Peter liked 'The Guardians of the Galaxy' well enough as a group name- it had a really catchy ring to it even if it had been coined by a genocidal maniac. And now that 'Star-Lord' was finally starting to catch on (in some corners of the galaxy anyways) he had begun to entertain the idea of giving the others equally badass-sounding outlaw names.

'Ranger Rocket' had added alliterative appeal, and was a nice tribute to the bonafide superhero that saved Terran forests from wildfires… Or was it littering? 'Star-Sherriff' wasn't too bad either considering he used to be a bounty hunter and there was nothing more cowboy movie than 'bounty hunter'. 'Trash Panda' would drive Rocket mad but his superpower seemed to be the ability to build anything out of the cheap junk he hoarded so it was still very much in consideration. 'Lord of Explosions, Dynamight Murder' was also on the table.

Gamora was harder to brainstorm for. She already had a pretty kick-ass reputation and title but 'Deadliest Woman In The Galaxy' was altogether too wordy and 'Daughter Of Thanos' was everything she was trying to leave behind. He'd considered 'Black Widow' (named after a poisonous spider that lived in Australia which he was ninety-nine percent sure was named ironically and was green in colour) but she had never been married let alone widowed. 'The Green Hornet' worked too but he was pretty sure that made him liable for copyright infringement. He wasn't sure she'd appreciate the connection to insects but she was green and hornets were deadly…

"You are very lucky she is not a telepath." Cosmo pointed out.

It was a work in progress. Groot was too adorable to need an outlaw name, and in any case, far too young to have one. But when he got older, he hoped the tree would consider 'Grootzilla' or 'Tree-Rex'."

Drax the Destroyer was more or less already an outlaw name and one that summed up exactly who he was, though there was another that Quill felt suited him just as well.

"This is deplorable."

Captain Obvious.

Rocket's trail had lead the Guardians to a busted manhole cover that served as an entryway to Corix 85's sewer system.

"You're absolutely sure he went in there?"

"Positive." Cosmo grumbled. "If you ask me to follow him in, I would like to add hot shower to my list of terms and conditions."

"We could just wait at the Milano…" Peter mused, nevertheless clambering inside.

They had been following the endless piping for what felt like hours now. Occasionally they had to crawl on all fours or worse, go around entire piping systems just to follow the scent. Cosmo had to pause to get her bearings more often than not, and each time she paused Quill worried that the sewer's rank odour would prove too strong to leave any trace of raccoon behind.

It didn't help that Rocket seemed to have turned at every possible instance.

"Yo! Earth to Rocket! You there?" Quill's own echo reverberated down the chambers, but if Rocket heard he did not reply. "For the record, I was just joking about cooking you. It was just something Yondu used to say to me!"

"Give it a rest Peter," sighed Gamora, from the back of their awkward piping conga line. "That is not the reason we haven't found him yet."

"She is right," Drax added from directly behind Peter. "It is not you he fears. ROCKET! THERE IS NO NEED TO BE AFRAID! I HAVE NOT EATEN ONE OF YOUR KIND SINCE I WAS A CHILD!"

"Be careful," Cosmo warned. Despite the poor lighting Quill could just about make out the labrador's tail. "I can hear water from somewhere nearby. And it's getting louder and-" Cosmo's voice was cut off by her own yelp and before Quill knew what was happening he was falling too. And screaming. Instinctively he turned on his rocket boots, but because he was upside down that served only to speed up his downfall.

Behind him, Drax's cry of "QUILL!" turned into an echoing scream as the Kylosian joined him in free fall. He heard the familiar, comforting sound of Gamora drawing her sword. And then all he could hear was the churning, frothing mass of water he flew into.

It was ice-cold, and dimly reminded Peter of this one time Rocket had connected the shower room to his hotel bed.

"A little help here!" A short distance away Cosmo was now dutifully doing the doggy-paddle in a desperate attempt to keep her head above the water and stop the current from sweeping her away.

