It was a common nightmare. He'd snapped. Even when this moment had been happening, Rocket hadn't even been aware of what he was doing until it was all over. The madness that'd locked him in that zombie-like state had left a veil over his eyes as he did the unthinkable. But here in the dreamscape, he got it all.

Every expression of horror, of men and women being killed indiscriminately, every time his claws sank into skin or his teeth bit into flesh. He'd found a gun at some point and started using it as well as his unnatural gifts, sending anyone he found on his rampage to the grave.

When it was all over, Rocket was left standing on a vista overlooking the compound, watching as oily smoke roiled into the sky and brought the stink of charred flesh with it. He smelled copper, but that was just the blood coating his hands and face.

"You murdered us." A man in a white labcoat approached Rocket, his spectral form see-through though the mammal could see that he was one of the unfortunate few who'd had his throat torn out.

"I didn't! You freaks kidnapped me, experimented on me, made me into some genetic freak!" Justified as Rocket felt, it stll rang hollow on his ears.

"You murdered us." The spectral voice whispered, the words crackling like the fire that Rocket was watching.

"I. I didn't. It wasn't murder. It was justice. It was justice!" Rocket screamed as he sank to his knees, clutching at his face.

"Murder." It felt like picking at a wound, like he was ripping the scab out just to understand how it would feel.

Rocket awoke feeling colder than an arctic moon, clammy sweat clinging to every inch of his form. He dimly recognized that the ship had put itself on 'night' mode, leaving just starlight and ambient sunlight to crack through the viewing window above his bed.

He eased himself up from his haphazard laying position, putting his hands into his face. Here in the quiet and dark of his quarters, he could let it all out. He wept. As quietly as he could, he stifled the urge to keen like some animal and just let the tears roll down his face. Night terrors, horrid visions of his treatment, it didn't matter.

He could've stopped himself from killing all those people. Thirty-six. That was the number of people who'd worked in that compound. Sure, they'd experimented on him. Treated him as animal until he'd proven to be More, but hadn't they fed him? Even given him clothes when he'd expressed distate over being naked?

But some... some rage had made itself known in him. A psychopath that needed vengeance for being ripped out of his carefree state and made aware of all the horrors of being sentient came out of him that day. And it still showed in brief flashes when he was in the moment and fighting for his life, especially when he was pushed against a corner with relatively few options.

He wiped at his eyes, this did him no good to think about this. To worry this much about his nightmares, sitting here in the dark with only his tears for comfort. He sighed and pushed off of the bed, letting his feet touch the floor for a few moments before he started walking.

His path was aimless, his mind allowing him the knowledge that he was checking on everyone. Doors quietly cracked open, peeking on the sleeping forms of his comrades. Drax was rolled over with his back to the wall, chest falling and rising in rhythm. Quill was laying spread across his bedsheets, snoring like the engine start-up of an old clunker. Gamora slept in her chair, sword at her side and not even once releasing the handle. Even Groot was napping, curled up in his pot on top of the breakfast table. Rocket smiled a bit, at least his team could enjoy the quiet of the night.

The cockpit was free of anyone, leaving Rocket to sink into the pilot's chair and bring it out of its autopilot settings. He adjusted the ship's course for drift, watching as the field of stars rolled on slowly by. Up in the distance a red and blue nebula lay splattered across the inky black, stretching out tendrils in all directions as if it might grab hold of the surrounding asteroids.

"You are very loud in your sleep, Rocket." The voice broke like lightning across a storm-swept plain. Drax eased himself into the cockpit as well, taking his normal seat at the weapons station just across from the procyon.

Rocket dismissed the statement with an off-handed wave. "Nh. Just ignore whatever it is ya think ya heard an' we can all go back to being somewhat normal again." He didn't want to look directly at Drax, for fear his expression might give something away again.

"You screamed about not being a murderer." Blunt, ouch. Rocket winced a bit but made his eyes stay resolutely forward, even if they allowed a small peek at the warrior next to him.

Drax was twisted in his chair, forearm propping him up as he fixed the mammal with his gaze, trying to read the hopefully inscrutable expression across Rocket's face. Much as Drax wanted to hear it, Rocket didn't want to think about his nightmare and he didn't want to talk. So it surprised him when the words bubbled past his lips.

"I was back at th' compound. I was in the moment I went on my... my rampage." He breathed out the words, feeling the knot forming in his throat. "They'd hurt me, torn me from whatever dumb existence I'd had an' used me. Used me to prove that they could take some lower life form and... and bring it into the modern society."

He hissed, letting that animalistic expression dictate how he felt. "But... but at the same time, they'd clothed me when I didn't like being nude, fed me what I wanted, let me watch television. I practically had a good life going on in there after I'd gotten sentient!"

"But that is not what your mind focused on, is it?" Drax offered gently.

"No. What I wanted was to see them suffer just as much as I had." He gripped hard at the controls in front of him. "An'... an' I did." He finished quietly.

"How many?"

"Thirty six. It's still unsolved. No one's ever put the fact that the compound went up in flames with the fact that I didn't exist until just after it together." He let out a weak laugh. "You must think I'm crazy, to feel remorse over killing them after what they did."

"I do not think that you are crazy. Angry and confused, yes." The chair creaked as Drax got out of it, moving to step behind the mammal. The hands pushed onto Rocket's shoulders again and those thumbs started to work their magic, easing the built ache and tension out of them.

Rocket breathed out slowly before he just let his head sink forward, chin touching his chest as he let himself focus on that sensation. The thumb started just under the muscle, pinching the tightened cord between itself and the fingers on the opposite side. As it rolled up, it brought the muscle a little with it before letting it go. Again and again, in time with Rocket's breathing, each one making the mammal practically whimper in delight. He'd felt something like this when they were amid the ruins of the Dark Aster, Drax's hand on his head and comforting him in his moment of loss.

He'd been so surprised then, as much as he was now, to even think of berating Drax for doing that in public. He'd needed it, much as he needed this, to let him know that things were going to be just fine. That he was okay, that he wasn't going to snap against his friends when he'd lost the only person he'd ever known. He'd put Groot into some dirt and a pot then and there, his only response when asked was that he had to try something, that Groot regenerated from losing his arms. That it had to work.

He sniffed, not realizing that he was letting his tears flow freely. A hand pressed on his head and rubbed behind his ears, the other starting to rub in slow circles on his lower back. He hated opening himself like this, it felt like a cosmic joke that he was such a tough guy who wept like some sniveling brat. "It is okay, Rocket. I understand the inner conflict inside of you."

"Yeh? Well, I'm glad someone on this flarkin' ship does." He murmured, voice shaking with the need to bawl. At least everyone else was asleep, they didn't have to see the mammal acting like this. "Jus' feel like I need t' keep everything from everyone at all times and it kinna stinks. I gotta be the guy who doesn't get upset, not after that outburst on Knowhere." That had been memorable, it echoed in his head.

I didn't ask to get made! To get torn apart, over and over again and then put back together into some... Little monster! He'd screamed at the top of his lungs to Quill and Drax in the middle of a crowd. He'd been drinking that night but what night did he not drink anymore? He was sure his liver was pickled by this point but it still kept going, probably something else those bastards had changed in him.

The hand on his back moved forward and around, dull fingernails raking through his stomach. He groaned under the different sensation and let himself lean back, drawing out of that tight little ball he'd made of himself. He hummed throatily despite his best efforts, his right leg twitching just slightly as the man helped to calm him down from his bitter sorrow.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, inky blackness took him deep into slumber. Not a single dream disturbed his rest, he didn't hurt quite so much anymore.