[84 Year Later] I managed another chapter... wow.
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The ship hummed quietly, the random beeps and chirps from different systems breaking the consistent hum. The group separated again, for the time being, and Sutton found herself sitting alone on a container. Shock still dominated her emotions; she was still trapped in the suit. Her skin was dirty and itchy after days of being unable to properly breathe.
With Nat no longer on death's door, Sutton felt a portion of the adrenaline that had kept her going evaporate. She felt heavy and dizzy and desperately tried to hold onto whatever attentiveness she had left. She didn't have the leisure of rest; not when her friends were in mortal peril. Maybe even already-
A hand on her shoulder followed by a gasp broke her from a long blink, and Sutton turned to see a teary eyed Mantis staring down at her. Mantis' lip quivered and she blinked to clear her eyes, though one tear ran down her face.
"Are you okay," Sutton asked.
Mantis clutched her hands together in front of her chest and took a steadying breath.
"I am so sorry," she said. "You have so much sadness in you; I did not realize."
Sutton prickled at the statement as she eyed the alien. Perhaps she looked a little worse for wear, but the 'I did not realize' statement implied more than a mere visual observation.
"Why would you say that?" Sutton asked, keeping her tone light.
"I can feel the emotions of others when I touch them," Mantis explained. "You have many negative emotions at the moment."
"Oh. Yeah, well. It hasn't exactly been a fun week."
Mantis didn't know what Sutton needed to hear, couldn't understand, and, if her vocal tone was any indication, she seemed like the type to try and be helpful. Sutton couldn't get defensive about her statement. Especially not when she probably looked just as haggard and distraught as Mantis knew she felt.
Sutton wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
"Sorry, did you come over here to say something else?"
"Oh! Yes!" Mantis dipped her head apologetically. "I came to tell you that you may use our sonic shower to clean up if you like. It does appear you haven't showered in some time."
She was trying to be nice.
Sutton grimaced and gestured down at her suit.
"I wish I could, but I can't take this suit off unless you want Thanos to be able to track me down."
The Guardian's ship didn't have much privacy outside of their individual rooms; it wasn't hard for others to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation, something they appeared to do with the same energy of a nosy sibling.
Rocket, the raccoon, popped his head around a door frame and eyed Sutton with a new, sharp interest.
"Whaddya mean you can't take the suit off?"
Sutton sighed.
"It's a dampener, essentially, it keeps me from using my powers and, subsequently, from being easily traceable."
Rocket moved closer and eyed her suit doubtfully, his muzzle wrinkling as he got close enough to really scrutinize the wires.
"You need the whole suit for that?" He asked, unimpressed. "Why don't you just install it in this thing?"
He poked at her arc reactor and Sutton swatted his paw away.
"The suit works with the reactor," she explained. "But the arc reactor is mostly there to keep my heart beating."
A shine rose in Rocket's eyes as he further inspected her reactor.
"Wait, are you sayin' that thing is installed in you? Oh, ho, I want it."
Sutton glared at him and attempted to swat him away again as his interest in her reactor only grew.
"I'd die if it was removed, you rude little Swiper. Do you attempt to victimize every disabled person you meet?"
Rocket clicked his tongue at her in a chiding sound. She didn't know raccoons could do that.
"Victimize is such a strong word," he groused. "It ain't takin' advantage if they agree to a deal."
Without so much as a thought, Rocket scampered up onto her lap to get a better look at the reactor and the suit's wiring around it. Sutton cried out in protest.
"Excuse me, do you mind?"
"Hey, don't get your knickers in a twist, shrimpy, I'm tryin' to figure out what the heck whoever did this thinks ya need all this wire for."
"Shrimpy," Sutton scoffed in surprised outrage.
He poked at a few of the connectors on her shoulder that led to the reactor with his tiny fingers and scratched a nail over a shiny disc.
