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Chapter Text

Day 1

By some twisted fate, out of seven who fought Thanos on Titan, only two survived. She doubted one of those would last the next twenty-four hours, but they got to try even if it was clearly too late. Stark said the last Stone was on Earth. Guarded, protected – which failed, which didn’t work out as evidenced by the pile of red rust surrounding her.

It would be unwise to linger longer than necessary on Thanos’ home planet. The Mad Titan could space travel with a snap of his fingers – limitless cosmic power literally in the palm of his hand. They could not.

“Stark.” Nebula spoke the name with hesitance, not quite liking how the syllable rolled off her tongue. That was what the wielder of the Time Stone called him. “We need to go.”

He nodded from where he was – on the ground, still kneeling beside the remains of the Terran kid. She wasn’t left with many options, each more unsavoury than the next. But if it didn’t involve keeping Stark alive, it was out of consideration. What a change of heart. Why, did the Stones do something to her? To think that babysitting a lost Terran in space would be a smart thing to do? The smart thing to do was to leave him here. Maybe put a quick bullet in his skull while she was at it. Put him out of misery. It would require too much resources to keep him alive, and she understood Terran anatomy. It lacked durability. Weak. It was not built for survival.

“We can’t stay, Stark.” She marched towards him as he tried to stand up. His balance was shot and it took too much effort to get to her eye-level. She saw the battle unfold. She could guess the kind of mess it left under Stark’s shirt. Call it first-hand experience. But time wasn’t on their side, so all that was left to do was to tough it out.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Stark agreed somewhat breathlessly. He was clutching tightly at his side. They’d dallied long enough on Titan that the blood on Stark’s face had begun to congeal. “You have a ship?”

“Not mine. Quill’s.”

Her ship was totalled. It shouldn’t matter – this was meant to be a one-way trip.

“OK, Quill’s. Let’s get to it.”

“Where are we heading?”

“Earth.”

It didn’t have to be Earth. The battle was long over. No teams to re-join, no fights to die for. Thanos wouldn’t stick around on Earth after he’d collected the Mind Stone and executed mercy. But it was the only place Stark knew and she had nowhere else in mind anyway.

When it became clear that Stark was only conscious out of sheer stubbornness, Nebula took hold of his good arm and tugged it over her shoulders. She offered to take on most of his weight and let him dictate the speed of their paces.

She should’ve offered to carry him to the ship instead.

“You sure it’s still in one piece?” Stark asked quietly. His head kept bumping against her shoulder with every agonising step they took. “Pretty sure Thanos dropped a moon on us fifteen minutes ago. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all metal scraps by now.”

She was positive the Benatar survived. She could already see its outline – mostly intact. It should be serviceable, but she had to look at its engine cells to be sure. Stark didn’t say anything after that. He focused on keeping one foot ahead of the other and trying not to trip over littering debris. All she could hear was his harsh breaths in her ears.

Speaking of which, she doubted Stark knew how to operate a space ship. “I’ll look around for more fuel and supplies. You stay in the ship.” She hasn’t been to Earth, but if these Terrans could make the trip as stowaways, the return journey should be a cakewalk. Quill had Terrans ancestry. There must be something in those Terran junk he’d accumulated over the years that she could use as pointers. Coordinates, local protocols for spaceship re-entry – information that would minimise the odds of Earth’s defence authority from turning them into stardust.

“Be quick,” Stark said as she lowered him into the closest passenger seat. Though no longer operating at optimal conditions, his combat suit should afford him some measure of protection. Not that Titan had seen other residents since the Mad Titan did his duties. One could never be too sure. Deftly, Nebula reached behind her waist and pulled out a blaster gun. She held it out and Tony flinched hard as he stared down the barrel.

At least some shred of him still wanted to live.

“Take this,” and she flipped the gun over, offering him the handle instead. “I hope you won’t need it.”

He took it with shaky hands, nevertheless.

Titan had always been barren for as long as she remembered, which should clue Thanos in about the pointlessness of annihilating half of the planet’s residents. His conquests – accomplished with bloodshed but disguised as mercy – raised dissidents, avengers and martyrs. Not farmers, not builders. Violence perpetuates violence. Nebula had seen it cycling. War begets war. Starting with his home planet – it did not reset into his envisioned lush garden. It became a command centre.

She slung two cases of fuel cells and a bag of unripe radishes over her back. That was all she could find before a growing worry of leaving Stark undefended overtook her. When she got back to the Benatar, its vicinity was already teeming with dust and light.

She ran.

She had a blade protruding between her knuckles and would’ve driven it into Stark’s chest – Stark who was occupying the pilot’s seat and had somehow figured out how to start the engines.

“What do you know?” He grinned at her like his hardwork deserved a medal. “I got it up and running.”

“You’re bleeding into Quill’s chair.”

Might as well. They’d spent way too much time on this godforsaken planet anyway. She shoved Stark into the adjacent seat and checked the gimbals. His input of flight configuration was correct. He even got the indoor air circulating. Quill never bothered with that. Too much hassle, he would say until the stewing stench of a raccoon’s backside was beyond tolerable.

She leaned over Stark and helped his fasten his seat belt. He could figure out the clasps if he could figure out the dashboard, but they were blasting off in ten seconds and he wasn’t moving fast enough. As she was pulling the strap over his stomach, she realised fresh blood was spilling between his fingers. He was putting pressure on it, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough. She looked up and found him staring back at her, a weak smile still playing on his chapped lips.

“Fly the ship. I’ll be fine.”

Nebula dropped into Quill’s seat and its slightly bloodied upholster and flicked a switch. The Benatar rumbled with life and it lifted into the sky. The numbers looked good – they had enough power to leave Titan’s atmosphere. The hull was trembling something crazy but they would make it. She knew they would.

She turned to her co-pilot to tell him as much, but Stark’s eyes were closed. He didn’t heed when she called out his name.

Chapter Text

Day 2

Stark’s body was a glorious mismatch of medical anachronism. The trinket embedded in his chest was advanced even by Kree’s standard though it was clearly of Terran origin. The workmanship told her as much – crude in both material and manufacture, but the science behind it was sound. It withstood Thanos’ assault for a respectable duration. Stark did not. As she’d observed, this body wasn’t meant to tolerate abuse. Not that it stopped Stark from actively seeking death despite his fragility. Just look at the crisscross of scar tissues in his chest. Compared to the technology of that light-giving orb over his heart, this medical patchwork looked laughably antiquated. It should’ve killed him.

Nebula rested her blue palm against Stark’s jugular. There was still a beat, but she better hurry.  

Whatever gunk Stark had used to glue his wounds together, it wasn’t meant to be used that way. It wasn’t sterile. It wasn’t compatible with Terran’s biological tissue. It did nothing for the trauma suffered by his left kidney and perforated gut. But desperate situations called for desperate measures. The bleeding had to stop. Rocket once jerry-rigged a suturing robot that was meant for occasions like this. She had seen it work twice. The test run wasn’t particularly impressive, and the second one didn’t change her mind. It was precise and quick – better than having Gamora play medic for the Guardians – but graceful likely wasn’t a criterion Rocket had in mind. Or they had a sadist in their midst. Either way, none of them were truly Terran – not even Quill. They all had the constitution to handle the procedure.

Lucky for Stark to be unconscious on her table. She hoped he remained so, for his sake.

And that was all she could do. She raided their stash of medicine and found Quill’s, all of which she cradled in the bough of her forearms and poured over the empty surface next to Stark’s head. They belong to her charge now, and Quill wasn’t around to tell her otherwise. In better times she wouldn’t consider giving any of these to Stark. He probably wouldn’t appreciate her experimenting with the coagulants or organ-regeneration primer.

So, he would have to deal with the contusions and lacerations the old-fashioned way. Scans also confirmed two fractured ribs. She did not envy what the next two weeks had in store for Stark.

While he slept, Nebula took it upon herself to make sure they stayed on course. They had a plan, one that for once all parties had agreed upon. Working with the Guardians was the equivalent of exercising democracy represented by insults and eyerolls. Working for Thanos was much simpler. Working with Stark gave her the best of both worlds. But, Stark wasn’t lucid enough to point her in the right direction. She vaguely remembered Earth to be in a galaxy not too far away. Exactly where, she would have to check the ship’s travel log and Quill’s notes before they started the jump. It was good that the nearest portal was two days away, so her homework could wait while she attended to her next priority – keeping the ship running and in one piece.

She’d never been the Benatar’s captain but she learned quickly that it had a mind of its own. It had long past its prime – Quill wasn’t a gentle pilot and the loony adventures they’d been on wasn’t kind on the ship at all. Maybe Stark was right, that Thanos had damaged the ship in ways that she’d overlooked. It rattled in places where it shouldn’t, louder than it should even though the gauges returned numbers that were within normal ranges. Perhaps it was paranoia. Could also be survivor’s guilt. They didn’t deserve things to go swimmingly because they hadn’t earned it.

Groot would say not to jinx their luck.

The third item on her list of priority was to lie low. Avoid attention from any parties at all cost. She could give their assailants the fight of their lives but not now, not like this. Not with Stark in the line of fire. Gamora said it best. Why fight when it wasn’t required? Nobody knew she was on Titan. Nobody cared if she escaped the dusting. The idea of someone scouring the universe for her was ridiculous.

Stark seemed the type to have someone watching over him, though.

And topping that list of priority was Stark himself. Badly bruised by her standard but alive and in her book, that was plenty enough. She kept him on the table where she did the surgery. Not the most comfortable circumstances to recuperate in but they would have to make do. His body might reject the suture which necessitated a do-over. His internal organs might fail and the organogenesis pills could be their best bet after all.

He might die on the spot and she could light the table up as his pyre before venting them all into space.

All matters of convenience really. She remained alert on the potent combination of adrenaline and grief, something that Stark could use in smaller amounts. He did try – grasping at shreds of consciousness and wanting to make sense of his new surroundings.

“Pepper…”

She understood it to be a Terran condiment that Drax loved adding into his ration. She brought one jar of it to Stark’s table the next time he asked for it.

Twelve hours later, she found herself sitting on the floor across Stark’s sleeping form. She kept her forehead flush against her elbow, propped up on raised knees. By now, they were reasonably far away from Titan and other known habitable planets. Nobody had yet to open fire at their ship. Easily their first win for the day. When she lifted her head, Stark was already awake. He stared at her with half-hooded eyes, each blink lasting longer than the one before.  

He should sleep on if he could. And thus her watch continued.

Chapter Text

Day 3

“Stark.”

Nebula patted his cheeks after five more hours had gone by her count. The next course of medicine should be taken about now for maximum efficacy. She pulled one eyelid up and observed no yellowing of the sclera. No jaundice. She checked his abdominal regions for swelling and found none under those thick swathes of bandages. The haemorrhaging was under control.

“Stark, wake up.”

When on Titan, new recruits who failed to be out of bed by sunrise would be jolted with electricity generated from the dam. She could spare some wattage for the same purpose, if Stark refused to cooperate.

“Stark –”

His forehead creased and his breathing deepened, first signs of life she’d seen of her charge. He raised one forearm above his brows to blot out the light. Nebula took a step back. When new recruits came back from their first battle, shell-shocked and battered, their minds resorted to extreme means for self-preservation. Some lashed out, and Nebula had personally put down those who were too far gone.

When push comes to shove, she would take Stark out, too.

“Nebula?” He whispered her name, and she nearly didn’t recognise it. “Where are we?”

“On the Benatar.”

“In space?”

She relaxed her posture and approached the tableside. Stark would live for another day. He took several shallow breaths, testing the limits of his ribs’ capacity for expansion and deflation. He rolled his joints and flexed his limbs. Every tweak of his body was calculated. This Terran was familiar with post-battle recoveries. Perhaps she’d underestimated their kind.

“I’m not dead, am I?”

Still an idiot, though. “Obviously not.”

“Right, right. Then I guess…” And Stark leveraged his upper body on a good elbow, lifting himself up on the table he’d been sleeping on for the past eighteen hours. “Wow, this is really weird. What did you dose me up with?”

“Are you in pain?” She stood closer to him that the blunt edge of the table pressed into her thighs. “I took care of the most urgent injuries. Your side and your chest –”

“I’m fine – so are my sides and chest.”

