Not for the first time, Gamora wondered what her father would have made of her choice of companions.
She doubted he'd care for Groot, at least not in his current state as a sentient houseplant. The first Groot had been made of stronger stuff, but had been altogether too gentille for Thanos' liking.
He could have probably brought himself to respect Drax's warrior spirit but wouldn't have been as keen on the Destroyer's single-minded determination to kill him. The fact that Drax's entire strategy to kill Thanos no doubt amounted to rushing at him with a pair of daggers earned him no favours.
She had no idea what he'd make of Star-Lord. On the one hand, he was an idiot with his head in his music player, who's first instinct when faced with a genocidal maniac wielding an infinity stone had been to challenge him to a dance off. On the other hand, Peter Quill had somehow convinced the Nova Corps that a group of escaped prisoners and a fleet of Ravagers had come to Xandar to save it. And he had won his dance-off against said genocidal maniac. He was an honorable man with dishonorable ways, and she supposed Thanos' opinion would depend on what kind of first impression Peter set.
Finally, there was Rocket, who if he had his way, would never get within a parsec of Thanos' judgement. Not that her father would care. Loud-mouthed, quick-tempered Rocket, who was not nearly as good at pretending to be an asshole as he thought he was; who built bombs because he was scared, and who was needlessly sensitive about almost everything was about the last person she'd expect to earn the Titan's approval.
And not for the first time Gamora was thrilled to think that she didn't care. They were her friends and she approved of them. She liked Groot. She liked Drax, and spent the most time out of any of them trying to explain metaphors to him. She liked Quill and his music and listened with genuine interest whenever he tried to explain something Terran to the rest of them. She liked Rocket and wherever she could, she stepped over his metaphorical landmines. It was the least she could do.
The least he could do in return was be considerate of the fact that she had wanted to spend as little time on this planet as possible. She would have liked to avoid Corix entirely, but it'd been his turn to choose their next pit-stop and not getting the same things as the rest of them was a particularly volatile landmine of his.
Still…
"It has been six hours and a half."
"This is his fault!" bellowed Drax, pointing a Kree somboter (space courgette) at Quill with such intensity it might as well have been a dagger. "Rocket would have returned by now if he wasn't so deathly afraid of Quill's threats to devour him!"
"He was already late when I said that!" the human protested with a wild, dismissive wave of his hands. "And I'm pretty sure he knows I didn't mean it! It's an empty threat! Yondu used to say to me all. The. Time!"
"You yourself said you were uncertain about whether or not Yondu was being serious!"
"Rocket is no fool, Drax," Gamora remarked. "I'm more concerned about him doing something stupid of his own accord." Mentally, she re-calibrated that sentence.
"Like what?"
"Corix is one of the largest black markets in the galaxy and Rocket doesn't even pay for things with other people's units. There is no number of foolish things he could do."
"Okay, but I actually think Drax kind of has a point and just to be on the safe side, I'm going to go ahead and be the bigger man and apologise." As Gamora rolled her eyes, Quill cleared his throat and dialled up the comm. "Yo, Rocket. Sorry if I crossed a line. I'm still kind of new to this Captain stuff. We kind of want to get off Corix if that's okay with you so could you please hurry back? Oh and if you're not in trouble or anything, please respond. Drax is getting worried."
There was no response.
"Maybe he's drunk?" ventured Peter, and Gamora could tell that Drax was not the only one getting worried.
"We should go looking for him," she said simply. They had dismissed the idea at first because there was so much ground to cover and because they'd feel stupid if they all went looking for him only for him to get back to the ship and wait for them only for him to go looking for them before they returned to the ship. But that had been three hours ago. "Split up and check every bar that looks even slightly disreputable." Nevermind that that was pretty much every bar on the planet.
Drax nodded and left without a word. He returned a moment later to swap the somboter for his knives, while Gamora buckled on her sword and Quill left a final order for Groot.
"If he comes back before we do, tell him to wait here for us. And tell him he's grounded and not allowed to invent anything for the next twelve cycles. And then play some sad music for him to mope to."
Ever since they'd chosen names for themselves Batch 89 had referred to each other by name and name only. Floor was Floor, Teefs was Teefs, Lylla was Lylla and Rocket was Rocket. He should have known something was off as soon as he'd heard his designation. He shouldn't have let her get into striking distance.
