Nebula has been planning since the moment Thanos ripped her apart, carefully constructing what he did and didn’t see. She doesn’t care if half the universe dies; it’s not her responsibility to save it. Unlike Gamora she has no strange need to throw herself into danger for a bunch of ungrateful life forms who will never know who she is or what she has done. Her goal is far more simple and certainly more selfish. Thanos will not achieve his goal, not if she can help it.
But she had needed a distraction and pain is her daily life. Thanos’ torture does nothing special to her- she’s used to being ripped apart and put back together over and over again so his pulling her apart it more of the same. She uses her pain to fuel her plans- mostly by giving Thanos just enough information that he’ll be distracted by Gamora. Nebula doesn’t anticipate Gamora giving in so easily though. It had been her plan that Gamora would free her and they could kill Thanos together- they both knew too much about how he operates and she’s confident they could do it. But as usual Gamora screws her plans up and she tells Thanos where the fucking stone is after all Nebula has done to hide that particular memory behind the one of Gamora telling her about the map.
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a backup plan though. She didn’t spend months suspended in mid air drawn apart like that planning without considering what would happen if Gamora plays the hero. Nebula had, before she’d been found, told Gamora that if it came down to it she was to let Nebula die but it doesn’t surprise her that her sister doesn’t listen in the end. Gamora has always had a strong will and somewhere in there she’s always had a heart too. Nebula probably should have assumed Gamora wouldn’t follow her plan A but she still had some faith in her sibling to do what needed to be done. Nebula might not share Gamora’s need to save the world, but her goals in preventing Thanos from getting that he wants does line up nicely with Gamora’s plans.
She thought, perhaps naïvely, that Gamora would understand the need for her death and she knows for certain that Gamora would sacrifice herself without a second thought. If she’s willing to sacrifice herself it stands to reason that Nebula could go too. But Gamora doesn’t do that, does she?
When Nebula escapes her initial plan had been to go to Vormir but… something changes- something she can feel. So she considers her plan for a long few moments, snatching the nearest competent pilot to her location, and she tells him to take her to earth or she’ll kill everyone he loves. Thanos already has two stones and Nebula trusts Gamora to do something to stall Thanos from getting the soul stone. In the meantime Nebula decides to ensure the stones on earth are out of Thanos’ grasp.
*
“That ship is just the beginning,” Tony murmurs to Stephen as it flies off thankfully sans Peter. FRIDAY had released a suit and rescued him post an attempt at kidnapping Stephen that went wrong and now… well not they had Wong and a fake time stone.
“How is it possible that that thing mistook Wong for me?” Stephen asks.
“He didn’t,” Tony says, “Wong had your fake out stone.”
Realization dawns on Stephen and he sighs. “We don’t even know where they’re going and we don’t have a method of getting there either. I guess at least we have the stone,” Stephen says softly, looking down at the eye-like pendant hanging from his neck. It’s a poor consolation, Tony knows, but Wong would never give up information either. “What do we do now?” Stephen asks Tony.
He considers it for a long few moments. “We go to Missouri,” he says, “to Waynesville actually.”
Stephen frowns, “what’s in Waynesville?” he asks. Tony has no idea, but it’s not going to be good.
*
Nebula’s goal is to find the stones but instead one of the stones finds her. “I suggest you get off this planet and hide that somewhere no one will ever look,” she tells the dramatic man in a cape. It’s the small one beside him that steps forward though, frowning. “Who are you?” he asks, stepping forward and…
She doesn’t expect that. She has always assumed she had no soul mate- no one could possibly be an extension of a soul as damaged and destroyed as her own but here she is, looking down at a human she can feel is determined. “My name is Nebula,” she tells him. His reaction gives her nothing to indicate if the bond is shared or not but it doesn’t matter to her either way. Whatever their connection is it’s not relevant to her, not now and probably not ever.
“And why are you here?” the human asks. He goes to take another step forward and the man in the cape steps forward, grabbing her soul mate’s arm and he tries to pull him back. It doesn’t last- he’s shaken off immediately and he takes another step forward.
