Living with Rocket 2

By Strega

Ego had been hard on everyone. Peter Quill had lost his father - arguably both his fathers, though if you asked him now Yondu was the only one he would acknowledge. Gamora had gone through a torturous reunion with her sister Nebula, Drax had been reminded once again of what he'd lost to Ronan, and their newest member, Mantis, had lost the only home and the only father she'd ever known. Even Groot had been tormented by the Ravagers and nearly crushed by Ego.

And Rocket? Rocket had, very briefly, met someone who understood him. It had never happened before; his friendship with Groot aside, occasional mercenary team-ups had always been the closest he came to true friendship before meeting the Guardians, and even they didn't truly know him. Leaving Yondu behind and ordering the ship into orbit without his new friend or Peter had almost destroyed him. He had known one or both of them would die when he did it but someone had to give the order. Someone had to save as many people as possible. Only the appearance of a Ravager fleet to honor their lost comrade had pulled him out of a deep despair.

When they returned to the sad wreck of the Milano he threw himself into repairing the ship, sleeping only fitfully before moving on to the next task. Work kept his mind and his hands busy; there no was time to dwell on what had been lost.

His own small cabin had been completely blown away by the Sovereign attack, and rather to everyone's surprise the little raccoon proposed it not be rebuilt. The Milano, he said, needed a lifeboat, and over the course of the week and before Kraglin left to find a new crew he built one from components he liberated from the Ravager's much larger ship. The resulting craft was barely large enough for the crew but it was better than naked space.

The loss of one of their closet-sized crew cabins and the addition of Mantis to the crew presented them with a dilemma: where would everyone sleep? There were open bunks in the thruway on either side of the engines and Drax promptly volunteered to take one so Mantis would have a room of her own. Rocket and Groot, needing only a small space, would curl up wherever the raccoon was working, often after the little tree dragged the raccoon a pillow or blanket to lie on.

It was probably coincidence that Rocket often chose to curl up at the end of the sofa in the common area. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that if someone happened by they would most likely sit for a bit and pet the sleeping raccoon. Everyone knew not to try to pet him unless they didn't mind risking a finger or two to his fangs. He couldn't abide being treated like an animal and he'd let you know that if you tried it. But if you found him sleeping you could stroke his fur and feel the tension in his little body ease until he settled down to a better sleep. If he didn't know about it then being petted was no insult.

That was probably how he rationalized it, anyway. He couldn't admit that the only reason he hadn't woken up screaming for months was that Peter stopped by almost every night to pet him as he shivered through another nightmare. Half the time he awoke when Peter showed up but lay there pretending to be asleep, and he'd deny even to himself that those moments of human kindness were the brightest spots in his day.

He was a broken little thing under all the bluster and Rocket didn't know, or chose not to know, that Quill's nocturnal visits were no secret. Even Mantis knew within a day of arriving on the ship how hurt he was and that Peter had something to do with keeping him reasonably functional.

It was having friends that did it. Before, when it was only Groot, he had built a hard shell around his pain and fear that kept the terrors at bay. Then Groot died and the new version of his friend needed care and attention, on top of him suddenly being close to people he genuinely cared about. The softening of his heart brought the old nightmares back again. He'd lie there shivering, dreaming, remembering the scalpels and the cool dispassionate voices of the scientists as they ripped off an arm or leg, or split his torso open, crammed him full of cybernetics and stitched him back together again. They didn't dare risk anesthesia, he remembered them saying. Too many subjects died under the knife when the dosage was a trifle wrong. Test subjects were expensive. That the Uplift process meant they were cutting open a conscious, thinking creature didn't matter. Profit was everything.

It was the memory of cold blades slicing into his flesh that woke him screaming. But that hadn't happened for months now and sleeping curled up in a careful chosen public place wasn't asking to be petted. If it happened and he didn't wake up and bite you that was good fortune for everyone concerned.

So instead of Peter always stumbling from his cabin around midnight to soothe the traumatized raccoon it might be anyone at any time of the day, depending on his work schedule,whenever and wherever he happened to be sleeping.

