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Nebula faces herself, alone in the cockpit of her small ship. Abandoned, with only this angry mirror of herself, growling and snapping like a wounded dog, for company.
If she were on her own she would join the Guardians, perhaps, but she can’t ask them to take this risk. The other Nebula, bleeding and barely alive, had reacted to the news of Thanos’s death with something like a howl. Nebula recognized the emotions in that sound. Anger, that she hadn’t been the one to make the killing blow. Relief, that he is gone and the universe is not. But also profound sadness, a sadness she can’t forgive herself for feeling. This other version of herself has no idea how to be in the world without him: she has to learn all at once what took Nebula years.
That makes her dangerous. That makes her Nebula’s problem.
She’s healed now. The Guardians are gone. Natasha is dead. Stark is dead. There’s nothing keeping Nebula here, and she can’t ask Earth to take this risk, either.
“We’ll find Gamora,” she tells her double as they take off from the planet she had started to, stupidly, think of as home.
***
The other Nebula doesn’t talk much. She spends her time hunched in the co-pilot’s chair, or stalking around the ship, slamming her fist and body into things in a useless show of defiance. From wounded dog to caged animal. Nebula lets her simmer. Things will be easier if she gets it out of her system.
Sometimes, Nebula gets a flash of emotion, real and raw and overwhelming, bursting through her muscles, pounding through her synapses, anger as vivid as if it were her own. They’ll have to figure out how to break their connection at some point. It could get them in trouble in battle. Also, she hates it. Hates the pain, hates the memories those feelings bring with them. But she’s not going to mess around with the equivalent of brain surgery without the other Nebula agreeing. It’s too risky, too likely to go wrong.
So she accepts the rage, and tries to keep it separate from her own.
***
On their third night, Nebula wakes up with a knife to her throat, a heavy body pushing down on hers.
“You thought you had hidden all of your weapons, but I know you,” the other Nebula growls against her ear, breath hot.
“And I know you,” Nebula growls back. She presses the button she’s kept looped on a ring around her finger, sending a shockwave through her foe, whose muscles freeze, jaw clenching shut as the device Nebula had slipped onto her neck while she slept does its job.
That trick will only work once. She ties the other Nebula to a chair while she’s still frozen, stuffs a gag in her mouth, and goes back to sleep.
***
The other Nebula spends the next day screaming, demanding to be let free in one breath, promising to tear the ship apart in the next. Nebula’s tempted to point out the contradiction, but sarcasm will not help. She wears earplugs and ignores it.
Except for when she can’t. When the other Nebula’s rage comes tearing through her own mind without warning, worse than before; pain physical and emotional at once, stabbing and disorienting. She drops a plate, she trips over nothing, she almost pulls the ship dangerously off course.
“You need to calm down or it will get us both killed,” she tells her mirror self as she delivers her a meal, dried berries and a cup of water.
“Why don’t you just kill me?” the other Nebula asks. She sounds weak, defeated. She’s yelled herself tired.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Nebula tells her. “I want to help you.”
“I can’t be helped.”
“Yes you can. I was.”
The other version of herself doesn’t say anything to that, but Nebula can feel her surprise. Can see the hope on her face, where anyone else would see nothing but anger. She needs a few more days to stew in her fury, to let it drain until she’s hollowed out, ready for something different. Then Nebula will untie her.
***
She considers permanently implanting one of the shockers before letting the other her free, to keep control. She knows how to do it in ways the past version of herself won’t be able to break, but she decides against it. A risk, but one worth taking. She remembers how this other her feels: lost and alone, sure Thanos has left her rotten and useless for anything but killing. Not worth kindness, and certainly not worth trust. She refuses to prove her right.
She’s not surprised to catch the glimmer of tears in the other Nebula’s eyes when she tells her she’s free to roam the ship as she pleases, no strings attached. Knows what that hesitant smile means.
“No more yelling, or I’ll tie you up again,” Nebula warns her, extending her hand. The other her takes it, skin warm and dry, impossibly familiar.