"It's overkill," he announced, like the suit wasn't that impressive. "I mean, I guess it's decent for humans but it's stupid to make ya wear the entire suit when you could just reroute the energy-"
"Tony Stark made this suit," she said hotly. "He was the smartest man on earth-"
Her own use of the past tense made her stop and her throat felt tight as she blinked quickly. Tony made the suit. As much as he'd made her angry with it, as much as she now hated wearing it, Tony made it. And it worked. It kept her safe even when she didn't want it to. It was brilliant and a talking raccoon didn't get to make fun of it.
"Yeah," Rocket said, not paying her any attention, "well earth ain't even that big of a planet. It ain't that impressive."
"Rocket."
Mantis spoke up again, her face still forlorn despite her near scolding tone. She'd held so still and kept so quiet Sutton almost forgot she was there.
"You should not say upsetting things to her," Mantis continued. "She is distraught over her friends."
Rocket cast a look to Mantis then back to Sutton, and she must have not hidden her distress as much as she thought because he jumped down to the ground and waved his little paws, hands?, around.
"Oh no, c'mon. Don't do that; no cryin'. You're gonna get me in trouble."
"I'm not crying."
"Look, I won't take the energy source in your chest, okay? I'll even fix it up for ya so you can take off the suit. Just keep it together; if you start cryin' Groot will start and then everyone is gonna get loud and cranky and they're gonna blame me."
"You can actually do that?"
Rocket seemed to take her disbelief offensively and he gave her a little snarl as he jabbed a finger into his chest.
"You're lookin' at a bonafide genius, shrimpy. I can make this suit tech look like Peter's stupid little music box."
A shout rang out from a nearby corner of the ship.
"It's a ZUNE."
Sutton's face wrinkled in displeasure once more and she held up a finger to count off her protests.
"The offer could use less attitude, but I'd appreciate it; I am taller and bigger than you are, thank you very much; and who in the universe still has a Zune?"
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It took Rocket a couple hours and too much complaining, but he finally modified her arc reactor to do the work of Tony's suit. He added a little switch on the plate in her chest to serve the same function as the suit's switch, to turn the dampener off, on, or to alternatively amplify. He acted like it was easy, and Sutton couldn't help the defensive prickles that crawled under her skin over his boasting.
His modifications meant that the metal around her arc reactor now looked a bit different; there were various connectors and a new scifi edge to the embedded piece. The new switch sat near the edge of the metal inlay, near her sternum, and it had clearly been salvaged from somewhere in the ship. It had a strange alien symbol on it that could either be a letter or a name brand, though at least it was flat so it wouldn't look weird under her clothes.
Wonderful, she thought. She got upgrades. At least she didn't have to charge it.
Rocket stood on a metal table and Sutton sat in a chair while he did his work. He scratched the fur on the bottom of his chin as he eyed his adjustments, small blow torch still in paw. Sutton didn't appreciate that.
"It ain't the prettiest work I've ever done," he admitted. "But that's what ya get for expedited service, ain't it?"
"It's done then?" Sutton asked, solemnly hopeful. "I can actually take this thing off?"
"Yeah, shrimpy, in fact I'd prefer it. That thing reeks."
"Thanks," Sutton said dryly. She didn't need a raccoon, an animal associated with trash cans, telling her she stank. She already knew that.
Sutton grimaced as she reached back for the zipper, just to see if she could move enough to do it herself, when the stubborn pull reminded her why it was still zipped in the first place.
"It's stuck," she said, though her voice floated in the air to no one in particular.
Rocket decided to pretend he didn't hear her and commenced putting his tools back in their proper places. Movement flickered in the corner of her vision, and Sutton turned to see Drax standing in the doorway eating some sort of snack.
"The metal of your zipper is rusted," Drax said. "Clearly you did not prioritize maintenance."
Sutton sighed.
"I don't know what happened to it. Do you guys have pliers, maybe? Something I can break it open with?"
"I would not need pliers to break such a feeble mechanism," Drax said. "You must be very weak."
