The Chain
Rocket liked to collect broken things.
It was impulsive, a habit he'd watered more than Groot's pot. A prosthetic hand with three fingers, a knife with a missing part that unexplainably looked like a bite and a blaster that gets overheated when touched for more than five minutes. Hell, he even found four more people who also weren't exactly whole.
Sometimes he fixed them, sometimes he hid them somewhere no one could even guess and sometimes he couldn't either. It's hard to remember when there's so much trinket lost in so many different holes.
But no one survives on broken trash. How could he sell what nobody wants? He didn't limit himself to exclusively stealing what's already been shattered - that was a hobby, he needed units. Sometimes he played with precious things too, for a change. Because people got angry when they failed and lost what was completely stable and palpable a minute ago, and their anger made Rocket shiver with satisfaction. The more reckless, the better. It was euphoric, risking his neck to feel something.
So, if he was already so easily tempted for nothing, when Ayesha eloquently explained the superiority that came from her genetically perfect people with all her golden and stupid serenity - such an old, familiar speech, he'd already predicted every word and it was always the same from whoever replicated it -, Rocket's rage exploded just like it did before and he needed to tear someone's face apart again. But he had a better idea.
The batteries were so easy to steal it was insulting. He was still generous, he could've stolen so much more. They were property of who he used to belong to. He was cornered and desperate and terrified, because if the Sovereign found out, Sire would too.
But no one knew. He wouldn't tell them.
Usually the adrenaline of doing what he shouldn't pays for the headache, but this time he was actually proud of it. He obviously didn't see the High Priestess’s face when she realized they'd been fooled, but wondering if the gold on her cheeks got paler made it even more fun. There was a melted pleasure in seeing the look in his friends’ eyes when they were finally seeing what he really was after months of trying to show them - and he went lower and lower with each attempt. He felt great. He was proud.
He was. Until Peter turned his back to him. Until he found himself fighting a horde of Ravagers all alone. Until his eyes started burning for no reason when he thought about answering their patient kindness with reckless hate.
Until he had to watch Yondu's body shine in colorful sparkles in space.
Rocket had only seen fireworks twice before.
Once little after he'd just escaped the Arête and when he was still on the run with Groot. He couldn't really enjoy either, though; he spent the first one in a frozen state of dazed shock, and the second in a frozen state of dazed drunkenness.
And now, as he stared alone at the flaming sky, the colors were already blurring together and his hands were cold, dazed and unsteady like the surface of a lake wavering against the wind because he'd killed Yondu, just like killed Lylla, Teefs and Floor. He wondered who would be the next.
His ears still rang from the explosions or the adrenaline or the panic of feeling everyone's eyes burning on his back when he couldn't even raise his head, limp and devastated like a stupid dried flower.
His stomach twisted. He couldn't remember feeling so exposed even when he had his organs ripped out from his insides. And Peter still reassured him, patient and empathetic like he pitied Rocket when he'd just killed his fucking father.
What a goddammit idiot, Rocket just wanted to be able to be selfish and reckless without a tidal wave of resentment as a treat for his efforts. But then, when everyone left and dragged their weary feet to the only ship he hadn't destroyed yet, he thought about how close he just was to taking them away from himself and couldn't breathe.
He went to a room with someone else's sheets on the bed and still saw sparkles exploding and raining down on him as embers on the ceiling.
The following weeks were quiet, just like Rocket had wished for so fiercely for so long. Partly, maybe, because Ego had smashed Peter's Walkman with his bare hands just like Rocket used to daydream of, so fiercely for so long. Someone finally saved his hearing, and it didn't bring him any sort of pleasure - he'd tried to search for some kind of satisfaction somewhere, but all he found was a heavy and flammable solid ache on his chest and the back of his neck. He couldn't name it. When Mantis tried to without his permission, he almost sliced her throat open.
Sometimes there was music on the Zune, but usually there was Quill locked in his room like he'd swallowed the keys and ghost voices in the hallways. “He's grieving,” Rocket reminded himself the first few days, and then the first week, and then the next one after that. He's grieving. Grief isn't hate. Rocket's brain just wasn't used to silence.
It also wasn't used to walking the other way when he saw Drax or Gamora. He was avoiding them, because it wasn't as dangerous and made it harder to pick up a fight when there's no opponent to defeat. The only solution to preserve harmony when he couldn't hold back his tongue, so be it.
And it wasn't exactly impossible to stay away. When he didn't take action to evaporate in thin air and disappear before it was too late, they did. So what? While they whispered and giggled and rarely joked between the Benatar’s dark walls, he was knee-deep in his work, obstinately fixing and changing little things that would certainly go unnoticed for as long as he was awake, definitely not out of guilt or regret. It was just his job. Everything was normal, untouched. Nothing had changed. And if they weren't eager to constantly talk to him anymore, well, so what?
