A/N: Well that took longer than I expected! No excuses, just a lot of apologies - sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!
Also, happy Black Widow day/week! I'm off to see it tomorrow but I promise no spoilers in the next chapter (though let's be honest, you'll probably have all seen it AND The Eternals by then :P)
13 September 2020
"Should we wake her? Feels a little awkward."
Those were the words I heard at three in the morning, Tom. Whispered by a woman so deep in space that the few solar systems between us might as well be another galaxy altogether.
And it was a little disconcerting.
Not because there was a hologram and a racoon watching me sleep like some sort of twisted and futuristic Disney film, but because they were words that belonged to a conversation already well underway.
And that's a problem why? I hear you ask.
I'm a light sleeper.
Most people who label themselves as such think it's an annoying quirk they could do without. It's not annoying, it's lifesaving.
An essential key to my survival over the years. I probably owed my life to the part of my mind that refuses to sleep almost as much as I owe it to the skills I'd learned and sharpened over the course of a lifetime.
The same lifetime made possible by the lightness of the sleep I endure.
And yet, somehow, they'd made it to a point in their chitchat where they felt awkward enough to consider waking me. My supposedly ever-alert conscious dropping the ball in a way that would have got me killed had I been anywhere else, had they been anyone else.
As it was, I was left in my possum-like passiveness to fight through the groggy after-fog of sleep. And Rocket was left to ponder the question put forward by his companion, the usual animosity surprisingly lacking.
I listened for the small telltale rustling of his remaining fur dragging against his pillows but it never came. He neither shook his head nor nodded and instead considered the question, which was also disconcerting because it belied the concern he otherwise managed to cover up with his eventual words.
"Nah," he said, master of the single syllables , "let her...sleep. If she's gonna...hang a-around...all day, I want the...less cranky...version."
When Rocket had opened his eye that first time I felt the knot of worry, I'd done a good job of pretending didn't exist, start to unravel itself. Then he closed his eye again, falling into uneasy rest, and the knot did its best to tangle itself back up.
He never let go of my finger, so I didn't dare move.
Every minute he continued to sleep, that knot drew itself tighter and tighter until he woke again a few hours later. Both eyes blinking into consciousness. Just in time for his next dose of machine-applied medical treatment.
There was a lot of joy in knowing his initial coming to wasn't a fluke. Joy tempered by the twist of dread that came with realising he was about to be alert for the unwrapping of his bandages and the exposure of his wounds to the cool air.
He did an admirable job bearing his teeth when Emma approached him to do just that. She hesitated long enough for me to jump in. My free hand deft in removing his bandages, my words quick to explain the necessity.
Beneath the healing scrutiny of the machine, he had kept his eyes closed and braced himself as best he could.
"Knock...me...out," he panted after the session came to an end. One word, one breath; exhausting the energy reserves he just didn't have, "next...time."
"You're the one who decided to wake up just in time for the latest instalment." I flexed the finger he still held. "I'm gonna need this back."
There was a tingling as proper circulation restored itself once he let go. The sneer that was normally in constant residence on his face was a distant memory. All he could muster, when he glanced away, was vague embarrassment. At the softness he showed, but also the difficulty he had speaking. In the back of my mind I made a silent vow to never mention these reputation ruining-moments.
He soon realised what his limitations were. How little he was able to do in recovery. How much he had to depend on others. It was not a welcome epiphany and his mood made a not-so-subtle shift to something not at all pleasant.
No one blamed him. In fact, we'd all expected it.
Just as quickly as he found his limits, he decided there was one he wasn't going to accept. One thing he had to have control over because he had to have control of one thing.
His voice.
And he exercised that control again and again and again.
He fought hard to find and form his words. Pushed himself until he upgraded from one word every breath to two. And then three. And soon enough he managed whole, albeit short, sentences. And he damn well wanted to make the most of it.
So he spoke.
Every thought, good or bad, fell from his mouth. Even when he pushed himself too far and the effort had him sucking in air, desperate and clumsy. Almost enough to make me consider sedating him if it wouldn't take away the one thing that had kept him going. But he needed that release just as much as he needed the actual medicine.
"Wow," Carol said and drew my sleepily wandering attention back to the present moment, "you almost sound like you care."
Rocket scoffed and that time I did hear his fur move against the bedding, I assumed he turned to look away from his visitor. Equal parts annoyed and embarrassed.
"Oh come on, don't give me that," Carol said with a laugh in her voice that sounded so out of place in the very early hours of the day, "you've made a friend, it's nice."
"Remind me why...you're here, again?"
"Li'l old me? Oh you know, just popping in to check on my fur-tastic buddy and his miraculous recovery. You know what they say, gotta see it to believe it."
"I'm good, you can...go now," he bit back.
"Nebula misses you," she said, making a very conscious effort to speak over him in just the way we all knew annoyed the fuck out of him. Her holographic glow pressed more insistently against my eyelids, the only evidence of her pacing, "I mean she hasn't said it, because you two are horrendous when it comes to emotions and actually saying stuff, but she misses you. So here I am, playing go between."
