Half and Half (II)

It was some time later, after they boarded the second-rate Ravager ship and took off somewhere or other without leaving the planet, that the once-and-possibly-at-some-point-once-again Guardians of the Galaxy had their first actual conversation. Just him and Quill, that is. The woman was an unknown quantity and the presence of Dadperor was as suspicious as dog shit on a planet of cats.

"Do you resent me?" Quill asked, sitting right next to him on the bench in engineering.

"For treating me like I'm a damn toy?" The use of anger was reflexive, a way to buy himself some time to process being asked something like that so upfront.

"For being so happy to see you again that I'm willing to suffer anything you would do in revenge for basking in your existence."

"… You're an asshole," Rocket muttered, looking down at the bomb he was making. It figured the guy would destroy every last shred of bad feelings he felt. How the hell was he supposed to stay angry at someone who told him something like that? Much less a friend? The friend. "How do I remember all these alternate timelines?" Rocket asked as a way to deflect.

"They're all past lives. There are no 'alternate' timelines," Quill said with a loose flick of the arrow Yondu was never going to use again. He proceeded to idly spin it over his fingers in progressively convoluted patters while he explained things to him. Or gave him the summary of a summary of a long mystical discussion he'd apparently had with some wizard or other that had meddled in his life this time. All of which basically boiled down to 'it's all the past.'

Ish.

"Well that sure explains everything," Rocket said sarcastically when he was done. As he always did when he didn't fully understand something and wanted to mask his shame at feeling inadequate. "But how did you make me remember it?"

"Haven't I told you? I'm a god now."

… That statement had no business at all being spoken in such an airy and mild voice! "A god, he says," Rocket sniped when nothing else came to mind and he reflexively took refuge in being an asshole again. "A god that still listens to daddy."

The biggest asshole.

"Yeah," Peter said blithely, which was the one thing Rocket hadn't prepared for. "Dad's pretty great."

"…What."

"He's the first one who recovered his past timeline memories, did I tell you that?" No he hadn't. "Literally hundreds of years of being a jerk and one of the bad guys, and what did he do the moment he remembered it? He turned his life around. Just like that." Quill snapped his fingers. The memory of a purple-skinned nutjob passed over Rocket at the act. He shuddered. That was one association he didn't want to make with Quill ever. "All because he wanted to be a worthy father. He spent months helping me unfuck myself. And literal decades more raising me after that. It was all quite the involved mystical arrangement, let me tell you. Of course, it helps when you're the personal project of the Wizard in Chief."

"… How's about you start at the beginning and give the whole story?"

And so, Quill promptly did just that.

It was a surprisingly short story when you didn't account for past life regression, cosmic spider gods and a lifetime spent dreaming of living an ideal life. Which was the thing Rocket had the biggest issue wrapping his mutant brain around. Say you live the best life you could have lived. Okay, then what? How do you come back from that? Move on from that? How do you live knowing your best and happiest times are over and were never real to begin with?

"Oh, they were real," Peter said when Rocket surprised himself by actually daring to ask that aloud. "As for the rest, it helps that the people I shared that life with are still with me now. Or, well, not all of them here here right now. But even mom is fine, doing her own thing back home. The thing, though, is this: I'm more now that I was when I went under. New. Better. Greater. In knowledge. In skill. In imagination." Something unfathomable overshadowed Peter's otherwise ordinary self, for a moment. "And in ambition." It passed so fast Rocket almost doubted he'd seen it. "Whatever I do from here out will vastly outshine everything I did in that one Idealistic Life. At least, that's what I expect." He looked down at him then, smiling confidently. Freely. Tenderly even. "I've already brightened it through you, haven't I?"

That… Rocket was… His words caught in his throat.

That was it then. Quill finally did it. He left him speechless. A speechless jackass to populate his very own one-person happy jackass circle.

Where was the disintegrate-on-impact Galacian Wall when you needed it?

"Do you resent me?" Peter asked again.

No. Yes. No. How the fuck should he know? "I'll let you know when I'm good and ready." Seriously, the worst.

"I expect I'll be hearing a lot of that," Peter said wistfully. "But such is my burden and I bear it gladly."

That was the other thing: the way he spoke now. Smoothly. Easily. Cultured. Peter Quill didn't speak like that. Hell, the closer Rocket thought to their latest adventures that no longer were a thing, the more obvious it became that Star-Lord wasn't supposed to be even remotely like this! There were only two things that made Star-Lord project authentic confidence, instead of that sad pretense at wit he used all the time in their last life: danger to loved ones and danger to everything. But now he was calm and self-assured all the time. Confident. Settled. Valiant.

Regal.

Rocket smelled Quill elder's hand in this from lightyears away. But the disturbing part was that he didn't have it in him to mind it. It suited Quill well, to be like this. Like… like he'd gotten over every last one of his issues and finally become Great.

The black, red and gold digs weren't a bad touch either.

"Here," Quill handed him a holoprojector before standing up. "I'm designing the ultimate spaceship. I'd appreciate your input when you have time to kill."

