Late again! I'm sorry. I have a good reason and a not so good reason this time, but more info after the chapter.

Title is from "Flaws" by Bastille

Characters and GotG belong to Marvel.

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Chapter 9: All of your Flaws and All of my Flaws

Touchdown on Ego's planet came quickly and with a dizzying sense of dejavu.

"You made all of this?" Gamora asked as Ego steered the same little open air shuttle from their visit before over the open canyon that divided where the ship had docked and his strange cathedral-like house. Peter was fairly certain Ego could have chosen to land much closer to the building, to simply move the dock onto the extravagant court in front of his home, or in any of the numerous fields beyond if he'd wanted to, but couldn't resist showing off.

It had been a bitter pill to swallow when Peter had been forced to come to terms with the realization that the charm and wit he had always been so proud of had come from the monster standing before him now. Since he was a child, he had dreamed of meeting his father; a suave, hansom man- a hero straight from the movie screens and comic book panels of his childhood. When Ego had stepped from his spaceship on the planet Berhert with that dazzling smile and brilliant charm, Peter had thought all of his wildest childhood day-dreams had come true. He had been so proud to call this man father. Peter had seen his own smile shining back at him, and heard his own words rolled off of a golden tongue and it was like, for the first time since leaving Earth and losing his mother, he had somewhere he belonged, and someone he belonged to in the way he had only dreamed of for so many years. The comparison that had so elated him upon discovery now disgusted him in ways that were difficult to describe.

"Yes," Ego answered proudly. "Everything from the dirt to the plants, to the atmosphere around you."

Seeing Ego smile at Gamora, and knowing that he had given her, and many others, that very same smile, was like having a slug crawl up the back of his throat.

Mantis had been standing mutely at Ego's shoulder, observing the visitors from under her thick lashes. When she looked his way and noticed Peter's dark expression she quickly dropped her eyes back to her feet and shuffled just a little closer to the ancient Celestial.

Damnit! Peter mentally kicked himself, and tried to force his face to relax.

Oblivious to Peter's inner turmoil, Drax was leaning over the side of their platform to get a better view of the intricacies around them and in the canyon passing below.

"So if we eat or drink something here, it's like we're eating you?" Drax spun to look at Peter with eyes bright with sudden understanding. "So that is why the ravagers wished to eat you! They thought you could create food and provide a source of nourishment!"

"What!? No!" Peter gaped. "They didn't even know what I-that doesn't make any sense. And why are you even still thinking about that?"

"I would not forget something so quickly." Drax seemed offended by Peter's supposed insult. "I have a very good memory. Besides, you said Yondu was aware of your heritage, did you not?"

While Peter gaped helplessly for an answer, Ego broke back in with a chuckle.

"Yes, Drax, if you were to eat something on this planet you would technically be eating a part of me, and it would provide a... sort of nourishment, but everything here is purely, what you mortals would call, ornamental, and it would not sustain you for long. I have taken to keeping supplies around for Mantis. You will be welcome to those for the time being."

At the mention of her name, Mantis seemed to brighten, lifting her head up to smile at Drax with her hands clasped together.

"I would be very happy to share them with you!" she said eagerly. "I can even show you my favorite ways to prepare them, and what tastes best together!"

Here, she made the rather unfortunate mistake of turning towards Nebula next.

"Would you like to-?"

"No," came the reply that was all but snarled out.

Mantis flinched back as though physically struck, immediately casting her eyes back to the floor and hunching her shoulders like she could hide behind them.

"Okay," she said meekly. "I am sorry."

"Do not mind her," Drax soothed between bouts of laughter. "She is famously grumpy, and hates everyone."

"Ah, yes..." Ego breathed, placing one hand on his beard and tilting his head to look at Nebula. "I believe I remember you from last time. Weren't you trying to kill the other one?"

Nebula turned a heated glare on the Celestial.

"And failing, so I've been told," she growled out.

