The Bowie, Deep Space
The admission was met with stunned silence, and slowly, the room's attention began to flit from assassin to victim.
Fallon kept her gaze on her lap, doing her best to blink away tears as she waited for something to be said. When Blurp started chirping, she got a little burst of hope—surely Adam couldn't ignore that. But after a moment, the chirping subsided, and Fallon glanced over to find the little creature had abandoned his former perch and retreated to the edge of the couch, mouth parted in a little frown as he looked back at his frozen friend.
She waited, praying he'd say something. A snap, a shout, a verbal lashing, she didn't care. Anything was better than this stark, suffocating silence.
And finally, after what felt like eternity, Adam spoke.
"Leave."
The word hit like a punch in the gut, but Fallon was more than happy to oblige him. If he needed a moment away from her, she'd go as far away as the Bowie would allow. It might do her some good too.
But the moment she started to rise, he raised a hand to stop her.
"Not you." Fallon's heart sunk as he turned to the Guardians. "I...I'd like to speak with Fallon alone. Please."
His request was met by blank stares, furrowed brows, and silence, until Peter spoke up.
"Look, man—Adam, sorry—I know you're still figuring some stuff out, but if someone says they were sent to kill you, then that probably means—"
"I know what it means, Star-Lord." Adam's gaze hardened. "I can think for myself. And I'd like to talk to Fallon." He paused to look back at her, though she was quick to avert her gaze. "Alone."
Peter raised his hands defensively. "Adam, really, the last thing we need is someone getting stabbed over—"
"I said I want to speak with Fallon alone." At that, Adam rose from the couch, his hands tightening to fists as a faint glow appeared around them. "Perhaps I didn't make that clear enough the first time."
Mantis flinched, and both Nebula and Gamora went for their weapons as the two men stared each other down. Fallon hesitated, unsure of what to do, before reaching out a tentative hand to Adam's wrist.
"Adam—" He snapped his hand away from her, and the burning sensation in the corners of her eyes began anew.
The tension hung in the air for another insufferable moment before Peter dropped his hands, then his gaze, and turned to his crew. "Alright. You heard him. Everybody out."
The others hesitated, some out of confliction, others out of obvious irritation, but one more warning look from Adam was enough to send even Nebula towards the door.
"You lost." Drax remarked as Peter passed him by.
Peter narrowed his eyes. "What?"
"You lost." Drax's gaze hardened as Nebula and Mantis began to maneuver him out the door. "The warlock has challenged your authority, and you caved. On any respectable planet, that would make him our new leader."
Peter rolled his eyes. "That's not..."
"Don't worry. I will fight him and win back the mantle for you, since you are too weak to do it on your own."
"Wow, thanks."
"Save your gratitude until after I have pummeled the stupid golden—"
"You will shut up."
Mantis's voice put a definitive end to Drax's, and once everyone else was out of the common room, she tapped a button to close the door, shooting Adam a sympathetic look before she disappeared from view.
Even Blurp hadn't stuck around. Fallon wasn't sure if he'd gone out with the others, but if he hadn't, he'd certainly scurried off to somewhere else in the room. Anywhere but the couch.
She couldn't really blame him.
A long stint of silence passed before she found the courage to ask, "So, are you going to start yelling, or...?"
On the surface, it might have seemed like a weak attempt at a joke, but she couldn't find it in her to inject even the slightest bit of humor into the question.
Silence fell again, and for a moment, Fallon thought he simply hadn't heard her. But then a singular, disbelieving laugh cut through the air, and Adam stepped away from the couch—away from her—to begin pacing across the room.
"Am I going to yell at you?" He ran a hand through his hair, and Fallon's stomach turned when an ingenuine smile appeared on his lips. "I don't know." The smile fell away as he began to rub at his temple. "I don't know anything, apparently."
His tone was biting, and Fallon flinched back. "Adam, I—"
"Because I thought I knew my own maker, and she turned out to be a psychopath. And I thought I knew the High Evolutionary, but he turned out to be almost as bad as Ayesha. And I thought I knew you"—his jaw tightened as he glared down at her, and Fallon shrunk back—"I thought you were the one person who made sense, and the one person that cared. But I guess that was all just part of the plan to get a knife through my chest, wasn't it?"
He paused, turning his attention away from her to pick up the nearest knick-knack—a coaster on a side table. "Were they part of it?"
Fallon blinked. "Who?"
"Ayesha. And the High Evolutionary."
"Oh." She managed a weak smile at the memory of the high priestess. "In the beginning, yes." She knew the words were wrong the moment he looked back at her, but there was no stopping now. And besides, he deserved the whole truth, no matter how terrible. "The High Evolutionary, no. But Ayesha...well, I promised her I'd make you into a champion once you were born, except I got tired of her way before that happened."
She managed to find a bit of humor for the last part, but Adam didn't even raise his eyebrows.
"So, you just decided to take things into your own hands?"
Fallon hesitated, then nodded. "I figured I'd come back when you were complete, and—"
"And kill me? Yes, I've heard that part." The words came out through gritted teeth as his grip on the coaster tightened. "You must have been thrilled. To come back and find your target so unbearably naïve." He paused for a shallow, shaky breath. "And he trusts you so blindly, and seeks your comfort like a child, and runs right into your arms when you offer them, and..." He seemed on the verge of saying something else, but he was quick to catch himself, whatever it was. "And he's just so incredibly stupid."
His voice broke with the final word, as did the coaster, the cheap plastic snapping as his hand crushed around it. It wasn't long before blood appeared, trickling out the meager openings in his fist, though Fallon knew that wasn't what sprung his tears.
She wanted so badly to help, to reach out to him like she had all those times before and provide the comfort she knew he craved, but how could she? She'd done this to him, led him on, and left him feeling what could only be the most crushing level of loneliness.
She didn't dare speak as Adam crossed the room, practically collapsing into a chair and burying his head in his hands, cuts either forgotten or simply never noticed in the first place. She watched his shoulder tremble, his chest rise and fall with heavy breathes in a hopeless attempt to calm himself. It reminded her, vaguely, of when she'd visited after his surgery, when he'd hugged her so tightly that she hadn't known what to do for a brief, beautiful moment.
But back then, Ayesha had been the bad guy.
Fallon sighed. Maybe she should have followed through with the plan after all. It would have been so easy to have done it that day, when the pain of the stab and betrayal could have simply mixed with the rest. Hell, she could have easily done it from the start. One stab to the gut on his balcony, and she could have left him, confused and completely helpless, to be manipulated by Life. It would have been so easy. A being like him—one so new to the world and so desperate to keep his place in it—would make a deal in a snap. She could have left things as they were, went home, and curled up in her library to forget all about that golden mortal boy.
And yet, from the moment she'd first seen him...
Fallon flicked her wrist, and after a moment, Adam looked up, brow furrowing as he stared down at his hand. The cuts of the coaster were gone. No scabbing, no scarring, as if they'd never been there in the first place. Realization was slow to dawn, but once it did, his gaze turned from his hands to her, and the confusion in that perfect, tear-stained face deepened.
"Please"—Fallon didn't realize how close she was to tears until she heard the wobbling in her voice—"I-I know it might not mean much, and I know you probably hate me"—hearing the admission aloud nearly broken her—"but I had every chance to do it. And...and I couldn't..."
Thoughts of what could have been flashed through her mind again. A knife through his chest, terror in his eyes, blood on her hands, and Fallon's self-control shattered as the tears came pouring out.
"I'm sorry..." For an entity who had never cried before, the warm tears burned like fire down her cheeks. "Please...I'm so sorry..."