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]

"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.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Oh."

There's a long pause before Thor opens his mouth to speak again.

"Have you talked with Quill?"

[st_ripetail]

"Nope." Rocket shifted and pretended to check over the cannon to make sure it wasn't jammed. "Couldn't be sure he'd know shit, so I guess I kinda didn't wanna freak'im out over nothin' he can do."

[st_ormbreaker]

"He knows already," Thor says, looking down at the final device in his hand. "He came in from right before everything happened, but I told him what happened awhile ago."

[st_ripetail]

"An' obviously I don't gotta know a fuckin' thing, right?" It was safer to be angry than sad, always. Angry could be bled out, and it wasn't like he didn't have a half-dozen more targets to blow up. "Oh yeah, it's way fuckin' better t'just let me get a faceful of my best friend dyin' in front of me for the second fucking time, but this time as a goddamn baby, with no warning or anything. That's a fuckton better. Funnier, too, right? I bet it was funny."

Two quick cannon shots blew up two more rock piles, but only one of them had a bomb hidden in it. It didn't really help. "You're both fuckin' assholes."

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor gives Rocket a hum of acknowledgement. They both are probably assholes. Thor could have easily gone over Quill's head, but when he asked him not to tell Rocket, he didn't feel like he was in a position to say no. He could understand Quill's rationale and he's sure that Quill never anticipated that Rocket might someday find out via ghost proxy that his plant-child had died.

Then suddenly, without warning, Thor hurls the final bomb in the air. A hot crack of lightning extends from his hand up to the metal of the bomb. It bursts just as the other one did: in a brilliant, violent display of light and glitter and broken metal shards.

[st_ripetail]

Rocket watched the lightning and explosion, not quite detached. Even if he wasn't doing the destroying, it was pleasant to watch. Destruction in general was just... fun. "It sucks. The whole stupid thing. I fuckin' hate bein' alone."

[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."