"Not failing." Gamora surprised Peter by speaking up on her sister's behalf. "You chose to stop the mindless violence- to make amends. Nebula we could-"

"Well don't expect anything like that to happen this time around." Nebula's eyes were dark and cold when they turned on her sister.

"I just-"

Nebula turned away from her sister before she could finish whatever she was trying to say, shouldering past Peter to stand on the furthest side of the horse-shoe shaped glider and watch the passing landscape with her back turned. The rest of their short shuttle ride lapsed into silence.

As they approached the cliff edge of the open court in front of Ego's cathedral, for lack of better word, the edges of the stonework and shuttle bloomed into a mess of bright tendrils which wrapped together to form a bridge. Ego led them over, his boots hardly making contact with solid ground before Rocket, who had been trapped on the shuttle for threat of falling to his death below, was shooting past him and taking off like his namesake would imply.

"Hey! Rocket!" Peter shouted, jostling forward and shoving past Mantis to give chase.

Ego held up an arm to stop him.

"Let him go," he said. "There is nothing out there. He will have to come back here for food eventually."

"But-"

"That is why you're here isn't it?" Ego asked, tilting his head and raising his brows to stare at Peter like he was twelve years old "I will know if he comes to any trouble of his own, otherwise there is nothing to worry about. Unless you want me to build him a cage here as well?"

"No." Peter stiffened. "No, never mind."

-x-

The tour of Ego's home was much less grand this time around. Peter already knew his origin story, both the abridged and the extended version, featuring all of Ego's thousands of other 'loves' from across the universe, and apparently his father felt no need to be quite so grandeur for his mortal guests.

"So when are you going to tell us the real reason you want Peter here?" Gamora asked as the tour -really just a lap around the large central building and pointing out several landmarks through the windows to stay away from- was winding down and the group began to turn back the way they had come.

Ego laughed, not the least disturbed by the sudden interrogation. "It is just as I said; I want to teach Peter to use the Light within him. You are so eager to find malicious motives in me. Perhaps I just don't like the sudden interest your father has taken in my son."

Gamora stiffened and Ego grinned in small triumph over having caught her off-guard.

"Yes, dear," he said. "I know exactly who you are."

"What do you know of Thanos?" Nebula spoke up, narrowing her eyes in suspicion at the back of Ego's head from where she followed further back in the group.

"Enough." Ego shrugged dismissively. "There was a time, when I was new to the universe and desperate for any sort of intelligent companionship, that I heard rumors of another immortal and thought to seek out the source. You cannot fathom my disappointment when it turned out to be nothing more than that spoiled brat of a Titan."

Nebula turned away, apparently satisfied by the answer, and Peter didn't miss the way the edges of her lips curled into an appreciative sort of smile at the insult. An ugly knot of jealousy twisted in his gut at the sight. Some petty part of him revolted at the thought of any of his friends smiling at anything his dirt bag of a father said.

"You've met him?" Gamora asked in surprise.

"We've crossed paths a handful of times," Ego answered vaguely. "It was inevitable as I worked towards the Expansion and he grew more deliberate in his own march across the universe. On an occasion or two I would arrive at a planet to plant the seedling of my core and find he had already destroyed the populace. I suppose you could say that until now Thanos and I have always held a... mutual disinterest in each other." He paused here tilt his head and glance at Mantis. "The last time we met, I believe, was when I found Mantis among the wreckage of his latest conquest."

Mantis made a tiny squeaking gasp as all eyes turned on her. She seemed just as surprised by this news as the rest of the Guardians.

"You never told me that Thanos destroyed your planet," Peter said.

"I did not know," she breathed. "I do not remember much of my time there. I was orphaned..." Her brows drew together tightly as she worried through her memories. "I remember being alone, and Ego coming..."

"Yes," Ego hummed, unconcerned by her rising panic at his rather sudden revelation of her past. "I believe you were discarded from their society long before Thanos came. Perhaps you were defective. Whatever the reason, it is likely because of that isolation that you were not exterminated along with the rest of your kind."

"So-" Gamora began, but Ego cut her off.

