The flea market turned out to be every bit the bustling, colorful, crazy sprawl that Peter promised. Covered stalls lined the open streets on either side as far as Rocket could see, and tall flags with waypoint symbols he couldn't read flapped silently over their heads. According to a map he'd found, the stalls went on for miles, then left out into an unlicensed vendor area- likely that would just be poor families selling worn out crap- and at the heart of the market was a government building, transformed into an auction house for the event. People waved and cheered for the Guardians as they passed, which Rocket thought he could get used to.
A young girl skipped over to them, a wicker basket swinging from her arm. She had been selling some kind of food to the shoppers, he knew because he had seen her peddling earlier, and now she placed a delicious looking pastry in Rocket's hand and pranced away, giggling, before he could offer her any units.
"Cute," Gamora said. "She has a crush on you."
The little girl ducked behind one of the peddlers, a doughy woman standing amongst bushels of fruit, most likely her mother. The girl peeked out from behind the woman's dress, smiling ear to ear.
"The kid's deranged," Rocket said, but smiled in spite of himself, and waved to the girl, who couldn't have been older than eight. She squeaked and disappeared behind her mother's billowing skirt. Rocket chuckled.
"Isn't this great?" Quill enthused, as he skipped ahead, spinning unselfconsciously with his arms flung out away from him, like a man in a musical who is about to burst into song.
"It is pleasant to be among friends. Very great, indeed," Drax said, with an earnest smile that warmed Rocket's heart. He wished he could have swallowed his pride and talked to Groot, but the meet-up had been too shortly after Drax wore him down on the subject, and he hadn't had time to gather his humility. But Drax seemed to enjoy himself anyway. He even bought some stuff, which shocked Rocket, who had not seen the man purchase a single thing in the months they'd lived together.
"I have purchased a badoon skull for you," he told Rocket later, after disappearing for awhile into a thick of stalls. "I noticed that you do not have one."
"Thanks, babe. You shouldn't have," Rocket replied, lapsing into the pet name by mistake. Nobody seemed to notice, but Drax gave him a mysteriously grave look. Yeesh, Rocket though, When did he get to be so uptight?
"Look, Gamora! Drax gave Rocket head," Quill quipped, pointing to the skull, which Rocket had absolutely no idea what to do with. Gamora looked confused, so Quill leaned toward her and whispered something in her ear. Her cheeks turned from green to a weird muddy orange, which apparently was what happened when she blushed. Rocket had never seen her embarrassed before. She waved Peter away without laughing at his lame joke, so he laughed at it himself, and danced off to investigate some shiny bauble that caught his eye.
The four of them explored the flea market for the better part of the afternoon. Rocket didn't find anything that he wanted, but he and Drax enjoyed surreptitiously making fun of the tackier stuff when the vendor's were out of earshot.
When Rocket had first met Drax, he never would have thought that the man could be fun, and not in a million years imagined hanging out with him. Drax had appeared to be a mountain of crazy- the scary kind, not the fun kind. Now Rocket thought that he had turned out to be the fun kind after all. When Drax enjoyed himself it was like his soul turned outward, and he became radiant with sincerity and laughter. He carried Rocket on his shoulders, gossiping up to him about lamps that resembled certain feminine body parts, or particularly atrocious throw-rugs, in tones of gleeful conspiracy. Rocket felt madly in love with him.
"Hey, over here!" Peter called to the friends for about the hundredth time, it seemed, and they dutifully followed his voice. They found him in a pleasantly shaded courtyard ringed by stalls. Rocket hopped down off Drax's shoulder to stand on the cool cobblestones, and they crossed the square together on foot. Quill stood at one booth that was piled high with old junk, the kind of stall most people walked right past, because the items were dirty and in pieces. But he had apparently found something of interest, because he waved them over excitedly.
When they'd gathered around, he pressed a button on an ancient looking black box. A song belted forth and Quill exclaimed, "It's a boom box! And it's got a Lynyrd Skynyrd CD in it. Isn't that wild? Like, how did that even get here?"
"What is a 'lynyrd skynyrd'?" Gamora asked.
"Just an Earth singer. Or that's the name of the band, maybe, I don't know. Pretty good though, right?" Quill said.
The lyrics were a trite narrative about some guy dancing with another man's woman and getting popped for it. A tale as old as time. Still, it did have a twangy, catchy energy that made Rocket's foot tap. Gimme three steps, gimme three steps mister, gimme three steps toward the door, the song went. Peter held out a hand to Gamora, inviting her to dance, and Rocket could have laughed. When will he learn? He wondered. But then Gamora did take his hand, if a little tentatively, and Rocket's mouth fell open. Quill grinned and pulled her into a brisk Terran dance and, by God, she kept up, and he realized that he wasn't the only one who'd changed over the last few months.
The pair of them were so precious that it made Rocket sick. Actually, their public display of affection kindled an unexpected jealousy in him. Like he always did when he had some heartfelt thought about his relationship with Drax, his first instinct was to admonish himself as stupid and sentimental. But this time he let the feelings wash over him. Quill pulled Gamora in for a kiss, and she actually giggled, and suddenly Rocket wanted that kind of happiness too. He wasn't ready to be that public in his affections, might never be, but he did try to grab Drax's hand. People could take it any way they wanted.
