An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
no proof, one touch (but you felt enough)
@bugborgweek2023 day 2: touch
rated G, guardians of the galaxy (mcu), mantis/nebula
It’s a feeling Mantis has only become acquainted with since joining the Guardians, one she had first felt in her brother when he looked at Gamora. Nebula feels love, not just the platonic, familial love Mantis has sensed in every other Guardian, but romantic love.
It's only when she meets Nebula’s gaze does Mantis realize who it’s for.
or: mantis accidentally uses her powers on nebula. turns out their feelings towards each other aren't quite as different as they once thought.
word count: 1,624
additional tags: bugborg week 2023, feelings realization, first kiss, love confessions, miscommunication
The Street Where You Live (Bugborg Week - June 16)
Summary: Nebula is tired of Mantis being an useless student, so she decided that, instead, is going to waster her time with hear with small talk…apparently, none of them are good at speaking in a chill manner.
Relationships: Nebula/Mantis
A/N: Written for day 5 of @bugborgweek2023
Prompt: Based on a song
Word count: 920
CW: parental abuse, childhood trauma, mentions of death
Also on AO3!
Nebula didn’t understand why on Earth she had said yes to this job offer. Yes; she wanted to be able to leave home as soon as possible, and it wasn’t as if she had many talents apart from physical defence and formal etiquette (things that happen when your father is a mafia boss), but she had never been good with nice people of around her age…
Still, there she was, in front of a smiling girl a couple of years younger than herself, sitting in the most uncomfortable position imaginable while wearing green raggedy clothes. Between her posture and the outfit…she got why people called her Mantis. Also, she wished she could be squashed as easy as the insect, since this was already their fourth session and she couldn’t even choose the proper spoon for soup.
Still, she actually felt pity for the girl; all her siblings had died either under mysterious circumstances after having tried to face their father or in the line of duty while trying to make him proud. Mantis’ only reason to still be alive was that the 1920s weren’t exactly a progressive time, and his father wouldn’t allow a girl to either become part of the Army or the Police Forces, nor give her enough free space to get a formed opinion that would make her want to rebel against him.
Nebula hated his father; he was abusive and there was barely anything good to be said about him even outside of how he treated his multiple suspiciously adopted children, but, at least, he valued them having a mind of their own and didn’t care about their gender or interests under the sheets , as he called them.
“Ok, we are getting nowhere and after this I have to go and try to stole a prisoner from my sister so my father actually realised I am the best out of the two of us. Maybe I will kill him, just in case he decides to speak well of Gamora. He won’t be the first idiot falling for her…wonder why” she reflected out loud while sitting down. “…what do you like doing?”
“What do you mean?” the younger lady was clearly perplexed by the question.
“What do you like doing? For example: I like fighting and not having useless conversations”.
“This is a useless conversation, and that is not something you do. That is something you avoid doing…wait, do you only like the stuff your father thought you?”
Nebula scoffed.
“As if you were any different, Miss Perfect Mantis Planet” Mantis lowered her eyes, and Nebula thought she had hurt her with a far too brutal honesty. Then, before she could even form an educated opinion whereas that made her feel good or bad, the other young woman kneeled on the floor and dismantled a couple of wooden panels, to show a complete painting set, showing drawings of faraway lands.
“When I was little, my dad was an ambassador and we travelled a lot . I wish I could travel again…I really don’t care where, though I’ve heard Seville in Spain is really nice and hot; I am tired of London’s clouds. I also draw; feelings, mostly. I just…put the colours where the feelings would go. Of people, or for people. I like to make people feel things ; like I make you be frustrated”.
This shouldn’t have been enough for Nebula to open her absolutely hardened heart but, here was the thing: she was so unused to people being honest without being scared of her, or purposely cruel to her, that the difference was enough for her to do something that would commonly be absolutely out of character for her.
“Yeah, you are pretty good at this…I…I might like when…when I got people that also want my classes, but the self-defence ones, the crap that is actually fun and not only for appearances. Especially when it is when actual kids, not like you, I…think I kind of like kids”.
“I do too, but at a distance. Except for the girl of my bodyguard. She is really kind, and strong. Maybe you would get along. See? They are here” she pointed at a painting of a very muscular man with a woman and child, not small by any measures either. It was painting in warm, peaceful colours.
“Wait, why is it in this colours? Your bodyguard is pretty infamous for his violent temper and this, this brings me…”
“…peace, I know. Because that is who he really is, but don’t get it mistaken: there is also some aggressiveness painted into it. The only reason you don’t get it is because it is already too deep within you, but, don’t worry. I think your palette wouldn’t be as violent as you think either. Maybe…yes, a lot of blue”.