"One second Cosmo I've got you!" Quill yelled, flailing his arms about in an unsophisticated attempt at swimming. He had never learned as a kid and Yondu certainly hadn't taught him, but the motions were similar enough to the ones made in zero gravity for him to have a rough idea of what he was doing.

Swimming usually involved fewer Kylosians falling on top of you.

"If Rocket isn't already dead, I'm going to kill him." Gamora said matter-of-factedly as she wringed sewage water out of her hair. She had managed to slow down the rate of her fall by slicing her sword through the piping but had still been forced to dive into the water to save Drax and Peter and Cosmo from drowning.

"Alright, but let me shoot him first," Quill grumbled, slipping off a boot and shaking a pair of orloni out of it.

"And allow me to roast him afterwards," Drax muttered darkly.

Cosmo shook herself dry, or rather mostly dry, showering the Guardians in more sewage. "I've lost the scent," she admitted, sheepishly. "Not going to be able to smell him over this filth."

"You can track with more than just scent," Gamora pointed out, drawing their attention to the ground. "There are footprints."

Rocket's tracks (and they knew they belonged to Rocket because he had small feet) lead outside the sewers, which was all kinds of a relief. From there it became a much simpler matter of following the stench of sewage water into one of Corix 85's main streets.

Or rather… whatever was left of it. Stalls and shopping carts had been knocked to their side, a small ship had crashed and exploded, dozens of corpses were aflame and chunks of roasted meat hung off of mechanical arms and legs.

"Just a quick little rain-check," Quill cleared his throat, very uncomfortable by what he was looking at. "We all agree that Rocket was definitely in some way, shape or form involved in whatever the hell happened here?"

"Da."

"Yes."

"Without a doubt."

"Check for survivors?" Quill suggested.

No sooner had he said this than a Kree with a warhammer rose from the ashes, laughing uproariously and pumping his fist. "Yes! Victory! Victory for Hala!"

Because you never knew when you'd just seen too much for your brain to handle, Quill felt obliged to ask. "I'm not the only one seeing Ronan's identical-"

"Ronan didn't have any siblings," Gamora cut in, before Drax could get any ideas. "Kree. Could you tell us what happened here?"

"For a price!" he turned to face them, his grin morphing into a look of horror as he realized who he had just tried to extort. "D-daughter of Thanos-"

Gamora raised a hand for silence. "Please take us to any establishment of your choice, so long as it has a functional washroom. Quill will buy you a drink."

That caught the terran by surprise. "I will?"

"You will," Gamora turned to him so sharply that for a moment Quill was sure he'd been cut in half. "And I am going to have a shower and you are all going to do the same because Rocket still hasn't fixed the one aboard the Milano and I refuse to live in a ship that smells like a septic tank."

A short while later they were in yet another one of Corix 85's shady bars. There was only one washroom available and noone had thought to contest Gamora for it so Drax, Cosmo and Peter sat at a table while Rohak of Hala regaled them with his tale.

"It was a great battle. These abominations of biomachinery and the ones controlling them began to lay waste to the market. No doubt they disagreed with some of the prices. Such things are not at all uncommon here on Corix. Lacking honor as these beings did, none would dare face me in close quarters."

Drax shook his head in plain disgust. "How do such scum live with themselves?"

"The answer to that question has always eluded me. I was forced to take shelter behind a fruit cart, where I quickly forged an alliance with this gerbil-"

Quill raised a hand."Can we pause for a second?"

Rohak nodded.

"I just wanted to clarify whether or not this gerbil happened to be three foot tall with a bushy tail and a kind of bandit mask around his eyes?"

"That is exactly what he looked like, yes!" the Kree slammed his drink down with unnecessary force. "Do you know him?"

Unsure as he was about Rocket's relationship to the blue alien, and not at all keen on entering a brawl with Ronan 2.0, Quill tried his best to form a noncommittal answer.

"Rocket is Quill's second best friend," Drax supplied.

