#rfh asks

i am sure, in the main mcu timeline, that there's a storming phase as far as “group development” goes. rocket and nebs are both shit at communication, relationships, and grief — so like, honestly it's a miracle they both survived. early in their new partnership, there's probably a resurgence of unhealthy survival/coping mechanisms (getting intoxicated, breaking shit, threatening to shoot people/each other), and a lot of fighting.

and then someone gets injured, or gets too drunk, or needs a repair done to one of their many prosthetics, and eventually, rocket and nebula begin to move beyond simply trying (and failing) to navigate the shared trauma of the snap. i like to think that while they are in touch with the avengers pretty regularly and willing to help out on terra occasionally, they actually spend most of their time starside. kraglin's still piloting the third quadrant and they often use that as a base of operations, and they're trying to help as many people as they can in the sky while still making some money on the side. not because they feel an intrinsic urge to help — not yet. any impulse to do good for goodness' sake might be present, but both of these two morons like to bury it under layers and layers and layers of cynicism and general assholery.

no, the reason they're doing this is simply because it's what their friends would have wanted. nebs has always identified with rocket in some ways (she did save him on berhert — probably saw herself in his prickly behavior toward the others) and she knows her sister would want her to look out for him. meanwhile rocket thinks he’s the one doing the adopting: taking nebula under his wing because it’s what gams would have wanted — then trying to continue the spotty legacy of the guardians because it’s what she and pete would have thought was important.

however — despite that drive to honor their friends — i think they're both a little listless, a little chaotic in their approach to being guardians/a family. they don't have a whole lotta direction. and they don't really want anything outside of the bubble of the two of them (three, if you count kraglin). sure, maybe they start liking some of the avengers — one or two of 'em, and just a little — but the connection isn't the same.

how could it be?

then scott lang pops outta the quantum realm with some new ideas about how to fix things, and suddenly, both nebula and rocket have a renewed focus. there are goals. there's possibility. there's hope.

and it drives them forward.

now let's say we’re in a timeline where you exist.

i like to imagine you met rocket when he was still the crankiest jackass, just an absolute piece of work. let's say you run into the guardians just after volume two, when he's finally gotten used to the other idiots, and he's feeling very protective of his new little family. he does not frickin’ like interlopers.

and yet here you are: an intruder, fucking up the dynamic. why are you here? what do you want? are you even trustworthy?

he's so fuckin’ resentful of you just showing up and fitting in, of everyone just loving you. meanwhile, he's had to put in all this work to be less of a jackass. to make amends.

for fuckssake, you didn't even have to put up with the gory early days, when there were only two cots on the milano. they’d all had to rotate through those two nasty mattresses, both of which had smelled like quill's rancid spunk. you weren't there for the loss of groot, and you didn't help kill a planet, and you never had to deal with rocket inciting a war with the sovereign.

and what exactly the fuck do you even bring to the table, anyway? sentimentality and sparkly eyes?

useless.

hell, you're still getting your space legs the first time you step foot on the third quadrant.

… all of which is to say that the two of you get off to a challenging start. but at some point, after he stops picking on you and you stop taking it personally (and who knows which happens first, or how), you start to ease into each others' company. maybe… maybe you’d saved his life. maybe you’d saved groot's. maybe you’d done something reckless but brilliant, or maybe you’d made him laugh so hard one night that he’d shot blubber ale out his nose (which had burned with every breath for the next two cycles), or maybe it's a hundred quiet and unassuming kindnesses that had chipped away at his hard-candy coating until you’d managed to get to the sweetness inside.

either way, once you're in, you're in.

still, he has to figure out that you’re not so bad before he can figure out that he likes you. and he has to figure out that he likes you before he can take any action, or welcome any from you. i like to imagine he figures out all his feelings right before the benatar stumbles on the distress call from the statesman. right before you find all those dead asgardians and the grandmaster's slaves, floating loosely amongst the stars.

right before it all goes to hell.

i like to think he realizes that you've actually been flirting with him lately — brashly or bashfully — and that he should respond. that he wants to respond. that he needs to respond. maybe you even get a few rotations together: testing out what this means for each of you, figuring out who's allowed to know, deciding what to call each other and what your relationship will look like.

lots of cuddles — though probably still in the secret darkness of your bunk. or his.

maybe lots of orgasms, too. if you get that far.

then it all falls apart.

if you're snapped—

—well, rocket won't let himself think about it at first. thanos is still out there somewhere and the avengers seem to think that if they can find the mad titan, they can undo all this shit. rocket only half-believes it himself, of course. no amount of wishful thinking ever undid any of the losses he's lived through before.

but for you, he's willing to try.

he focuses in on finding thanos, ignoring the knot in his belly that tells him that it won’t change a goddamn thing. he doesn't eat. he doesn't sleep. the only thing he pays attention to is getting those stones back, getting thanos to undo this, getting you and groot and the others back. rocket’s eyes feel like sakaaran sand and knowhere skulldust, and the only thing he’s consumed in days is shitty terran coffee.

but then they find 0259-S, and he's taking everybody up to outer space under nebula's guidance, and he thinks maybe — maybe—

and then thor fucks it all up.

maybe that's unfair. it seems likely that everything was already fucked up, and that rocket — just like always — didn't let himself believe it until it was too late.