The image of Nebula stalking the ship in a huff of restlessness she didn't quite know how to categorise was clear in my mind's eye. It looked very similar to my early days of prowling the corridors of Shield with barely an ounce of understanding to explain the unfamiliar feelings bubbling away underneath. It had me on edge and I was not kind to Clint. I doubted Nebula was kind to Carol.
"She doesn't," he said with an intake of breath that could only mean he'd moved without thinking and was fighting back the sickening wave of pain, "she's probably just...tired of sharing the...ship with a...meat sack like...you."
While Rocket pushed out his words, the glow increased beyond the rhythm of Carol's pacing and I knew without a shadow of a doubt if I opened my eyes I'd find her standing over me. I shifted and burrowed my face into the back cushion of the chair. As much as I was awake, I'd rather be asleep and that light was doing me no favours.
"You know, I really was starting to think she never slept," she said absentmindedly, her voice quieting halfway through as if it really had only just occurred to her that loud voices might get in the way of such a thing, "you've been here a while, do you think we should worry about her?" She walked away, taking the light with her.
"Oh yeah, because all...that time in a coma...really helped me...get a feel for how...things are over here."
"Not in a coma now," she said as petulant as any child.
"I meant it...when I said you...could go."
"Nah, I'm fine staying. Oh, and you're wrong by the way. Nebula and I are like BFFs. She doesn't want rid of me. The ship, though, now that's a problem."
"Ain't nothing wrong...with my ship."
"I'm used to the vast vacuum of space," she said, ignoring his protest, "and the ship is just too confining after that."
"Sounds like...a you problem, not a Benetar...problem."
"Ooooh, good name though. That Quill guy obviously knows his music. But, I'm just going stir crazy."
The racoon grunted, taking stock of if he wanted to enter into that level of conversation. For a second I thought he would keep quiet but, Rocket being Rocket, was not one to run away from an argument. And, of course, that's what she wanted.
"Wanna talk stir crazy?" He huffed, falling into Carol's trap. "Try staying...in bed all the time. Tubes stuck...in places...they have no...business...being stuck in."
And Carol laughed because in spite of the injury and the pain and the shit-I-almost-died introspection thing he had going on, she had drawn out something that was undeniably Rocket. And it was so good to hear. "Don't go pulling them out. I need you back on this ship as soon as possible."
He muttered to himself and though every fibre of my being was exhausted and screamed out for rest, right then I was glad to be awake. In front of others their relationship was one dimensional. Monotonous with the insults and the jabs and the jibes. Old wounds poked and prodded and torn open by the words they shared. They were volatile to the point of explosive and the resulting shrapnel took no prisoners.
But there, with no one to witness them except an incurious AI and a supposedly unconscious assassin, they were friends. Just as exasperated with each other as Tony and I get. Just as fond. Somehow, somewhere, a mutual kinship had formed, as much as they might be loathed to admit it.
"Shut it...Danvers. You're starting...to sound like...her."
"That," she said and I could imagine an eyebrow arched high over one eye, "is because we're a team and we're all singing from the same hymn sheet."
I stifled a yawn, despite the distraction sleep was still a strong force. Even stronger after several days littered with nothing but a few catnaps here and there. I dangled on the edge of the hazy in-between and if not for the buzz of words and the images their silences conjured in my mind, I would have fallen back to sleep in a matter of seconds.
"Don't need any...team," Rocket said and this time it was more than his limited vocal capacity that stunted his words, "don't need...anyone."
"You know," Carol sighed, "for all that self-important talk you got going on about being the smartest gut around, you're kinda an idiot."
"Can't talk to...a guy on his...deathbed...like that."
"Oh, shove it fur ball, this is not your deathbed." I had the feeling that if she wasn't in hologram form she would have kicked something across the room to ease some of the frustration Rocket was so talented at creating. "You don't need a team, yeah? Well, without them where would you be right now? A pile of space ash floating listlessly somewhere in the galaxy."
"Hey, I'm no...Ravager. That send off...doesn't belong to...me."
"What the hell else do you think Nebula would have done? Haul your dead ass around until you stink up the ship? Get you stuffed so she can stick you on top of the control panel to be the ship's morbid mascot?" She paused and took a deep breath to turn down the heat starting to boil her words. "I had this team. Years ago. And I hated it. Didn't realise at the time you know. But I hated it. Wanna know why? They were scared of me. Not everyone was openly hostile but even the kinder ones made sure I knew I was different, gave me these standards to live up to. And when I was free of them I told myself I didn't need anyone. Sounded pretty freaking similar to you right now, except, you know, without the wheezing. Didn't need anyone until I found the universe collapsing all around me and people I would usually seek comfort in were sucked right into the abyss with it.
"So here I am, still part of this team because I'm not above admitting I do need them. That right now at this moment in my life, it's what I need. And I hear you say you don't need them, but I know that you do. I hear you say you don't need anybody, but that anybody sleeping in the chair right over there has your back one hundred percent. Has all our backs. And because of that you're sitting up and talking without having to deal with the horrific trauma of waking up on the whim of some technician wanting to know more about your physiology while your wounds were still fresh."