“A lot of blue for the murderous ginger? Yeah, sure”.
“Yes, sure . Now, let’s talk illegal, it’s always fun” she sat somehow in an even more uncomfortable position and, holding her head in between her hands, asked “what was your favourite place to go drink while pretending to be within legal age? I need names”.
Nebula contained a cackle and answered. Perhaps, this class would be a bit longer than usual.
Back on the street, Nebula observed the panel with the name of the street in which the Planet Household was situated “Gunn Street”.
She let a sight scape. She would be walking around said street much more from that moment on.
Summary: Former gun for hire, re-invented into white-collar criminal Nebula is being interviewed after being offered a job by Yondu's Criminal Family by Mantis...maybe they get along better than expected.
Relationships: Nebula/Mantis
A/N: Written for day 3 of @bugborgweek2023
Prompt: Love languages
Word count: 1626
CW: parental abuse, memories of body modification and abuse, childhood trauma
Also on AO3!
Nebula didn’t like human contact. Usually, it was something that she could easily avoid. After all, his father had been one of the most influential politicians in the History of the United States and, even these days, after having been proved how many terrible things he had done, plenty of people defended him and his shadow grew as larger as it had always done.
This fear didn’t only come from the fact that everybody knew that he seemed to believe he was the only one within the right to harm his step-children, though. It also came from the fact that, even though she had stopped being his hitman many years ago already, but people still knew about her handy-work from that time.
Since then, she had become one of the most successful criminals in the white-globe criminal underground. She had sworn not to kill unless strictly necessary. Not because she cared much about other people’s lives, but because she simply wanted to show Thanos he hadn’t irremediable turned her into a monster.
Of course, that didn’t mean that she didn’t occasionally end some people’s existence if it was absolutely necessary. Alas, her reputation was, somehow, intact in what toughness was referred.
Right now, she was wondering whether it might become even stronger in the violent department, as the contact from Yondu’s Ravangers kept being nice to her.
“Nepo-bug” she grunted, piercing her with her mechanically altered eyes. The other woman, who had some physical alterations done as well (making her shorta kinda similar to the animal she had chosen to name herself after, presumably once she had been adopted by her actual boss), blinked at her, offended.
“That was unnecessary . I’ve proved myself quite capable when it comes to read emotions and reach out to other… Illegal firms . It has nothing to do with who my family is. Also, it is really rude to pray upon another person’s body. Maybe I have good reasons for looking like… this ” after saying that, she made an unconscious gesture, grapping her very own wrist as it hurt.
Nebula understood that language.
“Dad, why does it hurt so much?”
“Don’t worry Nebula. You will be better once you get used to it. After all, wasn’t your meaty right arm a bother most of the time…?”
“Fuck, I knew that Ego guy was pretty terrible. I mean, he liked Thanos; but…I won’t say I am sorry, because your current dad still wants to buy my services for far too less than they are worth, but…I get it. What did he do in your head?”
Mantis composed an unreadable expression, completely alien for Nebula, before answering.
“Just sensors to get people better. That is how I know you are trying to get extra money just to prove to your sister that she got payed less because she fancies my brother in the Biblical sense . Also, the money part of business is held by my mom, not dad. Meredith is the best with money, even if not choosing partners, some might say” she smile, and it was genuine. Then, she clicked her fingers and an angry male voice could be heard from behind a wall as all the cameras shut down.
“Lylla! The blue-tattooed lady is going to kill our Mantis if we left them alone. And, then, Drax is going to kill ME !”
“Oh, Rocket, pretty please, shut up or you are sleeping on the couch. I think those two deserve a bit of intimacy…you are alone, honey! Right, Rocket ?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, but you go next time Floor’s teacher calls, alright?”
A door opened and closed and Nebula didn’t hear the end of the conversation (not that she cared).
“So….terrible early childhood dad, uh?”
“Biological, in my case. He cheated on Meredith with a…I don’t even know who my mother was, or is. Just that I was one of those kids that were already born with an inclination to be genetically modified and, since Peter is too old-fashioned human for it…my existence healed his disappointment . What he didn’t expect was, well…”
“…your mother taking his two children and running away with the criminal he had paid to murder his older yet useless son? I mean, that story is kind of famous in our circles”. It had also been the beginning of the end of Ego’s reign in the underground.
