Chapter Text
"Come on, we need to go," I pleaded with him.
"No we don't. I have an idea." His demeanor was as calm as ever, almost casual as he held up his palm and stepped forward to reset his stance. "I can fix this."
I felt that he was minimizing the issue.
"No, you can't! This is not a broken down car, Mar!" The issue was a destabilized star about to go supernova. The best we could do was to try to get as many people as we could and teleport, shunt or worm them out, and at least preserve the genetic history of their species. The planet, the other animals and plants, all of their culture, history, achievements, identity would be incinerated with the rest of the solar system, all too soon, far before the star's natural time – but at least some of the people would live.
Mar-Vell clenched his fist and the material of his glove faded away, darkening into an inky night sky, blooming along his forearm. Cosmic Awareness. Seeing Mar use it would always be enough to give one pause.
"You're right – but we can."
Oh no. We? What was he on? What was I going to do, try to calm the sun down, talk it out of imploding? Sure, there was inherent potential in my Eternal cosmic power, but it wasn't like I could wield it. I didn't know how, and that was on purpose. And when I recognized an idea as stupid, that's how you knew for sure it was stupid.
But the twinkling stars shimmering on his arm, it's hard to explain, they were comforting. They made me feel like I just didn't understand, that if I were wise enough to comprehend then it would all make sense. I wasn't fooled by it though.
"I'm going to need you to come with me," he said, offering his hand, black and diamond.
"Where." I knew where.
"To the star." I knew that.
No. He didn't know what he was doing. I tried one more time. "Mar, please, reconsider. I know that it's hard when you're supposed to be a hero to cut your losses and run," I said, genuinely understanding the complex, having seen it kill so many mortals just like him - because for all of the blessing of the cosmos he was still a mortal. "But it's far better to help the people we know we can save, and survive to avenge the victims, than it is to die without saving anybody because you wanted to try something out." He was a captain, he should be strategic. He was a Kree, he should be logical. Right?
He looked at me like I was the one talking nonsense, and said to me gently, "I need you to trust me."
And there was nothing I could do at that point, no argument I could make, no way to persuade him otherwise, so I went with him.
Even if we were flying towards the blinding sun, heat ever more scorching, vision replaced by my own cosmic energy trying to shield my eyes; even as I became more and more certain that whatever he was going to do wasn't going to work and everything else for hundreds of millions of miles around us was going to die; I trusted him. I just did.
When my own cosmic energy couldn't go any closer, his energy furnished from the sun took over. And I could see again. I could see it, the star's brilliant light.
We stopped, far away enough to behold the flaring sun's unimaginably vast majesty, but close enough to understand just how small we were. It was absolutely terrifying. Magnificent. I had never come so close to a star before, because I couldn't, not on my own. But here I was, thanks to him. I was scared. It was exhilarating.
Dark fissures in the sun's blazing surface writhed wildly, unnaturally; there was clearly something wrong with the giant celestial body. Nuclear reactions did not physically crumble like that–fusion didn't occasionally have a hiccup. It was clear that some entity had done this, hurt the star, someone disturbingly powerful. This was going to come back to bite us later. (Or, for Marv, at least. I'm just some guy.)
"Okay," Mar-Vell said like this was normal, because he could be very exasperating. But his voice soothed me. He was now total blackness against the aura of his own power, a Kree-shaped patch of deep, starry space, and I gazed at his stars. He held out his hand and I took it, just like I always did. Just like I always would.
I looked down and saw that his stars, the cosmic whatever-it-was that Eon bestowed upon him, it started spreading onto me, and I couldn't feel where my hand was or where I ended and he began,
and then I felt like . . . a shell, maybe, or rather like I was trapped inside one, and like I was - not my body, but I - was being, I don't know, squeezed - I don't want to say drained–but at the same time I could not be contained, I felt like I was expanding. I was almost free, I was so close to something – to this day I don't know what that something was, and I know I never will.
I have visual memories but don't remember actually seeing anything. I see my stars twinkling red, and I see him with his universe-hand outstretched - the one not holding mine - and from it, a cosmic thread, and a force, all-encompassing, so much larger than anything I've ever personally felt so close, and that sun beginning to break into pieces–
But instead, slowly, with a grueling pressure I can't even explain, the dark fissures fill up with their lost sunlight. The light pours in and makes it whole. But I sort of felt myself in them, in the threads, and I realized that it was because he was using my power to make him strong enough to – heal a broken star.
(He'd say we combined our powers; we absolutely did not. All I did was take his hand and be a very good looking battery.)
It was an overwhelmingly exhausting experience, like I might as well have been physically grouting the star myself. And then I started not to feel anything at all.
I heard him say "Just a little more, Eros."
___
I woke up with Elysius looming over me and before I could ask her what happened she said "You failed. The star exploded. We're in hell."
Good. Amazing. I wish I could say I couldn't believe it worked, but if he said it would then it would, and it did.
Elysius reached over me and shook something - not me, but it made me shake anyway. Marv groaned, squeezed his arm around me and Elysius smiled.
She took a step back and appraised what I assume was us. I felt so heavy but it was warm around me. I heard Mar's heart beating under my ear.
"Color me impressed, gentlemen. How did you do it?"
I felt the weight of a hand on my head, fingers combing through my hair and I didn't even hear Marv's answer I fell back asleep so fast.