open 💫 lights out tonight

[furibund]

Who: nebula & you
When: post event 18
Where: solvunn, horizon
What: may-june catch all
Warnings: None intended but it's Nebula. Mentions of past trauma/non-consensual body modifications/child abuse are always possible (but will be warned for).

Feel free to make up your own prompts/adust as needed/wildcard/or reach out to plot with me! These are all just backbone for whatever. hopewillbloom or discor are the best ways to reach out to me!

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[furibund]

[ Nebula isn't good at this. At any of this. She's not good at patience, kindness, or gentleness. How could she be when every inch of her was trained to be as deadly and sharp as the knife that can take a life? Quietly, resolutely, in a mantra that has become more important in the years she tells herself: You can be a knife or you can be a guardian. ]

[ And for Rocket - with him especially - she wants to be the latter. ]

[ She only half knows who he's talking about from some message in that headache inducing form of communication. Or the heavy way she thinks the others walk in this treehouse and the vague feeling of being a replacement - always a replacement. It's funny that way. She listens and she thinks before exhaling: ]

Then you do something for him, in the way we couldn't have for Gamora.

[ Because he separates them: those who were Snapped and those who were lost. Because at least for them, Gamora had really been gone - dead, at the bottom of Vormir for the sin of trying to be a good sister. Nebula's fault. For once, she does not let herself dwell on it. ]

You do something and you remember, because he's someone you can do that with.

[respiting]

There could be something for him here. Maybe in the Tertiary Settlement.

[ He speaks slowly, as though the suggestion is something even he isn't too sure of right now. He's sure Wanda and Himeka have already thought of something. And any of Nero's friends, those who had known him before Rocket even arrived here, they'd probably want something too.

He could ask them, see what they thought. ]

And something in the Horizon. [ That can be something he could host. His Horizon isn't all that built up yet, and he can clear the ship parts away for now too. ] With fireworks, like a Ravager's funeral.

[furibund]

[ Nebula doesn't immediately respond to the first part. She's quiet - stewing - and letting him come to his own conclusions. It's difficult to have a lot to give for someone you never met.]

[ But she has plenty to give for Rocket and she can see how important this is to him - how important this man was to him. ]

[ ( She ignores that egging jealousy that always comes with her feelings). Instead, she nods, and offers a simple: ]



Sure. I'll help. [ A beat, ] In whatever capacity.

[respiting]

[ Rocket nods, something warm and full, like the feeling after a good meal, settling into his chest. It might be gratitude, in fact that's probably (exactly) what it is.

He doesn't want to shout or yell or provoke a fight anymore. He's tired. He wants to sleep. He wants to forget about the alternate history he could have had; he wants to focus on the here and now.

He steps into her room now, casual, like he's just looking around nonchalantly before he eventually pauses just steps away from where she is. ]

I'm — [ Rocket hesitates because moments like these ones make him deeply uncomfortable. Bad things happen when he lets people in, usually to the people in question but often to him too, and it would stand to reason that the best thing to do right now is to push every freakin' person away. Forcefully if needed.

But this place has worn down those edges ever-so-slightly, making him more accustomed to the push and pull of helping and being helped. Maybe the Guardians got to him; maybe the Avengers did. Maybe it was five years spent with the actualization of his idea of the worst possible reality that he never wants anything like that loneliness ever again; followed closely by the acceptance that as far as Abraxas is concerned he isn't going anywhere. ] I — uh. I never got a chance to tell you how glad I am that you're here. [ On Abraxas, in Solvunn. ] It ain't fair that you are, or that I am, but I'm glad anyway.