"Excellent!" the Kree roared, and there was a horrible moment where Quill was sure he was about to be killed. "Give him my gratitude for the victory in battle. I knew my sacrifice would not be in vain."

"Do you know where he is?" asked Drax, ever to-the-point.

"I'm afraid I do not. Perhaps he is celebrating in an establishment such as this one? Corix has quite a few of them I can assure you-"

"If you're looking for Rocket, don't bother." Grunted the barman, a gruff-looking reptiloid with four arms and just as many eyes.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Let me guess- he ate a bar of chocolate, had an allergic reaction, and died last winter."

The bartender scoffed. "That's what he asked me to say but I figured I'd do him an actual favour and give you a proper reason not to. He's gone clean. Works for Nova now. Apparently he single-handedly saved Xandar and blasted that Ronan feller with an Infinity Rock." The reptile shrugged with all his arms. "Can't tell you the truth of that, but I can tell you he's not worth trying to take on the whole damn Corps for." He sighed and held out a holo of a younger reptiloid that looked very much like him, wearing a bright pink bow and squeezing what looked like a life-sized Rocket plushie but closer inspection revealed to in fact be a very pissed-off looking Rocket instead. "Plus my little one thinks he's cute."

"Is that from today?"

The barman grunted. "He wanted a favour so I asked for one in return."

"Could you please send me that?" asked Cosmo."I need it very much."

"I could use the blackmail material too, not gonna lie," added Quill.

The reptile grunted in the affirmative.

They exchanged comm links, the holo was sent through and Quill couldn't wait to see the look of horror on Rocket's face. "For the record, we're not hunting him down or anything. He's part of my crew."

"Speak for yourself Comrade, I am hunting him down!"

Quill ignored her. "Speaking of which, he reeeeally should be back at the ship by now. Hey Rohak, could I borrow your comm?"

"Certainly," said the Kree, tossing it over.

Dialling Rocket's comm sent him straight to static, so Quill hailed the Milano instead. If he was lucky the little bastard would pick up and-

"I am Groot!"

When was he ever that lucky? "Okay Groot, I can't understand what you're saying so if the answer is 'no' don't say anything and if the answer is 'yes' just say anything. Got it?"

"I am Groot."

"Okay. Is Rocket back at the ship?"

There was no reply.

"Have you heard from him at all?"

"I am Groot."

"Really? What did he say?" Quill didn't often think of himself as an idiot, but he sure had his moments... "Nevermind, the recordings should be saved. I'll look at them later. He's not in trouble right?"

"I am Groot."

"...Is that a 'yes he's in trouble' or a 'yes he's not in trouble'."

"I am… Groot?"

"Yeah sorry, my bad. The last time he contacted you- did he say he was in trouble?"

There was no reply, which meant no, which meant- "Great! So he's fine." He breathed a sigh of relief despite himself. "We'll be back in a bit Groot, just need to get cleaned up first. Loooong story."

Cosmo got the next shower, Peter took the one after her. And as they were waiting for Drax to finish his, the Legendary Star-Lord found himself breathing another sigh of relief.

"Okay, don't get me wrong. I'm still mad at him. He dragged us to this dump, then kept us waiting, then sent us on a wild goose chase, made us follow him into a sewer and I'm pretty sure he committed at least three warcrimes… but I kinda got scared he was dead earlier and that really puts things into perspective."

"I would feel a lot better if we knew where he was," Gamora remarked. "And I really can't stress enough how much I want to leave this planet already. I should have brought this up earlier but one of the main reasons I didn't want to come to Corix is-"

The door to the bar burst open and in walked three of the most generic-looking baddies Quill had ever seen. One had no nose, one had a pointy nose and one was a chick. All wore black and were channelling harcore goth vibes that seemed entirely out of place in the otherwise colourful crowd.

"Sister!" drawled Noseless, stepping forwards. "We've been looking all over for you."

