Inspired by "Stolen Moments," by Hickumu.

*looks at the plot bunny that's been jumping on my bed for the past month now* Here! Happy now?

Honestly, I'm not sure if they're OOC and I made them too soft, or if I really downplayed the rivalry between Nebula and Gamora, but this idea just kept coming at me and at me, and soon enough, I had planned out a whole series! Fanfic is really taking over my life.

Disclaimer: Again, I don't own any of these characters, nor the movies they came from. I'm not Disney or Kevin Feige. You don't even know me.

Father's new recruit intrigues her.

The thought is rather traitorous, seeing as nobody who comes onto the Sanctuary as a prisoner should be labeled as 'intriguing', and should definitely not be worthy of note. However, she does remember a time long ago, when she was still a newcomer to the ship and had sympathized with all the prisoners they kept there. Gamora had said, Don't. It's not worth it. They're below us.

And that was that (she didn't remember when sympathy had morphed into disgust).

But Father's new recruit is different.

He came from somewhere; he fell right to them. Father hadn't needed to go conquer a planet to pluck him off of it like ripe fruit from a tree. Father hadn't needed to do anything.

He had come to them.

And he's defiant, spitting mad with long black hair, talks of domination and of birthrights and of death. He sounds, well...he sounds almost like Father.

That was probably why she had been tasked to break him. He had set her up to fail.

"Father, please. Give me more time and I can do it."

He shakes his head, back turned towards her. She isn't even worthy of his full attention. "Daughter, you've had a month already. It's clear that all you'll find is failure."

She grits her teeth and tries not to let him see her hands shaking. It's a weakness; it's something he'd have to enhance, and that wouldn't do, would it? "But-"

"Perhaps Gamora will do what you could not."

Gamora, with all her slender green beauty, steps into the light from where she's been leaning against the wall, watching them. "I will try." Nebula resists the urge to snort. 'I will try' always means 'I will do it, and I will do it better than you'. 'Try' has always been Gamora's blanket statement, because she always tries her best, and her best is always better than Nebula's.

"Excellent," Father murmurs, and now he turns around. "Nebula, I expected better of you. Perhaps a session with Ebony would be good...or maybe another replacement?"

She looks down. "Yes, Father." It's not like she hasn't gone through this before.

Gamora flops down onto her bed in their shared bedroom, groaning and burying her face in her pillow, not even bothering to take off her boots.

Nebula is sitting on her own bed, leaning against the wall and tinkering with her hand. She raises her eyebrows at her sister because, despite everything, she's rarely seen her outwardly tired like that (or, at least, she doesn't really remember; every day is the same once you've been here awhile).

"What happened?"

"I can see why you've had trouble with the prisoner," she says into her pillow.

Nebula thinks her eyebrows might fly off of her head. "Really." She can't quite hold back the glee in her voice.

Gamora takes off one of her boots and throws it at her face without looking. She catches it easily, plopping it onto the floor beside her own. "Yes, really." She sits up then, a scowl on her face. "He's defiant."

"I hadn't realized."

Gamora leans down to take off her other boot and throws it at her, too. Nebula has half a mind to take both boots and shove them into the trash compactor, but Father is displeased with her as of now, and it wouldn't do to distress his little princess further.

"You tried everything, right? Knives, whips, fire..."

Nebula swallows a little. It's one thing to do the torturing, and it's an entirely other thing to talk about it so casually. "Yes, Sister. What do you think of me? An amateur?"

Gamora seems to look around for something else to throw at her, but then gives up and lays back down, staring at the dark ceiling. "You tried the threats?"

Nebula snorts. "What? The 'unimaginable pain'? The 'I'm the last thing you'll see before you die'? The 'pain worse than death' or whatever shit the Other says? I've said it all. It seems he thinks he deserves it, that he's not worth saving." She pauses. "I think he wants to die."

It's her sister's turn to raise her eyebrows. "Well we can't let that happen, can we?"

"We?"

"Me."

Nebula rolls her eyes. She doesn't know why she's helping her, since her success would mean her own failure and another enhancement, but it seems to be the only productive thing they can do together and she'd be a fool to throw it away.

