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Aug. 24th, 2011 11:02 pmName: Caitlin
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Character Name: Peter Quill
Series: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Timeline: Post- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Canon Resource Link: @ MCU Wiki
Character History: Peter Jason Quill was born on Earth (specifically, Missouri) in 1980 to Meredith Quill and a father he would later identify as a Celesial named Ego. If you think that sentence seems weird, it honestly only scratches the surface of just how weird this guy's life is. But for most of his early childhood, things weren't terribly out of the ordinary. He grew up with his mother, whom he loved dearly, and shared her love of music. She gave him a Sony Walkman music player, as well as a mixtape comprised of some of her favorite songs, and those two things remained valuable possessions to Peter well into adulthood. He longed to meet his absent father, to be able to have that presence in his life just like the other kids; to fill that void for himself, Peter would often carry a picture of singer and actor David Hasselhoff around with him in his pocket, and when asked by said other kids, would tell them that he was his father, but just wasn't around due to commitments touring with his band or shooting Knight Rider. Those other kids, though, could be definite jerks, and he had no problem getting into fights with them if they did something he perceived as unjust, such as squashing a frog that "hadn't done anything wrong" with a stick.
At some unknown point in time, Meredith was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and Peter's world as he knew it was turned upside down. Like any young child trying to come to terms with their beloved parent's imminent death, Peter struggled a great deal during the worst of his mother's illness. In 1988, that battle came to an end. Just before she died, Meredith asked Peter to take her hand, which he couldn't bring himself to do; this is something he would spend the better part of the next two and a half decades regretting. After being left alone in the hallway outside of his mother's hospital room by his grandfather, a distraught Peter ran and eventually made it out the back door. There, on the lawn, he was picked up by a spaceship, belonging to Yondu Udonta and his faction of Ravagers (essentially: space pirates).
Canon doesn't provide us with many details regarding the next twenty-six years, but there are bits and pieces of information that we can fill in from context clues. Instead of delivering Peter to his father like he was hired to, Yondu kept Peter on his ship, and raised him among the Ravagers. Yondu, who insisted he allowed Peter to stay because he was a "skinny kid who could fit into places adults couldn't," taught Peter how to fight, how to be a thief, and, most importantly, how to survive. It wasn't an easy life; Yondu wasn't exactly the most overtly loving guardian, often threatening that the others on the ship wanted to eat Peter. There was, however, a degree of fondness between the two, and over the years, they developed a complicated surrogate father-son relationship. As an adult, Peter became a petty criminal, sometimes working with the Ravagers and sometimes on his own, as a self-proclaimed "legendary outlaw" going by the name "Star-Lord" (a nickname that had once come from his mother).
Sometime in 2014, Peter saw his opportunity to get away from Yondu and the Ravagers, and strike out on his own once and for all. It was all very rebellious 34-year-old teenager of him. Anyway, when Yondu got a job from the Broker, a merchant from Xandar, to steal a mysterious Orb from the abandoned planet Morag, Peter flew there in his personal M-ship, the Milano, without telling Yondu, intending to steal the Orb and keep its profits for himself. On Morag, he found the Orb unprotected inside a temple vault. Just as he was about to walk away with it, he was cornered by Korath the Pursuer, a Kree mercenary working for the militaristic Ronan the Accuser, and his Sakaaran sidekicks. Peter claimed to be just be a junker, but Korath didn't believe him, noting that he was clearly part of the Ravagers, based on his clothes being a very unsubtle indicator of that. He distracted Korath and his men to get away with the Orb, who then chased him all the way back to the Milano. As he was catching his breath from the narrow escape, he was startled by the presence of a woman named Bereet, who he had forgotten was on his ship when he'd set off for Morag.
Which, you know. Way to go, Peter. Good job.
While traveling through space, Bereet answered a call from Yondu, which Peter had tried to avoid. Angry, Yondu told Peter that he and the other Ravagers had arrived on Morag, where there was now neither an Orb nor Peter. In response, Peter refused to tell Yondu where he was, where he was going, and what his plans were. Yondu threatened Peter before the latter hung up, and then subsequently put a bounty on his head for 40,000 units.
#justravagerdadthings
Peter then arrived on Xandar to sell the Orb to the Broker. The deal seemed to almost be sealed, until Peter opened his big mouth and mentioned that he'd crossed paths with some guys working for Ronan while trying to obtain the Orb, and then things went sour. The Broker stated that he would not take the Orb if Ronan was involved, given that Ronan was a fanatical maniac who wanted to see the destruction of Xandar, and literally pushed Peter out of the door of his shop. Once outside, he first encountered Gamora, an "adopted daughter" of the warlord Thanos and associate of Ronan, who had, unbeknownst to Peter, tracked him down because she had plans of her own for the Orb. Peter, who was clearly having an "oh no, she's hot" moment, completely changed his tone, switching from outrage at the Broker to attempts at being a smooth, charming flirt. Gamora took advantage of his distraction and attacked him, swiping the Orb from his hands in the process. He used one of his gadgets to trip her, and a scuffle for possession of the Orb ensued. Just as she overpowered him and was about to kill him, they were attacked by Rocket and Groot, who were after the bounty on Peter's head. The group caused a massive public disturbance, and were eventually arrested by the Nova Corps.
Peter and the others were transported to the Kyln, a maximum security interstellar prison, to serve their sentences. They continued to squabble until they were taken for processing, but in the process, Gamora revealed that she wasn't trying to bring the Orb back to Ronan, but was rather planning on betraying him with an agreement to sell it to a third party. As they passed some of the guards, Peter noticed that one of them had his Walkman in hand; he slid in through the door and demanded it back, which earned him a tasing. After the group stepped into the prison, one of the prisoners threatened to start a fight with Peter, but he was saved by Groot, who attacked the prisoner; Rocket declared that Peter was theirs, and Peter did not argue, agreeing that he was with them. That night, Peter woke to find that a group of prisoners were dragging Gamora from her cell with intent to kill her, because of her connection to Ronan and Thanos. Much to Rocket's dismay, Peter followed and watched from behind a doorway. Eventually, when Drax the Destroyer pinned Gamora to the wall and tried to kill her, Peter emerged to talk the other man out of what he planned to do. After a few tense minutes, Peter succeeded, and Gamora's life was spared. He claimed that he "couldn't care less" whether she lived or died (why the fuck you lyin), but knew that she could lead him to her buyer. In response, Gamora told Peter and Rocket that her buyer had originally agreed to sell the Orb for four billion units, and that if they made it out of the Kyln together, they could split the profit between them.
The next day, Rocket came up with a plan to break them out of the prison, which required everyone to work as a team to gather the components that Rocket would need to hack into the watchtower. Groot took it upon himself to do the last step first, which sent the whole prison into chaos. As part of the plan, Rocket had assigned Peter to take a fellow prisoner's prosthetic leg; Peter found out later that the plan requiring the leg was only a joke (because Rocket's an asshole), and expressed his outrage that he had to transfer the prisoner 30,000 units for it. While Peter was climbing up Groot's leg to get into the watchtower, Drax destroyed a drone that was shooting at him. In exchange, Peter allowed Drax to join the group. Once inside the watchtower, Rocket turned off the artificial gravity in the prison, and floated everyone out. As everyone searched storage for their belongings, Peter found that his Walkman was missing, and told the others to find his ship and wait to leave until he got back. To ensure that they wouldn't leave without him, Peter swiped the Orb from his bag and carried it with him, and used it to knock out the guard who had taken the Walkman. Using his helmet to survive in space, he flew from the outside of the prison to the Milano. Once inside the ship, Drax called him an "imbecile" for risking his life for a seemingly useless item, and the group was on their way.