Slowly he healed. Slowly, over the weeks, the nightmares came less often as the hole inside him finally began to fill with friendship. Sleeping in the open was a good deal for everyone; they got to pet him, which even Gamora liked to do through she'd deny it, and he got to pretend it wasn't happening.

There was still a core of fear and misery in his furry little chest, though, and naturally it was Mantis who exposed it.

One evening a few weeks after Ego the ship was all but repaired and Rocket was sound asleep on the end of the sofa as usual. Since he snapped at Mantis at their first encounter she had been the least likely to stop and pet him as he slept, but she'd seen others doing it. This time she sat next to him, put her hand on his furry shoulder and frowned.

Mantis was alien, new to the crew and a powerful empath. Her entire function as Ego's servant had been to soothe her master's troubled mind and though Rocket was a quarter the mass of Ego's human form and an Uplifted animal, she felt the awful tension in his little body. A nightmare gripped him as he slept and Mantis, accustomed to reading emotions to see what caused such terrors, made the mistake of reading his.

There was no one there to see the horror that twisted her face or the tears that sprang into her eyes. This time it wasn't Rocket's scream that brought the crew running. It was Mantis's despairing shriek as she bolted from the room.

Every hair on Rocket's body stood out straight as he woke, rolling off the sofa onto all fours. Before he was even fully awake a clawed hand was under the sofa and around the grip of the plasma gun he always stowed within each reach when he slept. He came up onto his feet only to free his hands, one on the trigger and one ready to flip the setting from 'More or less all right to fire inside the ship' to 'I don't care if I blow a hole in the hull, you need to die right now.'

He skidded into the doorway with Groot clinging to his tail and the blaster ready only to find the whole crew gathered around the dinner table. There was no sign of danger, just Quill, Drax and Gamora all huddled around a sobbing Mantis.

"I told you not to-" Peter was right in the middle of saying to her. Rocket scanned the room for threats, and scowled as he realized there weren't any.

"Eh, its just the empath crying again," he grumbled, and turned back into the corridor.

What happened next would never have occurred before he met the Guardians. If anyone but one of them had run up on him from behind the best case scenario for them would be that he had nonlethal ordinance in his weapons. If it had been a group of strangers he would have spun at the first footfall and lit them up.

But he trusted the Guardians, even trusted Mantis as much as he trusted anyone he'd known only a few days. A furry ear flipped around as he heard the slap of a bare foot but he was uncharacteristically slow to react and suddenly soft hands were around his chest and his feet left the deck. Groot lost his grip on his ringed tail and Rocket went rigid as he realized it was Mantis who had grabbed him. It was just a hug but to Rocket any unexpected contact was a threat, especially if it was someone bigger than he was.

"Get off!" He snarled, cybernetically augmented hands trying to pry hers from his chest. She was stronger than she looked and he'd dropped the blaster. He kicked at her knee, increasingly agitated despite her efforts to soothe him.

"You poor little thing," she said into his ear. "What did they do to you?"

Rocket didn't like being picked up or pushed around. Anyone else would have bite marks by now but even in this safe environment his struggles intensified. The last time someone had picked him up like this he'd been wearing a muzzle and-

"No," he snarled, his tail fluffing out in terror. "No, no, NO! Let go!" His ears went back and he wasn't wearing a muzzle this time. He twisted in Mantis's grip and Peter was there. A strong hand gripped his shoulder and for the second time his fangs went into Peter's flesh, the human's forearm receiving the bite intended for Mantis's throat.

Then Drax was there too, his huge hand on Rocket's other shoulder, and Gamora, hers on his nape not quite petting him, and even Groot was clinging to his tail again, and Rocket realized they weren't restraining him. Their grip just held him close, but he could wriggle free if he wanted. Even Mantis, sensing his terror, loosened her grip.

"It's all right Rocket," Peter said, even as blood dripped down his arm, "It's all right."

