Chapter Text
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Bight.
The middle of a length of rope. You will usually tie with your rope folded in half, starting with the bight. — Rope Office Hours Glossary.
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In his better moments, Rocket might say that he feels happiest when he’s flying: loving hands wrapped sweetly around a trembling yoke, coaxing some gorgeous spacecraft into responding to his gently-purred commands. On further thought, he might add that making shit is pretty high up there too: laying out all the pieces for a new cannon or a bomb or a ship or a shield — seeing how they all fit together, feeling them all come to life beneath his eager fingers.
Of course, he also likes getting paid, getting laid, getting drunk, stealing shit, and blowing up moons.
But in his worst moments — well. In his worst moments, nothing feels quite as good as dropping some jackass who’s seven, eight, even nine times his size.
It puts a jangling buzz in his ears and damn near makes him float — the complete control he has over everything when he knocks down some bulky, enormous fuck. It feels better than a twelve-pack of liver-blistering blubber-ale or a whole fuckin’ gallon of Angargal’s in his bloodstream. These morons always underestimate him — think he’s some dumb animal, vermin, a scabby and stupid little monster. But he can bring every single one of ‘em down with the right frickin’ weapon: drop ‘em to their knees, or worse — drag their faces right into the dirt by his feet. Zap ‘em till they cry or piss themselves, blubbering like babies. Begging, more often than not.
Rocket himself hasn’t begged for anything since he tried to keep Groot from sacrificing himself. And before that, probably not since he’d felt the breath leave Lylla’s body.
“Wah,” he mimics shrilly, his voice pitched high and grating. But the sound is too much like one from his nightmares, so he switches mid-mockery, grinding his heel into his fallen bounty’s blue jaw. “Oh, boohoo. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, Frankie.”
The Renovian blows a spit-and-snot bubble into the dirt, sobbing. Rocket dances back, barely avoiding the truly disgusting plop of baldbody-mucus on his toes.
“Gross, man.” He powers down and collapses his laser cannon before snapping it into the magnetic holster on his back and pulling out a smaller cylinder with a synth-rubber grip.
I am Groot.
“Bag ‘im up, buddy,” Rocket mutters under his breath, and presses a button. A crimson laser-net splays out through the air like a spiderweb and wraps around Frankie, zapping him — just enough to hurt — everywhere that it touches.
And Frankie Fat-Hands squeals like an orloni dropped into a fighting f’saki pit.
“Please — please, man — Rocket — aren’t we old friends? Didn’t I give you a place to sleep when I found you?”
Rocket rolls his eyes and snuffs the back of one wrist over his whiskers. “You used me to steal the shit you were too clumsy to snatch on your own,” he drawls lazily. “You shoulda stayed dead, man. Or at least outta the range of the scanners. Whatever you did, Beavertron’s got it in for you.”
“I’m innocent!” the Renovian slobbers into the grime, his face and body all gridded by threads of red light.
Rocket just grins and lowers his voice, leaning toward his captive confidingly. “I don’t give a flyin’ flarknard what you are,” he admits with a biting smirk, “s’long as I can get more’n a couple thousand units for you.”
It’s more-or-less true. If there had been any thought in Rocket’s mind that Frankie was actually innocent — whatever that means in this fucked-up universe — he might’ve felt bad. But unfortunately for Frankie, Rocket knows him. Frankie’s never been a good guy. What’s more, Rocket knows better. From personalistic experience, in fact.
Good guys don’t get multi-thousand unit bounties placed on their heads by shady corporations.
There’s no doubt that this asshole has committed enough crimes for even the most bleeding-heart do-gooder to want him wrangled and off the streets — and Rocket ain’t exactly a bleeding-heart or a do-gooder. That said, he’s pretty certain that the folks who hired him to collect Frankie aren’t looking for justice or whatever. They’re probably just as slimy as the sweating, snot-sniveling Renovian himself is.
That’s okay. That’s the frickin’ business.
Rocket releases the button, and the net tightens. Then he starts the long, backbreaking work of hauling a whimpering, writhing body — eight times larger than his own, at least — all the way to where he landed his damn ship. He supposes he could leave Frankie and go pick up the Cherry Bomb — bring it back here — but that’s a risky play, even on a largely-abandoned moon. Maybe the Renovian’s gotten smarter since he and Rocket last parted ways — maybe he’s got something hidden on him that could release him from the laser-net. Or maybe there’s another bounty hunter roaming around this satellite, and Rocket will have left Frankie all wrapped up like a present for some other dirtbag to collect the coin for all his hard work.
No. He’s gonna have to drag Frankie all the way to the Cherry Bomb himself.
As a result, Rocket’s sore and panting — sweating under his fur within an hour — and he ends up having to take a break halfway there. He drops the cylindrical net-grip into the dust and rolls his aching shoulders and flexes his scarred hands, trying to ignore the way every tendon twinges and every manufactured metal joint aches. For a moment, he allows himself the luxury of sprawling on a small boulder and pulling a flask from one of the pouches in his jumpsuit. Ginsky’s not his favorite, but it’ll do in a pinch.
“Can I have some?” Frankie sniffles, and Rocket rolls his eyes at the Renovian.
“You haven’t shut up for five seconds in the last three hours,” he reminds his bounty sourly. “I’m this close—” He squints at his own thumb and forefinger, held up with a quarter-inch of air between them. “—to electrocuting you again till you pass out. And you think I’m gonna — what? Give you some of my booze?”
Frankie considers that. “Why’re we making such bad time, anyway?”
Rocket glowers. “I’m a little short-staffed at the moment.”
He can practically see a plasma-orb flicker on in Frankie’s giant blue head.
“Oh, yeah! Didn’t you have that big tree-guy to do the heavy lifting last time? What was his name? Kroot? Kyoot?”
