Peter Quill (
nostalgiabomb) wrote in
riverview2017-08-08 01:57 pm
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Entry tags:
- marvel (616): loki laufeyson,
- marvel (mcu): gamora,
- marvel (mcu): peter quill,
- marvel (mcu): tony stark,
- ✖ chb chronicles: nico di angelo,
- ✖ dc comics (rebirth): jason todd,
- ✖ dc comics (sandman): death,
- ✖ marvel (mcu): stephen strange,
- ✖ natsume yuujinchou: takashi natsume,
- ✖ original: jamie dodger,
- ✖ osomatsu-san: karamatsu matsuno,
- ✖ overwatch: genji shimada,
- ✖ overwatch: hana song,
- ✖ the idolmaster (cg): arisu tachibana,
- ✖ vikings: ivar ragnarsson
video; @star.lord
[ Distinguished and not-so distinguished residents of Riverview, hello.
Currently, you are graced with a mugshot of one Peter “Space-Duke” Quill and a view of the messier half of his shared apartment. In his hand is his trusty mp3 player – which boasts at least three hundred songs, holy crap, y’all – and while he has one bud in his ear, the other dangles from the wire. ]
So. Apparently if nothing else, this place has, like, all the music ever. So if I’ve gotta be stuck here, might as well make the most of it, right?
I’m on the hunt for somethin’ new. Tryin’ to play a whole lot of catch up. If anyone’s got any music recommendations, I’m all ears. Songs, artists, albums, weird, avant-garde stuff with a guy saying “number nine” over and over – hit me with your best shot. I’ll try anything once.
Also, uh.
[ A pause, and he turns the mp3 player’s face toward the camera. The screen happily displays the album art of The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1 while “September” plays. Zunes, man!! Aren’t they rad? ]
Don’t suppose anyone here’s familiar enough with this that they can show me how to add stuff?
Currently, you are graced with a mugshot of one Peter “Space-Duke” Quill and a view of the messier half of his shared apartment. In his hand is his trusty mp3 player – which boasts at least three hundred songs, holy crap, y’all – and while he has one bud in his ear, the other dangles from the wire. ]
So. Apparently if nothing else, this place has, like, all the music ever. So if I’ve gotta be stuck here, might as well make the most of it, right?
I’m on the hunt for somethin’ new. Tryin’ to play a whole lot of catch up. If anyone’s got any music recommendations, I’m all ears. Songs, artists, albums, weird, avant-garde stuff with a guy saying “number nine” over and over – hit me with your best shot. I’ll try anything once.
Also, uh.
[ A pause, and he turns the mp3 player’s face toward the camera. The screen happily displays the album art of The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1 while “September” plays. Zunes, man!! Aren’t they rad? ]
Don’t suppose anyone here’s familiar enough with this that they can show me how to add stuff?
no subject
They haven't talked about this. She doesn't know if Peter is ready to talk about it (or if he ever will be?), but— ]
Peter.
[ It's not an agreement, not following the thread of a conversation he's clearly trying to recover in order to push beyond that span of quiet. She could let this continue to lie, leave it be. Or she could offer that opportunity for discussion, to stop pushing everything that happened to the side. It's not healthy, but then again, when have any of them been particularly "healthy" in their coping mechanisms? She isn't one to talk, given that she hasn't ventured into bringing up her own heavy weights left in the wake of dealing with Nebula, but—
Peter lost far more than she did. That bears acknowledgment.
Her voice is soft, careful when she asks, ]
What happened to your Walkman?
no subject
The question he had been dreading.
He feels something shatter in him all over again, some weird, brittle feeling that had only just started piecing up its barriers in the aftermath of the Mess.
He ducks his head, busying himself with picking through the menus on the Zune. Silence, for a few more seconds, because he doesn't quite trust his voice not to break. He swallows around that bitter lump in his throat, tries to ignore the painful twist in his chest.
When he thinks his voice is steady enough, he offers, ]
It broke.
[ Though even that comes out hoarsely, quietly. Probably a little more telling than he means it to be. ]
no subject
It broke.
She— assumed, if she's honest. She doesn't know how Peter would part with something so precious otherwise. ]
... When?
[ Another tentative question, lightly probing to let him take it at his own pace. She's surprised he admitted that much already, that he hasn't simply walked away or shut the conversation down.
She's grateful that he hasn't. ]
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After you left.
[ And his voice hardens, warning her away from this topic of conversation.
