So, just watched the Endgame trailer yesterday and... Well, I'm relieved this story is already an AU, because apparently missed/didn't know some details of who lived/died, etc. (Should probably have at least watched Ant Man and the Wasp before writing this, but too late now.) Still, I'm looking forward to the movie, which will be nothing like this story! (That much I can confidently predict.)
Hello, everybody; ModernDayBard here!
Here we are with chapter two, as promised. This is the part of the story that sort of wrote itself—I didn't have an outline, I just thought of what would logically happen next and wrote that scene, often the characters taking over and taking it places I wouldn't have thought to go to. Hopefully, you like the result!
Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, their characters, settings, McGuffins, etc. I own the ideas I suppose, as much as anyone can (though they've been heavily influenced by listening to discussions and reading other fics) and the words that I have chosen to narrate with.
Nebula sat, curled up in one of the chairs in the cockpit, watching space unfold around them as they traveled. Truthfully, she didn't need to be in there—the ship wouldn't require manual control until they reached Earth and had to land, or unless they encountered any kind of debris or asteroid field, but it was easier to be there and look out than to wander the ship and see traces of her sister and the Guardians scattered all around.
Still, the urge to glance over her shoulder, to go back in there, hammered at her, and she knew why.
The kid.
True, she didn't know much about Terran biology or life cycle, but one only had to watch how he carried himself in the aftermath of everything falling apart, watch how the other Terrans interacted with the other survivor to know that he was young. They'd even called him 'kid' and 'boy'.
Thanos had called him a child.
Nebula growled in her throat, as she always did at the thought of the one who dared to call himself her father, but also at her position. She wasn't a caring person. Never had been—Gamora was the only person she cared about, and even that was strained and tainted by what Thanos had continuously put them through, and her own childhood was hardly a model for how to treat anyone—no matter their age. And now there was someone else's life dependent on her actions, and she had no clue how to help—or even if she wanted to.
You could go after Thanos right now…track him down. Why bother taking a dying boy back to earth—what good will it do, besides giving Thanos a head start?
It was a tempting thought—she had nothing left to lose, so why not throw everything at her father in one last, desperate play for revenge?
"To kill Thanos."
"Alone?"
Why did that have to be his response—like he actually cared whether she was alone or not, like he cared what happened to her, when she didn't care about him at all?
Then why didn't you leave him on Titan? He didn't know you were still there, you could've left him in that wailing mess. Why hand him the medical supplies, if you don't care whether he lives or dies?
Why did her conscience have to sound so much like Gamora? That just made the pain of losing her sister worse.
Worse still, the answer revealed a sentimental weakness she cringed to acknowledge: she hadn't left him there because he sounded like how she felt, so many years ago, when her own family was slaughtered, stolen away from her before her nightmare truly began. And how she felt when she'd pieced together—two heartbeats before Quill had—that her sister, the only person left in the universe that Nebula had let herself care about, was gone. So much of her was machine now she doubted she was physically capable of shedding tears, of giving full voice to her grief like she had as a child. But he could, and had, and…
…she couldn't leave him behind. Curse her infernal weakness—would she never be rid of it?—but she hadn't been able to leave the boy behind. She was taking him back to earth because, if she didn't, if she took him with her to fight Thanos, she might actually find herself distracted, trying to make sure he stayed back and out of her way.
Movement behind her caught her attention, and she glanced at a readout. Barely an hour since the kid'd dropped off. Still, an hour's sleep was better than nothing, given the circumstances…
"No…"
Shit. Nightmare.
Nebula hadn't thought she could get any more out of her depth, and then the kid had to go and prove her wrong. He was shifting, mumbling to himself in the grips of whatever terrors his own mind was putting him through, and she found that she was standing by him without any real memory of having left the cockpit.
She frowned down at the sleeping child, caught in yet another moment of indecision (she was getting very tired of those) before deciding against physical contact and going for volume instead.
"JUST WAKE UP ALREADY!" she yelled, and was actually rewarded with the sight of the boy sitting bolt upright, though he immediately wrapped his arm around his side when he did.
