As You Say

by Hickumu

A stranger has been found in Thanos' domain. Rather than simply tearing what he knows from his mind, however, the Mad Titan has decided to adopt the castaway as one of his own, alongside his two surviving daughters. Nebula is reluctant to let someone else into their lives, risk someone else stealing Thanos' attentions. She tries to do something about it, with mixed results.

So, "Guardians of the Galaxy" was an awesome movie, and not just because I'm calling my "Loki was manipulated/tortured/brainwashed into compliance" headcanon confirmed. Though that was nice to get.

A lot of people are saying that his and Nebula's situations are not comparable. While that's *true*, strictly speaking, I think the fact remains that they could have been. If Thanos had known about Loki from the start, he wouldn't have batted an eye at slaughtering his entire family and razing Asgard to the ground. The fact that Loki apparently fell into his lap just saved him some effort, and as we saw Thanos hates having to get up off his throne. And since he couldn't indoctrinate Loki from childhood, breaking down his resistances first - via, for a possible example, torture - was probably called for.

And I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who noticed the truly *staggering* similarities, character- and story-wise, between Loki and Nebula. It had to have been deliberate. Given that they were both in Thanos' service and both ultimately involved in trying to hunt down Infinity Gems, I thought it pretty obvious that they must have met and worked together somehow - this is my take on how that might have come to be, at least at the start. Given the nature of the two players involved, I thought some kind of "thing" was also likely. Also given the nature of the two players involved, I knew that thing had to be fucked up, dysfunctional, and unhealthy beyond all reason. But that became part of the fun.

By the way, disclosure at the start - I adore Gamora. I'm sure we all do. But the prequel comic, which this fic draws a bit on, showed some of the ugly things she wound up forced to do in order to become Thanos' "favorite daughter", and a bit of why Nebula only "hated her least." Since a lot of this wound up being at least zeroed in on Nebula's point of view, if not directly inside her head, her attitude colored a lot of what we see. So just keep that in mind, if you will. Thanks! Some events are referenced that are not in the movie, but mostly as background - you should still be able to read this having just seen the movie.

And in the meantime, enjoy this little snippet of "meet cute" featuring two genocidal blue-skinned renegades. I certainly enjoyed writing it.

Thanos loved his daughters, but every so often he was known to take in sons as well. Recent events in his search for the Infinity Stones had decimated the ranks of his "children", so that of course he would seek more promising lost souls to bring into line. Gamora and Nebula were the only two left, before he brought Loki up from the dungeons.

Nebula, of course, felt nothing at their deaths. Nothing, of course, except a vindictive satisfaction that she had outlived them, and thus proved herself superior in the eyes of her father and herself. Of all her siblings, all that could be said was that even now she hated Gamora the least. All she knew of Loki at first was a conversation she'd overheard at Thanos' feet, disregarded and ignored as always until her father and master had orders for her.

"He still will not speak?"

"No, my master. It seems as though he is only just remembering how to scream."

"And you mean to say that after all this time you have not even been able to determine what he is, let alone why he has come here? With all your knowledge of the planets, and all the Chitauri's…enthusiasm?"

"We have learned that he wears two skins, though he seems to revile them both equally. Neither are of a people I recognize. He claims to have come from the Void, though of course that is impossible. I am still trying to make my way into his mind, my lord, to dig up the truth once and for all. But I would get more sense trying to read a storm than his madness. More than that…"

"…more than that?"

"He has been trained. To resist my abilities. His mental defenses are a ruin, shattered, but they are most certainly there. Were he at full strength, I doubt that even I could breach his thoughts."

"But he is not at full strength."

The Other smiled, revealing far too many teeth. "No, my lord. We have seen to that. All my difficulties come from trying to decipher his raving madness." Then he stiffened, in that way Thanos' servants had when they knew they were teetering on the precipice of that most dangerous place – Thanos' disappointment. "I assure you, it will not be long now."

"No, it will not." Nebula found herself unceremoniously nudged aside. Taking the hint, she rose to her feet to receive new orders "I will see him. Nebula, go down to the cells and bring him to me."

She swallowed back the bad taste in her mouth and bowed her head. "Right away, father."

The dungeons were deep in the bowels of the fortress, but they were small – only a handful of cells that never saw the light and were surrounded by miles of metal and rock on almost all sides to prevent escape. Thanos didn't need many cells. Thanos did not often take prisoners. For him to keep this stranger alive, despite his insolence and insanity, could mean only one thing.

Nebula set her jaw as she descended in the lift down and further down. Chitauri saw just fine in the dark, and her implants ensured that so did she. It barely took any conscious thought anymore to activate them, and the hum of machinery was almost soothing in its functionality.