Rocket’s expression doesn’t change when he shifts one foot to press the button on the grip again — right where it lays in the grime — and a supercharge of electricity crackles through the laser-net. Frankie’s body jerks like a zapped Centaurian sewer-scarg. His eyes roll back in his head, and his skull hits the dust like a fifteen-pound brick. Rocket sighs and rises, stretching his spine and sweeping the backs of his legs with his tail.
Then they continue the journey back to the Cherry Bomb in blessed quiet.
It only takes three rotations to get to Daggett, but Rocket’s grateful that he soundproofed the cargo hold. That’s where he keeps the cage, which means that’s where he’d dragged Frankie’s unconscious body — and Rocket’s pretty sure his dipshit-bounty has been whining for the entire trip. Everytime Rocket flicks on the security cams in the hold, the big Renovian is flapping his lips. The hunt is fun, and dropping big bastards is fun, and getting paid is fun — but these moments in the middle are grudging and grueling and boring.
It never used to be so boring.
Or so quiet.
I am Groot.
“Fuck off,” Rocket mutters into the quiet cockpit, as if he can growl the memories away. His fist comes up to scrub scarred knuckles over his breastbone, where it seems he’s constantly dealing with a strange hollowness these days — a flaw in his design finally crumbling into ruins, he thinks. He tries to distract himself with booze and cards and tinkering, and clones of Quill’s music that he’d stolen before he’d parted ways with the rest of the losers. What Rocket needs to do is figure out a better way to transport bounties back to the Cherry Bomb when he’s out and about, so he doesn’t end up dragging some three-hundred pound Centaurian through a major metropolis next time.
He considers the benefits of pocket-dimension tech. He’s never seen any pocket-dimension tech before, but he’s heard of it — salivates after just a peek. He bets, if he saw it in action just once, he could figure out how to replicate it — maybe even make it better. And wouldn’t it be convenient? He could design the inside to be an actual cell, and then he wouldn’t have to take his bounties out of the nets or haul ‘em into cages once he got ‘em inside — would never even have to hear ‘em whine.
Rocket’s heard rumors that the hotshot who’s paying him for this job uses pocket-dimension tech. Heard that the whole Beavertron Incorporated company headquarters are kept inside a little gap in the lining of the universe. Rocket usually prefers units — it’s the most transferable way to get paid — but maybe he can barter for a glance at that tech.
He downs about four big jars of Knowhere’s specially-made Skullfuck Moonshine in those three rotations, and when he finally sets the Cherry Bomb down on Daggett, he’s got a pulsing headache between his ears. It’s enough to make him grateful for the Beavertron goons who meet him at the coordinates. They’re efficient lackeys, and they make the process of offloading Frankie pretty convenient — convenient enough that Rocket could probably kick back and start on his fifth jar, if he wanted. The mooks tranq Frankie while he’s in the cage — idiot’s still covered in roadrash from being dragged six hours across a dusty moon, and his clothes are drenched in his own piss now — then drag his woozy sack-of-shit body to whatever terrible end awaits assholes who get on the wrong side of shady corporations.
The presence of the henchmen is predictable, despite — or possibly as a result of — their efficiency. Their involvement is expected when dealing with well-paying clients like Beavertron Incorporated and their crooked CEO.
What Rocket doesn’t expect is the broad.
The sight of her hits him like a laser canon blast in the belly — gut cramping, lungs guttering for air. For a moment, he’d swear he’s seeing the ghost of Lylla: vengeful, and dark.
But Lylla had never been like this — all sharp teeth and bloodthirsty eyes. And Rocket doesn’t believe that either death or hell could make her this way. Plus, while this chick looks kinda like Lylla, she has arms, and her pelt’s shiny and thick like she’s been well-fed her entire life. No visible scarring — no evidence of childhood malnutrition.
And everytime Rocket’s gaze flicks to her eyes, all he can think is how mean they look, and how Lylla had been incapable of meanness.
So he sucks in a breath — lungs still rattling and strained — and tries to re-evaluate. This broad is in full femme-fatale-mode: slinky, satiny black trenchcoat cinched tight at the waist, and her fur all glossy and smooth. Rocket grimaces, suddenly far too-aware of his own mussed whiskers, the goggles he’s left tilted on top of his head, that one bloodstain he hasn’t been able to get out of the knee of his orange jumpsuit.
Plus he’s sure he smells like a scummy Knowhere distillery.
“Mister… Rocket,” she greets, and he rolls his eyes.
“Just Rocket.”
She offers up a single breath of laughter. “Just Rocket, then. Bounty hunter, correct?”
He eyes her, then spits to one side. “Independent contractor,” he corrects, but she just titters a laugh like she thinks he’s joking. He kinda is, but it’s s’posed to be for his own enjoyment, not hers.
“My name is Otthelia Spice,” the broad purrs. Her lids lower in something he’d bet is supposed to look sultry. Too bad for her, though — Rocket knows her type. She’ll stick a knife in his back as soon as she has a chance. Not that it would necessarily stop him from agreeing to a good hatefuck if she’s offering. “My friends call me Otta,” she offers silkily.
“Cool,” he says flatly.
Her ears flicker, and her eyes narrow marginally, but they’re the only clue as to her thoughts. “I have a message for you from Mister Gnawbarque.”
Gnawbarque. The fancypants Beavertron CEO who’s footing the bill for the Frankie Fat-Hands bounty. The one with the pocket-dimension tech, maybe. Rocket sighs and pinches the space between his brows. “I don’t want a message. I just want my frickin’ units.”
“They’ve already been transferred to your temp-account,” the broad says, and Rocket hitches his shoulder and spins on his heel.
“Great. Then I’m out. See ya never.”
“He wants to offer you the chance to earn more,” she calls out, and he pauses. Hesitates. Slowly turns, and arches one brow. Rocket usually avoids repeat-customers, but Frankie had been one of the best-paying bounties he’d brought in — ever. The only other contract that had even come close was the Clan Yondu bounty for Quill, and obviously that had never paid out.