Group tensions persisted while the Milano was en route to the location of the Orb's buyer, but fortunately, it wasn't long before they arrived at Knowhere, a mining colony (and sketchy criminal underworld sort of place) built into the severed head of a Celestial floating in space. Because Gamora's contact was making them wait, there was some time to kill; Rocket, Groot, and Drax headed off to drink and gamble, which left Peter alone with Gamora. They had a bonding moment in which they exchanged stories about their pasts, and in the process, Peter explained that the Walkman was a gift from his mother that he had had on him when he "left Earth" (it should be noted that he could not bring himself to say the words "when she died"). He shared some of his music with Gamora, and then promptly ruined the moment by taking their newfound bonding too far through trying to put the moves on her; Gamora, who was, of course, not having this, informed him that she was not here to "succumb to [his] pelvic sorcery" while holding a knife to his throat.
#REJECTED
They were soon interrupted, though, by a fight that had broken out between Rocket, Drax, and Groot, which Peter and Gamora rushed to break up. Peter attempted to broker some kind of peace by reminding Rocket that four billion units for the Orb were on the line, but he ultimately could not stop Drax, who was angry that he had still not yet had a chance to kill Ronan, from leaving the group. At that moment, they were greeted by the assistant of the Collector, Gamora's buyer for the Orb, and invited into his museum. After some (really awkward) pleasantries, Peter presented the Orb to the Collector, who, in an attempt to remind us all that this movie is still part of the MCU, then explained that inside of it was an Infinity Stone, an entity of immense power capable of destroying entire planets and sure to kill all but the most powerful individuals who attempt to use it. Before the group could be paid for their efforts, the Collector's assistant grabbed the stone, an act that triggered an explosion which destroyed a good portion of the museum and caused her to be torn apart from the inside out. Horrified at what they'd just witnessed (and barely survived), the group then encased the Stone back inside the Orb and ran from the museum.
Outside of the museum, Peter got into an argument with Rocket, who did not understand why they still had the Orb and suggested that they should just give it to Ronan and escape with their lives. Before the argument could continue much further, though, Ronan and Nebula, Gamora's adoptive sister, arrived at Knowhere with an army of Sakaarans; they had come because of Drax, who had called Ronan for a chance at avenging his family. Peter didn't have time to dwell on this unfortunate turn of events, however, because at that same moment, he learned that Yondu and the Ravagers had also arrived here to find him. Basically, these guys were now screwed all the way around. Gamora attempted to keep the Orb away from Nebula and Ronan by commandeering a nearby mining pod, and Peter and Rocket followed suit to help fight the Sakaarans and keep them off of her. Peter had an out-of-the-box idea to use the nearly-indestructible pods to smash into the Sakarrans' Necrocraft ships, and while this was effective for a time, Gamora ended up cornered in space just outside of Knowhere. There, Nebula destroyed her pod, took the Orb, and left Gamora to die, as Peter and Rocket watched from a distance (since their pods could not get closer).
At that moment, something became abundantly clear: Peter simply was not willing to let Gamora die, even if trying to save her meant risking his own death. He called Yondu, gave him his coordinates, and flew out of his pod, giving Gamora his mask and letting himself freeze in deep space once he reached her. With seconds to spare, they were beamed onto the Ravagers' ship. They were soon held at gunpoint and taken into custody by Yondu's first mate, Kraglin, and a team of Ravagers. Yondu, who was still angry with Peter for double-crossing them with the Orb, beat Peter in front of a crowd as they argued. Eventually, Yondu lost his patience and pointed his arrow at Peter, threatening to kill him. With the arrow to his throat, Peter attempted to talk Yondu out of killing him by stating that they knew where the Orb was, and that with Gamora's help, they could exploit Ronan's weaknesses and work together to get it back. Yondu agreed and released the arrow, but just as everything started to appear somewhat hunky-dory, someone fired on the Ravagers' ship.
As it turns out, the hit came from Rocket on the Milano, who sent a transmission stating that if the Ravagers didn't hand over Peter and Gamora by the count of five, Drax would blow their ship up with a Hadron Enforcer, a weapon he designed. Peter fortunately managed to get to the communicator and deescalate the situation just in time, and later, back on the Milano, he yelled at them over what a stupid plan that was. (Really, it was a stupid plan.) His own self-proclaimed "12 percent of a plan" for stopping Ronan, however, wasn't much better, and Gamora, Drax, and Rocket were unimpressed. (Groot, on the other hand, was with Peter, because it was "better than 11 percent.") In the end, though, Peter managed to rally the group by stating that he wasn't just going to stand back as Ronan wiped out billions of lives, even if it meant risking his own death, and that, today, life was giving them a chance to "give a shit," to be something more than "losers." Everyone expressed their own willingness to put their lives on the line, too, and agreed to the plan. Once it was explained to the Ravagers, Peter called the Nova Corps to ask for their help in defending Xandar.
After Ronan arrived at Xandar with his ship and thousands of soldiers, Peter and the Ravagers engaged in a battle with them over the planet, while Rocket and Kraglin shot a hole in Ronan's ship so that Peter and the others could get through. During the battle, Yondu's ship was shot down, and for a time, things appeared hopeless against Ronan's massive army; soon, though, the Nova Corps, who had received Peter's message, arrived to provide reinforcements. Peter was then able to land the Milano inside of Ronan's ship. There, Peter, Drax, and Groot fought Sakaaran soldiers to get to Ronan, while Gamora fought Nebula to disable the ship's generators. Eventually, they found Ronan, and once they did, Peter shot him with the Hadron Enforcer; this, however, didn't even leave a scratch on Ronan. Just as things were about to look really hopeless again, Rocket came crashing into the ship with his own, causing enough damage to the hull to hurtle the whole thing toward the surface of Xandar. Peter pulled Rocket from the wreckage and joined the rest of the group, who believed they were all now certainly dead. Groot, however, shielded the team with his body as they crashed to the surface, at the cost of his own life.
Once they came to on the surface of Xandar, the team realized that Ronan, once again, had managed to emerge unscathed. He engaged in one of those standard villain monologues, mocking the team by calling them the "Guardians of the Galaxy" as he prepared to destroy Xandar with the Infinity Stone. In the middle of this, Peter distracted Ronan by singing along to "Ooh Child" by the Five Stairsteps, and challenging him to a dance-off. As Ronan was trying to figure out what the hell was going on, Rocket and Drax had time to repair the Hadron Enforcer, and use it to destroy Ronan's weapon that now contained the Infinity Stone. Peter rushed to grab the Stone before it could reach the ground, and as soon as he touched it, his body began to be torn apart. Gamora rushed to his aid, telling him to take her hand (so that she could share some of the load), and in the process, Peter began to hallucinate his dying mother saying those words to him, bringing him back to the moment he had spent twenty-six years regretting. After Gamora called out to him again, he took her hand; a few seconds later, Drax grabbed onto his shoulder, Rocket grabbed onto Drax's finger, and between all four of them, they were able to successfully absorb the power of, and control, the Stone.
Ronan, in complete shock, asked how this was possible, to which Peter responded, "You said it yourself, bitch. We're the Guardians of the Galaxy." CUE SWELLING HEROIC SCORE. They then directed the Stone's power toward Ronan and obliterated the shit out of him and his entire army, saving Xandar from certain destruction. Once the stone was sealed inside the Orb again, Yondu demanded that Peter hand it over; Peter switched them out at the last second, handing Yondu an "Orb" that contained not the Infinity Stone, but a little troll doll. As they watched Yondu and the other Ravagers depart, Peter remarked to Gamora that they were "about the only family [he] ever had," to which she replied that that was no longer true.
