Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ruddy clouds of dust rise about in the hazy afternoon light of knowhere. Nebula squints a little. The atmosphere should be cleared up any time after the busy hours are done.

A light tug on her sleeve grabs her attention.

One of the children from the ship she was pretty sure she'd saved but not quite acquainted yet is handing her parts of their ration. There was one time she heard the morons or so called staff from the ship cramming to leave knowhere for their own places after settling the whole affair, mention how the kids lived off the lowest amount of calories and never needed any sleep. It was relieving to see Rocket probe more information out of them to sustain the needs of every organism, and most of that information ended up transported into Nebula’s system.

She stops and stares at the kid for a split second.

“I don’t need it.”

What use was their structural efficiency? They needed to be distracted by something anyways. They needed something to like. Something to survive on and bond over, she thinks, considering her own history with food. The kid could enjoy whatever was in their hands as it actually tasted pleasant as she remembers.

The kid must have just received the food along with the rest of the saved creatures of Knowhere. Nebula doesn’t need it. She needs just about the same amount of calories as they do and she’s already had her share of food for the day. Sharing it was a needless activity; or so she was taught; maybe the same didn’t apply to these creatures.

The tot seems unable to hide their sullen expression.

Nebula lowers herself to give them a pat on the shoulder.

"But thank you."

The youngster shyly slants after meeting Nebula's eyes, skids away with the food after checking on her briefly nod.

She doesn’t turn away until she sees where the kid with the food is headed to; another small friend hanging out with an elderly villager who happily accepts with a sweet smile.

Upon seeing their laughter fill up something beyond their required calories, she realizes this is what she was supposed to be taught. She grasps a clearer idea of what she had wanted a long time ago, promises to herself to accept and even initiate a food invitation the next time she gets a chance to, and turns around to head to Rocket’s place for a new information update.

From the window of Rocket’s room, Nebula is able to look out to the spaceship dock now being renovated after the railings wore down terribly due to the weight and damage approximately a planet’s worth of organisms caused upon moving in.

Everyone making it in and celebrating, some leaving shortly after through that very dock, all feels like yesterday.

Not a lot of time has passed after every departure happened. Gamora going back to the Ravagers, Peter going to Terra, and Mantis going off on her own.

With Gamora it wasn't much of a farewell.
For she was just paying a ‘simple’ visit in the first place.

Nebula calls back on the strange set of events that gives her a headache, despite for being just shortly after a ‘simple’ departure.

“Hm.”

“Hm.”

After checking all the necessary parts of the deal, Gamora was back with the Ravagers.

On asking if he was okay, Quill’s brief sequence of expressions and utterly unexpected response had set something off in Nebula’s system. Something told her she wasn’t catching on, and she was increasingly being edged to face off what she was trying so hard to avoid.

She stood and watched Peter stroll back in the town and out of her sight.

He was the one moping day and night.

He was the one that needed to move on.

She’d had enough time to mourn.

It was like she had been sitting behind Peter, who’d been holding on to all the grief in the world, while all this pressure was building up, and he moved out of his place for whatever reason and  this irrationally huge flood caught ahold of her completely off guard.

Her hands trembled.

The ugly memories and feelings rotten up inside her for the longest time, the messed up love and carved out hatred, fragments of tremendous loss and guilt all came spiraling to her at once.

From time to time she had felt a plethora of emotions, quite prodigious for her to channel in any direction; one she undoubtedly would've run from if she were the coward she'd shot to death once in a timeline. But still. Not exactly pleasant or bearable. Not even then.

Those emotions came in surges big and small, sometimes springing leaks in her walls and her bodily crevices. They'd shatter into salty foams and outlive the needless thoughts that started all the problems in the first place.

Some would leave her terribly shivering and drenched.

Some would begrudgingly wander off by themselves with an uncertain promise to return.

It was unnerving for her to do nothing but watch herself erode.

This time it was holding down on her throat and not letting go.

