Peter’s life on Knowhere fits into a single bag, which would be pathetic if he hadn’t always lived transiently. As a Ravager, outlaw, and then Guardian, he’d spent the last thirty-ish years of his life (give or take that time he spent as dust) constantly moving, never settling in one place for too long. Maybe that’s why he’d found it impossible to root himself here in Knowhere — he’d gotten off the ride, but the spinning continued.
Or maybe there was another reason for his inability to settle here, the one that boarded a Ravager ship two hours ago.
Letting her go — literally — was painful, but not in the way he expected. The soul-annihilating, i-think-i-could-realistically-die level of despair was at some point replaced by sheer hollow-chested exhaustion. Peter can’t decide if that’s better or worse, but at least it’s different. Different is good, or at least, it could be good.
Peter crouches on the floor to check his bag again, stalling his return to Earth with the thin excuse of making sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. Some clothes, some hygiene shit, a couple packs of that really good exploding Contraxian gum, some stuff to set up a communicator (because Earth technology is still archaic, according to Nebula and Rocket), and some sentimental stuff — his old trading cards and report card, photos, Groot’s Christmas diorama.
Whatever he’s leaving behind will be repurposed by Nebula and Drax for the new colony; they will effectively dismantle Peter’s old life for him.
Now he’s really nothing: not a Ravager or outlaw or Guardian. Not even Star-Lord. Just Peter Jason Quill, the lost boy scared of going home, turning up the volume on his boombox to drown out his thoughts with music, reverting to old habits. He’s already decided to leave the Zune behind for Rocket, but there’s no use in acting like Peter’s not a nostalgic guy. There’s so many memories associated with these songs, good and bad, that it’s impossible to untangle his feelings from the melodies.
So when the outro for Come a Little Bit Closer fades into the crooning opening chords of Fooled Around and Fell in Love, he just sits back on his heels and closes his eyes, letting the music curl around him. For the past year, he’s only listened to the song when he was drunk. When was the last time he listened to it sober?
Music represents the words he can’t find. It speaks for him when he can’t put a name to what he feels. Jesus, he’s never been very good at putting a name to anything. There have been so many unspoken things: first love, now grief, and the last few days have proven that the two are intrinsically connected. He loves and grieves Mom and Gamora, Yondu too, in equal measure. He’d been unable to save them, but it’s worse than that: he’d been helpless to even try saving them.
Giving Rocket CPR wasn’t heroic, it was desperate; Peter being desperate to not watch and do nothing as someone else he loved died in front of him. He remembers nothing but the panic and the sound of the flatline ringing in his ears and the incoherent internal chanting of please please please please please please please.
And, well, it had worked — Rocket came back from the brink — but Peter thinks that experience had broken a little piece of him anyway.
Elvis Costello’s voice is fading out when a sharp rap sounds from the doorway. Peter glances over. Rocket, arms crossed, grunts, “Quill. Got a second?”
“Sure.” He pauses the music — Brandy was starting, anyway. He hates that song now. “How long were you standing there?”
“Few minutes.”
So he waited for Fooled Around to end. Surprisingly tactful coming from Rocket, but it’s obvious that his near-death-well-technically-actual-death experience had loosened up some of Rocket’s more assholish tendencies. He’s already mellower than he was before yesterday, more thoughtful. Rocket had mentioned something about a crazy coma-dream, but Peter thinks the mood change probably has more to do with getting closure regarding the High Evolutionary.
Peter sits on his bed, trying to avoid slicing his ass on the shards of glass from the broken window. God, that window broke only, like, twelve hours ago. He’s so tired. “What’s up?”
Rocket shifts his weight. If Peter didn’t know better, he’d think he was nervous. “Before you and Mantis…head out,” he says, “I wanted to ask all you guys for something.”
“Yeah, Rocket.” Peter’s mood softens. There isn’t a whole lot he wouldn’t do for his best friend. “Anything.”
“Okay. Well.” Rocket clears his throat awkwardly; he’s still weird about showing emotion. That might never change. “The animals we rescued don’t belong on Knowhere. They were taken from their home planets and once they’re grown enough I’m gonna drop them back off. I, uh, made tracker bands for ‘em.” He holds up a hand, a thin metal band with a blinking blue light hanging from one finger. “So I can make sure they’re doing okay.”
Peter blinks at him. “When’d you have the time to make those ?”