Before leaving Xandar themselves, Peter and the others handed the Orb over to the Nova Corps, who, in their gratitude, expunged the criminal records of the newly-formed Guardians of the Galaxy, and repaired the Milano. Nova Prime, the leader of the Nova Corps, informed Peter that they had found an anomaly in his nervous system when he'd been arrested, and when they investigated it, they discovered that he was only half-human; that his father was something unknown but "very ancient," which could have explained why he was able to hold the Infinity Stone for as long as he did. Once back on the rebuilt Milano, Peter finally unwrapped his last gift from his mother, which he had kept stowed away since he'd been taken from Earth. Inside, he found a note, as well as a second mixtape full of her favorite songs. Accompanied by a newly-reborn Groot, the Guardians then set off on their next adventure.
Over the next few months, the Guardians lived together on the Milano and took a number of jobs, while the reborn Groot grew into a small child that the others all began to look out for. Eventually, they were hired by Ayesha, the High Priestess of the Sovereign people, to protect highly valuable batteries from an interdimensional space beast. By this point in time, the Guardians had started to settle into the familiarity of their unit, and, subsequently, their teamwork was on display in this battle; while Rocket and Peter forced beast to look up, exposing a cut on its neck, Gamora was able to slice it with her sword, killing the beast. After the successful completion of this job, they met with Ayesha, who thanked them for their services. In exchange, the Sovereign handed over Nebula, whom they had arrested while she was attempting to steal the batteries for herself. Additionally, during this conversation, because Peter is Peter, he made some flip comments about preferring to "make people the old fashioned way" while Ayesha was explaining the reproductive methods of the Sovereign, before stopping himself with a look from Gamora. Ayesha made comments about Peter's own "unorthodox" genealogy, considering him a "hybrid" that seemed "particularly reckless"; though he tried not to show it to the others, these comments, fairly fresh from the revelation that he was only half-human, upset him.
The Guardians then returned to the Milano and set off for Xandar, where they aimed to collect a bounty on Nebula's head. Peter apologized to Gamora for flirting with Ayesha, but she claimed she didn't care. (Read: she did.) As Gamora walked away with Nebula in shackles, Drax, who had witnessed this conversation, snuck up on Peter, and told him a story about when he'd met his wife. The roundabout point was this: in his attempt at "romance advice," Drax told Peter that he had no chance with Gamora, and that he was better off finding a woman who was "pathetic" like him. Drax... means well.
There wasn't a ton of time to dwell on this, though, because before they could get far, they found themselves surrounded by a Sovereign fleet, because Rocket had swiped some of the batteries. Yay. In the ensuing battle, Peter and Rocket argued as they wrestled for control over piloting the Milano through a quantum asteroid field they needed to pass in order to get away. Well, to say "argue" is an understatement; it was more of an immature dick-waving contest over who was the better pilot, which ultimately caused a bunch of damage to the ship and almost killed everyone on board. Just when they thought they were in the clear, they ran into a trap that the Sovereign fleet had created; all signs truly pointed to fucked, until a mysterious figure suddenly destroyed all the Sovereign craft.
The damage sustained to the Milano caused it to crash on a remote planet called Berhert. As they surveyed the damage, an argument almost immediately broke out over who was responsible for their current predicament, with Peter and Rocket promptly blaming each other like a tried and true pair of bickering siblings. Soon after, though, it became apparent that the mysterious figure who'd blown up all of the Sovereign ships had followed them to Berhert. The man introduced himself as Ego, Peter's father, and stated that he had been looking for Peter for a long time.
That night, Ego, along with his servant, Mantis, joined the others around a fire. There, Ego explained that he had been searching for Peter ever since Yondu failed to deliver him like he'd promised (and was hired to do), and that he'd located the Guardians after hearing of their victory at the Battle of Xandar. Now that they'd found each other, Ego told Peter that if he came with him to his home planet, he could not only explain Peter's "special heritage," but also be the father he had always wanted to be. In response to all of this, Peter was skeptical, and after leaving the group to take a walk with Gamora, he talked with her about his doubts. Gamora reminded him of a story he'd told her — about how when he was a child, he used to pretend David Hasselhoff was his father, and carried his picture around with him — and encouraged him to take a chance on the possibility that he may actually get to build a relationship with his father, something he'd always wanted.
The next day, he decided to take that chance and go with Ego to his planet, with Gamora and Drax accompanying him, while Rocket, Groot, and the still-imprisoned Nebula stayed behind with the ship. On their way to Ego's planet, the group got to know Mantis, who explained her empathic abilities. In the process of demonstrating them, Mantis revealed Peter's feelings for Gamora to the whole room when she touched him, causing him a great deal of embarrassment. (Let's be real, though; Peter has never been too subtle with any of this, and no one really needed Mantis to be able to read the proverbial flashing neon sign on his head that says, "I have a huge crush on Gamora.") Anyway, our crew eventually arrived at Ego's planet, where Ego explained that he was, in fact, a Celestial, and that the planet they were now walking on was a part of him, as was the Kurt Russell-acted form speaking with them; he told of how he explored the universe to seek out life, and in the process, met Peter's mother and fell in love with her. Peter then asked the logical question: if he loved her, why did he leave her?
Peter's skepticism remained until, eventually, he had a chance to be alone with his father. During this time, Ego explained that he could not stay on Earth because he must return to his planet regularly in order to keep that form that looks like Kurt Russell from dying. That explanation wasn't good enough for Peter, who confronted him regarding why he did not come to collect him himself, but had instead sent Yondu, to which Ego responded that he "couldn't stand" to be on an Earth where Meredith wasn't living, and that he couldn't imagine what that feels like. This angered Peter in a way that we basically haven't ever really seen before, who said that, yes, he knows exactly what that feels like, because he had to watch his mother die. Changing track, Ego then helped Peter to discover that he, too, had abilities connected to the "light" inside the planet, and when he looked at Peter and said, "You're home," in that instant, maybe for the first time in over twenty-five years, he believed it.
really tugs on the heartstrings tbh
Later, Peter, still in an upbeat mood, convinced Gamora to dance with him, and broached the topic of what he referred to as the "unspoken thing" between them, insisting this could be explained in the metaphor of a will-they-won't-they relationship on a TV show. Gamora, however, denied its existence, and instead brought up her growing suspicions of Ego and the planet. Peter instantly became affronted, accusing her of "trying to take this away from [him]," and a nasty argument then ensued between them. Before she stormed out, Peter tried to make her understand that he had "finally" found his family, to which she replied that she thought he already had (with the Guardians). That night, Ego found Peter alone listening to his Walkman, and admitted he'd witnessed some of the earlier events. He then tried to connect with Peter through the song he was listening to ("Brandy" by Looking Glass), and related the both of them to the sailor character in that song. Subsequently, he revealed that Peter, with his half-Celestial DNA and connection to the "light" inside the planet, was also immortal. Upon this revelation, he offered to show Peter what he had been working on, and Peter agreed.
This is, of course, the part of the movie where shit gets #real. I'll explain:
As it turned out, Ego explained, when he traveled the cosmos, he ultimately found life to be "disappointing," and that his existence required a new purpose: what he termed the "Expansion," a process by which everything in the universe would be destroyed and remade as himself. He showed Peter a glimpse of eternity before explaining the rest of his plan — on every world he visited, he left "extensions" of himself, and impregnated women of all sorts of species in order to acquire the second Celestial needed to power the Expansion. Yondu broke the Ravager code to deliver some of these children to Ego, and all but Peter ultimately "failed" him because they did not carry the genetic connection to the light. Ego proclaimed that, for the first time in millions of years, he was not alone, and this made Peter take pause, briefly breaking the spell Ego had put him under as he thought of his friends. Ego noticed this, and tried to pacify things; this all would've worked had Peter not asked if Ego truly loved his mother, and if Ego, in response, hadn't said that it "broke [his] heart to put that tumor in her head."