But then Rocket couldn't blame himself for not thinking rationally when confronted by someone he had gotten killed, who's death he'd been forced to watch and who had for all accounts and purposes, died in his arms. He didn't even acknowledge that Quill had sent him another message. It played out like the first time but he didn't hear it over the sound of his rapidly beating heart and the hum of a hundred memories. He had eyes only for Lylla and for once his ridiculously over-sized gun felt too heavy to lift.
They stood like that for a minute or two before the otter frowned and cocked her head to the side. "Geez, you're shaking like a leaf. I'm not that scary, am I?"
Rocket forced his mouth open, but all that came out was a kind of strangled choking.
Lylla huffed. "You're not exactly hot stuff yourself, you know. So are we fighting or what?"
It was a good question, and not one he wanted the answer to.
But when do I ever get what I want?
It would be in self defence. The gunshot was deafening. He wasn't shooting to kill. Lylla fell without a sound. He couldn't let her drag him back to a fate worse than death. "Sky," she whispered, as the air rushed from her lungs. She was just another whackjob to take down. The most important person in the world lay dead at his feet.
With a feral scream Rocket opened fire. Lylla brought her arms up and crouched behind them to absorb the shots- not that any came near her. She waited, keeping count of the rounds as they flew by; briefly wondering why such an awful shot carried a gun in the first place.
A 'click' told her he needed to reload.
Without missing a beat, Lylla threw herself forwards, slamming a fist into the concrete where his head had been and sending cracks spider-webbing across the already-dilapidated building. She felt more than heard the buzz of electricity as the raccoon swapped his ammo feed to taser rounds and pointed the gun straight at her face.
It was a clean shot from point blank. He couldn't miss. She couldn't dodge. And if she raised an arm to block it the charge would carry to the rest of her.
But Rocket hesitated.
Lylla didn't.
Grabbing the rifle by the barrel she wrenched it upwards so that the ball of lightning flew harmlessly overhead. Tearing the whole thing out of his paws she sent him sprawling backwards with a kick to the ribs.
"You're not nearly as good at this as I thought you would be," the otter mused, crumpling up the rifle and tossing it over her shoulder as if it was nothing more than a candy wrapper.
Rocket scrambled backwards, fumbling with a gravity mine that slipped from his fingers and rolled harmlessly towards her. It clattered to a stop at Lylla's feet, and lay there unused. In response she gave him a smile that was almost sympathetic. Somehow that hurt more than any of her punches had. "Never learned to fight?"
Rocket swallowed and blinked back tears. Whenever his mind shifted gears from 'trying to process emotional overload' to 'survival mode' (a methodology he was intimately more familiar with), he figured he only really had one option. "I learned to run."
Tossing a sonic grenade into the air, Rocket shot off on all fours. The drug store crumbled to dust from the resounding BOOM! as the raccoon sped through the escape route he'd carved out when he first opened fire.
Lylla was hot on his heels, propelling herself forwards purely with the strength of her powerful, cybernetic arms. They had never raced before- at least not over any distance greater than the confines of their cages- so Rocket had no way of knowing if he could outrun her.
But he'd accounted for that. One of the first things he had learned about the real world was that you didn't half-ass an escape plan.
He passed the bullet holes he'd left as an indicator of distance, hoped he hadn't gotten his maths wrong, and switched the gravity-mine on at full power. He caught her mid-pounce and a cry of surprise, followed by the distinct and distant warble of someone hitting a gravity-mine told him he'd gotten her.
Success had never tasted so bitter.
"I'm sorry!" It took all the strength in the world to keep running. But he knew that if he turned back now he wouldn't be able to leave.
The deadliest woman in the galaxy walked into a bar.
The music stopped, the conversation died, all eyes turned towards her.
Gamora knew they all knew who she was. She was a Daughter of Thanos and some of her siblings held sway in this sector. Announcing her presence in their territory after the fiasco on Xandar was a challenge in all but words. It was one of the reasons she hadn't wanted to come to Corix 85 and the main reason she had volunteered to stay on the ship and watch Groot while the others resupplied. She would have preferred to avoid confrontation altogether but her teammates were worth the risk.
Besides, what good was freedom if she couldn't go wherever she pleased?
"I'm looking for a bounty hunter," she said simply, and practically the entire bar lurched to their feet.
"That goes by Rocket," she added, and they all sat down again with an audible grumble. "Has he been here?"
