Grim sighs, staring at her objective - Thanos' command ship, in transit. It's not going to be easy, she's leery of suggesting she's done harder but-

But she doesn't have another option. So. She works about manoeuvring her small, unnoticeable, ship into position to get herself on board.

The command ship, Sanctuary II, looms there menacingly.

Obviously, it currently traverses the galaxy at very high speed, but to a vessel with matched velocity all seems eerily still in the vast black gulf between stars.

She's used to the eerie stillness. Has lived most of her life on one ship or another. Has practiced manoeuvres like this a thousand times before. (Because people thought they were safe in the blackness of space, let their guard down, gave her openings she'd never get otherwise.) It's tricky, and finicky, but she gets her craft anchored to the side of the Sanctuary II, pulls on her out-of-atmo gear, and goes to find an airlock to hack.

Behold! An airlock!

Various apertures and gribbles crisscross the command ship's outer hull. Her intel suggested that this vessel runs a veritable skeleton crew compared to its size, which raises a lot of questions about why it has so many access ports?

Anyway, once she gets her infiltration gear hooked up to it the airlock practically hacks itself.

WHOOSH!

...She hates when things are that easy. It always makes her suspicious. Well. She slides inside, drawing shadows around her and fading into them as she starts heading in the direction of where the command deck would be on a normal ship.

Within Sanctuary II's cavernous underbelly, she occasionally runs across various minions of the interstellar tyrant she's hunting.

Chitauri. Outriders. Even a Leviathan at one point.

She reaches the command level. Up front, in a large room lined with viewports, she sees no sign of her target: just densely packed minions and an ominous, decrepit figure who does not match Thanos' description.

Well. She never expected him to make this easy.

"Expecting me?" she asks from the shadows, and immediately shifts where she is, keeping the shadows tight around her form, keeping herself hidden.

"I can't say I was." The ominous figure turns around, toward the hallway that Grim spoke from.

The Chitauri attending to the figure rush excitedly in Grim's direction, but their apparent leader does not budge from his vantage point.

As this happens, Grim hears bulkheads slamming shut on either side of the hallway.

"Have you come here to receive Thanos' blessing?"

"Wasn't on my list of things to do," she admits, circling towards a vantage point. (And damn damn damn. She needed an escape.)

The view room has a pretty high ceiling, and the ornate walls wouldn't be hard to climb. Alternatively, she could retreat further back into the hallway and try to hack the blast doors.

Either way, she'd better move fast: the Chitauri are swarming the area and it's only a matter of time until one of them trips over her hiding place.

It only takes a moment to make a decision. She can figure out an escape route if she survives. She scrambles agilely up the walls, looking for somewhere she can wedge herself enough to take a shot if she needs to.

"Please stop flitting around."

The figure raises his hand and the wall Grim climbs upon begins to warp and shatter around her. Her adversary doesn't seem to have a clear idea of her exact position, but his powers can impact a wide enough area that a few stray shards of wall material are still likely to snag her.

On the bright side? There is now definitely an abundance of places on the wall to wedge herself into.

She ignores the shards that snag her and cut into her skin, and wedges herself into a tight spot. She trusts her aim, but firing gives away her position if he can deflect projectiles. She hefts a knife thoughtfully, curls her shadows around it, and sends it to another point.

Then she fires it at the creature, with all the speed of a bullet.

Bullets, as it turns out, are actually pretty fast. Faster than bolts of magic, repulsor blasts, missiles, or most other projectiles used in superhero fights.

Ebony Maw straight up *gets shot*.

The bullet easily over-penetrates, tearing straight through the alien's midsection and into the hull-plating behind him.

Grim surmised correctly about the shot giving away her position, though. As he staggers to his knees, the Maw flicks his fingers and Grim's rifle erupts into a jagged mess of twisted metal.

Her vantage point remains surrounded by Chitauri. Some of them have blasters and are training them in her general direction.

Well. Could've been worse. Could've been her. And she's got other guns. She's already moving again, even as she directs the shadows to move the knife closer and-

A strand of shadow whips around the creatures throat, and the knife plunges in towards it.

Pew, Pew!

Chitauri shooting at her.

Old guy with the spooky powers lying facedown in a pool of blood.

Woosh. Sound of a blast door back in the hallway opening?

Feels like a trap. But she still needs to find a way out. She drops the last few metres back to the floor, shoots a chitauri in the head, chokes another one with her shadows, appropriates their weapons to avoid losing any more of her own, fires a blast at spooky old guy to be sure, and flat out sprints for the door, taking shots at the chitauri as she goes.

Old Spooky guy is definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, dead now.

Grim turns the corner back into a hallway and...

...

...

...

The blast doors slam shut again.

...Damn. She pins herself against the wall, as deep into the shadows as she can go.

"Gamora? Locate the intruder."

"Yes, father."

A lithe green figure stands in Thanos' shadow. Frowning, she advances to sweep the hallway while Grim's target proceeds into the main room adjoined to it.

Grim slips into Thanos' shadow, keeping a watchful eye on Gamora. She needs to wait for the opportune moment.

Gamora shoves a Chitauri warrior out of the way, ducks down and examines the floor paneling where Grim had more recently hidden. She touches two fingers to a small splatter of blood.

Her eyes then follow the trail: across the hall, right up into Thanos' shadow.

She pauses for a conspicuously long time after realizing Grim's current position, as though considering whether or not she really wants to alert the assassination target.

Thanos, meanwhile, is super distracted by the fact that Ebony Maw has been shot/strangled/stabbed/blasted into a lifeless heap.

Thanos does not look happy at all about this development.

Grim swears silently as she realises that, yes, she is leaving a blood trail, and should possibly do something about that.

Or she could just try to kill Thanos, probably fail, and die in the attempt. Well. She ducks out of his shadow, fires one of the chitauri weapons towards Gamora (she's got good aim, even on the move, but someone with good reflexes can probably avoid that), pulls her other gun free, levelling it towards Thanos.-

-He wheels around with surprising agility for someone his size. She manages to get a single shot off with her sidearm, but this does little to deter Thanos as he grabs her and slams her into the debris-strewn floor.

"You. Killed. My. Son."

He punctuates each word by hurtling her about: always keeping a hand clasped tight around her and using collisions with various surfaces in the room to keep her off balance.

Even for someone with a mildly superhuman physiology, this treatment is likely to hurt quite a lot.

Yup. That hurts. Not as much as having electricity applied directly to her muscles through her implants, but enough. The treatment draws muted sounds of pain, like she's trying to not be too loud.

She's terrified now, and it shows, she knew she was going to die, but facing it now? She does not want to. Even if there's no way to get out of it.

She's pliant in his grasp, not even trying to escape, or even protect her body as she's slammed into things. She hadn't wanted to do this, but she hadn't had a choice, and now she's going to die.

She's facedown on the floor when he registers that she's stopped struggling.

He pauses.

Glances over at Gamora.

Something clicks into place. He sees a sudden symmetry. A balance.

Gingerly, he grips her braids between two massive fingers and draws her head back so that he can finally look her in the eye.

There's still rage etched on his features, but it's become more distant somehow.

With the threat of further violence readily implied, he asks: "Who sent you?"

Her face is impressively blank, while her eyes are hopeless, and scared. She hurts, and she just wants it to end. Maybe if she complies he'll kill her faster.

"My- father," she gets out, throat pulled too tight, but not trying to ease the position any. "Got-got hired. To kill you. Sent me."

"I see." Quiet words from a somber giant. "And he sent you alone?"

"Yes," she says simply. There's nothing else to say. She's a weapon to be aimed, and all her father lost if she failed was a gun. And he had plenty of other people willing to take her place.

"Then your father was a fool."

He slams her face back down into the floor grating, hard enough to make her lose consciousness.

The next hours pass in a muddled haze.

She dimly remembers being dragged through the command ship's halls by chattering Chitauri.

Then the sensation of having her possessions stripped roughly from her.

Then the whir of alien medical devices, in a bright room with a chemical smell.

Then pain. Bones getting shoved back into proper alignment.

When she comes full back to her senses, she's laying in a cot on one of the ship's lower levels. A cast encases one of her arms, her other arm's cuffed to a bedrail.

The greenskinned alien woman is sitting up on the cot adjacent to hers, whittling away at a wooden bauble with a small double-bladed knife. It looks like Gamora didn't fully evade that shot from the Chitauri blaster during the scuffle earlier, but has made a nearly full recovery from the plasma burns in the time since.

"Hi."

"...hi," she says. Her confusion might be plain. (She thought she'd be dead by now, but, she supposes, she's a source of information.)

Grim supposes rightly.

"Name and location of your father. Name and location of whoever hired him." It looks like Gamora is reading aloud off of some notes scribbled in ink on the back of her palm. "Who gets sent next when they find out you failed?"

