Chapter 7
I love you Rocket! I missed you! The enhanced creature repeated Groot’s new first words to himself as he worked on the Milano’s thrusters, complete with the new Blazman Connector. While it didn’t have the same good old fashion noise, it was more efficient. The bruises on his arms and torso were still tender but like usual he threw his mind into tinkering with the mechanics of the ship and his weapons instead of focusing in the pain. He glanced over at Groot who was sleeping soundly. His chest felt lighter, he smiled as he worked dutifully.
Gamora set her weights down at the sound of Groot’s cry sometime later. What is going on?! She stormed out of her quarters towards the sound on impulse. Even the noise of a crying tiny tree put her on edge. What must I do to stop it? She wondered, what steps must I take to eliminate the thing that upsets him? It was a mission. Just like getting Quill out of that bar, and brining the Infinity Stone to the Nova Corps had been a mission. Just like her missions for Thanos. Thanos. She climbed down the latter to the engine room, the whirr of the engines echoed in her ears as she ducked under the pipes.
“Ahh, ahhhh,ehh,” his high pitched distress guided her through the cluttered room. She fumbled her way through the dark, even with enhanced night-vision the place was hard to see with all of Rocket’s gadgets. Something shuffled, Gamora’s eyes scanned the room, another shuffle, in the shadows something moved. Could be one of those alien’s from the bar come to…another whine resonated, something scratched. Groot’s small cry reached her ears again. Gamora hunkered down, hand on her sword just in case. In the dark she could make out the little plant squirming in his pot. He reached out, touching her hand, gripping it with more strength then she thought possible.
“Groot, what is it?” She followed his finger to where he pointed just ahead the shadows moved again.
“I am Groot,” he whispered. Damn enhancements make me superior in every way except for linguistics. She watched the dark lump Groot pointed at move again, this time violently. It hissed, sucked in a breath and whimpered.
“Stay behind me,” instinctively she reached out her arm guarding Groot from whatever stirred in the darkness. What must I do to eliminate what upsets him? Who must I kill to please him? It was the same mantra just different words. Gamora stepped closer, craning her neck over another large metal block of wires and quietly unsheathed her sword.
“I am Groot!!!”
“Sssshh!!” She silenced him and lifted her sword upward over her head, the darkness closed around her and moved again. The high pitched whine sent a twinge through her spine. As before every strike she sucked in a breath, raised the sword and brought it down in an arch to-
Rocket?! She stopped, sword clattering to the ground as she looked in shock at the shivering, sweating animal below her. Rocket growled, kicking and clawing at something she could not discern.
“I am Groot,” the little tree said quietly, vines slowly extended past Gamora, resting on the raccoon’s shoulder. He wore simple black pants but Gamora could see the hardware in his back and on his collar bones gleam through the dark. She watched him fidget once more, that odd animalistic hissing coming from his muzzle. Nightmares, she realized, knowing the signs of them all too well. When Gamora tried to remember the nights of solace during her own up-bringing, they were few and far between. She learned long ago it was better not to sleep then to dream of torture and misery. Thankfully she had the technology in her nervous system rigged to not require any slumber. Rocket didn’t have that option. She turned to Groot, what am I supposed to do? Her fists clenched with the frustration of it.
“I am Groot,” the tree said gently, trying to scoot his pot precariously closer. Getting an idea, Gamora lifted the pot upward, forcing a smile. She watched Rocket struggle with his foe, I cannot fight that battle for him, she shook her head at the the sweating creature, but…maybe…she remembered Peter speaking about his own mother, how she used to comfort him. Comfort, gentleness, kindness, compassion, those were things she was only learning. She had never known them before the guardians. Neither had Rocket, she realized, watching the animal buckle and cry out once more. Groot whimpered, watching and tried to reach out to him though his vines couldn't grow far enough now that Gamora had his pot hoisted on her hip.
