InsaneJournal

It didn't feel like the neural network sharing she'd experienced with the 2014 version of herself. It simply felt as if someone had uploaded memories and feelings all at once. Five years of them, including a very intense month on the Benatar with Iron Man — Tony — trying to keep one another alive. She watched him dwindle much quicker than her species, and perhaps that was for the best. Nebula could survive a little longer without food, without warmth, but she would die gasping in the black long after Tony had expired.

Over the years, she was on and off-world, showing up at Romanoff's monthly dinners which mostly involved talking about the same stuff going on off and on world. The woman was obsessed, but Nebula could appreciate it. She'd felt the same for so long in attempting to kill her father. Thor had done that for her, right after he was beginning to give her praise. It was too little, too late. All those years she'd begged for his pride, embarrassing herself in front of anyone who happened to be there when she groveled.

Killing her past self was relief (for Gamora's life) and much more sadness than Nebula could imagine feeling about herself. Mostly, she lived in constant pain as Thanos hasn't sought to put her together without letting her know that she'd screwed up. She'd long since learned to live with the pain that was her existence, but she had found a team. Friends.

But of all of them, Tony Stark was the one she was the most attached to. He was her first friend. The first friend who wasn't Gamora's first. The first friend who gave back when she dished out. The first friend who let her win just to make her happy. It was a kindness she would never forget, even if she'd never met him after that ordeal.

Instead of heading for the door when she arrived at the rustic house, she strode straight toward the garage. If Tony was home, that would be where he was. "Stark?" she called out before she reached the garage. Once there, she lowered her voice, "Tony?"

Nebula’s was an unexpected friendship. But not entirely surprising. Like Tony, she too struggled with her legacy and that of her father. Both were on a mission to end Thanos, and both of them failed. It was a connection forged in failure and hopelessness, and without meaning to, they formed a bond, they helped one another survive.

Together they repaired the Benatar. He used some of what was left of his armor to repair her broken enhancements, taught her the meaning of fun, of winning, of play. And she helped tend to his wound, refused the last of their rations to give him just a little bit more strength, and when the end was near, when Tony was very nearly on his last breath, she picked him up and faced him towards home.

Of course, she didn’t remember any of this when he did. So he had tried to keep his distance, but sometimes it was impossible not to fall back on a relationship that had continued during the five years he had left. Paper football rematches; sitting wordlessly together on the porch of his lake house; juice pops with Morgan; collaborative upgrades. And rather than explain it at all when she asked, he would just smile and change the subject, knowing one day Nebula would know, and everything that came along with it.

Normally the door to the garage was down, but coming off two weeks at camp, Morgan was a bundle of energy, and he frantic little mind couldn’t decide between playing in the garage, her fort, or outside with Yen, the former Alolan Meowth who was now a large, lumbering mountain lion of a Persian. So Tony had opened the door so that she could flit back and forth between all of the above.

He was fixing himself a lemon water at the wet bar when Nebula’s voice diverted his attention. He poked his head around to look toward the entrance, the surprise at her arrival showing on his face. “Wilson,” he nodded his head in her direction, the cordial hello hopefully making sense to her after their recent discussion on the Network.

"Paper football."

That wasn't Wilson, of course, and she did understand after their network conversation. She understood the reference even more now. His sanity in a vast ocean of nothingness and hopelessness. It wasn't the insult she'd initially thought, but everything was an insult to Nebula at first. All the nicknames he'd given her were a way of making her feel like another person in his life. A friend.

As tall as she was, it didn't take her long to cross the larger than Tumbleweed standard garages. She grabbed Tony roughly by the shoulders before yanking him into a hug. Over the years, she had learned to embrace people instead of just standing there, unsure of what to do. She'd learned to accept help. She'd learned that she had something to offer. There was something off-kilter about her hug, an underlying sorrow that could only be felt.

“What?” Tony asked, for clarification not lack of hearing. He wanted to be sure. But before he could press her further, Nebula was pulling him into an embrace, clarifying things far better than words could have done. “Good to see you, too,” he mumbled into her shoulder as the hug progressed. He didn’t pull away, and instead let her make that call.

Just as suddenly as she grabbed him, she pulled back. Nebula reached up and tapped the piece that should have been reddish orange, the color of his suit. "I didn't get the physical upgrades. The ones I wanted."