“How much more?” he asks slowly, and the femme fatale smiles: all teeth, just as sharp as his. “Tens of thousands?” He arches a brow when her smile grows wider. “Hundreds of thousands?”
“Millions,” she answers.
He freezes — cocks his head. Studies her. Then he clicks his tongue against his teeth with a resentful grimace, and steps back toward her. He’d have gotten a billion off the power stone, if they’d ever made good on the sale to the Collector. This seems like it could be a reasonable consolation prize, especially given what he’d lost.
So much more than units.
“Who’s the mark?”
Her smile — already a dangerous, gut-dropping gash in her face — turns absolutely feral. “A girl. A woman, I suppose. Terran. She’s on the run with some valuable Beavertron property.” From the pocket of her trenchcoat, the broad pulls out a dataport. “All the information you need is here. Mister Gnawbarque is offering one-point-five million for the girl, and one-point-five million for the return of the property, safely intact. That’s a total of—”
“I can do basic math, Spice.”
She blinks at the slight, but he’s got no interest in making nice and picking up on her little flirtation. My friends call me Otta. Yeah, right. He doubts she’s ever had a friend in her frickin’ life. He’d say it takes one to know one, but he did have friends once, didn’t he? No, he’d had them twice. And like an idiot, he’d let it all fall apart.
Both times.
Spice doesn’t withdraw, though. Her clawed hand remains steady, extended in his direction — dataport pinched between her razor-sharp fingers. Yeah, she’s hot — all muscle underneath that sleek pelt, her body sinuous and long, her eyes dark and her claws pointed. Rocket’s spent a lot of time wondering what Lylla might’ve looked like — what all of Batch 89 might’ve looked like, if they’d been allowed to grow up — but he’d never really thought about how sexy her kind might be.
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing — to get his rocks off with Otthilda or Ottavia or whatever the fuck her name is. As much as she might be trying to hide it, she looks like she loathes him. She’d probably rip him apart. Shred him to pieces with her teeth afterward, like he’s heard the Mantodeans do to their male mates at the end of mating season. Maybe it would be cathartic, in a weird, disturbing way — to fuck someone who reminds him of Lylla and looks at him like he’s the most disgusting little gremlin to ever crawl out of the gutter.
Nah. That’s too fucked up even for him. He plucks the dataport out of her hand and peers at it.
“What’re you gonna do with her? When I bring her back?”
Spice blinks. “You didn’t seem to care about that with Frankie Fat-Hands.”
That’s true. Rocket shrugs and pockets the little bit of metal and tech, and turns back to the Cherry Bomb.
“You’re right. Dunno why I even asked.”
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You’re cute. For a Terran.
You smile prettily at Rocket from out of the holoscreen, looking a little self-conscious and stilted. He figures that’s probably pretty normal for a corporate ID snap. Who knows how long they had you smiling at nothing, staring at the holocam till your focus went a little blank and fuzzy. Still, your eyes are all big and uncertain, and your cheeks are shiny and luminous, and you’ve got a little dent in your lower lip — so subtle you probably don’t even know it’s there — like you’re used to digging your blunt humie-teeth into it. Silky brows, and the softest-looking fringe of lashes.
Probably the prettiest bird he’s ever tried to net.
Not that he’s fooled. You might look like the good-girl type — all soft and sweet, without a mean bone in your body — but soft, sweet people are rare in this universe. Outside of Batch 89, he’s only ever met one, and that guy’s dead.
I am Groot.
Plus — soft, sweet people also don’t get caught up with the likes of Gnawbarque and Spice. They don’t get one-point-five million unit bounties on their heads. He forms his thumb and forefinger into a little pistol, imagining it’s got a stun-setting — something to zap you just a little, bring you down to what he suspects are a pair of prettily-dimpled knees. He points the pretend-muzzle at your glowing image — just below your collarbone — and shoots.
Once he’s tired of looking at your manipulative doe-eyes, he scrolls through the rest of the files. There’s security-holocam footage of you, smuggling a duranium-alloy canister out of Beavertron headquarters. He pauses and scrolls back, then lets the cam footage play again. He wonders if there’s enough visual information to give him an idea of how the pocket-dimension tech works.
Later, he tells himself. After this job.
For now, he focuses on the canister in your arms. It’s capsule-shaped — just the right size and width to disguise a few rolled-up datapads — with a handle on top and a slightly flattened bottom, so you can set it down in an upright position while you struggle with a bio-scan security checkpoint. Another cam angle shows that the capsule isn’t solid, either. There’s a seam where the two halves overhap, held together with a series of metal buckles. A few ventilation-grates scar the lid, near the handle. Which means it’s probably some kind of tech or machine, something that can’t be allowed to overheat.
He’s eventually distracted from studying the capsule, though — eyes drawn back to you. You’re bad at sneaking around — clumsy as fuck, and though you avoid a few of the cams, you clearly don’t know where all of them are. He rolls his eyes half-a-dozen times while he watches you. It’s a frickin’ miracle you got out of Beavertron HQ at all, much less off Daggett.
But you did.
He’s not sure who you paid off or how, but you must have coordinated with someone — gotten them to abandon a little runabout in one of the city-center landing-fields. Beavertron’s got cams all over Daggett, even outside of the company campus, so there are clips of you from various points along the way as you scurry across the city to the little ship. It had been pre-programmed with your bio-signature, he figures, since you’d had no trouble scanning in. Daggett’s pretty rigid on interplanetary transit, but you’d already had permits documenting your leave — which must have either been legit, or good enough fakes to get you through atmospheric security. Allegedly, you’d been headed toward some place called Tarka — not that you should’ve been going anywhere out of your own system in that shoddy rinkadink ship — but instead, there’s a handful of reports saying your little runabout had been spotted bouncing around the Tranta system.
