Otalgia

Those songs…

Either Peter Quill favored some of the saddest, most depressing songs in his new Zune (which he should’ve been exploring far more than he was) or…

Nebula physically shook her head at the thought. She had left the company of the guardians on a solo mission, intending to get information on Thanos and his ultimate puzzle, which Gamora had surprisingly little information about other than that Thanos had been looking for the Stones long before he’d adopted them.

Nebula’s sister had known trivial historical facts that had been shared with her by Thanos and by the Collector as well, but while the lessons had provided some scope, they weren’t useful in obtaining a better in with regards to murdering the space tyrant.

The lack of information made Nebula’s blood boil in frustration.

‘If you ever change your mind

About leaving, leaving me behind

Oh, oh, bring it to me’

She could scour the galaxy if she so chose, turn up every stone and tear apart every well-organized bureaucracy like Nova to get her way, somehow. She could orbit around Thanos’s trail day and night, night and day, and on and on and on, for as long as her tank was full and there were burning stars that lived and died out there. 

Nebula returned to the guardians’ ship after calling in. The stupid fox and his talking sprout had been the ones to answer, but the snark of the rodent-like beast wasn’t enough to deter her expected reentry into the quadrant. She would return, as she’d stipulated, in half a day, as the Hraxian system where her new home was close to only eight jumps from the Ulgrit system that she’d stationed in.

The call center that she’d chosen to make a long-distance communication attempt in was acceptable, if gritty and littered with loitering slobs and drunks. Ulgrit V was a small moon where a hive of scum and villainy spun around the larger Ulgrit I.

            Nebula could practically see Quill’s childish grin at her using that phrase, even if only in her mind. It was difficult to keep the moron out of her mind, when his songs fell in sync with the dial of the holocom.

‘Good time for a change

See, the luck I've had

Can make a good man

Turn bad’

“Where is Gamora?” Nebula asked brusquely, narrowed eyes dead-center on the fox, whose teeth were permanently bared and whose fur was always fluffed and full of static where she was concerned.

            “She and Quill ‘r off with the big guy on a stealth mission.” Rocket told her, after begrudgingly opening his mouth at the bequest of the sprout and the bug, whom Nebula could not see in the holo-image. It occurred to the former Daughter of Thanos that this was the one and only time that Rocket had been so tight-lipped.   

“I see.” Nebula’s gaze dropped to the straw-covered floor for a minute too long. “Expect me in 0012 hours.”

The fox scoffed, but Nebula hung up first with a sneer.  

 Gamora offered her a hug when she’d docked into the Third Quadrant. Opening her arms and letting her palms, which had held an array of knives to kill with and a hundred throats to crush, fall lax with fingers stretched out in Nebula’s direction.

            The green-skinned assassin was the only one to greet Nebula, but that was to be expected, and Nebula briefly embraced her sister with hovering hands. Gamora was better at these things, was better at holding you and better at expressing her happiness at your return with just her warm, brown eyes. 

Nebula flinched when her brain filled up with a new song that she’d never, ever heard before.

‘And it's magic, if the music is groovy

It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie’

“Ugh, Peter.” Gamora muttered, both exasperated and fond as she looked away from Nebula to the upper level where the deck and their team were sat. It took a moment, but Nebula realized that it wasn’t only her that heard the new song. The first happy-sounding melody in two long months now reverberated against the titanium walls of the entire ship.

 She was greeted kindly, by Kraglin and Mantis and Drax at least. Peter spun from the pilot’s chair to give her a Look that relaxed her and made her insides turn all at the same time. He’s somewhat like Gamora, with that stupid goofy smile and those eyes that light up brighter than the hull lights, but he came lumbering over to say hello where Gamora would have stood her distance.

If she could trust her own eyes, Nebula might’ve believed that Peter’s were somewhat misty while he gazed at her from down that imaginary cloud filled with moonwalking and lightsabers that hung around his head.

“Welcome back!” He rumbled, and without thinking about how they were in a semi-public setting with all their friends surrounding them, Peter took her hand and brought it up to his chest. Nebula felt him squeeze her hand gently, as light as the touch of a butterfly against one’s synthetic skin. 

The music in her mind was manageable again. She found herself grateful that before his death, the Ravager captain had left his surrogate son a keepsake with more than eight songs, and that not all of them were distractingly sad.

But now she questioned the greeting she’d received from the more musical of their bond when welcomed back onboard.

Gamora’s affectionate beckoning and understanding looks were starting to become familiar to her sister, but with Peter it was different. The rest of their team weren’t touchy-feely in general, although the tattooed lummox didn’t have a problem with boundaries that much, and the Empath bug drew attention with her capabilities infused into her fingertips.

But with Peter it was different.

Nebula had had conversations with the Terran imbecile since their mutual discovery on Planet Ego, in which she’d always been cutting and had come rolling with a barbed tongue and Peter had dodged her clumsy remarks like an old racehorse on a beaten track.

He’d remained an easygoing and yielding river, ebbing and flowing over the rough terrain of her granite self and terrible interactions until he’d created grooves so deep that she couldn’t dream of electric sheep without him telling her another story about his planet that she’d have to be an idiot to believe was true. In nooks and empty corners, where trace lighting made his copper hair shine and his green eyes gleam with laughter, she found herself easing into his company and into his culture of deafening oneself with song and dance.

