Having taken the full force of Rocket's entire arsenal of explosives it really wasn't a surprise that Quill thumping on the blast doors did nothing to get them to open. "Rocket! Come on man, let's just… talk this over! I know you can hear me!"

In response, music exploded over the Milano's sound system, prompting the bewildered Star-Lord to reach for his pocket and realise that the lump that should have been there wasn't. "When and how did you get my walkman!?"

Drax, who had momentarily retreated to the kitchen to continue working on… whatever it was he was trying to cook… returned to the common area to give Cosmo a hearty pat on the back. "Rocket truly hates you."

"I know," the dog winced (though at least some of that was because Drax's idea of a hearty pat on the back was the equivalent of a sledgehammer to the spine). "I do not mean to be causing argument. Forget I ever asked to join. Really, it's not important. Cosmo does not want to intrude. After Xandar, you can just drop me off at Knowhere. Returning me will go long way in making amends with Collector. Tivan is not so bad, takes Cosmo for walkies sometimes. And Cosmo will have units to buy treats with and-"

"We're not selling you to Tivan," said Gamora, in that way that made it clear to all the Guardians that that was the end of the discussion.

"Da," said Cosmo, who was not quite a Guardian yet. "You are returning me to him."

"Yeah well that sounds a lot like human trafficking," grunted Quill, now attempting to pry the doors apart instead of knocking them down. "Even if you're not exactly human."

"Will you continue your story?" asked Drax, dropping to the ground besides Cosmo and reaching out a hand to stroke the top of her head.

"Drax!" Gamora threw her hands up in disbelief. "You just saw how upset Rocket-"

"Upset!?" Rocket cut her off with a bark of (fake) laughter, muffled slightly by the walls between them. "I'm not upset!"

"I am Groot!"

"I am perfectly fine!"

"I knew you could hear me!" snapped Quill, red in the face from his futile efforts at getting the raccoon to open up. "Now give me back my walkman!"

"It's a small ship Quill, I hear every damn thing!" Rocket shot back, cranking up the volume so that Riders On The Storm grew deafening. "And no! I don't think I will!"

Gamora sighed.

"It is Cosmo's story to tell," Drax went on, apparently very eager to experience more of the dog's projected memories. "Besides, we already knew Rocket would be furious if he found out we were discussing the past he guards so carefully, and earning his ire may draw him out of hiding."

"I am not hiding!"

Ignoring the raccoon, Gamora considered for a moment before finally relenting with a shrug. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to know what's set him on edge."

Secretly grateful that storytime gave him an excuse to give up on the doors, Quill gave them a last obligatory kick (which did nothing but send pain spiking through his leg). "Yeah, why not? I mean it's not like we need MORE EXAMPLES OF ROCKET BEING A HUMONGOUS DICK-"

Rocket must have done some adjustments to the sound system behind his back because Quill wasn't sure how else the music could get even louder.

"But sure, why not?" Quill muttered, mostly to himself because he doubted anyone heard him over The Doors. He sat down and gestured for Cosmo to begin.

"I suppose… if you all want me to…" the labrador cleared her throat, or rather projected the sound of her clearing her throat at them. "Where was I?"

"YOU WERE AT THE BIT WHERE YOU AND ROCKET BECAME FRIENDS!" yelled Drax, helpfully.

At that, Rocket made particularly loud noises of protest. "We were never friends!"

While Rocket approved of Cosmo's choice of getaway vehicle (not that he said it out loud) the ship did not come well-supplied. So their first order of business once they cleared Bibroaclite's quadrant was to find a market station and stock up.

Rocket, seated on the side of the grav cart Cosmo pushed ahead of them, pointed out all the things they apparently were in dire need of. Most of it at least made sense. "Sombatter, kinda hate them but I knew a guy who died of frickin' scurvy so I ain't taking any chances, water, not the sparkling kind Cosmo what the hell is wrong with you that crap tastes like static, Almaaz paste cookies." Some of it seemed a little… excessive. "Fusilix core. Hypertron drive. Ooooh! Quarnex battery! Definitely need that!"

"What exactly is all this for?" ventured Cosmo, nevertheless pulling the battery into Rocket's waiting grabby hands.

"I build stuff," the raccoon shrugged. "Maybe 'need' ain't the right word exactly, but hey live a little, we're allowed to take what we want."