Rocket was breathing hard by the time Carol finished, and she too sucked in some air in the aftermath of her verbal meltdown.
"What's your point?" The gruff racoon said at last.
"My point is that I call bullshit on your 'I'm fine on my own' rubbish. Your team was different from mine. You liked each other and knowing that they're gone is tough. We might not be the team you had, Rocket, but we're the team you need."
"Someone call the...doc. You're smothering...me with...sentimental...crap."
"Oh ha ha. Hilarious. Just saying, you oversized rat, trust them. Trust them to help you recover. Trust Nat to look out for you. And get the hell back on this ship so I can off it."
"Trust backfires...thought you knew...that."
"Only when give it to the wrong people. Judging by Nebula and what I've heard about the other Guardians, you're a good judge of character. These aren't the wrong people, thought you knew that."
Carol's words were followed by a deep silence, which was much more fitting for the time of day. It gave the ever-present tendrils of sleep the chance to wrap themselves around my conscious again. With a confusing mixture of pride and anxiety I let it coax me back to unconsciousness. Proud they found a way of communicating with each other beyond the insults and shouting. Proud the team was a something to them. The same sort of something the Avengers had been to me.
A lifeline, I guess.
Anxious at having their respect. One wrong move could ruin it. That once again, on my watch, the team could fall to their knees. And, since the consequences of that happening last time was losing to the Mad Titan, no one could afford for that to happen again.
In the last flickering moments of somewhat alertness, images burst to life behind my eyelids. Nick, Maria, Clint, Laura. Somehow I had earned their trust and their respect too. And now they were just shadows and dust.
16 September 2020
There are things you don't expect to do in your life, Tom.
A fair few I've already mentioned in varying detail. Some more extraordinary than others. Some more mundane than most. Then there are the moments I'm not sure where to fit on the scale because I don't know what normal is anymore.
This morning I stepped into the open air and had flashbacks of a little Lila pushing her stuffed toys in a little pushchair and couldn't help but relate, just a little bit. Except, it was a wheelchair I was pushing. The very same one we'd forced Tony to use when he came crashing back to Earth. And instead of a docile stuffed animal (or a half-starved, space-faring businessman turned superhero for that matter) I was lumbered with Rocket the half-healed and incredibly frustrated racoon, who writhed and squirmed and muttered, hiding curses beneath his sighs because he was used to a lot more freedom than he was getting.
Naturally, all that moving aggravated the injuries and the complaints grew louder while the swearing more obvious. His patience as absent as his manners. He settled whenever we strolled into a patch of grass and were caught by a passing breeze, but it never lasted long and his griping intensified as if to make up for the moments it was gone.
At one point he rocked so hard I almost lost my grip on the chair. "You got worms or something?"
"Like, from the ground? Thing about being hooked up like a medical puppet is I don't get much time to go outside and wallow in the mud."
"Know what, forget I asked. Just stop moving so much."
"'Stop moving' she says. Like it's that easy. Damned thing is uncomfortable. It ain't me friendly."
"It was this or borrowing a pushchair from Stark, and if that happened he'd be here to take photos."
He inched forward again, a little less forcefully than before - the only indication that he'd bothered to listen - then slammed into the back of the chair for the umpteenth time when his body kindly reminded him that yes, it was getting better thank you very much but, no, it wasn't quite ready to support him just yet.
"Do it again and I'm just gonna let you roll in," I said. We were walking, and rolling, along the shore of the lake. The water was aggressively reflecting the sun until it was difficult to look at.
"Nowhere for my tail to go," he said and it was a mournful sound, which just about stopped me from tipping him onto the ground.
"Do you usually get seats tailored to your needs?" I asked with a sigh. "Have you modified one of the chairs on the Benetar to suit your physique? Or, you know, maybe all this time you've had a mini carpenter on hand to knock up a tail-friendly chair wherever you go?"
"No."
"Then stop being a diva and enjoy the goddamn sunshine."
There were a couple of minutes in which he did his best to hold himself still. Once or twice there were odd movements, almost as if he went to move without thinking but caught himself just a second too late to count as the last moment. But it just wasn't in his nature and before long, under the watchful gaze of the first direct sunlight he'd gotten in who knew how long, he burst into a flurry of action.
Shuffling forward.
Leaning on one chair arm.
Leaning on the other.
Kicking his feet.
Falling back.
All in a matter of seconds.
"Christ's sake-"
"Look, it's the only thing that doesn't hurt," he snarled defensively, sort of looking back at me but not quite, "and, call me insane, I like having something that doesn't hurt. But you stick me in this chair and take that away. So, how about you stop forcing me to do things I don't wanna do and we go back inside where I can enjoy the sweet freedom of no pain in one area of my body. How's that sound to ya?"
I gripped the handles so hard my knuckles went white. When I jerked the chair to a stop he almost bounced right onto the ground.
"You might want to stop complaining," I said, and drew my knife with an ominous hiss I hadn't intended but honestly couldn't say I regretted.
"Hey, where did that thing come from?"
"I always have a knife on me."