Because of course she didn't.

"Don't die again or I'll kill you myself."

Tony’s eyes moved up to where she motioned, and he shrugged. “If it’s upgrades you want, we can manage something better.” And then, “The first one couldn’t be helped. I’ll try to avoid a second.” He had to make light of what happened because if he didn’t, the enormity of what he had done, what he had lost, and what he had set in motion rest heavy on his chest. So he smiled instead and said, “So paper football. That just a code word, or you want a rematch?”

The upgrades Tony had done over the years made things less painful for her. They weren't sloppy, crammed in upgrades meant to remind you of your failures. There were times when she forget they were even there, and the lack of pain made her wonder if the pieces had failed her. She had to remind herself that if they had, she would not be walking around.

She couldn't bring herself to ask him for the upgrades though. He'd already given so much, and then his life, and Nebula still had trouble asking for help. A lifetime of abuse was hard to break, and she'd already broken away which was the hardest habit of all.

"Rematch later. I want to see Wombat now."

Tony smiled at her nickname for Morgan, never really understanding how it had come about. But it had stuck, as had the little girl’s fondness for “Nebluela” and her deadpan manner which delighted her to no end. He gave a nod, indicating that she should follow him, and they walked around to the lawn behind the garage where Morgan had set up her tent. There was a large, blue feline backside sticking out of the opening, its tail twitching back and forth like a metronome.

“Will the lady be seeing any guests?” he called out playfully.

Morgan’s head poked out from within the tent, the expression on her face showing that she was contemplating her answer. When she saw Nebula, her face brightened, and she hopped gracefully over the Pokemon to run up to Nebula’s side. “Did you come to play with me?” she asked hopefully. They had seen one another at Tony’s birthday party, where her father had to explain to her that her blue and purple friend came from a time before they met. But that hadn’t stopped Morgan from claiming Nebula’s attention anyway.

Nebula generally found offspring to be off putting. Too ugly, too hairy, too smelly, too loud. She often wondered what caused beings to want to procreate, mashing their faces and bodies together to make a tiny thing that couldn't even help itself. She never got a chance to ask her own parents, and Thanos would only say that he needed family to help him in his quest.

Morgan had become Wombat during a trip to the zoo. It had been spring and the baby wombat was first coming out of its burrow. It had dark eyes, like Morgan, and an adorable little pounce when it was chase after its mom. They'd both enjoyed the tiny creature, and Nebula thought to nickname Morgan Wombat. The Stark legacy of giving nicknames.

"Only if the Wombat is taking guests," she asked, a tiny smile curling her lips, as she glanced over to Tony. "Can we do a tea party together? Like we used to?"

Morgan nodded fervently and took Nebula by one hand and Tony by the other, leading them over the top of the Alolan Persian who refused to give up his spot in the shade. Morgan made a few comical tsk tsk noises at the Pokemon, who stood his ground and seemed not to mind having to be stepped over. The table in the tent was set with a holographic display of the specs for her mother's armor as if she had been studying them. She really was a chip off the old block. With a wave of her tiny hand, the holograph disappeared and she set aside the tablet that had projected it, giving her tea set prominence instead.

Tony watched his daughter, the pride on his face evident until she looked up at him with alarm. "The hats! We don't have the hats!" She left the table and scrounged around in a toy chest in the corner of the small tent before holding up a bright flowered fascinator triumphantly. She handed it over to Tony with a sweet smile on her face.

"Oh, my favorite," he commented with only a small amount of sarcasm as he placed it on his head. He glanced over at Nebula as she was handed a hat of her own that would not have looked out of place on English royalty.

"Thank you, m'lady." Nebula asked for, Nebula got it. She took tiny top hat with netting and a feather and rested it atop her own head. She wouldn't be able to move her head much at all lest it fall off, but this was the most content that Nebula felt since Tony died. It didn't just sit in her chest, she let it show as her smile grew as she set her tiny teacup on a tiny saucer on a tiny table in a tiny tent. Things may not be perfect, but Nebula had found a family. One that looked out for each other, didn't just tolerate you because you were useful. One that asked how you were when you'd been kicked. There wasn't much that could sour this moment.