“It only took, like, an hour. They ain’t hard to make.” He grins. “What, you think I’ve never tracked shit before? I used to be a professional mercenary.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Peter mutters, rolling his eyes. He doesn’t press Rocket re: the tracker bands. Rocket’s manic bursts of invention were usually inspired by a) the psychotic desire to disintegrate asteroids or something, or b) fear. It wasn’t hard to tell which one was motivating him this time.
“ Anyway . Each tracker band is matched to a contact and logged in a database where I can read their status. So, to tell them apart, the animals need names. I can name most of ‘em, but —” Rocket pauses. Then, with uncharacteristic uncertainty, “there’s one group I could use some help with.”
Peter looks down at his packed bag, then around his empty room. The hollow-exhausted feeling returns to his chest. There’s a part of him that would rather be alone before he leaves for Earth, but what was he gonna do anyway? Drink? He’s certainly thought about it.
Peter’s spent the last year so lost in his own head, in the grief he feels for Gamora, that he’s barely appreciated the life he had here and the people around him. And now he’s leaving. For fuck’s sake, the least he can do is help Rocket name some baby animals.
“Sure thing,” he says, standing. “Let’s go.”
| | |
Rocket has some other thing to do, so he sends Peter to join Mantis, Drax, and Groot in the lobby of a destroyed apartment complex. Thanks to Adam and the High Evolutionary’s Hell Spawn, the building is littered with gaping holes in the walls and floor and angry scorch marks on every surface. So while the place is unsuitable for Knowhere’s intelligent residents, it has been temporarily repurposed into an animal hospital/humane society/zoo. The sounds of all types of Terran and alien animals echo off the walls — screeches and chirps and calls and yowls and the general sounds of the rescued creatures existing around them.
“It fucking reeks in here,” Peter complains to his friends, who have arranged the only chairs that haven’t been smashed apart into a lopsided circle. Even the lobby door is basically just a hole, with the previous automatic doors nothing more than a pile of shattered glass on the floor.
“The plumbing is broken,” Mantis says grimly. Her antennae bob over her dark eyes; Peter wonders if she can feel the fear and agitation of the animals kept in the upper floors. “The electricity is out, too,” she adds when Peter tries the light switch.
“Rocket dismantled the power source,” Drax informs him. Peter notices immediately that he’s more subdued than usual — somber, even. Almost like he’s bracing himself for the impact of Mantis’s leaving. To avoid thinking about that, Peter looks into the corner of the room, where the electrical box is practically stripped bare.
Of course. For the fucking tracker bands. Nebula’s got her work cut out for her trying to keep Rocket from cannibalizing Knowhere for parts.
“Quill,” grunts Nebula from behind him, stepping into the lobby. The quiet chattering and squealing of small animals emanates from the large box in her arms. Rocket follows behind her, carrying a container of the aforementioned tracker bands. Peter steps aside to let them pass, and as Nebula lowers the box into the middle of the chair-circle, he glimpses the mass of small furry bodies squirming and crawling over one another. The little bandit masks and fluffy striped tails make them instantly recognizable.
Obviously, Peter assumed the raccoon kits were the one group Rocket wanted them to name, but the sight makes him unexpectedly emotional anyway. Maybe it’s knowing the torment they barely escaped — he can’t think about what he saw on that Orgocorp file without nearly blacking out with rage — or maybe it’s the fact that naming these animals will be the last thing they’ll all do together in…who knows how long.
Peter, Drax, Mantis, Groot, Nebula, and Rocket. A bunch’a jackasses sitting in a circle. The core Guardians of the Galaxy, sans Gamora, and — yeah, that will never not sting. So it’s probably for the best that they find their own path, but Peter’s always found it hard to let go of the past. The Guardians will live on, and they will always be family, but they’ll never be this group, in this time, ever again.
Peter can tell the strange nostalgic sadness of this meeting is affecting them all. They pull their chairs in close, sitting arm to arm as they look down into the box of animals, a sense of finality lingering in this experience of physical closeness.
“Alright, alright,” Rocket says, with a half-assed attempt at his usual swagger. “Here’s how this is gonna work. We’re gonna, one at a time, name a raccoon baby.” He reaches into the box, pulling one away from the pack. Its little paws knead at the air, trying to find a surface. “Then we’re gonna tag it. Then they’re gonna get to run free ‘round Knowhere until they’ve grown enough to go home.”
Groot tilts his head. “I am Groot?”
