Rocket
Rocket can’t look at them after someone finally explains what they are. He found them odd anyway when they first walked in. Draped in ridiculous colors and strutting in here like they owned the place. The others assure him that they belong here like the rest, but where were they and miss whatever her name is when Thanos was jumping across this planet looking for Stones? He wants to be angry, hell he should be angry, but he can’t really muster much of anything these last few days.
Green scales flicker in his peripheral and he turns his head. He should’ve known they were experiments. They look so similar to-. His hands curl. It doesn’t matter. Quill never mentioned any other intelligent life on this planet outside of humans. Not like that mattered much, Quill isn- wasn’t exactly a reliable source when it came to Earth and whatever the hell goes on here. These turtles could’ve been dumped here by other aliens for all he knows. Plus, Rocket doesn’t exactly give a shit about asking. They have work to do if they want to track Thanos down, and he’s not going to waste time questioning everyone who converges on this rock they call a compound.
So he listens to the introduction with half an ear. He twitches, ears spinning at the mention of magic, but otherwise remains slumped on the ground. Magic’s not going to do any good from the way Starboy talks about the Stones. The Stones are beyond science and magic, Thor explained, there is no rhyme or reason to them. They just are. Rocket’s hands fold into fists at the thought. Nothing just is.
The room fills with more voices, the turtles going back and forth with every new one that joins before the one in purple suggests helping with ship repairs. Rocket sits up. “No,” he says. “I can handle it.” He already has to fix whatever Stark did to the thing, he doesn’t need another set of hands screwing it up.
“Do not worry,” Thor says, but it’s lifeless. “Donatello has a singular mind. Some of his inventions even manage to surprise me.”
“Right,” Rocket snorts. This coming from the guy whose planet refers to all tech as magic. Referred. Rocket looks away from the Asgardian. He forgets sometimes that Thanos’s cruelty was long in motion for Thor before they got involved.
The other non-human moves on hooved feet and collapses in an open chair. “The Asgardian is right. Donatello has a natural intuition when it comes to technology. A quality even I had not anticipated when I started their mutation.”
Rocket turns.
The turtle in blue offers the ghost of a smile. “I thought there wasn’t any real intention behind our mutation. You know, besides making us great warriors.”
“True,” the other sighs. “But I could’ve done more if Lou-,” he stops. “It doesn’t matter. Donatello is far more intelligent than any human on this planet. He can help get that ship in the air faster than-”
The other stops, his voice stalling, and the rest of the room follows. The silence lasts for a beat, maybe two before Nebula steps forward. “Put the gun down, Rocket.”
Rocket doesn’t remember moving, but his instincts have taken over in less important situations than this. His hands adjust around the small blaster. A finger moves and the weapon whirls to life under his palms. “What do you mean by intended?”
“Hey,” Steve says. “Let’s just-.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Rocket interrupts. He leans until his eye finds the scope. He doesn’t want to miss. Not on this one. “Let him answer.”
The other non-human raises an eyebrow, but his arms are tense. “Exactly how it sounds,” he says. “I turned them from the dull, ordinary turtles they were into what you see now. Some of my greatest work really.”
The verbiage and posture twist at something Rocket thought long buried. Dull. Ordinary. As if it’s a crime to be what nature made you. As if a greater hand, a great mind has the right to tinker in the name of evolution. His eyes flicker to a shifting turtle, Rocket takes in the wide face under a stripe of orange before looking away with a hard swallow. “Why?”
The other sighs. “I don’t think the why really matters to you.”
The gun lowers an inch and the room releases a collective sigh. “You’re right,” Rocket says. It won’t change anything, won’t change what this monster already did. But he looks at scaled limbs never meant to bend that way and the forced curve of their snouts and the gun comes back up. “It doesn’t, but I wanna hear it anyway.” His face pulls into a vicious snarl. “Call me curious.”
A turtle steps in front of the non-human and he’s forced to look at it head-on. This one is taller than the others, nearly as tall as Groot was all those years ago. The sudden surge of loss nearly has Rocket on his knees, but he doesn’t fall. He can’t. Because the turtle is protecting this monster. Stands in front as if to take any and all blasts meant for this creep. It’s an echo of a past when he was nameless, then desperate, and finally furious. The anger keeps his trigger finger steady. “Move.”
“No,” the turtle says. “I can’t let you shoot Draxum.”