Thanos had made her anew, and yet she continued to disappoint him. Gamora remained his precious favorite, and she hadn't even had to give up an arm for it. If he brought someone else into the "family", that would be even less likely to change. Nebula could only see herself being cast further aside. The next time she failed – and somehow, a small, dark part of her couldn't believe that she wouldn't – she wouldn't even be left a knife. Not if Thanos had a new pet to turn to in her place.

No. Things were just fine with her and Gamora. Thanos didn't need anyone else.

So resolved to her purpose, Nebula stepped up to the prisoner's door and presented herself for retinal scanning. The machinery scanned her cybernetic eyes, found them to match Thanos' unique construction, and she heard the many locks begin to click undone as her presence was accepted as authorized. Nebula shoved open the door and stepped into the cell beyond. It closed automatically behind her.

Even for one who had lived the kind of life she had, the smell of blood and viscera in the cell was overwhelming. Nebula couldn't quite help a noise of disgust. It was bad enough that she raised a hand reflexively to cover her nose and try futilely to block the taste of it from her tongue. Even so, she wasn't so distracted that she couldn't take in the sight of the prisoner. He had been chained to the wall on the opposite side of the cell – chained so thoroughly, in fact, that his hands were utterly encased in metal bindings as well as his wrists being manacled above his head. He was gagged as well, with a heavy metal gag that she knew from grim past experience was designed to stop him biting down on his tongue until he drowned in blood. He was naked, of course, whatever clothes and gear he'd been carrying doubtless taken away for observation and eventual destruction.

Besides, even that level of protection was more than the prisoners down here were allowed.

Other than that, she could certainly see why the Other had had trouble identifying him. He only wore one skin that she saw now, but it was…generic. The sort of shape you saw in halfbreeds and mixed-race mutts on every world from Xandar to Trinity Major. In fact, the most striking thing about him was that his body didn't seem to have been augmented in any way. Nebula had almost forgotten what it looked like to see a humanoid that hadn't at least made an effort to improve themselves. But a quick scan of him with her x-ray scope showed nothing but flesh, blood, and…

…something else.

Of course there had to be something odd about him – for him to have lived this long, for him to have warranted Thanos' attentions at all, certainly for him to have been chained up quite so thoroughly in ways that couldn't just be explained as preventing suicide. Whatever it was, however, she couldn't see it.

Nebula narrowed her eyes, only realizing after all of this that the prisoner was looking back at her. Not with any real interest, perhaps just because she was the most interesting thing in the room. His eyes – a green so dull as to be nearly black – regarded her with acknowledgement and nothing else. No fear, no pleading, not even the resignation that inevitably and eventually crept over all those who resisted in the end.

It was this fact, more than anything, that ultimately decided her. She deserved more than acknowledgement, but somehow everything else save disappointment seemed to forever elude her. Nebula would tolerate as much form Thanos, but this…thing had no right.

She clenched her fists at her side and took the few steps needed to stand before him properly. A mad whim had her bending down and reaching behind his head to undo the gag – it was electronically keyed to a special frequency only possessed by implants she, Gamora, Thanos, and a few of his trusted generals shared, so all it took was a press of her palm against the lock and a thought. It came undone, and she tossed it aside with no further regard before moving to undo his shackles. Those, of course, were all that she'd needed to undo. If he tried to escape on their way back up, that would only make things easier for her.

"Thanos will see you now," she said, stepping back and dusting off her hands. "Congratulations. You've gotten his attention and exhausted his patience."

He made no move to rise. Nebula knew she could make him do so with one tug on his matted black hair, but she let him be for now. Instead, he merely moved to sit more comfortably, crossing his legs and resting his bruised wrists and hands in his lap. Still staring up at her with nothing more than the barest curiosity.

With one exception. She saw the way his gaze darted twice to the knife on her belt before he looked up at her face again. That, coupled with the presence of the gag, told Nebula that she'd read him right from the start.

"I suspect," she continued on, betraying none of this. "That when he is through expressing his displeasure at being kept waiting, he will offer you a chance at service."

She suspected that he was trying not to betray anything of what was going on behind his eyes, either, was maybe even surprised that he had anything left to betray. But there was no such thing as rock bottom, just a bigger shovel. And she hadn't been tortured until her defenses were in ruins.

Still he said nothing, and she was more than happy to carry on. "He finds something fascinating about you. Damned if I know what." She reached out with a foot and nudged him firmly in one bruised, scabbed side. His expression flickered for just a moment with pain that he only just swallowed back, but it was still gratifying. "You don't look like much from where I'm standing."