"Your companions are welcome to the same set of rooms you used last time," he announced as they made their way back outside and down the familiar path through the seemingly endless gardens, bringing their earlier conversation to a clear end. "There are twenty four or so in total, so I believe they should be more than adequate. I do not care where any of you go or what any of you do, as long as you, Peter, are present for our lessons."

"Which will be?" Peter asked.

"As soon as you are rested enough to survive the experience."

Peter glanced up at the sun shining above them. It was about half way past the center of the sky, but on the Starbust it had nearly been the midnight portion of the cycle when they had left. Peter hadn't even eaten dinner, so caught up in the shock and nausea of the events of the evening. His nerves and adrenaline were keeping him on his feet, and almost too alert, for the time being, but being asked to harness any Light inside of him right now would probably just do him in.

"For tonight, you may settle in and take your rest. We will begin at dawn."

Peter's disbelief must have been plain across his face because when Ego looked at him he broke into another brief bout of easy laughter.

"We have time," Ego said, his teeth flashing in the sunlight as he smiled. "We are immortal, after all."

Ego left shortly after his unsettling proclamation, leaving Mantis behind to show the Guardians their way around the rooms. There were plenty for each of them to have their own, including Groot, who quickly claimed the one with the biggest window. Everyone else just grabbed the first one they stumbled upon except for Nebula who stalked off down the airy hallway, probably to find the furthest room possible from the rest of the group.

Peter briefly considered following after her, but his need for sleep overrode his nosiness, and his feet carried him instead to the nearest mattress which he could face plant into.

Drax and Groot would just have to keep the peace until he woke up again.

-x-

"Peter."

Peter woke up alone under a starry sky. Strangely familiar galaxies that he couldn't really place swirled above him. Many were far too close for the planet he was on to be inhabitable. Peter flexed his fingers and discovered he was laying on grass, his fingers dug into the soft cool dirt beneath. It reminded him of home. It reminded him of nights spent stargazing in his backyard with his mother, making up constellations and adventures he would someday have in them alongside his father. Because someday his father would come back for him, and they would explore the stars together.

"Peeeeeeter."

Later, when the stargazing grew more somber and more rare, the dreams would change. Instead of spiriting him away, his father would come to Earth, like a savior from the stars, like a super-hero from Peter's favorite comics -The ones stacked lovingly under his mattress. He would come and he would march right up to Meredith and say 'My love I heard you were ill, and I have braved all of the dangers of the cosmos to be at your side!' and he would plant a kiss on Meredith Quill's head, like she did for Peter when he was sick, and she would be all better. He would say 'I am sorry, my love, I came as quickly as I could but the forces of evil knew how I longed to save you and conspired to hold me at bay.' and she would say 'I forgive you, my love,' and 'you made it just in time.' and she would smile that smile that was Peter's favorite; the one that seemed to have vanished alongside her hair and the sparkle of joy in her eyes.

"Peeeeeeeeeeeter."

Then she would introduce him to Peter, and he would be so proud of his son and say 'I am done defending the cosmos all alone! I would rather stay here, and take care of you, and look after my son.' and they would be a family. A real one, like Steven Fallon at school had. Except Peter's father was a superhero, a real spaceman, and everyone would call him Star-lord, not just his mother. And his teachers would stop writing comments on his report cards about his imagination that would make the corners of his mother's mouth tug down for just a moment before she could catch herself, and no one would ever tease him and call him a liar again.

"PETER!"

Peter startled into a sit, but when he looked around, he found he was all alone on an endless stretch of short grass.

"Hello?" he called out.

"Keep digging, Peter," a voice called back, booming through his chest and vibrating through his bones.

"WHO'S THERE!" Peter shouted, rising to his feet and spinning around. He saw nothing but the endless grass, cropped too short for anything to be hiding in.

"You're almost there."

A chill rolled up his spine and Peter could swear the faceless voice was laughing at him.

"Stop it!" Peter spun again, but again found nothing. The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Show yourself!"