“Terra.” Rocket makes a face. “North America, actually. Anyway.” To her confused spluttering, Rocket unceremoniously deposits the raccoon kit into Nebula’s lap. “You’re up first, Neb.”
“What do I do with this?” she asks through her teeth, hands lifted to avoid touching the kit as it shifts around on her legs.
“Duh,” Mantis says. “You name it.”
“Were you listening to a word Rocket said?”
Nebula glares at Mantis, then Drax. “Yes , I —” Almost out of spite, she picks up the animal, then seems to immediately regret the decision, face contorting into a wince. As Peter watches her shift the animal from her metal to her flesh hand, he thinks she might be afraid of holding it too tightly. “I’ve never named anything before,” Nebula admits. “I don’t know how to name anything.”
Drax straightens up, opening his mouth; Peter cuts off the incoming painfully literal explanation with, “she knows how, but…she’s talking about the, like, metaphorical part of naming. You know.” It’s bullshit, but Drax nods sagely and leans back in his seat.
Nebula ignores them, continuing to stare at the baby with an intense facial expression cocktail of curiosity and disgust and uncertainty.
“How did your parents choose your name, Nebula?” asks Mantis, after it starts feeling like they might all be sitting here forever.
Nebula glances sharply at Mantis, maybe affronted at the direct personal question, but then looks back down at the raccoon. Peter’s suddenly acutely aware of how he literally has never thought about the how of his friends’ names. They just kind of are. They all met with names fully intact.
After a second, Nebula says, “I was an infant when Thanos kidnapped me from my home world. Or so he said. I don’t know if Nebula was my original name, or the one he gave me.” The words are loaded with quiet anger, but also a deep sorrow. Peter swallows. He’d guessed that Nebula, like Gamora, was taken by Thanos as a child. But Gamora had known her parents, she still had memories of her family and her home world. Nebula had known nothing but Thanos’ violence for her entire life before they met.
The raccoon kit is still and calm, but Nebula’s hands still tremble with the effort to be gentle. She looks at Rocket, the person here who can probably relate most to her. “Its canines are long,” she says, almost softly. “I choose to name it Fangs.”
“Fangs,” Drax repeats appreciatively.
“Fangs,” says Peter, then Mantis, then Groot, then Rocket. He closes his eyes for a second, before handing Nebula a tracker band with the instruction, “just snap it shut.”
She takes one of the kit’s front paws in her metal hand, using the other to clasp the band around its arm. The embedded blue light blinks once.
Rocket says, “now let it go.” Nebula leans forward to place the animal on the floor beside the box. The six of them watch as it teeters, clumsily finding its footing. It sniffs at the ground, ambles this way and that, before finally deciding to scamper out the lobby “door” into the streets of Knowhere. It quickly disappears into the still-bustling crowd of refugees and animals.
As Rocket records the name and number into his holo, Nebula leans back heavily into her chair. She looks a bit uncomfortable at having admitted such personal information, but Peter thinks she might’ve — at least temporarily — lost some of that evergreen tension.
Peter’s not the only one watching Nebula. Mantis is too, a look of dawning understanding on her face. She says, “Nebula, I don’t know my real name, either. Ego is my father, but I think Mantis might be my species name and he didn’t care enough to call me anything else.” Peter nearly jolts at the reminder of Ego, and seethes for Mantis and the constant disrespect she endured for countless years at the hands of their shitstain father. Her eyes are dim. “I never knew for sure, but I think he was the one who destroyed my home world.”
For all of Drax’s steps toward replacing destroyer-hood with fatherhood, it’s obvious from his demeanour that if Ego weren’t already dead, he would be dead again ten times over. Or maybe that protective rage is because of, not in spite of, dad instincts.
Mantis smiles at them all, wanly. “I do like my name, though. It makes me feel closer to the people I lost. It comforts me. Names are supposed to be comforting.” She leans over the box of raccoon kits, glancing over them until she picks up one that is smaller than the rest in the box. The runt. It squirms in her hands until she strokes the top of its head with a finger; it calms instantly, purring into her hand.
“I like Zarg Nuts, as they are delicious,” Mantis says contemplatively. Then she shoots Drax a look, who just shrugs. “Zarg Nut will be the name of this baby!”
“Zarg Nut. Shit, okay.” Rocket tosses Mantis a tracker band, who clamps it around the critter’s hind leg.