“Yes, that. However, the Bad has already been done. I…I might be receptive to artificial modifications, but, what I am not receptive to is to read people as most people do. So…it was…challenging, also, the whole not-fitting-with-my-name-thing” Nebula bit her tongue there; the only thing Thanos had done for her was giving her a name she felt matched more than Pompeii (the one her parents had given her, a bit too much for her taste). “I hear feelings, sometimes even thoughts; when the person is emotionally too vulnerable; but I just burst them out loud, I didn’t get that that made people uncomfortable for quite a while. Then, when I chose to be called Mantis, I asked for the modifications so the ones Ego did remained hidden, especially from me”.
“So, you knew what I was thinking so…am I emotionally vulnerable?” Mantis smiled even more (fuck, how much could this woman made her feel comfortable?).
“That is not bad; I think is a kind of language, an especial one. Just as you got what was going on with me because of how I gestured. I think these are ways that made us communicate in ways that nobody else could” all of the sudden, Nebula felt herself blush.
“Woah, bug, that your brother and my sister are doing grown up things doesn’t mean that you and I…”
At this, Mantis blushed even more.
“Oh, no. No . Of course…I didn’t…just friends”.
“ Friendly acquaintances ” Mantis shrugged.
“Well, at least you dropped the nepo bit already. A beginning is a beginning”.
Nebula stopped the recording and eyed her partner, who was relaxing over her legs. Mantis laughed at her face.
“I know the pain Lylla went through as a teen, but I swear, it will be nothing compared to the one she is going to feel when I catch her. She said they had stopped recording!”
“She didn’t specify …”
“She did!”
“You know she didn’t!”
“Oh, it’s been a while since my mind has been that easy to read” it was true. Apparently, the only thing she had needed to stop being so emotionally vulnerable was…to stop being so close within herself.
Figured.
“ Oi! It is not the only way I have now to understand you” Mantis hit her with delicacy, but certain strength.
She was right, though. They had been together for longer than Nebula had been not only in a relationship, but it good terms in general with anyone (except for Gamora, of course; but shared abuse would do that to you), and every day she realised she could understood Mantis without having to exchange traditional words.
In small gestures, in shared silences, in how she poured water into a glass…even the silliest of gestures could mean a world. And Mantis was catching up, too; for the first time, she was getting someone from the beginning without her unnatural abilities put into use.
They were just perfectly similar, yet not equal enough, for it. Nebula couldn’t have been luckier to have met her.
She would still call her Bug , though; that was something Mantis would never be able to avoid.
Fervid as a Flame, does it have a name? (Bugborg Week - June 12)
Summary: Nebula has been developing feelings towards Mantis. However, luckily (or not) for her, the chances to actually process them has never come...until, perhaps, their first Earth Pride Parade.
Relationships: Nebula/Mantis
A/N: Written for day 1 of @bugborgweek2023
Prompt: Pride
Word count: 2316
CW: mentions of LGTBphobia, mentions of death, hints of alcoholism, swearing, emotional trauma
Also on AO3!
For a little while, Nebula was almost completely alone; the rivalry with her sister Gamora being the only thing that kept her apart from total soul-self-annihilation. Then, this group of everything but heroes (including Gamora herself) reluctantly became her family, and she had a home for the first time since she could remember. Later on, the father that had pushed her to become the monster she was certain she could never stop being (not completely, at least) had made sure almost of said family was completely gone, disappearing into literal thin air. She had been left behind with only Rocket, and she didn’t know what she would have done if he had been gone too. What she would have become.
In that time frame, she had also become good friends with Tony Stark, named among other Earthlings as Iron Man (which, from her cyborg perspective, was kind of a bit offensive, but she had bigger fish to fry than to get offended by that particular point). When she had regained her family of strays, it had been at the cost of her new friend’s life, and a Gamora with whom she had to rebuild every single bond they had ever managed to accomplish.
She was starting to think the Universe simply hated her. This was further proved when she realised her stomach acted out all the time she was around Mantis. The younger of the two remaining Children of Ego was annoying in her quirkiness and constantly tried to see the best on people, while still always being on point when reading all the shitty things that went through Nebula’s mind on an almost daily basis.
She hated what a comforting presence she was, without even having to use her abilities. How she was one of the very few people that stood up against her when her nerves got the best of her. Mantis could make her laugh, but also get so serious she was ever so slightly intimidated by the insect-aligned extra-terrestrial.
So, of course, by the time she started to realise that, maybe (and only maybe), her stomach-ache wasn’t actually a bad thing…she had to go.
To find her fucking self, figures!