“Why?” Rocket hisses. “Because he made you! Take it from me, kid, that type of loyalty gets you nothing with bastards like him.”
“Because he’s family,” the turtle answers and bile builds in the back of Rocket's throat at the word. “Look, his intentions weren’t good at the beginning if that’s what you want to hear. He was mean, still is if I’m being honest, and yeah he made us to be perfect warriors, but he’s also saved our lives. Hell, he helped us save the entire world! He’s a good guy.”
Rocket isn’t moved after the little speech. He too once thought cruelty would lead to reward. Fucking bleeding hearts, all of them. They won’t know until it’s too late that men like this, like him aren’t family.
“And if they weren’t?”
The non-human, Draxum, doesn’t move from behind his shield, and Rocket sneers. How telling. “Then I would have started again,” Draxum rumbles. “Failure was not an option back then. They needed to be perfect.”
Perfect. Fuck, this guy sounds like him.
A laugh sucks some of the tension from the air and Rocket's gaze finds the doctor. Another experiment they tell him, but he hasn’t seen any indication of it, but at least it was under his own hand. The man takes off faded glasses and leans against the wall. “I’m glad to see not everything has changed. You’re still an asshole.”
Draxum finally leans around the giant turtle with a sneer. “And you’re back slumming it with Stark.”
“More so slumming it with Thor,” the doctor corrects. “I confess, I’m still trying to catch up.”
“Yeah,” Stark coughs. The man turns a gaunt face Rocket’s way. “Is the Build-a-Bear going to put the gun down anytime soon?”
“Rocket,” Nebula says. “Stand down.”
His teeth grind so hard that it hurts. “He experimented on them Nebula.” The metal up his spine aches under the weight of the weapon and he wonders what type of alloy was used on these kids. How this asshole broke their necks and stretched their spines. He knows all too well what it takes to break an animal like them into something bipedal.
Rocket looks for signs of metal and stretching on their frames and finds none. Or maybe Draxum didn’t break them. Maybe this guy jumped straight from tearing and rebuilding to something more encompassing, something Rocket once helped perfect in another life. The other turtles move at his hesitation and the blue one wraps a hand around a sword. “We’re not losing any more family.”
Nebula kneels and places a hand on the weapon. Rocket takes in her mitch match face and the unnatural blackness of her eyes. They aren’t close, haven’t really been given the chance to be, but they both know what it’s like to be under a cruel hand with a sharp knife. “He experimented on them.”
“I know.” She takes the gun from his hands. “I know.”
Nebula might be on his side on this, but he’s outnumbered. They’ll stop him if he shoots and he so desperately wants to. His hands fold into trembling things by his sides. He wants to leave, pack up his ship and get back to the cosmos with his team, but that’s not an option right now. He glances at the four experiments. Four.
Fuck.
He moves across the room, resists the urge to fall to all four for faster movement, and collapses against the opposite wall. He refuses to look at them and their creator. It’s too much to ask of him on top of an already shitty month.
Steve steps forward again at the silence. “We don’t have time for in-house fighting. We need to focus on finding those Stones and undoing this.”
“I was trying to focus.”
“Not now, Drax,” the red turtle hisses. “Draxum and Mikey might be able to help with the magic side of things.”
“It is not magic,” Thor sighs. “Whatever tricks you have will not work.”
“Still,” the red one insists. “They at the very least can help track this guy. They both felt the spell.”
“We all felt it,” Rocket snaps and pushes to his feet. He can’t sit in this room and act like there’s not a monster in their midst. They might be able to, but he’ll kill him. Slit Draxums throat or use his bare hands if the man opens his mouth to speak for a third time. “I’m going to work on the ship. We ain’t going nowhere if it can’t get off the ground.”
“I’m coming too.”
He whips around on the purple one. The turtle doesn’t flinch, but a single brow goes up. “No,” he snarls. “You’re not.”
“I thought we voted two heads were better than one?”
“WE didn’t vote on anything,” Rocket says. “It’s my ship. I already have to undo whatever damage metal man over there did to it, I don’t need another set of hands getting in the way.”
The turtle crosses his arms. “This isn’t my first spaceship,” he says. “And I’m the best engineer you’ll find on this planet.”
“Hey.”
“Don’t fight it, Stark,” the turtle says. “We all know it.”