“Let’s hope I don’t get bit for this,” she whispered aloud. Slowly she reached out, aiming for Rocket’s shaking shoulders. “Rocket? Wake up, it’s just a dream.” The raccoon clawed at the air, tail thrashing. “Rocket,” Gamora tried again, this time holding her breath as she brushed her fingers through his slick fur. He was cold, in a sweat and hissed but did not move to harm her. “Rocket! Wake up.” She settled her hand on his shoulder and momentarily flinched as he went ridged, whimpering. “What do I do?” She glanced at Groot, the flora colossus only leaned down, and she set him beside Rocket’s curled back. My mom would climb into bed with me, Gamora remembered Peter recalling, she’d sing me a song and hug me, telling me happy things to think about instead of scary things. Gamora grimaced, Why? When there were so many scary things in the galaxy and so few happy things? She tried waking Rocket three times more, gently shaking him. “Rocket, it’s okay.” Her hand on his shoulder flattened and she watched him exhale, tale going limp. What if I…? Her first impulse was to shake the idea off. It’s absurd. This is Rocket, angry, drunk, explosive, don’t-touch-him-with-a-ten-foot-pole-Rocket. But her hand remained and the raccoon did nothing to shake it off. His mouth opened, and she pulled away but it only bit at the air.
“I am Groot,” Groot looked up at her with those eyes. Those same eyes she’d seen before the explosion. She still could not fathom it. To act so selflessly, and for complete strangers .Why? It was alien to her, her who had lived by self-preservation at all costs. Counter intuitive.
“I’ll try,” she said to him, only guessing at what he could have meant. Slowly Gamora lifted herself up onto the raised platform where Rocket had created his nest. She eased herself gingerly, putting her legs on either side of the animal, trying not to touch him. Setting herself down she leaned her back against the wall and watched the raccoon flip over on his back, claw and hiss,
"N...no," he groaned, eyes pinched shut. "Don't take me apart!" He rolled onto his side once more, muzzle hitting Gamora's knee. “Rocket,” she forced herself to whisper, trying to imagine Meredith Quill comforting Peter. “It’s okay,” she reached a hand out once more, stroking the wet fur of Rocket’s back. “You’re alright.”
Beside her Groot nudged himself against her hip. Gamora’s fingers gently traced along Rocket’s spine, stopping at where the metal implants went into his back. She frowned at the dried blood and crusted skin around them, the raised, puffy, irritated flesh. Cheap steal….meant for low-grade delivery ships and junky old machines…not biological life forms. With disgust she reached over to the table beside them, grasping a rag and ever so carefully lay it down over the implants. She felt Rocket go stiff again. “I’m just going to clean them,” she explained despite the fact that he remained asleep. Gamora gently massaged the cloth over his back, carefully wiping away at the build up where the metal met flesh. Rocket squealed in his sleep.
“It’s okay,” she dropped the rag, tossing it over to the floor when she was satisfied. Rocket kicked his back legs out at some unseen foe and Gamora tentatively resumed petting him. Groot’s vines slowly grew not only around Rocket but began to gently wrap around her legs as well. In the dim engine room the comforting darkness calmed her own nerves. Her hand caressed the fur of Rocket’s sides, going in and out rapidly. “Shhh,” she tried. “You are alright. No one is going to take you apart.” She remembered his outburst in the bar. Groot’s pot nestled between her hip and her arm, the little plant leaning against her. She glanced down at Rocket when his body seemed to release tension. He slowly ceased his whimpering and snarling, curling himself up in Gamora’s lap. She resumed her petting, trying to imagine what comfort was like. “Groot is here,” she reassured him. “You are safe.” You are safe, she whispered to herself. Time slowed in the black vacuum of the engine room. Her methodic caresses continued, stopping only when Rocket moved his head on to her leg, wedging his nose under her elbow. She could not keep the smile from her face. Groot’s little snores joined the whirr of the engine and Rocket’s sound breathing. Gamora watched the two of them, her grin getting wider at the soft thrumming noise that now came out of Rocket’s throat. A content, purr like sound. She spared another look at Groot, a smile on his face as he slept, leaning against her, his vines around them all even though they were thin and none too many. She looked at Rocket, you spend so much time taking care of Groot….I didn’t realize you’d lost the one person took care of you. If they were anything like her own nightmares, this was not the first time, nor would it be the last time, that these terrors would plague him.
