Emotional damage!

After collecting the bodies of the Eternals and Arishem, I restored the planet of Vormir using the Embers Of Genesis I took from the Collector's Museum.

The Embers Of Genesis were a collection of glowing green root-like substances that when planted into a dead world can revive it and bring it back to life, producing plant and animal life as well as water and minerals, metals and chemicals. Even revive the planetary core if it be frozen or purify a diseased and polluted planet.

But I didn't know exactly how they worked and here I was, on a freshly dead...killed planet.

So I figured, why not try it out?

A test case to see if they could really revive a dead planet.

Because if so, the Embers Of Genesis are a really useful item.

Planting a sliver of the substance into the ground beneath me, I wrapped my coat around me and flew up into the air just as a beautiful, green glow lit up the planet, spreading through it like a web of roots, digging into the planet's core.

It reached across the massive cracked chasms of the broken planet, and as I watched the sight, unable to look away, for the hours that I spent there, the tendrils of green wrapped around the planet, pulling it back together.

The core of the planet once more began to glow red and like a slumbering giant it awoke, gently and slowly but with each step, each spin outputting earthsaking force as it regained it's rotation, roiling masses of liquid metal held together only by gravity and the belief that it wouldn't all just collapse into itself once more. Well that and the Embers.

Then the mantle clashed and grew, ejecting volcanoes that penetrated the stratosphere spewing ash and rock like a massive hellish fusillade all across the planetary surface, turning the skies black and the surface a glowing red. From up in space I could hear the low rumblings of the earth below, and see the igneous excrement accumulate.

New landmasses began to form and clash, subdue and subsume, creating brand new tectonic plates.

The crust of Vormir regrew, and setlled away like a sand pit the size of a planet, a massive desert, a ball of dirt.

But not for long.

From the ground, small cracks appeared, collapsing in on themselves like drains the size of Japan.

And from within came the source of all life.

The waters of Vormir's oceans and lakes, streams and rivers slowly began to bubble up, vents of air shot out from the mountains, an atmosphere began to form over the planet, clearing away the ashen black sky, covering it up in an ozone layer so life may take root.

From the deepest valleys to the highest mountains then rose tiny, little glowing buds, rising high into the sky as they formed trees and vines and shrubs and bushes.

Grass filled the highlands and the plateaus, lush evergreen forests line the tropics, vast deciduous leaves of blue and yellow sprouted from the sparse but captivating valley floors and rivers gushes across the planet, cutting new canyons and fjords.

Life bloomed next as little woodland creatures crawled out from the cracks and burrows and predators unearthed themselves from the dirt like tiny bubbles in the earth.

The once blackened, flash frozen wasteland, now teemed with life, a lush and verdant world.

Flora and fauna. Alive.

It was.... beautiful.

I'm definitely taking it along!

I need to do more research on how that works!

With a thought, a beam zapped the planet from a portal and it disappeared from view, and into my storage microverse.

"Uhn~" I moaned, stretching, my muscles cracked with a satisfying pop, and I opened another portal back home.

.

I emerged into my living room and tossed the Soul Stone into a portal and straight to storage, as I scanned the room.

All gazes suddenly locked on to me, filled with surprise, maybe even a hint of happiness and I noticed the teary eyes and mournful looks on them.

That's odd...

Did something happen?

"What happened? Are you guys hurt?" I asked, concerned.

"Are we hurt?! You...we thought you died!" Wanda screamed at me, angry.

"Yes, Papa! We even checked the Respawn points. When you didn't revive we thought...."

"But I didn't? And even if I did I already made preparations to make sure you were taken care of in perpetuity." I waved her off.

Seriously, they are overreacting.

"Papa. Don't you understand?" Ace asked.

"What?" I looked at her confused.

"What's there to understand? Well, at least you guys aren't hurt so that's a plus."

"Papa...you idiot!" Riley sniffled.

"Oh come on. It's nothing. Don't cry now." I frowned.

What's up with them?

Are they faking it because I'm back or something?

I mean they should really not be crying. I made sure the A.I. would raise them well.

They would want for nothing. They know it too!

I don't get it, she said huh?

I scanned the brains of the kids and the duo, and found something unsettling.

Something I had no experience in.

"Wait.... you're genuinely sad? Why?" I asked.

"Why? Are you so..! Ugh!" Riley groaned in frustration.

"We care about you boss." Pietro put it into words.

"We are sad because we love you Papa!" Riley added, annoyed.

"eh?" I squeaked in surprise.

"EH?!"

"Why are you so surprised?!" Ace chuckled.

"And at least pretend to understand." Wanda facepalmed.

I scratched my head awkwardly.

"I'm loved?" I muttered.

"You're really weird, Papa!" Ace and Riley giggled.

Hmmm....this is new.

I ....am I really loved?

Do they really, genuinely care about me?

That can't be true right?

Or maybe, I'm wrong.

My mind ran a mile a minute, the hamster wheel in my head trying to find a rationalization for it.