Immediately, Peter snapped out from under Ego's control, drew his quad blasters, and shot at him relentlessly, over and over again until the form in front of him was nearly destroyed. Ego, however, managed to repair himself, and resorted to more extreme measures — this time, he caused light to plunge straight into Peter's chest, draining him of his life force as he started to use him as a battery to power the Expansion against his will. With Peter helpless to do anything but watch, Ego also took Peter's Walkman and crushed it. Honestly, the biggest dick in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and perhaps in any movie ever. Soon afterward, Gamora and Drax, who had learned of Ego's plans from Mantis, accompanied by her and Nebula, arrived to save Peter. At the same time, a ship piloted by Rocket and Yondu crashed into the room and smashed into Ego.
The group realized that the only way to stop the Expansion, the certain destruction of the universe, was to kill Ego. Mantis explained that the form they had just smashed was only an extension of himself, and that his core, his only weakness, was located in the caverns of the planet. Peter and Yondu piloted an old piece of mining equipment to drill under the planet's surface and head toward the caverns, where they found Ego's brain. Their race against time was complicated when the Sovereign, who were still upset about their stolen batteries and had tracked the Guardians here, arrived to cause a shootout. In the process, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis fell out of the mining craft and to the ground of the caverns; Mantis used her abilities to put Ego to sleep, which served to buy them a little more time. Meanwhile Peter, Rocket, and Groot headed toward the core, where they would place a makeshift bomb, made from the batteries that Rocket had stolen, to blow up the planet. Peter fought off the Sovereign until he was forced back into the ship. In order to knock out the remotely-piloted Sovereign fleet, Nebula and Yondu blew up the ship; as Peter floated down from the explosion, and looked up to see that Yondu was using his flying arrow to do the same, he commented that Yondu looked like Mary Poppins. When Yondu asked if "he [was] cool," Peter responded that, yes, he was — the he in question being Yondu.
When Mantis was knocked out by a piece of debris, their borrowed time was over. Ego awoke, and began to use his power to crush most of the Guardians under piles of rocks. Additionally, he again began to drain Peter's life force to continue to power the Expansion. While things seemed pretty hopeless, Yondu had managed to get a piece of advice to Peter before he, too, was buried under rocks — that he does not use his "head" to fly his arrow, but instead his "heart." This meant something to Peter, who, in that moment, thought of his loved ones; this gave him the strength to break Ego's control once and for all, and to begin to attack him. Peter continued to fight Ego as a distraction while the bomb counted down (at one point, Peter made himself into a giant Pac-Man using his abilities), until both collapsed onto the ground. Ego informed Peter that when he died, Peter would be "just like everybody else," to which Peter replied, "What's so wrong with that?" Peter held Ego down as the bomb exploded, and watched not only his father's form, but also the Celestial powers in his own hands, fade away.
Peter closed his eyes and quietly accepted what he thought was his imminent death, until Yondu rushed to save him and flew him through the planet's atmosphere. The problem, though, was that Yondu only had one space suit, and could not save them both; he told Peter that he was his "daddy," and apologized for "not doing any of it right" before he sacrificed his life by giving Peter the only space suit.
In the aftermath of Yondu's death, Peter realized that he'd had the father figure he'd been searching for all along — in Yondu. He gave a eulogy over Yondu's body before it was cremated in the custom of the Ravagers. Afterward, Kraglin gave Peter a Zune music player that Yondu had found for him in a junk shop. He took it with him to the old captain's quarters on the Ravagers' ship, and as he started to flip through its contents, Groot came to join him. He soon noticed fireworks out in nearby space, and that the other Ravager factions, which had previously disowned Yondu, had come to honor him with a proper Ravager funeral; Peter and Groot joined the others to watch. As the fireworks continued, Gamora indicated to Peter that she returned his feelings, and they shared a quiet embrace.
Abilities/Special Powers: Due to being raised by the Ravagers from the age of 8 on, as well as entering a life of skirting the edges of the law himself as an adult, Peter has acquired a number of skills over the years, including:
It should also be noted that because of his half-Celestial DNA, Peter was once able to hold an Infinity Stone for several minutes without being killed, and began to learn how to manipulate molecules and energy during his time on Ego's planet; furthermore, as long as Ego was alive, Peter would also be immortal. As of the end of Vol 2, however, with the death of Ego and the destruction of the "light" inside his planet, Peter has lost all of these abilities, including immortality, and is now a regular human.
Third-Person Sample:
The Zune isn't the Walkman.
Which, you know, they're different colors and they don't work in the same way, like, at all, and that's... totally stating the obvious here. After almost three decades of never going anywhere without the latter, of having it more often than not literally attached at the hip, his muscle memory is completely off; the Zune has a different weight, a different balance, and feels really weird in his hands sometimes. Sometimes, too, he finds himself trying to press a rewind button on the side that isn't there, finds himself crushed under the realization, again, that the last thing he'd ever had left of his mother is gone forever.
It's just — something to get used to.
That's change, though, he's really starting to learn, facing life without certain things, certain people in it, and trying to find a way to move forward — something to get used to. Some days, it's easier than others. Some days, he's too busy chasing around some crazy a-holes he calls friends and putting out their fires, figurative and literal, by the way, to put a whole lot of thought into anything else. Other days he's dead on his feet because he's spent half the night trying to avoid sleep after waking up in a cold sweat from the same damn nightmare he has at least once a week for a while, the one where his bastard of a biological father is hell-bent on taking away every single thing he has while leaving him helpless to do anything but watch, with a light stabbing through his chest as he feels more and more of the literal life being sucked out of him by the second.
But with time, those particular days dwindle in number, and the extremes in his life become few and far between. The little reminders of Yondu around the Quadrant — the odd trinket, that kind of thing — can still get him on occasion, can still take him out of his thoughts and form a hard lump in his throat, but maybe, he thinks, they start to get less painful. And with each night that he spends some time alone in the captain's quarters, sprawled on the bed with the Zune in hand, thumbing the click wheel through a whole universe of songs he's never heard before (ranging from awesome to who the hell thought it was a good idea to even call this music?), the motion feels more and more natural.
One day at a time. It's just something to get used to.
First-Person Sample:
[here's what someone who's 100% a dick does: ruins someone's fun for no reason. that is literally the most uncool thing that anyone in the history of ever can do, and you know what, that's just not something that peter, who is not, confirmed and verified by the nova corps, 100% a dick, is going to entertain.
see, he may be about to ruin someone's fun when he appears on the network today, square-jawed and serious-faced, but it's for a reason. a good one. he's a guardian of the galaxy, okay, and it's simply his heroic duty to act on this reason.]
To the a-hole [he's trying, for the benefit of any young listening ears (or "ears"(?), as may be the case with groot)] who keeps playing "Smoke On the Water" on the guitar in the Music Room — I don't know who you are, but you know who you are, and that's what's important here —
Dude, you have to stop. Seriously. Not kidding. I'm not trying to be a dick [... there it is], I'm really not, but you're just not good, man. You get really close to totally murdering that song about ten times a day, and — seriously, what the hell did Deep Purple ever do to you to deserve this?!
[also, it's painfully loud, which is, in the grand scheme of things, a secondary crime.
he heaves a sigh. (if it's all a little more dramatic than it needs to be, well.)]
I'm just trying to save lives here, okay, you've gotta understand that. One day, you'll thank me.
