A/N Not much to say. Early chapter. ;) Enjoy

Chapter 21: The Reveal

As Rocket stared out to where the mysterious assassin disappeared, his eyes began to shrink to a smaller size. His tail began to swat the air, and his paws formed two tight fists.

"Rocket, he's gone," Sam assured him, trying to touch his shoulder.

This time, he recoiled at her touch and walked past Sam across the roof towards the door, still not changing his glower. "It's Maverick," he declared through seethed teeth, not bothering to explain to Peter or anyone else about his actions. His tail swatted the air as if attempting to smack a bee out of its flight.

At this point, his thoughts were along the line of, 'why bother.' Peter would just tell him what he should and shouldn't do and try to ask him questions, Gamora or Drax would probably do the same. His ideas didn't include telling Peter what was going on.

"Rocket, stop!" Peter called after him, jogging after Rocket, "just stop for a minute!"

The raccoon became aware of his approach and picked up pace towards the door, but Peter was quicker. His body blocked the handle completely as Rocket tried to reach for the handle.

"Get out of my way, Star-Dork," Rocket ordered, not caring at this point about his choice of words.

"No," Peter responded, shaking his head. For once, his face looked solemn. "Not until I get some answers. I've done enough of waiting for you to do something stupid like this again." He stood up and looked down at Rocket, frowning at him, his eyes glowering in disbelief.

Rocket's eyes lit up, and his fur bristled defensively like thorns on a bush. He stood limp, scoffed at the ground, showing a smile of disbelief, then barred his teeth in a show of resentment as he looked up at Peter. "You're funny," he sarcastically remarked, "Quill, I said move. Or else." He threatened.

"Buddy, drop that threat right now. That wasn't a joke," the terran stated, angling his head down, and moving his hands down towards the ground calmly.

"That wasn't a joke either," Rocket countered, "and I ain't jokin' when I tell you to move. So get out of my way." His voice became unnaturally cold, even if it was quiet. He began to tremble like Warren, and his eyes began to become aware of the Guardians behind him.

He felt threatened. Somehow, this people threatened him. They made him feel cornered. What was Quill thinking? He was trying to save them all, and here he was stopping him! Did he want them to fail? Did he want Astroliopa to win?

Sam walked behind him. "Rocket, calm down, just cool down for a second."

Rocket ignored her. She wasn't a part of this, and he didn't want her to be.

"Sam," Peter scolded, glancing to her out of the corner of his eyes, "I know you want to help him, but trust me when I say this, you want to stay back-"

"Don't you talk to her like that!" Rocket exclaimed loudly, glaring at Peter, "who do you think you are? Talking to her like she's your dog!" He wants to steal her from you….. he wants to steal your Sam. From YOU. Do you really think he cares about your relationship with her? All he wants to do is talk about sex and make jokes about you two. He could care less what happens to her. Rocket's mind began to take in this thoughts. His anger began to boil, and he started to lose control over himself.

"Rocket!" Gamora shouted, stepping forward towards him.

"And you!" Rocket whipped around, baring his teeth viciously and aiming his now drawn machine gun at Gamora. He walked away from the Guardians to the edge of the roof so he could see all of them easily. "Who do you think you are? Trying to make Sam hate me, talking to her behind my back! You probably are just like Quill. You want to ruin my life!" He shouted, glaring and huffing as he waved his gun around.

They're all enemies…. All of them. All they want to do is ruin my life. All they want to do is get on my nerves. Call me names. Make fun of me. Talk behind my back probably. They don't care about me…. they want Astroliopa to win if anything. They want Sam to die. They want Maverick to kill us. Who's the say they aren't trying to help Astroliopa?

"Groot," Rocket said, "open the door. You, me, and Sam are leaving."

Groot shook his head. "I am Groot" (No.)

Rocket hissed. "What did you just say you stupid piece of-"

"Rocket," Peter began, "just calm down. Tell us what's going on. We're going to fix this. Just put the gun down…"

"NO!" He exclaimed, pointing it at Gamora as she tried to move forward to him. "Do you idiots have any idea who that was? Maverick just got away! We need to-" he paused, some of his rage momentarily declining as he realized he was about to give himself away.

Peter took a step forward, raising an eyebrow. "We need to what? Rocket, talk to me." He gained a bit of courage when Rocket didn't try anything and took another baby step. The raccoon didn't respond, and his eyes were trained on the ground at Peter's feet, but his expression was still slightly angered. "Talk to me buddy. What do you mean? What do we need to do?"

"I can't!" Rocket cried, gritting his teeth as he waved his weapon again, looking up at Peter. His eyes drifted to Sam, who looked slightly horrified at his current state of mind, and hostility began to leave his eyes for a moment. He wanted to put his gun down, but he also wasn't ready to stop and explain himself yet. I'm sorry girl…. "I can't say it," he repeated, his voice cracking as he attempted to shout.

"Why?" Gamora demanded, glaring at him, directing a clear stream of hostility in his direction now.

"Rocket, we're a team. You're supposed to tell us these things," Peter countered in a calmer voice, angling his head lower.

"You worry us with your reckless actions," Drax adds cautiously, "you've been very… hostile lately. At certain times to be exact."

Rocket curled his lip. "There's no use tellin' any of you! All you want to do is do what you want! You don't care what I say… so I do it my way," Rocket explained harshly, "it's always, 'we should do what the team thinks!'" Rocket rose his voice overdramatically, then his expression turned to a glare, "'minus Rocket of course. His ideas don't matter. Oh, and even if he does tell us something important, we're going to forget everything else he says and just do what we want with it! Because Rocket is crazy anyway, we may as well just let his girlfriend get raped by a fox!"' His anger began to increase again as he ranted on.