The answering laughter rolled over the field like thunder. The ground under Peter's boots shuddered and quaked, and a wind whipped up, slashing at his skin and whipping about his clothes.

"Oh, Peter..." The formless voice rattled from within as the whole world flipped and the grass slipped out from beneath him, sending Peter tumbling into the sky below. "I'm right here. I never left you."

The wind still battered at his clothes as he fell into the galaxies. Icy hands seemed to grab at his skin where they slipped underneath his jacket, tugging insistently at his arms and pawing at his neck. Peter began frantically swatting at the phantom hands but couldn't peel them away.

"You just... forgot me for a while." The voice was growing harder to hear under the roar of the wind and Peter's own terror pounding in his ears. "It's time to remember."

-x-

Peter woke still screaming and threw himself out of bed and into the doors to his room so violently that they burst open and slammed against the walls with a loud bang that echoed down the hallway as Peter stumbled into the far wall. There, he scrambled back to his feet and darted for the door that led outside.

The cold night air was enough to ground him in this reality. His frantic dash down the stairs to the gardens slowed to a jog then a walk before he finally collapsed to sit on the bottom step. Bright moonlight dyed everything in shades of silver and blue. It made the world around him feel much larger than he recalled it looking in daylight. Up above, the stars shone bright and clear, and devoid of the colors that distorted his dreams. Phantom touches ghosted across his skin, but this time obediently vanished when he rubbed them away.

He was sitting there counting his breaths and stilling the shivers rolling over his skin when the sound of the doors opening behind him made him turn his head. Drax and Gamora stood at the top of the stairs, the feint silhouette of Groot was in the doorway just behind them.

"Peter," Drax's voice rumbled. "What happened, are you alright?"

Drax's blades, which he had refused to surrender to the Nova Corps for the duration of their internment, glinted bright and cold in his hands.

"I'm alright," Peter answered. "It was just a dream."

"A dream?" Drax's shoulders slumped and his expression of concern melted into confusion and maybe a sliver of annoyance. It was hard for Peter to tell through the distance and distorting light.

Peter dropped his head back down and stared at the bandaged hands in his lap, suddenly wishing that Nebula were here so he could talk to her. She already knew about these dreams, and had seemed to believe that they were important as well, or at least not belittled him for believing they were more than his own imaginings.

"Yeah," he said, the fear draining from him at a surprising speed and just leaving exhaustion in his bones and the taste of embarrassment on the back of his tongue. "Just a dream. You can go back to sleep guys, I'm fine."

There was some shuffling and the sound of footsteps retreating back down the hallway followed by the door closing and Peter thought he had been left alone until a pair of boots began making their way down the steps. When they reached the bottom they stopped, and Drax slumped down to sit at Peter's side, resting his arms on his bent knees as he studied the open landscape.

"Nebula told me of these dreams of yours."

"What?"

"When I visited her before you awoke on the Nova Corp's ship. I believe she was worried about you. Or worried that these dreams would cause you to do something rash while she was interned in the glass prison," Drax said. "They seem to cause you great duress. I told her they were just dreams- you are mad, after all, what else can we expect? But she seemed to believe there may be some truth to your concerns. I would believe your madness had somehow affected her, if not for seeing what Cosmo is capable of with my own eyes. Perhaps... there is something to it."

"So you believe me?" Peter asked.

Drax made a small face at that. "Nebula is too sensible to be taken in by pity. If she believes that there could be a vein of truth in it, then she must have good reason."

Peter heaved a sigh out through his nose, but couldn't help the smile that was forming at the reminder that he wasn't as alone as he often felt. They weren't a family, but he had something almost like a team, and people who cared about him, however hard they pretended not to.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Drax asked, surprising Peter again.

"No," Peter said, scrubbing at his face with the heels of his palms. "All these dreams, it feels like they're all driving me to come here and use the Light. I think once the morning comes and Ego's 'lessons' start they'll end for good. I guess he's just getting in his last kicks while he can." Peter still wasn't sure if it really was Ego in these dreams, but who else could it be?

"He's-?

