gonna need a fanfic where, after past!nebula is beating up nebula and calls her weak, nebula talks about the different types of strengths and how she’s stronger than she’s ever been because she has friends and had a sister, and she starts talking about rhodey and rocket and tony who she almost thinks of as the father she never truely had
and past!nebula sneers at her for this but inside she’s terrified at everything her future self is saying, a life free from thanos and one where she’s working with others, where she’s happy-
it’s inconceivable and with that terror comes rage. she’ll prove to her future self that it all means nothing, that they don’t really care for her she’s just too blinded by emotions and she’ll reveal these ‘friends’ and this ‘stark’ as the disgusting pieces of waste they truly are
except when she gets to the future people are looking at her gently and asking her to mourn with them over someone she doesn’t know but apparently does, had been friends for half a decade, close friends who had apparently bonded over being used and abused
and she meets rocket, a feisty thing who respects her and with whom they’ve shared a bond for even longer, around an entire decade and he knew her sister for even longer and they’d bonded over her death (gamora? dead? by thanos’ hands? he wouldn’t he would never he was her favourite he wouldn’t) but she doesn’t know him she doesn’t-
and rhodey is there, offering her words of assurance and worried over how she hadn’t jumped with him back and was everything alright? she could take a break if she needs they had the stones she could go and rest for a while but she couldn’t do that not when her father is actually expecting something from her for once she can’t let him down she can’t she’s terrified what will happen if she does
and then stark is there, tony, who seems to like her the most out of everyone and calls her the most idiotic of names and offers to help her when her arm gets jammed up and he does it so gently as though hurting her would hurt him too and nebula could see it in his gaze, there was something in his expression when he looked at her that she couldn’t place but it had never been on thanos’ face and she didn’t recognise it and it made her antsy because why he looking at her like that why was he looking at her like that why was he looking at her like that-
nebula couldn’t handle it, the way everyone treated her, she was here to prove thanos right and her future self wrong but things weren’t turning out the way they should have and nebula couldn’t deal with this, she’d never felt so out of depth before and so as the green beast (hulk, bruce, just as gentle as the rest of them with kind eyes) assembled the gauntlet with the stones she snuck away and headed to the time machine
she still had to show her father he was right and she wrong after all, and that wouldn’t be possible unless they were both here with her at this time
(and maybe, if it turned out her father was wrong and she had been right all this time, that these avengers, rocket, rhodey, tony, if they managed to kill thanos and free everyone from his cruel, genocidal reign, if they truly managed to succeed-
it may be one of the few times nebula would be happy with having lost after all.)
baratheonpilled
blakekathryn