When he finally got what he wanted, no one came to praise or congratulate him. He didn't either. Maybe he'd managed to push them away like he'd been trying so hard to for endless months, and if there's a limit and an ending to everything, patience can't be much different. And for whatever reason, in case their exhausted looks and weary voices were for once filled with oblivion and disregard rather than tenderness and tolerance, then whatever. Their loss.
But then he changes and improves a few things here and there that didn't need repairing because maybe they'll look at him like before. He doesn't look at them because what if it makes them a little less angry. He makes no noise because maybe they won't notice his presence and unconsciously stay a little longer. He bites his hand until his teeth taste like iron because–
At some point, when diving into mindless work and desperately looking for a purpose to give his collected broken trash was no longer enough to restrain the hysteric misery he'd been courageously trying to neglect, he gave up on his act and acknowledged the weird ache on his sternum for five minutes.
Gamora was standing by the counter, pouring coffee into a mug - she didn't use to, until she mysteriously started to spend most of her days with Peter, even through his grief. Maybe especially then. Rocket was dismissively looking around, poking a metal table with his foot. “Hey, Gamora,” he wiped at his nose, looked through the window and hoped she wouldn't realize he was trying to act casual. “You planning on goin’ out later or anything?”
She grunted, faintly shook the mug in her hand. Didn't bother to look down at him. “If you promise not to shoot me in the back.”
Rocket felt his snout twist involuntarily. All the pent-up rage he couldn't blow off by shooting strangers and killing threats always erupted so violently when he talked to them. He'd never do that to Lylla. The certainty of that made it all much more utterly unbearable, so naturally he gritted his teeth until they hurt.
“Fine then, I guess that makes it easier for all of us,” he hissed, fists clenched and eyes narrowed and heart bursting and throbbing against his chest as if Quill's favorite bands were playing a concert between his ribs. “Next time I'll just let y'all die as much as you want!”
“I don't think that would be a challenge for you, would it?” It was the first time she saw him in days, and it barely lasted. She grabbed her mug and stormed off before he could even think of retorting.
“You should be more careful,” he heard Drax's voice from beyond the door, and the fact it was clearly meant to be a whisper made Rocket shake with anger three times harder. “Have you counted your rings? The rodent might have stolen some.”
Rocket bared his teeth. Frustration rushed through him so wildly it made his head spin. “Oh, you ain't gotta worry about that! If the rodent ever feels like stealing anything from you, he'll damn sure just harvest your organs!”
That was the closest he'd been to a social interaction since Ego. And accurately disastrous, to remind him why he'd closed himself off in the first place. He kept making it worse.
Well, whatever. Their loss.
Later that night, Groot proudly brought a wobbly drawing to his room - a bunch of harsh scribbles of what was supposed to be their family, colorful and bright with unsteady fireworks in the background. Rocket cried until the back of his eyes burned.
Not even the Sovereign’s rage kept them from getting a new gig for too long. Apparently, despite his best efforts, there was still one thing Rocket hadn't ruined yet, because maybe saving the galaxy twice is unfairly more notorious than stealing a few batteries.
This time, though, it wasn't anything spectacular (which meant the chances of ruining it were significantly lower, but Rocket was sure his stupid ass could still find some if he tried), not notorious at all. They were hired to find the client's stubborn son, who woke up a little more pissed off and spoiled than usual two days ago and kindly decided to disappear into the woods. Kindly to their pockets, because the profit wasn't that bad. They just didn't expect to find him sheltered on the highest branch of a tree, surrounded by dozens of hideous things that looked like overgrown Orlonis. But most of all, they looked hungry.
Rocket had one of them in shooting distance. The thing hissed like a snake, shook its lizard tail and stared right into his eyes as if it were looking for a soul. Rocket showed his teeth and pulled the trigger, and then everything blended and blurred in a swirl.
The first thing he felt were fingers digging into his shoulders that for once weren't his, and immediately after his feet left the ground and he was spun in the air like a ball until something punched his back. It was the floor.
He tried to sit on his elbows, but his lungs were two breathless deflated balloons and his shoulders still burned from the grasp. He didn't know what the hell was going on, or why his hands were suddenly empty. There was no other option but to stare at the clouds, stiffening, panting. Maybe, if he'd broken a rib or two, the profit would duplicate too. To make up for the inconvenience.
“Rocket!” His shoulders were going numb when he felt them being squeezed again, and he was suddenly pulled up all at once. As he sat up, his hips hurt like he'd been hit by a ship. That reward's better triplicate. “The fuck are you doin?!” Quill howled, his eyebrows an inch away from meeting and his forehead wrinkled with wrath in a way Rocket had never seen before. Peter was almost unrecognizable. He stiffened, panted.
Rocket looked away impulsively and saw one of those filthy lizards sinking its teeth into the dirt and rolling on the ground where he'd just stood. Oh. Oh.