Which is just his fuckin’ luck, because that means you’d probably been angling to land on Xandar. It’s the only reason anyone goes to frickin’ Tranta.
Ugh. Xandar’s just about the worst place he could possibly be picking up a pretty new bounty. He just knows he’s gonna catch Nova Corps attention while he’s trying to rope you up, and that’s the last thing he needs right now.
He finishes off his last jar of moonshine, sets his coordinates for Xandar, and lets himself sink into a booze-drenched doze.
Which is when he sees you.
You unfurl in his dreams, all pretty and floating and practically winged — soft to the touch, like you’re made of air and moonbeams and feathers. Skin like velvet and silk, a nervous tilt to your big eyes. That lower lip with its dent, waiting for him to bite it. Soft body already twisted up in cables: hog-tied or crab-tied or frog-tied, fully under his control.
It’s just a tattered bit of dream — a pretty flyaway thing from a holosnap, getting caught in the loose net of his sleeping mind. The ghost of previously-touched textures, flickering in his palms. There’s no weight to it: no scent to your skin, no color or shine, no tone to your moans or whimpers or whatever sound you’d be making if you’d seemed at all real.
No personality, even.
And yet.
He wakes with a raging hard-on, hissing between his teeth at the ache in his groin. It’s almost difficult to get his jumpsuit down far enough to get his hand on his dick, and when he does, his belly cramps immediately. It’s never been so painful, or so quick.
It puts him in a mood for the rest of the rotation, and it’s not a good one.
He’s not sure why, exactly. Why it gets him so pissed off, that is. Objectively, he’s perfectly willing to acknowledge that you’ve got the look that he likes best: pliant and warm and welcoming, with what appears to be an absolutely biteable set of thighs. Of course he’d have a dream featuring you. It hadn’t been personal. It hadn’t even really been more than a series of impressions.
Still, the bitterness bubbles inside. Maybe it’s because he knows there’s no world in which the girl in the holosnap would welcome a starring role in his filthy fuckin’ fantasies.
Or — more likely — it’s because he knows you’re not even frickin’ real.
A one-point-five million unit bounty says that you gotta be at least as shady as that Spice broad — just wrapped up in a softer-looking package. Who knows what nefarious shit you’d gotten up to with the Beavertron scumbags? And then there’s the fact that you’re apparently so wildly over-confident and under-skilled that you’d thought you could get away with stiffing one of the biggest intergalactic megacorporations in the universe — without any frickin’ repercussions. Probably believed that if you batted your cunning doe-eyes at enough saps and shmucks, you’d eventually get away, free and clear.
Yeah. He doesn’t need any of that particular headache.
Besides — he’s a frickin’ professional. He doesn’t fuck the merchandise. While Rocket will be the first to admit that he gets off on power — whether he’s fucking babes or hunting bounties — he generally avoids cross-contamination. It opens up too many questions that give him the frickin’ heebie-jeebies. He’s not interested in having to wonder whether someone is fucking him ‘cause they want to, or ‘cause they think he’s gonna let them go.
And he sure as hell ain’t gonna let ‘em go.
No. When Rocket needs to get off and is bored with his own hand, he pays for services like a goddamn gentleman — and he tips well. Occasionally he’ll stumble across some interested parties who are down for a one-night stand — the Spice chick flickers again in his mind, and the violently-satisfying hate-sex they probably could’ve had — but in general, Rocket doesn’t invest a whole lot of energy in trying to find people willing to fuck the vermin for free. It feels too close to pity, and Rocket will do a lot of things for a good time in the sack, but he doesn’t do pity.
The point is — dreams about scummy, soft-lipped, pretty-girl-princesses are entirely frickin’ unwelcome.
He pulls up the files on the dataport again: scowls at the duranium capsule, wondering what it is. He doesn’t usually want any extra information — asking Spice what Gnawbarque had intended to do with you had been a fluke on his part — but he can’t help but wonder what your angle had been. Corporate espionage? Is the weird cylinder full of datapads and holoscreens, rich with Beavertron’s company secrets? But the little vents make him think maybe whatever’s in there is some kind of device — a little machine that needs airflow to keep from overheating. Maybe you’d stolen some kind of prototype?
He sulks while he muses on it, unable to pull his naturally-curious mind away, even while he’s transferring the units from Frankie Fat-Hands off his temp-card and into his private encrypted account. It’s been a while since he’s been this absorbed in something that wasn’t booze or firearms — and he’s loathe to admit it feels good. Like stretching a set of cramped, contracted muscles.
Unfortunately, the next sleep cycle brings more dreams — just scraps, still; flashes of sensation. He’s a pretty tactile creature, and he tends to dream in touch. But he’s never actually had your skin under his palms, so his slumber substitutes the ghost of your body with the plump flesh of a Krylorian sex-worker he’d had a crush on when he was still young and naive, then the doughy softness of an Arcturan consort he still visits sometimes on Contraxia. Finally, he recognizes the luminous silk of a Sovereign tapestry he’d stolen from a diplomat’s home on Hala. He’d pawned the thing almost immediately, but he still sometimes feels it haunting the sensory memory of his fingertips — like spun sunlight, so fine he’d worried he’d snag the threads on his calluses. Now, in his dreams of you, it all comes back to life: satin-soft, and warm to the touch.
The wake-shift brings another boner and another bad fuckin’ mood. He considers spending the rotation cleaning out the cell in the hold. He usually does, between bounties — thanks to an infrasonic power-washer he’d ended up building after Groot had—
After Groot.
On the other hand, if you’re anything like he suspects, you’ll expect to be treated like frickin’ royalty. He’s hoping he can convince you to walk your adorable ass to the Cherry Bomb so he doesn’t have to drag you through the streets like Frankie. If he ends up having to haul you around, it’s bound to attract some attention. Plus, he’d bet Frankie’s skin had been tougher than yours, and he doesn’t wanna deal with the mess if you end up scraping yourself bloody on the Xandarian pavers.