"It broke" was an easy enough answer, because why else wouldn't he have his Walkman? Gamora knows how much it means to him, considering she witnessed him risk his own life just to get it back. If he had the choice, he would never leave it behind on Ego's planet.
"After you left," is the easy answer, too, because it's not even an answer. It was still on him when she stormed out. It wasn't on him when they dragged him into the airlock of the Quadrant. ]
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She debates simply changing the subject, leaving it alone, but— ]
So are we not discussing this?
[ A point-blank question. It isn't an effort to pry the answer from him, though, or a demand that he be more forthcoming; rather, it's an option to cut the conversation off where he likes. He can elaborate if he feels like it, if he's willing to go further, but if not, she can thoroughly drop it.
(Even if she thinks he should talk about it. Running from the reality didn't erase what happened.) ]
no subject
What does it matter when it happened?
[ Sharp, bitten out. One hand clenching around the Zune's rubber case. ]
It's broken. It's gone. I'm not getting it back.
What the hell is there left to say?
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She frowns, crossing her arms over her chest as she watches him carefully. ]
You could tell me what happened after I left. I know nothing about the time between— [ Our fight. ] —stepping away from the castle and coming back for you.
[ ... You could tell me, but you don't have to, she almost adds. ]
no subject
There's a reason he hasn't talked about any of this. There's a reason he doesn't discuss what Ego spoke to him about, or how wrapped up Peter had been in his every word. Ego had made him feel special, important, and powerful. Ego had filled his head with endless possibilities, and for a few seconds, Peter had felt pride blooming in his chest, bursting through him. So much of the shit Ego had said had been so—
Satisfying.
He hisses out a disgusted sound. ]
Yeah? [ Still bitten out, lashing out to keep from being pursued. ] What, kinda like how I don't know shit about how we ended up with your sister on our ship?
no subject
You didn't ask.
[ Which— she didn't ask about Ego, either. Too soon, too sore, too much – and she'd been trying to give Peter the time he needs to heal.
Nebula is... a sore spot. An uncertainty that now she has no chance to confront because they've left their universe behind and her sister with it.
(But Gamora blames herself for more than she can truly articulate, and that's probably why she hasn't offered it up, hasn't tried to give him any explanations.
She's ashamed.) ]
no subject
[ That's his assumption, anyway. Hardly anyone on the team ever wants to talk about the shit that unsettled them, the shit that left them reeling. He knows fuck all about Nebula, about whatever it was that happened between her and Gamora back on Ego's planet – doesn't even know what the fuck she was doing there in the first place. All he knows is that she was there. Then she left. And she didn't kill anyone in the interim.
... and if he's honest, that's all he cared to know. He was too busy trying to compartmentalize his pile of shit that it never occurred to him that anyone else might be dealing with anything else. He saw a glimpse of it, when Rocket murmured something about batteries, but between Yondu's funeral and the moment he arrived through the portal to this place, there hadn't been time to help anyone sort it all out.
Which probably makes him a shitty friend and an even shittier leader, and guilt stabs through him for it.
And that should temper his reactionary anger, should calm him at least a little and put things in perspective, but it just leaves him even more irritated. At himself, at the situation—
(At Ego.)
—and Gamora is the only target for it all. ]
Doubt you wanna talk about it now.
no subject
("You were the one who wanted to win—
—and I just wanted a sister.")
Part of her has to wonder: is there something she's trying to win here too?
"I asked first," would probably be an attempt to regain the upperhand, to deflect away from herself.
"Then why don't you answer?" would be much the same. ]
I was trying to let you grieve.
[ And that's honest, at least. The things she'd dealt with on Ego's planet, everything in regards to her sister? And she'd still left with that sister intact. Nebula lived, even if it felt like little was solved between them.
Peter had lost— so much. ]
no subject
But she keep avoiding the easy jabs, or absorbs them and rolls with it, and Peter is getting frustrated with it. ]
Ego came by. We talked. It turned out that he preferred having a power source to a son.
[ There's more to it, of course. The way Ego had grabbed the reins of the conversation with the sort of skill Peter could only dream of. The way he had touched Peter's mind, flooded it with images of perfection and a feeling of bliss.
The way Ego had mentioned murdering Meredith Quill in the same tone of voice someone else would use when they've thrown out an old, worn-out shirt.
But Peter still can't process any of that shit, barely knows how to even voice it, and the thought of it makes his throat close up, rouses something cold and ugly and terrifying in the pit of his stomach.
His hand clenches into a fist, nails biting into palm until his knuckles turn white. ]
Satisfied?
no subject
She still isn't certain what that might have meant. ]
No.
