Hello! Please enjoy this final chapter, whoever might still be reading.

Loving is easy

Peter doesn't really know what to expect when he reenters the Parks and Recreational building in Pawnee. He hasn't changed out of his clothes and he's a dusty mess. Peter knows he looks as alien as Gamora and Drax did when they entered the building the day before… Has it really only been a day?

He glides by the gaping employees he would have smiled at yesterday. His mind is too occupied. Peter wishes that April would be home, but he knows in his heart that she will be at work today. She'll go to work to make it seem like she is too emotionally strong to be bothered by her fiancée's deluge into saving the world. April will really go to work to be close to Leslie and Ron and Ben and Ann and Chris and Donna and Tom and maybe even Larry (well, probably not). Because April doesn't know how to ask for help, not emotionally, and not in a lot of other ways either.

It makes Peter's heart hurt.

The doors to their section of the government building are unusually closed, and Peter knows it's because there are private moments happening inside. Anyone who reconciled the image of Peter Quill, Star-Lord on the screen and Andy Dwyer, the easy-going dullard, will understand the shut doors.

Peter takes a deep breath. He wants to be honest with them, thinks that they deserve at least that much from him considering how many opportunities and how much of their lives they've given him. Andy Dwyer really only ever had his heart to offer them. Peter Quill somehow feels like he has less to give than before, despite being more whole mentally. A little bit of his real self, a part of his honest heart is all he can offer now, even as he knows they can't take all of his long convoluted history.

He steadies his resolve before he opens the doors.

His eyes immediately zone in on April at her desk. Her dull gaze is focused on the computer before looking up at him. Ron comes out of his office, followed by Tom. Leslie, Ann, Chris and Ben are at the main table, having some kind of discussion. Donna and Barry are at their desks.

Everyone stands and stares as Peter enters the room. Peter licks his lips, stares at April, tries to sum up words to explain where he's at right now mentally and emotionally, but he can't find them because he doesn't really know where he is.

"Andy, you're okay!" Leslie rushes closer, hovering like a butterfly, looking him up and down.

Peter removes his eyes from April, takes the easy way out for a moment. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Yo, Andy. Saw you on the television. Star-lord is a pretty cool name, but not completely swag. I myself would have picked Star-Killa," Tom says, breaking the ice with his own style.

"I didn't pick it… I mean— Star-lord was my mother's nickname for me," Peter says honestly.

They stare or gape at him and Peter wants to quell under the looks, but he won't let himself. He's got to be who he is. He's got to muscle through his uncomfortableness.

"Oh," Ben says.

Shifting seems alright, so Peter does. "Can I sit down? I'm dead tired." He immediately hates himself for asking and not just doing it, but no one comments.

"Oh, yes! Of course. You must be exhausted. I'll get you some water and maybe some snacks?" Leslie doesn't wait for an answer. She dashes to her office with little clicks and he marvels that she's still wearing heels even though aliens invaded yesterday. Peter slowly takes a seat at the table in the office chair. It's his usual place.

Peter tries to unwind the tightness in his stomach, but all of his muscles are screaming at him from the extreme exertion he placed on them after such a long period of relative inactivity.

Leslie appears moments later with two water bottles and five packets of almonds.

Peter once got in trouble for raiding her office for food. He took some almonds and fruit strips (both of which he later threw away after tasting). After Leslie got back to her office after some meeting or other, she stepped out two minutes later and demanded to know who took her power snacks. He laughed when he realized she counted every package of food each time she entered her office.

Back in the now, Peter takes her offerings and spreads them out on the table. He slowly opens a package of almonds because he could really do with some protein. The taste is a little off, as is a lot of Terran food. His taste buds are still adjusted to the strange and processed flavors of space cuisine, even after all these years. It explains why so much Terran, non-processed food was hard for him to stomach before. Peter doesn't share his findings with the others. He knows it won't help his attempt to ease them any.

As he eats, he looks at them all. The only one he really wants to talk to is April, but she's hovering near Donna and Leslie like a shadow. Her eyes are on Peter, but the walls of her guard are too tight right now for him to see into. He'll wait for her to adjust to him.

"Thanks," he says.

"Of course," Leslie replies. "I imagine you get pretty hungry saving the world." She has that nervous and uncomfortable laugh. It's familiar, so he smiles. Her expression smoothes out and he lets himself breathe a little deeper.

"It does work up an appetite," he says.

