Planned Parenthood (I)

"-. 10 January, 1989 .-"

His old man's hair was brown.

After everything that had happened since those 38 years he lived through that one night, that's what Peter Jason Quill was most hung up about. Not the time travel or whatever it was. Not the magic. Not that he'd killed Yondu and everyone else in the Ravagers he'd been close to in another time. Not even the fact that his grandfather was the prince of a space empire from another galaxy. No, it was the color of his grandpa's hair. Or, rather, the fact that it now had color at all instead of being the wispy gray of old age that he remembered. New length of hair had grown and the gray had been cut off within a month of their arrival at the Overlook. Which was around three weeks longer than it took grandpa's wrinkles to fade after he stopped applying whatever he did to make himself look old.

His grandpa's hair was brown like his.

It was official. Peter's priorities were fucked up beyond all recognition.

"The Accession Peregrination is a system where the heir to the throne is brought up on dozens of the Empire's planets, working many professions," Jason Quill said early on when he noticed him staring one time too many. He was incredibly observant, Peter had quickly come to learn. Or remember. Always guessed what he was thinking. "Servant, miner, poet, soldier, pilot, you name it and I've probably done it." Grandpa Jason Quill was weirdly wry when he said that. Almost sarcastic. Made Peter feel like there was important stuff not being said. "Being that I was a public figure that still needed constant protection and surveillance, though, you couldn't do that without some measure of discretion. Becoming an infiltrator and spy was the first thing I learned."

The first thing of many, as it would become increasingly clear with every hour, day and week that passed. Not because of any stories his grandpa told or any claims or boasts he made. Not because of how good he was at reading and anticipating people. Which should have ranked higher in Peter's mind. Grandpa Jason hadn't even infringed on the privacy of his room without asking permission after that first time. It took him seeing how badly Peter had reacted once for him to instantly make the connection to… well, things. No, what stood out was the way his grandpa looked at him whenever Peter went out of his way to prove he wasn't just some kid. It didn't matter what he did or how he did it. It didn't matter how quick and dirty he fought. It didn't matter how well he shot. It didn't matter when he demonstrated five different ways to take a man down and shot a moving target eight out of ten times during the first training session. Every time it was the same. Every time the old man only looked at him the same way. Every time it was the same mix of vexed, fond and indulgent.

Indulgent!

It wouldn't be so bad if his grandpa wasn't so obviously good at everything. How capable he proved every time he tested Peter in something. He was beyond him in every ability. He saw so easily through every weakness in his skills, glaring or not. He easily and quickly catalogued every strength and weakness in something he'd say or do then lay out a full critique right there on the spot. And all the while he was so indulgent every time Peter tried to impress him – to shut him up! – or at least wipe that indulgent smile from his face. Spotting a mark, close quarter fighting, trailing a target, shooting a gun, driving a car, flying atmo-craft, piloting spaceships, tinkering with technology, shooting in the dark, every time the story was the same. Jason Quill was Peter Quill's superior in every manner imaginable.

And his grandpa was never even the slightest bit mean about his criticism. Even when he provided running commentary!

"Do you resent me?" Grandpa asked him some evenings, when he joined him sitting on the cliff-side.

"No," Peter always lied.

"One day you'll be honest with me," Jason Quill would reply. "Then you'll cry, we'll hug it out and it'll be alright."

Peter always made a show of shuddering in disgust at the image, all to mask a deep inner dread and longing those words always called up. Also to deflect from all the other misgivings he always laboured under. Or, really, one misgiving. Namely how hard it was to keep a light-hearted front around his mom whenever the day's events proved particularly humiliating to any claims of ability or skill he'd once have made.

That was another thing. His mom. She'd rebounded extremely quickly, which was great. But he hadn't instantly re-bonded with her like he'd expected, which wasn't. Even though she had, as far as she was concerned. She'd reacted to her miraculous healing by believing it to be a validation and absolution of every last thing she ever said or believed about a certain man from space. Peter's acting skills had been getting a lot of practice these days. More than he felt comfortable with, and that was saying something. How do you tell your recently dying mother that the greatest thing in her life was actually an egomaniacal planet mind that wanted to eat her and every other living thing in the universe? Or that he was the one who gave her brain cancer in the first place?

"Something bothering you, baby?"

Don't cringe, Star-Lord. "It's nothing, mom."

"Don't you lie to me, Peter Jason Quill." Meredith Quill the Younger could be perceptive too, when she wanted to be. Especially when Meredith Quill the Older was doing all the housework, cooking and anything else that would otherwise distract her, which was all the time. In fact, Peter couldn't remember his mom actually cooking for him in either timeline. "Is this about how tired you are these days? Maybe I should talk to your granddaddy not to push you so hard all the time. Doing your best's one thing, but honestly? You're still a kid. You should take time outta your day for that too."