"Because you never know when you might want to off a teammate?" He asked.
"Relax," I said, "it's not for you. Scooch forward." I plunged the knife in as soon as he did, cutting through the fabric back of the chair and taking away material for his tail to poke through, but not enough to compromise the support it provided. When I got back up and slipped the blade back to its hiding place he eyed me with suspicion.
"What's your game?"
"Kinda like how you prefer it when your tail doesn't hurt, except I prefer it when a woodland creature isn't chewing my ears off. Go on, try it."
He kept staring at me, ignoring my handiwork just because he 'hated accepting help from a humie', but then his muscles trembled under the onslaught of strain they weren't yet strong enough to face. It was with almost enough caution to offend me that he slid backwards.
"See," he said when he was settled, just about holding back a sigh of relief, "wasn't so hard, was it."
"You mean not stabbing you with that thing? Harder than you can imagine."
He snickered and I moved us along again. It was a lot easier without the constant jolting and the barely contained insults. Rocket was pleasant company when he kept his mouth shut.
The med bay had no view of the late. In fact, it didn't have much of a view of anything. But I'd clocked him well enough to know Rocket enjoyed the water, whether he was listening to it, looking at it, or was just near it. This venture outdoors was meant to bring some nature back to his otherwise bland days, bring him some calm. Instead he'd done nothing but fidget and possibly aggravate everything we were trying to heal. Heading back was the sensible thing to do, but since it was already doomed I didn't see the point. So we kept on ambling along the shore, listening to its natural sounds and feeling its natural feelings. And the poison that eroded Rocket's defences and corroded his mood bubbled towards the surface. All his bottled emotions on the cusp of being let out. Though, there was something about his frail frame slumped back against the chair that said he wasn't quite ready for that release of pressure.
He didn't say anything when I brought us to a stop next to a log; it was putting up a good fight against the moss trying to claim it. He kept his mouth shut, too, when I settled on the edge, throwing my arms out either side and leaning back to fully soak in what the sun had to offer.
Now there was none of the beeping between us, none of the medical equipment hooked up to his arms, there wasn't much for us to say, wasn't much to share. Instead, we let nature do the talking.
I can't say what he heard, but for me the lapping water was everything that laid so heavy on him. All the emotions and pain and experience he didn't yet know how to put into words. And when the breeze grew stronger, not enough to be called a gust but enough to disturb the delicate balance of the water's surface, I knew his pain made it difficult to keep everything unsaid and in check.
As for the bugs that buzzed around? Stubborn memories refusing to stop haunting him. An irritation that went beyond the incident on the ship. One he had spent the past two and half years running from and now that all he could do was rest up and heal, it was catching up to him.
So no, we didn't speak. We didn't share words of wisdom or bring our friendship to a deeper understanding. We just felt.
And he hated it.
Hated being forced to confront those feelings, hated the sedentary lifestyle he was relegated to and the freedom it have him to think and think and think. It was there in his sighs and the explosive tutting and even when he made no noise at all because his whole body was tensed and strained.
And even though he mostly kept the almost surfaced emotional storm contained, the little bits that forced their way through started the other healing process. The mental one. The psychological. The healing that was needed to keep him from making the horrendously boneheaded decisions that end up with him as a half barbequed racoon.
So I left him to it, to all the sighing and the tutting and the tension and the strain. I left him to it because it all needed to be done and felt if he was going to get any better. And he might have hated it, he might have refused to look at me for the rest of the day or even accept the food I offered him. He might have looked worse than he had for a couple of days. But what is it they say?
Things have to get worse before they get better.
18 September 2020
Hi Tom,
It's easy to hear him all around the compound. He wheezes and shuffles along. Claws clatter against the wall whenever he looks for support. It's a noise I hear most often before he enters a room I'm in, when he takes a moment's respite to relax the taut skin, still new and still healing.
There was this game we played. In front of me he acted like he was fine and in front of him I acted like I believed him.
Out of sight, he suffered the consequences of pretending otherwise for even a little while. Out of sight I had Friday keep a close eye on him.
Rocket needed to heal, which needed energy, which came from food.
We had our meals together. Hunched over the table staring at our plates and saying a word here or there. I always took a few bites, hoping he would follow. He didn't.
The stark light highlighted every detail and he refused to be self conscious. Still half bald, his scarred skin was thrown into relief beneath the steady lighting that never so much as flickered. He was a patchwork of fur and flesh. Ugly to those who never saw the canvas of burns that had once been there.
Given time they would disappear completely.
If he looked after himself, which he didn't because he never ate.
I emailed Nebula. She messaged back, a list of all the things she remembered he liked. Carol sent notes with it, listing all the closest Earth equivalents.
I did what I could. And, in the end, he ate what he could.
Then he ferreted out the alcohol. Always vodka and that always reminded me of the early post-Snap days when he and a drunk Thor were a common sight. The way I yelled for touching my drink.
I didn't get angry this time, just let him have the bottle. It was empty by midnight.
The second time it was all gone by ten.
I didn't let there be a third.