Right. Injury.
He looked up at her, swallowed, then found his voice at last. "Are we there yet?" he asked in a small voice, and the little sideways smirk seemed to say this was some kind of a joke to him, but not one he found funny, at the moment.
She just frowned. "We've got at least two more hours before we're in the right star system."
He nodded, slumping forward and staring at the floor, and Nebula shifted at the sight of the huddled, hunched figure, cursing whatever sort of sentiment was infecting her the longer she stayed in his presence. "Can you walk?"
He squinted up at her, and she waited, sensing he was taking stock of his own state. "How far?" he asked at last.
She gestured to the cockpit, and he seemed to measure the distance before nodding. Wordlessly, she turned and headed back, listening to see if he would follow. He did.
Now I won't have to go back in there to check on him.
If you 'don't care', why check on him at all?
Shut up, Gamora.
His brown eyes went wide at the vista that opened before them through the view hatch, and Nebula was reminded that the reason she knew so little of Terrans was that they were not generally a space-faring species. He sank into one of the chairs and stared out, mercifully silent, for several long moments, and Nebula allowed herself to believe she could spend the rest of the journey wrapped up in her own thoughts once more.
No such luck.
"Was it just you and your sister?"
She glared at the boy, but he must've read incomprehension rather than anger, because he actually kept talking, contrary to common sense.
"I mean, like, it's just me and my Aunt May. Is it just the two of you, or—
"Gamora lived here. With her friends. I didn't."
The boy glanced around, seeming to realize for the first time that, odds were, he was sitting in a dead man's (or woman's) chair.
"She was all I had." The words surprised the boy, but not as much as they surprised her. What was she doing—or what was the kid doing to her? "Thanos took her life, I will take his. Alone."
She didn't look at him, but she felt his eyes boring into her. "No," he said at last, drawing her gaze, only to see that he was staring straight at her, and there was something determined in those eyes that hadn't been there since before the snap split the universe in half.
"No?" she asked, beginning to see something else in her ally—maybe the strength that had let him actually draw blood from Thanos, however small an amount it had been?
"Not alone," he answered. "Whoever's left—we're coming, too. Me and Mr. Stark—" his voice broke a little on the name, but he pushed on, "—we weren't the only Avengers. If the others are still alive, they'll want in, too. And I do. So no, not alone."
Nebula didn't know how to respond to that, so, she didn't, turning her gaze back out at the universe. '…if the others are alive…' Somehow, she just couldn't bring herself to point out that the odds were against that. Surely they were the two that survived the dead planet because they were the two Thanos didn't see as a threat. Odds were, the same thing had happened on earth, and the rest of these 'Avengers' were dust.
It was a pretty quiet trip after that.
For one thing, Peter didn't really know what to say to his strange ally. Normally, that wouldn't have stopped him from babbling until he hit on the right topic, but the events of that day weighed heavy on both of them, and stifled any light-hearted conversation.
For another, the pain in his side was returning, growing, and he was beginning to wonder if he'd even make it back to earth.
But then, he saw Saturn just a head of them and he sat up as much as he could, trying to hold to the spark of wonder that couldn't quite be suppressed. Because, if seeing the planets he'd studied since elementary school could still ignite something in him, then maybe, just maybe, there was still some hope in the universe. Not everything good was taken away, and what had been? Well, maybe they could bring it back.
He craned his neck as they passed Jupiter, searching until he could see the Great Red Spot. From the corner of his eye, he saw Nebula start to press something on the console in front of her, and somehow, he got the feeling she was taking over manual control. Made sense: they were getting close, and the asteroid belt was coming up.
Before they even saw the first asteroid, Nebula addressed him without looking over. "Do you have coordinates for where on earth you need to be?"
That stopped him a moment. Where did he need to go? His first instinct was to go home, make sure that May, Ned, MJ and all his friends were still there, still safe but…but he didn't want to see an empty apartment, if they weren't. Also, he needed to meet up with the other Avengers—or whoever was left of them—and make some kind of a plan to fix this…They had to be able to fix this.
