Chapter Text
Steve held Tony tight and rubbed his back. The blue-purple alien was staring at the Titan soil. She looked as devastated as Steve felt. He realized, then, that he didn’t know her name, so he asked her. “Nebula,” she whispered. “Daughter… of Thanos.” She followed that surprising fact with a defeated sigh. “I… she said. She shook her head, then lowered her chin to her chest.
Steve kept rubbing Tony’s back. He hoped that his friend felt some comfort, even in his unconscious state. “Nebula… the Guardians’ ship – do you know if it has medical supplies?”
“Yes.”
“Can we use it to get back to Earth? My friends… I have to know if they – if they survived.”
Mute, Nebula stood and started walking east. Steve, still sore from fighting Thanos, struggled but did manage to lift Tony up into a bridal carry, and followed her. The Guardians’ spaceship was a hundred yards away from the vehicle that he, Tony, Strange, and Peter crash landed in. Even Steve could tell that the ship had been damaged in the battle with Thanos. Not only was it listed on its side because of the rocks that covered it but there was more than one hole in the hull. Steve was about to panic, but then he remembered that Tony had used that same mist of chemicals to seal the hull of the spaceship they’d arrived in. Steve instructed Nebula to take the device out of his pocket. He told her how to operate it and she walked around the whole ship, plugging hole after hole after hole.
Steve carried Tony inside, where Nebula gestured for him to put him on a center table. Steve lowered his friend down on it. When he stood up straight again, he found Tony’s slightly parted eyes staring at his. “Tony?”
Stark licked his lips. “For a moment there, right when I woke up, I forgot that I failed…”
Nebula walked over with what looked like a metal toolbox. She set it on the table at Tony’s waist, opened it, and started sorting through a variety of objects that Steve didn’t recognize. “I checked the engines,” she reported as she worked. “They’re damaged… I’ll do what I can, but at this point we’ll barely make it a lightyear.”
“Tony can fix them,” Steve said.
Tony rolled his eyes. “Cap, it’s an alien spaceship. It probably has components I won’t be able to make heads or tails of. You think I can just push a few buttons and turn a few knobs and hit it with a hammer and I’ll fix it?” Stark winked, then. “Damn right.”
Steve smiled at him, fondly.
Tony’s body shuddered, then. His spine arched upward and he cried out in pain. His hand reached blindly for Steve and Cap took that hand in both of his and grasped it tight. Nebula found what she was looking for – a device that looked like a medical tricorder from ‘Star Trek,’ Steve remembered, but it was horizontal instead of vertical. She held it over Tony’s wound and frowned at the screen. “Hmm,” she exhaled. Then she snapped the device shut, said, “We might as well leave him here. He’s dead,” and walked towards the cockpit.
Tony gave her a thumb’s up. “Appreciate the candor.”
Steve pivoted around the table and chased after Nebula. “Hey – HEY!” He grabbed her by the elbow. She whirled around, and Steve barely dodged a punch. “Easy! Take it easy!”
Nebula pulled her arm away. “Don’t touch me!”
Steve held his palms up. “Ok. All right. I’m sorry. Just, just listen, please. What do you mean he’s dead?”
Nebula gave him a look. “I mean there’s nothing I can do. Thanos shoved that thing right through his bottom ribs. He nicked the stomach, nicked the bowel…There’s nothing I can do.”
Steve’s face flushed and his nostrils flared. “Try,” he growled.
“I’m not a surgeon,” she said. “If I start messing around in his guts, he’ll probably just die faster! I’ve only used those tools a few times before!”
Steve could feel the heat increasing on his face. “So, there is a chance?”
Nebula snorted. “Why should I bother?” she hissed at him. “Half of the universe is dead – why bother with anything?”
Steve’s jaw clenched and unclenched. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I get it,” he growled. “You lost your sister today, and I assume the others were your friends?” Nebula snorted. Steve pointed back at Tony. “That’s my brother dying over there. If it were your sister on that table, wouldn’t you be begging for help, like I am?”
