They've all had to find their own ways of dealing with everything that's happened. Quill got hit harder than most, but none of them really came out of it unscathed. Rocket knows he got off lightly compared to everyone else. He wasn't all that close with anyone they lost, doesn't have any family issues to deal with; maybe he should be carrying a little more guilt than he is for kicking off all that bullshit with the sovereign, but he's been kicking around on the edges of the galaxy where the margin of survival is razor-thin for long enough to know that you can't predict the chain reaction of trouble some things start. There's no point in thinking too hard on it when he knows that relatively speaking he came away without a scratch.
Which is all well and good. But it doesn't explain the aching sense emptiness like a missing tooth he hasn't been able to stop poking at ever since.
He steps over a tangled mass of roots and shakes his head. "No," he says eventually, glancing up at Quill. "No, I don't think he was gonna." He doesn't know all that much about duty or responsibility, about what it means to try to balance the demands of captaining a rowdy crew with doing right by those that matter to you as best you can, but...well, him and Yondu had clicked a little quicker and easier than either of them were proud of. It's easy to see through bullshit when it's the same brand you're selling yourself. He gets it. And fuck, he doesn't know what he would have done in the same impossible position.
The smell of decaying flesh is thankfully starting to fade a little as they get closer to the wreck of the Milano, replaced by a whiff of ozone and scorched metal on the air. They're lucky the wind is with them. It's going to be a rough enough haul getting the ship up and running again as things stand; he could do without having the constant carrion reek of a battlefield hanging over them the whole time on top of that.
"I think we coulda figured something out," he says with a small shrug. "If we'd had more time. But I guess by then it was already too late. The rest of the crew weren't gonna wear it."
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Which is all well and good. But it doesn't explain the aching sense emptiness like a missing tooth he hasn't been able to stop poking at ever since.
He steps over a tangled mass of roots and shakes his head. "No," he says eventually, glancing up at Quill. "No, I don't think he was gonna." He doesn't know all that much about duty or responsibility, about what it means to try to balance the demands of captaining a rowdy crew with doing right by those that matter to you as best you can, but...well, him and Yondu had clicked a little quicker and easier than either of them were proud of. It's easy to see through bullshit when it's the same brand you're selling yourself. He gets it. And fuck, he doesn't know what he would have done in the same impossible position.
The smell of decaying flesh is thankfully starting to fade a little as they get closer to the wreck of the Milano, replaced by a whiff of ozone and scorched metal on the air. They're lucky the wind is with them. It's going to be a rough enough haul getting the ship up and running again as things stand; he could do without having the constant carrion reek of a battlefield hanging over them the whole time on top of that.
"I think we coulda figured something out," he says with a small shrug. "If we'd had more time. But I guess by then it was already too late. The rest of the crew weren't gonna wear it."