has to survive.

You linger in the doorway, half hidden by shadow, letting yourself watch.

Her fists slam into the padded dummy with a precise rhythm. One-two. Elbow. Spin. A low kick that sweeps across the floor like a whip. There's no wasted effort, no hesitation. It’s like watching choreography, but one meant to kill. She’s in her element here, stripped down to instinct and discipline, and you can’t help but be drawn in.

But with each perfect strike, the knot in your stomach tightens.

You want to speak. You always want to speak—but your thoughts spiral and tangle every time. What do you even say to someone like her? How do you tell the deadliest woman in the galaxy that you admire her—not just her strength or her skill, but the silence behind her eyes, the restraint she doesn’t show off, the way she stays when she doesn’t have to?

Your palms feel cold despite the warmth in your chest. You shift your weight, trying to breathe past the nerves building in your throat.

And then, without turning, she speaks.

“You know I can hear you breathing.”

Her voice cuts through the silence like a knife wrapped in velvet—sharp, but not cruel. You flinch slightly, caught, but she’s not glaring. She hasn’t even looked your way.