Nebula pursed her lips together. “I can’t promise anything. If he dies, swear you won’t kill me.”
“Why would I—” Steve shook his head. “I swear. What can you do?”
Nebula exhaled hard though her nose. “We have to suction out the blood first. Then – I think I found it – there’s a device that will sew tissue back together. I’ll close up the wounds as best I can, then we just hope he doesn’t get an infection.”
Relief made Steve dizzy. “Thank you,” he said. The pair returned to Tony. Stark’s eyes were closed, but he started awake when Steve touched his shoulder. Nebula put some tools on the table and dug for more. She took out what looked like a scalpel and examined it in the dim light.
“What happened to letting me die?” Tony asked. He looked up at Steve. “If you offered her sexual favors… I approve.”
Steve chuckled and shook his head. “Shut up, Stark.”
Nebula started tugging on Tony’s clothing. Steve helped her strip off Stark’s shirt and jacket. Tony’s naked chest was mottled with cuts and bruises. Steve removed the suit casing and set it on a countertop. Nebula examined the stab wound, scratched at the barrier covering it, and said, “I have to cut this open. Get that tube ready.”
Steve picked up what looked like a handheld vacuum. He laid the plastic tube on Tony’s stomach and prepared himself for the amount of blood he was about to see. Tony, who needed something, anything to hold on to, fisted his hand around Steve’s blue uniform. Nebula filled a syringe with some mysterious liquid and, to the shock of both men, stabbed the needle into Tony’s neck without a word of explanation.
“I like h-her…” Tony trailed off. The anesthesia kicked in, and he fell asleep.
Nebula counted to three and then stabbed the scalpel into the wound, reopening it. Blood bubbled out quicker than Steve could suction it up. The barrier had done nothing to stop the internal bleeding. Cap cursed and did his best while Nebula turned on what looked like a laser pointer. “I can’t see anything. Do it better,” she scolded Steve. “Stick that tube in there!”
Steve took a breath, tried to tell himself that this wasn’t Tony he was mutilating, and inserted the tube deeper into the wound. He must have done something right, because she aimed the laser device and moved it up and down. “I think I sealed the hole in his stomach,” she told Steve. “I’ll keep going…”
A half hour and a couple pints of blood later, and Nebula finished sealing up the exit wound in Tony’s back. She slid the tools into the toolbox, said “There!” and walked away.
“Uh, thanks!” Steve called after her. She didn’t respond. Cap looked around the ship for towels and a sink. When he found them, he washed the blood off his hands, then soaked the towels. He returned to Tony and gently washed the blood off Tony’s back and sides. Then he rolled Tony onto his back and cleaned his stomach, chest, neck, and face. “Hey, do you have any painkillers?” he called to Nebula, thinking about himself as well as Tony. No reply. Steve went looking and found a basket of bottles labeled in an alien language. He opened a drawer and discovered vials of liquid he didn’t recognize. He’d finished searching nearly even inch of the room when Tony woke up. Steve rushed to his side.
Tony’s white, shaking hands landed on his bandaged wound. “Am I, uh, intact?” he whispered. Steve’s face scrunched into an I-hope-so look. “Stellar confidence,” Tony mumbled.
“You’re going to be ok.”
Tony looked at him. “Are you?” he whispered.
Steve hadn’t asked himself that question yet. Thanos murdered half the universe, but Steve hadn’t stopped moving long enough to really think about what that meant. “No,” he concluded in a whisper. “No, I don’t think so.”
“He was a good kid.”
“Parker?”
Tony’s eyes watered. “So many good kids are gone,” he whispered. “Cap… What are we going to do?”
Steve swallowed twice. “We’re going to get you well,” he told Tony. “And we’re going to make it home. And… And then…”
“And then?”
Neither of them knew what to say.
The End