"I think I speak for all of us," Chris says. "When I say we are all so incredibly grateful for your help in saving the planet, and the sheer relief that you're safe and sound is overwhelming. It is literally the best news I've ever heard."

Many of them nod, Ann especially emphatically. April doesn't twitch.

Peter doesn't mention the gouge in his side, the cracked ribs, bruised shoulders and back, and the recent stitches on his calf. He even manages to maintain eye contact with Chris.

He's not sure how to navigate this, so he nods. "It's just… what we do."

"You've done this before?" Donna's eyebrow is raised.

"Once. Well, I guess twice. Three times, now."

"Dude, you've been holding out on us!" Tom exclaims. "Deats, man, deats!"

"I wasn't holding out. I literally didn't remember," Peter defends. "And they aren't that interesting of stories." There was that genocide attempt that one time which Peter doesn't think makes a good story no matter how he spins it.

"I doubt that for some reason," Donna says. Peter shrugs. He intended honesty, but confronted with questions, he finds avoidance is best. What does that say for him that he can't even manage ten minutes of actual honesty with the people he felt closest to less than 24 hours ago…

"How was Thor?" Donna asks. "Is he actually that ripped in real life? Or does the camera add ten pounds of muscle?"

"Ooh, yes! And Captain America!" Leslie jumps in. She glances at Ben, shifts and laughs before covering her effusiveness up with some bad lying.

"Don't skimp on the details, Andy!" Ann says.

Peter's face must have shown some kind of reaction to the name.

"Oh, don't feel bad, hun, you're a hunk of meat too," Donna says, missing the others' reactions.

"Is it Andy, or Peter? What do you want us to call you?" Ann asks in her slow, nurse-ish voice.

Peter opens his mouth and shuts it. He's not sure. Just like he isn't sure how to reply to their questions about the Avengers. One part of him feels outraged at the comparisons between him and them, another wants to laugh and make a joke, one part feels distantly confused by the question and he has no idea which one belongs to him. Or if it's all him. And if it's all him, then how can he possibly decide?

"I—"

"Son, why don't you come into my office," Ron says.

Son is good. Peter can do son. He stands and immediately regrets sitting. His body hates him for putting it through so much. Some of it must show of his face. Chris moves towards him, but Peter gives him a pained smile and pushes himself fully up and manages towards Ron's office. He makes an effort to not notice that April skirts around Leslie to maintain their distance. Because that would be maybe too painful for him to deal with right now.

He shuts the door behind them as Ron takes a seat and pulls the blinds. Peter decides that leaning is a better option to sitting and having to get up again so he takes a place against the shelf. Peter hopes he hasn't opened up any stitches.

Ron pulls out two whiskey tumblers and a bottle of Laughlin whiskey.

Peter doesn't wince or pull away from the strength of the drink. He welcomes it. He drinks it in one go, relishing the burn, hoping it clears the ice from his heart and unknots the confusion.

Ron pours a little more, half the first serving. Peter, chagrined, takes a modest sip this time.

The alcohol does slowly soothe the pain in his muscles, but not in his mind.

His head feels heavy for all the choices he has to make, for the decisions about his identity he needs to see through. He wants to lie down somewhere for a long time and not move, but it has to be now. It has to be in the wake of everything before April hides herself somewhere he can't reach her. He already can feel her pulling away, the dark shadows in her eyes lengthening—

"Breathe, son," Ron says from his seat. Peter tries to oblige, lets his lungs fill in and out, pulls his eyes from the window where even through the blinds he can sense eight people's attention dwelling.

They can't see him now though, so he lets himself slump a little.

"I'm really fucked, Ron."

Ron dips his head in acknowledgement, swirls his whiskey a little. "It's not that I think you're wrong, it's more like I don't think that's a unique situation for you," Ron says.

Peter snorts. "You're right," he murmurs, smiling. "My luck never got any better even out of outer space." He fell in a freaking ditch and broke both his legs. That's at least on par with dropping an Infinity Stone.

Even though aliens have invaded, Ron hasn't changed. He's still got the patience to wait for someone's anxiety to die and it never feels like waiting, just breathing. Warmth flares in Peter, and it isn't the alcohol.

"D'you remember when you said you'd buy me and April a Walkman?" Peter starts. "I wanted to get a Walkman so bad, though I hardly knew why when April said we could just get music on the work computers—"

Ron holds up a hand, asking him to stop that path, so Peter refigures the trajectory. "I didn't know why I wanted one, or why I couldn't picture it without orange headphones, or a power cell that never needed recharging. I never knew why music made me pass out, or how I knew aliens existed. I didn't remember the reason for any of it, never remembered that I already had a Walkman until today. Your offer still means a lot to me. I guess… I really appreciate you doing that, Ron."

