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Rocket nodded his head to the music blaring from the Bowie’s killer sound system.
Music constantly played in the background like a personal soundtrack for their lives, and it was a kickass soundtrack. Everyone liked it. Groot danced. Started dancing from the minute he sprouted like Michael Jackson—whoever that was. Quill was always referencing old weirdos from his home planet. Mantis would be dancing too, but Drax the Destroyer of fun in typical dumb Drax fashion refused to dance with her. Stupid idiot. Quill would be showing them all his earth-human moves if he didn't have Gamora issues, and that was putting it lightly.
Rocket would never admit it, but music made him feel closer to his fellow guardians. It was something they all liked, their one commonality since no one else had whiskers or a tail. Well, yeah, maybe whiskers if that thing on Quill’s face counted. He snickered inwardly. Quill and him had a special bond to music. They even liked the same songs, but he wasn't going to tell him that. He might think that made them brothers or something, and he just couldn’t risk Quill getting all emotional.
He knew why Quill was so attached to it. Music just made sense of things words couldn’t, like being abducted from your home planet and finding out your dad was a celestial maniac who wanted to control the universe. Ok, maybe not, but it took the cacophony of sounds and turned it into a song. Wait where had he heard that before? That thought wasn’t ... his. It was like a memory, or the memory of a dream. Nah. He shook his head. He had to get out of his head and back to the music. Most of the songs were from the era when Quill was a boy. They were like a bridge connecting him to everything he lost. The only scrap of the life he knew. Yeah, songs that took you back, they hit different. They resonated with Rocket too, despite the fact that he was a creature that wasn’t even from the same planet as Quill. Quill was from Earth in some place called America. Yeah, he didn’t think he came from a remotely similar planet.
He tapped his clawed hands on the controls. Lately, Quill had been playing a lot of sad music because of Gamora, but today, it was something more upbeat. He felt it like an energy in his hands down his spine all the way to the tip of his tail. Yeah, they could all use a break from grief and hardship. They all needed some good music. He grinned toothily. The next song kicked on. He knew most of them by now. “Mr. Blue Sky.” He grinned, humming along.
Mr. Blue Sky please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long (so long)
Where did we go wrong?
He stopped tapping his fingers and feet. Blue sky. His ear twitched. Something cold, a long-buried thing surfaced enough to scratch. Damn what was this? The song was upbeat, peppy even, or maybe that was why. The tune and the energy brought to mind a childlike rabbit hopping up and down.
“Rocket and Floor play,” a voice echoed in his mind.
He shook his head. It was more than that, it was the damned words. The word sky kept repeating over and over. Of course it did: it was a freak’n song about the freak’n sky.
Hey there Mr. Blue
We're so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do
Everybody smiles at you
Sky. A flash of memory. The first time he saw it. Big, bright, blue with white light: the backdrop of a new world. The forever and beautiful sky. Then he heard a voice, not his own, a lovely voice whisper “sky” softly like a melody, a hopeful, sad note in an unfinished song.
He gritted his teeth against a wash of pain. Not now. Didn’t expect it to surface like this. Didn’t think this song would hit like that, hit hard. He looked around. The rest of them were dancing like a bunch of stupid idiots. Laughing. The room spun. Mantis. Groot. They all blurred and melted into a new image: A walrus, Teefs; Floor leaping and chasing him; and Lylla laughing in delight, hopping from side to side to tag Teefs. Her movements were graceful as she swayed, her body curving like an s. It looked more like a dance than a game. He imagined her dancing to this song. She’d love this song, a song about sky. Lyla. Damn he wanted to dance with her now. Didn’t know what dancing was back then, though he knew what music was.
He heard heavy breathing. Was it Drax? No, fuck it was him. Keeping his head still, his eyes darted around the room, but no one was watching him. Good they hadn’t noticed. He wasn’t like Quill. Didn’t just say what he felt, or like Drax or who didn’t seem to have any emotions, or Mantas who cried about everything. No, he knew their stories, but they didn’t know his, and that was how he liked it. That’s how it was going to stay. He stood as casually as he could, stopping the trembling of his paws with a solid clench. Yeah, he’d just creep away. They wouldn’t notice anyway. His ears pinned as he heard Mantis continue to beg Drax to dance.
“Only idiots dance,” Drax said.
Rocket growled. “Just fucking dance, Drax.”
Oh shit, now they were all staring at him. Had to think fast. He needed to turn it into a joke. “If dancing is for idiots, then it was made for you, you idiot.”
Drax said something in retaliation, but he brushed his hand dismissively and sauntered off.