"Do you think we can find any family or friends to threaten?"

Nebula shakes her head. "We don't even know where he came from. Besides, I tried the 'you'll never see your family again' threat and he just laughed in my face. I don't think he cares about them all that much."

"Hmm...tried the sympathy approach?"

"He doesn't want pity."

"Empathy, I mean."

Nebula stares at her for a few seconds and wonders if she's joking or not. "He's a prisoner; we can't relate to him."

Gamora tilts her head a little. "But he's trapped here," she hesitates a little, "like us."

She feels a wry grin split her face. "That's funny."

"What?"

"We're not trapped here. Well, certainly not you." The new metal foot she got last year twinges a little. "Father has done us some good. We should be thankful."

Gamora looks at her sadly. "You keep telling yourself that."

The next month ends.

Father gives Gamora another month, because of course he does.

The following month ends as well.

And Gamora fails.

The perfect daughter actually fails.

Nebula can't quite believe it.

She and Gamora stand shoulder to shoulder, so close she can feel her sister's shaking. Good. She knows how it feels to fail now. Perhaps she'll cut Nebula some slack from now on.

Father is sitting on his throne, face in a frown. The prisoner is kneeling in front of him, cuts and bruises and blood all over and wearing ragged clothing. She remembers how elegant it had been before, flowing gold and green, but now it is full of filth and tears. He must've been a person of rank, she thinks. The clothing was special, carefully-made, something she couldn't ever imagine wearing herself.

"It seems we've had some trouble with you."

The prisoner looks up from his knees and spits some blood at Father's feet. Nebula reaches out to do something because nobody disrespects Thanos like that, but Gamora pulls her back. They are in the middle of a glaring contest when Thanos reaches out to backhand him across the face.

He lets out a small cry of pain.

Nebula remembers when she first started torturing him, how he'd refuse to cry out or scream.

She'd changed that.

But it was, again, a sign of his defiance, of his worth, apparently, in Father's eyes. Father never did anything himself unless he thought it worth his time. In this case, that meant trying to bargain with or break a seemingly unbreakable prisoner.

"Who are you?" Father asks.

A few seconds of silence pass as the prisoner seems to weigh his options. "Loki," he eventually concedes. Loki. Nebula repeats it over and over again in her head. The name seems to fit him, all sly and dangerous.

"Loki, then," Father murmurs. "Where are you from?"

The prisoner laughs, a horrid sound. "I am from nowhere. My people abandoned me, and the people I grew up with despise me."

"And why is that?" Nebula doesn't entirely know why the prisoner is so open now instead of when she was actually torturing him; perhaps the hopelessness had reached him, or perhaps Gamora had done him some good.

"My birthright was to rule," he snarls out. She's also not entirely certain if he should be in an insane asylum or not.

"Ah..." Father murmurs, eyes sparking with an idea. This one has potential, that look says. I have plans for this one, that look says. Nebula's seen it many times now, and it's only been pointed towards her once.

The problem with that look is what comes after it. Father needs him completely broken to build him up again, for him to serve. He nods towards the two Chitauri guards by the door then, and they come forward. "Bring him to Ebony and the Other. Let's see what they can do."

That night, she buries her head in her pillow to try and drown out the screams.

The prisoner became 'Loki', and then he becomes their brother.

It took the pair of them one measly week to break him, but luckily, Thanos doesn't punish her or Gamora because Ebony and the Other have different methods that she doesn't want to go into.

Instead, she watches from across the training room as he traverses the place freely (and without any enhancements, which is a surprise).

She stays away because she's curious, and that scares her.

Gamora, on the other hand, stays close, maybe experimenting with the empathy thing she's got going on, maybe just doing with him what she'd done with Nebula all those years ago. She doesn't really know, and she doesn't really care (that's a lie).

Of course, 'cause things never go her way, he sidles up to her one day and won't. Shut. Up. "Hello Nebula."

She glares at him, cleaning the dagger she's holding with more vigor than necessary. "How do you know my name?"

He shrugs. "Gamora told me."

"Figures." She scowls, glancing down to grab another dagger to clean. She looks up and he's still there. "What are you doing?"