"He's not kicking me in my dreams," Peter interrupted through a yawn. "It's a metaphor."

Drax nodded to himself, like he had suspected as much.

"Do you believe what he told us, that he only intends to teach you to use the Light and defend yourself from Thanos?"

"Pfft, no. He's up to something. I know it. I just don't know what. Until we figure it out, though, it's probably better if we play nice and do what he sais. If he tries anything too crazy before then, the Nova Corps will step in but I really don't want to go down that rout. Once I learn to use the Light again, if I live that long, I'm pretty sure that I can hold my own against him at least long enough for the Nova Corps to save us before they blow him up. Heck, maybe I can learn to use his ship and we can just leave. "

"You should return to sleep," Drax told him. "You appear exhausted, and you will need to be rested for tomorrow, especially if he is as prone to deceit as you say, and our chances of survival rest on your ability to utilize this Light."

Peter flexed his fingers, the ones not broken and braced in place, and watched their shadows against the moonlight on the stonework below.

"What if I dream again?" he asked.

"They are just dreams," Drax informed him. "And you are used to being teased and bullied while you are awake, why let it bother you so much while you are asleep? Eventually you will wake again. And all your night screaming will feel silly."

"Do you ever have bad dreams?" Peter's whispered voice seemed so loud against the silence.

"Yes," Drax answered with a small shrug of his broad shoulders. The staples glinted and sparkled in the moonlight as they moved, and the scar across his shoulder flashed like lightning. "I often dream of my family's death. I suspect I will until I achieve my revenge. But they are only dreams. As soon as I open my eyes, they are no more or less real than when I closed them."

Peter turned back to his hands as he considered this unexpected bout of wisdom from the maniac. He wasn't sure how relevant it was to his current situation. Peter suspected these dreams of his weren't entirely unreal, not in the way Drax meant, but he let himself be soothed by his friend's support.

"When my daughter Kamaria was very little, she would sometimes be frightened by such dreams." Drax's voice broke the silence that had settled over them and startled Peter from his thoughts again.

"At first she would crawl into bed with Hovat and I for comfort. When she was a little older, I told her what I have told you, and she began to write herself messages before falling asleep. I would find them sometimes in the mornings, sitting by her bed..." A small smile warmed Drax's face as he got lost in his memories, making him look like a stranger to Peter. "Simple, nonsensical things, like 'Dinner was cooked late' or 'yesterday was rainy.' For a while, Hovat and I feared she was going mad, but when asked, she confessed she wrote them so that in the mornings she could read them and know she was awake, and anything before then could be forgotten. I did not understand it much, but it seemed to bring her peace. Some nights, I would help her choose the words she would find in the mornings while she prepared for bed."

Peter stared up at Drax through wide eyes. He looked so happy and at peace that Peter wanted to let this moment linger for as long as he could. Not for the first time, Peter wondered what kind of father Drax had been. The love and adoration that filled his face whenever he spoke of his missing family had Peter fairly convinced he must have been a good one. Perhaps there was some sort of irony here, that most of the Guardians were orphans, grown up without real parents, while Drax was a loving father who had lost his child. But Peter's mind was too tired to find the exact line, so they just sat in silence, without even the sounds of insects to keep them company on Ego's lifeless planet.

Eventually Drax stirred and insisted again that Peter should return to bed.

"Yeah, you're probably right." Peter yawned again as he rose and stretched his cramped limbs. "I think I'm good now. Thanks for staying and helping me clear out my head."

"You are welcome," Drax said, ignoring the metaphor and letting it pass unchallenged.

-x-

The rest of the night passed with no more dreams. Peter had considered Drax's advice, but settled for his more usual tactic of listening to his Walkman while he slept. The morning came quickly and with a light knocking at his door.

"Hhhhuuuuu?" Peter groaned, untangling himself from his headphone cords.

"Hello!" Mantis's bright cheery voice rang through the copper tinted door. "Ego has asked me to see that you are awake!"