She then settles back on the pillows piled in back of her cot and resume whittling.

"I don't recommend lying. He really doesn't like lying."

So she gives the information as best she can - Damien O'Reilly, spends most of his time shipbound like Thanos, but she can give them a few places he tends to like being, she doesn't know the name of the man who hired them, but she can give a perfect description and location.

"I- don't know," she admits to the last. "It depends on who he can convince is worth it. If he can convince someone it's worth it. But I'd put money on it being Pyre if it's anyone, he's insane enough to take the money Father will offer him."

Gamora nods along, keeping her expression dispassionate.

"Does your species have any special medical or dietary needs?" Gamora asks this one last question after double-checking that the prior interrogation was properly recorded. "I don't know how long he'll keep you here. Might come up."

"Not that I've ever noticed."

"Alright then." Gamora unfurls herself and heads to the door. "Sit tight and don't do anything stupid."

She waits till Gamora's gone before she slips the cuff. (She's never liked being tied in place.)

She changes her position on the cot slightly, draws the shadows to her-

-and fades into them. Feeling a little less exposed.

Time passes. She thinks she can hear guards stationed outside the cramped infirmary room, but none of them intrude.

Eventually, a heavier tread sound from the hallway and then the door slides open.

He regards her present condition: unshackled, enshrouded, but still waiting patiently where instructed to.

"Cute trick."

She fades back into view, eyes lowered, and gives a nod of acknowledgement to his words. "Yes, sir."

Thanos had to stoop down to fit his body through the doorway.

Now he clears a space in the center of the room by yanking the second cot (the one Gamora had curled up on earlier) over to the far wall of the infirmary. He then sits down at Grim's bedside, using the other cot the way a smaller being would use a stool.

"You spoke honestly, earlier. About the ones that sent you." Thanos doesn't elaborate on how he knows this. "Why?"

He sounds genuinely curious, but not disbelieving. And not angry? His calm tone probably comes across as somewhat unnerving, given the circumstances.

"There was no point in lying," she says simply. "You have me here, and if I lied, you could easily make me regret it."

"I could."

Thanos leans in. 

"And I wonder. If that possibility frightens you so, why come here? Did you really expect to invade my home, kill me, and then escape unscathed?"

"I had no choice. And I was certain that if I failed- that my death would be quick."

The sort of death that awaited her if she willingly abandoned her mission goes unspoken, but Thanos can make a fairly educated guess. While repairing her from the thrashing she'd received at his hands, his cybernetics technicians had discovered several implants distributed through Grim's body. Not augmentations. Something more sinister.

"It's true, I have an abiding preference for quick deaths. Torture is a poor tool for extracting information and a mediocre one for extracting compliance." Thanos sounds as though he's given various modes of death a lot of thought. Not surprising, really, considering his moniker. "I find the most effective use of slow death to be providing leverage over third parties who care about the victim and, given what I've surmised about the man who sent you here, I doubt that's relevant in your case?"

"He's more likely to offer suggestions."

"A travesty."

Angry. Angry again, but not at the child in front of him. At the fool who sent her.

"If he had any sense, he'd be proud of you."

Confusion, at that idea. "Why would you be proud of a weapon?"

"You did better yesterday than he had any right to expect you to." Pause. "Though obviously, I have personal reasons for wishing you'd been sloppier."

You. Killed. My. Son.

Inward turmoil. Outward calm.

"-I am sorry." Not that she did what she needed to survive, but that she caused him that pain.

"It's okay, little one." He reaches out, puts a finger against her chin, then tilts her head up so that she can look him in the eye. "I don't blame you for what you did."

His eyes are calm. Gentle. Genuine. Yes, there's pain there, but he is a being well acclimated to clear thought in the face of loss.

"You suggested earlier, that it would not make sense to take pride in a weapon? Well. I would say it'd be even more senseless to hold a weapon accountable for the choices of an unworthy wielder."

She flinches a little at his touch, but lets him tilt her head up. Her lips part, and she doesn't seem to have an answer for him, except. "I- that is logical, sir."

He withdraws his hand, then reaches into a recess of his armor and draws forth a bloodied piece of mangled cybertech.

"But you're not his any longer." Thanos tosses the cybernetic transponder onto the bed beside Grim. "He can no longer speak to you, or trigger those implants, across interstellar distances. And so any further hostile action you take from this moment onward, against me or against my family, would be solely of your own initiative. Do you understand my meaning, little one?"

She stares at the cybertech, breath catching in her throat. She can't quite accept that it's what was inside her, what her father used to force compliance.

"I understand, sir," she confirms with a sharp nod.

"Good." He rises to go. "I'll have a room made up for you."

"...sir?" she clearly doesn't understand the segue.

Thanos pauses at the doorway.

She's right to question him. His intentions here feel... muddled, in a way that makes him somewhat uncomfortable.

If there's one thing he likes less than having complicated feelings, though, it's explaining such feelings.

"You will cause no further trouble aboard this ship, and will leave your quarters only when escorted." He opts for the simplest possible framing. "You will be asked questions and, provided you continue to answer honestly, you will remain safe here."

...That makes more sense, and she seems to relax with the direction.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Beat. "And- thank you. For the medical attention." (He hadn't had to do that. Not to the extent he has.)

"Of course, child." He gestures nonchalantly in her direction without turning his body around to face her. "Stay put for now, I'll send someone to collect you later."

He leaves.

The bloodied transponder still lays beside her on the infirmary bed--glistening, menacing, and totally inert.

She touches it, almost to make herself believe it's real...

And then levers herself to her feet. She won't leave the room, but she forces her body through some easy katas to make sure everything mostly works as it should.

Her fingers find the device quite solid. She might lack the expertise to identify it with certainty but, considering how eerily silent her head has been since she got incapacitated earlier, it seems reasonable to conclude that her uplink to Damien O'Reilly really has been severed.

Her body protests renewed activity. She's still sore pretty much all over, but if she concentrates she can still coax smooth martial movements out of her beleaguered musculature.

Time passes.

"Hey. Prisoner."

A dour-face woman appears at the infirmary door.

"Come with me."

It's not the first time she's had to force her muscles to obey after injuries. She manages.

She nods sharply, doesn't argue the moniker, and will follow after her in perhaps eerie silence.

Silence? Proxima is having none of that.

"Gamora says you sang like a canary before she so much as touched you. Pity that."

More hallways. Grim's escort leads her deeper into the ship's underbelly, towards its central hub.

"I think we ought to put the needles to you anyway. Just for Old Ebony's sake."

Grim doesn't seem to have much of a reaction there. She has as much faith as she is able in Thanos' statement that she's safe.

"Perhaps you should," she can respect someone's need for vengeance for their family.

Proxima wheels around, snarls slightly, and backs Grim up against a rusted support beam.

She doesn't touch her, not unless Grim elects to hold her ground as Proxima invades her personal space, but boxes her in completely and stops with her face just inches from Grim's.

"You don't know how lucky you are."

Grim holds her ground enough that they're in close proximity as she let's Proxima back her into the beam.

"Do not presume what I do or do not know," she retorts. "I had no expectation of waking up. And no expectation of escaping torture, no matter what I said."

"Hmpff."

Grim's response mollifies Proxima about as much as any response plausibly could have.

Proxima draws away, turns her back on Grim and strides into the next chamber at a brisk pace. It's a massive space, with an inwardly sloping ceiling and a huge throne on a raised dais in its center.

"Not far now. Try to keep up."

She continues to follow, keeping up with apparent ease. (And if she's silently mapping the ship as they move, that's her business.)

A residential wing adjoins the throne room. It looks like a recent addition to Sanctuary II's architecture, the walls haven't corroded or crumbled the least bit and the doors have a more angular style than the rounded portals elsewhere in the ship.

Proxima leads the way without further comment. The residential complex seems deserted for the most part, but Grim catches a glimpse in passing of a hulking creature--humanoid, but larger even than Thanos--in the wing's gymnasium.

Finally, they arrive at a smaller room in the furthest hall of the complex. Proxima stops, the sight of the room's entrance eliciting a pang of melancholy.

"This used to be my room," she says. "You don't deserve it."

"Probably not," she agrees blandly. (A cell, she thinks, but doesn't say, would be more appropriate.)

Proxima leers, waits for Grim to enter the room, and then saunters off.

Its not an uncomfortable room, as spaceship quarters go.

-- Single bed, a little undersized but Grim's probably had worse in that department

-- Small corner chair, desk with writing supplies

-- Tamperproof interface screen recessed into one wall 

-- Some posters and ceiling ornaments

-- Thick rug covers half the floor, colors evoke the night sky

-- and... toys?

Yeah. Dolls, building blocks, that sort of thing.

Weird.