"Oh! Well in that case!" Cosmo promptly shot down the aisle to something she had passed over in the food section. The grav cart, still attached to her mind, followed in her wake and the abrupt change in tempo made Rocket teeter over into the heap of junk with a startled chitter that was quickly muffled under their shopping list.

There was an audible CLANG! as Cosmo came to an abrupt halt. Even as her mouth watered, she spared a moment to feel ever so slightly guilty.

Stupid dog, she heard Rocket think as, scowling, the raccoon dug himself out of the pile. His irritation skyrocketed when he saw what it was she had gotten so excited about. "Dogfood!?"

"Dog treats!" Cosmo corrected, staring at the multicoloured packages in wide eyed wonder. "Greatest thing in entire galaxy! Nyet, in existence!"

"People feed that to their pets!" Rocket snapped, pulling a screwdriver from out his ear. "And you're a lot of things Cosmo, pain in the ass most of all, but you're not a pet. Forget it."

"I'm not asking you to pay for it!" the labrador pleaded, hitting him with a pair of puppy-dog eyes. "It's only four units, I can afford one!"

"Woah! Wait, hang on." Taken aback, the raccoon raised his paws in the universal gesture for timeout. "What makes you think we're paying for any of this?"

Cosmo cocked her head to the side. "We are… shopping?"

Rocket snorted. "We're shoplifting unless you've got…" He looked over their stuff and did some quick multiplications. "Four hundred seventy-two units." The stunned horror she was feeling must have shown on her face because the raccoon started snickering. "Be glad my leg's busted or this would be an armed robbery and maybe a hostage situation." When he realised he was the only one who found that amusing, Rocket hastened to clarify. "Kidding. I never take hostages, don't have the patience for 'em."

"We can't steal!" Cosmo protested, and then feeling ever so slightly like she was proving him right about the stupid bit, she finished with. "It's bad!"

The raccoon scoffed at that and crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't pretend to be a saint, we met in a frickin' prison cell."

"Cosmo is good dog, arrested by alien who don't care to hear full story. Is not fault of Cosmo I am telepath, and is not fault of Cosmo I crash unpilotable rocket into ship that could easily move out of way! Cosmo did not do anything wrong!" She glared Rocket down, daring him to argue.

To her surprise, he only shrugged. "Well neither did I."

A memory thrust it's way to the front of his mind and before Cosmo could look away it was in hers.

Blinding lights glared down on a smaller Rocket, who sat quivering on a cold, hard chair that seemed on the verge of swallowing him. He was hyperventilating, eyes wide and filled with fear as they darted about the room in desperate search for an escape route. Across from him sat a hulking feline in Nova Corps uniform.

"I am Titus Payne, Dennarian here at Tharvis," Titus began, muzzle twisted into a deep frown as the terrified Rocket met his eyes. "Can you understand me?"

The raccoon was shaking so hard his tiny little nod was nearly imperceptible.

Titus noticed it all the same. "Can you speak?"

After a moment of hesitation Rocket squeaked out a "Yes."

"Good." The feline steepled his paws. "I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"The first few times anyways," Rocket added, completely oblivious to what Cosmo had just seen and cutting short the memory. "But that didn't matter then and it ain't gonna matter now. Look. We just broke out of prison and you stole the ship we're currently travelling on all by yourself. Compared to that, this is nothing."

"Okay… you have point," Cosmo relented and without another thought turned back to the mouthwatering treats on display. "If we're not paying can I take two?"

A dozen retorts flooded his mind, but eventually the raccoon gave an exaggerated little sigh. "Fine. But get the bigger package or the more expensive brand at least. And take three."

On account of his injured leg Rocket left organising their stolen loot up to Cosmo. Food went in one corner. Machinery and equipment went in another. And Cosmo's treats went in a third. Their getaway vehicle wasn't a particularly big ship and the immense amount of things they had stolen did nothing to make it roomier, but thankfully neither of them were large enough that the lack of space would be a problem.

Considering she had seen Rocket take his first taste of alcohol at the uncaring appendages of Zafersly and Bigby, Cosmo was surprised when she came back to the cockpit to find three empty beer cans strewn about on the floor with Rocket's muzzle buried halfway into the fourth. "You drink?"