“Well you haven’t,” she whispered, "not anymore." deciding not to let whatever warm feeling that stirred in her heart scare her anymore. Maybe around Peter this feeling bothered her, for it was slightly different, but this, this was one battle she realized she did not have to fight. “You have more than one person who will care for you now.” Rocket only breathed out another soft, peaceful sigh. Gamora allowed herself to be proud, See? Peter was right, you are capable of more than just destruction.
With a careful pat on his silky ear, Gamora slipped from the engine room untold hours later, knowing full-well she could never speak of what had happened, for both her and Rocket’s sake. Hopefully he wouldn’t even know she had been there. It was one thing to accept something inside yourself, it was another to have others know it. She made her way back to her room and reemerged only when she heard Peter and Drax arguing in the kitchen.
“Ugghh Drax!” Peter lamented the blue goo on his plate, “the only thing you are destroying is my appetite!” The Destroyer frowned and helped himself to a large spoonful of the sour smelling substance.
“We make this for breakfast all the time on my home world. You humans have weak stomachs.” Peter choked on the strange stale smelling thing.
“How long do we plan on staying on Knowhere?” Gamora asked, pouring herself a cup of clabr. She sipped it, watching out of the corner of her eye as Rocket wandered in, carrying Groot in his pot. The raccoon’s eyes seemed brighter,
“Quill how long are we gonna be stayin’ here?” The absence of any insult spoke to a hopefully good night’s sleep.
“We’re waiting on a job!” Peter said defensively, “if we don’t hear anything by the end of the day we’ll leave.” Rocket rolled his eyes, peering over at Drax.
“Ew! Dude!! What the flark is that crap?” The Destroyer glared,
“It is called Wek Whet. It is delicious.” The raccoon creature put Groot down and reached his claw over, dipping it in Drax’s plate and taking a taste. He grimaced, then relented,
“Stuff ain’t bad.” Drax smiled, obviously happy and took a large spoonful.
“Quill do you think it’s safe to leave the ship yet?” Peter shrugged, pouring the Wek Whet back into the pot. Substituting the odd blue mixtures he too poured himself some clabr. Gamora watched him take a seat beside Drax at the circular table.
“Yo Rocket, can I give Groot some of this clabr?” Gamora stood against the wall,
“Peter I don’t think that’s a good idea. Doesn’t it have, what’s that thing you call it on Terra, daffine?”
“Caffeine,” he clarified. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“No Star-Butt,” you cannot give him that. Groot looked visibly disappointed while Rocket sat on Drax’s other side, scarfing down the Wek Whet.
Unbeknownst to everyone clambering around the breakfast table Groot surveyed them all. The green woman who was stern but kind, the large tattooed figure whose voice was deep but unthreatening, and Rocket. That furry, soft creature he knew from somewhere. Deep in this still-forming roots he recognized Rocket. Missed him, missed his scent and his voice but did not know from where. He had no memory of the creature. Just a name. Just knew he missed him and loved him, but no sense why or how. He looked around at Rocket and the green woman and the tattooed man, the other one who wore those curious things attached to his head on each ear had left the room.
Groot tugged at his root’s he’d been in this pot too long. Already he could feel his arm slowly growing back, light green buds sprouting from his shoulder and growing downward. Soon he’d have his arm back again. But he couldn’t just remain in his pot while so much was going on around him. He tried again, thrusting up ward and sending dirt scattering over the table. He wriggled, the pot rocking back and forth. I am Groot, he thought with determination. Leaning down and grasping the pot with his good arm, he wrenched his small leg, half buried under the soil, upward. The world spun as he fell, and braced himself against the table.
“Groot?” Rocket half asked, half gasped. The little tree shook his head, looking at two wooden legs now visible with the upturned soil. Groot smiled, lifted his left leg, then precariously began to lift himself up, the tattooed alien lifted out a hand for balance which he grabbed as he hoisted himself up.
“Well done small tree!” The tattooed alien proclaimed as Groot rose to his full-albeit-short-height. The green woman, what was her name? smiled.