An idiot, and pitifully lousy a liar. She saw right through the pretence – the narrowed slant of his glassy eyes and the droop in his grin.

He looked around the ship and asked, “So… you have any painkillers in your med stash?”

“I do. But it’s not for Terran.”

“Terran, huh? Midguardian sounds cooler.”

“I don’t know if your physiology can benefit from it. I can titre the dosage, or –”

“Or, it wouldn’t be a problem for us both anymore,” he finished cheerfully, and swung his legs over the side of the table. “This is actually not too bad. Thanks.”

Only it was. All she had to do for Stark to admit he was far from fine was to cross her arms and wait. He threw himself off the table with the grace of a stinking drunk Mantis and wobbled. Strike one for Nebula. She stood her ground. Keeping up the obstinance wouldn’t do him any service, and the sooner that got through his thick skull, the better.

“Alright.” Stark leaned his hips against the table, resigned to the fact that he was as useless as Nebula assumed. “Is there a chair or a bed that I can use?”

“I’ll take you.”

She took him firmly by his shoulders and he leaned into her. Perhaps the full extent of his injuries was finally made clear, and he burned as hot as a furnace. Nebula anticipated this – and some fifty other complications arising after he regained consciousness. Quill had a lounging armchair tucked in a distant corner that she had the foresight to park closer to the centre of the ship. She wanted to use it. It seemed like the comfier option, the other being lying on her back on the cold, hard floor.

Also, Quill used to give them hell about using it without permission.

They traipsed towards the armchair like a highly sedated three-legged race. It took too long before she lowered Stark into it and he accepted the lush support of leather and foam on his broken body with a grateful sigh. She wished Quill were here to see a filthy Terran making a mess on his beloved chair. That was for yelling at her for putting her legs up on the armrest when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Nebula promptly crouched between Stark’s legs and groped around for a catch mechanism in his waistband. His face twisted into shock and his body froze.

She found the zipper. How quaint, a zipper. She hadn’t seen one in ages.

“Nebula?” A bandaged hand tainted with few drops of blood wrapped weakly around her wrist. She stopped her ministrations and looked up at Stark. Again, she found a mismatch of expressions that was uniquely him. A lopsided grin indicated good spirits, but his severe gaze suggested otherwise. So confusing… it was easier dealing with him when he was bleeding out on the table. “It’s been days, I get it. But now is hardly the time for the bang and wham, yeah? I don’t think I can get it up, and I did not just say that…”

Her black eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… well, let’s just leave it, shall we?”

She had no idea what was going on, but he was filthy, and she realised she couldn’t be mean to Quill’s memories even if she wanted to. He’d wanted the chair to be kept pristine.

“There’s water from the engines, by-product of fuel combustion. I filtered them while you were asleep, and you could use a wipe down.” She tried to pull the zipper down. This time, Stark allowed it. “What is the normal temperature range for a Terran?”

Stark’s breathing was laborious. She could feel his body heat emanating. What was it called in Gamora’s haphazardly put together medical notes for Terran?

“Thirty-seven Centigrade. Or ninety-eight-degree Fahrenheit? Can we vote to abolish the system of imperial units already? I mean, space travel is real, but we’re still stuck in the bygone. Come on…”

She had no idea what that was about, either. This would prove to be more taxing than she expected. “You have a fever.”

“No shit.”

“Water should cool you down.”

Stark’s company could be bearable once he shut his mouth. As she ran wet sponge down his thighs and calves, he kept his glazed over eyes on the ceiling. Thinking about what, she did not ask, did not care. By the time she was done with the lower half of his body, the bucket of water was rusty red. She hoped Stark would stay that way, oblivious and not-talking as she resumed her duties on his upper half.

His bandaged hand darted forth to stop her sponge mere inches from his chest reactor. His eyes were dead set on hers.

“Leave it.”

Nebula tried again. She resisted his grip. He was fine with his pants, why should this be any different?

“Nebula.” The tinge of growl in her name almost had her smiling. That’s the pronunciation she was most familiar with. “I said, leave it.”

His entire arm was vibrating. That did pique her interest, and his reactor glowed brilliantly blue. It had always given off a shine when she worked on him, but never this bright. Only during battles, if she remembered right. That lethal dance with Thanos on Titan was when it glowed the brightest.

Nebula dropped the sponge onto his laps. She yanked her arm from his grip and stood up fluidly.

“Fine. Finish it yourself.”

Chapter Text

Day 4

“Stark.”

There wasn’t a Sun to signify the start of a new day, so she became one. Waking Stark up for his medicine was her equivalent of turning over a calendar page. She would walk up to him, call his name, shake him a bit before pouring the drug cocktails down his throat when he inevitably slept on. Today was different in the sense that he was capable of watching her amble down the aisle. The faster he regained his agency, the better it was for their collective survival.

She handed him his flask of medicine. “Take them.”

“What’s this?”

“Your medicine.”

He took the flask and sniffed at the content, clearly disgusted with its odour. She agreed. It was a taste nobody could acquire. “You’ve been taking them the past three days.”

“I would remember if I’d taken this before.”

“You did.”

Nebula left him to his own devise because testing her patience so early in the presumed morning could end with devastating results. Food was more important than convincing Stark that this was a stupid way of poisoning him if that was, indeed, the plan all along. She’d gathered all the food in the opposite corner of the flight deck – partly for convenient access, partly for logistics reasons. They had enough supplies to last the journey provided they kept screw-ups to the minimal. The ones that were perishable she’d stored in the cold room. Maybe they should consume those first and deactivate the chamber after to conserve energy.

She had decided on two bags of toasted seeds for breakfast.

“I haven’t thanked you for saving my life,” Stark said suddenly, and Nebula looked up from a carton of pickled Knowhere eggs. “Thank you.”

She repaid Stark’s smile with a glare. “Your medicine.” By the way, two of these eggs were rotten. They were supposed to be pickled. Could pickled eggs rot? “You need to take them now. They’ll be useless in the next hour.” Not really, but she didn’t mind telling a white lie or two to get her task done.

She counted to ten before she looked his way again, just to make sure the flask was emptied. It wasn’t, but Stark was struggling to keep it upright, his hand shaking as the liquid within threatened to spill. She quickly took the flask from him and checked him over. Was it a seizure? There was a three percent chance of seizure happening three days post-surgery.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Can’t lift my arm.”

Not seizure, then.

“Lean back.” With her free hand, she pinched his chin and coaxed his head upward. The sudden encroachment of personal space must be an appalling conduct by Terran standard – Stark flinched as much as his bandages would allow him and tried to scoot away. Nebula wasn’t having it. She guaranteed the alternative – hosing drugs down his nostrils – was worse.

With utmost care, she tipped the flask against his lips and let the liquid cascade down his throat. He would tighten his grip on her wrist when he had to swallow, and she would let up, let him take a breather. Rinsed and repeated until he downed all of them.

“That was ghastly.” He choked and swiped his chin with the back of his palm. “I’m gonna be sick.”

“Hold it down. There’s painkiller in there and if you throw up, you’ll wait until tomorrow for the next one.”

Should she feed Stark the semi-rotten pickled egg? She was fairly certain someone stuck a fake expiration date to dissuade others from eating their stash. Probably Drax’s handiwork, judging by the chicken scratch of a handwriting.

“Where is your family, Nebula?”

She looked up again from her eggs, finding Stark smiling at her. It lit up his features, and she couldn’t help relishing its warmth. Gamora had a smile akin to Stark’s, and smiles like this were rare in her experience. It took great strength and conviction to carve one into their lips, and she had none of those qualities.

She looked away. Stark cocked his head sideways to catch her eyes again. “I’m sure we can afford a detour. Maybe we can stock up on supplies there and I find my way home –”

“They’re gone.” She chose two random eggs – medium-sized – and returned to Stark’s side. “Thanos killed them. He raised me thereafter.”

A momentary flash of pain graced his face, but he forced it down. “I thought my Dad was mean, but that award definitely goes to yours.”

“Did your father implant that in your chest?”

“What, this?” He waved vaguely at the reactor. “God, no. No. By your standard, my Dad was a saint. He didn’t wish half the universe were dead. Too busy scouring the oceans for a dead soldier and the Tesseract.” His expression soured and his arms dropped lifelessly onto the armrests. “He should’ve left it where he found it.”

“Your bandages need changing.”

Mopping didn’t suit a man like Stark. She swallowed her egg whole and passed the second to Stark, expecting him to eat it with equal gusto. Even Terrans should know what eggs are. She’d seen Quill gobble one up, surely eggs would be aggregable to Stark’s gullet, too. If he needed a repeat of instruction, she supposed she could regurgitate her egg and start over?

“So…” Stark turned his egg over and knocked it against the armrest. When the shell was cracked all over, he picked at it one by one. Was he not intending to ingest it? What a waste of calcium. “You’re friends with the Guardian?”

“Sit up. I need access to the knot on your back.”

“That chick with the antenna seemed fond of you.”

She undid the clip and unwound lengths of soiled bandages that went around Stark’s torso. The bruises and cuts hadn’t improved as fast, but at least the stitches held up. As she put on fresh dressings, she took the chance to glance at him as furtively as she dared. Knowhere eggs were delicacies to some species – Terrans were not one of them. But, Stark genuinely enjoyed his breakfast, munching at the yolk like a whole new world of flavour was bursting in his mouth. Food were simply nourishment to her – taste buds weren’t deemed necessary for the makings of a warrior, so they ripped hers out when she was twelve and gave her one that concealed barbs. A discrete weapon. Almost every part of her was.

“Taste like spam, but better.”

She gathered the used bandages and prepared to leave when Stark’s knuckles brushed against the tender underside of her forearm. He said, “We still got something to look forward to. We’re going home.”

“Your home.”

“Then it’ll be yours, too.”

Chapter Text

Day 5

She had been preoccupied with sorting out supplies from junk in the cargo bay and it took annoyingly longer than it should because the Guardians also moonlight as hoarders when they were not kicking names and taking asses. By the time her internal clock told her to get breakfast running, Stark was already up and about, not the least slowed down by the stitches in his side. The rate of his progress exceeded her expectations. Either that, or he was dumb enough to power through post-surgery pain just so he could walk all over the ship and drip blood on the floor.

She emerged from the hallway connecting the flight deck to the private cabins and cargo bay and found Stark standing by the pilot seat. Quill’s jacket was draping over his shoulders, the sleeves flapping uselessly by his side since it would be quite a hassle to force his arms down them.

She took another step forward and made sure to step on an empty can of bean lying in front of her.

Stark perked up and grinned. “Morning!”

She nodded curtly and made a beeline for the food stash. Today’s portion was untouched. Since when did she also serve as butler for Stark? She grabbed a packet of toasted seeds and said, “You should eat before you start your day.”

“Not much of a breakfast person, sorry.”

“You can’t heal on nothing. Food will speed up recovery.”

“You have any coffee around here?”

She held out one of two tin-foiled packets which he accepted with a quick upward twist of his lips.

“What’s a coffee?”

“So, no, then? It’s been five days and I haven’t had a caffeine withdrawal induced headache. Amazing… Or maybe I do. I mean, it’s hard to tell, all things considered.”

“What are you doing?”

Nebula approached the controls where Stark was and gave it a quick once-over for discrepancies. All seemed to be in due order. She wouldn’t put it past Stark to leave confounding alien tech alone. A map of some sort was laid open on the dash. Dictionaries and flight manuals occupied the pilot and co-pilot’s seats. He turned to her, chewing with his mouth full of seeds and she glimpsed upon a walking stick pressed up against his side. She wondered where he found one.

“I’ve been studying!” He pointed at a bluish sphere on the map depicting Titan, its orbit and its gravity. “I fly all – most – of the time on Earth. But flying in space is a different animal altogether, isn’t it? So I asked myself, how do I go about learning how to operate a spaceship, prepare for take-off and landing, et cetera et cetera? And I answered, why not start with the Benatar? We took off fine from Titan, we’re heading to Earth, we’ll enter its atmosphere and gosh, everything in between could go wrong when they shouldn’t if wanted a smooth sailing, right?”

Nebula poured the rest of the seeds down her throat. Then, she said with a tone of finality, “I know how to fly a space ship.”