Peter shook him like he was trying to make his bones vibrate. “Rocket, I'm talking to you! What the fuck was that?” He echoed. “You trying to get eaten or what, you dumbfuck?”
Rocket blinked. They were all staring at him, crowded around him like he was some exposed abomination so freakish it needed to be dissected in order to never be replicated. But they weren't Vim with cold and hollow eyes, or Theel with his pale smile, or Sire with his bloody-handed love. They just saw him, either as furious as Peter or as horrified as Drax. Harmlessly.
He stared at each one of them. “They don't hate me,” his mind repeated when he was still dizzy, either from the impact or the shock, and repeated and repeated until he couldn't hear anything else. He didn't hear what Quill told him next, didn't hear his own answer, but he saw the way Gamora's sharp eyes were soft with fear and how Drax lent a hand to help him up. Goddamn it, he should've cut them off in time, should've pushed them away sooner when they weren't embodied into him. He shouldn't care the way he did.
But now his throat was closing and his hands were unsteady when he picked his gun up from the grass and he didn't know why he did what he did, if they'd just keep risking themselves for something like him even when there was still resentment and rage. Even now, when they knew him.
Rocket walked off, pulled the trigger and didn't miss the target this time like he had in all the previous ones, but it didn't make the constricting pressure in his lungs any lighter.
He slid the bottle cap between his fingers and took in the cold glass against his lips as he drank. When Peter aimlessly sat down on the chair next to him, Rocket instinctively jolted and got up. “Rude,” he grumbled and turned away, but Quill grabbed his wrist. A little too tightly.
He just stared into Rocket's dark, evasive eyes and had the audacity to ask, “Are you upset?”
Rocket glared at the fingers around his fur. “If you don't let go, I will be.”
“I will when you answer me.” He sipped at Rocket's bottle. Rocket gritted his teeth.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it, thanks for not lettin’ me die or whatever,” he closed his fist, his teeth sparkled under the grim light of the ship in red and blue. “Just to be sure, you do remember I was dead-ass about to leave you on a collapsing planet, right?”
“Yeah, ‘cause you knew Yondu was gonna get me, you dumbass, you said it yourself!” Peter inhaled, ran a hand down his face, sniffed and sighed. “It's a yes or no question. Can you just not get defensive for three minutes so we can figure this out?”
Rocket started at nothing, looking for something that wouldn't make it worse for good, if there was any. Running away was quite tempting, but so was that agonizing stupid need to fix everything he saw. “Maybe don't ask shit if you know you're not gonna like the answer. You already got enough to complain about.”
Quill chuckled. That humorless type, the annoyed one. “Dude, I don't know what you don't tell me.”
Rocket looked over his shoulder, he could hear Mantis somewhere in one of the endless hallways of that hollow ship. And no one else was supposed to hear him now. “And what's it gonna change if I am? The Sovereign are gonna come here and personally apologize for the stress? Jeez, I hope they won't. The Milano’s gonna rebuild itself? Are you, are you gonna– you gonna stop going quiet every time I step in the room?”
The annoyance was gone. Rocket looked at him just for a second, unwillingly, and then couldn't look away because Quill was staring at him with red eyes and shaky lips, his hand clenching his bouncing knee. “But I'm not… if that's how it feels, I swear I'm not–”
“Quill, it's fine,” Rocket's gaze fell again, and he held his wrist and forced himself to walk away. “Just enjoy my drink, I guess.”
Later, when Gamora knocked on his door with an awkwardly reconciled look on her face, he raised his head just slightly. “We're gonna watch a movie,” she said. It sounded like an invitation.
Damn it, Quill. That's why he doesn't do talking.
Rocket blinked. Slowly. “I got a headache.”
He didn't know what part of it was a lie. And Gamora probably didn't either, because she left and didn't come back for a second try.
It took him longer to accept it than to realize it, but fuck, he missed them.
He kept trying to justify his need to deny the truth until rebuilding the Benatar from scratch fell flat in the face of all his guilt. It took him even longer to realize that trying to make a home home of this new ship wouldn't bring the Milano back, and neither his friends’ trust, or Lylla, or Teefs, or Floor, or anything he's ever ruined. Fixing what wasn't broken until he had to start breaking things in order to fix them to keep himself occupied wasn't exactly working anymore, because he missed them.
At some point, he had to name the weird pain in his neck. It was shame.
Rocket heard the music before he saw Quill. God, it's been so long, something other than cryptic silence. He tried to walk away in time and avoid another fight, another Milano, another Lylla. But he froze.
“Uh, Rocket,” Peter said, holding the Zune in his hand and for once it was so relieving to see it again. “I guess there's something wrong with the water filtration, so if you could take a look sometime…”
Rocket had his eyes fixed on the floor, waiting for Quill to keep going. When he didn't, Rocket just nodded. He couldn't look at him. It made his shoulders hurt more. “‘Mhm. ‘Kay.”
