Chapter 5: Like Killing Partners for a Life

True to his word, she didn't see Tony again until she came to bring him food and inform him it was time to clean out his wound the next morning cycle.

"How's your arm?" he asked, staring at the wall across from him as she set aside the used gauze and handed him the cold, wet rag to press against his side.

"Functional." It no longer ached, and her relief at the sudden lack of pain was strong, but she would throw herself from the airlock before she admitted she had benefited from anyone's kindness.

Tony did not press for any form of gratitude or demand repayment, and instead moved on to another subject.

"So why are there no books in space?"

He filled the time until he was cleared to move around again peppering her with seemingly endless questions about the mundanities of life with space travel. Nothing of any real meaning was discussed, but it served to clear the air between them.

By mid-cycle they were sitting side by side on the floor of the common room. A small space had been cleared of debri and in it they were pulling apart the remains of what would have been the backup generator had it not been smashed in half on Titan. Supposedly, they were seeing if anything could be salvaged from it to be worked into some other part of the engine. Mostly, though, Tony was studying how it had been built in the first place while she occasionally offered the names to pieces he didn't recognize or offered explanations for how they would have interacted with the sections that were now missing.

"That's a pretty ingenious way to move so much power through such a small line," he grinned as he twirled a set of wires between his fingers. The glow from his chest provided most of the light they were working by, and everything was washed in a cool blue. "I was wondering how such a small generator was supposed to power this whole ship."

"Only for a short period," she clarified, "and it is designed to bypass the engines and run the basic life functions and communication systems of the ship, that's all."

"Still... Very neat." He set the wires down and move on to studying the next bit of tech he could get his hands on. There was a smile on his face as he worked. It was subtle and tired, but had a sincerity to it that was foreign to Nebula's eyes. She caught herself glancing up at it now and then, as though waiting for it to change into something more familiar; sarcasm, sadism, mockery, anything that she could hate or fear or make enough sense out of to know how to respond. She didn't know what to do with this soft innocence as he hummed and bobbed his head while he worked. Occasionally he'd catch her staring and offered her her own, slightly brighter smile.

-x-

"Can I ask you another question?"

"Nothing has managed to stop you so far."

They were sitting together at the table, the more interesting pieces of tech they'd stripped from the generator spread out between them. Tony was rolling a screw between his fingers, studying its shape.

"If your father got all of the Infinity Stones, and had the power to warp reality to his will, why didn't he fix his homeworld? I mean, that's the first thing I would have done. But nothing changed. He didn't even bring back half of them or whatever his agenda was."

"My father was never interested in saving anyone," Nebula told him, the piece of tech in her own hands suddenly losing what little appeal it had. "This was just about proving he was right."

"Oh." The Terran lowered the screw, rolling it between his fingers thoughtfully. "You know, people used to say that about me..."

Nebula raised her eyes to regard him.

"They were wrong, of course," he amended quickly, as though he'd just realized he'd said that out loud. "But, maybe I can see why it scared them so much to think that..."

His gaze flickered up to meet hers with an unspoken question, and traces of a fear she knew all too well. The fear of someone who had given a wrong answer, and knew that there would be consequences to come.

She let him suffer in silence for a moment, as he seemed so keen on making her suffer, before she gave him his answer in turn.

"If you were anything like my father, you wouldn't have needed to ask that question," she finally said, and his shoulders sagged with relief at her forgiveness.

-x-

"Hey Space-Girl, you wanna play a game?"

"You are in no condition to survive such a thing."

The Terran pursed his lips together and gave her a strange look from where he sat on his chair and watched her tinker with the pieces they had removed from the generator earlier that cycle. "I mean like, a table game." He held up the wrapper to the rations he had finished off earlier that cycle, folded into a thick triangular shape. "Like football?"

"That's not a ball. And keep your feet off the table. It's already unsanitary enough."

She turned back to her work, but the Terran's laughter rang out from behind her. "That's just the game it's named after. Come on, I'll teach you how to play. It'll be fun, I promise."

The project she'd been working on was hopeless anyways. It had passed the point of killing time and was just making her angry now. A distraction, however ridiculous, might be forgivable. With a sigh she set her tools down and rose to join him at the table.

"Alright!" His teeth flashed in a bright grin as she approached. "Just take a seat right across from me."

She did so, settling into the chair he had indicated and eyeing him suspiciously. He had no weapons that she was aware of, and was still too weak to offer any sort of threat, especially from where he sat, huddled in on himself for warmth and clearly favoring his left side. Perhaps he was intending to gamble, though there was nothing here of value to bet.

"So," he held up the folded piece of food wrapper, "this is the 'football' and the table is the field. And our hands are going to be the little players and goal posts. The game is to win points by flicking the ball over the other person's hands."

She narrowed her eyes at the supposed ball, not sure what the point of this exercise was supposed to be.

"Here, I'll go first and show you what I mean. Hold your hands like this." He shrugged off his blanket and leaned over the table to hold his arms out so that just the tips of his index fingers met, the other fingers curled into fists and his thumbs sticking out and straight upward.

