who gamora & peter what comforting him where their room when after spidey showed up warnings very PG, just guilt, light smoochies, and INFINITY WAR SPOILERS if you dare. also it's heavy with the sads. status COMPLETED
Sadness had not clung to them on that ride. It had been sealed away, locked up tight for safekeeping. The simple joy of cruising through the otherwise quiet streets of Tumbleweed in Peter’s new ride granted a temporary euphoria, because they had all been so low since the memories had choked the very joy out of their lungs. It was so simple a thing, a car, but blasting Peter and Rocket’s beloved music drowned out the loud shadow of Thanos. They were an incomplete team again.
Then, it was just the pair of them back at their sharehouse. She crawled into the front passenger seat left vacant for some time now from Rocket. The music was quiet and anxiety supplanted the noise loud in her ears. So, she reached over to grasp Peter’s hand, then squeezed it tight. As in all things, good came to an end and guilt had tried to weigh him down.
Wordlessly, she got out of the car and circled around to him. Her arm slipped about his waist, she guided them both back to her room--their room now, really--and locked the door behind them. The lights were dim as she disrobed down to a more comfortable amount of clothes--undershirt and panties rather than the usual amount of leather--and then she blocked the light out entirely.
Sometimes laying down in the dark afforded a comfort that the light couldn’t ever hope to illuminate.
She laid quietly down next to Peter, hand searching for his once more in the dark as she stared up at the nothingness enveloping them both. Eventually, with an uneasy sigh, she turned to curl into his side. Head resting atop his chest, she listened to his heartbeat and felt grateful for the opportunity.
“Tell me why you blame yourself, Peter,” she voiced softly. “Really tell me.”
Peter hadn't realized how much he had needed that afternoon. The car had been a dream he'd had at seven years old and now, nearly thirty years later, the portal had decided to make it come true. IT wasn't something he had ever thought would come to pass. It wasn't something he'd needed or even longed for as he'd aged, but the feeling of utter joy that came rushing back upon seeing it had been more than needed. It was the first time he'd been able to say that he'd enjoyed himself and been happy since they'd been given the flood of memories.
Of course, it couldn't last, and though they'd driven around town being incredibly rambunctious, the silence that had swept over the car when it was just him and Gamora was stifling. He'd allowed for her to guide him back to the house and up to their room. When the door was shut, hands reached down to grab hold of his shirt, tugging it up and over his head. He slipped from his pants with just as much ease and moved to crawl into the bed by her side.
While one arm extended past his head, resting against the pillow and with finger tips curled against his palm while knuckles rested against the headboard, his other hand had laid by his side until being taken up by hers. His eyes were focused up at the ceiling even though he couldn't see anything in the darkness. He lowered his gaze for a moment to glance down upon her when she curled against him and he shifted just enough to press a kiss against the crown of her hair, before letting his gaze move back.
He exhaled in response to the request. He'd not been in a habit of denying Gamora much of anything back home. Even if it was a subject of which he didn't wish to talk about. His wetted his lips before speaking. "They were so close," he said gently, mind racing back to the event he'd been analyzing over and over for weeks now.
That was a bittersweet feeling she knew too well. She had been so close to securing the location of the Soul Stone, so close to killing Thanos, and so close to watching his plans fail only to lifted up by what he believed to be a thing called love. Failure haunted her to her doom. The only time she didn’t feel her life fading, falling into oblivion, was right here in their room.
“And then you learned what happened,” she finished for him, fingers tensing about his. “Is that it?”
Picturing him overwhelmed at knowing she had died, Gamora could see his emotions fraying at the seams. Peter was all heart, he followed it often to his detriment. At the end of the day, they knew he meant well. His intentions were well placed. She could not and would not fault him for being a catalyst to Thanos’ universal genocide.
“Peter, you don’t know if they would have succeeded then. Don’t place the blame on yourself, don’t place it on anyone.”
He closed his eyes with the clarification that was not incorrect. Gamora understood without him having to elaborate further. Instead of agreeing, and admitting to the shortcoming that had been destructive in it's reach, he turned his head and pressed his lips to the top of her head while his arm wrapped tighter around her form. An unspoken plea to her, and to the universe, that she not disappear from the space they now occupied.
"I know," he whispered against her temple as he shifted to bow his forehead down against her head. "But they nearly had it off. Stark even tried to remind me and..."
And it hadn't mattered. His focus had gone completely into the void of his grief and all he could see was Thanos in front of him, acting as if he was the one in grieving. As if he'd lost something he loved. No, Thanos had willfully destroyed Gamora, and no matter how twisted his mind was, the Titan didn't love her. He had no right to grieve for what he'd purposefully chosen to do.
He didn't rebuke her statement. He wouldn't argue with her but it was easier said than done to pull the blame away from himself.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, though aimed to contradict him despite the unsettling way her reply might have paralleled his thoughts. “We are here, not there. Together. Here,” emphasized Gamora once more, one hand cupping the side of his cheek in tandem with her words.
Feeling around the side of her bedside table, she half-turned to grope blindly in the dark for the walkman she knew to be there. Whenever they were apart, which lately had scarcely been the case, she would lay in bed and listen to his music. Delicately, she placed one earbud into his and the other in her own and pressed play before curling back into him.
Ooh, child. Things are gonna get easier.
It was the only thing she could believe in now: each other.