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[closed] and i'll tell you all about it

WHO: Gamora (

justlethal) & Peter (

nostalgiabomb)
WHAT: Meeting
WHERE: Near grocery store, District 1, north-west
WHEN: A few days after their arrivals
WARNINGS: Will update as required. Maybe some yelling.

[She does perhaps make a sight, for a number of reasons. The first is that her skin is green, even if she is humanoid in appearance. The bone structure of her face is slightly different mind, although it's not overly noticeable, but enough to draw a second look anyway. Her face is framed by strands of hair that are ombred, starting one colour and fading to another. Her expression is... less than impressed, although with Gamora, that tends to be a typical state of being. She's ignored the others around her, set off on her own, seeking answers.

Gamora does not like surprises. It doesn't matter whether it is a pleasant surprise or a not so pleasant one. She likes to be prepared, at least to some level of preparedness. Here? She's on edge. It is like someone prepared a city and then started dropping individuals in. For a brief moment, Gamora had thought it had had something to do with what had transpired just before her own arrival, but it makes no sense. Then again, little of this place does. She has been exploring, trying to find answers. They are severely lacking. She knows that she has just covered a small amount of the city, starting north and heading west, but so far, everything seems like it has been explained.

Trying to leave has proven to be true. You cannot. Not that Gamora is sure what she is trying to achieve by this. Go where? It's a day of walking, making marks and crossing parts off on the map that she has found. It's not until her stomach truly starts to grumble that Gamora calls it a day. Backtracking to one of the grocery stores that fall along her route, she tallies what she does know as she walks on silent feet. It's pitiful, although every little piece of information can help to build a bigger picture.

The sun is starting to drop by the time she approaches down the street of the store. She'll grab whatever and return to the hole she has found to rest, before another day of rinse and repeat. It's passing looks to anyone that she passes, although that leave me alone air remains. Her eyes pass over him once, not quite registering, before her head snaps back, even as she halts in place. She blinks, once, twice, as if expecting it to be some trick, before her voice breaks.]

... Peter?

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[ The way she snaps at him makes him flinch a little – the memory of being flung into an array of display panels still sits fresh in his mind, even if he's a month past that. Mantis had helped him fish the shards out of his hair.

He can't help it – he's tense as she approaches, and his expression is still that exciting cocktail of confusion and wariness and a brittle, disbelieving hope. Neither can he help the way he rocks back as she approaches, even as he bears the way she studies him just as closely as he's studying her. ]

Just— hold on.

[ It's another croak, and his mind is racing, screeching. There are about a million questions zinging around in there, admittedly, chief among them are How? and Why? and What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?

Apparently, the abduction he can handle. It's seeing ghosts that he can't.

Mostly to himself, ]

What the fuck is happeningright now?

[She notices. How can't she notice? Peter has always been an open book in many ways, expressing himself, even in annoying ways. Spots as he goes rigid with her approach. She stops, body language shifting. Hurt, agitation, walls coming up as her fist clenches as her side.

There's that frustrated noise that growls up from her, although she hasn't moved and makes no hostile intention. Her eyes shift, staring back out over the foreign city that they're in, only keeping him in her peripheral vision.

It's not... She hates it. Hates it all. Hates Thanos and his chair and his training and hates how she had been the reason he had gotten the Soul Stone. Hates that she had not been able to stab herself and hates... hates herself. If she would have been a better liar, a better fighter, stronger...]

How the hell am I supposed to know! I woke up on a train here, just like everyone else.

[And she shouldn't. There's that small shiver, as she can still feel his hand on her, her struggles useless as the ledge got closer. Can still feel that first giddy sense of weightlessness before the cold snap of wind against her skin and realization setting in as gravity called her downward.]

[ She snaps again, and this time, at least, he recognizes it as defensiveness, rather than a precursor to picking him up and chucking him through the closest storefront.

He takes a deep, fortifying breath to calm himself.

