ɴᴇʙᴜʟᴀ (cybertronics) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-08-02 23:31:00 |
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For the most part, Nebula hadn’t given much thought to Peter Quill after she wanted to hit him with a bag of quarters. He’d cropped up again, involved in her dreams, but she wasn’t overly shocked by that considering what she’d initially dreamed. Things felt out of order, since she saw Gamora again, different, but still Gamora.
So when Peter had run into her again, not literally thankfully, it had been on her day off, and somehow resulted in a trip from town to a junkyard. “Seriously, Quill?” She could definitely pass comment on trash hanging out around trash, but then she was hanging around with that trash too.
It was just as well they hadn’t run into each other while she’d been working, or after, when she’d have heels and a skirt on rather than her comfy jeans and a pair of tennis shoes. “You know if you’ve brought me here to murder me, I can still kick your ass?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You’re more likely to murder me so I’ll show you. I’d just die really quickly so you’ll have no joy in that.” Now that he had finished all his dreams, the first ones he had, the ones where they were on Titan and disappeared….
It made him appreciate Nebula a bit more. It was still weird thinking that he knew her through Gamora, a person who he knew he loved, even though she didn’t exist here...or did. And he didn’t know her. Or something. Ugh, all these paradoxes were hurting his brain.
Not even bothering to warn Yondu, Peter just brought Nebula to the junkyard. He had toyed with the idea of texting Yondu, but the reality was Peter tended to ask for forgiveness rather than permission so this worked well for him. Besides, he knew Yondu would be tinkering around on his ship so why not just go to the source?
“Hey, old man,” he called out, as they approached the ship. “Whatever you’re doing right now, it’s wrong and I’m going to fix it.” He grinned at Nebula. Nothing like getting Yondu good and annoyed beforehand.
“Boy, you wouldn’t know half the crap you know if it weren’t for me!” hollered a gravelly voice with a distinct Southern accent from within the M-Ship. Now that the Quadrant was in orbit around the moon, they used Yondu’s M-Ship to get there. On their last return trip he thought he’d heard some rattling from the engines and had been determined to fix them - himself.
Emerging from the ship via the rear ramp was a sight worth raising a few eyebrows - six foot two, blue from head to toe, bald with a tall and red artificial mohawk atop his head, in a wife-beater t-shirt and greased up jeans came Yondu - wiping his hands with a rag. He stopped short and his playful grin vanished when he saw Peter wasn’t alone.
“Jesus!” he swore and despite it being too late, he scrambled to turn on the image inducer on his wrist. The hologram flickered on and he looked human, complete with a head full of curly, dirty blonde hair. He scowled - an expression that looked exactly the same whether he was in human or alien form. “What the hell’s the matter with you, boy? You coulda said somethin’ about company!”
Nebula assumed this was the Yondu that Peter had mentioned, and she was quickly considering murdering him. She could do it, while she’d never had to in the past, it wasn’t like she hadn’t been shown how to do it, taught the ropes within her Father’s organisation.
Since Nebula had been dreaming, she’d seen her sister with green skin, she had blue skin and there was a girl with antenna, the blue skinned man wasn’t that big of a surprise. The shift back to human looking was interesting at least. “You know when people tell you not to do something, do you just ignore it, or are you genuinely dumb and don’t figure it out?”
If this idiot was going to shout at her for something she hadn’t done yet, she would choke Peter out. And probably batter him with a loose tire. “You can relax, I’ve seen weirder than blue dudes.”
“At least he wasn’t naked,” Peter responded cheerfully. “That’s a terrifying sight.” And he did ignore both Yondu’s angry words, and Nebula’s insulting question . They flew over his head like usual because in the grand scheme of things? It didn’t matter. He was always going to piss off Yondu, and Nebula was always going to look condescendingly at him.
Facts of life.
“This is Nebula, Yondu.” He motioned around her face. “ You remember her don’t you? Picture her bluer with less humanity. And by humanity, I mean, I don’t think there’s a part of her that doesn’t have tech on it. I always did wonder if your ass was original though but I figured both you and Gamora would shank me for that.”
And since Gamora wasn’t here, there wasn’t anything stopping him. “Weird hey? I bumped into her a while ago, and since I’m super annoying, I kept harassing her to come out. And here she is. Surprise!”
There were a good few things than Nebula would let go, if only because she couldn’t just get into trouble around here, leave a trail for her Father to find. He was leaving her alone, but Nebula didn’t for one second think it was because he didn’t know where she was. “Shut the fuck up, Fuckface.” It wasn’t even remotely close to a good insult, but Nebula didn’t need insults.
