Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
In the first year, Rocket realized honesty often made getting along a lot less excruciating. In the second one, he noticed he liked it better when someone else was honest instead of him.
It's true that they weren't exceptionally great at transparency either, but at least they didn't seem to be continually trying to hide something – which made Rocket think what if they are, and it gave him hope that maybe they didn't notice how evasive he was. How long he spent trying to push things under the rug, but that rug was see-through.
At some point familiarity starts to erase cautiousness and this liquid love washes away every attempt of staying reclusive. It's expensive, willing to be known.
Rocket finished upgrading their weapons and wiped his dusty hands on his shirt. They were hired to watch over a crashed ship and protect it from potential looters while the clients flew back to retrieve its remains, which implied they probably didn't know who they were hiring. Well, that's on them, a few more units are always welcome.
“I can be useful in battle too,” he heard Mantis say, in that shy and melodic voice even when she meant to impose herself.
“Your abilities and use are surpassed by the concerningly high possibility, almost certainty, of you dying in combat due to your extraordinary weakness,” Drax told her, with the confidence of a tree trunk.
Mantis let out a defeated sigh, weirdly childish, and Drax nodded to emphasize his point, weirdly paternal. As if they were playing roles.
In the past months, Rocket had also started to realize that. Did Drax see his daughter when he looked at Mantis? Did she see Ego when she looked at him?
Is there a way to detach love from abuse?
Rocket stopped thinking and started walking towards the door.
They spent half of their shift doing nothing, just roaming around rubble and wreckage.
Quill bent over and lifted something from all the junk. A butchered little doll, with chunks of missing hair and mud and grime spread all over her face. Part of her arm had melted from the heat that irradiated from fires and shortcuts. Just slightly damaged.
“I didn't know you liked playing house,” Rocket scoffed, but his smile was unusually friendly.
“No need to feel left out, I'll invite you next time,” Quill tried to shake off at least a quarter of all the dust from the doll's happy face, and all he got were dirty fingers covered in greasy embers. He wiped her head on his scarf.
“You're stealing from our client,” Rocket had his arms folded and a tight line for a mouth because he was never really good at holding back laughter. “The exact thing you were hired to avoid. How ethical.”
“You're one to say.” He shrugged, then turned the doll over. The damn thing wasn't gonna get clean on its own.
Rocket's smile weakened. His ears lowered back. “If you're gonna steal, then do it right,” it suddenly got easier to suppress a chuckle. “Take something that's worth it!”
“It is,” Peter raised his eyebrows, looked from the doll to Rocket and squinted. It was hard to see through all that smoke. “It's worth it. It's not for me.”
“Hey, Gamora!” Rocket called. Scratched the back of his ear, rubbed his eye. He really needed to clean his room. “I fixed your comm.”
She opened the door and Rocket saw it: a bunch of dolls, all lined up on her bed and staring at him with watchful, almost unsettling little eyes. Rocket recognized the one Peter found by the damaged arm; if it weren't for that, he'd never know. Her hair was shining, her dress had been sewn back to life and she was cleaner than he'd ever dream of being. Rocket noticed she closed the door behind her slightly, even though he hadn't said anything. She suddenly looked anxious.
“Thanks,” she reached out a hand and grabbed it. “I'll let you know if it's working.”
“Of course it is,” his nose twitched and his snout wrinkled. Not aggressively, just out of harmless annoyance. He hadn't been aggressive in a while, maybe in too long. “I did it.”
He walked off into the bright hallways. It wasn't that abnormal for Quill to do that, but Rocket never failed to get surprised. A few weeks earlier, he found a little plastic rocket in his own room with a letter on the back that said “That's what you look like – Pete” on a ripped and folded piece of paper. A few weeks later, he saw Drax walking around with a curvy knife he'd never seen before.
It wasn't like the boardgames Sire brought down to his cage when he was in a good mood, or the needles and blood when he was in a bad one. It wasn't like the scraps he'd steal and then show Lylla, Teefs and Floor. It was a little like him making aero rigs and emergency suits for the whole team, but also entirely different. It was something else. It was intimate rather than just practical. It was personal.
