[ It’s hard, but when Gamora calls his name, when she urges him to look at her, he swallows whatever panicked words might have tried to slip past his lips. And when she— when she admits that she knew—

He had been afraid he would need to waste time getting her to believe him. (“My dead father is actually totally alive and has taken over my body and imprisoned me in my own mind and wants to destroy the known universe again” isn’t an easy pill to swallow.) He had been worried she might try to brush him off by telling him it was a bad dream, that he would sink away into the dark, reaching for her, with her sighing at his over-active imagination.

But he doesn’t. She knows already. And he should have trusted her instincts, and he lets out a quiet, ugly sound, something caught between a relieved sob and a helpless laugh. ]

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Gamora. I never—

[ He never wanted to put her in this position again. He never wanted to force her to lie through a smile, to make her do this awful shit in hopes of protecting him from himself—

But it looks like it’s happening anyway, isn’t it?

At her question, he shakes his head, trying to gather his wits and suck down a solid breath. ]

I don’t know.

He can’t... he’s trying to gather the Light again, but he can’t. There’s something wrong. With me or with him. I don’t know—

[ A noise punches out of him when another of those dark waves crashes through him, makes his vision dim. He clutches at her desperately, like a drowning man flailing out for flotsam. ]