When I came across the bottle in the kitchen I knew he was going to settle in for another night of lonely drinking. I grabbed it, opened it, and poured the contents down the sink. Ignoring all the angry Russian sentiment yelling at me.
Twenty minutes later I was sat at the counter, reading through a bunch of reports. He came back, shrugged his shoulders at the empty bottle and rummaged for some more.
Found nothing.
Often, Rocket couldn't decide whether he wanted company or solitude. Bruce lingered for a couple of days until it was clear enough there wasn't anything more he could do. He set up some monitoring protocols with Friday and left. Emma was gone before he was and Jelani was never really here.
So we danced about each other.
Sometimes I entered the room to find him scurrying away.
Sometimes he entered to room to find me.
We'd sit together then.
Sometimes we were silent.
Sometimes he told me things.
That's how I heard the proper story of the Guardians and the Power Stone. Before it was all just the smallest of details. Now it was everything. Another folder on my tablet starting to fill up.
I sat at the dock, enjoying the cool night air and the calming glow of the moon. He joined me, as he had a couple of years ago. His scars looked less angry under the gentle light.
While he spoke he sounded more like himself. A little bit stronger and a little bit snarkier. He hesitated, though. Every time he said Drax's name aloud. Every time he spoke of Gamora. Every time he mentioned Quill. Every time he even thought of Groot.
He hesitated and I saw the reason why most of our communication was over email. It was a lot harder to hide the deepening cracks when you were face to face.
Rocket would recover from his burns.
But they weren't his most serious injury.
23 September 2020
I was the spy.
Steve was the soldier.
Tony, if you take his penchant for creating suits into account, was the tailor.
And Rocket was most definitely the tinker.
Like Tony, the racoon preferred to keep busy. But busy was out of his reach while his body fought him at every step. A very clear fact, but what was also very clear was how much he was itching to do something. It was there in the way he clenched his paws before stretching them out. In the way he eyed up the fixtures and fittings. In every breath that escaped him before he grumbled, lacking all his usual lustre and bluster.
So, it wasn't really much of a surprise that with nothing but Friday's ineffectual reminders to rest, he decided it was a good idea to put logic to one side and give in to the temptation that coursed through his body.
He left a trail of little things; the flickering light in the Eastern most stairwell, the squeaking door to the conference room, the rattling air con along the third floor corridor. The sort of afflictions your wouldn't expect a state of the art Stark facility to come down with.
Bit by bit they all disappeared. Fine tuned back to perfection.
The cost, however, was the unravelling of Rocket's healing body. What kept his mind fit also damaged his physical recovery and his trail of little things ended with a quaking, quivering ball of fur and flesh curled into an alcove.
"Don't," he managed to breath as I scooped him up into my arms, as careful with his wounds as I could be.
"Don't what?"
"Don't lecture...me."
And I didn't. But mostly because he passed out as soon as he finished talking. Even unconscious he continued to tremble.
He woke up back in the med bay to find himself slathered in the ointment Nebula dropped off with him, and me once again in the wingback chair working my way through reports and emails.
"What is it you guys say," he said, "déjà vu?"
I smirked at him without looking up. "You're gonna get a lot of that if you keep ignoring your body's limits."
"Thought I said don't lecture me."
"You did, then you checked out before I had a chance to let you know I wasn't listening."
"Glad I missed it."
"Mmmm, you'd think that, wouldn't you," I said and paused to keep him hanging, and to action a couple of things on my tablet, "I wrote it all down, you have an email."
With sluggish effort, Rocket checked his inbox and groaned. "What is this?"
"Exercises. If you're so keen to do something, you can do those."
"But I wanna fix things."
"Then fix yourself first."
And he did. But mostly because I didn't give him a choice.
They were small tasks to help his body get used to itself again. Reminders that it was one cohesive whole.
Gentle stretches.
A couple hundred steps every hour.
Climbing a flight of stairs.
Each building up his tolerance and stamina until they were high enough for a bit of normality.
Aside from the initial conversation, he did them without moaning, though that might have been because he worked himself to exhaustion.
I thought he got the message.
And that was a mistake, because when did he ever get the message without it being drilled into his head at least ten times previously?
Not too long after finding him collapsed and trembling I walked into the kitchen to grab my usual morning coffee. Except it wasn't my usual. It was the best damn coffee I'd ever had. When I looked, the machine bore clear telltale marks of someone voiding the warranty. But you know what? For coffee like that, screw the warranty. I have an engineer on speed dial anyway.
His trail of reconstruction continued and the noise of his tinkering defied all physics; sometimes it echoed throughout the compound as if the walls and ceilings didn't exist, and sometimes there was no knowing what he was doing unless I found him by accident. But he rested more, he did the exercises, he ate and he drank and listened to what he needed. He was far from the scurrying busybody we were used to, but he was on his way.
Even Steve was surprised when he stopped by for his weekly visit to find his ears accosted by sound usually confined to Tony's labs.
"What's happening?" He asked, settling against the kitchen counter with a steaming cup of the world's best coffee in his hands.
"Apparently the wildlife thinks I'm due an upgrade."
"Stark's okay with that?"
