His Secret
Summary: THIS STORY HAS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOLUME 2! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MOVIE!
He has a secret. A secret he hasn't shared with anyone on his ship.
See, he's not stupid, no matter what Rocket sometimes says. He can sort things out, given enough time.
Things like the fact that Ego told him he'd have power as long as The Light existed. But The Light and Ego's Light are necessarily the same thing. After all, Ego came from something too.
One night, not long after everything, he sat alone in his quarters, and he concentrated. Ego told him to focus on the core of the planet, but he figured that if The Light was out there, it'd still be out there. So he just focused on that.
And what do you know. He was right.
Ego might be dead, but The Light still exists. It's still real. Still there. And still his to hold onto, to use.
The first night, he made a little ball and tossed it back and forth, remembering a long held wish that Ego fulfilled, before he banished it. Remembering how shallow that wish, and that momentary time in the sun, turned out to be.
This light isn't the same as Ego's. Not the same as his cold radiance. It's different somehow.
He likes to think that this light is his mother's light. A light born from Earth and 80's songs, from the River Lily, Meredith Quill. From the name Star-Lord. From oldies hits.
He likes to think that, within The Light, there is a little bit of Yandu.
Yandu. The man who taught him to fight. To fly. To shoot. To be a Ravager.
Yandu, who taught him to be a man. Who taught him that rough love is still love, even if it's awkward and hard and sarcastic.
The man who taught him how to be who he is today.
Yandu, who had a voice that sounded like he'd been chewing rocks half his life, but could whistle anything and everything. Like an angel.
Yandu, with his crimson arrow. Who taught him in his last hours to fly with his heart, not his head.
He regrets, now, that he realized too late that Yandu really was his Dad. The old man was right. Ego might have been his father, the one who created him. But Yandu...Yandu was his dad. His father in every way that mattered. And he was a dad to be proud of, even if he was a Ravager and possibly a lunatic.
He holds Yandu's last gift to him, the little recorder with it's 480 songs on it. Yandu saved all his favorites, even added some new stuff. But it's all the music he knows and loves, from the era his Mom knew and loved.
In that gift, he feels the love he saw in Yandu's eyes, in that last flight to escape Ego's dying planet. The love, the pride. He feels again that rough, iced-over hand patting his cheek gently in farewell.
He feels that strong arm, clasped around him, the first and final embrace of a father to a son, rather than a Ravager to a brother, or a captain to a subordinate.
He remembers watching Yandu's body dissolve into multi-colored fire, to be released into the galaxy in a glittering, rainbow trail of star-fire, as befits an honored captain and a Ravager. He remembers watching that shimmering star-dust dissolve, as the other Ravager clans appeared and gave Yandu a proper Ravager funeral. A farewell of the highest respect and greatest honor.
The funeral that Yandu thought he'd never have, because he'd once brought Ego a child. And because he'd failed to bring him a different one.
In the darkness, he forms little trails and flames of Light, and imagines they are Yandu's final gift to him. That a little bit of the Ravager who raised him remains with him, in the sparks that dance between his fingers.
He'll never create a giant Pac-Man statue with this Light. Never create a fifty-foot-tall statue of Hasselhoff. This light is not meant for that.
But he thinks that, once he learns how, he'll leave a new calling card. A crimson arrow, inscribed with the name he has chosen, and his mother's favorite song. Well, his mother and Yandu's.
For now, The Light and his thoughts are his secrets. But someday, he thinks he'll tell his little makeshift family the truth. He'll show them what he's learned, about The Light, and about himself.
But for now, it is his secret.
Author's Note: Again, it was just such a great scene. And really, I don't think Peter lost his powers just because of how things turned out...