Chapter Text
'You got any family out there to send a message to?'
The question catches her off guard. Tony looks up at her expectantly.
Anyone out there? Does she? That day on Titan had haunted her for twenty-two nights now, and the promise of it long before that. All she remembers of it is Drax fading away before getting to say a word, Mantis following him just a second after, and the flash of fear that bloomed on Quill's face the moment he had realised he was next.
And Gamora. Her sister. Gone, vanished off the face of the galaxy for a reason unbeknownst to her and Tony. The Titan had killed her. She had tried to reason with herself, to realise that Thanos was lying, that there was no way he'd kill his favourite daughter for no apparent benefit. But she couldn't.
The Titan never lied.
What did that leave her with? Rocket and Groot were the only two guardians that could still be out there. The two had barely acknowledged her presence each time she had boarded the Benatar, preferring to turn away and mutter to each other about her. She'd never known what the younger of the pair were saying, but from Rocket she had always caught some variations of 'bloody cyborg' and 'war criminal'.
Hardly what she would call family.
She turns to Tony, still waiting on an answer, and murmurs (or was it a murmur? Everything sounds the same when she has that mechanical slur on her voice) "No. I never had anyone but my sister, and her friends."
The thing about Tony, she thinks, is that you never notice the insane quick chatter that fills the moments spent with him until it's gone. Silence fills the room with her admission, and Nebula is pretty sure it's the quietest the ship has been in three weeks.
Tony looks to be more upset than her to hear the truth, because he doesn't even try to return the broken half-smile she gives him the way he usually does. The crease in his brow grows bigger, and he drops his arm from the helmet he'd recorded his message into.
She knows the man sat across the room from her doesn't see himself as a family man, but there's no doubt in her mind that he'd be a perfect father. Even from knowing him just shy of a month, she knows that Tony would blend seamlessly into the domestic life. Not that she has much to compare his parenting skills to, after being given The Mad Titan for a father.
She thinks of Miss Potts. Pepper. The way Tony's eyes light up whenever he talks about her, the way that he can't seem to tell a single story that doesn't include her, the way he knows everything about her inside and out. There isn't a ring on his finger, as she knows Terran custom to be, but Tony assures her that given a few weeks more on Earth, there would be.
She thinks of Peter. Spider-kid, Tony calls him, even though they both know his true alias to be Spider-Man. That, and the endless other pet names he has for the boy. She thinks of the way his voice softens when he talks about him, and the way he pretends to be okay when his voice cracks, thinking about the events that transpired on Titan. He made him his suit, she knows, but he's never tried to undermine the boy's genius. A real superhero in the making, Tony had called him. From what little Nebula knew of the boy, she too, believes it to be the truth.
One hell of a family man, she thinks. It's as clear as day. Even hundreds of millions of miles from home, Pepper and Peter were the one thing keeping him going.
He's looking at her, a strange kind of determination she can attribute only to Tony Stark in his eyes. Whatever he's going to say next, Nebula knows, is something that has been bubbling inside him for a long while.
"Well," he begins, meeting her eye. "You have me now."
The simple statement surprises her, even when she knows it shouldn't. After the endlessness of the space they'd drifted through day after unbearable day, there was no surprise that he would need her to lean on. Not just in the figurative sense, either. She remembers being almost pulled over by the weight of his suit when she'd dragged him back onto the Benatar after he'd been stabbed. Looking at him now, there was barely a trace of his injury. Even with the limited medication the guardians had owned (correction; the amount of medication fit for Terran consumption. She was pretty sure that even if Quill had been fully human, he wouldn't be the type to stock up just in case) Tony had managed to pull himself through with only a hint of hysteria.
No wonder he needed someone to lean on.
But then she thinks of herself. The endless Earth games he taught her to pass the time, and the way he was patient with her when she didn't straightaway get it. How he'd offered her the very last of the rations without even thinking to take them himself. How he doesn't look at her any differently because she is a cyborg and a daughter of Thanos. And how he promised, that when, if, they got home, he'd help her find her way on his planet. A fresh start, just for her. She had never dared to dream of such a thing before.
Maybe she needs someone to lean on, too.
So she plumps herself on the floor opposite Tony, carefully moving his helmet out of the way as she does so. She knows, that coming from Tony Stark, being offered a place in his world means a lot, and a chance to have a home on Earth is the highest form of kindness he can possibly endear to her.
It's like Gamora used to say, 'a home isn't four walls. It's two eyes and a heartbeat.'
She never believed it until now.
"Yes," she says, "I suppose I do."