“How’s that feel?” Tony asks her, hands gentle as he wraps her wrist up.
There’s no need for such a reaction, but in doing so, it calms Tony down, has the tension around his eyes and mouth lessen, marginally. If it makes Tony happy, she will continue to bear it.
Even if he decides to stick band-aids, bearing his metal suit, on the bandage to keep it in place, just to annoy her.
“It’s fine, any pain I felt has long gone,” she replies, rolling her eyes before gesturing at said band-aids. “Though seeing these, does make me want to throw up.”
He doesn’t take offence, if the smile that tugs at his lips is any indication, and nods, satisfied.
“Tones, Councilwoman Alley wants to talk,” Rhodes sighs, stepping into the room, his prosthetic brace whirling softly in the background. Like Tony, he’s got a few scrapes on his face and a dark bruise smudged over his eye.
She watches as Tony sighs himself and gets to his feet. Just from his face alone, she knows it’s not a conversation that is going to go well. If Tony wants it, she could just kill her. He won’t, but it’s a nice thought to have.
A foot nudges hers.
“You’ll be okay?” Tony asks, glancing down at her.
Nebula can see the silent question he’s really asking. Will you be okay when they arrive?
She wants to laugh and assure Tony in equal measures. Nothing Rogers and his team could do, would cause harm to Nebula. Not even Rogers’ pet witch, Tony had told her all about. She was protected from magic, Thanos had made sure of that. It was probably the one thing Nebula would thank her tyrant father for. That and Gamora.
Nebula swallows her anger at the thought of her sister, but just barely. She’d avenge her sister, she’d get her revenge in Gamora’s name. Even if she died moments later, it would be a worthy death. She’d make sure of it.
“Nebula?”
“I’ll be fine Tony,” she replies, flicking her fingers at him, in a way she’s seen Pepper do. “I do not require any babysitting from you.”
“It’s not you that requires the babysitting,” Rhodes mutters, behind Tony.
Seeing the finger flick and hearing Rhodes comment, makes Tony smile, even if it’s a small one.
“FRIDAY will be –” he starts.
“Will be playing the next episode of Forged in Fire, while you and Rhodes are gone,” Nebula interrupts, glancing up at the ceiling. She knows she doesn’t have to, but Tony finds it amusing, so she continues to do it. “Won’t you, FRIDAY?”
“Yes, Miss Nebula.” She gets in return, the black screen on the wall to her right, flicking on and playing the episode from the moment she had paused it.
“Go,” she instructs, slouching in her chair, with one leg propped up over the armrest. “If the Councilwoman is anything like me, she won’t like being forced to wait.”
Tony nudges her foot with his one more time, bows and says “Yes, Mi’lady.”
She narrows her eyes at him in warning that’s only half playful, and he holds his hands up with a grin, as he turns to walk away. “Okay, okay, I’m going. FRIDAY will still be watching, won’t you baby girl?”
“Always, Boss.”
Rhodes winks at her before falling in line with Tony, their voices echoing down the hallway they’ve disappeared into. A pang shoots through her at their banter. She and Gamora would have been good at that, she likes to think.
Focusing on the screen, Nebula watches as the men begin their challenge of creating the weapon of choice from the judges. She gets a thought.
“FRIDAY, do you think I can get all of that? I’m in need of a few blades that are capable of harming tyrants.”
Nebula gets an affirmative answer, one that she knows would be accompanied with a happy squeal if FRIDAY was capable of doing the noise. She nods, content with the answer.
~
Even without FRIDAY’s silent warning, she knows when Rogers and his team arrive back at Tony’s Tower. The air is charged, like all the times Thanos had, none so gently, requested her presence in his throne room on his ship. The only difference is, she isn’t afraid of the one only a few call Captain America, quite the opposite in fact.
Even in the face of torture, she never showed her fear of Thanos. She might have screamed in pain, begged for it to stop, but she never let him glimpse the rooted panic she had. This Rogers didn’t even hold a flame to Thanos, despite his reverence, and it was high time someone showed him this.
She knows that Rogers and his team were unimpressed with her presence the moment they had first met. Nebula can honestly say the same. She hadn’t liked the way Tony seemed to stand on high alert, like he was poised to attack if someone had made the wrong move.
Rhodes hadn’t been better. He had all but growled when Rogers stepped into the room, and that, had put Nebula on edge as well, despite knowing the man less than she did Tony, regardless of their three day flight from Thanos’ home planet.
Waving FRIDAY’s warning away, Nebula says, “I was here first. They can leave willingly or be forced.”