Peter asks, “if we’re naming them after food, can mine be Froot Loop?”
“Is that some Terran shit? I guess so.”
“It’s cereal —”
“I am Groot,” Groot cuts in testily. It’s my turn next. Peter mumbles something about how he didn’t know there was a predetermined naming order, but raises his hands in acquiesce.
Mantis’s chosen kit darts across the room, nimbly avoiding shards of glass and crumbled debris, only hesitating briefly before scampering out the hole-door. She turns to Groot. “Your species name is flora colossus, but you are named Groot. How did you know that was your name?”
“We named you Groot,” Drax interjects, frowning.
“It was a placeholder name,” Rocket mutters, “till we found a better one. Then we didn’t find a better one.”
“I remember advocating for Smaller, Dumber Groot. But the rest of you rejected my suggestion.”
“Because it was a terrible name, Drax,” Peter groans, “and, dude, you’re making it sound really bad —” He glares at Rocket here, who glares back — “but Groot was the one who picked Groot. So obviously we went with it.”
“I am Groot,” Groot agrees. I am literally Groot. Then, “I am Groot.” All flora colossi are Groot.
Peter leans forward in interest. “Wait, how do you know?” As far as he knows, Groot’s the only flora colossus on this side of the galaxy.
Groot shrugs. “I am Groot.” I just knew. “I am Groot.” Instinct. I think we all just know, so we are all Groot. Peter nods wonderingly. It must be that all flora colossi are connected, like they have a hivemind or some cosmic connection. Groot is Groot is Groot, all the way down. Peter stares at Groot, almost emotional at the idea that they might not be far away at all from the old Groot if they are all so intrinsically connected.
We are Groot, old Groot had said just before the Dark Aster had crashed into Xandar. Rocket had mentioned later, offhandedly, that he’d said the same I am Groot as usual but that you clowns must’ve finally understood him. Maybe Groot hadn’t just meant that they were friends — maybe he was saying that they were all connected. All is one and one is all.
If that’s the case, it could be that Peter’s Gamora isn’t so far away either. Peter has to shake that thought away ferociously, forcing himself to mentally return to the naming ceremony.
Rocket leans across the circle to pat Groot’s knee while Mantis shepherds a raccoon kit into his massive palms. Groot grins, opening his mouth to pick a name.
“Don’t say Groot,” Rocket says sharply.
“I am Groot!”
“We know what you just said,” Nebula sighs, “but they can’t all be Groot.”
“We couldn’t tell them apart,” Mantis explains with contrition.
“I am Groot.”
“Fine, one can be Groot. But not this one.” Rocket waves a hand illustriously. “Be more creative.”
Groot ponders for a minute, before brightening. “I am Groot.”
“Verx’aila ? Ain’t that from fuckin’ —” Rocket rubs his eyes.
“League of Shadow Raiders XI,” Drax helpfully supplies. “Verx’aila is a supporting character from the Agongate Heist quest.”
Silence. “Dude,” says Peter, “how do you know that?”
“I remember what Groot tells me about his video games.”
“You can’t remember to flush the toilet but you can remember that?” Nebula growls.
“I only consider what’s impor —”
“For fuck’s sake, we get it!” Rocket snaps. Mantis giggles at Drax’s offended look. “Man. Groot, good choice. Verx’aila it is, or whatever.” After getting Drax’s help to tag the baby, Groot gives Verx’aila a quick, adorable hug before letting it scamper out of his hands and onto the ground. Instead of running outside, it vanishes into a dark hallway, heading towards the cacophony of other animal sounds. Peter manages tk smile at the look of wonder on Groot’s face.
“Drax!” Mantis reaches into the box and pulls out the next kit herself. “It’s your turn.”
Drax takes the kit from Mantis with the same gentle care that he deployed on baby Groot years and years ago. For a second, Peter expects the joke to continue, and for Drax to name the animal after one of his bowel movements or something. But Peter kicks himself for that thought as soon as Drax holds the baby close to his shoulder, big hands drowning out its tiny body.
Of course. Nothing is more important to Drax than parenthood.
“I assisted in many naming ceremonies on my homeworld,” Drax says thoughtfully. “Children were unnamed for the first thirty sunfalls after their birth, because that time was used to observe the infant’s reaction to friends and family, food, presents, community rituals.” As Drax speaks, the raccoon baby nestles against his shoulder, yawning. “The community chose a name based on those observations. My daughter…” he starts, and in the minuscule hesitation that follows, Peter looks down. It’s so hard to be reminded of Drax’s massive losses, especially when he’s so joyful most of the time. Especially when his loss mirrors that of Peter.