"I'm not."

His voice was rasping and hoarse and she probably wouldn't have heard it had she not been listening, but just the sound of his voice was still something of a shock. Nebula caught herself drawing back slightly just from surprise, before she recovered herself.

She still couldn't help but wonder how long he'd tried to convince the Chitauri to believe him.

Nebula darted a wary glance to the door, wondering if anyone might be daring to listen on the other side, before she said what she did next. "I've got another offer for you. Something I think you've been looking for a while."

"Oh?" It shouldn't have been possible to manage a drawl from where he sat beneath her, beaten and stripped down and broken. He did anyway, and smiled up at her with bloody teeth. "Do tell. I would welcome a change of pace from this."

She knew just what "this" was. Though Nebula had never had to be broken into Thanos' service in quite that way, she'd seen plenty of others who had. The smell of the blood was telling enough even without knowing just what sorts of instruments the chamber at the end of the hall held.

"Don't tell me you intend to free me," the prisoner was saying now, staring disdainfully up at her. This time, Nebula didn't even hesitate before kicking him soundly in the side of the head. It snapped him to the side, as he let out a grunt that was equal parts surprise and pain. She saw blood pooling up in his mouth to drip down his chin. This time, even if he glared up at her, he did so with real wariness. That was also good to see, especially when Nebula realized that all she'd done was kick down a wall he'd managed to rebuild.

"I don't think you want to be freed," Nebula said. Reaching down, she drew her knife, and there was no hiding the hunger in his eyes as he watched it. "I think you want to die." She pressed the blade against his throat. "I'm willing to oblige."

He actually moaned at the press of Dinuvian electrified steel against his jugular, eyelids fluttering half-closed. The stranger's moment of relief, however, was short-lived however he'd found it. Then, at the edge of death, he mustered a sound that it took Nebula a moment to realize was a bitter laugh.

"You can't give me that," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "You can't kill me."

She would reflect later that she could have made her reply by simply drawing the knife across his throat, and in doing so saved all of them a lot of trouble down the line. In that moment, however, when it was only the two of them in the dark, it was a curious enough thing to say that she stayed her hand. "What do you mean?" she asked. "I don't see anything that can stop me. You certainly aren't going to."

"I don't have to."

Nebula was about to prove him wrong at last, when pain blossomed behind one eye like a spike driven into her skull, deeper and deeper by the moment. She slumped to one knee with a broken cry of pain, the knife falling from her suddenly nerveless fingers as her other hand clamped over her head. That did nothing, of course. The pain only built, more and more, and she didn't understand why and so there was nothing she could do to stop it short of gouging out her eye…

Her vision had gone white with agony, or she would have grasped for her knife to do just that. She'd already sacrificed an arm for the sake of her own survival, after all. Flesh was weakness, and should be cast aside for the sake of power…and there was no greater power than to carry on.

The last thing Nebula felt, as she slumped to the side with her vision going grey around the edges, was the bloody stranger watching quietly as she suffered. Even through it all, she heard what he said very quietly, for her ears only.

"But thank you for trying."

Nebula awoke with a start, her mind going from senselessness to awareness inside of a few seconds. She'd had too much training for it to be any other way.

It took her a few seconds more to remember what had happened to render her unconscious, of course. After that, Nebula was grateful that she had woken up at all. She found herself in one of the research labs, strapped into an examination chair. That, at least, confirmed that whatever had been done to her was not so bad that it warranted another stint in the recovery tanks, no matter what Thanos thought of her plot to remove the prisoner from the equation.

That was something. That was practically merciful, really. Even if, when she finally recovered herself enough to raise her gaze, it was to realize that she'd been sitting in Thanos' shadow, and he'd been waiting for her to rouse herself.

Nebula said nothing. She merely met her father's gaze levelly. She knew it would all be said for her.

"You disobeyed me, daughter," he said, after a deliberate few seconds. "I told you to bring the prisoner to me so that I could deal with him. But why would I ever think that you could carry out such a simple instruction?" He rested a hand on the top of her head, deliberately forcing her gaze down, towards his feet. Nebula let him do it, wondering just how much he'd…guessed, or overheard, or however he'd known to stop her. Something in her cybernetics, probably. Within the walls of his fortress, Thanos knew and saw all.

"Before we go any further, Nebula, you will tell me why. Tell me why you so willfully disobeyed me in this. I can only accommodate you so far, my dear. I can only give you instructions so simple before you become utterly useless to me."

Unlike Gamora went unsaid, because it didn't need to be said by now.