When he speaks again, it's very clear that he's making a concerted effort to maintain a level tone – his "I'm facing down the business end of a gun that could go off at any second" voice. ]

What's the last thing you remember, before the train?

[What's the last thing you remember? The question shuts her down, shoulders slumping and her face does turn away. There had been things that Gamora had kept from Peter. She'd made him promise to kill her without truly explaining the full reasons why. Arguably Thanos may have been able to find the Stone without her, but would he have been able to gain it? Would any of her siblings fit the purpose, the need, the requirement?

A tension in her jaw as she clenches her teeth, as if saying it might somehow summon the Titan. It's foolish, she knows. What else could he do to her? Nebula had told her of his demise, although not before he had gotten his goal. Will they even know? Had they already found out? Her hands are still clasped tight. She can feel blunted nails and rings digging into her flesh, yet doesn't stop.]

You're from after, aren't you?

[It's not an answer exactly, but it is answer enough.]

[ It's not an answer, not at all – but it still feels like a fatal blow. ]

Fuck.

[ The curse sounds like it's been punched out of him.

It's like reopening half-healed wounds, but he does so readily. Happily, even. And he can't help that his immediate reaction is to step toward her, to reach out a hand.

And it feels like only moments have passed since Knowhere, when he stood breathing in fire-heated air and ash, feeling that crushing weight of failure. He's spent so much of his time over the intervening years returning to that memory, prodding at the guilt over and over and over so he could drown himself in it. And it's effortless to do it again, in the here and now. ]

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I tried—

[Is it the eight years too, she almost asks, but isn't entirely certain she wants the answer. She doesn't understand the original response to her appearance either, she realizes, but does she want to ask? People can change in eight years. Grieve. Grow. Carry on.

Her emotions rage. She'd felt like a child again before Thanos. Small, struggling, unable to do anything. Nebula at least... She'd hated to see her sister suffer, had begged for Thanos to stop, but he had known her weakness- and her secret. He'd twisted it like everything else and she had been unable to bear it. Without her knowledge, Thanos may have been slowed, maybe even stopped, from his quest to gather all the Stones.

Her gaze is elsewhere, Knowhere, unfocused on the here and now.]

... it wasn't you that failed, Peter. It was I.

[ He lets his hand drop to his side, gaze darting way. ]

It was never your fault.

[ There's a certainty to that answer, at least. He spent a long, long time vacillating wildly between blaming himself and foisting it off onto nutsack-chinned giant prune.

If he had let himself be swayed by Thor into going to Nidavellir. If he had acted faster on Knowhere. If he hadn't spent hours and hours suffocating under the weight of his failure. If he hadn't completely lost his shit on Titan—

Peter falls silent for a few seconds, unsure of what to say. (He spent a short month trying to move on from his grief, and a small part of him marvels at how easily that development has slid away. The rest of him happily waves it goodbye.)

When he exhales this time, it's a trembling, unsettled sound. Part of him wants to keep tripping over himself to beg her forgiveness – his guilt has been a dark, writing thing that's had years and years to evolve and mature – but he doesn't. Maybe he doesn't want to be forgiven. And, oh, he really should've taken up his step-grandmother's offer to get him set up with a therapist.

He licks his lips before trying, ]

How long have you been here?

Don't you understand? Without me, his search for the Soul Stone- [There's that pained tone to her voice even as she tosses her hands into the air. His search would have been short. Without her, the location would have been held secret, at least for a time longer. It may have given others enough time to track Thanos down and stop him. Might have ceased his actions all together if he hadn't been able to get them all.

She can't regret it and doesn't regret it, telling him what she knew. If it meant her sister would be safe, then how could she? It was a small thing that she had been able to do for Nebula, but hopefully enough.