i think there's a different intensity to this rocket, unseen in the main mcu timeline. i think his anger burns brighter than we've seen it before — he's meaner than he's ever been — but i also think it burns out faster. rocket has spent so much of his life in this particular stage of grief, after all. no, i think after — oh, let’s say a quarter or two — he moves firmly into bargaining.

and stays there.

he doesn't realize it, of course. after all, rocket's always been a superstitious guy. in the comics, i'm told he's even sometimes represented as a bit compulsive. so i don't believe he consciously thinks, if we save ten planets every year for ten years, i can get my family back. it's nothing as obvious as that. no. instead, i think he just imagines that he's continuing the guardians’ legacy because it's what you'd want — what you and gamora and pete would want.

and then, at some point, the work becomes all-consuming. he’s constantly scanning the transmissions for distress-calls, sleeping less and less, acting more recklessly with every new mission. the guardians’ account grows fat with units because it’s not like he’s stopped charging people — he just doesn’t turn any jobs down.

some of the less self-involved avengers begin to take notice. cap tries to get rocket to come to one of his support group sessions — even offers to do private circles just for rocket and nebs and krags. rocket refuses, of course, despite that kraglin and nebula are both — worriedly and willingly — receptive to the idea.

meanwhile, kraglin is trying to use the third quadrant as an excuse to slow things down, saying the old ship can't keep up with the benatar so maybe they should take fewer jobs this cycle. nebula gets into yelling matches with rocket: telling him between insults that he's running himself ragged, that he's going to end up getting killed. he only yells back to tell her to stay on terra if she's going to be a big baby about the workload on the benatar.

she ends up drugging him a few times, just to get him to sleep.

then they get into a fight about that, too — the worst fight yet. poor kraglin is hiding in his bunk, scared to come out. and the thing is — they’re not even fighting because of the violation of rocket's bodily autonomy, which would normally have him furious. and they’re not fighting because the four shifts of uninterrupted sleep he got this last time have thrown off their whole saving-people schedule.

no, rocket tells nebula raggedly, once he's calmed down enough to sound broken instead of enraged. he scruffs the inside of one wrist angrily across his eyes, furious at a universe that forces him to cry over the loss of you.

no. he's pissed because when he's drugged, he doesn't dream.

and when he doesn't dream, then you're really gone.

maybe he mellows out eventually. maybe not. maybe it gets worse and worse until scott lang shows up like a frickin' quantum-angel, divinely drenched in subatomic light, bearing glad tidings and great news. but as soon as the snap is undone, finding you is the first fucking order of business. after escaping the flooding wreckage of the compound, anyway. rocket thinks you better still be in wakanda — you better not have wandered through one of those portals and back into a battlezone.

but of course you did, and when he gets his hands on you, he's furious and shouting and running his palms greedily all over you.

because you feel the same. he’d spent that last cycle before the snap memorizing you in all the ways he hadn't permitted himself before, and he’s spent nearly every rotation since calling up that memory in his palms and the pads of his fingers. and now here you are — perfectly unchanged and perfect — and it seems so impossible when he's so much more grizzled and scarred-up and ragged. hell, he’d gotten clipped by an ion-blast in a fight on Arago-7 last circ, so he's down a full quarter-of-an-ear since you saw him last.

but you — you're the same and you're perfect and will you even want him anymore once you realize what he's become?

will you?

he buries that particular insecurity down deep because, he thinks, you don't need to worry your gorgeous head about it now. besides, there's pete to deal with, and his gamora is still — gone. and there's a new gamora now too, and what the fuck is up with that? plus, he and nebs bought knowhere, and there's a lot to do there — a lot that needs to be done so rocket can move you right into his crappy apartment, so he can make it a place worth living with you.

he's — oddly, gruffly, almost-clingy at first. moreso than you ever would have dreamed, and it lasts for a long time. maybe forever. he doesn't want to clip your wings, but he wants to make sure you're flying with him. it's similar in how he treats groot, too — can't take his eyes off his kid, or he starts getting panic attacks. but you're no stranger to those, and you're patient with his grief.

after all, you have your own, too.

some nights on knowhere, you lay on the fresh mattress he'd actually bought from somebody, and you run your thumb back and forth across the crescent punched into the edge of his ear. and you see what the last five years — three-point-six-two circs, you remind yourself — have cost him, all alone in space. sure, he’d had nebs and kraglin, and they matter — you don’t want to diminish that — but he’d lost everything else.

he’d been heartbroken, with no-one who knew how to comfort him the way you do.

tears drip down your cheeks, and later — when rocket wakes up from the recurring nightmare where everyone he loves is gone, again and again and again — you can still taste the ocean on your lips.

but it's okay, you tell him, holding him close and cradling his head, thumbing his whiskers so he can't see you crying too (even though he knows; he always knows). better days are coming, you say.

and it takes a while to get there, but eventually, you're right.

if you stay —

— if you're never snapped at all — things are going to be rough for the first few quarters. all that progress you made with rocket before the snap? gone.

well, okay. not really gone. the lessons are still learned, but rocket can't really see them right now. or at least, he can't feel them, and we all know that feeling makes up the biggest part of a raccoon's sensory cortex.

and what he does feel is guilt and shame, and fury at himself.

as i've said, rocket is a superstitious sort. he had that one blissful fuckin' cycle with you before everything turned terrible, and even if he consciously knows this ain't how the universe works, it still feels like a message. like it's his fault. like how dare he try to have something he never frickin' deserved.