“To ensure Thanos will never get all the infinity stones,” she says. “If you don’t have that same goal I suggest you get on board quick. He plans to wipe out half the universe and if he gets all the infinity stones he can do it with the snap of his fingers. I assume you care about that,” she tells them harshly.
The humans exchange a look with each other, “how many stones does he have already?” her soul mate asks.
She tilts her head to the side; curious about how this human could know he has any. “Two. Three if Gamora actually leads him to Vormir,” she says. “There are two here. You humans better protect them with as many of your highly breakable and useless bodies as you have or give them to someone more capable of protecting them.”
“Thor had one,” her soul mate murmurs to the man in the cape. “If Thanos managed to beat a god in a fight we’re fucked. What’s in Vormir?” he asks Nebula.
“The soul-” she starts but she’s cut off.
“Take me there,” he says.
“For what purpose?” she asks.
Her soul mate rolls his eyes, “for the same purpose you came here for- to protect the damn stone. Stephen, figure out a way to hide that thing. Shove it down a garbage disposal or something, I don’t care. Just make sure it’s hidden or impossible to acquire. Nebula, take me to the soul stone.”
“Tony, you can’t just leave,” Stephen, Nebula assumes, says. He steps forward and Nebula can see the emotion on him, feel it too. So this is another soul mate, then. Pity.
Tony only half turns to face Stephen, “if I get this stone, or at least keep it away from Thanos temporarily, it buys you time. Call Steve and the others, find Vision, and hide those stones.”
“What if you don’t succeed?” Stephen asks, his voice edging on desperate.
Tony looks away then, a lost, haunted look that Nebula knows well crossing his features. “I won’t succeed. I’m going to die, but when I do I’m going to make damn sure it counts. Nebula, lets go,” he tells her without actually looking at her. He walks towards the ship and Stephen marches forward to her, determination high on his sharp features.
“You make sure he doesn’t die,” he hisses at her. “Or I will find you, and you will not like the results.”
Nebula looks after Tony, “I’ll do what I can,” she says, surprised at the amount of sincerity in her voice. That doesn’t mean she will protect him over her own agenda though. He simply doesn’t matter to her that much, or at all really. At the moment he little more than a curiosity to her.
*
“Are you sure I can breathe on his planet?” Tony asks her for the millionth time. Nebula rolls her eyes at his irritating questioning.
“I ran the test three times, you should be fine. And if you aren’t I’ll kill you swiftly,” she tells him. Better to die a fast death than an agonizing one not that Tony looks much like he agrees.
“You have bad people skills,” Tony tells her.
“Probably because I’m not a person,” Nebula mumbles back. Humans, always so arrogant in centering everything in the known universe around themselves. “Follow me,” she tells Tony, stepping out from the ship at the right coordinates. “It should be up that mountain,” she says, nodding to the base of the large geological structure they were about to climb.
“You know I’m pushing fifty with heart problems, right?” he asks, giving the mountain a skeptical look.
“Don’t slow me down,” she says in a harsh tone, stomping off with purpose towards that mountain. If she’s lucky she’ll find Gamora and Thanos there and she can kill him while Tony gets the stone. Might as well make the human useful to her. Gamora can play hero and ensure he doesn’t die- Nebula is sure that’s the position she’d take anyways. Unless Gamora goes for the stone and her idiot human plays the hero. Either way she intends to kill Thanos if she finds him at the top of that mountain.
Tony starts wheezing not long into the trip but he keeps up surprisingly well despite what she guesses is an injury to his ribs. He wraps an arm around himself and continues huffing but he follows her along just fine. “You’re not going to die back there, are you?” Nebula asks him eventually.
“Probably not,” Tony wheezes out. “You’re pretty fast,” he adds.
Yes, because she’s more bionics than actual biology at this point. She doesn’t tire easily and breaking her is hard to do permanently. But humans break easily and this one sounded two huffs away from death. Being destined to die, if his predictions were correct, doesn’t mean she has a preference for him dying right here on the mountain so she stops, catching Tony when he runs straight into her.
He mumbles an apology and steps back, “I’m alright, just give me a minute or ten,” he says. She sighs as Tony leans against the side of the mountain, irritated with his frail body.