Nebula sat alone at their shared table, while the bug and the twig lay on the ground at her feet drawing pictures, and stared at the hand that Peter Quill had taken.

Still, she’d come back from her solo stint to learn that Peter’s hair and stubble had grown, and that he had never touched her before.

 Nebula skulked with feline-like stealth, around the ramparts and the docked Milano as well as their escape pods and her personalized loner ship. She’d been pacing long enough within a certain vicinity to where she’d been present for six song rotations – this time from the bridge, where Peter had apparently let the fox choose what they listened to for the day. The music kept coming like a reprieve for all the years when Nebula couldn’t escape Quill’s Awesome Mix Vol. 1.

And she couldn’t get one blip-on-the-radar song out of her head regardless. The chorus played in her head long after she was sick of it, but then it must have been annoying Quill as well.

When she finally decided to join the rest of the team, she found them sat around the table together sans the fox. The Destroyer was regaling their crew with a story for a change, but Nebula zeroed in on Peter with his arm slung around Gamora’s shoulder. He swung Nebula’s sister and himself from side to side gaily, a look of relaxation and joy on his gristlier face.

Sans the fox, sans her.

The luphomoid wondered again, with a downward glance, if Thanos had been right in never favoring her over Gamora.

 Peter was telling Nebula about receiving a call from Nova Prime, about being asked to become recruits for an on-planet ceremonial. He was relaxed and yet animated, but Nebula interrupted what felt like a companionable pause in his story, ignoring the tempo of her racing heart at being all alone with the man for what was the first time in forever.

She ruined their moment like a metaphorical fist through a glass display.

“Do you love my sister?” Nebula asked, in a voice full of ice, which was not her original intent.

“Yeah.” Peter replied without hesitation, though he looked perturbed. “I love all our friends.”

Our friends, Nebula nearly shuddered. She hadn’t thought of the rest of these… mismatched people as hers, though they were certainly Peter’s, and certainly Gamora’s. But now Quill was calling them our friends.

Peter studied her and was halfway to  raising his arms out to her, then folding them, and then he decided to sweep his hair back and let his warm hand, larger than Nebula’s, rest at the back of his neck in a more characteristic display of nervousness.

He searched for the right words, a faint and dismissive smile on his haggard-looking face. “Nebula, you…”

‘You know I'll always be your slave

'Till I'm buried, buried in my grave’

“This doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.” He said quietly, defying the song that filled their conjoint silence, or maybe addressing it to prove his point, or both.

             The newest and most begrudging guardian had meant to maintain her resolve. She’d thought and thought at a distance, with the memories that had begun building when she let herself stick around for more than a few weeks at a time.

Peter was not hanging on Gamora’s shoulders, or grabbing her arms to try and pull her over and see something. He was beginning to keep a careful distance away from her at all times, and it was muddling the normal atmosphere of the guardians’ ship so much that the rest of their friends had the same uncomfortable expressions as Gamora and Peter.

It carried over into the ceremonial that they all ditched partway, and into the night when Gamora would sit with Nebula and show her how to shine her swords or how to braid hair. Gamora was too distracted and hurt for Nebula to stand.

 Nebula’s facial muscles twisted into a grimace at the change in behavior for the last time and she grit her teeth, before she cornered Peter after he’d returned from a bar on Knowhere, only slightly tipsy.

“You are making my sister uncomfortable.” Nebula accused, fists balled up.

“Nebula.” Peter slurred at the sight of her, eyes crinkling. “There you are!”

She batted his hand away, unable to discern why he was making a fist, pointing two fingers, or laying his hand flat over hers. “Return to being as insufferable as you were before our last conversation.”

“Stop hurting Gamora.” Nebula ordered, dark eyes locked on his own.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her, or you.” Peter assured back, but he frowned. “I thought you didn’t like me being friendly with her, because you thought...”

“I take it back. I was wrong. Just stop.” She retorted. End of discussion.

Peter started anyway. “Hey! Thwarted by a silly misunderstanding! This is just like on Cheers –!”

The modified woman caught his hand in her own, and was still dwarfed by her partner – her soulmate. And she pulled him to her without a word.

He was cut off, words muffled by the fabric of the Ravager rags that Nebula had kept and decided to wear, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Nebula could’ve been wrong, but she’d been stunned the first time Gamora had ever hugged her. She understood that the gesture took some getting used to.

‘So, for once in my life

Let me get what I want

Lord knows, it would be the first time’

“This is a hug. I am embracing you.” She clarified for his sake. Her organic heart thumped when Peter got over his bewilderment to pull her in tightly and she felt his crushing limbs warm her inner circuitry.

“Really?” He knew what it was, of course. And yet Nebula could feel his smile against her half-metallic, half-organic flesh and the cloth covering it. “Think we should do this more often…?”

“Really?” She smirked.

Their leader was silent for the longest time, until he dipped forward and let his cheek rest against her shoulder. “I missed you.”

‘Lord knows, it would be the first time’