With a balled up fist, she socked Peter in the shoulder. She was a fairly adept fighter, and while boxing wasn’t her style, she knew how to throw a decent punch and put some weight behind it. And she was stronger than she looked.
“God, you’re such an annoying dick.” What the fuck did Gamora see in this idiot? Enough that she’d turn her back on their Father in any dimension?
“Hey!” Peter rubbed at his shoulder, taken aback at the strength. “Not fucking cool, Nebs. I’m trying,” he responded roughly, pushing back at her to get his space again, ”to make your inclusion into our universe a little bit better. Shouldn’t you fucking thank me or something? I’m doing you a favour!”
“You’re so fucking trying,” Nebula stumbled a little, but not enough to fall over, just jerking back a few steps. “I told you I didn’t want to be included in your stupid little gang of fuck ups.” Nebula ignored punching Peter, taking a leaf out of his book to push him back.
“You don’t listen to anyone, do you?” Her eyes narrowed a little, sneer tugging on her mouth. It wasn’t like she grew up being aware of how to play nice with people after all. And it was like Quill just pushed all the wrong buttons.
There was a sharp, clear whistle that cut through the bickering, followed by the rush of the Yaka arrow flying out of the MShip and halting just shy of both Peter and this woman's faces. Yondu stepped down the ramp slowly and purposefully while bellowing "Knock it off!" in his best Captain's voice. Stepping up to the young woman with red hair and a vicious glare, Yondu peered down at her, trying to visualize if this really was Nebula. He could almost see it, but then Peter did have the habit of bringing home crazy women. This one could be no different.
"You got a lot of nerve, boy, bringing her here!" He turned on Peter, clearly pissed off. He shoved him with both hands square in the chest. "What makes you think you can just up and expose us like that? Huh? Answer me!"
Okay for once? Yondu miiiiight have a point. It was kind of sketchy that he would bring this person out for what? Because she shared a name with someone from his dreams? Because she recognized the Kree language? Because she was as cranky and miserable as he remembered her?
Naturally, Peter didn’t say any of those things.
“She’s Nebula! In my dreams, she’s my sister-in-law. That’s family. Don’t be messing with the familial bonds here, Yondu. Just accept it, I have.” The flippant comment wouldn’t go over very well with either of them, but he didn’t care.
“Just picture her with a creepy robot eye and a hook for a hand.” A pause. “And blue. Don’t forget the blue. OH! And bald. Yeah...oh and she speaks Kree?”
“Wow,” Nebula had at least dialled it back a little bit, especially when that weird arrow came whizzing around, “for once I’m not the most unhinged person in the room.” She raised one shoulder as she glanced around, rolling her eyes a little, “Junkyard, whatever.”
Yondu and Peter clearly had issues, and while she balked at being called Quill’s sister-in-law, it sort of felt like that was the route things with Gamora had been taking -at least until she was killed. What Nebula wasn’t really getting was the ‘expose’ comment.
“Are you worried because you’re blue? Because that might be the least weird thing about this whole scenario.” Nebula hadn’t dreamt about this guy yet, all she knew from Quill was that Yondu wasn’t going to like her, and that was reason enough for her to not be around. She was oddly used to not being liked by this point. “I would leave, but he drove me here, so… Maybe don’t kill him til later?”
Fuck, she was actually recommending against smacking this idiot about, what was life?
Yondu clenched his jaw, desperately trying to reign it in. He was hoping to any god that would listen that this wasn’t actually Nebula and Peter was just being stupid about who he was associating with again. Because if it was her, she’d better learn to outrun an alien arrow before it pierced her a half dozen times. The dream of the mutiny was still fresh in his mind from a few days ago. And last time he checked, Peter hadn’t gotten married to Gamora - though they had parted ways for a while so it was entirely possible. Either that or they'd gotten hitched after Yondu had died. And with that thought rising to the surface -
“WE are family!” he roared in Peter’s face, gesturing between them. “And I know what Nebula looks like, dumbass! I don’t know who this woman is, but she ain’t Nebula! And she ain’t family.” He pointed at her as he said it. Yondu then turned on her as she spoke. Her voice did sound eerily like Nebula’s, without the computerized tinge to it. He fell silent then, really looking at her - how she stood, her unimpressed tone, her expression.
Holy shit.
