He’s been looking for months and has come back empty handed after chasing every lead he was given. If you told a young Peter Quill that he’d find love one day to only have it ripped from him, just like his mother was ripped from him as a boy, he would have told you that love is a load of bullshit and that he doesn’t need it to be happy. If you told Peter Quill in 2013 that he only had one year left feeling unloved and unwanted he would tell you that you’re full of shit and that sex was better than any emotional connection you could have with another person because sex always gave you pleasure and an emotional connection only ever ended in heartbreak.
Now it’s been 10 years and Peter Quill will tell you that he was wrong; love filled every void he’s ever had. No amount of sex can amount to the euphoric feeling of having a person who loved you unconditionally and understood everything about you, even the most minuscule and unimportant parts of you. To have a person who thought the universe of you, who fought alongside you, who sat for hours and let you show them your favorite Terran songs and never once complained when you sang along to each song. To have a person who let you cry on their shoulder as you shared your favorite memories from your childhood on Earth. To have a person who saw you for you and loved you. That feeling is what brought Peter to this very moment; standing in front the love his life begging for her to try to imagine what they had together in front of a random hotel building on a planet he’s never heard of before today.
“Gamora...” his breathless voice rang out, “Please, I’ve been searching for you. Please don’t run anymore.” He held his hands up trying to show her that he means no harm.
“Why do you keep following me? I could kill you.” She took a step towards him, godslayer in hand. As she walked closer to him, she looked into his eyes and saw something she’s never seen before; care.
“I know you could, but you won’t. I know Nebula told you about us, the family we created with the rest of the Guardians. I know she told you about how happy you were with us: with me.” He spoke so gently it was almost as if he was speaking to a wounded animal.
Her eyes unlocked from his as her gaze moved to circle around him. So what if Nebula told her of the life she supposedly had with them. She wasn’t that person. She didn’t save the galaxy alongside them. She was nothing but the heartless assassin she was raised to be, right? She doesn’t deserve the life Nebula told her about, she deserved nothing but misery and pain, that’s why she left after they defeated Thanos.
“I don’t care about what Nebula told me. I’m not your friend and I most certainly am NOT your girlfriend. Why don’t you do us both a favor and move on and leave me alone. I want nothing to do with your “family” I am quite happy by myself; I always have been and I always will be.” She bit out, the anger she felt earlier was coming back with a vengeance.
“That’s not true! I know you Gamora. I know that you’re ticklish, especially on your neck,” her head cocked to the side as he spoke, “I know that you count the number of times you feel happy in a day because you want to beat that number the next day. I know that you count your steps in your head when you walk. I know you hate braiding your hair because I reminds you of the training and combat you were forced to learn by Thanos. I know that when you’re having a rough day you suck your thumb at night to fall asleep while someone is petting your hair because it reminds you of your mom. I know that when you say you love someone more than anything you truly mean it because that’s what your parents said to each other. I know all of these things because I know you!”
His shoulders dropped as all the tension left his body. His watery eyes searched the gentle details of her face: her jaw remained locked and her back was a stiff as a board as the information soaked into her brain. After a few seconds her body released the tension it was desperately holding on to; she quickly retracted godslayer and put it back in her waistband. Peter took that as a green-light to continue speaking.
“You don’t know me, but I know you, okay? I know you... and sometimes I wish I didn’t because then maybe I wouldn’t be so miserable right now. Maybe if I never knew you then I wouldn’t know what it felt like to have hope and what it felt like to be loved, and valued, and cherished, and feel like I was never going to be alone again. Maybe I wouldn’t know what it felt like to matter to someone as much as they matter to me. Maybe if I never knew you, I wouldn’t know what it feels like to have my heart pieced back together only to be shattered a million times worse than before... but despite all of that, I wish to know you even more than I do now. I wish for you to come back to me; to love me again, to miss me, to feel even an ounce of what I feel for you right now. I wish for the life we imagined together before all this shit happened. I wish for us, okay? I can’t leave you alone because I can’t walk around knowing that the woman that I love doesn’t know that I know her and that I love her... more than anything.” A stray tear gently rolled down his red cheek.
Gamora didn’t know why but she had the urge to wipe it away. She took a few steps closer to him and brought her hand to cradle his face as her thumb slowly wiped the tear from his cheek. Peter closed his eyes and leaned his face into her hand as he took a deep breath in; inhaling the familiar scent he has missed. Gamora kept her hand on his face as she looked back at Peter with soft eyes.
“Peter, I can’t be who you want me to be. I’m not that person you love. She’s gone and you may never get her back and for that I am truly sorry, but you have to move on. Do it for the both of us. She— I, would want you to move on. If I really loved you as much as you say then this isn't what I would have wanted you to do; I would have wanted you to let me go. I’m sorry, I really am, but I can’t love. I don’t deserve it,” Her thumb wiped the few tears that escaped Quill’s eyes as she spoke before finally removing her hand from his face while taking a step to turn around and leave him.
“You do deserve it; you deserve all the love in the universe.” Peter grabbed her hand and cradled it in his own as he stopped her movements. “You’re the only good thing in this godforsaken universe. You don’t think so right now, but I'll show you again. I’ll show you the life we lived. I’ll show you the life you deserve, the love you deserve. Please just come with me; come back to us. Give me a chance, give us a chance to create the life we already planned,” he begged.
“I’m sorry Peter, but I can’t.” She took her hand back and took a few steps away from him. “Take care of yourself, okay? Tell Nebula that I'll contact her if I need anything.” She whispered as she turned around and left him staring at her back with tears dripping down his face as she walked back into the building; shattering his heart a million more times with each step she took.