So, the compound then? Do I even know the coordinates?
Hesitantly, he glanced at the blue cyborg in the pilot chair who was still waiting for an answer. "I-uh, have to check with the suit's AI for exact coordinates. Just a moment?"
Nebula only shrugged, and seemed to think his explanation less strange than he did. (Seriously, what sort of tech really was out there in the rest of the galaxy?) A half-second later, he had the new suit's mask on and had half-turned away.
"Karen?" he asked quietly, half-afraid that, now that the man who invented her was… gone, the AI would be, too.
Fortunately, the familiar voice replied after only a heartbeat. "Peter, suit biometrics indicate you've received a traumatic injury. You require immediate medical attention."
"Yeah," Peter mumbled in reply. "That's actually what I needed to ask. Coordinates for the Avengers compound? It's an emergency. You know I'd never ask if it wasn't—"
"There is nobody at the compound," a different voice interrupted. Peter wasn't as familiar with this one, but he had heard it before.
"FRIDAY? How—"
If he didn't know any better, he'd say the accented AI sounded… sad. "As you said Peter, it's an emergency. Since Mr. Stark still had some monitoring in place for the new suit, I was able to access it and communicate with you."
In another life time, under other circumstances, he would have been annoyed, maybe even insulted. Now, his mentor's concern just left the teen feeling… hollow. Then, FRIDAY's first message sunk in. "Nobody's at the compound? You mean they're—" He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought: Dead? Gone? Dust?
"No, Peter," the other AI rushed to clarify. "At least, Col. Rhode's suit is still sending life signs. I'm sure there are others, too. Unfortunately, my scanners can't penetrate the Wakandan energy shield to get a more accurate reading."
"Wakanda?" Peter gasped out, suddenly remembering the battle in the airport, the figure who'd fought beside them, calling himself 'the Black Panther.' Hadn't somebody said something about him being from Wakanda? And there'd been some stuff on the news lately, about the previously overlooked African nation stepping up into the international spotlight.
"Yes, Peter." Karen was back, now. "The Avengers left on earth chose to make their stand there. I can give you our best triangulation of the coordinates, but you will have to identify yourself at the border."
"I should be able to contact Col. Rhodes and notify him of your approach," FRIDAY offered. "Do you want me to tell him about Mr. Stark as well?"
All of a sudden, his side injury wasn't the greatest pain he was grappling with. It would be so much easier to tell the AI 'yes'—to not have to own up to his own guilt regarding events on the dead planet. But it felt…wrong…to take the easy path. Like he didn't deserve to hide behind FRIDAY, and should instead take the full brunt. "No, that's alright. I'll—I'll tell him."
FRIDAY fell silent then, but Karen stayed with him, thankfully. "Receiving coordinates now." Then, after he read them off to Nebula, Karen continued in a quiet, gentle tone. "I'm glad you're safe, Peter. I'll do anything I can to help."
"May?" he managed to croak.
"I can't connect a phone call, but I can send her a message, let her know you are alive."
Alive. Not safe, not okay—alive. But then, at the moment, wasn't that the best that could be said?
"Thank you, Karen."
However much they wanted to, or felt like it, Steve and the others couldn't just keep sitting, stunned and immobilized by shock and grief. As cruel as it seemed, the world had kept spinning, and there were things that had to be done. Those who'd died earlier in the battle—the dead that had left bodies behind—had to be buried, and more pressing was the need to find, transport, and treat the injured living.
Okoye and M'Baku together took charge of these efforts, working together nearly automatically, both using activity to hold grief at bay until a more opportune (and discreet) moment. Mechanically, Steve forced himself to his feet and stumbled over to offer his help, followed by a few of the surviving Avengers.
The first few hours of the battle were passed in a daze of activity where everyone was doing their best not to think about what the fact that they had lost actually meant. Somehow, Steve had made it back into the city proper (turning away when he accidentally happened upon Shuri and her mother moments after receiving the news about T'Challa), and found himself without anything to do for the first time since the end of the battle.