Don't cringe, Star-Lord. Don't cringe. Not because you're not a kid, not because you technically are one, and certainly not because your mom said that with grandpa right there. Especially don't cringe at the obvious jab aimed at grandpa for denying anyone but himself a return home or anywhere else in America. "It's not that, it's just…" He was increasingly wary of broaching 'The Matter' with her just in case passive-aggressive stopped being, well, passive. "Grandpa's just so much better at everything," he finally moaned. What kind of life was this, when going whining to your mom was the least of the evils available? "I was never half as good even at my best." More like not even a tenth, but even that much borderline hyperbole would be pushing his luck. His mom was already sceptical about the past life thing, having never had anything similar occur on her many DMT trips. "It'll take me years to get as good as he is."

"Who said you had to?" She all too blithely asked while filling his plate for him. "You're not him."

The emphasis on that last word rung louder than grandpa's faked nonchalance and grandma's disapproving stare combined. The echo of it lingered for the rest of dinner, and Peter wondered if there was another him he was supposed to be like.

What was he talking about, of course there was.

What would his mom say, Peter wondered, if she knew the Sorcerer hijacked their sleep to build training dreams for them every night after she put him to bed.

"Have you changed your mind yet?" Grandpa asked while they were make-believe fishing in a make-believe lake as a break from the dream simulation of being a miner. His old man had a lot of job experiences for the Ancient One to adapt like that. Or help grandpa adapt, since Jason Quill seemed to be getting the hang of lucid dreaming amazingly quickly.

He was referring to their first totally-not-an-argument, when Peter barely convinced him not to tell everything he knew about Ego to his mom. Peter had balked, explained, argued and outright begged the man to let him be the one to tell her. To which the man only consented – barely – in exchange for Peter taking every bit of learning and training he and the Ancient One issued him without even once complaining. The moment he did, the deal was off and grandpa was taking The Matter in his own hands. 'If you want the rights of a man, you'll get the responsibilities of a man.'

"Not yet," Peter said, trying to hide how much his resolve had wavered since then. He'd already tried to obliquely 'discuss' the workload he'd set him. Grandpa had flatly shot him down on account of 'One of the core responsibilities of manhood is proving you can be trusted to follow through on commitments.'

Peter had thought he had a rebuttal in asking about sabotage and backstabbing for the greater cause. To which grandpa flatly told him that he expected him to develop an actual way of life before he would even begin to discuss how to ruin one. Incidentally, that wasn't the sort of man he wanted Peter to grow into. Not so incidentally, Jason Quill said, he would never stomach inflicting upon his own flesh and blood the sort of 'lessons' it took to instil that mindset.

Was this why his 'practical simulations' didn't include any spywork and infiltration? And had any of the others been sanitised compared to whatever his grandfather had done in his youth? Hopefully that'd change when they did something about his body to catch it up to the age his mind was at. The old guys were planning something like that, right?

Before he knew it, two months had passed and the new status quo had become the daily routine of their lives. That was also about as long as it took him took him to ask the one, greatest burning question on his mind. Over breakfast. One morning when the Ancient One didn't join them for the meal. "So when are we learning magic?"

"Hmm?" Grandpa Jason said as he pulled his attention away from the morning newspaper. Or one of them. The Ancient One was subscribed to pretty much all the big ones around the world. Somehow. Grandpa always read the news sections of all of them as soon as the sorcerer was done with them. It seemed pretty strange to Peter, didn't divination and clairvoyance basically make newspapers redundant to a sorcerer like Yao? "What's that son?"

Peter tried not to show the conflicting feelings that he always got when his grandpa slipped and called him that. "I asked when we're going to start learning magic."

"When are you going to start learning magic, you mean," the man looked back down at the propaganda – pardon, news – section of the Pravda. "You're the only thing I've spent more time on since the day after we first got here."

Betrayal exploded in him at the same time as a total mess of emotion from being named the most important person in his grandpa's life so casually. "Excuse you?" Peter blurted.

"The Ancient One only teaches those who pass his tests, and his tests have very exacting standards," Jason Quill put the paper aside to look at him. While looking past his suddenly scowling daughter. "So far he's postponed his assessment of you while I do my best to make you what you need to be."

For some reason, that made him bristle. "And what do I need to be?"

"A functional human being."

