Half Celestial Heart

Most superhero stories are about people getting their powers. A boy gets bitten by a spider. A man builds a suit of armor. A girl is sent to Earth in a rocket from a dying planet. The exciting question in most of those stories is, "How will they USE their new power?"

This story is different. This story is about a hero who got the biggest power of his life — and then, very carefully, decided NOT to use it.

To understand why Peter Quill made that choice, you have to know what the power actually was.

When Peter met his father Ego for the first time, on a beautiful planet that looked like a postcard from every direction, Ego sat him down on the warm grass and held out his own hands. A small, shining ball of light gathered between his palms — blue at the center, gold at the edges, pulsing gently in time with Ego's heartbeat.

"This is Celestial light," Ego said. "It is one of the oldest forces in the universe. And, Peter — it is inside YOU, too."

Peter laughed. He did not believe it at first. Ego smiled and gently put his hands underneath Peter's, and asked him to think of something he loved.

Peter thought of his mother, Meredith. The way her hair had smelled. The way she had hummed her songs while making him breakfast.

The little glowing ball appeared.

It was the most beautiful thing Peter had ever seen. It pulsed in time with his own heartbeat. It warmed his palms. He could feel the power of it running up his arms, into his shoulders, into his chest. He was half-Celestial. He had been carrying this power inside him for his entire life, and he had never known.

For a few hours that day, Peter let himself imagine everything. He could light up dark planets. He could heal sick friends. He could maybe, just maybe, fight Thanos and win. The power between his palms was the kind of power that could change the course of stars.

And then he found out what Ego wanted to use it for.

Ego, it turned out, was not just a Celestial. Ego was a planet — and he had been seeding pieces of himself across the galaxy for thousands of years, waiting for a child who carried his power, so that those seeds could grow. The seeds would not bring beautiful things. They would replace the planets they grew on. Trillions of beings would be gone, just like that.

And Ego had needed Peter to help him do it.

Worse, Peter learned, Ego had given his own mother Meredith the sickness that ended her life. Because Ego had loved her, and could not stay, and could not bear that he had loved her — so he had made her go away.

When Peter heard all of this, he did not yell. He did not cry. He pulled out his Quad Blasters and pointed them at his father, and the war for the planet began.

Now, here is the part of the story that very few people understand.

In that final battle, with the planet cracking apart and the seed at the center failing and Ego's body weakening, Peter Quill made the glowing ball of light grow bigger than he had ever made it. He held a small sun between his palms. He used it, one time, to fight Ego on equal footing, with a glowing fist of Celestial power. He was, for that one moment, a god.

And then, when Ego began to fade and the planet began to dissolve, Peter Quill let the light go.

He did not just put it down. He let it shrink — smaller and smaller — until only a tiny warm ember remained in the middle of his chest. He chose to be human again. He chose to be the boy from Missouri who had a cassette tape and red boots and a habit of getting into trouble. He chose Yondu's son over Ego's son. He chose Meredith's son over Ego's son.

He chose, in other words, to be a person instead of a power.

The Celestial light never came back the way it had been. Peter could still feel a tiny piece of it humming inside him for the rest of his life. He could sense when his friends were in danger. He could feel the curve of gravity under his feet when he stepped onto a strange new planet. Once, when Groot was very sick, Peter held his hand against the little tree's forehead and a faint warm glow passed between them, and Groot's color came back. Peter never spoke of that moment afterward. He did not think he should.

But the big light — the dangerous light, the world-shaping light, the light Ego had wanted to use — Peter never made that one grow again. Not when Thanos came. Not in the final battle on the wrecked Avengers compound. Not in the long campaign against the High Evolutionary that came after. Peter Quill fought all of those battles as a human. Element guns. Quick wit. Old-fashioned courage.

Once, on a quiet evening many years later, Mantis came up to him in the cockpit of the Benatar. The team was asleep below. The stars were drifting slowly past the window. Mantis was the only friend Peter had who could feel exactly what another person was feeling, and she knew that she could ask him the truth.

"Peter," she said quietly, "do you ever miss the light?"

Peter thought about it for a long time before he answered. He looked out at the stars. He thought about Meredith, and Yondu, and the small wooden head of Baby Groot bobbing on the beat of "Come and Get Your Love." He thought about the time he had been a god, for just one afternoon, on a planet that had turned out to be a lie.

"No," he said. "Because that part wasn't ever really mine. That was Ego's. He grew it inside me without asking. The Missouri-boy part — the part that loves the rest of you — THAT'S mine. That's the part I want to keep."

Mantis smiled. She had felt the truth of it before he finished speaking. She reached out her hand and rested it gently on his sleeve, and the two of them stood there for a long time, watching the stars.

Some heroes are defined by the power they wield. Tony Stark by his armor. Thor by his hammer. The Hulk by his strength.

Peter Quill, son of Meredith, was defined by the power he refused to wield. And in the long history of the Guardians of the Galaxy, in all the strange tales told around campfires on a hundred different worlds, that quiet refusal — that small, brave, very human choice — was the greatest thing he ever did.

Because the hardest power in the universe is not the power to make things go boom.

The hardest power is the power to set the boom down, look at your friends, and choose to stay yourself.

And Peter Quill, the lost kid from Missouri, did exactly that.