Chapter 1
The fingers of his right hand slide willlessly off the smooth surface of the helmet, the knuckles thumping weakly against the console, and he collapses back against the seat, spent. Tired, he’s so, so tired. That short message has taken what little energy he had left, and now the simple task of breathing seems almost too much.
He had tried, he had tried his goddamn best. Back on Earth, on Titan, here on the ship. But it just wasn’t enough. It never has been. He never has been… enough.
The Benatar got them about two-thirds of the way to Earth before its fuel supply ran out. (He can’t blame the Guardians, really – when the fate of the universe hangs in the balance, something so trivial as refueling the ship is hardly a priority. Besides, from what he’s seen on Titan, there’s no one really left to blame. Just him. Always him.) And now they’re stuck. Light years away. No food, no water, no power. Nothing to do but wait for death.
He lets his head fall back, closes his eyes. Tries to picture Pepper as he saw her last – weeks, months, a lifetime ago. Hair disheveled slightly from running, a few strawberry blond strands coming loose from the ponytail, falling to frame her delicate face. Eyes bright as she smiled at him, radiant and fond. Happy.
A sharp metallic clang echoes through the bowels of the dead ship, followed by a string of loud angry words that he’s pretty sure are expletives despite the fact he can’t understand the language they’re spoken in. Reluctantly he peels his eyes open, rolls his head toward the sound.
“Nebula?”
His voice is a pathetic little thing barely above a whisper, and it’s no surprise that she doesn’t answer back. Instead he hears more clanging accompanied by more furious-sounding words.
“Neb… ah, forget it.” He waves off his own failed attempt at calling out, braces himself instead. Rolls forward, planting both hands on the console before him. Pushes himself up and takes off in the direction of the noise, holding on to the walls for support.
It takes far too long for him to shuffle to the back of the ship where he finds her, huddled over the transmitter that he had tried to enhance using whatever spare parts he could scrounge up in the hopes that it would strengthen the signal from the SOS message they had sent out, make it strong enough to reach Earth or, perhaps, another ship, to reach somebody – anybody – who could help get them out of this starry hell. He had failed at that, too, of course. They’ve been floating here for weeks and… nothing.
“What are you doing?” he gasps out, dismayed, as she pops open her cybernetic eye socket, rips the part off completely, wincing in obvious pain, and begins pulling at something inside the intricate mechanism.
She spares no glance in his direction, too intent on her task. Grunts out, “The signal’s too weak. This,” she pulls out a small intricate piece of circuitry, “will amplify it. Much better than anything else on this ship.”
He shakes his head in denial, instantly regretting the move as the room lurches and swims around him, dark spots invading his vision, and he sags with his back against the wall to keep himself from falling. Forces himself to take a couple of slow, steady breaths as he waits for the darkness to recede. “You ca… can’t do that,” he objects past a dry, convulsive swallow. “You… you need your eye. This is–”
“A necessity,” she cuts him off, working to attach the piece to the wiring of the transmitter. Adds with cold conviction, “I can do without an eye. You need to survive. Your wizard had to have a reason for wanting it so.”
“The wizard…” He chuckles breathlessly, slides heavily down to the floor. “What did he know.”
“He knew enough to trade the Stone for you,” she points out, standing up, now her task complete.
“He made a mistake.”
“You don’t believe that.” She shakes her head, steps closer. “No more than I do.”
Doesn’t he? He wonders. Thinks bitterly back on that fateful fight with the Mad Titan, the grim acceptance of death, the shock of the sudden reprieve, the subsequent helpless torment of despair as everyone around him turned to dust. Was it worth it? Was he worth it?
She squats down before him, reaches out hesitantly, placing her hand on his knee. “You’ll figure it out, Stark,” she tells him, her one remaining eye boring into him – a bottomless black pool. “They’ll find us and you’ll figure it out and you’ll help us fix it all. And when you’re done,” her lips twitch with tired amusement, “you can fix my eye, too.”
“Yeah.” He forces a smile of his own in appreciation of her attempt at levity, drops his head in a nod. It’s too heavy for him to lift it back up again, and the second confirmation is nothing more than a feeble rustle of air that gets lost in the space between them. “Yeah.”