“Ovette was not a dancer,” Drax continues, “which was ravishing as dancers are idiots.” Peter makes a face at that. “I too avoid dancing because I am not an idiot either. However, before the thirty sunfalls had completed, we observed that our daughter was happiest during the dancing festivities of our village. She liked to watch her cousin, especially. Kamaria.” He smiles at the memory. “So we named our daughter after her.”
Aw, hell. Peter swallows hard, watching as Mantis subtly wipes at her eyes. Across the circle, Nebula maintains an expression of neutrality, but there’s a gleam of something approaching respect — maybe — in her black eyes. Drax clears his throat, turning to Rocket.
“We should not wait for thirty sunfalls to pass before naming this tiny beast. For one, Knowhere is not a part of any star system, and for another, Mantis and Quill —”
“Yeah, dude, it’s okay.” Rocket’s voice is more strained than usual. “It’ll work either way.”
Drax nods, pulling the sleepy kit from his shoulder to study it closely. “On my planet, we called these creatures werts because they consumed the wergail beetle. Since this is not the case elsewhere, Wert will be its name.”
“Wert,” Rocket muses. He tosses Drax a tracker band. As he’s inputting the name into his holo, he asks, “is that better or worse than raccoon ?”
“Worse,” Peter decides at the same time Mantis and Nebula say, “better.”
“Raccoon doesn’t even make sense,” Nebula tells Peter disdainfully. “Why are they even called raccoons?”
“Why would I know why they’re called raccoons?”
“Exactly,” Mantis says seriously.
“What?”
Nebula sniffs. “There is no logic behind the name.”
“I am Groot.”
“Groot, no,” Peter snaps, “you cannot be devil’s advocate. Why do you even know what that m —”
Ignoring the ongoing conversation, Drax places the newly-tagged Wert on the floor. “We roasted the flesh of werts on a spit. They were quite delicious.”
“Great.” Rocket rolls his eyes. Then, suddenly, he’s thrusting a raccoon baby into Peter’s arms. Peter instantly forgets the whole dumb argument about raccoon-species naming. “Your turn, Star-Loser.”
Shit. It’s been a long-ass time since Peter’s held a baby animal in his arms, if that’s ever happened at all. He’s never been the type for caring about helpless critters like this — like, he used to kick hairless F’saki around for fun. Then again, yesterday he would’ve never expect any of the assholes here — hard, mean, selfish dirtbags (excluding Mantis) — to give a shit about lower lifeforms enough to participate in a whole naming ceremony. Least of all Rocket, who arranged the whole fucking thing.
Huh. Look at that. They’ve all grown up.
“Earthers are boring,” Peter finds himself complaining, trying to keep the kit from wriggling out of his hands onto the floor. “Or at least Earthers from Missouri. I dunno about anywhere else. But we didn’t have cool naming traditions where I was.” The raccoon is crawling over his hands; Peter has to keep bringing his back hand around to the front to let the animal keep walking in an endless loop. “My middle name’s Jason ‘cause it’s my grandpa’s name. And my mom named me Peter because she was, like, obsessed with Peter O’Toole movies.”
She’d shown him a whole bunch when he was younger, mostly after she got sick and couldn’t take him out on roadtrips or to explore in the forest anymore. Lawrence of Arabia and The Night of the Generals and Man of La Mancha. He’d secretly thought most of them were boring, but he’d liked Goodbye, Mr. Chips because there were singing people involved. Mom would sing along to the songs.
He likes that memory.
“Is Peter O’Toole like Kevin Bacon?” Mantis asks.
“Like an actor? Yeah.”
Drax shakes his head, somberly mumbling, “I hate actors.” Groot lightly shoves him.
Peter ignores him, studying the animal still crawling around in his hands. He examines its tiny long-fingered paws and shiny dark eyes. It chokes him to imagine subjecting it to the horrors they all saw on that fucking Orgoscope file. Thinking about the images of Rocket strapped to a table, screaming, as the High Evolutionary cut into him makes him want to gag, especially knowing that purple douchebag was going to do the same to this group of kits, likely in the attempt to make another Rocket.
