Thor and Rocket - not dead

[st_ripetail]

Rocket was not doing okay. It was weak, yeah, but it was still... not okay.

He'd been alone in the cages, and then not because Lylla had been with him. Then she'd left. Then he'd been alone, and then not because Groot had been there. And then he'd gotten lucky-ish because when Groot left - however temporarily - there'd been the other idiots. The Guardians. But then he'd been alone again, ripped out of that and dropped in the primitive-as-fuck Terra city of Gotham. It hadn't been so bad, he'd found a few people for when he needed company. But then it'd happened again, he'd been ripped from there and dumped in this Inn place, forced to start over again.

That had, though he hadn't realized it until the ghost shit, been a bit much. But he'd soldiered on, did his best, mostly got along with the humies. It wasn't their fault he kept losing shit. And Quill was around in the Inn, even if he sometimes seemed off. Too careful or something, thinking shit he wasn't saying, which was weird for the Quill Rocket knew.

But then real-Groot came as a ghost and showed him... that stuff. And that had taken 'a bit much' to 'too fucking much'. Baby Groot (not technically a baby, but still) turning to ashes. A few humies who were here at the Inn, but Rocket didn't know them, and they were pretty much ashed anyway so it didn't matter. The big guy with the mismatched eyes who called him Rabbit - Thor - who wasn't ashed, but... somehow Rocket and Groot had been around him, not the other Guardians.

What had happened to them? Had they left him behind? Had he left them? Why? Was that why Quill thought things he didn't say, and was that pity or anger or what?

For a while, Rocket had just stayed in his room, only venturing out to resupply (food, booze, gift shop junk for parts) during off-hours when pretty much everybody was asleep, literally burying himself in his junk so nobody would see him if they happened to come into his room. (Nobody did.) But that didn't help much, and eventually somebody would start wondering if he was gone or whatever, so he started going out in the day a little bit again.

Not much. Just enough to be seen. Enough that he could be dismissed as 'oh, I saw him yesterday' instead of 'oh shit has anybody seen that little fucker 'cause I haven't'.

Today, he'd gone out into the desert and piled up several bunches of rocks as makeshift targets. A couple of them had bombs buried in them so they'd explode real good when he unloaded the cannon at them, but he hadn't done that yet. Piling rocks was tiring, so he was taking a break surrounded by the rocks he hadn't piled yet.

Comments

[st_ormbreaker]

"There's a few of us that are trying to stop it," he says, kicking a stray piece of bomb that fell near his feet. "It beats resigning yourself to your fate."

That, Thor could speak to firsthand.

[st_ripetail]

"I ain't talkin' about that," Rocket snapped. He knew he'd survived the ash thing, so that meant there was every chance he'd at least be able to shove a bomb in a sensitive place at the right time. "I meant here!"

[st_ormbreaker]

That draws a reaction from Thor, his eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly in surprised.

"Here?" he echoes.

[st_ripetail]

"Yeah." Rocket took aim and blew up another target. "Can't trust anybody here, can I? Even Quill's fuckin' laughing at me here."

[st_ormbreaker]

"You really think he's laughing at you?"

[st_ripetail]

"Why wouldn't I? Watchin' me not know shit, just waitin' for it to gut-punch me. Why wouldn't I think that's supposed to be funny shit? Like hittin' someone in the face with a hardening goo thing so they can't hear or see. It's fuckin' funny watchin'em stumble around like dopes." Rocket bared his teeth. "I hate bein' the dope."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor shifts his weight from one leg to the other, looking at Rocket with a neutral expression. "You don't think he wanted to protect you?"

[st_ripetail]

“You think that’s protecting? Just standin’ back, watchin’ a guy in a blindfold run around when there’s shit at trip level?” Rocket almost laughed, the same fake-even if-he-said-it-wasn’t loud thing he’d given to Quill’s twelve percent of a plan back when. But he didn’t. It wasn’t even fake funny. “‘Cause I don’t.”

He sighed, anger abruptly draining. It wasn’t like he was actually mad at Thor, he barely knew the guy and he was being okay to vent at. “It’s worse if it’s not funny. If it’s not funny that means he decided ‘hey, that’s some shit I wanna see.’”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Quill is an idiot," Thor says, though there's some definite affection there that wasn't present when he first stepped inside the Benatar. "But I don't think he intended to be malicious."