Peter appreciates a lot more than that, and he feels his eyes brimming.

A hand settles hard on his shoulder, carpenter's hands he's watched for some years.

"I'm glad, son," Ron says.

"I'm… not who you thought, you or them," Peter says.

"The nice thing about people who care for you is you don't have to be."

Peter shuts his eyes tries to wipe the water away from them and coughs when Ron's pats him gentler still

Peter stands in the doorway of Ron's office. The courage he gathered from his mentor keeps him buoyed among the fear and confusion he feels all-too sharply. They all stare at him, waiting. Peter just wants to turn right back around and take more liquid courage. That wouldn't be the way an adult faces problems though, and if anything has been made clear to him, it's that he needs to face this problem like an adult, they all deserve nothing less. Besides, he's got to make peace, hasn't he? Peter can do this.

He clears his throat.

"Hi, uh, I'm—" He stops and starts. "My name is Peter Quill. I was born in Missouri. I like music and I never graduated elementary school or high school or college. I was abducted from the hospital after my mom— when she— she died. And I was raised in space by some class-a jerks. They weren't exactly mercenaries… well, okay, they were sort of mercenaries, but they were mostly just thieves. And I was mostly like them sort of. Then I uh, got arrested and met Gamora, Drax, Groot and Rocket and we saved the galaxy a couple times." Peter explains the rest in short sentences, how they worked odd-jobs, how Peter got in over his head on one deal and got shot into a wormhole. How the tracking beacon took some years to get the message back to the Milano because of how backwater Terra is. No one says anything while he talks, even Leslie keeps her buzzing physical only. "My grandpa, he really missed me," Peter manages to say. "He wanted to keep me around. So he filled in the blanks for my amnesia and called me Andy Dwyer, set me up with a new life and that's how I ended up here."

"Oh," Ann exhales, it's too soft and they're all looking at him for something more, so he hooks a smile on either corner of his face that he doesn't quite feel.

"I'm not who you thought, but can we… can we all get dinner?" Peter asks.

Leslie bursts into paroxysms of emotion and everyone else laughs, a little wet.

"Can we, can we Ron?" Tom whines. "Dine with a hero? Gotta get it on my insta!"

Ron's arms cross. "Today has been the most unproductive day in the recent future. I think it would be acceptable to cut it a little early."

They go to the waffle shop. He listens to them talk and buzz above him, half of it space-gossip, half of it the general inanity of working a government 9-5 job.

"You're like, a hero," Chris says at one point.

"I'm a criminal and a loser," he corrects. "We all are. The universe needs that mix of bad, good, and weird sometimes."

"I'm not over that we're talking about the universe like, like it's a place you been, man!" Tom exclaims. "Like aliens are real? That's Ripley shit right there."

"Laying eggs in someone's chest without consent is pretty faux pas," Peter says, and a smile works over his face at Tom's wordless high-pitch exclamations.

Ann nudges forward. "What is your crew really like?"

"We're a family…" Peter admits, then adds, "But if we were all the drunk uncle, you know?" He stops for a minute. "Drunk Uncle is a great band name, I'm calling it." It's a genuine thought, but it earns him these watery snickers and weird laughs and April— she growls. Peter smiles at her.

Eventually, Peter's aches and exhausted lead to him slumping at the table, dozing on his crossed arms. He hears them shuffling away one by one, all of them extracting vague non-promises from April to bring him by work tomorrow.

Soon they're alone, and Peter leverages his bleary eye from his arms to look at her. She's always looked short and small, but today is the first time she's seemed that way too. He pulls himself up slowly, uncurling. They bypass the counter, hedging on other people having paid for them and if not... His arm falls over her shoulders in habit and by habit she leans into him as they steer into the parking lot.

"We should talk about this," Peter starts. April prickles and Peter smiles a little. "But yeah, I don't really think that's us. Do you wanna go play laser tag?"

April nods.

They play three times. On the same team twice and once on opposite teams that became one person hide and seek. They throw away forty dollars on coins for the arcade and only win enough tickets to buy April a gory Halloween mask that she wears backwards before hiking it up to rest on her head. They've trawled almost every area of the arcade and April's eyes are glossy with lean desperation.

Not yet, she doesn't say.

Andy spies the play structure in the corner.