At least there is a bed.

As for the toys...well. She guesses Proxima's been here for a long time. And well. She can use the writing supplies to draw if she needs to.

For now, she lowers herself down onto the rug, and clears her mind, trying to make sense of this. (She doesn't even notice drawing the shadows around her again.)

She gets some very good thinking done; she has plenty of time, and she sits upon a very nice rug.

...It is a very nice rug. Good thinking done, Grim figures it's as good a place as any for a nap.

"There's a bed right there, y'know."

If Grim doesn't rouse right away when the door opens, Gamora will use a foot to gently prod her awake.

The smirking alien has her arms occupied with a tray of food.

"Got more questions for you. Also, sustenance. Rise and shine?"

She doesn't get to the foot prodding stage, Grim is awake before Gamora's even properly in the room.

"This rug's comfortable," she says as though that explains everything. "What did you need to know?"

Gamora regards Grim the way one would an adorable new pet.

Which is maybe a little disconcerting, considering she's looking at someone who snuck into her home yesterday, shot her, and killed her brother?

She sets the tray down on the desk in the corner, sits down on the edge of the bed, and rattles off another list of questions. These ones have to do with Grim's abilities, and the abilities possessed by her various colleagues back at Damien O'Reilly's Assassins'R'Us.

"Take your time. Eat. Corvus will edit our conversation down to just the essentials after I leave."

Eh, she's seen more peculiar behaviour, and she saw that hesitation yesterday.

She gets to her feet, and it's pure force of will that makes it seem like an easy movement.

She's thoughtful as she pokes at the food, trying to work out the best way to summarise. In the end she starts with herself, giving an overview of her abilities with weapons - she can handle just about anything, but it's firearms and projectile weapons where her skills are best - and a slightly pared down explanation of her more superhuman abilities (at least some of her survival came from people underestimating her). Then she lists who she can think of, and gives an assessment of their combat skills and any other abilities they have. She admits that her list might not be complete.

"Right. Good. I think that'll do for now."

Just like earlier in the infirmary, she double checks the audio on her recording device before rising to go.

"For whatever it's worth? I hope you survive a while. You seem nice." Well. Relatively speaking, nice.

That gets a confused, slightly disbelieving look, but a slightly grateful nod as well. And she'll keep herself busy until the next time someone interrupts her - steadily more difficult katas, drawing, meditating and catching short naps.

No clock in the room (unless the interface screen can display one? she hasn't fiddled with it yet) but by Grim's best guess about five hours pass before her next meal gets delivered.

No Gamora this time. An elderly Chitauri sets the tray of refreshments down.

"Food. Eat. I wait." 

Chitauri come from beyond the boundaries of the Milky Way, and so their native language eludes the translation conventions of more local dialects. This one clearly knows at least a few words in translator-compatible tongues.

"Questions."

The Chitauri fumbles around for a recording device, presses play, and then the device plays out a handful of innocuous-seeming questions about Grim's background in a bored Gamora's voice.

At the end of the message, the recorded Gamora says something to the effect of: "--is there anything else, Corvus?"

A gravelly voice responds in the negative and the recording clicks off.

The Chitauri envoy then helpfully switches the device to record mode.

She eats obediently, and, with obvious reluctance, responds to the questions about her background - noticeably peculiar are the fact that she can neither give an accurate age, just a best guess, or identify her mother.

Once she's finished eating, and answering the questions, she hesitates, and then holds out a pile of drawings. "I- those of my Father's employees who I met face to face. They are good at avoiding having names attached to images otherwise."

The Chitauri gingerly gathers up the pile of drawings.

"To Corvus?"

"Yes," she confirms. "More information to help."

And then she's alone again.

A similar length of time to the previous empty stretch passes.

Then the tray-bearing Chitauri returns. The envoy moves in lockstep with a Chitauri warrior, and the two flank a stooped figure in a billowing black cloak.

"Grim O'Reilly. Fascinating specimen. Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance."

"And yours- sir?" she rises to her feet as she speaks.

Corvus smirks, glances down at a datapad affixed to his forearm and taps in some quick notes with preternaturally nimble fingers.

(Hypothesis confirmed: specific deferential response to 'male' authority figures)

He looks back up at her.

"My name's Corvus. Second brother of the Children of Thanos--hmmm... first brother now, I suppose?"

Tasteful cackle.

"I suppose, sir," she agrees politely.

He's still smiling.

Some smiles show cheer; some merely show teeth.

"I serve as the Sanctuary II's chief archivist. I'm the one who cross-references new information. Verifies it. Ferrets out contradictions and falsehoods." He ducks into her room, motioning for the Chitauri envoy to set down Grim's dinner as he does so. "You've been a very good girl so far, in that respect. Please do keep that up."

"I'll certainly try," she promises. "I can't promise my information will always be accurate, things do change."

Corvus' eyes narrow slightly when the prisoner implies that he, an information specialist, might somehow be unaware that true intel can become false intel over time.

"Well. I suppose that's a good reason not to withhold anything too time-sensitive?"

He crouches down in front of the low desk in the corner and spreads out printed copies of the illustrations Grim produced earlier.

"And on that note: I have several inquiries about these drawings."

Corvus makes a bunch of inquiries. It's clear, now, why he came down here himself this time instead of sending another intermediary. His questions have a fine attention to detail, and they alway build off of the answer she gave to the question before. Earlier, he'd just been seeking context. Now he's seeking truth. 

...She hadn't meant to imply that, was merely trying to explain why what she knew as truth might not be so.

Her answers are careful, carefully considered, and any pauses are obviously clearly to make sure her answers are as accurate as possible.

"That's enough for now."

Corvus stands, gathers up his cloak and nimbly steps across the toys piled between him and the exit.

"Do you require anything else, Grim O'Reilly, or should I leave you to your dinner?"

"I- would appreciate being able to use the gym, some time, sir," she admits. "I- would prefer not to become lax in my skills."

"Come with me, then."

Corvus leaves the room, flanked by his Chitauri attendants.

Unlike Proxima, he doesn't fully turn his back on her while she follow him, preferring instead to keep Grim in his periphery at all times.

She makes that as easy as possible. (And if she's relieved that she's going to be able to keep her skills sharp, perhaps prove another use beyond informant, that's for her to know, and them to perhaps observe, but maybe not truly understand.)

Corvus enters the gymnasium without preamble. The hulking figure Grim saw earlier is at the weightlifting station again.

Corvus shouts across the room: "Hey! Cull?"

Inquisitive rumble?

"Our guest wishes to use these facilities, but I have pressing business to attend to. Keep an eye on her, and escort her back to her quarters when she's done?"

Affirmative rumble.

Corvus heads across the hall to a larger bunkroom--presumably his own--and shuts the door.

His Chitauri escorts disperse.

Grim is left alone with Corvus' younger brother.

She gives Cull a respectful nod, and then glances around the room to see what else is there besides the weight station - she has no intention on approaching this sibling if she can help it, not yet at least.

A lot of the equipment looks quite complicated to operate, and some installations she can't even fathom the purpose of.

In addition to the weight station, the easily comprehensible amenities include:

-- Target range

-- Gymnastics equipment 

-- Some sort of obstacle course

-- Climbing wall/treadmill thing (with spikes)

Also, there's a pit in the center of the room with padded walls. Probably a sparring ring of some sort?

-Climbing wall/treadmill thing, perfect. She might not be at her best, but she wants to prove to herself that she cans till do this.

She can do this!

Right up until she can't.

The climbing wall/treadmill thing gets steadily faster after she first begins to scale it, and before it gets much more than halfway to its default speed a spike gets caught against her shin--she gets torn from her current handholds and thrown roughly to the (thankfully, padded) ground at the base of the machine.

Amused rumble.

She grins viciously at the wall. And she'll try again, and again, improving each time. Probably until someone tells her she should stop.

Cull Obsidian does not tell her to stop.

Cull Obsidian is not a particularly talkative fellow.

Her failures don't seem to do anything except spur her to do better, to be better.

She seems content to be moving, and her injuries barely seem to bother her as she does. Eventually though, she recognises the strain in her muscles that says they'll start disobeying her soon. She's improved in bounds since she started, but now she does a simple series of stretches - incorporating some fighting forms - to stretch off her muscles.

Thoughtful rumble.

Cull Obsidian draws closer, but not uncomfortably close. He seems to be waiting on a further queue from Grim.

She tilts her head up at him, silently asking if she can help him with something.

Points at sparring pit.

Inquisitive rumble.

-Thoughtful hum. She doubts she can really take him, but-

She nods, and drifts towards it.

She is correct!

Cull Obsidian is ridiculously strong, and completely unphased by any of her unarmed attacks!

He exhibits the necessary self-control to not completely splatter her with his first successful blow, but Grim might still get pretty badly maimed if she doesn't yield promptly enough?