Like, shit, the kit he’s holding reminds him in some way of baby Groot. He’d been so innocent, and Peter had been scared of shattering that innocence. Really, he worried about becoming Yondu, as much as he understood him by the end. Gamora had once confided that she was terrified of inflicting some of Thanos’ “parenting” methods onto Groot.
It doesn’t matter if I try not to, she’d whispered, what if it happens and I don’t even realize it?
Peter’d told her that wouldn’t happen. She was too good for that. And even if it did, she’d have people to tell her and support her. Peter had promised that he would protect her, and all of them, from Thanos if it came down to it.
But that was a lie, because then Thanos murdered her.
Frowning, Peter tilts the kit backwards so that its back rests in the palm of his hand. It’s almost like he’s carrying a human infant, which he’d done only once with some neighbour’s kid that his mom insisted he hold. Sure, Peter had planned on having kids one day, with Gamora, but that future’s gone — on a Ravager ship a hundred jump points a way, in the bottom of a bottle, gone. But thinking about that is the reason he finds himself saying, “Gamora told me once that in caves under Zen-Whoberi’s surface there was a kind of metal that the Zehoberei called gamor . It’s unbreakable, apparently. Stronger than diamonds.” If his attempt at a light tone doesn’t conceal the pain very well, no one comments on it. “The Zehoberei used it to make all kinds of shit: swords and ships and, like, refrigerators. Her parents named her after it.”
God, it’s hard to talk about her. Actually, it’s almost fucking unbearable. But when he looks up, he sees that the rest of his friends have their eyes closed, as if lost in the story of Gamora’s name that Peter painted for them; sharing the pain. One by one they open their eyes — Nebula last — and the room is still.
Breath through the feeling. Let it go. Peter adjusts his hold on the kit. “Sam,” he decides. For Sam Cooke. For Bring it on Home to Me and his and Gamora’s first real dance that happened five seconds ago, five million years ago.
After tagging Sam, he feels everyone waiting for him to set the animal free. For a second, Peter finds himself wanting to hold on to it. Any number of things could happen: it could be stepped on, get trapped somewhere, be unable to find food and starve. It could be eaten by one of their other rescued animals, for fuck’s sake.
There’s no telling what could happen if he lets this go.
But his friends are waiting for him, so he takes a breath and opens his hands, letting Sam crawl out onto the linoleum floor. He wobbles for a second, before taking off out the door into Knowhere’s cacophony. Peter lets the breath out slowly, and at least for the moment, he feels a bit lighter.
With his turn over, they all face the final participant in their little name game.
Rocket raises his hands in defensive indignation. “Aw, come on,” he whines. “Do I really have to do this too?”
“You arranged this whole thing,” Nebula points out flatly.
“Yeah, but this whole history-sharing thing wasn't part of the original plan,” he grumbles. “Name, tag, release. That’s what I said.” Despite the snark, the words lack their usual acerbic edge.
Peter leans forward with spiked interest, tucking away his sadness. The High Evolutionary obviously didn’t give Rocket his name, since he wouldn’t shut the fuck up about 89P13 and all that. So there’s obviously a story behind the name.
At the same time, he dreads what that story will be. They’ve barely dipped their toes into the abyss of pain that’s Rocket’s past — they still know almost nothing about it, and whatever they do know was learned without Rocket’s permission. He might not want to relive another tragedy.
However, after only a little reluctance, Rocket just sighs. He reaches into the box and pulls out one of the small striped bodies, raising it to his face so their eyes are peering into each other. The kit is calm, like it recognizes what Rocket is. But when their faces are close together, Peter notes with some sorrow, the difference between them is apparent. Rocket’s like a raccoon, but he doesn’t really count anymore. He’s a bastardized version of a raccoon, unlike anything that’s ever existed.
That kind of unique existence must’ve been lonely.
“We were kept in cages in the dark,” Rocket eventually says — quiet, like he’s talking to the kit more than any of them. “Me and the others in Batch 89. We could see and touch and talk to each other, though. We picked our names together.” He lowers the baby, begins to stroke the top of its head with the back of a finger like he used to do with baby Groot. “I - I think I was the only one he ever brought to the control room. That room with the big windows.” Peter nods to himself, remembering that bright red and hideous room overseeing Counter-Earth, so the High Evolutionary could admire the products of his horrific genetic manipulation. “There were always ships and rockets comin’ and goin’ outside. I had promised —” Rocket jerks a little, like a flinch, like remembering some long-repressed memory. His ears flatten against his head. “I’d build us a rocket,” he gets out harshly, “and I’d fly us all away.”