DW username:
symbolismsE-Mail: thespoonisalie@gmail.com
IM: Discord: lensflares#3549
Plurk:
Other Characters: N/A
Character Name: Peter Quill
Series: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Timeline: Post- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Canon Resource Link: @ MCU Wiki
Character History: Peter Jason Quill was born on Earth (specifically, Missouri) in 1980 to Meredith Quill and a father he would later identify as a Celesial named Ego. If you think that sentence seems weird, it honestly only scratches the surface of just how weird this guy's life is. But for most of his early childhood, things weren't terribly out of the ordinary. He grew up with his mother, whom he loved dearly, and shared her love of music. She gave him a Sony Walkman music player, as well as a mixtape comprised of some of her favorite songs, and those two things remained valuable possessions to Peter well into adulthood. He longed to meet his absent father, to be able to have that presence in his life just like the other kids; to fill that void for himself, Peter would often carry a picture of singer and actor David Hasselhoff around with him in his pocket, and when asked by said other kids, would tell them that he was his father, but just wasn't around due to commitments touring with his band or shooting Knight Rider. Those other kids, though, could be definite jerks, and he had no problem getting into fights with them if they did something he perceived as unjust, such as squashing a frog that "hadn't done anything wrong" with a stick.
At some unknown point in time, Meredith was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and Peter's world as he knew it was turned upside down. Like any young child trying to come to terms with their beloved parent's imminent death, Peter struggled a great deal during the worst of his mother's illness. In 1988, that battle came to an end. Just before she died, Meredith asked Peter to take her hand, which he couldn't bring himself to do; this is something he would spend the better part of the next two and a half decades regretting. After being left alone in the hallway outside of his mother's hospital room by his grandfather, a distraught Peter ran and eventually made it out the back door. There, on the lawn, he was picked up by a spaceship, belonging to Yondu Udonta and his faction of Ravagers (essentially: space pirates).
Canon doesn't provide us with many details regarding the next twenty-six years, but there are bits and pieces of information that we can fill in from context clues. Instead of delivering Peter to his father like he was hired to, Yondu kept Peter on his ship, and raised him among the Ravagers. Yondu, who insisted he allowed Peter to stay because he was a "skinny kid who could fit into places adults couldn't," taught Peter how to fight, how to be a thief, and, most importantly, how to survive. It wasn't an easy life; Yondu wasn't exactly the most overtly loving guardian, often threatening that the others on the ship wanted to eat Peter. There was, however, a degree of fondness between the two, and over the years, they developed a complicated surrogate father-son relationship. As an adult, Peter became a petty criminal, sometimes working with the Ravagers and sometimes on his own, as a self-proclaimed "legendary outlaw" going by the name "Star-Lord" (a nickname that had once come from his mother).
Sometime in 2014, Peter saw his opportunity to get away from Yondu and the Ravagers, and strike out on his own once and for all. It was all very rebellious 34-year-old teenager of him. Anyway, when Yondu got a job from the Broker, a merchant from Xandar, to steal a mysterious Orb from the abandoned planet Morag, Peter flew there in his personal M-ship, the Milano, without telling Yondu, intending to steal the Orb and keep its profits for himself. On Morag, he found the Orb unprotected inside a temple vault. Just as he was about to walk away with it, he was cornered by Korath the Pursuer, a Kree mercenary working for the militaristic Ronan the Accuser, and his Sakaaran sidekicks. Peter claimed to be just be a junker, but Korath didn't believe him, noting that he was clearly part of the Ravagers, based on his clothes being a very unsubtle indicator of that. He distracted Korath and his men to get away with the Orb, who then chased him all the way back to the Milano. As he was catching his breath from the narrow escape, he was startled by the presence of a woman named Bereet, who he had forgotten was on his ship when he'd set off for Morag.
Which, you know. Way to go, Peter. Good job.
While traveling through space, Bereet answered a call from Yondu, which Peter had tried to avoid. Angry, Yondu told Peter that he and the other Ravagers had arrived on Morag, where there was now neither an Orb nor Peter. In response, Peter refused to tell Yondu where he was, where he was going, and what his plans were. Yondu threatened Peter before the latter hung up, and then subsequently put a bounty on his head for 40,000 units.
#justravagerdadthings
Peter then arrived on Xandar to sell the Orb to the Broker. The deal seemed to almost be sealed, until Peter opened his big mouth and mentioned that he'd crossed paths with some guys working for Ronan while trying to obtain the Orb, and then things went sour. The Broker stated that he would not take the Orb if Ronan was involved, given that Ronan was a fanatical maniac who wanted to see the destruction of Xandar, and literally pushed Peter out of the door of his shop. Once outside, he first encountered Gamora, an "adopted daughter" of the warlord Thanos and associate of Ronan, who had, unbeknownst to Peter, tracked him down because she had plans of her own for the Orb. Peter, who was clearly having an "oh no, she's hot" moment, completely changed his tone, switching from outrage at the Broker to attempts at being a smooth, charming flirt. Gamora took advantage of his distraction and attacked him, swiping the Orb from his hands in the process. He used one of his gadgets to trip her, and a scuffle for possession of the Orb ensued. Just as she overpowered him and was about to kill him, they were attacked by Rocket and Groot, who were after the bounty on Peter's head. The group caused a massive public disturbance, and were eventually arrested by the Nova Corps.
Peter and the others were transported to the Kyln, a maximum security interstellar prison, to serve their sentences. They continued to squabble until they were taken for processing, but in the process, Gamora revealed that she wasn't trying to bring the Orb back to Ronan, but was rather planning on betraying him with an agreement to sell it to a third party. As they passed some of the guards, Peter noticed that one of them had his Walkman in hand; he slid in through the door and demanded it back, which earned him a tasing. After the group stepped into the prison, one of the prisoners threatened to start a fight with Peter, but he was saved by Groot, who attacked the prisoner; Rocket declared that Peter was theirs, and Peter did not argue, agreeing that he was with them. That night, Peter woke to find that a group of prisoners were dragging Gamora from her cell with intent to kill her, because of her connection to Ronan and Thanos. Much to Rocket's dismay, Peter followed and watched from behind a doorway. Eventually, when Drax the Destroyer pinned Gamora to the wall and tried to kill her, Peter emerged to talk the other man out of what he planned to do. After a few tense minutes, Peter succeeded, and Gamora's life was spared. He claimed that he "couldn't care less" whether she lived or died (why the fuck you lyin), but knew that she could lead him to her buyer. In response, Gamora told Peter and Rocket that her buyer had originally agreed to sell the Orb for four billion units, and that if they made it out of the Kyln together, they could split the profit between them.
The next day, Rocket came up with a plan to break them out of the prison, which required everyone to work as a team to gather the components that Rocket would need to hack into the watchtower. Groot took it upon himself to do the last step first, which sent the whole prison into chaos. As part of the plan, Rocket had assigned Peter to take a fellow prisoner's prosthetic leg; Peter found out later that the plan requiring the leg was only a joke (because Rocket's an asshole), and expressed his outrage that he had to transfer the prisoner 30,000 units for it. While Peter was climbing up Groot's leg to get into the watchtower, Drax destroyed a drone that was shooting at him. In exchange, Peter allowed Drax to join the group. Once inside the watchtower, Rocket turned off the artificial gravity in the prison, and floated everyone out. As everyone searched storage for their belongings, Peter found that his Walkman was missing, and told the others to find his ship and wait to leave until he got back. To ensure that they wouldn't leave without him, Peter swiped the Orb from his bag and carried it with him, and used it to knock out the guard who had taken the Walkman. Using his helmet to survive in space, he flew from the outside of the prison to the Milano. Once inside the ship, Drax called him an "imbecile" for risking his life for a seemingly useless item, and the group was on their way.
Group tensions persisted while the Milano was en route to the location of the Orb's buyer, but fortunately, it wasn't long before they arrived at Knowhere, a mining colony (and sketchy criminal underworld sort of place) built into the severed head of a Celestial floating in space. Because Gamora's contact was making them wait, there was some time to kill; Rocket, Groot, and Drax headed off to drink and gamble, which left Peter alone with Gamora. They had a bonding moment in which they exchanged stories about their pasts, and in the process, Peter explained that the Walkman was a gift from his mother that he had had on him when he "left Earth" (it should be noted that he could not bring himself to say the words "when she died"). He shared some of his music with Gamora, and then promptly ruined the moment by taking their newfound bonding too far through trying to put the moves on her; Gamora, who was, of course, not having this, informed him that she was not here to "succumb to [his] pelvic sorcery" while holding a knife to his throat.