Stark rolled his eyes as if she’d just missed the point altogether. “I can see that. But I can’t. And I’d like to.”

“I can teach you.”

The skin by his eyes crinkled. “You would?”

“No.” She chucked the now emptied packet into a bin. It was filling up fast. They could vent their waste into space but that would leave a dangerous trail and they would never know if these materials would turn up useful somehow. “I’ll be in the cargo bay if you need me.”

He mumbled something under his breath, so she turned back and raised one non-existent eyebrow. Stark only said, “Good chat!”

She could vent him together with the bin full of thrash sometime after lunch.

But of course lunch happened and Stark survived it. He held a bun between his jaws and studied the flight manuals doggedly like his life depended on it. She was serious when she said she could handle her own in the cockpit. She had flown for as long as she had wielded a weapon, and Thanos hired only the finest pilots in the universe to train his Daughters. Merely pouring over books wouldn’t miraculously upgrade a novice’s skillset no matter how gifted he was.

The only way to learn how to fly, was to fly. And she would sooner slit his throat herself than allow him anywhere near the console.

She came back in the late evening to check on Stark, see if he’d decided that passing away quietly in some dingy corner would serve a better purpose. She did find him in said dingy corner, books scattered about him in clusters that only made sense to him. His eyes were closed, his expression weary and pinched, and his breathing too quick for comfort.

She knelt by his side and grabbed both his forearms. His throat bobbed and his frown deepened. Here she was thinking that the worst was over. She watched him take his medicine earlier today. His body couldn’t have built up tolerance against the painkillers this quickly. It had only been five days. It should’ve lasted him at least twice as longer.

“Shit…” Bleary brown eyes caught hers and she tightened her grip on him. He coughed lightly and blinked away the gunk his eyes. “Sorry. It’s fine. I’m fine. Let me go.”

She let him go but chose to sit on the floor in front of him instead of leaving him to his own misery as she often did because that was easy. She watched him gather himself and held her tongue. She had seen this coming though she had to give it to Stark. His handling was a lot better than what could’ve been. Once again, the Terran had exceeded her expectations.

“Yeah, sorry. This is me talking to myself, about myself.” He looked around himself and seemed to be just as surprised at the amount of reading he’d done in the past day. He chewed his lips, weighing his words carefully. “I’ve never been to space.”

“You had.” Thanos spoke about it, how a meek Terran took out a fleet of Chitauri with prehistoric technology.

Stark considered what she said – and said nothing. He closed his eyes again and leaned back until the back of his head bumped against the hull.

Chapter Text

Day 6

“So, there is a way to survive the Einstein-Rosen bridge and exit it intact. How do you stabilise it? Says here a jump could be fatal if… hey, how do you translate this? Is this Kree?”

Today, that was Stark’s version of a chirpy good morning. It was decidedly as annoying as generic nothings. Nebula’s lips grew thinner at his insistence of helping him out with more translation works, a handicap he was abusing to get on her nerves. She had the translator implant, not him, and she didn’t have a spare lying around. How she would love to stick one up his throat if she had one.

“Your medicine.” She reached for the flask, poured out the usual concoction and motioned for Stark to come get it. He could walk now, hobbling around the Benatar with a limp and his borrowed cane to ease pressure off his flank.

“Cheers,” he said before gulping it down to the last drop. “Still nasty, Christ. Hey, by the way…”

She should’ve upped the sedatives in that flask. Quill’s audacity should’ve clued her in about Terrans’ social behaviour. Talking incessantly because they loved the sound of their voices oh-so-much. She was having second thoughts about visiting Earth already.

“You may check my calculations. If my assumptions were right, our fuel could more than last the journey if we skip the final jump and clip, and coast all the way into Earth’s orbit and have gravity do its magic. I can contact space mission, maybe from outside of Mars and tell them we’re coming in… I mean, they’ve shown no compunction about firing nuclear missiles at incoming, so I don’t want to be on the receiving end this time.”

This plan had indeed crossed Nebula’s mind, but it took her only a second to rule it out. “Too slow. If we don’t take that jump, we’ll add six more days to the journey.”

“We can handle six more days.”

“We don’t have enough supplies for six more days.”

“How about oxygen and water?”

She nodded. “Plenty.”

“So, just food then?”

“And medicine.”

Clearly Stark didn’t care about the medicine if he had the gall to grin the way he did. Would it be too much of trouble to take that jump anyway and save on those extra days? “The original plan was to jump and coast into Mars orbit," she explained. "Use its gravity, slingshot the ship into Earth’s atmosphere.”

“No. Too aggressive. This ship may not endure it.”

“This ship was built to handle worse.”

“And you’ll use up all the fuel to make that jump.” Stark folded both his hands over the head of his walking cane. The shadows over his features darkened. “We run out of fuel, we run out of options, you understand. If we coast, I can send out a distress signal straight to Earth as we make our steady entry. Help may come, and we’ll be saved. If they don’t, we’ll hit a home run anyway, and we’ll be saved! But if we jump, we risk losing power. No power means no navigation, which means drifting, lost in space. I can’t take that risk, I’m sorry.”

Her plan took his chances of survival into account. She could last six days with minimal food and water, not him. She was healthy, uninjured and fully functioning half-machine, not him. If Stark was so eager to risk his body shutting down before the Benatar was even in Earth’s vicinity, then by all means she would personally switch up flight command this instant.

Righteous, self-sacrificing idiot, the lot of them.

Before she could put another dent in Stark’s planning, the ship shook as if something large and solid just torn through the hull. No alarms rang, so nothing was physically damaged but that could be a matter of time. Stark was holding on to a table for extra support as he checked the control from across the deck.

“Gimbal looks fine,” he said. But, too soon – the ship tilted to its sharp left and both were thrown off their feet. Stark wasn’t quick enough to tether himself to a fixture. His body slammed into the wall, his walking cane missed jabbing him in the eye by mere inches. Nebula screamed and reached out for him when the ship regained its pivot and Stark dropped onto the ground.

“Stark!”

He was a pile of unmoving limbs and she flew to his side. She took his pulse, checked his breathing and confirmed that he was fine – thoroughly winded, but still sharp and focused. He struggled to get his words out. “Something’s ringing.”

Something was ringing, and Nebula had opted to ignore that in favour of attending to Stark. Perhaps she should’ve done it in reverse. She checked the dash and felt the blood run cold in her veins. “Oxygen is leaking.”

“Shit – where are the cables!”

Some sort of vapour was spewing through the vent and they tracked its construction. It would take too much time to consult the blueprint but even that might be unnecessary. The table that Nebula used to operate on Stark previously had been reduced to halves, and one of them had cleaved through a panel in the wall. Stark made a dash for it, and Nebula followed. He threw his weight onto it, tried to pry the piece from the wall. Nebula pulled it out like a splinter under her skin.

It was getting more apparent that the drop was taking a toll on Stark. His breathing got harsher by the second and he couldn’t stand without leaning against the wall.

“Stark, fall back –”

“You can weld them together?” he asked. His collar was damp with sweat.

She peered through the gap and saw what he did – a bendy pipe slashed in two – and she raised both arms. Fingers were replaced with tools, neither of which sporting opposable thumbs. She needed someone to align the pipes for her.

She said, “It carries oxygen. I can’t weld it.” Unless going out in a mega firework was what they were aiming for. “I can do something else, but I don’t have a spare hand to hold the pipes together.”

“I’ll do it.” And something inside Nebula shrivelled when blood trickled down Stark’s chin as he clambered to pick up the cables. He swiped at his mouth and brought up bloodied hands to still them. “Hurry.”

She glued the breakage back, taking inspirations from Stark’s emergency patchwork on Titan. She hoped that that was the last assault on the Benatar – one more could ruin them all. Stark stayed by her, nodding off as his strength seeped away but he kept his words. He held the pipes for as long as she needed to completely seal the tear until it was airtight. When the alarm stopped blaring and Nebula shut down her tools, as if on cue, Stark collapsed.

Nebula caught him and held him tight to her chest. Blue fingers scraped along Stark’s jawline. His stubble was growing out, almost as long as the eyelashes dusting his cheeks. He would be next to fix, and she combed over the numbers on Benatar’s dash once more. The hand on the oxygen metre was now wavering on the lower end of the scale.

They’d promised to go home together. Could they?

Chapter Text

Day 7

Nebula usually kept to herself in the cargo bay or Gamora’s private cabin. She knew Stark wouldn’t wander that far – couldn’t – given the need for traversing narrow aisles and climbing ladder. What little sleep she could manage the past week she had to give up completely for the next two days, minimum. Reason one, Stark. He was dead lucky the drop from ceiling-height did not kill him. It did break his previously mending ribs and perforate a lobe of his left lung. Serenaded by his wheezing breathing since yesterday’s incident, she whiled away her waiting by studying their options that abruptly became limited. That was reason two.

Stark saw the readings on the Benatar’s oxygen metre. Whether he understood the implication or not she would have to wait until he woke up. She on the other hand was aware of what it meant, and she didn’t like the odds one bit.

Stark stirred oin the bedroll she acquired from Drax’s cabin. She held him down by his good shoulders and hoped that he wouldn’t come to in a slew of kicks and punches. Now was not the time for lashing out.

His eyes peeled open like they weighed a brick each. “Feel like crap.”

“One broken rib. A fractured ankle.”

“Christ.”

She leaned forward to rest a palm over his brows. His fever had broken up. “You still have two working arms and the stitches in your side held up.”

“Right. Always looking at the bright side, huh…”

“You’re still alive.”

“We are.” Stark winced as he pulled a hand from under the covers. His nose was itching. “What happened? Did we hit something?”

“Space debris.”

“That was some insane bad luck… Space is this vast and of all things it could’ve smashed into, it decided on us.”

So many words in so little time. Stark was fine. Probably doing better than the Benatar. She returned her attention to the map of the galaxy and ignored his groans and stuttering movements in his attempt to sit up. When he did manage to peer over her shoulders at her reading material, he asked, “How bad?”

So, he knew? She looked at him and saw only resignation. He wasn’t looking for empty consolations, then. He sought confirmation. She replied, “We lost significant level of oxygen when the cable leaked. We had to turn on backup cells to offset the ship’s diverged trajectory and orientation.”

“Are we still on course to Earth?”

“Yes.”

He chewed on his questions; his eyes averted to the back of the pilot’s seat. Whatever was running through his head, it had occurred to her. She hadn’t found a solution she liked, and neither would Stark. Then again, he was the engineer and she, the destroyer. He built. She rendered things asunder. What had they got to lose to give him a chance to think their way out of this fix?

“Can we ignore the portals and make our jumps from any point in infinity?”

“No.”

“Can we open up our own portals?”

“No.”

Even Stark was grasping at straws. She dusted herself and made to stand up. It was time for the third meal of the day. Already?

Stark eyed the map spread out before him. “Can I borrow that?”

“You may.”

Before she could take one step further, he jabbed at a white blob at the edge of a circle that represented an orbit. So, Stark had now considered bringing in new parameters into the mix.

“What’s this?”

“A planet.”

“We’re approximately here, right?” He traced an idle circle around the white blob. “We’re entering its orbit?”

“Yes.”

“Great. We land there, refuel, restock, repair the ship.”

She turned her back against him and made for the food pile. “Not an option.”

“Why the hell is that not an option?”

“It’s not a densely populated planet.” Its name and thriving colony were but a vague recollection. That should impress upon Stark how useless it was in serving their purpose. “A backwater nation without sufficiently advanced tool and knowledge to exploit its meagre natural resources. Thanos’ snap affects all beings in existence, theirs included. With half their race gone, extinction is certain. If we land, we’re fresh meat in their eyes.” She pulled out two more pickled Knowhere eggs from its carton. “Just a means to delay the inevitable.”

“We don’t know that,” he said. She handed an egg to Stark, but he didn’t take it.

“What do you suggest we do, Stark? That we pillage and conquer their cities, seize what is theirs so we could thrive? But, if that were your suggestion, I see no flaw in it. They function on instinct, not premeditated warfare tactics. And we are armed, enough to take down a village or two.” She pushed the egg into his trembling palm. “I never knew you had it in you.”

He said nothing, merely held the egg without bothering to do that Terran thing of his – cracking and peeling shells instead of devouring it whole. She pressed on. “So, you’ve made up your mind. I’ll change course for our new destination. It has been a while since we had some fun anyway.”