He shrugs again. He seems to do that a lot. "Watching you."

"It's unbearable, and creepy. Stop doing it." Most people would wilt under her glare, but he simply laughs at her.

"You're a good torturer."

She blinks. "I don't think anyone has ever said that in their life."

"Well, perhaps I've set a precedent." He gives her a smug smirk that is extremely out of place on the Sanctuary.

"You're full of yourself."

He shrugs. Again. "Well what else was I supposed to say?"

"Whatever you said to Gamora?"

"True, true." He nods, leaning against the wall a bit. She looks at him in his leather clothing (green and black) and combed-back hair.

"You look better," she says, wondering all the while if this is an acceptable thing to say.

He laughs; it sounds fake. "Well I would hope so. The last time you saw me I was being tortured."

The turn in conversation makes her uncomfortable. She drops the dagger with a clatter and starts with another one. How does one speak to someone they tortured? None of the ones she'd tortured before had made it this far.

He seems to notice, smirk disappearing a little as his facade breaks. She begins to see the hopelessness and pain she'd expected. Good. Everyone on this ship is messed up in one way or another, and he should be no different. He's not special; he's just resilient.

She thinks she can respect that.

"So what's the story behind this?" he asks, knocking on her metal arm like it is a door.

She glares. "Hasn't Gamora told you?"

He frowns. "No. I haven't asked. Why ask her when I can ask you instead?" Which, okay. Sure. She's definitely not shocked. (Nobody's inquired about her in so long.)

"They're enhancements," she says, looking him in the eyes and challenging him to say anything different. "They make me better, help me fight better. Whenever I fail, Father replaces another part of me."

He frowns, opening his mouth and then closing it again, only to repeat the process. Good. She doesn't want the pity.

"Do they really make you better, though?"

"Father knows what's best, Loki." She looks at the wall and tries to believe it herself.

He snorts. "Well, my so-called Father-"

"Your Father is Thanos now." It's weird, very weird, but the sooner he accepts it, the sooner she gets used to having a new sibling (it's been a long time since the Black Order has welcomed another member).

He frowns. He seems to do that a lot, too. "Well...my previous Father, then, was the King." So a person of rank; she was right. "He lied to me my whole life. I guess that's how I found myself here."

"You guess?"

He sends her an annoyed look, and she has the ridiculous urge to laugh. "So he's the one who drove you out of your planet and to here?" she asks instead. (Step 1 of having a sibling: annoy them. Constantly. Check.)

"Something like that." His gaze is far away, and he's quiet for a few seconds.

"But you have us now," she says when the silence becomes too much. "Me and Gamora." Everyone else doesn't matter. At this moment, Father doesn't even matter.

"It's 'Gamora and I'," he says, a small smile blooming onto his face.

She shakes her head, elbowing him in the arm. "Shut up."

Loki moves into their bedroom, and it eventually becomes something close to normal.

There are days where they talk, just yearning to be heard. And then there are the days where they won't say anything to one another, too lost in their own worlds.

She learns that he had a family before here. Well, everyone had a family before here, but nobody remembers them. Most of the time, they aren't even alive. Loki had one, though, and they are healthy and alive and probably wondering where he is (he insists otherwise, but she sees how he misses them). She can't blame him; she misses her old family, too, even if she doesn't remember them.

Any family is probably better than here (and that is another traitorous thought).

"I had a brother, you know," he murmured once, when it was just the two of them. Gamora had been sent out to scout some planet at the edge of the galaxy.

"What was he like?" Nebula asked then, genuinely curious about what a normal life looked like. Loki knew; she and Gamora didn't.

He smiled a bitterly sad smile, playing a little with the magic orb floating near the ceiling of their bedroom. "He was a huge oaf. Imposing, idiotic. Long blonde hair and a strong build, the perfect warrior of Asgard." Asgard. She placed that piece of information beside all the other scraps she'd gleaned from him.

"He overshadowed me all the time," he continued, eyes far away. "He never really noticed my pain until it was too late."

She thought about the wording of that, played it over and over in her head. "But he noticed you in the end?"