But — if he does get you to the Cherry Bomb, and if you’ve still got an attitude, it might actually be a benefit to throw you into a sound-proofed room that reeks of Frankie’s sweat and piss. Any of his normal bounties either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care, but you — maybe it would bring you down a peg or two. Normally, he doesn’t bother feeding and watering his temporary guests, but hell, for a little bird like you? He’d be willing to reward good behavior. Maybe if you’re meek enough — polite enough — maybe he’ll bring you some food and water. Hell, if you’re good, maybe he’ll even bring you some cleaning supplies and let you make the miserable little cage a bit cleaner and more hospitable for yourself.
Yeah. Tactically, it makes sense.
Which is why he’s even more annoyed when he ends up flicking the Cherry Bomb to autopilot and cleaning out the hold anyway.
It’s just for hygienicalistic purposes, he tells himself, propping his fists on his hips and staring around the room and its cramped cell. Quill had seemed like he might have a fragile immune system, and who’s to say you’ve had all your humie-shots? Rocket wouldn’t want you to end up dead before he can pawn you off on Spice, just because of some otherwise-harmless Renovian virus or whatever.
Not that you’re likely to appreciate his efforts.
The next rotation brings him close enough to the Tranta system that he can start tapping into Xandar’s Global Neighborhood Security systems. It takes zero effort on his part — he’s broken into the GNS a dozen times before, and the Nova Empire never seems any wiser. Plus, he already has code ready to patch in. His little addition to the system scours billions of hours of security footage from cities all over the planet, looking for your likeness or bio-sig. It works away while he putters around the cockpit — strides through the galley kitchen and into the little common-room that he’d turned into a workstation full of loose barrels and cannons, incendiary components, ammunition, and more random tech than he’s likely to use in his lifetime. He fucks with the old Hadron Enforcer — still damaged from its time on Xandar, nearly three quarters earlier — but can’t bring himself to fix it. Instead, he meanders back and forth listlessly, mourning the lack of leftover moonshine.
It’s not till he’s back in the cockpit, snacking on some more auroch — it’s gone stale, and really requires him to work his frickin’ jaws — that the system pings. His ears flicker and he glances up, right in time for the program to cascade into dozens of alerts — all of them right in the capitol city.
Because of course. Of course that’s his luck.
By the next rotation, he’s flying into Xandarian airspace under the radar — cloaked by a little bit of tech and the distraction of a luxury liner that has imports to be checked and dignitaries to coddle. There aren’t a lot of places on Xandar that Rocket can touch down unnoticed, but he knows of one airfield with glitchy holocams — plus, he can usually bribe the surveillance team to make sure his ship goes unreported. He refuels — places an order for food and booze that he pays for in hard units instead of a trackable transfer — and then begins the more enjoyable part of his hunt.
It takes almost no time to find you.
GNS alerts had shown that shortly after you’d landed, you’d ended up spending a lot of time on a little city block at the fringe of the capitol: fluttering around a nearby breakfast stall, walking back and forth to some of the civic offices downtown every rotation, always coming back to the same street at night and leaving in the morning. He figures you’re almost certainly living there. It’s a good place for lying low in Xandar: just pricey enough that no-one would expect a thieving little flyaway bird to be able to afford it, but nowhere near as flashy as some of the other places on this stupid-rich planet. Still, it’s a stroke of luck when Rocket spots you framed in the window of a cute little apartment building, three-stories-up. He slinks into a narrow alley — clean and well-lit, of course; this is frickin' Xandar, after all — and double-checks his weapons. He’s got laser-nets and electrobatons, shock-bolas and cuffs and fetters. Stun-guns and a dozen other things to trip you up, to make you hurt. If it comes to that.
Maybe a few well-chosen threats will be enough.
He watches your window from the alley. You disappear for a moment, and his tail lashes impatiently at his ankles. Maybe twenty minutes later, the front door opens. You bounce down the ramp to the street, and — fuck, you’re pretty. Even better in real-life than in the corporate holosnaps and Beavertron security footage. You’re wearing some kind of thin tunic in a weird, strappy style — Terran-clothing, he guesses, remembering Quill’s flimsy t-shirts — and he can see your breasts bob just slightly with every overly-energetic step you take.
Yeah — this is way better than vids from distant, low-grade holocams. His abdomen tenses and warms, and he’s suddenly imagining squeezing your little nipples between his teeth. What color would they be before he got his hands on ‘em? Would that change once he’d abused them for an hour or two?
He shakes himself, shoulder to tailtip, annoyed at his one-track mind. He’s gonna have to make a trip to Contraxia once this job is done.
When he refocuses, he can see that you’re feeling a little pissy today. Your brow’s furrowed like you’re annoyed, and your bitten lip is quirked and pursed to one side in a bratty frickin’ pout.
And somehow you still look fuckin’ luscious.
You pass him, never even noticing his presence. Not very observant, he thinks with a smirk, and then makes note of the small holster at the base of your spine. It bounces lightly against your ass — too lightly. The firearm itself isn’t visible thanks to the holster and the hem of your shirt, but he’d guess it’s empty of ammo. Stupid. For a second, he debates going after you. Some part of him wants the dramatics of a hunt in the street. Maybe it’s being on Xandar: the sensory-memory of stumbling across Quill’s bounty, tripping up the big Terran, trapping him. Of having Groot at his side, the big idiot drinking straight from the filthy courtyard fountains, or waiting with a sack in his giant hands.
Or maybe Rocket’s just a dramatic bastard himself. That seems equally frickin’ likely.
Either way, there’s an urge — an instinct — to spring nimbly up one of the neighborhood trees and leap from rooftop to rooftop, balcony to mezzanine. To track you, to stalk you. Would you pick up on it? Would you feel his eyes on you, burning your pretty skin like a brand?
