Proximity sensors start blaring but Rich finally stops the cruiser and sits there, staring ahead at the great disc of inky black. He's just shy of the event horizon, where gravity will be too strong for the ship's thrusters to counter; they're working at close to full strength right now, just keeping the ship stationary.
It's the closest someone can get to the purest oblivion possible, and a part of him wants that oblivion so badly. A part of him needs it, like he's some kind of addict that will only be happy if he gets one last hit of the intoxicating darkness he'd found after each death.
After a moment of staring, he has something close to a child-like tantrum, pounding his fist against the control panel of the cruiser, thrashing his limbs, needing to hit something, anything, as if that will somehow exorcise the monsters and the conflict inside him. The thrashing accidentally turns the main lights off and the emergency lights turn on, leaving him bathed in a red glow. Then he slams his head against the wheel, wrapping his arm and tentacle around it, as he tries to make a choice.
Grif is one person too many, with too much hurt in his voice. He has two friends -- no, brothers, just like Bobby -- that will have to watch yet another member of their family die, two friends that'd lay down in traffic for him, that have bled for him in the past. Wash and Grif are yelling despite only having known him for about a year. And Sam...Sam is begging. Rich thinks back to the fight against the Lanterns, when he'd held Sam in his arms, waiting for the color to come back to his face after the blue light chased away the red and had replaced his heart. He'd been so afraid that it wouldn't be enough.
He'd begged then, the silent, pleading, internal litany of a parent or a brother holding a fragile, small body in their arms.
Please God, don't take him, let him be okay, please, if you have to take someone, take me, please take me.
He made Sam beg now, too, and he hates himself for it.
It all finally gets through to him. The love and fear and protective anger.
And the faith.
"We deserve better than this, because you are better than this."
They have faith in him. And the thing is, even if he can't always believe in himself, can't see his own worth, he has faith in them, too. He does have fuckup insurance. He has the kind of fuckup insurance that'd rather die than disappoint him.
"Sorry. But I can't let you down."
He's been used to zipping from one problem to the next for years that have felt even longer than they were, years that have made him feel decades older than he is. In the Cancerverse, that constant state of movement had been eternal as he'd fled from one threat to another, trying to find safety in a world where there was none.
But even before that, he'd been a human rocket, never stopping, carrying the weight of the universe on his own, hoping his forward momentum was strong enough to drag it along with him before it weighed him down so much that he stopped for good. He hadn't been allowed to be anything else. The universe needed him to be that way, because even with friends like Drax and Gamora and Starlord, at the end of the day, it was always him facing the worst of it alone, with everyone else helpless on the sidelines.
It was his job. It was his job to fight and bleed and cry and suffer because sometimes no one else could do that job, not the way it needed to be done.
It finally sinks in that it doesn't have to be that way here. He's the one forcing them on the sidelines this time, instead of supervillains, fate, or circumstance. He gets to have a choice now whether he suffers alone under the weight of galaxies, under the weight of spiraling arms shimmering with life, or whether he lets someone else help shoulder that burden.
He doesn't have to keep everyone else safe. Someone else can keep him safe in a way no one has since the war. For once.
Finally.
He doesn't look up. The words are muffled.
"Are you sure there's something you can actually do? Brainiac, tell me you're sure."
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It's the closest someone can get to the purest oblivion possible, and a part of him wants that oblivion so badly. A part of him needs it, like he's some kind of addict that will only be happy if he gets one last hit of the intoxicating darkness he'd found after each death.
After a moment of staring, he has something close to a child-like tantrum, pounding his fist against the control panel of the cruiser, thrashing his limbs, needing to hit something, anything, as if that will somehow exorcise the monsters and the conflict inside him. The thrashing accidentally turns the main lights off and the emergency lights turn on, leaving him bathed in a red glow. Then he slams his head against the wheel, wrapping his arm and tentacle around it, as he tries to make a choice.
Grif is one person too many, with too much hurt in his voice. He has two friends -- no, brothers, just like Bobby -- that will have to watch yet another member of their family die, two friends that'd lay down in traffic for him, that have bled for him in the past. Wash and Grif are yelling despite only having known him for about a year. And Sam...Sam is begging. Rich thinks back to the fight against the Lanterns, when he'd held Sam in his arms, waiting for the color to come back to his face after the blue light chased away the red and had replaced his heart. He'd been so afraid that it wouldn't be enough.
He'd begged then, the silent, pleading, internal litany of a parent or a brother holding a fragile, small body in their arms.
Please God, don't take him, let him be okay, please, if you have to take someone, take me, please take me.
He made Sam beg now, too, and he hates himself for it.
It all finally gets through to him. The love and fear and protective anger.
And the faith.
"We deserve better than this, because you are better than this."
They have faith in him. And the thing is, even if he can't always believe in himself, can't see his own worth, he has faith in them, too. He does have fuckup insurance. He has the kind of fuckup insurance that'd rather die than disappoint him.
"Sorry. But I can't let you down."
He's been used to zipping from one problem to the next for years that have felt even longer than they were, years that have made him feel decades older than he is. In the Cancerverse, that constant state of movement had been eternal as he'd fled from one threat to another, trying to find safety in a world where there was none.
But even before that, he'd been a human rocket, never stopping, carrying the weight of the universe on his own, hoping his forward momentum was strong enough to drag it along with him before it weighed him down so much that he stopped for good. He hadn't been allowed to be anything else. The universe needed him to be that way, because even with friends like Drax and Gamora and Starlord, at the end of the day, it was always him facing the worst of it alone, with everyone else helpless on the sidelines.
It was his job. It was his job to fight and bleed and cry and suffer because sometimes no one else could do that job, not the way it needed to be done.
It finally sinks in that it doesn't have to be that way here. He's the one forcing them on the sidelines this time, instead of supervillains, fate, or circumstance. He gets to have a choice now whether he suffers alone under the weight of galaxies, under the weight of spiraling arms shimmering with life, or whether he lets someone else help shoulder that burden.
He doesn't have to keep everyone else safe. Someone else can keep him safe in a way no one has since the war. For once.
Finally.
He doesn't look up. The words are muffled.
"Are you sure there's something you can actually do? Brainiac, tell me you're sure."