The wave swallowed her and the indistinct noises from far behind seemed to fuse with the pressure, the horrifying feeling, the unidentifiable rage being pulled out from the past..

"Nebula."

Everything else going around had muted down when a familiar voice knocked on her senses.

"Are you doing alright?”

Obviously not.

She didn’t answer. As far as Nebula knew, Mantis was capable of roughly discerning if someone was in the mood for talking without having to touch them.

Mantis came a bit closer and slid her hand just an inch above touching Nebula’s forearm.

"May I?"

It wasn't really the first time she asked. Mantis had in fact had multiple occasions where she touched Nebula, with permission and without. Nebula was almost sure she’d never felt much from her because there weren’t any noticeable reactions from the empath whenever it happened. Nebula herself was pretty dry of feelings. She’d made it her thing to keep them guarded and not shown, even to herself.

"I won't do it if you don't want me to."

Her voice was firm.

Nebula simply lifted her arm for Mantis to touch. She did not want to put thought into the process for much of her energy was being sucked up by this violent storm.

And she noted moments later that it was specifically this violent storm she gave Mantis access to when she heard her gasp as soon as Mantis’s antennae started glowing.

She heard her sniffling and felt her trembling, refraining from letting go of the grip she had on Nebula’s arm.

For Mantis, Nebula’s grief was showing and whenever it seemingly intensified, she tightened her fingers. Her antennae lit up even brighter and she squeezed her eyes closed when her inhales broke down into smaller bits.

"Stop."

Nebula abruptly pulled away. Her forearm was freed from the grip but Mantis didn’t move.
She felt lightheaded, empty even. And then a suffocating billow of calmness struck her. Mantis's touch did something. It felt as though she took away some part of whatever the load it was she was carrying. She wasn’t supposed to do that.

She hated to be responsible for the tears Mantis was crying. It was a new layer to the confusion and it irritated her as much as it pained her. She hoped Mantis would stop. She quickly turned away after meeting her teary eyes as if that would help.

Mantis wasn’t speaking but there were glimpses of her voice in the tears and exhales. Her rapid tempo of sharp breathing ceased suddenly, distracting Nebula and pulling her out of what was going on inside her for a moment. She tried not to focus on the sounds of Mantis’s teardrops hitting the ground, decreasing in frequency and eventually stopping.

She heard her mouth open. Not a word fell out for some time.

“I hope you’re alright.”

Mantis managed to say.

Nebula scoffed internally. Oh she really wasn’t. She wasn’t alright and she wasn’t well enough to care about the painstakingly pressed back tears Mantis’s voice held.

Nebula shook her head. Mantis paused but seemingly accepted her answer and moved on.

She intently decided not to turn back though she was clearly keeping track of Mantis’s footsteps carefully getting further away and mixing into the other noises.

After some time after all that not being alright thing, Nebula had experienced the same type of calmness a few more times. Every one of it felt better than the last to be honest. Her fear and hatred toward the waves seemed to gradually wear out. She found herself falling into a similar state Peter was in on the day he left. She dared to think back fondly on some memories, walk along the tides that came back in a much less intimidating form, and yet sometimes be bitterly scared as shit like that night. But she tried not to back away.
Like a familiar companion of hers had said once,

She was done running.

"And set."

"Huh."

Nebula swiftly recaps all the information that is newly installed.

After double checking and nodding of approval, Rocket stops her when she’s about to leave to hand her a small gift.

“I was trying to integrate this feature into your arm but I figured you’d need some recording devices outside your built in memory system.”

It is a small voice recorder that resembles some of Quill’s stuff.

“It almost looks like ancient Terran technology but it stores up a lot more than it seems to be capable of. All the files can be transmissible too.”

“What would I need that for?”

"Yknow, you can keep a log of things outside of work. Pretty much whatever you want you can record here and listen to it again. Or share it with someone in another galaxy, I don’t know.”

"That's a pointless activity."

“Give it back then.”

Rocket tries to snatch the recorder back but doesn’t outrun Nebula’s speed of reflex.