She's quick enough to avoid that first blow for a while, but he eventually gets it, and she knows when to yield to a stronger opponent.

"I would- appreciate another session?" she admits. "I would like to try and improve against you." (Not to hurt him, but to be more useful, and that is apparent in her demeanour.)

Happy rumble!

Cull Obsidian ceases his offensive right away, and offers Grim a (giant) hand getting back to her feet.

She accepts it gracefully. "You probably don't need telling that you're good, but you are."

Triumphant rumble.

Cull Obsidian lifts Grim up and deposits her outside the pit, then leaps clear of it himself in a single bound.

She gives him a smile, and a nod. "Thank you. Would you mind taking me back to my room now? I can wait if you have other things you want to do first?"

Shakes head. Negatory rumble. Offers hand again.

Steps out into hallway. Barely fits in hallway. Leads way back to bedroom.

She takes the hand, comfortable in his presence in a way she is with so few people, lets him lead her. Feels no need to talk.

Convenient! Cull also feels no need to talk!

They reach the room that Grim's staying in. Cull could not fit through its doorway if he tried.

Cull patiently keeps watch until Grim is back where she's supposed to be, then returns to the gym.

She thanks him again and goes actually eat her dinner. Then she goes back to drawing, no longer people, but ships she's seen. And if she's noting weak points, that's because drawing is more than just a way to pass the time.

Days go by like this: Eat, Sleep, Interrogation, Training, Repeat.

One day, Cull doesn't arrive to take her to the gym. The elderly Chitauri envoy still arrives on time to feed her, but aside from that the residential wing's quiet.

The next day, Gamora calmly explains that she and her siblings were all otherwise occupied--laying siege to a pre-industrialized planet, a siege inflicting a few billion deaths in the course of less than twenty-four hours.

As she recounts the brief details of this one-sided conflict, the green-skinned warrior sounds... sad, distant, listless.

The day after that, she sees Proxima again.

"Father wants to see you. Come. Now."

She rises immediately to follow.

Proxima idles for just a moment, her gaze lingering on the room's contents: the posters, the dolls, its new occupant. She smothers a small mote of sentimentality beneath an ocean of disdain.

Then she turns sharply on her heel and leads the way back to the throne room.

Thanos sits atop the big, stone-wrought throne in the center of the Sanctuary II's underbelly.

The throne does not look particularly comfortable. Its back, which faces the two smaller creatures now entering the chamber, resembles a rough-hewn obelisk moreso than practical furniture.

If Thanos hears Proxima's approaching footsteps, he doesn't acknowledge it.

Grim's footsteps are light and close enough soundless as makes no difference. She's a little intimidated by the throne, but it doesn't really show.

"Father. I brought the prisoner, as instructed."

"Thank you, Proxima. You may go now."

Thanos peers around the side of the throne and beckons to Grim.

She responds immediately to the beckon, approaching, and tilting her head at him in question.

"You've been a model guest, little one."

Thanos leans back, rests his head against the stone and watches Grim approach the front of the dais through partially lowered eyelids. He looks tired, but content.

"My children have asked you a great many questions related to your past, and your answers have already proven valuable to some of our allies."

He beckons again, this time inviting Grim up onto the raised platform where his throne sits.

"But now? I've got a question for you about your future." He waits for her to clamber over the platform's edge before continuing. He wants to look her right in the face as she answers his next inquiry. It's quite blunt. Straight to the point: "What do you want?"

She steps up onto the dais and-

Pauses. Because she's never thought about it.

She glances away. "-to survive?" Which isn't, really, much of an answer at all.

Thanos chuckles softly, leans forward, and rests his elbows on his knees. "Yes. I'd surmised that much, little one."

He reaches for her now, cupping her cheek and pulling her gaze back to meet his. The entire motion takes place very slowly--perhaps he remembers how being touched unexpectedly made her flinch before? Perhaps he's just not in any sort of rush.

"It's okay. I know you're scared. Understandable, but..." He releases her cheek. "I'm not going to hurt you, no matter what you answer. I value truth more than deference."

She doesn't flinch this time, almost seems to lean into the touch, and lets him move her head.

She bites at her lip as he speaks and is silent for a long moment after he finishes speaking.

"I don't know," she admits. "I never thought- I did what was told. And that was- what I expected to do." (What was the use of thinking about something that would never happen?)

A momentary frown passes across Thanos' lips, but he purges it quickly. He doesn't want Grim to think he's upset with her, because he isn't. She has done nothing wrong here.

Thanos considers what Grim has just told him.

He's no stranger to the inner workings of child assassins. He's raised four of them himself, after all. And so when he first looked this girl in the face, as she lay bleeding on the floor of the Sanctuary II's command deck, he'd immediately likened her to the girls currently in his care. Up until today, his mental model for Grim had been "Like Gamora or Proxima, but a little more used to senseless cruelty"

Yet the differences clearly run deeper than that.

"Is that what you want, little one? To do as your told, and nothing else?"

"I don't-" she start, and then stops, pauses, actually thinks. "No. I don't think. I- I like knowing where lines are, and I like objectives. But- I- I don't know any further. I- I would need to- think about it."

"Of course. Take as long as you need."

"I- thank you. That. Might be a while."

Thanos sends Grim back to her room.

The Chitauri envoy escorts her.

Perhaps Grim notices that this is the first time she's been chaperoned by a noncombatant?

The room looks, at first glance, how she left it.

(Might be worth taking a second glance, though)

She does notice that. And guesses that he at least trusts her not to try and kill anyone in the immediate.

A second glance is definitely in order. It- feels different, somehow.

Some of the toys have been moved around. The papers on her desk have been scattered about.

Among those scattered papers, she finds one with a brief note typed out on it:

          Run, while you still can

          Run, while you're still you

...Huh.

She resolves to watch the people around her more carefully. And destroys the note as best she can.

True to his word, Thanos gives Grim plenty of time to think.

Corvus' questions dry up by the end of the next day, but nothing changes when that happens.

Proxima continues to not kill her.

The meals continue to arrive.

And Cull continues coming by daily for sparring.

Do these days yield new insights for Grim?

She comes to realise she wants this. This strange familiarity and safety. She wants the daily sparring sessions with Cull. She wants the regular meals. She wants to have someone who asks her questions, even if she doesn't want to answer them. She does, to a degree want freedom, not much, but enough that Cull doesn't have to come and fetch her every time.

"Morning Grim!"

Chipper Gamora shows up with breakfast.

"Corvus says we're passing through a patch of space that you've operated in before, so if you'd like to take a trip up to the observation deck you could see some familiar stars?"

"-I would like that I think," she admits. "Although- I would like to speak to Lord Thanos when he has a moment as well?"

"Oh, I see."

Thoughtful pause.

"Obviously, Father's business takes precedence. I'll--yes, I'll report that right now."

She brings a finger up to her ear, activates a short-range personal comm unit and relays Grim's words.

"He and Proxima are midway through an inspection of the Outrider pods. She says I should bring you out out to the throne and wait for him to get back."

Gamora shrugs.

"The stars'll still be there tomorrow, I guess."

"I suppose they will at that." Pauses. "Will you take me to the observation deck tomorrow?"

"Yes, absolutely."

Gamora leads the way back to the now-deserted throne-room.

Grim is close on her heels.

Gamora settles down on the edge of the central dais.

And waits.

A couple times, it looks as though she's about to say something, but each time she swallows that down. She sometimes takes nervous glances over her shoulder.

Grim settles into an 'at ease' stance, loose and relaxed. She tilts her heads at each of the times Gamora looks like she's going to speak, but doesn't prompt anything.

Eventually, the two of them hear footsteps coming from one of the adjoined passageways.

Snippets of conversation reach them as well.

"--savage animals, have no right to complain--"

"--they are our savage animals--"

          "--deserve balance and structure--"

Thanos comes into view, with Proxima trailing at his heels. The titan strolls through the passage at a merely brisk pace, but the assassin beside him has to skip/jog to keep up with him.

Grim watches their approach, shifting slightly so that she's more at attention.

Thanos stops in front of Grim, appraising her wordlessly.

When he speaks next, it's to the other two assassins in earshot: "Girls, you may go."

"Yes Father."

Proxima gives Grim an annoyed look, then struts off.

"Yes, Father."

Gamora steals a glance at Grim before departing as well. She looks worried.

Grim is a blank impassive wall, but she notes Gamora's glance.

Thanos takes a knee, lowering himself almost but not quite enough for his face to be level with Grim's.

"You had something you wanted to say to me, little one?"

"Yes," she agrees quietly. "I- I'm sorry if- I don't have the words for this. But- What you've given me here? The space, the care, the ability to train, the chance to... Be. Without worrying about the rules suddenly changing? The-" her words catch in her throat, and when she continues, it's barely a whisper, and more vulnerable than she seems comfortable being. "The safety."