She was too tired and desperate to be out of the suit for the first time in what felt like forever to deal with the unintended (she was sure) insult. Instead she dropped her head slightly in defeat and raised her hand in a flippant gesture.
"Can you break it then?"
"Yes."
But he didn't immediately move and Sutton frowned in exasperation.
"Then prove it," she prodded.
That seemed to stir some competitive motivation in the alien, and he thundered over, absently dropping the wrapper of his snack on the floor as he approached. Sutton turned slightly to angle her back more towards him, and felt his presence as he stopped behind her. His finger was thick and blocky when it brushed against the back of her neck to get a grip on the small metal slider. He tugged and the metal crumbled to the floor with hardly a ting.
"Thanks," Sutton said quietly. "I'll, uh, I'll just have Natasha help me from here."
"Because you are embarrassed of your frail and unimpressive body," Drax said, as if he understood.
"Sure," Sutton said as she closed her eyes, centered herself. "Why not."
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Nat stared at Sutton as if she'd asked her to commandeer the spaceship to go back to earth rather than just to split open the zipper on the back of her suit.
"I'd do it myself, but it hurts to reach," Sutton explained.
Nat blinked; her face still pale and drawn in exhaustion and despair.
"Sutton, most of the zipper is melted. A few parts of it might be melted into your skin."
Sutton sagged and took a deep breath. Of course it wouldn't be easy. Or painless. But she'd made it this far, she'd survived the explosion, and even though her back still throbbed it wasn't going to get any better grafted into the suit. She held her arm up towards her mouth.
"I won't be able to bite through this material. Just… just rip it off and I'll try to keep quiet."
"Absolutely not; what is wrong with you."
"How else am I going to get out of this thing then?"
Another presence joined them.
"You're going to hold very still."
Loki stood behind her and Sutton's spine stiffened. Nat murmured next to him and then Sutton felt the dull edge of a knife against her skin. Loki muttered some words and a cold feeling radiated from the knife blade. Before she could properly protest, he drew the blade down and around the zipper; far enough away that he didn't catch on any of the melted sections attached to her.
Cool air hit her skin for the first time in so long and Sutton yelped in surprise. The cut sides of the suit flapped loosely and she remembered all she had on underneath was her underwear. Heat consumed her entire body.
"Now you'll clean yourself and come back so I can patch you up as well as circumstances allow. I refuse to do this when you're-"
He appeared to consider his words and Sutton glared over her shoulder as she tried to salvage her dignity.
"When I'm disgusting?" She supplied snidely.
"Precisely."
The lure of being clean was enough to stop her from starting an argument. Gamora led her to their "sonic" shower with a set of borrowed clothes and showed her how to use it before leaving Sutton alone.
Behind closed doors, she peeled the suit away from her body and paused to look at herself in the bathroom's mirror. Her skin was sallow and pale with dark bags under her eyes. Her hair was in such a state, that part of her feared it wouldn't be salvageable and she was littered with cuts and bruises on nearly every part of her. The bullet wound in her thigh was sealed, thanks to the Doctor, though it had scarred. If she tried to think about it lightheartedly, it looked almost like a white sunburst. Of all her injuries, she'd forgotten altogether about the cut on the bottom of her foot. It at least sealed up enough to not worry about tearing back open.
Her back was the worst. There was still so much covered by the remnant of the suit and zipper, but she could see patches of mangled skin if she angled her head just right. She wished she hadn't looked.
She let the shower do its work, wishing she had a real one with hot water, but did feel clean again when she stepped out. The sonic vibrations only made the burn on her back flare in pain moderately.
The clothes Gamora gave to her weren't her usual style. They were mostly black and looked to be made of something reminiscent of leather. The shirt was a tank top that zipped up the side and had a cut out portion along the spine with a mesh inlay. She wondered if Gamora gave her this style specifically because of her burn. There was an additional sheer long sleeved pull over and Sutton wasn't sure what the point of it was, but wasn't about to ask and seem ungrateful. She'd leave it off until Loki healed her back. The pants were a similar black leather with matching boots and Sutton gingerly donned every layer. She had to roll the top of the pants once; she'd lost too much weight since all this started. Just when she'd fully recovered from her dimension hopping too.