"I'll take it just in case."

He snorts knowingly.

"You’re welcome.”

He heads back to his desk to keep working on whatever he was doing before she arrived and elaborates more on the gift.

“I’ve been using mine to spew out what I’m thinkin and send tidings to people who aren’t here. Who knows? These files might travel back in time to reach some old friends..”

Oh.

So he wasn’t always talking to himself when he was full on rambling with nobody else in his room after all. There was somebody, though not present in time or space. Despite it all being uncertain and futile, Nebula thinks it’s nice.

“They should have heard your message. At least once.”

Nebula assures.

She sits and looks around at the numerous messy projects that has crossed and will cross again Rocket’s technical work. After staring at her gift and fidgeting with it, Nebula asks about the progress of translators being updated with the languages of the children.

“Ask Drax for some basics if ya want to get a head start. The update’s gonna take a while.”

“I’m willing to go far endless measures waiting for the update just to avoid asking that idiot to teach me something.”

He takes off his goggles to have a good wheeze for a second.

“Ahahaaah--! Touché, Nebs”

He puts it back on and blasts away huge sparks on some gadgets he’s been taking apart. Nebula briefly thinks about what it would be like to have Drax as a mentor of learning. She’s simply unable to picture it, and the closest she can get is just so different from all the ‘learning’ she’d ever done.

“Give him a chance if you’re bored.. He’s probably spoken it all his life.”

Rocket adds after the blasting is done, still chuckling.

She hates to admit it but he's right about the bored part. It’s more ‘itching for something to be occupied with’ than ‘bored’ but they bear no difference the more she thinks about it. Nebula gets up scrunching her nose a little.

“Tell me when it’s done and I’ll get back here for the installation.”

“Alright, have fun learning!”

Upon just heading out, she recognizes some of the noises in the bustling chatter of unfamiliar words.

“Hi Nebula!”

She instinctively shifts around with a glare, only to see the kid who offered her food earlier beaming with a look of triumph, surrounded by other children visibly impressed. As Nebula slowly puts her guards down, the kids cheerfully move on another direction presumably trying to greet Kraglin this time.

She hesitates a bit too long before she approaches Drax sitting back for a break and brings it up.

“Drax, I need you to teach me the language you and the kids speak.”

He seems rather surprised. He swallows the zargnut he was chewing on and asks

"I thought Rocket was almost done with updating the language on our translators?"

"He is, I was just.."

“.. And the kids are so fast with learning our words, it’s crazy”

“Yeah, that exactly.”

Nebula throws a glance at the kids chatting wildly and rests her shoulders.

"I just thought learning it a little myself would be nice"

Drax looks towards the way Nebula is looking and slowly processes, gradually springing into a grin.

"Ha! I will be glad to teach you!"

Seeing Drax actually tell her that he’s teaching her something physically bothers her and it shows. He offers her a seat and chats like it’s nothing.

"It's very easy too. The language doesn't contain figurative speech in day to day dialogue unlike all the other ones you speak."

"Would’ve never guessed"

"That was sarcasm."

"Of course"

"Now I can’t tell if you’re doing that again"

She figures not replying to that would help him the most.

Nebula’s been well acquainted with the activity of learning for a portion of her life. It was just the contempt towards failure and humiliation that burdened her during the affair. Other than that, she takes on everything almost perfectly and amuses Drax.

"You're getting there so quickly."

"I always get everywhere quickly, no need for unnecessary flattery."

After getting to the bases of what constructed the language, he teaches her some basic phrases like simple greetings, thanks and apologies.

"Is there anything you want to say to the kids?"

"I don't know, something welcoming like 'we're happy to have you' or something?"

Drax, after some thought, provides Nebula with a sentence and helps her memorize it.

After they're done, the two head out to where the children are playing. They respond to the numerous 'Hi Drax' and 'Hi Nebula' 's with their greetings. Drax explains to them probably the fact that Nebula's been learning and has something to say.