“No,” Stark said quickly. HIs jaws were clenched. “No. We can’t.”

She popped her egg in her mouth and smirked. “Then, we’ll find another way.”

Chapter Text

Day 8

When Nebula emerged from her alcove and met Stark’s eyes, he greeted her with a half-smile that was crossing into a grimace. Her step faltered. Stark would greet her good morning, she would deliver him his flask of medicine, she would watch him take it, and she would choose what to be had for breakfast. That was customary. Stark did away with step number one. So, she swerved to her left where she kept the flask and the medicine, but its bottom was wet with residual crimson liquid.

“I took them,” Stark explained. His expression was stony, betraying nothing.

Stark did away with step number two. She rummaged through the food pile and found today’s ration untouched. At least he left them an excuse of a group activity.

“Eggs or seeds?” she asked.

“I found an address book in the drawer down there.” He waved a hefty leather-bound journal in his free hand that wasn’t clasping his walking cane. “Ravagers? Who is this… Yondu guy?”

“You can read the language?”

“No, I can’t, but there are patterns to linguistics, even yours. I translated enough to know that you have the means to contact allies of the Guardians –”

“They’re not allies.”

“Bullshit.” Stark tossed the journal onto an empty seat and stood up. “I crosschecked some of these numbers with the ship’s call logs. Guess what.” His cane struck the floor hard as he took his first step towards her. “They were there. And dated pretty recently, too. Or is it customary for you guys to drop your enemies courtesy calls, because you’re very polite people?”

“The Ravagers are opportunists.”

“What else are you hiding from me, Nebula?” He stopped in his tracks with a respectable distance between them. Out of habit and fighter’s instinct perhaps, her black eyes raked over his chest reactor just to make sure it wasn’t flashing bright blue and combat ready.

“I’m not hiding anything from you.”

“You sure? Because now I learn that we’re not quite alone in this freaking mess, that help could be a call away. What’s next? You got extra fuel cells stashed somewhere that you’d forgotten about? Or a different flight route that you haven’t considered?”

She closed the gap between them in one fluid stride and before she knew it, her fingers were closing around Stark’s throat and she’d somehow had him backed against the wall. His bandaged hands came up to scrabble at hers.

She leaned in, her nose not quite touching his. “Question my motives all you want, Stark. I saved your life. I can end it, too.”

Terrans. So squishy. One squeeze on his windpipe and she could have more than enough oxygen, food and fuel to go where she wanted. No matter if it was hostile grounds. With her might, she would carve herself a new place of her own. Without a baggage to keep alive and babysit, she could crown herself Queen.

She loosened her grip and he promptly slid to the ground, his cane clattering on the floor. He gasped and coughed as he hugged his ribs and took in precious air to refill his lungs. He would fare well knowing his place in this ship and tread with care.

Then, it occurred to her. “Did you put out a call to the Ravagers?”

Stark winced and swallowed. Speaking was discomforting though she took care not to actually maim him. “No.” He wheezed some more before refocusing his attention on her through bleary eyes. “I need to know why.”

“As I said, the Ravagers are opportunists. They don’t offer free services. We have nothing of interest to them, but we are worth something. Your tech will fetch a good price on the black market and they will rip that light out of your chest. I, as Thanos’ daughter would be the best target to exact revenge on, or extract information from. You understand, Stark?” Nebula extended a hand before him. She would help. She had been, and she wasn’t stopping. “Their arrival would spell our end.”

Stark alternated his glances between the proffered hand and Nebula’s face. She sensed no wariness on his face, only lines of oncoming fatigue and stress. Her skin was not all organic. She wondered if she would look the same otherwise. When Stark finally took her hand, she held it, and disliked the minute tremors that were racking his body.

“How do you do that?” he whispered.

“Do what?”

“This. The nonchalance. You don’t care if this is the last hour of our lives?”

The way life had been for her, every hour could’ve been her last. How different was this to those moments? She crouched to his eye-level and reaffirmed her grip on his hand. “I’ll make that call to the Ravagers and others in Quill’s journal. But only as a last resort. Only when it was down to that, or certain death.”

Stark huffed in amusement. “You don’t trust anyone at all, do you?”

“That is why I’m still surviving.”

He smiled at that and said nothing anymore. She thought there was a flash of sadness in the way he looked out the window – into unending blackness.  

Chapter Text

Day 9

Last night, Nebula fell asleep in the cargo bay, just one aisle away from her sister’s cabin where she normally sought refuge in. It took nine full days to completely exhaust her body. Nine full days for Stark to get a raise from her. She did not seek him out to have meals together after that. Why would she? She simmered in solitude, going through more junk until her body decided to lie down between a basket of motherboards and a broken chair. She would close her eyes for five minutes. Just five minutes.

Imagine her surprise when she found Stark sitting across her cross-legged and nose-deep in a book.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, and he smiled – the one that lit up the room and made her almost forget about all pressing issues at hand.

“Nothing. It’s probably midday by your calculation, and you didn’t come out for breakfast, so.”

“It’s midday?”

“Are you still sulking?”

She levelled him the best glare she could muster. The fiercer she got, the more amused Stark was. “I do not sulk.”

Her internal clock never failed her before. She would sleep and wake exactly when she was programmed to. It never took her by surprise.

“Hungry?”

Stark held out a bag of chips. She looked at it tentatively, wondering if Stark had again fallen on his head on his way down. That could explain the personality switch. She took the chips and tore into the bag, eyeing Stark as she munched.

He watched her intently, and upon her second bite, he asked, “Are you OK?”

There was a fleeting pause when she stopped crunching chips with her molars. She had snarky replies poised on the tip of her tongue for every potential question pertaining to flying the Benatar, a space trip to Earth, the Guardians and Thanos. Nothing prepared her for Stark’s.

Still, she said, “Never better.”

Stark didn’t seem to buy it. He watched her in silence, and perhaps thought that it was useless to push the matter further. All she cared about was finishing up breakfast and working on preventative maintenance on the engines.

“Are you busy later?” Stark asked again.

The weird thing about being stuck in the claustrophobic confinement of a spaceship for extended duration with no means of escape meant they could either languish freely or live hectically for survival. Both options made complete sense. Neither more righteous than the other.

“What do you have in mind?”

“You were right, it’s been a while since we had some fun. I rigged something cute on the deck. Wanna come and see?”

They tried working hard. It didn’t help much. They lost oxygen by no fault of theirs and they fixed it the best they could. Why not try the alternative?

Stark offered her his forearm – which she took hesitantly. She wasn’t sure what he was playing at until he closed his other hand over hers and beamed. So, she held on tighter. As they hobbled down narrow aisles, Stark rambled on about going on dates and showing the ladies a good time. Something about a princess and a pumpkin coach, and field mice turned into horses. She never knew there were sorcerers on Earth. She heard tales of magic practitioners on Asgard and the realms beyond, and she imagined their works to be titillating yet serving no real functions. If Stark’s stories were anything to go by, at the very least the princess got herself a city to rule and a husband to subjugate. Magic wasn’t all that bad after all.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough was already playing when Stark opened the door and gestured her to look around. He had dimmed the lights and cleared the centre of the deck. He had also fixed the better half of the surgery table – the one that broke apart and destroyed the oxygen cable not too long ago.

“You like it?”

“I see you found Quill’s collection.”

“Yeah. Those stuff are not bad. Not bad at all.” Stark looked proud of himself, so she didn’t want to admit that she never understood what the racket was all about.

“Do you listen to music on Earth?”

“I do. Different genre, though. Black Sabbath, AC/DC – you know what? I’ll share some of mine with you when we get home. I’ll even get you your own Spotify premium. It’s the least I can do.”

The suggestions sounded spectacular though as usual, anything Terran-specific was alien to her. She approached the newly mended table and picked up a wad of paper that had been folded neatly into a triangle.

“What is this?” she asked, twirling the object with slender, blue fingers.

“That is the beginning of our tournament.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Our tournament?”

“Of paper football. Sit down. I’ll show you.”

As Dear Mr Fantasy played in the background, Stark taught her how to flick paper from one end of the table to the other. When she thought she did alright, he formed a barricade of some sort with his forearms and asked her to now flick the paper into it. That upped the ante a lot. It got a bit boring when she realised she couldn’t overtake Stark’s score, so she played by a simpler rule instead – flick said paper into Stark’s face. Ten points if it hit his nose.

“Was it fun?” he asked after a while.

She sat up straighter and replied, “Yes, it was.” By that, she was referring to paper football played as originally intended, of course.

Stark got to his feet and held out his forearm again. She took it, and he said, “Shall we dance, then?”

Chapter Text

Day 10

She knew something was up when Stark found her curled up again in the cargo bay, breakfast in tow. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep here, and she hadn’t meant to miss her meal either. He watched her eat the eggs he brought her with guarded fascination – something she found lethally irritating before she acquiesced that she would rather he ogle than talk to her.

“So,” Stark began airily when she’d swallowed the last bite of her meal. “How do you feel today?”

“Fine.”

“Right. OK, I don’t know much about alien anatomy, but I know machines –”

He held both hands up in a placating manner when she bared her teeth. Machines?

“You’re not fine, Nebula.” He sighed and pulled out a toolbox that was previously hidden from her view. “I know you have some sort of routine programmed into your ventrolateral preoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus – the section of the brain that regulates sleep and wakefullness. At least it is for us Terrans. Midguardians.” He shrugged. “You aren’t capable of missing breakfast, yet you did. Twice. I saw you fight on Titan, but boy you sucked at paper football. Your aim was way off when that also shouldn’t be possible.”

Very astute observations coming from the Terran. She swept egg crumbs from her lap and sat up straighter. “You tricked me?”

“Excuse me, I tricked you?”

“All the things you did. You were collecting information on me?”

And Stark’s mouth fell open, eyes unblinking as he considered the words and everything else in between. She considered what she just said herself and concluded that perhaps her programming was evolving. Her stint as Thanos’ daughter would’ve bleached all ranges of emotions – distractions, they were – and all things considered, maybe it was for the better that rage and envy were about the two last things she was left with.

Watching Stark watching her like that incurred something else.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered under his breath. He slapped the toolbox in her direction and it skidded across the floor, coming to a neat rest by her toes. “Hammers, screwdrivers, soldering kit, whatever you need is in there. Holler if you need me, maybe. I’ll be out there scheming about murdering you in your sleep.”

He got to his feet with a wince and limped out of the cargo bay. There was a pregnant pause where he must’ve hesitated before the first flight of steps, and then she heard the slow clamber of feet on metal.

He was right, something wasn’t quite right with the mechanical aspects of her body. But, running diagnostic tests, rehabilitation and then quality inspection and controlling would’ve taken too much time. Sleep had claimed the better part of the day and yesterday’s little party stole her from conducting preventative maintenance on the Benatar’s engines.

Her mind was made up. Engines first.

By the space equivalent of nightfall, she hobbled to the flight deck to get dinner. Stark was the first thing she saw when she crossed the threshold. Their eyes met, but she broke it first, preferring food over pretty much everything else at the moment.

Though she had her back against him, she felt the burn of his gaze on her right elbow. That was a silly oversight on her part two hours ago. She popped it while moving cells in the back, and her humerus wouldn’t fit back into the socket. That was why her right arm was hanging lower than they should, and why she would throttle Stark there and then if he said, “I told you so.”

Surprise, surprise – he swivelled around in his chair to face the dash and went back to his reading. That suited her best. She picked up a can of something and it fell loose from her grip. It clattered onto the floor, rolled a good six feet away until it thudded against Stark’s chair.

Of course Stark would pick the can up. Of course he would hold it out to her as he stuck his butt firmly in his chair, goading her to come collect dinner.

She snatched it away with her good arm. Food first.

Her day and mood worsened when she realised she needed both hands to open said can. Stark noticed it too – he had forsaken his book and had his fullest attention on her again. A slight frown dawned on his brows and that was the last straw. She acquiesced. Pride couldn’t fill her stomach.

So, she pulled out a chair with more agitation than necessary and pulled out two screwdrivers from her pocket. Elbow first, then food. And she realised she also needed two hands to work with a pair of screwdrivers.

