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He thinks the little girl’s name begins with an M.
Molly, Megan…
Morgan.
At least, that’s what Peter’s pretty sure he heard Nebula say as she whispered something to Rocket on their way to Stark’s funeral. He tried to listen in, he really did. He tried joining in on the conversation, maybe offer his team some needed support, but—
He keeps thinking about how this is his first funeral.
There was Yondu's funeral, of course, but Peter can’t help thinking that this is somehow entirely different.
Both deaths were unexpected, but there is a significant difference in the amount of planning between the two of them. Stark’s funeral has flowers, ornate arrangements, friends and family from all over. Yondu’s funeral wasn't allowed much forethought; it was intimate and rushed. Peter doesn't regret a thing, but the realization that he has yet to go to a funeral of this nature is becoming painstakingly apparent.
It’s nice, it’s respectful, it’s thoroughly planned; yet it leaves Peter with the bitter thought of Stark’s wife sitting over a catalogue of flower arrangements, worrying about her sleeping daughter upstairs.
Everyone is wearing black, too. Which is something Peter thought only happened in the movies. He was informed to wear it though, and looking around now, he suppresses an awful, selfish thought.
Gamora liked black.
Peter feels his eyes stinging with pent up frustration and anguish. He tries shoving the thoughts down but, well, he’s selfish.
He proved that on Titan. When he first found out about Gamora’s death doing anything except beating the everlasting shit out of Thanos did not occur to him as an option. He couldn't contain himself. It was the same on Ego when he found out the truth about his mother’s illness. Anger and blaster fire was all that he knew in that moment.
Peter still feels like, somehow, this funeral is of his doing. He knows he can't give himself the credit; that Doctor guy explained to him later that it was something that had to be done in order to remain in the one specific timeline where they were able to win, but—
There’s a little girl, Morgan, who’s standing at the front of the dock beside her mother, watching some sort of arrangement float away in the rippling water. Peter knows her pain, he knows it like the back of his hand.
There’s no body. He’s pretty sure they can choose to cremate on Earth sometimes, specified by the wishes of the deceased. Good, Peter thinks. He’s seen enough bodies in one lifetime.
Peter wonders whether or not his mother was cremated. He always imagined that his first time back on Earth he’d be visiting a grave of some sort, a physical tombstone or memorial at that one cemetery he always drove by on the way to school. Now he’s not so sure.
He wants off this damned planet.
Peter has to gulp in order to keep from vomiting at the direction his mind turns. He wonders what Gamora would have wanted. Cremation, probably. There’s an awful image in his head of…
He makes it a point to never think about her burning again.
A part of him wonders whether or not she would’ve appreciated a burial on Xandar. It had become their home away from home. It had become the place Peter planned on settling down one day. Maybe they’d consider kids. Maybe Peter would have a family full of green, beautiful people that would steal his heart and fill it more and more every single day. They’d look mostly like her, but he’d joke and say that it was like looking in a mirror. She’d laugh and then they’d bicker over who had the superior genes.
Cremation or not, she definitely didn’t ask for her remains to freeze away at the bottom of a cliff on Vormir.
Peter looks down at his feet, stifling the growing tears in his eyes. It’s not like that particularly matters either; it’s a funeral and people would likely attribute his tears to that. Still, it feels wrong to cry about his loss when there are so many around him that have been given their time to grieve and say goodbye now.
It’s not like Peter isn't mournful over Tony’s death. He’s painstakingly aware of the fact that none of them would be here if it weren't for him, and Peter finds himself carrying immense gratitude for the man he may have considered a friend, had they had met under different circumstances.
Even still, he can’t help thinking about the past Gamora, running around in a new timeline, scared and alone and thinking herself unworthy of all the things he helped her see she was capable of.
He can't help thinking about the Peter in her timeline, who, in all likelihood, is destined to be killed by Ronan in trade for the Power Stone. He’ll die without her help bringing the Guardians of the Galaxy together.
Peter doesn’t know much, but he’s almost certain that he would have died without Gamora in his life. She saved him. In every single aspect of his life, Gamora saved him.
The Peter from her timeline is probably dead, Ronan likely on his way to destroy all of Xandar.
Maybe he’s been condemned to suffer in any and all timelines. Maybe their love was supposed to be a spark, erupting into a wildfire, and eventually left to smolder as a dying ember.
Peter wonders if there is anyone in the crowd thinking about Natasha the way he’s been thinking about Gamora. Rocket and Nebula explained that part of bringing them all back meant that another sacrifice had to be made. He never met her, but he knows a lot of these people care about her more than words can describe.
There’s a funeral set for her next week, he’s heard, but the Guardians are more or less not invited. That’s okay, he thinks. She wanted her family there. Peter never met her, but from the description alone she came off as the type who wouldn't want a funeral to be anything more than intimate. The Avengers were her family. He’s not upset. Peter thinks that if they made a system to measure unhappiness, it’d be based off the number of funerals one attends.
He hates funerals, he’s decided.
He keeps thinking about how this is his first funeral, which it really, really shouldn't be, considering all that he has lost.
This moment. This awful, never-ending moment in time was led up to by the events that had to occur in order to remain in the one specific timeline where they won, but
It feels like they lost.