Nebula takes a deep breath before reciting the sentence Drax taught her.

The kids go silent.

Before Nebula could grasp the situation, she hears some kids hold back laughter and softly giggle. She turns to Drax who has been suspiciously grinning since the moment she opened her mouth. The grin is audible in his voice when he claims

"you just said 'I am an idiot.'"

"What are you talking about, I was just.."

Nebula repeats the phrase and he erupts into uncontrollable laughter.

She grunts as she gets what's happening, yet the partly mechanical noise is quickly diluted by the random chirpy giggles of the kids.

She knew it was a mistake to ask Drax for help especially in the language department. But the sheer humiliation and the urge to head to Rocket and demand the program update fades before it even clouds up inside her.

Drax's enormous laughter can be so contagious. After some time she had grown to tolerate it, not enough to think it's enjoyable but just suitably enough to roll her eyes and let her face muscles rest in response. This time she lets them rest a tad more. The kids' laughter must have watered down the annoyance. Or she wonders, if it was barely there. She feels a strange urge to spare the moment of being laughed at that didn't pester her to the point of snapping. It isn't as bad as she used to think after all.

"Idiots!"

An intentionally exaggerated snap. Phyla and her friends would absolutely love it whenever their favorite luphomoid shouted that phrase. That instant frown elasticated back to her resting face and Nebula felt it linger over her eyebrows. Drax was wheezing, and more people were joining the party.
After some thought in a pause, she decides to add into the wave of noises.

Knowhere bursts with the same amount of noise frequency even after the external source light is absent. Briefly appreciating the internal sources of light the guardians and the people of Knowhere managed to put up, Nebula walks to the dock where the renovation is done for the day. The base is good as new and parts of the railings are completed.

She throws a look at where Peter’s ship took off. A mess of tools and junk lies around and Nebula pulls out her communicator device to reach his phone. After some moments, the speaker hums with his familiar voice.

"I'm not even there yet nebs. You shouldn't miss me so much you know."

"I called to check if there was enough fuel on the ship with you because you left four fricking containers back here."

"four- wHAT?"

She rolls her eyes as the other side rustles with confused Pete noises and old pop music that’s probably blaring on the speakers in his ship with him.
She takes a moment to look up at the sky. Clouds of stars are swarming.

"Ugh you knew those were backup. I have just enough here."

"And you knew that I told you multiple times to take those with you"

"You just needed an excuse to call cause you were worried didn't you?"

"Piss off."

She hangs up.
She slides the device back into her pocket. It buzzes shortly after.

“Hey, hey! Why’d you hang up on me like that? I was just messing around.. It’s boring out here. I was actually excited that you called."

“..What have you been up to?”

“Stopping by at some places I used to love visiting with the Ravagers. Heading straight home takes too long. And it’s boring. You?”

“Cleaning up the mess we made and fixing up stuff like the usual. You and Mantis were clever to leave all the work behind for us. Assholes.”

“Busted”

She frowns.

“In my defense I got you all presents from various planets. I’m not sure when I’ll drop by but I’ll help with the work when I’m there.”

“Make it soon.”

“Damn, you must be really missing me.”

“Shut up.”

“Have you called Mantis too?”

“No.”

“You miss me but you don’t miss her?”

It’s a strange term to throw around. She does feel queasy and blue when something familiar and so ingrained to her routine drops out of her life all of a sudden. If that’s all there is to it, in that regard, she had ‘missed’ Thanos for a while.

“I don’t ‘miss’ neither of you.”

She nearly breaks the communicator she’s holding. A crack runs across the screen caused by a force in her grip only slightly short of the right amount to entirely destroy the object. Putting ‘him’, out of every soul she’s met, along the same lines with Gamora, Peter and Mantis, pisses her off greatly. Peter goes on unknowingly.

“Come up with a better excuse next time when you call her if you ‘don’t miss her’ so much. This was too obvious and it is embarrassing.”