"I want that. And I want to repay what you've done for me. The trust you've shown me."

Thanos lets the words linger between them for a few seconds. They were very good words. He beams at her with as much warmth as his stony features can manage; he can see her vulnerability in this moment and he doesn't want her to have the slightest worry that she's doing something wrong.

He needs a little time to consider what she's just said. In a way, he's treading new ground here. The other strays he's picked up over the centuries? He'd crossed paths with them so early in their lives. He finds himself asking Grim things he'd never had to asked them--it's so much easier to know what's best for someone when they're still a nearly-blank slate, or if you've been there every ensuing step of the way as they grew.

But by this point, he feels reasonably confident in his assessment of this new little one's needs.

Yes. Just one more question for her. Practically rhetorical.

"Little one. Would you like to join my family?"

...Is that what she's asking? Is that what this is? Her own experience of the word 'family' has never felt this warm.

"I- yes? Sir? If-if that's-okay?"

"It's very okay." He tussles her hair (and, again, he does so slowly to avoid startling her). "C'mere."

Still crouching down so that he's level with her, he opens his arms in an inviting embrace.

He knows that this much intimacy will probably be scary for her, but any daughter of his ought to be able to face down such fears.

-she recognises this gesture she thinks, from watching other parents with their children. She's still cautious, but she does step forwards.

He pulls her close. Barrel-thick arms that could throttle the life from a Kronan apply only gentle pressure to Grim's diminutive frame.

"You're home. You are my child and you are home."

After a moment of not knowing what to do with her arms, she wraps them around him as best she can in turn.

"Thank you," she says fervently. (Because he had every reason to hurt her, to kill her, and instead he's being more caring than her own father had ever cared to be.)

He holds her close for a long time, steady and quiet.

This is the foundation of her new life. He wants to give her room to drink it in fully. To remember it clearly, years or decades or centuries from now.

When he's satisfied in that regard, Thanos loosens his embrace and stands upright again.

"So, I hear you and Cull have started sparring?"

Chuckle. Nonchalant conversation. Let the weighty moment pass.

Thanos has other things that he'll need to discuss with his new child, but he'll have so many other opportunities to do so and these things always play out better if you take them one milestone at a time.

"I presume the fights have been quite one-sided so far."

"They have," she confirms, more amused by it than anything else. "Although he's helping me to improve against him."

"Good. You'll get there."

It pleases Thanos greatly that Grim has already taken the initiative in regards to training against his other children.

It's very important for siblings to be Perfectly Balanced with each other, after all.

That's just, like, Good Parenting 101.

"That will be the first objective I assign to you, in fact. To become stronger."

She nods sharply. "I will do my best not to disappoint, sir."

"Report back to the medical wing," Thanos says. "Tell the chief technicians--the ones with extra metal bits sticking out of them--that I'd like for them to take a look at you." When he notices her hesitating, he adds. "You can walk the Sanctuary II's halls freely now. No escort needed."

She smiles shyly. "Yes, sir, thank you, sir."

Pause. "I am dismissed, sir?"

He nods.

"I'll see you again when the technicians are finished."

She nods, and leaves in the direction of the medical wing to find a technician.

She runs into a couple of Chitauri warriors along the way. They regard her warily, but make no move to bar her passage. Either Thanos has somehow communicated her new status to the entire ship since their conversation earlier, or else he had already made up his mind (and disseminated the appropriate orders to his subordinates) before she spoke to him.

She returns to the section of the ship where she woke up after her initial failed attempt on Thanos' life. It bustles with more activity now than it did then: a lot of warriors suffered injuries during the siege the week before, and many are still in recovery.

After poking through a couple of technical-looking rooms, she locates the chief technicians. They don't seem surprised to see her.

"Lord Thanos said that he wanted you to take a look at me," she says without preamble.

The technicians nod, and lead her into an unoccupied operating room.

The operating room features a bunch of scary looking machinery, vats of artificial flesh, and furniture with rated-versus-superstrength restraints.

The technicians seem to expect Grim to sit down on one of the aforementioned pieces of mechanized furniture.

Comply?

...She breathes out carefully, reminds herself that Thanos had not seemed to be lying to her.

And even if he was. There was no way to avoid his will.

She complies.

It's not a pleasant experience.

Arguably, the cybertechs that Thanos employs rank among the best in the galaxy, but they come from a school of surgery that makes no accommodations for the comfort of its patients. She's given a sedative/paralytic that keeps her body from jerking about during the procedure, but they leave her partially conscious--with all sensory nerves live--in order to optimize the fine control elements of the cyberware they're installing.

The surgery itself takes about an hour. They do administer painkillers during the ensuing recovery period, at least; numbing her enough to make sleep possible.

...she was more conscious when her father had cybertech put into her. And had less pain medication.

This doesn't make it pleasant, but it allows her to objectively understand why they're leaving her nerves capable of giving feedback.

Sleep doesn't come easily, but it does come. (And the shadowy nightmares about every nerve and muscle in her body responding to the live wire sensation of her old cybertech are old friends, even if the new sensations make them more prominent.)

When she wakes, she finds Thanos waiting at her bedside.

This infirmary room is larger than the one she spent the night in before. Noticeably, it has a high enough ceiling for Thanos to stand fully upright.

She immediately starts to push herself up into sitting. "Sir-?"

"I guess we're sisters now, huh?"

Tasteful Cackle.

"Welcome to the family."

Proxima rolls her eyes, but says nothing.

Happy rumble.

They're all here: Thanos, Gamora, Corvus, Proxima, Cull and even the sulky, blue-skinned third daughter who Grim had never been properly introduced to.

The whole family, assembled in the same place for the first time since Grim arrived.

"How do you feel, little one?"

...overwhelmed, quite honestly, she wasn't expecting this many people when she woke. Wasn't necessarily expecting anyone.

She shifts slightly, checking how her body feels.

"I- fine, sir," she says after a moment.

Her body doesn't feel quite as sore as she might expect it to, but there's definitely something different to it.

A pins-and-needles sensation lingers each time she shifts position.

"No obvious complications with component installation."

Corvus bites the side of a bony index finger, watching Grim's movements thoughtfully.

"Should be stronger and faster than ever. Give new cyber a try, see if any of the nodes need recalibration?"

She gets to her feet, stretches out her muscles. "I probably should check the calibration, yes," she agrees.

Her muscles want to move fast.

Her whole body's charged with electricity. Literal, all-too-familiar electricity. Whenever she contracts a muscle, the discharge nodes running along it activate in sequence (while the ones near any extending counter-muscles shut off simultaneously). Some of the resulting joint movements are too fast for the eye to follow.

It all probably comes as quite a shock. Sure, this new upgrade doesn't hurt nearly as bad as the Literal Torture Cybernetics it was based on, but it's impossible not to recall the latter when experiencing the former.

She breathes, ignores the flashes of phantom, remembered pain that echoes with the actual pain. She stops stretching briefly, closes her eyes, focuses on her body.

She is fine. She is here. He can't touch her. (...He's probably already dead.)

It's over. He can't hurt her now if he tries.

She moves again, with more purpose, judging where her body wants to move too fast and making it listen to her.

"Feels...good," she decides.

"The lightning bends to your will, now. Not the other way around."

She smiles there, and it's triumphant and vicious.

Looks to Cull. "Care to spar?"

Affirmative rumb--

"--No."

Proxima shakes, speaking through grit teeth. She's held her piece for this long, but she just can't take it anymore.

"Is this really the sort of family we are? We're just going to replace Ebony with his murderer?"

"Proxima..."

There's a warning note in Thanos' voice.

She chokes up. Glances frightfully at her father. Continues in a whisper.

"He was bleeding out on the ground. We could have saved him. But then she... then she... Ebby wasn't even a threat anymore and she..."

"Have you ever been shot in the back by someone you didn't think was a threat?"

A snarky rejoinder dies in her throat.

Proxima doesn't feel her usual vicious self right now. She feels sad, confused, threatened.

She drops into a ready crouch and deploys a hidden blade from a mount on her forearm.

Grim immediately steps back, sits down heavily on the cot, lowers her eyes.

Proxima freezes in place.

She then slowly backs up into a posture of attention, retracts her blade, and lowers her eyes as well.

"We will have words about this later, Proxima."

Pause.

"Go to your room."

Angry sniffle.

"Yes Father."

She leaves the infirmary.

"She isn't wrong in her feelings," Grim points out, a little awkwardly.

Thanos nods.

"My son, Ebony Maw, cannot be replaced. Nor can any child I've lost before him, nor could be any child I may lose hence."

"Proxima isn't wrong in her feelings, but I expect better from her in terms of behavior."