Peter lands in the ball pit face first. April lands on top of him. He surfaces like he's been swimming, and sucks in a deep, gasping breath. April's laughing at him, and he's laughing too. The kids screech and giggle nearby, staring at the adults in their ball pit with giddy joy. A four-year-old flies out from the slide and Peter barely catches the tyke in time to prevent him hitting Peter and April's legs. Peter carefully throws the kid into the middle of the pit and the kid shrieks with laughter.

Peter and April try to shuffle away from the opening of the slide and Peter lets himself get pushed over into the colorful ball pit by April's tugging. She laughs again as Peter pulls on her legs to topple her over too. Peter stands up and pulls April from the depths of the pit. Both of them are laughing up to the point where April slaps him.

The sound is complemented by the ringing in his ears. His face stings, and he feels a little blood running down his cheek. She must have caught him with her engagement ring. He slowly turns his head back to look at April, whose laughter has turned into gasps and crying.

The kids have all fallen silence at the sounds, many of them whispering bemusedly to each other, and a few crying. Peter doesn't pay them any mind.

Peter shuffles through the ball pit and takes her into his arms. Peter rests his head on top of hers and lets his own tears fall. They stay there for a long while, long enough for some more kids to enter the ball pit and start making a happy din amidst the rainbow spheres.

"But I love you," April manages against his chest.

Peter can't help the small sob from escaping.

"I love you too. I love you so much. So fucking much, April."

"Then why?!" April asks. "Why are things turning out this way?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know. I just… can't stay here."

"I know." April takes a deep breath and lets out a shuddery exhale. "And I can't leave."

"I know." Peter only once let himself imagine April coming with him in the Milano to see the galaxy, to strafe nebulas and laugh at Yondu and Nova Prime.

But April was born on Terra. Her family lives here, and so do her friends and coworkers. Her education would be substandard at best, and she'd need to learn a new language if she ever wanted to communicate without a translating matrix. What would she even do? Peter can think of some things, but he knows April can't and that puts her off. She has a job, people she sort of cares for and stability. The only thing April has in space is her fiancé, who isn't who she thought he was. It isn't a fair trade, and it breaks Peter's heart.

"You remember when we got engaged?" he whispers into her hair. She shakes between his arms. "I said you made me feel like the luckiest guy in the galaxy. I really meant it, too."

She kisses him, not with tongue, or too much teeth the way he loves. She kisses him like she's trying to leave something of herself in there, some ache or press to bring with him. He returns the kiss trying to take as much of her that she can give.

It doesn't change that it's a parting thing.

Peter and his group fly the cloaked Milano to Grandpa Quill's house. The old country house seems like it leans on stilts, the way it sags and sways. Peter remembers the bright yellow paint they applied the summer before his mother had gotten sick. He's glad to see it's been painted since then. He knows he isn't he only family in his Grandpa's life, and that's a good feeling.

He drops the walkway down and heads into the clean early morning air. He tries not to think about walking away from April.

Grandpa rises from his place on the porch and hustles down the stairs as quickly as his old joints let him. His eyes are wet and Peter doesn't feel any reservations about swinging his arms wide and picking his grandfather up in the best damn bear hug he can give.

"Peter, Peter. You came back," Grandpa Quill says.

"Yeah, I came back," Peter says, setting him down. He feels a stab in his chest as he considers for the first time what it must have been like to have Peter here physically, but still just as gone mentally and he squeezes his grandfather's shoulders. "I'm here, Grandpa."

His eyes have lost some of the sharpness they had as a younger man, and he looks a wreck when he says, "I'm sorry I hid the truth from you, I…"

"No," Peter says, and he understands far more than Andy. "I… know why you did what you did. I probably wouldn't have known what to do about all that space stuff the way I was."

"Andy was dear but misplaced," Grandpas says, and then all shady like, "Bless his heart."

"Grandpa, I gotta be honest with you, I'm still no Einstein." Peter grins. "But don't you be saying that about me when I'm gone."

"You're leaving then?" his grandfather's hands roam up and down his arms, squeezing as he takes in the alien company treading down after Peter. He lets out a shaky sigh and smiles, bitter. "I should have figured."

"It's not my life, but you did give me a good one," Peter says.

Grandpa Quill smiles wider now, relieved. "Let me tell you one thing before you go."

"'Course."

"Your ma, well she was no Einstein either," he says, and a laugh startles from Peter. "You don't have to be to make goodness in the world."

Peter feels a warm glowing ache in his chest. It's her all over, and he sees her in himself again and it feels good, clean.