The wall of indescribable emotion behind Rocket’s eyes is so intense that Peter looks away. He tries to reconcile the hopeful and selfless and innocent Rocket described in the story with the version Peter knew when they first met — the angry, cynical, cruel asshole. He finds he can’t.
Whoever Batch 89 were, it isn’t hard to imagine what happened to them.
“Anyway,” Rocket says. No one asks him to complete the naming story, not even Drax. “It was a long time ago.” He clamps a tracker band around the kit’s hind leg. “This fella will be called Sky.”
“Sky,” Peter echoes, and so do the rest of them. Sky, sky, sky, sky.
When Sky scurries into a dark corner, she carries something heavy along with her.
“Choosing names is special for you,” Mantis voices into the silence. “Thank you for letting us do this with you, Rocket.” Nebula nods wordlessly.
“It was pleasing to name these little smelly beasts,” Drax agrees solemnly.
Rocket scrubs at the fur between his eyes. “Yeah, well, don’t get too excited. We still have, like, fifteen more to go.” He peers into the box, then glances between them all. “Can we agree to be less sentimentical about the rest?”
Four emphatic yes ’s and one I am Groot, later, and they’re all passing baby raccoons to each other and picking out new names. Boneshaker, Grub, Groot, Wert II, Froot Loop, Box (“because he’s sitting in a box”), Titansbane, Puppy, Zero (the protagnist of League of Shadow Raiders XII), One (“I thought we started counting”), Paul (McCartney), Hands (“because she’s sitting in my hands”), and the rest until the box is empty and Knowhere is being swarmed by a baby raccoon army.
With the naming ceremony over, Peter and Mantis are set to leave on their journeys off Knowhere. Peter feels a bit lighter than before, more comforted at the prospect of returning to Earth: it feels okay knowing he’s running towards something instead of away.
“Hey Pete.” Rocket’s settled into the corner of the lobby by the mostly-dismantled electrical box. He’s picking through the wires and power gauges, probably looking for parts to make planet-destroying spaceray guns or something. “Are there raccoons in Miss-ery?”
“Missouri,” Peter corrects, “and I think so.”
“You know the tags aren’t gonna protect them from dying,” Nebula inserts bluntly. She’s lingering at the door, half-watching Mantis and Drax exchange a heartfelt goodbye. “They’re still just stupid animals.”
Rocket bisects the casing of a wire with his sharp fingernails. “Yeah, I know that,” he mutters, “and they can do all that — be eaten by bears or flerken or whatever the fuck it is that live on Terra. They can do all that animalistical stuff. But there’ll be no outside interference from egomaniac freaks. I’ll make sure of that.”
“I am Groot?” Groot questions, looking like he’s itching for Rocket’s permission to play a video game. Peter thinks he deserves it after this long-ass horrible day.
Rocket snickers. “Yeah, I thought of that. Anyone tries to take off the tags, they lose a hand.”
Nebula rolls her eyes, sauntering out the door — probably to say goodbye to Mantis before she leaves. Peter himself worries for the safety of well-meaning park rangers and civilians, but decides to leave it alone.
“Miss-oo-ri will be a good home for them, though,” Rocket says, watching Nebula disappear into the crowd.
Peter thinks of home, as a concept — its nebulous boundaries, and its constant, irresistible call. Knowhere’s not home, but neither is Earth. It’s just where his people are, and they’re everywhere.
And when Kraglin drops him off on Earth, as Peter walks down the sidewalk in suburban St. Charles, he feels his family — the former Guardians — at his back, telling him and each other: Spin off. Find your own path. Then find your way back.
| | |
He’s been back on Earth for a month, and it’s not as boring as he thought it might be — although it definitely is boring, compared to space. That’s not to say there’s nothing to do: Peter’s spent weeks catching his grandpa up to speed on the last thirty years of his life. Thank God with all the alien shit that’s happened on Earth within the last decade he doesn’t need to explain the existence of intelligent civilizations and space travel and Infinity Stones, but some concepts were still harder for grandpa to digest than others.
A week or so ago, Peter finally got to the Guardians of the Galaxy-era of his life-post-abduction recap. Grandpa had stared at the picture Peter showed him of the whole gang, eyes narrowed behind his reading glasses. “Rocket, your best friend, is a…raccoon?”