"Said to let him do what he needs to do, he can always check it over later."
"Is he up to it?" He waved his hand vaguely, "all that activity."
I pierced him with my most polished glare and he conceded the point with a nod of his head and a roll of his eyes before downing his drink in one go.
Rocket worked his way back into shape, helped by the reminders I insisted Friday bombard him with. When he kept telling Friday to shut up, Tony and I made sure he was followed around by one of the household bots the inventor had left behind when he first built the place. And when he started to dismantle them I followed him around with his meds and meals like some sort of deranged groupie.
"Do I need to get a restraining order?" He asked when he turned around to find me shaking a bottle of pills at him for the third time in a day.
"Do those things ever work?" I said, tipping out a couple of the capsules into his open palm. He was a stubborn fool but he was one who'd learned not to turn his nose up at whatever was keeping him healthy.
"Probably not on a spy, but that's why I carry my guns."
I laughed and handed him some bottled water. His frustration was easy to understand, the concern for wellbeing often came at the expense of regard for someone's personal space, for their need to be left alone to just be. And normally I might sympathise, except the last time I let him just be he worked himself towards a breakdown.
When the nightmares came it wasn't much of surprise. As his body healed his mind started to relax, flooding itself with images of what had happened. Flashes of pain striking him hard.
I don't know how long he'd been having them before I was aware. He was on the sofa, sleeping soundly after another day of healing and working. I was sat at my desk writing out a report because my life was still just that exciting.
He mumbled a couple of times, nothing too much out of the ordinary until he kicked out. The action was fast and jagged and a little too much for someone a little too injured.
By the time I sat beside him the kicking had stopped but he was tossing and turning and was a couple of seconds away from tumbling to the floor. Instead, a hand snagged on my hoody and he seemed to find comfort there. The unexpected impact enough to wake him up.
He breathed heavily through the haze of sleep and even as he grew aware of his surroundings he clung even tighter to my hoody, lungs heaving with the effort of just working.
It was a moment shared more than once in the wake of his nightmares, but once it passed we pretended it had never existed.
Then I walked into the shooting range, craving the feel of a gun in action and the satisfaction of a shot well taken, and everything was different. It was fresher, better, more challenging.
The old targets replaced with new.
Different angles introduced.
Moving targets with adjustable speeds.
A dizzying number of scenarios, which were programmed to change automatically after each cycle.
Tony hadn't footed the bill.
His heart might be in the right place, but his mouth wouldn't be able to help dropping a few wry comments if he was paying someone to muck around with a tech-heavy part of one of his buildings.
As with the coffee machine, I took a closer look. Noted every dent and scratch that said this was more a homemade job than a professional one. Not that it mattered, the place existed for the sole purpose of letting projectiles loose, scratches and dents were sort of the whole point.
It was definitely Rocket's handiwork. I just couldn't figure out why.
He never used the shooting range.
Come to think of it, he didn't much like coffee.
I wasn't in the mood to debate the why of it, though. All that mattered was that it was there and begging to be used. I shrugged my thoughts away.
Took aim.
And fired.
He decided to avoid me after that.
I let him.
Despite evidence to the contrary stacking up, he was smart and self-sufficient and could take care of himself. He'd suffered enough to make sure he wouldn't allow himself to get back into a state of utter dependence. There was a lot of value in giving someone their space. It was a thing I knew well.
Didn't mean other people were quite so generous.
"He said it was like you had your own personal attack dog." Okoye's unmistakable voice floated form a nearby room. I decided an impromptu walk around the compound was in order, my legs still weren't too happy with me after my extended stint at Rocket's bedside. "He wanted to wake you up as soon as Nebula landed. Had it in his head you'd be able to shed some light on your biology. She was not shy in telling him it wasn't going to happen. Even threatened him with his own severe injury once or twice."
I crept to the doorway and watched as Rocket absorbed the words. Aside from a few whisker twitches he gave nothing away. I couldn't help but wonder what he'd asked her in the first place. Much to the dismay of my innate spy nature, I left before I could find out. Busy schedules turned Friday treacherous as her constant stream of reminders and updates gave away my position.
So, when I asked for his whereabouts much later in the day I was surprised when Friday said he was in the parking garage. Once so full of other agents' cars, now it boasted nothing more than the motorbike and car I was surprised to find I still had when I returned from my fugitive days. I pulled up the security footage and it wasn't hard to spot him crouched by my bike, a bunch of tools at his side.
He was done by the time I made it to the garage. It was almost a cliché when he pulled a cloth from his back pocket and wiped the grease from his hands.
"You know, one wrong move and you would have been trapped under that thing."
"Good thing wrong moves aren't my thing."
I stopped in front of him, arms folded, and he refused look me in the eye. Granted, the difference in height made it that much more difficult, but he didn't even try. And I felt that if he did I would have the missing piece to the puzzle of his erratic behaviour.
"What was wrong with it?" I asked in the vague hope that questioning him would provoke him into looking up.
"Nothing. Just making it better."
"Hmm, you're certainly upgrading a lot of things."