Deep inside, she understood why she needed to walk the universe alone, but she was on her right to be selfish and be mad that she had left her behind, so inner-actualy-outer-mad that if had surfaced enough for Drax to deduce she had love problems . She would not call it love , but there was a certain infatuation she had grown tired of denying, but only to her deeper self. One day, of course, she hoped she could resolve all these feelings she was trying to hard to silence even from herself.
One day, but not today.
Nor any other day soon without someone forcing it out of her.
It was about mid of June on Earth when they got a stress call from Quill. Peter communicated with them regularly (especially with Rocket, but with all in general too), but this was different. There was…a sourness to his voice that intermediately worried all of them up to the point that they all agreed that, before going to him, they would told Mantis to get there first.
And to make sure all alcoholic brewages were nowhere to be found in Star-Lord’s household.
When they all arrived (after having left Adam, Cosmo and Phyla in charge of Knowhere -well, in all honestly; they had left Cosmo in charge and the other two happened to be there-), was just to find Mantis speaking with an old man they assumed to be the Famous Grandad in the porch of a low house in the middle of a row of extremely similar houses.
“ Humans are weird designing cities ” Nebula thought, thinking about the dullness of the street and wondering how their Quill could stand it.
When she saw them, Mantis stopped what seemed to be an extremely animated conversation with the earthling to wave at them emphatically before running towards them.
She obviously hugged Drax first, letting him raised her a couple of feet into the air. Then kneeled to salute Rocket as if he was still just recently put out of a coma (and squeaked with joy when she realised one of the baby racoons had come as a stowaway in the back of his suit). She continued giving a quick hug to both Kraglin and Groot and then…
…then she stopped, slightly uncomfortable, in front of Nebula.
“Hi”.
“Hi” the blue woman answered, lowering her eyes to the floor. “Uh…is Peter alright?”
“I mean, he had decided to teach children at a human school (apparently, the basic physics you have to know to survive in space are more than enough to be an expert in this planet and he’s really good with the kids…). Also; he still has nightmares about…many things, actually. But, yes, his problem is… external ”.
Just as she finished speaking, while giving Nebula a quizzical look she just couldn’t read for dear life, the aforementioned appeared and simply stated: “Humankind lives in the Palaeolithic”.
“When I left Earth, it was the eighties, which was… many years ago . Back then…I was just a kid, but, uh…I kind of already knew gals weren’t my only…interest”.
“I mean, isn’t that the norm? Like, in my world, my wife was an isolated case for being like that . I mean, she only liked guys, not gals; that was why she loved me. It wasn’t as if she had a wrong perception of me, or that I forced her into anything, you get that, right?” Nebula had to admit, her heart melted a bit every time in the latest times when Drax had been able to speak about his wife and daughter without the pain and sorrow he used to show. He was healing and, if he was healing, that meant she was too; she wasn’t just imagining a temporal improvement that would eventually go away.
“Yes, Drax, yes. But, on Earth, back then, that was a bad thing ”.
“It wasn’t a bad thing, Pete. It was a thing prosecuted by the same people that made it impossible for us to give your mother the kind of treatment she deserved” the grandfather sounded angry, bitter and ready to charge his riffle against whoever those culprits were. Nebula decided she really liked him; “ most Americans ”.
“Grandpa, could I…?”
“Ey! Why do you shut up Grandad Jason and not Drax?!” Mantis said, hitting him in the arm. Nebula raised an eyebrow. Apparently, Mantis had decided he was also her grandfather by proxy and, by the elder man’s face, he agreed.
“Sorry, grandpa. As I was saying, I thought, after a life living in a world with this wasn’t an issue and with the humans we had met so far…that that had changed. Well, it hasn’t. Actually, it had gone worse the last few months and…since Ego’s death…I am just a human. I just get frustrated I cannot help , except by…would you like to come to a special demonstration with me? By, what I mean, at the same time. And then, we can get dinner or something; I am already going with someone” at this, Mantis giggled and Peter almost murdered her with his eyes.
Ah, sibling relationships…She clearly knew who that someone was and, for a second, Nebula’s mind thought about giving Gamora a call; she missed her own sibling.
Then, she decided, she had a better thing to do: she would propose to Mantis to both together alone to the demonstration.
Just to find out whoever Quill was going to so secretly.
Just that.
“Bug” Mantis wrinkled her nose, clearly annoyed (and not in a fun way), when she called her once they had been left alone. “I have a proposal to make to you. Let’s go together to this demonstration thing, so you can accidentally lead me to your idiotic brother so I can find out who the secret companion is without putting you in the spot. You can obviously say no…you know I have other ways of knowing ”.
“I would like to see you trying them” she replied, with a fierceness she wasn’t used to hear in her voice. Wow, apparently, those months on her own had actually helped her.
