Work Text:
I
I want a ticket to anywhere
maybe we make a deal
Mantis is lost.
Not lost in the physical sense- she knows exactly where she is. She is on the Benetar, the third room down on the left-hand hallway if you face the front of the ship, right hand if you have your back to the cockpit. This is her room. She has a room. That in itself is new. There was a room that she lived in on Ego’s planet, sure, but it wasn’t really her room. This one is. She knows this, because she has asked, many, many times, just to make sure. Every time, she has been told yes.
So. Mantis is in her room. She is home, though the word makes her brain feel fuzzy. Home is not somewhere someone is supposed to feel lost. And yet, lost is certainly what Mantis feels.
Maybe it’s not unusual to feel like this right now. The planet Mantis spent her whole life on, with the exception of however long she was in her larval state on her home planet, disintegrated and imploded on itself- himself. Itself? Ego. Ego disintegrated and imploded and Mantis’s world was ripped out from under her feet- literally. She thinks, maybe, that anyone who has had a planet ripped out from under them would feel the same.
She’s tried asking. She asked Gamora, who gives the air of someone who has seen great tragedy. That asking had led to Mantis receiving the silent treatment for five days. Apparently, she has to learn about something called ‘tact’. There are questions you are not supposed to ask people. Mantis thinks, just to herself, that that’s stupid. If someone ever had a question about her, she would much rather they just ask it, instead of staring at her and wondering. That’s much creepier. Gamora does not agree.
She asks Peter, too. Ego was his father, after all, he has to feel something about him dissolving in front of his eyes, by his own hand. She knows he does, because Peter is one of the only Guardians who will touch her. She’s felt that he feels something, even though he tries to bury it under layers and layers of anger and righteousness. He is sad. He is devastated . But he won’t say it, and he won’t answer her question, so Mantis is even more lost than she was when she began the asking.
It’s odd. Ego was everything. Ego was her father and her planet and her god. He was the person she loved the most and the person she hated with every bone in her body. He was the man who called her daughter right up until the day she demonstrated that she would never become a higher being like him. Then, she was only Mantis.
And she has no idea who Mantis is, without Ego.
There is a part of her that wonders (hopes, in her worst and weakest moments) that some part of Ego survived. She doesn’t think she’ll ever know, but the thought lingers at the forefront of her mind until she wants to scratch it out with her nails.
Thus, why Mantis is in her room, feeling small and lost.
There’s a knock on her door.
“Bug?” Quill calls. “You coming?”
The Benetar is docked for the night in a place called Knowhere. Mantis has never been- though, in fairness, Mantis has never been most places.
“Yes,” she calls back, and opens the door. Peter does not seem to notice that she feels lost. None of them ever really do. She supposes they do not know her well enough yet.
“You’re gonna love this place,” Peter says. He slings an arm around her shoulder companionably. “The others are already there. It’s a total shithole.”
“A shithole is… a good thing?”
“Oh yeah. A good shithole is better than any fancy-ass bar on an inner world.”
Mantis is learning many things with the Guardians. She will have to decide how many of them she agrees with.
If this place is a shithole, then a shithole means somewhere that is very loud, where people fight each other often, and which has drinks that make Mantis breathe steam out of her mouth. Rocket laughs so hard the first time she does it that he falls out of his chair. All in all, Mantis is gathering more attention than the reason they’re all here in the first place.
The reason in question is, of course, Nebula. She sits several feet away from the rest of them at the bar, glowering down at her drink. She is here on a break from her search for Thanos, which has been unsuccessful so far, Mantis gathers, so she is not in a good mood, even though all of her friends have come out to see her. It makes Mantis a little bit sad, even though she and Nebula are not friends, that Nebula seems so miserable. It makes her already impossible request even more impossible. Asking for anything for herself is already a very new idea. Asking for something for herself from someone who doesn’t especially like her? That’s scary.
She asks it anyway, because she thinks Nebula is the only person who can help her. The other Guardians are deep in their cups, Quill and Rocket singing some terribly bawdy song that Gamora pretends not to know, but she’s drunk enough that Mantis sees her mouthing a few of the lyrics along with them. Drax has Groot perched on his shoulder, fighting sleep, while Drax waves his drink around with such vigor that it sloshes over the side.
Mantis scootches down the bar until she is sitting next to Nebula. Nebula spares her only a single glance.
“What do you want?”
“How are you?” Mantis asks. She thinks it is polite to ask. She hopes it is not a question she is not supposed to ask. It seems to land somewhere in the middle, since Nebula does not answer at all. She just sighs, and raises her fingers to indicate another drink. She downs the rest of it, and Mantis watches the bob of her throat, fascinated with the movement.
“Your ship is very fast,” Mantis says, when Nebula shows she is disinclined to answer.
“Yes.”
“Would you take me somewhere?” Mantis asks. Nebula’s head turns, slowly.
“What?”
“Would you take me somewhere?” Mantis repeats. Perhaps she hadn’t heard. This place is very loud.
“I’m not a passenger ship,” Nebula says shortly.
“Please?”
“Where do you even want to go? Get Quill to take you.”
“I can’t,” Mantis says sadly, hanging her head. “I want to go to where Ego’s planet was.”
Nebula goes very, very still. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
“I need to know if any part of him survived.”
“Why? So you can kill it?”
Mantis shrugs. “I don’t think I will sleep until I know.”