[furibund]

[ Nebula's head dips as her mouth does a low bow. Uncomfortable is a word to describe this for the both of them. She has no regrets in saying anything she has - she'd say it again, if she had to - but she's uncomfortable with tenderness as a general rule. The vulnerability of admitting she cared about or liked him another, even if they both knew it. ]

[ Even if them being a family to each other had been cemented when Stark and she had arrived back on Earth all those years ago (without Gamora's interference, or perhaps in ways because of it). Neither of them are the kind to speak those words, or if they were the kind it was a part of them shattered long ago. Shattered so deeply that the pieces weren't all back together, they might never be even as they tried to put them together. ]

[ So she feels him come in, but doesn't say anything. She doesn't look up even if she has nothing to busy herself with to pretend she doesn't notice - because she does notice - in this room that's too empty and new. Hers, but not really. Not yet (maybe never). He starts and stops and she stiffens, the only sign she's listening. She waits. Lets him formulate what he wants to say and — ]

[ — Swallows thickly. ]

[ There's a silence as he finishes. As her heart betrays her in her chest. Once, letting the soft flutter of - hope? - something that thrummed in it she'd call a mistake. She'd try to forcibly rip out and stomp on the ground, a weakness. It'd get her killed one day. Maybe it would one day, if she gave it away too freely, but this is him. This is Rocket. And if there's anyone who wasn't Gamora who'd say such a thing she'd believe... it was him. ]

[ A different her would be alarmed at how easily she trusted, believed, and agreed with him. This her is... stunned, frozen because even if it's Rocket no one's ever said they're glad she's anything. For so much of her life, she was a disappointment and her coming back alive nearly just as much. If she'd died in battle, it'd be better than her coming back - that's what she thought sometimes. ]

[ Most days she hadn't disagreed. ]

[ She almost forgets to say anything, in the way her heart, mind, and tongue freezes. In the way she can't give her gratefulness for the words, she gives a sharp nod of her head. Tries to find what she wants - should - say and after a moment the words come out gruffly: ]

Shit planet or not, I wouldn't abandon you.

[ It's not quite what she means. Or maybe it is. She doesn't have a choice - neither of them do - but she means the intonation. Means she doesn't regret it even if she glances away once more and shakes her head: ]

That's not what family does.


[ A lesson she learned from Drax. Unironically, Drax. ]

[respiting]

[ Somehow, somewhere deep inside of him, Rocket understands Nebula's statement to be real. He believes her wholeheartedly, without a doubt, that she ain't lying when she tells him that she wouldn't abandon him.

He nods.

Something happened when he (and Groot) met Quill and Gamora; something happened when Drax and Mantis joined the team. The Guardians of the Galaxy solidified when Nebula joined them, and now he's got something he never really got to have for longer than a blink of an eye: a real goddamned family.

He thinks on Lylla, Teefs and Floor, and he thinks of how unfair it had been to be brought into this universe only to be discarded before they really had a chance.

He takes a breath now and releases it. ]

Anyway, enough of all that mushy shit, right?

[furibund]

[ Nebula doesn't have a lot of words left. No, that's not it. She's always had words. Too many, locked up in the place where she was safest. Where she'd tricked herself into believing her father wouldn't find - only half a lie. Her thoughts were her own, her memories weren't. So much of her would never be hers, that the one grace being her mind - her thoughts was a blessing she had kept many words in. ]

[ All the words that had to be locked away had pooled together so deeply that it feels at times like her heart will burst. The too fragile, soft heart that had to be shut down for survival. The one so desperate for love and family — It's filled every crevice of the dam she tried to trap it in and now rammed against the walls to find escape. Escape, because though her life now meant there was no imminent danger in all of those unspoken words... the bruised and battered remains of the heart she'd kept told a different story. She was both ready and not ready to share those things that had been hidden so deeply. ]

[ The mentions now were a lot, so much more than she would have a few months ago even if she felt them (knew) them so deeply. It felt if there was a moment longer that dam would burst - ]

[ - It doesn't. Because he clams up and it's a blessing for him, for both of them. That part of her that so desperately wants to protect itself is quick to grab that lifeline he offers. She nods curtly, swallowing hard. ]

[ And then she snorts adding with the petulance of someone who's always been a younger sibling: ]

You started it.

[ It's gruff, that sound of someone's dry humor with the hint of something - Something he might read. Recognition that he went that far in the first place, that they both could after so long. She does not need to say it, does not need to say more. Because this is enough. It was enough for him to just be there, as it always had been. ]

[ Neither one of them had ever liked talking. She rolls her shoulder and jerks her head: ]

Come check on my arm. Please.

[ They didn't need to say more, but she still wanted (needed) him there. ]