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It had been a hot day, on the nearby planet Ego had dragged her to. This one had been close enough that he hadn’t bothered to find a mercenary to snag his latest child, but he leaves her in the sunny market square with strict instructions not to move until he got back with potentially combative progeny in tow.
She’d still been a coltish looking young adolescent then, big-eyed and fascinated with the dirt and the noise and chaos so very different from everything she’d ever known. A kind-hearted vendor had seen her sitting there, quiet and small, and offered her some sweet pink ice-cold cream concoction, wrapped up in cone of crispy fried dough. She'd hesitated, since it looked nothing at all like the twice-daily protein slush Ego uses to keep her sustained, but accepted it anyway.
When she took it gingerly between her hands, gave a tentative nibble, the sweet-sour taste she knows now is ‘citrus’ had slid tart and creamy-perfect on her tongue, making her senses sing and she’d made a startled little hiccup of pleasure.
It’s still her favorite flavor, citrus – especially the pink kind.
Ego’s dead now, and she’s a Guardian of the Galaxy. Most days are good, full of learning and new things and choices. Nights are harder, but whenever dreams of writhing white-light and a voice full of coaxing madness leave Mantis red-eyed and insomnolent, she goes to the galley.
She’s normally alone there, since while all the Guardians have their bouts of insomnia, the general location for wandering about is the bridge – a wide screen of crystal stars spinning lazily, the low hum of the speakers from Quill’s constant background music, that one warm spot by the shared wall with the reactor engines – perfect for soothing yourself back to sleep.
Mantis though loves the methodical rhythm of creation, the way she’s making something for herself, something beautiful and indulgent and all her own. Ego didn’t think much of creations beyond his and she hoards a defiant pleasure in bringing what’s in her own mind into being, because she’s never going to be just another accessory tool in someone else's master plan ever again.
Peter is the one to teach Mantis cooking. Of all of them on the ship, he’s the best at it – singing, doing little kitchen dances, always patient with her beginner mistakes. He tells her funny stories about his mother teaching him to make gooey, crispy-crusted butter cake and tangy sweet barbecue that would melt in your mouth.
Kraglin can’t cook much and doesn’t seem particularly eager to learn, but somehow he always ends up hanging around anyways, innocently offering to taste-test whatever they’re making that day. At least, when he's not holed up with Yondu and Rocket. He politely thanks them every time as he eagerly scrapes his plate, and Mantis could swear he’s hollow inside with all the food he puts down.
The galley become her place to escape to, since most of the other Guardians rely on the instant pre-packaged food and tinned beasties and while they’ll turn up to make short work of whatever she offers them, unless it’s a special occasion more often than not they won’t make things fresh for themselves.
It’s quiet, full of the smells of the things she’s creating. Peaceful.
Her routine is abruptly altered when Nebula joins them. Her latest attempt at defeating Thanos had ended in the complete destruction of Nebula’s ship and she’d shown up in a heavily dented stolen craft, stalking in unannounced to shove her things in some unused quarters, appearing nothing if not thoroughly querulous about it all.
That first night, Mantis is drowsily chopping her broccolo into as close to perfect, even chunks as the knobby fractals will make, when she’s spooked by the quiet hiss of the doors sliding open. She spins around, knife held tensely to see Nebula frozen, watching her. Neither of them say anything for a moment, then Nebula says, “I’m better with that than you, you would not win.”
Mantis blinks, a giggle startled out of her.
“No, no, I was not wanting to fight you, I am making soup,” she gestures at her vegetables. Nebula tilts her head, looks at the broccolo then back at Mantis, and her posture relaxes minutely.
“You’re making soup with that, what is it.”
Mantis tells her, and when Nebula sits herself on the bench, doesn’t appear to want to leave anytime soon, so Mantis talks through the rest of her recipe as she makes it.
It’s a simple enough recipe, tangy, earthy, with just a hint of citrus. Mantis offers Nebula a bowl, and she takes it, stares at it for a second before stuffing a spoonful in her mouth.
Mantis watches her, trying not to worry over whether she’ll like it or not, when Nebula goes still, hand freezing halfway to her mouth. She’s slowly swallowing her mouthful, looks down at the bowl, and then she’s practically inhaling the rest.
“You… like it?” Mantis ask hesitantly. “It is one of my favorites.”
Nebula looks up from where she scraping the last drops out of the bottom of the bowl to say gruffly, “ ’S good.”
Then she’s looking away from Mantis and down, shifting a little, and she bites out, “Really good. You should. Make more,” and then she shoves the bowl out in Mantis’ direction in silent demand.
It becomes a new routine, Nebula showing up like an awkward deadly shadow to watch Mantis cook every few nights. She doesn’t talk much, generally, so Mantis fills the silence with cheerful chatter about the recipes she’s discovering, new things she’s learning, all the places she wants to visit next time the Guardians have a week free between jobs.
“I most want to visit a beach,” Mantis tells her one time. “There wasn’t any oceans on Ego’s planet, but the others have told me about them and I think I would like them very much.”
Nebula squints a little from where she’s determinedly working her way through her plate of noodles.