“Kind of,” Peter had said, crunching down on a scoop of Reese’s Puffs. There were so many new brands of cereal, he’d been running up the grocery bill trying them all.
“Hmm. Okay. I don’t even want to ask who this tree-man is.”
There are more things Peter still needs to explain. He’d barely scratched the surface of Gamora, but he’s getting there. He dreads talking about Ronan, Ego, the High Evolutionary. Thanos. But he figures that’s part of the process.
In exchange for the endless stories, grandpa’s given Peter a few new things: a phone, driving lessons, a trip to Target (loaded with useless and awesome trinkets that Yondu would’ve loved). He helped Peter check himself into outpatient rehab, and that was going…all right. He offered to sign Peter up for swimming lessons at the local pool, before Peter explained that the whole swimming thing was a metaphor becoming less sensical by the day.
Best of all was Spotify, which grandpa’s “PSW” (as he called her) Lillian helped him set up on the days she came by. It was hard to imagine that a device could store more songs than the Zune, so it took him a minute to adjust to the labyrinth of music suddenly available to him at any time. There’s an incomprehensible amount of shit he needs to catch up on; he’s currently working through the whole discographies of Billy Joel and The Cranberries, and he’s pumped to get to the stuff he’s never heard of: Daft Punk and Lorde and Aphex Twin and Arctic Monkeys and so much more holy shit!
Lillian even showed him that he can sort songs into what Earthers call playlists, but Peter is gonna call awesome mixes because his mom had it right. He makes an awesome mix for each one of his friends, choosing songs he’d like to show them once he sees them again.
Peter makes two playlists for Gamora — for the old, and the new. He’s hoping that one day, new Gamora will let him play the songs he’s picked for her, between friends. Just friends.
It’s okay. He’s been doing fine, and fine is fine for now. He’s lived a polarizing lifestyle for too long: times of soaring happiness, times of pain so deep he thought he’d die. For now, Peter’s happy with okay. Okay is more than enough.
This night, grandpa is teaching him to play gin rummy, which is similar to some of the card games that Yondu and the other Ravagers would play during downtime on the Eclector. Grandpa explains the rules over the backdrop of music that Peter’s put on over the speaker. It’s peaceful, and they’re about to commence their first real game when the sound of their garbage bin tipping over rattles inside through the window.
“Not the damn possums again,” Jason Quill grouses; a family of possums has taken up residence beneath a neighbour’s porch and have been menacing the block for a week. Grandpa lays his cards face-down. “Pete, go scare ‘em off before they make a mess of the trash.”
One day you’re captain of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and the next you’re demoted to garbage duty.
It being April, it’s cold in just his t-shirt, the stone of the back patio numbing his bare feet. As he creeps around the side of the house, he’s too late to save the garbage, but he sees the culprit isn’t the family of possums after all — it’s just a raccoon, poking around in the crusts and peels and other food scraps of the white trash bag it’s torn open. The raccoon is older than the kits on Knowhere would be by now. Peter smiles; so this is what they’ll eventually look like: fat trash-thieves unafraid of people.
Rocket’s voice echoes in his mind. We were kept in cages in the dark.
Peter’s suddenly, desperately grateful that this animal, this fat little trash panda, is here sitting in garbage right now. It’s allowed to roam free and allowed to just be an animal, with the monster who would tear it apart and Frankenstein it back together locked in a cell on Knowhere.
Peter leans against the side of the house, forgetting about the cold for a minute. Through the open window above his head, the melody of Linger by The Cranberries drifts out to meet him. The muffled, muted lyrics give the song a nostalgic feel as he listens.
And I'm in so deep
You know I'm such a fool for you
You got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger?
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?
He put this song on his awesome mix called Gamora: Now (the contents of which are very, very distinct from Gamora: Then), and finds the meaning to be pretty fucking perfect. While Peter can’t imagine a life where the wound left by Gamora — or mom, or Yondu, or any of his losses — will stop hurting, there’s a life out there where he can accept it. He’s getting there. And as he listens to Dolores O’Riordan sing into the night, Peter watches the raccoon amble out of his trash bin and wander into the dark.
Peter looks up. The stars are bright in the cloudless night sky, and he takes comfort in the fact that wherever his friends are now — the new Guardians, the Knowhere settlement, Mantis, Gamora and her Ravagers — they can see these same stars, even if, for them, they are arranged into different constellations.