He stood in a deserted hallway, staring at nothing in particular, and trying to grapple with any sense of the magnitude of the tragedy. He itched to do something, to have a plan, but how could you plan now? What could be done? Half of all life, everywhere, gone. And more to follow soon, he realized with a sickening twist: drivers, captains, pilots gone; people who had been cooking, or dealing with fire or dangerous chemicals and materials which now had no control—how many collateral deaths would be added to the tally in the next few days and hours? How could they help? What could they do?
Never had Steve regretted his un/official position as leader more—not even after the fight that split the Avengers. There, at least, there'd been a conviction underneath that he'd done what he could, what he thought was right. Maybe more and more regrets had seeped in over the intervening years, but even then, there'd been things he could do, had to do, to take care of what remained of his team. Now, all that seemed to remain was a sickening helplessness.
Worst still: that was the easy part of the thought to grapple with. Far harder to deal with, perhaps because it was easier wrap his head around, was the immediate, personal cost. T'Challa, Wanda, Vision, Sam, Bucky…Gone. Dead or dissolved, in part because of calls he made. The nature of the loss was so total, the nature of their disappearances so alien that it was hard for him to move from the shock into grief proper, but once he did, it would hit him hard. He'd be immobilized worse than he had been in those first few, sickening moments.
Approaching footsteps drew Steve from his dark introspection in time to see Rhodey coming towards him.
"Just got a message from Stark's AI," he began with no preamble. "There's a ship coming with some friendlies. Should be at the border in under twenty minutes. Apparently, there was a group fighting Thanos somewhere else, trying to stop him before he got here."
Stark.
The name hung in the air between them, and Steve realized he was now standing stiff upright when, moments before, he'd been leaning against the wall. "Anything from Tony himself?"
"No. No word on how many to expect, or what condition they're in. Can't be good, if they fought and lost, so I notified medical to stand by. They're in triage mode, though, so we'll have to see what can be done."
Steve nodded, latching gratefully onto the plain-spoken report. It wasn't much to do, but it was something. Right now, he needed something.
"We could all use a little good news right now," he stated, needlessly. "And it'd be just like him to come swooping in just when we need him most."
Rhodey nodded, but the grim set of his jaw was a testament to how little he was determined to get his hopes up. The two soldiers began making their way towards the border and were quickly joined by Thor and the raccoon he'd come with, Okoye and one of her guards, and Bruce. Apparently, Steve was one of the last Rhodey had found to tell.
Steve glanced over at Bruce. "Where's Natasha?"
"She borrowed a jet," came the scientist's reply. "She finally managed to get a hold of Clint, but whatever she found out…" He let the thought dangle, and somber silence fell.
It lasted until they were at the edge of the border—thankfully, in a different direction than the field of the failed battle. There, they waited, and they didn't have to wait long.
The raccoon, standing on Thor's shoulder, was the first to spot the incoming vessel, and, evidently, he recognized it.
"About time you morons got here!" he hollered at the incoming vessel. "Get down here already so I can yell at you!"
Thor also tracked the incoming vessel with some familiarity. "Ah, so Stark encountered the other Guardians. I almost wish I'd been there to see that meeting."
Steve chose not to comment on that, but decided to brace himself for anything to emerge from that ship. After all, the two 'Guardians' who'd accompanied Thor had been a tree and a raccoon, so he supposed anything was possible.
The hatch opened, revealing two figures shuffling towards them, one seeming to support nearly all of the other's weight. Steve was suddenly very glad Rhodey had alerted medical to stand by, but he also noted, with a part of his mind, that both figures were too slight to be Tony. Maybe he was letting the injured out first?
"Nebula?" Rocket's confused question cut the silence as the two emerged from the ship.
The blue one turned at his voice, still supporting the kid in the red and blue armor, who looked pretty pale and shaky. Bruce was already approaching him in 'doctor mode', and Rhodey was stumbling over as well, apparently having recognized the boy.