She can feel Nebula studying her out of the corner of her eye. Nebula is very intense, Mantis is learning. She has such a presence about her.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Nebula says. She stands up, downs her drink, and walks out of the bar. Mantis is left as lost as ever.
She thinks that’s the end of it, until the following morning, when she is awoken by a banging on her door. She sits up, her head spinning, and groans.
“What?” she yells. Well, almost yells. Mantis still doesn’t do yelling just yet. Raising her voice goes against everything she was ever taught to do. Killing Ego also went against everything she was taught to do, though, and she helped do that, so maybe she should try the yelling thing sometime.
The door opens, and Nebula is there. She has a bag slung over her shoulder, and she glares at Mantis impatiently.
“Are you coming, or not?”
II
maybe together we can get somewhere
any place is better
Nebula’s ship feels as much like home as Mantis’s room on the Benetar does- which is to say, the word fits, but not well, like too-large clothing. She would think Nebula is just meticulously organized, but it just seems like she doesn't own very much. At least, not very much besides a wide range of weapons. They’re scattered around the cockpit so thickly that you can barely take a step without worrying about setting something off. It’s like Nebula wants to have a weapon within arm’s reach anywhere she is standing, even though Nebula is pretty much a weapon in her own right already.
“There's a room on the left,” Nebula says. “You can have that.”
“Thank you!” Mantis says, surprised. Nebula just grunts.
Their goodbye with the Guardians was not long. If anything, they mostly just looked confused. Quill did pull Mantis aside to make sure she wasn’t being taken hostage- if anything, Mantis thinks she’s taken Nebula hostage, since she’s hitching a ride for free- and then they’d waved them onto the ship. Mantis waved the hardest at little Groot, second hardest at Drax. It is nice to have friends, whether or not those friends understand her yet. Quill and Gamora had looked equally baffled by the whole thing, and suspicion had been radiating off Gamora like waves washing over Mantis’s skin. The suspicion was directed at her, not Nebula, which is interesting.
“Don’t try to pull anything,” she’d said harshly to Mantis just before she’d walked onto the ship. Mantis doesn’t know what Gamora thinks she’s going to try, but she promises not to try anything at all, just to be safe. She wonders if it is a sister thing. Mantis doesn’t know very much about being a sister.
Mantis waves again to the Guardians at the dock as Nebula starts the ship. She is nearly knocked off her feet by the speed of their departure. She manages to catch herself on the wall, and wobble her way over to a seat behind Nebula. She settles down, and watches the stars zoom past the window.
Nebula relaxes more the further they get from Knowhere. Her shoulders lose some of their stiff posture, and she kicks a foot up to rest on the seat next to her, setting the ship into autopilot.
“What is your ship called?” Mantis asks. Asking any question of Nebula is very hit or miss, she is finding. This one seems to hit.
“Silent Death,” she says in her low, husky voice. “ Though Thanos’s death will be anything but silent.”
“Oh. I see.” Mantis says politely.
“Do you?”
“No. Why would you name your ship silent death if you don’t do silent deaths?”
“Because I am silent. And I bring death.”
“That’s stupid.”
“You’re stupid,” Nebula mutters petulantly. “New rule. We don’t talk.”
“Ever?”
“Well, not ever. But rarely.”
“How long is rarely?”
“Rarely is when I say it is,” Nebula snaps.
“Ok. I have a question, though.”
Nebula sighs, tipping her head back until it rests against the seat . “What.”
“How long until we get there?”
“We have to stop a few places first. They’re on the way. Maybe a week.”
For some reason, Mantis thought it would be faster. Per Nebula's orders, she remains quiet after that.
Mantis is not unfamiliar with quiet. Ego’s planet was very quiet. She was the only living thing aside from Ego, unless he brought one of his children to the planet, but Mantis always knew they would be gone before too long. She doesn’t like quiet, exactly, but it is a familiar place to exist. It just isn’t one she feels entirely comfortable occupying, anymore, not when it is ordered, and not after the noise of the Guardians.
Unlike the duration of their trip, rarely comes quicker than Mantis expects. They are only quiet for an hour before Nebula speaks.
“Why do you care so much about Ego?”
Mantis straightens up at once, surprised to be asked. “He is dangerous.”
“Yeah, sure,” Nebula says. She rolls her head back along the seat until she is looking at Mantis over her shoulder. “Lots of people are dangerous. Not all of them get a vendetta.”
“I don’t have a vendetta.”
“Going to the place the guy died to make sure he’s dead sounds a hell of a lot like a vendetta.”
Mantis supposes Nebula would know. She has a vendetta of her own.
She looks down at her hands, frowning.
“Ego was my father.”
She hasn’t told anyone that. Not Quill, not Drax, not anyone. She doesn't know how to, because her being Ego’s daughter also makes her Quill’s sister, and she doesn't know what would happen if he knew. Family is supposed to make people happy, she thinks, but Ego didn’t make Quill happy. He made him very sad. Who’s to say learning Mantis is his sister wouldn’t make him sad, too? Or angry? Perhaps it would wear out her welcome with the Guardians, and Mantis would be shut out, forced to make her way in the universe alone. She doesn't want to do that.
But Nebula isn’t really a Guardian, is she? She doesn't even really talk to the Guardians. Even Gamora, Mantis thinks, doesn’t know much about what goes on in Nebula’s life. She’s heard her lament the issue to Peter before. Gamora’s room is close to Mantis’s, which is… uncomfortable for a number of reasons. The point is, she thinks Nebula will keep this secret.