the snap had taken every single one of the guardians — except for you.

as if to tell him that he'd traded all their lives for a few precious moments of happiness.

you stay with him at the avengers compound until nebula shows up — but he won't talk to you. he gives you flat, implacable eyes and bared teeth whenever you try to ask if he's okay. forget trying to approach him with tears in your own eyes or wobbly lips, seeking the comfort of his company. if he says anything at all, it'll be to sneer at you to get a hug from one of the humies.

it's harder still when nebula comes back. he sits with her. he gives her awkward hand-pats at a time when you would do anything for an awkward hand-pat. he listens to her talk about thanos, and the garden — as if he values her thoughts. and even if he doesn't come out and say it, he treats her like a guardian.

and he's treating you like a curse.

when it's time to go back up in the stars, he's surprised to find you already buckled into the benatar, waiting. some wild inexplicable impulse had you making sure to board early — terrified he'd leave you if he got here first. you have nothing on terra worth sticking around for — not even before the snap. your only home now is with him.

you don't need to be here, he sneers at you, and you just want to cry. you're as bruised as anyone by the past few weeks. maybe even more than some, because they'd all had somebody to rely on. but you don't answer him — can't answer him. you just huddle up in your seat and stare dully ahead, till nebula climbs the ramp and freezes, her dark eyes flicking between the two of you like she's already clocked the tension.

she says nothing, though. she's surprisingly polite.

fine, rocket grumps when you make no move to disembark. he slumps in the pilot's seat, and the benatar begins to hum as the lights on the console flicker on.

the trip to the third quadrant is painfully stilted. kraglin's still alive, at least, which is nice. the four of you sit on the flight deck, and you explain as much as you can to kraglin. nebula corrects you from time to time, but rocket only broods and sulks. drinks a little, but not as much as you might have expected. apparently, he doesn't want the anesthetizing quality of the booze right now.

maybe he doesn't think he deserves it.

kraglin mops tears from beneath his eyes and proposes a ravager wake for everyone lost in the snap. nebula cocks her head in interest, but rocket storms off, muttering only, they ain't dead before he disappears for the sleepshift. you try to go after him, hovering in the corridor outside his bunk, wringing your hands as you ask if he needs anything.

he only holds your stare flatly while the door swishes shut in your face.

when you go back to the flight deck, nebula's gone. exploring, probably. you stay up with kraglin for a while, answering his questions and trying to offer comfort, before giving him a brief hug and turning in for the night. it's an awkward hug, but warm, and the closest thing you've had to comfort since everything happened.

you wake up midway through the sleepshift — a dream, maybe, or a sound. certainly it could be the latter. you can hear nebula and rocket in the corridor just outside your bunk. everything echoes in this old ravager ship, and you can't quite make out the words, but you know they're fighting.

they're both gone by the time you rise with the wakeshift. embarrassed — worried, for you — kraglin tells you they left about three hours earlier, and that he's got orders from rocket to drop you off on any planet or space station you might like.

they'd left you.

rocket had left you.

your mouth flattens with the effort of not bursting into tears, but kraglin blurs in your vision anyway.

joke's on rocket, you tell the former ravager shakily.

i'm not going anywhere.

it's not that rocket's trying to be a jerk. and he's not trying to punish you, either (though he's definitely punishing himself). but it's clear to him that he'd had the right of it all the way back on sovereign:

he's bad fuckin' news. he's a dangerous guy to like.

if anything, he reasons to himself furiously — if anything, he's protecting you. keeping you on the quadrant, out of harm's way. out of his way.

yeah. he's an idiot. and he's gonna be so surprised when he comes back to the quadrant to refuel and re-supply, only to realize you're still there: harder-eyed, with a pinch of anger at the corner of your mouth and a mutinous tilt to your chin. it reminds him of something, though he isn't sure what, and it makes him uneasy. with gritted teeth and a narrowed glare, he tells himself that if he just leaves you alone long enough, you'll get the message. you'll have kraglin drop you back on terra, or wherever you want to make a better life. so next time, rocket and nebs stay away a little longer.

and then a little longer.

nebula’s pissy about it — not that she even knows you, so why she’s so bent outta shape on your behalf is beyond rocket. and kraglin keeps almost-expressing concern: darting his eyes around the flightdeck while he whispers into the comms that you’re not eating the way you did before, that you’re burying yourself in unnecessary work around the quadrant, that he doesn’t think you’re sleeping.

that you’re usually so nice to him but now you haven’t spoken in three rotations.

and rocket hears all this. and he remembers your sweet smile and the way you’d felt against his fur, and how vulnerable and soft you’d been under his callused-leather palms. he remembers, and with a tight chest, he flatly says,

leave it alone. take ‘em home when they ask.

it takes a few more times of seeing you — of getting annoyed at how sulky you look the first couple visits, and then worried about the slump in your shoulders the next — and finally terrified by the hollow sorrow in your eyes — before he figures it out with a sickening lurch.

you look like a broken bone that never got properly set.

you look like an open wound.

you look like he left you bleeding somewhere, and never bothered to patch you up.

you look like you're dying, piece-by-piece.

and nebula must see it too, because the cyborg seeks him out after Kraglin goes to bed. she's cursing rocket, hissing at him — furious. there seems to be something about you that just elicits other peoples' care, he realizes distantly, as he lets nebula verbally eviscerate him — yet again. he supposes he should be grateful that she doesn't actually just destroy him.