Would you get all nervous and twitchy? He loves when his targets get all nervous and twitchy.
Stop, he tells himself irritably. He’d just gotten his record expunged not even three quarters ago, and getting caught by the Nova Corps for disturbing the peace or whatever feels like a bad frickin’ move. Plus, you’re a humie, and there’s a special set of rules that humie-based societies have when it comes to their own kind. As egalitarian as Xandarians like to think they are, they’ll jump to some rancid conclusions if they see Rocket trying to net you. And if you don’t have a record — if you’ve hidden your past dealing well — he’ll probably get charged with attempted kidnapping or some equally-damning transgression.
And while of course Rocket can get out of any prison they put him in, it is nice to be able to skip around from planet to planet in the Nova Empire and not have to worry about the law.
There are enough other people after his hide.
So instead, he makes the smart play — waits till you’re out of sight, and the afternoon street is empty. The biolock on your building is flimsy — easy to hack into, and add his own sig to the access log. The lock on your door is the same. He’s in your apartment in no time, breathing you into his lungs — memorizing the scent of you. You must use some kind of fancy lotion or perfume — something that smells citrus and spiced, like Aladnan oranges and darkcherries, with a sprinkle of Indigarran allspice. He inhales slowly, nose tingling with the warmth of cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. And underneath it all is the rich scent of your skin: like Spartaxian chocolate, mixed with something as creamy and sweet as whipped frosting. The aroma of freshly-brewed coffee is layered overtop of it all — a dark scent that Rocket recognizes as the cheapest brand available on Xandar, though you’ve changed it. Brewed it differently, or added some new ingredients. And there’s something else, too — something familiar.
Evergreen. Cedar.
The woods in deep autumn.
The apartment itself is bright and airy, and utterly impersonal. The only life in it is a spindly, sickly-looking potted plant on the table by your bed. You’ve got a little bag on the dresser that reminds him of Quill’s purse — stuffed with two extra sets of soft, simple leggings without any armor-weave, a few more skimpy Terran-style shirts and a ruffly set of Xandaran sleep-shorts, and a handful of soft lace and flimsy cotton that he has to struggle not to shove his nose into.
You’re a frickin’ professional, he reminds himself sharply, releasing the bundle of panties and bralettes, shoving them back into the recesses of the bag.
It’s worth noting that you don’t appear to have unpacked anything, though. All the drawers are empty.
Must mean you’re still on the run, Rocket figures.
The chair in the corner has something thrown across it — a jacket, he supposes, though it’s Terran-style as well. Soft, and also with no armor fiber or plates. Stupidly flimsy, just two layers of cushy cloth: the outer one with a hood, and the inner made from a fleecy plaid material. These, he does allow himself to sniff, and they fill his nose with more of your cinnamon-citrus and cocoa-cream scent.
The likelihood that you’ll get away from him is low, but he wants to have your scent memorized if he ends up having to track you manually.
The bathroom is a treasure trove. There’s a jar of body-butter that seems to be responsible for that achingly sweet-and-spicy scent, and your dental-pick and gel. A pearly-blue comb for your hair. And yesterday’s clothes, he assumes: washed in the sink or bathtub, wrung out, and hanging to dry on the towelbar. Another flimsy shirt, two pairs of socks, a lace-edged bralette, and a pair of plain cotton panties with a tiny ruffle at the waist and a little bow right at the top, like a frickin’ welcome sign.
Cute.
What he doesn’t see is the capsule — not in the bathroom, not by your bag. He eventually finds it under the endtable by the bed: opened, and empty.
His ears flick back and he bares his teeth. Have you sold it already? Stored it somewhere else? He’ll have to get the information out of you before the two of you take off — decide whether or not it’s worth pursuing the property, too. Spice had indicated that they’d pay for you on your own, even without the capsule, and one-point-five million is infinitely more than he’s ever seen before.
But still — for twice that?
He pokes around a little longer, but there’s nothing else interesting in this empty little place. Not even any guns. He hums disappointedly at the lack of artillery, and part of him hopes you’re picking up ammo for the blaster or something in the holster at your back. To not be armed at all when you’re on the run like this? It’s either the height of stupidity, or the height of hubris. Maybe both. Either way, there’s nothing for him to unload or hide or steal, so he just leaps delicately on top of the wardrobe in the corner. Baldbodies never look up — too cocky, too used to being the tallest things in the room — and he wagers that this is the best way to catch you off guard. He settles in, and pulls his collapsible electric bola-cannon from the magnetic holster on his back, and waits.
You must be gone for at least a few hours. He dozes while he lays there — cannon propped against the filigreed crown molding — before the sound of the biolock disengaging on the ground floor wakes him. Night must have rolled in on this side of Xandar, because it’s dark when he opens his eyes — not that it makes much difference to him. His red-whiskey glare licks up every bit of light and paints it over the room anyway. More importantly, his whiskers pick up the slight change in air pressure as the entry door is opened downstairs, and the subsequent footsteps seem like the right weight and cadence to be yours.
The lock on your door whirrs and opens, too.
His ears swivel to follow you as you move around briefly in the kitchen — pouring yourself a drink, then washing out the glass and setting it in the rack on the counter to dry. You look tired when you finally come into the bedroom — like you’ve spent all day fighting with people, verbally if not physically — and something twinges uncomfortably in Rocket’s ribs. He grimaces, watching as you scrub your palms over your face, sigh, and then sink into your bed: the prettiest little bird, nesting right in his crosshairs.
“I hope you had a better day than I did,” you murmur gently — and for just a second, he freezes. For just a second, he thinks maybe you’re talking to him. That your soft, sleepy, sad little voice is all his, and that you mean to be as sweet as you sound.
Then he realizes you’re talking to the frickin’ half-dead potted plant, and he squeezes the fuckin’ trigger.