#REJECTED
They were soon interrupted, though, by a fight that had broken out between Rocket, Drax, and Groot, which Peter and Gamora rushed to break up. Peter attempted to broker some kind of peace by reminding Rocket that four billion units for the Orb were on the line, but he ultimately could not stop Drax, who was angry that he had still not yet had a chance to kill Ronan, from leaving the group. At that moment, they were greeted by the assistant of the Collector, Gamora's buyer for the Orb, and invited into his museum. After some (really awkward) pleasantries, Peter presented the Orb to the Collector, who, in an attempt to remind us all that this movie is still part of the MCU, then explained that inside of it was an Infinity Stone, an entity of immense power capable of destroying entire planets and sure to kill all but the most powerful individuals who attempt to use it. Before the group could be paid for their efforts, the Collector's assistant grabbed the stone, an act that triggered an explosion which destroyed a good portion of the museum and caused her to be torn apart from the inside out. Horrified at what they'd just witnessed (and barely survived), the group then encased the Stone back inside the Orb and ran from the museum.
Outside of the museum, Peter got into an argument with Rocket, who did not understand why they still had the Orb and suggested that they should just give it to Ronan and escape with their lives. Before the argument could continue much further, though, Ronan and Nebula, Gamora's adoptive sister, arrived at Knowhere with an army of Sakaarans; they had come because of Drax, who had called Ronan for a chance at avenging his family. Peter didn't have time to dwell on this unfortunate turn of events, however, because at that same moment, he learned that Yondu and the Ravagers had also arrived here to find him. Basically, these guys were now screwed all the way around. Gamora attempted to keep the Orb away from Nebula and Ronan by commandeering a nearby mining pod, and Peter and Rocket followed suit to help fight the Sakaarans and keep them off of her. Peter had an out-of-the-box idea to use the nearly-indestructible pods to smash into the Sakarrans' Necrocraft ships, and while this was effective for a time, Gamora ended up cornered in space just outside of Knowhere. There, Nebula destroyed her pod, took the Orb, and left Gamora to die, as Peter and Rocket watched from a distance (since their pods could not get closer).
At that moment, something became abundantly clear: Peter simply was not willing to let Gamora die, even if trying to save her meant risking his own death. He called Yondu, gave him his coordinates, and flew out of his pod, giving Gamora his mask and letting himself freeze in deep space once he reached her. With seconds to spare, they were beamed onto the Ravagers' ship. They were soon held at gunpoint and taken into custody by Yondu's first mate, Kraglin, and a team of Ravagers. Yondu, who was still angry with Peter for double-crossing them with the Orb, beat Peter in front of a crowd as they argued. Eventually, Yondu lost his patience and pointed his arrow at Peter, threatening to kill him. With the arrow to his throat, Peter attempted to talk Yondu out of killing him by stating that they knew where the Orb was, and that with Gamora's help, they could exploit Ronan's weaknesses and work together to get it back. Yondu agreed and released the arrow, but just as everything started to appear somewhat hunky-dory, someone fired on the Ravagers' ship.
As it turns out, the hit came from Rocket on the Milano, who sent a transmission stating that if the Ravagers didn't hand over Peter and Gamora by the count of five, Drax would blow their ship up with a Hadron Enforcer, a weapon he designed. Peter fortunately managed to get to the communicator and deescalate the situation just in time, and later, back on the Milano, he yelled at them over what a stupid plan that was. (Really, it was a stupid plan.) His own self-proclaimed "12 percent of a plan" for stopping Ronan, however, wasn't much better, and Gamora, Drax, and Rocket were unimpressed. (Groot, on the other hand, was with Peter, because it was "better than 11 percent.") In the end, though, Peter managed to rally the group by stating that he wasn't just going to stand back as Ronan wiped out billions of lives, even if it meant risking his own death, and that, today, life was giving them a chance to "give a shit," to be something more than "losers." Everyone expressed their own willingness to put their lives on the line, too, and agreed to the plan. Once it was explained to the Ravagers, Peter called the Nova Corps to ask for their help in defending Xandar.
After Ronan arrived at Xandar with his ship and thousands of soldiers, Peter and the Ravagers engaged in a battle with them over the planet, while Rocket and Kraglin shot a hole in Ronan's ship so that Peter and the others could get through. During the battle, Yondu's ship was shot down, and for a time, things appeared hopeless against Ronan's massive army; soon, though, the Nova Corps, who had received Peter's message, arrived to provide reinforcements. Peter was then able to land the Milano inside of Ronan's ship. There, Peter, Drax, and Groot fought Sakaaran soldiers to get to Ronan, while Gamora fought Nebula to disable the ship's generators. Eventually, they found Ronan, and once they did, Peter shot him with the Hadron Enforcer; this, however, didn't even leave a scratch on Ronan. Just as things were about to look really hopeless again, Rocket came crashing into the ship with his own, causing enough damage to the hull to hurtle the whole thing toward the surface of Xandar. Peter pulled Rocket from the wreckage and joined the rest of the group, who believed they were all now certainly dead. Groot, however, shielded the team with his body as they crashed to the surface, at the cost of his own life.
Once they came to on the surface of Xandar, the team realized that Ronan, once again, had managed to emerge unscathed. He engaged in one of those standard villain monologues, mocking the team by calling them the "Guardians of the Galaxy" as he prepared to destroy Xandar with the Infinity Stone. In the middle of this, Peter distracted Ronan by singing along to "Ooh Child" by the Five Stairsteps, and challenging him to a dance-off. As Ronan was trying to figure out what the hell was going on, Rocket and Drax had time to repair the Hadron Enforcer, and use it to destroy Ronan's weapon that now contained the Infinity Stone. Peter rushed to grab the Stone before it could reach the ground, and as soon as he touched it, his body began to be torn apart. Gamora rushed to his aid, telling him to take her hand (so that she could share some of the load), and in the process, Peter began to hallucinate his dying mother saying those words to him, bringing him back to the moment he had spent twenty-six years regretting. After Gamora called out to him again, he took her hand; a few seconds later, Drax grabbed onto his shoulder, Rocket grabbed onto Drax's finger, and between all four of them, they were able to successfully absorb the power of, and control, the Stone.
Ronan, in complete shock, asked how this was possible, to which Peter responded, "You said it yourself, bitch. We're the Guardians of the Galaxy." CUE SWELLING HEROIC SCORE. They then directed the Stone's power toward Ronan and obliterated the shit out of him and his entire army, saving Xandar from certain destruction. Once the stone was sealed inside the Orb again, Yondu demanded that Peter hand it over; Peter switched them out at the last second, handing Yondu an "Orb" that contained not the Infinity Stone, but a little troll doll. As they watched Yondu and the other Ravagers depart, Peter remarked to Gamora that they were "about the only family [he] ever had," to which she replied that that was no longer true.
Before leaving Xandar themselves, Peter and the others handed the Orb over to the Nova Corps, who, in their gratitude, expunged the criminal records of the newly-formed Guardians of the Galaxy, and repaired the Milano. Nova Prime, the leader of the Nova Corps, informed Peter that they had found an anomaly in his nervous system when he'd been arrested, and when they investigated it, they discovered that he was only half-human; that his father was something unknown but "very ancient," which could have explained why he was able to hold the Infinity Stone for as long as he did. Once back on the rebuilt Milano, Peter finally unwrapped his last gift from his mother, which he had kept stowed away since he'd been taken from Earth. Inside, he found a note, as well as a second mixtape full of her favorite songs. Accompanied by a newly-reborn Groot, the Guardians then set off on their next adventure.