"I- understand," she says quietly, not sure what else there is to say to that.

(Renewed activity by the other occupants of the room brings into focus just how little there was a moment ago. Promixa wasn't the only one who froze up when Thanos raised his voice. Cull had ceased all rumbling, Corvus shrank back, and Gamora--who'd been moving to Grim's side when her sister drew that blade--went still as a statue)

Cull Obsidian shuffles awkwardly up to Grim (he has to stoop to traverse the infirmary) and starts to offer her his hand.

He pauses, glances at Thanos, then looks back to her. He gives an inquisitive rumble that seems directed as much at his father as towards his new sister.

"Yes, go ahead."

When Thanos gives his blessing, Grim moves forward to take the half offered hand, rising to her feet. She's steady now, her body moving only as quickly as she tells it to.

To the sparring ring!

A happy Cull Obsidian leads the way back to the gymnasium, waits for Grim to enter the central pit and then leaps down to the far side of it.

"1,000 credits say she goes the distance this time."

"I'll take those odds."

Tasteful cackle.

She's still at a massive disadvantage, and she knows it. That's not a reason not to try. She's going to have speed over him, and she's going to have to use that if she wants to stand any chance. Not that that's going to be easy in confined spaces.

Cull launches into action suddenly, a transition from stillness to motion that would catch a lot of opponents off-guard (though nothing he'd expect to phase Grim, or any of his other battle-hardened siblings for that matter). He vaults bodily over one of the low obstacles near the center of the pit, and then comes in swinging.

Grim recognizes his opening combination of hooks and jabs as one he's practiced with her at great length. They come out pretty fast, but their angles are predictable.

His followup move are similarly telegraphed, trivially easy for his opponent to duck and weave around with her newly augmented speed.

Is he just fiddling around with her?

Yes, actually.

This is a big day for his new sister, and Cull just wants her to feel like she's doing well.

She's aware he's playing with her, but doesn't doubt that she'll be flat within two minutes of him stopping that.

She's not sure if she's irritated by it, or just feeling overwhelmingly fond that Cull cares enough to try and make her feel like she's doing well.

Still, she doesn't try any less for knowing that, if anything, it spurs her to try harder, move faster. She's good at reading people when they're fighting, at their moves, but she's up against someone at least as well trained as her, most likely better. It doesn't mean she isn't going to keep trying.

Cull soaks up blow after blow, completely impervious to Grim's unarmed attacks against his heavily fortified body.

She does manage to stagger him momentarily with a discharge-amped blow to the head though, which is neat! She's never actually made Cull flinch before!

He gets serious after that. Not because he's angry, mind, or threatened. Just because he feels content that his sister has had the moment of triumph that she's entitled to and everything from this point forward ought to get back to the regularly scheduled Cull Obsidian Smackdown Show.

Cull starts throwing out feints, and alternates on the offense between harder-to-recognize fast techniques and harder-to-dodge sweeping techniques. As Grim dances back from said sweeps, he maneuvers to force her to contend with the arena's walls or the uneven terrain in its center.

They've both been trained for combat from birth, and Grim's actually a bit older than him, but Cull's martial scholarship has emphasized close combat far more extensively and that specialization shows.

But at the two-minute mark of the contest, he still hasn't landed a solid hit on her. Grim's solid defensive footwork and lightning-quick evasion have given Cull a surprising amount of trouble. By any judge's metric, Grim would be 'ahead on points' right now.

She doesn't let her guard down, even if plenty of others would become complacent in her position.

Still, the cybertech is new to her, even if she's doing remarkably well at controlling her body, she's bound to misjudge something somewhere.

Thoughtful rumble!

Cull has figured out why Grim gives him so much trouble. Before they started sparring, he hadn't fought just one person in so long.

He's been specialized in groups--battling planetary armies for local-population-reduction-charity, that kind of thing.

You use different moves when you're fighting half a dozen people, than when you only have to be worried about one.

And then, yes, she does make a mistake, her body moves slightly faster than she was anticipating, leaving her off-balance, and trying to recover before Cull can take advantage of it.

He takes advantage.

His opponent can only be as nimble as friction/leverage allows, and so when he notices Grim lose her grip on the battlefield momentarily he hastens to intercept her before gravity brings her back into firm contact with it.

It ends up being a pretty awkward lunge--he has to check his current momentum, hurtle his whole body sidelong and then snake his arm out at a less-than-ideal angle--but even a glancing impact from someone as hard and heavy as Cull could prove bone-breaking to a human-sized target.

She doesn't quite successfully pivot away from that, moves with the impact rather than against it, trying to minimise damage, and when she hits the floor, she holds her hands up in surrender.

Triumphant rumble!

Gets up, brushes himself off, flexes for the crowd.

Turns back to Grim and, if she's still on the ground, helps her back to her feet.

(To Gamora)

"Heh. Pay up."

She does.

(It's not like the piles of $Units$ that Thanos' children stash away are good for much besides gambling)

Thanos stands at the edge of the sparring pit.

"You both did very well." He smiles warmly. "Grim, let's get you some rest."

He won't know for another few days whether the initial augmentations were enough to bring Grim up to par--she'll need a while to acclimate, to feel out her full potential.

If it turns out she still isn't at his other children's level? He'll just upgrade her again. No bother, he's got time and tech to spare.

She lets Cull help her to her feet, still smiling despite her defeat - and if her smile widens at Thanos' words, at the warm feeling of pride they bring, that's her business.

She nods to him - rest does sound good, and she'd like as good a rest as she can ever get before she tries to see exactly what these augments have done to her abilities.

With the show over, its audience and its participants disperse. Corvus ducks into his room across the hall, Thanos takes an elevator to the command level, Gamora and Cull head for the nearest cafeteria.

Grim gets to walk back to her own bedroom, unescorted. It probably still feels a little weird.

When she arrives, she notes several objects out of place.

It seems her quarters got rummaged through a second time, probably last night while she slept in the infirmary?

...Well. She'll check around the- her room again, not overly concerned, more curious, but still.

She finds another note tucked away on her desk, similar to the one she received before:

          Don't trust him. Don't trust any of us.

          You might think he loves you now.

          He always smiles at the new ones most.

          But he'll grow bored with you in time.

          Escape, now, you won't get a better chance.

                                   (P.S. If you ask about any of this out loud, I will lie to your face)

...Trust isn't exactly what she's doing, except it is.

It isn't trust that he loves her - it's trust that he isn't going to carelessly discard or kill her.

It isn't trust that he'll always show her this affection - it's trust that affection won't pointlessly turn to violence as the rules changed on her.

It isn't trust that he won't get bored of her - it's trust that whether or not he gets bored of her, she has a use to him.

And as for escape? She has no where to go. She could disappear for sure, but if she leaves now, she'll have Thanos after her for her betrayal, as well as her father, and she doubts she could evade them both for long.

She wouldn't have expected her mysterious correspondent to do any different than lie. But she'll still watch her new 'siblings' closer. This note is as thoroughly destroyed as the first.

She gets some time to rest. Five hours, give or take.

Then a knock comes at her door.

"Behold." Gamora shoulders her way into the room with a tray of food balanced carelessly on one outstretched forearm. "The last time I dutifully convey refreshments directly to your domicile. Verily, it is the end of an era."

Grim laughs. "Quite the end. I do appreciate you looking after me."

"Of course. It's not like I have much else competing for my attention."

Cheerful shrug.

(said shrug nearly upends the tray, but she catches it)

"So, still want to visit the observation deck today?"

"Of course! Said I did, didn't I? Not likely to change my mind."

They take a lift up to the the gargantuan vessel's highest level: a series of maintenance tunnels carved into its armored hull.

Gamora leads the way her favorite cranny. They have to pass through a couple of heavily reinforced blast doors to get there--whoever built the Sanctuary II didn't take any chances as far as losing interior atmosphere pressure or artificial gravity to grievous hull damage went.

They arrive at a small semi-rectangular room wedged into a dead end. Transparent mega-polymer comprises the entire ceiling, and one of the sloped walls as well.

The room has several pillows scattered across its floor, and three differently-sized telescopes set up beside the wall.

She looks around the room, smiling quietly to herself, before drifting towards the transparent sloped wall to stare out.

"Beautiful right?"

She feels self-conscious.

When Gamora showed this little hideout to her sister Nebula, her sister had said it was stupid and boring.

Granted, they'd both been small children at the time. Gamora should have totally gotten over it by now.

(She kind of hasn't though)

"I come up here all the time. I, uh... guess you probably figured that out already..."

"Really beautiful," Grim agrees. "It's- peaceful. You could almost think you were the only person in the universe..."

Gamora crosses the room, stands beside Grim, and stares up at the stars.

She looks serene.