Nebula’s finger taps on the armrest twice.
“That sucks,” she says simply. “He was an asshole.”
Mantis perks up. “Thank you! It does suck! He was an asshole!”
Nebula’s face is as smooth and impassive as it ever is, aside from a single line between her eyes that betrays a bothersome thought.
“He kept you like a pet,” she says finally.
“I was useful,” Mantis says quietly. “I helped him sleep. He gave me a home.”
“That place wasn’t a home,” Nebula says, with more force behind it than Mantis expects. “It felt wrong from the start.”
Mantis shrugs. “I never knew it was wrong.”
Something deep in Nebula’s eyes softens, just for a moment.
“Neither did I,” she says quietly. “But it was.”
Mantis knows Nebula isn’t talking about Ego, this time. This is something they share. It is a terrible thing to share, but Mantis finds the burden is lessened somewhat, knowing she is not the only one who carries it.
“Thank you,” Mantis says. “For taking me.”
Nebula waves her thanks away brusquely. “Don’t thank me.”
She turns back to the stars, clearly finished talking. Mantis smiles, just a little, just to herself, and settles back into the silence, content in the knowledge that it will eventually be broken.
III
city lights lay out before us
and your arm felt nice wrapped ‘round my shoulder
The first stop the Silent Death (name under review, according to Nebula) makes is at the planet Kitson. Nebula is meeting with an informant who may have information on Thanos’s whereabouts, or his recent movements. Mantis is just along for the ride.
“You shouldn’t wander around here,” Nebula says, as she prepares to leave the ship. She straps a blaster to her hip and a knife to her thigh, hiding another in her boot. “Kitson is dangerous.”
“I can take care of myself,” Mantis says. The implication that she can’t stings. The skeptical look Nebula gives her stings even more.
“Look, Kitson is for three things and three things only,” Nebula says. “Gambling, whoring, and shady deals. There’s nothing for you out there.”
“Says who? I am an empath. If someone has bad intentions, I will literally feel it.”
“Mantis, everyone on this planet has bad intentions,”Nebula says, exasperated. “Just stay on the ship. I can’t be running after you, I have shit to do.”
Mantis rolls her eyes. “Fine.”
“Good,” Nebula says. She strides off the ship without another word. Nebula doesn’t really do goodbyes. Or hellos, now that Mantis thinks of it.
Mantis waits exactly five minutes before leaving the ship.
What? Just because she says she’s going to do something doesn't mean she meant it. It’s called lying.
Kitson, she thinks, perfectly fits Peter’s description of a shithole. The planet is dark, even in the middle of the day, with bright neon lights shining from buildings, drunk people staggering in the streets, whoops sounding from the game halls. Mantis is fascinated by it. She wanders the streets like a starstruck child. She doesn't have money to do anything, of course, but just looking and being around this is enough. It’s so different from anything Mantis has ever known.
Her starstruck state is cut short when she feels the tip of a knife at her back.
“Stay quiet, and give me all the credits you have.”
Mantis gasps, outraged. Mugged! She’s being mugged! Rude!
“I said quiet, girlie,” the man with the knife says.
“I am being quiet,” Mantis objects. Before he can answer, she drives her foot back into his knee. He crumples at once. Mantis spins, and frowns down at him.
“That wasn’t very nice of you. I don’t even have any money.”
“What is your problem, lady?” the man says, clutching at his knee. “I think you fucking broke it-”
Mantis kneels down, and places two fingers on his forehead. “You feel terrible about this.”
“I feel awful about this. I’m so sorry,” the man says, wide-eyed.
“You want to make it up to me.”
“How can I make it up to you?”
“You want to give me all the money you have,” Mantis says.
“I want to give you all the money I have,” the man repeats. “But I don’t have any money.”
“Hm,” Mantis says, thinking. “Ok. You want to go and find me some money.”
“Please, let me go and get some money for you. It’s the least I can do.”
“That is so nice of you!” Mantis says brightly, removing her fingers. The man stands and limps away at once. Satisfied with herself, Mantis prepares to wait for him to come back. Then she’ll have some money, and maybe she can do something really fun. She’s deciding what that would be when she spots a heavily bearded and heavily tattooed man standing outside a building, shouting.
“See the Sssth Slicer in action!” he shouts. “The undefeated champion faces the Ergon Eviscerator in one hour! Betting closes in fifteen minutes!”
It takes a glance at the neon sign in the window of the building to figure out what he’s advertising, but when it clicks, Mantis’s eyes light up.
“Knife fight,” she breathes out, and starts to take a step towards the barker, when a hand closes around her elbow.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Nebula’s voice is harsh, furious, even, but the worry flowing from her palm through Mantis’s arm is all-encompassing, so much so that if Mantis weren’t so excited about the idea of this knife fight that it would have her shaking on the ground in an instant. She turns around at once. Nebula’s hand tightens on her arm, like she thinks Mantis might be trying to slip away, but Mantis brings her other hand up to grab Nebula's shoulder.
“We have to see a knife fight.”
“Wh-huh?” Nebula says.
“We have to see a knife fight,” Mantis insists. “The Sssth Slicer versus the Ergon Eviscerator! We have to go.”