Taking a deep gulp, he gestured for her to come closer. Mildly confused, Cosmo obliged, and when she had padded over to sit on the floor besides him, the raccoon turned his muzzle towards her and belched a bubble into her face.

"Otvratni!" Cosmo snapped, recoiling as her sensitive nose was filled with the rank stink of alcohol and raccoon breath.

"Now we're even," Rocket snickered, and she supposed a burp to the face was roughly the same as a butt to the head. "And course I drink. Everyone else does it, don't they?" he reached out a claw to pop the bubble.

"I just thought since…" Realising abruptly that bringing up what she'd seen inside of his head was unlikely to do anything beyond anger her new comrade, Cosmo settled on a plausible lie. "Since your biology is… different."

"Still got a liver, don't I?" Rocket paused, and frowned in contemplation as he looked himself over. "Or at least, I think I do."

For a while they sat in comfortable silence, Cosmo busied herself with crushing the beer cans into neat, tightly compressed squares while Rocket drank with all the fervour of someone who had survived the harsh sun of a desert world.

Three more beers in, the raccoon decided it was too quiet. "So…" he drummed his claws against the armrest as his beer-laced mind tried to conjure up a topic of conversation. "You said you were from the Mommaland?"

"Motherland," Cosmo corrected. "Da."

"So are… telepathic dogs the norm there or are you a one-of-a-kind sorta deal?"

"Cosmo is not sure," she explained, tail wagging as she eagerly began sharing her story. Rocket gasped as scenes he had never seen before began to play out inside his mind.

"I did not see many dogs. Was some part of experiment." A small, brown rat that was in fact a puppy was plucked from it's litter and placed in a cold, hard cage surrounded by empty ones.

"I don't know what happen exactly but one night I go to sleep normal, happy dog. Next morning I am seeing everything and hearing everything and understanding everything and it is all so… loud."

Cosmo shivered, and braced herself against a cacophony of russian that seemed to echo on into eternity..

"Not long after I am locked in rocket, never to return."

She could do nothing but watch as the world shrunk beneath her. Not for the first time, Cosmo found herself alone, though for once the only thoughts she could hear were her own.

"Why?" asked Rocket.

Cosmo shook herself. "Soviet mudak fear what they create. And also I come from primitive backwater with no space travel. So transfer me to serve secondary experiment."

"That's…" Terrible. I'm so sorry. Rocket swallowed, incredibly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had gone in. "That's rough."

"It wasn't so bad. Da, I thought I was going to die in ball of fire, but for first time Cosmo was free and I could see stars." She turned her gaze out into the cosmos and sighed. "They are most beautiful thing Cosmo has ever seen."

For a while they sat there, staring into infinity. "You know, the first time I saw all this?" Rocket gestured out into the infinite void of space.

The dull and desolate sky receded into an inky void as Rocket barreled into a reality so much larger than a room of rusted cages. For the first time in his life, he found himself utterly and completely alone…

"I hated it," he muttered. "There's just so much… nothing. It's all so big, a-and empty…" He took a deep, shuddering breath. "And stupid."

"I'm sorry," Cosmo looked away. "I didn't know. I wouldn't if-"

"Whatever." Rocket shrugged. "It's not some big secret. Some assholes made me to be-" The perfect species, the perfect society. "Made me for whatever frickin' reason." He cleared his throat and scratched at his chest. "But they're dead now and I'm… I'm not."

A gunshot rung out inside his mind, impossibly loud against the silence.

Deciding that he'd shared too much, Rocket shook the thought away. "Scientists," he snorted, tearing open a packet of almaaz cookies and holding one out to Cosmo. "What a bunch of chogs."

They did not talk much after that and two more cans of beer later, Rocket's noisy chewing had been replaced with soft snoring. Cosmo resisted sleep for a while longer, deciding that at least one of them needed to be awake on the off-chance Bibroaclite or the market station tried to follow them, but eventually her eyes grew heavy and slumber invited her to it's gentle embrace. She spared a final thought for her new comrade, and hoped the days to come would be kinder to them both.

Cosmo found herself in an empty hallway lined with white tiles. The stars were gone. The ship and the empty beer cans were gone. A distant screech called out to her, and with rapidly growing dread, Cosmo followed the sound.

She was met with blinding lights, and was forced to squint as her vision adjusted. She sniffed the air, trying to get an idea of what she was dealing with. Curiously, she was met with the distinctive scent of raccoon and the soft, subtle odour of half-eaten almaaz cookies. Before she could decide what that meant, her vision had cleared.