He had been. Several hours ago, to force the bartender on pain of pain into doing a favour for him.
"Anyone comes looking for me, I want you to come up with the most gruesome, violent and painful ending you can think of and tell them aaaaaaaaall the details."
The bartender in question, a diminutive Kree who had no doubt fled the Empire due to his extraordinary physical weakness, made the mistake of breaking her eye contact. It was a small gesture but one that immediately told Gamora he knew something he wasn't telling her.
She took three steps forwards and put a knife to his throat. "Where is he?"
"L-lady Gamora," the Kree stammered. "I-I'm afraid h-he was crushed to death in the Contest of Champions last week!"
"Huh?"
"H-his big poofy tail- it got caught in the vacuum of the arena a-and it was- he was fighting this Aaskavarian with far too many tentacles- with teeth on them of course, t-to tear off chunks of his body. And they were fighting over a volcano- a volcano of acid mind you-"
"You are trying to tell me," Gamora cut in, voice perfectly deadpan. "That the person who keyed in the coordinates for my ship today, was killed last week."
Rocket shot across the ground on all fours, keeping off the streets and sticking to rooftop crannies and sliding through pipework wherever he could. Lylla had given his position away to someone and there was no way of telling which direction that someone would be coming from. It had been an especially harsh lesson but another thing he'd learned about running away was that you were never supposed to do what was expected of you.
Sire stood there, a smoking blaster held all-too-casually. "Yes, I thought you might do something like this. Back in the cage P13."
The memory sent a shudder down his spine and filled his throat with bile.
He paused to catch his breath in the relative safety of a sewage pipe. As his heartrate slowed to it's usual tempo, Rocket screwed his eyes shut and allowed himself to process everything that had just transpired and all the new information he had been hit with. There was a lot to go through.
One, Lylla was alive. That was good. That was very, very good.
Two, Lylla didn't know who he was, or didn't care. That was bad. And hurt.
Three, Lylla was still somehow in the palm of their Sire. That was infinitely worse.
Four, Sire was alive. That was bad, but then a part of Rocket had known that vicious bastards like him didn't just die even if you clawed their faces off.
Five, Sire was after him. Again, bad, but vicious bastards like him really didn't appreciate getting their faces clawed off; it was one of the few things they had in common with regular folk.
Six, Lylla had broken the pot he'd so painstakingly chosen for Groot and getting a new one was not an option now. Groot would forgive him but that didn't make him feel any less guilty about it.
Seven, he was going to have to admit that Gamora was right and that coming to Corix had been a terrible idea.
Eight, he was going to have to tell her and Quill and Drax that in all his soft-hearted, mushy-gushy stupidity he'd only chosen Corix so that he could square off any debts he had to intergalactic gangsters who hated him for robbing their banks and kicking their asses one too many times. Or at least convince them that he had died a painful death and that there was no reason to come after him and ruin the dumbass friendship thing he had going with a tree, a moron, a maniac and an assassin.
Nine, he was going to have to tell said tree, moron, maniac and assassin that in the process of burying the shades of his past, far worse shades than the one's he'd been trying to bury had shown up and he kind of wanted to save one of them because he was actually really glad she was alive even if her being alive made absolutely no sense and even if she was trying to drag him back to someone he was pretty sure wanted to tear him apart again.
Ten, he was going to have to tell them about Lylla.
"Reeeeeally looking forwards to that date now, Quill." Rocket muttered, reaching for his comm unit. "Tell the oven to wear something fancy, I'll try and grab some flowers." He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, regretted it because sewage pipe, and did his best to keep his voice from shaking.
Tapping the call button, he was met with a burst of static strong enough to make him flinch, and then winced as the device exploded in a shower of sparks.
Eleven, the sonic grenade had fried his communicator.
The Legendary Star-Lord walked into a bar. Noone batted an eye. He had to shove and push, and then blame someone else for doing all the shoving and pushing, before he could even get to the bartender. Who then very pointedly ignored him.
"Hey! Hey, excuse me! Sir! Er- madam?- oh forget this." It took all of three more minutes for the former Ravager to figure out that there was an easier way to go about it and fired a few shots into the ceiling.
That got everyone's attention.
"My name is Peter Quill, I go by Star-Lord. Former-Ravager. Guardian of the Galaxy. Saviour of Xandar. You might have heard of me." He pocketed his pistols and struck a pose.