Nebula blinks rapidly. While she flounders for a response, Mantis squeezes her shoulder.
“It is very sweet of you to be worried about me, but I am ok.”
“What- I’m not worried. I wasn’t worried. Shut up,” Nebula says, shrugging Mantis’s hand off her shoulder. “We’re not going to a knife fight.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“But I want to.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Yes we do.”
“We- I don’t want to.”
“That's ok. You can go back to the ship, I will go to the fight,” Mantis says decisively.
“You don’t have any money.”
“I am about to. The man who tried to mug me is getting me some.”
Nebula’s hand drops from her elbow. “ What?”
Mantis takes the opportunity to duck around Nebula and run over to the ticket barker. Nebula swears.
“Mantis, I will leave you stranded on this planet, so help me-”
“Ok then!” Mantis says cheerily, turning around, walking backwards so she can smile at Nebula. “I will just call Quill, and he will be upset with you, so Gamora will be very upset with you too!”
It does the trick. By the time she reaches the barker, Nebula is behind her, muttering angrily under her breath, but she’s there.
“How much for two people for the fight?” Mantis asks. The man looks her up and down, then looks at Nebula, and shrugs.
“Hundred.”
“Oh, you’re joking,” Nebula scoffs. “Don’t take us for a couple tourists.”
The man’s eyebrows lift. “Fine. 75.”
“I’m not paying for this,” Nebula says to Mantis. “Cough up.”
“Just a minute,” Mantis says, scanning the crowd around them. She spots her would-be mugger at once. Her influence is wearing off, she can tell- he looks at the credits like he’s confused how he got them.
“Be back,” Mantis says, and she dashes after him. He spots her coming, and his face drains of color.
“Get away from me!”
“Give me the money!”
“No!”
He scrambles backwards, nearly falling on his ass, then tries to run. Mantis jumps, leaping the distance between them, and pushes him over. She snatches the credits out of his hand.
“You are so scary!” he yelps. Sometimes Mantis forgets not everyone can jump like she can.
“Rethink your life choices!” Mantis calls back, jogging back to Nebula and the barker. Nebula’s mouth is gaping.
“Is it ok if the money is stolen?” Mantis asks, presenting her credits. The barker shrugs, amused.
“Most money on Kitson is. Go on in.”
The venue is crowded, the patrons circling around a pit lowered into the ground. Mantis elbows her way straight to the front, leaning over the railing. Nebula grabs the back of her shirt to keep her from falling.
“Will you stop that?” she snaps.
“I want to bet,” Mantis says.
“You just spent all your money.”
“Then give me some, please.”
The word Nebula uses is not one Mantis has ever heard before, but it has the cadence of a curse. “No.”
“Ok, then you bet and I tell you who to bet on.”
“No way,” Nebula says. “I think I would know who to bet on better than you would.”
“Ok, then who would you bet on if you were betting?”
Nebula leans over the railing a bit, where the Slicer and the Eviserator are warming up. The Slicer is a Sssth, with rough green skin and a wild mane of orange hair pulled out of his face. His blade is wickedly sharp. The Eviserator is, as her name implies, an Ergon, her bright red skin tattooed on every exposed inch, with her hair shaved up the sides and bulging arm muscles. She stands a few feet shorter than the Ssth, but looks significantly sturdier.
“The Sssth,” Nebula says finally.
“I think you are wrong,” Mantis says. “I think the Ergon will win.”
“You’re insane,” Nebula says. “In a knife fight, you always bet on the fastest. The Sssth is faster, and he has a longer reach.”
“But the Ergon looks like she would just shrug off a knife stab,” Mantis points out. “The Sssth is fast, but he does not look strong.”
Nebula shakes her head.
“No. Wrong. You’re so wrong it’s actually unbelievable.”
“Then we should bet, and see who is right,” Mantis says. Nebula coughs. It sounds suspiciously like a laugh.
“Come on, have some fun!” Mantis says.
“Fun is for children. It’s stupid.”
“You are already a little stupid. You gave your ship a stupid name.”
Mantis has leaned in a little, mostly to be heard over the uproar of the crowd, and Nebula has leaned in, tilting her head like she’s getting ready for a fight herself, but her shoulders are loose and she looks more relaxed than Mantis has ever seen her. There’s a bright spark in her eyes that Mantis just wants to swallow whole, just to see how it tastes.
“Let’s bet, then,” Nebula says. “But just between us.”
“What do I get if I win?”
“What do you want?”
There are a lot of things Mantis wants, and she wants one thing in particular very suddenly, with a low, swooping feeling in her stomach. But she doesn't think that it is something she is allowed to ask for.
“I get to pick the next place we go.”
“Fine. If I win, you listen the next time I tell you to stay on the ship.”
“Deal.”
“Deal,” Nebula says. She extends her hand. Mantis thinks this is the first time Nebula has ever offered to allow Mantis to touch her, and Mantis does not hesitate. She grabs Nebula’s forearm the way she’s seen Quill and Kraglin do, some kind of Ravager agreement. Nebula’s fingers close around Mantis’s forearm in return. Her lips twitch, and the swooping sensation in Mantis’s stomach doubles. She lifts her chin, like a challenge, and a buzzing sensation flows out from where Nebula’s fingers rest against her skin.
“I need a drink,” Nebula says, her already low voice very, very low, and there’s a glimmer in her eyes like she knows exactly what Mantis just felt from her, like she’d meant her to feel it.