Instead she gave it all to him. The location. The very Stone that he had been after. For one brief moment, Gamora had thought they had been safe. A sacrifice of the one being they love most to the cliff. How could Thanos love anything? Clearly his journey would end right there, but it hadn't. It hadn't. There's that subtle agitation that brews. And for that, the universe had suffered.

But her hands settle back at her side, shoulders slumping in defeat again.]

A few days. [That low voice, tired and drained. She's been on since her arrive. Almost electric, with all those myriad of emotions that played inside, that she keeps reined in behind a mask. Or tries to. What's done is done, right? Time moves forward, like it always does.] It's only been happening for about a month I've been told. I've been confirming what Hob had told me.

[ He flinches again at her tone, at the thick waves of frustration and hurt rolling off of her.

For once, he's at a loss for words.

He's quiet again, just looking at her, and he's kicking himself for not seeing the details – and the guilt practically throttles him when he notices how she retreats behind a mask. He licks his lips, gaze skittering away to examine the buildings around them, but he nods when she offers that piece of information. It's important, he figures, pooling what few resources they have, and information has always been an important currency. ]

I haven't found out much. [ Instinctively, he's starting to fall back on that professional tone – and even a month out of practice, he still manages to ease back into his Captain voice with little trouble. ] This place just looks like it was up and abandoned.

[ A pause, then, ]

Who's Hob?

[ Because despite his greatest efforts, Peter has always had a slightly jealous personality. ]

[There is a look that is tossed his way, a familiar one when Gamora has to deal with Peter and with certain aspects of his personality.]

Hob. Short for Robert. [Don't ask. Gamora did and it still makes no sense to her.] Terran. From Lawn-dawn.

[Memorizing London hadn't been on the top of her list when speaking to him. It's clear he hadn't had much experience with species from other planets, or at least green ones. Her own answers to Hob's questions had been curt, although part of it was she hadn't wanted to explain more. Explain where she was originally from and what had happened to her planet. She'd gone a vague answer, speaking of space and living aboard a ship for the most part. It's not false, although she does- she did have a home planet.

But he had answered hers patiently regardless, which did bring him up a notch in her books. He seemed a level-headed sort, but Gamora supposes that only time would really show if he was. Still has the bottle of water that he gave her, but she has been storing items, just in case.]

They all arrived a month ago. The place looked like it does now.

[ Lawn-dawn?

He spares a couple of seconds to parse that, blinking in the silence, then, ]

Oh. London.

[ —which, okay, isn't the most important piece of information to come away with, there, which is why he shakes himself, clearing his throat. But, yeah, okay, that's good to know – that whatever it is that's happening is still in its nascent stages. And historically, when things are first starting out, that's the best time for everything to go wrong; so maybe that'll make it easier to figure out how to get home.

It's a slim silver lining, anyway.

He lets out a breath, nodding, as he shifts his old backpack from one side to another. He has a tendency to fidget a little when he's thinking. ]

Were you— headed somewhere, just now?

[A way out. A way home. It seems a logical reaction, and one Gamora can understand, and yet, what is there for her? She searches, because she wants answers, but when she gets them, she doesn't know. She'd share the information, whatever she did manage to get, for what is was worth. She isn't the type to hold it in or lord it over others.

Maybe it's just something to do, something to keep her mind off of that, because it is easy to get weighed down beneath it all. The nights have been the worst yet she is no stranger to lack of sleep. When she is left to her own thoughts that replay certain memories over and over and over, on repeat, like a bad movie. She knows the words, the ending, and there's nothing she can do to change it.

She makes a little motion toward the building near them.]

I was going to grab something.

[ He follows her gesture to the store, and he nods. ]

Yeah. Me too.

[ It's stupid, how he feels so fucking wrong-footed right now. He really thought, for a long while there, that if he ever saw Gamora again, they could pick everything back up again, right where they left off. He knows, now, that his expectations hadn't been fair to the Gamora that currently lives back home, that it was like taking years and years of history and superimposing it on someone's twin sister, in a weird way.