“Lemme ask you somethin’,” Yondu said, in a far less ‘unhinged’ voice. In fact it was surreal in its sudden calmness. “You get weird dreams? Like you got some other life you didn’ know existed? Cuz you are way too dang calm for seein’ an alien, a flyin’ arrow, a spaceship and some bonehead saying y’all are family based on some dreams.” He decided it wasn’t worth keeping the hologram on and switched it off finally, his visage far more menacing with his scars, mangled teeth, and red eyes.
“I agree with literally one thing he just said, we’re not family.” Nebula rolled her eyes, arms crossed over her chest and Yondu went from zero to thirty on the grumpy old man scale. Unless Gamora had married this idiot in some space ceremony that she was yet to dream, in which case Nebula would probably rip out her own hair never mind let herself go blue.
“I get weird dreams, I speak Kree, my father is the Mad Titan,” because that was usually the name people spread across the galaxy about Thanos. Her eyebrow twitched a little as the human appearance shifted to the blue again, getting a better look -he wasn’t whatever she was, in the dreams, their markings weren’t anything like each others, but it wasn’t that startling.
“He’s right, I am Nebula, that Nebula. Although I don’t recognise you.”
“See???” Peter felt justified and now had that annoying smug look on his face that said ‘I might have messed up to get here, but I was right all along’. It was a very annoying look, he was aware of that.
Still. It was there. Firmly.
“I TOLD you she was Nebula. She doesn’t remember all the shit she does though which is sad. I mean, all the pillow fights, and the tarofruit roasting…” He snapped his fingers. “And then there was that one time, where we took like a million selfies and everyone was smiling, remember that?”
He grinned.
“Good times. I can’t wait for you to dream that stuff. You’ll learn you really do appreciate me. Like I’m one of your top favourite people, easily.”
Nebula. This really was her. Standing less than an arms length away. Yondu's eyes went into a terrifyingly cold stare, he felt his mouth go dry and every muscle in his body tense up. The Yaka arrow was still hovering and it was taking every ounce of his willpower not to send it streaking through her.
"Boy," came the even toned command. "Get her outta here now 'fore it's too late." Peter didn't know about the mutiny. How Yondu's crew had turned on him thanks to his special treatment of Peter and how Nebula had helped make that happen. Men who had more or less been his family had been rounded up and flushed out of the airlocks screaming for their captain to help them, killed by Taserface and the others who sided with him while Nebula callously watched. "I ain't gonna ask twice."
That tone. Peter recognized that tone .
Growing up, it was that voice that had him screening his calls after a particularly bad event. It was the ‘you listen to me and you listen good’ voice, the one that was always tinged with ‘or else I’ll kill you’.
Of course, now Peter knew that Yondu would actually kill someone, and had at numerous occasions, often right at Peter’s side. There were a lot of years where they fought together, backing each other up while they bickered like the father and son they were.
“Um. “ Peter stretched an arm out in front of Nebula, taking a step back and motioning to her to do the same. “So apparently, I don’t know everything that’s gone on between you two, which I know, I’m shocked too. But when Yondu gets like this, it’s safer for us to ...leave….or get skewered. And that thing is deadly.”
He’d witnessed many a man get killed when Yondu started his whistling. One time, he was nicked, just barely a scratch but between the threat of the arrow and being eaten...well, little Peter at least stayed in line.
Maybe if there had been an arrow here, he would have listened to.
“We should bounce….”
Nebula had watched as Yondu went from average to weird to super weird, and honestly? She couldn’t be bothered to deal with this bullshit. The dreams themselves were frustrating enough, throw in the uncertainty about everything and how it just amplified what was going on in her family life -if it could even be called that, and Nebula barely had the patience to deal with Peter.
Shock of shocks, Quill didn’t know what was going on or why he should think before acting. If there was a bigger idiot in the galaxy, Nebula hoped she never met them. “Whatever,” even with mister so annoyed for no fucking reason, Nebula was calm about the whole thing. At least outwardly.
You didn’t grow up with a murderous crime lord for a father (forced or otherwise) and not learn to school your features. “You’re buying me lunch for putting me through this shit.” And Nebula pointedly turned her back on Yondu, even as her awareness was kept hyper vigilant.
Peter gave a distracted nod to Nebula. What was up with Yondu? He wasn’t normally this pissy, even if things were still a bit strained between them. “Yeah. Let’s get some Pho….you seem like the kind of girl that wants to drown raw meat in broth.”
Maybe he’d bring some back for Yondu later and find out what the heck was going on with it.
Or not. It might be safer to add this to things they didn’t talk about.
That list was growing by the day.