Chapter 4
"What did you want to be when you were a child?" Tony asked, after he had spent days studying her and came to the realization she had once been something or someone else before Thanos got his hands on her and remade her.
"What did I want to be?" She asked him as she fought with the battered equipment that should be getting the power turned back on, but wasn't. She wished she could blame Quill, but for all his oddities, he knew how to keep his ship working even if it were mostly held together with spit and guts, and the occasional roll or two of duct tape.
"You weren't always -"
She didn't make him finish the sentence and shook her head. "No, I was born on a small peaceful planet that Thanos happened to crash on, and we made the mistake of helping him. Ours was the first planet he decided to 'help' and I was his first daughter, I don't even know how old I am now, but I'm like your non-friend Rogers, I'm older than I look. But you asked what I wanted to be. On my home planet, we were born into a trade, if your parents were poets, you became a poet, if they were musicians -"
"What would you have been?"
She looked down at the motherboard in her hand, then up at him again, and if she could have grinned she would have. "A mechanic."
Tony snorted and shook his head. "No. Seriously?"
"I don't make jokes."
"No, you don't, do you?"
"My parents fixed his ship. If they had said no, who knows where we might be instead of here?"
"Most likely, I'd be here on my own." Tony grunted out as he got to his feet again, and went in search for another bottle of water.
"You believe you were fated to be here?"
"Saw it on the rare nights I slept enough to dream. This ship. Didn't see you though. Saw Thanos, didn't know what he was, I knew about the stones, didn't know what they were, until later, but I knew they shouldn't be in human hands, still, once I got my hands on one, it made me believe I could fix everything - didn't, made it worse."
"He knew of you, too. He had always wanted to control the stones, but it wasn't until he started having dreams - no, not dreams, he saw you in everything day and night, it was as if he were possessed."
"Yeah, something like that." He looked at the small stash of water that was left and sighed. "Time to start rationing."
Nebula followed his eyes, and whispered, "no, it's just time to get you home, Stark."
"You really think -"
"You have to believe there's a chance that she's okay."
"After what I've seen -"
"She will want you back, Tony. If she's the person you remember, she will wait for you to come home. Why don't you use that helmet of yours to send her a message?"
"There's no way -"
"Only if you don't try."
"Very optimistic of you, Neb."
"Just realistic. Tell her, make sure she knows."
He watched her face and knew she never had a chance to say goodbye to her family, and she didn't get to say goodbye to Gamora, and he nodded then took a gulp of water, then put the top back on and put it back down, and picked up the helmet and went to sit in the cockpit of the ship, and tried to decide what his last words to Pepper should be if the message got to her somehow. Should it be all the things he never said to her, had wanted to say to her, but had always been afraid to, for fear of losing her? Or would she know he was saying them only because he was afraid he wouldn't see her again?
He had spent so much time apologizing to her, so he wouldn't apologize this time, he had promised her no more surprises, and not more than fifteen minutes later was on an alien ship, and even now he couldn't - no, that was a lie; he had spent the last six years knowing he had to, knowing that he would leave her again, because he had no choice. So he wouldn't say that to her. He'd wing it. That's what he had always done in the past, so what the hell. He sighed as he flipped the switch and was relieved that the batteries still seemed to work. He cleared his throat, then pressed record.
"Pepper, if you get this message, not sure how you will, but in case you do, I want you to know I love you. It's only ever been you. I had dreams, dreams of you and Morgan, they were so real, I could smell her, you know that baby smell that people talk about? I woke up that last morning with that scent in my head. Don't know if that makes sense. All I know is that my life began to mean something when I realized I loved you, it's why I did everything, damn. I'm saying this wrong, it's not your fault, it's just that I didn't see any point to my life if you weren't in it. Your voice and your face got me through Afghanistan, and when I manage to sleep here on this broken ship, trying to figure out how to get home to you, it's you, always you, I think of when I close my eyes. Don't be sad, Pep. Sometimes things don't always go the way we hope they will. Have a good life, Pep. And maybe think of me sometime on the nights when you are somewhere you can see the stars. Battery is getting low, gotta sign off. Love you."
He sighed as he switched the helmet off and hoped it transmitted somehow to someone, then shook his head and for the first time had the feeling he was never going to see Earth again.