Rocket saw Groot on the battlefield. It had been five years and there he was, standing there as if nothing had happened. Standing next to everyone else who had turned to ash and dust. Rocket hadn't allowed himself to really consider how he would feel if this happened, if it REALLY worked, if he really could have his family back, just that easily.
It had been five years. And there he was, the one he cared about more than anyone else in the whole of the universe. It was as if time had slowed- the climactic battle was about to get underway, but for one brief moment, it was like he was alone on the field with his son. It had been five years. And Groot hadn't changed at all. Well, obviously he wouldn't, for him it must not have felt like… anything had happened; did he even feel it when he crumpled in his arms, when he slid through his fingers like soot?
And when he woke up, he must have awoken in Wakanda, on that hill by himself, all alone. Well, he wasn't exactly alone; he had everyone that had died suddenly waking up with him. How did they treat him, Rocket wondered, as they got together and regrouped for their big entrance? They couldn't have understood him, most of them, probably. Had he been scared? It had been five years, why did it feel like an eternity and also just yesterday?
Rocket was looking down from his perch on Rhodey's shoulder at Thanos's assembled forces. With the arrival of the armies that had been brought back by Bruce's Snap it seemed like they really might stand a chance. He told himself he wasn't about to lose, not when he was so close. Rocket was not going to die here, and neither was his son. The war began. Again. Or perhaps for the first time, for Thanos at least. The order of events was still a bit confusing, but it didn't really matter now. The fighting started, and there was about half an army of Thanos's Outriders between him and Groot. A hundred times that couldn't keep him from his boy, not now, not ever.
As the battle waged on, the teenage tree was doing very well on his own, but as Thanos's ship started firing down on the battlefield, hitting as many of the raving stupid psychopath's own forces as enemies, the fight suddenly turned into absolute chaos, or rather, even more absolute chaos. Just as Rocket had about reached him, jumping from War Machine's back no more than a hundred yards away, Groot was caught in a crossfire of blinding blue blasts from above that caused the ground beneath his rooty feet to explode in burnt black geysers of dirt.
"Groot? Groot!" A sharp pang of adrenaline shot through Rocket's body, an image in his head of Groot's body disintegrating, dying again, rocketed him on, practically tearing off an enemy's head as he bounded, faster than he'd ever moved before. Groot went flying, tumbling. He rolled in the scorched earth.
Rocket finally reached him, before he'd even come to a stop, grabbing hold of his son's thin wooden body and holding tight, like he'd never let go. He yelled as the explosions and burning air swirled around them. He screamed as the sound roared, deafening, and fires burned, the dirt flying like shrapnel. All he cared about was Groot and not letting him get hurt. He hollered with all his might, trying to shield the taller child with his smaller body. If this was it, revenge be damned, battle be damned, he was either going to die protecting Groot, or he was going to die with him.
"I am Groot?" Chestnut eyes looked up at him, miraculous, alive.
"Groot! You idiot, you had me worried, c'mon, get up, y'big twig," Rocket scolded through streaming eyes with all the affection in the universe poured into his cracking voice. "We can't stay here, not with those blasters."
He pulled Groot to his feet with a grunt and tugged him along through the foxholes and divots, to the relative safety behind broken debris of the exploded headquarters. When the chaos had calmed slightly, he looked around at Groot again, panting. He didn't think he could ever get enough of looking at him now. He couldn't help himself; he wrapped his small, furry arms around Groot's chest and squeezed with all his might.
It had been five years, and his son was back in his arms again.
"I missed you, son," he said, voice low and full of the longing of half a decade of loneliness.