Some mutinous part of him wanted to send her away and spend the day face-first in his pillow, but he probably didn't want to know what would happen if he backed out of his promise now. His friends were safe from the immediate threat of the justice of the Nova Corps, but now they were under the mercy of a much more powerful and much less empathetic creature.

"I'm up," Peter groaned as he kicked his sheets off and searched for his boots.

Mantis was waiting patiently for him in the hallway when he'd gathered himself enough to emerge.

"Hello!" she said again, her smile was bright but wavered with uncertainty, and her hands were clasped tightly over her chest. "Ego said, that as a mortal for now, you would need to eat to gain strength for your work. I can show you to where I have prepared a breakfast, and Ego will meet us there..." She tucked her head down as she trailed off.

"Breakfast sounds good," Peter admitted. "Let me just wake the others."

Mantis opened her mouth as if to protest as Peter turned towards Drax's door, but snapped her mouth back shut and ducked her head in wait. One by one, Peter roused the Guardians to the promise of food, then struck off down the hallway in search of whatever far-removed corner Nebula had holed herself off in. As he expected, the door to the furthest room on the right was the only one closed, but when he knocked no answer came.

"Nebula?" he called. "Come on, it's breakfast. If Ego's going to kill me in a couple hours, a last meal with all of my friends would be nice."

Still nothing.

"Nebula?" Peter pressed his ear against the door, not even the sounds of rustling. A wave of fear washed hot over his skin. What if something had happened to her? What if this was the start of something terrible Ego had planned for all of his friends? It was no secret he didn't like them or want them here.

"Nebula?" he tried again, pounding a little louder now. "I'm going to open the door, Okay? If you're in there, please don't break my nose."

The doors on Ego's planets didn't have locks, -probably because they would be completely pointless on a planet inhabited solely by an entity that controlled every atom and his personal assistant- so it opened with a light tug. Inside, the room was empty and untouched. The blankets on the bed were still folded and tucked around the edges. Peter took a quick lap around the sparsely decorated room and poked his head out the window, but found no evidence of someone having stayed the night here.

"Hey guys?" Peter called ahead of himself as he jogged back down towards the others and tried to keep the rising panic in check. "Has anyone seen Nebula? I can't find her."

"The famously grumpy one?" Mantis asked. "She has already eaten. I am sorry, is it customary to wait where you are from?"

"She already ate? Where is she now?"

"I do not know." Mantis shrugged her shoulders tightly. Her voice was beginning to grow small again and she was curling in on herself as though she expected Peter to be angry. "You could ask Ego when you see him. He knows where everything is on this planet."

"But she's okay?" Peter asked. "She was okay when you saw her?" Maybe he was a bit jumpy, but he had a bad track record of keeping his people alive here, and trusted his father less than he would a rabid orlani. "Her room didn't even look touched. Why would she just wander off like that?"

Drax let out a loud snort. "That sounds exactly like something she would do," he said, not looking remotely concerned himself. "She has been trapped in a box with her sister for cycles. Even the Milano allowed for some measure of privacy. Let her enjoy some solitude."

Gamora gave the ex-gladiator an annoyed look from the corner of her eyes, but voiced no protest outright. There wasn't anything she could say to contradict him.

"I am Groot." Groot offered his support to Drax's point as well.

Peter forced himself to drop the issue for now and Mantis quickly and meekly ushered them out the doors and back down the path to the main building.

"So tell us, strange insect lady," Drax said as they strolled through the silent gardens. "How long have you been living here as Peter's father's pet?"

"Pet?" Mantis asked, turning her huge eyes up in curiosity.

"Yes. You are a strange pet. Most pets are chosen for their companionship or beauty, yet Ego clearly has no need for companionship, and you are hideous."

"Dude!" Peter snapped.

Even Gamora had turned to give Drax a strange look at his declaration.

"I am hideous?" Mantis asked again, more like she was feeling out the word than concerned by the revelation in any way.

"You are disgusting to look upon." Drax nodded.

"Enough," Gamora spoke up sharply, then, more softly she added, "You are not hideous."