[st_ripetail]

“Doesn’t matter.” Bleak, but true. You didn’t live through as many tight spots as Rocket had - mostly of his own making, but still - by trusting when you shouldn’t, and even if Quill was just being stupid, he was still the guy who didn’t take off the metaphorical blindfold. Who might leave it on again. Who’d just stand back and let.... “It’s the same thing either way. But hey, it ain’t your fuckin’ thing either way at least.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Are you going to talk to him?" His own family had never particularly been a fan of talking out their feelings and though Thor often struggled with it himself even now, it seemed to him that talking this out with Quill seemed better than letting that anger fester.

[st_ripetail]

“Dunno. Prob’ly not.” Rocket checked the cannon for jams again. It was something to do! “He already figures I ain’t worth talkin’ to about shit already, it’s just now I know it too. Seems like that’s good enough.” Or bad enough. Whichever. “I yelled about it an’ shot things about it already too, so it’s prob’ly time t’just live with it.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor doesn't say anything for a few long seconds; he just watches as Rocket continues checking over his cannon.

"Do you remember anything other than that moment?" he asks, finally.

[st_ripetail]

“Just Earth stuff. It looked like it was being a fun fight until.” He didn’t finish the sentence. Thor knew what until.

[st_ormbreaker]

It was probably too much to hope that Rocket might see the pockets of good in all of that. There hadn't been much good to speak of, but he had seen how Rocket's eyes lit up when they finally lit the forge at Nidavellir. It would have at least been nice for him to see that.

But on top of that, Thor wishes -- perhaps selfishly -- that Rocket could remember their travels, so that they were not just little more than acquaintances here. That lack of shared experience was like a barrier that Thor could not traverse; he could speak to Rocket without difficulty, but he could not speak with with the easy familiarity he had during their journey.

Thor rubs the back of his neck, bits of glitter coming off it and onto his palm.

"I apologize for not telling you." Thor likes to think that he would have, eventually, had the ask not come at Quill's request.

[st_ripetail]

“Eh. Shoulda known better myself.” It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he hadn’t been worth the time to tell. Or not trustworthy enough to hear about his own life. Or whatever, Gotham and then the Inn had softened him up, and he hadn’t even really noticed. “At least I know better know. That’s fuckin’ somethin’.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"You like drinking," he says, and though he intends it as a question, it comes out sounding more like a declaration. "You want to try some Asgardian drink?"

[st_ripetail]

“Fuck yeah!” New booze was always worth trying, and anything Asgardian was bound to have a kick. “Didn’t know that was an option.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Wasn't an option until recently," Thor says with a slight, almost imperceptible smile. "I hope you won't take offense if I don't offer you much of it. Even for humans, a shot of the stuff is too much."

[st_ripetail]

Rocket did a little calculation and arrived at, “Nah, no offense.” He was about one-third as tall as an average human and even with cybernetics about one-fifth, one-quarter the weight at best. He had good tolerance and nanotech for healing and toxin-scrub, but that just put him a bit above average humie probably, though even that was insane for his size. “I know I’m fuckin’ tiny.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Even if you weren't tiny, it's powerful stuff." Thor nods a head towards the inn in a let's go gesture.

"Good for forgetting things for awhile."

[st_ripetail]

"Fuckin' fantastic." Rocket slid the cannon back into its sling on his back, thought for a second or two, then ran up Thor and settled on his shoulder. He could keep up and all, but it just seemed easier to let the big friend do the walking.

[st_ormbreaker]

For a moment, Thor is caught off-guard by Rocket suddenly scrambling up onto his shoulder, but his shoulders quickly relax under the weight of his companion.

Thor smiles. "You ever been to Asgard?" he asks, with considerably more pep.

[st_ripetail]

"Nah, never seemed like a me kinda place, ya know?" Rocket's tail lashed back and forth slowly, helping him balance rather than expressing mood. "All golden an' fancy an' shit. Also not too big on visitors from what I heard. Always thought it was too bad, though, 'cause I bet you Asgardians outbrawl Laxidazian trolls no problem."

[st_ormbreaker]

"You're not wrong," he says. "Fought plenty of Laxidazians. Fought plenty of everything." You didn't get to be 1500 years old without fighting at least one of almost everything under the sun.

"You should give it a visit. Good alcohol, good food... plenty of stuff to steal, too."

Thor pushes open the double doors to the inn's entrance.