Rocket ignored both, continuing to focus on this 'Nebula'. "What the hell, Nebula? Where are the others? On what god-forsaken rock did they find you?"
"Titan." Came the mechanical reply, and which question it was supposed to answer was left unsaid. Rocket was stiff, as if bracing for a physical blow, and Steve felt a sickening twist in his gut as he realized what his strange ally was about to hear. "They're dead, Rocket. Thanos killed them."
"BULLSHIT!" Rocket leapt off Thor's shoulder and charged past the two new comers into the ship, and the blue girl closed her eyes as if trying to block out the sound of the raccoon's desperate, hopeless search for any signs of his friends.
As painful a scene as that was, Steve was also concerned about the kid, who Bruce and Rhodey had lowered gently to the ground. Coming closer, Steve could definitely tell the kid was in rough shape, but somehow, he was still clinging to consciousness. He knelt by the clump, stomach twisting as he took in just how young the injured boy seemed to be.
"Peter, just stay calm. We can get you back to the city in no time, you're going to be okay," Rhodey's voice was taut with the tension they all felt that day, but was keeping his tone gentle, at least. Steve glanced towards the ship, waiting to see who else had come, when he heard the colonel ask, "Peter, where's Tony?"
He turned, in time to see the absolutely tortured look on the young face.
No.
"I-I'm sorry," came the tiny voice, and damn if it wasn't too young to be that broken, to be here, in the middle of a lost war. "It's my fault; it's all my fault. He told me to go back home and I didn't and I messed everything up and we lost and—"
Suddenly, Thor and the blue girl were there, having joined the small cluster. "Don't listen to him," the girl said flatly. "There were two others who lost the fight for us. Not him." She turned away then, as if being around them was physically uncomfortable for her, but Steve was able to hear her mutter: "It's just the survivor guilt talking."
"Thor," Bruce cut in from where he was examining some kind of injury to the boy's side, "He needs to get to the city immediately. Can you—"
The doctor didn't even have to finish his statement: Thor scooped the kid up, which made the teen look even smaller, and was already flying towards the city before the boy could protest.
Bruce set off at a steady pace after them, clearly intending to go back to lending his skills to the Wakandan doctors (after a battle of the scale they'd just faced, no pair of hands was turned away), Okoye and the guard drifted a little closer to the remaining stranger, and Rocket had yet to re-emerge from the ship, though any sounds of movement inside had stopped, and Steve thought he could just hear the faint sound of crying. He stopped listening.
That left the two soldiers standing together, looking back towards the city, turned away from the too-empty ship. "Who is he?" Steve asked at last.
"Stark's protégé. Some kid from Queens with some powers and an over-helpful nature." Steve froze, suddenly anticipating the next revelation as it came. "You've actually met him, you know. Had a different suit at the airport, but…"
As if he needed one more thing to regret about the airport fight. Not that he knew at the time how young the newcomer was (though, if he was honest with himself, the voice was a big clue), but still.
Fortunately, Rhodey had changed tracks. "Tony's really gotten attached to the kid. Real protective, you know?"
The words 'he'd die before he let anything happen to him' weren't spoken aloud, but they were heard, all the same.
At first, Steve had tried to jump back into the recovery efforts upon return to the city, but eventually he'd been told point-blank that, in absence of medical staff available to check over the surviving heroes who were (more or less) up and about, they were at least being ordered to stand down and rest, as best they could, for at least six hours before returning to work.
The captain's skin itched with the urge to do something, and the fear of what he would see when he closed his eyes kept him from seeking out sleep, at least, until he was so exhausted he couldn't fight it any longer.
And so, in a desperate effort to avoid too many empty rooms in the wing set aside for the Avengers upon their arrival, he found himself in the recovery area of the medical wing—specifically, the kid's room. He sat in a chair near the door, keeping an eye on the still-unconscious teen out of a sense of debt or obligation he couldn't quite verbalize, other than to say that someone should be here for the young hero—
Tony would've been there.