Over the next few months, the Guardians lived together on the Milano and took a number of jobs, while the reborn Groot grew into a small child that the others all began to look out for. Eventually, they were hired by Ayesha, the High Priestess of the Sovereign people, to protect highly valuable batteries from an interdimensional space beast. By this point in time, the Guardians had started to settle into the familiarity of their unit, and, subsequently, their teamwork was on display in this battle; while Rocket and Peter forced beast to look up, exposing a cut on its neck, Gamora was able to slice it with her sword, killing the beast. After the successful completion of this job, they met with Ayesha, who thanked them for their services. In exchange, the Sovereign handed over Nebula, whom they had arrested while she was attempting to steal the batteries for herself. Additionally, during this conversation, because Peter is Peter, he made some flip comments about preferring to "make people the old fashioned way" while Ayesha was explaining the reproductive methods of the Sovereign, before stopping himself with a look from Gamora. Ayesha made comments about Peter's own "unorthodox" genealogy, considering him a "hybrid" that seemed "particularly reckless"; though he tried not to show it to the others, these comments, fairly fresh from the revelation that he was only half-human, upset him.
The Guardians then returned to the Milano and set off for Xandar, where they aimed to collect a bounty on Nebula's head. Peter apologized to Gamora for flirting with Ayesha, but she claimed she didn't care. (Read: she did.) As Gamora walked away with Nebula in shackles, Drax, who had witnessed this conversation, snuck up on Peter, and told him a story about when he'd met his wife. The roundabout point was this: in his attempt at "romance advice," Drax told Peter that he had no chance with Gamora, and that he was better off finding a woman who was "pathetic" like him. Drax... means well.
There wasn't a ton of time to dwell on this, though, because before they could get far, they found themselves surrounded by a Sovereign fleet, because Rocket had swiped some of the batteries. Yay. In the ensuing battle, Peter and Rocket argued as they wrestled for control over piloting the Milano through a quantum asteroid field they needed to pass in order to get away. Well, to say "argue" is an understatement; it was more of an immature dick-waving contest over who was the better pilot, which ultimately caused a bunch of damage to the ship and almost killed everyone on board. Just when they thought they were in the clear, they ran into a trap that the Sovereign fleet had created; all signs truly pointed to fucked, until a mysterious figure suddenly destroyed all the Sovereign craft.
The damage sustained to the Milano caused it to crash on a remote planet called Berhert. As they surveyed the damage, an argument almost immediately broke out over who was responsible for their current predicament, with Peter and Rocket promptly blaming each other like a tried and true pair of bickering siblings. Soon after, though, it became apparent that the mysterious figure who'd blown up all of the Sovereign ships had followed them to Berhert. The man introduced himself as Ego, Peter's father, and stated that he had been looking for Peter for a long time.
That night, Ego, along with his servant, Mantis, joined the others around a fire. There, Ego explained that he had been searching for Peter ever since Yondu failed to deliver him like he'd promised (and was hired to do), and that he'd located the Guardians after hearing of their victory at the Battle of Xandar. Now that they'd found each other, Ego told Peter that if he came with him to his home planet, he could not only explain Peter's "special heritage," but also be the father he had always wanted to be. In response to all of this, Peter was skeptical, and after leaving the group to take a walk with Gamora, he talked with her about his doubts. Gamora reminded him of a story he'd told her — about how when he was a child, he used to pretend David Hasselhoff was his father, and carried his picture around with him — and encouraged him to take a chance on the possibility that he may actually get to build a relationship with his father, something he'd always wanted.
The next day, he decided to take that chance and go with Ego to his planet, with Gamora and Drax accompanying him, while Rocket, Groot, and the still-imprisoned Nebula stayed behind with the ship. On their way to Ego's planet, the group got to know Mantis, who explained her empathic abilities. In the process of demonstrating them, Mantis revealed Peter's feelings for Gamora to the whole room when she touched him, causing him a great deal of embarrassment. (Let's be real, though; Peter has never been too subtle with any of this, and no one really needed Mantis to be able to read the proverbial flashing neon sign on his head that says, "I have a huge crush on Gamora.") Anyway, our crew eventually arrived at Ego's planet, where Ego explained that he was, in fact, a Celestial, and that the planet they were now walking on was a part of him, as was the Kurt Russell-acted form speaking with them; he told of how he explored the universe to seek out life, and in the process, met Peter's mother and fell in love with her. Peter then asked the logical question: if he loved her, why did he leave her?
Peter's skepticism remained until, eventually, he had a chance to be alone with his father. During this time, Ego explained that he could not stay on Earth because he must return to his planet regularly in order to keep that form that looks like Kurt Russell from dying. That explanation wasn't good enough for Peter, who confronted him regarding why he did not come to collect him himself, but had instead sent Yondu, to which Ego responded that he "couldn't stand" to be on an Earth where Meredith wasn't living, and that he couldn't imagine what that feels like. This angered Peter in a way that we basically haven't ever really seen before, who said that, yes, he knows exactly what that feels like, because he had to watch his mother die. Changing track, Ego then helped Peter to discover that he, too, had abilities connected to the "light" inside the planet, and when he looked at Peter and said, "You're home," in that instant, maybe for the first time in over twenty-five years, he believed it.
really tugs on the heartstrings tbh
Later, Peter, still in an upbeat mood, convinced Gamora to dance with him, and broached the topic of what he referred to as the "unspoken thing" between them, insisting this could be explained in the metaphor of a will-they-won't-they relationship on a TV show. Gamora, however, denied its existence, and instead brought up her growing suspicions of Ego and the planet. Peter instantly became affronted, accusing her of "trying to take this away from [him]," and a nasty argument then ensued between them. Before she stormed out, Peter tried to make her understand that he had "finally" found his family, to which she replied that she thought he already had (with the Guardians). That night, Ego found Peter alone listening to his Walkman, and admitted he'd witnessed some of the earlier events. He then tried to connect with Peter through the song he was listening to ("Brandy" by Looking Glass), and related the both of them to the sailor character in that song. Subsequently, he revealed that Peter, with his half-Celestial DNA and connection to the "light" inside the planet, was also immortal. Upon this revelation, he offered to show Peter what he had been working on, and Peter agreed.
This is, of course, the part of the movie where shit gets #real. I'll explain:
As it turned out, Ego explained, when he traveled the cosmos, he ultimately found life to be "disappointing," and that his existence required a new purpose: what he termed the "Expansion," a process by which everything in the universe would be destroyed and remade as himself. He showed Peter a glimpse of eternity before explaining the rest of his plan — on every world he visited, he left "extensions" of himself, and impregnated women of all sorts of species in order to acquire the second Celestial needed to power the Expansion. Yondu broke the Ravager code to deliver some of these children to Ego, and all but Peter ultimately "failed" him because they did not carry the genetic connection to the light. Ego proclaimed that, for the first time in millions of years, he was not alone, and this made Peter take pause, briefly breaking the spell Ego had put him under as he thought of his friends. Ego noticed this, and tried to pacify things; this all would've worked had Peter not asked if Ego truly loved his mother, and if Ego, in response, hadn't said that it "broke [his] heart to put that tumor in her head."
Immediately, Peter snapped out from under Ego's control, drew his quad blasters, and shot at him relentlessly, over and over again until the form in front of him was nearly destroyed. Ego, however, managed to repair himself, and resorted to more extreme measures — this time, he caused light to plunge straight into Peter's chest, draining him of his life force as he started to use him as a battery to power the Expansion against his will. With Peter helpless to do anything but watch, Ego also took Peter's Walkman and crushed it. Honestly, the biggest dick in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and perhaps in any movie ever. Soon afterward, Gamora and Drax, who had learned of Ego's plans from Mantis, accompanied by her and Nebula, arrived to save Peter. At the same time, a ship piloted by Rocket and Yondu crashed into the room and smashed into Ego.