Ace knew the plan. And well, even if she knew that I might have died, she knew it was unlikely.

But even she looked sad when I came back.

It's a new feeling. This thing.

Am I seriously that twisted?

Why am I like this? Where did it begin?

And why am I just noticing it?!

Maybe it has to do with my family.

Looking back at my family, and how they dealt with loss....yeah it's probably my family.

In our house, the unspoken, unwritten rule was stoicism. Absolute stoicism. Non reactivity.

We rarely talked about feelings. Expressions of love were rarer than blue moons. My father in fact has never said he loves us. Nor has our mother.

They showed us perhaps in their actions. They did their parently duties and they did them well enough.

I never wanted for much. They even payed for my college education from their savings.

But the one thing most prominent in our house was that dull, stoic silence.

I still remember, when my grandparents died.

The funeral was small. Silent.

My parents never shed a tear. Their voice never even cracked.

Their faces remained the masks of stone I was always so familiar with.

Me and my brother, growing up in that house, we learnt the same.

Do your duty. Do your job. Nothing else matters.

So it was a whole new world for me when Offee came into my life.

It's a wound on my pride now that I think about it.

That a girl raised from childhood by a cult of magic worshipping hippies was more emotionally mature than me.

I didn't even cry when she died.

Not until that day when I saw Star crouching in the hallway, asleep, waiting for me to finish up and play with him after months of ignoring him in my revenge quest.

Only then did I break into tears.

It's.... pathetic, honestly.

All I know about showing love is what I learned from her.

The overprotectiveness. The Mama Bear behaviour. The hugs and kisses. She fussed over me like I was made of glass. Like I would shatter if I left her sight. And she showered me with an almost stifling amount of affection.

And with the kids, I did the same.

The stifling affection and helicopter parenting of Offee. And the cold, stoic expectations of my mother and father.

It was the reason Star was better educated at 5 than some multiple PhD holders and could fight off entire armies.

I expected the best of him, to the point of almost robbing him of his childhood.

It was only after her death that I let him go. Be a kid for once.

Almost made the same mistake as my parents and risked breeding resentment in Star.

Not a good idea when you're dealing when a baby galactic god.

They expected the best and I was an overachiever.

My little brother on the other hand, was a bit slower. Still pretty smart, getting As and Bs in all, but not at the prodigious level that I was.

He never skipped grades. He didn't get into Stanford at sixteen.

And when you have an asian dad and an italian mom, a B marks you as a disappointment.

My parents...they were never as happy with him and even though they didn't show it, treating us both the same, we could both tell. And he resented that. So much so that it drove a wedge between us.

And I was too prideful to be the first to reach out.

Stupid. Stupid me.

And now I'm making the same mistake. Expecting the cold, calculating unflinching stoicism from them that I was forced into.

No tears, no fears, no stopping.

Keep moving forward as if nothing happened at all.

And I realised now.

This was the reason I hadn't talked to my parents in two years. I realised my mistake.

I was making the same mistakes my parents did.

And I didn't want to be like them.

They weren't bad parents but I wanted to be better.

I sighed, and shook my head, as I looked up them all.

"I .... I'm sorry. I didn't understand. But I will try to. From now on." I replied with a smile.

I could feel something new bloom in my heart. A feeling I hadn't felt before. Not like this at least.

Like a new door had been opened to me.

"And I'm sorry for making you worry. And for trying to make you do the dirty work. Wanda, Pietro. You are good people. Really. Thanks for ... everything." I bowed lightly.

Wanda flushed and hid her face in her hands while Pietro just laughed at my clumsy apology.

"No worries boss!" Pietro patted my back.

"Hehehehe, we get it Papa. You can be stupid too, sometimes!" Ace giggled.

Riley just soghed and gave me a hug.

"Please don't scare me like that again, Papa." She whispered.

"I won't. Promise." I said, patting her head.

Just then Pietro raised a hand and waved at me with a curious look.

"Boss, a question....how did you survive?"

"How eh? How indeed. To be honest, I think it was a quirk of the Stone. You know, sacrificing yourself for a relic of power... it's like baby's first test of morality. Maybe the wielder was never meant to die. And since I sacrificed myself for myself, the Stone just like rveoved me at the last point before death. Hence the...uh blood and guts." I lied, gesturing at the stained spots on my coat and face.

"Well, anyways, I'm tired. Had to trek all the way back to the altar to retrieve my comms link to get back. See you all tomorrow? Talk it out at breakfast?" They nodded and I disappeared off to bed.

_________________________

MC returns. And learns a valuable lesson.

And realises his own deep seated childhood trauma.

More exposition of MC's previous life before this all happened.

Character growth this chapter!

And a bit of fluff.

Did you like it? Tell me in the comments.

Next chapter, Wanda's graduation, a mixer party and a little bit of reconciliation.

And then, Sentry serum baby!

Till then, thanks for reading, donate your powerstones, and bye!