"The Children of Thanos hold sway here," Gamora finished. She got to her feet, and turned to face them with a sigh of resignation. "Ebony, Corvus, Proxima."

"Clear out," snarled the chick (Proxima Midnight) and the bar's patrons hastened to obey.

Rohak stumbled to his feet. "Thank you for the drinks. I'm afraid though, this battle is not for me."

"I'll wire you the bill," grunted the barman, dragging the Kree out the backdoor.

"Cosmo is staying." Said Cosmo, raising a leg to scratch at her ear.

"So the rumours are true," snarled the one with a pointy nose (Corvus Glaive). "You have a boyfriend. And a cat."

Gamora gave him a look, and drew her sword. "Where's Cull?"

"Where's Nebula?" Noseless (Ebony Maw) shot back.

"Hey, ET! She asked you first!" Peter snapped, casually drawing his blasters under the table.

The extra-terrestrial in question did not even glance in Quill's direction. "He is on his way. Although I daresay you'll be dealt with before he gets here. Your turn."

Gamora shrugged. "I don't know. Last I saw, she was with Ronan."

"A traitor like you then." Proxima drew a three-pronged spear.

"We will deal with her later." Corvus brandished a glaive.

"Father will want Gamora alive." Ebony almost smiled. "Kill her companions."

"Peter, get the ship!" snapped Gamora, raising her sword to parry the spear, as besides her, Quill shot to his feet and shot the one-that-looked-like-an-evil-santa-elf in the face. "Now!"

"I'll be right back!" he promised, slapping on his helmet and rushing for the backdoor.

Maw raised a finger, turning two of the barstools into sharpened projectiles large enough to skewer a small whale and with a lazy flick sent them hurtling towards the retreating terran.

Only for them to come to an abrupt halt in mid-air.

Cosmo growled, and raised a pair of tables off the ground. "Do not ever call me a cat!"

Rocket stirred into being, his head still buzzing from the electric shock. He could feel the hum of a rumbling engine, and hear the bubbly warble of a jump point. Someone had draped an itchy blanket over him… Dimly, he dared to hope that he was aboard the Milano and any second now Drax would yell something, or Quill's music would start playing or Gamora would remind him to replace the showerhead his quantum grenade had blown up… He wasn't normally one for wishful thinking, but the alternative was accepting that the first friend's he'd ever had had come back from the dead and were now making his worst nightmares a reality. At best, Sire wanted vengeance and would just straight up murder him. At worst he'd keep Rocket on the verge of death for stupid pointless experiment after stupid, pointless experiment until the end of time.

With his luck, the second option was far more likely and, never having gotten out of anything via the power of wishful thinking, Rocket opened his eyes.

They had put him in a cage. That ruled out the Milano… unless the others were still mad about the time spent on Corix? That was more wishful thinking, but frankly Rocket would have preferred the oven. He was also cuffed, Standard Issue Shoplu Tech, built to his size… and he was pretty sure he'd told them about the time he'd hotwired a pair of Shoplu cuffs into a semi-lethal taser. And they had muzzled him- if it was silence the Guardians wanted, Quill would have found it much more amusing to turn up the music and pretend he couldn't hear him.

That meant old friends rather than new. That flarking sucked.

Fifteen seconds later, the muzzle and cuffs came off with an audible 'click'. He waited to make sure noone heard it, before jamming a claw in the lock. He sniffed at the air as he did so, his ears swivelling slowly to try and pick up any sounds. He could make out the tell-tale scents of Batch 89 easily enough, but it was hard to pinpoint where exactly it was coming from when Rocket himself stunk of sewage and explosions.

The cage clicked open, and taking a breath, Rocket slunk out. He couldn't afford to panic. He couldn't afford to freeze up. There would be a time for emotionalistic bullshit later. For now he had to focus on the present and view them as threats. Lylla and Floor both heavily relied on their cybernetics to function, all he needed was a half-decent EMP. He could probably turn the cuffs into one in less than a minute. Teefs would need a stronger knock-out voltage, but was by far the least threatening, so Rocket could afford to deal with him last. In fact, it was likely the big lug was still out-

"FOUND YOU!" Floor chirped behind him.