Oh. That’s interesting. That’s new.
“Me too, please,” Mantis says. This time, Nebula does not say no.
Nebula returns with drinks, the crowd roars, and the fight begins. At first, it looks like Nebula was right to bet on the Sssth- he is faster, and he has a longer reach, and his blade is wickedly sharp. But in the second half, the Ergon begins to gain her footing, and after two jabs to the Sssth’s leg and shoulder, in that order, the eventual winner becomes clear.
“ How? ” Nebula demands, furious. “How??”
“I told you so!” Mantis cheers, entirely swept up in the adrenaline of the fight and the energy of the crowd.
“You should have been wrong!”
“Too bad! Cut his fingers off!!”
The last bit is directed down at the Ergon, who has the Sssth pinned. Mantis does not know if that’s allowed in whatever rulebook they’re following, if there even is one, but she wanted to yell it, so she did. It’s the first time she’s ever really yelled. She likes it. She likes it a lot.
When she turns her head, intending to rub her victory in Nebula’s face some more, she finds that Nebula isn’t watching the fight at all. She’s watching Mantis, lips parted slightly, frowning a little like she can’t quite make her out. She’s almost smiling at the same time, the tiniest lift of the corner of her mouth. Her shoulders are shaking, and it takes Mantis a moment to realize that she’s laughing.
“There is something very wrong with you,” Nebula says. Her laughter comes out especially hard on the word ‘very’. She doesn't say it mean. She doesn't say it like she’s trying to hurt, or like wrong is a bad thing to be. Somewhere layered under those words are other words, Mantis thinks, and she can almost hear them.
There is something wrong with you the same way that there is something wrong with me.
It’s a compliment. Mantis takes it as one.
The Ergon wins, and so does Mantis, and she and Nebula stumble home after having too many drinks at the bar Mantis chose, with Nebula’s arm slung around her shoulders and her hand on Nebula’s back.
It is the best night Mantis can ever remember having.
IV
I always hoped for better
thought maybe together, you and me’d find it
“You have more siblings?”
It has been a week since Mantis and Nebula first set out from Knowhere. They were meant to be at the location of Ego’s planet by now, but the previous day, Nebula received an urgent message from an old contact, and insisted they take a detour. Mantis didn’t complain. She’s enjoying herself, which is surprising, but in a pleasant way. She had thought that this trip would be awkward and uncomfortable, possibly downright hostile, since it’s Nebula, but Nebula is sort of wonderful.
Yes, she’s very intense, and she does yell and snap sometimes, and she doesn't really communicate so it’s hard to tell what she is thinking, but Mantis really thinks she’s wonderful. She blames the fact that her first impression of Nebula was so brief for not seeing it before. Nebula is tough as nails and strong as anything and dedicated and determined and very funny once you understand her sense of humor (which Mantis does, which is wonderful, isn’t it? To understand someone?) and she really cares a lot, Mantis thinks, even though she tries to bury it deep under her skin and never let it out. Not only does she care a lot, Mantis thinks she cares easily, which is why she tries not to let herself, holding herself at a distance from other people.
Mantis sees it, though, no matter how deep Nebula buries it. She saw it in the worry Nebula felt for her when Mantis wandered off on Kitson, and she sees it in the way Nebula’s eyes track unattended kids when they pass them in the streets, making sure they’re ok and getting where they need to go. She sees it in the way Nebula’s old contacts greet her, a little unsure and definitely still a little frightened, but a few of them talk about their businesses with Nebula, giving her updates, like she’s asked about them before. One of them even talked about her daughter.
She sees it in the way Nebula is around her, mostly. She always has an eye out for Mantis, always seems to know where she is, takes her to do one fun thing on whatever planet they stop on, even if she grumbles about it, even if the fun thing is becoming as much for Nebula as it is for Mantis. Mantis thinks they are friends. Friends plus a little extra, even if that little extra hasn’t been acted on yet, but she knows what she felt from Nebula that day on Kitson, and on occasion since then, and she knows what she started feeling that day on Kitson.
All this to say, Mantis was not opposed to extending their trip to take this detour. But since yesterday, Nebula has been tense and snippy, the way she was the first time Mantis ever met her. In true Nebula fashion, she refused to talk about it, and it’s only now that Mantis is finding out the reason.
“Yes, I have more siblings. Thanos adopted six of us,” Nebula says. She keeps her eyes forward, glaring at anyone who dares to look at her.
They’re in a smaller town this time, on the outskirts of the planet Saldon. Saldon is bright, due to its three suns, and not very heavily populated. They’re drawing more attention than they usually would.
“I thought Gamora was your only family,” Mantis says.
“Gamora is my only family,” Nebula says. “The others are just siblings. And I hate them.”
“Oh,” Mantis says, in her opinion, very tactfully. This feels like a question she is Not Supposed to Ask.
She wants to ask anyway.
“Why?”
“Because they’re assholes.”
Mantis raises her eyebrows incrementally. Nebula side-eyes her.
“Shut up.”
“I did not say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“I think you are projecting.”
There it is. The tiniest twitch of Nebula’s lips. Mantis relaxes. If she can get Nebula to do that, things can’t be so bad.
“And you think your siblings are here?”
“X’an said they might be. Two of them, anyway. My sister, Proxima Midnight, and my brother Corvus Glaive.”