Nebula flexed her fingers, but it was a nervous habit, more than anything. "I…" she began. She faltered, of course, and tried again, still with her eyes turned obediently towards the floor. "I don't understand, father. I don't understand why he deserves your attention, or the chance to serve you. He said it himself. He is nothing of importance. Except possibly a man who can still lie to you even after so long in the hands of your best agents. He would be dangerous to invite into your service, even if he could offer you anything at all."

"It is not for you to understand, child." Thanos sighed – long, tired, and put-upon. "He will serve me, and you will accept this. If he fails me, of course you may leave him to whatever fate befalls him, but until then, his life is mine to decide. It does not matter if you see anything of importance to me – I see something useful. And you know that I like to take care of useful things, don't you, Nebula?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Tell me, then, what you will do now."

She spoke through gritted teeth and swallowed pride. "I will work alongside him however you see fit. I will assist him as long as he is useful, and cast him aside when you deem that he is not. He is my ally and my enemy only at your word, my lord."

"Very good." His hand on her head became more a caress and less a restraint. "Perhaps there is hope for you yet. Now that we understand one another, Nebula, I'm going to have a talk with your new brother."

He left her there, still strapped to the chair in the corner of the lab. Nebula knew it would be up to her to see herself free.

Now that she'd been given tacit permission to do so, it was the work of a few moments.

There was no formal introduction. He just wasn't there, and then he was, after long enough that only a few scattered bandages marked the wounds that stubbornly refused to heal. Now they all had to deal with his presence in their family. Nebula only even learned his name because she asked him herself. It was a day or so after he'd been brought up to the floor of the fortress she now otherwise shared only with Gamora.

"Why do you care?" he growled in response to her question, not looking up at her.

"If we're going to be working together, I need to know. I can't just shout 'hey, you' when you foul something up. That would get confusing."

Nebula stood in the doorway to his sleeping area, leaning against the threshold with her arms folded. Calling it a "room" would be too generous – it was more of a pod, with enough room for a bed and some counter space. Said counters were mostly taken up by books, as far as she could see. The room's occupant had been sitting on his bed and staring at the wall when she came in. Nebula, even after everything, caught herself feeling traces of sympathy even when she wished very much that she didn't.

She told herself it was only curiosity that had led to her investigating their new "sibling". She wondered if Gamora had thought to do the same yet, or if she was just that confident in her ability to stay on top.

His eyes – a green so bright as to be nearly blue – flicked up to her, and then away once more. There was a long moment of silence that she was content to let drag on, because he wasn't Thanos, before he murmured, "Loki." And that was that. She didn't ask if he had any other names, because it didn't matter. If he'd had any before, they weren't his now. Then, like some big hurdle had been crossed, he turned to face her properly with an admirable pretense at disdainful boredom. "Then I suppose I should ask the same of you…for the same reasons."

"You can call me Nebula, 'brother' dearest."

Something in him seemed to…spasm at her quip, but he said nothing to it.

So with that out of the way, she moved into the room proper to examine the books – that was curious. Thanos normally kept them well stocked with weapons, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd picked up any sort of reading material that wasn't a mission briefing and he was still in no fit state to be going out on missions. Out of the corner of her eye, Nebula saw Loki bristle still further at the blatant intrusion on what had been assigned as "his" space. She deliberately ignored him, especially when she realized just what he'd been given in the way of reading material.

"You don't even know how to pilot a ship?"

He surged to his feet, snatching the heavy manual away from her. "It never came up." It sounded as though he was speaking through gritted teeth.

Nebula let him – all the better to dig through some of the other manuals. There was a datapad, too, which only said to her that there was so much he didn't know that it couldn't even be fit on paper. "What sort of a place do you come from?" she asked aloud, picking it up to stare down at the blank screen. He must have come here via some kind of starship, and the different makes and models didn't pilot so differently from one another that a detailed look at an operating manual was required. Even if someone else had flown him – unlikely, as no trace of an accomplice had been found and he had confessed nothing – sending out an agent who couldn't somehow pilot his way out if necessary would be tantamount to tactical suicide. All the same, his story, of arriving on his own through the Void of space without a ship, was so impossible that it was almost funny.

Then, because she still after everything didn't know: "What are you?" Why did he matter so much that Thanos was willing to do this for him, even after everything that wasn't matching up? What was that else she'd picked up when seeing beneath his flesh?

His gaze was so cold that Nebula momentarily fancied she felt the temperature in the room physically lower. "I am Loki. I am Thanos' loyal servant. And that is as far as either of us should care." He gave her a once-over clearly meant to be deliberately insolent, before adding in a tone like ice: "Perhaps I should ask 'what are you'? Or what you've done to yourself? You have no right to look at me as though I'm the only monster in the room!"