“Hurry it up,” she tells him, “we don’t have time for you to breathe.”
“I don’t think you can rush not feeling like you’re dying,” Tony wheezes at her. Nebula rolls her eyes and taps her foot for two more minutes before continuing forward, expecting Tony to follow her. He does and she doesn’t slow down again even when he starts wheezing again. She doesn’t have time for his health issues- if he keels over here after his break than so be it. She’s done more than she should have already.
“How much longer do we have to go?” Tony huffs out some time later. He’s still keeping up despite his obvious difficulties and Nebula admires that about him.
“Not far. We’re almost at the peak,” she tells him. When she hears a familiar voice though she picks up the pace. She can hear Tony do the same behind her.
“Why are we moving faster?” he wheezes at her.
“Because Thanos is here,” she says. Tony starts moving faster after that, near running beside her jog as they reach the summit of the mountain.
“It exacts a terrible price,” someone is saying and Nebula carefully creeps closer.
“What does it need?” Thanos asks. Nebula cranes her head to try and hear the answer better and Tony presses himself into her space to do the same. Normally she’d snap his neck for that but at the moment she’s more concerned with Thanos than her stupid human.
“Someone you love,” the other person says. “A soul for a soul.”
Nebula considers her options, wondering how she could pay that fee before Thanos could when Tony walks forward with purpose, passing her hiding spot and making his way past Thanos too. “Who are you?” he asks, turning when he hears Nebula rushing after him.
“What are you doing?” she hisses at him. Gamora frowns at her, obviously surprised to see her here.
“This thing wants a soul, I’ll give it one,” Tony says, stepping towards the edge but, to Nebula’s surprise, Thanos speaks first.
“Child, what are you doing?” he asks in a sweet, gentle tone Nebula has never heard from him. it’s the tone of voice he saves for Gamora.
Tony turns and gives Thanos a determined, level stare. “What I need to,” he tells him in a hard tone.
“Then we have something in common,” Thanos tells him softly. “I have a destiny I need to fulfill.”
“You want to wipe out half the universe!” Gamora all but yells, giving him a pained, horrified look.
“I have a destiny too,” Tony tells him. “Sorry to tell you, but its to disrupt yours. I can’t let you kill half the universe, that’s fucking insane,” Tony says, confusion, disgust, and pain showing on his face.
Thanos takes a small, almost pleading step forward. “My destiny will not be disrupted, certainly not by you or anyone else,” he says, a tear rolling down his cheek. “I ignored my purpose once and I paid for it. I can’t do that again.”
Tony and Gamora laugh at once. “The price to pay is something you love, you don’t love anything,” Gamora spits. “Its why you’re crying- the universe finally gave you a price you couldn’t pay.”
Nebula knows she’s wrong as soon as she says it, and knows who those tears are for so she turns to Tony. “If you have something to sacrifice, do it now!” she yells at him.
“He has nothing but himself to sacrifice, Nebula. He won’t get the stone,” Thanos says and what sounds like pity touches his tone of voice.
Tony gives him a cold glare. “You have no idea what I have to sacrifice,” he tells Thanos and with that he jumps over the edge of the cliff. Nebula lets out an unintentional yell before Thanos grabs Gamora’s arm.
“I’m so sorry,” he tells her and she panics, quickly grabbing a knife from Thanos’ belt but the thing turns to bubbles before she can stab herself with it. When she goes over the cliff Nebula dives for her but Thanos catches her long before she reaches the edge and throws her back where she leapt from with little regard for where she lands. She crashed into the arch and she can feel the bones in her face, neck, and back crack but as soon as she lands they all start clicking back into place.
For a moment she allows herself time to heal before she stands, light bathing her movement as the sky above her appears to open up. She lets out a violent shriek and runs at Thanos but he closes his hand and she’s blasted backwards by a purple blast.
When she wakes up she’s in a puddle beside her ship and she feels… sorrow, pain, happiness, and determination. Her head swims with all the emotions before she feels something else. When she looks down at her chest she gasps, quickly standing and stumbling back into her ship, threatening the pilot to get him to take off immediately.