He started thinking again.
They went to a marketplace on Contraxia when Gamora felt something tugging at her wrist. “I swear, if it's another explosive useless trinket…” She threatened, but it was empty. Her tongue was dragging out the words and she had both her eyes on one of the most boring, exceptionally regular swords Rocket had ever seen. He hoped it just had some hidden meaning he overlooked.
“No, and my explosives ain't useless” Rocket tugged at her hand again, and did it again and again until her light attempts to break free became a shove that almost threw him against the ground. He handed her something, unbendable. “Look at this thing!”
She did. It was an ugly ceramic frog, so small it fit loosely in her palm, with wide ugly eyes and comically large ugly wings as if it was actually about to take flight. It was old, a little dirty, and the red paint was all scratched and faded. The dust made her nose tickle. “Well, it doesn't seem to be explosive,” Gamora squinted, even let go of the sword. It was the stupidest thing she'd ever seen. “But how could it not be more of your useless trinket?”
Rocket didn't know what to say – no one had ever asked him that –, so he just echoed Peter. “It's not for me.”
“There are better ways to spend your money,” she told him, but clenched the frog to her chest like she'd rescued it from the dirt. “Like buying more materials and tools for the ship, Rocket. Something always needs repairing.”
“But that's all I do! What else have we been doin’ for the past two hours?” He waited but she obviously didn't answer, because no reply could debunk reality and she didn't wanna be wrong. He didn't either. “And, uh, Quill's been too annoying lately. Maybe if we give him something to shut up like they do to toddlers, he'll finally give us a break and quit complaining.”
Gamora looked at him and Rocket realized he was being observed just like the sword had been earlier. He'd like to go back to invisible oblivion now. “If that's the way Peter wants to show us he cares, that's up to him. You don't owe him anything. You know that, don't you?”
Rocket pulled at his shirt and tried not to let his eyes widen too much. She wasn't supposed to know that. “Jeez, you adore your boyfriend so damn much you don't even think he's worth that horrible stupid thing?”
Her silver sharp eyebrows narrowed. “He's not my--” She breathed. “How much is it?”
“Oh, it can't be too much, it's only…” he dragged out the syllables and turned it over, then upside down, and then his whole face twisted. “Three thousand units? What the hell is that shit, is it alive?!”
“I don't know why I bothered asking you the price,” Gamora answered, but it didn't clarify much. “We both know you're just going to steal it.”
His tail spiked up. “I ain't gonna steal it!” He answered, and it clarified even less, with closed fists and exposed fangs and flat ears. Gamora simply looked down at the sword, her analytical eyes saying she'd given up on the shop.
They walked the whole place up and down for the next forty-something minutes, negotiating and bargaining and threatening when necessary. Half of the booths were already closed by the time Rocket furtively came back when no one was looking and stole the frog, reflecting dark fur back at him and sweating under his dewy breath.
Gamora showed all her teeth in a grin. Rocket snickered.
It was supposed to be a surprise – quietly, discreetly, like turning over and accidentally lying on something a little too hard to be part of the bed. But Rocket was too good at ruining everything, so he impulsively stood in front of Quill and held something against his back, shaking from repressed laughter because he was also really good at lacking self-control.
There was a smirk trying to play on Peter's lips, but it barely broke through his exhaustion. “What?”
“What?” Rocket's shoulders jumped, he held a paw to his mouth and clung to the something on his back with a single hand.
The idiot started rummaging his hands through his pockets and Rocket knew he was looking for his Zune, but it was just on the table beside them. Rocket felt like his bones were made of sugar. Even the artificial ones.
“What’re you hiding there, huh?” Quill leaned forward to look over his back.
“Me?” Rocket stuck his back to the wall in response. He could barely finish a sentence. “Do I look like I have anything to hide?”
“Oh, you're a traitor,” Gamora looked at them, and the door behind her automatically slid shut with a breathy thud as soon as she stepped into the room. “That's not what we've planned.”
“That's your fault for believing I'd ever do any planning!”