"Take a good look," Nebula growled, turning to face him properly and spreading her arms. Even if it was a stance that offered too many vulnerabilities, he wouldn't attack her – not here, not now, not even for the sake of his death wish. "Because this is going to be you, soon. Whatever about you that Thanos finds weak, insufficient, he will rip out and replace. Flesh is weak, and you will learn to cast it aside for the sake of power!" She took a slow, deliberate step forward – in a room this small, that meant that one reflexive step back from Loki already had his shoulder-blades brushing the wall. Like this, she could realize that he was actually an inch or so taller than she was. It hadn't been that evident before, from the way he stood, the way he moved, with his head bowed and his shoulders hunched like a beaten animal. All the same, Nebula didn't let their disparity in height keep her from reaching out to take firm hold of his chin, tilting his head this way and that as though she were doing nothing more than considering a horse. "And from where I'm standing, there won't be much left of this flesh by the time he's satisfied with you."

It was…so strange to be this close to a being untouched by cybernetic enhancements without intending to incapacitate them. Wanting to slap him senseless was not the same thing. To feel the race of his pulse beneath her hand and hear every unconscious move he made, trapped against the wall, without the accompanying hum of servos and gears. She wasn't sure if she wanted to keep touching him, the better to explore that weakness, or return to the familiar and slit his throat and stamp it out. For all his bared teeth and posturing, Nebula couldn't help but realize in that moment just how fragile he was.

Nebula definitely wasn't sure, in that moment where she felt almost drugged with power over another, what she expected Loki to do next. She knew she probably should have expected what he did next, which was bite her. Unfortunately, she'd grabbed him with her hand that was still mostly flesh, which was a stupid and overconfident thing to do and she paid for it when his teeth sank into her skin hard enough that she felt blood drawn.

She pulled her bleeding hand away and lashed out with her mechanical one, driving it hard into his stomach. He staggered with the harsh sound of air forcibly exhaled, clutching at his stomach as he slumped against the wall. Nebula stepped back, shifting into a fighting stance to deal with whatever he threw at her in retaliation once he'd caught his breath. After a moment, however, the sound of Loki struggling to remember how to breathe became, of all things, the sound of slightly hysterical laughter.

He looked up at her, one hand still braced on the wall, and he smiled in a way that reminded her of broken glass.

"That sounds wonderful. When can we start?"

Nebula stared at him, at his common shape that was nevertheless, in that moment, one of the most alien things she had ever seen. She found herself nothing short of speechless. The look in his eyes, the edge to his smile, the bloody, hungry anticipation of being broken down and remade was certifiably not right. She knew that it was the only way, of course. But what could possibly have happened to him to make him feel the same from the start?

It was Gamora who broke the strange, twisted spell that had fallen between them. "What the d'ast are you both doing?" she demanded from the doorway. Nebula looked back at her, Loki looked over at her, and she felt it. She felt the subtle shift in the air that marked the change from Nebula on one side and Loki on the other, to the two of them on one side and Gamora on the other.

Thanos' favorite daughter was regarding them with folded arms and a suspicious gaze that nevertheless managed to be so terribly disinterested, detached, in that way Gamora had that was possibly one of the greatest reasons Nebula hated her. "Nebula," she said coldly, turning to her sister. "Father already warned you once. His life is not yours'. At least give him a chance to fail. And you," She turned her gaze to Loki. "You have your own work to attend to, before you can make yourself useful to us. I suggest you focus on that, over provoking my sister."

With that, she turned and left without a backward glance, all she'd come to say apparently said. Apparently content to leave them to whatever they'd been doing anyway. Loki and Nebula, bruised and bloody, watched her go quietly. She could almost feel the wheels turning in his head, and wondered if his thoughts matched her own.

She learned that they most certainly did with what he said next. "Well. She looks…terribly pleased with herself in general, doesn't she?"

Nebula felt as though her heart had lifted with a feeling it took her several seconds to identify – understanding. Solidarity. She was glad that she was still a few steps ahead of Loki so that he couldn't see the way a smile tugged unbidden at the corners of her lips.

Maybe she'd overlooked one potentially very great benefit of having some new meat around the place.

"You don't know the half of it," was all Nebula said out loud. He would most certainly learn, however, just as she had, and Nebula certainly pitied him that inevitable day. For now, however, she simply moved to take her own exit from the room. "She's right, though. You should get to work. I guess I'll see you when I see you, Loki."

She waved over her shoulder and turned the corner. The urge to look back was rather less easy to ignore than it had obviously been for Gamora, so Nebula was proud of herself for managing it.