Back home, the Gamora he fell in love with and who had impossibly fallen in love with him was dead.

Yet here she is. Barely looking at him.

God, what a fucking mess.

He takes a breath, tries to lighten his voice a little. ]

I could keep you company. If you wanted.

[There's no denying that when she first saw him, she'd wanted to embrace him in, drink him in, forget for one moment what happened on Knowhere and everything thereafter. It shouldn't be surprising that when she first arrived, she thought this was after- whatever happens then. That, or something that the Soul Stone did to her. She has no experience with it and doubts there are any records for it.

Her eyes shift over to him then when he speaks, when he offers. Perhaps she is thinking too much, but it's not like Gamora has experience with any of this. Ah, yes, you will die and you will meet your boyfriend in the future after. In some ways it is more uncomfortable than their original meeting. Punching and hitting are things Gamora knows. This? She doesn't know where she stands with him.]

... what is it that you wanted, Peter?

[ You, is his immediate answer.

You, you, fucking you.

But that's just a touch desperate, isn't it? Even for him.

He takes another rallying breath. ]

I was headed the same way. So we can—

[ "Catch up." Like this is something mundane. Like they're old friends running into each other on the street. Like her last memory probably wasn't whatever had happened on Vormir.

He winces at himself, the expression there and gone in a second. ]

Just— come inside with me. If you want.

[Ah.

Whatever answer Gamora may have wanted, her face is schooled into that level mask with that answer. Whatever nightmares the future holds, are dreams compared to what's behind me. Her words from so long ago swirl around in her mind, and this is some nightmare, the likes of which Gamora would never have guessed after.]

Since we're headed the same way.

[She echoes back, but she's already moving, a purposeful stride to her pace as she does. In and out, she decides. A few fruits, some bread. Not that she really has an appetite anymore. Perhaps she'll use them for target practice. Knifes from the restaurant are all she currently has, missing both Godslayer and the blade that Thanos had given her as a child. It seems she is missing many familiar things.]

[ She practically storms in ahead of him, and he brings up both hands to scrub his face.

This. This is going so, so badly.

And why shouldn't it? It's not exactly as though there's a playbook for this situation. "How to Deal with Mourning the Death of Your Girlfriend for Years, Trying to Get Past It, and Finding Her Alive and Well: A Primer."

But the longer her waits, the worse it'll get, so he follows in after her.

It's a modest little grocery store – not one of the gigantic ones he's seen recently, that sprawl across the place and incongruously sell patio sets and barbecues and giant pool floats. He had planned on picking up ingredients for the pasta his step-grandmother showed him how to make. He still probably will.

They walk in silence for a few seconds that feel like an eternity, and he clears his throat quietly. ]

I'm— sorry. For earlier.

[ Recently-earlier, he means. Not years-ago earlier, though he could very easily slip back into that topic. ]

I thought you were someone else.

[ ... which must sound ridiculous, now that he's said it aloud. ]

Just— a lot of stuff happened. After.

[ And he doesn't feel the need to expound further on what "after" means, even if it's pulling a lot of weight. ]

[It's to the right that she veers when entering into the building, seeming to know already where she wants to go. She doesn't understand it, but she's stopped questioning the food, It hasn't killed her yet, or rather re-killed her, and it's not like there are better options. Everything is the same. It's eerie and puts her hackles up. The forested areas are still and quiet, a silence that usually means danger.

She is aware of him there, trailing along although she picks through several varieties of fruit, choosing from them, before moving on to another section. It's not even when he clears his throat that she looks at him. No, that doesn't come until he says he thought she was someone else that she spins, pointing a finger.]

Of course. The dirty haired Zehobereian.

[Because that sounds so utterly ridiculous that Gamora doesn't even like to give voice to it.]

It's fine. I get it. It's been, what- eight years for you?

[A guess tossed out there, as she has no idea when he comes from.]