Stark’s walking cane struck the floor and before she could successfully twirl the smaller screwdriver between her teeth, he was already seated opposite of her.

“Let me,” he said, and he held up a hand. She stared at him – screwdriver still in her mouth – like he’d sprouted wings.

“Look, trust me, don’t trust me, I don’t really care. If I kill you with the stupid screwdriver, I give you full permission to kill me back.”

Reluctantly, she rested her forearm on the table and handed Stark both screwdrivers. Taking that as permission granted, without further ado he worked on the circuits like it was part of his own extension. He handled the tool with absurd ease, teasing and deciding on which wires and screws to manipulate. Every twerk was precise. Gentle.

Nebula never knew maintenance work could be this painless.

“Yeah, the connection here is shot,” he said. “I think we have some spare lying around here somewhere…”

She thought she could sleep a little like this. It had been a long, trying day. She believed she would wake on the dot tomorrow morning, as she was programmed to. Stark would make sure of it.

Chapter Text

Day 11

The first thing on Nebula’s mind when she came to was where and when. She wasn’t squeezed between boxes of junk anymore. Her surroundings didn’t smell like the cargo bay. The blanket wrapped around her shoulders wasn’t Gamora’s either.

This bedroll was Drax’s, which meant –

“Morning, princess.”

She pushed herself up on one elbow and found Stark perched on the table. He had a pen tucked behind his ears. Wasn’t he a sight to behold?

“Right on time at that, ‘cause I’m a genius.”

She shrugged out of the sheets and stretched. The knot in her left elbow was gone. So was the creakiness in her finger joints. These felt freshly oiled. What about the secret contraption strapped to her radius? One flick of her wrist and a stake shot out between her knuckles. The pointed tip gleamed in the low light. An impressive feat indeed.

She heard the soft rustle of clothes as Stark shifted. “How about we all calm down for a sec –”

The blade slipped sleekly into her arm. Everything was as they should be – five fingers, five knuckles, no visible sharp objects. She turned to Stark and nodded curtly. “Thank you.”

He laughed a little, albeit somewhat forced. “You’re welcome.”

Stark had been busy while she slept. The table he was leaning against was messy with papers, each filled to the margins with formulae and handwritten notes. So full of papers it was that a few pages have slipped off the edge and were scattered on the floor. Nebula picked up those closest to her feet.

“Ah… thanks,” Stark said and made to retrieve them from her.

She glanced at his scribbles and redid the math on her own. The axioms were sound, which meant he likely would’ve arrived at the same conclusion she did. How would a Terran react in face of certain death then, she wondered? Most of those she encountered during Thanos’ conquests weren’t this composed. Far from it – they turned to violence and suicide. Despair broke even the strongest of warriors.

But Stark was neither the mightiest nor the cleverest, yet a wan smile remained on his lips.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

The truth of their circumstances was crystal clear. A man of science and logic would comprehend that when odds were this bad, even the most extreme of measures became feasible. She remembered vowing to personally dial for help when push came to shove. They were now shoved between a rock and a hard place.  

But Stark beat her to it. “We burn the remaining oxygen for fuel. That will sustain all the jumps and clips required to get us close enough to Earth’s orbit.”

She must’ve heard it wrong. Maybe her ears were impaired and Stark missed a spot-check. “What did you say?”

“Going by my calculations – and I know you can’t resist giving it a once-over.” He smirked at her but made no attempt at collecting the paper she was still holding. “Which means I got everything down pat. We don’t have enough oxygen to support two. And I’m uh, indisposed.” He gestured at the walking cane that was leaning against the leg of the table. “You stand a better chance coming on top of this.”

Stark couldn’t have thought this over. This was without doubt the worst idea coming out from him. “If we burn oxygen, you wouldn’t last a week.”

He clapped his hands over his knees. “Yup. That’s the plan.”

So be it. “As you wish.” She forwent breakfast altogether in favour of enacting this brilliant plan of Stark’s. All she needed was time and rudimentary equipment to splice and ligate the piping. Easier done than said, to be honest. She didn’t expect salvation to arrive so quickly. “I’ll re-channel the oxygen cable into the combustion unit. When it’s done, I’ll signal you to activate the first clip.”

And Stark quickly nursed his stricken expression into nonchalance. Was he expecting more fight against it? “Okie dokie then.”

“That man who wielded the Time Stone. He gave it up so you could live –”

“We’ve established it’s a terrible mistake –”

“We lost half of existence, and you wanted so badly to kill yourself –”

And his fist pounded on the table. Stray papers fluttered into the air. More joined their counterparts on the floor. “I’m doing what I have to!” His bottom lip quivered as he reeled it all in. “It’s not me. It cannot be – I’m hanging on by a thread here. We don’t stand a real chance of going home. You know it. If we don’t do something now, we’re both gonna die.” His voice cracked, and he took a deep breath. The nerves remained frayed. “I’m not trying to play hero here, oh God, no –”

Nebula approached him with tentative steps.

“I’m trying to do what’s right. The fact is I can’t do this. I either die in vain, or I help you get back to Earth. You can… I don’t know – continue the fight, or start farming and rearing sheep on the prairie.”

She cupped the underside of his jaws and gently, so gently she lifted his head up. She caught his eyes and said, “We’ve lost enough for one day, Stark.”

“One more wouldn’t hurt.”

Her fingernails dug into his cheeks. “One more is too many.”

She would put out that call. She prayed to the Celestials that there was mercy left in the Ravagers and other “allies” of the Guardians.

Chapter Text

Day 12

Five hours ago, Nebula punched in all numbers recorded in the Benatar’s call register. The Guardians had come to collect their dues, she messaged. Her prescience perhaps had her omit the statuses of each Guardian after the Snap. To hide behind hollow confidence as long as she was allowed to. If they came and asked for Quill, and if the extent of their civility hinged on Quill’s attendance… then that would be a matter to consider after they’d crossed the bridge.

That was why Stark had been on guard duty for the stretch of the morning. He made a nest in the pilot’s seat, eyes alternating between surveillance monitors and the ship’s route. His walking cane leaned against the controller within striking reach and so was the blaster gun he had strapped nonchalantly to the head of the stick. Nebula didn’t like that sort of weapon handling. Hers was safely holstered by her hips. She only held her tongue because Stark had also unravelled the bandage around his chest, his chest reactor on full display.

That was their newly implemented roster. Guard duties on rotation, six hours per shift in case hostile parties picked up on their signal. All things considered, this arrangement must’ve been torture to Stark. No tinkering, no reading, no singing, no nothing. Eyes on the ball, finger by the trigger. That was how guard duty was carried out properly, she had said. It was how she was trained in Thanos’ army.

She knew damn well it would annoy the crap out of Stark.

She had an hour to go before Stark’s watch ended, but she found herself standing before the doorway nevertheless. Ideally, Stark should be sitting upright in his chair, alert, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice – which was more than she could ask for.

She knocked on the wall to announce her presence. “Stark? It’s me. I’m coming in, don’t shoot.”

For a man who seemed incapable of shutting up most of the time, blatantly ignoring her greetings felt strangely profound. Was he annoyed at her? Or had he died of boredom already? Either way was fine by her. What was life in a little spaceship without these little games between two stragglers, right?

Stark was asleep.

The odds of him on guard like a good soldier was as good as the Benatar skirting the Milky Way by dinnertime. He sat slumped in the chair, his head lolling against his shoulder. The walking cane and the blaster were still where he left them. Defenceless, ripe for the taking. He could’ve had his finger poised on the trigger and it wouldn’t mean anything if he still hadn’t roused after Nebula stomped across the deck and loomed over him.

“Boom,” Nebula said. A new Terran word she heard Stark utter a couple of times, usually in the context of destruction and death. “I should stick a blade in you right now so you’d learn your lesson.”

Stark’s eyes remained resolutely close, mocking her. His chest was barely rising. Naturally, Nebula kicked at the armrest hard enough that it swivelled around so violently it should’ve roused a dead man. But not Stark. He pitched forward and would’ve fallen off entirely if not for Nebula’s arms, waiting out of sheer reflex.

She tapped his cheeks, also to no avail. She would’ve slapped him next if not for a sudden intake of air and murmurs of nothings and the set of brown eyes peering up at her.

“Breathe. Slowly,” she ordered, and he did as he was told.

She cradled his head more securely in her laps and went to work at once. His pulse was acceptable – a bit on the high side but that could be the adrenaline kicking in. Confusion. Pupils dilated, but focused. Alert enough to be tracking her ministrations. Her blue hand ghosted past the chest reactor, then the ribs. Another sharp intake of breath implied the same thing those bruises did. Somewhere lower along the flank, she peeled back the tape holding the dressings in place over the stab wound. A scab was already forming.

Too slow, Nebula concluded. Stark’s wounds were healing too slowly even by Terran’s standard. Maybe it was the lack of food that was delaying recovery. Mending a broken body required assimilation of new materials. Nutrients.

She pinched his chin and forced him to look at her.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Heavy… that makes sense?”

It wasn’t out of kindness that she then carried him to the bedroll and flung an extra blanket over him. It wasn’t out of sympathy that she took over guard duty so he could rest. When his breathing eased up, she slung his blaster gun over her shoulder – hers now – and promptly broke rule number no-distractions-while-on-guard-duty. Their food rations needed reorganising. She poured out half of hers into Stark’s pile, but kept the empty packages just to make up the décor. It could fool the Terran, maybe not.

She sat by Stark’s feet and readied her weapons, eyes ahead through the doorway and down the aisle. If Stark were meant to perish in this ship, it wouldn’t be for an enemy’s bullet through him.

Chapter Text

Day 13

“Nebula?”

Stark groaned as he pushed himself up on an elbow. In total, he’d clocked in a twelve-hour sleep which should be more than enough for regaining his strength. She had been on high alert in the meantime, counting stars and seconds as she strategized a bottleneck fight to take advantage of the narrow aisle and the sturdy doorway. Stark on the other hand was fussing with the sheets that swathed his body. They were damp with sweat and must’ve itched, because he then flung the blanket off his form before Nebula could stop him.

“Oh, holy hell –”

He changed his mind midway; he pulled the blanket up to his chin and gathered whatever of fabric material within his reach into his lap.

“Right,” he said. “Why am I naked?”

A simple explanation for a simple incident. “I cleaned your body, changed your dressing and fed you medicine. What else is there?”

“Right.” Stark didn’t do simple. Simple wasn’t worth getting out of bed for. As if a higher power compelled him to always be searching for the extra layer of complexity because it excited him. “Must you strip me for that purpose?”

“It simplifies matters.” She shrugged and scratched an ear. “Are you embarrassed, Stark? Rest assured, I have observed every inch of your body when I last attended to your injuries. This is nothing new –”

“Yeah, yeah… you said that before.”

She picked up the gun from the floor and rose to her feet. Stark was clearly adamant about protecting his modesty with the blanket he was still clutching fiercely to his chest, so she let him be.

She said, “You’re welcome, I suppose.”

Interesting creature, this one. Had she accidentally stumbled upon one of Stark’s few and unlikely weaknesses? Perhaps he would fall in line more willingly if she were to threaten to outlaw clothes in the ship, for one reason or another. For starters, his clothes were still with her. There were spare in Quill’s closet that could fit him, but the key to the cabin was also with her.

“Yeah.” He glanced at her briefly, and his fingers that were balling a corner of the blanket loosened. “Thanks. You haven’t modified any part of my body, right? I mean –”

Nebula didn’t care for him to finish. She tossed him pants mid-sentence and it smacked him across his face.

“What the – sorry, that was a bad joke, wasn’t it –”

“I simply exchanged your original nose for aurum. How does it feel?”

Next, his shirt came cannonballing, but he was ready. He grabbed it mid-air before it socked him in his still decidedly flesh-and-blood nose.

“You made your point!” He pulled the blanket to his waist and fastened a knot. “I’m sorry. I am.”

And then she stopped throwing things at him, either because his dismal apologies had been accepted, or she’d run out of ammo. Stark squinted at her impassiveness and said, “You’re dicking with me, aren’t you?”

“It was amusing. Yes.”

He limped across the flight deck to assess the ship’s map and surveillance. “At least someone is having fun.”

At least he still remembered what duty he was on before his body gave out.

“Nobody called in?” he asked.