"Yeah, well, just fixing this place up. Benefits everyone," he said and the grease rag was back in his pocket, his hands grasping the handle of the toolbox that was slightly too big for him.
"Like the coffee machine and the shooting range?" He gave one sharp nod but said nothing else, leaving it up to me. "At the moment, 'everyone' is just us. You don't drink coffee, and you definitely don't use the shooting range. And, that, is my bike, which I don't share with anyone."
"And?"
"One half of everyone is hardly everyone."
"Guess they're just special projects, then." The toolbox screeched against the floor in time with the soft padding of his bare feet, announcing his intention to leave.
"Why?" I asked but he continued past me and showed no desire to answer. I sighed. "There's a sandwich waiting for you in the fridge."
And for whatever reason that made him pause, a single breath escaped and without turning to look back at me he said, with a voice that sounded as uncomfortable as he'd looked in the wheelchair; "I ain't good with words, but I'm good with things." And then he screeched his way into the lift and out of my sight.
The coffee machine.
The shooting range.
My bike.
Three unlinkable things he'd somehow managed to link. In the absence of answers, and in the face of his slightly vague parting words, I took a closer look at the bike. I expected a few unfinished elements, reminiscent of his other special projects. But there was nothing. No sign of his tampering and tinkering. Almost as if he knew there'd be hell to pay if he damaged it.
Just like he knew coffee was not just a perk of my day, it was a necessity. More than I'd care to admit aloud. Just like he knew I went to the shooting range at least once a week and went through a routine so rigid it had long since become rote.
Three unlinkable things. Except, to Rocket, they were all linked to me.
My hand lingered on the seat and it all clicked into place. He did the work in the dead of night or snuck away when I was busy so there was no way I could turn down the things I didn't deserve.
The things that were the thank yous he didn't know how to say.
25 September 2020
Hi Tom,
Life with a racoon wasn't much different to life without.
When he wanted to he made himself scarce and I could pretend I was by myself again.
Not sure if that's a good thing or not.
Even with all the time he spent in the compound very little had passed between us. Less since our exchange in the garage.
At first I thought it was because there was an uneasiness between us, but that was a word that never really felt quite right. Then Okoye turned up last night, ahead of our team meeting, and I realised just how bad a fit the word truly was.
There was no unease.
It was just ease.
Comfort had settled between us and we weren't used to it. Not without a lot of struggle, anyway. We were used to fighting for acceptance, to proving ourselves, to defying expectations and the incredibly one-sided views people had in their heads.
With each other we never had to do any of that. We just were and that was enough.
But the pressure and tension I'd sensed in him when I first took him out in the wheelchair was still bubbling away beneath the surface, searching for a way out. And the addition of a third person had him on edge in a way I hadn't seen with Bruce or Emma or Steve.
He didn't know Okoye as well as he knew the others. All he knew was she was fearsome and he was injured. So used to being the predator in a life hardened by the constant battle for survival, he felt like he was prey. And sure, she might have been the one to make sure he had the best chance of recovery with the machine but she had also sent along Jelani who, by her own admission, had made his disregard for Rocket's wellbeing in favour of knowledge well known.
He skulked into the kitchen, skirting the walls in his stubbornly stupid attempt to avoid getting too close. His claws clacked against the tile, ever so slightly louder than the clatter of cutlery against crockery.
"You are welcome to join us," Okoye said without turning to look at him. If she had she might have seen the look of the hunted running into a dead end, his fraction-of-a-second-freezing before a blazing rage burned in his eyes and defrosted his muscles, which relaxed ever so slightly. And I thought that this was it, he was going to fly off the handle and unleash all the poison thoughts and toxic emotions he'd bottled so carefully. But he bit his tongue and straightened his back.
"Nah, I'm good," he said, and it was the same thing he told me when I invited him to have dinner with us before Okoye had arrived, "just want one of those smoothie things in the fridge."
"What is more important that joining us for a meal? The odds are unlikely that we'll be in the same place again for quite some time."
"Look lady..."
"Well, now you have to join us. The only way to pay for such rudeness is to fulfil my request." I could see the smirk hiding just below the surface of her stoic facade, but Rocket was still finding his feet after his injury and just when he would usually roll with it, he deflated a little under his uncertainty. I kicked a chair out for him and nodded to the untouched plate of food Okoye had insisted on putting out for him anyway. With a sigh he clambered up and tucked in. As the seconds went by, the more he relaxed he was.
"Rhodey won't be joining us tomorrow," I said, keeping it to business in an attempt to stick to ground Rocket knew how to cover, "he has some politicians to deal with."
"I am a politician," Okoye said, eyebrow quirked.
I shrugged. "Just saying the poor guy drew the short straw."
"How come he gets to miss out on these things but I don't?" Rocket said around a mouthful of fish.
"Maybe you should get hurt at the end of the month next time," I said, don't have to contribute much if you're in a coma."
"If you're not running the meeting next month, Nat, at least we know what you've done." Okoye said. "How is your recovery, Rocket?"
Having just taken another big bite of food, he almost choked on his answer. "I feel better," he finally managed, "think that machine of yours is a damn miracle worker."
