He shifts his body in the darkness. There is a thrum in him, POWER unwarranted, surging and begging beyond his natural skill, his instincts, all that he was already given. His own speed had paled in comparison to the magnificence of the stone, the terror that had torn through his flesh from the inside out to crack him as stone struck by tools. Teeth click and grind at the memories. His eyes feel hot as they flare, purple shining bright and furious to have let someone live –
It is alive, Pietro thinks. Alive and hungry, God help us all.
But it will survive for now without him. He is too focused, too powerful in his will. The hunger in his own bones will be ignored for as long as his heart still beats – as long as his hand can rest on the wall, he can watch the master that took him under ancient law and hear his words clearly. The anger. The RAGE, even with a half broken compliment buried within them, Pietro feels nothing other than his fury, and responds in kind.
“It will not.” He says, and steps forward. “The vipers have been pulled from our ranks. They attempted to stop us, destroy us, and they failed. If we are beaten and bruised, so too are they.”
Gamora had stared at him with such a broken sorrow, with her lips parted and blood oozing in green from between them. It had been a fight to meet that gaze without growling, without knocking her down and SLITTING HER THROAT as she deserved. Thanos be damned. There was madness and there was reason – his master, his teacher stood on the proper side of that rope.
“It is not your way, because you have no tried it. To dwell is to contemplate what might have gone wrong. But to speak – it is fresh air on a wound that is stagnant. Our soldiers are expected to speak of their failures before allowed back on the field of battle. I am. Aware it is not the same. But perhaps it could help, RONAN.” And the word, the name is off of his tongue because he can catch it, titles tossed aside and leaving a shiver to run down his spine. Were he to be killed for it –
“If you are willing to try.”
His fury beats hard and heavy within his aching chest, singular war drum fit to burst against cracked bone and bruised membrane. And matched too, by the boy ( near enough a man, a warrior soon in his own right ) sitting across from him. Lack of title is noted, and where once it might be met with irritation he feels his chin tip forward in interest only. Not weakened then by the stone. No. STRENGTHENED. His lips twitched in the barest smile, if a smile it could be called.
“Very well,” he answered, voice booming harshly, fingers curling into a tight fist that rested on the table between them. Through the smooth orbit of a cracked planet he watched the boy ( his son ), watched the play of emotion on his face.
“I made an error. ME. At the moment when I should have had everything that I have been working towards. I was distracted by a FOOL.” Voice builds with each word, until he is near shouting, a voice that brings grown Kree to their knees, that made warriors quake. His eyes flash, obsidian teeth gleaming in the low light.
“This was my mistake. And it nearly cost me everything.”