but then, he's always done a fair job of destroying himself.

enough, rocket thinks, once nebs has stalked off to her own bunk in a fury.

enough feeling sorry for his stupid ass.

the plan had been to leave in the morning, but those intentions have dissolved. he seeks you out instead, finding you settled quietly in the oversized gutter of a starboard viewport, staring out at moondust and glittering spirals of distant galaxies.

hey, he says, his voice low and heavy on the grated catwalks. i thought — look. m'sorry. i thought you'd go back home by now.

you slowly turn your head from the stars — to look at him — and his breath catches behind his prosthetic flexi-rib extensions because now he can really see it.

what he did to you when he left you behind.

his lungs go shallow, the air in them thin. your eyes are glittering with unshed tears but you try to narrow them anyway, hands shaking when you clench them into fists against your knees, lips trembling with rage or brokenness. his heart speeds up in his chest, the thudding muscle loud and painful against his sternum.

you were my home, you tell him, and if your voice is a little hoarse, it might just be because you haven’t spoken to anyone — even kraglin — in well over a cycle.

you were the only home i had left, you tell him. and then you were gone too.

the words carve into him, so much more brutal than your voice itself.

normally, he’d lash out. i was out trying to make money — somethin’ we still need, in case you forgot while you were sitting on your pretty ass, he might have snarled. or, i was tryin’ to be a frickin’ guardian, to honor the rest of our crew — or don’t they matter to you anymore? even, what — you jealous of nebula now? don’t you know she lost her frickin’ sister?

but the place inside him that’s normally reserved for defensive anger is only—

empty.

his head swims. his vision blurs. everything that’s left of him just feels so.

fuckin’.

sorry.

tears pinch at the corners of his eyes. his knees wobble, then give. they crash down into the grated catwalks and you startle, jolting upright as his head hangs low.

m’sorry, he mumbles again, and the words splinter, shot through with starlight. i’m — i didn’t mean to leave you alone. i thought — fuck. i’m sorry.

he can’t say exactly what happens next. you’re already on the catwalk beside him: grates biting into your knees, fingers tangled up in his fur, cuddling his face into the soft skin joining your shoulder to your neck. you’re crying too — he swears he can feel each tear dampening the crown of his head — and he grips fistfuls of your shirt in his claws and hangs on as tight as he fuckin’ can.

i’m sorry, he repeats. the words are broken and he knows he’s pulling too hard on your shirt, knows you’ll have abrasions from the seams — but he can’t stop trying to crawl inside your ribcage and curl up with your heart in his arms like something precious. he’s weeping. so are you.

i’m so sorry, baby, he says again. you’re right. it was fucked up for me to leave you.

it won't be fixed in one rotation. he's gonna have to earn your trust back. he's gonna have to show you he deserves it.

but hey. for better or worse, you've got time.

i won’t ever do it again, he tells you. the words scrape against your collarbone, warm and rough. i won't leave you behind again — not like that.

and he fucking doesn’t.

don't get me wrong. rocket adores the food. now he understands why you've been making him try all your meals and leftovers the last few times he's come to visit, and asking about the things he likes to eat when he's starside. you’re so frickin' sweet that it makes his mouth hurt, and he has to work his jaw and scrub at his eyes.

this — it isn’t something anyone has ever done for him before. not unless you count floor sometimes trying to sneak him extra nutritional pellets in their cage, or lylla slipping him an spare sliver of meat when they got fancy treats. not even pete or nebs has ever done more than ask him to check the rations order and add what he wants to it.

but here's you, being so cute. for fuck's sake. it's a good thing you put that pretty flower in the little vase on the tray, because as soon as he's done licking the blueberries-and-cream from your fingers and the salt from your lips, he's going to whisper those silk-soft petals all over your beautiful humie body, and then he's going to really enjoy his breakfast-in-bed.

as far as he's concerned, this stuff's just the appetizers.

after he's done — ahem — eating, you introduce him to mimosas. he can't pronounce the word but holy shit, that's tasty. like a milky fizz, but with less milk and more booze. soon he's licking the orange juice out of your mouth, too, and there's prosecco sparkling on your skin. he's pretty sure that whatever’s in this just so happens to be the strongest alcohol on terra. that, or he's just fuckin' drunk on you and how sweet you are, how dedicated you are to making him feel happy. and appreciated.

and loved.

so you see. if you've already set up the bath, you've really played yourself at this point.

hopefully, though, you've only just prepared the space. it won't be hard to lure him into the room — pointing out how sticky his fur has gotten, how you yourself could do with some cleaning up. and once he's stepped inside the bathroom behind you, you flick a pretty metal lighter and set a dozen fat candles aglow. they shimmer in the silver fixtures, warming the porcelain around you. and rocket watches, ears laying flat and mouth ajar, as you spin the silver dial on the tub and begin filling it with gently-steaming water, pouring in a handful of translucent salts till the air is fragrant with vanilla and mint-eucalyptus. true, his fur will smell faintly of it for days — but he's told you before that the way it soothes his aching muscles is worth it.

finally. if there's any clothing left on you, it ends up on the floor now. in the shadows and golden light, you stretch out a hand and invite him into the warm water.

and of course, he takes it.