“Finally!” Rocket exclaimed, “this mean you’re gonna start actually growing now?” Groot could sense the impatience in his voice. Damn right Rocket was inpatient, Groot was a liability now that he was small. Yeah it had been Star-Turd’s fault but Rocket did not sign up to parent his best friend. I’ll do better, and he would. As a best friend, not as a father figure. Flark that. There was no one to blame but himself for what had happened, that much drenched every cybernetically enhanced molecule of his being with guilt, and yet seeing Groot stand, only several inches tall made him seethe with anger. Of course it was anger, it was always anger. Even though he stood before them now, Groot was no longer entirely himself. Rocket had come to terms with that in the bar before the fight.
“Groot! You stood up! What you couldn’t wait for me buddy?!” Peter crossed the communal kitchen to where Groot stood on the table, now without the help of Drax. Without warning the human picked Groot up and spun him around, laughing. “You did it!” Peter gushed. “I thought you were going to be stuck in that pot for awhile and look!” His finger lightly touched Groot’s re-growing shoulder. Rocket watched Gamora join Peter, and Drax soon after that. The three of them crowded around Groot who kicked his little legs and laughed.
“You have reached the next step in your maturity,” Drax announced over Peter’s shoulder. “You have done well! I am proud of you Kameria…” the group fell silent, Gamora lay a hand on Drax’s shoulder as he glanced down at the floor the muscles in his face twitching. Even Rocket, brooding though he was had the decency not to make a remark. Per usual, Peter broke the silence.
“Drax will be able to teach you how to fight soon!” Groot laughed as Peter spun him around once more and then placed him on the iron flooring of the Milano, though most of it had been covered with a miscellaneous array of miss-matched rugs.
“Good job Groot!” Gamora praised while the tree tottered, trying to move forward. Drax, seemingly having recovered now ran across the room and crouched.
“Come here! Come over to me Groot!” Groot took three steps and fell.
“Oh that’s okay buddy!” Peter reassured. Groot picked himself up and resumed walking. Rocket watched it all with toil. The first thing that came to his mind was: They ain’t your friends Groot. Them babying you like that, and you going along with it. What gives man? Idiot. But that resentful mirth was soon replaced by one far more painful as Groot managed to reach Drax and the four of them fell into praising and laughing. It’s better this way. Rocket slammed his bowl of Wek Whet down and stormed out to the engine room.
Groot was infantile, but Rocket continued to deny it despite his doubts while he fiddled with the prevo wires in the Milano’s engine room. It wasn’t his old friend, maybe some of it, somewhere deep in there but not much. He’d been in denial since now. Groot wasn’t there to watch his back, wasn’t there to help him do repairs and he certainly wasn’t there to serve as a perch for Rocket to climb on. Satisfying some primal need for him to be up high or burrow into notches. When something that had been so consistent, so foundational to your existence changed so rapidly without warning, it made you realize how incredibly lost you were without it. Rocket transferred the wires from their main connectors into one of the other auxiliary ones. Sitting atop a blast-destroyer he had invented last week, the enhanced animal grabbed his paw as the electric shock from the wires pricked him. Over the buzz, Peter and Drax’s laughter reached his ears. It’s better this way….for Groot. He flicked his tail and pulled the wires out again in frustration. Star-moron got caught by those ravengers for saving Gamora, Groot got himself blown up for saving all of us. Rocket hefted his blast destroyer up into his grasp and examined the main barrel. No sacrifice is ever repaid. It ain’t fair. But I got him blown up, so I guess it’s fair I let him alone…before there’s nothing left of him at all. Rocket slammed retco particles into the barrel, lifted the gun, aimed and, threw it down. Body shaking with rage, but rage is brittle and it broke that dam around his core. He scurried over the junk of the engine room, reaching for his box and took out the other twigs.
“Rocket! What is your problem?” Peter demanded, storming into the engine room. “Do you know what Groot just did?”
“I don’t flarking care!” Rocket responded over his shoulder, tinkering with his work.
“He just took his first steps and you don’t even seem like you care at all. He turned around to look for you and you weren’t there!” Yeah, I never am, aren’t I? Rocket accused himself.