“Oceans are just big noisy puddles,” she says stoically, “surrounded by tiny ground up rocks that get into everywhere.”
That makes Mantis grin over her gently simmering sauce, and she repeats placidly, “I very much want to see one.”
She gets her wish two weeks later. Peter boisterously announces the upcoming trip, with a dorky fist pump as he blares some sunny, swinging song about ‘water, water’ and ‘waves of golden sunshine.’ Its melody is infectious, and the sound of it, watching Peter coax a skeptical Gamora into a silly, swaying dance around the bridge, make Mantis beam.
It’s as beautiful as she’d hoped it would be. The waves roll over themselves, crashing gently up the blue-green pebbled beach, under a smokey clouded sky. Mantis finds a log bleached bone-white, and settles there, hugging her knees. The rhythmic sound soothes her, and listens to the water, the swooping shrieks of birds.
Nebula finds her there, sits herself down awkwardly next to Mantis.
“Is it what you thought it would be?” Nebula doesn’t look at her, stare fixed on the horizon.
“I don’t think the rocks are small enough to be bothersome,” she says, delighting a little in the silent surprised huff of laughter Nebula makes at that.
They stay there, the rest of the evening, until the sounds and the peace lull Mantis’ eyes shut, drowsiness slumping her sideways until she suddenly realizes she has her face half-buried in Nebula’s shoulder, leaning against her side. Nebula’s covered in a thin leather jacket so Mantis can’t really feel her, but there’s something about how solid and warm she is, and when Nebula doesn’t push her away, Mantis nuzzles happily, sleepily into her and closes her eyes.
Later, when they’re back on the bridge, Mantis tells Peter, “Thank you for taking us, it was a wonderful place to choose,” and Peter looks back at her and smiles, says “It was Nebula’s choice, actually.”
Nebula scowls, pushes off from the wall she’s leaning against and stalks off towards the engine room. Mantis watches her, feeling something soft and warm and aching in her chest, remembers Nebula had hated the ocean, remembers what she’d said. Nebula hadn’t asked because she wanted to go, Nebula had asked for her.
Mantis doesn’t say anything, but makes Nebula’s favorite soup that night. She sits next to her, a little closer than before and something’s changed, something charged, hanging delicate between them. They linger, those nights spent in the kitchen even longer than before, time passing languid, syrupy and sweet. There’s nothing spoken, but Mantis waits, knows eventually something will be.
It’s been a month since the ocean, and Mantis is swinging her legs idly as she sits on the counter, sucking on her giant cookie dough spoon. it’s sweet, just the tiniest touch of salt and the chocolate chips she’d made from scratch after Peter had described them to her.
She tilts her head, starts licking at a particularly stubborn bit and Nebula, who’d been staring at her with her brows increasingly furrowed suddenly moves forward and says gruffly, “stop it.”
Mantis wrinkles her nose, grins at her and says, “Why? It is delicious.”
To prove her point she makes an obnoxiously loud lick right up the center and then Nebula is crowding forward, almost between her legs and her black, black eyes are right there staring straight into her, holding her, and Nebula plucks the spoon from her limp hand and says stiffly, “you should wait for the baked cookies.”
Mantis wrinkles her nose slides off the counter and grabs for the spoon, and when Nebula automatically lifts it higher Mantis reaches up, pushing up on her toes in frustration when she realizes that Nebula has a good four or five inches on her. She catches Nebulas wrist to pull her hand lower, hand meeting bare blue skin and then thinks oh, this is the first time they’ve ever touched, and Nebula is letting her, isn’t pulling away but she’s getting all these embarrassed little wrinkles by the corners of her eyes, and Mantis feels something that’s not rage, not annoyance, something fragile and fluttering, fearful and wanting and thinks oh. I want you too.
Because Mantis, for all her unsurety about people and the baffling way they instinctually move in the convoluted dances of social customs, she knows what she wants and she looks at Nebula and thinks yes.
Nebula’s looking like if she could blush, she’d be hot with it so Mantis smiles up at her, slides her hand down Nebula’s arm to rest on her shoulder. She brings her other arm up to mirror, lacing her fingers behind Nebula’s neck.
Nebula shifts, arm hanging awkward by her side like she doesn’t seem to know quite what to do, and for someone normally so graceful and deadly, she’s almost clumsy.
“I like you,” Mantis says simply, feels her cheeks warming and she leans in to tuck her face against Nebula. Nebula’s whip-thin and solid, and her hands have finally settled, gingerly and almost claw-like on Mantis’ waist. "You make me happy, and I think I could love you."
Nebula's hands spasm against Mantis' sides.
“I… don’t know how to do this,” she says it gruffly, embarrassedly, and Mantis can imagine how wrenching that admission must have been for someone trained to never admit weakness. It's isn't a denial though, Nebula's not pushing her away and so Mantis' chest gives a giddy thump, and her voice goes high and fluted when she says, “Me neither.”
Nebula is all angles and awkward, holding Mantis like she’s afraid she’s doing it wrong, and she’s never done this before, just like Mantis – it’s wonder and waves and pink citrus fruit happiness, how they’ll discover this bright, new thing together.