He’s not sure what it is — if he’d made a sound without realizing it, if the streetlights outside had glinted on the cannon, if you’d smelled the ozone a second before the bola had discharged — but you sense it. You must. Your wide eyes flare to his, glowing in the hidden corner of the ceiling.
And you duck.
You drop right down to the floor, the bola soaring through the space where your torso had been, all pretty and soft in the shadows. Your knees hit the ground hard as the bola thuds, snapping blue sparks, against the opposite wall. Rocket’s already lunging for you: electrobaton extended and crackling, teeth bared. He expects you to make a break for the door but no — you roll sideways, under the bed, just out of reach of his baton.
He could pop up — leap over the mattress to the other side of the bed — but then you’ll have a clear shot to the door.
“C’mon, princess,” he croons. “Be a good girl for me—“
You’re already up on your feet on the other side of the bed, so he leaps up too — and sure enough, you’ve got a plasma blaster in your hands. Must’ve been in that holster at the small of your back. He grins. There’s adrenaline coursing through his system as you take him in, eyes widening in the dark. Your anxious gaze flicks to his tail, then back to his face.
“What’s your name?” you demand. He watches the tip of your blaster sway — uncertain.
You’re nervous. And that means you’ll fuck up. His sharp grin widens.
“Rocket,” he bites out, smug and happy. He can already see the units racking up in his account.
Your eyes widen, and your breath catches in your throat. The blaster-muzzle dips, bobbing weakly somewhere around his knees. His eyes narrow with nothing but pure, unadulterated, scornful pleasure.
“Be a good girl,” he croons to you, easing in closer. You’re a complete idiot. You’ll be so frickin’ easy to disarm. “Be a good girl, an’ come with me.”
You swallow uncertainly, eyes still all big and pretty and vulnerable. Hopeful, if he didn’t know better. Eyes that could make a nicer guy wanna be your frickin’ hero. He snorts.
Yeah, bat those lashes for me, princess. See what good it does you.
“Did they — did someone tell you I was looking for you?” you whisper in that soft, nervous voice.
His head cocks. “I think you’re getting your words messed up,” he tells you mildly. “I do it all the time, myself.” He lets his shoulders drop — tries to make it look like he’s backing off. “But yeah, someone told me to come looking for you. Don’t make this harder than it has to be, sweetheart.”
Your eyes flick around the room, wide and lost-looking. “But why — who—“
“Lemme tell you how I see this going,” Rocket purrs. He gestures to you with the glowing, humming tip of the baton. “You can put down your blaster and I’ll give you a real pretty set of bracelets to wear. Then you’ll sit that biteable fuckin’ ass down on the bed and tell me where you put whatever was in that capsule.” He nudges his chin toward the endtable and the metal container beneath it. “Depending where it’s at, we’ll either go get it and then head to my ship, or I’ll lock you up before I go on retrieval myself. Either way, if you’re real good and sweet, I’ll get you some dinner and a blanket tonight so you don’t freeze to death in the cargo hold.”
Your eyes grow bigger and bigger over the course of his speech, and your hand clenches sweatily on the grip of your blaster. Oh, you’re shaking. Cute.
You swallow.
“What if I don’t want to go with you?” Your voice is reedy and thin, and the question seems genuine — like you’re looking for something, some kind of hint that will tell you whether or not he’d really be so mean to a sweet, innocent little princess like yourself.
His cynical grin widens and he studies the crackling blue tip of his electrobaton — then squeezes the trigger to send an extra bit of juice into the charge. It flares and crackles.
“Well, then I get to hurt you, birdie.”
Something shifts then: a flicker of wounded recognition, chased by a flood of resignation so fuckin’ sad that it almost makes him fumble the baton. But it’s gone so quick that he’s sure he imagined it, and the look that settles across your face is practically reassuring in its snottiness. There’s that pursed-lip pout, the narrowed eyes, a mutinous divot carved between your silky brows. Your delicate, rounded humie-jaw clenches, like you want to bite him yourself.
Try it, pretty bird. My bite’s stronger and sharper and meaner.
“Beavertron sent you,” you say instead, and your soft, tremulous little voice has gone flat and distant — proof, he thinks. Proof that you’re a cunning piece of shit who’d just been trying to manipulate him with your soft voice and soft lips and even softer eyes. ”Or one of the others.”
He whistles low. “Beavertron’s not the only outfit that has it in for you, then?” he muses. “Any of the others paying better?”
The delicate muscle in your jaw twitches. “The product’s gone,” you tell him coldly. “I tossed it. It was too dangerous to let anyone else get a hold of.”
His eyes narrow on you, ears flicking to the stuttering thrum of your heartbeat.
“Don’t fuckin’ lie to me, birdie. It’s not a good way to start this relationship.”
You look like you want to spit on him, and you nudge the muzzle of your blaster in the air. “I could blow your head off with this thing before you even—“
He cuts you off with a click of his tongue. “Lying again?” His chin tilts scornfully. “I can tell by the way you’re holding it that the plasma cartridge is empty, princess. Not to mention the way your heart gets all fluttery and nervous when you— ow!”
The blaster smacks him solidly in the skull as he ducks — too late. The useless firearm glances off his head to clatter across the room somewhere.
“What the fuck?!” he bellows, fingers pressed to the burning slice on his forehead. You’re already scrambling across the room and out the door, and he snaps the baton in his holster and bolts after you, even though he can feel the blood trickling through his fur. His skull is ringing — you fuckin’ brat—
You’re out in the street and running — hard — and he’s fast on your heels, hauling tail. He manages to get ahead of you twice, only for you to somehow realize it and double-back at the last second. Four times, he shoots at you with the stunner on his modified quadblaster — and four times, he misses. He never misses. Even though you’re shit at fighting and stealth, you’re apparently some kind of ace at ducking and dodging. So he puts in more effort — breathing hard, adrenaline roaring in his ears — and gets up high enough to take aim right as you get in humie-earshot of a crowded bar. It’s some classy joint he’d strolled past on a previous trip — with a live string-musician and cocktails that look like they cost more than his ship — and it’s not a good place to catch the locals’ attention.