His brows furrowed. "I think...I think he did. But..."

"But it was too late?"

"Yeah. I was jealous of him, still am, really. Kind of like you with Gamora."

"What?" She was tired; it didn't have the bite it usually did.

"I've noticed; it's obvious."

"If it's that obvious, then why hasn't she noticed?"

He shook his head, then snapped his fingers, snuffing out the floating orb and bringing their room into total darkness. "The light doesn't notice the darkness until it is too late."

He's like her, she thinks sometimes.

Occasionally, Thanos makes the three of them fight. They win and they lose.

The losses don't seem to matter so much anymore.

He never gets punished with enhancements, though. She figured that out when Thanos had tried once, and it had instead ended with Loki's magic exploding out and his blood splattering the walls. Some days, he still coughs out blood.

She's far from jealous, even as she looks at her metallic fingers. Magic is rare in this part of the universe. Thanos tends to experiment on him because of that; or, well, Thanos asks Ebony Maw to experiment on him, and he does so gleefully.

After those sessions, she sits with him silently when his breaths seem much more ragged than usual. Sometimes, he even leans into her shoulder as he just tries to breathe. His magic is a beautiful, delicate thing, she thinks. Thanos nor Ebony have a right to that (she's really racking up on traitorous thoughts now).

The three of them spend a lot of time together, an unusual amount. They talk about nothing, but it becomes everything. Some days, Nebula can't stop laughing, and she thinks it's the most gleeful she's been in a long time. They stay up for days at a time just to get a shared numbness that makes them too tired to dream (and their dreams are far from pleasant). They heal one another, in a way, and become something close to family, united in this dark place, in what the world has made them.

Thanos allows these moments to happen. She wonders if he even knows about them, if he thinks those under his lead are so broken that they'd never even think of misbehaving like this.

She finds she doesn't care about his wrath as much as she used to.

After one particularly successful mission, Gamora brings them some alcohol she managed to smuggle onto the ship. Normally, Nebula would be surprised at her disobedience, or jealous that the perfect daughter would never be caught or punished; but instead, she grabs one bottle and takes a swig.

It tastes bitter, and she thinks it sums up her life pretty accurately.

She can't get drunk, of course; Thanos hadn't allowed her even that. She supposes she could simulate the effects of drunkenness with a few mismatched wires, or a dagger to the right circuit board, but doesn't think it's worth it. Watching Gamora and Loki is entertaining enough.

"Did you see that Ataraxian trip and fall into the dumpster when he saw us?" Gamora asks, laughing uncontrollably. Nebula has to follow. It was pretty funny; his face had been priceless.

Loki scowls, but it's half-hearted. He sips at his drink slowly, elegantly, ever the prince he'd been. "You made me get him out."

"You could've used your magic," Gamora pointed out. "How was I supposed to know you'd jump in there after him?"

Loki laughs. "I guess I'm idiotic sometimes. You two are rubbing off on me." Gamora shoves him off of where he's perched on the railing, and he falls to the floor in a dramatic heap. Nebula kicks his leg for good measure. (It's not a secret that Maw is damaging his magic with all his experimentation, but it's just better to ignore the issue altogether.)

"Have you noticed that Fa- Tha- Father has sent us on less missions lately?" Nebula asks.

A few seconds of thoughtful silence. "It's because he's caught sight of another infinity stone," Loki murmurs, not looking at them.

Both she and Gamora look at him in surprise. Interesting. Usually Gamora is the one to know of things like this before them. "How do you know that?" her sister asks conversationally, a smile on her face. It's not the dangerous one she wears right before she disembowels someone; it's the disconcertingly carefree one she wears when it's just them. The fact that she isn't at all worried about what Loki just revealed shows that she might be something close to drunk, which...wow. That drink was probably very strong.

"He told me. He plans to send me there to retrieve it." Loki's not looking at them, which means he's hiding something. It's again, odd. He's usually a much better liar than this.

"With us?" Nebula asks tentatively, because she suddenly feels very cold for reasons unknown to her.

"No. With the Chitauri. To Midgard." Nebula has no idea where that is.