Rocket pauses at the confidence. “Oh yeah,” he pushes, he can’t help it. “You smarter than your maker over there?”
“Is that supposed to be a trick question?” Donatello asks. “Cause it’s not. Tricky I mean. I run intellectual laps around Draxum.”
“In tech,” Draxum amends. “Donatello is unmatched, but I’m still the better scientist.” There is no derision or anger in his words. He speaks as if the creation is supposed to surpass the creator.
“Not like it matters,” Donatello smiles, but it’s thin. “Biology’s overrated anyway.”
“I can’t hear any more of this,” Rocket mutters. “Follow me if you want, I don’t care. Just don’t get in the way.” He doesn’t wait to see if the kid is following. He just wants to get out of this stupid room where both past and present failures hang heavy in the air. “I need a damn drink.”
“Are you old enough to drink?”
He glares at the ground as the turtle falls into step with him. “Do I look like a kid to you?”
“It’s hard to tell,” the turtle hums. “Raccoons don’t live that long if I remember correctly.”
“Hey,” Rocket snaps. “You don’t bring up someone's life span, it’s rude. And I’m not a raccoon.”
“You certainly look like one,” the turtle mutters.
“Yeah, and you look like a frog, but you don’t see me bringing it up.”
“Well, that’s factually untrue.”
Rocket steps into the garage with a wave of his badge. “Go look in a mirror and then get back to me.”
The ship sits slumped in the middle of the enormous room and Rocket growls at its condition. He already knew how it looked, he was on the lawn when the glowing lady lowered its sagging form, but it still hurts to see. Quill would yell at him for his attitude. Say that Rocket should be grateful that the ship came back in one piece at all, but he’s not grateful. Quill’s dead and the ship still needs work. He’ll bitch and complain like always, but now there’s no one to bitch and complain to.
Donatello practically flies across the room, arms outstretched, and jumps on the damaged ship. “You’re beautiful,” he sings. “Oh, the secrets you hold in your wiring.”
Rocket drops his head back. Why does he always get stuck with the nutjobs?
Donatello steps back and walks around the length of it. “The paneling is magnificent,” he mutters. “I never thought I’d be asking this,” the turtle says. “But what can I help with?”
Rocket climbs up the short scaffolding and slips into the interior. “You see that box over in the corner?”
“Yeah.”
“Go to it.” Rocket moves just to the left of the control panel and pulls at the grate of the floor. He scowls at the mess of the thermal system. It’s a hack job in there, it’s a wonder they managed to exit the atmosphere without falling apart. “Fucking Stark,” he hisses.
“Ok,” the turtle calls.
“You there?”
“Yeah!”
“Great!” Rocket shouts, tugging at the wires. “Now listen carefully 'cause this is the most important part. I need you to open the box and pass me the sonic screwdriver.” There’s a long piece of silence and Rocket grins. Good. If he’s lucky the kid will storm out and leave him to work in peace.
“Oh, haha. That was almost funny.”
“Shit!” Rocket jumps. He looks into the scowling face of the turtle and grabs his chest. He didn’t even hear the kid move. “Where the hell did you come from?”
The kid doesn’t answer, just slips silently into the interior and the awe is back in his eyes. “A real, actual spaceship,” he whispers. “This is everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
“Thought you said this wasn’t your first ship?”
“It’s not,” the turtle says. “But the other one was more flesh than mechanics. Super gross and very little engineering to fiddle with.” He spreads his arms wide. “This is much better.”
Rocket makes a face. Sounds like those overly organic aliens types. Everything has to be breathing and pumping for them, even the technology. The kid moves toward him and crouches to get a closer look at the wiring. The turtle doesn’t speak, but his mere presence is pissing him off. He doesn’t need anyone's help fixing this ship, he practically built the damn thing.
The silence builds to something unbearable before Rocket stops pulling at the wires. “Look, I can do this my-.”
“That’s the thermal protection system,” the turtle says. “Geez, what did they do? Glue it together and pray?”
Rocket sits back. “Looks like it.”
The turtle lifts another panel. “and the navigation system is shot to hell.” His hands dig deep into the machine, moving wires and paneling like he was born for this. “Stabilizers need some work too, but luckily it doesn’t need a total overhaul.”
“Don't jinx it. I haven’t looked at the engines yet,” Rocket says, but he’s on autopilot. He takes in the kid, really looks at him, and reaches for a tool on his belt. “How do you know that?”