“No.”

“Nobody dropped by?”

“No.”

He plopped into the pilot’s seat with less grace than intended. She joined him by the controls, dragging the blanket along to wrap it around his shoulders. Breakfast was not until a couple of hours, and she could continue her watch until then.

“Water?” She offered Stark a flask. The next batch of medicine wouldn’t also be ready until near breakfast. When she reorganised their food stash yesterday, it really hammered home how dire this whole adventure had turned out to be. Painkiller was running low. Betting on placebo effect would be unavoidable, and she hoped Stark wasn’t the wiser about its omission from the usual cocktail.

He mumbled a thanks and gulped the liquid in one go.

“You can have another hour of sleep,” she said, taking the flask from him. “I’ll wake you when it’s time.”

“What about you? You should be exhausted. How long has it been – almost one full day?”

“Twelve hours, but –”

“That’s two shifts. I can do at least one. Where’s my gun?”

She gestured at the blaster gun holstered on the right side of her hips. “It’s mine now. Go to sleep, Stark. You’ll only get us killed in your condition.”

In what manner it came across to Stark, she never intended it to. A flash of hurt crossed his face and he sank in his chair. She only spoke of the truth. Even guard duty wore him down so thoroughly. Did he think he could survive an actual altercation, if it happened?

“OK.” He yielded. He pulled the blanket tighter around his body. “I guess you’ll holler when you need me?”

She turned the co-pilot chair around until it faced her. She sat in it. Stark’s eyes never left her. She was after all armed to the teeth – a pair of loaded guns within reach and multiple tools installed within her half-machine frame. What he saw could well be a participant of multiple planet-wide exterminations. Thanos’ daughter.

Yet Stark heeded sleep that was already beckoning him.

“I wish I’d known about you sooner,” he mumbled again. Nebula watched him as he slowly drifted. She caught a wan smile on his lips. “If I knew there were people like you out there… I would’ve slept better all those nights.”

Chapter Text

Day 14

Since Stark was well enough to be left to his own device, Nebula finally acquiesced in his whining about “pulling his weight” and “ungentlemanly” by returning him his blaster gun. He parked himself by the table this time, tool kits strewn about a damaged helmet he conjured from his chest reactor.

“That isn’t necessary yet,” Nebula said. Activating the Iron Man suit cost energy, energy that was better spent elsewhere at another time.

“Oh… it’s damaged in the fight. I want to see how bad.” He twirled a screwdriver between his index finger and thumb. “I know you said no distractions, and I know you’re right, as always, but you can’t expect me to just sit here for six hours. I’m already feeling my brains oozing out of my ears. It’s bored. I’m bored.”

“You want to fix your suit?”

He jabbed the air with its pointy tip. “Yes! Thank you!”

“You can do anything but that.”

“What?” His fingers slipped and missed catching the screwdriver by its butt. It clanked on the floor. It rolled past between his feet and along the tilted axis of the ship, away and away from him. It just wasn’t meant to be. “Why? I promise to keep it down. Not making a peep –”

“You become negligent when you work.”

“Oblivious. There’s a difference. Please?” he added quickly as she was about to open her mouth.

And open her mouth she did. “No. But if you insist.” She kicked the blanket from her legs to grab at her guns. “You can work. I’ll take over guard duty.”

“No, no, no, you don’t have to do that.” Stark tossed whatever tools he could find on the table into a bag and reabsorbed the Iron Man helmet into his chest reactor. She had seen this done more than once, yet each instance was just as magical. The way metal melded into a continuous stream that glided along Stark’s limbs and took shape, with the same perfection vice versa was captivating.

“Sleep,” he said finally. He held up both palms at her. “OK? I won’t try anything funny.”

Satisfied, she returned to the bedroll and lay on her side, back against Stark.

“God, I miss the TV…”

She shouldn’t be able to sleep at this hour. She wasn’t programmed to. Free will on some aspects of her bodily functions had been repossessed… so to speak. Resting when and where she wanted to was one of them, but her maker wasn’t merciless. If her body was pushed to the limits, if rest strayed away from pleasure to need, she could doze off. Maybe. She wouldn’t be useful to anyone dead, would she? One hour of shut eye was all she needed. Maximum.

“Hey?”

She was tough. Tough as trees, tough as they came. Nothing scared her because nothing mattered. The bravest of all was one who had none to lose, and what more could she?

“Nebula? You got to see this!”

Only Stark. Only another way home.

“Nebula?”

Warm hands secured her by her shoulders and something quaked. The very ground beneath her trembled, so was she, and her eyelids flipped up, irises zeroing onto the stupid face grinning down at her. She almost put three bullets into Stark’s head.

“Have you no sense, you idiot!”

It wasn’t too late to punch him in his teeth, but Stark wouldn’t hear it. She hadn’t seen him this cheery in a while it was getting unbecoming. Had he been tinkering when she outright told him not to?

“Come on. You won’t want to miss this!”

And he took her firmly by her hand. His weathered palm – scratchy, dry and rough with years and use – was almost satin soft against hers. She allowed him to drag her to the viewing panel. It occupied the entire right wall of the flight deck. With a push of the button, it would go opaque. Application of suitable coating material on the outside would turn this panel into a heatshield of some sort. A delicate one, but serviceable. Push the button again – as Stark just did – it would go transparent.

Beyond, the galaxy lay bare before them. Most of the time it was only a black abyss. Unending, unyielding. Putting up the heatshield would serve a better cause.

“Look!” Stark leaned forward to get a better view. Nebula followed suit and peeked through the glass. A wash of colours nearly blinded her, but she persevered. How long had Stark been staring at them to have grown so accustomed to the intensity? The gaseous clouds of dust, hydrogen and helium swirled in vacuum, shapeless yet not – given time. One this size could be thousands of light years from them. Such was its splendour that they could only admire it from afar.

One day, the clumps of nothingness would fall under its own weight. It would precipitate, and along its ridges and in its centre new stars would be born.

“Nebula,” Stark said almost breathlessly.

The birth of a nebula. The beginning of possibilities.

“I never thought I would see one,” Stark continued. Basking under the brilliant lights, the bags under his eyes stood out painfully. Scars had begun to form over his body, under the bandages and they too, were ugly.

“Beautiful…” he whispered. He tore his eyes from its majestic to look at her. The edge of his lips twitched into a half-smirk. “Glad I woke you up for this, huh?”

She guessed for as long as the ship coasted, Stark would stand spectator to its wonder. Nebula looked away when the yellow got too golden, the red too violent, but she stood by Stark. He hadn’t let go of her hand.

Chapter Text

Day 15

“Crickets again?”

Nebula learned an hour ago that crickets were six-legged creatures in the animal kingdom of the arthropod phylum. Insecta… what Stark called them. But, the usage of the word cricket was nuanced, at least it was to Terrans. Stark didn’t mean an insect infestation on board the Benatar when he called crickets.

“It’s been what, three days?”

“Have patience, Stark.”

“How fast do these messages travel, by the way? It took the Mars rovers fourteen minutes to say hey to Earth. I suspect it might take a bit longer than that since we’re in another galaxy altogether.”

She scrubbed her weary eyes with the back of her palms. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You should know –”

“I sent the shortest message I could. It’s not up to me when we will hear back from any.”

A short message made economic and tactical sense. The Guardians had come to collect their dues. Not easily misunderstood as it was inscrutable. Those few syllables wouldn’t take much to broadcast, download upon receipt, decrypt and translate. She told him long ago it was an attempt, nothing more. With the kinds of odds stacked against them it was certainly near futile. Even that didn’t stop him from placing such high hopes on one lousy call.

Stark snatched his walking cane and got up at such speed he might’ve pulled a stitch or two free.

“Where are you going?” she asked. She too rose to her feet. Her gun was readied if Stark decided to pull off something stupid.

“The cargo bay.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What for?”

“To get some air? I’m useless sitting around here doing nothing.”

She wouldn’t argue with that. Such a waste of time for both of them sitting around doing nothing. She unholstered a blaster gun and tossed it at Stark.

“You’ll not go anywhere unarmed,” she said curtly before stepping aside from the doorway. Stark slung the gun over his shoulder – his preferred method of handling blaster guns, which was also the most ridiculous in her opinion – and stalked out of the flight deck. So, there Nebula sat in the pilot’s seat, with peace and quiet for company. She knew it would only take so long before the stillness got too loud, and needling worry creep upon her for Stark’s prolonged absence. It had been fifteen days since she hauled him aboard, picked up the pieces and made him whole again. Fleeting, she thought. Fifteen days wasn’t long enough to achieve anything worthwhile. Maybe enough to learn how to handle the kickback from firing a blaster gun. Stark did it in under two, because after he earned a bad bruise from the first round of bullet rays, he took his tweezers and screwdrivers to it and suggested rectifications.

Every poison had a cure. Every problem a solution. He wanted to fix flaws.

She had a feeling he didn’t take their current circumstances into consideration.

True enough, by dinner time she decided that the quiet got too loud and she needed to see for herself how Stark was doing. Stark had this magic of making time pass twice as fast for himself. Lucky him, his stomach was the perfect timekeeper. It growled three times a day. They were his intermissions.

Before she could even take the right turn into the cargo bay, light was already spilling into the aisle. Strobing and brilliant blue, she wondered what device stowed on this ship could emit such brightness. For all the peculiarity, it was deadly silent. Not a thud of a hammer or the buzz of a saw. Stark’s sitting form casted an indomitable shadow over the doorway, and on the floor before him lay the semi-wrecked Iron Man helmet.

“Stark? What are you doing?”

He didn’t heed her, so she invited herself in. There were papers and writing utensils about him, but no tools. He wasn’t fixing the helmet. Some sort of recording was playing through its unseeing eyes, likely the preamble before Thanos wiped the floor with them on Titan. What was playing before her – the idle chats and threats – was unfamiliar. She must’ve only been on her way there. From here up close, she felt her blood freeze at the look on Thanos’ face.

The Guardians and the Terrans should’ve run. She knew that look. She knew it from the time Thanos drew the literal line between survivors of his many conquests and annihilated the wrong side of it without as much as a blink of an eye. One step closer to restoring balance and order as the blood run warm on the dirt.

She closed her hand over Stark’s shoulder and squeezed.

“Stark?”

He jerked at the contact but didn’t pull away completely. “Hey.”

She nodded at the projection. What a strange experience this was – a disembodied one – to watch their caricatures move and sway in motion and time. “Why are you watching that?”

“Oh… just reviewing the battle, you know. Nothing serious.”

She raised her hand to cup Stark by his jawline. Her thumb swiped over his cheek where it glistened. She could see the wet tracks as clear as a midsummer day on Easik. She lowered herself on the floor, her hands never letting go of Stark.

“The fight is over,” she said.

He looked away. A rebuttal died before it left his lips.

“Looking back won’t change a thing,” she pressed on.

“It won’t.” He cleared his throat. “No, it won’t. But have you heard of how history often repeats itself?” He spun around in his seat. Nebula saw that his eyes were bloodshot but dry, weary yet burning with conviction. Of what, it did not matter because no one could change the fact that the fight was over.

“He’s not dead yet.”

“We’re in no condition to fight, Stark – listen to yourself!”

“Not us.” He slipped a hand inside the Iron Man helmet and tapped something in sequence. The recording fast-forwarded to the part where Thanos broke up a moon and rained it on them. She glimpsed upon herself in a corner dancing to the tune of Thanos’ madness, avoiding splinters the size of a fort from ending her altogether.

“I know it’s dinnertime. Leave it on the table, I’ll come out when I’m done.”

She pulled herself up and let Stark stew on the floor. “When?”

“When I’m done.”

Chapter Text

Day 16

“Yeah, no, just put it down, I’ll eat that later.”

Nebula did not budge. “You’ll eat this now.”

She knew Stark didn’t touch dinner yesterday. She knew Stark didn’t leave his hidey hole that was the cargo bay, mulling over a lost battle and jotting revelations in loose pieces of paper. She let all that slide, believing that he would finally come to grasp futility in all those effort.

“No,” Stark said simply. He had the gall to remain rooted where he sat, back against her. A hundred percent devoted to the helmet that was still playing recordings of the battle on Titan, and his notes. Since Nebula’s coming into the bay though, the scratching he made with pencil on paper only grew louder and frantic. She doubted the words would be legible at this rate.

