Did that burn? Yes. But the rest of her chronic pain tends to equalize it. She catches the tossed bottle automatically. …Okay, yes, the cool of it does feel good.
She has to think a long while before speaking. Because she thought she'd thought all of this through and she'd failed. She has to go over what happened piece by piece.
What she comes up with, even she doesn't like.
"I don't know his weakness. But I know the weakness he successfully exploits in the rest of us.
"Unwillingness to sacrifice individuals we love.
"We must be fully unified, as we were not on Titan. But we also… must be willing. To let him kill or torture one being, even a dear or innocent one. Gamora saved me from torture and death at cost to Gamora's own life and potentially half the universe's.
"Don't let it work. We are all evolved that seeing such a thing overrides our more abstract knowledge that helping him, stopping the death or torture, will lead to so many more deaths. But if we do it, give him what he wants to save the individual, we will not really be saving them. We have to prioritize the future over the present.
"We have to be willing to let his captives, our loved ones, suffer and die. No accessions."