Steve shook his head slightly, not denying the truth of the thought, but trying to minimize the pain that came with it. So many things he couldn't apologize for, now, so many things he couldn't tell the inventor that he regretted. The least he could do was look out for the kid Stark had taken under his wing.
Familiar footsteps in the hall caught his attention and the captain turned to see Col. Rhodes enter, wordlessly taking the seat next to Peter's hospital bed. Steve watched the two for a moment before finding his voice.
"How well do you know him?"
Rhodey shook his head, before answering in a low tone, as if not wanting to disturb the teen beside him. "Only met him in person a few times. The airport, one or two other times. Tony mentors him, but tries to keep him away from the big stuff after Berlin."
Steve winced at the memory, remembering all too well the sort of hits his team had dished out, not realizing there was a child on the field of battle.
"Actually, there was a point he was going to invite him into the Avengers," Rhodey corrected himself. "Something about the kid proving himself ready. But Peter actually turned him down, felt he needed to keep looking out for the little guy for a while. I don't think he realized how serious Tony was. Or proud."
The last part was added in an almost-inaudible tone, but Steve heard it, all the same. He watched Peter's face, still feeling a little sick inside as he thought over everything the kid had seen and experienced before even graduating high school. He thought of the bare-bones report Nebula had given about the events on Titan, from the moment she arrived and joined in the effort to restrain Thanos. The only bright spot—if it could even be called that—was that Tony hadn't been alone in the end, but had been with the kid he poured so much into. And it was a sad testament to how dark things were that such a fact could be considered a 'bright spot'.
Especially since that probably makes it worse for Peter.
As if remembering the blue cyborg summoned her from wherever she'd wandered off to after the guards had assured themselves she wasn't a further threat, Nebula appeared in the doorway, where she hesitated, dark eyes flicking over to the too-still teen.
"Thor got him to surgery in time," Steve found himself telling her, though who he was reassuring, he honestly didn't know. "Bruce says he should pull through no problem, and there were signs of his arm already healing, so they honestly expect him to wake up pretty soon."
Nebula nodded, still watching the boy she'd brought home—just in the nick of time, if the medical team's report was to be understood. "He said you'd be going after Thanos," she said at last.
The words sucked all the air out of the room, and both soldiers turned to the alien, who glanced away, uncomfortable under their gazes. "Said he and the other one weren't the only Avengers. Said anyone who was alive would want to go after Thanos. Said he did."
Steve glanced back to Rhodey, thought of something he knew Stark had said before, and repeated often, half-seriously during missions, or when telling the story of their first one: "…If we can't save the earth, you can be damn sure we'll avenge it…"
He saw the same determination settle on the colonel that he felt himself, and the two exchanged a grim nod. Maybe it wouldn't do any good, but it was something, at least. "We'll have to take stock, see who's still able to go, what resources we've got—"
"Figure out where that purple bastard is and how we get to him," Rhodey put in. "once we've got that and a plan—"
"Then we're gone, or he is," Steve finished, and found he felt fine with either ending. There was no one to save this time, only a final push to one dark end or another, and that made things easier, somehow.
Nebula nodded, apparently satisfied, and though she turned to go, hesitancy seized her. Steve nodded to the one empty chair in the room. With a glare that dared any of them to comment, she took it, resolutely not looking at Peter—except for occasional glance that might have been concerned. Apparently, she wasn't used to or comfortable with something about the situation, and he opted not to ask which or what.
The next moment, Peter was stirring, and the question was forgotten, anyway. Suddenly, the kid sat bolt upright with a yell, and Steve was on his feet and halfway across the room before the realization he didn't know what to do had even crossed his mind.
Rhodey was closer, though, and apparently more ready to step in, as he lay a steadying hand on one of the boy's shoulders. "Easy kid, easy there. Take a few breaths before you try to speak."
Peter nodded, latching onto the colonel's voice and gulping down oxygen as the monitor indicated his heart rate slowing to normal. As the teen settled, Steve saw Nebula sit back down from the corner of his eye, the blue girl looking away as if to deny her momentary surge or concern and care. The captain opted to focus on the now-awake boy, rather than Nebula's obstinate denial.