Her nose wrinkles. “I hope it's not some stupid anniversary. They got married here, I think.”
“Married?” Mantis gapes. “I thought you said siblings-”
“Don’t even get me started,” Nebula groans, holding up a hand.
“Ok. Later, though.”
“Fine.”
They stop near a shop, Nebula checking her navigator.
“So, if they are here- what do we do?” Mantis asks.
“You don’t do anything,” Nebula says. “I probably fight them to the death.”
Mantis winces. “Can that be the backup plan?”
“Why?”
“I prefer you not dead.”
Nebula looks up, dark eyes blinking. Her chin dips in a nod. “Fine. Then- I don’t know. I tell them I want back in. See if I can get any information on D-Thanos.”
She pauses. “I’d let you take the ship back to the Guardians. You won’t be stranded.”
“Oh. Thank you,” Mantis says. She ignores the uncomfortable swirling in her stomach at the thought of Nebula actually embarking on this revenge quest. She knows she has to do it, but she doesn't like the idea of Nebula diving headfirst into danger like that. Not alone, at least, not without someone to watch her back.
Nebula grunts in response. “All right. There’s a bar up the street. If they’re here, that’s where they’ll be.”
She takes a deep breath, rolling her head on her shoulders. “Will you stay here?”
She’s not ordering, she’s asking, which is definitely an improvement. Mantis goes to protest all the same, but Nebula says something else before she can.
“Please.”
Mantis’s mouth snaps shut, and she nods. Nebula lets out a breath of relief-a tiny one, but the relief is palpable. “Thank you. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She turns, then pauses.
“I’m really- I’m glad that you’re here.”
She’s walking away before she even finishes the sentence, the final words tossed over her shoulder. It doesn’t change the way Mantis’s heart feels like it’s about to explode.
No one has ever been glad that Mantis is around before. Nebula is the first.
Knowing that makes the wait a little easier, at least. Mantis sits on a step and leans back on her palms, and closes her eyes.
She’s ready for a long wait. The wait she receives is maybe ten minutes. She hears cursing from the bar, and opens her eyes, craning her neck to see the entrance. There’s no loud crashes, no fighting, just cursing, and then Nebula is forcibly ejected from the establishment. Mantis jumps to her feet, eyes wide.
“You tell me where!” Nebula shouts. The bouncer crosses his arms, glaring at her.
“Tell me, now , and I’ll kill you fast instead of slow,” Nebula repeats, leaning in, looking more dangerous than Mantis has seen her in a while. She reaches the altercation, and lays a hand on Nebula’s shoulder, then yanks it back like she’s been burned. Nebula’s so angry the feeling actually has a temperature, or it feels like it to Mantis’s senses. She hisses through her teeth, shaking her hand out. She tries again, on her upper arm this time, and she’s more ready for it. It still stings.
“Nebula!” she snaps. She is learning how to snap at people now, learning from the best, the best being Nebula. It's easier to snap when Nebula’s anger is coursing through her blood. A muscle in Nebula’s jaw clenches, and her nostrils flare, before her eyes flick to Mantis.
Mantis isn’t exactly sure what to say. She just knows that something’s gone wrong, and that Nebula’s siblings aren’t here, since she doesn't think this bouncer is one of Thanos’s children. So she doesn’t say anything. She just tightens her hand on Nebula's bicep, and slowly, Nebula comes back to her.
“Fuck you,” she spits at the bouncer, and stalks off. Mantis is dragged a bit by the grip she still has on Nebula’s arm. She doesn’t let go as they walk back towards the ship, and she feels Nebula's anger turn to disappointment, to frustration, to sadness, right back to anger.
They don’t quite make it back to the ship. Nebula turns down an alley and shakes Mantis off, walking a few steps away before slamming her fist into the side of a building. Mantis keeps her distance this time, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, just to have somewhere to channel the anxiety of not knowing what’s going on.
“They’re not here,” Nebula says through gritted teeth. “They were , but they left this morning, and now this whole thing was for nothing. Just another dead end. It’s always dead ends. My whole life is one giant dead end.”
Her voice sounds thick, like she might start crying, and Mantis feels vastly unprepared to handle that. She doesn’t, which is both a relief and a disappointment (Mantis knows from experience that sometimes crying is the best way to work through an emotion). Instead, she sits down, suddenly, almost violently, not cushioning her fall at all, and buries her face in her hands.
For a moment, Mantis just looks at her.
So much of Mantis’s life has been making things smoother for other people. For Ego, specifically. She was there to ease his burdens and ease him into sleep when it evaded him otherwise. She was there to make his guests comfortable and compliant so that Ego could do what he needed to do without suspicion. There is such a large part of her that wants to make this smoother for Nebula, somehow. The trouble is, she doesn't think she can. She thinks this journey might be Nebula’s, and any smoothing or obstacles are Nebula’s to handle.
But maybe Nebula doesn’t have to do it alone. Not while Mantis is here. She thinks, and she remembers the call she had with Rocket after finding out they were going to Saldon.
“Oh man, they got these cliffs made of like a bajillion diamonds. You'll bring me back a diamond, right, kid?”
Her mind made up, Mantis takes slow steps towards Nebula, making sure she can hear her coming. She crouches next to her, and slides her hands around her wrists. Slowly, Nebula’s face emerges from between her palms.
“That sucks,” Mantis says solemnly, echoing what Nebula told her when she confided in her about Ego.