“They weren’t his first steps! Why do all you flarknards keep thinking these are his firsts? It’s the same Groot dammit nothing special about him! He ain’t a kid and he ain’t taken his first steps!”
“If this is about what happened on Trator Groot forgave me,” Peter defended himself.
“Yeah?! Well I haven’t!”
“Rocket you’re being ridiculous! You heard him talk for the first time in that bar! How can you say that after hearing him?” He was right, Rocket knew he was right. The enhanced mammal spun around.
“HE’S NOT A BABY! HE’S THE SAME GROOT WHAT KIDNAPPED YOU ON XANDAR! HE’S STILL MY GROOT!” Rocket’s wide frightened eyes narrowed at Peter while the two of them stared at each other.
“No one’s saying he isn’t,” Peter breathed. “It’s because he’s yours that it’s important.” Rocket glared.
“You don’t know anything about who Groot is or who I am!” Peter’s patience with Rocket snapped. He’d saved the galaxy with this creature! They’d been through so much, Peter had saved Rocket when he pulled him from the wreck of that Nova ship and vice versa when he had broken them out of the Klyn. After all that Rocket still couldn’t see that they were a family? Heat rose in his cheeks. Rocket’s attitude was unfair towards all of them, especially to Groot.
“I know that Rocket isn’t even your name is it?” Peter exploded, “it’s Subject 89P13 and Groot is the only one who’s ever cared at all, he’s the only one who puts up with your bullshit and now after he sacrificed himself for all of us, for you, you hardly ever look at him or give him the time of day!” All that fierceness, all that rage drained in a single moment. The enhanced raccoon felt it spill out of his head and heart and down his little body. Peter blinked, arms unfolding in realization.
“So the truth comes out?” Rocket asked incredulously. “Is that all I am to you? After all this time a suject?” Peter dared come closer,
“No, of course not…I…I’m sorry Rocket…but…” Like a failsafe that hot red anger flooded back into the mammal, he reached for a wrench and threw it at Peter with all the might he could muster.
“…‘Rocket’ is all I have left of anything!!!!” Peter stumbled to the side, watching the wrench go a few more feet before clattering against a pipe and falling with a thud. “Now that Groot is….ain’t my partner anymore…guilt…” wetness pricked behind Rocket’s eyes once more. He watched Peter’s expectant face.
“Guilty!?” Peter’s arms flew out to his side as he leaned over Rocket, “Is this what this is about? You fee guilty that Groot’s a baby now?” He huffed for breath, “that you crashed that ship into the Dark Astar?” Rocket too wheezed for air, the tears obstructing Peter’s disapproving face. The noise of the engine seemed to build around them. “You don’t think I feel guilty? I’m the one that asked you guys to go on that suicide mission in the first place!” Peter’s fists clenched, eyes earching for anything but Rocket. “You don’t think I feel guilty?” He repeated. “Every damn time I see Groot it gets me. I asked him, like I asked all of you to help me stop Ronnan and Groot was the only one of us who had to die. He was the only one who should’ve lived….” Rocket couldn’t argue with that but still he fumed, feeling the tears begin to creep down his face. A small part of him felt ashamed, but he was too angry to pay that much mind. Die, so someone finally said it.
“Oh shut up!” Rocket managed, “that’s not on you, that’s on me! I flew that damn Nova ship into the Dark Astar. He wouldn’t have had to do what he did if it hadn’t been for me.”
“Gamora, Drax, they all feel responsible in their own way. That’s why they want to help raise Groot now. Do it right.” Rocket reached a paw up, wiping his eyes.
“Get out.”
“Rocket man c’mon! Groot needs you!”
“Groot don’t need me no more! He’s got his brand-new family! Get out Star-Shit!”
“Rocket!” Peter looked down at the small animal, tears running down it’s muzzle and fire in its eyes.
“What you callin’ me Rocket for?” He jabbed, “as you said, that’s not even my really name! Now get out before I blow your brains out!” For emphasis, he hoisted his star-blaster up and took aim.
“Fine!” Peter backed away, Rocket lowered his weapon only after he heard the storming foot falls drift off.