"Let us not forget Stark's nanotech."
"I just mean, well, I just - er, thanks. But I'm not sure what you want as payback."
"I do not want anything. My intention was just to help. If I could replicate the machine and make it widely available, I would. But Shuri was the only one who could understand her own schematics."
Part of him accepted her answer, another part stayed suspicious. Through the rest of dinner and into the evening, he waited and waited for the other shoe to drop and for her to name her price. It never came.
This morning he seemed a little more at ease, a little more accepting that nothing would be asked of him.
"We busted up a bunch of criminals," Carol said, adding her report to the meeting, "they were a makeshift unit. A few con artists strung together by their not so imaginative vision of how to trick people out of their money."
"Same as usual?" I asked and she nodded in reply. On Earth, and across the galaxy, there was a rise in the almost cultist insistence that there was a way to protect people from ever disappearing on the air again, a method delivered by a select few chosen by the universe itself. All for the low low price of whatever they were asking for. Apparently there was some sort of intergalactic decree issued to dismantle any group making these claims, and the space Avengers had an open order to take care of any they came across.
"What I don't get," Carol said, "is how there are so many gullible people left."
"Guess not all of them have a head as astute as yours screwed onto their shoulders," Rocket said. Ripples of sighs chased each other around the table. Gone was the easy chat I'd accidentally witnessed between them. In the cold harsh light of day, Rocket was letting all that anger and frustration and everything he held back peek through once again. "Oh, but wait. Aren't you the same moronic meat sack who thought the Kree and their genocidal ways were okay?"
"Yes," I said and ignored the very heated look Carol shot at me, "and I'm the same moronic meat sack who did a lot of damage working for the bad guys, and they didn't even bother to hide the questionable nature of what they were doing, unlike the Kree. And Nebula is the same cyborg who did whatever her father asked for a chance at a glimmer of his approval."
Rocket slumped into his chair, and Okoye hid the little smirk I was starting to think she wore quite often at these meetings, the hologram making it a little harder to pick up.
"Not really sure who you're chastising there," Carol said because she was as much of a little shit as the racoon.
"Both of you. We're not here to judge the victims. Fear does strange things to people. And we're also not here to judge our pasts. We all have one."
"Guess the boss has spoken," Rocket snarked.
"Yes, she has." I scribbled something down in my notepad just to make him a little paranoid, the way he straightened in his chair was enough satisfaction. "Now, Okoye, how're things looking in the Southern Hemisphere?"
"My War Dogs are still scattered around and keeping me updated. There are no major changes. Since you arrested and handed over that arms dealer more of his ilk aren't so willing to step up and risk getting caught. In the wake of Erik Steves and Klaue, Wakandan justice has grown a fearsome reputation. Not always earned, but it is indeed a welcome deterrent."
"War Dogs," Rocket tasted the term on his tongue, "pretty aggressive name for an intelligence agency."
"There is nothing peaceful about intelligence," she said with a glint in her eye that seemed to remind Rocket of the unease he had felt yesterday, "just ask our esteemed leader."
He picked up on the danger in her voice and looked my way, measuring me up alongside the snippets he'd heard of my previous lives. In the end all he could do was shrug his shoulders and stare straight ahead.
"It's unlike you to be without a comeback," Nebula said.
"And it's not like you to join in on the banter," her partner snapped back.
"Oh, don't mind him," I prodded his shoulder, "being Earthbound makes him grumpy." Where there had once been sighs, chuckles rumbled around the team. Rocket kept his arms folded and his face still, but there was a smirk hidden beneath the fur and whiskers of his muzzle, as surely as Okoye had been hiding one earlier. And I sensed the tide of his anger was ebbing away.
"Speaking of which," Bruce piped up, "I've had your latest test results and they're quite promising. Actually, they're better than I hoped for at this point."
"What are you saying, doc?"
"I'm saying you have a clean bill of health. As soon as the Benetar can get here you're good to go."
Rocket's reaction was to be expected, he cheered at the news and made some crude comments, feeling more himself than he had in a while. Carol was pretty happy, too, her way off the ship finally in sight.
But it was Nebula I watched.
I remembered the woman who stood beside me the night Rocket was first admitted to the med bay. And this one, noiseless as always with the smallest of smiles flickering across her face, was so much more relaxed as relief flooded through her. The one person left from her past was still here. She was not about to become unmoored in the ocean of the unknown.
I fought the urge to look around the table.
Circled by faces that, two and half years ago, had shown no indication of being frequent visitors in my life. Faces belonging to people I never thought would stick with me.
The one person I would have put money on preferred the company of his sword and the corpses they created. The other now spent his days battling demons in support groups instead of bad guys on the streets.
The only face from my life before was Bruce's. And even that wasn't the same as it used to be.
A/N: Another sorry for how long this took!
Also, I just wanted to say thank you again to everyone who's commenting and favouriting and following. You're all too kind and your words really do help get me through the writer's block when it strikes. And just thank you for sticking with the story, I know the updates aren't that regular and that's really annoying of me, but you're sticking with it and that's amazing. Thank you :)