Rocket grimaces before pulling the trigger anyway.
It’s a perfect shot and this time, you aren’t able to dodge the charge. Down you go onto one side — pretty face protected when your shoulder hits the pavement first. He winces in sympathy, then scowls. You hadn’t shown any such concern for his skull when you’d clocked him with your blaster, he reminds himself. On that thought, he pulls up the electric bola cannon, and shoots you with that too — twice — just for fun. The cords wrap snug around your torso and legs, and your body shudders with the jolt of power suddenly coursing through it.
He chuckles as he holsters the bola cannon and drops down from the mezzanine where he’d taken his shot: fingers folded lazily into pockets just an inch away from a holstered quadblaster, tail swaying, whistling one of Quill’s songs.
“Baby, all I need is one more chance…” he sings under his breath as he crouches beside you, watching as you twitch and try to flail in the bola’s embrace. “Writhe, little girl,” he adds, inordinately disappointed when the charge begins to weaken and you’re able to catch your breath. Your eyes are half-rolled back under fluttering lashes and you’ve got a thin silver ribbon of saliva trailing down from the corner of your mouth, across your pretty jaw. He feels his brain snatch up the image with greedy claws — doubtlessly hoarding it away for more infuriatingly-horny dreams — but he can’t stop it. His abdomen tightens and his dick gives an interested twitch in its sheath.
You look thoroughly fucked-out.
Cute, he thinks again.
“I… hate… you,” you manage to choke out, lungs and tits heaving, and he grins.
“You an’ everybody else in the known universe, princess.” He uses the barrel of his quadblaster to push a handful of hair out of your eyes, and then to prod your shoulder and roll you onto your back — peering up at the bar just a couple-hundred strides away. “Here’s what we’re gonna do, birdie. I’m gonna drag your ass that way, into that remarkably clean alley, and we’re gonna stay hidden there until closing time. And you’re gonna keep your mouth shut unless you want to be so fucked-up on electricity that you can’t remember your own name. And then, once all these drunks leave, we’ll try this again. You’ll put on the jewelry I got for you and walk to my ship like a good little acquisition, or I’ll laser-net your plump little ass and drag you there. I gotta be real: the cement-burn will be frickin’ awful, so I really recommend you choose Option A.”
“Fuck yourself,” you spit, and he can’t help but look down at you admiringly. Bigger bounties than you have crumpled at this point, whining and pleading. Frankie Fat-Hands, for one.
Still.
He reaches down and grabs a handful of your flimsy shirt, and you let out a surprised squeak when he‘s able to haul you bodily into the alley a few feet away. It’s really more of a courtyard than an alley — frickin’ Xandar — with some pretty benches and fancy box-gardens.
“Shut up, birdie,” he reminds you mildly when he tosses you down behind one of the benches, “or that bratty mouth gets gagged.”
You glower at him, lips pursed, but something flickers in your eyes — something defiant. No, worse — something smug, like you know something he doesn’t. His eyes narrow on you.
“What?” he demands, and you simply shake your head — but there’s a smirk at the corner of your mouth now. His fur rises off his skin and his tail puffs; he tucks it in against one ankle and bares his teeth, laying his ears flat.
“What?” he snarls.
You’re shaking again, but it’s with laughter now. Your smile widens and fuck, that’s pretty too. He wonders what it would be like to have that smile directed at him without such contempt and fury behind your big humie eyes. Your tits are jiggling too — framed up between the bola wrapped around your torso — and he forces his eyes to stay above your collarbone.
“What are you laughin’ at?” he repeats, and he hates the plaintive note that crawls into his voice — the wounded tone of someone who hates being left-out of the joke.
Your eyes are sparkling. “Am I allowed to talk now?”
It’s a good thing he’s got the cargo hold soundproofed, he thinks again, because if this sass keeps up, he might kill you before he gets you back to Daggett.
“Tell me,” he growls.
You smile up at him sunnily, and for fuck’s sake, it’s so gorgeous that his manufactured heart stumbles right up against his ribs, like the stupid thing wants to crawl toward you for warmth.
“I’m still armed.”
He squints one eye as he takes you in: bound arms, bound thighs.
“My ankle,” you tell him, and smirk. He glances down dubiously. Yeah, even bound-up, you might be able to wriggle and reach whatever’s hidden in your boot. It’s a risk he shouldn’t take, so he cautiously reaches for your calf.
The second his fingers wrap around the sleek limb wrapped in flimsy, un-armored cloth, your body becomes embedded in his sensory memory: the heat of you, the smooth slope of your leg, the way your muscle tapers into fine bones and tendons. His fingers linger longer than they should, slowly making their way down to the cuff of your boot — searching for a hidden holster or sheath.
Then he feels it. His eyes slam up to yours, and you smirk again, and then he’s ripping open the buckles and laces — staring in dismay at the thin Nova Corps local-confinement cuff and its quick-blinking red light. Armed. He can feel the horror painting itself over his face.
You burst into laughter.
As if on cue, everything in his line of sight takes on a golden sheen, and all his ports and prosthetics suddenly seem weightless. His feet lift off the pavement.
“You are being apprehended by the Nova Corps,” a voice rings out through the speakers of the compact-starblaster. “Please drop your weapons.”
He stares at you. You’re haloed in gold too — floating right beside him — making you look far too angelic for what an evil frickin’ brat you are. And you’re still giggling — some kind of panicky, adrenaline-induced sound that makes his chest clench and ache around a too-wide void. He bares his teeth, ears flattened against his skull and tail puffed to three times its normal size, and you just laugh harder.
If there had been anything in him that had shied away from hurting you — from being more mean than was strictly necessary — he can feel it burning away.
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