“You missed dinner. You need sustenance.”

Then only Stark straightened his back and turned to her. “I’ll eat if you eat, too.”

Her fingers tightened and the packet of chips crinkled. “I’ll eat after –”

“You haven’t, Nebula. You haven’t. Think I didn’t notice it?” He threw the pencil down, picked up the helmet and slipped a hand inside it. The space darkened considerably as the projection flickered and dissipated. “You redistributed our food ration. Half of yours went to mine, and you didn’t tell me.”

Her hand fell dejectedly to her side.

“Whatever happened to making collective decisions, hmm?” Stark grabbed his walking cane and leveraged off it to stand up. The helmet was safely tucked under his armpit. He halted in his track just as his shoulder brushed past hers, and his mouth opened. She wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to hear what Stark had to say.

Stark decided to shut up anyway and hobbled off to possibly other compartments in the Benatar where she wouldn’t follow. As if there were options – she’d shut down power everywhere except this cabin and the flight deck. Where he wanted to work there had to be light, and there wasn’t save for those two places.

A walking cane clattered in the distance.

She ran. She took off, her packet of chips almost pulverised in her fist.

She found him half-leaning against the wall. His face was ashen, his stance unsteady. She knew it was coming. Served him right, really.

“Stand up, Stark,” she hissed into his ears. She looped his floppy arm around her neck and bodily hauled him down the remaining length of the aisle and into the warmth of the flight deck. The flask from which Stark take his medicine from was already half-full of clear liquid not unlike his typical drug cocktail, but this one had none of their superior healing and antibiotic properties, only the sweetness of honey so pure from the highest peak of a Sovereign mountain.

“Drink this,” she urged, tipping the flask against his lips. Hypoglycaemia – a rather annoying infliction Terrans suffer from prolonged periods of fasting. Or in Stark’s case, deliberate self-inflicted starvation. “This hunger strike has got to stop. It’s ridiculous.”

He downed the whole thing in one go. “I’m not doing this on purpose.”

“Then, eat.” She pushed the chips into his hands which by now would’ve been only crumbs. Stark eyed it with suspicion.

“We’re sharing, OK. And that’s final.”

And that was how they ended up splitting a packet of chips that was titbits on a good day, but now a substitute for a whole meal because that was all they could afford. She didn’t have to check the rations to know that Stark had probably reassigned some of his food to hers. Kindness would be the death of him. Mark her words.

“Here,” Stark said after he’d done eating. Nebula found herself suddenly cradling the Iron Man helmet courtesy of Stark dropping it in her lap. “Your turn.”

She didn’t dare touch it. It was humming against her flesh, a dull, monotonous drone that betrayed an otherwise idle look. “What are you doing?”

“I told you, I’m compiling information about Thanos. His moves, his strategies, his mannerisms, everything. You know him almost all your life.”

“You want me to provide you information about Thanos?”

“Fortresses, armies, hostages, defence and weaponry – everything. Just press the helmet here, on its temple, let me show you…”

She had so much to say, so much to share! All this wealth of knowledge locked up in her memory chips, forever imprinted since only Thanos who held the key code could wipe it all. How the table had turned against him. The unfavourite Daughter was to be his undoing?

“Just look at the helmet in the eye. Talk to it. Your voice will be recorded.”

“And to whom will you send it to? We are nowhere near anywhere.”

Stark cupped his face in his palms. His shoulders sagged as he sighed into them. “No. Our organic bodies may waste away but this helmet won’t, trust me. Maybe it’ll find its way home somehow. Maybe not. But I bet there are people out there wanting revenge.”

Nebula tapped on the helmet the way Stark showed her to, and it came alive with two glowing eyes. She could do this. She wouldn’t be screaming into the vacuum of apathy. Someone would want this.

“And the Stones,” Stark said. “Tell it all you know about the Stones.”

She turned off the helmet by tapping the reversed sequence on its temple. The light subsided, casting her face in shadows once more. “There is one that I don’t know of. The Soul Stone. Gamora said it was hidden on Volmir.” Her voice deepened, venomous with spite. “She told Thanos. She shouldn’t have. Look where it got her. The fool.”

“Then why did she spill? She betrayed you –”

The helmet rolled off her lap when she leaped at Stark and fisted his collar. She reeled him in, teeth bared and snarling because no one – and she meant no one – could say that about Gamora and still stand before her alive.

Stark looked like he had all air knocked out of his lungs. His brown eyes locked with her black ones. “Trust no one, you said,” he whispered. His breath was hot against her face. “This one, you do. Gamora.”

She relinquished her grip on his shirt. The truth was, she hadn’t been thinking about Gamora for a while.

“Who is Gamora?”

Nebula slunk back to the floor. The helmet now lay a short distance away, but she didn’t go collect it. “My sister.”

“You mean back home?”

“She was our most trusted Commander.” And Stark’s brows rose, clearly not expecting where this was heading to. “The one woman I hated in my entire existence. I wanted nothing more than to rip her flesh from bone as she begged for mercy.” Would Stark fear her now? Would it disgust him? “And in return, she led me to the Guardians. Fed me, sheltered me. She taught me…” It had been a while, but the pronunciation still felt so foreign. “Forgiveness. I wanted the world to burn, Stark.”

Stark’s eyes were glazed. But she knew he was paying attention.  

“I wanted to torch it –”

“But she wouldn’t let you,” Stark finished. “And she didn’t stop you for their sake, either.”

“A fool, she was.”

“Tell me about it.” He sighed wistfully. Something about the way he looked out of the window told her he knew exactly what she was talking about. “That’s what family do.”

Chapter Text

Day 17

“For decades, Thanos operates on a singular belief that universal equilibrium has been tilted unfavourably towards mass extinction. It is up to him to restore that balance and order, for our universe to prosper as it once did. He believes that a fatal combination of resource scarcity and overpopulation expedite this… disease. A disease that must be eradicated. We consume, consume…”

What was the point she was supposed to make next? Thanos’ God complex… checked. Talking to a helmet induced more anxiety than initially expected.

The path of least resistance. That was next.

“Why not double resources to support all beings already existing? Then Thanos would be loved above all for bestowing richness and kindness across all planes. But, the powers of the Infinity Stones are destructive, even more so in the hands of the Mad Titan. My sister once told me that it could take a century to build a city and have it prosper, but only one night to burn it all down. Birthing is difficult. Extermination, on the other hand…

If you wish to put an end to Thanos’ force, understanding his ideals and ambitions is your first step. His strategies are carefully placed to align with them. Break that, and you’ll find him.”

Nebula shuffled the thin stack of cue cards she’d prepared for this specific recording. She let the Iron Man helmet run idle as she squinted at her crude handwriting. They were all prepared in haste. So much to say, so little time.

“Thanos said something peculiar on a winter solstice six years ago. He said that these… incursions wouldn’t go on forever. That would be barbaric. When he’d achieved what he sought to achieve, when the job is done, he would rest in a garden and reap what he had sowed. He never said where exactly the garden is, so I don’t…”

But she knew Thanos. She knew her Father. He would want to savour the fruits of his labour.

“To reap what he had sowed. The garden is his haven. It’s what a planet should be when it’s allowed time to recover from disease.”

She had coordinates of Thanos’ past rampages stored in her memory chip. She had recordings. The machinery surrounding her left eye’s optic nerve kicked into action.

“These are the planets that fell victim to Thanos’ madness, sorted in chronological order. Seek out the earlier ones. The garden may be one of them.”

Stark also wanted her to talk about the Stones. They made up the last thirty percent of her stack. Her left eye regained its usual function, and she gazed into the Iron Man helmet once more.

“As for the Infinity Stones…”

Before long, night fell and only then did Nebula realise that she had spent the entire morning preparing that lecture and the afternoon after that delivering it. There was some water still in the flight deck that could sooth her parched throat, so she turned off the helmet and made her way towards the front of the ship.

Stark had taken to sitting on the floor by the viewing window lately. He would set it transparent when it was safe to do so – when no stars were in the vicinity and thus no need to put up a heat shield. He took his naps and meals in that spot, not moving much around unless necessary. Remaining sedentary helped conserve energy.

“Your helmet, Stark,” she said, holding out said helmet to him. He was napping again. The boredom clearly had gotten the better of him. “I’ve done what you asked me to. My knowledge of Thanos is yours too now.”

She shoved the helmet into Stark’s chest, urging him to take it. She had had enough of the helmet’s perpetual scowl.

“Stark?”

She squatted before him and lay the helmet on the floor. With both hands freed, she cupped him by his face, calling out his name again and again.

“Yeah… yeah…”

Until he woke up and took measured gulps of air. She didn’t let him go even when his own hands came up to her wrists.

“What? Why you looking at me like that?”

She waited patiently for Stark to clinch tighter about her hands. She did not remark on his accelerated pulse, pallid features and gasping tendencies. She held her tongue when he chuckled at her.

“Blue Meanie. Ha…”

She soothed the occasional jitters racking his body with gentle swipes of her thumbs across his cheeks. And he would do the same to the insides of her wrists. Just mimicking, as he swerved in and out of the here and now.

“Air’s getting thinner, Nebula,” Stark finally got that out in two gasps. He leaned back until the back of his head thudded against the wall. “How you doing?”

“Better than you are.”

“Good… good…”

“I brought your helmet back.”

“Keep it,” he said. And something inside Nebula twitched.

“It’s part of your armour, Stark.”

“You recorded your war experience in it.” Nebula nodded. “What about your note? A message?”

“I’ve said all I can about Thanos, I swear –”

“No, no, I mean…” And Stark swallowed saliva as if even talking exacted too high a toll on his weakened body. “To your friends and family?”

The twitching in her guts grew almost painful. “I don’t have friends and family.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe Thanos didn’t get to them.”

But, they both watched the Guardians go.

“Stark.”

“Your goodbyes, Nebula.”

She finally dropped her hands from Stark’s face. “I understand,” she said simply.

“Good… good…”

So, she took the helmet under her arm again and left for Gamora’s private cabin, but not before draping Stark’s form with a blanket. She hadn’t been in this room in ages, and the stale air still carried traces of Gamora’s shampoo. She placed the helmet on the foot of the bed and sat across it, immediately drawing a blank. There were no cue cards prepared for this one. Giving rousing speeches was never part of her training anyway – that was more of Thanos’ thing as their Father and Gamora’s as their Commander.

She tapped on the helmet’s temple and watched it slowly buzz to life. Glaring at the glowing blue eyes for five full seconds didn’t help her piece the words, until she pretended that Thanos’ Snap didn’t happen, that Quill and his gang of degenerates were still alive somewhere in a corner of the universe. Gamora would then pop by this very door, any minute now, just fresh out of shower, pissed off for finding Nebula sitting in her bed without permission.

“My sister and I were eight when Father gave us our first guns…”

Chapter Text

Day 18

Nebula talked and talked until it was the wee midnight hours, as Stark sometimes put it, which was unprecedented, of course. Killer machines like her didn’t have stories to fill an entire memory slot. There wasn’t much allocated to her, she realised because the helmet interrupted her midsentence with “memory limit exceeded”. Did Stark think she didn’t have much to say all along? It shouldn’t have stung, but it did, so Nebula pulled the blinking helmet into her lap and slapped it around a bit because doing so to the man himself wasn’t… ideal.

And then, the helmet went dark for a split second – that made her heart drop – before coming alive with a second recording. Stark’s.

“If you find this recording, don’t post it on social media. It’s gonna be a real tear-jerker. I don’t know if you’re ever going to see this.”

She glanced up at the doorway to see if Gamora’s cabin was still her own, that Stark had stayed on the flight deck and left her alone. This wasn’t right. This was Stark’s private message to his loved ones, and nobody had the right to view them prematurely, nobody but the intended recipient, and least of all her. It had only been eighteen days between them.

“The infection’s run its course, thanks to the blue meanie back there.”

Nebula looked up from the floor, startled.

“You’d love her. Very practical. Only a tiny bit sadistic.”

She tapped the helmet by its temple and the room darkened. She wasn’t sure what happened next – all a blur – but she found herself on the deck again, helmet in tow and searching for Stark. He was lying where she left him last, now asleep and not aware of her approaching. She placed the helmet gingerly by his head and sat down next to him.