Mantis turned her eyes on Gamora, still perplexed by what was going on.

"Why do you think she's hideous, Drax?" Peter's curiosity was warring with his annoyance. His Drax had felt much the same way, though the friendship between Drax and Mantis had never suffered for his opinion on her looks, and Peter had always just chalked it up as one of his many eccentricities.

"Look at her!" Drax turned to walk sideways so he could wave at all of Mantis with both hands. "She is like a skinned Plasar beast. She has no muscle, no scars, no evidence of having ever lived. On my planet, this is considered the mark of the lazy and cowardly. Even invalids and the crippled earn their marks through their own deeds and personal battles. Even you and Gamora bear scars from your time. To look upon her disturbs me."

While he spoke, Mantis held up her own hands to inspect them, turning them over several times, as though in search of some imperfection that would prove his words a lie. When she found none, she pursed her lips into a worried frown and traced one delicate hand over the perfectly smooth and unmarred skin of her face.

"I have lived," she said softly, but she sounded uncertain. "I have lived and breathed a very long time, and I have visited many countless planets, and seen many wonderful things with Ego."

"But were you a part of them?" Drax asked. "Or did you simply trail after Ego and watch from afar like a well-behaved pet?"

Mantis didn't answer, swallowing thickly and tucking her hands against her collarbone while she stared ahead at nothing through wide shimmering eyes.

-x-

Breakfast turned out to be pleasant enough, if Peter could forget the upcoming session with his father which was looming like a great tidal wave over his back as he ate. Mantis had led them to an airy greenhouse-like room. Vibrant green and rustic red vines crept along the glass walls and filtered the sunlight into a pleasant verdant shade. A long table sat in the center, set with a respectable breakfast display. Most of what was present was made from things obviously designed to store for extended periods of time, but there was enough variety to keep it interesting.

"How long have you lived on this planet?" Gamora asked while she inspected the food on her plate. "You never answered that part."

Mantis seemed to have shaken off the effects of their earlier conversation in favor of enjoying having company at breakfast.

"I do not know exactly," she answered with a soft tilt of her head. "I have never really needed to keep track of time here."

"Does this planet have seasons?" Drax asked, scarfing down his own food with no reserve.

"Everything here is as Ego wants it. He likes it to remain consistent, but sometimes, if he is very bored, or upset, he can change the weather or length of the day."

"Can he make a tornado?" Drax asked, finally pausing in his eating.

Mantis nodded. "He controls everything here," she repeated.

The conversation continued on like that for a while, with Drax asking about all manner of weather phenomena and Mantis nodding along. Occasionally she would offer some short story about a time she had seen or experienced such weather, either on Ego's planet, or on another world they had visited. Sometimes Drax would offer his own experiences in return. Peter mostly picked at his own plate and translated the occasional question or comment from Groot.

He'd managed to finish off about half of his plate before he realized everything had fallen silent and looked up to find Mantis staring at him expectantly. She must have asked him something and he'd missed it.

"What?" he asked, forcing himself to pay attention again.

"Can you... really use the Light?" Mantis asked.

"Yeah. Sort of. I used it before, at least."

"Oh." Mantis pressed her lips into a thin line. She slowly lowered her utensils, settling them on her plate with a little clink, then her hands slipped down onto her lap where she fiddled restlessly with one of her sleeves. "Do you..." She gulped, lowering her voice into the barest whisper and glancing around with wide darting eyes like she expecting Ego to appear at any second. "Do you know-"

"I know about the Expansion," Peter cut her off before she had to say it out loud. She had betrayed Ego to save him and his friends once. He appreciated that she was willing to do it again, but wouldn't make her this time around, not when they were going to be trapped here with the egomaniac for the foreseeable future. "And about my... about Ego's other children."

"And yet, you still came?" Underneath the question, Peter thought he saw a spark of fear again. Maybe she was worried that Peter was just like Ego.

"I didn't have a choice."

"Oh, Peter," a cold voice rang out from just behind him. "There's no need to be such a martyr about it."