Quill looked from Gamora to Rocket, from Rocket to Gamora. He crouched. “Alright, no, you're both done. What's–” He tried to unpluck Rocket from the wall, grabbing his arms and pushing him down onto the floor but the little shit kept squirming like a warm. Too bad nothing kept Peter from leaning all his weight on him, and when Rocket was pinned to the ground with an elbow on his back, Quill snatched the little box from his hand.
“I'm never making deals with you again,” Peter heard Gamora complain and saw Rocket use the finger she pointed at him as a handle to help him up, but he was too focused on unwrapping layers and layers of shiny paper. He ripped it off, turned it over and shook it, then actually had a thought for probably the first time in twenty years.
“What's the probability of this blowing up in my face?” He paused.
“Uh, more than zero, less than fifteen?”
And that sounded safe enough because Peter kept digging and tearing at the paper until he was staring at his own eyes reflected in red paint. He watched them widen too. “What the hell?” His eyebrows were about to meet his hairline and he spoke in that delighted, disgustingly familiar high-pitched tone Rocket hated so badly. So badly he had to keep grinning until his lips were dry. “Is that for me?”
“Oh, no,” He shrugged, and it was hard to speak because he'd burst out laughing every time he opened his mouth. “It's for that long-ass shadow with black wings and red eyes behind you. Real friendly guy, by the way.”
For a split second, Quill actually looked back. But just for a second. “Why?”
“You haven't been as energic lately,” Gamora said, and Rocket noticed she was choosing her words a little too carefully and looking away a little too much. His throat tickled even more. “We thought a surprise, as simple as it is, could remind you--”
“It looks stupid, you look stupid,” Rocket cut her off, and got the back of his head slapped for it. “Y'know. Guessed you'd just get along fine.”
“Thanks, Rock,” he kicked at Rocket's legs – lightly, fondly, because they never touched to hurt –, then looked down at his surprise with that unnerving smile and took too long to glance at them again. “Look, guys, that was really nice of you. Uh, you didn't have to go out of your way-- I, it means a lot that--”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, whatever. We're so good to you, shut up.”
Gamora glared at him with all her cold wrath like he'd just kicked Peter to death, even though he still seemed alive enough to smile with all his teeth. They were yellow. “Alright, I take it back, I hate all of you and will throw this stupid thing away. That make you feel better?” He cocked his head to the side and it somehow made him look more punchable than usual. “So, you guys gonna help me find a place for this, or…? ”
“What, we gotta do everything for you now?” Rocket's eyes were narrowed. He noticed it was easier to look at them when he pretended to be mad. He just hoped they noticed it too. “Just leave it with the rest of ‘em, next to the window. You got a lot of this dumb trash.”
“Me? That's Yondu's thing!” That chuckle lasted a second before his smile went sour. Right, it was still piercing. “Man, he would've loved this guy.”
Gamora was warmer and closer for the rest of the day. In the afternoon, Rocket sat next to the pilot seat, stared at that ugly frog with its back to the stars and pretended not to see the pilot's red face and shuddering shoulders. Neither of them mentioned how it would never stop piercing, they both knew it wouldn't.
This time, he didn't try to slip through their fingers like sand when they chose to watch a movie. But it's not like they watched anything at all; they kept speaking over it and the ghostly pale screen on the wall would've been completely ignored if it weren't for the lights it flashed on them.
He was in between them, competing for crumbs of space with a thousand dolls. It could be the heat of being squished or his chronic shame, but something had melted in his chest and now his heart and lungs were swimming in liquid gold. He was starting to suspect it was affection.
“My father gave this to me,” Gamora held a doll, and Quill didn't ask if she was talking about Thanos. It was an old and recurring answer, it still echoed even when left unspoken. “He took me to a fair and asked me to choose, it was early in the morning. It rained the night before, I remember jumping on every puddle I saw.” She smiled and Rocket had only seen that gentleness in her when the target was Groot. “He was never forceful, never imposing. Just guiding. Confident.”