She wasn’t going to sit here all night, was she?

One of the blankets that Stark usually used to cover his legs was not on him. Nebula looked around, and found it draping the right side of a controller. So, what she feared became their reality. No more fuel, no more oxygen. The strobing red alert must’ve been annoying enough for Stark to have hobbled all the way across the room and did that. Whatever forms of repair and maintenance she could think of doing, she did, and of course it wouldn’t suffice. The fact that they got the Benatar up and running after the abuse it suffered on Titan – after getting fixed in a matter of several hours – was quite unimaginable.

Still no sign of the Ravagers or others. No help in sight.

No escaping this time.

“Hmm… Nebula?”

Stark stirred under his sheets and frowned when his vision cleared. She sat straighter so as not to loom strangely over him.

“Are you watching me sleeping?”

“No.”

He pushed himself up on an elbow and yawned. Without the red lights from the controller, only an emergency bulb above their door and the screens on the dash lit up the space. Stark’s gaunt face was but a silhouette. His presence went almost unnoticed if not for his breathing – growing harsher in her wake – and later, his voice, so quiet from disuse and scratchy from thirst.

“I had bad dreams after Thanos and Loki attacked New York.”

Stark had mentioned it once not so long ago. Back then, she wasn’t interested.

“Thanos haunted my sleep and my waking hours – and I figured he was the reason for me being still alive. Protecting Earth from threats like him was my mission. And I went to work. Tried to put suit of armours around the world. I tried to anticipate hostility against Earth from worlds afar, worlds I didn’t know yet exist.” He rubbed his palm over his face and chuckled. “Should’ve asked Thor for some help. He’d know where to look. God, I’m such an idiot… an Asgardian king hanging out in my lounge, eating my Pop Tarts and I didn’t ask him as much as where’s the next habitable planet…

I guess that’s what I do. I hurt people. I drive away friends. You’re a funny thing, Nebula.”

She bristled at that admission, but she held her tongue. Stark merely closed his eyes and sighed.

“You and I both have been stuck in here for eighteen days. I’m giving you props for not attempting to kill me.”

“Yet.”

He grinned. “Really?”

“You’re getting sentimental, Stark. It does not suit you.”

“Yeah… well, a dying man is entitled to his sob stories, I suppose.”

“You’re not dying.”

“Come on now.” And Stark’s shoulders shuddered in the dark. Nebula tensed, ready to catch him should he falter. “It’s clear as day. I’m not getting through this alive. There’s no way.”

“Yes, you are,” Nebula said through gritted teeth. “The one who wielded the Time Stone said you’re our only hope –”

“No, you’re paraphrasing, and he was wrong. I’m not good enough. Listen – I’m OK with this. I think. My only regrets are all the unsaid apologies and gratitude. Maybe this is me paying penance. Strange didn’t single me out to save the world. I can’t.”

He couldn’t give up. He couldn’t be done.

“I leave nothing but a trail of wreckage behind me, but I can do this one thing right, so let me, OK? Let me save you.”

Stark swayed too much to his right for his own good and Nebula scooped him into her chest. He felt too cold to touch.

“Go home, for both our sakes,” Stark whispered. She pulled the blankets up and wrapped it around his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Nebula.”

Chapter Text

Day 19

Nebula’s last meal was yesterday’s dinner – a small sachet of protein mix dissolved in two units of water. Didn’t taste like much but it packed enough sustenance to last her a couple of days. The rest was Stark’s. He just didn’t know it yet. Speaking of Stark, he’d ditched the comfort of his bedroll for a niche by the viewing panel.

“You know, if it wasn’t for the existential terror of staring into a void of space, I’d say I’m feeling better today.”

There was no knowing what was going on in that Terran head, and Nebula had since learned to go with the flow either way. She liked it best when Stark was distracted by something else. A shooting star in the distance, a flickering of the overhead light. They were the best times to intercept him with a quick sip of water or a few bites of something solid.

Nebula folded her legs to sit across Stark, though she didn’t spare a second glance at the window. “What are you doing up?”

“Can’t sleep. You know how it’s like.”

Judging by how frantically he was drumming his fingers along the window panel, Nebula doubted she had to wait long before he spilled. In three, two, one…

“I keep seeing these things… faces. I hear voices. I mean, the O-two tank is probably near empty by now and hypoxia leads into hallucinations and I don’t pretend to be in tiptop condition.” He cleared his throat and took one deep breath. But, Nebula saw it – only a flicker, a quick peek to the right of her thigh – before Stark schooled his expression to impassiveness. Hesitantly, she too turned to her right, expecting an anomaly.

“Stark?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s nothing.”

He was already digging his palms into his eyes by the time Nebula decided that there was absolutely nothing out of ordinary to the right of her thigh. “What is it?”

“Oh...” And he took another deep breath. “A shield? I don’t know. Not supposed to be here.”

“Look at me.” She tried to reach for him but Stark weakly slapped it away.

“I know what’s logically real and not. You and me, here? Real. Vehicles crashing into each other because their drivers vanished? The inexplicable silence at a dinner table because an entire family vanished? That’s not real.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Just a dream.” Stark’s fingers stilled by the sill. “I was simply stringing possibilities together. Chances are they did happen, I’m usually right in that sense…”

“Collaterals.”

The quiet was deafening. Nebula wished Stark would continue to do that silly thing with his fingers on the window panel.

“Whose shield was it?”

“Hmm?”

“Only you know what you saw, Stark.” Nebula shrugged.

“A phone…”

“What is a phone?”

“You didn’t find one on me when you fixed me, right? I don’t suppose so… probably dropped it earlier or something.”

Stark’s episodic rambling was also getting more frequent as the days went by. Sometimes, it got disconcerting. Most of them went harmlessly by. Sometimes, her curiosity got the better of her. It wasn’t wise to encourage this sort of behaviour, but still.

“Is he your friend?”

“Friend?” That jolted Stark out of his reveries. His eyes refocused, and his features hardened. It had been a while since emotions stormed over that pallid face and chapped lips. “Who wouldn’t miss a friend like him. A friend in need.”

“What’s his name?”

“It’s funny – life is, you know – ‘cause I don’t want him anywhere near me growing up, but he was. And the one time I needed him? Nope. Not a shadow, not a peep. Said he would be there if I needed him. Promised. Crossed his heart.” A breath caught in his throat. “Fucking liar.”

Forget she ever asked about this guy. She racked her brain for something else to talk about. Another question, another distraction.

Stark spoke first. “Tell me about the future.”

“What?” She wasn’t bestowed with the gift of divination. What would happen in the next three seconds was as good a guess as Stark’s.

“What are your dreams? What do you wish the world could be?”

“Stark, now is hardly the time –”

“Now is the only time.” He was calming down, no longer prickly and ready to punch a hole in the vents. She would humour him, if only to keep this peace a minute longer.

“I see the end of wars. I see resignation. What Thanos sought to achieve by snapping away half of existence would be accomplished. On the back of countless sacrifices, balance would be restored. But at this cost, I thought it wasn’t worth it. I know now it isn’t.”

Stark regarded her carefully, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. She understood that look too well. “You wouldn’t understand the significance of Thanos’ doings. Merciless, but –”

“But just, all the same?” A wry smile played up on his lips. “Luckily for us, we still have a shred of mortal decency, frailty, hubris and stupidity to stave us from that end. Losing doesn’t sit well with us when we’re on the receiving end, does it? Because we can’t stand being reduced to mere statistics. Collaterals, you said.”

“You are not yourself, Stark.”

“I know what I’m saying. What I think and say doesn’t matter anymore. They’re cold, hard facts, nothing more.”

“They’re your opinions.”

“That of a dying man.”

A faint light glimmer in the distance. The first few times it happened, Stark almost wet himself with glee. She saw the shine reflected off his brown irises, and then, it faded.

Stark closed his eyes. “No matter what happens after, I do sincerely hope you’ll enjoy Earth.”

Nebula turned away from the window. Of all people who got dusted off on Titan, she deserved the least to be here. The blood on her hands wouldn’t ever be washed away. If this was Stark’s way of paying penance, what was hers?

And Stark spoke again. “Everybody deserves a second chance, Nebula. You too. Especially you.”

Chapter Text

Day 20

Incoming. There was incoming! Her mistake - she detected it too late. The Benatar’s radar wasn’t performing optimally but she could make out the barest details. A single point in space progressing in a single trajectory. So, likely a small ship of some sort, not an armada. But it was coming right at them. Whoever it was, they knew the Benatar was here. Perhaps a responder to their call for help? Better late than never, she supposed, but there was still no telling if incoming was friendly or not. Better to be safe than sorry.

“Stark? Wake up.”

Stark’s condition had been steadily deteriorating. Sleep claimed him more than ever, and the few, short stretches of time when he was aware, he was running on fumes. Nebula could tell. Just subsisting on willpower and self-preservations. Instincts.

“Stark, wake up! Somebody’s here.”

She dashed forward to grab her blaster gun and on the way, gave Stark a good prod in his side with her toes. Still he lay motionless on the bedroll, and Nebula assumed the pilot’s seat. The Benatar had some power left after all the savings they’d done over the weeks. Good, because this was the time to spend it. The shield could be up in three minutes – minutes she hoped they had to spare – but the Benatar’s artillery were out.

She twisted in her chair and looked over her shoulder at Stark.

The lack of oxygen must’ve affected her, too. Couldn’t think. As dire the situation was, there had to be other options. Better options other than risking both their lives by allowing said incoming to come onboard. Then, a nasty thought niggled. Or ensure her safety by initiating a clip or two. That clip would take them much closer to Earth and lose their tracker. That clip would also require combustion of their last oxygen canister.

That clip would mean certain death for Stark.

“Please…”

She found herself begging for Stark to wake up. If only he would open those glassy eyes and look at her and tell her there was another way.

Then, their ship shook so hard that Nebula had to grip the armrest to steady herself. The very hull of the Benatar rattled as if it was tearing through a space vortex. Stark couldn’t have slept through this. Had she lost him?

“Forgive me.”

Nebula slammed her gun on the dash and punched the big, red button in front of her. The sudden change in momentum felt like a hook twisting in her guts, throwing her into the back of her seat. Stark’s body, possibly too cold to the touch by now was just somewhat out of sight. Just a jerk of her head would give her a clear view.

But she didn’t dare to look.

The trip ended before it started – a jiffy, Quill once said – and Nebula could breath freely again. The Benatar was calming down. The hull wasn’t shaking as violently, only a passing shudder from the exertion prior. No signs of incoming either. Whoever – whatever – was in the ship’s vicinity just now was no longer present. Alone as they were at the beginning.

Then only did she turn around to find Stark blinking at the ceiling. She was by his side as he kicked the blanket off his legs.

Stark groaned and spared Nebula a glance. “What the hell was that? Did we hit something?”

She shook her head.

“Right. Are we OK?”

It took her a quick pause before she shook her head again.

“Are we lost?”

She cast her eyes below. She shook her head for the third time.

“Nebula?”

“Forgive me.” She lifted her chin and regarded Stark evenly. “There was a breach. I couldn’t shake it off. I didn’t know what to do – and I couldn’t risk a hostile takeover, if it were – so I made a clip.”

“Towards Earth?”

“Towards Earth.”

“Then, we’re not that lost, are we?”

Stark patted her hands reassuringly before making a grab for his discarded blanket. He wrapped it tightly around his shoulders before he rose to his feet. Nebula watched him hobble towards the viewing panel, but did not follow to sit beside him as she usually would.

Her guilt wouldn’t let her. That was a man she’d just condemned to death. She might as well pull the trigger to her blaster gun and be done with it.

“It’s not your fault, Nebula,” Stark said after a while, as if her mind was an open book. “I daresay you made the right call.”

“Stark, you know what that means –”

“I know what prolonging the inevitable means. And my gosh, I’m kind of glad we won’t come down to that.”

And there he sat for the remainder of their evening. He didn’t go back to sleep, and she sat curled up in a vacant corner across him. She saw courage in the way his brown irises reflected the light from afar, a glimpse of acceptance and resignation. A far cry for how she was faring herself.

Whatever may come, Stark wasn’t afraid of. That much Nebula was certain.