@deathlyskilled liked for a starter
it’s easy to have a realization; those things have a tendency to smack you in the face and knock you on your ass before you even know what’s happening. (believe him, he’s been knocked around by enough big realizations in his life to speak confidently from experience.) “hey, you flarked up again” isn’t exactly nice to be hit with, but at the same time, it just — hits.
being the bigger man and doing something about it is a lot harder.
because that drive doesn’t sit ready in his arsenal. he’s not richie, who’d been effortlessly good — too good for this das’t universe. no, when things get difficult, he turns and wanders the other way, from his planet, from the name he’s been given, from the people he’s dragged down with him. turns and wanders the other way, leaving a mess behind him. (some guardian of the galaxy he is.)
but he has to try. he has to, because if he doesn’t, all of this will have been for nothing.
so, with the yelling match with rocket already done, he decides to take a deep breath and start with the hardest place: gamora.
the ship’s engines are still busted, but comms are working. he sits in the pilot's seat idly fiddling with controls for five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes, then stares into space for another fifteen before, finally — patching a call through.
maybe she'll answer him, maybe she won't. (likely, he thinks, won't.) but he just has to take this one step at the time, right?