Guardians Of The Galaxy One Shots

We Are the Universe

Title: We Are the Universe
Author: GloriousBlackout
Rating: General Audiences
Archive Warning: Major Character Death
Category: Gen
Fandoms: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Characters: Ego the Living Planet, Peter Quill, Meredith Quill (mentioned)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ego's A+ Parenting, Hurt Peter Quill
Summary: The Expansion goes ahead with the unwilling help of Peter, and Ego waits millions of years for the satisfaction he's always craved to sink in. It never does.

<3

It takes thousands of years for the Expansion to become anything other than a grey mass where planets once stood.

Ego doesn't mind. It's worth the wait when he sets out onto one of his many worlds, feels the roots growing in fertile soil and sees green and red petals emerging from the earth. He caresses a small leaf in his hands and closes his eyes, feeling the thrum of his and Peter's souls pulsing beneath the planet's crust. If he reaches out further, he can hear that beating heart echo throughout the universe; the fruits of his labour filling him with a warmth and satisfaction he has craved for as long as he can remember.

It is a shame the boy cannot be here to see these glimpses of life first-hand. Peter remains strung up like a rag-doll after all these years, despite Ego's best efforts to convince him to partake in the Expansion voluntarily.

There's nothing he can do about that, though. The boy will not help him. Even now, rage and hatred burns behind green eyes on behalf of the friends he lost, but Ego's influence on the universe cannot be maintained alone. He needs Peter - needs the power that flows within him - and he can't afford to be picky over the means through which he acquires that power.

Ego has given Peter so many chances to make things easier. He has offered time and time again to let him down from the tendril and train him to use his power properly, but though the boy says not a word, his rejection burns like fire. Any attempts to make being strung up more bearable have similarly failed; Ego has lost count of the times he's lulled Peter into the peace that comes with seeing eternity, only for the stars in his eyes to stubbornly be replaced with Meredith's green.

"So be it," he growls every time, before leaving Peter to be drained for a further hundred years. If he's feeling kind, he'll take a moment to rest a hand upon his son's face and wipe a stray tear from his cheek before walking away.

There's a nagging sensation in his chest every time he abandons his son to wander among the stars. A loneliness he had hoped would vanish upon the discovery of a child who shared his celestial blood.

It is no matter. So long as the Expansion's completion awaits, he will always have meaning to satisfy him.

Even if the company of another cannot.

*

The Expansion, once complete, is truly as beautiful as he could have hoped.

Ego walks side-by-side with his son across a planet littered with crimson leaves, while the trickling of streams flowing into shimmering pools fills the air. There is no other sound – no unworthy life-forms to disturb the peace – and he smiles as he takes in the sights and fresh smells, feeling the planet's core beating beneath his feet. There are so many worlds like this one now, his influence stretching further than he could ever have imagined, and Ego turns to Peter in the hope that he will show even a fraction of the pride that now flows through himself.

He doesn't.

The boy looks empty, with his green eyes focused only on the leaves beneath his feet and his brow furrowed with pain he should have gotten over millennia ago. It's starting to become irritating, how he'll refuse to say a word and hide behind blank stares even when presented with everything they've achieved together, and Ego's starting to wonder if the boy prefers being drained like a battery over his freedom.