Grim turns her head very slightly, smiles again, and then looks back up to the stars, letting Gamora have her moment.

"You seem to fit in well, here." When she speaks up a few minutes later, her voice barely rises above a whisper and she keeps her eyes on the starscape. "I can understand why you prefer this, to where you were before."

"I barely remember the place I came from. I think I liked it there, but it's all gotten so hazy. I can't even remember my mother's face."

"I... kind of want to know a few more things about you. Stuff that Corvus didn't ask. But I completely understand if you're tired of answering questions?"

"I can't promise I'll answer," Grim says quietly, matching Gamora's volume. "But you're free to ask them. I suppose I'd want to know me better in your position too."

"So we're, like... assassins, right? We kill people. That is the thing that we're for?" Gamora bites her lip. "And I guess... I wanted to ask how you feel about that?"

She doesn't quite give Grim a chance to respond. There's a nervous energy to her as she breaches this topic. She begins to ramble.

"Proxima, for instance? She just Enjoys Hurting People. That's kind of her whole thing. Doesn't matter if it's a fight, or a silent take-down, or..."

Grim could probably cut Gamora off at any time but, if Grim doesn't, the green-skinned assassin continues.

"But Corvus? He doesn't get anything out of it really." Quick glance back the way they came. "But he doesn't dislike it either. It's like, he's totally indifferent to killing, and just wants to get the job done as expediently as possible..."

Now she gets to the part that's making her antsy. Her own feelings. Rarely discussed.

"I feel bad about it sometimes. When it's over, mostly? When I'm back here thinking it over. But when I'm out there in the field, when my blood's pumping and it's kill-or-be-killed... I like it. I like winning. If feels fantastic and..." she turns to face Grim, hoping for an answer to a query that she doesn't quite know how to enunciate. "...well, um... what about you?"

"Oh," she says very quietly when Gamora's finished speaking, looks down at her hands. "I-"

She takes a deep breath. "I've never stopped to think about it really. I- never-" Pauses, thinks about what Gamora's just told her, what she's just said. "I never let myself think of my marks as anything other than a target. I couldn't. If I had- it wouldn't have been good if I couldn't...separate it. And I've never given myself a chance to think about it. I couldn't risk not being able to shoot."

"I like succeeding. It feels...just. In that instant. Everything feels right. And I never let myself think about it beyond that."

"Sorry, I---" she turns back to the stars. "Sorry if asking you to think about it... screwed it up for you?"

She sounds genuinely sorry, but she also looks relieved. Relieved both by managing to say what she said, and by Grim's answer.

"No," she says quietly. "I-it's nice to- know. That someone else. Struggles." (She doesn't struggle, not exactly, but she thinks she could.)

Gamora starts to reach for Grim's hand but then... doesn't.

She crouches down beside one of the telescopes instead, and pivots it around to face the section of the starscape that Grim had been watching most closely earlier.

"Do you see any stars you remember? Anything you'd like to get a closer look at?"

She notices the move, but doesn't mention it. She smiles at the question, nods, and points a few of them out.

Stars!

Dwarf stars, giant stars, stellar nebulae!

As many stars as Grim wants to look at for as long as she cares to!

For a long while, she's quiet, staring out at the stars. Before broaching a topic she's been trying not to think about.

"I- is my...father still alive?" she's still staring out at the stars, seemingly impassive to her father's fate.

Gamora mirrors her sister's impassivity.

"Damien O'Reilly? I believe so. Corvus would know for sure."

"...Do you know if he put a price on my head, or would I have to ask Corvus for that information as well?"

"Corvus mentioned something about a 'Reward For Finding My Beloved Daughter' but, given what you've told me about Damien, I doubt that's a sincere sentiment."

Gamora's fist clenches tight. She lean against the transparent hull partition.

"He's not your father. Not really."

She snorts quietly. "No. He likely wants to make me pay for betraying him," she admits. Sighs quietly. "I- he did raise me. One way or another. And he...did protect me from some things."

“I guess there’s no sense getting hung up on wording, but—“ She grits her teeth and turns away. “Sorry. Imagine you probably don’t want to talk about it.”

"...I don't know," Grim admits. "I- never could before." Sighs shrugs. "The stars are more interesting than this anyway."

Stars, stars, stars!

In their little hidey-hole, Gamora and Grim are not disturbed as minutes while by.

Eventually though, those minutes are liable to become hours and those hours are liable to become hunger/fatigue?

Grim's used to both of those sensations, the inevitable and inescapable fact of them.

...However.

She looks over to Gamora. "We should perhaps go and find some food?" she's reluctant to leave here, but still.

"Mmmhmm."

She notes Grims hesitance.

"You know what the best thing is about this place?" With a sweep of her hand, she indicates the irregularly shaped room they stand in. "It's always there waiting the next time I want to visit. The stars beyond it change, sure--but that's a good thing, keeps the view interesting."

She laughs a little sheepishly. "Thank you. For sharing it with me."

"Of course," she says.

("Thank you for not calling it Stupid Boring," she doesn't add)

Gamora leads the way back downstairs.

As they cross the hall between the elevator and the cafeteria, a familiar dour figure accosts them.

"Grim. I've been looking for you."

"You found me," Grim says simply in response, posture loose, relaxed.

“Proxima?”

Gamora steps forward slightly, to interpose herself partway between Proxima and Grim.

“I was hoping to speak to our new sister alone.”

Grim inclines her head. "If you wish," she agrees.

With a tilt of her head, Proxima indicates a sideroom a little further along the hall.

She gives a monotone command as she does so. "Follow."

Gamora steps back.

She whispers into Grim's ear: "Be safe."

Gamora passes behind her, jostling her slightly in the process, and presses something into Grim's palm.

It's the small knife Grim had seen Gamora whittling with back during their first conversation.

It fits away neatly in a clenched fist. Perfectly balanced.

She inclines her head slightly, apparently in farewell, tightens her grip around the blade, understanding the seeming significance, and follows Proxima.

The sideroom's deserted. It looks like it might've originally served as a conference room of some sort, but has since fallen into use as a miscellaneous storage space.

Proxima presses a palm to a button by the doorway and heavy pneumatic doors slide closed. Grim only has a second to gauge their thickness, but they certainly look to be somewhere in the vicinity of 'No One Can Hear You Scream'?

"Since you first arrived here, I've sort of felt like I was going crazy." Proxima mutters to herself as she paces back and forth in front of aforementioned door. "Like... there was something so obvious to me that nobody else in the whole world was getting?"

Grim stays quiet at Proxima speaks, not obviously on edge, but ready to move if Proxima decides to attack, waits for Proxima to get to her point.

She eventually stops pacing, and pivots to lock eyes with Grim.

"Father said that I should apologize to you."

"I wouldn't expect one, I can't say I would've reacted differently in your position."

Proxima's dire visage lightens slightly, a change halfway between a smile and a startle response.

She still has so much resentment broiling inside her but... she likes being understood.

"I'm not sorry for hating you. But I am sorry for... introducing doubt, regarding my priorities." It's a tortuously awkward statement, but it fulfills both of her Father's expectations: that she should apologize in some form, and that she should speak honestly when doing so. "I wanted to scare you. But... the truth, the absolute truth, is that my hatred for you could never outweigh my devotion to Him."

Deep breath. Body tensing at intervals, like a spring under strain amidst a crash of gears.

"I will not harm you, sister." Pause. Breath. "Not as long as you serve my Father loyally. And in fact I will... protect you. The same way I protect the others. The same way I would have protected my brother Ebony, if I'd been there to intervene."

She lets herself give a grateful smile, inclines her head.

"Thank you, sister," she says, a little hesitant as she says 'sister'. (And it feels strange to say that, but in a good way.) "I- will not give you a reason to harm me," she promises, and considers her words before continuing. "I do not doubt the outcome would've been vastly different if you had been there to intervene." There's no hint that she's trying to suck up to Proxima, nothing in her words but pure face. She pauses. "And- I cannot apologise for surviving. But I am sorry for the pain I caused you." She's nothing but sincere. She might not understand the pain Proxima felt, but she can at least recognise when someone is feeling it.

Her eyes start to water up. She takes a single unsteady step forward and breaks eye contact by lowering her head. Her mouth opens and closes, but no legible words come out.

Then she surges across the remaining distance between them... and wraps Grim in a vicious hug?

"Damn you." Raspy words, spoken from a face buried against her new sister's shoulder.

Proxima's whole body shakes. Her fingertips, splayed wide, dig into Grim's back almost hard enough to draw blood.

For a moment Grim isn't sure what to do-

But when Proxima's fingers dig into her back, regardless of the pain, she wraps her arms around her new sister, trying to offer support in anyway she can.

It's as much an attack as it is an embrace.

She hates her. She hates the girl she's holding so much and yet...

