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“Spaceships,” Tony said, “are truly a marvel of science.”
Nebula agreed, if only because of the circumstances. The ship was damaged, with too much missing to be completely repaired, but they were still alive. The vacuum of space hadn’t killed them despite its best efforts, and as long as they had electricity, they could probably stay alive despite the pin-thick holes in the ship.
After that realization, they’d put everything down as much as they could. The lights were low, when they were there at all, and instead of keeping the life support temperature at a comfortable level, they dressed in layers and dealt with the sweat and the lack of heat.
This was the first time Nebula had had to share a bed with anyone, and it kept her in a half-awake, half-asleep state the way that she always did when sleeping in an unlocked room, or in a bunk.
She could hear Tony’s breathing and his heartbeat, louder than the ship, louder than the silent work of her own artificial body.
-
It was the first time Nebula had dreamed. She had been unsure if Thanos had taken that ability from her, or simply molded in until her waking dreams were thoughts of blood on her hands and him at her feet, humiliated and broken.
Those dreams made her get up in the morning. These ones brought her confusion, and in a way, peace with it.
She drank from the rations- water, purified by the spaceship- and thought. Tony came in, and he slouched to the counter for a mug of water like he was oxygen-deprived. She checked the neat little notepad she had, but the oxygen levels were stable, and as the system allowed.
“Damn I miss coffee.” He leaned back, like he was pretending that he was home, and then made his way to the engine so that the waste heat could make it lukewarm rather than cold.
She followed him, abandoning half-hearted plans to play jacks, and watched him slick back his hair with spit, trying to look something more like normal on this crew of two.
“I should tell you about Planet Xern. They have a drink that will keep you awake for two days straight if you have a teaspoon of it. It’s still popularly debated whether it should be classified as a poison.”
He laughed. “I could use some of that for sure. Have you been there, too?”
“Yes.” She thought of it, and the jungles where she’d slain her target.
“What are the people like? Are they nice?”
Nebula’s mouth moved, but for a moment nothing came out. “I don’t know. I landed in the wilderness, not in a town or city. That was inconsequential to my goal.”
He listened to her talk about the fauna and flora. She didn’t share the violent parts, and he didn’t ask.
“Have you ever been to a city that’s famous for gambling, drugs, and sex?”
“I’ve been to many cities like that.” Every planet seemed to have at least one. Even if they weren’t famous for it, there was a corner somewhere for it, with variations depending on whether prostitution, drugs, and gambling were legal and what people liked from them.
“I’ve been to Vegas. Let me tell you, it was wild-”
And he told her about it, leaving out what he’d been like at the time. How he’d been miserable, and needy, and blown all his money before he built it up again, before he learned moderation.
People still argued about whether he had learned that.
They could suck it up.
-
When Tony didn’t want to talk to her, because he’d talked too much late at night and revealed something personal, it was hard to run away from it.
Normally he could find another bed, or leave on important business to another country. There was always something happening, and there were always excuses.
It was hard on him, but rewarding, too. Always hiding from himself, and from others…
He could keep trying. But maybe he wouldn’t.
-
She watched him work, with the paper they had. They didn’t have many resources, but he was trying to find a way to use solar wind, or just light, to make more electricity.
It would never make enough to get them home, but she didn’t bother to tell him that. It would help them survive another day.
She was surprised to find that she wanted to, not in the spiteful, tenacious way she had always clung to life when others tried to steal it from her, but because she would miss this, if they were not there. If Tony died because he relied on his lungs and she wandered the spaceship alone, a sullen ghost.
-
When Nebula first met Tony, she thought he was easy to read. She’d seen plenty of men like him, and would see plenty more afterwards.
She didn’t take that back- he was still everything she saw on the surface, everything he tried to hide that really kept him running, like the tick of gears.
But he had… hidden functions, was one way to think about it.
It had never been relevant, whether or not he knew a million little games to play when they were bored and had nothing else to do.
She had never thought it’d matter that when she wanted him to drop it, he’d drop it, and when a bad mood stuck around for long enough, he’d find some way to kick her out of it with what they had at hand. Nowadays it was songs, sung by someone with no formal training in it but a lot of earnest effort.
-
“I guess we’re not going to starve after all!” Tony said it with a chipper tone.
Nebula looked down at his creation. Certainly better than eating their own waste, but she would miss even the rations that they had stashed away on the ship. This machine was for the truly desperate. That was what they were, she supposed.
She spent a moment being thankful that spaceships used so much energy, when before it frustrated her. Otherwise, the energy that they used being alive with back up power would have failed on them so much sooner.
-
He had spent a lot of time sketching it out, but when she looked at it all Nebula saw was a dog, or something else with a similar snout, with a lot of fluffy fur and a similar tongue.
“No, you have to see, it’s D-o-g-e. Doge. And the joke is,” he waved his hands, “that it’s staring at the screen, and it looks ridiculous, and it talks in a very exaggeratedly simple way.” He looked at it, seeming somewhat frustrated. “You had to be there to get it.”
Nebula laughed, not at the dog but at the look on Tony’s face, the way he really wanted her to understand why this dog was funny and why it was famous. “Are you going to show me another meme that I can get without a computer?”
“I’ll try, I’ll try.” He ground his teeth together silently, then began work on another picture. This one had a street with a couple, where the man was looking at a woman, and the woman was looking at the man she was coupled with.
“And this meme doesn’t exactly have a name, but the boyfriend is distracted, and the joke is-”
If Nebula was to die, doomed as ever, she would be able to say that she died content. That was such a new thing she’d learned, to be content doing nothing, and not scared or agitated or angry or bored.
She liked it.