[ Another bit of honesty, short as it is, because she has so many questions about what happened, about everything Peter endured, but she can see the tension in the set of his shoulders, the way his jaw clenches and how tightly curled his fingers are, and—
He doesn't want to talk about this.
She doesn't think he's even prepared to. ]
But you don't have to tell me anything more.
[ She should have said that earlier, really. She should have given him a better, clearer out instead of letting this bubble and boil higher and higher, but she doesn't want to devolve into another argument. She doesn't want this to turn into another shouting match when they haven't even tended to the wounds from the last one.
Ego isn't worth fighting over again.
She's tentative, careful, ready to pull back if she needs to, but she reaches out to Peter, reaches for his hand and his too-tight fist. She's trying to get better at this, at offering comfort in the ways that she can (hugging Nebula on the Quadrant, wrapping her arm around Peter's waist after Yondu's funeral, touching his shoulder as tears fell from his eyes—), but it's still foreign to her.
She's... trying. Genuinely trying. ]
no subject
Peter was ready to be pissed off for, like, at least ten more minutes. It doesn't work nearly as well when his so-called sparring partner isn't fighting back. It's like beating at a brick wall – the only thing that's going to happen is he ends up with bloody, broken knuckles, while the wall looks none the worse for wear.
And Gamora's good at that. At taking blows and acting like hardly anything's happened. He envies her that sometimes, wishes he had that same ability to let shit wash away from him like water from a duck's back.
Her fingers ghost along his fist, touch brushing along his skin, and for a long while, he tries to ignore it, tries to hang onto that rage burning within him, directionless and blinding. But it's hard when she gives him an out, even harder with the way she's touching him – a rarity unless Peter initiates or unless she's hauling him up out of danger.
He doesn't relax – he probably won't for a long while yet, with her questions having stirred the murk of his memories – but his hands stop shaking a little.
He inhales deeply, holding the breath in his lungs before letting it out slowly between his lips. Some silly little technique he had heard of once to help calm him. It doesn't always work, but he tries it anyway. He stares down at the Zune's screen for a long while – nothing playing, nothing interesting to look at, except the home screen – and finally lets out a derisive noise. ]
He broke it.
[ Angrily still, but at least it's not aimed at her. It's aimed at Ego, dead and gone, but even now he's still echoing into Peter's life, making a fucking mess of things. ]
He was trying to teach me a lesson about— about learning to let things go. Some stupid shit about how meaningless and fleeting mortal attachments were.
Or maybe he just wanted to be a giant fucking prick. I don't know.
no subject
She isn't surprised, but she is— angry. For Peter, more than anything, and at Ego, and— a little bit at herself.
("What if this man is your Hasslehoff?")
She'd told him to go. She'd told him to give Ego a chance, and look where they'd ended up. Look at everything Peter had lost. ]
Peter...
[ Quiet, almost apologetic. She doesn't pull her hand away from his, instead gently trying to coax the tension away, trying to get him to unclench his fist as the rest of him tries to relax. ]
... I'm sorry for all he took from you.
[ Because for some of it, she feels responsible. She still remembers Peter shouting at her, that she told him to go.
("You're the one that wanted me to come here!"
"Why are you trying to take this away from me?") ]
no subject
But Gamora doesn't continue on with some stupid platitude, doesn't say anything about how things like this happen for a reason, but he supposes that logically follows. The both of them know that shit just happens, that life has an unfair habit of stomping the fuck out of anyone when it feels like it.
And the mess with Ego? The shit on his planet and everything that followed in the dust of his remains? That wasn't life testing him. That was life picking up every piece of shit it could find and dumping it all on Peter at once.
He glances up at her reluctantly, lips pressed into a thin line, and for a second it stands naked on his face – how exhausted he feels, how angry, how conflicted, how lost. He smothers it away as quickly as he can, ducking his head and setting his Zune to one side on the table. ]
Shit happens.
[ Quiet and grim. He studies the tabletop for a second before exhaling through his lips. He risks another glance up at her, though it's a fleeting thing, and he adds softly, ]
He didn't take everything, at least.
[ And he finally lets his fist fall open, letting their palms slide together. His hand doesn't close around hers, though, giving her the chance to pull away. ]
no subject
"Displaced" is what the people here had called it.
She can understand that even more clearly now.
"Shit happens" still seems to be one of the worst possible ways to brush this all aside, but— if she's learned anything about Peter, it remains that this is how he'll handle it. Tuck it away. Hide it somewhere out of reach for when he can look at it without letting this sea of anguish swallow him whole.