[ He jerks back when she whirls around on him – an old instinct whenever someone makes some kind of sudden movement. He's always been at least a little jumpy, and that's especially true of now, when he feels like he's teetering over an edge over some unfathomable height. ]

I wasn't lying. I mistook you for someone else.

[ He hears the accusation in her voice – and, yeah, okay, Gamora is well within her rights to assume he's coming up with some stupid bullshit. But he doesn't like being blamed for something, anything, especially when he knows he's not entirely in the wrong, which is why he's instantly on the defensive. ]

Eight years chronologically. I guess. Three years in practice.

[ Because, you know. He was snapped out of existence for five of those years. ]

What the hell are you accusing me of, here?

[Who else? Is there suddenly an influx of her people running around the galaxy? Even Nebula's reaction... She doesn't understand, which isn't surprising. She hasn't been around, doesn't know what they had gone through, and she hadn't really had the relationship with Nebula that she would have liked. She'd offered some vague answers but nothing too in-depth and Gamora hadn't wanted to press. Maybe she should have, but it's not like pressing Nebula into something tends to have a good reaction. It's much the same as Gamora.

Her hand drops, frustration rolling across her features. But there even. Does that mean- Nebula had spoken of eight, and with those five... Peter had disappeared?]

I'm not accusing you of anything! I just- I do not understand!

[And she knows- knows- it's because she isn't around. It doesn't make it any easier on her.]

[ He steps back again in the face of her anger, her frustration, both hands lifted up in the near universal sign for don't shoot.

He's not sure how much he can say, here. And even if no one else seems to be in the store with them, at the moment, he isn't entirely sure if he wants to do this in public. He's going to sound like he's out of his goddamn mind once he gets into the story.

(He thinks he might've been, actually. Out of his mind, that is. Just for a little while. Racked with guilt and grief and regret and heartbreak and a roiling, directionless rage. It's why Nebula had to step up while he fell back.)

He takes another breath, hands still up in a gesture of surrender, like he's asking her to not maim the messenger. ]

A lot of shit happened.

[ He means it as an explanation – and he hopes desperately it doesn't just sound like an excuse. ]

Can you just— stop talking to me like you wanna rip my head off? For two minutes?

[It's annoying, like saying calm down, because she's made no move to harm him. Might have threatened to at times, and justly so, but she's never actually sought him real harm. Even in the beginning, it had been about getting the Stone and getting away. Feminine wiles to begin with, but when that hadn't work, she would have been fine with immobilizing him.

They've had their spats, their little arguments, but her last words to him still hold true. Less time for her, and that's the maddening part. There's something, but neither one has come out and said it. Perhaps she should have dug at Nebula more. Perhaps she should have just let it go. Had she known this would happen, she would have. She'd thought she had time, more time to try to sort things out, to work out the emotions that threatened to drown her. She'd once said I have spent most of my life surrounded by my enemies. I will be grateful to die among my friends. She hadn't though. The man who had raised her, trained her, made her efficient at what she did, who used her like a weapon for his goals, who she had hated with every core of her being, had been the one to preside.

It almost slips past her mouth, almost, that if she wanted to rip his head off, she would have. Yet she bites her tongue. Bites back the retort, and that mask slips on. A void blankness, one she's learned throughout the years. Of all the hells... Three years, five years, eight years, they are all still years that she won't have, and as vast as that distance between them had once seemed in the beginning, it seems even larger now. It's like the grounds crumbling beneath her feet and she doesn't know the best move to make. There's probably something a little foolish with it, holding an pair of bananas in her hand, as her eyes drop, that stewing simmering air.]

[ Oh, come on, he nearly says, once he sees that unreadable mask go up. That's worse. You know that's worse.

But he swallows down the words, because she's well within her rights to retreat. He's fucked up this reunion in so many ways, when it should've been— not easy, exactly. Never easy. But it shouldn't be this tense. It shouldn't be this fraught with this much resentment.