“No more yelling.” The other her considers it. “Unless we are being attacked. Or you make me angry.”
“Deal,” Nebula agrees, and returns her smile.
***
She teaches her younger self the game Stark taught her, folding paper into a tight triangle, demonstrating how to build a goal with her fingers, how to aim and flick.
“What is the point of this?” the other Nebula asks.
Nebula remembers asking the same question, not understanding when Stark assured her it’s a game, for fun. How little she was able to trust a winner coming without a loser. Her surprise when he suggested another round. It seemed impossible, being offered a second shot at victory without a sacrifice first.
“It is a way to pass the time.” Let the other her discover the fun of it in her own. That is easier than trying to explain.
Nebula wins the first few rounds; she won’t fake a loss, it would be too obvious, too patronizing, and she doesn’t want to. But they keep at it until the other Nebula masters the flick, until their games last for fifteen minutes at a time, each landing goal after goal until one finally slips up.
The first time the other Nebula wins she grins, pure and wide. Just a brief moment, before she realizes what she’s doing and hides it, but it is enough. Nebula is sure she was right to trust her.
***
The next time the other Nebula comes to her room in the middle of the night, it is not to kill her.
She slips in, almost silent, but not so silent that Nebula, not quite asleep, doesn’t catch the soft sound of her footsteps as she approaches her bed. She sinks onto it, runs a hand across the top of Nebula’s head. The touch is a shock—surprise, a lighting of her nerves, a burst through the neural network all at once.
She feels her counterpart’s need as if it were her own. Can’t tell what is their entanglement and what is her own desire, her own longing to be touched by someone who won’t pull away in disgust, won’t shiver at the metal and wires running into her skin. Won’t expect her to feel more pleasure than she can, or want less pain than she does.
When their lips meet, it’s bruising and fierce. The other Nebula grips her neck, pulling her close with force others wouldn’t dare. Nebula returns it, fingers digging into her side, pulling her down to the bed.
They both moan at the same time, and Nebula knows neither will stop until the other is satisfied.
***
They don’t talk about it, but they don’t stop, either. Not every night. Not even most nights. But when either feels that surge of want, the other feels it, too, and neither ever turns the other away.
***
The other Nebula warms up in private. Smiles, sometimes, as they play the game with the paper. Helps her parse through scans and the reports they pick up from planets and passerby, searching for any clue as to where Gamora has gone.
But as soon as they land anywhere, for resupplies or to follow a lead, she turns inward, growling and distrustful, flinching away from anyone who comes too close. The buzz of her emotions is always higher then, flickering across their connection, bright and distracting.
Nebula was right that it could become a problem in a fight. A brawl with a gang of scavengers who made the mistake of deciding their ship was up for grabs—a brawl that should have taken only moments to end, the scavengers drunk and undisciplined—turns disastrous when a flash of pain at the wrong moment knocks them both to the ground.
They aren’t Thanos’s children for nothing; they recover the battle, barely, scraping through with skill and sheer determination that it won’t be a pack of nobody thieves who get the better of them.
After, as they’re cleaning their weapons, Nebula tells her other self, “We need to get this fixed.”
Her other self nods, but Nebula feels her sadness. Or perhaps it’s her own.
***
They find a man to perform the surgery; Rocket’s recommendation, a genius with cybernetics who they can trust, for the right price. They pay the right price, and hold hands as the man pries the metal off of their faces, humming in interest.
“Fascinating,” he murmurs as he pokes through their heads. “Utterly fascinating. I’ve never seen anything like it. But yes, I think I can block the effects.”
They keep holding hands until they shut down.
***
When they awake, the first thing Nebula notices is that the other Nebula is gone—not from her side, but from her mind. No more flicker of emotions, no static of awareness threatening to spill over into disorienting connection. It should be a relief, but her first emotion is panic.
But then she looks over and sees her other self staring back, and the worry building in her chest dies. She still knows her. They still know each other. It had been stupid to doubt that. They are each other.
Their hands link again.
***
That night, they still don’t stop until they both are satisfied.