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_ripetail]

Rocket's eared flattened and his head ducked a little. One-eye wasn't bad company or anything, but he was all tied up in the Bad Shit that was hard to stop thinking about. And yeah, Thor was from the future, but was he from that far? "Nah. Just makin' targets so I got stuff t'blow up. Target practice or whatever."

[st_ormbreaker]

"Do you mind some company?" he asks, filding his arms over his chest to survey Rocket's work.

[st_ripetail]

“Guess not.” It took effort to keep his tail from puffing out. It was a stress response, and Rocket was already prone to being annoyed by how much his ears gave away. He was already annoyed at himself because he did actually kind of want company. “It’s just pilin’ rocks, not exactly the most excitin’ thing out there. But if you wanna I ain’t tellin’ you no.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Are you in need of an assistnat rock piler?" he asks, not at all perturbed by Rocket's obvious irritation. Thor didn't shy away from other people's displays of obvious annoyance, in some small part thanks to his brother. "I'm quite good with rocks. My brother says my head is full of them."

[st_ripetail]

Rocket snorted, almost a laugh. Good one, Thor’s brother! Then he shrugged and pulled a few small gadgets out of various pockets. Well... bombs, not gadgets. “Sure, okay. Sooner the piles go up, sooner I make’em gravel. Put a coupla these in the piles too?”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor turns one of the devices around in his hand, his eyes narrowed. "What are these?"

[st_ripetail]

“Bombs. Tiny ones.” Like that meant anything when it was Rocket, usually. “They’re gonna make the piles really boom! Throw one up, hit it with some lightning, you’ll see.” That’d probably look pretty cool, actually, since most of the Inn’s shrapnel options were kinds of glitter.

[st_ormbreaker]

"Mmm..." Thor hums to himself. He tosses one of the devices up in the air, then zaps it with a long line of lightning that pops off his finger.

Sure enough, the device goes off with an impressive display of fire and smoke. Thor lets out a loud bark of laughter.

"You made this?" he asks. "Here?"

[st_ripetail]

"Oh, yeah." As always, the explosion was like a little burst of happiness, even though it wasn't destroying anything except itself. "It's primitive an' not so powerful. Not the best shit I can put out, but I don't got materials here. You want closer to my best work, ask Stark to show you a watch I made'im. Got some solid sonic blast outta it." Talking about fun stuff helped chase out the bad stuff for a bit, too, as evidenced by Rocket's ears relaxing and pricking forward again.

[st_ormbreaker]

"Maybe the next time this place opens up another portal, we'll be able to find something," Thor says, burying the first of the remainder under a neat pile of rocks. "Don't think anything's opened since shortly after I arrived, though."

He begins to bury the second.

[st_ripetail]

"Yeah, it's been a while. I just hope when some shit opens up there'll be somethin' I can kill that's not a dumb animal." Killing animals, for no mysterious reason, wasn't exactly fun for Rocket. Not like killing sentients that thought they were bigger and badder than he was when they were just bigger.

And it usually made him feel better, which he desperately needed that at the moment. "How 'bout you?"

[st_ormbreaker]

"I wouldn't be opposed to some fighting, no," Thor says, piling rocks atop number three. "Haven't done any real fighting since that time with those undead."

Thor had almost been relieved to have something to beat up on -- at least until his brother and Tony were put into serious danger.

Thor stacks one final stone atop the stack. "Who knows when another portal will open?"

[st_ripetail]

"Not me." Rocket flicked an ear. "I'd offer t'fight ya, but I don't really fight so much. I just kill."

[st_ormbreaker]

"You were a force when we fought alongside one another Wakanda," Thor says, moving onto pile three. "You spent more time fighting with Barnes, though." Thor had split off from Groot and Rocket shortly after their arrival on Earth.

[st_ripetail]

"Yeah." Rocket had seen that, getting picked up and swung around in the least offensive way ever; it'd been like he was just another weapon. But then.... ash. And then Groot was ash.

He shook his head and asked as casually as he could, "How'd that happen, by the way? Guardians finally get sick'a me?"

[st_ormbreaker]

"How the two of us wound up traveling together?"

Thor hums at that, thinking. "After your Guardians picked me up, we decided to split up. Half to Knowhere to stop Thanos from getting the Reality stone. You and Tree and I went to Nidavellir. It was your choice. You were pretty excited about it."

[st_ripetail]

"Oh." Rocket's ears flattened again, but only briefly. That was an answer, all right: he'd decided to ditch the Guardians. At least Nidavellir was awesome enough to probably be a good reason. "Yeah, that sounds like something I'd pick. Awesome force place'd be way better than gigantic space skull bein' mined for neural fluid. 'Specially since I been to the skull before."

[st_ormbreaker]

Stack three is complete.

"I normally prefer Nidavellir to Knowhere myself," he says. "From what Quill told me, Knowhere wasn't in any better shape than Nidavellir was at our arrival."

[st_ripetail]

"Yeah?" He hadn't heard anything about events at either place, and it only now struck Rocket as weird. Quill was usually pretty shit at keeping secrets, on account of talking compulsively and wanting people to think he was cool. And this was confirmation that Quill and Thor were from around the same time, so... Quill knew Rocket had ditched the team.

Probably why he was being on-and-off weird? "How's that?"

[st_ormbreaker]

Another hum. "Thanos reached both of them before we did." Thanos had reached Nidavellir considerably longer ago than he had Knowhere (he was present on Knowhere when the Guardians arrived, after all), but the devastation was still obvious.

[st_ripetail]

"Huh." Rocket only knew Thanos by reputation, vaguely on his own recognizance and the rest from Gamora. There was obviously a really big gap between him and when Quill and Thor were from, bigger than he'd really thought about. "Makes sense, then."

To distract himself from the various mental pits yawning around him, Rocket unlimbered his cannon, aimed at one of the rock piles he'd made before Thor showed up, and fired three shots into it. It was also one with bombs in it, so the rock pile exploded in pebbles, glitter, and fire.

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor lets out a long whistle at the display and stands, back straightening. Thor is now finely-dusted with glitter, but it doesn't appear to bother him in the least.

Thor gives his final little bomb a friendly shake. "I throw it up, you hit it?" he asks, waggling it in hand.

[st_ripetail]

"Sure." Rocket bared his teeth, almost a grin. "Movin' targets're way fuckin' better than still ones."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor gives him a nod, and when he's sure Rocket is ready, he throws it up in the sky with considerable force.

[st_ripetail]

Rocket was pretty sure he’d been built for this, it was natural and even relaxing when the cannon snapped up to track the tiny target. And then, when he pulled the trigger and an explosion proved his aim had been good, it was a little spike of joy.

Positive enough that he immediately ruined it for himself by looking sidelong (and up} at Thor. “I saw it, ya know. Got taken on a little trip during Christmas shit.”