Blank faces stared back at him as crickets chirped in the background. He was used to it.
"I'm looking for an angry raccoon about 'yay big'," and he gave a very unflattering indicator of size with his hands. "Carrying a gun about 'yay big'," and he gave a very flattering indicator of size with his hands. "He likes to make money, shoot things and blow things up. Goes by Rocket. If you've seen him, you'll know him." He looked the bartender straight in the eye. "Has he been here?"
He had been. Several hours ago, to bribe the bartender with a big fat unit slip into doing a favour for him.
"What do you mean I'm asking you to be too creative!? One death! I just need one gruesome death! It don't even need to be anything special- just tell 'em I died in an explosion! I smell of gunpowder and sleep with grenades- noone would be surprised!"
"I am very sorry Mister Star-Lord." Quill's momentary delight that his outlaw name was finally catching on was brutally crushed by the words that came next. "He died in an explosion."
Thankfully, fixing up the comm didn't end up being too difficult. It was also surprisingly easy to get a signal from inside a sewage pipe. Who knew?
"Quill!" he cleared his throat because that had sounded far too desperate for his liking. "Ahem, Quill, do you hear me?"
There was no answer.
"Gamora? Drax?"
There was no answer.
Rocket swallowed, and did his best to turn his deepest darkest fears into a joke. "Y'know, I'd have picked someplace nicer if I knew you guys'd be ditching me."
There was a crackle of static. And then a voice.
"I am Groot!"
"Looking for me!? Why would the- Where would they even start!?"
"I am Groot."
"Do they have any idea how little that narrows it down!?"
"I am Groot!"
"Idiots," Rocket breathed, more relieved than he'd ever say out loud.
"I am Groot?"
His biological insides squirmed with guilt. "Y-yeah I got you a pot."
"I am Groot!"
"It's…" Broken, and you can thank auntie Lylla for that. "Yellow."
"I am Groot!"
"You said you loved yellow!"
"I am Groot!"
"'Liked' yellow, same difference."
"I am Groot!"
"It looks the same on me as on anybody else!"
"I am Groot!"
"Okay, okay, fine. I'll get you a different one."
"I am Groot?"
"Sure, with flowers, why not?"
"I am Groot!"
"Hehe, yeah…" Rocket scratched idly at his chest, remembering why he'd called in the first place. "Hey listen buddy, I'm… I'm in a bit of trouble."
"I am Groot?"
"No, nothing I can't handle." His ears flicked at the sound of distant tapping, and Rocket lowered his voice to a whisper. "But backup would be really frickin' appreciated!"
"I am Groot!"
That brought his voice up again. "What do you mean you're on your way!? You can't even walk!"
"I am Groot!"
"NO! Stay in your pot! I-I can handle this!"
Groot went quiet and Rocket worried for a moment that he'd spoken too harshly. Whatever, he'd make it up to Groot later. With a nice big pot with flowers on it.
"Hey, you still practising your letters?"
"I am Groot!"
"Heh, knew that would come in handy! J-just get my infoglass a-and try and let the other guys know, okay?"
"I am Groot?"
There was that tapping sound again.
"Tell them I'm… tell them that I would really, really appreciate it if we could get the flark off this planet right now."
"I am Groot!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Gamora was right…"
"I am Groot?"
"I told you, I'm fine!" Rocket snapped. The line went silent, and after an agonising minute or two of imagining the hurt look on Groot's face, the raccoon sighed and pinched the bridge of his muzzle. He really was bad at this parenting crap. "I'm sorry, buddy. It's just been… a day."
"I am Groot."
"I know, I know. I… I love you too."
Drax the Destroyer walked into a bar.
It was crowded, smelled vile and the music playing in the background was irksome. This was exactly the kind of place Rocket would frequent.
"I seek a small, furry mammal known as Rocket," he told the bartender, in his straightforward, deadpan way. "Has he been here?"
He had been. Several hours ago, to console the sobbing bartender and talk them into doing him a favour.
"You were the first robot that ever tried to kill me, you know?" said Rocket, a paw on the shoulder of the weeping murderbot. "That'll always mean something."
"B-but why does it have to end?"
"I'm not a bounty hunter anymore, man. Life goes on."
"But if I just had more time I could have chopped you to bits and sold you as a delicacy on the Shyraxian Meat Market! Or repurposed you into a rug! Or maybe a coffee machine depending on how much of you is mechanical!"