With a screech altogether too animalistic for his liking, Rocket whirled around to face the rabbit.

"Woooow! Shiny eyes!" Rocket was well aware that his eyes glowed in the dark. It came paw in paw with his excellent night vision and came in handy when pranking Quill. It was also the reason he preferred to wear goggles when skulking around in hostile territory- nothing gave your position away like a pair of glowing eyeballs.

Because Floor couldn't help herself, she promptly poked him in one.

"OW! What the frick!? That hurts, what's wrong with you?" Rocket stepped back, wetting a paw on his tongue and rubbing at the eyeball. All things considered it was a miracle she hadn't poked it out.

The rabbit's antennas drooped. "Sorry! Just… so… shiny! Wanted to… Sorry P13…"

Rocket sighed. "Could you please stop calling me that?"

The lights flickered on, forcing him to squint as he adjusted to the new visibility.

"What's wrong with P13?" asked Lylla, as she slunk over to stand beside Floor. Rocket watched with no small amount of envy as they shared a mechanical fist bump.

He tensed up, eyes darting to the cage. Twenty seconds. He just needed twenty seconds with the cuffs and he had a working EMP-

"Hate to ask, but could you give it a rest?" The otter sighed, as if she had known what he was thinking. "I get running is your thing but-"

The audacity of the statement derailed all thoughts of escape. "You punched me first!"

She had the grace to look away. "Okay. Look. I'm sorry. I was told you were likely to resist and that I had to use whatever methods were required to bring you in. I was just trying to knock you out-"

"Oh well that just makes it so much better," Rocket snarled. He could feel the emotions beginning to swell again. He was really coming to loathe the stupid heartbeat racing, ears pinned to his head, tears in his eyes song and dance, so he turned away from her. He found himself facing the humongous form of Teefs instead and was so startled he leapt a foot in the air with another animalistic shriek. "How the hell did you sneak up on me!?"

The walrus did a kind of motion with his flippers that Rocket supposed counted as a shrug. "You were distracted. Also, I hardly think you're qualified to talk about other's misuse of violence." Teefs shuddered.

The raccoon winced. "...Sorry you had to see that."

The walrus shrugged again. "I did want to thank you for saving my life though. Or well… trying to… Even if you are the one who shot me down. And you could have gone about it a lot better than crawling into the wreckage without a plan and slapping me." Teefs rubbed at a spot on his face. "That really hurt, you know?"

"Well your fat ass wasn't moving so I panicked!" Rocket snapped. But that wasn't what the walrus wanted to hear and it wasn't what the raccoon meant to say either, so Rocket raised a claw to make sure noone interrupted, took a deep breath and amended. "I'm sorry. I just… didn't want you dying on me."

"Apology accepted!" Teefs said brightly, instantly perking up again. He wheeled around the raccoon to join Floor and Lylla. He comically towered over them too, but it seemed more natural. Like they were used to it.

Rocket sighed. Even if he had an EMP ready he probably wouldn't have been able to use it. And Teefs was likely to just roll over him if he tried…

Lylla's voice snapped him out of his reverie. "Question. What does Lylla mean?"

"Huh?"

"Lylla." The otter repeated. "When you first saw me, you said 'Lylla'. I've never heard it before and for some reason the word won't translate." She paused, frowning slightly as a new thought crossed her mind. "It's not rude is it?"

"It's your name."

It was Lylla's turn to go "Huh?" The otter raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean 'my name'? I don't-"

"Lylla!" Floor interrupted, bouncing around in excitement as if she'd just been given candy. "Lyyyyyylla… Lyllaaaaaaaaaa…"

"That's a pretty good name!" Teefs bobbed his head up and down in approval and clapped his flippers together in excitement. "What's mine?"