He lowers his hands, and one fidgets with the strap of his backpack, just for something to do. The dismay is obvious on his face, though. He struggles with finding the words for a few, endless seconds, before scrubbing his face. ]

Fuck, Gamora. I don't even know where to start.

[Her emotions are a caged beast, prowling back and forth, and there is that part of her that wants to rage at the world, rage at what happened to her. It's salt in the wound that Thanos had gotten the Soul Stone as he had, for all the loathing she had felt for him had mattered little. A lamb to the slaughter, no dignity afforded, her struggles to no avail. She might have known the location, but she had not known the cost. Yet even if she had, would her conclusion not have been the same?

She'd felt love, true and strong, from the man before her, for the man before her- or the man that had been. How does one differentiate? Can one differentiate? It's the rawness that she holds tight, bound within, coiled tight. Nostrils flare, exhale, and she tries not to let that impatience show. Anywhere. Somewhere. The beginning. The end. Something.

Then don't, a callous part of her wants to lash out, but she doesn't mean that. Stars and galaxies between them, he is the one she had given her heart to, had tasked that ultimate task upon, and in the end, he had pulled the trigger, even if it had been too late. She'd bet against a Titan, and had lost.]

Peter.

[It is the stillness that remains in her face, but it's her voice that gives her away. For all that frustration and hurt, there's that longing.]

[ It's so fucking much. A lot of history to bundle up in a few sentences, just so Gamora would—

—would what, exactly?

Forgive him? Maybe. Possibly. How nice would it be, to be forgiven for managing to do the fucking impossible, for wrenching his own heart out of its chest and tearing it apart as he pulled the fucking trigger. And how nice would it be, to be forgiven for failing at it? For having a hand in destroying half the universe?

How nice.

He doesn't think he deserves it, though.

And the weight of her tone, when she says his name. The heartbreak in it, the anger in it. Like she's desperate for a handhold as she reaches across an abyss.

He wants nothing more than to reach back, but— ]

Here's what happened.

[ He takes an unsteady breath, gaze darting to the displays of fruit beside them. When he finally speaks, the words are sharp and quick, like he's tearing off a bandage. ]

Thanos had you. And I pulled the trigger, and it was like ripping out my heart and stomping on it, but I did it. 'Cause I knew I had to, and I made you a promise. But obviously I didn't do it fast enough, and then he smiled like it was all a big joke, and he took you away. And I was so pissed that I failed, and I was angry at myself for being so relieved, too, 'cause at least you were still alive and that meant there was still a chance.

[ —it's like voiding a toxin, he thinks. And now that he's started, he can't quite stop. He reaches up with both hands to scrub at his eyes. ]

And then we went to Titan, and we had Thanos exactly where we wanted him, and I messed that up, too. He all but told us he killed you, and I snapped. 'Cause I had been holding out this hope, right? That you'd still be okay, that he wouldn't hurt you, and that I could rush in like a big hero and sweep you off your feet, and you'd be all, "It's okay you're such stupid mess, Peter. Now we can ride off into the sunset together." But then that chance was gone, and I didn't know how to handle it.

It's actually kinda funny, right? How it was, like, my fault he won? My fault twice. So it's probably for the best I got wiped out, so I couldn't screw things up a third time.

[ Let's hear it for the comedy rule of threes. ]

And then, Nebula and Rocket and some other folks figured out how the Infinity Stone bullshit worked. We all got brought back – except you, 'cause who the fuck knows why? Not me. I don't know how the stupid things worked. So instead of you, there was a complete stranger with your face that I wanted to be you. But she wasn't you, and she had no interest in being you, so she went off and did her own thing.

[ And it's here that he finally loses steam. He fumbles to a stop, clenching his teeth, before heaving out an explosive breath. ]

So there. That's everything.

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that feeling when u forget to hit "post comment"

at least you noticed. I was like lala did dw not give me a notif? nope, it was me. im the problem...

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