"The Chitauri?" Gamora laughs. "They're the worst army in the galaxy! Why else would they be doing all the menial work around here?" And oh, she must be really drunk if she's insulting Father and his glorified army so loudly. (Still, Nebula begrudgingly agrees.)

"Well, Midgard isn't exactly an advanced planet. The only reason those self-centered humans know there's life beyond them is because my brother got himself banished and landed there and..." He trails off, melancholy written all over his face. Nebula knows he still misses his brother, even if he won't admit it.

It's unusual for Gamora to ignore such blatant sadness, but she does so anyways (again, she's probably drunk). "Oh! You're talking about Terra! Now I see why the Chitauri are coming."

Nebula blinks. Terra? Thanos wants to conquer that pathetic piece of rock? "Which infinity stone do they have?" she asks, genuinely curious.

"The space stone." Well, at least it isn't power. "And time, and reality, but he doesn't know about those," he mutters as an afterthought. Nebula thinks he might be drunk, too, or just really tired. He's not normally this open.

She still feels very cold, though, but it seems that, even drunk, Gamora catches onto emotions better than her. "You're coming back afterwards, aren't you?" her sister asks in a surprisingly vulnerable voice. (Nebula is beginning to think the cold isn't physical.)

Loki hesitates (again, he's usually a better liar than this, but it seems he can't lie to them), and that says it all. Gamora gasps, a very dramatic one at that. "You're not?!" she asks, panicked.

"Shhh! Sh sh sh. The whole galaxy doesn't need to know, dear sister."

"Why?" is all Nebula can think to ask.

After a few seconds, he says, "I'm planning something ambitious."

They sit in silence for what feels like a few hours, but is probably only one. Gamora and Loki begin to slag off while Nebula just holds her bottle in her hands and looks at it, still mostly full. Why is it so painful to think that he'd leave them? It's wasn't that improbable; there were better places than this.

But...but she thought it'd been just the three of them. Why did he have to leave in the first place?

Gamora suddenly leans against her, head on her shoulder. It causes Nebula to flinch in surprise. "You'll still talk to us, right?" she slurs out.

"Mm-hmm." Loki nods a few times in rapid succession, as if the affirmation wasn't already clear, and then closes his eyes.

Nebula thinks she feels a bit warmer.

She groans, and then immediately stands up, sending Gamora's head slamming to the floor. "Ow!" Nebula sniggers a little, but then leans down to haul the two of them up by their arms.

"Come on. Off to bed." When did she become the babysitter? She's pretty sure she's the youngest.

They stumble in the hallways, but miraculously, she gets to push them face-first into their respective beds without incident. Gamora starts snoring as soon as her head hits the pillow, and Nebula has to smile as she takes off her own boots and crawls into her bed.

She's somewhat settled when Loki speaks out into the darkness. "G'night, Nebula."

After a second, she mutters, "Night."

Long after his breaths even out, she stays awake, thinking.

He didn't have to tell them. It was an unnecessary, sentimental risk to even mention it. It was traitorous; they'd all been traitorous, discussing this like nothing was wrong.

They'd all been pretending that they were the perfect family when they really weren't.

So why had he told them? It was because he couldn't lie to them, she supposed, and he couldn't lie to them because...because it's nice, when it's just the three of them, because his walls had been torn down and then Gamora's had, and then - and then hers had, too.

It leaves her feeling vulnerable, and cold, so very cold.

Gamora blinks her eyes open in the morning, groaning like the whole world has crushed her (maybe it has).

Loki is next, less audible about it, but she can clearly see the headache plaguing him.

"Good morning," she calls out cheerfully.

"Shut up," Loki mumbles, bringing his thin blanket up so it covers his head. It's a surprisingly childish gesture, and she knows that it'll cause his hair to frizz up.

"I feel drunk. Am I drunk?" Gamora asks absolutely no one.

"Nope. Just hung over," Nebula replies with a grin. She takes it back. She never wants to get drunk if it feels like that.

"Lokiiii."

"What?" he growls out. She sees his hand twitch towards his pillow before he gives up. Probably weighed the options between throwing a pillow at Gamora and having something soft to lay his pounding head on.