The turtles back unfolds like some sort of demented flower with metallic arms for petals. The ends twist into tools and Rocket salivates at the sight. The kid pulls down his goggles, grabs a tool in each hand and sparks begin to fly. Rocket leans to get a better look at the shell but it’s not a shell. Not an organic one anyway. The entire thing is made up of beautiful beautiful tech. He’s itching to get his hands on it.
“Don’t know,” Donatello hums. “Tech’s always been my thing. And science. It’s as easy as breathing.”
Rocket forces his attention back on the ship. He can steal the shell later. He tugs out a damaged circuit board and starts building another. “Was that by design?”
“Please,” Donatello snorts. “Despite his boasting, Draxums work doesn’t go further than mixing DNA. He doesn’t know how to modify specific traits in personality or intellect. Between you and me, I think he was hoping our dad's innate ability to fight would pass through the mutation. Not exactly scientific.” Precise sparks fly under the turtle's experienced hands. “No, my good fellow, I was a happy accident.”
“So was I,” Rocket swallows. “Though it wasn’t exactly happy.”
Donatello looks up. “You’re creator an asshole?” He moves toward the control panel and pops the bottom open.
Rocket sinks deeper into the thermal system with a snort. “Nothing gets past you. You use that super brain of yours to figure that out? Let me guess, the gun was the subtle clue that pulled it together.”
“You don’t have to be a dick about it.”
“Eh,” Rocket shrugs. “That’s sort of my thing.” He lifts out of the guts of the spacecraft and holds out a hand. “Pass me the screwdriver.”
“Funny,” Donatello grunts. The kid shoves his hands deep and the control panel begins to flicker. “But not so much on the second go round.”
Rocket looks up. “What are you talking about?”
The turtle stops, the light dying under his still hands, and a metal limb lifts his goggles. Donatello scans his face but Rocket keeps his gaze on the kid's shoulder. “Oh,” Donatello says. “You’re serious.”
“Are you kidding me?” Rocket groans. “I told you to bring it!”
“I thought you were joking!”
“Why the hell would I joke about that!”
“I-I thought you were making a reference,” the turtle says. “You know, to the Doctor.”
His face pulls. “Doctor? What doctor?! Do you see any doctors around here!”
“Not a literal doctor,” the turtle snaps. “Doctor Who! The tv show! Runs around in a suit and carries his trusty sonic screwdriver everywhere he goes! How have you not heard of it?!”
“Watch it,” Rocket says. “The galaxy doesn’t revolve around this mud ball of a planet. I’ve never even been to this system.” Nothing worth stealing or hunting this far out anyway.
Donatello surges forward with a bright grin and more twinkles in his eyes. “Oh, we’ve gotta watch Doctor Who! You can tell me how much of it is ridiculous and what’s actually true. Oh, you’ll love it! Dad and I watch it-,” The smile fades in the span of a blink, sucking out all the color in the turtle's face. “Watched,” Donatello corrects. “We watched it all the time together.”
Rocket grits his teeth and turns back to the machine. He can’t get caught in the grief right now, it’ll paralyze him all over again. "Just-get me the screwdriver.”
They move around the whole of the ship over the span of seventeen hours, touching and wiring everything that was damaged during the battle. It all needs a little bit of work, from the landing gear to the paint on the roof of the ship. The kid's good he’ll give him that. Rocket only has to explain a few things about some of the mechanics when it comes to the pressure and gravity calibrators, but he only has to do it once. Donatello wasn’t lying when he said he breathes this stuff.
It brings up things he doesn’t want to think about.
“There,” Donatello grunts. “That should be the last of it.” The kid throws him a grin. “Told you two heads were better than one.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Rocket snorts but his lip twitches. “You saved me an hour, tops.”
“I saved you a day and you know it.”
“Whatever,” he huffs. “At least that’s one thing checked off the impossible list.”
“Yeah,” Donatello says and his voice hardens to steel. Rocket looks at the turtle for what feels like the first time. Takes in the powerful stretch of muscle and the sharpness of his eyes. There are scars on this kid, nicks made from weapons Rocket hasn’t seen since Gamora started swinging that blade around, but there’s a coldness to him that you can't shape on a cellular level. Something tempered and deadly to the touch. “Six more to go.”