She looked pale and bleak and unlike herself. Too harsh, she thought, and too otherworldly. But at least she wasn't in the suit. At least her skin could breathe.
Sutton ran her fingers through her tangled curls as she exited the bathroom and made her way back to the place she'd last seen Loki. Nat sat next to him but it didn't look like they'd been talking. She still had a hollow, distant look in her eyes that made Sutton's stomach feel like it was caving in.
Loki spotted her and stood.
"Good; finally. Let's get this over with, shall we? Sit here."
Sutton cast him a wary look, but sat where he directed in the spot he vacated; it was next to Natasha and Sutton was sure Nat would maul him if he tried anything funny.
The most awkward aspect was that he needed direct access to her wound, especially since pieces of the suit were still clinging to her skin, so she was forced to unzip the top and simply cling to the front of it to preserve her modesty. Loki didn't comment on it.
"Some of this might be uncomfortable," he told her. "I can heal, but I'm not a healer."
Sutton merely nodded and he set to work.
She couldn't see what he was doing, but found comfort in the fact that Nat appeared to be keeping an eye on his actions. However his magic functioned, he plucked the remaining bits of fabric from her skin without any tools. It didn't feel good, it definitely tugged and tore, but Sutton clenched her teeth and remained still. If Natasha could handle her own injury so could she.
A rattling clink as the zipper fell to the floor let her know he removed all the debris; she could feel his hands hover far too close to her skin for her liking as he ran his palm over her spine. But for once his actions brought relief. The burning in her skin cooled and the gnawing biting faded into a numbness. It no longer felt like she was on fire. Now it only felt like she'd been put through a tumble dry.
"That's as good as it'll get for field treatment." Loki said. "Like our beloved Natalia, I can't help the scar, though I hope most of your nerve endings are restored. But like I said, I'm not a trained healer."
Nat's brow furrowed mildly and she focused, like she was forcing herself to think on other things.
"You learned to magically heal on the battlefield, then?"
Loki picked at his fingernails with an air of nonchalance.
"Battlefield, nursery; they're not much different."
"Um, yes. They are." Sutton said as she tested the range of movement she now had. "What kind of nursery were you kept in?"
Loki rolled his eyes.
"You have a brother," he said. "Surely you understand how it is."
"I didn't literally pummel him. Your experiences are not universal."
Sutton zipped up the top then stood while she gingerly stretched, but the blinding pain was gone. She could twist again, stand without it burning, and bend over to touch her toes. Begrudgingly, she had to admit that Loki had done her quite the favor.
"Thank you," she said, though it clearly took effort to not mutter. She slipped on the sheer overshirt just for a distraction. Loki watched, his eyes flickering over her borrowed clothes and he smothered a grin.
"I don't expect it'll absolve me," he said.
"No," Sutton agreed. "I don't expect it will." She turned back to Nat and her expression lifted in concern. "How are you feeling, physically? Did you get to eat yet? You lost a lot of blood."
Nat's lips pressed upwards in a grim, appreciative smile.
"I'm going to survive," she said.
Sutton rolled her tongue behind her teeth and tugged at a lock of hair.
"How's your knitting?"
At that Nat's eyes dimmed and she stared at Sutton a long moment before answering.
"I think we both know we're not untangling this skein."
The silence rang loudly in the ship; Sutton was reminded that most of its occupants could hear everything.
"Yeah," she agreed, voice tight. "I know."
Gamora poked her head back into the room and informed them everyone was sitting down to eat in the ship's small dining room.
"It's good for Groot," she explained begrudgingly at Loki's questioning look. "Anyone who was a child or had one agreed it's beneficial to eat a meal as a cohesive unit."