you know, you don't gotta do all this, he points out later, after he's softened his palms in the vanilla-mint water and used them to map your body, committing you to his sensory memory all over again. it seems he always finds something new about you, after all. it ain't my frickin' — birthday, or whatever. i'll keep comin' to visit without you doin' all this nice, fancy stuff for me.

his throat's a little tight, though: voice a little hoarse, eyes blinking rapidly. it's the steam, of course — beading up on his fur, getting water in his eyes. and if he's a little teary, so what? he's never been afraid of a little crying — even if he's terrified of admitting what you mean to him. what all this means to him.

i know, you say softly into the damp shell of his ear. it flicks against your lips in a way that feels somehow infinitely more intimate than a kiss. but i wanted to.

you snug him against your chest a little tighter as the warmth and water ripples around you, reflecting candlelight.

you deserve nice things, you know? you deserve to know how much i think about you. how much i care. you drop the kiss anyway, right on the wet fur at the crown of his head. you deserve to feel special, rocket.

there's a moment of silence, and then he scoffs softly into the steam — but the narrow hand on your thigh squeezes, claws gently denting your flesh in a way that he hopes you know means thank you.

you're so sweet, he thinks. a sweet, stupid, lovable humie idiot.

after all, how could he not feel special when he's the luckiest damn degenerate in the known universe?

how could he not feel special when he's got you?

but you're the most attentive, focused lover he's ever had. not only do you make him come harder than he ever has in his frickin’ life, but you do all these other things that he's never even thought about before. you’re stroking his tail in long, sleek, teasing tugs that send frissons up his spine until he starts feeling his cock nudge against its sheath, even when it's inconvenient. you’re scratching the base of his ears, or yanking on fistfuls of his fur in a way that makes starburst-explosions blossom behind his eyelids. massaging the hollow of his back, right above his tail, so that his legs stiffen and his hips spasm against you. smiling when you do it, like you love finding new ways to make him feel good in this body that so often aches and burns and almost never feels like home.

and then one day —while you’re tunneling your fingers through the pelt that covers his chest — you happen to accidentally thumb one tiny, hard nipple, buried by fur.

he hisses at the touch, pupils pooling darker and wider than they ever have before — even now, when he's already inside you. you blink, your face just inches from his, and tentatively brush the little pebble again.

fuck! he barks out, surprised, almost recoiling. what the fuck—

wait, no, i'm sorry, you say, reeling him back in with both arms and both legs wound around him. did that hurt? i thought — when i found it, i thought you might like it.

he hesitates. blinks at you — eyes narrow, then curious. and he doesn't need to say it for you to figure it out: he's not sure. he doesn't know.

if there's a chance you might like it, we should find out, you say coaxingly. you can tell me to stop anytime, but — i don't know.

you gnaw at your lip.

life has given you so much pain, you tell him at last. the words are slow and cautious as you cradle his long narrow jaw in your hands, thumbs stroking along his whiskers. sometimes it feels like my personal mission to find all the things that make you feel good, and make sure you don't miss out on a single one.

his eyes flicker over you. you're too fuckin' sweet, he thinks. too good for him, by far. he leans in and nuzzles against your throat, and gives you that rare permission that he saves for when he's feeling particularly soft and trusting with you.

do whatever you want to me, baby.

you start out slow: stroking, playing with the nipple you'd found — searching for its opposite partner and then thumbing them both at the same time. his hips arch and his tail fluffs up, and he can only blink at you, stunned by the flush of heat running up from the base of his tail to his cheeks and his flickering ears. when you gently pluck at each tiny nub — alternating first, then at the same time — he hisses and groans, dick twitching inside you as he tries to stay still. it’s like you’ve found two electrical lines straight to his balls. his abdomen tightens and his hips kick.

through it all, you're checking in — asking him if he's feeling okay, if he likes it, if he's enjoying your hands on him. and he's grunting out fuck yeahs and what the hells, like his own body is surprising him every time you try something new: little flicks, squeezes, light and gentle twists. you're basically just cockwarming him now, but every tiny bit of stimulation to this newly-discovered erogenous zone has him bucking inside you.

and when you try out a sharp pinch for the first time — both nipples, just once — that's when he comes, a choked sound snarling in his throat, his claws suddenly flexing into your ass-cheeks as his spine spasms and his hips slam forward. sparks explode at the base of his spine and in front of his eyes, blotting out his vision, and he spurts like a fountain inside you.

later, he thinks he almost blacked out. almost blacked the fuck out. that's never happened before — not for him. for his partners, sure — but never for him. he can't even be embarrassed, though — not when he blinks open bleary eyes, cuddled against your shoulder with his nose nuzzled under your ear, and your hands stroking along his flanks. you've got a half-smile on your perfect mouth — almost as smug as his own most self-satisfied smirks — but the twinkle in your eyes is all warmth and softness as you lift one hand to thumb his whiskers, then massage the base of his ear.

i think we'll need to keep trying that out, you tease into his fur. just to see what works for you. a pause. unless you don't want to, of course.

he spits out an exhausted bark of laughter. fuck you, he says with a tired smirk. you know i do.

you grin — clearly delighted — and he arches a brow in playful challenge, despite how languid and warm his muscles feel.

just know i'm gonna get you back, twice as good.