*
Hope is doing her best to find people in the rubble when she feels it. She’s trying to determine how to move a large chunk of concrete off a car containing a family so they could be pulled from the space that could very well become their grave. But then she begins to feel lightheaded, warm, and though the pain starts slow it builds as she falls from the air, smacking into the hood of the car with a small thud as her brain begins to white out from the pain.
When what feels like fire finally recedes from her brain she knows that it’s Rhodey, whatever that was he’s in trouble and he needs her help. The only other time she’s ever felt anything like that was when he fell from the sky at the airport.
*
Christine is in surgery when she begins to feel a little light headed. She shakes her head, frowning for a moment before her vision starts to black out and she immediately drops her instruments onto the table beside her and steps back. The timing is convenient too- its then that the pain starts and when she loses consciousness she remembers watching the world go sideways before everything goes black.
When she wakes up she tells Nick to get her phone because something has happened to Stephen. Nothing else would have caused that reaction, not when she’s in perfect health.
*
Stephen is planning how to best hide the time stone with Wong when pain blasts him through the heart he swears. He lets out a yell and Wong leaps forward as runes and protection spells fly up unwittingly from Stephen’s body, like it was trying to protect Stephen from a danger that wasn’t even there. Wong is yelling something, Stephen can tell, but he’s having a tough time remaining conscious as the pain in his chest builds, extending to his brain and he’s positive he’s on fire because he’s never felt pain like this before.
The last thing he sees before consciousness finally leaves him is his sister’s face in the water where she drowned.
*
Rhodey is doing his best to survey the damage from above when the pain hits him out of nowhere. One second he’s fine, the next he’s certain an alien must have come back and did something to possess the suit or something because he feels like he’s being dragged through a thousand tiny pieces of glass. The last thing he remembers before he passes out is finding it odd that the suit isn’t falling despite his lack of control over it.
*
Tony considers the edge, considers Thanos. He isn’t what Tony expected, especially not with his soft tone of voice and almost gentle demeanor. But Nebula is right- he needs to make a sacrifice now and if he does he’ll be the owner of the stone. And if he’s dead Thanos can’t get the stone from a dead man. So Tony jumps, sacrificing the only thing he has. His connection to his soul mates. He just hopes he doesn’t kill them too. No one else should have to suffer for even more of his mistakes.
*
When Nebula makes it back to earth she makes it her mission to find Stephen. Thankfully her description of him becomes easier when she finds a newscast that describes him as ‘Stephen Strange’. A name is better than ‘a man in a cape’ given that it describes several different people, most of whom were called ‘Loki’ or ‘Thor’. Neither of which were relevant to her. The information leads her to a Christine Palmer though, supposedly Strange’s soul mate, and Nebula thinks this is a good place to start.
“Who the hell are you?” Christine asks when Nebula walks into her kitchen.
“Where is Stephen Strange?” she asks in a harsh tone. She has no time for this human’s petulant fear, she needs to find the man with the time stone.
“How did you get in here?” Christine asks and Nebula snarls.
“Where is Stephen Strange?” she snaps, taking a threatening step forward when a noise to her right catches her attention.
“Nebula? What are you doing here?” Stephen asks, frowning.
“Who the hell is Nebula?” Christine asks.
“I’m Nebula, keep up,” she snaps at the human. “You,” she tells Stephen, “we need to talk. And you look like shit.”
Stephen gives her an irritated look, “you said you would keep him safe,” he tells her in a low, almost menacing tone. Or she would find it menacing if she cared about his inconsequential powers. There’s nothing he could do to her that’s worse than what she’s already been through.
“I said I’d do what I could. He did us all a favor,” she says and she knows it’s a mistake right away when she watches the fire ignite in Stephen’s eyes. He goes to take a step forward but Christine jumps in front of her for some unfathomable reason.
“Stephen she’s come here for a reason!” she yells. “Now explain yourself or I’ll let him blast you out of my kitchen. Assuming he pays for damages,” she adds mostly to Stephen.
Nebula carefully lowers the collar of her shirt, revealing what had been left there after Tony’s sacrifice. “I know you can feel it too. We all can,” she says.
Stephen stares at the stone for a long few moments. “I don’t understand,” he says.