So the small living tree creature was considered a child. It wasn't just small. Sutton looked to Natasha, to see if she was up for sitting around people, and stood when she did. Nat's expression was set, though strained. Neither of them particularly wanted to sit and eat with a group playing family, but they needed food. And, perhaps, a momentary shift in focus would stave off a downward spiral for just a little longer.
Sutton could tell Nat was desperately holding herself together. Being part of SHIELD, she was better at compartmentalizing situations than Sutton was, but their current predicament pushed her even to her limits. Sutton could tell, because even in the movies, movies from a lifetime ago, she'd never seen Nat's gaze so hollow.
Sutton didn't recognize the food. It was, quite literally, alien; so she picked at the safest looking options. There was something that looked like a broth based soup and something else that looked like a roll with spikes. She hoped it was bread.
Peter Quill bit off one of the roll spikes and slurped whatever was inside; Sutton nudged her own further from her plate.
"I set the ship's coordinates to Knowhere," he said, like it was reasonable. "Hopefully that's far enough away for now."
Sutton exchanged a look with Nat, and Loki remained silent, seemingly more disgusted by the food provided than interested in their destination. Or lack of one.
"Nowhere," Sutton snapped in disbelief. "So, what? Are we just shooting off into the vastness of space?"
"What?" Peter sniped back. "No, of course not. I'm not an idiot."
"We have had extensive discussions concerning the fact that you are, in fact, an idiot," Drax said.
Rocket snickered and Groot proclaimed his name again. Sutton was starting to believe that was all he knew how to say. Gamora rolled her eyes and stabbed what might have been some type of meat with her fork.
"Knowhere is the location of our base," she explained.
Nat dipped her head down toward Sutton.
"I'm getting Who's on First energy right now."
The confusion struck Sutton as familiar. Like she'd questioned this sort of statement before. Her brow furrowed and she shifted her food around on her plate absently.
"So Nowhere is somewhere."
"Knowhere is the decapitated head of a Celestial!" Mantis offered enthusiastically. "It has been mined for all its valuable resources and now serves as our beloved home!"
Sutton's face wrinkled in disgust.
"A… decapitated… head," she echoed.
"It's not, like, a regular sized head," Peter clarified. "It's not like-" He gestured with his hands to give an example of size. "It's a Celestial. It's huge."
"Like Peter's father," Mantis said. "He was the size of a planet."
"He was the planet. And he tried to kill us," Rocket sneered. Peter scowled.
"I don't want to talk about him. If anything, this is about your dad," he said pointing to Gamora.
"Who undoubtedly also wants to kill us," Rocket continued.
A headache threatened to throb behind her eyes and Sutton rubbed at her forehead. She, quite frankly, did not care about any one of these new people's father issues.
What she wanted to do was get back to earth as quickly as possible. She needed to get help for the team. Her friends. For Steve. She refused to believe it was too late. She refused to believe anything bad happened after they left.
Even thinking along those lines made her feel like she was going to throw up.
"Can we get help at your base?" She asked.
The Guardians looked at her funny. Peter cocked a brow.
"It's our base," he said. "We were the help."
A flash of anger shot through Sutton; she smacked her open palm on the table and nearly stood from her seat.
"It's not enough!" She snapped. Her voice cracked and cut in the open air. Nat and Loki went still. "In case you forgot," she continued, seething, "our friends are still back there fighting what you say is a losing battle. Do you expect us to thank you for getting us out of there while everyone else- everyone else…. We're not just going to say thanks and then go Nowhere," she used finger quotes around the base name, "and do nothing-"
Nat put a hand on her shoulder and murmured something like a consolation, a plea to calm down, but Sutton couldn't hear beyond her own brain's sudden connection.
Nothing.
That's what Loki said. Use Nothing.
Sutton turned to look at Loki; he watched her stoically, Like he was waiting.
Some of the Guardians muttered at her outburst, but Sutton ignored them.
"Nothing is something, isn't it?" She prompted Loki. "Or, at least, it's capitalized."
Loki's face broke into a wide grin.
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Aw! Loki's smiling. That's a good sign. :)