Cosmic Bonds - Nightmares

At first, Rocket doesn't know what woke him. His room on the ship is quiet, deafeningly quiet, in a way it never used to be. Once, he could always hear the sounds of either Groot scuddling around or playing that stupid video game, or Peter listening to his music, or any of the others moving around the ship when they really ought to be sleeping.

But they're all gone now and it's been weeks, but everywhere he turns, he keeps on expecting to see one of them somewhere but then they're not, and all he can remember is Groot slowly turning to dust in front of him.

A distant scream echoes through the silence of the ship and Rocket jolts upright.

What –

Is that Nebula?

He flies out of his bed instantly, scrambling for one of his guns and runs into the hall, half expecting to see them getting swarmed by attackers but then there's just no one.

He goes into the bedroom that Nebula has. It's the one Gamora used to use, because they didn't have any spares that were never in use before.

But no one is getting murdered. Nebula is sleeping in bed, though she's rolling around like she's being attacked. Nebula lets out another strangled gasp, rolling over again.

Oh.

Nightmares.

He has those all the time. Always has, whether of when he was made into this thing that he is now or of someone in his last two families dying.

"Nebula?" Rocket calls, pattering up to her bed.

She doesn't respond.

"Nebula?" he asks again, trotting closer to her and poking her arm.

She moves so fast he hardly sees it coming as she swings at him.

"Nebula!" Rocket yelps, dodging the knife that she just pulled out from under her pillow – is that where it was? – throwing it at him. He dodges and it clatters to the floor next to him. She's sitting up now, breathing hard, as her gaze zeroes in on him.

"Rocket?"

"Nightmares?" he asks, because it's pretty obvious at this point, "Yeah, that can be annoying."

"I didn't know it was you," Nebula says, a bit uncomfortable.

"Yeah that happens with nightmares," he waves her off, "Do you always have a knife under your pillow?"

"Most of the time." She's still breathing hard, clearly still shaken. "Say something," Nebula requests after a heartbeat. She's still panicking.

Rocket can smell it on her. He gets nightmares often enough to know what that's like. "You know how to dance?" Rocket asks, mind jumping to the first thing he can think of.

Nebula stares at him. "What?"

"Peter did it a lot," Rocket says, "He tried to make Gamora do it."

Nebula scoffs. "Can't imagine that."

"She didn't much. Drax thought he was an idiot."

"Sounds like he was one," Nebula says, though it sounds like she means it about as affectionately as Rocket himself.

"Yeah. He kinda was." And he's beginning to regret bringing this up because now he's missing them all over again unbearably, not that he ever stops. He lost his second family again and now he's afraid to know when the same could happen to Nebula. Because it's happened with everyone else.

"What's your favorite color?" Rocket asks, in case she needs a distraction too.

"Favorite color?" Nebula repeats, like he's insane.

"I don't got one either. The others talked about it sometimes."

She's quiet, seemingly thoughtful. "Maybe gold," she offers finally.

"That why you got... gold on you now?" He eyes the slight change in her headpiece. Stark has made some for her.

"Yeah," her voice is a bit rough now, "That's never something I picked before."

...Right. Probably not something they should have jumped back to. He doesn't know who she became a cyborg exactly but it's not gonna be any more pleasant than it is for him. "Hey, why don't we work on some bombs?"

Nebula follows him without protest.

**w**

Her entire body is stinging with pain and Nebula gasps against it. She hears the licking of mechanical parts – doesn't quite know what it is that she's lost this time. All she knows is it's something else she's never getting back. Never –

"Father," Nebula rasps, eyes burning with tears even as she tries to hold them back. It hurts too much and she needs it to stop and if she shows it, it'll only show for sure that she's weak like she's not supposed to be. forever weaker than Gamora, for sure. But this is too much and –

Thanos moves into her line of view, hand reaching to lightly stroke her head. "This is for your own good," he tells her gently, "It will make you stronger. Better. When I was young, I had to fight for food. All the children of my home town did. And my parents would never did anything to help me. I will not let you share the same fate, daughter."

That –

Makes sense?

Maybe.

She just wants it to stop hurting.

Thanos motions to someone. She feels something else get ripped out of her and gasps against it, squeezing her eyes shut.

And then music starts blaring out of literally nowhere.

Nebula jerks awake with a gasp, blinking in confusion at her surroundings. She's half expecting to be back with Thanos or just somewhere else entirely than on the Milano because why is there music blaring?

Well, it's certainly doing well at distracting her.

Memories of being ripped apart haunt her constantly. Of being suspended in mid air as Thanos had something else ripped out of her and replaced. As his hand gently stroked her head while he did it, as though that would make it any better.

And Gamora still did her best to defeat her every single time, just to have their father's approval. And no matter how Nebula tried, it wasn't enough. She was always just used as practice, for Gamora to be a better fighter.

And no matter what Nebula did, Thanos would always only ever see Gamora.

At least the moments he was ripping her apart and putting her back together again, it was her he was finally giving attention. Though now, she doesn't care for that at all. She just wants to have her sister back and she's never going to see her again.

She also wants that music to shut up.

Nebula pushes herself out of bed, going in search of Rocket. He's seated in the cockpit, poking at the volume controls on the music.

"What are you doing?" she demands.

"Wakin' you up," he offers cheerfully, waving a paw.

"Through blaring music?"

"Well, seemed to work better than last time."

That's true. At least she didn't nearly kill him this time. Seeing as that's all she's been good at all her life, it's certainly a change. She doesn't really know what to say to him, that... he's even trying to do this. People don't do that for her. No one ever has. Gamora did sometimes but it often didn't help much considering that she was also responsible for so much of what happened to her.

Nebula knows she was just a child then. Just trying to survive. But so was Nebula. But she doesn't want to dwell on that now, when she just wants her back.

"Thank you," Nebula offers finally, because she thinks that would be the appropriate response.

"Seemed like the thing to do," Rocket offers, a bit awkwardly, "You know, Gamora had issues with nightmares sometimes. Blaring music always worked on her."

"Did she?" Nebula asks, stilling. She knows she did sometimes – they all did. Mostly, Gamora dreamed of her world being destroyed.

Nebula was almost too little to remember it. But that Gamora always wanted a different family than what she had and Nebula didn't – at least not nearly as vocally – never changed that she was Thanos' favorite.

"Yeah. She got really annoyed Peter kept on doing it."

"I can see why. You can turn that off now." But still, she's grateful that he even paid enough attention to do it.

"That bad?" Rocket asks.

"Yes."

He nearly cackles as he goes to flip through the music. "You get used to it."

Though, the cheer he's showing dies abruptly. She can only guess why. This was Peter's and the ghosts of the Guardians of the Galaxy are still everywhere. They're all that's left and Nebula goes to sit next to Rocket, just... keeping him company.

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