He isn't entirely wrong. She realizes only now that there really wasn't a clear objective for the call in the first place and she just wanted to chat with him. She feels funny like she's lost in some game. Her breath sharpens.

"No."

"Well, jokes aside, it was nice of you to call."

"I'm not calling again. I'm not calling her. Whatever. Don't run out of fuel and die stranded out there."

She hangs up and observes her feeling of defeat strangely coexist with relief. Like the time with Drax and the kids earlier. It's funny how losing didn't affect her as much as it did before. 

Perhaps it wasn't her who cared so much about winning. It was someone else who'd been so under her skin that she sometimes felt terribly in sync with. That particular someone else is gone. Nebula feels the relief strengthen. 

And she once again thinks of Mantis. Mantis who isn't here for the time being. She feels stupid trying to search for an excuse to call her. She was doing specifically what Peter said.

She gives up and passes her gaze over to the wildly lit up night skies and gets a sourceless hint of assurance that Mantis will be back sooner or later. Nebula recognizes the view from some points in her past where saw Mantis's eyes harbor the entire cosmos. She stares into her eyes that surrounded her and her home.

She recalls on the day Mantis playfully acknowledged how similar their eyes looked. She decides to like her own eyes a bit more. How they reflected the stars and how they reflected how she felt. Mantis's eyes always seemed to effectively carry her own feelings. As far as Nebula knew, she wouldn't stand the feeling of being left behind and the thought of her loved ones feeling the same thing.

She wonder's what Mantis is doing now.

A quick run-through of how she'd save herself as well as the new parties she'll meet along the journey with well, all her abilities, even the ones outside her empathetic power, brings about a smile to her lips. She pushes it back in.

After some moments she wonders if there's a feature in Mantis's ability that messes with time; if she set this all up for her to realize in an unpromised future.
Emotions probably Mantis planted into her gradually before. She is only realizing now what stagnated from her forearm and bloomed upon her like the moss that covers up Groot whenever he is on the verge of tears.

A trivial rise of temperature is detected around her head. Nebula is quick to come to her senses with the change by virtue of the back of her organic fingertips. She's now grown used to how her body would handle the bothersome waves. The leaks were happening so frequently lately, she's learning to live with it. She likes the contrasting coolness her fingers provide, so decides to embrace her right cheek entirely with her palm. The waves slow down in pace and she savors the saltiness, the melancholy, the distant sense of nostalgia they dawn on her. This feels familiar for some reason.

The surges don't stop regardless how under control they are however. A slightly different wave attains her consecutively. Before she knows it, the strange feeling isn’t from some distant memory anymore. It reaches up to the present, the very front of her chest, and knocks up against it.

She silently watches the stars move trying to hold that feeling for as long as she could. She lets herself smile softly this time. It’s pleasant. Not overwhelming. The tide doesn’t swallow her like the other night.

Nebula thinks if she were to relive that memory and the grief crept up on her again, she’d act with full acknowledgement that she was not alone.

She had sharing. She had laughter. She was learning some sort of empathy. The courage to fail and be vulnerable. She had Knowhere. She had her family. She had Mantis.

She glances at her forearm in readiness to share this feeling. She wishes, the very moment, for Mantis to be next to her. Apart from not feeling alone, she picks up the need to put her hand over Mantis’s grip - if it were there - and just let things be.

She misses Mantis.

The feeling is not comparable to the dreading loss and confusion. Nebula realizes this ‘missing’ Peter was mentioning is never formulated without the basis of endearment. She lets that sink in for a moment.

She pulls out Rocket's gift from earlier out of a sudden need to say something.

She wanted to savor this feeling, share it as well, with, somebody not present in space.

With a click, the device softly whirs into life. A greenish speck of light reflects accordingly on her pupil.

"Mantis"

It takes a while for her to search for a decent opener. The mechanical whirring fills up the audio for an awkwardly large amount of time. She contemplates on where to start and travels back to the specific point of time she isn't afraid of anymore.

"I hope you’re doing alright.”