The Girl Who Held the Universe in her Hands | marvel [1] ✔

NINE

CHAPTER NINE
' CARELESS . '

Ash released a long breath, letting her head move backwards to rest against the tree at which she leant. She brought up her hands to massage her forehead, a wince forming under her palms before she let one drop and used the other to block out the sun.

Her brain was throbbing - the way it used to when Maw would smack her with something, using his telekinesis, during their fights.

Knees bending to her chest, Ash's eyes flickered to where Ego and Peter stood together. Their voices echoed through the area, and even from her distance, she could see the glare on her brother's face.

"Peter-" Ego tried.

"-Listen. I'd love to believe all of this, I really would - but you left the most wonderful woman ever to die alone!"

Ego's voice cracked, and Ash's eyebrows raised slightly. "I didn't want to leave your mother, Peter, but if I don't return regularly to this planet, and the light within, this form will wither and perish-"

"So why didn't you come back? Why'd you send Yondu, a criminal of all people, to fetch me?"

"I loved your mother, Peter!" Ego's voice rose to a shout. "I couldn't stand to set foot on an earth where she wasn't living! You can't imagine what that's like!"

"I know exactly what that's like! I had to watch her die!"

A small flinch shot through Ash's body, and tears immediately welled in her eyes. The day her mother died was foggy in her mind. Maybe because it was so long ago, or she tried to forget it. Although she never saw Thanos kill her, the scream that echoed through her mind whenever she wasn't focusing would make her heart coil into a tight ball. It was weird because, really, Ash couldn't remember how her mother looked. No eye or hair colour, no smile or voice. Sometimes it would come to her in her dreams, but when she would try to recall it later, it resulted in something for which she could only ever reach.

Her mother was like a ghost in her mind, but the memory of her death would throw her off course.

Ego stopped, and he placed his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Over the millions and millions of years of my existence, I have made many mistakes, Peter, but you're not one of them. Please give me the chance to be the father she would want me to be. There are so many things I need to teach you. This planet and the light within... they are a part of you."

"What do you mean?"

Ego took Peter's hands in his own, gently putting them in the correct position. "Give me your hands, son. Here. Hold them like that."

Ash found herself copying him.

Ego stepped back, holding his hands in the same way. "Now close your eyes and concentrate. Take your brain to the centre of the planet." Peter held his hand out, and a white light emanated from it. "Yes! Yes!"

She looked down at her hands but found the black mist there. Shaking her head, Ash let it disappear.

"Whoa." The light disappeared as quickly as it came.

"Yes, yes - it's okay. Just relax. Concentrate. You can do it. Bring it back."

Peter concentrated, and the light, once again, burst up from the palms of his hands.

"Yes, yes, now - shape it-" Ego showed him, pulling in the molecules around him so that the light formed into a ball.

As Ash watched, she felt sick, and she stood. Moving through the grass, she stopped when she felt something spark within her, and she looked at her hands. They glowed, the same as Peter's, though dark and wild. She jerked her hands, the light disappeared, and she shook her head.