Rocket flinched. "I'd rather not think about that."
"But-"
"It's time we moved," said Rocket firmly. "Dreamed of killing other people." He pulled his paw away and dipped it in his drink to check for poisons. "So will you do it? For both our sakes?"
"He is dead!" replied the murderbot, cheerfully. "Very dead!"
Drax stepped backward, a metaphorical hole punching through his chest. "What?"
The bartender's programming was oblivious to the danger the Kylosian posed. "I killed him! And then sent him on his way to the Shyraxian Meat Market! If you hurry you may be able to purchase what's left of him for a ludicrously high fee!"
The tapping was definitely growing closer. He had dismissed it, at first, as just the kind of noises you got in pipework, but that had been wishful thinking. He hadn't wanted to face reality.
As quietly as he could, Rocket raced away from it. Or tried to. It was hard to say where it was coming from when in here, every little noise seemed to echo on infinitely.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, TAP, TAP, TAP, TAP, TAP, TAP!
As the sound reached a crescendo, he squeezed into the shadow of a branch-pipe. He made himself small, flattened himself against the wall and held his breath.
A shadow scuttled by. The shadow of something small, held up by six ridiculously long mechanical legs that made her look like some horrifying kind of insect.
He didn't need to guess who it was. There had only been one thing like her, too, and he'd have known her anywhere. Besides, there was no need to be surprised. Why torment him with only one dead friend when you could have two of them?
Rocket bit back a whimper, his heartbeat skyrocketing as an emotionalistic rush hit him like a truck.
It was Floor. Floor was alive. And just as with Lylla, he wanted to whoop for joy and laugh and cry and run towards her and run away and never look back. But all he did was stay frozen in place, afraid she'd hate him, afraid that she'd be afraid of him, afraid that she was going to beat the crap out of him and he'd do the dumb thing and hesitate even though his life was on the line.
He hated emotionalistics.
"P13! P13! P13!" the distant shadow sang in a whispered sing-song. There was the denomination again. Warning him to stay away. Telling him that he was unwanted, unloved, unremembered. That he was no longer 'Rocket' and she was no longer 'Floor' and that the universe was laughing at him as it twisted knives into-
"FOUND YOU!" cheered Floor, dropping down to his head height so suddenly that his chest damn near burst open.
She hadn't changed much. Grown a bit, just like he and Lylla had, but she was still the smallest. Her mouthpiece carried the same voice, and her antennae perked upwards as her ears drooped down. The most startling change was that, courtesy of her ludicrously long legs, he was looking up at her.
"P13! P13! P13!" the rabbit sang, spinning in circles and leaping with the same clumsy grace he had shared a cage with.
Even as his heart hammered. Even as his insides twisted. Even though he knew this wasn't the kind of happy reunion he had sometimes dared to dream of... It was good to see her again.
"Me is 89L06!" said Floor, turning her attention back to him and offering a spider-leg.
"Hey Floor," was all Rocket could manage. He eyed the limb warily, and refused to take it.
Floor didn't seem to mind. "Me and P13 play now?"
It had always haunted him that the last thing he'd told Floor directly was that he was too busy to play with her. He had spent countless nights wondering what would have happened if instead of building a damn key, he'd just asked 'What game?' and forgotten all about Sire. They could have played all the ones they liked, stayed up late into the night because there was no morning to wake up to, and laughed and laughed and laughed...
"I'd love to," said Rocket simply, and he doubted he'd ever been more honest.
"Hurraaaaaay!" the rabbit sang, bouncing on the spot even though her legs never left the ground. "Play! Play! Play!"
"S-so what's the game, Floor?" he ventured, even as his eyes darted about in search of an escape route.
Floor giggled, as a dozen mechanical compartments hissed open to reveal that all six of her legs now came fitted with buzzsaws.
Somehow, Rocket got the feeling he wasn't going to like this game.
Footnote: I got the designation numbers for Floor and Teefs from this concept art made by the director that got shared on Discord. Not 100% sure what it stands for but L06 rolls off the tongue pretty easily (and in any case I will continually refer to them by their names in the actual narration and whatnot). I have most of the next chapter ready actually, I just figured I'd split it so that I could rake in more views (nyehehehehehe) and also because I really liked the ending point here and the way it 'rhymes' with Rocket's run-in with Lylla from the previous chapter.
Hope you enjoyed ^^