If he ever can.
But his hand unfurls, their palms making contact, and she doesn't recoil or draw away from him. Something in the set of her shoulders starts to unwind, and she doesn't hesitate to lace their fingers properly together. ]
I would never have let him.
[ And she says it with the same certainty she'd had on Berhert – that promise to kill Ego if he revealed himself to be anything less than what he should be.
... And, well, they had killed him, so perhaps she'd kept that promise against all odds. ]
no subject
But he's pretty sure that's what they are – best friends, or at the very least, Gamora is his best friend, which is a weird thing to have again after all these years. For a long while there, he had himself pegged for a lone wolf lifestyle, for drifting alone from one place to another. For making quick friendships purely for convenience, but not expecting anything to last him beyond departure.
Funny, how things change.
It helps, too, the determination in her words, that steely resolve that makes Peter think she could move entire mountains, if she ever cared to. He casts her a quiet, grateful look, a small smile tugging at his lips. Something catches in his throat, and for a few seconds, he doesn't trust himself to speak.
He squeezes her hand at length, that weird knot of emotion loosening enough to allow him to breathe. Then, ]
... I'm sorry. For— not asking about you and Nebula earlier. I should've asked if you were okay. [ He'd been too wrapped up in his own bullshit to notice that Gamora might have been hurting, too. ]
no subject
And she has Peter.
And whatever this unspoken thing is between them.
She offers a gentle squeeze in return, her thumb brushing over the back of his hand. ]
There was too much going on. [ Peter had so much to deal with, and... well, she hadn't exactly volunteered the information herself. ] We had other concerns.
[ And unlike Yondu, unlike Ego, Nebula is still alive. That much is different. ]
no subject
[ Just barely voiced. It's kind of his job, though, isn't it? Keeping an eye on everyone on the team. Making sure everyone was at their best. But he hasn't exactly been doing that, had he?
He barely paid attention to Groot, satisfied as he was in letting the others keep an eye on the little dude, in letting them raise him, because god knows Peter doesn't know the first goddamn thing about caring for a kid. He barely acknowledged the growing tension coming from Rocket, the way he bristled and snapped and grew more and more tense as the days went by.
Drax and Gamora had been easy enough, at least, but after everything, he only just now realizes that Gamora must've been dealing with some of her own problems. And how long have they been in this weird fucking city that it never occurred to him to ask? ]
You know if you need a sounding board for whatever happened with you and her, I'm here for it, right?
no subject
I don't think it matters now that we are here.
[ Nebula isn't, after all, and there's no guarantee they'll ever make it out of this city. So much happened with her sister, and so much was brought to the surface from their pasts, and it's— a lot to process for herself.
Especially since she can't seem to shake the weight of that responsibility.
She was a child, trying to survive just as much as Nebula, but something twinges with failure when she thinks of all Nebula endured alone. ]
no subject
You know that’s not how it works. [ And it’s a bitter truth. Peter has been using this place as an excuse to run from his problems, keeps telling himself that all this impossible distance has kept his issues at bay, but it hasn’t. They still lurk deep beneath the surface, keep rising up at random, inopportune minutes – as they had throughout this conversation. ]
‘Cause if that is how it works, why would you care what happened between me and Ego?
[ He gives an exaggerated frown and a sharp shake of his head. ]
Pointless, right? ‘Cause we’re here now. And more than that, he’s dead. So, like. What’s it matter, unless you just wanted to gossip?
no subject
He's making an excellent argument.
Her lips purse in momentary displeasure, before she grudgingly nods in agreement. ]
A fair point.
Then is now really the best time for it?
[ He's still a prickling ball of emotion, after all, and discussing everything with Ego is... immense. Wounds that didn't need reopening yet, but she'd prodded at, nonetheless. Or, she supposes, it could provide a distraction in the wake of something so heavy, even if she would rather distract him with something less fraught with her own emotional baggage. She's spent so long trying to deny it exists that confronting it for herself isn't an enjoyable task.
Terrifying, is more like it. ]
no subject
Which, admittedly, is not a great place to be when talking to someone else about their problems.
He runs a hand down his face, pensive. ]
We can talk about it now. If you want. But I'd need a second to— decompress. Clear my head.
no subject
She shakes her head gently, giving his hand another reassuring squeeze. ]
We could go somewhere. Get out of this place.
[ She gives a light wave of her hand to the rest of the apartment. It's not small, not when compared to the living space they'd made do with on the Milano (with so many damn people), but it's still enclosed, and she knows well enough how suffocating that can feel. ]
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