The group realized that the only way to stop the Expansion, the certain destruction of the universe, was to kill Ego. Mantis explained that the form they had just smashed was only an extension of himself, and that his core, his only weakness, was located in the caverns of the planet. Peter and Yondu piloted an old piece of mining equipment to drill under the planet's surface and head toward the caverns, where they found Ego's brain. Their race against time was complicated when the Sovereign, who were still upset about their stolen batteries and had tracked the Guardians here, arrived to cause a shootout. In the process, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis fell out of the mining craft and to the ground of the caverns; Mantis used her abilities to put Ego to sleep, which served to buy them a little more time. Meanwhile Peter, Rocket, and Groot headed toward the core, where they would place a makeshift bomb, made from the batteries that Rocket had stolen, to blow up the planet. Peter fought off the Sovereign until he was forced back into the ship. In order to knock out the remotely-piloted Sovereign fleet, Nebula and Yondu blew up the ship; as Peter floated down from the explosion, and looked up to see that Yondu was using his flying arrow to do the same, he commented that Yondu looked like Mary Poppins. When Yondu asked if "he [was] cool," Peter responded that, yes, he was — the he in question being Yondu.
When Mantis was knocked out by a piece of debris, their borrowed time was over. Ego awoke, and began to use his power to crush most of the Guardians under piles of rocks. Additionally, he again began to drain Peter's life force to continue to power the Expansion. While things seemed pretty hopeless, Yondu had managed to get a piece of advice to Peter before he, too, was buried under rocks — that he does not use his "head" to fly his arrow, but instead his "heart." This meant something to Peter, who, in that moment, thought of his loved ones; this gave him the strength to break Ego's control once and for all, and to begin to attack him. Peter continued to fight Ego as a distraction while the bomb counted down (at one point, Peter made himself into a giant Pac-Man using his abilities), until both collapsed onto the ground. Ego informed Peter that when he died, Peter would be "just like everybody else," to which Peter replied, "What's so wrong with that?" Peter held Ego down as the bomb exploded, and watched not only his father's form, but also the Celestial powers in his own hands, fade away.
Peter closed his eyes and quietly accepted what he thought was his imminent death, until Yondu rushed to save him and flew him through the planet's atmosphere. The problem, though, was that Yondu only had one space suit, and could not save them both; he told Peter that he was his "daddy," and apologized for "not doing any of it right" before he sacrificed his life by giving Peter the only space suit.
In the aftermath of Yondu's death, Peter realized that he'd had the father figure he'd been searching for all along — in Yondu. He gave a eulogy over Yondu's body before it was cremated in the custom of the Ravagers. Afterward, Kraglin gave Peter a Zune music player that Yondu had found for him in a junk shop. He took it with him to the old captain's quarters on the Ravagers' ship, and as he started to flip through its contents, Groot came to join him. He soon noticed fireworks out in nearby space, and that the other Ravager factions, which had previously disowned Yondu, had come to honor him with a proper Ravager funeral; Peter and Groot joined the others to watch. As the fireworks continued, Gamora indicated to Peter that she returned his feelings, and they shared a quiet embrace.
Abilities/Special Powers: Due to being raised by the Ravagers from the age of 8 on, as well as entering a life of skirting the edges of the law himself as an adult, Peter has acquired a number of skills over the years, including:
- Combat: As a child, Yondu taught Peter how to fight, and those lessons were, indeed, effective; Peter is a capable fighter in close quarters, hand-to-hand combat, able to hold his own against trained soldiers and assassins.
- Marksmanship: Peter is adept with a variety of firearms, most notably his own preferred quad blasters. He is also able to effectively use unfamiliar weapons on the fly.
- Piloting: Peter has been piloting his own M-ship, the Milano, since he was 10 years old, and these years of experience translate into an ability to perform a number of complex maneuvers. With his ship, he's able to make narrow escapes and evade asteroids.
- Thievery: Peter has a bit of a rap sheet, but it's implied that he's gotten away with a lot more than he's been caught for — interestingly, theft doesn't appear on his list of previous charges when he's arrested by the Nova Corps on Xandar, which may be a testament to his skill. We see that he's quite good at sleight of hand, able to easily swipe things from people when they aren't looking, and can talk/charm his way out of a good many situations (even if he may not be as good at the latter as he thinks he is).
It should also be noted that because of his half-Celestial DNA, Peter was once able to hold an Infinity Stone for several minutes without being killed, and began to learn how to manipulate molecules and energy during his time on Ego's planet; furthermore, as long as Ego was alive, Peter would also be immortal. As of the end of Vol 2, however, with the death of Ego and the destruction of the "light" inside his planet, Peter has lost all of these abilities, including immortality, and is now a regular human.
Third-Person Sample:
The Zune isn't the Walkman.
Which, you know, they're different colors and they don't work in the same way, like, at all, and that's... totally stating the obvious here. After almost three decades of never going anywhere without the latter, of having it more often than not literally attached at the hip, his muscle memory is completely off; the Zune has a different weight, a different balance, and feels really weird in his hands sometimes. Sometimes, too, he finds himself trying to press a rewind button on the side that isn't there, finds himself crushed under the realization, again, that the last thing he'd ever had left of his mother is gone forever.
It's just — something to get used to.
That's change, though, he's really starting to learn, facing life without certain things, certain people in it, and trying to find a way to move forward — something to get used to. Some days, it's easier than others. Some days, he's too busy chasing around some crazy a-holes he calls friends and putting out their fires, figurative and literal, by the way, to put a whole lot of thought into anything else. Other days he's dead on his feet because he's spent half the night trying to avoid sleep after waking up in a cold sweat from the same damn nightmare he has at least once a week for a while, the one where his bastard of a biological father is hell-bent on taking away every single thing he has while leaving him helpless to do anything but watch, with a light stabbing through his chest as he feels more and more of the literal life being sucked out of him by the second.
But with time, those particular days dwindle in number, and the extremes in his life become few and far between. The little reminders of Yondu around the Quadrant — the odd trinket, that kind of thing — can still get him on occasion, can still take him out of his thoughts and form a hard lump in his throat, but maybe, he thinks, they start to get less painful. And with each night that he spends some time alone in the captain's quarters, sprawled on the bed with the Zune in hand, thumbing the click wheel through a whole universe of songs he's never heard before (ranging from awesome to who the hell thought it was a good idea to even call this music?), the motion feels more and more natural.
One day at a time. It's just something to get used to.
First-Person Sample:
[here's what someone who's 100% a dick does: ruins someone's fun for no reason. that is literally the most uncool thing that anyone in the history of ever can do, and you know what, that's just not something that peter, who is not, confirmed and verified by the nova corps, 100% a dick, is going to entertain.
see, he may be about to ruin someone's fun when he appears on the network today, square-jawed and serious-faced, but it's for a reason. a good one. he's a guardian of the galaxy, okay, and it's simply his heroic duty to act on this reason.]
To the a-hole [he's trying, for the benefit of any young listening ears (or "ears"(?), as may be the case with groot)] who keeps playing "Smoke On the Water" on the guitar in the Music Room — I don't know who you are, but you know who you are, and that's what's important here —
Dude, you have to stop. Seriously. Not kidding. I'm not trying to be a dick [... there it is], I'm really not, but you're just not good, man. You get really close to totally murdering that song about ten times a day, and — seriously, what the hell did Deep Purple ever do to you to deserve this?!
[also, it's painfully loud, which is, in the grand scheme of things, a secondary crime.
he heaves a sigh. (if it's all a little more dramatic than it needs to be, well.)]
I'm just trying to save lives here, okay, you've gotta understand that. One day, you'll thank me.