Sometimes he missed the old ship. He’d fixed it as best he could, but one thing he liked about the Bowie, was it was a large freighter, much bigger than their previous vessels. It had greater facilities including a medical bay, private changing facilities, and so on. So in short, it gave him privacy. He went to his own compartments to a pile of scrap and metal and parts he was going to do something with someday. Well, it looked like someday was today. Needed a good distraction. One good thing about this brain of his. He could put his focus to building something. But build what? Weapons were always good, explosives. Things that came in handy for protecting the galaxy. Things that blew up. That sort of thing. His ear twitched and his hands twitched too as he set to work. As he dug around in the mess of bolts and parts, his hands dug up a memory, a bed of filth and hidden parts. Hidden parts for a secret project stashed all over a mess of animal droppings, filth, and debris. Digging, uncovering more damned memories. Instinctively his hand reached for a flat key tucked away as a … reminder?
What’s up?”
Damn Quill. He tucked it away quickly. Of course he knew he was feeling stuff. Came to roast him, but he’d roast him first. Starlash, Starstud, Starbucks. What to call him?
“What do you want, Starloser?”
“You know I don’t answer to that.”
Rocket gritted his teeth in preparation. When he called him raccoon, he was going to get it, but he didn’t.
“Can you not keep dangerous explosive, volatile junk all over the floor? Trying to keep a neat and tidy ship, dude.”
“It won’t be on the floor—in a second.” He started twisting it all together faster than a mastermind could solve a rubric cube.
“This breaks so many Osha violations?”
“Whose that? Someone you used to steal from?”
“No, you know what, doesn’t matter. You mad about something?”
No, he wasn’t mad. But he could be. That was better than the truth. “Yeah I can’t think over the sound of all you noisy assholes.”
“Think about what?”
“This.” He held up whatever the fuck it was.
“Yeah, no, see you don’t need to think to make that. You could put that dildo together in your sleep.”
Dildo. He’d call him that later, maybe. He didn’t feel like insulting him now though. Too mad for that. Yeah … mad. That was it.
“Behind that mask of yours—literally you have a mask on your face because you’re a … Anyway, behind it, you’re hiding a lot of pain. Look, I get it. If you need to talk.”
“Don’t get weird on me, Quill”
“Not weird. That’s what friends do.”
“We ain’t friends.”
Quill took a deep breath. “Yeah, you’re right. We’re not. “
Friend. Lyla had taught him that word. Friend, she’d called him from the day they first met.
Quill’s steps receded as he rejoined the group. Rocket let his shoulders relax. He’d gotten out of an uncomfortable conversation for now. They started laughing again.
He closed his eyes as the laughter reminded him of the games he used to play with his friends. They played almost every day. Joking and laughing. Tag was their favorite. Hard to play between bars, but he’d poke Lyla through them so she could get Teefs. His brows furrowed. Poked her through the bars. Didn’t know how long he’d been there. Too long, too brief. But all the time, since the first time he’d met her, he’d wanted to put his arms around her. But those damned bars were always in the way. He'd wanted to touch her so badly. Dreamed of just holding her hand. He’d only put his arms around her once. One damned embrace. Cut short.
He pulled out the key again, stroking it with his augmented thumb. He’d started gathering parts during his time outside his cell when he completed test for the High Evolutionary. At first he didn’t know why. Just felt instinctual. Quill said pilfering was just something raccoons did, but he wasn’t a damned raccoon. After he’d gathered a few parts, an idea began to take shape. Like everything he’d built since, it came from an urgent need. He’d needed to hold Lyla. Needed to be on the same side of the bars. Face to face. To give her an embrace. She had tended to his wounds and hurts through the bars with her robotic arms, and he wanted to return her kindness. Return her affection.
He didn’t tell her what he was cooking up. Wanted to surprise her. He didn’t realize it was going to become a matter of life and death. He hadn’t suspected anything. They had never planned on escaping. They waited patiently for the day they would be released on Counter Earth. They didn’t realize they were waiting for their deaths. He was too stupid and trusting. He didn't have the suspicion that he had now, the mistrust that keeps you alive. His naivety and fear made him trust the High Evolutionary. Fear and naivety had overridden his improved cerebral cortex. He was smart enough to figure out the complex workings of a cytoplasmic filtration system, but not smart enough to realize he and his friends were screwed. His key was needed for more than joining Lyla.
His mind and hands had made quick work of the bits and scraps, the solution forming in his mind like it had when he’d found the faulty filter in the evolution chamber. Turned out, stealing wasn’t his only instinct. He could think fast in a crisis: rocket fast. And he had to be. They were facing incineration just like that turtle, like all the other failed experiments. Every breath they took depended on his contraption working. It had. He’d opened the door to Lyla’s cell, just like he’d originally planned. The moment of bliss like a held breath finally released when she put her arms around him. He felt her smile in her entire being. She was warm, she was kind, she was love, and she was finally in his arms. He could almost feel her now. Warm body, cold metal arms, her cheek against his, her relieved breaths and soft laughter in his ear. She’d pulled away to speak and her beautiful words were cut off. The light leaving her beautiful eyes.
His shoulders rose and fell on hard panting breaths. It was like he was standing there again. His chest was tight, painful like it would burst. He wanted to scream. Wanted to blow something up. Why couldn’t they just stop laughing? Stop singing? Stop reminding him? He pinned his ears against the noise, but he couldn’t shut it out, but he knew how.