"Thank you."

"Don't gotta thank family," he says. Grandpa Quill pulls himself up, clearing his throat a few times. "Now, do I get to see you leave this time?"

Peter grins as with a snap of his transceiver the Milano uncloaks. The awe on his face is lit by early dawn light and it's relieving to share this with him, like a bridge at last.

"Not just yet," Gamora says from behind him.

He turns at the sound of gravel shifting on the road and stares as the Parks and Recreation van pulls up into the driveway. Peter's eyes go wide as Ann, Leslie, Rob, Ben, Tom, Terry, Donna… and April all pile out.

"Is this your spaceship?!" Leslie calls, nearing him with her quick tiny steps. "Also, I am very mad you tried to leave without saying goodbye, Peter Andy Quill Dwyer!"

"Just Peter is fine, I think," Ben says.

"Peter!" she concludes.

Peter's still staring at all of them like he can't believe it and Ann tilts her head. "April called all of us up and we made the drive. She said you wouldn't go without seeing your grandpa again."

There's April, standing in the back. Peter's cheek aches and so do his hands. He wants to hold her, but undoing her composure isn't a fair thing when she's given him all this.

"You guys…" he trails off.

"Wow, this is some kinda party now," Rocket says, eyes rolling.

Gamora puts her hand on his head and says, "Thank you for looking after him."

Peter goes and he gives Leslie and big bear hug, listening to her scream as she spins him. Ben gets spun around and screams even higher. Ann anticipates him and says, "Gently, please." He does and he remembers how impossibly kind she was when he first got here. Rob asks for the bear hug and shouts his approval the whole time. Tom and he exchange high-fives and one, I'm serious this time, last photo. Donne shakes his hand, Terry fumbles his words. Ron pats his back and has already said everything.

April… looks away from him. He understands her so he lets her, memorizing each canyon and corner of her stark profile, the raptor-esque slant of her mouth and brows. He kisses her on top of her head and then turns away.

It hurts less the way Rocket, Gamora, Groot, and Drax fall into place beside him. Peter looks up, marvels at the lives he's lived, thinks about this blue Terran sky and the galaxy outside of it—

"Hey!"

He whips around. April, forward from the rest, her small fists clenched.

"What?" he asks. And whatever he thought she might say, he doesn't anticipate reality.

"Marry me," she says.

Peter's mouth falls open. "What?!"

He hears everyone behind her echo the same chorus.

"Marry me," she says, again, her jaw tilted up.

"But, but I'm leaving," he tries.

"So?"

"I might never come back," he says.

"So what?"

"I'm Peter," he says.

"I know, we spent the night together playing laser tag." She smirks. "Marry me anyways."

The water, fueled by incredulity and hope springs from his eyes now, large, wet, ugly tears as he rips up the ground between them until he's right in front of her. "You are the most insane, amazing being in the whole damn universe," he avers, and his hands go to the creases of her elbows.

"Shut up and marry me," she demands again, and his breath catches.

"I can't not!" he shouts.

"Holy shit," Rocket says, cackling. "Are you two for real? Terrans and friggin wild."

"I am Groot."

"Ohmigod, ohmigod," Leslie says. "Do we have a pastor? And flowers, we need a bouquet. I cannot believe you all have done this to me twice now!"

"I'm a pastor," Rob says, teeth gleaming. "Literally nothing would make me happier than to see the two most peculiar people I've met wed."

"Is there not a battle to be had or are we skipping the opening rites?" Drax asks. "How about you, mustache-man."

"Maybe later," Ron says.

"Going on the Insta!" Tom squeals.

"Plants!" Leslie cries. "Plant bouquet!"

"I am Groot."

"You can't take his hand!" Rocket complains. "Not for some stupid humie bouquet."

"Leave it, Leslie!" Ann cries.

"This is just lovely," Jerry sighs.

"Is this the part where your superior gives you away? I am happy to accept the task if your grandfather isn't." Gamora flicks her hair back.

Grandpa Quill frowns. "I didn't dress for a wedding today."

"I did," Donna runs a manicured hand through he hair.

Peter ignores all of them, he kisses April the way he wants her to feel and she smiles against his teeth. Jolts run up and down his spine and it feels like holding the infinity stone again, the way everyone latches on and carries him past chaos and into acuity with their faith alone.

"You can always marry someone else after," Peter murmurs into her hair.

"You can't."

He laughs and cries and kisses her and for a second day in his own skin, it's a good one.