She continues on watching Forged in Fire, ignores how they all fall behind Rogers’ back, standing in a defensive half circle. Nebula slouches further in her seat, unworried, as they clearly gear themselves for a fight.
“Thanos called you his daughter,” Rogers starts, and there’s a fierce bite to his words. “Is that true?”
Nebula doesn’t so much as twitch, just asks FRIDAY to turn the volume up and nodding in thanks when the request is met with gleeful silence.
“Did you not hear him?” The archer, Barton, snarks from Rogers’ right shoulder.
When the silence stretches, Nebula sees Romanoff’s hand move to the gun strapped to her thigh. She can’t help but smile. They just got their asses handed to them by her father, what makes them think they could win a fight against her? A person Thanos trained and tortured until she was the perfect killing assassin. Something that was more machine than someone alive.
Clearly Tony had been the brains in this outfit, before they betrayed him.
“I heard him just fine,” she replies, tilting her head to the side in boredom. “I just think this conversation is a waste of my breath. I don’t answer to him.”
“But you answer to Stark,” the archer snaps, glaring.
“No, to those I find worth it.” Nebula says, lifting an eyebrow as she glances over them. Her lips curl in obvious distaste. “And all of you don’t qualify.”
The one they call Ant-Man, Lang, holds the archer back as he surges forward. The pitiful thing bares his teeth at Nebula and all she does is smile back, amused, wriggling her fingers at him.
She’s faced with a glaring Rogers as he steps in front of the archer, his hands fisted by his sides. “I asked you a question. Are you Thanos’ daughter?”
Sighing, Nebula looks up at the ceiling, quietly asking for this more than mediocre interrogation to end.
Still looking up, she replies, “And if I said I was? What would you do, Rogers?”
“I’d want the daughter of a monster, to look me in the eye and show remorse for her father’s actions. Thousands of people have died because of Thanos, people that I know and care about, are dead because of him.” He replies, moving towards her, until he stands just in front of the small table that separates them. Rogers’ jaw tightens. “And it’s Captain.”
Nebula laughs. She finds that so rich.
“I’ll call you what I like, Rogers.” She says, finally pulling her gaze from the ceiling and staring up at him. She knows her eyes unsettle him. They unsettle a lot of people here on Terra, but not Tony, Pepper and Rhodes. They’ve never so much as flinched from her gaze. The people before her, can't dart their eyes away fast enough, though Romanoff at least tries to hide it. “And you’re right, I am the daughter of a monster. I am a monster. One that Thanos created, so the remorse you’re looking for, is long gone.”
“So you don’t care that people have died?” Romanoff asks, lips pursed.
Nebula shrugs. “Why bother? People die all the time. Especially when my father is involved. I’m not gonna shed a tear for whoever you’re mourning, I don’t honestly care enough to do so, so it’s best if you just leave me and this room in peace.”
It’s only the creak of a leather glove on each hand of Rogers that tells her he’s going to attack, but just as she moves to her feet, weapons in hand, Tony is standing before her, his own hand held out as his gauntlet stretches out down over his palm. The whirl of the repulsor seems louder in the silent room than anything else, and Nebula realises the episode of Forged in Fire has paused on the screen.
“Tony?” Rogers asks, coming to a startled stop.
“Before you ask,” He replies, voice clipped, “I knew.”
Something flashes across Rogers’ face and it tells Nebula that those words were said before their fight in that Siberian bunker.
Rogers glares in her direction. “You’re protecting her? After what her father did to Earth? Are you crazy?”
Tony laughs, the repulsor humming that much louder. “The same can be said for your buddy, Barnes, but I’m gonna tell you what you told me; it wasn’t her. It was Thanos.”
Frustrated, Rogers growls out, “Bucky is my friend –”
“And she’s mine,” Tony snaps. He raises his other hand, another gauntlet already stretching down his fingers and over the palm of his hand. “Step back, Rogers. You honestly won’t win against me, not this time.”
Nebula slides Godslayer, Gamora’s blade, over Tony’s shoulder face down, the sharp edges mere inches from his jaw until they align with his outstretched palms, pointing straight at Rogers’ chest. In her other hand, she grips tightly around her baton, already pulsing with electricity and urging anyone to make a move.
With a smile, sharper than the blade in her hand, she says, “I’d like to see you fight two to one and see how far you get, Rogers. I think the turn of events would make me very happy.”
She can’t see his whole face, but she knows from the crinkles beside Tony’s eyes, that he’s smirking.
Especially when FRIDAY adds, “And you very dead, if you so much as touch Boss or Miss Nebula.”