He turned around, his tail sweeping away the floor where his eyes were stuck and wiped at his nose. Then stopped midway.
Because he heard the music fading, and thought about when it just increased in volume instead. When they drank until nothing made sense and laughed until his neck was hot. He thought about Gamora carrying Groot to bed, about Quill's stupid grin when he mispronounced a word and Drax's hand, way more delicate than anyone would ever expect, petting his head whenever they won or lost. About Yondu's disgusting teeth smiling at him. About his family standing beside him as the sky burst into endless and colorful embers and pretending not to see him cower. About his family.
Oh, fuck this. If it's supposed to be over, then let it end with dignity. Better spread his fingerprints and blood and sweat all over it before it's snatched from his hands as well.
“Quill,” he looked back. “Are we good?”
Peter usually stares right at whoever talks to him as soon as he hears their voice. This time he didn't, just stiffened and stared at the controls and the dark, dark veil of space through the window and Rocket wanted to believe he was either too busy trying not to crash another ship or he just didn't lie back in Berhert, when he said he hated him - well, he didn't, but that's how Rocket had decided he did. The first was too childish, but the second made him quiver from head to tail. Then it was probably the answer.
Quill slowly glanced at him from the corner of his eye with his I'm gonna make a joke in the most excruciatingly serious tone I can muster and wait for your reaction look, but then he saw Rocket. “I don't… I mean, yeah?”
His ears flattened. The floor was getting blurred, his cheeks were hot, his nose was sucking in the air a little too hard. “Y'know, if y'all… if y'all wanted me gone you'd just tell me, would ya?”
He heard the huff of a laugh, the sound of leather being squished and then Quill's steps walking down the cockpit. “Uh, no, ‘cause we wouldn't kick you out.”
Rocket tried to scoff and it sounded halfway through a cough and a sob. “That's not what I said!”
“It's what you meant!” Quill spread his arms loosely to the side and Rocket saw him kneel in front of him, as condescending as physically possible. He couldn't even complain. “Unless it wasn't, and then you'll need to explain.”
Rocket bit down his lips as hard as he could so they wouldn't falter until he realized he couldn't speak like that. “I just, I didn’t– I didn't think it would… I shouldn't’ve stolen that crap, or treated all of you like shit, or, or destroyed your freakin’ ship, or…”
“What’d you think would've happened when you did that, dumbass?”
Rocket chewed on the insides of his cheeks. “I'm not sure.”
“Rocket,” Peter rubbed his eyes - so tiredly, drained - and Rocket felt a hand crawling up his shoulder. He tried so hard not to shake. “You could've stolen their entire goddammit planet and put a turd in my pillow, and call everyone names, and be a dick for no reason, and you'd never be any less of a friend.”
He wanted to find a way to sneak out of the horrifyingly dangerous path this conversation was going, but damn it, his mouth was getting dry and the saliva was growing thick and blinking fervently wasn't clearing up his vision anymore…
Quill tugged at his arms and Rocket was about to resist when he noticed it'd be pointless by now. He sniffed once and then there were tears and snot and ragged sobs and inhuman whines coming from him like some disgusting little animal, but Peter's arms were still wrapped around him as if his body wasn't twitching all over like he'd been freaking electrocuted. “Pete, I didn't mean to,” he choked, coughed and would've been mortified at how raw his voice was if he wasn't busy trying to keep his face from twisting completely.
“I wouldn't care if you did,” Peter's voice was muffled against his shoulder and that somehow made it even harder to get his shit together. Dumb idiot, so patient and accepting it was simply unaffordable. Like it was fated to end. Rocket repaid him by running his shirt with ugly sobs and a runny nose.
He eventually pulled away, so unnaturally calm it was more of a dull, catatonic numbness. Sedated, almost. It'd bring some clarity if it weren't for the empty shock. He sat on a chair to feel the cool metal against his back and rested his elbows on the table, and didn't get up and leave when Quill sat next to him. Didn't comment on the way he kept discreetly rubbing his eyes either.
Peter slid him something across the table. Rocket picked up the Zune and turned it over. “What?” He breathed.
Quill smiled. It was still weak and a little forced, but it was better than anything they've had in the past weeks. “Choose the next song.”
Rocket rubbed a hand against his nose and held the Zune with the other. It was starting to look too much like the key in his pocket, like a thin little stick in his hand. Like little pieces of a Walkman on the floor. But it didn't reek of blood or fear, and for once the arm around his shoulder didn't make his whole body sting. Maybe risking a little wasn't so bad. Maybe he could learn to start sharing what he couldn't live without with death every now and then.
He scoffed and it was the weakest one Quill had ever heard. “Okay,” Rocket smirked, and closed his fist around the Zune just tight enough for his sternum to stop aching.