Peter didn't have time to even process how badly that answer stabbed at him before his mother scoffed. "Don't listen to him." She said tersely, glaring at Jason before smiling reassuringly at him. "He'll never be fully satisfied with you no matter what you do. Nonsense, is what it is-"

"Meredith-" Grandma tried to-

"No, mother," Meredith the Younger interrupted her. "It's nonsense and I'll not see more of it put in his head." She turned back to him then and spoke softly while wiping some sauce off his cheek with a napkin. "Don't listen to old grumpy pants, Peter. You're already perfect. He just can't see it. Your grandma and grandpa may not accept you, but remember: I love you just the way you are."

"Horseshit," Jason Quill said with startling crassness while pouring himself a cup of Lhasa beer. "Though not surprising from you at this point. Just remember – I may be resigned to you projecting your faults on others to feel better about yourself, but try any soul-destroying gaslighting and I'm putting my foot down."

"How dare you!?" mama said sharply. "You have no right to-!"

"Mer! Jason!" Grandma shouted over them both, looking pointedly between them and him. The table became extraordinarily chatter-free.

Grandma proceeded to serve the momos she'd finally mastered making, but the mood was ruined beyond repair. And seeing as he had just been treated like the child he looked like instead of the old soul he really had, Peter was hard-pressed to stay civil until the end of it. He was so pissed.

His mom didn't let him out of her sight for the rest of the day and outright steered him clear of his grandfather all the while. Peter reminded himself that he'd once killed a god in the name of her memory alone. That's what he told himself every time he thought about her treatment of him. Her treatment of him compared to those around him. He reminded himself that her memory and songs were what got him through the day for most of his old life. He reminded himself of that every day he had to pretend not to be growing bored with the songs she got him to listen with her while he was on break from whatever studying or exercising he was otherwise expected to dedicate himself to. It wasn't her fault, and the songs were current.

But was it his fault that he'd lived to be 38 years old and had listened to every last song hundreds of times?

Now, though, after the aborted argument at the dinner table, Peter began to notice a distinct possessive cant to her actions and his life. First she increased the frequency with which he took him on hikes. She justified it as it being about time she started taking him on her outings. But since they weren't back home where she knew the trails, she needed a valiant man to protect her. And since his grandfather was never in favour of her lifestyle – which was true – and his daddy hadn't come back for them – which wasn't, if you counted Yondu and company – then the only option was obvious. "You'll protect me, won't you baby?" She said blithely as she led the way out the main yard up the mountainside. "Just like your daddy."

Other times, when it snowed too much or she was too tired from the previous day or just not in the mood, she'd call him to listen to music together. Awesome Mix Vol. 1 had been thoroughly re-experienced, and Awesome Mix Vol. 2 was enjoyed forwards and backwards quite thoroughly. Peter actually didn't mind it. His mom could make things very interesting when she got going about something she loved, and she loved her pop music. She was also a very accomplished storyteller. Every song they listened to was a song she taught him to sing. Even though he sung really badly with his high, 8-year-old pitch. And for every song taught she had a story, about hiking, exploring or advocating for things that couldn't advocate for themselves. Always about the pure unsullied nature and its laws. Always a tale of the downtrodden speaking truth to power. And almost every time including a cool anecdote with his 'daddy' as the protagonist. "He was so clever, your daddy," mom often said, when she was nearing the end. "So bright. He'll love you, you know. You're already so much like him."

Considering everything, it was kind of a surprise that the song he wound up preferring most out of them all was Cat Stevens's "Father & Son." Bits and pieces of its lyrics kept popping in and out of his mind at the most and least opportune times.

Then again…

Peter Quill was really regretting not addressing The Matter by now. Hell, he was even regretting not letting grandpa do it. However ridiculous it was to think his grandpa needed his permission for anything. Speaking of, he'd have expected his mom to make at least oblique insinuations about grandpa, if not say unflattering things about him outright. Peter was promptly shocked at himself for having such expectations. When had he started to think so little about her? Actually, when had he started thinking in any way poorly about her at all?

~You're still young, that's your fault~

Unfortunately, his attempts to think about an answer were stymied by her demands on his time. Which, okay, weren't anything he wouldn't have been entirely in favour of had he still been the age he looked. As it was, though…

He lasted two more weeks. Then, during one of their inside days when it was too cold and blizzardy for anyone to go out (except the Ancient One and grandpa apparently), he asked his mom to leave off the music and anecdotes and play a game instead. More specifically, hide and seek. Meredith Quill, shockingly, agreed almost instantly. Whatever else she was, she took as good as she gave when it was her little Star-Lord asking. It made Peter ashamed of what he'd really made that request for, but he was committed to his course.

He waited for his mom to start counting, all but sprinted to the entrance hall, donned the heavy clothes and yak wool coat he'd stashed under the staircase earlier on, and proceeded to rush out the door.