“Alright, that sounds like you.” Peter moved his hands and Rocket felt the sheets being pulled from beneath his sides. He rolled his eyes out of habit and heard the smile in Quill's voice. “When was that?”
Rocket felt Gamora's breath on his arm. “Two months later, while my people were slaughtered, he let go of my hand and fought to protect my mother and me. I found his body a few hours later. The grass around him had turned red.”
No one dared to speak for the next moment, and when Peter finally did the air was still so thick his words had to cut through it like knives. “My, uh. My mother used to take me to the theater almost every week. It didn't matter what the movie was, the point was just being there. We kept every ticket, I think I still have them in my backpack. Or somewhere. I hope I do.” He huffed out a laugh in that lethargic and distant way, like Gamora had before and like Rocket does every time he dreams about the friends he killed.
“When we didn't, she'd bring me something from work,” Quill told them. “Always some comic, or disks, or a cheap toy I'd break in two days and then hide the pieces so she wouldn't get mad. But then she had… she got sick, so we kinda… y'know.”
They all knew. Rocket stared at his hands, blue under the flashing lights as if they were lying at the bottom of the sea. “That explains why you're such a brat.”
Something slapped his shoulder and it had the warmth of a hand. “What if I pick you up by your tail, spin you around three times and throw you out of the window?”
“That's what a brat would do.”
They laughed because everything is always funnier when it's bathed in sorrow. There were fingers diving into his fur – damnit, they were getting too comfortable, he was getting too used to them – and he couldn't tell if it was Quill, Gamora, Lylla or Sire. But whoever it was, they kept scratching the back of his head and he wasn't a dog, and he wasn't a pet, and he surely wasn't a thing, but his eyelids were getting heavy, his blue hands were blurred and the empty pot in the middle of his chest was starting to bloom. Fuck. Fuck, it never ends well.
“Rocket,” Gamora said, too calmly and sweetly to mean any good, “what about you?”
Rocket swallowed and hoped Groot would never feel like his skull was being squeezed if he was ever asked that question.
He could just tell them. He felt an oppressively urgent will to tell them. To pull that useless key he'd built for nothing out of his pocket and show them all his scars like some sick exhibition. Show them what he was given. He could really just tell them, just say the person who held him first and cradled him so carefully as if he was made of porcelain was the same that twisted and ripped him apart like some old and dirty cloth and gunned his friends down as he watched with no remorse. He'd never forgive all the cruelty for the sake of all the times Sire pretended to be caring. It was crushing, it pierced more than claws tracing bloody paths on his arms because he didn't know what to do with so much embarrassment.
But then they would know that rotten thing on their bed was made of violence and contempt. And he couldn't let someone else have their fingers on his insides.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I don't think I kept anything.”
They actually watched the rest of the movie, and got strangely closer.
Rocket stared at the bottom of his cup, his wavering eyes blinking back at him from the leftover whiskey. He was in that dangling border between relative lucidity and dissociated numbness.
“Hey, Quill,” he leaned the cup forward and pulled it back when it was about to spill over. “You ever… if someone fucked you up real bad in a way you can't undo, would you… I mean, could you still not hate them?”
He wasn't supposed to say that, but he'd only know it tomorrow morning. Too drunk to think, too drunk to keep his mouth shut.
Quill sipped at his own bottle. “I dunno.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I guess it wouldn't really be my decision.”
“I guess we decide to trust the wrong assholes.”
Peter smiled. His lips were still damp. “All of them?”
Rocket looked over the table. Groot had his nose – if he even had one – buried in his Gameboy as Gamora tired herself out telling him it was past his bedtime. Mantis was sleeping on the couch, her chest rising and falling and a dumb trace of drool trickling down her chin and onto Drax's shoulder. His fingers were covered in her black hair, shining blue under the soft lights, so delicately and sweetly it felt immoral to witness. And Pete, hugging a bottle and staring at him with hazy eyes and an adoration-shaped smirk that made his face look even more flushed from drinking. So, so gently. Goddamn it, his throat was tightening.
The cup was cold in his hand, and he only grew warmer and warmer. “Fine, whatever.” He shivered. “Maybe just almost.”