sorryyyyy i don't usually write explicit nsfw for asks so i hope you don't mind babe. (i actually have a whole mental policy against it but i uhhhh couldn't help myself this time this is just where it wanted to go i apologize/hope you enjoyed darling) also for the good of the order, rivals-rocket for sure has pierced nipples (i guess anyone who saw yesterday’s fan art knows is a core belief of mine). and actually, now that i think about it, eidos-rocket probably does, too. really i've been leaving far too many piercings out of my eidos fanfiction.

maybe you're shy, and striking up a friendship with the much-less-intimidating flora colossus feels like a safer way to hopefully win over rocket. or maybe you're clever and cunning and sly, smirking and trying not to wink at rocket every time he grumbles about you taking up too much time with his bestie.

either way, groot's as (platonically) besotted with you as you are with him.

you tend to stick close to the big guy’s side, trying to look out for him — as if he isn't almost twice your size. you talk to him as if he's your cat — not that he's a pet, of course. it's just that you sort of ramble your stream of consciousness at him while you work on things, and you listen attentively on the occasions when he speaks — even though your understanding of his speech is entirely dependent on his tone of voice or nonverbal cues.

groot, for his own part, indulges you as if you are his cat: smiling bemusedly at you while you chatter and chirp, gently nudging you aside when you get underfoot. sometimes he dares to crown you with wreathes of leaves and flowers, if he thinks he can get away with it without you batting it confusedly off your head.

and rocket continues to grumble.

now, rocket was actually already intrigued by you before your friendship with groot blossomed — in the same way he's intrigued by any newcomer, that is. he's always been a curious guy, and despite his frenetic, irritable attitude, he starts to linger around the two of you.

"that's my friend," he points out crankily, almost shrill with exasperation. "you're flarkin' hoggin' him!"

groot says something admonishing, and rocket growls and grumps and stomps around, lashing his tail. but he keeps darting speculative glances at you over his shoulder. what is it about you that's charmed groot so much? he wonders.

plus, he has to admit he likes having someone else keep an eye on the big guy. sure, you're not particularly good at flying the ship yet, and you don't really handle the recoil on the big blasters very well — but at least you can be another set of eyes when trouble is coming, and you can remind groot not to do stupid things.

it’s almost a full quarter later that something finally snaps into place for rocket. he’s not expecting it, of course. it’s just another sleepshift: one where he’s working on the thrusters late into the so-called night. groot's waiting for him, sitting on the floor with his back braced against a bulwark in the adjacent cargo bay. like the next tile in a row of dominoes, you're waiting too: slouched against the flora colossus’ side, watching something on your datapad, occasionally chuckling and tapping groot's knee so you can show him whatever's playing out on the screen.

and rocket finds that, in spite of his growly complaints, he can't help but be kinda — well. he’s not annoyed that you’re there.

he makes a face to himself: musing over this unfortunate realization while he clinks away inside the hull, fixing a few broken valves and redirecting some lines from the various fuel tanks. his ears flick at your every quiet murmur and hushed laugh, and groot's rumbling inquiries, and the vague mumble of the datapad videos. rocket doesn't pay much attention — at least not consciously — but his body notices. his muscles loosen. he shoulders ease into something comfortable and relaxed. his tail even wraps around him — almost cozily.

hours pass, and your commentary grows more muffled and sparse. groot's gravelly responses spread thin. eventually, even the voices on the holovids slowly sputter to a halt.

rocket finishes.

he tucks his tools in the pouches at his hip, standing up and cracking his back — then his neck — pleased with the work he's done. eager for a little flarkin’ praise. he practically struts out of the hole in the hull, chest puffed up and thick tail waving like a flag, only to nearly stumble over his own feet.

groot's asleep, and so are you: curled up into the big guy's flank. it's such a domestic sort of scene that rocket feels his heart kinda skip in his chest a little. there's a lopsided tug at one corner of his mouth, and it takes him a full thirty seconds to realize he's smiling.

it's — well. it's sorta cute, actually.

maybe you havin' you around actually ain't so bad.

the paralysis is worse than the terrors themselves. at least, with the terrors alone, rocket wakes up already fighting. so far he’s never accidentally shot anyone — least not anyone who didn’t deserve it — and he’s only punched Star-Lord once, which actually seems like a testament to his own self-control, all things considered.

but when he wakes up paralyzed, he feels so helpless. so weak. sometimes he even wonders if he’s still back in the lab, and all his circs of flight and freedom have only been a hallucination.

so he tries to avoid sleep, not realizing he’s making it worse: pushing himself to the point of exhaustion again and again, taking only sporadic naps at erratic intervals. trying to self-medicate with bottles of angargal’s and twelve-packs of blubber ale.

they all make it worse.

not that he draws the connection.

it’s not till you show up, then start hanging around, that things begin to change. god, rocket probably hates sharing a bunk with you at first — annoyed at having a newcomer bumping around in his ship, a stranger intruding in his family, an innocent little terran taking up his space and interfering with his already-questionable sleep schedule. he stays away from the bunk even more, of course — wrinkling his nose at the thought of you in it.

but his avoidance can’t last forever. at some point, he attempts to sneak a twenty-minute nap, only for deprivation to send him sprawling into hours of deep-dreaming in his hammock. when the sleepshift rolls around, you’re reluctant to wake him — so you simply sneak in quietly to catch some Zs on the shelf-bed, tiptoeing through the shadows.