But to his surprise, his partner pulled away when he felt the brush of Rocket's fingers against his. Rocket looked up to meet his gaze and Drax's eyes were cold, distant somehow, and it scared him badly. What did I do? Rocket tried to say with his expression, but Drax averted his gaze. Suddenly the shade no longer pleasant, but freezing cold. Rocket stalked off.
He wandered aimlessly through the winding streets for awhile, barely seeing the venders or their wares, only going over and over the details of the day, wondering what the emptiness in Drax's eyes could have been about. He thought they had been having a good time. You sniveling bitch. You fag. It's what you get for mooning after a guy, like some schoolgirl. It's pathetic.
"Shut up," he whispered to himself, clutching his arms, still cold despite the sun blazing away overhead.
He hadn't been watching where he was going and he suddenly found himself nose to nose with another furry, whiskery face. Two dewy amber eyes blinked at him, and although the creature was not sentient, Rocket understood at once that it was deep in distress. It cowered in a cage barely large enough for it to turn around in, and it's furry flanks where caked with it's own waste. It shivered violently. Whether Rocket could sense it's misery because of his own animal ancestry, or just by basic human decency, he was suddenly full of murderous rage.
His eyes flicked up and down the stall, along the row of cages. Nearly all of them were crammed full of suffering animals. The vendor, a sunburned man who wore too much cologne, was standing a few feet away, schmoozing another potential customer. "Yeah, they're genetically modified," he explained to the interested person. "Furry and cute, but they sing like birds. Make a great gift for a loved one. Hey, show the guy," he commanded one of the scared, shit-encrusted animals, and kicked it's cage. The thing twittered nervously and the man laughed. "See? Gorgeous, right? Only three hundred units."
"Hey!" Rocket didn't give him a chance to respond. He shot forward and broke the unsuspecting vendor's leg in two places before he could react. Rocket scurried out of reach as the man crumpled to the ground, swearing and clutching his ruined leg, and (too late) Rocket noticed the two Nova officers watching from the shadows. They stepped into the light with zap-guns drawn.
Rocket threw his hands in the air to show he wasn't resisting, and said, "I'm sorry, I know, I fucked up!" For some reason the Terran variant of the curse popped out of his mouth. "But look, this can't be legal! Look at them!" He glanced down at the animals, which were now shaking harder than ever.
"I have a permit!" the injured man wailed. "Officers! Arrest him!"
The Nova officers seemed to recognize Rocket as a member of the Guardians, and hesitated. They exchanged a look. "Rocket, right?"
He nodded, and they looked even more uncertain. After a long pause, they lowered their weapons. "Maybe we can... work something out."
"What? No!" cried the man as be bled onto the pavement. Everyone else had scattered, and they were alone in the small street. Out the corner of his eye, Rocket saw Quill poke his head around the corner. "It's your job to arrest him!"
"We're all business-minded folks," Rocket said through gritted teeth. "Maybe I could just... compensate you. For the leg. And for your... wares... of course."
He looked like he might refuse, maybe yell again, but by then the officers had holstered their weapons, and clearly were not going to apprehend Rocket. Tears rolled down the man's fat, sunburned face. "My wares?" he asked shrilly.
"We'll have to take them," offered one of the Nova officers, a short, dark haired woman with bright brown eyes. Rocket shot her a grateful look. "As evidence."
"Of course you do," the vender said morosely. "And I suppose it will go missing before the case goes to trial, right?"
The dark haired officer shrugged. "Impossible to say. Evidence disappears all the time."
The man hesitated, and then slumped in defeat. "Forty-thousand units."
"That's extortion!" Rocket yelled. Quill walked up slowly, making sure the officers could see his approach. You only have to be tazed once for sneaking up on a Nova officer to learn a valuable, life-long lesson.
"Forty-thousand," the bastard repeated, stubbornly.
"You got it." Quill pulled out a credit chip, made sure to show it to the officers first, then threw it down to the sunburned man. He caught it with a greedy twinkle in his piggy eyes. Rocket felt sick to his stomach.
Drax and Gamora found them shortly after and, along with the officers, escorted the man to a nearby medical tent, and loaded the animals onto Rocket and Drax's shuttle. "You sure you don't want us to take them?" Quill asked Rocket as he set down the last cage. "This place is tiny."
"It's fine. I wont keep them, I'll find somewhere nice for 'em to live. Thanks, by the way. I'll pay you back," Rocket said.
The Star-Lord shook his head. "Nah, don't. Consider it a gift. Thanks for coming with us to this thing, I know you don't like to come out much."
Rocket shrugged. "It was fun. I think we'll be around more often... if you want, that is. I ain't gonna beg."
Quill laughed, and ruffled the fur between Rocket's ears, making him huff indignantly. "Of course! You're a Guardian. You couldn't get rid of me if you wanted to." And Rocket found that he was glad to hear him say it.