The young hero was obeying Rhodey's urging not to try to talk yet, and his brown eyes flicked over the room, taking in the medial equipment, what would have been a foreign design sensibility to the New Yorker, and finally the three of them. His eyes widened slightly when they landed on Steve, and the captain was surprised and, admittedly, relieved to see no fear, anger, or blame there considering the last time they'd met in Berlin. But the biggest reaction was when Peter saw Nebula. He froze, practically turning to stone, and her face lost any expression it had before, except for something grim and dark. Surprisingly, she was the first to speak.
"Nope. It wasn't a dream, kid."
Peter seemed to deflate at that blunt statement, gaze dropping to his lap, even as he reached over subconsciously to probe his injury. Rhodey grabbed his hand before he could. "Let it heal, Peter."
"What do we do now?"
It was the question they were all wondering, but damn if the voice that asked it wasn't too young, too small, too…wounded (an impression he realized he was having a lot with this kid—no wonder Tony tried to keep him away from the big, world-ending sorts of events). War might be hell, but this—this was worse.
Surprisingly—or maybe not—it was Nebula who answered. "We kill Thanos. There's nothing else left to do."
The change that came over the kid was as immediate as it was surprising. Just a moment before he'd been a lost, heartbroken child. Now, now a determination replaced any indecision, and it was just as easy for Steve to see why Tony had been ready for the kid to step up, why he was as proud of the hero as he was of the human. "Okay. …How do we do that, exactly?"
"We? Kid, you just got out of surgery after bleeding out for who knows how long—" Rhodey began, but he never did get to finish.
"Healing factor," Peter cut in. "My arm's already better. I give it a day or two, tops, and I'm back to completely normal. Well, normal for me."
Rhodey clearly wanted to protest more, and Steve did understand the colonel's desire to keep a kid away from the front lines of a losing war, but Peter'd already been there. Besides, he recognized—remembered—the burning desire to help the world that deemed him too small to do any good.
"It'll take us at least that long to gather everybody, see what resources can be spared from any recovery efforts. It'll probably have to be a bare-bones attempt, but given how many people we've lost, we'll need anybody who's willing and able." Nebula glared at the delay, but didn't protest—apparently accepting it was better to go prepared than to go early, as much as she hated it. It was Col. Rhodes who looked tempted to pull rank on the captain and insist that Spiderman sit out the coming fight.
Peter interrupted before that confrontation came, probably not even realizing what had just passed between the two men. "Who—who's still…" his voice trailed off, unable to fully commit to the daunting question.
"We still have to see," Rhodey answered. "Most of us were here, but there are a couple we're still checking in on. We did manage to contact your aunt. She's worried, but there's no way to get her out here, with all the chaos going on right now. She's pissed, but safe."
Peter nodded, clearly scared to ask something more. Fortunately, the colonel seemed to know what it was.
"She said to tell you Ned and MJ have both been calling, asking about you. So they're still here, at least."
A deep, shuddering breath ran through the teen, and without even knowing who these people were, exactly, Steve felt relieved they survived the immediate aftermath of the snap—Peter'd already been through enough.
"Get some rest, kid—real rest, not 'I was unconscious while they patched me up'. Like the Cap said, there's a lot we have to do before we're ready to go after the purple bastard that did this."
He helped Peter lay back down, then followed Steve out of the room. It wasn't lost on them that Nebula stayed behind, but they chose not comment.
So, yeah.
Nebula was a surprisingly easy/fun character to write, and most of the scenes on the ship were written in 1-2 sittings. The Wakanda stuff took a little longer, but the hospital scene, at least, was another that wrote itself. An interesting thing with this story is that it's giving me a chance to write for characters I haven't really played all that much with before—this is still (technically) my first story with Spiderman, as well as a first for Nebula and Rhodey. Hopefully, I've not twisted any of them into anything unrecognizable.
As always, if you saw something you liked, or something you think I can fix/improve on for next time, don't hesitate to leave a review and let me know!