Rocket lay spread-eagled upon a surgical stand, his arms and legs clamped to the table. Tall, faceless creatures stared down at him with cold, uncaring eyes as they dug into his cybernetics with a mechanical kind of precision.

"It hurts," Rocket pleaded, as something cold and sharp was shoved into a gaping wound on his chest. "I'll do better. Please, please, please. I'll be better."

Cosmo's first instinct was to spring into action; the stand, the ceiling, even the scalpels would all bend to her will with but a single thought. They hadn't noticed her yet and even Rocket seemed oblivious to her presence. The element of surprise was overkill, but if anyone was deserving of overkill… Whoever these horrifying creatures were, they had messed with the wrong comrades!

Yet Cosmo found herself frozen in place, unable to move even the smallest of objects, unable to even think as Rocket's blood dripped from the table and added to the growing pool of red. Her heart hammered at her ribs, her mind screamed at her to move, or bite or do-

A paw fell on her shoulder, and Cosmo whirled around with a cry of alarm- a furious Rocket stood besides her, his pointed teeth pulled back into a snarl.

"Get. Out."

Cosmo woke with a start, finding herself back in the safety of their stolen vessel. From atop his seat, Rocket glared down at her, looking somewhat less menacing with one leg as excessively wrapped in bandages as it was.

"It was a dream. That was why nothing had scent." She swallowed audibly, and feeling stupid, let her gaze fall to the floor. "I didn't-"

"You've been doing that this whole time, haven't you?" Rocket crossed his arms over his chest, knowing full well they both already knew he knew the answer to that question. "Cosmo. Look at me."

"It was an accident!" she pleaded. "I didn't mean to! It's hard to control sometimes, I wasn't-"

"What did you see?" Rocket demanded, not at all interested in her excuses.

"Bigby and Zafersly with you in prison," she admitted, ears drooping in misery. "And when they told you to go away… and I saw when Nova cat was interrogating you, and when you were flying in spaceship and your nightmare just now."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing else!" Cosmo affirmed, desperate to earn his forgiveness. One comrade, her first comrade and she had ruined it all in the span of five minutes. "I'm sorry. I didn't- what they did to you was horrible- really I didn't mean to look. I didn't want to-"

"Shut up, and don't do it again!" Rocket snapped. He jabbed a claw at the side of his head. "There's nothing in here you'd want to see and even less I want to show you, so unless you want to get dumped on the nearest habitable planet, stay out!"

"It won't happen again." She promised, beyond relieved that she wasn't immediately being left behind.

He made a skeptical sound at that, but didn't seem intent on prolonging the argument. Digging out his metallic card in a bid to shake off the nightmare, Rocket disappeared into his thoughts, leaving Cosmo's to hers.

"I'm sorry for looking where I'm not supposed to," she said eventually, once the raccoon's mind had simmered down to it's usual turbulence. "And also... for what they did to you," she added, deciding it was safe to try and earn back some of his trust.

"Don't be," he grumbled, giving the card a sad little spin. "It was all my own fault anyways."

Footnote: Apologies for the delay on this chapter. Needed a little bit of a break to gather some thoughts for this story and ended up flip-flopping between what chapter to write next and in the process of doing that I ended up writing three chapters at once XD So hopefully there won't be too big of a wait next time and I will be able to maintain my weekly schedule (both of the possible candidates for 'next chapter' are kinda half-done at the moment, we'll just see which one I end up going with).

As for the chapter itself, another Dog Day, another squabble. Had a lot of fun playing with Rocket and Cosmo's backstories. I took some liberties with Cosmo's - I believe the comic backstory is that he (because Cosmo's a dude in the comics lol) got his superpowers while drifting through space- but I changed that here mostly because I feel like it better parallels Rocket's story and I really liked the star lines but also to add a plausible reason to how Cosmo ended up drifting off into space- simply put she moved her rocket out of orbit.

The chapter was originally gonna be a lot longer but I ended up splitting the 'Break-Up' bit of Rocket and Cosmo's mini-arc into a future chapter because I imagine they stuck around for a little while and I didn't want to rush past the good/bad aspects of their partnership. Had a lot of fun writing this, hope you guys enjoyed reading! As usual lemme know what you think ^^