Peter spun in his chair to find his father standing in the doorway, haloed in the bright morning light from outside.

"Well, are you ready?"

End

Chapter 10 Preview: "...Peter narrowed his eyes at the Celestial before him.

"You weren't feeling this patient the last time we met. Why the sudden Ghandi act?"

The wrinkles on Ego's forehead deepened at Peter's reference, but after a moment he must have decided he simply didn't care and brushed it off.

"Do you know what happens to a Celestial when they die?" Ego asked..."

.

The good reason, because it's much more interesting; I have officially begun writing the Earth book. (yay!) It'll still be a little while before it's up. I'm hoping to have a few chapters done before I begin uploading them, and have a few more things I need to make sure fit together. Since I'll be trying to organize so many characters into a limited time frame I'm trying out working off of an outline for that book. It will begin a little before this one, (about a year) and encompass a larger time frame. It will also follow different character sets, rather than one individual character like Astronautical and Luciferous. Hopefully I can do all of the lead characters justice.

Updates for Luciferous might be a little slower as I work on the other book. I can only get so much writing done in one week! This week between the two stories I'd written about 9k by Wednesday which is a lot for me. Eventually I might begin updating on a rotating schedule, but that's a 'we'll see' right now.

It is very hard to make Rocket cooperate. He will be back quickly this time, and then we get to begin his main arc. I also might have an aside centered around what Rocket and Nebula are up to during their time apart here, but it'll depend on how much free time I have and how inspired I get. The Guardians need to hurry up and get some more bonding experiences done so I can stop having to scheme so hard to keep them together.

For some reason, I had it in my brain that Mantis had said that Ego found her after her planet had been destroyed, and only realized after writing that part when I caught that scene while checking something else that she said 'Ego found me orphaned on my home planet' and was like 'Oops! That could really mean anything, couldn't it?' I mean, she can't be the only orphan or sob story he ever met during his travels, so why did he take her? Did Ego adopt her because during his visit to her planet he discovered what her people were capable of and that she would be useful? Was she alone among the wreckage, the last of her kind, and orphaned in a way that reminded him painfully of his own existence? Did he pity her and take her with the intention of dumping her off on the next planet and then end up discovering her usefulness later on? Has he done this before? Are some of those skeletons in the caves below not his own children(Doubt this one, but made me wonder)? I could go on chasing theories forever. I almost went back and changed it but I was tired and it was already a part of the plot, so ultimately I decided it didn't matter, edited it a bit and moved on. It's easy enough to consider that how he found her in this universe may be different than the last.

For anyone wondering, Ego's and Cosmo's memories of the old universe began/came back at the same time Peter's did. Everything else Ego did in this universe was with no knowledge yet of what had conspired in the other. This will be mentioned in the next chapter, but it's not really a spoiler. I just didn't get around to mentioning it in this one. The exact mechanics might come up later on, but I might wait until the Earth book connects in and I have more scientists to work with.

I waffled forever on whether or not to remove the part about Drax's daughter. I worry it's too clunky or I'm taking too many liberties with the characters and going to bore you all, but I have some tentative plans to bring it full circle later on and have it come up again, so I ultimately decided to leave it. It's just based off of one of my own coping mechanisms for haunting dreams, especially if I need to get sleep for the next day and can't just spend the night hiding from them with the T.V. on. I have nightmares a lot, and sometimes I think I've woken up, but it's just the next dream. I wake up and die over and over until when I finally wake up I'm not quite sure if it's really over or not(It's like Happy Death Day but much less entertaining.). When this happens, I log onto one of my media accounts and make some sort of vague or nonsensical post or send myself a text, so later I can check if it's still there and know whether or not I was really awake that time. It ultimately does nothing, but it feels like you're doing something, and can be comforting when you wake up for real and read it and know you got free that time, and you're done now.

Anyways, sorry for rambling.

This is where the story and universe really start to become mine and I'm really nervous, but thank you for reading and being a part of this with me!

~OMaM 3