Familiar ground, finally, what the fuck took him so long? "Sure, why not?"

Star-Lord smiled at him in that tender way he looked at people now, then he turned and swept out of the bay with his coat billowing in his wake.

It was an hour and a fair bit of technical reading later that something pulled Rocket out of math and schematics.

"Calling Rocket Racoon to boarding. Repeat, Rocket Racoon to boarding."

Rocket bristled at Quill Elder being anywhere near the bridge intercom, but he told himself not to blow his top just yet. Not as long as the man stayed professional and technically owned the ship instead of Quill or him.

For now.

He did make a point of not rushing though. Stars forbid the old man think he had him waiting hand and foot. Rocket even went as far as taking the scenic route, which incidentally let him look outside through the service windows. At first he only saw a field of those plants that Peter's mom had shown him a hologram of. Except this was much bigger than the one at the Cuckoo's Nest and the things were already full grown – how long had they even been on this planet? Then he saw the guaranteed reason why he'd been called, and suddenly he couldn't be arsed to care what Quill Elder thought about him at all.

He broke into the fastest sprint of his new life and almost tumbled tail-arseways out of the ship when he made it to the loading ramp. "GROOT!"

"I am Groot!"

Rocket damn near flew down the ramp. "Groot! Old buddy, old pal!" Little sapling that he still had memories or rearing just yesterday and shut up, he wasn't choked up at all!

"I am Groot!" The giant, fully grown Flora Colossus caught him mid-leap and hugged him, all-enfolding snap-growths and all.

"What are ya doing here?" He said hoarsely and shut up!

"I am Groot!"

"Growing weeds!? What have I told you about pro bono work?"

"I am Groot!"

"Paid work? Hah, I'll bet. Do I wanna know how little they're paying you?"

"I am Groot!"

"That much!? I'll believe it when I see it, and since when is Halfworld even plugged into the galactic unit system? These are the boonies! And Halfworld isn't even a thing that's a thing at this point! And did I mention the forcefield cutting this system off from the rest of the universe?"

"I am Groot!"

"Oh, they'll pay you in tech and parts will they? I'm sure you being a gigantic dumbass plant didn't figure into their logic circuits when deciding how much they'll be able to short-change you!"

"I am Groot!"

"They paid you in advance? Now we'll never get them to pay you right!"

"I am Groot!"

"Since when is Star-Prince an expert on anything?"

"I am Groot!"

"Oh don't be like that, you know that's not even barely enough to faze him, right Quill?"

"No."

"See? I told y-wait, what?" Rocket snapped out of his tirade and looked at Quill. "Don't tell me you've gone soft!"

"I am Groot!"

"What he said," Quill said dryly from where he stood right next to the tree man.

"Oh I do so know the difference between laughing at and laughing with!"

"I am Groot!"

"I don't think it's worth burning your chlorophyll supply on trying to get him to understand even that much," Quill told Groot, tapping him on the arm commiseratingly. "He was only born yesterday."

"Of fuck you, Quill! And you, you overgrown plantchild! How long have you been on-planet?"

"I am Groot!"

"And you couldn't be bothered to drop by even once?"

"I am Groot!"

"'You were waiting for me to exist?' How's that-?" Rocket finally paused as the answer caught up to him. "Oh. Right."

"I am Groot!" Groot told Quill sadly.

"As I said, only born yesterday," Star-Lord soothed the big guy and fuck you too, Quill. "He'll get better."

Rocket threw his gun at his head. Which he'd never have done at any other point so he'd just proved Quill's point, the smug bastard. Who wasn't even doing him the courtesy of looking half as smug as he should be right now, the bastard. Even though Rocket had completely missed without the guy even moving an inch.

The bastard.

"I am Groot!"

WHAT? Was Groot suddenly a mind-reader now too?

"I was thinking right now," Quill answered. "We've done everything we came for. Although…" Quill looked from Groot to him thoughtfully. "We can give it a couple more hours so a certain someone can look over your payment, seeing as I clearly don't know shit about barter these days."

"Oh funny you!"

"I am Groot!"

"Don't you start with me!"

"I am Groot!"

"Hah! He'll feel that burn for a week!" Quill crowed.

"Oh looky here, we have a comedian!" That was when the credit chit finally dropped. "And since when can you understand anything he says?"

"Since I can read minds. Now come on, time to be off!"

"Since you-you can WHAT? Hey! Quill! Don't you walk away from me!"

That was, of course, the wrong thing to say because Peter Quill walked away from him with all due smugness thereby. A smugness that persisted throughout their flight off-planet and grew even greater when he waved his hand in a circle and opened one of them wizard portals as a way to bypass the Galcian Wall because of course he could do that.

Rocket Raccoon was going to shoot someone's face off before the cycle was out, he was sure of it.

And he did. He just didn't expect it to be Taserface. But then, he might have doubted any of this was real if Peter Quill wasn't neck-deep in Ravagers who wanted to kill him.