you wake an hour later to the sound of his tight lungs and wheezy breaths, each inhale and exhale slivered and split like his ribs are a cheese grater. cautious, you rise, your bare feet padding on the grates — and when you see his eyeshine catch the dim glow of the security lights, you understand what’s happened to him.

hey, you’re safe, you remind him gently, your voice a crushed-velvet whisper in the dark. you’re here, in our bunk in the benatar, and you’re safe. i’m going to touch your shoulder, okay? i want you to focus on that for now, so you remember I’m with you, and where you are.

do you feel me? can you just blink for me? just once for yes, okay, handsome?

a moment. a blink. you let out a sigh of relief.

good, you praise him, thumb stroking his shoulder. his fur is softer than you’d imagined — and you had imagined, much to your embarassment. you’re doing so good for me. can you try to take a deeper breath for me? slow it down just a little, okay? i’ll do it with you. we’re going to try for a four-count.

he fails the first time, lungs stuttering and shaking with each broken, ragged inhale, tight and shallow.

that’s okay. we’ll keep trying, you and me. i know it’s hard and you’re doing so well. it’s going to get easier each time you try. i’m just going to talk to you, okay? so you know i’m here and you’re not alone.

a brief, self-deprecating laugh filters from your lips.

and if you hate me and never wanna see me after this, that’s okay. I don’t mean to annoy you so much.

his heart’s already clenching and thudding in his chest, but something about your words makes it twist.

but you ramble on, oblivious to the achy little secondhand wound you’d given him: explaining the mechanics of sleep paralysis in a half-apologetic tone, like you’re afraid you’re telling him shit he already knows. you slide your other hand into his while you chatter softly, your fingers tracing the lines of his palm in a way that puts a new kind of starburst-explosion behind his eyes, because you prob’ly have no idea how sensitive his hands are.

can you feel this? you trace a line down the inside of his forefinger and he’s suddenly feeling more in his body than he’s felt since this nightmare started.

maybe since long before that.

blink for me if you can feel it.

his eyelids flutter.

thank you, sweetheart. focus on this finger for me, okay? i want you to curl it closed for me, all right?

your thumb massages his palm encouragingly, more stars flare behind his eyes, and he realizes — for fuck’s sake — he’s prob’ly gonna frickin’ fall in love with you now.

rocket never woulda frickin’ thought that you would be the fix for his bouts of paralysis — but here he is, six cycles later, with more patience and less hostility, and a good-natured edge to his typical mockery that still startles his fellow Guardians. his eyes are brighter and his fur is glossier; he’s eating more and somehow, his aim is even better than it was before.

and the number of times he wakes up in the middle of the sleepshift with his muscles locked and terror still clinging his fur? well, let’s just say it’s decreased dramatically.

it’s not me, you laugh when he smirks and calls you his medicine, his sleep-aid, his little humie cure-all. it’s just that you’re going to bed at a regular time and getting up at a regular time. drinking less. actually sleeping instead of trying to avoid it, and not lying on your back in that hammock.

he only shrugs and grins and tugs you toward the low shelf-bed he shares with you now — sleeping curled into a circle against your flank, or weighing down your belly. you climb in beside him, and he winds his arms as far as he can around you, squeezing you teasingly like you’re his favorite stuffed plushie, pressing his nose to your temple while he chides you smugly:

wouldn’t be doin’ any of that without you.

all this to say, at first, your goth vibes don’t really register for rocket. the most salient thing he notices — if you’re a jewelry-wearer — is all your shiny bits of metal. he stares. he stares so hard that sometimes it makes you uncomfortable, because you never know what he’s thinking when he does it. hell, he doesn’t even know. mostly his fingers get twitchy and he thinks about whether or not he can steal an earring or a buckle or a spike, or the stud off a slim leather belt. he thinks — when he lets himself — about the metal embedded in his own flesh and bone. and then he imagines what it would be like to take a bit of you for himself. imagines the contrast of cool metal warmed by your skin, rolling the imaginary feeling in his sensitive palm.

corpsman dey’s words come back to him, trying to warn him against thievery. and rocket’s own words echo in his head, more firmly than ever.

but what if i want it more than the person who has it?

no, sir. you don’t understand. i want it more.

of course, the more that time passes, the more rocket gets to know you. and the more he gets to know you, the more he appreciates everything about you. your music is a lure — unlike anything he’s heard in pete’s tapes or the zune so far. he loses himself in the stark look of your style, all soft shadows and sharp edges. if you wear makeup, he imagines tracing it with his touch: rubbing the velvet texture between thumb and forefinger, memorizing the way the smudge of darkness feels against his sensitive skin. he stares at your black-lacquered nails until you notice him looking — which is about when you decide to show up to his bunk that sleepshift, bearing half-a-smile, two milky fizzes, and a half-bottle of midnight-polish, offering to paint his claws.

it becomes a little ritual you share every cycle or two: you bent over his sensitive hands, the slick dark paint glossing over his sharp, sharp nails, the stinging chemical scent making his nose flare and his eyes burn. even so, he wouldn’t give it up. every time — after you’ve finished — he admires his claws with a bemused smirk twisting one corner of his mouth, flashing the tip of one wicked canine.

he wouldn’t say it out loud, of course, but the shiny black lacquer makes him feel lethal and strong — and the time together feels like a gift.

no, sir. i want it more.

of course, it’s not till the war with thanos and the snap — and all your time with the avengers — that rocket realizes that something’s off.