She considers things for a long moment. “I’m not sure I do either. He should be the rightful owner of the stone but I think… You needed to make a sacrifice to get the stone. A soul for a soul- give someone that you love to the stone and it will come to you. Tony sacrificed himself but I told him to. Better than Thanos getting it,” she says. “I think it somehow transferred power to me or something.
Sparks fly from Stephen’s hands but Christine waves him off. “Why would power transfer to you?” she asks. “And why would you ever tell someone to do something like that?” she adds probably for Stephen’s sake. She can feel their connection. She can feel the whole group’s connection.
“He was my soul mate too. I told him to jump because I thought he had something to sacrifice, not because I wanted him to jump,” she says honestly. “But you can’t take a stone from a dead man.” Theoretically another sacrifice would have gotten Thanos the stone anyways, if that’s how ownership worked. But they don’t know how ownership works, if Thanos’ plan would have played out like he wanted it to. It doesn’t seem to have done that after his sacrifice of Gamora, but Nebula is unsure who landed first. Gamora or Tony. Tony had the head start even if it had only been by seconds. It had been a worthy sacrifice, but not the one she had been expecting.
“What does that thing do?” Christine asks softly, looking at the stone in Nebula’s chest.
She shrugs, “I have no idea.”
*
Stephen finds Nebula on the roof of the building, not entirely surprised to find her there. He’s discovered that Tony prefers high places, Rhodey had to prefer high places to be a pilot, he preferred high places, obviously Nebula shared that trait, and so did Christine and Hope. And now they all held an unknown power within them. Christine had revealed earlier that she had been having dreams since Tony died of the caves in Afghanistan and when Stephen called around it turns out their experiences weren’t unusual. Hope dreamed of the wormhole, Rhodey dreamed of the Avengers, Stephen dreamed of magic and manipulation, and Nebula dreamed of Howard. It’s like all of Tony’s worst memories were playing on loop for them while they slept.
“I suspect the soul stone has connected us in some way,” he tells her. “But I know only one person who knows enough about soul mate magic to help us understand this better.” And its not a person Stephen wants to go to for help in any capacity.
“Then find them so we can learn. We have a chance with two stones. Not much of one but we can make it work,” she says, glaring out over the skyline. Stephen is certain she smiles so little she doesn’t actually know how to anymore.
“I’ve examined every possibility, Nebula. Over fourteen million of them and the only reality in which we won was the one where Tony was alive. But seems how he hastily threw himself of a damn cliff we’re all fucked,” he snaps.
Nebula’s head tilts a little at that and she shakes her head. “I don’t accept that,” she says bluntly, reminding Stephen painfully of Tony. “Take me to this expert of yours,” she adds, also sounding too much like Tony for him to handle at the moment. The fact that he even manages a portal in this condition is shocking but he stumbles through after Nebula nonetheless.
“You don’t look well,” Mordo notes, eyeing Stephen from behind his magical prison walls. Wong is there in the room already with a tray, obviously taking back the dishes from whatever Mordo was fed for that meal.
“He just lost his soul mate,” Nebula says bluntly. “And I’m told you’re an expert. Explain to me how this works,” she tells him, lowering the collar of the shirt she’s wearing to reveal the stone in her chest. It makes the bionic parts around it glow with a soft gold that’s strangely similar to Tony’s reactor. Stephen has to look away.
“Oh me god,” Mordo whispers, obviously knowing what it is right away. “How did you get that?” he asks softly. Nebula relays the story in a cold, detached way that Stephen simply doesn’t understand and Wong walks over to him, carefully lowering him to the floor when it becomes a bit too much.
After she finishes Mordo shakes his head in wonder. “Explain what’s happening, human,” Nebula eventually snaps. “I made no sacrifice, why did I get this stone? And why are we all dreaming Tony’s worst memories?”
Mordo sighs and sits on the small bed he has in the corner of his cell. “Yes, you did make a sacrifice. You sacrificed a soul mate the same way Tony sacrificed the potential stability and safety of his. You got the stone because of it, but you’re linked into a wider soul mate bond through that stone. I largely suspect you wouldn’t have had that connection without his presence in that thing,” he says.
