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It starts like this, every night: I go to sleep and I’m scared I won’t wake up. (Arakko is warm at night, actually. A comfortable heat that only sometimes makes me wake up sweaty, and even then I just turn on the fan and I’m fine.)
It starts like this, every morning at breakfast: I hear your voice, just for a second, reminding me how important it is to be able to relax, and to eat well. (A week or two before I left for Arakko, Peter accidentally said a phrase similar to it. “Richie, it’s really critical you pay attention right now.” I felt like I was falling. I felt sick. Like you were there, with me, right then. Peter noticed —of course he noticed— but I didn’t tell him what set me off. He said that if I really didn’t want to share, that’s ok.)
It starts like this, every afternoon, two hours after lunch: I crave a snack. (The Cancerverse does not feel like Arakko, even if both are humid. I’m glad for that. One time I visited Krakoa. I was there very briefly, 20 minutes tops. Krakoa feels a little like the Cancerverse. I didn’t say anything, but I talked with my therapist for a long time that night.)
It starts like this, every night: Just before I go to sleep, your words repeat in my head, again. They are some of the last words you said to me before Sam and I escaped the Cancerverse, and left you to suffer forever. I imagine how I would respond to them, now, with more time to think. (A hero has to live with his actions. Is that so? Is that true? Is that how we live, truly, and fully? I did not sacrifice myself because I relished the feeling of being a hero. I did what I did —what I do— because it is what was best. Who do you think you are? Telling me that I asked for this. That I asked to be the last Nova, that I asked to carry on the legacy of a people who were not my own—not in the same way as humanity is “my own”, at least. You pushed me. You made sure I woke up, on the day the Annihilation Wave hit Xandar. You made sure I woke up the day that I was deputized. You let me get deputized. A 15 year old boy, carrying on the legacy of an entire planet, an entire culture. And that same boy, 8 years later? What was he doing then? Was he alive by some miracle, some… One in a billion chance? Were you forcing him to take on the burden of you, yourself, on his body and mind? The actual, legitimate, legacy of the Nova Corps and the Xandarians? 23 years old.
I didn’t finish college.
It’s not that I loved being the hero, World, it’s that for a long time being the hero was the only thing I could do. I was not my brother. I was not some sort of kid genius. I was normal, and I lived in the shadow of him, until you came along. What did you expect, allowing a 15 year old boy to be deputized? Did you expect maturity?
My entire life is a series of improbable moments, tied together with one connector: you. The Corps. Xandar.
It was all a 1/4,142,505,882 chance. And it was always meant to be. You didn’t orchestrate this, and heaven knows Rhomann Dey didn’t orchestrate this. But you were there. You watched it happen. You didn’t see who I was, what kind of person I was, and say that I was unfit to be Centurion. You let it happen.
Do you get what I’m saying, Worldmind? Do you understand what I mean when I say “I love you”? Or are you still the soulless flarking robot I met all those d’ast years ago? Was it all for nothing?
…I saved the world during college. It happened during a baseball game, I think. Or after?
Everyone was going to die. I had to save them. I remember that. I remember I watched Bernie die, and I thought, oh, blazes, this is the real deal, and I remember how I thought that if I could just do this, then I’d really make it in the big leagues. And then, I remember —and this is the most important part— the Sphinx saying he wanted you , and I remember that there was no way I could give you up. I didn’t know you, not back then at least.
But I knew you were important.
Do you get it, Worldmind? How much you’ve changed me? How much I want to think I’ve changed you? You are a shell of your past self, relegated to living on forever in the Cancerverse. Isn’t that what you wanted? For Xandar to never die, not fully? Congrats. You won. I love you.)
It happens like this, on random nights: I wake up, and I’m slightly too sweaty to be comfortable, so I stand and turn on the fan. (Across the room, a single dust particle is jostled —picked up by the movement— and he never gets to go home.)