Nebula’s throat bobs. “It does suck.”
“Want to go somewhere else?”
She does.
The diamond cliffs are a short flight away, on a different part of the planet. Mantis pilots, with intense supervision from Nebula, even though she doesn't really need it. Nebula stays quiet, processing something that Mantis wants to help with, but that she knows is Nebula’s to process.
The cliffs are every bit as beautiful as Mantis hoped they would be. The three suns of Saldon are setting, dimming rays fracturing off the jutting stone cliffs, splitting into a thousand beams of color.
“Oh, wow,” Mantis says softly, bringing the ship to a hovering stop over the cliffs. She touches down, and lets her eyes adjust to the light. “It’s beautiful.”
Nebula doesn't answer, but Mantis hears a slight intake of breath, and the light of the cliffs is shining in her eyes like a kaleidoscope, so Mantis considers this a great triumph.
She reaches out and takes Nebula’s hand. Not to feel anything from Nebula, not to force any feelings onto her. Just to hold her hand. “Come on.”
Mantis leads them both off the ship, and right to the edge of the cliffs. They overlook a vast desert, full of shifting sands and dotted with small groupings of plants. It leaves the focus on the cliffs, and the sky, and the sunset. Carefully, Mantis sits down, her feet dangling over the edge. Nebula sits too, after a moment, and rests their entwined hands on the stone.
“I never knew this was here,” she says quietly.
“Me neither. Rocket told me,” Mantis says. “He would like a diamond.”
“Hm,” Nebula hums. Some of the tension has drained from her lithe frame, taking some of the danger with it. Now, Nebula just looks like a person, not the weapon she was made to be. She’s just a person trying to work out a difficult problem.
“Mantis?”
“Yes?”
“I really am glad-er, grateful, that you’re here.”
It’s the second time today that Nebula has said this. And this time, she isn’t running away. She’s looking at their entwined hands instead of Mantis’s face, sure, but she’s still here.
“I am glad to be here,” Mantis says. “I am glad I am here with you.”
Nebula takes a shaky breath. “Really?”
“Yes. I think you are wonderful, and I like being with you.”
Nebula’s chin lifts just enough to meet Mantis’s eyes. Her face is still guarded- Mantis thinks, after everything Nebula has been through, that she will be guarded for a long time yet to come- but something in her eyes is open and honest, and from that tiny space, Mantis catches just a hint of what Nebula is intending to do. Something kicks up in her chest and in her stomach- less of a swooping, and more of a fluttering feeling. She doesn't know if it’s coming from herself or from Nebula.
“Thank you,” Nebula says hoarsely. She shifts, moving a bit closer. Mantis stays very, very still, not wanting to scare her off or dissuade her.
“Thank you ,” she says back, her voice catching on the second word. Nebula’s knee knocks against hers, and the fracturing rays of the sunset off the diamond cliffs are reflected in Nebula’s eyes and in the metal embedded in her skin, and Mantis thinks she is absolutely breathtaking. She feels it so intensely that she wonders if Nebula can tell she feels it, if she is projecting without meaning to. She almost hopes she is.
The press of Nebula’s lips against hers is quick and soft and unexpectedly, heartbreakingly gentle, and Mantis wants to chase that kiss at once. She doesn't- she lets Nebula pull back, lets her breathe, and tightens her fingers around Nebula’s. Nebula looks shaky and unsteady, even sitting like she is, so Mantis steadies her as well as she can. She scootches closer until they’re pressed together from hip to knee, shoulder to hand, and lets Nebula lean against her.
This quiet feels comfortable, possibly because it is not silence. There is nothing silent about having Nebula beside her, even when they do not speak.
When Nebula’s breathing steadies, and Mantis works up the courage, she lifts her free hand and rests it on Nebula’s cheek. When it becomes clear Nebula isn’t going to bite it off- on the contrary, she looks like she wants to absorb Mantis’s touch straight into her skin- she moves closer, letting her nose bump against Nebula’s, before kissing her just as long and as slow and as gentle as she wants to.
V
is it fast enough so you can fly away?
you gotta make a decision
leave tonight, or live and die this way
The ship is quiet.
There is the gentle beeping of a sensor, the humming of the ship mechanics, and the occasional shift of movement from either Mantis or Nebula. Nebula’s heel is digging into Mantis’s thigh. She has both of her feet kicked up, one on the armrest and the other on Mantis’s lap. She does this, Mantis has learned over the last few days. It’s not exactly affection, not in the way that Quill and Gamora do it, for example, but Nebula will lean on the back of Mantis’s seat with her finger brushing the top of Mantis’s head, or she’ll sit close enough to Mantis that their knees knock together, or she’ll put her hand over Mantis’s to correct her steering, or she’ll do this, kick her feet up in Mantis’s lap and leave them there, all without saying a word about it.
Mantis thinks, given enough time and enough encouragement, Nebula could become an incredibly touchy sort of person. Or maybe she only wants to be a touchy person with Mantis.
They’ve taken their time, taken their detours, talked a bit, kissed a bit (more than a bit), but they’re here now. Ego’s planet-or, more accurately, the empty space where Ego used to be.
It’s jarring, seeing it like this. Just- space. Empty coordinates where a whole planet, a whole being, used to reside. It’s making Mantis shaky. She thinks this might be why Nebula still has her feet in her lap, and it is why Mantis is grateful for it- Nebula’s touch is the only thing keeping her grounded.
