Work Text:
Nebula has heard many stories in her stay, and all of them invoke a feeling, be it disgust at Drax's creation or dismay at Quill losing everything to a man that also marred Mantis' psyche.
But the one she relates to most is Rocket.
”I didn't ask to get made! I didn't ask to be torn apart and put back together over and over and turned into some little monster!"
What more powerful a connection could she possibly have? Nobody really understood what she'd experienced but him. They could look at her, in disgust or in pity, but he looked at her as a being on his level.
The grand reveal of watching Rocket dissected had spurred her, birthed from both hatred and disgust, even if his suffering was worse it was suffering she knew. Her entire body burned with the need to enact revenge.
Friendship was a terrible double-sided blade. She had never once thought of it as possible, she was a being loaned out or a weapon used.
Autonomy to choose her own path meant time to feel and think about everything.
To truly get to know Rocket and decide his life was the same as her own.