Rocket swallowed. He didn't dare to hope for anything, and if his heartbeat was anything to go by he'd freeze up again sooner or later. But talking to his friends was a lot less painful than trying to fight them... "It's Teefs."

The walrus' bulging mechanical eyeballs blinked.

Lylla snorted.

"Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefs…" Floor echoed.

"Oh I see." Teefs huffed, his eyes narrowing. "Just because I happen to have a pair of prominent teeth- and for the record they're not teeth actually, they're tusks-"

"Tusks are teeth!" Rocket interrupted.

"They are not!"

Before the raccoon could protest that further, Floor bounced between them. "Me! Me! Me! What's my name!"

"Your name is Floor," Rocket said matter-of-factedly. He hesitated a moment, and refused to look Teefs in the eye when he added. "Because… you were lying on the floor."

Lylla had the grace to hold her muzzle as she laughed.

"Floor!" giggled Floor, not at all bothered by how silly it sounded. "Floooooooooooor!"

Teefs was somehow even more bothered by her choice of name than his own. "Wow! So are you 'Mask' because you named yourself after your most prominent feature, or are you 'Wall' because you happened to be leaning on one at the time?"

That question knocked all the fight out of him. "It's Rocket," he sighed, slumping in defeat.

"Roooocket," Floor repeated. "Rockeeeeeeet."

Teefs blinked again, but noted the raccoon's palpable misery and went on in a slightly gentler tone. "Did you happen to be on a rocket when you chose it?"

"No. Well, yes. But no. I…" The words caught in his throat. He had named himself Rocket because he'd seen one flying. Because rockets flew and all he had wanted was to build one and see what the sky was like. And he had wanted, more than anything, to do it with the idiots he was currently talking to. He shrugged. "I thought it sounded cool."

"What's my name?" came a new voice, and Rocket turned to see another thing that there was likely only one of in the Galaxy. They had a vague resemblance to Floor, with long ears that pointed upwards and a similar kind of head shape. But they were larger, their fur was black instead of white and most of them seemed biological- at least in the same way most of Rocket was biological.

"Who the hell are you?" The raccoon returned.

"P13," Floor prodded Rocket on the chest, and then did the same for the newcomer. "89J0100."

"Sorry for shooting you in the face," said J0100, offering one paw and high-fiving one of Floor's legs with the other. "You er- did… did quite a bit of murdering there…" the hare chuckled nervously. "So I may have overreacted."

"It was either them or me," Rocket batted the paw away. "I tend to choose 'me' whenever that's the case."

"So why'd you try and save A95?" asked Lylla.

The raccoon's whiskers bristled. "That's different."

"And L06 says you saved her from drowning," the new jackass added.

Rocket's ears fell flat against his head. He could feel his eyes beginning to sting again and hastily brought a paw to rub at them. How was he supposed to explain it in a way they'd understand? How was he supposed to explain that he dreamed about them every time he closed his eyes? That they had been, and still were, his entire world. How was he supposed to explain that their deaths lay on his shoulders and he'd gone around hating the galaxy and everyone in it and mostly himself because they… they...

"Because you're my friends."

Footnote: Rocket's not the only one with a crazy past out to get him. The Black Order aren't particularly interesting characters imo (admittedly I've only seen them in the MCU and in the Disney XD Guardians show) but I do think they provide a very fun parallel to Rocket's conflict with Batch 89 and well, the main reason I have them show up here is to give the Guardians something to do while Rocket gets to go through the whole emotionalistic gamut he's not equipped to deal with.

For those who know comics, 89J0100 is my exceeeeeeeeeedingly clever way of bringing Black Jack O'Hare into the story. It was not something I had planned from the start but there's a lot of interesting things I can do with him so very glad he's along for the ride and hope you like him. The bit with Rocket here was mostly to expand a bit on the personalities of Batch 89 as they are now. Next week, more of Rocket and his batchmates!