Grim has said everything right. Admitted fault. Conveyed empathy. Challenged Proxima on nothing--not her feelings, not her words, not her actions. She's given Proxima's hatred no handholds.

The girl in her arms doesn't feel like a living, resisting enemy. Feels more like a corpse.

And there's comfort in that.

Comfort she hasn't had lately, from any of the others around her.

"Damn you." An uncertain whisper.

More shaking. Slowing down, steadily.

Comfort. Comfort. It's why she holds her docile foe close as she cries.

Grim is a silent, steady presence, not sure how to give comfort to Proxima, but more than willing to let her new sister take whatever comfort she can. If she notices Proxima's crying, she makes no mention of it, has no intention of ever mentioning it.

That's convenient. A silent, steady presence is exactly what Proxima needs right now, and it's a safe bet that she'd be in a Grievous Bodily Harm sort of mood if Grim ever spoke a word about that need outside of this room.

Eventually, she loosens her grip and draws back. Her eyes linger on Grim's for a while. Her lips churn but don't quite form the words thank you. She swallows, takes a small step back, then pivots and strides to the doorway. She hammers on the button beside it and then moves to exit the space as quickly as possible.

Grim stays where she is for a little while, breathing steadily, before venturing out to find food.

Gamora lingers in the food court after clearing her tray, becoming increasingly nervous.

She rises from her place and begins to double back in the direction she came from. She sees Grim entering from that direction, evidently unharmed, and Gamora relaxes substantially.

She strides over to her new sister. "What was that about? What'd she want?"

"Lord-" It occurs that she has no idea what to call Thanos now. Comes around at the topic from a different angle. "She apologised for her... Behaviour towards me."

"That makes sense. He really does want us to get along." Gamora easily infers Thanos' involvement based on Grim's halting wording--it helps that she has a really hard time imagining Proxima apologizing for anything without having been ordered to. "No room for second thoughts when we're covering each other's backs in the field."

As she speaks, she gradually leads Grim over to the station where the food gets distributed.

"No. There wouldn't be. I'm glad it happened. I would hate to hesitate on the battlefield because I have doubts as to whether I can trust her."

Gamora lingers for just a little longer, but she's picked up that Grim is pretty much all talked out for today. Since watching Grim eat isn't particularly interesting, she elects to retire to her quarters.

"See you around."

"See you," she agrees with a sharp nod. She eats quickly, clears her dishes, and provided no-one else demands her attention, makes her way back to her room. It's been a long day, and she's ready to rest.

No one else demands her attention!

The bedroom continues to be an accommodatingly restful place!

She rests, and when she wakes, immediately makes her way to the gym. She wants to figure out her new limits, and make sure she doesn't make another mistake like the one she made against Cull the day before.

As she enters the gym, the sounds of a fight in progress reach her from the central pit.

Strained Rumble!

Thanos fights like a heavyweight boxer, shuffling and weaving and raining down blows from a variety of angles.

Despite Cull's significant weight advantage, they appear quite evenly matched.

When the two enter a clinch, Thanos laughs and calls up to Grim: "Daughter! I hadn't expected you up quite this early?"

She laughs quietly, and nods slightly, before following through on her plan to work out her new limits.

The two fighters shove apart and continue their spar.

They go at it for several more minutes before calling it a day. There's no clear winner, both of them look more battered than Grim has seen them before, but from the way they move it's safe to assume that their accumulated injuries don't go much further than skin deep.

Thanos clambers out of the sparring ring, and pauses to watch Grim at work while catching his breath.

He appreciates how little micromanagement she requires. He's given her a task--Become Stronger--and Grim has applied herself thoroughly to it.

While Thanos expects that trait from all his children, he certainly does not assume it will always come preinstalled.

When a break comes up in her exercise, he claps--both to commend her diligence and get her attention.

She turns to him as he claps, and makes her way closer, stretching off her arms and back as she does.

"There's something I want to talk to you about. It's important, but it's not urgent." He gestures amiably at the next row of gym equipment over. "If you'd like to take some more time to train, I'll be on the forward command deck for the next hour. Do you think you can find your way back up there?"

He's pretty sure she can. But, in fairness, it is a big ship. And if she wants to have this conversation before he drops by the command deck, that's fine too.

"I can talk now, sir," she says immediately. "That way I won't interrupt more important things."

Small smile. He suspects it'll be a long time before Grim chooses to inconvenience him when given the choice, but he'll keep giving her the choice until she takes him up on it at least once. He doesn't mind at all if that takes years to happen.

"You've had time to get to know us. You've had the run of the ship, and before you joined us you recieved a lengthy briefing on what our enemies knew of our movements..."

He elects to begin this conversation with a question. If nothing else, it'll amuse him to know how much his precocious new child has managed to put together on her own.

"I wonder, given all that, what is it you suppose we do here?"

She explains what she's observed - they're a military operation, or something very similar to it, more suited to guerilla attacks than all out war, even if they seem to be approximately annexing planets, although for what purposes, she cannot in fact say.

"Guerrilla attacks?" Thanos considers Grim's wording. Though Grim has noticed a few small details that would've slipped by others, her conclusions substantially miss the mark. That doesn't surprise him. He takes pains to make his long term goals non-obvious; though he has little stomach for direct deception, Thanos finds it useful to at least be unpredictable. "We specialize in raiding--fast offensives and withdrawals with minimal damage to planetside infrastructure--but our objectives aren't traditionally military or political. We don't annex planets. We take what we need from them, then leave them better than we found them."

She nods, thoughtful, and then, after a moment: "Why?"

"The planets we raid... are not our enemies. Far from it. Their long term well-being--and the well-being of other worlds throughout the cosmos--is our ultimate priority."

Thanos pauses, thinking back across the millenia to the events that set his quest in motion.

"Our enemy is the thing that took my home from me."

She tilts her head at him in obvious question.

"Depletion. Famine. Entropy. Desolation. Complacency in the face of those evils." He had a family, before this one. A mate. Children of his own flesh and blood. All gone now. "My homeworld teetered on the brink for so long, further and further out of balance each year. I saw the end coming, long in advance of its arrival, and offered a solution. But our leaders did nothing. Banished me for acknowledging an inconvenient truth. There had been hundreds of billions of us there, when I entered the world. Now, because they would not listen, I am the last of my kind."

It used to be so difficult, recounting this story. Acknowledging his failure to change his homeworld's destiny. Nearly five millennia later, though, Thanos has grown hard in the face of his old pain.

"I've explored the galaxy in depth, and sent scouts to a dozen other galaxies besides. The situation on my homeworld, as it turns out, is far from unique. The entire universe has grown unbalanced and unless someone intervenes it will eventually reach a tipping point."

Thanos grabs the nearest exercise machine and gives it a gentle push, tearing it halfway loose from its moorings and leaving it swaying precariously under the strain of its own weight.

"And so I have scoured countless planets: for information, technology, allies, resources, artifacts... whatever I need to restore the balance. Whatever I need to save the universe."

She nods quietly as he speaks, can see the logic to his words. Doesn't ask if the universe wants to be saved - that someone had cared enough to hire her father to remove Thanos suggests the answer is 'No'.

"In an ideal universe, all beings would be comfortable making short term sacrifices to secure long term gains. In such a universe, we could solve the problem in front of us almost overnight. As it stands, however, I encounter... opposition. Several past attempts on my life have been made by those inconvenienced by my machinations, and I expect many future attempts before the day of victory comes."

He places a hand on her shoulder.

"I may die, Grim. I don't plan to -- I won't go down easy with the universe on the line -- but it could happen."

Squeeze. Eye contact. Solemn intensity.

"And if it did? I would expect you and your siblings to see things through."

She nods gravely. "Yes, sir, I understand. I'll do my best not to let you down."

Thanos pulls her close for a moment, then steps back and strides to the the door of the gymnasium. His armor's outer plating waits for him there, set aside before his fight with Cull. He dons it now, slotting hard exterior pieces into appropriate recesses on the flexible base layer he already wears.

"Train well."

He leaves, headed for Sanctuary II's central elevator.

A couple seconds pass. The machine Thanos uprooted earlier gives an ominous creak, then tips over the rest of the way and crashes to the floor.

She goes very still as the machine crashes to the floor, slowly turns her head towards it, eyes it for a moment, and then throws herself back into her training.

If that is what they're to do, she needs to be better.

She gets better! Sanctuary II's gymnasium is quite accommodating for that!

Eventually she probably gets tired, though?

Yes! But she'll go and grab something to eat before she returns to her room.

There are a few Chitauri milling around the cafeteria, but she doesn't see any of her siblings.

She doesn't have any trouble getting food she can eat on the go. It's not tasty or anything, but it goes down easy and doesn't shed any crumbs.