Quill had told him a million times to keep his grimy raccoon hands off his stuff and he’d told him a million times he wasn’t a damn raccoon, so swipey swipey. He knew where Quill kept the digital music player. Greatest invention he didn’t make. He took it back to his compartment and popped in the earbuds and closed his eyes. “In the Meantime” started to play. Now to drown the memories. Behind his eyes he saw darkness, but then he saw Lyla. She came out of the darkness like some kind of angel. No angels weren’t real, more like a star. Her mouth naturally turned up like a smile. Nature designed her that way, not those dick scientists who took her arms, who took her life. They were idiots to think she needed improving, to think she was imperfect. Her gentleness, her kindness, her trust, her hope, her sweet voice, her eyes kind and bright. She had been perfect.
The songs played one after another, bringing to the surface more pain. Bringing it to the surface like droplets of blood from a wound: his self-hatred, his loathing, his fear. The music tended to it, soothed it, like Lyla’s metal hands. She’d dreamed of Counter Earth, of seeing the sky. She’d never seen it. He’d seen glimpses of it out of a window. He’d marveled at the color. Blue, he’d said, waiting for confirmation from the High Evolutionary. He needed to know, to tell Lyla the color.
He’d described it to her while lying by the bars that separated them. touching paws through the bars. Well, metal hands and paws with augmented thumbs. But whatever. A connection. The best they could manage. Their words and those damned tiny pokes and slight touches through the bars the only things connecting them. But in those small gestures, so much love. Damn he’d loved her.
Yondu was right. A little love reminded him how big that hole inside him was. He gritted his teeth and pressed his eyes tighter together as the memory of her began to slip away. He squeezed his eyelids like a hand, trying to hold her there. Couldn’t let her go. Couldn't lose her again. Needed to see her.
He’d lost too damned much: Yondu, Groot, Floor, Teefs, and Lyla.
There was nothing left of them, but memory. But memories were like ghosts. So many years had passed without seeing them or saying their names. How good it had felt to say their names out loud when they’d created them. When he told Lyla her name was pretty she’d turned to him and thanked him with a smile, a special smile. She asked him about his name. He closed his eyes and an image appeared of a rocket. A rocket that could take her into her dream, the one she had about sky. Her dream a part of his and his a part of hers. Now he was flying around with his friends, living the damned dream, and he wanted her to be a part of it so damned much. Wanted to be the one that would take them away into the forever and beautiful sky. Lyla, Teefs, and Floor, and him: Rocket.
He squeezed his eyes shut as their images began to blur and let loose a stupid tear that squeezed out like juice from a lemon. He went to wipe it, but a voice stopped him.
“Dude.”
Shit, it was Star Munch about to tell him for the millionth and one time that he was not to touch his stuff, but as the tirade started, it stopped. Shit, he’d seen. He’d laugh, he’d mock his pain like the High Evolutionary. He never let anyone know he was hurt. Never let them see his pain. He searched desperately for an insult to throw him off the trail of his grief. Give him three things, and he could turn it into something in a crisis to get him out of a sticky situation, but he had no weapon, no armor. Nowhere to hide, and he doubted his stupid face mask hid anything. He was so damned exposed.
Quill’s brows furrowed and his lips pressed. He swallowed and looked away, reaching out his hand. That son of a bitch was gonna pat him like an animal. Rocket’s lips curled into a snarl, but the hand took one of the earbuds and put it in his own ear.
Rocket sighed.
“Good song,” Quill said.
“Yeah.”
They let a few songs play all the way through without speaking. “Do you Realize” started to play. Rocket thought of Lyla, her beautiful face. Knew who Quill was thinking of. His ears flattened and he felt ashamed, not of his own grief, but of inwardly mocking Quill for his own. Ever since his own cries of raw despair had been mocked, he’d not only vowed never to show emotion again, but he began to detest it in others as much as himself. But the fact was, he felt heavy stuff, even if he hid it behind his words, his tough-guy attitude, his face mask, whatever. He didn’t have to now.
Do you realize that everyone you love will die.
Damn. Music was torture today. Beside him, he knew it was beating Quill up to, but in a good way, the way music did. Made sense, not of the cacophony of sound or whatever, but of emotions. That was the true reason people made songs. It was about feeling, not order.
Rocket risked a glance at Quill. Yeah, between that thing on his face and the fact that they loved the same songs and suffered the same kind of loss made them like the same damned species. Or maybe it made them like friends. It made them … something.
“What you said earlier. You know, we’re not friends, Quill.”
Quill nodded, swallowing to gain control of his own voice. “Yeah, I know. We’re not. We’re family.”
Rocket's shoulders slumped and his tail relaxed. Those words. Like a song. Like Lyla’s gentle hands healing his hurts. He nodded at Quill, giving him a sharp-toothed grin.
“It really is good to have friends.”