Nebula hadn’t asked what Mantis is looking for. She’d just turned on the sensors when they’d reached their destination. So far, nothing.
“This was stupid,” Mantis says quietly. “I’m stupid. I’m sorry.”
“Shut up,” Nebula says, mostly on reflex. “I mean- it wasn’t. You’re not. You don’t have to be.”
“I thought it would help. If I could see- you know? That it was done?”
“We’re not finished yet,” Nebula says stubbornly. Mantis is suddenly and jarringly grateful for Nebula’s stubbornness.
“We can-”
A different beep than the soft, surveying beep sounds. A proximity alert. Nebula sits up straight at once, taking the controls, following the alert. Mantis’s heart is pounding in her chest.
“Do you see anything?” Nebula demands as they draw closer.
“No. Nothing. I-wait!”
Mantis stands up, leaning her hands on the console, squinting out into the dark.
“There- do you-”
“I see it,” Nebula says grimly.
Floating in space is a tiny glowing speck. No, Mantis thinks, not a speck- a seed.
“Shit.”
“Shit,” Nebula agrees. “What do you want to do?”
“I have to- I need-” Mantis mumbles, thoughts flying a million miles an hour. She races to the back, strapping a spacesuit pod onto her back. “Get me close.”
Nebula nods sharply, sparing a glance over her shoulder at Mantis. Mantis seals the cabin, and then, when Nebula gives her the signal, she leaps out into space.
Nebula’s a great pilot. The seed is floating only a few feet away from her. Mantis floats in front of it, staring. It’s tiny, and the light inside of it is weak and flickering, but she knows what she’s seeing.
The last remnant of Ego.
Before she can think better of it, Mantis reaches out and cradles the seed in her hands, and calls herself back to the ship.
Nebula is standing just outside the seal, that worried line back between her eyes. The moment Mantis re-pressurizes the cabin, Nebula slams the button and joins her.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s- him,” Mantis says quietly. She can’t quite tear her eyes away from it. “Ego- he planted seeds, on many planets. He must have come from a seed himself.”
“Ew.”
“Mhm,” Mantis says. The light inside the seed is pulsing, like a heartbeat. She wants to fling it away from her. She wants to hold it closer. She is caught somewhere between the two, holding the seed in her hands.
It’s Nebula’s touch that brings her back. She places her fingers on the back of Mantis’s hand.
“I can do it,” she says quietly. “If you want.”
It's actually a very touching offer. Mantis knows Nebula well enough now to know that this is how she shows care- shouldering tasks that are too big for the people she cares about to take on.
But just as Thanos is Nebula’s, Ego is Mantis’s. And the task is not too big.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. Nebula’s mouth tightens, but she nods. She doesn't remove her fingers from Mantis’s hand.
Mantis closes her eyes. She quests out, into the seed. There isn’t much to find. It’s just a seed. But she knows, given the chance, what it would grow to be.
Mantis has a choice. In the weakest part of her mind, she remembers how simple life was when there was only Ego. Mantis had one job to do, and if she did it right, there was nothing else she had to worry about. Ego would take care of everything else. She never had to deal with the complex snarls of emotions of her own, never had to put herself out into the world only to find herself rejected. Ego was her father and her god and everything in between. He was a whole world.
She could let it grow.
But Mantis is not the person who served Ego blindly. Not anymore. She is not a brainwashed child desperate for her father’s approval. She is not the disappointment who let her god down when she could not become a god herself. Mantis makes her own decisions. Mantis is learning what she likes and who she is. And no matter who she will become, who she is now is wanted and cared for by more than one person, perhaps most strongly by the woman who refuses, even now, to let Mantis be alone.
She breathes in. She breathes out.
“You should let go of me for a moment,” she murmurs to Nebula. Nebula does.
Mantis raises the seed to eye level.
“Good-bye, Ego,” she whispers. She closes her eyes, and leans her forehead against it. Her antennae glow, and she eases Ego to sleep one last time.
The light inside the seed flickers, sputters, and finally, extinguishes. The husk of the seed turns to dust in her hands.
The universe is quiet, and the universe is still, and then it is not. Mantis whirls around and throws her arms around Nebula’s shoulders, burying her face in her neck. Nebula stiffens, but only briefly, and slowly, her hands come to rest on Mantis’s back.
“You, uh, you did good,” she says. Mantis nods, chin bumping against her shoulder.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“For bringing me here. For helping me. For this,” Mantis elaborates, squeezing Nebula a little tighter. For once, Nebula shuts up and accepts her gratitude.
After several long, shaky minutes, Mantis presses a quick kiss to Nebula’s cheek, and releases her. Nebula’s hands trail over her sides, like she’s reluctant to let go- so she doesn't entirely. She hooks her pointer finger around Mantis’s middle finger, just to keep them connected a little longer.
“So, where are we going next?” Mantis asks. Nebula hums, deep in her chest.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe it’s time to go home.”
Mantis ponders this, then nods decisively. “Yes. Home. With some detours.”
Nebula ducks her head, but not quick enough for Mantis to miss the brief grin that shoots across her face. “Always detours.”
“We are very good at detours,” Mantis says.
Between the two of them, Mantis and Nebula have an abundance of intelligence, none of the common sense to use it, and a very fast ship. They’ll make it home.
Eventually. For now, they simply fly.