up until now, rocket hasn’t had a reason to think twice about your clothing, your vibe, your aesthetic as a terran — at least not beyond how much it suits you, and how well he likes the look of you, and whether or not you wear black undergarments, too.

and how much he wants to steal the metal and paint off your skin.

basically, he just has no context for the counterculture aspect of your presence. at most — depending on your style and outward appearance — perhaps pete had made a comment or two. an observation, if you will. star-lord would have seen beetle juice a scant six months before he was abducted — it was probably one of the last movies he saw in theaters with his mom — so i'm sure he calls you “deetz” if you’ve got even a vaguely similar vibe. that movie had really been his only exposure to the idea of goth subculture at the time — and in spite of the dated reference, pete had been utterly accepting. (here’s your reminder that meredith quill was a flower-child-turned-alien-fucker so she taught her kid not to be a judgy dickhead.)

which is why rocket is understandably nonplussed by the way some of the avengers treat you.

not all of them, of course. but some. they treat you weird: raised eyebrows and disapproving glances, halfhearted mumbles from the sides of their mouths. in fact, they treat you kinda like they treat rocket: a little nervy, a little condescending. a little like they’re afraid you’ll bite.

he cocks his head, and studies you with shrewd eyes. and that’s when he starts to figure it out.

you’re a little bit different from other terrans, aren't you? a little bit fringe. a little bit nonconformist. it startles him to realize it — makes him snicker a little, surprised and pleased, and under his breath. for the first time, rocket is realizing you’re a little beyond what the rest of ‘em think is nice an’ normal.

and apparently, you don’t care enough about their opinions to make yourself fit.

rocket identifies with that — so intimately that for a second, it hurts. the realization feels like recognition. like maybe this was something he always should have known about you.

and fuck, does he admire it. after all, nothing’s ever quite as fuckin’ hot as someone scoffing at the frickin’ status quo. it’s a bit of a tipping point for him, you know? though the thought itself isn’t new, this is the first time he’s been forced to acknowledge it, even to himself. he simply can’t deny it anymore.

he’s fuckin’ in love.

the timing couldn’t be worse, of course. rocket is grieving his son. the universe has been halved. his family’s all gone and nebula needs a frickin’ babysitter and everything is fucked.

and maybe there’s something about your presence that is a solace there, for him. undeserved, but deeply needed. deeply wanted. you stay up in the dark nights on terra, and you talk, and every word out of your mouth is a thought or a feeling he hadn’t known how to name.

if he were a good guy, he'd suggest you stay here. maybe not with the avengers — at least, not the dickhead ones — but on terra, where maybe you'd be less likely to be taken out by a fleet of angry badoon or a malfunctioning plantary cannon. some place where you'd be relatively safe, and where you could find other nonconformist-terrans, and where you wouldn't have to rely on a shitbag like him.

yeah, he could suggest it, but he doesn't. not even once. not when it would mean giving up your company.

no, sir. you don’t understand. i want it more.

he keeps you instead. for now. however he can. and finally, finally, once all the avengers have decided they don’t need the three of you anymore — the tattered remnants of the guardians of the galaxy climb back up into the stars.

and as soon as the benatar is docked on the quadrant, rocket shows up, knocking on the hatch of your bunk. the sound echoes in the empty ship, sharpened by the absence of other voices and bodies to soften its edges. your door slides open and you gaze down at him in surprise. he hefts two milky fizzes at his side with one hand, and splays the other: studying his pointed claws and their chipped black lacquer.

wouldn't mind a fresh coat a' paint, he says quietly.

and you step back, inviting him in.

he doesn't stay over for the whole sleepshift this time, though he wants to. he definitely wants to. and he thinks that maybe you'd let him. but he'll wait for now — till the urge becomes too strong to ignore.

till he can't help but steal all your nights.

and the rest of your time, too.

it’ll only be a short while before you begin to notice that some of your jewelry is missing.

it’s not the first time it’s happened over the course of circs — though you seem to be losing little fragments of silver with a far greater frequency than you ever have before. buckles, studs, shiny spikes, an ornate skull-shaped pendant with glittery onyx eyes that had reminded you of knowhere itself.

none of them are safe.

for a while, you’ll be confused. perplexed, but not overly distressed — chalking it up to your own absent-mindedness with a vague, mild frustration. it won’t be until a full quarter later that you’ll figure it out. rocket will be showing off a fancy new home-brewed plasma-cannon, and you’ll squint as you realize that the trigger looks suspiciously familiar: a thick ridged crescent C, perfectly-sized to a human finger.

probably because it’s been made from the crow-shaped ring you’ve been missing for the last five cycles.

you notice it, eyes rounding out into startled moons.

and rocket notices you noticing.

that’s mine, you say, more perplexed than annoyed. astounded, really. baffled and bewildered. you stole it.

it won’t make sense to you. why, of all the old firearms and weapons on the quadrant and the benatar, would rocket decide to recycle your missing pieces of jewelry into gun-parts?

the answer, of course, is so that he can lay claim to a small part of you: a bit of metal that is uniquely you, one you’ve worn with almost as much regularity as he wears his shiny collarbones and gleaming servos. so he can carry it with him, as casually as possible, and keep it within reach. keep it forever.

one of rocket’s fingertips kisses the curved sterling shape like a prayer, and he slants you a wink and a grin as he shrugs.

i wanted it more.