“ I hope this doesn’t awake anything on me ” she thought.
Mantis stared at her eyes, and she stared back; four completely black orbs facing each other in the middle of a suburban neighbourhood in Boring-AF-USA. Time elapsed and, without even noticing it, they found their feet being far closer to the other than originally intended.
Nebula stepped back, uncomfortably, suddenly finding how a scrawny child brutally fell from his bicycle extremely fascinating. Mantis huffed and approached her until touching her arm and, to her very own surprise, the instinct of pulling away didn’t kick in.
She remained still, feeling the fingers of oddly texture of Mantis against her unusually thick skin, all of the sudden feeling as if it had become extremely thin, the other woman already reaching her deepest flesh and bone.
Was Mantis manipulating her emotionally? Or reading her? As she thought that, she noticed a puzzled look in her eyes, just as her antennae were doing some jerky movements she had never seen before.
She was just as paralysed and lost in the moment as Nebula herself. She shrugged trying to break out of their half-vegetative state.
“Bug! Answer my question… please ” Mantis was suddenly out of the moment’s spell.
“Fine, I will go with you…but just because you have a funny way of saying the word please ”.
“Fine”.
“Fine”.
As Mantis went inside, called by Jason to help with the dinner (the man was making a terrible mistake, if anything of what Mantis had cooked back in Knowhere was anything to guide her opinion by), Nebula shook her head and jumped on her own feet, trying to get rid of a certain type of nervousness she wasn’t at all comfortable feeling.
She turned to a moment, to see how the scrawny child (now with both knees covered in a disgusting mix of mud and his very own blood) was clearly laughing at her attitude.
A simple look was enough for the kid to crawl back into his house, screaming for his mother.
Nebula smirked; she hadn’t lost her touch. At least, not for everything .
Mantis and Nebula poorly excused themselves to get away from the rest (which, actually, even included Jason Quill, who was carrying his riffle in case the cops got stupid with some of the younger kids ; definitively, iconic behaviour) and starting very casually wondering among the crowd, with Mantis pretending not to be going towards where she knew her brother would be standing.
As they walked among a group of people so colourful Nebula couldn’t help but wonder if, since things were so fucked up back here on Earth, they wouldn’t be better coming back with them to Knowhere (they could always use some more helping hands, after all). After about twenty minutes of tense silence, Mantis cleared her throat.
“I…I wanted to visit you guys in a couple of months…how…how are things going?”
“Rocket and the rest of the Guardians come and go. But you are in the same group chat as your useless brother, so you already know that…I miss you in Knowhere. I mean…you are literally the only one that can handle Drax sometimes, it had been a bit of a headache”.
At this, her friend scoffed.
“Funny that you would say that, because Drax has told me you are getting along almost too well for the person he thought you were ” she looked back, and her smile grew again. “So, you actually missed me ?”
Nebula grunted.
“Yes, maybe! Maybe I got used to you being there, about you always caring, even if nobody asked you to do so. Maybe I realised that speaking with you was only more pleasant than it was annoying. Maybe I have realised insect-like features are cutter than I was raised up to believe they were…FUCK, IS THAT THOR ?!”
Mantis took a couple of steps back to reach her height in the street and nodded, playfully.
“Yep, that is him. And the kid he kind of adopted; Peter is her teacher…and the dark haired kid too” she pointed at a girl with raven hair and a crocodile (with a bloody helmet, who knows why) between her legs, holding a pink-white-purple-black-blue flag. She was next to three adults: a blonde woman, a man with very similar dark hair and one with the type of hair she had heard plenty of people in the Blip Years calling Silver Fox Hair .
Nebula was still processing that she had just seen her idiot Peter kiss the fucking God of Thunder when Mantis held her by the arm, with a smile filling her whole face.
“So…you missed me?”
“You are reading my mind, Mantis, you know I feel it ” how she knew Mantis was reading her mind, she wasn’t certain. It was just…it just…for once, it felt as a right intromission and her whole body was telling her to make something so it didn’t stop.
“Yes, but…I wasn’t looking for your missing-me feelings” Nebula frowned.
“Weren’t you? Then, what on Earth…?”
“…I was looking about your me-kissing-you feelings”.
“And what are they?” her question was genuine. She had locked that part of herself so deep within her soul she wasn’t truly able to reach it.
For all answer, Mantis kissed her and people around them cheered. Usually, this kind of intromission in her personal life would have maddened Nebula, but, right now, a kind of happiness she wasn’t used to feeling clouded everything else.