Stephen sits up straighter, immediately interested. “What do you mean Tony’s presence in the stone?” he asks.
He’s sure that Mordo won’t answer for a moment but he does. “Tony is the soul he sacrificed physically even if its technically his bonds he forfeited. The stone has absorbed his sacrifice- both himself and his bonds. Its linked Nebula into your web and her addition has therefore made you’re entire soul mate pod the keeper of that stone. Theoretically if one of you dies, the stone will just go to another. There was another sacrifice too though, I can feel it,” he says, squinting at the stone.
“Gamora!” Nebula says right away, leaning closer to the magical walls of Mordo’s cell despite the buzzing warning her away.
“She’s linked to you too,” Mordo says. “You tried to save her.”
For the first time since he’s met Nebula she shows an emotion that isn’t anger, turning away from Mordo with a clenched jaw and tears in her eyes. “She’s my sister, of course I tried to save her,” she snaps.
“She knows. When you learn to control that you’ll feel it too,” he says in a surprisingly soft voice.
“How do we do that?” Stephen asks, his voice sounding hollow even to himself.
Mordo considers him for a few long seconds. “You let me out of this cell,” he says eventually.
Stephen goes to object to the crazy idea but he gets hit but this… bizarre feeling. “You need to do it,” Nebula says. “I can feel it.”
Wong’s eyes grow wide, “you absorbed his prophecy,” he says, shocked.
“They absorbed the whole of him, its why you dream his worst memories. Presumably the ones that are the most pertinent to who you are as people,” Mordo says. Stephen’s dreams of magic make sense then, and Nebula’s of an abusive father figure. Rhodey’s dreams made sense too being an Avenger though he has to wonder why Hope got the wormhole.
“Her mother’s death,” Nebula says. “Something to do with her mother’s death.”
Stephen frowns, “you can feel my thoughts?” he asks.
“She can feel your everything and you can feel hers. And everyone else’s feelings too,” Mordo says. “The soul stone has connected you as one and you will need to learn to control it as one.”
“Let him out,” Nebula tells him.
“I think you should,” Wong adds softly. “If you can feel Tony’s prophecies and that’s what they’re telling you then do it.”
He closes his eyes and feels the magic. He can feel Rhodey’s absolute loss, Hope’s trauma at the nightly reminder of her mother’s death in a similar situation to Tony’s experience in the wormhole, Nebula’s anger and resentment, Christine’s confusion and fear mixed with determination, and his own grief. But beyond that he can feel something else too and it takes a moment to latch on to it. I’m so sorry it had to be this way- the words float through his head and he sighs, coming back to himself. “Let him out Wong. I’ll go grab the others- we have training to do,” he says. He really hopes Christine is naturally good at magic because right now she has literally nothing going for her. Hope has training and a suit, Rhodey is a combat veteran with a suit, and Christine is a fucking surgeon with zero useful skills in this kind of situation. Damn Tony and his ridiculous plans.
“I can train her,” Nebula says from across the room.
Stephen frowns, “what?”
“Christine. You can’t rely on her learning magic fast I’ll train her. Gamora was always better than me, but I guess her soul is trapped in this thing too. Might as well make use of it if we can,” she says in that familiar harsh tone.
Wong sighs and stands, “alright. I’ll let Mordo out and you get everyone together. While we’re at it we should probably call the Avengers too. It seems like a good time to get everyone together, everyone who can help anyways.”
That’s not something Stephen wants to do but he’s sure he can find that flip phone Tony told him about somewhere. Even if he knows they’re all doomed without Tony anyways. They might as well go down fighting.
“On my planet death only happens when everyone who remembers you is gone,” Nebula says. “When all knowledge of you is wiped from existence then you’re truly gone. If… if I chose to believe that then Tony is just as alive as he was when he was physically here. Maybe your future didn’t require a body.”
Wong’s eyebrows draw together, looking between them. “What’s she talking about, Stephen?” he asks.
Stephen sighs as he opens a portal to Christine’s living room. “She’s talking about the fact that there is one future in over fourteen million in which we win this fight and it requires Tony to be alive. And I don’t believe in your planet’s ideas of death,” he tells her, stepping through the portal.