"Can't you do something about it? With your magic?"

"I don't think you know how magic works."

Nebula snorts; they look absolutely miserable.

"Pleeeease?"

"No!"

"Pretty please?"

"I don't see how that makes it better."

"It just does."

"No it doesn't."

Does being drunk usually make people more childish? Nebula doesn't know.

"Besides," Loki says, finally sitting up but choosing to bury his face in his hands instead of facing the light, "I'm not allowed to use magic while drunk."

"Says who?" Gamora asks.

"My mother." Then he frowns, as if he doesn't know why he said that.

"Well she's not here right now," Nebula points out, reminding him that it's just the three of them now. The rest of the world can do whatever it wants as long as it leaves them alone.

(It's a good lie when it lasts.)

But instead of clamming up, Loki keeps talking. "It started a few decades ago." Nebula will never get used to how old he technically is. "I was intoxicated, and accidentally turned my brother's hair green."

Nebula snorts. "I bet it was funny."

Loki smiles fondly. "It was."

Later, when someone finds the alcohol bottles she'd left on the ground, it's easy to blame it on some random Chitauri footsoldier.

A few weeks later, long after she's forgotten the previous incident as just another day, Nebula gets a new left shin. She's tinkering with it on her bed, trying to make it less squeaky, trying to make it her own, when Loki comes running in, unreadable except for his eyes full of panic.

She stiffens; something is wrong.

"Here." He thrusts out his hand, and in it is a delicate green orb full of swirling magic. It is attached to a chain with a clasp, and she just furrows her brows at it and opens her mouth but nothing comes out. She doesn't understand.

"What?"

"It's a necklace; here, I'll put it on for you." She turns around to let him, but can feel how his hands shake as he does so.

She looks down, holding it in her hand and rolling it around a little. This is a piece of his magic; this is something precious to him. Why...? "Loki, what's wrong?"

Loki looks at her sadly, a bitter smile coming onto his face. "It's...nothing you should worry about."

She smirks, despite the situation. "I thought we were past that."

He looks down, and she doesn't like seeing him so vulnerable. It hurts more than it does to realize that she's become so, too. "Just, when I'm gone. Remember me with that, okay?" It's a surprisingly sentimental reason, but she sweeps it aside to deal with later.

"It's...pretty," which is an understatement. She's never had something quite like this.

"I know." He smiles, and it's a bit more warm. "As long as my heart keeps beating, and as long as I have breath in my lungs, it will keep glowing."

Something constricts in her chest, but she ignores it in lieu of shoving him off of the bed. It shocks a laugh out of him. "You're always so dramatic. Can't you say, 'as long as I'm still alive' or something like that?"

"Okay, then. As long as I'm still alive, that orb will keep glowing."

She frowns. "And if you die?" It's if, not when. She refuses to accept it.

His voice is soft when he answers her. "Then my magic will recede, and you will be left with an empty orb to fill as you wish."

She nods, but continues to search his face for information. For the first time in a long time, he doesn't let her. "Goodbye, Loki." It seems to be a 'goodbye', at least; it hurts more than she'd like it to.

He smiles a sad little smile, and holds her right hand in both of his for a moment. "Goodbye, Nebula."

And then he's off.

It isn't until later that she realizes he didn't expect to return. Ever.

Based on his screams, he has a session with the Other that night. She wonders what he did.

The next day, Thanos reveals that he'd sent Loki to Terra. (That explains what Loki had done. He'd existed. It'd been a last-minute attempt for Thanos to assert dominance over his so-called child before he went off on an important mission.) He tasks all of them to get the Chitauri army ready for the invasion. She's freezing, but does so anyways, even though it probably won't do any good.

She's right. They lose. Thanos sulks for a few days, and she and Gamora suddenly find themselves with more free time to fill and an empty space in their bedroom and their hearts.

"You know he didn't want to hurt you, or me, right?" Gamora asks softly.

"I know." That didn't mean it didn't hurt.

Whoo! And that is the longest one-shot I've written so far. I'm actually proud of myself. When I first started writing fanfic, I couldn't even reach 1,000 words.