Slowly, still not sure that she wasn't going to end up the butt of some joke or that this was somehow an elaborate prank, she mimicked his pose.

"A little more like this," he said, wiggling his hands for emphasis. When she just frowned at him, not sure what the difference was, he instead held his hands out towards her cautiously. "May I?"

She allowed him to adjust her hands through delicate nudges. Once he was satisfied, he sat back and picked up the food wrapper, balancing it between one finger and the table. "So now, I'm going to flick it."

The little piece of trash sailed through the air and she snatched at it as it passed over her hands, slamming it down onto the table with a bang that made the Terran jump in his seat. Ah, so it was a reflex exercise. A little childish, but something the Terran could do without straining himself, at least.

The Terran stared back at her through wide eyes, one corner of his lips pursed into a baffled frown. "That's not, quite right," he said slowly, "but good hustle."

He held his hand out for the foil 'ball' and she returned it. The trash triangle was set back up, and Nebula obligingly set her hands back into the required position. Again, the trash sailed through the air. This time she swatted it aside before it could cross over her hands. The Terran startled again at her sudden movement.

"You don't need to do that," he said slowly as he settled back down, "because, uh, you're just holding a position..."

He brought his own hands into the strange formation he had shown her. "Look, you give it a try."

Still not entirely convinced there wasn't some trick here, she lined up the triangle as he had done it and gave it a solid flick. The triangle sailed off down the length of the table.

"That was close," Tony said, his browsed raised high as he reached to retrieve the folded wrapper and hand it back to her. "I took two turns, so go ahead and go again."

A wave of frustration washed over her skin as she lined the supposed ball up again, narrowing her eyes and studying the short space between them carefully. This time the piece of trash flipped too far upward, and came down near his elbow.

"Here." He grabbed the foil triangle and lined it up, waiting for her to make the symbol with her own hands again. "The trick is to not focus on strength. It's too weak and light weight, it'll just catch the air and flip around unpredictably. When you flick it, hold your fingers like this, flick from below, and make sure you loosen your grip with your other hand." This time she held her hands still as he flicked the triangle and it sailed easily over her fingers to land on her side of the table.

"Your turn again."

Carefully, she followed his instructions, and was surprised when the ball actually made it to its intended target as he had promised.

"That's a goal," he told her with a nod. "We are now one a piece."

"I would like to try again," she breathed, worried that the game was over now that she knew enough to have a fighting chance.

"Okay, how does first one to five goals sound?"

She nodded quickly, too quickly, then caught herself and schooled her features back into careful disinterest. "That would be alright."

The time slipped away all too fast as they took turns flicking the piece of trash back and forth, missing at least as often as they made their goals. More than once she caught her lips twitching upwards into a smile and had to will them back down into a more neutral expression.

"Now we're all tied up," Tony informed her as she made her fourth goal. His voice was starting to lose it's usual edge and he seemed to be growing tired again. "Do you feel the tension? It's fun." His next attempt sailed wide down the table much as her first one had.

"See now that was terrible," he said, lining his hands up again. "So now you have a chance to win."

Her next try flipped high in the air and landed quite neatly on the table inside of the cage of his arms.

"And, you've won."

She straightened up, leaning back from the table slightly, not sure what happened next.

"Congratulations. Fair game." Tony held his hand out towards her, and after a moment's hesitation she took it. "Good sport. Did you have fun?"

"It is fun," she murmured, surprising herself with the honesty behind the statement even as it passed her lips. Despite herself, she was sorry to see the game end.

A huge yawn took over Tony's face as he released her hand to tug his blanket back over his shoulders. "I'm beat. I think I'm going to take a nap now." He stood and vanished into the cockpit, and just like that he was gone. The game had ended, with her the victor, and she sat at the table staring at the little folded piece of trash. A small spark of something so rare and unfamiliar in her life that its appearance startled her fluttered about in her chest. A visitor so scarce and maltreated that she feared putting a name to it or looking at it too closely, lest it bite her in turn.

Happiness.

End Chapter 5

Chapter 6 Preview: "...Someone out there is unfortunate enough to have to marry you?"

Tony let out a chuckle. "Yeah, that's pretty much the usual response I get when I tell people. But she agreed, willingly, I swear."

"That poor girl."

He reached forward to trace his fingers slowly over the face of the helmet. "Yeah. I know..."

.

Sorry for the no update yesterday. I was working on some other projects along with this one. Have an extra long and warm mushy chapter to make up for it!

I did make some Nebula and Tony art for my tumblr [ caffeineandconceptart] if anyone's interested. Nothing big, just a warmup since I haven't drawn as much lately, but I do plan to do some doodles for this fic, specifically at some point.

Thank you all again for those comments! I swear my heart's going to explode!

I had some people ask about Pepper and Gamora. Pepper, as you can tell, is going to come up a bit in the next chapter, and I do have some stuff about Gamora in mind, but I'm not sure yet where exactly she'll come up. :) We have time, still.

-OMaM