[ Peter stiffens when the kid pulls him into a hug. Tactile as Peter tends to be, hugs haven’t really been a thing for Peter, except in the most extreme circumstances. Go figure, right?
When the kid starts talking, starts agreeing with him, tension bleeds out of Peter’s frame by slow degrees. Right. Right, Gamora will be here. She’ll be back. That’s all that Peter really cares about, because whatever happened back home, that’s fucked up. That’s really fucked up, yeah, and he wants someone, anyone, to give Thanos everything he deserves and then some, and then to burn the body and dance and piss on the remains. And after that, maybe they can reverse whatever it was Thanos had done. Maybe they can’t.
Doesn’t really matter to Peter, honestly. He’s dead out there. He’s not dead here.
Because the rules are different in Riverview. Folks can be snatched from the jaws of death. It happens all the time. Hell, it happened to him, and that well-meaning orientation representative had coyly explained that he had been through “an ordeal” in place of telling him he had blown away like a cloud of dust, like that song by Kansas.
Most of the Guardians are dead out there, though Peter doesn’t know what happened to Groot or Rocket. He’s too afraid to ask, honestly. They won’t be dead here, and Peter doesn’t mind staying here for the rest of ever if it means the others will be here, too.
(So where the fuck are they?)
At length, he sags against the kid – not relaxed, but clearly exhausted. He reaches up with an unsteady hand to hit the trigger for his mask. It crawls away from his face in blue light, hiding itself back into the device tucked behind his ear. ]
Right.
[ Quietly, unsteadily – and a little uncertainly, even if he tries to hide it. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his clean(er) hand. If his face seems a little wet, if his next inhale is a little sharp (something one might more accurately characterize as a sniff), he’ll thank the kid not to point it out. ]
no subject
When the kid starts talking, starts agreeing with him, tension bleeds out of Peter’s frame by slow degrees. Right. Right, Gamora will be here. She’ll be back. That’s all that Peter really cares about, because whatever happened back home, that’s fucked up. That’s really fucked up, yeah, and he wants someone, anyone, to give Thanos everything he deserves and then some, and then to burn the body and dance and piss on the remains. And after that, maybe they can reverse whatever it was Thanos had done. Maybe they can’t.
Doesn’t really matter to Peter, honestly. He’s dead out there. He’s not dead here.
Because the rules are different in Riverview. Folks can be snatched from the jaws of death. It happens all the time. Hell, it happened to him, and that well-meaning orientation representative had coyly explained that he had been through “an ordeal” in place of telling him he had blown away like a cloud of dust, like that song by Kansas.
Most of the Guardians are dead out there, though Peter doesn’t know what happened to Groot or Rocket. He’s too afraid to ask, honestly. They won’t be dead here, and Peter doesn’t mind staying here for the rest of ever if it means the others will be here, too.
(So where the fuck are they?)
At length, he sags against the kid – not relaxed, but clearly exhausted. He reaches up with an unsteady hand to hit the trigger for his mask. It crawls away from his face in blue light, hiding itself back into the device tucked behind his ear. ]
Right.
[ Quietly, unsteadily – and a little uncertainly, even if he tries to hide it. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his clean(er) hand. If his face seems a little wet, if his next inhale is a little sharp (something one might more accurately characterize as a sniff), he’ll thank the kid not to point it out. ]
Yeah. Sorry. You’re right.