"That is not true!" Peter exclaimed, "Rocket, we listen to all of your ideas! I don't know what's giving you that impression! You're just under a lot of stress-"

"Dang straight I am-" Rocket shouted.

"-and need to stop and think for a minute. You killed Maverick…. nothing's going to happen to Sam. She's okay. No one's trying to hurt her Rocket. I'm not, Gamora's not, Drax isn't, no one is or will!" he insisted.

"You don't know that," Rocket hissed under his breath, "you saw the tail Quill! It was Maverick, I know it was! I know that smile! That look on his face that I see every time I try to blink…"

"And you don't know that either. You don't know that it was Maverick. You said he was a fox? That was not a fox tail Rocket! I know what a fox tail looks like, and that wasn't him! You're seeing things," Peter declared.

"It has to be…" Rocket interjected, "it has to be him. If it ain't him, who is it then?"

Peter shook his head. "I don't know. But if you want to find out, you have to work with us. Rocket, tell us what's going on. Put the gun down… don't do something you're going to regret." He begged.

"I can't. You won't believe me…. you wouldn't understand….. you wouldn't care. None of you do. I may as well be a traitor now," Rocket laughed hysterically, his eyes narrowing greatly at Quill with a sinister smile. His hands began to shake.

"You know what, I don't care anymore. You want to know something? That time that robot grabbed me? I had flashbacks. I knew his name was Grimlock then. I knew he didn't mean to kill me. I knew his purpose was to not kill me when he realized I was what he was looking for. I knew that I knew who he was! I knew Grimlock wanted me!" He laughed again, looking around, "and you all thought I didn't know anything. Yeah, I know, I'm such a jerk for not telling you, right? But you wanna' know the best part about the flashbacks?"

A tear appeared in Rocket's left eye, still waving his gun around. "I remember what it was like. Getting torn apart. Limb from limb. What I remembered from before? Ha, that is nothing compared to what I remember now! I watched this old guy above me, ranting to me about how I'm 'the perfect subject', feeding me crap about how 'I will be the best'. 'New and improved' he said Well guess what? He's wrong it looks like. Because Rocket Raccoon is NOTHING!" he laughed, "and Grimlock… oh, he knows it too! Because guess what? He was standing at the foot of my surgical table, WATCHING ME GET TORN TO KINGDOM COME! TAUNTING ME!" He shouted at everyone who stood. "And that isn't even the tip of the iceberg," he laughed, "I RECONGIZE, Grimlock. I RECONGIZE, that old man I saw. I recognize everything. I saw the labs I was being kept in. And during the fight with Maverick? I remembered how to do freaking karate, when I never knew how to do it before! Then I forgot….. just like that. Oh, and I can't forget the best part: apparently I have an imaginary girlfriend from some year in my past that I don't even know about! To top it all off, I just discovered that I'm apart of some freaking program that 'the master', Astrolipa- whatever his name is, runs, and that this guy OWNS ME! My entire life is OWNED, by him! I am owned by some old guy, his pet machine, and whatever army he has!" Rocket finished shouting. "I am a friggin' cyborg, because of him!"

All of the Guardians were silent at this point. Even the sharp tongued Gamora looked stunned at Rocket's outburst. Peter's stern expression was met with a slightly ajar mouth open. The terran was also stunned, and left wordless. Groot and Drax were left to stare at him, unsure how to respond to this.

Rocket panted heavily, glancing at each of them, the anger inside him boiling at its peak. He laughed one last bit before he was unable to, and added with a wheeze, "and you ask me, Mr. Peter Quill, 'why didn't you tell us?' Are you happy now? Are you happy that I finally decided to tell you how this ruined my entire life?!"

Time passed. Peter couldn't even bring himself to avert his eyes or change his expression. Minutes passed. No one could speak. The dead silence plagued the roof. It was surprising the guards hadn't even shown up yet to investigate what was happening.

Rocket's paranoia level decreased gradually as he looked from Peter to Groot, then to Gamora, Drax… and then Sam. The look in her eyes told him everything. It was foreign… a strange glance in time that made him look like someone she'd never seen before. She stared at him, looking concerned, frightened. When he meet her eyes, the fire in his own began to disappear as her gaze turned to a new emotion: Sadness. She was pleading for him to stop.

He recognized the emotion. Lowering his gun, Rocket's eyes widened with horror as he realized what he'd just said to everyone. His anger fully left him, leaving room for only emotions he'd never actually fully felt before.

Rocket Raccoon lowered his gun. He trembled forward with shaky legs. Sam already began to walk towards him, making his eyes start to water.

He collapsed onto his knees right into her embrace, and his eyes began to water even more as he struggled to hold in what had to have been tears. "I'm sorry," he whimpered, dropping his weapon. His shoulders began to shake as he silently cried, allowing his emotions to finally show as Sam held him. "I'm sorry…." He whispered again, a little louder this time, and began to repeat it, hugging Sam tightly. He would feel the hands of Gamora, Drax, Groot, and Peter all around him as they sat by him, comforting him, and whispering words of encouragement to him.

Rocket couldn't believe how much of a burden it'd lifted from his shoulders just by telling them everything. He felt so vulnerable to them….Yet he had such a positive feeling. All of this built up anger, all of this resentment he let himself have for them, and the things he kept from them. That was what had caused this.

For once, teamwork had not been a bad choice. They did care. Rocket understood that now.

Peter smiled softly, and patted Rocket's shoulder as he felt him tremble and cry silently. "Let it out pal, it's okay. Everything's going to be alright."

Somehow, he knew that was true. Starting now, Rocket knew he didn't have to do this on his own anymore. The Guardians were on his side.