It started with a shudder, a twitch in his belly, and before Rocket knew what was happening he was crying, ugly wracking sobs shaking his little body. Drax took him away from Mantis and they all stood close as the only one of them who had ever actually raised a child held Rocket tight and murmured comforting words. Hands that for once weren't there to hurt him, cut him open, or break him stroked his fur and Rocket sobbed, his shell finally cracked. The last time someone held him like this was so far in the past all he remembered was warm fur and safety.

Eventually he cried himself into exhaustion and found the little band all sitting on the sofa or on chairs close to it. His eyes cleared and he saw Mantis's forearms, deeply scratched, and Quill sticking smart bandages on the holes his fangs had made.

"How did that happen," Rocket wondered, and stirred in Drax's grip enough for the giant to let him slide from his arms and sit on the sofa. "Mantis-"

"I did nothing," the empath said in her strange accent. "I could feel it needed to come out, but forcing it would not help. It had to come out on its own."

"This isn't right," Rocket said, and though he felt somehow lighter his ears were down and his gaze downcast. "I can't be this weak."

"It is not weakness!" Drax said sharply. "Keeping it all inside, forever, that is weakness. Sooner or later you must let yourself feel. Keeping it all inside is what made Ronan."

"And Ego," Peter muttered. Mantis nodded.

"Thanos," Gamora said.

Suddenly Peter's hand was on Rocket's nape and the raccoon's chops drew back to expose his fangs. Only the blood already on Quill's wrist made him hesitate. In that frozen instant Peter began to scratch him gently behind the ears.

"Rocket," the man said softy, "It's us. Not strangers, not enemies. Not people who want to hurt you and sure as hell not the ones that make you wake up screaming. It's us."

"No," Rocket growled. "Don't do that. I'm not an animal."

"Of course you aren't," Mantis said. "You're Rocket. But you still like to be petted."

"I don't -"

"Rocket," Peter said gently. "Before Ego I'd been coming to your room for weeks to pet you because if I didn't you'd have a nightmare and wake up screaming. Then you bit me and I still kept coming, right? It's a small ship. You can't keep something like that secret and you sure can't pretend you are asleep that many times without everyone knowing."

Rocket sighed. Somehow, despite it all, he was calm. All the fear had bled out of him with the tears.

"All right," he said. "All right. I like to be petted. It feels good. And yes, sometimes at night I, I remember things. Things I don't want to remember. Having Groot around helps but he's so little still. He has to sleep too."

"Just remember," said Drax in that deep voice, "You are not alone. You have your family all around you."

Rocket's hands found a smart pad on the table and he absently disassembled it and rebuilt it by touch. Working with his hands relaxed him more than almost anything. "Family," he said. "I could learn to like that word."

His hard shell had finally cracked and though in public he was as snarky and sarcastic as ever, and just as likely to sink his teeth into you if you tried to pet him, on the Milano it was different. Here he could admit that he enjoyed simple pleasures like having his ears scratched. And the nightmares, though they would never full fade, at least weren't as frequent or as terrifying. It was possible to move on, even from a past as awful as his.

It was shortly after that Peter took a solo trip to Earth to collect new music and on the way back bought the 'Travel bed for anthropomorphs, size 4'. It was an odd round little thing with a raised lip embroidered with the Ravagers symbol and Rocket's name, well padded and large enough for him to curl up in. Instead of sleeping on a pillow or bunched up blanket the raccoon was often to be found under a workbench or in the common areas snoozing away in the thing. It was safe to pet him now, too. Safer, anyway.

But he was still Rocket, and one day in the common area Peter sat down on the sofa to idly scratch behind the seemingly sound asleep raccoon's ears. He went wide-eyed when a small but cybernetically augmented hand clamped down on his fingers.

"Just so you know," Rocket said without opening his eyes, "I know where you got this bed. I know what it's for. And if I'd caught you laughing at me behind my back for sleeping in it you would have woken up without your dick. But you didn't, and it's comfortable. So thank you."

With that he stretched, curled up in the pet bed and went back to sleep, and Peter just rubbed his fingers and smiled at his violent little friend.